Don't Stand So Close to Me

Written in celebration of Destiel Day: 9-18-2014

Castiel Novak didn't sport. That was the correct term, right? He didn't even know the difference between softball and baseball or what constituted a so-called "touchdown." (That made for an awkward family dinner when he and his older brothers were watching baseball and Cas asked how many more innings until the halftime show.) Weightlifting was out of the question after he nearly dropped a fifty-pounder on his foot (no one told him to start off small!), pushups when he dislocated his shoulder and two of his ribs, and running could also be safety eradicated from his extensive and ever-growing list of physical failures when he ran head-first into a street lamp (there should be a law that prohibits any relatively handsome jogger with a nice rack from wearing a shirt that rides up past his abdomen).

But what's the expression? When you fall off of a horse you hop back on the saddle?

That is, unless your horse is dead; or a thousand miles in the Sahara.

Here's the deal: he's in a den of fitness and he's not losing anything except self-confidence.

Last week, the twenty-something made a rather unceremonious decision to join his local gym, Sioux Falls Fitness Center. At first it was about getting foldable abs, but then, after shifting one-eighth to find a beautiful man idling by the drinking fountain, it became all about Adidas.

Okay, his name wasn't Adidas. Castiel just spent an unnecessary amount of time staring at the shared ground rather than at the gorgeous man beside him. He would know his name if he had the courage to peer up when he was within his general vicinity rather than as he was walking away. The one time he did look—even that was more of a glance, really; he couldn't risk any more embarrassment on his part—he didn't live to regret it. He had short, caramelized hair, brown indeterminate freckles around his nose, and the most beautiful green eyes that would tilt the earth out of alignment. His body was trim and complemented his features, but almost had nothing on the figure next to him. Looming over him currently—and quite frequently, Cas noticed when he was pretending to utilize his membership—was the same man that he talked to after every workout. He was also the yoga instructor.

"But dude, I just got through treading, like, ten miles."

The teacher scoffed, "Ten miles, or ten feet?"

"Look at this, this is one-hundred percent purified sweat," he pushed, fiddling with the collarbone of his faded Zeppelin shirt.

"How do I know that's not just water from the fountain again?" the taller said, narrowing his eyes.

The other man shrugged, "I'll smother you with my B.O. if I have to, Sam."

"Okay, gross, I believe you," Sam said, tossing his hands up in weak defeat. "You're not going anywhere, though. Hit the shower and we'll talk about bumping you up to an increased workout."

Green Eyes sighed, "Great, my favorite kind."

"Jerk."

"Bitch."

Sam began distancing from the exercising room as Green Eyes languidly retrieved his things from his station. Cas could have sworn that he cast a glance at him before taking off, but the floor was crowding too much of his view to be completely certain.

"Hi."

It was one consecutive word, sound, and syllable. There was no such thing as overthinking something that couldn't be extended past two letters. Well, with the exception of "hey" or "hello" or "salutations" but all of those were just too lengthy and he doesn't want to scare him off with an extensive vocabulary when he couldn't even explain the definition of the word onomatopoeia.

Okay, so Castiel was overthinking it.

Today Green Eyes was in the weightlifting room; Castiel's dreaded nightmare. The room was moderately packed with the lingering, pasty feel of bodily fluids and a generous amount of men that left a nice dividend of women. (Of course, some of the females were more menacing than the males with arms as round as his neck.) Green Eyes was currently occupying the weightlift in the far corner, which was also the corner Cas had daringly decided to choose.

He had to laugh underhandedly because he was still wearing the same shirt dated as far back as last week, the faded gray Zeppelin with the Mothership emblem (he may or may not have listened to the original album in one sitting the night before). He had his arms braced against the machine pads, ready to bench what could have easily been a one-fifty. Cas just gaped from his peripheral in awe as he prepared for the lift. Even from a bystander's perspective, he made it look exhausting. His sarsens for biceps were turning beat-red to match his cheekbones; the hairs at his neck were starting to stand up with his veins, his breathing became overwrought, and… no dice.

But he did manage to drop his towel beside him. Cas walked a few paces to retrieve it for him. Green Eyes was sitting erect, breathing erratically, when he noted the unblemished hand lending out the rag to him. Nimbly, he grabbed it, but it stilled in his fingers.

"Hi—"

"Thanks." He glanced inquisitively at the stranger above him. "I'm sorry, were you—?"

"You, uh—dropped your—never mind."

That was the extent of their conversation that day. Cas didn't return to the weight room.

For the days following the towel incident, Castiel remained downstairs. He was highly considering refunding his one-month membership, since week one went by with no success and week two blew up in his face. Hell, he wasn't even losing weight. He could have lounged around at the gym, maybe even stopped by the rec room for a totally embarrassment-free game of chess, but instead, he wasted half of his free membership on a guy he'd never have a chance with.

That was weird. He delved into his backpack one last time, then his locker, and finally the area encompassing him. He could have sworn that he had his red hoodie on him yesterday. Front doors, upstairs, treading, weightlifting…

"Looking for this?"

Castiel turned to the sound of a baritone ringing in his ear. Beside him was Green Eyes, though slightly disheveled and moderately damp, eyes as bright as the sun, still managing to take his breath away more than any physical exercise Cas had tried. He had a smile playing across his face when Cas decided to take an entire century to rejoin with something intelligent.

"Oh, yeah—um, thanks," he said, grabbing his jacket. Their fingers just barely dodged the stereotypical chick-flick moment that he was thankful for, but didn't make much of a difference when the thought dawned on him that they were the only two men in the room.

Green Eyes' smirk went wider, but had a genuine touch of concern to his tone. "Are you okay? You seemed pretty freaked yesterday."

"Oh, yeah," Cas coughed, "couldn't be better?"

The other man narrowed his eyes accusingly, laughing lightly. He had almost a good head on Cas. "Why did that sound like a question?"

"I'm—not entirely sure?" he said, easing into a more comfortable voice. It was basically more or less like to coming to a red light, but tapping intermittently on the brake pedal.

Green Eyes pursed his lips and squinted, as if in deep thought. Right then Cas knew he should have signed on to be an organ donor; between the myriad scents of cologne and the three responsive gestures, he could have sworn that at least three of them stopped working simultaneously.

"Alright, Mr. President, you can stow the suspicion," he said, lending out his arm, "I'm Dean."

Cas relaxed a little more, hooking his hand with his, replying, "Castiel."

"Well, Cas," Dean began, Cas hoping he overlooked the widespread blush at the pet name, "the way I see it, this would be incredibly awkward if I didn't ask you to join me on my escapade to Abs Central. If you aren't doing anything the rest of the day, I could use a workout partner."

Cas nodded, suppressing a hitch of bliss in the back of his throat. "Yeah, I'd like that."

"Cool," Dean said, flashing him a grin. "Oh, you're not into yoga, are you?"

Cas shook his head doubtingly. "I can barely walk."

"Good," he retorted before leading him out of the room and muttering, "one less catastrophe to avoid."

Unlike the dreaded weightlifting room, there were no occupants in the kickboxing room and there were sturdy pegs to hang towels and things of that nature on. Cas hadn't even given kickboxing thought after he had found his deficiency in every other exercise known-to-man. Boxing itself didn't seem like something one could screw up, even a clueless Novak, so when Dean had insisted that he take a jab at the big red and black sack dangling from a chain in the middle of the room, Cas hardly hesitated.

"Nice job!" Dean exclaimed, fisting his shoulder encouragingly when Cas's own fist collided with the leather. He did do a rather impressive job on his first hit; that coming from a guy who lacked complete self-assurance.

He kept going on Dean's enthusiastic tone, each time increasing pace and stamina. Arbitrating by the chains spiraling into one another, he could say that he was a natural. Dean thought so, too, by the smile splayed across his face in the form of pearly whites.

"Why are you so giddy?" Cas laughed. He liked the new attention—and the underlying talent he never knew he had until today—but he couldn't help being curious. Dean didn't look like he enjoyed treading, or weightlifting, or… well, any exercise that he had seen him doing for almost two weeks. Not that he could blame him…

"This is the only good thing to come out of a gym."

"If I didn't know any better, it sounds like you don't want to be here."

"Even if you didn't, you'd still be right," the green-eyed man said, crossing the floor to cop a squat on the cool wood, "this whole 'getting fit' thing really cramps my style. My brother, he's a real stickler for eating his Wheaties, and after my latest health scare, he figures I should straighten up."

Cas bent down to sit beside him, saying, "You? Excuse me if I'm out of line saying this, but your body is in the greatest physical shape I've seen, like, ever."

"Thanks, I've seen you check me out," Dean said, smiling coyly through thick lashes. If he had to guess, his face was as red as the punching bag. He thinks, somehow, Dean is aware of his charisma but doesn't believe in it entirely himself. "But yeah, about a month ago the doctor said at the rate I was going, I could be susceptible to heart disease. Usually I don't believe in the crackpot doctors sell, but I was feeling pretty crappy before that and yeah, I hate exercising and eating 'salad shakes' more than anything, but I don't wanna die, so here I am."

Cas imbibed in every word like liquor. Here he was, listening to the story of a survivor in a place he arrived at solely to impress a guy. This place was actually shaping Dean, whereas Cas… well, he was probably going to be a circle if he didn't use his privileges. But listening to Dean was already giving Cas the stride he needed to straighten up himself, whether Dean knew it or not.

"Well, enough chit-chat, let's get to some pushing," Dean said, sprawling out on his back. It wasn't until he slid his feet forward that Cas realized what he meant.

Just as Dean was about to round his sixth pushup, he rejoined his partner with the one question he dreaded more than the weightlifting room: "So I haven't seen you around here until just recently. What brings you to Sioux Falls Fitness?"

He stalled on the question for a good few more pushups (Dean was really nailing these things for a guy who almost had a heart problem), trying to formulate a remotely plausible response to the inquiry. He could tell him the formulaic "I wanted to renovate my life" or the classic "I'm a little late on my New Year's Resolution" gag, but what was the point? Dean already spilled what was probably his deepest thought on a major life experience.

"You." He let that linger in the air for some time; Dean was either unaffected by the comment or just hadn't heard him because he made one last attempt at pulling forward before the next part: "I came here because of you."

The other man was stilled, stomach on his thighs, staring at him with those crazy green eyes of his. His lips parted and before Cas could explain his impulsive confession, those lips were on his. It hadn't even occurred to him that they were sharing the same breath, it didn't seem real, until he opened his mouth wider and elusively introduced his tongue and Cas's was mingling with his and he was kissing him back.

Dean was the one to pull back first, smiling as he withdrew his bottom lip with his teeth in the process. It was enough to leave Cas's heart thrashing against his throat and his stomach, now somewhere between his knees, tickling his insides.

Sometime when they were just staring at each other the door opened and behind it laid yoga instructor and Dean's brother, Sam, and at least a dozen other men and women. He glanced between the two of them and put his hand on his hip.

"It's about time, dude."

Dean waved at him, leaning in for round two, "Get the hell out of here, pervert."

"Jerk."

But Dean was already too engulfed in Cas to reply, kissing him much lighter than before.

What's the expression? When you fall off of a horse you hop back on the saddle? That is, unless your horse is dead; or the person on top was Dean Winchester, because in that case, it's definitely worth the fall.