A/N 1: tumblr posts are inspiring me hardcore lately; this fic came after reading this post!
A/N 2: the red arrow is a real diner! it's in manchester, new hampshire, and is super rad; i don't want people to think i'm making up its radness or something.
"Oh, come on!"
Cas is jerked out of his book when he sees a boy down the hall press his forehead against the door to a room—presumably his own—before smacking his open palm against the wall.
"That's the third time this week, Mike, goddammit!"
Cas cranes his neck a little and notices the dark blue tie hanging off the door handle, and smirks.
"Jesus," the kid mumbles, slumping down to the floor, his back against the wall. He pulls out his phone, punches in a few numbers, then holds it to his ear.
"Bobby? Hey, it's Dean." He pauses. "No, I'm not trashed, asshole—I got sexiled." Pause. "Come on, Bobby! I just want to sleep, I swear." Pause. "Do you know what kind of shit's been done on common room couches? No fucking way, dude." One more pause, then a sigh. "Ugh, fine. See you tomorrow."
Cas turns his attention back to his book. He's just about absorbed into the story when the boy—Dean—breaks the silence in the hall again.
"You, too, huh?"
Cas looks up, a little confused. "Me, too?"
"Roommate kick you out? His dick more important than your comfort?"
"I…never thought of it that way, but yes, I guess so."
Cas can feel his cheeks start to redden as Dean laughs. He gets to his feet and before Cas can process the fact that this cute—no, beautiful—guy is walking toward him, he's looking down at a pair of muddy work boots, then up to a faded pair of jeans, at least three different layers of flannel, and finally into the greenest eyes he's ever seen.
"What's your name?" Dean asks. "Sorry, I zoned out during that 'get to know your floor' icebreaker shit from the first week."
"Cas."
Dean nods, as if in approval. "Nice to meet'cha, Cas, I'm Dean."
Cas gets to his feet (without any stumbling, he might add) and shakes Dean's proffered hand. "So," Cas says, "your roommate's already locked you out three times this week?"
Dean rolls his eyes. "And counting. It's only Thursday, dude. He's still got three more days." He glances at Cas' door, where his and Gabe's cheesy, RA-made name tags are still stuck to the door. It's October, so his and Gabe's names are scrawled inside a hastily-colored jack-o-lantern in an effort to be festive.
"Wait, is Gabe McConville your roommate?"
"Yes," Cas says uncertainly. Jesus, if Gabe fucks this up for him…
Dean smirks. "Kid's in my Intro to Humanities class. Turner hates him, but he makes that fuckin' class bearable."
Cas nods, thinking of Gabe's apparently unending energy and—slightly immature, if Cas is being honest—sense of humor. "He's very funny."
Dean nods and glances down at his feet.
Cas starts to panic at the silence. C'mon, Castiel, don't lose this now…
"Who's your roommate?"
Dean looks up again, and Cas isn't sure, but he thinks Dean's face might've flushed slightly beneath his freckles. "Oh, uh, Mike Milton. Know him?"
Cas shakes his head.
"He's all right, little bit of a control freak, though."
"And he has sex a lot," Cas adds without thinking. What the hell was that, Castiel?
Dean barks out another laugh. "Yeah, he has sex a lot, too." He runs a hand through his hair, then asks, "Hey, you eaten yet?"
Cas' brow furrows. "It's midnight."
"Shit, right." Dean smiles apologetically. "I eat pretty much all the time, so I kinda lose track of when meals should actually be. Like a hobbit or something."
"I mean, I could eat, though."
"Yeah?"
Cas nods. "For a fellow Lord of the Rings fan, yeah."
Dean grins, quickly glancing down at his boots. When he looks up, he's got a suggestion. "Red Arrow?"
"Red…what?"
Dean gapes at him. "Dude, are you telling me we've been at this school for a month and you haven't been to the Red Arrow yet?"
Cas wonders if he should make something up. Oh, the Red Arrow; I thought you said the Red Arm…Throw. He mulls this over for a second, but before he can even think about lying, Dean grabs Cas' coat lying on the floor and shoves it into his hands.
"It's a travesty, that's what this is," he says, zipping up his own coat. "Let's go, Cas. We're taking your Red Arrow virginity."
Neither of them have a car on campus ("Fuckin' $140 for a parking pass? Yeah, right, man," Dean says as reasoning for why he didn't get one), and the weather isn't bitingly cold yet, so they decide to trek through the fall New Hampshire night.
"What were you reading back in the dorm?" Dean asks.
Should I change it? Will he think it's lame? Pull yourself together, Castiel, he probably hasn't even heard of it.
"It's called The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay," Cas finally says. "It's about these two cousins in New York City who try to break into the comic book industry."
Dean raises his eyebrows. "Huh. How is it?"
"I like it." Cas loves it, all its sweeping sentences and page-long paragraphs and its ability to get him to inadvertently skip meals so he doesn't have to worry about eating alone and the fact that it makes being sexiled easier to bear, but he decides to keep all these parts out.
Dean nods. "I'm reading this book right now—well, it's just a short story, I guess—but it's called 'CivilWarLand in Bad Decline,' and it's so fuckin' cool. It's got ghosts and soldiers and gangs, and it's so weird, but so cool."
No one is more surprised than Cas when he realizes that he actually knows the story Dean is talking about. "That's by Saunders, right?"
"Yeah! You heard of him?"
"I have the whole book that that story is from," Cas says. Just do it, Castiel, just offer. "You can borrow it, if you want."
Dean's eyes go bright in the darkness, and Cas' heart jumps a little. "That'd be awesome, dude. You're not reading it?"
Cas shakes his head. "I read it last year. It's really good. I'll drop it off once we're not…sexiled anymore."
Dean laughs again, and Cas decides that he'd like to spend most of this night trying to make Dean laugh as much as possible.
"What's your major?"
"Undecided," Dean says proudly. "I kinda like writing, but my dad wants me to do business. You?"
"English Lit."
"Explains how you know so much about books."
Cas flushes and hopes that Dean can't see. "I don't know that much."
Dean shrugs. "You know more than me."
"I'm sure you know a lot."
Dean laughs again, but this time it's uncomfortable, and Cas immediately regrets the comment, even though it was supposed to come across as a compliment.
"Tell that to my dad," he says softly.
"…I'm sorry," Cas starts, but Dean waves him off.
"What can you do," he says with a shrug, more to himself than to Cas. Cas decides it's probably best to switch topics.
As they walk, Cas learns more about Dean. He's from Kansas, and he's got a little brother named Sammy. His dad's a mechanic and used to be a Marine. He didn't mention anything about his mom, so Cas doesn't ask. He loves rock music, sci-fi, and comic books, which Cas is surprised by. He didn't take Dean as the kind of person to be into things that could've gotten him beat up in elementary school.
Cas watches as Dean shoves his hands deeper into his coat pockets as the wind whips around them. His cheeks are flush with cold, and he sniffs every so often.
"I thought you said this place was close by," Cas says teasingly.
"It feels close," Dean insists, then adds, "If you have a car, I guess."
Cas grins. "Sure, Dean."
"It is! Listen, man, once we get there, you'll know this fuckin' walk was worth it, okay? I'll bet you a dollar."
"You're on," Cas says. But he doesn't need to bet on the walk being worth it; he knows that it already is.
The diner is lit up with a hazy red neon sign that spells out A-R-R-O-W vertically, and Dean's excitement is palpable as he holds the door open for Cas and allows him to walk through first. A caffeine-fueled waitress tells them to take a seat wherever, and Cas grabs them the last open booth.
Dean grabs a plastic-coated menu and tosses it to Cas. "This place is open 24 hours," Dean tells him, raising his voice to be heard above the chatter from other customers, the clinking and scraping of their silverware on plates. He cranes his neck to scan the specials board behind Cas. "It's usually packed on the weekends, but it's practically dead now."
Cas looks at Dean skeptically. "This is dead?" he asks, nodding toward the tiny diner that's packed with people, the only spots open being a few scattered stools at the counter.
"For the Red Arrow, it is." Dean grins.
Cas looks around at the walls, which are plastered with memorabilia—photos of famous people who've eaten there, newspaper articles, awards, autographs, and what look like entries for a kids' coloring contest. Each one is a print of a smiling mug, presumably the Red Arrow mascot. Dean points at one of the entries and says, "That one's mine," with a smirk.
A waitress with frizzy read hair comes up to their table, balancing two plates of breakfast food in the crook of her arm. "What'll ya have, boys?"
"Bacon cheeseburger and a Coke for me, please," Dean says, tucking the menu back behind the napkin dispenser.
"What about you, sweetheart?"
Cas scans the menu once more and orders the first thing his eyes land on for more than a second. "Mac and cheese. And a Diet Coke, please."
"You got it."
When Cas looks up, he catches Dean looking at him, but Dean averts his eyes right when he sees that Cas has seen him looking.
"What?" Cas says, grinning a little.
Dean smiles, but keeps his eyes on his lap for a few more seconds. "Just like your food style," he finally says.
"Who doesn't like macaroni and cheese?"
"Morons."
"Exactly."
The waitress returns to their table and sets their drinks down. Dean grabs his and jams a straw down into the liquid.
"Thanks," he says.
"No problem, hun." She turns to leave when Dean grabs her attention.
"Uh, actually—" he holds up a finger and points it at Cas, "—this is his first time here."
The woman raises her eyebrows, giving Cas the same look Dean did back at the dorm, and Cas can feel himself start to blush again. "Is that so?"
Cas nods, feeling like he should apologize, but before he can, she saunters behind the counter, and all of a sudden, a giant bell clangs, and Cas jumps.
"Everybody!" the waitress yells over the clamoring in the diner. "Everybody, we've got a Red Arrow Virgin here!"
All the other patrons start hollering and clapping as she makes her way back to their table. She slaps a giant sticker on Cas' chest; Cas looks up at her, a little confused, and she winks before heading back to pick up some more food.
Cas looks down at the sticker and tries to read what it says without taking it off. When he does, he looks up at Dean, who's smiling wider than Cas has ever seen someone smile.
"'Red Arrow Virgin,'" he reads off the sticker, and Dean bursts into laughter. Normally, Cas would be mortified to have all that attention on him, regardless of how short a time it was, and he'd be so pissed at whoever caused the situation, but in Dean's case, all he can do is grin and sit back in his seat.
"Adam Sandler sat where you're sitting, y'know." Dean nods at Cas, taking a bite of his burger.
"You're lying."
"Swear to God. Look."
Cas turns around, and sure enough, a small brass plaque is emblazoned with "ADAM SANDLER SAT HERE" and then the date he visited.
"Are you sitting where anyone sat? John Belushi, maybe? Dana Carvey?"
"I could only be so lucky." Dean twists in his seat, then grimaces.
"Who?" Cas asks, his voice a little more excited than he intended.
"Nobody."
"Who?"
Dean rolls his eyes. "Fuckin'…Guy Fieri."
It takes all Cas has not to spit his Diet Coke across the table and into Dean's face from laughing.
"So, Dean," Cas says slowly through a mouthful of some of the best mac and cheese he's ever tasted, "why'd you decide to go to school so far away from home?"
Dean dips a fry into his pile of ketchup and shrugs. "Change of scenery, I guess. I dunno. Guess I just like it up here."
"Does Sam miss you?"
Dean smiles without looking at Cas. "He won't admit it," he starts, "but yeah, I think so. Hell, I miss him."
"You should see if he can come up to visit you."
Dean barks out a laugh at the suggestion. "My dad would never go for that."
"Why not? I'm sure he'd like to see you, too."
"You don't know my dad, dude."
Cas opens his mouth, but can't think of a way to ask what he wants to know besides "Why doesn't your dad like you," and he figures that won't go over well, so he opts to stay silent instead.
Dean sighs. "It kind of bums me out to talk about it, and I'm basically the furthest thing from bummed now, so do you mind if we talk about it later?"
Cas shakes his head. Of course he doesn't mind if they talk about it later, which implies that Dean's not bored with him, fully intends to talk to him in the future, and might be willing to share something more personal with him, something he doesn't tell just anyone.
"Whatever you want," he says.
Dean gives him a small, tired smile before grabbing the menu again. "Y'know what this place has the best of?"
"Everything?" Cas asks, letting his fork drop into the empty bowl with a clatter.
"Pie."
They stay at the Red Arrow well into the morning; when they leave, Cas is squinting into the early morning sunlight and running his tongue over his now sugar-soaked teeth.
"We should've just had breakfast there, too," Dean says, and Cas can't tell if he's serious or not.
They make their way back to campus in relative quiet. The world around them is still asleep for the most part, and it feels weird to break that silence with talk or laughter. Once the sign for their college comes into view, it hits Cas how tired he actually is, and he glances at his phone.
Dean looks at him, and Cas says, "6:15."
"Shit," Dean says, running a hand through his hair. "I have an 8am."
Cas immediately feels a pang of guilt; he didn't mean to make Dean stay up all night, and he's suddenly irrationally afraid that Dean won't want to hang out with him anymore for fear of this lack of sleep becoming a regular thing.
Goddamn it, Castiel…
"I'm sorry, I—"
Dean interrupts him with a laugh and a wave of his hand. "Dude, no," he says. "This is what college is for, right? It'll be fine." He taps his ID card against the pad bolted next to the door to let them into their dorm—Cas can't help but notice that Dean holds the door open for him again—and gives him a small smile. "Plus, hey, I had fun."
"Me, too." Cas smiles. "Thank you for making me…not a Red Arrow virgin anymore." He taps the sticker that's still on his sweater, and Dean laughs.
"My pleasure." Dean glances at his door, which is slightly ajar. "Well, I'm guessing that means they're done." He looks back at Cas, and Cas doesn't want to flatter himself, but he thinks Dean's eyes are showing a mix of hope and nervousness—and Cas has never made anyone nervous. "See you later, then?"
Cas smiles and nods. "I hope so."
Dean grins, and all the nerves that Cas just saw evaporate almost instantly. "See ya," he says softly before slipping into his room.
The next morning, Cas grabs his copy of CivilWarLand in Bad Decline to drop off in Dean's room. It's only 9:00, Dean would still be in his 8am, so Cas leaves it with Mike. He walks back to his room, still riding the ends of the emotional high he got last night, when he sees a note on his and Gabe's door that he didn't notice when he left. It's taped under his name tag, and written on a jagged piece of lined paper, as if someone hastily ripped it out of their notebook.
"You forgot something.
785-555-6037
-Dean"