It feels like a perfect night…
"Alright, Cassie-boy, that's it," Ruby says determinedly. Castiel would just ignore her like he's been doing for the past several hours, but before he can even successful purse his lips, Ruby slams his laptop shut and snatches it away from him.
"Ruby," he grits out, as patiently as he can manage, "I am working on a paper. Please return my laptop to me."
"No." And she stalks from the room, presumably to hide the laptop somewhere (probably in the false back of the liquor cabinet, judging by the clinking sounds of glass bottles coming from the kitchen).
"And why not?" he demands, closing his eyes and leaning back into the couch. He knows why, really, but he has to ask. It's the principle of the thing.
"Because," she replies, coming back into the den, "You're using it as a sulking tool – "
"Pardon?"
"And I'm so sick of the cloud of gloom hanging over your head, I swear to god, Cas, it has physically increased the humidity of the place – "
"That's scientifically impossible," Castiel tries again, but Ruby bowls over him.
"So we are going out."
"…What."
"Here," she says, throwing his trench coat at him (which is really Ruby's way of showing she loves him, voluntarily letting him wear that coat, since she considers its appearance a crime against humanity on some level). "You've got five minutes to hipster-douche yourself up, capiche?"
"It's a Tuesday," Cas says weakly, even as he's standing and heading to his room to get dressed. Because he's just noticed how Ruby's dressed – one of Cas's own sweaters tossed on over high-waisted shorts, tights, and her combat boots. Which means she's trying, really trying. "I have three papers due this week."
"Yeah, forget the deadlines, angelcakes," Ruby snorts derisively and grabs her keys. "Let's get this party started."
We're happy free confused and lonely at the same time
It's miserable and magical oh yeah
The thing about Ruby is that she is what you might call goal-oriented. Or perhaps tenacious. Or perhaps persistent and slightly rabid in pursuit of what she considers justice.
The other thing about Ruby is that she considers Ke$ha and dancing and driving 20 mph over the speed limit justice.
The thing about Castiel is that he is Ruby's opposite in so many ways. Where she is loud and wild and messy, he is quiet and calm and almost obsessively neat. Where she is curse words and fast cars and staying up too late, he is early mornings and dry humor and a perpetually ugly trench coat. She's leather jackets and heavy boots; he's ugly sweaters and overlarge reading glasses. She's cigarettes and the smell of whiskey on her breath and glitter in her hair; he's black coffee and schoolwork and straight As. She's anger and joy and sarcasm; he's cold and cynicism and stillness. Castiel is a placid lake ("one where all the fish died from acid rain," Ruby snorts when Cas makes the comparison) and Ruby is a tidal wave. They clash constantly, fight as often as not, and should, by all demands of reason, hate each other. Instead, they're best friends and housemates and, as Ruby once eloquently put it, 'riding into the sunset together, middle finger raised high in a big fuck-you to reason.'
The best thing about Ruby is that she is contagious.
By the time they're halfway to wherever they're going, windows down, radio cranked, high beams flaring unapologetically into the faces of other drivers as they careen down back roads, Cas is smiling. A few more minutes and he's laughing, head bobbing along with the incredibly catchy shitty pop music the local top 40 station is playing. They screech to a halt in front of a stop light in the next town, bass blasting, cold air drifting in the windows, making their breath come in misty puffs. In the car next to them, an older woman turns to give them a disapproving glare, so Ruby turns the music up and they serenade her with I hear your hear-ar-art beat to the beat of the drum, oh what a shame that you came here with someo-one so while you're here in my arms, LET'S MAKE THE MOST OF THE NIGHT LIKE WE'RE GONNA DIE YOUNG and on the last word the light turns green and they lurch forward, Cas giving the stranger a smile and a one-fingered salute.
It's almost an hour before they skid into the parking lot of a small, dingy hole-in-the-wall building at the edge of town. Before Ruby even turns off the car, Castiel can hear the bass pumping, see slashes of neon light cutting through the darkness inside. Ruby practically leaps from the car, hips already swaying to the beat, and she's around the other side to drag Castiel from his seat before he can unbuckle his seatbelt.
Inside, it's dark and crowded with kids dressed in the same fashion as himself and Ruby. It's loud and vibrant and as Ruby drags him onto the dance floor between songs, his horrible day ceases to matter. It doesn't become any less horrible, it simply doesn't matter right now, at this moment.
The bass picks up again and Ruby turns to him with a grin of recognition. They both say it with Ke$ha: "Dance."
You don't know about me but I bet you want to
Everything will be alright if we just keep dancing like we're 22
Castiel spots him in the middle of a David Guetta number, across the room, dancing like there's no one else there. No, literally. Castiel is pretty sure the man just elbowed the girl next to him in the shoulder because he's not paying enough attention.
Somehow, though, Castiel manages to catch Flailing Dancer's attention, and he spots Flailer smirking at him over the heads of the other dancers. Castiel smiles right back, raising an eyebrow slightly in challenge, because the music makes him bold (something which he often blames Ruby for), and Flailer's eyebrows shoot up in turn. He's grinning as he makes his way across to Castiel (almost beheading someone with an arm on the way). He almost makes it, but is jostled out of the way by a short, brown-haired man and Cas barely has time to register the look of panic on Flailer's face before he's reached out and grabbed his flannel-clad shoulder and pulled him close.
Flailer is surprised at first, but then that flirtatious smile is back and before Castiel can take his hands away, there are hands on his hips pulling him even closer and suddenly they're moving together. Cas tries to tell himself that he's so pleased with this state of affairs because Flailer is much less likely to hit Castiel in the face while dancing this way. He doesn't try very hard.
Instead, he focuses his energy on reaffirming his grip on Flailer's shoulder and trying to find somewhere to put his other hand (Flailer's back, he decides, will do quite nicely). He focuses on the beat of the song (it's Nicki Minaj now) and pretending that he doesn't know every single word. He focuses on the feel of Flailer's body beneath his fingers, the way their bodies are pressed together (hot and damp with sweat on the crowded dance floor), the way they're practically sharing the same air, the freckles he can see in the flash of neon lights.
In the half-second pause between songs, they both still, breathing hard, and Flailer pulls back slightly, just enough to smile and say, voice rough, "Hey. I'm Dean."
"Castiel," he manages to gasp back before the speakers are too loud with you took my heart and held it in your mouth.
Dean leans even closer and says, his lips brushing Castiel's ear, "Cas, whaddaya say you and I get out of here?"
"Please," Cas shouts back, and then Dean's hand moves to find Castiel's own, and they're stumbling through the throng and back into the open air.
It seems like one of those nights
We ditch the whole scene and end up dreaming instead of sleeping
The night they burst into is cold (and dark and full of terrors, as Ruby has often informed Castiel), especially after the crowded heat of the club. Cas has the forethought to at least text Ruby, attractive man has whisked me away don't wait up before he's being crowded up against a black car and Dean's kissing him for all he's worth. It's surprising and perfect and hot dear god is it hot and Castiel makes a noise that he will never own up to when Dean pulls away.
"Is this okay?" Dean breathes, forehead resting against Castiel's.
And since Cas can't find the words for how very stupid that question is, he answers with the most skeptical eyebrows he can muster and pulls Dean's face back toward his own. Dean huffs something like a laugh into Cas's mouth, but it quickly becomes a moan as Cas deepens the kiss and Dean presses his entire body against Cas's. For a few long, wonderful minutes, the world narrows to nothing more than hands and mouths – Dean's hand on Castiel's waist, the other on Castiel's neck; Castiel's fingers digging into Dean's back, tangling in Dean's hair. It's possibly the best kiss Castiel has ever partaken in; or, at least it is until they are interrupted by Dean's stomach growling loud enough to be heard over the music.
They're both so startled that the kissing stops and they just look at each other, until Castiel starts to laugh. Dean groans and drops his face into the shoulder of Cas's sweater in apparent embarrassment.
"Oh, man, I'm sorry, that is – that is like the least sexy thing – "
"Dean, it's – " Castiel tries to say, "it's fine," but he's cut off by his own laughter, muffled against Dean's shoulder. Dean groans again.
"Okay, would it make me a total ass if I said I probably need food right now more than I need sex?" he asks pulling away and giving Castiel a look that's half mortification and half a question.
"Yes," Castiel says honestly, and Dean's face falls. "But I could certainly be persuaded to pancakes."
And Dean's face lights back up again and he places one more quick kiss on Cas's lips before he pulls away. "I knew there was a reason I liked you."
He leads Castiel around to the other side of the car – a gorgeous classic Impala, he can see now – and opens the door for him like a gentleman. Castiel rolls his eyes at the gesture, but that just makes Dean grin all the wider.
Inside the car, Dean makes formal introductions: "Cas, meet my baby. Baby, this is Cas. He likes pancakes; we like him. Also he's hot. So play nice."
It feels like a perfect night for breakfast at midnight
To fall in love with strangers
Dean likes classic rock and hair bands, and there's a leather jacket thrown over the back of the passenger seat as though to authenticate his music tastes. Dean, too, keeps the windows rolled down, lets the wind chill their faces and whip at the words he's belting out along with the cassette tape (yes, an actual cassette tape – and Ruby calls Castiel a hipster). Castiel laughs in surprise when Dean unabashedly sings every word to "Wanted, Dead or Alive;" Dean is delighted when Cas sings right along with him to "Renegade."
They end up at a little 24-hour diner labeled Harvelle's Roadhouse in stuttering neon lights tucked behind a gas station off the highway, a full thirty minutes from the club in the opposite direction of home for Castiel. The waitress there knows Dean, greets him by punching his shoulder and shouting back to the counter, "Hey Ma, look what the cat dragged in!"
"Hey Jo," Dean grins, easy, and Castiel experiences a brief burst of irrational jealousy at their familiarity before Dean takes his hand and tugs him forward. "This is Cas. Cas, meet Jo, the little sister I never wanted. Jo, we want pancakes."
"Nice to meet you, Cas," Jo says, looking Cas up and down appreciatively before turning back to Dean with a questioning expression on her face. "Go sit at your usual, I'll be right over."
Dean leads Castiel over to a booth in the corner, several tables away from the only other patrons (a couple of truckers gulping coffee with a full pot on the table before them). Under the table, their knees press together and Castiel can't help but smile.
When Jo comes over, she takes Cas's order in a polite and professional manner before turning to Dean and just saying, "Apple or pecan?"
"Apple."
"Cool," she says, and heads to the counter, where she shouts into the back, "Short stack with scrambled for the hipster and apple pie for the jackass!"
"Language, Joanna Beth," is shouted back, and Dean rolls his eyes.
"Sorry about her," he starts, but Castiel shakes his head.
"I'm grievously offended," he says solemnly. "Never have I been mistaken for a hipster before."
Dean laughs. "I mean, seriously, dude, that sweater…"
"Is, according to my roommate, a crime against humanity." At that moment, Castiel's phone goes off and he sighs, "Speak of the devil, and she shall text you."
Sure enough, it's Ruby, and all it says is four for you glen coco you go glen coco. Dean frowns when Castiel laughs, so Cas just shows him the text.
"Mean Girls?" Dean asks, and it's Cas's turn to roll his eyes.
"I'm fairly certain Ruby is Regina George," he explains, and that launches a discussion of Mean Girls and other movies they'd normally never admit to having seen ("We don't talk about the Twilight marathon," Dean informs him, "It was a dark time for all of us" and "I would blame the number of times I've seen Point Break on my Patrick Swayze phase, but that would require owning up to having had a Patrick Swayze phase").
From there, the conversation moves to cover movies and television they actually enjoy ("How the hell have you never seen Star Trek, Cas?"), and books ("Despite contemporary opinions to the contrary, I maintain that Jane Austen and her heroines are undeniably badass"), and even back again to music ("Ruby is the sole reason I know so many Ke$ha songs, although I fear I'm at fault for the Taylor Swift craze currently gripping out apartment"). By the time the food comes, they're involved in an animated debate over their favorite Lord of the Rings characters, and Jo just shakes her head and mutters something about nerds before walking away.
Talk flows easily between the two of them, despite the fact that they have little in common, despite Castiel's natural awkwardness around new people. The magic of the night holds, and Castiel feels swept away by the way the two of them fall into place. They laugh and steal each other's food (the apple pie is delicious) and battle good-naturedly for leg room under the table.
It's almost three and the truckers are long gone by the time Dean pays the check ("Seriously, dude, this one's on me") and they leave, walking too close and bumping shoulders as Jo shouts after them to "Make good choices, kids!"
Dean blushes a bit at that and looks sideways at Cas. "Family," he says with a fond, exasperated sigh. "You know."
"Not really," Castiel blurts before he can think not to, adding a too-casual shrug when Dean looks sideways at him. "Mine disowned me today."
Dean stops in his tracks and stares at Castiel with wide eyes. "Wait, seriously?" he demands, indignant.
Castiel shrugs again, embarrassed to have admitted it. "It was bound to happen sooner or later. It's why Ruby took me out dancing on a Tuesday."
"Dude, that's fucking awful," Dean says, sounding genuinely shocked and angry. "Shit, I'm out here because I'm throwing a temper tantrum just because my little brother's going away for school, and your whole family – ?"
"My whole family," Castiel confirms, leaning up against the Impala and looking up at the sky. He's starting to regret the serious turn of the conversation when Dean comes to stand next to him, pressing their shoulders and arms together in a warm line.
"Hey," he says, quiet even though he's barely two inches away. "Do you wanna go somewhere?"
Castiel turns to look at him, tilting his head slightly. "Where?"
Dean shrugs. "Anywhere, man." He turns and smiles crookedly at Castiel. "We're young and already making some stupid weeknight decisions. Let's just get lost." He pauses and seems to realize what he just said. "Oh god that sounds so fucking cheesy."
Castiel just reaches out his hand and tangles his fingers in Dean's, closes the space between them and kisses Dean, soft and slow. "Let's get lost," he agrees.
We're happy free confused and lonely in the best way
It's miserable and magical oh yeah
They drive and talk and laugh and drive, fingers intertwined on the seat in the scant space between them. Drive until they light starts to change, until their words run dry. They end up watching the sunrise from the side of the highway, one of those scenic viewpoints a couple hours into god-knows-where. They're curled up together on the hood of the Impala, Dean's arm around Castiel's waist, Castiel fiddling idly with the ring on Dean's finger, fallen into silence as the sky turns to pink and gold.
They're quiet now, but that doesn't change the fact that Cas has laughed more tonight than he has in months, maybe years. Doesn't change the fact that he's told Dean more about himself and his family than he's told even Ruby, that Dean has returned the favor. He's told Dean about the things he's never spoken – wanting to leave Kansas, leave everything; wanting to drop somewhere new, open a bookshop and spend his nights inventing a language. Dean has painted a picture of the endless road, the one he's never taken for fear it'll lead him away from Sam; about his own distant college dreams abandoned for a job to make sure Sam always had enough.
Cas feels emptied out, but in a good way – as though a weight has been lifted, one he was barely even aware of carrying. He is more comfortable here, on the cold hood of a strange car with the sleeves of his sweater pulled over his hands and the warmth of Dean next to him than he's been – well, anywhere.
Being lost out here with Dean, the highway spread before them, dotted only by a few trucks glinting in the first rays of the sun, is perfect in a way Castiel simply doesn't have words for. Like the future doesn't matter and yet like they're going to live forever; it's freedom and it's wild, untamable hope. It's one of those magical moments, the kind that only happen in cheesy teen movies, and Cas suddenly feels like he understands that this, this is what people mean when they glorify youth.
He turns to Dean to try to explain this, but before he can, Dean's phone rings. Dean blinks at first, like he can't quite work out what's happening, but then he curses and takes his arm away and fumbles in his jeans.
He glares down at the screen of the phone like it's betrayed him before turning to Cas. "Dude, I'm sorry, I've gotta – I gotta get home," he says, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Sammy's wigging out about me running out on him, wants me to come home so we can hug and cry and make up or whatever."
Castiel nods. "I have class in a few hours, anyway."
"Shit, yeah. College kid," Dean smiles. "Where do you even go to school? I'll bring you home, obviously, I just…"
"I go to KU," Cas supplies when Dean trails off awkwardly.
Dean blinks, then laughs. "No way! In Lawrence?" When Cas nods, he says, "Dude, that's where I'm from, my family lives in Lawrence. Awesome."
And yeah, that is awesome, Cas thinks, something warm blossoming in his chest, because that means he might get to see Dean again. Which is something he'd like very, very much.
You look like bad news
I gotta have you I gotta have you
Just as they hit the edge of Lawrence, Castiel blurts, "I'm glad your stomach growled." Dean looks at him sideways, a sort of amused whatthehell. "Outside the club," Cas continues. "When we…"
"What, when I ruined the hottest make-out session ever?" Dean snorts skeptically. "Which, hey, we never got back to."
"True," Cas says with a smile, reaching over and giving Dean's hand a squeeze. "Yet as regrettable as that is, I have to say…" what if we'd just had sex in the back of your car and never gone to the diner and never driven into the sunrise and never held hands and bared our souls and instead just fucked and forgot and moved on "…Tonight was perfect, as is."
"I…" Dean looks over at him, curious glances between watching the road, and smiles slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, it was."
"Take a right here," Cas says.
Outside Cas's apartment, he can see that Ruby left a light on for him (or, knowing Ruby, possibly still waiting up, marathoning reality television until he returns to remind her that sleep is a necessity, not a sign of weakness). Dean and Castiel fall into an awkward silence for a moment, the rumble of the Impala's idling engine the only sound, before Dean gives a low growl of exasperation and surges forward, taking Castiel's face in his hands and kissing him. It's rough at first, desperate the way it was outside the club, with Cas clutching the fabric of Dean's shirt and Dean's hand firm on the back of Cas's neck; but then it slows, becomes something more gentle – a goodbye.
"Phone," Dean grits out when he pulls away, face still an inch from Castiel's own. Cas manages to tug it from the pocket of his jeans while kissing Dean again, and again, not wanting this to end. Dean takes the phone from Cas and pulls away long enough to punch in what is presumably his own number.
Pressing the phone back into Cas's hand he says, words vibrating against Cas's mouth, "Call me, okay?"
"Yeah," Cas breathes, and kisses Dean one last time. They both pull away this time, and Cas smiles as he opens the door. "Goodbye, Dean."
"Bye Cas."
Everything will be alright if you keep me next to you
When Castiel reaches his apartment, the exhaustion hits him, and he doesn't even make it to his bed. Instead, he collapses on the couch (where Ruby is not, in fact, watching reality television) and falls asleep immediately.
He misses two classes the next day (that day?) because he sleeps through them; has to stay up all night to finish the papers that are due on Thursday and Friday before he can fall asleep again sometime late Thursday night. For two days, his life is a chaos of schoolwork and desperate apologies to professors, of avoiding Ruby's nosy questions and refusing to think about Dean. By the time he has room to even breathe again, it's already Friday night.
"You've been staring at your phone for two hours," Ruby says around a bobby pin. She's watching Cas through the mirror as she does her hair up to go out with a girl she met at the hipster club the other night ("She's kinda ginger, but I can forgive her that because she's hot and you would not believe what she can do with her tongue"). "Just call him already."
"It's a Friday night," Castiel points out in what he feels is a reasonable tone. "He probably has plans."
"It's a Friday night," Ruby retorts, "He's probably hoping you'll call and make plans."
"Shut up." And yes, that really is the best he can do under the circumstances. Still, he opens his phone and dials down his contacts until he reaches Dean Winchester. He only hesitates another minute before pressing send.
The phone rings four times, and Cas is about to give up when the line clicks open. There's a rustling and a thud and an oh shit fuck before Dean's voice comes on the phone. "Cas?"
And it's the unexpected hope in Dean's voice that erases the last of Castiel's doubts, and he's smiling as he replies, "Hello, Dean."