It was always fucking California.
There was a simple salt and burn in a backwater beach town, easy and small, just the thing to help them get their feet back under themselves. Except emotions had been running on high since Dean had been taken on the last hunt by some freaky pagan worshipers. He was fine, damnit, and Sam needed to get the hell off his back.
There was no reason for Sam to worry, he had already thought of four exit strategies and five different ways to execute them when Sam had shown up with Cas right behind him. Everything happened quickly after that. Sam burned the creepy spirit-worship tree down while he and Cas held off the psycho couple. He and Cas knew each other's moves by heart, and having Cas cover his back felt good, it felt right. Or, y'know, it would have felt like that if Dean was prone to chick flick moments and girly sentiments, which he was not.
But, whatever he did or didn't think about that situation, Sam torched the oak, Dean and Cas stopped the pagans, and then Cas nodded and blinked those big blue eyes and fuckin' left, off to do whatever the hell it was that Cas did whenever he wasn't with Dean.
And, that was fine, it was fine, whatever, it wasn't like they needed Cas for cleanup or anything. It wasn't like Dean needed Cas or anything. But he never could quell that twitch he got, the voice in the back of his head demanding he not let the angel out of his sight. All that time spent in Purgatory looking for his best friend just made him want to prevent Cas from leaving ever again.
Obviously, this was a ridiculous instinct, and Dean needed to cut it the hell out right now, before he offended Cas and made himself look dependent. Cas was a grown-ass man, angel, thing, and he didn't need Dean policing whatever he did.
This twitchiness along with his own stubborn refusal to think about why he was feeling like this had put him in an almost perpetual bad mood, that seemingly only got better when the dark haired angel was within ten feet of him.
Sam was good about it and seemed to understand, (which, wow, he didn't want to think about what Sam thought he was understanding) but even his little brother's patience could run out, and eventually Sam started making snide little comments about pining, and just 'being honest to yourself, Dean, since you're not being honest to me,' and 'I'm sure if you prayed to him he'd show up'.
He had found a hunt just to shut Sam the hell up, except that the hunt was in California, and Jesus, he had not thought that through, because now Sam was moody too, and the entire hunt had been a huge pain in his ass.
This all lead to Dean declaring that he needed to head out to go get some stuff.
('"Stuff, Dean, really?
'Shut the fuck up, Sammy, see if I get you any ice cream"')
He hadn't actually planned on getting ice cream, but he had promised Sam, and it was actually pretty damn warm out for the beginning of May, so why the hell not.
Kicking rocks on the sidewalk with his boots and looking around at the shops, he wondered if Sam's favorite flavor of ice cream was still mint chocolate chip. He saw a head of dark hair and a suit in front of him staring up at a sign in one of the windows, and immediately his mind jumped to Cas. What would the angel's favorite type of ice cream be? Was he a basic flavor kind of guy, preferring regular old vanilla or chocolate? Or would he surprise him and prefer something more exciting, like rocky road or cookie dough?
There was so much he didn't know about him, so much Cas didn't know about himself. He knew he liked burgers, but did he like steak? How did he feel about sea food? Did his best friend prefer Coke or Pepsi? Had he ever seen the Grand Canyon? Did he have a favorite type of beer? What about-
"Hello, Dean."
The voice was as deep as it ever was, rough like gravel. A voice that sounded suspiciously like Sam's pointed out that he must really have it bad if he was 'calling the dude's voice gravelly, Jesus, Dean, what are you, a fifteen year old author?'.
He shook his head to get rid of Sam's voice.
"Shit, Cas, we've talked about this, you can't just show up behind people like that!"
He sounded angrier than he meant to, so he took a breath, calmed himself a little, then said, "Was there anything that you needed?"
Cas just blinked at him, and then looked confused.
"You called me, Dean."
"No I fucking didn't, Jesus, Cas-"
But. But, hold on, shit-
"Yes, you did, Dean." Cas said.
And now Cas looked annoyed and shit shit shit this was not what Dean wanted.
"You were, in fact, thinking of me very intently, and-"
Damn it all to fucking hell.
"What was I thinking, Cas." He sounded angrier than before.
He ignored the voice that said that anger was a secondary emotion, and he was in fact feeling terrified, because damnit, he could read too, Sam, how's that for fucking psychology, but he couldn't focus.
Cas spoke again. "You wanted- ice cream?" The angel looked adorably confused once again, and no, he couldn't think that, not right now, especially not right now, not when Cas was right there and Dean knew he could hear prayers but he had just learned Cas could fucking read minds what the fuck-
"You wanted to get ice cream." Cas said, sounding more sure of himself. "With me," He added, but he lost some of his confidence, and Dean just. Couldn't let that happen, so he said "Well, hell, Cas, why do you think I called you down here?"
Best to act like you planned it, he figured.
"It just occurred to me," he continued, because he was the fucking master at this, screw you Sam, "That you had no idea what your favorite flavor of ice cream is. Which is a tragedy, man, let me tell ya." He grinned and slung his arm over the angel's trench-coated shoulders, and started leading him further into town.
Because Cas absolutely did not deserve half the shit Dean put him through, and he was going to buy him an ice cream cone, damnit. Cas, bless his angelic heart, didn't question the complete one-eighty he had just done. This, actually, made him feel worse, because that implied he was used to it and just- fuck.
"I'm getting you a triple scoop," he told him.
All of this accumulated in Dean sitting in an old fashioned booth in a old fashioned diner and guiltily having the most good, old fashioned fun he'd had in ages.
He and Cas had gotten some of everything, because it was Cas's first ice cream experience, come on, what else could he have done, and it wasn't like it was his money anyway.
He watched Cas closely, delighted in every expression that crossed his face. The way his blue eyes lit up the first time he tried Dean's rocky road, the disgusted face he made at the superman ice cream cone, the huge smile that appeared while he licked cookies and cream off his spoon.
However, Cas's favorite was strawberry.
His eyes had sparkled and his mouth had stretched into the happiest grin Dean had seen on him yet. The way a simple strawberry ice cream cone made him glow made Dean's heart beat just a little faster. Of course, when Dean asked why it was his favorite, Cas just squinted at him, vaguely offended, the look he sometimes got when Sam wouldn't give him small animals to play with.
That particular squint never failed to make Dean smile.
Now, Dean liked to think he was pretty self-aware. When you lied to almost everyone you met, you had to at least be honest to yourself, if only to keep the record straight. So, Dean was self-aware enough to recognize when he was acting like a love-sick idiot, and he was acting like one now. He could actually feel the hearts in his eyes, and he needed to leave or do something about it, snappish, or else he was going to lose his entire reputation as a badass, and possibly his best friend.
Because if he didn't get a handle on this, he was going to do something stupid like lick ice cream off of Cas's chin. Although, honestly, it was getting harder and harder to find reasons to not suck the ice cream off of Cas's mouth, or stop himself when a few weeks ago he wanted to kiss the angel, or a few days before that when he had to stop himself from calling him 'baby' instead of 'buddy'.
And he was happy. He was so happy, in this moment, doing nothing but sitting with Cas and watching him eat. And maybe, maybe it was okay for him to be happy, for a little while, so. So he didn't leave, and he smiled, and felt his heart grow three sizes like in that damn Christmas movie.
Cas looked disgruntled and Dean saw he had dripped ice cream onto his tie. His heart skipped a beat and the smile already on his face grew, and he felt so full of emotion. He felt warm, and happy and safe, and he wanted to protect this precious angel from the world, but he settled for throwing some napkins at him and laughing.
He let Cas think he was laughing at his messy eating, but honestly that was less than half of the reason. He was just so caught up in the swirl of thank-god-you're-here, and you-are-the-best-thing-I-have-ever-seen, and absolute joy, caught up in the all-consuming love he had for the being in front of him.
At any other place, any other moment, any other time, he would have panicked at that realization, would have closed himself off and shut the emotions away. But today he didn't, today he couldn't. Not when he was feeling so warm, and whole, and so full of joy, because Cas was with him. Not when Cas was smiling at him, confused but oh so happy, because apparently Dean's mood was contagious. He couldn't close himself off from Cas today, not when it felt so right.
Dean was a man of action, though, not words, so he leaned across the table to wipe off the ice cream that Cas had somehow managed to get on his nose.
Cas blinked at him.
Dean was suddenly embarrassed, because Jesus, epiphanies aside, he had been talking to Cas about personal space for ages, and-
And Cas's hand was on his cheek, thumb brushing by his lip, catching ice cream that he hadn't known was there. He lifted his eyes back up, across the table and above the napkin dispenser, where they met Cas's eyes, which were twinkling and whose mouth was smiling and he just looked so damn happy, so content, in a way that Dean didn't think he had ever seen.
Cas dropped his hand to where Dean's was, in the middle of the table by the discarded napkins, because Dean had pulled away quickly when he realized that he had just cleaned ice cream off of Cas's face, like he was five, Christ, but then Cas clasped their hands together, and Dean hesitantly laced their fingers.
The warm feeling was back from wherever it had fled to when he was embarrassed, and he squeezed Cas's hand, grinning at him over the melting ice cream.
Dean could die happily, right there, if he could just keep holding Cas's hand.
Except.
"Uh, Cas, you know this isn't exactly, uh, platonic, right?" he said, hesitantly.
Because he knew it wasn't platonic, and he knew he was in love with the being in front of him, but he didn't know if Cas knew this was romantic. Dean was pretty much the dude's only friend, and the guy was an angel, an all-powerful being the size of the Chrysler building, he probably had better things to do than study current human romance.
And sure enough, Cas's expression closed off.
"My apologies, Dean," He said, and pulled his hand away.
Dean's heart then sunk down to his shoes, and possibly through the floor, and maybe right back down into hell, except Cas wasn't going to pull it back up, because he didn't want to be unplatonic with Dean.
(And yes, Sam, he knew that wasn't actually a word, thank you, but he just couldn't bring himself to say 'romantic', especially now that he was being rejected.)
"Oh, well," He forced himself to say. "It's not like, uh." He actually didn't know what to say to make this better, he didn't know how to bring the warm feeling back or put the content smile back on Cas's face.
Apparently he sat there too long thinking, because Cas forced a smile back onto his face, (and Dean could tell he was faking, because his eyes weren't crinkled like they usually would be) and asked Dean if he could try some of the cotton candy ice cream, please.
Dean, in turn, forced a smile back onto his face, and told Cas that if he didn't like the superman ice cream he probably wouldn't like the cotton candy, pal.
The awkward, stilted mood lasted for the rest of the time they were at the diner, and they decided to leave half an hour later. Dean's heart still felt like it had been trampled on by a pack of black dogs and then taken a bite out of by a wendigo, but he tried to keep the conversation going.
(Something about bees, and honey, and bees and honey and honestly Dean wasn't listening because talking about bees was the last thing he wanted to be doing, but for whatever reason it seemed to make Cas a little bit happier than he was before they were talking about bees, so-)
And Dean just couldn't take it anymore.
"Look, Cas," He started, and then took a breath. What did he say? He had never been good with words that meant something. "I'm sorry I pulled moves on you back there, I shouldn't have done it. I promise I won't do it again, and we can stay completely platonic and stuff. It's fine, man, I overstepped and I shouldn't have. Are we cool?"
Cas got a super weird look on his face, a cross between angry and confused.
"You think I was the one that did not want to move forwards in the development of our relationship?" Cas said, and now Dean was angry and confused.
"That's what taking your hand away means, you- you-" He couldn't find a word for what Cas was. Gorgeous funny amusing wonderful loved all came to mind, but Cas was being an idiot and they were arguing, and he didn't know if they were being unplatonic or not and he was so fucking confused and so he didn't say any of them. And he couldn't use them in that sentence anyway, even if they were being unplatonic, and he just.
"You were the one who said that hand holding was not platonic behavior, Dean." Cas pointed out, more confused than angry now.
"Well, yeah, man, I was just makin' sure you knew, I wasn't exactly sure what you were aware of and what you weren't, you know? Better safe than sorry," he said. "And turns out I was right, so there, Cas. It was good that I checked, because you don't wanna do that, or whatever. Are we done now?"
And he was trying very, very hard to stay calm, but Cas was honestly just dancing all over the bleeding remains of his heart at this point, and all he wanted to do was go back to the motel of the week and get extremely, stupendously drunk.
Cas looked at him like he was an idiot, squinting and eye rolling included.
"I am not as ignorant as you think, Dean. I knew very well that what we were doing was considered 'romantic' by most humans, and I was not adverse to the idea."
At this point Cas was glaring at him, and Dean was glaring right back, because damnit not everything was his fault and-
Wait. Wait just a damn second, did Cas just-
"Cas, are you trying to say you want to be romantic with me?"
The angel then looked at him the way that Dean sometimes looked at Sam when he was being stubborn, and oh. Oh, okay. This wasn't the way Dean had wanted it to go, when he had allowed himself to occasionally think about it, late at night, but it would work.
He decided he had reached his limit of Fucking Up While Trying To Talk About Emotions for the day, and took a step forward. He decided to be as blunt as possible, and hope it got his point across.
"Cas. I want to be unplatonic with you." When Cas just blinked at him, he added, "Like, as in romantic." The angel just looked more confused.
Giving up, he said, "Damnit, Cas." And leaned forward a little more and kissed him.
This, though, this was how he imagined kissing Cas. Maybe not where he imagined kissing him, ideally it would not be on a sidewalk in front of a little diner with fifty different types of ice cream in a backwater town in California, but he was kissing Cas, and honestly, who fucking cared where they were at this point, anyway. Dean sure as hell didn't.
Cas's mouth was warm, and tasted a little bit like strawberry ice cream, and Dean smiled slightly against the angel's lips. He shuffled forwards until the toes of his boots were against the toes of Cas's shiny dress shoes, and he felt like he was thirteen years old again, awkward and fluttery and not quite sure what to do with his hands.
But then Cas put his hands in his hair, and Dean's arms went around his waist and pulled the dark haired man tight against him until they were almost hugging. And Cas was kissing back clumsily, clearly inexperienced, and Dean was so happy he felt like he could float up and up and up until he reached the pearly white gates of heaven, where he would most likely keep kissing Cas for eternity, because Cas was an angel and they could do those kinds of things, probably.
(When he and Cas got back to the motel they were holding hands again, and Sam laughed so hard he fell off his stupid spiny desk chair. Dean put his ice cream on the grubby coffee table in their room anyway.
However, a little later he called Cas 'baby' instead of 'buddy' like he had wanted to practically since he met the guy, and Cas smiled so big that Dean was fairly sure someone could see it from the moon if they were really looking, and Sam choked on his mint chip ice cream then snorted so loudly someone could probably hear that from the moon as well.
And then Dean dumped the rest of Sam's ice cream on his stupid genius head, because he was an awesome big brother like that and Sam totally deserved it.)