"Punch him!"
"This is really stupid," Dean muttered, staring dubiously at the guy standing opposite him. "Man, I gotta apologize. I have no idea what's got into him. He's normally a good kid.
"Likewise," the other guy grumbled. "Anna is usually a sweetheart. I've never seen her raise a hand in anger."
"Kill him, Cas!"
"Well, technically, she's not raising a hand now," Dean said with a roll of his eyes. She just wants you to raise yours."
When he'd come to the playground to pick Sam up after school this afternoon, as he'd done since getting his driver's license earlier that year, the last thing Dean had expected was to be stepping into the middle of a showdown between his brother, Sam, and a pint-sized girl with a face nearly as red as her ponytail. Whatever argument they'd been having had apparently escalated beyond the point of no return, and although Sam had definitely been raised well enough to know that you don't throw punches at classmates - particularly not tiny, female classmates - he'd obviously not outgrown the "my brother can beat up your brother" stage of development.
Dean was now facing down his "enemy," a fellow teenager he'd never seen before, to the screams of a small horde of bloodthirsty ten-year-olds. He shrugged in embarrassment.
"I mean, Sam really does know better. Whatever they're fighting about, she must have really stomped on his buttons somehow."
The other teen grimaced a little. "She does have the knack for that on occasion. Your brother must have brought out the imp in her quite thoroughly."
"Yeah, he does that."
"Rip out his liver!"
"Seriously, Sam?" Dean turned his head to the side to stare toward Sam, who blushed and squirmed for a moment before catching Anna's glare and jumping right back into his fuming, jaw clenched. Dean heard a small huff of laughter and turned back. His opponent was smirking a little.
Matters weren't helped by the fact that the other teen - Cas, she'd called him - was one of the most adorable guys Dean had ever seen. His hair was just all over the place, like he'd been running his hands through it, and Dean couldn't help the itch his fingers felt to try that himself. A pair of thick-framed glasses couldn't fully obscure the vivid blue eyes just barely crinkled at the edges in hidden amusement over their situation. Seeing more of those eyes was definitely something Dean hoped to do, but first he needed to get through the present situation.
"Well, obviously, nobody's beating anybody up," he said with a wink.
Cas nodded. "Obviously."
"I mean, what kind of lesson would that teach these kids? It's not how you're supposed to do things."
"Clearly not."
"Not to mention the whole 'pick on somebody your own size' thing, y'know?" Dean chuckled a little. Cas lifted an eyebrow.
"Of course. That would be an entirely different lesson we probably should model with words instead of fists."
"Right?" Dean said, nodding his head. "I mean, no offense…"
"None taken." Cas was smirking again, though it looked slightly different than before. That eyebrow was still up, and it was inching higher.
"Like, I'm sure you're...wiry or whatever, under there," Dean said, gesturing at the trenchcoat hanging loosely from Cas's shoulders. Honestly, he couldn't really tell, but from what Dean could see, he guessed that the biggest workout Cas got in a week was carrying home large stacks of library books. That mental image made him grin some more. Perfectly adorable.
"Wiry. Yes. And you, obviously, are well-acquainted with jock things," Cas said in a lazy drawl, expression becoming even more overtly amused. There was something unreadable in his tone; Dean couldn't put his finger on it exactly, but he knew that there was something mocking in the words.
"Well, I'm not a jock, dude," he said, frowning. "I just mean that, well, yeah, I could hold my own. If I had to. Which I don't, because we're not going to fight, because that's stupid."
"Because you'd kick my ass." Definitely holding back laughter.
"Uh…"
"Grab his head between your legs, Cas!"
"Dude, your sister!" Dean spun, wide-eyed, toward the bizarrely inappropriate scream, so he missed seeing Cas suddenly drop toward the ground, as though strings holding him up had been cut, and sweep toward his feet with a lightning-fast leg. Dean hit the dirt with a thud that knocked the wind from his lungs.
Later, Dean would wonder how he could have mistaken Cas for a delicate little bookworm, rather than the compactly-built pillar of muscle that he was under the loose layers. Within seconds, they were grappling in the dust, strong legs wrapped tightly around Dean's chest as he struggled to grab onto some part of the other teen's body.
"Did I forget to mention," Cas huffed, "that my brother owns the judo school downtown?" He twisted sinuously, pulling Dean backwards a little further. "I got my shodan last month."
"No, you didn't mention that," Dean gasped. He could hear Sam yelling behind him, Anna cheering loudly, and he fought to catch his breath. Okay, so first impressions had been deceiving, and in a major way. But he wasn't just some meathead, himself. When his head had cleared a little, and he was a bit more oriented, he lunged forward and broke the hold, yanking at Cas's nearby arm and sending them tumbling.
"Not bad," Cas hissed.
"Yeah, my dad does MMA a couple times a week," Dean managed, panting. "He likes to...practice...with us sometimes. Just for fun, but you pick up stuff."
Cas did a complicated little twist and pinned Dean again. "Yes, you do," he said, now panting a little himself. "My brother...used to throw me around...all the time. It's why I started taking lessons."
They were covered in dirt now, sweating. The trench coat was hanging off Cas's torso, trapped between their legs during one of their rolls. Dean had lost a shoe. Cas's hair, as messy as it had been before, now positively screamed "sex hair." Coming face to face with Cas in the next leg-lock, this time with thighs nearly around his neck, Dean suddenly realized that he had never been more turned on in his life.
And judging by what he suddenly felt pressed against his chest, he wasn't alone. When he gasped, it wasn't entirely due to the restricted airflow.
Cas was gasping, too, though it was unclear to Dean as to whether it was from exertion or for other reasons. They paused for a moment, trying to catch their breath, shouts of excitement and encouragement echoing from their young audience. Sam was yelling anatomically improbable suggestions; Anna was offering inspiration apparently gleaned from video games she was definitely too young to play.
"Dude," Dean puffed. "This is still really stupid. You know that there's no way to win here, right?"
"Oh, I don't know about that," Cas grunted, squeezing harder and making Dean's eyes pop.
"No!" Dean said, trying not to yelp. "I just mean...whoever loses will never hear the end of it from their sibling, and whoever wins will get to be the 'fists for hire' every time their brother or sister gets mad at another kid."
Cas's eyes widened. "Oh, you're right," he groaned. "She'll be dragging me into every fight she ever has, for every stupid reason."
Dean declined to correct the assumption that Cas would win their fight; the evidence was definitely leaning in that direction, even if it wasn't clear-cut. "What are they even arguing about? I didn't get a chance to ask?"
"Me, either. How do we know which one was even in the right?"
"They're ten-year-olds telling us to - Sam, that's nasty, I'm telling Mom to take your Playstation! Yeah, I doubt anybody is innocent here." He winced as he tried to readjust himself for better access to oxygen.
"So what do we do at this point?" The fire was out of the fight, but Cas didn't seem inclined to release Dean from the hold until an exit strategy had been agreed upon. "How do we teach the right lesson here?"
"I...have an idea," Dean said hesitantly. God, let me be reading this right. "Might not teach the main lesson, but it would definitely teach a lesson, anyway." If he was misinterpreting things, Cas would literally rip his head from his shoulders without even using his hands and no, that was not a sexy image, stop that right now.
"I'm listening," Cas said.
Dean studied Cas's face carefully, looking for clues. Maybe it's just the adrenaline. Maybe even Jackie Chan gets hard as a rock when he's beating somebody into the ground. Maybe this is the dumbest thing I've ever done. He leaned in cautiously; Cas's eyes narrowed in a dangerous way that almost made Dean pull back in nervousness, and then the smirk was back, and he was lifting his head to meet Dean, and -
"Oh, GROSS, Dean!" Sam's ear-splitting shriek echoed around the playground, warring with Anna's squeals of disgust, as the kids retreated in horror. Dean laughed against Cas's lips for a moment before he was too distracted to focus on anything but the heat and the ferocity of the kiss. Cas kissed the way he grappled, with no holds barred, and Dean was just as breathless as he had been at the beginning.
The playground was silent by the time they broke away from each other, smiling. "So, think you'd be up for a little sparring practice tomorrow?" Dean asked, running a hand through Cas's disheveled hair the way he'd been dying to do.
Cas grinned back. "If you think you can take me, Dean," he replied. And Dean was damned if he wasn't going to try.
