Nutty Confessions

A/N: Something short and sweet, like someone I know. That's right, you got me Shalina.

"How bad is it?"

"Well… you still have your body… you know, the parts that aren't inflamed."

"C'mon, Cas, no comments from the peanut gallery."

Castiel eyed his pal pointedly. "That's not funny."

"It's a little funny," Dean said before another of his many winded successions got the best of him.

It was amazing how one minute he and his best friend were lapping "shots" of Diet Coke at a new bistro across town and the next he's watching him roll into urgent care on a gurney that probably could have seen better days. Luckily, the hospital wasn't too caffeinated during the evening, save for a few physicians running around like time was strapped to a ticking bomb. As for Cas, well, until an hour ago—a long, excruciating series of profuse sweating and unanswered prayers—he was curbed in the waiting room, begging for a miracle.

Looking at his friend now gave him a chance to breathe. His face was painted rubicund to match his limbs, daubed in thickset blemishes around his shoulders and arms. His eyes were heavy but that was only from the medication. Thick clear tubes dangled somewhat perilously from his nose because Dean kept pivoting his head to see around him. Unfortunately, his throat was the last thing spared in the whole dilemma, rendering his speech slightly slurred and scratchier than usual.

It could have been a lot worse, according to the middle-aged GP assigned to their case that detested the formality in last names and told him to call her Jody, had Cas not given him a few spare antihistamines from the glove compartment of his '78 Continental. ("You saved this young man's life," Jody said. "I say we have our team whip you up a purple heart.")

Right now he was stabilized, but his case was marked for further examination, which meant the rest of their Friday evening was going to be spent in the hospice.

"Who would've thought, huh? Walnuts in a meatball sub." Dean seemed to marvel over that before laughing—or wheezing, in his case. "Everyone's always putting their nuts where they don't belong."

Cas heaved a sigh, "Dean…"

"You're right, that one was lame." He gnashed on his slightly distended bottom lip, giving the impression that he was thinking long and hard about the next double entendre he was about to commit (when really these things came all too natural for him). "No nuts, no glory?"

Cas rolled his eyes, stifling a small smile. "You're an idiot."

In the ten years he's known Dean, he's never taken anything seriously. It was ironic how his current complexion matched his tumescent personality. He never knew what went lurked inside the hollow crypts of his mind (that's considering there was something underneath umpteen layers of recycled satire) and wouldn't gamble his chances of finding out any time soon. Dean was… complicated, for lack of a more suitable word, but he was his complication.

"But I'm your idiot," he stressed, as if reading his mind. He latched out blindly for Cas's wrist. He felt warm to him, but then again Dean's touch always felt a little electrifying.

Oh yeah, there was the little tidbit about Cas being completely in love with his straight best friend. Yeah, that tended to throw a big freaking wrench into the whole "no homo" thing.

Just when he thought the situation couldn't get any more uncomfortable, an RN came scampering in with an epipen. She seemed focus on the task at hand until she caught a glimpse of the two figures at the other side of the room practically holding hands. "Oh! Sorry to intrude, I was just making my rounds and it looks like you're doing fine so I'll just leave this here and be on my way..."

"Lisa, hey, I was telling my amazing boyfriend here how lucky I am to have him around." Dean wove their fingers together and regarded each extension with a sprightly gleam in his emerald eyes. "I'm just wondering how he stayed with me after something as lame as a nut allergy."

The practitioner, Lisa, regarded him with a smile that looked a little too forged. "It's a common allergy, Dean. You shouldn't have to be ashamed."

"Hmm, I'll try to remember that next time I'm choking on a meatball."

Lisa actually winced. "I hope not, wouldn't want to treat the same patient twice." Then she left with the same haste she came in with and Dean was grinning—and not the civil kind that came after grace; this was one of Dean's famous shit-eating grins that usually took days to dissolve.

Like hell if Cas was going to set aside the out-and-out fact that his best friend just sullied his reputation as a self-made socialite for a good laugh.

"Are you high on morphine?" he blasphemed, untangling his hand from Dean's like a schoolgirl noticing her skirt hiked up past her knees. "That nurse was totally into you."

"Yeah, and she was totally clingy."

"Dean, she's a nurse."

"And I'm not interested," he said, punctuating every word like his health insurance depended on it. It was definitely unlike Dean to turn down a beautiful damsel within arms' reach—even when he was the one in distress. He could have anyone he wanted (and has had everyone on more than one occasion) and what, now suddenly he was playing hard to get?

Cas folded his arms over his chest. "What, you have a hot date?"

"Hey, I'm Dean Winchester, I—"

"Don't do dates," he concluded. "I know. Then what is it?"

Dean pursed his lip and beckoned him closer. Cas parked his posterior precariously on the lumpy futon as the other teen struggled to sit up straighter. Finally, after a few disgruntled comments about hospital beds and stonewashed scrubs, Dean had leaned into his temple as if to tell Cas something of grave importance, but instead met Cas's earlobe with his chapped lips.

Cas had to abstain the whimper hitched somewhere in the back of his throat when his tongue and teeth joined in, sucking and pulling the sensitive skin in question. His heart was palpitating hard enough to do somersaults and cartwheels, leaving his brain last to the finish line. It wasn't long before the two of them melded together—limbs entwined, fingers roaming, mouths tearing at each other like two falcons famished for the same prey.

"What?" Dean asked, smiling against Cas's forehead. The latter had broken their slovenly embrace over a small laugh pending at his lips.

"Nothing, it's just, you're definitely high… and the swelling as definitely gone down."

It was Dean's turn to laugh (as best he could, anyway) out of complete mortification, shunting his friend's shoulder lightly before pulling him into a softer, leisurelier kiss.

Later the following morning, after returning home and waking up next to his best friend, Cas mused over how different last night would have turned out. Had Dean not ordered a hoagie or had a terminal reaction to nuts in the first place, Cas wouldn't have been able to rely on his own to concede the beautiful thing between them. And he wouldn't exchange that for a lifetime supply of Nutella.

-END-