"Castiel! We've got a call, c'mon!"

It had been the end of a triple shift. He was so close to being able to clean up, go home, and spend the next 8 hours watching Netflix reruns with Meg while sleep evaded him yet again. But no. No, that would be too convenient. Instead, the Topeka Fire Department had been called all the way to Lawrence, which, being a small town, didn't have it's own station. Of course. He spent the twenty-minute drive that followed trying desperately to keep his eyes open.

They'd reached the building, and Oh, God. That was one hell of a fire. The entire block of apartments had gone up. He could feel the heat and smoke in his eyes before his friend/co-worker, Balthazar, thrust him his helmet. He was aware of the captain, a stocky, dark-skinned man named Uriel, yelling at him that there was still someone trapped inside. He nodded, grabbed a smoke mask and ran in without much of a second thought. Hey, the quicker he saved these people, the quicker the others could put the fire out and he could go home. He missed Meg.

Shaking himself back to the situation at hand, he kicked the perishing door in and was swallowed by smoke.

Inside the building, the flames devoured everything unobstructed. The first floor had already been evacuated, so he tested the stability of the stairs, and ascended. For the first few doors, the second floor was vacant. But, after the third time announcing his presence, he heard a response. Coughing, and a hoarse attempt at a yell. He couldn't make out words, amid the cocktail of adrenaline and sweat from the heat building in his helmet, but sound was enough. He kicked his way through doors and around half desecrated furniture until he saw a struggling form. Castiel doubled his efforts to reach the slumped figure, and quickly identified it as a male. He grabbed the man's shoulder, turning him over and tugging him over his back. The man protested, but Castiel only caught a few words; "No," "Jess," and, "Sam."

"Shh, it's OK. I've got you. Are you hurt? Can you move?"

The man nodded and attempted to struggle to his feet, but had to relent with a violent coughing fit. Castiel could feel him drooping into unconsciousness, so he kept talking while pulling the man to the exit. "My name is Castiel. What's yours?" If he kept the man talking, it would be easier to keep him awake. He moved a filter mask over the guy's face, to prevent smoke inhalation. They guy struggled, but murmured something Castiel assumed was his name. Dan? Gene? Something along those lines, he was sure.

He made it to the stairs before an issue arose. Or, rather, he'd made it to where the stairs were, before. Now, there was a gap, and half a bannister. Shit. OK. Right.

"OK, so I'm going to move you over my shoulder, are you OK?"

The guy nodded, and mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, "Usually I wait 'til the second date."

Castiel rolled his eyes, and despite it not being quite the time, smirked. He threw the guy over his shoulder in a Firemans Lift, (a struggle considering the man was over 6 foot,) and hurdled down the gap. The guy groaned when Castiel hit the floor, but he didn't have time to ask for a status update. The short trip to the door, down the entrance steps and to the nearest waiting ambulance felt like a trip to Hell and back. He dropped the guy onto a gurney in the back of the ambulance and removed his helmet, gasping for the strikingly cool air as it hit his skin. The guy had removed his own filter mask, and was taking great gulps of air. He pushed himself up, only to be met by a paramedic's stilling hand as she began to check him for burns or serious injuries. Castiel didn't see this, nor did he see the way the guy stared after him as he made his way back to the hulking red fire engine he'd arrived in, his colleagues dousing the flames that had almost killed them.

Castiel had hardly a chance to settle in the back of the truck after the flames had been extinguished before Balthazar's grinning, slightly ash-stained face appeared around the doors. "Hey, Cassie, the guy you saved is asking for you. I think he has the hots for you, no pun intended, of course." The smirk Balt gave him suggested that the joke was, in fact, fully thought out.

Cas groaned, but pushed past the short blond man. The quicker he talked to this guy, the quicker he could leave.

The guy was sitting on the back of the ambulance still, paramedics still rushing around him, but now he looked considerably more, hmm, what's the word…

Cute.

Shit.

Castiel approached slower after that, all thoughts of arriving home to Meg and a pre-planned marathon of Vicar Of Dibley all but forgotten.

"Hey, Cas, right? Sorry, I, uh…I'm not exactly in the best of shape." The guy smirked, and Cas said goodbye to his functional thoughts. "I'm Dean, by the way, I don't know if you understood anything I said in there, I was kinda outta it."

"Hello, Dean. That's understandable, you had inhaled considerable amounts of smoke. I hope you recover well."

Dean chuckled once. "Yeah, you an' me both, pal. Geez, I'm never gonna hear the end of this at the station," the smirk on his face put Balthazar's to shame, and for a second Castiel forgot how to talk.

"Uh—Station?"

"I'm a cop, wouldya believe. At Lawrence Nine-Nine."

Castiel was no stranger to the odd feud between the police dept. and the fire dept. Although he failed to see the point of it, that hadn't stopped him from helping Gabriel release six pigeons into the police office last fall.

"I, uh, listen, I know we have a kinda prank war thing goin' on, but, uh…thanks. For, y'know, savin' my life. Truce?" Dean offered his hand, and Cas shook it without hesitation.

"Truce." He recognized the name now. Dean, as in, Dean Winchester. As in, the man who had got back at Gabe by putting a paddling pool full of dyed foam under the fireman's pole and called an emergency. The resulting mess had taken a very expensive dry-cleaning bill to remove. In fact, Cas was fairly certain he was wearing the same uniform now. Oh, the irony.

"You'll have to come by the station some time, see me when I'm at my best."

"Are you…flirting with me? Less than thirty minutes after I pulled you from a possibly deadly fire?"

"Well, when's a better time? My prince Charming just saved me from the monster, and now we live happily ever after or something, yeah?"

Cas blushed, and for the first time in his career was thankful that he was covered in ash. Oh, geez. He was covered in dirt, and this guy was still flirting with him. What the Hell?

He was about to reply, but Gabriel, ever the annoying brother/co-worker, flashed a grin and wrecked the scene. "Hey, Cassie, I get that you're talking to an emotionally-vulnerable thankfully-no-longer-smokin' piece of man meat, here, but Meg needs you to get back, right? You should go, you're exhausted, and this guy needs to go to the ER for concussion, or so I've been reliably informed by that lovely blonde thing over there. See you tomorrow, bro!"

And with that, he was gone. Just like magic.

"I…uh…I'm sorry, that's my brother. He, he's a little…" Castiel floundered for a word, but Dean beat him to it.

"Pain in the ass? Yeah, I've got one too. God, I should call him. But, uh, sorry, I guess."

Castiel didn't have time to ask what Dean was sorry for, before a paramedic interrupted and Uriel dragged him away.

The thought lingered in his mind for hours. He was still thinking about Dean when he got home. The small-ish apartment may have been a far reach from what he'd wanted, but, hey, it was home.

"Hello, Meg!" He greeted, ruffling the brunet cat's fur when she leapt to greet him. "How've you been? Kill any mice?" He was aware that some people considered it crazy to talk to a cat, but he was of the opinion that as long as the cat didn't talk back to him, he was probably fine.

"I met someone today, Meg." He murmured, scooping out her food and placing the dish on the floor. "He's cute. I saved his life, not that I'm going to bring that up as bribery if I ever need to. Don't look at me like that." The cat gave him a passing, seemingly accusatory glance, before finishing her food and sauntering off.

Castiel stared after her, distracted in his own thoughts. Around him, the apartment grew dark. He eventually, he went to bed, but sleep never found him.

Dean was discharged from the emergency unit in a few hours, with nothing but a warning to take it easy and some pain pills. He pulled out his phone, miraculously unharmed by the fire, and dialed his brother. He picked up after three rings.

"Dean?"

"Hey, Sammy. Listen, there's been an accident. Uh, an incident, really, and I'm fine, just come out of the ER."

"What? Are you OK? What happened?"

"Uh, yeah, I'm good, but there was, uh, there was a fire, in the apartment." Dean never called his apartment 'home'. He didn't realize this, of course, but Sam did. In all truth, it had just never felt like a home; sparse and cold instead of warm and welcoming.

"A fire? What the Hell?! Was it an accident?"

"Probably? I don't know, man. Someone probably left their stove on, or something. But some hot fireman pulled me out, and now I can't prank 'em anymore."

"Dean, only you would nearly die in a fire, get a crush, and bring an end to that stupid, 5-year-old feud in one night."

"Oh, no, Sammy, it's not over! I'm just gonna get Charlie an' Kev to carry out the dirty work!" Dean chuckled. "And I didn't 'nearly die', i just got a bit of a concussion. I'll be fine. Stop worryin'."

He could practically hear the eye roll/bitch face combo his brother was pulling, despite the miles between them. Sam was at Stanford, studying to become a kick-ass lawyer. Dean liked to think that when he graduated they'd set up shop as the Winchester version of Law and Order.

"Listen, man, i gotta go, but it was good talkin' to ya." Dean allowed his tone to slip to something mildly softer, so his brother would know he meant it.

"...Sure, Dean. Take care of yourself, OK?"

"Yeah, Sam, you too. See ya." He hung up.

He hated the bus, but he left his baby outside the apartment. He wasn't going to walk back there, the place was cinders, and-

-Shit. He had nowhere to stay.

Charlie was not a night owl. Not after a shift at the dept, and a six-hour gaming marathon on CoD. Damn noobs. She'd just fallen asleep when some weirdo knocked at her door. She considered rolling over and ignoring it, but they knocked again, so she pushed her way sleep and waddled through her home, tugging the door open in a bleary-eyed stupor. "Dean?"

"Hey, Charlie, sorry to wake you up-"

"This had better be important, bitch, because I was having a super sweet dream involving both Princess Leia and Peggy Carter. Whaddaya want?"

Dean snorted, and Charlie moved aside so he could enter. "I would have called, but I lost your number, sorry. Uh, but, something's happened, and-"

Charlie was instantly awake. "What? What's happened?"

"My apartment's kinda...burnt down."

Charlie almost screamed. "What?! What do you mean? Are you OK? Dean Winchester, if you're putting off going to the hospital again, then I'll-"

"Chill, Charles, please, I've already been. They said I'm fine. But, I don't have anywhere to stay now, so-"

"I'll prep the couch. I think I have a baggy jumper and some old swim shorts that'll do fine."

Dean didn't even bother asking why. He found it easier to sleep that way. "Thanks, Charlie, I owe ya."

"That's cool, you can just help me put baby oil on all the toilet seats at the fire station next week. I need to get back for the 'christmas-wrapping-everything-in-the-office' one last week. How did they even get the key?!" Charlie fished for the clothes while she spoke, trowing the promised articles at him over her shoulder.

"Uh, about that." He pulled his shirt off, having left his jacket hanging by the door, and tugged on the jumper. Charlie kept her back turned while he pulled the shorts on. "Sorry, Charlie, I think I need to lay off the pranks for a while, I kinda made a truce with one of the guys who pulled me out, and since he's kinda cute, I-"

"Woah, woah, woahwoahwoah!" Charlie span around to face him, with such force that he had to step back. "Are you telling me that you, Dean Winchester, King of the Closeted, has a date with a male firefighter? How long do you think that'll stay quiet?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "I'm not closeted, you know and so does Sam, and Bobby,"

"Yeah, but no-one on the force. And I bet you invited him to the station some time, huh?"

"...OK, maybe, but it's not like I really care about what they think," Dean sneered, catching the blanket Charlie threw at him.

"Yeah, you do, Dean, remember when Benny made that gay joke and you nearly spat out your coffee all over your computer?"

"Well, yeah, but I know they wouldn't have an issue with it, I mean, you're out, right? And no one cares about your homo-ness, yeah? Plus, I like him, Char. I've seen him around, and fuck, if you can look that good covered in ash and sweat, then imagine how he'll look when-"

"OK, Dean, that's good enough, thanks! I don't need to know about your guy-fantasies. Lesbian, remember? I'm goin' to bed. There's a spare toothbrush under the sink if you need it, 'Kay?" With that, she was gone, TARDIS-blue door slamming behind her. Dean grinned, and turned to the bathroom. In five minutes flat, he was asleep on the couch.