Dean knows what he looks like, he knows what people think when they see him. He gets that he comes off as a badass to most people and not like some guy you'd want to take home to your mother. Not that he wants to go meeting anyone's parents at this point, but still… He would like a little connection. He's never been good with the idea of settling down, he had always moved around way too much to be comfortable like that and it shows. It's different now, he has a home with his brother and Cas and while they still move around and hunt things, they finally have somewhere to go back to when they're done, a place they get to call home.
So maybe he is just getting old, or maybe he's disillusioned, or maybe people have changed. He used to get something from his one night stands. He could connect to someone for a few hours and he would feel a little bit happier afterwards, a little bit less alone.
That's not how it's been lately.
The first time he notices it, he's in a bar after a job and a gorgeous woman in a miniskirt is flirting with him. She has legs for miles and she's just sarcastic enough that he is enjoying their conversation. She asks him back to her place and he goes. They're not even in the door when she starts pushing his jacket off his shoulders. She's kissing his neck and not his mouth and seems to desperately want his pants off. He goes with it because it's been awhile and maybe he's just forgotten how one night stands tend to go.
But afterwards, when he's pulling off the condom and doesn't even want to be in the bed anymore, she barely says goodbye, and he's no happier. He doesn't ask for her number, she doesn't offer. He heads home and straight into the shower.
A couple of weeks later he's out at a bar and talking to a guy a few inches shorter than him with dark hair and a great smile who keeps flickering his eyes over Dean's entire body when he thinks Dean isn't paying attention.
So Dean goes for it, maybe it'll be better. He grins and flirts a little to see where it'll get him.
It gets him a lecherous grin and a blow job back behind the bar. They guy grins up at him from the gravel where he's kneeling, having just come across the ground. But he gets up, buttons up, and heads to his own car without asking for anything more. That's when Dean realizes that they never even exchanged names.
After that Dean pays more attention. It's not just something he does to get off. He used to do this for the connection to people. Because it was nice to feel cared about for a little while with somebody he didn't have to constantly worry about. It's not working for him anymore and he doesn't know why. He doesn't feel better after hunts until he's back home with Cas watching a late night marathon of something on cable.
There's a blonde at a bar in Nebraska who goes from smiling and laughing with him to grabbing his ass while she tongues his ear. He finishes his beer and tells her he can't stay. He drives all the way home and when he wakes up the next morning to Sam and Cas laughing over coffee at least he's not disgusted with himself.
There's a redheaded man as tall as Sam at a place in Missouri who is laughing with Dean. He's grinning at him and saying something about one of the women at the bar as he suddenly slides his hand onto Dean's thigh. He avoids jumping and embarrassing himself but he says, "Dude, I'm easy. But I'm not that easy." and gets up to head home. Cas is watching a marathon of Castle on TV when he gets there so he showers, pulls on sweatpants, and curls up next to him on the oversized couch in the living room. He feels more content there than he did at the bar anyway.
There's a delicate looking dark-haired woman who is wearing bright red lipstick when he's in Oklahoma. They talk for half an hour and he thinks maybe he's found someone who he can connect with for a minute. Until she asks him back to her place and they barely make it to the car before she's pressed against him trying to unzip his pants. He sighs, pushes her hands gently away and says he has places to be. That night Cas is watching The Mentalist. Dean makes them both late night sandwiches and they spend the next few hours trying to guess the show's mysteries before the end of the episodes. Cas is curled into Dean's shoulder mostly asleep when Dean nudges him awake and gets him to go to bed. Cas is still not great at remembering to pay attention to his human needs, Dean's fine with reminding him. Dean was always good at taking care of people.
Dean spends a couple of days in Colorado with Sam tracking down some sort of lost spirit that was killing people. He gets hit on at least 5 times while they're out and about and he knows Sam expects him to want to stay and go home with at least one of them. Two of them had been so forward they'd almost gotten him to blush, two others had not so discretely groped him and the fifth had pinned him against a wall outside the bathroom while trying to convince Dean to go out to his car.
His car, not even a motel or his room. He wasn't going to do that to Baby.
He collected Sam and they went home. When they got there Cas was in the kitchen, he took one look at Dean's face and hugged him before going back to what may have been the beginnings of brownies.
That night Sam rolled his eyes and he went to his room with a book and left Dean with Cas and the Star Trek: The Next Generation marathon on TV and the smell of chocolate in the air.
The next case they investigate is close to home and a little trickier. Dean ends up dressed up more than usual and Cas goes with them in a suit that he hasn't worn in months.
They end up in a bar after everyone is safe, and maybe it's the sweatervest he's wearing or maybe Dean comes off as a different person when he's close to home, but he ends up talking to a pretty blue-eyed girl who hasn't tried to do anything more than touch his hand in the last half hour. It's nice to just have a conversation with someone who isn't trying to get him naked. Sam is making eyes at a grinning blonde at the bar who is nearly as tall as him in her heels, Cas has found a couple celebrating their anniversary who seems content to chat and show him photos of their family and friends while they drink.
The girl, who introduced herself as Kaylee, smiles at him and somehow they start talking about cars. Dean realizes suddenly that maybe she's actually interested in something more than a one night stand, and as nice as that feeling is, he also suddenly realizes that he doesn't want that. Not from someone he's meeting in a bar. So when she smiles invitingly and asks if he'd like to leave with her, he smiles back and tells her no thank you. She laughs and says, "You have someone else on your mind, don't you? Good luck, Dean. You're a sweet guy, I hope they deserve you."
He nods at Sam and ends up over near Cas. Cas introduces him to the couple, Scott and Allison, who have been married a year and are enjoying a cross country trip for their anniversary. So they talk about traveling and how strange it is to be away from the people you care about until the bar starts to get quiet around 1AM. Dean puts his hand on Cas' shoulder and leads him out to the car, Sam is already off somewhere (probably with the blonde) and Dean knows he'll find his way home eventually.
They head home and like any other day when they're celebrating a finished case, they end up on the couch watching something. This time it's a Doctor Who marathon on BBC America. Cas starts to drift off to sleep on Dean's shoulder as Nancy hugs her son and The Doctor is saying "Everybody lives, Rose! Just this once – everybody lives!"
Dean finds himself smiling at Cas. It took him awhile, but he's realized that he doesn't want to be out at bars away from home when he can be here with a sleepy Cas at his side. He nudges Cas as he lays down full length on the couch and moves Cas until he sleepily curls up against Dean's chest. Dean falls asleep with Cas warm and breathing quietly on his chest as Jack flirts with The Doctor on screen.
Dean wakes up first, because humanity seems to exhaust Cas and he almost always sleeps eight to nine hours a night unless there's someone waking him up and Dean, who has lived most of his life running from things and sleeping in short bursts, functions more than well enough of four or five hours and usually can't bring himself to sleep longer. He spends almost an hour just enjoying the quiet with Cas halfway on top of him, arm curled over Dean and hand almost dangling off the edge of the couch. Sam doesn't seem to have made it home yet and Dean has no reason to get up.
Cas finally shifts, looking like he will wake up soon. He presses his face into Dean's chest and curls his arm closer instead of letting it dangle. Dean can't help but smile, there's no way a grown man, especially one who used to be an angel, a warrior of God, should be this adorable in the morning. Cas nuzzles him and finally looks up. He's sleepy and warm, still refusing to really raise his head and resting his chin on Dean's chest just far enough away that neither of them is cross-eyed.
He blinks sleepily and smiles back softly. Dean finds that he just can't help himself and really has no reason to deny it. So he leans up and presses his lips softly to Castiel's in a quick, dry kiss. Cas doesn't seem to even think about it he just smiles again and hums a little, content. Dean smiles and nudges him towards the back of the couch so he can get up and head to the bathroom before starting breakfast. "How do you feel about waffles and bacon for breakfast?" Cas makes a soft affirmative noise as he curls around the pillow that Dean had been using and Dean just ruffles his hair as he leaves the room smiling.
Castiel never really thinks too hard about the fact that he is human now. He had spent enough time around Sam and Dean before he fell that he had a good idea of how to handle himself now that he was no longer an angel.
However, he still had the occasional bouts of confusion when it came to emotions and affection and personal space. Enough that when Dean was suddenly spending more time closer to Castiel, it took him longer than it should have to realize that something had changed.
The Winchesters were huggers when it came to their family. They were free with their versions of affection most of the time. So when Castiel was making sandwiches and Dean came into the kitchen and wrapped an arm around his waist while he stole a slice of cheese, he didn't think much of it. When Castiel thought to bring Dean a cup of coffee while he was looking for something in the library, he didn't even blink when he got a kiss on the forehead.
Dean seemed content. Really, that was all that Castiel wanted most of the time. Dean had trouble finding happiness and in the last few months it was obvious he was suffering from some sort of discontent, like an itch under the skin that Dean couldn't get rid of no matter what he tried. He'd always eventually calm down and watch TV with Castiel, but his unhappiness sometimes lingered. It was completely gone now, so Cas was content with the extra attention (though he still didn't know the reason for Dean's recent discontent). Castiel was happy with every night spent curled next to Dean on the couch watching shows with Dean's arm around him even if he wasn't sure why it had changed.
It wasn't until they were all having breakfast one morning a few days later that Castiel realized what might be different. He pushed his bacon onto Dean's plate and got a kiss on the cheek and a smile for it. He thought nothing of it until he noticed Sam's smirk. At Castiel's questioning glance he just got a raised eyebrow as if to say "You haven't figured it out yet?"
That's when Castiel realized that maybe this level of affection wasn't really normal between friends. Maybe there was something more there on Dean's end like there had been on Castiel's for quite some time now. He decides to pay more attention that day to everything Dean did. He leans into the arm around his waist, brushes a kiss across Dean's head as he brings him a sandwich for lunch, threads his fingers through Dean's as they curl up on the couch together to watch Firefly that night.
He stretches out on the couch when Dean goes to get a snack. Dean doesn't even blink when he comes back, he just stretches out next to Castiel on the overlarge couch where they've been sleeping on and off for the last couple of days. Castiel lays his head on Dean's chest where he feels like he belongs. Dean has one arm around his waist and the other folded up so their hands can stay pressed together.
Dean is softly stroking his fingers as the show switches to the next episode. Castiel thinks, maybe these feelings need to be acknowledged. He wants Dean to keep this contentedness; Castiel would like to wrap himself up in the feeling and stay forever. He sits up a little and presses a kiss to Dean's nose, watches him go a little cross eyed as he smiles and gives him a questioning look. He simply says, "Me too."
They keep watching different shows late into the night on occasion. Sometimes they even still fall asleep on the couch. But, after that night, they never sleep apart.