A/N: Just a heads up, I'm calling this complete, though there are more stories to come, simply because I don't know how many more stories there will be, or if this will ever be really, completely complete. Given that the whole thing is a collection of one-shots (just because I'd like to keep them together and easy to find), it could potentially continue to be updated forever, if I feel so inclined and people actually like what I write. So there you go. Anyway, I hope you enjoy. All mistakes are my own and spell checks. I own nothing. Reviews are likes words from God. And all that other nonsense.
Summary: Chuck never wanted to be in the dorms, but he thinks he lucked out with Castiel as a roommate. Even if having Castiel meant he was apparently also stuck with Dean.
Chuck never wanted to be in the dorms. He's never been his best around other people, always afraid that he's going to do or say something stupid, which leads him to drink, and that has the unfortunate side effect of him saying or doing something stupid. And so goes the vicious cycle. So no, he never wanted to have to share a room with a complete stranger, and a building with a whole group of complete strangers, but he thinks he lucked out with Castiel as a roommate.
Sure, Castiel is impatient and generally unsympathetic and doesn't seem to get Chuck's jokes, but he's also quiet and neat and keeps to himself, and Chuck appreciates that immensely, because if it weren't for one thing, he wouldn't even notice Castiel was there.
That one thing just happens to be Dean.
For the first week of university, Chuck was worried that every time he opened the door to his room he would walk in to find Dean and Castiel having graphic, loud sex on his bed. But after the thirtieth or so time swinging that door open with his hand covering his delicate, gay-sex-virgin eyes to find the two of them either relaxing, or doing homework, or watching movies together on Castiel's bed, Chuck realises something. That they aren't together.
And really, Chuck finds that almost sickening.
Just to look at them, you wouldn't think they were right for each other. Where Castiel is pale and skinny and quiet and socially awkward, Dean is a veritable man of a man. He drinks and talks and fights, and he's big, tanned and athletic looking. He may have the facial structure girls would kill for, but compensates heavily for his looks with an alpha-male attitude to rival any Chuck has seen in the movies.
Truthfully, Chuck had been a little afraid of him the first time he'd opened the door of his room to find Dean glaring back at him. Chuck had managed to squeak out a high-pitched "yes?" but Dean had only looked past his head and grinned at Castiel, his whole face softening, before sighing "Hey Cas. It's taken me ages to find you." Then he pushed past Chuck without even acknowledging his presence.
That's why they work so well together. Because fundamentally, they're the same; both immensely private and solitary people who are drawn together into their own little world whenever they're in a room together, in a way that Chuck knows every romance movie he's ever seen tries to replicate. You only have to spend five minutes alone with them to see how ridiculously in love they are, and Chuck's had plenty of minutes.
The point is, Dean spends every spare moment in Chuck's dorm room and Castiel looks at Dean, when he only stares at everyone else and the fact that they're not together makes Chuck want to force their faces together until they just kiss, Goddamnit.
Because, despite the short amount of time he's known him, Chuck genuinely likes Castiel. He's brutally honest and literal, but in a way that somehow manages to be funny rather than annoying, and he resects every one of Chuck's weird rules that stop him having panic attacks or bouts of excessive drinking, and never asks for anything in return. But sometimes Chuck sees something in his eyes, something he's trying to hide behind an impassive face, and something he never sees when Dean and Castiel are relaxing, or doing homework, or watching movies together on Castiel's bed.
Chuck really just wants Castiel to be happy. And if being around Dean helps him forget that he's sad, then being with Dean is probably the ticket to that happiness. So Chuck decides to try his hand at matchmaking.
He's only known Castiel a few weeks, and they've barely spoken more than a few sentences to each other after Chuck had explained his rules for the room and Castiel had nodded along, so he knows that talking to Castiel about Dean is completely the wrong way to go about it. He wouldn't even know where to start. "Hey, I know we don't talk but I watch you with your friend and I'd really just like you two to kiss right now" sounds a little creepy, so Chuck decides to go for the more subtle approach.
At first, he takes to leaving his box of condoms on top of his bedside table, instead of the draws, and leaving his skin mags sticking half out from under his bed, rather than tucked away neatly at the back of his cupboard. Chuck figures that if Dean and Castiel see them lying around the dorm room, they'll talk about them, which will then turn to talking about sex, which will then somehow lead to the act. He's a little fuzzy on the details, but decides it's as good idea as any. However, when Dean sees the first magazine poking out from under Chucks bed, he only picks it up, skims through a little, and then looks over at Castiel and bursts out laughing, whereas Castiel pulls Chuck aside as soon as Dean has left the room for the night, and with his eyes fixed firmly on the condom packets resting on the table, asks him if he could possibly be more discreet about his sexual exploits.
Chuck realises that sex obviously isn't the way to approach this problem. Castiel is probably the biggest virgin to ever virgin if he can be completely oblivious to the way that Dean looks at him, and either Dean is nobly respecting his friends boundaries, or is repressing the crap out of his feelings for another man.
Not defeated, Chuck decides to try a different approach. The next day he goes to the video shop and hires out the first five romantic films he can find. That night, while Dean and Castiel were sitting on either side of Castiel's bed with textbooks spread around them, Chuck watches three of the movies, one straight after the other. Dean is vocal about his dislike of chick flicks, and during the credits for the third movie stomps out of the dorm, complaining about Chuck's taste in both film and life. Chuck is about to turn his laptop off when Castiel perches on his bed next to him, looking curiously at the movie next on Chuck's pile. Chuck puts it on, thinking that at least he can make Castiel see reason, and then maybe things will progress from there, but halfway through the film, when Chuck turns to Castiel and asks why the two lead characters, who are so obviously in love with one another, don't just hurry up and get together, Castiel only shrugs. "I'm sure that if they truly loved one another, they would just say." Chuck despairs of the task he has set out for himself. If Castiel can't see and in-your-face, fabricated romance, then how will he ever pick up on a more quiet, real life one.
So Chuck decides to give up on subtlety all together. The next time Dean and Castiel are standing together in the hallway, he pretends to trip, knocking in to Dean and shoving him into Castiel's space. Castiel, to his credit, catches Dean, but then only releases him, and they continue their conversation as if a few seconds ago Castiel hadn't clutched Dean tightly around the waist. The next day, when they are jammed together on Castiel's bed watching a movie on his laptop, practically connected all along their sides, Chuck wonders aloud if they could possibly sit any closer, and then leaves the room, saying he's going to give them some 'alone time,' complete with implied quotation marks.
This continues for about three days with no progress. Even when Chuck accidentally leaves his iPod on in his room playing REO Speedwagon and comes back to find Dean lying on Castiel's bed, humming along to "Can't Fight this Feeling," Castiel doesn't seem to acknowledge the very prominent message in the lyrics, but complains loudly about how much he hates the song. Chuck realises that he's never heard Castiel say he hates something before that.
So it is with a heavy heart that Chuck approaches his dorm room about a month and a half into the school year. Nothing he can think of has gotten Dean and Castiel to confess to their feelings for one another, and he mentally resigns himself to watching the worlds most painful love story play out before his eyes. It's two o'clock, and normally Chuck would have a class, but the lecturer had taken sick halfway through the lesson, so it finished early.
Chuck swings open the door to his room and freezes. Dean and Castiel are laying on Castiel's bed. Or more accurately, Dean is laying on Castiel's bed, and Castiel is laying on Dean, and they're connected at the mouth and Castiel has one hand shoved up Dean's shirt and Chuck is pretty sure he doesn't want to see where the hand Dean hasn't got fisted in Castiel's hair is. Chuck breaths in sharply, and Castiel rolls off Dean so fast he ends up hitting the floor hard and having to stare up at Chuck, while Dean pulls a pillow over his face and groans.
Chuck lets out a little whoop of joy. His efforts have paid off. Dean and Castiel were making out on Castiel's bed, and even if that wasn't anything he particularly wanted to see, he's happy with it for a trade-off to know they're finally together. Dean removes the pillow from his face, and he and Castiel give Chuck identical looks of confusion. Chuck manages not to get caught up in the fact that they even pull the same facial expressions, and grins at the pair of them.
"Congrats, guys. You don't know how happy I am to see you together."
Neither look any less confused, but Castiel seems to have gotten over the shock of being interrupted. "I'm sorry, Chuck. We were trying to be discreet with our relationship. But if I had've known you wanted to watch..."
"I would've made Cas get another roommate." Dean finishes for him, and suddenly everything makes a horrible, horrible sense to Chuck. Why Dean had been searching Castiel out so early into their first day of university, and why Dean spends every spare moment in Chuck and Castiel's dorm room. Why they sit pressed together on Castiel's bed when there is plenty of space to spread out. Why they were both so unaffected by Chuck's attempts to set them up. Why they both looked so surprised when Chuck said...oh God. Chuck feels his face go bright red, and tries to force out some words, of apology or denial or something, but all he can get out are a few broken sounds. He slams the door shut and sprints down the hall to the university library. His only hope is that he can read enough that he'll forget what just happened. Either that, or maybe there's a movie there that explains exactly what to do when you accidentally tell your roommate that you want to watch him make out with his boyfriend.