A/N: Thank you, thank you, thank you SO MUCH to the people who reviewed the last chapter. You each get your very own Dean Winchester! Comes complete with a killer smile and severe daddy issues. Now remember, folks, you too can get a Dean for the low, low price of completely free when you review this story. Run - don't walk - to your nearest review button!
Seriously though, I really appreciate reviews. It tells me that somebody is reading, and motivates me to finish the next chapter even though YouTube is right there, beckoning to me.
And now, for your reading pleasure, Chapter 2.
Dean was a heterosexual man, plain and simple. It was absolutely ludicrous to suggest he was having warm and fuzzy feelings for a male former angel. Right?
He watched Cas sleep, totally unable to tear his eyes away. But then, he shouldn't have to. Dean had been put on Cas duty – which unfortunately meant taking the futon and waking Cas up every so often to make sure he wasn't comatose. The last time Dean's vibrating phone alarm woke him up, Sam was gone, probably to go get breakfast. Sam was gone, and Cas was asleep; Dean could stare as long as he damn well pleased now.
The sheer weirdness of that thought struck Dean. I shouldn't want to stare at Cas at all, he mentally chastised himself. What the hell is wrong with me?
Castiel had always made Dean feel weird. At first Dean had chalked it up to Cas being an angel, and when he met some of Castiel's bros he found he wasn't completely wrong. They were all intimidating as hell, and when they spoke in that spooky gravelly monotone of complete seriousness (a seriousness that the wisecracking Dean could never hope to match) it sent shivers down his spine. But when it was Cas, the shiver was accompanied by a sharp twist in his gut, like a hot poker being stabbed into him and wrenched around for good measure. But in a good way. Sort of.
Cas shifted a little in his sleep, snorting and twitching his brow. He looked so friggin' peaceful when he slept. Dean had the bizarre compulsion to reach out and caress his forehead, push back his hair and smooth the small bandage there. Jesus Christ, I'm losing my mind. Or my testosterone. Something.
The first time Dean had any inkling that something might be wrong with him was when he had a dream about Cas. Specifically, a dream about having sex with him. Really, really hot sex. It was creepy as all hell, but he wasn't too freaked out; after all, everyone's entitled to a few freaky same-sex dreams in their lifetime. Hell, the dreams he'd had about doing himself were much more troubling. So Dean sort of brushed it aside, and he would have prayed that Cas hadn't happened to spy in on it if he hadn't been afraid Cas would hear his prayer.
But then it happened again. And again.
Pretty soon Cas dreams were a regular feature in Dean's sleep cinema, and while it was disturbing, he refused to accept it as a sign of some deeper perversion. If there was one thing Dean Winchester was extremely good at, besides killing demonic sons of bitches, it was denial, and if there were two things, they were denial and pleasuring women. Therefore, he stubbornly denied that it meant jack squat. So his subconscious was a weird place. And? What else was new? Dean was straight, and he knew that much because he liked screwing women and didn't even have the tiniest desire to screw men, at least in real life. His dreams were fake, imaginary, and if Cas tried any funny business in the real world Dean wouldn't be turned on at all. Probably.
But when Cas fell yesterday, his heart had gone into double time. And when he'd propped Cas up, he must have had some kind of palpitation from all the stress or something because when the dude gave him that tiny, private smile, his heart had freaking… fluttered. Like he was an eighth-grade schoolgirl and Castiel was Justin Bieber.
So now he stood by the side of the bed, telling himself he was gonna wake Cas up any minute now and unable to bring himself to do it. Maybe someone had cursed him. Cursed him to feel mildly ill whenever he stayed too close to his formerly celestial comrade-in-arms for too long – dizzy, pulse racing, dry in the mouth, short of breath. That was definitely what had happened.
Even Dean Winchester wasn't that good at denial.
And okay, yeah, some people would tell Dean that his symptoms were suspiciously similar to the way he'd felt around Chelsea Long, the cute sophomore girl he'd met in Dallas when he was thirteen. His first-ever crush. Dean would tell those people that A) He was no longer in middle school, thank you very much, that was a long time ago so stop bringing it up and B) Clearly they'd never met Cas.
Cas wasn't someone you got a preteen crush on. He wasn't seductive or enticing at all. He was awkward, painfully honest, badly dressed, remote, frustrating as all hell, sincere, clueless, unreadable, courageous, naïve, intimidating, earnest, attractive…
Okay, maybe he was someone that, like, women had preteen crushes on. But not Dean.
Dean sat down on the edge of the bed, lacking an excuse not to. His fingers twitched and he brushed them across Cas's wrist. "Cas," he whispered, touching him lightly, "you comatose yet?"
Cas's eyes squeezed shut even harder. "No," he mumbled. "Leave."
"C'mon, man, let me see your eyes."
Cas sighed and opened them reluctantly. The pupils were normal, and he seemed to be tracking just fine. They were… really blue. As always.
"Alright, buddy." Dean patted his shoulder. "You get the green light. You can float back to dreamland."
Cas closed his eyes. "Don't patronize me," he muttered, dragging the sheets tighter around him.
Dean smiled. He and Sam had discovered the hard way that Cas was not a morning person. Dean had tried to get him to take up coffee, but the guy had taken one sip and promptly spat it back into the cup. "That is horrible," he'd said. "I don't want it."
"It's kind of an acquired taste," Dean had explained.
Cas had glared at the cup with such ferocity that Dean had half expected it to burst into flames. "That is not a taste I would like to acquire," he'd growled.
So they were stuck with groggy, cranky Cas. By the time Dean had finished reminiscing about that amusing episode, Cas had already slipped back into a dead sleep, snoring lightly with the blanket twisted in his closed fists.
Something in Dean crumbled, and his hand reached out of its own accord. He smoothed the bandage on Cas's hairline, and his fingertips accidentally brushed the soft skin, light as a feather. For some totally unconnected reason, a part of Dean's stomach flipped over and his heart squeezed painfully.
It was at that moment that the door opened, and Sam strode in with breakfast.
Dean snatched his hand back like it was on a hot stove. "Cas went back to sleep," he whispered.
Sam stared at Dean, then at Cas, and narrowed his eyes. He'd clearly seen exactly what Dean hadn't wanted him to. An expression of morally superior disapproval crossed Sam's face. It was his "You dog, you" face, the one he usually reserved for when particularly trashy women lurched out of their motel room, or when Dean flirted with a girl who looked just a hair too youthful.
"What's that face for?" Dean demanded, trying to keep his voice down.
"Dude," Sam uttered, sounding mildly incredulous. "Cas? Really?"
Dean frowned. "What about him?"
Sam sighed. "Don't play coy with me, Dean, I know what's going on. Look, man, I don't know who started it, and I get that he probably thinks it's a great idea, but you should know better. The poor guy's having a hard enough time adjusting to being human without you…. defiling him."
Christ, the kid was obtuse sometimes. Dean glared even harder. "Defiling him? What the hell are you talking about?" he snapped. "I was fixing his bandage. Is tending to the wounded suddenly a punishable offense or something?"
"Seriously? You're just going to deny everything?" Sam asked, exasperated. "I thought we were trying out this whole honesty thing."
"Sammy." Dean reined in his frustration and used his most serious tone, and looked his brother straight in the eyes. "I swear to you, I have no idea what you're implying. Just spit it out."
Dean could see something change in his brother's eyes as he realized that Dean was telling the truth. "Oh." Suddenly a flush crept up Sam's cheeks. "So. You and Cas aren't…."
"Me and Cas aren't what?" Dean snarled.
Sam blushed harder. "You and Cas aren't… intimate?"
Dean nearly leapt off the bed. He opened his mouth to yell obscenities when, at the last moment, he remembered that Cas was still sleeping. He pointed at the door. "Outside, now," he muttered through gritted teeth.
As soon as the door was closed, Dean shoved Sam in the shoulder. Hard. "Why in God's name would you think Cas and I are intimate?" he hissed.
"I dunno, there were a lot of signs!" Sam protested, babbling quickly. "I didn't imagine it, I know I didn't, and at first I thought it was just him but then I saw you doing it too and you act different around him and it was the only thing that made sense –"
"Act different?" Dean barked. "What the hell do you mean, Sammy? I treat Cas just like everybody else." Exactly like everybody else, something inside him insisted. I make sure of that! I make sure of that…
Something dawned over Sam's face. "Ohhh," he breathed. "So you just want Cas."
Dean felt the blood rush to his cheeks, which was stupid because he didn't have anything to be embarrassed about, because he didn't want Cas. "Listen, Sammy boy," he choked, trying to regain his composure. "You are dead wrong."
Sam narrowed his eyes. "You were going to kiss him, Dean," he accused.
"What? No! When?" Dean sputtered.
"Yesterday, in the warehouse. I saw your lip twitch!" he exclaimed. "You were making that face. And I've seen you pick up at least a hundred women, Dean, and trust me you have a face."
"So, my lip twitches and you immediately leap to Cas and I are fucking?" Dean demanded, disbelieving.
It was Sam's turn to go red. "I – I wrongly assumed that if you had feelings for Cas you'd have acted on them by now," he stuttered. "You're not exactly a shrinking violet, man. And he obviously has the hots for you."
The bottom of Dean's stomach dropped out. He opened his mouth to speak and nothing happened. He coughed. Finally he managed to croak, "What makes you say that?"
Sam was fire-engine red now. "I dunno, a lot of stuff. The way he stands near you, the way he looks at you… It's so obvious, man. I'm sorta surprised you didn't realize already."
A thrill of adrenaline coursed through Dean's veins, the very suggestion of Cas being interested in him making his heart pump faster and leap into his throat. And at that moment, Dean knew that he wasn't cursed, or hexed, or jinxed. It could never be that easy. No, he was definitely, totally, one hundred percent sexually attracted to the man sleeping in his motel room.
He was definitely, totally, one hundred percent screwed.
