A/N: Hello, my delicious readers! How is the Christmas season treating you?
Oh, really. That's awful. And your mother, how is she taking - oh, not well, you say. And little Timmy? The mines, you say? Oh, that's... just terrible. My apologies. I shouldn't have asked.
Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed. I know I didn't give you much to review, but you reviewed anyway, and you made my day. My sincerest thanks. Every person who reviews this chapter will receive my utmost gratitude AND *gasp* A BRAND NEW CAR!
AN IMPALA, SPECIFICALLY!
Are they reviewing yet?
THE SELFSAME IMPALA WHERE LUCIFER-POSSESSED SAM BEAT DEAN INTO A BLOODY PULP BEFORE TRIGGERING AN ADORABLE MONTAGE OF THEIR BROTHERHOOD!
They're writing? Okay! Somebody get me a Honda and a bucket of black paint! They'll never know the difference.
...
And on with the show.
Dean wouldn't call himself a lonely man.
Sure, he played his cards close to the chest. Coworkers often said of him that he was "hard to get to know." It wasn't that he was standoffish, though in a subtle way he was. He smiled and joked and flirted and absolutely didn't delve into his personal life. He was the sort of man that everyone in the office knew and liked, but if you asked any one of them what town he was born in, they'd admit they didn't know.
He was born in Kansas. Not that it was important.
But though he didn't have many close friends, he didn't think he needed many. The few he had were so important to him that it compensated for any shortage in quantity. He had Bobby, and his brother Sam, and… okay, that was it. So what?
Dean was on the phone with Sam the night after he met Castiel, regaling him with the tale as he put his groceries in the refrigerator. "So then he says, 'Your aura is orange,' and goes back inside. That's it. Can you believe that?" He put a tomato in the crisper.
Sam laughed. "Maybe he's warning you to stop tanning."
"Very funny, jerkwad," Dean retorted, sandwiching the phone between his shoulder and his ear and folding his paper bags. "I have no frickin' clue. For all I know, he just told me to go fuck myself in hippie-speak." He paused for a moment, remembering Castiel's face. "But I don't know. It seemed kind of like a peace offering. Like a weird, New Agey apology."
"Maybe," Sam said. "You should get him to give you a full aura reading. You can clean out your chakras and line up your chi."
"Right."
After he hung up with Sam and heated up dinner, he stood over the sink and ate his lasagna off of a paper plate. He still hadn't unpacked the dishes. From this vantage point, he could see out the sliding glass door and into the backyard, where it was just starting to get dark, the sky turning a brilliant purple and the garden falling into shadow. Feeling inspired, Dean set down his food and walked outside.
He wandered over to the flowerbed, running his fingertips along the petals of a pink hydrangea blossom. The air was chilly, and a thin breeze brushed the back of his neck and made him shiver.
"It's a good yard."
Dean spun around.
Castiel was standing at the fence, staring at him, a lit cigarette dangling from his hand. He took a deep drag and then looked away, blowing the smoke back towards his house. "It's nice and big. The wife and kids will love it," he commented.
"I'm not married," Dean said.
Castiel chuckled, a dry rough sound. "Oh, I know that." He flicked the ashes off the butt, and fixed Dean with a piercing gaze. "You're a very lonely man."
"I'm not lonely," Dean shot back, suddenly angry at this complete goddamn stranger. "If anybody's lonely, it should be you. You've lived here for two years and I'm the only person on the block who even knows your name!"
Castiel didn't even blink. He just gazed back dispassionately. "You're interesting," he said. "My other neighbors bore me." He wrinkled his nose. "They like sandwiches."
"I like sandwiches," Dean replied, feeling incredibly confused.
"No," Castiel corrected, "you love them." He smiled slowly. "You fucking love sandwiches, Dean Winchester, and that's why you're interesting."
Dean felt torn between his desire to beat this guy to a pulp and his extreme curiosity as to how he could know this stuff just from looking at him. "Is that what an orange aura is about?" he demanded. "Is it about sandwiches, you nutbar?"
Castiel out and out laughed, tilting his head back and laughing to the sky. "Oh, Dean," he sighed. "Your aura has nothing to do with it."
Dean clenched his fists. "How do you keep coming up with this stuff? How do you know all this shit?"
Castiel's eyes seemed brighter than ever before. "You're an easy mark, Dean. You're a single man, buying a house big enough for a family. I make a comment against sandwiches and you valiantly rise to their defense. You guard your emotions very well until I hit close to home, and then you're putty in my hands." He took another drag of the cigarette. "And you want to fuck me so badly that you're about to jump the fence and take me on the lawn."
"What? No I'm not!" Dean exclaimed, stumbling back from the fence.
Castiel grinned and let the smoke drift out his nose. "Just messing with you." He shook his head. "Easy, easy mark, Dean."
"You said you're a photographer?" Dean asked incredulously.
Castiel shrugged. "I have free time."
Dean snorted and crossed his arms. "Ah, I see. In your free time you practice a little –" he wiggled his fingers – "spooooky amateur psychology."
Castiel looked at him more intently then. The sun was setting behind him and it cast him in silhouette, making his face hard to read. "You do have an orange aura, Dean. I meant that."
"You meant what, exactly?" Dean probed. "I'm not into the aura thing. I don't know what orange means."
Castiel was silent for a moment. "I'm not sure if I should tell you."
Dean glared. "Dude."
"It means…" He paused again. "It means that you have the capacity for great love. Soul-altering love. You give fully of yourself and you expect nothing back." He lowered his voice. "It is a very rare color."
Dean swallowed, unsure of what to say. He settled on, "Oh. Well, thanks."
Castiel tossed his cigarette butt in the grass and ground it out with the heel of his moccasin. "Don't thank me. I'm only saying that which is inherently true." And he walked back towards his house.
Dean stood among the hydrangeas awhile, trying to decide if Castiel was about to become his good friend or the worst neighbor he'd ever had.
