Howdy, doody!
It's me, finally back again with chapter two.
I know the fandom is exploding right now, and I'm exploding, too, and just to keep us all a little bit more in, here's some fluff for ya.
Again: there is a handy slang dictionary at the end of the chapter for all the words you won't understand, but if there's some other intricacy of '50s language/society you don't get, please feel free to drop me a line in the reviews, as a PM, on my tumblr, etc. etc. etc.
Also, I highly suggest you look up what Dean's car (1957 Chrysler 300C) looks like. It's some eye candy, alright.
So anyway, please enjoy this chapter, and I'd love reviews with what you thought! xoxoxo
Dean is halfway to the garage after dropping Sam off at school when a little light starts to blink on his car's dashboard.
His car is breaking again.
Dean hisses a curse at her, clamping a cigarette between his teeth and grimly lighting it. He floors the gas pedal and zooms along, determined to reach the garage before she stops.
He's half a block away when she does.
With a bitter laugh, he stubs out his cigarette and gets out of the car. "Thanks a lot," he says sarcastically before jamming his hands in his pockets and stalking over to the garage.
It's already bustling with life when he gets there, and he can't hold back his grin when he smells the oil and metal and booze. "Hey, Gordon!" he hollers as he approaches. "She broke down again. Help me drag her in?"
Gordon walks out to him, wiping his hands on a small dishrag. "You oughta get yourself a new chariot," he advises for the millionth time.
"What, and give up Baby? Never!" Dean rebukes indignantly. His car is his only pride and joy besides his brother. A huge, sleek 1957 Chrysler 300C. He has the best car in town—even better than the Socs' Mustangs and Cadillacs—and he knows it. Dean got lucky with his car—he pulled her out of a wreck when she was new, but her owner didn't want to keep her anymore. So Dean took her and even though it took him more than a year to fix her up, he loves that car.
The only disadvantage is that she breaks. All the time.
Balthazar ends up joining them, and together they help Dean push the car down the street to the garage. Their boss, Bobby, yells at Dean to "leave that car alone and come do what you get paid to!" After a loving but reprimanding knock on his car's hood, Dean complies.
A lot of people in town stay away from that garage because of the neighbourhood it's in or the boys that work there.
Which is a shame, 'cause it's the best damn garage in the Midwest.
Dean's best with the muscle cars. Gordon sticks to the big sedans. Balthazar likes the tiny, sleek, futuristic cars, but always fixes up the oldest ones they get. And Alistair is the best salesperson in the place—he can make a person pay three times as much than is necessary for a simple service that he claims "extras" have been added to.
Coincidentally, they form the majority of the core greaser gang. There's also Victor and Crowley, but they spend far too much time passed out in the back rooms of bars to get jobs at the garage. Sam's considered a greaser, too, and so are all the girls, but Dean won't let Sam fight and the Socs won't hit girls. There's a few drifters that run with them sometimes. Garth, Harry, and Ed. But they're never much use in a fight and make for awkward company, so the normal greasers don't invite them over much.
They're a merry bunch when they're together, but the second they part ways, things get bad.
All the boys are like Dean—dropouts. Dean, at 19, is one of the youngest (though he'll be 20 in a little more than five months). Maybe it's because of seeing all the JD failures around him that Dean so insists on Sam going to school, though Sam enjoys it.
The day rolls along and they only get a few customers, meaning Dean has time to work on his car. He's got his hands under her hood, twiddling at the battery wires, when he hears Balthazar and Alistair talking.
"I heard the eldest two are twins."
"They are. I've seen them. Real nosebleeds. Tall and blond."
Balthazar snorts. "What, you scared of them or somethin'?"
"No," Alistair says calmly. "Just letting you know. They're from Boston, too, and everyone knows they don't rumble up there."
"I heard they've been arrested."
"For public intoxication, Meg said."
They snicker. "Pathetic."
Dean pokes his head around the raised hood and asks, "Hey, who are y'all bashin' ears about?"
Two identical smirks of bloodthirsty animals. "New family in town—the Miltons."
Dean raises his eyebrows and closes the hood of the car. He wipes his hands on his worn jeans and comes over to lean against his car's side. "Toss me a cancer stick, wouldja?"
"Not in my garage!" Bobby's voice yells.
Alistair grins and hands Dean a cigarette. Dean hooks it in between his lips and lights up. "So what about the Miltons?" he asks.
Balthazar shrugs. "They seem to be real oddballs. The oldest—don't know their names—work downtown, not sure where, and the father has a gig at one of the high-rise corp'rate places. There's a son who's a senior, but from what we've heard, he's actually a real hep cat. And…" He hesitates, memory failing him, and Alistair chimes in:
"There's a freshman daughter, too. And—"
"A kid who's a junior, right?" Dean finishes.
"So we've heard," Alistair shrugs. "I heard… well, I heard his roof is leaking, if you know what I mean."
"You said they were from Boston?" Dean clarifies.
"Mhm," Balth confirms. "Pale ones in every sense of the word."
They share a laugh, and then Bobby catches them smoking and doing nothing and sets them right back to work.
Dean works on his car until lunch, at which point he darts into the break room for a sandwich. There's a few girls there—Jo, Meg, and Lisa—and even though Lisa is all for hiding away in a cupboard with Dean for a few minutes, he's not really in the mood for dealing with his clingy, needy girlfriend right now. So he wolfs down his sandwich as fast as he can and makes up some excuse about a really difficult repair job on a Chevy Impala and runs out again.
The second he comes back, there is a particularly malfunctioning Chevrolet Impala waiting for him for real.
He loses track of how long he's been there as he gets into a rhythm. When he finally rolls out from under the car for some air and a drink, he catches sight of a clock.
"Shit!" he yelps, and that earns him a smack upside the head from Bobby for cussin' in front of a customer. "I gotta pick Sam up from school—completely forgot—"
He strips off his apron and shoves it at Gordon before jumping into his car and jetting away.
When he arrives at the school, there's still a considerable amount of students there, so it takes Dean a few seconds to find Sam. When he does, he sees his brother talking to a scrawny kid with a mop of unruly black hair. Sam sees Dean's car rolling along and waves to Dean; he apparently bids the other kid farewell, because they start to walk in opposite directions.
"Hi!" Sam chirps, sliding in next to Dean.
Dean is peering through the window at the retreating figure of the boy. "Hey, bean," he says absently and points at the kid. "Is that him? Your friend."
Sam nods, and that's all the encouragement Dean needs to satisfy his suddenly burning curiosity.
Castiel can see the car coming out of the corner of his eye—how could he miss it? He wonders idly if he'll get to meet Dean, but accepts that he probably never will.
Dean flashes Sam a grin and rolls the window down as he approaches the boy. "Hey!" he calls, and the kid slowly turns around.
This is Dean. It has to be. The car stops, and so does Castiel. The first thing he notices when he glances at the driver's seat is green. An expanse of green eyes, crinkled at their corners with a smile so blindingly beautiful it almost hurts to look at, pointed straight at him. His hair is a tawny, windswept mess of waves and one strands falls just over his eyes. Freckles span across his nose and cheekbones, and a well-defined jaw is dusted by stubble.
This can't be Dean. This is—this is a movie star.
Castiel realises he is staring and blinks to snap himself out of it, hoping Dean's beauty was just a hallucination; a fantasy.
It wasn't.
"Me?" he asks feebly, and Dean's smile only becomes more blinding as full lips draw back to reveal gleaming, pointed teeth. Castiel can't hold back his shiver.
Having eyes that blue can't be healthy, Dean thinks nonsensically as sparks scuttle along his skin when the kid looks at him. They practically glow as he looks at Dean, and Dean can't help but stare.
The boy is unearthly. His skin is just a shade too pale, his hair just a shade too dark, his shoulders just too narrow, his waist too slim… Everything about him is so overwhelming, Dean thinks he should avert his eyes—but he realises it'd be even more painful to not look.
"Yeah, you," he manages to get out, and the boy blinks again.
Dean's voice is a rasping drawl of whiskey and smoke and singing too loud, and Castiel thinks he could listen to him read the phonebook for days on end on a loop and never tire. He cautiously takes a step closer to the car. "Can—can I help you?"
"Just wanted to meet'cha, is all," Dean explains. "Sammy here wouldn't shut up about you, so—"
Castiel tears his eyes away from Dean for the first time to see a red-faced Sam shoving at his big brother's arm defensively.
"Would, too!" Sam protests. "May have mentioned you once or twice. I did say Dean tends to exaggerate…"
Dean doesn't even spare Sam a glance—he's too busy drinking the boy in front of him in with his eyes.
The boy's chapped lips slowly spread into a reluctant smile and he says, "I don't mind," in a voice like dusk. Then, his eyes snap back to Dean and Dean can't breathe.
Suddenly, Dean is scared, and needs to pass it all off lightly. He leans out of the window a little, blinking against the sunlight. "Well, hey, any friend'a'Sammy's is a friend of mine. No matter how much of a square he is." He doesn't mean the insult—because even though the kid is wearing Soc clothes, neatly pressed by his loving housewife mother, and has probably never kissed a girl or seen a pin-up, he's… beautiful.
Sam doesn't sense this and shoves Dean again. "Don't be rude, Dean," he reprimands.
Dean flashes Castiel another smile, and Castiel feels suddenly dizzy. He didn't even register Dean's cajoling words, but pretends he did and looks mildly offended.
Dean evidently accepts it and drawls, "Sorry, sorry." A new thought seems to strike him, for he suddenly leans out a little further. "What'd you say your handle was, anyhow? Sam says it different each time."
The kid cocks his head to the side a little, pinning Dean with a calculating, probing stare as his blue eyes narrow in confusion. "I didn't say my… handle was anything. But it's Castiel. Milton."
Before he can overthink it, Dean is reaching out the window to shake Castiel's hand, even though damn, that name is a mouthful.
Castiel reaches out to shake it, and Dean's hand is warm and dry and his golden, muscled arms are bare and they hold on for a just a little too long.
"Yeah?" Dean asks with a smile. "Nifty. Pleasure to meet you, Cas."
The nickname cuts through Castiel like the switchblade he knows Dean carries in one of his many pockets, and he nods mutely. "Likewise, Dean."
Dean finally releases Cas's smooth, long-fingered hand and leans back into the car, still smiling broadly.
The sudden shift jolts Castiel back to reality. He swallows in panic and curses himself internally. "Do you have the time?"
Dean lazily glances at his car's clock. "Three-forty."
Castiel gives a whine of dismay as one hand leaps to tug frantically at his hair. "Oh, no," he breathes. "Um—I need to go—"
He curses himself, he curses his family, he curses the day he was born.
"It was nice to meet you," he says in Dean's direction, too afraid to look at him again because he knows that if he does, he'll not be able to leave. "I'll—see you around. Bye, Sam—"
And he dashes off along the street away from them, too anxious about being late to even notice that he didn't stutter a single time when talking to Dean.
Dean watches him go in the rearview mirror, and once he rounds the corner, slumps back and lets out a low whistle. "Gee whiz," he says slowly, mind whirling. "You sure do know how to pick your friends, Sammy."
"Thanks!" Sam smiles, and Dean starts to drive them home.
"…I thought you said he has a stutter so bad he can hardly talk," Dean suddenly frowns.
Sam blinks. "Well, he does."
"I didn't hear one."
"Neither did I."
"Hm."
"Hm."
Castiel—Cas, he thinks suddenly and blushes bright red—runs all the way home. He's late, of course, but it's well worth it.
At dinner, when his mother asks him how his day went, he smiles privately into his food and answers that he made friends.
Dean sleeps and dreams of blue eyes.
Cas dreams of green.
SLANG DICTIONARY
Chariot: car
JD: juvenile delinquent
Nosebleed: a stupid idiot person. Just a basic meaningless insult.
Rumble: fight
Bashing ears: talking
Cancer stick: cigarette
Oddballs: people who don't fit in
Gig: job
Hep cat: someone who is in the know, cool
Roof is leaking: a little bit crazy
Pale one: someone who is boring and bizarre
Hey, bean: hello
Square: an old-fashioned boring person
Handle: name