You reviewers. You are just too much. You are making me blush with your kind comments. Thank you, as ever, to cherishiskisa, darkphoenix2345, Tobirion, My Dead Love, No pen names left, and dylaila – I send you all virtual cookies!


CHAPTER SEVEN

The next morning, Dean was awoken at a few minutes past nine by the sound of voices in the kitchen. He rolled over on his bed and peered blearily out the window to see that both his parents' cars were gone. Who was Sam talking to?

He got up, threw on a t-shirt over his boxers, and considered showering first, but his curiosity got the better of him and he went downstairs. Standing in the kitchen doorway, he blinked in disbelief to see Sam pouring a glass of milk and laughing while Cas's obnoxious older brother Gabe sat on the counter like he owned the place, sorting through a pile of Starbursts next to him. "I've got watermelon, mango, blueberry, strawberry-pineapple, blackcurrant, and green apple. What do you want?"

"I didn't know they had all those flavors! I guess I'll try the green––oh, hey, Dean."

"Hey." Dean was still staring at Gabe, and quickly getting annoyed. What was this dude doing in his house, feeding candy to his baby brother?

"Mornin', Dean-o," Gabe said breezily. "Glad you're finally up. I've got a bone to pick with you." He hopped off the counter, handed the green apple Starbursts he'd just sorted out to Sam, and stalked up to Dean with a dangerous glint in his eye. "What did you say to my little bro last night?"

"What––I––what are you talking about?" Dean rubbed his eyes and frowned at the intruder.

"Don't play dumb with me, Winchester. He's been going on and on about you lately, Dean this and Dean that, and then last night he takes a phone call and gets super quiet afterward. He literally didn't say a word the whole way home. Do you know how unusual that is? I was considering taking him to the doctor, until he let it slip that the call was from you. So I figured, scratch the doctor, I'll head over here instead and get the lowdown straight from the horse's mouth. Now, tell me: what did you say?"

"I didn't say anything!" Dean automatically replied, then amended it. "Anything that's any of your business, that is. Cas isn't a baby, he can take care of himself."

"I know that, but I'm his big brother, and big brothers have to do these things." Gabe narrowed his eyes at Dean. "I just don't want you... giving him any wrong ideas. Leading him up the garden path, if you know what I mean. That's not fair. You had better be honest with him. The guy lives in enough of a fantasy world as it is, he doesn't need confusion and mixed signals coming from other folks too."

"I was honest," Dean protested. He frowned and glanced at Sam, not wanting to reveal too much. "I was like, really honest. I think that might have been the problem, actually."

"Oh." Gabe seemed satisfied, if surprised, by this answer. He took a step back and regarded Dean thoughtfully. "Hmph. Well, in that case, I have a conference to get to, so I reckon I'll round up my remaining rations and fly. Toodle-oo, boys." Having somehow gathered up the entire pile of candy in the blink of an eye, he zipped out of their house almost as quickly, leaving a disoriented Dean and a sulking Sam behind.

"Why'd you have to butt in, Dean?" Sam complained, unwrapping his last Starburst. "He's fun. He was gonna teach me to swear in Vietnamese."

Dean snorted. "Somehow I doubt that guy knows Vietnamese. Don't believe everything he tells you, Sammy. And you shouldn't have accepted candy from him, either."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Come on, Dean, you're not my dad. And he's our next-door neighbor. You are just absurd sometimes. Speaking of which, could your life be any more like a soap opera? It's getting hilarious."

Dean held up three fingers. "Read between the lines, bitch." He made a beeline for the fridge, trying to recall exactly what he'd said to Cas last night. It hadn't been that bad, had it? He'd gotten the impression that the other boy might be flirting and had simply told him that he wasn't interested. There was nothing wrong with that. Dean sighed. Although he'd never admit it, Sam's words rang true: his life was starting to feel a bit like a soap opera.

The day passed with no word from Cas until late in the evening. Dean was in his room when his mom knocked and peeped around the edge of the door. "Hey honey, a letter came for you."

Dean frowned. "A letter?"

"Yes, somebody pushed it under the front door. Here you go."

When he was alone again, Dean examined the envelope. It was made of thick cream-colored paper, and his name was written in wobbly yet stylish cursive on the front. There was no sign who it was from, but Dean didn't need to guess twice. He lifted the flap––it had only been lightly sealed––and withdrew an equally fancy sheet of letter paper. Starting to smile, Dean read what was written in the same elegant scrawl:

An Invitation
To: Dean Winchester
From: Castiel
Mr. Winchester is cordially invited to tea at four o'clock on Sunday afternoon at the residence of your humble servant, to be accompanied by classical music in the parlor, followed by a discussion of the merits of various Romantic-era piano works. If this all doesn't sound too gay, that is.

Dean's face fell when he read the last line. He couldn't tell if Cas was teasing him or was actually mad. He quickly scanned the remaining text:

RSVP
P.S. I know you said you don't drink tea, but have you heard of Lapsang Souchong? It is unique among teas. I believe the expression is 'Don't knock it till you've tried it.'

Dean's smile almost returned when he read the P.S. and he let out a long breath. Tea and classical music was not his kind of thing, but he knew he would accept the invitation anyway. He didn't want Cas to be mad at him. He ripped a sheet of paper out of the notebook lying on his bed, scribbled 'Sounds great, see you Sunday' and, failing an envelope, folded it in half and wrote 'Castiel' on the outside. Then he ran downstairs, out the door, across the lawn, over the driveway, and up onto the porch of Cas's house. There was a light on in a window upstairs, but otherwise the house was dark and silent. Dean slipped the paper under the door, stood there for a minute in the dark looking up at the lighted window, and then returned home.

He didn't communicate with Cas again before Sunday. At a few minutes to four on that afternoon, Dean closed the book he'd been pretending to read for the past half hour, got up, and had a brief intense debate with himself about changing his pants. It was futile, because he didn't own anything but jeans and one too-small dress suit, neither of which seemed appropriate for going to tea, so in the end he just kept the jeans and made his way downstairs and out the door. Luckily he didn't encounter any of his family––he wouldn't have wanted to tell them he was going to a tea party. Sam would never have let him hear the end of it.

Cas answered the door before the doorbell had stopped ringing, but with a distant expression on his face. "Hello, Dean," he said politely. "Please come in. I'm glad you could make it."

"Yeah, um, me too," Dean said awkwardly. Shit. Somehow he hadn't realized until he actually saw Cas that they were probably going to have to talk about this whole thing. After all, Cas had snidely written 'If this doesn't sound too gay' into his invitation. That wasn't something you could just ignore.

Dean had always been the type who preferred to get an unpleasant chore done sooner rather than later, so as Cas led the way down the hall, Dean cleared his throat and started talking. "Listen, I want to say sorry about the other day, on the phone... if I came across as rude or something. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I just––I guess I can be kind of blunt sometimes."

Cas had stopped walking after the first sentence, and he turned to look at Dean as the other boy finished his speech. In the ensuing silence, Dean felt like he should say something else, so he did. "And, um, tea and classical music definitely doesn't sound too gay." His eyes widened as he realized the implication of what he'd said, and he rushed to correct himself. "I mean, unless it's supposed to be. I mean, obviously it's not supposed to be––it's not supposed, I mean it doesn't have––it's not anything, it's––you––are you gay?"

Cas looked like he was trying not to smile. "Yes," he said gravely. "I take it you're not."

"No! No, I'm not. I've never––no."

Cas tipped his head. "You've never...?" His blue eyes seemed to complete the question.

Dean could feel himself blushing furiously. "I––I––can we just have tea already?"

Cas pressed his lips tightly together for a moment, nodded, half to himself, and resumed leading the way down the hall.

They emerged into a large dark wood-paneled kitchen with bundles of dried herbs hanging from nails that stuck out of the beams. There was an old cast-iron wood-burning stove and a chandelier that had candles instead of lightbulbs. Seeing Dean stare at it, Cas fetched some matches and lit the candles. "We won't be in here for long, but it's quite a dark room, and they improve the ambience," he explained.

Dean nodded, becoming belatedly aware that his mouth was slightly open, and quickly closing it. This house was awesome. It really felt like it was from another time, or place, or both. He watched in fascination as Cas opened the stove door and poked a few more small pieces of wood in, then filled a kettle and put it on to boil. Finally he returned his attention to Dean. "What sort of tea would you like?"

Dean swallowed. He was just now becoming aware of the very tangible lack of Castiel's normal half-insane ramblings. The comparative silence was so weird that he almost found himself missing them. "You mentioned some sort of tea in your invitation... I don't remember the name."

"Oh yes, Lapsang Souchong," Cas said, evidently pleased that Dean was willing to try it. "It's quite remarkable. You've never had it, have you?"

"I don't think so. Like I said, I don't drink tea much."

Cas took two teabags from a drawer and placed them in two large black mugs. One had white letters on it saying 'Heaven' with a halo on the 'H', and the other had red letters spelling 'Hell' in flames. Weirdly enough, the 'H' of 'Hell' appeared to have a halo too. Dean almost commented on that, but decided not to.

The water boiled, and Cas carefully poured it. "Milk? Sugar?" he queried.

Dean shrugged. "However it's best. I'll trust you on this."

Cas gave Dean an oddly warm look, and then carefully added a bit of sugar and milk to each cup. "Which would you like? Heaven or Hell?"

"I'll take Hell."

Without a word, Cas handed him the mug, and then crossed the room to blow out the candles in the chandelier. "The parlor's this way. I've dug out my father's Schubert and Schumann records. We'll see if we can find any promising piano pieces. Don't drink yet," he warned Dean. "Give it a few minutes to steep or you won't get the full flavor."

Hearing Cas speak more than a few sentences at once was so close to normalcy that Dean couldn't hold back a small smile as he followed the other boy into the parlor. They were entering the room from a different door now, but he quickly got his bearings, although the boxes of tools were gone. Now it looked perfectly liveable, with several large soft shabby armchairs and a short sofa. Dean made himself at home on the sofa while Cas sorted through the records, and when Dean finally tasted his tea he was taken aback.

"Dude, this tastes like smoked meat!" he spluttered.

Cas nodded. "It is smoked. That's what gives it its special taste. Good, though, isn't it?"

"It's crazy." Cas was still looking at him, so he took another sip. "Yeah, it's good."

"Lapsang Souchong was the first black tea ever made," Cas commented absently, examining the back of an LP. "It's a piece of history. Here, let's start with Schumann's Kinderszenen. I've heard about this one."

To Dean's surprise, he was soon genuinely enjoying himself. The music was charming, quaint and innocent and almost catchy enough to hum, and he found himself quickly finishing his tea and even saying yes when Cas offered him another cup. Cas continued to slowly but steadily return to his old voluble self over the course of the afternoon as they moved on to Schubert, and Dean was relieved that the other boy didn't seem to resent Dean's earlier faux pas. Before he knew it, the long rays of the setting sun were shining in the windows and they had listened to all four records Cas had found, deciding that he ought to learn to play two pieces from the Kinderszenen, as well as Schubert's Schwanengesang(which neither one of them could pronounce, but Cas claimed his brother Mike would have no trouble with).

Finally, Dean heard the distant sound of his mother's voice calling his name for supper and reluctantly said "I should go."

"Yes, I suppose so," Cas answered from his spot on the floor, slipping a record back into its sleeve. He glanced up at Dean with a faint smile. "This has been very enjoyable."

"Yeah, I had fun," Dean said honestly, standing up and stretching. "Argh, I've been sitting on my ass too long. What should I do with my mug?"

There was a short silence. Cas got up and came over. "I'll take it. Don't worry about it." He gently removed it from Dean's hands.

"Okay. Well, um, thanks––"

"Dean, I think you should know that I'm courting you."

Dean's mouth fell halfway open and stayed there while his mind rapidly re-played the words he'd just heard. "Um––you––" He swallowed, almost painfully, and started again. "But, Cas, I told you I'm not––"

"Yes," Cas interrupted him again. "I don't care."

"But––I mean, you can't––I'm just not––"

"Dean," Cas said, as if reprimanding a young child. "Don't knock it till you've tried it. You liked the Lapsang Souchong."

Dean went through dinner with his family that night in a daze, and later when he was looking in the cupboard and accidentally found that his mom had a single bag of Lapsang Souchong tea, he had to fight off a flood of weird feelings. He ended up stuffing the teabag in his pocket and slamming the cupboard door.