It's short, it's cheesy, but it's DONE!
..
Cas looked up as the bell over the door chimed and it opened to emit a flurry of long blond hair.
"Daddy! Daddy! Look what Dean bought me!"
Coming around the side of the counter, she pulled herself up on the stool beside him and plopped not one, not two, but three shopping bags, all from high street stores, down on top of the books he had been tagging and entering into the system. He looked up from the clothes she was pulling out and describing with great enthusiasm, to the man who followed her in with a judgemental raised eyebrow and to his credit, Dean shrugged sheepishly. Cas shook his head and removed his reading glasses, returning his attention to his daughter and her new wardrobe.
"Wow!" He answered once she was done, "I hope you remembered to thank Dean for his generosity."
"She sure did." Dean answered, coming to rest his elbows on the counter, facing them.
"Why don't you go show your uncle Gabriel. I'm sure sure he'll demand an entire fashion show." Cas suggested.
Claire shoved the clothes back in the bag and hopped down from the stool, rounding the counter and wrapping her arms around the other man with an emphatic, "Thank you Dean!" Before disappearing around the corner from mystery fiction where the entrance to the new extension was.
It had opened a few months ago and housed the new location of Angel Cakes. When the café beside Novak and Sons had gone under, Gabriel had leapt at the chance to not only move to a larger space, but combine the two businesses, and between the increase in traffic he'd suddenly received being the boyfriend if one of the biggest movie stars in the world, and sharing profits with Gabriel, the bookstore was out of the red for the first time since Chuck had passed.
Cas looked back at Dean once Claire was out of sight.
"I know, I know!" Dean answered preemptively under Castiel's judgemental stare, "It's a little much."
"A little much? Dean, she goes to a private school. She doesn't need that many clothes. Besides, you're not exactly winning me any points with Amelia, what happens when she finds out and has yet another thing to be angry at me about."
"Well, she doesn't have to know. We can just keep them at our place for when she comes to stay." He grinned smugly, knowing he'd won this round. "Besides. I want her to like me." He added softly.
Cas sighed and took his hand, interlacing their fingers and squeezing.
"You don't need to buy her something every time you see her, she already likes you and I'd prefer it if you didn't spoil her."
"Alright." Dean conceded, coming around the counter and throwing an arm around Cas' shoulder, "But you know she'll never be spoiled. She's a good kid. Not surprising considering who her dad is."
Cas blushed under the complement and ducked his head, allowing Dean to pull him in and press a kiss to his mop of jet black hair.
"I worry sometimes how much my bad choices are going to affect her life. Have already affected her. I was gone for an entire year Dean."
"Hey, she knows that wasn't by choice. And she also knows how much you care about her. I mean, look at me and Ben, we live in different states and you're always quick to reassure me. Trust me, she's doing alright."
Cas sighed and rested his head on Dean's shoulder.
From next door, Gabriel yelled "Woo! Work it girl!"
Castiel rolled his eyes.
"So we're having dinner at your brother's tonight, don't forget."
"Right, right. He and Jess have that 'big surprise'."
"You think Jess is pregnant?."
"Oh, a hundred percent."
Cas smiled and leaned further into Dean's embrace.
"Are we going to tell them our big news?" He asked.
Dean pulled back and turned to face him, taking Cas' hand in his own and brushing his thumb over the silver band.
"Sure. In fact..." He trailed off and instead pulled Cas in, holding up their intwined hands so the ring was readily visible and holding out his phone.
"Dean, what-?"
"Shh, just smile." He said, grinning at the camera and nudging Cas until he relented and grinned in turn, smile widening when Dean turned to plant a kiss on the side of his head.
Once he'd snapped the photo, he fiddled with his phone, tongue sticking out the side of his mouth as he typed in his endearingly slow way.
"What are you doing Dean?" Cas asked finally, impatience getting the better of him.
Dean grinned and showed him the phone, which was open to a Twitter draft with the message:
As B says, if you like it you should put a ring on it. Well I like it. A lot. Can't wait to spend the rest of my life with this adorable guy! #engaged
And the picture linked beneath it.
"Telling the whole world how much I love you." He answered, looking back at the phone and posting the update before looking back up.
Castiel stared into Dean Winchester's eyes, and was hit by the all too common rush of wonder and awe that came whenever he stopped to realize that those eyes, that he closed his own to every evening and woke to every morning, those eyes that stared at him in the bathroom mirror and winked at him when they were bored at a party and wanted to leave. Those eyes he had studied for hours memorizing every fleck of gold and shade of green that made them up were the same eyes that millions of people saw on screens and posters and magazines worldwide, and yet they were his to gaze into for as long and as often as he wanted. His stomach flipped a little, as it always did when he thought about the odds of this happening and then he couldn't help but smile at the fact that it had, and that Dean gazed back at him with the same amount of awe and wonder.
He grinned as Dean's phone began to buzz with incoming messages and texts but it faded into the background as Dean neared, bringing his lips down to meet Cas'. His own phone vibrated in his pocket and the store phone was ringing off the hook, all of it paling in comparison with the feel of Dean in his arms, the taste of his lips, fingers intertwined.
From next door Gabriel let out a piercing "WHAT?!"
He giggled and broke away as his daughter and soon to be brother in law barrelled into the room, Gabriel demanding answers as to why he was not informed first and Claire demanding to be picked up so she could hug them both. With Claire in his arms and Dean's hand on his cheek, Gabriel yelling at him in the background, he smiled. Joy filling him with a warmth he never thought he would feel again. Echoes of weekends spent with his father in the shop, Claire flipping through picture books as he watched her from the counter, and now Dean, filling the space with light and hope again.
Gabriel picked up the phone but Castiel barely noticed, too wrapped up was he in the ecstasy of the moment.
He looked down at Claire beaming at him and then up at Dean wearing a similar expression.
A year ago he was resigned to a lonely, solitary existence, devoid of any companionship or even the presence of his daughter. Now he had Claire nearly every weekend, a relationship with his eldest siblings that was slowly being mended, and literally the man of his dreams.
Gabriel pushed the receiver towards him and he took it without breaking contact with those stunning eyes, Charlie's excited, shrieking tones reaching his ear before the phone was anywhere near it.
Happiness flooded in, banishing the last remnants of loneliness.
It was all he had ever wanted. And more.
...
Why are last lines so difficult?!
Any way, why don't you tell me what you thought!
