A/N: That awkward moment when someone recs a story to you with the warning that it hasn't been updated in a year, and it turns out it's your story.
I AM VERY SORRY.
On the other hand, rereading it did serve to remind me how much I love this 'verse and how much I can't let it go, so, um, have some more? And I won't let it die again, I promise. If I do, feel free to kick my ass.
He's mostly zoned out, sipping methodically at his coffee and staring at something a million miles away, when Anna finds him. She says his name a few times- he realizes this a moment later, but doesn't hear it just then- and then touches his arm and reflexively jerks away when he jumps.
"Sorry," he says, checking to make sure he hadn't spilled any coffee on her.
"You know," Anna says after they've both had a moment to calm down, "I've never had to tell you to focus. Bit of a role reversal, actually."
Cas sighs and moves past her, putting his empty coffee cup- and how long had he been standing there, drinking from an empty mug?- on the table beside the coffee maker and picking up the camera he had put there earlier. Anna follows at a distance, arms wrapped around herself almost defensively.
"All right, what's wrong?" she demands after a moment, while he scans over the pictures he's got so far.
"Nothing," he replies automatically, long-honed denial instinct kicking in, then catches the look she gives him and corrects himself. "Nothing to worry about. I'm having…" He groans, pushes his glasses up to rub at his eyes. "My brother is staying with me for a few days."
"Ah," she says knowingly, nodding, and moves over so she's leaning against the table right beside him.
"He says he had a disagreement with his landlord," Cas explains, as if he really needs to defend himself to her.
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know," he admits, "but their last disagreement was over whether or not it was legal to shoot at squirrels out the window with a paintball gun. I don't want to know what he did this time." He spares her a sideways glance, notices that she doesn't seem to be all that at ease herself. "Looking forward to graduating?"
"Yes," she says, too quickly, and Cas waits. "Maybe. I guess so." She pauses again, turns to face him properly. "I'll probably be moving away after graduation. I know you're not all that interested in the whole social networking thing, but you will keep in touch." It's a statement of fact, not a request.
He glances at her again, noting for the first time the terrycloth robe she's bundled up in. "You can get dressed," he says, and she heads off to do so.
He's going to genuinely miss her, he thinks. It's not exactly in-character for him- he knew from the very beginning that he was going to be dealing with college kids a lot, transient creatures by nature, and nothing would be gained by getting too attached- and he doesn't quite know how to process it.
"You need a ride home?" Anna calls out a few minutes later, walking out of the back room as she scrapes her hair back into a ponytail. She's fiddling with her phone and winding a stray tendril of hair around her finger, corkscrew-tight. Cas watches her for a moment.
"Yes," he says finally. Then, because she's been edgy all afternoon, "Are you all right?"
"It's graduation week," she says with a wry little smile. At his blank look, she explains. "You're not the only one with family in town. Or family issues."
He doesn't bother to point out that his family is always in town.
Anna's car is one of those dinky little hybrids not designed to seat anyone over the height of five-foot-six. Cas sinks as low as he can in the passenger seat, carefully eying the ceiling that is barely three inches above his head, and decides that he really needs to get his own car even as he acknowledges that he probably won't. Come winter he might feel differently, but for now everything he needs is within walking distance, and so far anyone who needs him for whatever reason has proven willing to come get him.
"Have you talked to Dean at all since the wedding?" Anna asks suddenly, when they're almost at the loft.
"Yes," Cas says, because he has, but doesn't quite know how to elaborate. Before he can find the words, she's talking again.
"You two getting along better now?" she continues.
Another person might have started laughing. Cas merely gives it a moment's consideration before nodding once. Because, really, what could he have said? Well, the sex is great, does that count?
Then his eye catches on something, a brilliant splash of color contrasted nicely against a black background. Considerably more calmly than he actually feels, he sits up as much as he can and reaches back to grab his camera bag.
"The set will be ready in a day or two," he says shortly, angry and terrified and trying not to take it out on her. "Let me know when you have the time to look it over."
Anna stops the car in the parking lot entrance, staring at the stark contrast of sleek sexy green against powerful behemoth black. "Is that a '67 Impala?" she asks, a smile tugging at her lips.
"Yes," Cas says, and now he's veering back and forth from angry and terrified to wildly uncomfortable. It's an emotional seesaw he doesn't much care for. He reaches for the door handle.
"As in, the car Dean drives," Anna continues, lifting her foot off the brake and letting her car roll forward a bit to keep Cas from escaping.
"Yes," he says again, jaw tight.
"You sly dog," she says, and after a moment, far less amused and all horrified sympathy, "And your brother's Corvette. Oh."
"Yes," Cas says one more time. "Oh."
Anna stops the car again, this time relatively close to being in a parking spot.
"Well, if you need backup, just call," she says. Cas nods once and slides out of the car, too focused on not hitting his head on the doorframe to notice Anna slides out as well. She circles the car and wraps her arms around him tight and burrows her face against his shoulder.
Cas freezes, which he's fairly sure is not standard procedure for a hug. Thankfully Anna knows better than to expect more from him.
"I'll miss you," she says to his collarbone. She pulls away a little bit and rises up onto her toes to kiss him on the cheek. "I will never know anyone else quite like you."
"This is probably for the best," Cas agrees solemnly. He puts his hand on her shoulder and opens his mouth but doesn't know what to say. Anna solves that problem by pulling his head down, resting her forehead against his, just breathing each other in. Then she gently, playfully, pushes him away.
"Go," she says. "Before they murder each other. Or Gabriel doses him with saltpeter."
Cas goes.
He walks into a war, literally.
"Ha!" Dean barks as the TV blares with sixty inches of bloody, explosive murder. "Eat lead, you little bitch."
"Says the man who brought a machine gun to a tank fight," Gabriel replies, hunching over the controller as his regenerated character jogs for a tank conveniently situated smack in the middle of their field of battle. He's lying on his stomach on the floor, Lady perched on his back like she's on a flying carpet, Dean on the couch behind him. "Pull up a controller, Cas," he offers jovially, and adds as an aside to Dean, "He's terrifyingly good at games like these. I think it's because he's actually a repressed serial killer and this is the only way he can safely vent his homicidal urges."
"Hey, Cas," Dean calls, surprisingly calm for a man who is running for dear life.
"Dean," Cas says in greeting. "Why are you here?"
"Got a text, thought it was from you," Dean says, his tongue sticking ever so slightly out of the corner of his mouth as he leans into the next turn as if that will make his character run faster.
"Cas don't text," Gabriel says, a note of triumph in his voice. "Not if he knows you'll answer the phone if he calls."
Cas closes his eyes and slides his fingertips up under the nosepiece of his glasses to massage at the bridge of his nose. "I left my phone here last night," he says in sudden realization. "And you snooped."
"I was concerned," Gabriel says in heartfelt protest, which probably would have seemed a good deal more sincere if he could actually bother to look tear his eyes away from the TV screen and look at his brother.
"Do I need to change my phone number?" Dean asks.
"You probably should," Cas says.
"Rationally concerned," Gabriel stresses. "My brother is sleeping with a stranger I've only met once. I am allowed to be concerned."
"I've never met Kali," Cas points out. Gabriel laughs, a surprisingly dark, cynical sound.
"Kid, she would eat you alive," he says, and something in his tone permits no disagreement.
Then his tank explodes.
"What the- how the hell did you do that?" he demands as Dean crows triumphantly, and Cas suddenly understands. As the Vikings had drinking contests and the Romans wrestling, this is merely Gabriel's way of testing Dean's mettle. Which is a terrifying thought, really, but is far better than the alternative. Gabriel is fairly infamous in their little town for getting one of Rachel's boyfriends drunk and sending him, via a senior citizen tour bus, to Montana.
Cas can't really judge him for that one, though. He'd helped, after all. But the boyfriend in question had been a two-timing dick, and the only men in Rachel's life allowed to treat her like anything less than a goddess are her brothers.
"Don't break anything," he orders, and retreats to his computer.
An hour later Cas is attempting not to hover around Dean in the kitchen, as he's already gotten snapped at once for doing so. He's curious, though. He has precious little in the ways of cooking skills himself, never saw the need for it when there were grocery stores and restaurants with pre-made meals just out his front door, and he wants to know what Dean considers 'real food'.
"Your brother is kinda psychotic," Dean says, sucking briefly on a scalded finger as he stirs the spaghetti into the boiling water. Spaghetti and meatballs, Cas, c'mon, it's not that hard, he'd said. And Cas had said show me.
"I tried to warn you," Cas says. He slithers around behind Dean as the other man heads for the sink and peers into the gently bubbling pot of sauce, then picks up the wooden spoon lying on the counter and starts to reach it into the pot for a taste.
"Give me that," Dean orders. He takes the spoon away and physically herds Cas back, using his broader frame to great effect. "You're worse than Sammy," he says, all exasperated fondness.
Cas gives him a kiss, because it seems like the appropriate response, then another. Dean settles one hand on Cas' hip, his fingers working up under the hem of Cas' shirt.
"How long's Gabriel's shift last?" Dean asks, and Cas almost snorts. Gabriel had left a bare half hour ago and Dean is nearly whining, like they're having to steal away to make out in the closet or something instead of having eight solid hours of brother-free time.
"Until midnight," he says. "What about you?"
"I open tomorrow," Dean says in faint irritation, chin tucked against Cas' collarbone as he mouths at Cas' neck. "Gotta get up early. And you," and here he bites at Cas' jaw, hard enough to sting a little in mild reprimand, "get to work whenever you feel like it. Real jobs suck."
"I had a real job once," Cas says. "I didn't like it." Dean huffs a disdaining laugh against his skin and mouths at Cas' chin, bites at his lower lip, then kisses him properly again.
They fit together well, Cas thinks. Slotted together, knee to shoulder, comfortable difference in height. And it's not just physical. Dean handles Cas' general weirdness well, and hasn't let the Novak clan scare him off, and- by far most important, in Cas' opinion- isn't freaking out over the whole gay thing, or even the possibility that the people who know him might find out.
It's been barely two weeks and he's already decided he could get used to this, he realizes. Cas sleeps with gorgeous jerks- like Balthazar, like Dean was supposed to be- because there's no emotional entanglement afterward. They aren't supposed to turn around after a couple romps in the sheets and reveal themselves to be decent guys. That's not how it works. Cas doesn't risk himself like that, won't risk himself like that. He's learned his lesson in that regard.
He could fall in love with Dean Winchester, he thinks. And what scares him most is that that doesn't scare him at all.
The sound of water sizzling pulls Cas back to reality. He breaks away from Dean a little bit, looking over his shoulder.
"The spaghetti's boiling over," he says conversationally.
Dean jerks away with a curse, reaching carefully around the steaming pot to turn the heat down. Cas takes advantage of his distraction to slip in and sneak a taste of the sauce. He has no idea what homemade tomato sauce is supposed to taste like, since all of the sauce he's ever had came out of a jar, but he decides he likes it.
A second later he's being bodily pushed out of the kitchen. "Out," Dean orders, a bit redundantly since Cas is already on the threshold. "Out and stay out until I say you can come back." And he pushes Cas down onto the couch, where Lady is making confetti out of yet another dish towel, having learned very early on that she is not welcome in the kitchen when there are people in there.
Cas settles on the couch and turns to watch Dean, art in motion.
They eat on the floor in front of the couch, since Lady's left slobber-soaked towel bits all over the couch cushions, and because the TV still doesn't have a stand and the sunlight reflects weirdly off its screen at certain angles. It's pretty good food, as far as Cas can tell. The meatballs are well done, perfectly spiced and tender enough to fall apart at a strong jab from a fork, which even Cas knows is a good sign for a meatball.
"Dad's recipe," Dean says, caught between pride and something else, something that doesn't bear looking into, when Cas remarks on it. "He wasn't all that great in the kitchen, but he could grill anything, and he made awesome meatballs."
Cas considers this. He knows little of Dean's parents; his mother died when Dean was a child and Sam just a baby, and Dean both loved and feared John. How the Winchester boys had grown up, Cas has no idea. He just knows it wasn't a normal, quiet childhood.
"My father and I went fishing once," he says, the words slip-sliding out without his permission. "I caught something, I don't remember what. He showed me how to clean it and cook it." He doesn't like fish now, hadn't really back then, but the rare treasure of his father's full attention had made the whole thing worthwhile. Jackson Novak had had five children, and he had done his best to treat them all fairly, but Cas had been a quiet, shy little thing, and was always overshadowed by his older siblings. And he had been merely seven when Jackson had died; he had had the least time with his father, and his memories were the most distorted by his age and the passing of time.
It's barely half a story, but Dean understands loss, and the value of such perfectly preserved memories. He leaves Cas to his memories and flicks a piece of meatball at Lady, who has been parked at his feet and begging since he first sat down. Then he stands and moves past Cas, dumping his plate in the sink. By the time he turns around again Cas is behind him, close enough to smell the spices he'd been cooking with on his skin.
"Should we put a sock on the doorknob?" Dean asks.
"If you think that will stop him," Cas agrees, and pulls Dean towards the bedroom.
He's in a weird mood tonight, all antsy and snappish, the melancholy he always associates with talking about his father joining forces with the unease from the emotional epiphany earlier, and Dean is hard-pressed to keep up.
He bites and nips and sucks at vulnerable skin until Dean swears and pins him down and kisses him, hard, to keep his mouth busy. He squirms away from Dean's attempts to get his clothes off and lurks beside the bed. He needs something, something he has no words for, and Dean doesn't know him well enough yet to be able to provide it. Dean sits on the bed, half-naked and obviously annoyed, and Cas is thinking it might be better to just send him home.
"The hell is up with you?" Dean demands in irritation. Cas shakes his head and heads for the door.
He doesn't make it.
Dean is bigger than Cas, about two inches taller and maybe forty pounds of pure muscle heavier. Cas had thought nothing of it until Dean's solid weight was pressing him up against the doorframe, pinning him neatly in place. Cas could fight it- he's the youngest of five siblings, he knows all the dirty tricks in the book- but he accepts it instead, reveling in the firm strength behind him, the hand Dean has rested on the back of his neck, the feeling of Dean's breath stirring his hair and ghosting over his skin. He gently digs his thumb into the base of Cas' skull, drawing circles over the skin there, and Cas can't help but push back into the touch.
"What do you need, Cas?" Dean asks.
"I don't know," Cas says, honestly enough. He needs a good many things. He needs a car. He needs a TV stand. He needs to get Gabriel moved back into his own apartment. He needs Dean in his life, every day, and he needs Dean to leave and never come back.
"All right," Dean says easily enough, with the casual authority of someone who doesn't always understand himself either. "You figure it out, let me know. Meanwhile, it's your turn." And he brings up his free hand and slaps something against the doorframe above Cas' head. He opens one eye and sees the corner of a foil packet peeking out from under Dean's fingers.
He rolls his head back and looks at Dean, meeting that almost-hazel gaze out of the corner of his eye. "Have you ever done this before?" he asks mildly. As the experienced gay man in the room, it feels like his responsibility to ask.
"Nope." Dean lets the condom fall and gently, slowly, pushes away from Cas. "That's what I've got you for, right?"
Cas holds on to the doorframe and stays there a good long time after Dean's retreated. Then he picks up the condom and turns to face the bed.
They put a ridiculous amount of prep into it.
Actually, Cas does. Dean mostly just squirms and bucks and curses when Cas hesitates and bites his wrist to keep himself from begging. He manages to keep himself mostly composed until Cas has worked three fingers into him and finds his prostate, and after that, Cas can guarantee anyone in the store downstairs knows for sure what they're doing up here.
Cas leaves him almost delirious on the bed, pulling away only long enough to roll he condom on. When he slides into Dean, it's to no resistance save a long, bone-deep shudder.
He pauses for a second to admire the view, as it's one he seldom sees: Dean's back, the planes and valleys of golden skin, the long line of his spine, the wavering line of his sides as he breathes. He has a scar low on his back, left of his spine, and a slight furrow in the skin of his neck where the cord for the pendant he's always wearing has left its impression. He also has a subtle spray of freckles across his shoulders, only a shade or two off from his base skin tone, and Cas thinks he could spend hours counting them sometime.
Cas leans down across the body beneath him, resting his chin on Dean's shoulder.
"Thank you," he says, and he can't even begin to say for what.
"Anytime," Dean says, and then, "Are you gonna fuck me now, or was all that some giant tease- aahhfuck."
Cas buries his smile against Dean's hair and rocks back into him, then pushes himself back up and starts fucking Dean properly until the only thought left in his head is of the man beneath him.