"So the shower's across the hall, if you want. I mean, I'm feeling a bit overdressed for breakfast, myself, but I'll probably just throw on some sweats or something. You can...well, I mean, you don't have to take a shower or anything—I'm not saying you need to, but, like, if you want…" Dean knew he was rambling, but he wasn't quite sure how to gracefully segue out of the fuzzy, warm little bubble of happiness they were sharing. Cas was still grinning at him, so he wasn't too embarrassed.

"It's fine, Dean," he said, laughing a little. "I wouldn't be too proud to borrow a pair of those sweats for myself, at least." He glanced down at the tailored outfit from the night before, now hopelessly wrinkled, and grimaced. "It doesn't really count as a 'walk of shame' if you're doing it in your own car and without anybody to see you, I think, and I'm hopelessly lacking in shame, anyway. Even so, sweatpants sound extremely tempting right now."

Nodding in agreement (and allowing himself a surge of heated anticipation at the thought of Cas in his clothes), Dean stood, offering Cas a hand up, and led him to the closet. The house was old enough that the bedrooms all ran small, and a dresser would have taken up valuable floor space. Dean had opted, therefore, in favor of non-stubbed toes and unbruised hips, adding extra shelves to his closet, instead, for all the stuff that didn't go on hangers. In the moment that his hand moved to flick the switch for the closet light, he suddenly remembered his hurried, anxious preparations for their date. In particular, he recalled how he'd been too stressed to deal with tidying up afterward. "Um," he said, eyes falling on the heap of clothes lying on the closet floor, where he'd swept them from his bed.

Cas, seeing the pile, seemed to know exactly where Dean's mind was heading. "Before you say one word, I want to point out that this is entirely fair play," he said. "If you remember, the first time you came to my house, you stumbled across my own hidden baskets of laundry. I was immensely gratified that you didn't lift an eyebrow over it, and I am perfectly happy now to return the favor."

"Well, you know, I left this here just for that purpose," Dean joked, blush fading but still visible on his cheeks. "Had to make you feel at home, right?"

"Of course!" Cas nodded. "Very thoughtful." He winked, and Dean felt actual flutters in his stomach. Trying not to blush again, he grabbed for the stack of sweatpants on a shelf, pulling down a couple of pairs.

Meanwhile, however, Castiel's eyes had fallen on the pile of clothes on the ground once more. "Dean, are those…" Stooping down, he lifted a shirt sleeve to reveal the tag attached to it. "Are these…all new clothes?" He looked back up at Dean with curiosity and amusement in his eyes.

Dean sighed. "It's possible my friends dragged me out shopping," he confessed. "Something about my wardrobe being a little unpolished." He wasn't going to cop to having asked them for the makeover. That would have been admitting a little too much for now.

"Well, I personally see no issue with your regular clothing, but…" Cas stuck his hand back into the pile, this time hesitating on the lapel of a sportcoat. "Now I almost regret not taking us somewhere requiring formal wear last night. Hmmm." He looked distracted, caught up in his thoughts, until Dean cleared his throat.

"Okay, well, bacon won't cook itself," he pointed out, holding out the sweats. Grabbing a shirt for himself from another stack, he made sure Cas was sorted out before taking himself across the hall to the bathroom. Teeth brushed, clothes changed, cold water splashed liberally into his face, he finally felt clear-headed enough not to burn the shit out of anything, and he headed downstairs to make a Cas-worthy breakfast.

Castiel, meanwhile, had made his own way to the kitchen and was happily watching the coffeemaker hiss and bubble its way to a full pot. "I hope you don't mind," he said. "I'm not sure about your caffeine dependency, but mine is significant."

"Same here," Dean confirmed. "Been drinking it black, by the pot, since junior high." Cas gave him a small frown, but Dean just shrugged. Cas returned to gazing at the pot in pleasant anticipation, and Dean dragged out the frying pan and bacon.

"Might be a little weird, but I like to have the bacon ready before I make anything else," he explained. "Pancakes take longer, but we can snack while they come together." In a few minutes, the kitchen was filled with delicious aromas. Cas filled mugs of coffee for each of them, adding a small splash of milk to his own. Smiling at each other over the rims of the mugs, Dean got so caught up in the feeling of contentment that he almost let the first skillet burn.

When they were finally sitting down to full plates, Dean realized that he hadn't checked his phone since before they'd gone out the night before. It was still sitting with his keys, where he'd tossed them when they'd come in the house, and he saw several missed messages, including a notification that Sam had tagged him in something on Instagram. He scoffed quietly, opening the application that he never used except to occasionally check up on a few classic car restorers.

Sam had posted a photo of the two of them as young kids, driving Matchbox cars on the table. Over the image, a script font read, "Because I have a brother, I'll always have a friend." Dean groaned, shaking his head.

"Everything okay?" Cas asked, fork paused in midair.

"Yeah, just Sammy," Dean replied. He had a sudden wicked thought. Doing a quick image search for pictures of mountains, he chose the first decent-looking candidate and uploaded to his own account with the caption, "What we do in life echoes in eternity." He tagged Sam, smirking to himself.

Cas was looking over his shoulder. "What's that mean?" he said, looking puzzled.

"Not a damn thing. It's a quote from Gladiator." Dean tossed the phone down, feeling satisfied. "But Sam'll drive himself crazy trying to read into it." He grinned at the thought.

"Dean," Cas said, expression warring between guilty and amused.

"Nah, it's okay," Dean said. "I'm not upset with him, either—not really. But I reserve the right to mess with him a little before I let him off the hook. Between the gossiping and the dancing around things, he made me worry, so now he gets to worry a little more himself."

Cas shook his head in disappointment, but it was obviously feigned; his lips were twitching at the corners, fighting to stay firm. Turning back to his food, he asked, "Did he know we were going out yesterday?"

Dean felt a bit of his own guilt. "No, I didn't tell him. Haven't really been spending a whole lot of quality conversation time with him lately, what with him being so weird. I mean, I didn't keep it a secret. I told other people!"

Cas held up a placating hand. "Don't worry. I actually didn't tell my own brother, either. Different reasons, though, of course. Last time I went on a date, I made the mistake of telling Jimmy about it, and he was like a dog with a bone. It wasn't even anything serious, just a work event for which we were all 'highly encouraged' to bring partners, but Jimmy was asking about it for months after." He sighed. "Jimmy married Amelia fresh out of college, and I suppose he and everyone else thought we'd be as identical in that respect as in everything else."

"Ouch." Dean winced in sympathy.

"Oh, believe me, I'm more irritated by the nosiness and judgment than I am about the substance of their opinions," Cas explained. "My brother, my cousins, my parents…everybody around me has always seemed so focused on the idea of finding a mate, any mate, just so they wouldn't have to be alone. Personally, I never minded the quiet too much." He smiled.

"I know what you mean," Dean agreed enthusiastically. "It's like the whole world can't think about anything else besides finding a pretty face and a nice smell, and you're supposed to forget everything else when that comes along. I'm supposed to just roll over and be a 'good omega,' like the rest of me is…" Worthless. Trashy. Not good enough. No self-respecting alpha would ever… He shook his head, pushing down the insults.

Cas was studying his face thoughtfully, but he simply nodded. "And being a "good alpha" means I'm supposed to bite first and ask questions later, taking the first scent-compatible person I meet and, I don't know, forcing them to change anything that interferes with how I want us to live, or that differs from the sort of mate I deem appropriate." He growled a little, scowling at the idea. "Frankly, I'd rather be alone forever than do that."

Dean reached across the table and took Castiel's hand; the tension that had gripped Cas's form evaporated at the touch. "But you'd never," he said gently. Cas hummed, turning their hands and stroking Dean's knuckles with his thumb. Smiling then, Dean added, "I mean, I've seen you get aggressive, so I know it's in there, but otherwise, you're probably the most in-control guy I've ever met."

Cas snorted a laugh. "You should have seen me before," he said. Dean gave him a questioning look, and he sighed before standing up to refill his coffee mug. "Ask me when I graduated from high school."

"When did you—"

"I didn't."

Dean made a face. "Right, because they just let drop-outs be lawyers."

"I didn't say I didn't finish," Cas pointed out, taking Dean's mug and topping it off without being asked. "I simply never graduated. After my fourth suspension for fighting during my freshman year, my parents assessed the likelihood that I'd be able to get through another three years without more serious consequences coming into play, and they decided to pull me out. I did the rest of my high school education at home and online."

"Really," Dean said slowly, wrestling to mesh the concept of an angry, violent teenager with the man placidly sipping coffee in front of him. The cognitive dissonance was wild.

"Yep," Cas said, popping the 'p' at the end of the word. "Of course, that was its own sort of hell, with my parents breathing down my neck, and Jimmy waffling between enjoying his role as Big Man on Campus and trying to hide his enjoyment because he thought I would be jealous, for some reason." He huffed a dry chuckle. "I ran through the requirements as fast as they allowed me, then got my GED at the first possible opportunity. Of course, since I was only just sixteen then, my parents wouldn't let me flit off to college, so I spent the next year and a half volunteering for every possible world-saving group that would have me, channeling all my aggression in more proactive, slightly less illegal directions."

"Slightly?" It was hard to keep up with all this new information; Dean felt like he was seeing a completely different side to Cas.

"Well," Cas said, with a slow smile. "Let's just say that there are laws, and then there are laws. The attorneys for some of those groups truly earn their fees. Watching them work their magic was probably a big part of why I went into law in the first place."

Dean blew out a breath on a whistle. "James Dean in a suit and tie." He tilted his head, a sudden thought occurring to him. "So back in the woods, when you wanted to chase down that dick alpha…"

"I mean, it's not that I make a habit of that sort of thing," Cas said, wincing a little. "Not anymore. Teenage me had something of an overdeveloped sense of justice and an underdeveloped ability to control it. It was far easier for the school to crack down on the student throwing punches instead of the bully with the better poker face." He sighed.

"Hey, you made the best of it," Dean said. "Pretty impressive if you ask me. I almost went the GED route myself, but I didn't want to drop auto shop. Made Dad mad, but…" He shrugged. "Wasn't like that was unusual."

"He wanted you to drop out?" Cas said, looking baffled.

"He just…" Dean thought hard, searching for a way to explain that wouldn't sound awful. There wasn't one. "He didn't think it was important. He figured I'd end up mated pretty quick, and then it would be up to my mate whether I was allowed to work in the first place."

"One of those, then," Cas said, irritation obvious in his tone and underlying his scent. "I'm glad you didn't listen. You enjoy your work?"

Dean smiled, though his throat felt a little tight. "Very much," he said firmly.

"Then that's what matters."

When breakfast ended, there was a period of awkwardness, in which neither of them seemed to have a good idea about what to do next, or how to end the "date." For Dean's part, half of his brain felt like it would be perfectly content to have Castiel stay there through lunch, dinner, and after, for as long as he was willing. The other half of him wanted to process, and he knew he couldn't really do that as long as they were sharing the same space. Every time their arms brushed together, or Cas threw him one of those gorgeous smiles, his thoughts fell to pieces—happy, happy pieces.

Finally, Cas glanced at the microwave clock and frowned unhappily. "Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone," he murmured. "Picasso said it, and I should probably tattoo it on myself somewhere. The breakfast was definitely worth the delay, but I'm afraid that I still need to get my run in, or I'll pay for it later." He made no move to get up from his chair, though.

"You training for something?" Dean asked. The thought hadn't occurred to him, since his own race goal was so recent.

"Yes and no," Cas said, wrinkling his nose. "Some of the runners in my group have detailed schedules, with planned workouts and long runs and meticulously tracked mileage, all leading to big goals. I don't have the desire or the discipline to keep that kind of focus. Simpler just to keep a decent routine going, with a reasonable amount of time on my feet, and then jump into any event that looks interesting on a given weekend. Sometimes I end up regretting it, such as when I signed up for a half-marathon the morning of the race without bothering to notice that it was an almost entirely uphill course." He winced, and Dean cackled. "I usually do well enough in my age group, but the primary goal is simply fun. And it calms my brain a bit—makes things less noisy in there."

Dean nodded, having noticed how his own brain felt more relaxed when his feet were doing most of the work. "You know, that morning, back at the park, I never said, but I was, um, checking out the path for a 5K race." Confessing that fact felt brave, and Dean kept his eyes on his hands, toying with the leather bracelet on his wrist. "It's not like a marathon or anything, I mean, but…"

"Dean, that's great!" Cas said. "Is it your first race?" When Dean nodded, still looking down shyly, Cas reached to pat him on the shoulder. "You'll do wonderfully, I'm sure. And I don't want to hear anything about it being 'only' a 5K. Try telling that to the Olympic 5000-meter runners. Tell Kip Lagat he's not doing anything impressive when he's sprinting well over fourteen miles per hour."

"Okay, well, I ain't going to be moving at anything like that speed!" Dean said, tension dissipating. "I just want to make it across the finish line ahead of the walkers and the folks with baby strollers, and hopefully without puking or falling down." He glanced up, hoping Cas wouldn't tease him for his low expectations. Cas was simply regarding him with warm pride.

"Well, I wouldn't underestimate those groups. I know racewalkers who'll finish long courses well ahead of anything I can do, and some of those stroller pushers are skilled runners who are barely slowed at all by pushing. Did you know they make racing strollers? I've thought about getting one for picking up groceries." He put his hand on Dean's shoulder again, this time keeping it there; the warmth and grip sent a little shiver through him. "You should enjoy yourself, Dean. There's nothing like the energy of a race, whether you're first across the line or last. If you want, I could register and run it with you."

Dean scoffed a little. "Please. You're, like, a real runner. I'm just a guy in cheap Nikes, sucking wind and trying not to die."

"You know there's no such thing as a 'fake runner,'" Cas said, tone light. "If you're running, then you're a real runner." Dean pursed his lips, shaking his head, and Cas made a noise of frustration. "Truly, I don't understand how you can be so confident in some areas, then think so little of yourself in others. If you've really only been running since just after we met, then being ready after only a couple of months to run an official race is something in which you should take pride. Your brother would certainly be proud of you."

"Little kids can do it," Dean muttered. "I've seen pictures. And we're not telling Sam, or anybody else."

"Why on earth not? He'd be thrilled to cheer for you!" He sounded so confused, unable to understand Dean's insecurity over the matter.

"Because he'd be so supportive," Dean tried to explain, and Cas looked even more lost. Trying again, he said, "He'd be all 'Way to go, Dean! Good for you!' and it would feel like how parents talk to the kid who brought home a freaking scribble drawing. And it would be even worse if it did go sideways, because he'd still paste on that smile and say, 'Good try!' even if I tripped on my own laces, and…I'd just rather tell him after. Or not at all, if it's bad."

Cas's gaze was contemplative as he looked at Dean for a moment, and then he leaned forward and brushed a gentle kiss against Dean's lips. "Then I feel honored that you told me," he said simply. "And I will be even more honored to either run with you or to wait for you at the finish line." Will be, not would be. It wasn't even a question in his mind, and Dean was surprised at how relieving it felt to have the "if" taken out of the equation.

"Maybe…maybe you could just be there," he said hesitantly. "I'd rather not feel like you're having to slow yourself way down just so I can keep up."

"I think you might be making an assumption about my running speed when I'm not deliberately pushing it, but that's fine," Cas replied, the warmth in his tone almost unbearably sincere. "It'll be a privilege."

And what could Dean possibly do with that but wrap his own hand around the back of Castiel's neck and pull him in for another kiss?

This kiss was much more intense from the start, and Cas responded to it just as eagerly, slipping his arms fully around Dean's shoulders to drag him closer. They were still sitting in the kitchen, the table between them, and it only took a few seconds for that to get frustrating. Before Dean could say a word, though, Cas, who'd been leaning forward on the edge of his seat, growled and lurched off his chair, pausing in the kiss but not relinquishing his embrace, and shuffled himself around the table to straddle Dean's lap. The gasp of surprise Dean made was swallowed up as Cas then promptly renewed his attack on Dean's lips, hotter and fiercer by the moment.

A groan sounded loudly in his ears. Dean prayed it had come from either himself or Cas, and not his cheap kitchen chair. A moment later, as one of Cas's hands made it's way between their torsos and slipped up under the hem of his tee, and he decided that he didn't care.

"Dean," Cas rumbled against his jaw, and a full-body tremor wracked Dean's body. "I…I can't…"

"Sure, you can," Dean protested, closer to a whimper than he would have liked or admitted. He realized he was unconsciously rolling his his upwards slightly, subtly rocking against Cas, and he regretted not a single motion of it. Now that he was aware, he slid both hands down to Cas's hips, pulling him down more firmly into his lap. Cas made a sound that was positively indecent at the increased friction.

"This…I meant…Dean!" Whatever deep thoughts Cas had been attempting to express, it was apparent that grammar and sentence structure capabilities were currently offline. Fortunately for Dean, it seemed that all other systems were fully ready to go, and he quickly found himself at the mercy of increasingly frenzied hands and mouth. Teeth dragged down the side of his throat, nipping and sucking and hopefully leaving a trail of marks Dean would later admire; fingers slipped into the back of his sweatpants, grabbing at his cheeks with desperation. He was being consumed, lit on fire from the inside out, and he thrust hard against Cas, throwing back his head on an inarticulate cry.

And then he was coming, hard, soaking the fabric of his pants as he shuddered in Castiel's arms. Cas moaned something that could have been his name, given a great deal of interpretive latitude, and collapsed forward against Dean's chest, rutting his way through his own orgasm as his hands spasmed and gripped. They trembled together through the aftershocks, Cas's lips wet against Dean's neck as they panted.

The groan Dean had heard before came back, louder in the silence. It was definitely the chair. Cas lifted his head and squinted at him, eyes slightly glazed.

"I will have you know that I intended to be a gentleman for this date," he said, somewhat more hoarse than he had been.

"It's okay," Dean mumbled, too tired for a full grin but too satisfied to be anything but smug. "You changed clothes, so that date's over. This is a different date altogether."

"And I suppose that since we'll now have to change clothes again, we're about to be on our third date?"

"Hey, I don't make the rules," Dean said with a shrug and a wink.

Cas bent forward and kissed him again. "Mmmmm, I'm skeptical, but I suppose I have no choice. Big one for following rules, after all."

Dean closed his eyes and ran a hand through Cas's thoroughly rumpled hair. "Then you'll love this next one. It involves warm water and bubbles."

The sound of appreciation rumbling against his chest was as much vibration as it was noise. "I do intend to get out there and run at some point," Cas insisted halfheartedly. "You won't trap me with your seductive wiles and your…bubbles."

Creak-groan. There was a distinct shiver beneath Dean. He froze. Cas slowly lifted his head again, eyes wide.

"Okay, very carefully, put your weight back on your feet," Dean whispered.

"I don't think the chair can hear you," Cas whispered back. He slowly transferred his weight off of Dean's lap, standing astride his legs as he rose. Then, creeping backward, he held out a hand to Dean, who took it and gripped as he subtly tested his own movement. The seat gave an ominous wiggle, and Cas yanked hard. Dean hit his feet just as the back legs of the chair gave way; it collapsed into pieces with a clatter.

For a moment, they stared at each other in disbelief. Then the endorphins of the whole morning hit them both hard, and they burst into howls of mirth, clinging to each other as they laughed until they were nearly crying.