Warnings: Organized Crime, Mentions of Sexual Crimes Against Children (because Dean's task force specializes in it), FBI agent!Dean, Arsonist!Castiel, Alternate Universe, Crack With Plot, Some Angst.

Part 2

Full disclosure: Dean doesn't plan on seeing Cas again.

Which sounds worse than it is. It's not like Dean is particularly fond of one-night-stands. It's just that that's usually all his brief acquaintances turn out to be. And even the ones who hang around for a few weeks don't make it past the two month mark as a general rule.

[Charlie has the statistics to back that claim up, in case anyone's wondering. Which Dean wasn't, until she pulled out the charts — freaking color-coded charts — on his twenty-seventh birthday.]

Not his fault that most people don't appreciate his awesomeness. Or his inability to sleep through the night for more than four consecutive days. Or his refusal to talk about his all-day, often overtime, emotionally exhausting job, for that matter.

Although it doesn't help that he picks up most of his sexual encounters in clubs and bars — the kind where people are looking for fun, distraction and a good time, not a steady relationship with a fucked-up workaholic who suffers from constant emotional constipation, as diagnosed by Meg and Lisa. That's actually one of three topics on which those two can agree on. The other two being appropriate pizza toppings and that one case with the flower pearls, where their suspect violently resisted arrest, cross my heart and hope he dies.

But well, what's Dean supposed to do? If you eliminate his colleagues at the FBI and his former coworkers — which Dean and said coworkers like to pretend his current employers don't know anything about, a pretense everyone is more than happy with — his social interactions are limited to the barista at his favorite coffee shop — who is at least six years too young for him — and the old gentleman who lives across the floor from Dean's shitty apartment and knows more about every tenant in the building than Dean could uncover in five months of undercover work.

[He's seventy-six percent certain the guy is former foreign intelligence. It's that or a retired world-class assassin. He calls himself Chuck, for God's sake. If that kind of common, everyday Joe name isn't suspicious, Dean doesn't know what is.

Very reliable man though. Hasn't forgotten to water Dean's plants even once — not that Dean remembers giving the man a key or asking him to water said plants in the first place. Actually, he's not entirely sure how he's acquired those plants. But it's a nice gesture and Dean's never woken up with less organs than he fell asleep with. He takes that for the win it so obviously is.]

The point is, Dean doesn't plan on seeing Cas again. Neither does he plan on not seeing him again.

Cas is funny and hot and offers Dean to stay the night, but doesn't get all pouty or insulted when Dean refuses. [He really doesn't sleep well in a strange place and Cas' place meets the 'strange' part in every sense of the word.] Just nods, pulls on a pair of ugly, yellow sweatpants and calls him a cab.

It's that calm self-confidence that draws Dean in and the casual display of kindness that makes him slip Cas' his number.

Besides the sex was great, so there's that.

He doesn't expect a call, but it's nice to take a leap of faith sometimes. So it's probably a good thing that Cas doesn't call or Dean would've made a complete fool of himself. Cas texts him instead, just ten minutes after Dean's left his apartment — and it should be noted that Dean does indeed make a fool of himself, but the driver pays him no mind so it's fine — and asks Dean to let him know when he's made it home safely.

Dean does, though he feels silly the moment he hits the send button. It helps that Cas' response consists of a series of ridiculous emojis that make no sense at all. Not much, but it helps. Dean falls asleep pondering whether that long line of smiley faces, frog emojis and 100-signs requires a response from him or not.

In the morning, Dean sends a coffee cup emoji back because that's really the only thing he can think of before Becky hands him his first dose of caffeine. Cas doesn't answer, but it's six thirty on a Saturday morning, so even Dean at his most self-conscious has difficulty convincing himself that the guy is already annoyed and purposefully ignoring him. He's probably asleep, like the sane three quarters of the city.

It's too bad that Dean's never gotten his card to that particular club.

Usually, Jody lets them recuperate until Monday after a bad case, even if it adds a few more days of payed vacation to the department bill. They've got more than enough overtime to make up for as it is. That she's called them in the second her post-bad-case grace period is over tells Dean that she's already got a case for them. An urgent one.

So Dean downs his first cup, takes the second one Becky hands him with a commiserating glance and heads to the office building. It's a twenty minute subway trip that gives Dean plenty of time to stare at his screen, waiting for it to light up. And playing CandyCrush once he realizes how pathetic he's acting over some guy he barely knows and who has terrible taste in movies besides.

With a sigh and one last check for a response from Cas he wouldn't admit to under torture — there isn't one —, Dean switches his personal phone off. It's not a requirement, technically, but when Jody — Mills, back then — offered him a department-issued phone, Dean took it without hesitation. He's made an effort to keep his work life as separate from his personal life as possible and he's not messing with a well-working system now. Especially not when he needs to get his head in the game.

The case turns out worse than expected. Benny actually punches a wall hard enough to fracture one of his knuckles. And that's before they find the fourth body.

Dean doesn't say much. He's got good instincts and on his team only Neal is better at conning people into giving him what he wants, but Dean's true gift is talking to children. Kids they've rescued, siblings of missing children, eye-witnesses, survivors, it doesn't matter. His gender works against him sometimes, unfortunately, but Dean's good at it. Building a connection with them. Listening to them and understanding what they try to say. Kids are easy in a way grown-ups aren't. Which is why Dean usually leaves those to Jody, Meg or Neal.

There's no kids on this case though. None that are alive, at least, and Dean is a man of many talents, but making dead bodies talk isn't one of them.

It's Meg and Neal, who come up with a new theory — helped along by some unmentioned input from outside the law, probably, not that Dean's gonna ask — while Benny's checking himself in at the hospital. They still don't make it in time to save little Louis or arrest the culprit who fled in a panic, crashed his car and died before the ambulance arrived.

Knowing that the asshole's dead doesn't help. Maybe it will. In a few months. When Dean looks back on all this. Maybe the thought that the Warrens will never hurt anyone again will bring a grim, pleasureless smile to his face because at least it ends here.

[Not all their cases come with a final act and that truth weighs heavier than all the nightmarish shit they've got to put up with on a daily basis ever does.]

Right now, the sense of failure is too fresh, too all-encompassing. Meg's swearing, Neal's put on his headphones and turned the music up way too loud and Dean doesn't say anything. He listens to Lisa's chocked voice on the other end of the line, struggling to regain composure and fuck, he should comfort her, shouldn't he, her son is four months younger than Louis, fucking hell — and he doesn't say anything at all.

It feels like an eternity even though it's only been four days — and why were they called in so late anyways, except no, that's not fair or helpful, shifting blame around doesn't help anyone — when Dean steps back into his apartment.

He's ordered himself a small pizza margarita — nothing complicated, stomaching it will be a struggle as it is — that gets put onto the counter and promptly forgotten about. Instead Dean heads straight for the shower. It helps, a little. And after four days, he really needs one.

By the time Dean steps out of the steaming hot water, skin flushed and eyes dry, he still feels like shit but at least he doesn't smell like it too. He stumbles into a sweatshirt he's worn so often, the fabric has become completely washed out and soft, and a pair of sweatpants and fuzzy socks Lisa got him for his last birthday for days like this.

Then Dean face-plants on his second-hand couch and spends an extraordinary time staring blankly at the beige fabric, questioning his life choices. He might have passed out a time or two, it's hard to tell when his head's fucked like this.

At some point, Dean switches on his personal phone. It's an old habit. One Charlie and Jo beat into him back in his early fed days, when the jobs fucked him up bad enough he forgot to eat, to sleep, to fucking function at all. As expected, there's a couple of texts from Charlie, demanding he get his pretty butt on a chair and eat the damn pizza — probably been checking his credit cards again, such is the woe of being BFFs with a brilliant hacker — or else.

Jo, as always focused on the important things, has sent him pictures of two dresses and demands to know which one would be better suited for a visit to the National Gallery in London.

[The dark blue one, obviously, because Dean doesn't for even a second buy that said 'visit' won't include a hell lot of running and dodging security personal. He takes half a second to consider the ethical conundrum of advising a thief when you're law enforcement, but Britain is so far outside his jurisdiction, it's not even funny. And besides art theft really isn't his division, so whatever. Let some poor sod across the pond worry about this particular blonde mess.]

With an eye-roll and the comforting, familiar snark only a group chat with his oldest friends can provide, Dean manages to get himself off the couch and finally wolf-down this forgotten and by now cold pizza. Then he ends up right back on that couch and watches Dr. Sexy. There's something inevitably soothing about watching the completely ludicrous, overdone drama of the hospital soap opera.

Also, Charlie and Dean are categorically incapable of agreeing on who should end up with whom, which is like half the fun. Jo mostly just sends memes and knife emojis, but it's Jo. She's probably scaling a skyscraper right this very second. [She's also refused to watch another episode since her infamous season four finale meltdown. Considering how badly the writers fucked that one up, Dean can forgive her that.]

Dean falls asleep in the middle of an argument with Charlie about whether the new assistant and nurse from the third floor would make a good couple — which does not mean that he forfeits the argument, no matter what Charlie will later insist. When Dean wakes up the next morning, it's two pm, his mouth feels like something died in it and he's got over sixty unread messages on his phone.

Most of them are from his group chat with Charlie and Jo, but there's some from his colleagues as well. Benny's sent him an update — apparently, he really messed up his hand and is gonna be stuck with a cast and desk duty for the foreseeable future — and Lisa asks how he's doing. Neal hasn't texted, but Neal never texts Dean. Not unless he's in trouble or needs a favor. Which usually amounts to the same thing. Meg hasn't either, but she'll probably sent him a picture from her time at the shooting range sometime in the next two hours or so. It's her way of telling him she's fine and demanding he better be as well.

There's also four messages from Cas.

Embarrassingly, it takes Dean a full two minutes — and re-reading their previous conversation — to remember who Cas is. In his defense, the past week was eventful. In all the worst ways.

Cas' messages are all from the same day Dean switched the phone off. The first two are random strings of emojis. Dean's willing to bet not even a crypto-analyst would be able to decipher a deeper meaning from them. The other two are much more promising.

If you like coffee so much, I'd be happy to buy you one

There's even a winky face at the end, Jesus. And another one, two hours later: Too soon?

Wonderful. Now Dean feels like crap for keeping his phone off all this time. He usually checks it regularly even when he's on a trip, but this time he didn't have the time or the energy. Everything happened too freaking fast and they were still too damn slow.

shit sorry was gone for work all week

Dean hits 'Send' before he can overthink it. Then adds would love that coffee if the offer still stands? because what the hell. If Cas has already written him off and Dean's making a fool of himself, he might as well go all in.

That doesn't stop him from re-reading the messages obsessively for the next two hours in between throwing a meal together, catching up with Charlie, checking in with Benny and taking a closer look at Meg's shooting skills. She's good, always has been, but she's definitely still pissed about their last case. Meg always goes for headshots when she's pissed and her accuracy suffers as well. Not enough to matter, but enough to be noticeable.

Dean would check in with her, but Meg might shoot him if he were to show her genuine concern, so that's not happening any time soon.

watch your aim, he texts her. It's Dean-Meg code for I'm fineand Are you alright? and I worry about you and I get it.

Neal's a better liar and Lisa is much more trustworthy and Benny is far more loyal, but in spite of all that, Meg's the one Dean would want at his side if it came down to it. [He understands her, they understand each other in ways the others don't. They're cut from the same cloth, have walked through the same hell, made the same damning choices.] It's a moot point of course, if possible Dean wants his entire team with him. And they've never given him reason to doubt any of them.

[But if it came to that, the part of him that Dean's done his best to keep buried in the last few years, the only reason he made it through the darkest period of his life alive, whispers. If.]

When Cas finally texts Dean back, it's so unexpected, Dean accidentally drops the phone. Which is a very bad thing indeed, considering he's stretched out horizontally on his couch, playing scrabble against Jo on his phone. Meaning that, when he lets it go, the phone hits him square in the face. Hard.

Groaning, Dean rubs at his upper lip and nose. That shit hurt.

At least, Cas' message is a promising one.

And they don't let you use the phone? That doesn't sound legal, followed by I'd be free tomorrow afternoon, 4ish?

Dean grins.

trust me, my employer's all about legality

and tomorrow sounds great

It does indeed. Tomorrow's Saturday, and Jody's already assured everyone that they won't have to show up at the office until Monday morning.

Wonderful, Cas responds a few minutes later. You're paying

Dean laughs. It's an odd feeling, this giddiness, but he can't help it.

fair enough

That leaves him with over twenty-four hours to panic about having a date. Wonderful indeed.

Despite the fact that Dean has absolutely zero chill by the time he arrives at the small, local coffee shop Cas has picked out, their second date goes well. It's actually nice to be anxious about something that doesn't involve dead or kidnapped kids for once. And there's a special kick in meeting someone new because you want to get to know them, not because you're trying to figure out if they're your suspect. Dean's forgotten how much he misses that.

[Meaning that Tessa is probably right: He really does need a life outside work.]

The jokes. The small talk. Making someone smile. [Cas has a beautiful smile, wide and brilliant and unashamed and none of these thoughts may ever be repeated out loud, Dean would never hear the end of it.] Learning all these new tidbits about someone else. [Cas doesn't drink coffee in the afternoons, but is terribly affronted when Dean puts sugar into his because apparently the only acceptable way to drink coffee is black. He also loves the weird hipster music the radio's playing, but Dean's willing to forgive that because damn, Cas has an even drier sense of humor than Jody and he's freaking hilarious.]

It's— great.

Cas doesn't ask too many questions about Dean's week-long disappearance, which is a good thing because Dean doesn't talk about his job. It's a mood killer if there ever was one and he can't handle the reactions people have to it. Sometimes, they're weirded out by dating a fed. Sometimes — and those are the worst — they think it's cool and want to hear more about it.

Dean dumps those the second he's payed the check.

They talk about music and cities they've been to and places they want to visit instead. Cas tells him about the beauty of St. Petersburg in January and how he once got lost chasing his brother through the streets of a small town in Tuscany. Dean recalls some of his fondest memories of San Francisco, where he lived with Charlie and the others for a while, and even shares a few of his better childhood memories from those early years, spent traveling all over the country. They argue about cars — Cas prefers public transport whenever possible, really, what is wrong with him? — and their favorite foods — Cas is convinced that nothing beats proper Italian cuisine, when clearly a proper burger is superior to anything — and it's just all-around good.

Dean is convinced his lips should be aching from how much he's smiling the whole time, but it's just easy to do so when Cas is sitting across from him, half-way through recounting a prank he's pulled on a friend, arms swinging wildly as he gesticulates.

It's the way Cas looks at him almost constantly, never the first to break eye contact, that makes Dean feel flushed and nervous and excited all in one breath. It's that small, self-satisfied smirk he wears every time he makes Dean laugh. It's that exhilarating feeling of spending time with someone you like and having them like you back that Dean blames for blurting out, "I'd like to see you again," before insecurity and self-doubt can make him swallow the words back down.

And Dean would like the record to reflect that Cas' response — which is to lean forward close enough that Dean can make out the tiny specks of grey in his bright, blue eyes, stare Dean straight in the eye and murmur in his gravelly voice that won't ever not be sexy, "How about you continue seeing me now?" — totally doesn't make him choke on the last of his coffee. It does not.

They have a classic date night at the movies four days later. Mostly because Dean's still not entirely sure if Cas' terrible taste is genuine or he's just fucking with Dean and also because it's been forever since Dean's last gone to the movies.

Cas insists they should watch Charlie's Angels. Dean's seventy percent sure Cas picks it because he knows Dean dislikes Miley Cyrus and Kristen Stewartboth, but the joke's on him: there's nothing about hot women kicking ass that Dean finds in any way objectionable. The twist half-way through is also pretty nice, and some of the scenes remind Dean of Jo's antics when she's done pretending to be a normal, functional person. Granted, Jo doesn't like guns, so maybe not all of them.

Cas also insists on not needing popcorn — a suspicious statement if there ever was one — and then proceeds to try and steal Deans. That almost ends in a war that gets them kicked out of the theater because Dean doesn't share his popcorn. There are lines, okay?

[They don't have sex that night, but they do make out for half an hour in front of Cas' apartment door and the next morning, Dean shows up to work wearing a wide smile that has Meg dropping her coffee cup and Benny slap his shoulder with a guffaw.]

Cas' texting habits don't get any easier to decipher with practice.

That's one of the lessons Dean learns over the following weeks. It's like no one's ever taught the guy the proper meaning and usage of emojis, for one. Dean's half-certain that most of the time Cas is either dead on his feet or hungover as hell and just randomly tapping his screen as a proof of life type of message. At least, there's no reasonable explanation for why Cas would send him a long string of frog, DNA string, sun, city scape and heart emojis that Dean — and the combined powers of Charlie and Jo — has come up with so far.

That doesn't keep Dean from practicing though. They practice a lot. Dean takes care to always take his personal phone to work, just in case they get called out again. It doesn't happen for a while. They work a couple of cases, even a big one, but none that require them to jump states. Which is a good thing, Dean hates flying.

It's also a bad thing because it means they mostly spend their time doing paperwork and research, the old-fashioned way. Tracking people and money, answering calls, analyzing data. It's interesting, and the coffee at their bureau is better than the crap they get when they're out and about — they've got their own coffeemaker because the entire team agreed that a top-notch coffee maker was one of the bureau's better investments and they've been proven right time and time again — but it's not interesting the way field work is.

Neal, for one, is bored out of his mind. Which is never a good thing for Jody's peace of mind, so she'll undoubtedly assign them another case soon, just to get him to shut up. But for now, Dean enjoys the calm, the routine of it all. It leaves him with a lot more time to chat and meet up with Cas, he's not gonna complain about that now that he's finally developing something like a social life.

Although Cas works pretty irregular times as well, a consultant for some big shot corporation, so that actually works in their favor. They both know what it's like to have to drop everything in a second because their boss calls. Cas' already had to cancel their plans last-minute twice. Dean would feel self-conscious about that, but it's only a matter of time before he'll have to return the favor — and besides Cas is really good at making it up to him.

So while Cas' texting habits remain a mystery and endless source of amusement for Dean, all in all, things are going well.

Five weeks into his acquaintance with Cas, Dean gets the call from Jody that he's been waiting for: Pack your bags, Winchester. And. This one's gonna be ugly.

Dean texts Cas on his way to the airport.

[They'd been planning to eat Italian that night, another doomed attempt of Cas' to convert Dean, no doubt.]

Warns him not to expect any messages for a few days, that he doesn't know how available he'll be. Apologizes for the last minute cancellation.

Cas' answer is short and to the point: Take care, Dean

With a comma and everything. It makes Dean smile — and on his way to the fucking airport, that's no small feat.

Thing is, there's never really a good case. Not for Dean, not for his task force. A case always means that children are dying, children are disappearing, children are raped, children are sold, children are— There's always bodies and bruises and hollowed eyes on too young faces.

It's not something that gets easier. It's not something you get used to.

[Some cases hit you harder than others, but they all pack one hell of a punch.]

This one is, for all intents and purposes, one of the better ones Dean's worked on. They find three missing children locked in the cellar of one of the most unpleasant, creepiest imitations of a Stanford couple Dean's ever had the displeasure of laying his eyes on. The kids are alive and mostly unharmed — they wouldn't have been, but they made it in time, they weren't too late — three boys, none older than twelve. They stick to Dean like glue until their parents arrive, and the youngest one doesn't let go of Dean's hand for a long moment even then.

[He's got huge, brown eyes and dark, floppy hair and—]

They've caught the couple as well, and got enough proof for even the most incompetent prosecutor to put them away for a long time. All in all, it's one of the best endings anyone could've hoped for.

[Dean comes home. He showers. He dresses. He calls a cab. He doesn't remember the drive or the walk up to Cas' door on the fourth floor, but he remembers the surprised look on Cas' face. Remembers thinking that maybe he should've called. Remembers pulling Cas into a hug, clinging to him, the warm body that isn't tiny, isn't fragile, isn't so easily broken. Breathes in the familiar scent of him, nothing childish about it, and some muscle drawn tight in his chest finally eases when Cas pulls him closer.

"Bad day," Dean murmurs into his shoulder. And, "Sorry."

Cas hushes him. Ushers him inside. Keeps a hold on him as he leads him through the small apartment, like he thinks Dean might keel over if he doesn't. Dean doesn't mind.

At some point he's lying in Cas' bed, surrounded by warm blankets and Cas' smell and Cas' arm thrown over his chest.

"Sorry," Dean mutters, again and again, listens to Cas' humming some song he doesn't recognize and cries himself to sleep in Cas' arms.

The next morning is perhaps the most embarrassing morning after Dean's ever experienced in his life. Which, considering how he spent his twenty-first birthday is really saying something.

Thankfully, Cas doesn't ask any questions. Not even the reasonable ones, like Why did you show up on my doorstep as an emotional wreck? He makes Dean coffee and asks if he wants pancakes or scrambled eggs and doesn't so much as flinches when Dean tells him honestly that he can't eat anything without throwing up right now.

Insists Dean drink three glasses of orange juice and chatters about his week instead. Apparently, Cas has gotten into an argument with his brother about the meaning of the term 'professional conduct'. It's not surprising, Cas has almost daily arguments with his brothers from what Dean's picked up so far, and he gratefully lets himself be distracted by the dramatic retelling of their fight. No matter how ridiculous Cas makes it sound.

They end up on the sofa somehow, Cas' arm a welcome weight over Dean's shoulders, and watch reality TV until Cas reveals that he's never seen Dr. Sexy. Naturally, Dean is obligated to remedy that and if they spend the entire afternoon with Dean giving Cas a necessary background in the who-slept-with-whom paradigm of Dr. Sexy's hospital, well, he'll consider it four hours of his life well-spent.

Cas probably doesn't agree, but nobody asked him, the uncultured nutbag.

[When Dean returns home that evening, he feels more settled into his bones than he has in weeks, maybe months, and texting Cas' thank you the second he's through the door won't be enough to adequately convey how grateful he is, but it sure is a start.]

Please let me know what you think in a review!