Cas had to keep reminding himself that lunch at the garage was not a big deal. It was just lunch with Dean- and the coworkers he spoke of nearly as highly as his brother.

Gabriel did nothing to ease his nerves. "Remember," he said, lecturing Castiel, "you use the forks starting from the outside in, and don't start eating until after the host has. Never make direct eye contact with the patriarch of the household unless he's talking to you. And speaking of looking at people, no eye sex with Dean-o at the dinner table."

"I- Dean- we don't have eye sex!" Castiel protested, stumbling over his words slightly.

"Someday, I'll get a picture of you two doing it," Gabriel promised.

Castiel shook his head and went back to pre-arranging bouquets, trying not to worry. It was just lunch.

The text from Dean had read 'Come at 1 or so.' Castiel watched the clock behind the counter intently, only looking away when a customer came in, and even then he kept glancing up towards it. Whether it was because he was excited or anxious, he couldn't tell.

Quarter to, Castiel headed to the back room, pulled his tan trench coat over his sweater, and headed for the door.

Gabriel looked up from the customer he was helping- an older black woman looking for flowers to gift to her granddaughter. "Bye, Cassie! Behave yourself!" he called after him. Gabriel turned back to the woman. "My little brother has a date- he's meeting his lover's family. They grow up so fast."

"They do," the woman agreed. "It feels like only a few weeks ago that James was taking his first steps, and now thirty years later I've got a granddaughter who's top of her class."

"Cassie was top of his class once, when he was in school. That was only a few years ago." He sniffed dramatically.

Castiel sighed. Gabriel and his antics.

The bell above the door sounded as he left.

Castiel pulled his beat up Lincoln into the cramped back parking lot at Bobby's Auto at exactly one o'clock. He got out of the car and looked around. So this was where Dean worked.

The building looked a bit like an old gas station, only with a large garage attached, and an even larger parking lot next to it. That had to be where they kept the cars that would have to be worked on. On the opposite side of the place, where Castiel had parked, there were far less cars, none of which were sporting shattered windows or dented hoods. He could see Dean's Impala parked a few spaces down from his car. That had to be the employees lot.

Castiel made his way to the main door and pulled it open. He had been inside just long enough to take in the gray walls and the wooden chairs lining the room, when a young, redheaded woman behind the small front desk took notice of him and started talking excitedly.

"Hi! You must be Castiel!" she said, grinning at him.

"You must be Charlie," Castiel guessed.

Charlie grinned even wider. "Yup. So… Dean's mentioned me?"

"Quite a bit," Castiel told her. She looked pleased.

"Probably not as much as he's mentioned you," Charlie said. "He mentions you at least twice a day. Usually more. This morning more than usual. He's been pining."

He was surprised at Charlie's choice of words- Dean had said that no one at the garage had been told that they were together- but Castiel couldn't help the way the corners of his lips twitched up. The knowledge that Dean missed him while he was at work filled him with an odd sort of warmth in his core.

"Come on, I'll show you to the break room. Dean's just finishing on an engine, but he'll be down in a minute."

Charlie led him past an "employees only" sign and down a small set of stairs, then into a tiny room. It was very compact- there was a pool table in the center, around which were a number of chairs, a small refrigerator in one corner, a small television and a gaming system in another, and a dart board hanging on the far wall.

"We do a lot of game nights in the winter," Charlie told him. "Usually we do Mario Kart or something. We used to do pool, but then Dean got too good and Kevin lost nearly three hundred bucks. Mama Tran almost killed him."

Dean was good at pool. Cas filed away the little piece of information, added it to the picture of Dean Winchester that was being painted in his mind.

"That idjit shouldn't've played against Dean in the first place, it was his own fault."

Castiel turned to find that he and Charlie had been joined by an older man, who was standing in the doorway. Bobby, he guessed. The owner. Dean talked about him almost like a father.

Bobby turned his attention to Castiel. "So you're Dean's new friend," he said, surveying him carefully.

"Er, yes, I am. Sir."

Bobby rolled his eyes. "'Bobby' is fine, I'm not an old man. Well, Dean says you have a business too. Never mentioned what it was, though."

Castiel glanced around nervously. "My brother and I co-own a flower shop. We've had it for a few years."

"Huh. So that's where he got those flowers," Bobby said thoughtfully. "They lasted a while, we had 'em up at the front desk for a week or something. Good quality."

They got along well, Castiel was relieved to find, and they launched into a conversation about owning businesses. It was a short one- Dean hurried into the break room, oil smeared on his clothes and hands. He looked great like that- grimy and a little frazzled- but then again, Castiel was sure it was impossible for Dean to look anything less than gorgeous.

"Cas!" Dean's eyes lit up when he saw him, and god did Castiel want to kiss him.

That wasn't really an option, though, so he settled for a smile and a "Hello, Dean."

"I'm glad you could make it," Dean said. "That's Charlie and Bobby, and then Kevin texted, he's on his way over now."

"There had better not be pineapple or any of that crap on my pizza," Bobby grumbled.

"He said he would get meatlovers, pepperoni, cheese, and one for rabbits," Dean said. "He's taking leftovers to his Trigonometry Teacher."

"Hope he didn't promise the guy anything," Charlie said. "With four of us and Dean, it's going to go fast."

Castiel's head tilted slightly to the side. "One for rabbits?" he asked. "I didn't realize you had a rabbit here."

Charlie laughed. "No rabbit, just Kevin."

"Then why put rabbit food on it?"

Dean explained. "I think eating healthy is a nerd thing. Kevin's the only person I've seen eat that garbage besides Sam, and they're both nerds."

"It can't be a nerd thing," Charlie said. "I don't eat it."

"Dean doesn't either," Castiel said, "and he may be one of the nerdiest people I know."

"Hey!" Dean protested. "I'm not a nerd. I'm just… uh…" He fished around for a word. "...knowledgeable. In… geeky areas."

"So, a nerd," Charlie said.

Dean glared at her, then at Castiel. "This doesn't leave this room, you hear?"

Cas looked at Dean seriously. "I don't know, Dean. It is excellent blackmail material."

Dean's eyes widened. "You wouldn't dare-"

Castiel smiled knowingly.

When Cas smiled like that- Jesus, was it a beautiful smile- it took all of Dean's self control to keep from kissing that smug look off his face.

Bobby and Charlie didn't know about him and Cas, though, and neither did Kevin. After how Joh- how Lisa had reacted to his bisexuality, he wasn't too keen on leaving Narnia more than he had to.

Sure, Charlie was a lesbian, and no one had any problems with that, but what if they had problems with him?

You told Cas about being bi a minute after you met him, and that went fine. Better than fine, actually. Awesome is more like it, a voice in the back of his head whispered. And you've known Bobby for years and he knows you. It's the same with Charlie, you've known her since she started working at the garage your senior year, and you've known Kevin since he was a freshman. They know you. What could go wrong?

A lot. A lot could go wrong. So instead of kissing Cas, he continued bantering.

"I have a reputation to uphold!"

"It's too late now," Charlie said. "We're all in on your secret."

"Well, then let's keep it a secret." Dean turned to Cas and pointed at him sternly. "No blackmail."

"I won't make any promises," Cas said. He smiled at Dean again, and it took all the control Dean had to keep from leaning across the pool table to kiss him.

Kevin showed up ten minutes later, arms laden with pizza boxes. He seemed to find Cas slightly intimidating, but warmed up to him by the time they had finished talking about H. G. Wells.

"I like Food of the Gods the most," Kevin said. "His writing was the best in that one."

"I did like that one," Cas said thoughtfully. "Although I would have enjoyed it more if there had been giant bees instead of wasps. My favorite was The Invisible Man. I found the story very intriguing."

"I didn't like the story much. Griffin was too unpredictable. But the commentary was interesting," Kevin nodded. "When Kemp was introduced…."

They went on like that until Bobby asked them if they would speak in a language that the rest of them understood. That was how game night came up.

"I'm almost unbeatable at Dr. Mario now," Charlie bragged. "I'd like to see one of you take me on."

"You suck at Dr. Mario," Dean said. "Easy."

"Not anymore," Charlie grinned. "I bet I could even beat Sam."

"No way," Bobby said. "None of us can even come close with that kid."

"Yes way. Sam's coming back for summer, right?" Charlie turned to Dean.

"Yeah, Sammy'll be here," Dean said.

"Great. One of the night's he's here, we're going to have a game night," Charlie decided.

"What night? I've got a concert over the break I have to be at…." Kevin pulled out his phone to look through his calendar.

"Whatever night that isn't," Dean said. "We've got no plans."

Charlie turned to Cas. "You should come too. Everyone brings snacks and stuff. We kick Dean's ass at Mario Kart. Laugh at him a bit."

"No you don't!" Dean protested. He wasn't bad at Mario Kart. He just… wasn't good. He came in last everytime.

"Not as much as at Bobby, though."

Well, every time except for when Bobby played. Then he was second to last.

"You idjits and your video games," Bobby grumbled. "I only show up because Dean brings beer and I have the keys."

"Thank you for the invitation," Cas said, glancing towards the floor, "but I'm afraid that I'm not good with electronic games."

"Come on, there's got to be at least one game that you're good at," Dean said. "Frogger? Tetris? Galaga? Wii Sports?"

Cas shook his head no to all of them.

"Everyone can play Wii Sports," Charlie insisted. "You can't be that bad at it."

The look on Cas' face said otherwise. "You know the golf that's on there?" He sighed. "I manage to hit the ball backwards everytime."

"Is that even possible?" Kevin asked.

"Yes."

"Wow. I didn't know someone could suck that much at golf." Charlie seemed impressed.

"You might even rival Bobby," Kevin said.

"Hey, be nice to my baby!" Dean said.

"Your baby?" Charlie said, raising her eyebrows.

Dean realized what he had said. Fuck. "I- I mean, treat her like Baby," he said, stumbling over his words.

"You mean your car?" Kevin said skeptically.

"Yes." It sounded more like a question.

Charlie kept looking between Cas and Dean. Her eyes widened. "Wait, are you two-"

Bobby came to Dean's rescue. "You want us to treat Cas like a lady?"

"Yeah!" Dean said enthusiastically. "Yeah, Cas here is a lady at heart. Show some respect."

Cas went slightly pink, but gave Dean a soft smile.

No one brought up Dean's fumble- at least, not until after Cas had left and they were back in the garage working.

"So, Dean," Charlie said nonchalantly. "Did your boyfriend like me?"

Dean shot her a look. "Cas is-" amazing, perfect, adorable, extremely kissable, probably pretty great in bed "-not my boyfriend."

"Well, you two were looking at each other the way Gilda and I do when we see her parents," Charlie said matter-of-factly, opening the hood of the Ford she was working on. "We're not conservative, you know. If you'd wanted to kiss him, you could have."

"Look, Charlie, Cas and I aren't a thing. I don't even swing that way."

Jesus, Dean was so tired of the lying. He wanted to claim Cas as his, tell everyone that he was going out with such a freaking awesome guy. He couldn't, though.

Dean could count the number of people who knew on one hand; Cas, Jo, Lisa, and J-

Point being, he wanted to keep it that way. The less people who knew, the less people who could tell Sam.

"Really? Because you show up on my gaydar," Charlie said. "It's only been wrong six times before."

"Then make it seven times, now."

"No, because I know for a fact that it's right."

"And how do you know that? Have you been stalking me?"

Charlie rolled her eyes. "When you went to go walk Castiel out, you were gone for a lot longer than it should take to walk a friend to their car. When you weren't back five minutes later, I went to go make sure you hadn't been kidnapped or something."

Dean stopped trying to readjust the timing belt on his engine. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck-

"You and him were making out behind his car." Charlie grinned. "Would've been better if you did it in front of Kevin, though. He would've owed me ten bucks."

"You can't tell anyone," Dean said quietly.

"Not even for my ten bucks? Come on, Winchester."

"I mean it, Charlie- I- if anyone else, especially Sam, or Bobby- if they find out, then-"

"I'm just kidding, Dean," Charlie said. She became more serious. "I'm not going to tell anyone. Being outed sucks."

Dean let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

"I gotta say, Cas is pretty cool. How'd you two meet?"

"When Lisa and I broke up, I went to get her a nice 'fuck you' bouquet," Dean said, smiling faintly. "Cas was working the counter."

Charlie snorted. "You met him buying a bouquet for your ex? Guess it's better than how Gilda and I met, though. Did I ever tell you about that?"

Dean shook his head. "Nope."

"I was out LARPing, and we got matched up for sparring. I kinda gave her a concussion," Charlie said. "Not my best moment, but we're together now, so…." She shrugged.

Dean laughed. "Of course you injured her. Did you at least be a lady and pay for her hospital bills?"

"Shut up," Charlie told him good naturedly.