Notes: Set after Scarlet, in the same universe as Angelface. This can be read on its own but some references may seem a little obscure. In this alternate universe Cas is Jimmy Novak, and the demon Ruby is not actually the demon you think she is.
Dedicated to Aithilin, who demanded a scene in a laundromat.
The laundromat is coin operated. A greyish, depressing place with peeling paint on the concrete walls and two lone plastic lawn chairs by the dirty glass windows. The washing machines are huge, rattling top loaders with twist-dials and old fashioned brass edged coin slots. They sit in the middle of the room like a line of white boulders, back to back in a way that emphasises the empty space along the walls on either side. There are massive tumble-driers along the back wall that offer twenty minutes for twenty cents. Someone has scrawled a warning in black permanent marker that one load of laundry will take at least four coins to dry.
It looks exactly the same as any number of other laundromats that he's been in over the past few years.
Castiel dumps the bag full of laundry on top of one of the hulking white machines. He looks like a robot as he goes through the familiar motions of coin-operated laundry; His body performs the task without requiring more than a minute presence from his mind. It leaves him free to think.
The weight of his straight razor is a familiar comfort in the pocket of his jeans. There's a small handgun tucked into the back of his waistband too, a new gift that had been pressed upon him recently. Castiel considers it an unnecessary precaution but he carries the gun anyway, if only in case he isn't close enough to neutralise a threat with his blade.
"Don't you get sick of it?" A female voice asks from just inside the open glass door. "Picking up after the Winchesters?"
"Ruby," Castiel acknowledges her without looking. He'd come to recognise her voice even before it had changed to accommodate the new presence in her body.
"Well?" She presses, moving into his line of sight.
"I do not pick up after the Winchesters."
"Really? Sure looks like it to me, Cas." Ruby looks pointedly at the vibrating, chunnering machine filled with laundry. "You cook for them, you clean up after them, you even take out the unfortunate passers-by who might kick up a fuss and dob the boys in to the cops."
"I enjoy being useful."
"It's just that I don't get you," Ruby says, cocking her head to one side as she studies him. Castiel stares right back at her with an unmovable gaze, seemingly unafraid of her despite the fact that she could crush him with one hand if she wanted to. "You're totally human. You had a family, a life. And you gave it all up just a few short months after they took you."
Castiel raises his shoulders a measured fraction and lets them fall again, a simple shrug turned into a purposeful gesture. "There's nothing to 'get'," he tells her dryly, "you seem to understand the situation perfectly."
"So you really do it because you like it? That's just - wow." She sounds impressed, though her expression doesn't change much from default contempt. He doesn't mind. This version of Ruby is still far less annoying than the last. "You just broke apart and they put you back together."
"My life is good," Castiel says calmly, giving his lips a purposeful twist as he ads; "Even with the addition of you."
Ruby shakes her head. "I've been around a long time, I've seen all that Hell has to offer. And it's you, 'Castiel', that is just fucked up enough to scare me."
He thinks that she's just taunting, talking shit the same way other demons do to try and make him uncomfortable. Frankly, Castiel still thinks she's a lot easier to tolerate than a whining preteen in the body of a woman in her mid twenties. Even so, his pride still demands the last word. He stares her down, blue eyes as cold and dead as any demon's; "Are you here because you enjoy it?"
The way she looks at him makes him wonder whether she really doesn't understand him, maybe doesn't understand what the question means.
Ruby leaves without answering, which Castiel considers the easy way out. She only gives him a strange kind of look as she goes, shaking her head before she turns the corner and disappears from sight completely. The machine still has the better part of an hour to go.
Castiel take a seat in one of the rickety lawn chairs. He closes his eyes and crosses his arms, blocking out everything except the noise of the washing machine. It's like meditation, strangely relaxing in its own way. He supposes it should be strange that he enjoys the menial tasks and prefers not to get involved with the complicated mental soup of planning their next move. He trusts the Winchesters and what he knows of their agenda.
A sudden tug on his zipper makes his eyes snap open.
Dean is kneeling on the floor in front of his knees, a smirk on his lips. He keeps looking up at Castiel while his fingers finish undoing the zip on his jeans. "How long do we have?" he asks, jerking a thumb in the direction of the machine.
Castiel glances down at the watch on his wrist. "Twenty minutes."
Dean pops the button on his jeans and Castiel lets his legs fall open, thighs spreading so that Dean can shuffle forwards. Castiel closes his eyes again, lowering one of his hands to let his fingers card through Dean's hair. His breath hitches at the initial touch and the hot, calloused fingers that stroke against his skin. Fabric is pushed out of the way and lips press first against the spot just beneath his navel before the mouth trails kisses downwards.
Castiel had stopped feeling self conscious about Dean touching him like this before it had even happened. It was pointless to feel any kind of embarrassment in the kind of situation they lived in. Public sex wasn't the worst he'd been a part of, not by a long shot.
Castiel lets his head fall back, knocking the back of his skull against the window will a clunk. The pain is natural, just gets him that little bit hotter. He's so used to bruises from Dean's fingers and bite marks against his shoulders that he can hardly remember what it's like to roll out of bed without marks on his skin. Dean's suction is gentle, the flick of his tongue teasing and soft, but his hands are gripping Castiel's hips hard enough that it hurts.
He hears the sound of a woman walking, the clicks of her heels mixing with the puff of his too-shallow breathing.
Castiel opens his eyes and turns his head to watch as she steps through the doorway, eyes on her phone as her fingers click click click on the keypad. She's totally oblivious, lost in her own little world. It's only when she drops her bag of laundry to the floor and is forced to look up from her phone that she notices.
There's a long pause while her eyes widen and her mouth drops open in shock. Castiel just stares at her, silently telling her to hurry up and get the fuck out already, until Dean does something with his tongue that makes his eyelids flutter closed and a breathy groan escape him.
He doesn't hear her leave, doesn't hear any movement at all. But she's gone when he opens his eyes again and he'd bet good money that she wont be coming back.
It's still not the worst that's happened. This time there was no blood, no cops, and no need to get the hell out of dodge as fast as possible.
When Dean pulls away his lips are curled into a small, self-satisfied smirk. The cat that got the canary. Castiel bends at the waist to kiss him, hands cupping the side of his lover's face. Dean's hands move from the finger-shaped bruises under Castiel's jeans, tidying and zipping up until the only signs of sex are him on his knees and Castiel's rumpled clothing.
"Exhibitionist," Castiel accuses, leaning back in the lawn chair again.
"How was I supposed to know someone was going to walk in?"
"It's a public place."
"I didn't hear you complaining any, angelface." Dean stands, joints popping as his knees straighten. The green-eyed Winchester stands, adjusts himself in his jeans, and takes a seat on the other lawn chair. He doesn't say anything else, just sits there in silence waiting with Castiel for the machine to stop.
Castiel's smile is all in his eyes, it doesn't reach the rest of his face.
This is what Ruby doesn't get. Laundry, housekeeping, it's all rewarding in the end.