Author's Note: Sorry this took so long, loveys. It's been a rough few weeks personally and it's hard to write this kind of sweet teenage angst when feeling a kinda bitter. But I did try for you. Hope you like it anyway. More to follow soon.

They barely touch lips again when someone opens the door too fast, banging it against the wall. A second later retching and coughing follow.

Dean scrunches his face and pulls back. "Well that kinda ruins the mood."

"Not really," Castiel says almost too eagerly. He comes out of his daze and blushes when Dean smiles back at him. He leans closer and the next gagging noise and accompanying splash has them pulling apart again. "Okay maybe."

Dean sighs and shoves his hands in his pockets. "Better check on the wasted redhead we came with."

"Right," he says without really meaning it. He wants to latch onto Dean and make him give him some kind of assurance this wasn't a one time kiss. If they go back inside, will everything go back to how it was?

"Are you drunk?" he asks out of nowhere.

"Nah just the half a beer from earlier."

"Oh." He hesitates when Dean holds the door open for him. "So that was... real.. right? You weren't just- was that just.. um what was that?"

Dean closes the door and steps close again. "It felt pretty damn real to me." His eyebrows draw together like he's gauging Cas' face before moving forward again so their lips brush in a chaste kiss. "You?"

Castiel nods with his eyes closed.

"We'll talk later, kay?"

"Yes," he says a little lost on what he was agreeing to. It's hard to think past his brain's mantra of "Dean kissed me. Dean kissed me. Dean kissed me."

This time he follows him inside and he might as well be floating on a cloud.

"And where have you two been?" Pamela turns with a hand on her hip from talking to Bela as they walk in the house. The music is beating and thumping just as loud as before.

"Cas wasn't feelin' well," Dean says without stopping on his way through the kitchen.

"Well I do hope you're feeling better now," Bela smirks as Castiel passes.

"Yes," he pauses right in front of her. "Thank you for your concern." He's proud of his matter of fact tone that he hopes comes across just as catty. Usually he would just have ignored her but not feeling like this. He'd just had his second kiss, brief as it was, and it has been better than he thought a second kiss could ever be.

Bela raises an eyebrow and toasts him with her martini glass. Pam laughs and points towards the kitchen door. "Go on, Cutie. Your boy's getting away."

Castiel hurries to catch up, a little giddy at the implication. He might not have to blast her with laser eyes after all.. should he ever acquire the ability. He finds Dean standing over a sleeping Charlie. She's curled into a ball in the corner of one couch with Dory holding her.

"She had one too many frou frou drinks," Dory sighs and strokes her hair.

"Wanna get outta here, then?"

"Sounds good. I'll leave my bike here and catch a ride back with you guys if it's cool?"

"Yeah, I guess we'll put up with you." Dean smirks and meets Castiel's gaze again. He hopes Dean's thinking about kissing him again because it's definitely occupying ever spare thought in his head.

Leaning down to scoop her up, Dean nods goodbye to a few people on their way out and asks him to grab his leather jacket off the banister because his arms are full of a half-coherent redhead.

After they get out the door, she begins babbling. "You have to stop being such a spider, Dean..." she murmurs with her eyes closed. "Ow.. why does my knee hurt?" She tries to lean forward to rub it and Dean stumbles to get his balance again.

"Because you banged it. Now stop moving, Red, before we both wind up on our ass. We're almost there."

He looks back to find Castiel. "Hey, grab my keys outta my pocket, will ya?"

"Um.." he blushes at the thought of groping around in Dean's jeans and the other boy rolls his eyes and smiles.

"Jacket pocket. Of the one you're holding…"

"Oh." Feeling a little like an idiot, he quickly finds them and hands them over to Dorothy who runs ahead to unlock the door.

Stomping through springy manicured lawn, Dean takes the moment of relative solitude to sneak an appraising look over at him.

"What?" Castiel asks with cheeks tingled pink.

"I didn't say nothin'."

It's exactly what he had said when Dean caught him looking at him on the way to the party. They both smile and look ahead again at almost the same time. The nervous energy bottled up inside him makes him want to laugh but he manages to get in the passenger seat without making a fool of himself.

Once Charlie's settled in the backseat and cuddled up against Dorothy's arm, Dean gets in. He doesn't move until he fiddles with his collection of tapes and pops in the Led Zeppelin one. He turns it low, meeting his eyes briefly before turning back to pull out onto the dead road.

After an internal debate that lasts half the car ride, Castiel works himself up enough to reach out across the space and covers his hand in the dark in the frontseat. For a heartbeat, he worries it had been an impetuous mistake, but Dean's thumb curls and strokes along his pinky. Through the shadows, he can barely see his face, but he can see enough to know Dean's lips are curled into a small smile.

The way it works out, he has to drop Castiel off first. His house is closer and Dory wants Dean's help carrying her dead to the world girlfriend inside her house. They both share a look but neither disagree even though they definitely have things to talk about.

When he begrudgingly gets out and waves goodbye to everyone, Dean calls him back. He ducks his head in the open window to see him.

"Hey." Dean checks back over his shoulder at the girls before leaning a little closer to the passenger side. "I'll text you later."

"Okay. Goodnight."

"Yeah. It really was." Dean does this thing with his eyes, kind of openly looking him up and down then smirks in a way that makes those treacherous butterflies swan dive all at once. "Later, Cas.."

He's smiling stupidly to himself as he turns around and walks a few steps back towards the house before abruptly whirling back again, almost tripping over his own feet in the process. "Oh, goodnight, Dory!"

She waves him away, rolling her eyes.

Castiel's two steps in the door when he hears, "So?"

He's startled out of smiling to himself and guiltily asks, "What?"

His mom apparently waited up. She clicks off some late night talk show and gets up to come into the kitchen. "Looks like you had fun."

"Oh.. yes." He makes a valiant effort to stop grinning like an idiot but not too hard. Every time he thinks of Dean stomping towards him and grabbing his face… it was like in a movie or something. The music swelled, fireworks sparked and cartoon hearts might as well have been dancing around their heads. As second kisses go, he couldn't ask for a better one.

"Well.. tell me about it! Your first dance."

"I'm um kind of tired, Mom. Maybe in the morning?" Any remorse he felt over lying about going to Homecoming was pushed aside by the resentment of being made to go to church the next day.

"Oh, your Uncle called to say he'll be away for a few weeks on business. Don't forget you owe him an apology."

The Corporate world could have his Uncle as long as it wanted.

"I'll be sure to do that." He willed his face not to light up in the biggest watt smile. His Uncle gone. For several weeks. And Dean just kissed him. Was he stuck in a day dream? Was he going to wake up in Trig?

He turns away to float into his room when his mom asks, "What happened to your hair?"

"My... oh." He reaches up to try and flatten it. "It must have been from all the um dancing."

"You danced?" she asks, incredulously. "Charlie's a special girl to get you dancing."

He almost laughs thinking of her drunkenly mumbling about spiders while making kissy noises.

"She's definitely special."

"It'll just be us for dinner tomorrow if you want to invite her."

"Okay, I'll ask." He turns around and walks a few steps then turns back. "What about Dean?"

Without his Uncle there, he couldn't really see a downside. And by the way he'd been drooling when his mom offered last time, Castiel bet his dad wasn't a big cook.

"Dean?"

"You said to invite him... before."

"Oh, well… sure. Dean too."

In his room, he keeps his phone in plain sight so he can see it at all times while he gets out of his clothes. Once he's in boxers and an undershirt, Castiel sits cross-legged on his bed and just stares at his phone, willing it to do something.

At 11:34, it does.

hey sorry. finally home. still up?

He counts to thirty so it won't seem like he was waiting.

It's okay. Yes.There's a good five minutes where he doesn't text anything and Dean doesn't either.

He breaks first.

What did that mean?

The answer is almost immediate.

what do u want it to mean?

Castiel sighs in exasperation. He had no clue what was going through Dean's mind and didn't want to say the wrong thing. Had Dean wanted to kiss him for a while? Was it a spur of the moment thing? Was it no big deal on his part - an experiment or something? Were they supposed to just see what happens and not talk about it?

I'm not sure.

He waits an excruciatingly long time, fingers hovering over the screen. Finally, Dean responds.

well… do u want to do it again?

Not even waiting to appear coy, he immediately texts back.

YES

awesome ) me too

He spends a ridiculously long time re-reading the short message and exalting in a stupid winky face.

So what now?

how bout a driving lesson tomorrow?

Castiel frowns at the phone. What was that supposed to mean? He was hoping for more of an answer.

we can talk and stuff

Okay...

sorry. I wanna call but dad's up. not a good time.

Oh okay. Tomorrow's fine.

cool. well nite cas

He bites his lip. He wanted to keep Dean texting. He wanted more, but it obviously would have to wait. How would he last until tomorrow?

Goodnight, Dean.

Sometime around the hundredth time he replays the kiss, Castiel falls asleep.

Without his Uncle there to crack the whip, his mom doesn't put up much of a fight when he tries to get out of Church. The fact that she had pictures ready and printed from the local one hour photo to show off at service probably contributed to his easy escape. He had no idea why it mattered to her so much that he'd went to Homecoming (or pretended to) but whatever cut him some slack he would gratefully take.

Dean picks him up at almost ten that morning with a half dozen donuts sitting on the passenger seat and two coffees in the cup holders. He drives them to the same abandoned Kmart parking lot where they eat their breakfast in relative silence. Two glazed donuts later, Dean rubs his hands on a napkin then again roughly on his jeans and glances over at him to see he's picking at the same one he started on twenty minutes ago.

"So."

Castiel straightens. "So."

They sit there awkwardly in Dean's car, each waiting for the other to talk first. In the light of day, it wasn't so easy to just reach across the seat and hold his hand. Dean was similarly staring ahead only darting his gaze sideways every so often as if waiting for a cue.

They both jump at his phone chirping in his pocket. It's Charlie's texting him.

u okay? anything happen with Dean last night? sorry to be a bad wing girl. DO NOT trust deceptively yummy pink drinks! dangerous little suckers.

Busy. Text you later.

k but forgive me?

Forgiven.

loooove u =)

He rolls his eyes at the phone, smiling. "Sorry. Charlie's feeling guilty this morning."

"Yeah, I think she called me a spider last night? Any clue what that was about?"

"None.," he says too quickly. "So.."

"So." Dean smirks.

"What do we do now?"

"Well we could always just..." He pointedly looks at his mouth then shrugs. "Jump to the fun part."

Castiel blushes. "Um… we should- I think we probably need to talk first."

Sighing, Dean spins his key ring around his index finger and catches it. "Yeah guess that'd be too easy."

Relieved he doesn't seem mad, only uncomfortable, Castiel presses, "How long have you…"

"Dunno." Dean hedges. "Probably longer than you think."

"Really?" Castiel frowns at the dashboard. "How? Why?"

"What do ya mean?"

"Why me?"

"Why not you?" Dean challenges.

When he looks out the window at the non-answer, Dean puffs out a long breath the starts speaking all at once. "Okay Jeez if you want a rough rundown... in the beginning you were just fun to mess with. Like poking a grumpy cat. You'd hiss and get your hair all up and it was, ya know, kinda cute."

"You thought it was cute when we were arguing?" He sounds almost indignant.

Dean shrugs.

"So then you got all hung up on that jock and I didn't know why but it bothered me. Every time I saw you getting all flustered about meeting up with him, it bugged me more and more. You'd get this moony-eyed look right before you were about to go and it was just annoying as hell."

Castiel barely breathes watching him as he focuses on spinning and catching the keys in his palm over and over. "Eventually figured out it was cause I wanted you to look at me that way."

After too long of heavy silence, Dean busies himself with grabbing their trash and shoving it in a bag in the backseat. It's obvious he's done.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

He laughs and scratches the back of his neck. "If you remember, you used to hate me."

"I never... hated you."

"Uh huh. Loathed is the word you used I believe."

He closes his eyes and groans. "I was stupid." When he chances a look up, Dean is smiling with this far off look out the windshield.

"What?"

"Nothing, just… reminded me of when you were drunk. The way you crawled into my lap. Jesus, you almost killed me."

Castiel bites his lip and smiles at his hands.

"See that… that right there." He looks up in confusion at Dean smirking and shaking his head. "If you didn't go all pink sometimes or bump into something when I got too close, I woulda never had any hope. You're kinda hard to read if you didn't know."

"I am?" he asks, studiously avoiding commenting on his own awkwardness.

"Dude, you could out stone-face a gunslinger. Maybe that's why getting a rise out of you was so fun."

"Fun." Castiel gives him an unimpressed face.

"Anyway." Dean goes back to talking to the steering wheel. "I probably coulda been less chickenshit and asked but every time I thought maybe you were into me... Well I was never sure really where we stood. Or ya know what I wanted, I guess. It's one thing to think you're hot, totally another to do something about it."

"You think I'm hot?" Tilting his head, Castiel squints at him in disbelief.

"You know I do."

He didn't. He couldn't really imagine Dean thinking that. He was pale. He didn't have muscles, or not enough to make it obvious anyway. Not like Dean. Or Michael. Or Benny. Or almost any other guy he knew that he fit that label in his head. Castiel tucks his chin, picking at his cuticles. What does he even say to that? Should he tell him the same?

Dean leans over and tips up his chin. "What, you don't believe me?"

He just stares at him with slightly wide eyes. "Well…"

Dean hasn't dropped his hand, just curves it around the side of his neck. "I think about you a lot, Cas. And this tie…" He reaches forward with his other hand to run it through his fingers, looking up through his lashes.

"Um.." Castiel swallows the extra saliva in his mouth. He was leaning forward without meaning to but Dean's words were soft and touches light, luring him in.

Dean's thumb rubs along his jaw to rest on his chin, their mouths getting closer. "And man, last night… letting me do that to your hair..."

He blinks slow, moving closer, eagerly eating up each word.

"And rollin' up your sleeves…" Dean pauses to make a satisfied noise. "Looked damn good on you."

Castiel automatically jolts internally out of his haze. He tries to surreptitiously reach down to tug on his buttoned cuffs for comfort, no longer happy with his words or closeness while his insecurities pop the cozy bubble they'd just been in.

Dean frowns at the way he pulls away slightly. "What?"

He looks down at him fidgeting and must figure it out because he takes his hand so he stops. It's warm and callused. Perfect. "Hey. You don't got anything to be ashamed of. You hear me?"

Don't say anything. You could be kissing this beautiful boy and you're being an idiot. But Dean's wrong. He had plenty to be ashamed of. His scars were tallies of all the times he'd been weak. Failed. But he's looking at him expectantly, so Castiel softly whispers, "But they're... ugly"

Dean dips his head to catch his eyes and only when he's meeting them does he speak. "You can't see 'em unless you know where to look and even if you could… nothin' about you is ugly, Cas."

His lips twitch but stubbornly refuses to be comforted by his words. "You haven't seen all of me."

"That an invitation?"

He glances up to see Dean waggling his eyes in an overtly lecherous grin and just like that the tension breaks or at least shifts back to the anxious fun kind. Dean leans forward to kiss his cheek lightly. "You don't gotta hide with me, okay?" he murmurs, distracting him from the fact that he's unbuttoning his right cuff and folding it up to expose his arm. Castiel stays completely pliant letting him do it because his lips are skipping lingeringly along his jaw as he does the same to his left. After kissing the hinge of his jaw, Dean makes his way back towards his lips while splayed fingers rub upwards. From his naked wrists to his inner arms, over his elbows, biceps, along the slope of his shoulders then up to bracket his neck until finally Dean is hovering right there, lips touching but not pressing. Castiel inhales shakily, balanced on the breaking point, before surging forward.

He doesn't know what he's doing really, but he tries to imitate Dean as best he can. It's all been closed-lipped and sweet thus far but that is more than enough and Dean seems happy to just rub lips lazily. He has a suspicion he's being careful with him and it's appreciated. After a moment or two he forgets to be terrified he'll ruin it or worry the smacking noises of their lips is too loud and relaxes enough to notice Dean tastes like sweet glaze from the donuts.

Pulling back to grin, Dean says, "Could get used to that."

He smiles back shyly and unclenches his hands which he just realized were bunched in his slacks. "So are we… is this something we're going to do now?"

Seventeen Magazine advised never to force your significant other into defining your relationship too early. Asking if Dean wanted to be his boyfriend could scare him off. Not that he dreamed he ever needed that tidbit. He'll have to mention to Gabriel next time he's home how surprisingly useful all of his unwanted quoting from the thing had been.

Dean raises an eyebrow probably thinking he was a moron but he didn't know how else to ask. "Well yeah. I want to. You?"

Castiel nods, eyes dropping to his mouth again and maybe leaning closer again.

"Let's just keep it cool at school though okay?"

He shifts back, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. "You don't want me to tell anyone?" Not that he had many to tell but still…

"Just for a while? It's uh kinda new for me and all. The guy thing."

"Okay.." He doesn't like it but then Dean kisses him again and he forgets to care. Might even forget his own name.

Their driving lesson is less than instructive. Thankfully the roads are empty since most people are at Church or sleeping in this early on a Sunday morning because Dean waits until he pulls out of the parking lot to start in on the questions he must have saved up.

"So last night…I was right… right? About Pam making you jealous."

Castiel stares ahead like his life depends on it. "Um.. should I turn at the next street coming up?"

Dean gives a distracted "yeah" before continuing. "Ya know, cause when you said you didn't know what I was talkin' about… you were uh… just like.."

"What?" he asks to end his floundering. Dean seems to be just frustrating himself and getting more confusing.

"I mean I'm taking it you liked me too.. before? Since you kissed me back and all."

Castiel briefly mashes the brakes and winces at the abrupt stop. "Sorry."

Dean untenses from the jolting of the car. "Nah, it's my bad. Just forget it. Focus on the road."

He darts a glance over to see the other boy chewing on his thumb nail.

Had he really not… no. He hadn't actually said it in so many words. Or any words, he realizes. Both last night and today, he'd mostly just let Dean talk and then kiss him.

"I thought it was fairly obvious," he tries to get away with.

"Still, a guy likes to hear it." Dean sounds a little vulnerable, maybe a touch defensive.

Talking out his feelings is far from his easiest thing, but Castiel tries to summon up the right words. He didn't want Dean to know how much he'd been obsessing about him the last few weeks but he didn't want to seem too casual about it either. Not that he'd even been paying attention to how it happened. Or when. One moment he was calling Dean an asshole in French and then all at once, he was dreaming about freckles and not able to meet his eyes.

He clears his throat, keeping his eyes on the road. "Yes, I've liked you for quite a while. I should have said that earlier but it just seemed… very apparent to me." Out of his peripheral, Dean straightens up out of his slump and he quickly adds, "Not that you still aren't irritating at times."

"Irritating, huh?"

"Mmm," he agrees while making the necessary turn. He misses the devious look in his passenger's eye.

"So you thought it was irritating when I kissed you?" Fingers creep across the seat to rest on Castiel's knee. Apparently Dean's confidence was back in full force now.

"Y-yes..." he manages, trying to sound serious. "It was really very..."

Dean rubs a circle just to the left of his knee.

"Very…" What was he even talking about?

One hand on the back of the seat, the other on the dashboard, Dean leans forward to kiss the corner of his mouth, causing Castiel to turn towards him.

"Hey, eyes on the road, NerdAngel."

He goes back to it, shivering slightly when Dean tentatively moves forward to kiss under his jaw and over his adam's apple.

"That is… not… irritating, it is however very… distracting."

While he is definitely enjoying Dean's new affectionate touches, he absolutely cannot handle this kind of thing right now. Not while trying to drive Dean's scary precious car.

"Well, Cas, you gotta be able to drive under any circumstances." Dean sounds smug suddenly at the side of his neck, a new and amazingly sensitive place to be kissed.

"Dean…" he sighs, squirming and shrugging his shoulder in a small defense against the ticklish torture of lips hovering below his ear.

Dean pecks him one last time and backs off. "Sorry, you're just too tempting. Must get me hot when someone calls me irritating."

Regret and relief slip in all at once that he stopped. Castiel laughs a little breathless. "Really."

"And ya know… when they say they like me."

There's a heavy silence for a moment while Castiel processes that he had said those scary words and so had Dean and now he would do stuff like this… kiss him in his car. If he wasn't driving, they could be kissing right now, a thought that both excited and terrified him. It felt so fragile like at any moment he might say or do the wrong thing and ruin it. He wants to reach over and take his hand again to reaffirm this was real and he could do that now too, but with his luck he would crash.

Remembering something, he suddenly asks, "Oh, um Dean?"

"Hey you said it. No take backs."

"No.. I'm not. I definitely, definitely do. I just, my mother invited you to dinner."

"Damn."

"Oh, you don't have to go. Don't worry about it."

"No. I want to. I just already told Sam I'd make dinner tonight."

"You cook?"

"Yeah, you know, a little. Basic stuff. But raincheck?"

They drive through clusters of neighborhoods and Dean doesn't sneak any more kisses even though he kind of hoped he would. Most of their driving lesson had been taken up with their donuts and parking lot confessions earlier but he still feels pretty confident in his growing abilities, only panicking and mashing the brakes the whole time.

After Dean instructs him to pull in for gas at a 7-11, they switch places, Castiel's neighborhood being on the otherside of an intimidating highway he wasn't quite up for navigating yet.

"Did you miss me, Baby?"

Castiel whips his head around at the endearment but then realizes he's stroking the steering wheel. It would be stupid to be jealous of a car, he tells himself. Even so, he says, "You do realize you have an unhealthy attachment to this vehicle?"

"Don't listen to him, sweetheart," Dean pretends to whisper as Castiel shakes his head. He reaches past him into the glove compartment; obviously aware of how affected he is by his closeness because he takes his sweet time, smiling wolfishly. Finally he pulls out a battered tape and pops it into the player. A classic rock beat starts up spins the dial so it booms out of the open windows. He claps his hands together, bobbing his head and Castiel outright laughs when he mouths the words at him, claiming he "shook him allll niiight looong."

When Dean drops him off outside his house a few minutes later, there's a neighbor taking forever at her mailbox. She's in floral stretch pants, dyed orangey red hair and over-sized glasses perched at the tip of her nose. Though neither of them acknowledges it, they're waiting for her to leave to say goodbye. Hopefully to kiss.

"Is she seriously reading her mail at the damn mailbox?" Dean grumbles, watching.

"Mrs. Gunderson." Castiel glowers in her direction. "And it appears so."

Then of course she raises a hand at noticing him and calls out at "helllooo," waving her hand up and down in a fluttery wave. "Cassie!"

"Dude. Cassie?"

He sighs and rolls his eyes to the ceiling. "My mother calls me that."

Dean smirks. "Cute."

"It absolutely is not."

"Hmm… Cassie." He pretends to test it out.

"If you call me that I'll never let you kiss me again." Castiel tries to sound serious but it's completely an empty threat.

"Liar," Dean's eyes drop to his mouth then back up in a little challenge and he has to swallow nervously.

"Well I, uh should go before she actually walks over here and tries to educate me on the upkeep of her rose bushes."

"Yeah, alright," Dean sighs heavily. He takes his hand before he can leave though and stares at him meaningfully. "So… we're cool? I mean, this is okay? You and me?"

Castiel squeezes his hand and nods. He darts his eyes to the side to see his neighbor is temporarily interested in a junkmail ad and gives him a quick kiss. His eyes are wide, a little surprised at his own boldness but it was worth it to see the sparkle in those green eyes.

His neighbor still catches him in his driveway but he lets her go on for a full five minutes and smiles every boring moment of it.

Author's Note: I'll try to have the next chapter out in the next few days, darlings. Have it mostly written. Thanks for your love and support for this story!