It wasn't like Dean was a homophobe. Heck, he'd be lying if he said he hadn't ever fooled around with a guy. But he wasn't gay.
Dean Winchester was NOT GAY.
Standing, gaping at the man with whom he would be sharing a panel for the next hour, Dean's mind went blank except for that one thought until it suddenly exploded with a million others.
Did he look gay? Did Castiel think he had been coming onto him with dinner last night? Oh god—did he do anything while he was drunk last night? No, he thought. He hadn't been that drunk. And he'd been with a girl. A woman. A very feminine woman. Who had a vagina.
Maybe Castiel wasn't gay either. Maybe he was just affectionate like that. Yeah, in fact that made perfect sense. Guys could just be friendly. And, come on, the dude was already awkward as hell. Maybe that was just a part of it…?
That was it then. Dean didn't have to worry about it because there was nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.
Castiel turned back when he realized that Dean wasn't following him and tilted his head at him. It was the weirdest thing, reminding Dean of a bird, and bringing forth the thought that the other man was freaking adorable. In a totally manly sort of way, of course.
Coughing awkwardly, Dean did his best to paste on his usual confident smile before following Castiel to the table that had been placed on a stage for them to sit at. There were more spaces available at the table, thought they were not set up with microphones at the moment. Dean knew that some of the other panels that went on at this event included several more people. He wasn't actually sure why theirs only had the two of them but he didn't much care either.
They sat, Castiel with a slight attempt at a smile pasted onto his otherwise very nervous looking face, and then their knees bumped. What normally wouldn't have caused really much thought for Dean at all made him jump in an almost comical way just then. He coughed again, not sick but feeling like the new poster child for Awkward, and then scooted his chair just slightly away from Castiel. This earned another confused head tilt from the man, which Dean ignored.
"Are you all right, Dean?" Castiel asked.
God, that was a good question. Honestly, it wasn't that big of a deal. One little kiss, just a brief touch of lips to skin, and Dean was as flustered as a thirteen year old girl. What the hell? It wasn't like he hadn't had people randomly kiss him before.
Okay. So maybe it genuinely didn't happen that much (or at all), but he still thought maybe he was overreacting. It was probably because he just wasn't used to displays of genuine affection of the nonsexual sort from anyone outside his family. Even Lisa had never been all that affectionate and they were married for godsake. If he were completely honest with himself, he could even admit that it was so weird because of how much he had liked it. Dean tended to think of himself as a very sexual creature. He didn't cuddle or stick around—except in a few rare cases, and even then it wasn't necessarily his favorite thing. So for such a mundane and incredibly brief thing to be affecting him so much…
He needed to stop thinking about it.
The room in front of them was at least half full of people all looking up at their table expectantly. They were all convention goers, which at this particular convention meant a mix of writers, editors, publishers, and a few others. They were colleagues mostly and the focus of their panel would be pretty professional. Less, "will they end up together" questions and more, "what is your process" questions. Dean didn't go to college and never enjoyed dissecting literature in school—he always thought overanalyzing sucked the fun right out of reading a good book—so he wasn't really looking forward to a bunch of literature snobs dissecting, or trying to get him to dissect, his book. Or Castiel's, although Dean hadn't actually read those book.
Should he have?
Before he could give into the next wave of uncertainty that seemed ready to roll in at the thought, Ellen joined them up on the stage. She grinned at Dean and then at Castiel, her eyes softening slightly at the other man, possibly because of how lost he looked up on stage like that.
"All right, guys, I'm just going to introduce you two and then you can just go," she told them, her confidence in their abilities to do this making Dean uncomfortable. What was it with him and overreactions when it came to Castiel? If he had just gotten over his embarrassment from their meeting, maybe they could have freaking planned something for this stupid thing. What the hell was wrong with him?
"Okay, everyone, quiet down, quiet down."
The room fell silent at Ellen's voice, unmicrophoned though it was. She tended to have a pretty big presence—there was a reason that she had been able to easily take over her husband's business and then make it flourish despite having had relatively little experience before he died and left it to her—so it wasn't surprising to Dean that she could quiet a crowd like that so quickly.
After that, she introduced herself, Dean and Castiel, and the panel started. If Dean had had any real time to worry, he would have thought now that there was really no need. Questions were ringing out of the audience before Ellen had even fully stepped off the stage. A lot of them were directed at Dean—how he managed to stay away from formulaic plotlines in a crime series, why he had decided to have a strong heroine as her protagonist (to which he had joyfully quoted Joss Whedon)—but many were aimed at Castiel as well. Every time someone started with, "This is for Castiel," the man actually jumped in his seat just slightly and looked shocked. It was as if after each question he convinced himself that no one else would ask another one. Dean found himself way too entertained by watching the man next to him, distracted every once in a while from answering questions.
Somehow, and Dean really wasn't sure how since it was mostly a jumbled blur, they made it through alive. Ellen came back up on stage to usher them off and Dean found himself actually pretty sad to go. He felt like they had just begun to settle in, getting comfortable with the crowd and, surprisingly (at least for Dean), with each other. It wasn't like he had forgotten that little kiss, it was just that he remembered the randomly quirky and clever wit of the otherwise awkward Castiel from dinner last night. This was the Castiel he had so enjoyed yesterday, who had inspired him to say weirdly kind words to before the panel. He had a hard time reconciling this obviously intelligent man with the soft, plump lips that kept coming to mind.
"That was, uh, pretty awesome actually," Dean said once they were safely off the stage and away from any microphones again.
Castiel's lips quirked upward and he agreed, "Yes. Yes, it was."
They shared a nervous laugh and then Dean said, "You know, I've never actually read your book…"
Castiel didn't look surprised at all. In fact, if the way he had been reacting to the questions earlier was any indication, it didn't seem that Castiel really thought anyone had read his book.
"I mean, I got some idea what it was about just now, but, uh,"—god he was so awkward, why was he so freaking awkward?—"I mean, I'd like to. You know. Read it. Do you think you're gonna write more? Like a sequel or whatever?"
And then Castiel was smiling, for real smiling, and Dean knew that he had somehow managed to say the right thing.
"I don't think it will be a sequel, per se," Castiel answered confidently. Like Dean, it was when he was in the middle of a story that he felt most in his element. His stories he could talk about for days, and Dean could tell that immediately from the excitement in his voice.
"It will be part of the same general story, the same universe, but I don't intend for it to be mandatory to read both books," he continued.
They were walking down the hall, back toward the lounge area again, and if Castiel noticed how close they were to one another he certainly didn't say anything about it. Dean didn't either, despite how painfully aware he was of it. He didn't make a move to distance himself either, though he couldn't have said why. He justified that it was because of how quietly Castiel spoke, and maybe that was a part of it. Maybe.
The thing was… it didn't seem to matter suddenly. He wasn't sure what had changed. Probably seeing Castiel so confident all of a sudden, and not in the contemptuous way he had been when he snapped at Dean the day before. No, this was a quiet confidence that came from years and years of living inside his own head more than out in the world. It was something that bled into his words during the panel and continued to now. It was something that was weirdly attractive to Dean even as his mind shied away from the details. He was too fresh out of a relationship (okay that was like a year ago, but still) and too afraid of commitment (there was a reason he was divorced) to even begin to contemplate the growing attraction he felt towards the man next to him.
He knew the difference in what he was feeling immediately—knew without knowing that his feelings toward this man were coming on far too deeply and far too quickly. The way he spoke shouldn't be enough to make Dean wonder suddenly if they could be friends, be something more than colleagues.
He had only met the man yesterday. And like he had confirmed with himself earlier, he wasn't gay. If he wasn't quite as straight as he mostly advertised, well, that didn't mean that he should want to go jump the bones of the first guy who freaking kisses his cheek. Even if that guy did have the most fucking blue eyes he's ever seen and lips that don't look like they belong on a man's face (yet manage somehow to fit on Castiel's perfectly).
He was lonely though and a lonely guy could want a friend. Wanting friends was totally normal.
He let out a relieved breath and managed to laugh at something Castiel said (he was fairly sure it was intended to be funny, even if he hadn't been paying quite as much attention to the other man's words as he should have been). That was it. He wanted to be Castiel's friend.
Feeling a renewed sense of self-assurance, Dean sat across from Castiel at one of the more private tables and let himself relax. He could have a friend. He could be friends with a blue eyed god whose hair looked like sex as much as his voice sounded like it.
Wait. What?