no fun, bracketed titles because I can't think of a fun way to twist this.
so i started writing this one at 2pm, thinking i'd get this posted early.
nope.
I open my eyes up to the warm, lugubrious feeling that comes from waking up in bed with your boyfriend after a really good night.
The slow ascent of my eyelids reveals the sight of a shirtless Dean, still sleeping, a slight twist of the mouth suggesting a smile. I'm all but overwhelmed with love for him when I spy the dim green lighting of a digital clock behind him, reading 7:30am… the time I usually leave the house for work.
"Shit." I vault out of bed after the loud cuss and straight to the wardrobe in order to get dressed.
"Cas..?" Dean says sleepily. I risk a second to look at him, propped up on one elbow and rubbing his eyes.
"Crap, I didn't mean to wake you, I'm sorry. I'm late." I'm back to rummaging through the wardrobe to find anything that looks smart.
"That's my fault," he grimaces. "Sorry, there was a power cut yesterday and I forgot to reset the alarm."
"Not to worry, I can still get there roughly on time. Why don't we organise our clothes better?"
"'Cos there's more fun stuff to do? Isn't it Friday?"
"Yes! Dress-down Friday; has anything better ever been invented?"
He chuckles, and I grab the first shirt my hands come across and pull it off the hanger. Underwear's easily grabbed, and I remember putting my jeans to the very right of the wardrobe, so that's easily done, too. I'm dressed within a minute, and Dean's up to kiss me a very quick goodbye.
"Sex hair," he says, and pats it down in lieu of any regular term of goodbye.
I accept his kiss with an eyeroll and immediately move towards shoes. "Thanks, I love you, too."
"Ah yeah, there's that too."
"Sleep well!" I call as I'm walking out the door, with only a slightly bitter undertone.
###
Entering the house again, I choose a less commonly known greeting: "everyone thinks I love Led Zeppelin."
Dean's laugh bounces towards me, and my mood brightens a little.
Okay; wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt isn't exactly the worst thing to happen to me. I can handle people who don't really know me making comments like 'oh, Castiel, I didn't know you liked Led Zeppelin!' or 'not your usual style, Castiel' with a cute, joking wink. I'm not keen on them, no, but I can handle that.
However, I would not have had to handle it if Dean had mentioned what shirt I was wearing this morning instead of merely telling me I had 'sex hair'. So that deserves some gentle ribbing.
"You could have just told them you're not a fan."
"I hear enough stories from you about people who aren't 'real fans', I don't want myself considered among their ranks." I say drily.
"Ah well, you should've said it's your boyfriend's shirt…" he grins at the grimace on my face at the thought of giving any of those people information about my life. They're gossipers. "You could've also looked at what shirt you were putting on this morning." His innocent tone doesn't fool me a bit.
"Oh no," I jab a finger into his chest. "You were willing to sort out my 'sex hair', you could have easily informed me that I was wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt instead of giving in to your fetish."
"It's hardly a fetish…" I raise an eyebrow. "A little bit of a fetish?"
"In any case," I say with a smile. "I have a way for you to make it up for me. I'm picking what you wear to that newspaper meeting thing tonight."
He doesn't seem to care, still grinning. "Okay, but I need to dress at least a little smart."
"Of course, I wouldn't want to embarrass you." I blink innocently.
"Sure, man, whatever you say. But you have to wear the shirt, too."
"Then we have a deal."
"That we do."
###
"I didn't even know you owned this shirt." It's a subdued black, but that's all that's subdued about it. It has a dinosaur on a rocket with the words 'nothing is unpossible'. Couple that with the fact that the shirt was small on me when I first received it, and Dean is both taller and more muscular than I am, and you get the picture – he looks a bit ridiculous. I let him pick the rest of the outfit, because I am a kind man indeed.
"It was a gift."
"Some gift."
"I think it was supposed to be a joke."
"I don't think I could look gayer if I tried."
"You are turning up with a man as your date."
"Yeah, forgot that. Are you sure you're a man?"
"Pretty sure, Dean." I roll my eyes. "I used to not believe in dinosaurs, my sister thought this was in good taste."
"Or she wanted you to lose any friends you had."
"That is also possible."
"You realise this is the first time I'm meeting these people, right?"
"You should have thought about that before you let your fetish blind you." I grin, and he grins back.
###
Dean spends the evening clutching my hand in his as tight as he can. He ignores people's glances at his chest, and to the one person who questions the too-tight shirt, he merely replies 'my boyfriend has a fetish for seeing my in his clothes'; which is poor recompense for my answering questions about Led Zeppelin as though I am a fan (not difficult, given how much Dean talks about them).
When we lose the shirts later that night, though, neither of us complain.