Dean remembers the strip club from his twenty first birthday. He'd gotten a lap dance from a girl named Chastity before getting puking drunk. If he remembered correctly, the dumpster was placed uncomfortably close to the door all the dancers left out of.
The embarrassment he vaguely remembered from puking his guts out in front of beautiful women was small in comparison to what he felt now. There was embarrassment. Cas had obviously thought nothing about that night since then and had moved on. But here was Dean, unable to talk about it but still dwelling.
There was shame, too, though. He was apparently in love with a guy he hadn't seen in four years. And here he was, standing next to his cousins as they all prepared to celebrate his marriage. Gabriel had mentioned that Meg had gotten Cas into some trouble because she was a wild woman. But even Dean could tell that she was completely in love with Cas. And honestly, that was what he deserved. He deserved someone that never told him no and that would make him happy.
Dean wasn't a nice enough person to do it himself. But he was just nice enough to not ask for a chance, too.
Even Sam had been invited to the club. The big moose was looking around, excited if intimidated, seated next to Cas's cousins Balthazar and Gabriel. The whole Novak clan was oddly named, but no one batted an eye in Lawrence anymore. They were there for fifteen minutes before the man of the hour walked in.
He was wearing black jeans and a black t shirt and Dean was violently reminded of the night before graduation. It had been dark blue jeans then, but the lighting in that house had been just shady enough that he hadn't known until they were in that room.
Dean gave the obligatory congratulations and hug before he sat down next to Sam. They watched girls dance for a while before it became apparent that Cas hadn't changed that much from high school. He wouldn't watch the dancers once they had most of their clothes off, instead choosing to inspect his drink.
He softened. "I'm gonna go get another drink. Wanna come?" He popped his head back toward the door and Cas gratefully nodded.
Once there, Dean sat. "You don't look too happy with the venue."
Cas shrugged. "Gabriel chose. He said that if I would be bound in matrimony soon, the ladies here had to have a chance at me first."
He laughed. "You're not the type to try to get one off before monogamy."
The other man gave a smile. Dean was about to say something – an apology for stopping things or a regret for not going through with it - when the lights went down real low. Chords of a song that he knew he'd always remember played on the stage as a blonde woman came out, dressed in a sexy punk kind of way. "It's the calming before the storm, alcohol sits nicely in your stomach warm."
His stomach was rioting against his ribs and his heart had surely stopped beating. He stared at the back of Cas's neck as the other man watched her dance her way through the song. When it came up, Dean could do nothing but sing under his breath. "Anything you hear is what you believe. Let the rhyme get stuck in your head, wish you had undressed me in your bed."
He must have been mistaken when he thought that Cas's shoulders had tensed.
They sat down with the other three after that. They avoided looking at each other the rest of the night as Dean slammed drink after drink.
Eventually, Balthazar took pity on him and brought him home. He stumbled into his apartment, drunk with the song that had been playing in his car stuck in his head. He sang it as he pulled his clothes off and tumbled into his bed. "So now I am owed this: one self-indulgent tirade, a hollow attempt to sell my point of view. Yeah, I know what's rotting beneath your best intentions. At the heart of your convictions sits a broken man that needs to understand."
He didn't remember falling asleep and he spent twenty minutes searching for his phone. He thought that it was in his pants pocket that were in the living room, but when he looked for them, he found them in his bedroom. And his phone was tangled up in the blankets.
He plugged it into the charger before he noticed that black smiley face speech bubble. When he pulled it up, he was confused. It was a text from Cas, just reading 'You're just not drunk enough to fuck.' He looked back through the texts and right between that text and the one telling him where to meet them was one from himself. 'Wish you had undressed me in your bed.'
"Fuck." When the hell had he decided it would be a good idea to bring that up? He couldn't do that to the guy. His fucking wedding was in two months.
The hangover was awful, but he got through it the way his dad used to. He kept drinking through the day. He didn't remember eating, but he remembered throwing up all sorts of liquor and beer a few times through the day.
He talked himself into anger and out of it three different times before he gave into himself. He didn't know why he wanted to text him back so badly, but he couldn't fight it after the fourth time getting sick.
His fingers were thick and unresponsive, but he pressed through until he had a coherent message. "You're impossible to love or leave. So impossible to win or please. I'm wearing you out, just wearing you out. But I'm wearing you down?"
Sunday brought him a worse hangover and no response. So he was careful to eat while he drank. He only threw up once. He confined himself to one more text since he'd have to be a semi responsible adult in the morning. "You taste like Heaven, but God knows you're built for sin."
Songs used here:
Passion for Publication - Anarbor
[It's the calming before the storm, alcohol sits nicely in your stomach warm.]
[Anything you hear is what you believe. Let the rhyme get stuck in your head, wish you had undressed me in your bed.]
This is All Now - Taking Back Sunday
[So now I am owed: one self-indulgent tirade, a hollow attempt to sell my point of view. Yeah, I know what's rotting beneath your best intentions. At the heart of your convictions sits a broken man that needs to understand.]
Wake Up - Three Days Grace
[You're just not drunk enough to fuck.]
Impossible - Anberlin
[You're impossible to love or leave. So impossible to win or please. I'm wearing you out, just wearing you out. But I'm wearing you down.]
Built for Sin - Framing Hanley
[You taste like Heaven, but God knows you're built for sin.]