A/N: I wish I could buy giant confetti canons full of love and glitter for all of you. Seriously, just imagine that I'm walking around with you all day, showering you with random bursts of sparkly affection, because that's how I feel every time one of you reviews or follows or favorites. I'm just dancing around, covered in love and glitter...
Which I suddenly realize makes me sound a lot like a stripper, only, you know, without all the cash and sexiness. Huh.
Dean puts his travel mug in the cup holder and smooths his tie under the seat belt he never fails to wear anymore. He starts up the Impala, tapping his fingers to the final chords of "Kashmir" that pour from the radio as he idles in his driveway for a long moment, waiting to see if the engine's rumble has stirred his neighbor. He'll take anything at this point, a light flipping on or a slight twitch of the heavy curtains cloaking Castiel's windows, the tiniest sign that Dean's presence has had some effect on him. There's nothing.
In fact, the only confirmation he's had in the past two weeks that Cas actually does live next door and the whole window-breaking incident wasn't just some fucked-up acid trip that Dean's confused with reality was the report from Bud the Contractor, who told him that he'd fixed Cas' window better than new, as requested, and that he'd seemed "a little strange."
That made Dean smile, just thinking about the thousand tiny awkward things that Cas does every day in his attempts to act like mundane people. "You're too special of a snowflake," Dean had told him once, his lips dancing across the sensitive skin under Cas' ear as he pouted and tried to pull out of Dean's arms.
"I'd like to stop being special, then," Cas whined.
"Not even a little bit possible." Dean can still feel the heat that burned through him at those words, the press of Cas against him in the dark shadows of Harvelle's back booth.
He shakes off the memory and sighs, putting the car in reverse. It doesn't matter how often he relives the memories. The only one that's relevant now is the final one, the crumpled note covered in Cas' cramped handwriting telling Dean that he was gone for good.
Lisa waves at him, smiling and sleepy, from their front window. Dean waves back and eases out of the driveway, turning his focus to his sales calls for the day.
Dean has somewhere to be now, someone he has to be. He's the Northeast Sales Representative for one of the country's biggest truck lines, tasked with finding freight to keep the trucks moving in and out of his territory. It's exhausting and stressful and never ending, but it's also what Dean asked for back in school. Dependable. Well-paying. Complete with benefits and suits and respectability.
It doesn't matter what he wants anymore. He has responsibilities. He has a five-year plan.
And nowhere in it does it say, "Fuck everything all to hell because fate's a sadistic bitch that's using Cas to screw with your head."
The Impala growls beneath him as it roars away.
It's immediate. All-consuming, overwhelming, and probably bat-shit insane, but that's how these things go sometimes (or so Dean's heard).
Somehow, Cas and he manage to entirely skip over the uncomfortable dance of new-friends-who-text-a-few-times-a-week-and-consta ntly-have-to-find-parties-or-study-groups-or-other -increasingly-random-and-ridiculous-excuses-to-spe nd-time-together and move straight into assuming they have standing plans after class every Wednesday night. And then it's more than just Wednesdays. It's movies on rainy Saturday afternoons and early morning grocery runs because Cas stayed over and Dean's out of Captain Crunch. And then it's just assumed that Cas will help Dean cram for his economics exam all night by supplying endless coffee and back rubs and that Dean will make sure that Cas has a reserved seat and comped bar tab every night he's working.
Because, for students who met in class, they spend an inordinately small fraction of their time there. Cas hates going out in public, just in general, and wasting time in boring classes specifically, so he skips more often than not. Dean has a better attendance record but a worse attitude, actively resenting being forced to jump through hoops like a trained dog just so he can get a decent paying job in a couple of years and be some dick-headed boss' ass clown.
So, whenever possible, they just avoid campus. They teach each other instead, holed up in Dean's room.
Cas' literature studies are intense and filled with more reading assignments than Dean thought was humanly possible, so every time Cas groans and rubs at his eyes after hours skimming over a book in the dim light, Dean takes it from him and clears his throat, picking up where Cas left off. Cas always leans in close, his head resting on Dean's shoulder, claiming that he needs to see the sentence structure in order to learn how to write properly. Dean can feel Cas' every exhale, warm and soft against his neck, and it's so distracting that he keeps losing his place, Cas chuckling and reaching over to point where Dean left off, his fingertips skimming across the page and down over Dean's wrist.
Dean knows the whole thing is just a bullshit excuse to cuddle but, strangely, finds that he doesn't care. Because not even Dean's supreme skills at self-delusion can continue to hide that he's falling for this messy-haired guy with the ridiculous voice and terrible fashion sense. His whole body hums when they're together; he loves the smell of Cas' shampoo on Dean's pillow after he sleeps over; he can't keep his eyes off the curve of Cas' neck or the sliver of skin that peeks between his shirt and boxers when Cas is fast asleep, his eyelashes dark against his pale cheeks.
And Dean's never felt anything like this for anyone before – man, woman, animal, or mineral. Cas is an independent species, special and unique, with none of the normal laws applicable. Dean tries not to look at it closer than that. He's happy, he's complete, and so what if he likes it when Cas' hand brushes his own or when his body curves around Dean's, hogging the bed after late-night study sessions. For Dean, Cas supersedes normal ideas about attraction and appropriateness. Dean wants him there, Dean needs him there, and that's the end of it.
For six tension-filled weeks, anyway, until a Tuesday night when Dean's so filled with pent-up frustration and a thousand tiny unsaid things that he doesn't keep track of how many times he refills Bobby's whiskey glass. It's a rookie mistake and he knows he fucked up the second the old man starts swiping at his eyes, mumbling nearly-incoherent reminiscences about his long-dead wife. Dean's heard it all before, of course – the way she always looked out for Bobby, making him pies and taking care of him, how she died in a car accident before Bobby felt like he was able to really tell her how much she meant to him.
But Bobby's broken, bitter regret finally cracks something in Dean, some final bit of armor or fear, he's not even sure. All he knows is that he's done waiting. He's done hiding from himself like a little bitch, and he's never going to end up crying to a bartender over what could have been.
He's Dean Motherfucking Winchester, goddammit, and he's taking control.
It's a quarter to two and Bobby and Ash are the only ones left in the bar, so Dean just tosses them the keys and tells them to lock up when they're through. He jogs through the back kitchen and takes the stairs to his room two at a time, the butterflies in his stomach strong enough to make him feel weightless, as if they are beating hard enough to lift his entire body. His door's unlocked and Cas is already sprawled out on his bed, too engrossed in Dead Souls to look up. If he had, he would have noticed that Dean doesn't head to the shower like he always does, even though he smells like smoke and beer, and doesn't kick off his shoes or say hello or make sure the door closes behind him. He's just across the room in an instant, his eyes locked on Cas as he clambers onto the bed and takes the book from his hands, desperately trying to see in Cas' surprised confusion if this is alright, if this is something that Cas wants.
And then he thinks, fuck it, I'll find out soon enough. He slides a hand along the side of Cas' neck and pulls him forward, his mouth hard and hot as he parts Cas' lips with his own.
It's like that time he finally took Sam to Disney World last spring break. They were on Splash Mountain and there was this perfect moment when they were perched at the peak of the big drop, gravity beginning to suck the boat out from beneath them, when Dean raised his arms in the air and laughed, terrified but wide-eyed, electric and alive and free. Kissing Cas is that feeling times a thousand, perfect and petrifying, brilliant and beautiful and breathtaking, and Dean can't imagine anything could ever be better.
A long second passes until Dean's senses begin to come back to him and he realizes, with growing horror, that although Cas is pliable and pressed against him, his mouth is still. Totally unresponsive. Dean wrenches himself back and retreats to the edge of the bed, embarrassed and full of a hundred different apologies, already cursing his stupid hormones for running away with the only truly great thing in his entire fucking life.
Cas' eyes flit open, deep and dark as the ocean. They're confused and searching, scouring Dean's face like it holds some answer of grave importance. Dean takes a deep, shaking breath, but he doesn't have any words. Cas is the one who always knows what to say, who can make language beautiful and meaningful. All Dean has is the physical. So he reaches across the blanket to cover Cas' hand with his own, tracing his thumb in tiny circles over the blue veins on the inside of Cas' wrist, trying to make his fingers say, "I'm sorry," and, "You're the greatest thing that's ever happened to me."
And, "Please don't leave. I don't know how I'm going to stay away from your mouth now that I know that you taste like peppermint and rain, like home, but if you don't want me I will do anything to keep you as a friend."
Apparently, Cas has learned more than just English literature that semester. He's also somehow become fluent in Dean, because Cas seems to understand everything that he hasn't been able to say. Cas' face clears, a smile breaking like sunrise over his features, and Dean finally thinks he can speak again but doesn't get a single sound out. Cas curls his fingers into fists around the lapels of Dean's jacket, hauling him in against Cas' body and moving his mouth over Dean's, eager and hungry and drowning.
Dean doesn't question it, doesn't dare, just wraps his arms around Castiel's back and returns the enthusiasm. For someone so reserved and proper in his public life, Cas is reckless now, his hands sliding up to Dean's face, thumbs tracing across his stubble, fingers trailing down the sensitive skin of his neck. Dean pushes Cas down on his back, straddling his hips as he sucks Cas' lower lip between his teeth, licking at the inside of it. Cas rewards him with a moan, this tiny sound of pleasure so pure that Dean immediately resolves to make it his life's mission to replicate as often as possible.
He slips his hands under the hem of Cas' shirt, running over the warm skin that's taunted him every time Cas has bent over or stretched since that first night in the bar. His thumbs press into the dips beside Cas' narrow hipbones before he slides his hands up, feeling the lean lines of Cas' chest, the hardened peaks of his nipples. His mouth moves from Cas' perpetually chapped lips to the stretch of skin beneath his ear, kissing and sucking and licking his way down his throat as Cas' breath speeds, his pulse pounding through the artery under Dean's skillful mouth.
The world has narrowed to this – heat and flesh and the smell of Cas surrounding him – and Dean is shaking, his fingers trembling as they skim over the fine bones of Cas' slim build, his breath ragged as it drags over the lump in his throat. It's too perfect, it's too much, and as Cas reclaims his mouth and swallows down the sob he almost let spill out, Dean realizes that there's no coming back from this.
He's in love. Completely, enduringly, undeniably.
Cas slows, breaking their kiss for a moment as his eyelids drift up, those ridiculous navy eyes an inch away from Dean and reflecting everything he's feeling back at him.
Dean sighs, a tiny exhale that silently carries the first prayer of his entire life.
'Please, dear God, don't let me fuck this up.'
Dean's last appointment of the day was dinner with clients at some pretentious-as-fuck restaurant where he had to pay over $300 for portions roughly the size of shot glasses, so it's long past dark when he pulls into his driveway. He's exhausted and starving, ready for a hot shower and frozen pizza, but he hesitates when he hears tires crunch in the road behind him.
A cab pulls up to the curb next door and stops, the trunk popping open. Curious, Dean dawdles, slowly collecting his coat and briefcase, wandering down to the mailbox even though he knows Lisa would have collected the mail hours ago.
Finally, a man steps out. Short, with a forehead that's been expanded exponentially by hair loss, and Dean vaguely recognizes him as Cas' brother, the only one of the vast Novak clan that Cas tolerates on very rare occasions (but still kind of hates). Dean keeps staring as he tries to come up with the guy's name.
Cas supplies it for him a moment later, wrenching open his door and stepping onto the porch barefoot, wearing jeans and a faded gray t-shirt. "Gabriel." It's a greeting, sort of, but it's the same tone of voice Castiel uses when he discovers something smelly on the bottom of his shoe.
Dean only met Gabriel once, when he showed up at Cas' apartment unannounced and waited for a day and a half for Cas to come home. He didn't, of course, having essentially moved in with Dean at that point, and Gabriel finally gave up and tracked them down after class. Cas wasn't any happier to see him back then.
"There's my favorite brother!" Dean can hear the sarcasm dripping from Gabe's voice and it makes his hands clench, nails biting crescent-shaped indents across his palms. He'd forgotten what a giant bag of dicks Cas' family generally was, or how much he'd had to restrain himself from inflicting physical pain on Gabe the last time he'd shown up and mocked Cas. Dean takes an unconscious half-step toward him, fiery-tempered and protective, before he remembers that he no longer has a place in any of Cas' domestic dramas.
So he swallows his possessiveness, a hard pit that burns in his stomach as he slinks through the shadows to his front door, flipping through his key ring to find the right one. Cas' eyes flick to his once, shining and desperate and something else, some emotion that Dean used to be able to read. But then Gabriel's shoes make the porch stairs squeak behind Dean and the moment breaks; Cas turns back to his brother and Dean slips into his house.
The house is dark. Lisa has already gone to bed, probably has an early appointment. But the night is mild and the windows are cracked open, voices from next door carrying in easily on the breeze. Dean settles in on the couch and opens his laptop, pretending he's catching up on email and not intentionally spying.
"Wasn't that your little boyfriend I just saw? The asshole with the foul mouth and drinking problem?"
Dean's jaw clenches. He's regretting not slamming Gabriel's head into the pavement the second he arrived.
Cas ignores it. "I thought I made it perfectly clear when I wouldn't give you my address that I wanted to be left alone, Gabriel."
"But you're not actually alone, little bro. You have about a billion brothers and sisters, all waiting to hear from you. We care. I care."
Cas snorts. He must be physically blocking Gabe from coming into the house. "You care about getting the rights to my book when I die, Gabe."
Silence. Dean can picture it, Gabriel smirking and shrugging and not bothering to deny it. Son of a bitch.
"You gonna make me sleep on your porch? Or should I go next door and see if good old Dean-o will let me bunk with him? Maybe one Novak's as good as another..."
Cas sighs so loudly that it's practically a growl, but the door squeaks on its hinges as he opens it further. "Fine. Come in. But I'm going to need another drink."
Footsteps. The door slamming shut, voices turned to barely audible mumbles. Dean sighs and heads to the kitchen in search of the whiskey, murmuring out loud even though he knows Cas can't hear him.
"Me too, Cas."
Three hours pass, filled with barbed comments about how Cas was the only one to inherit their father's money and thinly-veiled insults about how he's wasted every opportunity he's ever been given. Cas endures it all through a steadily-thickening drunken haze until midnight, when he gives up and goes to bed.
He lies in the spinning dark of his room until he hears Gabriel close the door of the guest bedroom across the hall and then waits another twenty minutes before sliding out from the sheets, praying that he can make it down the hallway and stairs without any floorboards creaking. He reaches the door in miraculous silence and decides that he may need to rethink that whole "There is no God" concept.
Cas isn't even sure where he's going when he eases the front door open, slipping into the warm night in nothing but his boxer shorts. All he knows is that he can't stay under the same roof as Gabe for one more second without cracking open and spilling something about what's wrong with him, about the festering shards of a heart that he's been trying to live with for the past eight years. As irritating as the selfish bastard is, Gabriel is family, and he has his ways of worming into Cas' life.
Cas gently shuts the door behind him and lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. The air smells like rain and grass, fresh enough to help sober him up as he walks to the rocking chair he put on the front porch when he moved in years ago and has yet to actually sit in.
"Hey, Cas," a familiar voice rumbles through the darkness. Cas is proud of himself, he doesn't jump or trip up, just folds into the chair and casually looks over at the glowing tip of a cigarette, seemingly floating in the darkness next door.
"Hello, Dean."
Cas' eyes have adjusted to the dark enough to see Dean exhale, a slow stream of smoke that floats lazily toward the amber streetlight at the end of the block. "I was just wondering if you ever came out here."
Cas knows, with that tiny bit of vulnerability, that Dean's been drinking, but he doesn't mind. Drunk Dean was always the only kind that Cas felt like he could really touch, really understand. So he takes a risk and drags his chair across the empty space between them, settling down on the line that divides his property from Lisa's.
"Not usually," he admits, wanting to offer Dean the same amount of honesty that he's been given. Dean takes another drag, studiously avoiding Castiel's gaze.
"Just hiding out from your family, then?"
Cas nods.
"That's too bad," Dean finally says, tossing the cigarette butt to the worn wooden boards and crushing it under his toe. He's still in suit pants and shiny leather shoes, his white dress shirt rumpled from the day's wear, the sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. He's beautiful, because he's Dean and Cas doesn't believe he could ever be anything less than breathtaking, but he's weary. Aged and haunted, the dark circles under his eyes caused by more than just the low lighting.
He pulls out another unfiltered Camel, holding it between his lips as he flicks open a silver Zippo (Cas wishes it was daylight so he could check for the engraving, see if it's the same one he gave Dean for his 21st birthday) and inhales. Dean shifts, angling toward Cas and handing him the lit cigarette. It's such a familiar gesture, intimate and perfected over the hundreds of times it's happened before, that Cas doesn't even think about telling Dean that he doesn't smoke, never really did. He just raises it to his mouth and breathes in, relishing the feel of the warm filter that links Dean's mouth with his.
Dean sits back in his chair and stretches his legs out in front of him, gaze soft and unfocused. "I come out here most nights after work. It'd be nice to have company more often."
Castiel's breath hitches, because if this was his Dean, the version that was 22 and swimming in bravado, this would be tantamount to a plea, practically begging Cas to be a part of Dean's new life. It's a step toward everything Cas hasn't dared to allow himself to want since the day Dean broke his window or the thousands of days that passed before that and, oh, God, he really does not want to fuck this up.
He's grateful for the cigarette now, occupying his mouth long enough for Cas to quiet his nerves, force his voice to come out as deep and even as ever.
"Then I'll have to make a habit out of it."
Dean nods and even smiles, sort of, a few of his teeth shining white and wet in the pale light.
"Good. That'd be good, Cas."