A/N: This one deviates from the established pattern a bit because the chapter turned into a massive beast that I lost control of, so I had to split it into three separate parts. But here's what that means for you – extra long sections! Another update coming soon! More scenes and dialogue and descriptive-y things!
(Why don't I maintain even a basic understanding of the English language when I'm writing these stupid author's notes? It's ridiculous.)
Oh, and also – flashback sexy goodness coming your way in just a day or two. So hang on – I'm gonna earn that explicit rating, I promise. :)
"Where's your friend, Dean?"
Jessica, so far along that she's legitimately waddling now, rests one hand on her swollen belly and braces the other against the top of the kitchen table as she lowers herself into the chair. She smiles over at Dean, her face such an over-the-top mask of total innocence that he knows Sam has started to suspect something just from his one interaction with Castiel.
Dean glares at Sam for a half-second, his brother failing to hide his smirk until he gets up from the kitchen table under the pretense of getting another beer.
"Dean has a friend?" Lisa asks, happy and oblivious.
"Not really," Dean answers, because there's no way out of it now so he may as well spin the story the way he wants it. "Sammy broke the neighbor's window when I moved in and it turns out that it's a guy I went to college with."
He wants to keep talking, to say that it was no big deal, he barely knew the guy, anything to throw Sam the Sensitive Asshole Who Always Wants to Talk About Dean's Motherfucking Feelings off the scent, but the words stick in his throat like dry cereal. "It's not a big deal," he mumbles finally, lamely.
"Well, of course we should invite him over!" Lisa bubbles, already headed to the front door. "I mean, that's like fate or kismet or something, Dean. You move all the way from Florida and there's an old friend right next door? It's like asking the universe to smite you if you ignore that."
Dean kicks Sam under the table, hard enough that he's sure the fucker will have a bruise for a week. It still doesn't wipe the smug smile off his stupid face.
Dean had only just found a way to reach out to Cas – drunken, barely half thought-out and utterly confusing – the night before. The last thing he wants is Cas feeling like he was only testing the waters for social acceptability before throwing him into a family dinner where everyone knows varying degrees of the truth between them.
But as much as Dean wants to deny it, the melodramatic moose and his meddling wife have a point. He could stop Lisa, easily, tell her that the guy was weird or that he didn't want to have him over, wouldn't even have to really give a reason, but he doesn't. He lets her glide out the front door in her pretty little yellow sundress, listens to the distant trill of her voice and Cas' answering rumble, his heart in his throat until Lisa reappears a minute later, flushed and bouncing.
"He said he'd be delighted. Actually said that, 'I'd be delighted, Ms. Braeden.' Who talks like that?" She flits about the kitchen, collecting everything necessary for an additional place setting. "He'll be over in just a minute. Why didn't you tell me you knew him, Dean?"
Dean can feel four very knowing eyes on him and can't stop the slow spread of pink across his cheeks, his gaze studying the knots in the tabletop like there's going to be a quiz on the mathematical equations that define the swirls. "I guess I forgot about it," he offers, his voice too quiet and husky.
Lisa doesn't notice, fussing with the tableware one last time before going back to the stove, checking on the paella.
The doorbell rings and every muscle in Dean's body tightens, his eyes focused on the narrow hall leading to the front door.
"I'll get it," Lisa offers.
Jess reaches over, covering Dean's shaking hand with hers for a second before squeezing, hard. Her eyes are soft and understanding, her expression a near perfect copy of Sam's from eight years ago after Dean drove all night to reach him, stuttering and full-on panicking as he finally makes his life-altering declaration, only to find that everything was going to be fine all along. Sam, pitying and loving and trying not to laugh, had just said, "I already know, Dean. And of course it's okay. I love you, the only thing I care about is if you're happy."
His wife is silently reminding Dean of all of it now, and he can't even find the words to thank her. So he just squeezes back and hopes she gets it.
Castiel has no fucking clue what's going on.
The pretty brunette that Dean loves now – called Lisa, he learned – showed up at his door and asked him to a dinner party like she had no idea that he'd spent two years fucking her boyfriend, knowing Dean more intimately than she possibly could since he'd been inside him. So Cas said yes.
Jesus, he hasn't left his property in nearly a year. What excuse was he going to use? A sudden need to buy produce?
And he feels like hell when he shows up, half-drunk as always and wearing two-day-old jeans and his least smelly shirt, which he belatedly remembers used to actually belong to Dean, in front of Dean's beloved brother, said brother's glowing and hugely-pregnant wife, the ruggedly handsome Dean Winchester himself, and his perfect girlfriend.
Last chance to win him back? Yeah, I see you flying out the window. Nice to dream that you existed for a while. Goodbye.
Cas takes a seat next to Dean, who's at the head of the table, like this is something he remembers how to do, having dinner with strangers and acting like he belongs. The blonde across the table smiles at him, bright and knowing, as if she understands how completely out of his wheelhouse Castiel actually is. He smiles back, hand shaking as he reaches out for the napkin folded at his place setting, spreading it over his lap as he mentally chants, keep it together, keep it together.
"I was so happy to hear that Dean knows you, Castiel." Lisa is pleasant and lovely and charming, of course, and Cas wishes the floor would open up beneath him and swallow him whole. "I've been looking for a way to get to know the man who shares my porch, but everything I thought of just sounded lame."
"Yes," Cas replies, his eyes flicking to Dean's for a second, finding them bright and curious and attentive, before looking back at Lisa. "I've wanted to meet you as well. Same problem."
Sam, bless his giant ass, enthusiastically says something generic and welcoming before he goes to check on the food, deeming it ready and spooning it onto their individual plates. Cas fucks around with his napkin, twisting it around the blunt edges of his nail and watching Jessica. He's not sure what it is but something about her assures him that she's on his side.
And then there's steaming, home-cooked food in front of him for the first time in Cas-seriously-has-no-idea-how-long, and for a moment he doesn't care that it was prepared by the person who took his place as the greatest love in Dean's heart. He's too happy feeling normal. He's surrounded by a family, the room full of love and laughter and inside jokes, and Cas wants to draw it in through his very pores, to absorb enough of this feeling to sustain him through the lonely months on his side of the condo's dividing wall.
They dig in, Dean the first to raise his face and mumble around the food in his mouth to thank Lisa for her hard work.
Cas, on the other hand, waits until he swallows. Some manners are so drilled in that they become instinct, no matter how dusty with disuse.
"Yes, thank you, Lisa. This is the best meal I've had in quite some time."
Lisa beams back at Cas and Dean smiles at them both, small and private, as his knees widen and the right one settles in next to Cas'. It's warm and familiar and more human contact than Cas has had in far longer than he wishes to admit. The tight feeling he always carries in his chest loosens, his shoulders relax a fraction, and he lets the stale breath of his prison home ease out of his lungs.
Sam starts talking about work, a pro bono case defending some poor postal worker who got fired because he broke his arm saving a woman on his route from a mugger and wasn't able to work for six weeks, and Cas raises his eyes to Dean's, trying to tell him the words he can't give voice to.
You were right; he is special.
All the sacrifice was worth it.
Be proud, Dean, you helped raise someone amazing.
Dean looks away, scratching at the back of his neck with an absent smile, but Cas is sure he saw the appreciation in his eyes.
Cas manages to behave himself through dinner, pretending to be polite and normal and completely avoiding telling everyone who he used to be, what he used to do. They ask the usual questions, like, "What do you do for a living?" And Cas says that he used to be a freelance writer (true) and that he now lives off an inheritance while he decides what to do next (also true, but a stretch, since the only future plan he has is to slowly ruin his liver until he dies.)
"You should give Castiel a tour of the house, Dean," Jessica says after they've cleared the plates from the table, something in her expression hinting at mischievous.
"Yeah," Sam chimes in. "He got to see what your belongings looked like in his house since you crashed them through his window – it's only fair to show him how they're set up in here."
Sam ignores the obscene gesture Dean directs his way, slinging a dish towel over his shoulder as he goes to help Lisa clean up. Jessica claims that her ankles are too swollen to tour a house she's seen a hundred times before, so it ends up being just Dean and Cas wandering awkwardly through rooms Cas finds both strangely familiar – the floor plan is a mirror of his own home, after all – and yet utterly foreign.
Cas can see signs of Dean here and there – his wallet and keys sitting on a table in the entryway, a stack of classic rock vinyl next to the stereo. But that's pretty much it. The place is warm and welcoming in a generic way, all hardwood floors and overstuffed furniture with landscape paintings on the wall, but it's decor that Castiel's sure Lisa set up when she moved in last year.
He wonders where Dean really lives these days.
They wind up in Dean's small home office, Cas' hand resting lightly on the leather desk chair and it's like the cigarette all over again – an object that's a proxy for Dean. Dean has touched the chair, now Cas does. He can believe for a moment that they're just one tiny degree of separation from one another.
Dean sighs and rubs at the corner of his mouth. "I'm sorry, man, I had no idea this was happening. I would never just toss you into this situation blindly."
Cas looks away. He'd assumed so – it was one thing for Dean to want secret conversations in the dark of night. It was another entirely to bring him into the heart of his home life.
"It's fine, Dean. I had a pleasant evening. Your family is as lovely as you always said."
"Thanks." Silence for a moment, uncomfortable. Cas can barely believe that they'd been so easy together once. "Yours has taken off already, I take it?"
Cas nods. "Gabriel left early this morning, thankfully."
What he doesn't mention is that Gabe woke up before the sun, full of apologies and seemingly genuine affection. He'd packed and woken Cas gently to say that he was going to give him his space. "I'm sorry I'm so hard on you, Castiel. It's just, I really do worry."
He'd reached out for a hug but Cas shrank away, so he settled for a gentle cuff on the chin. "You've just got to get a little better at handling this whole life thing, little brother." Gabe's eyes turned meaningfully to the far wall, the one adjoining Dean's home. "I want you to be happy."
Cas held it together long enough to see Gabe off, then collapsed into a miserable ball of tears until shortly before Lisa had shown up, his brother's honesty having left him feeling unbearably exposed.
But Dean doesn't need to know any of that.
Instead, Cas turns to scan the bookshelves that line the walls, filled with a random collection of car parts and office supplies, recent pictures of Sam and Jessica and ancient ones of Dean's parents. The very top shelf holds books and there, tucked into the far corner, is a copy of Please Don't Give Me Up by Castiel Novak. It's the hardback edition, battered and worn like Dean's read it a hundred times, but Cas puts that thought out of his mind.
He probably bought it used, that's why it looks like that.
Dean follows his eyes and smiles, small and sad and a little guilty, like he's not sure if the sight of the book makes either of them happy or heartbroken. "It's an incredible book, Cas, really. Everything they said about it was true."
Castiel swallows, hard. Finally, finally, the review that matters, and his heart swells. He lets his eyes close for a quick second, savoring the sensation, and then forces himself back to the present.
"I'm surprised you keep it around."
Dean's smile widens, his mouth crooked and his eyes sparkling. "Of course I did. I mean, thanks to you I'm kind of a star, right?"
"That's what I mean. If someone saw that you had it, and knew that we were...friends, once...they might be able to piece together who inspired it."
Dean closes the distance between them, standing so near that Cas can feel the warmth radiating off his skin, see the freckles sprinkled across his cheekbones, smell his familiar mix of Old Spice and leather. Dean waits, making sure that he has Cas' gaze before he speaks, his voice earnest and laced with regret, or maybe an apology.
"I haven't worried about that in a really long time, Cas."
Which somehow makes it all worse, because it's either a lie to make Cas feel better, or, worse, it's the truth. It means that Dean's fear wasn't some flaw intrinsic to his personality, unavoidable and perpetually fatal to their relationship. It was just something he needed to outgrow. And Cas took off before he could straighten himself out.
Cas turns away and moves past Dean to the dark doorway.
"Not long enough," he murmurs, so low that he's not sure Dean even heard it.