A/N: This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. There's a detailed note about it on my profile page, but in brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.

This story is a set of drabbles set over the summer; it follows "Starbright," and focuses on the evolution of Castiel's feelings as he and Sam grow closer, moment by tiny moment. Rotating perspectives, including Dean's; this story is still technically pre-slash, but getting closer to full slash all the time.

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Sam hadn't done a lot of dating in his life. Part of the fault for that definitely fell on an upbringing that had been about as stable as a traveling circus, and the rest could most likely be chalked up to his abrupt transition the summer after tenth grade from a scrawny kid with a bad bowl cut to a six-four sixteen-year-old with the same bad haircut and all the grace of Pinocchio trying to dance the flamenco. Even in college, Sam hadn't really gone out much; if Jess hadn't been in every one of his law classes and eaten in the cafeteria at the same time as him every day, he probably would've spent all four years alone in the basement of the library, his most significant relationship a standing Friday-night rendezvous with a musty pile of folklore textbooks.

In the time since he and Dean had gotten back on the road, things hadn't been much better. His brother's version of dating, picking up a smashed chick in an equally smashed-up bar and forgetting her name by the time he scissor-kicked his way out of bed the next morning, had never really been to Sam's taste. And there'd been nights, probably, watching Dean stick his tongue down the throat of a beer bottle and then a long-necked blonde in short succession, when Sam had theorized that normal people—people who didn't drive around with hacksaws and shotguns in the trunk of their car—had to have a better way of meeting each other.

After today, he was pretty sure speed dating wasn't it.

Sam sat alone at a two-seater table in the back of the small French-style restaurant, doing his best not to fidget with the heavy linen napkin wrapped in a chokehold around his silverware. The bud vase overstuffed with lavender and baby's breath rocked as his knee bumped the table leg, and he reached out to steady it, wincing as his elbow cracked against the heavy wooden frame of the Eiffel Tower oil painting looming over him. Fortunately, the only waitress was too busy to shoot him a dirty look—she had her hands full with the crowd of speed daters laughing and fake laughing a few tables away from him.

The city of Coldwater wasn't that big, even by Kansas standards, but the Coldwater County QuikCupid Speed Daters Association had somehow scrounged up twelve full tables of prospective speed daters, spread out in a half-circle at the center of the otherwise empty café that was hosting the event. Sam hadn't realized they'd taken over the establishment until the waitress was already leading him to his table, and by then it was too late to back out. He'd narrowly escaped being dragged into the speed-dater pool himself—as always seemed to happen at these things, more women than men had shown up, and the older lady who was running the event was prowling for volunteers. Only his stuttered excuse that he was meeting someone had saved him, and he wasn't sure how much longer that would hold, if Dean didn't show up soon.

Coldwater hadn't really been one of Sam's must-sees, but like most of the places he'd been, it jumped the list when three bizarre male corpses turned up in the wheat fields outside town, all of them drained of blood and missing their thumbs. He and Dean had split up after driving the main drag and agreeing to meet at the café at six for dinner, but considering he'd last seen his brother leaning over the counter at the Chief Theater to flirt-interrogate the pretty girl who'd sold popcorn to one of the deceased…well, Sam figured he shouldn't be surprised Dean was taking his time. But now he was getting hungry, and he wasn't sure what to do. He could order—the waitress had been giving him significant looks since he first sat down and asked for a glass of water—but that meant eating alone in a nice restaurant in his full black suit, the one he'd been using to impersonate the FBI agent of the week, and he really didn't need the pity of twenty-four speed-daters who thought he'd been stood up. Or worse, for the moderator to invite him to join again. The two odd women out were already staring at him, picking him apart so intensely he felt like he was being checked for lice.

Sam pressed the heel of his palm into his stomach, wincing when it growled anyway. He spared a few mental curses for his brother the dick, but his heart wasn't really in it. Because if he was honest, he knew he'd gotten himself into this mess by insisting they split up in the first place, and he wouldn't have done that if he hadn't already been planning a detour, after interrogating the kooky high school teacher who'd minored in folklore but had no theories about thumbs, to stop in at the Coldwater-Wilmore Regional Library. His stomach rumbled unchecked as he dropped his head into his hands.

Sam was in trouble.

At the beginning of the summer it had seemed like the easiest thing in the world to just stay friends with Castiel. Hell, they had just barely become friends, in a universal timeframe, and however Sam felt, he would never think of jeopardizing that. Friends was fine with him. But somehow "friends" was a murky territory that Sam could only stumble through, second-guessing his every action, every greeting, every time he reached out to touch Castiel's shoulder or usher him through a doorway. It was alarming to realize he suddenly had no idea where the line was. Sam had tried to work it out by picturing Dean in Castiel's place, imagining how he would treat his brother instead, but that mostly just led to Sam feeling like he needed to vomit. And Sam wasn't trying to read things into it that weren't there, honestly he wasn't, but recently it seemed like Cas had been sort of focused on him—reaching out to him, wanting to touch him—and that made everything impossibly confusing. He loved Castiel, he knew that he loved him, but he had vowed that was where it stopped, because the only thing more selfish than falling in love with his brother's guardian angel would be expecting that angel to respond in some way, when angels couldn't love, not like humans did.

Probably. Well, actually Sam wasn't sure. But even if they could, even if Cas could, there was no way he would ever…

Long before he'd ever met one, Sam had always been fascinated by angels. When he was still small enough to need a footstool he remembered stretching his hands up to the top shelf of Bobby's bookcase, tracing his fingers down the dark blue spine of a heavy book titled Seraphim Mythology, on its cover a beautiful figure engulfed in feathers and light. In the heat-steamed windows above the backseat of the Impala he had drawn pictures of wide, arcing wings and watched them disappear in a cloud of breath. He knew better than to ask questions—angels were connected to his mother somehow, and his mother was off-limits. Even now, with an intimate knowledge of how much more complicated angels really were, there was still some part of him that ached for them, all that grace and faith put into physical form.

Somewhere along the way Sam had started doing something he hadn't done in a long time: reading everything he could find about angels. There was a lot on the Internet, but it was hard to tell what was actual folklore and what was just some rabid blogger on a heavenly tear, so Sam had started sneaking off to the library instead, trailing his fingers down the faded spines of the mythology tomes and pulling them out one by one. He was stooping so low at this point he'd even bought one of those "Heaven is real" books written by people who came back from the brink of death, and which were for some reason available on the bargain shelf of every gas station in the Midwest. He read it under his covers one night by the light of his cell phone and ditched it in the hotel lobby the next morning while Dean was checking out. He knew without even thinking about it that this was one of those secrets he was better off keeping; at best, Dean would think what he was doing was stupid, and at worst it would piss him off. Angels often did for some reason.

A lot of what Sam found he already knew—some of it he'd actually already read, when he was younger—but it all hit him differently than it had the first time, and he lost hours just hunched over a rickety table in a too-short chair, skimming his finger down page after page. He read the descriptions of the angels one after another, his eye always skipping the last few words on the line to see if the next name might be Castiel's. And though he swore to himself that he wasn't looking for them, what always came back to him later, as he stared out the passenger window of the Impala, letting Dean guide them to their next destination, were the stories of angels and humans meeting, working together, falling in love. He stared out at the endless cornfields and wondered if those were real stories, based on things that had actually happened, or if they were just projections, human beings pretending they were worthy of the love of such immaculate creatures. Just wishes, maybe.

Cas could probably tell him, but Sam would never ask.

The sound of a bell ringing on the other side of the café startled Sam so badly his knee jerked up into the table and he narrowly avoided dumping his water into his lap. He looked up to find the moderator standing in the middle of the tables.

"Okay, everyone!" she called out in a false singsong, belied by her fierce, hawk-like eyes darting from face to face. "Time to move along! We'll match phone numbers at the end, so let's keep it moving—chop chop!" She clapped her hands with a sound like a whip cracking, and suddenly the café was filled with the screech of chairs pushing back, voices raised higher in false pleasantries. Sam slid a weary hand through his hair.

All this time to think by himself wasn't really healthy. Dean had about a minute and forty-five seconds to show, and then…

His internal ultimatum was interrupted by a firm hand on his shoulder.

Sam didn't huff; it was just an abnormally short sigh. "Dude, if you're late because you were playing tonsil hockey with the popcorn girl…"

"I do not think I was."

Sam spun around so fast he jerked something in his neck. "C-Cas," he stuttered out, wondering if there was any chance his face felt so hot because of the recessed lighting and not because he was blushing. "Ah…sorry, I was…"

Castiel stepped out from behind his chair and braced one hand on the table, leaning down and peering into his eyes from such close range Sam wondered if he could see the wheels spinning inside his head. "I apologize, Sam," the angel said gravely, his forehead wrinkling as he frowned. "I did not know you were waiting for me."

Cas always managed to pull a smile out of Sam, even when his ears were sizzling. The taller man laughed under his breath and shook his head once. "Uh, Dean, actually. I thought you were him. At this point I'm pretty sure he stood me up, so…"

Castiel's frown tightened. "You are seated," he observed.

Sam bit his lip, fighting back another laugh. "Uh…yeah, Cas, I am." The rustle of muted voices caught his attention, and he glanced past the angel to find that though the speed-daters were all parked at their tables now, at least a dozen eyes were turned his way, evaluating the mysterious figure in a long tan trench coat standing beside his table. Sam was pretty sure no one had actually seen Cas appear—no one ever seemed to—but that didn't make him any more comfortable being the sole object of their scrutiny. Sam shifted in his seat and brushed a hand down Castiel's sleeve. "You know, maybe you should sit down, too…go ahead and take your coat off, and, um…"

Castiel's eyes narrowed slightly, as they always did when he was asked to part with an article of his clothing—usually by Dean, who never wanted them for anything good. Sam smiled and hoped it came off as reassuring, not devious. At last, reluctantly, Castiel shrugged out of his trench coat, pulling the tan fabric away one shoulder at a time; then he folded it in half and sat down with the coat in his lap, looking a little stiff. The waitress was on them before Sam could figure out whether thanking him would be condescending.

"So, are we finally ready to order?" the tall blond woman asked, and somehow even her dangling earrings seemed impatient.

"Oh. Uh…" Sam fumbled to get the menu open, his eyes racing over the appetizers. "Can we get the olives chauffé?" he asked, wondering what that was and how the hell you could get it in Kansas. The waitress turned pointedly to Castiel, but the angel wasn't even looking at her, his eyes making a slow circuit of the café instead, seemingly taking everything in one item at a time. Sam offered a sort of guilty smile. "Maybe we could have a few more minutes to look things over."

The woman rolled her eyes, clearly feeling Sam had been there so long he ought to have the menu memorized by now. But she stalked off nonetheless, jamming her pencil back into the pocket of her apron with a killing blow. Sam turned back to apologize to Castiel and sort of choked on his tongue when he found the angel looking at him with singular focus, those striking blue eyes staring straight into his. Sam caught his breath. Without the trench coat, Cas suddenly looked a lot more like he belonged here, seated across from someone in his sharp black suit at a small French restaurant, the overhead lights soft on his dark hair. They were about one bottle of wine away from a really nice date, and Sam didn't fully trust himself not to order one. The knot of his tie was suddenly uncomfortably tight against his throat, and Sam forced out a cough, tugging it down to open his airways a little,

"So, um…what brings you down, Cas? Did you need something?"

"I do not need anything," Castiel said blandly, picking up his silverware and peering down into the napkin roll. "I came to learn of your current activities."

Sam caught himself brushing a lock of hair behind his ear and forced his nervous hands into his lap. "Right. Okay. Well, I can fill you in…"

He rambled on for a few minutes about the intricacies of the case and the little they had learned so far, long enough for the appetizer to appear and Sam to send the waitress off with two other randomly selected dishes, and then spent a few more watching Castiel pop the warm olives into his mouth one at a time while he talked about Dean getting sick three nights previous after scarfing down Fritos and two cans of bean dip from a shady convenience store. It wasn't until he was done with the story of his brother hunched over the motel trash can and reaching for a few olives of his own that Sam realized what horrible table conversation that was, and he cringed, immensely thankful all of a sudden that this wasn't a date. Luckily, Cas seemed to have tuned him out.

"What are they doing?"

Sam stopped trying to surreptitiously pick salty olive shrapnel out of his teeth and looked up to find Castiel's gaze fixed on the speed-daters, doing a Chinese fire drill between the tables again. The matron with the bell stood guard over the proceedings, watching for runners. Sam braced his chin on his hand.

"It's called speed dating, Cas. You get together with a bunch of strangers, but you only talk to each one for a few minutes before…"

He trailed off, letting the backdrop of greetings and squeaking chairs finish the explanation for him. Sam couldn't help smiling a little as he watched one couple in particular, a man in a red blazer and a woman with long dark hair, share a lingering handshake. Most of these people would probably never want to see each other again, but it was nice to think that it might work out every once in a while, just through serendipity.

Castiel watched until every person was seated and then turned back to Sam, leaning forward over the table as he lowered his voice. "My understanding of human courtship is admittedly limited," the angel said, and Sam pressed his lips together to swallow a smile. "But it was my impression that the process usually took longer. Except in cases motivated strictly by lust."

Sam winced, wondering what his brother had said or done to introduce Cas to that last category. "Well, yeah, usually. But I guess that's why people do this, sometimes…just to get a sense of what's out there without, you know, having to commit." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Sam wished he'd phrased it differently—it sounded too much like how Dean might describe visiting a strip club—but Castiel had moved past that, his brow furrowed in concentration.

"Can you determine that in such a short amount of time?"

Sam shrugged. "Sometimes. Five minutes isn't much, but sometimes it's enough to see if there's a spark."

Castiel frowned. "A spark," he echoed, and the words repeated in his low voice made the back of Sam's throat feel funny. "What is that? Do they exchange an electrical transference of some kind?"

"No," Sam started, and then paused, fiddling with his tie. "I mean, I don't think so. I guess I don't really know." Castiel looked more confused than ever, so Sam forced himself to take a deep breath and start over, trying to deny the strange vibration that went through his body as he met the angel's eyes. "It's potential, Cas. It's just the way that it feels when you're…attracted to someone." His voice took a dive on the last few words, and then he really wished it hadn't, because Castiel leaned a little farther forward to catch what he'd said, and his knee brushed Sam's under the table. Sam thought the shock almost shattered his patella.

"Have you felt that…spark, Sam?" Castiel asked.

Sam didn't know what to say. He couldn't breathe, couldn't handle the way Cas was looking at him right now, like he was searching for lightning in his eyes, something to explain the static he must be able to feel humming through Sam's bones. Sam felt his fight-or-flight response kick in, the adrenaline rush that made every hair stand on end—but he was frozen in his chair, couldn't even find the will to look away from those penetrating blue eyes. Sam licked his lips and took a faltering breath, his lungs flaring open like wings in his chest.

"Cas…Cas, I…" Sam trailed off, hoping the rest of the sentence would figure itself out, because he had no idea where it was going. Probably somewhere he had told himself he'd never go, but God that was so hard when Castiel was staring at him as if he could see right through him, see every screwed-up molecule that had led Sam Winchester, of all people, to think he had any right to be in love with an angel. Sam exhaled and felt the static on his tongue. "Cas, I just—"

"Tartare de saumon and poulet Champignon," the waitress announced in a bad accent, rocketing into existence at Sam's back and startling him into banging his knee on the table again. Castiel broke his gaze and leaned back to make room for the dishes. "Anything else?" the woman pressed, a decidedly dry note in her voice.

Sam looked back at Castiel, and then down at the plates, his eyes fixing on the enormous roasted chicken leg he had somehow ordered. He rubbed a hand across his forehead. "Just a beer," he sighed. "Whatever's on tap, please. Thank you." Then he turned back to find Castiel scrutinizing a julienned cucumber, the waitress's retreating steps lost in the clatter of the next bell, signaling they were all out of time.

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Only one chapter to go after this. Thanks for reading, everyone, and for the kind reviews.