AN: delayed update because of fallout 4 (which i have not actually gotten to play very much...), work, being sick, writing for the destiel ficlet challenge, and having a 3 month old son to look after... but i finally got a chance to write and should be able to do so again within a week (ish) :)
As always, also on ao3 as jhoom and tumblr as jhoomwrites
Dean makes a beeline for an armchair next to a small wood-burning fireplace. He slumps down and leans forward, arms leaning heavily against his thighs. His eyes, fixed on the floor a few feet in front of him, seem unfocused. Somehow Thomas can easily recognize this as him shutting down. It takes a little out of him to know how difficult he's made this for the other man, but he's too excited about this meeting to feel sorry about it.
Thomas, after a moment of shifting back and forth on his feet in the entryway, decides to take a seat on the worn sofa. All he wants to do is stare, to memorize the lines of Dean's face and fill in the vague dreams that have always tickled the back of his mind. To count the numerous freckles that, though faded with age, pepper his skin. To reach out his hand and run his fingers through that hair, to card through it and take note of the blond and brown and gray mixed in to make a color that's uniquely Dean.
Instead, he bites his lip and tries to will Dean to look him in the eyes.
When he finally speaks, his voice is strained. "You were looking for me?"
"Yes." He says it slowly to buy a few more seconds to think over his answer, all the things he wants to say. "I-" his face scrunches up as he wonders where to start. "I've been looking for you since I first heard of the Winchesters."
And some time before that, I just didn't know what I was looking for.
There's silence for a while. It's too tense, too littered with possibilities for Thomas to dare break it. Dean eventually does.
"Why?" His voice is rough, broken almost.
"That's... complicated." How could he possibly describe it? Unpack the plethora of confusion and longing that's been drawing him to this moment, to this man?
Dean laughs humorlessly. "Of course it is," he mutters as he wearily rubs his face.
He tries to form sort sort of coherent explanation before the silence can stretch into anything too opressive. It's difficult to put into words when all it's been is a feeling that he's never quite been able to pin down. How would a falling star describe the gravity pulling it in?
"You sure you're not Cas?" he asks, hands now pressing into his eyes as if to fight off a headache. "Because this conversation would be a lot fucking easier if you were."
"I..." He doesn't know why he hesitates. He has no reason to. He's Thomas. Obviously. Right? But what comes out is a weak, "I don't know."
He looks up at that. Confusion, hurt, desperation and a dash of hope shine out through those beautiful green eyes.
Instead of trying to explain things he doesn't know, he decides to start with what he does know. "I'm Thomas. I'm a hunter. I grew up in Iowa, just outside of Cedar Rapids. I'm twenty two. I went to school at-"
"Whoa whoa, back that up."
His jaw snaps shut in surprise. Did he say something wrong? Dean is almost glaring at him with an intensity he's not sure he deserves.
"When's your birthday?"
Thomas stares at him for a beat or two before answering. "February 23rd." He doesn't see the relevance, but Dean's eyes narrow.
"So let me get this straight. You were born in goddamn Iowa, twenty two years ago in fucking February?" He punctuates each point by counting them off on his fingers, three accusations thrown against him.
"Yes?" He squints in confusion. He'd picked the most innocuous parts of his past to share, to just give some background as to who he is, yet it's seemed to do nothing more than rile Dean up. "Why is that important?"
"I don't fucking know, man. Maybe because you were born in the same fucking state I last saw Cas. You were born about nine months after he just fucking disappeared on me. You've got the same goddamned eyes and you do that weird fucking squinty-eyed head-tilty thing he always did." He waves a hand in his direction to emphasize the last point. "You bring a fucking trench coat and blue tie with you, too?"
Dean's tired resignation from before has twisted itself into a nervous energy. At this point gets up and starts pacing, completely ignoring (or unaware) of the utter shock on Thomas' face. "I'm sorry." And he really is. "I don't understand."
That stops the pacing and draws Dean's gaze back on him. He's stopped right in front of him. Thomas can't read the look in his eyes, but notices the way his fingers twitch like there's something they're dying to reach out and touch.
It's a feeling he can relate to.
"I think we've got some things to figure out, Thomas."
The rest of the conversation turns out to be exhausting to them both. Dean heats up some leftover pizza and grabs them a couple beers (then a couple more and a few more after that because this is apparently a discussion neither of them wants to have while sober).
Thomas goes first. He lets it all out, finally. For the first time in his entire life, he tells someone else about how there were always so many things in his life just seemed off. How he'd always wondered why that was. If the pieces that made up his world didn't fit together, what would it look like if he had the right ones?
As he watches Dean lick his lips after taking a long drink from his beer, he has to refrain from mentioning how many times he's lost himself staring into green eyes but knowing they weren't the right ones.
But he does explain how his entire adult life, or what little of it there's been so far, has been spent just trying to find answers to these questions. In a rush he tries to make Dean see that this isn't just some quest to "find himself" like so many others his age. It is, but it isn't. He knows who Thomas is. He's just trying to find out if there's someone else underneath.
Dean doesn't say much as he listens. A small smile will occasionally appear when there's a funny story from college or a hunt. His brow furrows in concern at the mention of broken bones and sprains and concussions all long since healed. Once or twice a pained grimace, though Thomas has no idea what the cause of those is. But mostly he just takes it in, carefully peeling the labels off his empty beer bottles in an attempt to avoid unnecessary eye contact.
And then they trade and Dean talks. Tells him the story of an Angel of the Lord who gripped him tight and raised him from perdition. He finally hears the stories he'd only known about as rumors, but now in graphic detail. It's not awe-filled voices of hunters doing a little hero worship. No, it's Dean Winchester himself unloading all of his own personal baggage to a complete stranger. The real difference, he notices, is the mention of Castiel over and over again.
He tries not to be too jealous at the fondness in Dean's voice.
It ends, more or less, with Castiel's disappearance. He went to Heaven to try and buy the Winchesters more time. Dean hadn't wanted him to go, insistent they could manage things on their own. But he had gone anyway. Never to come back.
There's something about the way he says this last part while staring straight into Thomas' eyes. After taking such care to look everywhere else, it finally hits him like a ton of bricks. "You think I'm Castiel?"
Not looking away for a second, he just asks, "Are you?"
He had thought it would sound crazy once he had given voice to Dean's suspicions. Now, though, when it's finally out there as a possibility... If he really allows himself to entertain the idea... If he takes the picture he's been painted of the angel's life and death, compares it to the missing holes in his own life...
Am I not who I think I am?
A firm hand on his shoulder snaps him out of his mini-existential crisis.
"You don't have to answer that." Dean's voice is soothing. "I shouldn't have asked. We can figure all this out, there's no rush or anything."
He swallows and nods, wiping his sweaty palms off on his jeans. There's so much to take in, so much that's been shared, that he knows it will take him hours of reflection to come to even a basic understanding of what's happened. But right now he's drained. He almost feels hollowed out, and the prospect of trying to commit any more energy to any of this almost makes him want to cry.
His distress must be evident. There's a last gentle squeeze before Dean lets go and stands up. "C'mon, lemme show you the guest room."
He lies awake in bed, mind buzzing with millions of thoughts and questions, skin tingling and alive with need. He hears shuffling in the room next door for a while, but eventually that settles. It's not until a few moments later, when the house has gone completely quiet and Thomas has almost drifted off to sleep that he feels it.
The longing he has felt throughout his life - the one that has been pulling him since he can remember - it rips through him like a bullet, like a freight train. He gasps out in near pain, completely overwhelmed.
Through gritted teeth he tries to just focus on breathing. He's pinned to the bed, unable to move except for the slight tremor shaking his limbs that he can't quite stop. It takes a half hour, maybe a full hour before the pain subsides. Or rather, it becomes less sharp and something more bearable and not quite formed.
Presumably, Dean has fallen asleep.