Chapter Text
Dean was a pretty light sleeper. He had to be, considering his profession. Since he didn’t live down at the firehouse, he had to be ready at a moment’s notice in case there ever was an emergency, and that was kind of hard if he can’t hear his phone ring He had been woken at all hours of the night, so he was pretty used to short sleeping hours.
Still, when he woke up and it was still dark outside, he was pretty pissed. Tomorrow—or maybe today, since it was already past midnight—was his first day off in three weeks, and he’d promised his best friend Jo that he would spent it in her classroom, talking to her kids about the joys of being a fireman. He hadn’t been woken by a call, nor by his alarm clock. He was woken by the sound of footsteps.
He frowned, glancing at his clock. It was three a.m. in the morning, and the last time he checked, his roommate had been fast asleep in his room. Still hesitant, but now more alert, he quietly stepped out of him room, and inched towards the sound of someone moving in the kitchen.
“Cas?” he wondered, and his eyes fell on his well-dressed roommate. He immediately noticed the lack of scrubs, meaning his doctor friend had not been at work. Instead, Cas was wearing black slacks that were just a tiny bit too big and a white dress shirt. He kind of looked like a waiter because of his prim bow tie.
“Dean, I didn’t mean to wake you,” Cas said softly, loosening his tie. “I merely meant to grab a glass of water before heading to my room.”
Cas also had strange hours in his line of work, even more so than Dean, so he hadn’t found it all too strange when he came home at six in the afternoon to find him fast asleep. He had never thought it meant he had plans at a later time.
“Where you out?”
“Yes,” Cas nodded. “One of the nurse asked me out for coffee. Her shift ended at midnight, that’s why the meeting took place so late.”
Dean raised an eyebrow. He had been friends with Cas since they were teenagers, and had been neighbors even before that. Cas had been in the same class as his younger brother, Sam, and when both boys had been assigned a project together, they had worked at the Winchester house, Cas’ brothers too raucous to provide a study-friendly environment. Dean had quickly taken to the younger boy, despite his awkward social skills and small shyness. Since then, they had been inseparable, even when Cas left for five years for his studies (Dean thanked his lucky stars that Cas was a genius and had finished med school super early).
Never, in that time, had Dean ever heard of Cas going in a date, or even be remotely interested in anybody. Truth be told, Dean thought of Cas as asexual, since he was sure his friend was still a virgin.
“You went out on a date?” he asked.
Cas spluttered and looked up at him with wide eyes. “I went out with a friend. Dean, do you believe this was a date?”
Dean couldn’t help it. He burst out laughing. “Yeah, Cas. I think it was a date. What’s the lucky gal’s name?”
“Nurse Masters,” Cas replied, brooding over the newly revealed fact. “I was not aware this had been a date. I behaved towards her like a friend, not like a potential sexual partner.”
“Hold up, there, partner. This was your first time, right?” Dean asked quickly. He tried to rack his brain for any instances when Cas had acted strange (or at least stranger than usual), but couldn’t come up with anything other than his sudden love for Neil Diamond. Talking about Neil, Dean really needed to introduce Cas to good singers. Some Foreigner or Zep might do him some good.
“Yes.”
“Then it’s totally fine you were friendly with her,” Dean smiled. “Don’t want to bring out sex until after the fifth date, right?”
“But you often engage in sexual activities even without a first date,” Cas said, cocking his head to the side in that adorable way he had. “Sometimes, all it takes is a beer, and you’re already sleeping with some random woman.”
“That’s because I’m a slut,” Dean grinned. “You’re a prude, so stick to the five date rule. Trust me.”
Cas frowned, but nodded thoughtfully. “We should go back to sleep. We have Joanna Beth’s Career Day tomorrow.”
“I still can’t believe she roped us into that,” Dean groaned. “That is the last time I play poker against her as a bet.”
“At least next time, don’t add me to it,” Cas grumbled.
Growing up, Dean would have never imagined Jo becoming a teacher, less alone Kindergarten. She was too rough, too much of a fighter. But he had to admit, she was perfect. All of the kids loved her, even despite her numerous threats to hurt them in increasingly imaginative ways. However, kids were good judges of character, and had quickly discovered her to be the tough love kind of person.
There were other adults in the room, some of them friends of Jo she had roped in, others parents to the little tykes.
“Hey, what are you?” Dean whispered to the shorter blonde to his right. Cas was busy reading a medical book. Dean still found it hard to believe that Cas, despite not being in school anymore, still had to regularly study and learn about more diseases and illnesses.
“Journalist. You?” the guy asked. His breath smelled slightly of tobacco, which Cas noticed, going by the wrinkle on his forehead.
“Fireman,” Dean replied.
“I’m a cop,” a second man said. He gave Dean a little smirk, and Dean bristled. He was friends with a couple of officers—Victor and Jody being the main two—but he was well aware that some cops thought firemen underneath them. Perhaps it was because of the ongoing battle between Firehouse 14 and Station 17. Perhaps it was because they were pretentious assholes.
“Alright, boys, let’s tuck them away before they hit someone,” Jo said, stepping in front of them and giving Dean a hard look that clearly told him make a scene in front of my kids and I’ll shove my foot up your ass.
“Mr. Walker, why don’t you start?”
The cop stood up, all smiles and fake laughter, and explained about his job. Dean had to admit the guy had charisma, and he seemed to enjoy his job (maybe a bit too much, if his anecdote was anything to go by). After Walker, it was a lanky guy named Garth Fitzgerald who talked to the children about the joys of being a dentist. The kids (and Dean) were mildly horrified by his over explicit enthusiasm, and they unsurprisingly, but politely, declined the sugar-free candy he brought. Cas, always the gentleman, took one.
A pretty bartender was up next that Dean recognized from the Roadhouse, Jo’s family bar. After her, an old accountant took the stage, and then a clown. A couple of girls cried during the clowns performance, prompting Garth the dentist to bring out a sock puppet that calmed down everyone’s nerves (Dean would never admit to liking Mr. Fizzles) and then it was Dean’s turn.
“Students, this is my good personal friend, Dean Winchester. Please treat Mr. Winchester with respect.”
“Mr. Winchester’s my dad,” Dean laughed then internally cringed when Jo gave him a sly smirk. Damn, I’m turning into one of those guys. “Alright, dudes and dudettes. I’m a fireman, pretty awesome job, if I do say so myself. I work at Firehouse 14, the large, red house five streets over. And I also get to ride in the big, red fire trucks and ring the siren.”
“Do you have a dog?” a short kid with unfortunate bowl cut hair asked excitedly.
“Nah, Benny’s allergic. But as soon as we find a dog that won’t make his head explode, we’ll get one.”
Jo sent him a sharp stare, and Dean chose to ignore her by turning to the pretty girl with pigtails enthusiastically raising her hand.
“Do you slide down the pole?”
“Only all the time,” Dean laughed. “It’s like my favorite thing to do.”
“I bet it is,” Walker smirked and Dean glared his way.
“Of course, it’s not all fun and games,” Dean said seriously. “We all have to be ready at a moment’s notice, in case there’s a fire. We can’t be twenty minutes late to a call, like some other departments.” He smirked at the sour look in Walker’s face.
“So you fight fires?” a little boy asked, awed.
“Yeah,” Dean nodded. “We have these larges hoses, like in your house, and we spray the fire until it dies. Sometimes, though, we have to go inside burning buildings to rescue the people inside.”
“I’m going to be a fireman!” a little girl shouted.
“Girls can’t be firemen!” a boy shouted. Before Dean or Jo could contradict him, he elaborated. “You’re going to be a firegirl.”
“Isn’t that from Sharkboy?” Dean wondered.
“That’s Lavagirl, Dean,” Jo rolled her eyes. “Go sit before you hog all of my students. Mr. Pretty Blue Eyes, you’re up top.”
“Is that me?” Cas asked, confused.
Dean smiled. “Yeah, Cas. You’re the only one with pretty blue eyes.”
Cas nodded and took his place up front, completely missing the dark blush that had taken root in Dean’s face. Jo, unfortunately, latched on to it and sat on Cas’ vacated spot as the doctor awkwardly began his presentation.
“Aw, baby Dean things Cassie has pretty blue eyes?”
“Shut up, Joanna Beth,” Dean growled.
“Ooh, my full name. Someone’s embarrassed,” Jo grinned. “When are you going to grow some balls and tell Cas how you feel?”
“We’re in a classroom.”
“My kids aren’t homophobic.”
“I was talking about the balls comment.”
“Dean! You’re in a classroom!”
Dean sighed. Okay, so yeah. He had a crush on Cas. A slightly large crush. Fine, he was in love with the guy! He had found out three months after Cas left for his international studies. Being apart from Cas for that long… it had been torture. He had finally had to admit his feelings to his brother, who calmly explained to him that what he was feeling was called love. Dean had been twenty and in the middle of a gay crisis. If Cas had come back quickly, he might have ignored his feelings and continued on pretending to be completely straight. But Cas hadn’t come back until fire years later, and by that time, Dean had come to terms with his bisexuality. However, that didn’t mean he was all too keen on revealing his feelings for Cas.
After all, Cas was a freaking doctor and he was only twenty seven. Dean, however, was twenty-nine, a high school drop out with only sixty dollars to his name and an affinity to surviving dangerous situations. There was no way he and Cas could have a future together. And definitely not now that Cas had found an interest in women.
“He went on a date this morning,” he murmured to Jo. Cas was in the process of being interrogated by six year olds, and he seemed more overwhelmed than when performing bypass surgery.
“This morning?”
“Freaking medics,” Dean shrugged. “They operate at weird hours. Anyway, Nurse Masters asked him out and he even dressed up and everything.”
“What did you expect? You never ‘fessed up,” Jo shrugged.
“I know.”
“I wanna be a doctor!” the girl who had wanted to be a firegirl said.
“Traitor,” Dean muttered.
Cas looked up at him and beamed, clearly happy to have made an impression on the kids.
“Pretty blue-eyed traitor,” Dean mumbled.