Archive of Our Own

Dean’s swiping through Tinder out on the quad as he waits for his next class when he stumbles upon the guy.

Castiel, his profile says, 22.

“Christ,” Dean mutters under his breath. The poor dude must have some seriously hippie parents.

In his first picture, he’s sitting on a picnic blanket in a park. He’s ducking his head down and away from the camera, dark hair falling into his eyes, so all that’s visible of his features is his straight nose and the side of a wide grin. It’s sweet, remarkably unposed; it compels Dean enough to click through to the next photo, and that’s when the breath catches in his throat.

This next pic is a selfie taken during golden hour. The guy — Castiel — must have stood right in front of the sun because he’s squinting hard into the lens, strong eyebrows drawn low over his startlingly blue eyes. But what rivets Dean the most is Castiel’s mouth: wide, expressive, with a Cupid’s bow so defined it’s like someone took a pencil and drew it on.

Dean taps through the rest of the photos on Castiel’s profile. There’s one of him dressed in a trench coat with his arm around a petite, dark-haired girl in leather, him holding up a peace sign and her the devil horns, and a mirror selfie where he’s cradling a black kitten with one arm like a baby. The cat is looking up at him with big green eyes, one little paw outstretched to pat at Castiel’s chin.

His bio reads, Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced. Rolling his eyes at how goddamn pretentious it is to put pseudo-inspirational passages into a Tinder description, Dean pastes the quote into Google. It’s by someone called Søren Kierkegaard, who, Wikipedia says, was a Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, social critic and religious author widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. Great. Castiel might be a philosophy nut; that’s the last thing Dean needs in his life.

But, well. The dude’s hot, and Dean can always ghost him if he tries to convert him to Buddhism or something. He swipes right.

It’s a match! his phone chimes back at him. Huh. If Castiel swiped right on Dean, he must have read his bio — let’s dance the horizontal tango. none of that ‘dinner and a movie’ crap — so Dean opens the chat and types, hey, followed immediately by, you free tonight? No point pretending he’s got different intentions than he really does.

He pockets his phone and gets off the grass to head to his lecture.

Midway through the class, his phone buzzes. As expected, it’s a Tinder notification — Castiel sent you a new message.

Yes, the DM says. Mine or yours?

yours, Dean types out. i've got a roommate

Charlie wouldn’t mind him inviting a guy over, but if he’s gonna be screwing someone, Dean prefers to be sure that nobody will be there to hear it or, worse yet, interrupt. It’s happened before, in both directions. He and Charlie have enough blackmail material on each other to last a lifetime.

Is 7 PM okay for you?

sure, Dean writes, smiling to himself. He’s been horny all week but so swamped with all kinds of work, he hasn’t had a minute to even attempt to get laid.

Castiel texts him the address and Dean replies with, see you in a bit, then switches off his phone and tries to focus on the professor’s babble.

***

Six hours later, Dean is ringing Castiel’s doorbell. Castiel opens up after a few seconds.

“Hi,” he says. He’s wearing a white t-shirt with loose jeans that look like they’ve seen better days, and his voice is deep and raspy, scratching at an itch somewhere within Dean that he didn’t even know he had. “Come in.”

Castiel’s dim-lit apartment smells strongly of weed and incense, but it’s not altogether unpleasant; more like stepping into a New Age dive bar. There’s music playing — some sort of soothing R&B, with a forlorn-sounding guy crooning about Forrest Gump.

Dean doesn’t walk in much further than a yard before there’s a black cat sniffing suspiciously at the cuffs of his pants, presumably the same one as in the Tinder picture.

“That’s Void,” Castiel says. “She doesn’t like people.”

True to Castiel’s word, Void draws away from Dean’s feet and gives a profoundly unhappy meow, then trots off to jump onto a cat tree squeezed tightly between a small table and a fridge that definitely doesn’t open all the way. The crap people do for their pets.

“Funny little lady,” Dean says. In spite of his allergy, he’s always liked cats; they don’t take anyone’s bullshit. He tries not to get too close to them, though.

“She’s very capricious, yes.” Castiel moves from the general entryway-kitchen area and into a large room divided in half by an old-fashioned folding screen. One part seems to be the living room, while the other is the bedroom with not much more than a bed situated under a window and a big, fern-like potted plant in the corner.

“Do you smoke?” Castiel asks, sitting on his bed and rummaging through the many little boxes littering his windowsill. He procures a foil baggie of what is clearly weed and shakes it in Dean’s direction.

“Hell yeah, man,” Dean says, toeing off his shoes and coming into Castiel’s… dwelling situation. There’s no door separating the kitchen and the big room, either, just an empty doorway. The only thing missing around here is a 60s bead curtain. But, shit, if Castiel’s offering free grass, Dean can fucking meditate if the dude asks him to.

“You wanna roll?” Castiel says once Dean has settled down on his bed. He’s already set out all the necessary accessories, and he’s looking at Dean expectantly. His eyes are so piercing, it’s actually sort of unsettling.

Dean motions for him to go ahead. “You do it, I kinda suck.”

He watches Castiel assemble the joint skillfully. He’s got really nice hands — big, tan, with long, slim fingers and an attractive filigree of criss-crossing veins, and when he licks the edge of the rolling paper with the very tip of his tongue, something jumps in the pit of Dean’s stomach.

Castiel twists the excess paper at the tip of the joint and lights up. Dean looks at his mouth as he takes a drag and holds in the smoke, exhaling deeply after a second and handing the joint over to Dean.

The weed is good; it scratches at Dean’s throat, spreads warmth, and he coughs, pounding his chest hard with a fist. For the first time, Castiel smiles.

“Been a long time?” he asks.

“Lot longer than it should’ve been, let me tell you,” Dean quips, handing the joint back over. He last smoked a couple months ago, when his dealer was still in town, but now Pamela has moved to the Big Apple for her Master’s and Dean hasn’t gotten around to finding a new supply yet.

They pass the joint back and forth, listening to Castiel’s music as they smoke. Dean knows the pot has kicked in when he laughs unwittingly at the same singer from before warbling out, Stripper booty and a rack like ‘wow.'

“Feeling good?” Castiel says with that slight quirk in the left corner of his mouth.

“How about you make me feel even better, cowboy?” Dean drawls, looking at Castiel from under heavy eyelids. Castiel surveys him for long enough that it makes Dean uneasy again, but then he drops what’s left of the joint into an ashtray on the windowsill and sits back against his headboard.

“C’mere,” he says, voice an impossible octave lower. A bit ungainly because of the weed, Dean shuffles forward into the vee of Castiel’s open legs. A surprised noise escapes his throat when Castiel wraps a hand around the back of Dean’s left knee and unceremoniously hikes it up over his own thigh, then does the same thing with Dean’s other leg so Dean is sitting in his lap.

“Bossy, are we?” Dean says.

“It’s been said,” Castiel retorts, and leans up to kiss him.

They make out until Dean’s lips tingle, Castiel’s big hands rubbing up and down Dean’s thighs, slipping under his t-shirt to caress his waist. When they move even higher to stroke his back, Dean breaks the kiss to whip his shirt off over his head and tosses it away, Castiel tugging him back down right away, hands splayed over Dean’s bared shoulder blades. He bites down lightly on Dean’s jawline, kisses his neck, and Dean gasps, grinding down on Castiel’s lap, the rapidly stiffening line of his dick meeting Castiel’s. Castiel’s hands slide down to Dean’s ass, gripping him hard through his jeans as he guides Dean’s hips into another thrust.

“Jesus,” Dean hisses out through his teeth, fingers threading through Castiel’s hair. It’s very soft.

Castiel pulls off of Dean’s neck with a wet pop that means Dean will wake up to a tremendous hickey tomorrow. “Not quite.”

Dean laughs breathlessly. “All right, smart guy,” he says, a moan tripping off his tongue when Castiel sucks at a spot above his collarbone. “Wouldn’t say no to getting fucked sometime this year.”

“Your wish is my command,” Castiel snarks back and flips them over so Dean is lying against the pillows. He sits back on his heels to take off his shirt, slinging it aside like Dean did and crawling over Dean to kiss him again. One of his hands is braced by Dean’s head, and he leans his weight on it as he blindly rifles through the clutter on the windowsill with his other, searching for something. He finally comes up with a bottle of lube and a condom that he tosses somewhere on the mattress.

“Classy,” Dean murmurs into his mouth.

Castiel nips at his jawline again. “You can leave anytime.”

“Oh, but we’re just getting started,” Dean says and reaches between the two of them to unbutton his pants. Kissing down his chest, Castiel relieves him of the duty, pulling off Dean’s jeans and underwear in one move. His hands glide up the length of Dean’s thighs again, the touch ten times more electrifying against naked skin. He presses a kiss to Dean’s stomach, then another just below his navel.

“Do you want my fingers in you?” he asks, looking up at Dean’s face. His blue eyes are dark, his lips red and swollen.

Dean nods. “Yeah,” he breathes. “Yeah, come on.”

Castiel drizzles a generous amount of lube onto his fingers and, sucking at Dean’s hipbone, slowly inches the first digit into him. Dean sighs at the initial stretch, hands going to tangle in Castiel’s hair again.

Castiel works him up to three fingers, pressing wet, sloppy kisses to Dean’s hard cock all the while, never doing more, pulling away whenever Dean’s hips buck up. It sends Dean around the bend, in a good way — he’s always liked edging.

“C’mon, big guy,” Dean gasps out, pawing at Castiel’s wrist when the pressure in his groin and lower back has started building towards a familiar, crackling peak from Castiel continuously teasing his prostate. “Get in me.”

Castiel slides his fingers out carefully, brushing an apologetic kiss to the tip of Dean’s dick when he hisses at the discomfort of suddenly being so empty. “Who’s bossy now?” Castiel says, but he quickly shucks his jeans. He finds the condom where it’s lying in the sheets and knee-walks forward to settle between Dean’s legs. Dean smooths his hands up Castiel’s torso as Castiel rips the foil packet open with his teeth and rolls the condom on. He’s tan all over, with subtly defined abs and pectoral muscles.

“Ready?” Castiel asks, positioning himself.

“Was born ready,” Dean counters, but the roguish affect he’s going for is somewhat dampened by the moan he lets out when Castiel starts pressing into him. Dean wraps his arms around Castiel’s shoulders and guides him down to kiss his neck again, grunting when Castiel bottoms out, mouthing obediently at Dean’s throat.

They build up a good rhythm — hard and fast, Dean shifting his pelvis so Castiel’s hitting home on every thrust.

“Fuck, yeah, that’s good,” Dean groans, hitching his legs up higher so his knees are framing Castiel’s ribs. Castiel makes a low sound at how it pushes him deeper inside of Dean, and he tilts his head up to recapture Dean’s lips. The kiss is all tongue and hunger, keeping searing pace with the movement of their bodies.

Soon, the liquid heat is back to licking along Dean’s spine, spreading out, out, out, until Dean’s coming, toes curling, nails leaving what he’s sure are half-moon shapes in Castiel’s back. Castiel groans into Dean’s clavicle as he follows him over the edge.

They come down with Castiel lying half on top of Dean, Dean’s hand in his hair. From the JBL in the other corner of the room, a woman is singing, Vodka and water, and a lemon, and a few other things I cannot mention.

As soon as Dean’s heartbeat is back to normal, he’s clapping Castiel on the shoulder and slipping out from under him. Castiel rolls over and watches Dean get dressed, reclined on the pillows. His skin is almost golden against the white of his sheets.

When Dean looks up at him from buttoning his jeans, he’s reminded of how intense Castiel’s gaze is, fixed on Dean like he’s the prey and Castiel the predator.

Dean clears his throat. “Good times. I’ll let myself out.”

Castiel nods at him. “It was nice to meet you, Dean.”

“Uh, yeah. You, too, man.”

On his way out, Dean passes Void’s cat tree. She observes him intently while he’s putting on his shoes, swishing the tip of her tail back and forth. Idly, Dean wonders how she feels about her owner having just had sex a wall away.

“Bye, kitty,” he throws over his shoulder, then shuts the front door behind himself.

***

“Dude,” Victor wrinkles his nose exaggeratedly when Dean sits by him in the one class they share the next morning. It’s an elective Dean only signed up for to get the credits he needs. “Someone got lucky last night.”

Dean preens, hand going to the foreseen bruise on his neck. “You know it.”

Victor rolls his eyes good-naturedly. “Show-off.” He writes something in his spiral notebook, open on a fresh page marked with today’s date. Dean will need to photocopy his notes later. “We still on for that frat thing?”

“Oh, for sure!” Dean enthuses. One of their college’s fraternities is throwing a pre-midterms rager Dean has been looking forward to all week; he needs a proper, drunken respite from all the cramming.

The party, they see once they turn up that evening, is being held largely on the front lawn and out back on the patio, since October has decided to be merciful this year and the night is cool instead of outright cold. They show up an hour in, so there’s already a sizable crowd gathered, drinking and dancing to Hotel Room Service blaring through the stereo. Dean is happy to join in on the fun, going to pour himself a solo cup of jungle juice out of an enormous glass vat with a spout, the sight of which makes him snort. He and Victor run into some of their classmates, and from then on, the night takes its course, everyone getting gradually drunker and losing their exhibitions. It’s great, as always.

A couple drinks in, Dean necks with some dude, who’s fair-haired and buff and overall easy on the eyes, but when he asks if Dean wants to go upstairs, where the bedrooms are, Dean declines as politely as he can in his alcohol-addled state; he’s still sated from his rendezvous with Castiel. The guy accepts Dean’s refusal with no hard feelings, and disappears into the crush of people. Dean elbows his way through in the opposite direction to relocate his friends.

***

When Dean does get the itch in line at a coffee shop one unexpectedly dreary afternoon a week later, he finds himself opening the Tinder chat with Castiel again. He hesitates, thumbs hovering over the touchscreen keyboard. He’s never been one to sleep with the same person twice, but there was… something about his hook-up with Castiel. The easy banter, Castiel’s big hands on his body.

Dean trumps the reluctance.

hey, he types out. you up for seeing me again?

Castiel responds faster than last time, Dean’s phone buzzing in his pocket just as he’s picking up his cappuccino with an extra shot of espresso.

I didn’t peg you for anything other than a one-night stand kind of guy.

from what i recall there wasn’t much pegging involved lol, Dean texts back with one hand, taking a sip of his coffee. Predictably, he burns his tongue.

Ha. We weren’t working with silicone, were we, comes Castiel’s reply. Then, a second later, I’m flattered you’re thinking about me. Yes, I’d like to see you again.

Dean grins, sliding his phone into his pocket to pull the heavy glass door of the coffeehouse open and step out into the fall chill. He pops the collar of his jacket against the biting wind and takes his phone back out.

great. just to be clear tho, i’m only looking for sex, he messages Castiel. It’s always better to be upfront about some things.

Don’t worry, I gathered that from your bio.

A middle-aged woman with a kid on her arm gives Dean the stink eye for staring down at his phone while walking. He resists the urge to make a face back at her.

He swings by Castiel’s in the evening; they don’t smoke, going straight to fucking instead. They do it doggy style this time around, Castiel’s right hand tight in Dean’s hair, his left smacking Dean’s ass at Dean’s frantic behest. Dean leaves immediately after again, feeling pleasantly sore.

***

The third time they meet, Castiel is the one to initiate. Third time’s the charm? he texts when Dean is in class. the previous two have already been pretty charming, Dean replies.

“If this is going to become a regular thing,” Castiel says that night, still a little out of breath after Dean riding him, “you should have my number.”

It does become a regular thing. They get together every couple of days, always at Castiel’s place. Dean starts carrying Claritin around with him — Void is a sweet gal, but she still makes his nose itch and his eyes water like the dickens.

“Congratulations,” Castiel smiles as they’re cooling down one time in November and she comes over from the kitchen to nose at Dean’s calf, then drapes herself across it. “She likes you.”

Dean finds things about Castiel out in increments. He took a gap year after high school, backpacking through Western Europe and picking up seasonal jobs. He moved to Chicago for college, like Dean did. He has a good few siblings, mostly because his father wasn’t a fan of staying with one family for long when he was still alive. He’s in his last year of a Bachelor’s in Philosophy, just like Dean worried.

“What,” Castiel demands, pinching Dean’s ass cheek in response to Dean’s telling silence on the matter. Dean yelps. “What do you have to say?”

“Well. Philosophy, you know,” Dean hedges. He wants to tease the guy, but not seriously hurt his feelings. “Not much substance there. You sit around pondering the meaning of life all day.”

“Someone has to, Mr Mechanical Engineering,” Castiel says. “You tinker with your engines, I will contemplate the definition of reality. I think that makes us even.”

It’s not even that funny, but Dean laughs.

***

There’s an otherworldly sort of quality to Castiel, like something out of the uncanny valley. He’s always so stoic. Even when he’s joking, he’s very serene about it. It comes across as wry, but it’s not, not really; Castiel isn’t mean. Dean can’t quite put a finger on what he is. Especially when Castiel just… looks at him, seemingly for no reason, the way he did the first time they met. Whenever he does it, Dean feels like a pinned butterfly being analyzed through a magnifying glass. It’s not even a bad feeling; it’s just unfamiliar. Dean has never had anyone look at him like that. Like they want to take him apart, piece by piece, then put him back together.

***

Dean’s rewatching Game of Thrones with Charlie when his phone pings with a text. Closer inspection reveals it’s from Castiel — it’s a photo of Void settled snugly into a cardboard box, captioned by I didn’t order a new toaster, she did.

At Dean’s chuckle, Charlie tears her eyes away from their TV.

“What you got there, handmaiden?” she asks, craning her neck to try and see Dean’s phone screen, even though she’s sitting too far to succeed.

“Hey! You promised you wouldn’t call me that,” Dean protests, cradling the phone closer to his chest nevertheless.

Charlie salutes him with her Coke. “I agreed to no such thing.” She takes a sip. “Have you a suitor?”

“God, Charlie, you’re like someone’s grandma asking them if they’re talking to a boy when they’re laughing at a meme,” Dean grouses. “It’s just a cat picture from a friend.”

The cogs in Charlie’s head visibly turn with her trying to decide whether she wants to see the cat or interrogate Dean further. “What friend?” The questioning wins over. “No one in our friend group has any pets.”

“It’s a new friend.”

“Oh, yeah? The same one you’ve been sneaking out to see for the past month and change?”

Dean squints at her. She’s looking very self-satisfied, a smile hidden behind the neck of her bottle.

“You are insufferable, do you know that,” he says, and she raises her soda in triumph.

“It’s a key characteristic of mine. Now spill.”

Dean shrugs. “He’s a fuckbuddy. We met on Tinder. That’s it.”

Charlie grimaces. “That’s considerably less romantic than what I imagined. Good for you, though. What’s his name?”

“It’s Castiel.”

At that, she perks up. “Castiel? Wow. That’s like Aragorn or something.”

Dean snorts. “Or something. He’s a funky dude, but he bangs like a champ.”

“Damn,” Charlie nods with approval. “Up top.”

They high five, then turn their attention to Joffrey choking on-screen. They high five again once he kicks it.

***

The Monday ahead of Thanksgiving break, Dean goes with Castiel to a gay club. He isn’t a big fan of clubs all told — he prefers places in which the chances of having his wallet stolen or of getting roofied aren’t sky-high — but since Castiel said that he’d been to Pretty and Witty before and that he likes it there, Dean takes the plunge. It does prove to be pretty exciting: Dean hasn’t been to any type of gay establishment for so long that he forgot what a nice feeling it is to look around and find himself surrounded by people with the same proclivities as him. He’s secure enough in his sexuality, but sometimes existing in a world that seems constantly out to get him is daunting.

Dean has classes tomorrow, but he doesn’t let that stop him from indulging himself. He’s done worse things than going to a lecture hungover. He has a few craft beers and sings along to Katy Perry and Lady Gaga with the other patrons (he knows all the words, though he would never admit it to anyone in his daily social circle). Castiel is having a ball, too — in his black mesh shirt and with glitter smeared along his cheekbones, he’s more vivacious than Dean’s ever seen him, twirling a short-haired girl around on the dancefloor, making her laugh in inebriated delight.

The song ends; Castiel leaves his dance partner to her gaggle of friends and joins Dean at the bar.

“Enjoying yourself?” Castiel asks. He’s flushed, and there’s a sheen of sweat on his exposed collarbones. Dean wants to lick it off.

“Fuck yeah,” Dean grins. He polishes off the rest of his IPA. “Let’s get some air, though. Everybody’s wearing perfume in here, and it’s giving me a headache.”

Outside, there are people who had the same idea as him, breathing in the cold November air in their skimpy outfits, and smokers in pairs or threes. Normally, Dean hates cigarettes, but now, in his tipsy state, he breathes in the bitter smoke with relish; weirdly enough, he often joneses for a drag or two after he’s had enough to drink. He doesn’t ask anyone for a share of their pack, though, just stands leaning back against the wall with his eyes closed and listens to the noise around him.

His peace is interrupted by a male voice saying, “Disgusting,” with so much malice behind it that Dean’s eyes snap open at once.

There are three guys his age loitering on the sidewalk, dressed in sweatpants and shapeless windbreakers. They have rough, mean faces, and they’re looking at the people hanging outside the club with obvious vitriol; some disconcerted clusters return inside, but some stay, glaring back in defiance.

Dean pushes away from the wall, all of his repose having evaporated.

“What did you say?” he says to the guy who spoke. His sharp eyes turn on Dean, appraising him.

“You heard me,” he spits. “Faggot.”

Dean doesn’t need to hear more: he lurches forward and punches the dude square on the nose, his fist making a satisfying crack when it connects. As if on command, the lowlife’s two sidekicks descend into action, too. Dean hasn’t been in a fight since high school, but violence is like riding a bike — he jabs and kicks, lost in it. Distantly, he notices that Castiel has joined in on the scuffle and is doing fine for himself, which surprises Dean; he’s thought of Castiel as, well, not a wimp, but definitely someone who wouldn’t know how to throw a punch for all the tea in England. Meanwhile, Castiel is ducking and hitting so expertly it’s clear he’s got the upper hand against his two piss-poor excuses for opponents. They know it, too, because they backtrack quickly, tugging their pitiful foreman away from Dean and heading for the hills.

Dean stares after them, breathing heavy, hands clenched by his sides. He feels the warmth of blood trailing down over his mouth and dripping from his chin, but not the pain of his definitely busted nose. Adrenaline roars in him like ocean waves crashing against a breakwater.

“How are you doing?” Castiel’s voice reaches him from far away. Dean blinks to get himself out of his stupor. Castiel escaped the fight with barely a scrape; he’s only sporting a split lip.

“Peachy,” Dean says.

Castiel looks at him dubiously.

“Come on,” he says. They go back inside the club. People part for them on their way to the bar, where Castiel grabs a wad of napkins and starts wiping the blood away from Dean’s face with no regard for his own. The bartender, a Black girl with a pastel pink buzzcut, brings them a glass of ice cubes and a clean cloth without them asking her for it.

Dean hisses when Castiel prods gently at his nose to assess the gravity of the damage.

“It’s not broken,” he pronounces. Dean watches as he places a handful of ice on the checkered towel the bartender brought them and wraps it up, pressing it to Dean’s battered nose. Dean raises his hand to hold it there; their fingers brush. Castiel’s arm falls to his side.

“Thanks,” Dean says, muffled by the compress. “What about you?”

Castiel shrugs and smiles enigmatically. Fresh blood wells up in the cut on his lip. “I think it suits me.”

Dean snorts, then groans when it hurts his nose.

For the first time since they met, they don’t have sex. Dean still hails it as a night well spent.

***

Dean drives to Sioux Falls for Thanksgiving. Before she met her girlfriend, Charlie always went with him, but this year, she’s at Dorothy’s. She was so nervous about it before she left, since it’s her first holiday with a girlfriend’s family — she paced the length of their hallway back and forth all throughout the morning until Dean had to sit her down with some orange juice and tell her she was going to do splendidly.

He’s got the Impala all to himself. He plays Led Zeppelin at full volume, ripping it up on air guitar whenever people stare at him at red lights, and sings along on long stretches of empty road. It’s too cold to roll the windows down, but he still has a blast. He stops at a Denny’s somewhere around La Crosse, and calls Bobby as he’s crossing over from Minnesota into South Dakota a few hours later. When he rolls into the yard some thirty minutes after that, Baby rumbling like a panther, Bobby’s already waiting for him.

“What the hell took you so long, boy?” he hollers, even though the drive was actually quicker than usual. He comes down from the porch to envelop Dean in a bear hug the second Dean gets out of the car.

“Missed you, too, Bobby,” Dean says into Bobby’s ratty puffer vest, clapping him solidly on the back.

“Is that Dean?” Ellen calls out of the front door. She breaks into a smile when she sees him. “Knew I heard that behemoth of a car.”

Ellen married Bobby three years after Bill, her first husband and Jo’s dad, passed away when Jo was still little. Sam and Dean’s father died within months of the wedding.

Dean slings his duffel bag over his shoulder and takes the porch steps two at a time to wrap her up in his arms.

“Hi, honey,” she says, squeezing him back just as hard.

Dean walks into the house to find Sam and Jo glued to the TV. They’re both seniors in high school — even though Jo is a year younger than Sam — and their long weekend started a day earlier than Dean’s.

“Not even gonna get off your asses to welcome me home, huh?” he teases. Miraculously, they look away from whatever dumb show they’re watching.

“Dean!” Sam exclaims, jumping up from the couch to hug him. Dean gives him a noogie, and Sam only raises a cursory protest, which means he’s missed Dean.

“Too good for your big brother, Queen of Sheba?” Dean says to Jo, who pointedly remained seated.

“We’re not related,” she says, but then gets up to hug him, too.

Dean thought of Jo as a sibling even before she officially became his stepsister — he’s known her since she was in diapers. In middle school, she skipped a grade because no matter how hard she tries to convince anybody who will listen that she’s all brawn, she’s a really smart kid. She did give Dean a blackeye for referring to himself, Sam, and her as the Dead Daddy Bunch once, though.

The break passes by uneventfully. Like always, Dean, Bobby, and Ellen do the cooking, delegating only singular tasks to Sam and Jo, the two of whom have about as much kitchen prowess between them as an ape. On Thursday, it snows, covering the entire salvage yard in a fine coating of sparkling white. They eat, and they talk, and they watch stupid movies; it’s nice.

On Saturday evening, the day before Dean’s due to drive back to Chicago, they’re all sprawled out in the living room with Die Hard playing on TV. For a lack of anything better to do with his hands, Dean is swiping lazily through Tinder.

He’s more startled than he should be when his phone informs him of a new message. He clicks on the notification. The DM is from a guy he matched with a few minutes prior — Tomás, 25. He’s got an emoji of the Mexican flag in his bio, along with hit me up for a good time. His first picture is a shirtless mirror selfie. Dean must admit, the man has the right to show off. His Adonis belt is the most defined one Dean has ever seen.

wanna link up at mine? Tomás has written. Dean glimpses around the room, considering. Going out wasn’t in his plans tonight, but everyone else is pretty much conked out, so he would need to entertain himself if he stayed in.

let’s do it, he messages back. drop me a pin, i’ll be there in an hour tops

True to his word, he arrives at Tomás’ place, a studio in the city center, in the next fifty minutes. Tomás is taller than him, and he has a tattoo of an eagle on his right pec that wasn’t there in his photos. He's rough in a way that would normally get Dean going like crazy, but which tonight feels… wrong. Tomás’ forceful hands, his dirty talk, it’s all slightly off the mark.

It’s not until a few hours later, as Dean is settling into bed back at Bobby and Ellen’s, that he realizes it was because Tomás wasn’t Castiel.

***

The first weekend of December, Pamela comes up from New York. The whole gang gets together to see her; even Kevin flies in from Princeton, which makes absolutely no sense because he lives an hour away from her on the daily, but Dean isn’t gonna question it. He hasn’t seen the dude since July, and he’s missed him.

They all meet at a bar downtown — some new spot with LED mood lighting and bass-heavy music pumping from the speakers. When Dean walks in with Charlie in tow, everyone else is already gathered around a high top table with their drinks.

“Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in!” Pam calls out upon noticing the two of them, getting down from her barstool to give them both her unique brand of hug that makes a man feel like he’s being welcomed by a hurricane. Dean loves it.

He and Charlie briskly order drinks to catch up with the rest. Charlie persuades him to try a cocktail with a very embarrassing name; it’s unnaturally colorful and has a plethora of weird garnishes.

It tastes great.

Dean gets another one right after he slurps up the dregs of his first through the pink straw. Finals start on Monday, so he should probably be slogging away over his textbooks instead of throwing back vermouth, but he’s never claimed to be sensible.

On his third cocktail, while he’s talking to Benny, Dean thinks he spots a familiar silhouette in the crowd behind him. Sure enough, when the guy moves and Dean sees more of his face, it turns out to be Castiel, holding a bottle of beer, wearing a white button-up with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He’s with a short brunette in all black whom Dean vaguely recognizes. After a moment of deliberation, he places her as the girl from one of Castiel’s Tinder pictures.

“Hold on a sec, will you?” Dean says to Benny. “A pal of mine’s over there, I’m gonna go say hi.”

“No worries, brother.” Benny toasts him with his whiskey and twists towards Garth to ask him something about his girlfriend Bess.

Shaking himself off, Dean stands. Ever since he slept with Tomás last week, he’s been feeling guilty, and it’s goddamn weird because it’s not like he and Castiel are exclusive. They just have sex, for Pete’s sake. There’s no emotional involvement there. Or, at least Dean thought there wasn’t until he started going off his rocker about screwing someone else. Whatever, though. It’s probably just his brain ringing alarm bells at the change in status quo. He never paid enough attention in Bio to know how the human nervous system works.

Dean has to push through a number of people to reach the bar, where Castiel and his friend are standing.

“Of all the gin joints in this town,” he says when he gets there, putting on his best flirtatious tone.

Castiel smiles, surprised. “Hello, Dean.”

His friend is watching Dean with a raised brow and a smirk in the corner of her dark-lipsticked mouth. Instantly, she unnerves Dean.

“This is Meg,” Castiel says, not noticing the Kubrick stare she’s fixing Dean with or otherwise ignoring it. “Meg, meet Dean.”

She sets her drink on the counter and extends her small, ring-adorned hand for Dean to shake. Her skin is cold to the touch.

“Hi, stud,” she drawls. Her ‘s’ rustles, a bit like she’s saying ‘sh’ or trying to whistle through her teeth.

“Hey,” Dean says. For whatever reason, Meg’s lips twitch, like she’s amused by him. Dean really wishes she weren’t here.

With a jolt, he registers that she might know what he and Castiel get up to together, which only makes him more uncomfortable. Any normal person third-feeling for two fuckbuddies would leave under the guise of some lame excuse, but she’s just standing there, looking at him.

She and Castiel are a match made in heaven.

“Uh,” Dean says. “I’d better get back to my friends.”

Meg gives him a sickeningly sweet smile. “You do that, Dean-o.”

He takes to his heels before he can do anything he might regret.

The next cocktail he orders is purple, and the one after that green. He’s got a pleasant buzz going; around him, the music is playing, his friends are laughing. He’s having a great time.

He’s getting up again to go foraging for another drink when he catches Castiel’s eye across the throng of people. Meg is gone, and Castiel appears to have had as much alcohol as Dean — he’s relaxed, smiling, leaning back against the bar with his legs crossed at the ankles.

He tips his head meaningfully towards the bathroom. Dean goes without thinking.

The walls of the bathroom are covered from top to bottom in stickers: logos Dean doesn’t recognize, designs by independent tattoo artists, leftist slogans. The only source of light is a pink neon sign mounted above the mirror which says YOU LOOK GOOD in big block letters.

Castiel pins him to the wall the moment Dean has locked the door behind them.

“I’ve missed you,” he rumbles, always so fucking earnest, mouthing at Dean’s neck. Dean gasps at the wet heat of Castiel's tongue on his skin, fingers tangling in dark hair.

“Missed you, too, Cas,” he says, already too breathless for his usual rejoinder like, What, since you saw me an hour ago? Because he has — he’s missed Castiel’s dry repartee, his touch, his deep voice in Dean’s ear.

Castiel cups Dean’s dick through his jeans, eliciting a noise from the back of Dean’s throat.

“I thought about you this morning,” he murmurs into Dean’s neck, littering his skin with little bites that sting in the best possible way. “Very extensively.” He’s rubbing Dean through the denim, thumbing at the head of his cock; Dean can hardly think. The entirety of the blood in his body is rushing to his groin, leaving him light-headed, and all he can do is clutch onto Castiel like his life depends on it.

Maybe it does.

“Cas,” Dean says when Castiel’s hand moves to his balls, squeezes them lightly. “Fuck—”

Castiel kisses him, undoing his fly and wrapping his fingers around Dean’s dick through his underwear. There’s still a layer between them, but it’s already miles better, Castiel working him over slowly, steadily, until Dean is straining in his boxer briefs.

“Cas,” Dean chants again. “Cas, please.”

“Stay still,” Castiel commands, then goes down to his knees. He places kiss after kiss to Dean’s dick over the cotton; Dean is fucking vibrating out of his skin by now, the muscles in his thighs jumping.

“Fuck, man, I’m dyin’ here,” he says, trying for playful and coming out desperate.

“Can’t have that,” Castiel says, drawing down the band of Dean’s underwear, and takes him into his mouth.

Dean comes in record time. With anyone else, he would be embarrassed about finishing so quickly, but with Castiel, all he cares about is tugging him back up and licking into his mouth, tasting himself on Castiel’s tongue. He fumbles with Castiel’s belt and fly and pulls out his rock-hard cock, spreading the beading precome down Castiel’s length with his thumb. Castiel grunts into the kiss.

“Come on my face,” tears itself out of Dean before he can stop it.

When Castiel looks at him, the blue of his eyes is just a thin ring around his pupils.

“Are you sure?” he asks, voice hoarse from blowing Dean.

“Yeah.”

Castiel scrutinizes him for a few more seconds, but finally, he puts a hand on Dean’s shoulder. Dean gets the message and sinks down to his knees. Castiel closes a hand in the longer hair at Dean’s crown and tilts Dean’s head back, holds it there; they’re looking each other in the eye as Castiel wraps a hand around his dick and starts stroking, inches away from Dean’s face. Dean’s heart is pounding in his ears, his whole body thrumming.

It doesn’t take Castiel long, either — within minutes, his hand speeds up and his grip on Dean’s hair tightens, his breaths short and fast. He groans at the start of his orgasm, his come painting Dean’s face in hot pulses: his mouth, his cheeks, his eyelashes. Dean moans, his dick twitching where Castiel tucked him back into his pants.

As soon as he’s spent, Castiel helps Dean to his feet, grabbing Dean’s face in both of his hands and kissing him like he wants to eat him alive. Dean doesn’t give a flying fuck that Castiel is touching him with the hand he used to jerk himself off; he grabs onto Castiel’s wrists and kisses back just as fervently.

They pull away from each other when there’s a loud knock on the bathroom door.

“We’d better get out of here, huh,” Dean laughs weakly.

Castiel smiles. He grabs some paper towels out of the dispenser. “May I?” he asks, gesturing to Dean’s face. At Dean’s allowance, he takes Dean’s chin gently in one hand and sets to cleaning him up.

“There,” he says after he’s done, tossing the balled-up paper into the trash.

“There,” Dean echoes. “You can leave first. I still need a minute.”

Nodding, Castiel turns to the mirror and adjusts his clothes. He does nothing to tame his sex hair.

“I’ll be seeing you, Dean,” he says, unlocking the bathroom door, and then he’s gone.

Dean moves to the mirror. He looks absolutely fucking debauched — swollen mouth, bright eyes, an incriminating flush on his cheeks. He runs a hand under the water and attempts to fix the nightmare of a bird’s nest on his head, all over the place from Castiel’s iron grasp. There’s no concealing the marks on his neck.

Lightly, almost reverently, he touches the spots where Castiel’s come branded him before he wiped it off. Dean remembers the first time they went bare; mid-November, running his fingertips up and down Dean’s spine after round one, Castiel had asked him to get tested because he wanted to fuck Dean with nothing between them. Dean had jumped at the proposition like a man possessed. He brought Castiel a clean bill of health days later, saw Castiel’s in return, and they spent hours rolling in the hay. Dean failed a quiz the next morning, and didn’t care at all.

He shakes his head to get himself back to the world of the living. Futilely, he tries to straighten out his shirt and walks out of the bathroom.

Pam accosts him almost immediately, two shot glasses of tequila in her hands.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” she exclaims, thrusting one of the glasses out at Dean. She gets a second, better gander at him, and smirks. “Kept yourself busy, I see.”

Dean throws the tequila back in one gulp. “Hey, no kissing and telling,” he grins at her and follows her back to their friends.

Castiel is nowhere to be seen.

***

After Dean’s first final of the season, a guy comes up to him. Dean knows him by sight — they share most classes — but can’t remember his name.

“Can I help you?” Dean ventures when the dude lingers in front of him without saying anything.

“Yeah, uh,” the semi-stranger says. He’s visibly nervous about something, not meeting Dean’s gaze and repeatedly adjusting his black-rimmed glasses. “I’ll get right to it, then, shall I.”

Dean watches him, more than a touch bewildered. He shuffles through his mental catalog of slights and comes up empty. He can’t recall even speaking to this guy before. Did he do something to him and doesn’t know it?

“I’ve sort of… had a crush on you since the beginning of the semester?” the guy pushes out. His dark eyes skitter up to Dean’s face, then revert to the vicinity of Dean’s chest. “And I was wondering, um, if maybe. Maybe you’d like to get a coffee sometime? With me?”

“Oh,” Dean produces. “Oh.”

He… didn’t expect this.

He can’t remember if anyone has ever come up to him and asked him on a date. To sixty-nine, sure, but not to go out for a cup of joe. Just the thought of a first date makes him want to shudder — bumbling small talk, trying way too hard to impress each other. No, thank you. He prefers his easy lifestyle of playing the field and not caring about calling back.

The dude is cute in a nerdy way, in his glasses and pressed chinos, and he’s so hopeful. It kind of bums Dean out to have to rebuff him.

“Listen, man,” Dean says slowly. “I’m flattered. I am. I’m not really the relationship type, though.”

The guy nods with a tight smile. It’s obvious Dean hurt his pride, but hey. Tough shit. ”I understand.”

“Sorry. I’m sure you’re great."

“Yeah,” the guy says, evidently wanting to get out of dodge. Dean doesn’t keep him. He watches the dude go, his retreating form growing smaller and smaller, until he disappears around a corner.

For some reason, Dean thinks of blue eyes.

***

Dean is in the university library, poring over the latest Senior Design lecture playing on his laptop at two-point speed, when he feels a presence beside him.

“Would you mind if I joined you?” Castiel says from Dean’s left. Dean looks over, a little disoriented, popping out one of his earbuds. He’s been here for hours now; the world outside the windows has turned dark and the automatic lights in the library have all switched on.

Castiel is holding a thick, canvas-bound book in his arms, and he’s wearing the same white button-up as when Dean last saw him four days ago. Dean blinks, briefly overcome by the memory of Castiel’s come striping his face, of Castiel on his knees still being the one with all the power.

Realizing he’s been silent this whole time, Dean waves his hand in vague assent. “Go ahead.”

Castiel sets his book down on the table and settles down in the chair opposite Dean, unloading a handful of folders from his backpack. Despite himself, Dean tilts his head to read the title on the spine of the book. Friedrich Nietzsche. Gesammelte Werke.

“You know German?” Dean asks, not quite managing to mask his amazement.

“I do,” Castiel says. “And French, and Italian. My Russian is a bit rusty, though.”

Dean lets out a stunned laugh. “You are one hell of a guy, you know that?”

Castiel gives him that lopsided smile of his. “I’ve been told.”

Admitting defeat to the lecture, Dean powers down his laptop. He needed a break, anyway.

“How come you learned all those?” he asks.

Castiel abandons his papers and gives his full attention to Dean. He never does anything by halves. “I find that a lot is lost in translation, especially when it comes to such a delicate subject as philosophy,” he says. Under the fluorescent lights, his eyes glimmer. “I wanted to be able to read as much as I could in the original.”

“Wow.” Dean doesn’t know what to say. Now and then, Castiel will come out with something like this, and Dean will see that in some ways, they are worlds apart. “That’s… kinda profound.”

Occasionally, when Castiel smiles at him just right, he gets a dimple in his left cheek. This is one of those times. “I’ve had plenty of practice.”

They’re quiet for a beat, just looking at each other. Somewhere in the library, someone drops something and hisses out, Shit!

“Why did you choose Mechanical Engineering?” Castiel asks.

Suddenly timid, Dean scratches at the short hairs on the nape of his neck. “Oh, you know,” he says, eyes dropping to the dark screen of his laptop. Next to Castiel’s ethics and epistemology and all the other existential problems he writes hundred-page essays on, Dean’s go-to story about being handed a wrench before he could even read is sort of pathetic. “I grew up around cars. I knew it was what I wanted to do when I was still in middle school.” He shrugs. “Machines are easy. Once you know what’s wrong, there’s a clear path to getting them going again. It makes you feel good. Fixing something. Or, better, building something from the ground up. It’s like you’re changing the world, in whatever tiny, insignificant way.”

Castiel is still smiling, but it’s softer now, like he’s moved by the word-vomit that just poured out of Dean with barely any prompting. “Who’s profound now?”

Dean surprises himself by laughing. It tumbles out of him, louder than it ought to be in the late hush of the library. “Shut up,” he grins, shaking his head.

“For what it’s worth, I think it’s significant,” Castiel says. “If it makes you feel good, it’s important. No matter how stupid it might seem to you.”

That sobers Dean back up. “Yeah.” He nods slowly, mulling Castiel’s words over in his head. “Yeah, Cas.”

They return to studying. It’s the first instance of them spending time together completely sober or without the promise of sex, so Dean thought it would be awkward; it’s not, though. He has always surrounded himself with incredibly expressive people, which made getting used to Castiel’s general aura of all-encompassing tranquility something of a challenge, but once he got over the initial juxtaposition, he found Castiel very easy to be around. His company calms Dean.

It’s after Dean has finished up with the lecture and revised his notes from Dynamic Systems and Control that his curiosity gets the best of him.

“The girl you were with last time,” he asks. Castiel raises his head from his book.

“Meg?” he says.

“Mhm.”

Castiel puts down the pencil he’s been using to write painstaking notes in the margins. “What about her?”

“I don’t know,” Dean says, pretending the query just came to him. In reality, he’s been wondering about Meg ever since they were introduced. “Who is she to you, I guess.”

“She was my girlfriend for about three months when we were seventeen,” Castiel says. “In the meantime, I came to the conclusion I was gay, and she’d already set her sights on a new girl in school.” He smiles, probably prompted by a fond memory. “We’ve been best friends ever since.”

“Did you…” Dean starts, but trails off, deciding that the question is too invasive.

“No, we never had sex,” Castiel answers anyway, as usual reading him correctly.

Dean feels himself going red. He’s always hated the way he blushes: from his forehead all the way down to his neck, ears included. “You don’t know that I wanted to ask that!” he tries to save his dignity.

Castiel chuckles. “Yes, I did.”

They maintain eye contact for a moment; Dean is the first to break, looking down at his hands where they’re resting on his closed laptop.

“Fair enough,” he grumbles, still warm in the face.

Castiel peers at him silently for a couple of seconds longer.

“You look sweet when you blush like that,” he says at last, and he has literally been inside of Dean, but it’s this which makes Dean’s cheeks go fucking aflame all over again.

“Um,” he mumbles, pretending to be very engrossed in a hangnail, “thanks.”

Castiel seems pleased. “You’re welcome.”

They get back to work again.

Sometime past nine, Dean’s phone buzzes with a text from Charlie.

don’t forget the provisions!!

Crap. They’re having a Star Trek marathon tonight, with the grand kickoff at ten, and Dean was so absorbed in Castiel, it totally slipped his mind.

“I gotta go,” he says, hurrying to cram all his stuff into his backpack. If he hauls some serious ass to the store, he can still make it on time.

Castiel watches him thrash about wordlessly. He holds out the pen Dean has been turning in circles trying to find, and Dean snatches it up.

“Good seeing you, Cas,” he says, frantically trying to stuff his arm into his jacket and the strap of his backpack at once.

“You, too,” Castiel answers. Dean doesn’t see his face as he says it because he barrels for the exit.

He comes flying through the door of his and Charlie’s apartment at ten sharp.

“I thought you fell in a ditch!” comes from the living room.

“Sorry, sorry!” Dean says, toeing off his shoes in the hallway and stepping into the lounge with his two plastic bags full of sustenance, namely chips and beer. “I ran into Cas at the library.”

Charlie drops all pretenses of being mad at him, turning around on the couch to face him. “Ooh, the Spock to your Kirk?”

“Ugh, don’t say that.” Dean sets the bags on the coffee table to start unpacking them. Charlie grabs the first beer as soon as it’s out of his hand and pops the cap using their dick-shaped bottle opener. “We just have sex.”

“You give little nicknames to all your fuckbuddies?” Charlie takes a long sip, eyebrows raised meaningfully.

In his head, Dean runs through every word he said since coming home. Upon realizing where he made his mistake, he flushes. Again.

“Hey, I—” He grasps for something to say. “He—”

Charlie rips open a bag of Lay’s and bites down on a chip with an emphatic crunch.

“Castiel is a long name, is all,” Dean mutters in the end.

She raises her hands in mock surrender. “Whatever you say, Captain.”

Dean feels her eyes on him for the rest of the night. She doesn’t talk about Castiel anymore, but he can tell that she wants to.

***

A week before winter break, Dean wakes up in the foulest of moods. There’s a pit in his stomach and a ball in his throat, like he’s going to cry but can’t. He barely drags himself out of bed, and makes it to his morning lecture by a hair. By afternoon, he’s exhausted, and what he wants most in the world is to get back home and crawl into bed. He has one more class, though, one he can’t skip, so he goes. He doesn’t know how he manages to sit through it. He feels like the weight of the entire universe is resting on his shoulders, crushing him. He hasn’t felt this bad in over a year. The last time it happened, he spent the whole day on the couch with Charlie, his feet in her lap, eating their weight in takeout and not speaking. But today, he doesn’t have that to look forward to — Charlie got done with her finals early and she’s away with Dorothy somewhere.

Dean does the only thing his drained self can come up with.

can i see you tonight? he texts Castiel. His hands are shaking.

Are you okay? Castiel replies promptly, seeing right through Dean even via text.

shitty day

Come by at 7.

Dean is there a couple minutes ahead of time, but by this point he feels so horrible that he doesn’t care about seeming overeager. Void trots up to him, chirping happily when he comes through the door.

“Hey, girlie,” he whispers, bending down to scratch her behind the ear. She rubs up against his legs, purring like a miniature Diesel engine.

Castiel is leaning up against the wall, watching them both.

“Hi,” he says. “Do you want to talk about it?” He’s looking at Dean in that way of his, blue eyes boring into Dean’s soul.

Dean shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe. Not really.”

“What do you want to do?” Dean hasn’t seen Castiel so serious since the first time they met. He’s so matter-of-fact about wanting to help Dean, getting down to it straight away. It makes Dean hurt in his sternum, where all his emotions live.

“Just. Let’s just.” Dean takes a deep breath when his voice catches. “Please, Cas. I need you.”

Even if Dean knew how to ask for comfort without sex, he would still plead for Castiel’s body right now. He wants Castiel on him, in him, all around him; he thinks it’s the only thing that can make this better.

Castiel nods. “Come on, then.”

He fucks Dean facedown, Dean’s chest flat against the mattress and his cheek smushed into Castiel’s pillow. Dean is so out of it that he doesn’t even realize he’s cradling the pillow with both arms, inhaling the scent of Castiel like it’s water in the middle of a desert. He comes with Castiel cupping his throat with one hand, and gasps, overstimulated, as Castiel grinds into him until his own release, sucking marks into Dean’s shoulders.

Afterwards, Castiel gathers Dean up in his arms. If anyone else tried that, Dean would tell them to fuck off and storm right out, but with Castiel, he just melts. They’re pressed flush down to their knees, Castiel’s chest molded against Dean’s back, his arm thrown over Dean’s waist. His hand is splayed over Dean’s stomach, spreading heat.

When Dean focuses hard, he can feel Castiel’s heart beating.

The paravan separating Castiel’s sleeping nook from the rest of the room is inexplicably folded up today, so Dean stares at the Metropolis poster on the wall as he lies there bracketed by Castiel’s body. He listens to the music playing from the speaker; there are no words in it, just sorrowful piano over a lo-fi beat.

The song switches once, twice, three times. Void ambles over from her cat tree to sniff at Dean’s fingers, and when he boops her on her tiny cold nose, she makes a displeased mew and sashays back where she came from.

The song changes again. A weary female voice intonates, Late night, call you in the late night, trade love for one night, two pills and a red wine.

“It’s my father,” Dean says in a sudden bout of courage. Behind him, Castiel doesn’t shift a muscle, but Dean knows he’s listening. Fully tuned in. “My mom died when I was seven. Left him alone with my brother and I. And he didn’t—” Dean’s voice gets trapped in his throat again. Castiel kisses the point of his shoulder, waits for him to regain his footing, like the world comprises only the two of them and time doesn’t exist. “He didn’t really do a good job. He was trying his best, though. Or maybe not. Maybe he just didn’t give a fuck.” John’s idea of acceptable child-rearing was leaving Sam and Dean alone for hours on end with a twenty to order a pizza and a TV for company. In his formative years, Dean saw more of Maury than of his own father.

“He dumped us on a family friend a lot.” Dean thinks of Bobby back then — never complaining after John dropped them off at his stoop, just steering Sam and Dean inside and asking if they were hungry. If they wanted to play some ball. “Sometimes I wish he’d just outright given us up to him. Bobby did better at raising us than our father ever did.”

Whenever Dean admits this, even to himself, he feels blasphemous; a wide-eyed, hopeful boy scared to speak a word against a man who cared about his sons the way a drill sergeant cares about the double file of recruits in front of him.

“He died three months before my eighteenth birthday, but I still hear him in my head,” Dean goes on. It’s all spilling out of him, like viscera out of a slashed-open stomach. “Telling me I’m a useless little brat.”

Castiel kisses his shoulder chastely again. His lips make a soft sound on Dean’s skin.

“I remember every horrible thing he ever said to me. Mostly ‘cause they outweigh the good things, but, you know. I could’ve stored those away. But I didn’t. I kept the bad things.” Dean takes down air in a shaky gulp. “I always keep the bad things,” he says, and his voice is a barely audible waver.

“I’m here for you now,” Castiel says. It’s better than any platitude he could’ve offered instead.

Dean covers Castiel’s hand with his where it’s pressed to Dean’s stomach. “Thank you.”

Eventually, they fall asleep.

***

The next morning, Dean wakes up to Cas’ alarm.

“Muh,” he says, very eloquently. Overnight, they migrated to Cas lying on his back with Dean’s cheek on his chest; by some miracle, he didn’t drool.

“Sorry,” Cas says, patting around his windowsill for his phone. His voice is even more gravelly than usual. “Should’ve turned it off.”

He locates his phone, kills the alarm, and throws the phone back down.

“Good morning,” he says. Dean smiles.

“Morning,” he responds, kissing Cas’ pec.

They lie there for a while longer, Cas playing with Dean’s hair, until a loud, desolate meow reaches them from the kitchen.

Cas laughs quietly. “The queen demands to be fed.”

They get up, not getting dressed save for pulling on last night’s underwear. As Cas fixes Void a bowl of her wet food, Dean fries up a batch of pancakes, insisting it’s his signature dish. Cas makes them coffee — he’s got a fancy machine with chrome knobs and a built-in espresso maker. It looks funny in his shoebox-sized kitchen, next to the battered old fridge.

After breakfast, Dean borrows some clothes and goes to shower. When he comes out of the bathroom in Cas’ gray UIC hoodie, Cas’ face assumes an expression Dean can’t decipher.

He doesn’t kiss Cas goodbye when he leaves, but there’s a split-second in which he wants to.

Things change after that. Not a lot, but enough that it’s tangible. There’s a new sort of push and pull between them, a shift in energy. They see each other twice more ahead of Christmas, and the sex is… gentler. Cas is even more attentive, more dedicated. The day before Dean’s drive to South Dakota, he rims Dean for close to an hour, stopping every time Dean gets close till he’s begging to come, then gets himself off by fucking the valley between Dean’s asscheeks, Dean flat on his stomach, sated and exhausted. Later, they watch Love, Actually on Cas’ laptop, half as a joking homage to the season and half because Cas takes remarkably vigorous offense at Dean telling him he’s never seen it. They watch the movie cuddled up to each other, Void stretched out like a noodle in the seam of their bodies; the domesticity of it burrows so deep under Dean’s skin that he can taste it.

Christmas passes in much the same vein as Thanksgiving. The Winchester-Singer-Harvelle clan eats, exchanges gifts, then eats some more, making breaks for sleep and the annual screening of Home Alone. Dean texts Cas throughout it all. He’s spending the holidays with the handful of his siblings he doesn’t despise, down at his brother Gabriel’s house in California. Since his mother died a few years ago, Cas has no one to force him to share the table with those of his relatives who tormented him about anything they recognized as a touchy subject. Cas says a lot of his siblings, full and half alike, have inherited their father’s disposition: sardonic, with a tendency to pounce unprovoked. He prefers to keep his distance from them.

This year is Bobby and Ellen’s turn to host Old Fart New Years (a term Dean, Sam, and Jo use to wind them up). The usual suspects show up — Bobby’s best friend Rufus, Sheriff Jody with her wife Donna, and Frank, who bestowed upon Dean the right to call him an old queen once, and who’s just nutty enough for it to be a fun aspect of his personality instead of a reason to call Social Services. Sam and Jo leave to spend the night with their respective friend groups, but Dean stays home. For all his griping, he loves these people.

Around eleven, he walks into the kitchen where Jody and Donna are keeping an eye on the safety hazard of an oven heating up the lasagna they brought. In the living room, New Year's Eve Live With Anderson Cooper is blasting, accompanied by bursts of raucous laughter.

the elderly are going wild up here, Dean texts Cas one-handed as he opens the fridge in search of another beer.

Gabriel just went streaking around his own house, Cas messages back. I think I could do with a swap.

Dean snorts. He locates a Sol hiding in the back of the fridge and fishes it out.

“I gotta tell ya,” Jody says to him, breaking off from the conversation she’s been having with Donna, “I’ve never seen you looking this peppy. What have you been smoking, kid?”

Dean opens the beer with his ring and takes a long pull. “I haven’t been smoking anything.” Not for the past few weeks, anyway. He split a joint with Cas the first time he met up with him after spending the night, but nothing since.

Jody holds up her hands. “Hey, I don’t judge. Just don’t go sneaking it to Alex.”

Dean smiles fondly. Alex, one of Jody and Donna’s foster daughters, is probably in a basement den with her weird friends somewhere, passing around a blunt constructed out of the worst weed known to man. Ah, the joys of being seventeen.

“I wouldn’t do that even if I were on something. Which I’m not,” Dean says.

“You know, I used to walk around with my head in the clouds all the time when I first met Jodes,” Donna pipes up.

Jody laughs. “Oh, like you don’t anymore?”

Donna flashes her a brilliant grin. “Well, you’re still you.”

“Sweet-talker,” Jody mutters and kisses Donna on the cheek. Dean looks away with a smile. He sat front row at their wedding five years ago, and they still look at each other the same way they did at the altar.

“Donna, come see this!” floats in from the living room.

“Catch you later, alligator,” Donna says to Dean and walks out of the kitchen.

Jody looks after her adoringly before turning her gaze on Dean.

“Maybe she’s got a point,” she says. “You in love, kiddo?”

Dean almost drops his beer. “No!” he protests vehemently.

Jody smiles like she doesn’t believe him in the slightest. “Right.”

When the ball drops, Dean texts Cas.

happy new year!!

Happy New Year, Dean. :), Cas replies.

***

Classes start up on the eighth, but Dean drives back early to see Cas. He’s wearing a sweatshirt he got for Christmas from his brother Balthazar — it says, Green is calming across the chest, with a big marijuana leaf below. Dean loses his shit about it. They smoke as a tribute to the thing; customarily, Cas rolls.

Dean doesn’t know why, but he chooses to take a look at the inside of the crutch when Cas hands him the lit joint. The stiff paper is crimped into a neat zigzag.

“You’re a true artist when it comes to this stuff, huh?” Dean teases, indicating the meticulous accordion fold.

“It’s a ‘W,’” Cas says. “For Winchester. I couldn’t very well make a ‘D.’”

That shuts Dean up. Something swells in his chest, spreads up into his throat. The only answer he can conceive of is drawing a mouthful of smoke and tugging Cas in to blow it out into the sliver of space between his parted lips.

***

Naturally, it doesn’t take long for everything to go to shit.

***

“Hey, Cas,” Dean says to Cas’ collarbone in late January, a couple days past his twenty-second birthday. They’re tangled up after sex, Dean drawing patterns on Cas’ stomach, Cas running his fingers through Dean’s hair.

“Hm?” Cas questions. Dean feels it vibrate under his cheek where it’s resting on Cas’ chest, a position Dean has come to favor.

“You can be rougher, if you want,” he says. “And, uh. You can tell me what to do sometimes. I guess.”

Dean has been thinking about it a lot lately. About having Cas take the reins, about relinquishing control of himself. He’s never done it with another person before, but he has craved it for as long as he can remember. It’s why he likes to be manhandled so much; he wants someone to make him comply. To arrange him to their fancy so he doesn’t have to think.

Cas is quiet for long enough that Dean is certain he’s crossed a line and will momentarily be told to leave. But then Cas cups his hand over the back of Dean’s skull, scritches through the short hairs there with his fingernails. It makes Dean’s eyes flutter closed, almost like a switch.

“You want to be my good boy, Dean?” Cas says, and a current shoots down Dean’s spine, making his whole body tingle and a forceful exhale leave his mouth without him having anything to say about it.

“Yeah. Sure,” he says, trying to be nonchalant despite the fact that, all of a sudden, he feels like a live wire.

“I need to hear you say it,” Cas says. A hint of steel has crept into his voice; Dean’s cock starts firming up again. How is it possible that Cas reads him so well?

“I.” Dean chokes on his tongue, turns his face up into Cas’ neck to better hide himself there. “I wanna be your good boy.”

“Well done. Thank you, Dean.” There’s a silent half of a minute in which Cas carries on lightly scraping his nails over Dean’s occipital bone. The praise courses through Dean like a drug. “I’d like to do something for you,” Cas finally continues. He speaks with a note of authority, as though he expects to be obeyed. “You will do something for me in return. Are you with me?”

“Mm,” Dean assents. His head is spinning with swiftly mounting arousal.

“Dean?” Cas chastises mildly.

He needs to hear Dean say it.

“Yes,” Dean says, and it comes out of him more as a puff of air than anything else. “Yes, I’m with you.”

“Good,” Cas compliments. “I want to finger you, and for you to stay completely still. Are you up for that?”

Dean nods shakily. “Yes.” His blood is rushing in his ears; his hands are clenching in the bedsheets. He feels like he’s going to shake out of his skin.

“Okay,” Cas says. From the JBL, a man is singing, I’ll be your baby doll and your bodyguard if you tell me to. Dean concurs.

Cas smooths his big hand down Dean’s skull so it rests on the nape of Dean’s neck, and with his other, he starts stroking Dean’s back — up and down in slow, sweeping motions. He goes a fraction of an inch lower with every stroke, driving Dean mad with anticipation.

When Cas brushes the top of his ass, Dean breathes out raggedly into the join of Cas’ neck and shoulder. His dick is aching. He tries his best to ignore it.

Agonizingly, instead of moving further down Dean’s ass, Cas’ hand travels to Dean’s drawn-up thigh. He caresses the muscles there, first back and forth along the quadriceps, then down over the hamstring.

At last, his fingers slip back. He teases Dean’s taint, two fingertips feather-light over the already lube-soaked skin. He slides them up leisurely, passes the pads over Dean’s hole and back down again, circles his rim. Dean kind of thinks he’s dying. No one’s ever been this gentle with him; fingering has always been just a precursor to him getting fucked, done as quickly as possible, but Cas is taking his sweet goddamn time and it’s making Dean feel equal parts embarrassed and cherished. Vulnerable, either way.

When Cas’ fingers sink into him, Dean can’t help the sound that punches out of his chest.

“You’re doing very well, darling,” Cas murmurs into his hair, and the pet name just adds fuel to the fire. Horrifyingly, humiliatingly, Dean whines into Cas’ skin. He doesn’t know what’s gotten into him; it’s just that he feels so… safe with Cas.

Cas curls his fingers inside Dean just right, and Dean keens. Cas’ hand tightens on the back of his neck.

“Yeah,” he soothes. “Let me hear you.”

It’s like a dam breaks somewhere within Dean at that; he becomes louder than he’s ever been during sex, the sounds flowing out of him as if he’s being hurt rather than pleasured. His cock throbs between his legs, but he doesn’t move, not even to grind up against Cas’ thigh. He stays good.

“How sweet you are,” Cas purrs into Dean’s hair, rubbing Dean’s prostate, making Dean cry out. His voice reverberates through Dean from head to toe.

“‘S for you,” Dean slurs, reduced to a puddle of rapture. “‘S all for you, Cas.”

When he comes, it’s the most intense orgasm he’s ever had. He trembles all over, heaving huge, wet breaths into the crook of Cas’ neck as white-hot bliss fills him to the very brink, his hand digging into Cas’ ribs so hard Dean’s sure it will leave fingerprints. Once the last of it has seeped out of him, leaving behind a delicious blankness, he slumps further into Cas than he thought physically possible. Floating in and out of consciousness, he vaguely registers Cas petting his hair again.

He doesn’t know how much time goes by before he more or less resurfaces. He still feels like he’s suspended in Jell-O, but at least he can formulate a thought.

“Are you back with me?” Cas says upon Dean stirring.

“You didn’t get off,” Dean manages. He glances down; Cas has gone soft. A good while must have passed, then.

“Dean,” Cas says in a tone demanding utmost attention. Gently, he closes a fist in Dean’s hair and cranes Dean’s head back so they’re looking each other in the eye. Cas’ face is solemn. “I cannot describe how much you’ve given me by allowing me to have you like this.”

Once more at a loss for words, Dean kisses him.

***

Dean is woken by the niggling feeling that something is wrong. Bleary, he rubs at his eyes to chase off the remnants of sleep. He’s alone in Cas’ bed, and the apartment is filled with ringing silence. Gray winter light is getting in through gaps at the bottom of the blinds. On the bedside table, there’s a yellow post-it note.

Sorry, I had to leave for class. Void has had her breakfast. Don’t let her fool you.

— Castiel

Like clockwork, Void comes loping in from the kitchen, meowing beseechingly.

“I know your tricks,” Dean says to her, sitting up and throwing his legs over the edge of the bed. Void immediately rubs up against his calf, curling her tail around it. He scratches her under the chin and she flops down to the floor, showing him her belly, but swats at his hand when he tickles the lighter fur there.

“Sorry,” he says. Void gives a magnanimous mrrp.

Dean hides his face in the hand he didn’t pet her with.

“Fuck, girlie,” he mumbles into his palm. “What am I doing?”

Last night was… unbelievable. Cas touched Dean with such reverence, handled him as though having Dean at his mercy was the greatest honor, the greatest indulgence anyone could ever offer him. When Dean slotted their mouths together, wrung dry and rendered speechless by Cas’ sheer goodness, Cas carefully flipped them over so he was hovering over Dean and kissed him until Dean was too tired to kiss back. He peppered Dean’s entire face with butterfly brushes of his lips, then, so diligent in it that Dean, through the haze of sleep overtaking him, felt like weeping.

Sex has never been about emotional payoff for him. Since he lost his virginity at eighteen, he has not fucked anyone more than once — Tinder matches, guys he picked up at bars, or, that one memorable time with Benny and Victor after they’d all had one drink too many on a lakeside vacation, friends. It’s always been purely physical, a way to let off steam and enjoy himself. With Cas, though, it's— different. Everything’s different. It sounds fucking stupid, but it’s a whole new plane of being. Cas’ budding philosophy degree must be rubbing off on him.

Point is, he gets Dean going in every way possible, and… it scares Dean. It scares the absolute crap out of him. He hasn’t the faintest goddamn idea how to go about it.

With an abrupt wave of nausea, he pictures Cas laughing in his face. Realistically, Dean knows he wouldn’t, that even confronted with feelings he doesn’t reciprocate, Cas would remain utterly unperturbed, but the idea is so horrifying that Dean leaps to his feet. He can’t stop himself — he thinks about Cas rejecting him, telling him thanks, but no thanks; about Cas letting him down easy, blue eyes full of pity.

Dean locates yesterday’s clothes and gets dressed so fast that he almost falls on his face trying to put his pants on. He needs to get out of here, pronto: out of Cas’ apartment and out of this mess in general. He’s in way too deep. Whenever he’s with Cas, whenever he even thinks about him, there’s a fucking whirlpool of emotions roiling through him. It’s the first time Dean has felt so much about a person, and he just wants…

He doesn’t know what he wants.

He slams his fist against the floor when his shoelace repeatedly refuses to let itself be threaded through an eyelet.

On the bedside table, next to the post-it Cas left him, lies a stubby pencil.

i’m sorry, i can’t do this anymore, Dean scribbles under Cas’ neat, cramped handwriting. Void gazes at him from the bed, curled up in the warm indent left by his body.

His boots still untied, he gives her one last pet over her silky flank, and hightails it out of Cas’ place like he’s a thief fleeing the scene of a crime.

***

Dean spends the next two weeks in a fugue state. There’s nothing but radio silence from Cas, so he must have read the note — the wretched goddamn note Dean regretted leaving the second he closed Cas’ front door after himself, but Cas has a self-locking deadbolt, so once Dean was out, he was out for good. He wasn’t going to wait on Cas’ doormat for him to return with the keys so Dean could dash back inside and incinerate the thing before Cas could see it. And he isn’t going to text Cas about it; return with the proverbial tail between his legs. What’s done is done. We die like men.

He lives on autopilot. He wakes up, goes to class, then comes home and hits the sack. He doesn’t even stop to eat sometimes, just throws his backpack down at the foot of his bed and sleeps, six PM to six AM. Lather, rinse, repeat. The only bonus (since all the extra shut-eye does nothing in the way of actually making him well-rested) is that he loses some winter weight he’s been meaning to take care of.

Nine days in, Charlie jokingly asks him why he’s been so cranky lately, and like a total fucking asshole, he barks at her to leave him alone. She just raises her eyebrows at him and retreats to her room without acknowledging his hissy fit.

He makes her mac and cheese from scratch as an apology; he carries it to her desk, where she’s hunched over her laptop, typing away at the speed of light.

She stares at him for a long while before accepting the food and motioning for him to sit on her bed. He traces the cartoon Yodas printed on her sheets with his fingertip as she eats.

“Three Michelin stars, as per uzh,” she says after she’s swallowed her last bite, putting the empty bowl aside. “Now. What the hell was that about?”

Dean shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Stars and garters, dude,” Charlie says, incredulous. “You’re so transparent it’s a wonder I can even see you. Something is bugging you, and it’s bad. Do I have to beat it out of you?”

“No, Charlie, jeez.” Dean rubs a hand over his face. His eyes are so dry it hurts. He’s tired. “It’s Cas.”

“Oh.” Charlie seems to deflate. “What’s going on?”

“We had a— a falling-out. I guess you could call it.” Dean feels bad about omitting the key details, but he’s also not in the mood to recount exactly how much of a dick move he pulled on Cas. This will have to suffice.

Charlie draws her feet up onto her desk chair and wraps her arms around her knees. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well. Shit happens.”

Charlie joins him on her bed, and they watch Parks and Rec until he falls asleep on her shoulder. She doesn’t wake him.

***

At the start of the third week, Dean sees Meg at the grocery store.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he mutters to himself, making an elderly couple hobble hurriedly away from him. He tries to hide behind the vegetable display, but Meg has already noticed him. She says something to the tall blond girl she’s with and heads towards him.

“Dean,” she says in lieu of a greeting. She’s wearing a vintage-looking aviator jacket, fur trim and all. It’s absolutely sick. He’s not going to tell her that, though.

“Meg,” he returns. They size each other up like two animals deciding which will attack the other first. “Who’s that, your new murder victim?” Dean bites off, jerking his chin towards the blonde, who’s currently comparing the ripeness of two peaches. On any other day, he would make a joke about it, but under the weight of Meg’s dark, kohl-lined eyes, he doesn't much fancy being friendly.

“No, that’s Bela,” Meg says. “My girlfriend.”

“Oh? You gonna eat her once the season’s over like a praying mantis?”

Meg bares her teeth in something that could only be called a smile by someone deeply unfamiliar with human countenance. “You’re a scrappy one.”

“What do you want, Meg?” Dean says, crossing his arms over his chest.

Meg draws herself up to her full five-foot-nothing. Somehow, it still manages to be intimidating. “You broke my pet Descartes.”

Dean squints at her. “I broke your what now?”

Meg rolls her eyes. “Castiel. He’s been in a constant sulk for the past two weeks, and it’s negatively influencing my joyous spirit,” she says, no inflection whatsoever.

“And you think it has something to do with me because…?” Dean shoots back, excessively acerbic to mask the wave of shameful remorse that hits him like a stone.

“Oh, please,” Meg scoffs. “He’d been walking on air since you two started bumping uglies, and now he’s moping around like someone gutted his kitty. It’s obvious you had a hand in it.” Her expression turns lewd. “Or, well. Didn’t.”

Dean feels himself going red. “It’s none of your business.”

Meg grabs an impressive eggplant from one of the shelves and points it at Dean. “I beg to differ.”

Dean yanks it out of her hand. “Then beg.”

Meg gives him that vicious, toothy grin again.

“I’m not in the business of doing that. Ever.”

“And how would Cas feel about you doing this?” Dean changes tack, putting the eggplant in his basket. It was on his shopping list, anyway.

“About me being the meddling romcom bestie?” Meg considers it. “He wouldn’t be very pleased, I’ll give you that. That’s why I have no intention of telling him.”

“Great,” Dean says. “Let’s end this right here, then. I’d say it was nice to see you, but that would be a lie.”

“Suit yourself, Ken doll,” Meg says. She waggles her fingers in a farewell wave and goes back to her girlfriend. Dean finishes getting his groceries with no outlet for the sour anger writhing under his skin.

***

A few days after his run-in with Meg, Dean leaves the house in the morning only for the shop window of the florist across the street to remind him that it’s Valentine’s. As Dean looks on, waiting for the crosswalk light to change, a man leaves the store with an armful of pink roses. Dean groans under his breath. He detests this pseudo-holiday — a commercial shitfest for scumbag boyfriends to show their women they still care with a five-dollar box of chocolates, and for companies to sell as much heart-shaped crap as possible. The only silver lining is that the selection of ways for Dean to get his dick wet always broadens: no one wants to be alone on Valentine’s.

A couple Dean’s age walks by. The girl is hugging a huge teddy bear with a red bow around its neck to her chest, and the guy is holding her free hand, looking down at her like she personally hung the moon.

Dean’s phone chimes with a new notification.

You’ve got a new match! lights up on the screen when he checks it. Speak of the devil. He thumbs through to Tinder; the dude who matched with him is hot, and normally Dean would set up a time and place right away, but now he can’t bring himself to message him even a simple hey.

Meg’s words bounce around in his head. He wonders if Cas woke up today and wanted to crawl back under the sheets the instant he remembered what day it was. He wonders if Cas is looking at people rushing by him on the street with gifts and bouquets and feeling the same uncomfortable squeeze around his diaphragm.

He wonders if Cas misses Dean like Dean misses him.

Fuck, Dean thinks, digging his fingers into his eyes so hard he sees stars. He did this to himself. He was the one to ruin a perfectly good thing, the way he always does.

What would he even say to Cas, were he to try and fix this? Hey, sorry I dumped you via post-it, but I’ve got years’ worth of issues and I don’t know how to handle being in love?

He almost walks into a lamppost at the thought. Is he in love with Cas?

Good fucking Lord. Of course he is. The warmth that filled Dean whenever Cas smiled at him, the longing that knocked around Dean’s heart, bruised up like an overripe plum at the bottom of a crate, when they were apart… It was love, fledgling and awkward, a newborn fawn wobbling on its spindly legs, but love all the same, and Dean didn’t recognize it until he fucked it up. No one has ever taught him about it — he’s as fluent in love as he is in Spanish, which is to say not at all.

Still, Dean thinks, this doesn’t change anything. After the way Dean treated him, Cas must resent him something awful, and Dean doesn’t blame him. He won’t ask to take up Cas’ time, because he doesn’t deserve any of it, let alone Cas’ forgiveness. He just needs to leave well enough alone and move on. The overwhelming impression of a lack of oxygen in the air around him will, like anything else, pass.

***

Later in the day, Dean goes to a used bookstore one of his classmates recommended to hunt for Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions. He’s seen more people swapping spit in public than he ever wanted to, and he needs a treat to tide him over.

The place is nice — it’s one of those shops imbued by the owner’s obvious passion for what they do. The alphabetically organized floor-to-ceiling shelves are overflowing, and even more books are stacked in free-standing, precarious towers. The customers milling about the store maneuver around the structures carefully, Dean included; he turns sideways and shimmies through to avoid disturbing a particularly impressive column, then goes down on his haunches to browse through a bottom shelf.

He finds Breakfast of Champions fairly easily. It’s a 1992 edition, dog-eared and rubbed white at the corners, just as Dean likes it; a book with a life. He grabs Armageddon in Retrospect, too, for good measure.

He straightens back up with his spoils, brushing off his pants, and looks around for the register. It’s not by the entrance, hidden away in the depths of the shop instead.

It’s in the process of squeezing past a tottering stack of huge atlases to get to the counter that Dean sees him.

Cas is turned halfway away, flipping through a small, leather-bound book. He looks… upsettingly good. Not that Dean would expect anything else. His dark hair is windswept, and he’s wearing a black wool topcoat over a navy blue turtleneck.

Before Dean has the chance to escape, Cas is closing his book and looking up.

They lock eyes.

“Um,” Dean says, rooted to the spot. What is up with this city that out of almost three million people, Dean always encounters those he’s not ready for? “Hi.”

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says. There’s maybe fifteen feet between them, but with Cas’ cool, inscrutable expression, it feels like an uncrossable chasm.

Driven by an unexpected impulse, Dean steps forward. “Can we talk?” he blurts out. Just this morning, he promised himself he would put this past him, but here and now, faced with Cas…

“That depends,” Cas says. “Are you going to act like a child again?”

Out of habit, Dean grapples for something scathing to respond with, but reminds himself that’s not what he’s trying to do here.

“I’m not,” he says.

“All right,” Cas nods.

They pay for their respective books and head out together. In unspoken agreement, they go to a café next door. It’s one of those little hipster joints where the beans have had a better life than Dean, and its interior is festooned with dozens of paper heart garlands, because the universe hates Dean’s guts.

Cas orders first. The barista is a round-faced girl a few years their junior, maybe even still in high school. She gives Cas a sunny grin.

“Couples get twenty percent off today,” she says.

Cas smiles at her placidly. “We’re not a couple.”

She flushes a blotchy pink. "Oh gosh, I’m so sorry,” she sputters.

“No worries.”

If it were anyone else, Dean would nudge them to play along for the discount, but with the chill rolling off of Cas in waves right now, Dean would rather eat a rock than suggest that.

Once they’ve picked up their coffees, they settle at one of the free tables by the window. Cas takes off his coat and drapes it over the back of his chair. Dean stares at where his form-fitting sweater clings to the lines of his pecs, his strong shoulders.

Cas spreads his hands like he’s graciously allowing Dean the floor. “You wanted to talk,” he says. “Talk, then.”

Damn, the guy really wants Dean to work for it. Cas has never been anything but kind to him, so this newfound sharpness takes Dean aback.

“Um,” he says, fiddling with the ear of his cup. “First of all… I’m so sorry. I treated you like shit, and you didn’t deserve that. At all.”

Cas crosses his arms over his chest. “Okay. I appreciate you saying that.” A stretch of silence. “Second of all?”

“Huh?” Dean frowns.

“You said ‘first of all.’ I assume there’s a second.”

“Oh.” Of course he phrased it like that. He could have spared himself and stuck with only the apology, but no. He had to incriminate himself. And he can’t even back out of it now, say, No, sorry, I don’t know why I said that, that’s it, goodbye, because Cas could be a fucking surgeon with how he extracts anything he wants out of Dean. Once something is out in the open, once a crack has shown itself in Dean, Cas will pull at the thread until he gets his way. And the kicker is, he doesn’t have to speak a word to do it. His keen gaze is enough to disarm Dean completely.

Dean looks at Cas’ book to put off talking for as long as possible. The title is in Cyrillic, embossed in gold. Преступление и наказание.

“I guess…” he starts, unsteady. “I did what I did because I couldn’t process how, uh. The way I felt about you.”

Dean’s heart is in his throat. The mortifying indignity of confessing his stupid, human feelings is humming through him like a horde of angry bees; he’s going to scream, or throw up, or run outside to look for the closest patch of bare earth so he can dig a hole in it and bury himself there.

“Leaving before you can be left, is that it?” Cas says. Immediately, Dean bristles, all anxiety waylaid.

“You know nothing about me,” he snaps.

“I know more about you than you want to admit to yourself,” Cas says, unflappable.

They stare at each other; a Mexican standoff. A multitude of things war inside Dean: indignation, impatience, the will to give chase and not look back, but, overpowering it all, the desperate need for Cas to take him in, to smooth Dean’s ruffled feathers and tell him that it’s okay. That he reciprocates Dean’s tremulous, baby bird adoration.

“You used the past tense,” Cas interrupts the stalemate. Before Dean can ask what the hell he means, Cas continues. “‘The way I felt about you.’ How do you feel now?”

Uncertain hope blooms inside Dean. “The same. Still.”

“Which is?”

Holding onto his coffee like a drowning man clutching at driftwood, Dean says it.

“I’m in love with you, Cas.”

He stops himself from tacking on a ‘damn it’ at the end to balance out the weight of the phrase.

For the first time, something in Cas’ face shifts; a gap in the clouds. The corners of his mouth tick ever so slightly upward.

“Dean,” Cas says, “for both our sakes, I am not going to pretend that you didn’t hurt me. But the degree to which that hurt went stems from how I feel about you. Which is very strongly.” Cas glances at the milk foam heart on his untouched latte, then back up at Dean. A shy brightness blossoms between Dean’s ribs, and his hand, of its own accord, presses down on his sternum to help contain it.

“So, if you’re on board,” Cas goes on, “I would really like to build something out of it. It would take some work to fix the cracks in the foundation. I don’t give up easily, though. You’re someone I want in my life, Dean, and I’m prepared to put your error of judgment past me if you’re willing to show me that the sentiment is mutual.”

Unable to stop himself any longer, Dean smiles. This, Cas wanting to have him back, is more than Dean could have asked for in his wildest dreams. And yeah, the thought of a relationship is still formidable, but like hell is he going to pass up on the first real connection of his life because he’s scared of proving unsatisfactory. He’s an adult; it’s time to play in the big leagues.

“I’m willing,” Dean says. “Christ alive, Cas, I’m willing.”

***

A week later, they go on their first date, which, incidentally, is also Dean’s first date in general. He’s so wired the entire day leading up to it that all he manages to get down is an apple that he eats slice by slice, cutting it with his pocket knife. Charlie is very amused: she calls him a mushy little macho man, and the only rebuttal Dean can muster up is mimicking her like a five-year-old.

Ironically — considering Dean’s stupid Tinder bio — he and Cas get dinner. Dean was tacitly afraid Cas would choose some French restaurant with all this pomp and circumstance, since he’s a miles fancier person than Dean is, but when they meet up out front, having come from two opposite sides of the city, Cas’ pick turns out to be a small, family-run Mediterranean bistro with cozy decor and delicious smells emanating from inside. They come in, and a friendly waitress leads them to a table.

“Is something the matter?” Cas asks while they’re sipping their drinks, waiting for the food. He looks nice, his crisp, light blue shirt at endearing odds with the characteristic mess of his hair.

Dean clears his throat. “It’s, um. I’ve never done this before,” he says, feeling like a moron as soon as the words leave his mouth. In this context, the sentence is comical at best. He can’t help it, though; any type of romanticism has always eluded him, and now here he is, on the first first date in his twenty-two years. He shouldn’t be so restless — this is Cas, for crying out loud. And yet…

“It’s just you and me,” Cas says, putting his hand over Dean’s on the table. “Hardly a spectacle.”

The meal passes easier from then on. The food is great, the company even better. When they’re done with dinner, neither of them is ready for the evening to end, so they set off on a walk, no destination in their minds. The streets are illuminated, busy with the Friday night crowd, the weather surprisingly mild for late February in Chicago.

Their hands brush with every step. Each touch sends sparks up Dean’s arm.

Man up, Dean tells himself sternly once they’ve been strolling for maybe half an hour, and, with a fortifying breath, he threads his fingers through Cas’. Cas stutters a bit in his story about a lecturer of his who looks like Doc Brown, but doesn’t react further. His voice, though, becomes subtly colored with joy. Dean smiles to himself.

They reach the outskirts of Dean’s neighborhood. Dean is so wrapped up in Cas that he doesn’t realize where his feet are taking them until they find themselves on the sidewalk outside his building.

“So,” Dean says, looking up at his dark window. He hasn’t let go of Cas’ hand. “This is me.”

“It’s nice to see for myself that you actually have a place to live,” Cas jokes. Right; all these months, Dean has been coming over to his.

All at once, Dean is awestruck by the enormity of Cas’ presence. The orange light of the streetlamp is reflecting off his dark hair, making him look like he has a halo, and Dean doesn’t think he can bear another second with their hands as their only point of contact.

“Hey,” he says. Charlie is out playing D&D with her nerd congregation and won’t be back until later tonight, if not tomorrow morning. “Do you wanna come up?”

Cas squeezes his hand. “I’d like that.”

The elevator has been broken ever since Dean moved in, so they walk up four flights of stairs. When they finally arrive at Dean’s door, Dean is so worked up that he has to focus all his attention on defeating the fickle lock.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” he says, pushing the door open. They shed their shoes and coats in the hallway, and Dean leads Cas to his bedroom, heart threatening to hammer out of his body.

They kiss on Dean’s bed for a long time. It’s good, so good, relearning Cas’ body after their separation, being allowed to infuse the kiss with everything he now knows he feels for Cas — to worship Cas’ lips with his, to move his hands up Cas’ sides, Cas’ muscles shifting under his skin.

When that isn’t enough anymore, Dean strips Cas bare, kisses down his chest, his stomach, and sucks him down. He loses himself in it, bobbing up and down Cas’ length at a scorchingly slow pace; he lets it become slick, spit and precome dripping down to where his hand is closed around the base of Cas’ cock, pumping in lazy tandem with his mouth.

Cas comes with a cracked moan of Dean’s name, petting Dean’s cheek convulsively.

“Sweet boy,” he murmurs into the gap between their faces when he’s urged Dean back up by the shoulders. He kisses him, reaching down for Dean’s leaking dick, and jerks Dean off in long, even pulls, Dean coming all over Cas' belly.

“Baby,” Dean says in a husky whisper, collapsed in a heap on top of Cas. Judging by Cas’ blinding smile, it might be the best thing he’s ever heard.

***

The following morning, Dean is woken by a loud clatter. Still half-asleep, he pats the vacant space next to him; it’s warm.

“Cas?” he calls out, voice hoarse.

“In the kitchen,” Cas shouts back.

Dean sits up in bed and stretches luxuriously until something in his back pops. He tugs on the sweatpants which have been hanging over his desk chair, and stops by the bathroom to swill some mouthwash around. He’s a staunch supporter of brushing his teeth after breakfast, but sometimes a man has to compromise.

“Morning,” Dean says, coming out into the kitchen. He’s greeted by the glorious sight of Cas in nothing but his underwear, cracking eggs into a bowl. “What’s all this?”

Cas whips the eggs with a fork, then pours them into a buttered pan waiting on the stove. “You made pancakes that one time. I’m reimbursing you.”

“Well, aren’t you a stand-up guy,” Dean deadpans, but his blood is singing in his veins. He wanders up close to Cas, leaning his hip against the counter, watching the practiced movements of Cas’ hands as he scrambles the eggs.

“Cas,” he says. Cas’ eyes turn to him.

“Yes?”

Dean leans in and kisses him. It’s short, close-mouthed, but so exhilarating nonetheless that Dean has to drop his forehead onto Cas’ shoulder when they part, his lips prickling.

A key turns in the front door.

“Whew, what a game!” Charlie’s voice floats in. Because of the apartment’s open plan, the first thing she sees upon coming inside is Dean and Cas. They all gawk at each other for a minute.

“You must be Castiel,” she recovers, walking up to shake Cas’ hand. Her gaze resolutely doesn’t stray below his neck.

“Charlie, I presume,” Cas says smoothly. He doesn’t seem at all bothered by the fact that he’s almost naked before a complete stranger.

“You presume right.” Charlie rocks back on her heels. From behind Cas, Dean levels her with a murder stare. “You know what, I just remembered I forgot to buy bedding for my hamster,” she says, and saunters right back out of the apartment.

She doesn’t have a hamster.

***

Three months later

Graduation is a hot, noisy affair. The May sun is beating down on them with a vengeance, and in his cap and gown, Dean is sweating buckets, the lace panties he’s wearing for Cas digging into his junk. He should’ve thought it through better, but then again — it’s not like he can resist any of Cas’ requests.

Dean discards his less-than-wholesome thoughts as he sees Bobby and the entourage pushing through the crowd towards his, Cas’, and Charlie’s hiding spot in the shade of a huge oak tree.

“My Bachelors!” Ellen grins, yanking Dean into a fierce hug.

“I’m a Bachelorette, thank you very much!” Charlie chirps, but gleefully accepts Ellen’s embrace, too. While the two of them are hugging it out, Sam flicks the tassel on Dean’s cap into his face.

“You’re old,” he says.

“Maybe, but you’re the one who still has a month of school left,” Dean shoots back. He and Jo are graduating from high school in June.

“Ugh, shut up,” Sam huffs, and wraps his arms around Dean. Jo snatches Dean’s diploma out of his hand and pummels him on the head with it until he’s forced to break away from Sam to reclaim it from her.

Through all of this, Cas stands off to the side quietly. Bobby is the first to acknowledge him.

“You’re Cas, right?” he says, extending his hand. “We’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Likewise,” Cas smiles. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“Jody and Donna will be so jealous you got to him first,” Dean says. When, during a cookout over spring break, Dean let it slip that he had a boyfriend — and isn’t that still a treat and a half to say — Donna nearly lost her mind.

“Damn right,” Ellen quips, taking her turn inspecting Cas.

“There you are, Junior!” an unfamiliar voice calls out. Two blond men are walking across the quad in their group’s direction.

They lose themselves in a flurry of more introductions; the guys turn out to be Cas’ infamous older brothers Gabriel and Balthazar.

Somehow, they all find themselves in a diner, pushing together three tables to the waitresses’ dismay and bickering over menus like they’ve known each other for years.

In the din, Dean turns to Cas. Neither of them has taken off their gowns or caps.

As if feeling Dean’s eyes on him, Cas looks over, abandoning the conversation between Sam and Balthazar which he’s been eavesdropping on.

“Hi,” Dean says.

Cas gifts him with the stunning, beatific thing Dean has come to treasure above anything else in the world: a smile. “Hello.”

Dean takes Cas’ hand under the table, where no one can see and make fun of him for being a hopeless sap.

“I love you,” he says, only for them to hear. He doesn’t say it out loud nearly enough. He’s aware that he’s emotionally repressed out the wazoo; sometimes he feels like a douchebag who’s stringing Cas along, but Cas knows Dean well enough to thwart his self-doubts when they arise. In return, Dean tries to put those three words into everything he does — he cooks for Cas, he buys Void funny toys, he kisses Cas silly on every occasion he gets.

Once, on a whim, he brought Cas flowers, and Cas kept them displayed in a vase on the kitchen table till they well and truly died. Then, he tied the dead bouquet together with a ribbon and hung it upside down above his bed. It’s there to this day, swaying like a chandelier whenever Cas opens the window to let in the spring breeze.

Cas’ smile goes soft. His eyes gleam: sunshine reflecting off the surface of a rippling body of water. Silver, warm, incandescently beautiful.

“I love you, too, Dean.”

Dean has no earthly clue what his life will bring. He just graduated from college, and the future stretches out in front of him like an unimaginable expanse of hardships and possibilities alike. But with his family and Cas by his side, he’s sure he can do anything.