Chapter Text
It’s not like Jimmy didn’t know he had a tendency to put his foot in his mouth. He says what comes to mind, never bothering to think it through. And unlike his brother, he doesn’t have a general lack of social skills to blame for it. Nope, just his big fat mouth and no filter to keep the word vomit at bay.
And it never bothered him before. He says things, some people get offended, and he shrugs it off. People like that normally aren’t worth the time, and it’s better he finds out early on and can relegate them to the sphere of ‘casual acquaintances.’
So when his brother asks him to stop by the Roadhouse and meet a friend, it doesn’t occur to him to watch what he says. He never does. And Cas knows he never does. It shouldn’t be an issue or Castiel would’ve warned him.
Cas always warns him.
He spots Castiel easily enough and weaves his way through the crowd. Once he reaches the edge of the table, he grabs the beer in front of his brother and steals a few gulps. He spares a once over for the cutie sitting across from his twin (even winks at him because damn) before his focus goes back to Cas.
“Did you see the ride outside? Good lord, an old junker of a car like that outside means there’s gotta be some old gearhead in here.” He scans the bar dramatically, leering at an old biker at one end nursing a cheap beer. “Any chance of me finding this sugar daddy and taking a ride?” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively and polishes off the rest of Cas’ drink. “Which silver fox you think it is? Blue blazer at the bar? Mr. Combover heading to the bathroom? Inquisitive minds want to know.”
In the months to follow, he’ll remember that as the exact moment his life went to hell.
“Excuse you?”
His attention turns to the green-eyed friend Cas wants him to meet. The one who seems to be fuming at him.
“Hi. Jimmy.” He smiles warmly and offers his hand. The guy only scowls at him and Jimmy starts to wonder what the hell he’s missing. Dropping his hand, his eyes flick to Cas (who looks suddenly resigned and grim and what the hell happened?) before he decides to try his luck and push on. “I’m Cas’ brother.”
“Really?” he deadpans. “Could’ve never guessed the guy who looks identical to him is somehow related. What a shocker.”
The conversation’s already gone south and Jimmy’s doing his best to mentally go through what he knows about this guy - not much, actually, Cas only told him he wanted the two to meet - to figure out what the fuck he said that could’ve offended him. So with nothing to go on, he opts to play it safe and keeps quiet.
Cas takes it upon himself to intervene and do what little damage control he can. “Jimmy, this is Dean, my boyfriend. Dean, this is Jimmy.”
Cheeks coloring uncomfortably at the mention of boyfriends, Jimmy smiles awkwardly. When the hell did that happen? He knows he’s been distracted with work lately, especially with the new accounts and all the travel that entails, but seriously? You’d think have a boyfriend would be an important enough detail to tell your own brother.
All that’ll have to wait for whenever he’s got Cas to himself. Right now, he’ll just have to play nice, then. “Hey.”
Dean merely crosses his arms over his chest, leans back in his chair, and stares at him.
What the actual hell?
Smalltalk between the brothers commences, carried mostly by Cas who is the least perturbed of the three. Jimmy does his best to not be personally insulted by Dean’s behavior, but the guy barely says a whole twenty words over the course of five minutes. Eventually Dean pushes away from the table and stands up.
Pushing his chair and leaning on it, he turns to Cas. “Hey, you want another beer?”
“Yes, Dean. Thank you.”
“I’ll have a-” But Dean’s already gone, completely ignoring Jimmy. He gives himself a moment to appreciate the view of Dean walking away, then he turns on his brother. With some effort, he keeps his tone neutral. “So that’s the beefcake that’s kept you too busy to see me?”
Castiel shrugs. “Yes. And I’m not too busy to see you. I saw you last weekend.”
“Yeah, for like a minute.” Cas gives him a pointed look, clearly thinking that five hours of marathon sex count as more than just a minute. Blinking rapidly to get his annoyance back on track, he points accusingly at his brother. “How long you two been a thing?”
“A few months casually. More serious lately. Thus dinner.”
“Oh.” Makes sense, he supposes. Cas normally didn’t bother to introduce him to flings. If he knows there’s an expiration date, Castiel doesn’t like to complicate things by involving Jimmy. Still, how the hell was Jimmy supposed to figure out that ‘I want you to meet a friend’ meant ‘I want you to meet my boyfriend’? Even reading between the lines, Jimmy would’ve hoped for a bit more in terms of a warning.
Switching gears, he lowers his voice a bit. “Does he know about…” And then he gestures obscenely.
Normally not so easily flustered, it’s gratifying that he gets a blush out of Cas. “He is aware that I have an arrangement with someone not unlike a ‘friends with benefits’.” When the finger quotes go up, Jimmy notes that it’s still as adorable as it was when they were kids. “He has not asked about the particulars such as how often or with whom.”
“So he knows you fuck someone else but not that it’s me.”
“Precisely.” His eyes dart to somewhere over Jimmy’s shoulder, presumably to where Dean’s at the bar. “I had hoped to broach that particular topic with him at some point, but this isn’t exactly going as I’d hoped.”
He can’t help the choked sound he makes or the look of surprise that crosses his face. Cas willing to talk about the two of them to a boyfriend? That was pretty friggin serious. Even if Cas wasn’t planning on doing it for another few months or so, the mere suggestion of it spoke volumes about how much Cas cared about the guy. They’d only made the attempt once before, back when Jimmy and Amelia were still a thing. Needless to say, it hadn’t gone well and they hadn’t seen the point in trying since.
Jimmy steals a look at the bar, watching Dean chat with another patron as he waits on the bartender. “I know he’s hot, Cassie, but he seems like he’s got a stick up his ass. And not in the fun way. You sure he’d be… open to what you’d be offering?” Not that he’d begrudge his brother the chance at a so-called ‘normal’ relationship, but he’s starting to question his brother’s taste.
“I have my suspicions,” is all he gets out of Cas. Vague response is vague, but that’s Cas sometimes. “And he doesn’t have a ‘stick up his ass.’ The car you saw on your way in and made such a fuss about?”
“Yeah?” he asks, even as his mind connects the dots. “Shit, that’s not his is it?”
“Indeed it is.”
Okay, strike one against him. Fine, he fucked up there. Don’t come between a man and his ride. Cas has been known to be stubborn about the damn Continental they pitched in to buy when they were teenagers. But still, the guy couldn’t give him a chance after that?
“Well, fuck me,” he breathes out and shakes his head.
“Probably not.” Cas’ lips tuck at the corners in a half-smile, but his eyes are sympathetic. “At least not at this rate.” His brother’s face tightens around the edges. He assumes Dean’s making his way back. “Apologize about the car and we might still be able to salvage this.”
“No way,” he scoffs. He doesn’t care how hot the guy is or whether he should’ve kept his mouth shut or not, if Dean can’t handle a little ribbing then it’s never going to work between him and Jimmy anyway. Cas can do whatever he wants, but no way Jimmy’s getting involved.
Dean puts down three beers before sitting back down. Yes, three. Apparently even if Jimmy’s gotten on his bad side already, he’s not willing to be outright rude to his boyfriend’s brother and that earns him a couple points in Jimmy’s book. He gratefully takes one of them and resolves to be pleasant for the rest of the evening.
It almost works.
The conversation’s a little stilted but Dean seems to be coming out of his shell a bit. He talks about his work as a mechanic and the restoration he does on classic cars. His tone’s a touch on the defensive side and there are a few moments when it feels like he’s talking down to Jimmy. Jimmy bites the inside of his lip and takes it as penance for what he said earlier.
(Not like he knows dick about cars anyway, so there’s not much he can say to counter the slight condescension in Dean’s voice.)
As the night goes on, Cas and Dean’s chairs end up scooting closer and closer together. It drives Jimmy crazy. Not that he minds the PDA or the constant eye-fucking, but it always gets him worked up to see his brother able to be so openly affectionate with someone else in public. All the things he’ll never be allowed with Cas anywhere but behind closed doors, yet here’s Dean taking his fill of it like it’s not something to be coveted and treasured.
(Okay, maybe it’s a little petty of him to be jealous. It might be unfair but it’s hardly Dean’s fault. Still, he doesn’t have to like it.)
(And if he casually moves his leg so that his thigh is pressed right up against Cas’, who can blame him?)
But overall Jimmy thinks things are going well. Maybe they’re not on the path to revealing any major deviant tendencies, but they’re at least being civil to each other. Honestly, Cas’ hopes for future threesomes seem far fetched anyway. Jimmy can’t say he’s super into Dean, attractive though he may be. And he can’t really speak for Dean, but he’s pretty sure the feeling’s mutual.
Too bad for Cas, but it looks like that particular fantasy’s never going to see the light of day.
Just when he’s decided that the meeting’s not a total bust, the night ends abruptly.
Jimmy’s finishing a story about some of the more dickish lawyers at his office. “But they’re lawyers,” he finishes with a laugh. Cas is kicking his foot under the table, but he’s too buzzed to care. “Haven’t met a lawyer yet that wasn’t a sleazy, arrogant ass. Honestly, who gets into that profession, considering no one ever says anything good about lawyers? Who hears lawyer jokes and thinks, ‘Yeah, I want a piece of that’?”
“My brother’s a lawyer.”
He spits out his beer and starts coughing, patting himself on the chest in a vain attempt to recover because goddammit of course his brother’s a lawyer. Jimmy officially wants to crawl under a rock and die. Cas glares at him like he half wishes the same.
“I’m tired,” Castiel announces without even bothering to fake a yawn. He simply gets to his feet and tugs at Dean’s sleeve. “Let’s head back to your place.”
Dean licks his lips slowly and glances between the two twins before settling on Cas. “Yeah, good idea.” He gets up and puts an arm around Cas’ shoulder, eyeing Jimmy like he has no clue what to say to him. Jimmy expects something generic like ‘nice meeting you’ but what he gets is much more truthful. “Guess I’ll see you around.”
With a slight nod from Dean and an apologetic look from Cas, the couple disappears out the door leaving Jimmy on his own. Sighing, he orders himself another round and figures he may as well close out the bar.
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Later that night when he’s drunk and lonely at his place, he lies in bed and texts his brother.
Jimmy N (3:21 am): hey asshole thanks for the warning
you never said you were dating someone
When his brother responds almost immediately, he feels a guilty spike of pleasure. He might’ve gone home with Dean, but it’s 3 am and it’s Jimmy he’s talking to.
Cas N (3:25 am): Sorry. I thought I’d talked about him.
Jimmy thinks back to the last few times they’d talked (actually talked, not just the filthy shit Cas liked to growl in his ear when he fucked him into the nearest flat surface). He remembers getting the general impression that Cas had a crush, but along the way he missed out on the part where the crush turned into something more.
Jimmy N (3:30 am): pretty sure i’d remember words like ‘boyfriend’ getting thrown around
Cas N (3:32 am): Didn’t mean to blindside you. Genuinely thought I’d made it clear.
Jimmy N (3:33 am): you also could’ve given me a 101 on how not to insult the guy
Cas N (3:36 am): Why would you have need to bring up or insult his car or brother, never mind both in one evening? It never occurred to me it would be an issue. Your knack for putting your foot in your mouth, however, apparently shouldn’t be underestimated.
Jimmy N (3:37 am): ass.
Cas N (3:40 am): I am sorry though if it made you uncomfortable.
Jimmy N (3:41 am): sorry i ruined your chances of banging both your boyfriends at once
Cas N (3:44 am): I’m not giving up on that. I can be very persuasive. You just have to manage not to somehow insult his mother or pies the next time you see him.
Jimmy N (3:45 am): pies????? wtf?
Cas N (3:46 am): Yes. Do not disparage pies in front of Dean. This is not a joke. I know you don’t always believe me when I say that, but this is NOT a joke Jimmy.
Jimmy N (3:48 am): there’s a story there and i wanna hear it
There’s a long enough lag before he gets another response that Jimmy’s half asleep when the final message comes through.
Cas N (4:15 am): Please try to get along. I would still like to see you two get along, even if it doesn’t result in anything more than friendship.
This time Jimmy does pick up on what Cas is implying. I don’t want to have to choose between you.
Usually Jimmy’s confident on where he’d land if that ever came up, but he doesn’t want his brother to ever have to feel like he’s in the position where he needs to make a choice like that. He types out a reply and presses send before promptly falling asleep.
Jimmy N (4:17 am): course bro no problem