Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

After the stressful but mostly successful baking Trial, the show mercifully gives them a few days to recuperate. Metatron tells them that they are at liberty to do as they please: chat with other contestants, visit the library, have fun in the hot tub and rooftop garden. Castiel, the nerd, does go and spend a few hours in the library, but Dean is gratified to see that he always returns promptly during mealtimes so that he and Dean can cook together.

Castiel still occasionally shatters eggs instead of cracking them, but Dean manages to teach him French toast, pancakes, and omelets. He also tries to teach Castiel burgers, and honestly Castiel’s first attempt isn’t half bad, but he keeps trying to add new ingredients and messing everything up, so Dean remains the burger maker.

And honestly, it’s kind of nice. If Dean doesn’t think about the one hundred thousand dollar prize money, he can almost pretend he’s on vacation – living the good life in an awesome hotel suite with great food and an endless array of entertainment and, of course, Castiel.

Some nights, when Castiel is reading yet another book and Dean is surfing the web for recipe inspiration, Dean can almost let himself yearn for a future for the two of them. He can dream about always making Castiel burgers and prying books out of his hand so he’ll actually go to sleep. He can dream about cuddling with Castiel instead of lying alone in his bed. He can dream about touching Castiel’s toned arms and strong thighs instead of just staring at them when Castiel does yoga or deigns to go in the hot tub.

But then he will wake up, and look at Castiel again under the bright light of dawn, and he’ll remember that he is Dean Winchester, high school dropout and self-taught car mechanic, and Castiel is, well, Castiel, a high-ranking serviceman and smart as a whip accountant. At the very, very best, they can be friends who shared an experience that one time. At worst, well.

At worst, they’ll be acquaintances, and Dean can discreetly follow him on social media.

So he makes Castiel coffee and burgers and pies, and takes a few good long showers, and tries to think about mustering up the courage to ask if they can maybe text once in a while after the show.

The day before the finale, they are woken at the absolute crack of dawn by the telephone ringing in their suite. It has rung before, but usually for things like food deliveries or fresh towels – in other words, when they called first and are expecting a call back – so Dean is absolutely not prepared for it to ring.

Castiel is, of course, up when that happens, because he is an early bird. However, he is also nonverbal before his coffee.

Which means that Dean ends up shuffling down the hall to answer the phone, with the coffee maker spluttering and grinding as his accompaniment, like the worst hold music ever. He grabs the phone, misses, rubs his eyes, and tries again for the phone. The second time, he gets it.

“‘lo?” he yawns into the phone.

“Good morning, contestants!” a staff member chirps. “This is your five minute warning! A staff member will be by soon to escort you downstairs.”

Dean squints through bleary eyes at the clock. When Castiel fires up the coffeemaker in the morning, he only uses the small light over the sink, so it’s very dim in the kitchen. However, given the fact that it is also so dim because the sun isn’t out yet, Dean’s willing to bet that it is Way Too Early O’Clock.

“Sir?”

“Five minutes to what?”

“Your call time, sir?” the staff member says uncertainly. “You’re supposed to be ready for the photography and promo session this morning.”

“The what?”

“We – We’re doing a photography and promo session this morning. To help us create promotional material for the show? We’ve got some interviews lined up, and plenty of photographs planned, and – ”

“Lady, it is way, way, way too early in the morning for this,” Dean says frankly. “I haven’t even eaten breakfast yet.”

“Ah, but – well – we’re on rather a tight time schedule, sir, we can’t really reschedule you – ”

Dean casts a glance at Castiel, who is currently staring at the coffeepot as it slowly fills drip by drip. He’s a faraway picture from the cool and collected and three-piece-suit Castiel that normally fills the waking hours; he has hair sticking up everywhere, crusty sleep eyes, and bright blue bee pajamas with bee slippers.

Not that Dean wouldn’t pay to be able to snap a picture of Castiel like that to keep for himself, but still.

“Then me and Cas are gonna look like crap, and I don’t think that’s gonna help your promotional stuff.”

“Not to worry, we have an excellent prep team of makeup artists and hair stylists and wardrobe consultants on hand to make sure you’re looking your best! So we’ll be by in five minutes, please be ready and dressed!”

“Wait, makeup? I didn’t agree to – hello? Hello? What the hell, they hung up on me.” Dean looks at Castiel. “Dude, they hung up on me.”

Castiel, who is still waiting for his coffee, doesn’t even turn around.

“I know you were listening,” Dean tells him. “Apparently that was our five minute warning that we’re gonna be dragged off to get, uh, photographed and interviewed. Dunno if your coffee will be ready by then, to be honest.”

Castiel gives him the biggest betrayed look he can muster. Which isn’t much because he’s squinting in the dark and also wearing a giant robe over his bee pajamas, so Dean really only sees a sliver of his face and a lot of his hair, but Dean’s weak for Castiel’s puppy eyes, sue him.

“I can go find a travel mug?”

Castiel’s puppy eyes get bigger.

“I’ll go find a travel mug,” Dean sighs, and shuffles off to rummage through their cabinets.

The promised prep team descends on them as soon as they’re escorted downstairs. Dean is almost immediately seized and shoved into a chair, as if he’s ten hours late and not ten minutes. Then one pair of hands starts yanking and pulling on his hair, another set of hands starts tilting his chin from left to right as if evaluating his features, and from the corner of his eye, he spots someone eyeing him from top to bottom and then crossing to a rack of clothes.

Castiel, it seems, is being given similar treatment, but for the fact that he is allowed to keep holding onto the coffee mug. Which in Dean’s opinion is a wise decision, because Castiel can be vicious if someone takes away his coffee.

His stylists trade words over his head, and they’re all words Dean knows. However, they are strung together in ways that make no sense to Dean at all, so he mostly just keeps his mouth shut and tries not to wince too much when they start spraying hairspray on and pressing fabric squares to match his skin tone or whatever.

He does, however, protest when they go for his hands. “Come on, really?” he says, trying to yank them back.

His stylist stubbornly holds on, grip as tight as a vise. “Some of the poses will involve close-ups of the face and hands, so we need to make sure everything is perfect,” he is told rather brusquely. “Your nails will need to be properly trimmed, of course. And cleaned. And these calluses . . .”

Dean opens his mouth.

Castiel beats him to it. “And what, pray, is wrong with Dean’s calluses?” Castiel asks from the other side of the room, voice even and smooth and absolutely dangerous. “Calluses are a natural part of the human body, and ought to be no differently treated than wrinkles or scars. In fact, Dean is a mechanic, so his calluses speak to a life of making sure that our cars run well – I assume that you have a car, so you understand why that is important, yes?”

“Ah, well, you see, it just, um, we’ll need to make sure that they are properly attended to,” the stylist says weakly.

“I would think that could be accomplished without disparaging commentary, don’t you?” Castiel asks.

Thoroughly cowed, the stylists around Dean all nod silently. Castiel gives them a smile full of teeth, and Dean shivers in his seat and shifts around and is thoroughly glad that he’s been given a cape over his lap. It still sucks to have his hair rearranged and makeup smeared all over his skin, but he finds it easier to bear now, with the warmth and unyielding support of Castiel’s words still ringing in his ears.

They do put on a lot of makeup, though.

After the hair and makeup people flutter off, apparently having finished torturing them, Dean pokes his cheek and winces at the feeling. Then he looks in the mirror. And, well.

“Sam’s gonna tease the crap out of me for this,” he groans. “I’m literally a painted whore.”

“It is not paint, it is foundation and concealer and blush,” Castiel corrects, because he’s a nerd.

“Dude, they literally took a mini paintbrush to my skin. I’ve been painted.” He tilts his face to the side and watches in horrified amazement as the makeup makes his skin glow under the lights. “How the hell am I even gonna get this stuff off? And why are you so calm about this?”

“I’m sure they will provide us with makeup removal clothes. And I’ve taken a few promotional photographs in my time.”

“With makeup?”

“Oh. No.”

Dean leans back and twists around in his chair to stare at Castiel. He knows that tone of voice – it’s the same tone of voice Castiel had used when he was trying to dodge explaining to Dean about his naked-on-the-car-covered-in-bees photograph.

“So then when was it?” Dean prompts, because, just like then, he isn’t going to let Castiel escape.

Castiel squirms. There’s no other word for it. He shifts in his chair like he’s got a pressing urge to use the bathroom and deliberately doesn’t make eye contact, even though he spends most of his time staring at Dean scientist-style.

“Cas.”

“ . . . My niece,” Castiel answers begrudgingly. “She liked to practice makeup on me when she was younger.”

The stylists return to find Dean howling with laughter, and are much displeased that they need to redo some of his eye makeup.

They separate Dean from Castiel for individual promo photographs first. The explanation is reasonable – they want to establish all the contestants individually, of course, as well as record cool or goofy soundbites they can edit into episodes to spice things up. But it also makes Dean weirdly uneasy, because he hasn’t been apart from Castiel since the show began filming and he’s grown accustomed to always having Castiel within seeing or talking distance.

Fortunately, being interviewed and photographed is a great distraction. Dean is asked the most banal questions on earth, ranging from his name and career, to the weirdest things imaginable, like what kind of apple he would be or what colors his patterning would be if he was a snake.

He’s also given various containers of honey and told to pose with them: holding it above his head, dipping a spoon in and pretending to taste it and smile, holding it out on his palm like he’s selling it. He’s even asked to pretend to pour a stream of it down to the ground while he sticks his tongue out to lick it.

By the end of it, Dean is sticky and he’s half-blinded from the many camera flashes, but at least they reunite him with Castiel.

Castiel has a white liquid mustache around his mouth, speckles of more white liquid on his pants and shoes, and a scowl firmly in place on his face. He is also, bizarrely, wearing a headband with cat ears.

Dean flicks one of them, because he can’t not. “How was your photography session?” he teases.

Castiel gives him a baleful look. Dean is sure that if looks could kill, he’d be incinerated on the spot by Castiel’s.

“Horrendous,” he says. “They insisted I pretend to drink milk. What this show has to do with milk, I have no idea. And then they gave me these absurd cat ears and asked me to pretend to lick from a saucer like a cat.”

Dean pauses. “They do know your name is Castiel and not Catstiel, right?”

“I’ve spelled it many times for them.”

“Well, good.”

Then Dean flicks the cat ears again. Just because.

Fortunately, before Castiel can kill him for real, the stylists return and hustle them out of their clothing, claiming that they need to change into different outfits for the partner photographs. Dean is personally more convinced that the honey all over Dean’s shirt and milk all over Castiel’s pants is more of the reason, but it gets him out of the penguin suit so he’s fine with it.

Instead, he is handed a blessedly comfortable pair of jeans and a plain white shirt. Castiel also gets jeans, but he gets a pale blue shirt.

And then they are each handed a bottle of champagne.

“Um,” Dean says, because that is a normal reaction to being handed a bottle of champagne with no direction. “And what am I meant to be doing with this?”

“Oh, we’re shooting reaction shots,” the cameraperson says. “So, like, pretend you guys just lost.”

“Wow,” Dean mutters. “Inspiring.”

Still, he hauls Castiel close with an arm over his shoulder and makes to clink their champagne bottles together, like he’s toasting them. He pastes a smile on, but a small one, not too over the top, and hopes it doesn’t come out like a grimace.

Castiel, meanwhile, just looks startled and then grumpy, which is honestly a fair expression for them losing.

The cameraperson must agree, because the clicks and flashes start going off.

“Very nice! Another angle! Winchester, maybe pat him on the arm, like, you know, consolingly? Yeah, that’s it. Novak! Novak, look this way. And don’t drop the bottle!”

After being yelled at to be sad but not too sad, they get the assignment of: “Pretend you guys just tied and will split the pot.”

Dean stares. “That’s a thing?!”

The cameraperson shrugs, as if to say, Listen, man, I’m just relaying what I was told to do.

Castiel and Dean obligingly smile and high-five and hug, and Dean even attempts a celebratory jump.

“Great, great, great,” the cameraperson tells them. “Now! For the money shot! Pretend that you guys won! I wanna see those wide smiles! And spray that champagne, will you?”

Castiel frowns. “Won’t that make a mess? And we are wearing very thin, light-colored shirts, will that not – ”

“Uh, Cas. Pretty sure that’s the point,” Dean says.

So they pretend to take gulps from their champagne bottles, making victory fists and thumbs up at each other. They also raise their bottles above their heads like trophies, and aim them at the camera with thumbs on the corks like they’re about to pop them. Dean even dares to pretend to aim his at Castiel, which quickly transforms into Castiel pretending to aim back at him.

Castiel also apparently feels bereft that Dean got to do a celebratory jump and not him, because he does a little ballet leap, legs splayed, champagne bottle held aloft, looking like gravity is just a mere suggestion to him.

And then it’s time to crack their bottles open. Their very, very well-shaken bottles.

In other words, it quickly turns into a very wet photo session. Dean dumps some on Castiel’s face, Castiel retaliates by splashing some on Dean’s chest. Dean sweeps his arm in the air to make a champagne foam spray above their heads, Castiel does a pirouette and makes a spray around them. By the end, Dean’s not really sure how many useable photographs they actually have, but his white shirt is drenched and so is Castiel’s.

“Alright, a few last shots!” the cameraperson shouts. “Goodbye hugs, pretend you’re just about to say goodbye!”

The word goodbye triggers something in Dean. He might call it panic, if he were thinking properly, but all he’s really aware of is the fact that he’s been steadfastly putting off thinking about how soon he and Castiel will part ways and probably never see each other again, and it makes his heart race and his breathing accelerate.

Without even thinking about it, he pulls Castiel in for a close hug and presses a quick, absentminded kiss to his cheek.

For a second, nothing happens beyond more camera flashes.

Then Dean licks his lips and realizes he tastes champagne and water, which he got off of Castiel’s cheek, and if his heartbeat wasn’t fast before, it’s thundering now. He’s trapped in the hug, of course, because they’re being photographed and Castiel is still hugging him back.

Which, on the bright side, means Castiel wasn’t so grossed out that he shoved Dean away.

On the not-so-bright side, well.

He just kissed Castiel. He just kissed Castiel on the cheek. He just kissed Castiel on the cheek in public in front of dozens of cameras and even more people.

“Excellent, I think we’ve got everything we need!” the cameraperson shouts, oblivious to Dean’s internal panic. “Winchester, Novak, you’re done! Clear the set, thank you, and reset for the next session. Someone get some towels. And a mop for the floor.”

Castiel pulls back from the hug, neither too fast nor too slow. He nods to Dean and smiles, and it’s perfectly warm and polite and normal.

He says absolutely nothing about the kiss, not as they’re being toweled off, not as they’re being scrubbed of makeup, not as they’re being escorted back to their suite. Not a single word leaves his mouth, until, finally, he asks Dean what they’re making for lunch.

Dean tells him the first thing that comes to mind – burgers – and then slams his head into the wall a few times.

But gently, so that Castiel cannot hear him and come investigate.

“Let’s put a check in firmly not interested,” Dean tells himself. “Down, boy. We can live with it.”

“Dean, where did you put the ground beef?”

Dean takes a deep breath. Lets it out. He can do this. “Where I always do! Third bottom drawer on the right.”

“I don’t see it.”

“Cuz you’re not looking in the right drawer, sunshine,” Dean mutters, rolling his eyes. “Again.”

“I heard that.”

“How can your hearing be so amazing and your eyesight so terrible?”

After lunch, they get dragged downstairs for the finale. Castiel, because he is Castiel, wears his full three-piece-suit-and-trench-coat getup, complete with yet another backwards blue tie. Dean, because he is Dean, sticks to his normal everyday plaid and jeans, because they are comfortable and he’s been wearing them for most of the show anyways, so he might as well continue.

He does fix Castiel’s tie, though. Because it’s giving him a headache.

When they get downstairs, they get treated to the eye-searing number of decorations that have been put everywhere, presumably to celebrate the finale. Apparently it wasn’t enough to have the walls painted green and covered in floral wallpaper; no, now the fountain in the foyer has been dyed green and has actual flowers floating in the water, and there are fresh bouquets at every conceivable spot that can hold them, and the auditorium they are brought into has mossy green carpet.

Dean whistles lowly. “Wow, they went all out, huh?”

“It is the finale. I wonder what the final game will – ”

“Hey! You!”

A young woman with braided blonde hair detaches from the group milling about the auditorium stage. Dean had dismissed them as just other staff members or maybe more photographers and stylists, but the girl is wearing a black leather jacket and artfully ripped jeans. She comes stomping up to them glaring like they’re demons or something.

Or, more specifically, she comes stomping up to Castiel, right up until she collides with him.

“Whoaaaa,” Dean says, reaching for Castiel, because the last thing he needs is a fight. “Hey, Miley Cyrus, settle.”

“Eat me, Hasselhoff,” the young woman replies, and her voice is muffled from where she is now . . . hugging . . . Castiel, her arms tight around his waist and her face pressed against his chest.

Dean blinks.

Castiel, meanwhile, raises his arms and hugs the young woman in return, patting her awkwardly on the back like he’s unsure if it’s okay. Dean can’t quite tell if he’s just being polite or being awkward.

“What are you doing here, loser?” the young woman says after she finishes hugging him, punching him loosely on the shoulder.

Dean bristles. “Hey, can we lay off with the violence? Just like – who are you, lady?”

That earns him the most venomous teenage girl look Dean’s gotten in a while. She looks a little bit like she wants to take him up to the rooftop garden and bash his head in with a club. Or maybe she’s just a regular angsty teenager.

Either way, Castiel intercedes before there’s a real fight.

“Hello, Claire,” he says to the girl. “Dean, this is my niece, Claire. Claire, this is my partner, Dean.”

Claire gives Dean a second glance over. Her raised eyebrow indicates she is not any more impressed the second time.

Still, she gamely sticks her hand out. “Hello, new partner.”

“Hello, niece I didn’t know about,” Dean fires back.

“Dean, I do have six brothers. Is it really that surprising that at least one of them had offspring?”

Dean rolls his eyes fondly. Trust Castiel to word it like that. Interestingly, he catches Claire also rolling her eyes, which endears her a little bit to Dean.

A little bit.

“God, you’re so weird, Uncle Castiel,” she says. “Can’t believe you actually got onto the show with us.”

“Us?” Dean and Castiel echo.

Claire waves an errant hand at the stage, where three more people are milling about, all of them also not dressed in the show’s green staff uniform, just like Claire. “Yeah,” she says, “us. The finale is a live show, didn’t you know that? You’re going up against all of us. In person. Still think you can win?”

Dean musters every bit of confidence and grins. “Hell yeah, shortstop.”

“Does he ever stop with the nicknames?” Claire asks.

Castiel sighs. “No.”

On the stage, they meet the others: Claire, obviously, but also a shy young woman named Kaia, a man named Nick, and a woman named Sarah. Dean and Castiel introduce themselves too, and Claire, at least, refrains from taunting her uncle in front of everyone else, although Dean does see her playfully tug at Castiel’s tie out of the corner of his eye.

They’ve just gotten to the point of wondering aloud when everything will begin when all of the lights come on with a giant whoosh.

“Welcome to the finale of The Garden, contestants!” someone says from the front of the stage.

Dean squints through watering eyes. The voice is not that of Metatron; it’s someone new, voice reedy and uncertain. When the light recedes to a more manageable level, Dean can see that the man at the front of the stage is clutching onto some pages of a script in front of him like it’s a lifeline.

Claire beats him to the punch. “Where’s Metatron?”

The man smiles. “You’re looking at him,” he says enigmatically. “Or, rather, you’re looking at half of him. Did you really think you were the only personas played by two people?”

As they all digest that, Metatron does climb onto the stage. He’s wearing fancy purple robes, like he truly is the scribe of God, and he’s grinning like he’s got plans within plans to watch them squirm. He’d had a similar smile when he had announced the baking challenge, and it makes Dean uneasy.

“Welcome, contestants, to the finale of The Garden!” the Metatron they’ve all come to know says. He comes to a stop next to the other man. “Welcome, Michael – or, as we’ve come to know them, Dean and Castiel. Welcome, Lucifer – otherwise known as Nick and Sarah. And welcome, Remiel – better known as Claire and Kaia. Very well done for being the ones to make it to the finale.

“Now, you might be a little confused, because I’m sure you thought that you were each the only player to be played by two people, and that you had to fool everyone else into believing you were one person. But that was the genius of the show: that, in fact, everyone would be played by two people. And, as you all found out, separating truth from fiction is not so easy when two people are involved, is it? But the six of you standing before us persisted and performed admirably well – congratulations on that, by the way.

“Your final Trial shall be presented by, well, me, but also my partner in crime: Chuck Shurley, the show’s writer and the architect behind this whole project. He is the mind and I am the voice, and together, we are Metatron.”

Metatron pauses to take a deep breath. Dean almost expects to hear trumpets or birds, but apparently, there are no sound effects queued up when he’s performing live. Still, Metatron doesn’t seem put off by this. He simply charges ahead.

“Are you all ready for your final Trial? Keeping in mind that it is the only thing standing between you and one hundred thousand dollars?”

Nick and Sarah share a smile, full of so much sweetness and adoration that Dean thinks he might get diabetes, and nod. Claire and Kaia also share a smile, but theirs is much more mischievous; it reminds Dean of when Sam used to get into trouble before he became a rule-abiding lawyer.

As for Dean and Castiel – well, he isn’t sure whether he initiates it or whether Castiel does, but when Metatron’s and Chuck’s gazes fall upon them, they are somehow holding hands, a true united front.

Metatron beams. “Excellent! Oh, and one more tiny little detail – this Trial will have an audience. We’ve invited some very special guests. I’m sure you all won’t mind your families being present?”

He raises his hands and claps twice, like he’s some sort of circus show master. The lights immediately dim back down to normal levels, so that Dean can see without squinting or raising a hand to shade his eyes. When he looks out into the auditorium, he sees that a lot of people have been quietly filing into the seats as Metatron and Chuck were distracting them.

Including Sam and Bobby. They’re not right at the front and they don’t wave like some of the other families are, but Dean would know that giant mop of hair and that baseball hat anywhere.

Metatron winks. “Let’s begin, then!” he says, and the whole crowd roars.

Dean gets picked to go first, because that’s just his luck. They usher him to sit on a plush chair that is dyed the brightest red Dean’s ever had the misfortunate of laying eyes upon and, as a bonus, he has to sit with his back to the audience. Officially so that he can’t cheat by using them, but Dean’s pretty sure the real reason is so the show can film cool reaction shots.

“The final Trial,” Metatron explains, “is called Truth or Lie! It’ll be a game of speed and wits and, most importantly, knowledge!”

“In other words,” Chuck says, “we’re judging to see just how well you’ve learned your other half in this game, Dean. Castiel is going to read you a list of truths and lies; you tell us if they are true or false. Some are easy, but most are not. The more you get correct, the higher your score.”

“And remember,” Metatron adds in a sing-song voice, “one hundred thousand dollars is on the line. Are you ready?”

Dean swallows hard. He looks to Castiel, who looks a little washed out by the bright light, but Castiel gives him a solemn nod, which helps. Also, somehow, his tie has managed to become flipped backwards again, and it’s just so Castiel that Dean’s pasted-on game smile becomes a real one.

“Yeah, hit me.”

Chuck holds up a big bowl that’s been painted blue and silver, detailed to look like it has ocean waves and sea foam. Inside are a ton of little origami animals, and Chuck takes up an origami fish and hands it to Castiel, who gamely unfolds it.

“True or false,” Castiel reads off. “My older brother once brought me to a lake and I nearly stepped on a fish.”

And Dean doesn’t know everything about Castiel, nor would he claim to. But he knows Cas – he knows what Castiel is like when he’s grumpy from not enough coffee, he knows what Castiel is like when he’s happily stuffing burgers in his mouth, he knows what Castiel is like when he is chill after meditation and yoga. He knows Castiel’s voice and his body language and his weird sense of humor and his tendency to take everything way too literally. He knows Cas, and that’s enough.

And right now, Castiel is telling the truth.

“True,” Dean says without hesitation.

Castiel gives him a big smile, Metatron hands him another origami animal, and Dean grins, for real this time.

After that, it’s a bit of a blur. Castiel reads off statement after statement, and Dean looks to Castiel and declares it truth or lie, and Metatron and Chuck keep track on their tablets, their smooth faces giving nothing away. Finally, after Dean has lost count, Metatron does not fish out another origami animal and instead claps.

“And that’s round one of this Trial concluded!” he announces. “Castiel, your turn.”

Castiel looks a little nervous as he approaches the bright red seat, but Dean claps him on the arm as they pass, a touch that Castiel presses into. When Dean is handed his first origami animal – a squirrel – Castiel looks settled and calm again, watching Dean with that same intensity that he always does. Somehow, after all their time together, the gaze has become reassuring instead of weird or frightening.

“Truth or lie,” Dean reads, “I’m afraid of clowns.”

Castiel snorts. “Lie,” he says instantly. “Although you are afraid of – ”

“Hey!”

Metatron snickers. Composing himself, he tells Castiel, “You need only say whether it is true or false, Castiel.”

“Oh,” Castiel says. “Okay. That should make this go faster, then.”

Dean looks at Castiel – clever, sarcastic, know-it-all Castiel – and feels his heart swell in his chest. Finally, for the first time in the entirety of the show, he knows, from the bottom of his heart: they can do this.

They can win.

Dean takes the next origami animal. “Truth or lie, I always pick scissors when playing rock, paper, scissors.”

“Truth.”

When Castiel is done, they take an intermission of sorts. Some people rush onto the stage to tidy up the fancy chair set up, an assistant starts pouring more origami animals into the bowl to replace all the ones already used, and the giant screen displaying Michael flashes to displaying Lucifer. Kaia, Claire, Nick, and Sarah are trapped on the stage because they haven’t yet gone, but Dean and Castiel are hustled off the stage and into a room where they can relax.

It’s not a big room, but it does have some nice armchairs and, best of all, a table loaded up with catering: mini meat pies, tiny sliders, and little fruit tartlets.

“How do you think we did?” Castiel asks.

Dean, who is in the process of cramming as many fruit tartlets into his mouth as he can, grins and flashes a thumbs up at him.

Castiel sighs at him, but his lips are quirked up and he has a slider in his hand, so it’s not like he can judge. “You and food,” he says, shaking his head. “Sometimes I think this show lured you here based on the premise that you could cook for yourself.”

It takes Dean a second to chew and swallow his huge mouthful so he can reply. On the bright side, this gives him a few extra moments to think up a good response.

“I can neither confirm nor deny that,” Dean says, borrowing from Sam’s fancy pants lawyer speak.

“Really, though. Do you think we did good enough?”

“Did I get any wrong about you?”

“No. Did I?”

“Nope,” Dean says, popping the last syllable with relish. “And we won the last challenge, and we placed well in the challenge before that, so you know what, I think we’re doing pretty well for a high school dropout and an accountant.”

“You’re more than a high school dropout, Dean. You’re – ”

Whatever Castiel goes to say next is lost to the noise of the door slamming open, which lets in the trumpet sounds from the auditorium and the roaring of the audience. Dean starts to turn around and ask if they’re needed again, but he’s met with a huge blur of tall moose in plaid and ends up nearly having the life squeezed out of him.

“S – Sam,” Dean wheezes. “Breathing. Kinda. Important.”

“You just gonna lose out on one hundred thousand dollars cuz your brother is hugging you a tad bit tight?” Bobby taunts. “That ain’t the Dean Winchester I raised.”

Dean flies him the finger, but thankfully Sam does loosen his gigantor arms.

“Man, you flew through that,” Sam says, slapping Dean on the back and nearly sending the mini meat pie in his hand flying. “Barely any hesitation! It was like you could read his mind or something.”

Dean shrugs. “I mean, we had a lot of time to talk and get to know each other.”

“Yeah, you seem to know him really well,” Sam says.

Every fiber of Dean’s body goes on high alert. There’s a sense that one develops when they have a younger brother – the kind of knowledge that cannot be explained, the instinct that cannot be defined, the sense that Dean is one hundred thousand percent going to be taunted all the damn way home by his terrible brother.

“Sam – ”

“So,” Sam interrupts cheerfully, a demonic gleam in his eyes, “why don’t you introduce us to your – how did they put it? Your partner.”

“Don’t be mean to him,” Dean warns.

Bobby cuffs him on the back of his neck. “We have manners, boy, unlike you,” he grumbles. “And if he has the guts to stand up in front of everyone and put on that kind of show, then he already has a spine.”

Dean sighs and gives into the inevitable. Fortunately, it seems he isn’t the only person being hassled and tackled by family; Castiel has a man standing with him who is poking him in the chest like he’s pushing air out of dough, and Castiel is bearing it with the resigned grace of a younger brother. It’s kind of funny, actually, since the man is actually shorter than Castiel by a good few inches.

“ – didn’t know you had it in you, Cassie, to be honest,” the man is saying when they get close. “Then again, I didn’t think you would apply to be on the show, and then the next thing I know, there’s bee facts everywhere!”

“Meg,” Castiel replies in a long-suffering tone.

The name must mean something to the other man, because he laughs. “That’s what you get for agreeing to go bar hopping with her.”

“Trust me, I learned.”

“Should’ve learned the last time, buckaroo. Anyways, aren’t you gonna introduce me to your partner?”

He says the word the same way Sam did – with great relish, literally rubbing his hands together. Dean internally says a short prayer that he doubts will get answered.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean says.

“Hello, Dean. Is this the famous Sammy?”

Sam shoots Dean an intensely annoyed look. “It’s Sam,” he corrects, but he holds out his hand to shake anyways.

“Ah,” Castiel says, accepting the correction as easily as he accepts most things about Dean, which Dean loves about him. “Dean has told me much about you. I understand you have aspirations of being a lawyer?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“I imagine you’ll do very well at Stanford.”

“Stanford?” says the man next to Castiel. He visibly looks Sam over from head to foot, sizing him up, and if the lazy grin that appears next is to be believed, he likes what he sees. “Must mean you’re shaping up to be a pretty good lawyer, squirt.”

“The best,” Sam says. He tilts his head. “But maybe it’s hard for you to tell from all the way down there.”

For half a second, Dean thinks there’s going to be a murder in the room and they’re going to call security and Dean and Castiel are going to have to reenact the world’s crappiest version of Romeo and Juliet with their two families entangled in a blood feud – but then the man stops glaring and starts laughing, hard enough that he has to back up a few steps and cling to a wall, wheezing for breath.

“Oh my god,” he says, “this is the best day ever! Cassie, did you tell ‘em about our old man’s connections at Stanford?”

“No.”

“Too bad, so sad,” the man says. He sweeps forward and tucks Sam’s arm in his elbow like he’s some sort of demented Prince Charming. “Now, listen here, I’m the proprietor of a very successful business and we could use some good representation – for a fair fee, of course, and we could perhaps be persuaded to sponsor your JD, if you were interested . . .”

As the man literally kidnaps Sam into the night, Dean ventures, “Uh, who was that?”

Castiel sighs the sigh of the long-suffering little brother. “That,” he says, “was my older brother, Gabriel.”

“Wait, your brother the candy man Gabriel?”

“Yes. Although he is telling the truth; the business is indeed very successful. It’s why he could take the time off to participate in the show.”

Dean whips his head around. “Wait, he was Gabriel?”

“That’s what he told me,” Castiel confirms. “He was playing with a, in his words, ‘smoking hot woman’ named Kali. He says they are, um, ‘friends with benefits’ now. Don’t worry,” he adds hastily, “he is being genuine, he has been looking for a lawyer. And our father does have some connections at Stanford.”

“Dude, how did two people you’re related to end up on this one show?”

Castiel shrugs. “I believe the phrase you use is ‘beats me.’”

At that point, Bobby pointedly clears his throat. Dean jumps like he’s been electrocuted, because that sound usually means he’s been caught staying up too late or sneaking cookies from the cookie jar.

“Hello,” Bobby tells Castiel. “I’m Bobby. Dunno if this idjit over here ever told you about me, since he can’t be bothered to introduce me.”

“Bobbyyyyyy.”

“Hello, I am Castiel. Dean says you raised him from a young age. You did very well; Dean is an amazing person,” Castiel says, with that intense sincerity that never fails to make Dean stare at the floor and blush.

“Hmm. That he is.”

“I admire his persistence and kindness,” Castiel continues, like it’s his mission to preach about Dean or something. “He has been teaching me how to cook and bake. I can make pancakes now.”

Bobby gives Dean a look. “Yes, he’s always loved to cook. Has he made you any pie?”

“Yes,” Castiel says, lighting up. “And burgers. I love his burgers.”

“Well, sounds like he’s been treating you right, at least,” Bobby says.

“I make you burgers and pie whenever you want too, old man,” Dean protests.

“More like, if you feel like it. When’s the last time you made us apple pie, boy?”

“Christmas!”

“Yes,” Bobby says, deadpan. “Christmas.”

“ . . . I’ll make some when I get home,” Dean concedes. “Although I guess I’ll have to make more now.”

Bobby gives him a strange look. “I eat the same amount I’ve always eaten, and you know Sam is a health nut who insists on only eating one slice. Just who do you think is gonna eat this extra pie?”

Which is when Dean remembers that, oh yeah, after today, he and Castiel will part ways, likely forever. He’ll never make burgers or pie for Castiel again. He’ll never cook with Castiel watching and stealing bits to taste and making appreciative sounds as he digs in. He’ll never see the pure joy on Castiel’s face when he tries something new, like baking a new food or tasting a new creation. All he’ll be left with is fading memories, like a kitchen slowly losing the delicious scent of fresh-baked goodness.

So Dean scrambles to come up with something, anything, because Bobby’s expression is deepening into suspicion and even Castiel is starting to stare, and he says the first name that comes to mind: “Charlie. She got me into this mess, so she deserves it.”

“Ah, yes,” Bobby replies after a pause. “Good girl, that Charlie. Yeah, she’ll enjoy it.”

“Indeed, she will,” Castiel echoes, sending a warm smile Dean’s way. “Dean makes excellent pies.”

Before Dean can die on the floor, a knock sounds at the door. A staff member sticks their head in and smiles at them. “Mr. Winchester? Mr. Novak? You can come back into the auditorium now, we’re about to announce the final results.”

“Welcome, everyone, to the finale of The Garden!” Metatron crows. “We are very pleased to be here with our three fantastic finalist teams: Dean and Castiel, Kaia and Claire, and Nick and Sarah. They are joined here today by their families for the announcementof the first ever winner, who will go home with one hundred thousand dollars! Are! We! Ready?!”

“Yes!” the crowd calls back.

Dean swallows hard and risks a peek at Castiel. Outwardly, Castiel looks calm, but his hand is curled into a fist, a surefire sign that he is at least a little bit nervous.

This time, Dean reaches for him, and he is happily startled when Castiel winds their fingers together.

Chuck hands Metatron a giant gilded scroll, which Metatron unfurls with an ostentatious motion. He clears his throat. “In third place,” he says, “we have – LUCIFER! Well done, Nick and Sarah.”

Nick and Sarah smile as the cameras all look at them, but it’s only for a moment. The next thing Dean knows, he’s got an entire group of cameras pointed at him and Castiel, because in the next moment, they’re either going to be one hundred thousand dollars richer or just the team that placed second.

He squeezes Castiel’s hand tighter.

“In second place,” Metatron says, unfurling a second gilded scroll, “and can I get a nice big drum roll?”

The drum sounds obligingly start.

“In second place,” he continues, “we have . . . REMIEL! Well done, Kaia and Claire.

“Which means that in first place – our first ever winners – our lovely contestants who will win one hundred thousand dollars are DEAN and CASTIEL! Congratulations, you two, on winning The Garden!”

What seems like a thousand flash bulbs go off at once. The noise of many clicks mixes with the roar of the crowd behind them; Dean thinks he can pick out Sam hooting and hollering, which means his gigantor brother is probably also jumping up and down. Dean just tries to focus on keeping a smile on, and from the corner of his eye, he can see Castiel doing the same.

And the entire time, their hands remain intertwined.

After congratulating Dean, Bobby declares the task of packing is a job for idjits and that he intends to enjoy the open bar, so it is only Sam who accompanies Dean upstairs to start the process of throwing stuff in his duffel bags and hauling luggage downstairs. Dean didn’t come with much, of course, a habit of his long life trucking around with John in the Impala, but somehow he finds that random things have migrated to really random spots all over the suite.

Fortunately, Sam is versed in the weird ways of Dean’s mind, and so while he makes a couple of judgmental faces at Dean’s choices, he manages to find most of his stuff.

Unfortunately, this means that Sam is instead free to devote his brainpower to harassing Dean.

“Soooooo,” Sam begins.

Dean, who is currently fishing a pair of sneakers out from under the bed, merely grunts.

“What’s the story with Castiel?”

“No story,” Dean says, lunging for the sneakers and missing by an inch. He squirms closer to the floor and braces for a second attempt. “Just – partners.”

“Partners who know each other well enough to win the truth or lie game with flying colors.”

Dean shrugs and then immediately regrets that decision when his shoulder is met by his very heavy bed. “Cas likes to start conversations about weird stuff late at night. And he rambles. You pick up on stuff, you know?”

“ . . . Cas.”

Dean makes a second attempt to snatch the sneakers. This time his fingers just brush the edge of the laces but he still can’t quite grab onto them. He groans. “Sam, seriously? I mean, your name is Samuel, you realize that I use a nickname for you?”

“Dean, we are brothers,” Sam says, in the tone of voice that says he thinks he’s won the entire argument.

“Yeah, and?”

“Okay, I realize that emotional things are not your forte – ”

“Wow, thank you.”

“And that you do actually nickname everything you come within sight of – ”

“Told you!”

“But, but,” Sam stresses, “the last time you gave someone a nickname and said it in that tone of voice and made them Mom’s special pie recipe, you were, like, one paycheck away from buying Lisa a ring and proposing.”

Dean misses the sneakers again by a centimeter. This time, he also bangs his head on the bed. Totally coincidentally at the same time that Sam drops the L name.

He heaves a big sigh and squirms out from under the bed. That’s Sam’s I’m serious, Dean voice, and conversations involving exes are best held not from under a bed. At least, unless Dean is drunk enough to be under a bed and on the floor, which he probably was the last time they talked about Lisa.

Or, rather, Sam talked. Dean just moped. And maybe cried.

“I thought,” Dean says, dusting his hands off and glaring up at Sam, “that we agreed never to discuss Lisa again after that time you got me drunk as hell.”

Sam shrugs innocently. “You stated it. I never said yes.”

“You frigging nodded!”

“Or your sense of equilibrium was off due to all the alcohol you drank and the whole world was swimming and you just thought I nodded.”

“Dude, as the person who got me drunk, gotta say: not your best argument.”

“My point,” Sam says, “is that I think you should ask for Castiel’s phone number.”

Because Dean’s an idiot, he crosses his arms and says, “And if I already did?”

Because Sam is Dean’s brother, however, and well aware of his occasional idiocy, Sam just mirrors Dean and fires back, “Prove it. Show me.”

“Why do you need to see his number, you creep?”

“Ah hah! You don’t have it!”

“Don’t have what?” Castiel asks from the doorway.

Dean jumps. Sam also jumps, except that in the process he knocks over a lamp with his freakishly long windmill arms. Fortunately, Castiel is both unnervingly good at sneaking up on people and has excellent reflexes, so the baby cherub lamp is saved from an untimely death by Castiel snatching it out of the air.

Sam whistles. “Damn, Castiel, you’ve got some great reflexes.”

“Thank you,” Castiel says, returning the baby cherub lamp to its place of honor on the desk. He turns his gaze upon Dean. “Why are you on the floor? And what don’t you have?”

“Uh, my sneakers. They’re, um, under the bed.”

“You kicked them off willy-nilly and now can’t get them back out from under the bed,” Castiel translates.

Sam opens his mouth, eyes full of unholy glee, and Dean can totally see where this is going, so he shuts it down quick. He stretches out his leg and nails Sam in the leg, hard as he can, so that Sam’s taunting becomes a yelp of pain.

“No teaming up on me!” he says. “Absolutely not allowed. Period.”

“Hmm,” Castiel says. “And you can’t just buy another pair of sneakers because . . .?”

“They’re my favorite pair, Cas! I can’t leave here without them. It would be like asking you to abandon your bee pajamas.”

“The difference is that I, unlike you, took care to put them away neatly every morning and didn’t just kick them off whenever I pleased,” Castiel says dryly, because Dean’s life is full of people criticizing his life choices. “Also, one moment.”

The second Castiel leaves, Sam turns to Dean and mouths, Bee pajamas?

Dean shrugs. “Dude likes bees.”

“And you like him. Ask for his number, Dean.”

“Absolutely not.”

Sam throws his hands up into the air. He mutters something that sounds suspiciously like why do I ever bother and then he stomps into the bathroom, probably to rustle around the medicine cabinet and make fun of Dean’s shampoo. On the bright side, he probably didn’t pack any Nair on his way to pick Dean up, so Dean is probably safe from having his bathroom products tampered with again.

Still, Dean resolves to check anyways. Because it never hurts.

Castiel comes back into the room with a spaghetti spoon taped to a ruler. He doesn’t comment on the disappearance of Sam; instead he just gets on the floor, wriggles under the bed, and starts waving the spoon-ruler contraption like it’s a magic wand.

Dean shamelessly ogles the strip of skin that’s revealed when Castiel’s shirt rides up, and so he is a bit startled when Castiel suddenly scoots back out from under the bed.

“I’ve got them,” he announces triumphantly, pulling out the spoon-ruler. The sneakers trail behind it like a wedding train, the laces caught on the spokes of the spaghetti spoon, and Castiel presents them to Dean with all the gravitas of a cat dumping a freshly caught mouse on the doorstep of its family. “Although I think that this spaghetti spoon will need to be thoroughly washed now.”

“Oh my god,” Dean blurts out, “I fricking love you so much right now.”

Castiel freezes.

Dean freezes.

Castiel says, very quietly, “I beg your pardon?”

“I – I mean, I – Thanks very much, Cas, I’m just gonna, you know, finish packing,” Dean blabbers, “and then I’ll be out of your life, no worries, just, uh, yeah, I’m gonna take my sneakers and – hey!”

The end of his sentence is more of a yelp than a word, thanks to Castiel seizing him by the collar and yanking him forward, until their faces are so close that Dean can basically taste each of Castiel’s exhalations. He tastes a little bit like honey, actually.

“You,” Castiel pronounces, “are the most infuriatingly obtuse man in the universe. Why do I even love you.”

Dean says, “What.”

Castiel rolls his eyes, and Dean starts to panic, and then – and then, suddenly, somehow, miraculously, they are kissing. The sneakers fall away from Dean’s hands, unimportant and completely forgotten in the face of Dean’s need to grab hold of Castiel however he can. Castiel returns the favor, one hand tight on Dean’s shoulder and the other nearly choking him at his collar. They kiss and kiss and kiss, grappling on the floor like they’re wrestling, the entire world forgotten except the need to finally, at last, acknowledge what’s been brewing since the second Dean first laid eyes on Castiel’s messy bedhead and bright blue eyes and backwards tie.

When the need for air eventually makes itself known, they lean against the foot of the bed. Dean’s chest is heaving and Castiel is panting, and they’re still clinging to each other like the last survivors of a shipwreck.

Somehow, Dean manages to say, “So, uh, you like me?”

“Oh my god,” Castiel replies, “do I need to tattoo it on your head? Brand it on your arm? Inscribe it on your ribs?”

“Um, maybe.”

Castiel shakes him. Gently, but Dean is definitely jostled. “I love you,” he says, fierce as when he told Dean he was remarkable for getting a GED. “You, Dean Winchester. If I have to say it every day for the rest of time, I will say it: I love you.”

“Oh,” Dean says dumbly. “Well. Uh. I love you too.”

And then they’re kissing again, and they keep kissing until they finally get interrupted by Sam, who has finished collecting Dean’s things from the bathroom, and Claire, who has come up to bug Castiel.

Claire says, “Finally, you morons!”

Sam says, “Guys, really?”

Castiel flies them the finger. Dean slings an arm around Castiel’s shoulders, buoyed up by the glowing warmth of the knowledge that Castiel goddamn Novak loves him, and kisses Castiel again. Just because he can.

Needless to say, they are very late checking out.

FINIS