Chapter Text
Dean ran into Charlie as he walked out to his car. He'd been trying to hold in his tears until at least he was inside of his Baby, but the second she spotted him and waved, it was Niagara Falls out of both eyes. “Dean? What the hell?” Charlie asked, immediately engulfing the taller man into the best hug she could possibly offer.
It took a few minutes of crying like crazy before he could finally speak. He started to tell her everything that had happened since yesterday, and motioned her to get into the passenger seat of the Impala when he was about halfway through so that he could show her the name on his wrist. She of course gasped in all the right places, and was crying a little herself by the time he got to the end of the story.
“But I thought everybody was happy when they finally met their soulmate?” She asked, perplexed. She'd never heard of anybody acting even remotely like this Castiel guy when they found theirs.
“Everybody but him, I guess,” Dean said before wiping his eyes with a leftover fast food napkin. He offered another one to Charlie to wipe at her own tears, which she refused until he assured her it was clean.
“So, Hollywood has lied to us then? No way,” she joked, trying to get her friend to smile. When he laughed at her weak attempt at humor, she pulled him into the best sideways hug you could offer in the front seat of a car. “Listen, this is I guess kinda sorta like a break-up, so that means we have to go eat our weight in ice cream.” Dean nodded, so she continued. “And we both know that a few pints of Ben & Jerry's ain't gonna do, so let's head over to that kick ass place over on Fifth that you love so much but pretend not to because the frilly, froofy decorations.”
When he laughed again, Dean knew that he was gonna survive. It was gonna hurt like hell for a really long time, but he was at least going to survive. When they pulled into the parking lot of the place a few minutes later, they headed in to buy as much ice cream as they could eat, and then probably an extra scoop or so more. Charlie ordered a huge three scoop sundae with practically every single topping, and Dean ordered the same thing except with six scoops. They managed to find a table that wasn't near any of the stupid hearts and rainbows and crap (as much as Dean loved just about everything about soulmates as a whole, these cheesy soulmate-themed restaurants annoyed the living hell out of him, because they were always so overwhelming in their cheap unoriginality), and dug in while simultaneously complaining about how they were both going to end up exploding before they finished.
Four and a half scoops in and already hearing his stomach pleading for mercy, Dean looked up from his gastronomic monstrosity when he heard a loud gasp. Standing only a few feet away from his table, holding what looked like a waffle cone filled with Rocky Road, was Cas.
“Hey, what's the hold up?” The kid who was walking behind Cas asked, moving around to the side to see what was happening.
“Dean...” Cas said, eyes wider than dinner plates, as a blush crept up to engulf his face.
“Umm... Hey Cas...” Dean said before nodding meekly, not exactly sure what one was supposed to do in this situation.
“So that's...” Charlie started to say, right as the kid next to Cas started with “That's him?” They both looked at each other, and without saying another word, Charlie got out of her seat and grabbed her mostly empty ice cream dish, and followed Cas' friend, who was holding what looked to be something from the kid's section of the menu, since it was every color of the rainbow and had more candy than ice cream. Charlie mouthed a 'good luck' to Dean before they were both gone from view.
“You can, I guess, umm, sit down if you want?” Dean mumbled, pointing to the now vacant seat in front of him while completely butchering the English language. “Or go. You could go too, and not have to see me or whatever.” He scratched the back of his neck, feeling more awkward than he had even at the lockers earlier.
Though thankfully, Cas looked just as awkward, if not more so. He nodded stiffly and sat down, looking at his ice cream cone instead of Dean. But that was at least a start, right? He didn't run off screaming. Maybe there was at least a possibility of a friendship, Dean thought hopefully.
After a few minutes of the most awkward ice cream eating in history, Dean finally bit the bullet to start the conversation. “Listen, I wanna apologize for how I acted earlier. I was a total jackass to you, and you totally didn't deserve it.”
“I'm the one that should be apologizing,” Cas responded softly. Dean was starting to wonder if maybe Cas had one of those really soft voices, or if he just really did not want to be talking in the first place. “I...” Cas paused, and to fill the silence he took a bite from his cone. When he finished chewing and swallowed, he tried again, that blush from earlier returning with a vengeance. “I have a lot of issues, and I'm not exactly good with, well, anything that has to do with much of anything, and I guess I kind of took it out on you. I'm sorry.” He looked up then, and Dean once again forgot how to breathe, those blue eyes making his brain melt into a puddle of goo inside his skull.
“Naw, it's okay, I can get that,” Dean said, about twenty seconds later than he probably should've. “I was probably coming on too strong, and I'm sure that was more than enough to freak anybody out. I just,” he stopped and let out a short laugh then. “I was always one of those kids that were constantly daydreaming about meeting their soulmate, and there you were, and...” He didn't bother finishing his thought, and instead just shrugged.
“And then you get me,” Cas said sadly.
“No, no, no no no,” Dean said forcefully. “You are totally amazing, and I couldn't've asked for a better one.”
Cas just shook his head. “No, I'm not. You don't even know anything about me.”
“Fine,” Dean said, rising to the challenge. “Then tell me.”
“Tell you what?” Cas tilted his head in confusion and Dean seriously thought that he'd lost an IQ point or two from how majorly that act of adorableness had affected him.
“Everything. Anything. Whatever you want. I need information to be able to properly judge you, right? Well, get with the information already.”
Cas just stared at him. From just his eyes alone, Dean could tell how unbelievably confused the poor guy was. They just stared at each other like that, melting ice cream forgotten. Just when Dean started to think maybe he wasn't going to say anything at all, Cas started speaking. It wasn't a soft tone, or a whisper, or anything Dean had already heard. It was almost lifeless, dead, without feeling.
“My dad's in a mental institution. He became depressed when his soulmate, my mom, died in a car accident when I was ten. He refused to get help until a week ago, when the cops got called on him for trying to kill himself with a gun. He missed, and the other people in our building called 911 when they heard the gun go off. Up until then, though, I'd been taking care of pretty much everything. I did all the housework, and practically raised my brother Gabe, who was that guy I came in with. They shipped us off to live with our aunt, which is why we moved here. I took on all the blame for everything, and ended up developing what the therapists labeled as a major anxiety disorder. I was so afraid of becoming like him that I had a panic attack when I met you. I knew that if I met my soulmate, they'd die and I'd be just like him. I'm messed up and broken and I can completely understand why you wouldn't want me now, and I promise to never bother you again.” The entire time he was speaking, he hadn't shown a single emotion, even with how heavy and hard to say most of the information must have been.
Cas started to get out of his chair, presumably to leave, but Dean was getting out of his chair too. Cas scrunched up his features in confusion until Dean had enveloped him in a huge hug. Dean's shoulders shook as he cried, what were possibly the tears Cas himself couldn't, and he had completely forgot at this point that they were in a public place as he just held on as tight as he could. It took a minute or so, but finally, in the best thing that had ever happened to Dean, Cas started squeezing back. He could feel the wetness start to spread on his shoulder as Cas' tears started flowing as hard as Dean's, and they just stood there like that, holding onto each other for dear life.
When they finally drew apart, what felt like eons later, Dean wiped at one of the tears trailing down Cas' cheeks. Cas smiled, small and hesitant, as they both sat down again, the area the table was in suddenly a lot more deserted than it had been. “What does this mean?” Cas asked, voice small, but Dean preferred it so much over that deadpan fact-flinging one he'd been using earlier.
“Well,” Dean begun, looking contemplative. “I guess it means you're my boyfriend now?” At Cas' shocked expression, Dean quickly blurted out “But only if that's what you want, of course.”
Cas laughed, and that was the first time Dean had seen him happy. He decided that his new mission in life was to make this happen as often as humanly possible, because his soulmate had the most beautiful laugh in the world.
“I never thought I'd say this, not after everything, after all that time being so afraid of finding my soulmate, but I think... I think I'd like that.” Cas smiled again, and Dean practically melted.
“We should start over.” Dean held out his hand for Cas to shake. “I'm Dean, and I like working on my car and singing and long walks on the beach. I'm going to college in the fall to become an electrical engineer because I love taking stuff apart and putting it back together again. I think pie should be its own food group, and I apparently have a thing for blue eyed guys in oversized hoodies. I've been looking for my soulmate since I was four, and now that I've finally found him, I am never, ever letting go.”
Cas just looked overwhelmed. When Dean indicated that it was his turn, he cleared his throat. “Umm, I'm Castiel, and.... I've been afraid for most of my life, and now that I found I don't have to be, I'm finding that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.” They both laughed at the honesty of that statement.
“You wanna, like, go back to my place and talk or something?” Dean asked when he noticed one of the employees giving them a bit of the stink eye.
“Yeah,” Cas said, laughing slightly. “I think I would.”
“I'm parked out front,” Dean said as he gathered up the trash on the table. “Just gotta say goodbye to Charlie. And thank her, too.”
“I should probably tell Gabe where I'm headed,” Cas said, pushing his seat back underneath the table.
“Don't you need to, like, stick with him or something? You're babysitting him, right?”
“He's fifteen, I think he's capable of walking himself home,” Cas said as they started walking towards the trash can nearest to where Charlie and Gabe had went off to.
Dean stopped in his tracks, causing Cas to bump into his back. “That pipsqueak is fifteen?” He shouted. There was no way that short stack was a freaking year older than Sammy.
“That pipsqueak can hear you, you know. Hell, pretty sure they heard it a few states over,” Gabe said, flipping Dean the bird. “And that pipsqueak also wants you to know that if you hurt his brother, they will never find your body.”
“Gabe!” Cas admonished.
Gabe just shrugged. “It's true.”
That was when Dean started laughing, and Charlie joined him. Gabe started laughing too, and Cas tried glaring at his little brother but then ended up laughing with everybody else. Dean hugged Charlie goodbye, and Cas pushed against Gabe's shoulder in the international sign of brotherly affection before the two left the ice cream parlor. Dean's grin was enormous, and compared to his usual demeanor Cas' was rather enormous too. They got in and Dean started the ignition. Even before they had left the parking lot, Cas was already laughing at some stupid observation Dean had made. Yeah, this was more like it. Definitely.