Chapter Text
They’d been dating for almost a month when Cas came over to Dean’s house for the first time. It still looked a little tattered and worn down from being in the hands of a neglectful owner, but Dean had been trying his best to restore it for the past few months, still not sure if he wanted to stay in this house with too many memories or if he was just fixing it up to sell it.
The carpet with one too many stains on it was the first thing to go, then he sanded down the kitchen cabinets and re-stained them, got rid of all the furniture in his father’s old room, but there were just some things that he hadn’t had the mental bandwidth to take care of yet. Like sorting through the many boxes in the basement with stuff John had collected throughout his life. Dean was scared of what he was going to find, but he knew that he needed to take care of it at one point or another. So when Cas offered to come over and help him after Dean made an offhand comment about the work that needed to be done, Dean took him up on it.
“Really, the basement is a mess,” was the first thing Dean said when he opened the door. “I pulled some of the boxes up here for us to go through.”
Cas simply smiled at him, leaned in to kiss him on the cheek, and turned to survey the room filled with boxes. Dean looked worried, so Cas trailed down his arm to grip his hand loosely, a thing they were still both getting used to being able to do now.
Dean’s smile was grateful. He squeezed Cas’ hand before he turned to walk into the kitchen. “Coffee?” he asked.
“Yes, please.”
Dean brewed them a pot and put it down on the coffee table. There were maybe a dozen boxes taking up space here, and a dozen more down in the basement. Only a few of them had words on them, but most of them were plain boxes, their mysteries unknown. He had chosen to leave the two boxes labeled ‘Mary’ downstairs, not ready to face the memories yet.
They wasted no time, getting right into it. Dean didn’t really care about anything that wasn’t family photos, not keen to hang onto clothes that smelled like his dad or trophies that he didn’t actually care about.
A whole box was simply filled with nothing but old, leatherbound journals that Dean wasn’t even aware his dad had kept. He flipped through one with a scratched cover, and it was filled to the brim with thoughts about myths and legends that Dean had never even heard about, with notes in the margins and pencil drawings of monsters in between. Although Dean was intrigued, he would never know what his dad’s reasoning was for keeping these sorts of notes, and so he tossed the notebook into the trash.
One of the notebooks was more precious, resembling something almost like a diary. It was from back when his parents had first started dating, right up until the day Sam was born. There weren’t many entries, but all of them contained some form of memory of his mom, a note about a date they had gone on, his thoughts on a recipe she had cooked, a picture glued onto the page of her holding Dean in her arms, laughing. The last entry remarked on the beauty that was John’s family, now complete with two kids and a beautiful wife, and Dean could feel the pain spreading all the way to his heart at that. They hadn’t been a happy family for long.
Dean was brought back to reality when Castiel turned to him, a small picture frame in his hands. “Who’s this?” he asked as he held it out for Dean to see.
There was his dad in the middle of the frame with his arm slung over the shoulders of a blonde woman. In front of them stood a kid who was maybe seven years old, beaming at the photographer.
“I have no idea,” Dean answered, even as dread settled in his stomach. Why would his dad have a framed picture of another woman and a kid? Dean took the picture out of the frame, curious to see if anything was written on the back. Sure enough, it read, ‘Milligans, 1998.’
Cas was standing still next to him, probably with his own thoughts and questions, and Dean was thankful that the other man kept silent.
“You know what?” Dean took one last look at the photo before he put it into the notebook he had been holding before, into the page after Sam’s birth. “I don’t want to know.”
“Are you sure?” Cas asked.
“Yeah.” A beat passed, and Dean still couldn’t tear his eyes off the notebook. “Or—I don’t know. I just wish— God, I wish he had confided more in me, instead of just leaving behind all of this mess and expecting me to clean up after him.”
“It’s not your job to take care of his unfinished business, Dean.”
“Then why does it feel like it is?” Dean sighed heavily and sat down on the sofa amidst the mess they had made. He couldn’t look at Cas, suddenly feeling too vulnerable, and opted to stare down at the book in his hands instead.
“Even back when I was a kid, it felt like he put the whole world on my shoulders. I had to be the one who made sure our money could last until the end of the month, and when it couldn’t, I had to be the one to figure out how to feed Sam. And if I stepped out of line, there would be hell to pay. And this—” Dean helplessly held up the notebook, indicating the picture inside. “God, if that man has another kid out there that he never told us about, I’ll hunt him down when I die.”
Cas crouched down in front of him and put his hands on Dean’s knees to comfort him.
“It just, it doesn’t make sense. He was so heartbroken after mom died, and I don’t think he ever got over the anger of being left alone with two kids. It doesn’t—” Dean had to stop talking, suddenly afraid that his voice would betray him and break. He could feel the way his hands and lips were quivering from the anger and betrayal.
“You don’t owe him anything, Dean,” Cas said. “We could burn the house down, if that would make it easier.”
Dean laughed a little and looked up at Cas, his eyes filled with tears. “You can’t say shit like that, you’re a pastor.”
Cas’ hands came up to frame Dean’s face, holding their gazes together. Cas shrugged. “Who cares? I don’t think a God who makes a man resent his children, who doesn’t stop parents from throwing their own child out of their house, would care much about what we do with the things we’re left with.”
“You turned out okay, though. Despite it all.” Dean’s voice was soft now, and he moved infinitesimally on the couch, scooting forward until his knees bumped against Cas’ chest where he was kneeling in front of him, relishing the extra contact.
Cas hadn’t talked a lot about his childhood, but Dean knew his parents were religious enough to bring their kids to church every week, expecting them to follow the same path they had been on. Castiel had hoped that joining the church could make his parents see past the fact that he was homosexual, but it had just made them hate him even more, because they couldn’t reconcile their view of God with one who condoned that lifestyle.
He was shunned from their church, from their house, from all of his friends, but it didn’t affect his belief in God, and so he found another place to settle down. Dean knew he was still working on accepting that part of himself without feeling grief for the life he left behind.
“Hey,” Dean said when Cas’ hands slipped from his face as he was remembering all of this himself. “You’re okay. We’ll be okay.”
He pulled Cas in by the nape of his neck, inching closer slow enough to give Cas time to pull away if he wanted to. The kiss was sweet, slow, and filled with love, the sort of kiss that Dean had only rarely experienced in his life.
The kiss was a promise as much as it was a reassurance, making it clear that they were there for each other.
Cas pulled away, all the way into a standing position, and offered Dean his hand to pull him off the couch with a small smile.
They went through the rest of the boxes in silence, and the pile of trash grew exponentially.
Cas said that he didn’t mind staying to look through the rest of the boxes, even though the sun had set some hours ago; it was clear from Dean’s expression that he just wanted to get it over with and get all of the stuff out of the house at once.
Cas even offered to go down and help carry them up from the basement.
“Oh, it’s a mess. You shouldn't have to see that,” Dean protested, but Cas shut him up with a firm hand on his arm and a warm smile.
“I don’t mind. Truly.”
Dean leaned in to peck him on the lips in place of an answer. “You might change your mind about dating me once you see what I’ve been living with for the past six months.”
Cas’ arm tightened on Dean’s upper arm, and his expression turned serious for a moment. “I don’t care if your house is messed up or if you’re messed up. So am I. I want to see all sides of you,” Cas said with a seriousness that rivaled how he looked when preaching.
Dean was speechless for a moment, his eyes nearly tearing up once again. Cas’ hand loosened when Dean didn’t answer, but when it started to fall back to his side again, Dean’s own hand trailed it and grabbed a hold of it.
“Yeah,” he whispered. He was mesmerized, transfixed by the light reflecting in Cas’ eyes. “Yeah, okay then.”
Dean leaned in to kiss the other man, warm lips pressing together. When Cas parted his lips and pressed his body gently into Dean’s, it was like a light turned on over their heads.
This is it, Dean thought. The spark was always there, but now they were a candle ignited, melting together, sweet and languid. He almost wanted to tell Cas he loved him, but he refrained. It wasn’t even that it was too early, because even if it was, he knew that didn’t matter to either of them; it was more out of caution against putting their love out into the universe, having to fear it being taken away from them again. They’d already lost other people they cared about.
Dean hadn’t said those three words out loud since he was a kid. But maybe, sometime soon, he should start getting used to saying it again.
*
It was another Sunday. Dean and Cas had been spending almost all of their free time together lately, so Cas was not surprised when he saw Dean entering the church early in the morning.
“Hi,” was all Dean said, as he sauntered in with his hands in his pockets and a cheeky grin on his face.
“Hello, Dean.”
Cas really wanted to lean over and kiss the smirk off his face, but he also wanted to remain professional and knew that putting his hands and mouth on his boyfriend in front of a small town congregation that he wasn’t out to probably wasn’t the greatest idea. Dean didn’t seem to care all that much, though.
“You left this by my bed.” Dean was pulling on a chain around his neck, and Cas instantly recognized it, even before Dean had pulled it out from under his grey t-shirt and revealed the tiny gold cross that hung from the end of it.
Cas was about to admonish him, but before he had even opened his mouth, he was interrupted by an older gentleman reaching his hand out in front of them to shake Cas’ before he was even fully inside the church.
“Good to see you, Mr. Daniels,” Cas managed to say without his voice giving away how shaken he had just been. Mr. Daniels smiled at him, nodded his head at Dean, and went to find a seat.
“Dean,” Cas said in a warning tone when he could turn his full attention to the man again. Despite trying to sound stern, he couldn’t stop the blush that was spreading across his cheeks when he looked at the golden necklace resting on top of Dean’s threadbare band t-shirt. It looked good there.
“What, you don’t like it?” Dean asked with a smirk. It seemed he knew exactly what he was doing to Castiel and liked it.
“Not here,” Cas whispered, low enough for only Dean to hear. He wanted to tell Dean how hot and bothered it really made him, but he didn’t think it was appropriate while in the church.
Instead, he put a hand on Dean’s upper arm and leaned in closer to talk to him in a subdued voice. “I think that’s a conversation for later.” He pictured Dean in his mind, naked except for the cross around his neck.
Dean’s cocky smile disappeared at Cas leaning into him, and he looked a little wistful instead. “Cas,” he started, but then he didn’t finish the sentence, just kept looking at Castiel.
The clock was ticking down the minutes until the service started, and Cas didn’t want to have this conversation here.
They were at a standoff, Cas’ hand still around Dean’s arm while Dean looked into his eyes, like they were pleading with each other to ‘not do this’ but it felt as if they were talking about two different things.
Cas wanted to lean in and kiss Dean’s worries away, but he couldn’t, because there were people all around them. And then he thought, well, why couldn’t he?
Because he was a pastor. Because he lived in Lawrence, Kansas. Because he wasn’t out — but he wanted to be, didn’t he? How else would he be able to build the loving and supportive community that he had longed to create for so long?
As though Dean could see the war waging inside of Cas, he squeezed Cas’ hand once before quickly dropping it and taking a step back. “It doesn’t matter, Cas. Wasn’t it God who said ‘love who you love’ or something?”
And Cas decided right then that Dean was right — it really didn’t matter. They had already kissed in public, even on the church grounds, and it wasn’t like Cas didn’t tell people about his sexuality if they asked; he was just still having trouble adjusting to being proud and open without prompting and in front of people.
“Close enough,” he answered his boyfriend. He took a deep breath and, quite proud that he did it without looking around first, he leaned in to give Dean a short kiss on the cheek.
Just then, an old lady exclaimed loudly next to them, the sound startling them apart.
“Pastor Novak! Did you finally bring your husband to church?”
“Oh, uhm, no,” Dean was the first to answer her, his hand automatically going to the back of his neck in embarrassment. He looked to Castiel for guidance, letting him take the lead on what he wanted to share with his churchgoers. Cas could do that. It might take him time to be completely comfortable with it, but he would never deny who he was.
“Not yet, but maybe sometime in the future, if I’m lucky,” Cas said with a small smile directed at Dean. He turned back to Mrs. Avery in front of him and asked her in turn about how her husband was doing, knowing that he was currently laid up in bed with a twisted ankle.
Dean squeezed him on the arm, nodded to Mrs. Avery, and turned to go find a seat.
Cas gave him a grateful smile and turned his full attention to Mrs. Avery, who was enthusiastically telling Cas the story of her and her husband’s trip to the hospital earlier that week.
*
Dean sat on the bed of Cas’ pickup truck, waiting for him to finish up in the church. The sun made the sky warm and golden, and Dean had been basking in it for the last ten minutes.
His thoughts were running wild, and he wasn’t ready for Cas to exit the church just yet. Dean had tried to make it a habit to come and listen to Cas preach, but more often than not, his words got stuck in Dean’s head and he couldn’t get them out again. He got captured by Cas’s enthusiasm for his craft, and sometimes that was good, like when Cas gave Dean the push he needed to reconnect with Sam, but mostly Cas’ talks made him sad and reverent.
He was sure Cas’ intention was to spark inner reflection, but Dean had had just enough of it these past weeks, which was why he slipped out right after the service ended, knowing that Cas would come find him when he was done saying goodbye and cleaning up.
Today, Cas had talked about self-worth, and he had such passion in his words as he locked eyes with Dean across the small congregation. Dean saw love in those eyes and something else, something he couldn’t quite name. He looked at Dean like Dean was a revelation, like Dean was the one who had saved Cas, even when Dean felt like it was the other way around. Granted, Dean had been the one to walk into the church the day they met, but, not to say he believed in destiny and soulmates, he was sure that they would have met each other somewhere down the road eventually. Their relationship had felt so natural and safe, right from the beginning, that Dean could no longer imagine what his life even looked like without Cas. And wasn’t that a scary thought? They hadn’t even known each other that long, and had only been a couple for a little while, but he also couldn’t stop his thoughts spiralling.
Dean was craving a smoke, the familiar urge to self-destruct creeping back in, although he had quit years ago.
He looked up from his feet when he heard the sound of gravel crunching. Cas was walking toward him, a small smile on his face. It fell when he was close enough to notice how haggard Dean looked.
“Hey,” Dean said softly, trying to give him a smile back, but Cas’ eyes were on Dean’s hands instead of his face, where he had been nervously wringing them in front of him. He clasped them together at the look and put them between his knees when he saw the way Cas pursed his lips.
“Dean,” was the only thing Cas said, before he stopped right in front of him, knees knocking together.
“Cas— ” He broke off, a sob nearly escaping him. His hands came up to hide his face. He felt like he was about to break down, and he didn’t want Cas to see the tears that were threatening to spill.
“What is it?” Cas sounded worried. His brain was probably whirring, trying to figure out what had changed since he had met a happy Dean an hour and a half earlier.
“You have so much faith in other people, Cas, and I’m not— I’m not worth it.”
The silence dragged on, draped itself like a heavy blanket over them. Cas’ hands came up to pry Dean’s hands away from his face when Dean kept hiding, still unable to look at him.
“This won’t work out.” Dean couldn’t stop his voice from betraying how utterly dejected and helpless he felt, but after Cas’ speech in there, it felt like a stone had settled on his heart. Nothing had ever worked out for Dean like he wanted it to, and he kept losing the people he loved, so why should it be any different with Cas? “It never does,” he sighed.
“Dean.”
Cas softly cupped Dean’s face, urging him to meet his eyes. When he was still hesitant, Cas said, “Look at me,” and that brought Dean’s green eyes up. He could feel the tears pooling in his eyes, but it wasn’t until Cas said, “I love you,” that the first tear fell.
Dean exhaled a shaky breath, but kept his gaze on Cas’. This was the first time either of them had acknowledged the unmistakable love between them. A thumb swiped across his cheek to chase the tear, but Dean couldn’t care about being vulnerable in front of Cas right now. He wanted to hear those words again.
“Yeah?” he asked, his voice still a little rough from how choked up he was.
“Yes,” Cas reiterated. “I love you, and I’m not going anywhere.” He moved closer to Dean, forcing him to spread his legs a little more so Cas could step right in between them.
“I’m not— I’m not worth all this love, Cas.”
“You are. You’re worth everything.”
Dean closed his eyes and tried to take a deep breath. He couldn’t help the tear that escaped out of the corner of his eye, or the next one that escaped when Cas leaned down to gently kiss his eyelids, one at a time.
“No, I’m not— I’m not worth it.” Dean opened his eyes again and met with Cas’ worried gaze. “I’m a mess, and I’m broken, and I’m not— it’s not…” he trailed off, not knowing what it was he wanted to say, but wanting Cas to understand. There wasn’t anything worth saving in Dean. Cas deserved someone better, especially someone who wouldn’t break down in the church parking lot just because he had never been loved like Cas loved him.
“I know you don’t know how to ask for it, but it will get easier, Dean, I promise you. We’re both a little broken, I think, but we can learn together what it means to love and be loved.”
Dean was sure that his face showed how scared he was, but Cas looked at him with such fierceness that there was no doubt in Dean’s mind that Cas was being completely sincere.
He didn’t know how else to convey how much he thought that it wasn’t a good idea, that Cas shouldn’t stay with him, but Cas was too determined to hear any more protests.
When Dean opened his mouth to give his rebuttal, Cas shut him up with a soft, but resolute, kiss. His hands fell from where he had been gripping Dean’s face to wind around his neck instead, urging the other man closer again. Dean’s hands settled on Cas’ waist, a warm welcome from how he had been nervously wringing them together before.
“I think,” Cas said, his voice as calm as ever when he pulled his mouth away slightly, “that I love you.” His mouth was trailing down Dean’s face, pausing to press tiny kisses to Dean’s features as he passed them; an eyebrow, another on each of his eyelids, a cheekbone, one on his nose, and bypassing his lips to suckle on the edge of his jaw instead. “And that you deserve it all. And—” he paused when he was interrupted by an audible gasp coming from Dean’s lips when Cas’ tongue brushed an especially sensitive spot right below his ear, “that I should take you home to show you just how much I mean it.”
“Okay,” Dean answered, somewhat shakily. He knew he sounded like he was still about to start crying, which was probably what prompted Cas to move his mouth back up, finding Dean’s again and fusing their mouths together in the most unhurried, loving kiss Cas had ever given him.
Dean could feel Cas’ love burning through him, like it was a tiny flame that had been ignited in his chest, and Cas’ kiss was stoking the embers until a fire was blazing bright and beautiful.
“I love you too,” Dean gasped out, knowing that he needed to say it now, while he was still vulnerable enough to know that he would be able to. The words still got lodged in his throat more often than not, but he could try, for Castiel, to fight past it and tell him. Cas drew back to smile at him with a glint in his eyes. It made him look like sunshine, Dean thought, with the way the golden light was illuminating him and his ruffled hair and the way the joy radiated off of him.
“Let me take you home. Let me take care of you,” Cas said again. One of his hands snaked away to twiddle with the necklace still dangling over Dean’s shirt. He looked at it for a moment and then put his hand directly over it, angled towards Dean’s heart, where it was beating a melody just for Cas.
They drove in their respective cars, and Dean stayed the night in Cas’ apartment. He cooked them dinner, and they cuddled up next to each other on the couch with a movie of Dean’s choice. When Dean started yawning and saying nonsensical things, Cas led him to his bedroom, where he proceeded to make him come apart as slowly as possible in a way that resembled worshipping, to show him just how much he was loved and appreciated. And Dean whispered his name back to him reverently, as if in prayer, thinking, knowing in his heart, that this made sense; meeting Castiel had been something akin to an answer to a prayer. In fact, it was everything he could have ever dreamed of.