Chapter Text
The condo was covered in fabrics and projects in every stage of production. Dean snickered as he let himself in. “Sammy?” he called. “You under there someplace?”
His brother looked over his shoulder. He had pins in his mouth, and a piece of cloth resting on his shoulder, and scissors in his hands. “Dean!” he huffed around his pins. He spat them onto the table in front of him. “Come on in. Just in time. Come put this vest and trousers set on. I want to look at it with the cap.”
He couldn’t help smirking. If he had thought his time as Sam’s Ken doll was over nine months ago when he had spent a long weekend pretending to be a model, he was quite mistaken. It seemed that he would always be Sam’s first choice for dress up games.
He let the kid drape him, but he looked around anxiously.
Sam was back to speaking around pins. “He’s not home yet.”
Dean sighed. “I don’t know why not,” he sulked. “Gabe gave him a few hours today, didn’t he? Because he knew I’d be here?”
“The world revolves around Gabe’s whimsy. You know that. Hold still.”
He scowled a bit. “Your decor is creepy.”
Sam blinked at him, then glanced around the room. “Creepy?”
“Yeah. You live with mannequins, Sam. That’s not normal. It probably isn’t even healthy. This place is one British accent away from being a ninth Doctor episode.”
He snorted. “That’s what Gabriel calls you, you know,” he muttered.
“What? Creepy? Doctor?”
Sam shook his head, and removed one of the two pins from his bite to press it into the fabric on Dean’s chest. “Castiel’s mannequin.”
Dean let his eyebrows shoot up. “What now?”
“Turn to the side. Other way.”
At least back home, Sam let him play his own music or watch television while he stood there dressing him. He sighed, and tried not to fidget. Well, sometimes you had to make your own fun. “What are you even doing here? I thought you had a day job.”
The bitchface Sam turned on him was worth the trouble. “This is my day job,” his muffled voice snarled. “I’m doing it.”
“Playing with dolls is a day job?”
“I’m the one with the pins, adjusting your crotch. You want my hand to slip, keep talking.”
“Please don’t,” a deep voice called from the door.
Sam threw his hands up and spat out his pins again in exasperation, when Dean pivoted jerkily. “This is why I live with mannequins! They hold still when I tell them to!”
Dean’s lover closed the door behind him and leaned his shoulder against it with a content sigh and a tiny, pleased smile. He was in a smart blue cashmere sweater vest, over a white dress shirt and blue tie, atop custom-tailored charcoal pants that drew Dean’s gaze to his muscular thighs. The look was slim and sexy, and the effect on Dean was immediate. Perhaps there was something to this fashion thing after all.
“Hello, Dean,” Castiel murmured, allowing the depth of his voice to carry his words rather than the volume.
It felt like a caress every time. Dean smiled back. “Hey, Cas.”
His lover crossed the room in two long strides, and revealed the flowers he had hidden behind his back. He leaned in to kiss Dean gently on the cheek. “I’m sorry Gabriel kept me busy. I had planned to be here when you arrived.”
“It’s okay. But I like these.” He reached for the flowers, but Sam smacked his hand. “Hey! What?”
“Don’t touch anything while you have my work on! You get pollen or some crap on my vest, and I’ll damage you!”
Castiel held the flowers back. “Dean, I’m sometimes confused as to why you still help him.”
“Yeah. So am I.”
Sam gave them a smug look. “Dean? Who do you have to thank for meeting Castiel?”
Dean scowled. “And who do you have to thank for your plastic piece of crap car out there?”
“What’s your gas mileage again?”
Castiel was always a little amused by the pecking between the brothers. “My love, are you equating us meeting with Sam’s car payment?”
“Not-not equating exactly, just-Would you get off me?” he cried out in frustration.
Sam finished peeling him out of his design, and pushed him off the step stool. “I release you back into the wild. Go make good choices. Cas, what was the name of that place you said I should take Alicia to for our six month anniversary?”
Castiel was already staring into Dean’s eyes, but he responded quietly. “Culina. Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. I made your reservation for you three weeks ago. Seven o’clock. Leave plenty of time for traffic.” He glanced at his housemate then. “And, Sam, look. Don’t be a hero, okay? She’ll offer to pay, and you let her. She’s just going to bill Max’s charge account anyway, and have his accountant write it off as a business meeting.”
“Romantic,” Dean laughed.
Castiel shrugged. “It’s how it’s done. She’s a smart businesswoman, and she knows Sam is the Max Banes brand’s best new asset. The fact that she also enjoys Sam’s…”
“Assets?” Sam prompted with a gentle flush of pink around his cheekbones.
“Can’t hold that against her. Sam does have great assets.”
Dean’s face dropped into a frown. “Cas!”
Sam cackled, and slapped Castiel’s arm before hurrying off to his bedroom, the former guest room. “Thanks, Cas!”
“Good luck, Sam.”
Dean put his hands on his hips, and looked at his lover expectantly.
Castiel snickered, but leaned in with a sheepish smile. “Sorry, my love. It’s Sam.”
“Exactly! It’s Sam! My kid brother!”
“And my best friend. I’m allowed to prime his ego before he goes out on an anniversary dinner with his sweet but extremely intimidating girlfriend.”
Dean conceded the point. “Guess he can stand to have his ego stroked. So long as-“
“All other stroking will be reserved for you. You have my word,” he said, with utmost solemnity.
It was just twenty minutes after Sam had left the condo for his date that the two of them lay in bed, laughing contentedly. They were sweaty, lying naked below a slow-turning ceiling fan, letting their bodies cool and their heartrates calm.
Dean rolled onto his stomach and put his chin in his palm to gaze at his lover. “So Sam and Lady Banes are getting pretty serious.”
Castiel shrugged. He stretched lazily, and put his hands behind his head. “Seem to be. I’ve known Alicia Banes a long time. I’ve never seen her like this before. She’s smitten. She’s gone so far as to move her jewelry line’s structure so there isn’t the perception of her supervising Max’s hot new designer.”
“Don’t call my brother hot while I’m lying here naked with you.”
He received a quiet chuckle. “Sorry.”
“But she’s into him just as much as he is her. Right?”
Castiel’s small smile reached his blue eyes, and crinkled their corners. “Definitely. She’s in with both feet.”
Dean nodded slowly. He chewed on his lip, feeling the return of the anxiety which had accompanied him the entire drive this time. “Good. That’s good.”
There was the adorable, intelligent squint of Castiel trying to read without his glasses. “Is there anything other than the usual mama bear looking after the giant cub that makes you ask?”
He poked Castiel’s stomach, making him squirm with a laugh. “Stop calling me that! And no! I mean, yes! I was thinking about...Now that Sam’s getting deep into the business, and he’s making decent money…”
“If his line opens at Max’s anchor store in New York next month as expected, he’ll be doing far better than decent. Even Gabriel has been impressed with his tireless work ethic. He has me report on his progress almost daily at this point, and he’s thinking of doing a special edition spread on the premiere of his line-“
“Right. I mean...Good! That’s great. It’s just that, I mean, now that he’s doing well, and he’s even serious with this chick-“
A dark brow peaked. “This chick is one of the most celebrated artists and executives in the world of fine jewelry. She-“
Dean sighed in frustration. “Fine! I just mean he’s taken care of now, and-“
Castiel frowned. “Dean, he doesn’t need taking care of. He’s a truly talented designer. He may have had support, but he’s earned everything he’s-“
“I mean he’s fine, he doesn’t need me, and I can get married or something!”
The powerful chest beside him stilled as Castiel caught his breath.
Dean dropped his forehead into his palm now. “Dammit, Cas, you are the worst guy to try to propose to!”
There was a small noise in Castiel’s throat, but no other movement.
He looked up. “Cas?”
His lover was staring at him.
Dean’s own chest began to tighten. “Dude, you need to breathe. Gabe will kill me with his bare hands if you die.”
“You…” Castiel cleared his throat, and sat up. “You want to get married?”
He stared back. “Not if it means you don’t breathe right anymore. Are you okay?”
His lover, so dominant and confident in bed just minutes ago, seemed meek and terrified now. “You want to marry me?”
Dean rubbed at the back of his neck nervously as he sat up too. “Do people in the fashion world not do that? I don’t get the customs of your weird-ass culture.”
“Not with me!” Castiel saw Dean’s confusion, and hurried on. “I mean, yeah, of course people in high fashion get married. Just…not with me.”
A spike of panic drove through Dean’s heart. “You don’t want-“
“Of course I want to!” Castiel burst out. “Of course I do!”
Relief washed over him, but the confusion remained. “Then what…?”
“You want me long-term?”
Dean suddenly understood, and his heart was torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to hold his guardian angel safe in his own arms forever. He never wanted Castiel to hurt or to doubt himself again. He took hold of the man’s hands, and looked into his eyes as he spoke. “Castiel Palladino, I want you forever. I want you every day and every night for the rest of my life. And I’m the one who deserves you, because I’m the only one who realizes no one could ever deserve you.”
Tears sparkled in clear blue eyes, and fear emanated from his lover. “Dean…”
“Cas, I have known I wanted you forever since that first weekend. Please don’t tell me you never felt that! How could you not feel that?”
The first tear slid down his cheek silently. “I was just grateful for the time we had. I figured you’d rip my heart out any minute now. Every time you drive away, I brace myself, remind myself it’ll probably be the last time I see you. Except that your brother is here, and…”
Everything in Castiel’s world was a trend. Everything was temporary, seasonal, gone in an instant. People in his world lived and loved hard and fast, because they knew the dangers in becoming attached. If they couldn’t keep up, they got left behind, and they wound up like last season’s bag.
Well, Dean wasn’t from that world.
“Cas? You know how we talk about art all the time, the stuff you collect, and the fashion stuff you work around, and you always put it in terms of classic cars for me?”
Castiel sniffed, and nodded.
“There’s nothing that could make me give up my Baby. Some things in your life, no matter what else comes and goes, you know you gotta hang onto, fight for. That car doesn’t age for me. She’s forty, going on fifty, and just as badass as the day she rolled off the line. When you find a piece of art that’s one of a kind, don’t you hold onto it for as long as you can?”
The stuttered sob gnawed at his heart.
“Oh, Cas.” He wrapped his arms around his lover carefully, and held him against his own chest. “Shh. Okay, baby. Look. Let me do it right, okay? Castiel, I love you. I’ll always love you. Will you marry me?”
A sobbing laugh was his answer. “I love you too, Dean. Of course I’ll marry you. You make me...so happy.”
Dean grinned. “Happier than good cheeseburgers?”
But Castiel nodded. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “I love you more than cheeseburgers, Dean!” he wept.
Then they were both laughing, and kissing, and then they were making love again, slower this time, and Dean kept up a steady stream of reassuring, sweet words about how certain he was that Castiel was the only one for him, the only one who would ever feel like this.
***
Dean’s head lay on his arm, and Castiel combed his long fingers through cropped hair without tiring. He loved lying like this, with his heart beating against Dean’s warm back. He adored this man. The epiphany that Dean intended to keep him forever made the whole world seem brighter, more colorful, even in the dark. Everything was tinted that forest green of Dean’s eyes, like stained glass.
He listened to Dean’s even breath for a very long time. Eventually, he would have to get up and conduct some business for Gabriel, and then Sam would be home, and he would need to go check on how his evening had gone. He needed to return a phone call from Bella Talbot, and place an order for one of Gabriel’s young models who needed a rental car, and check on the winery’s reservation policy for above forty guests for the board meeting.
And he would have to tell Gabriel about Dean, that they were suddenly engaged. Gabriel had managed, over several months, to separate Dean from his memories of Michael. He liked Dean, and would be happy for them. Then he would declare himself their wedding consultant, and he would insist upon glitter everywhere, and champagne fountains, and everything else neither Dean nor Castiel could afford, and when Castiel pointed this out, his eccentric adoptive brother would insist on paying for a chunk of it himself, and then he would take over completely, and soon they would be taking their vows under a crystal chandelier in a Manhattan venue or on a yacht...
But for now, he just wanted to lie there and feel Dean breathing, and be happier than he had ever been in his life.
The rest of the world could wait a while. And, for a while, Dean and Castiel could rest.