Chapter Text
“So what’s your latest case about, Cas?” Dean asks happily.
“Ah it’s a rather interesting one actually, not that it seemed so at first”, and Cas starts rambling on about their newest client who got fired from his top paying position for some kind of indiscretion, but whose ex-boss is actually sleeping with his wife and seems to be in cahoots with her. It is more entertaining than most of Sam’s case stories, but Dean still only listens with one ear, because most of his attention is on watching the man next to him gesticulate and watching his eyes shine in fascination about other people’s motives.
Dean’s leg brushes against Cas’s again and this time he doesn’t lie to himself when he doesn’t move it. Cas only stops for a moment in his story, giving Dean one of his intimate looks again, before he continues, he doesn’t move his leg either.
And Dean feels how his chest feels too small for what it wants to hold in and how he feels an electricity between them that he can’t explain and he only drinks small sips of his third beer, because he doesn’t want to be inebriated when he is feeling like this. He wants to feel this sober and he wants to get to know Cas sober and if he will get a grip on himself he might even ask Cas out, sober, without any alcohol to hide behind.
“You know this is all very fascinating but how about you tell Dean about your time at uni and your pothead phase?”
Dean almost spits his beer out and Cas turns to Sam and frowns, “And why would that be more interesting than our current case?”
“You smoked pot?”
Cas now gives his attention to Dean again and frowns, “Yes, of course, it was a logical thing to try at the time.”
Dean nods slowly not quite sure what to make of that, “Sure, so are you still smoking?” Dean isn’t a prude, he knows that he drinks more than some would consider healthy, and he has smoked pot in the past, has even tried ecstasy when he was young and it was still cool, but he worked for the police too long to be into any kind of illegal drugs anymore. Of course he knows that pot isn’t bad per se but he just couldn’t see himself dating someone who is seriously into it. Not that he should think that far ahead.
“No, it doesn’t hold any appeal to me anymore and I would never risk my job for it. But I will admit that I sometimes miss the boldness it encouraged in me.”
“Why? It’s not like you seem like a fearful guy now.”
Castiel looks at the wall behind the bar seriously again, “Thank you, but as Michael would say, I can be quite a coward sometimes” before Dean can say what he thinks about Cas’s ex, he continues, “and even if he was of course very wrong about a lot of things, he wasn’t about this, because he was right I would have never made the first step and sometimes… I sometimes fear that I am destined to be alone since I can’t find it in myself to show other people that I’m interested.”
Dean is taken aback for a moment, he isn’t quite sure what that means, is it a hint that Cas is interested or that the small smiles before didn’t mean a thing and Dean has read this all wrong?
“Come on Castiel, you don’t need pot for that, I’m pretty sure after the next beer you’ll be able to show whoever you like that you are into them.”
Cas looks at Sam slightly appalled, “But I would make a fool of myself!”
“Are you sure?” And he looks at Castiel meaningfully before he winks at Dean, who now blushes again, damn this evening.
Castiel looks at Dean puzzled, before he gives his beer a contemplative look and finishes it in two big gulps.
“Dean, not that it should concern me, but you are only into women, aren’t you?” Cas keeps looking at his empty beer glass the whole time and Dean just thinks he is adorable.
“You would think so with my history, but… as it turns out, no, I’m not only into women.”
Now Cas turns his head and his blue eyes stare at Dean again.
“As it turns out?”
Dean blushes even deeper now, because admitting that he might be a bit gay is one thing, and that is hard enough anyway, but telling the guy you might be into that he is the reason you just realized that you’re a bit gay is too much.
“You don’t have a boyfriend, do you?”, Cas asks after the moment of silence.
Dean starts laughing and Sam laughs with him.
Dean has tears in his eyes when he finally stops laughing and when he sees Cas’s confused and slightly hurt expression he reigns the last bubbles of laughter in.
He puts a hand on Cas’s left shoulder which seems to irritate the other man even more and says, “No, there is no boyfriend, I once kissed a friend whenI was sixteen, Harris, if you must know Sam, but there was nothing more, Lisa insinuated something like me being gay when she left today, but to be honest before I met you I thought I would be able to just laugh it off as a stupid insinuation of a frustrated ex.”
“Why would you feel the need to laugh it off?” Cas asks seriously curious but also with a hint of worry in his voice.
Dean gives Sam a silent look.
Sam understands and answers this one for him, “You know Castiel, our father wasn’t only a drunkard, he was also quite prejudiced about all kinds of things but of course also about gays, and you only know my side and I never talk good about him but Dean, well Dean didn’t have an older brother he could look up to, he only had dad as a role model.”
Dean swallows hard, they have talked about it often enough by now, what Sam said, didn’t surprise him, but it is still hard to hear and it is still true, he still holds some respect for their father and it still feels weird to admit something to himself that would hurt his dad so much.
Castiel’s eyes feel like they are boring into him again and he realizes that he still has his hand on his shoulder, but when he tries to lift it Castiel’s left hand comes up and covers it.
“That must have been hard. I know what it means to love your parents despite them wanting to suppress who you are.”
Dean feels the urge to defend his father again, but he can hold it back, the pressure of Cas’s hand on his makes his father’s reputation seem less important suddenly.
“What are your parents like?”
Cas seems sad, “I don’t have any contact to them anymore, they were, you could say slightly obsessed Christians, they weren’t particularly good parents, but me and my siblings we all had a different way of dealing with it. Gabe got out when he was sixteen, I was overachieving until college made me realize that I couldn’t stay in contact with them if I wanted to live my life, Gabe thankfully took me in, as far as I know my other siblings are still under their thumb, Anna tried to get out”, Castiel’s voice breaks a bit and Dean increases the pressure on his shoulder, “she got into drugs, the hard kind, she didn’t make it.”
Dean hugs Castiel then he can’t stop himself from doing so, he doesn’t question it and after a moment of hesitation he can feel how Castiel leans into him.
Dean lifts his head slightly so that he can look the other man in the eyes and it feels like his heart stops, he licks his lips self-consciously and he can see how Castiel’s eyes follow the motion and how they get a hungry look in them.
“And there I was trusting you when you told me you weren’t with someone new.”
The arrogant voice of a lean man with slicked back black hair disturbs their moment.
Dean gives him an annoyed look that grows angry when he sees how the man’s eyes focus on Cas.
Cas turns toward the man, an eyebrow drawn up looking at him with nonchalance, but the way his hand presses into Dean’s hip, who he is still leaning against, shows his discomfort at the man’s appearance.
Sam is the first one to break their silence.
“Michael, what the hell are you doing here, I think Castiel made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want to see you anymore.”
So that’s Michael, Dean could have guessed, he tries to move towards him to show the guy what he thinks of him, but Castiel is holding him back.
“I’m sorry but I didn’t know that Castiel needed a guard dog. Honey, I think we can resolve this easily between us, just leave” He looks at Dean with disgust, “that brute and we’ll have a nice glass of wine at your favorite Italian.”
Dean almost growls, only the pressure of Castiel’s body holding him back.
“Michael, it’s over, it has been over for more than three months, I don’t want you anymore and I’m not even sure if you want me or are just annoyed that someone said no to you. But it doesn’t matter, you know well enough that I have enough information about you and your business practices to get rid of you if I want to. So let’s call this my final warning.”
Dean smirks at Michael, whose face isn’t a show of confidence anymore and who looks quite taken aback now.
He swallows heavily. “You don’t mean that.”
“You know me, I’m not in the habit of saying things I don’t mean.”
“Well if that’s how you want to play it…”
Before he can continue Castiel steps forward anger rolling of him in waves now.
“I don’t want to ‘play’, I want you to leave me alone and to act with polite disinterest if we meet in the line of our work, otherwise I don’t want anything else to do with you. You came in my workplace today, without invitation and I thought that would have been the height of your insults but no now you followed me to a bar and degrade my friend? Believe me when I say I mean my threat, this is not a game, leave now and do yourself a favor and forget I ever existed.”
Michael glares at Cas and Dean one last time before he turns and rushes out of the bar.
Dean is glad to see him leave and he fixates Cas’s back now. He still feels his whole body pulsating at the rush of seeing an angry Cas, he felt that coiled power from the moment he met Cas’s eyes for the first time, but seeing it in action has an electrifying effect on Dean.
Cas turns and looks at Dean and Sam with a self-deprecating smile.
“Well, I’m sorry for that, it…” before he can continue Dean plants his lips on him, and despite the fact that he has never kissed a man, at least not with more than teenage clumsiness driving him, it isn’t difficult at all, it is rather easy to be honest. Kissing Cas just seems so right. How his lips mold against Dean’s, how after a first suprised second he responds to the kiss, brushes his lips against Dean’s and how he slowly opens them to let Dean in. And he goes for it, because no matter what gender he has never been one for chaste kisses.
And it feels like absolution when their tongues meet, Dean doesn’t care that they are in a busy bar and that his brother isn’t far. All he cares for is the man that goes pliant under him, that grabs his shirt forcefully with his hands and that presses himself against Dean with his own interest quite prominently pressing against Dean’s hip.
And Dean doesn’t care that he feels a rising cock through layers of clothes. No, that’s not true, he does care, he cares about how Cas’s breath hitches when Dean deliberately brushes his hand against it, he cares about the prominent size and the image of it in his hand, in his mouth, in his body.
Dean doesn’t even realize it, when he moans and only Sam’s repeatedly calling their names gets them to separate, not that they separate far, they still stand close together touching and almost leaning onto each other.
“Well I just paid for us while you were busy and I’m leaving now, and you two should too, if you want to continue this, because it was close to getting PG-rated.”
Dean just nods, not able to hide the smile on his face. His arm is still holding on to Cas’s hip and he starts to softly brush his thumb over the place where Cas’s shirt meets his trousers.
“Well, I’m off, call sometime tomorrow”, Sam says to Dean, his eyes crinkling in happiness.
“See you Monday”, he says to Cas and grinning brazenly at them he adds, “Or Sunday at lunch.”
Cas looks confused at Dean, who rolls his eyes at his meddling brother.
“We always have family lunch at my house on Sunday, Jessica will also be there and Sam tries to imply that you’ll stay at my place the whole weekend.”
“Oh.”
Dean feels like his stomach is dropping at the single word, because he was kinda hoping that too, but before he can think too much about it Cas moves even closer and bends his head so that he can whisper in his ear, “I would like that very much.”
Dean can feel Cas’s breath caressing his skin, his body reacts instantly.
“Well like you said, we should go.” Dean says slightly breathless, with his eyes fixed on Sam, because he is pretty sure that he couldn’t stop himself from kissing Cas if he would look at him now.
Sam grins, “Yes we should.”
Sam moves in front of them parting the crowd easily, Dean follows behind with his hand still placed on Cas’s hips.
“I didn’t expect my first trip to a bar in ages to end like this to be honest.”
Dean smiles at the man next to him, “Me neither, but that’s not a bad thing now is it?”
Cas smiles back at him and says, “No, definitely not.”