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December 31st
9:32 PM
When Castiel boards the bus in KC, they think it’s empty at first—but when they toss their backpack onto an aisle seat and climb in after it, there’s a muffled yelp from the dimness at the back of the bus. They turn in time to see a man in a faded Carharrt jacket, sitting up and yawning as he rubs sleep out of his eyes. The man’s hair is greasy and matted down on one side, and there’s drool on the side of his face; nonetheless, he’s ridiculously good-looking.
“Hey man,” he says. Castiel does not correct him. “This can’t be Chicago.”
“It’s St. Louis,” Castiel says.
“Shit,” the man says. “How many hours is that left to Chicago? I’ve been on buses for two days, can’t do the fucking math anymore.”
“Two days?” Castiel tries not to engage with strangers when they can help it, but two days on a bus is a horrifying prospect.
“Yeah, I was out visiting my brother in California for Christmas, and I don’t fly.”
This was more information than Castiel wanted; if this man was angling for a similar offer of intimacy on their part, he would be disappointed. What was it about buses that made people overshare? Diesel fumes? “It’s four and a half hours till Chicago,” is all they say.
“Oh, it’ll be longer than that, lads, I’m afraid!” comes a cheery voice from the front of the bus. A man wearing a dark gray suit, tailored to fit him with matter-of-fact elegance, is bounding up the stairs. He has a bright red knitted scarf wrapped around his neck. “There’s just enough snow along the route to slow us down a bit,” he says, unwinding the scarf and climbing into the driver’s seat. “Never you fear, though, I’ll get you there—I crossed the Swiss Alps in a Fiat Spider, this isn’t even a blizzard!”
Castiel exchanges a skeptical look with the stranger in the back of the bus as the elegant man closes the door and busies himself with the intricacies of the dashboard. “Who are you?” they ask the stranger in the front.
“I’m driving you to Chicago tonight,” says the man in the driver’s seat. The bus engine coughs, then purrs as he starts it up. “You can call me Crowley.”
“Are we your only passengers?” Castiel asks, surprised. It is New Year’s Eve, but they’ve only been on buses this empty when they boarded in the middle of the night.
“You’re it for me!” says Crowley. He’s still wearing his suit coat, which somehow still looks crisply pressed. This is not a standard uniform, thinks Castiel. Maybe Crowley has a party to attend in Chicago, someone waiting for him at the other end.
Castiel has no one waiting, and they leave no one behind in St. Louis. It’s fine.
Crowley steers the bus lazily away from the shelter of the bus station, and Castiel shrugs. They fiddle with the zipper on their backpack and gaze out the window at the passing landscape, a mix of rundown warehouses and brightly lit strip malls. Castiel finds them equally depressing.
The bus sways as it drives through town, heading towards the highway, and Castiel realizes the man from the back in the bus is coming forward. He drops into the window seat across from Castiel and says, “If it’s just us for ringing in the New Year, might as well introduce myself. Dean,” he says, extending his hand across the aisle.
Castiel doesn’t take it. They regret making eye contact with Dean, who clearly perceived it as friendliness. Then again, Dean at this distance was the kind of hot that almost makes Castiel angry, they’re so helpless before it. And six-plus hours is a long time. “James,” they say. It’s the name they were born with, the one on their driver’s license. They don’t mind being called by it, even if it’s not their true name—plus, it’s safer, and people knew how to spell it. They have yet to purchase a cup of coffee on which “Castiel" was written correctly.
“Hey, James.” Dean rubs the palm of his hand on one denim-covered thigh when he drops his attempt at a handshake. “I get the feeling you’re not here to make friends.” He sighs. “Sorry, man, I’ve seen a lot of faces over the past few days and I don’t think I’ve said more than three words to a soul. I can leave you alone if you want.”
“Well,” says Castiel, relenting as Dean starts to stand, “we can talk a little. You’re right, it’s a holiday, and there’s no one else here.” And you’re extremely attractive, and I haven’t fucked anyone since summer, and I have a weakness for beauty, they don’t say. Dean sits back down, shoots them a dazzling smile that hits them like a punch to the gut.
“Don’t you forget about me,” calls Crowley. He laughs, then whistles a few bars of the ‘80s song.
“You can hear us?” says Dean.
“The bus isn’t that big, pet, I can hear everything.” Crowley grins at them in the rear view mirror.
Dean scowls at him over the back of the seat and sits down, slouching down against the window like a disgruntled grade schooler. “Great,” he mutters. “I was just getting to think this trip couldn’t get any worse, and then Britain’s answer to Gladys Kravitz shows up.”
Castiel raises an eyebrow. Dean’s response is childish, and that should be a turnoff but isn’t; not for the first time, Castiel wishes they were one of those people who’s first attracted to personality, not cut off at the knee by symmetrical features and a pouty mouth. “What were you planning to say to me you don’t want him to hear?” they ask Dean. “Just rattle off a list of your PIN numbers? I’m not saying I wouldn’t listen.”
“Trust me, dude, you don’t wanna steal my identity. Pig in a poke.” Dean moves to the aisle seat and leans out, squinting at the buttons on Castiel’s backpack: BREAD & ROSES, QUEER AS IN FUCK YOU, EAT THE RICH. His eyes are the shade of hazel that’s mostly green, and his eyelashes are tipped with gold. “That a band?” he asks, pointing at their THEY/THEM pin.
An altogether different kind of gut punch. “You’re making fun of me,” they say through clenched teeth.
“What?” Dean looks shocked—not the shock of a bully who didn’t expect to be called out on it, but genuine surprise, even confusion—and then he cringes and slaps his own forehead. “Oh, shit, it’s not a band, it’s your fucking pronouns, isn’t it?” When Castiel nods, Dean groans and squeezes his eyes shut; Castiel takes the opportunity to imagine the gossamer brush of those gilded eyelashes against their skin. “I knew that—I’m sorry, man—shit, person. Oh shit,” Dean says, “I promise I’m not this asshole, really. I’ll go.”
Dean’s halfway up out of his seat when Crowley says, tartly, “Sir, I’m going to need you to stop jumping up and down like an Irishman at church while the bus is in motion.”
“Like you didn’t hear me introduce myself,” Dean snaps at him, but he sits again, this time in the aisle seat. “I’m just really sorry,” he says to Castiel.
“It’s all right, just stop apologizing. Cis people always want me to reassure them they’re not assholes, but that’s not my job.”
“Yeah, you’re right, sorry. Whoops.” Dean bites his lower lip, which is full and inviting; Castiel’s lingering irritation at having this exchange for the nth time is drowned out entirely by their overwhelming desire to bite that lip, too. They’re pretty sure it’s obvious that they’re staring at Dean’s mouth, but it’s hard to look away, especially when Dean leans back into the aisle and says, low enough that Crowley can’t hear, “So is…is James your real name, then? Or just the one you’re stuck with legally?”
“Thank you for asking,” says Castiel, at the same volume. “James is all right, I don’t have any dysphoria attached to it. But when I can, I do prefer to go by Castiel.”
“Okay,” Dean says, “I can call you Castiel. It’s pretty. Uh, if that word doesn’t bother you.”
“No. I don’t have a problem with being pretty,” Castiel says. They like adornment: chipped silver nail polish, tinted lip gloss, the lace trim on their underwear. Not that Dean can see that last one. They wonder what he would think—he would blush, probably, like he’s doing now, but would he want to touch anyway?
“I don’t have a problem with it either,” says Dean, and their eyes lock, hold. “Funny how we’re wearing so close to the same thing, though.”
Castiel shrugs. “Jeans and flannel transcend gender. They’re just good clothes.”
Dean nods in agreement, mock-solemn, before flashing that gut-punch smile again. “Suitable for all occasions.”
“This is why I love the Midwest,” says Crowley, because apparently he has super-hearing, or is possibly psychic. “Everyone’s so impressed when you dress like a grown-up they’ll follow you anywhere.”
“We should go sit in the back,” grumbles Dean. “I mean, if you want to. I’ve kinda nested back there.”
Castiel notices for the first time that one of the lights in the back of the bus is well on its way to burning out; the failing light casts a warm glow over the corner Dean was sitting in. Obviously they want to go back there with Dean, see how that light reflects off his cheekbones, glitters on his eyelashes. They don’t even bother playing it cool; instead, they let their smile grow wide, and they say, “All right, Dean. Do you have snacks?”
“Do I have snacks,” Dean scoffs. “I look like an amateur to you?” He stands up and offers a hand to help Castiel up; this time, they take it, grabbing their backpack as an afterthought.
Crowley clears his throat theatrically. “I can’t help but notice you’re both moving about the cabin, gents—pardon me, guests.” Dean flips him off. “I could turn off the wi-fi, you know,” Crowley warns. “I’m the boss of this bus, Dean, the king of this little realm.”
“Do what you want,” Dean yells as Castiel calls over their shoulder, “Please don’t turn off the wi-fi.”
Dean’s claimed the whole back row, across from the bathroom (which, blessedly, only smells like cleaning fluid—it must have been cleaned during the layover in St. Louis). “Nest” isn’t inaccurate, either: there’s a crumpled fleece blanket, a pillow propped up on a duffel bag, and a grocery bag underneath the seats full of food—Dean finally lets go of Castiel’s hand and pulls it out after they both sit. There’s multiple kinds of potato chips, beef jerky, dinosaur-shaped fruit snacks; Castiel takes a pouch of the latter and shakes it at Dean with a smirk. “I don’t think I’ve had these since fifth grade.”
“You’ve been missing out, then,” Dean says. He rips open a bag of BBQ chips. He stuffs a whole handful into his mouth at once, as if nobody is watching. Castiel is not thinking about what else they’d like to put in that mouth, beginning with their tongue.
Shit. They look up at the flickering light overhead; the ambiance is more candlelit-dinner than they expected. Even Dean’s appalling table manners can’t detract much from how flattering it is to his bone structure, setting it off to magnificent effect—like a lost work by Caravaggio at his thirstiest. John the Baptist, with Locusts and Honey.
Dean nudges Castiel with his shoulder and jiggles the bag of chips at them. He licks an orange smear of seasoning off his bottom lip.
It’s going to be a long six hours.
10:45
The bus reaches the edge of the snowstorm about an hour in. First, the night sky overhead shades into a steely gray; then, flakes small as sugar crystals whirl into existence everywhere at once, glittering like stars in the glare of a bank sign. Thirty seconds later, the air is thick with falling snow, and Crowley is happily cursing a blue streak as he pilots the bus through the ever more slushy streets of…whatever town this is. Castiel can’t say they’ve been paying attention to road signs, not when Dean is right there, and every business they pass is so generic—Chili’s, IHOP, Hardee’s, Kohl’s—really, they could be anywhere on the continent. Except that, again, Dean is right there, and his presence is dizzying.
Crowley didn’t turn off the wi-fi, thank Heaven, and so they’ve been half-watching Wrath of Khan, bent over the same smudged screen; Castiel neglects to mention the tablet in their bag, rationalizing that it’s been running slow lately. Dean has drifted closer as they’ve traveled and talked, so that his thigh is pressed against Castiel’s and their shoulders are holding each other up. And the contact is definitely deliberate—Dean keeps glancing over at them and moving over another centimeter as he bites his lip and looks away. Castiel is seriously considering putting their hand on Dean’s knee, or maybe biting his neck, when Dean nudges them with his elbow and says, “Hey, was the clock on that sign right? Is it quarter to 11 already?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Castiel says, double-checking on their phone. “Do you need to get some sleep?” On the one hand, they’ll miss the company; Dean’s proved a good companion, funny and attentive. On the other, if Dean falls asleep, Castiel can stare at him all they want, and maybe his head will end up on Castiel’s shoulder, or even their lap. Chill, for shit’s sake, Castiel scolds themself, and realizes they’re already staring. But Dean is staring right back. It’s a wonder he saw the clock at all.
“It’s almost midnight in New York, then! The ball drop’s gotta be streaming somewhere, right?”
“Maybe. That’s an hour ahead of us, though.”
“Cas, I’ve been in three time zones in as many days, one more ain’t gonna hurt.” Dean says. “Uh, can I call you Cas?”
“Yeah,” says Castiel, smiling with half of their mouth. “Cassie would be okay, too, unless you’re being an ass about it.”
“I dated a Cassie once,” Dean says. “I liked her a lot.”
“Did you.” They smile wider.
There’s about thirty seconds of silence where it seems very possible that Dean is going to lean over and kiss them—and then Dean swallows and starts talking, rapidly: “I just don’t wanna call you ‘dude’ or ‘man’ again, and I kind of do that a lot, to everybody. And it’s dumb, but I thought if I cut your name down to one syllable I’d be less likely to do that? But only if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Cool,” says Dean. “Cool, cool, cool.”
Castiel holds up their phone. “I think this feed looks good? Do we have to listen to the musical acts, though?”
“Fuck no, keep it muted. Oh dang, and I forgot, my brother gave me something for midnight!” Dean leans across Castiel—God, he smells good, like sweat and deodorant and gasoline—to unzip his duffel and rummage through it. His jacket pulls up over the waistband of his jeans, and Castiel’s eyes are riveted to the spot where the dip of his spine becomes the swell of his ass. “Check it out,” says Dean triumphantly, sitting up and unwrapping a T-shirt from a small glass bottle. “Champagne! Well, prosecco. And it’s not really enough for both of us, but who wants to get hammered on the bus anyway? It’s the principle of the thing, right?”
“Absolutely. Do you want to drink it at midnight midnight or Times Square midnight?”
“We’ll see how we feel?” Dean stows the bottle between his knees—and once Castiel’s attention has been drawn to Dean’s knees, it’s only natural for their gaze to keep going, slowly following the seam of Dean’s jeans up the inside of his thigh and landing between his legs. They look up guiltily, but it’s too late not be caught looking; Dean’s face is flushed, and he bites his lip, then smirks. “See anything you like?” he says.
It’s the first direct acknowledgment of what’s happening here—that Dean hasn’t missed how Castiel can’t look away from him, that retreating to the back of the bus wasn’t just to get away from Crowley’s shameless eavesdropping. “Everything,” says Castiel, letting their voice get low.
Dean’s smirk turns into something more sincere, a hopeful little smile that lights up his whole face. And then he looks away, frowning out the window at the snow, now a blurry white veil between them and the chain establishments of southern Illinois. “Really coming down out there, huh?” he remarks, as if he’s just noticed the weather. “Hope Groundskeeper Willie ain’t lying about being able to drive in it.”
In fact, Crowley’s proved himself an excellent driver; even now, he steers the huge, unwieldy vehicle with the reckless accuracy of a cabbie, and Castiel’s not worried about a crash. “Dean,” they say. “Don’t change the subject.” They reach out before they can think better of it and touch Dean’s cheek, turn his face gently from the window.
“What—what were we talking about?” Dean asks. His eyes are wide and ridiculously green; the whole situation is ridiculous, and Castiel would laugh if they weren’t sure Dean would spook like a stray cat. He’s not moving away from Castiel’s hand on his face, though, not even when they stroke their thumb over his cheekbone.
“I think I was done talking,” they say, and lean in.
Dean jumps backward so hard his skull thuds against the window.
Castiel, left with their hand in midair, says in shock, “What did I do? What just happened?”
“You—ow,” Dean says, gritting his teeth in pain as he pokes at the back of his head. “You were gonna kiss me?”
“Shit, I’m sorry.” Castiel tries to keep disbelief out of their tone—it must be that they misread things, somehow, they shouldn’t act like they have a right to kiss Dean just because he’s been flirting. They start to move a seat over and find themself blocked by Dean’s duffel; maybe they should go sit somewhere else, there’s a whole bus to choose from. “I thought you wanted me to.”
“I do!” Dean protests. “God, Cas, I’m really attracted to you, you have no idea. I just, um. I mostly have experience with women.”
“You’re in luck, then, I’m bigender,” says Cas. “I am a woman, as much as I’m a man.”
“You know what I mean.” Castiel just raises an eyebrow at him, and he fidgets uncomfortably in his seat. “You’ve got a dick,” he mutters.
“Yeah, I do, not that I’m about to whip it out. Is that a problem for you?”
“No. I like, um. I like dick.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Castiel doesn’t add for fuck’s sake, but it’s a near thing. Dean’s as frustrating as he is beautiful.
Dean just looks at them for a long moment. “At midnight,” he says finally. “At real midnight, okay? Will you kiss me then?”
“I’ll kiss you whenever you want me to,” says Castiel. “Why wait, though?”
“Because I met you like an hour ago and we’re on a bus,” Dean says. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable to wait another hour before we hook up.”
Fair enough. They didn’t take Dean for a romantic; it’s undeniably adorable. “You want to be courted.”
Dean bites his lip—he’s probably know all along what effect this had on Castiel. “I guess I do, a little.”
“All right then,” Castiel says. “I guess I’ll try to sweep you off your feet.”
11:58
Dean opens the prosecco at New York midnight—it’s a screw-top, so it’s not a dramatic affair. They pass it back and forth, drifting back into each other’s gravity; Castiel rests their phone hand on Dean’s knee with studied casualness, and Dean licks imaginary droplets from the mouth of the bottle. All too quickly, the wine is gone, and Castiel, head fizzing with anticipation, returns to the pleasant task of seduction.
Frankly, it’s not their strong suit, at least not with any subtlety. They don’t like hinting at things, preferring to just say what’s on their mind; it gets them in trouble on a regular basis, but it’s so much easier to go straight to making out than go through complex social negotiations like romance. Dean asked for romance, though, and surely they can oblige for an hour.
If nothing else, they know how to smolder. So they smolder at Dean, look at him with steady blue eyes that draw him in until Dean’s staring back, trailing off in the middle of a sentence. They smile with half of their mouth, like they know a secret they might be persuaded to tell; they check the back of Dean’s head for bumps with careful fingers, closing their eyes as they touch him, petting the soft hair at the nape of Dean’s neck, once, before they take their hand away.
And they talk, because they know how to do that, too. They ask Dean about the brother he was visiting (“Sam’s going to law school, wants to be a public defender—could swear it was yesterday he wanted to be Batman”). They tell him about the job waiting for them in Chicago (“I teach Latin, Sanskrit, and comparative religion, so I’m lucky to find anything with a living wage”), the studio apartment rented sight unseen. Dean’s funny and full of references, not all of which Castiel understands after a childhood without TV, but they manage to make him laugh in turn, enjoying the way his eyes crinkle up at the corners when he laughs.
At two minutes till the New Year, Dean kisses them.
It’s just a peck, really, a press of Dean’s soft mouth over theirs before he pulls away and says, “Sorry, that was early. I got impatient.”
“Time is arbitrary, anyway,” says Castiel, and kisses him again, for harder and for longer. Dean makes a little noise in the back of his throat and parts his lips, and Castiel’s tongue slips into his warm, wet mouth to curl around Dean’s own; Dean turns in his seat, tucking a knee up under himself and sliding his hand onto Castiel’s ribs.
“Fuck, I wish we weren’t on a bus,” Dean murmurs, as Castiel kisses the side of his face, his jaw.
“And why is that?” Castiel bites Dean’s earlobe, and he moans.
“Cause I want you,” he says. “Wanna do stuff to you.”
“Eloquent.” Castiel bites his neck, and Dean’s hand on them tightens reflexively. “Like what?”
“I don’t know,” says Dean. “Whatever stuff you want, I don’t know what’s comfortable. We didn’t talk about that.”
“Hmm.” Castiel shifts on the seat, puts their leg over Dean’s hip in an awkward half-straddle, and they take the hand on their ribs and settle it on their ass. “I like that,” they say.
Dean squeezes. “Yeah? I like that, too. You’ve got a great ass, Cas.”
“Thanks. Want a handjob?” They reach out and run a finger along the seam of his inner thigh, brushing gently over Dean’s dick where it’s swelling in his jeans.
“Um. Again, if we weren’t on a bus. Call me old-fashioned.”
“People get handjobs on buses all the time, Dean,” they sigh, but they move their hand to Dean’s hip. The warmth from his body threatens to set them ablaze. “Okay, not that, then, but I wanna do stuff to you, too. What do you want?”
From outside, suddenly, they can hear the violent pops of firecrackers, accompanied by the yells of some hardy souls celebrating somewhere out there in the darkness. They’ve missed midnight, it seems—but time is arbitrary, anyway, and Castiel’s got better things to pay attention to at the moment.
“Just…put your hands on me,” says Dean. “And kiss me. Keep kissing me.”
Castiel’s still kissing him when Dean falls asleep.
January 1
2:42 AM
They wake with a start when the bus stops in Chicago, mostly due to Crowley’s singing “Sweet Home Chicago” at the top of his lungs and honking the horn. Their face is jammed into Dean’s collarbone, and both of their hands have found their way under his T-shirt, while Dean’s slumped back against the window, neck crunched at an awkward angle. He’s got both arms around Castiel. “Shit, I guess we’re here,” he says. Castiel sits up and looks at him, rubbing sleep out of their eyes and disentangling their leg from where it’s still wound around Dean’s hip. The muscles have stiffened up as they slept, and their foot’s all pins and needles.
“Hello, Dean,” they say, and he grins and bites his lip.
“Morning, my beauties!” Crowley calls back at them. “Up and at ‘em, the Windy City awaits.” He gets up and stretches luxuriously. Against all odds, there’s still a crease in his trousers. “I see you kept yourself amused in my absence. Got the pipes cleaned out for the New Year, so to speak.”
Castiel sees Dean start to blush and knows he’s about to protest; before he can, they stop him with a hand on his arm. “Don’t, it’s fine,” they say, and then, because it’s late and it’s 2019 and it’s a whole new city, they ask, “Can I see you again?”
“Yeah, for sure,” Dean says. “Next time I’ll have showered, so watch out. I clean up nice.”
The thought of Dean looking better is frankly too much for this hour, so Castiel shuts down that line of thinking immediately and turns instead to the exchange of phone numbers. Dean puts in his last name—Winchester—which makes Castiel feel bad about inputting themself as Hot Queer On Bus and they have to ask for Dean’s phone again.
“Do you need a ride?” Dean asks as he gathers his things.
“Always,” says Castiel.
“Um, noted.” Dean rubs the back of his neck. “But I meant in my car, I’m parked in the garage around the corner.”
“Oh. That would be nice too. Thank you, Dean.”
As the two of them leave the station, Castiel carrying one of Dean’s bags, they’re surprised to see Crowley fall into step with them. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Dean asks irritably. “Like another bus?”
“Oh, I’m not a bus driver,” Crowley says. He resettles the red scarf around his neck and walks off into the night.