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Castiel had no idea how he ended up here.
“Cassie!” Gabriel cheered as he slung his arm around his younger, although taller, brother’s shoulders, squeezing. “You made it, champ. How does it feel to be at a cool Hollywood party?”
“Uh.”
Castiel was famous for words. But he couldn’t even manage a lame one-word reply that would have been a complete lie to a brother who was asking a question that was entirely rhetorical. Gabriel laughed, never one to spare Castiel’s feelings, and let his arm drop, patting his brother on the lapel of his jacket with a big, shit-eating grin that Castiel had known to be afraid of since they were still old enough to need a babysitter.
“You’ll get used to it,” Gabriel assured him, taking a sip of a drink that smelled like fruit and had a paper umbrella leaning out of it. Gabriel was entirely at ease—which didn’t surprise Castiel at all. He still wasn’t entirely sure how his brother had managed to become such a big name in such a big city so quickly and effortlessly, but Gabriel was practically to the point of fame that people tattooed his face onto their ass. Castiel knew. Gabriel had showed him pictures.
Gabriel always had an air for comedy, and for people, and the two together was the spark that lit the flame. Castiel was whatever the exact opposite of a moth was, and he preferred to linger in the shadows, writing under a name that wasn’t his own, and letting Gabriel live in the limelight as he pleased. Castiel was entirely content with his two-bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village in New York City, and he had full intentions to stay there.
Gabriel, though, was having none of that.
“This movie was what you poured your blood, sweat, tears, and other questionable bodily fluids into,” Gabriel had protested when Castiel had informed him on his plans to stay in his peaceful little bubble. “You have to go to the party. People are beginning to wonder if you’re Lemony Snicket and, frankly, I will hear no more of that nonsense.”
“Daniel Handler is a wonderful author,” Castiel had argued weakly.
The next thing he had known, he was boarding a flight at Newark Airport for LAX.
Castiel had wanted to be a writer since he was about ten years old and he wrote a terrible mystery story on loose-leaf notebook paper that he kept in one of his dresser drawers. Gabriel had found the stories a year or so later—Castiel had never asked why his brother was going through his dresser, and he had never been inclined to ask—and had surprised Castiel by supporting his passion. Gabriel had convinced their father, a single dad and lawyer in Boston, to get Castiel a laptop to document his stories on, and their father had indulged him, and Castiel had started typing and hadn’t looked back.
Their father died when Gabriel was fourteen and Castiel was twelve, and their mother took them in fulltime. She was also a lawyer, but she was married with five step-children and lived in Kansas. Gabriel and Castiel had reluctantly packed up and allowed themselves to be shipped from the city to a rural, nothing town.
It was there that Castiel met Dean Winchester, and Castiel had never met passion quite like the charisma in that young man.
Castiel had been drawn to him, and he had hung onto Dean’s every word, practically worshipping him, and it surprised him that it had been reciprocated—Dean admired Castiel’s gift with words, and he was constantly pouring over his new stories and praising him and encouraging him.
Dean Winchester was all of Castiel’s relationship firsts. First kiss. First fuck. First love. First heartbreak.
Their breakup had been after two and a half years of a relationship, and it had been both mutual and amiable. Castiel and Dean had been afraid that their relationship wouldn’t be able to last long-distance, when Castiel returned to Boston to go to college for writing and Dean heading to California to start an acting career with the duo’s other best friend, Jo Harvelle. Their fear had caused them to agree to split, and Castiel, who had only ever agreed to it in the first place because Dean had felt it right, because Dean deserved better, because Dean didn’t need him to hold him down—it broke Castiel. He spent the first year of college in a fog, gliding through the motions, and words hadn’t come easy to him.
And then Dean got a role in a daytime soap opera. The show was truly terrible, but Dean was great, and he caught people’s eyes. Castiel watched from afar, not interfering, as Dean began to soar in popularity, until he was one of the male leads of a popular cult television show, and Jo caught on not long after, a sought-after model and actress with a winning smile and killer legs. (She was also killer in another fashion, but the world needn’t know about her pride-and-joy knife collection, which had more than likely only grown in the years since Castiel had last seen or heard from them.)
Dean and Castiel fell off of each other’s maps. They drifted away, and it was the natural order of things. Castiel watched every single production Dean had ever been in. Castiel wondered if Dean knew his pen name, and if he read or seen his work, as well.
Castiel knew one work Dean would have seen. Not even Jo knew that she had just starred in the provocative blockbuster Castiel had penned. Neither Jo nor Dean had any idea that Castiel Novak was more commonly known as Carver Edlund, and Castiel hadn’t ever intended for either of them to find out.
And yet, there he was.
Castiel had never shown his face at events. He had written novels that had done well, but he still hadn’t gone to a signing, or a panel, or a workshop. Nothing. He had written a dozen movies in Hollywood, and he had gone to none of the premieres or the award ceremonies. Entertainment news outlets joked constantly that Carver Edlund was nothing but a ghost. People speculated that Castiel was anyone between Bradley Cooper to Kevin Spacey to Dean Winchester himself.
Gabriel taunted him over the edge of the precipice with the lure of celebrating the story Castiel had conquered his block with after the split from Dean Winchester, the story he had been working on for years that had been enough to pull him from his slump more passionate than ever, and Castiel had taken the bait. He was proud of the story, of the movie, and he was astounded with how well it has done. Castiel was sick of ducking away from fame, from not being willing to accept that he had people who wanted to meet him outside of his quirky Twitter persona.
Castiel, for the first time, hadn’t been able to resist.
And he realized he was entirely out of his league.
Castiel gaped around at the hotel ballroom where the celebration was being hosted. The venue was outside of the city, overlooking beautiful green landscape of rolling mountainsides not too far from the water, which could be seen through the wall of windows along the back wall of the party. The room was decorated with white walls trimmed with gold, and three chandeliers, the middle one the most breathtaking in grandeur, hung from the ceiling in the same golden plating and filled with prism crystals reflecting the light from every angle. It was breathtaking. It was beautiful. And the room was filled with people.
Castiel started to stop walking, intimidated, but Gabriel’s grip became painful as he jerked his brother forward, making Castiel stumble, but it definitely continued to keep him in motion.
“All will be well, brother of mine,” Gabriel assured him in a purr before glancing around the room. “Anna’s around here somewhere, and Jo should be with her. Ready?”
Castiel started hyperventilating a little. Gabriel waited until Castiel caught his breath and nodded his affirmation before prodding him deeper into the bodies wearing much nicer suits than his and dresses worth as much as Gabriel’s Aston Martin. Castiel nervously straightened his tie, which naturally only fucked it up more, as Gabriel kept his eyes out for his girlfriend, who happened to also be the executive producer for the film. Castiel managed to take a deep breath and relax right before the redhead appeared in front of him wearing a beautiful midnight blue gown that trailed tight all the way to the floor. There was even a leg slit. Castiel could practically see Gabriel start salivating.
“You came,” Anna breathed in relief, smiling at Castiel, before Gabriel stepped up on his toes a little higher—Anna and him typically the same height, but now she was wearing heels—and she broke off her greeting to offer her boyfriend a bright smile, taking his hand. “I was worried that you would duck out.”
“He would have slipped out of the hotel window if it would have been any lower than the fifth story,” Gabriel informed her, rolling his eyes. “Good call on the thirty-seventh floor.”
“It was for your own good,” Anna told him gravely before taking a sip of her wine.
Castiel tugged impatiently at his tie again before glancing around the room nervously. “Quite the turnout.”
“The movie’s done amazing,” she informed him unnecessarily. “That, and it’s early, so no one’s really ducked out yet.”
Castiel swallowed heavily.
“It’ll be fine, little brother,” Gabriel told him for not the first time, smirking, but there was a glimmer of reassurance in his eyes, and Castiel would have been thankful if he didn’t feel like he was at the bottom of a landslide. “No one here is your enemy.”
Castiel made a doubtful noise, and Gabriel and Anna couldn’t help but to laugh.
Castiel had written a lot of vitriolic articles in regards to some actors and actresses in Hollywood in respectable reporting tabloids, and Castiel wouldn’t be surprised if some of them still held a grudge. He didn’t take it back—all the words he said were true—but not everyone valued the knowledge of their truths over their lies.
Hearing that Carver Edlund was in public and in the room was an inevitable gossip frenzy, and Castiel was willing to cling to his anonymity for as long as it would have him.
Which was, apparently, not too long a time at all.
“Anna,” a familiar voice said from behind him, and Castiel froze, straightening, feeling like he had been electrocuted as a blonde appeared next to him, smirking. “You’ll never guess who just vomited in the bushes.”
“As long as it wasn’t del Toro,” Anna said, “it could be Robert de Niro and I wouldn’t give a fuck.”
Jo Harvelle rolled her eyes but said, “Chuck Shurley, actually.”
Anna and Gabriel burst into laughter, while Castiel continued to turn a new shade of red and green that probably had never existed on any color wheel. Chuck was Castiel’s publicist and necessary stand-in for occasions. He was also weak for the drink and tended to cause more bad publicity than his client, but Castiel didn’t mind, and Chuck was the best at hiding it, so the world continued to spin. Many people believed Chuck was actually Carver Edlund, but it was the same crowd that also believed he was Matthew Broderick, so Castiel had learned not to take many of the public’s guesswork of his true identity as gospel.
Castiel was dealing with his secondhand embarrassment when Jo turned to glance at him, and then she did an honest-to-god double take before she turned to face him. Castiel smiled sheepishly as her brown eyes went wide, and she opened her mouth a few times to ask the understandable What the hell are you doing here? but she couldn’t seem to let the words fly.
So Castiel said, “Hello again, Jo.”
“Cas, holy shit,” Jo gasped, finding her words, and they were about as fancy as Jo Harvelle was when she didn’t have to smile for the camera. “What are you doing here?”
“I wrote it,” Castiel replied lamely.
Jo looked like her eyes were about to pop out of her head when she nearly screeched, “The movie?”
Castiel nodded. Jo stared at him for another long moment before she blinked.
“You’re Carver Edlund?” Jo asked, but it didn’t sound too much like a question. It would, in any case, be rhetorical, so Castiel didn’t bother to respond. “Oh. Wow. Okay. I need a drink.”
Anna finished off her wine glass like she was afraid Jo would swipe the drink straight from her hand. And, even if Castiel hadn’t known Jo since high school, she had been prone to doing that even then, and he wouldn’t put it past her.
“Uh,” Jo said. “Your publicist is puking in the bushes.”
“He does that,” Castiel told her lamely, managing to smile, and Jo surprised him by laughing at his terrible joke, and she seemed sincere. “How have you been?”
“Oh, good,” she said, and then shrugged, still seeming blown away. “The usual. With more cameras. And bigger paychecks. Oh, and my makeup smudges less, since I buy the expensive stuff, so that’s pretty fucking cool.”
Castiel nodded, grinning despite himself.
Jo, as always, looked stunning. She was wearing a dark red dress that hugged her curves, an A-line that trailed to the floor, a ruffle cutting through it like a princess’s dress, and the skirt flared out around her feet. Jo had once told Castiel that, if she became famous, she would wear dresses that dragged on the floor so she would be able to take off her heels and no one would know, and Castiel didn’t doubt that she was practicing that promise even know.
“I would ask how you’re doing,” Jo told him slowly, “but I’m a huge fan and I stalk your Twitter, and I just starred in your movie, so my guess is you’re doing better than me.”
“Better is an argument,” Castiel said, “but thanks nonetheless.”
Gabriel had been eyeing the two of them for their entire exchange, but Gabriel had never been known to show much restraint, so Castiel wasn’t surprised when his brother threw himself head-first into the conversation and threw his arm around Castiel again, squeezing him tightly around the waist with the same grin.
“Yes, the family is very proud,” Gabriel teased. Castiel opened his mouth to point out that he hasn’t spoken to their mother in a year and a half before realizing that Gabriel was trying to change the subject, and Castiel wasn’t about to talk about their broken home, so he closed his mouth so fast that his teeth nearly shattered on impact. Jo just kept on smiling, seeming to be simply so overjoyed that her grin at Castiel could have lit up the world.
“You told me that your brother was a struggling artist in Brooklyn,” Jo scolded Gabriel, narrowing her eyes. Gabriel smiled devilishly.
“I might have exaggerated,” Gabriel admitted.
“I live in Greenwich Village,” Castiel corrected to anyone who cared enough to listen.
Anna just sighed and walked away to get more wine. Gabriel paused for a moment before sighing and following behind her, muttering under his breath about a ball and chain, and it was enough to make both Castiel and Jo laugh.
Castiel expected it would be awkward. He thought he would meet Jo’s eye from across the room, she would be surprised, and then they would spend the rest of the night ignoring each other. It turned out, Castiel only guessed the surprise, and even that hadn’t been as dramatic as he had thought it would be and hoped it wouldn’t be. He was almost relieved.
Seeing Jo was the only reason he hadn’t wanted to join tonight. But now that he was here, and everything was easy, Castiel wondered why he had ever been so nervous at all.
“So you have emerged from your hermit lifestyle in the Big Apple,” Jo teased, punching him in the arm hard, and Castiel winced. “Somehow, I’m not surprised about the Edlund thing. I always knew you were a damn good writer—I just didn’t know you were going to use a fake name.”
Castiel nodded. Jo looked at him expectantly, and smiled in amusement when he didn’t get the hint.
“Where did you come up with the name Carver Edlund?” she asked, tilting her head curiously, still smiling.
“I don’t know,” Castiel lied to her, thinking about a boy with freckles that used to use rock aliases, shrugging. “Sounded good.”
“Right,” she said, obviously not believing him for a second, and Castiel wondered if she knew more than she let on, due to her friendship with Gabriel and Anna, who, of course, knew. Castiel felt himself turning red, but he offered no other explanation.
“You did amazing in the movie,” Castiel said, exhausting his small talk.
“Thanks,” Jo told him, flushing. “I wanted to do a movie that meant something, you know? I guess this movie meant even more than I thought it did.”
She gave him a long, steady, knowing stare. Castiel was good with staring, and actually tended to accidentally stare at a lot of passerby to the point that he freaked them out, but there was something about her gaze that made him start fidgeting, reaching awkwardly for his tie again, which still laid crooked and untidy.
“Sorry,” he said.
“For what?” she demanded, and then shrugged, but she looked sad, and that was what Castiel guessed he felt sorry about. “It was amazingly written and imagined. You don’t have to apologize for the past.”
Castiel felt like he did, though. Castiel’s movie would push the name Carver Edlund into a bigger name in the hallowed Hollywood halls, but it was more than that. This film would change Jo’s image to something more mature, but that wasn’t it, either. The film nearly shattered land-speed records for its earnings and would probably win awards when the season rolls around. But it wasn’t about that, and now Jo was among the short list of people that knew that this movie, almost ten years in the making, meant something more than dollar signs or names in lights.
This was a story about a gay character that must leave behind a lover for their futures and learns how to live again as they learn to let go. It wasn’t a story about love, but about real life, the thrumming pulse of humanity that shapes people, creates them into their own mold of being. The story didn’t matter that they were gay, but at once it was so important—the fear of societal rejection, of course, was a theme, but it wasn’t the only theme. There was love and loss and love again at the hands of another, and learning to come out of a secure cocoon and conquer the world for its up and downs.
The genders might have been switched to female, but the parts were so blatantly played by Castiel Novak and Dean Winchester that he was almost surprised Jo hadn’t suspected something sooner.
It had been a story years in the making, a story that could only be written in time, and it would undoubtedly go down in history as one of Carver Edlund’s bests.
Castiel had thought his wounds were closed until he watched it on the big screen. And now he had wanted to laugh, because the ending turned out to be nothing like he expected.
Staring at Jo, feeling like he was in a time machine back when everything made sense, was like coming to terms with his doubt in himself. The story hadn’t been about moving on—it was about believing that it would happen someday. Castiel hadn’t realized the moral of his own goddamn movie until he had seen the way Jo and her co-star, Charlie Bradbury, had played it on the screen.
Jo had always known him best, second to Dean. She could read between his own lines better than Castiel ever could and, in this case, Castiel was almost thankful.
And, yet, he wasn’t.
How Far We’ve Come. He had named the movie after his and Dean’s song. Castiel had been so careful not to paint Dean’s gender-bent character in the wrong light, always justifying her actions, because they were all understandable. They were heartbreaking but logical, and that’s what made it real.
Castiel had come here tonight searching for something real.
He hadn’t quite expected this.
“I hate that we fell apart,” Jo confessed to Castiel suddenly, shrinking before his very eyes, and Castiel had barely ever seen Jo Harvelle anything other than confident and outgoing so he couldn’t help but to stare in surprise. “When we left, I wished I could have—I don’t know. I wish that our friendship ended differently. I missed you for a while. We both did.”
“Don’t,” Castiel whispered, so she didn’t.
“I just don’t want to leave again feeling like I’ve left you behind.”
“Then don’t,” Castiel said, and it was that simple.
She nodded resolutely, her face oddly serious, before a grin spread out over her face. She reached up and straightened his jacket, seeming to also think that his tie was a lost cause because she didn’t bother touching it, before she grabbed his wrist and tugged him, telling him, “I’m gonna go introduce you to some famous people.”
Jo laughed at his obvious distress before tugging him forward, and Castiel followed behind her the same way he had always followed behind her and Dean—wholeheartedly, and foolishly brave.
~*~
“We’re two hours late,” Sam growled, “because you wanted a burger.”
“Worth it,” Dean informed his brother, taking one hand off the wheel to pat his belly. “Haven’t been able to eat real food in weeks. I don’t know how you eat that rabbit food shit all the time.”
“It’s healthy for you, Dean.”
“Healthy, but not delicious.”
Sam sighed, but didn’t bother arguing.
A very pregnant but just as regal Sarah popped her head in between the brothers from the backseat, her eyebrows up. “Do you think they’ll have cake?”
“You could probably order cake, even if they don’t have it,” Sam informed her, shrugging. “It’s a hotel.”
“I want a whole cake, though,” Sarah informed her husband. “Chocolate. No—chocolate fudge.”
“Apple pie,” Dean began to fantasize, practically groaning in pleasure. “We should stop for some of that. Get the planet some cake, and get the millionaire some pie.”
“No,” Sam snapped, narrowing his eyes at both of them as they turned to give him wistful glances. “No. Stop it. We are almost there, and we are two hours late.”
“Fashionably late,” Sarah said innocently. Dean nodded in agreement to his sister-in-law.
“I really hate this family sometimes,” Sam announced to no one in particular, hooking his head to pout out the Impala’s window. Sarah rolled her eyes, used to her husband being more hormonal and theatric than her, and Dean just smirked at her reaction, flipping on his turn signal and breaking off of the winding road and pulling up to the hotel.
“You’d think, in this line of work, beautiful places would be kind of run-of-the-mill,” Sarah murmured, looking at the building with heart eyes, the cinematographer nearly having eye-sex with her new inevitable future set location, “but it’s really not.”
Dean couldn’t help but to agree as he parked next to a brand new Maserati and hopped out, pocketing his keys and looking up at the lodge-like five-star hotel the reception was being held at for Jo’s new movie. It looked like something that should belong in the thick of Beverly Hills, not in the middle of nowhere off of the scenic route.
Sam helped Sarah out of the low car, the eight-months-pregnant woman grimacing as she straightened up. She hung onto Sam’s suit jacket as she tried to stretch her back, reaching her other hand to touch her swollen stomach.
“Ugh,” she said. “Twins. Fucking bane of my existence.”
Sam rolled his eyes but ducked down to kiss her on the forehead. Sarah smiled up at him and started moving first, pushing Dean in front of them, stating that his pretty face wouldn’t need to show an invitation, and Dean didn’t stop laughing until he was ushered into the building and realized she was righter than his dominant hand.
“I can’t wait to tease them about how weird it was to watch my two best friends make out on screen,” Dean gleefully told his brother and sister-in-law for at least the hundredth time that night, grinning. “Surreal, dude. Fucking surreal.”
“You’re so stupid, Dean,” Sam took the time to tell him fondly as Sarah pushed open the door to the ballroom, and then suddenly there was loud music, practically deafening, and Sarah, Sam, and Dean found themselves standing on a half-floor landing that gave them a stunning view of the room below.
A gut-churning familiar song was blaring around the room, and the regal guests were all parted away from the middle, the only place absent of tables and chairs, and it had seemed to be made into some kind of makeshift dance floor.
Dean wasn’t surprised when he saw his two best friends in question dancing like mad women in the middle of said clearing. But he did suddenly feel like he was going to violently vomit when he saw the only other person dancing with them.
Dean felt like he was dropped in ice water as he watched Castiel Novak laugh around the song’s words, the movie’s title, words Dean felt like coincidence was taunting him with as the words Let’s see how far we’ve come echoed around the walls as Castiel, Charlie, and Jo jumped, pumping their fists in the air, carefree and falling over their laughter, and nothing felt like it made sense and Dean was pretty sure he needed a bucket, or at least an umbrella, as his entire world fell apart around him.
Sam saw it, too. He gaped at the dance floor the same as Dean, his mouth hanging open in cartoonish shock as Dean began to feel like he was burning alive.
The song lulled just long enough for Dean to hear Sarah say, “Sam, that’s Carver Edlund!”
Dean realized it was never coincidence.
Son of a bitch, Dean thought to himself, horrified.
And then Castiel looked up and saw him, and the whole situation went from bad to worse.
~*~
“You can’t hide in the bathroom all night,” Gabriel pointed out from the outside of the stall.
“Watch me,” Castiel snapped back, his hands still shaking. “Why didn’t you tell me he was coming?”
“I didn’t know. Neither did Anna. Jo had an idea, but she didn’t know for sure, and they were so late that she figured he wasn’t going to bother, so she didn’t tell you. She’s really sorry, by the way.”
Castiel didn’t doubt it. Jo’s face had been anything but sinisterly pleased when she saw Castiel see Dean and Dean see Castiel. Poor Jo had looked like she was seconds away from keeling over.
And then Dean had sprinted out of the room.
Granted, Castiel had only lasted another two minutes in which he located his brother and only managed to hyperventilate on him before he took off running, too, and that’s how they found themselves here—Castiel locked in a spacy stall in the men’s room off of the lobby, trying to breathe through his panic, trying not to think how much beautiful Dean was in person than he was on screen.
Gabriel rapped his knuckles against the door again, but less in a Let me in sort of way and more of a I hope you’re still alive in there way.
Castiel made a sound between a whimper and choking on water. Gabriel seemed to feel that sufficient enough.
“Wasn’t this entire movie about how over it you are?”
“I was wrong,” Castiel groaned. “So, so wrong. I want to disappear.”
Gabriel sighed heavily, like gosh is he overdramatic. “Just take some deep breaths and come back to the land of the living, bucko. I get that it was a shock, but you’re a grown-up.”
“Am not,” Castiel whined, and then started hyperventilating again.
“If you don’t come out, I’m sending Anna in.”
Castiel considered his options. Anna would at least pity him, so she had that going for her.
Castiel could practically hear Gabriel roll his eyes before his brother said, “Fucking drama queen,” and then the door swung shut behind him as he stormed out, probably with a flourish.
Castiel waited until he was sure he was alone to let out a pathetic groan.
Of all people that could have walked into that movie’s party, to that song playing, to see Castiel making a fool of himself, of course it had to be Dean Winchester.
Castiel wondered if this was a karma thing. Should he have donated to more charities? Adopted a three-legged cat from the shelter? Joined the Peace Corps?
No matter what Castiel may have done in his superstitious karma way of thinking, it wouldn’t change the fact that, just minutes ago, Castiel had seen the man he had loved and has loved for fifteen years walk through the door, looking more gorgeous than ever, and, eventually, he was going to have to deal with a repercussions of that.
But, for now, hyperventilating in the bathroom felt like enough.
~*~
“Dean, you can’t hide in the women’s bathroom,” Sam thundered, horrified.
“Cas is in the men’s,” Dean replied through the stall door, burying his head in his hands. “Sammy, what the hell am I going to do?”
“Other than talk to him like an adult?”
“The fucking movie, Sam,” Dean continued to moan and groan, still feeling like he was going to be sick. He already had the toilet on standby in case he lost his delicious dinner, so at least the bathroom part of it was working out. Better than running outside to the car and trying to ditch his brother and prego sister-in-law in the middle of unfamiliar territory. By the time Dean had turned around very illegally and made it back to the hotel, Castiel was already having a panic attack in the men’s room, so Dean had no choice but to take his own panic attack to the women’s, and it definitely wasn’t a proud moment in his life.
Sam sighed. “Yeah, I know.”
“It’s about us,” Dean stated the obvious, feeling seasick. “How could I have missed that? The only difference was the lesbians. He fucking tricked me with lesbians.”
Sam paused like he was going to point out how ridiculously idiotic that reasoning was before he instead asked, “You doing okay?”
Dean let out a pathetic groan. Dean couldn’t see his brother, but he would bet his left nut that Sam was torn between laughing and wanting to talk about Dean’s feeling in-depth and in Dolby Digital surround sound.
Dean didn’t know what the hell he had done to deserve this torment, but he would definitely be stabbing that bitch fate in the face if she ever manifested herself to him, because that was uncalled for.
“Are you coming out?”
“No.”
“Dean,” Sarah growled. “I have to pee, and I am not in the mood for your preteen hysterics.”
“Where the hell did you come from?”
“My mother’s vagina,” Sarah answered elegantly. “Now get the fuck out.”
He got the fuck out.
“You seriously do need to talk to him,” Sam told him from outside of the women’s restroom.
“What the hell do I say?” Dean demanded, throwing his hands up. “‘Hey, Cas, I see your new movie is about our past love life—want to talk about it?’”
“Well,” Sam said, “yes.”
“It’s named after our song, Sam.”
“You obviously have questions.”
“Damn right I do.”
“Why don’t you ask them?”
Dean paused. “Can’t you do it?”
Sam had given Dean some spectacularly bitchy glares over the years, but none of them were as glorious as the one he presented Dean with in that moment.
What Dean didn’t say out loud was how, even if he had thought that the space and the separation would tear Cas and him apart, when they were eighteen years old with nothing to lose but each other, Dean still hadn’t wanted to let go. Jo had been the only witness to his tears as they had driven away from Lawrence, his hands shaking on the wheel of the Impala, all of his thoughts considering turning around and throwing himself to the ground in front of Cas as he begged for him to take him back, but he hadn’t. Dean had kept going. And, the second he and Jo managed to find a cheap motel outside of LA to stay in while they got jobs, Dean had wished he had turned back.
He got the role on the soap opera, and then he got a few movie roles, and then the television show. And every single moment Dean had wondered what would have changed if he had just tried to convince Castiel to come with them.
He had wondered for years what would have happened if Dean had stayed.
Dean didn’t sleep for days when he pictured what could have happened if he had tried to be long-distance with Cas.
Because here he was, ten years later, running into him for the first time, and Dean loved him as much as he loved him the first day he fell head over heels for him, and Dean held onto this feeling even if he didn’t want to, wanting to cherish it and never forget it, because Dean had seen Cas again and he had thought he never would.
It was so bittersweet. He had been so scared, so horrified. But, now, all he wanted was to talk to Cas, one more time, just to know that Cas didn’t feel the same, so Dean could have a hope of moving on.
He knew he didn’t have a chance, but Dean Winchester had always been a professional at “fake it ’til you make it”.
And he was good enough of an actor that he could probably at least mask his terror.
Sam seemed to sense that Dean was caving to his suggestions because Dean’s little brother suddenly straightened up and looked at him sternly, right in the eye, and he made sure Dean was paying attention before moving his hands up to Dean’s shoulders, and pushing him backwards as hard as he dared.
Dean stumbled back one step before looking up and shooting his younger brother an indignant look before straightening up, brushing his hands down his front to smooth out his exterior from just-had-a-panic-attack to something more I’m-an-adult-in-a-suit-handling-things-like-an-adult.
Dean turned and, as manly as could be, strode confidently toward the men’s room.
It was already pretty occupied.
“Castiel Novak!” Jo’s friend, Anna, was screeching, banging her fist on one of the stall doors, Gabriel Novak—older but looking just as much like a walking bag of dicks—hovering a few feet behind her, watching the exchange carefully. “Act your age! One of your movies won a fucking Oscar, and you’re pouting in a bathroom!”
“Let me have this,” Cas snapped back, sounding terrorized.
Gabriel spotted Dean, and his eyebrows went up.
“Sure thing, little bro,” Gabriel interrupted, grabbing Anna’s waist and urging her to glance to the right, where she spotted Dean standing in the doorway, feeling like he was standing in a spotlight on a theatre stage holding his dick in his hand. Her eyes widened and she nodded in response, allowing Gabriel to pull her from the bathroom, and Dean watched as they carefully closed the door behind them, Gabriel grinning like a poor man who just won the lottery. Dean blinked for a moment, confused, before he realized there was a partial door in between him and Castiel Novak, the closest they had been in ten years, and he kinda wanted to vomit again.
After a moment of silence, Cas sighed from behind the door, a relaxed sound.
So Dean took that moment to say, “Uh, hey, Cas.”
Silence. And then:
“Fuck. Hello, Dean. Remind me to murder my brother, okay?”
“Sure. Uh, can we . . . talk?”
Cas paused before he said, “I just realized how weird this is.”
“It’s fine.”
“I’ll meet you outside.”
“Outside the bathroom or outside the hotel?”
“Hotel.”
“Okay.
“Alright.”
Dean headed to the door, and then hesitated before he turned back around and said, “Don’t run, Cas.”
Cas took a deep breath that Dean could hear even through the stall door before he whispered, softly, like he was burning alive, “Okay.”
Dean couldn’t help but to think, as he was walking away, that that conversation hadn’t even been the strangest he’d had with Cas, and the thought was oddly reassuring.
~*~
Castiel kind of wanted to just punch himself in the face by the time he mustered the courage to emerge from first the bathroom, and then the hotel lobby, to where Dean was standing, leaning against the wall, a cigarette in between his teeth. Castiel watched him reach up for the cigarette and blow out a puff of smoke, and he hated to think that it was hotter than anything Marlon Brando had done, but Castiel was gay and not blind, and Dean Winchester could probably make Marlon spontaneously combust just by smiling at him.
Castiel was only slightly biased.
Time did wonders for Dean. Whereas Castiel had developed into a man who distinctly resembled a rotting potato, Dean had somehow managed to evolve into god-like brilliance. Castiel could write sonnets about the man in front of him, and it still wouldn’t do him justice. And Castiel was a bestselling author with a master’s degree in classical literature.
Dean spotted Castiel, and let the cigarette drop before snuffing it out with the heel of his shoe.
Castiel was oddly transfixed with the movement, enough that he didn’t even have the time to be thoroughly terrified when Dean moved to stand in front of him, his hands in his pockets as he kicked at the ground nervously, rocking back and forth on his heels. Castiel looked at Dean and thought he was seeing a little boy about to get told off by his mother for running in the hotel halls.
“Hey, Cas,” Dean said, his voice like velvet.
“Hello, Dean,” Castiel greeted, his voice like rotten potato.
“It’s good to see you,” Dean told him, still doing an awkward shuffle that would have been enough to make Castiel start to panic if he wasn’t already halfway to a heart attack already. “I, uh—I guess it’s really been a while, huh?”
“Yeah,” Castiel said, and then had to clear his throat a little bit, startled by the emotion creeping up from his chest, trying to suffocate him. “Definitely—a while. I—you’re doing alright?”
“I’m good, yeah,” Dean said with the same confidence he used to use when he assured Castiel that John Winchester wouldn’t be mad about him staying out late, and Castiel knew immediately to look for the spark of unease in Dean’s eyes, a tell. “B-list celebrity, I guess, and that’s better than I really expected, so that’s cool. Sam’s a lawyer now. He’s married. Gonna have twins soon.”
“With Sarah Blake?” Castiel asked, remembering seeing a tall man with Dean on the balcony, and the familiar figure of a pregnant Sarah Blake standing with him. Sarah was one of the few people in the business that Castiel had met through Anna and Gabriel, and he liked her for her vision and her elegance. He had been pleased she wanted to work on his new movie. Now that he saw how small of a world it really was, even in Hollywood, Castiel kind of wished that she had changed her last name in her marriage, so that Castiel could have been at least warned.
This was all his luck, though, so he couldn’t necessarily be surprised.
Dean was nodding confirmation that Castiel didn’t necessarily need, but he didn’t tell the man that, too busy looking at him and thinking how impossible it was that Dean was more attractive in real life as he was on the screen. Some things were just entirely unfair.
They were both so carefully avoiding the subject that it practically felt like they were walking barefoot on shards of glass. Castiel almost felt like he should shift his weight, just to see if the bottom of his feet would be sliced open.
“I’m sorry,” Castiel suddenly blurted, shifting his weight, but he did not bleed, so he kept going. “I—the movie—I didn’t really—I’ve been waiting years to talk to you and now I don’t know what to say.”
“That makes two of us,” Dean laughed weakly, and then suddenly cleared his throat, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. “Let’s not talk about that right now, okay? How about we just go inside, pretend like nothing is weird, drink a lot, and catch up? I—yeah, it’s been a while.”
Castiel paused.
He wanted to say no. His fight-or-flight instinct, which had been on red alert from the moment his eyes locked with Dean’s over the crowd, urged him to cut his losses and run for the hills. Hell, Castiel would have run back to his New York apartment if he could. But, for all that he kept trying to urge himself to run, he just found himself shifting closer—one foot sliding unperceptively across the ground, an arm shifting, leaning his weight to his right ever so slightly, coming closer into Dean’s personal space so slowly and selfishly that, if they stayed there for another ten minutes, they would probably find their skin pressed against each other’s, their arms flush. Castiel would pretend not to notice, and Dean would pretend not to care, and the rest of the world would revolve around the sun but Castiel would still have that horrible ache in his chest.
Or, it wouldn’t go like that at all.
Castiel was tired of running. He was tired of turning around and sinking back into the shadows the moments something happened that he didn’t necessarily like. He looked at Dean Winchester, one of the hotel lights shining behind the man and lighting him with a heavenly glow, and Castiel felt an anchor falling deep in his gut, chaining him there. Castiel had run so far, had hid so long, and now he was seeing the light and he didn’t want to fall into the temptation of the dark and lonely again.
Dean was offering the olive branch of friendship. They didn’t know if it would last, and they didn’t know if it would hurt, but maybe it was worth the risk. Maybe Castiel owed himself this one—he wrote a story about how far they have come, so perhaps he should take a step back and look at it all with someone willing to stand beside him.
Castiel took a deep breath and looked at Dean, seeing the hope the other man obviously believed Castiel wouldn’t be able to see, but Castiel had always known Dean the best, even when they had been the best of friends, and he couldn’t help but to smile and to let his heart fill too much of the space in his chest, and Castiel wouldn’t stop himself from feeling happy when Dean’s relief pervaded into the air, seeping into his skin, beckoning him into starting it all over.
“I would like that,” Castiel said, barely able to hide his smile.
Dean nodded, his lips twitching as he tried not to smile too, both of them struggling to remain casual old friends when they knew so much more, but that was okay. That was the way life worked. It was an ebb and a flow, and sometimes it was a flood, and other times it was a draught. Castiel was tired of carefully treading water. He was ready to take a swim in a hurricane.
What better natural disaster to pull him under then Dean Winchester?
“Alright,” Dean said, and he gestured grandly toward the door, bowing slightly. “Milady?”
Castiel responded only with a raised middle finger, and Dean’s laughter echoed up to the stars.
~*~
Needless to say, it surprised no one when Castiel Novak and Dean Winchester were found locked in an embrace of lips and tongues and wandering hands outside of the hotel an hour and twenty-two minutes later, a safe distance away from the bushes Chuck Shurley had been dry-heaving in. They were found by Gabriel Novak who, upon seeing the two, merely rolled his eyes and scoffed, “Idiots.”
People have to write their own past, and their own present—and, that night, Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak wrote their future together in the stars, whispering promises in the dark with soft hands and eager mouths, and it was enough of a beautiful promise to last them a lifetime.