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Eight months later Castiel woke up to a cold bed, something he’d gotten used to after sharing Dean’s bed for just that long (and then some), seeing as Dean’s job at the hospital had him working all kinds of off hours. But Dean was happy, he was finally a paramedic and he seemed to enjoy every single minute, so Castiel didn’t have the heart to complain. Not when Dean made up for the cold mornings with romantic dinners and steamy nights. He rolled over on his stomach to face Dean’s side of the bed, and felt something weird against his stomach, almost a bit rough, but still even and smooth, and then suddenly a sharp edge. Castiel realised that he’d rolled onto an envelope. His heart raced when he saw his name printed neatly in blue ink, surrounded by some intricate pattern. ‘This is it, he’s realised he’s far too good for me, he’s left, I’ve ruined everything, I can’t- I won’t read it’ It was only when he felt tears streaming down his face that he noticed that the intricate pattern around his name was in fact hearts and rings and… ‘doves? Wait, what?’ He turned the envelope over in his hands, as if the new angle could provide some new information. It couldn’t, the back was blank. He let his fingers relish in the texture once more before he opened the letter with shaking hands.
‘Dear Castiel,
My darling,
Cas, I’m sorry for writing a letter, I know they always make you jittery (you’d probably write “nervous” or “anxious” or some other fancy-ass word), but I’m too much of a coward to-‘
Here Castiel felt tears well up again. He sniveled and continued to read.
‘-say this to your face. And your fucking beautiful face is fucking distracting. (Sorry for swearing, I know you don’t like it when I do) Alright, so here goes then: I’ve known you for, what, like almost a year, right? And I’ve loved you since day one, NO DEAN DAMMIT DON’T SAY THAT, THAT’S SO FUCKING STALKER-Y And I guess what I wanted to say was that it’s been a good year. A fucki very good year. Who am I kidding? It’s been the best year of my life Cas, and I owe it all to you. I can’t believe I just quoted Dirty Dancing, but hey, Swayze is Swayze, right? He always gets a pass! Ok, now I’ve derailed again. As you can see I suck at this letter thing, but yeah… Alright, I’ll just man up and spit it out, I guess.’
‘Here it comes, this is it, now he’s breaking my heart,’ Castiel thought and put down the letter. He couldn’t really deal with this right now. He had thought that what they had was perfect. Well, not totally perfect, but as close as it can ever get. What went wrong? Where had he screwed up? He couldn’t help but to sneak a peek of the letter again, and his breath hitched when he saw that single word that turned his world upside down. There, on the middle of the page he saw the word ‘propose’. He continued to read.
‘I’m a giant coward oh I already wrote that nevermind. I love you Castiel, and I really want to propose to you. But I’m such a chicken so I wrote this letter. This is not really a proposal, no wait I mean it is, but not really, it’s like this prologue shit-thingy? I figured that I’ll write you this letter and then wait in the kitchen so when you wake up you’ll expect me to propose when you stumble in here all bed-haired and sleepy and looking like a Greek sex god to make your morning coffee (which you need to not act all grumpy all day long…) SMOOTH DEAN, REAL GOOD COMPLIMENTS YOU GOT GOING THERE. I’M SO FUCKING STUPID, HE’LL NEVER WANT ME. WHY AM I WRITING LIKE THIS? and then I can’t really chicken out, right, because you’ll already know, you know? Because I can’t let you down. Not again.
I guess I should sign this with something cheesy so you know it’s me. What do people even write?
Yours, Dean (nope, I’m not some Austen-chick)
Always, Dean (Charlie will chop my head off if I use Always, apparently that’s a “Snape-word” whatever that means)
Your future husband (hopefully), Dean (Jesus Christ, I should just ask Sam, he knows about this stuff)
I love you
-D
PS. This is like the third letter I wrote, the others were far too fluffy and they’d make Charlie, Jo and probably Sam squeal like seals or something so if you wanted to keep it I thought I’d make it cool. Or you know, not so sappy. DS’
Castiel scrambled to get out of bed, pulled the closest pair of briefs on and the dress shirt Dean had worn the night before. With the letter in a vice like grip he almost ran across the hallway and into the kitchen where he slammed into Dean, who was in the process of making pancakes. Their total body-to-body-slam resulted in flour all over the kitchen, a broken plate and a “holy shit” from Dean.
Dean turned around, holding onto Castiel’s shoulders. He opened his mouth, eyes smiling, but closed it shut when he saw that the man in front of him, now covered head to toe in flour, was crying.
“Hey, hey, Cas, look at me, are you okay? Did you-? I mean, did you find-?” Dean said, sounding more scared than Castiel had ever heard him. He sounded more scared than when he’d found Castiel in the street that one time, all bloody and beaten. More scared than when he told Castiel he loved him for the first time. More scared than when he’d asked Castiel to move in with him. More scared than when he’d told Castiel all about his childhood, his father and his mother, and the Winchester-curse as he liked to call it. But beneath all that, beneath the scared, nervous, stressed tone, he heard something akin to hope.
“Yes, Dean, yes” Castiel finally said, looking up and meeting his boyfriend’s eyes for the first time that morning. He was struck by the hope, nervousness and most of all love, channeled through Dean’s eyes. He knew that people always said that Dean had the greenest eyes mankind had ever seen, green like apples, leaves and so on. But Castiel had always thought that apple green or leaf green were cold green shades. He preferred Dean’s eyes when they looked like this, almost leaning towards brown, similar to an old tree, overgrown by moss and then suddenly one day struck by sunlight and seemingly bursting with the new shades and lights the sun so rarely provided.
Dean leaned towards Castiel, interrupting all thoughts regarding trees, moss and eyes. He rested his forehead on Castiel’s shoulder, as if he couldn’t bear to see the look on Castiel’s face, no matter what would come next.
“Yes, what, Cas? Yes, you are okay? Yes, you found the letter? Yes, you’ll-, you’ll marry me?” Dean’s voice broke on the last word and he held his breath, waiting for an answer. Castiel began giggling so hard that Dean had to lift his head of off Castiel’s shoulder to avoid being knocked right in the eye by a pointy shoulder. “What? What did I do?” Dean asked, not knowing if Castiel’s reaction was positive or negative.
“Yes, I’m okay, yes, I found the letter, and yes, you idiot, of course I’ll marry you!”