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”Alright, so here’s the plan,” Dean said as he pulled into the enormous parking lot, eyes searching for an empty spot, almost impossible on a Sunday. “We go in, get what you already have decided for, three BILLY shelves or whatever, and then straight to check-out. IKEA is a labyrinth of crazy, and if you’re not careful you’ll be stuck with meatballs and kids forever. No ‘I’m just going to look around’ or ‘I’ll just grab one of these as well, one can never have too many candles or napkins or toilet brushes or whatever else cheap shit they have in there’, you with me, Cas?”
“Yes, Dean, I’m fine. In and out, I think I understand the plan. You can wait here you know, I won’t be long,” Castiel answered, looking at his neighbor who was carefully parking his Baby between two Volvo’s.
“Oh no, I won’t have that on my conscience, I drive my new neighbor to IKEA and loose him in there, oh no. I’m coming with you,” Dean replied, half -jokingly, half-serious.
“If you’re sure,” Castiel said, fiddling with the sleeves of his trench coat. It had been less than a week since they first met, the day that Castiel had moved in. It had been less than a week, but Dean had already helped him unpack almost all of his stuff, and cooked him dinner three nights. That had all been nice, it felt comfortable and conversation flowed easily. But this? Going to IKEA, that is something couples do, families with children, newly-weds moving into their picket fence house. Not neighbors that barely even know each other. Castiel had agreed to Dean driving him, it was only logical after all. But walking around and choosing furniture and decorations for his new home? That felt so domestic.
“Hey, frowny face, you coming?” Dean asked through the open car door, snapping Castiel from his thoughts.
“Yes, of course,” Castiel replied and stepped out of the car, closing the door carefully behind him. One of the few things he had already learned about Dean was that the second most important thing in Dean’s life, after his younger brother, was his car. If Castiel was asked to guess, he’d say that pie came in a close third, judging by the obscene noises Dean had made the previous evening, when Castiel had baked him a thank-you-for-the-help-even-if-I’m-weird-and-you-don’t-really-know-me-pecan-pie.
Once inside Castiel walked directly to the large information wall, and not before long he found where he should be looking. He turned to point it out to Dean, who was nowhere to be found. Castiel sighed, they had only walked through the doors. How could he already have lost Dean?
After walking around the entrance a few minutes he gave up and took the escalator to where he knew he could find his much needed bookshelves. As he came up on the new floor he saw a familiar leather jacket talking to a very good-looking, young, woman dressed in a yellow pike-shirt. Castiel’s stomach dropped. Of course, it wasn’t unexpected; Dean was good-looking, young, and flirtatious. He cursed himself internally for allowing himself to hope. He turned around to pretend to look at the apparently very interesting selection of coffee tables IKEA provided, letting Dean get the girl’s number before interrupting. According to his brother, interrupting wasn’t nice, especially not if what you’re interrupting is an attempt to “get a roll in the sack” as his brother so eloquently put it.
“There he is, the man in question!” Castiel heard Dean say, feeling a hand pulling his arm, dragging him along to the girl in the yellow shirt. He smiled slightly at her, before looking nervously at Dean.
“So, what would you say is best for a young man, with a gazillion books? I know he was talking about getting a bunch of BILLY’s, but what do you say?” Dean continued, now talking to the girl, confusion growing. Dean was asking questions about shelves, for him? What?
“It’s not a gazillion books, Dean,” he muttered.
“Well, Cas, not far from it,” Dean replied cheekily, smiling at his neighbor instead of the girl.
“If you would like to look here, in the catalogue, I can show you our different shelves. Of course BILLY is a classic, and it’s cheap but I personally like EXPEDIT because-“ the girl talked on about shelves, but Castiel zoned out, eyes on Dean’s, smile growing on his face. They stood close, listening to the girl, humming when it seemed appropriate, eyes looking at the pages but not really seeing, Castiel’s focus on Dean’s hand so close to his, their arms pressed together, heat radiating through layers upon layers of clothes. Every now and then he felt Dean’s foot against his or Dean’s fingers bump his underneath the table, making it really hard to focus on the employee standing before them.
“Thanks sweetheart, we’ll go look at the ones you talked about,” Dean said, apparently the girl had finished. Castiel hadn’t noticed.
“No problem, hope you two find something nice for your new apartment,” she said and smiled. Castiel looked up and began to protest, but Dean just nodded again in thanks and pulled him away.
“I told her we are a couple and that we just moved in together, to make her stop hitting on me, sorry,” Dean whispered in his ear as they walked away, sneaking an arm around Castiel’s back for appearances, sending chills down Castiel’s spine. He cleared his throat before answering.
“Yeah, uh, no problem,” he said, voice rougher than usually, earning him a glance from Dean. He coughed dismissively, leading the way to the endless rows of shelves ahead of them.
“What’s the deal with these friggin pencils? They’re like, super tiny. Imagine Sam writing with one, he’s like, huge,” Dean mused five shelves later. He looked at Castiel who was frowning again. “Oh right, you two haven’t met, but I swear, when you see him, he’s a giant. I call him Gigantor, or Sasquatch,” he continued.
“I would very much like to meet Sam, from what you have told me, I get the feeling that he and I would get along very well,” Castiel answered while checking the price tag on a walnut shelf, huffing before moving along to something more his price class.
“Yeah, you would, but uh-“ Dean began, looking everywhere but at Castiel.
“But what, Dean?” Castiel said, sliding his hand along the smooth surface of a white BILLY.
“But, I don’t want you to prefer him over me,” Dean said, trying to sound nonchalant, but failing. Castiel turned to look at him.
“I don’t think that’s possible,” he said earnestly, before turning back to his shelf, “Now, Dean, white or birch?”
An hour later found them with a cart loaded with three white BILLY shelves and one blue toilet brush. They were walking towards check-out when something caught Dean’s eye.
“Hey, look, this would look awesome up on the roof, don’t you think?” he said, pointing at a large lantern.
“Yes, sure, but-“
“And here, we could totally get one of these bamboo-thingies, and then one of those plants. And we should see if they have a sofa-thingie, I’m sure the landlord won’t mind, no one’s ever up there anyway. It’s just outside our- your, apartment, so it’s basically ours, and we could-“ Dean went on, pointing, exclaiming, blabbering. Castiel could only laugh, especially when Dean pointed to a large cactus, or green glass stones – “These will be really cool in the lantern, we should find more, in different colors, and more lanterns!” – or when he waved a bunch of candles in Castiel’s face – “Smell them, Cas, they smell like apple pie!”
When Dean almost bounced for the third time, possibly over some outdoor lounge chair or something like that, Castiel leaned forwards, kissing him silent. Dean shut up immediately, hands wrapping around Castiel’s waist, bringing him close.
“Dean,” Castiel whispered when he broke the kiss to breathe, “shut up, will you?” Dean laughed and leaned forwards again, placing a soft kiss on the smaller man’s lips.
“But seriously, Cas, look at this sofa-chair-thing-“ he mumbled through the kisses Castiel continued to pepper his lips with. He finally surrendered and leaned into the touch once more, swiping his tongue along Castiel’s bottom lip, asking for entrance, hips pressing against hips. Castiel gasped and allowed Dean’s tongue to lick into his mouth, drawing a moan from his lips.
“Erhm,” came a voice from behind them and they broke the kiss, still holding onto each other. They turned to look at the source and met the stern look of an older lady, standing with her small grandchild, who looked at them with wide eyes. Castiel blushed and mumbled an excuse, while Dean only giggled.
“Dean,” Castiel said once the lady was gone, “go get that damn sofa-thing and then let’s go home.”
“Sure thing, angel, we have some assembling to do,” Dean said and winked before going to find a flatter version of the damn sofa-thing.