Chapter Text
“Milton! Winchester! Pack your gear and come with me!”
Dean was halfway packed before it occurred to him to even question what he was doing. Growing up John Winchester’s son had made it easy to just obey orders without even thinking, let alone questioning. He’d only been stationed here a few days, though. They shouldn’t be shipping him off anywhere. No reason he couldn’t stay in the barracks like everyone else.
Another advantage of being John Winchester’s son: Dean kept this entirely to himself. When the lieutenant needed him to know what was going on, he’d be told.
Castiel Milton had been here a little over a year. Everyone Dean talked to called him a good soldier, the guy you wanted at your back in the field, but you didn’t want to socialize with him if you didn’t have to. He was a nerd, didn’t like going out drinking, preferred to spend his down time sitting quietly playing chess on his phone. He hadn’t interacted with Castiel much, but it seemed that was about to change.
Castiel hadn’t taken very long to pack, so when Dean was ready, Lieutenant Adler led them off. Dean balked when he realized where they were going. “Sir? You sure about this?”
“Orders from above my head,” the lieutenant said. “Don’t ask me about it.”
“If you say so, sir.” Dean glanced over at Castiel, whose entire body was tense in a way Dean had never seen him. They both followed Adler without another word while he led them to the apartment building reserved for soulmates.
He unlocked apartment 2C and put a key in each of their hands. “Congratulations. You two have the rest of today and tomorrow off to sort this out, but Thursday your butts better be on time for PT and fit to perform, understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Dean said, snapping out a salute.
“That shouldn’t be a problem, sir.” Castiel added his own salute, prompting the response from the lieutenant before he walked off.
Castiel set his bags down inside the apartment and turned to Dean. “My apologies. During my physical yesterday, the doctor noticed that my soulmark had come in, and… well.” He shoved up the sleeve of his jacket to show the ornate script on his arm that very clearly said Winchester. “He must have jumped to conclusions.”
Dean peeled off his jacket and held out his arm. “This might’ve helped with the jump.” His soulmark read Milton. “It showed up when I got my orders transferring me here.”
“Huh. Well, then. This is awkward.”
“I’ll say. Look. Don’t take this personally, but you’re so not my type. I’m straight. Completely straight. This isn’t a closet thing either, I’m just not into dudes that way.”
Castiel raised an eyebrow. “For someone who’s so certain it’s not a closet thing, you’re protesting quite a bit.”
“Well, I just got assigned soulmate quarters with a dude, I’m a little freaked out right now!” Dean walked over to the couch and plopped down. It felt comfortable, a surprise considering the usual comfort level of Army-issue stuff. He’d probably survive sleeping on it. “I take it you’re gay, or bi or pan or whatever?”
“Yes.” Castiel let his face relax back to its usual neutral expression. “You can relax, though, you’re not my type. If you’re not interested either, I’m certainly not going to try to force things. We can go to the lieutenant and tell him there’s been some kind of mistake…”
“Or we can suck it up, let everyone else here think what they wanna think, and have the good accommodations until we get to go home,” Dean said. “There anyone here who is your type?”
“Not now. It may sound odd considering I joined up, but my type tends to not do well in the military.”
“Why’s that?”
“Too smart and too independent. And now, the type is even stricter, since I have a name.”
Smart, independent, and named Winchester, huh? “Sounds like I need to introduce you to my little brother. He’s finishing up his undergrad at Stanford, and then he’s gonna go to law school. Not sure he’s spoken to Dad since he walked out for college.”
“Why not?”
“When Sammy started his last year of high school, Dad had the paperwork all filled out for him to do the same training program I did, and then you enlist right out of school. Sam told him to shove it, he wasn’t joining up. When he showed Dad the full ride he got to Stanford, Dad told him he wasn’t going. Sam walked out and hasn’t spoken to him since.” In the four years since, Dean had never stopped thanking his lucky stars that he’d been on duty in Georgia instead of in Kansas and couldn’t have put himself in the middle of that fight if he’d wanted to. As it was, he’d had to make a difficult choice. John called demanding that Dean pass on any intel he received about his brother’s whereabouts, and Sam called and told Dean that he wanted to stay in contact but was afraid of Dean passing information to John. After searching his soul for the whole thirty seconds it took to search the worthless thing, he’d told Sam that he wouldn’t pass anything on to John. If John didn’t like it, he could think back on all the years he’d told Dean that nothing was more important than taking care of Sammy.
“I see.” Castiel was smiling, something Dean tried to remember ever having seen before. He couldn’t. “Stanford, telling your dad to ‘shove it’, and if he’s your brother I assume his name is Winchester as well. That would indeed seem to fit my type.”
“Next time I call Sammy, I’ll ask him about his soulmark. Haven’t done that yet, hell, he may not even have his yet.” Dean sat up. “What do we do if this turns out not to be a mistake, dude? I can’t believe you’re my soulmate, but the timing and your name and everything, what if you are?”
Castiel sighed and settled into a chair. “Then either we resign ourselves to being with someone we’re not interested in, or we decide that other than taking advantage of the benefits of having a soulmate in the service we’re not going to do anything about it. You’re free to pursue anyone who does interest you, and so am I.” Castiel cast a glance at the door to the bedroom. “What do you want to do about sleeping arrangements? There’s only the one bed.”
“From the time he was six months old until I shipped out for basic, I shared a bed with my little brother the octopus human space heater.” He paused, running that back, but decided to just let it go. “If you’re gonna have a problem sharing the bed with me, I can sleep right here. If not, we can share.”
Castiel tilted his head, squinting at Dean in curiosity. “Are you sure? If I’m the one causing the problem, shouldn’t I be the one…?”
“Look. You’re my brother now. Ain’t much I wouldn’t do for my brother.” Castiel was still making the confused face at him, so Dean rolled his eyes and got to his feet to punch Castiel’s shoulder. “Look, dude. Don’t diss Zeppelin, when it’s your turn to do the grocery shopping don’t forget the pie, if you can’t appreciate my baby then at least fake it well, and if you do turn out to be Sammy’s soulmate, don’t do him wrong. Simple rules. You can manage that, we’re golden.”
The confusion had disappeared, but it came right back. “You have a baby? Where?”
“Not a baby baby. I’m talking about my car.” Dean pulled out his phone and opened the photo album of his gorgeous black Impala. “I make my brother send me a picture once a week to make sure he hasn’t fucked it up.”
Dean and Castiel both took the inevitable ribbing from the rest of their unit with good grace when they returned to duty. Benny was the worst of the teasers, but he also dragged Dean aside when there was a chance. “You okay, man? Your soulmate turning out to be Castiel?”
“Don’t tell the brass, but we think there was a miscommunication, he’s actually my little brother’s soulmate.” Dean sure hoped so. The enforced socialization had given Dean the chance to get past Castiel’s standoffish stoic nature, to see the dry sarcastic wit and genuine love of humanity underneath. Soulmates or not, Sammy was going to love this guy, and the idea of anyone not loving Sammy was just unthinkable.
“So where’s that leave you? You got his name, brother.”
“I have Milton. It’s not Smith, but it’s not some random-ass unique bastardization of a Polish or Slavic name either. I can think of three off the top of my head I went to school with.” He’d asked Castiel, of course. Cas had an older sister, who had a soulmark reading Cassidy, two younger sisters, one who was asexual and the other sixteen, and a female Milton cousin who Castiel said Dean was better off never knowing. None of those sounded promising.