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Cas knew this was a terrible plan from the start, but Anna was the evil twin and always manipulated situations to get exactly what she wants, and that’s how Castiel somehow ends up standing in the middle of a raging Halloween party of drunken Greek life dressed up as a character from a show he’s never watched. He nervously tugged at the fake ear points Anna had glued onto him, glancing around the room to possibly spot his red-haired sister. But she was gone, off in the land of red cups and keg stands, and Castiel suddenly felt like a lost freshman again.
He was a junior, though, at this giant school, so he knew a thing or two about the hierarchy. He knew that his school happened to rank in the top ten party school list in the United States, and he knew without needing to be told that there was an unbelievably unnecessary number of sororities and fraternities sprinkled at the edge of campus in million-dollar mansions. Despite his Gamma Phi Beta sister, he had somehow managed to navigate getting involved in anything remotely social and alcoholic until this point. He supposed that it could have been worse.
But this was still not his idea of a great time.
There were a hundred of other things he could be doing instead, including but not limited to the plan he had made, which involved warm pajamas, fluffy socks, and watching Halloweentown with a pint of Chunky Monkey.
His sister had shown up at his door in full costume at about eight o’clock. She must have been able to Evil Sister Sense that he was about to put the movie in.
“You need to come to this party with me,” she told him, but he had been too busy staring at her in horror.
“What are you wearing?” he demanded, cold. “Are you—Anna, you are not wearing pants.”
“Good job, genius,” she snorted, elbowing her way into the apartment. “It’s a dress, Castiel. I’m sure you’ve heard of them.”
The dress in question barely touched the middle of her thighs. Their mother had died when they were one, but Castiel was pretty sure he could hear her screaming in horror from beyond the grave.
As if Anna could hear it too, she just snorted, shoving a plastic package into his arms. “It’s from Star Trek, okay? Uhura? Whatever, never mind, I’ll explain in the car—go change into this. Kappa Alpha is having a party like you wouldn’t believe tonight, and we’re going. No buts.”
Castiel had stared at her for a second, torn between which subject to broach first—her shirt-dress or the fact that she was expecting him to socialize—before he decided just to declare, “I am not letting you go out in public looking at that.”
Anna raised one eyebrow through her smoky makeup and grinned. “Then you’ll have to come with me, because I’m not staying in.”
And damned if Anna, for not the first of the last time, got her way exactly.
Not to mention that he still didn’t understand why his costume was so funny. The whole entire drive to the frat house, Anna laughed every time she so much as glanced at him. He assumed it had to do with the ears. There wasn’t much hilarity in a blue shirt with a strange symbol on the breast and black jeans.
Anna, for everything, at least managed to stay at his side for ten minutes, which is longer than the average amount of time that she can stay still. But, when those ten minutes were up, she was bouncing off to parts unknown, greeting people cheerily by name and disappearing into the hallways she seemed to know way too well, and Castiel didn’t know where else to go, so he just stood awkwardly along the wall and hoped that he would be able to escape with his and his sister’s lives.
It was another thirty minutes of huddling in the corner, very alarmed and unsatisfied with the subpar music, when a student around his age appeared in front of him, smirking like he’d just found exactly what he had misplaced.
Castiel took a quick cursory glance around him. Nothing struck out at him. It took another moment before Castiel realized that the thing this guy was staring at was him.
“Ah,” the guy said, his voice almost lost in the music, “so you’re the guy.”
“What?” Castiel replied. The other guy didn’t seem to hear him, or didn’t care.
“I’ve had eight people at this party come up to me and ask me if we’re a couple,” he told Castiel, still smirking, and Castiel glanced down at the man to realize he was wearing a shirt just like his, only in yellow. The guy looked on the verge of laughter. “Figured I would have to find you to see for myself.”
“I don’t understand this reference,” Castiel told him honestly, frowning. “Does my costume cause the assumption that our popular culture characters would be a couple?”
The man in yellow blinked. And then he burst out laughing.
He was even more gorgeous when he smiled.
Castiel would be lying to his own bisexual pride if he didn’t admit that he was looking, and that he couldn’t help but to feel a little attracted to what he could see. The man before him was about his height with golden tanned skin and bright green eyes. He had freckles that caught against the party lights on the bridge of his nose, dusting his cheekbones, and he had a body that could only belong to an athlete. Of course Castiel noticed.
It was hard not to notice when the human embodiment of the sun walked into the middle of a murky, cloudy, gray nothing of Castiel’s life, leading comets and stars behind him. Castiel could have stared at the man all day and never been bored (and, despite what Anna said, he never stared to be creepy—Castiel just liked observing, and observation tended to morph into stares).
The man laughed with his whole body, but now he was straightening up, grinning. Castiel still didn’t understand what was so funny.
“You have no idea what you’re wearing, do you?” the man asked, amused.
Castiel shook his head, thankful for his escape plan. “I’m here with—Uhura? My sister.”
Understanding passed across the man’s face. “Anna?”
“You know her?”
“Sure,” he said. “She’s got eyes for my nerdy little brother. Questionable taste, mind you.”
“You’re Sam Winchester’s brother?” Castiel replied, startled.
The guy’s eyebrows went up, but he still nodded and smiled. “Small world, huh?”
“Uh,” Castiel replied.
He wasn’t quite sure how to tell this man—Dean, his name was Dean—that Anna had been trying to convince Castiel to go on a date with him for months. She’d been texting him, time and time again sporadically for weeks, that they would get along, that she could see them making each other happy, that he really needed to give relationships a shot, that not everything would end the way it ended with Meg with an explosion of hatred and tears and broken hearts and Castiel’s bloodied knuckles as he punched a wall again and again until his fingers broke—
Castiel had told his sister more than once that he didn’t know if he was ready to start dating again. He probably should have known from the moment she showed up on his doorstep that she would have more of an ulterior motive than going to a party alone.
Maybe one day, Castiel would be smarter than his sister. Today was not that day.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Dean demanded sometime around when Castiel’s cheeks started to burn read with his absolute inability to socialize without making a complete ass of himself, and because he was finally seeing the strings of his sister’s mutated plan.
It was so clever but oh, was it evil.
“You see what they’re trying to do here, right?” Castiel announced over a remix of Spooky Scary Skeletons. “Our siblings are trying to set us up. They created an elaborate rouse just to get you to come find me, or vice versa. I don’t know whether I should be upset or impressed.”
Dean stared at Castiel for a moment, and then repeated, “Trying to set us up?”
Castiel nodded. Dean just kept looking at him.
After a moment, even Castiel was starting to hypocritically feel uneasy with the lack of blinking, and he demanded, “What?”
Dean looked embarrassed. He reached up and rubbed his hand against the back of his neck, his eyes finally flickering away and glancing around the room. His shoulders caved, obviously losing confidence, and Castiel was sure he wouldn’t answer until he did, managing to mumble through the music, “Sam’s, uh, being trying to set me up with you for months now, but I didn’t know who you were, so I wasn’t sure about it.”
Castiel couldn’t help it—he laughed. “Anna has been as well,” he admitted, smiling timidly, and Dean’s gaze snapped back to him in surprise. Castiel shrugged because he felt like he needed to do something with his body language other than existentially troubled flounder standing too close to wall. “I just had an ugly breakup in the spring, and wasn’t sure if I was ready to date.”
“Are you sure yet?” Dean asked almost as if before he could think about it, because he bit his lips after the words were out like he was trying too late to stop himself. Castiel felt his blush deepen.
This morning, he would have immediately said no and pushed anyone away who tried. He would have shied away from even the mention of a companion, because he thought that he poisoned everything that he touched, and he didn’t want to ruin anyone. Castiel walked around feeling like he was a ticking time bomb of depression and anxiety and daddy issues, and who the hell deserved to have to deal with all of that? The practical answer was no. Castiel was not ready to do anything other than push all other people away, because that was so much safer, and it was so much easier.
And yet, he had almost forgotten what it felt like to feel warm like he did when he was talking to Dean, his skin like a live wire and his brain on high alert, ready to make sure that he said something intelligent and not as embarrassing as the time he told Daphne from seventh grade that his father once had to call the fire department because Castiel had scaled a tree and found himself at the top, too terrified to get down.
Castiel was twenty, and always alone, and Dean Winchester was giving him a look that made his heart bleed, all truthful and kind and hopeful. He was waiting for Castiel’s answer as if Castiel was holding his heart in his hands. So Castiel hesitated. He didn’t know whether to listen to his brain, or his gut.
It had been his brain that had told him that he would be with Meg forever. And look at him now.
So he said, calmly, “I think I’m ready to take that chance.”
Dean smiled like the sun breaking through a set of rainclouds, like flowers blooming after a storm, like—like Dean Winchester. “Awesome,” Dean said, laughing a little as if in relief, before he nodded in the direction of the door. “Want to go to someplace quieter? Get a coffee, or a beer? There’s an all-night Denny’s on campus.”
“I would love to,” Castiel responded, “but only if you tell me what costume I’m wearing.”
Dean laughed before reaching out and taking his wrist, gently tugging him along as he started to pass through the crowd. Castiel zeroed in on the feel of Dean’s skin on his, wondering if Dean would kiss him when the night ended but not wanting to get his hopes up, looking back up when they reached the door because he felt Dean’s eyes on him. Dean met his gaze and smiled.
“Ready, Mr. Spock?” he asked.
“Is that who I am?” Castiel replied, looking down at his shirt, still mystified, and Dean just laughed and tugged him again, his fingers slipping down his wrist to entwine with Castiel’s loosely, testing the waters, and Castiel couldn’t help but to think that he was ready to jump right back in. So he followed Dean out of the house, and he did.