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Cas squinted down at the piece of paper in front of him, his forehead wrinkled in concentration. He read over the line he’d just written, and then drew a neat line through the last word, hovering his pen over the page whilst he tried to think of a replacement. He glanced at the clock; he’d been working on this for most of the day so far, and had only managed to grind out two pages. It should flow easily, he thought distractedly, after all this time – but somehow, when he tried to write it all down, it just wouldn’t come out right. And it was important, incredibly important, that it did come out right: for one thing, this was the only present that Cas had got Dean for his birthday this year. And for another, if he did it wrong, if he said too much or too little, if he wrote too blandly or too melodramatically, Dean would probably scoff at the whole thing. He was probably going to do that anyway, Cas thought to himself. He was probably going to throw it in the trash and never talk about it again. Maybe he’d even go as far as throwing Cas out of the bunker, because it would be too awkward to live with him after reading it. Maybe…
Cas sighed frustratedly and scrubbed out the whole of the last line he’d just written. He began the sentence anew, but after a few words, the pen he was using ran out of ink, and he was left scratching indents into the paper to no avail. With a roll of his eyes, Cas got up and went in search of another pen. This was the second time it had happened; maybe Dean’s gift was going to be an embarrassment, but at least it would be a multi-coloured one.
As he crossed back over to the table in the kitchen with a new pen in his hand, Cas paused by the oven. He could smell the sweet, sugary, fruity scent of a pie that was almost ready to eat. He checked the clock again: four in the afternoon. He’d timed it perfectly; the arrival of the pie would coincide perfectly with the time that Dean normally decided to snack. Cas took a deep, steadying breath. He wanted so badly for this birthday afternoon to be perfect for Dean. Maybe that way, he might take Cas’ letter to him a little more seriously.
Looking at the letter, sitting limply on the kitchen counter, Cas grimaced. He moved back over to it, his eyes scanning the pages he’d written. It sounded a little stilted, even to his ears, but it would have to do. He’d said everything that he’d meant to say. He held the new pen over the paper for a moment, and then wrote, ‘yours sincerely, Castiel’. He narrowed his eyes, and then scratched out the last four letters of his name. There, he thought. Done.
He ignored the way his own hands were shaking slightly as he folded the letter in half, moving over to the oven again. He set the pages down beside the oven and peered in through the door; the pie looked just about perfect. He would just have time to run to the garage and pick a couple of tapes out of the Impala, so that Dean could have his favourite music playing over the speakers that Sam had managed to rig up a few weeks before. His favourite pie, his favourite music… Cas had tried to think of a way to make the day more perfect for Dean, and come up empty. He thought he might suggest that he, Dean, and Sam might all work on their cars later, though. Dean always liked teaching him and Sam about how engines work, and he’d also promised to help Cas give his car a new paintjob.
Standing up, Cas padded out of the kitchen and made for the garage. He passed Sam in the corridor, who grinned at him.
“How’s the you-know-what?” he said, with quick glance over his shoulder to make sure that Dean wasn’t within earshot.
“It’s almost ready,” Cas said, smiling in return and trying to ignore the butterflies that had been fluttering in his stomach ever since he’d started writing the letter to Dean that morning. “I was just going to go to the car and get some of Dean’s tapes.”
Sam rolled his eyes but nodded, stepping out of Cas’ way and heading for his own room.
“Call me when you’re ready to go!” he said, and Cas jerked his head in a quick, nervous nod. He walked to the bunker, feeling a strange sense of unreality. In as little as ten minutes, he’d be handing over the letter to Dean.
In the garage, he walked over to the Impala. On the way, he passed his own car, which had a neat square on the trunk painted vivid green. Cas reached out a hand to touch the paint: it was still wet. Dean must have done this not too long ago, Cas thought; glancing around, he caught sight of the aerosols of paint in the colour that he’d chosen up on a shelf to one side, next to a random assortment of wrenches, rags and oil cans. He smiled, genuinely this time, remembering Dean’s face when he’d picked out the bright emerald colour as his favourite. It looked good, Cas thought, casting a final admiring glance at the square of green on the trunk, now marred slightly by his fingerprints.
He moved over to the Impala and opened the driver’s door, sitting down behind the wheel and reaching around under the seat for Dean’s box of tapes. He came up empty-handed, so he started to poke around the rest of the car, leaning over and looking under the passenger seat – was that the box, right at the back? He leaned over further, his weight on the handbrake. He shifted, straining, his fingers just brushing the corner of the box – and then beneath him, he felt something move, crunching slightly.
For a moment, Cas’ heart stopped. If he’d broken the Impala somehow, this would probably be the worse day of Dean’s life –
But when he sat up, he saw that all he’d done was move the handbrake a little. With a little sigh of relief, he leaned back over, stretching as far as he could, finally managing to grab the box of tapes and putting it in his lap. He rooted around inside it, looking for the ones that he knew were Dean’s favourites. He was so immersed in the task that for several seconds he completely failed to register that the walls of the garage were moving slowly past the window. With the brakes released, the Impala was rolling forward, not too fast at first but gathering a little momentum on the gentle slope of the garage floor.
Cas looked up, and saw the sturdy metal garage door approaching, silently and at a fair pace.
For a moment he sat stunned and unmoving, his eyes wide, watching it get closer. Then, in a flurry, he dropped the four tapes he was holding and groped down next to him, searching frantically for the handbrake, his hand slipping, finally grabbing it and tugging hard.
The Impala came to a sharp halt.
Cas swallowed and put the box of tapes down on the passenger seat, getting out to make sure that he hadn’t even scraped the car, that there were no marks on the paintwork. He peered round at the front grill, but there was a good foot between the car and the door. Cas let out a shaky breath and reached out to pat the hood – only remembering as he did so that he was using the same hand that he’d touched the wet paint with, which meant that…
Wincing, reluctant to see what he’d done, Cas lifted his hand off the car. In the middle of the hood, like emerald islands in a sea of black, were a pair of bright green fingerprints, slightly smudged. Cas stared at them in horror for a moment before dashing across the garage, heading for the shelf where the aerosols and other paraphernalia were kept; without bothering to be careful, he began rooting through the shelf’s contents, reaching up above his head, barely able to see what he was doing. He tossed aside an empty oil can, a very light can of emerald paint, and then pushed aside what looked like a green carton; it wobbled, wavered, and then fell on Cas’ head. With a gasp, Cas felt a cold, wet, thick liquid splash over his hair and down the back of his neck; reaching up, he ran his hand through his hair, and it came away green.
He stared disbelievingly at his fingers for a few moments before shaking his head, spraying a fine green splatter of paint drops over his general vicinity, and continuing to root along the shelf, finally coming up with a dry, clean rag. He hurried back over the Impala and rubbed at the fingerprints on the hood, careful not to drip any of the paint in his hair on the car. He could feel it making slow, glutinous progress down his back, sliding between his shoulder blades; once he’d buffed the Impala’s hood back to its sleek, untainted shine, Cas used the rag to mop at the back of his neck, getting off as much of the paint as he could reach. There wasn’t much that he could do about his hair, although he supposed that Dean wouldn’t mind much – he’d probably find it quite funny, Cas thought, especially since nothing bad had happened to his Baby, and he’d be full of pie –
Cas felt his insides freeze. The pie.
He began to run. It had been at least ten minutes since he left the kitchen, maybe even fifteen, and he’d turned the oven up very high to cook the pie nice and quickly; he’d forgotten to put it in earlier as he’d struggled with the wording of his letter. He raced down the corridors. Maybe it wouldn’t be burnt, maybe it’d be golden brown and sizzling and delicious…
Cas burst into the kitchen. Barely stopping long enough to register the strong scent of burning pastry and the muggy, smoky quality to the air, he ran over to the oven and threw open the door.
Inside the oven, the pie had caught fire.
Cas gave a kind of muted, high-pitched yelp that he would have been embarrassed to have uttered in less stressful circumstances. He grabbed the oven mitts and pulled them on, reaching into the oven and grabbing the pie, which had little yellow flames licking around the edge. Even through the mitts, he could feel the heat coming off the pie; he hurried to put it down on the counter, and stared at it for a few seconds. It was burned beyond repair, even though the flames had sputtered and gone out now. Cas could still feel the heat in his hands; in fact, strangely, it seemed to be getting worse, rather than better –
With another little cry, Cas looked down and saw that his oven mitts had caught fire, and the flames were licking lovingly through the material, burning through to his hands. He shook them off frantically, dropping them on the opposite side of the oven to the pie, watching them smoulder and smoke, the little blaze eating up the soft mitts, and also the sheets of paper that were underneath them…
For the third time, Cas gasped in horror. He reached out, trying to grab the papers, hissing when the heat of the flames brushed over his hands but keeping on going, finally managing to get hold of a corner and pull. The pages came free, and Cas ran over to the sink, turning on the tap and thrusting the flaming pages under the stream of water before he’d thought it through. The flames were immediately doused, and Cas turned off the tap, staring down at the sodden, singed pages in his hands. The ink was all smudged, apart from the bit that he’d written with the last pen, which had managed to survive the water; all of the top half was blackened and furled over. Cas ran his fingers over the fragile leaves, and a few curls of cindered paper fell into the sink.
“Cas?”
Cas turned round to see Sam framed in the doorway, looking around the kitchen with wide eyes, taking in the burnt pie, the still-smoking oven mitts, the blackened pages in Cas’ hands and the slightly distraught expression on his face.
“What… happened?”
“I…” Cas didn’t know where to begin explaining. “I just – I left the pie for too long, and then – and I didn’t even get the music. This is a total disaster. It was supposed to be a perfect day for Dean –” Cas broke off, biting down on his lip and looking at the burnt paper that he was holding.
“Hey, look, it’ll be OK,” Sam said, moving across the kitchen and clapping Cas on the shoulder. “Cas, we can fix this. Look, the only thing that’s missing is the pie, right?”
“And – and this,” Cas said, his grip tightening on the pages. “His present.”
“Oh. Well, Dean never cared all that much about presents anyway,” Sam said with a little smile, his eyebrows raised so that he looked relaxed and reassuring. “The most important thing is that you’re here, not if you got him something.” Cas nodded mutely, his throat a little too tight to speak. “And as for the pie… we have some cake, I think, so we’ll eat that instead.”
“No,” Cas said, his head snapping up. “No, not cake. Cake is not an adequate replacement for pie. I will go and buy another pie, so that we can all eat pie, and Dean will be happy.”
“Right,” Sam said, a little crease between his eyebrows. “But Cas, you know, you don’t have to…”
But Cas was already on his way out the door, heading for the garage once more.
“Dean’s birthday can still be perfect,” he said to Sam in a bright, determined voice, and left. As he walked out the door, he thought he heard Sam call after him,
“And how did you get paint in your hair?”
Inside his car, Cas ignored the sensation of growing panic. He pulled out onto the road and began to drive, making for the nearest grocery store. He turned on the radio, trying to drown out his nerves with the clashing, metallic sounds of the music that they played on the station which Dean had tuned into last time he’d been in the car. He could still get the pie, and the music. As for the letter, well… perhaps it simply wasn’t meant to be? What if this was some kind of sign that he wasn’t supposed to let Dean read the contents of that letter?
As someone who was aware of and mostly disliked the majority of the major deities and their minions, Cas didn’t usually go in for signs and omens. In this case, however, he felt more uncertain – and therefore, more suggestible – then he’d ever done before. He felt as though he suddenly understood the human fascination with searching for patterns, trying to rationalise chaos into a set of instructions; after all, there was nothing he’d like more right now than a clear, understandable sign of what he was supposed to do. Should he write the letter out again? Or do it another time? Or never?
He parked the car and headed into the grocery store, making for the section where he knew they usually kept the pie. He took a deep breath, trying to still his nerves, which were still a little raw after nearly scraping the Impala and almost setting fire to his hands. He walked down the aisle, looking along the neat rows of baked goods, searching for the pie. There was a great deal of cake – chocolate, lemon, even dutch apple – and some tarts, and then cookies, and then…
And then there was a wide expanse of empty shelf.
Cas stared at the space where the pie should have been, noticing with a kind of detached despair that the entirety of his plans had gone awry. He honestly didn’t know why he’d expected any different – things usually went very badly when he attempted to plan ahead – but he’d really thought that this time, at least, he’d be able to pull it off. For a wild moment, he considered threatening the man behind the till, as he’d done once before; the urge faded as soon as he remembered that the strategy had not worked at all, and he didn’t want to get banned from the store.
He’d just have to go on to the next grocery store, that was all. There was one not too far from here. Cas left the store, walking purposefully back towards his car, ignoring the spots of rain that were beginning to fall. He’d make it back in time for dinner, at least, and they could eat the pie for dessert. Maybe whilst he was at the grocery store, he could get something especially delicious for the main meal, too.
He slipped back into the driver’s seat and pulled away. The rain worsened as he headed out of town, falling harder and harder, splattering down onto the windshield and the roof of the car and making it sound as though there were several very excited tap dancers jumping around above him. Cas squinted through the sheets of falling water, his wipers doing little to help his vision. He braked a little, and felt the car give a strange, unexpected lurch. Cas eyed the steering wheel warily, slowing down even further. The car coughed and lurched again, and just as Cas began to feel truly alarmed, the engine died completely.
Cas coasted to a stop at the side of the road. He tried to fire up the ignition again; the engine gave a soft, burbling grumble, and then relapsed into total silence. The next time he tried, there was no response at all.
Cas leaned forward, and pressed his forehead to the top of the steering wheel. He closed his eyes, and for a moment, simply listened to the sound of the rain.
He was a complete failure. He’d set out to create the perfect birthday treat for Dean, and he’d ended up making a complete mess of everything. The pie was burned, the Impala had barely avoided being scratched, and now Cas was stuck out here in a rainstorm, his hair matted with green paint, his right index finger aching where it had been burned, his gift to Dean utterly ruined. Cas had everything sorted; this morning had been filled with visions of Dean’s face, uplifted and amazed that Cas had managed to make pie, and choose good music – happy and content, that they were all together and safe… Dean would have loved today, if only Cas had managed to get it right, if he only hadn’t burned the pie…
After a few moments, the image of Dean’s beaming, bright-eyed face was too much. Cas’ head snapped up. He threw open the door of the car, slammed it closed behind him and locked it. If he couldn’t drive to get Dean pie, then he’d just have to walk. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t endured worse, for far worse reasons. He’d walk and get the pie, and then he’d walk home. They’d all sit around the kitchen table together, eating pie at midnight and laughing.
Cas set off, feeling the rain starting to melt through the dried paint in his hair, sending green rivulets running down his face and into his eyes. He swiped furiously at his forehead and kept on walking. It wasn’t too far, Cas kept telling himself. Not far now. Just another step, and then another, and then another… his muscles were starting to ache. Living in the bunker had softened his body.
He’d been walking for half an hour, the rain continuing to beat down as though determined to press his body into the ground, when his cell beeped. Cas started, having fallen into an almost trance-like rhythm of one foot in front of the other; continuing to walk, he pulled his mobile out of his pocket, cradling it close to his chest to shelter it from the rain. (1) New Message: Dean Winchester, read the display. Cas swallowed hard, and opened it.
Cas where the hell are u? it read. Sam said you went out ages ago. AWOL on my birthday is not cool! u ok? get ur ass back here now!
Cas stopped walking, pushing a distracted hand through his sopping hair and accidentally spraying his mobile’s screen with green droplets of water. He looked up at the road ahead of him, which was shrouded in mist and rain; he was barely able to see a few feet in any direction. He grimaced, and then looked down, and hit call.
Dean picked up on the first ring.
“Cas? Are you OK?”
“Yes, Dean, I’m fine. I –”
“Where the hell are you? What’s that sound?”
“It’s the rain,” said Cas, a little helplessly, starting to shiver now that he’d stopped walking.
“The rai- wait, are you outside? In this weather?”
“Yes,” said Cas miserably.
“What the hell are you doing, Cas? Sam said you took the car –”
“The car broke down,” Cas said, clutching his cell tighter; his fingers were becoming slippery with the rain.
“The car broke down,” Dean repeated disbelievingly. “And, what – you thought you wouldn’t call me, you’d just walk home?”
“I thought I’d walk to the grocery store,” Cas said, his teeth chattering, “and then I’d walk home.”
“The grocery store,” Dean said, his voice becoming more and more calm as the conversation went on, which Cas took as a bad sign. “You’re walking to the grocery store. In the pouring rain. Mind telling me what’s so important?”
Cas gritted his teeth; he’d been hoping that he wouldn’t have to explain this part.
“Cas?”
“Pie,” Cas said. “I was getting pie.”
There was a long, long silence. Cas wasn’t sure if he could hear Dean breathing, or if it was just static on the line as the storm worsened.
“I’m coming to get you,” Dean said, eventually. “Stay where you are, I’ll find you by the GPS on your phone.”
“I’m right outside town,” Cas said.
“Got it. See you,” Dean said, and hung up.
Cas felt stupid, standing in the rain and waiting for Dean to arrive, so he started to walk back towards his car. His feet were squelching in his shoes, and the coldness was starting to sink into the very core of his bones. Once or twice, he sneezed.
When he heard the distinctive roar of the Impala, Cas stopped walking. He watched the car loom up out of the rain, the shape so familiar to him now, stirring the same spark of warmth in his heart that he always felt when he saw it. The spark soon died, however, when Dean screeched to a halt and flung open his door, stepping out into the rain and marching up to Cas, looking furious.
“Dean…” Cas began, but Dean shook his head angrily.
“Don’t you do that,” he said. “You can take that sad look off your face, I’m not feeling sorry for you right now. Even if it does look like you got attacked by a team of professional paintballers, what the hell happened to your face?” Cas reached up a hand to touch his cheek, and his fingertips came away streaked in green. Dean had already shaken his head again, as though brushing off the unimportant detail. “What were you thinking, man? You could’ve got sick, or you could’ve been run over in this weather, you can’t see two feet beyond your hood…”
“I had to get pie,” Cas said, through clenched teeth.
“No, see, because I know why you want pie,” Dean said, “and I’m not worth you getting run over, Cas! My dumb birthday isn’t worth you walking miles and miles in the pouring rain, probably getting hypothermia and pneumonia and a bunch of other ia’s –”
“It is to me,” Cas said mulishly.
“Well…” Dean looked momentarily stumped. He shook himself. “Well, that’s ridiculous. You should’ve just stayed in and spent the afternoon with me. I would’ve preferred that to this mess.”
“I wanted you to have a perfect birthday!” Cas snapped. “I got you a pie but then I burnt it, and I wanted to play your favourite music but then I nearly dented the car, and I also set fire to the oven mitts and your present –”
“What?” Dean looked completely astonished; Sam had obviously not shared the details of Cas’ kitchen mishap. Cas felt a sudden flare of warmth for Sam. “You nearly dented Baby? You burned my present? … what was it?”
“I – it was – it was –” Cas said, trying desperately to figure out a way to deflect Dean’s curiosity. “I nearly drove the Impala into the door!”
“She’s fine, though,” Dean said, undeterred. “What was my present?”
“It… it was – it was –” said Cas, feeling vaguely as though he was being closed in. “It was a letter.”
“A letter? Saying what?” Dean demanded.
“Nothing,” Cas said, a little more defensively than he’d intended, feeling spots of pink rising in his cheeks.
“Yeah, OK, sure, you wrote me a letter full of nothing,” Dean snorted, taking a step nearer Cas. His hair was now sopping wet, too; Cas wondered briefly why they were having this conversation out here, in the rain, but Dean definitely wasn’t in the mood to wait until they were home and dry. “What was in it?”
“It was nothing. It was ridiculous.”
“I want to know anyway,” Dean said. “It’s my birthday present!”
“I didn’t give it to you yet. That means it’s not yours, it’s still mine,” Cas said stubbornly. Dean folded his arms.
“That’s not the rule. It’s my birthday present, so it’s mine. You gotta tell me!” he said.
Cas shrugged, and opened his mouth, and then closed it again.
After a beat of silence, he muttered,
“I can’t say it all out loud. That’s why I wrote it down in a letter.”
Dean’s expression softened a little. He came even closer, so that Cas could see the individual water droplets running down his face.
“Hey, c’mon,” he said gruffly. “It’s just you ‘n’ me out here. You can say anything to me, you know that.”
“I –” Cas said, looking up into Dean’s eyes for a moment and regretting it; they were full of the demanding curiosity that Cas found mostly irresistible. “Alright, I – I’ll try.”
Dean nodded, unfolding his arms and letting them hang loosely down by his sides, water dripping from the tips of his fingers. His jeans looked soaked.
“I – I started off by saying thank you for letting me live with you and Sam,” Cas began hesitantly.
Dean shrugged.
“You’re family,” he grunted.
“It means a great deal to hear you say that,” Cas said, choosing his words carefully. “Being a part of your family is an honour that I never expected would be mine. I know that we have been through a lot of bad things together, some of them my fault, and I still have trouble believing that you’ve forgiven me and accepted me.”
Dean grimaced a little.
“We’ve all done some bad stuff,” he said. “Stuff we’d rather everyone forgot. So we forgive, and we forget.”
Cas nodded.
“I want you to know that your policy of forgiveness is reciprocated entirely. Anything that you’ve done against me, anything at all – I accept that it was necessary, and I forgive you. Completely.”
Dean’s shoulders seemed to sag, as though he’d just dropped a weight that he’d been carrying.
“Cas –”
“It wasn’t your fault that circumstances have been cruel,” Cas went on, wanting very much for Dean to believe this. “It wasn’t your fault that I messed everything up. It wasn’t your fault that I died. It wasn’t your fault, Dean. If anyone is to blame, it is, of course, me.”
“But I forgive you,” Dean said, his words tripping over themselves slightly, and Cas’ mouth twitched, whether with a smile or with sorrow, he wasn’t sure himself.
“And that means the world to me, Dean,” he said. “The fact that you forgive me means everything, because…” Cas swallowed, but pressed on, somehow finding it much easier to talk out loud than he had found writing all of this down. “… because you are very important to me.”
Dean stood silently, the rain falling all around him, his eyes searching Cas’ face.
“You’re important to me too,” he said, almost too softly for Cas to hear him over the noise of the rain. Cas inclined his head.
“That also means a great deal,” he said gravely. “But I am not sure that we are speaking of the same kind of importance.”
Dean’s gaze sharpened even further, becoming almost painfully intense, more so than Cas had ever seen before. He didn’t speak, but simply waited for Cas to go on, droplets of rain dripping down his face. Cas felt the moment swirling around him, felt the words rising up inside him like a tide, unstoppable, undeniable, as inevitable as they had always been, ever since the first time that Cas had laid eyes on Dean.
“I’m in love with you,” he said, his voice a little hoarse with the pressure. Something in Dean’s face shifted; he suddenly looked incredibly young, and a little frightened, and somehow achingly bright with an emotion that Cas couldn’t pinpoint.
“You’re…” he said roughly, wonderingly.
“In love with you, yes,” Cas said. “I am sorry if this causes you any – discomfort, or perhaps uneasiness. I assure you that it need not be a problem. I am in full control of my feelings…”
“How?” Dean interrupted unexpectedly.
“How?” Cas repeated, not understanding the question. The rain was hammering down on his head harder than ever.
“How are you in control of your feelings? How do you do that?” Dean asked.
“I…” Cas trailed off, staring into Dean’s eyes, trying to understand.
“I mean, if – if you’re, uh. If you’re in love with me,” Cas watched the redness rise up Dean’s cheeks as he said these words, and felt himself blushing in sympathy. “If you’re in love with me, then how do you control it? How do you stop yourself from staring all the time, when you think I’m not looking?”
“I don’t,” Cas admitted, frowning, still not sure what was happening.
“And – and how do you stop yourself from wanting to just, just grab me and shout all the things that you’re thinking? How do you stop yourself from wanting to be with me all the time?”
“I don’t,” Cas said, softly.
“And… how do you stop yourself from doing everything you can to make life easy for me? How do you stop yourself from always wanting everything to be perfect for me?”
“I don’t,” said Cas again, even more quietly.
“And when we’re alone,” Dean said, taking a step forward, “how do you stop yourself from walking up to me and just – just grabbing me, and holding on, and…” his voice faded away, and he looked down at the rain-lashed ground.
“I don’t know,” Cas said, barely a whisper above the rain. Dean looked up again, right into his eyes.
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t stop yourself. Cas, don’t.”
There was a moment when they stared at each other, completely still, and then, as though a switch had been flipped, they moved as one – crashing into each other like waves, throwing their arms around each other and spraying out raindrops in sparkling lines, clinging on to each other. Cas had his face buried in the soft leather of Dean’s jacket, and he could feel the warmth of Dean’s cheek against the side of his head. He tightened his arms, and felt Dean’s hands fist in the back of his coat in response.
“I’ve been holding back – and not telling you – and – God, Cas, I’ve been so – all I wanted to do was this, I just wanted this,” Dean was muttering, broken and rough, thick with feeling.
“We can do this,” Cas was murmuring in reply, not picking his words but letting them rise up out of him in a tide, a warm wave that went deeper than any rain-soaked cold could reach. “We can do this now. We can always do this.”
“I love you,” Dean croaked, and Cas pulled back, so that he could look into Dean’s eyes. Dean gave a little hiccupping laugh and brushed the side of Cas’ face with his hand, rubbing off a little of the green paint.
“I love you, too,” Cas said, just in case Dean hadn’t believed him the first time. Dean’s thumb was strong on his cheek. He was so close, his breath warm over Cas’ lips. Cas wanted so badly to lean forwards just a little more, angle his head a touch –
“How do you stop yourself from wanting to kiss me?” he said, his voice low and gravelly. He saw Dean’s Adam’s apple move as he swallowed.
“I don’t,” Dean said. He looked into Cas’ eyes for a moment, and then leaned forwards, and kissed him.
The kiss was wet with rain, but the feeling of Dean’s warm lips against his own was the best thing that Cas had ever experienced in his life. He tilted his head, pressed forwards, pushed his lips a little more firmly against Dean’s, loving their softness, the sweetness in the way that Dean kissed – when Dean stroked his cheek lightly with his thumb, Cas felt a shiver go all the way down his spine. Dean pulled away, looking at Cas with eyes that were brighter and happier than Cas had seen them before.
“You’re freakin’ freezing,” Dean said gruffly, trying his best not to smile and failing completely. “It’s like kissing a goddamn ice pop. C’mon, let’s get you home.”
When they were sitting together at home, completely enveloped in a soft, warm mountain of blankets and with Sam serving them both cake with a kind of contented exasperation, Cas looked over at Dean and said softly,
“I’m sorry that your birthday wasn’t perfect, Dean.”
Dean looked at him as though he was mad.
“What are you talking about?” he said, as Sam flicked on the stereo and the first strains of a Led Zeppelin song began to play. “This is the most perfect birthday I’ve ever had.”