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They were between smaller cases and doing research to prevent the end of the world, again, while staring down a great big dead end when it came to ideas on what to do next. Cas was off somewhere in South America looking for a relic Sam had found a vague mention of in one of the books in the archives. The angel hadn’t been home in a week. Before that he’d been gone nearly a month straight. Dean missed him so much he was almost ready to admit it out loud in front of other people.
“What’s the matter now?” Sam asked from across the library table. His hair was a mess. Nearly as messy as the pile of books, scrolls, and strange stone tablets spread out between them.
“Nothing’s the matter,” Dean said as he flipped another page in the book in front of him. He’d been through this one three times today so far. There was nothing here. “I love research.”
Sam rolled his eyes hard enough that Dean winced in sympathy for Sam’s eyeballs. “You heard from Cas today?”
“No,” Dean said, going still in his seat. He turned his attention to the book once more. Maybe there was something buried in that chapter about ancient wraiths they could use.
“Have you called him?” Sam asked.
Dean grunted a negative response, clenching his teeth. Sam didn’t need to know about the aborted texts Dean had written out and deleted over the last few days. Texts like I miss you and When are you coming home? And, the most embarrassing of all of them, The world is fucking boring when you’re gone. Get home soon.
For the next few minutes the library was silent, save for the flipping of old book pages and Dean shifting his weight in his chair.
“For fuck’s sake, Dean,” Sam said.
Dean looked up in confusion. “What?”
“Will you stop?” Sam reached across the table and snatched the book away from Dean. “You’re gonna rip the damn pages, man.”
“No, I wasn’t,” Dean said. He didn’t admit that there was definitely at least one partially ripped page in the book now. Sam would figure that out soon enough.
Sam ran a hand through his hair and stared at the ceiling. “Will you please go out for a drink or a drive, or just something? And call Cas while you’re at it.”
“We’ve gotta find the—”
“No, Dean,” Sam said. “You need a break. I need a break from you needing a break. Please, just go. Take the night off. Call your angel.”
“He’s not my…” Dean closed his mouth with an audible click when he saw Sam’s reaction to Dean’s words. “Fine, but don’t bitch at me later about how I left all the ‘hard work’ to you.”
“Sure, yeah, whatever, just go,” Sam said as he turned back to the books.
Dean studied his brother for a moment, then shoved his chair back and casually grabbed his jacket and made a b-line for the stairs.
“Call Cas,” Sam shouted as Dean opened the door.
Dean waved him off.
---
Reggie’s was a bar that Dean rarely visited. He’d come here once with Sam and Cas on one of their first afternoon’s off in. Tonight, it was growing crowded and there was a band setting up instruments on the little stage at the back of the room.
Dean sat at a tall table to one side of the room. His cellphone sat on the table in front of him, next to his second beer for the night. The screen was black. He still hadn’t called. Dean wasn’t sure he could keep himself from sounding even more depressed and lonely if Cas said he was still going to be away from home for a few more days—or weeks. Cas didn’t need to hear that. Once Dean was sure he had enough liquid happy in his veins to keep him from embarrassing himself, no matter what Cas said, he’d call. Until then, Dean’s only goal was to drink and hope that the band didn’t suck.
The waitress had stopped by the table a couple more times with more beer and there was a girl with a scratchy voice and an acoustic guitar up on stage when Dean’s phone buzzed on the table. It was a text from Cas. To Dean’s embarrassment, his heart leapt in his chest when he saw the preview of the message on his screen.
Finished sooner than I thought. I’ll be back at the bunker in an hour. There was a little house emoji at the end of the message.
An embarrassing, fuzzy warmth spread through Dean’s chest. He looked around the bar to see if anyone had noticed him being the weirdo giving his phone heart eyes. The liquid happy in his veins took over as liquid courage and he was typing out Meet me at Reggie’s instead and sending it before he could think better of it.
He locked his phone and held up a hand to get the waitress’s attention. “Whiskey, please.”
The next hour passed in a blur. Another beer showed up when the whiskey was gone. He kept checking the crowd for tan trenchcoats. There was a well-worn miserable pit in his stomach that made itself known whenever his crowd searching came up short. He had to keep forcing himself to watch the band or check out the waitress.
When he caught himself searching the crowd again, he rolled his eyes.
It was just Cas. Only his best friend. The guy he’d seen crazed with power, lost without his memories, driven mad to save Sam from memories of the cage. He was just the guy who made Dean’s palms sweat and his chest ache whether he was close or far away. He was just a dorky little guy Dean would gladly die for to keep safe.
Movement on Dean’s left caught his attention. Cas settled onto the stool next to Dean and looked around the building with narrowed eyes. His hair was a wild mess and his coat could use another good wash. Maybe Dean could convince Cas to let him take it to the dry cleaners with their Fed suits instead of using his mojo to clean it.
Cas leaned in close.
Dean’s breath caught in his chest. Lights from the stage reflected on Cas’s cheekbones, nose, lips.
“Dean?” Cas asked.
The caught breath turned into a lump in Dean’s throat. Dean licked his lips and raised his eyebrows at Cas, humming a question since he couldn’t find his words.
“I scanned the building and sensed no monsters or ghosts,” Cas said. He turned to the stage without moving away from Dean’s bubble of space. The furrow of Cas’s brow deepened. “And I do not believe the woman singing is a siren... What kind of case is this?”
Dean felt his face relax into a smile against his permission. Cas turned back to Dean and his curious expression turned to concern.
“Dean?” Cas asked. “Are you feeling well?”
“I missed you,” Dean said. He looked away from Cas because he didn’t want to see the reaction those words would elicit. The waitress from earlier was still making the rounds. He waved her over and ordered a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. “There’s no case, Cas. We’re taking a night off.”
“A night off,” Cas said.
“That’s right,” Dean said, propping his right arm on the table. He pointed at the band then at Cas as he continued to speak. “It’s your first concert, right? So, we’re gonna listen to music and we’re gonna drink until you start to feel something.”
“Dean…” Cas’s mouth hung open for a moment.
Dean sat up from where he had leaned on the table and threw his left arm around Cas’s shoulders. Cas turned to look at Dean. They were close enough together that Cas could probably feel the breath catching in Dean’s lungs. Dean powered through the sensation and continued to hold Cas.
“Come on, it’ll be fun,” Dean said. “When’s the last time we got to just relax together?”
Cas stared into Dean’s eyes with the kind of intensity Dean had only found in this one specific angel. An annoying little voice in the back of Dean’s head, one that was getting louder and louder lately, urged him to close the distance between them. That was the thing, Cas wasn’t just Dean’s dorky little best friend. He was the guy Dean was madly, stupidly in love with. The guy Dean wanted to keep this close at all times. Close enough to feel his own breath reflect off of Cas’s skin while stupid butterflies the size of demigods fluttered around in his stomach.
“Okay,” Cas said finally. He smiled, and Dean almost lost the battle he was having that kept him from pressing his mouth against Cas’s, consequences be damned.
A bottle clunked down on the table in front of them.
Dean’s attention tore away from Cas and the world came rushing back into focus. The band was taking a break and the waitress was grinning at Dean and Cas as she set their glasses down on the table.
“Looks like your night is improving,” she said to Dean. “How long have you two been together?”
Dean’s cheeks heated as he stared back at her.
“Nine years, eight months, and twenty-seven days,” Cas said.
Dean smiled down at the table. For a moment, he let himself pretend that was true. That they really were together like that and they’d been like that for that long. He’d explain what the waitress meant to Cas later, but right now, he’d pretend.
“That’s sweet,” she said before moving on to another table waving her down.
After clearing his throat, Dean topped off Cas’s glass and pushed it into his hands, “Drink up.”
They drank until Dean’s limbs were loose and warm. Until the smile on Cas’s face turned gummy and rosy-cheeked.
They’d figured out sometime after the mess with the Mark of Cain and Lucifer possessing Cas, that Cas was able to get drunk if he focused on suppressing his grace. Well, the actual conversation they’d had about that involved a lot more quantum theory, physics, and metaphysical mind-numbing factoids than Dean could really appreciate. That conversation had boiled down to two things for Dean. One, Cas could get drunk if they got enough liquor in him quickly. And two, when Cas went on infodump rants like that it became really hard not to kiss him.
To keep himself from doing just that here at Reggie’s, Dean did most of the talking. He leaned deep into Cas’s space while he told Cas stories about the songs the band was playing. Factoids he’d picked up over the years about dead family members from the original bands inspiring music. He told Cas about the songs inspired by Lord of the Rings. Another that was written as a love letter to another man’s new bride who eventually left her new husband for the song writer.
While Dean spoke, the band played on. He kept finding Cas staring at him, watching him. And the more Dean spoke, the harder it was for him not to lean closer. The more he spoke, the more they drank, the wider Cas smiled… Dean could feel the tension between them ratcheting up like a rollercoaster clicking toward a big drop.
Dean’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He thought about ignoring it, but they’d had too many close calls lately and he didn’t want to ignore a call for help. He pulled out his phone, saw that it was Sam, and gestured for Cas to follow him outside where he could actually hear what Sam had to say.
“I think I found something,” Sam said in place of a greeting when Dean answered the call. Dean rolled his eyes and led Cas down the alley next to the bar where he leaned against a wall and watched Cas stare back at him. Sam continued to go on and on about whatever it was that he’d found.
After all the drinking and storytelling, Dean’s lips were dry. His pulse picked up when he saw Cas’s laser focus hone in on Dean’s tongue when he tried to wet them. The air between them grew heavy again as Cas took a step closer. In Dean’s ear, Sam kept droning on.
“Hey Sammy?” Dean asked. “I’m glad you found something, but I’m a little busy right now. Can this wait, like, twelve hours?”
“Dean, the world is going to end if we don’t do something,” Sam said.
“I know that,” Dean said. “But unless you can tell me it’ll end before tomorrow morning, I’d like to spend a little time enjoying what we’re trying to save.”
Dean pushed off the wall and stepped into Cas’s personal bubble. Cas cocked his head to the side like he was listening to Sam rant in Dean’s ear.
“Sam, twelve hours. That’s all I’m asking,” Dean said. He huffed, emboldened by the intensity in Cas’s eyes and the thick air between them. “You’re interrupting date night.”
Sam’s ranting picked up in tempo and cut off when Dean hung up the phone. He turned on the do not disturb timer and slipped it into his pocket before meeting Cas’s eyes again. He cleared his throat. “Little brothers can be such cockblocking mooses, am I right?”
“Date night?” Cas asked before looking around the alley. “I wasn’t aware you were on a date with someone.”
“Yeah,” Dean said. He grabbed Cas by the trench coat sleeve. “With you, dumbass.”
They both moved in at the same time. As first kisses go, this one was clumsy and heated and ended up with Dean’s back pressed uncomfortably into the wall outside Reggie’s. What it lacked in finesse, it made up for in certainty. For the first time in Dean’s life, he was absolutely sure he’d never want to kiss anyone else like this again.
---
Roughly twelve hours later, Dean and Cas woke up in a disorienting tangle of naked limbs, sheets, and pillows on Dean’s bed as Sam kicked in the door, flipped on the overhead lights, and started blaring Etta James’s “At Last” from a Bluetooth speaker he’d picked up a few months before.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Dean asked as he flopped back onto the bed and tried to evaluate whether he was really having a heart attack or not. Thankfully, Cas had thought to move Dean’s gun onto the desk last night after they’d worn each other out. Apparently, angels could sleep if they had enough sex.
“Date night is over,” Sam said with a grin. “Your twelve hours are up!”
Cas burrowed under one of the pillows on the bed. He muttered something that sounded vaguely like chicken barricading moose. Dean rubbed a hand over his face and started to laugh.