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He’s pretty sure it says nothing good about him that when Sam asks ‘you free to talk?’ Dean gives him the affirmative, despite the fact that it’s Valentine’s Day, he’s elbow deep in lasagne and Cas is supposed to get to his apartment in twenty minutes. In his defence, if he’d known that all Sam wanted to talk about was Jess then he’d most definitely have told him to shove it, but the question sounded vaguely serious and that was the kind of thing that put him on edge. Plus, saying he wasn’t free to talk probably would have resulted in a different conversation, wherein Dean would have to explain the Cas situation all over again and he's not really sure how he'd explain it, anyway.
“Uhuh,” Dean says, sprinkling (or more dropping, really) the best part of a whole block of cheese on the thing that would have been a lasagne, had Sam not being waxing lyrics about how just great Jess was. He’d managed about two layers before his cell rang, but had subsequently just chucked everything at the dish and figured that Cas would probably be too tired to care thanks to the long shift at the hospital. Dean’s beat himself, and Cas was on a much longer shift than he was, and on call before that.
Dean shoves his phone between his ear and his shoulder, opening the oven with his knee.
Cas is due about now and Dean’s not entirely sure how to get Sam off the phone. He’s halfway to just coming out with it, just saying straight off look Cas is coming over in five piss off, Sammy. They already did the gay crisis thing, it’s just that Sam will think he’s been lying about this, even though he honestly hasn’t. He’s just been busy and so has Cas, but they do have plans, so he might as well just tell Sam but then –
“Dean,” Sam says, down the other end of the phone, “I’m thinking about asking her to move in with me.”
Dean drops the lasagne.
“Don’t freak out,” Sam says.
“Who’s freaking out?”
“Something just smashed, Dean,” Sam says, prissy voice reinstated, “look, I know that this is kind of –”
“– frigging sudden?” Dean demands, stepping over the lasagne to get himself a beer (it mostly splashed up at him and there's broken glass in the carnage of cheese and tomato, but Dean's found that beer is generally worth the risk). He’ll deal with that crap later because… shit. Sam with a live-in girlfriend. “You’re in college,”
“I’m a mature student,” Sam retorts, “you moved in with Lisa after –”
“ – and that turned out just great, didn’t it?”
“ – Dean, I know that you’re worried –“
“You’ve been sober for less than a year,” Dean bites out, turning round to find that Cas is suddenly standing in his apartment.
He’d given him a key in part on a bit of a whim and in part because it was practical. It wasn’t like they’d seen a great deal of each other after the fiasco that was January, but one of the times Cas stayed over Dean had to be back at the hospital for six and Cas didn’t till ten, so it made all kinds of sense just to hand the key over and pretend like that wasn’t a big deal. Even though it probably was and the guy needs a frigging bell, because he tends just to appear in moments like this when there’s lasagne all over the floor and Dean’s half yelling at his ex-junkie brother down the phone, clutching his beer like it’s a lifeline.
On Valentine’s Day.
And, anyway, he can’t process Cas when he’s trying to deal with the hot mess that is his brother, because that’s just how he’s wired. Sam comes first, always. Even if that would make the patron saint of Valentine’s Day turn in his grave, it’s also true.
“You think you can just move in with some girl, with a white picket fence and play at normality after less than a year, Sam?”
“She’s not some girl,” Sam says, “It’s Jess.”
“And that’s great,” Dean says, gesturing at Cas to take a beer, because he’s not a heathen and he still has some manners, “but, really, Sam? You think you’re ready for that?”
“Jess just got here,” Sam says, “I’ve got to go.”
Dean hangs up first just to spite him, rubbing a hand over his face before turning to face Cas with a grimace. His phone buzzes in his hand, which means Sam’s probably text him some insult or other.
Cas honest to God doesn’t look that much better than him, and Dean’s got lasagne up to his ankles so that’s saying something. Cas is still wearing scrubs (which he had to change into after a patient vomited on his lab coat, which Dean had been secretly vindicated about because he’s usually the one that gets vomited over) and looks about as exhausted as Dean feels.
“If it helps,” Cas says, looking at the lasagne, “I failed on desert, too.”
“Points for effort?” Dean asks, feeling the beginning of a headache pressing at the front of his forehead.
Honestly, he doesn’t know where he stands with Castiel. He hasn’t done the dating thing since Lisa and he’s pretty sure he hasn’t done it this badly for a very long time; they’ve managed to see each other about five times in the past month, and all of those occasions have been in either of their apartments. It’s not that there’s a lack of interest on either side, because he’s pretty damn sure that’s not that case… it’s just that they’re really frigging busy and both suitably out of practice at the relationship thing, which is probably what they’re doing, or at least aiming for eventually.
After his attempt at a sort-of-romantic gesture in inviting Cas to his birthday thing, he then realised that that meant Cas might actually come to the birthday thing, giving him under a week to inform the members of his extended family that hadn’t been subjected to Jo or Sam’s gossiping that he kind of had a thing with a guy now. It would also have more or less been there third date, which seemed pretty damn soon for the whole meeting the family shit. He’s pretty sure they both realised at around the same moment that neither of them were really looking forward to the prospect, gesture aside, to the point where Cas fabricated a story about his mother insisting he finally visited that weekend, which they both pretended they believed (and he did go, so it was probably based on some truth). Cas had come over the night afterwards with pie and a six pack of beer, which had been much better all round. And it was good.
The rest was trying to catch moments in between their shifts and the bone weariness that came with working at hospitals, which they hadn’t been all that successful at. Benny had asked Dean to take over a bunch of night shifts (it had something to do with Benny and Andrea trying for a baby and a favour that Dean owed Benny from a long time ago; it was easier to agree that listen to any part of a conversation that included the word ‘ovulation’), which meant they were on entirely opposing schedules for a whole week. And, because they’d only managed to actually do the date thing a few times, he’d been able to sincerely answer Sam that nothing was happening, really to the point where Sam had started busting his ass over something else instead. Sam hadn’t even asked about Valentine’s Day.
Despite expectations, hardly anyone in the hospital was talking about it. Jo voiced real concern that everyone thought the whole thing was a joke and had requested a degree of PDA to legitimize her claims, but Dean was beginning to think that people just didn’t care. Neither Bobby nor Ellen had asked him about it, although Jo must have told them. Instead, he kind of felt like instead of coming out, he was stood in the closet doorway waving at a bunch of people who weren’t paying attention.
They’d broached the topic of Valentine’s Day via text just over a week ago, approaching it with a kind of determined enthusiasm that they were finally going to do something that bordering on conventional.
Ever since, though, he’s been kind of freaking out about it.
“You look beat,” Dean says, standing awkwardly in his pile of lasagne clutching his beer as a safety net, “You… you okay?”
“Fine,” Cas says, sighing, “I stayed until Miss Lebra came out of surgery.”
“Ah, you do care,” Dean says, which is obviously the wrong thing to say given the way Cas’ expression tightens slightly.
“There is more than one way to care, Dean,” Castiel snipes back, look ruffled and put together at once, “Not all of them involve risking your job.”
“I know, Cas,” Dean sighs, glancing downwards towards the lasagne, the smashed dish and the utter mess that is this piss poor attempt at Valentine’s Day. He’d had this fear that, if they’d actually gone out for a meal, someone might make a big deal out of the fact that they were both dudes (and he’s not entirely sure the person making a big deal out of that fact wouldn’t be him). Plus, there was the fact that they’re both permanently exhausted and usually just want to sleep when they’re done at the hospital. So he’d suggested that they cook, which was equally dumb because he barely likes cooking. But he'd wanted to prove that he was interested and that he did care, and that their budding whatever it was was important to Dean. “Damn, we’re bad at this.”
“What’s happening with Sam?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Dean sighs, drawing in a deep breath, “I’m not pushing you out, Cas, I just don’t wanna deal with that shit right now.”
“You appear to be covered in lasagne,”
“Yeah,” Dean agrees, “Better than vomit.”
“Yes,” Castiel agrees, looking down at himself as if only just re-remembering the whole trauma that was today. “May I…?” Castiel begins, looking slightly wistfully towards the bathroom door.
“Sure,” Dean says, “You shower, I’ll… clean up and order some pizza.”
Castiel leaves the door open in a way that Dean supposes might be an invitation, but Dean figures the guy really wants a minute (or forty) for himself after a shitty shift at the hospital. He’d had the familiar dejected look Dean associates with deaths on shifts and days when the whole damn institution seems to chew you right up. Instead, he makes a half assed attempt at cleaning up the lasagne and the glass and throws his pants in the direction of his laundry (which, yeah, he should probably get to at some point).
Cas probably didn’t pick up any other clothes, so Dean deposits a pair of his sweats and a t-shirt in the bathroom before pulling on a pair himself.
He checks his phone and, sure enough, Sam had text him after his slightly immature hanging up.
Don’t take it out on me because you’re alone on V-day, Dean. We’re not all too scared to go after what we want.
It’s probably the almost audible bitch face that goads him into texting back. He's glad that Sam is no longer tip-toeing around him and so glad that Sam is alive and back and sober, but he’s an annoying dick a lot of the time.
Got a date with Cas so screw you.
He indignantly switches off his phone before remembering he’s supposed to be ordering pizza and having to turn the damn thing on all over again. By the time he’s ordered it, Sam has sent him a smiley face because he’s that kind of asshat and Cas has emerged from the bathroom looking just as exhausted, but slightly more wet (and kind of awesome in Dean’s clothes, too).
Which is just about when he realises his V-day plans somehow got downgraded from nice homemade meal, to eating pizza in sweats. And he is absolutely a-okay with that. It’s probably the most well suited Valentines he’s ever experienced, in his thirty something years of putting up with the pink hell.
*
Cas, in his half-conscious state, seems to be confusing the pizza delivery guy a lot by rambling on about the bees (or something) and Dean is beginning to regret let the guy answer his front door, lest he winds up blacklisted. Dean works shifts and lives alone with no one to judge his pizza intake, so that would be a big, big problem.
“Just pay the guy, Cas,” Dean says, reaching for the pizza and offering the delivery guy a ‘what can you do’ look, before he reassess the context of the situation. Two dudes eating pizza together, in sweats, on Valentine’s Day? Chances are the delivery guy thought he was providing a brief intermission for a mass gay sex marathon, which doesn’t make him feel as weirdered out as he thought it would. It actually sounds like a pretty great way to live. “Cheers,” Dean says, once he has an armful of pizza and Cas has actually managed to give the guy money, before ceremoniously shutting the door in his face.
He’d also made the mistake of letting Cas have control of the remote, because apparently they’re now watching a wildlife documentary (which might explain the thing about the bees), but Cas looks so at home in his clothes and on his couch that he can’t bring himself to rib Cas about whatever the fuck they’re watching. This is actually kind of nice.
He likes the way Cas just sort of fits into his life, even if they haven’t been doing a very good job of it lately. He takes up the gaping spaces in Dean’s apartment and fills them with smitey glares and the confused expression Cas gets a lot when he’s tired (like, especially right now), and he’s not asking Dean why they’re not doing anything special for Valentine’s day, or nagging him to talk about his feelings. Cas is just a presence that’s slightly up in Dean’s personal space, but could probably do with pushing a little further in.
Dean nudges him slightly with his elbow, stretching his arm over the back of the couch.
“That’s fucked up,” Dean says, pizza hovering near his mouth, attention unwittingly caught up by the show, “she eats him after they’ve mated? Cas, this crap is gonna give me nightmares.”
Cas blinks his eyelids open, frowning at the TV screen. It’s pretty damn impressive how pathetic Castiel is capable of looking considering he’s also a bad ass doctor who Dean’s legitimately been scared of on a number of occasions. Right now, Castiel looks so frigging miserable and confused that Dean wants to carry him to bed and tuck him in, for fuck’s sake. It’s not natural.
“You fell asleep,” Dean says, half amused and half impressed that anyone can fall asleep when there’s pizza to eat and bizarre facts about insects fucking on the screen in front of them.
Castiel blinks.
“This is dumb,” Dean says, shifting in a way that dislodges Cas’ head from his shoulder, “Cas, you’re beat. You should get some sleep.”
Cas pulls himself up into a vertical position, still blinking.
“Of course,” Castiel finally voices, low and sleepy, “may I have some coffee before I head off?”
“Don’t be thick,” Dean says, “Not kicking you out, Cas.”
“But…”
So maybe every time they’ve done the date thing they’ve wound up having sex (because, well, they’re good at that bit), and even then it wasn’t a dead cert that one or other would be staying the night; so Dean supposes this is, like, a step in a different direction.
“Consider an early night your V-day present,” Dean says, because the conversation is bordering on getting to emotions and relationship defining and a whole host of things that Dean might potentially screw up. He doesn’t really want to screw up right now because, yeah, maybe this has been a pretty shitty attempt at Valentine’s Day by most people's standards, but for Dean Winchester this might just be the romantic ideal, but that doesn’t mean he wants to Cas to leave. For a good while. He’s only just managed to get him here, after all. If anything, he’d like to do this a lot more. Watch crap TV and eat pizza and hangout, just because.
“You mean you haven’t got me an actual present,”
Dean’s throat constricts slightly, before he realises that Cas is smiling slightly.
“You’re screwing with me,” Dean says, “to think I was gonna offer you a lift into work tomorrow.”
Cas is half smiling at him yet still manages to look sleepy and grumpy, which is probably why Dean surges forward to kiss him. Cas’ hand curves round his jaw, solid and steady, and he loses a few moments thinking about how real Cas feels.
“Sleep,” Dean insists, pulling back slightly reluctantly.
He feels slightly self-conscious stripping off to get into bed, but Cas emerges from the bathroom and kisses him into the covers, hands running over his chest and tracing over his tattoo in a way which feels like goodnight and closeness and comfort, rather than sex. Its familiarity and Cas pulling away and settling on his side of the bed.
They don’t really cuddle as a rule but, goddamn, Dean’s feeling sentimental and it’s all too easy to shift into Cas’ space and drape an arm over his middle.
Dean’s nearly asleep, forehead a hair breadth away from Castiel’s shoulder, when he finally voices some of the cluster fuck of thoughts that have clogged up his head for the past week. “Cas,” Dean breathes, “It’s all kinds of fucked up that we only made an effort because of some stupid date.”
And even then they did by convention, rather than by what actually works for them.
“I was under the impression that was the tradition.”
He loves the way Cas’ voice sounds even rougher and lower when he’s half asleep and this close, but he’s not sure whether they’re quite at the point where he can just say that. He brushes his lips against the line of Castiel’s shoulder instead, because the physical bits of their relationship have always been easier.
“Traditions suck,” Dean says, closing his eyes, “we should make time for each other because we want to, not cause it’s the fourteenth of frigging February.”
“I thought you were giving me the gift of sleep.”
“All right, smart ass,” Dean grins into the dark, “But tomorrow I’m taking you out for breakfast.”
*
“Breakfast,” Dean says, clapping Cas on the shoulder.
“I predict grease,”
“Hell yeah,” Dean says, grinning, before heading through the mall and into the dinner-esque place which sells the best breakfast in this half of the state.
He feels on more comfortable territory already, because somewhere in between today and yesterday the big pink signs reading ‘I love you’ have been removed. The displays of those god awful Valentine’s day cards are now at least partially obscured by sales stickers, so Dean doesn’t have to have an inner crisis every time he walks past… because, come on, why does every single damn card have to scream I love you? Or contain some really lame sex joke that half the time doesn’t apply to gay couples, anyway? Can’t there just be a card that says we had great sex and conversation over the Christmas period and we should hang out more if we get a minute between our busy schedules because I’d really like to gay-date you?
Or one that says, I total could fall in love with you one day or I think I’d actually like to and that kinda scares me .
All these god damn Hallmark cards vastly overreaching what Dean actually wanted him to say, and leaving him half suffocated under the pressure of working out what he actually feels. He didn’t need the strangle-hold of Valentine’s Day to force him into facing down his feelings or trying to work out whatever the fuck was going on with Castiel, because they were gonna work it out anyway.
They get a table for two and a second glance from a waiter who Dean feels is probably homophobic, although he has no evidence for the fact.
Cas spends the whole of breakfast telling him heart attack statistics whilst steamrolling through his bacon, sausage and scrambled eggs. It’s so frigging inappropriate that Dean finds himself laughing through most of it. For the first time in weeks, Cas doesn’t look exhausted. And it’s the best morning Dean’s had this side of Halloween.
Dean does drive them both to work in the Impala, pulling into the hospital parking lot and pausing to kiss Cas because he wants to, and because he hasn’t enough in the past twenty four hours, and because it’s perfectly within his rights to.
He pulls back and grins at Cas, who’s giving him a look like he doesn’t really understand why Dean is such in a good mood.
“We had our first no sex date,” Dean says.
Cas’ expression is a hundred percent ‘I do not understand Dean Winchester’ but, well, it’s a big deal in Dean’s book. Dean’s not best known for being a classy dude, has always been better at sex than relationships and has really frigging enjoyed just hanging out over breakfast. It’s a big deal. This thing with Cas is a very good thing. They'll work it out.
“You’re in a good mood because we didn’t have intercourse last night?”
“Don’t make it sound weird,” Dean counters, “and, seriously Cas, intercourse? Frigging Doctors, man.”
He’s about to mention the fact that even Dr Sexy doesn’t talk quite so medical textbook, but given he chose his career and (sort of) Cas based off a TV show/love of a TV show he will admit isn’t that accurate, he doesn’t think Cas would really appreciate the comparison.
“Generally, I prefer it when we do have sex,” Castiel says, eyes burning into Dean’s, “how about tonight?”
Dean kisses him again, pushing himself into Cas’ side of the car in answer.
When they finally get out of the car five minutes later (which incidentally means they’re both going to be about thirty seconds late for their shift, and he’s sure that Cas is never gonna frigging forgive him for it), Pamela is standing outside the hospital building smoking.
She raises an eyebrow at the pair of them, pulling her phone from her pocket with a smirk.
“Reckon Pam’s about to tell everyone that we’re in a committed gay relationship,” Dean says, nodding towards her as they walk into the hospital.
“Aren’t we?” Cas asks and, apparently, it’s just that frigging simple sometimes.