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It’s on his bed.
For a brief, harrowing moment, Dean’s convinced he’s having a stroke. Because surely, surely, Cas didn’t just leave the damn thing on his bed. Surely this tape—THE tape—isn’t neatly pressing into his goddamn memory foam, all alone.
He goes through the usual stages of grief. Denial’s quick, but bargaining is quicker. Maybe it’s not THE tape. Maybe Cas didn’t listen to it.
As soon as he thinks it though, he knows it’s horse shit. Two steps toward the mattress confirm it is, in fact, THE tape—worn from being recorded over again and again. The white sticker on the side says “FOR CAS” in his dumb, mocking scrawl.
He picks it up, holds it to the light to see through the plastic. The spiral is completely on the opposite side. It’s been listened to. All the way through.
Cas listened to the tape—the whole tape—and… and what?
Cas doesn’t have anything to say? He doesn’t care? He’s weirded out?
He... doesn’t feel the same way?
It’s a sorry state of fucking affairs, Dean thinks, but no more so than the usual stockpile of crap that is his life. Especially when he listens to Sammy.
“You know what you have to say, Dean. Just say it. Say it so he’ll hear it and you can stop being so goddamn annoying about it. Shout it at a recorder and play it for him if you’re too chicken to say it to his face but, oh my god, if I have to watch you almost say it one more time I think I’m gonna lose it.”
If Dean wasn’t so positively miserable, he’d have it in him to throw an i-told-you-so directly at his brother’s face. But he has wounds to lick. And a will to live to find. Or not find. Dean doesn’t fucking know. It’s fine. Everything’s totally fine.
Except for the fact that he now has to face Cas. He has to sit in the goddamn bunker, knowing full well that Cas knows. And Cas knows that Dean knows that Cas knows.
His head spins at the thought.
He doesn’t leave his room and he has no plans to leave his room for the foreseeable… ever. Because Sam was wrong. Cas is smart enough to know he’s too good for Dean. Of course he is. And that’s fine. Dean prepared for that. Dean’s used to that. It’s fine.
The least Cas can do is have the balls to tell him to his face.
Even if Cas is an ethereal, ocean-eyed angel of the lord (because Dean really is that unlucky), Dean still likes to think that they’ve obtained some sort of claim on each other over the years. At the bare minimum, Cas owes Dean something here. If not profound, agonizing honesty, Cas owes Dean at least a shred of decency.
Right?
The songs on the tape were so carefully curated, and Dean’s ridiculous, messy confession in the middle was just that: ridiculous and messy. But it felt right to say and he didn’t think it was totally useless.
Maybe he was wrong.
Within the hour, someone is tapping a single knuckle on the door of his room.
Dean doesn’t say anything—the only options of visitors right now are Sam and Cas, and he’s not mentally prepared to smack either of them the way they deserve—but the door creaks on its hinges anyway.
“Hello, Dean.”
Back sprawled on the bed, Dean throws an arm over his eyes because of course. Of course .
Dean hear’s Castiel’s annoyingly sensible shoes take two steps on the linoleum. Then, a soft, “Dean?”
Dean can be mad. Hell, he’s good at being mad. Won awards, even.
But Cas sounds like a kicked puppy, and it's just because Dean won’t look at him.
And, no. Dean won’t look at him because he knows his eyes do that dumb, gushy, sappy thing that Sam always makes fun of him for, and Cas doesn’t deserve it. Not today. Kicked puppy or not.
“Gabe says hi,” he hears Cas press. “I missed you this week.”
And Dean doesn’t move his arm or look at his friend, but some of the ice melts from his chest and the “Missed you too, buddy,” is a reflex.
Dean’s unintentional retraction of claws seems to appease Cas enough. There’s a few more steps, then the corner of Dean’s bed sags under Cas’s weight as he sits. “I gave you your tape back, right?”
Dean’s entire stomach pounds around his abdomen. With the arm that isn’t still completely covering his face, he lifts the tape in his hand and flashes it in the general direction of Cas’s voice.
“Ah, good,” Cas’s voice is… chipper. Too chipper. “I liked it. I’d like to borrow it again some time if you’ll let me.”
Wow.
Dean couldn’t stop his reaction if he tried. His arm flies off his face and he rears to sit, looking Cas in the eye. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Cas rears back, a kicked puppy all over again. “Wh… What?”
If Dean thought the kicked-puppy voice was bad, the kicked-puppy facial expression is boss-level. But the sickening pain is hot and thick enough in Dean’s chest that it doesn’t hinder him. “Do you think you’re being funny?”
“I-I…” Cas looks like a fish out of water. He cowers under Dean’s glare, Dean’s voice, all of it. “What?”
“Because it’s not fucking funny, Cas,” Dean stands. “You’re a dick if you think it is.”
He makes it all of three steps toward the door before Cas is grabbing his wrist, hand warm and soft. And Dean definitely doesn’t give more of the ice in his chest permission to melt, but the puddle pools in his stomach all the same.
“What happened?” Cas’s voice is so agonizingly gentle, so impossibly patient, that it cracks Dean’s resolve just enough. “What’s wrong?”
Throat thick, Dean swallows.
And, no. No. Fuck no. That’s not fair. Cas doesn’t get to do this. He doesn’t get to listen to this tape and know the effect he has on Dean, then take advantage of it. He doesn’t get to soften his voice how he knows Dean likes and make everything okay when it’s absolutely not okay. When he’s an asshole.
An asshole who doesn’t want him .
Dean clears his throat, throwing a wall up again. He looks at where Cas’s fingers are gripping his arm. “You listened to the tape.”
Cas blinks. “I did.”
“And that’s it?” Dean drops his voice. “You just put it in my room? Nothing to say?”
Cas’s eyebrows knit together like he’s actually concentrating really hard on ripping Dean’s heart out of his chest and shoving it in a blender. “I… I told you I liked it. I did.”
“Oh, you liked it?” Dean’s laugh has zero humor. He shakes his arm free. “I’m glad, Cas. I’m so glad you liked it. I’m glad my embarrassing bitch feelings are entertaining for you.”
Dean makes it two steps this time before Cas is shooting to his feet, hand vice-like on Dean’s shoulder. “What did you just say?”
Dean spins around and only has half a second to register the confused, pained look on Castiel’s face before he’s going off again. “I said I’m glad my dumb, sorry ass making a fool of myself was as entertaining for you as it was for me. Because, really. I’m having the time of my life here. This is great.”
Cas’s face falls hollow. “What are you-”
“And you know, Cas, it’s fine. It really is. I understand why you don’t think of me that way. If I was you, I sure as hell wouldn’t either-”
“Dean-”
“But if you’re gonna waltz in here acting like what I said on that tape was just a fun listen that you wanna hear over and over again and laugh at-”
“Dean!”
“What!” Dean shouts back.
It’s then that Dean register’s Cas’s face— really registers it. He’s not mocking. He’s not even angry. He’s… pale?
“Wh… What?” Dean says again, quieter this time, deflated. “What?”
Cas’s inhale is shaky. “I genuinely don’t know what you’re talking about.”
And maybe it’s their years upon years of watching each other exist, but Dean sees it then. He finally sees it. The shaky movement of Cas's hands. The lost knit of Cas's eyebrows. The way his mouth is opening and closing as he searches for more things to say that'll stop Dean from yelling at him.
Cas really doesn’t know.
Cas has no fucking idea.
Cas is stranded in the middle of the ocean, overwhelmed and choking on what's happening right now and Dean is a complete and utter asshole.
“Cas, did you listen to that tape?”
“I… I did.” Cas swallows. “I… not all of it, but-”
Not all of it .
“How much?” Dean’s grabbing at Cas now, hand clutching into his coat. “How much did you listen to?”
“I got to the one Gabe called ‘Your Song’,” Cas is shaking his head.
Your Song. God, he only made it three songs in. Dean’s embarrassment isn’t until after song four.
The fire in Dean's chest snuffs out to ash and smoke just like that.
“I wanted to listen to more, I did. I even tried to rewind it so I could start from the beginning, but I think I did it wrong because it wouldn’t play anything and,” Cas is tumbling over his words, eyes flashing from Dean’s face to where he’s gripping his coat. “And we were so busy and now you’re mad at me and I don’t-”
“No!” Dean has to backtrack, has to get the panicked, tortured look off of Cas’s face. He fucked up. He fucked up so bad. “No! No. I’m… I’m not mad at you. I’m not.”
“But you were saying…” Cas’s eyes are still shifting everywhere. “About me not thinking of you that way and you making a fool out of yourself and-”
“Cas, Look at me,” Dean says, steadying his hands on each of Cas’s shoulders. It has the desired effect. The muscles sag under the pressure of Dean’s hands and Cas exhales. “I’m not mad at you,” Dean continues. “I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”
“No,” Cas shakes his head, eyes boring into Dean now. “Dean, what was on the rest of that tape?”
There’s a cold chance in Hell that Dean will dig his way out of this one. “Nothing.”
“No, not nothing,” Cas insists, standing taller. “Dean.”
“Forget it.”
“Let me listen.”
“No.”
“Dean-”
“Cas,” Dean’s voice stiffens, his shoulders tightening. “I said no .”
Without another word, he lets Cas go, taking a stride toward his bed and grabbing the tape in his hand. He shoves it in his pocket, planning mentally to lock it in a safe or bury it underground or throw it into the ocean with the rest of his emotions.
“Dean, how…” Cas’s voice is impossibly soft again as he speaks to Dean’s back. “How do you think of me?”
Dean is a weak, weak son of a bitch because he knows. The second Cas asks, voice all velvety soft again and so unjudging and so kind...
Fighting's no use.
“It’s a good way,” Cas continues. “Right?”
At that, Dean whips around to hold Cas’s eyes. “What? Of course it’s a good way. Why would you think it’s not a good way?”
Cas’s shrug is so little, Dean could collapse. “I dunno.”
Dean sighs (because what else can he do, really?), stepping up to the puppy he’s now realizing he’s the one who kicked. “It’s a good way. Even when you’re a pain in the ass, Cas, it’s a good way. That’s kinda what I said on the tape.”
“What you said,” Cas repeats. “What does that mean?”
“I…” Dean’s looking away now, trying to make his voice as casual as possible and somehow failing even more than he could. “I recorded a thing. It was Sammy’s idea, really. He said I… I don’t know… It doesn’t matter. I was just sayin’ I care, Cas. And when you didn’t react, I thought you didn’t. Care, I mean. That's all.”
Dean would give anything for Cas to meet Dean halfway in his attempts at casual deflecting, but he doesn’t—he never does, the bastard. His head tilts, shocked confusion squinting the rims of his eyes. “You think I don’t care? About you ?”
“Like I said, it was stupid.” Dean’s still trying to deflect. He’s nothing if not stubborn. “It’s almost Dinner time. Sammy’s probably wondering-”
“In that way?” Cas repeats, tasting the words on his tongue. Dean can see his mind working now, putting the pieces together. The recognition widens Cas’s eyes just enough to give Dean time to panic. “ Oh. R-Really? In that way-”
Dean wants to descend into the earth’s crust.
“Like I said, Cas,” Dean’s tone is becoming embarrassingly manic now because why can’t Cas just leave well enough alone? “It’s nothing. I know you dont- you can’t-”
“What if I do?” comes Cas’s ringing reply, and Dean’s vision blacks out around the edges for a second.
When Dean looks at Cas again, Cas’s eyes are doing that soft, fuzzy thing that Sam says only happens when Dean’s around. Dean can’t focus on that and stay upright, so he focuses on the rest of Cas’s expression—the vague twist of anxiety that Dean’s sure is just a ridiculous reflection of his own.
“What?” Now it's Dean’s turn to throw out one-worded, useless questions.
“What if I do?” Cas says it more clearly this time, and Dean shakes his head.
“Don’t,” Dean’s walls are climbing up again. “I told you. It’s not funny.”
“I’m not trying to be funny, Dean.” The softness that Dean’s desperately ignoring in Cas’s eyes dissolves, but Dean doesn’t have time to be thankful. The tragic sorrow that replaces it is so much worse. “I’m being serious.”
“No, you’re not.”
“You don’t think you deserve to be loved?”
The L-word comes out of nowhere, strikes Dean directly in the chest and why does that question of all things make him feel like sobbing like a baby?
“No, I…” he lies, voice shaking. “No. That’s not what I-”
“Dean,” Cas bids, and in a single blink he’s crowding in Dean’s space, hand clutching onto Dean’s flannel the same way Dean was clutching onto Cas’s coat and it’s so overwhelming that Dean can’t think into it. Won’t. “Dean.”
Dean has to look away—has to—but that proves to be even more detrimental than if he’d had the wherewithal to look Cas in the eye. Because suddenly, Dean feels lips on his jawline.
His breath hitches—fucking hitches— and Cas’s exhale is warm on his neck now. Dean doesn’t mean to close his eyes, but they flutter anyway. When he feels like his chest is going to melt into nothing, he turns his face toward Cas because, fuck, if he’s going to hell, he may as well do it with gusto.
“You don’t…” Dean’s voice is shaking, breathy, quiet. “You don’t have to-”
“I want to, Dean.” Cas presses the softest, most gentle kiss below Dean’s ear and Dean thinks for certain that he’s going to die. “I’ve always wanted to.”
“Wh…” Dean swallows. His entire chest stutters. “What?”
“Dean Winchester,” Cas moves to the other side of Dean’s jaw and Dean has to swallow down an actual whimper. “If you were any more blind, I’d need to heal you with my grace.”
And Cas is the only person who could possibly make Dean laugh right now, but he does. He hooks a hand onto Cas’s coat again. Cas’s lips are so soft .
Dean’s going to lose it.
“You know,” Cas, the fucker, is smirking. “This is the closest I’ve ever been to you without you mentioning the B-word.”
Dean huffs an uneasy laugh that he’s sure Cas can feel on his cheek. “Bitch?”
“Boundaries,” Cas corrects and Dean’s ready to hit him because this guy has got to be fucking kidding right now.
Dean can’t accuse as much, though, because Cas’s lips aren’t on his neck or his jaw or below his ear anymore. They’re gently brushing against his own. And Dean freezes because, of all the things he thought were going to happen today, this was not one of them.
But that’s when it clicks for Dean. Because oh.
Oh .
This is actually happening. This is actually real. Cas is kissing Dean, and he's doing it like Dean's something that deserves to be kissed. It’s more, it's better even, than anything Dean could've ever wanted. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him and... and all he’s doing is fucking standing there. He’s just standing there being kissed and not kissing back.
Cas is starting to pull away by the time Dean has this realization, and he can’t let that happen—absolutely not—so he lets his hands trace up Cas’s coat and places them on Cas's cheeks, holding him in place. Because Dean’s going to kiss him. Dean’s going to kiss the hell out of him, and he’s going to do it right.
If the hum of surprise that comes from deep in Cas’s throat is any indication, Dean does a rough estimation of exactly that. Now that he's letting himself feel it, letting himself get lost in this, he lets himself muse that the way Cas's lips feel connected to his own is nothing if not an indication of the fact that Cas is literally an angel. He’s all warmth and light and Dean is going to turn into a gooey mess if he doesn’t break off to breathe.
When he does, Cas’s lips chase his for a second before he hears Dean’s puffed breaths.
Cas forces a breath into his own lungs, “I love you.”
He says it so easily, Dean thinks—says it as easily as Dean would say the sun was out. Dean’s entire world flips so far that he has to close his eyes for a second. Cas’s hand lands on his cheek.
“I love you, Dean,” he says again and something stings behind Dean’s eyes even as they’re closed. “I can’t believe you thought…” Cas frowns and he presses his lips to Dean’s again, stroking Dean’s cheek. This time, it’s Dean doing the chasing. “God, you’re an idiot.”
Dean has to laugh. It’s watery and breathy, but the smile is real. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to lie every now and again.”
“No, it wouldn’t kill me. I just…” Cas’s head tilts in the soft confused way that has a tendency to buckle Dean’s knees. “You-”
“Forget it,” Dean smiles, ridiculously soft and fond and if Sammy was here right now Dean would never hear the end of it.
“So,” Cas’s hand is still so warm on Dean’s cheek. Or maybe that’s his blushing. Son of a bitch, is he blushing? “Will you let me listen to the tape now?”
“Still no.”
Cas groans, dropping his hand on Dean's chest. He must be able to feel Dean’s heartbeat, but he doesn’t say anything. At least Cas is kind enough to let Dean get through this with his dignity. “Please.”
As quickly as Dean has dignity, he loses it. The soft ‘please’ is paired with Cas’s big blue eyes and tiny pout and Dean has absolutely no self control. None.
He huffs, rolling his eyes and breaking off from Cas to stroll toward the walkman on his bedside table. Cas follows, never more than an inch away from Dean and Dean can’t think about that too much.
He pulls the tape out of his pocket and sticks it into the player. He rewinds it about halfway and, when he tests the play button, the song right before Dean’s otherworldly embarrassment is ending.
Dean’s about to curl in on himself when Cas falls into the spot next to him, close enough for their thighs and arms to touch. The real kicker, though—what relaxes Dean and actually makes him settle in to listen to this—is when Cas drops his head down onto Dean’s shoulder, staring at the walkman like it’s about to tell him a beautiful story and not Dean’s absolute mess.
Dean exhales, turning into where Cas is warm next to him. It surprises him how easy it is for Cas to fall into this rhythm. It’s completely blind for Dean. He has no idea what he’s doing, and he’d panic about it if Cas wasn’t making it so impossibly easy to just… flow. It’s like they’ve been fighting this flowing current for years and years and now they’re finally just letting it take them in its direction—where it’s supposed to go.
Dean tenses when the cracking signifies his recording has started, but when Cas’s hand falls onto his knee, he sags again.
“So,” W alkman Dean clears his throat. “I hate to interrupt your regularly scheduled listening program. This is, uh… It’s a pretty good mix I made for you. Only the best of the best. But, like, I gotta. So.”
Dean remembers the pause here from when he recorded this tape, remembers swallowing the dryness in his throat.
“And just so you know, this is entirely Sammy’s fault. He says I’m gonna make him lose it and he called me a bitch, which—fuck him by the way.”
Dean kinda stops regretting this experience when he gets to hear Cas’s laugh ring around the room.
“You’re stalling,” Cas points at the walkman.
“Shut up,” Dean grumbles, but Cas squeezes his knee and he’s putty all over again.
“I should tell you this to your face. God, I can’t even imagine having the balls to do that, though, so I, uh… well… I’m just gonna say it. Because even if you don’t think of me like this and even if this ruins literally every damn thing that we have, I just need you to hear it. ‘Cause it’s killin’ me.”
Dean wants Cas’s laugh to bubble over and break the tension again somehow. But Cas isn’t laughing anymore. He’s staring at the walkman with a soft intensity, hand still on Dean as he listens. Dean’s never felt so naked in his life.
“You, uh… There’s these things that you do. The, uh… Fuck.” Dean remembers this being the exact moment he decided to just rip off the bandaid. “ The way your voice gets all light and stuff when you talk to me. That… That thing you do? You know the thing when you’re confused and your head cocks a little to the right. And, honestly, you just… You’re such a soft motherfucker with me that I can’t stop thinking about it. Like, literally, man. I’m not sleeping.”
Cas lifts his head off Dean's shoulder and does the exact head movement that Walkman Dean is talking about.
“Sammy thinks we’re in the same boat here somehow. That you think about me the same way I think about you all the time. And he thinks we could, uh, be something pretty awesome. And I agree, I think.”
Cas drops his head on Dean’s shoulder again, squeezes his knee.
“And I kinda think there’s no way you could ever want something like that with me. Because you’re you, and I’m me and I fuck up everything godforsaken thing I care about and there’s just quite literally no fucking way.”
Dean feels Cas tense next to him just a little.
“So. This is super embarrassing, but I guess, uh… God, I can’t. Is it dumb to tell you ‘I love you’ with music? ‘Cause that’s the only way I know how.”
Walkman Dean fizzes out and the opening of Elvis Presley singing Can't Help Falling In Love crackles through the tape.
Dean looks at Cas. Finally.
Cas is staring at him, and his eyes are so, so blue and so, so round and so, so… sad?
“Dean…”
And oh, no. Did… Did Dean clock this all wrong? Did Dean fuck up again? Was Cas’s ‘I love you’ not the same as Dean’s 'I love you' ? Is Cas finally coming to his senses?
“You don’t,” Dean swallows, shaking his head. “You don’t have to-”
He can’t even fully attempt to backpedal before Cas is surging to kiss him again.
It was intense before, but there was a delicate softness there that made sense with Cas. This, though. This. This is white-hot, hungry desperation. This is fingers raking through Dean’s hair and caressing—fucking caressing —his face. This is Cas’s lips hugging his own and his tongue just barely touching Dean’s bottom lip.
“Someday,” Cas breathes between kisses. “You’re going to see yourself the way I see you.”
Cas runs his hands down Dean’s back and Dean can’t breathe when the realization hits him that no. No, he didn’t clock this wrong. He clocked this even more right than he thought he did.
“It’s going to take years,” Cas says with a voice so wrecked that Dean has to meet his eyes. “And you’re going to hate me for being so damn repetitive—”
“Could never hate you,” Dean manages to breathe out as Cas moves to whisper into his ear.
Cas’s voice has nothing but soft honesty when he says, “But you’re going to love you the way I do. I swear it.”
Elvis sings on and Dean thinks that, if anyone could change Dean that way, it would be Cas.