Work Text:
Love, Cas decides, is not patient. Not with Dean Winchester. Not by a country mile.
Not when Dean cracks a green, bleary eye open in the morning and grunts at Cas. No caffeine to get him going, no crisis to get him moving, just a piss-poor attitude to match Castiel’s own. Neither of them are morning people.
Love is not patient when they’re in the grocery store with Jack, ribbing each other subtly. Dean throws a teasing comment at Cas. Cas hurls one back. It’s a war fought in the deli line and the cereal aisle, choosing to dig at one another, getting under skin because they revel in knowing that the other won’t leave.
It’s certainly not patient when they fight like they used to. It’s rarer now, fleeting as a hurricane but twice as devastating with their hearts at stake. The storm, the eye, the aftermath. The fight; the care shining through, even when they’re blocks of ice moving through the hallways; the part where they pick up the pieces, but they’re so mixed up they become closer to one being than before. The end is sweeter than the middle, but love is still not patient.
Except when it is.
It is when Dean thinks Cas is still sleeping and wraps his arms tighter around him, whispering in his ear, desperate to linger in a golden 8:00 AM with every hushed, “I love you, I love you, it’s always been true.” That’s the kind of love that wants to wait forever.
It is when they teach Jack something new together, and Dean grumbles and complains but never, ever pushes Jack too hard. Love is Dean with Ben, Dean with Claire, Dean with Jack at a dinner table helping him learn a latin incantation. Cas smiles despite himself and shifts his newspaper up to hide it. Later on, he’ll guide Dean’s back against the bedroom door and patiently press his lips in an adoring trail down, down, down until patience is but a distant memory and Dean gasps his name into Cas’ mouth like air. But he has time for now, and he savors it.
It is when they say “I do,” when they slide rings home and promise to be a home for each other. It is when they dance under stars and lanterns and string lights like rain, and they know they wouldn’t change a damn thing to get here. Cas speaks low into Dean’s ear, telling him he’d wait forevermore for this if need be. Dean reels back and pulls Cas in for a sweet kiss, and Cas thinks his patience has more than paid off to see the charming blush playing out under those freckles.
Love, Cas decides, is not patient. Except sometimes it is, and isn’t that worth waiting for?