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In the morning, the motel room too quiet without Claire and while Sam’s out on his dumbass early run, Dean makes a giant pot of coffee and pours a mug for Cas.
Cas looks up—he’s been squinting down at his phone without touching it for probably five minutes solid—and smiles. Dean’s insides squirm and flutter. He hates it, but he still can’t make himself look away from Cas’ knuckles, smooth in their rise and fall, as his fingers wrap around the piping hot mug without hesitation.
“It’s pretty crappy,” Dean warns him, taking the seat across from Cas.
“You made it,” Cas says placidly, like that’s a real counterargument.
Dean’s trying to forget his dreams, dispel the memories of his subconscious’ concoctions with some boring-ass morning routine. It’s not working.
Nightmares, okay. He’s—not cool with them, hell no, but he’s used to them. Stress dreams, hunts rehashed until he’s sick of every grisly detail, blood-drenched hellscapes, he’s seen it all. The charming inner life of Dean Winchester.
What really rattles his bones are dreams that could be someone else’s, they’re so damn normal. The kind where he’d think he’d stolen them if they hadn’t featured a familiar face.
The face in question sips at the coffee, swallows it. Cas’ throat moves and Dean shifts in his seat.
Dean knows what started it. That stupid mall trip, Cas stopping to read every single billboard with his hands deep in his pockets and his lower lip between his teeth.
“We gotta get Cinnabon,” Dean had said on a whim, half-joking and half-too-serious. “That’s a mall rat rite of passage, buddy.”
“Okay,” Cas had answered, his eyes lit with amusement but his expression familiarly serious.
So they sat at the food court, Cas’ Hot Topic bag perched in his lap like precious cargo, and shared a cinnamon roll. Their knees kept bumping, both of them too tall for the dinky little table and the plastic chairs. Cas devoured his half quick and neat and efficient like he was in battle and it was an enemy. Dean tried like hell to muster up that kind of focus, tried to ignore how his gaze had kept snagging on Cas’ sticky fingers and glistening pink mouth.
He hadn’t done so hot.
“It’s invigorating.” Now, here, Cas presents Dean with another lopsided smile.
“Thanks,” Dean says weakly. He sounds exhausted even to his own ears.
Cas’ eyes narrow and he angles his upper half across the table, one thumb idly stroking the side of the nondescript, chipped mug. All his attention fixes on Dean. “Dean, what is it?”
God. Even if Dean wasn’t scared out of his mind, how would he even start with that? I like doing dumb human stuff with you. Wanna do some more of it? Like, maybe forever?
In his dream, Cas had tended an herb garden with sleeves rolled up to his elbows and dirt smeared across the bridge of his nose. He had rested his hand in Dean’s as they stood in the produce aisle at the cheapo supermarket. He had told Dean which of the fruits had had the happiest lives and would therefore taste the best and have the sweetest juice. Dean had laughed and called him a nerd and he hadn’t even cared that the soccer moms and the bored teenagers were watching, he’d just leaned in—
“Dean.” More insistent, sterner.
“Just, ah.” Dean almost chokes on the first attempt. He bolts down some coffee; it’s bitter and sludgy. “Kinda bummed we didn’t make it to the Orange Julius. That’s a staple too.”
Cas’ face does that thing Dean likes too much—his eyebrows draw together and his eyes go all soft and his lips purse a little. “I liked doing that with you too.”
Some of the terrified weight lifts out of Dean’s gut. “It didn’t suck,” he agrees.
Smile number three. Dean tucks it away greedily in his memory. “I watched the repetitive mundanities of humanity for centuries,” Cas says, “but I never understood the appeal until I had your companionship.”
“Cas, dude—”
Cas is implacable, steam curling up around his cheekbones as he talks. “I like being with you. You make meaningless rituals seem important. Purposeful.”
“So, you…I mean, if I don’t kick the bucket.” Dean’s breath stalls in his lungs.
“If you’ll have me.”
A delicate quiet settles down between them. Dean rubs at the Mark on his arm and tries to remember what it felt like not to have it. What it felt like to go about his messy, usually-boring life. Gas stations, grimy diners, naps in the Impala’s back seat.
He thinks of Cas at his side. Pumping gas and speaking earnestly to waitresses and driving when Dean’s too drunk or wiped out.
Yeah, he wants it. His chest twists tight with wanting this potent. Cas’ wry commentary, tousled hair, gravelly voice. He wants to find out if his imagination, with its unshakeable schoolkid crush, is right about how well their hands would fit together. He watches Cas lick coffee from his lips and fiddle with his phone, so human in the way he moves now.
“Okay,” Dean says, too fast, afraid his time’s gonna run out and Cas will change his mind. “Yeah. Yeah, if we figure out—”
Cas lurches across the table and presses his mouth to Dean’s. Clumsy, too hard, searching.
Dean’s heart goes thunk and his brain goes skreeeeee and he slings an arm around Cas’ neck and kisses him back, wanting and wanting and wanting all of this, this coffee-flavored morning kiss and everything that it promises.
“When we figure this out,” Cas says, the words fevered into the corner of Dean’s mouth, “then we’re going to the nearest food court and getting smoothies. We’re buying more than we need at that ridiculous Lush store. We’re—”
“You’re a fucking dweeb.” Dean kisses him again and tries to pretend he’s not into the idea of Cas smelling like some pansy avocado scrub.
When Sam comes back, they’re sort of back to normal. Cas is trying to pick the coolest, chillest emoji to use in his text to Claire—the one that’ll convey how non-concerned he is while making sure Claire knows he’ll kill anyone who comes near her—and Dean is flipping through channels and ignoring the hazy thrum of irritation the Mark is trying to foist upon the back of his consciousness.
Cas’ hand rests at Dean’s knee, thumb tracing the outline of his kneecap.
“Tell her I say to keep her nose clean,” Dean suggests.
Sam raises an eyebrow at them, but he doesn’t say anything except, “Same from me, but cooler.”
Dean laughs and leans his forehead on the warm slope of Cas’ shoulder. Detergent, human skin, ozone. One day he’ll wash Cas’ shirts and probably press his face to them and breathe him in to remind himself that they’re in this life thing together.
Cas squeezes his thigh and slings one more smile Dean’s way, his nose scrunching and his eyes bright. For a good long second, Dean thinks he’s gonna get through this because there’s no way he can’t see that again every damn day for the rest of his life.
“So,” Sam says, clapping his hands together and whipping out his computer, “how you feeling, Dean?”
Dean kisses the hinge of Cas’ jaw, squares his shoulders, and gets ready to keep fighting.