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It’s nothing.
It’s not like - well. It’s a job, and Cas is doing it, isn’t he? Wasn’t that the point? It’s not like they’d be in this appallingly trendy, warehouse-chic garbage fire of a club otherwise. Give Dean sticky formica bar tops and old jukeboxes any day over this temple-crushing bass line and these ironic, reclaimed barn wood chandeliers or whatever the hell they’ve dangled up there in guise of lighting.
Speaking of, it’s dark as a shifter’s nest in here, but it’s still enough for Dean to be spying observing Cas’ progress from his own stakeout point across the dance floor. Ain’t like he’s easy to miss, even though he’s supposed to be under cover, the idiot. Is it Dean’s fault that the angel had dramatically deviated from his usual ensemble? There he is like a damn sore thumb, leaning against the obnoxiously shiny bar with a nonchalant elegance Dean didn’t think him capable of. He’s all sinuous lines of perfectly-tailored navy dress shirt with the sleeves tastefully rolled halfway up his forearms, and he barely fits into those snug designer jeans thanks to Charlie. She’d even dared to stick a hand into his thick dark locks right in front of Dean’s face, just like that, artfully messing it up like he’d spent an evening in sexy company, or inviting it. It’s too much, just like Dean had bellowed before storming out at the ridiculous sight, right after Cas’ face fell in his wake. Dean’s not sure why Cas was so pouty about it, it’s just the truth. Dean at least knows how to tone it down some; he’s in a charcoal henley, his least-ripped jeans, and his hair’s parted a little more cleanly than usual, that’s all. He didn’t get all gussied up for prom. Cas is like some sort of casual Men’s Health-looking supermodel for god's sake, and it’s- it’s gonna get them caught, is what.
So Dean has to check in on him; has to make sure he’s not being too conspicuous looking like that . Good thing too, because now he’s smiling, actually smiling wide and he’s like a beacon of light across the room and the mosquitos are starting to swarm. Cas has come a long way since that barn and the head-tilting and the pizza man, but he’s still awkward sometimes; still kind of obvious with the whole otherworldly seraph intensity thing, so Dean should- he has to-
…That guy keeps making him smile.
Cas is actually crinkling his eyes at him, nodding and grinning gummy sunshine that liquefies something in Dean’s stomach and turns it sour. He’s weaving through people before he knows what he’s doing. Someone’s gotta get the angel back on track here, after all. This is a job, not some lemonade social, and that bartender loser is distracting him from the case like he thinks he has some sort of chance with- oh, Cas is actually laughing now. His shoulders shake a little as he leans his elbow on the bar. God, he’s beautiful. Dean stops short, stumbling into someone who snipes something bitchy at him that he can’t hear. He’s frozen solid in a throbbing frenzy of slithering, beat-hungry masses, transfixed by the angel’s smile.
All Dean ever does is make Cas frown.
All Dean ever does is remind Cas of how ridiculous he looks; reminds him of pain, of killing, of big evils and worlds ending. Of falling, over and over.
Dean leaves Cas to his laughter.
He texts a vague excuse to Sam - not like this cesspool has yielded much anyway - and darts away before Cas sees him, before he ruins something else for him. He needs to get some air.
As his usual luck would have it, it’s pouring out here and the June air is somehow freezing as the humidity bursts. That doesn’t stop a handsy couple from bumping the aluminum warehouse siding as they trade tonsils under the awning. Dean rolls his eyes and focuses on getting his damn heart under control. It’s clanging around his chest like a rabid animal, riling up his stomach and making his head spin. But then, maybe that’s the third beer he definitely shouldn’t have had on duty. He sighs, clawing at the tension headache taking root in his trapezius and glares with burning eyes at the torrents separating him from the Impala. What the fuck? He’s so mad at himself he could spit, but at this point he’s not keen on giving his churning guts any ideas.
Eventually Dean dashes through the friggin’ monsoon into the muffled peace of Baby’s walls, but even the purr of her impeccably-tuned engine doesn’t soothe him. He steers her roughly through the storm, jostling her shocks through deep mires of rising mud without much care until they lurch inelegantly into the motel’s parking lot. It’s only when she’s in park and her engine is tick-tick-ticking down like a panting dog that he pats her dash with regret. She’s ferried him through much worse, but still. She’s a lady, and deserves better than his histrionics.
He bee-lines for the room, promising himself he’ll give her a good polish when they get home from this case.
The rickety door clicks shut behind him. He leans against it for a moment to catch the breath he can’t remember losing, but the air seems to snarl under his sternum with every choked attempt. It doesn’t help that he’s utterly drenched and that the place’s AC has turned it into a meat locker. He realizes he’s been trembling, from the cold or something else, and it takes him a few more minutes than he’d like to see him regaining some sort of calm.
“The hell,” he grumbles to himself.
His head hits the distended old wood with a final sigh, and he kicks off his sopping boots.
Goddamn summer storms. That smell always reminds him of- well. The electricity lumbers overhead and bloats the air, and like clockwork, the sky rolls its displeasure just as Dean clicks on the shoddy light.
He almost jumps out of his skin to see Cas standing there as the lightning flashes him into stark silhouette.
“Jesus Christ,” Dean shouts, clutching at his proverbial pearls, “there are easier ways to kill me, Cas.”
A quirked eyebrow is all he gets, which infuriatingly, seems only to enhance Cas’ outfit. Dean hates how his chest both clenches and unclenches at the sight of him.
“Your history says otherwise,” the angel points out wryly.
“Hilarious,” Dean grumbles.
He tears off his sodden jacket and hurtles it onto a wooden peg by the door.
“What’re you doing here anyway?”
“I was about to ask you the same question,” replies Cas, “I wanted to tell you about a lead I had, but you left.”
Dean swallows, eyeing the hideous argyle carpet. He’s nowhere near drunk enough to deal with any of this right now, especially Cas’ vaguely accusing tone and the eyes and the sleeves and the being all up in his space, as per goddamn usual.
“Didn’t wanna interrupt.”
He can feel Cas’ perplexed gaze on him like the scald of the sun through Baby’s window, but he can’t meet it.
“Interrupt?”
“Yeah, you know,” he chuckles, forcing a smile through gritted teeth, “You looked like you had a little something-something going on with manbun and I didn’t wanna butt-in.”
The lie doesn’t roll off his tongue as easily as usual. He nearly gags on it. Cas seems to buy it, or is at least humoring him for the time being.
“I was trying to get information. He mentioned hearing about patrons being followed home, while others had escaped being bitten by overzealous dance partners. I couldn’t confirm if it was ‘our kind of thing’, but I’d wanted to check with you.”
Dean’s an idiot, he knows it through and through, but he’s committed at this point. As such, he digs himself an even deeper hole as he is wont to do.
“C’mon Cas, case or no case, it’s okay to have a little fun once in a while. B’sides, I know sparks when I see ‘em.”
His wink falls flat.
“I very much doubt that,” Cas declares, without missing a beat.
Dean looks up to argue the point, but utterly stalls out at how close Cas is, at how intensely his gaze pierces him. There’s the tiniest hint of a grin pulling at his ample lips, an expression Dean’s only been able to decipher through years of careful observation. He wishes Cas would fuck right off, or just kiss him already.
“What?” Dean barks, and so what if his voice jitters a little?
“You’re cold,” Cas remarks calmly.
“M’fine.”
“Come on.”
Dean instinctively wants to draw some sort of line in the sand here, but the truth is, he is a gross, sweaty kind of freezing. Besides, Cas’ tone is devastatingly gentle, which is far more efficacious right now than his capacity for command. The unspoken thing between them remains as such, but there's so much tenderness in Cas’ touch as he takes his hand that it compels him forward without any resistance.
“Sit,” Cas instructs once they’re in the bathroom. He dials up the thermostat.
The second Dean’s butt hits the disturbingly cream-coloured toilet cover, he calms. He hasn’t the energy to fuel his usual reservations and given that Cas doesn’t seem to be taking any helpful suggestions on proper socializing at present, he resigns himself to whatever Cas has in mind.
Even so, it surprises him when Cas kneels and begins peeling off his socks. Dean can’t help the burn of his cheeks. It doesn’t seem right to have a millenia-old creature of the divine puttering around at his feet, touchably scruffy hair or not.
“You don’t have to do that,” he says, but makes no move to stop him.
Cas rolls his eyes in that uniquely sassy “I rebuilt these from scattered atoms you idiot, I don’t care what they smell like” sort of way, and rises. Dean notices Cas is barefoot himself, and wonders when that happened. Cas nods his head towards the ceiling once, and Dean raises his arms. It feels incredibly good to have the soaked henley peeled off him, like shedded a skin. His skin pebbles with goosebumps from Cas’ hands skimming his sides and shoulders, but he tells himself it’s from the cold. His chest flushes with heat but he pays it no mind, since Cas seems unbothered. Dean takes a breath and unbuttons his pants, and Cas unceremoniously yanks them off, then adds them to the pile of swampy clothing in the corner. Cas has the regrettable decency to leave Dean’s sodden briefs alone and turns to the tub. Dean watches him as he touches its rim momentarily, and the stained porcelain immediately blanches itself pristine.
“Neat trick,” Dean comments.
“Don’t get any ideas, the bunker is a big place and I’m not as efficient as I once was.”
“You’re plenty efficient, Cas.”
Dean quietly marvels at how comfortable this is. Though they’ve skimmed this level of intimacy more often over recent, greying years, for once, he decides not to question it. He just lets the relative safety of this tiny, grubby bathroom dictate the proceedings. Besides, they’ve been staking out random douchey shitholes for days, and he’s goddamned tired.
Letting the tub fill, Cas turns back to Dean. The magnitude of his gaze would usually throw him, but it feels oddly reassuring now. Dean hasn’t bothered to cross his arms over his slightly pudgy midsection (whatever, he’s in his damned forties), or felt the need to absently sweep the freckles off his arms with his palms. Cas knows him inside out, from dust to dust. The usual shame feels irrelevant in the face of something like that.
“Y’know, you look good in that,” Dean confides.
“I was thinking the same thing about you,” Cas returns without a hitch.
“Jesus, Cas.”
“It’s the truth,” he says simply over a grin, rolling up his navy sleeves further and turning off the faucet. “You should get warm.”
Dean’s not sure how it happens, but the water smells like eucalyptus when he steps in. His body sings its gratitude as he submerges into the warmth, and he sighs bone-deep.
“Thanks, Cas.” Dean says, but the bathroom is already empty.
—------
Dean soaks for a while, far past when his fingers go pruney, but he eventually steps out of the fogged bathroom wearing the towel Cas left him.
“You’re still here,” Dean realizes abruptly, discovering Cas sitting on one of the beds. He’s been reading a book, his legs crossed. The blue eyes flicker up from the pages.
“Yes, I was under the impression that we booked this room together?”
Sarcasm aside, the way that sounds makes Dean’s skin tingle. He clears his throat.
“Yeah, ‘course…”
Dean is at a loss, yet again. He stands there in nothing but a raggy towel to cover his birthday suit, and the way Cas looks through him makes him feel both shielded and exposed all at once. That’s nothing new, though. What is, is that Dean’s not objecting to it as much. Lately, he’s come to accept that maybe he likes being seen by Cas, though he still doesn’t quite know what to do with it. As he wrestles with the enthralling thoughts, Cas sets the book down and joins him with another towel in hand.
“You seem better,” he says with quiet fondness.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
Dean’s mind screeches to a halt when Cas gently directs him to sit on the edge of the bed, and places the towel over Dean’s head. He’s drying his hair, and Dean has to breathe through the sting of his eyes at this formidable gentleness.
“This is some room service…” he muses once his heart rate calms some.
Cas chuckles as he massages his scalp, and it warms Dean from the inside.
“Glad I can still make you laugh,” Dean mutters, before he can stop himself.
Cas’ brows furrow and he lets his hands glide down to his shoulders.
“What do you mean?”
“S’nothing. Nevermind.”
“Dean.”
“It’s stupid.”
Cas squeezes his shoulders gently. Dean peaks up from beneath the towel, his short spikes sticking to his forehead. He sighs.
“Guess when I saw you talking to that dude, it reminded me how it’s hard to y’know… have fun in this line of work. How being around me ain’t always pretty.”
Cas does his signature staring thing for a long moment, and his thumb comes up to graze Dean’s jaw through the towel. His focus shatters almost instantly, but forces himself to continue.
“You’re allowed to have your own life, man. Go out and have fun if you want to. You don’t have to stay by me all the time, even if I’m pissy about it. You don’t owe me anything. It’s the opposite actually but my point is: you’re free, and you always have a choice. That’s the whole point, ain’t it?”
Dean’s entirely unsure of how they got here, but it feels like an unraveling long overdue. Cas licks his lip in thought, and despite how decades of trauma are screaming for an exit, Dean stays anchored through clenched teeth.
It takes Cas an uncharacteristically long while to formulate his words.
“Yes well, I’ll always choose you,” is what he settles on, quite matter-of-fact. It blankets the small room like revelation.
Dean’s entire being pauses. Cas’ thumb is still gently rubbing at Dean’s stubble, Dean’s breath coagulating under the touch. The words don’t feel real; he can’t bring himself to believe them. He might be too broken to trust a creature who once thrived on blind obedience for eons, even if it is Cas.
His throat burns dangerously and he blinks, hard.
“But-”
“Do you want me here?”
What a stupid fucking question.
“Dude, yes, of course, but-”
“Dean,” Cas snaps, “You’re the only thing I have ever chosen for myself in this long existence. I learned free will from you after all, so I’d ask you to stop doubting my decision, because I’m afraid it’s quite final. Whatever that looks like is up to you, but as far as I’m concerned, I’ll be by your side as long as you want me.”
Dean feels something dislodge in his chest for the first time in years, aside from how his stomach flip-flops. Maybe he’s allowed to want this one thing, and as unlikely as it feels, have it, too. His hands come to cover Cas’. They’re warm, just like Cas’ smile.
“M’thinking a while,” Dean grits out, eyes hot, “Long while, if you really think you can put up with my sorry ass.”
“I think we’ve both done reasonably well so far, in respecting each other’s asses,” he proclaims, and his gritty baritone shakes with delight.
Dean chuckles wetly.
“Oughta have medals made.”
The rest of Dean’s words curdle on his tongue, because none quite feel worthy of the moment. There’s a lot more to discuss, and they’ll make time, but Dean’s eyes fall closed as Cas leans down and kisses his forehead with undeserved reverence. It’s surreal to feel his lips over his brow, ghosting his temple and cheek, like he’s something redeemable. He trembles with the sensation, welling with emotion he can’t contain. He grabs at Cas’ sleeves and pulls him down until he’s all but straddling Dean’s lap. Dean hovers a moment over Cas’ lips as he feels him release a trembling breath, noses at his cheeks, experimentally grazes the corners of his mouth. He can feel Cas smiling against his skin before the angel runs out of patience and kisses him. It’s a soft and painfully tender thing, a confirmation and beginning. All the difficult paths of Dean’s life have converged here where Cas meets him, and from here they’ll forge ahead together. Cas eventually slips off and settles beside him, where they continue trading kisses for long minutes. There’s likely too much to discuss before going any further, but stick a nacho in Dean, he’s filled to the brim with warm goo. Cas eventually pulls back a bit, though his hands still frame Dean’s face.
“Now that that’s settled, I’d appreciate it if you stopped pawning me off to strangers like a piece of livestock.”
Dean’s cheeks tinge pink.
“Whatever. Not my fault you were the hottest cut of beef in that bar,” Dean muses, and it’s strange to say it out loud, but definitely not unpleasant.
This time, it’s Cas’ steady features that flush, and it brings Dean immeasurable delight. He hooks his fingers into Cas’ waistband to emphasize the point, cheeky grin well plastered.
“You and your food analogies…”
“Whatever. Some of us mortals haven’t eaten in 10 hours.”
At this Cas raises an admonishing eyebrow. Dean loves seeing it up close.
“You need to take better care of yourself, Dean.”
“We haven’t even had one date yet and you’re nagging me already…”
“I pulled you out of Hell. I’m entitled to want to keep you healthy.”
“Christ, that’s gonna be a thing, ain’t it?”
—
When Sam bursts in the following morning with fresh coffee and research, there are the same empty pizza boxes he expected strewn about, the same duffels and polished weapons meticulously lined up on the gritty kitchenette table. What’s new is that Dean is still sleeping, well beyond his usual four hours, and he’s tangled around Cas in one of the twin beds. Cas greets Sam with a silent wave from over his volume of lore, not even bothering with looking sheepish. That’s fine with him. Sam’s more surprised that Dean actually bothered to change into his sleeping clothes and didn’t just collapse into bed in his jeans like usual. That must have been Cas’ doing, and honestly, he’s on board. Dean looks downright peaceful drooling into Cas’ shirt, and even though the angel looks as even-keeled as ever, Sam’s never actually seen him doing anything remotely as casual as lying in bed . It’s cute as hell.
“Awww,” he fawns, setting the tray of cups down.
Cas rolls his eyes at him and his brother’s raised middle finger emerges from somewhere beneath the mess of blankets.
“Coffee?” Dean grumbles.
“Duh. And pastries.”
“Fuckin’ A.”
“Got some new info on the case too,” Sam says, pulling up a chair.
“Lay it on me,” Dean yawns against Cas’ chest.
“Okay so get this.”