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I wish circumstances were different.
Across the universe, in a different time and place, far from this broken and messed up world is a small town in the middle of nowhere USA.
Their eyes lock for a mere moment. But really, that’s all they ever needed. Somewhere in the space between them other shoppers move past and around, and yet everything stops and Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak make their first meeting. Dean will flash that winning smile, and Castiel will look away in surprise. Only to glance back up, to see if that smile had really been directed at him. And Dean’s teeth will flash, unable to contain his excitement. He’ll probably walk towards Castiel, and the shorter man will smile back coyly at the man advancing towards him. Pleasantries will be swift, and mostly forgotten. Dean will use some cliché and stupid pickup line, and Castiel will easily counter it with some witty retort. A light will jump into Dean’s eyes and they’ll talk for way longer then is really acceptable in the small grocery store.
Dean will receive a call from Sam, and he’ll grudgingly tell Castiel “Cas, can I call you Cas?” that he has to dash. Before he can leave with his brown paper bag of warm milk and mostly defrosted frozen dinners, Cas’ fingers will curl around his elbow, in a gentle grasp so intimate Dean nearly can’t breathe. With a smile, Cas will ask the clerk for a pen, and she’ll happily oblige. And before the Winchester can really think to ask what is going on, that gentle grasp will turn his arm over, and a thumb will push the sleeve of Dean’s jacket up just enough for him to scrawl ten digits across his wrist in blue ink.
“Call me?” He’ll ask, batting his eye lashes up at Dean, who will barely manage a shaky ‘sure’ before Cas smiles at him again, grabbing up his canvas bags, thanking the woman at the register, and leaving through the automatic doors.
Sam will poke fun at Dean when he drops the soggy bag amidst boxes yet to be unpacked. It only gets worse when his older brother actually frets over the social etiquette of calling someone up after only an hour of having separated. Sam will heckle his clothing choices as Dean digs through boxes of mostly identical shirts. And mockingly give him pointers as he fixes his hair in the window of the Impala. But not one of his jokes is aimed at Dean’s sudden fancy of the same gender, or ask what made him try. He will laughingly give kissy faces from the doorway while Dean, grumbling, goes to pick up Cas. He’ll find that for all Sam’s teasing, it actually helped with his jitters.
The date will go horribly bad, and Cas will wonder if it was such a good idea to suggest this particular restaurant. Or if it was a good idea to give this man his number at all. And half way through Dean pushing his questionable food around a plate, mid-sentence through awkward stilted conversation, and just after a waiter dumps a whole bowl of some sort of red curry down his white shirt Cas is about ready to get up and leave. He should have listened to Anna when she told him not to be so hasty with relationships for about the fiftieth time. He was really bad at listening to that advice. Dean laughs at their misfortune, and Cas is about ready to go into hysterics when the other man suggests they bail out and go to a burger joint down the street. Cas wasn’t one for such food, but anywhere was better than right where they were.
The date will go marvelously. The waitress will give Cas some helpful hints for getting the stains out of his shirt. His burger will actually taste better than he expected. One of them will start talking about family, about hobbies, about things they like. And at some point Dean will reach across the small space and squeeze Cas’ hand. Cas will wonder why he ever thought giving this man his number was a bad idea.
Dean will drive him home. And walk him up the porch. Something he has never done before. When he thinks back on it, proper dating was never something he’d really done either. Cas will suggest they try again sometime “without the mess maybe.” He’ll wave vaguely at his ruined shirt, and in that gesture Dean can’t help but grab the hand that made it. With a tilt of his head, and a questioning expression Cas is suddenly all Dean can see. He’ll press his lips to the slightly shorter man’s without really thinking. They’ll both be startled enough to pull back almost immediately. From there it’s an awkward shuffle of ‘good night’s and ‘call you later’s that still manages to make the end of their first date pleasant.
Sam will give Dean a sly smile when he walks in well past the time he said he’d be home. Anna gives Cas a long look when he walks in, and lets out a lengthy you're hopeless kind of sigh.
Their second date, Dean calls after only a day passed and Cas suggests a local coffee shop down the street from his house where hours are spent wisely learning more about each other. As Dean walks Cas home, they might get caught in the rain. And Dean will give his dad’s leather jacket over to someone for the first time in ever. Cas will try to take it off at the door, but that devious grin crosses the Winchester boy’s face, and he tells him to keep it for now, gives them a good reason for a third date.
For their third date, Cas will definitely call Dean. Monster Hunters 4 is in theaters, and there is no way Cas is asking his stuck up siblings to go see it with him. Dean laughs after Cas spends over an hour skirting around the subject matter before finally letting it out in a rush of air. Of course he says yes.
They won’t put their arm rests down. And about halfway through the movie, Dean finds Cas curled up against his side and he has somehow managed to sling his own arm around Cas’ shoulders. After dinner at a mom n’ pop joint that specializes in tacos, Dean will slowly drive Cas home, not really ready for the awkward part of the date to come. At the door they will hesitate, and shift, and Dean takes a step back when he realizes neither of them have any sense of personal space. He’ll take a step down from the porch, prepared to leave with a simple wave and ‘night’ but this time Cas will lean in. Their lips touch, and this time neither move. Cas’ eyes are screwed up tight, and his fingers have managed to curl in the collar of Dean’s coat. Following by example, Dean closes his eyes and tucks the fingers of one hand just barely under the hem of the other man’s soft navy blue sweater.
Their fourth and fifth date will go just as amazingly well. Their sixth one, Dean will find himself laid out in the grass in a park with Cas next to him, and a bag of food. Sam calls it a picnic. Dean calls it ‘mind your own business, Sam’. Cas calls it a date. Their seventh through twelfth ones are filled with a bit more in depth talking and discussion, but a lot more kissing.
On their fourteenth, somewhere in mid-December, Dean will peel Cas out of a wet trench coat and scarf in the backseat of his Impala, and press lips to every inch of his face, and fingers will snag against clothes as they rub their bodies together. On their seventeenth, Cas will step up onto his porch, and with all the confidence in him, he’ll ask Dean if he wants to come inside.
Dean will be gentle, soft, reverent, leaving tender kisses in his wake. Cas will clutch at him desperately, needy, wanting.
In the morning their eyes will open, their bodies tangled together, faces inches from each other, hearts beating in time with one another.
One of them will whisper “Every morning, for the rest of my life.” And the other will smile and their lips won’t leave each other’s for hours to come.
A year from then, Dean will wake to nightmares of memories not his own. Cas will disappear with his siblings for a bit for “family matters.” And their relationship will dwindle.
In a few months, Cas will be back, and both of them will have changed.
‘For the rest of my life’ won’t.
Someday, somewhere down the line, Cas will open his eyes to Dean’s weathered and aged face, and wrinkled hands will clasp each other’s. Dean will brush white hair from Cas’ eyes, and press kisses to his wrinkled forehead. Their rings will clack together when they grasp at the other’s hands.
One morning, Dean will cough into his hand. Another morning, a doctor will tell them they are out of time. And another Dean will call Sam and apologize. When Sam gets the message he’ll pull his wife close, and bury his face into her shoulder. When he gets a call saying his brother and brother-in-law are dead he won’t be surprised that they took the Impala over the edge with them.
They would rather die together then be apart from each other.
The night before, Dean will dream of Cas, a younger Cas. Who’s eyes will look tired, and clothes that look big for his small frame, and a trench coat he only saw Cas wear once. This younger Cas with older eyes will give him a pleading look and force out:
I wish circumstances were different.
When he looks over at Cas before they drive off the cliff, fingers reaching to grasp the offered hand, he kind of wishes they were too.