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In the dark of the bunker, an angel and a hunter stood before God.
"What the fuck do you want?" scowled the hunter.
Chuck laughed. "You're not gonna like this, Dean"
Castiel took a step of subtle indignation towards him, "Just answer the question and get out."
The three of them stood in a disjointed triangle facing each other, Dean trying to stand up straight to look Chuck in the eye but the tiredness and confusion of having been woken up in the middle of the night seeping through his careful mannerisms.
He'd made a silent, hasty prayer to Cass, who'd mercifully arrived right away when Dean had spotted Chuck, who was leaning against the concrete wall and smiling like a cat.
There was something so viscerally uncomfortable about Chuck's insidious presence in the bunker, which was supposed to be their place of sanctuary. Nothing was supposed to be able to get in or out, what with all the scrawled sigils on the ceilings and floors.
And yet here was Chuck. The worst of them all and the most powerful.
"Hey, did you guys know I went to film school?" He asked, as if this was a fucking coffee shop.
Cass squinted at him. "What?"
"Yeah." Replied Chuck, sauntering over to the table and sitting on it, his shoes on a chair. "I dunno I thought it'd be fun back in the 2000's. Met a lot of cool people, learned some stuff." He paused. "Course it's not my first choice of storytelling but it wasn't about that it was more about really finding myself, y'know?"
Dean closed his eyes for a few seconds and opened them again. "I'm- I'm once again asking you what the fuck you want, Chuck."
Chuck waved a hand at him, giggling "No no Dean, let me make my point, I'll get to it." He smiled for a second in a condescending world weary way.
"So I learned about how Alfred Hitchcock used to build suspense. Course I already knew everything they had to teach me but I still had fun pretending I didn't. Anyway, so Hitchcock said something like uh... If you have a bunch of people talking amicably around a table and suddenly, boom! There's an explosion and the table blows up, then the audience won't be surprised enough. I mean, sure it'll shock them for like two seconds but it won't be memorable enough."
Cass shifted uneasily, turning to Dean. "I've checked, there's no bombs under the table."
Dean nodded, but kept his eyes and frown fixed on Chuck.
Chuck continued, ignoring this. "But in the movie if you show the bomb being put under the table or at least pan down to show it then the audience will have suspense 'cause they know the bomb could go off at any time and they'll see the people around the table just not doing anything about it because they won't know it's there. Y'know? Especially if you put a timer on the bomb."
Dean ran a hand through his hair. "Right I'm getting a beer, who wants beer" and he made to leave.
"Wait, Dean" said Chuck, leaning forward and faking concern. "You're not gonna want to waste any time here. Bomb's a-ticking." He smiled like it was some inside joke.
"Chuck, please explain yourself and be concise." Said Cass, who hadn't moved a muscle since Dean had prayed for him into the room.
"Well I was thinking of ending the world."
Dean, who had ignored Chuck's request that he stay, dropped the glass beer bottle in his hand, and it smashed resoundingly, the sound echoing through the bunker.
"You're fucking what? Hey I thought you were gonna keep this world, that me and Sam were like your 'favourite show' or whatever, you can't fucking do this, I'm gonna go wake Sammy."
"Dean." Chuck drawled, raising a hand and stopping Dean in his tracks. "Stay still and let me explain it to you."
Dean stayed. It wasn't like he had a choice.
"I'd just been thinking the other day about what Hitchcock had said and it hit me. What if I told you two that you had exactly 24 hours to live before I blew up the sun. And I let you do whatever you want with that time. Because I'm sick of all this running around and..." He grimaced insincerely "trying to kill me and all, and I was just gonna end the world anyway but then I thought, no. How is that memorable? That's not good storytelling. And here we are."
Cass started walking towards Chuck purposefully, "Chuck, let's just talk about this-"
But Chuck had vanished.
The clock on the wall struck midnight.
...
Breathing hard, Cass spun round to face Dean. "Get Sam, I'll go and recruit some angels."
Dean, who was still looking at the spot where Chuck had just been standing, sighed. "No."
Castiel tilted his head. "No?"
"Look, Cass I don't think... I don't think that Sam or any angels are gonna help us now."
"What? What are you talking about?"
"I think it's been coming for a while. I don't think we win, Cas. I think..." They finally met each others eyes. "Cas I think Chuck wins."
Cas noticed how stricken Dean looked, how tired.
"We have to try, Dean, we can't let all these people die. Go get Sam, I'll get the angels."
The room felt cold. Like it wasn't a real place, but the fantasy of a hyperthermic man losing consciousness.
"I don't want to wake Sammy." Stated Dean. "It hurts to say it because I know he'd wake me but right now he's asleep probably curled up with Eileen and I want him to enjoy his last 24 hours. Telling him would only make him panic."
Cass frowned deeply, "But we-"
"Look, there's nothing we can do, buddy, I'm sorry, Chuck is God for fucks sake, the angels don't even fucking trust you anymore, we should go."
"Go where, Dean. We can't run from this, I'm going to heaven. I'll be back. Stay here."
Before Cass could vanish, Dean lurched forward and grabbed the sleeve of his trenchcoat. Cass stared at him.
"Cass don't, I'm-" Dean looked down for a beat before looking directly into Castiel's wide blue eyes. "I'm asking you to stay."
Dean blinked hard, refusing to let himself break down, before adding,
"I'm asking you to come with me."
...
"Where are we going?" Cass asked, as they drove in the impala.
"Y'know I have no idea" chuckled Dean. "I think just far away. Just anywhere."
Castiel watched him from the corner of his eye, "I'm putting a lot of trust in you here, Dean. This isn't really what we do. We don't just let the monster win."
Dean rubbed his forehead agitatedly "I know, Cas but just... Remember that night when we thought the world was ending and I told you that I wasn't going to let you die a virgin?"
"I hardly see how that's relavent"
"Well this is just like that, y'know? I'm giving you the damn last day on earth speech." Dean laughed. "Y'know I wish... Just for once it wasn't on us to save the world. To fucking fight god."
"Well you're a born hunter. And I'm a celestial being. It's inherent to us."
"Well what if we weren't. Just for 24 hours."
Neither of them said anything for a long time. The car's headlights cast long shadows on the trees as they sped by. Thick clouds obscured the stars like smoke.
...
Dean eventually pulled up the impala at a lake house. The place was deserted at 1 am, lit only by the yellow-orange glow of the impala's headlights, swarmed with moths. The place smelled of ciagrette smoke and moss. Dean brought out some beers from the car, and they sat at the end of the wooden jetty, Cas glaring out at the silver lake.
"You want one?" Asked Dean, offering him a beer.
"At this point why not. Not like it'll affect me anyway"
But three beers later and the opposite was starting to be evident.
Cas was leaning against Dean and trying to prop himself up with one arm. His words were slurred and he kept laughing in his gruff way about whatever Dean was saying.
Dean looked at the way Cass's eyes crinkled in the corners and asked "Dude why are you drunk already."
Cas gestured widely up at the stars "gift from God"
Dean smirked "No no, seriously what's up with you."
Sighing dramatically, the smile fell from Castiel's face. "I am being serious. I feel like Chuck might be draining my angelic power. I'm weaker."
Dean pushed Cas off of his shoulder, Cas looking surprised as if he didn't realise he was leaning on him in the first place.
"What do you mean he's draining your power? Why?" Dean stared at him, looking suddenly sober.
"Chuck's taking my grace so that I can't stop him. Not that I'm trying anyways. Still. Guess we really are powerless now. Or I will be. I think I do still have some of my grace left but... less of it"
Leaning back on the jetty, Cass started to point out the constellations. "Those three stars there? They make up Orion's belt. He's the hunter. And that's Perseus. The hero. And there's ursa major, I remember when it made. Didn't always look quite like that though." He seemed to be talking more to himself than Dean, who was staring down at him from where he was sitting. He could see the reflection of the constellations in Cas's silver-blue eyes. Dean leaned back to lie down next to him.
"D'you think in one of Chuck's other worlds the stars are different?"
"I dunno Cas. Maybe. Does it matter?"
Cas suddenly stood up again, after a moment of silence, making Dean flinch.
"I don't think it matters. I don't think anything we do matters. Fuck. Without warning, Cas relaxed into falling forwards into the lake, his trenchcoat billowing out behind him as he fell. It wasnt far to fall but Dean was sprayed by the splash.
"Cass what the fuck are you doing?" Dean scrambled forward to see Cas, floating with his arms out on the water, serenely, his hair and coat swirling around him like ink in a glass of water. Cass was smiling with his eyes closed.
"Cas, you idiot can you even swim? Hell I'd been thinking of pushing you in the lake myself had you not been fucking drunk. Get out of there it's freezing."
Cas opened his eyes and chuckled at him, reminding Dean of the version of Cass he'd met in the Croatoan version of the future. To Dean's surprise, Cas started to recite.
"How often when men are at the point of death have they been merry, which the their keepers call a lightning before death! Oh, how many I call this a lightning?- Oh my love, my wife! Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, hath no power yet upon thy beauty."
"Cass, man, what the fuck are you talking about."
Cass just smiled. "The drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die."
Dean pulled off his jacket and slid into the lake. "Okay buddy we're leaving. C'mon"
He tried not to wince at the icy water and attempted to grab Cas's shoulder. Cas shook Dean's hand off his arm, forcing Dean to lose his balance as he sank down from where he was treading water. Cass snapped out of it and swam down to grab him.
The thick cold water rushed in their ears, plunging them into a silence of white noise. They could almost hear each others heartbeats.
Cas pulled Dean from the lake and heaved him up onto the jetty as they lay panting and shivering. "Fuck that lake's cold, y'know you're heavy when you're wet."
"Sorry, Dean" Cas said, having the decency to look a bit sheepish.
"Dumbass" Dean remarked, more affectionately than he'd intented.
"Dean-" Cas started.
"Sorry man but you jumped in a lake at 1 am to recite fucking Shakespeare, I-"
"Dean" Cas interrupted, "Can I kiss you"
Dean stared at him, as if Cas had punched him in the face. "What? Fuck! No. Jesus, what the fuck Castiel?"
"I'm sorry, I-"
"Cas, don't-" Then Dean pointed up at something "Wait- what was that?"
Without warning, an unusually bright comet fell above them. And then another, and suddenly myriad stars seemed to be falling, cascading down in all directions.
Cass gasped and then whispered in a resigned voice "the angels are starting to fall."
...
Soft pink light spread over the lake as the sun rose. Dean was asleep, breathing softly, and Cass was slowly, painstakingly using what power he has left to dry him, passing a hand above his clothes, steam rising from his peaceful form.
The first birds were starting to sing, breaking the silence of the night. Cass carefully lifted Dean's hand to look at his watch, which remarkably still worked. 6am.
This action made Dean start awake and frowned, blinking up at Cass's face. A drop of water from Cas's hair dripped into Dean's face. Dean could only think about how Cas's drying hair was ruffled and curly and the way the light shone through it from the rising red sun behind him. Dean shifted away from Cas's peircing gaze.
"Do you wanna get coffee?"
...
They drove for a short while in silence until they found a rusty van that was selling coffee and a few breakfast items out of the side. A grey haired woman smiled at the two disheveled men approaching her. "Rough night, huh?" She had a southern accent that suited her bright eyes and cynical smile.
Dean straightened uncomfortably, stiff from sleeping in wet clothes on the wooden jetty, about to agree with her. But he remembered how it'd felt to be next to Cas, who'd lain breathing hard next to him, glancing at him from the corner of his eye whenever Dean wasn't looking. Who'd used the last of his weakening power to dry Dean's clothes, neglecting his own. Who'd almost kissed him.
"I've had worse nights. Two black coffees and two grilled cheeses. Thanks" he dug through his pockets for change, though he realised he hadn't brought his wallet.
...
Finishing his coffee, Dean leaned against the implala.
"You dry yet?" Dean asked. Cass nodded looking into the dregs of his black coffee.
"Dean, I'm sorry about last night. I think I might have been drunk. And I'm unused to that." He seemed awkward and stiff, standing next to the impala when he could just as easily lean on it, not meeting Dean's eyes.
"It's fine don't even worry about it. I overreacted. No point dwelling on it, we wasted too much of our time being asleep anyways."
Cas was quiet. "Yeah." Dean picked at the loose paintwork on the side of the impala.
"Look, man. It's not like you just kissed me without asking. You asked and I said no and that was the end of it. You didn't technically doing something wrong, it's just..." Dean took a deep shuddering breath and set down his coffee cup on the roof of the car. "When I was a kid and I guess mostly as a teenager I'd all watch these, like, western movies. Cowboys and stuff y'know? And at first when I was a kid I just thought they were cool and my dad-" he swallowed and looked down" "my dad would encourage it because they were 'real men' and I guess he thought they were good role models for me. But then uh... One time when I was fifteen I... Dad walked in on me when I was" He blushed furiously. "Jacking off to a movie flyer of El Mariachi. Antonio Banderas. Y'know? And anyway, my dad, he- he hit me. A lot. Told me that I had to be a man to be a hunter. That any kind of this weakness, femininity, sickness was gonna cost lives when it came to a time when I'd need to be masculine, to be a hunter. And I guess I didn't really question it."
He looked at Cas who was staring at him, his head tilted to the side slightly. Dean misinterpreted this as judgement rather than sympathy, and continued, "I never had a problem with other people being gay or whatever, but I can't. I can't be... That. I'm a hunter. That's all."
There was a long moment of poiniant silence. Then Cas spoke.
"When I was in heaven, everything was planned out for me. I had to be a soldier, but I also had to be this perfect Christian symbol." Cas was scathing. "We were told that we were forbidden from anything romantic or sexual, especially not anything homosexual. We were shown all of these pastors and priests who would preach hatred towards gay people and we were told that these preists were our people, and were people of God. I never thought that it would affect me because I never thought for myself. I knew the Bible inside out and I knew Leviticus. And then when I fell I became unholy and unclean in the biblical sense. I was miserable. And wracked with shame. But then I thought... I know how I feel and I know that how I feel is natural. Then as I started to lose faith I started to feel things like this even more. I met these people that I was taught were abominations and I empathised with them... And then I began to see myself in them"
They made eye contact for a while and Cas nodded.
"I never knew that about your father. You didn't deserve that."
"Didn't I?" Dean asked dryly. "Would you have said that to me when we first met?"
Cas furrowed his brows in shame, opening his mouth to reply, but then Dean cut in "forget it, I'm sorry. Because if you'd asked to kiss me a few years ago I might've punched you in the face. Or like... Called you a- a y'know. A slur or something."
To his surprise, Cas laughed. "Oh Dean. It's not your fault. You were raised to be a soldier. So was I. A soldier can't be weak, it's just logic."
Dean fully turned to look him in the eyes. " Do you really think that? That it's weak to be... Y'know."
"No Dean. Not anymore. I've done far braver things motivated by love than by fear of celestial repercussions."
Dean's heart stopped. "Love?"
But Cas fell silent.
...
Driving through the suburbs and into the city, with nowhere to go, the implala started to stutter.
Dean pulled over and opened the hood, which was smoking. "Ah fuck she's broken down. Cass, c'mere"
Cass got out of the car, and frowned deeply with closed eyes, passing a hand over the hood. Eventually he exhaled and dropped his hand. "I think she'll be able to move a couple hundred metres more but I don't think I can fix her better than that in this state."
Dean amicably slapped him on the arm, "cheers, man."
They left the car at a mechanics who told them they could collect her in a few hours.
"I want to go after Chuck." Said Cas.
"Dude what? What could possibly be achieved by that?"
"He can't get away with this. That mechanic, the lady who sold us coffee from her van, Sam, all of them are going to die."
"Cas you're powerless pretty much there's nothing we can do. Let's just drop it, don't make me feel worse about a situation out of our control"
"No, Dean I won't let us just waste our time here. Yeah I'm useless but you're being worse because you don't even want to try."
"Wasting our fucking time?" Dean got all up in his face. "Wasting our time? I left my fucking brother to run away with you. God knows why, just a stupid impulse, I shouldn't have left. I should've protected him, this wasn't fucking worth it, a stupid impulse move, maybe you're right."
Cas matched his energy, "who are you? Why was running away with me more important to you than stopping the end of the world? This is so unlike you Dean, I'm disappointed. I shouldn't have come with you." He straightened up and looked Dean dead in the eye "You're a coward, Dean Winchester."
In a flurry of movement, Dean dragged Cas into an alleyway and shoved him against the wall. "Fucking say that again." He hissed through his teeth, Cas unflinching and meeting his gaze.
"You're being a coward and you know it. Sam would be disappointed. Your father would be dissapp-"
Dean cut him off by punching him in the face, Cass stumbled and dropped to the ground. Dean pulled him up by the collar of his shirt and tried to punch him again, but Cas grabbed his arm and twisted it away, his eyes briefly flashing bright blue, like a cold glowing coal, a dying flame. This seemed to regain his strength and he pinned Dean to the wall, one hand on his throat and one on his twisted arm.
"Calm. Down." He murmured, his voice relaxed yet threatening, a sinister effect. "This can't be a fight either of us will win."
Dean could see Cas's face from the corner of his eye, breathing hard, his lip split and dark blood dripping from his mouth. To Dean's horror, a heat was spreading up his face as he felt Cas's body pressed up against his, their erratic heartbeats crashing against each other, Cas's rough hand with an iron grip on Dean's neck.
He couldn't help but to glance down at the blood on Cas's lips, feeling a twinge of guilt and wanting to wipe the blood away. Gently.
But then he met Cas's passionately angry eyes and his firm grip on Dean's arm reminded him of what Cas had said about his father.
"Get the fuck off of me."
Cass relented. He let go, causing Dean to immediately spin round and punch the grimy stone wall by Cas's head.
"Okay." Cas said, expressionless. He walked off. Dean watched him leave.
...
Cas reappeared a few minutes later and produced a roll of bandages. Dean didn't ask how he got them, neither of them having any money.
"Give me your hand." He asked quietly. Dean hesitated before giving Cas his hand, which surpried himself, his hand was shaky and bloody, bruises were forming on his scraped knuckles.
In silence, Cas took Dean's hand in his own steady, cool one. Slowly he bound Dean's hand, with care not to hurt him. They didnt look each other in the eye.
When Cass had finished, Dean tentatively raised his newly bandaged hand to wipe the blood from the corner of Cas's mouth. To his relief, Cas didn't flinch away.
"I'm sorry"
"Me too."
There was nothing else to say.
They left the alleyway, moving out of the shadows into the open space and sun of the parking lot. Cas looked up at the clouds.
"Dean, I'd like to go to church. If that's okay."
"Of course, man."
...
Their footsteps echoed through the hushed church. The air was colder than the summer weather outside, but the coolness felt like the relief of shade rather than the cold of the presence of a ghost.
The big arched ceiling felt somehow claustrophobic to Cas somehow, but claustrophobic like a prolonged hug. The warm natural light made the place feel nostalgic and comforting.
The dead son, Jesus Christ hung in anguish on the various crosses of different sizes and designed. "It always made me uncomfortable. The way Christians are obsessed with Jesus's image in death." He said this quietly to Dean as not to be overheard.
"Dude, tell me about it. It kills the vibe." Dean turned to point to a statue of the virgin Mary, painted in dark rich blue and vibrant gold, her tears crystalline on her face. "Our Lady of Sorrows. She was always my favourite."
Cas snorted. "Your favourite character of the Bible?"
"Shut up, man, y'know what I mean. She gave up everything and didn't even have a choice. Gabriel just appeared to her- fuck, I hadn't considered, actual, real, Gabriel in that role- anyway he appeared and tells her she had to take this role whether she wanted to or not. And she took the role and did fucking amazing. I respect her more than God anyway."
Cas looked at the statue for a long time and then back at Dean. "I think she'd have liked you. She was really sweet, looked nothing like that statue though, she was middle Eastern."
"Wait you've met her? The virgin Mary? Of course you have." Dean paused. "Have you met Jesus? Oh god... Chuck has a son..."
"Dean, let's not go there."
"Yeah alright. Why are we here?"
"I'm not sure. I wanted comfort I guess. But this is Chuck's fault. Let's just leave, there's nothing for us here."
Cas stared at an old woman praying and lighting a candle, two kids running down the pews being shushed by a tired looking mother. A silent androgynous teenager, sketching the stained glass window.
"I hate Chuck. Let's just go."
Dean put what he thought was a comforting hand on Cas's shoulder, causing Cas to flinch for the first time. "I'm sorry, are you okay?"
Cas answered so quietly that Dean could've pretended not to hear him if he wanted.
"I'm scared, Dean."
"I can't tell you it'll be okay. Because it won't. But we still have" he checked his watch. "12 hours left. That's all the time in the world. Literally." Dean hadn't taken his phone because he didn't want to see a the missed calls from Sam. It was selfish but there was nothing he could do.
...
An hour later, they wandered into a diner to get burgers.
Sipping a coke, Dean picked up the can, saying "I wish this was straight vodka."
Cas nodded. "Let me try something"
He concentrated as hard as he could with his grace, focusing on the coke. "Okay now try"
Dean drank some, raising his eyebrows, "Cas, I can kinda taste some of the alcohol in this. Barely but hey"
Cas frowned "it's getting worse. I'm sure more angels have fallen or have figured out what's going on. I'm going to have to hide from them somehow." He sighed deeply. "I just got sober again but yeah. Let's get drunk. Or try opiates."
Dean laughed "I don't want to see you high again, so drinking it is." He reached into his pockets and then froze. "Cas" he whispered, eyes wide. "I don't have any money."
"What?" Cas whispered, mirroring him in a way that Dean found endearing.
"I just realised I spent the last of it on our coffee. And I don't even wanna know how you got those bandages."
"I stole them. Illegally." Cas said sincerely
"Yeah man, I got that."
"So what do we do?"
Dean looked left and right, "I think we should look as dignified as we can add we walk out, and then just fucking run."
"Run?"
"Yeah, Cas, we run."
They stood, trying to look casual, but of course Cas couldn't help but to look shifty, guilt evident on his face.
"Just keep your head down"
A waitress was frowning across the room of them and she started to walk over.
They crossed the threshold out of the door and then started to break out into a run, Cas shooting a look over his shoulder.
"Hey!" Shouted the waitress, "Come back!"
Dean and Cas sprinted hard down the road coming to the top of a grassy hill, adrenaline pulsing through their veins, Dean glanced behind him, seeing the short, burly manager in his greasy apron tearing after them down the street.
"I'm calling the fucking police you cocksuckers!" He called after them, panting and slowing down.
Cas and Dean tore down the hill to into an area shouded by a few pine trees, they started to slow to a walk, getting as deep into the fairly sparse trees as they could.
For some reason, catching each other's eyes they both burst out laughing.
"We really did that." Said Cas.
"Great." Panted Dean. "We've got angels after us, and the police. We're barely halfway through the day and committed two crimes." He leaned against a tree to catch his breath.
"We're too conspicuous. We can't just hide out here but the impala's down so we can hardly leave either" Cas scrubbed at his face in frustration.
Dean turned to look at him. "We should swap jackets." This was met with an eyebrow raise. "I'm serious, you wear my flannel, I'll wear your trenchcoat. It'll throw of the police at least."
Cas smiled again. "If you say so. Though I always thought you were very attached to your leather jacket."
"Shut up, man. I mean, yeah, you know it makes me look hot. And you're attached to that trenchcoat."
"Not as much as you are." Cas muttered.
"What was that?"
"Nothing."
So they swapped jackets, Dean slipping into Cas's trenchcoat, light and cool to the touch, torn and threadbare in places but still as clean as Cas could keep it. It smelled of Cas and of lake. Cas smelled kind of clinical, Dean noted, but not in a bad way, he smelled of mint toothpaste and laundry detergent and chlorine. He smelled of blue. Of clean. On anyone else it might seem cold and sterile but on Cas or seemed to suit him. Compliment him.
Looking at Cas he was taken aback. Cas looked good. Really good. His hair unruly and curling from the wind and and being uncombed since the lake. His lip was split and swollen, his eyes reflecting the sky behind him, but the brown leather jacket was what made the look. It really suited him. Cas seemed not to know how attractive he really was. He held himself in such an unaware and casual way that you might not look to him to be something so... Beautiful. Yet he was. Fuck. Did Dean really just fucking think that about his friend? Over a jacket at a split lip? Fuck, he needed to pull it together.
...
A long walk later and the sun was starting to get low in the sky. The tail end of golden hour was just giving way to a sunset just as pink as the mornings sunrise. But the pink was less soft, pale and innocent, and deeper, purpler, more passionate and bold.
At some point, Dean spotted a bar.
"Here's where we can get drunk. C'mon."
The bar was more of a club than a bar. It was dimly lit with blue and green swirling lights, and people dancing to slow, throbbing music.
"How're we going to get drinks if we don't have money?" Asked Cas.
"Other people." Dean smirked. "Are gonna buy them for us."
"I don't understand." Cas tilted his head and squinted.
"Watch this." Dean sidled up to a woman about ten years older than him. She has lipstick a dark fuicia colour that bled into the lines above her mouth, pronounced by the fact that she was smoking. Her red hair was kind of frazzled looking and dyed, greying at the roots, but Dean had chosen her because of her expensive looking clothes and handbag, all sleek and black.
Cas watched intently as instructed at the way Dean looked at her, lowering his long eyelashes over his pretty green eyes. At the way he leaned on the bar, the trenchcoat flowing over his broad shoulders. At the upward quirk of his lips, laughing at whatever the lady was saying, Cas was unable to hear exactly over the music. The bartender poured Dean a drink and he feigned rummaging around in his pockets for money. When he saw he had none he acted surprised and hurt, looking around him. The lady raised a hand to stroke his jaw and she brought out her purse to pay for the glass of swirling amber liquid.
Cas could just about hear Dean telling her he was just gonna check on his friend and that he'd be right back before sauntering over to him.
"Well" he sipped the alcohol. "Just like that."
"But Dean isn't that... Immoral?"
"Nah, I mean maybe but it's not like they're gonna miss their money anyway. And she don't mind, look at her." They both glanced back at where she was smirking lewdly over at Dean. He gave a little wave.
"So what do you say? Wanna chat someone up?"
Cas shifted uncomfortably in the leather jacket. "You make it look easy. I havn't had to do something like that before."
"Dude." Dean chuckled, incredulous, "you've never flirted with someone before?"
"No. Never had cause."
Dean nodded. "Well I mean I had to as a teen-" he cleared his throat, correcting himself "I mean when I was younger, when I wanted to get on the right side of hotel managers who we weren't fully paying, or like if I was a few dollars short buying food in a shop or something. It's amazing what a few sultry looks and witty comments can do."
Cas didn't know how to reply to this, so he said, deadpanned, "and of course it doesn't hurt that you're visually appealing."
"Yeah, comments like that, you get the idea." Dean said, slapping Cas on the shoulder. "Cmon you should try it. Right now, just go over to someone and initiate downing shots or something."
"But Dean, I'm not..." He trailed off gruffly.
"What?"
"I look kind of. Weird. To be blunt. And I act weird." He looked ashamed. "Dean, please, I don't want to flirt with any stranger tonight. We're running out of time."
Dean looked shocked by this, his eyes wide and sad. "You don't look weird at all, Cas. You look..." He swallowed and cleared his throat. "You don't have to flirt with anyone, let's forget about the drinks. Here, finish this." He pushed the glass into Cas's hand, who downed it and set it down.
Dean looked around widely to think of something to distract them from cosmic horror that didn't require money.
"Cas. Have you ever wanted to dance?"
Cas smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling.
"I don't see why not."
They sunk into the deep, whirling blue and green of the dance floor, Cas, at first unmoving as Dean started to move in a basic way with the beat. His dancing was kind of minimal, not wanting to draw attention to himself, but still showing a level confidence and self assuredness that Cas as he tried to mimic Dean's movement.
It was getting dark outside and the bar was reaching its highest level of activity, more people coming onto the dance floor meaning that Dean and Cas had to keep moving closer.
It was undenyable ,as they locked eyes, occasionally breaking the eye contact to look away, just to dissolve the intensity a little before it got to much, that they were dancing not just near each other, but with each other.
The song changed to something slightly slower and Dean said something that Cas didn't quite catch.
"I'm sorry?"
"This is the point when the guy kisses the girl in movies."
Cas frowned, but smiled slightly also. "Meaning?"
"Meaning..." Dean hesitantly put a hand on Cas's waist, very lightly, Cas could barely feel it. "Meaning I think if things were different, you and I might... Be different."
Cas shook his head. "Different how?"
"Like if I wasn't a hunter and if you weren't a dude or an angel and this wasn't a public place and we weren't raised by homophobic paternal influences and stuff wasn't always trying to kill us all the damn time, and if I was a bit more drunk, then maybe... Y'know?"
"Dean. Do you really think any of that matters now? What matters is what we want and what we feel, you're not really a hunter anymore, I'm not really an angel, we're just two people dancing in a club at the end of the world."
Dean blinked his eyes, which reflected the swirling lights, an ethereal effect.
"kiss me" He almost whispered.
Cas leaned in and cupped a hand on Dean's cheek, kissing first slowly and gently, and then Dean responded passionately and deeply, one hand still on Cas's waist and one tangled in his dark hair. The moment felt like gold, like all their blood was champagne, and every nerve in their bodies was aching for each other.
Neither wanted to pull back, wanting to spend the last few hours they had on earth in that first kiss in the dark, but as they did, Dean studied Cas's face and had never seen him look like this. So yearning and bright eyed. So beautiful and dangerous and just resoundingly magic. It made Dean want to cry.
"Why don't we go someplace else?"
...
The impala by this time was fixed, so Dean thrilled to be behind the wheel again for what he knew was the last time, the time being late in the evening, drove them for a little while to find somewhere secluded to spend their remaining time. It wasn't like they could book a hotel, nor did Dean want to, and as they pulled up behind some deserted park, he realised there was no where he'd rather be. Which he expressed
"Cas, y'know there's nowhere I'd rather be with the time we have left."
Cas sighed. "Yeah. It's kind of hard to wrap my head around it. I accepted that I was immortal. This is so strange too me conceptually."
"Don't think about all that existential crap right now, Cas." Dean parked the car and leaned over in the drivers seat to kiss him again. His heart pounded from adrenaline and he felt the strange sensation of butterflies in his stomach. He'd never felt this way kissing anyone else. Only Cas.
Cas was a good kisser, slow and sensitive and at one point let out a little moan, making Dean kiss him faster and more needily, pulling Cas towards him so that their hearts almost touched.
"Cas, do you want to do this?" Dean asked, pulling back.
Cas nodded, kissing Dean again, who unclipped their seat belts. "We should do it in the back seat though, for convenience."
One on the back seats, Dean gently pushed Cas down against them, on top of him as they kissed. Dean started to lower his kisses from Cas's jaw to his neck. Cas gasped slightly.
"You like that?"
Cas nodded, and Dean kept going, gently removing Cas's jacket to kiss his collar bones and shoulders, feeling Cas's breath, deep and hitching against Dean's neck, it was the sound of Cas's breathing that turned Dean on the most. The fact that he made Cas breathe like that. He wanted to make Cas moan.
"Dean" Cas slurred, Dean was able to feel the vibrations of his deep voice through the base of his throat as he kissed it.
...
Later, as they held each other, sweaty and panting on the back seat, a mess of limbs, trenchcoat and jacket since discarded around them, Dean's head on Cas's chest, eyes hazy and euphoric, the feeling of timeless infiniteness started to wear off of Cas. "What time is it?" He murmured, knowing it was well into the night from the dark outside.
Rain was cascading down onto the impala, a sound that Dean loved, the tinny sound that the downpour had, the all consuming white noise it created. It made the warmth and comfort of the impala all the more promenant in the contrast.
He checked his watch, squinting to see it the dark. "Fuck. 11:45..." He suddenly went cold, any post orgasmic high leaving his body. Cas, sensing Dean's goosebumps, wrapped his strong arms around him in a hug.
"Don't move, Dean. I've got you. Close your eyes."
They listened to each others breathing and felt each others heartbeats through their bare chests. That combined with the pouring rain and raw, passionate thing they'd just done, it was difficult to believe that in fifteen minutes all of this would be gone.
"Y'know what I like about this damn car?" Dean said into Cas's shoulder. "No matter what happens she's always here. Even if it's pouring with rain and we have nowhere to go and it's the end of the world. We at least can stay warm and safe here."
A low rumble of thunder came from outside.
"Mm. She's a good car." Cas agreed. "I think it would be best if we tried to fall asleep for when... It happens. It's easier said than done but Chuck wanted a fight, some entertainment. But most importantly he wanted to create fear and suspense like that director he went on about. Best thing we can do to beat him now is to be calm and enjoy this." He paused. "And I am calm. And I do enjoy this."
Dean held Cas even tighter, scared to let go.
"Cas I. I want to tell you something but I'm not sure I can say it out loud."
"That's okay Dean." Cas's voice waivered. "I love you."
"I... I love you too.