Work Text:
Dean's halfway back to Lebanon when he gets a call from Sam checking in.
"Everything go okay?" Sam asks. "Hey, I'm sorry, by the way. You know I would've been there to help, but—"
"Yeah, yeah, the flu, excuses, excuses. Shouldn't you be sleeping?"
"Trust me, I've done enough of that," Sam says, and gives a wet, rattling cough through the receiver to punctuate his point. "How's Cas? He make it out in one piece?"
Dean throws a look at Cas in the shotgun seat, who's fallen asleep with a hand pancaked between his temple and the glass of the car window. With his head tucked to his chest like that, he's got these stubbled jowls, and Dean feels his mouth curve up in a small, fond smile, fighting the urge to reach out and pinch one.
"Dean?" Sam's voice rings tinnily through the line again, twice as concerned. "Uh, Cas is alive, right?"
"What? Oh, yeah, he's fine." Dean refocuses on the highway, the way the thinning trees look like an amber blush on the roadside. "Didn't do half-bad for a pseudo-human."
Sam gives a short huff of laughter. "Okay, well. Drive safe. Keep me posted."
"Will do," Dean says. "Feel better."
Dean hangs up and looks at Cas again, and he can't help the unfurl of warmth in his chest, the bubble of heat that works up his throat. Cas is a little disheveled as a human, a little sloppy, his hair constantly in curled disarray, his borrowed old flannels buttoned all wrong, open too low. Dean thinks he likes the ragged, unkempt look on him, like his once-neat, pristine edges have gotten frayed.
It feels…good, all things considered, to be working normal bite-sized cases again. Like they're finally in some unspoken epilogue of a long and never-ending action-drama-tragedy novel, albeit a crappily written one with a pitiful ratio of comedic relief. Sam's alive; Cas is with him. It's a pathetically low standard, but beggars can't be choosers, and Dean's not an ungrateful man.
On a weird impulse, Dean reaches out and ruffles his fingers through Cas' messy hair. The gesture starts out playfully, gamely, but when Cas snuffles into consciousness, his fingers slow, carding now more than mussing.
"Hey, sleeping beauty," Dean says, and he gets a single, baleful side-eye. He grins and pulls his hand away, rubbing a quick thumb against Cas' temple. He ignores the way Cas gives a soft hum and leans into it, like he's chasing Dean's touch. "How was your cat-nap?"
"Uneventful," Cas says in a gravelly voice, and he sighs, plunking his head against the window with a quiet thud. "How much further?"
"We've got at least another day on the road."
Cas makes a noise in his throat somewhere between a grunt and an audible sigh. He keeps his gaze focused out the window, where the reflection of the colorful trees on the glass run like streaks of paint.
"I was thinking we could stop somewhere, though," Dean says, which to the contrary, he most certainly was not thinking that, but his mouth just kinda throws it out there before he can stop it.
Cas perks up with interest. "Yes, stopping sounds appealing."
Dean clears his throat and tips his chin up, playing it cool, trying not to feel like a high schooler asking his crush to homecoming. "Okay, cool."
"Okay, cool," Cas echoes, and Dean throws a fake, haughty glare in his direction, where Cas' mouth is curled up at the corner in a small smirk.
"I'll make you walk."
"No, you won't."
Dean slows the car to play along with his bluff, keeps slowing until the confidence on Cas' face thins out a little.
"Sure about that? I've done it to Sam."
"You wouldn't," Cas says with a scowl.
"Hey, about time you learned how to hitchhike, Cas. Get the whole nine yards of being human."
"Okay," Cas says, fixing his hand on the door-handle and looking at Dean with open defiance, one eyebrow cocked at a bitchy, all-too-familiar angle, and Dean rolls his eyes and speeds up the car again as a proverbial white flag.
Cas settles his shoulders back into the familiar leather mold of the shotgun seat, way too smug.
"I'd totally do it," Dean says, arching his eyebrows. "But I actually prefer having you around and alive, so."
"You flatter me," Cas says dryly, and it's not like the annoying sarcasm is a new Cas thing or a human Cas thing, but the frequency of it definitely is.
"No one likes a smart-ass, Cas."
"You do," Cas teases, and Dean grins and shrugs without denying it, shutting up the small part of him that voices its objections to what's obviously shameless flirting. He and Cas flirt all the time now, though—it's not a weird thing, or a contrived thing, it just. Is. Whatever. Dean tries not to think about what that means.
Dean pulls the Impala over at a cider barn about thirty miles later; doesn't really think it out, just sees the hokey orange lettering off the roadside and lets his hands guide the Impala off the interstate with a low rumble, gravel spitting up under the wheels and sending a thin cloud of dust curling up in front of the hood.
"Cider barn," Cas says with a squint, reading the sign, then adds questioningly, "Hard cider?"
"If you want, it's probably in the cards," Dean says, leaning back against the warm seat leather. "Haven't been to one of these since I was a kid. Every so often my dad would take Sammy and me when we went to get pumpkins."
Cas hums in his throat, affectionate.
"They've usually got, like, the best donuts at these things," Dean says, opening the front door with a creak of the hinges.
Cas follows suit, taking a moment to stretch his arms and shake out his shoulders from the cramp of the car, and Dean resolutely ignores how the oversized flannel rides up over his hips with the roll of his arms.
Cas relaxes and blinks sleepily, squinting through the sting of dust, and when he returns Dean's gaze, Dean realizes he'd been staring and glances away.
They head toward the cider barn in comfortable silence, where there are four carved jack-o'-lanterns on two hay bales sitting out front in greeting.
Dean smirks and points at the ugliest pumpkin. "Hey, it's you."
"Hey, it's you," Cas repeats in a bored voice, pointing toward a smashed squash directly under the pumpkins, and Dean bumps his shoulder into Cas hard.
Once they're inside and settled with orders, they take up a table at the far end of the restaurant. Cas is double-fisting a coffee and a cup of apple cider as he looks out the window. Dean folds his arms on the table. Cas looks toward him, his eyes slitted against the sunlight pleating through the blinds, and for a moment, they don't do anything but look at each other. There's something soft between them, something gentle and easy and yielding, and Dean notes the dark grain of stubble collecting on Cas' upper lip and jaw, the deepening creases crowding around his eyes, the purplish swoop of circles under his eyes.
Cas is staring at him too, his eyes flickering up and down Dean's features, and he says thoughtfully, cracking the moment clean in half, "You always seem to absorb sunlight."
Dean blinks, thrown completely for a loop. "What?"
"All the time I've known you," Cas says to clarify, raising the mug to take a slow sip. "I've noticed it. All the sun in the room seems to gravitate to you. It's like watching photosynthesis."
Dean coughs out a low, embarrassed sound, hating the hot crawl of a blush he can feel working up his neck. "Um."
"Just an observation," Cas says.
"Maybe it's because I'm like a black hole," Dean says, trying to play it off and waggling his eyebrows. Which, science, he's pretty sure that's not how it works, but whatever. "Sucking things in, y'know?"
"No," Cas says softly, and that's all he says. Dean blinks, waits for some sort of elaboration, but Cas doesn't say anything else, just lets the emphatic note of the word ring between them.
The waitress takes that moment to set down a plate of donuts between them and walks off. Dean eagerly reaches for one, glad for the distraction, and chews, letting the sugar melt on his tongue, and when he opens his eyes, Cas has got his eyes scrunched shut in some sort of relaxed bliss, chewing slowly.
"You were right," Cas says with his mouth full, and his next words are solemn and convictive. "These are the best donuts."
Dean plucks up a smaller one and makes a face at Cas. "Told you."
Cas somehow ends up smearing grains of sugar along the top corner of his lip, and Dean struggles against a grin threatening to form.
"Hey, you got a little somethin'," Dean says, motioning with a quick gesture toward his mouth.
Cas frowns at him, then deliberately sticks out his tongue and swipes it along his mouth, his eyes still locked with Dean questioningly.
Dean shakes his head, biting his lip down on a smile. "Still there."
Cas wipes the back of his knuckles along the wrong side of his mouth, the bunched frown lines between his eyebrows knitting together.
"No," Dean says with a laugh, and leans forward. "Here, you gotta—"
He doesn't even think about it—he doesn't even think about it as he leans in and kisses Cas, catching the stray sugar between his lips. Doesn't think about the fact that they're in public, doesn't think about the fact that it's Cas, which is probably the most terrifying part.
Dean has a split-second to feel it, Cas' sun-warmed skin against his and the sweet taste on his mouth before he yanks back like he's been hit, reeling, his eyes threatening to fall out of his skull. Cas blinks at him dazedly, his mouth shiny and way too pink.
"Got it," Dean says weakly, fighting the sudden urge he has to shrivel up like a worm left out in the sun.
"Thank you," Cas says, still blinking at him with the most amazed expression.
Dean's fishing for something, anything to say, so he says, a little desperately, "Uh, how's the cider?"
"Sweet," Cas says, his blue eyes still on Dean, gentle now. Dean flickers a quick glance at Cas' untouched cider and nods once, swallowing jaggedly.
---
Dean, weirdly enough, doesn't feel like driving for the rest of the day. Maybe it has something to do with the prospect of being alone with Cas in a confined space for the span of several hours, or maybe he's just roadsick, but either way, the thought of being behind the Impala's wheel right now makes nausea curl up nice and pleasant in his gut. Maybe it's the donuts, but it's probably Cas. And the fact that it'd seemed totally fucking natural to kiss him in front of God and all his patrons, but Dean's completely fine and completely not freaking out. He's totally zen.
Dean locates an Airbnb in the next town over for them to stay, and Cas doesn't say anything on the drive there, radiating this thoughtful silence that makes Dean way too nervous. He's more than hoping Cas will just let the whole thing go and pretend it never happened, put Dean out of his misery nice and easy, but it's not really in Cas' character to pick up on normal human cues and just leave well enough alone. So of course he brings it up the second they pull into the driveway.
"Why did you kiss me?" Cas asks the moment Dean kills the engine.
Dean's forehead goes to the steering wheel. "Jesus."
"It's a fair question."
"I just—I don't know, alright? Can we move on?"
"Okay," Cas agrees, his tone mild, but he doesn't move on, of course he doesn't. The second they're in the doorway, Cas tacks on, "It felt nice."
Dean cringes and drops his duffel on the carpet, purposefully loud. "Yeah, okay."
Cas heads across the room and cracks open the nearest window, and a crisp autumn breeze circuits through the room, which calms Dean's nerves, just a little bit. He suspects Cas knew it would.
"You want coffee?" Cas asks, looking over at him, and it's like five in the afternoon but Dean nods anyway. He can't stop messing with the pocket of his jeans, running a thumb along the ragged seam, and Cas seems to pick up on the nervous tic and takes it as his cue to leave the room.
Dean paces for a bit, just thinking, thinking about how it'd felt, how Cas had looked at him all soft and doe-eyed afterward—he can't stop thinking about it, which rationally, he knows, he's overreacting, just a little bit. Kissing isn't even first base for Dean, it's like—it's like a toe off home-plate, but somehow it's different with Cas. Dean feels like he's in the fucking outfield. Angels in the outfield, hilarious. Kissing angels in the outfield.
"This house is nice," Cas says when he returns, and he leans one shoulder against the white-painted door frame of the kitchen, and he looks so natural here, so human, that Dean feels his breath get completely sucker-punched out of him. "I could see us living here."
"Wh—" Dean starts to choke out, and Cas seems to catch his slip and amends, "You, Sam and me, I mean. It's peaceful, it's calm, it's removed—" And okay, Cas is acting nervous now, which maybe he's only acting like that because he's picking up on that edge from Dean like some sort of psychic undercurrent, but the whole room seems full now, brimmed with unspoken words.
Cas stops talking—he'd stopped talking a minute ago and Dean just hadn't realized. They're staring at each other again.
"Dean," Cas says softly, and Dean turns away, toward the window. The sun is going down, bronzing the trees on the opposite side of the road; the wind whistles through the window, sending leaves spiraling down.
Cas keeps going, talking to Dean's profile. "This doesn't have to change anything, if you don't want it to."
"I know," Dean says tightly, talking to the window, and Cas falls silent, shifts in Dean's periphery vision.
When Cas speaks again, his voice is quiet, almost inaudible. "I hope you wouldn't fault me for wanting it to, though."
Dean snaps his head so fast toward Cas that he's pretty sure he almost cricks his neck. "What?"
"I hope you wouldn't fault me for wanting things to change," Cas says more clearly, tilting his chin up in what looks like defiance, like he's challenging Dean to fight the words.
Dean can't think of a thing to say to that. He can't get it out of his head, the way Cas had looked at him after. There's this resonation in his chest like the bassline of a subwoofer, this reverberating feeling that keeps expanding and filling out his limbs.
"Dean?" Cas says, sounding unsure for the first time. His eyes are hooded, cautious, sad.
"C'mere for a sec," Dean says, shifting his feet back and forth on the carpet, and Cas raises his eyebrows in surprise but does what he's told, crossing to Dean with the barest trace of apprehension. He comes so close that their socked toes line up, and Dean looks down, watching Cas' toes curl in and out of the carpet uncertainly.
Dean exhales on a shaky breath, feeling his pulse pounding in his ears.
"Tell me what you want, Dean," Cas says in a soft voice, and reaches out to touch him but withdraws at the last minute, like he isn't sure he's allowed.
"I want you to," Dean says, his voice failing and dropping into a whisper. "I want you to kiss me, just once, to see how it feels."
"Just once," Cas agrees in a low voice.
"Just to see how it feels," Dean says quickly. "If it feels wrong, we can stop. But I just…I just want to see."
Cas nods, his tongue poking out to wet his lips, and Dean closes his eyes—it's an act of trust, and he knows Cas sees it for what it is because he hears him take in a fast, trembling breath.
He feels Cas drift closer into his space, feels the shift in gravity, like his body is humming to be near Cas, on Cas. He keeps his eyes shut, waiting, completely vulnerable, terrified for the moment he'll feel Cas' mouth on his, even more terrified that Cas will reject him and pull away.
"Cas, dammit," he says when another ten seconds pass, his eyes still squeezed shut. His hand drums against his jean-leg. "I ain't getting any younger here."
"I know," Cas says, his voice close, closer than Dean thought, and Dean bites down on his lip, so close to cracking, to cracking and letting his eyes open, to pulling back and calling this off—
He feels it, then, the warmth of Cas' breath on his mouth, and then Cas' lips align with his in the gentlest of touches. It's so chaste that it barely feels like a kiss, more like an act of fondness than anything, and Dean sighs, letting the tension knotting up inside of him unbend, his breath pouring into Cas' mouth.
"Good?" Cas murmurs against his mouth, seeming hesitant to pull away.
Dean nods, their lips disconnecting. "We should try again. It's, uh, hard to get a gauge, the first time. If it feels right, I mean."
"Okay," Cas says.
Dean shifts his feet again, squaring his shoulders, beckoning Cas with his hand in a "come on" gesture. "Okay. Hit me."
There's only a second of hesitation this time, almost like Cas is impatient for it—the kiss is harder this time, deeper, more lips, more tongue, more teeth. Dean opens into it, raising his hands instinctively from their dangling position at his sides to cup either of Cas' shoulders. Cas' own hands come up uncertainly before one rests on Dean's hip, the searing weight of it like an anchor, the other fitting the shape of Dean's jaw, cradling his face.
"Still good?" Cas asks, barely pulling back to word the question, his voice breathless.
"Don't stop," Dean whispers, hating the neediness in his voice, and Cas doesn't hesitate this time, just pulls Dean back in by the front of his shirt and kisses him with open eagerness, open fervor, chasing the breath straight from Dean's lungs. Cas tastes like coffee with a trace of sweet—Dean isn't sure if it's the donuts or the fall breeze or just Cas, but it's addictive as hell.
Cas pulls away so they can both catch their breath, diverting his attention to peppering kisses along Dean's jaw; Dean tilts his head back into it for a better angle, rocking into the sensation, his eyes closed.
Cas' socked feet are on top of his now, leveling the height difference. He hooks either hand on the back of Dean's neck and pulls away uncertainly, his eyes storm-dark but no less dazed, no less soft.
Dean exhales, tugging his fingers through Cas' belt loops, slotting their hips together.
"Does this feel right?" Cas asks, resting his forehead on Dean's cheek.
"Yeah," Dean whispers, pressing a kiss behind Cas' ear. "We feel right."