Archive of Our Own

Because Gabriel Novak is the most dramatic boss Dean has ever had the displeasure of reporting to, he decides to do the premiere assignments not the normal way (a list posted in the break room) but the Gabriel way.

As in, derailing everyone’s shift to make a big commotion out of it.

“Hear ye, hear ye!” Gabriel crows from atop an only slightly wobbly table, once everyone has been gathered up and crammed into the break room. “As you all know, the movie event of the summer is fast upon us! Not long from now, bright eyed girls and boys will be lining up to buy tickets to Barbie or Oppenheimer – ”

“Or both!” Rowena chimes in from where she’s idling painting her nails.

“And so, in order to hose such an amazing event,” Gabriel continues, absolutely ignoring Rowena, “we need to make sure we’re fully staffed! You all should have been notified that the 21st is a black out date, so no time off unless you are actively dying or got prior approval. Got it? Good, great, excellent. Which brings me to my next important item of business: who is staffing which. And honestly I thought about just assigning you shifts, but that’s way too boring, and I am not a boring boss, so! You are all going to choose your own shifts!”

Which is when Gabriel starts rattling an extra-large popcorn bucket like it’s a piñata.

“Name tags are in here – color coded, of course. Step right up and learn your fate,” he crows, like he’s some sort of circus ringmaster.

Unfortunately, he does actually sign their checks and also they want to get back to their normal breaks, so people start stepping up. The first few name tags are a fiery orange-red, which Gabriel brands as Oppenheimer.

And then Sam pulls out a name tag in the most lurid shade of pink Dean has ever had the misfortune of laying eyes upon, and Gabriel yells, “And Barbie for the Moose!”

“That’s not my name, Gabriel.”

“What’s that? Did someone hear a moose squeaking? Anyone? No? NEXT!”

“He’s gonna make me put ‘Moose’ on this one, isn’t he?” Sam says with a resigned sigh, after he works his way back to Dean. For some reason he looks more concerned about that than the fact that he’s going to be a walking pink eyesore all premiere night long.

Dean shrugs. “Probably,” he says, because it’s the job of the older brother to be merciless and pitying in turns, and right now it’s absolutely the former. “But hey, look on the bright side?”

“That Eileen has good handwriting and can turn ‘Moose’ into ‘Sam’ again for me?”

“Nah. That it’s gonna look great with your hair, Samantha,” Dean says, and then dodges the inevitable swipe by joining the line for name tags.

By the time Dean reaches the popcorn bucket of doom, Gabriel is bouncing up and down on his feet like he’s a demented pogo stick. He also has the widest smile Dean has ever seen on him, and that includes the time he pranked everyone by handing out free sandwiches for lunch – without mentioning that they were taller than most people’s arms. It is, to say the least, a somewhat terrifying expression.

“Step right up and learn your fate, Dean-o,” he says when Dean reaches him.

“You missed out on your chance to be a fortune teller,” Dean tells him.

“Funny story! I tried that. Only lasted six months. Got super bored.”

Dean just rolls his eyes and sticks his hand in the popcorn bucket, because Gabriel has – if all the stories he’s told are to be believed – done just about every single career on the face of the planet, and left them all after anywhere from one week to one year. Dean would dismiss them all as tall tales, except that sometimes Gabriel busts out really weird talents that actually line up with his stories.

The name tags, to Dean’s disappointment, are all smooth and the same size. There’s no lettering on them, so Dean can’t rely on that to guess which is which, and Gabriel carefully keeps the bucket covered enough that Dean can’t sneak a peek. Eventually, he sighs, grabs one, and prays.

And immediately curses, because it is, of course, bright pink.

“And Barbie for Dean-o!” Gabriel shouts.

“Oh, hell no,” Dean says, and goes to drop the garish name tag back in the bucket.

But Gabriel pulls the bucket away, that evil grin growing even further. “All choices final, Winchester,” he says. “You’re doing Barbie and that’s it. Pink nametag, pink apron, and gorgeous pink shoes. And who knows, maybe you’ll decide pink is your color after all.”

“Why you little – ”

“NEXT!”

Unfortunately for Dean, getting rid of his Barbie premiere assignment is easier said than done. Normally he would prevail upon Sam to switch with him, but Sam also has Barbie, so that’s an immediate non-starter. Even worse, Eileen got Barbie too, so Sam is too busy gloating about their date to really care about Dean’s Barbie woes.

“Oh, it’s one night; you’ll survive,” is Sam’s glowing advice.

“I am allergic to this shade of pink and they’ll have to be giving me adrenaline before we even get past the opening credits,” Dean tells him, but Sam by then is too busy smooching Eileen to even hear what Dean’s saying.

Dean’s next bet would be Benny, but sadly Benny – the lucky sucker – is on vacation. Victor also got Barbie, Jo got Oppenheimer but also just straight up laughs at him, and Garth, who also got Oppenheimer, launches into what must be the longest and most passionate infodump about World War II Dean’s ever heard, so Dean backs away slowly and doesn’t bother asking.

Which leaves: “Queen of Moondoor, I request admittance!”

“Who goes there?” Charlie bellows back from her dark and scary cave of tech wonders.

“Your knight!”

“I think you mean, my handmaiden.”

Dean rolls his eyes. Charlie’s been insisting that Dean is her handmaiden ever since he wandered into her LARP group and almost blabbed about her real name, but for one thing, he refuses to wear that dress because it is so not his color, and for another thing, “Sir Dean Winchester” sounds way better to him than “Lady Dean Winchester”.

“Whatever! Can I come in or not?”

“Hmm . . .”

“Charlie!”

“Alright, alright. The Queen will see you now,” Charlie says, in that strange regal voice she always puts on when LARPing or, weirdly, while doing taxes. “So! How can I help you today, my faithful handmaiden?”

Dean fishes that awful fluorescent pink name tag out of his pocket. He’s pretty sure he’s holding it like it’s hazardous waste, but to be fair, it kind of is. It’s so pink that likely if any living thing ate it, they would die. And probably turn pink like a flamingo.

Charlie’s eyes light up. “Oooh! You got Barbie! I am so jealous!”

“ . . . You are?” Dean asks suspiciously, because Charlie isn’t not-girly, but even as the Queen of Moondoor she normally wears pants.

“Well, yeah. I want to have the full Barbenheimer experience! My calculations say that the best combo is Barbie, and then Oppenheimer, and then Barbie again, but that’s a lot of money and also I’m pretty Gilda loves me but not enough to pay for two Barbie showings.”

“ . . . . . . The what experience?”

“You didn’t hear anything past Barbenheimer, did you?”

“Was it important?”

Charlie reaches over and slaps his sleeve. Gently, but that’s not saying much, because the way Charlie inflicts real pain is through tech, and Dean is well aware that she can bring his entire digital life crumbling down with a few well-placed keystrokes. There’s a reason that even Gabriel waits for her to give permission before he enters, and Gabriel has zero qualms about barging in anywhere else.

“Barbenheimer, Dean,” Charlie repeats impatiently. “The blockbuster movie duel of the summer! Like The Dark Knight and Mamma Mia! Or The Matrix and 10 Things I Hate About You! And – And you have no idea what Mamma Mia or 10 Things I Hate About You are, do you?”

“Nope,” Dean lies, because it’s that or admit that that Lisa once forced him to watch Mamma Mia during a date night. Luckily, he’d had enough drinks by the end to pretend that his tears were because of the alcohol and not the movie.

“I’m telling you, you’re missing out,” Charlie tells him. “But! That doesn’t matter! What matters is right now, and I would kill for a free viewing of Barbie.”

Dean’s hopes rise. “So you got Oppenheimer?”

“No, Dean, I got nothing,” Charlie says. She gestures at her cave of wires and screens. “I’m the tech queen, remember? I gotta make sure everything is running smoothly, otherwise all of the guests you end up serving will be really mad when things aren’t one hundred percent, absolutely, completely perfect.”

Dean’s hopes fall into the pits of despair. “Damn it. You were my last hope,” he confesses, slumping against the nearest table.

“Really? What about Sam?”

“Barbie.”

“Eileen?”

“Barbie.”

“Aww, that’s cute. Jo?”

“She just laughed.”

“Garth?”

“Started going off on a World War II tangent. Honestly, I’d feel kinda bad taking it away from him.”

“I knew there was a cuddly sweetheart under all of that gruff flannel,” Charlie beams. “Rowena?”

“Are you insane?” Dean asks incredulously. “She’d eat me. Alive.”

“ . . . Yeah, probably,” Charlie says. “Samandriel?”

Dean knows most of his fellow employees, but not all of them. Some people just always end up working opposite shifts to him, or they work jobs that don’t overlap with his. Still, the name makes him do a double take, because: “Sam-what?”

“Samandriel. Sam-an-dri-el. Nice kid, short, always is working hot dogs?”

“Oooh, hot dog kid,” Dean says, as vague memories of a kid in the red-and-white uniform Gabriel insists all of the food service employees wear start to swim up. He also insists on naming the hot dog stand “Weiner Hut” and refuses to change the name no matter what anyone says, which is why Dean never goes near it and probably why he has no idea what this kid’s name is. “Do you think he’d switch?”

Charlie shrugs. “I can’t think of anyone else, so it’s worth a shot. Unless you want to try Rowena?”

“I like my liver where it is, thanks.” Dean drops into an exaggerated bow. “Your knight requests leave to return to the kingdom, my Queen.”

“Your presence shall be sorely missed, my handmaiden, but I grant you leave to continue your rounds in the kingdom.”

“Your knight thanks you,” Dean says pointedly, and then leaves before Charlie gets anymore bright ideas.

“Sorry, Dean,” Samandriel apologizes, scooping some fries into a box. “I got Barbie, I’m afraid.”

“Yeah, that’s alright,” Dean tells him. It is very much not alright and Dean is halfway convinced that he’ll go into shock at the sight of so much pink when Gabriel unveils whatever monstrosity of a uniform he wants them to don, but Samandriel looks too worried for Dean to go into that.

Also, it feels rude to wax on and on about the terrible tragedy of having to work Barbie in pink when the kid is wearing a hat branded Weiner Hut and has to serve people every day like that.

“But . . . maybe?”

“Maybe what?”

“Well,” Samandriel says, huffing as he heaves a new batch of fresh hot dogs into the warmer, “if it helps, I think my cousin got Oppenheimer? He might be willing to trade.”

“Your what now?” Dean says, because, as far as he was aware, he and Sam are the only relatives working together in the theater, after the triplets got modeling jobs and departed for sunnier beaches.

“My – Number 10! Two hot dogs and one order of fries! – my cousin. He’s right over – Yes, you did order a large fries. It’s on the receipt. Thank you – over there.”

“Over . . . where?” Dean asks, because the food court is a huge area and usually the only time he enters it is when he’s stealing food, so he always makes sure the coast is clear of fellow employees who might notice.

“Slu – Yes, how can I help you? No, sorry, your order shows that you only had hot dogs. Oh, you want to add a slice of pizza? Yes I can do that – slushies, Dean.”

“Yeah, I got that. Thanks, kid,” Dean says, and then he sneaks away before he can get sucked into the endless black hole that is trying to satisfy the line of hungry and impatient customers.

Drinks are on the opposite side of the food court, so Dean gets to dodge the pizza station and the sweets counter and the popcorn section before he finally makes it to where Samandriel’s cousin is working. Or, at least, who he thinks is Samandriel’s cousin, because all he can see of the man is the bright blue vest that Gabriel makes the drinks people wear.

“Uh, hi?”

“The slushie station is undergoing some technical problems, so I’m afraid it’ll be a few minutes,” comes the patented customer service response.

Except that is so not the patented customer service voice. For one thing, it’s way too grumpy. For another, it’s way too deep. Dean can feel his hair standing at attention from how deep the guy’s voice is.

“I’m, uh, not here for slushies.”

“Oh. Well. Then unless you know how to fix this infernal machine, I’m busy.”

Dean’s automatic response is well, well, aren’t we touchy today, but he swallows it, because he knows that the first step to getting a favor from someone is putting them in a good mood, and Samandriel’s cousin sounds the farthest thing from a good mood. Instead, he goes for something a little less flirty.

“As a matter of fact, I do, Grumpy. Want a hand?”

Dean realizes he’s overshot Not Being Flirty about the same moment that the man must realize it, because he goes as still as a cat that’s spotted prey. It is not exactly a good look.

Then he turns around, and, on the bright side, Dean forgets all about his faux paus because Samandriel’s cousin is hot: bright blue eyes, messy dark hair, lips red from being chewed on in frustration.

On the not so bright side: Samandriel’s cousin is hot, and Dean has just kind of insulted him.

So Dean pastes a bright fake smile on his face, because it’s that or run away in shame and resign himself to the inevitable migraine brought on by pantone shade Barbie pink is, and Dean’s not a quitter. He leans forward, grabs the handle, and pushes it in before cranking it down, and just like that, the red raspberry half begins churning again.

“Interesting method,” comments Samandriel’s hot as hell cousin.

“It’s that or you reset the whole machine. This is faster – uh, what’s your name?” Dean asks, squinting at the name tag nestled on the man’s shoulder to try and read his name.

Unfortunately, that is when Samandriel’s cousin moves to tackle the blue raspberry half. Even more unfortunately, when he goes to put pressure on the handle, he accidentally pulls it and the cover out first, and blue raspberry slushie starts going everywhere. As in, everywhere.

“Ah,” says Samandriel’s cousin, looking bizarrely like a blue-dyed wet owl as he stands there covered in blue raspberry slush. “I believe that I did that incorrectly.”

“Um . . . yeah,” Dean says, because if he says another word, he’ll start laughing.

“I am going to the bathroom,” Samandriel’s cousin announces, and marches off to the back without so much as a glance backward, leaving Dean to scramble to fumble the cover back into place before even more slush gets on the floor.

This also means that he is still wrestling with it when a customer shows up, and so Dean has to endure the torture that is waiting a thousand years for them to decide which one they want, and then to fumble around with their wallet, and then, at last, to take the slushie they’ve ordered. As soon as they turn around, though, Dean is slapping down the closed sign and bolting after Samandriel’s cousin.

By the time he reaches the staff restrooms, the man has managed to get off his vest and is diligently scrubbing it. His face is set in concentration, so focused that Dean could almost mistake him for an artist sculpting a new design, instead of a regular just-above-minimum-wage worker trying to clean a slushie stain off his vest.

He also apparently just flung his vest off without properly removing his name tag, because Dean finds it lying sadly on the floor. When Dean bends down to retrieve it, he realizes that the reason he had trouble reading it earlier wasn’t just because Samandriel’s cousin was fighting with the slushie machine – the poor guy had also had it upside down. Right side up, though, it’s pretty easy to read.

Dean clears his throat. “You, uh. You all good there?”

“Almost.”

“Good, good. You dropped your name tag, by the way.”

“Oh. Okay. You can place it by the door,” Steve tells him, and then he immediately bends his head back down and continues scrubbing at his vest.

It’s not exactly the reaction Dean is expecting. Then again, this entire conversation hasn’t gone the way Dean expected, so perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised. But he’s also come too far now to quit, so instead of putting the name tag, he fiddles with it and forges ahead.

“Actually, uh, can I ask you a question, Steve?”

“I believe you just did.”

“Another question,” Dean amends, a tad irritably because he thought he’d left behind the Twenty Questions game after Sam took a sabbatical from his law degree.

“Go ahead.”

Dean takes a deep breath. Steadies himself. Asks, “Did you happen to get Oppenheimer for the premiere?”

“I did, yes.”

“So I got Barbie.”

“I’m sure you will enjoy it.”

“Um, yeah, about that. Would you, uh, mind switching? With me? So that, you know, you’d get Barbie and I’d get . . . Oppenheimer,” Dean clarifies lamely.

“Mind? No, not really,” Steve says agreeably, and Dean does a fist pump.

Sadly, Dean’s victory is short lived, because then Steve continues, “But may I ask you why you wish to switch?”

“Uhhhh,” is Dean’s eloquent response.

Steve looks up. His eyes catch Dean’s in the mirror, and they are even bluer now that he isn’t squinting them in frustration. “I am not interrogating you,” he says. “I am merely trying to understand. By all accounts, Barbie is going to be a very thoughtful movie, with good actors, engaging sets, and well-choreographed dance numbers. Unless there is a medical reason you cannot see it?”

“Um, not really,” Dean mumbles, since he’s pretty sure that Steve won’t buy I’m allergic to pink. “I mean, if you don’t want to, that’s fine, I’ll – ”

“It is clearly not fine, since you specifically sought me out to ask, and we have never crossed paths before,” Steve says.

Dean winces. Put that way, it sounds really bad. He starts backing up. “No, no, it’s cool, I just – I’ll just, uh, leave, and, um, enjoy Barbie, and you – you enjoy Oppenheimer and – and yeah.”

“Dean. You still have my name tag.”

Dean stares. “Wait, how did you know my name?”

Steve shakes out his vest and then turns around. Raising one arm, he points unerringly with one hand at Dean’s chest, where –

“Oh, right. My name tag.” Dean laughs weakly, because it’s that or cry. “Um, yeah, good talk, Steve, here’s your tag name and I’ll just – ”

“Our talk isn’t finished. Why don’t we finish it in the break room while my vest dries?”

“So, Dean,” Steve says, looking and sounding rather unsettlingly like that shrink he got sent to one time, “why don’t you want to work Barbie?”

“Well, you know, it’s Barbie.”

Steve tilts his head. “I am not sure that I, in fact, know. Would you mind elaborating?”

“Dude, come on, it’s Barbie. The only ones happy about their shift assignment are the ones who are happily coupled up and are too busy making heart eyes at their partners to worry about it.”

“Samandriel does not have a partner.”

“True, but I bet he is happy to wear anything other than the Weiner Hut uniform.”

“Your tone implies you would prefer wearing the Weiner Hut uniform. Do you have something against pink?”

Dean shudders, because: “What guy doesn’t have something against pink?”

“Me,” Steve says, because of course he does.

Then again, Sam said a lot of crap too when he was young that he didn’t really believe in, just because he wanted to stir the pot during an argument or, worse, play devil’s advocate. So Dean narrows his eyes and demands, “Alright, then if you’re so okay with it, tell me when the last time you wore something pink was? Publicly.”

“Never. I do not own anything in that shade.”

“Sounds like maybe you have something against it after all, then.”

“Hmm. You raise a valid point. Perhaps I am due for some self-reflection and a shopping trip,” Steve comments, which is absolutely not what Dean expected him to say. “Although I am not sure why you have a vendetta against pink. It would go very well with your skin tone.”

“What – This is not about – We’re going to be in the dark, dude! No one is going to complement my skin tone!”

“Also a valid point. In which case, I am not sure why you’re so vehemently against it, since, as you have pointed out, the movie theater will be dark and most will not notice what you are wearing.”

“It’s the principle of the thing!”

“What principle?”

Dean sets his jaw. He didn’t set out today to have to educate someone this clueless in social skills, but at some point, something’s got to give, and apparently Steve really is bad at picking up subtle social cues.

“Listen, the way I was raised, men don’t wear pink. Ladies do; men don’t.”

“And yet you wish to trade with a man – in this case, me – who would then wear pink.”

Dean shrugs. “You weren’t raised that way, right? So you don’t care. I do.”

“Interesting. So you would hold this belief akin to a religious code, then?”

“I am definitely not religious,” Dean laughs. “The last time I set foot in a church was when Sammy got baptized.”

For some reason, that of all things makes Steve’s eyes spark. He learns forward, like a wolf scenting blood, and asks, “You do not believe in God, then?”

“I believe in what I can see. And I’ve never seen God. You know, my mom, she used to tell me that angels were watching over me. Never seen one of them either.”

“Or perhaps you’ve met one and not known it,” Steve comments.

“I think I would know it.”

“Would you? Do you know why my cousin is named Samandriel?”

“Uhh, your aunt and uncle decided to test out just how many letters could fit on official documentation for a first name?”

Steve smiles. It’s a small smile, but it’s the first one Dean’s ever seen from him. Sadly, it just makes him more handsome.

“Samandriel,” Steve tells him, “is the name of an angel. We were all named for angels.”

“ . . . Steve is the name of an angel?” Dean asks skeptically.

“No. It is not.”

“Well, then your family kinda broke the streak with you, didn’t they?”

“No, they did not?”

And this time Steve actually sounds confused. It’s the first time he’s ever sounded anything other than completely at ease, so Dean would revel in it – after all, he’s spent this entire conversation alternately confused and embarrassed – but he actually feels kind of bad about it, and so he decides to laugh it off. He’s good at that.

“Oh – well, uh, never mind then. Um. Listen, seriously: do you mind trading with me, or not? Cuz I’ll go ask someone else.”

“I don’t mind. After all,” Steve smiles at him, “it isn’t against my religion to wear pink.”

“Oh, shut up. Also, um, thanks,” Dean says, and then he stands up before Steve can rope him into any more embarrassing or philosophical discussions. “I should go, my break’s probably long over, and Gabriel is gonna kick my butt if he finds me doing nothing here.”

“Of course. It was nice to meet you, Dean. Although I do have one question?”

“Yeah?”

“May I ask why you have been calling me ‘Steve’? I don’t object to it, but . . . it seems a strange name to choose to call me.”

“Wait, your name isn’t Steve?”

“No, my name is Castiel.”

“But your name tag – ” Dean splutters faintly. “Your name tag, it – it says – ”

Castiel looks down at his vest, where he put the name tag back. It is still somehow upside down, but definitely spells out Steve and not Castiel.

“Oh,” Castiel says, in a tone of sudden understanding. “Oh! This is a spare name tag. I lost mine. So Gabriel just grabbed a spare one for me. He said he picked the most boring one as a joke.”

“Ha ha,” Dean says weakly. “Nice, uh, nice joke. I’m uh. I’m just gonna go?”

“Of course. Good-bye, Dean.”

Dean isn’t sure what kind of gift one gets as a sorry-I-called-you-by-the-wrong-name-for-an-entire-conversation apology, but he ends up settling on food as his best bet. For one thing, he stalks the employee fridge on days when Castiel is working, and Castiel never brings in a lunch, which means that he’s probably ordering food, which is either salty as hell (from the theater) or expensive as hell (anything from outside the theater).

For another, well, he makes a damn good burger, if he says so himself, and Samandriel says that Castiel has a taste for red meat.

So, one fine day when the attendance is low and the atmosphere is chill, which means that Gabriel will turn more of a blind eye to employees taking a little bit longer during their breaks and lunches, Dean runs home for lunch and makes some burgers. Unfortunately, he has to defend his lunch prep from Sam’s wandering hands and ends up making three so that he can sacrifice one to Sam, which delays him a little bit, so he’s a bit out of breath when he returns and hunts down Castiel.

Castiel, who is once again struggling with the slushie machine.

“Whoa there, cowboy,” Dean says, after a particularly aggressive maneuver. “Jammed again?”

“Oh – hello, Dean. And yes?”

“Mind letting me have a go?”

“By all means,” Castiel says, relinquishing the slushie machine lever to him with an extremely relieved air. “I have no desire to be covered in that substance again. It was . . . excessively sticky.”

“Yeah, that’s why people like it,” Dean tells him, but he fixes the machine anyways. “There, all set.”

“Thank you, Dean. You seem to have a way with machines.”

“That’s what you get for spending your childhood in a junkyard tinkering around with cars,” Dean jokes. “Hey, have you had your lunch yet?”

“No, I have not. Why?”

Dean hefts the lunch bag. It’s not quite as piping hot as it was when he slid the finished burger in there, but it’s still warm, and definitely smells better than anything in the food court. And if the way Castiel perks up a little bit when he sees it, he likes what he’s smelling.

“Made a bit too much. Wanna have lunch with me?” Dean asks.

“I wouldn’t want to impose – ”

“Dude, if you don’t eat it, it’s just gonna go stale and frozen in the employee fridge when I forget about it. Come on, help me out.”

It’s a strategy that relies heavily on Castiel not knowing what goes on in the employee fridge – where anything without a label is devoured almost instantly by the ravenous hoards – but Dean’s research pays off, because Castiel hesitates for only two more seconds before nodding and acquiescing to help Dean.

“Were you being serious about being raised in a junkyard?” Castiel asks as they walk to the break room.

“Eh, sort of. My dad’s friend owns a car junkyard and we stayed over sometimes, especially during the summers,” Dean explains. “I learned a lot, but I wasn’t, like, abandoned. Uncle Bobby supervised us and made sure that we knew what we were doing and were being safe. But I saw a lot of cool stuff. Burger?”

“Yes, please. And it seems to have paid off.”

“It’s certainly saved me a lot of money to be my own car mechanic,” Dean says, cracking into his own burger. “Do you know how hard is to find a reputable someone who is also knowledgeable about cars from 1967?”

“I confess that it can be hard to find a reputable someone about my own car, which is much newer than that. Has it really been running since 1967?”

“Yeah, it was my mom’s car. She loved that thing. Had it tuned to perfection. She taught me everything I – hey, you’re meant to be eating. Burger’s getting cold.”

Castiel starts a little bit, as if he’s forgotten that he is holding a patented Dean Winchester Burger with all the fixings in his hands. He’s holding at the completely right angle for all the fixing to also fall out, because his grip is rather loose, but Dean chooses to withhold commentary on that. Besides, Castiel can always scoop them up later.

What he is not expecting is for Castiel to take one bite and for his eyes to go as round as moons.

“Uh . . . you good, due?”

Castiel blinks at him like an owl. Twice. Then he chews a little bit and swallows. It almost makes Dean wince, to watch such a huge chunk of food go down Castiel’s throat.

Castiel says, “Dean, this is amazing.”

“Oh. Uh, good?”

“This meat is perfectly seasoned. And the sauce is wonderful. And the buns are buttery,” Castiel says, before taking a second, bigger bite. This time he does chew more, but he also closes his eyes as if he’s experiencing nirvana or something.

“I’m glad to hear you like it,” Dean says, because even though Sam will eat his burgers, he’ll also complain that it’s extremely healthy. Which, yeah, it is, but that’s what the gym is for.

“It makes me very happy,” Castiel says sincerely. “Thank you. You are clearly a man of many talents.”

“Aw, shucks. You’re gonna make me blush,” Dean jokes.

“You, blush? I thought it was against your religion to have pink on you.”

“Oh, shut up and eat your burger,” Dean says, and buries his face in his own burger to hide the pinkness he can definitely feel in his cheeks.

“Did you seriously put in an entire work order for the slushie machine?” Dean demands.

Castiel’s pout should not be adorable on anyone, much less a full grown man, and yet it is. Dean can feel his irritation draining away and his fondness rising, both at alarming rates, as he moves to tackle the wheezing slushie machine.

“It is not operating as the manual says it should,” Castiel says sulkily.

“Dude, no machine operates the way the manual says it should. It’s just a little ornery, that’s all.”

“I am not sure that is something I can tell customers when they are asking for a blue raspberry slushie.”

“Well, that’s why you tell them that you’re having technical difficulties and would they mind waiting or would they prefer to order something else,” Dean says, grunting as he fights to get the mechanical panel open. “Damn, this thing is rusted as hell. Hand me my wrench, would you? Um. Okay, that’s not a wrench. And neither is that. How about I just . . . yeah, let me just get it myself.”

It also shouldn’t be endearing that Castiel is as clueless about tools as he is about social cues, but Dean still finds himself hiding a smile as he digs about in his toolbox. Right up until he hears an awful squealing noise, that is.

He whirls around and finds – Castiel, holding the mechanical panel open, one hand still on the top.

“Did you just – Did you just pull it open?”

“Yes. Was I not supposed to do that?”

“Uh . . . well . . . I guess that works,” Dean says faintly, and then proceeds to quietly wonder just what exactly Castiel is hiding underneath his bland theater uniform and bulky vest.

Or, at least, he would have wondered, if Castiel didn’t wander away mid-repair with a mild, “One second, Dean. I think Kelly is having a hard time with a customer.”

“Yeah, sure, go help her,” Dean says, because he’s almost fixed the rusted bit and it’s not like Castiel is doing anything but watching.

When he finally gets everything fixed and running smoothly again, he does a fist pump of victory. It’s not a perfect repair and certainly not by the book, but everything is working again, so he counts it as a victory and closes the panel. As he fastens it closed again, though, he realizes that Castiel has not returned, and it’s not like Castiel to skive off his duty – plus he always likes asking Dean a million questions – so he straightens and turns around with a frown.

And then freezes, because Castiel literally has a man pinned against the wall.

As in, has one hand on the man’s collar and is effortlessly not only pinning him to the wall, but also lifting him clear off his feet. And by a fair few inches too.

“You are being very rude,” Castiel is saying to the customer, voice clear and strong as it rings out from over by the customer service booth. “If you did not enjoy your movie and wish to request a refund, that is acceptable. But verbalizing threats to the movie theater staff and insulting Miss Kelly in particular – that is not acceptable. You are going to apologize to her.”

The customer gapes at him, looking extremely astonished. To be fair, Dean’s pretty astonished too. But Dean also knows Castiel a little bit by now, and that calm, placid expression means business.

So Dean casually wanders over and chimes in, “I’d do what he says.”

The customer’s eyes dart from Castiel to Dean to Kelly and then back to Castiel. Castiel tilts his head and raises the customer even higher.

“All right, all right!” the customer squeaks. “I’ll do it, I’ll do it, just – just let me down!”

As the customer fervently apologizes to Kelly, Castiel keeps watch, unblinking and stone-faced like an angel statue. Dean leans over to him and finds that he isn’t even breathing heavy, which is almost as amazing as his impromptu feat of human bench-pressing.

“Interesting negotiation tactic,” he murmurs.

Castiel shrugs. “He was being rude. Kelly did not deserve to be threatened.”

“No, no, I agree. Just, uh. Maybe we should put you in a security. I think you’re wasted on the slushie machine.”

“Is that so?”

“Hey, there’s plenty of room for more men with plenty of talents, Cas,” Dean jokes.

As the customer departs at high speed, moving so fast that he’s almost running, Castiel finally breaks his thousand-yard stare and turns to Dean. He raises one eyebrow. “Cas?”

“Oh – uh, yeah. Do you – Should I not call you that?” Dean asks, wincing internally.

“No, it’s – it’s fine. Cas. I . . . like it.”

“Oh. Oh, well, uh. Good. Also, your machine is fixed. Shouldn’t give you more trouble.”

“Thank you again, Dean,” Castiel says sincerely.

Hearing that amount of warmth in Castiel’s deep voice and seeing such a large smile on Castiel’s face does absolutely terrible things to Dean’s self-control, so Dean flushes and mutters an excuse and makes his own escape before he can do anything else embarrassing. And if he has to discretely adjust himself, well – at least he waits until he’s out of Castiel’s line of sight to do it.

“You asked him to have lunch with you?”

“Well, how else was I supposed to ask him?”

“Dean, my handsome handmaiden – what you do is not say wanna have lunch with me like you’re high schoolers asking each other on a first date.”

Dean groans and flops back on the carpet. “I know, I know, I knew it was wrong the second it came out of my mouth, but it was too late!”

“And then you called him cowboy?”

“Hey, if you had seen him wrestling with that machine, you would have thought he was about to ride a bull or something, he looked that intense.”

“Intense,” Charlie mimics, with the most emphasis Dean’s ever heard out of her. “Just like his intense blue eyes and his intense deep voice and his intense arm strength?”

“He lifted a man off his feet with one arm!”

“Aw, did Dean Winchester discover a kink for strong, stoic, manly men?”

Dean chucks a popcorn kernel at her. It absolutely misses because he’s lying on the floor and she’s perched like an owl in her computer chair, but it gets his point across.

Also: “Cas isn’t stoic. He’s very expressive.”

“ . . . You nicknamed him too?”

“He said it was okay!”

“Dean.”

“What.”

“You,” Charlie pronounces, with the same regal air that she knights her army during LARP battles, “are in deep, deep trouble, handmaiden.”

“I’m fine!”

“Uh huh.”

“Can we get back to the topic at hand, please?”

“But I was enjoying hearing you drone on and on about how blue Castiel’s eyes are or how hot he was when he pinned that customer against the wall – ”

“Charlie.”

“Fine, fine. So he agreed to switch with you, then? So you’re spared the horror of Barbie?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I guess everything worked out then,” Charlie says. “You get Barbie, and he gets Oppenheimer. Win win for everyone.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees weakly, and absolutely doesn’t let himself think about the way his stomach flip flops at the idea of Castiel and him working separately during the premiere event. If the way Charlie smirks at him is any indication, he does not hide it well enough.

At least this time when he chucks another popcorn kernel, he nails her in the head.

“That is not proper conduct for a handmaiden, Dean!”

“Nope. But it is proper conduct for a knight.”

“Dream on, handmaiden.”

The night of the premiere comes on way too fast. Everyone gets pressed into making things absolutely perfect: mopping the floors, wiping down the counters and machines, tidying all the posters, arranging displays of pink Barbie merch and gloomy Oppenheimer merch, prepping all the special foods that will be sold.

Dean, much to his chagrin, gets roped into setting up the Barbie photo booth.

On the bright side, Castiel gets roped into doing it too, and between the two of them moving the heavy thing is pretty easy. On the down side, Dean is pretty sure he’s going to seeing pink whenever he closes his eyes for the next six weeks.

“Is there something in your eye, Dean? You’re blinking a lot.”

“Too much pink,” Dean mutters. “Damn, did Gabriel have to turn up all the lights?”

“I’m sure he’ll lower them a little bit when the premiere begins. But right now he wants to make sure everyone can see clearly enough to clean everything.”

“I’m pretty sure that we’ve literally never used that carpet steamer. Ever.”

“Is that your professional opinion as a mechanic?”

“Oh, shut up,” Dean tells him. “Don’t you have a pink uniform to put on or something?”

“Don’t you have a gloomy dark uniform to put on?” Castiel shoots back, but he’s smiling as he says it. He appears not the least bit put out when they all break off to put on their special premiere uniforms, regarding the pink shoes and pinker aprons with that casual assessing gaze that he uses on everyone.

He is also, to Dean’s great regret, no less hotter in pink than he is in normal clothes.

“How do I look, Dean?” Castiel asks, fiddling with the ties Gabriel forced on all of them to be professional.

“Uh, you look – really good,” Dean says. He immediately regrets saying it, but Castiel doesn’t seem to notice the slip, because he is fighting with his tie. Sadly, the bright fluorescent shade of it doesn’t stop Dean from being able to notice that he is tying it backwards.

After a few minutes of watching Castiel make it worse and not better, Dean abandons his own tie and walks over.

“Want a hand?”

“No,” Castiel says with a pout, but he lets Dean push his hands away and take over. “I am still not sure that I am ready to handle the large quantity of people who will be showing up to this. Customer service is not really my forte.”

“Well, if you’re not sure about something, you can always lie.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because that’s what we humans do, Cas. We lie,” Dean says, and tightens the knot on the now properly fitted tie. “That’s how you become the president, after all.”

“I don’t want to become the president,” Castiel says.

Dean snorts a laugh. “You’ll be fine. Besides, you won’t be alone. The others can help you if you really can’t handle it.”

“If you say so. Oh. I guess it’s beginning now. Have fun at Oppenheimer, Dean.”

“Good luck surviving Barbie,” Dean tells him.

Watching Castiel walk away from him, Dean feels the intense urge to follow after him. He wants to help Castiel handle customer requests and deflect rude demands and defuse angry tantrums. He wants to be the one to help him find out where the drinks are stored, and what order the chips and candies are arranged, and the quickest way to ring up snack orders. He wants to make sure that if Castiel needs anything, Dean is the one to help him.

Dean wants, he realizes, to do the premiere with Castiel. And not on the other end of the theater, watching a manly man movie about an atomic bomb.

And, well. He does know someone else who has a Barbie assignment, doesn’t he?

“You – I’m sorry, you want to what?”

“I wanna work Barbie,” Dean tells Samandriel. “So, I’m asking if you’ll trade with me so that I work Barbie and you work Oppenheimer.”

“No, I understood that. But . . . weren’t you asking me to trade so you could work Oppenheimer originally?”

“Well, yeah. But Gabriel has been giving me really funny looks and the last thing I want is to cause a commotion if he decides to be weird about it.”

“He would not,” Samandriel starts to say, and then he abruptly stops, because they all know about Gabriel’s flair for the dramatic. “Yeah, he would.”

“Yeah, I know. So. Swap?”

“Okay, sure. Although I don’t know if my apron is going to fit you, Dean.”

“I’ll make it work,” Dean reassures him, and then spends an anxious five minutes shedding his Oppenheimer gear and passing it over to Samandriel so that he can don the Barbie uniform. It still makes his eyes water a little bit to tie the apron and slip the shoes on, but he focuses on more important things – like the idea of working with Castiel – and the overwhelming Pepto-Bismol color gets a little easier to handle.

By the time he’s all set, almost everyone else is in position, and the frenzy of the last minute rush orders during pre-movie ads makes it easy for Dean to slip in and start helping, because no one argues against an extra helping hand.

It also makes it easy for Dean to swipe a rather precarious-looking tray of popcorn and beer from Castiel, who for some reason decided to carry three instead of, you know, one in each hand, like a normal person.

“Thank you,” Castiel says automatically, and then he does a double take. “Dean?”

“Heya, Cas,” Dean says. “Want a hand?”

“From you? Always,” Castiel says, after giving Dean a rather long once-over. It’s almost enough to make Dean blush. “Are you going to help me the whole time?”

“Well, I mean, I figure we can sneak away for a break when the orders slow down. Everyone does, you know.”

“Uh huh. Well, if you insist.”

“‘Course I do. Breaks are important, you know. You can only carry so many trays of pizza and popcorn before your arms need a break.”

“And, of course, you need a break from coming into contact with pink,” Castiel teases.

Dean starts, because he hadn’t even noticed – but sure enough, the cinema trays are a special shade of Barbie pink just for the occasion. In fact, everything is pink: the plates, the cups, the utensils – the whole nine yards.

Dean whistles lowly. “Was Gabriel a party planner or something?”

“Not officially,” Castiel answers. “But I believe that he had a, um, consulting role at his university for organizing parties for the fraternities and sororities.”

After that, the final advertisement rolls and the lights go all the way down, so their conversation comes to a complete halt. They all take orders in soft voices and deliver trays on tip toe, and in the darkness, Dean can hardly tell that he looks like he’s been splashed by a tipped over paint can. All that matters is Castiel, steady and constant, passing him trays for them to deliver or working together to put trash away or, in the quiet moments, just resting against the wall, so close Dean can almost swear he can feel Castiel’s chest expanding and falling as he breathes.

And if Dean starts tapping his foot during some of the dance numbers, well. From the way the floor vibrates, Castiel starts tapping right alongside him, and that’s enough for Dean to grin stupidly all the way through the entire movie.

Cleaning up after the premiere is arduous and painful and they all find things that will require brain bleach and extensive showering afterwards, so by the time everything is clean enough to call it a night, everyone’s main goal is just to immediately limp to their cars, fall in their beds, and pass out for a solid eight to ten hours. Or, at least, that’s Dean’s goal, and even Castiel looks a bit worn down.

Sadly, Gabriel wrangles everyone back into the break room before they can leave.

“A truly successful night, folks!” he crows. “I’m really, really proud of you all! We pulled out a spectacular premiere experience and really had an all-around excellent event. Sooooo, in light of that, I have a surprise for you all!”

Considering that Gabriel’s last surprise was when he had filled the break room with candy – literally, filled it to the brim – for Halloween, Dean winces. So does most everyone else. Castiel doesn’t, but Dean’s kind of accepted that Castiel is a weirdo who doesn’t react like most people, so he mostly finds it endearing.

“We’re gonna close next weekend, and I have booked out a lovely little parcel of seaside for a swagtastic beach party to celebrate our success,” Gabriel announces. “Info will be e-mailed out to everyone who worked the premiere. No plus ones, please! And bring your own beer. But I will be rolling up with all the meat you can eat, so come prepared with empty stomachs and beach blankets. All right? Cool? Nice. Now scram, my little peons.”

“Is he serious?” Dean asks Castiel in an undertone as they all obediently scram and file out.

Castiel shrugs. “Gabriel likes practical jokes, but this doesn’t have the trademark characteristics of one of his pranks.”

“ . . . He has trademark characeristics?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Can you help me untie my apron?”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Dean says, and Castiel spins neatly to present him with the horrible monstrosity masquerading as a knot at his back. “Dude, what the hell were you doing to this? This is like a Gordian knot back here!”

“I was in a hurry,” Castiel says sulkily.

“Next time, let me do it,” Dean tells him, because it takes him a solid minute and a half to work the knot free. It feels weird to help push the apron off of Castiel’s shoulders, even though they are both fully clothed and it’s just a fricking apron, but Dean still jerks his hands away and goes to tackle his own clothing, because the last thing he needs is Gabriel noticing. Or worse, Sam.

Still, it’s worth it for the way Castiel smiles at him and says thanks.

Or at least, Dean thinks it’s worth it, right up until Charlie sidles up to him with the evilest grin Dean has ever seen on her face.

“Well, well, handmaiden,” she says with a smirk, “you got something to tell your liege queen?”

“Uhhh – ”

“Cuz I could have sworn that you and Castiel – oh, I’m sorry, you call him Cas, don’t you? – successfully traded so that you would be working Oppenheimer and he would be working Barbie, and yet, here you are, taking off the Barbie uniform. And helping Castiel take off a Barbie uniform too! How strange.”

“Oh, look, that’s Sam and Eileen, gotta run and get them home, bye!” Dean blurts out, and runs before Charlie can keep talking.

Fortunately, Sam and Eileen are way too wrapped in each other to say anything to Dean, which is a blessing. Dean is able to drop Eileen off and then bring Sam home without any commentary, after which he promptly showers, falls face first onto the bed, and dreams of pink and Castiel and more pink.

Surprisingly, Gabriel actually makes good on his promise, and actually holds a beach party as a reward and celebration of their successful premiere night. By the time Dean rolls up with Sam and Eileen, there’s music going and bottles are cracked and the smell of greasy, salty, grilled food is in the air.

Sam and Eileen immediately split to claim a spot for their blanket, the lovebirds, but Dean beelines it straight for the grill. He is rewarded with a piping hot burger, some mozzarella sticks, and a generous handful fries.

“Dean-o!” Gabriel calls out from where he’s doing something to some kind of fountain thing on a bench. “Glad you could make it. Help yourself to the food!”

“Already done!” Dean yells back, lifting his plate of meaty goodness into the air. “Were we the last ones?”

“Pssh, no. Garth went to get some vegetarian options and he still hasn’t shown up. Plus my brother hasn’t shown his face, either.”

Dean blinks. First Samandriel and now Gabriel with the unexpected theater employee relatives. “Brother?” he echoes.

“Yeah, we sent Cassie to the liquor store. Maybe that was a mistake,” Gabriel admits cheerfully, emptying an entire bag of marshmallows onto a tray that’s already quite full of fruits and candies. “But! He can be the dramatic late entry for once, I guess.”

And Dean does know a Cassie, but she quit once she snagged a full time position as a reporter, and Gabriel only invited current employees who worked the premiere. Plus Cassie would never have agreed to be anyone’s errand girl, much less Gabriel’s. She had talked back to Gabriel all the time – it had been why Dean liked her, even if things hadn’t worked out between them.

Dean’s confusion must know on his face, because Gabriel rolls his eyes. “Come on, you know Cassie,” he says. “You’ve certainly eaten enough lunches with him.”

“ . . . Castiel is your brother?”

“Obviously. There’s only one family in this area nuts enough to name all their kids after angels,” Gabriel remarks. “Oh, good, he didn’t get lost. Cassie! Cassie, over here!”

Dean turns around, and, sure enough, there is Castiel carefully picking his way from the parking lot down to the sand. He is carrying enough packs of alcohol to make Dean’s arms ache from the sight alone, but he seems utterly unaffected.

He is also, to Dean’s great consternation, shirtless.

“Well, go and help him,” Gabriel says, giving Dean a not-so-gentle push. “And then go shove a plate in his hands so he’ll eat, okay? I know the burgers aren’t as good as yours, but they should be good enough.”

“Wait, how do you know how good my burgers are?”

“Cassie won’t shut up about them. Obviously. Now move, Dean-o, before Cassie decorates the sand with precious liquor.”

“I thought we were leaving the boss-gives-all-the-orders thing at the theater, Gabriel,” Dean says, but he does get going, because Gabriel has that look in his eyes and Dean does not want to test it.

Also, Castiel smiles when he trots up, which helps.

“Hello, Dean.”

“Hey, Cas. Want a hand?”

“Yes, please,” Castiel says, and between the two of them, they restock the various coolers Gabriel has set up with the frankly obscene amount of drinks Castiel brought.

“Damn, Cas, did you buy the whole store?” Dean asks, sweating and wiping at his face.

“Not this time.”

“ . . . What do you mean, this time?”

“I did, in fact, buy out a whole store, once. Gabriel,” Castiel says with a shrug.

“Do I wanna know what he had you do with all that alcohol?”

“I drank it, of course.”

If there’s one thing Dean has learned about Castiel, it’s that he has a great poker face and an even better deadpan voice. It works great for jokes, but it also means that sometimes Dean has a little trouble discerning when Castiel is being serious or when he actually is joking. And the worst part is that most of the time, Castiel is being serious.

“Did you really – ” Dean starts.

Castiel cracks up. He laughs hard enough that he ends up bent over, which gives Dean a distressingly good view of the way his very-well muscled back flexes. It is not helpful.

“No, I did not drink it all,” Castiel says once he’s managed to stop laughing. “Or at least, Gabriel assures me I did not. I fear I remember very little, besides the massive hangover.”

“Okay, well . . . let’s not do that this time, then.”

“Agreed.”

“You gonna get food?” Dean asks, after Castiel just sort of stands there and doesn’t move.

Castiel hesitates. “The line is . . . very long. Perhaps I should wait.”

And, well, Dean has noticed that Castiel doesn’t really like it when places get really crowded. It’s why he typically works the slushie station when he’s on food court duty, as that only requires one employee to work it. And why he typically takes his lunch break after everyone else usually does, so that he can be alone.

Unfortunately, with everyone currently all over the beach, it’s the definition of very crowded, and Castiel doesn’t appear to have brought a towel to pick a spot further away.

Neither did Dean, for that matter, but he hates the way Castiel seems twitchy and nervous when he should be relaxing and having fun like everyone else.

“Well, if the line is long, might as well get in now to get food,” Dean suggests, giving Castiel a gentle push. “And I’m gonna go get some drinks and come back, okay?”

“Okay.”

As soon as Castiel is moving in the direction of the food line, Dean heads straight for Charlie, who is holding court with Gilda on a beach chair. Well, more like kissing the living daylights out of Gilda, but Dean politely clears his throat and waits for them to separate when he gets there.

“Dude!” Charlie hisses at him. “When the chair is a-rocking, don’t come knocking!”

“We’re in public, you know,” Dean says mock-sternly.

“And your point is?”

Dean pointedly does not think about that line of questioning, because he has enough problems without adding Charlie’s love life to his laundry list. Instead, he sweeps into a deep curtesy, which makes Charlie blink at him.

“Your handmaiden requests a favor, my queen.”

“Ooooh,” Charlie says, sitting up straight. “Does he? And what does my loyal handmaiden request?”

“Just a little privacy, that’s all.”

“Oh? Is my handmaiden about to engage in some rocking of his own?”

“Charlie!”

“Fine, fine. What do you have in mind?”

Castiel never looks more like an owl than when he’s surprised. He’s rather hard to surprise, so Dean doesn’t get to see the wide-eyed owl look a lot, which means that he really enjoys it when he does.

Like right now.

“You gonna keep staring, or you gonna sit down and eat the food before it gets cold?” Dean asks, grinning up at him.

Moving as gingerly as though he thinks Dean is about to literally yank the rug out from under him, Castiel slowly sinks down onto the beach towel. He folds his legs so that he can balance his plate, and also to keep them under the shade of the umbrella. Dean isn’t really sure where Charlie found the umbrella, but it’s all worth it to watch Castiel slowly start relaxing and eating in their own little quiet corner of the beach.

Of course, Castiel finds his nerve shortly after he shakes off his shock. “Dean, where did you get all of this?”

“People had extras. Everybody was willing to share. We’re all here to have fun.”

Castiel looks up at their umbrella with a raised eyebrow. “Uh huh.”

“Are you calling me a liar, Cas?”

“You’d never lie to me, of course,” Castiel says, neatly bisecting a fry with almost surgical precision. “But you might lie to my cousin.”

“Uhhhhh – ”

“You told Samandriel that you feared getting caught by Gabriel, and so you switched back to Barbie. Funnily enough, you don’t really seem to fear my brother in any other fashion.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean mutters, scrambling for an excuse that will any semblance of sense, “you know Gabriel gets pretty scary when he gets hyped, and he was sure as hell hyper that night.”

“I suppose,” Castiel says placidly. He nibbles on a tater tot, as if he isn’t sure about it, and then decides it’s okay and swallows it whole. “I think I’ll miss this.”

“Miss what?”

“Lunches with you.”

Dean doesn’t choke on his latest bite of burger, but it’s a near thing. He hastily chases down the hunk of barely chewed meat and bun with some water. “You, uh. You resigning or something?”

“Hmm? Oh, no. But Gabriel finally hired someone for that food court position, so he won’t need me to fill in anymore. It was only a temporary measure.”

“ . . . Wait. So what is your regular job, then?”

“Accounting. I help make sure all the books are balanced. All the boring stuff, you know: make sure the bills are paid on time, make sure we can keep our doors open, make sure everyone gets their checks signed. That kind of thing.”

“I don’t think anyone here is gonna argue that getting our money every two weeks is boring, Cas.”

“I’m a boring accountant and I know it, Dean. Although it is nice to hear that you appreciate my work. But, well . . . normally I do the book balancing from home. I don’t really need to be in the office all the time.”

“But you do have an office, right?” Dean asks, trying not to ball up his napkin too much. Because, damn it, he’s grown to like their lunches and breaks together – listening to whatever weird tangents Castiel is on about, educating Castiel on pop culture and emojis, watching him devour Dean’s cooking like he’s a starving man and Dean is his salvation.

“Hmm? Oh, yes, somewhere. It’s probably very dusty, though.”

“But we could clean it. You could – You could come in once in a while. We could still, you know. Have lunches.”

Castiel puts his burger down. He looks at Dean with serious eyes, as unblinking and open as he did when they first met, when Dean thought his name was Steve and Castiel thought Dean was just another employee.

“Is that what you want?” Castiel asks. “To continue having our lunches?”

“I – Yeah. Yes.”

“May I ask you why?”

And Dean wants to tell him, needs to tell him, has to tell him, but the words become like a solid block of ice in his throat. He can’t tell Castiel, because what if it’s not enough – what if he’s not enough, and Castiel goes back home to do his actually important accounting work and Dean goes back to his sad solo lunches and his invisible mechanical work?

Of course, he wasn’t able to tell Castiel the real reason why he gave up Oppenheimer and switched back to Barbie either. He just did it.

So Dean takes a deep breath, and leans forward, and lets his actions speak for himself.

Castiel’s lips are soft against his, and his hands are calloused, and his skin is warm. For a heartbeat Dean fears that he’s gone too far – but then Castiel’s fingers wrap around his, and he leans towards Dean instead of away, and he kisses back.

“Um, yeah,” Dean says shyly, when they break for air. “That’s – that’s why. And that’s . . . that’s why I did Barbie with you.”

“Oh,” Castiel says, but there’s pleasure lurking in his smile and delight sparkling in his eyes. “I see. And I also see one other thing, I think.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

Castiel plucks the little pink umbrella out of his drink. He tucks it behind Dean’s ear, like some kind of paper flower, and says, “Pink is indeed your color. Because it goes rather well with your skin when you blush.”

Dean rolls his eyes, but the swell of happiness in his chest is enough to allow him to play along.

“Well, of course it’s my color,” he says, pretending to adjust the pink umbrella. “My job is beach, after all. And fixing machines. And lending you a hand. And fixing you burgers.”

“Oh, yes. Can we have some later, Dean? These aren’t as good as yours.”

“Sure, Cas. I can make you all the burgers you want.”

“Promise?”

“I promise,” Dean says, and then he kisses him again, just because he can. “After all, I’d never lie to you.”

FINIS