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If you were to ask teenage Dean what he thought of the whole “love at first sight” thing, he’d have probably laughed. He, first of all, didn’t believe in it in the slightest. And secondly, even if he did believe in it, he’d never believe that he actually deserved it.
But now?
Well, he’d still deny it.
Denial was something that Dean was very good at, especially when it came to his feelings.
They’d been on a fairly routine hunt over in New York- somewhere they didn’t tend to go all that much, as it was a lot harder to go undercover and avoid the suspicion of law enforcement. But they’d been called there by a friend of Jody’s, so they wanted to at least check out what was going on. It was a simple solution, just a poltergeist that needed exorcising, but once they were done with the case the brothers decided to spend a couple of days in the city before heading off in search of their next case.
And that was when Dean met Bucky. He could honestly say that he’d never met anyone like him before- he was only a little shorter than Dean himself, and gave off the energy of someone who was dangerous in the most beautifully intoxicating way that made Dean utterly fascinated by him.
He had been on his way back to the motel after picking up coffee and breakfast for himself and Sam when he had- quite literally- bumped into the other man. Coffee flew all over both of them, and Dean only just managed to save the bag that contained breakfast muffins. It had been an incredibly close call. But that didn’t matter- because what did matter was that the man in front of him was covered in coffee, it had splashed particularly badly on his left arm.
“Shit! Are you okay?” Dean asked quickly, concerned that he’d just badly burned the arm of this stranger.
The man shrugged, pushing his other hand through his hair to get it away from his face before tugging up his sleeve- to reveal only metal. “You didn’t hurt me. Are you okay, though?” he asked.
Dean’s mouth gaped open. This guy had a metal arm? That was incredible… he was so distracted by that arm that for a moment he forgot that he’d been asked a question, until it was gently repeated. “Oh, I’m fine. Yeah, I’m all good,” he promised. “You owe me a coffee, though.” He made sure to keep his tone light at that, making it clear that he was mostly joking and that he wouldn’t force this man that he’d just met to compensate him for something that probably wasn’t his fault.
“Okay. Yeah, will you be around tomorrow?” He asked, much to Dean’s surprise.
They’d been planning to head out the next day, but there were no solid plans for that so that could be thrown away in an instant in favour of coffee with this guy. “For you, I will be,” Dean responded, in an attempt at flirting that was about as smooth as crunchy peanut butter.
The other man smiled and shook his head as if he could tell that Dean’s flirting had just spectacularly failed. “Well, alright then. Wanna meet there tomorrow? Let's say at 11?” he suggested, nodding to a coffee shop within view.
“Sure, I'll see you there.” Dean agreed. “Oh, and uh. My name’s Dean, by the way,” he offered, not wanting to leave the encounter without getting this guy’s name.
“Oh, yeah, right. I'm Bucky.”
“Well, Bucky, I'll see you tomorrow.” Dean smiled, turning and heading back to the motel where Sam was waiting for him.
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“Where the hell have you been?” Sam asked, taking his- luckily still intact- muffin from the bag. “And where’s the coffee?”
Dean sighed, throwing himself down on his bed and grabbing his own breakfast from the bag. “It’s a long story, but uh… the coffee’s mostly all over me, and also all over another guy.” He shrugged, a little embarrassed.
Sam pulled himself up so he was sat more upright, giving Dean a suspicious look. “What happened?”
“I may have… bumped into someone. A guy. Bucky, his name is.” Dean admitted. “And most of the coffee went all over him.”
“What, is he okay? Not burned too badly, I hope?” Sam questioned.
“Well, you see, that’s where the really cool bit comes in. This guy had a fake arm, so it didn’t burn him. And the arm’s metal, too, how cool is that Sammy?” Dean was rambling a little now. The arm really was cool, though, in his defence. He caught Sam staring at him and trailed off, quickly stuffing a bit of muffin in his mouth so that his brother couldn’t ask any questions. Well. Sam could ask questions, but Dean wouldn’t be able to answer them- something the younger Winchester proved by firing questions at him.
“What exactly happened? Did you get burned?” Sam asked, starting with the questions that could be considered to be out of concern for his brother, before moving on to the ones that were purely out of a mix of curiosity and the desire to annoy Dean. “Is he hot? What does he look like? Are you attracted to him?”
“Shut it, Sasquatch.” Dean grumbled after swallowing his mouthful of food.
“You know we’re leaving tomorrow, you can’t go forming attachments to people you’ll never see again- you told me that yourself.”
“We’re not.”
“What?”
“We’re not,” Dean said again before clarifying, “leaving tomorrow, I mean. We’re not doing that.”
“What?” Sam asked again, seemingly unable to respond with anything else.
“We’re not leaving tomorrow. I’m going for coffee with Bucky.” The older Winchester shrugged, as if it was a wholly casual occurrence. Sam glared at his brother suspiciously- he never pushed back their moves for a date, what the hell was this?
“Dean, you’ve got to be fucking with me right now,” Sam insisted. “You don’t do this.”
“No arguments, Sammy. I’m seeing him tomorrow. I’ll bring you back a coffee… maybe.”
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Bucky was already waiting outside the coffee shop they’d arranged to meet at when Dean showed up there the next morning. He grinned when he spotted the older Winchester, and Dean found himself momentarily forgetting how to breathe.
“Hey! You made it! How’s it going, Dean?” Bucky asked, looking genuinely pleased to see him there.
“Going much better now you’re here.” Dean hummed- okay, that was much better than his attempt at flirting the day before, judging by Bucky’s reaction- the other man blushed slightly and ducked his head, his long hair falling into his eyes a little.
“Me too!” he said, seeming completely genuine. “Shall we go in?”
The pair went into the coffee shop together, finding a cozy-looking booth in the corner and sliding in opposite each other. They spent hours there, ending up getting four drinks each because neither of them actually wanted to leave. Then, when they finally couldn’t stay any longer, Bucky quietly asked the question Dean had been waiting to hear.
“Why don’t you come back to my apartment for a while?” He suggested.
Grinning as he agreed, Dean shot a single, five word text to his brother.
Back late. Don’t wait up. -DW