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It was quiet for a while at the motel room. Moon shining, stars twinkling, all that romantic shit that happens after a day of hunting some idiot ghost and then finding the only motel with a vacant room in the middle of the night in the asshole of the American suburbs.
The hotel was shabby and shady at best, and overpriced at worst, but it was past midnight and Dean, as much as he detested his body for giving up on him after forty-eight hours of staying awake and running like a rat on crack, needed at least his four-hour snooze.
But the snoozefest had to wait, or, was rudely interrupted by someone absolutely not getting the social cues of normal human beings.
"Can you not do that, dude?”
Cas had the decency to at least appear mildly confused about the accusation.
“What, Dean?”
Sam snorted in the background, which further deepened Cas’s frown. Dean sat up in his bed, glaring at the angel with hurt pride.
“I can feel you staring right into my soul, man,” Dean exclaimed, and Sam straight up laughed until he almost rolled off his own bed facing his brother’s. “Just… turn around, or something.”
Cas, at the edge of Dean’s bed, seemed outrageously unbothered by all of this and continued staring; to his defence, he at least drifted his unyielding gaze from Dean’s face to his back. Dean felt his body tingling as he wasn’t exactly a fan of the new spot the angel’s attention was turned.
“Now you’re watchin’ my ass,” he spat out, lying back on the creaking mattress. “Can you… I don’t know, Sammy’s ass is a delight to look at, especially after a taco night.”
“You’re just jealous, Dean,” Sam snorted. “My ass has been complimented so many times, and yours? I guess the genes just weren’t generous with you.”
Dean sat up again, and cautiously avoided Cas’s statue-like form with his accusing stare. “I may just introduce you to your generosity, bitch. My ass is divine.”
Cas, visibly shaken by the statement, stared at Dean with doubled intensity. “I am sorry, Dean, but your rear is not divine. I wasn’t made aware, at least, that it was.”
Sam fell out of his bed, and the echoing laughter must have woken up the motel’s all four other cheap residents. “You hear that, Dean? The angel thinks your butt is not divine. That must have hurt.”
Dean let out a huff as he turned towards Cas. “You tell him, angel. You tell him my ass is nice.”
Cas, the ever-obedient soldier, careened towards Sam as he patiently waited for the hunter to get back into his bed and said simply: “Dean’s ass is nice, Sam.”
“See?” Dean, deeply perturbed and satisfied at the same time, turned to his left side. “Cas agrees.”
“And Cas is totally unbiased in your case, huh?”
“Shut your cakehole and get your beauty sleep.”
Sam finally settled under the smelly covers. “Fine, jerk.”
Silence blanketed them in another, less smelly cover. Only by slightly less, though; that room was stinky, like somebody died in it a few years ago and the body was still somewhere under the rugs.
“Cas?” Dean whispered after a few minutes. “I was serious. Don’t stare.”
Sam snored lightly. Cas shuffled a bit; maybe he put his hands in his pocket? Dean had no brainpower to check on him, so he remained lying, sleep cornering him.
“I was supposed to watch over you,” Cas whispered back.
“Not like this, though.” Dean had an idea. He wasn’t in any state to overthink it. “Dude, just get my phone out of my pocket and play on it, if you really insist on stayin’.”
Cas moved, as he was asked, towards the aforementioned coat, but he couldn’t keep his hesitation out of his voice.
“To play what?”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass, man. Just… just download Candy Crush for all I care.”
Cas took the phone into his hands, raised his eyebrows like it insulted him in ways only he could understand.
“Dean, what is Candy Crush?”
There came no answer. Cas felt it in his bones that Dean was out like a light.
Cas redirected his gaze to the screen; he may have seen a few times how Dean operates his phone, so he wasn’t completely clueless, but he may as well have been.
“All right,” Castiel muttered under his breath, silently judging the phone, Dean, Sam, and everyone who got him into this situation. Mostly himself. “It cannot be that hard.”
And so it wasn’t.
***
Dean was half asleep the following day when he noticed Cas reaching for his phone on the nightstand. It was a timid little movement, hesitant and shaky, like he was caught doing something forbidden, and Dean had to suppress a sappy smile seeing it.
“You can keep playin’,” he muttered over the rhythmic snoring of his brother. “‘s okay, Cas. I don’t bite.”
“I know you don’t.” Cas’s voice was deep, Dean felt it in his own chest. It was oddly arousing. “I wasn’t entirely sure you would want me to keep doing it, especially after today’s predicament.”
“Don’t forget to charge my phone, then,” Dean added, his smile seeping into his reminder. “Yesterday you fucking killed my batteries, man, and I almost got ganked by a bitch ‘cause of it.”
“Sam was not pleased.”
“Oh, man, he wasn’t. I thought he’d just evaporate my phone, and you with it. It was actually terrifying.”
“I understood your brother’s concern. He wasn’t able to reach you when you needed him the most. My apology is not enough to undo the damage.”
“But your mojo undid every damage my sorry ass took, Sunshine.” Dean felt the overbearing need to look Cas in the eye while saying it, so he did, sitting up and kicking his covers off his feet. “Nothing bad’s happened. ‘s fine.”
“But something bad could have happened.”
“But it didn’t.” Dean raised his finger into the air, and playfully shook it in front of Cas’s puppy eyes. “I almost got Candy Crushed in the balls, but I didn’t. So, you got to keep crashin’ my phone as much as you like, if it still means no peak-a-boo at my nipples during the night.”
“I never looked at your…”
Dean chuckled (since when does he chuckle like that?) and threw himself back onto the bed. “Yeah, keep telling me that and one day I’ll believe you, my angelic stalker.”
“I would never stalk you.”
“There’s no need for that. You know exactly when I shower, and boy, do you use that knowledge to your advantage.”
“Dean.”
“So, you’re telling me I didn’t see your shadow outside the curtain an hour ago.”
“You did not!”
Dean hadn’t had this much fun in years. Cas’s embarrassed objections were… cute, in a way, and also completely validated.
“I know, buddy, just messing with ya. It’s too easy.”
Cas sighed a desperate sigh. “Sometimes I wonder what my Father saw in you.”
“My abs are criminally underrated. And they say my eyes are to die for.”
“Dean.”
“Does saying my name like that turn you on? ‘cause it sure as shit does things to me.”
Cas stubbornly stared at the phone and the colourful candies that now occupied the screen, not willing to walk into a Winchester-word trap designed to consume simple-minded bartenders and adventurous ladies. So, people who weren’t as strong as him, who were not immune to the hunter-charm. “Dean, get some sleep, please.”
“You got it, Chief.”
Dean fell asleep after that. Cas felt a smile tugging at his lips while looking at him; then, sighing, he got back into the game.
***
The next night, for a while, Dean kept it to himself and didn’t say anything. He waited, strategically, until he could hear his brother sleep like he was fucking taken out by a sleep paralysis demon; then he straight up shot out of his bed to launch himself next to Cas.
“I got a check of forty dollars today, hon.”
The angel was hard to surprise, but Cas did jump a bit at the sudden closeness of the hunter. Dean winked at him, which only worsened his ever-so-slowly creeping blush, and he resolutely kept up his staring contest with Dean’s phone, not about to give in to the demand in Dean’s eyes.
“You said I should keep playing. So, I did.”
“I didn’t say to blow my hard-earned money on it, now, did I?”
Cas bit his lip. He was immersed in the fast-moving colours and the sounds of winning, so it was a tad easier to ignore the lowness of Dean’s voice.
“Do you want the alternative, then?” Cas was good at multitasking, although a flirty and drunk Winchester was a bit of a task to disregard. Still, he was not an angel for nothing. “I put this down and stop if I can watch you sleep.”
“Not gonna happen, Feathers.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Dean took a peek at his phone and had a minor breakdown watching the numbers go high. “Are you on level 784?!”
“You sleep a lot. I am bored.”
“You gotta get a life, man.”
“I have one. It is rather depressing so far.”
Dean barked out a laugh, then swiftly covered his mouth as if to help himself keep quiet; he chanced a look at Sam, who was asleep like a five-year old, drooling and twitching.
“Oi, come on. There’s more to life than Candy Crush, Cas.”
“I have yet to witness it, Dean.”
The hunter was possessed by a sudden rush of bravery, as he took the phone out of Cas’s hands and put it under his right leg, all the while shooting a challenging smile at the angel.
Cas, with a dangerous flash in his eyes, dove in, sending Dean flying backwards on the mattress, his back hit the headrest with a thud. Cas was on him, crowding him, pressing him into the dirty sheets, his hair a total mess, his eyes a storm in brewing. Dean’s brain started to melt a bit, as he struggled to keep his balance and found that gripping Cas’s tie was the best solution he could come up with to achieve that.
Cas leaned into the tugging sensation, not resisting, his nose admittedly too close for brotherly comfort. He had an almost devilish smile, something Dean never saw on him, and his brain further melted into his skull, leaving him light-headed and panting.
“Is this that more you wished me to discover?” Cas asked, his voice unnervingly even, almost monotone.
Dean rather wished he had something to say, anything. But his brain was melting faster than the polar cap and there was no way he could manage to come up with anything innocent.
Or anything at all.
Cas, however, wasn’t interested in his babbling for his life. He reached down, down, and Dean felt himself logging of, feeling the brush of knuckles and fingers on his leg.
Then, with a swift motion, something was pulled out from under his knee, and Dean was half relieved, half disappointed to find his phone in Cas’s clever hands again, Cas paying no mind to his current melting process.
The sounds of Candy Crush were sobering enough for the hunter to gather himself and deciding that this day was long enough to crown it with a goodnight’s rest.
He did not have a good rest, but he woke up happy, though.
***
Cas was on the phone once more when moonlight caressed his face through the window.
He was unbelievably beautiful. Dean had to take in a deep breath to calm his inner teenage girl, who was getting more and more excited each day.
Cas was an awkward-looking gremlin in a tanned trench coat, nothing else. Maybe with the features of a Greek statue, sure, but the ancient impression was a bit messed up by the logo of Candy Crush reflected in the angel’s eyes and the beat-up phone clutched in his fingers.
“I’m sorry for asking, but what are you doing?” Sam dared to ask with a toothbrush hanging out from his mouth.
Cas lifted his gaze for a second to Sam, then immediately turned it back to the screen. “I am playing.”
Dean, with a beer in his hand, nodded at his brother. “Our angel is a fucking champ. He needs to write to the creators to make more levels for him.”
Sam raised a perfect bitchface-eyebrow. “What is he playing?”
“Candy Crush,” muttered Cas.
“I thought it has infinite levels?”
“Nothing is infinite,” the angel said, with the voice like he was reading from the Bible. “I’m currently on level 12,547.”
“Jesus.” Sam walked back into the bathroom with a disbelieving grimace.
“Don’t let him discourage you,” Dean patted Cas’s shoulder. “He only wishes his focus was this undivided.”
“You wish it, too.” Cas looked up at him for a second, his smile smug and faint. “I’m amazing at this game.”
“You’re amazing at everything, sweetheart.”
When Sam returned, his face still wasn’t free from the hold of that grimace. “Oh, my god, you sound like an old married couple.”
“Shut up,” Cas and Dean said in unrepeatable unison.
When Sam finally shut up, Dean vaguely motioned for Cas to sit on his bed, instead of standing in the middle of the room with the phone in his hand. Cas didn’t notice.
Dean cleared his throat. “Buddy, uh, come here.”
Cas walked on autopilot, following Dean’s voice (and probably his discomfort, too). He sat on the edge of the bed casually, not looking away from the game, not even for a second.
Dean coughed, again.
“Are you all right?” Cas asked him softly.
The hunter made a face of defeat. “Yeah. I, uh, just, why don’t you sit back here? I wanna see how you’re doing.”
“I’m doing fine.”
“No, I mean, the game. I wanna have a peak at that thing which managed to keep your attention for five consecutive nights. Must be something mind-blowing.”
Cas, with one fluid motion, propped himself against the headrest. Dean carefully snuggled closer, making extra sure he doesn’t touch his… anything to Cas.
He watched silently as Cas beat another ten levels in an instant. It was magical in some twisted way: Cas had his tongue sticking out in concentration a few times, and Dean had absent-mindedly reminded himself to keep his distance.
When he was practically in the dude’s lap, he gave up.
“See?” Cas asked, delight in his whisper. “I’m good at this.”
Dean stared at his lips in agonizing anticipation. “You’re such a fucking nerd,” he mumbled.
“Maybe you should get my phone out of my pocket,” Cas added easily. “So you can keep yourself occupied not to stare at me.”
Cas flicked his gaze to Dean, Candy Crush abandoned and paused. In his eyes, the colours still popped up and played a dangerous game of tile-matching, candies and crushes vividly flickering.
“What is it, Stalker?” Cas had never spoke like this while Sammy was awake. No, it was a voice of a man going nuts on Candy Crush, Dean was positive about that. “Do you not have anything to say in your defence?”
“Huh…”
Dean wasn’t exactly proud of the voice he let loose, but Cas was back at the game, turning his head in a way that illuminated his stubble in glowing reds and purples and blues, making him look like an otherworldly entity straight out of a mobile dating simulator.
Dean hated he made this connection and swore never to play anything on his phone ever again.
“How long will you continue to look at me like that?” Cas wasn’t flustered, or at least, he had incredible hold over his vocal cords. “I only wish to know so that I could pause the game if you are planning to do something about it. I’m on my winning streak.”
Dean felt his sanity disintegrate in an instant. “You fucking nerd,” he uttered out as he caught Cas’s jaw in both of his hands to turn him away from that stupid game.
Except, Cas was an angel with the muscle control of a beast and his head not even flinched in the desired direction. Dean, exasperated and disgraced into a puddle of embarassment, let go of Cas like he caught on fire, and was in the middle of jumping out of his bed when Cas stopped him.
Dean’s phone was thrown to the edge of the bed, the Candy Crash no longer filling up the screen, and Cas…
Well, Cas was holding Dean back by his hand, firmly, like the being he was, the one who gripped Dean tight and raised him from perdition.
As the uncrowned king of Candy Crush and the angel of the lord, Dean had no way of disobeying this direct command. He was pulled back against the pillow, roughly manhandled into a position fitting for a whimpering virgin (as he felt himself), pinned down by rough hands and rough stares.
“I asked you to warn me if I was to pause my game,” Cas looked him straight in his eyes. “I was on my winning streak.”
Dean struggled to keep his breaths laboured. If Sam woke up now, they would have a lot of explainin’ to do, as there was no way they could convince him they are having a Candy Crush marathon like this.
“There’s more to life than Candy Crush, man,” Dean sighed, and, not wasting any more precious seconds, guided Cas’s lips against his.
That is pretty gay, he admitted, while completely overlooking the meaning of this statement. He kissed the taste of victory off of Cas’s mouth, willing to bet another forty dollars that went to the app by Cas this evening that Candy Crush will never be as exciting to Cas now as this is gonna get.
Cas was admittedly pretty excited, and he learned a sure-fire way of completing the tiles by fitting into Dean perfectly. Candy Crush had nothing on them, really.
“I sure as fuck hope you’ll be quiet,” Dean added in between kisses, realising he’s losing more clothes that he’s gaining from Cas.
The angel, haloed by the pale moonlight, smiled down with patient understanding, as he gently caressed Dean’s face.
Dean was familiar with rough, but this gentle torture drew the worst out of him. He almost bit off his tongue to keep himself silent.
“I sure as fuck hope the same,” Cas answered lightly, a smile tugging at his lips.
Dean felt like liquid grace is running through his veins. “You bastard.”
***
Dean didn’t move a limb when Sam walked into the room, with burgers in each hand and the keys in his mouth. Dean didn’t trouble himself when Sam, wide-eyed and perplexed, took in the scenery before him: Dean, sprawled out on his bed, tucked under the arm of an ever-concentrating angel, whose other hand was occupied by Dean’s phone.
Sam closed the door, stalling the moment of clarification, but he couldn’t keep locking the same door for all night. He had to turn back, had to face the smug grin of his brother who had his gaze divided between Cas’s smile and the phone’s screen.
“He’s on level 15,913,” Dean announced, snuggling into Cas with no shame whatsoever. The angel tightened his grip on his shoulder. “I bet him to write to the creators if he finishes this shit game by tomorrow morning.”
Sam slowly tilted his head, uncertain whether he should nod or shake it until every strand of his hair falls out.
“I hope you at least did the research I asked you to,” Sam finally said, sighing with the knowledge that no, they probably didn’t.
Dean did nothing to dissipate his fears. “Nah, research ain’t this fun.”
“Dean, you shouldn’t be this cruel to your brother.” Cas smiled when the screen blew up with colours. New level, Sam thought. “I did the research. It’s on the table.”
Sam let out another shaky breath. “Thank you, Cas. At least I can count on you if not on my sloth of a brother.”
“I’m definitely not a sloth. I have too much energy for that.” Dean leaned in to kiss Cas’s cheek, right in front of Sam, who had no time to blink away the image before Cas turned his head slightly, meeting Dean in a quick peck of lips.
“Your domesticity is almost as gross as I imagined it would be,” Sam admitted, although his happy, content smile betrayed his tone. “You keep kissin’ away those levels, Cas, I’m sure you can win this bet.”
“I really hope so,” Cas replied. “The stakes are high.”
Dean opened his mouth to elaborate, but Sam wasn’t really keen on hearing any of it. “You can keep the details, Casanova.”
Dean shrugged, his grin widening. “You have a dirty mind, brother mine. I assure you, what we agreed on is completely platonic.”
“Then I should stop this game altogether,” Cas quipped back, almost bored.
Sam snorted into his beer while he sat down at the table, leafing through Cas’s research. “Guys, please. Keep your candy crushing in your pants, I want none of it while I have my dinner.”
Dean laughed into Cas’s shoulder; but then, suddenly, Cas got up and shoved the phone into the air, like a move to a victory dance.
“I beat it!” he announced, and Dean loudly cheered while Sam covered his cheeks with his hands.
“Oh, boy,” Sam muttered to himself, looking up just in time to see as Cas and Dean, with a very serious matching expression on their faces, shook hands. “I think I better book another room.”