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Dean straightens his uniform, skirts his fingers along the edge of his badge, and cards both hands through his hair before shouldering open the door leading to the stairwell. It’s noon on a Wednesday, he just got off patrol an hour ago, and he’s got about fifteen minutes left of lunchbreak. He takes the steps two at a time, biting his lip to hide his smile in case anybody might pass by.
Dean’s in his thirties, has walked every beat on the payroll, and can shoot from the hip when he has to. He trains up the fresh faces and goes to the bar after the graveyard shift. The last thing he needs is someone catching him with a goofy, school-boy crush grin across his face. He rounds the corner of the hall, side-stepping and pivoting to avoid the traffic without actually slowing down.
Upstairs is the station proper, and downstairs is forensics. Dean never used to bother with the department unless he had to pick up a report or fetch an engineer for a professional opinion. The lab reminds him of a hospital, which gives him the heebs. He’s had enough broken bones and blunt force injuries to put him off hospitals permanently.
Also, he’s 70% sure he’s allergic to something down there – chemicals or powders or maybe some sneaky mold. Whatever it is, the smell drives his sinuses bananas. Already, as he peeks from room to room, he can feel his nose prickling. Tiding the tickle with a side-swipe of his wrist, Dean breezes by another door, pauses, then reverses his steps to take a second look.
He’d know that sexy bed-head anywhere.
Shoving his hands into his pockets, Dean gives himself one more glance-over before striding casually into the room. It’s white and grey, sterile and metallic, full of many complicated tools and only one occupant.
The man doesn’t turn around, tinkering with a couple vials of what are probably the spit and blood samples of victims or criminals, his white coat rustling as he reaches for another to add to the rack. His voice is a rumble.
“Hello, Dean.”
Dean’s heart skips a beat in the best sort of way. “Hey, Cas.” He approaches the counter separating them, taking survey of the orderly chaos spread across the surface. “You got eyes in the back of your head or something?”
“Not that I know of,” is Castiel’s reply as he swirls around a tube at what Dean can tell is eyelevel. Then he presses it against a vibrating thingy and watches the liquid whirlpool at the bottom of the glass. “Why do you ask?”
“You always know it’s me without looking.”
Cas half- twists, pinning Dean with his gaze. Then he smiles. It crinkles his eyes and Dean’s insides get mushy.
Castiel Novak was at the station for only a week when Dean met him. He was brought into the lab as a crime analyst with specializations in biology, chemistry, and psychophysical detection – meaning Cas is a genius that knows a lot more about the body and mind than most people. He informs others of any biological abnormalities he notices in them, as if this is courtesy, and always knows when someone is lying. He stares at people like he might squint at something under a microscope, with a laser-like intensity that rankles even the most iron of wills. He’s quiet yet blunt, and gets icy with those who don’t show him respect.
And damned if Dean doesn’t find all of this the sexiest thing since cowboy boots.
“Did patrol go well today?” Cas asks. He cross the room a few paces to unload the rack of vials into storage, then starts to strip off his rubber gloves. Dean loses focus and almost forgets to respond entirely.
“Uh. Yeah, it…” He waves a hand around, stupidly, aimlessly, not even sure what he’s communicating. “No problems. Everybody was pretty law-abiding this morning.”
“Well, that’s bad for business.”
Dean laughs, thrown by Castiel’s humor as usual, and knows he’s finding it way funnier than it actually is. God, he’s hopeless. He’s falling so hard he’s going to die when he finally hits the ground. Cas sweeps to another area of the lab to scrutinize the numbers on a machine, and Dean tries to lean against the counter. He misses by a few inches at first, but luckily Cas doesn’t notice.
“And how are things down here in the underground?”
“Organized, aggressively sanitary, imbued with the aroma of iodine.” Castiel swivels and passes another counter, gracefully scooping up a clipboard and notching some notes in the charts before stopping to stand in front of Dean. “The usual.”
Dean can’t tell if Cas chooses to stand so close only with him, or if he lacked the social finesse to recognize boundaries. He didn’t have the occasion to observe Cas with other people very much, but Dean likes to think it’s just him who gets the up-close-and-personal treatment. He sniffles, a bit wonderstruck with Cas in his orbit. He knows he should say something; instead, he’s lost in the blue of Castiel’s eyes. And the analyst seems content to stare back, eyes darting sporadically to other areas of Dean’s face.
Just then, the smell of the lab catches up with him, and Dean sneezes desperately, suddenly, into the cushion of one arm. He manages to reel away from Cas and any equipment, painfully aware of how easily he could contaminate important evidence. Honestly, he shouldn’t be down in the labs for plenty of reasons, this included, but… well, Cas spends all his time down here.
“Gesundheit,” Cas remarks, not at all stiff like Dean always fears he might be whenever a sneeze escapes him. Dean lowers his arm, self-conscious as all hell, and then rushes it back into position to catch a pair of them. Castiel smirks at him. “And again.”
“Thanks,” Dean mumbles, snuffling through a stuffy nose. Ugh. He needs to take Benadryl or something before coming to visit, he’s been thinking that for weeks, but he always forgets. He knuckles his nose, clears his throat, and moves on.
“You get caught in Gabriel and Lucifer’s prank war on Monday?”
That immediately sets Cas into an eye roll, one so intense that he turns his entire head skyward. “Please do not remind me. They were making rounds down the halls with water guns when I was passing through with an armful of evidence analysis reports.”
Dean winces appropriately because he can feel the residual fury wafting from Cas before he abruptly disengages and frowns, now puzzled. “And they were shouting ‘marco’ and ‘polo’ at one another. I cannot fathom what they were trying to accomplish, beyond being an annoyance.”
Castiel’s lack of common cultural knowledge stopped surprising Dean weeks ago, but it’s an endless source of amusement for him anyway. Not to mention it’s really, really cute. He drops his gaze, crossing his arms to try and wipe clear some of the fondness showing on his face. With the knob of his wrist, he makes another pass at his nose.
“Mike nearly shit himself when he found the bologna in his office,” Dean remarks. It will be while until he gets the image of Michael charging after Lucifer with a Taser gun out of his head.
“As commissioner of this station, I should hope he has enough self-respect to be upset about something like that.”
“It was kind of funny though.”
“Not at all.”
“Just a little.”
Castiel sighs, fixing Dean with an exasperated stare. “Yes, all right, it was a little funny. But that is no excuse for their behavior.”
Secretly, Dean just likes seeing Castiel huffy and irritated because it’s one of the many sides of Cas that is cute and hot and awesome all at once. He’s opening his mouth to reply when another sneezing fit comes over him, and he has to muffle it into his shoulder. Cas digs out a fresh travel pack of tissues from his pocket and offers it.
“Gesundheit, Dean.” He cocks his head. “You sneeze an extraordinary amount when you come down to the labs. I’ve been wondering if you’re allergic to som – ”
“Ah, I dunno,” Dean replies, receiving the tissues with some slight measure of shame and blowing what he can manage into a wad of them after walking away a couple paces. He doesn’t want to squick Cas out too much, and definitely doesn’t want him to find any excuses to keep Dean out of the labs. “It’s nothing to worry about..”
“But, Dean – ”
Another volley of sneezes hits him right as he’s mopping up his nose, and he has to start all over again. Damn it. Soon he’ll pass the point of no return and be miserable for the entire day. Plus Cas is getting suspicious, just as he always does when Dean spends too much time downstairs. He starts trudging for the door.
“Lunch break’s almost over, so I should – ”
“Dean, wait a moment.”
His feet glue to the tile, hips canting so he can swivel to the side and stare over at Cas. For a moment, Dean thinks there might be something to worry about.
Then Cas says, “About your visits...”
And Dean really, really starts worrying. Is Cas going to tell him to stop visiting? Does he feel smothered? He tries not to come down to the lab every day, but it’s like trying to stop the force of a giant magnet. Maybe Dean’s annoying him. Did he accidently actually ruin evidence? Oh, god, he’d be flayed within an inch of his life for botching crime scene evidence, especially for some of the bigger cases that ran through the station –
A hand touches his shoulder, steadying him. During his mental freak-out, Cas has somehow blitzed soundlessly across the room and is now standing in front of Dean close enough to share body heat.
“Dean, calm down,” he says. There’s a soft smile playing across his lips, but his eyes are sincerely concerned. “What I was going to say was it’s clear you have some sort of allergy to something in forensics. I have not noticed you suffering similarly in other areas of the station.”
When has he seen me outside of the labs? Dean thinks dazedly. He can’t remember ever seeing Cas in the station, except maybe when he first arrived or left for work. But even then, no moments stand out.
“I was going to suggest we spend this time together somewhere else,” Castiel councils, as if this is solid advice indeed. “Perhaps outside the station. I know of a quaint café nearby that serves delightful sandwiches.”
Dean’s spirit leaves his body as his brain goes offline. Holy shit, is Cas asking him out on a lunchdate? After trying to work up the guts to do just that for the better part of three months, to have it offered so offhandedly by the bombshell blue-eyed brunette standing in front him – (with his hand still on Dean’s shoulder!) – Dean doesn’t know what to say.
“They sell grilled cheese, roast-beef, submarine sandwiches, and have a variety of sides. The macaroni salad is my favorite, but I have also heard the fruit salad is wonderful. It… It, um, also has a nice outdoor seating area for sunny days and they order all their ingredients from organic supplies so all the food is fresh. Um..”
At this point, Dean realizes with a jolt that Cas is nervous too. He’s chattering like a broken record, rattling off trivia about a sandwich joint and no longer meeting Dean’s eyes. Inspired, Dean reaches out and cups Castiel’s free hand, which had taken to fiddling with the edge of his white trench coat. He freezes, eyes wide. Dean’s smile spreads like warm butter. Easy. Natural.
“Awesome idea, Cas,” he says. Because clearly, it is. “Beats putzing around down here, right? Plus I won’t be so gross when we hang out.” He snorts against congestion to demonstrate this, regretting it a second later when he has to withdraw from Cas and cup his hands over his face. He’s run out of tissues so it’s unfortunately his only option. The fit lasts three or four sneezes, and after the last one, Castiel extends him another travel package of tissues. Dean blinks.
“You have so freakin’ many of these,” he sniffles, nosing into the white squares before turning around to blow. He hears Cas chuckle behind him, and the sound sends a shiver along his spine.
“I like to be prepared when you visit.”
Dean’s cheeks flush again, all the way up to his ears. Before he can get too embarrassed, Cas plants his hand again on Dean’s shoulder and starts to steer him out, toward fresh air. His tone is a little more tentative than usual, kind of shy. Dean really likes it.
“So… we rendezvous at the front desk next week? The same time?”
They have weaved down the hall, avoiding the sparse few analysts trickling in from the end of lunch-break. As they reach the stairs, Dean glances over at Cas and can’t fight the massive grin stuck to his face. He’s such a damn dork.
“I’ll see you then.”
~ fin