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The sun-bleached wood of the pier was pleasantly warm under Dean’s palms, soothing on calloused skin. Dragonflies zipped over the lake like speed boats while in the distance several ducks completed lazy loops back and forth. The water of the lake was a muddy turquoise, clearer near the shore and receding to opaque when the water got deeper. By the pier’s edge, several metres out from the shore, the bottom was barely visible. Dean tilted his head back and rolled his shoulders, eyes closed against the glare, the sun hot on his face. The sky was a clear, endless blue, barely a cloud to mar the endless colour.
They were out early enough that the day-trippers with fussy kids and inflatables hadn’t ventured into the daylight yet, and their only company was an older couple reading paperback novels in the shade of the trees, a dog lazing at their feet, tongue lolling out onto its feet.
Dean had reluctantly, finally, conceded that summer had won and had dug out an old pair of shorts from the back of his wardrobe. They were a little wrinkled and one of the pockets had a hole, but he wore them too little to really mind. His bare legs were pale, the skin unused to so much exposure to the sunshine.
He lazily cracked open one eye to look across at his companion.
Cas had not made the same reluctant concessions to the weather. He’d removed and left the coat in the car at Dean’s insistence and had at least taken off his tie, but the rest was the same. Dean marvelled at his angelic ability not to overheat in cheap polyester pants under the Kansas sun. His white shirt had come untucked at the back and stuck out like a goose-tail.
The lake wasn’t all that large, and Dean thought he could likely walk around it in a couple of hours. The narrow beaches were more shingle and pebble than they were sand, and the path down was steep enough to deter the less determined. It was the perfect spot for a morning away.
Cas, for all his desire to be near Dean, couldn’t abide the bunker for too long. He came alive outside, examining minute details of nature or humanity that Dean had never thought to observe. To Cas, all things were equally fascinating. Everything from the rabbits that scurried around the perimeters of the bunker to the cicadas screaming in the tangled undergrowth no-one had yet attempted to tame. From new games from the app store for his phone to reusable cups at coffee stores.
Dean shifted back a little until he was almost completely horizontal, propped up on his elbows and wishing they had thought to bring a towel or something to put a barrier between soft skin and splinters. The sun-bleached wood was pleasantly warm against his back. He looked at Cas again; at the way the sun was making his blue eyes glow in a less than natural fashion.
“Good?” he asked.
Cas was fiddling unconsciously with the label of one of the beers Dean had insisted they bring. The bottles were sweating in the sun, condensation dripping down and staining the wood in dark splotches.
“It’s peaceful out here,” he noted, handing Dean one of the beers.
Dean took it gratefully and took a sip. It wasn’t exactly cold anymore, but definitely still cool enough to refresh.
“We can come back again next week,” Dean suggested. “Camp out in the Impala by the lake overnight, have a barbeque. Skinny dip in the dark. It’ll be real romantic.”
Cas squinted, rocking back a little.
“I wasn’t aware barbeques were known for being romantic,” he mused thoughtfully, more to himself than to Dean. “And I don’t eat.”
“Eye of the beholder,” Dean said, too comfortable and warm to get into it.
“Are they romantic for you?” Cas asked.
“They could be,” Dean said, grinning around the mouth of the bottle at Cas’ puzzled expression. “Better than a fancy restaurant if you ask me.”
“Oh.”
Cas regarded him for a few seconds.
“Are you pulling my leg?” he asked, undue emphasis on the figure of speech like he was using a phrase from a different language and wasn’t certain he was using it correctly. He was getting better, and the upload by Metatron years ago had sped up the process, but Cas and figures of speech maintained a tenuous relationship at best.
“No!” Dean protested, putting down the bottle with a chuckle. “Ok, maybe a little. But you got yourself stuck on the wrong thing. You wanna camp out here for a night next time?”
Cas returned his gaze to the lake, to the wavering reflection of the forest on the opposite shore on the surface. The way he was sitting, legs pulled up to his chest, made him look less like an angelic warrior and more like a sculpture in a park. Something to be admired, something eternal.
“I would like that.”
“It’s a date,” Dean said, taking another lazy sip and making a mental note to pack some extra blankets into the boot of the Impala when they got back to the bunker, along with towels and matches.
“Did you ever dream about this?” Cas suddenly asked, and his tone was unexpectedly serious.
“About what?”
“Going on dates, having the sort of peace we have now.”
Dean gazed up at the blue sky above and thought about it.
About his teenage self, making excuses not to bring girls home to the motel room he was sharing with his brother, about hookups in shitty cars that everyone involved knew weren’t a promise of anything more. About kisses behind moss-coated bike sheds, cheap milkshakes shared in fast food joints. Kids playing at being adults. Maybe once upon a time he’d had loose notions of romance, but by the time he hit twenty he’d realised it wasn’t for people like him. That he was pretty enough for a night, for quick and detached nights in cheap hotels, but he would be dropped like a hot coal by sunrise. That sooner or later, he would have to make a decision and hunting would come first.
“No,” Dean said, thoughtful and introspective. “I guess there was Lisa, that’s the closest I got. But we weren’t like this.”
Cas remained quiet at that. He didn’t interrupt, gave Dean the time to finish his train of thought.
“It always felt like something I wasn’t allowed to hope for,” Dean said. “Because we never stayed in one place long enough and being a hunter was always about dying young and alone. There aren’t many people out there who could make it work. Mostly, people got hurt.”
“You never dreamed of more than one-night stands and loneliness for yourself?” Cas asked, gently.
Dean turned his head on the warm wood, the sun a burning caress along his cheekbone. Cas was looking down at him, and he looked so sad it damn near broke Dean’s heart. Enough that he was willing to keep spilling out, leaking little-shared information.
“I guess not,” he admitted. “I mean, there was always an apocalypse to worry about, or something else would come up. Didn’t exactly leave a lot of time for dates and dreaming.”
“But you are happy, now?” Cas asked.
The ‘with me’ remained unsaid but Dean heard it anyway, could fill in the gaps with Cas in ways he had rarely experienced with another being.
Dean sat up quickly, quick enough that the pier wavered and dark spots danced in front of his eyes. He reached out and cupped Cas’ face in one hand and pulled him in, inhaling before their lips met. Cas tasted like cheap beer; his dark hair was fire-warm from the sun. Dean carded his hand back through it, past the delicate shell of his ear and onto the warm skin on the back of his neck. He nipped Cas’ lip gently with his teeth but otherwise kept it chaste, rubbed clumsy circles into his skin with his fingers.
He reluctantly pulled away from the kiss and rested their foreheads together, sharing breath, listening to the dragonflies zipping across the surface of the water. In the distance, the water splashed, the dog having finally ventured into the cooler water.
“I’m happy,” Deam whispered, the words lingering between them, caught between lips and teeth and shared air. “I’ve never been happier.”
Cas swallowed, his hand hot on Dean’s knee. He was so close Dean could count his eyelashes, could kiss him again and again and again until Cas finally believed what he was saying.
“You would tell me if that weren’t the case?” he whispered, like it was a confession he hadn’t dared to voice out loud. Like he was scared.
And Dean recognised, suddenly and painfully, that only a few months ago the doubt would have made him upset. Would have set the fires of insecurity ablaze within him, would have had him lashing out from the perceived slight at his behaviour. Now, under the heat of the sun, his body soft and malleable in the hazy July heat and the way Cas was so close he could feel eyelashes whispering on his cheek, he could consider the words before emotion swallowed him. Could recognise that given their history and Dean’s endless lies about his true emotional state, Cas had countless reasons to doubt his word.
“I would,” he reassured him, pulling back a little so he could look Cas in the eyes. Could try to read what was written there. “But I am happy, I promise.”
Then he suddenly grinned, an idea coming to him.
“Ever heard of a pinky promise?”
Cas folded his legs until he was sitting criss-cross-applesauce in front of Dean. His pants had ridden up slightly, revealing the cheap cotton socks he was so reluctant to change.
“No,” he said. “What is it?”
“It’s a way of making a promise,” Dean explained. “It’s kind of a thing for kids, but adults do it as well.”
He held up his hand and stuck out his pinky finger, motioning with the other hand for Cas to do the same. Something about it felt a little silly, a little juvenile, like he was six years old again and promising Jenny Nichols he would save her a seat at lunch. But at the same time, there was an honesty to it, an openness. A vulnerability he was still learning to not hide.
Cas raised his hand, copying the positioning of finger carefully, studiously, like his life depended on it. Dean looped their pinkies together mid-air.
“I pinky promise that I would tell you if I wasn’t happy,” he said, shaking their conjoined fingers up and down twice like a handshake.
“Is something supposed to happen?” Cas asked, lines of bewilderment creasing across his forehead. He looked around, like he was expecting a burst of light or something equally important.
“Nope,” Dean said. “But I have to stick to my word now.”
“Ok,” Cas said, lowering his hand. He looked confused, but at the same time a little relieved.
“Can you promise me the same?” Dean asked, suddenly needing to hear it. “That you’ll tell me if you’re unhappy?”
Because Dean worried about Cas. Because Cas hadn’t hesitated to make a deal with his own happiness, convinced he would never experience it. Because Cas had spent years toeing the same cliff edge of suicidality Dean himself had been dancing along for years and it wasn’t all that long ago that he’d sacrificed himself.
Cas gripped their pinkies together again. Dean’s hands were sweaty, Cas’ skin unnaturally hot even for the summer haze. They fit together perfectly, like two puzzle pieces finally slotting together.
“I promise,” he said solemnly. Like he was making a vow.
Then he dropped slowly back onto the pier, arms loose by his sides and legs outstretched. There was something stiff in the way he was holding himself, but Dean was used to it, was used to Cas wearing his body like it didn’t fit right.
After a few seconds, Dean joined him, and together they looked up at the blue sky above. Cas reached across the centimetres between them and linked their pinkies again, smiling softly to himself as he did so.
“I promise,” he repeated quietly, and squeezed gently.
Dean smiled up at the sky, squeezed Cas’ finger back.
“Love you,” he said softly, as Cas gazed serenely at the cloudless sky above them. “And that’s a promise.”