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Castiel
The idea crept up on Castiel.
He's not sure when it first came to him. Of course, he's known about marriage since before it had a name and was simply two people pledging to stay together for the rest of their lives. He has observed marriages for centuries, from Ancient Greece to modern-day America, and knows that a marriage is not a guarantee that the love will endure, or that both partners will remain faithful and honest.
But there's something about the idea of pledging your love and devotion to one person forever that keeps marriage in the back of his mind as he watches Dean. He looks at the tiny crinkles next to Dean's eyes that have deepened even in the short years that he has known him and he pictures what Dean will look like many years from now. The thought leaves a warm glow in his chest, and he slowly realizes that he wants to be there for it. He wants to watch Dean grow old and share his life with him. He knows that living without his grace, bumbling into old age and then eventually death, will be terrifying for a being as old as he is, and he wants no one by his side for that but Dean.
He knows perfectly well what the usual human ceremony is for proposing marriage to a person. The proposer buys a ring and stages a romantic situation in which they recite a heartfelt speech to the proposee, after which they ask the question and proffer the ring. However, he knows that aside from the amulet given to him by Sam and the ring that once belonged to Mary, Dean does not wear jewellery. He also knows that Dean is usually uncomfortable when sentimental situations arise, and Castiel does not want to make Dean uncomfortable when his goal is to have Dean agree to the proposal. So Castiel decides not to get Dean a ring, and to simply await a situation where he and Dean are alone together and not on a hunt. He doesn't need flowers and candlelight and violins – and he's fairly certain that Dean would just leave if he tried to set up something like that.
A couple weeks after Castiel has come to this decision, the situation that he'd been waiting for arises. He, Dean, and Sam had just successfully dealt with a wendigo in Redmond, OR and he and Dean were sitting quietly on a bench in the park while Sam was left with the task of taking a rescued would-be victim to the emergency room. It was late afternoon and birds were chirping amongst the trees while children played in the distance. Castiel figured this was as ideal a situation as he could hope for, and broached the topic.
“Dean,” he started, suddenly shy and unable to meet Dean's eyes.
“Yeah Cas?” Dean was leaning back on the bench, eyes closed as he tilted his face up to the sun.
“When humans have been in a romantic relationship for a long time and intend to spend the rest of their lives together, it is customary for them to marry, yes?”
Castiel watched out of the corner of his eye as Dean's brow furrowed in confusion, and the eye closest to Castiel cracked open to stare at him.
Nervousness growing, Castiel started to fidget with a button on his trench coat. “Well,” he continued, “we have been together for some time now and I would like to propose that we follow convention and marry.” Castiel nodded slightly, feeling proud of himself for avoiding any flowery language that might turn Dean off. He didn't want to scare him away. He straightened up and turned to face Dean, looking him square in the eye. “Is this proposition suitable?”
There, he had stated his intentions plainly, as Dean was always asking him to do. However, as Castiel gazed into Dean's eyes, he was confused by the emotions rapidly flitting through them. He caught confusion, disbelief, and dawning realization, before Dean surged to his feet, fists clenched.
“Seriously Cas? You're asking me to marry you? Just like it's some sort of company merger that you're proposing! Are you kidding me? Just like that? This is not- how could- what do you even-” Dean's face was red with emotion. “Violins!” he shouted, jabbing one pointed finger in Castiel's direction.
And with that outburst, Dean whirled around and stormed off.
Castiel was left sitting alone in a park, the sky turning purple as the sun started to set, wondering what just happened and whether he had finally driven Dean to insanity.
Dean
Dean has never had any illusions about how his life would go. Since he was four years old, running out of the house with lungs burning as he clutched Sammy to his chest, he's known that he wasn't going to have everything that everyone else gets to have. He's known he'll never get to rest, or put down roots. He's known he'll never get a quiet family life like most men dream of attaining. Even when he settled down with Lisa and Ben, he was always waiting for the other shoe to drop – waiting for some big ugly to appear and ruin the calm.
However, in a tightly sealed box inside his secret heart, he's built up a dream of what it might be like if he could choose his life. What it might be like if he didn't have the safety of all the innocents in the world resting squarely on his shoulders. What it might be like if he could breathe.
He's imagined finding someone who would love and accept him for all his scars and darkness and gently unwrap the loneliness circled round his heart to let some brightness into his life. He's fantasized about how he would propose to that light-bringer: he'd shop around until he found the perfect ring, plan an amazing, romantic candle-lit dinner with a few violins playing soft music, then take them for a walk under the full moon before going down on one knee in a pretty setting – maybe a pier by the ocean or under a willow tree in a park – and pledge his love with a carefully thought-out speech before popping both the box and the question.
When things were bad, sometimes he'd unlock that box and pull out those secret fantasies to play them out; he'd imagine the proposal, the wedding, the long and happy marriage. But they had never been anything but fantasies until Cas. Cas made him start to think the happily-ever-after wasn't quite so impossible. Even though Cas had lost his grace and was more human than angel, Dean could trust that Cas could handle anything that came their way. He could trust that Cas could accept all the darkness in his soul – after all, Cas had seen every imperfection on it when he dragged it up out of hell, and had stuck around afterwards. Cas knew every blemish in Dean's spirit and still stuck with him. Before Cas, Dean would have said that Sam was the only person who did, and would ever, know him truly and completely. Now, Dean would be hard-pressed to say whether Sam knew him best, or whether it was Cas. Sammy had grown up watching Dean, had sewn up pretty much every inch of Dean's skin, had carried him when Dean got hurt and had his back, always. But Cas... Cas knew him on a level that Dean couldn't describe. If Dean was caught in a nuclear bomb, Cas could reconstruct him atom by atom and quip by sarcastic quip.
So when Dean and Cas finally stopped dancing around the nature of the bond between them and accepted that they loved each other, the lock on that little box inside Dean broke and his fantasies started to seep out, tugging at his mind and whispering that maybe they could be real now, if Dean still wanted them. Watching Cas figure out all the tiny, puzzling things about being human, like when sarcasm was inappropriate and how to brush his teeth and why it was a bad idea to talk to people's pets in front of them as if you can hear their responses, Dean knew that he did, in fact, want those fantasies to be real. He wanted them with Cas.
So he started slipping away from Cas and Sam sometimes to duck into ring stores and search for the perfect ring for a several millennium-old fallen angel who's recently become human. He finally found one in Litchfield, IL – a simple white gold band with a subtle design that reminds Dean of feathers. He got the inside engraved with “always my angel”, and prays that Sam never finds out about that detail.
Dean knows the next part will be harder to do. He needs a guarantee that he and Cas will be in a specific town on a specific day, and that neither one of them will be in the middle of a case or needed somewhere else urgently. He'll also need to get rid of Sam in a way that won't get him teased for life or give Sam the chance to spoil the surprise by letting Cas know something's up. He's also forced to carry the ring in a little pocket he has sewn into his jeans, scared that either Cas or Sam would find it if he kept it in the Impala or in his duffel.
The three of them are in a little town in Oregon after ganking a wendigo, and Sam's off taking care of a woman they had rescued just in time, while he and Cas sit quietly on a bench in some park. He's got his eyes closed, trying to figure out how to get rid of Sam for the night. He's already spoken to the owner of a little Italian restaurant with a pretty little terrace, and after greasing the man's palm he's secured the place for tonight – along with some violinists that the man has assured him can play quite well despite being members of the local high school's Senior Chamber Music Ensemble. Maybe he can fake being sick and convince Cas to stay to keep him company while Sam goes out to have a few drinks, then effect a quick recovery in order to get Cas to go out with him.
As he's sitting there mulling over the details of this plan, he's interrupted by Cas calling his name. He doesn't bother to open his eyes as he responds, still lost in the planning.
Then, Cas' words penetrate to his brain and he realizes that Cas is talking about marriage. For an instant, he wonders if Cas' mind-reading abilities are back and the jig is up, but after taking a moment to replay what Cas just said, he realizes that his secret is still safe and Cas is just asking about marriage in a hypothetical sense. Still, he's confused.
When Cas continues, however, he starts to suspect that this isn't just hypothetical, and once Cas is done his little proposition, Dean knows for sure. Castiel, former angel of the lord, has just proposed to him. Without using the word “love” once. Or even expressing any affection whatsoever. He barely even made eye contact until the very end, and yet the way he's looking at Dean as if he's proud of the way he proposed, as if he's done well instead of delivered what should have been the most impassioned plea and benediction of his life, as if he's negotiating a business deal, infuriates Dean.
Dean has been picturing this moment all his life, and he was gonna do it right for Cas and show him how much Cas means to him but instead he gets this bullshit. Dean couldn't believe it. He leaped to his feet, hands balled into fists to stop him from grabbing Cas by the lapels and shaking him.
“Seriously Cas? You're asking me to marry you?” he growled. He was supposed to be the one to ask! He had practised the words in front of the damn mirror, for crying out loud! “Just like it's some sort of company merger that you're proposing! Are you kidding me? Just like that? This is not- how could- what do you even- ” This was not the way that Dean Winchester would be proposed to. It was not going down like that. He wanted violins, dammit! “Violins!”
He realized that he was spluttering, unable to form sentences in his flustered state, and whirled around to storm off. He needed to figure out how to salvage this situation. Son of a bitch.
Castiel
Castiel didn't know what he had done wrong, although he suspected that he had worded his proposal wrong somehow. What was bad about a business merger? Two companies coming together had separate situations they needed to combine, just as two lives coming together requires planning and compromise. He thought Dean would appreciate him speaking plainly and to-the-point, without what Dean always calls "chick-flick moments"! He thought Dean would want to get married as most humans do.
Now Dean has yelled at him, and possibly undergone some sort of auditory hallucination, before leaving him in a state of anger. Castiel is very worried that he has somehow messed everything up and he's not sure what he should do to fix it. He knows he can't just leave things the way they are, though. He cannot lose Dean.
He gets up and hurries after Dean, who has built up quite a lot of momentum in his anger and is just leaving the park and crossing the street as Castiel rushes after him.
Dean
Dean is storming down the street when he hears Cas calling out his name from behind him. He sighs and stops, turning around to face Cas as he runs up to Dean. The anxious, scared, and almost apologetic look on the other man's face makes Dean regret storming off the way he did. He knows that Cas gets distressed when Dean doesn't react the way he expects but he had been caught up in his disappointment at not having the perfect proposal that he'd dreamed about.
He looks into Cas' gorgeous worried blue eyes and suddenly he knows that it doesn't matter how it happens, as long as the answer is yes. He can hear music coming from a burger joint down the block and, grabbing Cas by the hand, tugs him along towards the sound. As he pulls Cas to a stop outside the restaurant, he recognizes the song playing as an instrumental version of that Kansas song, and smiles to himself. Well, he got the violins. He spots a couple tables on the sidewalk set for dinner and fishes a Zippo out of his pocket to light a candle on the table next to them. He digs into the tiny pocket inside his jeans and pulls out the ring, closing his fist tight around it, cause for some reason his hands are shaking and he doesn't want to drop it. The dumb thing was expensive and he went to all that trouble to engrave it so losing it would be stupid. Yeah, that's the only reason he's gripping the ring like it's the only thing keeping him afloat in a storm.
He finally looks up into Cas' eyes and, seeing the look of mixed trust and confusion on his face, his nervousness fades away and the shaking stops. Dean takes a gentle hold of Cas' hand, and drops to one knee.
“Castiel, angel of Thursday,” he murmurs gruffly, “I practised the words that would tell you what I feel for you over and over, but I realize now that I don't need any words at all. I think you've known how I feel for you even longer than I've known myself, so I'm going to do what I'm best at, and let my actions speak for me.” Clearing his throat and keeping his eyes wide open cause he could feel tears welling up and hell he was not going to cry, he was not going to cry, Dean opened up his hand to hold the ring up to Cas.
“Will you make this righteous man an honest one as well? Castiel, will you marry me?”
Dean will never forget the look on Cas' face at that moment. It was such a tender mix of relief, happiness, and love that Dean wasn't really ashamed when he realized that there were tears running down his own face. He blinked, and suddenly he could see Cas' wings. They were curled around Dean in an embrace he couldn't feel but that warmed him nonetheless.
Cas spoke in the softest, deepest tone Dean had ever heard him use. “Yes Dean, I will marry you.”
Dean felt like the king of the world. As he jumped to his feet, he knew could take on a whole nest of vampires and a hungry djinn right at that moment, but he held back his celebratory yell and instead gave Cas a cocky grin.
“Yeah, of course you will, sweetheart,” he exulted, “who wouldn't?” He moved to put the ring on Cas' finger, but the man reached out and grabbed his wrist, taking the ring from his fingers. Cas read the inscription inside and smiled softly before slipping the ring on. He pulled Dean into a hug, and Dean started slightly as he felt feathers brush his back.
“Always,” Cas whispered.