Opposites Distract - wylf_storm - Supernatural (TV 2005) [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Castiel Novak did not like the term ‘white collar employee’ and he never had. It was simply not how he saw himself, and was also a little too closely associated with the concept of ‘white-collar crime’ for his liking. But the fact remained Castiel was a white collar employee. By all standards, he supposed he was the very definition of one: he worked in a multi-storey office building, spent all day working in a cheerless cubicle with a single management-approved desk plant for company, and had to wear the eponymous white collared shirt and suit. His life was, by all accounts, exceedingly normal.

Working for Heavenly Enterprises had been predetermined for Castiel since before he’d graduated high school. As a child his eldest brothers, twins Michael and Luke, had inherited the company from their father upon his passing. Hoping to uphold his legacy, they spent a few years of unwilling cooperation working on securing the company’s future before deciding they were not well suited to business partnership. Now the elder twin Michael ran the company with Luke situated in a different building downtown. His offshoot Heavenly Enterprises Loans, was most commonly referred to as ‘hell’ on account of their unfortunate (but Castiel suspected, intentional) acronym. Luke’s own offshoot had been the final blow that drove the wedge home completely between the twins after a lifetime of pettiness and juvenile slights had deteriorated into open conflict; there was no love lost between them any longer, and what little there had been to begin with had long since withered away before the acronym stunt. Equal shares in the company meant that as much as Michael loathed being associated with HEL in every way, he couldn’t force Luke to change it and Luke resisted purely because he knew it was an ongoing source of irritation to Michael.

For Castiel as an outsider to his siblings’ conflict in both age and association, following his father’s wishes for him to join the ranks of the company’s employees had been the easiest thing in the world. The steps were simple, straightforward, and required no independent thought - Castiel went to university, got his degree in business management and accounting like he was supposed to, and started working for Heavenly Enterprises the day after his graduation. Being a middle-management accountant wasn’t the best job in the world, but nor was it the worst - but it was what he’d been doing since he was old enough to be a full time employee. At the current point in his life, thinking of doing anything else was almost impossible. It was the first and only job he’d ever needed. The higher ups kept things ticking over smoothly and Castiel wanted for nothing. He had all the tools he needed to perform his job adequately. He was allowed relative anonymity on account of Michael not wanting it to be known that the company essentially ran on nepotism, so despite knowing there was a family connection between them, nobody outside of their own relatives knew that Castiel was the youngest brother of the inheriting branch of the family. It also helped that his surname differed from his siblings’, a whim of his father’s that had never seemed to have any use until entering the workplace. The twins’ brief stint at cooperation meant that his financial security was assured regardless of if he kept his job or not, but the idea of leaving and striking out on his own to find another job, or finding a hobby or something else to do was… uncomfortable.

A sigh escaped him, fluttering the few pages laid across the desk before him. Having a life that followed normal societal expectations had never been something he’d given a lot of thought to, but as of late Castiel had found himself considering more and more how hollow his life outside of the workplace had become. As much as he would have loved to blame his job for sucking the joy out of him, he was acutely aware that jobs as a concept were not able to make decisions for sentient beings. If he really wanted someone to blame he’d need to get a little more self-reflective and possibly a mirror.

Another sigh followed fast on the heels of the first, and he absently rubbed his temple with one hand to stave off an imminent headache. Contemplating the futile nature of the human condition under capitalism was not his best idea for a workplace activity.

“Something on your mind?”

Anna’s voice from over his shoulder helped to shake loose the last of his introspection.

“No. Just finalising the figures on the spreadsheet from downstairs. There are some discrepancies that need straightening out before it gets put in for submission.”

Anna nodded slowly, a strand of her vividly red hair falling out from behind one ear. “Not busy basking in a headache-free workday? C’mon Castiel, don’t tell me you didn’t notice? Listen,” she instructed, then ducked her head down and came around the partition that separated them to stand in his space, the better to gloat over him. Castiel co*cked his head to one side but heard nothing remarkable, and his unchanged expression prompted Anna to finally tell him the news. “No more days of listening to power tools shrieking any more now that my nemesis the power saw has finally been banished to the shadow realm of the next construction site! We can go back to being the mute monetary monastic order, as per his emails,” She finished with a twitch of an eyebrow towards the end of their row of cubicles where their department lead Uriel sat.

Castiel snorted out a humourless laugh, more a forceful exhalation through his nose. “He can’t stop people from working with headphones if that’s the angle he’s trying to take. He raised it at the last section meeting and it was vetoed since it’s a closed floor. It’s not against any rules or regulations, and I am fairly certain human resources would find it difficult to enforce if he did try.”

Anna nodded once again, her eyes drifting out the window. Castiel turned in his chair to follow her gaze, as he had in fact forgotten about the construction being finished next door.

The completed building was several storeys short of Heavenly Enterprises’ own, but it was still nothing to sniff at. It also appeared that the floor directly opposite the one they worked on was completely visible on account of some trick of the light. Some people moved about carrying boxes to and fro, and a tall someone was wrangling a dracaena in a pot over to its new home. Why people continued to choose the most awful, temperamental, prone-to-browning plants to put in their offices he would never understand. Zamioculas and sanseverias were popular and recommended choices for a reason , yet people insisted on trying to deviate from the norm . His own desktop bird’s nest fern would never be so dramatic.

Castiel knew everything he needed to about their incoming neighbours just from their choice of plants. He turned back to Anna, whose gaze was still fixed on the people moving in the building next door.

“If you’ll excuse me, but if that’s all you have to say then I’ll be getting back to it. I have multiple spreadsheets that aren’t outputting correctly and I-”

“Come with me to a party.”

Castiel closed his mouth abruptly. “Anna.”

“I know, I know, you’re not a ‘party’ person, you don’t like formal social settings, but I definitely heard you sigh just now. Twice.” Her tone was stern, and Castiel knew he was caught.

Having a cousin he liked working in the same department as him and in the neighbouring cubicle was for the most part, one of his favourite aspects of his job. The only problem was that she also had the unfortunate advantage of knowing how much he complained about his nonexistent social life, as well as being aware of his doing absolutely nothing to remedy it.

“Come on, I’m not even asking you to go to a club or anything! It’s actually being held by the people moving in next door, so this is technically a business event if you really think about it,” she said. “Plus, you’ll be meeting the neighbours, so to speak… and since you don’t actually work with them, it’s very likely you’ll never have to talk to anyone there again if you don’t want to!” Her tone turned wheedling. “Please Castiel… nobody else will go with me because they’re all allergic to having fun, and I know you want to get out more because you told me so.”

For the third time in ten minutes, Castiel sighed.

“If I agree, will you leave me to my spreadsheets?”

Anna’s face instantly brightened. “Yes! Pinky promise! You just have to promise me in return that you’ll actually come with me and not mysteriously fall ill or have “another engagement”,” she used her fingers to make air quotes, which Castiel said nothing about, mainly because she was completely correct about him backing out of events at the last minute.

“I promise. You can text me the details later. Now please, my spreads aren’t going to format themselves and I’m sure you have better things to do than hover over my shoulder all day. Haven’t you got expense reports to follow up on?” Castiel gave her a pointed look, which made Anna give him a dour one in return.

“I’m much more fun than spreadsheets, but if that’s what you like,” she said primly, and turned on her heel. Unable to commit to the bit, she spun back to him at the last moment. “I’ll text you later! Thank you for saying yes, Castiel. I really think you’re going to love it!” She beamed at him before vanishing around the particle board separating them, returning to her own cubicle.

As much as he had wanted Anna out of his space, he was reluctant to return to his spreadsheets right away. They weren’t actually urgent, and more often than not he preferred writing his work out by hand when the numbers weren’t cooperating, as something about pen and paper seemed to scare the sums into submission. He found his gaze wandering to his right and out the window again to where the people were still moving things around into the office space level with Castiel’s own.

The plant had been placed appropriately, it seemed, because the man from earlier was nowhere to be seen. Much of the office furniture was already moved in, and he noted that they weren’t using cubicles to separate their employees, but rather had a pair desk system where employees would sit facing each other with their computers serving as a kind of partition. He also spied a corner office, sitting perfectly in his line of sight so as to be able to look into it without turning his head away from his own computer. He hoped whoever was going to sit in there would make use of their blinds as he couldn’t move anything to block the view without turning his cubicle into a windowless box.

The building owners next door must have done some kind of deal with an advertiser, as there was an enormous billboard directly below the office space. It took up almost the entire width of the building, but seemed to only take up two storeys in height, with its top ending perfectly level with the floor of the office space. Castiel hoped that whatever company had adspace rights to the billboard weren’t going to put on commercials with noises, or moving images that would be distracting. He supposed there was no way to avoid the LED lights, but so long as the content wasn’t awful it was a complication he was prepared to live with.

Movement in the corner office caught Castiel’s eye, and he saw an older man in a baseball cap place a box down on the desk. Given that he wasn’t dressed in standard-issue moving company attire, Castiel felt it was safe to assume this was going to be the new office’s occupant. He certainly looked like the type of person to value privacy, especially if the cap pulled low over his brow indoors was anything to go by.

Intending to start the next several years of neighbourly office interactions off right by firmly ignoring him, Castiel made to turn away. Before he could turn back to his desktop a second person entered the room.

This man was younger than the cap-wearer, and dressed in faded boot-cut jeans, and a plaid shirt over a graphic tee whose logo Castiel couldn’t quite make out - another employee? A family member or friend of the cap-wearer who’d come to help with the move? There was nothing to indicate his association with the company. When plaid-wearer saw the desk with the box placed on it his face broke into a grin and he slapped the older man on the back. The cap-wearer scowled and said something that made the new man tip his head back and guffaw, taking a step closer to the window and into the light. Castiel’s breath left him almost entirely.

He was beautiful. Anyone could see it: the line of his nose, his darkened-honey brown hair lit up in the sun, the way the shadows seemed to shelter under his lips to show off their fullness, starkly contrasting the sharp cut of his high cheekbones and jawline covered in a faint dusting of stubble. Castiel’s heart felt like it was going to bruise him because of the force it was beating with. The man could surely hear it from inside the new building.

It was then that he glanced cursorily across to Castiel’s office, his eyes sweeping the floor while still creased at the corners, a charming remnant of his earlier laughter. Frozen in awe and unable to look away, Castiel could do nothing but wait to be caught staring. Yet, to both his relief and disappointment, it never came. Right before their eyes could meet, the beautiful man turned his back to the window, his attention drawn back to cap-wearer, whom he followed out of the office.

Castiel sucked in a breath to replace the one that had escaped him, then remembered that Anna had annoyingly astute hearing and attempted to be as quiet as humanly possible. It was unlike him to be so flustered, let alone by someone who hadn’t even seen him or knew he existed. He closed his eyes and tried to force the image of the man bathed in sunlight from his mind. He didn’t have time to be distracted - especially not with the party with Anna in his immediate future.

His eyes snapped open again. The party. The party . If the man was going to be an employee next door then he might be there. Not that Castiel was going to be weird about it, he just wanted to take a better look at the guy. And maybe to learn a little more about him, but in a civil ‘you’re new to working in this area’ kind of way. Plus, Anna had said that she knew he wanted more social exposure, and he’d just been thinking about how nonexistent romance was in his life - the party was the perfect opportunity. If it had taken seeing the handsome man for Castiel to realise that, then that was his own business. Nobody else needed to know that on the twenty-third floor of an office on a perfectly average Thursday, a total stranger had rekindled Castiel’s interest in living his own life.

The party was scheduled for the next day, which Castiel would usually have hated because Anna hadn’t given him enough notice, but on this occasion he was grateful. With auditors to chase before the weekend cutoff, he didn’t have enough time to get caught up in thinking about the handsome stranger in the window more than he already had.

Anna’s text with the party details had been astonishingly brief:

1 MESSAGE RECEIVED

>> 6:30pm outside my place so we can go together. Dress NORMAL!

He settled on staying in his usual suit and tie since that was as normal as dressing got for him. After all, Anna had made the excellent point that it was technically a business event. If everyone else turned up in business wear or even business-casual, then he’d fit right in. If they didn’t, then he figured it was better to be overdressed than under.

Anna met him in the lobby of her apartment building and tried valiantly to cover up her initial frustrated look at him with a slightly-too-wide smile. Castiel refused to pretend he hadn’t seen it.

“What?”

She pressed her lips together. “Castiel, you know I love you, but what part of ‘dress normal’ didn’t you understand?”

Castiel frowned down at his outfit. “This is what I wear normally. You’ve seen me wear it almost every day. How is this abnormal?”

Anna closed her eyes and took a slow breath before looking at him again.

“No, you’re right. That is very normal for you and it’s my fault for being vague. What I should have said was ‘dress casually and not like you are actually attending a business meeting’.” She struck him with a long look, but Castiel didn’t have the good sense to look abashed.

She was the one who had called it a business event in the first place! How was he responsible for this outcome?

“A trenchcoat for a meet-the-neighbours party? Really? It’s barely fall, it’s not even that cold!”

“But the weather forecast sai-”

“What good is the forecast when we’re going to be indoors the whole night? C’mon Castiel, use your head.” She poked him gently in the forehead with one finger and, loath as he was to admit it, she did have a point.

Her smile softened when she saw his brows knitting in concern, and she reached out to tug the collar of his shirt into place. “Ah, it doesn’t matter. It’s very you anyway,” she said reassuringly. “Now, stop distracting me with your outfit choices; you’re a grown man, you can live with your own consequences.”

Castiel frowned again. “But it was you who–”

“Yes I know it was me who started it, but we have to go – cab’s here!” She patted his shoulder once, then with surprising strength, turned him about to face the entrance and marched him out to meet their ride.

The party was held at a bar a couple of districts away from the offices, some place Castiel had never heard of, but Anna was familiar with though she had never actually made it inside before. It was styled like a midwestern trucker bar, and yet somehow fit perfectly into the ecosystem of the city district, bracketed as it was between a Chinese restaurant and a laundromat. Standing in front of the place, Castiel began to see why Anna had had misgivings about his outfit.

At first glance Castiel decided Purgatory was the type of place he’d probably never set foot into on his own. It wasn’t a dump – far from it – but it was packed to the rafters with people in distinctly casual wear who all looked like they were having the time of their lives. Castiel wasn’t sure if he was ready to have the time of his life, let alone at a place like this. He even spotted a few employees from other divisions of HeavEn there but, as Anna had predicted, nobody else from theirs.

On the few occasions Castiel had decided to go out in the city, he had preferred somewhere the music was soft and low, usually with a quiet corner to tuck himself away in while nursing a drink. He didn’t do so well in crowds.

Despite his earlier thrill at the possibility of seeing handsome plaid-wearer again, Castiel felt a seed of doubt take root in his gut. Anna noticed him freeze up and threaded her arm through the crook of his elbow.

“I know it looks like a lot, but it’s a private event. It’s just the company who hired the place and the people they’ve invited, mainly from our building. People are getting to know each other tonight, so you’re on equal footing with everyone else here. The only person I can see here that I know is you and- oh, look! Hang on a sec – Balthazar!”

Anna waved with her free arm at a lanky man in a grey tee with a plunging V-neck who abandoned his conversation with a gaggle of women to look in their direction. His eyes lit up in recognition and he peeled himself away from the wall he’d been leaning on to head towards them.

“Anna!” He drawled delightedly, kissing her once on each cheek. He noticed Castiel standing awkwardly to the side, still held in place by Anna’s arm, and gave him an assessing look. “With Cassie-boy in tow no less! I must say, this is a welcome surprise. Come to extend the olive branch to our new neighbours and do a bit of fraternising?” Balthazar’s eyes raked over Castiel’s body, taking in his outfit and snagging on his tie. “I have to say, Cassie, from what I heard from the HEL staff, I didn’t think you were the fraternising type or I might have tried my luck sooner,” he offered a smirk and a raised eyebrow, which Castiel elected to ignore.

“Balthazar,” Castiel returned, wary. He’d had the dubious privilege of working with the other man on a project in the past. Balthazar had seemingly decided during their cooperation that Castiel was his favourite corporate chew toy and Castiel had concluded in turn that he never wanted to work in their external relations division. “I didn’t think you had anyone left to fraternise with… Though I suppose if what I’ve heard about the French project is anything to go by, making new friends is probably a good idea” he said mulishly.

Balthazar burst into laughter at this and, to Castiel’s horror, slung his arm around his shoulders. “My grand French mistake? Oh Cassie, that drama is months old! Practically ancient history with my lot. Really, if you’re going to snipe then at least make sure you’re doing it about something I still give a toss about.” He leaned slightly forward to speak to Anna while still keeping Castiel wedged between them. “Where have you been keeping this one, darling? This is a much different creature to the Castiel I worked with last quarter!”

“He’s here because I asked him to be, and he’s also a cousin of mine so try to keep it in your pants until we’ve at least made it inside,” Anna said sternly, and gave him a withering look. “More importantly, don’t you dare make me have to explain to people that my cousins aren’t related to each other. I am not above quitting if I start hearing rumours about you two around the office.” She warned while pointing an accusing finger at the two of them, and that was the final straw for Castiel.

He squirmed out of both Anna and Balthazar’s grasps with remarkable agility for a man in a trench coat, mainly on account of the extreme amount of terror coursing through him at Anna’s implication.

“Anna, there’s no– we’re not–“ clumsy with embarrassment, Castiel struggled to get the words out. Balthazar said nothing and only watched with a smarmy little smile on his face as Castiel fumbled to defend himself. “Anna, there is no chance of that happening. I barely know Balthazar and what little I do know I have learned against my will. There has not been and will not be any kind of relationship between us!”

Balthazar stuck his hands into his jeans pockets with an over-dramatic sigh. “More’s the pity,” he said, and Anna rewarded him with a smack on the shoulder with the back of her hand for the quip.

“My wounded pride! You know, I should really be more upset with you for this,” Balthazar groused. “How very dare you think me anything more serious than an insatiable flirt! As if I’d ever be caught dead in a relationship.” He made a disgusted face.

Even though Castiel had just been decrying his involvement with the man, he couldn’t help but feel this was a dig at him. Before he could open his mouth to ask what Balthazar’s problem was, Anna interrupted.

“Enough, both of you! I’m here to have a good time, not watch you both try and outmanoeuvre each other. Whatever beef you have, get over it! Now, can we please go inside? I need a drink.”

On a good day, Anna’s tenacity was formidable. In the dim lighting of the street with music spilling out from the bar, the iron resolve in her voice gave her words the force of a thunderclap. Appropriately scolded, Castiel traded a wary glance with Balthazar who gave him a tiny, nonplussed shrug. Castiel inclined his head minutely in response. The matter was settled.

With Anna leading the way, they entered the bar. It was as it appeared from the outside - full of people enjoying themselves loudly, and with nowhere quiet in sight. The lighting was thankfully not as low as Castiel had been expecting and the music, while unfamiliar, wasn’t reminiscent of the kind played at clubs. People seemed to mainly be mingling with one another, drinking around small leaner-type tables, and spectating or playing in several ongoing games of pool in the far corner.

Anna took one look at the room, located her target and twisted, slunk, and elbowed her way to the bar. The bartender saw her coming and made to meet their group, his bearded face lighting up with a smile.

“Anna, you came!”

He spoke with a Cajun accent, and Castiel was growing more and more confused the longer the night went on. Where did Anna find the time to meet people? He was exhausted at the thought of having to socialise at the end of every day, and they had the same job!

“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world! Thanks for the invite by the way, glad to know you think I’m worth introducing to my own new work neighbours,” she said teasingly.

“Aw, come on now, you know it ain’t like that! I just didn’t think it was something everyone would be into – plus, you know a couple of these folks already,” he said, then caught Castiel’s eye behind her. “Who’s the angel on your shoulder?”

Anna dragged him forwards by the wrist. “This is my cousin Castiel! We’re in the same department. Being a social butterfly may not run in the family, but being nosy sure does.”

He set a pint glass down on the bar with a knowing smile, then dried his hand with a bar towel and offered it to Castiel to shake. “Nice to meet you brother, I’m Benny.” Castiel accepted the proffered hand. Benny’s handshake was firm and his face was friendly, and Castiel could see why people loved his place so much.

“Get you somethin’ to drink?” Benny asked.

Castiel opened his mouth to decline, but Anna beat him to it.

“He’d love a beer, thanks.”

Anna elbowed Castiel sharply but discreetly before he could say he wouldn’t love that at all, but Castiel got the feeling that Benny wasn’t the kind of person to miss much. He set a pint down in front of Castiel with a small, knowing smile before turning back to keep talking to Anna.

Castiel let their conversation fade into the background and turned to survey the amassed group of people in the bar. He knew this couldn’t be everyone who was coming to work in the newly-constructed office, but even so, the number of their employees attending far exceeded the number of HeavEn’s representatives there. Without really meaning to, he found himself scanning the amassed crowd for the only two faces he might recognise: cap-wearer and beautiful man.

He spotted cap-wearer – still wearing said cap indoors – camped out at one of the furthest bar leaners and was begrudgingly impressed: it was exactly the position in the room he would have taken up himself if he hadn’t been beaten to it. Castiel observed him while downing mouthfuls of beer periodically. A woman and a very tall man joined cap-wearer at his table and the three of them quickly got caught up in conversation. Castiel noted that the tall one was significantly younger than his two companions and wondered how he fit in with them.

Castiel finished his beer and returned the glass to Benny with his thanks, but declined another. He didn’t strictly enjoy the taste of alcohol, but it made blending in at social functions easier and gave him something to do with his hands.

“Someone catch your eye?” Anna asked hopefully, bumping his shoulder with her own.

“No, but I did see someone I recognise,” Cas said, nodding subtly in cap-wearer’s direction. “I think he’s going to be the occupant of the corner office that looks into my cubicle.”

“Oh, well then let’s go say hi! A corner office holder is probably a good connection to have. We’re hogging too much of Benny’s bar space anyway.”

Anna once again threaded her way through the crowd with ease, leaving a wake for Castiel to trail behind in. She wasted no time dragging Castiel into the conversation with her upon arrival at the leaner.

“Hi! Anna Milton, accounting sector at Heavenly Enterprises, pleasure to meet you. My friend here said he saw you in the corner office on the twenty-third floor yesterday?” She phrased it as a question.

“Yeah, that was me. Bobby.” The man didn’t offer his hand but acknowledged her with a nod.

The woman next to him rolled her eyes and extended her own hand to Anna.

“Ellen Harvelle. Excuse him, he doesn’t do well in public. We’ll both be on the twenty third floor, I take it that’s the one you have the best view into?” She said with a wry smile.

Castiel didn’t want to be seen as an awful snoop, so felt he should explain himself. “It is. I apologise if it seems I was observing you, but your office has a clear line of sight to my desk. We are also on the twenty-third floor but next door. Castiel Novak,” he added.

Bobby considered him more sharply than Castiel had been expecting. “Castiel… unusual name, that.”

“My father had a penchant for biblical names and unfortunately I was not lucky enough to be bestowed with one of the more… socially acceptable ones.” Bobby nodded in understanding but offered nothing else. Ellen came to their rescue by directing a question about eateries near their offices to Anna, allowing Castiel and Bobby to hover on the edges of the conversation without any need to contribute.

Anna gave Castiel her full thoughts a few minutes later over a margarita once they had left the pair alone at the leaner. They had her approval and she and Ellen had exchanged contact details to keep in touch with each other should they need.

The rest of the evening followed in a similar fashion; Anna flitting from group to group throughout the night with Castiel trailing behind her doing his best to look like he was having a nice time and introducing himself where necessary. The night wasn’t awful or boring, but constantly starting new conversations and saying the same few things over and over was wearing thin at his patience. After three hours of it he was exhausted with the charade and only remembered a handful of names from among the dozens of people he’d met.

He excused himself from Anna’s rounds, and made his way back to the bar to see if Benny would give him something that wasn’t a beer now that Anna wasn’t there to speak for him. To his dismay more people had filtered in as the night had progressed, and now, sometime around nine thirty, the crush of people waiting to be served was enormous. He joined the throng and waited his turn to see Benny, but when the crowd finally spat him out at the front, ribs pressing uncomfortably against the polished wood of the bar top, it wasn’t Benny’s face he saw. Benny was at the opposite end of the counter pulling pints from the taps like his life depended on it, handing them off to a blonde woman who doled them out to waiting patrons. In front of Castiel, pouring spirits and mixers with the broadest grin on his face was the beautiful man from the office.

Thankfully he was too busy cutting limes for his current order to notice that Castiel had frozen up completely. Up close the man’s eyes were startlingly green, his lips were just as picturesque as the sunlight had made them yesterday, and Castiel struggled to remember exactly what he wanted to ask for. A few people down, the man reached across to set down the drinks in front of the waiting customer and traded a few words with them before tapping his hand lightly on the bar once and deftly flipping a bar towel over his shoulder. Castiel had never been more jealous of a piece of fabric in his life.

He gathered his wits about him in preparation to order, berating himself for probably coming off as some kind of closet creep in a trench coat, but upon meeting the man’s gaze it didn’t matter. His thoughts fled his head all over again.

There was something about the man’s gaze that fixed him to the spot he was standing. Shoulders back, spine straight, body immovable under the weight of the other man’s stare. He truly was a fish out of water, mouth open the tiniest amount in shock, and completely out of his depth. Beautiful man’s eyes softened in a teasing smile and Castiel remembered he was holding up a queue.

“You look lost, sunshine,” the beautiful bartender said, not unkindly.

Castiel’s traitor mouth opened before he could stop himself. “I don’t usually do this… I don’t know what I want.”

The man quickly surveyed the people still gathering along the bar but almost immediately his eyes returned to Castiel’s face, almost wistful. “If we had more time I’d ask you more questions about that, but for now I think it’s best if I do most of the deciding. Sweet or bitter?”

Castiel answered automatically. “Sweet, please.”

“Coming right up.” The man rapped his knuckles on the bar as before and swiftly began pouring.

Castiel ended up with a short glass filled with an amber liquid and a large square of ice. When he pulled out his wallet to pay, the man simply waved him off.

“It’s on me,” he said, already pouring a different set of drinks. “Just come back when you’re done and tell me if you like it.”

He offered Castiel a disarmingly soft smile, but before he could reply he was jostled away from the bar.

With most of the people loitering at the bar, there were now a couple of leaner tables free, and Castiel seized upon the one that looked the farthest away from any social interaction. He took a tentative sip of his drink and found that he actually enjoyed it; the bartender had chosen well for him.

The minutes slipped away until a full hour had passed, Castiel still set up at his table with his drink long since finished. Anna had passed him by briefly to check in with Balthazar in tow, but both had seized upon the opportunity to play a game of pool against one of Anna’s newly-made friends and quickly left him alone again.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Castiel looked up and directly into the face of his beautiful office-window-standing-bartender.

“You wouldn’t be getting much in return.”

The bartender snorted and leaned his forearms up on the table next to Castiel, who was trying desperately to play it cool.

“You never came back,” the man said, using his head to motion towards the empty glass Castiel was rolling between his hands. He hastily set it back on the table. “And I never got your name. What’d you think…?” The bartender left the question hanging, leaving space for Castiel’s answer, which he gave with more genuine enthusiasm than he had that night.

“Castiel. I didn’t want to disturb you when you were working, but I liked the drink very much. Thank you for your help.”

“Ah it’s no biggie, wouldn’t have been a bother at all. I don’t actually work here by the way, I’m just don't know how to say no to a friend in need.” Castiel’s heart lurched in disappointment. If the man didn’t work here then he was likely just a friend of the new employees moving in next door, helping them move and cater for their party. Not-bartender threw him a smile again and Castiel’s heart switched to somersaults in his chest instead. “Trust me, having a friend who owns a bar isn’t as fun as it sounds,” he added ruefully.

“Are you referring to Benny?”

“Yeah, you met him?” He asked with genuine interest. “He’s a good guy, great friend, but Jesus he runs a tight ship. Completely crushed all interest in owning my own place like this. If I never have to help with a cooler stocktake again, it’ll still be too soon.”

“For what it’s worth, I think you’d run a magnificent dive bar,” Castiel offered.

Green-eyed not-bartender looked mock offended. “Hey, I never said it would be a dive bar! Unbelievable. And here I thought we were gonna be friends.”

There was a shout from the bar, and they looked up in concert to see the blonde woman waving with something just shy of panic as a new group of people pushed up to the bar, spearheaded by a woman holding an empty daiquiri glass.

“Well, that’s trouble if I ever saw it, Bela’s found more daiquiri groupies.” Beautiful moonlighting-bartender sighed and took the empty glass from in front of Castiel as he stood up. “I’d better go before Jo does something stupid; she hates doing co*cktails. But hey, I’m glad you liked the drink. If you want another, ask for the honey whiskey.”

He made to leave but held Castiel’s gaze for what could have been too long or it might have just been him struggling to see in the low light of their little corner. Castiel hoped it was the former.

“Hope I see you around, Cas.”

The nickname rolled off his tongue like it was the easiest thing in the world. It felt like a prayer or the caress of a thumb across a cheek, tasted sweeter to Cas than the spirit he had nursed all evening while thinking of the kind smile and hands that had poured it.

The man offered a last, almost rueful smile, and was then instantly reabsorbed into the social miasma, made invisible behind the bar and the crowd.

Anna found Cas at his table still staring across the room when she informed him he’d done his fair share of socialising and if he wanted to leave then she’d go with him.

He didn’t see the green eyes that tracked him where his mop of dark hair was visible above the crowd, nor did he know that they noted how he let Anna precede him outside wearing his trench coat to stave off the chill he’d predicted.

It wasn’t until he was staring up at the ceiling of his empty apartment, replaying their easy conversation in his head that Cas realised his mistake: he’d never learned the man’s name in return.

Sleep was reluctant to take him and when it did, his dreams were filled with soft green eyes and freckles made of stars.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

Anna’s run down of her exploits at the party during their break on Monday morning was torture to sit through. Balthazar came down to join them at Anna’s insistence, so Cas had to ask increasingly vague questions to avoid casting suspicion on his interest in the night.

Her gleanings from the party were numerous: the company next door was called Singer Industries. They specialised in security systems and were owned by the titular Bobby Singer, the man Cas had seen in the office and whom they’d met at the event. The older woman, Ellen, was his co-director.

Anna’s socialising was useless to Cas. She’d met dozens of people, traded her business number with several carefully-selected contacts, and even made a friend during a game of pool – but none of them were his mystery man.

Balthazar’s account was even worse: all of his encounters had been with groups of people and most of them had ended with him in varying states of dishevelment or undress, for which the other two cared not at all.

“And you, Castiel? What did you get up to?” Anna and Balthazar’s gazes shifted to him. It took him a moment to respond after spending all weekend thinking about being called ‘Cas’ without any preamble from his mystery man.

“I was… recommended a drink at the bar. I drank it.” He shrugged noncommittally. Castiel wasn’t sure why he felt so reluctant to admit to his interaction with the handsome not-bartender. It felt too much like a betrayal of something that was shared between just the two of them, something that Cas wanted to keep all to himself.

“Benny is good like that.” Anna said, misinterpreting Cas’s statement. “I’m glad you went with me,” she added earnestly, to which even Balthazar offered a smile that wasn’t horribly sardonic. The slight wince he made beforehand gave away the fact that Anna had tortured it out of him, but Cas accepted the sentiment offered regardless.

They went their separate ways not long after. Balthazar returned to his own department floor after offering a scowling Uriel cheerful wiggle of his fingers, and Anna had headed off to her pre-lunch meeting, leaving Castiel to return to his cubicle alone.

The rest of the morning dragged terribly. Being so thorough on Friday hadn’t left Castiel with much to do. He technically had a financial report to submit to Uriel, but he’d already done most of it and wasn’t in the mood to stare at a finished document.

Rather, he ended up staring (definitely not longingly) into the office of Singer Industries instead.

He had nothing better to do, after all, and fervently hoped that the man from next door would have some reason to return. Ideally, he’d come stand by the window again so that Cas could see him better.

As if summoned, the man stepped forward from the depths of the office and did exactly that.

Castiel rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t having some kind of three-day-delayed hangover or possibly hallucinating, but it was nothing of the sort. He was back. Handsome not-bartender was really there, really gazing down onto the cars passing by on the street below.

The sunlight played upon his features as if he were a treasured friend. After seeing him up close, his beauty undiminished by the unflattering overhead lights of the bar, Cas couldn’t blame it for enjoying such a beautiful canvas. The man would still look gorgeous even with a paper bag over his head.

He was dressed casually again in jeans, a henley, and, oddly enough, sneakers. Castiel guessed someone had chewed the guy’s ear off about wearing boots on the brand new carpet. He had his hands in his pockets, and looked almost forlorn. Cas wanted to know what was troubling him so that he could put a stop to it immediately.

The vehemence of the thought caught him by surprise and he stared blankly for a moment. He enjoyed looking at the man, sure, but it wasn’t anything more than that. He barely knew him! He just wasn’t used to seeing handsome men beyond clickbait ads, even less those who claimed to want to see him again. That was all. He was only invested because he didn’t get out enough. The man was simply a novelty. It would pass. It would pass.

A notification chime from his computer made Castiel startle out of his spiralling thoughts and he scrambled to silence it, frowning. He hated device sounds, but even without that, there was Uriel’s request for office silence – they shouldn’t be on. Upon closer inspection, he found that all of his notifications settings had been meddled with. It reeked of being the work of Gabriel. Though he hadn’t mentioned being in town over the weekend, his older brother clearly had been through the office at some point. A brief visit to Michael always meant that Castiel was next on Gabriel’s list, and in lieu of laying the prank directly on him, Gabriel had evidently elected to bestow a prank on Cas’ unsuspecting computer instead. He began the painstaking process of methodically checking each and every application as well as his master settings and returning them to his preferences, muttering darkly under his breath all the while.

A sudden feeling of being watched made him turn to check the window again, but the man from before was gone. Castiel couldn’t help feeling like there were eyes on him still, but a scan of the floor yielded nothing.

He turned back to his machine and did his best to put the feeling, and the man, from his mind.

The rest of the week passed without any further appearances from Cas’s mystery man, which not only left him feeling disappointed, but confused about his disappointment. Anna had no social invites for him this weekend, so Cas spent it deep cleaning his already-spotless apartment and lavishing his plants with care and attention. When that proved an insufficient distraction, he went for a jog to clear his head.

It didn’t work.

Frustrated but unable to let the matter of the mystery man lie, Cas turned to the internet to see if he could find anything out on his own.

He didn’t know the man’s name, but what he did know was that he wasn’t a full-time bartender, and that despite seeing him in Singer Industries’ office, he’d been casually dressed both times so that ruled out him being an office worker. This gave Cas a sum total of nothing to work with.

Searches for “bartender purgatory”, “singer industries employees”, and “singer industries company listing” turned up no helpful results. He mainly learned a lot about the company’s values, and also that Bobby had the driest, most impersonal biography page of any company director Cas had read in his life. He briefly considered a search of Bobby’s contacts on some employment networking sites but the idea left him feeling a little too much like a stalker. The whole search-for-the-handsome-stranger thing felt like a breach of some invisible line, and as soon as he exhausted his final search result, he wiped his browser history in a bout of paranoia and guilt.

The rest of his weekend was spent resolutely forgetting about the whole event, including the possibility of seeing the man again. Ellen had mentioned to Anna that all the official moving in was over and that the Singer Industries office was employees-only from Monday onwards. Castiel took this as a sign, and waited for Monday to come so he could resume his routine without any distractions.

Monday dawned as it tended to do and Castiel had no problems keeping his eyes to himself, focused firmly on his work. Everything went on as usual and, for an instant, he had almost convinced himself that everything was back to normal… Until Anna let out a slightly-too-loud gasp and her head shot up over the side of his cubicle. Castiel closed his eyes in resignation. He had almost made it to lunch.

“Castiel!” She hissed at him, wide-eyed and looking a bit deranged. He frowned at her interruption which she took as an invitation to scoot herself and her wheelie-chair around the partition and into his cubicle.

“What?” He said irritably. He was in the middle of calculating some numbers for a tax return on paper before they got digitised. “You have a perfectly good messaging system on your computer, I encourage you to use it.”

“Oh trust me, you’re going to want to see this.”

Castiel looked up at Anna with a tired glare he normally reserved for interactions with Balthazar, then followed her pointed finger out the window.

It was a man. He wore leather dress shoes, impossible to tell what colour from across the fifty feet between them but the overall effect was sleek - the shiny shoes, black trousers that tapered slightly from the knee, a white dress shirt with his sleeves cuffed twice to show some forearm but not enough to bunch untidily at his elbow, and all rounded off with a new-leaf-green tie sitting comfortably just below his topmost open button. It left the barest sliver of throat exposed as he stood in three-quarter profile, a phone pressed to one ear. Castiel wondered how on earth something so innocuous as an inch of skin was enough to make him feel as though he’d been electrocuted.

Castiel was dimly aware of Anna saying something more to him, but he didn’t hear what it was. The man looked like Adonis if he had been a business model, the green of his jewel-toned tie striking in the light. Castiel wondered for one wild second if the building next door had some kind of deal with the sun itself to make it cast the people in there in perfect light all the time, because it was cosmically unfair.

The man raised a hand to the back of his neck and rubbed absently at it, a small crease between his brows as he ended the call and pocketed his mobile. The frown stayed in place as he turned his back to the Singer Industries office, his full gaze turned out of the window. Still half agog, Castiel didn’t even think to try to stop staring before their eyes met.

The rest of the world seemed to fall away as Castiel realised the striking man was no stranger, but his mystery man from the office and the bar. The man recognised Castiel in kind, as after a brief expression of surprise, his face relaxed into a hesitant smile. He offered Cas a small wave with two fingers of his free hand.

Something touched Cas’s face, and a sharp stinging pain in his hand jolted him back to his senses. Anna made a startled sound, and Castiel wrenched his gaze away from the man to look at his hand. They both stared at the remnants of the pen, where a shard of the broken plastic casing had punctured the skin of Castiel’s hand and was beginning to well up with blood.

“Oh, sh*t,” Anna said softly, then started to laugh.

Cas dropped the plastic fragments into the bin beside his desk, then touched a finger to his face which still tickled strangely. His finger came away smeared with ink, and Anna’s barely-suppressed laughter redoubled at his confused expression.

Cas hurried to the bathroom, fortunately located at the near end of the office, and surveyed the damage in the mirror. Not only was his hand covered in ink and blood, he had also snapped the pen with enough force to thoroughly splatter his shirt, tie, and face with ink too. He stuck his hands under the water and washed until it ran clear, the soap stinging his wound a little. With his uninjured hand, he washed the ink from his face, stopping periodically to wipe the water from his eyes and make sure he was getting it all. There was nothing to be done about his clothes, so he simply blotted the worst of the mess off in hopes that it wouldn’t spread to anything else and resigned himself to throwing them away when he got home.

Anna had returned to her own cubicle, but was still intermittently giggling to herself when Castiel returned from the bathroom. Seeing the state of his clothes made her suck her lips into her mouth and turn red in the face from suppressing her laughter. She closed her eyes tightly and, with what appeared to be a great effort, got herself under control at last.

“Well, that’s definitely not the reaction I expected, but thanks for making my day,” she said, wiping an imaginary tear from one eye. She turned and fished around in her desk drawer for a moment until she found a bandaid and gestured for Castiel to hold his hand out for her. “I can’t believe Gabe’s billboard made you hulk out like that, though! I thought you’d be used to his stunts by now.”

Castiel blinked. “Gabriel?”

“Yeah, who else do you think would pay for that monstrosity?” Anna waved a hand vaguely towards the window and dabbed at Castiel’s hand with a tissue to staunch the bleeding and assess the damage. “Turns out he bought the advertising rights to the entire thing, he can put up whatever he wants there.”

Twisting his head to look over his shoulder, Castiel noted with some relief that his mystery man was gone and finally saw what Anna was talking about.

The digital billboard was operational, and splashed across it was the largest picture of his brother Castiel had seen yet.

Gabriel was propped up on one elbow on a baby pink fainting couch, completely naked and surrounded by confectionery of every kind. His decency was preserved through the use of a comically too-large, artfully placed lollipop. Over his nipples were several liquorice straps that were daringly suggestive of tassels, a choice Castiel had no doubt was intentional. Cherry-red glittering cursive text above Gabriel’s body told the viewer that his confectionery brand was ‘sinfully sweet’, and that a shop would be opening in their city soon.

As far as the list of scandalous things Gabriel had done went, a half-naked billboard didn’t even make the top ten in Castiel’s opinion, so he wasn’t particularly bothered by it. It was probably the reason for Gabriel’s visit to Michael last week, too, which explained how he’d managed to get at Castiel’s computer. He turned back to Anna, who had cleaned the small puncture in his hand to her satisfaction, and was applying the bandaid to it.

“Yes, it certainly gave me… quite a shock,” Castiel lied, not altogether convincingly.

Anna hummed noncommittally and released Castiel’s hand. “Did Gabe not tell you about it?” She paused for a second. “Or did the hottie on the phone get to you? I gotta ask Benny if he knows him. What a looker! ”

Cas baulked. “I–“

Anna folded her arms. “Oh come on Castiel, I may have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night. Give me some credit, I have eyes and I know you do too.”

“No, the gentleman on the phone had nothing to do with anything. He's entitled to take his phone calls wherever he likes without being objectified.” Castiel said pointedly, and very much hypocritically. “No, Gabriel did not tell me he’d bought an entire billboard and put a semi-nude picture of himself on it directly opposite where I work, so I’m sure you can understand my surprise at seeing it for the first time. And I didn’t “hulk out” on anything, I just- I guess the pen was faulty?”

“Oh, so it just spontaneously crushed itself? Because we all know pens are so prone to doing that these days.” She gave him a flat look. “In fact, let me just think for a second, I’m sure I can remember the last time that happened to me . Hmm… oh, yeah! Never.”

“If that pen couldn’t handle some mild stress being exerted on it, then it wasn’t fit for an accountant’s office.” He retorted.

Castiel knew he was fighting a losing argument, but despite his weekend spent insisting his interest in the mystery man was nothing more than curiosity, he still didn’t want Anna to know any more about him than she already did. Digging himself into a hole over accidentally snapping his pen wasn’t working as well as he’d hoped.

His salvation came from an unexpected source as Uriel appeared at the end of their row and made a beeline for Anna’s cubicle.

“Castiel, Anna. If you have something to discuss, I encourage you to take it to a meeting room. Need I remind you of the acceptable noise levels we discussed at the last meeting? Otherwise I–” he pulled up short at the sight of Castiel’s ink stained shirt and tie. “What happened to you?”

Castiel refrained from rolling his eyes and Anna just barely managed to conceal a smile at his expense. Castiel spoke up for himself before Anna decided to embarrass him in any creative ways or worse: tell the truth.

“I had an unfortunate accident with a ballpoint pen. Anna was assisting me with some first aid,” he held out his palm with the bandaid on it as proof. “I was just leaving.”

Both of them let him go and he spent the rest of the day working in silence, resolutely ignoring the occasional feeling of eyes upon him from out the window.

The revelation that charmingly rustic plaid-wearer and devastatingly gorgeous business-wear man were one and the same was the worst possible thing to happen to Castiel, perhaps ever. It threw off his work plans over the next month more often than he cared to admit. Cas took great pride in getting his work done in a timely fashion, and if his superiors didn’t provide him with enough to stop him from finding time to gaze out the window every now and then, well, that was a them problem; He wasn’t about to announce that he had free time. He was at least careful to make sure nobody caught him gazing longingly out the window whenever his mystery man was near enough to be spotted.

More than once, the mystery man himself had made eye contact with Cas and continued to offer him charming smiles and a few small waves, which Cas was delighted to receive. He returned them with nods and, as time went on, small smiles of his own.

He wasn’t trying to be creepy by looking for the man almost every day, but the guy had a magnetic quality about him and Cas couldn’t help sneaking glances any time he could. After weeks of hopeless gazing, Castiel was able to tell him apart from the other Singer Industries employees in his periphery without a second thought.

His hair was short but never untidy (unlike Castiel’s own) and he looked like he’d never done a day of office work in his life (if his biceps and the span of his shoulders were anything to judge by). Cas hadn’t realised that he was quite so stacked in the shoulders as so much of his frame had been hidden under layers of jackets and plaid at their first meeting. They had also hidden how much the man’s waist narrowed, and Castiel was transfixed at how the man’s body was lean and masculine and yet, somehow, his face and manner held an almost feminine quality at the same time. His legs were bowed outwards, noticeably so, and Cas often found his thoughts inadvertently wandering to how unfairly well-tailored the man’s trousers were. Cas wasn’t even sure if it was the tailoring rather than some kind of cosmically unfair clause that said the man’s pants should hug his ass and thighs while still remaining firmly in business-wear territory.

Anna leaned down and snapped her fingers in front of his face a few times to jolt him from his reverie.

“Earth to Castiel, urgent question. I said, have you tried to print anything today? The machine is acting up.”

The office printer-copier, situated in the cubicle space directly behind Castiel, was notorious for knowing when there was a deadline on the horizon in the accounting section and timing its breakdowns to coincide with them.

Castiel looked over his shoulder, as if a stern look at the printer was going to fix the problem. “No, not today. As far as I know nobody has used it today, so it shouldn’t be a paper jam.”

Anna swore viciously under her breath for a moment, then thanked him before going to report the issue to Uriel. It transpired that the problem was bad enough to warrant an emergency meeting of everyone working on their floor so they were all up to speed. Someone was sent down a floor to use the printer there to ensure their deadline was met, and everyone else was asked to hold off making physical copies of their documents in the meantime.

Both printers on the twenty-third floor were down – one because it needed toner replaced and nobody quite knew how to do it which embarrassed Castiel to no end. He made a note to look it up at a later date. The other one’s cause of dysfunction remained undetermined, warranting a call to a printer repair tech.

HeavEn didn’t employ their own mechanical repair team, preferring to call on a need-to basis as a way to avoid the cost of keeping staff on the premises. Their usual maintenance company was unavailable - something about a nationwide shortage of some part or other, coupled with a staff walkout so no employee could be dispatched. Everyone groaned, and Cas made sure he looked appropriately dismayed despite viciously hoping that the printer techs got the results they wanted.

Someone suggested calling next door to see if they had anyone on speed dial or even an in-house tech they might be amenable to sending over, and it was decided that the idea was a good one. A new company probably had tech staff waiting on them hand and foot during their setup period, so it was decided someone would reach out to Singer Industries. Before anyone could consider offering to make the call, Anna said she knew someone there and had a phone pressed to her ear waiting for the recipient to pick up.

“Hey, it’s Anna. Sorry to call you like this…”

Anna hurried away to her cubicle for some semblance of privacy while everyone milled idly, taking the chance to talk to one another while they could. When she returned, it was in triumph.

“Well, they don’t have anyone there who’s an official tech since they mainly do their own maintenance where they can help it–”

Several people snorted indignantly at this, and someone even let out a poorly-concealed mutter of “how common !”, which sounded like it might have come from one of Uriel’s cronies. Anna ignored them all and barrelled on.

“-but they’re going to send across their best machinery guy to take a look at it. He’ll be here in ten.”

At that, Uriel dismissed everyone from the meeting room and sent them back to work.

When the guy from next door arrived, it was to very little fanfare. In fact, Cas would have almost missed it if it hadn’t been for the fact he spoke at a normal volume instead of in a sort of choked half-whisper like everyone else in the office.

Cas picked out some angry muttering among the susurrus, and the sound of someone passive-aggresively filing loudly from several cubicles over. Uriel no doubt. The visitor’s voice drifted closer as he was led towards the offending copier.

“Honestly, it’s no problem, Ellen doesn’t mind sending me across either since it gets me out of her hair for a bit. Plus, I’ve always wondered how the other half lives - or works, I should say,” the voice said, then seemed to become aware that it was the only clearly audible one in the office. “Sorry, I didn’t think it would be so quiet ,” it said a bit defensively, clearly trying to match the tone of the office but it failed miserably and ended up in a rather carrying stage whisper.

Despite himself Cas felt one corner of his mouth turn up a fraction at the man’s expense. It wasn’t funny per se, but the HeavEn employees were so starved for interesting topics of conversation and Cas could already tell that this was going to become a watercooler favourite for the next few weeks. He allowed himself a private smile thinking of Uriel’s outrage as a news headline: OBLIVIOUS INTERLOPER RUINS LOCAL SECTION HEAD’S DAY; FREE REPAIR WORK NOT WORTH THE PRICE!

It didn’t help that Cas’s cubicle was only one away from where the printer-copiers were housed, including the one that had decided to break and ruin several people’s day, Castiel’s included., since he couldn’t even look out of the window to catch a glimpse of his mystery man next door lest the visitor catch him doing it and think he was some kind of stalker or slacker. He sighed wistfully, resigning himself. A sight of the elusive man wasn’t worth being branded as a stalker.

He did his best to ignore the office interloper much like everyone else was doing, but Anna and the man seemed to be having a fantastic time chatting to each other in the printer cubicle, the felted walls doing very little to filter the noise drifting across to Castiel. The visitor from next door was making it so easy to be distracted with not knowing how to keep his voice down, and Castiel resigned himself to occasionally hearing snatches of out of context conversation for however long the man stayed for.

After a few minutes, the whispers died off and Cas heard Anna pass by on her way back to her desk. Cas let a tiny breath out in relief that he no longer had to listen to them hissing away like schoolkids and picked up a pencil to continue his calculations. After a brief silence in which Castiel got exactly three figures copied out, he accepted his fate and let himself be serenaded by the dulcet sounds of the copier being taken apart.

Not wanting to appear uncharitable as some of the rest of his office by telling the man to do his free work in silence, Cas was content to sit and let the noise rumble away in the background. Intermittently, he heard the man humming to himself, the tunes mostly unfamiliar, but Castiel did recognise one he thought was Metallica. It was something that had played on a night out one time with Anna. When it wasn’t coupled with the clanking of the machine parts, the man’s voice was not unpleasant to have going on in the background, his quiet humming almost soothing.

“Hey, uh…” The man started suddenly, then just as quickly petered off. There was some unintelligible mumbling, and Cas wondered with some humour if the man was struggling to remember the name of the only person he’d spoken to in the office. He was proven wrong by a carrying whisper. “Anna? You there?”

Quiet footsteps drew closer, and Castiel saw movement in his periphery as a head and shoulders moved towards him. Not wanting to get roped into a conversation he could easily avoid, Castiel took initiative.

“Anna’s cubicle is-”

The man ignored his attempt to help from a distance, and rounded the partition to peer into the cubicle. Castiel turned to point him in the right direction and a familiar face met him, this time no window panes between them.

“Cas?”

He remembered.

Cas was extremely grateful for his decision to switch away from pens for a time because there was a soft crunching sound and he felt the pencil he’d been using lose some structural integrity in his hand. He dropped it to the desk hastily.

Handsome plaid-wearer-and-business-model man invited himself into Cas’s cubicle, stepping past the felt-covered partition to stand in the same small space Cas was sitting in. He looked thrilled, and Cas couldn’t stop staring at him. In the light of day Cas could see he had a sprinkling of freckles across his cheeks and nose, and his eyes were startlingly green. He’d never liked the colour so much before, but Cas felt like he could live in it now.

“Cute calendar.” He inclined his head at the wall behind Cas, where the calendar featuring birds in flight hung behind him, a gift from Anna.

“You,” Cas breathed. The man’s eyes crinkled in a smile.

“Forget my name already? I’m wounded, I thought we had something special,” he teased.

Cas scrambled to explain to him. He had cursed every day since the bar party for not asking for the man’s name immediately. Something special… he hadn’t realised how badly he wanted that until it was out there, out loud.

“Actually, I never learned it. You were needed at the bar before I could ask you, it’s been–” Cas cut himself off before he could say anything embarrassing, like admitting to thinking about the man in front of him almost every day and wishing desperately that he knew more about him, starting with his name. “I’ve felt terrible this whole time. You are…?”

The man puffed his chest out theatrically and flashed a prizewinning smile, one Cas hadn’t yet seen – it was charming but in a practised way. He vastly preferred the smaller, private smiles that he’d flashed so readily over the last couple of weeks. They made Cas feel like they were just for him.

“Singer Industries’ best maintenance technician and printer wrangler at your service. I’m D–”

“Is there something you need to complete the repairs?”

No doubt drawn by the sounds of two people engaging in what he considered to be idle chatter, Uriel had chosen this exact moment to make his presence known. Cas was seconds away from losing his composure at the interruption - weeks of waiting, of embarrassing fruitless web searches, of moments stolen and shared between them, and here he was being denied a resolution because Uriel couldn’t cope with someone experiencing a non-work-related emotion in the office.

Uriel regarded the green-eyed man coldly, arms folded in what was likely meant to be an intimidating manner despite being a shade shorter than him. Fortunately, D- was more collected than Cas about the situation and covered for them both.

“Actually, there is! I need a second pair of hands for a minute to help me hold some bits in place while I do some calibrating. Makes sense to ask the guy closest to be the one to help out, and that makes Cas here the best choice. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Uriel’s eyes narrowed minutely at the nickname, and his eyes darted to Cas for a fleeting moment. He clearly had opinions, but he couldn’t argue with D-’s logic without confirming he was as much an asshole as he was acting.

“Castiel.” Uriel pointedly used Cas’ full name. “Please help this… gentleman, with whatever he requires to complete his work, the sooner the better. I also encourage you to consider the working conditions of others in the office and to be conscious of minimising unnecessary noise.”

D- waited for Uriel to walk away before turning to Cas and rolling his eyes theatrically. Cas suppressed his laughter but felt his eyes squint and his mouth twitch up in a smile anyway. D- beamed at him for it, clearly thrilled at his reaction. They continued communicating silently: D- inclined his head towards the printer and raised an eyebrow, so Cas stood and followed him there.

The copier lay in pieces, and Cas hadn’t realised just how much work had gone on while he’d been admiring the man’s voice. He did feel a bit foolish for not realising sooner that it was his mystery man, but given that they’d met at night over drinks in a crowded bar, Cas felt that his defence was fairly sound for not recognising D-’s voice.

D- immediately took up a position kneeling next to the machine and motioned for Cas to come up next to him.

“I’ve taken the guts out of the thing already, that’s the easy part,” he explained quietly. He rummaged in a toolbox Cas had never seen before, probably one he’d brought across himself. “But now comes the hard part – putting it back together in the right order. That’s where you come in.”

D- glanced up from where he was still kneeling next to the printer with a hand lost in the toolbox, and the sight of his lashes starkly contrasted against his freckled cheeks was enough to make Cas feel a touch light headed. He managed a weak sort of half-smile to show he was still listening, and D- gestured at the parts lying next to them with a screwdriver.

“I’m going to hold pieces in place while I’m screwing them back in, and you’re going to pass them to me as I need them. I’ve laid them out in order already, so don’t worry about getting mixed up.” He shuffled on his knees closer to the wounded side of the printer, then looked back to Cas, who hadn’t said anything. “Doable?”

“Yes! Yes, I can do that. Of course.”

D- regarded him for a minute, and Cas internally kicked himself for saying too many words. D- shook his head minutely, a gesture Cas didn’t think was meant to be directed at him, before he stuck his head almost all the way into the gaping hole in the printer’s side.

“Okay, go ahead and hand me the first piece.”

Cas did as he was told, and watched as D- went to work immediately, one hand juggling the screwdriver and miniscule screws while the other held the parts in place. They made it through four parts without fault before D- flapped a hand at him without turning around.

“Okay, this one’s gonna be tricky, Cas, get over here,” he said, still hushed.

Cas moved to stand by his shoulder, hovering awkwardly and unsure how to help.

D- pulled his head back from inside the body of the printer and used it to gesture for Cas to come closer. “Jump down here. I need both hands for this, so you’re going to hold this bit in place while I make sure it stays there.”

Cas crouched down on his haunches next to him, then realised it was going to be an uncomfortable position to hold, so dropped to his knees, mirroring D-. He reached gingerly into the guts of the machine, and was extremely suave by only jumping about half a foot (instead of a full one) when D- took his hands in his own to move them into place to hold the part steady. They were warm and rougher than he was expecting - there were calluses on his palm and Cas wondered what had made them. He suddenly became aware of how close they were together, thighs touching from their knees where they were kneeling side by side, one of his arms under D-’s as he manoeuvred the screwdriver inside the printer.

Cas risked a glance across at the other man’s face, and wished he’d never entertained such a stupid idea. There was the smallest crease between his brows, and his tongue was just barely sticking out of his mouth, caught between his teeth and his lower lip as he concentrated. Cas turned his face back to the printer, trying to focus on anything other than the pink of the man’s tongue and how plush his lower lip looked.

D- made a small frustrated noise and reached further into the machine, and shuffled closer to the printer and Cas in the process. There wasn’t quite enough room for them both to have their arms inside the copier, and D- muttered an apology as his head came absurdly close to resting on Cas’ shoulder. Through a herculean effort Cas kept his breathing steady, and even dropped his shoulder a fraction so the other man’s neck wasn’t stretched at a strange angle to see inside the machine.

“I never got to tell you.”

The man’s breath was warm against Cas’ neck and he suppressed a shiver at the voice, low in his ear.

“Never got to tell me what?” Cas asked. They were both whispering more quietly than they had yet, their proximity to one another its own kind of intimacy.

“My name. It’s Dean.”

There wasn’t nearly enough space for Cas to turn to properly look at Dean, especially not with his head still almost flush against Cas’ neck, breath occasionally skittering under the collar of his shirt when he exhaled. Out of the corner of his eye Cas could see that while Dean was facing him, he wasn’t looking at him. His eyes were fixed somewhere in the printer, focused on his work, something Cas was grateful for while he was busy regarding his face.

“Dean.” Cas said it like he was afraid something would break if he said it too loudly. “Dean.”

Cas felt more than heard Dean’s short exhaled chuckle. It tickled him right below his ear, and he wondered what it would feel like if Dean turned and his cheek brushed his neck - did he have stubble? Cas had just looked at him but couldn’t seem to remember.

“Okay Cas, that should do it.” Cas felt one last gentle breath ghost across his skin before Dean untangled their arms and straightened up. “You can let go now, bud.”

There were only a few more pieces to go after that and they worked through the rest in companionable silence. Cas wondered exactly how much help he was being since the rest of the parts were easily within Dean’s reach, but Dean didn’t tell him to go and Cas was selfishly enjoying the feeling of Dean’s warm thigh next to his own.

They finished up and Dean gave the printer an affectionate pat on the side before heaving himself off his knees with a muffled grunt.

As he got his own feet under him, distinctly more gracefully than Dean had, Cas noticed Dean’s eyes flick down to watch him briefly before his gaze quickly returned to the printer. It might have been the lighting, but Cas swore he saw colour creep across Dean’s cheeks and starkly light up his freckles for a moment, and Cas was given the startling pleasure of watching Dean’s throat work for a moment before he found his words.

“They’ll treat you better next time, won’t they girl? This’ll teach ‘em to do their regular maintenance like they’re supposed to.”

Cas couldn’t help raising a sceptical eyebrow. “Are you talking to the printer?”

“Hey, machines know when you don’t love them back, that’s just common sense. Haven’t you ever heard of the printer conspiracy?” Cas showed no signs of understanding, and Dean looked incredulous.

Before he could explain what exactly the printer conspiracy was, a head poked around the side of the copy room’s partition board and interrupted them both.

“Castiel, Zachariah says he wants to see you in room two to discuss the audito– oh!” Anna straightened up quickly at the sight of them standing just a little too close together now that Cas thought about it. Anna recovered quickly. “I didn’t realise you were still here Dean, sorry! I would’ve come and helped you myself if I knew you’d been saddled with this old stick in the mud, he can’t even handle a ballpoint these days.”

Cas elected not to take offence at her referring to him as both old and boring in front of Dean, and instead decided revenge was best served cold, out of sight, and when she was least expecting it.

Dean reached out to clap Cas on the shoulder with an open hand and he wobbled slightly from the unexpectedly brusque contact. Dean dropped his hand afterwards like Cas’ shoulder had scalded him, using the gesture to put more distance between himself and Cas. Something about the way Dean was carrying himself had changed imperceptibly, and Cas noted that the too-charming smile was plastered on his face, but this time there was no hint of sarcasm in his voice when he spoke.

“Naw, I needed a second pair of hands for a minute and Cas was the closest ones available attached to a pretty face. I didn’t want to tear the place apart looking for you, but he was a decent stand in,” Dean quipped, and threw Anna a wink.

Castiel felt like the floor had dropped out from under him.

Cas was the closest ones attached to a pretty face… a decent stand in…

Dean’s words, spoken so carelessly, dropped like marbles onto the floor, were ringing in his ears. Anna’s subdued laugh at Dean’s remark sounded like it came from a great distance away. Castiel couldn’t tell if it was just him or if the room really was spinning.

He felt hot all over with shame - how could he have been so goddamn stupid ? Just because Dean had picked him out a drink at a party and made eye contact with him a few times, that made Cas what, special to him? He ought to have known better. There was nothing between them. Castiel was reading into things too much, too caught up in the novelty of Dean and getting carried away with his own delusional misinterpretations of things.

“Excuse me.”

Castiel shouldered away from Dean unceremoniously and sidestepped Anna without a further word to either of them. He felt Anna’s eyes on him until he rounded the corner out of her sight. Let her think what she liked. He didn’t think about Dean, left standing alone by the copier, at all.

Zachariah’s meeting could absolutely have been an email, but for once Castiel relished the opportunity to sit trapped in a room with him poring over reports.

When Dean walked past the meeting room a few moments later on his way out of the office, Castiel turned the back of his chair to the glass wall and kept his head down. The fact that the meeting room wasn’t on any natural path out of the office and he had to have come past the room on purpose? Just like every other thing his overeager, understimulated imagination had conjured between them, Castiel knew it meant nothing. Dean was probably just a nosy bastard, likely the same reason he couldn’t keep his eyes to himself and kept looking into HeavEn’s window.

Hours later Castiel was back at his desk with a cup of coffee in his favourite mug with little bees on it when he noted his papers weren’t in order. There was what appeared to be a used napkin on his desk, the cheap plastic-like type that did nothing to help wipe anything up and mainly just smeared things around. It certainly wasn’t his, and someone leaving trash on his desk was just too much nonsense to deal with after his nightmare of a day. He scrunched it between his fingers and deposited it into the bin at the end of his desk, then closed his eyes in resignation when he noticed dark smudges on his fingertips from where they’d touched the napkin. There was something on it.

He was going to kill Anna for having the nerve to think a prank was a good idea after the rude awakening he’d just experienced

He fished it back out of the bin and opened it to read whatever horrible quip Anna had deigned to leave him, hoping that it might at least be funny or perhaps an apology.

for my handY assistant, the direct line

080-153-xxxx

The final letter in ‘handy’ was oddly smudged and a little distorted, almost like the note’s writer had decided what the word was going to be at the last moment. Castiel frowned at it. The last four digits of the phone number were smudged beyond recognition; likely the source of the residue on his fingertips.

The note wasn’t Anna’s work at all - there was only one person he’d assisted that day who’d been contacted via phone.

Earlier in the morning the gesture would have filled him with elation; now Castiel felt ice settle in his chest. He gently put the napkin back in the bin, and took a long sip from his rapidly-cooling coffee.

The day couldn’t end fast enough.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

“You did what?!”

The words were accompanied by a sharp smack. Castiel hissed and cringed away from Anna, the back of his head stinging from where she had clipped him for his supposed idiocy.

It was Sunday, and after Castiel had refused to return her calls or texts about his weird behaviour, Anna had taken matters into her own hands.

She had left him alone for the rest of the week after Dean fixed the office printer-copier. He’d been insufferable - making simple errors in his work, sighing at all hours of the day, and resolutely refusing to look out the window at any cost. He’d noticed Dean in his periphery a few times and had made a point to not turn and look at him, hoping that the other man would take the hint and mind his own business. When Cas had accidentally almost caught his eye once, he’d moved one of the office pot plants to partially cover his cubicle entrance and block Dean’s line of sight. It was petty, he knew, but Castiel was still seething about Dean’s callous treatment and dismissal of him. Every day at work felt like a battle he was the only one fighting, and by the time the weekend came, Castiel was exhausted from being in a room with himself.

In spite of swearing off of thinking about Dean, Castiel could do little else.

He’d believed Dean when he’d said he wanted to see Cas again and that he thought they had something special. Perhaps stupidly, since they’d only exchanged a handful of words, but Castiel had been almost giddy at Dean remembering the nickname he’d given him. But Cas had been just another pretty face to him the entire time. Instead of recalling their brief interactions with a haze of joy at how easily Dean had spoken to him and accepted him as a friend, the memories were spoiled by Castiel remembering the disaffected way Dean had smacked his shoulder like some kind of frat boy, and stepped away from him before winking at Anna.

He was nothing but a joke to Dean, a bit of free entertainment before he moved on to a better, more appealing target, who just happened to be Castiel’s favourite cousin. As if being gay and shy in the city wasn’t hard enough, now he got to be a bump in the road and quite possibly a future punchline for someone else’s story - hey, remember when your cousin thought I was coming on to him ? He could practically hear the derisive laughter already. God, Castiel didn’t even know for sure whether Dean was interested in him; he’d just been choosing to interpret perfectly normal casual touches and eye contact in a romantic way, like someone who was absolutely insane and desperately needed to get out of the house more.

It was at this point in his spiral of thoughts that Anna had showed up unannounced at his apartment with an enormous tub of ice cream. His protests about being fine had been futile and completely unconvincing; Anna had scoffed and barged past him into his own home. After planting herself firmly on his couch, she had announced that she wasn’t leaving until he told her what the hell was going on with him.

Castiel’s first instinct had been to wait her out: if he just ate the offered ice cream in silence, she’d think he was cured and leave him to mope alone again. Anna responded by threatening to get Balthazar involved if he didn’t spit it out already.

He’d buckled like a cheap lawn chair under pressure and reluctantly told her a clinical version of events. He started from the mixer at Purgatory, glossed over the weeks he’d spent making completely normal and meaningless eye contact through the window, and finished with his account of finding the note on his desk.

This had been a mistake, as it was how he’d found himself on the receiving end of Anna’s smack upside the head.

“You threw his number away? Castiel, disrespectfully, what the hell is wrong with you ?!”

Anna’s derision was the last thing he expected, and shocked him so badly he completely forgot to be miserable in his reply.

“Nothing! I didn’t want to keep it. Isn’t that reason enough? I’m just your idiot stand-in after all, closest-to-the-printer-Castiel, that’s what they all call me! Thank god there was someone who wasn’t completely hideous to help fix the printer instead of you, Anna!”

Anna’s mouth dropped open in both shock and disbelief.

“Wait. Are you mad at me about this?”

“What? No!” He deflated some, realising that Anna didn’t deserve his ire. The fact that she was here at all was sign enough she didn’t know what had happened. Lashing out wasn’t going to help either of them, and was cruel of him when she was simply trying to help.

“Well you’re doing a fantastic impression of someone who is! Tell me, how is it my fault that I got winked at? Do you think I wanted to interrupt you guys?” her eyes narrowed dangerously.

“No, no, that’s not what I’m saying at all! I’m just-” he passed a hand over his face, struggling to collect his thoughts.

Anna folded her arms, still on the verge of being angry with him.

“Why don’t you try using your big boy words to tell me exactly how I’m meant to have pissed you off when I didn’t do anything? That sounds like a start.”

“I thought that maybe… I thought there might have been something between Dean and I, okay? He was kind to me at the bar, like I said, and he said he wanted to see me again, so when he was there I just- I got caught up in it. But when you showed up to get me for Zachariah, he acted so differently around you and I…” he rubbed a hand across his face, exhausted from so many mental acrobatics. “I guess there was nothing there after all. He was just being nice to me, I see that now.“

“Sorry, just to backtrack a little, you think that this guy writing down what is probably his personal number - what did he call it again? The direct line? You think that that’s just being friendly?”

“Well it’s more pragmatic than anything I suppose? If we ever need a repair done on short notice again we can contact him directly, like he said. A little odd though, seeing as you called him in the first place. And from the way you were hitting it off with him when he came in, I expect you’ve been in contact since for personal reasons.” Castiel tried especially hard not to be bitter as he said the last bit, but still couldn’t manage to make himself look at Anna as he said it.

“I don’t have Dean’s number, idiot, and honestly? I’d be surprised if he’d given it to me since I only met him for the first time when I brought him up from the lobby. He’s nice, but he’s not my type.” Castiel’s brow puckered, and Anna hurried to clarify. “No offence! I mean, he’s clearly already giving you a hard time, and I’m not into guys who break my cousin’s heart.” She punched him lightly in the arm, but Castiel was too busy thinking things over to respond.

“Admittedly that does change some things but- Anna, if you don’t have Dean’s number, how did you call him to come across and help us?”

Anna frowned at him, an expression of confusion settling itself across her features. “I didn’t? I rang Ellen. You remember her from the mixer at Benny’s? We’ve kept in touch some. She sent him over, she’s my main contact there.” Castiel continued to frown, and Anna sat forwards, a touch of realisation lighting on her features. “Castiel, not to kick you when you’re down but I think you’ve been getting a lot of exercise just from jumping to conclusions this week… what did you think was going on?”

Oh, Anna was going to kill him.

“When you came to get me for Zachariah’s meeting, do you remember what Dean said?”

When she shook her head, Castiel sucked his lips between his teeth to steel himself. He was going to have to relive the moment exactly. No chance of some convenient misremembering to save him now.

“He called me the closest pair of hands attached to a pretty face, and said I was a ‘decent stand in’ for you. What do you make of that?”

“That he thinks you were the hottest person available to help, and that he thinks I’m smart enough to hold a piece of plastic? I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention to him making excuses, I was too busy feeling like I’d interrupted something to be honest.”

“To me it sounded like he’d much rather have had you helping him... I know he was looking for your help earlier anyway because he went looking for you and found me instead. Uriel told me to help him, so I did, and I thought we might have had... I don’t know, a moment? But frankly I was insulted to be called a pretty face and a pair of hands, so now I’m not so sure it was anything.”

“Okay yeah, when you put it that way it does sound kinda bad. What I don’t get is, if you only met the guy by the light of day for the first time this week, why are you so cut up about it not working out?”

Castiel dropped his chin to his chest and let loose a gust of breath. It was the million dollar question - why was he so upset? As Anna had correctly pointed out, he hadn’t even known Dean’s name before their disaster at the printer. Sure, he was handsome, and Castiel had felt at home with Dean in that back corner of the bar but… it shouldn’t matter as much as it did. Castiel had been disappointed and let down by romantic interests before, but they had never been as taxing on him as this was proving to be. More to the point, it had been clear to all parties in Castiel’s other situations that they were romantically interested, and not whatever was going on between him and Dean.

He knew exactly why he was upset.

“I’d have liked to get to know him better. I felt like I’d been making too big a deal of things, especially after he made it clear I was just a stand in for you. Then he left his number on a cheap napkin like I was an afterthought, and I admit I was upset at the insult, so I threw it out. I figured you’d have it anyway, so…”

Castiel trailed off, suddenly out of steam.

“To be clear, you have interpreted this guy calling you useful and pretty as an insult. Yes?”

Unwilling to admit as much out loud, he simply nodded slightly and refused to meet her eyes.

“I’m also going to go out on a limb and say you were upset that he winked at me when I showed up to get you, yes?”

Another nod.

“You know that I would never betray you by muscling in on someone you clearly have a crush on, right?”

“Anna, get to the point.”

“I am ninety-nine percent sure he was hitting on you and you threw his hot little note in the trash.”

Cas squinted so hard that if Anna hadn’t been trying to forcibly drag him out of his slump, she might have laughed at him.

“Explain.”

“Here is what I have pieced together - stop me at any point if I’m getting ahead of myself. Number one,” she held up a finger, and began to list off what had happened. “You met this guy at Purgatory where he picked out the perfect drink for you, then came over later to check if you liked it and presumably hit on you a little, then said he hoped to see you again. You didn’t tell anyone else about your little exchange, nor did you apparently try to make seeing him again a reality because you know damn well I could have asked Benny for his name and number.”

Castiel already did not like the direction she was taking the conversation.

“Two; you saw him in the window and snapped your pen over it - oh don’t play coy, I’m not f*cking stupid! I’m sure the billboard contributed, but you weren’t that flustered over just Gabe’s antics, don’t lie to me. Three,” she continued, mercilessly ignoring Cas when he tried to interrupt her to prematurely argue his case. “He went looking for me in the office probably only because he didn’t realise you were there, managed to find you anyway, and you had a beautiful time learning his name until Uriel-”

Castiel looked up suddenly, aghast. He hadn’t told her anything about Dean coming into his cubicle. Anna spread her hands in front of her and gave him a disbelieving look.

“I heard you! I literally sit next door to you, this shouldn’t be surprising! Anyway, you had a lovely little chat until you went and helped him with the printer, probably continued to have a lovely time together, that’s none of my business, and then when you both panicked at being interrupted in the middle of your little moment - sorry by the way, I tried to wait as long as I could - he opened his mouth and let his foot fall out. But you? Castiel, you were rude as sh*t. ”

Castiel’s head jerked back in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

“I can’t believe I have to spell this out for you. You didn’t even stop to look at him when you were busy running away from us, no ‘thank you’, nothing. You shut down completely and blew out of the room like someone lit a fire under your ass. Which I personally thought was bizarre as sh*t, but your man Dean? He looked crushed before he remembered I was still there and apologised to me.”

Castiel’s head was reeling. Dean had apologised to Anna? For upsetting him?

The ice cream Anna had doled out for him earlier lay forgotten in the bowl in his lap, melted under the heat of his realisation and blooming shame.

“Anna… I think I may have made a mistake.”

Anna whipped a couch cushion out from behind her and launched it at him with no remorse, catching him squarely in the face with it. He made a small winded noise, and barely saved the melted ice cream from permanently bonding with his carpet.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you this entire time you idiot! For someone whose job it is to be good at maths, you really need to get better with numbers.” She allowed herself a smile at his expense, and despite himself Castiel felt one side of his mouth twitch up in concert with hers. “Now, please tell me you secretly saved his number and were just too embarrassed to tell me you did.”

He shrugged. “Unfortunately not, and my bin was emptied that same day. Not like it would have mattered, anyway: The writing on his note smudged when I picked it up, and the last four numbers were completely wiped off it.”

Anna swore.

“Why didn’t you lead with that! We could reverse engineer it maybe? Do you remember the numbers in the beginning?”

“So we can try calling all ten thousand number combinations of just the four missing numbers? It’s a romantic idea, but I’m not that desperate, thanks.”

“Aww, and after all the good emotional legwork you did too! Dammit Cas, this is so annoying!”

Castiel tilted his head fractionally. “Since when do you call me nicknames?”

“Since I overheard your man call you that,” she said primly, waggling her eyebrows at him.

“Anna, he’s not my man, stop calling him that. His name is Dean.”

“Yeah, but he could have been your man if you hadn’t smudged his number,”

“Point taken.”

They lapsed into silence, Castiel with much to think about after his debrief. He’d definitely let the situation run away from him, that much couldn’t be argued. It wasn’t so much that he was self-destructive and had actively decided to set fire to things, just more so that he had never felt so instantly connected to another person before, and, honestly? He was scared. Castiel did not do instant connections and moping through windows. He didn’t get blindingly angry over a handful of words. None of this was like him. He’d hoped a little too hard and had let it carry him much too far downstream, too close to getting genuinely carried away. He wasn’t sure he’d survive being rejected by Dean if he turned out to be a terrible person or worse: straight. So, instead of waiting around to be let down, he’d gone ahead and done it himself. It was better that way.

As a rule, dating for Cas so far had been something akin to pulling teeth without anaesthetic: painful, ongoing, and clinical. His relationships had all been slow to form and he struggled to form meaningful connections with other people, unsure exactly what love felt like. Unhelpful advice like “you’ll just know” or, “you’ll wake up one day and realise you love them” from both the internet and family members had been categorically unhelpful. Love, it seemed, wasn’t quantifiable. Cas had been accused by previous partners of being cold, unfeeling, and even robotic, all because he didn’t know what being in love meant. Acting the way they wanted only made it worse and branded him as a liar. No matter how many times he explained that he did care for them, that he did want them with him, it was never enough. They wanted something he simply didn’t know how to give. He wasn’t sure he even had whatever it was in the first place.

But with Dean? With Dean, it had been like waking up. Obviously Castiel was attracted to him, that much at least he knew. He’d experienced physical attraction before, but admittedly never on a scale like this. He also couldn’t stop thinking about how he didn’t hate the nickname Dean had given him. Sometimes since then he’d caught himself mouthing it, testing the shape of it and liking how it fit. How he wanted to hear Dean say it again. He couldn’t stop thinking about how easy conversation with Dean had been – he hadn’t felt pressured, he didn’t struggle to think up responses, and, most astonishingly, he’d wanted to talk to Dean again. He’d wanted to see him again more badly than he’d let himself acknowledge, and now that he was ready to admit to himself that he had an enormous crush, it was too late.

To Anna’s credit, he did feel marginally better after laying the situation out for her to analyse, and her insights had been instrumental to his finally being honest with himself.

“So, what are you going to do about everything?” She asked, and Castiel knew there was no malice behind it, just genuine curiosity.

“I don’t know. I feel like I’ve missed any opportunity I had with him by now… he probably thinks I’m no longer interested.”

“I mean, until about two minutes ago you kind of weren’t, so that’s not technically untrue.” Anna pointed out.

Castiel looked back to the melted pool of ice cream in the bowl and wished he could turn back time, both for the ice cream and himself.

“Are you still interested?” Anna asked, and leaned across the sofa to catch his eye.

“If I had a chance then yes, I would be but-”

Anna cut him off. “I didn’t ask if you thought you had a chance, I asked if you were interested. Answer the question.”

His answer required very little thought. “Yes.”

Anna brought her phone out of her pocket with a smile.

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

“I f*cked up. I f*cked up bad,” were the first words out of Dean’s mouth the second he set foot into Purgatory on Sunday. Dean walked in so quickly that Benny barely had time to dodge out of his way after unlocking the door.

“That’s pretty par for the course so far chief, but why don’t you say some more words so I know what the hell you’re talkin’ about,” Benny suggested mildly, and closed the door behind him. Dean knew he was pushing his luck since Benny wasn’t technically open yet, but he was having an emergency goddammit, and what was the point of having a friend who owned a bar if he couldn’t take advantage of it sometimes? He picked out his favourite seat at the L-shaped bar where it crooked around and slumped onto the stool.

“I said some stupid sh*t that was meant to be offhanded but it didn’t come out how I meant it to; it was meant to be a compliment! But– ah, f*ck me,” Dean rubbed one hand down his face, then the other one too, for good measure until his forehead rested on his palms. “Why is this so hard?!”

Benny was multitasking, leaving Dean to work through his mope while he tinkered around behind the bar, getting it ready for the night ahead. Any other time Dean might have joined him, but there was too much going on in his brain to think to offer, and Benny didn’t need the help anyway. Sunday was a quiet day for him. Most bars didn’t even bother opening. Benny wasn’t most bar owners however. He knew that no matter what day of the week it was, people might need a place to come to - and Dean was exactly that.

“I’m guessing this is to do with your angel in the window?” Benny asked.

“C’mon man, I told you that in confidence! That dumb f*cking calendar behind him…”

Dean sighed mightily, and raised his head from his palms to see that Benny had put a half glass of beer from the taps down in front of him like a horrible consolation prize for being an idiot, or perhaps as a bribe to encourage him to get on with telling his story faster. He accepted the offer of the first pour of the night, traditionally the bartender’s honour, drank a mouthful, and launched into what had happened.

“I met him in person on Tuesday. Got sent across to his office to help with some tech problems they were having with a printer,” Dean said, and pushed the glass idly around a little. It was cool against his fingertips, a welcome distraction. “Turns out he didn’t even know my name…”

Benny took Dean’s trailed-off sentence as an invitation to ask questions. “Okay, so he forgot your name after meeting you a month ago in a dark corner. This is a horrible f*ck up how?”

Dean looked anywhere except at Benny. “That’s not it. When I finished up the repairs I might have tried to compliment him but… ah. Ended up… hitting on his girlfriend?”

Benny looked back at him blankly for the briefest moment before he burst into uproarious laughter, hooting and smacking the bar once or twice for good measure. Dean scowled at him. He knew he’d put his foot in things and could handle a couple of good natured rebukes – probably even deserved them – but the howling laughter he could do without. His embarrassment wasn’t that funny.

“How in the hell did you manage that? How is that even–?” Benny dissolved into laughter again, and a few moments later wiped his eyes theatrically as he got his breathing back under control. “How the f*ck did that happen? What did you say?”

“I might have accidentally implied that I only asked him to help me because he was hot, and then might have also implied it was only because I couldn’t find the lady who showed me in… who I’m pretty sure is his girlfriend.”

Benny shook his head in amazed disbelief, and Dean was beginning to realise that an ex-navy officer hadn’t been the smartest choice of person to turn to for sympathy, regardless of how well he knew him.

“Yeah you’re right, that is a f*ck up. S’pretty bad, even for you. How’d they take it?”

Dean cringed inwardly, remembering the way Cas had stiffened up in shock when Dean had tried to appear casual, the way his face had worn a horrible hurt look before it went eerily blank at Dean’s stupid f*cking choice of words. How Cas had completely lost the soft look in his eyes he’d had moments before, and instead left Dean afraid something in those blue eyes would burn him if he met them again.

“Well, he looked like I’d pissed in his cornflakes and I don’t think he could have left faster unless he’d teleported out of there. Didn’t say sh*t either, just ran right out. The girlfriend looked like she was going to tell him off, which was kinda weird, then she looked like she thought it was the funniest thing in the world when I told her I was sorry for it.” Dean said, and finally got around to taking a proper drink from the beer in front of him.

Benny looked thoughtful while he picked out sprigs of mint for the night’s garnishes. “I believe you that this happened, but I think there’s maybe more to it than you saw. The girlfriend thought it was funny that you hit on her and made her man mad?” He looked up from the mint and shrugged his mouth at Dean. “They don’t sound all that loved up to me.”

“Yeah I thought so too, but then why else did he leave in such a hurry after I winked at her? He was fine when he was here for the party even though they left together,” Dean said, contemplating the now empty bottom of his beer glass. The epiphany came to him shortly after. “sh*t, do you think I was his gay thing? At the party, when he was alone, he might have been running away from her! Is he mad about being caught? Like, was it a cheating thing, do you think?”

Benny looked sceptical, and removed the empty glass from in front of Dean, likely in the hope of stopping him from voicing more half-brained ideas.

“Don’t flatter yourself. Nobody looks at your flanneled ass and thinks you’d make a good secret gay thing, let alone a sad little businessman who’s probably only ever jockeyed a desk. You’re too butch, chief. You try too hard with the denim and leather and it scares ‘em off.”

Dean spluttered through his affront. “Oh, because I don’t look gay enough, is that what you’re saying? What, do you think I should be out here wearing a pride flag and dressing some type of way? You trying to stereotype me?” He narrowed his eyes and leaned back from the bar for effect before he demolished Benny’s criticism with his iron-clad, foolproof retort: “That’s hom*ophobic.”

Benny simply rolled his eyes at the empty accusation.

“Also, f*ck you, I’m adorable.” Dean added,

“Never said you weren’t chér , but your pretty face don’t save you from dressing like a lumberjack and having rocks for brains some days,” Benny replied. He ignored Dean when he offered up his middle finger in response.

Dean drummed his fingers on the bar, the only thing to do since Benny had confiscated his empty glass. His mind was churning, turning over the pieces of the account of his misshapen day and trying to figure out which ones were missing — he’d jogged his own memory, and Benny’s remark about Cas and the redhead not seeming all that romantic had pinged something in his brain.

“The one who showed me into the office, the girlfriend… She was with him at Ellen’s party here too. I swear I’ve seen her somewhere before then, though. She had such bright hair, too, God, what was her name?” Dean’s fingers kept time on the bar, and he pressed between his eyes with his other hand. “It was something with an a… Amber? Amy?”

Benny’s voice was sharp. “Anna?” Dean noticed he’d stopped working on the herbs, and was staring up at him. “Kinda short, red hair, smarter than a whip?”

Dean's eyes narrowed.

“Yeah I think that’s her. How’d you-?”

Benny gave Dean the flattest look he’d ever received, and wordlessly pointed to the handful of Polaroids he had pinned up behind the bar. Dean slid off his stool to get a closer look at them - he knew he was in most of them, but hadn’t really bothered to take a good look at any of the others. Right there next to his favourite one of himself fake-vomiting as Benny kissed his wife Andrea, was a picture of Benny and the red haired woman, Anna. Benny dwarfed her almost completely with an arm slung around her shoulders, but they both grinned cheesily, each brandishing a pool cue.

Dean was incredulous. “Wait, you know her?”

“Know her? What, are you blind? Anna’s been on my wall for the last year and half! We played in the downtown pool tournament together last year when you were out of town with Sam. Wish I’d met her in time to invite her to my wedding honestly,” Benny added wistfully. “She’d have made a killer best man.” He shrugged, like he didn’t know full well he’d grievously wounded Dean’s pride.

“Well, forgive me for not being a redhead. You should’ve mentioned that on your list of demands.” Dean was still looking at the polaroids, and noticed that Anna cropped up in a few more: a backyard barbecue that Dean hadn’t been able to make it to; at a fancy restaurant posing with Andrea in front of a tastefully decorated plate of tiny food. He turned back to Benny to keep arguing. “Hey, I was busy for that pool tournament, Sam was graduating!”

Benny made a scathing little “mhm” noise over his shoulder, which had the desired effect of both annoying Dean and refusing to engage further with his antics. Dean sidled closer and stole a misshapen lime wedge to chew on, then punched Benny in the arm for keeping, in his opinion, critically important information to himself.

“More importantly, asshole, why didn’t you say you knew who the guy’s girlfriend was? You could’ve spared me a whole week of f*ckup and embarrassment.”

Benny rubbed his arm lightly and threw an ice cube at Dean’s retreating head in retaliation. “Oh, forgive me , highness, I didn’t realise I was meant to know every dark haired guy and redhead who’s ever been through here,” He said icily. “Also, you’re wrong.”

Dean scoffed. “About what? You being cut from my Christmas list for this? Unlikely.”

Benny looked like he was about to start losing his patience with Dean’s quips, so Dean parked himself back down on the bar stool to wait politely for his response. He popped the filched lime wedge into his mouth to have something to do, letting the sourness encourage him to keep his mouth shut for a spell.

“You’re wrong about Anna bein’ your angel’s girlfriend.” Dean held his tongue about Benny’s insistence on calling Cas his angel again since it sounded like he was about to get some good news. “She laughed about you makin’ him mad because she’s his cousin and she probably thinks it’s funny as all hell seein’ him squirm . He’s got some freaky religious name but don’t ask me what it was, I ain’t hear half the sh*t people said to me that night. She actually introduced him to me at Ellen’s do, but I never saw him come back to the bar when we were busy so I ain’t twig that that’s who you’ve been pining yourself stupid over. Good news is, from the way she did it I’d say he’s almost as single as you are.”

Dean bit clean through the lime wedge in his mouth. He nodded in a way he hoped was casual, and didn’t give away how it felt like his stomach had migrated into his throat upon hearing he might still be in with a chance.

“Oh yeah. Cool. Good to know.”

“I think the words you’re looking for right now are ‘thank you, Benny! I’m so glad you’re my best friend and have useful information about the man I’ve been moping after for weeks!’ Lord almighty, my mama would roll in her grave if she knew you treated me like this.” Benny shook his head, but there wasn’t any real rebuke to his words.

Dean chanced a look at him, but Benny was well-versed in Dean-isms and had turned his eyes firmly back to bar prep. Even when Dean spat the thoroughly-mangled lime out into his palm and used the bar stool to lean all the way over the bar and drop it into the bin, Benny didn’t once waver from the task in front of him, giving Dean his space to process.

“You happen to know if he’s, uh.. y’know. Does he-? If he likes– If he’s…?”

“If he’s what, exactly?”

Giving him space Benny would allow, but evidently he wasn’t going to let Dean off the hook completely. Dean pulled a face.

“C’mon man, you know what I mean.”

“Oh, I absolutely do,” Benny confirmed. “But since you’ve been taking every opportunity to call me a hom*ophobe whenever you get any criticism despite knowing full well I have my fair share of history, I think it’s only fair that I not make assumptions.”

Dean took a fortifying breath and fixed his eyes on the ceiling.

“Do you know if he’s into guys?”

Despite Benny knowing he was bisexual, Dean still felt like it was some kind of mark against their friendship to actually talk about it honestly. His tireless hom*ophobia comeback didn’t count, it was more a knee-jerk reaction than anything else, and Dean knew damn well that Benny wasn’t one. He was Dean’s oldest confidant and knew him better than almost anyone. Anything that made Dean cagey or skittish, Benny knew exactly how far to push him or how to find a way around it.

“Proud of you,” Benny said. He was probably the only person it didn’t sound patronising coming from. “But I don’t know, sorry. I can ask Anna if you want to be put out of your misery though?”

“Actually, I uh. Took a chance.” Dean stopped to clear his throat, one hand involuntarily moving to the back of his neck, protecting his physical weak spots while he was emotionally vulnerable. “Left my number on his desk before I left. Was kinda hoping he’d have called by now, since it’s been almost a week and all, but I, uh… Think he might have been more mad at me than he let on, huh?”

Benny said nothing in response, for which Dean was grateful. The radio silence stung, especially since Dean really had been hoping he’d hear from Cas and that his disaster departure wasn’t as bad as it had seemed.

Dean hadn’t been kidding when he said he’d wanted to see Cas again after their night at Purgatory – he also hadn’t intended to say it, but once it was out in the open, he hadn’t minded it so much. Cas had looked so happy at the prospect that Dean couldn’t find it in himself to be ashamed of saying cliche, sappy sh*t out loud. It was a far cry from the crushed look that Cas had so quickly wiped from his face at Dean’s ham-fisted attempt at a compliment. Cas’ hurt expression had played in Dean’s mind during quiet moments over the week, and every time it happened, it made him feel worse. He wanted to see Cas look as excited as he had when Dean had stumbled into his space at HeavEn and Cas had worn a kid-at-christmas smile.

“You serious about asking Anna about him for me?”

When Dean looked up, Benny already had his phone in hand and waved it at him.

“Thought you’d never ask.”

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

While most people were socially conditioned to hate Mondays, Cas had never felt strongly about them. He knew that people didn’t necessarily hate the day itself, they just hated that Monday was a symbol of capitalism and marked the end of their leisure time. Even as someone who largely preferred being on his own, Cas was growing to see the appeal of them.

It had been almost a week since he had snubbed Dean, and despite Anna reaching out through Benny, he still wasn’t quite sure where they stood. Anna had laughed herself stupid after Benny had texted her within seconds of her own message, asking almost the exact same thing but in reverse. She wouldn’t say exactly what they had said to each other, but told him to rest assured that it was going to be worth his while to reach out to Dean. Even after her acquiring Dean’s number for him, Cas hadn’t been able to bring himself to actually send him a message. What was he supposed to say? “Hello, sorry for being actively petty towards you for the last week, I panicked and overthought every interaction we ever had. Also, I thought you were hitting on my cousin, and I was angry with you. Do you like me? Check, yes or no.” He scoffed at the idea.

It was a new day, and he was armed with the knowledge that Dean was still interested in speaking to him. That, and a determination to move the potted plant he’d abducted the week before back to its rightful home before anyone caught him doing it. It had been awkward enough trying to find a believable reason for why he needed it at his cubicle in the first place.

Cas quickly made a sweep of the office to ensure he was alone before he hefted the ficus back to its spot in the corner. With any luck, anyone who noticed the sudden reappearance of the plant would chalk it up to the cleaners moving it back over the weekend.

He glanced at the nearest clock - eight thirty. He still had at least twenty minutes before people would start arriving in earnest. Enough time to make himself a coffee without someone trying to make conversation with him in the break room at least.

Mug warming his hands, he went to stand in front of his cubicle and looked out the glass.

Ostensibly, he was looking outside and not actually into Singer Industries - at least, that’s what he would have said last week. The day was bright and clear outside, and Cas wasn’t making excuses any longer. He was looking for Dean in the window next door, despite the trepidation he felt at the potential of making eye contact with him.

Singer Industries was fairly empty at this time of morning, so he dragged his desk chair to the end of his desk, the better to examine the office next door while he didn’t have to hide his interest.

Over the last few weeks, everyone had settled in well there, and it was apparent they had fallen into their own rhythms and patterns smoothly. A few early birds were moving around in the depths of the office, too far away from the window for him to make out clearly, but they didn’t look sluggish or like they hated the early start. Running a security systems company meant that Singer Industries would need staff on hand around the clock, so he supposed it was normal for people to be in so early.

Movement in the corner office caught his eye. Cas watched on as one of the blinds in the office had the angle adjusted by whomever was inside so that the person could see out, but left their identity obscured.

It had been a while since Cas had caught sight of Bobby in the office, but from what few words they’d exchanged at the mixer, it was normal for Bobby to want to keep his work space private. It struck Cas as unusual that Bobby would be in so early, though - surely being the founder of his own company meant he didn’t need to actually show up every day, especially not early? It was certainly the way Michael and Luke had been taught to run businesses.

Neither of them kept to the same schedule as their employees, a trait instilled in them by their father from the moment they were old enough to understand they would run his business one day. As the inheritors to his success, they had been groomed for leadership, taught to be aloof and distant from those they oversaw. Luke often didn’t bother to set foot in any of HEL’s buildings, preferring his presence to be one of power from afar, his arrival heralding only the most terrible of company events. Michael, however, preferred to be present each day but unreachable due to bureaucratic reasons. He only deigned to arrive at HeavEn at much more leisurely hours, and certainly never before nine.

Bobby was no subscriber to either school of thought, it appeared.

The blinds shuttered closed again, and Cas was officially out of things to look at that held his interest. He was considering getting a head start on his tasks for the day when the corner office door opened and its occupant emerged.

He very carefully maintained a stable grip on his mug as he watched Dean walk briskly across the clear strip by the window without looking outwards. Cas felt like an overwound spring - why was Dean there so early and visiting Bobby’s office? Was he in trouble? He didn’t see Cas looking, and even before he could remember to be worried about the prospect of being spotted, Dean turned a corner and moved deeper within the office and out of sight.

Cas realised he’d slipped forward to the edge of his chair and readjusted so that neither he nor his coffee were in danger of falling. The effect Dean had on him after a week of pointed ignoring was still something that left him reeling. The strength of his emotions, tangled as they were, was completely unfamiliar. At first, it had been excited general interest, then hesitant daily acknowledgements which he’d come to treasure and consider part of his routine, ruined by a bout of seething anger after the printer incident, before leaving him in his current state: complete emotional turmoil.

Cas took a long pull from his mug and focused on the warmth of it between his hands. It wasn’t much but at least it wasn’t thinking about Dean or his feelings. He was not about to start his day by contemplating what it was about Dean that made him feel like he was experiencing life in technicolour for the first time before 9 AM on a Monday.

He raised his head, intending to find something to do at his desk, but instead locked eyes with the object of the very thoughts he was trying to avoid.

Dean was back and had very much spotted him. Unlike their brief workday greetings, he had planted himself directly across from Cas and made no move to get on with his day. It seemed he was making use of the early hour to look at Cas openly and unreservedly, eyes never wavering from his face.

Dean held his gaze without challenging it and Cas was quietly grateful that he was still sitting down, because even in the shadows of the morning, the man was breathtaking. He had his weight on one hip and his body tilted to one side, which accentuated the bow of his legs. He offered a tiny uptick of his mouth, not quite a true smile, and lifted the mug he was holding in a small salute. Cas gathered his wits and raised his own mug in response. Their eyes stayed locked on each other as they both took a sip.

Dean was smiling in earnest when he brought his mug away from his lips and something in Cas’ chest warmed in response. He settled back in his chair, content to simply look at Dean.

Dean, however, was not. His eyes tracked away from Cas’ face to some other corner of HeavEn, but quickly returned. He grinned and pointed with his free hand first at Cas, then off to the side of him, and back again before raising his shoulders in a shrug and holding one arm out to his side with his palm facing up, asking a question.

Cas had no idea what he was trying to communicate and tipped his head to one side in confusion.

Dean closed his eyes and his smile tightened and wavered for a moment. Was he…? No. Cas felt his brows draw down in a frown to match his confusion. Dean was laughing at him.

Cas’ head was still tilted when Dean opened his eyes again. He smiled quickly before holding up one finger to signal Cas to wait. He pulled his phone from his pocket, typed away for a moment, before looking back up at Cas and waving the device at him.

Cas’ phone buzzed. The screen was lit up with a new message notification.

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean

<< Morning Cas. The plant’s back in the corner again I see. What gives?

Cas looked back up at Dean, head now straight, but could feel the small frown on his face still. Dean simply gave him another small smile before lifting an eyebrow at him and gesturing with the phone again. Encouragement?

Cas typed.

MESSAGE SENT

>> hello dean yes th 🪴is gone ws anoying me😾 hw did u gt my # ?

Cas watched as he waited for Dean to receive his message. When he did, his face split into a grin that showed all his teeth. He shook his head lightly and, mirroring Cas’ earlier action, set his mug down on the nearest desk while his thumbs moved across his phone screen.

Another buzz.

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean

<< I got it from Benny, I think you might know about him and Anna talking? And dude you need more coffee, I don’t think you’re fully awake yet. You missed half your keyboard typing that last message.

MESSAGE SENT

>> Ya anna gve me ur 📱# 2. nd wat do u mn❓Dis is hw i txt nrmaly🤨

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean

<< You’re joking right?

MESSAGE SENT

>> No? 😅😳😦🤯

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean

<< 🤦

Cas glanced up, worried that Dean’s disappointment was genuine. Despite Dean’s mug hiding most of his expression, it wasn’t difficult for Cas to see that he was smiling behind it. As he watched, Dean took another mouthful and set it down again before starting to type again.

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean

<< Well I wasn’t expecting you to be an emoji lover that’s for sure. Your client messages must be a doozy.

MESSAGE SENT

>> They don't get emojis because I don't text them. Client communications are kept to emails only. I do know how to type the usual way as you can see, but my way is faster. If you prefer I could pretend you’re a client?

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean

<< Nah, I don’t want to be a client. If being more than that means I get sent forty emojis a day, then bring it on.

Castiel looked up at that. Dean was waiting for him, his eyes soft. Cas didn’t want him to be a client either. Dean looked back down at his phone, but Cas kept staring at his face, studying it: he was chewing on his bottom lip.

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED 8:51

FROM: Dean

<< Any plans for after work today?

The sound of the footsteps on carpet nearing him made Cas raise his head as the first of his coworkers entered the office. Nobody headed down his row, so he hurried to type his reply while he and Dean were able to face each other in the relative privacy of the morning light.

MESSAGE SENT

>> no jst gon 🏠

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean

<< Want to grab a drink then? I haven’t seen much of the local neighbourhood yet.

Something jarred Cas by making a loud, repetitive noise. For a moment he glanced around again, worried someone was trying to get his attention before he realised the thumping was coming from inside his body. His heart thundered in his chest. Dean was asking him out. Cas tried not to read too much into it, but Anna’s assurance that it would be worth it if he reached out echoed in his mind.

MESSAGE SENT

>> id lik tht ☺️il txt u wn im dn?

Cas waited for Dean to check his phone, and was rewarded with another grin that showed Dean’s teeth.

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean

<< Then I’ll be waiting :)

When he turned back to the window, Dean’s mug was back in his hand as well. This time it was Cas who raised his mug first to propose a kind of toast. Dean mirrored him, and they shared another smile before Cas tipped his mug back all the way to empty it. He gave Dean a parting nod of his head before scooting his chair backwards into his cubicle, not a moment before Uriel rounded the end of the row.

He had just enough view from his desk to see Dean shake his head fondly before he disappeared back into the corner office.

Five o’clock rolled around and Cas was busy meticulously researching places for drinks in the area. Dean didn’t need to know it, but Cas wasn’t exactly familiar with the social scene around the office since HeavEn wasn’t the type of place where people were really friends with each other. Since nobody ever went out anywhere, Cas had absolutely no knowledge of the local eateries or bars. Despite his enthusiasm at Dean’s suggestion, he was paying the price for his lie of omission by agonising over which place would be best for them to visit.

Right when he thought he had found a place that looked acceptable, it was to his dismay that Zachariah summoned him through their work messaging system. Late reports had finally been submitted, and everyone else was tied up on accounts that needed to be finalised before the end of the month. Castiel’s early completion of his work hadn’t gone unnoticed - he was the only person free to sign off on the reports, and Zachariah was sending them down immediately. They were due before the end of the day. Cas was confident he could get them all squared away before he started on overtime at five thirty.

The reports arrived in the arms of a new hire, a young man Castiel hadn’t seen before. From the nervous set about him and how jumpy he was for someone who looked to be a fresh graduate, Cas suspected he was being put through the wringer by Zachariah. Those suspicions were only confirmed when the boy said he’d been instructed to stay with Cas while he completed his review of the reports, despite it being a one-person job. Cas kept his thoughts to himself and led the way to one of the small contained rooms so they could work at a table instead of sharing his desk. It rapidly became apparent that the new hire – “Alfie, if you don’t mind! Too many people here insist on using my legal name, and even for this office it’s a weird one.” – wasn’t content to sit in silence, because as soon as Cas picked up his first report, Alfie wanted to know what exactly he was checking them for and how he could help. Cas didn’t have the heart to refuse him, even if it was going to slow him down. It wasn’t Alfie’s fault that nobody was telling him anything, and he seemed to have a genuine interest in doing numerical work.

When they finished up, Alfie beamed at Cas like he’d hung the moon in the sky himself, and almost skipped away with his arms full of files. They were just reports, and Cas frankly didn’t understand why he was so chipper about being shut in a room with them, but he supposed that anything was an improvement on Zachariah’s brand of management.

Cas let his feet carry him back to his desk on autopilot, focused on pressing his thumb into the palm of his opposite hand to work a cramp out of it. The first thing he noticed when he got there was that he’d left his phone out on his desk while he’d been away, and the screen was lit up with a missed call and a few other notifications. The second was the time, or rather, that he’d completely lost track of it.

The screen of his phone cheerfully displayed 7:43 as Cas snatched it off the desk and almost fell into his chair.

All of his missed notifications were from Dean.

3 NEW MESSAGES RECEIVED

FROM: Dean

5:44: Forgot to ask, when do you finish?

6:23: Your place is working you too damn hard if they’re keeping you this late. Talk about anticipation, huh?

7:08: 1 MISSED CALL

7:12: Guessing something happened or you went home, haven’t seen you at your desk for a while. Maybe next time?

Darkness had fallen outside but the billboard blazed on, lighting up the dark with an image of a flickering fireplace, declaring that Fox’s Flues could warm up the winter. Despite it being easy to see all the way into Singer on account of the lights on inside the building, Cas couldn’t find any sign of Dean in there.

He already had the phone pressed to his ear before his mind could register he’d hit the button to call Dean back. Busy with fighting the urge to hang up and text instead, he almost missed when the line connected, much faster than he expected. It was too late to put the phone down.

“Cas?”

Hearing Dean’s voice made a little of the tension ease from Cas’ body. “Dean,” he said. He turned to look across into Singer Industries again hoping he’d see Dean like he had in the morning. There was still no sign of him.

“Hey, what happened? I tried to call you,” Dean said, and Cas abandoned all hope of getting some time to think about what he was going to say.

“Dean, I’m so sorry. I got called on to complete an urgent report at the last minute and it took much longer than anticipated.”

Cas heard Dean snort, but it sounded a little humourless. Some of the tightness Dean’s voice had eased began to creep back into Cas’ shoulders.

Dean interrupted.

“Yeah, I can tell. Your phone die or something?” He asked.

“Or something. I left it behind when I left my desk and didn’t realise how much time had passed. I only just saw your messages now. I’m so sorry, Dean, our appointment-“

“Appointment? Cas it wasn't an appointment, we were going for drinks!” Dean chuckled, and Cas was finally convinced enough to believe that Dean didn’t harbour any resentment over it. “Don’t freak out about it. I get it, you’re busy. It happens.”

Cas rearranged his feet against the carpet. He’d heard that line one too many times before.

“Like I said,” Dean said, oblivious to Cas’ trepidation. “We can get drinks another time, right? It’s still Monday, so there’s plenty of time left in the week.” Dean paused for a second. “Could maybe even swing a dinner if you want?”

“You still–” Cas cleared his throat, mouth unexpectedly dry. “If you’re still interested, then how about Thursday? There’s a place I know of that does a wonderful burger night.”

“Burgers?” Dean asked, pitch rising.

Cas berated himself for his choice. Burgers? Idiot. Dean dressed too well around the office to want to go out for something lowbrow and simple, what if he got sauce on himself? Plus, with Dean’s experience bartending at Purgatory he was probably too familiar with bar food to be interested in a burger night, let alone one Cas had hurriedly looked up and picked based purely on his own interests.

Dean’s short huff of laughter sounded in Cas’ ear. “Yeah Cas, that sounds awesome! I haven’t had a chance to scope out any good burger joints yet, so that’d be perfect.”

“Oh,” Cas said very intelligently. “I’m glad.”

His eyes drifted back to the corner office at Singer. The light was on and one of the blinds was still tilted open a ways, left behind from trying to catch the last of the afternoon sun. Something was moving in there and kept catching his eye. Was Bobby still staying so late after being in early for his meeting with Dean? Cas’ admiration for the man was growing.

“So, Thursday.” Dean prompted. “Where should I meet you?”

Cas considered for a moment. “If you don’t know the local area well, I could pick you up outside of your office and we could walk together? It would give you a chance to get to see what’s in our immediate vicinity.”

“Sounds like a plan. Driving’s a bitch in the city centre anyway. There’s nowhere to park, and when there is it costs an arm and a leg.” Cas heard the distant jingling of keys come rattling down the line. “Trust me, I did it today, and lesson learned. I’m almost scared to look at the parking meter to be honest,” Dean said ruefully.

Cas’ eyes were still fixed on the movement in the corner office.

“Driving in the city certainly is a nuisance, I prefer the trains myself,” He said, finally managing to tear his eyes away from the shadows moving under the blind. Bobby’s business was his own, and Cas owed it to him to at least try and be a little less nosy. He checked the clock on his desk. “Ah, speaking of which, I have to go if I want to catch mine. But… I’ll see you Thursday?”

“Absolutely you will. It’s a date.”

Cas couldn’t have stopped the foolish smile from making its way onto his face even if he’d tried. “A date,” he echoed.

“That is, if you’re cool with it?” Dean asked, and even on the phone Cas could hear his attempt at sounding casual fall a little flat.

“Of course I am,” Cas blurted out, almost cutting off the end of Dean’s sentence once he realised where it was going. If he hadn’t been so caught up in the prospect of a date with Dean, he might have found it in himself to be embarrassed at the speed with which he’d all but admitted to harbouring a crush. “It’s a date,” he confirmed.

Cas usually preferred a leisurely walk to the station so that he could detour through the park to admire the seasonal floral displays or visit the koi pond, but his task and the call with Dean had kept him, so he walked much more briskly than usual. The change of pace didn’t bother him today, he could just spend more time with his own plants at home. His mind was fixed on the fact that Dean liked him back and wanted to go on a date with him. He was so consumed with excitement that he didn’t even mind that the train was more crowded than usual on the way home.

Dean liked him back.

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean

<< What did your computer do to you? If looks could kill, your desk would be toast

Cas hadn’t noticed, but once it was pointed out he realised that he had been frowning a little hard, and made a conscious effort to lift his brows.

He hadn’t expected to hear from Dean again before their date, but he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been hoping for it. He glanced across into Singer, still making an effort to raise his brows but couldn’t spot Dean.

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean

<< Now you just look scandalised

Cas resisted the urge to scowl at his phone while he typed. It would only give Dean more ammunition.

MESSAGE SENT

>> th cmptr dnt do nethg its th sprdsht im on th nput is 🤮nd if I cld kill w a look I wldnt mk my desk 🍞id kill it obv thts hw 💀 glrs wrk. btw whr r u?

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean

<< At work, but I guess you knew that lol

MESSAGE SENT

>> I mnt whr in ur bldg 🙄i cnt c u

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean

<< I know, I saw you looking. I gotta have SOME secrets Cas. Feel free to keep being nosy though, the squint suits you

MESSAGE SENT

>> 😠😠😠

Cas gave it a minute, but grew tired of sitting with his phone in his hand. He knew Dean could see him sitting there and waiting and he didn’t want to seem slacking or desperate.

He set his phone down and turned back to the spreadsheet he’d been tasked with: a little gift from Balthazar, who had pinged him on the office messaging system first thing in the morning with absolutely no remorse. Though it was typical for Cas to do anything to be useful, he was having serious regrets since he’d seen the work needed reformatting entirely.

Doing so consumed Cas again quickly, so much so that he didn’t feel his phone buzz in his pocket again with a text from Dean. It wasn’t until the buzzing became insistent and repetitive that, at last, Cas noticed that someone was calling him.

A handful of clients who had specifically requested his input on ongoing projects had his number, as well as one or two shareholders. Being one himself, it had seemed only natural to share it. Though he might not have been of his father’s family surname, he still had access to the same privileges as his brothers when it came to the company. Distracted as he was, Cas didn’t bother to look too closely at the caller ID before answering.

“Castiel Novak speaking.”

“Well, hello to you too Cas. You’ve been head down all morning,” the caller said cheerfully. “Must be a hell of a spreadsheet to keep your attention like that. Personally, I can’t stand looking at numbers and sh*t for too long, ‘specially not on the computer.”

A frown found its way onto Cas’ brow before he remembered his earlier scolding. “Dean?” He said softly, now conscious of being found out on a personal call. He turned to see Dean standing offset from himself in the Singer building. He raised one hand in an absent wave, and Dean’s immediate gesture in answer, much more sure than his own, made Cas’ pulse beat a little faster.

“Afternoon, Cas.”

“Afternoon?” He echoed distantly, and turned back to his screen to see the clock, which now displayed shortly before 2pm. Dean laughed lightly, and the sound was the sweetest thing Cas had heard in ages.

“Yep,” Dean said, nodding solemnly. “You’ve been going at it for a few hours now. I thought you might’ve moved by the time I got back from lunch but you were still going so I figured it was time to intervene.” His tone turned calculating. “When’s the last time you straightened up?”

Cas wasn’t sure if Dean could see him well enough to catch him rolling his eyes, but a vindictive little part of him hoped he could. All the same, he straightened up and he had to admit, it was much more comfortable than staying hunched over. He hadn’t realised how long he’d spent leaning forwards over his desk, and his back twinged uncomfortably at the change. His begrudging stretch at Dean’s prodding quickly turned into a genuine one when his body caught up, complete with scrunched face and arms thrown wide to either side. Cas saw Dean’s lips moving across the way, but couldn’t make out what he was saying with his phone held away from his face mid-stretch. Once he felt his back make a satisfying pop and some of the tension leave him, Cas dropped his arms and pressed the phone back to his ear.

“My apologies, I didn’t catch that. It seems your remark about my posture was… astute.”

“So I could see. I said, you better not have taken lunch at your desk.”

Cas didn’t reply and Dean’s mouth tightened briefly.

“You have eaten, right?”

Cas tipped his head to one side slowly. “In all honesty I don’t usually eat lunch. I’ll eat something when I get home tonight, I’ll be fine until then,” Cas said, and it sounded oddly like a promise.

Dean opened his mouth, presumably to argue the merits of eating at regular hours, but the little belligerent frown cleared off his face as his eyes flicked somewhere to Cas’ left.

“Your dickbag boss incoming,” Dean said, turning away from the window and taking a few steps, giving the illusion of pacing in thought.

“Ah,” Cas said, and closed his eyes briefly in resignation. “That’s my cue, then.”

“This isn’t over,” Dean threw a look over his shoulder, and emphasised the threat with a finger pointing accusingly in Cas’ direction. The effect was softened considerably since he couldn’t keep the little smile from his face. “See ya Cas.”

As Dean turned away from the window again, Cas couldn’t help but think he would readily permit being scolded about his eating habits every day if it meant Dean would smile at him like that more often.

Thursday arrived and found Cas head down at his desk buried in his work, trying his hardest to appear like everything was as usual.

Cas could almost believe it himself, except he knew that while it mightn’t have affected him yet, change was coming. The knowledge of his date with Dean sat just under the surface of his skin, humming like a livewire, charging him with nervous energy that he refused to let show.

Dean didn’t text him throughout the day, and not wanting to appear too invested or desperate, Cas kept his thoughts to himself and didn’t text Dean either. It didn’t stop him from pulling his phone out of his pocket every time he imagined he felt it buzzing, hoping that this time would be the one when his screen showed Dean’s name.

Anna, who clearly knew more than she was letting on, was polite enough to say nothing about the situation other than to drop by his cubicle shortly before 5pm to wish him luck. She gave him a wink and flashed a thumbs up before leaving for the day, and Cas decided it was finally time to check in with Dean.

MESSAGE SENT

>> Im dn fr th day 🎉lmk whn ur 📴 th ⏰nd ill meet u ⬇️strs

Cas knew he wasn’t in a frame of mind to get any work done while he waited for Dean’s response, so turned his attention to his desk plant. The miniature parlour palm was one of his favourites, and had been with him since he started at HeavEn. He idly wondered if Dean liked plants, or if he had any on his desk, or in his home.

On his way back from the work kitchenette where he’d filled his mug with water to give to the palm, his phone buzzed. He waited until he’d watered the palm to check it, telling himself it wasn’t because he was afraid, that he was just savouring the anticipation.

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean

<< Sorry, something urgent came up. Raincheck?

All the nervous energy that had been building in Cas’ body vanished in an instant, leaving a cool, clinical emptiness in its wake.

MESSAGE SENT

>> Sure. Next time.

He turned his phone off immediately after sending the message. He needed time to be himself, no distractions from the sharp sting of rejection fresh in his chest.

He rode the train home in silence, too absorbed in himself to care about people watching, or noting which trees had leaves dropping faster than others, or to see if the apartment building at the third station had changed their planters out for ones with winter flowers yet.

The pain of being turned down was an ache, less than physical but tangible in the way that all awful things are. Able to touch, to do harm, but never be harmed itself. The feeling was a reminder that he’d let himself get too close.

Barely cognizant of his actions, it wasn’t until Cas walked into his apartment and forgot to duck out of the way of the bird of paradise reaching across his entryway that he was quite literally slapped out of his funk. He extricated himself from under the leaf and gently smoothed his palm across it in a familiar gesture. The touch helped to ground him some and Cas let out a sigh so powerful that the frond bobbed wildly before he steadied it carefully again with one hand.

He released the strelitzia leaf and moved further into his apartment, switching the lights on as he went. The sight of the green sprawl of plants throughout his apartment dispelled the last of the sharp pain Dean’s dismissal had caused. He deigned to turn his phone back on and set it on his coffee table, knowing that at some point Anna was likely to check in with him about the date and he would have to face her.

He loved his plants, each and every one, and had built himself an urban jungle to live in since working at the office necessitated an apartment in the city. While money bought many things, it couldn’t buy him the outdoor space he really wanted. Houseplants were wonderful, but more than anything Cas wanted to expand into productive crops as well as decorative ones. Fruit trees, vegetables, herbs, a wildflower meadow let to run to seed and self-sow every year, with enough flowers to sustain the beehives he’d keep – these were the things Cas wanted. These were the things he couldn’t have.

Cas reheated himself a plate of leftover Chinese takeout and settled down on the couch with it, the first step in the boring, lifeless night ahead of him. He was considering turning on the TV for some background noise, but was saved from making a decision when his phone started buzzing wildly on the coffee table. Anna, no doubt, calling to check in on his date in case he needed an excuse to leave.

He answered around a mouthful of black beef chow mein. “I’m fine, I’m at home. We didn’t even make it to the restaurant, and honestly, don’t ask.”

“Well, that is the reason I called, but whatever you say, sunshine.”

Cas almost inhaled a bean sprout in surprise and coughed hurriedly to save himself before he was able to reply. “ Dean ?”

“Do you not have my number saved yet or something? Yeah it’s me,” Dean huffed a little laugh. “Thought I should call to explain myself since I hadn’t heard back from you and I can’t exactly do a lot of texting right now.”

Cas fumbled to open his messages and saw that while his phone had been off, he had indeed missed a couple of texts from Dean, mainly along the lines of ‘let me explain’.

“Sorry. I turned my phone off for a bit,” Cas said by way of explanation for his absence, but left his reasons up to interpretation. Dean didn’t mention it.

A gentle, rhythmic thudding preceded Dean’s words. “Sorry I had to cancel last minute Cas. I feel like a dick bailing on you so suddenly, and I swear, I’d much rather be out with you right now.”

“I understand,” Cas said, even though he didn’t in the slightest. “You said something urgent came up?”

“Yeah, I’m out on a callout. In the car right now, actually.”

Cas frowned while he chased a cashew with his chopsticks. “A callout? I thought you were an office worker?”

“I am," Dean confirmed. "But I also can’t stand being shut inside all day and not doing anything useful. If we need an emergency tech out in the field and no one else is free, I get called in to do the job. And, because the universe hates me, it picked the night I was due to have a date with the hottest guy in town to send me packing halfway across the state.”

Cas was glad Dean couldn’t see him through the phone as he felt his cheeks pinking at the compliment. Feeling daring, he took a chance. “Oh, I don’t think that’s true about your date being the hottest man in town. There’s someone I know at the office next door who I’m sure would put him to shame. Maybe you know him?”

His effort was rewarded with a warm chuckle from Dean, bright and clear, lighting up Cas’ insides like the honey bourbon of weeks ago.

“Wait,” Cas said, stepping on the moment a little as his mind processed the rest of Dean’s sentence. “You’re heading across the state? ”

“Yup.” Dean popped the p on the word a bit, and wasn’t altogether successful at hiding the little discontented sigh that followed it. “It’s just me, my baby, and the open road for the next seven hours until we get to the job site.”

Cas’ incredulity rapidly turned to confusion. “You have a child?”

Dean’s full laugh was even sweeter than his earlier chuckle. Cas wanted to bottle it and listen to it forever. “No! I mean, I don’t mind rugrats, y’know? Anklebiters can be cute but I got none of my own. That’s more my brother’s wheelhouse, I’m more fun uncle material… sh*t, look at us nailing first date topics! But nah, I meant my car, she’s my one and only capital B Baby.”

“Ah, I see.” Understanding dawned on Cas. Dean was one of those car people. He picked up the other conversation thread instead. “Yes, I believe it’s suggested that the topic of children is one that should be brought up early, especially between two people considering a relationship. I also have no children, for the record.”

“Well, good to know. And a relationship, huh?” Dean's tone turned teasing. “Jeez Cas, we’re only minutes into our first date phone call and already you’re considering our future? I don’t know if I should be flattered or drive faster.”

Cas had the odd sense that there was something underlying Dean’s joke, despite the light tone it was delivered in. Cas’ openness had resonated with something in Dean and not in a positive way.

“I apologise,” Cas said, pushing his chopsticks around in the remains of his stir fry. “That was forward of me. I don’t even know your intentions for asking me on a date and I–”

“Hey,” Dean said sternly, cutting him off. From his tone, Cas imagined he was wearing his serious frown, the one he sometimes had when he was on a phone call that made him gesture more than usual. “You don’t need to be sorry. sh*tty joke choice. I’m not driving away from you and those burgers on purpose, believe me.”

Despite himself, Cas found he did.

“And as for my intentions…” Dean continued. “Well, you’re devastatingly handsome and I want to get to know you better. I figured since we were already booked in to do that tonight, we might as well stick to the plan, y’know?”

Devastatingly handsome ? A feeling deep in Cas’ gut fluttered wildly and he suspected that even his ears were reddening from the compliment. Thinking that Dean liked him and knowing it for sure were apparently two vastly different feelings.

“In that case,” Cas said, readjusting his position on the couch. “Why don’t you tell me some more about this car of yours?”

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

“Cas is about to be a dear and tell us both how his date went last night, and explain why exactly he looks like sh*t,” Anna said brightly as Balthazar joined them in the break room.

“Oh, I don’t think he needs to explain exactly why,” Balthazar drawled as he flounced into the available seat at their table. He produced a white bag with a distinct bakery smell from somewhere and put it in the middle of the table, inviting them to help themselves. “I’m sure I can think of a few reasons why he’d come to work looking so…”He pulled a face and gestured expansively at Cas, taking in his unrulier-than-usual hair and encompassing everything down to his mismatched socks.“...rumpled.” He finished, one eyebrow arched pointedly.

“Both of you are awful,” Cas mumbled into his fourth coffee of the day. He’d overslept his alarm, and had barely made it to work on time. Evidently his appearance had suffered more than he’d realised.

His refusal to play along with Anna’s demand was short lived and, with much less chagrin than he had expected from himself, Cas told them about the rainchecked date, made up for with Dean’s phone call.

“We just talked,” Cas insisted when Anna bounced her eyebrows at him and a knowing smirk found its way onto Balthazar’s face. “He said since we were meant to be on our date anyway, we might as well get to know each other. He was driving and I wanted to be sure he arrived safely since it was late, but ended up falling asleep before then.”

Anna and Balthazar traded a look.

“What? Is that bad?”

Anna smiled mysteriously. “Not at all! It’s just… you talked on the phone until you fell asleep. It’s a bit like a rom-com, I didn’t think that was something that anyone actually did in real life.” She said with a chuckle. When Cas’s confused look didn’t clear up, she explained further. “He seems sweet, especially for doing that after he said he couldn’t make your date. I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone try and make up for bailing last minute on a date with me . Have you?” She turned to Balthazar, who shook his head.

“Darling, you know me. I’m the one who’s jumping ship, not the other way around. Why would I be sorry for missing something I didn’t want to go to in the first place?”

Cas frowned. “So… it’s good? That Dean wanted to talk to me even though he couldn’t make the date?”

“Better than good,” Balthazar confirmed. “It means he’s serious about his interest in you. Can’t say I understand his reasons why, but to each his own I suppose.” He shrugged. Anna swatted his arm for the quip.

Cas’ phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out, completely ignoring Anna and Balthazar in favour of checking the message immediately; as he’d hoped, it was from Dean.

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean

<< [1 IMAGE]

<<Hope you slept well. Good morning from the next state over x

The picture Dean sent was of a sunrise. It was the cold blue and grey of winter with the barest touch of orange starting to show over the horizon, the pale light just barely fighting off the chill of morning across what appeared to be fields and fields of crops. The front bonnet of a car was visible in one corner, big, blocky, and black, the chrome on it just starting to gleam in the weak light. In the centre of it all was Dean’s hand holding out a cheap gas station cup of coffee like some kind of trophy, the steam curling up from it.

It was one of the nicest things Cas had ever seen.

“Hellooo? Cas, we’re still here you know.”

“Sorry,” he said quickly, trying to pocket his phone, but not bothering to keep the soft smile from his face. Anna was faster than he was, and plucked his phone out of his hand despite his noise of protest, and tipped the screen towards her and Balthazar to study Dean’s message.

“Aww, look! He sent a picture!” Anna cooed.

Balthazar read the message and rolled his eyes. “God, you two are disgusting. This is far less amusing than I was hoping for,” he griped, and snatched the phone back from Anna to return it to Cas. It was possibly the first nice thing he’d done for Cas, which didn’t go unnoticed. “You’re both hopelessly gone on each other.” Anna nodded her agreement before adding:

“I think it’s sweet!” She put her elbows on the table and leaned forward, a bright glint in her eyes. “So, what are you going to do next?”

Cas’ fingers stilled on his phone from where he’d been typing a response to Dean. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, your first date didn’t work out but he asked for a raincheck, right?”

Cas nodded.

“Has he said when he wants it to be? Made any move to plan a concrete second date? Well, first date, I guess, but still.”

“No,” Cas admitted. “But we were only meant to go out last night, and he’s out of town for work at the moment. I hardly think it’s cause for concern that he hasn’t picked a–”

He glanced down at his phone from where it had buzzed in his hand.

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean

<< Finishing the job today and coming back as soon as I can. Free this weekend? I want to cash in on that raincheck

Cas pushed his phone triumphantly across the table towards Anna and Balthazar, and finally helped himself to one of the pastries from the bag.

Anna shoved his phone back towards him after a moment.

“Oh, shut up,” she finally said, reaching for her own pastry after watching him chew.

“I didn’t say anything!”

“You didn’t need to.”

“Smug is more my look than yours,” Balthazar added.

Cas simply shrugged and said nothing. He was busy making plans to see Dean again.

Saturday found Cas doing his usual watering routine for his plants, complete with playing them classical music while he puttered around the space and made sure each plant was getting the attention it needed. He even caught himself humming along at one point, and despite being alone in his apartment he smiled wide enough to hurt his cheeks.

It felt good to have something to look forward to. It felt good to have something that was going his way for once.

Like Cas, Dean was also a working man and had things to do that would sometimes call him away on short notice. Cas knew and understood being in a situation like that better than most and so wasn’t at all angry with Dean for having to work. He’d been upset at the raincheck only because he’d thought it a rejection, but once it had become apparent that he wasn’t going to end up left wondering why things hadn’t worked out, Cas had quickly forgotten all about his hurt feelings.

And there was the phone call, of course.

They’d talked for hours. Cas honestly couldn’t recall saying so much before in all his life. Cas had thought he’d be content to just listen to Dean explain about his car at first, but had found that Dean had a way of coaxing words out of him, asking questions that made Cas want to give him answers in full. Cas had wanted to be known, and Dean had been clear in wanting to know him in return.

So they’d just talked. About Dean’s car, about Benny and the bar, about Dean’s actual job (Head of Technician Liaisons. “It just means I sit around waiting for the techs to call if there’s a problem, but since I trained most of ‘em myself, there almost never is. Mainly I just check their schedules and make sure they’re not driving too far for their rounds or callouts.”), and about anything and everything in between. Cas had found out Dean had a brother, Sam, and told Dean in return that he had four brothers himself. He’d left the details vague on purpose, knowing from experience that people could react… uncharacteristically to finding out that three of his brothers were varying degrees of famous. Dean had had no such reservations, extolling his brother’s virtues as well as a fair few embarrassing stories, and with clear pride in his voice had said how Sam had made it into Stanford on a full ride and was now qualified to practice contract law. The affection in Dean’s voice had touched something deep within Cas, a part of him that hadn’t known a brother’s praise in.. well, decades.

Cas had mentioned his plants when Dean asked, and then found himself telling Dean all about his desire to leave the city and start a farm. Cas had worried Dean would think it was foolish, but Dean had said softly: “yeah, I get that. A life where you’re free to be whatever you choose… To do something useful. That’s a beautiful dream, Cas.” He’d laughed when Cas had told him bees were a part of that dream, saying that of course no gardener would be content without five thousand of their closest friends.

“Actually, it’s quite a lot more than that,” Cas had corrected instantly. “The average hive contains around 60,000 bees, there’s no way I would have time to become friends with each and every one.”

Dean’s laughter had warmed his chest.

Cas didn’t remember when exactly he’d fallen asleep, but it had certainly been after midnight. Dean had been trying to get Cas to go to sleep for at least an hour and half, but Cas was determined to stay up at least until Dean pulled into a motel for the night. It had been a circular argument, one that Dean ended up winning by playing music in the car when Cas got too tired to give long responses any more. Cas was certain he remembered Dean singing along softly at points, but couldn’t remember what the songs had been.

With their date rescheduled, Cas wasn’t afraid to admit that he was excited to see Dean in person again. There was a tiny shred of worry that things wouldn’t flow as smoothly between them as they had on the phone, but Cas knew somehow that things would be fine. Dean was just… different.

They had agreed to meet up on Sunday, and Dean had delighted Cas by suggesting they go to a farmer’s market on the other side of town. Sam was going to be visiting Dean from Tuesday, and since he preferred ‘rabbit food’ as Dean had called it, the market was going to be a dual purpose trip - Dean needed to go shopping for produce, and Cas knew his way around plants. It was exactly the kind of thing that Cas was interested in, and he’d been excited about it ever since Dean had suggested it.

Cas’ space was vibrant when he finished his watering and upkeep tour of the apartment, sweeping up any stray specks of dirt and depositing any clipped pieces of plants into his benchtop compost bin.

Feeling unusually proud, he snapped a picture of his living room replete in green-leafed splendour and sent it to Dean.

A reply came back to him faster than he’d expected.

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean

<<[1 IMAGE]

<< sh*t you weren’t kidding about the plants! Classy place, but nothing beats Star Wars Saturdays

The picture showed Dean’s TV, a blurry scene caught on screen. Dean’s socked feet were resting on a coffee table, and there was a beer there too. Cas spent an embarrassing amount of time inspecting the little details of the image to find out more about Dean. His TV was on an entertainment unit packed with DVDs, but Cas couldn’t make out the titles.

MESSAGE SENT

>> 🆒nvr cn it wats it abt?⭐⚔️

There was an unusually long wait for Dean’s reply.

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean

<< You’ve never seen star wars?

MESSAGE SENT

>> No ❌😅it gud?

Almost instantly after sending the message, Cas’ phone started ringing.

“Hello Dean,” he said warmly, surprised but not upset to be receiving the call.

“Cas, what do you mean you haven’t seen Star Wars?” Dean said by way of greeting.

“Tell him I won’t give you my blessing until he’s seen it!” Someone yelled from Dean’s end of the call.

There was a brief scuffle where it sounded like the phone was being fought over. There were a few shrieks of glee and one great yelp that Cas was sure had come from Dean, before finally Cas heard a bellow of “Charles, f*ck off! ”. The sound of someone breathing heavily filtered though the line distantly.

There was a rustle before Dean spoke again, a little breathlessly. “Sorry Cas. That was Charlie. She comes over for Star Wars Saturdays but she’s on thin f*cking ice! ” The last part of Dean’s sentence was shouted away from the mouthpiece of the phone, and Cas suspected that while Dean might have won the immediate battle for the phone, he hadn’t won the war.

“Charlie…” Cas said, thinking rapidly. Dean had definitely mentioned her on their last call, but Cas’ memory was a little hazy on details towards the end of the call when he’d fallen asleep. “Oh, sister-you-never-wanted Charlie? The one who likes computers?”

Even through the phone Cas could practically feel Dean’s beaming smile. “Yeah, that’s her! You remembered.” There was something almost reverent in his tone, but it was quickly replaced with amusem*nt. “She’s crushed about your pop culture knowledge, by the way. She was hoping you’d join games and movie night eventually, but I don’t think she ever expected a betrayal like this.”

Cas heard Charlie wail distantly, “et tu Brute! ”

“Anyway, sorry about the impromptu call. I didn’t really think th–”

“It’s fine,” Cas assured him.

There was a beat where they simply sat in silence together. Dean broke it first. “I would invite you over now but Charlie will be a pest about it, so I was thinking maybe tomorrow after the markets, if you’re free–”

“I will be.”

“Awesome!” Dean said, clearly relieved. “I’ve got all the movies on DVD, I was thinking you could come over and we could get you up to speed.”

“Light speed, surely,” Cas tried, and was rewarded with a bark of laughter. “I’ll brush up on my astronomy tonight.”

“You know they’re not actually about– wait a minute Cas. God, Charlie, hang on!” Cas smiled again at hearing Dean interact with Charlie. It was so different to anything he knew from interacting with his own brothers.

Dean spoke again over the top of what sounded like someone trying to break down his door. Cas suspected he’d locked Charlie out of whatever room he was in. “Sorry to cut and run but I gotta go. Apparently the popcorn is cooling off and that warrants a crisis. But I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I’m looking forward to it. Goodbye, Dean.”

“See ya, Cas.”

Cas waited for Dean to hang up first, and so was still on the line to hear him sigh contentedly before the call disconnected.

Something to look forward to indeed.

Cas woke up early on Sunday, which was in and of itself unusual. Mornings and him had never seen eye to eye, much less so before his alarm had gone off, and certainly not on a weekend when he was able to sleep in. The excitement of his day ahead with Dean had knocked him out like a light the night before, but was also the reason for his early waking.

After watching his clock tick over to 7:30, Cas finally admitted defeat. Since he wasn’t getting any more asleep, he wrapped himself in his robe and shambled to the kitchen to make himself a coffee.

It was there that he found Gabriel.

“You’re in my house,” He said, unceremoniously pushing Gabriel out of the way of the coffee machine. “You’re not meant to be in my house.”

“Yet another incredible deduction Sherlock! However did you manage to figure that one out?”

Cas turned and scowled at him at full force, unblinking until Gabriel heaved a sigh and moved out of the kitchen completely.He raised his hands in surrender. “Coffee before jokes, noted.”

Once Cas was seated on one of the high stools at his kitchen island and halfway through his cup, he finally woke up enough to figure out what had been bothering him since finding his brother in his kitchen.

“How did you get in here?”

Gabriel grinned in a way that would have made Cas nervous if he hadn’t been used to it. “Stole the key from Michael when I was in town last time. Which, by the way, you should have done yourself years ago.” He admonished. “Letting the guy pick your apartment out is one thing, but literally giving him the key? C’mon Cassie he–”

“I didn’t give him the key, we’ve been over this.” Cas closed his eyes, more tired from the well-worn thread of conversation. “It was stipulated in the contract he made. Michael gets a copy for emergencies, non-negotiable. My name is on the deed to the apartment, but his is on the deed to the building. Not really much I can argue with there.”

Gabriel pursed his lips. “You could always move out.”

“Oh, because that worked out so well for you. Tell me, did Michael even speak to you last time you were in town?”

“In fact, he did not! But we both know I’m the sparkling conversationalist of the family, so, frankly, it’s his loss.” Gabriel shrugged and began rummaging in Cas’ pantry, talking all the while. “What am I meant to have said to him anyway? 'Hey douchebag, remember when you cut me off from the family and hoped I’d come crawling back and begging to be your bitch again? Didn’t work! How’s that plan working out now that I’ve got a billboard outside your office and you have to look at my face every day?'" Gabriel popped his head back out from the cupboard, but if he was hoping to find Cas laughing, he was sorely disappointed.

While it was exceedingly funny to think about, Cas doggedly refused to grant Gabriel the satisfaction of knowing so.

“Plus, who said I even wanted to talk to him in the first place? Maybe I came in just to f*ck with your computer.”

Cas downed the rest of his coffee and stood, planning on making a second to tide him through the rest of his brother’s hopefully short visit. “Then that would be trespassing. Not to mention property damages to a company device.”

“Property damages,” Gabe scoffed, and dove back into the pantry. “Sure, unmuting a computer counts as damage now. You’ve worked in that corporate sh*thole for too long.” He pointed a finger accusingly over his shoulder. “You sound just like him, you know!”

“Well, I have been the top accountant at the firm for fifteen years in a row,” Cas pointed out. “Something’s bound to have rubbed off.”

Gabriel snorted. “Brother dearest, the only thing that should have rubbed off on you is some hot little piece of office ass.”

Cas spluttered into his mug. Gabriel turned his head to give Cas a serious look while Cas reddened, not just from coughing to clear his throat. “C’mon bro, when was the last time you got laid?”

Cas dabbed at the drops of coffee on his robe with a kitchen towel, pointedly not meeting his brother’s eye. “That’s none of your business.”

Gabriel sighed, finally giving up on trying to find something to eat in the pantry. “Technically I suppose it isn’t, but it’s my brotherly duty to ask anyway. Not even a teensy little fling in a supply closet somewhere?”

Cas gave him a flat stare.

“Oh c’mon Cas, give me something to work with here! Aren’t you bored? When’s the last time you did anything that wasn’t going to work?”

“Right now,” he answered. “I’m talking to you, against my will though it may be.”

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. “I meant socially and you damn well know it.”

Cas didn’t have an answer to that and didn’t bother trying to think of one either – he had a feeling Gabriel was working up to something.

“Don’t play dumb Cassie, I know you hate sitting at that stupid ergonomic desk day in and day out. I saw the work they give you. They’re not going to wake up tomorrow and suddenly realise they need to value you and treat you better, you know.”

“As a fellow shareholder isn’t it a conflict of interest to try and convince me to leave my job?” Cas said waspishly. “Michael wouldn’t–”

“Michael schmichael, enough about that douchewad,” Gabriel snapped. “What’s he going to do if I am trying to get you to quit? Complain to the rest of the board that I produce p*rn and sells custom dick-shaped lollipops instead of playing golf like he says I do? Hah! As if it wouldn’t kill him on the spot to admit he knew what I did in the first place.”He paused to inspect his nails. “And it’s ‘former shareholder’, actually.”

Cas almost dropped his mug.

“What?”

Gabriel grinned, unrepentant. “What, you really thought I’d visit the panopticon you work in just to dick with your computer? C’mon Cas, that’s pedestrian! Give a guy a little credit. I was tendering my f*ck-you-very-much letter to the 'regrettably unavailable' chief bozo himself.” Gabe shrugged nonchalantly, before an evil grin crept across his face. “I hope he opens the letter over his carpet. God, I would love to see his cleaners try getting that much glitter out.”

The bench was the only thing stopping Cas from slumping to the kitchen floor entirely. “You’re out,” he said dazedly. “You’re actually out. You’re free.”

“Yup! And you can be too, little bro. No more Big Brother bullsh*t! You can do whatever you want forever! Just follow these three easy steps to–”

“No, no,” Cas said, head still reeling from the news. “I can’t. My section, they need me. There are already too many accountants in the world, I can’t just leave. It’s different for you.”

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed dangerously but Cas gave him a pleading look and pressed on.

“You know it’s different for you. Father always knew you were never going to go into the company, so you were allowed to pursue your own interests. You had options. He let you try things.”

Gabriel’s expression was inscrutable. “You had options too, Castiel.”

“And what were they?" Cas snarled, finally starting to lose his temper. "My options were to do what Father intended for me to do or watch the twins tear everything I loved apart. How was that a choice?”

“You could have chosen yourself!” Gabe's eyes blazed. “You could have chosen yourself and let the board deal with the twins' bullsh*t! You could have left when Luke made his split, gone your own way then. You’ve had dozens of opportunities little bro, and every single time you refuse to put yourself first."

“I had to–”

“Oh shut your trap and listen,” Gabe said, finally scowling. “I’m trying to make a point here.”

Cas closed his mouth from where he’d opened it to continue arguing. It wasn’t often that Gabriel put aside his jokes and Cas owed it to him to listen.

“You didn’t have to do jack sh*t for the company or this family. We were f*cked up long before you were born Cassie-boy, and it’s never been your job to save us.” Something in Gabe’s expression softened a little. Gently, he pushed Cas back in the direction of the couch, gesturing for him to sit and following suit. “This is your problem Castiel. You’re always thinking about what’s good for the many, and not what’s good for the you.” He emphasised his point by poking a finger into Cas’ chest.

“You’ve loved plants and sh*t since before even I can remember and that’s saying something. We all know it. You were so full of knowledge, and life, and passion ! You used to run around the yard in your little bee shorts Raph bought you, telling everyone about how big the trees were going to get or what flowers were coming up." Gabe's smile seemed a million miles away. "Remember when Mikey had to drag you kicking and screaming out of the pond because you were threatening to step on the fish?”

“I’d just found out they’d eat the tadpoles if we let them,” Cas said defensively. “I was sticking up for the frogs.”

“You were!” Gabe nodded enthusiastically. “And even though we told you not to go in there, you wouldn’t let anyone tell you what to do. So what happened to that snot-nosed little kid who’d go all in for some ugly little toad who hadn’t even got legs yet? Because he’s sure as sh*t not the guy I’m looking at now." Cas couldn't meet his eye anymore. He looked away. "That kid would have kicked and screamed this soulless Architectural Digest monstrosity to the ground. C’mon Cas, you didn’t even pick this apartment yourself, you really think I believe you’re okay with that? What you’ve done with your indoor jungle is great, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just not the same as being out in the wide open air, is it? Am I wrong?”

Cas was staring into the depths of his coffee, mulling over Gabriel’s words. Cas’ memories of the childhood Gabe described were hazy at best, but Cas certainly remembered how the sun had felt on his skin out in the yard every day, the sound of the bees and the insects among the plants.

Gabriel took the mug from his hands and seized his chin, forcing Cas to meet his eye.

“Am I wrong, Castiel?”

“...No.”

Gabe released him. “I never am. Now come on, get dressed. It’s almost eight thirty. We’ve got places to be and I have a surprise for you.”

“Am I allowed to ask where the places are or what the surprise is?”

Gabriel scoffed. “Don’t be stupid, of course not. Now get your ass into some pants, the only bare cheeks allowed in my car are my own.”

Cas shuddered in disgust and went to do as he was told.

He baulked halfway down the hall when he remembered Dean.

Gabe coming into his home unannounced and uninvited was one thing, but springing plans on him last minute was a completely separate problem, and one that Cas wasn’t going to let get in the way of his date. He was absolutely not going to spend his time with Gabriel instead of Dean, not matter how heartfelt Gabe’s speech had been. It wasn’t even a competition, not really. Cas would have picked wandering around a farmer’s market with Dean any day of the week.

“Not to sound ungrateful, but I’ve already got plans for today…” He said, calling down the hallway. “Can it wait?”

Gabe picked at his fingernails, his face a mask of indifference. “If you mean your plans with loverboy from Singer, I’ve already said you’ve encountered extenuating circ*mstances beyond your control that will prevent your attendance.”

Cas almost knocked Gabe off the couch with how quickly he ran back down the hall.

“What do you mean by ‘prevent my attendance’?”

Gabe produced Cas’ phone from his pocket. “Really should think about getting a password on this thing. You never know who’s accessing your devices these days.”

Gabe continued to hold his phone out of reach until Cas hauled him in by his collar and used his height advantage to snatch the device back. Cas immediately checked his messages, and saw that Gabe had sent Dean a selfie, his sleeping form visible behind Gabriel’s winking face. Gabe was leaning over him and grinning while Cas lay on his stomach, one arm hiked up under the pillow and his duvet slipping down under his shoulder blade. His hair was an absolute wreck, and his mouth was hanging open slightly but he was mercifully saved from having drooled on his pillow. Gabe had sent the accompanying message: “Kidnapping your man for brotherly business but he’ll text you later. Toodles! xoxo”.

Cas was mortified.

“You sent this to him?”

Gabe blithely plucked the phone out of Cas’ hands and stashed it in his jeans pocket, dancing out of reach again. Cas was too dumbfounded to even think about trying to get it back.

“Sure did! Oh, come on,” he added at Cas’ murderous look. “You’re clearly asleep in the picture, he knows you didn’t send it. Plus, maybe it’ll spice up whatever boring Victorian style communication you have going on here.” Gabe put on a high, quavering voice. “Oooh, a glimpse of an unclothed shoulder, how scandalous!” He faked fanning himself, and Cas understood in that instant how exactly someone became a murderer.

Gabe dropped his hands to his sides with a thump at Cas’ lack of laughter. “Oh please, he’s probably shaking hands with the milkman about it as we speak. C’mon, the bees will be up by now,” Gabe said, pointing out the window to where the sun was starting to truly stream in.

Cas paused for a moment and allowed himself a frown. “Milk hasn’t been delivered door to door since the 70’s, I doubt Dean is shaking hands with anyone about it.”

Gabe rolled his eyes in exasperation, so Cas focused on the most interesting piece of information Gabe had given him.

“The bees?”

Gabe nodded, the way one would when encouraging an overeager puppy. “That’s right! The bees.”

Cas gathered his robe around him firmly. “Gabriel, you’re my brother and I appreciate that, but you are a dick.” He turned on his heel and stalked to the shower.

“Love you too bro!”

After a full day of Gabriel towing him around, Cas was absolutely spent. He nearly tripped through his own front door when he got home in the early evening and only barely dodged the strelitzia, exhausted from trying to keep up with Gabe’s antics all day.

He’d been so busy he hadn’t been able to text Dean even once.

Cas let himself fall face-first onto his bed and simply laid there for a minute, enjoying being off his feet and having some quiet at last. He rolled over and checked his phone.

4 NEW MESSAGES RECEIVED

FROM: Dean

9:23: I’m guessing that’s your brother?

9:24 Raincheck number 2 for us then haha

11:05: You’d have loved this market, we’ve gotta come back here another weekend

3:07: Missed you today

Without stopping to think about whether Dean was free or why exactly he felt like it was the right thing to do, Cas hit the dial button.

“Cas,” Dean said when he picked up. Cas heard his surprise, but something else underlying it. Something warm.

By way of response, Cas groaned into his pillow.

“Ah. One of those days, huh?”

“You have no idea.”

“I know the feeling, believe me,” Dean said, and Cas heard some light clattering of what might have been crockery in the background. “Well, in that case, I’m about to sit down and I’ve got my listening ears on. Why don’t’cha tell me all about it?”

A feeling that Cas had been trying very hard to alternately deny, ignore, and push down in his chest suddenly broke free. Despite meeting Dean face to face a grand total of twice, after months of eye contact, smiles, and a myriad other minute interactions — Cas trusted him. There was just something about Dean that he knew was good. Dean made him want to be open, honest, and more real than he could remember being in years. The feeling bouncing around in his chest said, in a voice remarkably like Gabriel’s, that Dean was something that was good for him.

With Dean’s offer to listen, it was like the floodgates had opened.

Cas told him about Gabriel sort-of-but-not-quite breaking into his house, how he’d casually announced his cutting of the final tie to the family, then had taken Cas to the outskirts of town in his awful neon-orange mini to show him around a farm coming up for sale, before finally spending the rest of the day dragging an unwilling Cas from one side of the city to the other looking at potential second and third locations for his business.

“I am exhausted,” Cas finished.

“Jesus, yeah I don’t blame you. Monster of a day — and brother wake-ups are never fun, that much I know for sure.”

“Ah,” Cas had almost forgotten about the picture. “That. Sorry about the picture, Gabriel—“

The rest of Cas’ apology was lost under the peals of Dean’s laughter.

“What are you sorry for? You’re cute when you’re sleeping. Nice bedhead.”

Cas felt his face heating and was fervently glad that they weren’t on a video call.

“Kinda weird though,” Dean said, oblivious to the effect of his words. “I swear I’ve seen your brother somewhere before. I can’t figure out where I know him from though…”

Cas’ chuckled lightly, more exhalation than anything else. “Ah, I forgot you don’t get to look at it every day since it’s on your building.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The billboard on the side of Singer?” Cas tried. Dean made a noise to indicate he was following. “He’s on it. He also owns it, so don’t expect any improvement in the quality of advertising there either.”

He could almost hear the gears working in Dean’s head. “The candy shop one? Uh… sinfully sweet or whatever? Hang on, I can’t remember what it looks like — I’m looking him up.”

Cas sat bolt upright. “Dean, wait. Don’t, he—“

Too late.

“Gabriel Milton?!” Dean was utterly scandalised. “Your brother is Gabriel f*cking Milton? The candy king, the prince of p*rn, that Gabriel Milton?”

Dean abruptly stopped and silence stretched between them for a few moments before he cleared his throat.

“I mean… Or so I’ve heard.”

The shifty tone to Dean’s voice was the final straw. Cas burst into laughter and suddenly found he couldn’t stop. He heard Dean laughing with him which only made the matter worse. Cas laughed so hard that tears squeezed from his eyes and, by the time he finally came back to himself, he was quite out of breath save for the occasional stray giggle still escaping him.

“Well, I think you needed that.” The feeling in Cas’ stomach did a funny little swoop at the sheer warmth in Dean’s voice. “Glad to be of service, especially if that’s the kind of reaction I can bank on getting.”

“I think I did too,” Cas said, and wiped the last of the tears from his eyes. He felt lighter.

“How in the hell did you wind up with Gabe Milton for a brother?” Dean wondered aloud, still caught up in the novelty of the discovery. “Wait, aren’t there more Miltons?”

“There are, but… it’s a long story.” Cas hedged, quietly hoping that Dean would lose interest.

“Well, good thing the only thing on my schedule is talking to you. Like I said, tell me all about it. If you want,” Dean added hastily when he didn’t reply.

Cas had never talked about his brothers, not to anyone. Hell, he hardly even spoke to them. But lying on his bed in the dark, for the first time in his life… if it were to Dean, he thought he could.

“You sure you know what you’re asking for?”

Dean’s voice was sure. “I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t.”

So, he told Dean everything. His father’s affair and his birth mother’s death, how he’d formally adopted Cas as his own but left him with his mother’s name and the shadow of a life he’d never known. The acceptance from his brothers, but from a distance, all of them at least a decade older than him. The money, the power his father had wielded like a tangible thing. He told Dean about trying to be the son his father needed, working four times as hard as anyone else in his schools to graduate early so he could be the eyes and ears in the company for the newly appointed CEOs Michael and Luke. Making sure their feud didn’t run the company into the ground once their father wasn’t around to be the guiding hand any more. Bearing witness to Luke’s fall from grace with Michael, finding Gabe had up and left without a word after one too many fights, watching Raphael get moved to a care home when he couldn’t take the strain of being part of the family. And there for it all, Castiel.

Constant, reliable, predictable Castiel, picking up the pieces.

And Dean listened.

“Cas, that is… well, it’s f*cked up,” Dean said when he’d finished.

“I know,” Cas sighed, lying spread eagled on his back. “I know. But they’re all I have.”

“Not to sound like one of those crappy self help books, but they’re not all you have. What about Anna?”

“Yes,” Cas said slowly. “But—“

“Nope, I’m not done. How about that weird British dude that was hanging around at Benny’s? Balrog or whatever his name is?”

“Balthazar,” Cas laughed. “He’s a pain in my ass. You’d hate him, I think.”

“Yeah, I probably would,” Dean agreed. "He seemed like a dick." There was a short pause. “And you’ve got me, too.”

The feeling in Cas’ chest grew.

“Thank you, Dean.”

“No, come on, I mean it,” Dean griped, and in his mind’s eye Cas could see the little frown Dean would be wearing, maybe even waving one hand to emphasise his words. “I know it’s maybe a bit weird because we’ve only really spoken on the phone but… there’s just something about you, Cas. I —“ Dean stopped and coughed mildly. “I’ve got your back.”

Cas smiled, alone in the dark. “I’ve got yours, too.”

“You eaten yet?” Dean asked suddenly. Cas looked at the time and realised how quickly it had flown by. It was already past eight.

“No, not yet,” he admitted.

“Go get something then. C’mon, you need to eat something after the day you’ve had.”

“But I don’t want to hang up,” Cas said quietly.

“Do you hear me saying goodbye? Take the phone with you, we’ll keep talking.”

He did as Dean suggested, putting the call on speakerphone while he padded to the kitchen and turned on as few lights as possible. Dean kept up a stream of chatter about how the market had been, resolutely refusing Cas’ apologies for missing the date.

“Honestly, I just knew you’d love it there and I wanted you to make the decisions for me. Then if Sam didn’t eat whatever we bought, he wouldn’t be able to blame me for picking it out,” Dean said ruefully, and Cas found his smiles coming more and more readily.

While Dean continued to tell Cas about the stalls he’d seen at the market, Cas fished around in the cupboard and found an ancient packet of instant noodles. They’d expired less than a year ago, which he considered a win. He microwaved them and ate them standing at the kitchen counter, listening to Dean chatter away.

Usually, Cas found this kind of dinner depressing beyond belief, and would rather have gone to bed without eating than face his dark, empty apartment. But with Dean talking to him, it wasn’t nearly so bad. He was almost having fun.

“What’s on the menu, Cas?” Dean asked after his chopsticks accidentally clinked a little too loudly against the side of the bowl.

“Noodles,” Cas said around a mouthful of them. “Instant.”

“…Really?”

“What’s wrong with instant noodles?”

“Nothing! In fact, I am an instant noodle lover myself.” Dean hurried to clarify. “It’s just… you have an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of plants, including fruits and veggies but you’re having instant noodles. It’s not what I was expecting, y’know?”

“I enjoy growing plants, yes. Cooking them… not so much. It’s always been something that’s been beyond my abilities. Normally I just order in or sometimes I buy something ready to heat and eat from the supermarket.”

Dean was silent for an unusually long time.

“Dean?”

“Yeah, I’m still here, I’m just… thinking.”

“About my instant noodles?”

“Nah, about what I’m going to cook for you when you come over for dinner.”

Cas very smoothly refrained from inhaling his food, and instead only had to cough loudly once. “You cook?”

“Have since I was a kid,” Dean said with pride. “Practically raised Sammy myself. When you’ve gotta feed a fussy six-year-old, you pick up things pretty quick.”

Dean had alluded to something similar in their last call, so Cas proceeded with some caution. “That seems awfully young to be caring for a child,” he said.

Dean snorted and an edge of bitterness crept into his voice. “I guess it was, but it wasn’t like I had a lot of choices. Nobody else was going to do it.”

“You can talk about it, if you want,” Cas said, echoing Dean’s offer from earlier.

Dean heaved a sigh and there was a soft creak, as if he was repositioning himself on a couch or a bed. “Forget scary stories, swapping tragic childhoods is the new big thing for sleepovers and second dates,” he tried, but neither of them laughed.

Dean said quietly after a beat, “yeah, okay,” and began.

While Cas’ childhood had been isolated, Dean’s, it turned out, had been truly lonely. After his mother had been killed in a home invasion at age four, his ex-Marine father had embarked on a cross-country revenge quest that lasted the rest of his life, with his sons in tow. Four-year-old Dean and six-month-old Sam had been dragged along for the ride, living motel to motel or out of the back of their car on days where there was no town to stop in, only pausing in one place long enough for Dean’s father to rule out any leads in the area before he packed them up and put them on the road again. When they needed cash, Dean’s father had picked up odd jobs using his military know-how to act as a security guard or a bit of hired muscle, no job too shady so long as he had enough money to make it to the next stop on the list.

“I think the longest we stayed in a place was two months,” Dean said, reminiscing. “I even got to finish a whole unit at that high school before we had to leave again, which was a first.”

Cas padded back to his bedroom while Dean continued.

“It started out with Dad leaving for a couple of hours at a time and leaving me in charge of Sammy, putting whatever store-bought crap we had in the microwave, that kind of sh*t. Then he’d be gone for longer, all day, overnight. Then a couple of days. He’d start leaving money for us instead of food, and Sammy would bitch and moan that he didn’t want something from a clamshell container any more, so I had to get creative. I made some pretty bad f*ckups while I was learning, that’s for sure, but after twenty-odd years of experience I like to think I’m decent at it by now.”

Cas let himself fall back onto his bed with a thump. “I think you’re probably more than decent at this point. I can’t cook to save myself, I’m afraid.” Dean laughed quietly. “And… I’m sorry about your mother.”

“Ah, it was a long time ago,” said Dean, clearly trying for nonchalance but missing the mark by more than a little.

“Just because something happened a long time ago doesn’t mean it stops hurting.”

Dean swallowed audibly. “Yeah I… yeah. I guess that’s true.”

Cas sensed that Dean had reached his limit, and cast about for a new topic of conversation. “So, this dinner you mentioned. Do I need to use my raincheck for it?”

“Why?” Dean asked, jumping onto the proffered change away from his personal history. “You got something else in mind for us? I hear third time’s the charm.”

“Then I’d better think of something special,” Cas said, and meant it.

Despite the late hour he’d gone to sleep (again), Monday found Cas with a spring in his step. After a weekend of calls with him, Cas was even more anxious than usual to see Dean. He paid the barest of attention to his surroundings on his way up to his floor and swept past Anna’s cubicle with barely a glance.

As soon as he was seated, he turned to look out the window. He was rewarded with Dean standing at the ready for him by the corner office, mug already in hand. He flicked Cas a wink and a little salute with two fingers of his free hand.

Cas blinked hard, and tried not to redden as he returned a small wave of his own before Dean turned and headed back deeper into the office. Cas kept his smile to himself while he turned on his computer. It was still sometimes difficult for him to reconcile the fact that the easygoing, often self-deprecating Dean he spoke to almost every day and the breathtakingly stunning man he’d been harbouring a crush on for months were the same person.

“Well, he certainly makes for a pleasant view,” a clipped voice remarked, startling Cas a little.

Michael took the final step into the opening of Cas’ cubicle, his crisply tailored suit and shiny wingtip shoes a stark contrast against Cas’ rumpled trench coat and rain-splattered boots.

“Michael,” he said and made to stand, but Michael waved him off.

“Wouldn’t you agree, Castiel?” Michael said in a neutral tone. He gestured out the window to Singer’s building where Dean was thankfully no longer visible.

Cas tamped down the surge of jealousy that has sprung up at Michael’s words. He knew his brother too well to fall into the trap he’d laid. “I think that perhaps you and I have different ideas of what constitutes pleasant. Someone in a state of tasteless undress isn’t my personal preference for a workday view.” He gestured dismissively to the billboard where Gabe’s cheesy grin smiled out at them, careful to not mention his name or relation to them.

Michael’s lips twitched up into a poor approximation of a smile, one that held no humour whatsoever. “Then on that, at least, we agree.” He brushed an invisible speck of dust from one sleeve. “Such things are beneath you, Castiel. Remember that.”

Cas inclined his head, the easiest way to show his acknowledgement without having to verbally agree.

“Walk with me,” Michael said then. A command.

Castiel followed Michael across the floor in silence, nobody else daring to make a single sound or so much as risk a glance at them. Everything about Michael’s visit downstairs screamed “extenuating circ*mstances” and nobody wanted to risk being noticed by him.

The closer they got to the elevator, the more anxious Cas became.

“If I may, where are we going?” He asked quietly once Michael had pressed the call button to take them upwards.

His brother turned towards him with another empty smile, something predatory glinting behind his eyes as the elevator arrived.

“To my office,” he said, stepping into it. “We have much to discuss about the vacancy in your department.”

“What vacancy?”

Michael gestured impatiently and Cas finally followed him into the elevator. His last view was looking out at the uniformity of the twenty third floor, broken only by Anna’s worried eyes peering at him from across the distance before the doors slid closed on Michael’s words.

“The one I’m about to make.”

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

Dean Winchester was comfortable with lying, perhaps more so than most. He’d had to lie, cheat, and intermittently steal through much of his childhood, which had made him into a man who was familiar with perhaps a little too much of the human condition. The one thing he knew for certain was that lying was a necessary evil. The faster you accepted that, the better you got at it.

But there was something about not telling Cas things that was weighing on Dean, and he didn’t like it. It was a lie of omission, so not quite the same (or so he’d tried to argue with himself) but leaving Cas in the dark after they’d shared so much together already felt like a betrayal of some kind, and Dean didn’t know how to bring the issue up without sounding like a massive creep.

It had been a couple of weeks since they’d started calling each other. It hadn’t been every day at first, but now Dean felt like his day wasn’t complete unless he’d heard Cas’ low voice saying his name in greeting, the same way every time. They still hadn’t managed to find a day that worked for both of them to go on an actual physical date, but Dean was having so much fun with him that sometimes he forgot he’d only really met Cas in passing. Something about the guy just set everything in Dean at ease, made him talk about things he hadn’t spoken about to anyone in years, made him want to spill his guts because he knew Cas wouldn’t judge him.

Best of all, it seemed like Cas felt the same.

“Can I tell you something if you promise not to tell another soul?” He’d asked on their last call. Dean had agreed instantly. Cas had told him about his supervisor being fired, how he’d been asked to fill in the role for him, but how more than anything it wasn’t what he wanted. Cas had whispered haltingly down the line while they both lay in the dark on opposite ends of the phone, about having doubts, about wanting out from under his brother’s corporate thumb and the life that had been dictated for him. About wanting to choose. And Dean had understood him instantly, because that’s what he wanted too.

Dean wanted out. Not just from office work, since he’d wanted that for a while, but he was beginning to think he wanted to split from Singer altogether.

His phone chimed, startling him out of his reverie at his desk.

MESSAGE FROM: CAS 😇

>>u hvnt hd ur mrn ☕yet. cllout?

MESSAGE SENT

<< What are you, a cop? Maybe I don’t want a coffee today.

2 MESSAGES FROM: CAS 😇

>>u alwys wnt ☕dnt 🤥

>> evry mrn b4 10 u hv smth 2 drnk nd go pst the 🪟 bt u hvnt 2dy 🤔

MESSAGE SENT

<< Did you memorise my schedule?

MESSAGE FROM: CAS 😇

>> no 👀🫥😅

He absolutely had.

As a general rule, Dean found someone knowing his schedule weird at best and actively threatening at worst. Even a few years ago, something like that would have set him off into a cold sweat, prickling palms, reaching for a gun that he no longer carried. The following weeks would have been an erratic hell and he–

Dean clenched his jaw, grimly determined not to let that train of thought go any further.

Cas didn’t know the full extent of that particular facet of his personality. At least, he didn’t yet . Dean had every intention of telling him. He would, sooner or later. The question wasn’t so much when as how.

He was interrupted by another buzz from his phone.

MESSAGE FROM: CAS 😇

>> so. 📞out thn?

God, the guy was like a dog with a bone.

MESSAGE SENT

<< Nah, just been busy.

He sighed, and added another point to the list of things he’d have to come clean about sooner or later before making for the door.

Dean didn’t look for Cas on his way to the kitchenette, but he did on his way back. Cas was focused on his work instead of trying to spot him, but Dean’s movement must have caught his eye. His head snapped up as Dean neared the door to the office again. Dean offered him a brisk salute with one hand, raising his mug to his heart. He was rewarded with one of Cas’ rare smiles, the big wide one that showed all his teeth.

He picked up his phone as soon as he sat down at his desk again.

MESSAGE SENT

<< Happy now?

MESSAGE FROM: CAS 😇

>> 2 c u? Always 😊

“So,” Benny started and Dean knew he was in trouble. “When are we gonna meet your office angel, officially?”

Dean tried to laugh it off. “You’ve already met him. What do you need to see him again for? You trying to muscle in on what we’ve got going on?”

Benny shook his head. “You couldn’t pay me to get involved in whatever Victorian-era courting sh*t you’re doing. Just wondering when you’re going to stop acting like a lovesick teenager every time you’re in my damn bar,” he said, and plucked Dean’s phone out of his hands for emphasis. He glanced at the contact name on the screen. “Really? Texting your man when I’m right here and talking about him already? I’m wounded, brother.”

“Hey, c’mon, give that back,” Dean complained, reaching over the bar top. Benny leaned back out of his reach and waved the phone at him from his far hand.

“You can have this back when you’ve learned to use your words properly. Lord knows you’ve been talking to the guy, but what have you actually been saying, y’know?”

Stopping only to check that he was indeed the only customer in the place, Dean hauled his entire upper body over the bar despite Benny’s loud, swear-filled protests, and snatched his phone back.

“None of your business,” he said tartly, and slid back onto his seat. “What Cas and I talk about is between us.”

“That I don’t doubt, but Dean,” Benny threw him a pleading look. “It’s been weeks. You keep blowing people off to call him, or if you do agree to come along to places you’re glued to your damn cell all night. Lord knows you two like each other enough, but have you had any kind of discussion about what the hell is actually goin’ on between you?”

“A man after my own heart!” A cheerful voice said, and Dean was shocked to see Anna drop onto a bar stool one down from his own. “You always ask questions I want to know the answer to, Benny,” she said brightly before she turned to Dean and fixed him with a piercing gaze. “And answers I do want. Spill, pretty boy.”

“Pretty boy?” Dean echoed helplessly, but Anna didn’t waver. Benny hid a smirk behind his arm. “What is this, the Spanish inquisition? Jesus, did you guys gang up like this on Cas, too?”

“No, because my cousin dearest has also been bailing on invites, and short of turning up at his apartment unannounced, he’s unlikely to be available for an ambush like this.” Anna said, a note of complaint to her voice. “He’s stuck to his phone just as badly as you are, which tells me a lot already. I still want to hear it from you though.”

“So you’re… what, asking what my intentions are with Cas?” Dean asked incredulously.

Anna tutted impatiently. “No, but I do want to know how us facilitating your relationship-” she gestured to Benny, “-has turned into the world’s weirdest long-distance situationship when you literally work fifty feet away from each other.”

Dean would have liked to know too. It had become a little joke of theirs, the constant rain check that they were swapping between one another, but never seemed to be able to use. At least, it had started out as a joke. The third through fifth times they’d had to reschedule their date it was still funny, but now that they were onto the twelfth attempt, if they hadn’t by some weird twist of fate been taking turns at cancelling, Dean would have taken the hint and moved on by now.

“We just can’t seem to make our schedules meet up,” Dean said at last, tipping his head back to look at the ceiling.

Benny arched an eyebrow in disbelief. Anna scoffed. “Really?”

“Really, what?”

Benny and Anna exchanged a loaded glance.

“That’s the excuse you’re going with. Your schedules.”

“Well, it’s true!”

“I dunno, Anna,” Benny said, giving Dean a critical once over before turning to shrug at her. “He’s not stupid enough to try a lie that dumb. And in his defence, his brother was in town not too long ago, and I know he’s had a couple of callouts because of flu season.”

“Okay, so that checks out, but Cas isn’t usually so hard to get hold of. What’s been stopping him from being available?” Anna looked thoughtful, and Benny shrugged again, setting a gin and tonic down in front of her. She beamed at him for the gesture before they both resumed their faces of deep thought.

Dean looked on in disbelief between them. This was the kind of friendship they’d established without him knowing? He was starting to feel like a stranger in his own best friend’s damn bar.

Neither of them came up with any suggestions, so Dean answered with what he knew.

“He’s been doing overtime.”

Anna co*cked an eyebrow at him. “How would you know? I’m his desk neighbour and his favourite cousin, he would have told me.”

Dean gave her a withering look. “I dunno if you’ve noticed, but I work next door. My office literally looks directly into his cubicle, it’s kind of hard to not notice him.”

“That’s your office?” She swished the liquid in her glass idly, a calculating look on her face. “Hm. I suppose that does explain a lot. I thought it was weird I kept seeing Bobby anywhere but there.” She took a sip of her drink, and swallowed it carefully, then frowned. “What’s Cas doing so much overtime for though?”

“Far as I can tell, it’s the reports he’s doing as section head now. He doesn’t want to take the work home, so he keeps staying late.”

“So that’s what Michael wanted! But that’s not a secret position, everyone knows Cas has stepped up to take on Uriel’s work. Why didn’t he tell me?” Anna scowled and turned to Dean again. “I know we’ve established you work next door, but how do you know for sure he’s staying at work?”

Dean felt his cheeks heating some, but hoped that his blush wasn’t giving him away. “I hoped I’d catch him on our way out of the office so I waited around to time my exit with his a few times, but he stays way past when I need to leave. I haven’t been able to catch him yet.”

Anna gave him an assessing look and pursed her lips. “Okay, brownie points for you on that one, boy scout.” Benny looked proud, and threw Dean a wink behind her back. “What about his weekends? He shouldn’t have any plans on them.”

Dean started ticking the reasons off on his fingers. “Gabriel dropped by a few weeks back and got in the way of our plans. Next time it was that torrential rain that shut down the trains and some roads, then he was out with Balthazar one night,” Anna made a surprised noise, and Dean hurried to add: “Unwillingly. I believe there was blackmail involved. Then he had an emergency meeting with someone from the loans office at HEL for some project they needed his input on, and for the weekend just gone it was Gabriel’s birthday and Cas ended up shut in a party limo with him.”

“Not that he’s keeping track or anything,” Benny quipped, and Dean flushed again. To his relief Anna hushed Benny, but the bearded pest didn’t look abashed at all.

“Interesting…” Anna mused. “Much goes on in his life that I don’t know about evidently. Seems I’m overdue a chat with my dearest cousin.”

Benny reached out to pat her on the shoulder with a sympathetic expression. “They grow up so fast. Just look at this one,” he jerked his head towards Dean. “Used to be that just a few weeks ago he’d be in here complainin’ about Cas’ abbreviations and bitchin’ about his emoji use and now he’s got them saved next to his name.”

Dean’s indignant ‘hey!’ was lost under their combined laughter. He allowed it when Benny handed him a beer from the taps to keep him happy.

“Look, it’s not my place to get involved any more than I already have…” Anna said suddenly, and despite the mouthful of beer he’d just swallowed, Dean’s mouth went dry. He didn’t miss Benny’s surreptitious look up, clearly interested in the direction Anna was taking the conversation. “I’m tired of seeing Cas spend all his time at that stupid f*cking job, especially when he’s got something more than good enough to choose over it.” Dean was delighted by the compliment, but said nothing. “A little good-natured birdie is going to arrange for any plans he might have in a fortnight to fall through. He’ll have no surprises, no sudden events, nothing. He will be absolutely, one hundred percent guaranteed available on the weekend, two weeks from now. It’s your job,” she looked pointedly at Dean. “To make sure that you’re available then too. Considering it my parting gift to you two.”

“Parting gift?” Benny asked suspiciously. “You goin’ somewhere?”

“Actually, yes. I’m leaving HeavEn,” Anna announced. “Handed in my notice today.”

Dean almost choked on his mouthful of beer, and Benny scrambled around the end of the bar to lift her clean off her seat in a congratulatory hug.

“You did it, chère! Finally!” He crowed.

Still being held off the ground, Anna’s smile was blinding. “I’m getting out of the birdcage they put me in. I’m going back to school!” She said breathlessly, her eyes a little glassy.

Dean couldn’t help but wonder if Cas’ smile would be as bright.

Once Benny had put her feet back on the ground again and she didn’t look at risk of crying, Dean raised his beer in a toast to her.

“To following your heart,” he said, and Anna caught his eye for a moment. He gave her a little upturn of one corner of his mouth, acknowledgement that he knew exactly what he was saying.

All three of them clinked their glasses together.

“Does Cas know yet?” Dean asked when Benny had moved away to the far end of the bar, low enough that it was just out of his earshot. He didn’t want to be accused of trying to make her news about himself and Cas, but he had a sneaking suspicion Anna knew what he was getting at.

“No. And you’re not going to tell him. He’s next on my visit list.” She slid off the stool, and pushed her glass, empty of all but ice to the inside edge of the bar. Benny came back to collect it, but waved her off when she tried to pay.

“It’s on me. You’ve earned it.”

“Thanks Benny,” she said delightedly. “Drinks on me next pool night. Maybe when Dean gets his sh*t together he can teach Cas a thing or two and we’ll actually have some competition in this year’s tournament.” Her look was pointed.

Benny guffawed, and Dean was offended on Cas’ behalf.

Anna’s entire body was poised to leave. Before she started towards the door she seemed to reach a decision and turned back to him, face serious.

“Dean… I know you care about Cas. More than you’re letting on, even, and I know he cares a lot about you.”

It was nice to know, but Dean suspected it wasn’t her point. He waited.

“You might know this already but Cas doesn’t do things by halves and… with me leaving, Cas is going to need a friend. I said I didn’t want to know your intentions, and I still don’t, but whatever you have going on here, Cas thinks of you as someone he can trust and that’s something he hasn’t done for a long time. If you break my cousin’s heart…” She trailed off threateningly.

Dean scrubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “I know things must seem really weird between me and Cas, especially with you being friends with Benny, so… I guess you know how much I was moping about him when I thought I’d screwed things up over the printer.” Anna snorted lightly, which Dean took as confirmation. “But Cas is more than just some guy. He’s… he’s like my best friend. Wait, that came out wrong,” Dean said quickly when Anna’s eyes narrowed at his choice of words. “I just… I don’t want to lose him.”

In a surprisingly tender move, Anna put one hand on Dean’s cheek for a moment. “You won’t, Dean. But sometimes, you do need to have faith.”

She turned and, after a final gleeful wave to Benny at the door, departed into the night.

Dean stayed for a long time listening to Benny work the other customers who filtered in, wondering who exactly he was supposed to have faith in.

Technology had never been Cas’ strong suit and so despite him having a smartphone, he’d never really bothered to learn how to use it to its full capabilities.

Anna had come over to his house and shown him how to better utilise his phone in an uncharacteristically magnanimous gesture. She’d been acting off all week, both overly attentive and distant in turns, but since Cas had been more upbeat than usual himself he didn’t want to jump to conclusions. With Anna, time was usually the best solution, as giving her the space to think meant she’d work herself up to saying what it was that was on her mind.

She’d watched him dunk his maidenhair fern in his watering bucket, then wipe the leaves of his strelitzia, ficus lyrata, and living room monstera in silence before finally announcing that was going to pursue a career in journalism and had resigned in order to do so. Evidently expecting him to break down in hysterics, Cas had surprised her by being more upset that he hadn’t known she was so unhappy at their job. Anna’s brow creased in confusion when he said so.

“But… what are you going to do without me?”

“The same thing I did before you started working there.”

Anna had looked a bit miffed.

“Anna, I’ll be fine. I worked there for many years before you, it’s not like I don’t know what I’m doing. You made things there much more interesting, it’s true, and I’ll have to work hard to keep Balthazar in check without you, but why would I want to keep you in a job you hate?”

She had teared up a bit at that, and had seized him in a fierce hug, mumbling about personal growth into his shoulder.

“Anna, I know you think I need taking care of, but I’ll be fine. I promise I’ll be fine. I’m already rolling out new changes to the floor to improve morale and fix the godawful atmosphere Uriel cultivated.” She had nodded glumly, so Cas had bumped her shoulder with his own. “It’s not like I’ll never see you again. Massachusetts isn’t even in a different country, so if you’re trying to run away from me then I’m afraid you’ll need to try harder.”

She’d sighed enormously and hugged him again, sniffing several times into his shoulder before finally releasing him and declaring that if he was going to continue texting Dean so much, he should at least know how to take a decent picture on his phone. He had politely ignored her multiple innuendo throughout the lesson she delivered, but had studiously taken note of the informative parts. He was getting the hang of taking pictures at last and was now quite enamoured with the filter function.

Armed with his newfound knowledge, Cas and Dean started sending more pictures back and forth. Sometimes it was pictures of Dean’s desk: neat, but crowded with pictures of family. A young Dean holding what could only be Sam in a headlock, both of them grinning wide despite their pose. The same two boys but older, standing along the length of a sleek black car with Bobby between them, identifiable by his lack of smile and trucker cap. A black and white picture of a woman in a dress with her head tipped back in laughter holding a young boy on her hip, cheeks ruddy and looking at her with obvious adoration. Cas knew Dean had a desk to himself but still didn’t know where exactly it was, as it seemed that he was always careful to keep his surroundings out of view. Wherever his desk was, Cas couldn’t blame him for coming forwards to the window so often – it was dark in whatever corner they’d stuffed him into.

Cas loved these snippets of Dean’s life, carefully cataloguing them and filing them away in his memory to refer to again when Dean and he spoke on the phone next. Every new piece of information Cas pieced together into his patchwork of knowledge only made him more enamoured with Dean. He’d already accepted that he was well past just having a simple crush – he was smitten.

The latest picture Cas had sent Dean was of his own desk. After he’d tried to show Dean his desk plant a few days ago, Dean had become enamoured with Cas’ handwriting, just barely visible in the picture. He didn’t understand the interest, but now when he had a moment and wasn’t working on anything confidential, he liked to send Dean pictures that included his handwriting where he could.

Dean’s reply to his picture came through promptly.

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean 💚

<< I still can’t believe that’s your actual handwriting. It looks typed! Also nice Newton’s cradle. Did you google ‘best desk accessories for nerds’ or something?

MESSAGE SENT

>> no i 👀 @ pics of 🆒dsks on🔗

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean 💚

<< So you based your actual desk setup off a stock photo, got it.

MESSAGE SENT

>> 🙄shut up 🤬

Cas smiled to himself. He sometimes thought about what it would be like if they worked in the same building. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get any work done knowing Dean was only a few cubicles away or shut in an office only feet away from him.

Already distracted, he decided to share his thoughts.

MESSAGE SENT

>> do u evr thnk 🤔abt if we wrkd 2gthr❓

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean 💚

<< What do you mean? Like in the same building?

MESSAGE SENT

>> yea

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean 💚

<< Sometimes. Why, what are you thinking about?

MESSAGE SENT

>> jst tht itd b 🆒2 drp by ur dsk 🖥️ r mt u @ th wtrclr 🚰r smth. nrml office thns 🧑💼🏢 📠

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean 💚

<< You want me to call you in for a private meeting in my office, is that it? Tell you how I’m disappointed in your results but I hope you’ll make it up to me? 😉

1 MESSAGE SENT

>> No‼️i mn mb 🫣😳lol bt u dnt evn hv n office 😂jst 🧠tht itd b nice 2 actly c u 😔😮💨

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean 💚

<< Actually, about that. I’ve been meaning to tell you something. Do me a favour and look up

Cas did as he was told, and instinctively turned his head to where Dean usually took up position in the main window of the building but there was nobody there. Just as he was about to start frowning in confusion, the blind in the corner office moved and drew his eye to it. It raised in one smooth motion, revealing the occupant of the office: Dean. Behind him, Cas could see a desk laid out in a familiar pattern and was beginning to put two and two together.

MESSAGE SENT

>> thts ur office??????‼️🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean 💚

<< Surprise!

MESSAGE SENT

>> no nt ‘surprise’ 😨its mbrassng ‼️🫥😶🌫️☠️🫠DEAN

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean 💚

<< Having a corner office is embarrassing now? Damn, you’re a tough guy to please

MESSAGE SENT

>> 🤬🙄😠👿🙊u kno wht i mn 😠😠😠

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean 💚

<< Hey, this at least solves the problem of me not having an office. We’re looking to hire a more experienced accountant over here if you were thinking about moving?

MESSAGE SENT

>>I cnt 😣🤐 cntrct cls wnt lt me wrk fr a cmpny we knw + tbh accntng sux 🥸🤪

2 NEW MESSAGES RECEIVED

FROM: Dean 💚

<< Guess it’ll just have to stay a fantasy then haha

<< What are you doing this weekend?

MESSAGE SENT

>> nthng! 😁u?

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean 💚

<< Well, I WAS free until I got assigned a pickup for a part that’s being held in a depot a couple of cities over.

MESSAGE SENT

>> 😭 😭 😭 😭

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean 💚

<< I know it’s kind of short notice but…want to come with me? We could make it into a weekend away?

Cas looked up. Dean had moved to sit at his desk, and despite it being a little dark in his office from the side blind still being closed, Cas could see him biting his lip nervously even with the light of the billboard beaming out an ad for custom-tooled boots below him.

A weekend away with Dean. It was the kind of thing Cas had been dreaming about for weeks. The printer meeting felt like an age ago, but some nights he still woke up half remembering the feel of warm breath and stubble on his neck. Dean was intoxicating, and Cas was itching to see him again. This offer from Dean, especially on a weekend where Cas was miraculously free at last, was starting to feel like their luck had changed.

MESSAGE SENT

>> id ♥️tht 😊

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean 💚

<< Great! I’ll pick you up after work tomorrow. Sound okay?

MESSAGE SENT

>> snds perfect ✨🤩

Cas’s good mood was untouchable for the rest of the day, even when the printer decided to act up again and sent a few people into a tailspin. He fixed it himself (it was a toner change) and was on cloud nine despite the ink staining his fingers. Every time he looked up and met Dean’s eye, he was filled with giddy excitement and they both smiled like children.

Later that night, while Cas lay tucked under his duvet, he worked through the details with Dean. His phone lay next to him on the pillow, so that if he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine Dean was there with him.

Dean would pick him up in his car outside HeavEn tomorrow at 6 and they’d start driving. Dean had already planned where they’d stop on their trip once they’d picked up the part he needed for the office. All Cas had to do was pack and be there.

“It doesn’t feel real, does it?” He said after they’d lain in silence for a moment, just breathing together.

“Wha’d’ya mean?” Dean asked a little distantly, clearly fighting to stay awake.

Cas loved it when he was the last to fall asleep and got to hear the soft little noises Dean made instead of conversation, the quiet little huffs of him breathing easy down the line when he did finally drift away to the sound of Cas’ voice.

“I mean us finally getting to go on a date. How long has it been, do you remember?”

“Nnno…” Dean mumbled. “Too long.” He heaved in a long breath, sighing it out again. Cas almost thought he imagined his next words, half caught in the sigh. “Miss you.”

“Fifty days exactly since I saw you last,” Cas said softly. “Fifty days since I knew you were real.”

“You saw me today,” came the weak protest. The rest of Dean’s thoughts were broken up into short breaks, his mouth fighting to work. “I showed you my office. An’ ‘m real Cas. So’re you. We’re real. You’n me. Us.”

“Us,” Cas agreed. “We’re real.”

“Yeah. Love us,” Dean slurred. “Love talkin’ with you.”

Cas smiled blindingly at the ceiling, heart jackhammering from the near miss. His heart felt like it was trying to leave his body. He fought to maintain his breathing, mindful of not jolting Dean out of his pre-sleep stupor. Cas wished desperately that it wasn’t just his phone next to him, but that he was with Dean, listening to him fall asleep in real time. He wished he could hold him in his arms, card his fingers through his hair as he drifted off, both of them wrapped in the warmth of the blankets and each other, together. Cas might even whisper into Dean’s hair, press the words he was sure he meant into his skin.

Cas burrowed down further into his blankets, curling in on himself, arms holding his own shoulders. “I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.”

“Mm,” Dean hummed. “Gonna kiss you.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

Dean made a contented little hum that warmed Cas’ chest and made something in his stomach flutter wildly.

“Go to sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Night Cas,” came the mumbled reply.

“Goodnight Dean.”

Cas listened to Dean’s breathing steady out and becoming long and slow, committing the sound to memory for one more night before he hung up the call.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

Friday dawned, and for the second time in two months, Cas was awake before his alarm. It was set earlier than usual to allow him time to pack, so beating it to the punch left him feeling decidedly pleased with himself. He had enough time to pack his weekend bag, languish through his morning coffee, and even to get some panicked last-minute watering in on a few of his more finicky plants, just in case.

The day sped by at the office, everything happening in a blur. He was dimly aware of there being quite a lot of work coming his way, enough to keep him from having much time to steal glances at Dean, but by the time the day came to a close he had absolutely no recollection of what it was he’d looked at. He knew that Dean wasn’t on that list though, as they hadn’t managed to find a minute to catch each other’s eye all day.

As the weeks of near-misses and repeated cancellations had gone by, Cas had grown accustomed to a certain amount of low-level background nervousness at the prospect of meeting Dean. Each time he thought he was about to be met with the full force of Dean’s attractiveness Cas had felt his breathing speed up and his palms get sweaty with trepidation, but with each missed date Cas felt it less and less. Constant exposure of that raw nerve of terrifying joy had left him dulled to the feeling, and despite wanting nothing more than to see Dean face-to-face at last, his excitement felt like it was diluted or coming from a great distance. Cas was honestly half expecting someone to appear next to his desk minutes before he was due to leave and tell him there’d been some kind of earth-shattering emergency that required his immediate attention and he couldn’t leave. It would certainly be on brand for them, of that he had no doubt. He was so busy thinking of what he’d say to anyone who tried to stop him from leaving on time and formulating contingency plans that he almost forgot to stand up and leave. He was thankful that he’d had the foresight to set multiple alarms in the same day, since his afternoon one had saved him.

Ten minutes later found Cas waiting outside the building for Dean. The latter had told him he’d have just enough time to wash his mug while he waited for him to get his car from his parking spot for the day. Cas had looked down in surprise at his bee mug, unaware Dean had noticed it on his desk but glowing warmly with the knowledge. Now standing on the sidewalk, his hands were still slightly damp from washing it, but he appreciated Dean’s attention to detail – he hated washing dried coffee out of his mug in the mornings, and the reminder would save him a little grief when he returned to the office.

Cas wasn’t paying attention to the sound of motors on the street, certainly not loud ones, and only cast a fleeting glance at the gleaming black car as it pulled smoothly around the far corner. Cas checked the time - it had only been shortly over five minutes. Dean would be coming soon, surely. There was no need to panic and call him yet, it was still within a reasonable time frame. The monstrous black sedan from the corner pulled up to the kerb in front of him and rumbled there warm and loud.

“Hey, earth to Cas. You gettin’ in?”

Cas blinked owlishly at the voice, his eyes snapping down to Dean, who was leaning over to speak to him through the passenger window of the classic car. The remnant of a smile was playing around his mouth, but looked like it was growing more and more hesitant with each moment that passed without Cas saying anything.

“Of course! Of course, sorry, I just–”.

Cas hurried to open the rear passenger side door and heaved his bag inside before seating himself in the front. Dean watched him do it all with a fond expression and once Cas had closed his door behind him Dean was practically beaming with delight.

“I finally get to introduce you to the most important woman in my life. Cas, meet my Baby.” Pride suffused every word, and Dean gave the dashboard an affectionate thump at the end of his introduction.

Hesitantly Cas reached out and patted the tan dashboard, not quite as firmly as Dean had. “It’s a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance,” he said solemnly, giving his view of the bonnet a firm nod. “I’ve heard good things about you. Might I say you’re looking gorgeous this evening?”

Dean snorted lightly but wasn’t able to keep the slightly goofy smile from his face. “I’d say buy me dinner before you lay on the flattery, but we’ve tried that.”

“The compliment wasn’t for you. Considering this is the most important woman in your life, I’d expect you to have a little more respect for her.”

Dean pouted and Cas thought it was the sweetest thing he’d ever seen.

“You’re a real smartass, you know that?”

“It’s been mentioned, yes.”

Fighting a smile, Dean pulled them away from the pavement and into traffic.

The car was spacious inside, more than Cas had expected. It had a rich scent, a blend of grease, vinyl, and something else warm and spicy that he couldn’t identify even after a few surreptitious inhales. Cas suspected it was a smell unique to Dean that the car had inherited from him, and he was looking forward to figuring out what it was over the weekend.

Cas said nothing as Dean navigated them away from the city centre and onto the highways that would take them to their destination. He knew they were heading at least a couple of hours’ drive away that night, but wasn’t entirely clear on where they were going. Dean had left it vague on purpose, saying he wanted it to be a surprise, and Cas had acquiesced, happy to go along for the ride.

Occasionally, Dean would glance over at him when he thought Cas wasn’t looking, eyes raking across him as if he couldn’t take him in fast enough. In turn, Cas turned slightly to memorise Dean’s side profile while he kept his eyes steadfastly on the road, sure to never meet Cas’ eye. The silence between them stayed unbroken until they were on the highway proper, both of them careful to keep up the pretence of polite ease while desperately sneaking glances at each other.

Once they were on the highway proper and there was no need for Dean to pay as much attention as he had to the traffic lights and turns of the city, they couldn’t keep up the game any more. The silence festered.

Dean broke first.

“So,” he said.

“So,” Cas replied.

Their eyes finally met across the dim interior, and they held gazes for what felt like hours. The light from one streetlight faded away until the next brightened the interior again. Dean seemed to become cognisant that that was a fairly large distance to have had his eyes on Cas, and appeared to force himself to tear his eyes away and look at the road again.

“It doesn’t feel real,” Cas said quietly once Dean was looking straight ahead again. “I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and that this will all have been a dream.”

Dean snorted humourlessly, the edges of his mouth tightening slightly in concert with his hands on the steering wheel. “Yeah, I know what you mean.” He cast another glance across at Cas, their eyes meeting again. “I don’t wanna look away for too long in case you pull a disappearing act or something.”

Cas was earnest in his reply. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ve waited months for a chance to be near you like this and I’m not letting you go now that I’m here.”

Between one streetlight and the next Cas could tell he’d said the right thing, because the glint of Dean’s teeth in his grin was visible even in the dark.

“Well then,” Dean said, like that settled the matter. And since Cas had nothing to add, he supposed it did.

With the grin still lingering on his face, Dean leaned down towards the footwell and fished around under the seat for a minute before pulling out a battered shoebox that rattled. He hauled it up onto the bench seat and pushed it across the short distance between them, bumping it gently into the side of Cas’ leg.

“Some music for the drive? I’ll make an exception to the rule and let you choose the tunes.” Dean’s voice was warm, and Cas got the feeling this was a kind of gesture of trust on Dean’s part. He wasn’t sure how or why, but he knew he’d been granted something, and wasn’t about to turn it down.

Cas pulled the box into his lap. It was full of cassette tapes, all with handwritten labels, many of them faded or peeling. Cas thumbed through a few before he gave up on trying to read the labels in the dim light. Only a few titles stood out to him, but none of them were familiar. Not wanting to seem judgemental of Dean’s music taste or like he was taking too long, Cas plunged his hand to the bottom of the box, picked a tape out at random and handed it to Dean, who pushed it into the tape deck.

His face pulled down into a frown when the opening strains of the tape started playing, the guitar and piano ripping the silence apart. Dean chewed on his bottom lip for a moment before it became apparent he was doing so to keep his mouth shut.

“Look, I know I said I’d make an exception, but really? Meat Loaf? Out of everything in there, that’s what you chose?” Dean asked incredulously. “Jesus, I forgot I even had this in there. You really went digging, huh?”

Cas shrugged. “I picked at random. I couldn’t read any of the titles in the dark, but… it’s your music. If you don’t like it, why do you–?”

“Hey, I never said I didn’t like it,” Dean interrupted, defensive. “Just… It’s not on my heavy rotation or anything. There’s better stuff in there, y’know?”

Cas tilted his head. “We can change the–”

“No! No, this is fine. Meat Loaf.” Dean shook his head slowly, his lips pressed into a thin line. The little dimples by his mouth gave him away – he was enjoying himself. “ Meat Loaf . It’s fine, I love Meat Loaf.”

“Are you convincing me or yourself?”

Dean scoffed loudly. “You! Obviously. Listen to how much complaining you’ve been doing about this poor, defenceless album. And you picked it!” Dean flitted a glance across to make sure Cas was on board with his theatrics. The way his mouth was fighting to conceal his smile appeared to be confirmation enough, so Dean committed. “Don’t listen to him Meat Loaf, I’ll sing along.”

Cas watched on in delight as Dean proceeded to turn the volume up and sing raucously about how he had to make the most of their one night together because he’d be so alone when it was over, complete with drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Cas picked up the pattern of the song quickly and rumbled along with the words when the chorus came back and Dean belted out that he’d be gone like a bat out of hell when the morning came. Revealing his tunelessness was well worth the reward of seeing Dean’s eyes scrunched up in glee at them making music together.

They let the tape run all the way through and when it was done, Cas was given the honour of turning it over to let the B side play. Dean continued to occasionally sing snatches of lyrics, drum his hands on the steering wheel, or gesture emphatically at parts of the song where instruments or additional vocals joined in. Cas did his part by nodding along and mumbling quietly when a particularly catchy phrase caught his interest and was repeated again in a song.

The miles fled before the beam of the impala’s golden headlights and once the first tape had finished, Dean gestured to the shoebox again. He watched on with a soft smile as Cas rummaged in it with more confidence this time before he popped the next tape in. Blue Öyster Cult serenaded them all the way through to the next town with a gas station, where Dean pulled the car in.

“Just stopping for a top up,” Dean said as he turned the engine off, “then we can see if they’ve got a diner we can hit up for some grub. Sound all right to you?”

“Sounds great,” said Cas, looking at the gas station with interest before turning back to Dean. “Is that what you’d normally do on a trip like this? Go to a diner?”

His expressions were still so interesting to Cas. He never got to see Dean’s reactions over the phone, and would never have known that a question like this would make him blush faintly and turn sheepish. “Usually I just grab something from the Gas ‘N Sip and eat it on the road. Saves some time, lets me cover more miles.”

“Okay then.” Cas opened his door with a creak and stepped out onto the gas station forecourt. Dean followed him, and looked at him quizzically across her roof. “We’ve still got a way to go, right?” Dean nodded, and Cas gestured to the light beaming out of the storefront. “Then we’ll do what you normally do. Dinner on the road and keep going.” Cas shut his door decisively.

Dean wasn’t convinced. “Cas… No offence, but you don’t really seem like the road food kinda guy,” he said slowly. “Hot dogs, soggy nachos, maybe a packet of chilli lime jerky if we’re lucky. But it’s not really–”

“Dean,” Cas paused with his hand on the door. “I think I can handle a hot dog. If it’s good enough for you, then it’s good enough for me, too. You handle the gas, I’ll look around a bit.”

Dean made a gesture of surrender and returned to the pump with a small upwards curve to his mouth.

Inside, Cas was immediately assaulted by the sights and smells of his first real gas station interior. The ones in the city were little kiosks, barely selling more than gas and gum for the road. Considering how little Cas had driven in his life, he’d never had occasion to really get to know his vehicle, and had only ever topped it up for gas occasionally. He was joined inside shortly by Dean, who watched on in amusem*nt as Cas was captivated by the hot dogs, perpetually rolling in their weird little oven. He was delighted by them and bought one, as well as the jerky Dean had mentioned earlier – it had seemed a little too specific to be a throwaway item. Before he knew it they were back on the road.

“Your first gas station ’dog!” Dean said, around a bite of one of the saddest slices of pizza Cas had ever seen. “You’re a real roadie now.” He reached across and picked a jalapeño off the top of the hotdog and popped it into his mouth, then grinned when Cas was too slow to bat his hand away. They both dissolved into laughter, and it dissipated the last of the awkwardness between them. It was easy from there for Cas to relax completely and just let himself be . He didn’t even feel bad turning Dean down when he offered him a bite of his terrible pizza. Dean laughed and said they’d have to work on Cas’ grease tolerance. It felt like a promise.

It was approaching midnight when Dean pulled into the car park of a motel, and Cas was shocked to find he was almost sad to leave the car behind. He’d enjoyed their time together in her cab, and while they both needed sleep, Cas felt that he could have comfortably spent the rest of forever sitting within arm’s reach of Dean.

“Room sweet room,” Dean announced, holding the door open for Cas to enter ahead of him. “And I say that with more enthusiasm than normal, since we’re sleeping on Singer’s dime tonight. Two stars! Which bed do you want, window or wall?”

“I don’t think I get a choice,” Cas said. Dean looked curiously into the room at that.

“Why? Are they both–? Oh.”

He came to a stop beside Cas.

“I’m going to throttle the finance department when we get back.”

They both stared at the queen bed, which said nothing.

Cas surprised himself by being the first to break the tension. “Left side or right?”

Dean frowned, fraught with barely-concealed anxiousness. “Cas, no, I’ll go back and ask if we can move. I f*cking told Charlie I needed a twin this time, I won’t make you–”

“Make me? Dean, you’re not ‘making me’ do anything.”

Dean’s mouth quirked some at Cas’ use of air quotes and Cas added that tidbit of information to his rapidly growing list of things he enjoyed about Dean.

“It’s just a bed and it’s certainly big enough for both of us. We’re both tired and you’ve just driven for almost five hours straight after working a full day. I don’t know about you, but all I want to do now is lie down and sleep.”

Dean still looked hesitant.

“If it makes you that uncomfortable, I’ll take the couch. I don’t–”

“You swear you’re okay with it?” Cas longed to smooth out the worried crease that had appeared between Dean’s brows. Underneath his bluster and jokes he was so serious and Cas wasn’t sure if Dean even realised it himself.

He smiled, small and reassuring. “I swear.”

Dean nodded once, tight and quick. “Right side,” he said.

Cas set his bag down on the left side of the bed, and they both started to unwind.

Cas headed for the bathroom first, but didn’t shut the door since he was just brushing his teeth. Dean followed him hesitantly, and Cas gestured obligingly to the sink and moved across to make what little space he could for Dean to stand alongside him. They bumped elbows a couple of times, apologetic at first since there wasn’t much room for them both, but with increasing amounts of spilled toothpaste foam when it became clear that Dean was ticklish after Cas jostled him in the ribs by mistake when he was leaning over the sink. Cas smiled brightly, caught up in the nearness of it all, and it seemed like Dean was finally starting to get over the nervousness that had crept back up on him after seeing the singular bed in the room.

Teeth brushed, Cas got into his sleepwear without any further preamble. It was a relief to get out of his slacks and belt, and he happily donned the oversized tee and long sleep pants he’d packed for the trip before climbing into the bed. He heard the bathroom door close and there were a few minutes of muffled sounds before Dean emerged wearing similar clothes to Cas, his hair slightly damp at the nape of his neck.

He kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling while Dean turned off the lights on his way towards the bed. The last to go was the bedside lamp, and there was a brief rustle before Cas felt the mattress dip under the weight of a second body.

There was a little huff in the dark, Dean laughing at something only he’d noticed, and the rustle of the covers readjusting again. “You still up?” Dean asked quietly, from closer than Cas was expecting.

“Yes,” he said, turning to face him.

It was odd, having someone next to him in bed. At least, he thought it would have been if it were anyone other than Dean.

“I’m sorry,” Dean said. “About this. I swear, I had nothing to do with it. This, ‘there was only one bed’ setup smacks of Charlie’s doing, and I–”

“Dean,” Cas said calmly. “I’m not upset. There’s nothing to apologise for. If you’re worried about going too fast, or scaring me away, know that I’m not going anywhere. I wouldn’t have agreed to coming on this trip with you if I didn’t already want to be here.”

Dean shifted a little. “I know, but… it’s so different than it is on the phone. It’s more…” he searched for the word.

“Real?”

“Yeah.”

There was a brief silence, both of them just breathing together.

“Cas?”

“Yes, Dean?”

“Can I touch you?”

“Yes.” It was almost more breath than word.

Cas felt Dean’s hand moving hesitantly through the space between them and offered his own to the divide. Dean found it and gently took hold of Cas’ fingers, lacing them together, pressing their hands palm to palm. Cas stroked his thumb along the side of Dean’s hand.

“You’re warm,” he murmured.

Dean readjusted his position slightly, and even in the dark it didn’t escape Cas’ notice that he’d inched closer. “So’re you.”

Testing the limit, Cas stretched one foot out until he brushed Dean’s shin. Immediately Dean moved his leg so that his ankle was hitched over Cas’, holding the touch in place. Cas kept up the movement of his thumb the whole time, a slow, soothing arc across the side of Dean’s hand, back and forth, back and forth.

“S’nice,” Dean mumbled, and scooted his head a little closer again. He was angled towards Cas in every way.

“I can’t believe how quickly you fall asleep,” Cas said, his voice suffused with laughter. “It’s incredible.”

“Don’t usually. S’cos you’re here. ‘M used to hearing your voice ‘fore I fall ‘sleep, now. ‘S soothing.”

It was Cas’ turn to wriggle closer, leaving some space between them still, but able to pull their linked hands to his heart without extending Dean’s arm too far.

“I’m so glad I’m here,” Cas whispered into their fingers, lips not quite touching skin.

Dean huffed a breath, half laugh, half sigh, all contentment.

“Me too, Cas. Me too.”

Cas woke to a head pillowed on his chest, warm and slightly stubbly. There was also a thigh hitched up across his hips, and an arm slung across his chest with the attached hand wedged underneath his shoulder, clinging like it was holding him in place. Connecting all of these was the warm solidness of Dean lying half on top of him, complete with a nose tucked in under his jaw and sleepy exhales sighing across his collarbone. It filled Cas with contentment and his heart went haywire when the arm tightened fractionally, holding him closer together still.

It felt like far too short a time for Cas to enjoy the contact before Dean started to show signs of waking up. For his sake, Cas pretended to be asleep when he roused completely, but he’d never been the best actor. Dean extricated himself in occasional grumble-punctuated silence, but something soft brushed across Cas’ knuckles before Dean squeezed his hand lightly and headed to the bathroom. Cas was certain Dean knew he’d been awake the whole time.

Dean didn’t mention how they’d woken up during their diner breakfast – Cas’ first. He was delighted by the blueberries in the pancakes – and Cas wasn’t about to bring it up of his own accord lest it make Dean feel awkward. Even if Dean didn’t think it warranted talking about, Cas had already filed it away in his memories as something to cherish. He shifted in his seat, worried he’d made the wrong choice by not talking about it, when his leg accidentally brushed up against Dean’s under the table. He opened his mouth to apologise but Dean moved his feet further into Cas’ space under the booth so they were sitting with their legs entwined. Dean glanced up from his plate of bacon and pancakes once and found Cas beaming into his coffee cup like it held the secrets to happiness.

Once they finished breakfast they were back on the road again, armed with cups of takeout coffee to tide them through the morning.

“Man,” Dean said over the Foreigner tape he’d picked as their morning music. “I haven’t slept that well in… f*ck, years, probably. I think you’ve Pavlov’d me into getting a good night’s sleep with the sound of your voice.” He grinned at Cas’ small surprised expression, which quickly turned into one of pride.

“Do you not usually sleep well?”

“I mean, I sleep, sure. It’s just not the amount doctors say you’re supposed to get. Doesn’t help that I’ve spent years on callouts and jobs that kept me up at weird hours. I’m used to waking up in a hurry so I don’t usually sleep through the night like that. Normally I get just my four hours in and not a lot more.”

“I would say that’s woefully inadequate, but I’m not really in a position to criticise you,” Cas admitted. “I haven’t had the most conventional relationship with sleep over the years.” He looked out the window, thinking again about how they’d woken up sharing the same space, the same heartbeat, even if only for a moment. “Now that I’m sleeping more than two hours a night though, I have to admit I’m learning to love it.”

“Two?”

Cas chuckled as Dean continued to splutter. “I did say it would be hypocritical of me.”

“Jesus wept, Cas, I thought I was bad. You slept okay last night, though?” He asked, the teasing tone suddenly absent from his voice.

“Better than I have in years,” Cas assured him, and Dean’s smile brightened at the mimicry. He turned back to the road ahead of them, the fields on either side of the car still slightly frosted over from the night’s temperatures. It would be snowing there soon enough. “So, what’s the plan for today?”

“Well, we’re not far from the depot, so we’re going to head in to pick up the part first.” Dean stopped to lean down and wind his window open a little to stop the windshield from fogging up so badly from their body heat and the coffees. “After that, the rest of the weekend is ours. Bobby’s got a cabin in this part of the state he’s letting us use for the night, and I’ve got a couple of things in the area I thought you might like to see. Sound good?”

“It sounds wonderful.”

Dean smiled, a small thing, but full of some secondary emotion Cas couldn’t quite fathom. When neither of them had anything further to say, Dean turned the volume on the tape up a little higher so he could murmur along to the words in relative comfort. Cas was content to listen along, still charmed by how open and lively Dean was when he wasn’t at work. The track ended, and the jaunty, opening hook of the next song filled the car.

“Get outta town,” Dean crowed, clearly thrilled with the song. He drummed his hands along to the beats of it before launching into the lyrics as they started.

You’re as cold as ice,

You’re willing to sacrifice our love

You never take advice

But someday you’ll pay the price, I know…

“Aw c’mon Cas,” he cajoled, reaching out to bump his shoulder when he didn’t join in. “Where’s that singalong spirit you had last night?”

Cas grimaced at the thought. “I’m not exactly what you’d call a ‘morning person’.” Dean smiled at his use of air quotes, but his expression quickly turned calculating.

“Coffee not working, huh?”

Cas made a noncommittal gesture with his head. “Coffee doesn’t really have any effect on me, but I drink it in the hopes that one day it might.”

Dean’s smile only got broader and more mischievous. “Then how about something a little stronger?”

He held Cas’ gaze for long enough that Cas didn’t realise he’d surreptitiously wound his window down completely until the blast of freezing air caught him full in the face.

“Dean!”

Dean poked him in the side, his eyes crinkled in the corners with glee in the way Cas loved.

“Yours too, c’mon.”

Cas smiled like a fool as he wound down his window, reluctantly turning the handle until the impala’s cab was filled with the sound of air rushing through it. Dean cranked up the volume on the tape and bellowed along to the lyrics and, like the night before, Cas figured out the pattern easily enough.

Cold as ice…

You know that you are

Cold as ice…

As cold as ice to me

Cold as ice…

It was freezing and their coffees were absolutely going cold, but Cas was having fun . The wind ripped through the impala’s interior, and they were both shouting more than singing until the song started to fade out and they dissolved into breathless laughter. Dean lowered the volume on the tape deck to let the moment last, and whooped out the open window, his voice trailing away behind them as the car ate up the miles to their destination.

Immediately afterwards he reached for the window handle again. “That’s enough, I’m f*cking freezing!”

Cas laughed and followed suit. They were both still slightly breathless from the temperature, so Cas was grateful when Dean cranked the heating up to max.

“Let’s get some heating going in here. You finally awake now?”

“I don’t think I can honestly say I’ve ever been more awake than I am right now,” Cas said. He rubbed his hands together and added, “Or colder.”

The air vents rattled lightly, and Dean glanced across at him, then reached out and pressed the back of one hand to Cas’ reddened cheek. “sh*t, you really are freezing, huh?” He drew his hand away again. Cas missed it immediately – his fingers were warm.

Dean’s hand never quite made it back all the way to his side of the car. He seemed to come to some internal decision with his hand held in midair, then a determined look crossed his face and he reached out to seize Cas’ hand in his own.

“I run hot. Would be a shame to let all this warmth go to waste,” Dean said matter-of-factly. When Cas smiled at him, wide and toothy, Dean gave his hand a little squeeze, which Cas returned.

It occurred to Cas then that maybe they hadn’t talked about the morning cuddle because they didn’t need to. Just like their hands resting together on the bench seat, there was nothing that needed saying about it that the other didn’t already understand.

How nice it was to be understood, Cas thought, and Dean’s thumb stroked across his fingers like he agreed.

The town, if indeed it could be called a town at all, they were picking up the part from was much smaller than Cas had originally envisioned. Since Dean had mentioned it was being held at a depot, Cas was sure it was going to be somewhere decently sized and certainly not the post-industrial-graveyard one-traffic-light town they drove through.

The place was small, its centre barely making up a couple of streets with only a few shops and restaurants dotting the place. Rather than being sad and feeling empty, Cas was surprised to find the place upbeat and thriving, inhabited by cheerful townsfolk who regarded the Impala driving down main street with unguarded curiosity.

On the outskirts, well beyond where the shops had turned into homes or vacant lots, Dean pulled into the parking lot of a large warehouse complex and parked up. The lot overlooked a river between banks crowded with greenery which flowed placidly behind the complex.

“Want me to leave the heating on?” Dean offered. “I’ll head in and grab what Bobby’s after, shouldn’t take long since they know I’m coming.”

“I’ll manage without,” Cas replied, and Dean took that as his cue to kill the engine. “I’m going to make the most of our stop here. Maybe get some fresh air without freezing to death.” He shot Dean a pointed look that only made him grin gleefully.

“Don’t play coy, Cas, I know you’re a karaoke king at heart.”

Before he could defend himself against the baseless accusations, Dean had opened his door and stepped out into the day. Cas followed right after gathering his trench coat from the back seat where he’d left it the night before. Despite the sun, he had a feeling he’d need the extra layer.

Dean was waiting for him by the rear bumper. Cas shrugged his coat on, settling it around his neck, and was almost startled by Dean reaching out to straighten the lapels on it. He patted them into place, his eyes soft.

“Won’t be long,” Dean said after he’d finished with Cas’ lapels. His hand trailed from Cas’ collar down his shoulder like he was reluctant to let go. “If you get too cold, get back in the car, okay? Keys are in it. You’ll have to make do with the AC until me and my magic fingers get back.”

Dean threw him a wink before shoving his hands into his jacket pockets and heading towards the small office between two of the warehouses.

As Cas had suspected, it wasn’t nearly as cold outside without the wind chilling him, so he headed towards the bonnet of the car to catch the most sun. It also had the best vantage to see down into the little ravine the river flowed through, giving him something to look at while he waited. He leaned gingerly on the hood, not wanting to disrespect Dean’s baby but still trying to pick up as much residual heat from the motor as he could.

The sun was bright; Cas closed his eyes and tipped his face up to soak it in. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been able to go outside and do something so simple. It was nice to simply relax and let himself be warmed. If he focused on the trickle of the river, he could almost imagine he was leaning on a car parked out in a field somewhere with a brook close by. If Cas were going to get his dream farm, he wanted it to be one that had a water source on it; it would be nice to have somewhere to cultivate willows, and on hot days they could head out there to take the edge off the heat, perhaps go for a dip if the water was deep enough. The willows would provide enough shade for Dean to–

Cas cut off his train of thought then wondered why he’d done it. He was allowed to think about Dean. He was allowed to want to spend time with him, allowed to want a future that had him in it. They knew each other like nobody else did. They were more than just friends, that much Cas was sure of, but what exactly that ‘more’ entailed he didn’t quite know. Seeing Dean in person was incredible, but he felt there was still something stopping them from being completely at ease with each other. Whatever it was, he wanted it out of the way as fast as possible.

Cas knew for certain that he wanted to kiss Dean and was desperate to know if Dean had been serious about wanting to do so too. There was a magnetic quality about him that seemed to affect Cas specifically, one that he was helpless to resist even though most of his energy went into resisting it anyway.

Perhaps… perhaps the barrier wasn’t between them after all.

“What’cha thinking about, sunshine?”

Cas startled at Dean’s voice, much closer than he’d anticipated. He opened his eyes and blinked hard to clear the blur from them as the car dipped slightly, Dean joining him in leaning on the hood.

“Nothing.” Dean raised a sceptical eyebrow – he’d answered too fast to be believable. “Just enjoying the sun and the sound of the water,” he added, and the eyebrow returned to its place. “I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.”

Dean copied him by turning his face to the sun, smiling. “Soon? It’s been half an hour, Cas. You must’ve been really enjoying the sun if you lost track of time that good.” He closed his eyes and leaned back on his hands.

Cas used the opportunity to take in as much of his visage as he could. His freckles stood out a little more than when Cas had first noticed them next to him at the printer those few months ago, likely on account of the weaker winter sunlight.

The car bounced a little as Dean shuffled closer, then leaned in and rested his head on Cas’ shoulder.

“Hm… I think you’re right,” Dean said softly. “It’s pretty nice out here, huh?”

Cas hesitated for only a second before he tipped his head to rest his cheek against Dean’s hair. It smelled like the Impala’s interior, already comforting.

“It wasn’t nearly this nice before you got here,” he said, and felt more than heard Dean’s little huff of laughter in response. “I think the sun was worried you’d upstage it so it’s putting on a show.”

Tired of pretending to be sober in Dean’s intoxicating presence, Cas pressed a kiss to the top of his head. The effect was instant: Dean shuffled even closer, pressing the entire sides of their bodies together, his warmth bleeding through Cas’ coat. Cas tentatively put his arm behind Dean, resting his palm on the hood close to his hip to steady them both. They stayed that way for some time, just taking in the sun with their eyes closed and bodies leaning together with Cas’ lips gentle against Dean’s hair, the little river bustling past below them.

“Thank you,” Cas said eventually, breaking the silence.

Dean lifted his head from its spot on Cas’ shoulder and turned to look at him quizzically. “For what?”

Cas gestured broadly. “For this.”

“For… parking by the river?”

“For taking the time to sit out here with me. For inviting me. For waiting. For making this up as we go. All of it.”

Dean’s expression softened at that. “You don’t need to thank me for lettin’ you catch a few rays. Was nice for me to hang out here, too. I’ve missed the sun in my office.”

“It’s on the corner, though, you should be getting more sun than anyone.”

“Yeah, I should,” Dean agreed. “But up until yesterday, I’ve had my blinds closed all the time to try and give some one some privacy at his desk.” Dean used his shoulder to shove Cas lightly before settling his head back on his shoulder. “He’s lucky he’s devastatingly handsome, there’s not much more than that I’d be prepared to give up.”

“I’m sure this someone is very appreciative of your sacrifices, even if it did mean you had the advantage of spying on him without him knowing you were in the office.”

“Hey, I never said it wasn’t my office. If the handsome guy wanted to make assumptions then that’s on him, not me. And you’re really going to blame me for keeping the view to myself? Do you know how little work I’d get done if every time I looked up, you were looking back at me?”

“More than now, I’d expect, since you were able to spend all your time looking out the window without getting caught. And who said this was about me? I thought we were talking about your devastatingly handsome someone.”

“Oh we were, but you’re not going to believe this.” Dean tipped his head up to whisper conspiratorially. “He’s in the room with us right now.”

“Dean,” Cas said seriously. “We’re not in a room. He could be anywhere.”

Dean’s forehead thumped onto Cas’ shoulder and Cas felt him shaking a little with laughter. It was sweet and Cas felt ten feet tall at the knowledge that Dean thought him both handsome and funny enough to laugh along with. It made him more eager for everything Dean had in store for them the rest of the day. He took his weight off the impala’s hood to stand and held his hand out. “Shall we?”

Dean took it, but to his surprise, rather than using it to leverage himself off the car, he raised Cas’ knuckles to his lips and laid a kiss there. When he looked up, his eyes were like jewels in the light.

“Let’s hit the road.”

As soon as they got back into the car, Dean took his hand again and held it on the seat between them. It didn’t escape Cas’ notice that he didn’t let go unless he absolutely needed to and even then, their fingers always ended up entwined again shortly afterwards.

It turned out that the things in the area Dean had thought Cas might like to see were all tourist attractions of the garish and kitsch kind, found along a meandering route towards Bobby’s cabin. When they pulled up at the first one Dean grinned with the hundred-kilowatt smile of a kid on Christmas and delightedly announced that no trip was complete without visiting a couple of places they’d never have a chance to see again. The local wax museum certainly counted as such a place and so into it they went. Dean hadn’t realised that Cas’ scope of general knowledge extended to wax museums, and spent the entire tour of the museum subjected to Cas delightedly reeling off all the facts he knew about the casting and preservation of wax figures. Cas saw immediately that Dean hadn’t banked on him actually enjoying the tour and it was no accident that the facts started getting more and more bizarre – he wanted to see how much niche wax figure knowledge Dean could stand before he admitted the tour was awful. Cas insisted on stopping to take pictures and Dean even encouraged him to pose with a few of the weirder looking mannequins but declined to get too close to them himself. It was the fact about the figures getting their hair washed regularly that tipped him over the edge. Dean fake retched, then grabbed Cas’ coat sleeves and dragged him through the rest of the exhibit at breakneck speed while Cas gasped with laughter at his horrified expression.

The next stop was an old water mill a few towns over that still had the wheel turning. It was attached to a gift shop, but Cas had more fun simply watching the wheel turn and throwing feed to the ducks in the millpond. Dean joined him and listened with genuine interest as Cas told him about how bread was bad for them, and listed the many alternatives ducks and their habitats could safely enjoy. Dean snapped a few pictures of Cas and the ducks, then made him put his head through the cutout board in front of the water wheel that made him look like a farmer, giggling all the while. Cas retaliated by enlisting the help of a passerby to get one of them with their heads in the cutout of the couple from American Gothic and was sure to give Dean the slot that made it appear he was wearing the wife’s outfit.

One attraction bled into the next, and by the time they made it to Bobby’s cabin in the evening, Cas’ phone was full of pictures of their day. They’d stopped at a diner Dean was familiar with in the town near Bobby’s place to pick up dinner to take with them and, when they pulled up outside the cabin, the sun had fully set . They headed into the cabin to settle in, Cas carrying their overnight bags while Dean got a fire going to warm the space up.

It took soon enough, leaving Dean free to take their lukewarm burgers to the tiny kitchen and reheat them before producing two beers from the fridge. Cas had finished his unobtrusive snoop of the cabin by then and helped Dean carry everything towards where he assumed they’d be eating, but was surprised when Dean passed him and headed for the door.

“Dean?”

“Trust me,” Dean said while smiling softly, one hand on the doorknob. “Grab another layer and come with me. You’re going to want to see this.”

Pulling the sweater he’d taken off when the fire had made the room too warm for it back over his head only served to further untidy Cas’ hair, but he was past the point of caring. He was about to head outside with his food, but stopped to pick up his coat for good measure when he felt the breeze wafting through the door where Dean had left it ajar. It was dark outside and Cas stood on the little porch, squinting into the night until Dean called out to him.

“Over here. Watch out for the steps.”

Dean was waiting leaned up against the hood of the impala with the collar of his jacket turned up against the cold. He patted the space next to him so Cas took up the offered position, their shoulders brushing as Dean tucked in to his meal.

“Don’t let your food get too cold again,” Dean warned around a mouthful of his burger. “It won’t be half as nice after a second reheat.”

“I wonder if there’s a formula for that? Times reheated versus flavour yielded,” Cas wondered as he took his own burger out of the brown paper bag and took a bite. He groaned in joy – despite being at least an hour past when it was purchased, it was still excellent. Whatever method of kitchen sorcery Dean had used to reheat it was far beyond Cas’ own knowledge of cooking. It wasn’t anything like the sad, soggy, reheated meals Cas had subjected himself to over the years.

“Dean, this is wonderful.”

“Like we were planning to do on our first date,” Dean said, bumping his shoulder lightly. “Just with a little less city involved.”

Cas beamed. He remembered.

“So, here I am trusting you,” Cas said when they’d finished their little meal. “What is it I’m supposed to want to see out here?

Dean bundled up their rubbish into one bag and set it by his feet on the ground. “You can’t hear it?” He asked when he straightened up. He had a blanket in hand, and moved a few paces away from the car so he wasn’t spreading it across the open dirt and gravel of the drive. He sat when he was done, and beckoned Cas over.

Once he was seated, Dean’s hand overlapping his own, Cas strained his ears to listen… and heard the sound of water babbling away somewhere nearby.

“There’s a stream!”

Dean smiled softly at the unrestrained delight in Cas’ voice. “There is, but that’s not even the best part,” he said. He let go of Cas’ hand and leaned back to thump down flat on the blanket. He watched Cas all the while. “Look up.”

Castiel had never seen so many stars in his entire life. The sky was thick with them, full of so many pinpricks of light that they took up his entire field of vision. The sky didn’t even look truly black against them, their collective light brightening the fabric of the universe.

Distantly, he felt Dean gently take his shoulder in hand and ease him back onto the blanket so he wasn’t straining his neck. He knew his mouth was probably still hanging open because he could taste the cold air, but he didn’t care enough to bother closing it when the sight before him had quite literally taken his breath away.

“Dean, this is…”

Cas floundered to find the words to encompass exactly what it was. He turned his head to look at Dean and found that the other man was already there facing him, eyes soft and full of starlight.

“I think this has been the best day of my life.”

Dean’s expression faltered slightly.

“What, me leaving you unattended in a parking lot, then dragging you to every bad tourist attraction I could find in the countryside between there and here?” He asked disbelievingly.

“Yes,” Cas answered honestly. “Every second of it. The fact you invited me at all, I–” he stopped, and looked up at the stars again for a moment, hoping maybe they’d spell out what it was he should do or say, how much to admit to.

Everything seemed like the best bet.

“Nobody has ever done anything like this with me before. When I told my family I was gay, it went…” Cas trailed off and heaved a great sigh before continuing. “My father had already passed away when I came out, which Michael took as a sign of my cowardice and evidence that I was just saying things for attention. He refused to accept it and would set me up on dates with women of his choosing, telling me I just hadn’t met the right one yet.” The memories still smarted, the humiliation of the interactions almost worse than his own brother’s disbelief. He closed his eyes and tried to unclench his jaw. “Michael’s since stopped trying, but it’s not really a time I like to dwell on too much. On the dates he’d set up, it was up to me to decide how things were going to go, every time. I had to do what they wanted, suggest things that appealed to them, and say things that made me look good even if they weren’t what I really felt.” Cas knew it was a lot, maybe too much, but he had to get it all off his chest. He breathed in, pretending that it didn’t waver with his nerves. “All my life I’ve always had to be what was needed for everyone else, but today, with you, I just got to be me . I’ve never been the kind of person people think of when they want to do something fun, but you wanted me here and invited me anyway. Nobody has ever chosen me for myself before.”

“Of course I chose you,” Dean said. He propped himself up on one elbow, his face taking up more of Cas’ field of vision. “Who else was I going to invite? My secret other boyfriend? We’ve talked on the phone almost every single day for weeks now. I’ve been trying for months to see you outside of work, I wasn’t about to pass up any opportunity to see you, no matter how small. If I didn’t know you already and know that I liked you, I wouldn’t have–” Dean narrowed his eyes. “What are you smiling for?”

“Your other boyfriend, hm? I suppose that saves me the trouble of asking.”

The blush that crept up Dean’s face to his ears was visible even under the starlight and Cas thought it was the loveliest colour he’d ever seen.

Suddenly conscious by Dean’s lack of response, Cas fixed him with a stern look and said, “So help me Dean Winchester, if you say you didn’t mean–”

Dean cut off any further protest by leaning down and kissing him. It was a simple press of lips, but Cas had just enough brainpower to marvel at how something could be both firm enough to stop him from speaking and yet so tender at the same time. At last, at last , the kiss he’d been thinking about ever since Dean had mentioned it. He was thankful he was already lying down as he felt lightheaded from the contact and suspected his knees might have given up on him if he were standing. When Dean drew back a few moments later, Cas was surprised to find his hand had found its way to the back of Dean’s head, his fingers absently carding through the short hair there.

“I meant it. I still do,” Dean said. He leaned in to drop another quick peck onto Cas’ mouth before drawing back again. “That okay with you?”

“So long as I get to call you mine, too,” Cas breathed before pulling Dean down to meet his lips.

Eventually, Cas became conscious of Dean still propping himself up on one elbow to facilitate their making out, particularly when he started to wobble slightly from the effort. Cas broke the kiss to manoeuvre them back to lying side by side on the blanket and angled himself so that he could rest his head next to Dean’s more easily. He took his hand for good measure, wanting a point of physical contact between them still.

“I don’t think I know how to belong to someone,” Dean admitted quietly.

Cas turned so that his forehead bumped Dean’s, too close for them to see each other properly. His response was just as soft. “Then you’re in luck, because neither do I. We can figure it out together.” Cas squeezed his hand, and was pleased to receive one back.

They lay there in the dark and the quiet, holding on to each other until Cas started to shiver slightly from the cold seeping through the blanket, and they moved inside for the rest of the night. The fire had died down a little, but was easily revived when Cas fed it a couple of split logs. He was warming his hands in front of it when Dean came through on his way from the kitchen and wrapped his arms around him from behind.

“All you’re going to do this way is get yourself too hot. It’s gonna make the rest of the cabin feel colder than it really is when you move away,” Dean warned.

Cas didn’t budge from his spot but did press his cheek slightly more firmly against Dean’s. “But I’m already cold and the fire is so nice and warm.”

“I know it is, but it’s direct heat and it’s going to f*ck with your ambient temperature.” Dean let him go, only to seize his hand and start dragging him away from the fireplace. “C’mon, bed.”

Neither of them batted an eye at the sight of the double bed that time. It felt like they’d been doing it for years when Dean slid under the covers on the left hand side and Cas followed him under them on the right. They settled in and got comfortable, the firelight carrying through the door to the living room they’d left open to help the warmth reach the bedroom. Cas turned on his side and curled up to try and get warm faster while Dean lay on his back, smiling fondly at Cas’ scowl and the tuft of his hair sticking up from under the duvet. Dean gave a defeated little huff, then lifted the arm nearest Cas and used it to scoop him closer, Cas going willingly to make himself at home against Dean’s chest and soak up the warmth he offered. Dean’s arm curved around his shoulders and held him in place, a comforting weight.

“Happy now?” Dean asked.

Cas stretched up to kiss the side of Dean’s jaw before tucking his forehead back against the side of his neck. “I’ve been happy all day, but I really don’t think it could get better than this,” he replied. “I don’t want this weekend to end.”

“Yeah, me neither. But hey, we can do it again whenever you want. Just say when and I’ll have baby ready and waiting to pick you up.” The hairs on Cas’ head stirred with Dean’s exhale. “Why can I feel you frowning?”

“I don’t know when I’ll next have time. There’s a project coming up, and with Uriel gone I’ll need t–”

“No, you won’t need to. Tell your boss, your brother, whoever it is, to stick it where the sun don’t shine and walk out of there the second your contracted hours end. You’ve already done loads of overtime with the whole Uriel situation, and I never once saw that guy stick around longer than he was paid to, so why should you? C’mon Cas,” Dean cajoled, and tipped his head so that Cas had to stop hiding his face and look up. “You said nobody’s ever chosen you before. So why don’t you choose yourself?”

“Dean,” Cas started. “It’s not that simple. I can’t–”

“You can,” Dean said firmly. “It sucks ass standing up to people who are holding you back, twice as much if they’re family, but it’s doable. It really is as simple as ‘no thanks, I’m outta here’.”

A troubled look came into Dean’s eyes then, and after a moment of Cas looking at him in askance, he sighed and scrubbed his free hand across his face.

“Look, you know me and Sam travelled around with our dad when we were kids. And you know how hell-bent he was on finding the guy who killed my mom, but… Cas, even though he was my dad, at the end of the day he was an obsessed bastard. It was killing us to stay with him. He taught me how to shoot when I was still in elementary school for crying out loud! By the time I’d dropped out of high school I had my own gun to keep on me as well as half a dozen in the trunk with my name on ‘em. He’d do spot checks to make sure I was carrying at least one of them at all times and there was hell to pay if I wasn’t. He and Sam would have screaming matches almost every day about when he was going to pack it in and stop telling us to look over our shoulders, or checking under our beds, or making up fake names to give to baristas when we needed to stop for coffee. Sure, he’d pulled a gun on me and a girl I was with when we surprised him by mistake one time, but he was my dad. He was just being cautious, just looking out for me, right?”

Cas looked at Dean, at all the barely-repressed grief behind his eyes, the way his jaw was clenched in the pause while he dragged in a breath. There was nothing Cas could say about it that Dean didn’t already know.

“Anyway, Sam got sick of his sh*t before me. Packed up one night and left me with him while he went off to college and Dad swore and raged and drank like it was the end of the world. It didn’t matter that I was still there and still doing everything he asked, it was a sign of my failure too that Sam had the audacity to leave at all. And it took me a couple of years to catch on, but you know what I realised?” Dean looked at him for a beat before his eyes went distant again. “He didn’t even have two sh*ts to rub together about us. Sam was gone, but he still had a killer to catch. Whether we came with him or not, no matter how badly Sam wanted to go to school or I wanted to stop sleeping with a gun under my pillow, he was going to carry on being obsessed. So the next time he told me to jump, instead of asking how high, I told him to do it himself. Took the car, left the guns, and never looked back. And Cas, that was the hardest thing I ever did, but hell if it didn’t need doing.”

Dean flicked Cas’ ear lightly with the tip of one finger, making him scowl.

“So if I can tell a half-insane ex-marine I think his parenting sucks ass, you can tell your white-collar pencil-pusher brother to lay off your evenings and weekends. Capisce?”

He kept scowling, but Dean’s stern look didn’t waver. With a heaving sigh, Cas rested his forehead against Dean’s chin in defeat. He was right, of course.

“I capisce,” he mumbled. Dean pressed a kiss to his brow in reward.

“Good. Now get back to snuggling, my neck’s cold.”

Cas didn’t need to be told twice and went back to the pocket of warmth between Dean’s neck and shoulder, taking the liberty of pressing a kiss to the skin peeking above the collar of the shirt Dean was wearing to bed.

“I never expected to end today the same way it started,” Cas said a few minutes later. He kissed Dean’s neck again for good measure, just to be sure he knew he was talking about him.

Dean chuckled. “How? Devilishly handsome man in your bed?”

“In my bed,” Cas agreed. “And in my heart, too.”

Dean didn’t say anything in response, but the tightening of his arms around Cas and the kiss he laid atop his head told Cas more than enough.

Sleep came more easily that night than Cas could ever recall and he smiled for as long as he could, listening to the sound of Dean’s breathing even out without having to hang up a phone. He could feel Dean’s arm around his waist, warm and secure, holding him close even in sleep. It was like a tether to the earth and for once, Cas didn’t mind being grounded.

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

Castiel woke slowly, savouring the pocket of warmth created by two bodies sharing the same space in a bed. He stretched, letting his feet brush the edge of the quilt, flirting with the cooler air outside of the safety of the blankets, then reached out an arm to either side of the bed to loosen his shoulders and do the same there.

It was at this point that he discovered he was alone in the bed.

He sat up abruptly, the covers falling down his chest to pool in his lap. Dean wasn’t in the room. A cursory glance around it showed that neither was Dean’s bag - in fact, there was no sign he’d ever been in the bedroom at all. Cas’ lungs felt too small for his chest and an ugly, heavy feeling threatened to suffocate what little air was left in them. He was too focused on trying to breathe normally to hear the footsteps approaching until a shadow fell across him from the side of the bed.

“You okay there, sunshine? You’re breathing kinda funny.”

“Dean,” Cas half-gasped. Air flooded back into him.

Dean set down the mug he was holding on the bedside table and sat on the edge of the bed as Cas finally got his breathing under control. He watched, rapt, as Dean smiled warmly at him before reaching out to cup one side of his face in his hand, his thumb brushing Cas’ lower lip before guiding their mouths together for a chaste kiss.

“Good morning,” Dean said once he’d drawn back, just enough to rest their foreheads together. “I made you coffee.”

“Thank you. I… I thought you’d left,” Cas admitted.

There was nothing but genuine disbelief in Dean’s voice when he replied, “Why on earth would I leave you?”

“I don’t know… I guess I’m just not used to people staying, or meaning it when they say they want me around.”

When he noticed Cas’ sad smile, Dean shifted to press a kiss to his forehead. “Well, good thing I know you’re a quick study, ‘cause you’re gonna have to get used to it. I don’t make promises I can’t keep, and I’m promising you now that I mean what I say.” Dean put a second kiss on his forehead for good measure, and smiled radiantly when the corners of Cas’ mouth twitched upwards. “Now c’mon, your coffee’s gonna go cold and I was waiting for you to wake up before I started on breakfast. You’re getting the Winchester Special.”

Cas accepted the mug of coffee from Dean, as well as another kiss, during which Dean gently nipped at his bottom lip and made him gasp.

“Just checking you’re awake.” Dean winked before he headed back to the kitchen.

Humming and the industrious sounds of someone who knew what they were doing in a kitchen filtered through to the bedroom while Cas drank his coffee. He noted that Dean must have been paying attention at the diner the day before, because he’d made it exactly the way Cas liked it. Cas’ heart soared knowing that it wasn’t just him who was making note of little details.

After dressing, Cas followed the smell of bacon to the kitchen, where Dean piled a small mountain of breakfast upon his plate. As it transpired, he’d picked up a little of everything he needed at their various pit stops along the way without Cas noticing.

While Cas was by no means a chef, he could certainly clean up so he elbowed Dean out of his way to tackle the breakfast dishes. Dean tried to argue that since he made the mess he should also be the one to clean it up, but Cas silenced him with a well-placed poke to the ribs that made him yelp and duck out of the way. Dean scowled from the doorway when Cas threatened to tickle him further if Dean tried to stop him from helping again. Once the dishes were done, Cas found that Dean had not only tidied up the rest of the cabin after them but had even brought in more cut wood from outside to replace the logs they’d burned the night before. The place was as they had found it and, satisfied that they’d been respectful guests in Bobby’s cabin, they fled from the cabin into the embrace of the impala’s heating and hit the road.

Dean didn’t subject Cas to the cruel and unusual punishment of rolling the windows down on a winter day while going 60 miles an hour this time, for which Cas was grateful. He also opted to let Dean pick the music himself, and the tapes they listened to ranged from upbeat, driving rock songs, to crooning but rhythmic blues-esque songs.

They stopped at every possible tourist attraction, photo stop, and scenic overlook they came across that looked even remotely interesting, and Dean insisted on taking even more pictures than they had yesterday. Cas agreed, but only on the condition that Dean also be in them with him so he’d have something other than pictures of himself to look at. On a few of the quieter stretches of road they pulled over on they found time to kiss long and slowly, savouring the opportunity to take their fill of each other. Cas even managed to back Dean up against the door of the Impala at one point, and relished in the sweet, soft noise of surprise he made, his kisses taking on a toothier edge before they drew away from each other. Time passed like sand through an hourglass, measured but unrelenting, and each moment spent with Dean was a crystalline snapshot preserved in Cas’ mind. It wasn’t until Dean yawned that Cas realised just how much of the day had passed them by. The tape in the background was one Dean knew well and he kept drumming the rhythm to the songs on the steering wheel as he drove.

“I remember this,” Cas said halfway through one of the songs. The intro had sounded oddly familiar, but Dean chiming in had finally jogged Cas’ memory the rest of the way. “The first time you called me, the night we were meant to have our first date. You were driving out of state late at night, but I didn’t want to hang up until you’d stopped for the night, so you played music for us to listen to. You sang this.”

Instead of singing the next line of the song like he’d opened his mouth to do, Dean laughed a little abashedly. “Ah. So you were still awake for that, huh?”

“I was, but up until just now I honestly thought I’d probably dreamed it,” Cas admitted. “Being sung to sleep by the beautiful man I hadn’t really met yet was something I was sure I could only dream of.”

Dean leaned across to bump Cas’ shoulder and gave him a sly smile. “So you dream about me.”

“Yes. Every night for a week after I saw you for the first time.”

Dean spluttered. Cas kept his eyes fixed on Dean, his expression one of mild amusem*nt at Dean’s expense. He was unrepentant. It was true.

“You’re not supposed to take the sh*t I say when I’m trying to wind you up and turn it back on me, that’s not fair, ” Dean whined.

“If you were trying to wind me up then I’m afraid you’ll have to try harder. You might be an older brother but I’m the youngest of five by a long way, and Gabriel was one of those older brothers. You’re going to have to…what’s the turn of phrase they use? Ah, that’s it,” Cas said, snapping his fingers. “Get good.”

Dean’s mouth dropped open in shock and for one fleeting moment Cas worried he’d taken things too far, but then said with an air of righteous injustice, “Oh, it is on. ”

He whined and complained about Cas’ cruel and unjust bullying against him for several minutes but held his hand all the while, so Cas was content to let him carry on about it until the next track played and distracted him.

The next place they pulled in to was one selling fruit ice creams, a rare find so far into winter, but Dean declared that he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, and that since it was their last stop on the road, he was going to make it worth their while. When Cas was handed his cone of berry-pink ice cream and tasted it, he understood why Dean had insisted. They ate leaning against the body of the impala, basking in the late afternoon until Dean beckoned Cas closer with his head, one arm stretched out with his phone in hand ready to take their picture. Cas smiled as he’d done for every other snapshot through the day, genuine and thrilled, and found a cold, wet , mouth suddenly pressed firmly against his cheek for a sloppy kiss. Dean kept his lips glued to Cas’ cheek and the hand taking the picture remained steady even while Cas shook with laughter at his antics.

“Perfect,” Dean announced when he pulled away, then leaned back in to lick stray ice cream off Cas’ cheek. Cas yelped and wiped at his cheek with his sleeve while Dean smugly flicked through the pictures. Cas tried to peer over his shoulder at them but only saw a glimpse of the laugh lines around Dean’s eyes before the phone got pocketed. When Cas grumbled about it, Dean reminded him he had his own damn phone, so it was with great joy that Cas held Dean in place by his waist for a picture of his own while he planted a horrible, mushy kiss on Dean’s cheek in return.

“I don’t want this day to end,” Cas told him when they were on the road again. The city was approaching rapidly, distant spires fading into view on the horizon in the afternoon light. Despite wanting to enjoy his time with Dean as much as possible, the thought of going back to staying fifty feet apart from Dean was like a lingering haze on Cas’ mind. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to just go back to work after having a weekend like this. How do you do it?”

“I like my car, I like driving on the open road, and I love listening to my tunes, but it hasn’t been home for me for years. It’s nice to come back to someplace where I know what the bed feels like, y’know?”

Cas nodded, even though he didn’t know the feeling at all. Quite the opposite, in fact.

“I guess that doesn’t answer your question, though,” Dean continued. “I dunno, I guess I just always know that I’m coming home again. Sometimes I do feel a bit like a dog who’s been let off leash and then has to go back into the kennel, but I guess I’m mostly just used to it. I’m lucky this time though – I’ve got tomorrow off too. The trip was far enough away that I would’ve had to take an overnight trip even if you hadn’t come, so I’ve got a day in lieu tomorrow. Just gonna veg out. Might think about how much I miss you,” Dean said with a chuckle. Cas knew him well enough to recognise the not-quite-genuine laugh for the distraction it was.

It took all of ten seconds for Castiel to decide what to do next.

“What’re you up to over there?” Dean asked after a few moments of Cas typing furiously on his phone in silence.

“Well, since you’re planning to miss me tomorrow and I was planning to mope all day at work, I thought we could split the difference. I’m requesting time off.”

“How’s it going to get approved? It’s still the weekend, Cas.”

“Oh, I know,” Cas said. “But you see, the one perk of taking on all of Uriel’s responsibilities is that I get to approve or deny any and all leave requests for my floor. And given that I haven’t taken a single personal day in the last… oh, six years, at least? I’m very much inclined to grant this request immediately.”

Dean’s grin was devilish, all teeth. “You sly dog.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s sly, it’s just… calculated.” Cas shrugged. “And calculations are what they pay me for.” He put his phone back in his pocket with a satisfied smile. “Done. I don’t have to be back in the office until Wednesday.”

“Wednesday?”

Cas smiled slowly. “Figured since I was taking leave already, I may as well make it worth my while and take a couple of days for good measure. Catch up on laundry, tend to my plants… might think about how much I miss you,” he teased.

Dean’s smile was gigawatt bright as Cas wound their fingers together again. “You’re a sap.”

“Learned from the best,” Cas replied. He gave Dean’s hand a quick squeeze. “But I think you enjoy it.”

“So you’re saying I’m the best, then?”

He was remarkably like Gabriel sometimes, Cas thought. If this is what his brother had meant by rediscovering his inner child, then Cas thought he’d made one hell of a start towards that goal over just the one weekend.

He sighed when Dean elbowed him playfully, still waiting for a response. “Yes, Dean.”

“Hey, don’t take that long-suffering tone with me. I was going to offer to cook you that dinner I promised you, but if that’s how you’re going to be…”

Cas tightened his grip on Dean’s hand to get his attention and Cas knew from his slightly startled look that he probably looked a bit intense.

“If I didn’t think it would be unsafe while you’re driving, I’d put my lips on you right now.”

“Oh.” Dean flushed at his words and was the first to look away.

“I meant for a kiss.”

“Oh.” Cas delighted in watching the flush creep up Dean’s cheekbones to his ears. “Well now I feel like an asshole.”

Cas couldn’t pass up the opportunity to tease Dean just a little more.

“Play your cards right and that can be arranged.” Dean choked on his inhale and gave Cas a shocked look. Cas smirked in triumph when he noticed that Dean’s pupils had dilated despite his surprised expression, and gestured to the road. “But for now, I think it’s probably best you keep driving.”

“You will come for dinner though, right?” Dean asked after a brief lull in the conversation. “I mean, you don’t have to, of course. We just spent all weekend together so it’s not like you need to come over if you don’t want to. We’ve already seen a lot of each other and you’re probably–”

“Dean.” The tone of Cas’ voice cut off Dean’s rambling mid-stride. It didn’t escape Cas’ notice that his knuckles were clenched tighter than necessary on the steering wheel. “Nothing would make me happier than getting to spend more time with you, especially if you’re willing to invite me into your home. I’d be honoured to try your cooking if you’re up for it.”

Dean visibly relaxed. “Yeah, cool. Of course I want to cook for you, man, I said I would. You know how I am with promises.”

He did know. It was one of the things Cas had come to learn Dean held as a kind of pillar of his personality. Rather than saying empty words like so many other people did, when Dean made a promise he meant it with his whole being, regardless of how inconsequential the content of the promise itself might be. Cas loved it about him already.

The sunset welcomed them back to the city, and despite the uptick in traffic - no longer were they alone on back country roads - the music in the car stayed as never-ending as it had been all day. Each time a tape concluded, Dean told Cas which one he had in mind and Cas dutifully hunted it down before swapping it out for the old one. Dean rewarded him with a kiss to his knuckles every time, and each press of Dean’s lips made Cas’ heart flutter with joy. He didn’t think he’d ever grow accustomed to the sensation of knowing that Dean wanted the contact, wanted to kiss him, perhaps almost as much as Cas had been wanting to kiss him for months.

By the time they pulled into the parking lot of a supermarket near Dean’s place, the sun had almost completely set. Despite driving them across a state and a half, singing along to the music, taking pictures, and generally being a source of entertainment all day long, Dean showed little sign of fatigue. Cas thought he must have been like Anna, one of those people who was able to just keep going and going until they made it home. He was almost embarrassed of how exhausted he was himself, considering he’d done nothing but sit shotgun and enjoy Dean’s company. When Dean said he was only going to be quick and that Cas was welcome to stay in the car, he firmly declined and made his way inside, too.

If Dean could manage grocery shopping at this time of day, then so could Cas. Usually he hated the sterile lighting, everything over-bright and busy while he was trying to wrestle with the already too-hard task of trying to find something to eat, while neon pop music played over top of it all. Shortly after moving off the family estate, Cas had realised that having someone do his shopping for him was so much more a blessing than he’d given it credit for. He’d got supermarket runs down to a fine art of being in and out in the shortest time possible.

But he thought he could make a walk around, if Dean were there.

Plus, Cas reasoned with himself, he might be able to learn a little something about cooking or at the very least, something about what he might do with some ingredients on the trip in. He bought the same items over and over, but there were really only so many times he could make the same three semi-edible dishes and still call them ‘comfort food’.

From the easy way Dean greeted the custodian who waved at him, Cas knew that Dean was more than familiar with the place. He led Cas from aisle to aisle, stopping to occasionally narrate his reasons behind buying certain products, lament that some were out of stock, or rhapsodise about others being available. Cas was right – he learned plenty. But what he enjoyed learning most was that if he lingered on something or asked a question about it, Dean would explain earnestly about it, not minding at all if Cas had a few follow-ups after, and then would place his hand on Cas’ lower back to guide him back into moving again. The touch was electric in a way Dean’s other touches hadn’t been, and Cas found himself acutely attuned to the warmth and weight of Dean’s hand on him each time before he withdrew the contact.

The best part of the whole experience (other than the free ingredients advice, which he’d carefully filed away for future reference) was at the cashier when they were waiting for the items to be scanned. Cas made to pull out his wallet to pay and Dean batted his hand away, but kept hold of it for a few moments until he needed both hands to put away his wallet and pick up their bags. The touch was grounding but somehow still electrifying, and Cas felt his hand tingling all the way back out to the car, giddy with the joy that nothing would change between them even in the city.

Cas had never known that life could be so soft, so sweet, so full of things he hated, mellowed out by the humble power of having someone there to do them with. He wanted to go grocery shopping forever.

He only fully came back to himself when he realised the impala’s engine had stopped.

“Welcome back,” Dean said. “You were a thousand miles away. We’re home.”

We’re home.

Cas’ thoughts flashed with the truth that he’d been home from the moment Dean had kissed him, but he kept them to himself as Dean led him up the steps and into his apartment building.

There was no lift, which Dean apologised for since they were carrying their weekend bags and the groceries, so Cas took the stairs up three at a time to prove it was no problem. Dean laughed at him, brassy and echoing in the stairwell, and it only served to heighten the headrush Cas still had after the supermarket.

From the set of his shoulders as Dean opened the door and ushered Cas inside, it was clear to see he wasn’t quite as at ease as he’d made himself seem. Given that the only visitors Cas had ever entertained at home were Anna and the company who’d helped deliver his furniture when he moved in, he could well understand being nervous at having someone new in his space. He said the first thing he could think of.

“We’re going to have to do something about the lack of plants in here.”

Dean smiled warmly and knocked his shoulder against Cas’ as he passed, some of the tension gone from them. “Good thing I know a guy who’s good at that kind of stuff.”

Cas followed him into the kitchen, Dean flipping on lights as he went and occasionally offering commentary about rooms of the house. When Dean started unpacking the few groceries, Cas made to help but Dean swatted his hands away.

“No! This is my house. My kitchen, my rules. I’m cooking dinner and you’re gonna sit there, relax, and look pretty.”

“Dean,” Cas complained. “I don’t know how to do that. I can help you cook.”

“Well, you look like you’re doing a great job to me.” He winked. “Keep it up.”

Dean cast a glance over his shoulder and beamed at Cas, who pouted back from where he was standing near the fridge. He refused to sit down out of spite.

Cas attempted to help a few more times and was continually rebuffed by Dean until they found a middle ground of Cas standing at the far end of the bench to watch what Dean was doing while also staying out of his way. After Dean threatened to lock him in the bathroom when he got in the way one too many times, he quickly understood that Dean did not enjoy company when it came to cooking and was thereafter happy to just observe.

When the meal was ready, Dean led them through into the living room to sit down and eat. It smelled delicious and Cas inhaled deeply over his bowl. Even though he’d watched Dean make the whole meal, it still boggled his mind just how he’d been able to turn stuff and things into an entire dish. Dean waited for Cas to take the first bite.

Objectively Cas knew that pasta was a simple dish as it was one of the things he could cook for himself without issue, but he’d never considered that it could also be flavourful . He closed his eyes.

“Good?” Dean asked.

Cas made an enthusiastic noise and went for a second and third forkful in quick succession. “Dean, this is incredible,” he said, abandoning all etiquette and speaking as delicately as he could around his food.

“Ah, it’s nothing fancy,” Dean protested. “It’s just pasta. Anyone could probably do it. I didn’t want to mess around too much since it was already late when we got back, and we’ve already eaten burgers a couple of times this weekend so I didn’t want to ove-”

“Dean, if you don’t stop putting yourself down I’m going to eat yours too.”

Dean raised his eyebrows once in polite surprise, then snorted lightly and started eating.

When Cas finished eating before Dean, he was worried about seeming overenthusiastic until Dean told him there was plenty more in the pan and he could help himself. Cas practically skipped back to the stove.

On his return to the living room, he found Dean kneeling in front of the TV and messing with a DVD player.

“Thought we might watch a movie for the night. You game?”

“Of course. Star Wars?”

“Not today,” Dean said with a quiet laugh. “We haven’t got enough time to get through six hours worth of cinematic masterpieces, not including director’s cuts, which are absolutely necessary. Plus, I think Charlie might kill me if we watched them without her, she’s very invested in your movie education.” He sat back on the couch again with a soft groan. “No, I thought we’d watch one of my favourites that I think you might like. Ever heard of Tombstone ?”

Cas hadn’t, to neither of their surprise. His childhood hadn’t been one that had afforded him a lot of free time in which to watch television and even if it had, his father had insisted that books were entertainment enough. Dean had watched enough visual media for both of them though, and had been more than happy to extol the virtues of many of the films and shows he’d referenced while on their phone calls. Cas knew that Dean had drawn up a list of films for them to watch. He also knew that Tombstone was probably at the top because of Dean’s love of cowboys.

Cas suspected he’d walked directly into Dean’s trap by asking about the gunfight in Kansas that was mentioned early on in the story. Dean paused the film before it had even really started so he could explain about it and some of the Wyatt brothers’ past at length and Cas listened intently while Dean gestured and pulled up pictures and articles on his phone to use as references to historical figures and events. The wild west was a period Cas knew about in a broad sense, but had missed many of the specifics about since it wasn’t exactly pertinent knowledge for an accountant. After twenty minutes of providing additional context, during which Cas was sure to ask a few follow up questions to prove he’d been listening well, Dean resumed the movie and they continued to watch. Cas couldn’t believe he’d thought Dean only casually interested in the wild west before then.

It seemed that without either of them really making any conscious decision to do so, they wound up with their sides pressed together on the couch. At one point Dean readjusted slightly and tucked one knee up onto the couch to make himself more comfortable, so Cas moved his shoulder to accommodate him and ended up with Dean’s head at a slightly awkward angle on his shoulder for his trouble. From there, it wasn’t long until Cas had tucked up against one of the armrests at a three quarter angle to support himself better while he had one arm wrapped around Dean as he sat with his back pressed against Cas’ chest, head tipped back much more comfortably on Cas’ shoulder.

It was soft and domestic, and Cas thrilled in being able to do something that felt like he’d been doing it forever. His thumb absently rubbed small circles on the skin at Dean’s waist but couldn’t remember when exactly he’d put his hand there, let alone managed to get his thumb under Dean’s tee. Much like everything else with Dean, it felt like he didn’t need to think about what he was doing, he just… knew. All the things people had said to him about love finally made sense, but not in any of the lightning and thunder ways they’d made it out to seem. It felt like Cas had just woken up one day and realised that he’d been living without Dean his whole life and hadn’t realised it until he’d found him. They fit together in a way Cas hadn’t found with anyone else, and if he’d met Dean under slightly more conventional circ*mstances then Cas didn’t doubt that he would have been just as eager to get to know him, to spend the night with him. He’d only spent two nights sleeping next to Dean, after all, but the thought of spending another night without him was almost unthinkable.

Dean’s commentary and reactions petered out as the film went on despite the uptick in action and the amount of sweat shown on Val Kilmer’s brow. When the credits rolled at last, he didn’t move at all, and a slight turn of his head confirmed to Cas that Dean was out cold, his face cheek fitted snugly into the space below Cas’ collarbone. He carefully reached for the remote and managed to turn the TV off without disturbing Dean, and Cas steeled himself for the task of trying to extricate himself from underneath Dean’s weight without waking him.

It was slow going but once he succeeded, Cas set about doing as many helpful things as he could. He carefully went through the kitchen cupboards until he found a container to put the leftover pasta into, then washed the dishes as quietly as possible and left them in the rack to dry. There weren’t many left, on account of Dean having washed most of them as he’d cooked - a skill Cas had yet to master - but he knew from experience that tomato sauces and the morning after didn’t go well together.

After that, he sought out Dean’s bedroom to move their bags into it and turned on the light beside Dean’s bed there before heading back to the couch where Dean was still sound asleep, the oft-present crease between his brows nonexistent now that he slept. Cas was reluctant to wake him, especially since Dean had driven them all day and had much more reason to be tired than Cas did. He deserved to rest.

With care, Cas slipped one hand under Dean’s knees and the other under his shoulders, then lifted him up and held him securely against his chest as he carried him down the hall to the bedroom. Dean’s weight shifted before they’d even left the living room, and Cas dismayed that he’d jostled him too much.

“Cas?” Dean asked groggily, then blinked hard and tried to look around.

“I’ve got you. Watch your head, we’re heading down the hall.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Bridal style?”

“Given that you were sleeping, I didn’t think a single shoulder lift or a firefighter’s carry would be appropriate. It’s only a short distance, nothing unsafe. You’re well within my carrying capacity,” Cas assured him.

Dean’s eyebrows rose in shock. “You could put me in a fireman’s lift?”

Cas frowned down at him. “Yes? The lift was used by firefighters to carry wounded or injured people to safety because it’s an easy way to distribute the weight of another to carry them without assistance, it’s meant to be an easy way to carry someone. It’s no longer commonly used due to smoke inhalation concerns, but it’s still taught outside of the fire service as a useful carrying technique.”

Dean had nothing to say in response to that but it was clear to see he was thinking hard about it. He tensed up to hold more of his own weight while Cas switched off the lights in the living room and the hall, careful not to let him slip. Dean readjusted himself a couple of times as they progressed, and Cas resisted the urge to scold him for fidgeting. They made it into the bedroom without incident, and Cas nudged the door shut with his toe before approaching the bed and gently setting Dean down on the right hand side.

“I think you’re bullsh*tting me,” Dean said from where he lay. Already he was much more alert than he’d been only moments ago at his waking, his eyes bright under the low light of the bedside table lamp. “You work in an office, there’s no way you can pull off a fireman’s carry.”

“Firefighters aren’t all men, Dean,” Cas chided. “And it’s not like I live at work. I run, I have hobbies. I do go home sometimes, you know.”

Dean snorted, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, key word, ‘sometimes’.”

Cas frowned at him, and Dean smugly put his arms behind his head in response. He was up to something, but Cas wasn’t sure what it was exactly. This was different to his earlier jibes and quips, in that it was actually succeeding at frustrating Cas a little.

“I’ll admit, I haven’t been home as often as I would have likely lately, but I assure you. I’m still getting enough exercise if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Cas, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about your exercise routine. I just think you’re convinced I’m gonna believe you after this one trip down the hall, which, I might add, I wasn’t even fully awake for some of. How do I know you weren’t cheating?”

Cas co*cked his head to the side. “How on earth could I cheat at carrying you? That makes no sense, Dean.” Despite Cas’ sound reasoning, Dean was obstinate. Cas could see only one solution. “I can prove it to you if that’s what you want?”

Dean’s pupils seemed to dilate in anticipation at the offer, but Cas wasn’t sure if it was just a trick of the low light.

“If you think you can, be my guest.” Dean’s tone was teasing, taunting, but there was no doubt that the look on his face was a calculating one.

“Very well,” Cas said. He stretched his arms behind him, flexing his shoulders in preparation. “Do you want me to pick you up from lying down or standing up?”

“Lying,” Dean said. “Since that’s how you seemed to think you were going to do it before.” His co*cked eyebrow indicated he still didn’t believe Cas was going to follow through.

Cas shrugged. It wasn’t like it was a great effort for him to demonstrate, even if he hadn’t needed to use the lift in… well, ever. But the theory was sound, and Cas was nothing if not a believer in practical applications.

“Okay then. Relax your whole body and make yourself a dead weight. I’m going to need to move you around a bit to get you into position but don’t help me, just lie still.”

Dean’s face looked like it was fighting a smile as Cas picked him up the same way he’d laid him down, then set his feet on the floor of the bedroom. He was still smirking some as he refused to hold himself up like Cas had asked him to, gone floppy at all his joints, but Cas kept a firm hold on his waist. He carefully positioned Dean’s arms over one shoulder before dropping down onto one knee, sure to stabilise Dean’s chest to stop him from tumbling down onto him before he was ready.

Cas darted a glance up at Dean’s face where it hung over his, and was pleased to find Dean looking much more uncertain than he had before. Not waiting for him to mentally catch up to proceedings, Cas drew Dean’s arms across him, set his shoulder firmly just below the soft centre of Dean’s stomach, and drove upwards to his feet, using the momentum to readjust Dean’s weight a little more comfortably.

“Holy f*ck, okay, you weren’t kidding.”

“I told you I wasn’t,” Cas said smugly. He crossed the bedroom with Dean still hoisted across his shoulders to prove he could move while sustaining the lift. “You were the one who insisted I demonstrate.”

“Yep, lesson learned,” Dean said a little breathlessly from where his head was positioned behind Cas’ shoulder.

He couldn’t blame Dean for being shocked, since most people hadn’t been picked up since they were children and it was certainly a novelty to have it happen so far into adulthood. Dean was clearly struggling not to squirm, and Cas thought he must have set the hold a little off as he felt a building pressure against his upper arm, insistent but not painful.

“If you’ve had enough proof I’ll put you down on the bed. Stay as relaxed as you can for me again.”

Dean did as he was told and Cas crossed back to where he’d picked Dean up before kneeling down to sit him on the side of the bed and letting him go. Dean figured out when to stop being limp and helpfully lifted his arms from over Cas’ shoulders. As Cas stood up again, Dean followed him and rushed to meet him in a kiss with much more enthusiasm than they’d shared before.

“Cas, you’re something else,” Dean murmured against his lips.

His hand on Cas’ hip was warm and as he surged forward for another kiss Cas almost gasped when he felt it slip underneath his shirt and rest against the skin of his lower back. Dean’s touch was electric and the gentle nip he took at his lower lip only heightened Cas’ awareness of how close they were, how hungry the edge to Dean’s kisses were that had been absent the rest of the weekend. Cas met Dean’s kisses with as much fervour as he was receiving, one hand going to the back of Dean’s head to tangle in the hair there. His hand must have tightened in Dean’s hair when he scraped his teeth across Cas’ bottom lip the next time, because their kiss was interrupted by Dean’s short intake of breath. Cas tugged on his hair experimentally and was rewarded with another fast inhale, followed by Dean’s tongue in his mouth. He basked in the nearness of them, exhilarated by the direction things seemed to be heading in. Cas pressed in closer, slotting one of his thighs between Dean’s to keep him close, Dean spreading his legs obligingly.

Ah.So he hadn’t set the hold wrong after all.

Cas crowded in even closer, pulling Dean flush against him and using the thigh wedged between his legs to press up against Dean’s erection, earning him a choked gasp followed by Dean canting his hips down and up again, rolling lightly against Cas’ hip.

“You didn’t think I was lying at all, did you?” Cas said just below Dean’s ear, marvelling at how easily he’d fallen for his ploy. He pressed his lips to the tender point under Dean’s ear and behind his jaw and scraped his teeth across his skin while sucking lightly, not enough to leave a mark but certainly suggesting his intent to do so. “You just wanted an excuse to see if I could really do it, didn’t you? Pick you up. Throw you around a little.”

Dean’s ragged exhale and the way his hands clutched at Cas’ waist and shoulder were answer enough, but Cas wanted to hear it. He moved down to the juncture between Dean’s neck and shoulder, testing his teeth against the skin there and Dean’s hand where it still rested under his shirt tightened, scrabbling for purchase on his skin.

“Okay, yeah,” Dean said breathlessly as Cas continued to lave at the skin above his clavicle. “But I didn’t think it’d be so f*cking hot. Jesus, Cas, you picked me up like I was nothing .”

“My mistake,” Cas assured him, pulling back to meet his eyes and gently pushing the flannel from his shoulders, Dean getting with the program and shrugging the layer off himself. “I should have done it like you were everything.” Cas ran his hands up Dean’s arms, pushing the sleeves of his tee up a little higher to get more access to his skin.

Dean’s eyes flicked between his, searching for something he evidently found. With a soft little whine he leaned forward and laid a slightly gentler kiss on Cas’ mouth, once, twice, before they both got caught up in teeth and tongues again.

“Cas,” Dean whined between kisses. “You can’t just say sh*t like that when I’m not thinking a single decent thought about you.”

Cas was sure Dean could feel his smile through their kisses, even while he carefully backed them up to the edge of the bed. He didn’t even need to encourage Dean to lie down when he felt the backs of his knees bump the frame. He went willingly and Cas followed, crawling up over him, threading their fingers together to hold Dean’s hands down against the comforter. Dean’s pupils were blown wide and his mouth was open slightly in either shock or anticipation when Cas straddled his hips, it wasn’t clear which. Cas held himself up over Dean and leaned down to speak low into his ear.

“As if I haven't already spent hours thinking about how you'd sound coming with my name in your mouth.”

Cas lowered himself slightly so their hips were flush and the contact made them both inhale sharply, Dean arching up into the touch to chase the friction Cas offered.

“Why do we still have so many clothes on?” Dean gasped, rocking his hips up as Cas rutted languidly against him. Cas could feel both of Dean’s hands on his back, rucking his shirt up untidly under his armpits. He sat back on Dean’s thighs and Dean dropped his hands immediately, then lifted his shoulders off the bed to yank his shirt over his head before flinging it into a corner of the room.

Cas smiled down at him, hands tracing the dark lines of Dean’s tattoo with a finger before he leaned in to follow them with his tongue, Dean pushing up into the touch, his breathing shaky. He keened softly when Cas’ teeth scraped across his nipple, then sagged into the mattress, his breath punched out of him when Cas latched onto it and sucked.

“Cas, please,” Dean whined, his hands scrambling to try and push Cas’ shirt over his shoulders. “Wanna touch you.”

He was powerless to resist, especially when Dean asked so nicely. In fact, Cas suspected there was very little that Dean could ask that Cas could deny him at all.

Cas didn’t do much more thinking after that, too busy delighting in the feeling of Dean’s skin against his own, holding him close as they fell.

Morning dawned on Monday, but neither he nor Dean was awake to greet it. Instead, they were warm under the covers together, legs twined and bodies pressed together as much as possible, like they were reluctant to separate even in sleep.

After spending hours of his life imagining how it would feel to wake up with Dean in his arms, Castiel relished in finally getting his wish. It was slightly less comfortable than he’d pictured, especially with his arm pinned beneath him, but Cas delighted in finally being able to card his fingers through Dean’s hair while he slept. It was soft, and unlike in the motel, Cas didn’t need to pretend to be asleep as Dean started to stir to wakefulness.

Dean shuffled his cheek where it was pillowed on Cas’ chest, and Cas tipped his chin to press a kiss to the top of his head. He mumbled indignantly and slid off Cas’ chest with his eyes closed, pushing weakly at Cas’ shoulder to make him roll over before shuffling in to fit himself against Cas’ back and giving a satisfied huff.

Their day was slow to start on account of Dean holding Cas close with his arm and leaving kisses across his shoulders, which turned into Cas pressing his ass back against Dean while he rutted lazily against it. Things only devolved from there.

When hunger finally drove them from bed, Dean made breakfast with Cas wrapped around him like some kind of clinger alien, planting a kiss on his cheek when Cas scrunched his face up in confusion at the remark. They ate at the little table in the kitchen

Cas felt a little useless until he spotted the potted herbs on Dean’s windowsill. He hadn’t noticed them the night before, which was probably for the best, as given the state of them, he might have spoiled the night by insisting on helping them there and then. They were without a doubt the saddest, scraggliest specimens Cas had ever seen – and he’d been to look at the plant selection at his local supermarket once.

After judicial application of the kitchen scissors to remove the dead, damaged, and dying parts, the herbs looked a little threadbare but were overall in a much better state than he’d found them. Dean shrugged and said he couldn’t seem to keep them alive and, to his absolute delight, Cas wrote him careful instructions on a piece of notepaper and fixed them to the fridge with a novelty magnet.

They spent the rest of the day watching movies and intermittently making out on the couch, only noting how long it had been from the long shadows the sun cast onto the walls.

“Hey, so,” Dean said once the sun started to set. It was only shortly before 5pm but it felt like much later, the day having slipped away with the sunlight. Their positions were reversed from the night before, Dean held up by the corner of the couch and Cas lying with his head pillowed on Dean’s chest.

“I know you have tomorrow off too, but I don’t have to be in at the office until later…” Dean trailed off while playing with Cas’ hair, twirling locks of it between his fingers before letting it flop back down onto his head. “If you wanted to, you could stay the night again? I can drop you home in the morning before I head in, s’no biggie.”

Cas smiled radiantly at him, and the beautiful smile crinkles he loved so much made their appearance at the sides of Dean’s eyes.

“I’d love nothing better,” Cas said.

Dean put both arms around him, jostling him slightly. “Love, huh? Didn’t take you for a ‘declarations after the first date’ kind of guy.”

Cas squinted indignantly at him.

“I meant I’d love to stay, but… you’re not wrong. It’s not exactly how I was planning to tell you, though.”

The smile melted from Dean’s face and his jaw fell open.

“Oh god, sorry, that was too much wasn’t it? Should I have waited? I’ve always heard that when you know, you know, and it just felt… Dean?”

Dean’s throat worked for a moment before he got control of himself.

“You are just–”

What exactly he was, Cas never found out. Dean gave up on the statement in favour of seizing Cas’s face and kissing him soundly.

“I love you,” Cas said when they broke apart at last. “I know it’s soon, you probably think I’m crazy but–”

“No crazier than me,” Dean said softly into the space between them. “God, I feel like I’ve known you for years, Cas. I… yeah, me too. I love you.”

Dinner was late that night.

Lying in bed together in the dark later, Dean traced patterns on Cas’ shoulder.

“You remember what I said about my desk job?”

Cas hummed in the affirmative. “That you were thinking about leaving?”

“Yeah. I think… I think I’m gonna do it. I’ve done some looking and there’s a couple of courses I can take that would set me up with the certification I need if I’m gonna open my own garage. I dunno where yet, but I’m getting my sh*t in order, and…” he kept moving his fingers constantly and Cas let him, the touch seeming to keep Dean grounded while he spoke. “For once, I’m excited. I’ve still gotta tell Ellen and Bobby, but I’m excited to do something I want to do.”

Dean let out a long exhale when he was finished and Cas bumped their heads together, touching foreheads, sharing breath.

“I’m proud of you, Dean. You deserve to be happy. You deserve good things.”

Dean nudged Cas’ nose with his own. “So do you, though,” he protested. “You and your plants should be living on a farm in the sun somewhere. You shouldn’t have to stay chained to your job just to save your brother’s ass.”

“I know, but…”

“No, there is no but.” Dean propped himself up on one elbow to illustrate his point. “You’re doing grunt work for Michael while he sits up on his gilded throne doing sweet f*ck all, and Luke doesn’t even work there anymore. You don’t have to stick around just because they’re related to you.”

Cas rolled his eyes and pushed at Dean’s elbow to get him to stop looming.

“You really do sound like Gabriel sometimes, you know.”

Dean poked a finger into Cas’s chest and fixed him with a stern stare. “Don’t you ever compare me to your brother while we are lying in bed together, do you understand me? Actually, you know what, just don’t compare me to any of them at all. That’s probably for the best.”

Cas bit back a smile. “I understand.”

Dean flopped back down onto the pillow, still looking at Cas. “Good. Don’t you ever forget it.”

Now settled, Cas held his arms open for Dean to scoot back against his chest and Dean turned the light off.

“Don’t forget about you, either,” Dean said into the darkness. “If I can do it, then so can you.”

Cas pressed a kiss to the back of his neck.

“I know, Dean. I know.”

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

When Cas returned to work on Wednesday it was with a spring in his step and not a care in the world. Nobody asked him where he’d been on his two days off, which he was quietly relieved about. While he was thrilled to finally know he and Dean were on the same page regarding their relationship, he didn’t want to have to deal with awkward, insincere office small talk about it.

Every time he caught Dean’s eye, neither of them could quite keep a smile to themselves. Even after a full weekend of each other’s company they kept up with their daily calls and texts. Cas was also careful to leave the office at 5pm sharp every day which Dean noted, and arranged to meet up with him on Friday for dinner out in town as a celebration.

Cas was still riding high from the road trip and was looking forward to this latest date so much that he completely missed how awful the atmosphere was in the office until Friday morning when Zachariah came downstairs to speak to the floor at large.

“The management reports for the Sandover accounts are due, but thanks to some late audits the entire report is behind schedule. That means we’re going to need all of you to drop side projects and contribute your efforts to this so we can turn in the reports in by EOD. Any questions?”

Zachariah looked briefly around the floor but before anyone had a chance to express any kind of reaction, he clapped his hands and plastered on a plastic smile.

“Excellent! I expect you’ll all stay tonight until the project is finished. We’ve got to meet that midnight deadline! Direct any questions about the project to Castiel, he’ll act as a touchstone for me here,” he said primly, and swept away without a further word.

Cas was very much aware of the atmosphere then, as thirty two pairs of eyes swung to look at him with barely restrained horror.

“I know this isn’t how any of you wanted to spend your Friday,” he said. “And I promise you, it’s not what I had in mind either. Despite what Zachariah would have you believe, I cannot ask you to sacrifice your own projects and accounts just to save another floor, so please work with any and all urgent and on-schedule tasks of your own first.”

A few people shared looks of relief and a little of the tension in the room abated.

“For anyone not working on urgent tasks, I would ask you to divert your efforts to this. I believe Zachariah has granted access to the relevant files for each division already, but if there’s any confusion then please come and see me. You’re welcome to use the meeting rooms as you need to today in order to collaborate with others on any work. I’ll be available at any time to discuss or assist with anything, and please let me know if you’ll be staying late tonight.” He made eye contact with as many people as possible. “I’ll be here as well, and will be making note of all overtime taken regardless of how long you stay. Efforts deserve reward. That’s all.”

The day was a blur, with people coming and going from Cas’ desk all day. He barely had time to make eye contact with Dean even once, and it was only briefly – Cas had just had someone leave and managed to see Dean standing in the doorway of Bobby’s office with his phone held in his hand. He gave it a little wiggle at Cas who barely had time to nod in understanding before someone else swung by his cubicle with sheaves of papers to look over.

Cas wasn’t even able to check his phone until after three when he finally had a few minutes to spare to make a trip to the bathroom.

5 NEW MESSAGES RECEIVED

FROM: Dean 💚

9:02 AM << I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this popular at work, something happen?

11:50 AM << Gonna take your radio silence as a yes haha. It’s almost lunch, don’t forget to eat something

1:09 PM << You haven’t moved. You didn’t eat, did you

1:26 PM << Couldn’t get up to your floor without a keycard or an appointment, but I left something for you with the receptionist on the ground floor. Hope you like BLTs

3:12 PM << How’s everything looking over there? Still on for tonight?

Cas washed his hands and fired off a quick response.

MESSAGE SENT

>> 💀 rprts due 2nite nd evr1 🔛💯mb l8 4 🍽️ ill lyk l8r

Before he’d even had time to put his phone back in his pocket, it buzzed with a reply.

1 NEW MESSAGE RECEIVED

FROM: Dean 💚

<< Ah that’s the worst, hope it goes okay. I’ll check in with you again at 5!

He smiled quickly at Dean’s enthusiasm before heading back into the fray.

Alfie arrived downstairs late in the afternoon and looked more harried than Castiel had ever seen him. He’d stayed in Zachariah’s department after he was hired on as regular staff, but still appeared to be treated as his lackey. Upon seeing his miserable expression, Cas suspected he’d need a breather and invited him to stay a while. Alfie sagged in palpable relief and asked if he could head down to the ground floor for a few minutes for some fresh air and to stretch his legs. Surprised he’d asked, Cas told him he was welcome to clear his head and asked if he might be so kind as to check in with Dumah to pick up the lunch Dean had left him. Alfie gave him a small smile and assured him it was no problem.

He had far more people come and offer to stay late than he’d anticipated and was pleasantly surprised to find that most people were in decent spirits despite the sudden workload being sprung on them. So far, Zachariah hadn’t responded to any of Castiel’s emails or messages, but that didn’t bother him. In fact, he relished in the freedom this afforded him. He spent much of his time in one of the meeting rooms, so it wasn’t until someone came to tell Castiel his desk was vibrating and starting to annoy some people that he realised something was amiss.

When he finally got back to his phone, most of the lights in Singer were off and it was well and truly dark outside. He’d completely forgotten to keep track of time and had missed his check in with Dean by a long shot.

3 NEW MESSAGES RECEIVED

FROM: Dean 💚

5:02 PM << 5pm check in time. How’s everything looking?

5:23 PM << I know you said you might be late, but how late?

5:27 PM 1 MISSED CALL

6:12 PM << Haven’t seen you at your desk for a while again… overtime? I’ll hang around for a bit, guessing you’ve lost track of time

6:30 PM 1 MISSED CALL

6:38 PM 1 MISSED CALL

6:41 PM 2 MISSED CALLS

Cas was overcome with guilt as he dialled Dean’s number. It rang for a long time, long enough to make him nervous but the call finally connected.

“Cas, you’re alive!”

He bit back a relieved sigh.

“I am, but I’m afraid I’ve still got work ahead of me. Dean, I’m so sorry, but I won’t be able to make it tonight.”

“Yeah I figured,” Dean said, and something in Cas shrivelled at the quiet resignation in his voice. It wasn’t judgmental, but Cas felt guilty all the same. Dean shouldn’t know already that he was more likely to stay at work than to commit to plans.

“I actually went home around six thirty. Figured it was gonna be more comfortable to wait somewhere with snacks, and we could always do dinner here instead of out in the city since you might be tired after your nightmare of a day, so it’s honestly no biggie.”

“It’s a biggie to me,” Cas insisted. “I’m sorry for wasting your time. Let me make it up to you – come over this weekend. If you’re not busy,” he added hastily.

Dean chuckled. “Sweetheart, even if I was busy I’d cancel all my plans for you. It’s a date. Let me know when you’re home tonight and what time you want me over tomorrow, I’ll be there.”

“You’re the best,” Cas said warmly. “Thank you for the sandwich, by the way. You were right.”

“I knew it! And hey, since you’re on the line, let me also remind you that it’s dinner time. Order pizzas for your floor or something if nobody’s done it already, keep spirits up. You’re accountants, I’m sure you can find some megacorp to bill them to.”

“That’s called fraud, Dean, and it is very much not in the job description,” Cas said dryly. “But thank you for the suggestion all the same, the former part of it is founded in sound logic at least.”

“I’ll show you a foundation of sound logic,” Dean said and it succeeded in making Cas laugh. He felt a little lighter already.

“That’s what the weekend is for,” Cas promised him, and he fancied he could hear a slight hitch in Dean’s breath before he continued. “I have to go now, but thank you again. I’ll let you know when I’m home tonight, but it might be pretty late.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s Friday, I’ll wait up. See you tomorrow, Cas.”

“See you then. Goodbye, Dean.”

He hadn’t left the office on Friday until after midnight, staying until the last to ensure all loose ends were tied up for the submission of the report, and then after that, too, to be absolutely certain the submission had gone through successfully. Cas was exhausted and barely remembered to tell Dean when he finally made it home shortly after two thirty in the morning. The first thing Dean did on his arrival at his place the next day was set him up on the couch with a blanket and bring him coffee – Cas hadn’t realised quite how terrible he’d looked or how ambitious it had been to tell Dean he was welcome from nine onwards. They ended up napping on the couch together in the afternoon and it made Cas’s chest feel warm even now to remember how safe he’d felt waking up held in Dean’s arms.

After a slow weekend of lazing around with Dean, Cas was more reluctant to return to work than he could ever recall. He headed to his floor as usual and was greeted with more warmth and enthusiasm than he’d ever encountered from anyone at HeavEn before.

Evidently word of the successful submission had spread and there was no shortage of goodwill towards Cas because of it. Alfie even came down around their morning break and offered Castiel a far-too-fancy piece of cake as a thank you for the work he’d put in.

Shortly before lunch, Cas realised just how quickly word had spread.

“Castiel,” Michael said pleasantly as Cas stepped into the penthouse office. “Please, have a seat. Zachariah was just leaving.”

Zachariah looked like he was more likely to burst into flames than do that.

“You can’t treat me like this!” He spluttered. His face turned an ugly shade of puce as Castiel stood watching, reluctant to sit next to him but unable to leave. “I’ve done more for this company than you know,” Zachariah continued. “Half of the projects we have on deck wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me!”

“And the half we’ve lost to the loans division would be,” Michael countered coolly. “You seem to think that your meagre offering of – might I note, collaborative – successes is going to make up for the overwhelming surplus of mistakes you have left in your wake.”

“Then put me on a PIP! Demote me! Sandover’s account went through on time, that’s not a punishable offence. If anything, it should merit reward! You can’t just fire me! ”

Castiel said nothing, focusing on ensuring his face remained neutral. Nothing he could say was going to save Zachariah from the damage he’d already done to himself.

“Actually,” Michael noted calmly, “I think you’ll find I can.”

Zachariah spluttered and opened his mouth to protest, but he trailed off at the minute thinning of Michael’s mouth.

“If you refer to section 7 of the contract you signed upon your hire here at Heavenly Enterprises,” Michael said, “which has been reviewed regularly every two years with any and all changes witnessed and signed by yourself, you’ll find that subsection C refers to direct dismissal by a member of the board.” He began to recite: “Clause ii states that after two formal warnings, which you will find clearly detailed in your personnel reports –” Michael gestured dispassionately to the manila folder lying on the desk, close to Zachariah. “– it is within the right of any board member to dismiss you with immediate effect for any subsequent incidents that warrant penalty.”

Michael paused to allow himself a small, empty upturning of his lips.

“Put simply, this was your third strike. I’m afraid you’re out.”

“What formal warnings?” Zachariah demanded. “When, exactly? The last reprimand I had was years ago, it must have been–”

The expression on Michael’s face widened slightly, showing the unnatural white of his teeth.

“All warnings are dated at the time of issuance. Unless you made note of any dates of exclusion, then I’m afraid you’ll find that the clause is all-encompassing.”

The rest of the exchange was rather swift. When Zachariah proceeded to melt down about his dismissal, Michael pressed the small button on the underside of his desk that Castiel knew he kept for just such dramatics and Zachariah was promptly escorted from the room by security.

“Heavenly Enterprises thanks you for your service Mr. Adler,” Michael said cordially as Zachariah was frogmarched away. “But regretfully it is no longer required.”

The door closed with a quiet slicing sound that was all too reminiscent of a blade being run across a throat.

“I’m sorry you had to see that little bit of unpleasantness,” Michael said, turning to Castiel. “Some people simply refuse to know their place.” He gestured to the seats in front of his desk, and Castiel sat at last. “Despite your… connections, though, you have never suffered from that particular professional shortcoming.”

Michael steepled his fingers underneath his chin. On anyone else it might have looked like a calculated gesture, something to make them seem sage, but on Michael it seemed only rehearsed. There was much Castiel lacked in social skills, but nothing made him feel more human than the smooth, almost mechanical way Michael carried himself.

“There are many here who could stand to learn a few things from you, Castiel.”

“Thank you.”

“I heard we have you to thank for the timely submission of the Sandover account,” Michael said. “Security tells me you were here beyond the submission deadline to ensure it went smoothly, even though it’s not an account you have input on usually. Your attendance records are exemplary - hardly a sick day taken, and you took your first annual leave in years only last week.” His eyes were trained on Castiel in the way a snake might fixate on its prey. “In fact, I think it’s fair to say that your input and talents are overdue recognition. Wouldn’t you agree?”

In private he would, certainly. But given that he’d just witnessed the dismissal of someone who’d worked at HeavEn even longer than he had, Castiel knew better than to agree outright.

“I’m happy in my current position,” he demurred. “But if the work I’ve done has warranted recognition then that news brings me nothing but satisfaction.”

“A textbook response as always, Castiel.”

He met Michael’s eye at that. The most infinitesimal sliver of what appeared to be a genuine smile cowered at the corner of Michael’s mouth as he leaned forward in his chair.

“I’ve discussed it with the rest of the board, and we feel it’s time you held a position befitting of your skills and experience. This position would come with certain advantages, most notably a change of location to house you with the other executives. We’re granting you an office on the fortieth floor – corner, of course. Nothing less for our new Chief Financial Officer.”

Despite his best efforts Castiel felt his shock show on his face, a mistake that didn’t escape Michael’s notice.

“Something you’d like to say?”

Castiel tightened the fingers of his left hand on the armrest of the chair.

“If I might speak freely…?”

Michael inclined his head, acquiescing.

“While this offer is generous and certainly an honour, I don’t feel I can accept it.”

Something on Michael’s face changed imperceptibly before smoothing out again. Cas barreled on.

“As I mentioned, I’m happy in my current position. I want for nothing, and while this recognition is much appreciated, I’m not looking to make any big changes to my role at this point in time. I appreciate that I’ve been singled out for my contributions to the Sandover reports, but it was the work of my entire team that allowed the project to make the deadline in time, not just my own. My work wasn’t exceptional by any means, it just so happened that I was the one to get the ball over the line.”

“Am I to understand this is a refusal?”

“I’m grateful to have attracted the board’s attention for this, but a promotion is an unnecessary incentive. I’d like to stay with the rest of my team and the accounts I have currently. Unless the board’s decision is final then this isn’t a refusal, just a declinature. I appreciate the sentiment this offer reflects and I’m flattered by the offer, but I can’t accept it.”

Cas knew he was taking a risk by turning Michael down so directly but, strangely, it felt good.

Michael’s face remained neutral, a mask of professional indifference. “It’s not the most conventional response, but if staying the course is what you want then it’s a request I’m willing to grant.”

Cas already knew there wasn’t any way for Michael to force him to take a promotion he didn’t want. He was just grateful that Michael didn’t seem to be in the mood to punish two employees on the same day.

The rest of the meeting was remarkably short – Michael had never been overly tolerant of small talk and, after inquiring about his activities on his day off, Castiel was summarily dismissed. There was no need to show him to an office he wouldn’t be moving to.

On his way out, Cas noted that one patch of Michael’s carpet appeared to catch and diffract the sunlight a little more than the rest and he smiled to himself all the way back down to his desk.

When Dean heard he’d been called into the meeting, he offered to swing by his place after work. Cas agreed readily, looking forward to sharing another night with Dean since they’d agreed it would be too far for him to get home by train late at night.

The rest of the day blurred past Cas but he was sure to leave exactly at 5 PM. He’d had more than his fill of staying late. Dean met him outside, and they walked through the park together towards the station, Cas pointing out his favourite landmarks and flowers so that Dean could enjoy them too.

“So you turned him down?” Dean asked incredulously when Cas told him about the meeting over dinner at his house. “Not to psychoanalyse you or anything, but I thought you were kind of hoping for a bit of recognition from him. And CFO is a massive bit of recognition as far as promotions go.”

Cas set down his empty pad thai container and leaned his head back over the spine of the couch.

“For the longest time I thought that’s what I wanted too, but… I don’t know. Once I was there and it was being offered to me, I realised I didn’t need it.” He tipped his head back up to look at Dean. “I guess it wasn’t his recognition I wanted.”

Dean’s eyes creased beautifully when he was happy, Cas thought, right before Dean kissed him.

Dean had never liked public transport – there were too many people on there for his liking and he had no agency over the route which made him feel trapped more often than not, but something about riding the train with Cas made it bearable. It was interesting seeing the city from a different point of view. Cas leaned in and narrated the journey into their offices quietly into his ear and the distraction was a welcome one.

Bobby was waiting for him when he made it up to the floor, already sitting in the visitor chair in Dean’s office. He’d raised the blinds to let the light in, and the irony of Bobby being in there and visible wasn’t lost on Dean.

“You care to tell me why next door wants to see you?”

Dean stopped after hanging his messenger bag up. “They do?”

Bobby nodded. “Request came through first thing this morning.” He cast a critical look at Dean. “Wouldn’t have anything to do with your office angel, would it?”

Dean rolled his eyes and flung himself into the seat behind his desk, hoping it wasn’t obvious that his cheeks were colouring. “What, you got nothing better to do than listen to rumours? Do you and Benny have a little gossip network I don’t know about? You exchange horoscopes and paint each other’s nails, too?”

“Keep your hair on, princess. Sam showed me when he was here.”

“Sam? ” Oh, he was so getting nair in his shampoo when Dean saw him next. “So you’re gonna believe the guy who genuinely thought that Ted Cruz was the zodiac killer for like a whole month?”

“You’re missing the point, idjit,” Bobby snapped. “Next door didn’t ask for a technician this time, they asked for you, specifically. By name. I don’t know why they want you, so there’s nothing I can do or say to get you out of this meeting if I need to, and no way for me to save your bacon if I have to. So if there’s anything you want to confess before I send you across, now’s the time to do it. Anything I should know about?”

Dean’s eyes darted out the window quickly, noting Cas running a hand through his hair distractedly at his desk before he settled his gaze back on Bobby.

“Nothing you don’t already.”

Bobby nodded once. “I’ll tell ‘em you’re heading across, then. Keep us posted.”

Dean tried to figure out what was so important that Cas had to ask for him through official channels rather than just texting him as he walked across. The same secretary he’d spoken to on Friday was at the front desk again, and Dean briefly wondered if it was some kind of requirement to have a weird name to work at HeavEn. Dumah? Castiel? Where did they find all these people?

“Hi, uh… My name is Dean Winchester, I’m from Singer Enterprises. I think I’m supposed to be meeting someone?”

“Ah, Mr. Winchester,” Dumah said placidly. “Of course. I’ve been expecting you. This way, if you please.”

She stepped out from behind the desk and waved Dean over to the elevator bank. She ushered him into a waiting elevator, then held a keycard from a lanyard around her neck against a waiting security panel which beeped in recognition. She leaned inside to press the button with forty-seven on it, which lit up in blue.

“Mr. Milton’s aide will direct you to his office when you arrive on his floor.”

Dean threw his arm out to stop the doors from closing on him.

“Wait, Mr. Milton? I-” Dean stopped before saying he was expecting Cas. “Sorry, but could you tell me what this meeting is about? Nobody’s actually told me why I’m here.”

Dumah gave him a commiserating look but shook her head. “I’m sorry, but that’s information I don’t have access to since your meeting is with Mr. Milton directly. His aide may have more information for you when you arrive, best to try speaking to him.”

Dean removed his hand from the doors and they started to slide closed.

“Good luck, Mr. Winchester.”

The elevator ride up to the penthouse felt like it took several years, probably on account of it being a direct ride up. There were no stops to pick up any other employees on the way, so Dean was left alone with only his thoughts for company. He was almost ready to bolt out of there by the time the elevator arrived, but a garishly generic yet perfectly coiffed assistant greeted him the moment the doors opened, so there was no chance. Dean craned his head surreptitiously to read his nametag.

“Hey, Bartholomew–” Again with the names! “Bart? You wouldn’t happen to have an agenda of some kind for this meeting, would you? Just I don’t think one got forwarded to me so I’m kinda flying blind here.”

“There is no agenda, Mr. Winchester. Mr. Milton had his schedule cleared for your appointment today, so I’m sorry to say I know as much as you do.” The aide’s face showed not a shred of genuine sympathy. “This way, please.”

He led Dean down a short corridor to a set of sleek white double doors set with oversized vertical gold handles. Without even so much as a boring old office plant to break up the monotony, they screamed ‘statement piece’ in the otherwise empty floor. Bartholomew rapped on them once, waiting for some cue that Dean didn’t catch, then pushed one side of the doors open and held them for Dean to enter. He didn’t hear the aide slip out after him, only the soft snick of the doors settling back into place.

“Ah, Mr. Winchester,” said the blond man behind the desk. He rose to his feet and gestured to the empty chairs in front of him, waiting for Dean to settle before he retook his own seat. “We meet at last. I don’t believe we’ve ever been formally acquainted – I’m Michael Milton, CEO here at Heavenly Enterprises.”

So, it was Cas’ infamous brother who’d asked for him. Dean was looking forward to seeing if he lived up to his notoriety. So far it seemed he was par for the course – Michael didn’t offer his hand to shake and Dean knew a power move when he saw one. He decided then that if Michael wanted to play the corporate dick-swinging game, then he was going to turn up the charm to eleven. It’d got him out of worse binds than a stuffy meeting before.

“Ah, Michael!” Dean used his first name intentionally, declaring that he refused to be intimidated by the other man’s title or demeanour. He then stuck his hand out expectantly, forcing Michael to reach forwards to shake it. It was surprisingly firm and Dean’s brain warned him to exercise caution. Nobody had a handshake that solid without a will to match it. “It’s a pleasure.”

Michael showed his teeth in an expression that looked like it was modelled after Dean’s prizewinning smile but it didn’t reach his eyes. “The pleasure is all mine, I assure you.”

“Well then, to what do I owe it?” Dean spread his hands and settled them back in his lap, crossing his ankles for good measure to complete the picture of ease he painted. “You must know by now that this meeting is something of a sensation for my guys, they’re all champing at the bit for me to get back.” And tell them what you said.

“I don’t doubt it,” Michael agreed. His hands stayed politely folded in front of him on the solid mass of his desk and didn’t so much as twitch at Dean’s thinly veiled threat. “But please, let’s dispense with the formalities for the time being.”

Dean doubted Michael knew what anything less than formal was, but inclined his head all the same.

“I believe you’re familiar with my brother, Castiel Novak?”

Dean tried not to let his agitation show but felt his molars meet when his jaw clenched.

“I’ve met him, yes.”

Michael’s expression showed too many teeth.

“I thought you might say something like that.”

Dean had been quiet all day and Cas wasn’t sure why. Since they’d parted ways in the morning Cas had been swamped with his own work to catch up on and had barely had a minute to himself. He’d fired off a message when he found the time, but it was well into the evening now and Cas hadn’t seen or heard from Dean once. It was strange for Dean to be so quiet – they both knew that Cas was the worst at replying and keeping on top of messages out of the two of them.

They’d always responded to each other at least once a day, even if it was just to say that they didn’t have time to talk. Cas hoped that something had just come up and was keeping Dean unexpectedly busy.

He tried his best to keep his mind off the nagging sense of wrongness by playing music, going for a run despite the cool outside temperature, and even doing his best to replicate Dean’s pasta recipe from the week before – it wasn’t burnt and it wasn’t bland, so Cas counted it as a win despite it not tasting quite the same. He also did a little research, even going so far as to reach out to Gabriel for a hand at one point. It did take more time to convince Gabriel to leave him alone afterwards but, all in all, his contributions were valuable and worth the effort.

Come Thursday it was getting harder and harder to keep his mind off the glaring absence of Dean. His emoji story of the day messages hadn’t elicited any kind of response and they were usually Dean’s favourite. The rare few times Cas had seen him at Singer, Dean had been single minded on whatever task he was on before retreating into his office, the blinds firmly shut again.

Cas wondered if it was just the distance and the shadows, but he thought Dean looked slightly more haggard than usual.

Between his aversion to looking at Cas and the shadows under his eyes, Dean’s radio silence was starting to feel pointed.

MESSAGE SENT

>> Is everything okay? I’m worried about you, it’s been a few days

By the end of the day there was still no response.

Cas had caught the barest glimpse of Dean in Singer that day, and decided that if Dean wasn’t going to cooperate, then he was taking matters into his own hands.

Since there was nobody above him to reprimand him and Cas figured he was well overdue a little compensation for the hundreds of hours of unlogged overtime he’d taken over the years, he left HeavEn twenty minutes early and parked himself in one of the chairs in Singer’s lobby to wait Dean out.

He didn’t have to wait long: Dean came down shortly before five, in such a hurry to leave that he didn’t notice Castiel until he’d almost walked into him.

“Dean,” Cas said in relief.

The relief Cas felt vanished like water through his fingers when Dean’s face shuttered, his expression closing off and his eyes turning hard.

“What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you,” He said. He’d halfway reached out to touch Dean but withdrew his hand at the furious look Dean gave him. “I hadn’t heard from you and wanted to make sure you were oka–”

“Clearly I’m fine,” Dean snapped. “I don’t need you breathing down my neck.”

Cas’ head jerked back slightly in surprise and no small amount of hurt. “What’s going on with you?”

Dean’s top lip twitched in what looked like it wanted to be a snarl, but he barely kept himself in check. “I’m not doing this here like some kind of f*cking spectacle,” he said dismissively, casting an evil look at the secretary on the other side of the foyer who was studiously trying not to be caught looking at them. “Go home.”

“No,” Cas insisted, drawing himself up higher. “Not unless you’re going to follow me and talk about what’s going on. I’m not leaving this like it is, especially since I don’t even know what it is I’m supposed to have done.”

“As if I’d set foot in the f*cking Big Brother house again,” Dean spat, and Cas felt the words as if Dean had hit him physically with them. “If you want to talk so bad, you can meet me at Benny’s.” Dean checked his watch. “I’ll be there for twenty minutes and then I’m going. I’m not waiting around for you if you’re late.”

He stepped around Cas and swept from the building without a further glance. Cas stared after him, feeling like he’d had the rug pulled out from him, off kilter and afraid of what was coming.

Cas had taken the train to work, but it seemed from Dean’s words that he’d driven in, so no matter what train Cas managed to get on, Dean was going to beat him to Benny’s. There was nothing. He ran into the street and hailed a cab, offering the driver double if they managed to get him there without getting bogged down in rush hour traffic.

Dean was waiting inside when Cas arrived. Benny took a long look between Dean’s thunderous expression and Cas’ confused one, and hastily excused himself to his office behind the bar.

“Dean, what is going on with you?” Cas asked.

In hindsight, it was perhaps not the best opener.

“What’s going on with me? What the f*ck is going on with you ? I can’t believe you Cas! The f*cking entitlement!”

Cas was more confused than ever. “What are you talking about? The last I spoke to you was on Monday before we went into work, and I haven’t heard from you since. What am I supposed to have done?”

“How about getting your sleazebag brother to offer me a job as your f*cking kept boy?”

The air in the bar suddenly felt very thin and Cas reached out blindly to steady himself on the edge of the bar.

“What?”

“Michael called me up to his office on Monday and offered me a job as your personal assistant, a role offered on your behalf. Setting me up with a desk inside the private office you’re moving to was a nice touch by the way, gotta make sure I’m easy to spy on, isn’t that right?”

Cas’ ears were ringing. “Dean, whatever Michael offered you was behind my back and not on my behalf. I told you he offered me the CFO position but I turned it down because I don’t want it! I don’t even know how he found out about us, I would never have asked him to do something like this.”

“But he did it anyway!” Dean yelled. “When are you going to grow a f*cking spine, Cas? It’s always excuse after excuse from you for your family’s bullsh*t behaviour. You keep saying you want to be together, but every time there’s a choice between you and your job, you choose it every time. You’re married to your f*cking desk! If you even gave half a sh*t about what we had, you’d know that the idea of sitting in an office next to you under your creepy brother’s thumb is my idea of hell. I would f*cking hate that, Cas. You were supposed to know that!”

“I do know that!” Cas fired back at him. “That’s exactly why I’d never ask it of you! And what do you mean, ‘everything we had’, we still–”

“No, Cas,” Dean said bluntly. “I don’t think we do. Not after you had to go and try and keep me like I was your f*cking dog.”

Cas’s knuckles were white where they gripped the bar.

“Don’t I get a say in it? If you’d let me get more than five words in before you decided to turn on me we might not have ended up here, but it’s nice to know you think of me so charitably. I know you’re hurt and you think I’ve betrayed you, but this kind of backhanded retaliation is the last thing I thought you’d stoop to.” The words came out of Cas before he even had a chance to weigh them against his anger. “I know you expect the worst from everyone else, but I guess I was a fool to think I was different.”

Something in Dean’s expression faltered slightly, as if he hadn’t thought about it that way. He opened his mouth to protest, but Cas was tired of being cut off. Now that he’d landed a blow of his own he was on a roll.

“You have done nothing but tell me I need to get my own life together and start taking control of my future and my choices, and you were absolutely right – I needed to hear it from someone who wasn’t involved. But you are such a hypocrite! You could have split from Singer years ago and gone your own way when you first realised you were going to sit in an office instead of doing what you loved, but you were too much of a coward. You can’t even stick up for the one person who should matter most to you.”

“Oh yeah?” Dean challenged. “You think you know me so well? Who’s that supposed to be, then?”

“You! You’ve spent your whole life protecting others and their peace at the cost of your own. Christ, Dean, if I’m meant to tell almost my entire family to f*ck off at your behest, then the least you could do is take your own f*cking advice! Stop rolling over for them!”

Cas crossed to where he’d left his satchel on a table nearby and rummaged around in it while Dean looked thunderstruck. Cas realised it was the first time he’d sworn in front of Dean, but couldn’t bring himself to care. Let him be shocked.

He finally found what he was looking for. The tails of his trenchcoat billowed behind him as he stalked to Dean’s end of the bar all but slammed the papers down onto the countertop in front of him. Dean breathed harshly out of his nose, then squinted at the paper like he was trying to get the words to come into focus. Cas glared at him all the while, feeling a muscle in his jaw tic as he fought to remain calm while Dean’s face slowly fell in realisation.

He reached out and touched his hand to the contract to Cas’s apartment, signed and stamped with the date of his termination of contract.

“Cas, what are you…?”

“I’m moving out. I’m tired of living under Michael’s thumb, and I always hated that f*cking apartment. Not enough natural light.” He pointed to the paper in front of Dean. “There’s a second page.”

Dean lifted the page and looked at the one behind it, then up at Cas. All the fight appeared to have drained from him.

“You’re quitting?”

“I am.” Cas said. There was a brief lull while Dean processed and Cas couldn't quite bite back his next retort. “Is that the kind of thing that someone who was trying to ‘keep you like a f*cking dog’ would do?” 


Dean swallowed, a muscle in his cheek jumping once, but he remained silent.

Cas took back the papers and put them in his bag with significantly more care than he’d taken them out. “Well, you’ve said your piece and I’ve said mine. I guess that’s our twenty minutes up.”

Dean stood and made to reach out to him. “Cas, wait. I–”

Cas yanked his hand back out of Dean’s reach. “I think you’ve made it clear how you feel.”

“No, I haven’t,” Dean insisted. He didn’t try to reach for Cas again, and Cas watched as his hands balled into fists then unclenched with apparently a great effort.

“I was angry, Cas, I know I shouldn’t have iced you out but I didn’t know how to– I thought that–”. He dragged in a shuddering breath and started again. “We had something good, Cas. So good,” Dean’s voice was low but emphatic. “It wasn’t perfect, nothing is, but it was the nicest thing I’ve had probably ever. Cas, please, I’m sorry.”

Castiel hitched his bag higher on his shoulder and turned to face the door.

“I need time to think.”

He didn’t look back.

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

Castiel handed in his resignation notice on Friday to give himself and everyone else some breathing room to adjust to the news. Then he used his copious amount of annual leave to take the duration of his two week’s notice off work, except for his final day. He was still the one approving leave requests for his floor, it wasn’t like it was a great difficulty.

Then, he spent the next few days in absolute misery.

Never before had Castiel experienced devastation on a scale like he was going through. Certainly, he’d been through loss, grief, pain, and anger before but… something about the hurt and the betrayal on Dean’s face as he’d listened to Cas call him a coward lingered in his mind.

He remembered clearly how it had felt to have Dean lump him in with Michael. It had been like a punch to the gut and, while he knew that Dean didn’t understand just how skilled Michael was at manipulation, it had still hurt to know that Dean had believed the lies, even for a moment.

Cas suspected he knew how Michael had learned about Dean’s presence in his life, which was part of the reason he’d sold the apartment, even before Dean had blown up at him. Michael loved control – he called it ‘order’, but Cas knew the difference – and made sure he was able to keep track of all coming and going in the buildings he owned through extensive security camera networks. It was how he knew Cas had done so much unpaid overtime at HeavEn, too. While he obviously couldn’t have cameras in anyone’s apartments for legal reasons, he was very much entitled to film in public areas like corridors and the lobby and it wouldn’t have been hard to find footage of Dean and Castiel returning to his apartment. From there, it would have been easy to cross-reference footage from the day the printer had been fixed by Dean at HeavEn and put two and two together. Michael also knew Dean worked on the floor mirroring the twenty-third since he’d seen him there with his own eyes, making it even easier to track him down.

It would have been like child’s play for Michael to put all the pieces together and figure out that Dean was the reason Castiel had taken his first paid leave in years. Michael would have seen that as a threat to the stability, the predictable constant that was Castiel, and sought to mitigate it by offering a carrot in the form of a significant promotion. When that route proved unviable, he would have sought alternate methods to eliminate the anomaly.

Michael would be seething about his plan backfiring – not only had Dean resisted him, but he was losing Castiel, too. While it was a delight to know that Michael was finally reaping what he’d sown, it was a cold comfort to Castiel, once again alone.

Most of all, Cas was angry. Dean had accused him of not understanding him, but in Cas’ mind Dean had only proven that it was he that didn’t understand Castiel. He was wild at Dean’s hypocrisy. That he’d been happy to shut himself off, believing Michael’s lies, then lashed out instead of stopping to consider whether any of what he’d heard made any sense. Cas was almost livid with rage and affront that Dean had misunderstood him so badly and, in between the moments where he wasn’t staring blankly at his ceiling, his hands sometimes shook with barely suppressed anger when he replayed the confrontation in his mind.

After allowing himself three days to rot in his feelings, come Tuesday, Castiel carefully packaged his heartbreak away when Anna came to help him start getting his things ready. He needed to present a calm, disaffected front, and he was going to succeed even if it killed him.

Anna immediately yanked him into a hug when he let her into his apartment, in such a hurry to get to him that she forgot to duck out of the way of the strelitzia leaf, but not even a slap from the plant could wipe the smile from her face.

“I’m so proud of you!” She told him once he was released from her grasp. “Cas, I’m so proud. This is such a huge step. You’ve grown so much, and I’m so, so happy for you. You deserve to be happy, Castiel.”

He could feel his bottom lip disobeying his orders for it to stay resolute, but was afraid if he let himself start talking, he wouldn’t stop until the whole awful mess was out of his mouth. He turned around and waved for Anna to follow him over his shoulder.

They worked through the house methodically, leaving all of his plants in their places so they wouldn’t be disturbed too much until it came to the proper moving day for them. Anna picked music to play to keep them going, and if she noticed Cas tense up at a couple of the songs that he recognised from the road trip, she kept it to herself.

She lasted all of three hours before she asked him what was wrong.

“Castiel, I know it’s none of my business but… something happened between you and De–”

“You’re right, it isn’t any of your business,” he snapped, shoving the small stack of books into a box with unnecessary savagery. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Castiel’s vitriol to the man’s name surprised even himself. Anna looked like she’d been slapped and took a step back from him once she’d schooled her expression to something less hurt.

“Sure. Whatever you say.”

They spent the rest of the day working in silence until Anna went home, not bothering to stay for dinner with Castiel, whose mood remained foul.

Despite telling her to leave his plants earlier he was too full of energy to rest and started moving some of them from other areas of his house into the living room. As he moved past the kitchen, his feelings reached a boiling point. He was tired of playing nice, tired of being palatable and easy to tolerate for everyone. Castiel had been cleaning up messes for so much of his life he wasn’t even sure he knew how to make them anymore.

He hefted the anthurium he was cradling in his arms into one hand and hurled it at the white-washed wall. He watched it shatter spectacularly against the concrete, the sound of the ceramic breaking like music to his ears. Dirt and shards of pottery flew everywhere and several of the anthurium’s leaves bent backwards or tore on impact. The plant’s roots split apart when it hit the floor and the single flower stem that had been coming through on it snapped off completely.

Cas looked at the carnage of dirt and clay against the white wall and pale wooden floor and felt no better for it. He leaned back against the opposite wall and used it to sink slowly to the ground, wrapping his arms around his knees before pressing his forehead to them. There was no one around to see him, so for the first time in many, many years Castiel let himself cry. His body wracked with sobs, but they couldn’t bring back what was already broken.

Anna came back to help him for the rest of the week despite his outburst and he made a point to apologise to her for his earlier behaviour. She accepted it with grace and another hug, which he returned this time and felt much better for.

Slowly, across the rest of the week, he was able to tell Anna what had happened. For the pieces he struggled to recount, she filled in with what she’d heard from Benny, who’d had the unfortunate privilege of being trapped within earshot of the entire argument on account of most of it being held at shouting volume. Castiel didn’t even have enough energy left in him to care.

When Cas quietly complained that Dean hadn’t even tried to reach out, Anna pointed out that he’d asked for time and he was getting what he’d asked for. It wasn’t fair to be angry with Dean for doing as he’d been told. Cas begrudgingly had to agree with her.

Gabriel showed up unannounced during one of Anna’s visits, for which Castiel was grateful – he wasn’t sure he could handle his brother on his own. To both their surprise, Gabriel was only moderately annoying in a general way, which was as close to best behaviour as he got. He didn’t even overstay his welcome, simply saying, “it’s not as good as a grand one, but hope the gesture helped,” before seeing himself out with a brotherly clap on Castiel’s shoulder.

After a week of no contact since their fight had gone by, Cas thought he would be more than happy to receive Dean’s call but was surprised to find the sight of the phone lit up with his name only filled him with dread. At a loss for what to do, he let the call ring out, then waited for a second one to come through afterwards, but it never came.

Cas resolved to call Dean himself, but every time he picked up the phone it seemed the words he’d been so full of when they’d last spoken had all left him. He didn’t know what to say, how to broach it.

At least Dean had tried to fix things when he’d realised he was in the wrong, Cas thought as he lay awake in bed. What had he done? The same thing he’d dragged Dean across the coals for. Now that the shoe was on the other foot, Cas was beginning to see how easy it was to let things snowball and get away from him. He’d spent almost the entire two weeks of his notice wondering what to say, how to bring things up with Dean while knowing his own feelings were still hurt, and it had come as a shock to realise he was almost out of time to make a move. There was only one day left of his time at home before he had to be back at HeavEn for his last day in the office.

Castiel resolved to call him the following day and fell into a fitful sleep, his dreams punctuated by sobbing plants and eyes a shade of anthurium green but always full of tears.

It wasn’t until sunset on Thursday that Cas finally worked up the nerve to dial Dean’s number back. He put the phone on speaker and set it on the far side of his kitchen island while he stood on the other side so he couldn’t back out and hang up before the call connected. Even so, as the phone rang Cas wondered if he could stretch far enough across to reach it without needing to round the island.

The call went through.

“Cas?”

“Yes.”

Neither of them said anything else. They breathed together, but rather than drawing comfort from it like Cas had so many times before, this silence felt like waiting for a bomb to go off. Cas wasn’t sure which of them was the fuse.

“I tried to call you,” said Dean.

“I know.”

Silence.

“I’m sorry.” Dean again.

“I know.” The pause this time was much briefer. Castiel said, “Thank you for giving me time.”

“It’s fine. I needed time, too.”

Silence again.

“So…” Dean started.

“So,” Cas echoed.

It seemed like years ago they’d last done something so mundane as share a joke. It felt like the words were spoken by a stranger using his mouth, a misheard line repeated incorrectly without any of the original meaning.

“What happens now?”

“I’m still going through with everything,” Cas said firmly. “The house, the job, all of it.”

It was Dean’s turn to say, “I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know that too.” It sounded like there might have been a smile on Dean’s face, but Cas wasn’t hopeful. They’d both said a few too many carefully chosen, cutting words for that to be true.

“You were right, you know,” Dean said suddenly. “About me being a hypocrite. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since.”

“Dean, I–”

“No,” Dean interrupted him. “I needed to hear it. Nobody else was going to say it to me.” He sighed hard and it made the speakers on Cas’ phone crackle. “I’m working on it, Cas. Putting me first. But… there’s something I gotta do first.”

Cas crumpled. He’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this, that he hadn’t left things too long. He knew what came next.

“It’s okay, I understand,” he assured Dean, trying to spare them both. “You don’t need to say it.”

As it turned out, Cas could reach the phone without walking around the island. He moved quickly so as to save Dean from having to say the words, and himself from having to hear them. The halfway attempt Dean had made at Purgatory had been hard enough and Cas didn’t think he could stand to hear what a measured, thought out breakup speech would sound like.

“I’m sorry, Dean. Goodbye.”

He ended the call before he could hear any more and, for the second time in as many weeks, Castiel cried himself to sleep in a cold, empty apartment that had never been a home.

Returning to the office on Friday was like waking up from a dream, or perhaps being thrown into a pot of boiling water. Castiel felt very much that he was the frog in the latter analogy.

His floor was delighted to see him again, even if only for his last day. It had already been announced that Kevin would be his replacement for the role of section head and Cas was happy for both him and the floor – he’d treat them fairly, had a strong conscience, and had responded well to a more friendly working space so there would be little chance of him recreating an atmosphere like the one Uriel had cultivated.

Between being congratulated on his ‘early retirement’ and tying up loose ends on his accounts before he had to hand them over, Castiel didn’t have a lot of time to spend at his desk. Even so, he still avoided the window at all costs, sure to always have his back facing it when he was on the side of the office that faced Singer.

He was hesitant to pack up his desk on account of it being one of the few things he couldn’t do out of Dean’s line of sight. He put it off for as long as possible, but after two laps of the floor without anyone popping up to talk to him, Castiel figured it was time to give in. Out of habit alone, the first thing he did when he sat down was glance up at Singer, but when he realised where he was looking he wrenched his gaze back to his own desk.

It took him less than fifteen minutes of concentrated effort before everything was neatly squared away into a single cardboard box, his parlour palm poking out of the top. It was looking a little worse for wear at having been left in the office untended for almost an entire fortnight, but it was still alive. It was nothing a little sunlight, fresh air, and water couldn’t fix and Cas was looking forward to sharing the treatment with it. It would be nice to have something specific to focus on amidst the chaos of moving house.

Once he was out of distractions, Cas fled to the safety of one of the meeting rooms to await Alfie, who he was scheduled to meet before lunch to discuss handover of some of Zachariah’s outstanding accounts. It was good timing, as a number of people were starting to gather at the window side of the office, and Cas wanted to avoid being caught there. Alfie was prompt, as always, and his personality seemed to finally be coming to the fore now that he didn’t have to live in the shadow of Zachariah’s ego. Between the two of them, the handover process was wrapped up quickly, and Cas told Alfie to speak to Kevin to confirm everything while he handled the final paperwork.

A surprising amount of chatter filtered through from the floor when Alfie opened the meeting room door and slipped out, but Cas didn’t pay too much attention to it. He was just happy that everyone was finally starting to feel comfortable, even if it was too late for him to enjoy the benefits of the atmosphere they were creating.

“Castiel?”

Cas was about to remark on the speed of Alfie’s visit to Kevin, but something on the young man’s face gave him pause.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Alfie assured him. “It’s just… I think you’re going to want to see this.”

He hoped it wasn’t a surprise like a cake or, god forbid, a party – he wasn’t friends with the people on his floor, just coworkers, and he didn’t think he could cope with faking gratitude when he was scarcely fifty feet and a turned shoulder away from the only man he’d known how to love.

What warranted his attention was what had caused the commotion he’d heard earlier. Half of the office was standing along the window facing Singer, talking among themselves. One or two of them noticed Alfie approaching with Castiel in tow and nudged their neighbours, the word spreading down the line of people until they’d cleared a space for him to come and look.

Someone had rented the billboard that hung on Singer’s office, but that wasn’t what made the sight of it take Cas’ breath away.

The billboard displayed a picture of him. It was one of the ones taken on their road trip, some roadside attraction unidentifiable in the background, completely eclipsed by the squinted eyes and toothy smiles he and Dean wore. Dean’s arm was slung over his shoulder and while Cas was looking straight at the camera, Dean was instead caught up in smiling at the side of Cas’ face. As Cas watched on, text faded onto the screen.

I’m not giving up on you.

There were murmurs through the throng of people watching on across the twenty-third floor, but they died down as a figure approached the window from within the depths of Singer’s office floor above the billboard.

Cas felt his coworkers draw away from the window as Dean came to the fore, mirroring Cas’ position. He heard quiet murmurs and suspected Alfie might have had a hand in giving him a modicum of privacy, at least as much could be offered during a public spectacle.

Dean was wearing the jewel-toned tie Cas had seen him in the day he’d realised Dean was the same bartender he’d had a crush on, the one that brought out his eyes. As Cas looked on, Dean removed one hand from his pocket and waggled his phone at Cas. Cas broke eye contact to fumble in his pocket until he found his own phone. It started buzzing in his hands the moment it was free of his jacket, the screen lit up with an incoming call from Dean. Cas didn’t even consider not answering it.

“Dean?”

“Hey Cas.”

Cas gestured helplessly at the billboard just below Dean’s feet, at a loss for words.

“So, about that,” Dean started. “Well, I asked around a bit and a little bird told me that you’ve never had a grand gesture before. And you probably know this but there’s this saying about going big or going home, right? Well, I couldn’t go home because you weren’t gonna be there, and you hung up on me yesterday, so I wasn’t sure my chances of getting you on the phone again were so good. So, you kinda left me no choice but to go big.” He tipped his head down to indicate the billboard. “And I’m pretty sure this is almost as big as it gets.”

“Almost?” Cas asked weakly.

Dean nodded gravely. “Yup,” he said solemnly. “Almost. ‘Cause see, the only thing bigger than this that I could do would be…” He turned his head half over one shoulder and signalled someone behind him in the office that Cas couldn’t see. “...This.”

The billboard cycled smoothly through to a second image, one that Cas hadn’t seen before.

It was beautiful. Not for any aesthetic reason or because they were posed nicely in it, but because they looked absolutely foolish and the picture clearly radiated love. Cas recognised it as the one Dean wouldn’t show him when they stopped for ice cream on their way home. Cas’ eyes were squeezed shut with laughter, his nose wrinkled in indignation but mostly from the force of the smile he was wearing. There were smudges of pink ice cream on his nose and at the corner of his mouth and his cheek was absolutely painted with it where Dean was caught planting a sloppy open-mouthed kiss on his cheek, eyes squeezed shut from how close he’d pressed in against Cas. At the bottom of it more text was splashed, different to the previous image.

Cas Novak, I’m choosing you.

“You cut me off last night,” Dean said quietly. Cas flicked his eyes back up to him. “I said I needed to do something before I put myself first, but you didn’t let me finish.” Cas watched him take a deep breath. “If I’m gonna prioritise myself then that means doing what checks my boxes and makes me happy. And if there’s one thing I know, it’s that you make me happy, Cas. Having you around makes me a better person, and if I’m meant to follow my heart or whatever it is that people say you should do, then that means I’m gonna go wherever you go, too.” Dean ran his hand through his hair and Cas thought he saw it shake when Dean spoke again. “If you’ll have me, I mean. I know that from tomorrow you’re going to have a lot of free time on your hands, so I was gonna ask… you wouldn’t happen to have some time to spend with me, would you?”

Dean leaned across to the nearest desk and picked up a piece of paper, then held it up to show Cas.

“I’m guessing it’s what’s on the piece of paper that’s the interesting part?”

“Huh? Oh, sh*t, yeah. Didn’t think about the distance… It’s my resignation. Surprise!” He gave the paper a half-hearted little wiggle. “Today’s my last day too. I w–”

“What in god’s name is going on here?”

As he turned, Cas saw people ducking back down into cubicles or scurrying across the floor, fleeing from Michael as he strode towards the window.

“Castiel! What is the meaning of this, this… embarrassment?” Michael practically seethed with disgust. “Have you no shame? Putting yourself on display like this in the middle of the workday. I would expect this kind of stunt from Gabriel, but you, Castiel?” He stepped right up into Cas’ personal space, close enough to hiss, “To throw away everything you’ve worked for, everything we built. Think about our reputation!”

Something in Cas that had been tightly coiled around the last vestiges of tolerance he’d had for his brother snapped.

“No. I won’t.”

Michael’s eyes narrowed infinitesimally. “Castiel–”

“I told you the first time. No.” Michael seemed smaller than he remembered. Had Cas always been taller than him? He’d never noticed before. He could see heads popping back up above the cubicles in his periphery, drawn by his refusal to keep his voice down. Well, if Michael wanted a show then he was damn well going to get one. “You might not have noticed from up in your ivory tower but I’m done picking up after you. So, unless you came here to congratulate me…?”

There was absolute silence on the floor as Michael stared him down, the fury in his eyes marred by an edge of panic. Cas made a dismissive tsk .

“No, I didn’t think so. In which case you can f*ck off back upstairs. My lawyers will be in touch.”

For the first time Cas could recall since he was a child Michael’s feelings showed on his face without any kind of calculation at hiding them. He was clearly rattled. He cast one more glance at the billboard then turned to adjust the lapel of his jacket before giving Cas a blistering look and turning his back on him. The rest of Cas’ floor was still watching on in shocked silence.

“What are you all looking at?” Michael snapped. “Get back to work!”

A few people ducked down but a far greater number stood watching Michael go, waiting even until he’d vanished into the elevator. Mistakes were easily forgotten, but a blow to pride for someone like Michael wouldn’t fade from collective memory for a long, long time.

Cas was dimly aware of someone calling his name. He cast around for the speaker until he realised the sound was coming from his phone, still clutched in his hand.

“I’m here.”

Dean sighed and visibly sagged in relief. “Thought you were a goner there for a minute.”

“On my last day?” Cas rolled his eyes. “Unlikely. What was he gonna do, fire me?”

“You are just–” Dean choked his words off, bit his lower lip and shook his head. “I love you.”

Cas’ heart was so full it was making his eyes water. “You mentioned going big or going home.”

“I did,” Dean said carefully, not quite following Cas’ train of thought.

“Well it’s funny you should mention home.” Cas smiled around the words. “I bought a farm about an hour out of the city. It’s the craziest thing, it came with a workshed and a double garage but I’ve only got one car and nothing to work on in the shed. And I said to myself, ‘what am I going to do with all this extra space I don’t need?’” He shook his head lightly. “Isn’t that funny?”

“That is pretty funny,” Dean agreed, leaning forward to put one hand on the glass of the window. “If only you knew someone with a car who needed a space to do some tinkering in.”

Cas mirrored him. “If only… Think you know anyone like that?”

“Actually, I think I know just the guy.”

Cas hummed thoughtfully. “It’s kind of a drive out to my place though and I’m not so big on commuting these days… Think he’d move in with me?”

Dean’s smile was radiant and his eyes sparkled in the light.

“You know what? I really think he would. You seem like the kind of guy he’d fall for.”

Cas beamed. He turned so quickly that nobody had time to pretend they hadn’t been listening, so Cas addressed the nearest person.

“Tell Kevin I’m unwell and won’t be able to work the rest of the day.”

“Already on it,” Kevin called, popping his head up over the partition from a few cubicles down. “Very unfortunate, how sad, et cetera et cetera.”

Cas could hear Dean chuckling even before he pressed the phone back to his ear. “You’re lucky Bobby likes me enough to let me get away with a stunt like this on my last day,” Dean said.

“Think he’d let you get away with coming with me?”

“I’m sure I can swing it. Why? Big plans that you’ve gotta leave early for?”

“Not necessarily. We’ve already gone big today.” Cas lifted his hand to show the set of shiny new keys dangling from one finger. “Actually, I thought we might go home.”

Chapter 11: Epilogue

Chapter Text

The summer heat baked the earth and Cas wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of one dirt-smudged hand. The bees were especially active in the warmer weather, the sounds of the birds and the wind in the trees still not enough to muffle their low drone. They’d had a good season so far and were doing well enough that they’d likely need a new super to make room for the honey they were producing – Cas made a mental note to add calling the apiarist to his list of upcoming tasks.

From the position of the sun, Cas decided it must be near enough to midday to warrant heading inside for a cool drink and some respite in the shade. He’d squeezed some of the citrus harvest and frozen the juice a while ago, but had taken some out to defrost that morning and was looking forward to enjoying a lemonade from his own trees. He heaved himself to his feet with a muffled grunt, surveying the bed of freshly-mulched tomato plants. They were big enough to need stakes soon but would manage until he’d dealt with the over-fruiting zucchinis first.

Cas let himself in the back door, leaving the garden and orchard behind for the sanctuary of the laundry room where he stripped out of his boots, gloves, and hat. The house was empty of movement except for the breeze blowing through the open windows, gently knocking a few bundles of drying herbs together where they hung from the rafters in the kitchen. A scrap of notepaper fluttered listlessly where it was pinned under a jar of chilli jam on the countertop and Cas moved towards it.

Down by the water.

If you’re reading this, come and get me please

-D

Cas supposed he should have guessed by the absence of sounds coming from the workshop that Dean wasn’t near the house but had been too preoccupied with thoughts of the lemonade. There was none waiting for him and no sign of his earlier prep work, so it was with an irritated sigh that Cas closed the fridge door, took a disappointed swig of water and donned his hat once more. He’d have to have a conversation with Dean about replacing things when they were used again.

That, and the other thing Cas needed to talk to him about. He grimaced at the thought and absently touched the front pocket of his overalls. Depending on the order in which the problems were raised, there was a strong possibility there’d only need to be one conversation.

The walk down to the river was just what Cas needed to clear his head and unwind after his morning of shovelling and crouching to spread mulch. His back was grateful for the chance to decompress while he walked and the temperature mellowed a little as he got closer to the river. Dean wasn’t immediately noticeable in the area they’d worked on recently, so Cas wandered farther upstream from their recent plantings, calling out as he went.

“Dean? I found your note!” There was no reply. Cas continued on, wondering if Dean had somehow doubled back to the house and missed him. “Dean? Are you out here?”

“Over here!”

Cas followed the sound of Dean’s voice towards the oldest growth on the riverbank, the path Dean had worn before him making the way easier. Cas hadn’t been back there in quite some time and the space was more densely forested than he remembered it being.

“Surprise,” Dean called out as Cas finally caught sight of him.

The clearing Dean was in was framed with willow trees, some of them old and wrinkled with age at the trunk, their branches leaning down to trail languidly in the water. Underneath them were flowering irises and salvias, the purple of their flowers showing as studs of colour against the other plants of the grove. Cas recognised the irises as a variety he’d purchased some time ago and had offhandedly wished aloud he had more of. The whole clearing was resplendent and green for summer, and in the shade of the biggest willow Dean had spread a blanket laden with picnic fare, including the missing pitcher of lemonade.

Dean came forwards to meet him where he’d stopped at the entrance to the clearing and towed him the rest of the way towards the blanket.

“What’s all this?” Cas asked.

“Well you’ve been busy with the nursery plants lately and I haven’t seen you a lot since I was doing the restorations on that Camaro, so I wanted to do something nice for us. We deserve it, don’t’cha think?” Dean patted the blanket and Cas finally lowered himself onto it, watching as Dean poured lemonade into a plastic picnic cup. “Here, get some lemonade in you, you must be parched.”

Cas gratefully accepted the offered cup. “I thought you’d drunk it all when I couldn’t find it in the house,” he admitted.

Dean clutched his chest dramatically. “You wound me! As if I didn’t learn my lesson after the great peanut butter incident.”

Cas snorted into his cup and rolled his eyes. “Oh, is that what we’re calling it now?”

“Sure is. ‘The day you almost left me because you wanted a sandwich so badly’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.”

“I didn’t almost leave you, don’t be ridiculous. I wouldn’t break up with someone over a sandwich … even if they did eat the last of my secret, imported peanut butter.”

“You say that now but I dunno Cas, you were in it pretty deep at the time.” Dean reached across to tuck a curling lock of Cas’ hair behind his ear, his eyes soft. “Pretty sure if I hadn’t broken the speed limit to go and buy more, you’d have taken drastic measures of some kind.” Dean bumped his shoulder playfully.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a real hero,” Cas conceded, bumping him back.

They started in on the food Dean had brought out with him, eating in companionable silence before lying back against the cushioning of the grass, Cas on his back with Dean curled up against his side. Cicadas droned lazily in the trees above them and with the shade of the willows and the river nearby, the day wasn’t nearly so hot as it had felt earlier. There was a pervading sense of calm in the grove, and Cas leaned down to kiss the top of Dean’s head gently, basking in it.

“How did you know,” Cas asked after a while, “that I wanted a spot like this?”

Dean lifted his head off Cas’ shoulder and propped himself up on his elbow to better look down at him. “Because I know you.”

Cas gave him a long look. “Okay but really. How’d you know?”

“Well, the road trip we took back when we were still work neighbours was the first clue,” Dean said, grinning. “You spent ages looking down at the river by the depot and it was the first time I’d seen you relax properly the entire time we’d been away. I figured maybe it was the sun, but later on I twigged that you liked the sound of running water.” He looked up at their surroundings while he kept talking. “The willows you mentioned when we first moved here so that was just a listening exercise, and you told me about the irises yourself. The sage was my idea though. I thought it smelled nice and the flowers went nice with the irises.” He looked back down at Cas, who hadn’t taken his eyes off him for a second. “The hardest part was keeping you out of here while I worked on it all. Do you know how hard it was to not tell you about this and get your advice? Nightmare!”

Dean smiled, but it faltered a little when Cas simply stared at him.

“Do you like it?” He asked, eyes darting from side to side between Cas’ as if he’d find the answer hidden there.

“Do I like it?” Cas echoed incredulously. He hooked his leg behind Dean’s knee and flipped them, Dean landing on his back in the grass with a soft oof before Cas boxed him in with a hand on either side of his head. “You– wonderful– man–“ He punctuated each word with a kiss. “I love it! How could I not?” He kissed Dean soundly until their smiles got in the way.

“Okay, good, just checking,” Dean said. “Because I knew if I were going to ask you, it’d have to be in some place you loved.”

Cas was busy counting the freckles spread across Dean’s cheekbones. “Ask me what?”

Dean held something up between their faces and Cas leaned back to bring it into focus before sitting up properly.

“Dean… what is this?”

“What’s it look like?” Dean got his elbows under him and sat up with Cas. “You wanna open it?”

Cas carefully accepted the small velvet box from him and despite knowing what he’d find inside, the sight of the simple gold band still took his breath away.

“Castiel N–”

“Yes.” Cas’ eyes were watery when he looked up at Dean. “I will.”

“You didn’t even let me–”

Cas reached into the bib of his overalls and pulled out a small wooden box of his own. Dean stopped talking when Cas flipped the lid open with his thumb to show him the ring inside it.

“Dean Winche–”

“Yes! Of course I will, I already tried to–”

In lieu of cutting each other off any more, Cas grabbed the front of Dean’s shirt and hauled him forwards for a kiss which they both melted into. After a while when their clutching at each other wasn’t quite so desperate, they broke apart to rest their foreheads against one another where they lay in the grass again.

“So,” Dean said.

“So,” Cas echoed. “I love you.”

“I love you too, sweetheart.” Dean smoothed his thumb across Cas’ cheekbone. “Roadtrip honeymoon?”

Cas smiled big enough to rival the sun. “You read my mind. It’ll be just like old times.”

“Old times, hm?” Dean said fake thoughtfully. His hand rested atop Cas’ and he threaded their fingers together, learning the shape of their hands with their rings on. “If you really want to go back to old times, I guess I could go stand on the other side of the river and I could call you while we make eyes at each other?”

“Don’t you dare." Cas swatted his arm, then used it to hold him in place. "The only time I expect to be kept fifty feet from you again is when we’re walking down the aisle.”

Dean laughed, rich and warm, and Cas delighted in knowing he’d get to hear it through all of their days to come.

“Whatever you say, sunshine. Whatever you say.”