Chapter 4
Dean's embarrassingly tempted to walk away, to go home, crawl into bed and forget this whole sorry episode. But he's also a grownup. Sometimes. He pays taxes at the very least, so he does know that going into the diner is the right thing to do. It feels rather like an out of body experience; one foot following the other, completely independent of Dean's brain, which is still wondering how he could keep consistently fucking up to such an extent.
The place is empty when he walks in and the door slamming shut sounds painfully loud.
"We're closed."
Cas' voice is biblically pissed off and Dean has to steel himself somewhat. He's pretty tempted to bite back, but he knows that where he and Cas are concerned, hostility begets hostility.
"Really? Sign outside says you're open twenty-four hours." He does his best to infuse his reply with his best panty dropping charm.
"It's wrong, we're closed." Cas' voice is a little louder now, like he's come closer, but it's also punctuated with several sharp metallic blows, like he's manhandling every pot in the kitchen.
"That's a real shame, I was hoping for some pie," Dean doesn't know if he was meant to hear the scoff, but he presses on valiantly, "and some quality time with my boyfriend." His voice kicks up at the end of the sentence, question clear.
He's left to shift his feet uncomfortably, waiting to see what Cas' next move is going to be.
"I don't know, Dean, do you have a boyfriend to spend time with?" Cas emerges from around the corner slowly, deliberately. He's drying his hands on a towel, but he's staring straight at Dean as he says it. The words hurt much more than he expected them to.
"Do I?" He knows now is not the time for bravado, but it's really damn tempting to try to hide behind a wall of ambivalence. He catches Cas' eye roll and he pushes past him and slumps down on a stool at the counter facing away from Dean. He rests his elbows on the surface and covers his face with both hands. Dean is on the brink of moving when he hears Cas sigh heavily.
"Missouri knew about you and I as soon as I saw her after the time we kissed in the parking lot. Well, I suppose I should say that time I kissed you in the parking lot." Dean says nothing in response to this, because he's really not sure what he's supposed to say or do right now.
"She sat me down for a little chat," Cas continues, either oblivious to Dean's hesitations or uncaring. "She told me that you were the type of man that was going to need a nail through his foot to get him to settle down." He's moved his hands away from his face, but his head is bent and his voice is weary. "I laughed it off, because I thought I was special to you. I thought I could be that thing you needed." All the fury from earlier has gone out of him, he just looks sad - the smile curling at his lips only intensifies it.
"Cas -"
He doesn't move, so Dean walks forward to place a hand between his shoulder blades. Cas stiffens but doesn't recoil or flinch away.
"Cas, you are special. Not just to me, to everyone who knows you - probably a few who don't." The joke falls flat, but Cas is still there so he'll take it. He begins to circle the palm of his hand.
"Why isn't this easy?" Dean doesn't need to ask for clarification, he knows what Cas means.
"We're family, Cas. Family isn't supposed to be easy."
"You and Sam doesn't seem to have a problem."
"Cas, firstly, if you think Sam and I have it easy all the time, you really haven't been paying attention. And secondly, how I feel about you has very little in common with how I feel about Sam." He's hoping that those were the magic words that will get Cas to turn around, but the stubborn ass stays resolutely facing the other way.
"Cas, I care about you a whole hell of a lot, it's kinda why I've been trying to figure some things out. I don't want you to get hurt."
Apparently these are the magic words but Cas looks pretty pissed again as he spins around so fast that he knocks Dean's touch away.
"I hope you appreciate the irony in that cunning plan, Dean."
Dean has always secretly loved it when Cas is pissed off, he radiates energy in a way that's practically addictive. He's also pretty sure that now is the least appropriate time for this revelation, so his brain kindly reminds his dick to shut the hell up.
"I really do," is all he can say, because humility is the best option he has right now.
"I'm really fucking pissed at you right now, Winchester."
"I know," he replies, and takes a risk by leaning his head forward to rest against Cas' shoulder.
"Monumentally pissed," says Cas.
Dean hums as finger begin to rake through his hair.
"As in, if we were having sex, I would be withholding it from you right now." Dean's smile, though it's hidden in the fabric of Cas' shirt, drops as soon as he catches Cas mumble, "assuming that's something that would actually upset you."
Dean lifts his head to look Cas dead in the eye. "This is going to sound crass, but I don't know how else to make you understand: I have to stop myself, repeatedly, from acting on the impulse to fuck your brains out against the nearest available flat surface."
Cas blinks serval times as he processes this. "You're right, that was crass."
Dean wants to laugh at that, but he's not sure they're on stable enough ground to do that. So he brushes his own hand through Cas' hair and moves into the space between his thighs to kiss his forehead just below the line of his hair. He gets a sigh in response, but it's much less fitful than anything he's heard all evening.
Dean's reminded of how young Cas is. Not because he looks it, or acts it. In fact, it's the antithesis of these things that makes him pause, smile and run his thumb over crow's feet that don't exist; up into the hair at his temples. Cas, tense as he is and clearly not quite sure what movement to anticipate from Dean, ultimately relaxes into the touch.
"See something you like?" Cas' eyes are closed and his lashes flutter as he clearly fights the urge to open them and check on Dean.
"Very much so." Dean leans in further. The fingers that have navigated by instinct to the back of Cas' neck tell him to anticipate a kiss, and his mouth opens ever so slightly.
Dean intends to complete the kiss, he really does, but he doesn't.
"Are you deliberately being an asshole, Winchester?" Cas initially keeps his eyes closed, but when his teasing is met with silence, he cracks open one and then the other eye and wavers on the precipice of extremely pissed off and cautiously curious.
Dean swallows and drops his eyes and hands from Cas to pick at a loose thread that has clung on to his jeans. "Cas," he begins, but falters at the sound of the younger man's sharp, irritated exhalation.
"What, Dean?"
"You're a lot younger than I am..."
"Oh fuck my life; this? Again? We're going to have this fight again?"
Cas' muscles have coiled tight and out of the corner of his eye, Dean can see that his fists are balled tightly. And if Dean's honest with himself, even he's not sure when this became a fight, but it feels like he and Cas have been fucking or fighting throughout their entire relationship. Except without the actual fucking part, but then that's on him too. And this is where the root of the problem lies: Cas is young; he's wise beyond what anyone his age has a right to be. And all this time Dean thought he was protecting Cas, he thought Cas was the one who loved too much and that Dean would inadvertently take advantage of him. So he kept him at a distance and hoped that Cas would realise that he was infatuated with the idea of Dean, rather than the man himself. That if he put off sex and anything else too intimate, then their friendship could still be salvaged.
In that hazy moment as Dean leaned in to kiss him, he realised with sudden, horrible clarity that it wasn't Cas who was going to love too much, it was Dean. Dean was going to lose him because Cas is young, wise, brilliant, grumpy, sarcastic and perfect. Cas will outgrow Dean the way that Dean outgrew any number of the romantic faces from his past. Cas will move on, but Dean will never be able to, because Cas is truly the best thing that's ever happened to him.
Dean moves away from the counter and sits heavily a few feet away with a weary exhalation of Cas' name. He doesn't look up, but if he knows Cas, (and dear god, will he ever really know Cas?) he's waring with his fight or flight reflexes. The last time they were in this situation was because Dean was trying to protect Cas, here they are several months later and the song remains the same. Except now there's a little self-preservation thrown into the mix.
Dean wishes with all his heart his mother was still here. Well, not in the room right now, per se, but here to seek advice from. She'd card her hands through his hair and tell him she loved him no matter how royally he fucked up. He likes to think his mother would swear should the occasion call for it.
He almost gives himself a heart attack when he realises the phantom fingers in his hair have solidified. It takes a full, embarrassingly long minute to understand that it's not his mother he sees when he looks up, but Cas.
"Tell me." There's no force behind the imperative, it's really more of an encouragement. A request to end this needless cycle they've been trapped in.
"Cas -" Dean hesitates, then starts again. "Cas, what happens to our family when you realise you're too good for me?"
The hand in his hair stills and he unconsciously braces for Cas to strike him once and for all, like he expected in the car park all those months ago and instead got a kiss that knocked his entire world off kilter. Instead the hand moves to his chin and guides Dean's head to look at him.
Dean can't tell if what he's seeing is white hot fury, or if it's beyond that, that he's finally burnt deep enough to kill nerve endings in Cas.
"Dean Winchester, I fucking love you, but you're an absolute idiot sometimes."
"You gonna swear at me the first time you tell me you love me?" Dean knows it's a deflection, but he needs a tiny bit of air to circulate around his brain. Cas might not be too far off with the 'idiot' comment either.
Cas sighs but sits down next to him, gracefully, like he's not burdened by the things that worry Dean awake in the middle of the night. It's exponentially easier to talk to Cas when he's not having to look directly at him. It's not exactly like staring into the sun, but it feels like it fucks him up a little all the same. Cas represents everything he longs for but fears getting because the reality can't possibly match up to the expectation.
"Profanities don't usually work you up into this much of a stupor." Cas is clearly trying to make peace; allowing Dean to side step the bigger issue. And God does he want to. He wants to not have a conversation that's going to make him feel like he's part of some Lifetime special.
"Did you mean it?" His voice is so little, and he feels vulnerable. Dean fucking hates feeling like this.
"Of course I think you're an idiot, it's one of your most charming features," Cas smiles and nudges him in the ribs as he says it, but very quickly realises that it was the wrong thing to say. For once, Dean craves blunt, direct Cas who calls the bullshit as he sees it.
"Of course I meant it, Dean. I've loved you in some form or another for as long as I've known you." He pauses on an inhalation, clearly debating how much further to push this, but they're so close to the edge, teetering on the brink of riches or ruin. Someone has to jump.
"In the beginning, I thought it was about gratitude. You helped me out of a spectacularly shitty time in my life and set me on my own two feet." Cas smiles. Not at Dean, a memory, and lord knows Dean has no possible clue what image has been stirred in Cas' mind.
"You're an exceptionally loving and generous man," he continues, "and I'm going to be painfully honest here, and say that I thought you were hot from the very beginning. It's possible there was a little bit of hero worship mixed into my very early teenage fantasies."
"Fantasies?" Dean voice is a very complicated mix of squeak and smoulder, because his primal instinct is to both shy away from the praise while sexing up the person complimenting him. He knows the kinds of fantasies he had as a teenager, born out of contraband pornography and whatever other people claimed to be doing with their girlfriends. Cas has had fantasies about him! If they ever get past this hellish roadblock, Dean's going to request some pretty explicit details.
"Yes, you pervert, fantasies. Naked, technicolor daydreams starring you." Dean takes back everything he says about pissed off Cas, flirty asshole Cas is beyond a doubt his favourite.
Dean smiles lewdly. He's comfortable with this level of conversation, so it's a profound mystery as to why he utters the next confession.
"I thought I'd slept with Hannah."
Cas looks at him sharply, but all he says is, "okay," it's an elongated pronunciation.
"I haven't. At least I damn well hope I haven't, because I literally remember nothing about it, but I saw her here and she looked familiar and it was coming straight off the back of you being pissed that I'd had a thing with that girl Sam went on a date with and -"
"Dean," Cas interrupts him mid word vomit, which is probably a good thing because Dean was starting to worry about what he was going to confess to next. Probably that time he deliberately deleted one of Cas' documentaries, even though he swore he didn't.
"Hannah only move here a couple of weeks ago, so unless our relationship is less exclusive than I thought it was, I believe you."
"I swear I haven't had sex with anyone but my hand in months, Cas, I swear!" Dean is quick to supply.
"Crass." Is all Cas says in response to that. His eyes are crinkling, like he's trying not to smile. "So now that we've established your abstinence, what's the real issue?"
"I love you and I was scared of it, and then I saw her touch you and I was jealous and scared." The more Dean says, the more he feels like he's bleeding out. Too many emotions to battle against. Not enough hands to staunch the blood flow.
"Is there anything I can do to help you not be scared or jealous?" Cas' words are careful, like he sees Dean's trauma and is blessedly not mocking him for it. When Dean shakes his head, Cas throws his arm across the back of Dean's seat. There's a levity in his voice when he says, "well then, I'll refer you back to my previous statement: you're an idiot and I love you too."
So much for the lack of mockery! Dean jerks his head up to give Cas as good as he's been giving Dean, but when he looks at him, he sees pure warmth and joy in Cas' eyes.
"So you love me?" Dean's heart is a violent tattoo in his rib cage.
"So you love me," returns Cas, but it's not a question like Dean's was.
"I do." And Dean couldn't hold back the smile the cracks his face if he tried.
"I think we should go home. My boyfriend mentioned something about pie and quality time." Cas stands in a single fluid motion and extends his hand to Dean.
"Don't you have to stay here until the night shift takes over? You sent Hannah home." But Dean's already allowing Cas to pull him towards the exit, helping to pull at apron strings as they go.
"She'll forgive me," Cas shrugs. They both know it's probably not true, but it feels like it's more than worth the risk.
They haven't even kisses yet, but there's a heady, giddy anticipation in the air as they exit the deserted diner hand in hand. Like maybe this might just all work out for the best.