Homemade (5,317 words, Teen)
Dean Winchester, a successful but perpetually overworked and overtired engineer, meets chef and restaurant owner Castiel, his new neighbor. Castiel courts him in the form of homemade meals in Tupperware containers and handwritten notes, and Dean eventually takes it upon himself to return the favour.
Written for @hartlessfiction, as part of the @fandomtrumpshate auction.
Dean likes to think of himself as quite the accomplished man.
He’s one of the lead engineers for the biggest biomedical company in the country, has his own expensive apartment, and even though people give him funny looks about his lack of a mate at the ripe age of thirty, he’s perfectly happy where he is. His work is his life, and he loves knowing that his passion has had such a positive impact on so many people.
For someone so accomplished, though, he’s pretty bad at… well, at just taking care of himself. He sleeps too little, stays up too late tinkering with new ideas, and sometimes just straight up forgets to feed himself until his stomach is growling like it’s gone feral and there’s nothing in the fridge.
Tonight is one of those nights.
Dean’s been tasked with designing a new prosthetic arm for one of their clients, and it’s kept him busy all day, to the point where he’s brought his work laptop home with him (something he swore he wouldn’t do when he first started his engineering work, and a rule that is now broken on an almost nightly basis) and is poring over the blueprints.
“If I wire it this way… and connect the joints through here,” he mutters to himself, chewing on the end of his note-scribbling pen as he thinks. “Then I should be able to… yes!”
Breakthroughs are always satisfying, especially when they come off a full hour of combing through circuits and wracking his brain for how he can make everything more efficient, more realistic. Dean sets his pen down, saves the file on his laptop, then sits up from his hunched position on his couch. His back pops as he stretches—it’s only when he moves out of uncomfortable positions like these that he realizes just how badly he’s been sitting, and how deeply engrossed he’s been in his work. Still, the stretch feels amazing after staying still for so long, and he sighs happily.
His stomach rumbles.
How the fuck is it nine already? Dean thinks as he checks the clock on his laptop for the first time in what feels like one hour but was, in actual fact, three. Fucking hell, he can imagine the bitchface Sam would give him if he found out Dean was forgetting to feed himself before 9pm on a Thursday night. It’s times like this that make him think he really needs to get his shit together.
But he has his shit together… just not when it comes to the household chores side of life. Which isn’t to say that he thinks that that responsibility would fall to an omega, if he was mated. No, Dean’s an adult who’s capable of making his own dinner and washing his own laundry… if he weren’t so crazy busy and easily distracted by shiny new challenges.
He pulls himself up off the couch with a groan and makes his way over to the kitchen, which may as well be covered in dust apart from the microwave and the small patch of countertop where he makes his cereal every morning. There’s a stack of takeaway menus by the stove, and Dean pulls one out at random, already knowing full well that all he’s got in the fridge are a few beers, some leftover slices of cheese, and a yoghurt so old that he’s legitimately worried it might wave at him if he opens it. The menu is the one for the Thai place just down the block, which at least means that he can go pick it up in person and stretch his legs—because he sure as hell didn’t make it to the gym like he planned tonight.
Once the phone call has been made, and his usual combination of food ordered, Dean sinks back down onto the couch to wait out the twenty minutes until he has to leave. Resisting the urge to power his laptop back up, because god knows how much time will magically pass by if he does, he instead settles for turning on the TV and distracting himself with whatever happens to be on. It’s not particularly riveting, but it holds his attention enough for him to resist the call of semi-complete blueprints, and it’s not long before the alarm he set to leave is going off.
Shoes on, coat on, wallet and apartment keys in his pockets (because he’s definitely forgotten both of those before, distracted by work). He’s good to go.
The hallway outside his apartment is quiet, with no signs of his neighbors. Not that he’s met the newest one who’s moved into the apartment right next to his, number 304, but everyone seems to either be out and about tonight, or hiding away in their homes—like Dean is going to be in ten minutes’ time. It’s fine by him, though, since he’s sporting a five o’clock shadow that’s starting to get longer than he’d like, and he very clearly has not been getting the recommended eight hours a night. His neighbors know that he works hard, but he’s kinda like to make a bit of a better impression on the new person.
Which is why (because fate fucking hates him sometimes), Dean fails to check whether the elevator is occupied before he steps into it, and almost shoulder checks the poor guy trying to get out on this floor.
“Shit—fuck, dude, sorry, I didn’t see you there,” he says, putting out his hands to keep one or both of them from falling over. Beneath the baggy trench coat is muscle, and the guy’s eyes are blue, and when he inhales sharply, he can scent spices and woodsmoke and omega.
“I—um.” Dean still has one hand on the man’s bicep, and another on his chest, and they’re so close that he can feel the heat radiating off his body. “Hi.”
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