#dreamedofwings

There was a beat of silence before Dean looked over to Cas with one eyebrow raised, waiting for his verdict. They’d have to call Sam, Dean thought. He could come and get them. Cas seemed to be thinking along the same lines, because he was opening the glove box and pulling out Dean’s cell.

“Sorry,” Dean said awkwardly, as Cas handed it to him without meeting his eyes, looking out over the wide golden fields. “I should’ve checked before we left, I should’ve… not much point saying it now, though, is there?”

He dialled the number. The atmosphere in the car was rigid, tense – or maybe that was just Dean. He hated being so goddamn stupid. Everything had been going so perfectly. He’d wanted that drive to last forever, he’d wanted the road to keep unwinding and unwinding, growing new bends and lengths just for him. Whenever he thought of this day, now, he’d always think of this, a great big black oily smudge over the memory he’d wanted to keep.

Cas, next to him, didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. He was still watching the swaying of the wheat outside the window. In Dean’s ear, the buzz of the cell was a familiar hum, quiet as a cricket in the grass. When he picked up, Sam’s voice rustled over the bad line like tissue paper.

“Dean?”

“Heya, Sammy, how’s it going?”

“What did you do,” Sam asked flatly, a wisp of exasperation curling out into the car like smoke. Cas caught it and smiled, turning his face to Dean, who rolled his eyes.

“Who said I did anything?” he said defensively, and then sighed when Cas raised his eyebrows. “Okay, okay. I might have… run out of gas.”

“What?! You’ve never done that in your whole –”

“Yeah, yeah. You can tear me a new one later, OK, Dad? Thing is, we’re in the middle of nowhere, fifty miles to the next gas station either way. So…?”

Sam agreed to come and get them, of course. Dean’s eyes were on Cas’ hands as he spelled out the directions, watching them fold and refold, trying to find a way to rest together, never quite settling. When Sam rang off, the hush of static in his ear was a surprise, pulling him out of a reverie.

“He’ll be here as soon as he can,” Dean said, answering Cas’ questioning glance. “We’ve just gotta wait it out.”

Cas nodded. There was a hush in the car, a restitching of the quiet blanket of calm that had enveloped them on their journey to this point; Dean’s hands rested pointlessly on the bottom of the steering wheel, his eyes on the road ahead, motionless.

Clunk. Cas opened his car door with the familiar metallic exhale, leaving it open as he walked away. He headed onto the grassy verge, where he shuffled a few steps left and forwards before folding his body down, and seating himself neatly, knees crossed and back straight as a ruler. The lightest of winds blew into the car, carrying the scent of crop and soil and sun.

For a moment, Dean could only watch. The threefold vista was framed by the open door; Cas at the front, the golden fields before him, and beyond that the red and orange splendour of the sky. Dean almost wanted to grab his cell and snap a photo – but that was dumb, and ridiculous, and…

He picked up his cell phone and took the photo, anyway. Dumb and ridiculous, sure, but he wanted to remember this. He wanted to be able to look at it again and again. He changed the framing to landscape. He’d be able to pull this up in three months’ time when the winter was making everything heavy and achey and brittle, and it’d be like being here again, with the sun on his face and Cas sitting there in front of him with syrupy gold lines of light and shadow running down his shoulders, over his hair, his cheeks –

Dean dropped his cell when he realised that Cas had twisted around to look at him, his eyes soft and deep, a small shadowed smile on his lips.

“It’s nice out here,” he called, not mentioning Dean’s impromptu press photo moment. “There’s a breeze.”

Dean swallowed, reaching for his cell again before clunking his own way out of the car. Maybe Sam would need to call him, he thought. Maybe he could take some more photos, he thought, more quietly. Maybe Cas would look out over the fields and not even notice if Dean took a few snaps of the way the aureate light haloed his hair and softened the lines of his chin, his cheeks…

“S’cold,” Dean grunted as he sat down. It wasn’t, and Cas didn’t respond beyond a small smile, as though understanding why he’d said it.

They watched the sun go down in a hush that was complete, speaking only in half-glances and shifting bodies, legs crossed, legs brought up to the chest, legs stretched out in front of them with the feet in the middle almost touching, shoulders almost brushing, breathing almost synchronised.

Above them, the sky deepened with the silence. The sun kissed the horizon goodbye and departed, leaving threads of gold in her wake. The night was revealed in a soundless rush; the stars squinted open shyly, twinkling away the blur of sleep.

Dean watched them, his cell gripped tight in his left hand. He must have taken fifty photos, and Cas hadn’t even blinked. He’d only sat and watched the wheat, the sky, the going down of the sun; and when he’d turned his eyes on Dean, they’d been liquid and deep and bright. Dean looked up at the stars, and all he could see was that look, that look, that look, that look Cas had given him when he’d turned his head and smiled, not at the camera, at Dean. How could he be so beautiful that it made Dean’s heart feel as though it were creasing inside him? How could he make Dean feel things that he’d thought himself incapable of feeling, how could he pour himself so easily into the cracks, the rifts that fell soul-deep and beyond?

Dean swallowed. There were so many stars out here, with no other lights to hide them away. Of course, there were always that many stars, but in the noise, the rush, they usually got hidden away. They needed the quiet to shine out true.

How long had they been up there? How long had they been watching Earth?

“Cas,” Dean whispered. He didn’t take his eyes off the skies, even when he felt rather than saw Cas turn to look at him. “When were you born?”

Cas exhaled a laugh.

“I wasn’t,” he said. “You know that.”

“Well, yeah.” Dean said. “But when were you, you know…” he waved his hand up at the heavens above. “Made?”

Cas considered this, his eyes turning upwards as Dean’s moved to watch his face, two ears of wheat bending together in the breeze of the conversation.

“I do not know,” he answered, finally. “I do not remember. Before time, I think.”

Dean nodded, his lips pinched. Before time. He’d taken fifty-seven pictures of a being that had been born before time began, today.

“The first memory I have is somewhere,” Cas paused, closing his eyes for a moment as though consulting some inner compass, before pointing a hand high. “Somewhere there. Far out, in what you would call the Kuiper Belt.”

“I’ve never called anything the Kuiper Belt in my life,” Dean said, with a grin.

Cas threw him a quick, sharp-eyed smile. They sat in silence for a few moments, lost in thought.

“Actually, I… I returned to that same place many times,” Cas said. “When I had wings.”

He tilted his head down, sucking in one of his cheeks and biting it, a gesture Dean didn’t recognise.

“Oh, yeah?” he said softly. Cas didn’t talk about the Fall often.

“It was my favourite place,” Cas said. “Especially… especially after I met you.” He cleared his throat. “After I returned from the descent into Hell.”

Dean nodded, his eyes watching Cas’ face. It was lit up now in silver-blue, cool and quiet as the surface of a clear-water lake.

“I used to rest near Pluto,” Cas said, when Dean left the silence open, waiting for more. “I always went there, when I had a spare moment, or when – when I needed to think. I don’t know what it was that drew me back there…” he trailed off, the rest of the sentence lost to inner thought. Dean wanted to be able to close his eyes and listen hard enough to hear what was going on in Cas’ head, the things he only told himself, that he kept locked up.

“There was something about it,” he said eventually, his voice a little hoarse. “Something about Pluto. The way that it’s so far – so far away. It’s up there now,” he waved a hand to the sky. “Somewhere up there, far away from anything and everything. It’s alone, and it can see the lights – the sun, shining… burning itself up and holding everything together. And around it, the planets, moving so fast and so close, together. And all Pluto can do is – is watch. And I always felt as though – as though it wanted to be… closer.” Cas swallowed, shifting his arms, shaking his head. “It’s only a lump of rock.”

“No,” Dean said. “No. I get it.” On impulse, he reached out and pressed a hand to Cas’ shoulder.

Cas smiled at him, looking him right in the eyes, half happy and half sad. It almost broke Dean’s heart to see him that way.

“It’s nice to have friends that aren’t planets,” Cas said, trying to lighten their mood. Dean laughed.

“I’ll bet,” he said, releasing Cas’ shoulder, turning back to the sky.

“Although, I have to say, I do have a lot in common with Pluto.”

“What?” Dean grinned. Cas shrugged, his eyes sparkling.

“Well, Pluto used to be a planet, didn’t it?” he said, just a little too lightly, the effect ringing hollow. “And then that was taken away.”

Dean’s forehead creased. He sat in silence for a few moments, watching Cas watching him try to figure out what to say.

“I thought I heard that Pluto was a planet again,” he said eventually, frowning. “Or a dwarf planet, or something like that.”

“No one’s quite sure what it is, anymore, are they,” Cas said flatly. Dean swallowed.

“It’s Pluto,” he said. “It’ll always be Pluto.”

Cas didn’t reply, but he did give Dean an oblique smile and a nudge of the shoulder so tiny that it might have been accidental. They sat in silence for a long while, Dean tapping his fingers against the dry grassy ground, trying to figure out if he could have said something better.

“I wish I did have a birthday,” said Cas, eventually.

Dean turned to look at him, surprised. Cas shrugged, and smiled the comment away. Dean opened his mouth to answer, and then closed it again, and then bit his lip, and then turned back to watch the sky. He took in a breath, and then let it out slowly, and took another.

“You know,” he said, his throat a little tight. He’d never shared this with anyone, before, it’d always been… just something he’d thought to himself, usually when he was driving or falling asleep. “Sometimes, I… I think maybe we all have a lot of birthdays.” Cas was watching him; Dean resisted the urge to look back, allowing Cas the space to read his expressions without being observed in return.

“Because, you know, in our lives,” he began to explain, knowing that he was going to do this badly, “in our lives, we’re a lot of different people. I’m not the same guy I was ten years ago, you know? Or even seven years ago, or three. And sometimes I figure, well, maybe there was a day, like – like an actual day when I stopped being one and started being the other. And those days are like birthdays. So, so maybe… you could have one like that.”

He could almost hear Cas thinking, the quiet around them warm and comforting. Eventually, Dean turned to look at Cas, and saw that his eyes were shiny.

“Cas…” he said, reaching out a hand before he could stop himself and taking Cas’ fingers into his own. Cas swallowed, keeping his eyes fixed on the heavens above him so that the tears in his eyes wouldn’t fall. They sat like that for a long time, Cas’ hand wrapped by Dean’s like a treasure in a box. Dean rubbed his thumb along the length of Cas’ index finger, his heart stuttering at the sensation of warm skin. His stomach was filled with butterflies, wings fluttering madly.

“Sorry,” Cas said, and Dean said nothing, but shook his head once, dismissing the apology.

“I love talking about things like this,” Cas said, when the wetness in his eyes had melted. “I always did.”

Dean smiled, wondering whether Cas wanted him to let go of his hand. He wasn’t pulling away, so… he could hold on, right?

“Me too,” he said. “I – I love it, too.”

Cas turned to look at him, then, and Dean’s breath was stolen in a rush. How could there still be stars in the sky, when all of them were in Cas’ eyes? He gripped Cas’ hand a little tighter, and felt an answering squeeze.

“Cas…” he said, not knowing what he wanted to say. He hadn’t noticed how close they’d been sitting – well, he had, of course he had, but the possibilities that the closeness allowed had only just become clear to him. “Cas, I…”

They were so close, so close, so close…

“I want to kiss you,” Cas said, suddenly, the words tumbling out as the first gush of water through the smallest crack in a mighty dam, and a wave of heat rushed over Dean’s body, his mouth dropping open. “Please may I kiss you?”

Dean’s hands were trembling.

“Yes,” he whispered, not trusting his voice to be steady if he tried to speak louder. Dean reached up his free hand as Cas moved into his space slowly, slowly, his eyes staying open as Dean wound his fingers into the lapel of his coat. They came together with breaths caught, tilting their heads a little more, a little more, coming a little closer, a little closer…

The first press of Cas’ lips to Dean’s was a white-out. It was an explosion of every emotion, a tremor in every nerve within him, a triumph and a terror and a pure, vast happiness too great and unexpected to understand. He gasped, as though trying to draw Cas in nearer with the force of his breath alone; Cas’ hand tightened around his, the other coming up to slide into Dean’s hair, holding him steady as they kissed again, deeper. Dean was trembling as though this were his first kiss, heart juddering, a single tear falling down his cheek at the sensation of being held, of being kissed, of being kissed by Cas…

They pulled apart, sighing into each other’s mouths, breathing each other’s breath. Dean looked up into Cas’ eyes, too stunned and starstruck to be ashamed of the tears in his eyes.

“Dean,” Cas whispered. “I think today is my birthday.”

Dean smiled shakily, squeezing Cas’ fingers in his own.

“You think so?” he said, almost laughing; how could he hold a happiness so huge inside his body?

He was grim and stained and snarling like a beast, blood cracked and dried over his face. He was eight feet tall, his spirit barely remembering to hold the shape of the body it had once filled; dressed in greasy rags from the waist down, his skin in tatters above, petrol thick and shining down his neck, over his shoulders. On his head, the threatening flicker of great, curling horns. His cheek was torn open on one side, and the skin newly-split on one arm, muscles moving and bone cracked beneath. He was lurching backwards, a savagery, a horror in his oil-black eyes.

Mortal, said Raphael, wreathing himself in celestial light. You will come with us.

Dean Winchester hissed, vitriol pouring out over his tongue, lashings of gasoline down his chin. Did he even understand? Castiel wondered, holding still to watch. Could he even hear Raphael? Or could he only see a column of light, and a many-headed monster?

You will come with us, Raphael pressed, stepping forwards; the last surviving demons surrounding Dean were torn apart, screaming blasphemies into the mouths of the angels who tore out their throats.

He must be terrified, thought Castiel, watching Dean Winchester back up further. He must think we are here to expunge him from existence.

You will – Raphael began again, but was cut off by Dean Winchester leaping at him suddenly, hands with talons outstretched; the angel was taken by surprise and Dean’s index finger raked along the cheek of his closest face, leaving a dark, open gash in his smooth, blueish skin.

Raphael was still, his eyes wrapped shut against the pain. When he opened them, they were narrowed and cruel, a growl lower than the drums of Hell rising in his chest.

He levelled his sword at Dean Winchester.

You will come with us, he said, full of wrath. Dean roared at him in defiance, sounding high and screeching in comparison. His spirit was so strange, so stubborn, Castiel thought. It was besmirched, an abomination, but there was something – something in the smooth lines, in the angles of his shoulders and grease-stained neck, that spoke of something greater than the devilry into which he had fallen… something graceful, something – good? Dean blinked, and Castiel would have sworn on the heart of his Father that for one moment Dean’s eyes were bright, and scared, and… green.

Raphael’s hands were tensed on the blade of his sword, preparing to raise it high, his anger absolute.

Wait! Castiel shouted.

As one, the angelic horde turned to look at him, seventy-seventh soldier in the artillery legion, one seraph in a hundred thousand seraphim. Castiel did not return their gaze. Over the crowd of heads and blank faces, Raphael’s eyes were burning like the fires of the plain around them, fixed on Dean Winchester, paying no attention. Castiel began to move, dropping his sword and pushing through the organised ranks of his brothers and sisters, sending them sprawling in their shock. He was breathing hard, now, something like fear in his chest, this was madness – Raphael’s blazing sword had reached its zenith, and now it was falling, falling… Castiel ran –

The great sword fell against Castiel’s upraised hand, cutting through his armour with a clang like a chime of fate, slicing open his palm – and stopping, its lethal progress brought to halt.

Raphael stared at him, wordless. Castiel did not move. If the demon he was protecting should strike him now – if Dean should decide to attack him from behind –

But no blow fell. Castiel watched Raphael and held the sword, a thin line of red slowly dripping down the blade. The flames licked his skin, but he did not flinch away from their heated, hating bite. He endured. And Raphael pulled back his sword, and lowered it.

He will not come, Raphael said to Castiel. He may as well die.

He will come, Castiel answered. Raphael shook his head.

He has fallen too far, he said. Dean Winchester is lost. It has all been in vain.

He is not lost, Castiel insisted, his eyes never leaving Raphael’s. He will come.

There is nothing to find, Raphael intoned. He is gone.

He will be saved, Castiel said, turning away from Raphael to see Dean, shoulders back and eyes flickering back and forth, breath rasping and smoke-thick in his tattered lungs. Castiel watched him for a moment, considering. Around them, the angelic horde were watching, the coals of Hell hot and hissing beneath their feet, the ever-present drums still rolling far beneath.

Castiel shifted, uncertain. He knew humans, a little; knew their fear of the unknown and the strange. He reduced himself. He made his body into a new shape, a shape that he knew only because of the few humans that he had watched: his Vessels, all of them, who had only fallen under his notice when he wished to make sure they were alive and prepared if he should need them. With a sigh, Castiel poured his form into the shape of the Vessel awaiting him in this age: brown-haired, blue-eyed, soft-skinned. Tiny.

“Dean,” he said, moving his lips to shape the words across the air, as a human would. Across from him, Dean went completely still. His demonic bones ground to a halt. He was crouched a few feet away, his back bent, ready to pounce at any moment. Castiel breathed, feeling the shape of his human chest expand. It was strange to have only one head, only two eyes, such small, small hands.

“Dean,” he said again, reaching out. He spoke as softly as he could, letting his Grace carry the gentle words across the space between them over the roar of the fiery plain. “I will not hurt you. We have been sent to recover you from Hell. You are to return to Earth. Heaven has mighty plans for you.”

Dean was shivering, gasping. His bones were shifting under his skin, shrinking. He shook his head, disbelieving, his eyes fixed on Castiel’s. They were deep and complex and – and beautiful, Castiel thought, beautiful, even with the taint of black demon, even with the fire and smoke of battle reflected grimly in them.

“Trust me,” he said, taking one step closer. “Trust me, Dean Winchester. I will keep you safe. I swear it.”

Dean blinked slowly, his breath coming shuddery and gasping. He pressed two hands to his face, small and human and dirty with blood, and fell to his knees, shoulders shaking.

To their backs, the angels heard the sounds of the demonic troops regathering, the screeches and drums making for them once more. Casting a quick glance over his fragile, tiny shoulder, Castiel moved swiftly, stepping behind Dean and drawing his short angel blade.

“Cover my back,” he said to the angels around him, wrapping his arms around Dean’s shoulders tightly. He hissed and winced as the hand that he’d used to stop Raphael’s sword pressed against the oily grease on Dean’s skin; angelic fire burned long and slow, and what remained on his hand had caught on the petrol for a moment. Castiel pulled his hand away, and saw a red, five-fingered brand on Dean’s shoulder. He breathed out roughly, and took Dean back into his arms.

“I will keep you safe,” Castiel murmured one more time, as he tightened his grip, lifted his wings in a mighty sweep, and raised them both into the air.

*

Seven years later, with the Darkness swirling around them in a storm, an oncoming rush, and with everything seeming lost and broken beyond repair, Castiel held Dean Winchester in his keep once more.

“Cas – Cas –” Dean was yelling, watching the black void close in, snapping shut the cell phone in his hand and grasping Cas’ shoulder. “Sam’s OK but – I don’t know how we’re going to get out of this one – Cas…”

The grass beneath their feet swayed in the wind, tiny blades of green with no fear of their onrushing fate. Castiel was watching Dean, only Dean, and Dean was staring right back at him.

“I think we’re going to die,” Dean whispered, sounding half-disbelieving, half-afraid. “I think – Cas, it’s – it’s all around us…” He swallowed. Cas took hold of his hands, gripping them tight.

“We will not die today,” he said, his voice steady.

“Cas – we won’t make it, there’s no way…”

“Trust me,” Cas said, and Dean went suddenly still, his very breath seeming to stop. “Trust me, Dean Winchester. I will keep you safe.” In the dying light, with death and darkness all around, Dean and Cas moved into each other’s space with hands shuddering, and hearts thudding, and eyes for only each other. “I will keep you safe,” Cas whispered once more, as he pressed his forehead to Dean’s. “I swear it.”

For a few moments, they were still.

When Cas opened his eyes, they were shining bright with angelic grace. His jaw clenched and his back was straight, ready. He looked to Dean, running the tips of his fingers gently along Dean’s cheek, before turning his face to the Darkness and pulling back his shoulders, his face set, his determination absolute.

Cas’ head moved; he lifted it, and rested his chin on Dean’s shoulder. When Dean didn’t look at him, Cas shifted and pressed a soft, sensual kiss to the sensitive skin to the side of Dean’s chest - his aching chest, battered since he woke by the hammering of his heart.

“What are you thinking?” Cas murmured, his stubble tickling. Dean sighed, half expecting to hear an old man’s wheeze, a smoker’s lung. He felt cynical and dirty and harsh.

I’m thinking about losing you, he thought. I’m thinking about how we only know how to love each other in the big ways, not the little ones. I’m thinking about how much easier it is to say, ‘I don’t want you to die,’ than to say, ‘I’m sorry for shouting at you about forgetting to buy the milk.’ I’m thinking about how we’re proud and stubborn and difficult. I’m thinking about how we’re going to fall apart.

“Nothing,” he said, and when Cas tilted his head and raised an eyebrow, he added only, “Just - I like us like this, is all.”

Cas watched him for a few long moments, his eyes smoothing over the lines on Dean’s face as he considered.

“This is good,” Cas said eventually. “But we can do better.”

Dean frowned, flicking his gaze away from Cas and staring up at the ceiling.

“Why?” he asked. The white paint above him was flawed, smudged grey in places and cracked.

“Because,” Cas answered gently, “we didn’t cook spaghetti together yet. Or take the trip to the Grand Canyon. You didn’t read me your favourite book, and I didn’t show you my favourite new sweater. You didn’t teach me how to fix a car, and I didn’t teach you Enochian.” He leaned down again, kissing Dean’s chest, once, twice, making his breath stutter. “There are places on your body that I have never touched. There are things I want to do to you that I have not yet done. I have only drawn from you twelve cries of pleasure, and I want twelve hundred, twelve thousand. And,” he said, his hand running down the length of Dean’s chest, down his stomach, sending sparks over his skin, “you still don’t believe that I will be with you forever. Until that day comes, we can do better.”

Dean leaned up to press a hard kiss to Cas’ lips, brows still drawn low, heart still thundering.

“I’m too much,” Dean muttered against Cas’ mouth, a confession made across the inches of hot breath-space between them.

“So am I,” Cas murmured back, his fingers running back and forth over the silky skin at the top of Dean’s left thigh. “It is nothing to be afraid of.”

Dean looked into his eyes for a long moment, and saw sincerity there. He settled back into his pillows, pulling Cas down with him, back into a close embrace.

“Your feet are cold,” Cas complained, as they rubbed against his legs. Dean chuckled dryly.

“Someone kept stealing the covers last night.”

Cas grumbled wordlessly into Dean’s shoulder, his eyes falling closed once more.

“Sorry,” he murmured, finally. Dean smiled softly, and let his eyes fall closed, too. Cas was a warm weight against his side, a weight he wanted to carry forever.

Maybe - maybe they would be alright. Maybe they could love each other through the little things.

“Um, yes,” Cas lied, remembering belatedly to answer Dean’s question. Even with his best friend, he was still awkward. A total loser, as Dean would say. But he said it with a smile and a hand squeezing his shoulder.

Dean grinned at him and took a swig of his beer.

“Want to play a game?” he asked. “I heard about a new one. It’s called ‘Don’t Get Me Started’.”

“Alright,” Cas said. Maybe a game would help him to relax - and it was Dean asking, after all. “What do we have to do?”

“Well,” said Dean, “You give me a thing, and I have to go on a rant about it. Doesn’t matter how dumb or amazing it is, I have to act like I hate it and tell you why. Sound good?”

“Alright,” Cas said again, a little dubiously. “So - I just - give you something?”

“That’s right,” Dean said. “Could be anything.”

Cas looked around the room for a moment, thoughtfully, trying to pick something out.

“Parties,” he said eventually. Dean laughed and shook his head.

“Party hate is much more your area,” he said. “I gotta channel your spirit right now, here we go. OK. Freaking - freaking parties, man. They are the worst. The way people all gather together, and they talk about nothing, just - the future, jobs, grades, workloads, who knows someone else who knows someone else. So freaking boring. We could be lying on hilltops looking at the stars or some shit and instead we’re stuck inside pretending to get along with people who we’ll probably never meet again? Ridiculous. And, you know,” Dean said, his expression turning sly, “there’s always that one asshole you meet at a party. You know, the one who sits in the corner texting and doesn’t talk and just kinda creeps everyone else out.”

Cas, who had been smiling along with the first part of Dean’s rant, gave him a shove with his shoulder and forced a laugh.

“Harsh, but fair,” he said, and Dean laughed too, throwing his head back and clapping a hand to Cas’ shoulder and squeezing. Cas couldn’t help watching him, his eyes bright. He loved making Dean laugh like that.

“Alright, alright, too far,” Dean admitted, releasing Cas’ shoulder. “OK, your turn. I tore a strip out of you, so let’s even that out. Your topic is... me.”

“You?” Cas’ throat was suddenly dry. “You want me to get mad about you?”

“Sure,” said Dean, with an easy tone that was belied by the strange look in his eyes, the way his fingers were clenching slightly around his beer bottle. “We’ve known each other for three years, now. I’m pretty sure you’ve got some choice complaints.” He winked, and Cas wanted to run. But he couldn’t, could he? After all, it was Dean. Watching him with an expectant gaze.

“Alright,” Cas said. “You. Dean - Dean Winchester.” The buzz of conversation from the other party guests in the room seemed to dull to a barely-audible hum as the focus between Cas and Dean intensified. “You are - you are very -” he paused, trying to think of something harmless. “Clean.”

“Clean?” Dean asked, looking confused.

“Clean,” Cas confirmed. “Your room is always clean. And you get very annoyed when someone makes a mess. You frown and you grumble about it, and it’s very... um, very... vexing.” Vexing? Dean was looking at him like he was from another planet. What else was there? He tried to think, but his brain was filled with the usual pink clouds that rose up when Dean was around him.

“Oh, yeah?” Dean said. “Well, you’re a messy person. You leave your mugs on the coffee table with no coaster. That shit is vexing.”

“You get grumpy when you have to wait for longer than ten seconds, if we’re going somewhere,” Cas countered. Who could be bothered to find a coaster, anyway? The tables in their college rooms were cheap and didn’t even belong to them.

“You take about an hour to get ready for anything,” Dean swiped back, scowling slightly. Cas made a little angry noise.

“You wake up looking perfect every day, which decreases your empathy for people who don’t,” he snapped.

“You wake up looking perfect every day!” Dean said loudly.

Cas opened his mouth to respond - and then closed it. 

Dean was watching him with his lips slightly parted, but when he saw Cas’ blank, surprised face, he snapped them shut and turned away slightly, taking a sip of beer. 

Cas watched his profile, the downward curve of his lips, the slight pinkness of his cheeks. Was he - was Dean - embarrassed? But why would he be, unless... unless he really meant what he’d just said? Oh, but that was impossible, surely... Cas was the only one with a ridiculous crush here, after all.

“Hah, anyway,” Dean said, turning back to face Cas with a wry expression on his face, a dismissive hand raised to wave the moment away. 

But -

“Really?” Cas said, the single word spilling out like a raindrop falling onto the waters of a silent pool, rippling, changing everything.

Dean stared at him for a long, long moment. Cas swallowed. Don’t ask what I mean, he thought. You know what I mean. Just tell me if you meant it.

Dean opened his mouth.

“Really,” he said, a little roughly. “You - you look great in the mornings, Cas.” His mouth twisted in a little smile. “You always do.”

Cas let out the breath he’d been holding. Dean was twisting his beer bottle in his hands nervously, his eyes downcast.

“Cas, look, I don’t want to - you’re my best friend, I don’t want to -” He seemed to run out of words, his eyes looking suddenly misted. Cas’ heart pounded in his chest, because was what he thought was happening, really happening? Wasn’t this impossible?

“Dean,” Cas said. “Dean, I...” He grasped for words that wouldn’t come. He couldn’t say it all, everything he felt, everything he needed to say - he had to do something, though, or the moment would pass and he’d be back to reality. He had to act now, while they were still in this impossible dreamworld -

He reached out, and took Dean’s hand. He didn’t look at Dean, just focused on their fingers as he laced them together in the neatest of patterns, Dean Cas Dean Cas Dean Cas Dean Cas, and their thumbs on the end pressed one on top of the other. Dean’s skin was warm and Cas’ was hot, sparks shooting up his spine, his breath shuddering just a little at the feeling of the contact...

And then Dean squeezed his fingers, and he was putting down the bottle in his other hand, dropping it hastily to the floor. His fingers came up to press against Cas’ chin, gently lifting his face so that they were looking into each other’s eyes. The weight and heat of their stare was almost too much to bear.

“Cas,” Dean said hoarsely, his thumb rubbing lightly at Cas’ jawline. “Do you - do you - do you like me? Like, like like me?”

Cas sighed, his eyes as bright and warm as falling stars. He leaned in, and Dean moved with him, mirroring him perfectly. Cas loved him, he did, he loved his eyes and his freckles and his lips and the way that they trembled just a little when he was nervous, and how softly he touched, and how strongly he looked, and how deep and wonderful and kind he was. How Dean he was.