#orbghost

That was the way Dean was; he'd put up with it for too long now. He'd made a plan for Christmas - to admit he was done waiting, that either Dean would tell him it'd never happen or Cas would walk out the door and never look back; the chance that he'd reciprocate was lesser than one percent, and Castiel wasn't looking forwards to anything bigger than burying his desires once and for all. But he loved Dean, he really did; after all they'd been through together, there was no way he wouldn't have. A part of him had... hoped, perhaps, but not quite believed, that when Dean had asked him to share the apartment, there had been something more behind the sentiment. After all, college had brought them close to each other, and the events that had unfolded in the midst of the chaos that school had been had sealed them like cement together for good. Yet nothing had changed, and Castiel realised he'd been an idiot to expect anything more. Dean was what he was, and amongst other things, Dean was a free spirit - nothing would chain him down, nothing would bring him to settle. He was much too anxious to grow roots, even if Castiel knew that it was one of the things he desired the most. The only person with whom he'd ever had anything close to permanence was with Sam, his younger brother, and that relationship was uneasy and breaking at the seams no matter how much they loved each other. Sam desired freedom where Dean desired stability - ironically it was Sam who'd settled down with his fiancée, a sparkling, bright young woman named Jessica Moore, and Dean who kept meeting girls with no strings attached. It never ceased to amaze, and hurt, Castiel; he'd felt lost in his broken family and he'd never known affection and true loyalty like that which lay within the Winchesters, but for some reason his heart had attached itself to Dean above all others and for years now he'd seemed unable to look elsewhere. Perhaps he'd never even wanted to, but it didn't matter. Dean, despite frequently seeming as if there was something that he wasn't admitting when it came to Castiel, never seemed to care enough to look into it. Maybe he was afraid, and maybe it was for the best that he never would - it might break what they already had. The only thing Castiel wished for was that he wouldn't have to foster this toxic hope within him, that he'd finally have the choice to come out with what he truly felt and, subsequently, hear that his hope was in vain: that way he could kill it silently, perhaps even move on. He'd never step from Dean's side but he needed peace, and as long as Dean kept dragging women into his bedroom day and night utterly disregarding the fact that Castiel was present in the other room as if it didn't matter that he could hear every sound of them together, there was no peace for him.

"Dude." Gabriel's hand was upon Castiel's shoulder and the younger looked at the shorter, lost and slightly confused at being suddenly dragged to the present date. "Screw that girl. Not literally - I mean, tell him. Just make him listen, disregard the chick, she'll live. And if he still moves on to the more literal screwing with her, then it's not your fault and you'll know he's a bag of dicks by heart. You should by now, but hey, who am I to tell you who to love?"

"Dean is a good man," Castiel argued, but a part of him felt like he'd already gone past the point of no return. He didn't want to go home but it was below freezing with heavy snowfall outdoors, and he had no place else to head for.

"So tell him, then. Just tell him. If I didn't know better, I'd say he sets up his dates strategically just to block you from ever taking the necessary step," Gabriel grunted. "Anyway, I've gotta head to the counter, so give me a call after work - my shift ends at eleven so I'll be clear half past - if you're not sleeping, you little geek."

A crooked smile crossed Castiel's lips and he nodded. "Merry Christmas," he wished quietly with defeat in his voice.

Gabriel slammed a palm across his back and laughed. "Trust me, brother," he spoke with a wink, "It'll be better once you let him know. One way or the other."

Castiel nodded again even though he couldn't agree - he already feared the pain that would come with quickly tearing off the bandage, as he'd grown so used to the ache of the festering wound, but he didn't have a choice. This was it, the breaking point, and Gabriel was right. He'd have to do something. Even if tonight would not be the day that he'd tell Dean exactly why, at least he'd let him know he was done with the forced voyeurism. That was the thing that hurt him the most and if he'd have to live it on Christmas of all dates... that'd kill him.

"See you next week - and good luck!" Gabriel's cheerful voice herded Castiel out into the cold. The younger raised his hand to wave as he passed through the grocery store's entrance into the magical winter wonderland outside: the streets were black with slush but the air was thick with heavy snowflakes, and each passing car left tiremarks into the renewing white. He smiled, he couldn't help it; at least walking back home to face what had to be done would be something akin to walking through heaven on his way to purgatory.

*

"Cas."

There was something about Dean's smile that was... heartbreaking. It was the warmest, kindest smile that Castiel had seen; perhaps his feelings played a part in that experience, but there was something about it that made it so easy to drown into the bright, alert green of the younger's eyes. He smiled back, tears rising to his own eyes but so thinly that he knew Dean wouldn't notice; he only knew himself because of the prickling feeling that accompanied them. He sniffed and dropped the tan coat from his shoulders, hung it, and undid his scarf. "Dean, we need to talk," he said, skipping the greeting as if afraid he'd never make it if he'd allow himself even a moment of pretending everything was alright.

The expression on the younger's features turned concerned. "Cas, is everything alright?"

Was it ever? Castiel smiled, shaking his head. "It's just something that needs to be cleared out of the way."

"Ominous," Dean noted but stepped aside, motioning Cas inside although it was as much the older's home as it was the taller's. "How was work?"

"Tedious - sold a lot of chocolate," Castiel replied, his heart racing already as if about to explode. He followed Dean to their shared kitchen and watched him pour a cup of fresh coffee, then offer it to him: he accepted the warm cup with his cold hands, as he'd left in the morning without the mittens he'd knit for himself earlier. He'd made two pairs for Dean and one for himself, all while trying to drown out the sounds of sex from his mind - he'd made half a joke to admit as much, hoping Dean would take the hint, but the other hadn't. Of course, it had been so vague that Castiel hadn't expected much, but it had boosted his desperation by a bunch which, in turn, had eventually led to him confessing and conspiring with Gabriel at the store to get over this situation.

After pouring a cup for himself as well, Dean settled by the table. Castiel joined him; he sat opposite of Dean but lowered his gaze to his drink instead, afraid to say what he was about to. "How long until you meet - Alice? Alex?"

"Alyssa. Uh, an hour, maybe forty minutes. I'll need to pick her up and the Impala's not exactly made for this weather, so I've got to put some time aside just in case, plus the traffic's awful. Did you take the bus?"

Castiel shook his head. "I walked."

"In that weather?"

The older nodded now. "I like when it snows," he said quietly, hurting for no reason at all. When he looked up, Dean was watching him with a warm, crooked smile. His eyes were full of depth that sometimes attached to them when he was watching Castiel and if the older had been about to back from his demands, now he couldn't; it ached within him too bad to know that in three hours at most, those eyes would be feasting on yet another body that wasn't his, and he'd have to stand it, listen to it, know that it was happening and that he'd never know what it was like to kiss Dean's lips when he was radiating that strange warmth like so many others could. "Dean, I'm your roommate. I pay the rent."

"Yeah," Dean replied suspiciously, raising a brow, "I know that?"

"I clean up in here and I lower the volume on my music when you want to watch Star Trek."

"Yeah. Thanks, I guess."

"I make you breakfast when you're sick and I make sure you get your post."

"Cas, get to the point."

Castiel didn't want to. He shivered and looked at his coffee again - coffee that Dean had made him, perhaps because of him, to welcome him home from the cold outside. He wanted to take a turn, become a teenager again and curl up under his thick blankets in his blue room with the stupid posters depicting varieties of bees and birds and everything else that was related to his studies, the safety of that space he'd carved out for himself in the world right beside the man he loved too much for his own good; he didn't want to tell Dean anything. Not about his feelings, the hurt or the deep, world-changing affection that he held within him for the younger. He didn't want to talk at all. He just wanted to cry. "I can't deal with it anymore," he finally said, forcing himself to look up at Dean, "With your Alyssas and Jo-Anns and Megans and Lisbeths and Annas and the nights and, God, afternoons that you waste with them. It's none of my business, but I need you to know that I'm worried about you, because one of these days you'll end up a father or infected or worse."

Dean's lips parted. Blush charged over his cheekbones and he struggled for breath as much as for words, and Castiel could see the expression in his eyes shift from shocked to cold and to angry. "What's worse than being a father or having an STI, Cas?"

Falling in love, Castiel wanted to shout at him and throw his coffee across the table and run into the stairway and freeze to death in the park behind the bus stop. Instead, he shook his head and looked down again. "I'm sorry, Dean. But this is my home the same as it's yours."

"What I do in my bedroom is none of your business!"

"I know. But I want peace, Dean, and I never seem to get it."

"Peace?" The laugh the younger gave was almost cruel. Castiel didn't know why, but he'd known this would take this turn: Dean was defensive of his habits, not because what Castiel asked of him was unreasonable but because it wasn't something that he did because he liked it. It was something he did to cover up something else, perhaps the damage of his past or some longing he had for things he couldn't reach up to, but it was killing him like the drinking was and he didn't want to acknowledge the fault in his habits or his power in changing those things. Castiel looked up at him and responded to the anger in him making himself a vessel for it - something empty for the younger to pour the negativity in him to, something receptive, something that Dean needed. He could take this if things would change afterwards. "So what about me, huh?"

"You could go to them," Castiel said with a weary shrug, "I'm not telling you to not sleep with them. That's not something I can do." Even if it was what he wanted. Hell, Castiel wanted a lot of things: most of all, he wanted to walk around the table, take Dean's face between his hands and kiss him on the lips until he'd be breathless and like molten wax in the older's hands, like he'd seen others kiss him. He wanted to throw up and kick the leg of the table so hard that his toes would ache until next year.

"You know I can't. They all live with someone."

"Dean, you live with someone. I'm not no one. I wish you'd realise that."

It seemed to shock the younger: perhaps he'd never really thought about Castiel as much more than an extension of himself. Perhaps he'd never imagined that Castiel, too, had feelings. Sometimes he was dull and dumb like that - it wasn't that he was selfish, quite the contrary, but Castiel sometimes seemed like he didn't exist on his own at all, so it was easy to forget that he, too, was an individual. He was more than used to others walking over his free will or downright denying it, as much as they did for his feelings, as he simply was the type of a person who was easy to trample even by accident. The closer he let another, the easier it was to subdue him. He was a vessel, after all: an empty cup for the needs of others. It needed to change, but changing what one was by his very nature...

"You think I don't know that?" Dean gasped, exasperated, cutting the older's thoughts. "You think I - you think I don't know that you're here? You think all the things I do for you are just - just - do you even notice them, Cas? Have you ever taken a look around? Yeah, you clean up the corridors, you drop my mail on my table, you pay half the rent. What about me? You think nothing of how I make you breakfast, how I call in sick when you're sick just to make sure you'll be alright - you think that's nothing? You think you're air to me? Holy shit, I never realised how selfish you are."

The older's spine made a popping sound at the sudden jerk that straightened him up. He stared right into Dean's eyes and for the first time in at least a year's time he felt anger boiling where he'd forced himself calm. "Selfish?" he grumbled in a voice that resembled an incoming earthquake, "Dean, everything I do, everything I've done since I first met you, has been for you, and for you alone -"

"You're as damn thick as they come, Cas! Dammit. Fuck. Cas, look, I'm done with this. I don't know what the hell is it that stops you from seeing, but I'm not going to just let this go and bow down to your demands because I'm tired, too! I'm tired of sitting here, doing my goddamn everything trying to make you see, trying to get through to you, but you never take the goddamn hint and you turn me down every chance you get and you keep rubbing it in my face how you're not interested and now you demand that I don't get what I need from anyone, not as long as it bothers you? I'm tired, Cas, I've done everything and you just - you're - I fucking love you, and you just don't care."

A ringing silence fell in the kitchen. During it, Dean sipped his coffee with his eyes wildly tracking the room for an escape route, and Castiel had forgotten his mouth open and just stared like his mind had ceased to function entirely. The anger was gone. The hurt was gone. Instead within the older's body swirled the deepest sensation of stalled shock and confusion and his head throbbed with parts of sentences, words, syllables. "You... don't mean it - the way it just came out," he stuttered.

Dean shook his head. "I fucking mean it. I've tried everything to get it through to you but it's like I'm air to you. You're polite with me but it's like you're only polite because you have to be. You keep distance. You - you lock up in your room to knit mittens for me while I - I'd do anything to be with you like we used to be. Without the fighting, without needing to fear, without the pain, but ever since college ended and we got out of that place, ever since we had a fresh start, you... avoid me like I disgust you, and it hurts me so bad, man, I just do what I can to dull that. I do what I can to keep living and I try to reach out to you all the time but you never - you never get back to me."

"What?"

"Just tell me. Just tell me, Cas, and I'll be gone. I'll be gone tonight if you want to. I've already asked around, I can give you a list of names out of which you can pick a new roommate, they're good, reliable people, quiet, don't drink, don't sleep around, you can devote yourself to whatever you want and I wish you luck on your job and - and your upcoming career and all the tigers and rainforests that you love so much and whatever the hell else you wanna devote yourself to in the future. But I can't live like this, so I need you to tell me if this is it, or if I can at least still be your friend."

"Dean, I..."

Dean emptied his cup, shook his head and jumped up. He refilled his coffee with trembling hands and sat back down looking pale and shivering. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, "I never meant it to be like this. I just... I feel like there's a wall between us, Cas, I can't get to you anymore and I'm afraid it's because you just don't... want me close anymore."

"Dean, stop."

The younger looked up with a sheepish expression. "This is the stupidest fight we've ever had," he noted, trying a smile.

Castiel couldn't help but agree, but he still shook his head. His whole system was finally beginning to flood with relief and the nauseating, overwhelming sense of excitement: he sipped his coffee and stood up and finally walked around the table. His heart felt as if it truly was about to explode. "Dean," he called the other's name breathlessly, feeling lightheaded and unreal, "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I didn't - I've never meant to push you away. I thought... I thought you were pushing me away."

"What?"

Castiel shook his head and shrugged. "Unbelievable, right?" he said with a similarly lost smile as Dean had had on him before.

Slowly, carefully, Dean nodded. "What do you - what do you mean?" he asked then.

"That... Dean, I - I'm sorry, and I - I feel the same way. I've done since - way back. It's... I thought you - this is stupid."

"This is beyond stupid, Cas. What?"

"I love you."

"You - can't."

"I do."

There was fear in Dean's eyes, but at the same time Castiel could almost sense the same excitement within him as he'd felt inside himself before. Then that expression sharpened, turned defiant, challenging. "Prove it."

Castiel nodded. He'd expected as much, and he wasn't about to back out now. This wasn't what he'd planned, but in a way, it was better than that - he leaned in with his heart as still as if he was dead already, and kissed Dean on the lips, one palm pressing over the man's cheek and the other over the line of his jaw, pulling him closer. The kiss didn't break: Dean's response at first was almost afraid that it'd all turn out to be a joke, he barely moved, but when Castiel didn't pull away or laugh at him or whatever it was that he'd initially expected, he dragged the older closer and all the way on his lap and their hips collided hard enough for the chair's corners to dig in Castiel's thighs. He settled there and the kiss just went on and on, tasting of coffee and fresh saliva and it was full of small sounds of relief and need and more. It only finally ended when Castiel already felt the skin around his mouth swell from friction, and he knew his mouth was as red as the younger's was, and neither of them was smiling, just staring in wonder into one another's eyes for a long while before Dean's laugh finally cut that frozen silence.

"I think I'm gonna call Alyssa and cancel the date last minute," he said, "If this is for real, I'm never going to leave this apartment for any reason again."

Castiel couldn't help the smile that caught on him as well. He laced his fingers on both hands with Dean's and the sat there although his weight had to already be causing the younger's legs to ache against the chair, but he couldn't care, it was too good to just stay there with him. "Can I challenge that?" he asked, smiling almost shyly.

"Shoot, I guess."

"It really is beautiful outside," Castiel continued, his smile turning now decisively timid but excited at once, and that same expression lit up his eyes strongly enough for him to become aware of it, "I'd - love nothing more than to take a walk with you tonight."