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The thing is, it's not like Dean doesn't know about Castiel's weird - angel-crush, or whatever it is. No, wait, man-crush, since it's the object and not the subject that defines the - damn it, he's got to get his inner Sam to shut the hell up.
Anyway. It's there, and it's obvious, and it's the elephant in the goddamn room that Dean has sense enough not to talk about, sense that no one else has, looks like, not Sam or Balthazar or freaking Cas, himself. 'Profound bond,' his ass. Except - no. Not going there.
It isn't like it's changed how Dean thinks of Cas, or anything - this isn't even the first weird sorta-gay-but-not-really-since-angels-and-demons-don't-have-sexes-or-do-they thing that Dean has encountered, and managed to skirt widely (but without skirts being involved, because that would be bad and wrong and, okay, hot if he were doing it with the girl who was the owner of said skirt, but otherwise, just, no). There was that boy in high school that had kind of creepily followed him around and made Dean wonder if those looks in the locker room were really those types of looks in the locker room, but then the kid had turned out to be a demon with a major axe to grind and no particular interest in Dean's buns of not-quite-steel, so that had laid that to rest. And Sammy's thankfully temporary case of too-fraught brother-worship had faded with adolescence, at least down to normal levels, if anything about the Winchesters can be said to be normal. And Chuck had been just a little too googly-eyed, for a while there, but then the world was ending, and google-eyes sort of faded into the background in terms of significance.
So, yeah. It isn't the first man-crush Dean's had to, uh, deal with. Or not deal with, since Dean doesn't deal with these things; he just pretends they aren't there until, eventually, they aren't. And maybe it's stupid and childish and immature, like that game of if-you-can't-see-me-I-can't-see-you that two-year-olds play with their disturbingly hot underaged babysitters, except: a) Dean is not two, b) Cas is not disturbingly hot, and c) Cas is nowhere near underaged - more like overaged, by, like, a millennium or two. Or three. (Is Dean supposed to count the centuries BC or just AD?)
Anyway. It doesn't matter that Cas is gay for him in a non-gendered way, which is exactly why he's not thinking about it. He's - he's obviously not thinking about it. All this? Is all the not-thinking. That he's not doing. About it.
Shit.
Maybe if he - but no, he couldn't - but that would -
Shit.
He's - he's going to ignore it. Like always. That'll work. It always works. Just because the guy crushing on you is a not-guy in a not-body and is also immortal and God's messenger on freaking Earth, doesn't make things any different. Does it?
No. No, it doesn't.
"Yo, Cas," he says, the next time Castiel pops into Bobby's kitchen wearing a sad-dog expression and a trenchcoat soaked in what smells like formalin. "Want a beer?"
Cas wants a beer.
Cas is a good man. A good angel, except that maybe angels aren't supposed to get drunk, but there's another Apocalypse on and damn it, anyone that wants to get drunk, deserves to get drunk.
And so they drink, and talk, and Dean pretends that Cas doesn't need this as badly as Cas obviously does, pretends that it doesn't mean to Cas what it obviously does, and tries to get Cas to watch porn (good, old-fashioned straight porn) and tries to do everything unattractive he can think of doing, including belching, scratching his crotch, gesticulating wildly whilst making incomprehensible (to Cas) pop culture references, and generally making a tool out of himself.
It should work. It should.
Which is why, when he's almost passed-out on the couch (when did they get to the couch?) and woozily recounting that story of the time when Sammy and this cheerleader were caught in flagrante delicto by their Dad, he's so surprised to feel Cas's hand on his forehead.
He's - he's surprised. He really is. He's spent the entire evening being an ass.
"Thought y'didn't like me 'nymore," he slurs, even though his eyes are too heavy to open.
"Dean," says Cas, from somewhere above him, and his voice is as gentle as his touch. "I like you."
If Dean were properly awake, he'd be simultaneously horrified and embarrassed by how much like a high school crush that sounds, but he's tired, and it's warm, and Cas is right here.
"Yeah," he mumbles, as he falls asleep. "I know."
fin.
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