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‘Holy shit.’
Sam walks heavily into his brother’s back when Dean stops without warning. He grabs Dean’s shoulder to steady them both. ‘What’s wrong?’
They’re both a little on edge: spending the day ducking around the woods in knee-deep snow playing hide ‘n seek with a century-old wendigo will do that for you. For all Sam knows, the damned thing had a buddy who’s waiting in the bar for them, pissed that they’d blown his hunting partner to hell and gone.
‘I...Cas?’ Dean’s voice sounds a little choked and he doesn’t move.
‘Yes, Dean.’ The quiet voice comes from behind Sam’s left shoulder.
‘You’re...behind me?’
‘Yes, Dean.’
‘Sam?’
‘What?’
‘He’s behind me?’
‘Uh -- yeah? What the hell’s going on?’
‘I...’
‘Is something wrong?’
Dean shakes his head slowly. ‘No...not...no.’
‘Then will you get a fucking move on? It’s cold out here.’
As soon as Dean moves out of the doorway and Sam can look into the bar-room, the problem’s obvious. Despite the fact that he knows that Cas is behind him -- can actually see Castiel out of the corner of his eye -- Cas seems to be standing in the middle of an admiring crowd, playing pool.
Dean leans his elbows back on the bar and watches. He can feel Castiel beside him, his arm almost touching Dean’s. ‘So...this is...weird, yeah?’
Castiel gives a tiny shrug. ‘I imagine Jimmy may have family.’ He watches his twin for a minute and shrugs again.
‘Is this is one of ‘em?’ Dean tries not to look like he’s staring, but he’s seen the other man glance back at him a couple of times and knows he must be being obvious.
In the spirit of not getting punched, he gazes up at the ceiling for a few minutes, takes a thoughtful sip of beer, glances back to see if there’s any sign of his burger. Then, as soon as he turns back, he’s drawn to watching Cas’ double.
It’s a weird feeling. He thinks it would be like seeing Cas get drunk -- and immediately makes a mental note to make sure that he’s around when that happens. Preferably pouring the shots.
This guy’s laughing, smiling, flirting with the girls around him, setting up a trick shot behind his back, failing to make it, and laughing uproariously at himself. He’s wearing loose, worn blue jeans and a black t-shirt. There’s a silver chain around his throat, tight enough that it sits above the crew-neck of the shirt. He touches it occasionally, thoughtless brushes of his fingers.
If this were a different scenario, if Dean had a different feeling in the pit of his stomach, he would be looking around for something to hunt. He’d be looking for shapeshifter goo or witchmarks or -- well, hell, something that would bring this back in the realm of his experience.
This -- this is just normal coincidental weird and he doesn’t know what to do with it.
‘Dean?’ Castiel’s quiet voice in his ear brings him back.
‘Yeah?’ He turns around and Castiel is leaning in, pushing a plate towards him. There’s only a few inches between them and Dean’s throat goes dry because, just for a minute, he thinks of leaning forward and kissing Cas.
Whatever this is that’s going on between them -- that has been going on between them for a few months now -- he can’t put a name to it. They kiss -- sometimes. Not often, not as often as he’d like; Dean wonders if this was because the first time was kind of half a mistake and half out of shock. Castiel has fallen asleep against his shoulder in the car; once, they had been caught by a snowstorm, forced to take shelter in a fucking barn of all places, and Dean had fallen asleep with his head on Castiel’s shoulder, Castiel’s arms around him, the trenchcoat spread over them both.
They’ve never talked about it and Dean can’t decide if he wants to bring it up or not. Cas has never volunteered anything about how he feels about it or what he thinks about it -- if he feels or thinks anything at all about it. For all Dean knows, he’s just going along with it because Dean likes it, not because he likes it or wants it or---
There’s a burst of laughter from behind him and it’s involuntary, he looks up and back, away from Castiel and back at his double.
‘Are you not hungry, Dean?’
‘I...yeah, yeah...’ Dean twists back around, picks up a fry and bites it in half.
‘That man...he really looks like me?’ Castiel glances back over his shoulder and his voice sounds almost...shy.
‘Yeah, can’t you see it?’ Dean glances back, too, and shakes his head, leaning one elbow on the bar. ‘Jesus, he’s your fuckin’ twin.’
Castiel says nothing, running the tip of a finger around the rim of his water glass.
‘You’ve looked in a mirror, right, Cas?’ He means it as a joke but realises that it’s never occurred to him to ask before. ‘I mean -- you...you know what you look like?’
Castiel nods absently, looking back at the pool table. Dean glances back, too. Castiel’s double is stretched over the table, angling to make some nifty trick shot on the other side and the two girls standing behind him are clearly not paying very close attention to the trick. The man’s jeans are riding down, showing a line of tight black elastic on tanned skin-- and Dean decides the burger in front of him really requires some attention. There’s something too disturbing about watching ‘Cas’ move around like a normal, regular human being, flirting, talking, joking, drinking -- Dean’s not sure if he likes it or not.
When he turns back, Castiel is watching him closely.
‘What?’
‘I...have never paid very much attention to...what I look like.’ Castiel looks down at himself, brushes a hand over the limp fronts of the trenchcoat.
Dean shrugs. ‘Doesn’t matter.’ He takes a bite of the sandwich -- it’s pretty good, hot in the center, well-grilled -- and adds around a mouthful, ‘’S’not like I do.’
Castiel smiles, a tiny quirk of the lips that Dean has come to watch for. If he didn’t watch for it, he’d think Cas never smiled. It’s not like Cas’ got a grin on his face all the time -- that really would be a sign of something unholy -- but Dean’s come to realise that he has a much better sense of humor than they ever suspected. Sometimes he thinks it’s even better than Cas suspected. It still seems to surprise him when he laughs -- which is why Dean tries to make it happen as often as he can.
‘I do not think it matters for you,’ Castiel says, fiddling with the end of his tie and glancing up at Dean rather ruefully.
Dean swallows. ‘I clean up okay.’
Something sparks in the back of Castiel’s eyes and, as if by common consent, they both look away. Dean fixes his eyes on the meal in front of him, even though he can’t taste the bite in his mouth and the skin on his arm beside Castiel’s on the bar is tingling. Taking a small chance, he edges his arm over, until he’s touching the sleeve of the trenchcoat.
Castiel is still for a minute then slowly shrugs the coat off, draping it over the empty stool beside him. Even more slowly, he cuffs the sleeves of the white dress shirt, pushing them up over his elbows. He puts his arm back exactly where it had been, just touching Dean’s, elbow to wrist.
Dean finishes the burger -- by the last few bites, he can taste it again and, if he leans on his left elbow, he can keep that arm pressed against Castiel’s. It’s not like he really needs two hands to cope with french fries anyway.
This time, Dean stops without saying anything and Sam runs up against him.
‘Jesus, Dean -- what the hell.’ Sam grabs Dean’s shoulder and tries to shove him in through the bar-room door but Dean won’t budge. ‘C’mon, man, it’s freezing out here!’
It’s bad enough to be stuck in this town because of an iced-up bridge; Sam feels he’s in momentary danger of icing up himself. ‘Dean!’ He shakes his brother’s shoulder hard and Dean finally seems to snap out of it and takes a step forward.
‘What the hell is wrong with you anyway....’ Sam grumbles, closing the door behind himself and stamping snow off his boots. Dean has stopped again, a few steps further into a nearly empty room and Sam still can’t see what the big deal is.
The worst of the snowstorm had passed overnight, but most of the locals were too bright to venture out. Sam and Dean had spent most of the day holed up in the motel room, watching hour after hour of Spanish-language soap operas on the only channel the television would tune in reliably in the bad weather. Castiel had disappeared around noon without saying where he was going.
After about six hours, making up dialogue for each other got so deadly dull that Dean threatened to make the TV into a target if they didn’t get the hell out and the bar was within walking distance.
Or slithering distance. They’d made it upright, but Sam feels his ankles will probably never be the same again. ‘Is it there something wrong with the door to this place or-- Oh.’
For a minute, Dean isn’t sure who he’s seeing, then the dark-haired man turns, says something to the woman standing beside him and there’s no-one else who tilts his head like that.
Jesus fuck me. He finds his way onto a stool, hears Sam order them food, something to drink. Without really taking any of it in, he watches Castiel play pool.
He hadn’t even known Cas knew one end of a cue from the other or had the faintest idea how to take a shot.
On the other hand, he also hadn’t known that somewhere or other Castiel kept a store of clothes like that.
The trenchcoat, the worn suit, the wrinkled shirt, the dull tie...all gone.
Instead, Castiel might well have taken his clothes straight off the back of his double the night before, except he’s had to add a belt to keep the jeans up and, even with the strip of leather, they’re loose enough to ride low on his hips and expose a stretch of pale skin when he stretches over the table to take a shot. His t-shirt is dark grey, not black, and the dip of his collarbone shows in the V-neck as he stands up again, turning his head slightly to eye the table.
‘Wipe your chin.’
‘What?’ Dean jerks around, glaring at Sam who’s grinning at him, pushing a glass of beer across the table.
‘Dude.’ Sam rolls his eyes. ‘Either go talk to him or stop drooling. I’m embarrassed to be sitting here.’
Dean grimaces, downs half the glass of beer in a swallow, and gets up. ‘Bite me.’
Dean waits until Castiel makes his shot and straightens up. The woman he’s playing against nods thoughtfully to herself and steps around the table, eyeing the felt.
‘Hey, Cas.’
Castiel glances up, but meets Dean’s gaze without any sign of surprise. ‘Hello, Dean.’
The woman looks up, too, and whistles softly. ‘Damn, snowstorms really do bring out the good stuff ‘round here.’ She takes her shot and adds, as the balls click softly together: ‘I gotta come down more often.’
‘I...uh...’ Dean gestures lamely at Castiel. ‘Nice shirt.’
It isn’t, particularly. It looks like cheap grey cotton: the kind you buy in a four-pack at any store, the kind Dean has worn out dozens of over the years. The jeans are a little better, but they still only fit Castiel where they touch him. Problem is, they touch him on his hips and his ass and his belly and all those places Dean has thought of touching -- but hasn’t yet.
Castiel looks down at himself, then back up at Dean, his expression still sober. ‘Thank you.’
The woman leans over the table and sticks a hand out at Dean. ‘Angela.’
He takes her hand without thinking about it and feels electric shock run over his skin. It isn’t unpleasant but it is unexpected and he nearly jerks back but doesn’t. ‘Dean.’
She nods. ‘Yeah. I know.’ She leans back on her side of the table. ‘Your shot, angel.’
Dean takes a cautious step back. Cas, apparently completely unconcerned by anything except his next shot, is frowning thoughtfully at the pool table. Dean reaches over and touches his shoulder. ‘Uh...Cas...?’
Angela flaps a hand at him. ‘Don’t get all bent out of shape; I’m on your team.’ She leans on her cue, watching Cas eye the table. ‘C’mon, c’mon -- I haven’t got all day here.’
Castiel glances up at her. ‘Yes, you have.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘Doesn’t mean I want to spend it all here. Maybe your idea of fun is being snowed in, but mine isn’t.’
Dean slides a hand back under his jacket, just brushing the butt of his handgun with the tips of his fingers. Angela’s eyes flash up to him and she grins again. For a second, her eyes have a faintly golden tinge.
‘Don’t blow a hole in the body, kid -- I promised to return it in good shape.’ She smoothes a hand over her stomach, patting her hip in a friendly way. ‘Pretty nice, yeah?’
Dean blinks and, in reflex, gives her the once-over. She’s tall, muscular, and reminds him vaguely of a younger version of Ellen. ‘Uh -- yeah?’ He hears the click of the balls and glances down at the table to see a ball dive into each pocket of the table as if thrown there.
Angela sighs. ‘Cas. We talked about this.’
Castiel is watching Dean and doesn’t seem to hear her for a minute.
She taps her cue on the floor. ‘Cas. Cheating.’
Castiel huffs slightly and flicks a fingertip at the table. The balls pop back out of the pockets and roll to their old positions.
Angela nods, satisfied. ‘Damn straight.’
As she turns to study the table, strolling away from them, Dean grabs Castiel’s arm, hauling him a few steps away. ‘What the hell is going on!’
Castiel looks at him blankly. ‘I am playing--’
‘With her!’ Dean jerks his chin towards Angela, now leaning on her hands over the table, studying the balls as if they might start moving on their own again.
‘She is...a friend of mine. An old friend.’
‘What the hell’s she doing here! What is she?’ Dean hisses at him.
‘A minor goddess,’ Angela chimes in cheerfully, taking her shot as she speaks. ‘With excellent hearing, I’m happy to say. Your shot.’ She leans on the cue as if it were a walking stick and grins at Dean. ‘You felt it when you touched me. You just don’t trust yourself, that’s your problem.’
‘Yeah, it’s been said,’ Dean mutters, releasing Castiel’s arm and watching him study the table. ‘So... What’s a minor goddess doing shootin’ pool?’
Angela watches Castiel take his shot and snorts as the balls crash in the middle of the table. ‘Winning.’ She neatly pockets two balls and adds, ‘Someone needed to bring Cas his new gear and I hadn’t been down in awhile.’
Dean looks at Castiel’s new clothes, then at Angela, then back at Castiel again. Cas has dropped the butt of his cue to the floor and is watching Dean. He looks so fucking normal that Dean knows there’s something weird going on. ‘Wait -- you brought--’
‘Seemed like a good excuse for a roadtrip,’ Angela goes on, circling the table and eyeing it thoughtfully. She bends forward, squints at the balls, then stands up again with a disgusted expression. ‘You’re cheating again.’
‘I am not,’ Castiel says quietly.
‘And after all I’ve done for you.’ She shakes her head, pursing her lips. ‘’m disappointed in you, Cas.’
‘You would be more disappointed if I did not try to cheat.’
Angela aims the cue at him and winks then turns back to the table. In two neat shots, she clears the table and straightens back up. ‘So. You any good at this?’ She aims at Dean with the tip of her cue.
‘Uh -- yeah, sometimes.’
‘Good.’ She glances past Dean and makes a ‘come here’ gesture. ‘C’mon, big guy.’
Dean looks back over his shoulder in time to catch the fleeting expression of surprise on Sam’s face. He stands up, but doesn’t move. ‘What for?’
Angela sighs patiently, leaning on her cue. ‘Because I want you to help me wipe the floor with your brother and his boyfriend. You into that?’
‘Wait -- what--’ Dean’s still trying to put a sentence together when Castiel slips a cue in his hand; at the same time, Dean feels Castiel’s fingers at the small of his back, a teasing brush under the hem of his shirt. ‘What!’
‘Sure.’ Sam takes a cue from Angela’s hand and grins at her. ‘Won’t be too hard.’
After three games -- two of which go to Sam and Angela -- Castiel disappears in the time it takes Dean to rack the cues. When he turns back, Castiel is nowhere in sight and Sam and Angela are standing just that tiny bit too close to one another on the other side of the table. Dean sighs silently and resolves to be The Good Older Brother just once more; at least the bar’s quiet. Maybe he can tuck himself in a corner booth and sleep for a couple of hours.
Sam glances back at him. ‘Hey, Dean--’
‘Yeah?’ Dean shoves a hand in his pocket, fumbling for the room key.
‘I’m gonna hang here with Angela for awhile, okay?’
Dean blinks. Maybe he should just give up on expecting to understand what happens around him. ‘Uh -- sure. Yeah, great.’ He looks at Angela doubtfully and clears his throat.
‘He’ll be fine, Dean.’ Angela smiles at him and, without meaning to, he finds himself smiling back. Angela might have been flirting with Sam like crazy all evening but there’s something about her Dean likes -- something solid and warm underneath her sharp jokes. ‘I promise to bring him back in one piece.’
The motel room is dark and empty and cold. Dean throws the key on the small table near the door and turns up the heat as high as it will go -- it won’t be high enough, he knows that from experience. Since he doubts Sam will be back that night, he strips the two blankets off Sam’s bed and adds them to his own, piles his jacket on top of that, and goes to take the hottest shower he can muster up. If he gets into bed warm, maybe he’ll stay warm a little longer.
The bathroom loses heat even faster than the bedroom, thanks to a leaky window, and he yanks on clothes as fast as he can -- a worn thermal henley and flannel pajama pants -- and stuffs his towel in the gap between the window and the sill.
He’s thinking about what he can get on the crappy motel cable when he walks back into the bedroom.
‘You liked how I looked tonight.’
‘Jesus!’ Dean flinches back against the bathroom doorjamb, then curses himself. He really needs to get used to this. He steps forward, closing the door behind him. ‘Y’ever think of ringing? Knocking? Yelling out “Honey, I’m home”?’
The joke falls flat, as he had expected it to.
Castiel is sitting at the end of Sam’s rumpled, de-blanketed bed, hands on his knees, back straight, looking down at the floor between his feet. It’s the same pose Dean has seen him adopt a hundred times when they’re trying to work something out. Sam will be pacing in the corner of the room, ranting about something he’s found out; Cas will sit and consider the carpet as if it’s of vital importance; and Dean will just wait until they catch up with each other and tell him what to shoot.
And the new clothes are gone. The trenchcoat, the rumpled tie, the suit jacket are all back at the old stand.
It’s too chilly in the room -- even with the heat cranked up -- to linger for Cas to figure out what he wants to say next. Instead, Dean burrows into his borrowed blankets, yanking them up around his shoulders, pulling his knees up against his chest, and tucking his hands between his thighs to warm them back up. He waits for a few minutes but Castiel seems disinclined to move or speak, so he flicks on the TV.
It blares to life on a game show so he drops the volume and starts channel-surfing. There’s nothing he actually likes on. He’s felt a little...weird about mainlining Doctor Sexy since he and Cas started doing...whatever it is they’re doing. The cowboy boots just don’t have the appeal they used to.
But if they’re actually doing something -- if this thing is actually a thing and not just passing the time or Cas keeping Dean happy-- then why is Cas sitting on Sam’s bed while Dean is in his own personal cave of blankets? He grits his teeth and tries to convince himself he hadn’t just thought of how much warmer this bed would be with two people in it.
So Castiel sits on the end of Sam’s bed and Dean switches channels without much hope of finding anything. He settles on a movie he thinks he’s seen the end of and drops the remote.
The TV burbles dialogue in the corner and, over that, the silence coming from Cas presses against Dean’s ears. He can only stand it for about fifteen minutes and, at the first ad break in the movie, he rustles the sheets deliberately, hoping to make Cas look over at him. It doesn’t work. ‘So -- you just drop by to be quiet at me?’
Castiel glances back at him and Dean can see his eyebrows twitched together, a sharp line between them, and his eyes dark. ‘I was thinking about this evening.’
‘Yeah -- hey, I left Sam with Angela. ‘m I gonna have to haul him out of something horrible in the morning?’
Castiel shakes his head and looks back at his feet. ‘No. Angela is...mischievous, but she will do him no harm. She likes him or she would not have kept him with her.’
Dean nods -- but if he had any hope that Castiel would pick up the conversation and go with it, that hope dies quickly. The movie comes back on and he watches it without any real idea what’s going on.
‘You liked me in those clothes,’ Castiel says, his voice nearly drowned out beneath the heroine’s shriek.
Dean drops the volume and looks at him. ‘Yeah.’ He can’t tell if there’s a question implied there or what he’s supposed to do with the remark.
Castiel turns around and looks at him again, planting one hand flat on Sam’s rumpled sheets to steady himself. Dean doesn’t know what Cas is looking for, so he just looks back. Cas moves as if he’s going to speak, then bites his lip, and subsides again.
‘So what’s the deal, Cas?’ Dean shifts on the bed, tucking his hands behind his knees and stuffing the blankets under his hips. ‘Y’get your ass pinched in the men’s room or what?’
Castiel shoots him a startled look. ‘No.’
‘Then what’s the big deal about the clothes?’ Other than that I’d’ve liked to take them off you. Dean squelches the thought ruthlessly. He’d be just about as happy if Cas would take off the damned trenchcoat. Well. Maybe not quite as happy. That v-neck t-shirt had had possibilities. But either way he would end up with Castiel naked and that was the main point.
Castiel is still looking at him and Dean wonders if he’s blushing. Castiel opens his mouth again -- and then he’s gone.
Dean sags back against his pillows, staring back at the TV where a dark-haired young man is having his Achilles tendon snipped by something lurking under the floorboards.
He’s missed something.
As with so many conversations with Castiel, he’s fucking missed something.
It’s a weird pattern that develops. It takes Dean a few weeks to notice it.
Castiel shows up to work with them just as he always has: quiet, determined, and in the same clothes he’s been wearing since Dean met him. There’s never any change and, one time when Dean’s digging the mud out of his boots after an unsuccessful foray into a swamp after a mermaid-like thing that apparently liked its water dank and mucky, he thinks he should ask if there’s some kind of fancy angel protective magic for clothes. If there is, he could use it. This is the third pair of jeans he’s trashed in a month.
But when he and Sam are at a bar, or their umpteenth diner, Castiel will show up -- differently. Angela comes with him once or twice and she and Sam disappear together so fast Dean’s surprised there aren’t smoke trails. He’s a little too distracted himself to worry too much about it; Sam always shows back up in one piece with a smile on his face, so Dean figures that’s good enough to be going on with.
Apparently the jeans and t-shirt had been just the start. Cas branches out into jeans that fit him, tight enough at waist and hip and thigh to make Dean’s mouth water. He discovers long-sleeved shirts that outline the muscle in his shoulders and over his chest and Dean can’t look at him straight on. And, one night in a crowded bar in southern Oklahoma, there’s a thin white silk button-down that nearly makes Dean spill his drink. Castiel sits close next to him all night, the warmth of his skin radiating through the soft, light material and making Dean’s fingers twitch to reach out and touch him.
And when he’s like this Dean can. As weeks go by and add up to a month, then two, he starts to think of them as two separate people: Castiel-with-Coat and Castiel-in-Jeans. Castiel-in-Jeans isn’t cuddly -- Dean doesn’t know what he’d do with that anyway -- but he reaches out to touch Dean more often and he lets Dean touch back.
The night of the white silk shirt, they spend the last fifteen minutes before the bar closes kissing in a dark corner by the men’s room. He knows it smelled of bleach and stale beer and the floor was faintly sticky under their feet, but all Dean can remember is the feel of Castiel’s skin under the silk and Cas’ fingers in his hair, tugging just enough to make Dean tip his head back so Cas can press a line of kisses down his throat.
And then Cas disappeared.
That’s what Dean doesn’t get.
Cas always disappears.
It’s not like this is the lead-up to some great seduction scene -- or, if it is, Dean’s got to teach him one or two things about how seduction works. Not that he wouldn’t be happy to do that, but Cas would have to stick around long enough first.
Dean tries to ask him about it, but Castiel-in-Jeans doesn’t answer questions. It’s not like Castiel-with-Coat does, either, really but -- there’s that strange feeling of dealing with two people again. Dean feels he can push Castiel-in-Jeans more -- but not in the same ways he can Castiel-with-Coat.
He’s beginning to resent that a little bit. He tries talking to Castiel-with-Coat about something they had been talking about the night before in the corner booth of a bar, Castiel’s hand warm on his thigh, fingertips just teasing at the seam of his jeans -- just an unfinished conversation about a baseball game that had been playing on one of the TV screens. And Castiel stares at him like he’s speaking Greek until Dean falters and gives up. That night, Castiel-in-Jeans picks up the conversation as if it had never dropped.
Three people is a tight fit in the Impala, even if one of them can pop in and out at will. There just plain isn’t room for four and someone's got to say something about it.
Dean gets his chance a few nights later. Leaving Castiel with his laptop, Sam shrugs into his jacket.
‘Where are you goin’?’ Dean asks, looking up from the notes Sam had taken earlier at the local library and insisted he read.
‘Angela.’ Sam grins at him. ‘Don’t wait up.’
Dean tips him a mock salute and turns back to the notes. When the door’s firmly closed and Sam’s footsteps have died away outside, he risks a covert glance up at Castiel. He is still looking through whatever Sam left him on the computer and Dean glances back down at the lines of Sam’s even, black writing.
He’s not even sure what he wants to say, but he knows something’s got to be said.
‘So, Cas...’ He tries to sound casual, shifting around on the bed a little and rustling the pages in front of him as though he might be about to ask a question about Sam’s notes.
Castiel looks over at him.
‘D’you think this is what they were talking about on the news last night?’ He taps the sheaf of paper.
The night before, Castiel-in-Jeans had made a brief appearance when Dean went to snag a burger at the bar down the street. The local news was on the small black and white TV propped near the cash register with a tired-looking blonde woman droning a report about a body found in a graveyard, chest ripped open.
Now, Castiel looks at him blankly and Dean goes on, forcing cheerfulness -- after all, they’re just talking about the hunt, right? That’s what they do all the time. ‘Body ripped open’s got to be somethin’ weird -- that’s not your normal hit ‘n run kinda stuff.’
Castiel turns back to the laptop and, like that, something in Dean’s chest snaps. He throws down the papers and stands up. ‘Okay, y’know what, Cas? Fuck this.’
Castiel looks back up at him, eyes wide. ‘Dean?’
‘What the hell is this? I’m not supposed to talk to you in the morning about what we talked about the night before? What the hell kinda fucked up morning-after scenario is that supposed to be!’ Dean doesn’t realise he’s yelling until he stops and hears the silence.
‘Dean, I--’ Castiel is moving to stand up, but Dean discovers he’s got more.
‘I...I... I don’t even know what the hell this is, okay? You’ve never said -- never said one goddamned thing about whether you liked … liked...’ Dean flails for a word. ‘Liked it or -- or hated it or -- were just fucking putting up with it so excuse me for wondering what the fuck is going on when you’re willing to play tonsil hockey with me after six p.m. but you don’t want to fucking talk to me about it in the morning!’
Had he really meant to say all that? ‘Cause some of it sounds freakin’ weak -- but he couldn’t say it wasn’t true. Castiel had never said anything -- whether in jeans or a trenchcoat -- about what he thought about what he and Dean did together. Nothing ever went beyond some heavily clothed grinding but, hey, Dean was into further exploration -- seriously into it since Cas started showing up in jeans that barely left anything to the imagination.
But Castiel still hasn’t said anything and the silence is starting to ring in his ears now. Dean raises his hands and lets them drop. ‘So -- so what, Cas? What the fuck is going on? ‘Cause whatever this is -- I really don’t fuckin’ like it.’
He hates it, would be more honest. He hates seeing Castiel’s eyes close down when he brings up the wrong thing. He hates waking up alone and hard morning after morning with nothing else to do except take a long shower. He hates still being able to taste Castiel’s mouth on his and not being able to do anything about it.
Castiel’s eyes widen and a smear of color appears in each cheek. He stands up sharply, nearly tipping the laptop over, and steadies it with one hand without looking. ‘You -- do not?’
‘No. This fucking sucks, Cas, what the hell did you think?’
The smears of color deepen and spread. ‘I am...I am sorry, Dean, I -- I thought you liked it when-- I--when we--’
Dean watches him, frowning. ‘Wait a minute -- what the hell are you talking about?’
Castiel looks away, down at his own hands. ‘The -- at -- in the evenings, when -- when we--’
‘No, no, no--’ Dean steps forward, reaches out to take Castiel’s hands, then stops when he flinches away. ‘No, Cas, you’ve got it wrong. That’s -- I’m good with that, I’m...hell, I’m awesome with it. Any time you want, you just say. It’s -- it’s --’
Castiel is watching him, the color fading from his face and leaving him slightly paler than normal. Dean looks at him for a long minute, then sighs. ‘Why can’t -- why won’t you -- it’s like you’re two different fucking people and I can’t goddamn well cope with it any more! Don’t you think we’ve got enough problems without you developing a split personality on top of it?’
Dean throws himself back down on the bed which squeaks protestingly under his weight and glares at the wall behind the television.
Castiel is silent and Dean is sure that he’s blown it. Whatever this is -- was -- it’s a has-been now.
There’s the sound of slow footsteps on the rough carpet and Dean looks up to see Castiel standing close in front of him, almost close enough for the hem of the coat to brush Dean’s knees.
‘I thought...’ Castiel starts, then hesitates. ‘You liked...the other clothes...so much.’
‘What?’ Dean says after he waits for a minute and Castiel says nothing else. ‘What the hell are you talking about? The clothes?’
Castiel swallows and licks his lips. ‘The...things that were like that other man, the one who looked like me -- like what he wore.’
‘I...’ Dean blinks but Castiel stays just the same and Dean’s pretty sure he’s going crazy.
‘I watched you watch him and I -- I thought perhaps if I wore the same things--’
‘Jesus Christ!’ Dean groans and drops backwards on the bed, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes.
‘It -- it seemed to work but perhaps--’
Without looking Dean reaches out, grabs Castiel’s wrist, and gives it a firm tug. Cas stumbles forward and lands, hip to shoulder against Dean. Dean presses his advantage and rolls over so he has one of Castiel’s legs trapped between his own. He plants a hand flat on either side of Castiel’s head. ‘Listen to me, okay, Cas?’
Castiel’s eyes are wide and startled, but he nods and doesn’t try to get away.
‘All right.’ Dean pauses, tries to think out a thoughtful way to say what he wants, then gives up. ‘Don’t be fuckin’ stupid.’
‘I am not--’
‘You think we were making out in every bar between here and the Texas state line because of your clothes?’ Given that they’re up near the Canadian border now, that’s a substantial amount of territory and Dean can see Castiel doing the math in his head. ‘’Cause that’d be pretty damned stupid.’
Castiel blinks -- blinks again. ‘I...was wrong? About the clothes?’
‘Yeah. You were wrong about the clothes.’ Dean ducks forward, pressing a kiss under Castiel’s chin and whispering into his ear: ‘I don’t give a fuck what you have on, so long as I get to take it off.’
The startled jerk of Castiel’s hips under his is enough to let Dean know he’s on the right track.
‘You wanna wear jeans, great; you wanna live in this trenchcoat the rest of your life, awesome.’ Dean flicks at the collar, then pushes it back so he can mouth at the soft skin under Castiel’s ear, lick a path down to his collarbone. ‘I. Don’t. Care.’ He pulls back enough that he can see Castiel’s face. ‘Got it?’
Castiel looks at him for a long minute, then the corner of his mouth twists up and he reaches up, sliding his fingers around the back of Dean’s neck and tugging him back down. ‘Got it.’