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So it's Valentine's Day, and Dean, as usual, finds himself screwed over.
It's not because he's eaten so many of those nasty antacid candy hearts that he's now got perpetual acid reflux, nor is it even from something moderately life-threatening, like the Mark of Cain causing him some sort of shit-havoc on the daily—no, it's because he and Cas currently exist in the terrifying void of what would be classified by regular people as "a thing," but they're Dean and Castiel, so "things" don't really happen for them.
The next rational step in this situation, of course, is to figure out what the hell is going on—"this situation" being where Dean and Cas screw like rabbits when Sam's not around, whether that be in the Impala, in the shower, in the library, or anywhere with a relatively flat surface. But Dean's not really a labeling guy.
This issue comes to both of their attentions when they're out for breakfast ("brunch," Sam corrects him, but Dean's not a middle-aged lady in the Upper East Side, so…no) and Sam's poring over a case, reading the facts out loud over a cup of coffee as he leafs through several pages of evidence.
"Killings in 1980, 1983, 1986," he's saying, in his usual earnest way, "so in threes. Ritualistic-sacrificing-looking stuff. Assumed cult behavior at the times of death. I'm thinking it's witches or some sort of pagan deity."
"Great," Dean says sarcastically, leaning back in the booth. "God love the pagans."
Cas is staring off with a slightly glazed look, eyes glassed over and his lips pursed in thought, so Dean decides to, you know. Mess with him a bit.
When Sam turns his nose down and starts to rattle off facts again, Dean slides the toe of his boot up the arch of Cas' shoe.
Cas gives a little jump of surprise and levels a blank, heavy stare in Dean's direction. Dean smirks, then turns back to Sam.
"So you're thinking witches," Dean says, gliding his shoe back into place and running it over the top of Cas' foot. Cas visibly tries not to start at the contact, but his knuckles blanch on top of the table.
Sam seems to notice Cas twitching around peripherally, because he glances up with a frown. Dean immediately stops.
"You okay, Cas?"
"Fine," Cas grits out, seeming to catch onto the game as he looks darkly at Dean. Dean just gazes back at him innocently, wiggling his foot against the hem of Cas' sock.
"Okay," Sam says slowly, transferring his gaze to Dean in question before he drops his attention again. "Anyway, I think the pattern is mostly with married men—"
Suddenly, the upper hand switches; Cas' foot retaliates, sparring with Dean's under the table away from Sam's, before slipping to Dean's ankle. Dean glares, and his throat goes very dry when Cas maintains deadpan eye contact and slowly slides his foot up, along Dean's calf, pressing into his thigh.
Fuck.
"—so there could be some sort of personal vendetta, if it's witches—" Sam's prattling on while Dean's trying very hard to keep his cool as Cas' foot stretches, very deliberately, to rest on top of his balls, and Dean knows, staring at Cas' impassive expression, that he's gazing into the abyss here. He's putty in Cas' hands, masculinity included.
He's a goner.
"It's mainly in the same location within Alabama and Georgia, and it looks like all the homicide cases are still open—" Sam's continuing on, and Cas, very slowly, pushes the toe of his shoe into Dean's crotch.
Dean jumps with a sharp bang, jolting the table, and Sam jerks up in surprise and goes, "Dude, what is your problem?"
"A bee," Dean blurts out—the fuck?—then keeps it up with a fumbling, "There was a uh, a bee in my collar." He fidgets rather unconvincingly with his jacket collar, ignoring Cas' quiet, triumphant stare boring into him.
Sam's face goes very flat, his lips pursed. "A bee."
"Am I speaking Yiddish?" Dean snaps, his jaw prickling with heat. "Yeah, it was a bee. Think it's gone now, though." He half-heartedly waves his hand around and shoos an invisible winged thing away while Sam watches him with utter incredulity.
"Strange," Sam says, his eyes drooping sarcastically, "how bad those bees get in February."
"Crazy times," Dean chokes, and Cas lets off, moves his foot.
Dean realizes, way too late, that he never should've started this with Cas, who's probably the only creature on earth with a stronger willpower than Dean's, and probably the only creature on earth who can break Dean's libido within a matter of seconds.
When Sam looks away again, Dean makes a face at Cas and mouths, fiercely, Cut it out, to which Cas mouths back, eyebrows raised, You started this, which. Yeah. But Dean'll wave the white flag on this one.
"So what do you think?" Sam asks, after a couple more minutes of white noise in which Dean's staring down at Cas' foot watchfully to make sure it doesn't pull any shit. "Worth checking out?"
"Yeah, definitely," Dean says without knowing what he's agreeing to, and that's how it starts.
--
Cas goes away the next day on some kind of personal business, and he says it's only for a week but Dean's still pretty fucking miserable about it. It's not like he isn't used to Cas' comings and goings, and more frequently the goings, but maybe he used to be better at lying to himself.
Which it's not like Dean has any right to feel jilted that Cas is leaving on Valentine's Day. They're not really anything, or at least anything with an applicable term. Relationships usually require some sort of emotional stability, which he and Cas both rank in at a safe zero, and "friends-with-benefits" would maybe apply if he and Cas ascribed to even a small scrap of normalcy. There doesn't seem to be a name for something where Cas goes away for long days at a time, Dean gets sad and depressed and lonely, Cas comes back, they bang, don't talk about it, and Cas leaves again. Rinse and repeat.
Part of Dean is too afraid to ask Cas if they're just doing this because they both have expiration dates, because he doesn't really want to hear the answer.
So Cas takes off and Dean's left to perch his ass on his own thumb, and when Sam finds him at breakfast the next day, he's staring dismally down into the whorls of his coffee, dressed in the same ratty boxers as the day before.
"Are you alright?" Sam asks, arching an eyebrow before he ducks into the pantry to locate the Lucky Charms. "You look really down. Like even more down than usual, I mean."
"I'm fine," Dean says in a valiant effort to not look like he's sulking, but Sam just snorts incredulously and plops down a bowl loudly at the seat next to Dean.
"Yeah," Sam says. "Okay." Then he goes for the milk as an effective conversation-ender.
If Sam suspects what the issue is, he doesn't say that morning, but he's definitely at the end of his rope by the afternoon, in which Dean's staring blankly at the Discovery Channel's documentary on whales. Cas would like this shit, Dean thinks.
"Dean," Sam says in exasperation, pointedly grabbing the remote and clicking off the TV.
"Hey," Dean protests, sitting up indignantly. "I was watching that."
"It's been on rerun," Sam says, "three times now. Tell me one thing you learned about whales, Dean."
"They're cooler than your nerd ass."
"Dude," Sam says, gesturing to the entirety of Dean, which is…unimpressive, Dean will concede. "Seriously, what's the matter with you? At least take a shower or something, Christ."
"I'm fine, Sam," Dean snaps back.
"What is this about?" Sam says. His voice lowers conspiratorially, as if other people will hear him. "Is it about...Cas? Because it sure seems like it's about Cas, Dean."
"It has nothing to do with him," Dean says, feeling his jaw clench defensively. "I just said I'm fine."
Sam runs two hands over his face wearily, templing them around his mouth before he drags them down his jaw. "Okay. Fine. Don't say I didn't try to help." And he raises his hands in surrender and lumbers off. Dean lobs a sock after him, which drapes ineffectively over the lamp on the coffee-table.
He turns the Discovery Channel back on and out of spite tries to retain something about whales.
Dean's dozing off sometime around 6, his beer bottle dangling loosely from his fingertips, when there are a few knocks on the bunker door—well, more like hollow bangs, given the bunker's front door is like a dungeon entrance.
Dean lolls up sleepily and sets down his beer, fishing around for his pants before heading toward the door and muttering, "No, it's fine, Sam, I'll get it," before he cranks open the door.
It's Cas, and Dean's heart gives this terrible lurch and he says, way too brightly, "Cas," then quickly smoothes his face over to play it off.
"Hey," he says, much more coolly, leaning subtly against the door frame of the bunker. "Uh, what are you doing back so soon? Thought you took off till Friday."
"Well, I was on my way to pick up Claire, but she called and said she's staying with her mother's old friend in South Dakota so I rerouted," Cas says, his mouth curving up at the corner, his eyes flicking over Dean's features.
Dean nods, once. "Cool." For the first time, his eyes relocate to the shiny thing in Cas' hands. "Uh…"
"I don't know if this is…custom," Cas says, dropping his eyes, "but they had them on display at a gas station and I figured I might as well."
It's one of those cheap, heart-shaped box of chocolates that they sell at Hallmark for like two bucks apiece. There's a bubble of heat slowly working its way up Dean's throat, and he places his forehead into his hand and says, "Shit."
"I didn't know if…" Cas begins, then trails off. One of his arms hangs awkwardly, and he shuffles it along his coat before he tries again with, "You can just throw it out—"
"No," Dean says quickly, taking the box from him, his face hotter than hell. "Thanks, Cas. Seriously."
"There's a cherry pie in the front seat, if you prefer," Cas says uncertainly, and Dean just looks up at him in amazement and is blindsided by the urge to grab his stupid stubbled face and kiss the shit out of him.
"You didn't have to," is what he says in a near-mumble instead, opening the box of chocolates.
"I know I didn't," Cas says, his voice way too soft, and Dean finds himself unable to answer.
Dean picks one of the chocolates and eats it, and yeah, it's the shitty ones, the ones filled with citrus-flavored pouring cement or whatever, but it fills his mouth so he won't have to talk and say anything he actually means.
"Can I come in?" Cas asks, seeming intent to move past the whole thing, like he'd done something wrong.
"No," Dean says, swallowing the mouthful before he can lose nerve, "let's go out. Dinner. Yeah? You hungry?"
Cas blinks at him, the fluorescent streetlights shrouded on his face and catching the hollows of his cheeks. "Yes. I could eat."
"Okay. Good. Great." He sets down the box within the front door, trying to ignore the way his palms are sticky and how his heart is sprinting like a racehorse just because Cas got him a box of crappy heart-shaped chocolates.
"Bye, Sam," Dean yells into the bunker, knowing it'll echo around somewhere, and he hears Sam yell back something confused and unintelligible before Dean slams the door.
They drive into town and Dean's beating a restless, staccato rhythm on the steering wheel with his palm, his leg jiggling while Cas gazes out the window and observes the different lights printing on the windows.
"I'm glad you're here," Dean says, and Cas turns to look at him warmly.
"Me too," he says, then pauses before he says, with great sincerity, "The longer I'm away from you, the more anxious I am to return."
Ffffffuck, Dean thinks—with the willpower of God, he doesn't say it, just gives this strangled laugh like Cas had told a joke and turns up the radio.
They pass their usual diner, where they go like once a week for burgers and fries, and Cas cranes his neck to watch it recede in the back-window in confusion.
"I wasn't aware there were other restaurants in town," Cas says conversationally after a moment, the question clear in his voice.
"Not at my pay grade," Dean says with a short, uncomfortable laugh. "But, uh, special occasion and all."
"Okay," Cas says, settling his shoulders back into the upholstery with a squeak, and resumes looking out the window.
Truth is, Dean's not even sure they can get in to the place he has in mind without reservations, but it's one of the nicer places in town and every time he drives past it, he thinks what it'd be like to take Cas there in a world without the apocalypse. Part of him's hoping the whole place is packed, that way he can tell himself he tried and he and Cas can get greasy burgers and shakes like they usually do, as pals, as friends.
A few minutes later he pulls into the parking lot, locating a space pretty quickly and cutting the engine. Cas ducks his head to observe the restaurant through the windshield and says, with interest, "This looks nice."
"It's alright," Dean says, then clears his throat and shoulders his way out of the car.
Cas follows closely behind him on his way in, and Dean's nowhere near dressed nice enough for a place like this and Cas has been wearing the same coat for like eight months, but by some miracle, the waitress greets them without hesitation and leads them to a small booth.
"You sure you don't have people on the waiting list?" Dean says as she leads them, his last and desperate out, but she smiles dazzlingly over her shoulder and says, "No worries, sweetheart, we just seated our last couple," and okay, Dean thinks as he slides into the booth, they're doing this.
Which it would be horrifically comical in any other universe, that eating with Cas at a fancy restaurant is more terrifying to Dean than, say, sleeping with him, but Cas seems clueless to the implications, so maybe it'll be fine.
Cas flips open the menu, and Dean's just staring at him, hanging on the edge of saying something, anything, but he doesn't. So he's just staring at Cas until Cas feels his gaze and looks up and hey, it's mutual staring, just like old times, only there's no sharp edge to it like there used to be, just this weird, tender softness that makes Dean's stomach flip.
Dean opens his mouth to say something when the waitress stops by them with a, "Can I get your drinks, sirs?"
"A Boulevard Wh—" Cas begins, but Dean cuts him off before he can finish and says, "We'll take the second selection of your champagne."
Cas turns to look at him in surprise as the waitress beams and writes down their order.
"Enjoying your Valentine's Day, gentlemen?" she asks, surely just to be friendly but Dean nearly resents her for thinking to ask. "Any cupids in the room tonight?"
"For all of our sakes," Cas says, gravely, "let's hope not," and Dean sighs into his hands and the waitress hesitates, confused, before she smiles uncertainly and walks off.
"Dude," Dean says.
"Is this a date?" Cas asks, and there's no teasing in the question—just honest curiosity, maybe bemusement.
Dean almost laughs, a defense mechanism to shake off the question, but he just answers, helplessly, like the trainwreck he is, "I don't know. Do you want it to be?"
"Yes," Cas says, with a small, satisfied smile. "I've never been on a date before."
"It's stupid," Dean says, his fingers picking at the fold of his napkin. "I just—you showed up at the door with that stupid heart-box and you bought me a pie, for Christ's sake—"
"Dean," Cas interrupts him, not unkindly. "You didn't have to do anything for me. Although for what it's worth, I like dating you so far."
Dean raises a finger. "I didn't say we were dating."
"Okay," Cas agrees, raising an eyebrow in question. "Not dating, then."
"No," Dean protests, "that's not what I meant. I'm just saying, we should….do a full date before we say we're dating. You know?"
"I don't know," Cas says, narrowing his eyes. "But I'm willing to learn."
"Okay," Dean says, taking a deep breath. "Cool."
Okay. Cool. He and Cas, dating, together, a couple, relationship, waking up together, cool.
"What do people talk about on dates?" Cas asks, interlacing his fingers and resting his chin on his knuckles.
"Anything," Dean says, and he feels strangely giddy. "That's the point of dates."
"Okay, so what do you want to talk about?"
Dean says the first thing that comes to mind. "Whales," he answers. "Did you know that sperm whales sleep, like, standing up?"
"I like whales," Cas agrees, "let's start there," and under the table, Dean feels Cas' foot slot into place with his.