Work Text:
It’s a summer evening, six o'clock, and Dean doesn't know what he's doing. It's not like him to do this, but after a few drinks, it occurs to him that it's a strange town, and if anyone judges him for hitting on blue-eyes, he'll never see them again anyway.
He stands and makes his way through the mostly empty bar, leaning against the counter beside him.
"Hey," he says softly.
The man looks up from his beer and raises his eyebrows. "I was wondering when you were going to come over here."
"I just- I wanted to buy you a drink. My name's Dean," he says. The man smiles and gives a nod.
"Okay. I'm Castiel."
Dean settles onto the bar stool beside him and orders another beer for Castiel. He can't stop staring at those eyes, and Cas doesn't seem let down by what Dean has to offer either.
"You from here?" Dean asks and Castiel, with a few long years of tired and annoyed on his face, nods.
"Yes. You're not," he answers, not really asking.
"No. I'm on my way to see my brother Sammy. He lives in New York," Dean explains. "I just needed to stop and take a breath."
"New York City?" At Dean's nod, Cas continues, "that's a long way to drive."
"Planes freak me out, and I love my car. She's freeing," Dean responds. Castiel smiles.
"I'm sure."
There's a pause where they both nurse their drinks in silence.
"You got family here?"
Castiel shakes his head, shrugging, but replies, "Yes."
"Yes?" Dean asks.
"A brother... but he's not... we're not very close. I stayed here for my other brother, but he left town. So, no. Not really."
"You want to do something?" Dean asks. Castiel squints at him.
"What did you have in mind?"
"I don't know," Dean answers. "I got a car."
Castiel smirks. "Are you offering to go for a ride with someone you've known for less than five minutes?"
"You seem like you could use it," Dean shrugs.
They don't bother to math out the total, instead laying separate messes of bills onto the counter and sweeping out the door. Dean runs his fingers over baby's hood, excitement bubbling in the pit of his stomach as Castiel opens the passenger door and slides inside, looking perfect there.
Then, they drive. It's mostly quiet, a few questions asked here and there, but neither ask unless they really care about the answer, just for the sake of asking.
"When do you plan on stopping again?" Cas asks at one point.
"I don't know. Why? You want me to take you home?"
"No," Cas answers. Dean can't get enough of that voice, rumbling and warm. "Where do you think all this is going?"
Dean laughs and he thinks he's probably blushing. Isn’t he always? "I don’t know. I guess I hadn’t really thought it through that far."
"Alright," Cas replies. He rolls his window down, and they get to the edge of town, and then into the next, classic rock rolling softly from the speakers. It's getting dark when Cas takes ahold of Dean's hand that isn't on the wheel, and gives it a squeeze with the tilt of his head.
This is weird, but it's nice. They're driving under stars and they're far from town when Castiel declares, "I'd give anything not to go back there."
Cas is so pretty, Dean thinks. He’s got a quiet grace, all mysterious one-liners and thoughtful blue-eyed gazes.
“I wish this day would never end.”
Dean doesn’t say it out loud, because jinxing whatever this is is the last thing he wants, but he agrees wholeheartedly.
Dean doesn’t ask why it’s so easy for Cas to let go of his old life or why he wasn’t close to his brother. He doesn’t ask about Cas’s job or whether Cas is coming all the way to New York City with him.
He asks what is wrong with Cas and why doesn’t he know who AC/DC is. He asks if he’s gay or bi or what, and what his favourite food is, and if where he’s been outside of Missouri.
They drive.
"Thanks," Cas says after more time. "This is nice. I could use a change, but I don’t even know where to begin."
Dean shrugs, giving a warm smile. "Well, hey. I got a car."
Cas smiles, and no one’s smile has ever made Dean feel that warm and fluttery inside. “There’s something.”
They stop a few motels later, and Dean leaves his bag in the car in favour of tumbling into bed with Cas, only taking off their shoes before Cas lays Dean down and kisses him until he’s breathless and red, grinding the bulges in their jeans together until they’re gasping into each other’s mouths. Dean hasn’t come in his underwear from rutting since he was a teenager, so that’s kind of a surprise, and Cas finishes after him, with Dean sucking bruises into his neck and moaning in his ear.
When Dean wakes up, he expects that Cas is going to regret taking off with him the night before. He doesn't regret it personally; Castiel is gorgeous, especially up close and buried under the covers with Dean.
Then Cas smiles when he wakes up and he kisses Dean on the lips, morning breath in full effect on both sides, and they move into the shower, pressing wet, hot kisses into each other's skin, blowing each under the warm, strong rain of the water.
"You don't mind my coming along?" Cas asks as they're dressing. They go commando, and while they’re checking out, Cas will hide their dirty underwear under his coat until it can get tossed into a grocery bag in the car. Dean's always thought ties looked good on everyone and Cas is no exception. They make Dean want to grab and pull.
"No," he answers, and he undoes the crooked thing, tying it correctly for Cas, who kisses the corner of his mouth and runs his fingers through his damp hair and grins.
"Alright," Cas accepts. When they've both collected their things, they get back on the road. They get breakfast at a gas station, a couple of sodas and a bag of donut holes.
"We'll get something good for lunch," Dean swears, shoving a ball of powdered, fried dough into his mouth. "Best thing about being on the road is the diners, you know?"
"Okay," Castiel answers, smiling at Dean's enthusiasm. Dean looks mesmerizing with powdered sugar around his mouth and wind blowing his hair back. This is the craziest thing Cas has ever done, and he just can’t find it in himself to feel bad about it.
The diner they stop at is packed at just after one, but they manage to snag a booth, and they stare at each other starry-eyed the whole time, and Cas waits until they’re back in the car to inform Dean about the cherry pie filling on the corner of his mouth, then cleans it off for him like a true gentleman.
The stop for gas too often in Castiel’s opinion, but when he suggests Dean get a more fuel-efficient car if he plans to keep up his fear of planes, Dean offers to drive him back to St Louis and they drop that conversation.
Dean likes toll roads the best because they clear out and there’s long stretches of driving and big wide views. Cas keeps him entertained, picking up magazines, food, and knick knacks at the gas stations they stop at and reading articles about a chicken parm recipe or Ben and Jen’s breakup or what the last show that William H Macy watched was. He reads the labels of chips and candy if he thinks they’re catchy and he sets stuffed animals on Dean’s dashboard, making Dean barely hide his smile.
The worst is when Cas finds a nature magazine and proceeds to tell Dean what fifteen animals he has been calling by the wrong name his whole life, and makes proud, pleased noises in the back of his throat as though he’s truly amazed by the facts he’s reading.
They’re not far into Ohio when Dean decides it’s time to stop for the night, the sky just beginning to get purple.
“What’s your last name?” he asks when they’re getting undressed for bed their second night.
“Novak,” Cas answers. Dean feels kind of bad that he’s had so much of the guy in his mouth and he’s only just now learning this. Cas pulls him into the motel bathroom and they take a bath together in the two-person tub, and they kiss and grind until the water is cold.
Dean’s favourite part of their stay there is no doubt seeing Cas wearing a pair of boxers from the same pack Dean’s came from, matching in different shades of plaid. It’s warm in the room, and they end up sleeping on top of the covers with Dean as the little spoon. Cas traces patterns into Dean’s tummy with his thumb even after they’ve both fallen asleep.
The next morning, Dean wakes up to his cock in Castiel’s mouth, which is basically the best way to wake up ever. Too sleepy to give a proper reaction, he comes with a few pitiful whimpers and Cas kisses him with a mouthful of his come and Dean thinks it’s honestly so disgusting, but hey. It’s Cas. They brush their teeth with their hips pressed together, both trying to get to the mirror. Thank god Cas thought to get toothbrushes at the Walgreens where they stopped for drinks.
It’s somehow even nicer to kiss Cas when they both taste like mint as opposed to, say, death.
Cas is staring out the window, his sexy bedhead getting worse every second, when he says, “Pooping in strange bathrooms is my least favourite.”
Dean really meant what he said about those mysterious one-liners.
“I can’t argue with that. Motel was nice.”
“Yes, it was,” Cas answers. He takes to playing with the bobble head cat he picked up in Illinois. He makes Dean stop in Washington, Pennsylvania so they can look at guinea pigs at a pet store, and Dean wonders if he has a future with this guy, or if he’ll disappear when they get to New York. Is he just fun transport?
Cas holds his hand while they’re waiting in line with some birdseed that Cas adamantly insists they need. They stop before it gets dark in bumfuck nowhere, surrounded by fields and grass and the sound of nature. Dean and he sit on the hood of Dean’s sweetheart, and Cas throws food down for birds that seem to come out of no where.
Despite the logic in sleeping with one of them in the front, and one in the back, they both crowd into the back seat and lazily kiss until they fall asleep to the sound of frogs and crickets.
That manages to be one of the most unpleasant ways Dean’s ever woken up. His back hurts, and Cas is missing, and he’s scared he’s been ditched. He can’t imagine how Cas managed to get off of him and out without waking him up. He fixes his clothes and sits out on the hood of the car to watch the sun rise. Of all the places to decide to run off in, a farm town in Pennsylvania doesn’t seem like it.
There’s no way to describe the relief he feels when Cas comes striding through the tall grass, Dean’s shirt hanging in a hand, torso bare with droplets forming across his chest, with his hair mussed up and wet.
“Jesus Christ, Cas. You scared the Hell outta me,” Dean tells him, scowling. Cas looks surprised.
“I’m sorry, Dean.”
“You should have woken me up or something. I thought you ran off,” Dean continues, and Castiel decides it’s a good time to give Dean a hug. Cas is cold and bare so Dean wraps him up and warns him never to run off again. This earns him a kiss.
“I think I love you a little, Dean,” Cas mutters against the angle of Dean’s jaw.
They crawl into the backseat and sleep until noon, and when Dean wakes up, he climbs up front and resumes the drive. He’s pretty sure if they really try, they can make it to NYC before they need to stop again. The navigator on his phone says they’ve got a little over four hours left.
When Cas finally wakes up, he asks Dean to stop so he can come up front, and they're in a small town with an antique shop and a bakery, and Cas insists they go get breakfast. Dean doesn’t tell him he’s a sleepy-looking mess with one side of his hair dried flat and the other sticking up like he got electrocuted.
The people in the bakery are nice, and Cas spends a long time standing there talking about how they make their honey. Apparently he’s got a thing for bees? Dean thinks that's alright, too. Cas gets them donuts for half off with his charm and bee talk, and they eat leaning against the car, Dean poking his phone with sticky fingers trying to shut up his navigator which keeps rerouting.
When they finish their breakfast, Castiel pulls them into the antique shop a few buildings down, and Dean’s beginning to think he’s trying to kill time so they don’t get to New York too soon. At the drugstore next door, Cas buys condoms, a beanie baby raccoon, and a drink and Dean gets a soda and tries not to laugh out loud while the doe-eyed boy at the register rings them up.
When they finally get back on the road, Cas seems restless, and he puts his feet on Dean’s dashboard, earning him a reprimand.
“What’s going on, Cas?” Dean asks, and Cas shrugs leaning his elbow on the door and turning his nose out the window.
“We’re going to make it to New York City tonight,” he says, sounding like he’s got no opinion on the matter.
“Yeah,” Dean agrees. He doesn’t know what else to say. They probably are. That’s the point. “Do you want me to drop you somewhere?”
Cas is quiet for a while before he looks at Dean with wet blue eyes and tells him he wants to meet Sam.
“That’s alright. I want you to come,” Dean tells him. “I love you, too.”
They stop in New Jersey for a five o’clock lunch, and they get back on the road by six.
Dean looks to the passenger seat to see if Cas wants to stop and get a hotel room or something, but he’s asleep already, and Dean decides to power through. It turns out to be awesome that Cas is sleeping, because Dean doesn't want him to see the road rage that comes out on busy streets. The navigator ends up being wrong about which building to stop at, and Dean has to go a few barely familiar blocks before Sam’s building comes into view. He hates parking on the side of the street, because that’s how you get hit by rich assholes, but survives nonetheless.
“Cas,” he mumbles. He kisses the other man’s neck and sneaks up to his jaw, leaving wet spots all along his skin.
“Hm?”
“We’re here,” Dean answers. Castiel gives a few squinty blinks.
“Oh,” he whispers. He presses his lips to Dean’s, tangling his fingers in the other’s hair. He pulls back and smiles at Dean and scratches Cas’s jaw with his thumb, grinning back. They’ve both gotten significantly scruffier in the past four days. “Okay.”
Dean carries his duffel back over one shoulder and holds Cas’s hand as they walk into the building, city lights overhead.
“He doesn’t know we’re coming,” Dean tells him.
Cas doesn’t look too surprised. “I figured there was a reason you haven’t been calling him to update him on your location.”
Dean checks his phone and it’s a little before eight as they go to the elevator. Cas kisses him the second they step inside, and then steps back.
“I’m making it my mission to kiss you on and in everything on the surface of this Earth.”
Dean shoves him against the wall of the metal deathtrap and their lips don’t part until it dings for the third floor. They walk down the hall to 5f and Dean feels around on top of the doorframe, coming up with a key.
“Sammy’s a lawyer,” he says proudly. “That’s why he’s got the fancy digs. It’s almost a thousand a month.”
Dean turns the doorhandle and it gives without using the key. He opens it as quietly as he can, glancing through the doorway hopefully.
Sam is on the couch facing away from the door and the TV is on loud. It’s some kind of nature documentary, and Dean smirks at Cas’s suddenly perkier expression. Dean shuts the door carefully and gestures for Cas to stand by the door.
A punch in the face is not the greeting Dean is looking for, but it is what he gets.
“Dean?” Sam exclaims. “Jesus fucking Christ! What the fuck?”
Dean laughs as he presses his hand to the side of his face, rubbing what will no doubt be a black eye soon enough. “Heya, Sammy. Uh, surprise.”
Sam’s eyes are filling with tears when he comes around to the other side of the couch and helps Dean up off the floor. “I can’t believe you finally came to New York.”
Dean shrugs, like it isn’t a big deal, but it’s colossal. “I was bored of Lawrence.”
Sam pulls Dean in for a hug and notices the man standing by the door holding Dean’s bag.
“Uhm,” Sam begins, but Dean shrugs again.
“I don’t know. Picked ‘im up in St. Louis.”
“Missouri?” Sam asks. At Dean’s nod, he adds, “Five states away?”
Dean looks back at Cas and nods his head in their direction, inviting him to join the circle.
“Cas, this is Sam, and Sammy, this Castiel.”
Cas smiles. “Hello.”
“Hi,” Sam answers, wide-eyed. “Are you two…?”
Cas looks to Dean for an answer and Dean gives another shrug. “Yeah.”
“Cool,” Sam grins. “I- Well, the extra room is kind of a mess right now. I have about fifty boxes of shit in there from cases and from when I was first moving in, but there’s a bed, so if you promise not to look at any of my files, you can sleep in there.”
Dean smiles, giving a nod, and he feels Cas grab onto his hand. He’s clammy.
“Thanks for not being mad,” Dean says. He’s not sure if he’s talking about showing up without warning or showing up with a stranger in tow.
“I’m happy to see you,” Sam says. “I’ve got so much to tell you and I have so many people I want you to meet, and I have a bunch of recipes saved that I messed up, but I know you can make ‘em, and I just- I don’t care, Dean. I’m glad you’re here.”
Sam’s shower is terrific, and his shampoo and body wash (and conditioner? come on, man) are normal sizes and not heavily perfumed, so that’s awesome. What’s even more awesome is the lack of protest or judging looks when Dean and Cas go in together and come out wet together. Dean had nearly forgotten how nice Sam was.
Then the sheets are really nice, and the bed is a terrific change from the backseat the night before. Dean wants to go to sleep immediately, but Cas insists on watching the show about anteaters that Sam has on. By the end, Cas is exhausted and he disappears into thin air while Sam and Dean are saying goodnight.
“You just picked up some guy?” Sam asks.
“Yeah,” Dean admits. “I don’t know. It felt right. Still does.”
Sam smirks. “It’s just not like you. Hauling some dude from this far… it’s a big commitment.”
“I like him,” Dean replies. “It doesn’t have to be a whole thing. It’s just.. whatever it is.”
“Yeah, because that made so much sense,” Sam snorts.
Dean rolls his eyes and stands to leave. “Goodnight, bitch.”
He begins toward the hall.
“Hey, jerk,” Sam stops him. “He seems nice. I’m happy for you, and in case I haven’t mentioned it, I’m happy to see you.”
Cas is still awake when Dean climbs under the covers to join him and they jerk each other off under their new, more permanent sheets, whimpering softly into each other’s mouths.
“This the change you were hoping for?” Dean asks after they’ve come, putting an arm around his new boyfriend. Castiel nods in earnest and snuggles down against Dean’s side.
“It’s much more than I ever could have hoped for,” he mumbles against Dean’s collarbone, delivering soft kisses. Dean laughs.
“Oh my God, you sap!”
“It’s true, I am,” Cas sighs. “I should have gotten some clothes before I left home.”
“Yeah, you should have. We both spent a fortune on this trip,” Dean says. “You want to go get some stuff tomorrow?”
Cas looks up in surprise. “No. It took four days to get here, I am never going back to St Louis.”
Dean laughs. “No, no, no! No, I meant go to the store.”
“Oh,” Cas chuckles.
“I got a car,” Dean says, and Cas gives him a glare.
“And somehow I’m the sap.”
Cas is almost asleep when Dean mumbles against the top of his head, “Do you want this? Like, as a long term thing?”
“Yes,” Cas says, not opening his eyes.
“Are you sure? I- I mean, I know this is fun, maybe, but I’m a high school dropout, I spent hundreds of dollars the past few days, I’ve, like, six bucks to my name. I can’t promise you the moon and stars, you know?”
Cas finally opens his eyes and raises his eyebrows at Dean. “I’m not helpless. I can find a job here, and I’ve still got a couple thousand in my bank account, no doubt. I didn’t climb in your baby because I thought you were a millionaire and I don’t need you to take care of me, Dean. Just kiss me and remind me how much you love me every day, and I’ll stick around.”
Dean grins and bites down on his bottom lip to contain it, getting him a hard, wet kiss from Castiel.
“I do love you,” Dean mumbles against Cas’s lips.
“I love you, too. Can we please sleep now?”
“Yeah.”