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The lake is flat and still, smooth like glass and dotted with the blurry reflections of the fireflies zipping around their boat. Their faint buzz is hardly audible over the hoarse croaking of frogs just a short distance away at the shore. Dean shivers, pulling his jacket over his knuckles as he stares out across the water, hoping for a ripple or splash or anything that might suggest this isn’t a complete waste of their time. It’s 2 a.m. and he’s about ready to give up, people-eating lake monster or no.
There’s a clatter as Cas emerges from the tiny cabin of their on-loan fishing boat. He’s yawning, jaw popped wide, his hair all scruffed up on one side where he’s been pushing his fingers through it. There’s a steaming mug of coffee in his hand that smells fucking amazing.
“Hey,” Dean rasps, breath fogging between them.
Cas gives him a tired smile and passes over the mug. “Hey.” Dean sips the coffee gratefully; it burns his top lip. “Anything?”
He shakes his head. “Nada. I dunno, man, I’m startin’ to think those kids made the whole thing up.”
Sighing, Cas leans against the rail and squints up at the sky. Out here in the middle of nowhere, away from all the light pollution of the cities, the stars are brighter than Dean has seen in a long time. If he wasn’t freezing his balls off, he might actually enjoy the view. He mirrors Cas’s position, quietly shifting until their shoulders and arms are pressed together.
“There’s a storm rolling in,” Cas mutters. Dean looks at him, the line of his profile in the moonlight, the curve of his mouth and sweep of his eyelashes.
“How d’you know that?” There’s not a breath of wind that he can feel, just the chill misting off the lake’s surface, curling against his skin until goosebumps erupt along his arms.
But Cas just shrugs, and Dean still forgets, sometimes, because it’s been a while since Cas was an angel but he’s also never gonna be ‘just a human’ either. So he can sense storms from a few miles away. Hell, he probably used to be able to create them. Cas in fury is thunder and lightning, a hurricane when he’s filled with determination, sunshine and soft rain when he’s sitting in the greenhouse Dean made for him at the bunker.
He doesn’t know how long he’s been staring at Cas like a fucking idiot but his hand is warm where Cas’s rests on top of it, lightly tapping his long fingers on Dean’s knuckles, suddenly white and tense around the rail. They’re so close, closer than they should be, and Dean’s conscious of his still-stinging lip and the bitter tang of coffee on his breath.
He jerks his hand back. Stands up straight. Steps away to where it's safer.
“Guess we should get going then, huh?” he says, and pretends he doesn’t see the carefully blank look on Cas’s face.
The lakehouse they’re renting is less of a house and more of a cabin, a little rundown around the edges with leafy green tendrils creeping up the windows and tangling in the splintered wood. The front door sticks when Dean pushes it, the pale blue paint cracked and peeling, and the inside smells strongly of the wet sand they dragged in with them on the bottom of their boots. But it’s clean and has an overflowing bookcase that had caught Dean’s eye straight off the bat, and despite the underlying panic he feels about the fact that there’s only one bed, he's doing okay. He offers to take the couch, a battered mustard-yellow thing with stuffing leaking from the cushions, and tries not to stare as Cas quietly climbs the ladder up to the loft, a strip of his suntanned skin on display where his shirt rides up.
Dean rolls over instead, facing the back of the couch where there's a suspect brown stain splashed on the corduroy. He tries to see shapes in it--sheep, lotus flower, Texas--instead of thinking about the weird atmosphere between himself and Cas that settled in on the boat and is sticking to them like the damp Dean's been feeling all day.
Proper sleep evades him but he drifts in and out of an uneasy consciousness for a couple of hours until the thin grey light of dawn starts creeping in through the mottled windows, which are rattling in their frames under the howling of the wind. Cas must've been right about the storm, which means they won't be going out on the lake today. And here Dean was, hoping to be heading home tonight. He’ll have to text Sam, tell him to hold off on defrosting the steaks for a while.
The rain drumming on the roof sends him back to sleep and when he wakes up the next time it's because he's freezing fucking cold. Thunder is rumbling overhead, accompanied by the sharp crack of lightning, and Cas is standing on the back porch wearing nothing but an old band shirt and a pair of green boxers with the door slid wide open.
“The fuck?” Dean grumbles, tugging the blankets higher up under his chin.
“Sorry,” Cas says, voice nearly getting swept away with the wind. “I wanted the fresh air. My head aches.”
Dean, brain still foggy with sleep, asks, “You okay?”
Cas comes in and shuts the door. The sound of the storm is muffled now, less threatening. He sits on the couch by Dean’s feet, pulling the blankets taut with his weight and Dean feels trapped, chest tight.
“I think it's just tiredness.” Cas shrugs, then adds hesitantly, “I don't sleep very well.”
Dean yawns behind his hand. He blinks until the room stops being fuzzy around the edges. “Yeah, welcome to the life, man. It's a good night if you can get four hours.”
In response, Cas only hums. Now that Dean’s looking at him properly, it's easy to see how fucking wrecked he is, pale and red-eyed. A flash of worry makes Dean’s heart pound, because what if this isn't just exhaustion, what if it's something else, something worse? This is Cas’s third run at being human, or thereabouts, but he's still not great at listening to what his body is telling him. He caught a cold last month and was convinced he was dying. Dean has to feed him all the time. Sam takes him running so he doesn't lay around watching Netflix and letting his muscles atrophy and his belly hang over the elastic band of his sweats.
“I know I ain't great at… well, lots of things, but you know you can tell me if something’s bothering you, don't you?” Dean tries. He sort of wants to put his hand on Cas’s thigh, because it's right there, but he stops himself.
“It bothers me when you sell yourself short,” Cas tells him pointedly, but Dean just snorts. It took a while to get there but he knows he’s not completely stupid, that he has more than a few valuable qualities--it's just pretty hard to break the habit of using self-deprecation as a defense mechanism, especially when he's been doing it all his life.
Explaining that to Cas though is more trouble than it's worth because Cas will probably then want to write down a list of everything he thinks Dean is good at and they'll be here all goddamn day.
“Is the TV any good in this joint?” It's a distraction tactic but it works, because Cas gets up to fetch the remote control and Dean can move his legs again. He snatches the blanket away quickly, sitting up properly and trying to be cool about it. Thankfully Cas is too busy fighting with the ancient television to notice, which is stubbornly fixed on static snow.
“Awesome,” Dean sighs, but Cas goes off and bangs open a couple of drawers and comes back with a pack of cards.
“I don't know many games, but I once played gin rummy with my Gas-n-Sip coworkers.”
“Gin rummy? What are you, eighty?”
Cas drops the cards rather harder than necessary onto Dean’s lap. “Breakfast,” he says, kinda menacingly, “then we play.”
“I believe that I have won. Again.”
Dean scowls at Cas, yanking off his remaining sock and passing it over. He's down to undershirt and jeans now and is cursing himself for thinking that strip gin rummy was ever a good idea. He was just trying to spice it up a bit, since they only had about thirty dollars between them. Unless they wanted to gamble on canned food or cups of sand, clothes it would have to be.
“Here, enjoy, I haven't washed it in like a week and I'm pretty sure I stepped in seagull shit earlier.”
Cas looks supremely unbothered by this information, smug as fuck and still fully dressed. Turns out he's a gin rummy fiend; Dean is gonna have to teach him something more high stakes because his poker face alone could rob an entire bar full of people of every last dime.
It's not until Dean’s down his t-shirt and boxers and, in a recovery that he's pretty proud of, taken Cas’s shoes, socks and jeans--leaving him in a sweatshirt and underwear--that he has the slightly hysterical realization that this is the most naked they've ever been around each other. Cas spent so many years bundled up in baggy layers that Dean sort of forgot he had a body under there; to him it was a strange, abstract concept that he couldn’t really allow himself to think about too much or it’d make his brain explode.
“Dean, are you okay?”
Something must show on his face because Cas is looking at Dean warily, like he's a frightened, wounded animal liable to lash out.
“Yeah.” Dean shakes his head, trying to clear the weird feeling pinching him right between the eyes. “Sorry. Just, don't like being cooped up.”
Cas begins shuffling the cards, fingers long and dexterous and quick. “When I played this with Nora and the others, we gambled on who would get to choose the staff rota for that week. I had to win, because I couldn't let anyone take an opening shift and discover me sleeping in the back room. So I cheated and marked the cards. I still feel bad about that.”
Dean doesn't really know what to say. Guilt gnaws at his stomach every time he thinks about driving away from Cas in Rexford. It makes a lump stick in his throat, imagining him in some ratty sleeping bag on a cold storeroom floor.
“I'm sorry,” he says, knowing it’s a weak attempt at making up for any of it. “That must have sucked.”
Cas is still looking at the table, digging his thumbnail into a dark knot in the wooden surface, tracing the grooves. Dean can't get a read on him.
“That ain't ever gonna happen again,” he promises, “you know that, right? You're stuck with us now, Cas. For as long as you want.”
For a slightly hysterical second, Dean thinks Cas is going to throw the cards in his face and tell him to fuck off, but when he finally looks up and meets Dean's gaze, he's smiling.
“Even if it's forever?” he asks, and there's a glint in his eye that makes Dean feel like he's being scrutinized, being tested. And part of him wants to run screaming into the hills, because forever is a terrifying concept and it's not Sam Cas is saying it to. But then he thinks about how he'd feel if Cas left tomorrow, or next week, or next year, and he doesn't want that either.
So, “Especially then,” he rasps out, and Cas falters for a second, like he wasn't expecting that response, but then he smiles again and it's softer and more genuine than before.
The storm rages on.
Dean calls an end to strip gin rummy when Cas is threatening to take his boxers and he can actually feel the heat radiating off his own cheeks despite the chill in the cabin.
Rain lashes the windows all afternoon, providing a melancholy soundtrack to their boredom. After lunch they cram up on the couch together and watch The Real Housewives of Atlanta flicker in and out on the TV, until the grainy picture starts making Dean’s eyes ache and they give up. They try to call Sam, but the phone line cuts out just as frequently as the TV, and eventually end up knuckling down with research out of sheer desperation. The few books they brought with them are all musty ancient tomes from the bunker library and are about as sleep-inducing as a bottle of NyQuil.
“This is a fuckin’ waste of time,” Dean grumbles eventually, because he's no more convinced that there's anything out there than he was when Sam first suggested they go, back before he sprained his ankle and got to stay home, the bastard.
Cas is flagging too, his blinks getting heavier and slower every time Dean looks over at him. He thinks about their conversation earlier, about not sleeping, and feels that niggling worry come back tenfold.
“Why don’t you take a nap?” he suggests, and Cas blinks, startled, like he’d forgotten Dean was even there.
“I’m fine,” he says, clearing his throat and pulling another book towards him. Dean stops it with his hand on the cover.
“Dude. You look like shit. Go catch some zees. Say hi to the sandman.”
Irritation creases up Cas’s face. “I said I’m fine, Dean.”
And okay, tempers are running high, but it’s not like Dean’s intentionally being a dick here. So sue him for being concerned. “Just go take a fuckin’ nap before you fall asleep at the table. Jesus, it’s not that difficult.”
Cas stands up so fast he nearly tips his chair over, eyes flashing dangerously. “It is difficult,” he growls. “You have no idea, so don’t try and pacify me with meaningless platitudes.”
He storms across the room and slides the back door open, disappearing into the rain before Dean can even process what’s happening. He's pretty sure he has emotional whiplash from the sudden mood change. “What the fuck,” he mutters, scrubbing a hand through his hair. He gets up and paces the length of the room for a few minutes, his eyes continually flicking to the open doorway, where the wind is blowing sand and dirt and rain into the room. It’s not until he hears a particularly threatening rumble of thunder that Dean sighs and makes his mind up, grabbing his jacket and striding out into the downpour.
Finding Cas isn’t exactly difficult. Visibility is shit but Dean spots him straight away, almost a silhouette in the muted grey landscape, standing on the sand looking out over the lake even though the storm is sweeping the waves up and up until they’re crashing onto the shore way more forcefully than they have any right to, the surf chasing Cas’s feet which are--shit--completely bare.
“You fucking idiot!” Dean yells, but whether or not Cas hears him over the sound of wind is impossible to say. He jogs down the beach, slipping on the loose pebbles, getting bogged down in the wet sand, until he can grab Cas’s shoulder and spin him around. Anger bubbles in Dean's stomach, his hands balled into fists, itching for a fight.
“You think I don't know?” Dean shouts, prodding a finger into Cas’s chest, soaking wet, his shirt sticking to him. “You think I don't get it? I've had nightmares all my life! I used to get panic attacks before going to bed! My life ain't no picnic either, Cas, and if you think I sleep easy you're fuckin’ wrong.”
He stops, breathing hard. Something in Cas's face just crumples, and maybe the moisture on his cheeks is just rain or maybe it's not, but he says, “I'm sorry,” and it's so pathetic Dean just deflates.
“Get inside,” he sighs.
In the house Dean grabs one of the towels from the bathroom and dumps it over Cas’s shoulders. With another he scrubs at Cas’s hair, until it's no longer plastered to his head like a drowned rat but sticking up in all directions like he's been electrocuted.
“Dean, I'm perfectly capable of--”
“Shut up, Cas.”
Dean just wants to look after him for a bit, okay. They’re both shivering, they’re both dripping all over the floor, and Cas looks like he wants to have a Conversation, which can only be a bad thing. Dean pushes him in the direction of the loft. “Go change,” he says. Then, reluctantly, “Then we’ll talk.”
They’re sitting across from each other on the couch, legs pulled up underneath them. Dean’s finally starting to feel warm again. He changed into the only sweatpants and sweatshirt he had with him, but they’re also his softest. Cas is wearing his pyjama pants and that same band shirt he slept in last night, a Pink Floyd one that Dean thinks is actually his. They’re both clutching mugs of sweet tea; Dean doesn’t really like it that much, too leafy for his tastes, but he does like when Cas makes it for him.
“I never wanted to ask anything of you,” Cas says, the first one to break the silence, and Dean huffs out a frustrated breath.
“What does that even mean?”
Cas blows on his tea, making ripples on the surface. He meets Dean’s gaze steadily. “You’ve done a lot for me over the years. I didn’t want to ask for something that you weren’t ready to give.”
Dean swallows hard. He thinks he knows what Cas is getting at here, but it’s huge and unfathomable. Neither of them have ever said it aloud but it grows in the spaces between them, binds them together, pulls them in even when the circumstances are shit. Maybe especially then.
In what is quite possibly Dean’s bravest moment ever, he says, “Hey, dumbass, sometimes you’re allowed to ask. Be selfish, take what you want.”
Cas blinks at him, opens his mouth to say something--and then sneezes so hard it scares Dean half to death. It makes him release the breath he was holding and it snaps the tension between them, sending Dean stumbling to his feet. He nearly drops his tea and puts it down on the coffee table with a bang, sloshing some over the lip of the mug and onto his hand, scalding his skin.
“You were only out there ten minutes and you’ve already caught a chill,” he blusters. “Do you want some soup? I’ll make you some soup.”
A hand catches his wrist--not pulling him back, but not letting him go either. “Dean, please. I’m fine. You said we could talk.”
Dean glances down at their hands and Cas moves his fingers, sliding them lightly down his skin until they’re tangling with Dean’s own. Fuck. “That ain’t talkin’,” he croaks.
Cas's mouth quirks up at the corner. “Would you prefer I asked you to tell me how you're really feeling?” He's poking fun and Dean knows it, but it doesn't feel mean or cruel, just a little exasperated. Dean can deal with exasperated Cas, it's practically his default setting.
“Yeah yeah, laugh it up, Dean's emotionally stunted.” He rolls his eyes and Cas's smile widens infinitesimally.
“I don't want things to be weird between us,” he begins, carefully, like he's measuring every word, “I value you too much as a friend. But at the risk of sending you into a wild panic, you should know that I love you.”
Okay. All right. Cas loves him. No biggie. Dean stands there and stares and stares and then starts laughing. He laughs so hard tears run down his face, and he's bent over with his hands on his knees, chest aching, and just as he's finally starting to pull himself together he looks up at Cas, who's got this scrunched up confused-insulted-annoyed look on his face, and it sets Dean off again.
“You're being ridiculous,” Cas chides, arms folded impatiently, and Dean sucks in a huge deep breath and rubs the tears from his cheeks, although his eyes still prickle like they're gonna keep on coming, and he wheezes and coughs a couple of times, and finally collapses onto the sagging couch.
“You're ridiculous,” he retorts. “This whole thing is ridiculous. Look at us, Cas. We're basically stranded in a cabin that only has one bed and no working TV. Sam couldn't come, it's chucking it down with rain, my shoes are full of water. I actually think someone is conspiring against us here.”
Cas sits down, too. Right at the other end of the couch, like he's consciously giving Dean his space. Dean appreciates it. He's got a whole load of who-the-fuck-knows spinning around his head right now, he doesn't need Cas's arms and shoulders and fucking thighs within touching distance.
Head bowed, Cas says plainly, “I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable.”
Uncomfortable. Dean's not uncomfortable, he's just scared out of his fucking mind.
“You haven't, Cas. It's not you, I swear. It's me, okay, and my deeply ingrained, skewed perception of what I should and shouldn't…” The last word gets caught in his throat, too much.
It's not like Cas is going to let him off the hook that easy though. “Should and shouldn't what?”
One tiny word. In the grand scheme of his life, this little microcosm right now should be the easiest thing he's ever done. It's not like he can mess up by telling the truth. Cas won't care.
Cas loves him.
Dean clears his throat, says, “Want. I was gonna say want.”
“You want,” Cas makes a loose gesture with his hand between them, “this.”
What the hell. Dean takes a shaky breath. “I dunno, it’s you and me, man. I can't even remember a time when I didn't want that in some way.”
“Dean.” Cas looks overwhelmed, something desperate and sad in his eyes, and Dean wants to get rid of it, wants to make him look happy and whole instead, so he steps forward and brings their faces close and kisses him.
The noise Cas makes is surprised but pleased. He grabs Dean’s face and kisses back, and Dean has the brief but absurd thought that Cas’s nose is like a block of ice against his cheek before he stops thinking about anything except the feel of Cas’s mouth on his own, his tongue licking at the seam of Dean’s lips, like Dean’s the best thing he’s ever tasted.
It makes Dean want to hang on to him, to keep him close. He winds his arms around Cas’s waist, pulling him in until their bodies are pressed together; Cas is a long, solid line of heat and muscle against him, his back fucking gorgeous under Dean’s hands. The kisses are deep and drugging--they make Dean feel lightheaded, or maybe that’s the relief, because this is the explosion of years’ worth of tension and it’s goddamn amazing.
Dean pulls away, just barely, his lips still brushing Cas’s skin, cool and tasting of rain. “This is great,” he whispers, “This is really fuckin’ great.”
“I know for a fact it gets even better,” Cas mutters, eyes bright and alive, his hands sliding down Dean’s chest to the waistband of his jeans, where his fingers start playing with the button on his fly.
“Oh fuck, yeah, yeah it does, I wanna show you, Cas,” Dean babbles, hips jerking forwards reflexively.
For a moment Cas’s expression softens, and the kiss he presses to the bolt of Dean’s jaw is affectionate. “You already are.”
From there it's a natural progression to the bed. There's an awkward moment where they have to climb the ladder to the loft and Dean tries not to stare at Cas's butt even though it's right there, because he's not sure if he's allowed to do that yet and he doesn't want to be a creeper, but then they're tumbling down into the unmade sheets together and it's fucking glorious.
The soft cotton smells like lakewater and Cas's shampoo and sandalwood. For a few minutes they just roll around on the bed like a pair of horny teenagers, stripping each other of their shirts while they make out, laughing into each other's mouths; Dean gets his hands under Cas’s pants and, because his ape brain is threatening to seize up and politeness went out the window ten kisses ago, grabs two handfuls of Cas’s ass, fucking finally. Cas groans, low and throaty, and if that isn't enough to make Dean's dick harder than stone, nothing ever will be.
“Jesus, Cas,” he moans, yanking Cas’s jeans and boxers down his thighs with little finesse. Cas kicks them the rest of the way off and they land on the floor with a soft flump. But he's much more careful with Dean’s pants, peeling them down Dean’s legs slow and smooth and then kissing his way back up, making sure to get every inch of the skin revealed to him. It makes Dean’s knees tremble and the muscles in his stomach jump with each tiny, fluttering kiss along the top of his feet, the knobbly bones of his ankles, the curved bow of his knees that he's always been self-conscious of, the pale skin of his inner thighs. By the time Cas is at the hem of his boxers, Dean's near enough begging.
“Cas, get up here.” He ineffectually swipes for Cas's shoulder but Cas gets the message, crawling back up and smiling down at him. He's so goddamn hot like this--a red flush creeps down his neck and chest, his nipples peaked, his thighs rock hard under the press of Dean's fingertips. Releasing a long breath, Dean smiles back and says, “Hey.”
Cas kisses him briefly. “Hello, Dean. I'm going to take off your underwear now.”
A mildly hysterical laugh bubbles out of Dean, and he just about manages to give Cas the go ahead--and then he's completely naked and Cas’s boxers have also vanished somewhere, they could be in the fucking ether for all Dean cares, and they're both totally 100% clothes-less.
“Fuck,” Dean breathes, gawking shamelessly at Cas's body, at his cock hanging heavy and hard between his legs. “Oh, Jesus. Fuck. I'll tell you what, man, our platonic friendship is done for.”
Cas snorts, nuzzling behind Dean's ear. “What platonic friendship?”
Dean grins at that and reaches down between their stomachs. He takes both of them in hand and strokes, a move that leaves Cas gasping and himself groaning, so he does it again, and again, until Cas places his hands on either side of Dean's head and thrusts into the loose fist Dean's making and the feel of their dicks rubbing together is fucking sublime.
“Next time,” Cas growls, breath warm and damp on Dean's sweat-sticky neck, “I'm going to open you up with my fingers, and my tongue, and fuck you.”
Eyes flying open in surprise--who knew Cas had such a filthy mouth--Dean can do nothing but whine his approval. God, he'd give anything to have Cas’s fingers inside him, to feel him him spreading him open and, Christ, fucking him. He's spent so many quiet moments alone with his own fingers up his ass to know that the real thing would be friggin’ fantastic.
He palms Cas’s slick shoulder blades, digging his fingernails in, letting Cas anchor him here because he feels like he's going to float away. Their bodies move together in a rhythm that's slightly off but still perfect and Dean balances on that knife-edge of pleasure for a long time, poised to fall and dammit, he wants to, but it's not until Cas tells him that he loves him again, presses the words into Dean's hair, sobs them out like they're so huge, so profound, the most important words he's ever said in his life, that Dean finally comes, all over his hand and his stomach and Cas's dick.
It would take a saint to resist that, and Cas is no saint. His hips jerk twice more and then he locks up and comes with a rib-rattling moan, falling forward to hide his face in the crook of Dean's neck while he twitches out the aftershocks.
And just like that, it's over.
Dean blinks up at the ceiling, trying to catch his breath. The world has taken on a new, slightly surreal tinge to it. They're in the same house and it's the same rain drumming on the roof and the same gulls cawing outside, but if feels different. Like it’s more, somehow. A bubble, one touch away from popping.
Maybe Dean's overthinking this. Maybe there is such a concept as a good thing.
“Mm,” Cas hums, boneless and contented and sprawled on Dean's chest like a dead weight. And Dean decides that this right here, this is the best thing and it's his for keeps.
“You know we still gotta go hunt a lake monster when the rain lets up, right?” he asks, voice embarrassing hoarse.
“Can't we stay in bed forever?” Cas grumbles, eyes closed, and something in that simple question absolutely floors Dean.
Swallowing hard, he says, “You know how it is, Cas. Bad things to gank, apocalypses to stop. But, uh… I'm gonna be pretty mad if you're not there to hold my hand all the way through it. Just sayin’.”
The answering grin on Cas's face is blinding. He knows him well enough to figure out what Dean's building up to saying here; Dean just hopes he doesn't take the hand-holding thing too literally. Although, even if he did, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
Whatever. They can cross that bridge when they come to it. Right now Dean is sweaty and filthy and exhausted and he's gonna lie here and be Cas’s pillow and kiss his hair and dance his fingers up and down Cas's spine, and he's still Dean Winchester-- hunter, brother, emotional fuck-up--but he's also Dean who's in love with a fucking great guy and is finally, goddamn finally, happy.