on the bright side, there isn't a bright side - 8
Technically Dean’s never done the whole friends-with-benefits things before, mostly because he’s never stuck around long enough to get to the friendship part of the deal. But this… well, it just seems weird how it can go from him, Cas, and Sam eating lunch like normal to him and Cas fucking each other’s brains out to him cracking up over how seriously Cas takes everything on SNL. He supposes that’s what the whole thing means in the first place, that the watching TV together is just the friendship substitute for cuddling or whatever; but still, considering the only person he’s really used to watching TV with is Sam, it’ll take some getting used to.
Plus, the eating-lunch-like-normal thing? Yeah, not so much. Eating lunch, they’ve got that covered; it’s the normal part they’re having issues with, largely due to Sam. For whatever reason this thing’s got his panties in a twist, although only-and this is the part that doesn’t really compute-with Dean. With Cas he’s fine, better than fine in fact, now that he knows all his hard-put effort in sexually liberating Cas is finally paying off. But as soon as Dean opens his mouth, or even looks like he might open his mouth, Sam hits him with this wounded-puppy-dog-stare, like Dean’s the one who betrayed him for Ruby and how could he do that and it doesn’t even matter that he started the Apocalypse but Sam trusted him-
Not that Dean’s still pissed off about that. At all. Definitely not. And anyways, that’s beside the point.
Take, for example, when they’re coming up with a plan of attack for taking out a demon hideout in Salt Lake City:
“We could sneak in through the cellar, take them by surprise-only problem with that is there’s only one entrance, so if something goes wrong they could pick us off easy,” Dean says, tapping the plan of the building they’ve found at a nearby library. “I say we split up, each take an entrance on the main level. Maybe we can still catch them off guard, and that way we’ll have an easy escape route.”
“I agree. That seems the most logical means of proceeding,” says Cas.
Sam looks at Dean as if he’s just suggested slaughtering a litter of orphaned kittens and then eating their brains raw.
Or, later:
“Has anyone seen my jacket?” Dean asks.
“Backseat of the car,” says Cas.
Sam stares at Dean over the screen of his laptop, apparently under the impression his older brother is inquiring if either of them know any ten-year-old girls who might be up for a booty call.
And also:
“I’m hungry,” Cas announces.
“Me too,” says Dean.
Which is suddenly the eighth cardinal sin, according to Sam’s expression, and has automatically landed Dean another eternity of unimaginable torture in Hell.
So finally, when they’re eating dinner in some greasy diner and Dean’s mere contemplation of asking Sam to pass him the salt earns a wounded stare from his brother, Dean decides he’s had enough.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Sam,” he snaps, ignoring how the offended Cas bristles beside him. “What the fuck is your problem?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sam says loftily. He takes another dignified bite of his salad. Now he’s not looking at Dean at all.
“Quit messing with me-you’ve been all weird since…” He gestures vaguely at the space between himself and Cas, ending with a lame, “…you know.”
There’s a tense moment where no one speaks-Sam glowers at Dean, Dean glowers stubbornly back, and Cas glances uneasily between the two of them. Then Sam bursts out, “How come you never told me?”
“Never…sorry, what? What did I never tell you?” Dean’s anger fades momentarily in face of his confusion, because he and Cas definitely filled Sam in on what was going on between them pretty quickly after it started (although admittedly with some reluctance).
“That you were, you know, bisexual!” Sam is doing the full-frontal Small Wounded Animal Look™ now (which is extremely impressive if you take into account his actual physical size), and it’s annoying but at least now Dean knows what’s the matter even if he hasn’t quite figured out why yet. “I mean it’s not even that you just didn’t mention it, you’ve flat-out lied to me, for-what, how many years? How long have you known?”
Dean thinks of kissing Daniel Turner behind the bleachers when he was fourteen. Getting a little bit drunk and making out with Luc Matthias a year later. Justis Bannerman’s hot-tub. The freedom of being able to pick up a guy at a bar and take him back to his empty motel room once John had started letting Dean hunt on his own. Every time he and Sam have split up since after Stanford when he’ll sometimes wake up three mornings in a row with a different nameless guy in his bed, just because he can.
“A while,” he admits. “Since I was a teenager, I guess.”
“And you never thought to tell me? Why not? Don’t you trust-”
“Sam-”
“-me? Did you think I would-”
“Sam, would you-”
“-judge you for it or something? Because-”
“Can you just shut up for, like, two seconds?”
Beside him Cas has his shoulders hunched in uneasily, clearly wishing he still had enough of his grace left to zap himself the hell out of there. Dean feels fervently the same way-confrontation has never been a favourite for him, and Sam is acting like he’s Dean’s girlfriend who Dean’s been cheating on the entire time or something (or, you know, like his brother just chose a demon over him. Just to take a random example). The argument is loud enough that their booth is beginning to draw curious glances from some of the diner’s nearby patrons.
Luckily Sam complies and, fuming, sits back with his arms crossed to wait for an explanation with a parental air of this-better-be-good-young-man despite his being four years younger than the “young man” in question.
Dean sighs, rubbing a hand across his forehead. He can feel a headache coming on. “Listen, I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want Dad to know, okay? I didn’t think he’d be cool with it. So, whatever, right? I just went after girls instead.”
“But-”
“Would you let me finish? Jesus.” Another glare from Cas, which he elects to ignore. “When I showed up at your place and dragged you back into this whole thing I meant to, I swear I meant to, but Dad was missing and then there was Jess and… there just wasn’t a good time. And by the time things had quieted down a little it just felt too late, you know? It just felt stupid to tell you after not telling you for so long.”
“You still could have told me. When you first realized, you could have told me,” says Sam, and he’s quieted down a little but it’s almost worse, hearing the hurt in his voice. “I wouldn’t have cared. Hell, I would have started trying to make myself like guys too, just to be like you. At least you wouldn’t have been alone-”
“Yeah? And what good what that have done, seeing as you took off as soon as you got a chance?”
He doesn’t shout, doesn’t even put any anger into it, because the anger disappeared years ago to be replaced by something noiseless but worse, and Sam doesn’t need to hear anger for it to hit him. His brother opens his mouth, then closes it again. “I’m sorry,” he says finally. “I didn’t-”
“Forget it.” Dean eyes his half-eaten burger, weighing the pros and cons of taking another bite. He’s always thought it a very great waste to leave even a fraction of such a magnificent work of culinary genius uneaten, but his temple is legitimately throbbing right now and somehow he’s just not feeling hungry anymore. He picks up a French fry half-heartedly; this particular food establishment has successfully managed to get rid of both flavour and crispiness, so that the thing wilts morosely in his head. Like Mr. Potato Head with erectile dysfunction. Which obviously makes the fries just that much more appetizing.
“Dean…”
“I really don’t want to talk about this anymore, okay? Let’s just call it even.”
Sam sighs pointedly, clearly unhappy with where they’ve left the conversation and bursting with the need to psychoanalyze every single aspect of Dean’s personality so that they can Work Past This Together; but before he has a chance to protest Cas clears his throat awkwardly, at which point both Winchesters suddenly remember he’s been right there through the whole thing. He looks absolutely miserable, like a little kid who’s just had to sit through his parents arguing again even though he just thinks they should be one big happy family like they used to. Not, of course, that Dean’s family was ever your traditional one big happy, before Mary’s death or after. Well-happy, sometimes, maybe, but definitely not traditional.
“Can we go?” asks Cas, and Dean can tell how much he’s hated this because he hasn’t finished his burger either.
Dean stares at his own plate a moment longer before shoving it away unfinished, feeling an unreasonable surge of resentment towards Sam for making him lose his appetite. “Yeah, let’s go,” he agrees gruffly.
Back in their room-because now that Dean and Cas are, well, not together but are doing stuff together that Sam probably doesn’t really want to see they’ve finally gotten around to getting two rooms like they ought to have done ages ago-Dean makes straight for the bathroom to down a couple of painkillers for his head. All he wants to do is get drunk and sleep (only the unfortunate lack of alcohol in their room makes the former impractical and the latter a lot harder), but obviously that’s not going to work out because when does anything ever work out for him?
Cas is sitting on one of the beds, anxious but determined. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asks, staring at the wall behind Dean’s head as if reading lines off a script that’s been printed there.
“Uh…no,” says Dean. Fantastic. Really, this is just what he needs: Cas growing a vagina as well as Sam. And he’s so glad he didn’t say that out loud, because Sam would probably have burst through the door to start lecturing him about misogyny and equal opportunities and everything. Plus he’s… well, kind of attached to Cas’s dick by now.
Cas frowns. “Sam tells me communication is key in any healthy and functional relationship.”
Oh, so that’s what this is about. While Sam’s been nursing hurt feelings over the Dean half of their… whatever they’ve got going, he’s also been reading too deep into the Cas half. Jesus. Dean’s willing to bet he’s started planning their wedding already.
“Well, maybe-but this isn’t that kind of relationship, remember?” he points out.
“Okay,” says Cas, looking extremely relieved.
And yes, there’s a point to their having their own room, and no, that point is not just so that they can watch TV without Sam insisting on one of his lame historical docu-dramas or whatever; but tonight that’s what they end up doing. Just lying on Dean’s bed (not too close together. Of course) since the room doesn’t have a couch, flicking through the channels until Cas becomes intrigued by one of those fucking procedural cop shows. Dean dozes off just as they’re about to uncover the victim’s deep, dark secret, thinking about how Cas still owes him big-time for his scraped-up knees but perfectly willing to wait until later to collect.
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Plus, the eating-lunch-like-normal thing? Yeah, not so much. Eating lunch, they’ve got that covered; it’s the normal part they’re having issues with, largely due to Sam. For whatever reason this thing’s got his panties in a twist, although only-and this is the part that doesn’t really compute-with Dean. With Cas he’s fine, better than fine in fact, now that he knows all his hard-put effort in sexually liberating Cas is finally paying off. But as soon as Dean opens his mouth, or even looks like he might open his mouth, Sam hits him with this wounded-puppy-dog-stare, like Dean’s the one who betrayed him for Ruby and how could he do that and it doesn’t even matter that he started the Apocalypse but Sam trusted him-
Not that Dean’s still pissed off about that. At all. Definitely not. And anyways, that’s beside the point.
Take, for example, when they’re coming up with a plan of attack for taking out a demon hideout in Salt Lake City:
“We could sneak in through the cellar, take them by surprise-only problem with that is there’s only one entrance, so if something goes wrong they could pick us off easy,” Dean says, tapping the plan of the building they’ve found at a nearby library. “I say we split up, each take an entrance on the main level. Maybe we can still catch them off guard, and that way we’ll have an easy escape route.”
“I agree. That seems the most logical means of proceeding,” says Cas.
Sam looks at Dean as if he’s just suggested slaughtering a litter of orphaned kittens and then eating their brains raw.
Or, later:
“Has anyone seen my jacket?” Dean asks.
“Backseat of the car,” says Cas.
Sam stares at Dean over the screen of his laptop, apparently under the impression his older brother is inquiring if either of them know any ten-year-old girls who might be up for a booty call.
And also:
“I’m hungry,” Cas announces.
“Me too,” says Dean.
Which is suddenly the eighth cardinal sin, according to Sam’s expression, and has automatically landed Dean another eternity of unimaginable torture in Hell.
So finally, when they’re eating dinner in some greasy diner and Dean’s mere contemplation of asking Sam to pass him the salt earns a wounded stare from his brother, Dean decides he’s had enough.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Sam,” he snaps, ignoring how the offended Cas bristles beside him. “What the fuck is your problem?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sam says loftily. He takes another dignified bite of his salad. Now he’s not looking at Dean at all.
“Quit messing with me-you’ve been all weird since…” He gestures vaguely at the space between himself and Cas, ending with a lame, “…you know.”
There’s a tense moment where no one speaks-Sam glowers at Dean, Dean glowers stubbornly back, and Cas glances uneasily between the two of them. Then Sam bursts out, “How come you never told me?”
“Never…sorry, what? What did I never tell you?” Dean’s anger fades momentarily in face of his confusion, because he and Cas definitely filled Sam in on what was going on between them pretty quickly after it started (although admittedly with some reluctance).
“That you were, you know, bisexual!” Sam is doing the full-frontal Small Wounded Animal Look™ now (which is extremely impressive if you take into account his actual physical size), and it’s annoying but at least now Dean knows what’s the matter even if he hasn’t quite figured out why yet. “I mean it’s not even that you just didn’t mention it, you’ve flat-out lied to me, for-what, how many years? How long have you known?”
Dean thinks of kissing Daniel Turner behind the bleachers when he was fourteen. Getting a little bit drunk and making out with Luc Matthias a year later. Justis Bannerman’s hot-tub. The freedom of being able to pick up a guy at a bar and take him back to his empty motel room once John had started letting Dean hunt on his own. Every time he and Sam have split up since after Stanford when he’ll sometimes wake up three mornings in a row with a different nameless guy in his bed, just because he can.
“A while,” he admits. “Since I was a teenager, I guess.”
“And you never thought to tell me? Why not? Don’t you trust-”
“Sam-”
“-me? Did you think I would-”
“Sam, would you-”
“-judge you for it or something? Because-”
“Can you just shut up for, like, two seconds?”
Beside him Cas has his shoulders hunched in uneasily, clearly wishing he still had enough of his grace left to zap himself the hell out of there. Dean feels fervently the same way-confrontation has never been a favourite for him, and Sam is acting like he’s Dean’s girlfriend who Dean’s been cheating on the entire time or something (or, you know, like his brother just chose a demon over him. Just to take a random example). The argument is loud enough that their booth is beginning to draw curious glances from some of the diner’s nearby patrons.
Luckily Sam complies and, fuming, sits back with his arms crossed to wait for an explanation with a parental air of this-better-be-good-young-man despite his being four years younger than the “young man” in question.
Dean sighs, rubbing a hand across his forehead. He can feel a headache coming on. “Listen, I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want Dad to know, okay? I didn’t think he’d be cool with it. So, whatever, right? I just went after girls instead.”
“But-”
“Would you let me finish? Jesus.” Another glare from Cas, which he elects to ignore. “When I showed up at your place and dragged you back into this whole thing I meant to, I swear I meant to, but Dad was missing and then there was Jess and… there just wasn’t a good time. And by the time things had quieted down a little it just felt too late, you know? It just felt stupid to tell you after not telling you for so long.”
“You still could have told me. When you first realized, you could have told me,” says Sam, and he’s quieted down a little but it’s almost worse, hearing the hurt in his voice. “I wouldn’t have cared. Hell, I would have started trying to make myself like guys too, just to be like you. At least you wouldn’t have been alone-”
“Yeah? And what good what that have done, seeing as you took off as soon as you got a chance?”
He doesn’t shout, doesn’t even put any anger into it, because the anger disappeared years ago to be replaced by something noiseless but worse, and Sam doesn’t need to hear anger for it to hit him. His brother opens his mouth, then closes it again. “I’m sorry,” he says finally. “I didn’t-”
“Forget it.” Dean eyes his half-eaten burger, weighing the pros and cons of taking another bite. He’s always thought it a very great waste to leave even a fraction of such a magnificent work of culinary genius uneaten, but his temple is legitimately throbbing right now and somehow he’s just not feeling hungry anymore. He picks up a French fry half-heartedly; this particular food establishment has successfully managed to get rid of both flavour and crispiness, so that the thing wilts morosely in his head. Like Mr. Potato Head with erectile dysfunction. Which obviously makes the fries just that much more appetizing.
“Dean…”
“I really don’t want to talk about this anymore, okay? Let’s just call it even.”
Sam sighs pointedly, clearly unhappy with where they’ve left the conversation and bursting with the need to psychoanalyze every single aspect of Dean’s personality so that they can Work Past This Together; but before he has a chance to protest Cas clears his throat awkwardly, at which point both Winchesters suddenly remember he’s been right there through the whole thing. He looks absolutely miserable, like a little kid who’s just had to sit through his parents arguing again even though he just thinks they should be one big happy family like they used to. Not, of course, that Dean’s family was ever your traditional one big happy, before Mary’s death or after. Well-happy, sometimes, maybe, but definitely not traditional.
“Can we go?” asks Cas, and Dean can tell how much he’s hated this because he hasn’t finished his burger either.
Dean stares at his own plate a moment longer before shoving it away unfinished, feeling an unreasonable surge of resentment towards Sam for making him lose his appetite. “Yeah, let’s go,” he agrees gruffly.
Back in their room-because now that Dean and Cas are, well, not together but are doing stuff together that Sam probably doesn’t really want to see they’ve finally gotten around to getting two rooms like they ought to have done ages ago-Dean makes straight for the bathroom to down a couple of painkillers for his head. All he wants to do is get drunk and sleep (only the unfortunate lack of alcohol in their room makes the former impractical and the latter a lot harder), but obviously that’s not going to work out because when does anything ever work out for him?
Cas is sitting on one of the beds, anxious but determined. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asks, staring at the wall behind Dean’s head as if reading lines off a script that’s been printed there.
“Uh…no,” says Dean. Fantastic. Really, this is just what he needs: Cas growing a vagina as well as Sam. And he’s so glad he didn’t say that out loud, because Sam would probably have burst through the door to start lecturing him about misogyny and equal opportunities and everything. Plus he’s… well, kind of attached to Cas’s dick by now.
Cas frowns. “Sam tells me communication is key in any healthy and functional relationship.”
Oh, so that’s what this is about. While Sam’s been nursing hurt feelings over the Dean half of their… whatever they’ve got going, he’s also been reading too deep into the Cas half. Jesus. Dean’s willing to bet he’s started planning their wedding already.
“Well, maybe-but this isn’t that kind of relationship, remember?” he points out.
“Okay,” says Cas, looking extremely relieved.
And yes, there’s a point to their having their own room, and no, that point is not just so that they can watch TV without Sam insisting on one of his lame historical docu-dramas or whatever; but tonight that’s what they end up doing. Just lying on Dean’s bed (not too close together. Of course) since the room doesn’t have a couch, flicking through the channels until Cas becomes intrigued by one of those fucking procedural cop shows. Dean dozes off just as they’re about to uncover the victim’s deep, dark secret, thinking about how Cas still owes him big-time for his scraped-up knees but perfectly willing to wait until later to collect.
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