2016 SPN Reverse Bang -- SWEETIES -- Dean/Cas

[animediva]

Author: Naoe/animediva
Artist: buffy312
Rating: Teen and Up
Warning: Period-typical homophobia and racism; graphic description of corpses; some violence; pure fluff
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Words: 9700~
NOTE: YOU DO NOT NEED TO READ THE FOOTNOTES. It's just additional information if you need it.
TAGS: Detective Dean, Singer Castiel, 1940s, New York City

Dean Winchester is grateful for being a New York City detective for one reason: he knows where the good hooch is served at a decent price.Bad bootleg liquor is still a worry in post-Prohibition days, where cheap, shady gin mills are still serving illegal bathtub leftovers that kill the liver and leave people blind for the cost of pennies. Years after Repeal and people were still making money off the poverty of others. Making a profit off the stupidity of the land and those poor dumb mugs reaping the death that they sowed from drinking toxic swill.

It is, at least, a cheap death. It had killed his Dad fast enough early on: moonshine fit to strip copper wares clean. It made the question, "What's your poison" way too realistic.

But today had been exhausting. All day, Dean had been chasing down a case. Becky Edlund, the deli-shop owner’s Frau, had been killed in her kitchen with a steak knife to the kidney. Repeatedly applied.

The deli-owner had refused to confess, and it had turned into a bigger thing as the 25-year-old neighbor, Charles, had come forward guiltily and admitted to shivving Becky. He had kept spouting that he had loved the skirt madly and she had been his, had been his more than a few times, until her head had been turned by that bastard, Marlon Brando.

After seeing Brando on stage, all she had wanted to do all day was write pornographic stories about him and whichever star of the day had caught her eye. Every. Day. She had started to ignore Charles in favor of standing outside the theater to get a look at Brando. [1]

Sure enough, the bulls had found piles of the stuff, just piles of handwritten stories about Brando and, more often than not, Cary Grant having sex in many places.

Many stories. MANY.

Dean had just been glad he hadn't been the one forced to read through them.

But with his case completed and the new murder given to Creedy and Martin, Captain Adler had sent him home to get some shut eye after being on his feet for 36-hours straight.

Only nerves and coffee are holding him up now.

And that's what led him here to SWEETIES, one of the better jazz joints in his neighborhood.

He hands off his overcoat and hat to the lovely dark-skinned coat girl, taking the tag she hands him and finding a seat at a small round table at the edge of the stage.

SWEETIES is run by one Gabriel Bombone. Newly rich with some probable fingers in the gangster world, he had carved out a small empire in New York City made of candy stores and jazz joints.

His main talent at SWEETIES is an hourglass redhead with seafoam-green eyes named Josie Sands, although she’s called a knight of Hell behind her back for her dark personality. Her sultry moves and rich honey voice is what brought in the boys on the worst days, though, and it doesn’t hurt she’s a gorgeous broad.

Not that she’s Dean's type, but she’s light on the eyes and her voice is soothing.

If he hadn't had to deal with her maniacal diva moments and having to physically separate her from workers (and occasionally prying Gabe out of her grip) backstage, he might have thought her pretty.

But Dean deals with enough insanity in his day job that dating a wacko dame doesn't seem relaxing. And that’s all he wants nowadays: some relaxation.

Ain’t enough of it in the post-war world. Most ex-soldiers had nightmares that echoed in the halls of apartment and tenement buildings alike, and Dean ain’t immune to them either.

As he settles in, he looks over the rather sparse crowd. Mostly geezers bending over their tables, peering into their tumblers like the answer to life was found down there, smoking like chimneys, while the interim piano player plunks out covers of the latest songs. The band takes an occasional turn, but Dean suspects it's to give the fellow a break and to keep them warmed up for the main event.

He settles in a bit, back against the stiff wooden chair-and had just tugged at his tie a bit-when a short, curvy brunette with a heart-shaped face saunters up in a tight waitress’s getup with a gauze overskirt and tiny tray, dropping a napkin on the table and pushing her décolleté in his face.

"What can I get you tonight, handsome?" She winks as if she doesn't know.

Dean chuckles and shakes his head at the inside joke. "The usual, Meg."

The waitress nods, "Alrighty, champ. One double scotch, neat. Anything else?"

Dean jerks his thumb at the thin crowd. Usually there's a zoo of guys trying to put eyes-and anything else they can-on Josie. "What's going on? Josie on strike?"

Meg shrugs with one shoulder, her bow lips puckering slightly with annoyance. Dean knows she's not a fan. "The buzz is she's out sick. Gabe's got his little brother to cover, and you know how this crowd is about men at SWEETIES."

"Not so keen."
Nodding, she adds, "He's a looker, though. That Clarence is a real sheik." [2]

Dean quirks his eyebrow. "Guy's name is Clarence?"

Meg winks again as she's turning away with a wicked grin. "Nah, but you'll see what I mean."

He watches her sashay away while digging into his jacket pocket for his deck of smokes. He taps out a Lucky Strike and lights it with practiced ease, shaking out the match and tossing it into the tin ashtray. The first hit of smoke feels like heaven and he adds to the miasma that floats in the air.

Meg returns with his order, plunking down the tumbler and wandering away. He sucks in another lungful of smoke and, as he blows out a plume, he rolled his scotch in the glass, admiring the amber color in the club’s dim lighting.

He quickly downs the alcohol with a gasp and signals Meg to bring him another while the overhead lights began to settle and Gabe wanders out in front of the curtains, grinning as the spotlight hits him in his penguin suit.

The piano player bangs out a quick, amusing tattoo of notes to mark Gabe’s entrance, and Gabriel waves at him.

“Thanks, Franky! Appreciate that!”

Dean must've just made it in time for the act, then. He hates to admit he's curious about the guy who's good enough to cover for Josie. For all her inner demons, Josie is a class act and plays the boys like a violin.

Behind the average-sized man with the slicked-back, dirty-blond hair and glowing gray-brown hazel eyes, the band walks in and takes a seat in their places, chattering among themselves.

As they get comfortable, Gabe says into the microphone, “Well now! Most of you know that Josie is sadly out for the week! Bronchitis she says.”

The trombone adds an impromptu long, sad declining note.

“Yes, yes, the Diva is out of the building.” He looks sad for a moment before snapping his head up and grinning. “However! My dear little bro is visiting from the Windy City and just begged me to let him take the stage!”

The band chuckles, apparently in on the joke that has Dean suspecting “begging to sing” is not precisely what happened.

“Anyway, put your mitts together for my littlest bro, Castiel!”

The band stirs and starts in with a few notes as a young man strolls on stage, Gabe clapping him hard on the back as he walks past. He’s wearing deep blue pants and waistcoat over a slightly lighter colored dress shirt. His tie matches his waistcoat, but what catches the eye is how the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing strong arms and tanned skin.


Dean vaguely recognizes the song from a movie, but the guy’s voice warm and husky:

I wish I didn’t love you so...
My love for you should have faded long ago.
I wish I didn't need your kiss...
Why must your kiss torture me as long as this…

Dean sips his scotch as the young man’s eyes open wide and stare straight at him, making Dean swallow hard and almost choke. The fellow dips forward, holding the microphone like a lover, his gaze on Dean as he asks:

I should be smilin' by now...
With some new tender friend.
Smilin' by now...
With my heart on the mend…

Dear god, they’re blue. So blue. They glow in the spotlight, his eyelashes fanning flirtatiously over his high cheekbones when he closes his eyes with emotion. His full pink lips stretch as he sings and holds notes, his body posed over the microphone stand as if he’s dipping his partner in dance. Dean’s throat suddenly feels dry as he watches, a surprising desire rising in his gut: he wishes he was a microphone.

Dean had always leaned a bit towards the lavender side, enough his Dad thought him a bit of a nance, but he had tried to deny it for most of his life. He didn't like fearing for his life or reputation if word got out, so he kept his proclivities hidden. Deeply hidden.

But never had a man immediately got him thinking about sex either, about what their lips would look like, not stretched around a note, but around his dick instead. He shifts uncomfortably in his seat at the thought, his trousers feeling tight.

The fellow finishes the song and this time Dean's paying attention as the guy stands straight and waves at the band behind him. His narrow waist is accented beautifully by the tapering waistcoat, the vision he presents improves dramatically when he turns completely around and a perky round ass and broad shoulders are evident.

Dean’s dick takes a bit more interest than it should when eyeing a man, even a gorgeous one like this. He tries to calm it down, but it’s making itself uncomfortably known in his trousers.

He determinedly downs the rest of his scotch and signals Meg for another one, relaxing back as she nods from the bar that she understands.

The next song is also slow and lonely, and Dean is glad of the refill.

Am I blue? Am I blue?
Ain't these tears…
In my eyes telling you?
Am I blue? You'll be too…

The guy (what the hell was his name? Something weird with a C, right?) croons it out smoothly and with great emotion. Enough that Dean wonders if someone has hurt him.

He doesn't even know the guy and the idea burns at him. Because (and maybe it's the booze talkin’ here), he looks like an angel under the spotlight. Who could hurt such an innocent-looking man?

Dean finishes off his third double scotch and knows he should stop, but the unmanly desire to see the singer naked and under him makes him feel uncomfortable enough to ask for one more. He even digs out another cigarette and joins the other smokers in adding ambiance to the club.

Another cigarette and his fourth (fifth?) scotch down and the blue-eyed Angel has finished his set.

Gabriel gets back on stage and says something about his kid bro, Castiel, being there all week.

Dean nods to himself and drags on his suit jacket, managing not to forget his overcoat and hat at the coat check, and wanders home to jerk off to the idea of having Cas...at...l..?? Cas...tit...Cas in his bed.

He needs to see him again.

The next morning, more hung over than usual, he pauses by the corner flower shop impulsively. It's late April so there are some nice things in bloom. He picks out pussy willow and three red roses.

Dean sends them off to the club marked for “Cas” before he can think on it too long, a blush heating his face as he hurries back to the precinct.

“Fucking ‘new beginnings’ and ‘romantic love,’” he breathes to himself as he removes and hangs his hat and overcoat. “Who am I even kidding? Doesn’t even know I exist…”

Not that it matters in the long run, as Dean can’t keep his mind off the fine-figured singer at SWEETIES, and regardless of his intentions, his feet head him in that direction after work.

So that evening finds Dean back in the front row of the stage, back to the hair of the dog that bit him.

Meg gives him the eye, since she doesn't generally see him there every night. Maybe every other night, depending on how tough things are that week.

But this week had been busier than usual, what with murder being popular. Today had been a mugging gone wrong, the victim a young mother with two small kids and a husband still working the Pacific Theater. [3] Lisa Braeden had been a hardworking waitress and now she was another body in the morgue. The culprit was still at large, but the fact two little kids were about to be shipped off by bus to live with their aunt in Hoboken until their father could come home was unpleasant enough to have planted his ass in this chair anyway.

Sometimes he just hates his job.

He grimaces and thoughtlessly tosses back the scotch in one burning swallow.

He ignores Gabriel jumping on stage to announce his brother in favor of signalling Meg to get him another double.

While he lights his Lucky Strike, his leg bouncing impatiently, Cas (as he's now somehow permanently etched in his brain) strolls on the stage, tonight in dark gray with pinstripes over sky blue and a navy blue tie.

When the spotlight strikes him, it's like his eyes fill with mysterious power and he energetically sings “Beat me Daddy,” a clever smile on his face that causes tiny fans of wrinkles to bracket his eyes.

Cas laughs as he ends the song, the band behind him laughing with him, and he casually, breathlessly, introduces them with a huge, gummy smile.

Dean tunes out the names to watch the man grin and guffaw as he jokes.

He nearly bites his tongue when the Angel turns and faces him (or so he thinks, forgetting he’s directly up front and facing the stage), and the band starts up, letting the man purr out “I'll Never Smile Again,” and Dean feels his face heat as he imagines Cas singing only to him.

I'll never smile again,
Until I smile at you.
I'll never laugh again,
What good would it do?
For tears would fill my eyes…

Sighing at his own imagination, he sips at his drink, determined not to get sauced tonight. God knew what would land on his desk tomorrow. He doesn't want to be hung over while investigating again.

He sits through Cas’s set, as enthralled as last time, but heads home immediately after. He has a killer to catch.

As he leaves, he misses a pair of blue eyes watching him from the wings of the stage.

In the morning, he stops at a different flower shop and sends more flowers: daffodils and green carnations. The shopkeeper gives him a look, but Dean shrugs it off, just grateful his mother had an interest in flowers. “’new beginnings’ and ‘homosexual love’, huh?” He shakes his head but pays for them, leaving a nice tip. [4]

Dean and his partner, Benny Lafitte, get lucky and one of the pigeons he keeps on payroll gives him the dirt on a guy named Tom bragging about killing some broad over on 3rd.

They pile in Benny’s wreck to go round up the Tom guy and give him the business.

Fortunately, Tom is a wet noodle and pours his guts like he's been slit from balls to chin, easily admitting to mugging and killing Lisa Braeden.

Dean is just grateful that's one case off his desk when there's a call from his captain about some stinky apartment and they’ve got to go with the bulls to make sure it ain't more murdered folk.

So much for a slow day to clear off any paperwork.

He and Benny again head over in Benny’s old Ford, both of them feeling grim. A bad smell never means anything good, in their experience.

Not surprising, the tiny tenement room is filthy, with newspapers used to make bedding and clothing stuffing. They're both surprised the whole place hasn't gone up in flames when it's evident the tenants had been using candles to heat tinned food and keep warm. The nasty, cheap kind of candles too, the sort that stink of petroleum and stain everything black.

Any holes in the walls have also been packed with newspapers and bits of cloth. The tenants must share a hall toilet, because there is only some flat and disgusting mattresses on the floor. That's where they find the poor saps: curled on the mattresses, huddled together under those newspapers.

Under the newspapers are the three bodies, rigor mortis obviously already passed, and puddles of diarrhea and piss already dried around them. The stench is incredible, and if Dean had not seen more than his share of ugly deaths, he would've been sick.

Crouching, he eyes the first body, a young woman, maybe in her mid-twenties. She had probably been pretty when she while alive. Unfortunately, the weather’s just warm enough to promote decay and bugs, and her brown eyes peer sightless back at him from red, swollen flesh. The awkward angles of her joints could be from rigor mortis, but if she hasn’t been moved, it’s more likely caused by whatever killed her.

“Looks like illness,” he murmurs, covering his mouth and nose with his handkerchief. Dean flicks away another spread-out newspaper and sees the woman is dressed in layers of thin clothing, worn over each other for warmth, and there’s a tiny gold crucifix hanging from a thin chain around the frozen, strained muscles of her throat.

Benny hums agreement, busily poking at the rest of the room. He finds a few newer looking cans, empty ones tossed into the corner, their sides suspiciously dented.

“Might be botulism,” he says, picking up a severely dented can that had probably been thrown away by a store.

Dean sighs and covers the woman's face.

“No foul play here,” he calls over to the uniforms in the hall who are keeping the other tenants from rubbernecking. There wasn't enough room for more than two officers at a time in the room with the bodies taking up space. “Least nothing done deliberately. Just bad luck.”

Dean didn't know how people lived like this, although he had an idea from his own rough adolescence. People do anything to survive.

Shaking his head, he leads the way out and claps the nearest bull on the shoulder. It's of course Victor Henriksen, who always gets the shittest jobs, just because Captain Adler is a racist son of a bitch.

Dean gives him a grim smile and they head back to report in, leaving them to clean the mess and wait for the coroner. Meanwhile, they get to go back to the station and file the paperwork.

That evening finds him again at SWEETIES.

Turns out the poor saps in the tenement were two brothers and a sister from Michigan trying to make it in the Big City.

It’s not a new story that the City devoured them instead. It was more just sad how many hopeful folks were chewed up and spat out like old chewing tobacco.

Tonight, he slows his drinking, waiting to see the singer who has come to calm his heart.

He smokes more, stress and sadness riding him, and it's a relief when Cas is on stage.

Dean lets the rich, husky voice lull him, his eyes sliding close as he lets himself imagine Cas singing to him and only him. That there aren't thirty other people around him, watching the beautiful man too. That the end of the day would bring him home to those warm smiles. Those plush pink lips kissing him…

He starts awake as someone shakes his shoulder and he nearly falls off the chair trying to get away.

A warm, gruff voice asks, “Are you okay? You fell asleep.”

Dean blinks and looks up at Cas, nodding groggily and rubbing a hand over his face. “Yeah, sorry.” He realizes who it is and jerks, yelping, “Did I miss your show??”

Cas smiles and sits down across from him. Not that there's a lot of room at the front tables. That’s when Dean notices the club is ridiculously quiet, and he looks around and finds it dark and completely empty.

Cas chuckles softly and tilts his head. “You were pretty sound asleep. Meg was going to wake you up, but you looked comfortable, curled on the table.”

Blushing, Dean clears his throat. “It's, uh, been a bit of a rough week.”

Cas nods. “No rest for the wicked?” He suggests.

“More like the wicked don't rest,” Dean grumbles, gratified when that gummy smile lights Cas’s face.

He stretches out his hand to Dean and says, “Castiel Milton.”

Dean eyes the hand and wonders if he's still dreaming. He takes the proffered hand and it's warm and smooth, the grip firm.

“Dean Winchester,” he stutters out, preventing himself from stroking the hand, and releases it nervously.

Castiel licks his lips and says softly, “Everyone else has gone home for the night. I said I would finish locking up when you woke up.”

“That was kind of you.”

Tilting his head again and staring at Dean like he was studying him intently, he murmurs, “It was entirely selfish. I wanted to meet you.”

Swallowing hard, Dean squeaks, “Why?”

He then wants to slam his head on the table because Mr. Big Bad Homicide Detective, a guy who can make men sing like canaries, is tongue tied by a pair of blue eyes and a bright smile.

Cas shrugs and the shadows from his eyelashes fan his cheeks as he looks down. “I've seen you here three days in a row. I thought I'd like to meet you. See what kept bringing you back?”

“I like your voice,” Dean admits, “Josie is okay, but…”

“But?” Cas coaxes.

Dean looks away, face heating again. “She isn't you.”

Cas hums. “Thank you. But, doesn't your wife worry about you?”

“Not married,” Dean admits, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “You? Gotta girl waiting for you to move back?”

Cas laughs darkly. “Not remotely. In fact, you could say that's half of the reason I moved here with Gabriel.”

“And the other half?”

Cas quirks a grin. “I wanted to sing for a living. Hard to do that professionally while hiding out in Chicago. Besides, Gabriel was already set up here to give me a hand, so why not?”

“Then you're here permanently?” Hope flares a bit in his chest as Cas nods.

“Until something better appears, I guess.” His eyes flick to Dean's mouth. “But there are very few things that could make me move on.”

Dean swallows with a click and licks his lips again. “I, uh, c-can imagine.” He coughs. Why is flirting with men so hard?

Oh yeah, because he isn't supposed to.

Taking his courage in hand, Dean says, “Say, can I, maybe, invite you for coffee? Or, I dunno? Breakfast?”

A sly smile slips over those plush lips. “At your place?”

Blinking, Dean opens and closes his mouth soundlessly in shock at Cas’s bravado, but he nearly cries when Cas chuckles, “Just kidding! Ah, your face!”

“Sure, why not?” It shoots from his mouth without permission, but it’s worth it as Dean watches shock and then recklessness shift over Cas's face, a mischievous expression in his eyes.

“Alright,” he says, nodding. “Your place it is. I mean, it's like 4am so…”

Dean shrugs, puts on his jacket, and is relieved to see his overcoat and hat on the table next to them. He picks them up grateful, but gives Cas the eye.

“I asked Tamara if she would leave them with me,” Cas explains as he puts on his own overcoat, a tan trench coat that fits him a bit big. He's still wearing his stage outfit, though, and it looks even better up close. The double-breasted waistcoat with bright silver buttons cinches in tightly and before the suit jacket and trench coat, Dean is pretty certain that his hands would fit perfectly right there…

Cas coughs and Dean jerks out of his eyeballing, flushing with embarrassment even if Cas looks more amused than bothered.

“C’mon then,” Dean mutters as they shut down the rest of the lights and head to his.

Dean makes a decent wage for a single man. There’s nothing special about a cop’s pay, but then again his apartment is nothing fancy, since he had recently moved into a smaller place on the third floor. That made his rent was more than doable on his salary, leaving a generous bit for a rainy day.

Previously, his younger brother, Sam, had lived with him on the second floor, in a bigger apartment, but he’d moved to Massachusetts for college to be a fancy lawyer. Now Dean could walk around in his drawers if he desired, no indignant little brother’s screeching at him like a dame to “put some pants on for the love of God!”

Yeah, like God cared about pants.

But the best thing about his place is that the building is owned by his Uncle Bobby, so he gets first pick of which digs he wants to live in. He’d probably get a discount if he would just bow to Bobby’s desire to have in him the Organized Crimes Department with him.

Dean wants none of that game. It’s a much trickier job and it’s easier to get on someone's literal hit list. He had ignored his uncle's attempts to woo him over because he has no urge to end up in cement boots at the bottom of a river.

So, thanks to his move, Dean's smaller digs could be considered quaint at best, cramped at worst. The apartment has a tiny kitchen area, and a telephone, but he’s actually quite lucky to have his own toilet and a shower. Not everyone has those luxuries.

He even has what looked like a converted cupboard to hang his clothes, and a tiny extra room to keep a bed but not much else. His single bed looks pretty miserable practically on its own, shoes stuck under it, but he’s rarely brought in company, especially the sleeping-over kind. He isn’t home often, so the place wasn’t really decorated. And he didn’t even have a radio and setting room set to enjoy in the evenings; the tiny space for that was open floor. That’s how he ends up at SWEETIES so often.

Clearing his throat self-consciously, Dean waves a hand at the utilitarian place and says, “Uh, home sweet home.”

Cas glances around, obviously intrigued, and says, “Looks cozy.”

Dean flushes at that, hits the radiator heater with a shoe a couple of times to get it running, and points to the two-chair dining room set he’d kept after Sam left. “Can I, uh, get you something? Like… I dunno? I think I’ve got some tea in there, some coffee? I did promise breakfast…”

Cas removes his overcoat and hat, handing them to Dean, seats himself and shakes his head. “No thank you. It’s 430 in the morning. I would rather sleep. Or maybe talk...?”

Dean nods, rubs the back of his neck nervously, and blurts, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

At that, Cas chuckles again, his eyes lit up with amusement. “I imagine not, considering how surprised you looked when I agreed to come.”

Smiling nervously, Dean takes the other seat. “So you’re from Chicago?”

Cas shrugs. “My whole family is from Pontiac, Illinois, but a few of us ended up in Chicago. Then Gabriel had a run in with the mafia there and ran off to New York.”

“Ah, that explains the different last name,” Dean murmurs. He doesn’t want to know more, because what he doesn’t know won’t get anyone killed. “And you?”

Cas fiddles with his fingernails a bit, picking at the cuticles. “My parents caught up to me in Chicago. I’d been hiding out there, trying to make a living as a singer. I don’t even know how they found me, but they were furious to find out that not only had I been ignoring their demands I follow in their medical footsteps, but I am a lover of men.”

Dean swallows hard but keeps listening, as Cas leans back a bit, a rueful smile on his face.

“You know, it's funny how people talk about familial love like it fixes all things, and then ignore how it breaks you when you don't fit the mold of ‘family expectations.’ Well, they basically said I wasn't to come back until I ‘fixed my perversions’ and straightened myself out.”

Cas doesn't really even sound bitter when he says all this, just tired.

Dean nods and murmurs, “I understand. My Dad expected me to be a mechanic like him, but I wanted to do something else. Save people. Hunt murderers. Things like that.” He licks his lips and adds, “He… uhh, never knew about my interest in...men, though.”

“Oh.”

The silence stretches between them, and Cas finally asks, “I've seen you at the club every night, but I don't know what you do?”

Dean launches into his job description, how much effort it takes, how taxing seeing the worst of humanity is every day, and they talk long after the sun lights the sky. Cas never judges, and he listens intently, nodding sympathy. When they do go to bed, exhausted, they fall asleep tangled together on the small bed after Dean calls in sick. There’s no thought of sex between them. There’s something fragile but tenuous between them. Dean isn’t ready for it. Cas isn’t ready for it. But there’s something comforting in cuddling together in their undergarments, something about a warm, non-judgmental body that feels good.

That night, Dean dreams of azure blue aster in his mother’s garden, a gentle breeze touching them, making them dance in waves, and lulling in him a long-lost sense of peace.
-------------
His (sick) day off is busy with learning things about Cas.

First things first, however, he fucks up and calls him ‘Cas’ instead of ‘Castiel’ as he makes coffee and offers to take him to a great diner down a ways.

Cas(tiel) eyes him a moment, scowling faintly at the nickname, before shrugging and huffing, “Well, it's better than Cassy. I loathe that sobriquet.”

He just misses the happy grin Dean gives him for the permission and the idea that the name “Cas” is for him alone.

Cas showers in the tiny bathroom, but doesn't shave, leaving a dark shadow of scruff across his jaw that Dean wants to touch so badly his hands shake.

He puts on his flashy performance outfit back on, but ties his trench coat tightly around him as they head out. Thankfully April in New York is still pretty brisk so he doesn’t look too odd as they walk down the street together at 11am. They walk together slowly, sharing glances and brushing their fingers against each other, both aware they can’t do more in public. It’s a shame, Dean thinks. He’d love to hold that smooth hand as they walked.

Bells jingle to announce their entrance and Cas looks enthralled already. The diner is all red and white colors with shiny chrome accents, doubling as a soda shop after three, when the kids get out of class. They slide into a booth and continue chatting about things. Cas likes reading and music. He's been reading some fancy foreign authors and John Steinbeck. Dean admits to checking out some guy named Mickey Spillane because his little brother thought he might like it. Mostly, he reads Asimov and Jules Verne, although recently his partner had given him a book of short stories by a guy named Ray Bradbury that seemed interesting. He doesn't admit to his Astounding Science Fiction magazine addiction because he's not a dope.

Truly.

They both admit to loving Alfred Hitchcock movies and that Cary Grant was great. There’s a brief argument over burgers whether Bob Hope and Bing Crosby are a better comedy team than Abbott and Costello, and if Humphrey Bogart is as good as Spencer Tracy. (“C’mon, Cas! Casablanca? ‘We’ll always have Paris.’ That's a man!” “Yes, he is male, but I find it difficult to dismiss Tracy after Boys Town…” “‘No such thing as a bad boy,’ huh? Didn't take you for a sap, y’know?” “Does that disappoint you?” “Nah. Looks okay on you.”)

It’s 2pm by the time they realize they had been sitting there for almost three hours, and Cas murmurs that he has to go home to Gabriel’s and get ready for the night.

Dean nods, oddly unwilling to let Cas go. They hide in the alley next to the diner to say goodbye, Dean promising to be there tonight, and sharing a short, chaste kiss that they both want to evolve into something more.

Neither is sure what that is yet, but whatever it is, they want it.

On his way home, Dean stops by a florist’s shop again and requests red and pink camellias and baby's breath. ‘Romantic’ love seems sudden, but ‘everlasting’ love seems extreme. Still…He doesn't care if Cas knows what they mean; he knows, thanks to his mom, and he likes that.

Dean goes to SWEETIES that night as he planned and is hypnotized by Cas’s fingers and lips as he sings. The slight swivel and shake of the man's hips make his throat dry with want again and he swallows down more scotch.

It's hard, so very hard to pull his eyes away from those sapphire blues, so he lets himself be swallowed whole by the man's presence-wrapped in his voice-and relaxes.

At the end of the night, Dean waits for Cas and they continue their conversation from earlier as if there had been no time lost between them at all. They chat lightly as they approach Cas’s place (which is technically Gabriel’s), and Dean gets butterflies in his stomach from Cas smiling shyly up at him from under his lashes as they stop at his stoop.

It's 3am, and the street is mostly empty of people. No witnesses means that he can reach out a hand and lightly take Cas’s fingers in his.

“Can I see you again?” He asks Cas abruptly, thinking vaguely about how Sam’s gonna tease the shit outta him for being awkward as a 13-year-old schoolgirl on her first date if he ever catches wind of this.

“I would love that. Thank you, Dean.”

Cas pulls him in gently by his overcoat with his free hand and gives him a chaste kiss on the lips that still manages to get Dean’s sex drive going from Neutral to Third Gear in nearly no time at all.

“Don't thank me,” he whispers, dipping in to drop another kiss, “It'd be my pleasure.”

Cas grins that gummy smile that makes his nose crinkle and his eyes brighter, both things that cause Dean to wish he were a more poetic man.

They make arrangements for Dean's (supposed) day off on Sunday, after Cas gets back from church.

Dean starts planning as he walks home, whistling into the New York night.

The next morning, he carefully sends a bouquet of purple lilacs and wild daisies: ‘first love’ and ‘hope.’

Saturday is his worst nightmare: a pile of bodies that looks like a mafia hit. They call in Bobby, who sends out a couple of men, but Dean and Benny still gotta file paperwork.

“Gamboni Family was busy last night,” Benny comments as he grimaces at his paperwork, his cajun accent extra thick from exhaustion and disgust. “Six people doin’ nothin’ but eatin’ Chinese food in a backroom an’ playing Mahjong? Ya think it's a turf war?”

Dean shakes his head. “I don't wanna know,” he grumbles, chewing on his lip as he fights the typewriter. “If I wanted to paint a target on my ass, I'd’ve joined Bobby’s unit. Or got myself knocked off in France. I hate mob shit.”

“You ain't lyin’ there, brother,” Benny grunts in agreement, tapping his triplicate paperwork against his desk so it's even, and passing it over to Dean. “Best hurry up. Adler’s givin’ us the bug eye.”

“He better not send us out again. We've been doing good for once! Closing cases and stuff!”

Benny shrugs and stands, stretching his burly arms over his head. “That's why we shouldn't be the best. We get all the workload then.”

Dean huffs and finishes off the last few lines, watching Benny pin the mass murder onto the Organized Crime board. When he looks up, sure enough Adler’s motioning them to come into his office.

Dean endures the discussion about how they were doing good work and in a few years they, too, could make captain. He's waiting for the ax to fall, and, sure enough, Bobby’s asked for backup, and specifically for him, Benny, and even Victor.

“So, you and Benny have got stake out duty. One of Gamboni’s men, Fergus McLeod, goes by Crowley? Yeah, he's suspected of putting the hit on the chinks, probably buncoed the poor bastards. The limey is good at making deals and stealing souls in his bargains.”

“But tomorrow's my day off!”

Adler pins Dean with a dark eye and snaps, “We got a lead on the King of the Crossroad back deals, and you're gonna take it!”

Because Dean has no luck, or because Crowley is a wily bastard who probably has a stoolie in the department, they're made day one and Dean takes the brunt of the resulting drive by. They’re in an old unmarked car that Bobby keeps for jobs like this. They don’t hear the car until it’s too late. The sound of a Tommy gun spitting lead and the heat slamming into the car is deafening, the bullets hitting hard and fast. Must be a chopper squad, he thinks dimly, pain ripping through him like a lightning strike. He sees a yellow convertible fly by as he sinks into the seat.

As he passes out, he can hear Benny screaming, and all he can think of is “Cas…”

When Dean comes to, it's to blurry whiteness.

He tries to blink, his eyes feeling gummy and stuck together, like he hadn't opened them in ages.

Dean tries to speak, but his throat is dry and all he manages is a harsh hacking cough. Somehow, that does the trick, and-as his eyes adjust and stop sticking together-he sees his favorite yeti hovering over him with a glass of water.

He takes a sip, clears his throat, and rasps, “Heya, Sammy.”

He's not prepared for his brother to start crying.

“It's okay, Sammy,” he tries to soothe, trying to reach out but finding his left arm painful and unmoving, while his right has a tube attached to it that makes it hard to move.

Coughing again, Dean grates out, “Where am I? W-what happened? Why’re you here?”

Grasping Dean's good hand (the one not pinned down), Sam sniffles, “You got shot. Benny managed to save you from getting killed, but they hit you in the shoulder, the upper arm, your back, and upper thigh. They even nicked your noggin.”

Dean huffs. “Doesn't sound too bad.”

He tries to play it off, but he can feel the pain radiating from several areas, his whole body a low throb of agony, especially along his left side. Must've given me the good drugs, he thinks drowsily, remembering the days of morphine haze while in the military hospital back in ‘44. Getting shot sucked, but there were worse alternatives than the pain: amputation or death.

“Ain't my first rodeo,” Dean mumbles through numb, dry lips. Sam gives him a bit of water again, and it feels like heaven.

Sam snuffles, leans back, and says, “You lost a lot of blood. They didn't think you were gonna make it.”

Dean (gently) shakes his head and says, “I ain't leaving you, kiddo. It'll take more than some bullets to stop Dean Winchester.”

Sam scoffs, while smiling a bit (albeit watery). “You jerk. Scaring me like that. I missed tests to get here!”

Dean smiles back, exhausted to his bones, and mutters, “Bitch,” before passing out.

For another week, Dean floats on a warm sea of morphine.

The department manages to secure him a swanky private room since he's a cop and needs a guard, what with a mob hit on his head. It’s hard to guard a fella when patients are squeezed into one large ward, beds lining every free area, and there isn't even room for visitors, much less guards.

So he heals and floats.

When he's conscious at one point, Benny is there, his right arm in a sling. He says Dean's lucky that he wasn't shot somewhere vital, that the slug just brushing his melon was damned lucky by itself.

The only bullet to get lodged was the one in his thigh, and the rest blasted clean through.

Dean is thankful but sinks back into the dark haze.

By week two, he's healing well but is still going to be on bedrest as the damage in his left side was the worst but the slug that got caught in his left shoulder causes him the most pain and inconvenience because he can't lift his arm at all.

But he's awake enough to flashback to being shot. He's awake enough to remember Cas…

He's awake enough to ask Sam to go to a florist and make a small bouquet with lilies of the valley, ivy, and three red roses. “Send it to Castiel at SWEETIES,” Dean instructs, ignoring the curious look his brother is leveling on him. “Look, just do it, please?”

Sam gives him a disgruntled look, but says he did it the next time he visits.

The next time he asks Benny to do it: black-eyed susans this time.

Hell, he even asks Bobby to do it once, but just yellow and red tulips. He has no shame left at this point. Cas hasn't heard from him in weeks; he probably thinks Dean's given up on him. That he had run away.

The thought has Dean's stomach in a knot, worries him when he comes down off his morphine high.

He's finally released a week later, into Sam and Bobby’s custody. He's walking, but it hurts and he doesn't have a lot of endurance.

He still wants to see Cas.

It's lucky Sam is a yeti, with orangutan arms and legs like a giraffe. Lucky because the three flights of stairs to Dean's place is too much for his battered body and he nearly passes out one and half flights up.

Sam mostly carries him the rest of the way, although Dean refuses to be carried like a goddamn bride and both his stitches and healing arm mean no fireman's carry. So it's Sam leaning down to help Dean hobble up, taking most of his weight while trying not to aggravate his wounds.

By the time they reach the third floor, Dean is breathing hard, sweating bullets, and nearly crying from exertion and pain. Sam has stopped muttering apologies, mostly because he's as sweaty and exhausted. The rests between floors have meant very little since they couldn't just pass out on the floor.

So getting Dean down the hallway and into his apartment is still something of a production for them, being exhausted as they both are at that point.

To Dean’s surprise, the door opens before they get to it and inside is a familiar blue-eyed man staring out anxiously.

“C-Cas?” Dean manages to gasp out, right before his brother accidentally pokes him in the stitches, causing him to break out into a new sweat and to grit out between pain-clenched teeth, “SAM.”

He sees Cas run out and it's a relief that someone who is not the size of a matured live oak is helping him along.

They get him into his apartment, Sam snatching off their hats and tossing them on to the two cots tied together with a blanket in the gap, and a pillow taking up the blank space in the middle.

“I've been staying here,” Sam says uncomfortably, “But your bed was too short.”

Cas nods and pipes up, “I've been sleeping there.”

Dean goggles at him in disbelief, his mouth hanging open, before the pain shooting up his spine reminds him he's hurt and his ass better settle in.

Their limbs exhausted, getting Dean into his tiny bedroom is a struggle for a yeti and a large man with limited mobility and a damaged arm.

“Put me on the bed! The bed, not the closet, Sam! Bed!!”

The last is shrieked as Sam almost keels over, nearly dumping Dean head first into the small closet. He somehow misses landing on his arm, but his thigh and shoulder howl at the treatment.

There's not even room for Cas to help, and Dean thinks about how if he weren't red with pain and heat, he's be red hot with embarrassment.

“Are you okay, Dean?”

Just beyond the jungle gym of Sam’s limbs, Dean can see Cas’s concerned face.

“No,” he groans out, even as Sam accidentally kicks his good shin with his moose foot. “Not okay! Help! Get. This. Sasquatch. Off. Me!”

“Sam! Stop flailing!”

There's a surprised grunt from Sam and Dean is freed from nearly two-hundred pounds of brother. He looks over to the doorway to see Sam sprawled on his ass, a dazed expression on his face, while Cas is gripping the back of his collars (coat and shirt) with one hand, looking righteously angry.

Dean’s sure if he didn't feel like a long stretch of torn up road, he'd have a stiff dick to deal with too.

“D-did you just...pluck me off the bed? With one hand?” Sam sounds surprisingly indignant, but then no one has probably manhandled him like that since he was thirteen.

Cas ignores him.

Also very sexy.

“Dean, are you okay now?” He absently releases a sputtering Sam and leans into the bedroom. “Did you hurt yourself more? Oh god, do you need to return to the hospital!?”

Dean finds himself in great amounts of pain, but also laughing at the tableau in front of him. He tries to hold it in, but it's just ridiculous that Cas is in his apartment along with his baby brother, both of them wanting to fuss over his sick self.

Dean manages to shake his head. Sam’s exasperated expression isn't helping matters, but Dean gasps out, “Nah, I'm fine, Cas. Fine as I can be stitched back together like Frankenstein and wrestled up three flights of stairs by a yeti.”

Blinking confusion, Cas asks, “Yeti? I thought it was Sam who-”

“He means me,” Sam mutters, picking himself up and dusting off his pants.

“Ah, I see. You are alarmingly tall,” Cas notes as Sam scrapes back his abnormally long hair. “Sam, you really ought to get your hair trimmed. I can see why Dean refers to you as a yeti.”

Dean has to muffle more laughs as Sam pinches his lips together and says with wounded dignity, “I'm going to get some take out. Chinese okay?”

“Hell yeah! Beef chow mein, and don't forget the egg rolls!”

Distractedly, Cas adds, “Whatever looks good with chicken, please. Spicy, if possible.”

“Dean, I don't think eating that much fried food is good for you, what with just being released-”

“Shut your hole, Sammy! I've been eating hospital slop and IV drippings for almost a month! Get me some real food, damn it!” Dean almost growls this, which would have been more impressive if Cas hadn’t been helping him sit up and stuffing pillows behind his back.

Sam rolls his eyes and walks back out, leaving Dean with Cas hovering over him. He looks up into the blue eyes he had been missing and asks, “What are you doing here, Cas?”

Cas smiles gently and cups Dean’s jaw. “When you didn’t show up on that Sunday, and you didn’t come to the show, I was extremely angry,” he admits, drawing his thumb over Dean’s bottom lip. “I was so angry, I came to your place on Tuesday and started yelling at your door, calling you terrible things…”

“Terrible things?” He’s tempted to lick the thumb, but knows this is important and waits.

“...creep. Jerk. Assbutt…”

“Assbutt?!” Dean grins and avoids snickering just because his side doesn’t appreciate it, stabbing him with lightning bolts of pain.

Offended, Cas reasserts, “Assbutt! I was angry!”

Shaking his head, Dean brings his good hand up to cover Cas’s. “Go on, then…”

Brushing his fingers over Dean’s cheeks, hand captured by Dean’s, he murmurs, “I was so shocked when Sam opened the door, looking like hell. I demanded to know who he was and where you were, and he said he was your brother and that you were in the hospital.” A tremor in his voice has Dean kissing his palm. “He… he said that you’d been shot and it wasn’t looking good. He said… that you couldn’t receive visitors because they were worried there was still a hit out on you.”

“Sam told you all that?” That little shit. Cas hadn’t needed all that stress.

Shrugging, Cas sits on the very edge of the bed and twines their fingers together. “I may have told him that I was your boyfriend and I had a right to know. To stay here and wait for you, since I wasn't allowed to go see you.”

Dean chokes. Sam hadn't known about his thing for men. Sam had never known! Hopefully never had a clue about the degenerate desires in his head! Women, sure; men, no.

Heat rushes up his face, painting him, he’s sure, a bright red. He feels panic start to surge out from the core of his being, and he heaves a bit, his chest suddenly tight, his breaths hard won. It hurt. It all hurts at a level that he is unfamiliar with, what with his heart and the pile of obligations to be a role model for his little brother suddenly taking a direct hit, and his physical body not really able to cope with it.

Two hands grip his face, shaking him lightly. “Dean! Dean!! It's okay! It's okay! He accepted it!”

Dean heaves another breath, his left side unforgiving as it hitches in the process.

“It's alright! We spoke of it a great deal! He's fine with it! He's your brother! He still loves you!”

Dean wheezes and tries to calm down. Kisses are peppering his face and lips, and he focuses on the warmth of the arms around him.

Cas's warm voice is soft singing to him. He relaxes into it as the words wrap around him.

The night is cold and I'm so all alone…
I'd give my soul just to call you my own…
Got a moon above me…
But there's no one to love me…
Lover man oh where can you be…

His fingers are lightly raking through Dean's hair, the words mellow and aching with longing.

I've heard it said that the thrill of romance can be…
Like a heavenly dream…
I go to bed with a prayer that you'll make love to me…
Strange as it seems…
Someday we'll meet and you'll dry all my tears…
And whisper sweet little things in my ears…
Huggin' and a-kissin'…
Ooh what I've been missin'…
Lover man oh where can you be…

Dean lifts his head to look into Cas's eyes and says, “I'm sorry I panicked.”

Cas shakes his head. “Telling your family is terrifying. I know that.”

Using his good hand, Dean reaches out to Cas's face and tries to memorize the soft edges of his lips, the sharp lines of his nose and eyebrows, the soft brush of his scruff.

“Dean,” he says, eyes downcast as he swallows hard, “I feel like we've known each other forever, even though it wasn't that long at all. But… this-” He motions between them, eyes now wide and brimming with determination. “I want this. Or, at least, I want to try. I've never had anything close.”

Leaning in, now cupping the back of Cas's head, and forcing him to touch foreheads, Dean says, harshly, “When I almost died, all I could think about was you. How much I was going to miss you.”

Cas catches his breath and Dean takes the moment to lean in and brush his lips with his own lightly. Chastely. Then Cas is groaning and slotting their mouths together more firmly, more insistently, the tip of his tongue licking at the seam of Dean's mouth, the gasp of surprise and want that escapes both of them as tongues slide together.

Which means they miss the front door opening and closing.

“Okay, so I got the chow mein bu-JESUS CHRIST!!”

The sound of food hitting the floor and Sam's exclamation startles them and they stare at Sam's beet-red face. His eyes are flicking towards them, but then darting away, even as he struggles to pick up the paper bag of food.

“I knew,” he jabbers, “And I thought I understood but seeing it-no, no, I've got this! I'm good.”

Cas chuckles and gets up to help Sam, and Dean groans inwardly, uncomfortably, at being caught.

For the tiny, fond smile Cas gives him as he holds the bag, while Sam panics and fumbles around the small kitchen, though?

Worth it.

It's months later and Josie is back on stage, but Cas takes over some of the extra hours. Sometimes they perform together, although neither of them likes it. It does open up the repertoire for both of them, though, so they keep at it.

Josie doesn't try to bully Cas because he stubbornly gets right back in her face, her being a dame and all doesn’t faze him one bit, and he’s willing to go to war against her, fists, kicks, and all. She grants him a grudging respect and there's a tenuous truce between them.

Tenuous because she's a hag and an overall terrible person who loves to manipulate and beat the hell out of others. Plus, just to agitate Cas, she hits on Dean whenever she gets the chance

Cas doesn't share.

The possessive rage in those blue eyes, lighting them to a near sky blue, shouldn't be so sexy. It makes it hard(er) to stop letting Josie flirt with him (even if he wouldn't touch her if her life depended on it).

Overall, it's been nice. Dean working days, fighting crime, putting palookas behind bars. He’s still on desk duty until he’s completely cleared to chase down hoods, but he does his best.

While he's riding his desk, Crowley gets knocked off by some mysterious highbinder, most likely for the Chinese hit. Either way, it's one less worry for Dean.

Cas works nights, sometimes as a bartender, sometimes as a singer. Either way, Dean comes in for a few hours to keep him company. Gabe stops giving him grief after Dean keeps coming back and showing he's serious about being with Cas. Hell, he even moved to the second floor again, got a bigger bed, and living happily with the man. The single mattress was a big too snug, even if they had made it work.

Sam had been giddily grateful to escape their honeymoon phase and get back to Boston. They were going to see him again during the summer. He had even mentioned a girlfriend.

And as for the flowers… it’s the ivy and red roses that get him caught. He walks into the dressing room where Cas is preparing for the night’s entertainment. He finds Cas in the suit he was wearing the first night he had performed, a thoughtful expression on his face as he fingers the ivy of the bouquet.

It’s a simple bouquet (as were most of them), and Cas looks up as Dean trots in. “Fidelity and true love, huh?”

Dean stops just inside the door, colors violently to tips of his ears, and says, “How did you know?”

Smiling, Cas pets the ivy again. “I was always suspicious. But then your brother mentioned that your mom gardened and she taught you all sorts of stuff, like meanings, and it made sense.” He hefts the bouquet towards Dean. “Add that they stopped coming while you were in hospital, and it makes perfect sense.”

He quirks a smile while Dean sputters, “Th-then why didn't you say something?”

Dean is also thinking about killing his little brother. He knows a good hiding place for an oversized body.

“Because it's adorable,” Cas shrugs nonchalantly, “And I enjoyed getting flowers. No one’s ever done that for me before.”

Dean manages to close the door behind him, face still flaming, when he feels Cas wrap around him. “I love it, Dean. Thank you.”

Dean reluctantly turns to him, and a warm, soft hand cups his jaw, brushing his thumb against Dean’s cheek. “And, yes. I love you too.”

Since the invention of the kiss, there may have been five rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one was not pure, but definitely passionate, since it was still an hour until show time, and sex in front of a huge mirror is fucking hotter than hell.

THE END

[1] Marlon Brando was still performing the theatrical version of “A Streetcar Named Desire” at the time of this fic. Film version wasn’t released until 1951.
[2] “It’s a Wonderful Life” came out in 1946, folks. It’s okay!
[3] Pacific Theater in World War II was against Japan. US forces were in Japan until, well, now. But Occupation of Japan by US forces officially ended in 1951, in effect 1952.
[4] Technically, carnations mean things like love and devotion. Oscar Wilde’s love of wearing them as a statement meant they gained a nuance of “homosexuality” in the early 20th Century. If you know the nuance, you know the meaning.