[fic] Supernatural - There's Only One Sure Thing That I Know [3/4]
August 3rd (93 Days)
"Whoa, there, Champ," Savira says, catching a glass that Dean had been in the process of knocking off the bar. "Rough night?" She asks.
Dean says, "Huh?" She blinks at him, waving the glass in his face, and he says, "Oh, uh, yeah."
Dean had slunk back into the apartment around 4 A.M., hoping against hope that Castiel wasn't there. By some small mercy, the living room had been empty and the door to the second bedroom had been closed.
"Ah," she says, "Trouble in paradise."
Trouble in paradise is one of those phrases that Dean has only ever heard people on TV shows say. It's not really something that he'd ever thought someone would say to him.
"What?" Dean says.
"I know that look, that's a slept on the couch kind of look." She says, smirking. "What did you do? Did Cas kick you out?"
"Did Cas what? He's just my roommate," Dean says. Which is a complete fucking lie, Castiel is far from just a roommate. It's just that Dean doesn't actually think there's a word for what Castiel is. Sam would have told him if there was.
"Look Dean," Savira says, looking totally hurt and sad and disappointed, which makes less than no sense. "You don't have to it hide from me. I know."
"Know what?" Dean asks, totally fucking confused.
"I've talked to Cas, ok?" Savira says, which is totally news to Dean. "He told me how much he loves you." Dean doesn't want to explain the whole, Castiel loves all of God's creatures because he's an Angel of the fucking Lord thing, so he lets that one slide.
"Whatever, fine," he says, "We had a fight last night." Savira makes a sympathetic face.
"Money?" She asks. "Brad and I are like, always fighting about money. It sucks."
He doesn't know how to explain what happened to her. Cas kissed me and I totally freaked out like a teenage girl, is maybe the most concise way to put it, but it's not really accurate. Dean hadn't freaked out because Castiel kissed him, Dean had freaked out because of the shit Castiel was saying.
"Yeah," Dean says. "It was totally about money. It fucking sucks."
"Tell me about it," Savira says, rolling her eyes.
When Dean gets home from work, Castiel is waiting up for him. He doesn't even pretend like he's doing research or reading or whatever else it is that he does all day, he's just sitting at the table in the living room, staring at the door as Dean walks in.
"Whoa," Dean says. "That's really creepy. I thought we'd moved past really creepy."
Castiel tilts his head in that way he does, like he's looking at some sort of fascinating bug. "Humans are such strange creatures," he says. "I do not understand why you pretend that you do not want the things that you want."
Dean shakes his head. "You don't know what I want," he says. "For God's sake, I don't know what the hell I want."
"Of course I know what you want," Castiel says, like it's obvious. "I can see into your soul. You cannot hide from me."
"What the fuck, Cas," Dean says. "You can't just say that to people. You can see into my soul? Who the hell told you you could do that?"
"I am in love with you, Dean," Castiel says. Dean's heart skips a beat and for a second he forgets how to take another breath.
"Yeah, well," he says through the weird tension in his chest, "I never told you you could do that, either."
"I didn't know I needed permission," Castiel says, and it's so perfect, it's just such a God damn Cas thing to say that Dean starts cracking up laughing. Once he's started, he can’t stop, and he can only breathe in short, raspy pants that don't get nearly enough oxygen to his brain. He can feel himself starting to black out, but he doesn't actually make it to the ground before Castiel is there, holding him up with one arm around his waist.
"I do not see what you find so humorous about this situation," Castiel says, finally sounding pissed off, which sets Dean off again.
"It's nothing," Dean says, once he can breathe again, once the whole fucking reality of his existence stops crashing down around him. "It's really nothing." Castiel looks at him like, I will never understand humans, and Dean doesn't really blame him.
Once Dean's regained his grip on awareness, he notices that Castiel's arm is still around his waist, that Castiel's barely exerting any effort to hold all of Dean's weight. It's another one of those things that reminds Dean, as if he could forget, that Castiel still isn't human. That when Castiel says he can see into Dean's soul, he's really not being metaphorical.
"I apologize if my actions last night made you uncomfortable," Castiel says.
"Uncomfortable," Dean repeats, incredulous.
"Yes," Castiel says. "I did not mean to."
"Look, you didn't make me uncomfortable," Dean says. "You... look, I just don't want to hear that stuff, ok?"
Castiel tilts his head to the side, considering, and Dean knows he isn't going to like what Castiel's about to say. "But it's true. You are worthy of love."
"Fuck!" Dean says, pulling himself upright, out of Castiel's hold. "This is what I'm talking about."
Castiel opens his mouth to say something, so the way Dean sees it, has no choice but to kiss him to shut him up. Castiel responds immediately and God, it's just as good now as it was last night: just as hot, just as wet, and just as stupid and fucking dangerous.
In the idle moments that Dean had thought about the possibility of this happening, he'd always put himself firmly in the driver's seat. He'd thought that Castiel would be wooden or clueless or fumbling. He hadn't expected the way that Castiel takes over, one hand in Dean's hair, another at the hollow of his back, pulling him in close.
Castiel backs him against the wall in the living room, pressing in so that Dean can feel the hot length of his body all down his front. Dean reaches around, grabbing Castiel's ass, pulling his left knee up and hitching his hips closer.
It becomes apparent quickly that Castiel really doesn't have to breathe, and Dean has to shove his face back a little so he can catch his breath before he passes out again. Castiel grinds into him, unexpected and aggressive, and Dean accidentally bangs his head against the wall.
"Christ," Dean says, rubbing the sore spot at the back of his skull. "What are we doing?"
"I thought that we were having sex." Castiel says, scowling. "Though, it appears that every time I try to have sex with a human they run away. It's getting aggravating."
Dean laughs and has to kiss Castiel again. "Ok," he says, "I get it. No running away this time."
"Yes." Castiel dives back in, hands seemingly everywhere. Dean can feel the button-fly on his jeans coming undone by some invisible force as Castiel pushes the flannel shirt off Dean's shoulders. After Castiel shoves Dean's T-shirt half-way up his chest and leaves it there, uncomfortably wedged under Dean's armpits, Dean just grabs it by the hem and jerks it off over his head. Which leaves him half-naked, pants undone, and Castiel is fully clothed, which is just not fair.
"Hey, your turn," Dean says, reaching for the lapels of Castiel's jacket. Castiel must interpret the gesture in a completely different way, because instead of getting naked, he drops to his knees. "Holy shit," Dean says.
"I do wish you would stop blaspheming," Castiel says, looking up through his lashes at Dean, before he leans in and does some things that make Dean blaspheme like it's going out of style.
Dean swims back to consciousness from the world of oh fucking God yes thank Jesus that feels so good to the feeling of Castiel's hand wrapped around the base of his dick, Castiel's warm, wet mouth wrapped around the tip.
"I thought you said you hadn't done this before," Dean gasps between deep, panting breaths.
"I haven't," Castiel says, using his hand to smear spit and pre-come over the head of Dean's dick. "But you have described the act frequently. I took notes."
Castiel goes back down like a fucking pro, no hesitation, and Dean's hips jerk up, pushing into Castiel's mouth one last time, and he loses it, coming like he hasn't in years.
"Fuck," Dean says panting, his legs barely steady enough to hold his weight. "I take it back. You can say whatever you want."
"I had hoped that you would see it my way," Castiel says, smirking. He stands up in one graceful, fluid motion, pressing up against Dean again.
"Hey," Dean says, pulling at the hem of Castiel's button-down. "Your turn." Castiel takes it the right way this time, pulling out of his clothes in angelic-assisted time. Dean guides him back so that they're lying together on the tiny, lumpy couch. Dean wraps his hand around Castiel's dick, gives it a few experimental pulls before he works out a rhythm. The angle's harder with Dean sprawled on top of Castiel the way he is, it's like Dean's jerking himself off backwards and blindfolded, but Castiel gasps like it's the best thing he's ever felt, which maybe it is.
"Yeah," Dean says, "That's it. Come on, I've got you."
"Dean," Castiel says, urgent and wild-eyed and Dean can't help the surge of little-kid I did that pride he feels. Castiel comes all over Dean's hand and stomach, and Dean wipes it off on the ugly-ass couch. After what happened with Castiel and the dishwasher last week, he already knows they're not getting the deposit back.
"You keep talking like that," Dean says, "And I'm gonna want to shut you up. This is gonna keep happening."
"I will keep that in mind," Castiel says.
August 17th (107 Days)
Two weeks after they start doing whatever the hell it is they're doing, Castiel turns to Dean and says, "I believe I should seek gainful employment."
Dean almost sprains something thinking about just how bad an idea that is.
"We're still working on the whole fitting in with humanity thing, man." Dean says. "You're not ready to join the workaday world yet, Cas. Baby steps."
"I mean it, Dean." Castiel says. "My attempts at research have gotten nowhere. I feel useless and I hate that."
"Well, I mean, what do you want to do?" Dean asks.
Castiel pauses, briefly considering. He eventually says, "I would like very much to spread the word of the Lord God."
Dean is hit with a sudden image of Castiel in priest robes, and the image freaks him out and turns him on in equal measure. Hell, no.
"Whoa, man." Dean says. "I am not sleeping with a preacher man. And I don't think that Dayton is really ready for that."
Castiel shakes his head. He says, "Though my thoughts had initially turned to the seminary, I meant something different. I was thinking of teaching."
Apparently what Castiel really means is that he's been stalking the campus of Dayton University while Dean's been at work, and he's decided that he wants to be a Professor of Theology when he grows up. The more Dean thinks about it, the more it doesn't seem like a completely stupid idea. If there's one thing Castiel knows, it's completely useless details about religion.
"Actually," Dean says, "I think that could work."
Dean has Bobby fake up a plausible back-story, a moderately impressive CV, and a bullet-proof list of references. "Like I know my ass from a hole in the ground in academia," Bobby grumbles.
"Just make him look smart," Dean pleads.
Castiel goes dream-walking a couple nights, and manages to convince a visiting professor that he's being called by God to go do missionary work in the Sudan right away. It's kind of an underhanded dick move, but the guy has the lowest scores on RateMyProfessor.com, like, ever.
Seeing as the start of the semester is a week away, the Dean of Students uses words like miracle and Godsend when Castiel just happens to wander into his office, looking for work.
Castiel starts in the fall teaching two undergraduate lectures on the Old Testament and a graduate level class in Ecclesiology. Dean doesn't admit that he has to look up the word Ecclesiology three times.
Dean's routine shifts again.
He wakes up every morning now next to Castiel. Castiel still doesn't sleep, but he usually sticks around after they have sex, and he claims that lying in the dark all night helps him focus. Dean thinks he's lying, and that he spends all night staring at Dean like a perv, but it means that if Dean wakes up early enough, they can usually go another round before breakfast.
They have breakfast together before Castiel's 1:30 discussion group. The bank gave them a free toaster when Dean added Castiel to his checking account, so now sometimes Dean has toast instead of cereal. Castiel doesn't like most food, still, but has taken to bizarrely expensive cheese bagels like a duck to water. Dean bristles at the chunk they take out of the food budget, but he perversely enjoys watching Castiel eat, so he usually lets it slide.
Dean had asked Castiel if he wanted to learn to drive when they first got to Ohio, and Castiel had said, pretty much, "No, never, no way." He'd used a lot more words, but Dean had figured out what he meant pretty quickly. So Dean drives Castiel to campus on the days he has class. Dean still doesn't know how Castiel gets home afterward, but he doesn't find twigs in his hair anymore. Gotta consider that a good sign.
They still go out on Thursday nights, but mostly they just go to dinner at a restaurant that's been recommended by someone they know. Dean tries not to think of it as date night, but his coworkers call it that anyway, because they're all jerks. Sometimes, when Castiel swings by to pick him up after his shift at work, Savira sighs and says, "I wish I was gay married, too."
On weekends they run errands, like adding to Castiel's wardrobe of boring-ass professor clothes and returning overdue library books. Castiel is still burning through the mystery section, though every once in a while he branches out into historical fiction to mock the inaccuracies.
Some nights, if Dean gets off early from work and Castiel is done with his lesson plans, they sit on the balcony drinking whiskey and watching the sun set. When Castiel manages to drink enough to get buzzed (read: when Castiel drinks them out of house and home), he teaches Dean how to curse in Enochian.
Castiel still maintains that assbutt is in fact a very insulting thing to call an angel. Dean has his doubts, but it turns out most Enochian swears actually revolve around farm animals. "In the beginning when God created the heavens and the firmament," Castiel tells him, "There really wasn't a lot to do."
Dean likes the way Castiel smiles after he says things like, "Your mother lies down with sheep." He likes it more when Castiel laughs at his half-assed attempts. Apparently, Dean's accent in Enochian makes him sound like a Mesopotamian fishmonger. Whatever the hell that sounds like.
August 23rd (113 Days)
With Castiel curled up in his arms, their mutual sweat cooling in the fake breeze of the air conditioning, Dean finally feels brave enough to ask the question he's been thinking about since day one. "Hey," Dean says into the darkness, "Are you ever going to tell me what it was you were doing in Heaven?"
"If I am going to be honest," Castiel says, "Mostly I missed you."
"Seriously, Cas," Dean says, "You gotta knock off the Hallmark card shit. I am not a woman."
"I had noticed," Castiel says, and Dean can hear the smirk in his voice, even if it's too dark to see it.
"You better have," Dean growls.
"I am not being hyperbolic," Castiel says, sounding serious again. "I missed Earth, and I missed you."
"You like it down here?" Dean asks.
"Yes," Castiel says, "Very much. I enjoyed my experience here more than I thought I did at the time."
"I swear to God, Cas," Dean says, shaking his head. "I spent months thinking you were pissed off that you were stuck here with me. Why the hell didn't you say anything?"
"I felt that I would be giving myself away and I did not want to be... the other woman." Castiel says the words like he's trying them out.
"The other woman?" Dean asks, confused. "Oh, hell, Lisa. You were waiting for Lisa to break up with me."
"Yes." Castiel says, shameless. Dean loves the way that Castiel says yes, without any hesitation or uncertainty. Even when he's admitting to being something less than a perfect angel. "When I was in heaven, I had convinced myself that you would be happier with Lisa. I had thought that Sam was correct, and that what you needed to be fulfilled would be what you refer to as a normal life. I had not considered the possibility that Sam was wrong."
"Until we were stuck here?" Dean asks. "And I was still rocking the poor, pitiful me shit?"
"Yes." Castiel says, again.
Dean doesn't really know what to say to that. He never consider that getting trapped in Ohio could be a good thing, that it could lead to something good.
"Here's what I don't get," Dean says, after a long, considering pause. "If this is God's plan for me, couldn't he have planned it in a better state than Ohio?"
"Don't you remember what you told Lisa?" Castiel asks. Dean shakes his head, because he told Lisa lot of shit, sometimes just to fill time. "The Ohio state motto is with God, all things are possible. Even an angel and a human living in sin, such as we are."
Castiel's mouth is gorgeous as it shapes the words living in sin, and Dean has to kiss him, has to keep kissing him until he's breathless and dizzy with it.
August 26th (116 Days)
It's Thursday night, Castiel's turn to pick, and he wants to go to some tapas place that does a happy hour from 3:30-5:00. His Old Testament lecture goes until 3:45, so Dean figures he'll sit through it this once and then they can just go on from there.
Dean slinks into the lecture hall, settles in the back with the slackers and the kids who use going to class as an excuse to get some sleep. Dean had thought that the students enrolled in Intro to Smiting 101 would be all preacher's daughter, Leah-from-Blue-Earth kind of young women in cardigans, but the room is filled primarily with bored-looking co-eds in hoodies.
Castiel is not, to Dean's surprise, a terrible professor. Dean had been afraid he'd be one of those teachers who gets way too into the material and makes all the kids think he's a complete freak for having a hard-on for the periodic table. Instead, the kids all sit up straight and stop talking when he walks into the room.
"Good afternoon, students," Castiel says. "Today we will be covering the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah." Dean so does not remember that being on the syllabus.
Castiel talks for 30 minutes about Lot, his pillar of salt wife, and his slutty, incestuous daughters. He also mentions how Sodom was filled with dudes that wanted to have sex with angels, and all the ways God showed humanity how that's a terrible, terrible idea. It's all Dean can do to stop himself from laughing out loud.
Dean likes the way Castiel lectures. He doesn't do the whole dry, chalk-and-talk thing that Dean remembers from high school, and instead he tells stories from the Old Testament with a sort of foot-soldier-in-the-trenches perspective.
When Castiel opens the floor up for discussion, nearly every hand in the room shoots up.
At 3:45, the room is hot-and-heavy into a debate on sexual morality, and Castiel looks a little bit overwhelmed. Dean is tempted to stand up, turn on whatever bright lights he can find, and do the whole you don't have to go home but you can't stay here speech that he does at the end of the night at work.
A kid in the front row asks why angels aren't coming to Earth to destroy Las Vegas and there's an expectant pause where the students stop sniping at each other and focus on Castiel instead.
Castiel says, "I can't say that the angels haven't considered it. A plan is usually proposed once a year to smite a city as an example, but the Host has been unable to agree upon what the most wicked city on Earth is for many hundreds of years. For my part, I usually vote for Los Angeles."
Dean laughs, because it fucking figures that they haven't been wiped out because the angels collectively can't find their asses with both hands. Lord help the human race if they ever get their shit together.
"I will see you again next week," Castiel says, and just like that, no fanfare, the students all get up and leave.
Castiel lingers down in the front until Dean can shove his way through the crowd.
"So, what you're telling me is," Dean says, "You were there when the whole Sodom and Gomorrah thing went down?"
"Yes," Castiel says, nodding. "My garrison was assigned to the entire territory of Zoar. Uriel did most of the actual smiting."
"Dude there's irony and then there's irony," Dean says, grabbing Castiel's ass. "I think I've known you at least a dozen times by now. Shouldn't you be raining hellfire on me?"
"That was a long time ago," Castiel says. "I've changed."
Dean's youthful indiscretions involved booze, bongs, and indiscriminate women. Castiel's involved turning entire cities to rubble. Now, Dean is headed to tapas and sangria with his live-in whatever and Castiel takes spiders outside when he finds them in the bathtub. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
"I'll say," Dean says.
September 3rd (124 Days)
Savira throws a dinner party with some people she knows from around town and some people from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where Brad's stationed. She invites Dean, tells him to bring Castiel, and awkwardly makes a couple stupid Don't Ask Don't Tell jokes about Brad's work friends.
Dean is all ready to fake a sudden bout of the flu, but Castiel says, "I have never been to a dinner party," and then they have to go.
Savira's apartment is crowded wall to wall with enough 20-somethings that Dean starts to feel old. He's only got 5 or 6 years on these people, so he can only imagine what Castiel feels like, having a couple millennia on everyone.
More than once, Dean hears himself introduce Castiel as his partner and immediately cringes. When the fuck did that happen?
After dinner, Savira makes a beeline straight for them, pulling Brad along behind.
"This is Brad," she chirps when she reaches them, as though there's be another 6'2" wall of muscle that she'd be dragging around the room. "Brad, this is Dean, who I work with and Castiel, who I don't remember what he does."
The way Savira described him, Brad is the kind of person where the phrase 'Professor of Theology' is going to go right over his head. Dean cuts in before Castiel can speak, and says, "He teaches religion."
Savira and Brad both pull matching you're-fucking-with-me faces.
"It's not as boring as it sounds," Dean says, which isn't even a lie. Dean's still reeling from how explicit Castiel had gotten about what the dudes had wanted to do with the angels.
"I'll take your word on that," Savira says, swaying into his personal space the way she always does. "So how did you two meet?"
Dean realizes way too late that they should have agreed on a convincing cover story before they came. All he can think is that Castiel saying gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition totally has a different context in his head now that they're sleeping together.
"Uh," Dean says, brain dead.
"I met Dean through my last job," Castiel covers, smooth as distilled vodka. "I was assigned to work his case, and I felt at the time that we shared an immediate connection."
"Oh, yeah." Dean says. "What he said."
"His case?" Savira asks, before she pulls an I-get-it-now face. "Dean, you didn't tell me he used to do social work! Oh, that totally makes everything make sense." Dean reads between the lines, puts together two and two and comes up with Savira wondering what such a together dude was doing with a fuck-up like him. "Though, man, that's like, way unethical."
"Yeah," Dean says. "You have no idea."
September 7th (128 Days)
Dean wakes up on an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday morning to the sudden awareness that he's in love with Castiel. The realization feels is like a physical sensation, like taking the first drop on a roller coaster.
Dean hasn't had a lot of good experiences with love. He loves his parents and he loves Sam, but the Winchester brand of familial love has lead to nothing but decades of pain and hardship and sacrifice. He figures he loves Bobby like a father, but they're both happier never acknowledging that shit out loud. He isn't sure if he was in love with Lisa, though he guesses if he has to ask, the answer is no. Cassie he could have seen himself having a future with, but in the end it wasn't enough for him to stay.
As much as Dean hates even thinking things like, Castiel's different, he is. Dean doesn't know what the hell it is that Castiel sees in him, sees in his soul, but he's grateful for every day that Castiel still wants to stick around.
Dean becomes obsessed with saying it, or really, obsessed with not saying it. No matter how much he wants to do it, he can't bring himself to actually say the words out loud. He just thinks them really, really loudly, and who the fuck knows, Castiel can read minds, so that might actually be enough.
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4