Shut Up (Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is) | CHAPTER TWO
Dean wakes up feeling groggy and half-dead- unsurprising, as he’s probably managed three hours of sleep at the most- and rolls over onto his side in a cool, empty bed. The sheets are soft and smell like mint and camphor, and it’s very tempting to ignore his internal clock and the weak sunlight and close his eyes again.
He hears a muffled thump from just beyond the cracked bedroom door, followed by a gasp and the clatter of something falling down what sounds like every single step of the spiral staircase.
“Cas?” he croaks.
The door is nudged open and Castiel appears, balancing a tray on one hand and holding a mug of something steaming in the other. Dean slowly sits up, braced on his elbows, and a smile spreads across his face as Castiel wobbles forward with a determined expression, almost tripping over the clothing he’d left on the floor before setting the tray on the sheets next to Dean.
"I did promise breakfast," he says, almost shyly.
‘Breakfast’ is a tower of slightly burnt toast smothered with red jam and splotches of butter, a few late-season peaches rounding out the plate. Castiel climbs onto the bed and solemnly presents the mug to Dean, about two thirds-full of black, tar-thick coffee that sloshes over the lip to drip on the sheets.
"I spilled some on my way up," he confesses. "And I dropped the silverware."
"Hey, it's toast," Dean says, taking the coffee. "No silverware necessary."
"And I should have brought napkins," Castiel frets.
Dean picks up a piece of toast, holding it like a New York-style pizza slice. “I’ve got no problem licking my fingers clean,” he says, just as a glob of jam drops onto his stomach. “Crap.”
“You might have trouble reaching that,” Castiel observes, and bends down to lap it off Dean’s skin with a matter-of-factness that has Dean snorting, even as he's squirming to get away from the sensation.
The toast is messy but the peaches are even messier, overripe and gushing. Dean ends up getting the juice all over his hands and chin, dripping down his forearms and onto his chest. "Oops," he says ingenuously, giving Castiel raised eyebrows.
Castiel's eyes twinkle, and he licks and laves and sucks until Dean drags his head up by the hair . Christ, that mouth.
“We’re going to be late,” Castiel says, smile turning smug as he’s borne down into the mattress by Dean's weight.
Dean licks the last of the juice from his lips and grins. "I think I can make it quick."
----- Original Message -----
From: swinchester@law.standford.edu
To: dean.winchester@talbotpartners.com; winchesterd@gmail.com
Cc: singerauto@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2013 08:40 AM
Subject: Still alive?
Hey, bro, haven’t heard from you in a while. Drop me a line when you get a chance, okay?
Sam
-
Sam Winchester
JD Candidate 2014
School of Law, Stanford University
swinchester@law.standford.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: singerauto@sbcglobal.net
To: dean.winchester@talbotpartners.com; winchesterd@gmail.com
Cc: swinchester@law.standford.edu
Sent: Friday, July 26, 2013 06:47 PM
Subject: Re: Still alive?
You never call, you never write… makes a man wonder if the natives finally killed you for being a Yankees fan.
-----Original Message-----
From: dean.winchester@talbotpartners.com
To: swinchester@law.standford.edu; singerauto@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Monday, July 29, 2013 09:53 AM
Subject: Re: Re: Still alive?
Jesus, Bobby, don’t send that to my company email! What if they find out?
Sorry, guys. I’m alive, I’m just really busy. Life’s been crazy- literally crazy, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I’ll call soon, okay?
-DW
Dean Winchester
Creative Director, Talbot Partners
46 Waltham Street 4th Floor
Boston MA 02118
p 617 555 5400
f 617 555 5499
Being a Yankees fan in Boston is the least of Dean’s problems, currently.
On the way into work, Dean's focus is on weaving in and out of the utterly insane snarl of traffic between them and the office, but out of the corner of his eye he thinks he catches Castiel watching him once or twice. Whenever he turns his head, though, the man’s eyes are firmly on the tortoiseshell buttons of his coat.
Well, it was a nice twenty-four hours, Dean thinks a little wistfully. Longer than he’s had with some. Maybe after they sort out this divorce thing, he and Cas can grab a beer some time like normal people.
When they’re coming up from the underground parking garage, though, Castiel abruptly turns, hooks two fingers under Dean's collar and lays a kiss on him that makes the elevator fucking spin.
"Thanks for the lift into work," Castiel says breathlessly, drawing back an inch.
"Uh huh," Dean says dazedly, swaying forward.
Castiel smiles and tilts his head up, but their lips have barely brushed before the doors open and he slips away, Dean’s ring glinting on his finger as his hand trails the length of Dean's tie. He throws Dean a look over his shoulder that has Dean ready to climb out after him, maybe find the nearest men's room and see if that mouth feels half as good as he remembers somewhere else.
"Goodbye, Dean," Castiel says, voice pitched to smolder, and the doors close in Dean's face.
Dean spends the rest of the ride up to the fourth floor grinning at his reflection like an idiot. He has to school his face quickly when he steps into the creative offices, because Benny’s head whips up like a hound scenting blood and there’s a distinctly wolfish gleam in his eye.
“I am wounded,” the man announces, shifting over in his chair to lean heavily on the edge of Dean's desk. Their workstations abut each other, which gives them more room to spread copy and color tests, but has also led to a truly staggering number of hours lost to turf wars and paper football championships.
Dean ignores him, and Benny leans in closer. “I just can't believe you'd get hitched without me. I thought we’d agreed that if I wasn’t your bride, I’d at least be your second best man after Sam,” he says with a sad headshake.
“Oh, fuck off,” Dean says resignedly, stomping behind his desk and knocking the man’s elbows out from under him with his briefcase. He’s somehow not surprised that Benny knows, since drinking with him is one of the last clear memories Dean has of Saturday night. “And keep it down, will you?”
Benny slips but catches himself, and goes right back his sad sighing and woeful stare. “Too late for that, brother. You should ask Ms. Moseley to renew your vows sometime soon. The cafeteria would be a nice venue. We could invite the whole company.”
“I don’t do weddings, funerals or birthday parties,” their office manager says from a few desks over.
“Maybe Vicky can, then,” Benny says, thumb jabbed over his shoulder.
“And maybe I can ice your ass instead,” Victor says mildly, without looking away from his monitor. "Congratulations, Mrs. Castiel Milton. You can thank Becky down in reception for broadcasting your big news to everyone in the building.”
“Are you kidding me?” Dean says, feeling a sudden cold seep of terror. Benny grins, the bastard, and points to his screen.
Dean scoots around his desk to read the text of the email Benny has up, which is just the agency’s daily briefing on appointments and absences. But sitting in the notices section, framed by bolded text and wreathed in extraneous exclamation marks, is-
“Oh my God,” Dean says, horrified.
“I think it’s a cute photo,” Victor says maliciously. “I had no idea you were such an Elvis fan. Or where you even found leis that color.”
“Oh my God,” Dean moans, a little louder. “I’m moving to Anchorage. I’m moving to Nome.”
“Not without your husband of one day, I hope,” Benny says. “Is the spark already gone, cher?”
“There was no sp-”Dean cuts himself off, because of course there's a spark, he can still feel it burning a hole in his gut whenever he thinks about Castiel too long. “He’s not really my husband, we’ve just got to file the papers!”
“Tragic,” Victor says, utterly deadpan. “What will you tell the excitable Ms. Rosen? Or the thirty dumb fucks who just hit 'reply all', Christ.”
“Oh God, no,” Dean groans into his hands. "No, no-"
“Dean!” someone shouts gleefully from the door, and Charlie sprints into the room on kitten heels and flings herself at him. “Oh my God, that’s so cool! I had no idea! Did you have bachelorette party? You have to have a party, Dean!” she says, hopping in place with her arms around his shoulders.
“Not a bachelorette,” Dean manages through her vise-like grip. In unison, Victor and Benny snort, then glare at each other.
It only gets worse from there.
People keep coming up and congratulating him, some just to engage in good-natured ribbing but others surprisingly, guilty squirm-inducingly sincere about it. Dean likes people, and most people like Dean, and even in a firm as large as Talbot Partners it shows. He barely makes any headway on his work in the morning, because every five minutes there’s another coworker 'just dropping in!' to offer their warm wishes.
Dean wants to explain, but there’s nothing he can do at this point. He can’t tell a person like freaking Naomi, who’s been the fire-breathing dragon that guards the gates to the partners' offices for longer than Dean's been alive, that he married Castiel when he was piss-drunk and plans to dissolve the union as soon as possible- especially when she graces him with a rare, rare smile and a gruff, "Good for you two.”
Dean nods stiffly and waits, petrified, until she leaves and then quickly stands, grabbing his wallet and making for the door. "I'm going to get some fresh air," he says hurriedly over his shoulder. "Or coffee. Maybe some cyanide pills-"
He turns, and bumps straight into Anna, who has her arms folded akimbo and her head angled in a way that promises violence.
"Coffee, what a good idea," she says sweetly. “Why don’t you treat me.”
Oh, crap, on top of everything else. Dean tries frantically to think of what he might have done to provoke the ghost of girlfriends past, and comes up completely blank.
"Uh, sure," he says, aware of Benny and Victor's interested stares. "Let me just- I'll get my coat."
They go to the café on the first floor, some kind of swanky Starbucks knockoff with tiny tables and tinier chairs. Anna orders some variety of frothy mocha-latte-ccino, and Dean graciously pays for it and his more modest, “Uh, coffee. Just coffee. Thanks.”
They find a corner table and sit, and Anna watches Dean stir in his sugar like she’s debating where best to hide his body. The little shredded pieces of his body, maybe; he wouldn’t put it past her to have plotted his bloody murder down to the tiniest detail. Accounts planners. Can’t trust them.
“Married in Vegas,” she muses finally, and Dean twitches. “I can certainly picture you doing it, but it seems so out of character for Castiel that I didn’t believe it until he told me it was true.”
“You... know Cas?” It’s a horrifying thought.
“Not as well as I thought I did, obviously,” she says, an amused curl to her lips. “He’s my brother.”
“Your-” Dean stares at her in horror. Castiel Milton. Anna Milton. Oh, Jesus. “Your brother?”
“Yes,” she says. “The only brother I still speak to, actually. So imagine my surprise and delight when I opened up my email this morning and saw his after-the-fact announcement.” She takes a slow, steady sip of mocha, eyeing Dean. “I’m going to assume that this is all your fault, since I find it very difficult to believe he was the one who propositioned you.”
“He, uh, says I did,” Dean mutters, glancing towards the exits. “I don’t really remember.”
“Surprise!” Anna says dryly. “And as someone intimately familiar with your brand of love ‘em and leave ‘em, I feel I can say with reasonable certainty that you have no intention of staying married. Right?”
“Uh,” Dean says, caught. “Well. No.”
“Oh, well. Too bad,” she sighs, sitting back. “He’s getting to that spinster age, and I want nieces and nephews to spoil.” She takes a noisy slurp from her cup, getting whipped cream on her upper lip in the process.
“Really?”
Anna glares. “No. I think we can both agree that the sooner he gets rid of you, the better. Just... promise me you’ll be careful about it.”
Dean frowns at her. “Careful?”
“Of Castiel. He’s very… ” She stares into the middle distance as she searches for the exact words. “He tends to take things to heart, and he has this- this desperate aversion to upsetting people. He assured me it was his choice, but if I find out you somehow took advantage of him-”
“He’s a grown man, Anna,” Dean says, aggrieved. “It’s not like we had this big romantic courtship and I promised him the stars or something. We got drunk, probably messed around a little, and then for some god-awful reason decided to get married by a Hawaiian Elvis,” he says with a shudder. He still hasn’t figured that part out. “He’ll be fine.”
Anna smiles ruefully down at her mocha. “Don’t take it the wrong way, Dean. As a big sister I’m contractually obligated to threaten you. What if some sleazy bastard you’d picked up at a party once tricked Sam into marrying them, hmm?”
Dean would find them and gut them, but that’s irrelevant. “I’m not sleazy! And I didn’t trick him.”
“You said you don’t remember,” she points out, but her small grin says she’s just playing with him now.
“I’m a lot of things, but I’m not like that,” Dean says. “If he didn’t want to get married to me, he could have just said so.”
“Yes,” Anna says, a thoughtful look in her eye. “Yes, I suppose he could have.”
The conversation leaves him uneasy for reasons he can’t quite pin down, so Dean throws himself into the afternoon’s client meetings with grateful abandon. There are always proposals to run and cold calls to make, and he takes the ones that send him halfway across town just to get away from the building, where a slowly rising tide of hastily-signed cards, cheap flower arrangements and even a set of casserole dishes from some over-prepared busybody is incrementally taking over his desk. If one more well-wisher comments on what a cute couple they make, Dean just might deck them, and he doesn’t need that on his annual performance review.
Dean genuinely loves his job, and loves it best on days like this, when he can roll down the Impala’s windows and just cruise through the narrow winding streets of downtown on his way to the next meeting. The cool breeze smells like rain and wet concrete and a few stray drops hit his windshield, but Dean is safely inside when it begins to rain in earnest, looking over a campaign for a small cupcake chain struggling to get a foothold in the already-glutted market for bakeries in Southie.
Talbot Partners has big-name clients on both coasts, companies that shell out millions of dollars every year for everything from billboards to magazine spreads, and Dean can’t say he hates the billables they generate but he likes this more- talking to the owner of a business one on one, really seeing a company’s soul so that he can bring it to the drawing table. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the owners in questions, at least on this job, are two button-cute grandmothers and that they insist on feeding him during every consultation.
The grannies and their cupcakes are doing a great job of keeping his mind off of things when it suddenly occurs to him, about halfway through the most deliciously-frosted thing he’s ever put in his mouth, that Castiel doesn’t have a ride home.
Then it doesn’t stop occurring to him, throughout the rest of the meeting, walking to his car, hitting every fucking stoplight until he smacks the wheel and sighs, “Damn it.”
It’s just polite, right? He can’t leave the guy stranded at the office.
And his apartment in Charlestown is just a few blocks away. If he hurries, he can grab a suit and tie for tomorrow.
The firm’s accounting department takes much longer to locate than he expected. After wandering up and down the first floor hallway for a few minutes, he finds it housed in an unmarked suite, a long, windowless room filled with rows of cubicles taller than Dean is. They block his view of the corners and give the impression of beige fabric walls extending into infinity. There’s a quiet, directionless hum of soft voices and muffled footsteps, and the clatter of keyboards is easily the loudest thing in the room.
Dean edges uncertainly through the door, coming up to the empty reception desk and scanning the vicinity for someone to approach. He’d kind of hoped Castiel would be front and center, or at least immediately visible, so he could just grab him and go. What few people he can see are deep in focus on their respective monitors. A woman bustles past Dean holding a ream of paper, and doesn’t even seem to hear his, “Excuse me, ma’am?”
He steps directly into the path of the next person, and the man nearly runs into him, blinking rapidly as he’s forced to stop short. “Oh, I’m sorry. Are you lost? Payroll is across the hall-”
“I’m looking for Castiel Milton,” Dean says.
The man looks even more nonplussed. “Why?”
Dean stares at him disbelievingly. “Does it matter?”
“Well, I can’t just interrupt him,” the man blusters. “Do you have an appointment?”
Dean waves at the unoccupied reception desk. The plant on the corner is a dry, desiccated husk and the blank nameplate hasn’t been dusted in months, if not years. “Exactly who would I be making an appointment with, huh?”
“Inias,” someone hisses, and a boy in the worst-fitting suitjacket Dean has ever seen appears at the man’s side. “Inias, that’s him.”
The man-presumably Inias- looks down at him. “Who?”
“Hello, Mr. Winchester,” the boy says nervously, standing up very straight. Everything about him screams ‘intern!’, from the suit two sizes too big to the gel cementing his hair into a smarmy sidesweep, circa the fifties. “Mr. Milton’s desk is this way, if you’ll follow me?” His voice cracks on the last word.
“Thank you,” Dean says, exasperated, and he follows the boy into the rows of cubicles.
Castiel is in a far-flung corner of the room in an actual office, glare from the fluorescent lights tempered by the butter-toned glow of a lamp on his desk. He’s surrounded on all sides by unstable-looking piles of paper and folders, frowning intently at a stack of Excel spreadsheets with a paper coffee cup halfway to his lips, like he’d forgotten about it mid-sip.
“Sir,” the boy says, and Castiel glances up, eyes narrowing in that already-familiar squint of confusion.
“Yes, Alfie?”
Dean leans around the boy and lifts a hand. “Hey.”
Castiel drops his coffee.
“Oh, God- bless it,” he says, the front of his shirt and his pants soaked, milky liquid dripping down his tie and onto the floor. He pulls the material away from his chest and looks up with a resigned expression. “Hello, Dean.”
Alfie yelps, “I’ll get some paper towels from the break room!” and runs off. Dean is acutely aware of the half-dozen heads popping out of the cubicles around them, and the growing susurrus of whispers.
“Sorry, is it hot?” Dean tries, reaching out.
“No, just mortifying,” Castiel mutters, grimacing as he pushes back from his desk and stands. “Did you... need to talk to me?”
“Well,” Dean says awkwardly. “It’s getting close to quitting time.”
“Uh- yes?” Castiel looks at the clock on the wall and back. “Yes,” he confirms.
Dean puts a hand on the back of his neck at looks down at the carpet, the ugliest maroon needlefelt he’s ever laid eyes on. “I thought, since I gave you a ride in, and I don’t know how you usually get home…”
“Oh,” Castiel says, still staring at him. “Oh!”
“Uh, yeah,” Dean says gruffly.
“I usually just take the subway, and a bus,” Castiel says.
“Okay,” Dean says, feeling ridiculous. “Sorry, then, I’ll just-”
“But I wouldn’t mind a ride,” the man rushes to add. And then, like a gavel or a guillotine, his gaze falls to the small, fussy box in Dean’s hand, tied with a pretty pink bow because the grannies had insisted.
“And I, um. Brought you a cupcake,” Dean says offhandedly, like he can’t feel his face turning the same color as the fuck-ugly carpet. Son of a bitch. “From a client.”
“Oh,” Castiel says again, in a completely different tone, and when Dean looks up he’s starting to smile.
Alfie chooses this moment to come running back with the paper towels, followed closely by Inias and two others. Castiel, still dripping all over the carpet, looks alarmed.
“Balthazar, Hester, there’s really no need-”
“You’re real,” the woman, presumably Hester, says. It takes Dean a second to realize she’s talking to him.
“Last time I checked, yeah,” he says cautiously. “Why?”
Balthazar nudges her in the ribs and holds out a hand. “Pay up.”
“No, wait,” she tells him, still looking at Dean. “You actually married him? This man here? Of your own free will?” she says, pointing at Castiel, who’s glaring hotly at everyone as he mops himself up.
Dean holds up his left hand in mute response.
“Pay up,” Balthazar crows.
“We thought perhaps Ms. Rosen had photoshopped your face into the picture,” Inias confides, looking much happier now that Dean’s identity has been confirmed.
“You’re even more delectable than Castiel insisted you were,” Balthazar chimes in.
At that, Castiel’s head whips up and he pins her with a hard stare. “I hardly think that’s pertinent information,” he snaps, but the damage is done.
Dean leans against the office wall and grins. "You were talking about me?"
"We should leave before rush hour," Castiel announces loudly, and he grabs his coat, a briefcase and a handful of Dean's sleeve before barreling through the assembling crowd.
"Your ass is even nicer in person, too!" Balthazar calls after them, and Castiel makes an inarticulate noise of rage and walks even faster.
“So, the accounting department knows too,” Dean says when they're in the hallway, half-jogging to keep pace with Castiel's quick steps.
“The daily briefing is interdepartmental, yes,” Castiel says, hardly slowing to shrug his coat on. It hangs off of his lean frame like so much sailing canvas, baggy and shapeless. “There was general consensus that no one as attractive as you would possibly deign to sleep with me, let alone endure the Wedding March played on a ukulele.”
Dean sputters out a laugh. “You’re kidding.”
Castiel gives him a flat stare.
“You’re not kidding. That actually happened?”
“You are the one who picked the venue,” Castiel says waspishly, jabbing fiercely at the elevator buttons.
"Hey," Dean tries as the doors slide open and they step inside. "Hey, come on." He pulls Castiel around to face him, squeezing Castiel's shoulders. "I hate to break it to you, but you’re pretty 'delectable', too. For an accountant.”
“Assistant Controller of Finance,” Castiel says irritably. “And yes, I know. They seemed to think my personality would be the issue.”
Dean laughs again. “Well, I kinda like that, too,” he says.
It comes out unintentionally soft and confessional in the quiet of the elevator, and Dean feels a little uncomfortable until Castiel sighs, deflating under his hands. "I'm sorry," the man says.
"For what?"
"For them," he says. "For that picture. I have no idea how the receptionist found it. I know you didn't want-"
"Hey, it's fine," Dean says. The elevator doors open and they step out into the warmer, muggier air of the parking garage. "It's not your fault. If anything, it's mine." Fucking ukuleles. Jesus Christ.
“The paperwork is fairly simple,” Castiel says abruptly. “We’ll have to get a copy of our marriage license from the state of Nevada, which may take a week or two.”
“For-? Oh,” Dean says quietly. “Right.”
They walk in subdued silence to the Impala, where Dean's forgotten the cassette he left playing until Led Zeppelin comes screaming out of the speakers. Castiel, frozen in the middle of pulling on his seatbelt, stares owl-eyed until Dean cranks it down.
"What was that?" he asks.
Dean looks at him in surprise, fingers hesitating on the dial. "What? Never heard it before?"
Castiel is still giving the speakers a suspicious stare. "Not that I'm aware."
"Then, Cas, allow me to introduce 'Black Dog," Dean says, and cranks it right back up.
The house shows its age more obviously in daylight, whole sections of cedar siding missing on the windward corners, brick and stone crumbling under the grasping tendrils of ivy. Dean would honestly think the lot was abandoned if he hadn’t just spent the night there.
They get there a little after six and Dean walks Castiel to the door, where a small calico cat is waiting just to the side of an empty planter.
"Oh, you're back," Castiel says to it, and immediately stoops and picks the cat up. It blinks lazily at Dean as Castiel fumbles one-handed with his keys.
"You have a cat?"
"Sometimes, yes," Castiel answers distractedly, and bodily slams the door open on a long, drawn-out shriek of the hinges. Jesus, first thing on Dean's list is oil for the damn things-
Castiel steps inside and turns, standing across the threshold from Dean. Dean, caught by surprise, stops short.
“Well,” Castiel says bracingly. “Thank you for taking me home.”
“Oh. It was nothing,” Dean says, left flat-footed.
They stare at each other, and it gives Dean the sudden feeling like these past two days have been one long marathon date and they're both debating whether it rates a goodnight kiss.
Dean glances out into the yard. The shadows under the trees have the chill of deep water, twilight on the tipping edge of true night.
“It’s getting late,” he says.
“Yes,” Castiel agrees, cat draped bonelessly over his shoulder.
Dean clears his throat, studying the rough stone at his feet. “I’m pretty wiped. I’d hate to hit a deer or something on my way back.”
Castiel nods, slowly. “It would be a pity.”
“And there's all that leftover toast in the fridge,” Dean says, looking up through his lashes. It's a good angle for him, and he knows it.
“Would you like to take some home?” Castiel asks solicitously, and Dean sighs.
“I was actually thinking that you could invite me in, I could cook you a real dinner and we could have sex all over your giant bed again,” he says, looking directly into Castiel’s face.
“Oh,” Castiel says, tongue sliding out to wet his lower lip. "Yes, that- that sounds acceptable."
Dean steps up, and Castiel steps back, and Dean pulls the door closed behind them.
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