The water is bluer in dreamscapes
Title:The water is bluer in dreamscapes
Author: sa_kun
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/pairings: Dean, Sam, Castiel
Rating: Teen and up
Word Count: 3,5k
Summary: Dean stops having sex after Hell.
Disclaimer: Not mine
Author’s Notes: AU after season five, some spoilers up until that point. [Ps: I like the spoiler cut.] Ace!Dean Once upon a time, long ago, I sent this to the lovely runawaydreamer for some much needed beta help. Shortly after, I promptly forgot all about this fic. I'm posting it now! If you would rather read elsewhere, this fic is also up on a AO3.
Dean stops having sex after Hell.
Sex is tied up in Before, in Dad and Sammy. It was never about him - about Dean - or at least he doesn’t think so. Physically, an orgasm is an orgasm, and no matter how Dean ever gets one, it feels kinda nice, you know? He doesn’t like the way his skin crawls, though, or the way he has to take long showers afterward, or how he sometimes can’t sleep because there were hands touching him. He doesn’t like how invasive it is, or how he’d rather be anywhere but there, doing anything but that. He doesn’t like that bit at all.
So the whole “he stops having sex” thing is kind of just him not having the energy or inclination to keep up an act he should’ve quit years ago. Why the hell does he have to explain himself, anyway? It’s just, before Hell, there were expectations to live up to, shoes to fill and pictures to fit. Now, afterward… Now, he's just Dean again, empty and hollow like he hasn’t been in years. He’s just himself now; no more, no less. It’s enough that he has to keep going, day after day. It’s enough.
.ö.
The first time Dean has sex, he’s twenty-one and it’s only because he’s talked himself into a corner he can’t get out of. Dad expects him to flirt with girls, so he does (Dad gave him odd, searching looks for years, actually, because Dean never really got the whole “girls are awesome” deal, but then Sammy asked if Dean was gay, so Dean stepped up and tried to act like the guys at school had), because Dad’s maybe more afraid of Dean being gay than Dean is indifferent toward sex in general.
After that, Dean doesn’t have sex for a long time, not until Dad starts looking at him again, dropping comments and badly veiled questions. So Dean starts to make a habit out of it: he’ll go out, get drunk, flirt, then, well. If he’s lucky, the girls will just blow him, then leave. Closing his eyes and thinking of the metaphorical England kind of tends to work for him.
After Hell, Dad’s gone - it’s just Dean and Sammy now. It’s easier, ‘cause Sam’s never liked it when Dean goes out to get drunk and get laid, anyway, so he plays on that. He stays in, cleaning guns, watching crappy television or surfing the internet. It’s busy (it’s the Apocalypse, of-fucking-course it’s busy), so Dean gets away with it for way longer than he would have before, when Dad was still around. Dean has nightmares about his time in Hell, has scars on his soul and a shit-load of issues, so he figures that helps in keeping Sam off his back as well.
.ö.
“Dean,” Sam says one day. It’s late spring, they’re in Florida, and the world didn’t end. It doesn’t get much better than that, Dean thinks, and leans back in his chair, legs stretched out in front of him and feet crossed at the ankle. There’s beer, his brother is here, he’s never been more content in his life and the only way it’d get better were if Cas was here, too. That’d be pretty much picture perfect, actually.
“Sam,” Dean replies when it’s clear that his brother won’t say anything more than that. Not without prompting, at least. They’re on a pier and the water is glittering blue spread out across the horizon in front of them.
“Dude…”
“What?”
Sam sighs - long, loud and hard.
“Any reason you’re sounding like a dying hippo, man?” Dean asks, sparing a glance for his brother. He shouldn’t have, he realizes immediately; Sam looks awkward, face all frowny and his bottom lip sticking out. “No way. No chick-flick moments,” Dean protests at once. “Whatever you’re thinking, just no.”
“But, Dean,” Sam cuts in.
“But nothing, Sammy.”
“I’m just worried, man!” Sam blurts out. “I just. Dean. I don’t even remember the last time I saw you flirt with someone,” he says quietly.
The only way for Dean not to tense up would have been if Sam had just kept his fucking mouth shut. But he didn’t, so Dean does. “Ain’t none of your business, bitch,” he says as pleasantly as possible, which isn’t very.
“Dean-”
“Dammit- Fucking no, Sam.”
.ö.
Sam doesn’t bring it up again, not for weeks, and Dean doesn’t step up his game. He doesn’t flirt, doesn’t take anyone up on their offers, doesn’t get drunk and fuck someone in some back alley somewhere. He dreams a lot, though, mojo-ed up fake-dreams where he and Cas mostly sit side by side and watch a park or a setting sun or a lake or something. He knows they’re real because the handprint on his shoulder acts up the way it only does when Castiel’s around. They don’t talk much in the dreams - they don’t really need to - but it’s enough to put Dean’s demons to rest for a while longer.
.ö.
They’re in Chicago when Sam brings it up again, sequestered away in a “bar”- Actually, no, fuck that: it’s a coffee shop that Dean would never go to if the choice was left to him. For one, this place serves coffee as well as grilled sandwiches instead of beer and burgers. For another, there’s a huge rainbow flag strapped to the wall behind the shelf where the rows of whiskey bottles would’ve been if this was actually a bar. Two honking big reasons as to why this isn’t a place Dean would pick, but it’s just the kind of place his princess geek of a brother sometimes gets off on dragging them to.
“So, um,” Sam says, setting down their coffees on the table while one of the young guys who works there puts down their sandwiches and fries before taking off with a smile.
“What the hell, Sammy?” Dean demands, poking at his food. “Is there spinach in this?”
Sam’s eye roll is epic and practically audible. “It’s lettuce, idiot.”
“Cucumber?”
“Tomato,” Sam corrects.
Dean’s eyes are narrowed, but he accepts Sam’s word as true because he doesn’t question the food further. He does start eating his fries, though, possibly because the grilled sandwich is still smoking. “Don’t see why we couldn’t stick to a place that actually serves real food, like burgers,” he mutters.
“You always pick,” Sam snaps.
“‘Cause I’m older and wiser than you.”
“Older, yeah,” Sam agrees. “Wiser?”
“Dude,” Dean warns.
“Fine, whatever.”
They enjoy the rest of their meal in silence, only exchanging the occasional comment.
“You want pie?” Sam asks.
Dean’s eyes are wary and suspicious. “They have pie?”
Sam laughs. “Dude, of course they have pie. Berries or something. More coffee?”
Dean nods, and Sam takes off toward the counter again. There’s not much of a line at this time of the day, hours after lunch and hours before dinner (Winchesters have never exactly stuck to conventional meal times). When Sam comes back with the pie and drinks, Dean’s stacked their old plates and pushed them to a far corner of the table.
“So, uh, I was thinking,” Sam starts once Dean’s halfway through his pie.
“What?”
Sam shrugs, but he doesn’t look nearly as comfortable as he’s trying to and they both know it. “You know how I asked if you were gay when I was, what, sixteen?”
“Seventeen,” Dean counters, eyes a bit narrowed. “Why?”
Sam shrugs again. “I don’t know, man. But you haven’t been flirting lately, and I thought maybe-”
“I’m not queer, dude.”
Sam outright laughs at that. “Dude, we’re so queer,” he declares. “We don’t even fit the mold for normal most days and you know it, jerk.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Fine, but I’m not a homo.”
“But-”
“No butts,” Dean counters, smirking. “None.”
“Hilarious.” Sam’s voice is deadpan. “But, Dean, it’s okay if you are.”
“I know that, dickface. I’m not, though. Can I eat my pie now?”
“Yeah, Dean,” Sam sighs. “Eat your pie.”
Dean does, resolutely, and enjoys it as much as he possibly can. Sam’s not Dad, they both know that. Sam’s a giant geek, he went to Stanford, did the college bit, had the hot girlfriend and, on occasion, takes his brother to gay places. So, no, he’s not “afraid” Dean’s homo the way Dad’d been.
.ö.
“Hey, Sam?” he says later that night, when they’re both in bed, Sam with his laptop doing something Dean’s better off not knowing, and Dean with half an eye on the crappy sci-fi flick on TV. Sam grunts, so Dean goes on, “You like doing laundry?”
“Uh, no,” Sam drawls.
“No?”
“It’s boring, Dean. Kind of like watching paint dry.”
Dean chuckles. Then he flips the TV off, burrows under the scratchy motel covers and yawns. “That’s kind of what sex’s like to me,” he says, then adds in a slow, languid murmur, “Also messy and disgusting.” He closes his eyes and lets Cas’ mojo pull him under to their constructed dreamscape.
It’s a zoo, that night. The only animals are ducks, most of which are fluffy, squeaky and playful.
.ö.
“Hey, Dean?” Sam starts the next morning.
“Pancakes, bitch,” Dean says, then he’s out the door.
As far as diversion tactics go, this one holds solid for about an hour.
.ö.
“What d’you mean, sex is like doing laundry?”
Dean pauses in his quest of sharpening his favorite knife. He was using a brand-new whetstone, too. “You got a hearing problem?” Dean drawls.
“Uh, no, I just. Are you doing it wrong or something?”
Dean laughs. It’s bitter, lasts too long, and is way more scornful than laughter normally warrants. “Hell yeah, I’m doing it wrong, bitch. I never fucking wanted to in the first place, so yeah, I did it fucking wrong,” he snaps.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Sam demands. “You’ve been going out to get laid since I was a kid, Dean!”
Dean snorts. He puts down his knife, puts the whetstone to the side, then turns to face his brother. “Don’t give me that shit,” Dean tells him. “Me? I was fucking twenty-one the first time I had sex, Sam. I hated it, but it made Dad happy and kept him off my back ‘cause you were nosing around, asking questions about if I was gay or not. But then it was like I’d opened the floodgates on it, like, started some evil cycle or something, ‘cause every time I stopped doing it? Dad was there, giving me shit about it. So it just kept on going and going, ‘til I was so fucking sick of it, it was all I could do not to throw up.”
Sam blinks. His forehead is furrowed, his eyes are wide and he’s biting his lips. “But sex is supposed to feel good,” he says lamely.
“Don’t give me that crap,” Dean says and rolls his eyes. “It’s fucking invasive and creeps me the hell out.”
“What are you talking about, Dean?”
Dean huffs. “I’m saying I don’t want sex, all right?” he snaps. “Fucking bitch.” Dean tears out of the room, into his car, then drifts around. He doesn’t come back to the motel until the sun’s on its way down over the horizon (it’s not like they’re working a case or anything; no deadlines to meet). Sam’s gone, so Dean doesn’t stick around either.
.ö.
Dean finds himself at a rundown old movie theater. From the looks of it, it’s been shut down for a while and breaking in is child’s play. He mucks about inside, checking out old posters from crappy movies no one remembers, then sets up the projector with a roll of film dubbed “#16”. He’s halfway through the second roll when his phone rings. He knows who it is, of course, doesn’t even need to check the display or anything.
“Hey, Sam,” he says.
“Dean! Where the fuck are you?”
Dean shrugs. On the off-white screen, a zombie is hacked to pieces by a couple of animated shovels. “Abandoned movie theater,” he says. “Right by the edge of town, where that weird statue is with the wheel and the bowl.”
Sam babbles on, of course he does, but twenty minutes later he’s shouldering his way inside the projector room with bags of take-out, apologetic expression on his face and a six-pack of beer. Dean pretty much forgives him on the spot - no sense in holding grudges, right?
“What the hell are you watching?” Sam demands after five minutes, when a vicious little fluffy bunny eviscerates a fucking bear.
“I have no idea, man,” Dean answers. The food is warm, a little bit spicy and a lot greasy, but it’s enough to remind Dean he hasn’t eaten since breakfast. He tucks in with gusto even though it’s Chinese food when he’d been craving a meaty, cheesy pizza. “There was this weird fairy in the beginning, waved his wand and then exploded when a cat rubbed up against his foot. Yeah, I don’t know, man.”
Sam blinks. He remains quiet when the chopped up zombies return and fuse together with the rabbit to form a huge monster, and simply offers Dean a new beer, then drains his own bottle.
“You ever tried it with guys?” Sam asks a while later. Dean’s started a new roll of film, this one animated, untitled and a whole lot better than whatever the fuck “#16” was.
“Still not gay, man.”
Sam frowns. “No, I know, but-”
“Sam, let me ask you this: you ever have sex with someone you’re not attracted to? Not sweet on?”
Sam shakes his head. “No. I mean, sometimes, maybe I wasn’t interested in it right off the bat when Jess was in the mood, but it wasn’t like it took a lot of convincing on her part to get me in on the game either, you know?”
Dean shrugs. Says, “No, I don’t know.”
Sam frowns. “How do you not know, man?”
“It’s easy. I’ve never been sexually attracted to anyone in my life, Sam. Never, not once.”
“But you watch porn!” Sam blurts.
“So? That’s just me; my hand, my dick and some girls on a screen.” Sam grimaces at that, but Dean ignores him. “Look, man, the only time I like getting off is when I do it to myself, on my terms, all right? I don’t like sex with other people. I hate it when people touch me like that; it just doesn’t do it for me. Tell you the truth: if I never have sex again in my life, that’ll be way too soon.”
Sam’s quiet for a while after that. Dean can practically see him mull it over, as the great cogwheels turn and turn inside Sam’s giant brain. “What does that mean, Dean?” Sam asks when he’s done thinking it over. “You’re asexual?”
Dean shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m not big on labels, you know that.”
“But what about Cas?”
This time, it’s Dean who frowns. “What about him?”
“What about him?” Sam echoes, sounding a little incredulous. “Dude, he has the biggest crush on you I’ve ever seen. He fucking watches you sleep, man.”
“Cas is a little creep, all right,” Dean says under his breath.
“I know you like him, too,” Sam fills in. “Don’t pretend you don’t.”
“Dude’s my best friend other than you,” Dean agrees.
“So you don’t…”
“Don’t…?”
Sam shrugs. He looks a little embarrassed, a little hesitant. “I thought you stopped flirting with women ‘cause you were involved, Dean. Then I thought maybe you were just gay and sick of hiding, which’s why I dragged us around to those gay places, but I guess that’s not it.”
“You don’t say,” Dean drawls. He fishes the last of his fried noodles out of the box, then moves on to one of the smaller ones. It’s got deep-fried bananas in it, and Dean makes short work of them.
“Thing is, though,” Dean says much later, drinking beer number three. “Thing is that Cas isn’t human. He doesn’t get our hang-ups. You know how he is.”
“Uh-huh,” Sam agrees.
“So, it’s okay,” Dean says. “It’s okay with him.”
“What d’you mean?”
“I mean that he doesn’t give a damn about me being who I am. He doesn’t read too much into anything, and that’s pretty damn great and relaxing like you wouldn’t believe. Besides, dude dragged me out of Hell and pieced me back together; doesn’t get more intimate than that.”
“Relaxing?”
Dean shrugs and looks away. “Look,” he says. “When you hang out with someone. Say, this really hot chick. And you talk, laugh and just try to have a good time, right? Say, you’re drinking coffee or shooting the shit about muscle cars or something. I can’t do that, not like I can with you or with Cas, and he doesn’t know the first thing about what makes a car tick.”
Sam looks frustrated and confused. “Why not? I mean-”
“‘Cause basically every girl I’ve ever done shit like that with wanted me to fuck them, all right? No one goes to a bar or a, a club or whatever to talk, man! And, yeah, guys don’t exactly think I’m hitting on them when I’m not, but unless we’re in some gay hangout place, they’re not gonna appreciate some random dude striking up a conversation and then they’re gonna want to fuck anyway. So this thing with Cas, it’s fucking nice, all right? No expectations, no holding back ‘cause you’re afraid they’ll read too much into it, no weird touches and shit, no veiled suggestions that you should go someplace else. You know, I once got chewed out ‘cause I took a look at some girl’s car when she asked me if I wanted to ‘take a look under the hood’? I fucking hate sexual innuendos, man. Or, or, that time in high school when some other girl wanted us to go to the movies, then was pissed as hell at me when I spent two hours watching the fucking movie!” Dean snaps. Shaking his head, he runs a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “Sorry,” he mutters.
“I don’t think I understand,” Sam says after a while, after enough minutes have gone by that they can pretend they didn’t just have a moment or that Dean basically just ranted about his feelings. Or something. “I don’t think I can, because to me sex is great and wonderful, and I don’t understand how anyone couldn’t like it. But… I’ll back off, okay? I mean, you’re my brother, man. If I don’t have your back, who will?”
Dean shrugs. “This is getting sappy,” he mutters.
Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, whatever. I just… don’t you get lonely, Dean?”
Dean raises an eyebrow. “I’ve got you, Cas, and the Busty Asian Beauties, Sammy. What more do I need?”
.ö.
“Dean.”
“Hey, Cas.”
“You and this lake, huh?”
“It’s your mind, Dean.”
Dean laughs, but then there’s space next to him because his chair is a couch that you just sink right down into. Castiel sits without prompting, face a little frowny as he stares out at the constructed lake with all the sunlight reflecting off of it.
“You okay, man?”
“I’m fine. You seem more at ease lately.”
“It’s been a good year.”
“Yes.”
They sit in silence, after that. Cas staring at the horizon (that he’d created in the first place, hadn’t he?) and Dean staring at Cas. It wasn’t that there was a breaking point, because there wasn’t in that sense, but at some point Dean becomes aware that Cas is staring back at him, eyes warm and blue and soft. Bedroom eyes, Dean would call it, if this had been any other situation (that is, if Dean wasn’t Dean and Cas wasn’t Cas).
“What?”
“You were staring.” Castiel’s lips twitches. “I thought that was my trademark,” he says in that awkward way, where he’s trying to do something that doesn’t come naturally to his angelic nature. Or something. “After all, I’m a creeper, right?”
Dean laughs. “Dude, you’re the worst creeper. No, I was just…”
“What?”
“Nothing. I don’t know. Me and Sam…”
“It’s good that you’re talking about your emotions,” Cas says, when Dean can’t make head or tails of what he’s trying to get out.
“Dude, have you been sneaking and creeping around again?”
Cas suddenly looks very shifty. “No,” he says, but Dean hears ‘yes’.
“Just drop by whenever, man.”
“You looked busy.”
Dean laughs. “Cas, we’re never too busy for you. I. I’m never, you know.”
“I know.” Castiel puts a hand on his thigh, leans close until there’s barely any space separating their noses because Cas still hasn’t got the whole “personal space” deal down under pat. “Dean. You’re important to me, too.”
Author: sa_kun
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/pairings: Dean, Sam, Castiel
Rating: Teen and up
Word Count: 3,5k
Summary: Dean stops having sex after Hell.
Disclaimer: Not mine
Author’s Notes: AU after season five, some spoilers up until that point. [Ps: I like the spoiler cut.] Ace!Dean Once upon a time, long ago, I sent this to the lovely runawaydreamer for some much needed beta help. Shortly after, I promptly forgot all about this fic. I'm posting it now! If you would rather read elsewhere, this fic is also up on a AO3.
Dean stops having sex after Hell.
Sex is tied up in Before, in Dad and Sammy. It was never about him - about Dean - or at least he doesn’t think so. Physically, an orgasm is an orgasm, and no matter how Dean ever gets one, it feels kinda nice, you know? He doesn’t like the way his skin crawls, though, or the way he has to take long showers afterward, or how he sometimes can’t sleep because there were hands touching him. He doesn’t like how invasive it is, or how he’d rather be anywhere but there, doing anything but that. He doesn’t like that bit at all.
So the whole “he stops having sex” thing is kind of just him not having the energy or inclination to keep up an act he should’ve quit years ago. Why the hell does he have to explain himself, anyway? It’s just, before Hell, there were expectations to live up to, shoes to fill and pictures to fit. Now, afterward… Now, he's just Dean again, empty and hollow like he hasn’t been in years. He’s just himself now; no more, no less. It’s enough that he has to keep going, day after day. It’s enough.
.ö.
The first time Dean has sex, he’s twenty-one and it’s only because he’s talked himself into a corner he can’t get out of. Dad expects him to flirt with girls, so he does (Dad gave him odd, searching looks for years, actually, because Dean never really got the whole “girls are awesome” deal, but then Sammy asked if Dean was gay, so Dean stepped up and tried to act like the guys at school had), because Dad’s maybe more afraid of Dean being gay than Dean is indifferent toward sex in general.
After that, Dean doesn’t have sex for a long time, not until Dad starts looking at him again, dropping comments and badly veiled questions. So Dean starts to make a habit out of it: he’ll go out, get drunk, flirt, then, well. If he’s lucky, the girls will just blow him, then leave. Closing his eyes and thinking of the metaphorical England kind of tends to work for him.
After Hell, Dad’s gone - it’s just Dean and Sammy now. It’s easier, ‘cause Sam’s never liked it when Dean goes out to get drunk and get laid, anyway, so he plays on that. He stays in, cleaning guns, watching crappy television or surfing the internet. It’s busy (it’s the Apocalypse, of-fucking-course it’s busy), so Dean gets away with it for way longer than he would have before, when Dad was still around. Dean has nightmares about his time in Hell, has scars on his soul and a shit-load of issues, so he figures that helps in keeping Sam off his back as well.
.ö.
“Dean,” Sam says one day. It’s late spring, they’re in Florida, and the world didn’t end. It doesn’t get much better than that, Dean thinks, and leans back in his chair, legs stretched out in front of him and feet crossed at the ankle. There’s beer, his brother is here, he’s never been more content in his life and the only way it’d get better were if Cas was here, too. That’d be pretty much picture perfect, actually.
“Sam,” Dean replies when it’s clear that his brother won’t say anything more than that. Not without prompting, at least. They’re on a pier and the water is glittering blue spread out across the horizon in front of them.
“Dude…”
“What?”
Sam sighs - long, loud and hard.
“Any reason you’re sounding like a dying hippo, man?” Dean asks, sparing a glance for his brother. He shouldn’t have, he realizes immediately; Sam looks awkward, face all frowny and his bottom lip sticking out. “No way. No chick-flick moments,” Dean protests at once. “Whatever you’re thinking, just no.”
“But, Dean,” Sam cuts in.
“But nothing, Sammy.”
“I’m just worried, man!” Sam blurts out. “I just. Dean. I don’t even remember the last time I saw you flirt with someone,” he says quietly.
The only way for Dean not to tense up would have been if Sam had just kept his fucking mouth shut. But he didn’t, so Dean does. “Ain’t none of your business, bitch,” he says as pleasantly as possible, which isn’t very.
“Dean-”
“Dammit- Fucking no, Sam.”
.ö.
Sam doesn’t bring it up again, not for weeks, and Dean doesn’t step up his game. He doesn’t flirt, doesn’t take anyone up on their offers, doesn’t get drunk and fuck someone in some back alley somewhere. He dreams a lot, though, mojo-ed up fake-dreams where he and Cas mostly sit side by side and watch a park or a setting sun or a lake or something. He knows they’re real because the handprint on his shoulder acts up the way it only does when Castiel’s around. They don’t talk much in the dreams - they don’t really need to - but it’s enough to put Dean’s demons to rest for a while longer.
.ö.
They’re in Chicago when Sam brings it up again, sequestered away in a “bar”- Actually, no, fuck that: it’s a coffee shop that Dean would never go to if the choice was left to him. For one, this place serves coffee as well as grilled sandwiches instead of beer and burgers. For another, there’s a huge rainbow flag strapped to the wall behind the shelf where the rows of whiskey bottles would’ve been if this was actually a bar. Two honking big reasons as to why this isn’t a place Dean would pick, but it’s just the kind of place his princess geek of a brother sometimes gets off on dragging them to.
“So, um,” Sam says, setting down their coffees on the table while one of the young guys who works there puts down their sandwiches and fries before taking off with a smile.
“What the hell, Sammy?” Dean demands, poking at his food. “Is there spinach in this?”
Sam’s eye roll is epic and practically audible. “It’s lettuce, idiot.”
“Cucumber?”
“Tomato,” Sam corrects.
Dean’s eyes are narrowed, but he accepts Sam’s word as true because he doesn’t question the food further. He does start eating his fries, though, possibly because the grilled sandwich is still smoking. “Don’t see why we couldn’t stick to a place that actually serves real food, like burgers,” he mutters.
“You always pick,” Sam snaps.
“‘Cause I’m older and wiser than you.”
“Older, yeah,” Sam agrees. “Wiser?”
“Dude,” Dean warns.
“Fine, whatever.”
They enjoy the rest of their meal in silence, only exchanging the occasional comment.
“You want pie?” Sam asks.
Dean’s eyes are wary and suspicious. “They have pie?”
Sam laughs. “Dude, of course they have pie. Berries or something. More coffee?”
Dean nods, and Sam takes off toward the counter again. There’s not much of a line at this time of the day, hours after lunch and hours before dinner (Winchesters have never exactly stuck to conventional meal times). When Sam comes back with the pie and drinks, Dean’s stacked their old plates and pushed them to a far corner of the table.
“So, uh, I was thinking,” Sam starts once Dean’s halfway through his pie.
“What?”
Sam shrugs, but he doesn’t look nearly as comfortable as he’s trying to and they both know it. “You know how I asked if you were gay when I was, what, sixteen?”
“Seventeen,” Dean counters, eyes a bit narrowed. “Why?”
Sam shrugs again. “I don’t know, man. But you haven’t been flirting lately, and I thought maybe-”
“I’m not queer, dude.”
Sam outright laughs at that. “Dude, we’re so queer,” he declares. “We don’t even fit the mold for normal most days and you know it, jerk.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Fine, but I’m not a homo.”
“But-”
“No butts,” Dean counters, smirking. “None.”
“Hilarious.” Sam’s voice is deadpan. “But, Dean, it’s okay if you are.”
“I know that, dickface. I’m not, though. Can I eat my pie now?”
“Yeah, Dean,” Sam sighs. “Eat your pie.”
Dean does, resolutely, and enjoys it as much as he possibly can. Sam’s not Dad, they both know that. Sam’s a giant geek, he went to Stanford, did the college bit, had the hot girlfriend and, on occasion, takes his brother to gay places. So, no, he’s not “afraid” Dean’s homo the way Dad’d been.
.ö.
“Hey, Sam?” he says later that night, when they’re both in bed, Sam with his laptop doing something Dean’s better off not knowing, and Dean with half an eye on the crappy sci-fi flick on TV. Sam grunts, so Dean goes on, “You like doing laundry?”
“Uh, no,” Sam drawls.
“No?”
“It’s boring, Dean. Kind of like watching paint dry.”
Dean chuckles. Then he flips the TV off, burrows under the scratchy motel covers and yawns. “That’s kind of what sex’s like to me,” he says, then adds in a slow, languid murmur, “Also messy and disgusting.” He closes his eyes and lets Cas’ mojo pull him under to their constructed dreamscape.
It’s a zoo, that night. The only animals are ducks, most of which are fluffy, squeaky and playful.
.ö.
“Hey, Dean?” Sam starts the next morning.
“Pancakes, bitch,” Dean says, then he’s out the door.
As far as diversion tactics go, this one holds solid for about an hour.
.ö.
“What d’you mean, sex is like doing laundry?”
Dean pauses in his quest of sharpening his favorite knife. He was using a brand-new whetstone, too. “You got a hearing problem?” Dean drawls.
“Uh, no, I just. Are you doing it wrong or something?”
Dean laughs. It’s bitter, lasts too long, and is way more scornful than laughter normally warrants. “Hell yeah, I’m doing it wrong, bitch. I never fucking wanted to in the first place, so yeah, I did it fucking wrong,” he snaps.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Sam demands. “You’ve been going out to get laid since I was a kid, Dean!”
Dean snorts. He puts down his knife, puts the whetstone to the side, then turns to face his brother. “Don’t give me that shit,” Dean tells him. “Me? I was fucking twenty-one the first time I had sex, Sam. I hated it, but it made Dad happy and kept him off my back ‘cause you were nosing around, asking questions about if I was gay or not. But then it was like I’d opened the floodgates on it, like, started some evil cycle or something, ‘cause every time I stopped doing it? Dad was there, giving me shit about it. So it just kept on going and going, ‘til I was so fucking sick of it, it was all I could do not to throw up.”
Sam blinks. His forehead is furrowed, his eyes are wide and he’s biting his lips. “But sex is supposed to feel good,” he says lamely.
“Don’t give me that crap,” Dean says and rolls his eyes. “It’s fucking invasive and creeps me the hell out.”
“What are you talking about, Dean?”
Dean huffs. “I’m saying I don’t want sex, all right?” he snaps. “Fucking bitch.” Dean tears out of the room, into his car, then drifts around. He doesn’t come back to the motel until the sun’s on its way down over the horizon (it’s not like they’re working a case or anything; no deadlines to meet). Sam’s gone, so Dean doesn’t stick around either.
.ö.
Dean finds himself at a rundown old movie theater. From the looks of it, it’s been shut down for a while and breaking in is child’s play. He mucks about inside, checking out old posters from crappy movies no one remembers, then sets up the projector with a roll of film dubbed “#16”. He’s halfway through the second roll when his phone rings. He knows who it is, of course, doesn’t even need to check the display or anything.
“Hey, Sam,” he says.
“Dean! Where the fuck are you?”
Dean shrugs. On the off-white screen, a zombie is hacked to pieces by a couple of animated shovels. “Abandoned movie theater,” he says. “Right by the edge of town, where that weird statue is with the wheel and the bowl.”
Sam babbles on, of course he does, but twenty minutes later he’s shouldering his way inside the projector room with bags of take-out, apologetic expression on his face and a six-pack of beer. Dean pretty much forgives him on the spot - no sense in holding grudges, right?
“What the hell are you watching?” Sam demands after five minutes, when a vicious little fluffy bunny eviscerates a fucking bear.
“I have no idea, man,” Dean answers. The food is warm, a little bit spicy and a lot greasy, but it’s enough to remind Dean he hasn’t eaten since breakfast. He tucks in with gusto even though it’s Chinese food when he’d been craving a meaty, cheesy pizza. “There was this weird fairy in the beginning, waved his wand and then exploded when a cat rubbed up against his foot. Yeah, I don’t know, man.”
Sam blinks. He remains quiet when the chopped up zombies return and fuse together with the rabbit to form a huge monster, and simply offers Dean a new beer, then drains his own bottle.
“You ever tried it with guys?” Sam asks a while later. Dean’s started a new roll of film, this one animated, untitled and a whole lot better than whatever the fuck “#16” was.
“Still not gay, man.”
Sam frowns. “No, I know, but-”
“Sam, let me ask you this: you ever have sex with someone you’re not attracted to? Not sweet on?”
Sam shakes his head. “No. I mean, sometimes, maybe I wasn’t interested in it right off the bat when Jess was in the mood, but it wasn’t like it took a lot of convincing on her part to get me in on the game either, you know?”
Dean shrugs. Says, “No, I don’t know.”
Sam frowns. “How do you not know, man?”
“It’s easy. I’ve never been sexually attracted to anyone in my life, Sam. Never, not once.”
“But you watch porn!” Sam blurts.
“So? That’s just me; my hand, my dick and some girls on a screen.” Sam grimaces at that, but Dean ignores him. “Look, man, the only time I like getting off is when I do it to myself, on my terms, all right? I don’t like sex with other people. I hate it when people touch me like that; it just doesn’t do it for me. Tell you the truth: if I never have sex again in my life, that’ll be way too soon.”
Sam’s quiet for a while after that. Dean can practically see him mull it over, as the great cogwheels turn and turn inside Sam’s giant brain. “What does that mean, Dean?” Sam asks when he’s done thinking it over. “You’re asexual?”
Dean shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m not big on labels, you know that.”
“But what about Cas?”
This time, it’s Dean who frowns. “What about him?”
“What about him?” Sam echoes, sounding a little incredulous. “Dude, he has the biggest crush on you I’ve ever seen. He fucking watches you sleep, man.”
“Cas is a little creep, all right,” Dean says under his breath.
“I know you like him, too,” Sam fills in. “Don’t pretend you don’t.”
“Dude’s my best friend other than you,” Dean agrees.
“So you don’t…”
“Don’t…?”
Sam shrugs. He looks a little embarrassed, a little hesitant. “I thought you stopped flirting with women ‘cause you were involved, Dean. Then I thought maybe you were just gay and sick of hiding, which’s why I dragged us around to those gay places, but I guess that’s not it.”
“You don’t say,” Dean drawls. He fishes the last of his fried noodles out of the box, then moves on to one of the smaller ones. It’s got deep-fried bananas in it, and Dean makes short work of them.
“Thing is, though,” Dean says much later, drinking beer number three. “Thing is that Cas isn’t human. He doesn’t get our hang-ups. You know how he is.”
“Uh-huh,” Sam agrees.
“So, it’s okay,” Dean says. “It’s okay with him.”
“What d’you mean?”
“I mean that he doesn’t give a damn about me being who I am. He doesn’t read too much into anything, and that’s pretty damn great and relaxing like you wouldn’t believe. Besides, dude dragged me out of Hell and pieced me back together; doesn’t get more intimate than that.”
“Relaxing?”
Dean shrugs and looks away. “Look,” he says. “When you hang out with someone. Say, this really hot chick. And you talk, laugh and just try to have a good time, right? Say, you’re drinking coffee or shooting the shit about muscle cars or something. I can’t do that, not like I can with you or with Cas, and he doesn’t know the first thing about what makes a car tick.”
Sam looks frustrated and confused. “Why not? I mean-”
“‘Cause basically every girl I’ve ever done shit like that with wanted me to fuck them, all right? No one goes to a bar or a, a club or whatever to talk, man! And, yeah, guys don’t exactly think I’m hitting on them when I’m not, but unless we’re in some gay hangout place, they’re not gonna appreciate some random dude striking up a conversation and then they’re gonna want to fuck anyway. So this thing with Cas, it’s fucking nice, all right? No expectations, no holding back ‘cause you’re afraid they’ll read too much into it, no weird touches and shit, no veiled suggestions that you should go someplace else. You know, I once got chewed out ‘cause I took a look at some girl’s car when she asked me if I wanted to ‘take a look under the hood’? I fucking hate sexual innuendos, man. Or, or, that time in high school when some other girl wanted us to go to the movies, then was pissed as hell at me when I spent two hours watching the fucking movie!” Dean snaps. Shaking his head, he runs a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “Sorry,” he mutters.
“I don’t think I understand,” Sam says after a while, after enough minutes have gone by that they can pretend they didn’t just have a moment or that Dean basically just ranted about his feelings. Or something. “I don’t think I can, because to me sex is great and wonderful, and I don’t understand how anyone couldn’t like it. But… I’ll back off, okay? I mean, you’re my brother, man. If I don’t have your back, who will?”
Dean shrugs. “This is getting sappy,” he mutters.
Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, whatever. I just… don’t you get lonely, Dean?”
Dean raises an eyebrow. “I’ve got you, Cas, and the Busty Asian Beauties, Sammy. What more do I need?”
.ö.
“Dean.”
“Hey, Cas.”
“You and this lake, huh?”
“It’s your mind, Dean.”
Dean laughs, but then there’s space next to him because his chair is a couch that you just sink right down into. Castiel sits without prompting, face a little frowny as he stares out at the constructed lake with all the sunlight reflecting off of it.
“You okay, man?”
“I’m fine. You seem more at ease lately.”
“It’s been a good year.”
“Yes.”
They sit in silence, after that. Cas staring at the horizon (that he’d created in the first place, hadn’t he?) and Dean staring at Cas. It wasn’t that there was a breaking point, because there wasn’t in that sense, but at some point Dean becomes aware that Cas is staring back at him, eyes warm and blue and soft. Bedroom eyes, Dean would call it, if this had been any other situation (that is, if Dean wasn’t Dean and Cas wasn’t Cas).
“What?”
“You were staring.” Castiel’s lips twitches. “I thought that was my trademark,” he says in that awkward way, where he’s trying to do something that doesn’t come naturally to his angelic nature. Or something. “After all, I’m a creeper, right?”
Dean laughs. “Dude, you’re the worst creeper. No, I was just…”
“What?”
“Nothing. I don’t know. Me and Sam…”
“It’s good that you’re talking about your emotions,” Cas says, when Dean can’t make head or tails of what he’s trying to get out.
“Dude, have you been sneaking and creeping around again?”
Cas suddenly looks very shifty. “No,” he says, but Dean hears ‘yes’.
“Just drop by whenever, man.”
“You looked busy.”
Dean laughs. “Cas, we’re never too busy for you. I. I’m never, you know.”
“I know.” Castiel puts a hand on his thigh, leans close until there’s barely any space separating their noses because Cas still hasn’t got the whole “personal space” deal down under pat. “Dean. You’re important to me, too.”