The Revelatory Powers of Pie
Title: The Revelatory Powers of Pie
Author: twfftw
Rating: R
Genre: Humour
Spoilers: 5.01-5.04, tiny bit for 5.05
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Word Count: 5,102
Warnings: Bit of bad language.
Summary is spoilery for 5.01-5.04, so it's below the cut. (Same with notes.)
Summary: The first time Sam sees Dean and Cas interacting after the post-Lucifer-freeing fight in Bobby's hospital room is in a little diner in Idaho, and their dynamic is... not what he was expecting. Really not what he was expecting.
Notes: This is set somewhere between 5.05 and 5.06, and was written about the same time; I don't think it's been actively Jossed, but fair warning that it is pretty dated. And to my paranoid author's eye, it has a bit of an early-work feel to it.... but my beta (the lovely noneeca, whom I neglected to thank last time - sorry sweetie!) would sadface excessively if it weren't posted, and there's still quite a bit I like about it. Hopefully you'll enjoy!
Disclaimer: Not mine. But you knew that.
The Revelatory Powers of Pie
They’re just finishing up their burgers, sitting in a back booth at some roadside diner in Idaho, when Castiel drops in.
It’s not exactly dropping in. The whole angels popping up wherever and whenever they feel like it has, of course, been stopped by the enochian sigils, for which Sam is pretty grateful. Cas had called Dean when they were heading into the restaurant; Dean had established that it wasn’t an urgent call, then told him where they were eating and where they were staying and said he should come talk to them face to face.
Apparently, Cas has taken him up on that. “Cas is here,” Sam tosses out. Dean turns to look and sees Cas standing in the door and absolutely lights up.
Which is pretty unexpected. The last time Sam saw the two of them together, Cas was getting right up into Dean’s face about having failed to stop the apocalypse and basically destroying Cas’s entire world (he hadn’t even looked at Sam; that’s another thing Sam’s pretty grateful for). And Sam knew things had gotten back to okay between them: Cas is calling them with tips, Dean’s side of the cell conversations sound pretty calm, and Dean hadn’t hesitated for a moment to tell Cas where they were. But he hadn’t seen it, hadn’t really processed it.
And the look on Dean’s face now - that’s a little more than just okay.
“Cas!” Dean swallows his last mouthful of burger and waves to attract the angel’s attention. “Over here!”
Sam braces his hands on the table, anticipating Dean’s “C’mon Sam, shove over, let him in.” He’s been making a point of pushing back at Dean lately, but he doesn’t really want to start bickering like five-year-olds - “You shove up!” “No, YOU shove up!” - in front of an Angel of the Lord.
Except Dean doesn’t ask him to move over. Dean moves over, without hesitation, pushing himself right up into the corner of the tiny booth to give Cas enough room.
Not that Cas gets it, of course; he slides all the way over, so far in that if Dean weren’t partly twisted around in the corner they’d be solidly shoulder to shoulder. Sam remembers Dean muttering something to him about needing to have a conversation with Cas about the meaning of personal space; if he did, it looks like it didn’t take.
Sam waits for Dean to give Cas the stink-eye, to tell him to shove over dude, leave me room to breathe, but to his surprise, Dean just grins at Cas. “Hey Cas, how’s it going?”
Maybe it’s just that Dean’s in the same state Sam is, not wanting to make a scene in front of the angel. But Sam really doesn’t think that’s it, not when Dean looks so... well, so happy.
Sam doesn’t get it until the waitress who followed Cas over to the table (“What can I get you honey?” “I require nothing, thank you.”) leans across to refill their water glasses. He and Dean automatically try to lean back out of her way (Cas, the only one at the table who might actually be in her way, doesn’t, but Sam supposes that’s the result of not having twenty-plus years of experience of life as a human). And watching Dean move, Sam suddenly sees it: Dean hasn’t jammed himself up into the corner to give Cas more room. If anything, the way he’s twisted around is probably mashing their knees together under the table. He’s turned himself towards Cas, so much so that when he says something to Sam (“Naw, I’m good for coffee thanks, how about you, Sam?... Sam!”) he has to turn his head almost a full ninety degrees.
But it’s not... it’s not a wary pose. Dean’s not facing Cas so he can keep an eye on him. He looks way too relaxed for that; the word that comes to Sam’s mind is open. Dean’s whole body is just open, one arm stretched out along the back of the booth, hand resting just behind Cas’s head, the other lying on the table, hand sitting on the scuffed plastic surface-
The hand on the table reaches out and snags a fry from the still-substantial pile on Dean’s plate. “Here, Cas, have a fry.”
That knocks Sam for a bit of a loop. It’s not unheard of for Dean to offer people food, but usually not his food, and certainly not his fries.
“I require nothing, thank you.”
“C’maaaaawn,” Dean drawls, and Sam’s universe makes sense again. Because offering up fries is borderline holy-water-dousing territory, but trying to prod his angel into trying a french fry for his own amusement? So Dean.
“I do not need-”
“I know you don’t need it, but maybe you’ll like it.”
“I do not think-”
“Jimmy likes them. C’mon have one for Jimmy.”
And Sam kind of can’t believe Dean just went there, not over fries.
“Jimmy is no longer here.”
Wait, what?
“Really.” Dean says, and Sam narrows his eyes at him, because Dean really doesn’t sound surprised enough. Maybe it wasn’t just insensitivity that made him suddenly drop Jimmy Novak into the conversation.
“Since when?” Sam asks.
“Since my... return,” Cas tells him, and Sam hears him not saying resurrection loud and clear. “The form I find myself in is the same as that to which I had become accustomed, but the vessel - if indeed, this is a vessel - is empty.”
“So what happened to Jimmy?” Dean asks.
“I hope he died,” Cas says seriously. Sam’s never heard that phrase used in a positive sense before, but he gets what Cas means.
“Huh,” Dean says. “So it’s just you in there.”
“It is just me in here,” Cas affirms.
“Huh,” Dean says again, kind of thoughtfully, staring into the middle distance. They sit in silence for a moment, each reflecting on the implications of what Cas has told them, Sam guesses, and then Dean looks back at Cas.
“Have a fry anyway,” he says, and grins.
“Dean, truly, I do not-”
“C’maaaaaaawn.”
And Sam prays (not literally) that Cas will just give in and take the damn fry, because he really isn’t comfortable snapping at his brother to knock it off in front of Cas, but there are few Deans more irritating than Dean trying to cajole someone, and Sam doesn’t know how much of it he can take.
Fortunately for Sam’s sanity, Cas does cave after only a few more back-and-forths. He plucks the fry from Dean’s fingers and holds it out in front of himself dubiously, then leans down and delicately bites off about a third of it, chewing thoughtfully.
Dean’s grinning like his face is going to break, but he manages to wait until Cas has finished the fry, which takes two more bites (actually, the table’s gone silent, the two of them staring at this angel eating a french fry and yeah, their lives? Weird.) before asking “Well?”
Cas finishes chewing, swallows thoughtfully, and pauses. “Greasy,” he pronounces at last.
“Come on, you loved it. Have another one,” Dean insists, holding out a second fry.
Cas takes it and slowly starts to eat and okay, Sam’s not really cool with sitting in dead silence watching an angel eat a french fry twice.
“So Cas, you... have your mouth full. Dean, Cas was telling you on the phone that something’s going to go down at the full moon?”
“Yeah,” Dean says, looking away from Cas with what looks like a lot of effort. “We’ve got three days to get to Boise.”
What’s in Boise? Sam starts to say, but he’s only gotten as far as “Wh-” when out of the corner of his eye he sees Cas’s hand reaching out to pluck a third french fry off Dean’s plate.
Uh oh.
Sam gears up to play peacekeeper, opens his mouth to say Dude, I wouldn’t do that if I were you, hoping to head off Dean’s indignantly territorial response--
Dean laughs, and turns his plate so that the fries are closer to Cas.
Sam’s mouth is possibly still hanging open. Maybe he had the right idea with the holy water after all. He feels like he should say something, but Dude, how come you’re not being a jackass about your food? is another thing he’s not really prepared to bust out in front of an Angel of the Lord.
“What’s in Boise?” he says instead.
It’s a good thing it’s three days to the full moon: it means Sam’ll have plenty of time to get up to speed on whatever it is that’s supposed to go down in Boise. Because he’s trying to follow the conversation, he really is, but he keeps getting distracted every time Cas reaches into Dean’s plate. Every time he expects Dean to bust out a Hey!, or snap What the hell do you think you’re doing?, or smack Cas’s hand, or something, but Dean just keeps smiling and every damn time Sam gets disoriented all over again.
Fortunately, neither Dean nor Cas seems to have noticed. Cas, he guesses, isn’t attuned enough to normal human conversational patterns to notice Sam’s odd behaviour (or possibly just doesn’t know Sam well enough to realise he doesn’t usually lose his train of thought every thirty seconds). Dean, meanwhile, is apparently too taken with watching Cas eat to notice Sam behaving like a freak. And Sam’ll admit that watching Cas eat french fries is kind of entertaining: he takes only one at a time, eats every one in three neat, reasonably-sized bites - thoroughly chewing and swallowing each bite before taking the next, of course - and wipes his fingers on a napkin between each and every fry, in what seems to be a valiant if doomed attempt to keep them clean and grease-free. But it’s nowhere near amusing enough to warrant Dean’s utterly delighted expression.
By the time all the fries are gone, Sam’s starting to feel seriously twitchy. When the waitress finally takes Dean’s empty plate away it’s a huge relief.
And then the pie comes.
Only Dean’s ordered pie. Sam’s already feeling full to his eyeballs with grease, and Cas “does not require” any. It looks like good pie - apple, with a just-thick-enough golden crust. Dean digs into it with gusto and jams a huge first bite into his mouth; judging by the look on his face, it tastes as good as it looks.
“Oh my God,” he says, finally swallowing, “this is amazing pie. This is truly incredible pie. Cas, you have got to try some of this pie.”
“I-”
Dean waggles his fork. “I’m not taking no for an answer.”
They lock gazes for a moment, Dean looking mock-stern, Cas impassive, then Cas sighs.
“Very well.”
“All riiiiiight.” Dean stabs his fork back into the pie and scoops up a generous bite. “Here.”
He holds the fork out to Cas, who eyes Dean dubiously one last time before he leans forward and... doesn’t take the fork out of Dean’s hand. Instead, he simply opens his mouth and wraps his lips around the bite still balanced on the fork, which Dean is still holding in his hand.
Lacking twenty-plus years of experience of life as a human, exhibit two.
Sam grins and looks over at Dean to catch his reaction - except Dean isn’t having a reaction. Dean’s still just smiling happily at Cas, tilting the fork up and slowly sliding it out of Cas’s mouth, like this is totally normal, like this isn’t weird at all, still just smiling, practically mooning over--
-
-
-
-
-
Vaguely, Sam is aware of Cas slowly swallowing the pie, of Dean prodding at him (“It’s good, right?”), of Cas looking like he’s searching for a suitably dignified answer (“It is... it is...”) before giving in and admitting “It is excellent,” of Dean grinning even bigger and shooing Cas out of the booth to go get a slice of his own (“Go on, they serve it at the counter, you can just bring it back. G’wan, g’wan, g’wan!”). But his brain doesn’t really kick in again until Dean, having shovelled another monster-size bite into his mouth, looks up, sees Sam staring at him like he’s got two heads, and, with his mouth full, barks “What?”
Sam’s got about fifty - thousand - questions, but he goes with one that seems to cover the most bases: “How long has this been going on?” he demands, leaning low over the table.
Dean swallows. “What?” he says again, and Sam has to hand it to him: his look of mock-confusion is almost note-perfect. Maybe he’s been practicing in the mirror; Sam wouldn’t put it past him.
“What do you mean, what?”
“I mean what, Sam, what do you think I mean?” Dean’s eyebrows have drawn together, his mouth is just a bit open - it’s a picture-perfect puzzled face.
“You and Cas, Dean.”
“What about me and Cas?”
“How long has that been going on?”
“Well, he pulled me out of hell about six months ago Thursday...” Dean’s eyeing Sam like he’s maybe lost it a bit, and it looks like he really has been practicing, but Sam’s determined: Dean won’t be able to keep up the oblivious act indefinitely.
“Come on Dean, you know that’s not what I mean.”
“Not what- okay, seriously Sam, this conversation would be a lot more productive if you told me what the hell you’re talking about.”
And Dean’s switched from confused to annoyed, and if anything, the annoyed is even more convincing: fork gesticulating forcefully, brows drawn even further together, eyes bulging out just a tad, and Sam really wouldn’t have thought Dean could fake--
Oh.
Sam sits back hard in the booth, staring at Dean. I know something you don’t know his inner five-year-old sings, and he lets the accompanying grin spread across his face.
“It’s uh,” he clears his throat, “you know what, it’s nothing, Dean, never mind.”
“No, seriously Sam, what?”
“No, nothing, never mind, it’s my mistake.”
“Sam--” Because Dean can’t just leave it alone, Sam knows, not when Sam looks so gleeful.
“Seriously, don’t even--”
“Dammit Sam...”
Well, if Dean really wants to know.
“Honestly Dean, it’s nothing, it’s just...” He leans in again, pauses to relish the moment. “You do realise you kind of have a thing for your angel, right?”
“I have a thing for my angel?” Okay, now Dean’s looking at Sam like he’s lost it.
“I’m just saying.”
“You’re just-- no, Sam! You’re not just saying! That’s not the sort of thing you just say! What the hell!” Dean’s positively gaping at him, and it’s really all Sam can do not to laugh outright. “Where the hell did that come from?”
“Where did-- okay, number one,” Sam stabs a finger into the tabletop for emphasis, “you’ve got him practically sitting in your lap.”
“It’s a small booth!”
“Oh yeah? You got a lot of leg room sitting like that?”
Dean looks down at himself and seems to notice how he’s sitting for the first time. He scowls and twists himself to face forward; Sam can hear the scrape of his jeans against the plastic bench and the soft thud of his boot hitting the floor as he brings his leg down from where he must have had it half-pulled onto the bench.
“Number two,” Sam continues, “you keep smiling at him--”
“Oh, so I’m not allowed to be happy now?”
“--and number three,” Sam says, refusing to get sidetracked, “you shared your food with him.”
“I share food!”
“Dean, you let him eat off your plate.”
“I-- let people eat off my plate!” Dean says, hesitating partway through like even he realises what a ridiculous thing that is to say.
“Oh yeah? Name one person you’ve let eat off your plate.”
Dean opens his mouth.
“That you weren’t trying to sleep with.”
Dean shuts his mouth with an audible snap and fumes. Sam can practically hear the hamster wheels spinning as he thinks furiously. Suddenly, his eyes brighten with triumph.
“Dad.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “Dad would get distracted and take food off your plate without realizing. And then you’d sulk about it. That’s not sharing, Dean.”
“It counts!”
“Dean, you fed him pie.”
“I--”
“Off your fork.”
“Well he wasn’t going to try any on his own!”
Sam’s kind of tempted to show Dean his reflection in the napkin dispenser, so he can see how ridiculously defensive he looks.
“I thought he might enjoy it,” Dean adds, and Sam grins.
“So you’ve been thinking about ways he might... enjoy himself?” he asks; he learned about suggestive pauses from the master, after all.
“No!” Dean snaps, way too quickly. He can’t meet Sam’s eyes and he’s possibly turning a little bit red. Sam grins wider, enjoying the moment, but the moment stretches way too long, and Dean’s still darting his eyes about shiftily, and taking too long to think of something to say, and that’s not just embarrassment, Sam realises. That’s guilt, and more than Dean would ever feel over a few dirty thoughts (even about a divine being).
“Dean,” he says, in his best what did you do voice.
Dean’s desperately trying to look anywhere but at Sam, but Sam’s got his implacable face on, and Dean folds like a house of cards.
“The night before we summoned Raphael,” he says, and Sam nods; Dean told him about that, “I maybe, kind of... took him to a brothel.”
“You took him to a brothel?” Sam hisses, only at the last second stopping himself from yelling it out in the middle of a family restaurant.
“He thought Raphael was going to gank him! I didn’t want him to die a virgin,” Dean protests.
Sam is officially appalled, but he’s also... kind of curious. “What happened?”
“Nothing. The girl ran screaming from the room after thirty seconds with Cas. He told her something about how her deadbeat dad taking off wasn’t her fault. And then we had to run from the bouncers.” Dean shrugs. “Cas is still a virgin.”
That’s... quite a picture Dean paints. Sam’s still trying to absorb it all, when he notices Dean has calmly gone back to his pie, and if Dean thinks he’s off the hook, he’s got another think coming.
“So you’ve been thinking about Cas’s... virginity.”
Dean slams down his fork. “Dammit Sam--”
“Is everything all right?” Cas has suddenly reappeared at the table - at least, Sam hopes he just now suddenly reappeared - and Sam just about jumps out of his skin. Damn but Cas can move quietly.
“Everything’s fine,” Dean mutters.
Placing his slice of pie on the table, Cas slides back into the booth. Now that Dean’s facing forward like a normal person, Cas really does slide right in shoulder to shoulder. But this time, Dean throws him a bit of an elbow, saying “Personal space, Cas, do you mind?”
Cas backs off to a still-not-appropriate distance and looks at Dean, somehow managing to frown without actually changing his facial expression. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Dean insists, still scowling. “Just a side effect of life with Sam.”
And Cas turns and glares at Sam, so hard that Sam all but flinches back. Cas looks like he wants to smite Sam then and there - for having upset Dean.
And that’s--
That’s--
That’s really interesting.
Terrifying. But also interesting.
* * * * * * * * * * *
The pie disappears pretty fast once everyone’s stopped even attempting conversation (Dean’s giant slice is about four times the size of Cas’s tiny one, but Dean eats at least four times as fast as Cas, so it works out). Dean pays the cheque then stomps his way out of the restaurant. Reaching the Impala, he hesitates; it’s obvious he wants to ask Cas to ride with them, and equally obvious that he doesn’t want to give Sam the ammunition.
Fortunately, it’s not hard for Sam to step in and convince Cas himself - Hey, Cas, why don’t you ride with us? and You’ve already done all the prep you can do in Boise and We can strategize in the car and Might be best if we stick together so you don’t have to find us again. He manages to keep a straight face through it all - it’s all true, after all - but he can’t help smirking at Dean after adding on Here Cas, you can ride in the front. Dean glares at him, furious but mute in front of Cas.
Sam stretches out as best he can in the ridiculously tiny back seat, and once they hit the highway, he leans his head against the window and feigns sleep. He’s betting Dean’ll forget himself and loosen up again, shake off his mood, faster if he isn’t hyper-aware of Sam watching him. Sure enough, not three miles out Dean finds a classic rock station on the dial, and within five minutes he’s giving Cas an impromptu but detailed lesson in the History Of Rock According To Dean Winchester. Sam manages not to smile, but it’s a near thing.
* * * * * * * * * * *
By the time they pull over for the night, Sam really has gotten a few hours’ rest. Also, he has A Plan.
Part One of the Plan involves being first out of the car when they hit the motel. Sam “wakes up” as Dean turns into the lot of the “Happy Pirate” (oh, God) “Motel.”
“Hey Dean, let me out.”
“Hang on, I’m looking for a spot.”
“Just let me out here.”
“Just hang on.”
“Dude, come on, my legs are cramping like crazy.”
Dean shrugs “You volunteered to sit in the back,” he says, giving Sam a sunny smile in the rear-view mirror.
“Look, just let me out, I’ll run ahead and check us in.”
“We’ll be parked in two minutes Sam, seriously.”
“Gimme a break Dean, my legs are killing me.”
“Two minutes, Sam.”
“Dean-”
“Dean,” Cas chimes in, turning his head to give Dean a meaningful look. Dean sighs and stops the car.
Sam’s maybe getting to like Cas.
Sam hops out, and the Impala pulls away to circle the surprisingly crowded Happy Pirate lot as he heads into the motel office. He’s determined, prepared, and very well-versed in the ways of motels; he probably sets a speed record booking the rooms, which means he’s out in the parking lot again, keys in hand, by the time Dean and Cas catch up to him, just as the Plan requires.
“Here,” Sam says, tossing a set of keys to Dean, “You’re in 105.”
Dean catches the keys. “I’m in 105?” he says. “Where are you?”
Sam holds up the second set of keys. “220,” he says.
Dean frowns, and Sam belatedly realises how it must look to him. They haven’t been back on the road again together for that long, and they never get separate rooms.
He shrugs, trying to play it off. “It’s what they had,” he says which is not untrue; these rooms were indeed some of the options available. “But hey, if you want to sleep on the floor...”
Dean gives him a long look; for a moment, Sam thinks he’s going to insist they share a single. But then Dean sighs and shakes his head. “No, we’re going to need a good night’s sleep.” He jerks his head towards the Impala. “Come on, let’s grab the bags.”
Dean heads back toward the Impala. Cas moves to follow him, but Sam, steeling himself, reaches out and lays a hand on the angel’s arm, stopping him. Time for Part Two.
“Hey Cas, you should stick around. Maybe hang out with Dean.”
Cas looks at Dean, then back at Sam. “Why?”
Well, that’s direct. “I thought you guys might like to talk.”
“About what?”
“Anything. I mean, Dean and I, we’ve had a lot of time to catch up, and I don’t want you to feel, you know. Shut out.”
“I don’t.”
“Right, no, I just mean, you guys haven’t really talked for a while. Might be good to touch base, make sure you’re on the same page.”
“Dean and I have divergent goals. We are both aware of this.”
Sam’s not used to having Cas’s steady gaze aimed at him; it’s more than a little unnerving. He rallies, though, and continues “I’m just saying, it can’t hurt to have a conversation. You never know, you might learn something new.”
“I might,” Cas says, looking back over at Dean, and Sam’s pretty sure that means he’s got him.
“Stay with Dean. Why not?” He gives Cas his best innocent face.
“Very well.” Cas agrees, just as Dean yells “I’m not your damn porter, Sammy!”
“Right!” Sam calls back, and he all but runs to the Impala, grabs his bags, tosses a “See you in the morning” at Dean, and hightails it up to 220 (which the clerk assured him was the farthest room from 105 available) (he also has earplugs, just in case) before it can occur to Cas that if there’s anyone he should be having a where-are-you-at heart-to-heart with, it’s Sam. In half a minute, he’s up the stairs and got the door shut behind him, leaving Cas alone with Dean, a king-sized bed, and eight hours of night.
It is not, Sam will admit, a complicated plan. He’s still pretty sure it’s going to work.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Sam wakes up a little after 7am, having had the best night’s sleep he’s had... well, in a long time, despite being alone in the room. It might be the earplugs, but Sam prefers to think it’s good karma (though possibly that’s not a concept applicable when an angel’s involved), or possibly just the satisfaction of a job well done.
He does start to have a few doubts while he’s getting dressed, though, wondering if the Plan hung too much on Dean being clued in (and primed) by their talk at lunch, on Cas being worried about Dean’s afternoon mood swing and wanting to push the conversation...
He starts to feel more confident when he walks down to the lot to find the door to 105 closed, the lot Dean-and-Cas-free, and the Impala apparently unmoved. By the time he’s checked out (the motel office is also Dean-and-Cas-free), headed to the only coffee place in walking distance (which is also Dean-and-Cas-free) for a medium coffee and a dubious-looking muffin, and come back to the lot to find everything unchanged, all but the most nagging doubts are gone: he supposes it’s possible Cas mojo’d himself away during the night and Dean is oversleeping alone in 105, but...
Sam snags his iPod out of his bag (the car jack has long since suffered the fate of being snapped in half by Dean’s bare hands, then run over five times by the Impala, but Sam has protected the iPod itself by dint of ensuring that Dean never ever ever sees it), settles himself on a grassy spot at the edge of the motel parking lot where he can lean back against a tree and keep an eye on the door to 105, and waits.
And waits.
And waits.
And waits.
By the time the door finally opens at ten-thirty, Sam should probably be annoyed, but truthfully, he can’t fight a gleeful smirk. Dean likes to sleep, sure, but when they’re on a case his rule is Dad’s rule: on the road by nine, even if that means eating breakfast in the car. Ten-thirty is definitely more than just oversleeping-
Except that when Dean and Cas finally come out, they don’t really come out together. Dean comes out first and Cas follows him, then, unbelievably, stands a perfectly appropriate number of paces away while Dean fiddles with the crappy motel lock. Cas is staring at something on the other side of the parking lot, and they’re not even looking at each other, and Sam seriously can’t believe this-
Except then Dean finishes locking the door, and then Dean steps into Cas’s personal space, right into his personal space, and slides a hand under Cas’s coat to rest on his hip, and Cas’s head turns like it’s on a string. Cas just looks at Dean for a moment, then Dean’s leaning in to say something into Cas’s ear, and Cas is dipping his head down to make it easier, but turning his face in, too, his nose practically brushing Dean’s neck...
They don’t actually kiss, but that’s really just a technicality.
(They probably think they’re avoiding a PDA. They probably think they’re being subtle).
Surprisingly, they’re headed off in different directions a moment later, Cas towards the motel office, Dean towards the Impala. Sam hauls himself to his feet (carefully stowing the iPod back at the bottom of his bag) and heads over to meet Dean.
“Morning,” he says, with a bit of emphasis, because ten-thirty.
“Morning,” Dean says from halfway inside the Impala’s trunk where he’s shoving his bags home.
“Where’s Cas going?”
“He’s going to check us out of 105 then skip ahead to Boise. We worked up a bit of a plan last night, he’s going to scout ahead, meet up with us again on the road.”
“You ‘worked up a bit of a plan’ last night?” Sam repeats, making no effort not to sound dubious.
“Yeah,” Dean says. He tosses Sam’s bag in next to his, then closes the trunk and straightens up, at which point he can’t possibly miss Sam’s amused smile. “What?”
“Something you want to tell me, Dean?” And Sam nods pointedly at the enormous hickey that Dean’s henley is completely failing to hide.
For a moment, Dean seems confused, turning his head in a futile attempt to look at his own neck, then his eyes widen and oh, for a camera to capture the look on his face. He snaps his gaze back to Sam, trying to yank up the neckline of his shirt (which, unless it’s about to spontaneously turn into a turtleneck? No). He opens and closes his mouth a few times, then abruptly stabs a finger into Sam’s chest. “Shut up,” he announces, then stomps around to the front of the Impala and throws himself into the driver’s seat.
He doesn’t make even a token attempt at offering to let Sam drive, but that’s okay. It’s about fifty miles before Sam stops laughing anyway.