.fic: Motel swimming pools; or, Other entries in the Liber miraculorum (Dean/Castiel) PG13
FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY I'VE FINISHED A FIC SORT OF THING OMG FINALLY.
I'm sorry, I'm very excited about this. It's more or less completely not serious, as close to fluff as I ever get… I mostly needed something I could get out there without too much mucking around and hand-wringing.
Motel swimming pools; or, Other entries in the Liber miraculorum (Dean/Castiel) PG13 | ~2,750
Follows Breakfast for dinner, as another fic that considers the small, yet deeply awesome, things that make life good. It takes place more concretely in S5 canon, but probably before 5.10.
Sam shamelessly lifts quotations from The Princess Bride, Marlowe, and UB40, by the way.
Motel swimming pools; or, Other entries in the Liber miraculorum
Dean's a connoisseur of motels - assuming, of course, that one can be a connoisseur of motels. He isn't entirely sure on that, because motels aren't like wine or classical music or that pretentious, fakey painting that's lines and scribbles but that Sam insists is "postmodern" and actually means something. People look at stuff like that and say oh yeah, I see it - the way they do with those stupid stereographic prints from the '90s, the ones with images hidden in them - because they can't admit they have no clue what the hell they're looking at.
But he, he looks at motels and knows. Twenty six years of motels have meant he's gotten to know all their possible permutations: the chains with their impersonal decorations and free coffee, truck stop sleepovers that offer only a bed and a dribbly shower carpeted with generations of mold, the family-owned motels that have names like the Mountain View Motel and three generations of motel-owners in big, water-stained photos on the wall (Vern's grandson mans the register and scowls at you from under his headphones), the ones in between that sometimes have their driveways lined with white-painted rocks and gnomes in the garden. Those run the gamut, and Dean's been in them all, the ones with fluffy comforters and the ones that were little more than a roof and a fossilized mattress.
And then there's the rare gem, the tiny cheap place right off the highway, with HBO and a brand-spanking-new FREE WIFI!! announcement tacked incongruously under a sign that's probably been standing since the seventies - but, for all the fresh paint and crisp neon lights, could have been put up yesterday.
"Dude, we're stopping." Dean makes the executive decision, and grins when Sam warbles delightedly at the prospect of WiFi.
The rocks lining the driveway are painted white and while no gnomes infest the garden, a large ceramic alligator grins up at him and Sam from the palmettos.
"Welcome to the Seaside Motel," the receptionist says. The smile she flashes him reveals white teeth, bright against the tan of her skin. Six hundred miles north they're shivering under snow, but down here it's tank tops and shorts and - Dean catches a glimpse of palm trees and chlorine blue beyond the receptionist's tanned shoulder and grins. He elbows Sam, who makes a quiet, appreciative sound.
"Pool's closed for the night at six, but it'll open tomorrow at nine," the receptionist says, glancing meaningfully at the clock. It's five till.
"That's cool," Dean says, and signs J. Page on the dotted line.
And that night, after Key Lime pie and the most amazing cheeseburger ever made inside or outside of Paradise, Dean gets an idea.
He reaches for his cell phone.
* * *
"Dude, this practically never happens. It's thirty-six bucks a night and the pool doesn't look like the set of Creature from the Black Lagoon." Dean leaves out the rest of the Seaside's many virtues, like the alligator in the garden and the free wireless. Sam's been in raptures about that since last night.
"I see," Cas says, in the tone that says he really doesn't.
He contemplates the pool with something like suspicion, only it's too confused to be suspicion, exactly. After a moment, he transfers his attention from the pool to Dean who is, as Castiel says in an unnecessarily loud tone of voice, "Mostly undressed."
"Yeah, that's the point." Dean shuffles through the pile of stuff next to the deck chair (the deck chair - and this is another miracle - isn't covered with mildew and rust, and none of the plastic is broken) and tosses a pair of swim trunks at Cas, who catches them and examines them thoughtfully.
"They're very bright," he says after a moment.
"That's also the point." Dean ignores the fact that his shorts are black. "Put those bad boys on and report back in five minutes, soldier."
Castiel's back in five minutes on the nose, lithe and awkward in his neon green WalMart shorts. It isn't until he sees Cas's bare chest that Dean realizes he'd half-expected him to show up with the shorts on over his pants, or else to swap out his suit for the shorts right there on the deck.
Dean blinks at Castiel's toes, the bony bumps of his ankles, which are somehow the most extraordinary thing about having a mostly-naked angel hovering at the edge of the pool in bright green shorts.
"I feel very unclothed," Castiel says, loud enough to carry to the office and over the Jimmy Buffett on the radio.
"That's the point," Dean says again, and glances furtively in the direction of the office. Fortunately, the receptionist doesn't materialize. He rolls his shoulders a bit, sighing at the slide of sun and warmth across his skin. "Swimming's not as much fun if you're packing a trench coat and tie around. And clothes are a bitch to dry unless you've got a laundromat in the building."
"It's no effort to dry them," Castiel tells him. "While my powers…"
"Hey," Dean says into the middle of a so-typically-Castiel unassuring reassurance, "let's swim." He grins at Cas. "They teach you to swim at Bible camp?"
For answer, Cas marches down the steps into the water, not bothering with the railing. The silvered length of it reflects the sky, the long, faintly bronze slide of Cas's arm, and streaks of reflected light. As Cas heads deeper, Dean tries not to gawk at the two thin eddies of water trailing away on either side of him, eddies that have nothing to do with Cas's body knifing through the water.
Slowly, he realizes that Cas is standing there, rib-deep in water, and watching him expectantly.
"I taught Sammy to swim in one of these," Dean says, to cover himself. The water closes, cool and welcome, around his ankles. "A motel pool, I mean. The hell of it was, we were staying at this motel that rented rooms hourly." He pauses, adds in a leer, sighs when Cas continues to regard him with steady, serious incomprehension. "Some of those women had serious personal floatation devices, y'know?"
"No, I don't," Castiel says. Of course he doesn't. Cas looks around at the water, lifts and experimental and dripping hand to watch the water run down it. It twines around his wrist and forearm, hangs off his elbow before falling back to the pool again. "You do this…"
"For fun. For relaxing." Dean eases himself deeper, thrill of cold against the warm, creeping up his thighs (he wonders, snickering, if he'll have to explain to Cas about shrinkage), his hips, the ticklish skin of his sides. The entire time Castiel watches him, unbothered by the difference between the cold wrapped around most of his torso and the sun on his face. "Humans, we don't need a Flood to have a good time."
Cas peers up at the sun and takes a few steps away from Dean, into deeper water. "That wasn't particularly enjoyable for us either."
Instead of answering - because, seriously, what the hell is there to say? - Dean drops underwater, heart-pausing cold that locks his mind and body up for a moment before everything kicks back into gear again. He surfaces, gasping and shaking his head to clear the water from his eyes, grinning.
When his vision clears, the first thing he sees is Cas standing there, head canted and still dry, curious.
"It's swimming, not standing there with your teeth in your mouth, Cas," he says, and flicks water in Cas's general direction.
He scores a direct hit on Cas's chest, and Cas… Cas touches the fugitive drops with slow, wondering fingers. Dean swallows tightly, water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.
They haven’t - he hasn't - put much time and effort into figuring out the what-the-hell of this, what they've got, or if they have it. He doesn't roll like that, is the thing, and he has the feeling that their relationship is going to advance whenever Cas comes out with some appallingly honest and excruciatingly public declaration. The diner had been only the first occasion, and Dean goes a bit hot thinking about that, and the heat doesn't have anything to do with Florida's warm winter sun.
Then there'd been the time, after he and Sam had taken care of a nasty goblin infestation outside of Helena. Cas had reappeared in time for Dean to introduce him to the wonder that was washing the Impala by hand. He'd said, oh god, something about how Dean cared very deeply for his car, which was true, but it'd been the way he said it, with all that… that Cas-like earnestness that he might as well have said Dean had, like, these deep reservoirs of passion and emotion or whatever, and that Cas loved him for it. And Sam, who'd been present (along with one of the car wash guys who'd brought Dean a can of wax), and smirked -- no, smirk wasn't the word for it, leered --and then let Dean stew in it until Cas had left.
You ever think this is, like, divine retribution or something? Sam had asked. Like, you never talk about your feelings and you get an angel who goes around declaring his undying, Princess Bride love in front of random people?
Dean had thrown the wax at Sam's head, which had helped, especially when the can ricocheted off the rock of Sam's skull, but not much.
Then later that evening: "This is true love. You think this happens every day?" Sam had asked over Chinese food, and Dean had seriously contemplated stabbing him in the eye with his chopsticks. One chopstick per eye. He could do it.
"Make me immortal with a kiss," Sam had cooed, and that little remark had gotten all his underwear stuffed in their efficiency's freezer that night.
Now, now, he's standing here, hair plastered to his head, breeze raising goose bumps on his skin, and Cas's steadiness makes him shiver. He tips backward, lets the water catch him, and floats. The waves echo off the wall and slop around his ears, and under the water the underwater world takes on that odd, thin clarity of sound, the water running in and out of the filters, the soft splashes. Above the water, there's bare feet slapping on the pool deck - Sam's bare feet he sees, craning his head back to look . A breeze idly plays across the world, lingering in the trees, its cool hand on Dean's chest. And then there's the awareness of Cas drifting closer, telegraphed to him in the currents pushing at his body.
"Relax a bit, Cas," he says, his voice strangely private; he knows he's speaking, but he hears it mostly in his own throat. "Lie back."
"My wings," Cas says uncertainly, but obediently he goes horizontal, stiff as driftwood, arms slightly outstretched, legs perfectly straight, their muscles tensed as though Cas is pushing against something.
"Dude, relax." Dean wishes they had rafts or something. The kind with holders for drinks.
"Okay." Even through the muffling water, Cas's voice is doubtful. He copies Dean, lacing his fingers together atop his belly and staring thoughtfully up at the sky. Unlike Dean, he doesn't squint.
"See?" Dean asks. "It's nice."
And it is nice, he thinks, no end of the world, no anything, just Cas drifting next to him, close enough that Dean can feel the strange resonance of angel, a subtle tide pulling at him, tugging the two of them together.
"Better than drifting around on a cloud all day, huh, Cas?"
"Yes," Castiel says, honest and emphatic, and agreeing to something that isn't only learning how to float aimlessly in a motel swimming pool. "I enjoy spending time with you, Dean," Castiel adds.
A snort from Sam punctuates the statement, and Dean invites Sam to bite him. Maybe later, Sam says, and goes back to his gigantic hardcover book. It looks old and dusty, not poolside reading at all.
"Maybe you should take a break too, Sammy." He only makes the invitation because he's pretty sure he can hold Sam underwater long enough to drown him, or make him really sorry for making jokes about him and Cas like that. The snicker from Sam's direction says Sam knows that; the scrape of deck chair says Sam's coming in anyway.
Idly, Dean watches as Sam makes his way around the poolside. Makes his way… no.
He's making his way to the diving board, which is only a board elevated a few feet above the water. Sam hops up, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, grinning evilly.
Dean reminds him how the sign says no cannonballs allowed - no splashing of any kind, in fact, geez, what the hell kind of tyrant runs this pool? - but that doesn't stop Sam from taking one, two, three ominous steps down the length of the board and jumping, reaching for all the extra height his long legs and the board's flexibility can give him. At the top of his leap, as he tucks his arms and legs in, he actually seems to pause, the world going into slow-motion before snap it hits fast-forward.
The pool isn't big enough to get away from the splash generated by a determined five-year-old, let alone Sam Winchester's gigantic, hideous boulder of a carcass. Even expecting it, Dean gets water in his eye and up his nose, and fuck, it burns, like he's possessed and he's just had holy water flung at him. Through chlorine-blurred vision, he sees that Cas is standing up now, soaked and startled, and mostly naked and very indignant.
"Dude, don't - seriously, no smiting," Dean coughs. The back of his throat tastes of chlorine, and that's going to need a lot of beer to wash away. "Not in public." And not on a nice day.
"I wasn't going to smite him."
"What were you going to do?" Hey, he's human, and Sam Winchester's older brother.
Castiel waits silently until Sam bobs up, and the moment Sam's shit-eating grin breaks the surface, a miniature tsunami catches him full in the face.
It's perfect. It's perfect as the rest of the day is perfect, Sam's indignant sputtering and complaints about how Cas dumped half the pool on him quieting down when the receptionist comes out to see if they're having too much fun. Dean asks him if he needs floaties, which needs to be explained to Cas, and Cas informs them that he doesn't need them either; he has his wings for that.
It's perfect up until they finally pull themselves out of the pool. Dean's sunburned and loose and happy, his mind still back in the pool, untethered and drifting, and mostly he's thinking about how swimming makes him hungry and telling Cas how food tastes better after days like this.
"It's the same food," Cas says, frowning as he swipes at his hair with his towel.
"No, it's not, believe me." Dean throws his own towel over his shoulder and, still free, grabs Cas by the wrist. "We're gonna go change and we're gonna find a restaurant, and you'll see what I'm talking about."
Sam pauses in drying himself off. "Hey, Dean, before you guys start making date plans, can I talk to you for a second?"
"Sure, Sammy." Sam beckons him closer, so it's private, Winchester ears only. Cas, bemused, heads for wherever it was he stashed his clothes. Dean makes a mental note to get him something that won't stick out in South Florida, and briefly imagines the hilarity of introducing Cas to the local WalMart.
"What's up?" he asks.
"Listen…" Sam sighs, eyes going soft and emo, and oh god no. Dean takes a step back, but it's too late; Sam's looming over him, beseeching hand on Dean's shoulder.
"Love is a thing," Sam says, very quietly, very intently, "that, well, you know, it's a bit like quicksand: The more you wriggle, the deeper you sink."
And the day's perfect enough that Dean lets him off with a punch to the shoulder and nothing more.
But the night…
That night, after Cas agrees food does taste better after a day in the water and plays a perfect round of darts and collects a lot of money and looks to Dean with that soft half-smile, Sam ends up with "DOUCHE," written in toothpaste capital letters, across his forehead.
I'm sorry, I'm very excited about this. It's more or less completely not serious, as close to fluff as I ever get… I mostly needed something I could get out there without too much mucking around and hand-wringing.
Motel swimming pools; or, Other entries in the Liber miraculorum (Dean/Castiel) PG13 | ~2,750
Follows Breakfast for dinner, as another fic that considers the small, yet deeply awesome, things that make life good. It takes place more concretely in S5 canon, but probably before 5.10.
Sam shamelessly lifts quotations from The Princess Bride, Marlowe, and UB40, by the way.
Motel swimming pools; or, Other entries in the Liber miraculorum
Dean's a connoisseur of motels - assuming, of course, that one can be a connoisseur of motels. He isn't entirely sure on that, because motels aren't like wine or classical music or that pretentious, fakey painting that's lines and scribbles but that Sam insists is "postmodern" and actually means something. People look at stuff like that and say oh yeah, I see it - the way they do with those stupid stereographic prints from the '90s, the ones with images hidden in them - because they can't admit they have no clue what the hell they're looking at.
But he, he looks at motels and knows. Twenty six years of motels have meant he's gotten to know all their possible permutations: the chains with their impersonal decorations and free coffee, truck stop sleepovers that offer only a bed and a dribbly shower carpeted with generations of mold, the family-owned motels that have names like the Mountain View Motel and three generations of motel-owners in big, water-stained photos on the wall (Vern's grandson mans the register and scowls at you from under his headphones), the ones in between that sometimes have their driveways lined with white-painted rocks and gnomes in the garden. Those run the gamut, and Dean's been in them all, the ones with fluffy comforters and the ones that were little more than a roof and a fossilized mattress.
And then there's the rare gem, the tiny cheap place right off the highway, with HBO and a brand-spanking-new FREE WIFI!! announcement tacked incongruously under a sign that's probably been standing since the seventies - but, for all the fresh paint and crisp neon lights, could have been put up yesterday.
"Dude, we're stopping." Dean makes the executive decision, and grins when Sam warbles delightedly at the prospect of WiFi.
The rocks lining the driveway are painted white and while no gnomes infest the garden, a large ceramic alligator grins up at him and Sam from the palmettos.
"Welcome to the Seaside Motel," the receptionist says. The smile she flashes him reveals white teeth, bright against the tan of her skin. Six hundred miles north they're shivering under snow, but down here it's tank tops and shorts and - Dean catches a glimpse of palm trees and chlorine blue beyond the receptionist's tanned shoulder and grins. He elbows Sam, who makes a quiet, appreciative sound.
"Pool's closed for the night at six, but it'll open tomorrow at nine," the receptionist says, glancing meaningfully at the clock. It's five till.
"That's cool," Dean says, and signs J. Page on the dotted line.
And that night, after Key Lime pie and the most amazing cheeseburger ever made inside or outside of Paradise, Dean gets an idea.
He reaches for his cell phone.
* * *
"Dude, this practically never happens. It's thirty-six bucks a night and the pool doesn't look like the set of Creature from the Black Lagoon." Dean leaves out the rest of the Seaside's many virtues, like the alligator in the garden and the free wireless. Sam's been in raptures about that since last night.
"I see," Cas says, in the tone that says he really doesn't.
He contemplates the pool with something like suspicion, only it's too confused to be suspicion, exactly. After a moment, he transfers his attention from the pool to Dean who is, as Castiel says in an unnecessarily loud tone of voice, "Mostly undressed."
"Yeah, that's the point." Dean shuffles through the pile of stuff next to the deck chair (the deck chair - and this is another miracle - isn't covered with mildew and rust, and none of the plastic is broken) and tosses a pair of swim trunks at Cas, who catches them and examines them thoughtfully.
"They're very bright," he says after a moment.
"That's also the point." Dean ignores the fact that his shorts are black. "Put those bad boys on and report back in five minutes, soldier."
Castiel's back in five minutes on the nose, lithe and awkward in his neon green WalMart shorts. It isn't until he sees Cas's bare chest that Dean realizes he'd half-expected him to show up with the shorts on over his pants, or else to swap out his suit for the shorts right there on the deck.
Dean blinks at Castiel's toes, the bony bumps of his ankles, which are somehow the most extraordinary thing about having a mostly-naked angel hovering at the edge of the pool in bright green shorts.
"I feel very unclothed," Castiel says, loud enough to carry to the office and over the Jimmy Buffett on the radio.
"That's the point," Dean says again, and glances furtively in the direction of the office. Fortunately, the receptionist doesn't materialize. He rolls his shoulders a bit, sighing at the slide of sun and warmth across his skin. "Swimming's not as much fun if you're packing a trench coat and tie around. And clothes are a bitch to dry unless you've got a laundromat in the building."
"It's no effort to dry them," Castiel tells him. "While my powers…"
"Hey," Dean says into the middle of a so-typically-Castiel unassuring reassurance, "let's swim." He grins at Cas. "They teach you to swim at Bible camp?"
For answer, Cas marches down the steps into the water, not bothering with the railing. The silvered length of it reflects the sky, the long, faintly bronze slide of Cas's arm, and streaks of reflected light. As Cas heads deeper, Dean tries not to gawk at the two thin eddies of water trailing away on either side of him, eddies that have nothing to do with Cas's body knifing through the water.
Slowly, he realizes that Cas is standing there, rib-deep in water, and watching him expectantly.
"I taught Sammy to swim in one of these," Dean says, to cover himself. The water closes, cool and welcome, around his ankles. "A motel pool, I mean. The hell of it was, we were staying at this motel that rented rooms hourly." He pauses, adds in a leer, sighs when Cas continues to regard him with steady, serious incomprehension. "Some of those women had serious personal floatation devices, y'know?"
"No, I don't," Castiel says. Of course he doesn't. Cas looks around at the water, lifts and experimental and dripping hand to watch the water run down it. It twines around his wrist and forearm, hangs off his elbow before falling back to the pool again. "You do this…"
"For fun. For relaxing." Dean eases himself deeper, thrill of cold against the warm, creeping up his thighs (he wonders, snickering, if he'll have to explain to Cas about shrinkage), his hips, the ticklish skin of his sides. The entire time Castiel watches him, unbothered by the difference between the cold wrapped around most of his torso and the sun on his face. "Humans, we don't need a Flood to have a good time."
Cas peers up at the sun and takes a few steps away from Dean, into deeper water. "That wasn't particularly enjoyable for us either."
Instead of answering - because, seriously, what the hell is there to say? - Dean drops underwater, heart-pausing cold that locks his mind and body up for a moment before everything kicks back into gear again. He surfaces, gasping and shaking his head to clear the water from his eyes, grinning.
When his vision clears, the first thing he sees is Cas standing there, head canted and still dry, curious.
"It's swimming, not standing there with your teeth in your mouth, Cas," he says, and flicks water in Cas's general direction.
He scores a direct hit on Cas's chest, and Cas… Cas touches the fugitive drops with slow, wondering fingers. Dean swallows tightly, water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.
They haven’t - he hasn't - put much time and effort into figuring out the what-the-hell of this, what they've got, or if they have it. He doesn't roll like that, is the thing, and he has the feeling that their relationship is going to advance whenever Cas comes out with some appallingly honest and excruciatingly public declaration. The diner had been only the first occasion, and Dean goes a bit hot thinking about that, and the heat doesn't have anything to do with Florida's warm winter sun.
Then there'd been the time, after he and Sam had taken care of a nasty goblin infestation outside of Helena. Cas had reappeared in time for Dean to introduce him to the wonder that was washing the Impala by hand. He'd said, oh god, something about how Dean cared very deeply for his car, which was true, but it'd been the way he said it, with all that… that Cas-like earnestness that he might as well have said Dean had, like, these deep reservoirs of passion and emotion or whatever, and that Cas loved him for it. And Sam, who'd been present (along with one of the car wash guys who'd brought Dean a can of wax), and smirked -- no, smirk wasn't the word for it, leered --and then let Dean stew in it until Cas had left.
You ever think this is, like, divine retribution or something? Sam had asked. Like, you never talk about your feelings and you get an angel who goes around declaring his undying, Princess Bride love in front of random people?
Dean had thrown the wax at Sam's head, which had helped, especially when the can ricocheted off the rock of Sam's skull, but not much.
Then later that evening: "This is true love. You think this happens every day?" Sam had asked over Chinese food, and Dean had seriously contemplated stabbing him in the eye with his chopsticks. One chopstick per eye. He could do it.
"Make me immortal with a kiss," Sam had cooed, and that little remark had gotten all his underwear stuffed in their efficiency's freezer that night.
Now, now, he's standing here, hair plastered to his head, breeze raising goose bumps on his skin, and Cas's steadiness makes him shiver. He tips backward, lets the water catch him, and floats. The waves echo off the wall and slop around his ears, and under the water the underwater world takes on that odd, thin clarity of sound, the water running in and out of the filters, the soft splashes. Above the water, there's bare feet slapping on the pool deck - Sam's bare feet he sees, craning his head back to look . A breeze idly plays across the world, lingering in the trees, its cool hand on Dean's chest. And then there's the awareness of Cas drifting closer, telegraphed to him in the currents pushing at his body.
"Relax a bit, Cas," he says, his voice strangely private; he knows he's speaking, but he hears it mostly in his own throat. "Lie back."
"My wings," Cas says uncertainly, but obediently he goes horizontal, stiff as driftwood, arms slightly outstretched, legs perfectly straight, their muscles tensed as though Cas is pushing against something.
"Dude, relax." Dean wishes they had rafts or something. The kind with holders for drinks.
"Okay." Even through the muffling water, Cas's voice is doubtful. He copies Dean, lacing his fingers together atop his belly and staring thoughtfully up at the sky. Unlike Dean, he doesn't squint.
"See?" Dean asks. "It's nice."
And it is nice, he thinks, no end of the world, no anything, just Cas drifting next to him, close enough that Dean can feel the strange resonance of angel, a subtle tide pulling at him, tugging the two of them together.
"Better than drifting around on a cloud all day, huh, Cas?"
"Yes," Castiel says, honest and emphatic, and agreeing to something that isn't only learning how to float aimlessly in a motel swimming pool. "I enjoy spending time with you, Dean," Castiel adds.
A snort from Sam punctuates the statement, and Dean invites Sam to bite him. Maybe later, Sam says, and goes back to his gigantic hardcover book. It looks old and dusty, not poolside reading at all.
"Maybe you should take a break too, Sammy." He only makes the invitation because he's pretty sure he can hold Sam underwater long enough to drown him, or make him really sorry for making jokes about him and Cas like that. The snicker from Sam's direction says Sam knows that; the scrape of deck chair says Sam's coming in anyway.
Idly, Dean watches as Sam makes his way around the poolside. Makes his way… no.
He's making his way to the diving board, which is only a board elevated a few feet above the water. Sam hops up, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, grinning evilly.
Dean reminds him how the sign says no cannonballs allowed - no splashing of any kind, in fact, geez, what the hell kind of tyrant runs this pool? - but that doesn't stop Sam from taking one, two, three ominous steps down the length of the board and jumping, reaching for all the extra height his long legs and the board's flexibility can give him. At the top of his leap, as he tucks his arms and legs in, he actually seems to pause, the world going into slow-motion before snap it hits fast-forward.
The pool isn't big enough to get away from the splash generated by a determined five-year-old, let alone Sam Winchester's gigantic, hideous boulder of a carcass. Even expecting it, Dean gets water in his eye and up his nose, and fuck, it burns, like he's possessed and he's just had holy water flung at him. Through chlorine-blurred vision, he sees that Cas is standing up now, soaked and startled, and mostly naked and very indignant.
"Dude, don't - seriously, no smiting," Dean coughs. The back of his throat tastes of chlorine, and that's going to need a lot of beer to wash away. "Not in public." And not on a nice day.
"I wasn't going to smite him."
"What were you going to do?" Hey, he's human, and Sam Winchester's older brother.
Castiel waits silently until Sam bobs up, and the moment Sam's shit-eating grin breaks the surface, a miniature tsunami catches him full in the face.
It's perfect. It's perfect as the rest of the day is perfect, Sam's indignant sputtering and complaints about how Cas dumped half the pool on him quieting down when the receptionist comes out to see if they're having too much fun. Dean asks him if he needs floaties, which needs to be explained to Cas, and Cas informs them that he doesn't need them either; he has his wings for that.
It's perfect up until they finally pull themselves out of the pool. Dean's sunburned and loose and happy, his mind still back in the pool, untethered and drifting, and mostly he's thinking about how swimming makes him hungry and telling Cas how food tastes better after days like this.
"It's the same food," Cas says, frowning as he swipes at his hair with his towel.
"No, it's not, believe me." Dean throws his own towel over his shoulder and, still free, grabs Cas by the wrist. "We're gonna go change and we're gonna find a restaurant, and you'll see what I'm talking about."
Sam pauses in drying himself off. "Hey, Dean, before you guys start making date plans, can I talk to you for a second?"
"Sure, Sammy." Sam beckons him closer, so it's private, Winchester ears only. Cas, bemused, heads for wherever it was he stashed his clothes. Dean makes a mental note to get him something that won't stick out in South Florida, and briefly imagines the hilarity of introducing Cas to the local WalMart.
"What's up?" he asks.
"Listen…" Sam sighs, eyes going soft and emo, and oh god no. Dean takes a step back, but it's too late; Sam's looming over him, beseeching hand on Dean's shoulder.
"Love is a thing," Sam says, very quietly, very intently, "that, well, you know, it's a bit like quicksand: The more you wriggle, the deeper you sink."
And the day's perfect enough that Dean lets him off with a punch to the shoulder and nothing more.
But the night…
That night, after Cas agrees food does taste better after a day in the water and plays a perfect round of darts and collects a lot of money and looks to Dean with that soft half-smile, Sam ends up with "DOUCHE," written in toothpaste capital letters, across his forehead.