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It’s what you didn’t say.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Dean’s been driving for a whole hour. Driving and thinking and replaying all the ways he’s fucking everything up. With Cas, with Emma, hell, Sam’s probably pissed at him for something, too. He has rolled past Jody’s house twice, Sam and Amelia’s three times, and the liquor store, like, fifty. But he’s not doing that anymore, he’s fucking serious about it this time. A few beers here and there is one thing but half a bottle of Jack in a night is “no longer sustainable, Dean.”
Cas, as his conscience, once again. And it’s true, of course. Half a bottle of Jack in a night is, in fact, no longer fucking sustainable because he has a kid now. A kid and a….a Cas.
But damn it, he wants a drink. Dean slams a fist against the steering wheel as he pulls up to a light literally the second it turns fucking red. “Shit,” he growls. Then immediately apologizes, cause he didn’t mean to get so aggressive with his baby.
He just…doesn’t know what to do. And he feels fucking pathetic. He has handled the apocalypse. Angel wars. Purgatory. Every monster you could possibly think of and some you probably can’t. He’s lost enough loved ones to send any normal human being running to the nearest psych ward. Someone should have told the universe that all of that wasn’t necessary, that all it would take to knock Dean Winchester on his ass was a teenage daughter and a…a Cas.
He’s grumbling to himself, expletive after expletive, as he pulls off at the county park and backs the Impala into a spot in the farthest corner of the lot, right up against a snow drift. He’s still swearing as he dials Sammy’s number. His brother barely has a chance to say hello to him before he’s unloading everything, like how he freaked out on Emma but only because Cas was freaking out and that was freaking him out and oh yeah, he and Cas have officially been a thing since the end of July. Which was like. Six months ago. And Sam is silent on the other end for all of twenty-two seconds (Dean’s counting) before he laughs and says, “call me back after you go get your man, Dean,” and hangs up.
One of many reasons he keeps his brother around, he thinks, is that he can make complicated things like that seem so simple. It’s also the first time anyone has ever referred to Cas as his “man.” And he doesn’t hate it. In fact, it kind of has a ring to it.
He leans his forehead against the steering wheel for a second, breathes deeply through his nose, then whips it out of the parking lot and back toward home.
He can feel the silence in the house before he hears it. Even just closing the garage door sounds like a bomb going off to him. But there’s no time to waste if he wants to fix what he broke, so he gets out of the car, giving her a little pat on the roof as he exits the garage and opens the door that leads into the house. “Hello?” he calls. No answer. “Anyone…?”
This time, he hears the unmistakable sound of a door opening upstairs. He can’t quite make out if it’s Emma’s or if it’s his but he figures it out pretty quick when Cas is the one who stops in the doorway to the kitchen and stares at him coolly. It’s like a knife in Dean’s heart, that look. It’s not so different from how Cas used to look at him all those years ago, when they’d first met, when Dean had been just an assignment to him. A project.
“Hey,” he breathes.
Something in that cold expression falters, and Cas’s eyes go sad, and now it’s like he’s twisting the knife, the bastard. “Can we talk?” Dean asks. “Please?”
Cas nods and steps into the kitchen, leans against the counter, and crosses his arms. He’s wearing one of Dean’s t-shirts and a pair of his jeans, too and when Dean realizes, it’s another knife twist. He’d wanted to get Cas a few things of his own when they’d first started…this. Cas had been the one to insist on sharing clothes, convincing Dean it was “utterly useless to spend your hard-earned income on clothing for me when it’s not something I’ve ever particularly cared about.”
Dean recognizes he has the floor now but he’ll be damned (again) if he knows what to do with it. So he just kind of stares at Cas, who’s looking back at him with that kicked puppy face and those big, stupid, gorgeous blue eyes that Dean has loved for longer than he cares to admit. After a while, Cas sighs and looks away, and Dean can see that he’s failed yet another test. One he didn’t even know he was taking and did not have time to study for.
“This is getting…exhausting, Dean,” Cas says. “All this hiding and pretending.”
“I know,” Dean chokes.
“I may need some time to clear my head.”
This sends Dean into a panic. “Cas, don’t—”
“I’ve made up the couch in the office,” he says coldly. “I’ll be sleeping there until you’re ready to communicate your desires more clearly.”
Dean’s blood cools slightly at the mention of the office, cause he’d really thought Cas was leaving him for a second there. But only slightly. “Please,” he says. “Just…tell me what you need from me. Whatever it is. We’ll figure it out.”
Cas considers him for a long time, wide, blue, kicked puppy eyes looking at him and through him and past him all at once. “I waited my entire life for you, Dean Winchester,” he finally says, soft and sad.
Another twist of that fucking knife. Because Dean wouldn’t have admitted it two or three years ago, maybe not even more than six months ago, but he knows now that he’s waited his entire life for Castiel, too. “Yeah,” he says. “I…”
And he wants so badly to say it back. I’ve waited my entire stupid, chaotic, useless, bloody, shitshow of a life for you, Cas.
But he can’t. It’s like something is squeezing his windpipe or sitting on his chest. Because even though it was so obviously always supposed to be Cas, it was also never supposed to be him.
It was never supposed to be a guy.
No matter how many times he’s tried to squash it down, there’s still a little part of him that just wants his dad to be proud. And John was never outright…like that. Homophobic, Sammy would say, that’s the real word for it. He never went, like, out of his way to be like that. But Dean remembers another hunter, back when they were kids, a man named Jesse who had gotten into the game because a rougarou had gotten a hold of his boyfriend. He worked a few cases with John back in the day, and he’d always been nice to Sam and Dean. He’d even bought Sammy an ice cream once to celebrate after he and John had successfully ganked a pair of werewolves in Pennsylvania. John had always been nice to his face, but after word had spread that he’d been killed on the job, ripped to shreds by a whole coven of vamps in Ann Arbor, Michigan, one of whom had been picking up young men in gay bars, he had turned to the boys in the backseat and said “see what happens to you when you’re like him? When you let yourself go soft like that?” It was obvious what he’d meant. And he’d directed it at Dean, like he’d known. It still turns Dean’s stomach just to remember it.
Just as he’s really starting to spiral, Emma’s words echo in his mind. It’s what you didn’t say. And if you asked Dean to rank whose opinion of him carries the most weight, it’d be Sammy, Cas, and Emma tied for first. His dad barely even scratches the top five anymore. It’s her, his kid, that gave him the courage to get out of The Life and make A Life. So he lets her face, her stubborn eyes and her smart mouth, be his courage now.
He strides forward, grabs Cas’s stupid, handsome face in his hands, and kisses him full on the lips. Right there in the kitchen. Where anyone could look in the window and see. When he pulls away, Cas is puzzled, but a little flushed. It’s adorable. “I,” he says, “have waited my whole damn life for you, Cas.”
Cas purses his lips and narrows his eyes, but they’re not cold or sad anymore. “Dean,” he says, flustered, a hint of a smile tugging at his lips.
“What?” Dean asks, suddenly feeling so giddy he’s worried he sounds crazy. “What, man? Anything you need, I’m gonna give it to you. And you are not sleeping in the office tonight.” Cas is smiling now, juuuuuust a tiny smile, but it’s enough to make Dean feel like a million bucks.
“Well,” Cas says, “this is a start.”
A laugh bubbles up from somewhere deep inside Dean. “Okay,” he beams, “what next? A new car? A jumbo jet? A private island?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Dean.”
“I’m not. Whatever it is, I’m gonna make it work.”
Cas looks like he’s thinking about what he wants to say next, and Dean can’t tell if he’s intentionally torturing him or genuinely trying to work it out. After a minute, he steps forward and presses another kiss to Dean’s lips, this one soft and almost sickeningly sweet. “More of that, I think,” Cas nods.
Dean leans forward and gives him one to match. “Yeah, I can definitely make that work. Next?”
“Well,”Cas begins, “I’d appreciate it if you would acknowledge the nature of our relationship in the presence of others.”
It’s exactly what Dean was afraid of, of course. And it’s huge. It’s enormous. But….apocalypse, right? And angel wars and purgatory and every monster you can possibly think of and some you probably can’t. If it’s between holding hands in public and losing the love of his life over something so stupid, he’ll march in the damn Pride Parade if that’s what it takes. He can do it for Cas.
But he says a silent prayer that Cas doesn’t want him to march in a Pride Parade (he doesn’t even think Sioux Falls has one, but it’s better to be safe) before he speaks again. “You got it,” he says. And then, he starts to get a little nervous. ‘Cause Cas is staring at him very pointedly now.
“Emma is particularly distressed by your lack of honest communication, Dean.”
Now that. Marching in a Pride Parade somehow seems more manageable than telling his kid that he’s…whatever he is. It was one thing telling Sammy earlier today cause…well, he’d kind of already guessed it months ago and Dean hadn’t exactly denied it back then. And maybe that kind of makes it cheating but…telling his kid is different.
What if this is what unravels everything they’ve built? Things with Emma have been so good lately. They’ve really hit their groove. He’s met her friends and they call him “Mr. W” and it makes him feel old as hell but he’s just so happy Em’s comfortable enough with him to bring her friends around that he doesn’t even care. And god, he looks forward to Sundays in the garage with her and the Impala every week, in a way he’s never looked forward to anything. Even though it’s blatantly obvious she couldn’t give a damn about the car. Hell, maybe it’s because she doesn’t care about the car, cause that means she just goes down to the garage to hang out with him.
What if telling her that her dad is the thing his own dad told him not to be makes everything different?
But apocalypse. And angel wars. And purgatory. And everything else. He can face it. He can do this. For Cas and for Emma. He has to.
So he gulps. Breathes through his nose. Steels himself. “Okay,” he nods. “I can….I can talk to her. I’ll just go up there and…tell her everything.”
He has every intention of doing that, but suddenly his feet are glued to the floor. He couldn’t move even if he wanted to. And he feels like he’s gonna keel over and hack up the ham sandwich he’d had for lunch. He backs up a few steps until he hits the counter behind him, clutching his chest, and Cas is there with him in an instant. He doesn’t say anything, just gently laces his fingers through Dean’s, the hand that’s grasping at his heart, and brings it to his lips.
It’s a small gesture. Really nothing, a fucking speck of dust in the grand scheme of all the things Cas has done for him, but it’s just so gentle and intimate that it feels like the world to Dean. It is the world.
He gives Cas’s hand a squeeze. “Is…she’s still in her room right?” he asks.
“She is,” Cas says quietly. “I thought it was best to give her some time. You often need time to calm down when you’re agitated.”
Now that feels kind of like a dig. A loving one, yeah, but still. “Oh I do, do I?”
Cas doesn’t falter at all. “Yes, Dean,” he deadpans. “You do. And since I’m well practiced in handling you—”
“Handling me? When have you ever handled me?”
This time, Cas doesn’t say anything. Just fixes him with that no-bullshit-angel-mojo-death-glare. It’s equal parts intimidating and….insanely fucking hot. Like, the kind of hot that makes it really easy to look forward to the make-up sex. So Dean just clears his throat and nods, gestures vaguely for Cas to continue.
“Since I’m well practiced in handling you, I thought it would be best to take a similar approach with Emma,” he finishes.
“Right,” Dean says. “Well, maybe she still needs some time so….”
Cas watches Dean for a few seconds, studies him, then says, “I can go up to Emma’s room and gauge her mood, if you’d like.”
“Her mood?”
“Yes,” Cas says. “If she seems amenable, I will tell her you wish to speak with her.”
“Okay,” he says. “Yeah. If you could do that…”
“I can,” Cas says. “Of course I can, Dean.”
“And tell her…tell her I’m not mad at her or anything.”
“Of course, Dean.”
“And uh…tell her I love her.”
“Dean,” Cas says gently.
And now it’s a fucking chick flick moment cause Dean is getting a little misty eyed.
“I promise I won’t tell her anything you wouldn’t tell her yourself,” Cas says. He gives Dean’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. A peck on the cheek.
Dean thinks now, as he often has lately, that the second hardest thing he’s had to figure out in these last few months of being with Cas like this (after coming to terms with the fact that he’s been in love with another dude for years), has been letting Cas love him and take care of him the way he tries to take care of everyone else. And Cas has been so patient with him, more patient than he deserves, after all the bullshit he’s put him through. So Dean recognizes this offer for what it is. It’s not insignificant. It’s Cas doing what he always does: seeing right fucking through him and offering him a lifeline. So he allows himself to take it, because if he wants this to work with this man he’s waited his whole life for, he has to be okay with it.
“Thank you,” he says.
Cas gives his hand one more squeeze, then turns and starts to head down the hall. And Dean is absolutely terrified, yeah, but there’s no turning back now. Apocalypse, angel wars, purgatory, all those fucking monsters……they were all just preparing him for this, apparently.
So he tells himself it’s gonna be okay. Cause he’s handled worse and he turned out better every time.
“Dean?” Cas calls from the hall.
“Yeah?”
The sound of Cas’s footsteps echo down the hall and he reappears in the kitchen doorway, just poking his head through. “We can discuss the private island when I return,” he says. And then he smiles. Just one side of his mouth turned up. A devastatingly sexy smirk.
Dean just blinks and watches him walk away, back down the hall and up the stairs to talk to his kid for him.