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trinityofoneI bummed myself out trying to write more angst. So: cracky comedy time! (With some serious bits thrown in.)
Title: Quarters
Rating: R
Pairings: Dean/Castiel & Sam/Ruby
Spoilers: Vague S4
Length: ~3,800 words
Summary: Set in a rather optimistic future. There was no room at the inn.
Author’s Note: Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bmouse, siriaeve, wychwood, and especially turtlespeaks for looking this over. This one’s for you, Korax—Happy Birthday!
Quarters
There was no room at the inn.
Correction: there was one room. It was even a double. But with the Winchesters traveling convoy-style now, four walls and two side-by-side beds were no longer the luxurious accommodations they once had been.
“Yeah, I’m just gonna go sleep in the car.”
Sam dropped his duffle at his feet. “Dean, don’t be ridiculous.”
“Oh, are you volunteering instead? Thanks, Sam, you’re a real champ.”
“I’m volunteering for the bed by the window,” said Ruby, deliberately cutting between them. She threw herself onto the mattress with a playful bounce, then stretched out, letting out a long, contented sigh. “Feather-soft. Come check it out, Sam.” She patted the empty space beside her, lips curving up into a disturbingly seductive grin.
“Dude,” said Dean, pointedly.
Sam rolled his eyes, belying his forthcoming request: “Can we be adults about this, please?” He took out his laptop and went and sat on the bed beside Ruby. “We can share a room for one night.” He lightly batted away Ruby’s hand where she had begun stroking his bare arm.
Castiel coughed. “Since, ah, my presence is not required, I believe I will leave you for the night.”
Dean whipped around and stayed him with a glare—an impressive feat, considering the way the angel could blink out like a light. “Your presence is very much required!” Dean’s voice dropped to a hiss. “Don’t you dare leave me with them.”
Castiel raised an eyebrow, but appeared to acquiesce. He sat down on the edge of the farther bed, making no move to make himself more comfortable. Ruby had immediately toed off her boots and was currently attempting to snake out of her leather jacket without rising from a supine position.
Dean let out a breath, an angry huff of defeat. “Fine. I call first shower.” He jerked off his jacket and threw it at the bed that was now his, nearly hitting Castiel in the face with it. The angel didn’t flinch but continued to watch his movements with an expression just a step away from blank.
“This is gonna be like Cleveland all over again,” said Ruby on the tail end of a long, cat-like yawn.
“I did not just hear you mention Cleveland!” shouted Dean from the bathroom.
Sam and Castiel shared the look of unlikely allies, forever thrust into a series of untenable situations.
Here’s how the car thing shook down.
Four people in the Impala? Did. Not. Work. There was not a single tolerable configuration. Dean had to be at the helm—Sam, he said, drove like somebody’s grandma, and the one time Dean had let Cas behind the wheel, they’d actually gotten pulled over because the angel was letting too many people pass them. (The only one Dean actually—albeit privately—considered to be a competent driver was Ruby, but he felt he had to refuse her on general principle.) If Sam sat in the back, he whined about his legs cramping up. (“Big baby,” said Dean.) But Ruby and Castiel sharing the backseat proved to be too much of a temptation for her: suddenly, stunts were being pulled that Dean remembered from his own childhood.
CASTIEL: I believe you are touching me.
RUBY: Am not.
CASTIEL: It is readily apparent that you are.
RUBY: Prove it.
CASTIEL: Please desist.
RUBY: I’m not doing anything.
CASTIEL: I’m asking you nicely.
RUBY: I’m asking you nicely.
CASTIEL: Yes, I am asking you to please stop poking me.
RUBY: Yes, I am asking you to please stop poking me.
CASTIEL: Dean, she is deliberately provoking me.
RUBY: Dean, she is deliberately provoking me.
CASTIEL: And now she’s repeating everything I say.
RUBY: And now she’s repeat—
DEAN: BOTH OF YOU STOP IT THIS INSTANT OR I’M PULLING OVER.
SAM: There’s duct tape in the trunk. Maybe we could tape a line down the middle of the seat?
This suggestion was vetoed in deference to the upholstery.
Castiel, of course, pointed out that there was no need for him to accompany the others on the physical journey: he could travel from point to point in an instant; wherever they were, he could find them. Dean faced down this suggestion with a frown. “I don’t understand,” Castiel confessed privately, later.
Something about his expression made Sam want to pat the angel on the shoulder, but his brain caught up with his body before instinct could take over and do something stupid. “It’s…tradition,” he said finally. “You have to think of it in terms of ceremony, like a rite. There’s the road, and there’s the hunt. The two are connected.”
Castiel nodded like he was trying to understand, but didn’t, really.
Sam bit his lip and thought for a minute. “It’s important to him,” was all he said.
So Castiel rode shotgun with Dean. Ruby and Sam switched off driving a restored Mustang that she had “bought” on “sale.” All of which proves, as Dean wrote in his letter to Chevy High Performance magazine, that Ford guys are literally from Hell. Heaven, on the other hand, chooses to ride in style in my cherry ’67 Impala (photo included).
The letter was not printed.
Dean emerged from the shower feeling cleaner and calmer. He’d forgotten to grab fresh clothes, though, and was thus forced to endure Ruby’s wolf-whistle when he stepped back into the main room with a towel around his waist. He gave her the finger.
“I’m next!” she announced when he came back out again. She was plucking at one of her sleeves and frowning. “I think I got ichor on my bra.”
Sam glanced up from his laptop, his face crumpled with concern. “Not the red lacy one?” he asked in an unsuccessful whisper.
“’Fraid so.”
“Seriously?” Dean demanded indignantly of the room at large.
“What,” said Ruby, sashaying past him, “Angelboy doesn’t have a favorite something you like him to wear?” She shot a glance at Castiel’s familiar trench/tie ensemble. “Oh wait…”
The door closed behind her with a snick. Dean sighed and dropped down onto the bed next to Castiel, who had located the Gideon Bible in a drawer and was actually reading it. “Help me out here,” Dean told him.
“I try to,” said Castiel, sincerely.
Dean ran a hand through his wet hair, managed to catch one of his rings in it, and sighed loudly. “This is gonna be a long night.”
“Maybe there’s something on TV,” Sam suggested, not looking up.
Castiel, also without looking, plucked the remote off the nightstand and passed it to Dean. So many exciting possibilities awaited them!
Local news (human interest story about an eccentric old man who made homemade bird feeders)—Sitcom about an overweight guy and his implausibly attractive wife living in the suburbs—Local news (“Up next: It’s a common staple of many homes—and it could kill you!” “So what else is new?” muttered Dean)—QVC—Televangelist (“Hey, Cas—” “Please change the channel. It hits my, I believe one would say, ‘embarrassment squick’”)—CSI: Miami rerun (“Sam, you’re sure he’s not a demon?” “Unfortunately, yes.” “Damn”)—Some sort of children’s program with puppets and—“Hey, Sam! Clowns! It’s a fun clown show!”
“Very funny.”
“I don’t understand why you don’t want to watch this, Sammy! It’s educational! Look, the friendly clown is singing to the kids about, uh—”
“The Constitution.” Castiel had set the Bible on his knee and was regarding the TV with that certain birdlike fascination of his.
“The Constitution!” said Dean, grinning wickedly. The mattress beneath him rocked.
“Why is a clown being represented as an expert in American history? And why is he expressing his expertise musically?”
“What are you guys watching?” asked Ruby, drying her hair on a towel as she came out of the bathroom. “Is that—Jesus fuck!”
There was a brief scuffle for the remote, which, Dean would maintain, he let Ruby win.
“What is wrong with you people?” asked Ruby, once the TV was safely off.
“Dean decided it would be fun if we all watched the clown show,” Sam explained.
Ruby shot the elder Winchester a cold look. “You’re a sadist.”
“Spoilsport,” mumbled Dean.
Castiel captured Ruby’s gaze and gave her the sort of disappointed look only an angel can truly give. “You need to put a quarter in the jar.” His brow furrowed. “Fifty cents, actually.”
“Huh? Oh, right.” Perpetually running low on pocket change was still a refreshing change from constantly worrying that Castiel was going to smite her. “Taking the Lord’s name in vain. Sorry.” She dug around in her dirty jeans and paid up.
Dean leaned in toward Castiel conspiratorially. “Never thought I’d say this about a swear jar, but brilliant idea, man. I haven’t had to pay to feed a meter in weeks.”
Castiel’s expression flitted between perplexed and amused. “But Dean, at least half of the money in the jar has come from you.”
Dean shrugged his shoulders, bumping Castiel lightly. “Whatever.”
Sam finally got his turn with the shower and they settled in for the night. Three of them—Sam, Dean, and Ruby—wore boxers (Ruby an old pair of Sam’s) and faded, oft-washed tees. Castiel, of course, had no need to sleep, and did not own pajamas.
(Ruby, for the record, slept mostly out of habit, and because Sam did.)
Watching Cas continue to perch awkwardly on the edge of the bed, Dean realized that he’d never actually, ahem, “stayed the night” when they weren’t alone. He clearly didn’t know what to do.
Dean gestured for him to come closer. “Just lie down,” he whispered.
Castiel looked around awkwardly, like someone—someone of more significance than Sam or Ruby—might be watching. “Come on,” hissed Dean. “You’re making it weird.”
Castiel’s brow arced up again. “—Er,” amended Dean. “Weirder.”
Castiel smiled like that addition made it all better and stretched out across the brightly colored bedspread.
“And for god’s sake, take off your shoes.”
“Dean…”
“All right, I’ll pay you your quarter in the morning, just come here.”
And thus they lay together, two by two in the dark.
“Well, isn’t this cozy?”
“Shut up, Ruby,” said the brothers Winchester, in unison.
They slept.
Some of them dreamed.
In Sam’s dream, it’s Thanksgiving at the Winchester house in Lawrence, Kansas.
John and Mary are hosting. Mary wears her nightgown to serve the turkey. Drops of blood tumble off John’s forehead onto the meat as he carves. Nevertheless, it’s not a nightmare, this dream. In the morning it will remind Sam more of those embarrassing ones he used to have in which he arrived for a law lecture sans pants. Awkwardness prevails at the family table: John and Mary at the head, Dean and Cas to their right, Sam and Ruby to the left. Ruby, wearing her current body and a long blue dress that looks like something she beat up a Mormon housewife for, keeps fidgeting beside him like she’s uncomfortable in her borrowed skin. Sam looks up and realizes his mother is giving them both a disapproving look. His father leans over and whispers to him: “Maybe you shouldn’t have brought her. You know your mother and her family have a history.”
“You’re on my side in this?” Sam asks.
“So where did you meet my son?” his mother asks, much more loudly, looking to the other side of the table.
“Church,” says Cas. He’s slid out of his chair and practically all the way into Dean’s lap. Also, since Sam last looked, his coat and tie have vanished, to be replaced by a pink mesh tank top. Dean runs his hand down Cas’ back, lower and lower, over the bare ridges of his shoulder blades.
Beside him, Ruby is frowning down at her plate. “I thought we were having lamb. I wanted lamb.”
“That’s so sweet,” says Mary. “Isn’t that sweet, John?”
John leans over to Sam again and whispers conspiratorially. “It’s up to you now, son. You’ve got to carry on the family name. When am I going to start seeing some grandchildren?”
Ruby dreamt she was shopping.
There are racks and racks of choices: blondes, brunettes, some red heads, a girl or two with daringly experimental hair in colors not found in nature. Ruby slips inside the ones she thinks Sam’ll like and twirls them around for his approval. Several get enthusiastic nods, excited smiles. But Ruby is still not satisfied. She combs the racks, smoky fingers pushing aside forearms of all shapes and colors. Then out of the corner of her eye: something that makes her pause. She reaches out, touches the slack mouth, the staring eyes, recognition vibrating through her like a perfectly struck chord.
She slips inside. It’s a perfect fit.
Pleased, running her hands over her sides (her sides), through her hair (her hair), she rushes to show Sam.
“I dunno,” he says, giving her a look like she’s an unappetizing meal, “I’m not sure it’s really you.”
In Dean’s dream there was blood and pain and screaming, so much screaming, endless—
Castiel, lying beside him, brushed his fingers lightly across Dean’s forehead. He snuffled in his sleep, body uncoiling, and rolled over.
Castiel lay still, watching the shadows move across the ceiling, watching Dean. He didn’t dream. He thought about Cleveland.
The Buckeye Lodge was practically deserted. They got two rooms, adjoining.
They ordered Chinese takeout and ate it in Dean’s room while they went over the details of the hunt. (The room Sam and Ruby shared was “Sam and Ruby’s room,” but the one Dean stayed in was always just “Dean’s room,” no matter who he shared it with. Perhaps it had been subconsciously decided that angels were too…flighty to co-possess a motel room. Or perhaps they followed Dean’s lead and couldn’t quite say certain things out loud.) Around the time the Kung Pao was starting to congeal, Ruby stood up, stretched, and let out a big, fake yawn. “Time for bed, Sam.”
They disappeared through the dividing door. Dean and Castiel looked at each other. Conscientiously, Castiel decided to stick around and help Dean clean up.
Later, they were lying on the bed. That makes it sound like some major bow-chicka-bow-wow action has been inexpertly danced around here, but really nothing of the kind had occurred: instead we are skipping over the pair of them chucking takeout containers into the trash, and Dean trying to get brown sauce off some photocopies Sam had spent all day at the library making, and Castiel taking the garbage out to the dumpster so it wouldn’t stink up the room (and because it was the right thing to do), and Dean brushing his teeth and changing into his PJs, and Dean turning down the sheets and climbing into bed and watching about four minutes of unfunny late-night TV while Castiel watched him watch it and generally looked like he enjoyed the available programming a whole lot more. And then Dean yawned himself—real and genuine and from the chest—so he blackened the TV, gave the knife beneath his pillow a reassuring pat, and switched off the light.
When he rolled again, it was so he was facing Cas. He waited while his eyes slowly adjusted to the dark. Gradually, the familiar features came into focus. He found Cas’ gaze and held it. After a few minutes, he reached out a hand and laid it gently against the angel’s cheek. Castiel mirrored him. It was the most that they touched.
Dean couldn’t explain it—even if he had wanted to explain it, he couldn’t have. He knew lust; he could’ve proudly written a book on the various forms and expressions of bodily desire. This, though, was something else—something alien and strange. And he couldn’t get enough.
Chastity, man. Who’d have thought.
Certainly not Sam and Ruby, it seemed. A rhythmic thumping began to shake the wall, right above Dean’s ear. Still deep in his soul-lock stare with Castiel, Dean found himself blushing. “Thin walls,” he said, as if that excused it, made it something they could dismiss. Then the moaning started.
Dean sat up and turned on the light. “Oh, come on!” Castiel continued to lie still, his pupils swelling larger and then contracting under the influx of light. He looked rumpled but unruffled. Dean, however, could feel a hard, angry knot growing in his chest. Look, it’s not like he was against his brother getting some action; now that he was (mostly) over the whole demon thing, he would even say he was happy about it. Sam was much more pleasant to be around when he was regularly getting laid. But did they have to flaunt it like this? And, you know, right when he and Cas were having a, a—he winced at his own mental use of the term—a moment?
Of course, for all that Sam and Ruby knew—for all they assumed—he and Cas were doing the exact same thing on their side of the wall. Except hotter. And dirtier. Louder.
This is the train of thought that led Dean to believe it would be a really good idea to let out a loud porn-movie groan and, in his best sex voice, shout, “Oh, god, Cas, don’t stop!”
Perhaps we should pause here and review Dean’s personal list of embarrassing states of male sexual being, as of that exact moment. In order of least embarrassing to most:
1. Straight dudes who get laid a lot. (Dean Winchester 1.0.)
2. Gay guys who at least also have lots of the sex.
3. Straight guys who, whether through general patheticness or a pathetic lack of trying, don’t get laid very much at all. (Sam Winchester, pre-demonic girlfriend.)
4. Virgins.
5. Gay virgins.
6. Guys who fall in love with their own personal angels—who, for all practical purposes, are male, by the way—and then don’t even really want to do anything with them but stare into their eyes because they are apparently BIG GIRLS with something SERIOUSLY WRONG WITH THEM and their brothers and their brothers’ slutty girlfriends absolutely cannot know—guys like that are by far the most pathetic, embarrassing specimens of humanity he can think of, and oh, who are we kidding, there’s only one guy dumb enough for this to happen to. (Dean Winchester 2.0.)
“Yeah!” Dean said, pounding the wall with his fist. “Harder!” Fictitiously bottoming he was apparently perfectly okay with.
“Dean.” Castiel was giving him a look he usually reserved for when Dean wanted to roll up his sleeves and take on all the armies of heaven and hell single-handedly. “What are you doing?”
Dean realized he did not have a good answer to this. All at once he saw himself as if from outside his body: kneeling on a motel mattress in his boxer shorts, his arm raised above his head, his mouth open and ready to produce a fake-ecstatic moan, with an angel hovering just below his right shoulder. He sank back down.
“Perhaps we should talk about this,” Castiel said gently.
Oh, good: a relationship talk. “Or maybe I should go shoot something in the face,” Dean suggested.
“You can shoot something in the face later,” said Castiel, reasonably.
Dean had to admit that this was most likely true.
In fact, the very next morning, an opportunity seemed to present itself.
Ruby stepped out of her room, fanning herself. “Hello, boys.” She turned and smiled at them both, positively wicked. “Hot night last night, huh?”
Castiel put a restraining hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Not her.”
They all went and killed some werewolves instead.
Morning. Dean opened his eyes. He heard his brother before he rolled over and saw him: Sam had the covers wound ridiculously around his ridiculously long legs and was in the middle of some seriously involved sleeping, snoring like a freight train. Dean let out a small huff of a laugh. “Where’s Ruby?” he asked Castiel.
“She went out to get coffee and doughnuts,” Cas whispered. “It’s supposed to be a surprise.”
“Her doing something nice?” Dean shifted so that his back was to his brother the lawnmower. “I think I can fake shock.”
He started to reach out. He wanted to— He didn’t even know. But anyway he stopped himself.
Castiel scooted forward on his side, a motion that made him look goofy and painfully human, and without any precursor or discussion pulled Dean into a kiss.
“Dude,” Dean said after a moment. “I have killer morning breath.”
Castiel touched his cheek. “Not anymore.”
“Neat trick.” Cas opened easily for him. It was all very soft, very slow and unhurried: not his usual thing at all. Kinda nice, though.
Dean took a breath. “Sorry I got you mixed up in this mess.”
Cas’ gaze locked to his, opposing magnetic poles. It was strange to do this in the full light of the morning—not to mention with Sam snoring six feet away.
“I made my decision,” Castiel said simply. “I chose to stay by your side. I don’t regret it.”
There were things Dean should say to that, things he knew he needed to say to that. But he sucked at this shit. And Castiel had to know that; he could see right into him, after all. All the way in: and still he didn’t flinch away.
So Dean decided he would sidestep the issue and just make out with him some more.
They were both enjoying Dean’s sound decision-making process when Ruby let herself back in, carrying a greasy bakery bag and a cardboard tray of cups. “Jeeze, you guys, get a room.”
Castiel pushed himself up a little and regarded Ruby. “I believe we succeeded in finding adequate accommodations,” he said, gesturing around at their home for the night.
Ruby sighed. “No, I mean, ‘get a—’” The sly undertone to Castiel’s expression finally registered. “Oh, ha ha. Enjoy yourself while you can, because the innocent act is only going to work for so long, Angelman. Here,” she pulled out a doughnut in a wax-paper wrapper and threw it at him, “Catch.”
Castiel’s reflexes were spot on—he caught the doughnut firmly in his grip. A little too firmly: there was a squelching sound, and suddenly Castiel’s white shirt was sporting a jellystain the size of a gunshot wound.
“Oh,” said Castiel, quietly, looking down at himself, “Crap.”
Dean and Ruby stared at him. Then slowly, inexorably, their gazes drifted together. Combined, their laughter was loud enough to shake the walls.
“Huh?” said Sam, blearily forcing himself up. “What’s going on?”
Dean looked around the overcrowded motel room and smiled like he didn’t have a care in the world.
“My angel owes your demon a quarter,” he said.
Continued in Sharing Is Caring.
NOTES:
1. I used to work at CHP, and thus I feel the need to report an intentional inaccuracy in that fine publication’s portrayal in this story: they would totally have printed that letter.
2. IS IT TIME FOR THE NEW EPISODE YET? COME ON. SRSLY.
Title: Quarters
Rating: R
Pairings: Dean/Castiel & Sam/Ruby
Spoilers: Vague S4
Length: ~3,800 words
Summary: Set in a rather optimistic future. There was no room at the inn.
Author’s Note: Thanks to
bmouse, siriaeve, wychwood, and especially turtlespeaks for looking this over. This one’s for you, Korax—Happy Birthday!Quarters
There was no room at the inn.
Correction: there was one room. It was even a double. But with the Winchesters traveling convoy-style now, four walls and two side-by-side beds were no longer the luxurious accommodations they once had been.
“Yeah, I’m just gonna go sleep in the car.”
Sam dropped his duffle at his feet. “Dean, don’t be ridiculous.”
“Oh, are you volunteering instead? Thanks, Sam, you’re a real champ.”
“I’m volunteering for the bed by the window,” said Ruby, deliberately cutting between them. She threw herself onto the mattress with a playful bounce, then stretched out, letting out a long, contented sigh. “Feather-soft. Come check it out, Sam.” She patted the empty space beside her, lips curving up into a disturbingly seductive grin.
“Dude,” said Dean, pointedly.
Sam rolled his eyes, belying his forthcoming request: “Can we be adults about this, please?” He took out his laptop and went and sat on the bed beside Ruby. “We can share a room for one night.” He lightly batted away Ruby’s hand where she had begun stroking his bare arm.
Castiel coughed. “Since, ah, my presence is not required, I believe I will leave you for the night.”
Dean whipped around and stayed him with a glare—an impressive feat, considering the way the angel could blink out like a light. “Your presence is very much required!” Dean’s voice dropped to a hiss. “Don’t you dare leave me with them.”
Castiel raised an eyebrow, but appeared to acquiesce. He sat down on the edge of the farther bed, making no move to make himself more comfortable. Ruby had immediately toed off her boots and was currently attempting to snake out of her leather jacket without rising from a supine position.
Dean let out a breath, an angry huff of defeat. “Fine. I call first shower.” He jerked off his jacket and threw it at the bed that was now his, nearly hitting Castiel in the face with it. The angel didn’t flinch but continued to watch his movements with an expression just a step away from blank.
“This is gonna be like Cleveland all over again,” said Ruby on the tail end of a long, cat-like yawn.
“I did not just hear you mention Cleveland!” shouted Dean from the bathroom.
Sam and Castiel shared the look of unlikely allies, forever thrust into a series of untenable situations.
Here’s how the car thing shook down.
Four people in the Impala? Did. Not. Work. There was not a single tolerable configuration. Dean had to be at the helm—Sam, he said, drove like somebody’s grandma, and the one time Dean had let Cas behind the wheel, they’d actually gotten pulled over because the angel was letting too many people pass them. (The only one Dean actually—albeit privately—considered to be a competent driver was Ruby, but he felt he had to refuse her on general principle.) If Sam sat in the back, he whined about his legs cramping up. (“Big baby,” said Dean.) But Ruby and Castiel sharing the backseat proved to be too much of a temptation for her: suddenly, stunts were being pulled that Dean remembered from his own childhood.
CASTIEL: I believe you are touching me.
RUBY: Am not.
CASTIEL: It is readily apparent that you are.
RUBY: Prove it.
CASTIEL: Please desist.
RUBY: I’m not doing anything.
CASTIEL: I’m asking you nicely.
RUBY: I’m asking you nicely.
CASTIEL: Yes, I am asking you to please stop poking me.
RUBY: Yes, I am asking you to please stop poking me.
CASTIEL: Dean, she is deliberately provoking me.
RUBY: Dean, she is deliberately provoking me.
CASTIEL: And now she’s repeating everything I say.
RUBY: And now she’s repeat—
DEAN: BOTH OF YOU STOP IT THIS INSTANT OR I’M PULLING OVER.
SAM: There’s duct tape in the trunk. Maybe we could tape a line down the middle of the seat?
This suggestion was vetoed in deference to the upholstery.
Castiel, of course, pointed out that there was no need for him to accompany the others on the physical journey: he could travel from point to point in an instant; wherever they were, he could find them. Dean faced down this suggestion with a frown. “I don’t understand,” Castiel confessed privately, later.
Something about his expression made Sam want to pat the angel on the shoulder, but his brain caught up with his body before instinct could take over and do something stupid. “It’s…tradition,” he said finally. “You have to think of it in terms of ceremony, like a rite. There’s the road, and there’s the hunt. The two are connected.”
Castiel nodded like he was trying to understand, but didn’t, really.
Sam bit his lip and thought for a minute. “It’s important to him,” was all he said.
So Castiel rode shotgun with Dean. Ruby and Sam switched off driving a restored Mustang that she had “bought” on “sale.” All of which proves, as Dean wrote in his letter to Chevy High Performance magazine, that Ford guys are literally from Hell. Heaven, on the other hand, chooses to ride in style in my cherry ’67 Impala (photo included).
The letter was not printed.
Dean emerged from the shower feeling cleaner and calmer. He’d forgotten to grab fresh clothes, though, and was thus forced to endure Ruby’s wolf-whistle when he stepped back into the main room with a towel around his waist. He gave her the finger.
“I’m next!” she announced when he came back out again. She was plucking at one of her sleeves and frowning. “I think I got ichor on my bra.”
Sam glanced up from his laptop, his face crumpled with concern. “Not the red lacy one?” he asked in an unsuccessful whisper.
“’Fraid so.”
“Seriously?” Dean demanded indignantly of the room at large.
“What,” said Ruby, sashaying past him, “Angelboy doesn’t have a favorite something you like him to wear?” She shot a glance at Castiel’s familiar trench/tie ensemble. “Oh wait…”
The door closed behind her with a snick. Dean sighed and dropped down onto the bed next to Castiel, who had located the Gideon Bible in a drawer and was actually reading it. “Help me out here,” Dean told him.
“I try to,” said Castiel, sincerely.
Dean ran a hand through his wet hair, managed to catch one of his rings in it, and sighed loudly. “This is gonna be a long night.”
“Maybe there’s something on TV,” Sam suggested, not looking up.
Castiel, also without looking, plucked the remote off the nightstand and passed it to Dean. So many exciting possibilities awaited them!
Local news (human interest story about an eccentric old man who made homemade bird feeders)—Sitcom about an overweight guy and his implausibly attractive wife living in the suburbs—Local news (“Up next: It’s a common staple of many homes—and it could kill you!” “So what else is new?” muttered Dean)—QVC—Televangelist (“Hey, Cas—” “Please change the channel. It hits my, I believe one would say, ‘embarrassment squick’”)—CSI: Miami rerun (“Sam, you’re sure he’s not a demon?” “Unfortunately, yes.” “Damn”)—Some sort of children’s program with puppets and—“Hey, Sam! Clowns! It’s a fun clown show!”
“Very funny.”
“I don’t understand why you don’t want to watch this, Sammy! It’s educational! Look, the friendly clown is singing to the kids about, uh—”
“The Constitution.” Castiel had set the Bible on his knee and was regarding the TV with that certain birdlike fascination of his.
“The Constitution!” said Dean, grinning wickedly. The mattress beneath him rocked.
“Why is a clown being represented as an expert in American history? And why is he expressing his expertise musically?”
“What are you guys watching?” asked Ruby, drying her hair on a towel as she came out of the bathroom. “Is that—Jesus fuck!”
There was a brief scuffle for the remote, which, Dean would maintain, he let Ruby win.
“What is wrong with you people?” asked Ruby, once the TV was safely off.
“Dean decided it would be fun if we all watched the clown show,” Sam explained.
Ruby shot the elder Winchester a cold look. “You’re a sadist.”
“Spoilsport,” mumbled Dean.
Castiel captured Ruby’s gaze and gave her the sort of disappointed look only an angel can truly give. “You need to put a quarter in the jar.” His brow furrowed. “Fifty cents, actually.”
“Huh? Oh, right.” Perpetually running low on pocket change was still a refreshing change from constantly worrying that Castiel was going to smite her. “Taking the Lord’s name in vain. Sorry.” She dug around in her dirty jeans and paid up.
Dean leaned in toward Castiel conspiratorially. “Never thought I’d say this about a swear jar, but brilliant idea, man. I haven’t had to pay to feed a meter in weeks.”
Castiel’s expression flitted between perplexed and amused. “But Dean, at least half of the money in the jar has come from you.”
Dean shrugged his shoulders, bumping Castiel lightly. “Whatever.”
Sam finally got his turn with the shower and they settled in for the night. Three of them—Sam, Dean, and Ruby—wore boxers (Ruby an old pair of Sam’s) and faded, oft-washed tees. Castiel, of course, had no need to sleep, and did not own pajamas.
(Ruby, for the record, slept mostly out of habit, and because Sam did.)
Watching Cas continue to perch awkwardly on the edge of the bed, Dean realized that he’d never actually, ahem, “stayed the night” when they weren’t alone. He clearly didn’t know what to do.
Dean gestured for him to come closer. “Just lie down,” he whispered.
Castiel looked around awkwardly, like someone—someone of more significance than Sam or Ruby—might be watching. “Come on,” hissed Dean. “You’re making it weird.”
Castiel’s brow arced up again. “—Er,” amended Dean. “Weirder.”
Castiel smiled like that addition made it all better and stretched out across the brightly colored bedspread.
“And for god’s sake, take off your shoes.”
“Dean…”
“All right, I’ll pay you your quarter in the morning, just come here.”
And thus they lay together, two by two in the dark.
“Well, isn’t this cozy?”
“Shut up, Ruby,” said the brothers Winchester, in unison.
They slept.
Some of them dreamed.
In Sam’s dream, it’s Thanksgiving at the Winchester house in Lawrence, Kansas.
John and Mary are hosting. Mary wears her nightgown to serve the turkey. Drops of blood tumble off John’s forehead onto the meat as he carves. Nevertheless, it’s not a nightmare, this dream. In the morning it will remind Sam more of those embarrassing ones he used to have in which he arrived for a law lecture sans pants. Awkwardness prevails at the family table: John and Mary at the head, Dean and Cas to their right, Sam and Ruby to the left. Ruby, wearing her current body and a long blue dress that looks like something she beat up a Mormon housewife for, keeps fidgeting beside him like she’s uncomfortable in her borrowed skin. Sam looks up and realizes his mother is giving them both a disapproving look. His father leans over and whispers to him: “Maybe you shouldn’t have brought her. You know your mother and her family have a history.”
“You’re on my side in this?” Sam asks.
“So where did you meet my son?” his mother asks, much more loudly, looking to the other side of the table.
“Church,” says Cas. He’s slid out of his chair and practically all the way into Dean’s lap. Also, since Sam last looked, his coat and tie have vanished, to be replaced by a pink mesh tank top. Dean runs his hand down Cas’ back, lower and lower, over the bare ridges of his shoulder blades.
Beside him, Ruby is frowning down at her plate. “I thought we were having lamb. I wanted lamb.”
“That’s so sweet,” says Mary. “Isn’t that sweet, John?”
John leans over to Sam again and whispers conspiratorially. “It’s up to you now, son. You’ve got to carry on the family name. When am I going to start seeing some grandchildren?”
Ruby dreamt she was shopping.
There are racks and racks of choices: blondes, brunettes, some red heads, a girl or two with daringly experimental hair in colors not found in nature. Ruby slips inside the ones she thinks Sam’ll like and twirls them around for his approval. Several get enthusiastic nods, excited smiles. But Ruby is still not satisfied. She combs the racks, smoky fingers pushing aside forearms of all shapes and colors. Then out of the corner of her eye: something that makes her pause. She reaches out, touches the slack mouth, the staring eyes, recognition vibrating through her like a perfectly struck chord.
She slips inside. It’s a perfect fit.
Pleased, running her hands over her sides (her sides), through her hair (her hair), she rushes to show Sam.
“I dunno,” he says, giving her a look like she’s an unappetizing meal, “I’m not sure it’s really you.”
In Dean’s dream there was blood and pain and screaming, so much screaming, endless—
Castiel, lying beside him, brushed his fingers lightly across Dean’s forehead. He snuffled in his sleep, body uncoiling, and rolled over.
Castiel lay still, watching the shadows move across the ceiling, watching Dean. He didn’t dream. He thought about Cleveland.
The Buckeye Lodge was practically deserted. They got two rooms, adjoining.
They ordered Chinese takeout and ate it in Dean’s room while they went over the details of the hunt. (The room Sam and Ruby shared was “Sam and Ruby’s room,” but the one Dean stayed in was always just “Dean’s room,” no matter who he shared it with. Perhaps it had been subconsciously decided that angels were too…flighty to co-possess a motel room. Or perhaps they followed Dean’s lead and couldn’t quite say certain things out loud.) Around the time the Kung Pao was starting to congeal, Ruby stood up, stretched, and let out a big, fake yawn. “Time for bed, Sam.”
They disappeared through the dividing door. Dean and Castiel looked at each other. Conscientiously, Castiel decided to stick around and help Dean clean up.
Later, they were lying on the bed. That makes it sound like some major bow-chicka-bow-wow action has been inexpertly danced around here, but really nothing of the kind had occurred: instead we are skipping over the pair of them chucking takeout containers into the trash, and Dean trying to get brown sauce off some photocopies Sam had spent all day at the library making, and Castiel taking the garbage out to the dumpster so it wouldn’t stink up the room (and because it was the right thing to do), and Dean brushing his teeth and changing into his PJs, and Dean turning down the sheets and climbing into bed and watching about four minutes of unfunny late-night TV while Castiel watched him watch it and generally looked like he enjoyed the available programming a whole lot more. And then Dean yawned himself—real and genuine and from the chest—so he blackened the TV, gave the knife beneath his pillow a reassuring pat, and switched off the light.
When he rolled again, it was so he was facing Cas. He waited while his eyes slowly adjusted to the dark. Gradually, the familiar features came into focus. He found Cas’ gaze and held it. After a few minutes, he reached out a hand and laid it gently against the angel’s cheek. Castiel mirrored him. It was the most that they touched.
Dean couldn’t explain it—even if he had wanted to explain it, he couldn’t have. He knew lust; he could’ve proudly written a book on the various forms and expressions of bodily desire. This, though, was something else—something alien and strange. And he couldn’t get enough.
Chastity, man. Who’d have thought.
Certainly not Sam and Ruby, it seemed. A rhythmic thumping began to shake the wall, right above Dean’s ear. Still deep in his soul-lock stare with Castiel, Dean found himself blushing. “Thin walls,” he said, as if that excused it, made it something they could dismiss. Then the moaning started.
Dean sat up and turned on the light. “Oh, come on!” Castiel continued to lie still, his pupils swelling larger and then contracting under the influx of light. He looked rumpled but unruffled. Dean, however, could feel a hard, angry knot growing in his chest. Look, it’s not like he was against his brother getting some action; now that he was (mostly) over the whole demon thing, he would even say he was happy about it. Sam was much more pleasant to be around when he was regularly getting laid. But did they have to flaunt it like this? And, you know, right when he and Cas were having a, a—he winced at his own mental use of the term—a moment?
Of course, for all that Sam and Ruby knew—for all they assumed—he and Cas were doing the exact same thing on their side of the wall. Except hotter. And dirtier. Louder.
This is the train of thought that led Dean to believe it would be a really good idea to let out a loud porn-movie groan and, in his best sex voice, shout, “Oh, god, Cas, don’t stop!”
Perhaps we should pause here and review Dean’s personal list of embarrassing states of male sexual being, as of that exact moment. In order of least embarrassing to most:
1. Straight dudes who get laid a lot. (Dean Winchester 1.0.)
2. Gay guys who at least also have lots of the sex.
3. Straight guys who, whether through general patheticness or a pathetic lack of trying, don’t get laid very much at all. (Sam Winchester, pre-demonic girlfriend.)
4. Virgins.
5. Gay virgins.
6. Guys who fall in love with their own personal angels—who, for all practical purposes, are male, by the way—and then don’t even really want to do anything with them but stare into their eyes because they are apparently BIG GIRLS with something SERIOUSLY WRONG WITH THEM and their brothers and their brothers’ slutty girlfriends absolutely cannot know—guys like that are by far the most pathetic, embarrassing specimens of humanity he can think of, and oh, who are we kidding, there’s only one guy dumb enough for this to happen to. (Dean Winchester 2.0.)
“Yeah!” Dean said, pounding the wall with his fist. “Harder!” Fictitiously bottoming he was apparently perfectly okay with.
“Dean.” Castiel was giving him a look he usually reserved for when Dean wanted to roll up his sleeves and take on all the armies of heaven and hell single-handedly. “What are you doing?”
Dean realized he did not have a good answer to this. All at once he saw himself as if from outside his body: kneeling on a motel mattress in his boxer shorts, his arm raised above his head, his mouth open and ready to produce a fake-ecstatic moan, with an angel hovering just below his right shoulder. He sank back down.
“Perhaps we should talk about this,” Castiel said gently.
Oh, good: a relationship talk. “Or maybe I should go shoot something in the face,” Dean suggested.
“You can shoot something in the face later,” said Castiel, reasonably.
Dean had to admit that this was most likely true.
In fact, the very next morning, an opportunity seemed to present itself.
Ruby stepped out of her room, fanning herself. “Hello, boys.” She turned and smiled at them both, positively wicked. “Hot night last night, huh?”
Castiel put a restraining hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Not her.”
They all went and killed some werewolves instead.
Morning. Dean opened his eyes. He heard his brother before he rolled over and saw him: Sam had the covers wound ridiculously around his ridiculously long legs and was in the middle of some seriously involved sleeping, snoring like a freight train. Dean let out a small huff of a laugh. “Where’s Ruby?” he asked Castiel.
“She went out to get coffee and doughnuts,” Cas whispered. “It’s supposed to be a surprise.”
“Her doing something nice?” Dean shifted so that his back was to his brother the lawnmower. “I think I can fake shock.”
He started to reach out. He wanted to— He didn’t even know. But anyway he stopped himself.
Castiel scooted forward on his side, a motion that made him look goofy and painfully human, and without any precursor or discussion pulled Dean into a kiss.
“Dude,” Dean said after a moment. “I have killer morning breath.”
Castiel touched his cheek. “Not anymore.”
“Neat trick.” Cas opened easily for him. It was all very soft, very slow and unhurried: not his usual thing at all. Kinda nice, though.
Dean took a breath. “Sorry I got you mixed up in this mess.”
Cas’ gaze locked to his, opposing magnetic poles. It was strange to do this in the full light of the morning—not to mention with Sam snoring six feet away.
“I made my decision,” Castiel said simply. “I chose to stay by your side. I don’t regret it.”
There were things Dean should say to that, things he knew he needed to say to that. But he sucked at this shit. And Castiel had to know that; he could see right into him, after all. All the way in: and still he didn’t flinch away.
So Dean decided he would sidestep the issue and just make out with him some more.
They were both enjoying Dean’s sound decision-making process when Ruby let herself back in, carrying a greasy bakery bag and a cardboard tray of cups. “Jeeze, you guys, get a room.”
Castiel pushed himself up a little and regarded Ruby. “I believe we succeeded in finding adequate accommodations,” he said, gesturing around at their home for the night.
Ruby sighed. “No, I mean, ‘get a—’” The sly undertone to Castiel’s expression finally registered. “Oh, ha ha. Enjoy yourself while you can, because the innocent act is only going to work for so long, Angelman. Here,” she pulled out a doughnut in a wax-paper wrapper and threw it at him, “Catch.”
Castiel’s reflexes were spot on—he caught the doughnut firmly in his grip. A little too firmly: there was a squelching sound, and suddenly Castiel’s white shirt was sporting a jellystain the size of a gunshot wound.
“Oh,” said Castiel, quietly, looking down at himself, “Crap.”
Dean and Ruby stared at him. Then slowly, inexorably, their gazes drifted together. Combined, their laughter was loud enough to shake the walls.
“Huh?” said Sam, blearily forcing himself up. “What’s going on?”
Dean looked around the overcrowded motel room and smiled like he didn’t have a care in the world.
“My angel owes your demon a quarter,” he said.
Continued in Sharing Is Caring.
NOTES:
1. I used to work at CHP, and thus I feel the need to report an intentional inaccuracy in that fine publication’s portrayal in this story: they would totally have printed that letter.
2. IS IT TIME FOR THE NEW EPISODE YET? COME ON. SRSLY.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-30 05:52 pm (UTC)And the motel room conceit was great in its everydayness that told us so very much about them!
Thank you :)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-30 06:13 pm (UTC)And thank you for catching the you-know-what. ;-)