Chapter Text
Tequila Sunrise - Eagles
"This Old World Still Looks The Same"
Dean looked over Castiel as Castiel stood from sitting on the stool, the stool creaked from the lifted weight, his feet pointing pigeon-toed as they hit the floor with a soft thud. Dean’s heart fluttered at the child-like gestures, it was almost cute how the blue-eyed boy seemed aged into adulthood and so far into childlike ways all in one.
Dean shook his head to himself. Cute? He threw the bloody rags into the trash, the bag rustling and wastes thumping against the plastic can as it landed in.
“Thank you,” Castiel murmured, lowly in a whisper as if trying not to wake anyone in the house.
“It’s just us dude, no need to be so quiet,” Dean whispered back with a smirk on his lips, leaning his upper body to project the whispered tease.
Castiel couldn’t help but stare at Dean and that left Dean chuckling at him quietly at the blue-eyed boy's doe-like face. Dean watched Castiel swallow and lift a side of his lips.
“You could just say ‘you’re welcome,’” Castiel grinned, still whispering.
“My ‘you’re welcome’ is me teasing you, Cas,” Dean chuckled.
“I’ll take my leave then.” Castiel’s voice broke away from the whisper now, his voice gravelly and gruff, it sent shivers down Dean’s spine.
“Woah, Woah, hey,” Dean scrambled after Castiel, hitting his hip on the sharp corner of a counter, Fuck, “Lemme drive ya home,” he scrambled out.
Castiel seemed panicked “You don’t have to, you’ve done enough already,”
“Can it,” Dean muttered, grabbing the keys to the red pick-up, “Just lemme do this too.”
“Dean, no I-” Castiel sighed at Dean’s determined gaze, frozen under the green stare, he huffed “Fine,” and walked out the door with Dean trailing quickly behind him.
Dean locked the door with a click, the key roughly sounding out a low scrape as he took it out of the lock, the bunch of them jingling together as he moved them. He looked to Castiel, jingled them obnoxiously in his hand and grinned as he leads Castiel to the truck. Castiel promptly followed at his side, his stature punctual and carefree.
Dean rolled a thick zipper jacket into a ball and tossed it to Castiel, who barely managed to catch it with both arms, almost fumbling it all together. “Put it on, it’s getting chilly and I don’t want you catching a cold after patching you up,” Dean grumbled as he entered the truck.
Dean started the pick-up, the engine revving up with a sharp squeak until it started into its regular roar. It was shaking his core, but not in the same way as the Impala, it started with the rumble and shifting of the motor as he breathed in the scent of oil, he would have to check for that later. With Castiel by his side in the truck, slamming the heavy door. He drove.
“Thank you,” Castiel’s graveled voice broke the silence as they drove down the red-dirt-gravel road, “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me tonight and I apologize-”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Castiel questioned as if in a challenge if Dean had glanced over long enough he was sure Castiel had that head tilt and squint in his eyes, but decided not to wreck the truck by looking at Castiel.
“Don’t apologize,” Dean answered Castiel’s tone calmly, looking at the headlights in his rearview mirror come up.
“I just feel like a burden to you,” Castiel murmured, barely audible over the roar of the engine, “I barely know you and here I was bleeding on you, your furniture, you taking your bandages to cover up my wounds, cleaning them beforehand and now you’re driving me home.”
“I really don’t mind,” Dean glanced quickly to Castiel in the passenger than to the road again. Look at the road, moron.
Castiel felt Dean’s gaze leave as soon as it appeared onto him and he leaned closer to the window of the oil smelling pick-up truck, resting his head against the cool window, water from the nightly dew was drizzling down the glass.
“Yeah, but,” Castiel sighed and turned to look at Dean again, curls sticking to his forehead “I still feel like I am on account of all of this and you not even really knowing me.”
“Really man it’s okay,” Dean answered, “I really don’t mind and honestly I already consider you a friend and like you seem like a nice guy and interesting to say the least, plus-.”
“You missed the turn.”
“Huh?”
“You were supposed to turn, but I didn’t want to interrupt you.” Castiel murmured as Dean looked over at Castiel, who looked back with a blank stare on his features. Dean couldn’t help it. He laughed.
He laughed so hard he had to pull over the pick-up and he continued his belly starting to become sore as he did, he looked at Castiel again, seeing him try to hold in his own laughter by biting his bottom lip as if trying to be polite, but as Dean looked at him it managed to escape from him as well.
They were left in the pick-up, on the side of the road, middle of the country full of fields and trees, laughing. Laughing at what neither of them knew, but Dean felt his shoulders become lighter than they had in ages.
Dean never laughed that hard in his life and he put his whole body into to where he had to lean against Castiel’s shoulder for support, he felt the gently grip Castiel had on his arm as they laughed and he never felt at peace as he did in that moment of just laughing his ass off with a boy he barely knew.
It took moments of breathing and laughter between until they managed to stop. Dean buried his face into Castiel’s arm breathing in the scent of him through the sleeve of the jacket. Castiel still had a few bursts of laughter shake through him. Dean felt the jolts of his chest move him around and he smiled.
Dean sat up slowly, holding his jaw, “I haven’t laughed like that in ages.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever laughed like that,” Castiel mentioned quizzically.
Dean stared, a little shocked at the comment Castiel casually brought up, “Really?” he asked as he sat in the driver’s seat again.
“Yes,” Castiel answered stoically, “It’s rare of me to laugh at anything, I find joy, but… not like that, I’ve never laughed at someone else’s laugh until now.”
Dean felt his ears turn red in embarrassment, not in shame but because it seemed Castiel was complimenting him, “Well I like your laugh.”
“I like your’s more,” Castiel answered, staring intensely, “It brightens the room, same with your smile.”
Dean’s blood went cold at that sentence and he felt those walls come back up. A barrier. Brightens a room. “Uh, yeah, so…” he trailed clearing his throat, “I’m just going to back up and turn around and… stuff.”
Castiel squinted at Dean, “Did I say something to offend you, Dean.”
God, his voice saying his name sent shivers down his spine and Den wanted so badly to hate it, but he couldn't. This guy was different.
“No, ‘course not.” Dean turned the trucks steering wheel, busting a U-ie.
“If you don’t tell me it’s going to bother me so…”
Dean shrugged his shoulders and he drove onto the gravel road.
“Dean-”
“My dad mentioned my mom the same way,” Dean answered interrupting Castiel.
“I don’t understand,” Castiel pointed out, “Help me to?”
“My mom passed away somethin’ odd years, my dad mentioned her smile brightening the room and like” pause, “I don’t know it got me into my head.”
“Your head is a dangerous place I assume?”
Dean’s throat rippled through tension as he swallowed, “Yeah,” he answered an answer barely audible, his voice breaking slightly, he cleared his throat, “Yeah.”
“Let’s just,” pause, “Pull over.”
“Huh?”
“Pull over,” Castiel answered loudly.
Dean pulled over again, looking out to the field.
Castiel hopped out of the truck before it could even pull over, causing the hair on Dean’s neck to rise in anxiety as Castiel ran to an old rickety pasture gate.
“What the hell are you doing?” Dean called out the opened door.
“Opening the gate!” Castiel called, unlatching the chains and swinging the creaking metal gate open, “C’ mon Dean, I want to see the sunrise!”
Dean sighed, “I’m tryna get ya home, Cas, won’t your parents be mad?”
Castiel hopped back in the truck, slamming the door, he shook his head looking at Dean in the fading twilight, “No, they’re dead.” he stated casually. “Now common drive to the oak uphill and we’ll watch it rise, I want to see it with you.”
Dean stared at those eyes he knew were now blue and the colors of all the skies and oceans combined, but he would never notice if they had greens and browns in them until the sun rose. He wanted to see that.
He drove at the thought about the colors of Castiel’s eyes and the future blue of the sky. Twilight would be no more.
The field sounded out the ironic hum of the old pick-up's radio. Playing the Eagles; Tequila Sunrise.