Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Do you remember back when I married a djinn queen?” Cas says, as he hands Dean his coffee and sits down across from him at the kitchen table. Sam and Jack are out for an ungodly early run, and the kitchen is quiet. And peaceful, at least until now. 

Dean blinks and rubs sleep from his eyes. It’s too early for this. No questionable marriage announcements before 7:00 AM.

“...Nope. I think I’d remember that.”

Cas has the gall to shrug, and blithely adds milk to his earl grey until it’s the color he always takes it. Dean reminds himself that it’s perfectly normal best friend shit for him to know exactly how Cas likes his tea. 

“You were a cartoon at the time; I had recently been returned to earth from the Empty. There were other priorities.”

Damn, where’d he put that ascot, anyway. Sam was wrong—he totally pulled it off. Wonder what the Scooby Gang is up to these days. 

“And you just...forgot to mention it later?” 

“In the scheme of things, a marriage of convenience didn’t really seem important.”

Dean shakes his head and sighs. Fuckin’ figures. “Well buddy, looks like you’re a bigamist now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Uh, your wife? Back in Colorado, you know, around the time when...” He’s going for delicacy here—there isn’t a neat and tidy way to summarize that borax-and-black-goo era of their lives. 

“Oh, you mean Daphne.” Cas smiles, a fond twist to the side of his mouth that makes Dean feel vaguely stabby. “We weren’t legally wed. She was a deeply religious person, but...suffice to say, we realized we could help one another. It was never intended to be a permanent arrangement.” 

Dean is confused for a second, and then he thinks of those old-timey Hollywood stars—Cary Grant, Rock Hudson—and the documentaries on the History Channel he’s watched at 2:00 AM in motel rooms along the I-80.

“You’re telling me your first move after walking out of a river buck naked was a lavender marriage.”

Cas laughs softly, then nods.

“Essentially, yes. I had an office above her garage where I could perform my miracles with discretion, and she and her neighbor, Veronica, could love one another in peace.”

“And, uh. After I stabbed a demon on your porch?”

Perfect, a new thing to feel guilty about. Throw it on the pile. Of course it’s his fault that a random lady in Colorado Springs can’t get it on with her girlfriend just because Dean whisked away her miracle-performing, amnesiac, fake husband.

“I reached out to her, several years ago now. She left the church, and she and Veronica are very happy together. Life-threatening experiences sometimes have the effect of clarifying people’s priorities.”

Dean swallows, then brings his coffee cup to his mouth before realizing he’s already drained it. “Well, alright then. Good for them. Back to the djinn queen thing then, I guess. Care to elaborate?”

Cas gestures for Dean’s cup, then stands to refill it from the pot on the counter. It’s stupid, how the action makes Dean feel. It’s such a small thing. Nothing, really. 

“The queen is demanding satisfaction,” Cas says, once he sits back down and slides the coffee across the table to Dean. 

“Do you mean, like, a country western duel, or...” 

“The marriage wasn’t consummated. And we’re approaching the one thousand day mark, which is a significant milestone according to djinn custom.”

“Ah.” He should be waggling his eyebrows and making some sort of stupid joke, and instead, he pretends to be suddenly fascinated by the table’s well-worn wood grain. “That kind of satisfaction.” 

“It’s a kiss. Nothing more.” A suspicious pause. Nothing good comes after a suspicious pause. “Well, and a minor union of our energies. It’s mostly metaphysical.”

“Sounds sketchy as shit,” Dean says, even as his shoulders relax. “And if you don’t, uh. Consummate?”

Cas stirs his already-stirred tea. “There would likely be a minor war. It would be pleasant for no one.”

Dean grimaces. He’s had more than enough cosmic battles, thank you.

“No chance you got a pre-nup, is there?”

Maybe there’s hope for Sammy’s aborted law career, after all. Attorney to the rich (?) and magical.

“The contract was written in Old Aramaic on a bewitched papyrus scroll and sealed within a desert cave temple that predates the invention of democracy and cheesecake. So, no.”

“Shit, doesn’t sound like a fine-print, wiggle-room type of situation. Wait—cheesecake?”

“First documented by the ancient Greek physician, Aegimus, in the 5th century BCE. It’s amazing, the length and breadth of humanity’s love affair with dairy. And there is one other option.”

“Yeah, obviously. Pie. And cake sometimes, if it’s not that dry, supermarket shit. Or red velvet. Gag me.”

Cas smiles, but it fades quickly. “No pre-nup, unfortunately, but there is a condition that would invalidate the arrangement. If I were to become...otherwise engaged.”

“We gotta find you another wife? No judgment, but three seems a little excessive, buddy.”

“Ah, no.” Cas rubs at the back of his neck. It’s like looking in a mirror, Dean’s own mannerisms performed back at him. Apparently he taught an ageless creature made up of spinning wheels and a thousand eyeballs how to feel self-conscious. “Only a genuine bond would be a powerful enough nullifying force.”

That word—bond. “Are you saying...what are you saying.” He’s not going out on a limb here without cause.

“It’s awkward. You have to understand I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. Please know I’ve exhausted all other options.”

“Kinda freaking me out, man.”

Cas visibly steadies himself, and meets Dean’s eye line with a seriousness that rivals that of Walter Cronkite telling America to prepare for war.

“I’m asking if you will marry me. Technically. For diplomatic reasons.”

“Technically," Dean dumbly parrots back. "For diplomatic reasons."

“Possibly before a priest. Or a judge."

Last time he saw Judge Eddie, he’d been swaying atop the Smith County VFW’s St. Paddy’s Day Parade float, Guinness tallboy in hand. Not really the kind of guy who evokes ritual gravitas. 

"And it's gotta be me because..." 

He’s stalling now, of course he is. Gotta give his brain a second to summon all available resources. The neural pathways dedicated to old movie references, gas prices, and the full discography of bands that peaked in the 70’s have to be redeployed to the problem at hand. He’s marrying Cas, apparently. Are any of his half dozen fed suits appropriate for a wedding? Do they need witnesses, other than whoever is already stuck in line outside the Smith County DMV window? 

"Are you saying you think I should marry Sam instead?" Cas asks.

Dean’s mind comes to a screeching halt like overheated brakes on bald tires. 

“Hell no. You’re not marrying Sam.”

Cas tips his head to the side, the asshole, acting like he has the balls to be confused, like the idea’s obvious absurdity needs to be spelled out in embarrassingly plain English. “Why not?”

“Why not, I mean, come on, you know why—you know...just drop it, alright? Shit. When’s the deadline?”

“By the winter solstice.”

A quick check of the ol’ mental calendar, then...“That’s in two weeks, dude!”

“It didn’t seem worth troubling you over ahead of time.”

Dean groans. “New rule, you have to tell me when there’s an impending war, right away. Actually, that’s not a new rule, that’s always been the rule, and—”

Cas takes a small, velvet box out of the pocket of his robe and sets it on the table between them. 

“So, is that a yes?”

*

Dean decides to keep the news to himself until dinner. In the meantime, he puts it out of his mind. Sure, the vault is getting a little crowded with all the things he doesn’t think about, but what’s one more? He doesn’t think about marrying Cas while he scrubs the grout in the bathroom, pre-treats the most recent round of werewolf-induced bloodstains on their laundry, or dusts a ceiling fan or two. He doesn’t think about it at all until Sam catches him baking. 

“Cookies or bread?” Sam asks, filling a glass with sparkling water at the SodaStream that Jody got him for Christmas last year. Unflavored, because he’s a maniac. 

“Biscuits.”

Sam nods, seriously. “You okay?”

Without answering, Dean pats out a rectangle of dough and gives it a precise envelope fold. He should’ve gone with sourdough instead—biscuits need a gentle hand, and if he can’t stow his shit, these are going to come out overworked and tough. Sam patiently waits him out as he searches in the drawers for his biscuit cutters, the ring on his left hand clinking against the spoons and whisks.  

“So I’m marrying Cas.” 

It goes to show how stupid insane their lives have been that Sam doesn’t immediately react, other than to mildly choke on his fizzy water.

“You mean, like, for tax purposes?” Sam asks as he helps Dean carefully transfer the biscuits to the baking sheet, face schooled into the professionally non-judgmental expression Dean knows so well. 

Dean explains.

*

At dinner, Cas sits beside him. Which he usually does—there are only so many chairs, a finite number of seating arrangements. It doesn’t mean anything to have your buddy knock elbows with you over pork chops and sweet potatoes, except now it kind of feels like it does. 

All in all, Sam is giving him way less shit about this whole situation than he expected, which is, frankly, suspicious as hell. Instead, he compliments Dean’s cooking and asks Cas a steady stream of questions about the sociopolitical structure of djinn communities. 

“You can’t possibly be cool with this,” Dean says eventually, annoyed now.

“Why wouldn’t I be cool with it?” Sam replies, head tipped innocently to the side. 

“Thank you for your support, Sam,” Cas says seriously. 

“He’s fucking with us,” Dean mutters to him, temper rising. He really should’ve made bread today. He needs to punch something. 

“Why would he be fucking with you?” Jack asks, looking between them. “That isn’t nice. Are you fucking with them, Sam?”

“Language, Jack,” Cas says, voice a loving growl, exactly what fathers are supposed to sound like. 

“Dean said it first. He should put a dollar in the swear jar.”

“What are we saving up for again?” Dean asks with a weary sigh. They’re going to need a bigger jar soon. At the rate Dean’s headed, maybe one of those jumbo pickle jars full of jelly beans at a county fair, the ones where if you guess right, you win a $50 gift card to the bowling alley or whatever. 

“We’re saving up for petting zoo feed," Jack says, with a Christmas-morning smile. "It’s fifty cents per cup for the goats and ducks, a dollar each for apples and carrots for the donkey."

"Well then. Shit, damn, fuck," Dean says, fishing in his jacket pocket for his billfold that he still keeps on him out of 40 years of habit. "Does 'hell' count? Given our line of work, it seems like it shouldn't, but whatever. Here's five bucks, kid."

Cas flashes him a look—unbearably fond—and Dean’s neck goes hot.

“So, guys,” Sam says after clearing his throat. “How’s this going to work? Will a Vegas drive-thru chapel do the trick?” Sam asks. 

“It, um. Actually needs to be a bit more serious than that,” Cas says. “For authenticity. The djinn may demand proof.”

Dean swallows around a too-big bite of biscuit, throat gone tight. “What, like, actual vows, penguin suits, all that? You said a priest would work earlier—are the djinn too good for one of the Strip’s many fine Elvis impersonators or something?”

“Will you kiss?” Jack asks, before Cas can answer. Dean can hear his own heartbeat in his ears. He keeps his eyes fixated on his plate, studying the whorls his fork has made through sweet potatoes and lemon caper pan sauce. “In the movies, there’s always a kiss.”

“What movies have you been watching?” Dean asks, and his voice comes out sharper than he means it to. He’s trying with the kid, he really is. 

“Remember, we watched While You Were Sleeping last weekend? You said I needed to be introduced to the Sandra Bullock Era. It seemed important.”

“I like Bill Pullman,” Cas says. 

“Everybody likes Bill Pullman,” Sam chimes in. “Can you pass the salad?”

*

Chapter Text

In the baking aisle of the Smith Center Super Foods, Dean realizes something. 

“Shit, I need to get you a ring, don’t I.”

Cas sets the canister of baking powder he’d been studying back on the shelf.

“Why is there aluminum in this?” he mutters, and it’s not at all clear whether or not he expects an answer.

“I don’t know, buddy. Something about making it work better?” Dean reaches an arm over Cas’ shoulder to grab a couple packets of yeast. It’s going to be focaccia week back at the bunker. “So, a ring?”

“It’s harmless, but I’m sure it leaves a metallic aftertaste. And the option obviously exists to make the product without aluminum. Your species has a long history of considering certain food additives essential only to find better alternatives. And of course aluminum isn’t in the same class as, say, arsenic in chocolate or plaster dust in milk, but—”

Dean shudders. “Okay, that’s just gross. We can spare the extra eighty cents for the Argo one then. No problem. But back to rings...”

“Oh, since I was the one who proposed, as it were, you aren’t required to give me a ring. It’s a bit of a heteronormative holdover.”

“Heteronormative?” Dean says, following behind Cas to the next aisle over. “So in this situation, I’m the...never mind. Screw that, I’m giving you a ring. So do you want it ahead of time, or—”

Cas pulls a tin of instant coffee off the shelf and smiles down at it like clearanced-out pumpkin spice horseshit is something to smile at. “During the ceremony should be fine.”

Ceremony. There’s going to be a ceremony, because they’re getting married. What the hell.

“What’s your ring size? Same as mine?” Dean twists the band Cas gave him off his finger, and takes Cas’ hand in his. As he tries and fails to work it over Cas’ knuckle, he realizes something. “How’d you figure out what size to get me?”

“I’m a size 11. And your ring finger is just shy of 20 millimeters in diameter,” Cas says, voice low like they’re in a hushed library archive or a church, rather than under flickering fluorescent lighting set to a soundtrack of Miley Cyrus’ early works. Dean leans closer. “So, that equates to a size 10.”

“And you know that because...”

“I also know the diameter of your aorta, every bone in your body. Does that answer the question?” 

Dean huffs a laugh, and oh god, they’re standing close enough to breathe the same air. 

“Okay, show off. Come on. we’re out of Cookie Crunch for Jack.”

*

Dean soon learns there are a stupid number of materials to choose from for wedding bands. Tungsten, titanium, silver, gold...which apparently comes in four different colors. Sounds like bullshit, sort of. And this shouldn’t matter—it’s not like it’s a real wedding—except he’s got enough browser tabs open that he can’t read the page titles anymore. 

“Whatcha doing?” Jack asks, plopping into the chair next to Dean and startling the shit out of him. He force-closes the window on pure muscle memory, a direct effect of too many years sharing a motel room with blood relatives. “Oh, was it pornography?”

“What? No! You just scared me, kiddo. Gotta get you a bell. And how do you know about...” Dean pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. Goddamn internet. “I was just, uh. Looking for a ring for your dad.”

“That’s nice. He has a nickel allergy.”

“I wasn’t going to get him some shitty dollar store thing,” Dean says, a little offended. “Wait, angels can have allergies?”

“If their vessels did, yes. I’m actually allergic to cottonwood trees, like my mother.”

“Huh. Sorry about that, man.”

Jack shrugs, smile undimmed. “Anyway, a hypoallergenic metal would probably be best.”

“Alright, will do. Thanks for the tip.” Dean pats him on the shoulder, then opens up the browser window again, navigating back to Etsy and the endless stream of identical silver-white bands. “No chance you know what he’d like, design-wise?”

“Anything you get him, he’ll love,” Jack says, with unbridled sincerity. “As long as it doesn’t give him a rash.”

“There’s a life lesson in there somewhere.”

Jack shuffles off—something about riding his bike into town for some sherbet. 

“Make good choices,” Dean calls out, but the truth is, he’s not worried. And isn’t that something. 

*

It doesn’t feel quite right to buy Cas’ ring online with a stolen credit card, for reasons he can’t quite articulate. He ends up driving all the way to Hastings in the morning so he can pay cash somewhere. And sure, he got that cash hustling pool and picking wallets off bougie vamps, but whatever. He earned it fair and square. Mostly. 

On the main drag, there’s a place with one of those old-timey neon signs out front, and Dean heads on in. It’s the kind of shop with a bell over the door and light jazz music playing, and Dean carefully wipes his shoes on the doormat before stepping inside. The shopkeeper doesn’t seem to give a shit that Dean is there to buy a men’s wedding band, which is nice because having to murder a bigot would really spoil his afternoon.

He lets the shopkeeper talk him into platinum. The design is simple—a wide band that he thinks will suit how stupidly big Cas’ hands are. It’s expensive as hell, but the color reminds him of Cas’ angel blade. It seems appropriate. 

The guy asks him about an engraving. 

“Some couples choose a significant date from their history together, or a nickname,” he prompts, when Dean stares back blankly.

Dean considers it for a beat until he remembers—they aren’t a couple. They don’t have significant dates (except they do) or nicknames (except they definitely do). He demurs anyway, and heads out to find some lunch while the ring gets sized. When he gets back home, he stashes the ring box in his sock drawer before anyone can ask him about it. 

*

“You’ll still have sex with other people, of course. Once we’re married,” Cas announces in a Kum & Go in western Iowa on the way home from a hunt, apropos of nothing. 

The gas station cashier looks up from scanning Dean’s beef jerky and Powerade, and raises her eyebrows. Which is rich, coming from someone who works at a store whose name would be censored on evening television. 

“The hell, Cas?” Dean whisper-shouts, elbowing him. Dude has no sense of propriety. 

“I thought it needed to be said.”

“Now ?” Dean hands the cashier a few bills, avoiding eye contact. “The rest on pump seven, please,” he tells her. 

Dean heads for the exit, Cas trailing behind in that particular huffy way he has, trench coat communicating irritation like it’s gained sentience. 

“Man, I’ve still got ghoul guts in my fuckin’ shoes,” Dean mutters under his breath, “and you decide now is the time to bring up monogamy.”

“We can talk about it at home, I suppose. Sam and Jack aren’t here, so I thought this would be a good time to discuss it. And it’s not about monogamy.”

Dean squats down to remove the gas cap. “It’s not?”

Cas hands him the pump. “Monogamy, in its present-day usage, implies that we’re already...or that we will be...” Cas trails off, clearing his throat. “And we don’t. We won’t.”

A metaphysical union of energies is what he’d called it, right. Nothing else. Dean nods. “...Got it.” 

Dean stands up and leans against the passenger side door. He crosses his ankles and stuffs his hands in his pockets as he watches the gas meter climb. It’s easier than looking at the guy who he currently isn’t sleeping with and, according to Cas, never will be. Damn, gas has really gone up. 

“So you see why it wouldn’t be any issue for you to be intimate with other people.”

“Right. So we’ll just be fully, legally married—not to mention cosmically bonded or whatever—and I’ll be the asshole with a wedding ring picking up chicks on the side. Cool. That’ll do wonders for my reputation around town. Yeah, no thanks.”

The pump clicks, and Dean brushes past Cas to return it to its holder. He might do a little mild stomping as he circles back around to the driver’s side, but he’s not nearly mad enough to disrespect Baby by slamming the door.

When Cas gets in beside him, he seems pissed too, which doesn’t make any goddamn sense. 

“What do you mean, ‘no thanks’? You didn’t ask for any of this,” Cas says, voice gone brittle. “I’m the one who got you into this situation. It’s my fault. There’s no reason you should have to deprive yourself because of my mistake.”

“The whole thing with the djinn happened because you went on that quest to get the holy whatever-it-was. Sure seemed important at the time,” Dean says, then reverses out of the lot like they’re being chased, cringing when the tires squeal a complaint. “And buddy, for the record, I’ve been ‘depriving myself’ all on my own for years now.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Cas snaps, bracing himself against the passenger side door as Dean makes a hard left turn for the highway on-ramp. 

And yeah, it’s embarrassing as hell, admitting to a dry spell that’s lasted longer than a one-term president. But if his pride is already down the shitter, why not flush. 

“Since you—never mind.” There was a funeral pyre, and then those months he can barely remember. They don’t need to talk about it. “It’s none of your business, actually.”

“It sort of is, as we’re about to be married.”

“God, fine. You already said you didn’t want to fuck me, so what difference does it make that I haven’t been with anybody since the last time you died?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to. And what did you just say?”

Dean changes lanes and earns a blare from a semi’s horn. 

“So you do want to fuck me.”

Cas blanches. “For god’s sake, pay attention to the road. And you didn’t answer my question. What happened after I died?”

A whole lot of shit, that’s what. Beer for breakfast, liquor for lunch, and two hours of sleep a night. Second verse, same as the first, minus the leviathan.

“It’s beside the point,” Dean says instead of getting into all that. 

“Humor me.”

“Since Lucifer—since you died, and came back—I just haven’t felt like it, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Cas frowns. “Of course not. I’m sorry you haven’t had the chance to get your needs met. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Dean sputters at the sympathy. “It’s not that I haven’t had the chance, I’ve had plenty of chances, it’s just—like I said, I...”

“Haven’t felt like it,” Cas finishes quietly. 

Dean drives. In his mind, he flips through a rolodex of other things they could talk about. The weather. The 2022 midterms. Parasitic tapeworms. Anything.

“So you want to sleep with me,” he says instead, his vocal chords apparently engaging in an all-out mutiny. 

Cas gulps, audible even over the hum of the highway around them. 

“I didn’t say that.”

“You sure as shit didn’t contradict it either!”

“That’s because lying is a sin, Dean, and I don’t want to lie,” Cas says, sounding like a brattier, buttoned-up version of himself. “Obviously I want to...be close to you. I always have.”

Dean huffs, and fights back a blush. “There’s being close and there’s being close. Big difference.”

“I don’t know what that means. And this is exactly why I didn’t want to talk about my...desires...with you. I knew it would complicate things, and that you’d overreact.”

“Come on, you’re the one who told all of Council Bluffs how I’m gonna fuck other people behind your back! You started it.”

“It wouldn’t be behind my back, it would be with my fully-informed consent. I know what I’m getting myself into, marrying you. I’m not naive. I'm fully aware that you don’t—that you can’t—” Cas groans, cutting himself off.

It clicks, finally, what Cas is dancing around. Dean turns on his blinker to take the next exit.

“Finish that sentence.” Sure, this isn’t exactly how he pictured this conversation going, but whatever. In for a penny, in for an impromptu coming out. “What do you know I won’t do? Can’t do. Whatever.”

Cas stares resolutely out the window as Dean parks the car in front of a boarded-up Cracker Barrel. Once the car is turned off, Cas fixes him with possibly the saddest, most resigned expression that Dean has ever seen cross his face. Which is saying something.

“You don’t like men, Dean.”

“Not true.” 

Cas blinks at him. “I mean sexually. Or romantically.”

Dean sighs. “Like I said, not true.” 

“...Excuse me?”

“You’re excused. For making assumptions.” Dean’s being an asshole now, he knows that. It’s the only thing getting him through this. So he’s a little lacking in healthy coping skills, sue him. 

“Be serious,” Cas says, voice cracking.

“Would I joke about this?” He’s an asshole, but not that kind of asshole, come on.

“I don’t know. You shouldn’t, though.”

“Well then, good thing I’m not. Figured you already knew already, anyway.” The way Cas is staring makes him feel itchy. Are hives a normal side effect of admitting you like dick? “Like back when you reanimated my corpse, or whatever. It was all in there back then.” 

“Surprisingly, I couldn’t decode your sexual orientation from the patterns of your blood vessels. I said I knew your ring size, not the things that make you feel...things.”

“Uh huh. Okay. So, now you know.”

They lapse into silence. The winter wind slides through the gaps in the Impala’s exterior, and Dean wishes he’d left the heat on. He starts the car when it gets cold enough to see their breath.

Chapter Text

The rest of the drive is quiet. Well, it’s quiet after Dean presses play on whatever cassette happens to already be in the tape deck, and it’s blatantly sexual right from the jump. This is just not the time for juice squeezing, honey, or inches of anything. Read the room, Plant. Jesus. 

From what Dean can gauge out of his peripheral vision, Cas is as inscrutable as he was back in 2008. With his hands folded neatly in his lap, he’s giving off nothing but classic heavenly neutrality, which Dean knows from experience means he’s really anything but. Dean’s leg starts bouncing, and he picks at the stitching of the steering wheel cover even though it’s a bitch to find an authentic replacement. He needs a cigarette, and he hasn’t smoked since high school. He needs the platonic ideal of a cigarette. He needs Cas to say something. Anything. 

“Thank you for telling me,” Cas says quietly, just as Dean hits the third of three red lights in what should definitely be a one light town. Goddamn county highways. “It’s an honor. I know it wasn’t easy.”

Dean shrugs like a recalcitrant teenager in a made-for-tv movie and fusses with the frayed edge of faux-leather like he can materialize new stitches out of thin air. He’s fine. Totally fine. Sure, he hasn’t told anybody what he told Cas in...awhile. It’s just, with guys, it’s never been anything serious. Nothing worth stirring the pot over. They fight god and demons and horror show monsters—it seems a little small-potatoes to make a big thing out of where he fits on the Kinsey Scale. 

“Just figured you oughta have the whole picture,” he says, glancing at Cas just as the light turns green. “So now you know. All my cards on the table before you go marrying me.”

The corner of Cas’ mouth quirks up, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. In twelve years, Dean has done a lot of necessary worrying because of that particular smile. “Cards on the table, right, of course.” 

He keeps his foot light on the pedal until highway speeds start up again, but it’s a challenge. He wants to fuckin’ drive. 

“This doesn’t make it weird or anything, right? That we’re both—you know,” Dean asks. “Nothing’s changed?”

“No, Dean. Nothing’s changed.”

*

When they get back to the bunker, there’s something waiting for them on the war room table. At first glance, it looks like an impulse buy from some cheesy Hogwarts-themed gift shop: a deep purple envelope, with swirling gold lettering across the front. And not that Dean would put it past Sam and Jack to take a field trip, but Universal Studios is a bit of a haul from Lebanon.

Dean drops his bag and picks it up, and a sprinkle of iridescent glitter flutters to the floor. Great, he’s going to be sweeping that shit shit up for weeks. Glitter, the herpes of the craft world. When he tries to read what’s written on the envelope, the letters seem to shift and twist in resistance. Not that Dean can read whatever language this is written in, anyway.

“Sam!” Dean calls out, and sure, he could’ve sent a text, but why bother when you live in a concrete box with perfect acoustics? 

“Ah, I see my notification was received,” Cas says when he spots the letter in Dean’s hand. He’s shrugged off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, like this is a place he actually lives. It’s a good look on him. Dean should get him some slippers to really complete the picture. Nothing says ‘I’m home’ like a pair of slippers. Who knows, maybe there’s even an extra robe lying around. “I was wondering when the djinn council would reply.” 

Dean hands the letter over to him, and rubs his glitter-contaminated fingers on his jeans. Knowing his luck, the stuff probably causes hair loss and a case of the clap. 

“Wait, I missed something. When did you contact the djinn?”

Sam bounds around the corner right on cue.

“Hey guys! Yeah, Cas and I did a dialogue ritual before you took off,” Sam says breezily. Like opening a line of communication with a clan of ancient, malevolent monsters is a milk run. Which, for them, maybe it is? “Nothing too fancy. Myrrh, the string of an oud, a crane feather, and some blood, obviously. Get this, the hardest thing to source? Pomegranate arils. Have you ever tried finding a fresh pomegranate in rural Kansas? Not easy.”

“Cool, and nobody told me.” Sam’s the smart one, right. You want a ritual done, you go to Sam. It’s fine. 

Cas pauses his careful examination of the envelope to look at Dean, brow furrowed with concern. “You weren’t being purposefully excluded, Dean. It was very early in the morning. I didn’t want to wake you. You haven’t been sleeping well lately.”

Dean blinks. “How’d you know I—”

“We’ve run out of coffee twice this week, and you put Red Bull on the grocery list. Not to mention that you fell asleep during Gladiator at the motel last night. I know how to read the signs.”

Dean catches Sam grinning out of the corner of his eye, and feels the need to move the conversation along. 

“Anyway...bet Jerry at the post office had some questions about this letter,” Dean says, imagining his face. The guy gets tetchy about selling stamps, so magic mail with no postage is probably a bit out of his comfort zone.

“Actually, funny thing. I heard this weird sound yesterday while you guys were gone—sounded kinda like someone knocking? And, you know, given that this is a secret bunker and all that, I got my gun and went to check it out. Nobody was there, but the letter was just, like, floating in mid-air outside the door.”

Cas hmms and nods like this is all perfectly above-board, and slides a translucent piece of paper free from the envelope. Dean hovers at his shoulder, like he can read Old Aramaic any better than he can read Korean. Cas’ eyes scan right to left over the shimmering gold text. 

“They have some demands,” he says after a beat. “Photographic evidence to support the authenticity of your claim, Dean.”

“My...claim?”

Sam doesn’t snicker, but the sound he makes isn’t far off. There’ll be time to kill him later—he’s got more pressing concerns.

“Dean, this entire gambit depends on the queen accepting that you’ve usurped her,” Cas says. “So yes, they want to see proof of your claim as my rightful spouse if they’re going to let me out of my contract.”

Sam pulls out his phone, aiming it at them.

“Don’t you dare,” Deans says, holding up a finger in warning. “At least let me take a goddamn shower first. And the lighting is terrible in here.”  

*

With what must be every shirt in his closet spread out on his bed, Dean evaluates his options. Is this really all he’s got? Not a single sweater in the mix. Instead, it’s a sea of flannel and band shirts with holes in the armpits, along with one or two cheap, collared shirts that he’s used to impersonate every flavor of law enforcement for the past decade and a half. His one good henley is in the wash, and there’s nothing left that even whispers ‘engagement photo.’ 

As he’s considering swallowing his pride and borrowing something from Sam, there’s a quiet tap on the door. 

“Yeah, come on in,” Dean says without turning around. He could pick the soft scuffing of Cas’ shoes out of an auditory lineup, any day of the week. 

“I don’t mean to rush you, but Jack is home, and he wants to help. He insists that for optimal photos, we don’t want to miss golden hour. I’m not entirely clear what that is, but it seemed important.”

Dean scrubs a hand through the too-long hair at the back of his head. “Sure, okay. I’ll just be a minute.” 

“I wasn’t sure what to wear either,” Cas says. “And not that it matters, but I like the gray one. It brings out your eyes.”

Dean grunts out an acknowledgement and then listens as Cas’ footsteps fade into the echoing halls of the bunker. 

He wears the gray one. 

*

Up on the roof, Dean sees what Jack meant about golden hour. Even though it’s nearly freezing out here, Cas looks warm. Getting free from the bunker’s fluorescent lighting and 1950’s color palette has taken ten years off of him, and he smiles when he catches Dean looking. Not staring, just looking. Looking ain’t a crime. 

Posing presents a challenge right from the jump. Dean can’t figure out what the hell to do with his arms. He stuffs his hands in his pockets, elbow bumping Cas’ as they stand awkwardly side by side. Go figure, apparently it isn’t romantic enough. 

“On Pinterest, couples usually stand closer together,” Jack says from his perch in a director’s chair he must’ve materialized from another dimension. It lends him an air of directorial authority Dean can’t possibly argue with. 

They try an arm around the shoulder. No big deal; they’ve done that before. It’s not like anything has to be different now. And sure, in the past, they've only gotten this close when one of them was on death’s door, but whatever. He can put an arm around his good lookin’ buddy who wants to sleep with him without it being a whole thing. 

Sam sighs loudly when he stops snapping photos long enough to look at his phone screen.  

“What, man?” Dean says, starting to get self-conscious. Sure, he’s not a catalog model or anything, but come on, he cleans up alright.

“It’s just—these aren’t going to convince anybody,” Sam says, swiping quickly and grimacing in a way Dean really doesn’t appreciate. “No offense, but you guys look like...I don’t know...coworkers, maybe? Or racquetball buddies?”

“Maybe if your hips were touching?” Jack pipes up. “I think fiances usually let their hips touch.”

“The hell? Our hips are—oh.” Dean looks between him and Cas, eyeing the careful distance where their bodies don’t meet, like oil and vinegar in a poorly-shaken salad dressing.  

Cas’ hand on his waist tightens, drawing him against the warm, solid line of his body, and Dean is viscerally reminded why they don't do this. He can feel each of Cas’ fingertips as if they’re on his skin, and Dean really should’ve picked a thicker shirt for this. He looks at Cas, from closer now, and like he always does, Cas looks steadily back. 

“That’s better, guys. Just keep doing that,” Sam says, and of course, now that he’s said it, it’s weird, so Dean looks away. Sam groans. 

“What about kissing?” Jack pipes up. “The couples sometimes kiss in the pictures.”

“What couples?” Dean says. “And like— kiss, kiss?”

“The ones on Pinterest. I can show you my engagement photo boards later.”

“Actually Jack, I think we can take it from here,” Cas says, his hand still snug on Dean’s waist, and it’s ridiculous how nice it is. God, it’s been awhile.

“Are you sure?” Jack asks. “We could try more poses! There are so many possibilities to choose from.”

The kid is so excited about the whole thing that Dean almost feels bad, but really, he’s just grateful Cas picked up on how much this whole situation is giving him heart palpitations. 

“Buddy, Cas is right, I think,” Sam says, putting a hand on Jack’s shoulder and steering him gently toward the stairs. It’s sweet, watching a being who’s more powerful than god letting himself be led. “We’ll give you guys some privacy.”

Once they’re out of view, Dean pulls his phone out of his pocket. “So, a selfie, I guess? How do you want to do this?” He holds the phone out, trying to get them both in the frame of the rear-facing camera with the sun in his eyes. Cas turns them both until they’re practically chest to chest, his hand skating across Dean’s back before settling at his hip like it’s taken out a 30 year lease on the property. Dean swallows, mouth gone dry, as he doesn’t let his gaze drop any further than Cas’ eyes. His mouth is right there though, so it’s tough. “We’re not—you don’t think we actually need to—” 

“Take the photo, Dean.” 

Dean clicks the button, several times. Cas sways ever so slightly closer, until Dean can make out each individual eyelash. He clicks some more, and then entirely forgets to breathe as Cas brings their foreheads together. Dean shuts his eyes and clicks. 

“Do you think you got a shot?” Cas says quietly a long moment later. They’re standing so close that Dean can feel the rumble of his voice in his chest, and thank fuck Sam and Jack left, because it allows Dean to hang on past the point of plausible deniability. 

“Maybe a few more. Just to be sure.”

Chapter Text

The nearest suit shop with a decent in-store selection is nearly an hour away, so Dean bribes Sam with the promise of boba tea and control of the stereo to come along. There isn't exactly time for a tailor, so he's going to have to make do with something off-the-rack. He’d have taken Cas instead, but he and Jack are headed into town for haircuts at the barbershop that has the best selection of gumball machines across the Great Plains, leaving Dean to cope with mid-aughts indie rock all on his own.

Sam looks at him weird for the first ten or twenty miles before he finally opens his mouth. 

“Man, what are you doing?”

“What? With the suit? I was thinking maybe gray.” Can’t go wrong with a classic. 

“No, I mean the whole thing—the wedding, being married—how is all of it going to work? Like, I need to know if you’re getting an annulment in a month or if I’m buying you a toaster from your registry. What the hell is going on?”

“What are you talking about? I thought you were cool with all this!”

“I was cool with it! But then you guys went and—” A complicated hand gesture follows that even decades of siblinghood can’t translate.

“We what.”

Instead of answering, Sam dramatically sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose like he only does when he thinks Dean is being particularly stupid. It’s rude, is what it is. Dean waits him out. 

“I saw the photo, okay?” Sam says, eyes fixed to his knees. 

Ah. Okay. “The one where we’re...” It’s a damn good photo, with the sun setting behind them and their profiles looking all cinematic and shit. Super romantic. They aced the assignment. 

Sam’s still not looking at him though, like Dean’s the one being weird right now. “Yes, that one. I had to help Cas use the printer. Apparently the djinn don’t have email.”

“And? Also, side note, we have a printer? When did that happen?”

“Dean, just tell me the truth. I can’t believe I’m asking this, but...are you guys together? Like, for real? Or is this still just a bit?” 

Dean doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he turns onto the main drag in Grand Island, into the mostly-empty parking lot shared by a Petco and a Men’s Wearhouse. He parks in the back of the lot, hopefully keeping Baby out of range of shopping carts and general idiocy. 

“It’s not a bit, Sam—we’re, come on, you get it.” He really hopes so anyway. “It just is what it is.”

“I don’t get it though! And what the hell does that mean, ‘it is what it is’? Are you going to do married people stuff? Like, are you picking out bedding and dishware? Getting a joint checking account?”

Dean laughs, unclipping his seatbelt and turning off the ignition. “That’d be the day. Picture it, a supposedly dead felon and an angel with no social security number or last name walk into a Wells Fargo.”

“That’s not my point and you know it. Just, are you sure about this? Or, let me ask in a different way— are you inviting people to the wedding?”

Dean examines his hair in the rearview mirror and futzes with the front where the styling cream didn’t set right this morning, then he checks his teeth for good measure. 

“Dude, we know, like, four living people.” Hunting and assorted cosmic disasters have really taken a toll on their contact list. Speaking of the dead, Dean shoves away the thought of what either of his parents would’ve said about all this. His mom would’ve come around, he’s pretty sure. But John? Good thing the bastard is reliving his glory days up in the celestial hamster wheel and won’t have shit to say about anything at all, ever again.

“That’s not true, but even if it was, do you want them to come? Does it seem like the kind of event you want the people you care about to witness?”

Dean pictures it. There’s not going to be a dry eye in the house once they get through the vows. Which he still needs to write. Shit.

“I mean, Eileen, obviously. And it’d be cool if Jody, Donna, and the girls were there.” God, Claire is going to have a field day with this—good or bad, remains to be seen. God love her, but the girl is a wildfire stuffed in a circus cannon. She’ll behave herself if Cas asks her to though. Probably. 

“So we’re going to invite them all to watch you marry Cas. Which is not a bit, but just is what it is. Apparently.”

“See, I knew you’d catch up,” Dean says, getting out of the car and making a beeline for the shop with Sam trailing along behind. The sound of his purposely-heavy footfalls on the pavement let Dean know he’s still being weird. 

The lady folding ties at the checkout counter asks them if they need any help. Dean demurs, and heads for the racks at the back of the store where the sale stuff is. He tabs through the selection of old-man, three button suit sets as Sam pretends to study a display of pocket squares, when Dean knows he’s really on his phone gossiping. 

“Eileen says she’ll be there. She sends her congratulations.”

“Tell her thanks for me.” It’s nice that he knows at least one person who can be normal about this. 

Polyester, polyester, red crushed velvet, white linen...he’s about to give up when he comes to the only suit in the row that doesn’t look like it’s intended for either an octogenarian or a high school junior. His size, in a soft, deep blue wool. It’s a nice color. Kind of reminds him of something.  

He grabs a shirt and tie to complete the ensemble. Sam sets up shop on a well-worn bench outside the row of dressing rooms as Dean tries it all on. Even though his shoes are scuffed to shit, the mirror is warped, and the jacket’s sleeves are a little long, the look still works.

“She also says Cas is too good for you,” Sam calls from the other side of the curtain as Dean battles with the bow tie. It’s been a minute since he’s had the occasion.

“Man, don’t I know it,” he replies distractedly, while he watches a quick YouTube tutorial on mute. The bow comes out a little akimbo, but it’s good enough for now. 

He pulls back the curtain so he can check his ass in the three way mirror. 

“Lookin’ good,” he says to his own reflection, checking his angles. Silence from his audience of one in the cheap seats. “Come on, man. Throw me a bone.”

Sam looks up briefly from his phone and gives him a half-assed thumbs up. “Jody says she has some, uh, follow up questions for you. Says to call her right away when we get home.”

Dean winces. So he’s in for a grilling, which he should’ve expected. Jody’s love language is interrogation, after all. 

He buys the suit. Then, feeling magnanimous, he only mocks Sam’s horrible choice in boba tea flavor for half the trip home. Who orders strawberry milk when taro or lychee are right there, honestly. 

*

“Dean, you’re absolutely sure about this?” Jody says.

“Why is everybody asking me that today?” Dean says, pressing the phone to his ear with his shoulder. His hands are busy—making a roux is a pain in the ass but it’s the only correct basis for mac and cheese. “Is it ‘cause he's a dude?” He knows as soon as the words leave his mouth that he's made a mistake.

“Excuse me?” she says, and Dean can practically hear her eyebrows hit her hairline. Shit.

“Let me retract that.”

Too late. 

“You know I don’t give a flying heap of crap about who you want to do the dirty with—don’t you go changing the subject. I asked if you’re sure about this. I thought you guys were just friends.”

Little by little, Dean adds the milk now that the flour has cooked. A bunch of pepper, some salt, a little mustard powder and paprika, then whisk, scrape the sides, and turn the heat to low to let it simmer.

“We are friends, that's the whole thing! And he needs me for this, Jody, come on. The guy’s gone to bat for me a hundred times—it’s the least I can do.”

“And that’s all there is to it?” she asks, gentler now, like Dean is a spooked horse in a thunderstorm.

Dean thinks about a soft blue suit, a platinum ring paid for in cash, and the way Cas’ eyes looked last night from up close. 

“Yup. That’s the whole story.”

Jody lets out a slow, audible breath. “...Okay. So, Friday’s the big day?”

“Yup, the courthouse at noon. I reserved the party room at the Tex-Mex place across the street for after.” Just then, the pasta pot starts to bubble over, spilling onto the cooktop and sputtering onto his apron. “Shit, Jody, I’ve gotta let you go, bit of a situation over here.”

“Alright, we’ll all see you in a few days, hon. Call anytime though. I mean it.”

*

Cas pauses the episode of Chopped right before the last round starts and turns to Dean. Their knees are touching now underneath the blanket, which is no big deal. So many things are no big deal, why can’t everyone else understand that? 

”There’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” Cas says. "It should only take a minute. Then we can get back to the program. I'm very invested in how the chefs will use sauerkraut in their desserts."

“No problem. Shoot, buddy.”

“It’s about the marriage rites.”

Dean grabs another handful of popcorn. “Oh yeah, a kiss and some hocus pocus, right?”

“Yes, that’s one way of putting it. Our energies—most of my grace will be consumed in the ritual to unite them, and a small portion will flow into you, creating an equilibrium.”

“Uh.” Dean sits back on the sofa, pulling a knee up to his chest. “How much are we talking about?” 

“Enough that I’ll become human, or mostly human anyway.”

Dean inhales sharply. “Shit, and you’re okay with that?” 

Cas smiles, and it looks sincere, not at all like he’s trading away everything that he is to be stuck forever here, with Dean. “I am. It’ll be different, this time around. I won’t be alone.”

“Yeah, you’ve got that right." Understatement of the year. Dean will be damned if he lets Cas get a paper cut for the rest of his life, and no, he doesn't want to examine that feeling. "So will inhaling your god juice do anything to me? If you say I’m going to grow wings, I swear...”

“No, no. At least, I don’t think so? This hasn’t exactly been attempted before. Probably just a minor enhancement to your senses. Some of your soul’s energy will also enter me.”

“Man, flowing and entering—are we sure we want other people around for this?” He rubs at the back of his neck and clears his throat. “It all sounds a little, well. Horny.” 

“The exchange happens during the kiss. From the outside, it shouldn’t look any different than a typical human wedding. But speaking of other people, the djinn are sending an emissary to serve as an official witness—a human.”

“What? Liaison to monsters is a job?”

“Apparently so. Her name is Brenda. She’s an accountant from Tucson. Apparently, her work with the djinn community is on a remote, ad hoc basis.”

“...Huh. Sweet gig if you can get it, I guess. So do we need to, uh—” he makes the universal symbol of ganking, a finger across the throat. 

“No, we don’t need to kill her,” Cas says seriously. "She specifically mentioned that she doesn’t facilitate violence, only cross-species diplomacy.”

“That’s a relief. Not very romantic to bury a body before cutting the cake.”

Cas looks at him strangely. “I suppose not.” The moment stretches. “She’s required to observe the wedding itself, and to make an assessment of our behavior’s authenticity for another day or two more.”

Dean thinks of medieval bedding ceremonies, a crowd waiting around a curtained bed. “How closely is she going to be, uh, observing us?” 

“I made a reservation at the Buckshot Inn. If we’re seen entering and leaving together, that should be enough. As for how we behave together, it isn’t difficult for me to act like I care deeply for you, because I do.”

The thing is, he hasn’t actually heard that from too many people. He’s going to try not to be weird about it.

“Me too. Obviously.”

Cas smiles, and the room gets brighter. He unpauses the show, and Dean settles back into the couch. If he leans against Cas’ shoulder a little, who’s going to know? He’s about to marry someone who cares deeply for him. He’s allowed.

Chapter Text

The night before the wedding, Dean decides to take Cas out to the nicest (read: only) joint in town. Sam had offered to throw them whatever passes for a bachelor party around here, but Dean had passed. He doesn’t need all that. And anyway, on Thursdays, Lenny’s Bar has tater tots and pickle chips for only two bucks a pop, and who can pass up that kind of a bargain? He and Cas get a bucket of beers and a pile of fried deliciousness to split, and pick a booth shoved into the back corner by the broken jukebox. 

“Say, I was thinking,” Dean says as he watches Cas evaluate the relative merits of blue cheese vs. ranch dipping sauce. “What type of kiss should we do tomorrow?”

Cas pauses in his condiment deliberations. “What are our options?”

Dean swirls a tater tot through ketchup. “You know, there’s the kind of kiss you do in church, or the kind you do in a dive bar bathroom stall. Heh, those are fun. Or there are those awkward first kisses, and old married couple kisses. Kisses where you’re trying to get somewhere and other ones where the kiss itself is the whole endgame.” 

“I have to admit, I’m not the most well-versed in the distinctions.” 

“It’s okay, lemme explain,” Dean says, giving himself a pat on the back for his generosity. He pushes the pickle chips to the side and leans in, conspiratorial. “Not to brag, but I’m kind of an expert. Professor emeritus at the School of Sucking Face.”

Cas smiles, fond. “I wasn’t aware that that renowned institution gave out diplomas.”

“Only to the best and brightest. The crème de la kissing crème.” 

“Then by all means, share your wisdom. Teach me.”

And that—that’s a little hot, he’s not going to lie. 

“Alright, alright. Twist my arm. Let’s cover the basics. For instance, most people would probably tell you that open-mouth versus closed is the determining factor.”

“Oh.”

Dean holds up a finger. “But hang on. Making out is great, don’t get me wrong—lips and tongues and all that. For a truly great kiss, it also has to do with the hands. The hands are critical.”

“I see.” Cas pauses and sips his beer. His mouth looks nice as he does it, fitted to the lip of the bottle. “So what should the hands do, in the best type of kiss?”

“So many options. Hands on the sides of their face, cupping their jaw? You can run a thumb over their cheekbone then too. Good stuff. That shit’s romance 101. Same with fingers in the hair. Or, one hand on their waist, the other on the back of their neck. That’s sexier, a little possessive. A lot of people are into that.”

“Are you ‘into’ that?” Cas asks, air quotes included.

Dean huffs, grinning. “I’m into everything.” He considers, thinking of his greatest hits. There’ve been a lot of bangers. “Hands on their hips or their ass, tugging them closer. That’s good too. Or on their back, a little scratching if it fits the mood.”

Cas takes a long pull of his beer, and Dean watches his throat work because he’s a red-blooded American man. 

“And you like all of these options equally?” Cas asks seriously, like he’ll be quizzed on it later. “No preferences one way or another?”

“Hard to say. Different times, different places call for different types of kisses,” Dean says with a shrug. “It’s important to read the room and get a sense of the vibe.”

“The vibe, of course. So how would you kiss me here, in this particular room?” 

“I—I thought we were talking about tomorrow.”

“Indulge me. Consider it an applied learning exercise.”

Dean swallows, and plays it out in his mind. The lean, the breath right before the kiss. 

“If this was a date, and it was going good, and the moment was right, I guess I’d...I’d ask if you wanted to get out of here.”

“I’d say yes,” Cas says quickly. “And then what?”

Dean exhales slowly through his nose and stares at the neon Coors Light sign on the wall just above Cas’ right shoulder. “Then I’d probably do something stupid like get you up against the wall next to the dumpster outside and kiss you dirty enough to risk getting arrested.” Cas inhales sharply. “And you deserve better than that.” 

“I do?” Cas says, head tipped to the side. “Maybe I want to be kissed next to a dumpster.”

Dean laughs, raising his hands. “Alright, alright. To each their own.”

“To be clear, I want to be kissed by you next to a dumpster. It’s not a general preference.”

“You want...” Dean says, mouth gone dry. He points at himself like an idiot, but he’s never claimed to be anything else. Cas just nods. “Like, now? Here? You don’t want to wait for tomorrow?” Cas just looks at him, with unmistakable intent. “Okay, I’m gonna just—I’m gonna pay the tab. And get a to-go box.”

Dean forgets the to-go box and overtips at the register. This isn’t a great time for math. Cas is waiting for him at the door. 

Outside, Dean grabs his hand and leads him past a group of smokers huddled under the streetlight, then into the alley where it’s quiet. It’s cold as fuck out here, but something tells him that isn’t going to matter for long. 

Dean cups his cold hands together and blows into them. “So, we’re just gonna...”

Cas reaches a hand forward, curling it around the back of Dean’s neck to gently pull him closer. His broad palm feels like the best kind of possession, like Dean is his to keep. It turns out, being kept might be all Dean’s ever wanted. 

“Is this correct?” Cas asks, breath fogging between them. 

“Yeah, buddy. You’re doing great.”

Cas tucks his other hand inside Dean’s jacket where he’s left it open, setting it against Dean’s hip. He takes a step closer, steering Dean backwards until he feels the press of the cold cement block wall at his back. 

“Something’s missing,” Cas murmurs, and Dean holds his breath with fists clenched in Cas’ coat. “You said there would be a dumpster.”

Dean laughs, dropping his forehead to Cas' shoulder. His nerves fizzle out like fire crackers in wet grass because Cas is still Cas, and there’s something so goddamn reassuring in that. “What, not enough ambiance for you? I think the dumpster is around the corner.”

“As it turns out, I don’t give a damn about ambiance,” Cas says, staring at his mouth. The moment stretches, seconds expanding. 

“Go for it,” Dean says, and he barely recognizes the voice that comes out of his mouth. “I want you to.”

And then, Dean is being kissed. Thoroughly kissed. He knew it’d be good, how could it be anything else? He feels like gravity has lessened its grip, helium in his veins as he gets Cas’ tongue in his mouth. For Dean's part, he’s trying to climb inside Cas’ clothes, under his skin. To be absorbed entirely would be just fine. 

Some amount of time later, Dean pulls back, breathless. “You lyin’ son of bitch,” he rasps. “Acting like you need my help.” Cas just hums and noses his collar to the side so he can suck at the skin there, fingertips digging into Dean’s back. “Shit, you could teach a seminar, lead workshops...god, yes, that’s...Christ, that’s it.” 

It's good, the kind of good that, in his experience, only happens to other people. It’s a whole new experience, being kissed by someone who knows him as well as Cas knows him. There’s no discernible reason why a thorough grasp of his shitty childhood and favorite westerns should make a kiss this good, but it does. 

“We're getting married,” Dean slurs with his eyes shut tight and his hands up the back of Cas’ shirt, greedy for warm skin. He’s stone cold sober but swaying on his feet, drunk on oxytocin and the thrill of finally not pulling his punches when it comes to touching Cas. “Oh my god.”

Cas hums, kissing up the side of his neck until he takes his face in both his hands, cradling. He's pulled into another kiss, and the building ebb and flow of it has Dean overheating like he's sixteen instead of forty, fumbling with Cas' belt buckle before he realizes what he's doing. Cas stills his hand with a touch to his wrist, and when Dean looks up he's breathing hard, eyes wide and wild. 

"Is it—is this okay?" Dean asks, going from blissed out to worried in two seconds flat. "Too much? Did I fuck it up?" 

"No, no. There's just something I need to tell you. Something I maybe should've mentioned earlier." Dean's stomach drops, and he regrets the pickle chips from earlier, along with basically every decision he’s ever made in his life. Cas takes a fraction of a step backward, putting frigid air between them. "It's about something you said."

Dean wracks his brain, sifting through the cotton candy fog that evidently comes with kissing your best friend. "It was probably nothing, right? I've said a lot of stupid shit over the years.” 

"The other day, you said you were putting all your cards on the table. Full disclosure before we go ahead with this."

"Yeah...?"

Cas’ expression takes on a familiar battlefield look Dean would rather never see again. "I think I should do the same."

Dean laughs nervously. "I'm getting wings, aren't I. Knew I wasn't coming out the other side of this normal."

Cas shakes his head. 

"I said before that marrying you would only work to break my contract with the djinn if the bond between us was strong. I may have understated things."

"So marrying me won’t do the trick? What do I have to do, man? Tell me, come on. Whatever it takes, we'll get you out of this deal. I ain’t losing you to some monster who read one too many Harlequins or whatever." 

Cas smiles, but there's an ache to it. "I appreciate that. I know you would move heaven and earth for those you care about. Quite literally, when necessary. Please understand, I'm grateful. More than I can say. This additional requirement though, it's not something you can just do , exactly. It’s more of a state of being. And it doesn't need to be reciprocated, so the marriage ritual will still work, that I'm sure of." 

“What the hell are you talking about, man? Throw me a bone, what’s the extra requirement?" 

Cas tips his head up at the dark sky like he's searching for a version of god who never existed. Then he looks at Dean again, the same look he's leveled at him a thousand times, ten thousand. It has a weight to it, a tidal pull.

"Love, Dean. Specifically, the state of being in love. And I am, with you.”

“Run that one past me again.” He misheard, he hallucinated, he astral projected, there's no way.

“I’m in love with you. The reason the marriage will break the contract is because I'm in love with you, and have been for some time now." 

"For how long?" 

"Oh, my friend," Cas says with a laugh that sounds halfway to a sob. "So very long. The whole time, of course."

"Okay, alright." Dean pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut as twelve years-worth of memories rewrite themselves in a mad scramble across his brain. "And you're telling me this...now."

"Well, I hadn't planned to tell you at all," Cas says plainly. "I'm very sorry that it's come to this."

"What? You're sorry you love me? I mean, fair, but come on!"

"Oh, no, not at all. Of course not. Loving you has been the best part of my life. I wouldn't change it for anything."

"Then what the hell are you sorry for!" 

Cas tilts his head. "Are we fighting? You're upset."

"Hell yeah I'm upset! You've been in love with me since I crawled out of a grave, and you didn't say anything until the day before our wedding?"

“Well, I did say some things, at various points in time, just not that particular configuration of words.”

Dean closes the distance between them, shoving at Cas' chest. Cas lets himself be pushed a step backward and then another until it's Dean who has Cas pressed against a wall. 

"You should've told me! You weren't going to tell me? Ever?! You were just going to take that little piece of information to the grave?"

"What would burdening you with my feelings have accomplished?" Cas says with a manufactured calm, his chest rising and falling quickly under Dean's hands like he needs the extra oxygen. "I thought through every possible scenario a million times. The resulting awkwardness, the strain in our friendship, or worse—losing you entirely. Besides, like I said, how I feel satisfies the ritual. Nothing is required of you."

"Nothing is required of me, what the hell. Wait a goddamn second. You think I don't reciprocate ? I already told you—you're my best friend!"

"And I appreciate that, but Dean, the way I love you, it's not exactly within the bounds of friendship, and it's perfectly okay that you don't feel the same. Your friendship is more than I deserve."

"Bullshit. And stop telling me how I feel! You aren't getting it. I bought you a ring! I paid cash!"

"You didn't have to do that."

"It's platinum, since you're allergic to nickel!"

"That was considerate. Thank you."

"And I know how you take your tea, and which Beyonce album is your favorite, and every time you've left it's fucked me up."

"...What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I love you too I guess!"

Now that he's said it, it’s suddenly obvious. A law of nature. 

"You guess?" Cas says, with eyebrows raised and the hesitant beginnings of a smile.

"Yeah!"

"You're still yelling. This doesn't seem like something people usually yell about."

"I'm mad! Fucking furious!"

"I see. And just to confirm, when you say I'm your best friend, you mean..."

"That I love you! In love with you or whatever! But you think I don't love you the way you apparently love me and I do, Cas, I do. Seriously what else do I have to—"

"Oh for heaven's sake," Cas says, and kisses him.

It's the kind of kiss a person doesn't recover from. Dean gets his hands in Cas' hair, and he pours everything into the kiss: all the fury, all the loss, all the times and all the ways he’s wanted Cas and not had him. He has him now, no point in holding back. 

Their hips slot together, he’s got Cas’ dick riding against his thigh...and that's the moment the rattle of bottles of cans announces that the bartender has decided to bring out the trash. 

"Hey, uh, fellas,” he says, clearing his throat awkwardly. He’s got to be new at this, because there’s no way that what they’re doing would make even the top 100 most graphic things that’ve happened in this alley. “You can't do this here, okay? No offense or nothin’.”

Dean releases his grip on Cas’ hips and holds up his hands. “None taken. We were just heading out, weren’t we?”

Cas nods, eyes blank and unfocused—wonderstruck, even. Dean did that, all on his own. The bartender skirts around them toward the back of the building, hoisting the garbage bag from step to noisy step. 

“What happens now?” Cas says, once the bartender is out of sight around the corner.

“I don’t want to presume.” Dean toes the gravel with his boot and fiddles with the buttons of Cas’ coat. He can’t stop goddamn smiling. 

“Presume.”

“Didn’t you say you got a motel for tomorrow night? How about we check in a little early?” Cas takes in a sharp breath, looking at him hungrily. “Like, now.”

“Yes, please.”

Chapter Text

Once they’re inside the Impala, Cas pulls up directions to the motel on his phone.

“Twenty-one minutes.”

“But that’s so far,” Dean groans, eyeing Cas and then the backseat in an obvious unspoken question. It would hardly be the first time he’s made do with Baby’s luxurious bench seating in a sexual emergency.

“No,” Cas says. “Absolutely not. Drive, Dean.”

“Alright, alright.” Dean starts the car. “This whole thing we’ve got going on has been building since the Bush administration but sure, you’re too classy for a little backseat action.”

“Hardly. I’d accept a cornfield at this point, but I’d prefer to avoid frostbite and the police.”

Dean shudders. “Fair enough. I’ll get us there in fifteen, watch me.”

“You have my full confidence.”

Cas rests his hand just above Dean’s knee, brushing his thumb along the outside seam of his jeans. As a result, Dean nearly rams a utility pole when he reverses out of the parking lot. He mentally apologies to Baby, then gets the car onto the highway by the grace of god. When Cas’ palm slides up to mid-thigh though, he’s ready to insist on the merits of a cornfield. Frostbite is no big deal either, in the scheme of things. Who needs all their toes anyway? Dean drifts onto the shoulder and hits the rumble strip before he can jerk the car back into the lane. 

Cas’ hand stills, and Dean catches the barest hint of a grin. “You seem distracted."

“Huh, wonder why,” Dean says, swallowing hard.

“Just from this? That is very flattering.”

Cas’ gentle grip tightens briefly before he returns to tracing shapeless patterns with his fingertips, each an individual point of electricity that sends shivers up the back of Dean’s skull. 

"What can I say, I’m a simple guy. The dude I’m apparently in love with has his hand on my thigh.”

While Dean attempts to continue breathing, Cas trails blunt nails slowly across the top of his knee.

“I understand. Physical contact...it’s distracting. I remember every time we’ve ever touched.”

Dean thinks back. “Like, every time? In detail?” There’s been the occasional hug—fewer than a half dozen, he's pretty sure. A hand clapped to a shoulder or wrist, in restraint or encouragement. Or, two fingers to check a pulse when things went all pear-shaped. Those times shouldn’t count though.

“One hundred and ninety-six instances. Not including incidental or accidental contact, of course, or what just happened in the alley. And yes, in perfect, distracting detail.”

“Woah. Dude...that’s awesome. What was the best one? Besides, you know. Recent events.”

“By what metric?” Cas says with a raised eyebrow. “What set of statistical principles are to be employed? Should the emotional significance of the contact supersede the physical intensity, or vice versa?” 

Dean is immediately transported to a rapidly-unfolding fantasy of Cas as a college professor. Brilliant and cocky, sleeves rolled up as he scrawls formulas across a blackboard. 

“You pick. Whatever metric you want.”

Cas looks away, out the window at the pitch-dark night. Dean’s never asked, but he figures Cas can see just as well at midnight as he can at noon. More than that, he probably knows the family history of every field mouse in the county and the scientific name of every star in the sky. He’ll never completely understand what Cas is doing riding shotgun with his mortal ass, but when Cas looks back at him—the way he looks back at him—Dean's starting to get an idea.

“In the Beautiful Room all those years ago, in Van Nuys. You recall, I’m sure.” Dean nods. “You grabbed my shoulder, and I let you. For the first time, I could feel it—really feel it. The flexion of each of your fingers, the width and breadth of your palm—angels weren't designed to know such things. Let alone to like the new feeling, to want more. I let you move me, and you haven’t stopped doing so."

"That's—" Dean clears his throat. "That's a damn good line."

“It’s not a line,” Cas says, looking back at him steadily.

“No, I know, I just...you have a real way with words, man. Here, turn your hand over, I’ll show you something elsewhere new.” Cas complies, and without looking away from the road, Dean drops his right hand from the wheel and runs the tip of his middle finger lightly from the inside of Cas’ wrist up to the center of his palm. Cas gasps. Dean traces around the base of each finger and skates the edge of a nail across the groove of his life line, back and forth. In his peripheral vision, he can see Cas’ mouth fall open and his eyes shut. “You liked my hand on your shoulder—figured this might be a bit of a step up.”

“How do people survive? Is it like this, usually?”

“Uh, no. I don’t think any of this is usual. Not for me, anyway.” Sex is great, sure. But touching Cas? Dean threads their fingers together, his thumb drawing circles across Cas’ palm before pressing into the thick muscle at the base of his hand. Cas groans, head tipping back. “Kinda uncharted territory here.”

A car passes them, buzzing by as soon as the line dividing the two-lane road turns from solid yellow to dashes, and Cas fixes him with a stare that feels like a sunbeam on his cheek. “Drive faster, please. Eighteen minutes still to go.”

“Shit, sorry.” He hits the gas, climbing from 55 to a respectable 64 mph. “Got a little side tracked. You’ve got really nice hands, man.”

“Is that so? What’s nice about them?” Cas holds his free hand up in front of himself, looking at it curiously. 

“I don’t know, they’re big, for starters. And the fingers are...” He trails off, because he’s thought all kinds of thoughts about these fingers, and the English language is limited. “They’re nice.” He traces Cas’ very nice index finger from knuckle to tip. Cas shivers. 

“I like your hands as well.” Cas’ voice is dazed, punch-drunk. “I like everything about your body, in case that wasn’t abundantly clear.”

The back of Dean’s neck heats up even though the air coming out of the vents is still deep-December cold. “Oh, uh, thanks.” 

“I can tell you more about that if you’d like,” Cas says dreamily, “but I’m sure you’ve heard it all before.”

The thing is, he hasn’t. Sure, he’s been getting the come-ons in bars and once-overs literally everywhere else since he hit sixteen, but people don’t generally get too wordy about it. And that’s—that’s fine, it’s not like he needs it or something, but it might be nice. Every once in a while. 

“It’s been a minute. Don’t get out much these days, you know? And anyway, I haven’t heard it from you, so if you’re offering...”

He grins at Cas, hoping for flirty and knowing full well he’s coming across eager. Cas doesn’t seem to mind, and looks him over slowly. It feels like being undressed, like being spotlit and naked for an adoring audience of one. 

“Your shoulders. I like those. And your kneecaps. The pattern of freckles across the bridge of your nose. Did you know you have four freckles on your ears? Three on your right ear and one on the left. That one is my favorite. Let’s see, I like the way your hair looks wet. Oh, and the precise curve of your spine, obviously.” 

“This is weird as hell.” He’s not sure if he’s saying it to convince Cas or himself, meanwhile his dick has the audacity to get hard.

“It is? Should I stop?”

“Hey now, didn’t say that.” He palms himself, just for a second. Rearranging, really. All above-board.

Cas smiles. “There are whole components of your body that I appreciate in a way no one else ever could. I’ve made a study of you.”

“...Shit.” Dean shifts in his seat and stretches his legs out a bit, trying to give his overzealous dick (and ego) a little room. 

“Your gait, for example. Genu varum—bow-leggedness. The congenital condition was exacerbated by a childhood vitamin deficiency, which I have some...thoughts...about. Putting that aside for now. The allergy your knees seem to have to one another is more charming that you can possibly understand.” 

“I think I get it,” Dean says, shaking his head. “I’m weird about you too. Like, did you know you tie your shoes funny? And there’s this little curl in your hair at the edges that drives me kinda crazy. You’ve tried every flavor of sparkling water available within an eighty mile radius—”

“I like the bubbles,” Cas says, brow furrowed like Dean’s about to argue the merits of carbonation.

“I know, and I like that about you too. I don’t think there’s anything you do that I don’t like, really. You’ve seen the way I look at you, right?”

“I didn’t know what it meant, as it’s been the same since we met.” A pause, as Dean lets it sink in for Cas what he just said. “Dean, were you attracted to me when we met?”

“I mean...you show up, celestial guns blazing, and yeah, I was into it. Still am, in case you missed that.”

“I’m starting to get an idea. But more reinforcement couldn’t hurt. Replication is the bedrock of science, after all.” 

Dean hits a red light at the empty intersection where the highway meets the edge of town. It’s a perfect opportunity to pull Cas in by the back of his neck and kiss him. He means to keep it brief, but the light does at least a couple cycles from red to green before they pull apart. 

“Turn left in two blocks,” Cas murmurs from a scant inch away. 

“What?” 

“We’re nearly there. The hotel is just around the corner.”

“Shit, that went fast.” Dean checks out the dashboard clock. “Told you I’d get us there in fifteen.”

“Fifteen minutes and forty nine seconds, but that’s neither here nor there.”

The vacancy sign is lit up, and there’s only a smattering of cars in the parking lot. Dean thinks about kissing Cas again when he turns off the car, but he instead draws on a lifetime of self-denial to get them some real privacy first.

“Hey, grab the duffel from the trunk,” he says to Cas, tossing him the keys while he checks and re-checks that all the doors are locked. Cas shoots him a curious look from across the top of the car. “What? Why’re you lookin’ at me like that?”

“You have a bag? Here?”

“‘Course I have a bag,” Dean says with a shrug, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jacket. It’s freezing out here, without even the decency to snow and make the cold cinematic. “I’m not an amateur.”

“So, to clarify, before we went out tonight, you packed a bag.”

“Uh, yeah? The next world-ending shitstorm is always just a phone call away, so it’s a good idea to be prepared. I mean, it’s not like I thought this”—he gestures between them—“was going to happen. I just keep a go-bag on hand for emergencies.”

“Is that what this is, an emergency?” That same near-deadpan grin Cas has been sporting all night appears again. MIldly smug is an annoyingly good look on him. 

“In the sense that there definitely wasn’t time to swing home and pack a duffel, yeah, this was an emergency.”

“I wish you didn’t have any spare clothes at all,” Cas says, frowning at the duffel before shrugging it onto his shoulder. “That would be ideal. I don’t understand why you need them.”

“So I’m marrying a horndog, go figure. And yeah, I see your point, but I need a toothbrush, some clean socks, my razor...” Dean ticks off the list on his fingers as they make their way to the motel office.

“That’s another thing, actually. I like your facial hair. Quite a lot.”

Cas holds the office door open for him, and Dean steps inside. 

“Oh, thanks, I guess?”

“So you don’t need the razor either.”

“I’m not using your angel blade again, man. Had enough of that in Purgatory. That shit’s hazardous.” He’s still got a few hairline scars on his neck to prove it.

“You could consider growing it out. Just a little. For me.”

“It gets itchy.” Dean scratches at the day-old stubble on his cheek. 

“Not if you keep it well-moisturized. There are products you can use, I’ve looked into it—”

“You’ve thought about this. You’ve researched.”

“Of course. If it concerns you, I’ve thought about it. You need reading glasses, by the way. And arch supports in your shoes.”

“What? No, I don’t! How is that ‘by the way’? That is definitely outside the way.”

There’s the sound of a throat being cleared, and then Dean notices that they aren’t alone. 

“What’ll it be, fellas?” the clerk asks, and if he heard the way they were talking, he doesn’t show it. A true pro. “Two queens or a king?”

“Two queens,” Dean answers on baked-in instinct. Cas elbows him in the side. “Shit, uh, a king actually.”

“Lemme see.” The guy peers down through coke bottle glasses at a paper calendar duct-taped to the desk. “Honeymoon suite is free tonight, if you’re okay with paying the extra twenty bucks. I got a couple checking in tomorrow though, so you gotta be out by ten.”

“Oh, we’re that couple actually,” Cas says. “We’ll take the room.”

“Hey, works for me. One less load of towels for me to wash. Congrats, I figure.” 

Dean hands over his best credit card in exchange for the key, complete with a neon pink, heart-shaped keychain. The room is at the end of the building, next to the vending machines and the semi-truck parking. Dean’s hands only shake a little bit as he fits the old-fashioned key in the lock. In the room, there’s one bed, because of course there is—that’s what they asked for. No rickety fold-out couch to speak of. One bed in all its maroon, paisley glory, that they’re going to be in together. 

“How are you feeling?” Cas asks, coming to stand beside him, a solid presence at his side.

Dean blinks, shaking himself a little. “What? Why are you asking?”

“It’s a question you haven’t been asked enough, and I’m asking now. How are you feeling?”

“What do you mean?”

“For example, are you nervous?”

“No,” Dean answers quickly. He reaches down to poke at the comforter, and immediately regrets it. It’s made of polyester and thirty years of bad sex. He wipes his hand on his pants. 

“Okay. Are you apprehensive?”

“Hey, that’s just another word for nervous. I’m not nervous.” 

“Well, I’m a little nervous,” Cas says, turning to set the duffel bag on the dresser. 

Dean catches his eyes in the mirror. 

“What the hell? Why? It’s just me.”

Cas nods seriously. “Precisely because it’s you.”

“Jesus, Cas.” 

Dean crosses over to him, gets a hand on his shoulder to turn him around and back him against the cheap dresser. Nineties faux-oak wasn’t made for the way Dean kisses him and the way Cas kisses him back, a push pull like it’s a competition to get under each other’s skin. 

He also stops being nervous, which he definitely wasn’t in the first place. Anyway, it’s impossible to be nervous when the kissing is this good. Cas seems to be loosening up too, if the definition of loosening up includes weaseling a hand up the back of Dean’s shirt to set blunt nails against the skin of his back. Dean does his best to get them both undressed without breaking the kiss. The buttons of Cas’ shirt are on the wrong side, and undoing his belt buckle is as hard as solving a Rubik’s Cube in the dark. Eventually, Cas steps away to toe off his shoes and pants, and Dean watches with baited breath like he’s at the world’s most expensive striptease. 

The business of getting the comforter off and themselves situated against the sheets takes just long enough to bring back a twinge of nerves, except now Dean knows the cure. He reaches for Cas, pulling him on top and slinging a leg over his hip to keep him there before fitting their mouths together again. The movement comes easy, the rolling grind of it, like he’s been here before even though it’s all uncharted terrain. 

They’d left their underwear on, which was a mistake in hindsight. He needs everything, immediately, and it makes his hands stupid and clumsy as he tugs Cas’ dollar store boxers down over his ass. He’s thought about that ass a lot over the years, and it’s good under his hands, better than anything, the best thing ever. That is, until Cas maneuvers out of his boxers and sits back on his heels, dick hard against his thigh. 

“Oh my god, fuck me,” Dean blurts out. No point walking it back when he means it.

Cas skates his hands up the outsides of Dean’s legs, and Dean lifts his hips to let him pull his boxers off. Then, Cas stares, and makes no attempt to hide it. It feels sort of holy, to be stared at like this. Like Cas is making him into something better, dirtier and cleaner than he’s ever been.

“There are...so many things I want,” Cas says eventually, still staring. 

“We can get to all of ‘em. Plenty of time, sweetheart.”

“But what first?” Cas says, eyes nowhere near Dean’s face. 

“You can touch me some more, if you want.”

“If I want? Dean, I—” He tips his face to the ceiling, and Dean gets a clear view of his neck. He wants to bite it, or maybe build an altar to it. Something low-key with at least a million candles. “Where?”

Anywhere, just don’t ever stop touching me, Dean thinks. “The dick is a classic, for starters. Let’s see. Not really into feet, but uh, nipples. Some people like that.”

“Hm. I see. People.”

Cas leans over him, hands on either side of the mattress for support. He traces the tip of his tongue across Dean’s left nipple, and the barest bit of wet pressure has Dean clenching a fist in Cas’ hair. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Dean says, and grabs the sheets instead. 

Cas looks at him. “Why are you sorry?”

“It’s rude,” Dean says, shrugging. “Didn’t mean to get grabby with you.”

“But I liked it. That’s something I like. Do it again.”

“Oh. Okay. That’s—that’s cool. Good to know.” Dean places both hands carefully on the sides of Cas’ head, fingers slipping through his hair, thumbs at the corners of his blue, blue eyes. 

Cas returns to his chest, kisses across his collarbone and then down again, this time to suck instead of tease. He adds the hint of teeth, and then Dean pulls his hair for real.

“Shit , honey,” Dean says, arching up against Cas’ mouth, a none-too-subtle request for more, harder.

Cas gives him harder. It’s sensory overload, a breathless shock that focuses the entirety of his attention on his own body and how good it feels to exist in it. 

When Cas repeats the action on the other side, he takes just as much time with it, and Dean doesn’t think he could rush him if he tried. He wouldn’t want to anyway, especially not with the way Cas is starting to move his hips, the wet head of his cock dragging across Dean’s thigh. 

“Oh my god. You like this,” Dean says, marveling a little. “I can’t believe you actually—”

“I like this very, very much,” Cas answers, shifting forward so he can kiss Dean again. It brings their dicks into shocking, point-proving alignment, and Cas snaps his hips forward on impact. Dean gasps against his neck, breath coming hot against hot skin as Cas rolls against him. It’d be so easy to come like this, just from this. He doesn’t want to come yet or anytime soon, a resolution that is immediately tested when his dick catches on the ridiculous curve of Cas’ hip as they move together and Cas sucks at his neck. It’s definitely above the collar, and Dean doesn’t give a shit. Quite the opposite.

“Yeah, you can go harder. Come on—mark me up.”

Cas groans, and then obliges with kiss-bites across the top of his shoulder. It pulls him back from orgasm and turns him on even more, whatever that means. If Dean gets what he wants, he’ll have a neat row of bruises in the morning. Hopefully ones that last, evidence that Cas wanted him bad enough to eat him alive. Cas looks down at him, at the marks Dean can feel forming under his skin. He traces the edge of one at the junction of neck and shoulder with a finger, and Dean shudders. 

"They don't hurt?" Cas asks, brow furrowed.

"Nah, not really. It's the good kind, anyway. The best. Promise."

Cas bends down again, softly kissing where teeth had been before, like an apology, or benediction. Dean gets his hands on Cas' back, on the span of his broad shoulders where other-dimensional wings used to be. Cas fits so well between his legs like this, and it’s only natural, the easiest thing, to wrap a leg around his waist. Cas’ dick slides neatly into the crease of his inner thigh, and a shudder moves through both of them like tidal wives. Almost like fucking, almost as good as Dean knows that’s going to be. 

“You can touch me,” Dean says with a rasp, suppressing the please please please. 

“I am.” 

“I mean, more. You can touch me the type of way that’ll help you fuck me.” Cas just looks down at him in an unasked question, at their bodies pressed together. “Your fingers, I want ‘em.”

Dean lets his legs fall open, an invite, and takes one of Cas’ hands in his. Cas goes unresisting as Dean guides it to where it should be, pressing the tips of Cas’ fingers against his hole. Dean watches his throat working in a dry swallow, his mouth then falling open like the air around them has gone oxygen-thin.

“Lube in my bag, inside pocket,” Dean says, gesturing vaguely at the dresser. 

Cas nods, clumsily getting up from the bed—Dean got an angel to lose his balance, and he gives himself a moment to be proud while Cas finds what they’re both after. Dean shuts his eyes, listens to the click of the bottle opening, the wet sound of it on Cas’ fingers, then waits—there, the first, soft touch, Cas tracing a slick circle. Keeping him on the edge of overwhelm is Cas’ other hand, cupped around the back of Dean’s thigh. He’s ready, so ready and Cas must understand because he gives Dean one of his perfect fingers, steady and filling him up. 

"Fuck, that’s so good.”

"Yeah?"

"So so good. God, yes, I can take another. Give me another.”

Cas doesn’t, at least not right away. The careful, sentimental bastard can’t be rushed, and because Dean knows this is what love does to a guy, he tries his best to relax. The room is so quiet with just the sound of his own open-mouthed breathing, like this is the only motel in the world with properly insulated walls. Cas curls his finger just when the thoughts in his head start getting a little too loud, when he starts thinking about how he must look spread out like this. 

“ Oh my god.”

Cas squeezes his thigh and adds a second finger.

“Oh my fucking god."

Cas’ two fingers go slower than the first, stopping for lube before Dean thinks to ask for it. He tries to watch Cas watch him—the expressions that move across his face are gorgeous and awe-struck—but it’s so much easier to just sink into it, to let his eyes shut. 

Eventually his leg starts to cramp, courtesy of one too many vertical trips down flights of stairs via a pissed-off ghost or creepy-crawly. He ignores it, because a little charley horse isn’t going to get in the way of how it feels to have Cas touching him like this. Cas must read it on his face anyway, and he pulls his fingers out. 

“No no no, I’m good,” Dean argues. “Come on, keep going.” 

“Your tensor fasciae latae was starting to spasm.”

“That’s...shit, why is it hot you know that?”

Cas smiles. “If you change positions, that should relieve it. I want you to be comfortable.”

Dean is not going to get misty-eyed over that, absolutely not. He rolls to his stomach, graceless because there’s no way to do it gracefully. He grabs at a pillow and stuffs it under his hips, groaning when the heel of his hand makes contact with his dick for a second. With his head resting on his folded arms, he can acknowledge Cas is right—he is more comfortable now. 

Cas leans over him and presses a kiss between shoulder blades, over his spine. Goosebumps break out over his skin as Cas kisses down his back before placing his hands gently on Dean’s ass, thumbs just barely teasing at his crack. There’s the sound of the lube again, then Cas slides wet fingers between his cheeks. Dean opens his legs wider and keens when Cas slips a curling finger in his hole again. 

“That’s perfect, Dean,” Cas murmurs, even though Dean isn’t doing anything but lay here and like this. Maybe that’s enough. 

He eventually manages to get his knees underneath himself so he can rock back against Cas’ hand. Cas makes it even better when he gets two fingers inside and straightens them, letting Dean fuck himself. 

“Want you now,” Dean says, mouth open as he pants against his arm. “Condoms—in the bag.”

Cas stands to retrieve them, and Dean’s head clears enough to think for half a second. He lifts his head to find Cas’ eyeline. 

“Wait, do we even need ‘em?”

“Not for disease prevention reasons, no,” Cas says, expression serious. “You’re perfectly safe. But if you would be more comfortable—”

“Fuck that, wanna feel all of it.”

In the quiet of the room, he can hear Cas’ swallow and the juddering breath he takes as he settles back between Dean’s knees. The head of his cock is velvet against Dean’s lube-slick skin, and the blunt pressure against his hole sets him shaking with how much he needs it. Cas doesn’t make him wait this time, and nothing hurts as he gets filled up with every inch of Cas’ cock. Cas pets at Dean’s sides, his back, and his ass, eventually curling his hands under and around Dean’s shoulders and lowering him to the bed. He’s covering him with his body completely now, cock buried inside. He never pulls all the way out, instead keeping their bodies closer than Dean has ever felt to another person, during sex or otherwise. The pressure on his prostate is perfect, blinding and building as Cas kisses the back of his neck. 

Without seemingly any effort at all (angels, go figure), Cas sits back on his heels, taking Dean with him so he’s propped over Cas thighs. It changes the angle, and Dean grinds down to get as full as possible. Cas keeps one arm wrapped across his chest, and with his free hand, he starts to stroke Dean’s dick. 

“Oh, fucking shit .” 

He makes the mistake of opening his eyes and looking down, and gets the sight of Cas’ shiny fingers wrapped around his dick.

“Holy—hang on, hang on, slow—” 

Cas stops stroking, leaving his hand curled close around the base of his dick. When he’s managed two or three full breaths, Dean starts rocking back into Cas’ lap, with Cas’ hand working on the same rhythm. Above and beneath and around him, getting fucked every way he wants. Just about.

“Fingers, your other hand. Put ‘em in my mouth.”

Cas obliges, setting his teeth into Dean’s shoulder when Dean sucks hard on his index and middle fingers.

He nearly blacks out when he comes, the orgasm inescapable and snapping along his synapses like lightning through a weather vane. He writhes in Cas’ arms as Cas fucks him through it. 

Boneless, Cas pours him back down against the bed, and slides free of the grip of his body. He uses both hands to turn him over, filthy-wet with Dean’s come and spit. Dean does the hard work of opening his eyes, worth it a million times over for the way Cas looks at him while he fucks his fist. Dean thinks what he wants as hard as he can, a silent prayer. Cas’ gaze snaps to his, eyes wide. 

“You heard me,” Dean says. “Please.”

Cas nods, hand working faster. He towers above him, Dean’s new god, and comes. It catches Dean’s cheek first, then his chest, sliding into the dip of his collarbone. Warm and dirty and so, so good. 

*

His phone buzzes once, then three more annoying times, before Dean manages to open his eyes. There’s daylight leaking between the cheap blinds and polyester curtains, and a clearly-sleeping Cas is huffing quiet breaths against his shoulder. Dean swipes at the bed stand to peer blearily at the screen of his phone. Shit, it’s 11:15. He’s got three missed calls and a bunch of texts from Jody, Claire, and Sam. He opens Sam’s first. 

7:30 AM Where are you, man? 

7:46 AM I can’t find Cas either, is he with you?

8:58 AM Dean

10:06 AM Is the wedding still on? Did the djinn show up? Answer your phone

10:48 AM I’m going to the courthouse. Bringing your suit. And Cas’ too, I guess? If you’re dead I’m going to kick your ass

Claire and Jody’s texts are much of the same, worried and threatening in equal parts. Dean drops a vague but reassuring message in the group chat, handling three fretful birds with one stone. 

“Cas, hey, we’ve gotta get up,” he says, nudging at Cas’ shoulder. Cas grumbles, and burrows deeper into the bed. “We’re gonna be late.” 

Cas blinks an eye open at him. “It’s 11:16. The courthouse is only four blocks from here. I’m going back to sleep.”

“Dude, we have to shower. And since when do you sleep?”

“Whenever I want to, and last night, I wanted to. You’re a very compelling sleeper.”

“Thank you?” Dean says, opting to interpret that as a compliment. Cas nuzzles closer again. “Nuh-uh, come on, sweetheart.” 

Dean practically drags him out of bed, fully aware Cas is letting himself be dragged. The combination bath/shower is a deep red with pink tile, which is a lot to face mere minutes after waking up. Gotta admire the commitment to the theme though. With Cas slumped against his back, he unwraps a bar of soap from the counter and fiddles with the tap ‘til it’s hot enough to steam up the glass. 

Cas follows him into the tub and takes the soap out of his hands. He turns Dean toward the shower wall, and places both of Dean’s hands against the tiles. 

“Stay.”

Dean swallows and nods. They really don’t have time for whatever this is, but hell if Dean is going to stop him. 

Cas grabs the shower sprayer, soaking Dean’s hair and skin and then working up a lather with the soap. He starts at Dean’s shoulders, sudsing and and then rinsing down his back. He reaches around to work over his chest and stomach, and Dean doesn’t even try to suppress a moan. Dean feels his neck go hot when Cas’s soapy fingers slide between his ass cheeks, getting him clean and turning him on as if he needed any help in that department. 

“Turn around, please,” Cas says, and when Dean does, he’s not remotely prepared for the way Cas looks when he drops to his knees in front of him.

Dean pushes the longish hair at Cas’ temples behind his ears and tries to remember how to breathe as Cas washes his legs and even his feet. Never one to leave a job half-finished, Cas curls a soapy hand around his cock and strokes. 

“Shit , baby, you look so goddamn good.” He gets a smile from Cas in return, maybe even a little shy, and that just won’t do. “Best thing I’ve ever seen. Going to keep telling you ‘til you’re tired of hearing about it.”

“You can tell me,” Cas says, rubbing the slit of his dick with his thumb. “I think I like it when you tell me things. And when you call me baby.”

Cas twists his body out of the way of the shower spray, letting the water sluice across Dean’s skin. He leans forward, lips to the head of Dean’s cock in a kiss. 

“Oh my god.”

Cas opens his mouth, his tongue soft on the underside of Dean’s dick as he takes it inside. 

Dean curls his fingers into Cas’ wet hair, no pressure, just touching. He leans his head back to rest against the tile and lets Cas work on him. When his legs start to shake, Cas presses him against the wall with strong hands on his hips, holding him up until he comes into Cas’ perfect mouth. 

*

Clean and dirty and clean again, they get dressed with only a few instances of sabotage. Tying Cas’ tie for him, for instance, leads to an unavoidable makeout that nearly knocks the mirror off the wall.

“You could tie me up with this,” Dean says, thinking aloud once he finally gets around to threading the knot. 

“Dean. It’s already 11:46,” Cas says with a heavy sigh, looking dismayed at the unceasing march of time. 

Dean finishes the simple four-in-hand knot, and then loosens it a little until Cas looks exactly as he should. “Maybe later then. Plenty of time.”

“You mean after we’re married.”

“Oh my god, after we’re married.”

They smile at each other, and since there’s no one else around to make Dean feel stupid for it, he lets the look linger as long as he wants. Which, it turns out, is pretty damn long. Eventually, Cas leans forward with a hand raised and gently undoes the careful side part Dean had combed his hair into earlier. 

“I like your hair the way you usually wear it,” Cas says. “You should look like yourself today.”

Dean leans into the touch, like he’s always wanted to. He kisses the inside of Cas’ wrist, threads their fingers together, and they head for the courthouse.

Chapter Text

Without Dean having to ask, Cas keeps a steadying palm on his thigh for the two minute drive to the courthouse. In the parking lot, Dean pulls the car in next to Jody’s familiar truck, and gets an excited wave from Donna in the passenger seat. The Smith County Courthouse isn’t exactly a happening place on a Tuesday morning, so it’s easy to spot Eileen leaning against the trunk of her Valiant a few spots down, looking cool as hell in a leather jacket and boots. 

The second he’s out of the door, he’s swallowed up in a warm hug from Donna as she squeezes the breath out of lungs with tears in her eyes. She moves on to Cas, giving him a blushing, two-handed handshake. 

Jody’s approach is a little different—she puts both her hands on Dean’s shoulders and looks him in the eye for a long beat. She lets him go with a decisive nod, like she found whatever she’d been looking for.

“How’re you feeling on the big day?” she asks as she futzes with his hair, her eyes a little misty. 

“Good,” Dean says. Cas moves to stand beside him and places his hand low on Dean’s back. “Really good.”

Eileen walks up to join them, dark eyes flicking between Dean and Cas and her mouth pulling into an impish grin. Nothing ever gets past her, and Dean’s pretty sure that she clocked him and Cas long before they got around to it. She hugs them both quickly, still grinning when she pulls away.

“I’m about to win some money,” she says happily. “Thanks, you two.”

Dean smiles and rolls his eyes—obviously there’s a betting pool on his love life, why wouldn’t there be. He just wonders if it predates the Obama administration. Cas looks at Eileen questioningly and removes his hand from the small of Dean’s back to sign to her. Dean’s learning, but they go too fast for him to make out everything. He catches the sign for love, and something about hearts and eyes? 

His attention is redirected by the sound of squealing brakes. It’s Claire’s shitty, two-door Nissan, pulling into the lot and sending shivers down his spine. He wonders what it’d take to talk her into something more respectable that isn’t made out of paper-thin plastic and late-stage capitalism. He worries about that girl, and always will. Sure, she’s tough as shit, but so is every full grown deer that wanders onto the interstate. 

After Claire and Kaia get out, Dean has the joy of witnessing Sam extract himself from the back seat like a giraffe emerging from a suitcase. 

“I drove separately—had to deal with a werewolf in Springfield,” Eileen says to him by way of explanation once she can stop laughing. “Worth a few scratches, to see that.”

While Sam shakes out his joints and looks around, Cas interlocks his fingers with Dean’s. Sam notices, and Dean watches his expression shift from confusion to wide-eyed astonishment. Understandable, given that nobody is trying to drag anybody out of purgatory or away from certain death—the usual excuses for hand-to-hand contact. Sam makes his way over, side-stepping delicately around the puddles of half-melted gray snow and ice with a suit bag slung over each arm. Dean squeezes Cas’ palm.

“Uh, hey guys,” Sam says. “All good? You’re, uh...everything’s normal? Nobody’s under a curse or made a deal or anything?”

“Yeah, Sammy. We’re really, really fine.” 

“We are both doing very well,” Cas adds in a serious tone. “Thank you for asking.”

“Okay, and that’s great, guys, really—so glad to hear it—but just...” Sam looks around to make sure the rest of the crew is busy in their own rapid-fire conversations, then drops his voice to a whisper. “What’s going on? Is the observer lady watching? Is that it?”

Dean huffs a laugh, and shakes his head. 

“Nah, not that. We’ve just figured a few things out. Together.”

Cas looks at him with an appraising smile that takes Dean’s mind back to the way he looked on his knees in the shower half an hour ago. 

“Yes, Dean is right,” Cas adds. “Much ground was covered yesterday, emotionally and physically.”

A pause. 

“Oh,” Sam says. “Gotcha. I could live without hearing anything else about that second part, but I’m happy for you guys. Really. That’s great.”

“What’s great?” Jody asks, sidling up next to Sam and clapping a firm, affectionate hand to his shoulder. 

Sam clears his throat. “Dean and Cas were just telling me that they, uh—”

“Communicated our feelings for one another and consummated our relationship,” Cas says, and even though Dean’s face feels hot enough to melt all the snow across the great plains, he can’t argue with facts.

“Oh! Hey now, ‘bout time! Hear that, girls?” Jody calls over her shoulder to Claire and Kaia. “You owe me twenty bucks. Each.”

“Congratulations, guys,” Kaia says, as the only socially-appropriate person in this motley crew. 

Claire meanwhile flashes him a shark-toothed grin and socks him hard enough in the shoulder to send him reeling back a step. “You dorks couldn’t have waited ‘til 2025?” 

“Damn, how much money was riding on this?” Dean says, laughing and rubbing his arm. 

“Enough, let’s just leave it at that,” Jody says, taking a couple of crumpled bills from Claire that Dean is sure will end up back in Claire’s backpack before the end of the day. “Let’s get this show on the road then, yeah? You boys ready to get hitched?”

He looks at Cas and they lose a moment just smiling at each other until Sam clears his throat.

“I think that’s a yes,” Sam says. 

“But first, where is Jack?” Cas asks. 

“Hello,” Jack says from just behind them, like he materialized out of thin air. Hell, maybe he did. “I got here a few hours early to scope everything out. Checked for hex bags, warding, nefarious sigils—everything is in order. There’s also a publicly-accessible bathroom next to the property assessor’s office where you can change your clothes. It smells better than the one next to the sheriff’s office.”

“Hey, thanks, bud,” Dean says, pulling him into a hug. Jack hugs back, arms around Dean’s middle like the little kid he really is. 

Cas and Jack hug next, Cas’ hand cupped gently around the back of his head and Jack’s face pressed tight against his shoulder like it’s the safest place on earth. 

“Well, gentlemen,” Donna says, rubbing her hands together. “It’s colder than a brass toilet seat in Siberia out here, so...”

Sam hands them their suits, and the highly armed procession of everyone he loves heads on inside. 

*

After a quick trip to neighboring stalls in the assessor’s office bathroom, Dean and Cas meet up with everyone in the courthouse foyer. That is, after Dean had taken one look at Cas in his suit and immediately backed him up against the wall between the hand dryer and a wrinkled poster advertising pneumonia vaccines to kiss him about it. 

There’s a woman sitting on a bench in the courthouse foyer, half hidden by the coat racks. In the nicest way possible, she’s absolutely forgettable. Khakis, sensible shoes, a pilled cardigan—she’s even doing a sudoku. 

“Good morning, Brenda,” Cas says to her. 

She looks up, reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. She’s straight out of accountant central casting. No one would ever guess her side gig, which Dean supposes is precisely the point. She gives Cas a mild smile. 

“Who the fuck is Brenda?” Claire stage-whispers from behind them, and Dean whips his head around to glare at her. He needn’t have bothered, as Jody already has that covered. Claire ducks her head, (temporarily) cowed.  

“Hello, Castiel,” Brenda says. “And this must be Mr. Winchester?”

Dean holds out his hand and she shakes it, perfunctory. 

“Just Dean is fine.”

“Dean, then. Shall we?” She swaps her sudoku book for a legal pad from her tote bag and tucks her pen behind her ear. The hallway to the county clerk’s office seems longer than Dean remembers since the last time he was here to renew the tags on the Impala. Either the 200 year old building has undergone an expansion, or Dean’s a little nervous. It’s got to be the former. 

It smells like dust and printer ink in here, l’eau de bureaucracy. The endless hallway is decorated—in the loosest sense of the word—with yellowed plat maps and black and white photos of old, white men who look like they were born with handlebar mustaches and problematic views on women. The county clerk checks their IDs and the marriage license, then leads them into a small, windowless office to wait for the judge. It’s a bit of a tight fit for a dozen people, and he ends up stuffed into a corner with Cas. This close, he can make out the tiny, geometric bees on Cas’ tie and the unmistakable fact that Cas must have borrowed his aftershave. He wants to bite him. 

“Remember,” Cas says quietly, “This is important. When we kiss, it will get a little—”

The door opens, and Judge Eddy peaks his head through. He’s wearing sneakers with his robe, which kinda pisses Dean off. Sue him, he was hoping for a bit of gravitas today. He’ll have Sam crop those beat up Skechers out of their wedding album for sure. 

“Aw, hell. This room’s way too small,” the judge says. “I told Darlene to put you folks in the conference room. Come on, now.” 

They all shuffle out after him, Cas and Dean in the rear of the line. 

“He’s a little casual, isn’t he?” Dean mutters. 

It’s a good thing Dean didn’t create a moodboard for today because this conference room would not be on it. Notes from a board of supervisors meeting are still scrawled across the whiteboard, tax revenues and audit dates—super romantic stuff. 

“Alright, who am I marrying?” Judge Eddy says, taking up position at the head of the table. 

“That’d be us,” Dean says, gesturing between him and Cas.

To his credit, Eddy doesn’t bat an eye and waves them to the front. Dean doesn’t take that for granted in central Kansas. 

“Okay, and which of these lovely people are the witnesses?” Sam and Jody raise their hands. “Good, good. And you’ve got your paperwork, that’s all in order. Let’s do this thing, shall we?”

Dean takes Cas’ hands in his. Sure, he’s held a hundred different magic knives, god-killing guns, and the fate of the world in his hands, but right now he has to will his palms not to sweat. The judge pulls a well-worn index card from the pocket of his robe and starts to read.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join these two men, Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak, in lawful matrimony. Did you gentlemen have something written for the vows, or do you want me to just...?” He points at the card, which probably has the usual stuff about obedience and honor.

Their relationship can’t be condensed to a Ken Burns documentary, so a laminated notecard isn’t going to cut it. Just before Dean interjects, Cas beats him to it. 

“Dean, I love you, to the fullest extent of the word. In as many ways as there are to love someone, that is how I love you. When we met, I loved you immediately, exactly as you were then, and I’ve loved every iteration of you since.”

Threaded between each word Cas says, Dean can hear the fathomless truth, “I loved you in hell, on earth, and between, I loved you as a demon and loved you as wholly yourself, I loved you laughing and loved you drunk on rage and grief.” Dean blinks fast and swallows. 

“And there is yet more of you to come, versions that don’t yet exist, and I will love each one. I will be there for each one. I will be there to see you rested, and to see you happy. I will see it because we will make it so, together.” 

The thing is, Dean believes him. Jesus, he actually believes him. Fuck. Him and Cas, riding off into the sunset. 

“When nothing was knowable, I knew you. In worlds where nothing was real, you were flesh and bone. You were the daily sunrise even when the earth was off its axis. And somehow, I get to sleep beside you every night for the rest of my life.”

The way Cas speaks sounds like the kind of thing prophets hear in the desert, something holy. 

“Somehow, we have more time. I never—Dean, I never thought we’d have time. Please. Please marry me.”

“Easiest ‘yes’ of my life,” Dean answers immediately. 

And Cas kisses him. When Dean can take a breath, it isn’t air. Or it isn't just air, it’s Cas he’s breathing in. When the kiss ends, he can feel the rotation of the earth beneath his feet and see every gradation of blue in Cas' eyes when they open to meet his.

"Hello, Dean," he hears Cas say from inside his own mind. Or maybe from inside Cas's? "There isn't much difference between what’s yours or mine right now. Don’t be afraid—this should pass soon.”

“I’m not scared of you,” Dean thinks. “Never have been.”

"Well, you fellas sure know how to cut to the chase," Judge Eddie interjects with a good-natured chuckle. "You got anything you want to add before we wrap this up, Mr. Winchester? Might be a little out of order, but your, uh, vows were a little short. Not that there's anything wrong with that."

"Yeah, I want to say something too. I’ve got some promises to make,” Dean says. There’s a hush in the room, the palpable weight of everyone listening. Good thing Dean is well-beyond the reach of stage fright at this point. “I love you, because I’ve never met anyone who can do what you do.”

The corner of Cas’ mouth quirks, and images come to Dean over the telepathic wire of what Cas must think of as his own greatest hits. Molotov cocktail-ing Lucifer, taking down demons and monsters and corrupt cops, saving Dean and Sam over and over again. Dean shakes his head, determined to get his point across. 

“I don’t mean the stuff that makes you useful. It’s the way you love people—I’ve never known anyone who can do that like you do.” He thinks of Jack, his face pressed against Cas’ steady shoulder. Claire, sardonic and jaded but still carrying around a Grumpy Cat plushy in her duffel. “It’s the way you love the whole world, really. And especially the way you—shit. Sorry.” He swallows, and blinks at the ceiling for a moment. “The way you love me.”

Cas squeezes his hands, and once Dean can look at him again, his eyes are filled with tears. All Dean is getting from his mind is colors, radiance. 

“You see things in people they can’t see in themselves. Their goodness, the potential they’ve got locked up tight in their heads. I can’t even explain what it’s like, to have someone like you believing in someone like me. And for as long as I’m breathing, I’m going to give that kind of love right back to you.” 

Cas pulls him in with a hand on the back of his neck, and they’re kissing again. 

“I reckon it doesn’t hurt to seal the deal a second time,” the judge says warmly from somewhere that sounds very far away. 

“What happens next?” Dean whispers when they pull apart. 

Cas looks toward the back of the room and Dean follows his eyeline, past the joyful faces of their family and friends. Brenda is there, and she gives them a reserved smile and a nod. Dean’s shoulders sag with relief—they did it. 

“What happens next is the easy part,” Cas says with an overjoyed laugh, smiling wider than Dean’s ever seen him do before. “You and me, from now until...the rest of it. Always.”

*