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mercyrobot) wrote2012-03-12 06:33 pm
mercyrobot) wrote2012-03-12 06:33 pm
Entry tags:
[SPN] Crossroads State 4/12
Please refer to master post for header information, warnings, etc.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Epilogue
It's 4th of July weekend, which is incidentally also the reason Balthazar isn't coming until next weekend ('I am still English'). Castiel does not closely examine his relief that he won't have to explain Balthazar as a guest at Dean's barbecue, to which he's been invited ever since he said he would miss Sam's welcome party.
"You're coming tomorrow, right?" Sam asks when they've run into each other at the IU library for the third day in a row, and are drinking tea together from the coffee cart in the lobby for the second day in a row.
"Yes."
"Wow, don't sound so happy about it."
"I tend to be ill at ease at parties." He hasn't particularly wanted to tell Dean this.
"Don't worry about it. It's not like a party party. Mostly just family eating too much and blowing stuff up."
"I'd been under the impression you and Dean didn't have other family here."
"Not people we're related to. But they're family. They're all really nice people. Well, Bobby's a grouch and Ellen can be kind of scary, but they're awesome. If it makes you feel any better, I'm kinda freaking too. This girl I've gone on a couple dates with might come."
"Introducing a significant other to your family can be nervewracking." Gabriel's all but threatened him with torture if he doesn't get to meet Balthazar soon.
"I don't even know if she is that. We've only gone out a couple of times. And she might not even show."
"But you like her, so you hope your family will."
"Yeah. I do. It's been kind of, I don't know, intense? So it's weird right now. She wanted me to come shoot bottle rockets off the top of this warehouse with her but I said I had this thing, and I didn't want to just blow her off, so I invited her."
It sounds very awkward, but Castiel knows that isn't what Sam would like to hear. "I'm sure it will be fine."
*
Castiel spends the evening making the potato salad he volunteered in a moment of hubris to take to the party, with an amusing but unhelpful running commentary from Balthazar on the phone as he boils eggs and chops potatoes and tries to make sense of conflicting recipes' quantities of mustard and relish and whether or not to use mayonnaise.
"Just put an arse-load of bacon in and no one will care if the rest of it's rubbish. What are you wearing?"
"To the party?"
"No, you ridiculous thing, right now."
"Oh. A white shirt and--"
"Never mind about the trousers. Any chance you've done that thing where you've undone your tie but not taken it off?"
"I didn't wear a tie today."
"Loosened a few buttons, then? Rolled up your sleeves?"
"Yes, I have."
"Good," Balthazar says, and the tone to his voice is familiar, the way it's lower and more breathed than spoken.
"Are you--"
"Stark bollock naked in my bedroom, cock in hand and thinking about what you look like when all your proper starts to come off? Just possibly. Keep talking."
Castiel's body is reacting to the image and the hitch in Balthazar's breathing and he's having a very hard time concentrating on the boiled egg he's peeling. "What should I say?"
"Oh, god, you're gorgeously hopeless, aren't you? Read me the bloody cookbook if you like but I'd rather you got a hand down those perfectly pressed trousers of yours and told me all about it."
"You want to have phone sex."
Balthazar laughs the entire time Castiel's walking to his bedroom, because it seems wrong to do this sort of thing in the kitchen, not to mention unsanitary since there's food cooking, and all that aside, there's the risk of Dean or someone else coming to the door and seeing.
"I'm in my bedroom now and I'm undoing my belt," Castiel says. Balthazar tells him to touch himself and he does, but he doesn't find he can make himself say much, so there's just breathing over the phone line and the occasional word or two from Balthazar, and it feels good, very good, but when it's over he feels a bit cold and strange. He's never found masturbation a terribly interesting prospect; as a teenager, it was a dirty and forbidden guilt-laced thing, and as an adult, it's never been comparable to having a partner, even as few as he's had, and has always left him feeling lonelier than ignoring the urge.
Balthazar, though, tells him he's 'brilliant' as he cleans himself up with tissues and makes sure to wash his hands very thoroughly before going back to the kitchen, where the potatoes are boiling over.
*
"Oh, man, you put bacon in it?" Dean's smiling widely and stabbing a fork into the bowl before Castiel can warn him that it might not be very good, but then he makes a borderline obscene noise and says with his mouth full, "Damn. You are my new god of potato salad. I'm ruined for everyone else."
Castiel is pleased, but not so pleased that he doesn't stop Dean digging the fork back in for another bite. "You have to leave some for your guests."
"They don't have to know it ever existed." Dean half-heartedly fights against Castiel's hand gripping his wrist, laughing, until the fork clatters to the floor and they're suddenly standing entirely too close with Dean's hand pinned to the counter.
Castiel can't help the spike of desire or the guilt that follows it. He steps back. "I'm glad you like it," he says. "Balthazar suggested the bacon."
"Balthazar? You actually know someone named Balthazar?"
"His father is a biblical scholar, like mine."
Dean just laughs. "I always wondered how you ended up with Castiel."
"I came to discover it was after the angel Cassiel, a bastardization or possibly a mistransliteratation of the name in an unsubstantiated secondary source. Balthazar was one of the Magi."
"Huh."
"You would like Balthazar, I think." That isn't strictly true; he's not sure at all what Dean will think of him. And Castiel needs to spend some time examining why he's so reluctant to tell Dean outright the nature of the relationship, because it should be good news. It is good news. Holding it back because of whatever unrequited feelings he had or has for Dean is dishonest to everyone, unfair. That Balthazar is a man is not at issue; he and Dean have never discussed sexuality, not seriously, but he knows, in the same part of him that still has faith in God even after years of punching holes in scripture, that Dean is not capable of ignorant and fearful bigotry. Still, the part of him that doubts, the part of him that wants to prod at weak evidence until it gives, suspects it will change something. But he's taken it this far now, so he tries to smile. "At least, I hope you will."
Dean pauses with the beer he's drinking halfway to his mouth, which was already open, but opens further as he looks at Castiel for a long strange moment where Castiel wishes he could read anything at all in that expression. Then Dean unfreezes and takes a drink, his eyes closing for a moment. When he opens them again, Castiel still can't tell what he's seeing. "I dunno," Dean says, "how much does he actually like the Dead Kennedys?"
It's almost, almost Dean's usual smirk, so there's some kind of acceptance, which is enough, and Castiel breathes out a laugh, relieved, and grateful that he hasn't had to explain any further. "I'm not sure. He's never mentioned them. I know he likes Iggy Pop."
"Like Stooges Iggy Pop or like leather pants and peanut butter Iggy Pop?"
"I...have no idea."
"Man, Cas, one of these days I'm just handcuffing you to a record player for like a week."
"Kinky," says Sam, who's just stepped through the doorway carrying a watermelon.
Castiel blushes. Dean calls Sam a bitch and pretends to punch him in the face. Castiel hopes that means everything's going to be fine.
*
The party isn't the anxious and awkward thing Castiel was picturing. He's glad he offered to come early to help because it means not walking into a house full of strangers, gradual introductions as one or two people arrive instead of an assembled group all at once. Bobby is gruff but warm, calls Sam and Dean either 'eejit' or 'son.' Jo and Ellen seem not to be currently speaking to each other, but they are perfectly happy to talk to anyone else. At first Castiel thinks Pamela must be the girl Sam mentioned from the way she flirts with him, but then she does the same with Dean and even, to much amusement from the Winchesters, with Castiel. She does not flirt with Ash, who has an inexplicable haircut and a degree from MIT (and a thereby inexplicable job tending bar at the Roadhouse), but he flirts with her. It's a surprise when Missouri from down Castiel's street arrives with a pie, but a bigger surprise to learn that she's known Sam and Dean since they were children.
"I used to keep them sometimes when they were little," she tells him. "Little hellions, I mean. I used to have to whack Dean with a damn spoon to keep him out of my pies."
Castiel looks across the back yard at Dean, who's already got a mouthful of a slice he's eating off a red, white, and blue paper plate, and smiles. "Some things don't change."
Missouri looks at Dean (who sees her and points at the pie and gives her a thumbs up) and then back at Castiel and says, "Oh, honey. You've got it bad, don't you?"
"I... what?"
"For Dean. I may not be a pretty young thing anymore, but I'm not blind yet."
It still takes him a moment to catch her meaning, and she waits patiently with a nonplussed look until he does. He knows he's turning red. "I don't-- I-- Dean and I are friends. And I'm...involved with someone."
She doesn't look like she takes that as particularly good counter-evidence, but she pats him on the shoulder and says something about going to find Bobby.
"Cas!" Dean calls from next to the grill. "Come be my wingman!"
He thinks he hears a knowing 'mm-hmm' from Missouri as he passes by her and goes to help Dean with the ribs.
"Jo's been giving me the third degree about you," Dean says quietly during the delicate maneuver of keeping the ribs from disintegrating on their way to the platter. "I hope it's okay I said you were taken."
"Of course. I hope that wasn't awkward for you."
"With Jo? Nah. When somebody's seen you make an ass of yourself as many times as she has, not much is awkward. I just wasn't sure how serious your...thing with, uh, Balthazar is."
"I'm not sure myself. It's very new."
"Oh."
"But I'm not generally interested in women, romantically, so I would be unavailable to her in any case."
"Gotcha." Dean hasn't looked at him; he's been studiously spreading barbecue sauce on the meat, and Castiel's assistance isn't needed anymore.
"Dean, is--" He hates to think it, but he's not sure what else to think. "Is this bothering you?"
Dean's head snaps up and he drops the basting brush. "No. No way. I'll kick your ass if you even think that."
"I'm glad. I would be very unhappy to lose your friendship." He would be more than unhappy; it would leave a wide empty space in his life that he's not sure he'd know how to fill. Knowing Dean has disrupted Castiel's predictable status quo left and right, but it's been almost too easy to form new habits around his presence.
Dean laughs and looks down and scratches at the back of his head. "Damn, Cas, get a little more chick-flick, why don't you?"
"It's the truth."
"Yeah. I mean, uh, me too."
He knows it wasn't easy for Dean to say even that much.
*
Castiel can't remember the last time he set off fireworks; probably college. Even though Sam did mention 'blowing stuff up,' he assumed it was an exaggeration. Now, with Dean and Sam bringing cardboard boxes and brown paper bags out of the garage and Ash going to his truck for even more, he sees how wrong he was. Against the darkening sky, someone to the west sends up a modest but attractive display of cascading blues and reds that whistles and pops, and Dean points a finger at it and says, "Okay, dude, it's on," as though his unwitting rival can hear him.
"Dean's serious about fireworks," Jo says behind him.
"I'm learning that." Castiel can't help smiling fondly.
"Another thing to learn, if you like having eyes and hair and everything, you're better off as far from Ash as you can get."
"Why is that?"
"You ever seen that scar on Dean's ass?"
Castiel's not sure what to think of the fact that Jo believes he might have, or the fact that she apparently has. "No."
"It was, oh, five years ago? Dean came through town and we lit some stuff off in the Roadhouse parking lot, and Ash was drinking and running his mouth and forgot to call fire in the hole, and I don't know what the hell exactly happened, but something fell over or went sideways 'cause he'd chained about six cherry bombs together and the next thing anybody knows, Dean's howling like a little girl and running back and forth clutching his butt and his pants are actually on fire, like some damn cartoon." She demonstrates, spins in circles slapping at her backside and shouting, "My ass! You blew up my ass!"
"I see you, Joanna Beth!" Dean shouts over. "You better watch your own ass!" The threat carries more amusement than malice.
Jo flips her middle finger in Dean's direction. "And then Sam, he's like, 'Dean! Dean! Oh my god, Dean, stop drop and roll!' And we all just lost it. I think Ash actually wet his pants."
"Just goes to prove I wouldn't piss on this jackass if he was on fire!" Ash shouts, slapping Dean on the back.
Castiel finds he's having a hard time stopping laughing once he's started, until someone, actually two someones, come around the side of the house. It's the woman and the boy from the diner, and he hears a happy, "Hey, you made it!" from Dean, watches Dean kiss the woman on the cheek and bend down to give the boy a high five.
He doesn't feel like laughing anymore, but he knows they've done nothing wrong and it would be unfair to treat them otherwise. He hangs back and busies himself getting another beer, not wanting to interrupt or intrude, but Dean brings them to him. Lisa and Ben. Lisa shakes his hand with a warm smile and Ben looks at Castiel's hand like it's an alien creature when he tries to repeat the gesture.
"Ben, shake hands," Lisa prompts with a long-suffering apologetic glance at Castiel. He gets another one from Dean when Ben immediately starts asking to see the fireworks and if he can light something and pulls Dean away.
Which leaves Castiel alone with Lisa. "Sorry about my kid," she says. "I apparently failed to teach him any manners."
"I'm not very good with children," Castiel says. "I probably should have given him a high five."
Lisa laughs. She's pretty, prettier than she was across a room. "I thought Dean said you were a teacher."
He's pleasantly surprised to hear Dean's talked about him at all, but that makes it all the more confusing that Dean's never mentioned Lisa. "I teach high school. They are very different from younger children."
"I apologize in advance for whatever you end up dealing with from him in three years."
"Are you Catholic?"
Lisa looks perplexed. "Well, um, technically, in a really lapsed way."
"I'm sorry. I assumed that since Dean mentioned my profession to you, he might have mentioned where I teach. Unless you're planning to enroll Ben at St. Benedict's, there's no need to apologize for his future transgressions as my student."
"Oh, jeez, Catholic school? No offense, but I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy thanks to Sister Agnes and her ruler."
"I experienced a similar brand of discipline during my own education, but St. Benedict's did away with corporal punishment over a decade ago." It's not worth mentioning that Zachariah's been subtly lobbying the board and the PTA in hopes of having the practice reinstated.
Lisa laughs again and reaches into the cooler for a beer, which she opens and knocks against Castiel's. "Catholic school survivors," she says by way of a toast.
It would be wrong to begrudge Dean whatever happiness he might find with her, and beyond that, he likes her. She's a lovely woman, and her son clearly adores Dean, hangs on his every word as Dean helps him strike a lighter and they jump backwards together and watch a little cardboard tank spin and shoot sparks. Lisa's shoulders stay tense until it's done. "Dean won't let him get hurt," Castiel says.
"I know."
Even as Castiel knows Dean won't let him come to harm any more than he would Ben, he still looks at Dean dubiously when he finds a roman candle pressed into his hand and Dean's thumb poised on his Zippo. Dean's got another roman candle in his other hand and after a challenging grin and a 'c'mon,' they touch their fuses to the flame together. Castiel suppresses the urge to throw it like it's an ignited stick of dynamite, but he still holds it at arm's length against the very real possibility that the whole thing could explode in his face. It doesn't, even though the cardboard gets hot in the palm of his hand and jerks with minute recoils as the explosives shoot up into the sky and break into starbursts and he smiles at Dean under the flashing explosions.
Dean counters the unknown neighbor's display with increasingly elaborate sequences of mortars and rockets and things with names like Big Momma and Black Eagle. Ben and Sam write their names in the sky with sparklers. A think dusting of gunpowder grit rains down on everyone and the sky is full of smoke and sulphur as the guests begin to drift back home. Castiel makes a point of not paying attention to how much time passes between when Dean walks Lisa and Ben out and when he returns.
Castiel stays after everyone else (besides Ash, who is unconscious on the sofa) has left, partly to help clear up the mess but also in hopes of spending a few minutes with Dean, but he ends up by himself in the back yard because Sam and Dean are arguing in the kitchen, or seem to be. He hears a 'god, you're being a dick,' and a 'dude, screw you,' among other words he can't make out, not in the usual tone they use to jokingly insult each other, and decides it's best to stay outside and collect all of the stray bottles and cans into the recycling bin.
Bones has been gated in the laundry room most of the night so he wouldn't get into the food or be injured by the fireworks, so now he's running around the back yard after Castiel, and it's because Bones bolts toward the fence barking that he knows someone's here. He follows in case it's someone who forgot something, or a very late guest who shouldn't be jumped on, but he does it cautiously in case it's not.
"Holy shit, call off Cujo!" says a voice in the shadows that's familiar but that Castiel can't immediately place. "I'm just here for the fireworks."
Castiel makes Bones sit and prepares himself for the awkward task of telling some stranger that she's unfortunately missed the party.
"I brought some Jack," says the newcomer. She's fumbling with the latch on the gate and has an open half-empty bottle swinging from her other hand. "Where's everybody--" Her eyes go wide when she sees Castiel. "Oh god. I am so at the wrong house."
Castiel very much hopes she is. "Miss Watts?"
"Uh, hey Dr. Milton, what's up? I didn't know you lived over here." Her speech is slurred. "I screwed up the address, you know anybody named Winchester on this street?"
The sinking feeling in Castiel's stomach is only compounded by the sound of the back door and Sam saying, "Cas, everything okay out-- Ruby! Hey!" He looks thrilled to see her as he's walking over.
Ruby's mouth drops open for a second as she looks between Sam and Castiel. Then she laughs and quietly singsongs, "Awkward."
What happens when students graduate (or don't, in this case) and begin showing up at social occasions isn't in the teachers' handbook. Even though it's a small town, Castiel's never met a student, current or former, for any longer than a few minutes at a store or gas station or restaurant. It probably helps that he doesn't generally go to bars, and even if he did, the set of seniors he taught his first year here are only just barely old enough to drink now. The worst that's ever happened is catching a couple of sophomores smoking last year and debating whether to tell their parents (he didn't, but he made it clear that he would if he ever saw it again). Until now, that is, and now he has no idea what to do. So he says stiffly, "It was nice to meet you," and retreats into the house as quickly as he can without running.
Dean's sitting at the kitchen table picking the label off his beer bottle. He looks up when Castiel closes the door and his smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Hey." And even though he looks more like the question should be asked of him, he says, "You okay?"
"I'm not sure. The girl Sam has been seeing, it seems, is a former student of mine. She's..." He doesn't know if he should tell Dean the rest of it, or even part of the rest of it. "It was a strange encounter."
"She finally showed?"
"Yes."
"Huh. I guess that'd be pretty weird."
"Dean..." He has to stop and consider, weigh whatever trouble it will cause for Sam against how much Dean will want to know. Ruby may not deserve to be judged before Dean's even met her. Technically, she's an adult and he is no longer her teacher. Not that any action he's ever taken through the school has gotten through to her or her mother. But he thinks of Gabriel and of Anna and how he would feel if the situations were reversed and Dean didn't tell him there was cause for concern. But what can he even say? That she has a troubled home life, that she's bright but wouldn't apply herself, that she's drinking illegally? He suspects all of that has been true of Dean himself. So there's nothing to say, for now. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Domestic dispute with Sammy, but no biggie, we're cool." He lifts one of his feet from the chair they're propped up on and kicks lightly at the side of Castiel's knee. "You know you don't have to stay for clean-up duty. I was just planning to let it all fester till tomorrow." He yawns and pinches at the bridge of his nose.
"I don't mind. Are you going to have a hangover tomorrow?"
"If it means you're bringing me breakfast, I'm going to have the worst one in history."
Castiel's about to say that he'll make Dean breakfast with or without a hangover, but Sam comes in with one arm around Ruby and the other holding the whiskey bottle, just long enough to make a brief introduction and announce that they're going to Waffle House.
"You better be walking there!" Dean calls after them.
"Okay, dad," Sam shouts back just before the screen door slams out front.
"Man, I hate when he says that." Dean slides his beer across the table towards Castiel. "I'm beat. You want the rest of this?"
"Not really."
"Yeah, it's kinda warm and nasty." Dean takes another drink of it anyway. "You have an okay time? I know the full-on family experience can be kinda intense."
"I did. Everyone seems very nice."
"Okay, now I know you're bullshitting me. The only people who seem nice are Sam and Lisa. Maybe Jo on a really good day."
"I do like Lisa. You're very good with Ben."
Dean huffs a small laugh and smiles towards the living room. "He's a good kid. First time I met him I actually thought he might be mine, 'cause Lisa and me had a thing way way back, but turns out he's just that cool."
"You and Lisa aren't...?"
"What? No, man, ancient history. We tried for a minute but I'm kinda not cut out for that."
"Oh," Castiel says. "I misunderstood."
"I would've told you about that. With words, even, 'cause I doubt her shirts would fit me."
The guilt he feels in trying to remind himself that Dean not being with Lisa shouldn't and doesn't change anything amplifies. "I'm sorry I didn't--"
Dean waves his hand and drains his beer with a grimace. "No big deal, seriously. I'm shitfaced and exhausted and not funny, just ignore me."
"I'll let you get to bed, then."
"You okay to get home? You can crash here if you need to."
"I'll be fine. It's not far."
"Yeah, I guess it isn't. Hey, do me a favor and write 'balls' on Ash's forehead on your way out?"
Castiel laughs and shakes his head, both in relief at the tension slackening back to equilibrium and in amusement. "Goodnight, Dean."
*
Castiel forgot to plug in his phone when he got home, so when he turns it on in the morning, it lights up with a message from Balthazar: enjoy patriotic pyromania & mind yr important bits near explosives, have dirty dreams x
Castiel smiles at it, but doesn't reply because the message was sent at three in the morning and Balthazar is likely still asleep. Instead he sends one to Dean offering the breakfast he promised. The reply he gets-- be cold by time i got there. all parts still intact i hope-- confuses him at first, until he realizes he didn't send anything to Dean at all and that it's Balthazar replying.
Castiel's not sure why he doesn't mention Dean's name.
Although Balthazar could find good cause to be jealous if he knew the extent of Castiel's confused knot of feelings toward Dean, and it's dishonest in a way not to admit them, feelings that will never be acted on don't matter. He adds I would not be unfaithful, but erases that part before he sends the message.
Castiel blushes.
He sends Dean the message about breakfast again, successfully this time. When he's made and drunk a cup of tea and there's still no reply, he decides Dean must still be sleeping as well and goes for a run. There's no sign of life at Dean's house when he passes by, and even Ash's truck is still out front.
He's just out of the shower and stepping into a pair of very old jeans that he's surprised still fit (he's been promising Anna for months that he would go through the boxes in his attic in search of family photo albums that no one seems to be able to find anywhere else, ones that he doesn't particularly want to see and isn't sure Anna should either, but he's been putting it off for too long and Gabriel doesn't agree with it being a bad idea) when he hears someone knocking on the door. He goes far enough down the stairs to see that it's Dean.
"Dude. I didn't even know you owned jeans," Dean says, surprise clear on his face when Castiel opens the door.
"I don't wear them often. I need to go through some things in the attic today. Have you had breakfast?"
"Nope. That's what I came for."
"You don't seem to have a hangover."
"Worst ever. I might even die." Dean smiles brightly and gives him a shove in the direction of the stairs. "Go put on a shirt, Naked Chef. I'll get the bacon going."
"Try not to expire while I'm gone."
Dean's laughter is a warm thing that follows him to his bedroom, and so is the space where Dean's hand was on his shoulder.
Next: Part 5
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Epilogue
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Epilogue
It's 4th of July weekend, which is incidentally also the reason Balthazar isn't coming until next weekend ('I am still English'). Castiel does not closely examine his relief that he won't have to explain Balthazar as a guest at Dean's barbecue, to which he's been invited ever since he said he would miss Sam's welcome party.
"You're coming tomorrow, right?" Sam asks when they've run into each other at the IU library for the third day in a row, and are drinking tea together from the coffee cart in the lobby for the second day in a row.
"Yes."
"Wow, don't sound so happy about it."
"I tend to be ill at ease at parties." He hasn't particularly wanted to tell Dean this.
"Don't worry about it. It's not like a party party. Mostly just family eating too much and blowing stuff up."
"I'd been under the impression you and Dean didn't have other family here."
"Not people we're related to. But they're family. They're all really nice people. Well, Bobby's a grouch and Ellen can be kind of scary, but they're awesome. If it makes you feel any better, I'm kinda freaking too. This girl I've gone on a couple dates with might come."
"Introducing a significant other to your family can be nervewracking." Gabriel's all but threatened him with torture if he doesn't get to meet Balthazar soon.
"I don't even know if she is that. We've only gone out a couple of times. And she might not even show."
"But you like her, so you hope your family will."
"Yeah. I do. It's been kind of, I don't know, intense? So it's weird right now. She wanted me to come shoot bottle rockets off the top of this warehouse with her but I said I had this thing, and I didn't want to just blow her off, so I invited her."
It sounds very awkward, but Castiel knows that isn't what Sam would like to hear. "I'm sure it will be fine."
*
Castiel spends the evening making the potato salad he volunteered in a moment of hubris to take to the party, with an amusing but unhelpful running commentary from Balthazar on the phone as he boils eggs and chops potatoes and tries to make sense of conflicting recipes' quantities of mustard and relish and whether or not to use mayonnaise.
"Just put an arse-load of bacon in and no one will care if the rest of it's rubbish. What are you wearing?"
"To the party?"
"No, you ridiculous thing, right now."
"Oh. A white shirt and--"
"Never mind about the trousers. Any chance you've done that thing where you've undone your tie but not taken it off?"
"I didn't wear a tie today."
"Loosened a few buttons, then? Rolled up your sleeves?"
"Yes, I have."
"Good," Balthazar says, and the tone to his voice is familiar, the way it's lower and more breathed than spoken.
"Are you--"
"Stark bollock naked in my bedroom, cock in hand and thinking about what you look like when all your proper starts to come off? Just possibly. Keep talking."
Castiel's body is reacting to the image and the hitch in Balthazar's breathing and he's having a very hard time concentrating on the boiled egg he's peeling. "What should I say?"
"Oh, god, you're gorgeously hopeless, aren't you? Read me the bloody cookbook if you like but I'd rather you got a hand down those perfectly pressed trousers of yours and told me all about it."
"You want to have phone sex."
Balthazar laughs the entire time Castiel's walking to his bedroom, because it seems wrong to do this sort of thing in the kitchen, not to mention unsanitary since there's food cooking, and all that aside, there's the risk of Dean or someone else coming to the door and seeing.
"I'm in my bedroom now and I'm undoing my belt," Castiel says. Balthazar tells him to touch himself and he does, but he doesn't find he can make himself say much, so there's just breathing over the phone line and the occasional word or two from Balthazar, and it feels good, very good, but when it's over he feels a bit cold and strange. He's never found masturbation a terribly interesting prospect; as a teenager, it was a dirty and forbidden guilt-laced thing, and as an adult, it's never been comparable to having a partner, even as few as he's had, and has always left him feeling lonelier than ignoring the urge.
Balthazar, though, tells him he's 'brilliant' as he cleans himself up with tissues and makes sure to wash his hands very thoroughly before going back to the kitchen, where the potatoes are boiling over.
*
"Oh, man, you put bacon in it?" Dean's smiling widely and stabbing a fork into the bowl before Castiel can warn him that it might not be very good, but then he makes a borderline obscene noise and says with his mouth full, "Damn. You are my new god of potato salad. I'm ruined for everyone else."
Castiel is pleased, but not so pleased that he doesn't stop Dean digging the fork back in for another bite. "You have to leave some for your guests."
"They don't have to know it ever existed." Dean half-heartedly fights against Castiel's hand gripping his wrist, laughing, until the fork clatters to the floor and they're suddenly standing entirely too close with Dean's hand pinned to the counter.
Castiel can't help the spike of desire or the guilt that follows it. He steps back. "I'm glad you like it," he says. "Balthazar suggested the bacon."
"Balthazar? You actually know someone named Balthazar?"
"His father is a biblical scholar, like mine."
Dean just laughs. "I always wondered how you ended up with Castiel."
"I came to discover it was after the angel Cassiel, a bastardization or possibly a mistransliteratation of the name in an unsubstantiated secondary source. Balthazar was one of the Magi."
"Huh."
"You would like Balthazar, I think." That isn't strictly true; he's not sure at all what Dean will think of him. And Castiel needs to spend some time examining why he's so reluctant to tell Dean outright the nature of the relationship, because it should be good news. It is good news. Holding it back because of whatever unrequited feelings he had or has for Dean is dishonest to everyone, unfair. That Balthazar is a man is not at issue; he and Dean have never discussed sexuality, not seriously, but he knows, in the same part of him that still has faith in God even after years of punching holes in scripture, that Dean is not capable of ignorant and fearful bigotry. Still, the part of him that doubts, the part of him that wants to prod at weak evidence until it gives, suspects it will change something. But he's taken it this far now, so he tries to smile. "At least, I hope you will."
Dean pauses with the beer he's drinking halfway to his mouth, which was already open, but opens further as he looks at Castiel for a long strange moment where Castiel wishes he could read anything at all in that expression. Then Dean unfreezes and takes a drink, his eyes closing for a moment. When he opens them again, Castiel still can't tell what he's seeing. "I dunno," Dean says, "how much does he actually like the Dead Kennedys?"
It's almost, almost Dean's usual smirk, so there's some kind of acceptance, which is enough, and Castiel breathes out a laugh, relieved, and grateful that he hasn't had to explain any further. "I'm not sure. He's never mentioned them. I know he likes Iggy Pop."
"Like Stooges Iggy Pop or like leather pants and peanut butter Iggy Pop?"
"I...have no idea."
"Man, Cas, one of these days I'm just handcuffing you to a record player for like a week."
"Kinky," says Sam, who's just stepped through the doorway carrying a watermelon.
Castiel blushes. Dean calls Sam a bitch and pretends to punch him in the face. Castiel hopes that means everything's going to be fine.
*
The party isn't the anxious and awkward thing Castiel was picturing. He's glad he offered to come early to help because it means not walking into a house full of strangers, gradual introductions as one or two people arrive instead of an assembled group all at once. Bobby is gruff but warm, calls Sam and Dean either 'eejit' or 'son.' Jo and Ellen seem not to be currently speaking to each other, but they are perfectly happy to talk to anyone else. At first Castiel thinks Pamela must be the girl Sam mentioned from the way she flirts with him, but then she does the same with Dean and even, to much amusement from the Winchesters, with Castiel. She does not flirt with Ash, who has an inexplicable haircut and a degree from MIT (and a thereby inexplicable job tending bar at the Roadhouse), but he flirts with her. It's a surprise when Missouri from down Castiel's street arrives with a pie, but a bigger surprise to learn that she's known Sam and Dean since they were children.
"I used to keep them sometimes when they were little," she tells him. "Little hellions, I mean. I used to have to whack Dean with a damn spoon to keep him out of my pies."
Castiel looks across the back yard at Dean, who's already got a mouthful of a slice he's eating off a red, white, and blue paper plate, and smiles. "Some things don't change."
Missouri looks at Dean (who sees her and points at the pie and gives her a thumbs up) and then back at Castiel and says, "Oh, honey. You've got it bad, don't you?"
"I... what?"
"For Dean. I may not be a pretty young thing anymore, but I'm not blind yet."
It still takes him a moment to catch her meaning, and she waits patiently with a nonplussed look until he does. He knows he's turning red. "I don't-- I-- Dean and I are friends. And I'm...involved with someone."
She doesn't look like she takes that as particularly good counter-evidence, but she pats him on the shoulder and says something about going to find Bobby.
"Cas!" Dean calls from next to the grill. "Come be my wingman!"
He thinks he hears a knowing 'mm-hmm' from Missouri as he passes by her and goes to help Dean with the ribs.
"Jo's been giving me the third degree about you," Dean says quietly during the delicate maneuver of keeping the ribs from disintegrating on their way to the platter. "I hope it's okay I said you were taken."
"Of course. I hope that wasn't awkward for you."
"With Jo? Nah. When somebody's seen you make an ass of yourself as many times as she has, not much is awkward. I just wasn't sure how serious your...thing with, uh, Balthazar is."
"I'm not sure myself. It's very new."
"Oh."
"But I'm not generally interested in women, romantically, so I would be unavailable to her in any case."
"Gotcha." Dean hasn't looked at him; he's been studiously spreading barbecue sauce on the meat, and Castiel's assistance isn't needed anymore.
"Dean, is--" He hates to think it, but he's not sure what else to think. "Is this bothering you?"
Dean's head snaps up and he drops the basting brush. "No. No way. I'll kick your ass if you even think that."
"I'm glad. I would be very unhappy to lose your friendship." He would be more than unhappy; it would leave a wide empty space in his life that he's not sure he'd know how to fill. Knowing Dean has disrupted Castiel's predictable status quo left and right, but it's been almost too easy to form new habits around his presence.
Dean laughs and looks down and scratches at the back of his head. "Damn, Cas, get a little more chick-flick, why don't you?"
"It's the truth."
"Yeah. I mean, uh, me too."
He knows it wasn't easy for Dean to say even that much.
*
Castiel can't remember the last time he set off fireworks; probably college. Even though Sam did mention 'blowing stuff up,' he assumed it was an exaggeration. Now, with Dean and Sam bringing cardboard boxes and brown paper bags out of the garage and Ash going to his truck for even more, he sees how wrong he was. Against the darkening sky, someone to the west sends up a modest but attractive display of cascading blues and reds that whistles and pops, and Dean points a finger at it and says, "Okay, dude, it's on," as though his unwitting rival can hear him.
"Dean's serious about fireworks," Jo says behind him.
"I'm learning that." Castiel can't help smiling fondly.
"Another thing to learn, if you like having eyes and hair and everything, you're better off as far from Ash as you can get."
"Why is that?"
"You ever seen that scar on Dean's ass?"
Castiel's not sure what to think of the fact that Jo believes he might have, or the fact that she apparently has. "No."
"It was, oh, five years ago? Dean came through town and we lit some stuff off in the Roadhouse parking lot, and Ash was drinking and running his mouth and forgot to call fire in the hole, and I don't know what the hell exactly happened, but something fell over or went sideways 'cause he'd chained about six cherry bombs together and the next thing anybody knows, Dean's howling like a little girl and running back and forth clutching his butt and his pants are actually on fire, like some damn cartoon." She demonstrates, spins in circles slapping at her backside and shouting, "My ass! You blew up my ass!"
"I see you, Joanna Beth!" Dean shouts over. "You better watch your own ass!" The threat carries more amusement than malice.
Jo flips her middle finger in Dean's direction. "And then Sam, he's like, 'Dean! Dean! Oh my god, Dean, stop drop and roll!' And we all just lost it. I think Ash actually wet his pants."
"Just goes to prove I wouldn't piss on this jackass if he was on fire!" Ash shouts, slapping Dean on the back.
Castiel finds he's having a hard time stopping laughing once he's started, until someone, actually two someones, come around the side of the house. It's the woman and the boy from the diner, and he hears a happy, "Hey, you made it!" from Dean, watches Dean kiss the woman on the cheek and bend down to give the boy a high five.
He doesn't feel like laughing anymore, but he knows they've done nothing wrong and it would be unfair to treat them otherwise. He hangs back and busies himself getting another beer, not wanting to interrupt or intrude, but Dean brings them to him. Lisa and Ben. Lisa shakes his hand with a warm smile and Ben looks at Castiel's hand like it's an alien creature when he tries to repeat the gesture.
"Ben, shake hands," Lisa prompts with a long-suffering apologetic glance at Castiel. He gets another one from Dean when Ben immediately starts asking to see the fireworks and if he can light something and pulls Dean away.
Which leaves Castiel alone with Lisa. "Sorry about my kid," she says. "I apparently failed to teach him any manners."
"I'm not very good with children," Castiel says. "I probably should have given him a high five."
Lisa laughs. She's pretty, prettier than she was across a room. "I thought Dean said you were a teacher."
He's pleasantly surprised to hear Dean's talked about him at all, but that makes it all the more confusing that Dean's never mentioned Lisa. "I teach high school. They are very different from younger children."
"I apologize in advance for whatever you end up dealing with from him in three years."
"Are you Catholic?"
Lisa looks perplexed. "Well, um, technically, in a really lapsed way."
"I'm sorry. I assumed that since Dean mentioned my profession to you, he might have mentioned where I teach. Unless you're planning to enroll Ben at St. Benedict's, there's no need to apologize for his future transgressions as my student."
"Oh, jeez, Catholic school? No offense, but I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy thanks to Sister Agnes and her ruler."
"I experienced a similar brand of discipline during my own education, but St. Benedict's did away with corporal punishment over a decade ago." It's not worth mentioning that Zachariah's been subtly lobbying the board and the PTA in hopes of having the practice reinstated.
Lisa laughs again and reaches into the cooler for a beer, which she opens and knocks against Castiel's. "Catholic school survivors," she says by way of a toast.
It would be wrong to begrudge Dean whatever happiness he might find with her, and beyond that, he likes her. She's a lovely woman, and her son clearly adores Dean, hangs on his every word as Dean helps him strike a lighter and they jump backwards together and watch a little cardboard tank spin and shoot sparks. Lisa's shoulders stay tense until it's done. "Dean won't let him get hurt," Castiel says.
"I know."
Even as Castiel knows Dean won't let him come to harm any more than he would Ben, he still looks at Dean dubiously when he finds a roman candle pressed into his hand and Dean's thumb poised on his Zippo. Dean's got another roman candle in his other hand and after a challenging grin and a 'c'mon,' they touch their fuses to the flame together. Castiel suppresses the urge to throw it like it's an ignited stick of dynamite, but he still holds it at arm's length against the very real possibility that the whole thing could explode in his face. It doesn't, even though the cardboard gets hot in the palm of his hand and jerks with minute recoils as the explosives shoot up into the sky and break into starbursts and he smiles at Dean under the flashing explosions.
Dean counters the unknown neighbor's display with increasingly elaborate sequences of mortars and rockets and things with names like Big Momma and Black Eagle. Ben and Sam write their names in the sky with sparklers. A think dusting of gunpowder grit rains down on everyone and the sky is full of smoke and sulphur as the guests begin to drift back home. Castiel makes a point of not paying attention to how much time passes between when Dean walks Lisa and Ben out and when he returns.
Castiel stays after everyone else (besides Ash, who is unconscious on the sofa) has left, partly to help clear up the mess but also in hopes of spending a few minutes with Dean, but he ends up by himself in the back yard because Sam and Dean are arguing in the kitchen, or seem to be. He hears a 'god, you're being a dick,' and a 'dude, screw you,' among other words he can't make out, not in the usual tone they use to jokingly insult each other, and decides it's best to stay outside and collect all of the stray bottles and cans into the recycling bin.
Bones has been gated in the laundry room most of the night so he wouldn't get into the food or be injured by the fireworks, so now he's running around the back yard after Castiel, and it's because Bones bolts toward the fence barking that he knows someone's here. He follows in case it's someone who forgot something, or a very late guest who shouldn't be jumped on, but he does it cautiously in case it's not.
"Holy shit, call off Cujo!" says a voice in the shadows that's familiar but that Castiel can't immediately place. "I'm just here for the fireworks."
Castiel makes Bones sit and prepares himself for the awkward task of telling some stranger that she's unfortunately missed the party.
"I brought some Jack," says the newcomer. She's fumbling with the latch on the gate and has an open half-empty bottle swinging from her other hand. "Where's everybody--" Her eyes go wide when she sees Castiel. "Oh god. I am so at the wrong house."
Castiel very much hopes she is. "Miss Watts?"
"Uh, hey Dr. Milton, what's up? I didn't know you lived over here." Her speech is slurred. "I screwed up the address, you know anybody named Winchester on this street?"
The sinking feeling in Castiel's stomach is only compounded by the sound of the back door and Sam saying, "Cas, everything okay out-- Ruby! Hey!" He looks thrilled to see her as he's walking over.
Ruby's mouth drops open for a second as she looks between Sam and Castiel. Then she laughs and quietly singsongs, "Awkward."
What happens when students graduate (or don't, in this case) and begin showing up at social occasions isn't in the teachers' handbook. Even though it's a small town, Castiel's never met a student, current or former, for any longer than a few minutes at a store or gas station or restaurant. It probably helps that he doesn't generally go to bars, and even if he did, the set of seniors he taught his first year here are only just barely old enough to drink now. The worst that's ever happened is catching a couple of sophomores smoking last year and debating whether to tell their parents (he didn't, but he made it clear that he would if he ever saw it again). Until now, that is, and now he has no idea what to do. So he says stiffly, "It was nice to meet you," and retreats into the house as quickly as he can without running.
Dean's sitting at the kitchen table picking the label off his beer bottle. He looks up when Castiel closes the door and his smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Hey." And even though he looks more like the question should be asked of him, he says, "You okay?"
"I'm not sure. The girl Sam has been seeing, it seems, is a former student of mine. She's..." He doesn't know if he should tell Dean the rest of it, or even part of the rest of it. "It was a strange encounter."
"She finally showed?"
"Yes."
"Huh. I guess that'd be pretty weird."
"Dean..." He has to stop and consider, weigh whatever trouble it will cause for Sam against how much Dean will want to know. Ruby may not deserve to be judged before Dean's even met her. Technically, she's an adult and he is no longer her teacher. Not that any action he's ever taken through the school has gotten through to her or her mother. But he thinks of Gabriel and of Anna and how he would feel if the situations were reversed and Dean didn't tell him there was cause for concern. But what can he even say? That she has a troubled home life, that she's bright but wouldn't apply herself, that she's drinking illegally? He suspects all of that has been true of Dean himself. So there's nothing to say, for now. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Domestic dispute with Sammy, but no biggie, we're cool." He lifts one of his feet from the chair they're propped up on and kicks lightly at the side of Castiel's knee. "You know you don't have to stay for clean-up duty. I was just planning to let it all fester till tomorrow." He yawns and pinches at the bridge of his nose.
"I don't mind. Are you going to have a hangover tomorrow?"
"If it means you're bringing me breakfast, I'm going to have the worst one in history."
Castiel's about to say that he'll make Dean breakfast with or without a hangover, but Sam comes in with one arm around Ruby and the other holding the whiskey bottle, just long enough to make a brief introduction and announce that they're going to Waffle House.
"You better be walking there!" Dean calls after them.
"Okay, dad," Sam shouts back just before the screen door slams out front.
"Man, I hate when he says that." Dean slides his beer across the table towards Castiel. "I'm beat. You want the rest of this?"
"Not really."
"Yeah, it's kinda warm and nasty." Dean takes another drink of it anyway. "You have an okay time? I know the full-on family experience can be kinda intense."
"I did. Everyone seems very nice."
"Okay, now I know you're bullshitting me. The only people who seem nice are Sam and Lisa. Maybe Jo on a really good day."
"I do like Lisa. You're very good with Ben."
Dean huffs a small laugh and smiles towards the living room. "He's a good kid. First time I met him I actually thought he might be mine, 'cause Lisa and me had a thing way way back, but turns out he's just that cool."
"You and Lisa aren't...?"
"What? No, man, ancient history. We tried for a minute but I'm kinda not cut out for that."
"Oh," Castiel says. "I misunderstood."
"I would've told you about that. With words, even, 'cause I doubt her shirts would fit me."
The guilt he feels in trying to remind himself that Dean not being with Lisa shouldn't and doesn't change anything amplifies. "I'm sorry I didn't--"
Dean waves his hand and drains his beer with a grimace. "No big deal, seriously. I'm shitfaced and exhausted and not funny, just ignore me."
"I'll let you get to bed, then."
"You okay to get home? You can crash here if you need to."
"I'll be fine. It's not far."
"Yeah, I guess it isn't. Hey, do me a favor and write 'balls' on Ash's forehead on your way out?"
Castiel laughs and shakes his head, both in relief at the tension slackening back to equilibrium and in amusement. "Goodnight, Dean."
*
Castiel forgot to plug in his phone when he got home, so when he turns it on in the morning, it lights up with a message from Balthazar: enjoy patriotic pyromania & mind yr important bits near explosives, have dirty dreams x
Castiel smiles at it, but doesn't reply because the message was sent at three in the morning and Balthazar is likely still asleep. Instead he sends one to Dean offering the breakfast he promised. The reply he gets-- be cold by time i got there. all parts still intact i hope-- confuses him at first, until he realizes he didn't send anything to Dean at all and that it's Balthazar replying.
To: Balthazar Yes, I am fine. I'm sorry if I woke you. My message was intended for a friend who lives nearby.
Castiel's not sure why he doesn't mention Dean's name.
From: Balthazar tell me friend is horribly unattractive or ill be viciously jealous
To: Balthazar There is no need to be jealous.
Although Balthazar could find good cause to be jealous if he knew the extent of Castiel's confused knot of feelings toward Dean, and it's dishonest in a way not to admit them, feelings that will never be acted on don't matter. He adds I would not be unfaithful, but erases that part before he sends the message.
From: Balthazar silly bugger i was joking. go have yr breakfast im going back to the dream of you + chocolate sauce xxx
Castiel blushes.
To: Balthazar Sleep well.
He sends Dean the message about breakfast again, successfully this time. When he's made and drunk a cup of tea and there's still no reply, he decides Dean must still be sleeping as well and goes for a run. There's no sign of life at Dean's house when he passes by, and even Ash's truck is still out front.
He's just out of the shower and stepping into a pair of very old jeans that he's surprised still fit (he's been promising Anna for months that he would go through the boxes in his attic in search of family photo albums that no one seems to be able to find anywhere else, ones that he doesn't particularly want to see and isn't sure Anna should either, but he's been putting it off for too long and Gabriel doesn't agree with it being a bad idea) when he hears someone knocking on the door. He goes far enough down the stairs to see that it's Dean.
"Dude. I didn't even know you owned jeans," Dean says, surprise clear on his face when Castiel opens the door.
"I don't wear them often. I need to go through some things in the attic today. Have you had breakfast?"
"Nope. That's what I came for."
"You don't seem to have a hangover."
"Worst ever. I might even die." Dean smiles brightly and gives him a shove in the direction of the stairs. "Go put on a shirt, Naked Chef. I'll get the bacon going."
"Try not to expire while I'm gone."
Dean's laughter is a warm thing that follows him to his bedroom, and so is the space where Dean's hand was on his shoulder.
Next: Part 5
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Epilogue