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reyolfx · 20 days ago

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lil destiel ficlet that i wrote last night. trying times but they go to the beach so it can't be all bad, right? castiel is the beach??? yeah

***

Sweat drips down Dean’s neck and collects in the hollow of his collarbone. It’s so funny – he’s 42 years old and has lived through things most people would never even experience in a nightmare, but he’s never felt the sun so fully on his bare chest. He’s crisscrossed the entire country, gun cocked and at the ready, and yet he’s never, not once, felt the sand between his toes and watched ocean devour shore. Before today.

Just fourteen years old the day he first asked his dad if they could swing by the beach. They were on a hunt in Oregon and Dean could practically smell the salt air, hear the waves. He longed to see it. Could feel something small and bright in his chest pulling him towards something natural, beautiful.

John said no. Focus was important at his young age. Couldn’t risk getting distracted. They hadn’t tracked down the monster yet. How would Dean feel if it showed up unexpectedly?

How would he feel if it got Sam?

It’s nearly 30 years later and Dean has still never seen a real fucking beach.

It’s almost embarrassing.

“So?” Sam says, sidling up next to him. Dean sits on a towel on a stretch of sand in coastal Georgia and looks up at his brother’s grinning face. “Whaddaya think?”

He thinks all these years without dad and I never even tried to see it.

He thinks this is all in the same country I could cross from east to west with my eyes closed?

He thinks I wish we’d come here when we were little. I’d have built you a sand castle.

“Pretty wild,” Dean says, nonchalantly. His chest feels like it’s burning and he thinks, absently, that this is what sun screen is for, but he just kinda feels it. Pokes at his stomach and watches alabaster white turn back to reddish-tan.

“It smells great, right?” Sam asks, and he’s grinning so wide it makes Dean feel like maybe, if it was a little later in the day, if he’d had a beer or two more than this first one, he might tear up. But it’s ten in the morning. Let’s get it together.

“Smells like the fishmart in fucking New York.”

Sam snorts. “It does not. This is all natural, Dean. Breathe it in!!” He’s grinning, and he flings his towel at Dean, and then he runs off after Eileen who’s sprinting towards the waves.

Dean smiles. He feels warm in a way that has nothing to do with the sun. It’s too big for this regular afternoon in Georgia.

“Hello, Dean.”

And there goes his hope of reining that shit in. The balloon in his chest expands, a soaring kind of pressure. He grins and looks up.

“Hey Cas.”

Cas is standing above him, looking down with a small smile on his face, fully, ridiculously clothed in his suit. It’s fucking August. Ninety degrees. Dean can’t help it – he winks. “That comfortable for you, city boy?”

Cas looks taken aback for a moment, glances down at himself. Hums in consideration.

“Hmm. I suppose this is not typical beach attire.”

“Sure as shit isn’t,” Dean chuckles. “Wanna go get some beach clothes?”

Cas cocks his head to the side a little. Seems to be considering his sleeves. “Maybe tomorrow,” he says. “I don’t assume this place has a jacket policy.”

It’s deadpan and ultra serious. He shrugs off his jacket with the hint of a smile. Dean can’t help but laugh.

“I’m glad you’re here Cas,” he says. Sincerity fights behind his teeth; he banishes it with a shoulder knock to Cas’s knee and a sip of his Sol.

All the same. Cas smiles at him like he gets it. “Me too, Dean.”

He’s been back for all of two weeks. Jack had unceremoniously dropped Cas off in the damn war room one fine Tuesday with a casual “Sorry it took me a while – there was a lot to sort out.” He'd smiled, given his signature wave, then disappeared, leaving Sam, Eileen, and Dean to stare fucking slack jawed at Cas for a good long time. Dean still remembers the way Cas shifted uncertainly on his feet, fiddled with the sleeves of his coat.

“Hello,” he’d said, and Dean had turned tail and walked straight out the bunker into the night air.

He hates that he did that. He didn’t mean to. It was just – a lot.

He couldn’t help the way his breath started coming in uneven, desperate puffs that wouldn’t fill his lungs, not properly. Couldn’t help the way his vision blurred out or the tears that came streaming down his face.

Ridiculous. Thankfully, no one followed him out that night.

He got himself together. The next day, he’d clapped Cas on the shoulder and said “Welcome home, buddy.”

That was that.

Except it wasn’t, was it?

Something stands between them. Something huge and real and hot as this southern Georgia sun.

Cas loves him.

Is in love with him.

Dean splays his toes out in the sand, feels the warmth radiating from Cas who's still standing nice and close. Except it's already so hot out, so maybe that's all in Dean's head.

Does he still...?

Dean shakes his head and buries his feet in the sand, uses his hands to bury them further until two big mounds engulf his ankles. Feels funny and nice.

“Are you glad we came?” Cas asks, out of the silence that had settled around them. It’s a fair question. Dean had been a bit reluctant. They’d just finished up a hunt in Savannah – a simple salt n’ burn, nothing crazy. Hunts these days feel a hell of a lot easier since Chuck’s defeat, and Dean isn’t complaining, but still, not like it's retirement. Sam had said “How ‘bout the beach?” and Dean had rolled his eyes and answered “Yeah, right.”

But he’d been outvoted. So even though the beach was something he’d only ever imagined doing when he was done, out, retired – here he was.

It isn’t bad.

Actually, it’s really fucking nice. Sweat be damned.

“It’s alright,” he tells Cas, and he turns his face to smile at him, smoke and mirrors clear for just a moment.

Cas looks back at him with all the glad sincerity Dean’s almost never seen in his life.

He can’t breathe, for a second, because he has seen it once.

They haven’t talked about it. Not once in the past two weeks that Cas had been back. Not that first night when Cas had eyed him warily, not the next day when Dean had covered up all uncertainty with an ecstatic but generalized good mood, and no day between then and now.

But the thing is, Dean knows he loves Cas back.

He knows it like he knows when he has a headache, when he needs a coffee, when he’s tired or energized or depressed or guilty or glad. It’s just part of his body, his soul. Hadn’t realized it until Cas had said it first, but then it hit him like a ton of fucking bricks and shit, wasn’t it just the most obvious thing?

But Cas was gone, then.

It’s been sitting heavy and aching in Dean’s ribs, in his lungs, ever since he came back. Before that, really. Dean doesn’t know how it’s possible but it’s like he knew before he knew – like he loved Cas so deeply and wholly that it surpassed whatever repression he had going on there. Like the knowledge existed at the same time that he had absolutely zero idea.

It doesn’t really matter, does it? When he knew. When he really knew. He’s just waiting now.

For what, he doesn’t really know. Cas had said he loved him. And fuck if he didn’t sell it. Dean doesn’t like to think of that confession, for all it absolutely destroyed him for a couple months. It’s ruined and ugly and frightening in his mind. But it’s true, right? He’s pretty sure it’s true. Doubt dances around the edges of his mind but it’s not that hard to fight off. Who lies or obfuscates during their last words? Not Cas – that he’s sure of.

When is the right fucking moment to tell your best friend you love him back? Like, love, love. Want it all, kinda love. Want a house and a forever and a bed with ruined sheets and a decades long photo album and a memory foam mattress that’s forever molded to their body kinda love. He’s not really a dinner date and flowers kinda guy, even though maybe – maybe it’d be nice to be, one day. Maybe he could be.

“Dean?”

He blinks. Reailzes he’s been utterly zoned out and zoned in on Cas’s face. Cas’s smile brightens just a touch and Dean just –

He just wants.

He wants to gather him in his arms and kiss that smile until it’s stuck there permanently. He wants to take him to bed, wants to take him to dinner, wants to take him to Jody’s to spend time with everyone they love, wants him on his arm at Sam and Eileen’s wedding and in his heaven when he dies and wants wants wants.

His mouth is dry and he’s staring at Cas. Cas is staring back. It’s nothing new. It’s their thing.

“Yeah, Cas,” he answers, uselessly. Like there isn’t a thought in his head, even though there’s a thousand. Cas is still standing above him and he’s backed by the sun. He’s a silhouette but he’s real. Dean reaches out and grabs his ankle, for some stupid reason.

Cas looks down at Dean’s hand. “I’m going to sit,” he announces, and then he does, and Dean has to move his hand. Cas stares at it for a moment before returning to Dean’s eyes. They’re not touching.

“Is everything okay?” Cas finally asks, when Dean fails to find any words, when he’s just staring at him like it’s all just going to happen without a hint of effort on his part.

He owes Cas a little bit of effort though. Because he loves him.

Dean takes a deep fucking breath. Salt air fills his lungs and it smells so fucking good – he never imagined.

He doesn’t really know how to do this. Fuck. He reaches behind him into the cooler and grabs a second beer, pops the top off and hands it to Cas.

“Cheers,” he says lamely.

Cas eyes the bottle, takes a sip. He licks his lips in a way Dean can’t help but track with his eyes and christ but he wants him. In every fucking way. He’d hand him beers forever.

“What are we cheersing?” Cas asks, head tilted in that way of his. Dean feels his whole entire being reaching out to him, but he keeps his hands to himself, starts tearing the label off his beer.

“Hmm,” he starts. “Us” is too chick-flick even though it’s his first instinct. He swats it away. Looks out at Sam and Eileen where they’re living some regular ass couple’s honeymoon dreams in the waves. “The future?” he asks, cause he knows it’s not quite what he wants to say. “Happy fuckin’ endings, I guess,” he settles on, even though he's pretty sure it’s not the end. Thankfully.

“What’s your happy ending look like, Dean?” Cas asks seriously. He’s not looking at him though. Cas is staring at the label of his own beer that he’s picking at, same as Dean is.

For some reason that’s the push Dean needs. He grabs Cas’s hand and pulls it away from the torn, damp label. Meets his eyes. They give the ocean a run for its money and Dean thinks he’ll never get over this shade of blue. Can he own a colour? This is his.

“Don’t need much more than this, Cas.”

Cas’s lips are parted and he’s staring at him. Dean can feel his breath against his lips, realizes how close he’s already leaned in. Fuck, half the work’s done already. He just needs –

“You like the beach that much?” Cas breathes.

Dean huffs a tiny laugh. “The beach is okay,” he says again, and this time it’s true, if it’s in comparison to the angel in front of him. The beach is so nice, could be heaven on a fucking steak but it’s all nothing if Cas ain’t there.

“It’s... what?” Cas says, like he’s been punched in the gut, and that’s when Dean realizes he said that last bit out loud.

He laughs. Thought it’d scare him but it’s out and he feels... well. He feels like he’s flying a little, but whether he crashes or floats depends on the response.

Cas loves him, though. He said.

“I said it ain’t shit without you, Cas.”

The answering smile takes a moment, but then it’s fucking brilliant. So fucking gratifying, the best thing Dean’s ever seen. Cas is about to talk but Dean needs to consume that smile, actually, so he does.

Captures his mouth in a kiss that feels like finding a new place in a country he knows like the back of his hand.

The heat of Cas’s tongue makes Dean shiver in the muggy south Georgia air. Warm and cold at the same time, he pulls back, because he has some words hanging out on his own tongue that for once are begging to be released.

Cas stares at him, half shocked and half utterly fucking in love. Dean knows the feeling.

“Fuckin’ love you, Cas.” It doesn’t even feel like a confession. Just a stupidly obvious statement, and it’s already gone full circle to being right back on the tip of his tongue like he could just spit it out over and over and over again and never feel like it’s enough. “Love you, love you, I love you,” he chants, and his hands are in Cas’s hair, on his shoulders, holding his face, everywhere, cataloguing.

“You –” Cas starts, but his words fall away, and his eyes look unfocused. Dean stops his own hands abruptly, suddenly freaked the fuck out.

He doesn’t have time to overthink it though, cause Cas grabs his hands back roughly and places them back on his face, right where jaw meets neck and he stares Dean down like the world is ending, a look they’re both intimately familiar with.

“You love me,” Cas parrots, and Dean can’t help it. He smiles. Every hope pinned on this fucking moment that feels like it could end him, truly, but he kinda knows it won’t – he’s pretty damn sure, and he’s so, so fucking happy.

“Yeah man. Real Cash and Carter shit.”

Cas just blinks. “I don’t –”

“You still love me too, Cas?” Cause he has to check. Cause he’s so close to sure but some tiny, almost-banished-but-not-quite self-loathing bug itches under his skin and he’s gotta make sure.

“Love you too...” Cas just echoes, looking far as fuck away, and Dean doesn’t want that. They’ve been far enough away from each other for all their physical proximity for a decade and change. He lightly whacks Cas’s cheek with his palm.

“Earth to Castiel,” he bites, and there’s the faintest tremor in his voice. What if he’s wrong?

Cas’s eyes snap right into focus and –

“Do I love you too?” He asks, incredulous, and he’s very suddenly practically in Dean’s lap. “Was that – did I leave that open to doubt?”

Dean can’t say he did. He wraps his arm around Cas’s waist and kisses the salt air off his lips instead. “Not really,” he finally breathes.

The moment unravels into touch and warmth and sand in unpleasant places, but it doesn’t matter. Sam and Eileen clear their throats obnoxiously and Dean flips them off, Cas glares, and then they're off, back to the room. Dean won’t leave an inch of him unexplored. They've got time. They're free.

#destiel #destiel fic #destiel ficlet #rey writes #idk i read a beach fic the other day and i needed something to write so here we go #my ongoing spn relapse #the beach was right there this whole time and dean never let himself see it and enjoy it but now he CAN

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