#sorry sean i dont like fish but i think your bike is cool

[dcforts]

[monday 6: jealous]

Nora had set Castiel up on a blind date with a really nice guy once.

He tells them casually one night, while they are having dinner at the bunker. When Dean registers his words he almost drops his fork into his plate.

His name was Sean.

“Wow Cas, really?” asks Sam amused, sounding interested like they are talking about the plot of an animation movie and not Castiel going on a goddamn date, with some guy, who knows when. “What happened?”

It had been shortly after Dean’d been in Rexford. Castiel was very nervous and Sean had ordered for him.

They’d talked about their jobs and the stars, because Sean was studying astronomy and Castiel knew all about stars, as he’d walked among them many times.

He hadn’t said that though, and had only corrected his misconceptions twice.

He tells them that they had walked home and Castiel had followed Sean to his door and said goodnight.

Dean is having a hard time picturing it, doesn’t want to picture it, his heart is speeding up. Somehow he feels like that is different than all those times he teased Castiel about people finding him attractive, cause they were just faces, voices that they were never going to see again. And it’s not just a hook up either, this is a date. He feels something twisting in his stomach at the thought the Castiel could want and need something like that. Something that Dean could never give him.

“Did you ever see him again?” Sam asks and Dean wants to stab him with his fork but also thank him because he wanted to know too but didn’t have enough guts to ask himself.

Castiel shakes his head. He didn’t like lying to him, and he couldn’t stand to look in his eyes and play Steve, the sweet, hardworking Steve, the babysitter Steve. As if he hadn’t seen someone explode right in front of him, as if he wasn’t thousands of years old, as if he hadn’t killed and died and existed outside of the human world.

He had felt like a fraud.

And later, when Sean had texted him – he had texted him – Castiel was in the middle of a war and didn’t really have time for a coffee.

Then he had gotten his grace back, and it’s not that he could go up to him and say ‘Sorry, I’ve been busy regaining my grace and bringing back my brothers and sisters to Heaven, because by the way, I am not human.’

“I was feeling… lonely at the time and after that, I felt even lonelier. How can you build real relationships with people if you can’t tell them the truth?” he asks them.

Sam opens his mouth probably to start one of his perfectly crafted speeches about love and possibilities and bright future. Dean is glad to be sitting next to him because he doesn’t have much patience for that look he usually gets when he talks about this stuff. So before he can get into his romantic crap, he cuts him off. “You just can’t. You get used to it” he says, shrugging and shoving a piece of broccoli in his mouth.

Castiel brings his eyes on him. “This must have been hard for you.”

Dean avoids his gaze and he forgets that he’d spoken up just to keep Sam from talking. He stays quiet for a second too long and it’s already too late.

“It is difficult,” his brother says “but if you find someone. Someone that gets you, that understands who you are and wants the same things, you can have that. I mean, we have had a lot of great friends along the way.”

“Mostly dead” grumbles Dean in his plate.

Sam ignores him. “It’s not an easy life. But it doesn’t have to be lonely.”

“Well, I regret the way I behaved with Nora. She was my friend. She showed me kindness and she trusted me and I disappeared. I didn’t know what to say and I didn’t want to lie. Even if I told her the truth now, she would still hate me for lying to her all this time.”

“You don’t know that”, Sam is saying but Dean’s stopped listening. Thoughts are buzzing in his mind like a beehive has just moved in. He keeps going back to the date and even if he is pretty sure the conversation has moved on he still can’t stop himself from asking:

"Well, what about this… uh, Sean?” he asks, stressing the fricative sound.

He and Castiel lock eyes for a moment and as Castiel’s frowns at him, Dean feels himself sink into his chair. He tries to smooth his face into a neutral expression.

“We could have been friends.”

Dean pushes his plate away and scoffs. “You went on a date with this guy. That’s different. That means more than friends.” He hears how stupid he sounds so he quickly adds: “Whatever. Forget it.” 

“I know what it means,” Castiel says, “but things are different now”.

Sam just looks between them like he’s following a tennis match. Dean crosses his arms on his chest.

“Did you have fun?”

“I said I did.”

“Where did you go to eat?”

“We had fish.”

“Fish on a first date? Ugh” he says with a grimace, “Did he come to pick you up or -?”

“We met at the restaurant.”

“Ugh.”

“It was a blind date.”

“What did he wear?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Nothing memorable then” he shoots a glance at Sam, “It means it sucked.”

Sam rolls his eyes.

Dean shrugs “What? I’m just sorry the guy had such bad experiences.”

Sam bitch faces him. “But how can you talk? When’s the last time you went on a real date?”

“What does that have to do with anything? I’m just not one for ‘real relationships’. But let me tell you, if I wanted… I’d know how to give my date a good time. I’d know how to do it right.”

Now Sam has his face in his hand. “Oh, please.”

“You’re just jealous cause you know you have no game.”

Sam’s eyes widen: “I am jealous? I’m the jealous one here? Wow, okay,” he throws his hands in the air “I think that’s it for me, I can’t hear this no more. Goodnight guys” he says, standing up with his plate to dump it in the sink.

Dean gives his retreating back a confused look but then Castiel’s voice brings his attention back to the conversation. “But you do build real relationships. You care about people.”

“Of course I care about people. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. The realization you had with Sean? I had it when I was seventeen. Sam keeps…” he trails off, waves a hand, stands up and starts clearing the table to avoid his gaze. “I’m just saying. In this life, it’s better not to get too attached. I mean, look at us -” he meant to add something, but the moment the words leave his mouth he is unable to go on. He wishes he could take it back, struggles to find something to add but comes up empty and the window to correct himself to make it look like a slip is closed already. Castiel doesn’t seem to notice.

Dean strides towards the sink and sets down the dirty plates on top of the pots. He stands still to think while the silence stretches. He might as well say it: “We- we risk our lives every day. We’ve died what, like a hundred times? And if we put dating or romance or whatever crap into the mix we’d get extra screwed, that’s what we’d get.”

“Well, there is always a way to make it work.”

“Yeah, alright Nicholas Sparks.” he feels his skin prickle.

“I don’t know who t- ”

“You can have that.” Dean cuts him off in a tone that’s slightly more aggressive than he intended. He keeps his back turned. “If you wanted. It’s different for you. This has always been our life, but it’s not always been yours. And you could have dates and flowers and - the whole deal. It’s not the same for me. And I made peace with that a long time ago. That’s not what I’m gonna get and that’s not even what I want. I’m fine as I am.” He hears his voice getting higher and higher and he feels a little sick, because he’s lost control of his words and he doesn’t even know what he is saying anymore.

When Castiel’s voice reaches him, it comes from a place closer than Dean expected. “Dean, what are you talking about?” Dean shoots a look over his shoulder and there he is, standing behind him a little on the side. “I am an angel. Do you really think -?” He steps closer and lowers his voice. “Nothing of the things you said matter to me. When I was human, I was just trying to fit in.” He gives him a small smile “I don’t understand any of those rituals anyway” and Dean, meeting his eyes, feels his tension deflate.

He turns around and leans his hips against the counter.

“You sure? Cause we can set you up with one of those dating apps. We really could find you someone better than fish-eating, nothing-memorable-wearing Sean.”

“Don’t be mean.” Castiel says but the corner of his mouth tilts upward. “I’m fine as I am as well. I’d rather have someone who gets me, as Sam put it.”

Dean can’t hold his gaze. He fixes his eyes on Castiel’s shoes.

“I’m just saying, there’s nothing stopping you.”

“That’s not what I want” Cas says and Dean follows his boots as they take a step towards him.

“You don’t know, maybe in the future....”

“I know.”

He is still walking.

“If you could find someone....”

“Dean,” and it sounds like a definitive answer, “I’m not looking.”

He’s there. He leans against the counter next to him and then Dean feels the touch of a hand on the small of his back. It’s barely there and it’s gone after a second but Dean feels light all of the sudden.

“Okay.”

Castiel brings his arm back to his side, but keeps it pressed against his.

A moment passes, then Dean dares to glance in his direction: “So, did you take a look at his car?”

“He had a bike”.

“Oh God, a b-” Dean’s shoulders start shaking with laughter. 

“Stop it.”

“Sean with his bike.”

“I said stop. And why do you say his name like that?”

I am participating in the spnstayathomechallenge by @bend-me-shape-me @pray4jensen @helianthus21