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Dean is fine. He’s splendid, even. Totally a-okay, not in need of help in any way, shape or form, just absolutely peachy. Really, he’s doing good.
“Dean, are you...okay?” Cas asks, sounding distant despite probably being right next to him.
“I’m fine,” Dean says, his own voice muffled because his face is somewhat squished into his arm and shoulder and there’s a pretty solid sheet of metal between them. “Why do y’all keep asking me that?”
“I don’t know why Sam or Jack or Eileen would ask you this,” Cas says, and god Dean’s so angry at whoever taught him sarcasm right now. He’s being a little shit and Dean’s just- Dean’s fucking- this just isn’t fair. It was probably Dean himself who taught him, which just- Good job, Winchester. “But there’s pizzas getting cold on the backseat and our family is waiting for said pizzas at home, while you decided to climb in and lock yourself into Baby’s trunk.”
And, okay. Cas does have a point. Whatever. Dean’s still fine.
“I’m not locked in.”
“Can you open the trunk?”
He fumbles for the lock and comes up empty. Pushing against the top also doesn’t do the job. “No,” he admits. “But there’s a lever by the driver's seat that will let you unlock it.”
He doesn’t say that because he wants to get out though. It’s just to prove that he’s fully in control of this situation. Dean’s very comfortable where he is. It was his choice to get in here in the first place, so this is all exactly what’s supposed to happen.
“The door is closed.”
“Then open it.”
“I don’t have the keys, you do.”
“Dammit, Cas, I taught you how to break into cars, didn’t I? What does it matter that I have the keys?”
Cas sighs, and Dean can picture exactly what expression he’s wearing. He rolled his eyes and got this stupid exasperated-but-fond-but-maybe-also-contemplating-murder look on his face. At least Dean hopes he does. It would be really fucking stupid if this is the thing that actually fucks this up for him and undoes all his hard work convincing Cas he’s not as messed up as he really is. Maybe he kind of actually wants out of the trunk now, just to check Cas didn’t do the math and come up with the correct solution that Dean’s just not fucking worth it. Maybe he’s actually kind of panicking now.
“I didn’t understand what you were saying, so I stopped paying attention,” Cas says, his voice calming even if the words are not. “I have the keys to my truck and you have Baby’s keys and I figured in a real emergency I could just break the window. I could break a window now?”
“Do not break my car’s windows, Cas,” Dean warns, a completely different kind of panic in his voice now.
“I’ll call Sam then.”
“No!”
Cas raises his eyebrows expectantly for a plan Dean doesn’t have. Or, Dean imagines he does. There’s a brief silence, then Cas says, “I suppose he’ll come to see what takes us so long if we don’t get the pizzas to him soon anyway. Although it would be a shame if we just let the pizzas go cold.”
“You cannot, under any circumstances, let Sam know about this,” Dean says, desperately wracking his brain to come up with a different solution. “He’ll never let me live this down.”
“Very bold of you to assume I will let you live this down,” Cas says. There’s humor in his voice, and honestly? Dean will take the teasing he will get for this if Cas can get him out of here. He’ll take it gladly. He’ll even admit he deserves it.
“Just get me out of here, Cas.”
“So, breaking windows it is?”
Fuck. This is so stupid. He’s so stupid. Fuck. He bangs the hand he can move against the lid.
There’s silence outside of the car, and he prays that Cas doesn’t actually go through with his threat. The parking lot stays quiet.
Finally, Dean grits his teeth. “Just call Sam, okay?”
There’s another brief silence, and then he can hear Cas say “Hey, Sam” while moving away from the car.
If there was any kind of wriggle room in the trunk Dean would probably bang his head against the wall. This is just so indescribably, utterly stupid. All because he’s an idiot. All because he can’t man up and just say something, just for once in his life. Because he’s a coward and fucked in the head and just-
“Sam’s on his way,” Cas says, breaking through his spiral of self-hatred.
“Great.” The car moves, the tail dipping down, if Dean’s sense of direction isn’t completely shot to hell right now. “Did you just sit down on the trunk?”
“I didn’t want to sit on the ground.”
“I’m in there! You’re sitting on top of me!”
“It’s not like you could leave even if I wasn’t sitting on top of you.” Cas sounds unbothered.
Dean mutters “Asshole,” but there’s no bite to it.
Cas seems to not have heard him, because he simply says: “I hate to ask this again, but are you okay?”
And fuck this, fuck him, and fuck all of this to hell. Dean’s locked himself in the trunk of his car and now Cas is sitting on top of said trunk and Sammy’s going to be here in a couple of minutes and won’t ever stop making fun of him for this for as long as he lives. So, he has nothing to lose and everything to gain from a little bit of honesty. Might as well, then.
“No,” he admits. And that’s all he ever wants to say on the matter.
But Cas is a little shit with no shame, so, of course he won’t let Dean off the hook that easily. “Want to elaborate on that?”
“No.”
Cas hums, and Dean hates him just a little bit. “Alright,” Cas says after a moment. “You know, I was very confused at first, when you were ignoring me after you saved me from the Empty. A little hurt too. But you’re not a man of many words and I think I understand now.”
Dean bangs his hand against the lid again. He just wants fucking out. He needs to stop Cas from continuing, because this is exactly why he’s been avoiding being alone with him since they got him back, and if Cas gets to keep talking now, Dean isn’t sure he’ll survive. Not after what he did.
But Cas is merciless. “I thought, at first, that you didn’t want me to stick around. I’m human now, and the last time I was you did kick me out. And after my confession and my now, unfortunate, powerlessness, I didn’t see why you wouldn’t do so again. I was admittedly surprised that you refused to. But you also seemed to refuse to talk about anything that had happened, so I didn’t really know what to think.”
Dean wants out so badly, it’s bordering on pathetic. This is why he usually doesn’t stop to think about things too closely. Because one second he’s flying by the seat of his pants and doing a good thing and then he stops, and he thinks, and the next thing you know he’s trapped himself inside Baby’s trunk with no way to shut Cas up. Things were going so great right up to the point where he started thinking them through, and it makes him angry..
“Would it hurt you to just examine and then acknowledge your feelings once? Just one time. For my sake?”
And at the rate things are going right now? Probably. Dean’s not sure he’s getting out of this trunk alive. “You sound like Sam.”
“Maybe Sam has a point,” Cas says, completely ignoring Dean’s deflection. “He is the smarter one of the two of you when it comes to these things.”
“Once I’m out of here I’m making sure you never get to say a word ever again in your life,” Dean threatens him.
It’s a stupid thing to say, because Cas says: “And how are you going to accomplish that?”
And Dean doesn’t have an answer to that. Well, Dean does have an answer to that. It’s just not one he can look at directly without burning his eyes out. It’s especially not one he can just tell Cas.
The thing is, Dean is an idiot. That’s not news and he’s made his peace with that, but sometimes things would just be easier if he wasn’t. This right here, for example, wouldn’t be happening. But if there’s one thing Dean just can’t do, it’s talking about his feelings. So, he’s being an idiot. Sue him. If anything, this is on Cas, because if he follows the thread of events that lead to this, Cas fucking started it. Just straight up confessing his gay love to Dean like an idiot. And then dying. Like an idiot.
Dean’s still mad about that. Cas got better, obviously, and Dean’s glad about that. Dean’s worked his ass off to make sure he did, after all. Risked his life wading into the personification of a bad acid trip of nothingness to pull Cas out of Angel Purgatory and all that. But he’s still mad. Because Cas died and Dean didn’t, and then they defeated God and he still didn’t die and that meant he had to face a world without Cas in it. And that’s just not something that he wants to happen. But because Cas just couldn’t shut up when Dean asked him to, he’s got the exact words for why he doesn’t want that to happen now. Words he can’t fucking say, because he’s Dean Winchester and he doesn’t fucking say those things. Because it’s only a matter of time until he loses Cas again, and then what?
There’s a plonk as if Cas dropped his hand to the top of the lid, and Dean wants to press his hand against where he thinks Cas’s is. Maybe he does that. There’s no one to see, so who cares. Certainly not him. He’s fought God himself for the ability to do whatever the fuck he wants, and if this is what he wants, why shouldn’t he do it? He’s got free fucking will.
It makes him wish he wasn’t locked in Baby’s trunk right now, so he could actually put his hand on Cas’s. Palm to palm, maybe even entwine their fingers. He thinks that’s called holding hands, not that Dean has ever done that much before all of this. But, well. Capital L gay feelings and all. He can’t even think about it without wanting to cry, and that? It’s a fucking bitch of an unsatisfactory situation, is what it is.
He just wanted to get the pizzas for his family, and asked Jack to come because he wanted to spend time with his damn kid. Baby steps of showing affection. He knows he’s bad at that and he wants to do better because the kid deserves it. His whole family does. And then Jack, the traitor, said no, and then to add insult to injury Cas volunteered to come with, as if Dean hadn’t spent almost a month avoiding being alone with him, because he knew the moment he was he’d have to confront what Cas had done. And okay, maybe that’s the one thing dumber than climbing into Baby’s trunk, because really, what did he think was going to happen? That they would both forget? As if that confession didn’t haunt his every waking moment that Cas was gone? If he hadn’t wanted to confront this, he should have left Cas in the Empty, but that’s, as established, not an option. So much for free will. This is why Dean normally doesn’t talk about his feelings.
“Dean?” Cas asks, concerned.
“Gonna superglue your lips together so you can't ever say anything ever again,” he grumbles.
It’s the wrong thing to say, because Cas laughs. And Dean wants out of this stupid trunk now. He wants to curl around Cas and hold him close and never let him go so that he can keep hearing that sound forever. “I don't think that's going to work,” Cas says. “I know ASL and it's just going to make me and Eileen gossip more. I would also prefer not to die of dehydration, that sounds uncomfortable."
“I hope you die.”
Cas doesn’t answer that, and Dean regrets it immediately. He doesn’t hope Cas dies. Cas dying is the last thing he wants, the fucking opposite of what he wants. He’s like this to Cas always and it makes him a really bad fucking person, because there’s boundaries you don’t cross, and they’re not joking anymore right now. He’s wrong. Taking a deep breath, he forces himself to say: “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. I don’t- I don’t want that. Not ever.”
“I know.” It doesn’t sound like Cas knows .
“I fucking went to get you from the Empty, that’s how much I don’t want that, Cas. I- Cas, I- I couldn’t bear it if you died. Couldn’t bear it when you did. I-” This is too fucking hard. It’s just three words, three syllables, nothing big, and it would already make up for so much fucked up shit he’s told Cas over the years. So why can’t he say it? “I couldn’t fucking sleep because I couldn’t stop thinking about you dying. Thinking about how you died. What you said.”
“Dean.” Cas says his name so gently that it wipes away any kind of mental preparations he’d made to steel himself for saying it. “You don’t have to say anything, okay? I love you anyway.”
And how is that so easy for him to say? How can he just look Dean in the eye and fucking say that? Out loud? Dean isn’t even looking at Cas right now and he can’t even think it. He knows it, of course, but he just can’t bring himself to articulate it. It’s like he can color in the entire page, sparing out the space that forms those words exactly, but there’s no color that fits them. As if everyone else has crayons whose colors he is missing. And he doesn’t fucking know how they ended up missing, if he’s always missed them or just lost them along the way, if he can still get them in some way; all he knows is that they’re not there. And it makes him so fucking angry, because Cas deserves a full picture.
“That’s scary,” he says, finally. Because it is. Cas loves him and that’s the scariest thing he’s ever had to face in his life.
“I know,” Cas says. And somehow that’s what makes his anger disappear -- completely and at once. Because love is scary and Cas knows and he can say it anyway. Because Cas is fucking brave and so much better than what Dean deserves and he loves him anyway. Because Dean’s actually really fucking grateful that Cas exists and when he stops overthinking the situation it’s actually really nice that Cas loves him. Cas is the best, and if Dean can’t say it then he can at least try, because that’s what Cas deserves. So, he tries.
He doesn’t really get past the “I” before the words, the lack of words, really, starts choking him. He can feel the anger well under his ribcage, the frustration giving way to the familiar, easy way out. He squashes it down and tries to think of a solution instead. He can’t color the words for Cas, but he can still shape them if he colors around them, so that’s what he does.
“You love me,” he says. “And I- Me too.”
“You love me too?” Cas askes.
Dean wants to make a quib whether he really needs clarification for that, but bites his tongue. Cas deserves the entire gravity of the situation. “Yeah.”
“Who would have thought?” Cas muses.
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Not at all,” Cas says in a tone that says he clearly is. “You kissed me and then locked yourself into the trunk of your car, Dean. This is not a conclusion I would have come to, knowing you.”
“Fuck you,” Dean says, no heat behind the words.
“ You want to.”
“Yeah,” Dean simply admits. He’s coloring around the words for Cas, and this is part of it. It still feels like being honest is going to kill him, but he’s fought God, upper case G, big man in the sky God . He can be honest with the man he’s got those capital L gay feelings for. The guy deserves it.
Cas is quiet, apparently taken aback by his admission. Dean rather enjoys that, so he plows on. “I got my hand pressed against the lid right now, where I’m pretending your hand is. So it’s like we’re holding hands, ‘cept we’re not. But I, uh, I do wanna do that for real with you. Once I’m out of here. And I wanna kiss you again. And, uh, hug you. I wanna kiss your temple. And your forehead. And your hair. And just like everything, really. You look really kissable. In like a general sense. Is that a weird thing to say?”
Cas’s laugh sounds teary, and it makes Dean only want to get out of here and just- he doesn’t think he’s ever wanted to hold someone in his arms as badly as he does now. He wants to crawl inside of Cas, just because then at least there’s no way they could be even closer. He’s so fucking gone already. So, so far fucking gone. It’s almost a relief.
“I don’t know, I think my standard for weird is rather skewed. But I really wish you were kissing me right now.”
Dean laughs with relief. They’re both quiet again, not-holding hands through the top of the trunk and just enjoying each other’s company. Cars drive by or onto the parking lot, filling the silence while they wait for Sam. When the car moves again, the trunk whipping upward as Cas slides off it, Dean knows he’s here.
A few moments later, Sam says: “Where’s Dean?”
Cas pats the trunk. There’s the familiar click of the lock, and then finally, finally , the lid opens.
“Do I even want to know?” Sam asks, giving him so much shit with just a look it’s impossible. Dean wants a word with whoever taught him that.
“Something was making a noise so I went to check,” he explains.
“Something was making a noise?” Sam repeats, not believing a word Dean says. Smart boy.
“Yeah.”
“It was very loud,” Cas adds, as if that helps.
He looks good where he’s standing behind Sam. His hair’s back in a constant state of disarray now that he’s human, and he’s wearing a very nice, very soft looking sweater. Dean knew all of that before, of course, but well. Cas looks good. Cas looks very huggable. If Dean was younger and if Sam wasn’t here to embarrass himself in front of, he’d be clambering out of the trunk to throw himself at Cas already. Instead, he’s very stiff from cramping himself into Baby’s trunk.
Sam doesn’t say anything else and doesn’t give him a hand out either. He just unlocks the back door, grabs the pizzas, and then throws the spare keys to Cas. “We’re starting with dinner as soon as I get back, and we’re not even gonna think about waiting for you two.”
“Roger that,” Dean says, briefly stopping his shuffling around to watch his brother walk back to his own car. He doesn’t even understand how he got into the damn trunk in the first place, because he sure as hell can’t see a way out. There’s walls all around him, for god’s sake. They’re not that high but jesus .
Cas is nicer than Sam though, and offers him a hand. Cas is also fucking magic, because somehow they get Dean out of the trunk, and his body doesn’t even protest too much during the entire process.
As Sam disappears in the distance, Cas shuts the trunk, then sits back down on it. Dean must have given him a confused look, because he says, “It’s a precaution.”
“Against what?”
“Come here.”
And Dean really is in deep, big capital L gay feelings, because he’s just crawled out of that trunk in front of his brother and Cas and he should be really embarrassed about everything, but all he wants is to get closer to Cas. So he does.
“Closer,” Cas says when Dean stops just close enough that he could easily put his hands on Cas’s knees. He kind of wants to. Instead he takes another half step forward.
“Closer,” Cas says again, apparently still not satisfied with where Dean’s standing. Dean shuffles a bit on the step, not really sure he can get closer. His knees are touching Cas’s.
“ Closer, Dean. I won’t bite.”
“You’re fucking scary. I thought we’ve established that.”
Cas’s grin is mischievous, and Dean likes it that way. He grabs Dean by the neck and yanks him forwards the last couple of inches so he’s standing between his legs. Dean half expects Cas to go all the way and just crush his lips to his, finds that he wants Cas to go all the way and just kiss him, and is sorely disappointed when Cas only drapes his other arm loosely around his neck too. The benefits of Cas kissing him would be that Dean wouldn’t have to think about how close they’re standing right now, that his hands kind of casually landed against Cas’s thighs on their own, and the fact that they’re in the parking lot of a pizza restaurant and about the cars filled with people passing them and passing them and passing them. He wouldn’t have to face that fact that, honestly, Cas and his stupid feelings were only half the reason he crawled into that trunk in the first place, because this entire goddamn situation is scary as hell.
“Dean,” Cas whispers. He leans his forehead against Dean’s and his thumbs start running along the lines of his jaw. And Dean’s world narrows down to Cas and just Cas.
It was like this with the first kiss too, Dean putting the pizzas on the backseat and then turning around to find Cas just so stupidly close, and himself just so stupidly happy that Cas was here, and then he’d just kissed him.
He just kisses Cas now too, but this time Cas is anticipating it, and he’s welcoming Dean with open arms. Cas meets him, kiss for kiss. He fits himself perfectly against Dean, his fingers running through his hair and it’s not perfect except it is. For a moment Dean thinks he gets a glimpse of those missing crayons and how to get them. One of these days he will, and then he’ll tell Cas how he feels. Until then, he’ll just keep showing him in other ways. Until then, he’ll just keep kissing Cas.
On the street, a car honks. Probably not even at them, his brain supplies a moment too late, right after a shot of adrenaline spikes through im. His heart is running a marathon, threatening to fly right out of his chest any second, and it has nothing to do with Cas. He turns towards the noise and finds nothing there.
“Dean,” Cas says, voice soothing. He pulls him against himself, arms wrapping tightly around Dean’s shoulders, pressing Dean’s head into the crook of his neck. Dean tries to remind himself that he’s safe. That this is okay, and he is alright. He tries to just breathe.
It’s hard. Cas is warm underneath his hands, and Cas’s fingers dragging against his scalp is a distracting sensation. But it’s still hard.
“I’m sorry,” Dean says against Cas’s shoulder, when he can breathe again. He is sorry, for everything. For not being what Cas deserves. If he was braver he wouldn’t care who saw or what they thought, he’d kiss Cas in as many restaurant parking lots as he wanted to. But Dean’s not brave. He just feels small and scared.
“It’s not your fault,” Cas says. Dean wants to believe that. Maybe in time he will.
It takes every ounce of willpower he has to stay where he is, to let Cas comfort him and comfort Cas in turn. Somehow he does. It’s Cas who separates them, kissing his shoulder and then the corner of his jaw as he pushes Dean away just a little bit. Just enough to look at him. He reaches up, thumbs brushing away something wet from the corners of Dean’s eyes.
So, he’s crying a little. He doesn’t want to, and he especially doesn’t want Cas to see, but Cas’s hands cup his face and instead of running away he lets himself be held in place. He’s just not leaving his bed or talking to any of them tomorrow to make up for this. It’s alright.
“I have a suggestion,” Cas says. Dean nods for him to go on. “We drive home. Have dinner with our family. And then we sneak off to your room to try this again somewhere more private.”
Dean really wishes he could tell Cas all about his capital L gay feelings for him, because fuck. He has a lot of them. He didn’t realize a person could have that many feelings, and he really needs to figure out a way to express them, because damn . Since he can’t, he does the next best thing and simply hugs Cas again. Cas’s arms tighten around his shoulders almost automatically, holding him just as tight as Dean wants to hold him. He should be panicking about doing this in public too, but all he wants right now is to never stop. Good luck trying to take Cas away from him again, world. Dean’s never ever letting him go again.
His voice is a little rough from crying still. “Sounds good.”
Cas smiles against his shoulder, and it’s nice. It’s so fucking nice.
It’s only the sound of another car pulling into parking lot that finally makes him take a step back. He runs his hand down Cas’s arm, letting his touch linger before tugging at Cas’s hand to pull him off the car. Cas doesn’t budge.
“I won’t try to crawl into the trunk again, I promise.”
The next time he pulls, Cas slides right into his arms. Dean really wants to leave this terrible place behind, but at the same time he’s loathe to let go of this moment with Cas. In the end it’s the promise of something better waiting at home that makes him step back and hop behind the wheel -- but not before he kisses Cas’s forehead.
Cas in the passenger seat is old and familiar, but it’s new too. As they roll of the parking lot, Cas covers the hand on the stick with his own. When they’re on the highway, Dean turns his hand around, fingers sliding between Cas’s. He brings their joint hands up to his mouth, kissing Cas’s knuckles. Cas looks at him, and he doesn’t stop looking the whole drive. He doesn’t stop smiling either. Neither of them does. And Dean doesn’t let go of Cas’s hand the whole time.