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“You ever get nostalgic, Cas?
Both Castiel and Sam stopped with their forks hovering in front of their mouths, staring at Dean, nursing his second coffee of the morning. Breakfast had been a quiet affair until that point. Some grumbled – but not surly – good mornings and the silent plating of waffles Dean had been cooking up. Dean’s question had come from seemingly nowhere.
Castiel put his fork down, whilst Sam continued with his own bite. “Nostalgic for what?” he asked.
Dean, who had been staring too intently at his coffee when he asked the question, finally lifted his eyes to the angel. “Before? Before us, before things went to shit. When you were just doing regular angel things up on your little cloud.”
Cas’s lips twitched in a small smile. His gut instinct was to say no. At times, it felt like he had barely even existed before Dean came barrelling into his life (or vice versa, as it were). He would never be entirely sure if that was strictly a ‘him and Dean’ thing or a ‘being lobotomised for millenia’ thing but he liked to lean more towards the former, if only for his own sanity.
After taking a moment to give the question proper consideration, he went with his gut. “No.”
“No?” Dean asked, surprised. Maybe even a little suspicious.
Cas shrugged. “I’m sure there must be certain things that I would look back on wistfully and maybe crave in my current life but I have yet to be struck with the feeling of nostalgia. I can let you know if it occurs, though. If this is important to you.”
Dean just chuckled, shaking his head. “Sure thing, Cas.”
“Do you get nostalgic?” Sam asked, making Dean jump. He’d forgotten he was there.
“Kinda hard to be nostalgic when you had a childhood like ours, don’t ya think?”
Sam’s mouth pulled down as he shrugged. “I guess.”
“Never much cared for it. Why, do you get nostalgic? Missing those motel rooms already?” There’s no real bite to the words, not like there might have been years ago.
“I guess not.”
“Is there really nothing that you miss?” Castiel asked and Dean wasn’t prepared for the sadness in his eyes. “Was it all that unpleasant?”
The question unnerved him. Because yeah, pretty much it was. He dwelled on ‘what ifs’ instead of ‘what were’s’. He never had enough of the good stuff to pine after it. To wish to go back to better times, there had to have been better times to go back to. Although...
“I do miss going to the movies,” he said.
Cas blinked at him.
“Didn’t do it all that often but sometimes me and some chick would ditch class, sneak into a theatre, watch a movie then hit up a diner or somethin’. That was fun.” It was fun. It was one of the rare times he felt like a real teenager. Like living his own John Hughes movie. Normal, carefree. Fun.
Sam snorted into his waffles. “Yeah, ‘watch’ a movie.” Dean shot him a look but if Cas picked up on his meaning, he didn’t give indication. Instead, he was still looking at Dean, head slightly tilted with a frown on his face.
“I was under the impression that nostalgia was usually over something that had passed. Something now unobtainable. You can still go to the movies, Dean.”
“Well, I mean...I guess? But we got Netflix and shit now, right?” he said, gesturing vaguely towards the Dean Cave where all three of them (but mostly Dean and Cas) have spent many an evening watching movies.
“But does that give you the same feeling?” Cas asked. It sounded like a rhetorical question but it probably wasn’t. Castiel didn’t wait for an answer, either way. “Does it satisfy the nostalgia?
If anything, it made it more tangible. He loved their movie nights, he loved having his own space. But there was just something about being in a movie theatre, something about the intimacy...
Dean cleared his throat. “Not really,” he admitted. “But I’m not about to go to the movies on my own like some sad sack.”
Cas narrowed his eyes before giving a nod, clearly coming to a decision. “We will go together.”
Dean’s mouth dropped open. “What?”
“I will go with you,” he said and Dean felt a hysterical laugh bubble up in his throat. Cas had said that to him so many times before, usually before both or either of them did something stupid. But never had he felt so terrified at what might come next.
“You wanna come see a movie with me?” Dean asked, cringing at how breathless it came out.
But Cas simply nodded, face stoic.
“Uhh, I mean, sure. OK. Yeah. That-sure. You wanna look and see what’s on or...”
“Is that how you did it before?”
“What?” Dean was getting lightheaded; he couldn’t keep on top of what was going on.
“Would you predetermine the movie choice?”
“Uhhh-“
Cas was already shaking his head. “I want it to be exactly as it was for you back then. Otherwise there is no point.”
Dean felt heat flood into his ears and across the back of his neck as memories of fumbling hands and wicked tongues in the back row of a darkened theatre assaulted his mind.
He made the mistake of glancing at Sam who was giving him a shit-eating grin, mouth full of waffles. “Yeah, Dean,” he said. “The full experience.” A bastard, that’s what his brother was.
Draining his mug of the remaining coffee, he all but slammed it back on the table before standing up from the table. “Alright, let’s go.”
“Now?” Cas asked, eyes wide and startled.
Dean flashed him a grin that was only 70% bravado. “It was about the spontaneity. And getting away from people being a pain in my ass,” he added, glaring at his brother. Sam just stuck his tongue out like the child he wasn’t. Darting a look back at the slightly panicked look on Cas’s face made him soften. “I mean, we don’t gotta right now. We could-“
“No, now is fine,” Cas said, brooking no argument as he rose from the table to join him.
“Well, alright,” Dean said. One more glance at Sam showed him with a more reserved smile now, something fond and knowing. Dean didn’t know what to do with it so he simply led them out of the bunker without looking back.
Dean drove them to the small theatre in Lebanon. An indie establishment, just three screens but it would do for this...social experiment or whatever the hell it was. Definitely not a date. Dean knew that much.
As Dean approached the ticket desk, Cas grabbed him by the wrist, startling him more than it should have. When he looked from the hand up to his face with a frown, Cas said, “You said that you snuck in.”
“Man, you really weren’t kidding about replicating this to the letter, huh.”
“I...” Cas faltered, trying to find the words. “I want to understand the importance of this memory. Why you value it. And I want to be able to offer you some of that familiar comfort.”
Dean bit his tongue on the retort that Cas brought him more than his fair share of comfort just being around. No need to embarrass himself immediately. Plenty of time for that.
“Well then, let’s commit a minor felony,” Dean said as he led them back out of the building to find the emergency exit and jimmied the door open with ease. The coy grin Cas sent him made him weak in the knees as he slipped past him into the building and he had to take a moment to pull himself together before following him through.
“What did you want to see?” Cas asked, looking at the posters.
“Pick a number.”
“24.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Pick a number between 1 and 3.”
“The only number between 1 and 3 is 2, Dean.”
“2 it is!” Dean said, not bothering to fight down his smile as he grabbed Cas’s wrist in a mirror of Cas’s early move and dragged him into Screen 2.
The lights were down, a movie already playing as Dean guided them through the aisle, trying not to trip and land on his face. Before he realised where he was leading them, they’d hit the back row, taking their seats.
“We missed the beginning,” Cas pointed out.
“Doesn’t matter. The movie was never the point.”
“Oh.”
Dean glanced at Cas, trying to decipher if he’d picked up on his accidental meaning but Cas just seemed to be frowning at the screen so Dean let it lie.
There only seemed to be a few other groups of people in the screen. A couple in the front row. Another couple on the far right. A group of teenagers a few rows in front of them. The movie looked to be some kind of action-thriller. It was hard to tell how much they’d missed but Dean sure as shit had no idea what was going on. It didn’t help that he kept getting distracted by Cas’s rigid presence next to him. So similar to those first few weeks of Dean forcing him to watch movies but now he would practically lounge on the couch next to him. As much as Cas ever lounged. It was making Dean uneasy.
Twenty minutes passed before Cas startled him by breaking the silence, albeit in an appropriately hushed whisper.
“I don’t like it.”
“Yeah, I don’t know what the fuck is happening. I think we missed a big plot point at the start or something. We could try another screen?”
Cas shook his head, frowning again. “No, I don’t like this,” he said, gesturing at the situation, causing Dean’s eyebrows to raise. “I’m sorry that this is something you look fondly on and I’m ruining it but it feels wrong.” Cas was getting agitated but Dean didn’t know why. He suspected that Cas might not know why, either judging by the frustration on his face.
“We can just-“ Dean gestured to the exit but Cas steamrolled him, picking up momentum.
“I like it when you talk during movies,” he said, causing Dean to snap his mouth shut with an audible click. He was still facing the screen, unblinking; the projection flashing across his face, illuminating his features in a striking way. “You are full of trivia and interesting insights. You like to point out plot holes but if anyone else does you complain at them for having no imagination.”
The teenagers in front of them turned to glare in their direction as Cas’s voice grew steadily louder, more keyed up but they could go to hell because Dean’s heart was about to burst through his chest and no way was he about to interrupt him.
“I like how you scoff at the monsters in horror movies but marvel at the practical effects. I like when you quote lines along with the characters under your breath and then deny that you’re doing it. I like that you always know the perfect film for the mood I am in. I-I like when we both reach for the popcorn bowl at the same time and...and our fingers brush...”
Blood was roaring in his ears, his breath caught somewhere between his lungs and his throat, choking him. Cas finally tore his gaze away from the screen, eyes bright and wild with...with something. Something that had probably been in his eyes on more than one occasion too.
Dean licked his lips, watched as Cas’s eyes followed the movement, widening impossibly further.
“There’s a pretty significant part of this nostalgia trip that I failed to mention,” Dean said, surprised by how low his voice came out.
Cas clenched his fists on top of his thighs and, before Dean could chicken out, he pressed forward and captured his lips in a hard, frenzied kiss.
It was chaste in so much as it was closed mouthed but Dean felt it tear through his very soul, setting him on fire from the inside out. From the sinful sound Cas made, he figured he’d had much the same reaction. Cas pulled back first, blinking at Dean, clenching and unclenching his hands.
“Uh, so-“ was all Dean managed to get out before Cas threw himself back in, hands moving to cup the back of Dean’s head and position him just right.
This kiss was not chaste. Cas opened up to him immediately, encouraging him to explore, to taste. It was frantic, desperate. Years of pent-up tension finally finding a release in the back row of a rundown movie theatre. Dean had never felt more like a teenage cliché in his life.
“Cas...” he murmured against persistent lips, receiving a heartfelt moan in response.
“Oh my god, would you get a room, jesus christ.”
Dean pulled back to stare at one of the teenagers who had glared at them moments early and was now rolling their eyes back to the screen, a disgruntled ‘ugh’ muttered under their breath.
Turning back to Cas, he realised the angel had practically crawled into his lap during their make-out session. He was still playing with the hair on Dean’s neck, staring at him very intently.
“Hey,” Dean said, struck dumb by the look on his face.
“Hello Dean,” Cas said, voice sounding more like a purr. Dean couldn’t fight back the shiver as he felt it rumble through him. “How did you say these excursions usually went? Movie. A diner?”
“Uh.” Dean shook his head, trying to jostle some words into his brain. “Uh, yeah. Movie, dinner, maybe sneak into a bar...”
Cas hummed, pressing forward for another slower, gentler kiss that sent fireworks off in the very tips of his fingers.
“Or, you know, we could just go home,” Dean said.
Cas lit up at that suggestion, giving a shy smile as he manoeuvred himself out of Dean’s space. Dean immediately missed him. “I like that idea. I’m sorry I derailed your nostalgia trip.”
Unbelievably, he did look apologetic. Idiot. Dean pressed in for a quick peck on the lips to wipe that expression away. “I already told you. Never cared for nostalgia, anyways. What I got right here, right now? Doesn’t even compare.”
Cas’s smile turned a little watery as he nodded back at him. “I couldn’t agree more.”