O_O I’ll try? XD Go love on Camuizuuki too, she’s the other half of the amazing :D
Dean lies still beneath Castiel, listening, studying the movement of his lips and the twinkling of his eyes and how his features change from elated to comfortable in mere seconds. One of his hands comes up to close around Castiel’s elbow, thumb stroking softly over the fabric of the thin shirt the other man is wearing. When he speaks it’s slow and careful and Dean thinks that maybe it’s too much, too soon, but he also feels that Castiel deserves the truth.
“More than that… I’m not usually the type who would…. well…but it was just once and it was fucking perfect and I don’t regret it…”
He swallows, turning his head slightly and gnawing at his lip absentmindedly. When he looks up into Castiel’s eyes again, he feels his cheeks flushing at the strange exposure of knowing, of remembering. His grip around Castiel’s arm tightens, as he starts speaking again, voice quiet and soft.
“I can’t imagine how hard this must be for you, but… you’ll get through this… we’ll get through it… cause you’re not getting rid of me and I’m gonna be right here with you, Cas.”
Dean’s breathing heavily by now, throat so incredibly dry and without giving Castiel much of a chance to reply, he pulls him back down and breathes him in like Castiel was air. The kiss doesn’t last long, when a gust of wind carries the faint sounds of the radio over to where they’re lying. Dean pulls back, taking a deep breath before pushing Castiel off him softly but determinedly.
“Gotta go find my kid,” he laughs, scrambling to his feet and trudging away, his face completely red with excitement and abashment.
~
Dean’s hesitation to explain what had happened between them, that Castiel of course couldn’t remember, made a rush of fear flow through him. What was it that Dean didn’t want to tell him?
When he finally spoke that, Castiel understood with a flush of blood to his cheeks, turning bright red at the realization that they must have gone much further than a few innocent kisses for Dean to say it like that. He licks his lips, tasting the other man there once more, and bites his lower lip and smiles, a small embarrassed sound escaping his throat.
“I wish I could remember it, Dean,” Castiel says with a sigh, shame on his features as he pulls back slowly.
He looks up again at Dean, and can’t help but smile when he reassures him that he’d be there through it all. Cas opens his mouth to reply, to thank Dean for his kindness, his patience and understanding with it all, but the other man yanks him back down for a kiss, and honestly Castiel figures that’s just as well. He pours what he’s feeling into it, all the raw emotions that course through him at Dean’s willingness to give this a try with him, broken as he is.
When Dean pulls back Castiel is breathless, but eager for more, which is why pouting comes naturally when Dean pushes him off his lap gently. Castiel sighs and nods, realizing they’d left Amy along for far too long.
“Yeah….,” he says with a sigh, then slowly pulls himself up to his feet, following along behind Dean a dozen feet or so back. He smiles as he watches Dean adjust himself in his jeans, smirking and feeling a curl of warmth in the pit of his belly at the idea that he did that to Dean, from just a few kisses.
This day was going better than Castiel could have ever hoped, and he knew the anxiety of the last few days was more than worth it.
It would be worth anything to have Dean in his life.
To have some semblance of normality in what the shambles of what was left of his previous life.
It would not genuinely shock anyone who knew Dean Winchester that he was a cheater. It’s how he survived back in his time in high school, college even and it’s also how he managed to be as successful with women back in the days. So even if he hadn’t heard the soft shuffling sounds of Castiel’s feet on the damp grass beneath, even if he hadn’t noticed the tiny gasp right behind the tree trunk he was counting down against, Dean would’ve seen the movement of Castiel’s lithe body, would’ve known that the other man hid not more than three steps away from him, feeling safe and superior.
He steps away from the tree, gaze wandering over the peaceful scenery as he muses in a barely audible voice, “I wonder where they are…”. Another step, some more mumbling and slowly but surely Dean circles back around, feet treading carefully. He sees Castiel’s back first, softly shaken by quiet laughter and for a moment Dean just stands there, watching the graceful curve of Castiel’s neck and the curly dark hair at the nape of it. When he steps closer it’s quick and he catches Castiel completely off guard. The other man gasps, stumbles backwards and in a matter of seconds Dean finds himself on the grass, Castiel above him, looking both shocked and completely debauched.
“Gotcha,” is all Dean manages to say, voice hoarse, breathless and his fingers hold on to the other man’s shirt, grasping the sides of it almost desperately.
He doesn’t intend to kiss him but when their lips meet and Castiel’s eyes become impossibly wide, Dean can’t help but give in to the temptation. It feels like it’s been too long already. Too long since he’d last felt what he always felt around Castiel. Too long since he’d been able to touch and smell and taste and feel. And then Cas kisses back and even though it is far from being a first, it feels like a perfect, first kiss.
~
Castiel figured Dean would find him, half hoped he would in fact. He hadn’t counted on the surprise the other man would give him, nor did he count on falling to the ground like a giant klutz. But when Dean topples down on top of him, his breath catches as the other man’s body is pressed against his; Dean is firm and solid, a wall of muscle beneath him, supporting his weight easily.
The kiss isn’t a surprise when it happens, Cas sees it coming, and does nothing to stop Dean when he leans up and captures his lips. He couldn’t even if he’d wanted to, his body refusing to react to anything for a solid moment…but when he finally can react, the only thing he does is to open his mouth to Dean’s with a low moan, his body melting down over Dean’s out of pure instinct. The kiss is perfect, soft and exploratory at first, but it quickly changes and shifts into something deeper and almost needy, Dean pushing up into it just as Castiel opens up even more, his breath hitching in his throat as his body warms to the touch.
Castiel pulls back slowly after a few minutes, the need to breathe taking over the molten want that curled low in his belly.
“…I..,” he breathes, then bites his lower lip and licks it, tasting Dean on it and smiling gently.
Castiel leans up, hands on either side of Dean’s head, staring down into eyes so green the grass beside his face seemed dull by comparison. It was something to behold, Dean’s beauty, in the flickering afternoon sun that filtered in through the willow branches around them. The smattering of freckles, dancing across his face in a wild waltz, seemed darker in the shade, more pronounced than they did in direct sunlight. Castiel’s closed lips curl up into a fond half smile as he reaches out and brushes a piece of foliage out of Dean’s short hair.
“…There’s something familiar about that…kissing you, I mean….Have….did we before?”
He’s too surprised by the other man’s reply to react in time and the towel flutters down to his feet. Dean kneels down, looking up at Castiel from the ground, eyebrows arched and a cocky smile playing around his lips.
“Well, Amy and I were planning to go to the park.”
He gets back up, brushing a little dust off his jeans and throwing the towel in the general direction of the hallway; he’d pick it up and put it in the laundry later. Once more leaning against the counter, he moves closer to the other man, elbows brushing as he keeps talking.
“I hope you like picnics.” With that he slides away, leaving Castiel staring at the spot he just stood at and leaving the kitchen. He packs a few of Amy’s toys, a blanket, a small portable radio, three bottles of water and some apples and bananas in the one and only picnic basket he would ever own. Castiel sits down on the sofa, watching him with a soft expression and Dean finds that every time he passes the living-room he feels his cheeks blush and his hands twitch. He’s pretty sure, no, he knows that by now the two of them could be in his bedroom, grinding up against each other. The attraction was there, the sexual tension, the longing on both sides. But there’s still Amy, their plans for the day and the fact that Dean feels guilty just thinking about taking advantage of Castiel’s amnesia in any way. So he doesn’t act on his instincts, doesn’t stop to look at him or touch him, until he’s finished preparing everything.
Amy runs down the hallway immediately when Dean calls for her and the trio walks down the path towards Dean’s car. After strapping his daughter in the back seat and stuffing the basket in the trunk, Dean holds the passenger side door open for Castiel to get in. It takes them approximately 10 minutes to get to the park and Amy entertains the both of them during that time, babbling about all sorts of things and begging Castiel to play ‘Hide and Seek’ with her. Dean can’t help but smile, every time Castiel would talk to Amy, sometimes even like Dean wasn’t even there, like it was just the two of them and everything they talked about was a secret to share just between them.
When they arrive at the park, Amy bounces off, rolling around in the grass and ignoring Dean’s pleas to stop ruining her new clothes.
“Never buying white clothes again,” he mumbles to himself, as he unloads the picnic basket, locks the Impala’s doors and he and Castiel follow Amy further over the soft, green meadow. They stop in the partial shade of a huge weeping willow and Dean spreads the blanket for them to sit down. It’s the first time since they talked about giving this relationship a try, that Dean and Castiel are alone, Amy playing with her dolls a couple hundred feet away. All of the sudden Dean feels nervous. There’s no guidelines about how to deal with this, no rules to tell you what to do and what not to. So he reaches for the radio, placing it on the blanket and turning it on. The music is quiet and pleasant, kind of Jack Johnson-ish and Dean feels a little more relaxed. He grabs a bottle of water and hands Castiel one too, just to playfully clink them, before taking a sip of his.
“To making new memories,” he says and he could swear there’s a mob of butterflies going wild in his tummy.
~
Castiel smiles to himself, whispering ‘Love them’ as Dean walks out of the room. He used to go on picnics with Gabriel and the other foster kids…their foster Mother was kind enough to take them on long walks out of the house during the summer. It helped that keeping the kids out of the house helped it stay clean, but all the same, some of Castiel’s favorite memories from his childhood were of picnics near a lake in the summer.
He watches Dean run around the house gathering things, and sits still, trying his hardest not to fidget. It wasn’t easy though, as whenever Dean looked his way, all Castiel wanted to do was beckon to the other man…pull him down on the couch, and taste Dean’s lips for the first time.
The first time he could remember, anyway, Castiel thought bitterly.
Listening to Amy open up to him, Castiel had hope that maybe the little girl liked him after all, and maybe her approval would help with her Father’s continued patience with Castiel’s ‘problem’.
He sits down after Dean spreads out the blanket, popping his shoes and socks off and setting them aside as he folds his legs into the Lotus position. Well, at least he’d been keeping up with the yoga, it appeared, as he was just as flexible as he seemed to remember being…2 years ago. A dark shadow flashes over his face at the thought that it had been almost 2 years since his surgery…when he’d investigated his scalp earlier, he’d been able to feel the scars where they’d cut his skull open under his hair. It had freaked Castiel out, to say the least.
He snaps out of it though, when Dean turns on the radio and then hands him a bottle of water, making a hopeful comment about new memories as he sipped it. Castiel smiles wryly, and toasts Dean back.
“To remembering them all,” he says with a smirk that only hinted at the pain underneath, and drinks as well.
Their moment is solid, quiet and embracing them both in it’s ease- until they’re interrupted by a screech and a flash of pink and white as Amy tumbles down onto the blanket between them. Castiel lets out a surprised laugh, any trace of sadness gone from him in the face of Amy’s exuberance.
“Can we play hide and seek Pa? Can we can we?”
Castiel chuckles as he watches Dean interact with his daughter, the man sighing as if put upon by the spritely four year old.
“Fiiiiine….I’m it, you and Cas go n’hide.”
Castiel slips his shoes back on and then is off, chasing after Amy. He smirks to himself when she refuses to let him hide with her.
“You won’t fit!” she hisses as he tries to climb inside a tiny playhouse on the playground near where they’d set their things.
Castiel pouts at her and she giggles, but still shoves him away, and he gives up then, running away across the meadow to circle back around and hide behind the willow tree Dean was in front of. The trunk was thick enough it would hide him from view…and the branches were long and acted as a another shield to conceal him from view.
He bites his lower lip to stop the giggle of excitement that wants to escape as Dean finishes counting.
“97…98…99…One hundred, ready or not, here I come!”
Castiel realizes in that moment that he hasn’t played like this in years, not since he was a child.
He’d forgotten how much he loved it.
His heart aches for the memories he’d lost in the last two years…but in this moment, here with Dean and his beautiful daughter? He could forget about them all and move forward, if only he was allowed to keep this.
‘Please’, Castiel thinks to himself, ‘please please please…just let me have this moment…let me remember this feeling.’
For the first few seconds Amy doesn’t respond, doesn’t react at all. Dean can see her mind working, trying to figure out the grown-up man, who was acting like this was a secret between the two of them. Eventually, she leans forward, eyes on Castiel’s waffle and Dean can see interest spark in the dark brown irises.
“Can I… does that mean I get more syrup?”, she asks, whispering just like Castiel had and looking up at him with large, hopeful eyes.
Castiel chuckles and nods enthusiastically, reaching for another waffle and the bottle of syrup, pouring the shimmering substance all over the waffle. Amy claps her hands together, only shortly looking up at her father, but despite his usual thrift regarding food, Dean only smiles and nods his head ‘yes’. Castiel’s and his eyes meet and Dean shakes his head softly, still smiling a soft, teasing smile.
“She’s gonna get cavities, you’re aware of that, right?”
He waits a moment, then reaches for the syrup bottle and does the same to his waffle, grinning widely before taking a huge bite out of it.
The breakfast goes smoothly, almost too easily and Dean wonders if he should worry. Amy likes Cas, that’s obvious from pretty much the start. He seems to be comfortable with kids – which, hello, big plus for a single dad looking for The One – and he’s smart and funny and if Dean didn’t know about his little huge problem, he’d be tempted to propose on the spot.
They clean up together, while Amy scuttles away to play with her dolls, and Dean finds a strange new serenity in washing dishes side by side, their shoulders bumping and their hands brushing over one another from time to time.
Eventually Dean clears his throat, handing Castiel the last plate to dry and leaning against the kitchen counter.
“So, what’re your plans for today?”
~
Castiel almost heaves a sigh of relief when Amy opens up to him, chattering away during breakfast, a syrup fueled talk about possibly going to the park later in the day, and the new hair style she’d given her doll earlier in the week. Castiel looked up at Dean and arched a brow, only to receive a chuckle as Dean told Amy that she wasn’t allowed to play with the scissors anymore.
Once breakfast is done Castiel helps clear the table, walking behind Dean with what feels like a permanent smile on his face.
Washing and drying dishes is so domestic Castiel feels like he’s stepped into a Leave it to Beaver episode, and he can’t bring himself to think of it as weird when he gets shivers up his spine whenever Dean’s hand brushes his.
Castiel dries the last plate slowly, considering what Dean’s said, before looking up with wide blue eyes, a slow smile appearing on his face.
“I don’t know Dean…what are we doing today?”, he asks, and lets the words sink in as he smiles a quirked half smile at Dean, tossing the dish towel to the other man before turning away to put the dishes away in the cabinet.
The touch of Castiel’s hand to his cheek feels electric, so intense that Dean feels warmth rushing through his whole body. He doesn’t know what to say, never does, when Castiel speaks so blatantly of his attraction towards him, still not knowing how to deal with it, time and time again. He would never tire of hearing it, though… those chapped lips forming words of fondness, the sound of his rough voice sending shivers down his spine. He clears his throat, trying to think of how to break it to Castiel, that they’d already been… well… intimate with each other… but when the other man’s stomach rumbles, he can’t help but chuckle at both the noise and the embarrassed look on Castiel’s face.
” ‘s okay… I was just about to make breakfast, actually… would you… would you like to join us?”
The moment the words are out, he feels guilt and fear rushing over him. There’s no way this is a good idea, now, inviting the man he’s in love with, the man who’s been tormented by amnesia for over two years for breakfast with his mentally unstable toddler. But the invitation is declared, there’s no way back. And Cas looks like he’d just gotten the best Christmas and birthday presents all at once, so Dean can’t really do anything other than get up and hold the door open for Castiel. His insides twist, when he remembers the last time the other man had trespassed this threshold. When they’ been in each other’s arms, panting, sweating, breathing one another in, skin on skin so delicious Dean feels his heart skip a beat at the memory alone.
Amy is still in her room and Dean’s kind of glad, as it gives the both of them some time to get used to this. Dean tells Cas to sit down at the table, while he’s preparing scrambled eggs with ham, pancakes and – of course – waffles. He sets the table then, pouring Castiel a cup of coffee and calling for Amy, before finally sitting down opposite of him.
“Sweetie, this is Cas… you remember him from the art shop a few weeks ago?”
There’s a few seconds of silence, of Amy giving this strange man a once over. Dean’s actually not sure if Amy would remember their brief meeting, she’d never been good with faces and strangers didn’t really spark her interest as well. So Amy does what Dean expects her to do and reaches out to grab herself a waffle and drown it in syrup. Dean laughs a bit awkwardly, shrugging his shoulders and mouthing a ‘Sorry’ in Cas’ direction.
~
Castiel is filled with a strange sense of relief, almost overwhelming as he looks at Dean and the man smiles back. Did he want to have breakfast with them? That was most emphatically a, “Yes, I’d love to.”
Following Dean into the house shows a slightly messy living room, toys in a pile on a throw rug in front of the couch, a neatly folded mass of pastels and neons that had to be Amy’s clothes sitting on the armrest just waiting to be put away. Castiel looks around, eyes wide and taking in everything he could for later recognition….he wanted to draw everything in his journal, hoping to trigger memories, hoping that maybe just maybe, they weren’t so much lost as misplaced inside his head.
Castiel sits down at the table and watches Dean cook, wishing he could help, but knowing he’d probably just be in the way. ‘Maybe next time’, he thinks, and can’t help but grin at the idea that there could really be a next time…that Dean seemed to want this as badly as everyone had told him.
When Amy comes down he’s instantly nervous. Little kids were always hard to read; half the time they’d love you, the other half they’d hate you for no reason. Castiel’s heart jumps into his throat when he hears Dean explain to her about Cas, not only that they’d already met…but that it had been weeks ago. Was that their first meeting? ‘Something else I’ll have to ask Dean,’ Castiel thinks to himself, fiddling with the spoon in his coffee, stirring in a bit of sugar to take the bitter bite off.
Amy’s behavior is normal for a child, so it doesn’t even faze Castiel when she dismisses him so abruptly; he simply lets out a soft laugh and smiles at Dean, shrugging and mouthing back ‘It’s ok’.
He helps himself to a waffle and some bacon, not wanting to contaminate the eggs with syrup, so he saves those for later. Butter and just enough syrup to fill all the little holes in the waffle, leaving the surface shimmering but not one drop spilling over the edge. Castiel smiles and whispers to Amy.
“Psst…Amy? You know what the difference between pancakes and waffles is?” He asks, deadpanning the answer, “Waffles are pancakes with syrup traps…see?”
He points to his waffle, where all the syrup was stuck in the little divots, and waggles his brows at her, hoping to draw the little girl out of her shell a bit.
The way Castiel ducks his head, smiling awkwardly and so genuinely almost breaks Dean’s heart. He can’t help himself. Dean reaches out for him, pulling him in a gentle embrace, hands stroking over his back, coming to a rest around Cas’ waist.
“Dammit Cas…,” he says, voice breathless and small, as he inhales Castiel’s scent avidly, “Of course I want you… I need you….”
He pulls back a little, taking a deep breath and pursing his lips, as he tries to find the right words.
“Fuck, this is so hard… every day without you feels like a waste of time and I just wanna see your face but… ‘m constantly try to figure out if I can deal with this kind of pain or not and in one second I’m on top of the world, the next I’m down in the dumps…”
He shakes his head softly, pulling back his arms and folding his hands in his lap. They sit quietly for a while, the beams of the soft morning sun warming their legs, dangling down the bench. When Dean speaks again, his voice is relatively calm and once again he thinks that maybe there’s a chance for the both of them.
“I wanna do this, Cas… I don’t wanna lose you again….”
He reaches over, taking Castiel’s hand once more and when Cas turns to look at him and Dean feels like the ground had been swept away beneath him, he knows that this is his only choice. Dean knows that he’s hopelessly lost on Castiel.
“So when you go home…. write that in your notebook… that you’re all the good things I never thought I deserved….”
~
Castiel flushes slightly and squeezes Dean’s hand, his voice a little choked up when he speaks.
“Okay Dean…,” he whispers, lips curling into a shy smile at Dean’s sweet words.
This was better than he’d had any right to hope for, and Castiel knew that as hard as it was on him to lose everything every morning, and not remember any of what he’d experienced the day before…it had to be a different kind of torture to remember everything knowing that the person you liked had already forgotten you.
“Thank you, Dean…I know this has to be hard on you, so just…thank you,” he says, looking up from their clasped hands into Dean’s eyes, and once again Castiel is struck by how beautiful the man is.
“…You’re the prettiest person I’ve ever seen,” Castiel sighed, his free hand coming up to cup the side of Dean’s face, thumb tracing over a strong cheekbone. He smiles and lets out a breathless laugh when Dean blushes, making his adorable freckles stand out even more.
“You have to tell me everything…I want to know everything we’ve done…seen together…so I can write it all down. I don’t want to forget anything…it’s…it’s important that I have it all down in the journal…at the very least,” Castel says, trailing off as he realizes how silly he must sound…he’s going to forget everything, there’s no stopping that. It was like clutching at straws to write it in a book, praying that he’d read it in the morning and remember.
But it would be worth it to get to have Dean in his life, Cas knew at least that much.
His thought process is interrupted by a loud gurgling growl, and he turns bright red, realizing that the sound had come from his own stomach.
“Oh…um,” he stutters, embarrassed. “Sorry…I didn’t…eat breakfast, before coming over here this morning…”
Every word out of Castiel’s mouth hurts. Every time his lips form another apology, another sad wish, Dean feels like skinning himself alive. There he stands. Beautiful and close and perfect, begging Dean to take him back. And all Dean sees, past the charade of hope, of promise, is a broken man, who’s loneliness forces him to hold onto something, onto someone. Despite all of it he can’t restrain from lifting a hand to Castiel’s shoulder, squeezing it gently and pulling him back in, just a little, so that he can look into the other man’s eyes, willingly give in to the danger of losing himself in them once again.
“Cas, I…… I’m not sure I can do this…”
His voice dies and he averts his eyes, staring at their feet and realizing how close they really are at this moment.
“I don’t know what to do… it’s just… every time you forget about me was like a punch in the face… and I wanna be with you, Cas, I do, more than anything… but this…”
He stops again, taking a step back and shaking his head softly.
“I don’t know if I can deal with this pain… every – single – day…”
He sees the hurt in Castiel’s eyes, the disappointment, something like anger even but he can’t be sure, as he turns his back on Castiel, slowly walking over to where a small bench stands in a corner of the front porch. He sits down, not looking up but waiting for Cas to follow him and sit down beside him. Their knees bump, when the other man sinks down next to him what seems like minutes later, and Dean dares to look up slightly. Castiel sits slumped, hunched over, looking so terribly small and vulnerable that all Dean wants to do is reach out and pull him into a tight hug. He does reach out, his hand finding Castiel’s in his lap and intertwining their fingers gently.
“I…”
The words are on his lips, he can taste them on his tongue. But they won’t come. And maybe it’s better like this. Maybe it’s safer, healthier for both of them. So Dean doesn’t say what he wants to, what he knows he needs to get out somehow, some day.
“Cas, I don’t know what to do…”
~
Well. That wasn’t exactly how Cas had hoped this would go… He sits down next to Dean when the other man slumps down onto a bench to one side of the porch, the very heat he feels from Dean’s body making his own tingle.
“…I don’t know either, Dean,” he whispers, frowning softly. He purses his lips for a moment then turns to face Dean.
“…Would it help knowing that I made a tape, explaining what happened? I…when I wake up now, I watch the tape, and it takes about an hour or so…but I know what happened-…to me, to my head.”
He pauses to lick his lips, eyes looking a little frantic, desperate that Dean would understand that Cas is trying.
“Gabriel suggested I keep a journal too…so I have. I’ve written down everything I’ve done in the last few days…so I won’t remember it exactly…but I’ll know it happened. And…Dean? I’ve written down my dreams, when I remember them.”
Castiel looks up from where his hands were playing with a hole in his jeans near the knee, turns his face to look right at Dean once more.
“…They’re all about you.”
Castiel smiles softly, hope springing forth in a million shades of blue.
“…I…I can’t promise anything, and I know you…you and your daughter would be better off with someone who could give you more than I can…but I couldn’t just give up without at least seeing you in person once…and…if you don’t want to try…I’ll go home and write that in my journal…so that tomorrow you won’t see me, ok? I won’t bother you again, if you don’t want me…”
Dean can’t possibly describe what’s going through his head, when his call gets declined. The hand holding the phone sinks down onto the kitchen table and for a moment Dean just sits there and stares at the screen, a picture of him and Amy that had been taken at last year’s Easter party at Sam and Jess’ place. The phone goes black then and without thinking about it, Dean just swipes it off the table, the frame clanking on the cool floor, a long crack parting the glass of its front. He doesn’t hear the knocking on the door, only looks up from where he’d been staring at his broken phone, when he hears Amy talking.
“Amelia Winchester, how often do I have to tell you not to-“
He stops dead in his tracks. Amy’s standing in the doorway, her tiny hand holding the door open and the first thing Dean sees is blue. Dark, tousled hair, pale skin and blue eyes. He swears his heart stops for a few seconds, his mind racing with the obvious question of how this was possible.
“Amy. Get inside.”
His voice is low, all but a growl, and Amy doesn’t even argue, slipping past her dad and scurrying to her room. Dean takes another step towards Castiel, not quite sure where to look or what to do, still. Eventually he manages to guide Castiel back outside, closing the door behind them and then… well… staring at him.
“What are you doing here?”
It’s not what he wants to say; keeping this distance, both physically and emotionally is the exact opposite of what his whole body urges him to do. But he’s shocked and confused and so so vulnerable. Just seeing Cas feels like slitting his wrists, like pouring alcohol in the wounds and sewing them back together with rusty steel wire.
~
Castiel has been dreading this, anew every day, for three days. So when Dean stares at him like he’s trespassing, his voice incredulous as he asks what Castiel is doing there, his heart sinks. Castiel frowns softly and takes a step back, licking his lips before taking a deep breath, and letting it all rush out.
“I…I’m sorry I forgot you…I have no idea how that’s possible…I mean, even with amnesia and a broken brain, I should be able to remember someone like you,” he says, looking up at Dean, his eyes taking in everything before him.
His sculptures weren’t an exaggeration. Dean really was a real life Adonis. He was gorgeous, from the freckles spanning the bridge of his nose to the flare of moss green in his irises. Castiel flushes, realizing quickly he’s openly checking Dean out, and he stutters an apology.
“S-sorry…I…Gabriel told me…Dean, I woke up three days ago, crying, and I couldn’t remember why!” Castiel says, trembling at the memory. It had been terrifying to wake up like that, knowing he’d just experienced something amazing…and then abruptly forgotten it all.
“…I dreamt something…so…something about you, I think…but I couldn’t remember it. Gabriel told me everything…about my surgery, the cancer…,” he pauses, looking up from the worn floor boards of Dean’s porch and into eyes so green that he had to gather his thoughts once again once he’d caught his breath.
“He told me about you, Dean…and so did Bobby, and Jo. I’m sorry I forgot you…and I can’t promise I won’t do it again,” he whispers, pain laced through his words, Castiel’s cerulean eyes misting up. His voice cracks when he speaks again, wavering like a warped record being played through a muffled phonograph.
“I want to know you. I…This is so selfish of me because I can’t even offer you something as simple as remembering you in the morning…but god I want to know you Dean…I feel…I feel like I was meant to,” he whispers, realizing suddenly that he’d crossed the porch, his feet taking him closer and closer to Dean until they were chest to chest. Castiel flushes and ducks his head.
“This… isn’t fair…I’m sorry..I…I shouldn’t have come here…,” he mutters, biting his lower lip hard and stepping away from Dean, his hands clenched at his sides to stop himself from reaching out and touching Dean- because that was all he really wanted to do.
Castiel had written about wanting to know this Dean, the man of his paintings, sculptures…the man brave enough to go on three first dates with the same guy, knowing that in the morning the same man could once again crush his heart with a simple ‘who are you?’ Castiel desperately wanted to know the man brave enough to do that, wanted more than anything to be a part of his life.
That night after work Dean pays his brother a visit. It’s Jess who opens the door, a dumbbell in her free hand, hair tied together in a neat ponytail. Dean cocks an eyebrow at her, not commenting on her strange attire. Jessica Moore had been his brother’s girlfriend/wife too long for Dean not to get used to her sometimes weird behavior and hobbies. It’s what Sam loves about her and Dean understands it, sometimes even wishes he hadn’t wasted three years of his life on a woman who’s lack of humor was only surpassed by her massive ego and selfishness.
“Dean – to what do we owe the honor?” she asks teasingly and steps away from the door, letting her brother-in-law inside.
The living-room is clean but not too tidy, a yoga mat spread on the laminate floor and a pile of clothes in a basket sitting on the sofa, waiting to be ironed. Sam’s sitting in front of his laptop at the dining room table, looking up at Dean, as he makes his way across the room, slumping in the chair opposite to his younger brother. Sam shuts the notebook, leaning forward to look in his brother’s eyes, before talking, his voice quiet and reassuring.
“Hey… what’s wrong?”
Dean sighs, lifting his hands to knead his temples, as he sees Jess sitting down on the edge of the couch slowly. He feels their eyes on him and feels part annoyed, part thankful for their undivided attention.
“I told you about this guy I met… Cas…,” he says and a rush of a million different sensations makes his body shudder at the mention of Castiel’s name, “I… we’ve been seeing each other for a while now…”
He clears his throat again, trying to shut out the hopeful, yet confused looks the two of them shoot each other and him and search for the right words. There’s no real way around it, no way to sugarcoat what he has to say and Dean is sick and tired of creeping around this subject, anyway.
“Two years ago he had this tumor – he’s fine now, but after surgery they diagnosed him with amnesia and we’ve had three dates so far and even slept together and he-… he can’t remember who I am…”
His voice sounds hoarse towards the end until it dies completely and Dean just lowers his head and cries tears of frustration. He feels his brother’s arm around his shoulders only seconds ago, pulling him as close as Dean would let him and holding him. Minutes pass, feeling like hours as far as Dean is concerned, and when he pulls back out of the embrace, Sam looks at him with his soft, sage eyes that Dean would trust with absolutely everything.
“So… what do you wanna do, Dean? Do you think he’s worth it… do you think you can do this?”
Dean looks down at his hands, curled into fists on his lap, before answering, words coming slow but without a doubt.
“I think I’m in love with him, Sammy…”
Sam closes his eyes then, just for a moment, his hands coming to a rest on the table top. When he speaks there’s sympathy in his voice but not pity. Nothing about him spoke of reproval or blame, a feeling he’d gotten quite used to after a childhood with a father like John Winchester and his marriage to Karen.
“Then you’ll make it work. And we’re gonna help you get through this.”
Dean doesn’t let go of Sam for a while after, breathing against his neck and whispering, more to himself than to Sam or Jess, words of disbelief, of wonder how he could ever deserve a brother like him.
-
It takes Dean three days to recover from being stood up. Three days of thinking, too long, too hard, weighing up his options, trying so hard to find a way to get through this. Friday he and Amy stop by Sam and Jess’ place for dinner and although the adults don’t talk about the issue, Dean knows that they’re all thinking about it. When Dean gets up on Saturday, he doesn’t plan on doing anything other than preparing breakfast. He doesn’t plan on reaching for the phone and typing in Castiel’s number but when the phone rings, he feels that same excitement he’d felt each and every time he met or even just thought about Cas rushing through his body.
~
That night after the missed breakfast date, Castiel fights with himself as he sits in his studio, looking at the pieces of art he’d made, that he now knew were inspired by Dean. There were paintings and sculptures, a bust of Dean’s face and a torso that could only be the other man’s. Castiel’s favorite was the bust, Dean’s shy smile letting him know that he’d seen it in person, had witnessed the beauty of the other man up close.
Gabriel had told him everything he knew… about how Dean was stubborn and pig-headed (Bobby’s words), but that he seemed like a good Father from the small amount of time Gabriel had seen them in the park.
And he liked Castiel, most important of all, enough to want to date him despite the memory loss.
He rides his bike past Dean’s house, the address having been programmed into his phone, every day for three days, trying to work up the courage to go in and see the man who Gabriel said wanted to be with him….that he himself said wanted to date him, in the video that Gabriel helped him make to explain what was going on.
For three days, he would sit down in the morning and watch a fifteen minute video that explained what happened, read through his journal, and the binder that Gabriel kept. It took around an hour each time, and then another hour to fully grasp what was going on, and get a hold of his emotions.
Then….Castiel would go about his day, making sculpture after sculpture, visiting with friends that he now knew he hadn’t seen in years, and catching up with Bobby, Jo and Ellen; they hadn’t been able to tell him anything had happened to them in the two years he’d been reliving the same day, over and over again.
Gabriel is hesitant at first, the first day hovering over Castiel, but by the third, he too feels free, able to go about his own life, knowing that Castiel had a firm grasp of his own, after two years of practically baby sitting his younger 26 year old brother every day and night.
Castiel is on his fourth ride past Dean’s house that morning, feeling particularly drawn to the other man after reading the words of his journal, how he wanted to meet this Dean…wanted to know what he was missing out on, when his phone rings. He skids to a stop and pulls it out of his shoulder bag, the drawing pad and small water color set getting shoved aside as he fumbles to get to the phone.
Castiel’s breath hitches, stopping to burn in his chest, when he sees who it is that’s calling him.
Dean <3 flashes on his screen as the phone trills out the lyrics ‘I want to ride my bi-cy-cle, I want to ride my biiiiike.’
This was THE DEAN.
The one whose house he was in front of…right now.
Castiel bites his lower lip, and then presses decline, at the same time leaning his bike against a tree in Dean’s yard, and walking quickly up the front walkway, up the steps, to Dean’s door.
He knocks three times, then stands there and waits, biting his lower lip and trying to rally his courage. ‘Now or never, Castiel’ he thinks.
When the door is hauled open by a petite girl, no older than four though, Castiel blinks in surprise.
‘This must be his daughter’, he muses, eyes widening slightly as the girl frowns up at him.
“Oh!..um…Hello….My name is Castiel….is your Father home right now?”
