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this is something else [d. winchester]

dean knows that tomorrow night during the reception you’ll look beautiful and glow in the company of your friends. he’d regret it forever if he passed up the opportunity to show you off to the gathered, if he failed to make you feel special. he knows your friends love you so deeply, and it makes him a certain kind of sad that they live so far away. he wants them to see that you’re well taken care of in their absence. he wants them to know he loves you, too. 9.3k

f!reader, no use of y/n, fluff, fake-dating au, normal lives au, mutual pining, idiots in love, friends to lovers. cross-posted to ao3. i wanted a dean fake dating fic so i made one. totally soft for dean, always.

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Your stomach flips every few minutes as you sit waiting for Dean to find you at the back of his favourite diner. It feels like equal parts hangover and emotional turmoil. While you were out last night with all of your closest friends, when you were very deep into a very drunken night, you told a lie that you think is going to ruin you.

It must have been delusional fantasy or extreme wishful thinking that guided your mouth to say what it did. For some inscrutable reason you told your closest friends, who all know him, that Dean Winchester was your boyfriend.

He very much is not.

Your friend Margo is getting married and all of your hometown friends are in the city for the big event. You’ve known her for what feels like forever and she’s the coolest girl you know. It was a point of pride for her that she was the first female mechanic in the small town where you grew up. She’d always been a fighter, picking her friends carefully and loving them fiercely. She didn’t cry when you moved several hours downstate, but she moved you into your new place herself, made you promise to let her visit you whenever she wanted, and made sure to find you the number of the very best mechanic in your new city. For the shitty beater car you won’t give up, she said. Dean Winchester was that mechanic, and the three of you have become fast friends in the couple of years since. She met her fiancee Cas through Dean, actually, and the rest is kind of history.

Dean is your friend. Just your friend. Even if he flirts with you and holds you sometimes and tells you things you don’t think anyone else knows. But Dean flirts with everyone and that’s just what friends do, they get cozy on the couch and they tell each other things. You remind yourself, constantly, that all of this means nothing. You know what Dean is like, and you know how people react to him. He’s handsome and he’s charming and you’ve seen him in action, speaking low words into a girl's ear at the bar, curling his arms around hers at a pool table, holding her hips from behind and ordering her another drink. You think anyone would be blind not to see it, and you figured your crush was a mere fantasy that’d blow over. It’s been a year.

You spent all of this morning face down in your pillow, your head spinning from a hangover and from trying to figure out what to do. You’ve decided you’d rather die than admit to your friends that you lied, and that Dean didn’t actually see you as anything more than a friend, that you were as lovesick as a schoolgirl, so much so that you had to pretend Dean was yours in order to soothe your aching heart last night. So you called the only person who could help you now.

You offered to treat Dean to lunch at his favourite spot hoping that maybe it might be enough to help convince him to go along with your lie.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, sweetheart?” Dean slides into the seat across from you with an easy smile.

“I just wanted to see you.” You lilt.

That much is true, you’ve been running around like crazy this past month helping with wedding prep.

“You have fun last night?” Dean asks, taking note of your slow blinks and the bags under your eyes.

“So much fun that I don’t honestly remember most of it.”

“Atta girl.” Dean smiles. “I’m almost sad I’ll never get to have a bachelorette party, they seem legendary.”

“You’ll get to have a bachelor’s though, isn’t that pretty much the same thing?”

“Nah. Nobody gets you a tiara when you’re a bachelor.”

You laugh and for a second you forget the impending humiliation of what you’re about to do. Remembering it sobers you, and makes your stomach flip once more.

“All your friends have fun?”

“Yes. Yeah–” Your response is stilted as you struggle to find a subtle segue. “Um, I have something to ask you though, actually.”

“I’m all ears.” Dean leans back in his chair.

“I think I fucked up last night.”

“You didn’t get yourself arrested, did you?”

Worse. You think. So much worse.

“I kind of maybe accidentally told everyone I had a boyfriend.”

“Oh.” His brow furrows. “You don’t do you?”

“I don’t.”

His face relaxes.

“Well that’s not so bad. Why’d you do that?”

“It’s just that–” You sigh. “Literally every one of my friends is dating someone now, and they were all taking turns gushing so when they turned to me I got really embarrassed, and I kind of freaked out, and I said I had a boyfriend.”

You’re talking fast. Dean chuckles.

“Well can’t you take it back? Or say you broke up or something?”

“Um, it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“Why?” Dean tilts his head that way he does when he’s trying to understand the way your brain thinks.

“I sort of told them that it was someone they know.” You look down at your lap and squeeze your palms together, building up to your big reveal.

“You’re right, that does complicate things. So, who’s the lucky guy?”

You take a deep breath and meet his eyes with a guilty smile.

The amusement on Dean’s face falls away when he understands.

“Hear me out all the way before you say anything, please.” You rush to fill the silence. “Look, I’m really sorry, I would never want to make you uncomfortable and you know I would never ask you this if I had any other option but I kind of dug a really deep hole for myself that I don’t think I can un-dig until after the wedding so could you please, please, please, just go along with it?”

You feel hot and Dean is quiet, eyes stuck on yours as he processes what he’s just heard. You tack on an extra please when the silence starts to stretch.

“Me?” He says pointing to himself, incredulous.

“I just freaked out, okay? I said the first name I could think of!” The only name you could think of, really.

Slowly, an absolutely insidious grin snakes across his face and he looks at you like you’ve just told him how to get away with murder.

“Wow, sweetheart,” he drawls. “I didn’t know you felt that way about me.”

You knew Dean’s mean streak would make an appearance but this is even more difficult than you thought. It’s embarrassing enough to have as big a crush as you do on him, and you’re starting to think that this is just digging deeper down the hole you’re already in. Dean starts to laugh and you cover your face, leaning forward on the table. This only serves to make him laugh harder. You hope the ground opens and swallows you both whole.

“Don’t make this harder than it is, Dean. I’m not above begging.” You say through your fingers.

“Hey, hey,” he placates, gently taking your wrists to lower your hands. “I’ll do it. Of course I’ll do it.”

You look at him apprehensively, unsure he really means it.

“But you’ll owe me big time. This sure is some favour.”

You nod sheepishly, far too humbled in the moment to push back. You’re saved momentarily by a waitress interrupting to take your orders. She pours you each a cup of coffee and you cling to yours like a lifeline.

“So tell me about my boyfriend duties.”

“I think– Well, we just need to be seen together. Officially, you only really need to come with me to the barbeque next week, and then the rehearsal dinner and the wedding day. Just three days. It won’t be so bad really.” You say that last part to yourself more than to him.

“That’s it, huh? Well you won’t believe how much romance I can fit into three days.”

Despite that promise, Dean steals all the best bites from your plate and continues to tease you for the rest of lunch.

X

You see Dean later that week, letting yourself into his small apartment. Tonight you’re doing dinner and a movie, a commonplace event between the two of you. By dinner you mean takeout, which you think is basically the opposite of a romantic home cooked meal. That’s what you tell yourself anyways, trying not to read into the way Dean does things like remembering your pickiest orders and ordering milder curries for you to share when you know he prefers an obscene amount of spice.

His place is neater than usual. You notice the lack of used glasses and dirty socks on the floor in his living room. You wonder if he’s had a date over recently, if he tidied because she had been here. You think back, trying to remember the last girl he told you about. It’s been a long time since he’s seen someone seriously, and now that you think about it, it’s been a while since he’s told you about a girl he met. You wonder if your fake boyfriend request came at a bad time. Maybe Dean was planning on putting himself out there again, or maybe he even had a date already planned. You feel nervous slipping off your shoes, overly aware of what an imposition you are now.

Dean calls your name from the kitchen and you try to clear your head before rounding the corner. He’s plating noodles for you in the bowl you like and your heart goes a little soft despite your nerves. You’re not feeling exactly yourself, worried about silly things like whether or not you should hug him and how much distance you should keep between you now that you’ve introduced a new dynamic in your relationship. He doesn’t seem different at all though, holding one arm open for you as the other fusses with a takeout container. You slip yourself against his side, accepting his hug and relaxing slightly. If he notices that you’re being weird, he doesn’t mention it, nudging two bowls into your hands and following you to his couch with your drinks and cutlery.

The tension in your shoulders begins to fall away as he tells you about his day between, and sometimes through, mouthfuls. You try to remind yourself that this is your Dean, your kind-hearted messy eater. Nothing has changed since this weekend.

After your bowls have been emptied and your drinks refilled, you let Dean pick something to watch. He wants to watch an action flick you swear he just made you watch with him and he ignores you as you make fun of him for it. He sits back, remote tossed to the side so you can’t grab it, and his arm comes down around your shoulders to stop you from going after it. You laugh and he shakes you gently, an empty threat.

You wonder, for the millionth time, if dating Dean would even feel that different. Spending time with him is as easy as breathing, smiling is as automatic as blinking. All it’d take for your current position to be made explicitly romantic is for you to put your legs in his lap or rest your hand on his chest or any other infinitesimally small shift in body language. That’s why it was so easy to lie about dating him, you think. In your head it is real sometimes.

“We should practice.” Dean says, talking over the movie and bringing you out of your head.

He shifts to look at you, tucked under his arm.

“I mean if we’re going to make this believable, we have to at least take it for a spin once or twice before our first official sighting.”

“It?”

“Yeah, us.” He says this like you’re the one being ridiculous.

“And what exactly do you mean by practice?”

“You know, like go out together. That way I can learn all the boyfriend basics and you can get used to me holding your hand and stuff.”

You push down the flutter in your stomach.

“Boyfriend basics?”

“The stuff you like.” His voice is gruff. “Your favourite flowers, what chocolate you like, where you like to go for dates, all that.”

“Oh.” You feel your cheeks beginning to warm. “You probably know half of that stuff already.”

“Well yeah, but I want to be perfect.” There’s something in the way he says it that makes your chest feel funny. “That way we can give the most believable performance possible and you can impress your friends by having a perfectly devoted lover.”

“That’s not the point.” You roll your eyes at his choice of words. You know he doesn’t get it.

“I thought you wanted to win the boyfriend competition.”

“The point isn’t for you to be better than the other boyfriends, the point is that I just wanted a boyfriend.”

“You do?” The question catches you off guard although it shouldn’t.

“I– Yes? I mean, it would be nice but it’s not like I’m really dating or anything. I don’t know, I was drunk and lonely so I said something stupid.”

You cringe a little at yourself. Dean is quiet for a moment as you play with your fingers in your lap.

“It’s not stupid. To want that.”

You’re not sure what to say.

“Let me take you out. For practice.” He says.

When you look back up at him his eyes are trained on your mouth. They jump back up quickly when you speak.

“Okay,” you say softly. “For practice.”

He searches your face, looking for something. You don’t know if he finds it, but the moment passes and he tucks you a little closer into his side.

X

Dean Winchester is enjoying this far more than is probably appropriate. You're standing partially wedged between him and the bar, looking up at him to relay your drink of choice. He takes great pleasure in gesturing to the bartender and ordering for both of you, putting cash down before you can even think to reach towards your bag. He’s done this countless times before but never with you. Never in a way that made him feel proud like this.

Dean is good at girls and drinks and bars. He’s made out in more dirty bathrooms than most people ever see in a lifetime. You don’t carry yourself with the same casual ease he does in this space, and in a weird way he’s glad you didn’t have the same adolescence he did.

He thinks about it sometimes. He thinks he would’ve had a shot with you if you’d both met younger, if you had met as strangers in the same bar. He doesn’t think you understand just how gorgeous you are. It’s utterly arresting sometimes, the way you look at him when you’re feeling playful, or sleepy, or any time at all, really.

In that other universe, he thinks he would’ve tried to bring you home and he just might have succeeded. But he wouldn’t have gotten to know you the way he has in this universe. Dean loves being your friend, you’re kind and caring and funny and you get him. You listen to him in a way that makes him forget he’s talking. You ask him question after question after question, about his work or his brother or his life. He doesn’t think anyone has ever known him this well. Not his exes, not his friends, certainly not his father. And you do it so quietly that he looked up one day to find you seamlessly woven into almost every aspect of his life. Everything makes a little more sense when you’re around.

His hang up in relationships has always been his inability to be vulnerable. He’s reached a point with all of his exes where the time comes to drop his bravado and he never can. He knows how to be Dean Winchester, the fantasy. What he doesn’t know is how to be just Dean, the man. The latter will never live up to the former so it’s easier to just let a girl go than disappoint her. You didn’t meet the fantasy, you met the man, and that was fine when you were just his friend. But now? Now he’s fucked because he thinks he might love you and there’s no way to walk back all the times he’s ever tried to be brave by telling you something that scared him about himself. You still like him, sure, but Dean thinks he’s firmly disqualified himself from being boyfriend-worthy. Despite himself, he doesn’t quite believe that a sweet thing like you belongs with someone as rough around the edges as him.

Tonight though, you’re dolled up beside him, for him, letting him order you a drink while you wait for his brother and his girlfriend to arrive. It’s rare he sees you all the way done up, unless he catches you right after work or there’s an event to attend. You look good all the time, you really do, but Dean’s eyes keep catching on the shimmer spread across your cheeks and eyelids and his chest puffs up a little more every time he remembers that being with him is the event you wanted to look pretty for.

You’ve met Sam and Jess before, and they make just as cute a couple as Margo and Cas. When Dean asked if you wanted to go out for drinks with them early this week it was an easy yes. You had paused before hanging up, wanting to be sure of what to expect.

“Like, as a date?”

“Yeah as a date.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.” As if you were the one being outlandish. “I’ll pick you up at 8.”

You’d held your phone to your chest for ten minutes after, spiraling. You think he may have been trying to make things feel more casual by pitching a double date, but you know how much he loves his brother so if that was his intention he failed, badly. But game on, you decided. If this was your bed you were going to lie in it, and you may as well give it your all because this could be your only chance at ever having something like this. So here you are, pretty and perfumed, ready to play the part.

You think Dean gets off on this, the performance of it all. Having a pretty thing tucked under his arm walking into a room or standing between his thighs as he sits on a bar stool. You’ve seen it a million times before. It’s just that you’ve never been on the receiving end of that attention. You’ve spent most of tonight laughing more than usual, flustered by his relentless desire to have his hands on you. You keep taking small steps backwards when you get close to being overwhelmed, but he follows every time. You tell Dean he doesn’t need to hover and he scoffs.

“This is just what boyfriends do, sweetheart.” He argues, crowding you against the bar as you wait for your drinks. He hands you yours when they’re ready so you don’t have to turn away from him for even a second.

“You can touch me too, you know. In fact, you probably should.”

You know he’s right, that you’ll have to give as good as you get in the presence of your friends. It’s almost daunting to be given permission. A hesitant hand reaches out to hold his bicep. You’ve always loved the way his arms look and it feels almost surreal to be given permission to focus on them openly.

“Is this how other girls usually do it?” You try to joke, even going so far as to bat your lashes a little.

“Doesn’t matter what they do.” He says this like it’s definitive. The hand not busy holding his beer finds the hem of your shirt, pulling it down gently where it started to come away from the waistband of your skirt. “You can do anything you want, and I don’t think there’s anything you could do wrong when it comes to this.”

Dean’s charm is dialed like you’ve never seen it. His fingers brush against your bare skin, accidentally at first and then purposefully. You can’t suppress the small shiver caused by his touch.

The spell breaks when you hear Sam calling your names as he arrives with Jess. You take another half step back and push down your fluster, smiling to greet them. As you hug Jess, you hear Sam address his brother behind you.

“Jess owes me a twenty. She thought you wouldn’t break for a few more months.”

Dean gives him a sharp kind of glare and you know you’re missing something. You want to ask Sam what he means but then he’s turning to greet you and it’s forgotten. A booth opens nearby and you all slide in quickly. Dean takes the seat beside you, across from Sam, and he’s not shy about letting his leg spread into your space, pressing his knee to yours. Once you’re settled and your seats are claimed, Sam and Jess make a run to the bar. Jess asks what you’re drinking and decides she wants one too.

You watch them as they go, your eyes falling to Sam’s hand against Jess’s lower back. It makes your stomach flutter to think of Dean doing something like that. He’s always touched you in a way that straddles the line between platonic and romantic, today being the exception. You know the weight of his arm around your shoulders, what his palm feels like against yours, the size of his hands against your back when you hug. That’s different, though, you think, keeping your eyes on Sam’s hand until you can’t.

“They’re good together.” Dean says.

You turn to find him already watching you, smiling knowingly.

“He bought a ring today.”

“Today?” You gasp. “That’s huge, when is he going to propose?”

“He’s thinking when they go out to see her family at Thanksgiving.”

“That’s so long to wait, will he be able to keep it a secret?”

“I think so. He’s so anal he’ll need the weather to be perfect on the day of before he’ll even consider getting down on one knee.”

“Dean, be nice to your brother.”

“I’m not being mean, he just loves her. He’s like that.” He shrugs, taking a drink of his beer. “Their wedding will be a way bigger deal than it has to be.”

“I’m sure it’ll be beautiful.”

Dean hums.

“Think you’d be able to repay your favour?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll need a date for it.”

You laugh.

“You don’t even know when it’s going to be. Anything could happen between now and then, maybe you’ll meet someone.”

Dean looks at you funny.

“Yeah but they know you. They like me with you.”

“They…” You pause before repeating him. “They like you with me?”

He nods and you look at him, not quite getting what he means. You get how they could have an opinion on someone Dean is seeing, but you? How do you factor into that?

Sam and Jess are sliding back into their seats before you can work it out and Dean drops it, slipping easily into conversation with his brother. You find that Sam and Jess are infinitely charming people, and you spend the rest of the evening listening more than talking.

When it’s time to leave, Dean offers you his hand as you slide out of the booth and then nudges you to walk slightly ahead of him. You misstep and barely save a stumble when you feel Dean’s hand find your lower back. You feel disoriented twofold. It presses against you more firmly as you right yourself and you pointedly avoid Dean’s eyes over your shoulder even after you’ve made it out the door. Maybe he’s teasing you for watching Sam earlier. Maybe he just likes watching you squirm. No matter the reason, his hand stays there, radiating heat up your spine until you get to his car. Even then, it stays fixed as he opens the passenger door for you to climb in. You know you’re still visibly flustered when you finally look at him in the driver’s seat. Something in his eyes looks too pleased as he starts the car.

Dean has to hold onto the steering wheel tight with both hands to stop himself from reaching for your thigh, soft and bare beside him.

X

Dean had asked you if you wanted to do something before the gathering at Cas’s place. To talk game plan, he said. This was the first of your three official sightings, the friends and family barbeque. Talking game plan was secondary to his true desire. He just wanted to steal a few more hours being yours. There wasn’t really a game plan to be had, and you told him as much, but that didn’t matter. Dean was going to pick you up early and buy you a late lunch, maybe even ice cream after if he’d be so lucky. He’d already decided all of this before he asked and was prepared to justify himself as much as was necessary for you to agree.

You said no to lunch only because you’d be eating at Cas’s, which Dean tried to argue didn’t matter, but you agreed to ice cream. It’ll be like dessert before dinner, you said over the phone. Your light laughter nearly killed him.

The afternoon of the barbeque is sunny and clear. Dean picks you up with flowers in hand and you’re painfully endeared by the little bouquet of wildflowers he chose. You tell him he’s laying it on a bit thick but he just tells you to roll with it. You’re wearing a sundress he’s never seen before and he tries very hard not to stare. He attempts to get his fill of you while you’re picking out what flavour you want. He knows he’s beyond help because it’s the curve of your shoulders and the uppermost expanse of your chest that he’s hungry for. Your skin looks downy soft in the afternoon light and he reminds himself over and over not to be greedy. In the end you go with your favourite and Dean picks something chocolatey. You get shy when he asks you to feed him a taste of your ice cream and he resists the temptation to lick at your fingers.

You’re hungry by the time you get to Cas’s family home. It’s a beautiful place on a corner lot with a backyard big enough to host the small wedding. Dean parks at the curb and tells you to stay put so he can open your door. You roll your eyes half-heartedly but let him.

“You should have told me to get a double scoop.”

Dean takes your hand, helping you out of his car.

“You should have let me get you a pint.” He counters.

“It would have melted, Dean.”

“Then you should have let me take you for lunch. I told you you’d be hungry.”

Dean thinks you’ll take the bait but you don’t. You haven’t made it more than a few steps from his car and he can see you’re getting in your head.

“Hey, look at me.” He takes both of your arms in his hands. “Today is going to be great. You’re going to be the prettiest girl in the room and I’m going to be the most believable boyfriend anyone has ever seen.”

“Second prettiest.” A small smile starts to lift the corners of your mouth.

“Not to me. Let’s go.” Dean taps your chin up lightly and firmly retakes your hand firmly in his as you round the side of the house to the backyard.

Stepping through the gate you’re impressed by the space. Low wicker couches, a garden of bright flowers, stepping stones and old trees standing at the far end of the yard. Cas must come from more money than you thought.

Margo squeals when she spots you, waving you over to where your friends have gathered on the couches. A flurry of hugs and hellos take place before Dean takes your hand again to greet Cas and some of their friends you haven’t met before by the patio table. He keeps you at his hip, his hand light on your waist or lower back through the introductions. You handle it much better now than when he first did it. Cas tells you to have a drink and serve yourselves in that stilted but earnest way of his.

“What do you think, honey?” Dean asks you. “Still hungry?”

You nod and you’re whisked away to the grill which Cas’s dad is dutifully attending to.

“Winchester.” He nods, sticking his hand out for a firm shake. “This the missus?”

He gives your name and the man lights up.

“So this is the girl we’ve heard so much about.”

Dean shifts a little on his feet, hand coming up to scratch the back of his neck, but he doesn’t deny it. The man, whose name you learn is Chuck, serves you both up a plate before patting Dean on the shoulder and telling him he’s done well for himself.

“Yeah, yeah.” Dean waves him off, leading you a little ways away. He sits you both at the far end of the patio table and you take a minute to process all the new names and faces.

Your eyes sweep the yard and Chuck’s words are delayed in hitting you.

“You talk about me?”

“Of course I talk about you, we’re a package deal. And I, uh, may have told Cas we were dating when he asked.” His ears look a little red, like you’ve caught him in something.

“Right.” You consider this for a moment. “I guess Margo would have told him either way. Looks like you’re a step ahead of me.”

“I told you I was going to get it perfect.”

“Yeah, I guess you did.”

There’s something about Dean’s proximity and the heat of the afternoon that starts to soften you around the edges. He’s still waiting, you notice. Not eating before you’re settled. A package deal, he said. Your shoulders keep brushing and you try to remind yourself of the separation between your fantasy and reality. A kiss on the cheek wouldn’t hurt though, you think. For the believability of your performance, of course.

You move before you can lose your nerve, pressing a too soft kiss by the corner of his mouth. You think you linger for too long but it wasn’t something you could help. You avoid his eyes after, focusing on your plate instead. You’re still starving.

Dean has to remind himself to breathe in the moment after your kiss. It was a thank you, he thinks. That’s all it was. But still, it was enough to make him forget where he was. He wants, so badly, to pull you into his lap or kiss you back but he behaves. He eats with you and listens to you tell him a little more about the girls you haven’t seen in a long time. You steal sips from his can of soda, a soda you said you didn’t want, and he can’t do anything but let it happen, nudging it closer to you in a way that looks unintentional.

“What do you think, should we go sit with Margo or Cas first?”

“You don’t have to stick by me the whole time, Dean. I don’t want to monopolize you.”

He scoffs.

“You’re not monopolizing me, sweetheart. I’m monopolizing you.”

You pick Margo first, obviously, and Dean sticks to your side. It’s like having a very tall shadow. Your friends eye you knowingly when his hand comes up to rest on the back of the couch behind you, his fingers tracing soft lines into your arm. He’s eventually summoned over by Cas and he presses a quick hot kiss to your cheek before he goes.

“You must be deep in the honeymoon phase.” Margo says, smiling teasingly. Your head turns quickly back towards her, away from Dean’s retreating figure. “You blush every time he touches you.”

You roll your eyes, deflecting.

“I– He just makes me nervous, you know?”

“Don’t be, he’s already yours.”

You think you smile weird but it must read as butterflies because the conversation moves on.

You spot Dean across the way, sitting with Cas and the other boyfriends, and something already lit up gets brighter in your chest. You catch his eye and he gives you a smile that feels like it’s just for you before turning to laugh at something someone said.

One drink becomes two, becomes three, and before you know it, you’re singing Katy Perry very loudly and very badly with your friends as the sky darkens. Margo slides up to you at some point, taking your hands and whispering to you like she’s telling you a secret.

“I was hoping for this.” She says. “I can’t believe you’re together.”

“What do you mean?” You whisper back, feeling fizzy.

“He’s always been soft for you. Dean, I mean. I just know he’ll be so good to you, he already is.”

“He– what?”

“How could anyone know you and not love you?” She sweeps you into a tight hug and makes a big show of kissing your forehead.

You’re warmed by her affection and let her smother you all she wants. Dean is soft for you, you know this. But love? You don’t know about love.

One more cooler is one too many and you feel yourself trip over your friend’s feet as several of you try to dance together. You don’t feel the fall so much as find yourself on the ground, looking up at the night sky. Your head is dizzy and the cool grass against your back feels amazing. You’re laughing with the girls on the ground beside you and you’re seized by a sudden longing for Dean. You want him to smooth your hair and hold you against him and tell you something sweet. You want this happiness to be his too.

And then his face appears, blocking out some of the stars above you. You don’t feel yourself doing it but you hear someone saying Dean! in a voice far too wistful to be your own. He grins down at you before helping you up.

You’re so lucky, you think. One second you’re thinking about Dean and then the next he’s there, arm around your waist, holding you up. One of his hands cradles your face, maybe checking you didn’t hurt yourself when you fell. His hand is warm and you sigh contentedly. He says something about going somewhere and you agree with him even though you’re not exactly sure what he said. You walk with unsteady steps to his car and you fall asleep in your seat before he starts driving.

X

The next morning you wake to Dean’s hand rubbing up and down your arm. You struggle to open your eyes and you would swat his hand away but his touch is just so soothing to your exhausted body.

“Did somebody go too hard last night?” He asks from his spot perched on the edge of the bed.

You mumble something you hope sounds aggressive before rolling over to let sleep find you again. Dean’s hand finds your other shoulder to shake gently.

“Come on party girl, it’s noon. You have to meet your friends at three.”

Between blinks you surmise that the sun is indeed spilling mercilessly through the window, and Dean is already dressed in jeans and one of those black shirts you love. It occurs that you’re in his bed and you don’t find that thought particularly alarming.

“Get up, I’ll get you some food.”

Dean’s instructions reach you through your sleep-haze and you drag yourself out from under his duvet as his steps recede.

By the time you step out of the shower and into a lazy tshirt and pair of shorts you keep forgetting are here, you can hear Dean watching TV in the living room. Picking your bag up from where Dean put it on the nightstand, you search roughly for the ibuprofen you usually keep on hand. You frown when you can’t find it and bring it clutched in your hand as you leave his room.

“Dean, do you have any–”

Before you can finish, he holds his arm up, bottle of ibuprofen in hand.

“Way ahead of you, sweetheart.”

You drop down onto his overly soft couch beside him and he places two into your waiting palm. After taking them and finishing a glass of water, you’re able to take inventory of the spread on the coffee table. It’s obvious Dean went overkill, pilfering his kitchen to bring you everything he thought you might eat. Fruit and coffee and sweet things sparkle before you and you don’t think twice about starting with caffeine. You don’t notice Dean watching you pick over the bowl of fruit he washed, the way his soft eyes track your fingertips travelling to and from your mouth. The way he nods to himself, satisfied, when you leave the bowl empty.

After you’ve eaten something you feel much more like a real person. You start to wiggle further into the couch and Dean pulls your legs over his lap.

“Where did you sleep?” The question comes to you belatedly.

Dean’s hands sweep steady lines up your skin. Up your shin, down your thigh and back over them. If you were less tired you might have fawned a little at the action, something so caring and intentional.

“Beside you.” He’s sheepish. “I uh, wanted to be there in case you needed something.”

Margo’s words come back to you then. He’s soft for you. He wants to be good to you. You think that if you look for it, there’s a good chance you’ll start to see it in all he does.

“Oh,” you murmur. “I didn’t kick you, did I?”

“No.” He says, softly. “You snore like a tractor though.”

You throw the pillow behind you at him.

“I do not! I am a lady, thank you very much.”

“That you are.” He agrees, raising the pillow he just caught as a shield. “A lady that snores like a tractor.”

The next few minutes are spent trading jabs and laughter, and the next two hours pass like a dream.

Dean is the one to remind you that you have somewhere to be. He apologizes for not having any other clothes for you, privately wishing he had something pretty for you to wear. You’re not fussed, it’s nice to have something casual to wear during what has felt like a very dressed up week. He asks if you want a ride down to where your friends are meeting and you accept. Dean pats your leg and nudges you to get up.

You begin the ritual of gathering your bag and getting ready to head out. Dean waits for you at the door, having grabbed a bottle of water for you from his fridge. It’s cold where he presses it into your hand and you look up at him, eyes still tired and soft and thankful.

“Ready?” He asks.

You nod but neither of you move. It feels, for a second, like you’re forgetting something. Like something’s missing. You pat your pockets, but you have all your belongings. You frown up at Dean, intending to ask him… something. What you were going to ask doesn’t really matter because you feel more solid when his hands find the sides of your face, his thumbs smoothing over your cheeks. You feel yourself leaning into the tender touch and your frown melts a little. He wants to be good for you.

He looks at you, eyebrows gently raised to ask if you’re okay without speaking. Your mouth opens before you can think better of it.

“Margo said something last night.”

“Did she?”

“She said you…” You don’t know how to finish that sentence without showing your entire hand. You don’t know if Dean loves you, and you’d feel stupid for saying it if he didn’t.

Dean hums, hearing what you’re not saying. He keeps his eyes on yours, and leans down towards you halfway. He gives you the choice but you don’t move away. His gaze falls heavier and heavier until he presses his mouth to yours, firmly and just once. Something in you dissolves with a shimmer and you can barely feel the ground underneath you as he guides you out the door.

X

You haven’t spoken about the kiss, and another one hasn’t happened. You’ve seen him once since, twice if you count tonight, and all through dinner he kept doing this thing where he just looked at you, like that’s all he was allowed to do. There’s a voice in the back of your head telling you he regrets the kiss, that he’s going to let you down easy after the wedding, if not tonight. Maybe you were making a bigger deal out of things than you should have. He’s soft because he cares but that doesn’t mean he wants you. It doesn’t mean he wants to be with you. Things aren’t awkward but they feel a little strained around the edges.

Dean feels spellbound, tracing the soft lines of your bare arms with his eyes. He feels spoiled, getting to see you in so many nice dresses recently. The rehearsal dinner was a more stressful affair than he’d expected. Cas’s dad hadn’t stopped fussing with the set up of tables and audio equipment. Margo’s parents wouldn’t stop hovering over everything she tried to do. Being your own wedding planner looks fun, he thinks, until there’s no buffer between you and your overbearing parents.

He wonders if you’d want to plan your own wedding– if you’d want it to be an intimate affair like this or if you’d want to celebrate with absolutely everyone you know. He’d like something like this, he thinks. He thinks of how his uncle Bobby would insist on trying to build a pergola in the yard and how Sam would stress enough for the both of them, and for you. Whenever he thinks about any of this, it’s always you slipping into the hypothetical. The imaginary faceless love of his life had been replaced by the image of you a while ago.

Twangy music fills the air between the tables set up for the evening, many chairs now empty as people mingle and couples dance in front of the ceremonial arch set up for tomorrow. Dean’s beer sweats into his hand, the chill giving him a sensation to focus on. He’d much rather be touching you, in any way you’d let him, but he’s worried about pushing too far. You’ve been tentative with him since the other day and Dean hasn’t been sure if that means you want him to back off. You catch him looking at you and your shoulders relax the littlest bit, allowing yourself to rest under his gaze. He feels greedy, like he’s taking up far more of your attention than he deserves. His head turns to look at the dancing couples on the grass once more and decides to try something.

“Don’t laugh.” He starts.

Immediately your mouth twists to fight a smile.

“I knew you were going to do this, forget it.” He huffs in his own way that lets you know he’s more amused than annoyed.

“No, Dean, please,” You placate, a smile breaking through. “I’m listening, I promise.”

He pauses, eyeing you before confessing.

“I don’t know how to dance.”

“What?” Your eyebrows shoot high. “There’s no way, didn’t you go to prom? Or like any school dance?”

“Well, yeah, but that doesn’t mean I’ve ever danced at one.”

“So, what, you spent the whole time brooding in the corner?”

The picture of teenage Dean standing to the wayside in a darkened gymnasium amuses you.

“I do not brood.”

You give him a look.

“Okay maybe I brood sometimes, but that’s not the point. The point is, I need to know if my current skills are salvageable.”

“It’s a bit late to be asking, don’t you think?”

“Well maybe it didn’t occur to me until just now,” he says, gesturing to the couples dancing on the lawn. “Did you ever think of that?”

“Alright, Winchester.” You acquiesce. “Let’s see if we can fix you.”

You stand from your chair and offer him your hand. He puts his beer down and wipes both palms down his pants before taking it, letting you lead him to the edge of the yard. The sky is more navy than orange now, the sun nearly fully set. The lights strung across the fence and around the yard are warm, kissing your skin with gold tones. It still smells like barbeque smoke and grass, but Dean can’t help but search for the notes of your perfume in the air around you. Pink peppercorn and something syrupy, you mentioned what it was once but he can’t remember. You look up at him eager and amused, and his chest loosens.

If you didn’t know Dean so well, you’d have missed the embarrassment that shows itself in the set of his jaw. He doesn’t like being bad at things, and he’s never been good at lingering in moments that make him feel liquid inside. But he’d embarrass himself a million times over if it meant you might teach him, if it meant you might hold his hand and look at him like this.

He needed to learn this. With you, for you. He knows that tomorrow night during the reception you’ll look beautiful and glow in the company of your friends. He’d regret it forever if he passed up the opportunity to show you off to the gathered, if he failed to make you feel special. He knows your friends love you so deeply, and it makes him a certain kind of sad that they live so far away. He wants them to see that you’re well taken care of in their absence. He wants them to know he loves you, too.

You place gentle arms around his neck and his hands find the bottom of your ribcage, stiff and unsure.

“Is that how you always hold women?”

“It is when I’m dancing with them.”

You laugh. It’s strange to feel like he’s the one being picked on, but he might like it.

“Be less formal. You’re my boyfriend, remember?”

Dean’s chest could cave in. You place your hands over top of his, guiding them down to the soft place on your body just under the small of your waist, at the curve of your hips.

“Now,” your tone is conspiratorial as you wrap your arms back around his neck. “I’ll tell you the secret to being a good dancing partner.”

Dean has to keep very still in order to not squeeze the soft of your middle or sweep you against him as your face tips up to tell him.

“You don’t actually have to lift your feet.”

“Really?” This genuinely surprises him.

“Not at all. Steps are for waltzing and stuff, all you have to do is sway with me.”

You start gently, shifting your weight slightly from foot to foot.

Dean is hesitant, fighting against some rigid part of himself unused to moving with another person like this. He knows he’s being awkward and you’re poorly concealing your amusement. If it were anyone else, he would have long exited this situation. Dean Winchester is not a gentle creature. He knows how to lift and to pull, how to torque and to pry. He’s entirely unfamiliar with touching just to feel, holding just to be close. But his annoyance melts into something far more sugary when you pull yourself against him, teaching through touch.

He gets there eventually, shoulders relaxing, hands slipping lower than they maybe should. After a while he’s able to look at you instead of the ground, and it gets easier for him to relax into a sway when he can watch the way your eyes sparkle in the low light. The breeze begins to chill and he doesn’t think you notice the way you press against him that little bit more. A few songs fade into each other, minutes together passing wordlessly.

“What do you think?” He asks, finally. His voice is warm and low between you. “Is there any hope for me?”

“No.” You nearly whisper. “No, you’re absolutely hopeless.”

X

The wedding was beautiful.

Cas and Margo made an absolute picture in the summer sun and there wasn’t a dry eye to be found by the end of the ceremony. Dean is elated to be able to celebrate his friends, but he can’t help his heart’s focus from being on you.

It’s been quite a week. A week of bending boundaries and blurring lines. Dean’s been leading up until now, touching with gentle hands and moving slowly. You don’t know what your permission has done to him, your enabling of his desire to push past the line of plausible deniability. It’s made him more hungry and more reverent in equal measure. He’s indulged in you, and you let him even though you got shy sometimes. You let him hold you, you let him kiss you.

He was worried when you shied away afterwards. But then you’d danced with him last night when he asked and looked at him like you could see it too. Like you could see how easy it would be to let him love you.

Today, it’s you reaching for him. Your hand finds his in the car, your ankle hooks with his during the ceremony, your voice speaks soft words into his ear, like everything you have to say is something for only the two of you to share. He almost has you, he knows he almost has you. He’ll take you in any way you’ll let him have you, you just have to tell him how. He won’t push. He’s rushed into things before, eager to make things into something they’re not. But this isn’t like that. This is you, coming to him and letting him show you what he wants to be for you.

Dean is a picture perfect boyfriend all cocktail hour, glued to your side, speaking lowly into your ear and filling your plate with everything that looks good. He suffered question after question from your friends with a grin and never once did he look like he’d rather be anywhere else.

There is eating and there is laughter and there is music and there is a first dance. It really is a beautiful day.

You surprise Dean by asking him to dance before he can ask you. The way you look at him is playful and he rises to the occasion, twirling and dipping you with verve as you laugh. He loves this. He loves being silly with you. He’s going to be gutted if it has to end.

Dean lasts three songs before saying he needs a drink. He sits you with your friends and crosses the lawn to the makeshift bar. He watches you for a moment, hands empty, before he knows he needs a minute to think.

The front yard is quiet. Quiet enough anyway, with music and voices spilling out from behind the house. Dean wants you. He wants this, with you, more than he’s ever wanted anything in his life. And he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try to get it.

Dean knows it’s your footsteps he hears on the grass, coming around the house. You find him standing near the edge of the lawn, arms crossed as the sun starts to dip. You stand next to him, mirroring his pose and take a minute to breathe the evening air.

It’s Dean who breaks the silence first.

“How, uh– How has this been for you?”

“The wedding? It’s been magical, I don’t think anything could have gone better.”

“I meant,” He keeps his eyes on his shoes. “The boyfriend thing.”

You want to be careful. If Dean is going to let you down now, after everything, you’d rather not play all your cards.

“It was great. You could probably start a business in this.” Your voice sounds strange to you. That was meant to be a joke but it feels far too dismissive of the situation, of how meaningful this was for you. “Was it okay for you? Was I okay?”

“You were perfect.”

You turn to look at him thinking he might be poking fun, but his voice is too low. A moment stretches between you.

“Did you– Have you ever thought about us?”

It’s not like him to be so stiff with you.

“Yeah.” You say softly, but it’s all you offer.

“I do. I think of us.”

“And?” You shift on your feet, turning more fully towards him. “What do you think?”

“Sweetheart.” He says it like there’s something you’re not getting. You wait for an answer.

“I’m not a morning person. But when I woke up beside you the other day, I couldn’t fall back asleep. I thought about what a boyfriend would do for you when you were hungover but– I wanted to stay awake, so that I could be there when you woke up.”

“You always take care of me.” You hold your breath, unsure if he means what you want him to mean.

“Yeah, that’s the point.” He says gently. “It wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have done anyways.”

“You… Dean...” You say his name a little helplessly.

He says your name in response, trying not to give up on what is a difficult conversation for him to work through.

“It’s been you and me in my head for a long time now.” There’s a pause. “I don’t know what I’d be like without you but I don’t think it’d be pretty. I hope you get that. And I’m bad at this. I’m bad at the whole being open thing, but I’m also bad at pretending. Everything this week, with you, has been real for me. And so if… If you still want a boyfriend like you said, I’d like to be him.”

Dean has shoved his hands deep in his pockets, forcing himself to keep still through his confession. “You don’t have to say anything now–”

“Yes.”

“What?” He blinks.

“Yes.” You repeat yourself, barely waiting before moving. You crush yourself against him and he reciprocates, pulling you in without hesitation. You speak into his collar, the fabric of his jacket folding awkwardly between you. “Please be him. Please be mine.”

Dean doesn’t let go of you first, and his grip barely lets up as you lean back to look at him. Your eyes are doing that thing again, enchanting him beyond hope. He kisses you. He doesn’t know if you were going to say more but he can’t help himself. His hands are hot where they press against your back. His mouth is searching, his body bending yours under the weight of his kiss. Your noses squish together and you can’t stop yourself from smiling. Dean smiles to match, your teeth clicking before he pulls away.

“You mean it?”

“Of course I mean it. There’s a reason I told everyone it was you.”

You’ve never seen happiness like that on Dean’s face.

A month later, when Cas and Margo finally share the photos from their wedding day, you find one of yourselves caught in another kiss amidst other couples dancing in the grass, looking blissfully unaware of everything but each other.

Dean has it printed and framed the same day.

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