This is my Destial holiday exchange gift for @sweetteamultifandom. Happy Holidays, I hope you like!
Prompts: Cute, Cheesy, Romantic
Rating: G except for swearing
Gabriel knows how to throw a good party and holiday get togethers are no exception. Castiel talks and drinks along with the others, drifting in a sea of Christmas music and laughter. He’s feeling so warm and fuzzy he doesn’t even object when Meg snags him beneath the mistletoe, laughing as she plants a red-lipped kiss on his cheek. “For luck,” she says with a quirky smile, and he’s had too much spiked eggnog to wonder why she isn’t pressing for more like she usually does.
Soon it’s past ten and Benny’s begging out because he has to be at the hospital in less than eight hours. The remaining guests do a solemn round of shots in his honor once he’s gone, but the party continues. Gifts are exchanged, more food and alcohol is consumed, and Gabe leads them in a particularly bad group rendition of Deck the Halls. Cas nurses his latest drink–some spiced concoction Sam pushed into his hand without explanation–and drifts from group to group looking for something he knows he won’t find.
He knows Dean has to work, he knows the Roadhouse closes late even on Christmas Eve, but Cas wants him here. It’s not the same without Dean’s off-key voice when they sing, or his laughter when Garth arm wrestles Sam and loses spectacularly. He even misses the annual ‘how many inventive ways can Jo find to proposition Dean before he dumps her in the snow’ betting pool, and that one’s pissed him off ever since Dean let slip that he only goes along with it because it makes the others laugh.
Eventually the front door bangs open to admit a bow-legged figure and a swirl of snow and frigid wind that has the group hugging themselves and each other and Sam yelling “shut the frigging door, Dean!”
“Shut up, Sammy,” Dean says amiably as he lifts his hands to display the bottles he’s carrying. “You really gonna bitch at the liquor delivery man?” His eyes are sparkling green, his cheeks pink from the cold. Gabe divests him of the alcohol, Dean strips off his outer layers, and Cas tries to collect his scattered thoughts before anyone notices they’ve gone missing.
Cas stays frozen in the door frame–the same one, he realizes distantly, that Meg had kissed him in earlier–as Dean circles through the room exchanging hugs, fist bumps, and good-natured insults. Eventually Dean makes for the kitchen. He’s laughing, half turned to look at Charlie as he walks, so he doesn’t notice Cas until they’re nearly chest to chest. Dean stumbles to a halt, then, mouth half-open.
The rest of the room fades into a golden haze. Kiss me, Cas thinks, all sense going out the window as he stares into green eyes. Fucking kiss me. It’s a fool’s hope, he knows this, but he can’t help but think it.
Dean swallows, wets his lips, his eyes drifting from Cas’s eyes to his mouth. “Cas,” he says, and he’s not laughing anymore, isn’t teasing. He’s just him, the way Cas knew him growing up, and there’s a world of uncertainty hiding in that single word.
“Hello, Dean,” Cas says. He’s breathless already, heart pounding, but before he can continue someone shoves into him from behind and he sprawls gracelessly against Dean’s chest. Dean smells incredible and Cas can feel his heart beating through his shirt. He almost puts his arms around Dean, almost asks for what he’s wanted since he knew how to want, but then Lisa’s squirming past them with a mumbled apology and the bubble bursts.
The shutters close behind Dean’s eyes with a silent bang as the other man puts Cas back on his feet. “Careful there, buddy,” he says, and though he pats Cas’s shoulder in a familiar way, he’s back to flirty bartender Dean, the distance between them suddenly far greater than the arms-length of physical space he’s created.
“Sorry,” Cas mutters as he grabs his drink off the shelf he left it on. He feels stripped bare, cold and exposed despite the cheer around him. He locks himself in the bathroom, staring at himself in the mirror and cursing. After all this time, after the effort he’s taken to hide how he feels, tonight is when he fucks it up? Merry fucking Christmas, Castiel Novak.
He looks at himself for so long his face no longer seems human, stares until someone bangs on the door and he hears Gabe yelling that there’d better not be anyone bumping uglies in his god-damn bathroom because he’ll beat their sorry asses himself.
“You okay?” Charlie asks as Cas emerges.
“Too much to drink,” he says as he pushes past her.
Charlie’s half his size, but her hand on his arm is implacable. Cas swings around, and Charlie purses her lips as she examines him. “Heartbreak’s not a good look for either of you,” she says after an uncomfortably long pause. “Fix it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you don’t.” Charlie punches his arm, then disappears into the bathroom with a muffled “seeya, Buffy.”
“I don’t understand that reference,” Cas complains at the peeling paint before turning on his heel and walking back to the living room. Pretty much everyone is engrossed in a game of Cards Against Humanity when Cas emerges so it takes remarkably little effort to don coat, hat, and gloves and slip out the door unnoticed.
Cold air envelopes him as soon as the door closes. It’s quiet the way it only gets when it snows, a silent shroud that soothes him despite the chill. He exhales slowly, then moves forward. He’s not sure where he’s going, but when he gets to the treehouse he and Dean played in as children he climbs up the crooked ladder as if that’s where he’d intended to be all along.
When his head pops through the open trap door he finds the house is already occupied. Dean is facing the opposite wall, one foot drawn up so his crossed arms can rest on his knee. “What are you doing here?” Cas asks, and Dean nearly falls over as he twists around. Cas’s feet are still on the ladder and the silence stretches for so long he contemplates simply climbing back down and pretending none of this ever happened.
“I- this was our place,” Dean says. “Remember when we were kids, Cas?”
“Yes,” Cas says hesitantly. “We played outlaws up here.” He realizes belatedly there’s a candle on the makeshift table, flickering fitfully in the draft, and wonders where Dean got it from. It looks an awful lot like the ones they pilfered from Mary’s junk drawer years before.
“Yeah. Cowboys and outlaws. Jesse James, at your service.” He tips an invisible hat, and Cas’s lips twitch upward despite his confusion. “It seems so far away,” he adds, and Cas gets the impression he’s not just talking about the years between.
It’s difficult to get his adult body into the room, but Cas scrambles in anyway. They end up so close their thighs nearly touch, but Dean doesn’t move. “Why are you here, Dean?” Cas asks again.
“You know you’ve barely touched me since you went to college,” Dean says, his voice oddly subdued. “We used to roll around like monkeys as kids, but then you went away and got a degree and when you came back there was a- a wall. It feels weird even passing you a coffee cup lately.”
“We grew up,” Cas begins in a tired tone, but Dean interrupts him.
“No, that ain’t it. You touch Sam. Charlie, Garth…even Benny, but me-” Dean gives a choked off laugh. “You can hardly be in the same room as I am; don’t think I haven’t noticed. I tried to ask why, once, and you gave me that blank stare and told me to go to bed.”
“We were drunk,” Cas replies. We were drunk, and I couldn’t bear rejection. Not from you. Not like that. Not ever. There’s an ache in his chest and it’s spreading outward, threatening to consume him. “I would’ve talked about it later, if you’d asked when you were sober.” I might have. Maybe. “I didn’t even know you remem—”
“I’m sober,” Dean observes, and Cas snaps his mouth shut mid-word. The sandy-haired man looks so damn sad it rips his heart out, and he doesn’t know what to say. “What did I do, Cas? Why do you hate me?”
The idea is so absurd that Cas actually laughs, although between the alcohol he’s had and his own nerves, it sounds vaguely hysterical. “I don’t hate you, Dean,” he says once he has a handle on himself again. “I could never.”
Dean might not be drunk, but Cas definitely is. His dizzy mind is murmuring how easy it would be to finally let it all go and stop hiding. It’s a particularly alluring thought; it takes less than a breath to give in. “It was better to be distant than lose you completely,” he whispers, letting his head fall against the wall behind him. He feels bare again, but he can’t look away from Dean’s steady gaze. “I’m- I’m in love with you. Have been forever, but you…” He trails off, squeezing his eyes shut.
The tree house is far too small for a grown man to move quickly, yet one moment Cas is worried he’s about to get decked, and the next there are hands in his hair and legs straddling his thighs and his head is bouncing off rough wooden planks as Dean’s mouth assaults his own. Cas barely remembers to tug his gloves off before his hands are cradling Dean’s face and he’s returning the kiss with everything he’s got.
Dean’s mouth feels and tastes like home; it’s soft and warm and wet and everything Cas has ever dreamed about. He can’t believe this is real. It has to be a dream, because things this good don’t happen in real life. They just don’t. Only…it doesn’t stop, he doesn’t wake up, and pretty soon the tip of Dean’s tongue is caressing Cas’s lips, gently requesting entry. Heat sparks and arcs like a live wire through Cas’s body as he opens his mouth. He gives in to the feeling without hesitation, arching up to meet Dean touch for touch.
Eventually Dean pulls away and Cas objects with a nonverbal whine, his fingers clutching at the other man’s body. Dean chuckles, low and sultry, and Cas opens his eyes to find himself looking into endless green only inches from his own. “You glorious,” Dean dives in for another kiss as if he can’t stop himself, “blind,” another kiss, “fucking,” Dean bites at his bottom lip and Cas sees entire galaxies, “idiot.” His mouth strays downward, nipping and licking along Cas’s jaw until Cas is gasping for breath.
Dean pauses with his lips hovering near Cas’s ear. “I love you, too,” he whispers, his voice low and rough, shaking like he’s afraid he’ll be pushed away even now. An earthquake couldn’t have forced Cas to let go; if anything, his grip tightens. “I always have, Cas. Always.”
There’s only one way to respond to that, really, and Cas thinks his heart might actually burst when their lips meet again.
They make out in the tree house until their fingers and asses go numb from the cold and they have to concede victory to the snow. When they finally go inside, Meg takes one look at their red-nosed, starry-eyed faces and shrieks “I fucking knew it,” before making a ‘give me the money’ gesture at Jo. It takes Cas a full five minutes to realize the fuckers had made a betting pool about him this year, but by that time he’s received so many hugs and “it’s about time”s that he can’t make himself be upset about it.
Eventually Dean pushes them all away, insisting he needs to give Cas his Christmas present. He pulls Cas over to the kitchen door by both hands, laughing and cursing as their friends start to heckle them from behind. Once they’re there, Cas looks up at the mistletoe pinned to the door frame, then at Dean, who is clearly ready to make a big deal out of the moment. Warmth floods him and somehow it’s Cas who ends up smashing Dean against the wall, mistletoe forgotten as they both try to make up for a lifetime of missed opportunities.
Gabe throws a damn good party, but Cas isn’t sorry to miss the rest of this one.
