deancas first kiss, s12 au. For @deancaskiss, belatedly 🎂🎉
When Cas came back into the cabin with their bags, Dean was fiddling with a radio on a bedside table. An energetic fiddle reel disintegrated into static which was replaced with a loud voice proclaiming that many, many fine and upstanding cars were on sale for low, low, bottom basement prices--
"Enough of that," Dean said, and snapped off the radio.
"Has something happened?" Cas dropped the bags on the rather well used couch and tuned all his attention to Dean.
"No, no. I'm fine and dandy." Dean wiped his eyes, which Cas was horrified to see were a little red, a little wet.
"Are you sure?" Cas crossed the small room and laid a hand in the crook of Dean's arm.
Dean went still, looking back at him, before taking a breath. "Just a sad old country song on the radio." His voice sounded funny and it made Cas's chest ache.
"Okay." Cas pulled back his hand.
"I'm really fine." Dean's expression brightened as he looked past Cas to the window. "I think there's enough time for a walk before it's completely dark out. Wanna go with?"
"Of course," Cas said sincerely.
Dean went still again, like he was surprised at Cas's agreeing to accompany him. He broke the eye contact with a small laugh, as though he was embarrassed about something. There was a light flush across the tops of his cheeks. It was incredibly attractive, and that, Cas knew, was not something that was to be mentioned.
"Sam says he and Mary should arrive in another hour," Cas told Dean a while later, after his phone had buzzed in his pocket.
Dean nodded and kept staring out over the little lake behind the cabins. They'd taken the pebble trail that ringed the lake like a dirty pearl necklace and were seated on a big rock roughly the shape of horseshoe. Cas wished for a bit more cushioning and a less sharp breeze, but otherwise felt content. If he concentrated he could sense the warmth of Dean's body; he tried not to lean over towards it like a flower seeking sunlight.
The actual sun had drooped behind a bank of scraggly cypress and maples not yet in full leaf, their springtime samaras an almost purple hue in the fading daylight. The choppy water of the lake made clickety, whispery noises. A nuthatch in a nearby oak was either despondent or desirous, or both, and Cas felt a kinship.
"What was the song about?" he decided to ask.
Dean smiled, briefly. "Home."
"Nope, that's it, nothing else to it." Dean elbowed him. "Song just caught me the wrong way."
"The lyrics," Cas guessed.
"Yeah." Dean gave him a rueful look. "Guess I'm a little homesick too. Which is silly."
"I don't think so," Cas said. "These last couple of cases -- well, it's been nearly two weeks since we were back at the bunker."
Dean shook his head. "Sometimes home isn't so much a place-- Though I do miss our washing machine and dryer and the water pressure in the showers." He cleared his throat. "But that's not the point."
"A feeling of home," Cas started to work out. "It's about who you're with when you're there, I suppose."
"Exactly." Dean looked away. "And the thing is, I've been with my family these last two weeks. So that's been great."
"Except for the beatings," Cas posited. "And the beheadings."
Dean snorted. "Except for those."
"Despite those," Cas said, "I've enjoyed spending time with you and Sam and Mary."
"I'm glad you've been with us." Dean looked out over the water again and shivered. "I'm glad you're coming home with us too," he said quietly.
Something heavy and thorned curled in Cas's throat, for reasons he couldn't quite explain; it took him a moment to respond. "Well. So am I." His phone buzzed twice, sounding even more startled than he felt. He thumbed open the screen display and squinted at the text. "Sam says they had to detour off of I-70 and there's a bad storm moving in. They're going to try to find a room and hunker down for the night. Mary has a lead on another werewolf pack, if we want to meet them near Wamego tomorrow."
"That'd work," Dean said.
Cas sent a couple of texts and Sam sent back a thumbs up emoji.
Dean shivered again and hunched into his jacket a bit.
"We should go back to the cabin." Cas stood up and stretched while his lower back applauded his efforts. "Get you warmed up."
He hadn't meant to say something provocative; but Dean's eyes had gone dark as he watched him.
"You stash a tropical beach in one of our bags when I wasn't looking?" Dean asked, his expression changing to one of amusement so quickly Cas almost blinked.
You've been imagining things, Cas told himself. Wishful thinking isn't reality. The weight in his throat widened, scratched.
"No," he managed to say. "But I'm sure the cabin has blankets…" He trailed off as the humor in Dean's face faded to something soft and steady, that earlier stillness concentrated, giving off its own heat.
Cas found himself corralled into the v of Dean's legs, Dean holding him at the hip with his hand as he traced the outline of Cas's lower lip with his thumb. Cas didn't need to take a breath except yes he did; and either way, Dean was standing and then his mouth was on Cas's and Cas realized how lonely starvingly cold both of them had been, how chilled by the breeze and the nightfall and the years of distance that suddenly, thankfully, no longer existed between their bodies.
The first kiss became the second became the third. There would be more and more, Cas thought, dazed at the sound of Dean's gentle groan as he let Dean slip inside. It was so much better, kissing Dean, than Cas had ever let himself picture or pretend it could be. When they finally paused, for a minute, they leaned against each other and took shaky breaths and smiled, tentative and hushed. They walked back to the cabin and locked themselves in for the night. They made good use of the blankets and the rather well used couch.
"Is this what people mean by 'making themselves at home'?" Cas asked once, and Dean grinned and pulled him back into bed.
