Dean opens the note, punches the numbers in his phone. His thumb hovers over ‘call’ but he backspaces instead. He does this so much the paper starts to wear so he writes the number on a backup piece of paper just in case.
“Or, you know,” Sam says, looking over his shoulder at the kitchen table. “You could just program it into your phone.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Dean says.
Sam shrugs. “You could just call him.”
Dean shakes his head. Like its that easy. Sure, Cas gave him his number, but he’s still a freakin’ pop idol. He probably gives his number out to a thousand people. His phone probably rings twenty-four seven.
“I think you should call him,” Sam says and walks past him, further into the kitchen to the fridge. He comes out with two bottles of beer and places one in front of Dean.
Dean puts his phone aside. Later, he decides.
It takes Dean a full week to finally build up the nerve. He locks himself in his room. He psychs himself up: after all, what’s the worst that could happen? Cas says he isn’t interested? Is that any worse than what’s happening now, with Dean torturing himself? Dancing with the unknown?
So Dean unfolds the piece of paper again. The corners are worn but the ink is still legible. He unlocks his phone and presses the numbers.
“No big deal,” he tells himself.”Just another guy.” He hits the call button before he can think not too.
No big deal.
Then the phone starts ringing.
And of course its a big deal. Cas is gorgeous and talented and famous. And Dean - who is Dean? Some small town mechanic? How does that compare?
The ringing stops and so does Dean’s breathing.
“Hello?” says a deep, gravelly voice that Dean knows instantly.
Dean swallows. He can’t do this. Except its too late because he already did. “Um, yeah. Hey.” He clears his throat. “You, um, probably don’t remember me, but -“
“Hello, Dean,” Cas says and Dean’s brain comes to a screeching halt.
“You... you remember.”
“Of course.” Cas makes it sound so simple. Like, why wouldn’t he remember the name of this guy he met twice for all of five minutes? Of course, he says.
“I, uh, yeah. How... How are you?”
“I’m well,” Cas says. “And you?”
“Good,” Dean says, nervousness ebbing, if only a little, because Cas sounds like he genuinely wants to know, and he remembered. Yet in his pauses, Dean can hear cheering, distant, a low rumble through the phone. “Are you at a show?”
“Yes, well,” and Cas sounds embarrassed now. “I didn’t want to miss your call.”
“Cas.” Dean can’t quite believe it. “Did you stop a show to take my call?”
A pause. “No?” Cas says, after too long to be believed.
Happiness swells and bubbles out of Dean in a loud, sudden laugh.
Cas laughs too, and it takes a long moment for them both to stop. “I have to go.”
“You better,” Dean says.
With a smile in his voice, Cas asks, “May I call you after?”
“You better,” Dean says again, softer.
A quick goodbye, and they hang up.
Dean stares at his phone for a while. He’s grinning like an idiot and does not care at all.
In the hallway, Sam sees him and claps him on the shoulder. “About time.”
Dean rips the paper into pieces and saves the number in his phone.
(popstar!cas/fan!dean part 5. read parts 1/2/3/4 or on Ao3)
"He probably didn’t want to wake you," Sam says when Dean sits down to lunch. "No big deal."
Dean places his phone on the table in front of him and waits for it to light up.
"I’m sure he’s just busy," Sam says later, as he sets their table for two, and Dean’s at the stove, watching his phone on the counter. "Doesn’t he have a show tonight?"
At midnight, Dean’s sitting in the same spot on the couch he had with Cas, watching television and his phone on the coffee table at once.
"Dean," Sam says from the doorway to his bedroom.
Dean calls over his shoulder, "Yeah, Sammy?"
"You’ve watched this same infomercial three times."
Dean blinks. Is that what’s on? He hadn’t noticed.
"You should go to bed," Sam says. He starts to close his door, then stops. "He had a long day. He probably fell asleep."
Dean flips the remote over in his hands. "Yeah. You’re right."
Sam says goodnight and closes his door. Dean turns off the television, drops the remote next to his phone, and buries his face in his hands.
Sam’s right. Everything is probably fine.
But if that’s true, why does he feel like he ruined everything?
He sleeps on the couch, not wanting to go into the bedroom where Cas had been. Maybe he’ll wake up tomorrow to find today had been a dream. He reaches for his phone, checks his texts and his messages. Nothing new. He drops the phone on his chest.
He watches the ceiling fan and the dust coating the blades.
He doesn’t sleep. The phone doesn’t ring.
He flips over on the couch, but he can’t find a comfortable position. Soon, he’s on his back again, and how did he let that fan get so dusty?
Abandoning sleep, he grabs the duster from the closet, stands on the couch and cleans the blades. Satisfied, he hops of the couch. Dust covers the television and the coffee table. So Dean cleans them too. He dusts the pictures on the wall, the family portrait of him, Sam, and Mom. He dusts the bookcases, of his favorites, of Sam’s, and Sam’s textbooks. He dusts until not a speck is left.
Then he gets the vacuum.
"Dean!" Sam says, and Dean presses the button to turn it off. "It’s 3 in the morning."
"Dirt never sleeps, Sam." Dean starts it again.
Sam throws his hands in the air. Dean stops the vacuum again.
"Don’t complain," Dean says. “Make yourself useful and help me move the couch.”
Dean can’t remember the last time he cleaned under there. They are likely to find some kind of live animal or supernatural creature.
Sam grumbles but helps. He takes one end of the couch as Dean grabs the other, and together they move it back a few feet.
The dirt has built up thick, along with some change and what look to be half a sandwich. But sitting on top of it all, is a note on crisp white paper. A name written on top, Dean.
Dean recognizes that handwriting from a note not that long ago, with a number and a message, No more dreaming.
Sam reaches for it first. He holds it out for Dean. It’s a piece of stark white computer paper folded in half. His name is written carefully. When had Cas done this? Had he slept at all that night?
"I don’t want it," Dean says, because he would rather face silence than rejection.
"It’s 3 in the morning, Dean," Sam says, sighing, and shakes the paper. "Find out either way and go to bed.” His grip tightens and the note starts to crinkle.
Dean takes it before he can ruin it further.
When Sam leaves the room, Dean sits on the couch with the note on his knee, and waits for his heart to slow down and his breath to catch up.
When neither happens, he opens the note anyway and reads,
Dearest Dean,
Perhaps this is too fast, and you want to take things slow. But I must be true to my heart, and my heart must be true to you.
I am falling in love with you.
I am a coward who fears your reaction, so I will wait for your call. If it is too soon, if I am moving too quickly... You needn’t say it back. You needn’t say anything, if you don’t wish to.
I will wait.
Yours,
Cas
Dean reads the note again. And a third time, gaze snagging over love. In love. With you.
It can’t be right, but it is there. Right there, in Cas’s own handwriting.
Then, slowly, his mind registers, I will wait for your call.
No.
He wouldn’t.
I will wait.
He would. He totally would.
Cas hasn’t called. Because he’s afraid of rejection?
Dean wants to laugh at the absurdity of it. But then, his treacherous heart whispers, Haven’t you done the same?
No. It is totally different. He could have woken Dean up. They could have talked about it. They could have -
Dean reaches for his phone. It’s three in the morning. He should wait for a more reasonable hour. Still, he unlocks his phone. He searches for Cas in his contacts.
Yet before he can click call, his phone starts ringing. Cas’s smiling face is on Dean’s screen, a candid moment he stole during dinner, Cas holding up his burger. So entranced with the screen, Dean doesn’t remember clicking accept. But he must, because the phone is to his ear, and Cas is talking faster than Dean has ever heard him.
"I’m so sorry to call so late," he’s saying, strained, desperate. "I’m sorry, too, if my call is altogether unwelcome. But I couldn’t leave it. I know I said I would, but I couldn’t. I have to know what you are thinking." He takes a shaking breath, or maybe that’s Dean. Maybe it’s both of them. "Dean, please." Dean’s name is heartbreak so raw, Dean aches.
"Wake me up next time," he manages, somehow, words punched out of him.
A silence falls, lengthy and unsure.
"Will... there be a next time?" Cas asks, hope taking hold now, growing like a flower in his voice. And this hurts Dean more, because how could Cas ever think this would be the end of them?
"Cas," Dean says. He’s not good with these kind of feelings, never had been before anyway. But with Cas... Dean finds it’s not so hard to say, “I’m falling for you too.”
Cas exhales sharply, then starts laughing. Dean laughs too, in relief. In love.
"You were sleeping so peacefully, I didn’t have the heart to wake you" Cas admits later, after Dean told him about his terrible day and Cas confessed to Dean that he wrote an entire ballad this afternoon about lost love.
"Next time," Dean says, stern. "I don’t care how cute I am, you wake me up." A pause. "You tell me you love me to my damn face."
And Cas, smile in his voice, promises, "Yes, Dean."
Dean frames the note and hangs it above his desk.
Two months later, Cas gets out of a taxi, runs across the lawn into Dean’s open arms, and says, “I love you, Dean Winchester.”
Parallels - Or how Sam found himself in a telenovela
“Sammy!”
“What, Dean?”
“Just… Would it be possible for you to be quiet?”
“I was just walking…?”
“Then walk quietly!” Dean hissed and turned his attention back to the laptop screen.
Totally confused, Sam stilled in his steps. Actually, Sam was on his way from the television to the kitchen where he wanted to grab himself an apple. But by passing his older brother his curiosity was awoken and now he had to give in to the need of filling it with information. Approximately, Dean was just watching Asian porn.
As quiet as possible Sam moved to his brother and peeked over his shoulder.
Oh, sure. If Dean wasn’t watching porn or pictures of Cas (what was almost the same for Dean in Sam’s opinion), he was fangirling over Dr. Sexy. How could he forget?
“Sam!” Dean barked once again and paused the video, staring at Sam like he was an intruder and okay, maybe Sam was one but hey – since when was curiosity a crime?
“I’m trying to watch the trailer for the upcoming season… Do you have anything against it?”
“What? No! Do what you can’t leave. I have enough romantic tragedies in reality to watch.” Sam giggled and was just about to head to the kitchen when Dean gripped his forearm and eyed him suspiciously.
“What do you mean, Sammy?” Dean asked carefully like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to hear Sam’s answer or would rather play deaf and ignore every word that would possibly leave his mouth.
But like the little asshole Sam was he had an even better idea than talking to his brother. He would show him!
“Press the play button, Dean.” Sam demanded. Dean, however, just furrowed his brows, clearly not trusting his brother.
So Sam sighed exaggeratedly and went for it. The video continued and immediately Dean’s eyes were glued to the screen.
And yes, of course Sam was right.
He had to observe the main character with his ridiculous cowboy boots – Dr. Sexy like Sam had picked up from Dean – staring at a pretty nurse – Kate if Sam recalled correctly (according to the trailer she was the long-term love interest of Dr. Sexy) – every time the girl would turn away.
In the next sequence said nurse was even flirting with other guys but guess what? She was only flirting when Dr. Sexy was near.
After some fucking scenes of Dr. Sexy and Kate with various people – of course, they didn’t fuck each other; that would just relieve the tension, Sam thought sarcastically – they were again staring at each other, not saying a word, not confessing their feelings. There even was a poor guy – probably a colleague of Kate? – who had to witness the whole staring thing and Sam felt bad for the man even though he knew all too well how he felt.
The video ended with Dr. Sexy and Kate looking at each other from different sides of the hospital floor.
Dean sighed after the video closed. Obviously he hoped that Sam would have forgotten Dean’s question by now.
“Cas is Dr. Sexy and you are Kate.” Sam stated matter-of-factly.
A very speechless, terrified looking and blushing Dean was staring at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You two are always looking at each other like that. Like Dr. Sexy and Kate. Maybe that’s why you keep watching that dumb series. Maybe your subconsciousness is trying to get the message to your brain that you’re in love with Cas. Maybe you already know it but think that he will never reciprocate your feelings and so you’re watching the romance between two fictional characters and dreaming what could be.”
“Or maybe you’re just crazy, Sam.” Dean responded weakly, trying to sound casual but failing miserably.
“No, no, no, Dean. Don’t make this about me! I’m good, just tired of your and Cas’ lovesickness. Cas is your Dr. Sexy and you are Kate.”
“I’ve never heard such a stupid comparison.” Dean huffed after closing his laptop a little bit too harsh.
“That doesn’t make it any less true! I’m right and you know it! How long has it been since you got laid? Since you wanted to get laid?”
“What the fuck, Sammy? We’re not talking about my sex life.” Dean hissed while standing up, trying to stare Sam down.
“Yeah, of course.” Sam replied ironically. “Since when are you so frigging discreet with your sex life?”
“I’m leaving. That’s… you’re childish.” Dean mumbled, pushing his giant of a brother out of the way and walking out of the living room.
“I am childish???” Sam shouted after Dean. “YOU ARE KATE! YOU KNOW IT’S TRUE! YOU ARE KATE!”
Dean had obviously chosen to ignore the screams of his brother when another voice joined Sam’s monologue.
“Would that make me Dr. Sexy, Sam?”
Sam turned his attention to the voice behind him. There was Cas, watching with a frown the trailer of Dr. Sexy he and Dean had just watched moments ago.
And Sam could kiss Cas for his sudden appearance and innocent question as Sam saw out of the corner of his eye how Dean froze in the middle of walking away.
“HA! OTP CANON!” Sam jumped enthusiastically.
(And no – of course Sam didn’t read fanfiction based on the Winchester gospels.)
