Be Mine, this Quarantine
"Dude." Dean nervously chuckles, scrubbing his face with his hand. The other one holds the phone to his ear. "I haven't even been able to ask this guy out to dinner. And you're asking me to ask him to go into isolation with me?"
"You're being dramatic again." Sam tells him, matter-of-factly, as if Dean's the one being unreasonable here.
Sam is the one who specifically called him on a Sunday from California to remind him to self-isolate, but "do it with someone like Castiel, okay?" - like he's supposed to be taking care of his older brother from fucking Stanford, like Dean knows anyone else like Cas, and like he's ever going to be able to propose something of that sort to Cas.
"He has a third-floor apartment." Sam points out, revisiting all of his super valid points. "You share a dorm with three other guys. And he just seems like the kind who'd be the correct amount of a germophobe." Dean rolls his eyes - although he also agrees. "Dean, you share so many classes with him that if nothing else, you could revise your entire semester together - and to top it all off, you're like best friends."
Benny comes to Dean's head and he starts to protest.
"You text him, Dean." The eyeroll and bitchface are audible in Sam's voice. "You, who exits all text chains you've ever been added to because quote unquote you're not an adolescent teenager with a celebrity crush, or looking to be catfished - you, Dean Winchester, text Cas."
That - wasn't far from the truth.
He wouldn't call them texting buddies or anything, but Castiel always sends a good morning text, and Dean always sends him a picture of his breakfast (because that's what he's up to by the time Castiel wakes up) and sometimes Dean's late for class because he lost track of time while talking to Cas, and sometimes they stay up all night together discussing the most inconsequential things like why mattresses matter to Dean and bees matter to Cas, and - yeah. He should probably call them texting buddies.
"Whatever, bitch." Dean throws back, taking the small losses his way as long as he wins the final battle. "Fine, we're friends. That doesn't automatically mean we'll be able to live together."
"You cannot actually mean that." Sam scoffs. "You're the best kind of neat freak I know, because you just end up doing all the tidying up by yourself. And you can cook." Dean huffs. "Admit it, jerk. Compatibility in a shared living space shouldn't be your concern."
Sure, Sam makes some good points, but Dean has the biggest card up his sleeve - which will trump all of Sam's meticulously presented arguments.
He's sorta in love with Cas.
But to say out loud to his little brother, it comes out as, "What if Cas doesn't want me there?"
Sam pauses.
Point, Dean Winchester.
"That's exactly why you need to talk to him." He finally says, but he sounds more thoughtful like it finally entered his twenty two year old brain that Cas might not want to shack up with Dean.
"Like hell, I will."
"I swear on your bullshit, Dean," Sam threatens. "I won't hesitate to take a cheap-ass flight, straight to Cas's apartment."
Dean balks. "You're not getting on any planes right now, Sammy -"
"And you're asking him." Sam declares, and if he were in front of Dean, he'd be crossing his arms on his chest which usually implies the end of a debate in Sam-the-to-be-lawyer speak. "Promise me."
"What will I even say?" Dean retorts, indignant. "Like, do I just go up to the guy like 'hey, wanna have me impose on you for a bunch of weeks?'" Sam snickers like Dean's trying to be funny. "'I promise to clean and make you food if you let me live with you during a pandemic'?"
"Something like that." Sam laughs, and Dean has to smile - because that doesn't happen very often and when it does, it reminds him of a past where they were much closer than California and Kansas. "Tell me how it goes, okay?"
"Nothing's going -"
"You promised."
"I didn't fucking promise a thing -"
The line clicks, and Sam is gone. Dean lands back on his bed, and wonders briefly if it'd be easier to die.
*
He calls Cas - because they're not goddamn texting buddies, no matter what Sam says - and asks if he's free for lunch.
Cas says yes and actually sounds excited about it.
*
When Dean reaches their usual diner, he takes longer than usual to park the Impala - all the while thinking about how he's going to frame the question to Cas, because he's fought it out with himself and knows that he's going to do it. He'd also taken longer than usual to drive there from the University apparently, because when he reaches, Cas is already there.
He's sitting on a table for two - probably just because that allows him to have a seat against the wall and Cas is kind of adorable about small things like that - and he's slumping over his phone.
But he puts it down when Dean approaches, and as Dean takes off his jacket, Cas puts his phone back in his jeans and uses his fingers to fidget instead. When Dean sits, a little amused, Cas is the one who speaks up first and in a hurry.
"Would you like to quarantine with me?"
Dean blinks. He takes a moment to think and then asks, "Did Sam get to you?"
"Uh, your brother Sam?" Cas frowns, shaking his head. "No, why would he?"
"Nevermind." Dean believes him. Though he cannot believe what just happened.
"So?"
"Oh." He's supposed to give an answer, because Cas doesn't know how much Dean's been thinking about it. Though, in his defense, most of the time, Cas tends to be so goddamn intuitive that Dean feels like he can read his mind.
Nonetheless, Dean tries to answer as casually as he can. "Yes. I mean, of course. Thank you for asking."
That's Dean Winchester in a sentence.
He tries to shoot for the normal, and ends up in affirmative-response-to-a-promposal territory.
"Are you sure?" Cas asks, sounding slightly less sure than before.
Did you not hear me say 'of course, thank you for asking' after that yes?
"Yeah, buddy." He pulls the menu from Cas's side of the table to his, sliding it on the table. "So what are we eating?"
"I'm not forcing you into this, am I?" Cas interrupts, hand on Dean's wrist jolting his attention back and ruining his complete 'casual' cover, because now Dean's sweating too. "Just because I asked, and just because we're friends - you don't have to say yes to anything, okay?"
"I know that." Dean gives Cas his best reassuring smile, though it's a little non-assured from his own core.
"I wake up late and I'm not sure when I sleep." Cas confesses, eyes worried. "The flat is clean only because I stuff everything in the closets. And I have a neighbor - you remember Balthazar, right? He just returned from France."
"How long ago is 'just'?" Dean repeats, and then adds. "And frankly I'd assumed he was simply being pretentious when we met."
"Two months." Castiel bites his lip. "And he is. The accent is fake."
"We'll survive." Dean announces, grinning broader. "Plus I can't wait to hear that guy minus the accent now."
Castiel makes an exasperated sound.
"Cas, how do I put this?" Dean sighs, knowing that things would eventually come to this. "I would be grateful if you'd let me stay with you, and -"
"Sometimes I wander around the house with my cat past midnight." Cas volunteers, out of the blue.
Naked?
Dean's brain jumps there and then he drags it back from the gutter - or, you know, the land of tempting imaginable scenarios.
"I want to live with you, you dumbass."
Cas pauses like that's at all surprising. "You do?"
"I was literally trying to figure out how to ask." Dean rubs the back of his neck, feeling his face heat up. "And then you did, okay? And then I said yes, and I wanted us to not talk about it all lunch because later we're going to have important shit to figure out like food and beer and toilet paper and -"
"When exactly you'll move in." Cas offers, and when he puts it like that, a little bit of Dean melts.
"Uh-huh."
"Okay." Cas smiles, and finally it's that smile - eyes all crinkled, nose all scrunched up, the very definition of gummy - and fuck, Dean's very much in love with him and has just dug himself a huge, apartment-shaped hole, but he'd fucking like to live with him too, and he's a fucking liar if he isn't being a little hopeful about it too.
"We'll not talk about it." Cas declares. "And before, you'd asked me what we were eating?"
Dean nods.
"Well, I asked the waitress for recommendations for something memorable and she offered me the specials menu." Cas says, innocent as though everyone in the city doesn't know not to ask for the specials' menu at Reed's diner.
Dean starts to pray.
"So, kale pecan pesto." Cas announces. "And yes, I had to Google what that is later and no, I'm not showing you."
"God-fucking-dammit, Cas." Dean glares at him. "These might be our last diner meals for the foreseeable future, I don't want to have rabbit food -"
And then Cas winks at him like that's something he's allowed to do, and Dean's suddenly flustered again - and if that isn't an apt summary of how living with Cas is going to be like, he doesn't know what is.
