Cas glances at Dean, who is watching warily as a float of leather daddies goes by.
“Why not?” he asks, feeling a sense of trepidation. His last boyfriend wasn’t into Pride either, didn’t like that people were ‘flaunting’ their sexuality as he’d put it.
That relationship hadn’t lasted long. Cas was hoping for something different with Dean.
“Just.” Dean shrugs. He looks like he wants to bolt but his hand is still gripping Cas’ tightly, as if afraid to lose him in the colorful crowd. “I don’t belong here.”
“Why not?” Cas repeats. “You’re part of this community. Aren’t you proud of that?”
Dean snorts. “Yeah, sure. I’m thirty-five and I’ve been out for about ten minutes. There’s kids here, and people twice my age who have been coming here since they were kids, back when this Pride thing was a whole lot more dangerous.”
Relief blossoms in Cas’ chest. He tugs Dean closer, pulling him in hip to hip. He doesn’t want Dean to miss a single word.
“I’m proud of you,” he says. “It took a lot for you to come out here today but you did.” And because he can see the side-eye Dean is giving him, the protest already forming on his lips, he ducks in close and adds quietly, “And when we get home, I’m gonna reward that bravery until you can’t remember your own name.”
Dean shuts his mouth with a snap, cheeks going pink.
“...If you insist,” he finally mumbles.
Cas smiles, and turns his attention back to the festivities.
[A/N: This one, uh... got away from me, so I’m putting most of it under a jump. Length ~1.1k]
Thunk thunk thunk.
The hollow thuds of boots on wood echo under the porch as Dean kicks off the snow. He’d only walked maybe fifteen feet from his car to the steps, but man. It’s really coming down. Visibility is shit; Dean can barely see the tree line twenty paces away, and the wide spot between the trees that counts as a driveway up to this place is barely distinguishable. Thick, fat flakes whisper down with the sincere hush of midwinter. Beyond the porch, only the Impala is clear of white, her still-cooling engine melting any snow that lands on the hood. But that won’t last. Dean is already dreading having to dig her out and melt the snow off once the storm has passed over.
He just hopes Cas makes it alright.
With a final glance around at the slowly-surely-filling woods, Dean wrestles with the latch, pushes open the door, and heads into the cabin.
Inside is barely warmer than outside, but it’s dry and protected from the occasional gust of ice-chip wind. There’s no generator, but there’s a pellet stove, a couple of battery-powered shop lights, plus a coffee percolator, a pot, some rations… he’ll be fine. Cas — they’ll be fine. Dean sets about little tasks, warming the cabin, digging out blankets, sorting the food, trying to convince himself he’s not listening for the rumble of an engine, the knock of boots.
All he hears is the whoosh of the pellet stove under the whirring whistle of the rising wind. Once or twice he hears a tree creaking against its neighbor he freezes until he figures out what it is. Once it’s a wolf’s howl. Just once.
Cas had better get here soon, or Dean’s going to go out of his mind.
Twilight has dimmed the windows and the wind is quickening into a dull roar by the time Dean hears a distinct chug-chug-chug and the squeal of wet brakes. He abandons his long-cooled coffee and the wool blanket from his shoulders to step toward the window.
There’s a new snowless lump, easily recognizable as Cas’s Continental, the dome light glowing a homey yellow in the blue-washed snowscape. Dean estimates the snow has at least doubled since he got here, a good four or five inches settled on the Impala alone. He watches as Cas gets out of the car, a hunched figure against the herding of the wind, trudging slowly up to the porch.
As soon as Dean hears his footsteps echoing through the drum of the cabin’s wood, he grabs one of the shop lamps and brings it over to the door, swinging it open. Cas squints in the sudden glare.
“What kept you?” Dean asks, hauling Cas inside and knocking snow brusquely off his shoulders.
“I was followed out of town,” Cas says. “It made for a time-consuming series of detours.” He sounds bone-weary, as if he’d had to shake his assailant off by brute force. That’s not entirely out of the question, but Dean’s not going to ask for too many specifics.
“You lost him, though, right?” This is the one thing he has to know for certain. He can’t seem to stop touching. He works the snow out of Cas’s hair, unwilling, for some reason, to just let it melt, and not waiting for Cas to pull off his gloves before he tugs at the sleeves of his coat.
“Of course I — Dean, quit it.” Cas steps out of Dean’s reach, and Dean digs his nails into his palms. He focuses on hanging the shop lamp back on its hook, half-lit shadows leaping and swinging crazily until the thing settles, while Cas gets out of his wet coat. Then Dean just… stands there, swinging his arms until he shoves his hands in his pockets, while Cas’s cheeks go pink and ruddy in the sudden warmth of the pellet stove.
“There’s coffee, do you want coffee?” he asks.
That brings a relieved sigh. “Yes. Thank you,” Cas replies, and Dean clatters through the motions of heating water, adding grounds, grateful to have a task while Cas gets settled in.
By the time he can hand the cup to Cas, Cas has made himself as comfortable as he can be on the rock-solid futon that passes for the best furniture in the place. The futon that will fold out into the bed for the evening. Their bed. Dean swallows hard, then swallows again.
“Thanks for coming, man,” he says, sitting gingerly on the far end of the futon.
Cas sips his coffee, glances at Dean over the rim of the metal mug. “You said you need backup,” he says as he lowers the mug. Like it’s nothing. “Of course I came.”
Dean’s face does a funny twitch. “Yeah. Um. It’s not just that, though.”
Cas nods down at his coffee. “I know.”
There’s a long silence, just the ping of the pellets, the wind, and Cas’s slow sips of coffee.
“So you think we’ll be here til the spring thaw?” Dean asks, his levity falling flat.
Cas shakes his head. “I doubt it. This is an early storm. It’s likely to warm up enough for us to make our way back down once our business is complete.”
The wood of the floor is riddled with knots. The one right by Dean’s right foot looks ready to be knocked out. He kind of wants to kick it, but he doesn’t have the energy. “I never shoulda dragged you into this,” he says to the knot.
Cas’s mug makes a dull thud when he sets it on the wooden crate that held the blankets, and is now doing double duty as a coffee table. His hand is still warm from the coffee when his touch lands on Dean’s knee.
“You would have come up here anyway,” Cas murmurs. He watches his own hand like it belongs to someone else, a little wide-eyed, a little wild. “Probably doing something foolish like not telling anyone where you were going.” There’s a faintly accusatory note to that, and Dean finally meets his eyes.
“Did you call Sam?” he asks.
Cas nods. “I called Sam. If we’re not back in a week, he’s sending a search party.”
Dean shakes his head, laughing out a little of the tension from his shoulders. He hadn’t wanted Sam to worry, but it’s probably good to have someone who will know where to look for their bodies if this all goes sideways.
Cas’s hand is still on his knee.
“Dean,” he says at last.
“Yeah.”
Cas moves closer on the futon. He moves until their thighs are touching, knee to hip, their shoulders pressed so close Cas is starting to nudge behind him. Around him. Dean leans ever so slightly into his solidity.
Outside, the darkness continues to creep. The wind and the wolves howl; the snow buries the mountains in an ancient silence. But within their tiny pinprick of light and heat, two souls are content to disappear together.
one of the prices from my 2k followers game! this is for @tlakht, who asked for Dean and Cas retiring/already retired from hunting
They’re in a motel bathroom in the middle of bumfuck, nowhere and Cas is stitching up a nasty scratch on his arm left by a werewolf when Dean thinks, unironically, I’m too old for this shit.
It’s a thought he really should have had sooner. His back has been hurting ever since the hunt started from sleeping on the lumpy motel mattress and the only reason the werewolf even got the drop on him was because his reflexes have gotten slower. That’s not helped by the fact that his knee starts aching once it gets too humid.
Cas isn’t as bad off – he’s only been human for a couple of years so he hasn’t had the time to wear his body down yet – but even he’s been getting slower lately. And he keeps squinting in a way that makes Dean think he needs glasses.
Retiring is a damn scary thought – what’s Dean even gonna do if he’s not hunting? – but now that he’s had that realization it’s not something he can ignore. He doesn’t wanna end up getting himself and Cas killed just because he can’t admit that he’s not as young as he used to be.
He clears his throat. “I think it’s about time we retire.”
“Do you?” Cas asks mildly, not looking up from his task.
“You don’t?” Dean asks back.
Cas finishes the stitching, puts the needle down on the sink and raises Dean’s arm to drop a kiss on the smooth skin just below the wound. It’s a habit he picked up a while back and even though it stupid and sappy as hell, Dean still swears it makes him hurt just a little bit less.
“I’ve thought so for a while,” Cas says, finally looking up. He keeps his hold on Dean’s arm, rubbing his thumb softly over his wrist.
Dean starts. “You have?”
He figured that out of the two of them, Cas would have the harder time letting the hunting life go. He hasn’t been a hunter for that long but he’s been fighting his entire existence, and it’s been a hell of a lot longer than Dean’s paltry few decades.
“We’ve been getting slower,” Cas says, “and more fragile. There are a lot of ways we can help people without being on the front lines. Even ways that don’t require that we give all of ourselves to others.”
“You’d have time to work on your garden,” Dean says, because lately whenever they hit the road he’s been worrying about Cas’ little patch of herbs and whether it’ll be overrun by weeds by the time they get back home.
Cas smiles and puts his hand on the back of Dean’s neck, pulling him in for a brief kiss. He doesn’t let go once they part, resting his forehead against Dean’s and pressing his fingertips against the fine hairs on Dean’s neck.
“We would both have time to spend as we’d like.”
Dean hums. The pain in his arm feels distant now, second to the warmth suffusing his body, making him feel pleasantly tired.
Time to spend as they’d like.
Put it like that, retiring doesn’t sound so scary.
My 2k followers game is over and here are the results.
My five favorite characters are: Dean, Cas, Charlie, Claire and Ruby!
Congrats to @whelvenwings and @princessjimmynovak, who guessed all five! You guys have earned a 2k+ words fic each! Just send me your prompts whenever and I’ll get started on them as soon as I can.
I also decided, since some of y’all got so close, to hand out secondary prices as well! So everyone who got 4/5 gets a 500+ words fic each! Congrats to @tlakht, @thevorpalsword, @elizaeverafter, @super-fics, and @yeneffersalamander! Again, just send me your prompts and I’ll get started on them as soon as I can.
Thank you to everyone who participated and made this so much fun and again, huge thanks to all 2k+ of my followers!!
1st same-sex crush: At 16, I fell head over heels in love with a new friend/classmate. I always felt like I might accidentally kiss her. I've never told her, but I think she'd find it funny if I told her now. I went to her wedding a couple of years ago, fell in love with her dress, and she insisted that she'd give it to me when I get married. So when I marry, it's going to be in the same dress as her. Which... may seem a bit weird, but we've been friends way longer than my crush on her lasted :)
That is so sweet though! Honestly, best case scenario for crushing on your straight/not-interested friend.
Your first same-sex crush (if you're still awake)?
(I was not still awake! Conked out probably while you were writing that first message)
It was at summer camp when I was 13, she was my roommate. During a camp-wide hide and seek we hid together in a bush and she held my hand, and I can still vividly remember everything about that moment. We didn’t keep in contact, though, so I have no idea what happened to her.
1. favorite fic you wrote this yearI am pretty happy with the last two chapters of Anything You Can Do so I’m counting those as a ‘fic’ (since I wrote the rest of the fic the year before OH GOD it took me so long to finish).
14. a fic you didn’t expect to writeWaited for You is the closest I’ve ever come to playing the soulmate trope straight, which I didn’t ever expect from myself.
23. fics you wanted to write but didn’tSo many! Most notably I wanted to write a series of sort-of codas set from around season 8 - the present that stick to canon as closely as possible while having Dean and Cas is a budding romantic relationship. I still might get to it eventually, we’ll see.
1. The eternally classic bed sharing. Especially the ones where they end up accidentally cuddling in their sleep 😏😏
2. I’m not sure if it’s strictly speaking a trope but I love fics written from an outsider POV. Especially from a minor character only getting a brief glimpse into the lives of the protagonists.
3. Mutual pining. The angstier the pining, the better! Especially potent when combined with bed sharing or fake relationships.
4. Misunderstandings. Hate them in movies, especially rom coms, but fic writers are able to write them in ways that are enjoyable to me rather than frustrating.
5. Soulmates but only when it’s subverted in some way.
Also a couple of bonus fandom-specific tropes: Dean Smith/Endverse!Cas, human!Cas, and pon farr.
