“This isn’t the worst thing you’ve ever done,” Meg says. “But-“
“Yes, it is,” Castiel says into the bar, the comforting bar, the one he’s pressed his face into so he doesn’t have to see any other living human being. “It is the worst thing I’ve ever done.”
“Didn’t you go through a phase when you were a teenager of stabbing your siblings with forks?”
“Didn’t you accidentally burn down a church?”
“You didn’t let me finish my sentence.” Meg clears her throat. “This isn’t the worst thing you’ve ever done. But it is the funniest.”
Castiel groans inarticulately into the comforting, sturdy, mahogany bar.
“It’s not the funniest way you coulda done it. I’ve been thinking about it carefully and I think the funniest way you coulda done it is either if the Ken Doll had to lead into the Westminster Dog Show or another Three Mile Island. Sports, you know, it’s good, but it’s no Westminster Dog Show or another Three Mile Island.”
“You’re my most peculiar friend.”
“I’m not letting a guy who casually uses the word peculiar score points off me.”
Meg thwacks him on the arm. Castiel grunts and otherwise ignores her. She hits him again, harder. He grunts louder. She punches his arm, hard, and Castiel lifts his head. “Meg, I’m going to fucking smite you if you don’t stop-“
Meg gestures and Castiel looks up to see Dean standing there, hands in the pockets of his winter coat, Charlie at his elbow.
“Hi,” Castiel answers, thinking about dropping his face back onto the bar. “Hello, Charlie.”
“Hey, loser.” Charlie smiles sweetly at Meg. “Hi, Meg.”
Dean twitches. “Can we talk?”
“Who, little old me?” Meg asks, cocking her head.
“I don’t have the capacity to deal with you tonight, Bitch Barbie,” Dean snaps. “So can you just-“
“Let’s talk,” Castiel cuts in. “There’s an alley out behind the bar.”
They file into the alley, Castiel shrugging into his coat on the way. Once they get out to the alley, Castiel leans against the brick, folding his arms. They stand there silently for a moment.
“See the news tonight?” Dean asks, faux jovially. Castiel shoots him a look. “Uh. Sorry.”
“We’re being memed to death on Twitter.”
“Yeah, Jody’s pretty stoked. She says it’s good publicity.”
Dean visibly struggles for a moment before bursting out with “Cas, why did you do that, man?”
“I didn’t plan it,” Castiel snaps. “It just kind of happened.”
“Why did it have to just kinda happen on air?”
“You just-“ Castiel purses his lips. “You laughed, and I-“
“I laughed? Big deal, I laugh on air all the time.”
“No, you-“ Castiel sighs. “I made that stupid little joke, the one where I pronounced the Beatles funny, and you laughed, and you meant it. It wasn’t an on camera laugh, it was a real laugh, and I watched the way your eyes crinkled and I watched the way you grinned and I just… forgot about the cameras, and I forgot about the crew, and I forgot about the audience, and I thought if you don’t tell him now you never will. So I did.” Dean looks away. “Listen, I’ll… I’ll talk to Jody. She can bump Charlie up, you two already have good chemistry, so-“
Dean gives him a baffled look. “The hell are you talking about?”
“I’m saying I can make this easy. We’ve been doing this for eleven years, I have some money saved up, so I can-“
“Hang on, hang on, hang on, you’re gonna quit your job because you-“ he twitches. “Because of what happened?”
“Well, how’s that supposed to make me feel?”
Castiel throws his hands up. “I’m doing this because of how you feel!”
“You-“ Dean gestures. “You are the dumbest son of a bitch I have ever met.”
Castiel wonders if they would be memed more or less if he socked Dean in the jaw. “Good talk, Dean.” Castiel pushes himself up off the wall. “I’m going to go continue my bender, so-“
Dean steps forwards, takes Castiel’s face in his hands and kisses him, pushing him back against the wall. Castiel scrambles for a second before he firmly plants his hands on Dean’s hips. He’s thought about this extensively and there’s no bad way to grab onto Dean when kissing him but he’s always thought highly of his hips.
Dean pulls back, close enough that Castiel can see the stray snowflake catching his eyelashes.
“There’s stuff I wanna say,” Dean says.
“Okay,” Castiel answers, a little breathless.
“I wanna. I wanna tell you that I love you, and that, that I’ll burn a bridge down before I let you walk away from the studio, and I wanna say all this stuff about how I’ve loved you for years, and how you make me a better man, and all that kinda stuff, but mostly. Mostly I just wanna kiss you. I’ve wanted to kiss you all night, I’ve wanted to kiss you for eleven years, and I just- if I can tell you all that stuff later, can we just-“
Castiel winds a hand into Dean’s hair and drags him in.
(Jody sternly tells them the next morning, after the pic a passerby snapped makes its way to Twitter, that there is in fact better ways to get PR than Castiel giving Dean a hickey)