Dean/Cas: Follow You

Dean wishes he could look you in the eye and say, “No, I’m not in love with my best friend,” but unfortunately, his Mama raised him right and that would be acting against his conscience. Of course, he’s not about to tell the world about his feelings either, so instead he settles for something in-between, namely pretending like everything is fine.

A strategy that’s sort of failing him right now.

‘I can do this,’ he thinks to himself as he sets down his duffel on the coffee table. He reaches for the badge that’s clipped to his belt, runs his fingers over its face to provide a reminder. ‘I’m a professional. I’m a professional.’

“Dean,” comes a voice from the doorway, followed by footsteps muffled by the carpet. “Let’s get the equipment set up first. Captain wants an update within the hour.”

“Sounds good to me,” Dean says a little too upbeat, mostly in an ironic attempt to sound normal. God, it’s been five minutes and he’s already screwing up. He has no idea how he’ll last four days. “So, we’ve got, um, binoculars, night vision goggles- Hey, d’you have the computer? I don’t see it in here.”

“Yup,” Cas lifts his bag, arm flexing in all kinds of stupid hot ways. Dean clears his throat and has to look away, focus his attention on their gear instead.

“How should we do this?” he asks eventually, unfolding a tripod to place by the window. “Maybe both of us on watch till nine o’clock, then take turns for eight-hour shifts?”

“Works for me,” Cas fetches the camera and walks around the sofa to stand beside Dean. The clean, subtle scent of his aftershave makes Dean want to bury his face in his neck.

Exactly the opposite of professional.

“You ever done a stakeout this long?” Dean asks, taking the camera from Cas to secure on the tripod. He and Cas have been partners for almost three years, their longest stakeouts twelve hours at the most.

“Yeah, six days at my old precinct.” Cas laughs at the memory. “We were ready to chew each other’s head off by the end of it, but then the circumstances weren’t as pleasant.” He waves at their general surroundings and Dean grins, nudging Cas’ shoulder.

“It wasn’t a boutique hotel like this one?”

“No, it was a condemned hotel, actually.” Cas smiles and opens the laptop, booting it up and watching the screen. “But I also meant the company,” he adds more quietly. “The company is better this time.”

Dean/Cas: Love Lab

Dean sees them on his way to grab a sandwich at the campus café, eye-catching flyers all crammed on a bulletin board with dozens of staples and edges overlapped. Some are for stuff he doesn’t care about, like thesis defenses for esoteric topics, but then his gaze wanders to the dollar signs and he takes a step forward to read more closely.

Paid Research Opportunity

The Love Lab in the Department of Psychology needs participants for a study on romantic relationships. To be eligible, participants must be over the age of 18; have been dating monogamously for at least six months; and currently living together. The study involves weekly interviews where both participants are present. Compensation is contingent upon satisfactory participation and each couple will receive $75 per interview.

Dean lifts an eyebrow. Seventy-five dollars for every hour or two of sitting and talking? The flyer doesn’t specify the number of interviews, but even if he blows the first one, which is probably impossible, that’s still a minimum of seventy-five dollars to put toward something other than rent.

The flyer is cut into strips at the bottom, each printed with the lab’s email and phone number. Dean takes out his phone instead of ripping one off to snap a photo of the entire page. He then stands there, sandwich forgotten, as he sends a quick email to the lab telling them that, yes, he’s interested. And once that’s done, he attaches the photo he just took to a text that reads, ‘Signed us up.’

He finds his roommate brewing tea in the kitchen when he gets home that afternoon. He lets his backpack drop to the floor as he saunters over to join him.

“Drinking your mulch again?” he teases gently, heading to the fridge and poking inside. He grabs a beer because he isn’t a hippie, thank you, and pops it open on the countertop.

“Drinking your empty calories again?” Castiel quips, curling his hand around the ceramic mug. It was a present from Sam and has the molecular structure for caffeine drawn on one side because they’re both nerds who clearly enjoy chemistry paraphernalia.

“You call it empty calories. I call it better taste.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Cas quirks his lips, amusement in his eyes. “Also, I got your text. You may have missed a little detail there.”

“What detail?” Dean frowns a little, eyeing Cas over the rim of his bottle. “We get free money for interviewing. Sounds like all the details I need to know.”

“It’s a study on romantic relationships.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Neither of us is in a relationship.”

Thanks to the incredible generosity of many, I was able to earn a spot on this year’s Dreams2Acts: Nicaragua team! Between now and November, I’ll be doing fic commissions to help pay for my trip.

DETAILS

HOW TO COMMISSION

I am not selling my rights to the fics. I reserve the right to post the fics on social media and online archives. Under no circumstances may the fics be copied or reposted.

Everything I raise will be put toward the trip and I’ll use any remaining amount to purchase school supplies for the students. Please REBLOG this post to spread the word! I will promo everyone who gives this a signal boost.

Thank you Rae (padaleckhi) for the gorgeous graphic.

Maybe I’ll write a canonverse fic where Team Free Will discovers Tumblr, and only Sam has enough self-control to curb the number of hours he spends on it. Meanwhile, Dean and Cas pretty much start blogging aggressively, and Dean gets angry because what the hell, why did he even bother with a desktop theme if it doesn’t show up on Mobile why, Cas. And Cas doesn’t care as much about his theme until he finds a cute, vintage-y bee wallpaper image on Google and promptly installs it as his header. What he does pay more attention to are his tags, and he spends 45 minutes hemming and hawing before deciding to go with #dean look (Sam snorts). Dean, on the other hand, finds it impossible to make up his mind, so he rotates between #chuckles, #huggy bear, and #for you i guess. And what ends up happening is Dean reblogging things that Cas would like and vice versa, and it gets to the point where they’re spending more time on each other’s blogs than their own. Like, sure, Dean still reblogs stuff from all the classic car and food blogs he follows, but so does Cas and his tags are far more eloquent. Cas follows mostly nature, aesthetic, and cute animal blogs, but no post makes him smile like the first kitten gif set Dean reblogged for him: #for you i guess #why do you like them so much #they may look tiny and cute ok #but don’t let that fool you man #it’s a scam.

They have tags for Sam too, #for sam and #haha, respectively. Cas actually fills his tag with healthy recipes, exercise tips, and inspirational quotes (because he’s nice). Dean’s is just every single moose post he finds.

There’s also that one time Dean accidentally reblogged Destiel meta from Marie’s Tumblr. He didn’t even notice until Cas reblogged it and PM’d him: “I am impressed by how much she knows.” But Dean wasn’t even mad until Sam reblogged it from Cas and put #casdean #what about sastiel in the tags.

And there’s that other time Crowley joined Tumblr for a bit. He was so mad that kingofhell was already taken. He had to settle for kingofhell2.

Dean/Cas: Kiss Me (On The Moonlit Floor)

Dean and Cas are actors who meet as leads in a romantic film. Following the release of their movie, they win MTV Best Kiss. They’re also secretly dating.

The screams erupt before he even has a chance to catch the names.

He claps on reflex, looking to see who he’s supposed to be cheering for. He also wonders briefly if he’s going to lose all hearing in his right ear when Sam jerks on his arm and yells, “Dude, go up there! It’s you!”

“What?” he shouts back, the noise having reached an all-time high. But then there are cameramen and someone else pushing him toward the stage, and at last it registers that he’s won. He and Cas.

“Cas.”

Dean turns to the row behind him to find his co-star rising from his seat. Cas looks good - he always does - but he’s especially gorgeous tonight, his athletic build just delectable in that t-shirt and dark, ripped jeans. Jesus Christ, ripped jeans; only Cas could get away with that kind of attire at an awards show. He could don his PJs for the Oscars and they’d probably let him through, in fact drool all over him and beg to know “who he’s wearing.”

But before Dean can laugh at his own suit and tie, Cas catches up to him in easy strides and guides him to the stage, hand pressed to his back. Dean blushes despite himself and tries ducking his head to hide it; Cas, of course, is the only one to notice and his huff of laughter is warm on Dean’s cheek. Good lord, they’re walking so close.

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