Chapter Text
“Am I going to regret this?” Cas asked from the passenger seat.
They’d just pulled up outside Dean’s grandmother’s house, a tidy Craftsman bungalow painted a cheerful yellow. It didn’t look threatening; there was a porch swing with crocheted cushions and a cement statue of a goose on the porch. The goose was wearing a rain slicker and hat the same color as the house.
But Dean knew that it wasn’t the architecture that was worrying Cas. The guy didn’t get family, is the thing—he just had his alcoholic dad and an asshole uncle or two, none of whom he spoke to unless forced. And okay, Dean’s dad was a drunk, too, but he still had Mom, and his little brother Sammy, and his dad’s old man, Henry, out in Phoenix, and Grandma Campbell down here in Derby. Which doesn’t even touch all the people he calls family who aren’t blood related, like Ellen and Bobby and Jo. For Dean, family means everything. For Cas, it means jack shit.
Probably, Dean thought, he should’ve counted Cas in the same category as Bobby; they’ve been thick as thieves for seven years, ever since they met working at the Gas & Sip after Dean dropped out of college. He never expected to have a best friend in his thirties, that always seemed like kid stuff, but he couldn’t deny that his bond with Cas was deeper than what he’d got with Benny or Garth. Really, then, he should’ve thought of Cas as adopted family—it shouldn’t even matter that he had sex dreams (and daydreams, okay) about the dude on a regular basis, he’d actually made out with Jo a couple of times and she still felt like kin—but he couldn’t. So he just let Cas be his own category, and he tried not to think about fucking him while Cas was in the room. Or the car.
“It’s gonna be fine, Cas,” Dean said now. “We’re gonna pick up that shit Mom wanted, and help Gram move some furniture into storage before she moves to the old folks’ home next week. Easy-peasy.”
“Retirement community,” said Cas.
“What?”
“She’s moving to a retirement community. That’s what they call them now, no one calls them old folks’ homes.”
“Old folks do! That’s what she called it when she called.”
Cas shrugged. He kept staring at the house like he expected the walls to start dripping blood. “Okay,” he said, “is there anything I need to know before I meet her?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” Cas said. His voice was detached and calm as always, but he’d started drumming on one thigh with long, nervous fingers. “Is she going to expect me to call her ma’am, or take my shoes off at the door, or maybe she’s got a yappy little dog I’ll have to pretend isn’t humping my leg. That kind of thing.”
Reaching over, Dean stilled Cas’s hand with his own. (He could ignore the tingle that ran up his arm when he touched him; after all, he had a lot of practice ignoring his attraction to Cas.) “Yes shoes, no dog. She’s got a fat old tuxedo cat named Francis, sits on his ass all day, he’ll ignore you unless you have tuna. And you can probably just call her Deanna, dude, that’s her name.”
“You’re named after your grandmother? I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah, well, that’s why I’m her favorite. Now come on, Cas, it’s gonna be fine.”
Cas unloaded the trunk while Dean got of the food his mom had sent with them—a pie carrier and a tote bag full of Trader Joe’s stuff, since there wasn’t one here. Apparently their duffels had slipped towards the front of the car, because Cas was still reaching for them when Dean came around the back of the car; Dean stared helplessly at Cas’s taut, athletic ass as he bent over, idly imagining what it would feel like filling his hands while Cas drilled into him…nope. He shook off the thoughts as best he could.
They weren’t even halfway down the walk, bags in tow, when the front door flew open and Gram came rushing out; Dean’s heart warmed at the familiar sight of her: graying blonde bob, yoga pants, the pink sweatshirt he bought her when he was ten with a lop-eared bunny on the front. “If it ain’t my favorite grandson,” she said as she reached them, wrapping Dean in a bear hug he enthusiastically returned. “And this must be that Castiel you talk so much about.”
“Uh, yes, I suppose that must be me,” said Cas. “Nice to meet you.” He extended his hand to be shaken, and she ignored it, instead moving in to hug him. Cas, who was definitely not a hugger, mouthed help at Dean over her shoulder, his blue eyes gone wide.
“Come on, Gram, you shouldn’t just hug people without asking,” Dean said as he gently separated them. “You’re gonna scare him off before he even gets inside at this rate.”
“Oh dear,” she said, face full of regret. “I’m sorry, Castiel. I may have been raised next door to a barn, but I usually have better manners.”
“It’s okay, ma’am,” Cas mumbled.
“Call me Deanna, dear! Come in, come in.”
She held the screen door open for them as they entered; Cas followed Dean’s lead, toeing his shoes off in the front hall and taking the first right into the living room, which was cozy and cluttered, half-packed boxes sharing space with a gigantic, boxy couch upholstered in that same fabric upholstered in a rust-orange pattern of a windmill. Dean set down the food he was carrying on the coffee table and reached out to pet the arm of the couch, its scratchy velour texture conjuring waves of nostalgia. “You’re not keeping this thing, are you?”
“That’s going to the neighbor across the street’s co-worker’s niece, she just got her first apartment and doesn’t have anything to put in it. Same with those end tables, and a bunch of kitchen gadgets I don’t want to bother with anymore.”
“Man, end of an era.” Dean patted the couch like he’d pat a horse, or the trunk of his car after closing it. “Sammy and me, when he came to stay, we’d get up at four AM and watch cartoons before anybody woke up. Used to be we could both lay on it at the same time and our feet wouldn’t touch.”
“It’s a nice couch,” said Cas. “I had a couch with a similar same pattern in my first apartment too.”
At the sound of Cas’s voice, a hitherto motionless lump on a rocking chair lifted a jowly feline head and opened one yellow eye. “Hey, Frank,” said Dean. The cat ignored him “See, Cas? He’s harmless. Probably won’t budge for another four hours.”
“Hello, Francis,” Cas said gravely. Francis yawned hugely, leapt down off the chair and ran out of the room with surprising speed, considering his bulk. He left behind an air of superiority and a great deal of black-and-white fur.
“Francis Oliver Campbell, that was unkind!” Gram hollered down the hall after him. “You boys probably want to put those bags down and stretch after the drive. Just through there’s the guest room, Dean, you know it, and you’ll let Castiel know where the facilities are, too, I’m sure.”
“All right, thanks, Gram.” Dean gave her a one-armed hug and showed Cas into the guest room, closing the door behind them before he really took a look at his surroundings—after all, he’d been sleeping in this room once or twice a year since he was a kid.
Which is why it somehow didn’t register until Cas said it. “There’s only one bed.”
“What?” Dean was tossing their duffels into the closet, not really paying attention
“She only made up one bed for us,” said Cas. “Look.”
It was true, there was only one bed in here—there had only ever been one bed in here, Dean knew that, and this was it, heirloom quilt, visible dent in the middle of the mattress, and all. Barely a double, definitely not anything you could sleep in with another person without being right next to him. Not anything Dean could sleep in with Cas without there being almost no space between them, no way to avoid feeling the heat of his skin, the flow of his breath, the touch of his skin if he fidgeted or turned over in his sleep.
No way, to really cut to the heart of it, for Dean conceal an erection if (who was he kidding, when) he got one.
“Does your grandmother think we’re dating, Dean?”