Chapter Text
Dean stares at his blank computer screen, trying to dig deep to find motivation to start his next story. He has been writing fanfic for his favorite ship, Jichael, for a couple years now. They are the lead characters, Jimmy and Michael, from his favorite show Hunters, a story of two best friends who hunt supernatural creatures. The characters–mainly because of the chemistry of the actors, Emmanuel Allen and Levi Campbell, who play them–have such great chemistry on screen that not even two hours after the pilot episode aired, the first fanfic about them was posted to AO3.
The show is currently on the 15th Season, which is the last season, and Dean can’t wait to see how it ends. He didn’t find out about the show until 5 years ago, so he had to stream it until he caught up with it so he could watch it live. It was right around the time Castiel moved in, and he said he would watch it with him, so it has become their weekly routine. As soon as Dean started watching the show, he caught on to a possible romance between the two leads right away, but has never brought up anything about Jichael to Castiel. He’s been crushing on Castiel since he moved in 5 years ago, but his gaydar hasn’t been able to pick up any vibes and Castiel doesn’t share anything about his personal life. Dean isn’t sure when Castiel has been on a date last. He’s kind of a hermit and spends a lot of time in his room. Castiel is an art teacher at the local high school, so Dean just assumes he’s spending his time doing art and doesn’t want to be bothered.
Dean’s thoughts about Castiel sometimes bleed out into his writing. He often pictures himself as Michael and Castiel as Jimmy. He mostly writes canonverse fics so it doesn’t feel too much like he’s just writing a fever dream of him and Castiel, but he dabbles with AU’s here and there. Just sitting here thinking about Castiel has his fingers moving across the keyboard, and the next thing he knows he’s writing a 5K porn with plot one shot dedicated to his roommate.
He reads over what he wrote and posts it to AO3. It’s not one of his best works, but he hasn’t posted anything for a couple weeks, and he doesn’t want his faithful subscribers to think something happened to him. He checks his phone to see that it’s time for dinner. He knocks on Castiel’s door.
“Hey, Cas, do you want to get a pizza? It’s almost time for the next episode of Hunters.”
Dean isn’t sure what Castiel is doing, but it sounds like he lets out a muffled moan before answering.
“I’ll be out in a second. You know what toppings I like.”
“Yeah, don’t remind me.”
Dean leaves Castiel to finish doing whatever it is he’s doing in there to order the pizza. For some ungodly reason, Castiel thinks that pineapple belongs on pizza, so they always get two pizzas, a Hawaiian for Castiel and a meatlovers for Dean.
Just as Castiel emerges from his room, Dean receives a notification that he got his first comment on his fic, and he’s floored to see that it’s from ItsOneS. The artist, whom he knows is a he since he has that info in his bio on Tumblr, is a legend as far as artists go in the Jichael fandom and Dean can’t believe that he’s read some of his fics. He’s gotten kudos from the artist before, but never a comment.
ItsOneS: This was so hot 🔥I’m going to need to take a cold shower after reading it. I loved everything about this.
Holy shit. Dean doesn’t know what to think after receiving that kind of praise from ItsOneS. He’s been tempted to ask if he accepts commissions because he would love to have a piece of his art hanging in his room–not that he would, since other people would see it, and then he’d have a lot of explaining to do. He sends a response to show his appreciation.
NeedyBottom: Dude, that’s such an honor coming from you. I’m glad that you liked it and thanks for reading and commenting.
Dean quickly puts his phone away, before Castiel is able to peek and see what he’s doing. He’s not ashamed of writing fanfic, it’s just he’s received strange looks from people in the past when he mentions it, and he doesn’t think he would be able to handle that kind of rejection from Castiel. His opinion of Dean is everything, so he keeps his love of fanfic to his room and his fandom spaces online. Nobody in his real life needs to know. He hasn’t even told his best friend, Charlie, who is the queen of lesbians in the town of queerdom.
“Alright, the pizza should be here soon. Did you want to start the episode now or when the pizza gets here?”
Castiel decides that they can start the episode now since they both have to get up for work in the morning and don’t want to be up too late. They are about 10 minutes in when the pizza arrives. Dean pauses the show so he can answer the door and he plates a slice of pizza for both him and Castiel before he joins him again on the couch. His cat, an orange tabby he named Miracle because it’s a miracle she hasn’t gone through all of her 9 lives by now, jumps on to the back of the couch to watch the show with them.
As Dean watches the episode, he doesn’t understand how people can’t see the obvious attraction between the characters. They are literally eye fucking each other on the screen. Dean has never looked at his platonic best friend that way, and he would like to know what dynamic people have with their own siblings to think these two characters love each other like brothers. Oh well, some people are just so homophobic that they are in denial about what’s right in front of them.
When the episode is over, Dean cleans up their plates and puts the rest of the pizza in the fridge to eat as a snack at a later date.
“I’m off to bed. I’ll see you in the morning,” he tells Castiel as he walks down the hall to his bedroom.
He wants to check his notifications quickly and to see if any new art was posted to the Jichael Discord community. He doesn’t have any new comments on his fic, and there isn’t any new art for him to give heart eyes to, but there is a post for a new reverse bang that just started. He hasn’t dipped his toes into bangs yet. He has been putting it off because he doesn’t think his writing is good enough, but he’s always receiving praise, so he figures he might as well. He fills out the sign up form, and clicks on the link for the Discord server.
There are already 15 people in the server even though it just opened up 10 minutes ago. There’s going to be a lot of competition to claim art, it looks like. He fills out his information and finds it interesting that most of the people in here are 30 and above. He was under the impression that most people were in their early 20’s. He thought he was one of the oldest to write fanfic at 35, but there are a lot of people in here older than him. Just as he’s about ready to close his computer, a notification shows up that ItsOneS just hopped into the server.
Holy crap. He wonders if he’ll be lucky enough to claim his art. He doesn’t even care what the art is. Dean just wants a chance to work with him. His eyes start to get heavy as he’s still nosing around in the server to see if there are any other familiar names in there, so he decides to give in and finally go to bed. There are still 4 months before art claims, so he has plenty of time to look around.
Castiel goes to his room not long after Dean. He had been working on art for a bang prior to dinner when he had received a notification that NeedyBottom posted a new fic. He couldn’t resist reading it right away and was not disappointed. The story actually made him think of Dean, and he couldn’t help but touch himself as he read it. He knows that it’s probably breaking some sort of code to jerk off while reading fanfic with a picture of your straight best friend in mind, but he can’t help it.
Dean walked by just as he was making it to the finish line, so he had to stifle a moan as he came before he told Dean he would be out. He made sure to comment on the fic. He usually doesn’t write comments simply because he doesn’t know what to say half the time, but he felt like it was his duty this time. After all, the author caused him to pleasure himself as he was reading the words that he wrote. That’s deserving of some sort of compliment. He was also pleasantly surprised to learn that NeedyBottom is indeed a male since he has that info on his AO3 page. Not that it will amount to anything, but it’s still nice information to have.
Castiel knew he was screwed the moment he answered the ad when Dean was looking for a roommate 5 years ago. As soon as he laid eyes on Dean with his emerald green eyes and his freckled face, he was ruined for anyone else. It became very evident to Castiel that he had no chance with Dean since he’s straight, so he has to appreciate him from afar. Castiel has tried to date a few guys, but nothing ever stuck. He was worried about bringing anyone home, especially since he doesn’t know if Dean would be comfortable with the fact that he’s gay, so he never talks about his sexuality and keeps his personal life to himself.
Castiel works as an art teacher at the local high school, but mostly uses his artistic talent to draw art for Jichael. He’d heard of the show, but never had a chance to watch it, so when Dean mentioned it when he moved in they started watching it together. They are on the last season right now, and Castiel can’t wait to see how the show ends. He knows Dean has no clue what’s going on with the characters and the obvious queerbaiting that the network has going on just to gain more of a queer audience. Other than Dean, nobody in his personal life watches the show, so he has to keep his love for drawing his favorite ship to his fandom spaces.
He doesn’t hear any noise coming from Dean’s room, so he must already be asleep. He fires up his computer to put the final touches on his art piece for the Jichael Big Bang that is due next month. It’s for a canon story he claimed and he loves being able to draw Jimmy with wings. Tumblr went haywire during the fourth season of Hunters when it was announced that Jimmy was actually a fallen angel with no memory of having been an angel. He’s still human in the show and a lot of people have a headcanon that he will get his grace back in the last season. Castiel hopes that they will finally pull the trigger on Jichael in the show and make it canon, but the network is too homophobic for that, so it’s just wishful thinking.
Castiel is still working on the colors of Jimmy’s wings, as he usually just draws them black, but the author of the story he claimed wrote them as being the colors of the rainbow. He wishes they would have disclosed that on the claims form because he might not have claimed it if he’d known. This one wasn’t the only story that involved wings. No point complaining about it though. That’s the risk you take when you claim a piece of art or a story in a bang.
He checks his email and finds that NeedyBottom responded to his comment from earlier. He hopes the author writes some more stories. Castiel thinks he’s a very good story teller, and it doesn’t matter if it’s just 100 words or 100 thousand words. Castiel is always hooked from the beginning.
His eyes are getting heavy, so he decides to check the Discord servers he’s part of for any new notifications. He sees that there is a new bang that just started sign ups. He reads over the rules and decides to join. The mods are Queenofmoons and Werepire32, so he knows it will be well organized. They have been in the fandom since the show first aired.
When he clicks on the invite for the server, there are already a bunch of people in there. Some names he recognizes and some he doesn’t. One name in particular catches his eye. NeedyBottom signed up not long before him. Castiel hasn’t seen his name in any bangs before, so this must be his first one. Maybe they’ll get to work together. Castiel would love to have him write a story for his art. He already has something in mind.
Just as he’s climbing into bed, he hears a meow from across the hall. Dean must have forgotten to keep his door cracked for Miracle, his orange cat that hates Castiel. Every time he tries to pet her, she just hisses at him. That’s just another reason they could never be together. The way to a man’s heart is by having the affection of his cat, or something like that. Even if Dean weren’t straight, Miracle would never let them be together.
Dean is up before him as usual, already making breakfast. Castiel is useless before his coffee, so Dean is already handing him a cup before he has a chance to sit down.
“Thank you,” Castiel says as he accepts the offered cup and sits down at the table. It’s mornings like this that make his living situation with Dean difficult. They already look like the picture of a domestic couple from the outside, but they are only friends. Castiel often wishes he could wake up next to Dean after a long night of lovemaking, but it will never happen, so he has to accept the reality. Dean is just his roommate, and he’s only cooking breakfast for him because he lives here. That’s it.
“Any plans for tonight?” Dean asks as he sets the plate of food in front of Castiel before joining him at the table.
“Not really. I’ll probably just hang out in my room and play The Sims.”
Castiel has never played The Sims a day in his life, but he knows enough about the game to fake it. He can’t tell Dean what he’ll really be doing in his room, and they both established that their rooms were off limits to each other, so he doesn’t have to worry about Dean barging in and catching him drawing something that will have his roommate clutching his pearls.
“I might hang out with Charlie tonight. She invited me over to watch a movie. Maybe I’ll get lucky,” Dean tells him with a wink.
Charlie is Dean’s oldest friend and occasional fuck buddy, apparantly. Castiel needs to get his gaydar fixed because the few times he’s met her, he assumed she was a raging lesbian. Maybe she’s bi if she’s sleeping with Dean. He’s never asked because it’s none of his business, but the whole thing just seems mysterious.
When they are done eating, they clean up their plates and go their separate ways. Even though they go the same direction, they don’t carpool, mainly because Dean works as a sales associate and his hours sometimes vary. Castiel doesn’t want to end up waiting for him for a couple hours when he could just drive himself to and from work.
When he reaches his destination, he gets his classroom set up for the day. He mostly teaches freshmen, but he has one class with advanced art students. As he sits at his desk waiting for the bell to ring to signal the start of the day, he wonders if he will ever be truly happy. He enjoys what he does, but sometimes it doesn’t seem worth it to be accomplished at anything if you don’t have the love of your life to share it with.