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As far as conversation openers go, this one’s a doozy.
“I think you should know that I’m sleeping with Cas.”
Dean wastes a mouthful of perfectly decent processed meat to the table, so Sam possibly timed that declaration on purpose. After spending a while coughing and gasping for air – though Sam noticeably does not come ‘round the booth to offer back pats – Dean bites out, “The hell?”
“I know,” Sam sighs, toying nervously with a napkin. “Believe me, I know. He’s an angel, I’m… me, then there’s the whole Apocalypse going on—”
“And the part where you’re Lucifer’s meatsuit,” Dean hisses, meaner than he intends.
Sam flinches, and Dean’s ready to start yelling until things make sense but all that comes out of his mouth is an awkward squawk because Castiel has appeared at their booth, sliding smoothly into the space at Sam’s side.
“Hello, Dean,” Cas says. “Sam. Why do you look upset?”
“I told him.” Sam hunches down his seat, familiar look of forlorn emo all over his stupid face.
But Cas just nods solemnly. “I’m proud of you, Sam.”
“Wait, what?” Dean asks.
“It was very difficult for him to tell you,” Castiel says, brow furrowed as he slowly turns to look at Dean.
“But I had to,” Sam adds quickly. “Because it’s important that we be honest with each other. Now more than ever.”
Dean can only stare at the two of them: Sam with his earnest moo face and Cas with his equally stupid look of intense judgment, like they have any sort of leg to stand on to be disappointed that Dean can’t process this right now.
“How long?” Dean says.
“We have engaged in coitus four times,” Castiel answers promptly.
“Have not,” Sam protests, and there’s a twitch on the edge of his mouth as he glances at Cas, like his reaction would’ve been different if Dean were not in the audience. “That one time in the—” His eyebrows do that funny thing when he’s trying to translate something for normal people, “—doesn’t count.”
“It does,” Castiel says. “That would make it almost three weeks now.”
Dean opens his mouth, ready to demand but how, because he should’ve known, should’ve seen something; Sam and Castiel are practically all he has right now, and how he could not seen this?
“The first time was after our trip to the library a while back,” Castiel says, predicting somewhat wrongly what Dean wants to know. “We were discussing an ancient text.”
“What,” Dean snorts, “You spoke dirty Sumerian to him and it became horizontal tango time?”
Cas doesn’t move, but Sam swallows, eyes guiltily set down at the table.
“You’re shitting me.”
“Cas is very smart,” Sam says in a small voice.
“Thank you, Sam,” Cas responds, face softening in a way that Dean’s only ever seen happen because of him; just as Sam’s face lights up at the acknowledgement the way Dean’s only ever seen directed at him.
Dean stands up, suddenly angry. “I’m out of here.”
“Dean…” Sam looks wrecked. “Please.”
Cas puts a hand on Sam’s arm, all casual familiarity. “It’s all right, Sam. Dean just needs some time to think.”
“I will not be thinking about this,” Dean snaps, marching straight out without a glance back at them or his poor abandoned lunch.
But he does.
Think about it, that is.
He can’t not, because it means that he must’ve missed the signs of Sam and Cas drifting to each other, unless he wasn’t looking, but that doesn’t make sense because they practically live in each other’s pockets these days. Castiel always pops in to see him, Sam spends practically all his free time with him, and where the hell are the cracks in their claustrophobic little world that could’ve given birth to that without Dean noticing?
Sam doesn’t say much beyond what’s necessary for the next couple of days, looking all the while like the puppy that pissed all over the floor and has been forced to sit in it.
Castiel drops in once for his usual recon report, but his business-like demeanor (like nothing’s fucking changed) infuriates Dean so much that he can’t speak, and there’s another day of not speaking in what passes for the Winchester household.
Dean breaks the silence thus: “What, so now you’re upgrading?”
Sam jerks at the sound, dropping the book he was reading to the floor. “No, that’s not… It’s not like that.”
Dean crosses his arms, waiting.
“Does it really matter what he is?” Sam asks, pleading. “What his vessel’s shape is?”
No, that doesn’t matter, actually. That isn’t what has Dean riled.
If Dean were a different person, he’d say that he feels like he’s being made a fool, not knowing that this exists when Sam and Cas should be the people he knows best in all the world. He’d say that Sam and Cas sleeping together puts him on the outside again, back in the cold and tetherless.
He’d say that Sam left him once, and by having this he’s practically doing it again.
He’d say that Cas’ allegiances, supposedly iron-tight, have shifted away without him realizing.
But Dean doesn’t say any of this because he doesn’t know how.
Though as it so happens, Sam knows Dean, and his eyes go wide at whatever accidental vulnerability has slipped through Dean’s mask. He stands up, shocked. “Dean, we’re not –”
A flutter of displaced air, and the bastard with sneaky timing has joined them. “Dean.”
“What, you gonna lecture me, too?” Dean snaps.
Castiel blinks slowly, looking a little sad, and then he steps forward and kisses Dean.
Dean snorts with surprise, because there are things he’s not expecting and then there’s this: feathery jerk whose lips have been fuck knows where pressed against his and Jesus this is awkward, because Sam is right there – Dean knows this, because he hears Sam gasp loudly somewhere in the background.
Dean pulls away – only momentarily derailed by a thing Cas does with his teeth – and turns to Sam.
Whose eyes are glazed over.
Sam looks away quickly, like there’s stuff he knows is in his face that he thinks Dean’s not ready to see – and maybe he isn’t.
Cas’ hands are on Dean’s, fingers folding around his gently and drawing his attention back.
“In Heaven,” Cas says, “Love is absolute. We are all our Father’s beloved children, and all my brethren are equal in our share of love for each other. I have lost – look at me, Dean.”
Dean drags his eyes up to meet Cas’, whose eyes are now the sharpest edge of unnatural blue.
“I have lost that,” Cas continues, “But I regret none of it, for it has brought me here. You and Sam are my brothers now, and I love you both. This is a good thing, Dean, and I will not let you make it ugly. Not when you, and Sam, are worth so much.”
Dean has to work his jaw for a while before he finds his voice again, though it doesn’t help much when he doesn’t have the words to go with it. “I… That’s… It’s not…”
“It would honor me,” Cas says, voice now as soft as a caress, “As it would honor Sam if you let us show you how loved you are.”
Dean’s eyes flick sideways. “Sam’s not…”
Except, Sam is.
He’s not making any noise but there’s no mistaking the way he has to drag each breath through a tight throat, while at his sides his hands are clenching and unclenching; the puppy bracing for another kick.
Dean doesn’t know how he feels about this right now. “Are you saying that you’d—”
“Yes,” Castiel says, firmness of his decision in the way he tilts his chin up. “I am fairly confident that my body will be able to take both of you at the same time.”
“Whoa!” Dean says, but the word is drowned out by the loud, strangled sound that Sam makes. It isn’t a completely bad sound, and when Dean looks over, Sam’s got a hand over his mouth, like he’s about to explode or break down, or both.
Well, shit.
Dean clears his throat. “Sam?”
Sam makes a small, high-pitched noise at the back of his throat.
“We take it slow,” Dean says. “If we… If we’re really gonna do this, we take it slow. I mean it.”
Then Dean learns that he didn’t really mean it, because in no time he finds himself pushing inside Cas, who is open and slick with Sam’s come, while down on the pillows Sam fits himself to Cas’ side and takes his mouth.
Dean watches them make out, unsure whether he’s turned on enough for this to stop being surreal.
When Dean gets the angle right and Cas shudders, Sam pulls away, openly enthralled by the way Cas is panting. Their eyes meet and there’s obviously a conversation going on there that makes Dean feel like an outsider again, until they both turn to look up at him: Sam’s expression of relaxed happiness now directed straight at him, while Cas’ eyes are as open and gentle as they’ve ever been.
Dean concedes somewhere deep down inside that he could get used to this.