Chapter Text
Castiel goes back to work to 400 unread emails. At least it keeps him occupied, and for the eight hours he spends in the office on that first day, he manages to not think about Dean for at least two, collectively.
At the coffee maker, Balthazar takes one look at him, and says, “I know he’s gorgeous, but you gotta get some sleep,” with a playful grin, and Castiel replies with silence and a murderous glare.
Dean didn’t leave his number. He didn’t ask for Castiel’s either. He didn’t mention anything about seeing each other again, and Castiel is left feeling like the biggest schmuck in the world.
In the first week, Castiel goes back and forth with himself, contemplating calling up Crowley’s to ask for Dean, to book him for an afternoon just so they can talk. He can’t quite talk himself into doing it. If he has to do that just to talk to Dean, isn’t that a clear sign that Dean doesn’t really want to talk to him?
He doesn’t say anything about it to his friends, even when they ask what is so obviously wrong. He avoids Anna’s every phone call and message. He works 40 extra hours over the course of the three first weeks in January and doesn’t go to the company charity auction because he doesn’t have a date. He cannot get himself to call up Crowley’s and book Dean for it. He just can’t. When Zachariah and his friends ask where 'Mark' is Castiel just excuses himself to go hide in the restroom.
He’s just getting back from another long workday, tired and the only thing he wants to do is go to bed, but he’s deterred from his mission when his receptionist calls out his name.
Castiel turns and walks up to Chuck’s desk.
“Good evening, Mr. Novak. I have a message for you,” Chuck says and searches for something on his messy desk.
Castiel closes his eyes and exhales in annoyance. He’s been doing a good job of avoiding socializing for the past three weeks because he does not have the strength to be a kind person right now.
“There it is!” Chuck holds up a piece of notebook paper that he slides over the desk to Castiel. “A ‘Dean’ was by, asking for you. He left his number.”
Castiel’s hopeful heart skips a beat as he stares incredulously at the sheet of paper with ten digits scrawled across in Chuck’s handwriting. “Thank you,” he says, almost reverently like Chuck has bestowed unto him this blessing himself.
He dials the number on his way up and Dean replies on the second ring, just as Castiel has let himself into his apartment.
“’S Dean Winchester.”
Castiel sighs silently, relief washing over him at hearing his voice. “Hello Dean,” he says, barely smiling. “It’s Castiel.”
“Cas! Hey!” Dean greets. “Man, I’m glad you called. I wasn’t sure if you would, you know,” he mumbles and Castiel is just about to protest, but Dean doesn’t let him. “Listen, do you have time to meet up, maybe this week? I, uh, think we should probably talk?” Dean says, sounding unsure. Maybe even nervous.
Castiel wants to invite Dean over right now. It’s been three weeks since he last saw him, since he last kissed him. But something in Dean’s voice makes him hesitate. It’s been three weeks. Dean didn’t give him his number for three weeks. Castiel takes a breath and gets himself together. Dean calling now doesn’t necessarily mean what Castiel wants it to. In all likelihood, it doesn’t.
“I’m available in the evenings,” he tells Dean in a neutral voice. “Or all weekend.” Or right now. Or forever.
“Got shit going on in the evenings all week,” Dean mumbles, “but how’s Saturday? 11 ish?”
Castiel tries not to wonder what Dean is doing every evening, and instead replies, “yes. That’s fine. Would you meet me at the café near my place? Where we got breakfast once?” he asks, not so sure that offering up his apartment is the right move. He is not sure what to expect from this meeting. He wants to hope for the best, and part of him can’t help himself from doing so, but after these past three weeks he’s got a bad feeling about the whole thing.
“Uh, sure,” Dean says, surprise evident in his voice.
“Good. Take care, Dean. I’ll see you on Saturday,” Castiel says before he can say something stupid, like do you want to come over? or I miss you or even I love you.
“Okay. Yeah. Take care, Cas,” Dean replies. They both breathe quietly into the phone for a couple of seconds, waiting, but then Dean hangs up.
-
Castiel spends the next few days being a nervous wreck. He’s antsy and worried, and can’t really focus on much of anything. He manages to get through his work meetings and weekly projects, and he gets out of another Friday night with his friends, and he goes to sleep early to toss and turn for hours, but finally Saturday morning comes around.
He’s early when he gets to the café. He sits at the table they sat at last time and manages to chug a cappuccino that definitely doesn’t help with his nerves before Dean arrives.
He looks beautiful. Always. In a leatherjacket and jeans, and he smiles that wonderful smile that makes Castiel all soft in the knees like a teenager with a crush when he spots Castiel and offers a little wave.
Castiel manages to return a smile despite the nerves and the flutter of butterflies in his belly.
Dean comes back with two mugs, and he kisses the edge of Castiel’s mouth after putting a cappuccino down in front of him.
“Hey,” Dean says, voice warm and soft and the slightest bit shy.
“Hi Dean,” Castiel bids.
“I’m glad you called. I wasn’t sure if it was too much, showing up like that, or if you’d even wanna meet up,” Dean says, eyes on his coffee that he’s stirring a disconcerting amount of sugar into. He’s got a nervous smile on.
“Of course,” Castiel says. He takes Dean in. He looks good, but tired. His shoulders are stiff with unease and Castiel gets a sinking feeling in his stomach.
Dean shoots Castiel a quick smile. He continues to stir his coffee, more out of nervousness than to dissolve sugar at this point. It makes Castiel nervous too.
“I- uh. I was just wondering… After the trip, we never really discussed, uhm, how we were gonna go forward,” he says quietly. Castiel looks hopefully up at Dean. Surely, this is where they both admit they’d like to continue things, to make it something real.
“I was wondering if you were planning on booking me again?” Dean asks and Castiel nearly flinches as his heart shatters.
Is that what Dean came to ask? If Castiel was still making reservations of his time or if he could open up to other bookings again? Castiel feels so stupid. Of course, this is what Dean came to ask. Castiel has been his main source of income for the past month and a half.
Castiel leans back and keeps his voice neutral when he speaks. “Uh, no, Dean. I don’t think I will.” He doesn’t look at Dean, not wanting to know his reaction.
He can feel Dean studying him for a moment before he speaks. “That’s cool,” Dean mumbles. “So, uh, you… You have my number… so…” he stutters uneasily.
Castiel barely refrains from rolling his eyes, hurt and bitter. “Don’t worry. I’ll delete it. I understand that it’s not allowed between the escort and the client,” he says.
When he looks up at Dean, he looks like he’s been slapped. He’s staring at Castiel, lips parted and eyes wide and shiny. He swallows and looks down at his hands. Castiel gathers that he has said the wrong thing.
“Right. Because that’s all this was,” he mumbles.
Castiel is all confused. It feels like his thoughts are stacks of paper and someone left a table fan on, he's scrambling but he can't connect the dots. It seems like Dean can’t either. “Dean,” he starts and it comes out a little sharper than he intended but Castiel is in turmoil.
“No, I’m- God, I’m so fucking stupid,” Dean says, mostly to himself.
“No, Dean, please-“ Castiel tries by he’s interrupted by Dean who stands up.
“I get it! Cas, I get it. I heard you the first five hundred times. I’m the escort, and you’re the client. You’ve told me over and over again that you don’t want someone that you can buy,” Dean says.
Castiel gestures to Dean’s chair, hoping he’ll sit back down as he explains. “That wasn’t how I meant it. That was never how I meant it. Please- “ he is interrupted again.
“Christ!” Dean exclaims, frustrated. He covers his eyes with his palm for a second before facing the ceiling. “I thought, after the trip… I thought things were different. That I wasn’t just the escort to you anymore,” he looks down at Cas with wet eyes. He swallows thickly before he speaks again. “That’s why I told Charlie to refund it. Because… Because if we were sleeping together, it was real. But I guess it wasn’t. Fuck, I even told you I was gonna quit,” Dean says.
“Dean, it’s your job! I know you enjoy it. I would never ask you to quit,” he says earnestly. Even if escort isn’t necessarily what he wishes for his partner to do, he’d never make demands or set rules about something like that.
Dean’s lip quivers until he presses them together into a hard line. “Yeah. I got that,” he says quietly. And then he’s turning around and walking away and Castiel stares at his retreating back in shock.
How did he manage to say the wrong thing? He only meant that Dean being an escort didn’t in any way influence how Castiel felt about him, or how much he wanted to be with him. He didn’t want Dean to quit or to- to refund him. Dean’s words finally sink into his brain and Castiel freezes. Wait, what?
He almost drops his phone when he flings it out of his pocket to check his bank app. Sure enough, right in the beginning of the year there’s a green number from Crowley’s Gentleman Club matching the exact amount that Castiel paid to book Dean for the trip. He nearly drops his phone again as he throws his coat on and rushes out of the café.
It's not that Dean refunded him, it's not about the money at all. But Castiel can't ignore the implications of Dean asking Charlie to cancel the booking after they'd slept together. After all, Castiel had been upfront about not wanting to have sex with Dean while paying him, merely because Castiel didn't feel comfortable having sex with someone and not knowing if it was because there were feelings between them or if it was because of transactional obligations. And Dean had listened and made sure all business ties between them were severed when they went there. He just hadn't bothered to actually tell Castiel that, apparently counting on Castiel to figure that out for himself. Though, he supposes he is a finance guy, and he probably should be keeping tabs on his private economy.
Even so, Dean could have mentioned it. Christ, what if he thought Castiel had just viewed this as business this whole time, and the trip as just some great gift or a volume discount for booking him for a month? Castiel has to find him! He has to sort this out now!
Dean can’t have more than a couple of minutes of a head start, but it’s enough that he’s nowhere to been seen in either direction. There are no black SUVs either, but Castiel doesn’t believe that Dean was there on official business. He has no idea what kind of car Dean drives, or if he bikes, or what direction he lives in. Basically, he’s got nothing to go on.
Instead, he pulls up Dean’s number and calls it. He gets no reply. He tries again. And again. Then he sends a text that’s barely legible, his fingers shaking and his vision tunnelling.
He doesn’t hear from him. He doesn’t get a reply to any of the texts or calls he makes the next day either. On the third day he’s informed by a formal voice that the number is unavailable and Castiel realizes he’s been behaving in the exact way that probably prompts rules about giving out private numbers to clients in the first place.
He goes back to working and ignoring his friends and barely eating or sleeping for another three weeks until the people who love him have had enough.
-
Anna bangs on his door for twenty solid minutes until Castiel opens it, mostly in fear of his neighbors complaining.
She wades into his space and opens the blinds and stacks up the empty pizza boxes and cracks a window. She orders him to take a shower, and has the sympathy to not bring up Dean quite yet. She doesn’t make him leave his home or put on real pants. She just sits next to him on the couch while they watch Netflix, but not the show he started with Dean after New Year’s.
She doesn’t say ‘I told you so’ at any point, not even when he cries silently against her shoulder late in the night. But he’s sure she thinks it.
Meg and Balthazar show up the next weekend to take him out. They guess that he and Dean have broken up, but they don’t ask about it. They buy him several shots, of which he drinks one before he excuses himself to the restroom to sneak home.
Hannah takes him out for coffee one Sunday, and they walk around the park in the earliest beginnings of a spring morning, and don’t speak for 45 minutes. She walks him back home and gives him a long hug before leaving.
It’s Gabriel who eventually loses patience. Or maybe he just draws the shortest straw.
He shows up at Castiel’s apartment in the beginning of March and tells him he’s going to the annual golf tournament, and that's final.
Castiel is more of a networker golfer than a golfer golfer and he’s not exactly at his most charming or social, so he drags his heels as much as he can but ends up in the golf club with Gabriel and their friends anyway.
It’s a multi-company event, really the biggest schmooze-fest of the year, and everyone is wearing obnoxious golfing outfits and complimenting each other’s wives. Castiel wishes he was home in bed, wallowing.
He stays inside the club, dejectedly sipping a mimosa, while his friends chat around him. Hannah rubs his back and gives him a sympathetic smile, but then disappears to socialize with someone from a sister company. She’s quickly followed by Balthazar and Uriel, who are off too after spotting a customer they have been trying to close for a while.
Meg and Gabriel stay with him though and talk shit about everyone else in their industry to try and distract him. And because they love to do that.
“Is that Abaddon? Did you hear she couldn’t close the deal with Cain’s?” Meg says snootily. Castiel does not care.
“Cain is impossible. I’ve been hounding his ass for months and he won’t budge,” Gabriel says. “Ugh, is that Dick Roman?” he asks, stretching his neck to see amongst the crowd.
Castiel groans. He hates Dick. Roman Enterprises is their biggest competitor. Being in Finance, Castiel doesn’t have to socialize all that much with competitors or try to win over customers, but he has run into Dick more than once over the years. Mostly because Dick has been trying to get Castiel to switch sides for a while. Slimy, slick and corrupt, is what he is. He gives everyone the creeps and rumor has it he makes ENRON look like Google when it comes to work culture.
“Wait, is that Mark?” Meg screeches, and Castiel finally looks up from mimosa.
It is. Right next to Dick, in his ostentatious golfing outfit, is Dean. He’s smiling stiffly as Dick keeps a hand on his waist, but says something to make the whole circle of sycophants laugh.
Castiel’s heart is lodged in his throat and his vision tunnels while Dick’s hand ventures lower, grabbing a handful of Dean’s ass.
“What the hell is he doing with Dick?” Gabriel asks.
“Yeah, it seemed like he had taste,” Meg says, rolling her eyes. “Maybe just taste for rich businessmen.”
“Is that why you two broke up? Did he leave you for Dick Roman?” Gabriel asks, offended on Castiel’s behalf.
“What a little slut,” Meg bites before Castiel can answer.
“That’s not necessary,” Castiel tells Meg quietly. He can’t look away as Dean laughs along with the others until Dick turns and sticks his tongue down his throat. It’s clear that it takes Dean by surprise, when he tries to pull back, but Dick holds him in place, with a fist white-knuckling Dean’s neck.
It’s uncomfortable to watch. Even more so when Dick finally lets him go, but only to urge Dean to finish his glass of champagne, holding the bottom of the glass up to make him empty it in one go. He immediately presses a new glass into Dean’s hands with a nasty smile.
Castiel wonders how many times that has happened, as he watches Dean wobble slightly when Dick pulls him roughly after him towards a golf cart. Castiel watches as they drive off, a sick feeling settling heavy in his gut. Not just heartbreak but worry, too.
“I can’t believe that little tramp!” Meg complains as Castiel walks away from her and Gabriel, heading for the restroom, just for a moment’s peace.
He splashes cool water on his face and doesn’t face himself in the mirror as he dries it with a sturdy paper towel. He told Dean to keep working. He’d hoped that Dean wouldn’t, since he’d mentioned wanting to quit and go to school. Even if he wants to continue escorting, Castiel would hope he at least wouldn’t do it with Dick Roman, but it’s Dean’s life, and Castiel would never make demands. Besides, they’re not… anything, anymore. Dean didn’t want that. If he did, he would have called.
He takes a deep breath in and releases it slowly, and then he makes his way to the green.
Once out there, his friends find him again. Meg has used the time productively and caught everyone up on Dick Roman’s date.
“What a slut,” Meg spits again.
“Cas can do way better,” Balthazar says.
“He’s just some low-life gold digger,” Uriel bids.
“It’s a revenge date. He’s doing this to hurt you,” Hannah says, much to everyone’s surprise. She’s usually above talking poorly about people behind their back.
Castiel finally engages. They’re all wrong and Castiel can’t bear hearing them speak of Dean this way. “No, he’s not,” he says tiredly, and they all turn to him.
“How can you say that? No normal person would date Dick Roman,” Gabriel says. “Mark is either mentally deranged, in which case he’s done a pretty good job of hiding it until now, or he’s doing it to be an asshole to you.”
“No,” Castiel says. “He’s doing it because Dick Roman is paying him to.”
When everyone turns quiet, Castiel sighs deeply. He might as well come clean.
“Look, Mark isn’t… Mark,” he starts. “He’s an escort I hired because Zachariah threatened to set me up with his nephew in Marketing. I panicked and I lied, and I didn’t know how to get everyone to back off,” he says.
“What?” Balthazar asks as a representative for everyone.
Castiel rubs a hand down his face, willing the stingy hotness behind his eyes to go away. “Dean was just supposed to pretend to be my boyfriend for a couple of weeks. It wasn’t meant to go this far. I didn’t mean to fall in love with him.” A traitorous tear escapes despite his best effort and he wipes it away with his golf glove.
Hannah wraps her arm around him.
Gabriel frowns confusedly for a moment. “Who’s Dean?” he asks and Meg hits him in the arm.
“Mark, for fuck’s sake,” she elaborates.
“Wait, so what happened?” Gabriel asks.
“I don’t know. Like I said, I fell in love with him, and I’m pretty sure he feels the same way. We just… I said the wrong thing and now he won’t talk to me,” Castiel says defeatedly.
“Let me get this straight,” Uriel says. “You’ve been invoicing sex with someone you’re in love with?”
Meg and Gabriel whip their heads in synchronicity to stare at Castiel.
“No, I wasn’t actually having sex with him while I was paying him,” he explains.
“Only you, Cas,” Balthazar says good-naturedly. “Only you would pay an escort and then not sleep with him.”
“It’s not that I haven’t slept with him,” Castiel mumbles. He doesn’t know why he shares this. He usually tries to keep his sex life private.
“Yeah, I was gonna say, I stayed in the room next to yours in Aspen,” Meg says. “Didn’t exactly sound like you weren’t having sex.”
Castiel knows he blushes furiously despite himself when his friends all smirk at him. Could they go back to comforting him over his heartbreak?
Hannah can, and she gently rubs his back. “You need to talk to him,” she offers.
Castiel sighs. How is he going to do that? Dean clearly doesn’t want to talk to him, and he’s currently here working with Dick Roman. Castiel doesn’t want to interfere. He just nods in agreement, and then he hits his golf ball hard into a dune so he can escape his friends as he goes in search of it.
-
Castiel does very poorly. He’s useless at golf and he doesn’t talk to anyone but his closest friends the whole day. And he barely talks to those after the whole reveal, not ready to face anything they could possibly have to say to that, whether it’s accusations of being a bad friend for lying or a bad person for hiring an escort or an asshole for both. Or even worse, something nice and comforting when Castiel doesn’t deserve it at all.
It’s like pulling teeth but eventually the event comes to an end in the late afternoon. He doesn’t intend to stick around a minute longer than he has to, but he ends up standing in line for a while to return the borrowed clubs.
His friends walk out with him, and while they hadn’t drawn out their departure, there’s still a line for the valet and a line of idle cars along the driveway. It’s a wonder that he even notices, with all the people milling about and chatting loudly, but he hears Dean’s voice several yards away, by a car queueing to get out.
“Get off me!” he’s shouting and forcefully pulling himself away, out of an open car door. His clothes and hair are all in disarray and he nearly loses his balance as he stumbles onto the sidewalk. Castiel’s heart sinks as he takes a couple of steps towards him without even thinking about it and how it’s none of his business.
“You’re a fucking psycho!” Dean yells at Dick, who’s sitting in the backseat looking out of the open window.
Castiel isn’t all the way over there, but he’s close enough to be within hearing range when Dick speaks calmly.
“Be a good whore and get back in the car,” Dick says, a cocky smirk on his lip, one Castiel can glean even from the distance.
Castiel’s pulse quickens, and he starts walking closer for real, not caring if it’s any of his business or if Dean can handle himself. With the way he’s swaying where he stands, Castiel is not confident that Dean is fully able to anyway.
“I’m not getting back in there with you! Don’t ever fucking touch me again,” Dean yells, voice hoarse.
Dick tsks demeaning, like Dean is a misbehaving child. “I’m paying you. I can do whatever the fuck I want.”
Castiel feels sick. He will punch Dick in the face, given the chance.
“No, you can’t, asshole,” Dean says, voice lower but face still flushed in anger.
Dick dangles a bill lazily out of the window. “Come here, little whore. Be good for daddy,” he says, still with that disgusting grin all over his face.
“Fuck you!” Dean spits and finally turns away from the car. He stalks a few steps towards the golfing center.
“No, fuck you!” Dick calls after him. “I’m calling Crowley. I’m not paying for some worthless skank who won’t even do his job,” Dick says, angry now, instead of snarky. He rolls the window up and the car drives off.
Dean stumbles a few more steps before Castiel reaches him and grabs his arm to help.
“Dean,” he says, sick with worry.
“Cas?” Dean says, sounding surprised. His eyes are glassy and red, slightly unfocused as he looks at Castiel.
“Here, sit down,” Castiel says and guides him in the opposite direction of all the people, towards a bench in front of the entrance that hasn’t been used for the event. There are still plenty of people milling around in the other end of the driveway, but they have less of an audience here. Castiel’s friends are all standing close, not wanting to interfere but not wanting to leave either.
Dean deflates onto the edge of the bench next to Castiel, more drunk than Castiel first realized. He immediately rests his head in his hands.
“Can I help?” Hannah whispers. She’s come a little closer, standing awkwardly five feet from Castiel. The rest of the group is further away, sending them concerned glances.
“Water?” Castiel whispers back and Hannah nods and leaves.
“Are you alright?” Castiel asks Dean once they’re alone.
“No,” Dean scoffs. He swallows audibly. “Fuck. I’m really messed up.”
Hannah comes back and she nudges Castiel with a sealed bottle of water. She doesn’t say anything, eyes silently asking if they’ll be okay. Castiel nods, both his thanks and assent. He waves briefly as his friends shuffle away.
Turning back to Dean, Castiel notices how pale he actually looks, how clammy he’s grown now that he’s not yelling at Dick anymore.
“Are you going to be sick?” Castiel asks, concerned.
Dean doesn’t reply straight away. He takes a labored breath, holding it for a moment before exhaling slowly through his nose. He swallows once and nods.
Castiel helps him up and guides him in through the unpopulated entrance, to the nearest restroom. He nudges Dean into one of the stalls where he immediately kneels in front of the bowl, and Castiel gets in, locking after them.
Castiel stands kind of awkwardly behind Dean, while Dean stares into the water below. He springs into action when Dean spews champagne and not much else violently into the toilet. He drops to his knees behind Dean and strokes his back, hoping to offer comfort.
When Dean stops throwing up thick fizzy sprays of champagne long enough for him to speak, Castiel asks, “did you eat anything?”
Dean shakes his head weakly before gagging again. His eyes are closed and Castiel runs his hand past his forehead, smoothing his hair back.
Castiel presses his lips together into a line. He hasn’t seen Dean since the beginning of the event, before noon, where Dick appeared to be pouring the champagne heavy-handedly, and Dean had already seemed drunk then. He can imagine that Dick has managed to get Dean this messed up with champagne and nothing else in the six hours that have passed since then. But even so, he has to know. Especially because of the kind of person that Castiel knows Dick is.
“Did Dick give you something?” he asks, voice small but so loud in the empty restroom.
Dean doesn’t reply. His eyes are still closed, eyebrows knitted together in distress.
“Dean?” Castiel asks, now verging on panic.
“No,” Dean mumbles. “I mean, I don’t think so.”
“What does that mean?” Castiel asks, voice wavering.
Dean looks down at the water and champagne. “Dick isn’t exactly known for his code of ethics, but if he had roofied me, I’d be blacked out by now,” he tells the toilet bowl.
“Dean!” Castiel urges.
“I’ve had a lot of champagne, okay. And not really anything else. So please just let me throw up,” he says, rather grumpily, but Castiel supposes that’s fair.
He rubs the top of Dean’s back instead of replying.
“Come to think of it, can I have some privacy? Not exactly having my finest moment here,” Dean says, and at the sarcasm Castiel figures that the throwing up is helping.
“No,” Castiel says. “I am under no circumstance leaving you alone like this.”
“Fuck,” Dean mumbles. He spits weakly into the toilet. He tries a sip of the water Hannah brought him.
“Dean, can I drive you somewhere? Or- or at least call Charlie or something?” Castiel asks. He knows Dean is in good hands with Charlie and Benny, but even so, he finds that the thought of leaving him with someone else, of not being there with him, doesn’t settle very easily in his stomach.
“Uh, yeah,” Dean says weakly. “Both?” he asks, quietly like he’s asking too much.
A trickle of relief finds Castiel’s system. “Could I- Could I drive you home and stay with you for a bit? I don’t think you should be alone,” Castiel says, hoping he isn’t overstepping.
Dean doesn’t answer for a while. He doesn’t throw up either, so Castiel takes that as a good sign. He finally leans back from the toilet and closes the lid. He flushes it and turns around to lean against it and face Castiel.
“You’d take me home? And stay? After all of this,” he gestures weakly. “After Dick Roman?”
“Yes,” Castiel says simply.
Dean offers a small smile. “You’re too nice, Cas.”
“No,” Castiel disagrees. “If I was nice at all you wouldn’t have been here with Dick in the first place.”
Dean looks down. He seems embarrassed when he says, “’M sorry.”
Castiel reaches out and cups his face with a palm. When Dean meets his eyes, he gives him a reassuring smile. “I’m sorry too, Dean. Let me take you home?”
Dean nods. “’Kay,” he mumbles and accepts Castiel’s offered hand. Dean drinks some more water and pops a piece of gum in his mouth, and then they head back outside.
In the car, Dean types his address into Castiel’s phone for directions, and then he calls Charlie.
“Hey Charlie. It’s Dean,” he says when Charlie picks up. “I’m not with Mr. Roman anymore. He’s gonna complain. Yeah, as always. No, it’s- it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle,” Dean says and Castiel is not so sure. What if he hadn’t been there? Or what if Dick had gotten just a little more champagne into Dean? Or if he had managed to drive off to wherever they had been headed before Dean left the car? Castiel’s stomach ties up in nauseous knots when he thinks about it.
“No, I don’t need a pickup. Cas is taking me home. Uh, Novak. Charlie, it’s fine, promise. Okay. Yeah, I’ll call you later,” Dean promises and then he hangs up. He sighs deeply. He’s still looking at little pale when Castiel glances at him.
Neither speak for the rest of the ride, and when Castiel pulls into a parking garage, he realizes that he’s not that far away from his own home. It’s a couple of blocks, tops. Dean silently waves to the receptionist of his building, and when they make it to his floor, Castiel is surprised when Dean unlocks the door to a mirror flipped version of his own place. Castiel doesn’t even know why he’s surprised, he knows what Dean’s rates are. He knows that Dean must make more than him. If anything, he should be surprised he doesn’t live in a mansion somewhere.
“Make yourself at home,” Dean mumbles, tired, as he turns the light on. He hangs his coat in the closet behind the door and holds a hand out for Castiel’s.
Castiel hands him his coat and then sits down on a stool at the breakfast bar. The apartment is tidy but pretty homey. It’s decorated differently that Castiel’s, with a wide couch facing a large TV on one side of the living room, and a couple of bookshelves on the other. One difference from Castiel’s apartment is that the view is of the buildings next door through large panorama style windows. Castiel can just make out Lincoln Park between two buildings, and thinks he sees his own apartment complex in the distance. It’s uncanny, in a way, to think they’ve been living this close the whole time. Castiel could walk home from here.
“I’m gonna take a shower, if you’re okay by yourself?” Dean says.
“Of course. Can I make you something meanwhile? I mean, if you haven’t eaten all day?” Castiel offers and is a little embarrassed to find himself stammering slightly in nervousness.
Dean grins at him and it’s beatific even with the dark circles of dehydration below his eyes and wrinkled suit. “You can’t cook worth shit,” he points out playfully, but no less truthfully.
Castiel grins back, he can’t help it. “I can manage toast. Maybe even grilled cheese if you have it.”
Dean huffs a small chuckle. “Just order something,” he says and disappears into the bathroom, Castiel’s eyes following his disappearing form.
Castiel orders pizza from an app on his phone, and then sits awkwardly in the chair. This is the first time he’s in Dean’s space like this, the first time he’s really seeing any private part of Dean. Or well, he’s obviously seen him naked, has had his tongue in his asshole. But still. This is private in a different way.
The breakfast bar he is sitting at is covered in tidy stacks of things. There’s folded laundry, an iPad and a couple of notebooks. On the far end is a thick book with a pencil case on top of it. Castiel turns his head to read the title on the side. GED prep. That makes Castiel smile.
Dean finishes showering before the food gets there, and he emerges from the bathroom looking marginally better. He’s in sweats, and still pale, still exhausted, but he doesn’t have that sickly shine anymore, and he looks, if not sober, then something approaching it.
He pours a glass of orange juice from the fridge, and leans against the breakfast bar across from Castiel, but only for a moment before the doorbell goes and he pushes off the bar to go get the food.
They eat in silence, Dean staring absentmindedly into space and Castiel keeping a worried eye on him. He wants to walk around the bar and wrap his arms around Dean. Wants to kiss his forehead, and his lips, and tell him how much he’s missed him. How much he loves him.
After a couple of slices of pizza, Dean looks at Castiel. “You staying?” he asks, voice neutral but Castiel can read the nervousness in his eyes. He looks tired, eyes droopy and still red from alcohol.
“Yes,” Castiel says firmly, not asking for permission. He’s not leaving Dean like this.
“’Kay,” Dean mumbles, looking down. “Thanks.”
Dean packs the rest of the pizza away and luckily doesn’t have to be prompted much before he trudges into the bedroom and falls into a queen-sized bed. Castiel draws the drapes for the barely setting sun and turns off the light. It’s not late, barely 7pm, but Dean nods off before Castiel joins him, lying down on top of the covers next to him.
At first, he tries to do spend the time doing anything but studying Dean. He picks up the book next to Dean’s bed, Slaughterhouse Five, and reads the first page. He checks his phone and answers the messages from his friends that range from are you guys okay? to he’s not worth it, and Castiel’s replies range from we will be, thank you to he is.
It isn’t long, however, before the pull of Dean is too strong, and Castiel catalogues his relaxed features before he wraps himself around him, pulling Dean to his chest and tucking his head under his chin. He inhales his familiar scent and tightens his hold on him. Before he nods off to sleep, he thinks that he’s never letting him go again.
-
It’s early, still dark out when they wake the next morning. Castiel is awoken by Dean gently mapping his features with light fingertips.
Castiel purses his lips in a whisper of a kiss when they get to his mouth, and Dean draws his hand back, only to find Castiel’s lips with his own.
He presses a single soft kiss to Castiel’s lips and then rests his head in the crook of Castiel’s neck. Castiel rubs his hand up and down Dean’s back under the covers, and in return Dean lightly scratches Castiel’s scalp, running his fingers through his hair.
“I’m sorry, Cas,” Dean whispers after several minutes. “I’m sorry for not replying when you reached out and for misunderstanding everything. I’m sorry about Dick.”
“There’s no need,” Castiel whispers back. Then, because he can’t help himself: “What happened yesterday, with Dick… Is that common?”
Dean sighs. “It’s not common, no. Not at an agency like Crowley’s. If you’re on your own, you’re kind of shit out of luck, but the agencies talk. They can screen clients. Dick has a rep for being, well, a dick, and I probably shouldn’t have accepted the booking at all. I definitely shouldn’t have been drinking like I was. I knew better,” he says.
Castiel doesn’t like that at all. The note of self-blame. “Dean,” he says softly.
“I’m sorry for working. I can’t imagine the mess I’ve created, showing up at that thing yesterday with Dick Roman of all people,” Dean says. “And I don’t- Fuck. Look, I haven’t been escorting these past weeks. Since the trip. Because I don’t want that anymore. I want you,” he says, voice quiet in the still morning, but unwavering.
“Dean, please. Don’t apologize for that,” Castiel says. “I’m sorry that we misunderstood each other so terribly, and I’m sorry for hurting you. I never meant that I didn’t want you because you’re an escort. Never. I want you no matter what.”
Dean moves then, flips onto his stomach to look at Castiel. They can just make out each other in the darkness of the room. “You were always so stubborn about not sleeping with me for money. That’s why I thought… After the trip, you know, I’d told you how I felt and we slept together, and I don’t know. It seemed like you felt the same way. That’s why I told Charlie to rewire the money because I figured I wasn’t working. I thought, maybe I was there because you wanted me, too.”
Castiel leans up to kiss him. He’s elated and relieved at hearing Dean say he wants him, but he’s also sad. He’s sad that he’s been so poor at communicating that he made Dean think that all of Castiel’s hang-ups had anything to do with him.
“I did want you, Dean. I do. It was never a question of how I felt for you,” Castiel tells him. “But I liked you so much, probably from the moment I met you, and the reason I booked you was never for sex. And while I certainly wanted to have sex with you, I didn’t want you to do that because you felt obligated to, or because I was paying you. I only wanted to, if you wanted to too,” Castiel says.
“I did,” Dean says and he’s smiling now. “Christ, Cas, it’s like the biggest cliché, falling for the client, but I did. Like, right away.”
Castiel smiles too. Only until he’s stopped from doing so by Dean leaning down to kiss him thoroughly, his own smile barely contained.
“If it makes a difference, I didn’t sleep with Dick,” Dean says when he leans back. “I haven’t been escorting at all, until yesterday.”
“Dean, it’s okay. It’s your job and it’s not any of my business,” Castiel says.
“That’s not how I see it,” Dean says. “I know you say that you don’t care, but I meant it when I said I was ready to quit. I signed up for my GED when I got back from the trip, so I was focused on doing that. And then after we fought, I talked to Charlie. She’s a close friend, and I told her about how I felt like I was done escorting, but I didn’t really have anything else, and she mentioned that Crowley’s offers many jobs. So I’ve been doing random shit there, manning the phones, picking up the girls. Bartending. Even fixing a leaky faucet in the staff room. It all paid shit, so I eventually started dancing. So, while I haven’t been escorting, I’ve still been taking my clothes off for money. If you care,” Dean explains.
“I don’t,” Castiel says straight away. “I care about you being happy. Congratulations on starting your GED,” he says with a small smile. He’s happy that Dean is doing what he wants, that he’s following his goals. He’s proud.
Dean scoffs. “It sucks. I haven’t done math in, I don’t know, 12 years? I’m fucking shit at trig,” he complains.
Castiel grins. “Do you know that I’m a numbers guy?” he points out.
“Are you offering to tutor me? I’ve seen porn that starts like that,” Dean says playfully.
Castiel chuckles. “Is everything about sex with you?”
“No, but I wish everything was about sex with you,” Dean replies and laughs when Castiel does.
“You’re so smooth,” he says.
Dean shrugs, “I’m an exotic dancer now, I shave and shit.”
Castiel laughs again, to Dean’s gleeful mirth. “Are you a good dancer?” Castiel asks, teasingly.
Dean chuckles. “I’ve got no rhythm, but I’m flexible and I look great in a thong. It’s not sustainable but it’ll do for a while.”
“I bet,” Castiel says. He sneaks his hand from Dean’s shoulder and down to the top of his ass. Dean grins salaciously at him, so Castiel pinches him lightly. “What are your plans?” he asks.
“I finish my GED in the next couple of weeks. Well, fingers crossed,” he says. “And then I’ll apply to go to college in the fall.”
“Okay,” Castiel nods. “This is what you want, right?” he checks.
“It is,” Dean says seriously. “Escorting has been a hell of a ride, and like I said on the trip, really lucrative, but I’m not getting any younger. I’ve made more than I ever expected to, and now I want other things.”
“Well,” Castiel starts and fits his other hand to Dean’s cheek. “Whatever you do, I’ll be here.”
Dean smiles and bites his lower lip shily. Something warm blooms in Castiel’s chest, like he knows Dean will say it before he does. “I love you.”
Castiel smiles brightly back, reveling in Dean’s bright green eyes. “I love you too.”
And then he draws Dean in to kiss him, and Dean does him one better by climbing on top of him, straddling him.
Castiel grips his hips, moving Dean against himself and Dean grins against his mouth. “You’re gonna make love to me now?” he asks teasingly.
“Oh yes,” Castiel says and flips them over, finding himself between Dean’s legs. “Thoroughly so.”
He dips down to kiss him, lapping his tongue against Dean’s while he grinds his hard length into his crotch.
Dean moans into Castiel’s mouth, biting down on his lip when he runs his hands into Dean’s pants to palm his cock.
Castiel plants kisses down the column of Dean’s throat, while Dean works on Castiel’s shirt buttons. Dean keeps his legs locked around him, rocking against him, even as he pulls his T-shirt over his head for Castiel to continue his trail.
Dean gasps when Castiel gently bites a nipple and pulls him back up when Castiel intends to go lower. Dean’s eyes are hooded and dark with arousal but crinkled with a smile when Castiel meets them, and Dean urges him down to kiss him again, tangling one hand in his hair.
Castiel’s eyes fall closed as Dean touches him. The hair pulling is a perfect contrast to the softness of Dean’s lips, that combines beautifully with Dean’s rough grinding against Castiel, the tightness of his legs around Castiel’s back.
He groans against Dean’s mouth, and then his neck, when Dean reaches for the bedside drawer, procuring lube and a condom.
While Dean works Castiel’s zipper down, Castiel coats his fingers in lube. He gasps when Dean puts his hand on him and Dean shudders against him, squeezing, when Castiel lightly pressing his fingers into him.
Like before, Castiel dedicates his entire focus on eliciting as many delicious sounds from Dean’s sinful mouth as he can with his fingers alone. Dean moans and sighs and curses and compliments, and it isn’t until he begs that Castiel offers him more.
He rolls on the condom and drizzles generously with lube, before he moves into Dean in a swift, smooth motion that has Dean’s mouth falling open around a moan below him.
Castiel takes a second to revel in the hot tightness around him, but mostly to try not to cum straight away.
“C’mon, Cas,” Dean urges desperately from under him. He strains his legs around Castiel, prompting him to move. “Fu- no, I mean make love to me already. Thoroughly,” he says, red-faced but smirking.
Castiel smiles back at him and leans down to kiss him gently first. And then he thoroughly makes love to Dean, face to face and breathing in each other’s air, until Dean comes with a shout, and then proceeds to beg Castiel to take the condom off and cum on his face.
Castiel supposes that can be romantic in its own way, as he gently wipes cum out of Dean’s eyelashes with a damp towel.
They spend the day together, and Castiel doesn’t go home until Sunday evening, but he’s not worried for once. Even if they have to come clean about the whole hired escort as fake boyfriend thing and reintroduce Dean as Dean to everyone, Castiel isn’t worried. Because they have each other, and he knows that he’ll never have to endure another awful blind date or threat of being set up with a relative or being the only single at company events. He’ll never be lonely or wonder if something is so seriously wrong with him that no one could want him. He’ll always have Dean.
-
Three months later
“Okay, we’re here,” Castiel says as he stops the car. “Now, this is going to be an awful event full of self-important snooty phonies, and it isn’t going to be fun at all,” he warns Dean.
Dean grins at his antics and squeezes Castiel’s hand. “I’m sure your family is gonna be great.”