chapter 3

                                    

                                          
It was all so painless, falling in love with Dean.
                          
There was something so mindlessly ordinary about it, like Dean was just another fixture, just another glass in his cupboard that he had begun using.  He wasn't there, and then the next day he was, and Cas couldn't remember the hours before him. Before his hands or his mouth or his eyes, before these things slid over his body and touched him and adored him. Dean would often stop and stare at him, his eyes wide and wondering, as if he was just seeing Cas for the first time all over again, like was suddenly rediscovering him, and his face would melt into something so . Dean never stopped asking Cas where he had been before they met. What corner of the world he had been hiding in for so long, and Cas would always find it easier to kiss him than to say.  The truth was Cas could never answer because he'd forgotten it; there was no real before Dean. Whatever time it was held no meaning anymore and his brain had discarded it.
                          
It was the heat of summer now; Cas slept on the  the sheets tangled at his feet - the April party was a distant memory. A twinkling light in a window. Every day since was as blinding and brilliant as the sun and as the heat set in, so did Dean. His skin was sticky with kisses, and the little bruises under his collar starting to become a pain to cover up. Every time he adjusted his shirts in class he felt the whisper of Dean's hands on his sides and had to shift, glancing around. He was baffled that no one had approached him about Dean; there were times he considered himself so transparent he was certain everyone must have known about the bed he'd been in the night before, had known about the things he'd been saying, the confessions he'd made and the laughter he'd coaxed out of Dean's mouth. Why else would anyone smile that much for no reason? Especially then.
                          
The war loomed over all of them. It stood like a guillotine, the blade swinging on a tired rope, waiting to fall on any of them at any time. Cas had managed to keep it arm's length with school, but the threat of Dean being drafted clouded his mind on lonely nights when Dean was on the graveyard shift. Dean was desperate to get Sam into law school, and if he wasn't racing he was working, bartending at the icehouse off the interstate, sometimes waiting or bussing tables for extra tips if the man who owned it let him. If he wasn't working Cas would be lucky enough to have him in his bed. Cas would sit at his cramped desk, trying to ignore the traffic outside long enough to learn about the nervous or circulatory system, the radio playing. Sometimes he'd scan the  but there hadn't been anyone he'd recognized for a long while. Boys were still dying, but at least he didn't know them. He papered his mind with Dean instead, losing himself in waiting for him to show up next, for his phone to ring and for it to be Dean on the other end.
                          
Often he felt cruel for being in school - for being able to avoid conscription - but Dean's face was fiercly proud when he told him about his tests or papers, and he always managed to be flexible around exams and deadlines. He put Cas first.
                          
Nobody had ever done that for him before.
                          
"You're ," he'd say. "You're so smart, Cas. It's better you're here. You're gonna learn how to save people's lives, you know? Same way Sammy is gonna learn how to defend them. I'd die if they took you over there and fucked you up."
                          
For all Cas loved him, the reality was difficult to manage. They met during the day if they could help it to not attract suspicion, and if Cas could he'd take the bus to Dean's apartment and stay the night. Dean lived on the top floor of his building, and no one gave a shit about what happened on the top floor, or so he said. Cas had a growing suspicion he paid off his landlord to not ask questions. Cas didn't want to think about it the same way he didn't want to think of what would happen if they were caught. He just tried to believe Dean when he said they'd do it their way and fuck the rest. Cas had never been braver. He dared his brothers to show up and say something about it, dared to see what they would say about Dean.