Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Dude, what time is it?” Dean had been staring at the computer screen for way too long. From the way his eyeballs felt painfully dry as he rubbed at them and and tried to force them to focus, he wondered whether he’d even been blinking. The editorial room of the newspaper headquarters, normally bustling and manic with activity, had gone nearly silent at some point in the past several hours, though Dean hadn’t noticed it happening. The only light in the large workroom now came from the lamps on the desk he was currently borrowing and on the one behind him, where Castiel had startled violently when Dean spoke.

“Dammit,” Cas muttered, attempting to gather up the pencils he’d spilled across his work surface when his elbow knocked over the cup. A few escaped, rolling over the edge and clattering to the floor, where they made their way into the shadows under other desks and chairs. Cas sighed, glancing around. “Hmmm. Did everyone leave?” His usually rough voice was even more hoarse from lack of use.

“Looks like,” Dean said with a huff of laughter. “Well, not everyone. Just the people with enough seniority and not enough responsibilities to require any midnight oil.”

Castiel frowned. “Midnight? It can’t possibly be—”

“No, it’s just a…” Dean closed his eyes, running a hand through his hair as he smiled tiredly. “Sometimes I have no idea how you managed to make news editor.”

Covering a yawn with his hand, Cas pushed his chair back from the desk. He stretched his arms over his head, letting his unbuttoned shirt cuffs fall loosely around his forearms. Dean caught himself staring for a moment, entirely unprofessionally, and forced his eyes back downward. “It’s late and my mind is slowing down,” Cas said, giving his own rueful grin. “And I made editor through long nights just like this one, only with far less scintillating company. When I was in your position as a new reporter, they had me interning under Turner, if you can imagine.”

Dean could, and he shuddered. “Was he as grouchy then as he is now?” Rufus ruled the sports reporters with an iron fist, and as much as Dean had once daydreamed about the idea of getting paid to talk about baseball all day long, he was now extremely relieved that he’d landed in the news section instead. Of course, his satisfaction was for other reasons, as well.

“He was worse,” Castiel said, shaking his head. “And I still don’t buy his arguments about not being able to work on Saturdays for religious reasons, so we had to pick up the slack. Sabbath observance certainly ceased to be an issue when his Comets finally made it into the World Series.”

“Did he actually do any news work for that?”

“He got the paper to pay for his tickets, and he rambled into his recorder the whole time, which he passed off for me to transcribe. It was a nightmare.”

Dean chuckled, watching his mentor grimace and rub the back of his neck in remembered horror. “Okay, I’m definitely grateful. And I’m more than willing to put in my time, especially when you’re right in the trenches with me.” For a moment, he inwardly flinched—was that a little too much, too close to the truth? But Cas didn’t seem to notice.

“Even so, Dean Winchester, it is now…” He checked his wristwatch. “...past nine-thirty, and I know you’ve been here since six this morning. We’ve done good work on this Walker exposé, but we can come back to it after a good night’s sleep.” The smile of approval filled Dean with warmth, even as he noticed that Cas made no move to rise from his own chair and follow.

“Hey, you were here at six, too, Castiel Novak,” Dean pointed out playfully. “Shouldn’t you be taking your own advice?”

Castiel shrugged. “Probably,” he agreed. “You’ve caught me. There’s no way I’m going to be able to rest until I’ve settled this bit about the undisclosed spending. But your parts are unrelated to that, so it’s fine. You go on home, and I’ll see you in the morning.” His eyes, tired but still bright behind the lenses of his dark-rimmed glasses, held Dean’s gaze steadily as he spoke firmly.

Dean sagged a little, not happy about calling it quits for the night if Cas was going to be keeping at it. He slowly pushed his belongings into his messenger bag, watching as Cas turned back to the small stacks of notes and memos laid out in grids across the desk. It was amazing to watch him work; Cas was a master at noticing the fine connections between events and statements, seeing the bigger pictures and revealing them to the rest of the world.

The dim light of the desk lamp glinted off his eyeglasses, deepening the shadows around Cas’s face. Dean noted how the slight stubble that often darkened Cas’s jaw even by mid-morning now contrasted starkly against his rich olive complexion, which in turn looked a bit pale from exhaustion. Equal parts protectiveness and attraction surged through Dean. Screw it, he decided. Sleep can wait.

Instead of heading home, when he ducked out of the front door of the building, Dean turned the other direction, toward the all-hours coffee shop a few blocks away. If Cas is pulling an all-nighter, he deserves better than the shitty breakroom coffee. That was a perfectly acceptable thing to do for a senior coworker, right? It was just coffee, not anything, well, meaningful. Coffee was as far from intimate as grabbing extra pens for him or something. Dean steadfastly ignored the voice in his head muttering that this level of overthinking wasn’t usually involved in platonic favors, and that the shivers that ran up Dean’s spine with every gravel-voiced “Thank you, Dean” were also pretty damn telling.

The neighborhood was mostly office buildings and retail businesses that were closed or closing, so the amount of foot traffic wasn’t too bad as Dean made his way down the road. A few doors before he got there, the rumble of an idling Brinks truck by the curb had him making a mental note to run by the bank tomorrow. Nearly tripping over a crack in the dim light distracted him, bringing his mind back to the present task.

The coffee shop had a short line, mostly consisting of sad-eyed suit-clad workers whose states seemed to range from semi-coherent to near zombie. Dean debated whether he should skip his own coffee, or at least opt for half-caf (decaf was the work of Satan), but he decided to leave his options open, in case he could convince Cas to accept a little more help to shorten his own night. He probably tipped a little too much (the barista looked sleepy, too) and headed back out into the night.

The continuing rumble of the armored truck made his steps slow. How long had he been in the coffee shop? Ten minutes? And—hang on. What was a Brinks truck even doing on a run this late in the evening? He was no expert on the matter, but he was pretty sure that most of them ran day time routes. Dean glanced at the store next to the truck; it was a small boutique jewelry store, not big enough to require more than a few minutes for the drivers to pick up the day’s cash. The lights were dimmed in the front showroom, with a sliver of light coming from deeper in the store. Curious, Dean stepped closer to the glass.

A man’s shadow temporarily blocked the light as he passed in front of the doorway to the back of the store. When he moved out of the doorway, Dean glimpsed two women sitting on the floor, white-faced and wide-eyed as they stared toward the man. Further beyond them, Dean saw another man bent over a desk; his hand was resting on the grip of a handgun.

Oh shit oh shit oh shit—

Dean hurriedly stepped back from the window, shoving a hand into his bag to grapple for his cell phone. Cops first, then Cas! A scoop on a robbery might not be Pulitzer material, but it was big enough for a cub reporter like him. Even so, he felt jittery and nervous at the sight of that weapon, and calling Cas for backup before moving on it sounded like a great idea to him.

He hissed when he saw the black screen of his phone, battery far too drained to even turn on. The nearest pay phone was at least a block away; anything could happen in the meantime. Biting his lip, Dean glanced into his bag again. His newspaper-issued camera sat on top of his binders, and Dean hesitantly put a hand on it. At least a few photos might help the cops, if they can’t get here in time to catch the robbers. Decision made, Dean pulled out the camera and popped off the lens cap.

He dropped his bag on the sidewalk behind him, putting the coffees next to it, before edging up to the window again. Putting the camera as close to the glass as he could, Dean waited until the robber in his sight lifted his head so his face was visible, then pressed the shutter button with a click.

Flash!

Dean gasped as the light from the camera lit the dark store interior for a fraction of a second. Of all the stupid, careless things to forget! It had to be the lingering tiredness from the day. No excuse was going to make up for the fact that the light had definitely not been missed; as Dean stood frozen, he saw the robber squint, then point toward the window and bark something angry.

Run, now! Dean tried to command his body. His legs felt clumsy as he stepped backward, turning to flee. Another few steps, and his foot suddenly slammed into something, throwing him off balance. The messenger bag he’d left on the ground tripped him, catching on his shoe; he hopped and twisted, but gravity showed no mercy, and he fell hard to his knees. Adding insult to injury, one knee landed on the coffee cups, sending hot coffee splashing over his thighs.

Time seemed to be moving in slow motion as Dean tried to get back onto his feet and get moving again. He thought he could hear pounding footsteps in the store, getting louder. The door banged open, hitting the wall. A woman was screaming something. Gold-booted feet were slamming into the pavement in front of him.

Wait, what?

“Not you!” a man behind him said, whom Dean supposed was one of the robbers.

“Who else?” said a voice directly above him. The newcomer’s voice was full of sultry laughter, sounding honestly pleased to be standing in the middle of a crime scene in the dark. Dean lifted his head slowly, trying surreptitiously to get a look at what new insanity had fallen into his life. The gold boots were at the bottom of extremely muscular legs, covered in glossy black tights. Those led to a positively sculpted torso, abdominal muscles tantalizingly conspicuous beneath shiny black fabric, overlaid with gold-colored bands of metal in intriguing patterns across his broad chest. His wrists and sternum had some kind of glittery gold ornaments adorning them, and the upper part of his face was hidden behind a black mask. The visible lower part was grinning broadly.

The robber was apparently not as happy. “Go!” he yelled, presumably to his partner, and Dean heard footsteps begin to stumble away.

The masked man tilted his head to the side, his smile not diminishing at all. Then he jumped. Dean didn’t have a chance to follow where he went; he just bounded straight into the air, and by the time Dean heard the panicked cries behind him and turned around, the guy had both robbers gripped by the throats, one in each hand.

“Nope, not tonight,” he said, and he promptly tossed them into the side of the truck. They fell to the ground stunned, and before they could recover, he was stooping next to them, wrapping their hands together in some kind of bright blue cord he was pulling from his belt.

“Normally I prefer not to beat on your average, run-of-the-mill, human bad guy too much,” he said in a conversational tone while he worked. Turning his head, he flashed a smile at Dean, who abruptly realized that the man was talking to him. “I mean, it’s sort of sad, isn’t it? But it’s been kind of a long day, and frankly, my to-do list is full enough without adding a big chase scene. You’ll forgive my lack of creativity this time, won’t you?” He threw a wink in Dean’s direction.

“Um,” Dean answered, baffled. “Sure. No problems here.”

“Good.” Rising from his squat, the man made his way back to Dean, then bent to retrieve the camera from the ground. He winced at the thin crack along the side of the casing. “Ouch,” he said. “That looks like an expensive fix.”

Dean took it, turning it in his hands. “My boss’ll be pissed,” he said faintly. It did look bad, and he felt a little light-headed at the thought of the repair costs coming out of his meager pay. He couldn’t imagine the Chief being sympathetic over it, no matter how he tried to explain.

“I wouldn’t worry about that too much,” came the response. A finger tracing along Dean’s jaw and lifting his chin made him jerk in surprise, but the eyes that met his from behind the mask were calming and almost hypnotically captivating. “It’s just a camera. You’re much more important. And interesting, as well.” His teasing smirk made little crinkles appear around the outer corners of his eyes, barely evident at the edges of the mask’s eyeholes.

Pulse jumping and head spinning, Dean mumbled something completely unintelligible. His mouth had apparently decided it was giving up for the day.

“Shame about that to-do list, or else…” The man let the sentence trail off, bright blue eyes twinkling as he appeared to memorize Dean’s face. The faint sound of a siren approaching broke the spell, and he turned aside; Dean felt the loss of contact like a chill. “That’ll be the men in blue. Just give them my regards, all right? And…next time, then.” He glanced back toward Dean one last time, nodding his head slightly in farewell, and a moment later, he was leaping upward again, gone as if he’d never existed.

When the police arrived a minute later, the lead officer took one look at the robbers’ bound hands and threw up her own in frustration. “Well, that was a wasted trip,” she said. “The Seraph couldn’t have dropped these two off at the jail? We didn’t need four cruisers to pick up two guys and take some statements.”

“He said…” Dean coughed and cleared his throat. “He said he was busy?  That guy, in the mask. The, uh, Seraph?”

“You saw him?” the officer said, eyeing Dean as if she wasn’t sure whether to arrest him too or give him a blanket for the shock.

“He saved me.” Dean wasn’t sure of the rest of what had happened, but he was pretty confident about that.

“Yeah, that’s what The Seraph does. Now, if I could ask you a few more questions…”

It was creeping past midnight by the time Dean finally staggered back into the editorial room. Castiel took a look at him and was on his feet, eyes huge with concern. “Dean, I thought you were going home and to bed! Why are you here again? Are you all right?”

Dean felt hysterically close to either laughter or tears. “I got you some coffee,” he said, swaying a little.

Cas looked him up and down. “Well, thank you, not that you needed to do that. But where is it?” He looked again, this time noticing the huge brown coffee stains covering Dean’s pants legs. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Dean dropped into a chair. “This has been a weird day.”

Looking baffled but amused, Castiel nodded. “I can definitely agree to that,” he said. His eyes twinkled in the lamplight, and Dean was hit with a sudden feeling of deja vu. Blue. And those crinkles. Just like…

The look of dawning confusion and wonder on Dean’s face had Cas asking again whether he was feeling all right, but all Dean could manage was a vague nod. His mind was screaming the impossible at him. Castiel is The Seraph! Cas is a superhero, and he saved my life! What the hell do I do now?

“So let me get this straight,” Chief Singer said, tapping a finger on the conference room table. “You were at the crime scene when the crime was taking place. You got a goddamn picture of the crime in progress. You watched the arrest, you talked to the police, and you had a damn conversation with the one guy who’s on everybody’s Top Ten list for Folks to Know…and you didn’t manage to get a picture of him?”

“It sort of happened really fast,” Dean muttered. The photo of the jewelry store robbery had turned out better than he had imagined; the mistake with the flash, as dangerous as it had been, had somehow resulted not in a shot of his own reflection in the glass, but instead gave a clear depiction of the robber’s face, the weapon, and the open safe behind him. Bobby, the chief editor, didn’t know what color to turn as he studied the photo for the hundredth time.

“I’m not in the habit of rewarding my cubs for taking dumb risks,” Bobby finally said. “Next time, get the cops there first, you idjit. But you’ll get your credit for the photo, and it’ll be above the fold. Now get out of here before I think of more names I want to call you.”

Swallowing his groan of relief, Dean made his retreat from the chief’s conference room as hastily as he could, feeling eyes on his back. That had felt almost more like an interrogation than discussion, and considering how Dean had tossed and turned sleeplessly in his bed for the rest of the night once he’d finally made it home, it was amazing he’d managed to appear as calm as he had. His head was still spinning about how the camera damage had earned him less scolding than the other stuff; apparently, his assigned gear was already slated to be replaced, since the paper’s owner had just made some sort of deal with a different company. Talk about a dodged bullet.

Castiel had a cup of coffee waiting for Dean when he got back to the editorial room. “Well, what did he say?” he asked as he held out the mug. Chief Singer’s loud calls for Dean to “get his ass in here yesterday if not sooner” had echoed through the office about ten minutes after Dean dropped off the prints and his notes with the chief’s assistant, and neither Cas nor he had known what to expect.

“Chief’s printing the photo and crediting me, but I think he’s pretty pissed off about it,” Dean replied, taking the coffee and trying to avoid staring at Cas’s eyes. Those blue eyes had haunted his thoughts all night long, filled with the laughter and warmth that had made Dean practically melt even before the bizarre revelations surrounding the robbery and his rescue.

The Seraph rescued me. I think Castiel might be The Seraph. Cas might have rescued me. And flirted with me? Did Cas really come onto me? Is there a chance he might actually be into me? Hours, he’d laid awake, trying to come up with a plan, something witty to say when he saw Cas the next day, but all he’d managed was a semi-coherent morning greeting and the excuse of being kept awake by noisy neighbors. The earnest sympathy he’d received for the lie had made him feel even worse.

“Well, that’s incredible! And completely understandable as well, really. I mean, I don’t like thinking of you in that sort of danger, myself.” Leaning back against a desk, Cas ducked his head, trying to catch Dean’s eyes with his own. “Don’t worry about Bobby’s temper, either. He has a knack for wrapping every compliment in scolding and grumbling, maybe to keep anybody around here away from any danger of developing an inflated ego.”

Dean felt himself begin to relax a bit at hearing that, shoulders unknotting as he laughed shortly. “Yeah? So I’m not on his permanent shitlist?”

“I’m sure your career is safe,” Cas affirmed. For a moment, Dean found himself anticipating a sly wink, memories of the one The Seraph had given him flashing through his mind. Instead, Cas gently patted him on the shoulder and turned back toward his own desk.

Dean was clearly going crazy. It was ridiculous, utterly nuts. No way was his adorably nerdy mentor some sort of secret superhero vigilante! Lots of people had blue eyes, right? Plenty of blue-eyed men in their city! Men who also had dark, messy hair…and deep voices…and bright smiles that could reach right into Dean’s chest, grab his heart, and squeeze.

Spinning around and leaving the room before he embarrassed himself any more, Dean decided he needed to do something about this whole mess, or else he’d never be able to concentrate on anything else ever again. The logical solution was right in front of him, too: when in doubt, research. He was a reporter, after all, and investigation was practically second nature. Dean made his way swiftly to the paper’s archives, determined to find out anything he could about The Seraph.

---

“Dean? What’s all this?” Castiel stood on the other side of the desk, head cocked to the side so he could see what Dean was immersed in researching.

What “all this” was, Dean concluded, was a pointless waste of effort. The paper had plenty of stories, full of eyewitness accounts and gushing praises, about the masked superhero, but apparently nobody had ever managed to get a decent photo of more than a distant silhouette of the man. No wonder Bobby had been frustrated with Dean.  

“Just got curious, I guess,” Dean mumbled, shuffling the disarray of papers back into a pile. “Sorry, I know I had other things I was supposed to be working on.”

“No, that’s…it’s quite all right. You had a traumatic event, so it’s natural to want to, well, explore it.” Cas’s words sounded sincere, but when Dean looked up at him, he saw that his brow was creased, perhaps with concern. His expression was difficult to read, though there was definitely tension in it. He almost looked nervous, which would be weird, since it wasn’t as though Dean had actually been left mentally scarred by the close call or anything like that. Cas shouldn’t be actively worried for him, unless…unless Dean’s well-being wasn’t what or who he was worrying about.

If Castiel really is The Seraph, he doesn’t want people to know it! God, how dumb could Dean be? No matter what other thoughts Cas might have hidden in his head, people don’t just wear masks and costumes and avoid cameras if they want people knowing their real-life identities. Now Cas was probably regretting having allowed Dean to come anywhere near him while he was in Seraph-mode.

“No, I’m fine, man. I guess it was just Singer’s yelling that got to me,” Dean said, his lighthearted tone sounding less convincing than he wished. Rising from his chair, he stretched his arms over his head and laced his fingers, cracking his knuckles, then rolled his shoulders in what he hoped looked like a casually relaxed manner. “He had me thinking I dropped the ball big time by not walking away with a full interview and perfect headshot for The Seraph. Needed to reassure myself that nobody else has managed it, either.”

Castiel’s forehead smoothed a fraction, and one corner of his mouth turned up slightly. “You’re hardly unique in that respect, Dean. You shouldn’t feel inferior, no matter what Bobby may have said.” He still sounded a little on edge.

“I hear you, and I know,” Dean said, leaning forward over the desk. It was kind of hard to lock eyes with Cas while trying to keep his suspicions—and feelings—to himself, but it was necessary if he wanted to make sure Cas believed him. Cas’s eyes widened a little, but he didn’t seem inclined to break the gaze, either. “You know what? I’m sort of glad I didn’t get the chance for it to even be a thing. People should be allowed to live their lives without having to spill their secrets to the whole world. I mean, nobody’s making me get up and tell everyone what I do at night, or who I choose to do it with, right? That kind of respect, I think, should be basic courtesy for everyone. I don’t want to be in the business of outing people’s private lives.”

Castiel hummed thoughtfully. “That’s an interesting position for a reporter to take,” he finally said. Their eye contact was starting to feel a little intense, but Dean wasn’t sure how to break it at this point.

“Yeah, well,” he stammered, “we’re not talking about criminal activity or anything. Just…the personal stuff.”

“I see,” Cas murmured. Had they been this close to each other at the start of the conversation? Dean’s weight was braced on his hands, halfway across the desk, and Cas was leaning just as far inward from the other side. Dean thought he could almost smell the aftershave Cas had used that morning if he breathed in just a bit more deeply. Without thought, he licked his lips nervously, and Castiel’s eyes immediately dropped to them.

There was a sudden crash of a dropped stack of books onto a table across the room, and the loud noise made both of them jump backward. With the strange moment shattered, the crushing awareness of where they were and what they were—almost—doing slammed into Dean, and his face nearly caught fire from blushing. Castiel, too, was undeniably flustered, running his hands down the front of his sport coat as he shifted from foot to foot.

“I think I’d better…I was supposed to make a phone call to City Hall, and I…” Cas looked so anxious that Dean’s own self-consciousness dissipated in sympathetic response.  

“Yeah, I think you told me about that. Go on, we’ll talk later,” he said, smiling, and Cas shot him an absurdly grateful look.

“Thank you, Dean,” he said in a soft voice, exhaling deeply. As he turned to leave, Dean caught a glimpse of a grin beginning to spread across his face.

Well, at least that answers one question, Dean mused giddily. I think Cas definitely might be into me. Unable to resist, Dean cleared his throat to speak. “Oh, hey, Cas?” Castiel turned, immediately attentive to whatever Dean had to say to him. “Just wanted to say, that jacket looks good on you today.” He gestured at the slim-fitting sport coat hanging unbuttoned around Cas’s waist. “Black…it’s a good look on you.” And he winked, using every bit of the cocky swagger he could recall being directed at him the night before.

If the way he had blushed then was anything like the way Cas blushed now, Dean felt quite justified in feeling smugly appreciative. Turnabout was fair play, after all.

Chapter Text

“No, I know damn well you’re in Lifestyles, not News, Rosen! That’s not the point! Half my News reporters are out covering the Democrats’ state convention, and I just need pairs of eyes—any available pairs of eyes—to get out there and cover this damn fire!”

The ponytailed reporter shrank back under the tirade, meekly grabbing her bag and heading out the door and toward the waiting newspaper van. Castiel was scrambling for a few extra pens, while Dean impatiently waited for him. The call had just come in over the scanner, alerting them all to the fact that three large buildings were currently ablaze in the heart of downtown; one of the buildings was the prestigious Bronze Horse hotel, with its popular restaurant, bars, and conference facilities that were almost always full of crowds of people. This was going to be a nightmare, and part of Dean was terrified at the thought of watching it happen.

Another part of him was full of guilty excitement. He did his best to shove that part down and pretend it wasn’t there.

The group that piled into the van was certainly not made up of first-string News reporters, Dean thought with a wince. He looked at the photographer sitting across from him and recognized the skinny man as someone who worked primarily on Entertainment and Feature stories. Well, he thought, it was an all hands on deck situation. He surreptitiously checked his bag for his own, now repaired, camera; maybe, if the circumstances required it, his photo-taking luck would come through for him again.

Castiel, the only seasoned reporter present, was already scribbling notes to himself as the van tore around corners, trying to get as close to the conflagration as police presence would allow. Dean had no idea what Cas could possibly have to report, considering they hadn’t even left the vehicle, but he knew better than to interrupt. He wouldn’t have, anyway; the sight of those brows drawn fiercely downward over a glare of single-minded focus was an image that always bore revisiting when Dean found time to appreciate it in privacy.

Really, it was becoming a problem. Despite the flirtatious hinting on the night of the robbery, and that electric moment between Dean and Cas the next day, he’d made no progress at all toward getting Cas to open up toward him—not about whatever was happening between them, not about secret identities, not even about what he did when he left the office at night. For the past week, Castiel had been the soul of professionalism and a perfect gentleman, which made it all the more awkward when Dean woke up every morning from steamy dreams involving entertaining and creative uses for those blue ropes of The Seraph’s (they match his eyes, what the hell), or the feel of that late-night stubble growth dragging over the most sensitive places on his body…

The driver suddenly hit the brakes hard; behind him, Dean heard the Lifestyles section woman squeak in alarm. “We’re about three blocks out from the evacuation area!” the driver shouted. “Everybody move!” Castiel blinked, looking a little dazed as he came out of his concentrated note taking, and Dean grabbed both their bags as the crew scrambled. One bag bumped into the backs of another reporter’s legs, and he turned to glare at Dean.

“Watch it, Boy Wonder,” he said. Dean raised an eyebrow, surprised by the venom in the reporter’s voice, not to mention the name calling. He muttered a quick apology, but the guy just huffed and rolled his eyes as he kept moving.

They reached the police barricade quickly, almost stumbling into the backs of other television and press crews who’d gotten there first. Cameras were flashing nonstop, and reporters were shouting to be heard over the cries and calls of emergency workers and bystanders. Lifestyles was coughing into her sleeve, though the smoke was actually blowing in the other direction and wasn’t bad at all where they were positioned. Cas was already deep in conversation with an official-looking person wearing a badge; the sight reminded Dean why he was there, and he started scanning the crowd, looking for somebody who might want to have their “brush with fate” published for the world to read. Seeing a few women in bedraggled business wear sitting on a curb and looking stunned, he started to make his way toward them.

“I said watch it!” A sideways shove knocked Dean off balance, and the angry reporter who’d yelled at him earlier pushed past. “One lucky photo, and you think you’re the shit? Go carry Novak’s purse or something.” Dean’s jaw dropped, and he watched the other man stride toward the businesswomen, his face shifting into a practiced mask that dripped with compassion and sincerity.

Well, fuck you, buddy, Dean wanted to shout. Was that what people were saying about him? He’d seen a few other reporters turn to stare and whisper when he walked past, ever since he’d walked out of the chief’s office that day. Apparently, it hadn’t been sympathy for the shouting and scolding he’d gotten. Dean felt like arguing, but this wasn’t the time, and he doubted it would help anyway. Guess I’ll just have to show them it wasn’t a fluke.

Looking around again, he saw that almost everybody was busy talking to somebody, or else scribbling in notebooks or furiously typing into their cell phones. If Dean wanted to stand out, he needed to get a perspective nobody else with the paper was getting. Maybe…he turned around slowly, looking upward. Above him, flames licked out of the windows as the firefighters did their best to stop the blaze. That was where the action was, but of course nobody was getting there except cameras with telephoto lenses. The sun was right behind the buildings, too, at an angle that was making it even harder to look up without blinking and squinting. But what if I could get around that?

It took only a few minutes to solve that puzzle. The buildings immediately adjacent and directly across from the burning ones were obviously off-limits, having been cleared and barricaded by the police in case the fire spread to them. Further down the block, though, was a tall building that was conspicuously unattended. It looked high enough that Dean thought it made up for being further away. When he got closer, he saw that the building was apparently vacant; the glass-fronted lobby had only a few pieces of furniture scattered about, dusty and damaged.

There was, on the other hand, a fire escape clinging to the brick facade at the building’s side. Dean looped his messenger bag across his shoulders, took a few steps back, and then sprinted forward and leaped, grabbing for the bars at the bottom. It took a couple of tries, but he finally managed to grasp one, and he hauled himself up with some effort. After he’d caught his breath, he started to climb.

Perfect! From above, his view showed a much more complete story than what he’d seen on the ground. Dean was panting and sweating from climbing to the top, but now the angle had taken the sun out of his direct line of sight, allowing him to see the firefighters perched on the ladders, pumping jets of water into the windows of the burning buildings. Below him, the medical workers were in constant motion, tending to each person with amazing efficiency; Dean pulled his camera from his bag and snapped a wide-angle shot of the rows of ambulances and their crews. He kept snapping then, pausing only to jot notes and his impressions onto his steno pad.

He was so enthralled by everything he saw, he didn’t notice how the creaking of the metal beneath his feet seemed to be getting louder as he worked. It wasn’t until he was leaning forward over the railing, trying for the perfect photo of the rainbow forming in the vapor of a firefighter’s hose spray, that he felt the first jolt of movement.

Dean’s heart seemed to stop beating. Not daring to breathe, he slowly turned his head and looked at the building facade behind him The large metal bolts securing the fire escape to the side of the building suddenly looked a whole lot rustier and less confidence-boosting than before. Not that he’d really examined them, had he? Come to that, just how long had this building been vacant, and when was the last time anybody had even been up—

Another jolt, this time accompanied by a low moaning noise and a deep vibration that he felt through the soles of his shoes. Okay, photo time is over. Fighting down his panic, Dean made for the stairs, trying to run without letting his feet strike the metal rungs too heavily. He made it down to around the eighth floor when a third jolt, much stronger than the others, knocked him flat on his stomach, and everything suddenly tilted sideways.

Sliding, slowly at first, but picking up speed, Dean scrabbled for a handhold as the entire metal structure began pulling away from the building. The low groan grew louder and higher, and Dean finally got his fingers through the platform grate and gripped hard just as the movement stopped with a loud bang and a bone-jarring jerk, leaving the structure suspended at around a sixty-degree angle away from the wall. Tiny vibrations resonated through the bars, on and on, and Dean closed his eyes and tried to force his terror-frozen vocal cords to operate.

“Help! Please, someone!” Dean wasn’t about to try turning his head to look down, but he knew with horrible certainty that there was no way anyone was going to be able to hear him over the noises of the fire and the crowd activity. Any one of the hundreds of people below him could easily see him if they looked in his direction, but everyone had their eyes trained the other way. Dean was debating whether he could possibly kick off his shoe, hoping it might attract the notice of someone walking by, when the metal groaned again. He gritted his teeth and tried to picture his family and friends, hoping they’d at least give him a good funeral.

“You have an incredible knack for finding danger, don’t you?” A low voice close to his ear made Dean shriek in alarm, tense muscles jerking. His fingers slipped a little, but before he could fall away, a pair of strong arms were wrapping around his waist and lifting him away from the fire escape. Trying to cooperate and not struggle, Dean twisted his head to get a glimpse of what he assumed would be an aerial ladder raised to where he’d precariously hung.

There was no ladder. There was no fireman, either. Dean’s knight in shining armor wore a black mask and a smug grin, and he was apparently standing in midair.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong. You really do seem like the best sort of danger,” continued The Seraph as he maneuvered Dean sideways against his chest, supporting him under the knees and shoulders. (Dean refused to call it a princess carry, even in his own head.) “Probably the highlight of my evening, getting to sweep you off your…well, stomach, but you get the idea. Even so, I can’t help but think there are safer ways to catch someone’s eye.”

“Well, that’s me. I always like to go that extra mile,” Dean said weakly, breathing as hard as if he’d run a marathon. Standing on the fire escape, he hadn’t felt nervous about being so high, but knowing that there was literally just air between him and the ground below was making his head spin. He focused instead on the lazy smile beaming at him. Yeah, there was no mistaking it this time, in the clear light of day.

“Full points for effort, then, though I’ll have to dock you on your attention to detail,” the masked man, who was definitely Castiel, said breezily. “Or did you specifically look for the rustiest, most broken-down fire escape you could find, just so you could nearly plummet to your death? Was it an insurance thing? Because if it was an insurance thing, I could always put you back—”

“No!” Dean yelped, throwing his arms around his rescuer’s neck. The soft chuckle that rumbled against his ribs would have felt mocking if it hadn’t been accompanied by the hand stroking his hip in soothing apology. Dean grimaced and flushed red, anyway. There was no sign that he was being judged at all, which he probably should have known better than to fear. Cas had never seriously made fun of him, no matter how much he’d deserved it. Maybe part of Dean’s brain was still a little uncertain about exactly who was saving his life, against all the evidence.

“I assume from the camera that you’re here to work,” said The Seraph, apparently unaware of Dean’s mental turmoil. “Should I be concerned that there are more members of your press crew endangering themselves in there?”

“Nah, just me,” Dean replied. Cas probably knows where everyone else is, so he wouldn’t need to ask, would he? Then again, if he lost track of me, he could have lost track of other people, too. “I’m the only moron dumb enough for a stunt like this.”

The glare he received was obvious even behind the mask. “None of that. I have a personal policy against saving morons, ergo you must not be one. Logical proof, see.”

Dean raised his eyebrows, momentarily distracted from his thoughts. “So you’re the superhero of natural selection?”

A snort, unlike any noise he’d ever heard Castiel make since he’d known him, preceded a full-chested burst of laughter. “Hey, maybe! Not sure it’d be great PR, but I bet the T-shirts would sell.” Dean couldn’t help but be infected by the man’s mirth, laughing even while he tightened his grip in slight concern over being accidentally dropped.

All the while, he had barely noticed that they were sinking closer to the ground. When, with a slight thud, they touched down, Dean was surprised to see that they were next to the newspaper van, with only a few random onlookers gawking at them in amazement. “You, uh, knew which news van was ours?” Dean said with a wry smirk. Of course you did, Cas. Now’s when you lift that mask and say so.

Instead, The Seraph gently placed Dean on his feet, but remained close inside his personal space, near enough that they were almost touching. He lifted a finger and lightly traced the strap holding the bag around Dean’s shoulders. Dean’s breath caught at the intimate feel of the gesture, and then he glanced down at the strap. It was patterned brightly with the newspaper logo, the same one that was painted on the sides and hood of the van.

“Oh. Nice catch,” he said lamely.

“It seems to be my day for making good catches,” came the reply. With a predatory grin, The Seraph slipped his fingers under the strap and tugged lightly, pulling Dean closer and holding him fast as he brought their faces nearer. Dean flashed back to the moment last week when he and Cas had been so close to something as they’d leaned across that desk; ever since then, there had been a feeling of anticipation and electric tension between them, and it seemed that the two of them were finally reaching the exciting conclusion…

The sound of an ambulance siren nearby made Dean’s eyes fly open. He hadn’t realized he’d closed them, and the sight of those familiar blue eyes, dilated with desire and so near to him, made him swallow hard. Without pulling away at all, The Seraph released a small sigh that sounded tinged with regret. “Do you get the feeling that we’re having a bit of an issue with timing?” he said, voice husky in Dean’s ear.

While Dean was still searching for words to respond, he found himself being abruptly pulled forward again, and this time there was no hesitation before he was being kissed hungrily. The kiss lasted only moments, during which Dean was too stunned to do more than hang on for dear life as he was practically devoured in the heated attack of determined lips and tongue. Before he could even gasp in shock, it was ending, culminating in the tiniest of actual bites to his bottom lip as they broke apart. Dean stood in stunned, panting wonder as The Seraph released the strap of his bag with a satisfied pat.

“Not that I’m encouraging this sort of risk-taking behavior, but maybe the third catch will be the one that sticks,” he said with a wink. “No more putting yourself in mortal peril just to get my attention, though—you’ve already got it.” Leaning close once more, he added in a murmur, “Always been a sucker for freckles.” And, snapping the last thread of Dean’s ability to process anything that was happening, he felt a hand snake downward over his back, grip one of his ass cheeks, and squeeze firmly before vanishing.

With that, Dean was left gaping upward at the quickly disappearing form of the most baffling, bewildering, fascinating man for whom he’d ever had the pleasure of falling, hopelessly and without a single regret. Well, no regrets except the one about his confusion over what Dean was supposed to call him.

He couldn’t go back to the fire in his current mental state, so he sat in the back of the van waiting, staring blankly as he tried to piece together his thoughts. The weirdest part of it all was how, even as he spoke to—and kissed!—the man, and knew that he was kissing his mentor, his brain had trouble combining the two of them. Castiel was button-down shirts and wryly biting sarcasm, controlled passion that danced behind dark-rimmed eyeglasses, and the scent of printer ink and black tea. The Seraph was unbottled enthusiasm and playful banter, goofiness and athleticism and an unpredictable wildness that made Dean’s head spin. How could they be the same man?

Dean loved it. He wanted more of both sides of the guy. Castiel, The Seraph, whatever he wanted to call himself, Dean was on board for every bit of this madness. There had to be a way for him to bring it all together, but he had no idea what that was.

When the crew staggered back to the van a little while later, Cas looked exhausted. His eyes landed on Dean, and surprise shifted almost immediately into distress. “Did something happen? You look—” He dropped his bag and came close, searching Dean’s face.

“I’m fine,” Dean tried to reassure him. It was all too much. Apparently they were still pretending—which was logical, of course, with the rest of the paper’s crew milling around them. “Just…got a bit overwhelmed.”

Cas nodded, a tired smile flickering. “It was definitely overwhelming. But I heard the fire chief say they don’t expect any casualties. Can you imagine? All that damage, and nobody died.”

“‘Cause you’re so incredible,” Dean mumbled, then grimaced when he realized what he’d said. Cas’s eyes widened, and Dean ran a hand over his face. “Um, what I meant is, ugh. It’s incredible work that the fire crews did, and you should say that. In the article.” Thankfully, nobody around them seemed to have noticed him almost outing Cas’s secret, and Dean breathed a sigh of relief.

Castiel hummed skeptically. “I think I might drive you home, once we get back to the office,” he said. “You sound a bit too shaken to be behind the wheel.” He reached toward Dean’s face slowly; unable to even blink, Dean sat staring as Cas’s thumb traced his cheekbone gently. “Soot,” Cas said. “You must have gotten pretty close, then.”

Not close enough, Dean thought. Not yet.

Chapter Text

“Stupid crosswords. Hey, Cas! What’s a seven-letter word for ‘dedicated adversary’?”

“Nemesis.”

“Wow. That was amazingly fast.”

“Well, it’s rather my area of particular expertise, Dean.”

“…Um. Y-You don’t say?”

“Well, crossword puzzles, logic puzzles, cryptograms. Any sort of word puzzle.”

“Oh. Sure.”

“Mmm-hmm. Of course, the New York Times Saturday crossword is my kryptonite.”

How did you show your gratitude to somebody for saving your life—twice, even—when they kept acting as though it had never happened? It was infuriating! There was no way to mistake the events of their second encounter as casual or ambiguous; even if Cas played flirty games with everyone he rescued, which was hard enough to imagine, there was no way that he was grabbing and kissing them all like there was no tomorrow, just for the fun of it. Not the Castiel Novak he knew, or thought he did.

No, Dean was convinced there really was something happening between them, but it was a little—no, extremely disconcerting to have that chemistry drop back from a wild boil down to a simmer like it had. Oh, Cas was definitely thinking about something when Dean caught him, as he often did, staring in his direction with speculation in his eyes. Whenever they were talking, though, and Dean made any attempt to steer the conversation toward even the slightest bit of suggestiveness, or even anything touching on Cas’s personal life, he might as well have been grasping at water. If he didn’t know better, Dean might have thought Cas was nervous, but that made no sense at all after what had happened the day of the fire.

Or maybe it did, if the mask gave the man that little extra bit of confidence he needed in order to go after what he wanted. Hey, Dean didn’t judge. He wasn’t even a stranger to roleplay, though obviously not quite to this degree.

“Hey, Cas, can you do me a favor? Look up, tilt your head a little this way?” Pulling his attention away from the cuttings he’d been examining, Cas raised his head and blinked a few times in slight confusion. Dean grinned sheepishly, gesturing at the camera in his hands. “Got a new low-light lens I want to play around with before I take it out for real. Is that okay?”

Rolling his eyes, Cas shook his head. “I can think of a hundred things and people in this room alone that would make for better photographs than I would,” he protested.

“Not sure what you mean by that,” Dean said. He lifted the camera to his eye and pretended to adjust the focus, mostly using it as a safe and comfort-granting barrier between the two of them. He snapped a shot and eyed it approvingly. “Camera loves you.”

“It’s an overpriced piece of technology that would probably make Quasimodo look like Harrison Ford, given the right lighting and a clever photographer.”

“See, now I can’t tell whether you’re complimenting my skills or saying something completely uncalled for about Indiana Jones.”

“I would never. You’ve made your feelings clear about those movies on multiple occasions, and I know better than to take my life into my own hands like that.” Castiel chuckled, holding up his palms in mock surrender.

“Damn right,” Dean said, still clicking. Truthfully, this photoshoot wasn’t at all necessary; the lens really was new, sure, but Dean wasn’t even trying to convince himself that what he was doing was anything other than a blatant excuse to snap photos of Cas without sneaking around or making up elaborate reasons. “Now take off your glasses? Lamp’s reflecting a little.”

“Maybe that’s something to consider, since we’re not always able to ask everybody we shoot for the paper to remove eyeglasses or redirect their lighting,” Castiel gently chided, but he obligingly slipped off his glasses, folding them and putting them on the desk.

“Um, that’s…that’s good. Yeah, perfect.” Dean had to clear his throat a little, mesmerized by how the lamplight now shone in Cas’s eyes; in the viewfinder of the camera, he could see the little flecks of gold glinting at the edges of his irises.

“You’ve been doing a lot of camera work lately, Dean,” Cas commented as he sat patiently. “Are you thinking of shifting into photojournalism as a specialty? I know you took a wide range of courses in college, including photography.”

“Well, it was interesting, and I like not always doing the same thing every day,” Dean said. “Probably my ADHD, right? Not being dismissive by saying that—I got diagnosed in high school, and things made a whole lot more sense after that. I’m better at dealing with it these days, but it helps if I keep myself on my toes and don’t give myself time to get too bored or restless doing one thing for too long a stretch. Plus, I figured it would make it easier to find a job, being able to do whatever the newspaper needed.” Click. “How about you? Did you always want to be the bigshot newspaper editor, spilling all the news that’s fit to print?”

“Not until high school, when I got stuck on the school newspaper because the marching band wouldn’t have me.” Castiel ducked his head in slight embarrassment over the memory, but he wasn’t upset. “My brother thought he was being amusing and suggested I could ask to play the triangle, but I doubt I could have carried a tune even using that.”

“Brothers,” Dean agreed with a laugh. “Teasing’s part of the job description. Older or younger?”

“Younger,” Cas said, after the tiniest of hesitations. Before Dean could wonder at the weirdness of that or ask any more questions to explore this new bit of information about Cas’s family history (we both have little brothers—something else in common!), Cas had moved on. “But I enjoyed the paper more than I expected to, and it worked out in the end. Before that, though, I had the idea that I wanted to make my mark on the world in a more direct way. Covering that fire the other day…I remembered that for a long time, I actually dreamed about being a firefighter. Or perhaps an emergency doctor, or even a medic in the armed forces, racing into danger to save lives.”

“You wanted to be a…” The word lodged in Dean’s throat. It was as close to the heart of the matter as they’d ever come, right at the edge of putting things out in the open.

“A hero? Perhaps it sounds that way, but I don’t think it was ever about that. I may have enjoyed the thought of the adrenaline, but never the spotlight. Far better, in my opinion, to be the one aiming that spotlight, making sure the world sees what it should.” He picked up his glasses, tapping them against his palm in emphasis before sliding them back onto his face.

Ah. Well, so much for that.

“So now you’re in your dream job, after all?” Dean asked, popping the lens cap back onto the camera and wondering if he’d ever get a straight answer.

“For now,” Cas said, smiling brightly. “You remember the color article we did several months ago on renewable energy and local food sources? I spent some time with that urban apiarist after the interview, looking at his rooftop beehives. It was fascinating and, I have to say, quite inspirational. I thought, perhaps, someday when I either retire from the paper or otherwise find myself with the leisure time to apply to it, it might be nice to keep bees. To be caretaker of a miniature world, of a sort, while also doing something to benefit our own.”

“Wow. That’s pretty cool,” Dean said, a little chagrined with his own lame response. “You should definitely do that, if it would make you happy. Bees are…” Don’t say ‘cool’ again, for God’s sake; you use words for a living. “They’re amazing. With all that…pollination.” Cas tilted his head curiously; his lips twitched a little. “And aren’t they not even supposed to be able to fly?”

“That’s a myth,” Castiel quickly replied. “A long-perpetuated one, based on how airplanes fly. Bees don’t push air downward with their wings; they push it back and forth, making little vortexes of air. The relative weight of the bee doesn’t matter.”

The way he leaned forward as he got caught up in the explanation, the spark of enthusiasm in his eyes, the way he gestured with his hands as he described the flight ability of the bees—Dean was powerless, as usual, to resist.  

He was grateful that Cas seemed to forget all about the existence of the photos he’d taken almost as soon as they were finished. If Dean hadn’t needed to shoot them in the first place, he absolutely didn’t need to keep them once he’d done so, but seeing the photographs in full detail on his computer screen, the possibility of just hitting “delete” was simply nonexistent. A folder labeled “ADMIN DATA” in another folder called “EXCEL AUTOSAVES” became their home, and Dean still worried that Cas might accidentally stumble on them, maybe in a helpful effort to clean up Dean’s tax records.

On impulse, he emailed one close-up to himself so he could open the file on his home computer. That night, he bit his lip, thinking as he studied it. His Photoshop skills weren’t expert, but he eventually managed to overlay a second image of a black Halloween mask onto Cas’s face. Even as rough as it was, the resulting picture was enough to flood his nerves with sense memories until he shuddered under the weight of them.

That night, he tossed and turned his way through a dream that Cas was soaring with him in his arms, growling against his pulse point that science couldn’t explain how he flew, either. The gold and black of his costume made Dean think of bees. If he couldn’t find a way to turn this around soon, he was going to wind up with chronic insomnia and an insect fetish.

Thankfully, the biggest thing on his schedule the next morning was coverage of the mayor’s speech at a ceremony honoring the work of the firefighters and rescue workers at the downtown fire. Since the whole thing would be transcribed by city staff and sent out to all the local press outlets, the paper decided a single staff writer would be sufficient to cover the speech, and Dean was sent by himself. He couldn’t tell whether that was a good sign or a bad one, but at least it gave him some time on his own to try to get his head clear.

The mayor and his entourage were almost half an hour late arriving at Monument Square for the event, and while the crowd waited restlessly, Dean found himself watching a couple of bees explore a nearby flowering shrub. They kept flying in little circles, orbiting each other, before landing together again and again on the blossoms. Even though the bees were so identical as to be twins, Dean imagined them as The Seraph and himself, running into each other time after time.

“Or maybe I’m just the flower,” he muttered as the bees took off again. Another reporter looked at him out of the corner of her eye, and he pretended to be coughing into his hand. He felt a bit silly for his relief when the bees returned to the blossom, but he knelt to snap some pictures of them, anyway, becoming absorbed in their activity until the crowd commotion alerted him that the ceremony was beginning.

When he handed the printed photos of the bees to Cas, the look of surprised pleasure he received was beautiful.

Fact: Castiel Novak was an evil sadist who had chosen to break Dean’s mind as a way to kill the time between his work assignments.

Okay, that wasn’t fair or true, but it sure did feel that way. Dean was still waiting for that magical third meeting where supposedly, he’d been assured, he might get more than a few minutes of overwhelming and shameless seduction and maybe another chance at a lightning-quick but eye-opening semi-public make-out session. They’d actually almost had their opportunity one evening earlier in the week, when Dean had coincidentally found himself a ring-side observer to another superhero rescue, when he happened to be enjoying a day off at the annual local street festival and a toddler tried to climb out of the top basket on the ferris wheel. Out of nowhere, The Seraph burst from the crowd, soaring up to pluck the little guy from his dangling perch. When he deposited him into his dad’s arms back on the ground, the crowd nearly mobbed him, but he’d somehow managed to spot Dean in the chaos, and his frustrated “what can you do?” shrug and rueful grin had filled Dean with longing and affection.

But if Cas was so damn frustrated, then why the hell was he still holding Dean at arm’s length?

Fact: Dating coworkers was generally regarded as a bad idea in most places, even if their paper’s employee manual didn’t have a specific policy against it (Dean had checked, because he wasn’t an idiot). Castiel was always thoughtful and considerate of other people’s feelings and situations; it was more than possible that he could be holding back out of fear for Dean’s career, since Dean was the one who’d be seen as being in a position of weakness.

Again, though, if Cas felt that way, then why the hell was he changing the rules based on whether he was in lycra or a cotton blend? Back to the “evil sadist” theory.

A sigh ripped free from Dean’s lungs as he sat, alone in the dim workroom, unable to make himself believe it. Castiel was the kindest man on earth. If anything was in doubt here, it had to be on Dean’s end of things. Maybe he was just hurting himself, imagining and assuming things based on what he wanted to think.

Fact: Castiel was somewhere else tonight, somewhere he’d been cagey about explaining as more than a “personal obligation,” but for which he’d been eager in a surreptitious sort of way. And honestly, Dean was a little hurt, even if he knew he had no real right to be. It wasn’t that he had any issues with Cas having a personal life outside of work and Dean, but the way he’d avoided eye contact when Dean asked about it, licking his lips and changing the subject, then practically dashing out of the building the second the clock’s hands touched twelve and five, flush high in his cheeks…

It looked an awful lot like a man rushing out for a hot date.

Or, Dean considered, like a masked champion of justice rushing out to drop his secret identity and defend the city against evildoers, but that didn’t really fit; evildoers didn’t work shifts, and superheroes probably didn’t punch a time clock or have scheduled “save the world” appointments. Or did they? Maybe some villain had demanded an audience at a particular time and place, or else some high-profile figure was getting the chop. Dean huffed quietly, wondering how far gone he must be to have started talking to himself like a 1920s gangster.

Maybe Cas had a date. That was…well, it wasn’t fine, not if he was being truthful with himself. Even apart from the kissing and touching and come-ons Cas had given him as his alter ego, he and Dean had been slowly creeping toward something, even if they still felt light-years from where Dean wanted them to be. The dam had cracked somewhat after their discussion about the bees, and Cas had been willingly, if a little self-consciously, sharing bits and pieces of himself; Dean had savored every tiny detail he’d learned, piecing them together and pining harder than ever over the detailed portrait they were forming. True, he still resisted talking about family (must be something sensitive there) and relationships, but Dean had been growing optimistic.

The gloomy echoes of the empty workroom around him felt appropriate to his current disheartened mood. He wasn’t sulking—he never sulked—but he couldn’t deny certain similarities between that and the extremely manly thinking that he was doing. Hell, nobody was around to see, anyway.

If Cas wasn’t on a date, if he was out flying around somewhere and doing hero things, there would probably be other clues to that. Dean made his way to the police scanner in the corner and switched it on, waiting to hear about any major crimes or catastrophes that might draw the attention of a crusader for good. Closing his tired eyes, he could picture it, just like in the movies: a fundraising gala, maybe, with rich folks dripping with jewels, frozen in fear as the bad guys sweep through the crowds with guns. But wait! The Seraph appears, taking them all on with barely a struggle, one sculpted eyebrow lifted at the very idea that he could be bested.

And then the richest, hottest woman or man in the crowd falls into his arms, swooning. The Seraph puts a finger under their chin, lifting it as he gazes deep into their eyes, lowering his lips to press against—

No!

But…wasn’t that how the story was supposed to go? God, no wonder Cas was reluctant. He damn well knew that Dean wasn’t nearly good enough. Not rich, not sexy, not witty…just not enough at anything. He dropped his head onto his arm, rubbing the fingers of his free hand along the surface of the table, as the scanner droned on and on and on…

“Dean?”

“Sznrkkh.”

A warm hand on his shoulder startled him, and Dean jerked upright in the chair, almost tipping it over entirely. He yelped, arms flailing as he caught his balance, and the pressure on his shoulder lifted abruptly.

“Whoa, easy, Dean. No need to panic.” Castiel was standing behind him, hands raised in caution. He seemed to be fighting hard to hide a smile of amusement. “What on earth happened to keep you here all night?” The sun coming through the windows was blinding, and the hubbub of the paper was already in full swing around them.

Rubbing his sleep-crusted eyes with his fingers, Dean grimaced around a foul taste in his mouth. “Mmmm, Mr. Investigative Journalist. Maybe I left and came back. Think of that?” He squinted at Cas, trying to regain a little dignity. “Just nodded off for a second.”

Grinning harder, Cas leaned forward, far into Dean’s personal space. Dean’s heart thudded hard in his chest as Cas gently lifted a hand, tracing his brow and then his cheek. “I’m afraid you’ve been a victim of a small prank,” he murmured softly. “You should go to the restroom to see for yourself.”

Dean was baffled, but he managed to get his legs working and stumble to the bathroom. Looking in the mirror, he groaned. “SLEEPING BEAUTY” was written in marker on his forehead, with a tiara doodled above it. A pair of lips had been drawn on his cheek, with the label “KISS HERE TO WAKE.” “Son of a bitch!” he growled, grabbing for a paper towel and the soap.

Back at his desk, Dean ignored the not-so-muffled giggles of his extremely juvenile coworkers, not having any way to determine who the culprit was. “Thanks, Cas,” he muttered, cheeks red from rubbing and from the humiliation.

“Not at all,” Castiel said. “You didn’t say what kept you here overnight, though.”

“Nothing major,” Dean sighed. “Just…I guess I had a little too much on my mind, and I thought it might help to work through it. How about you? How was your…” He let the sentence trail away, since he didn’t actually have an ending for it.

Cas looked thoughtful for a moment. “Necessary,” he finally said, nodding. “And productive. I’ve been caught up in work and, er, work-related things lately, and it had been…far too long. We—well, I needed to reconnect. To things at home.” He looked far away when he finished talking.

If I spent the evening jealous as hell and got my face scribbled on because this guy was too embarrassed to tell me that his dirty laundry pile was out of control, I will punch something. “Cas, man. I am dead on my feet, and I can still feel Sharpie in my eyebrows. The breakroom coffee sucks balls. I promise, I’ll make it up to you, but I need to at least go home and grab a shower before I even attempt to handle anything else today. Want me to bring you back a cup from the coffee place on my way back?”

“You don’t need to do that, but go ahead on home. Take your time. I’ll handle Bobby’s morning meeting for you.”

“My hero.” Dean wasn’t thinking as the words slipped from his mouth, and he tensed. Cas, who’d been reaching for his desk phone, aborted the motion for a fraction of a second, eyes flashing upward. Sighing, Dean decided that he didn’t care anymore. Maybe, if he played this right and was really, really lucky, it would soon no longer be an issue.

Dean staggered home. He showered, shaved, and put on his nicest and best-fitting button-down shirt. He even splashed on a little aftershave, the alcohol in which had the added benefit of removing the last traces of marker from his skin. At the coffee shop, he made the barista's eyes’ pop by ordering two extra shots of espresso in his normal black eye order. Finally, as prepared as he thought he could possible get, he made his way back into the news workroom, almost jittering with nerves and caffeine.

“Better,” he said. Wow, too loud. Castiel jumped in surprise, then eyed him cautiously. Dean shook his head apologetically and tried again. “Yeah, much better.”

“You appear so,” Cas said, though he looked a bit wary.

Forging on, Dean said, “Anyway, wanted to ask you about something. You doing anything this weekend?”

“The governor’s banquet isn’t until Monday. Did you need assistance with a project?”

“Sort of,” Dean said, summoning every last sliver of confidence he’d ever possessed and presenting the sort of cheeky grin that made his dimples pop (or so he’d been told, because he certainly had never stood in front of a mirror and tested it out for himself). “Only less project, more dinner. I know you’re a burger man, and I happen to know where the best burgers in town are to be had.”

Castiel didn’t immediately respond. He sat staring at Dean with a completely blank expression. Dean had seen Cas wear this exact look when he faced down the former district attorney in an interview, not two hours after a source had confirmed and handed over evidence of the guy’s openness to bribery, and calmly asked about the rumored accusations of corruption in the county court system. Dean had made a firm resolution back then never to play cards against Cas, because he gave new meaning to the concept of “poker face.”

“Are you trying to ensure that you’re on my good side for some reason? Maybe preparing to ask a favor, or give me some bad news? Dean, whatever it is, I can promise—”

“No, no, that’s not…” Running a hand through his hair and sighing, Dean refused to give up. “It’s a date, Cas. I’m asking you out. Will you go to dinner with me?” He watched that damn poker face get even more unreadable, and he took a deep breath and went for it. “Look, I know I haven’t been all that subtle. You have to know by now that I’m into you, and I’m pretty sure the attraction goes both ways. And I know you’ve got your reasons why you think you should say no, and I’m not saying they’re wrong or silly or whatever. But if nothing worth having comes easy, then I ain’t worried about things being complicated. Just…can we try one date? One night, that’s all.”

Realizing that he was breathing heavily and his pulse was racing, Dean forced himself to stop talking and wait. At least he’d finally snapped through that impassive mask; now Cas was visibly cycling through a host of emotions, apparently struggling to decide which one to channel first. “I…I think,” he said. His eyes were dark behind his glasses, and his fingers hovered over the papers on his desk as if he’d forgotten what to do with them. “If I said yes…which I’d very much like to do…Dean, you have to understand. There are certain well, aspects of my life that I haven’t told you about—that, frankly, nobody knows, and if I told you, it could…change things. Change the way you look at me.” He frowned, slumping dejectedly and dropping his gaze. “I should say no. I shouldn’t risk our friendship. I value it dearly.”

“Cas, man. Hey. Look at me.” Dean dropped to a squat in front of the desk, seeking eye contact. The fear and worry on Cas’s face was sort of hard to fathom. Did he really, honestly think that Dean, who worked with him for long hours every day, would never have a prayer of recognizing him without his glasses and behind a simple face mask? Weird. Trying not to spook him, Dean reached forward, pausing for a nod of permission before slipping the glasses off Cas’s eyes. “You can tell me anything,” he said with emphasis, “and you will still always be just Castiel to me. Have some faith in me.”

The workroom chatter had faded from awareness, and it felt like they’d somehow created a time bubble for themselves, where nothing could touch them as they held each others’ eyes, barely breathing. “I hope that’s true,” Cas finally said. “I’ve never trusted anyone with this, but…you make me feel almost brave enough.”

A startled snort of a laugh, escaping before Dean could stop it, made Cas pull back slightly, affronted. “Sorry, sorry, not teasing or anything,” Dean hastily said. “Just caught me off guard with that. Didn’t realize bravery could be so situational, I guess.” Still obviously a bit confused, Cas hummed in tentative agreement. Dean put a hand over Cas’s, squeezing it. “But that’s fine with me.”

Chapter Text

The Roadhouse grill was as far removed as Dean could get from the sort of tiny sandwich shops and sanitized chain restaurants he and Castiel had occasionally used when they needed a quick meal while still on the job. For one thing, between the rowdy bar patrons and the live band setting up in the corner, it was too loud to even consider a serious work-related discussion. For another thing, there was almost nothing “standardized” about the place, and if you wanted to truly get the most out of your dining experience, simply reading the menu and making selections from the page was a rookie mistake. Behind-the-scenes insider information was crucial.

“We still good for burgers?” Dean asked, making sure. “And you don’t have any issues with spicy stuff, right?”

Castiel gave him a withering stare. “You’ve seen what I pack for lunches. Those aren’t bell peppers in my sandwich wraps.”

“Yeah, yeah, Captain Asbestos. All right, then.” Turning to their server, Dean grinned in anticipation. “We’ll have a couple Ballistics, heavy on the accelerant.”

Grunting in annoyance, the young woman scribbled on the page. “Dean, quit calling it that. You might have ordered that made-up monstrosity a million times, but that doesn’t mean you get to name it like it’s a real menu item.”

Cas glanced back and forth between the two of them consideringly. “When you said you came here often, I had no idea.”

“Too often,” the server grumbled, tossing her blonde ponytail as she turned to march back to the bar. Halfway there, she turned back around and called out, “By the way, Mom’s still pissed you missed bridge night last week!” She smirked when Dean flushed pink, continuing on her way with a satisfied look.

“Dean,” Cas drawled, stretching his name into a question. “You never told me you played bridge.” He sounded delighted, but Dean had his hands clamped over his face and couldn’t see for sure.

“I never meant to,” he groaned. “I got roped in a while back when I was in college, when my aunt fell and broke her hip right before their sectional tournament. Somehow, that turned into me getting a phone call every time Aunt Mildred can’t make it, like I’m her official alternate or something. Now she’s talking about moving to Florida this winter, and I’m probably going to have to fake my own death to avoid being her full-time replacement.”

“It’s sweet,” Castiel said, reaching across the table to pat his hand. “Your mother probably enjoys having that time with you.”

“Hang on, my mom?” Dean was puzzled for a moment. “Oh, you thought—no, Jo was talking about her mom being pissed, not my mom. I don’t think my mom even owned a deck of cards, and she’s been gone for years, anyway. Jo’s mom, Ellen, is the one who owns this place.”

“Oh. I thought…” Cas glanced in the direction Jo had left, brows drawn down. “Well, I was going to give her the benefit of the doubt, since she was definitely treating you like a sibling, but if you two aren’t actually related…”

Dean waved a hand dismissively. “Might as well be. I’ve known her since she was in pigtails. Never had a sister, but I guess the universe decided I needed to suffer through it, anyway.” He shrugged and smiled, fondness coloring the teasing words.

The combination of the drinks, the music, and the atmosphere was doing wonders at settling the small bits of awkwardness that still occasionally cropped up in their conversations. Cas’s facial expression when Jo plopped their dinner plates in front of them was priceless. “Dean, that sauce is glowing.”

“Just a trick of the light.”

“I can actually see the fumes rising from it.”

“Hey, there’s cheese on there, too. Dairy helps!”

“When it’s not jolokia cheese,” Jo muttered, but she lingered near their table, obviously eager to see Cas’s reaction as well. Cas glared, but then he lifted the burger and took an enormous and defiant bite.

“Good?” Dean asked, beaming.

“Hmmmm.” Castiel sat rigid for a few seconds, lips quivering, then swallowed hard and grabbed frantically for his beer. Dean cackled, watching him drain it. When he put the glass back down, though, Cas was beaming with satisfaction. “Very good,” he finally replied.

Dean was having a great time. In fact, he thought as the two of them laughed over retellings of the worst jobs they’d each had, the only thing that would improve the date was maybe just a little of the cocky, sassy attitude he’d felt on the occasions when Cas was in his other persona. This Cas was perfectly charming, of course, and playful, and there was absolutely no question that he was treating this as a romantic date and not a platonic one. They were on the same page, but there was something that felt a bit too…courteous, perhaps? Definitely more reserved than what Dean expected from the man who’d grabbed his ass at their second meeting.

Well, he supposed that they were still in public. And maybe it was just his turn to take the lead.

After dinner and dessert (“Seriously, how have we been working together for all these months and this has never come up?” “I suppose we were simply too busy discussing aspects of investigative journalism to cover the important subject of cake versus pie.” “Outrageous!”), the evening still felt young as they stumbled laughing out the doors and onto the sidewalk. Neither of them had drunk so much as to be impaired, but they’d chosen to walk anyway, since both of their apartments were only a handful of blocks away. Dean was pleased about that choice now, since the night was pleasantly warm and walking together sounded like the best idea ever.

“Isn’t your building the other way?” Castiel eventually asked, bumping shoulders with Dean as they made their way down the street.

“Maybe,” Dean hedged, then chuckled and dropped his gaze when Cas gave him a look of mild exasperation. “Okay, yes, but I’m taking the long way home.”

“And by ‘long way,’ you mean heading in the complete opposite direction,” Cas said, struggling to keep a straight face.

“The really long way.” On impulse, Dean reached between them and took Cas’s hand in his. “Let me walk you home, okay? I’m being a gentleman!”

To his credit, Cas apologized for the snort of laughter when Dean pouted and put on a wounded look. “No, I promise, I’m not making fun! You’ve been nothing but honorable! My reputation is s-safely intact!” Even Dean couldn’t keep from cracking this time when Cas broke down, and they were both breathless by the time the hilarity died down. He used his left hand to wipe away the tears in the corners of his eyes, not willing to relinquish the handhold he’d maintained.

A block further on, a stray worry crept into Dean’s head. “Um,” he hedged. “You know, while I do pride myself on my chivalry, I just want to be clear. If you were to, well, want to extend this date a little longer, that would be, uh, something I could be on board with, as well. I’m just saying.”

Cas barely turned his head, studying Dean from the corner of his eye. “Are you suggesting, in a roundabout way, that I could invite you up to my apartment?” he asked carefully.

Dean coughed, feeling heat in his cheeks. “I mean, no pressure or anything. Just letting you know that if you did, I would definitely not say no. To whatever, dude. You could ask me in and show me your old scrapbooks, and that would be…well, a little weird, not gonna lie, but I’d be in.”

Cas smiled hesitantly, then sighed. “I’d like to, Dean. And by that, I mean ask you up and not look at scrapbooks, or play bridge, or any of those activities of that sort. Not that I even play bridge.”

“I could totally teach you,” Dean offered.

“I’ll keep the offer in mind,” Cas said dryly. “But…”

Dean interrupted, squeezing Cas’s hand. “Hey, I said no pressure and I meant it. You’re not comfortable with that, so we won’t.” Simply thinking about pushing Cas into something he didn’t want made Dean’s skin crawl.

“No, it’s not that I’m not comfortable with the idea, or uncomfortable in the way you’re most likely imagining,” Cas protested. He bit his lip, looking upward at the windows in the buildings above them. “You remember that I said there were things I’d never told anyone.”

Dean nodded. He’s going to tell me. Okay, stay calm. If he thinks I’ve known for as long as I have, he might feel stupid, and I don’t want that. Play dumb! “You know you can tell me anything, man.”

Cas just shook his head. “That’s what Ji—what other people have suggested in the past. That the right person will understand and accept. But I’ll admit, I’m nervous to take the risk.”

“You don’t have to decide now,” Dean suggested, hating himself for it. He imagined long weeks or months of hoping Cas would eventually decide he was worth coming clean.

Cas stood swaying, eyes locked on their gripping hands. “This…this may be new, but we’ve known each other for so long, and I think…I do trust you, Dean. Probably more than almost anyone else.” He looked up then, and his eyes caught the light of a nearby streetlamp, momentarily seeming to glow in their intensity. “I want to tell you, Dean. And…and I hope when I do, you’ll still feel the same way.”

“Tell me,” Dean said, the words barely louder than a sigh. He stepped closer, moving without thought, pulled in by the determination and fire in Cas’s expression. He lifted their joined hands, cradling them to his chest between them. Cas took a deep breath to speak.

“Don’t move.”

The hissed words didn’t register for a moment. Cas looked stunned; Dean felt dazed. Slowly, they turned their heads to the side and saw a shadowed figure standing close by; a hand thrust deep in the pocket of his coat bulged outward, showing the unmistakable shape of a gun.

Jesus, again? Later, Dean would probably wonder what it said about either his trust in Castiel’s abilities or his own obscene levels of sexual frustration that his initial reaction to the sight of a weapon pointed in his direction was irritation at yet another interruption, not fear or anxiety. He closed his eyes and exhaled in a huff, slumping.

“I said don’t move!” The man took a step closer, shoving his concealed hand aggressively forward. Close by, Dean could feel that Cas was tense as a bowstring, though he couldn’t see what his face was doing. He lifted his own hands slowly, placatingly, not wanting to complicate the situation and screw up whatever Cas might be planning.

The mugger jerked his head toward a space between two of the nearby buildings, almost too narrow to be called an alley. “In there,” he muttered, eyes darting between them, then back over his own shoulder. He looked so jittery, even in the dim light, that Dean was a little concerned that he might pull the trigger accidentally.

Anytime, Cas, Dean thought, moving toward the mouth of the passage. He turned sideways as he shuffled into the space, taking the opportunity to glance at Cas. His logical mind was sure he’d see nothing more than that familiar mask of cool impassiveness, but part of Dean was hoping a little that, being in on the game as he was, he might be able to detect the signs of impending heroism, waiting for the first opportunity to emerge.

What he saw instead was the wide-eyed face of panic. Dean almost stumbled in his shock; Cas immediately had a hand on his shoulder to support him, not taking his eyes off the mugger or his gun for a single moment. What the hell is he doing? What’s with the scaredy-cat act? When realization hit Dean a moment later, he felt a surge of chagrin. It’s me. He can’t do anything while I’m in the way, not without risking me getting shot.

Suddenly the creepy alley seemed like a fantastic idea. Dean stepped further into the passage, effectively letting himself be blocked from the mugger’s view by Cas, who was still turned to face outward.. There, I’m protected. You can make with the biff-bam-pow now.

“You can take whatever you want. Just don’t hurt us.” Cas was doing a fantastic job feigning meekness. Dean had to give him even more credit for his Oscar-worthy make-believe skills than he already had. If he hadn’t known that Cas was more than capable of leaping into the air, grabbing this douchebag by the ears along the way, and then flinging him miles away, he might have believed it himself. Dean couldn’t wait to see the guy’s face when the situation turned. It occurred to him that he hadn’t considered whether Cas’s transformation into The Seraph was a magical thing or more mundane, whether he needed to actually change clothes manually or if the tights just…appeared. This could get a little awkward, but Dean certainly was making no plans to look away.

“Wallets,” the mugger was saying. “And your watches. Come on, come on.” Castiel reached into the pocket of his trench coat, and Dean held his breath. This is it… Slowly, Cas’s hand emerged, gripping his worn leather wallet. Dean frowned in slight frustration. What was he waiting for?

“Dean,” Cas murmured, voice tense. “Please.”

“What do you need me to do?” Dean whispered as quietly as he could, waiting for an order to drop to the ground, or to make a distraction, or maybe just to shout some sort of catch phrase. Whatever Cas needed, he wanted to provide.

“Your wallet!” Cas whispered, turning to stare at him incredulously. Now Dean was extremely confused. Was there still a chance that Cas was actually so convinced of Dean’s obliviousness that he’d rather let the two of them be robbed than to reveal his alter ego in front of him? He tried to communicate with his eyes, but, honestly, was there a facial expression that could say, “Hey, I know you’re actually a crime-fighting superhero, and I’m so much more than okay with that, so relax and just knock this guy out already”? He probably just looked queasy.

“There a problem?”

“No!” Cas hurriedly assured the mugger. “There’s no problem at all! We just—”

“Gimme the fucking wallets, or I—”

“Cas, what are—” Dean began, an odd feeling beginning to grip his stomach as he struggled to process what was happening. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the mugger’s arm lift, his hand begin to pull from his pocket as his feet shifted anxiously on the pavement.

A heartbeat later, those feet were abruptly kicking at air. The arm holding the gun was pointing skyward, an iron grip clamped around his wrist. His other arm was flailing uselessly at the hand at his throat. The way the guy’s eyes were bulging made it obvious that no air was getting past the fingers holding tight.

Dean wasn’t breathing so well, either. The scene in front of him made absolutely no sense whatsoever. There was Cas, one hand pressed to his chest as he sagged against the brick wall beside him, and…there was Cas, floating in the air, glaring viciously at the mugger quickly turning purple-faced in his hands. Dean stared back and forth, mouth hanging open but no sounds emerging.

“Give me one good reason why you should make it to the police station with all your limbs intact,” the Castiel in the air was snarling. The mugger looked like he’d have liked to try, but speaking wasn’t an option available to him at present.

The Castiel on the ground sighed heavily, looking up at himself. The other him. Seraph-Cas. “Your PR,” he said, making the nonsensical suggestion sound perfectly reasonable.

The blue eyes under the mask glittered dangerously for a moment. “Might be worth it,” he mused. A tense moment passed. “Nah, you’re not,” Seraph-Cas finally said to the mugger, letting go of the guy’s throat to yank the gun free from his limp fingers. He dropped him into a nearby dumpster, where the man lay stunned, holding his neck and gasping. Then Cas himself touched down, scowling at the would-be mugger. “Stay put,” he said irritably, before slamming the lid closed.

“Cutting it a little close,” said the Cas who was apparently not a superhero. The Cas who was one looked up sharply, a grimace twisting his lips.

“I told you this neighborhood was going downhill,” Seraph-Cas replied to himself (keeping up with this was starting to get a bit dizzying) as he stepped forward and—Dean’s brain decided to completely short-circuit—pulled himself into a tight embrace. “Tell me he didn’t actually lay a hand on you, or I’m pulling him back out of there for another round, PR be damned.”

“I write most of your PR, jackass,” Cas said quietly, but his words were full of warmth and fondness. The Cas in the mask chuckled, running his hands over the other Cas’s back, before pulling back a little and brushing his lips against…his own lips…

The last shreds of Dean’s composure dissolved neatly into the air with an almost audible “poof.” Then again, perhaps the noise was simply the wheezy groan of a man witnessing the hottest impossibile scene imaginable.

Twin looks of surprise turned to face him. The Cas with whom he’d been out all evening bit at his lip, drawing in on himself a little. “Um,” he said. “This…was not how I planned it.”

“Cassie, what…” Seraph-Cas looked completely bewildered, staring at Dean as if he’d appeared out of thin air. “And you…you were here, too? You and…”

The first Castiel stepped away from the other, standing between the two of them. “Dean,” he said, “Allow me to introduce you to my brother. My twin brother. Jimmy.”

The Seraph’s real name is actually Jimmy? “We’ve met,” Dean said hoarsely, and Cas’s lips twitched a bit as he nodded.

“Whoa, whoa,” Jimmy said. “Your Dean is my Freckles the Camera Hottie?”

“Hey,” Dean protested, feeling heat rush to his cheeks. Cas rolled his eyes and gave his twin an unimpressed frown. Jimmy shrugged without looking at all embarrassed.

“I would have told you,” Cas told Jimmy, glancing at Dean a little anxiously as he spoke. “After the two of you met, I waited for Dean to say something to indicate he’d recognized the obvious similarities, but when he didn’t, I assumed he hadn’t gotten a good look at your face. And then the matter seemed to drop, so it didn’t seem relevant.”

“But I did recognize you! I mean him,” Dean said. “I just thought…” God, his cheeks were probably the color of tomatoes. Good thing the light from the streetlamps was pretty dim. Then again, considering the apparent rise in crime around the neighborhood, perhaps he should feel bad about counting the looming shadows as a blessing.       

“You thought…you thought I was The Seraph?” Cas said, face alight with amusement. “That’s extraordinarily flattering, Dean. And I assume you didn’t say anything for fear of ‘blowing my cover’?” Air quotes should never be adorable, and yet here we are, Dean reflected wryly. “You must have been going crazy trying to keep quiet,” he added fondly.

“Well, after you kissed me, I didn’t know what to think,” Dean confessed. Jimmy made a strange, quiet noise in his throat as Cas slowly turned to face his brother, one eyebrow lifted.

“Hey, you didn’t tell me you were dating him!” Jimmy said defensively. “And since you were apparently the only one of us who knew we were both talking about the same guy, I think that makes you the one who needed to speak up.” With his hands on his hips, the only thing spoiling Jimmy’s display of righteous indignation was the slight pout around his lips.

Dean, meanwhile, was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. “Guys, I’m…look, I’d never want to…” They both turned to watch him, faces cautious. He sighed, pasting on a grin that felt awkward. “This whole time, I had no idea I was actually being a complete asshole, trying to start things up with two guys at once. I don’t…that’s not who I am. You both are so…” Looking at the two of them, Dean felt his heart twist in his chest. In that moment, seeing them as two separate and perfectly complementary personalities, realization of two things slapped him. The first was that he’d somehow managed to fall undeniably, hopelessly in love with them both, or at least into the beginnings of what might grow into love. The second thought was that there was no way that he could let himself be the cause of trouble between them like this. “It’s okay, you don’t need to argue. I’ll just go. See you at work on Monday, Cas.” He tried to make his smile as convincing as he could, shoving his hands into his pockets and heading back out of the alley.

“Wait!”

“Dean!”

The twins surged past on either side of him, turning to block his path with raised hands. “You misunderstand, Dean,” Cas said, his tone serious. “This is…this is exactly what I was planning to discuss with you, actually. I was going to tell you about Jimmy tonight, before anything else transpired, and before you say anything else, that wasn’t because I wanted to lay some sort of claim, or force any type of choice, or anything of the kind.”

“He’s not even mad that I kissed you! I just should have told him about it,” Jimmy interjected, nodding fervently. His sincere look of pleading contrasted oddly with the severe lines of the mask still hiding the upper half of his face. “It’s nothing like you’re thinking, we promise!”

“But…you guys are…” Dean hesitated, brought up short by the sudden thought that he could have misread things even worse than he thought. If he was wrong, then accusing the twins of being in a romantic relationship with each other was likely to end with a punch or two in the face—and he’d already witnessed the range of damage The Seraph’s fists could inflict.

His nervous silence apparently spoke its own message, though, and the brothers’ faces shifted from hopeful to something more complicated after a moment. “Yes, we are,” Cas agreed, not quite meeting his eyes. “It’s not something we typically make public, for obvious reasons. Most of my casual acquaintances don’t even know I have a brother, which tends to make things simpler.”

“And I’m mostly a shut-in when I’m not flying around saving people,” Jimmy said. “Keeping a low profile means that if anybody sees Cas and makes the connection between our faces, he’s usually got an alibi, and the person assumes they just remembered things wrong.”

“You’re a private venture capitalist, not a ‘shut-in,’ Jimmy.”

“Tomato, tomahto.”

Jimmy’s short laugh seemed forced, and Cas was staring fixedly at the ground. “Anyway. I knew it would have been unfair to you, becoming involved in any way without telling you about my brother’s and my, er, unconventional relationship. But now you know, and…well. I hope we can at least continue to work together as we have been. I’ll of course understand if even that would make you too uncomfortable, though, and—”  

“Cas, no!” Watching Cas shove his own hurt feelings down and try to rebury his vulnerabilities behind that godforsaken facade of professional detachment had Dean breaking apart in painful ways, and he resolved to do everything in his power to never do anything that would prompt it again. Jimmy seemed just as distressed, shifting closer to rest a comforting hand on his brother’s lower back as he spoke. At Dean’s interruption, they both looked up, identical faces wearing equally guarded expressions. “I’m not uncomfortable! I just…I’m just having a very weird night, with way too many plot twists.”

“Tell me about it,” agreed Jimmy under his breath, earning a nudge in the ribs from Cas’s elbow.

“Well, of course, if you need time to think—” Cas began, but Dean held up a hand to stop him again.

“Won’t say we shouldn’t take some time to talk about, uh, everything,” he said, his mind already filling with questions of “how…” and “what if…” and “how soon can we…”, and he had to make himself pull up short before he combusted entirely. “But I’m pretty damn sure, at least from my end of things, that, logistics aside, I’m…open? I mean, I’m good. We’re good. I…” Yeah, combustion was definitely a probability. Dean was sure he’d never fumbled so badly in his life; he ran his hand over his head to the back of his neck and yanked at his hair. Throwing a desperate glance at Jimmy, he begged, “Help me out here, huh?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think you’re doing just terrific,” Jimmy said with obvious relief and enjoyment, head tilted to the side as his lips quivered around a suppressed laugh. At the noise of pained frustration Dean gave in response, he finally shook his head and chuckled as he stepped forward toward Dean. “So what you’re saying is that the three of us should head up to our place…to talk. And…” The eyes that swept over Dean’s face were full of mischief and intent.

“...and perhaps address certain imbalances,” Cas continued as he approached from Dean’s other side; his voice was deeper and just slightly rougher than his twin’s, now that Dean could compare the two, but the predatory tone was a perfect match. “Jimmy is correct that I’m not upset over him kissing you, but I do believe in keeping things fair.”

Dean swallowed; the intensity of the dual gazes holding him in place made his knees feel weak, as though they wanted to fold beneath him. “Sounds good,” he managed. Gesturing toward Jimmy’s mask-covered face, he added, “And I sort of want to see what you look like when you’re not all suited up, you know?” Jimmy and Cas glanced at each other, but before either of them could open their mouths to react, Dean slapped a palm over his own face and groaned.

“No, no, you’re right,” Jimmy teased. “I could be hideously scarred under this, right?”

“Or freckled,” Cas murmured, and Jimmy’s breath hitched. “In any case, you could stand to slip into something more comfortable.” The innuendo made Dean shiver.

“You guys are killing me,” a muffled voice rose from the dumpster, startling them. Jimmy grimaced, then threw his hands in the air.

“I’ll meet you at home, I guess,” he said, scowling as he turned to stomp back toward the now conscious mugger, visibly grouchy over the interruption. “Hope you know how to tuck and roll, dude. I have better things to do than hang out at the cop shop tonight, so you’re getting the express delivery.”

The Seraph rose swiftly into the night sky, unwilling passenger not detracting from the grace of his flight. As he disappeared into the darkness, Dean sighed in appreciation for the view. “Damn, those tights,” he murmured. Cas hummed in agreement; he slid closer to Dean’s side and looped an arm around his waist, trailing fingers lightly along his hip. Dean shuddered and exhaled slowly. “Gotta say, I really am sorry about the whole mix-up,” he said, finding it hard to focus on his words. “Honest, now that I see you guys together...I mean, even with you being twins, I feel kind of stupid for not seeing it.”

Cas scoffed and shook his head. “We’ve had plenty of practice. You shouldn’t feel stupid.”

“Looking alike is one thing, but come on,” Dean argued. “The moment you—he—grabbed my ass after saving my life, I should have realized that—”   

“He did what, now?”

Dean faltered as heat seemed to abruptly flare behind Castiel’s eyes. “Uh,” he said. “It’s...it’s okay? I mean, I’m not…” If he had a better idea of exactly what was putting that dark look on Cas’s face, it would have helped him know whether he should be defending Jimmy, himself, or both of them.

“Change of plans, Dean,” Castiel said, decisiveness in his tone. The fingers that had been at his hip were suddenly hooked through his belt loop, and he was being spun in place and directed back the way he’d come, straight into the alley. “Jimmy can wait.”

“He can?” There was no chance Cas missed the squeak in Dean’s reply, but his only reaction was a trace of a smirk in his voice when he next spoke.

“You’re right, you should have been able to realize the distinctions, if you’d had a basis for comparison. I’m going to make sure you can tell the difference from now on.” And shoving Dean against the wall, though somehow still taking care that his head wasn’t banged into the bricks, Castiel barely allowed Dean a moment to gasp in shock before he was pressing in close and stealing his breath with a determined, dominating kiss.

He was right. There really were a lot of distinctions between the two to be appreciated. Perhaps when his head wasn’t spinning quite so much, he’d be able to appreciate them even more. Jimmy had been a wild hurricane, and Cas was the solid earth unexpectedly shifting beneath his feet, an unstoppable seismic force that rendered Dean unsteady on his feet.

When Castiel finally pulled away with a slow sigh of satisfaction, Dean was grateful for the rough texture of the wall, preventing him from slipping to the ground in a boneless heap. “Now we can go,” he said, grinning when Dean’s voice failed him completely and he was only able to nod his firm agreement. With blue eyes twinkling, he slipped his arm back around Dean’s waist to guide him out of the alley and in the direction of home—and toward what, Dean hoped, was going to be an incredible, amazing adventure.