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S: I’m here. Where are you?
D: At our usual table.
S: There are 2 dudes splitting a milkshake at r table.
“Jesus Christ.” Dean huffed, and pushed Cas’s cherry vanilla milkshake out of his area, as if it offended him. Cas looked across the table, expectantly. His royal blue and black flannel contrasted his eyes, making them look like blue tourmaline
“It’s tasty, but who orders a milkshake at a pizza place?” Dean wondered out loud. Now that he and Cas were an item, they had started taking turns wearing flannel. It wasn’t his turn, so he had gone with a simple, black henley.
“It’s not as if I made it up. It’s on the menu.” Cas narrowed his eyes as he explained.
“It’s not even your standard chocolate, vanilla or strawberry. It’s cherry vanilla! It’s November, and this is a nice Italian restaurant not an ice cream truck .” Dean tried to seem angry, but he was shit at faking Cas out, and more affectionately exasperated than anything.
“The flavor was why I specifically chose to try it. It stands to reason that it must be a specialty of the chef.” Cas kept his face very serious as he lifted the straw to his lips and sucked what seemed like a quarter of the beverage down. He plunked the stainless steel cup on the table, firmly.”Mmmm.”
“Don't. “ Dean warned.
“MmmMmMmmm.” Cas persisted, staring deeply into Dean’s eyes.
“You know, Sam is probably watching us right now.” Dean said in a quiet but audible voice that downplayed Sam's name. He fiddled with a paper napkin, folding it's corners up towards the center.
Cas snapped up straight in his booth, dropping the stony demeanor and forgetting all about how his milkshake didn't seem to please his beau.
“Don't look around!” Dean said through a clenched tooth smile. Cas obeyed, turning his eyes back on Dean and Dean only. Dean blushed and glanced at a beer sign. He checked back with Cas after not really absorbing whatever neon proclamation of beer royalty he had just studied, and Cas was still gazing at him intently. “Okay, this is worse. For God sake, look around. Look anywhere but at my face.”
Cas rolled his eyes, but they quickly filled with mischief. He clasped his hands in his lap and began fiddling with a cuticle, which would have been acceptable, if it weren't for the demure, secret smiles he would randomly send Dean, looking up at him through his thick eyelashes.
“Where is he?” Cas complained through a subtle, flirty pout. “I feel compelled to make this as awkward as possible for you, but it is hard to maintain.” He slid one of his feet up onto the bench under his thigh in a move Dean referred to as half-yoga-weirdo, and began lightly kicking Dean with the foot still under the table.
“You flirt like an eight year old girl.” Dean grumbled as he flinched a little when the toe of Cas’s Chuck Taylor hit a sore spot.
“You flirt like a straight man.” Cas countered, his tone making him sound adoring.
“What, like an entitled jerk?” Dean prepared to mount the defensive.
“Ha. No. Exclusively with women.” Cas huffed out a chuckle at his own joke.
“That's not true. Is that true? Shit.” Dean looked at his hands, then back up at Cas, in a way that was distinctly not coy.
“It was an observation, not a criticism. “ Cas smiled gently.
Dean shook his head, play-kicked Cas under the table, and finally had the nerve to look around to see if Sam had figured out that Dean was indeed sitting at their usual spot, with another dude and a one cherry vanilla milkshake between them.
Sam turned out to be gawking from a few feet behind Cas, having apparently been pointed in their direction by Becky the hostess, who seemed to be extra “on crack” that night.
“Sammy! Dean forced some joviality. Sam closed the distance to their table and took a moment to glance back and forth between Dean and a once-again-milkshake-slurping Cas.
“Hey, Dean…” He glanced back and forth between Dean and Cas, yet again. “I really want to make a joke about how you should be sitting next to your date but I don’t know your friend well enough to know how he’ll take it-”
“Joke away. I’m dating Cas.” Dean cut Sam off in a rush. Cas squinted sourly at Dean’s face, as it seemed to be indicating displeasure in admitting they were a couple.
“See, damnit, I knew it!” Sam exclaimed, curling into a weird fist-pump victory pose before sliding back into his full 6’ 7” stance. “I should have just gone with my gut. But then what if you had a girlfriend in the bathroom, or she just cancelled and you brought a friend instead? I couldn’t chance it, but damn. I should have just - yeah.” Sam’s eyes glazed over for a moment as he smiled and imagined the comedically perfect scenario.
“Right. Hey, Cas? Why don’t you just scoot around to this side?” Dean pushed in farther towards the wall and did a little finger scoot gesture. Cas complied, sliding out of his chair and inching between Sam and the table.
“Pardon me.” He straightened up for a moment and made eye contact with Sam’s shoulder. “You really are quite tall.” He humphed onto the booth next to Dean, as Sam let himself into Cas’s vacated side. Dean snorted.
“Wow. I’d been keeping it a secret, but you let the cat out of the bag, there.” Dean’s sarcasm was bodacious.
“Hey, Don’t be a dick.” Sam chided as he settled himself into his seat, pushing the milkshake onto Cas and Dean’s side of the table. “Oh man, is that their famous cherry vanilla shake?”
Castiel was too busy turning to Dean, chin held high, to answer.
“Yes.” Dean ignored Cas. “We are not sharing it. I did try it. It’s not half bad.” It was around this time that even Dean noticed that everything he did had a forced, authoritative tone to it. This is how he reacted sometimes when he felt himself losing control of some aspect of a situation. Usually he referred to this as “spiriling” and because there was no elevator to escape to, and absolutely no sexual pleasuring to be had at this moment, in this space, he was unsure how he was going to pull out of his current, winding nosedive.
“Right. Well let’s make this official.” Sam had a smile that belied the fact that he also realized Dean was mentally nosediving. “I’m Sam, Dean’s younger brother. You must be… Cas, was it?” Sam held out his hand across the table, and Cas shook it firmly.
“Yes. It is short for Castiel. Cas is fine. Nice to meet you, Sam.” Castiel smiled graciously.
“You too, man. This is-” Sam paused and squinted, as if he were reading from a script in his head - “I’m not going to lie, this is a big...deal. But not because of any homophobic reasons!” He held his hands up in surrender. “Just- yeah, I’ve met maybe two people that Dean has dated, in my whole life. And that includes high school. And you’re a guy, so that just makes it even crazier. Not that I think he’s being crazy! It’s just kind of unexpected. But not unwelcome!”
Dean felt comforted that his brother had begun to take a relatively small dive of his own. Cas saved everyone.
“I think it would be hard to determine whom here is most surprised by our coupling.”
“Coupling.” Dean tasted the word, unintentionally shifting attention to himself.
“Probably Becky.” Sam stated, as his eyes jumped from Dean to the busybody hostess. She seemed to be rearranging every bouquet that was in earshot of their table, and Sam had noticed at least one couple who had simply grabbed menus and seated themselves. “Kinda takes the heat off of me, so that’s a plus.”
“That little hostess has had the hots for Sam for years.” Dean explained to Cas. Cas nodded in understanding.
“Dean tells me you are a lawyer.”
“Yes. Family law. It’s good. Sometimes a little tough. But that’s good.” Sam nodded and looked around his area for the menu, sensing that a waitress might be by any minute, now that their whole party was present and accounted for. “What do you do?”
“I am a security professional. Though…” Cas trailed off and glanced over at Dean, who had turned as well with a bit of a wide-eyed expression.
“Yeah?” Dean tried not to sound alarmed, though his mind was running through a lot of worst-case scenarios for why Cas would trail off while qualifying his career choice. Was he going to leave? Was he getting a new job?
“Now that we are involved, by our handbook’s standards, we would be considered “unprofessional.” He smiled into the last third of his milkshake, before taking a gulp straight from the side of the cup.
Dean chuckled as he watched Cas drink, giddy with relief.
Sam watched Dean watch Cas, and felt a warring in his chest between the faction that wanted this meal to last forever and the faction that had had just about enough and was wondering if they could just grab an antipasto to go, and head home.
"Well, I gotta say, Dean. My mind is blown. Again, in the best way." He made a little explosion noise, indicating a firework erupting from his temple. Dean grinned at his dork brother, and goosed Cas's knee, hard, making him jump.
"This is why I don't like sitting on your side."