A/N – Okay, so … I said I'd never write a song fic because 99.5% of the time they are SO FORCED and the lyrics never seem to really fit and … well, I have about 86 pet peeves with song fics. But I have been trying desperately to finish the Purgatory fic I'm working on – don't want to post it until it's done – and this plot bunny would not stop hopping around my head. So I figured I would just have to write it down to put it to rest. In case you weren't aware, Jensen Ackles recorded a song called "Angeles" with Steve Carlson that dropped back in September. You can find it on YouTube. The lyrics of the song are in the fic and I think you'll see why I found it irresistible to write.

~ ** Lady Tuesday ** ~~

Angeles

Dean shifted his weight on the groaning metal of the Impala's hood, still warm beneath him from the day's scalding temperatures. The flickering light from the only functioning street lamp on this end of the parking lot bathed the front end of his car in a circle of hazy yellow, just enough of illumination for him to see the many-times-folded and unfolded piece of motel stationary covered with his own precise handwriting. Pulling a stub of a pencil from behind his ear, Dean leaned away from the battered six-string on his lap, flicked the eraser over a few chord notations he'd made above the last verse, then scrawled in a few new ones in. He'd agonized over the lyrics for weeks – months, if he was realistic – so the music had to be perfect. He hummed brokenly for a second before nodding his head, certain that the chords would be better this time, and made one last notation.

One more quick glance around the parking lot of the motel showed him that there was no one around. He hadn't expected there to be; that was the whole point. Sammy was sound asleep back in their room across the lot and all the other occupied rooms were on the opposite side of the hotel. Even knowing that Sam slept like a log and most likely wouldn't wake up had he stayed in the room, he didn't want to take the chance; he just didn't think he'd have a good explanation ready if his little brother happened to get up to take a piss or something. Dean wasn't sure why the idea of Sam knowing his secret hobby seemed so embarrassing, but it did.

Pulling the guitar back against his stomach and rebracing his heels against the Impala's front fender, Dean plucked at the strings as he adjusted the tuning knobs. He hadn't played in a while, and the humidity of the backwater Mississippi town they'd been in for the last month was playing merry hell on the damn thing staying in tune. Once he was satisfied that it was a close to tuned as the old pawn shop guitar was going to get, Dean strummed a quick, harsh chord, cracked his knuckles, and then cast his eyes over the chords he'd written on the first verse.

He hadn't plucked out four notes before a soft flutter of noise across the car from him made the hunter stiffen in surprise. Dean didn't turn as the soft flap of Cas's trench coat hit his ears, he just tried to stash the guitar behind the driver's side front headlight. The quick motion and bright flush on his cheeks had the angel cocking his head to one side and gazing at him quizzically.

"Hello, Dean," he said quietly.

The elder Winchester didn't miss the slight tone of surprise in the angel's customary greeting. It was clear that Cas had seem him try to stash the instrument. Dean didn't speak, didn't move the guitar back to his lap, just gave a jerky nod of greeting.

"Have I interrupted you at a bad time?" Castiel asked, his voice soft but curious.

"Uh," Dean managed eventually. "No, I was just … I, uh …"

"I didn't realize you could sing," Cas replied bluntly.

This caused Dean's lips to quirk up at the edges. Since the proverbial cat was out of the bag, he swung the guitar back up into his lap and crossed his arms over the pock-marked body.

"I don't know if I'd call in singing," he said with a slight laugh. "Mostly, I just like to write songs."

Dean knew his voice betrayed a bit of embarrassment, a little nervous twitch of fear that Cas would judge him somehow, as if it would undermine Dean's image to do something so … creative.

"When did you learn to play?" the angel persisted, striding close enough to watch as Dean's hands anxiously but lovingly stroked the neck of the guitar.

"When I was living with—" he'd been about to say 'Lisa', but didn't think he could bring himself to do so. "—without Sammy. Had to fill the time somehow, you know? No big bads means I had to develop actual hobbies like normal people. You know, grilling, yard work, little league teams."

"Those don't seem your style."

Dean gave a genuine chuckle. "They weren't really. I passed a pawn shop one day and saw this thing in the window. Figured I had enough of a bad ass Johnny Cash thing going that I could pull it off."

Castiel looked confused at the mention of the 1950s rockabilly singer, but Dean didn't bother to explain, knowing the angel wouldn't get it anyway.

"So I bought it for fifty bucks and taught myself to play. Really just wanted to get some things out of my head, you know? And they came out as songs. Who knew?"

The angel nodded silently. When Cas made no further overtures to mention his reason for the impromptu late-night visit, simply leaning against the front of the Impala and starring off into the trees beyond the parking lot, Dean went back to allowing his fingers to glide over the metal strings in a few familiar patterns. The silence was comfortable for several long moments before Dean got curious.

"Whatcha doin' here, Cas?" he asked, still not quite able to look the angel in the eye.

Changing his mind about one of the earlier revisions, Dean scratched out a chord and made it an arpeggio instead. The angel pinned him with one of his trademark piercing gazes.

"I don't remember anymore," he rumbled in his low voice. Cas nodded towards the battered piece of paper Dean scribbled on. "What is this song?"

The hunter's face flushed hot in the cheeks again and he couldn't look right at his friend.

"Something I've been working on for a while," he said, cursing the way his voice broke a bit.

Cas tipped his head to the side and regarded Dean. After a long moment, he asked, "May I look at it?"

Wordlessly, Dean reached over the neck of the guitar and turned the paper to face his friend.

" 'Angeles'," Cas murmured aloud, reading the title scrawled at the top of the page. His eyes skimmed the paper thoughtfully for a moment before he raised his eyes back to scan Dean's face.

"I would like to hear the song."

Dean's heart leapt into his nose and then dropped into his stomach and his fist tightened around the frets on the neck. He hadn't really ever meant for Cas – or anyone, for that matter – to know the song existed let alone hear it. But, he supposed, if anyone was going to hear it …. Dean chuckled a bit as he thought about Cas's wording. That was their friendship in a nutshell, really. He hadn't tried to wheedle or demand that Dean play the song, and yet, the hunter felt he didn't really have a choice in the end. So he raised the guitar, cleared his throat, and forced his fingers to move across the frets as he began the song.

Strong fingers plucked across the metal strings, both quiet and loud in the abandoned parking lot as Dean began. Cas's gaze was laser-keen intent but friendly on his face as he glanced between the paper and his friend. With a slight hiccup in his voice, he started to sing.

"Someone's always comin' around here, trailing some new kill," Dean noticed the way Cas smiled just at the corners of his eyes, "Says I see your picture on a hundred dollar bill. What's a game of chance to you to him is one of real skill. So glad to meet you, Angeles…."

Castiel watched with interest as Dean's fingers and voice both gained strength and confidence as he made his way through the song. Dean perhaps wasn't a virtuoso by any means, but the lyrics and melody seemed imminently "Dean" to the angel: simple and clear, forthright, an underlying melancholy sweetness that tugged at the heart-strings.

"Picking up the tickets shows there's money to be made," Dean continued in his throaty voice, his gaze moving between the paper, the guitar, and Castiel. "Go on, lose the gamble; that's the history of the trade. Did you add up all the cards left to play to zero, and sign up with evil, Angeles?"

Something in Castiel shifted and the intent of the song became clear to him. He felt his eyebrows lift. He couldn't seem to tear his gaze away from his friend's face because something had shifted there. The hunter's gaze was calm but focused, never moving from Castiel's eyes now, never flitting back to the page.

"Don't start me trying now, uh huh… 'Cause I'm all over it, Angeles."

The hunter's fingers slipped a bit in their steady rhythm suddenly, and Dean ducked his face and stared determinedly at Castiel's shoes just before raising his voice in the last verse.

"I could make you satisfied in everything you do. All your secret wishes could right now be coming true," Dean's voice quavered as it hit a high note, but he gulped and continued, "Spend forever with my poison arms around you … No one's gonna fool around with us. No one's gonna fool around with us. So glad to meet you, Angeles."

Castiel was surprised to find that his vessel's heart seemed to stop within his chest. His fingers couldn't seem to find satisfactory purchase on anything, tangling in the cuffs of his trench coat as he listened to Dean's voice trail away with an ever-softening tinkle of chords. When the guitar's melody finally died into the night, quiet but for the chirping of crickets in the field across the road, Dean finally allowed his gaze to trail slowly up from the ground to Castiel's face.

Dean's green-eyed gaze searched the angel's face as breath seemed to return to Castiel in a rush. His friend's expression, naked with anxiousness and a twinge of fear, touched at something in the angel's chest that ached and he found himself propelled so far forward that Castiel could practically feel the vibrations from the strings as the hum died away.

"Dean," Castiel said, his voice sticking in his throat.

"Cas?" The hunter's raspy reply was barely more than a whisper.

"What was this song about, Dean?"

The hunter's gaze dropped to the angel's tie. " 'Angeles' means 'the angels'," he answered eventually.

Dean supposed to that the comment would have seemed apropos of nothing to anyone else, but when he gazed back up at his friend, the hunter saw recognition in his friend's face. Dean could barely breathe as Cas's long fingers reached out and grasped the neck of the guitar, gently removing the instrument from Dean's lap and placing it on the cooling hood of the Impala. A ringing moment of silence passed. When Dean didn't think he could stand it any longer, he reached out with both hands, clasped the angel's face between his palms, and brought their lips together with a rough jerk.

Had he taken the time to think about it, Castiel might have sworn that Dean was siphoning the air out of his lungs with that single kiss. But thinking took time and effort, and the angel wanted to waste neither. Instead, he concentrated on branding these feelings into his memory: the pressure of Dean's hands against his cheeks, the slick slide of his plush lips against Castiel's, the tiny hiccupping moans of noise the hunter made as Castiel allowed Dean to work his tongue into his mouth against his own. The angel laced trembling arms around his friend's waist, pulling the hunter closer and allowing the other man to clamp his legs firmly against Castiel's thighs, trapping the angel in place, wedged between Dean and the cold metal of the car. Castiel tried to express to the hunter through the movements of his tongue, his lips, his hands, everything that thrummed within his chest; he didn't wriggle when Dean dropped his hands from the angel's face to his shoulders, kneading at Castiel's lean muscles and pulling him even tighter in the man's grip, as if he expected to the angel to evaporate from the embrace if he showed weakness.

When the hunter eventually allowed Castiel to soften the kiss into just a brush-meeting of lips, Dean brought his hands back up to gently cradle the angel's face in his hands. Dean pressed their foreheads together as the two men struggled to regulate their breathing.

"I am in love with you," Dean blurted in a husky whisper, seemingly without thought but Castiel knew better.

Something tugged at the edges of Castiel's lips. "I know."

Dean laughed for a second, a raspy chuckle, then pulled back to look into the angel's face. When only silence and night noises met Dean's ears, something faltered. Castiel's expression didn't change and he volunteered nothing further. Suddenly, Dean's muscles felt watery with fear and he did his best to scoot away across the hood as he contemplated what it meant.

"Oh," he managed. "Oh…."

Castiel quirked his head to the side and searched his friend's face as it tipped away from his own now.

"I had thought that my love for you was obvious enough not to require declaration."

Dean's head snapped up and green eyes locked onto blue.

"Do not fuck with me right now," the hunter growled in a voice more bravado than bravery.

Castiel spread his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I wouldn't," he said. Then, hoping it would smooth the way, he tried for a cheeky half-smile. "I do not believe we have the time."

A startled bark of laughter tore itself from Dean's throat.

"Cas!" he said in mock surprise. "Did you just try to hit on me with a dirty pick-up line?"

The angel tilted his head again. "You sound uncertain… did I do it incorrectly?"

Dean chortled again and reached out to Castiel. The hunter's hands shook as he grasped the angel's in his, but he held on.

"No," he said, his amusement showing in his voice. "You did just fine."

Castiel brought their foreheads together again. "I cannot stay," he whispered. "I have things I must do."

Dean nodded, chafing his brow against the angel's wild hair. "I figured."

Castiel raised a hand and placed it gently on the hunter's cheek.

"When this is all over," he rumbled in his low baritone, "I will return. I have been promised forever in your arms. I intend to collect."

The laughter that left Dean was a little uneasy – this would still be new to him for a long while, he suspected – but he smiled anyway.

"You'd better, God damn it."

After a quiet flutter of wings, Castiel was gone and Dean busied himself placing the guitar back in its case and the case back in the trunk of the Impala. A smile quirked up his lips as he refolded the lyrics and placed them safely in the inner pocket of his leather jacket. Dean walked back across the parking lot and into his hotel room on shaky legs, but he couldn't seem to stop humming as he closed the door behind him.

A/N – You cannot convince me that this song does not have Destiel leanings. I'm sorry, you just can't. Yes, I know that it was part of Steve Carlson's 'journeyman's' album; yes, I know that means that it was probably technically written about Los Angeles, the city. But the fact that "Angeles" means "the angels", the song dropped on the freaking anniversary of the day Castiel raised Dean from Hell (Sept 18, 2012; I'm so not making that up), and just the lyrics of the song (especially that last verse) … it means that I will go to my grave proclaiming that this song has at least implications of the relationship between Dean and Cas. If it doesn't, than this would be the largest collection of coincidences I have ever seen. Anyway, that being said, I hope you enjoyed this exceedingly fluffy Destiel snippet.

UPDATE:It has come to my attention that the song "Angeles" was not actually written by Steve Carlson but is, in fact, a cover. So, credit where credit is due, the song obviously does not have intentional Destiel leanings. That being said, however, I feel that this knowledge does not in any way demean or alter the story I have written. As such, I will continue to merrily bop along reading Destiel into everything. Over and out.