Cop Car

By Debesmanna

A/N: This one is for my friend Arthur, who texted me one night saying, "I know you don't listen to country, but this song is super Destiel…" I listened, I gave a mischievous grin, and this fic is what happened. So you can thank/blame Arthur.

The song is "Cop Car" by Keith Urban. Other songs referenced are "I Can't Drive 55" by Sammy Hagar, "Time Is On My Side" by the Rolling Stones, and "Water" by The Who, because apparently I can't stop myself from making classic rock references when Dean is around.

Special thanks to StellarRequiem, who became my Dean muse when he was being difficult and without whom the dialogue in this story would be much less awesome!

PART ONE—CASTIEL

Castiel rolls the window down to greet the baked earth smell of summer. He loves that even on still, hot days, when the sky looks blue enough to drown in and every leaf and blade of grass stands at rest, the Impala can give him his own personal wind. As Dean begins to sing along with the radio about how he "can't drive 55," they accelerate. If Castiel closes his eyes, he can imagine that they're exceeding the speed limit not only of human laws but of human possibility. The hum to a roar of planes taking off in the distance becomes frequencies that are closed to Castiel's human bones, ancient vibrations that he almost feels in vanished wings.

Dean's soft laugh brings him back to himself. He is not ageless and multidimensional; like Dean, Castiel is seventeen and human. He sits up straight, squinting at Dean through the rush of daylight, and it's only then that he realizes he had been sprawled in his seat with his shoulder and head hanging out the window.

"Aw, I didn't mean for you to stop," Dean says. He sits with one elbow out the window and one hand on the wheel. Castiel used to scold him for his relaxed driving posture and disregard for their lives, to which Dean had responded that his baby could practically handle herself on these long, straight stretches and Cas should just "chill."

"Stop what?"

"Hanging out the window like dog."

"I don't—" Castiel begins, but stops himself. He sees Sam Winchester's face in his mind, head tilted to the side, projecting the infinite wisdom and patience unique to thirteen year olds. When Dean says something you don't understand, says Sam, take a minute to think about it before you say anything. He's confusing you on purpose because he's a dick.

Dean grins, shifting his hands to steer with his left while moving his right to Castiel's knee, and suddenly Castiel remembers. He had sat in the back of a barely functional truck that Dean termed "one of Uncle Bobby's rolling turds" as Bobby and Dean traded insults. Dean's thumb rubbed soothing circles on Castiel's knee, reassuring him that the banter was affectionate rather than malicious. But at the memory's edge Bobby's Rottweiler ignored them all, head out the window and tongue flapping, utterly joyous as he basked in the hundreds of scents that their momentum carried to him.

"The comparison's not unfounded," he admits, covering Dean's hand with his own. Dean snorts a laugh, flipping his hand and lacing their fingers together.

"Am I really so amusing?" Castiel doesn't mind making Dean laugh. In fact, he quite enjoys being responsible for the squint at the corners of Dean's eyes and for the dimple on his cheek that appear when he laughs. But he likes to understand.

"No. Well yeah, sort of." Dean hums and turns down the radio, leaving the car alarmingly driverless for a moment. That Dean would rather let go of his baby than Castiel is a compliment of the highest order; Dean and the Impala have a special relationship that Castiel can never hope to understand.

"It's more that I like seeing you so relaxed," says Dean. "Like we finally got that stick out of your ass."

Castiel rolls his eyes. "I know that the state of my ass is of great concern to you, Dean," he says, succeeding in pulling another laugh out of him. He leans back in his seat again, smiling. The moment of quiet, the wheels on pavement, the heavy air, and Dean's hand in his are something like peace.

"Hey Cas?"

"Yes, Dean?"

"Can I ask you something?" Dean licks his lips, nervous.

"You just did," says Castiel.

"That joke is older than sin, Cas."

Frowning, Castiel says, "I assure you that it isn't."

Dean winces in the beat of silence. It's an amazing human skill, transforming the mood of the quiet in only a moment.

Castiel sighs. "What do you want to know?"

With a deep, fortifying inhale and the soft movement of his thumb drawing circles on Castiel's hand, Dean says, "Why do you always wanna go see the planes?"

Anticipating the question doesn't stop Castiel from tensing. But he doesn't pull away. It's been two years, nearly three. Such a short span of cosmic time is plenty long enough in human terms to gather his words, and so they come easier than Castiel had expected.

"I miss my wings the most," he says. Rip off the Band-Aid quick, he remembers Dean saying to a distressed and sniffling Sam once, not long after they had met. He pauses at Dean's surprised inhale, and feels the first stirrings of panic when Dean lets go of his hand. It has been a long and complicated dance with Dean and his family, negotiating Castiel's status as a supernatural creature. When Dean begins to rub at the space on his back between his shoulder blades, Castiel relaxes, closes his eyes, and continues.

"I can understand why you don't like human flight. You're made to walk. I remember when walking like you did was something amazing. You could go all day in the sun and never tire, walk your quarry down with patience rather than speed. Uriel was particularly impressed. I don't know when he lost that wonder." Castiel shakes his head to dislodge that train of thought. This is about him, not one of the many brothers and sisters that he turned his back on. "But you could run, if it was needed. You could swim. You invented ways to move faster over the land, over and under the water, and I was awed where others disdained. What was left but the skies?"

"The moon?" Dean jokes.

"The heavens." Castiel says. He pauses, unsure, his words tangling on his tongue, possibilities budding faster than he can prune them. When the sky is the limit, losing one's way is all too easy.

Gently directing him, Dean says, "Okay, so you hung out on Earth for forever, and we invented some cool shit."

Castiel shakes his head. "It's not what you made, Dean. It's what you thought. If a fish dreamed that it could run, and dreamed hard enough to create possibility, and turned the possible into the real, would that not be amazing to you?"

"…I'm picturing a fish with robot legs over its tail, which is really friggin' weird. But yeah. I guess."

Opening his eyes, Castiel dares to look at Dean. Dean glances between the road and Castiel, eyes soft and curious. The corners of his mouth lift in a barely-there smile at Castiel's attention. Castiel smiles wryly. "What do you think you look like to us, strapped into wood and cloth wings or inside impossibly airborne metal flying machines?"

Dean laughs. "Fishes with robot legs, monkeys with robot wings. Got it."

"You're an ape, Dean, not a monkey," Castiel corrects absently. "As you call them, 'robot wings,' are not true wings. Planes make me sad because they remind me that humans will never experience flight as angels do, and now that I am among you, neither will I. And I love planes because they exist in defiance of rational design."

There is so much more to say. There is so much more that Castiel is, and knows, and feels. There is so much that he is losing, that's slipping the confines of his newly human brain.

Dean responds to his frustrated huff with a shushing noise. "Take your time, buddy."

On the radio, a man sings "Time is on my side, yes it is." Castiel can no longer tell happenstance from sign, a song from divine advice, but it's better to err on the side of caution. He recaptures Dean's hand in his. Dean begins to sing under his breath, slightly off-key and perfect. Far in the distance, the watery shimmer of a heat-mirage gives way to asphalt, and the turn off to an ill-used dirt road.

Castiel says, "The planes are me."

Dean's sideways grin reappears, and he says, "Rebel with a cause."

"I hadn't thought of it that way."

"That's what you need me for. I'll do the thinking, you sit and look pretty."

Punching Dean in the arm accomplishes nothing, but it seems the appropriate response.

They approach the dirt road. It's miles too soon to leave the highway, miles before the convenience store parking lot where they sit and drink slushies and turn their tongues unnatural colors, but Dean slows their reckless forward momentum.

"What are you doing?" Castiel asks.

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

"Do you not want to watch the planes anymore?" Castiel doesn't mean for his voice to sound so small.

Dean shushes him. "We're watchin' the planes, baby. You'll like this, just wait."

"Like what?"

Rolling his eyes, Dean says, "It's a surprise Cas. Take a hint."

Watching for deception in Dean's face has always been hard for Castiel, even when he was newly fallen and possessed lingering traces of his angelic senses, but try as he might he can detect no trick, no lingering resentment of Castiel's nature.

"I dislike surprises," he says.

Taking his eyes off the road for a heart-stopping moment, Dean kisses him on the cheek. "You'll like this one."

"As you say," Castiel grumbles, a light flush on his cheeks.

They stir the dust, disturbing browning weeds that had begun to grow in the tire ruts at the center of the road. Neat rows of young corn turn to rambling prairie grasses, and glimpses of faded but sturdy sheds turn to tumbled down wood heaps. The heat of late afternoon breaks piece by piece behind the hills. The roar of the planes gets louder and louder, more and more frequent. When they reach a wooden fence with a rusted metal gate and a "No Trespassing" sign, Dean slows to a stop.

"This is not inspiring any great confidence in your 'surprise,'" Castiel says, eyeing the "No Trespassing" sign as Dean might eye a vegetable that had somehow found its way onto his plate.

Dean is half out of the car already. "Will you stop with the finger quotes?" is his only reply as he gets out and goes to the gate. With a little tugging at the rusted over latch and a little kicking at the weeds in the path which prevent the gate from swinging open freely, Dean pries it wide enough for the Impala to pass through.

"Do laws mean nothing at all to you?" Castiel says, arms crossed firmly over his chest and glaring at the side of Dean's head as Dean avoids his eyes, focusing instead on the road ahead as he restarts the car.

"If Dad wanted a law-abiding citizen, he shouldn't have taught me to stand lookout on hunts before I could tie my shoes."

It's not long after the gate that an even smaller road opens up to the left, no more than two tire tracks in the grass, and Dean follows it to the top of a hill.

When they top the rise and Dean kills the engine, Castiel's jaw falls open in surprise.

"Oh."

"I told you you'd like it." Dean's smile is audible. He tugs Castiel's hand to pull him out of the car, Castiel fumbling with his seatbelt and his stunned silly feet in equal measure.

The runway ends directly below them. When a plane rolls into view from the distant airport, its rumble is nearly deafening. Castiel can see the exact moment that the beautiful, ungainly, impossible machine leaves the ground, the moment that it breaches the realm of potentialities and takes flight. He cranes his head back to watch it as it soars directly above them, its wind rushing over them in a blast of heat and noise, before he turns around and tracks it until only its white exhaust trail marks its passing.

Dean's arms come around him from behind, and Dean nuzzles his nose against the hinge of Castiel's jaw. "Do you like it?" he says shyly.

"How did you know about this place?"

He hums, his breath buzzing pleasantly against Castiel's skin. "I like to drive."

Every new hideaway of Dean's, every secret road and field and junkyard offered, is a glimpse of that bright soul he used to see with his angel eyes. Castiel turns around in his arms and kisses him gently on the lips. "Thank you, Dean."

Never one to accept a compliment with grace, Dean only chuckles and kisses Castiel in return.

The evening creeps up on them in a series of quiet kisses. After the car cools they sit on her hood. Castiel remembers when Dean used to leave a foot wide gap of black paint between them rather than tugging at Castiel's waist until he is practically sitting on Dean's lap. This way traps the fading summer heat between them, sweat catching at all points of contact, but Castiel prefers it to empty space. When the planes pass overhead, leaving and arriving, Castiel gives them his absolute attention. In between, Dean's kisses deepen, limbs entwining further with Castiel's. He registers the slow fall into night as points of light materializing on wings and tails.

"Look up," Dean murmurs into his ear.

"As opposed to what I've been doing?"

"Just shut up and look at the damn stars."

Limited as he is by eyes and atmosphere, the stars are still endless. Castiel lays his head on Dean's shoulder. If he could, he would stay here forever.

"I know all of their names."

"You do not."

Castiel is naming stars, feeding them to Dean on whispers between kisses, when a shroud of red and blue light and a wailing sound from the bottom of the hill cracks open their sanctuary.

Dean grins, snaking his arm around Castiel's waist and squeezing. "It ain't a party till the cops break it up."

"The—Dean!" Castiel gasps, grabbing Dean's arm tightly, "We're going to get arrested!"

"Looks like it," says Dean cheerfully. His wandering hand is teasing the edge of Castiel's shirt. "Or we could run for it. It'd be funny."

Castiel only stares.

"If you leave your mouth open like that you're gonna catch flies."

Castiel's mouth snaps shut. Dean is at ease, his posture relaxed and his usual half-grin in place. "You are unconcerned."

"Well we're not hiding a monster corpse, and we don't even have any booze. So nah, we're good."

The grim faced pair of policewomen topping the hill and stalking towards them don't look "good" to Castiel, but admittedly he has little basis for comparison.

"What about the weapons compartment in the trunk?"

"I won't tell if you don't."

He realizes that Dean is still trying to worm his way under his shirt.

"Dean! Stop that. It's undignified."

"I didn't hear you complaining five minutes ago."

"Five minutes ago we were alone." Castiel tugs Dean's hand off and scoots a few inches away so that he is no longer sitting in his boyfriend's lap in the presence of two officers of the law.

As the policewomen approach Dean's side of the car, Dean tips an imaginary hat to them. "Officers."

The taller policewoman frowns. Castiel is unable to read the expression of the second in the flashing lights coming from the bottom of the hill, but when she speaks, her voice is dry rather than angry, which is encouraging.

"I expect you're the 'dangerous strangers in a mobster car creeping on back roads' that Mrs. Pearson called in about?"

As is his custom in the presence of females of a certain age, Dean flashes his most charming smile. "Can't be, ma'am. Mobsters ain't classy enough to ride with a beauty like this." Dean pats the hood of his car reassuringly.

"Don't you be flippant with her, boy," her partner snaps. She has a frazzled edge, wisps of blonde hair escaping from underneath her hat. Castiel sends a quick prayer to Anna for patience, although for the policewoman or for himself, he isn't sure.

"Dean," Castiel warns, putting a hand on Dean's arm. Dean only winks at him and shakes him off.

"I don't joke about my baby," Dean says, the picture of sincerity.

Any further repartee is lost in the roar of a plane landing. Since it's his last before he and Dean face possible imprisonment, Castiel takes a moment to watch and let his stomach settle in time with the bump of wheels touching down on the runway. Then, before Dean can make further use of his talents for annoyance, Castiel takes a calming breath and intervenes.

"My name is Castiel, and this is Dean. May we discuss our criminal status back on the main road, away from the noise?"

Dean laughs. Castiel elbows him in the ribs.

The shorter officer cuts off her partner with a similar gesture before she can speak. "I'm Officer Rodriguez and this is Officer Vogel. We'll talk now." She gives Officer Vogel a narrow-eyed look that Castiel recognizes as communicating "calm down."

"Whatever," says Dean, jumping down from the hood. Castiel sighs. He feels an intense sympathy for Officer Rodriguez as he takes his place at Dean's side. "What did you ladies want to talk about?"

"For starters, the lock that you broke to illegally enter someone else's land," says Officer Vogel.

"That was my fault," says Castiel, meeting the officer's eyes despite the thrumming of his nerves. She is human, and not a physical threat, so he has to keep himself under control. "Dean wanted to show me the planes."

"But I was the one that broke the lock," Dean is quick to add. He glares at Castiel and hisses under his breath, "What are you doing?"

"The truth is as good a story as any," Castiel replies at a normal volume. To the officers, he adds, "Dean may have broken the lock and driven the car, but I was his accomplice, so I'm equally responsible."

Dean groans. "Cas, stop talking."

When Castiel meets Dean's eyes he expects to find irritation, or worry. Castiel is incriminating himself, shifting the blame off of Dean when Dean would try to take it all. Instead, he sees battle-readiness. Dean is almost vibrating with anticipation at the chaos. Usually when this happens they are in actual mortal danger, so Castiel has never had the time to savor the way that Dean's muscles loosen in anticipation of striking, that he shifts his stance to draw strength from the Earth, the freedom in his eyes.

Castiel couldn't talk even if he wanted to. He is breathless. Whatever Dean sees in his face only increases his good humor, and he winks.

"Yes, that'll do," drawls Officer Rodriguez, and Castiel regains normal autonomic functioning with a deep breath.

At the same time, Officer Vogel says, "You came way out here, on service roads at night, because you wanted to 'watch planes.'" Castiel hears the air quotes. He supposes that plane watching is not a normal human pastime and is therefore cause for suspicion, but he can't explain his reasoning without revealing his status as an angel.

"Cas likes planes," Dean says, smirking. This does nothing to assuage the officer's concerns, judging by the glance that she exchanges with her partner.

"What do they think we've been doing?" Castiel whispers.

"Probably pot or something," Dean responds.

"Is that what normal teenage hooligans do?"

"You mean the ones that don't dig up graves for kicks? Yeah."

Then Castiel remembers something else that normal teenage hooligans do that might lend credibility to their story.

"And also Dean's brother told us to stop having sex where he can hear us," Castiel says. A choking sound to his left is Dean's laughter, and Castiel smiles.

"That's quite enough out of you," snaps Officer Vogel. She then has them undergo a series of balance and coordination exercises intended to determine their level of intoxication. It's entirely possible that she would have let Dean drive them back to the police station under his own power if he hadn't pushed her an inch too far by standing close, inhaling the scent of cigarette smoke that clung to her, and asking for a light.

As she hustles them to the police car Dean murmurs to Castiel, "Must've hit a nerve." Officer Rodriguez only sighs as Officer Vogel handcuffs them and Dean declares "kinky" and wiggles his eyebrows at Castiel.

Once in the car, Dean wheedles Officer Rodriguez into cracking the windows. Castiel's own voice echoes in his memory this time: I feel trapped in cars. Dean had said, Want me to crack a window? and Castiel replied It won't help, but Dean had done it anyway, and it had helped.

Revelations aren't supposed to occur in the back of a police car. Revelations are holy, are giving oneself over to divine light and purpose and receiving the bliss of command. Castiel has never felt less heavenly than at this moment, listening to the crackle of the police scanner over the music of crickets, smelling of sweat and gasoline and cold wind, and resisting the urge to laugh whenever he and Dean catch each other's eyes. He has never felt how expansive his human senses can be until the denim and heat of Dean as he hooks his ankle behind Castiel's calf. The scrape of dirt under their tires rolls to asphalt and low voices fill the front seat and the moon stains Dean's hair and Castiel receives revelation.

"I love you," he says.

Dean inhales sharply. He stares at Castiel, eyes wide. When he smiles it's as though years of pain and anxious love have been pushed away. He laughs.

"Timing, baby. We gotta work on your timing."

From the front seat, someone snorts back a laugh.

"Oh," says Cas. "I can see how the back of a police car might not be a suitable place to fall in love."

Dean laughs again and scoots closer, pressing his side up against Castiel's.

"I can think of worse," he says.

Castiel lays his head on Dean's shoulder and closes his eyes, letting the steady wing-beat of Dean's pulse take him on down the road.