Cas looked back to Dean helplessly as the door closed behind Sam. "What does he mean by that?"

Dean shrugged and shook his head, still looking at the table. "No idea."

Cas sat down in the chair next to him, turning it to face Dean as he did, clearly unsure what was happening. They sat in silence for a long moment.

"So..." Dean finally spoke, "Who are these guys you're into? I've known about a couple of the women, so - have you, you know, dated a dude?"

Cas shook his head. "No, I haven't... I think you're aware of every human I've dated or slept with."

Dean nodded. He pushed through the awkwardness to keep talking. "Okay. Fair enough. But you have been attracted to men." He gave Cas an impish smile, "So anyone I know? C'mon, Cas, I won't tell."

Cas looked back at the door Sam had gone through, frowning. Then he glanced at Dean, looking worried. "I think I know what Sam was talking about when he left. But you're not going to like it."

Dean sat up straighter. "Yeah? What? Who cares if I like it, is it important?"

Cas shifted his eyes back and forth, looking for something other than Dean to settle on. "I don't know why it would be. You just..." He finally looked back up at Dean. "You're my friend, Dean. I don't want this to change that, or make it... awkward."

Dean gave a wary smile, but kept his tone light. "Can't get much more awkward than the Mark of Cain, can it? Or Leviathans? Whatever's going on, I'm sure we've gotten through worse and we're still friends."

Cas nodded, looking back down at his hand where it rested on the table. "I think Sam means - the subtext. If Chuck wrote nothing but the truth, there can only be subtext if there's really something there. I think Sam knows that there is."

Dean's eyes widened, his nostrils flaring. "Look, Cas - it's nothing, okay? | I swear, it doesn't matter."

Cas looked up, startled. "Oh. Okay."

"Okay, clearly I haven't been as subtle as I'd hoped, if you and Sam both twigged to it, but look," He raised his hands, his face open and innocent, "I swear I did not mean for that to happen. I don't think I've, y'know, acted inappropriately toward you or anything, have I?" When Cas only narrowed his eyes and tilted his head in response, Dean added, "Wait, have I? Just tell me, Cas, and I will stop doing - whatever it is that I'm doing. I don't want this to get awkward, either."

"What exactly do you think it is that I think Sam knows?" Cas asked slowly.

"What do I -" Dean's face contorted warily with the realization that he may have said too much. He swallowed. "Why, what do you think Sam knows?"

"That I'm in love with you," Cas said matter-of-factly, his head still tilted to one side, his eyes still searching Dean's face.

"Oh." Dean stilled, his hands dropping to his lap. For long seconds he did nothing but blink at Cas like a deer in the headlights. "You sure? About that?" he finally said, his words coming out slow and fumbling, "I mean, you're sure this isn't, like, brotherly love or ... whatever?"

"Yes," Cas nodded, still watching Dean, "I thought it was, at first. I had so little experience with human love. But I'm very sure now that my feelings for you are most definitely romantic, even sexual, in nature."

"I'm sorry," he added after a few seconds, looking a bit worried "I realize this wasn't something you were expecting to deal with, and I hadn't planned on telling you about it. But I think that's what Sam was referring to."

Dean nodded slowly, mostly to himself. He turned toward the table, closing his eyes and leaning his elbows on it as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Dean?"

"Just... gimme a second." Dean didn't sound angry, or even particularly upset. On the contrary, his voice was possibly gentler than Cas had ever heard it.

After a bit longer, Dean finally blew out a hard breath. Then he suddenly slapped his hand on the table and turned back to face Cas.

"Here's the thing, Cas. I need you to understand this, okay? What I'm about to say, it goes against everything that I have ever been taught about who I am, or who I'm supposed to be. Everything everyone tells me I'm supposed to be as a man, as a hunter, as... as me."

"I'm said I'm sorry, Dean -"

"Nope," Dean cut him off, "Lemme talk, Cas. I need to say this. I have made all sorts of shady deals with demons, with angels. I've sacrificed people I cared about for the greater good, and even after all that, the two words I'm about to say are the hardest I've ever had to get out. Ten years ago, I wouldn't've been able to say them at all, I guarantee that. But I'd like to think I've learned some things in that time. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that you and me, we don't get many good times. And I don't mean 'guys like us' or some crap like that, I mean you and me. Our best times are when we've barely managed to keep the worst possible times away. We just don't get too many nice moments, period, and there's no reason to think that's gonna change. So when we get a chance at one of those moments, one minute of happiness - I can't let that slide. So even though every instinct in me is telling me to shut the hell up and pretend this never happened, bury those two words nice and deep where neither of us has to deal with them - I'm not gonna do that. But I want you to know how hard this is for me."

Cas nodded. "What are they? The two words," he asked warily.

Dean leaned forward, elbows on his knees, looking Cas in the eye and chewing the inside of his lip. Then he abruptly sighed and sat up, and slowly, haltingly, laid his hand over Cas's on the table. He looked up at Cas.

"Me, too," he said simply.

Cas looked at their hands, then back at Dean. "I don't understand. You just affirmed that you're heterosexual."

"Yeah, well," Dean gave their hands a lopsided grin. "Maybe not a hundred percent. Like you said, even some humans, right? I guess that's me. As long as we're getting all this honesty out, Cas, the truth is you're not the only guy I've been attracted to. The only one I've ever, y'know, felt this way about, yeah, but... it's always been there."

"Oh," Cas said, looking like he still didn't fully understand. "You, too." He muttered Dean's words to himself, turning them over and inspecting them.

He stared at their hands for another moment, then a grin broke out across his face. He glanced at Dean almost shyly, and Dean returned the smile. Dean's was easy and genuine, and it reached his eyes in a way few ever seemed to.

"You know you don't smile much?" Dean asked, reaching over with his other hand to take Cas's in both of his. "I like it. You got a great smile, Cas. And I'm gonna make sure I see it more." He laughed. "Man, I have got a lot of cheesy shit saved up to say to you, Castiel. You're gonna be sick of me in a week."

"I am surprisingly fine with the cheesy shit," Cas admitted.

"Well, good," Dean said, starting to get into the swing of things. He started massaging Cas's hand. "Because if I'm allowed to flirt with you now, I'm gonna take full advantage. I don't know if the same lines work on an angel as on a woman, but damned if I'm gonna let the opportunity to find out pass me by."

Cas's brow furrowed. "But isn't the point of flirting to convince the other party to date or sleep with you? You don't have to flirt with me, Dean. I'm convinced." He looked truly concerned.

"Ah, you're no fun," Dean said, lifting Cas's hand between his. He leaned forward, elbows on the table, and held their hands in front of his eyes. They both watched as he tangled their fingers together in various arrangements. "Sure, flirting is good for that. But that is most definitely not its only purpose. Oh, I am gonna have fun with you."

"And you're certain that you'll find sex with a man to be... acceptable?" Cas seemed more curious than worried now. Dean raised his eyebrows and put Cas's hand down, although he still kept one of his wrapped around it as he turned to him.

"I... Yeah, I think so. I mean... sure, some things might be a little... different. I might want to, y'know, take it slow. Get used to things."

Cas nodded. "As an angel, I have very little sex drive. Nothing compared to when I was human, at least. It's truly amazing, the number of different physical urges that humans have to navigate constantly in order to get anything done." He peered at Dean for a moment, his wonder at humanity clear on his face, then shook his head. "At any rate, I've spent enough time on earth, dealing with human emotions, that I do have one and I believe I will still enjoy sex quite a lot. But 'going slowly' certainly won't bother me, as I have no inherent drive to reproduce."

Dean smiled at Cas's ability to talk about sex - about the two of them having sex - in such a detached, matter-of-fact way. He knew Cas wasn't truly detached from it, but the relationship between an angel's feelings and their words was always a complicated one.

"Okay. Let's start nice and slow, then." He nodded toward their hands. "Holding hands is going pretty well so far, I think we've got that figured out. I think it's time to upgrade."

Dean stood up and tugged on Cas's hand until he did, too. Then Dean let go of his hand and instead wrapped his arms around Cas's shoulders and pulled him close.

Cas made no move at first, but twisted his head and looked at Dean as though he weren't quite sure what was happening. "You're hugging me. We've hugged before, Dean."

"Trust me, that was different."

After a pause, Cas slid his own arms around Dean's waist. Dean let himself be pulled up flush against Cas's body, taking in how it felt. Different, harder and flatter than most bodies he'd pressed his against, but very good. Then he closed his eyes and buried his nose in soft, dark hair. He could feel Cas's face press against his neck, and for a moment they just stood there, breathing each other in. Dean could feel both of their breathing relax as the angel's arms tightened around him. Then Dean moved one hand up, raking his fingers into Cas's hair, while he slid the other down and inside the trench coat, around his waist. He pulled back just enough to prompt Cas to raise his head, and Dean pressed their foreheads together, smiling.

"See? Totally different."

"This is a very good hug," Cas admitted with a small grin.

"Hey, um" Dean said softly, looking into Cas's blue eyes from an inch away, "I was wrong, by the way. After all that buildup and everything, when it came down to it, when I actually opened my mouth… Those were the two easiest words I've ever said. And I know I didn't actually say it before, so I'm saying it now, properly. I love you."

Cas opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, Dean had moved in and pressed his lips to Cas's. It was a simple, chaste kiss, and only lasted a few seconds before Dean pulled back.

"Good?" he murmured.

"Very," Cas said, his voice low, and leaned in to reestablish the connection.

This time, their mouths slid open against each other, tongues carefully feeling their way at first, then pushing and sliding more insistently. The kiss grew heated quickly, Cas's fingernails digging into Dean's back and Dean's hand sliding down to his ass in response. Soon their breathing was ragged, their hands clutching at each other's hair, face, clothes in a frantic tangle. Dean pushed the trenchcoat and suit jacket off Castiel's shoulders and began to work his tie loose, leaning against the table for leverage as their mouths continued to war at a desperate pace. Cas pressed his hips into Dean, and the hardness there made Dean gasp and pull back from the kiss.

"Fuck," he breathed, "Apparently I am just wrong about everything today. That thing I said, about going slowly?" Cas nodded and pulled back, clearly ready to cool things off at a word from Dean.

Dean grabbed his shirt and pulled him back in. "Yeah, fuck that. I never thought that I would actually, in real life, want a dick in my mouth, but here we are." Castiel groaned in reply as Dean began to lick and suck on his throat. He began to push Dean back onto the table, but Dean stopped him again.

"If Sam walks in and finds us doing the nasty on this table, he's gonna pull out an angel blade and gank us both," Dean said, panting, hands still roaming over Castiel's chest and thigh.

Cas stood back from the table quickly, grabbing Dean by the arm and tugging him close. "Let's get to your bedroom, then," he growled, eyes heated, "and then I can see to your mouth."

Dean nodded, then grabbed a pad of paper and scribbled something before he took off after Cas.

—

An hour and a half later, Sam pulled up in front of the bunker in the Impala, having killed some time watching basketball at the first sports bar he could find. As he left the car and ambled toward the door, he wondered what he would find inside.

Most likely, he knew, would be a pissed-off Dean who had chased Cas out of the bunker soon after Sam left and sat around the rest of the night working up a huff. The next most likely was that he would find Cas and Dean working on research, as they had intended to do when Cas arrived, having blown off everything that had been said before Sam left and acting as though it had never happened. While he braced himself for the disappointment of either of these outcomes, he also braced himself for the very slim chance that he would walk into a situation that he really didn't need to witness firsthand.

Just in case of that last one, Sam knocked before he opened the door, then called out "Hey, I'm home!" before actually poking his head through the door.

He was greeted by silence. An empty room. He walked down the stairs carefully. "Dean?"

No answer.

He grunted in surprise and went about taking his jacket off and putting his keys away, when he saw the table. Cas's trenchcoat was laying on it, and next to it was a pad of paper, the top sheet containing a hastily-scrawled note:

"Shit is now together. -D"

Sam's mouth dropped open in pleased surprise as he looked back and forth from the trenchcoat (which he could now see still had Cas's suit jacket folded up within it) and the note. He perked up his ears, but couldn't hear anything inappropriate happening. He must have missed the big show. Thank God.

Just in case, he snuck over to Dean's door and listened quietly for a moment. All he could hear was Dean's soft snoring.

He jumped back as the door opened several inches to reveal Cas, in boxer shorts with telltale messy hair.

"Your brother is asleep," he said softly, "he's been asleep for about a half an hour now."

"And you…" Sam struggled to find an appropriate question to ask. "… are spending the night, I take it?"

Cas nodded. "I do not require sleep, but I will stay and watch over him as I have done before."

"That would be really creepy if you weren't an angel, you know," Sam said with a lopsided grin. "So things are good, then? Between you two?"

"Yes," a soft smile spread over Cas's face as he nodded, one that Sam had never seen before. "We're both very happy. Thank you for your help, Sam."

"If anyone deserves to be happy for a night, it's you two," Sam said, "See you in the morning."

Cas gave him a nod and closed the door. Sam went back to the table and looked down at the note one more time.

"I can't believe that worked," he murmured to himself, "Why didn't I try it two years ago?"

A/N: I'm working on a followup story that will be too explicit to post on this site. It will be on my AO3 account, under this username. You can also find me on tumblr as porcupine-girl, I will post there when it's up!