Standing Together

Chapter 17

"No, Cas," Dean interrupts. "The correct answer was no." He gives him a brief kiss. "Come on, Cas. You know you want to stay here."

Castiel hesitates, then nods. "But only if I get to do this first."

He wraps his arms around his fiancé and presses their lips together, and Dean doesn't hesitate to kiss back. It's slow; sweet; perfect. Maybe this is what he needs. He needs a distraction, and the taste of Dean's lips may be the best distraction he'll ever find.

~~

"I'm cold," Castiel whines, sitting on the floor in a sunny patch of the living room in an attempt to warm up.

"Hi, cold. I'm Dean."

Castiel rolls his eyes. "Really, Dean? We're making dad jokes now?"

"What, did you think I was above that?" Dean asks. "Because I will stoop very, very low for a bad joke. You already know that."

"But that doesn't solve the actual problem here, which is that I'm cold," Castiel says.

"How are you cold? It's, like, 90 degrees outside," Dean reminds him, using Fahrenheit even though half of you probably don't know how hot that is, or that it's about 32° Celsius.

"But we're not outside, now, are we?" Castiel counters. "It's, like, 60 degrees in here."

"72 degrees, actually, and way too hot," Dean says. "I'm not making it any hotter, or I'm going to melt."

"Okay, then I'll just freeze to death," Castiel says. "That's fine."

"Alright, fine. Let's compromise." Dean walks out of the room, and Castiel waits patiently until he returns about two minutes later, sitting down next on the couch. "Okay, now the thermostat's set to 75. Better?"

"When the house warms up, sure," Castiel replies.

"Awesome. And now, so I don't burn to death —" Dean pulls off his shirt in one swift movement, tossing it to the side of the room.

He doesn't seem to think anything of it. There's no jokingly sexual strip tease or any showing off, something Castiel has basically come to expect from him. He doesn't even seem to think of it as anything other than just cooling off until he notices Castiel watching him, a slight smile on his face.

"Enjoying the view?" Dean asks teasingly.

"Oh, I'm enjoying the view very much," Castiel replies. "You know, I think we should use this compromise more often."

"Maybe I should turn the temperature up even more, so we're both hot, if you get my drift," Dean says with a playful smirk.

"Oh, I bet you'd love that," Castiel says. He crawls over to his fiancé and kneels on the floor, holding himself up with his hands on Dean's thighs as their lips meet in a quick, flirty kiss. There's a brief pause, and Castiel traces a finger along Dean's chest, just to the side of his heart. "What happened there?"

"Hmm?" Dean looks down, and it takes him a moment to spot the scar, so light that it's hard to see if the sun doesn't hit it at the right angle. "Oh, nothing. Just a stupid football game when I was, like, thirteen. Friend pushed me into a rock."

"I've never noticed it before," Castiel says.

"Well, too be fair, I am usually wearing a shirt over it," Dean reminds him. "I've thought about getting a tattoo over it." With a fond smile, he adds, "Sam and I used to joke about getting matching tattoos there. We even went as far as finding what we wanted to get tattooed, but we were way too young to actually do it — him especially."

Castiel sits crisscross on the floor, propping his head up in his hands. "And what was the tattoo going to be?"

"It was, like, a little pentagram, and it was surrounded by this little ring of fire, kinda," Dean says. "It's hard to explain — especially because I haven't seen or heard of it in at least ten years. It's been a while."

"Ah, yeah, that would make it hard to explain," Castiel agrees.

"Just, out of curiosity, what would you think if I got a tattoo?" he asks.

Castiel shrugs. "I don't know. It would probably be weird at first, but I think I might come to like it." With a teasing smile, he adds, "If you get one there, I think you might have to wear no shirt more often. You know, until I get used to it."

"Something tells me this 'getting used to it' process would be dragged out a lot longer than it needs to be," Dean says.

Castiel sits down on Dean's lap, straddling his hips, and runs a finger down his stomach, tracing the lines of his abdominal muscles. "Really? What gave you that idea?"

"Mm, I don't know," Dean murmurs.

Their lips meet, and Dean wraps his arms around the boy, pulling him closer. Castiel can't help but smile. How did he get so lucky?