Chapter Text
The problem with actually achieving your life dream, is that a lot of the time it doesn’t feel that dreamy when you haven’t had a day off for two weeks, the person you hired to manage the business side of your actual business is a total fucking asshole who probably knows what he’s talking about and your autumn menu completely sucks.
He’s having the chef equivalent of writer’s block, whatever the hell that is, and the trip to the farmer’s market with his little brother that was supposed to provide inspiration is just making him frustrated and pissy, because Sam won’t quit nagging him.
It started with the usual crap about Dean not taking enough time off and not taking care of himself properly, like Dean hasn’t explained how running a freaking restaurant works thirteen thousand times by now. Sam is the one who coerced him, lovingly, into quitting his job at the fancy-ass restaurant that was slowly sucking away his soul and setting up his own burger place, so Sam only has himself to blame that Dean is overworked, stressed and kind of an asshole right now. Then it segued into Sam trying to give him a whole load of suggestions to get him out of his food related funk, which was about as helpful as the comment card he got last week saying ‘I don’t like burgers - please add more variety to the menu’ like his place isn’t specifically a goddamn burger place.
Whatever.
“Just take the tomatoes, Dean,” Sam says, gesturing wildly, his stupid hair getting in the way of his face, “It might help.”
“Sammy,”
“Obviously, if you don’t actually cook anything, you’re going to struggle with inspiration.”
“How many times have I gotta tell you I don’t have time to cook in my spare freaking time?” Dean asks, but he’s already getting his wallet out to pay for the tomatoes, because there’s no goddamn point arguing with Sam when he’s this petulant. The kid has the weight of a whole law degree and twenty five years experience being a total pain in the ass behind him. Realistically, Dean lost this argument when Sam learned how to pull out the puppy dog eyes aged six and a half. He doesn't have the patience to fight the inevitable today.
“You’re off after the lunch shift today, right?” Sam says, puppy dog eyes in place, “And you have a day off tomorrow. You can cook then.”
“And who's gonna eat all this goddamn food?”
“How about your brother, who's too busy studying for the bar to cook?” Sam says, a look of incredible satisfaction slipping on his face, because fuck knows Dean can’t turn down that, and Sam knows that too well. “Seriously, Dean, having something I could just heat up would be…”
“Okay, okay,” Dean grumbles, “Quit laying it on me. I’ll cook you some study food. Buy whatever you want.”
“I really think it will help,” Sam says, nudging him with his arm, “To cook for someone else. Not just for the restaurant.” That sounds like Sam’s setting himself up a conversational opportunity to shift the conversation to Dean’s love life, which is so off topic this morning. No freaking way. “To remember that you love cooking,” Sam continues, voice all gentle and irritating, because…
He’s right. Cooking was the first thing that felt right. That got him excited about his own future, rather than just a meal ticket to get Sam through law school. He fell in love with it. The simple, pure joy of putting together something that could make someone full and content and happy.
Maybe he’s never going to change the world, but he can put together the kind of plate of food that people talk about with reverence a month after the event. He knows how flavour works. He knows how much comfort there is in a home cooked meal. He can do that for other people.
Except, right now, when his autumn menu is an insipid, confused mess and he has no goddamn idea where his inspiration used to come from.
*
Marv corners him after the lunch shift to talk at him about numbers.
The upshot of the whole damn thing is that profit growth is down, again, which is apparently a big problem. Honestly, Dean figured that at some point things would level out, because the surge of success that hit him out of nowhere wasn’t what he was anticipating when he first opened. He’d done his research. Read up on new restaurants, took courses in businesses and restaurant management and used all of it make a case to Sam and Bobby and everyone that was behind him that it was a terrible idea, and he should just go back to working at the Roadhouse where at least he wasn’t liable to lose every single cent he’d saved up to cover some of Sam’s college fees.
Except, Sam got a full ride and wouldn’t touch a single dollar.
And now he has to deal with Marv, which is only slightly better than when he was running all the day to day business side of things himself. He’s not cut out for crunching numbers and balancing the books, so in theory Marv should make his life a lot easier, it just doesn’t feel like that when Marv is riding his ass again about something Dean’s not entirely sure he believes is a problem.
If profits are still growing, why does it matter if they’re growing slower than they were before?
“The current expenditure on wait staff is -”
“- look,” Dean says, cutting across him as he shrugs off his chef whites, “I am officially off the clock, so just - email this to me and I’ll deal with it. Capisce?”
“Hey, bossman,” Charlie grins, appearing out of nowhere, “We’re getting coffee. Wanna come?”
“No,” Dean says, a little too curt, “I’m going home to cook.”
By the time he gets back to his apartment, Marv has sent him a seven hundred word email that basically amounts to the fact that he thinks Dean should either cut the wage of his wait staff or fire someone, which is a hundred percent not what he wants to deal with right now.
He shuts his laptop with a decisive click and heads to his fridge.
Sam dropped off the food at his place because he had to get to the restaurant, which means that his little brother is the one who’s reorganised his fridge to how he always used to insist it should be when they were kids. Dean’s pretty sure that before Sam’s interference there was just a six pack of beer and some bacon shoved in there somewhere, but Sam’s taken it upon himself to fully stock his kitchen. He must have gone to another grocery store after they were done at the farmer’s market which is… well, Sam is a well meaning, interfering idiot, who Dean’s lucky to have.
He has the kind of fresh, gorgeous produces that he would have loved to have at his disposal even five years ago. Now, it leaves him feeling flat, a little hollow and inadequate.
Dean puts on Led Zeppelin, because that always helps, except for the fact that it doesn’t today. He grabs himself a beer and stares at the photo of Mary Winchester tacked on the fridge. He rereads the email from Marv twice. He ignores three excitable texts from Charlie about how his cooking is doing. On three occasions, he starts getting out the ingredients for something before he realises that his idea sucks and puts everything back. He drinks a second beer while glaring at the stupid list of crappy, mundane dishes he’d written out for the autumn menu last time he’d tried this. He orders himself a take out while he drinks his third beer, because it doesn’t look like food is happening in his kitchen anytime soon.
He’s just finished draining his fourth beer and ripping up his autumn menu plan into tiny pieces when his take out arrives.
It’s okay. He eats half of it and shoves the rest in the fridge for tomorrow then decides fuck this, grabs his wallet, and goes out to get well and truly drunk.
*
His body clock is permanently set up as if he’s cooking a lunch service, so even though he stayed out till two drinking too much and picking up some fucking gorgeous guy with a dumbass name he can’t remember, he still wakes up at six AM. His head’s fuzzy from too many beers and he feels vaguely shitty about his whole goddamn existence in that way that he normally does when he succumbs to getting drunk and sex to try and feel alive.
This would normally be when he’d make his exit, but for some reason good old fashioned common sense wasn’t in play last night, and they’re in Dean’s apartment. Goddamn, but Dean’s an idiot when he’s dwelling in his misery.
Charlie calls while he’s waiting for the coffee to brew and trying not to overthink what’s going to happen when average height, dark and handsome comes out of his bedroom and Dean has to think about the fact that, four hours ago, he was lost in the feel of the guy’s stubble against his skin as they kissed, hot and clumsily and desperate to get somewhere. That he drank his way to enough dutch courage for him to voice, out loud, what he wanted and, damn, did nameless guy deliver.
“Hey.”
“Don't freak, but -” Charlie begins, in lieu of hello, and a feeling of exhaustion starts creeping up on him.
“Charlie,” Dean says, voice coming out a little deadened, “It’s six AM on my day off.”
“I said don't freak!”
“This isn't a freak. This is it's barely daylight outside.”
“Wait, are you okay? You sound all sad,” Charlie asks, which is exactly why Dean should have just turned his fucking phone off the second it started ringing. He can’t deal with this right now. It’s Charlie, so the chances are she’d get it more than anyone else he knows, but…. He can’t.
“Charlie, cut to the chase.”
“You got another review last night.”
“You called me about a fucking food critic? Now? Charlie, I don’t give a damn about what some pretentious, soulless douchebag has to say about my freaking burgers,” Dean grouses, grabbing himself a mug and pouring his coffee.
He kind of hates food critics as a matter of principle because it buys right into that bullshit mentality of over complicating good food. Sure, he's spent a long ass time oversampling menus and fine tuning spices, but that's so that the people eating his food don't have think. They've just gotta eat and enjoy and not spend so long frigging analysing the damn thing to death. He makes burgers. He makes damn good burgers, but he didn't start making them to have some wisecrack who can't even cook assess whether he's modern-rustic or rustic or just an out and out rejection of modern cuisine. As far as Dean's concerned, good food is like good sex; awesome, to be enjoyed regularly with equally awesome people, then to be thought back on with vague fondness but certainly not assessed to death, and definitely not dissected on some blog.
(The analogy breaks down right about the point where he feels a weird mixture of guilt, shame and panic when he thinks about getting fucked into his mattress last night. The only time food has ever made him feel that off the next day is when he had food poisoning, but that's not the point. That baggage is separate to this whole thing.)
The thing that Sam doesn't seem to get, is that his frustration with food critics just seems to increase with the good reviews coming. These days, jumped up foodies actually like his food; they said shit like 'groundbreaking' and 'transporting' like he's doing something profound rather than serving up kick ass burgers. He's got a waiting list and he's upped the price of the food. He's got courgette fries on the menu. He's got a frigging wine list and Dean's sure it's the shitty critics fault that his homely burger joint somehow segued into a freaking restaurant , which is kind of what Dean wanted, he just didn't see it panning out quite like this. Maybe he's just not used to things in his life turning good, but it's unsettling when he wakes up to another food magazine printing how he 'continues to innovate' and has created a 'unmissable eating experience.’ Especially when he has no fucking idea what the hell he’s doing anymore, and hasn’t been able to come up with one palatable thing to put on his autumn menu. Dean feels more like a hack then ever and these freaking critics keep eating it up.
Sam says it's Dean's fault for cooking too well.
“You don’t care, really?”
“Fine.” Dean mutters, wedging his phone under his ear, “What did they say this time? My burgers are like the personification of a summer morning?”
“He didn't like it.”
That, Dean wasn’t expecting.
“What?”
“Well, he didn't hate it. He does this bit where he characterises the restaurant owner by the food and the menu and uh…”
“Since when do critics do bits?” Dean asks, dragging out a chair to sit down, massaging his forehead as he drinks more coffee. He feels like crap. This day is so far turning out worse than yesterday and it’s barely past the asscrack of dawn. He wants to crawl back into bed and be done with the whole thing, but there’s someone in his bed, and that someone is six foot of runners-muscles and undeniably male.
He said, after last time, that he wasn't going to do that again. That it wasn't worth it. That he wasn't doing that anymore.
“He's a food blogger.”
Oh, fuck that.
“Damnit, Bradbury,” Dean says, “I’m not listening’ to some millennial asshat thinking he can trash talk my food just because he can use the internet.”
“But he’s super popular! And he, like, guest writes for a couple of magazines.”
“So he hates my food and he thinks what, exactly, about me?”
“Um…. He said you were having an identity crisis stemming from peaking too soon and now you're suffocating under weight of success. He suggested you channel that into getting a regretful piercing rather than… butchering your menu. He had the mac and cheese burger reboot and the cheesecake. He liked the cheesecake. Ish.”
“He got that from a frigging burger?” Dean asks, headache beginning to bloom into a full on freaking migraine. He needs to see this fucking review. If some hipster instagram type is assassinating his character - albeit pretty fucking accurately - he needs to see it.
Dean pulls his laptop towards him and boots it up.
“He like, personifies the food, it's good. He's hella entertaining. Unconventional critic born of the internet age. Get your laptop, I’ve emailed you the link.”
“Already loading,” Dean grunts out, “You have some kind of word crush on the guy or something?”
“Shut up. He does three pieces for every place. Says second impressions are important. So he's gonna be back at some point this week.”
“And?” Dean asks, hitting open.
“And we could use impressing the guy!” Charlie says, six kinds of enthusiasm packed into her voice, all of them irritating this early in the morning. The guy’s website is actually pretty non-douchebagy, as it goes. Castiel. The name sparks some memory somewhere in the back of his head, but he draws up a blank. Dean clicks through onto the latest post about his restaurant, and finds himself face to face with a bunch of photos of his food. “His words have power. Plus, he’s super cool.”
And then there’s a picture of Castiel.
“Fuck,” Dean says, his chest seizing up, because oh no. Oh, hell fucking no. This isn’t happening. Can’t be happening.
“Dean?” Charlie asks, her voice suddenly titled in confusion, “Dean?”
“I - fuck.”
“What’s happening?”
“Oh, fuck,” Dean says, as his gaze skims the rest of the page, heart racing, stomach plummeting. He feels a little like his having some kind of medical emergency, or maybe a panic attack, and the more he reads the worst all of it feels. “Charlie,” Dean manages, his voice hoarse, “Charlie. This is bad.”
“What?” Charlie asks, “Okay, the review isn’t great news, but -”
“No, Charlie, he’s here.”
“Where?” Charlie asks and, goddamn, he’s started now. He can’t believe he’s fucking doing this, but --
“In my apartment. This Castiel guy,” Dean says, slamming his eyes shut, grip on his coffee tightening.
“What? Why?”
“Ask an adult when you're older,” Dean manages, in his best attempt at light hearted, as if this isn’t a massive deal. His heart stops as he waits for something back from Charlie.
He needs her to get it, because he’s not sure he’s capable of spelling it out more than that, and then he needs her to… to not make this into a massive deal. To not ask questions. To not turn around and say ‘duh, Dean, everyone knows you like dick’ because he can’t handle that without having some kind of heart failure, and if he has heart failure Castiel will probably be the one to call the ambulance and that is not how he intends to come out to the world (not that he intends to come out to the world, period.)
“Dude.”
“Charlie,”
“Good work, Winchester. He is dreamy,” Charlie adds, and some of the tension starts leaking out of his shoulders and he feels kind of dumb for how high his anxiety levels shot up in the first place because obviously Charlie doesn’t give a damn that he picked up a dude at a bar. Obviously.
Still. This isn't something he acknowledges. Not when he’s sober and not to someone he isn’t trying to talk into bed. He’s has something bordering on this conversation with Sam, a long ass time ago, but no one else.
“Right,” Dean exhales, “Except for the part where the guy wrote a three page blog about how my restaurant is overcompensating and my menu is trying too hard.”
“Dean, I love you, but you over compensated so hard you denied you played for both teams,” Charlie says, “For three years.”
“I don’t,” Dean says, his chest tightening again, “Often.”
“Okay, well, we can talk about that.”
“Charlie, he said my garlic bread was closeted.”
“Dean,”
“On the internet,” Dean says, “The internet that everyone has access too.”
“I think we should revisit the part where he’s in your apartment,” Charlie says, “because, uh, he’s probably going to wake up at some point. How do you want to deal with this?”
“Goddamn,” Dean says, trying to breathe, “Holy… fuck, Charlie, is that really how we serve the mac and cheese burger?”
“Is this really your top priority right now?” Charlie asks, her voice a little high pitched.
“Charlie.”
“Uh, yeah. You okay-ed Marv to revamp the plating as long as you didn't have to think about it,” Charlie says, “Dean… you just came out. We should probably talk about that.”
“I said he could go all restauranty, I didn't say he could third my portion size.”
“He’s in your apartment,” Charlie says, “Castiel, the food blogger. Asleep.”
“Goddamnit.”
“Was the sex good, at least?”
“It was fucking awesome,” Dean says, slamming his laptop shut, “Charlie. What the hell do I do?”
“Yeah, I’ve got nothing,” Charlie says, “Holy Hermione, that is a messed up situ.”
“No kidding,” Dean grumbles, jabbing at his coffee machine again.
“He’s, like, literally in your apartment, and he outed you because of your garlic bread.”
“Yeah he's --- uh,” Dean halts, because Castiel is awake and standing in the doorway of his kitchen, looking sleep-ruffled but dressed in yesterday’s shirt. “Morning sunshine,” Dean finishes, because apparently he has no control over his goddamn mouth anymore.
“It's very early,” Castiel says, his voice gravel rich and fuck, that would solve the mystery of why Dean lost his goddamn mind and invited him back here yesterday. His voice sounds like the personification of a morning after and it is so, so, so hot.
“Coffee,” Dean says, gesturing at the machine. “Charlie. I gotta go. I'm coming in later.”
“Dude, your day off.”
“Screw my day off, I'll talk to you when I'm in. Give me a few hours,” Dean says, before hanging up and turning to take in Castiel, again. He’s goddamn beautiful, which is frustrating and terrible and not helpful.
And he doesn’t like Dean’s food. Everyone likes Dean’s food. He’s taking it a personal insult that this sexy as hell, smart mouthed blogger thinks Dean’s food sucks. Not only does he think it sucks, but he thinks he can read Dean’s darkest secrets from the way he garnishes his goddamn garlic bread, and he’s not even wrong. Not completely.
“You have bad work life boundaries,” Castiel comments, dry and hot as Dean heads for the coffee machine. “What do you do?”
Dean’s pretty sure the only thing that will make this more awkward is Castiel knowing the chef he ripped into, publicly, is also the guy he fucked last night.
“Business,” Dean blurts out, “Corporate uh, stuff. Insurance and... business.”
Dean is a fucking moron.
“Business,” Castiel repeats, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Yep,” Dean says, filling another mug of coffee and setting it on the table. Cas is still hovering by the doorway and Dean has no freaking idea what to do with that, except that it’s making him feel even more antsy about this whole situation. “You can sit, Cas.”
And apparently now he has a goddamn nickname.
“Oh,” Castiel - Cas according to the clusterfuck of Dean’s head - says, like he’s genuinely surprised by the offer, which isn’t really a shock. Dean was drunk enough last night that the details are a little hazy, but it’s not insane to think that Cas had assumed this was an exit quietly the next morning kind of deal. In fact, that’s exactly what Dean was hoping for before he made him some damn coffee. Damnit.
“Uh,” Dean begins, brain utterly blank for a few long seconds, “You want milk, or whatever?”
“Milk, no sugar.” Cas says, “Thank you, Dean.”
“No problemo,” Dean says, because his brain died at least two hours ago, and now he’s just spouting all kinds of crap like a first class asshole. He has no goddamn idea what’s wrong with him.
Cas’ frown intensifies.
This guy, right here, wrote that the ’flavour of his garlic bread are subdued, almost closeted’ a couple of hours before they slept together. He said that Dean’s mac and cheese burger ‘smacked of a man having a mid life crisis too early’ and this morning has already derailed so far off the realm of okay that conjuring up something to talk about feels insurmountable.
They didn’t even really talk last night. Not a great deal. They did names and Cas spoke like smoked forty a day and had those eyes and Dean was loud and made some dumbass jokes over the music. They sat very close to each other in the taxi. Cas made him laugh when he was pulling Dean’s shirt over his head and gave him the best blow job of his goddamn life. Fuck.
Dean’s just invited him for coffee and has no idea what the hell to say.
“This is very good coffee,” Castiel says, after a moment, eyes fixed very deliberately on his cup. The silence has stretched on too long already and apparently he’s not the only person in the room who’s fixating on how awkward this is. Dean initiated this. He invited him to stay for coffee like a total fucking jackass. Goddamn.
“Yeah, my brother picked it out.”
“Does he live here?”
“No, he’s just over-bearing and interfering,” Dean says, “Kid thinks anything in my life is in his remit for personal judgement.”
“Ah, I have one of those brothers,” Cas says, with an almost hint of a smile, and that’s better. They can talk about brothers. That’s better than Dean getting so far into his own head about the fact that Cas is male, and hates his food, and sat in his kitchen, that he stops functioning even more than he already has. “Although his taste in coffee is more questionable, which is ironic considering he runs a cafe.”
“Yeah? Anywhere I’d know?”
“Trickster Cafe?”
“No kidding?” Dean exhales, “That place is the shit. Your brother’s pie is a goddamn revelation.”
“I’ll let him know,” Cas says, finger tracing round the top of his mug, his shoulders beginning to relax. “Is your brother older or younger?”
“Younger,” Dean throws back, “He’s the picture of the floppy haired giant stuck on the fridge.”
“He graduated from Stanford?”
“Yep. Kid’s a genius. He’s still studying, course. For the bar.”
“Is this your father?”
“Ah, no,” Dean says, glancing at the photo, and why the hell did he draw attention to that whole shit show? “Our Dad couldn’t make it. That’s our... uncle.”
“You look very proud,” Cas says, “And he clearly has excellent taste in caffeination.”
“That’s what forty thousand dollars a year tuition gets you,” Dean throws back, “I’m guessing your brother with the pie is older.”
“Yes,” Cas says, “I’m actually the youngest of six.”
“Damn,” Dean says, quirking up an eyebrow, “That’s, uh, a lot of siblings.”
“It translates to a lot of opinions too.” Cas says, “Imagine four brothers and a sister debating the choice of coffee in your apartment, loudly, with very different views. Then substitute coffee with every life decision you’ve ever made and you have a fairly accurate idea of what Christmas Dinner feels like.”
As much as Dean kind of wants to punch the guy in the face for describing his cheesecake as ‘adequate’, he can’t deny that he’s kind of hilarious, in a snarky, dry kind of way. Also, he’s fucking hot and, well, what does he do with that?
“So, hey, you want to stay for breakfast?”
Not that, Jesus fuck.
“Breakfast?” Cas says, eyes alarmingly and disarmingly blue as he looks at him.
“Yeah,” Dean says, his voice a higher pitch than it should be, because what the fuck is he doing? . Except, damnit, maybe he is a crappy chef right now, but no one trash talks his restaurant and gets away with it. Especially not freaking adorable, sarcastic food bloggers who he knows, from drunken experience, can do amazing things with their tongue. Damnit. “No strings attached breakfast, I’ve just… got a lot of crap in.”
Well, that isn’t a lie.
“Okay,” Cas says, gaze still drilling into his side, “What ‘crap’ do you have in?”
“Uh, I don’t actually know. My brother bought most of it.”
“Your brother does all your grocery shopping? That seems unusual for an adult male,” Cas says, and apparently he’s just as smart-alecky in real life, too, which is just peachy.
“So you just say exactly what’s in your head, huh?” Dean asks, standing up to open his fridge.
“Oh. Was that rude? I don’t know the etiquette for post-cotial breakfast,” Cas says, deadpan enough that Dean actually laughs, which is ridiculous. This whole situation is ridiculous. He doesn’t… okay. Maybe Dean sometimes, occasionally, sleeps with dudes, but he sure as fuck doesn’t invite them for breakfast and chat with them about their families over coffee. “What?”
“Nothing,” Dean says, “It’s cute, actually.”
And now he’s practically flirting.
“Interesting,” Cas says, tilting his head at him.
“Anyway, uh, Sam doesn’t usually buy my groceries. He’s riding my ass about, uh, eating less take out,” Dean says, turning back to his fridge and remembering the whole part where he hasn’t cooked anything decent for months, which is a flaw in the plan of proving that he can cook to Cas. Not that Cas knows that Dean’s the person who runs the kitchen that dished up his overcompensating burger and subdued garlic bread, so it’s all fucking pointless, but now he’s suggested breakfast he kind of has to commit to it.
He has no goddamn idea what to cook. He can’t even cook a freaking breakfast. The idea that Dean is an ‘executive chef’ at his own restaurant is a complete joke.
“A successful endeavour, if the leftover Chinese food on the top shelf is anything to go by,” Cas says, draining the last of his coffee.
“What’s your favourite breakfast?”
“My mother’s three cheese omelette,” Cas responds, his eyebrows raising as Dean starts taking stuff out the fridge. “Dean, you really don’t need to go through any effort. Toast is fine.”
“Think of it as a thank you for the stellar orgasm,” Dean bats back, pulling out a bowl and a couple of pans. He doesn’t have three kinds of cheese, but he does have feta and courgette, which is a good combination for a frittata- style omelette. It won’t win him any michelin stars, but as a breakfast it should be okay. “You want more coffee?”
“I can put another pot on,” Cas says, standing up and watching as Dean cracks eggs into a bowl, “You can cook.”
“You get that from cracking eggs?”
“Yes,” Cas says, settling too close behind him and watching as he adds salt to his eggs and grabs a whisk, “You don’t have the kitchen of a man who cooks.”
“Uh, yeah,” Dean says, because he’s had this from Sam before, but it’s a little different hearing it from a guy who has both fucked him and hypothesised that he’s a closet case with an identity crisis on the internet. It’s a little disarming, actually, with him standing close enough that Dean can feel his body heat and looking close enough to see some of this crap. “I - work is busy. You know how it is. Don’t get much time.”
“Yes,” Cas says, very evenly, “I’ve heard ’corporate business’ is time consuming.”
Oh, this guy is a goddamn riot.
“Right,” Dean says, as Cas leans hyper-close to fill his mug with more coffee. Dean gets a sudden re-visual of last night and the muscles Cas has under that shirt. Fuck. “Point is, I figured having a cheaper apartment was worth the crappy kitchen. What do you do, anyway?” Dean asks, trying to come across like he isn’t already painfully aware.
“Hmm. I help at Gabriel’s cafe, mostly. Not cooking,” Cas says, watching him carefully, “I am a terrible cook. I can, however, draw genitalia on latte foam, which is highly transferable skill.” He really, really, doesn’t meant to laugh again, but his delivery is just… too goddamn good. “And I write things.”
“Things?”
“Yes,” Cas says, without further elaboration, “Is it just you and Sam?”
“Yep, just us,” Dean says, “And he can’t cook for crap, either.”
“You don’t talk like someone who works in business, either,” Cas says, taking a seat as Dean puts the omelettes on.
“You mean I don’t talk like I swallowed a goddamn dictionary, like you do?” Dean throws back, which wins him an amused looking frown than somehow leads to them having an actual, getting-to-know-you talk while Dean has one eye on the omelettes and the other on the dude in his kitchen that already knows way too much about him for his strict comfort.
“Here,” Dean says, plating up two decent look omelettes after he’s learned that Cas is a disillusioned, ivy-league college educated, ex-tax accountant who quit to help Gabriel set up his business and to follow his dream of being a journalist which is going ‘completely terribly’. Dean’s had another one and a half cups of coffee - disappeared to the bathroom to take a couple of tylenol for his head - and the realisation that this is the first time in about six months that he’s actually cooked something that doesn’t immediately want to throw away.
“Dean,” Cas says, through a mouthful of omelette, “This is delicious.”
Given Dean hasn’t actually allowed himself to act interested in a dude while sober for years he’d forgotten how freaking flustered he can get. Now he’s flushing so hard he can’t concentrate on eating his food, so has no idea whether that’s true or not. The process of cooking felt better than it is has for a long time, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the guy isn’t just being polite because last night they both got their rocks off in Dean’s bed.
He probably wasn’t going to get all food critic-y over breakfast after a one night stand. That’s just bad freaking manners.
“Thanks,” Dean says, looking down at his own omelette and trying to work out how in the ever loving fuck he wound up here this morning. Cas - Castiel - is funny, whip smart and hot as hell, which is bad news for Dean’s everything. He likes Dean’s omelette, but not his restaurant, and is too damn perceptive for his own good.
It does taste good. Not the best thing he’s ever cooked, but good. Solid. The best thing he’s cooked in months.
“Thank you for breakfast,” Cas says, after, when he’s standing up to leave, like the guy meant to right after he woke up and before Dean started losing his mind and acting like a crazy person. “And the ‘stellar orgasm’,” Cas says, with full on fucking air quotes, “Both were excellent.”
“No problem,” Dean says, standing up awkwardly, because what do you even do when you’ve made a full on cooked breakfast for the one night stand you never intended to have an actual conversation with? Shake hands? Hug? “I, uh, had a good time.”
“It’s strange,” Cas says, tilting his head at him, “I assumed that you were an emotionally repressed, closeted asshole last night. An incredible attractive asshole, but… I wasn’t expecting you to be so endearing.”
Awesome. Fucking awesome.
“Yeah,” Dean says, dying inside a little, because, fuck. Fuck. “Well, second impressions are important,” Dean says, before it registers that he’s actually quoting the guy’s goddamn blog and his policy of attending each restaurant three times.
Dean needs a goddamn brain transplant.
Cas tilts his head at him, smiles, leans forward and kisses his fucking cheek before he leaves.
It’s not until Dean’s showered the whole disaster off him (and ignored the large number of text messages he has from Charlie, because he is never telling her about this, ever) that he finds that Cas left him his telephone number. He throws the damn thing away, immediately, because no goddamn way is Dean getting into this. He doesn’t keep guy’s phone numbers any more than he invites guys to stay for goddamn breakfast, and he especially doesn’t do that for guys who said his food was trying too hard all over his lame ass food blog.
Except, then Dean accidentally bulk cooks his way through most of the crap in his fridge, even though he's hungover and crabby, and it isn’t till he’s sat down and started scribbling down the exact combination of everything to get that smoky, eggplant sauce he made for Sam’s revision fuel that he realises the one factor in all of this that has changed is Cas.
Dean pulls his number back out of the bin and tacks in on the fridge, just in case.