Work Text:
“I’m such a mess, totally forgot…” Dean is rambling and using every excuse as he grabs his shirt, keys, jumps and wriggles into last night’s jeans from… (Kelly? Carrie? Shelly!) Shelly’s floor.
“Do you have to go right now?’ The big blue eyes look hurt as Shelly ties her flimsy negligee robe and gestures at what she’s doing in the kitchenette of her apartment. “I was making us breakfast?”
“I’m sooo sorry but I’m going to be in trouble if I’m late.” He pats himself down for his wallet and phone in his jeans, check. He pulls his shirt over his head and spots his jacket on the back of the couch they had stumbled in past last night. His eyes light up, final item!
Dean snatches it and with a final mental rundown, looks at the lovely fitness instructor he had met last night, turning up his expression to ‘maximum apology’. “Last night was lovely.”
It was, had been, good. Not groundbreaking but good. He liked leaving on that note and an awkward morning after meal together when he saw this going nowhere was not the way to do that. So Dean opens her apartment door and steps out into the hallway before swiveling and shaking his head again.
“I spend my afternoons with my mom and kid brother usually on Sunday and I’ve got my own place so chores and stuff - I’d stay a little bit if I could but then my niece…” May God not strike him down for bringing little Maddy into his strategic retreat. “My niece…”
Dean gets distracted by another door down the hallway opening and a guy almost stumbling his way out. He’s got on a buttoned-down, charcoal gray dress shirt and black slacks with a bright blue tie like he came from something formal - but that sex hair says ‘booty call’. He doesn’t even seem to notice anyone else around him as he turns around and ‘oops’, Dean stares, ‘nother dude enters the doorway.
Other dude was standing in the doorway, almost blocking it with his body and an arm as earnest-looking tanned dude started to stutter out his plea.
“... wouldn’t mind going out with you again - umm, if you want to call me -” Whoever deep-voiced guy is down the hall with his coat rolled up in his hand and his tie hanging crooked off him, he’s dead out of luck. The guy shoots him down quickly and closes the door and Dean gets back to his own self-extraction.
“-yeah, so I’m really sorry but you know, my kid brother’s daughter’s birthday is today too so I gotta go but I have your number. I’ll totally call you.” Dean gives his best winning grin as he finally hops into his other boot and the blonde frowns at him, reading through his bullshit.
“...you know what? Sure. Enjoy your niece's birthday party.” Sadness turns to disappointed irritation in an instant and Dean winces as the door is slammed in his face.
Dean gives a shake of his head at the door with a tiny huff at himself, shrugs into his jacket and then his eyes just get pulled up to the dejected looking guy coming toward him. They both have to go the same way to get out of the apartment building and Dean wonders if he’s taking the elevator or the stairs.
“Hey,” He only knew the guy was dejected really by the slightest curve in of his shoulders and because he saw what happened before. Looking into his face though at Dean’s greeting, he is composed, gaze measured and steady as he turns his face up slightly. Dean’s next inhale is sharp at the brilliant blue of this guy’s eyes, a shade so different from the woman he had just left and frankly stunning. He’s never seen anyone with that intense of an eye color before.
“Hello.” The stranger returns, voice rough and quiet. He looks away, eyes pulled back down to focusing on the ground before his feet and Dean finds himself kind of falling in step as they both go for the stairs.
“Rough night huh? Saturdays…” Dean kind of trots down the stairs while the guy walks confidently, purposefully next to him. He finds himself pausing on landings because he wants the guy to keep up.
The guy’s brows furrow, his lips pursing and Dean’s magnetized, his eyes get drawn there too and Dean’s marking all these new things about this guy that are attractive, reeled in. He’s got a cleft in his chin Dean would worship with his teeth.
“I wouldn’t know.” Oh, his voice was still gravel low, growly and Dean had thought he’d been choked up when he said ‘hello’ but apparently that was this guy’s voice. “I don’t… make a habit of sleeping out with people on my Saturday night.” Ouch, Dean physically leans back from the assumption, offense quickly rising. The guy tucks his head in and walks past him, his coat clenched in his hand and Dean feels for him suddenly.
Shelly had been someone he just met at a bar and went home with. If this guy didn’t do pick ups that meant he had ended up in bed with someone he probably liked and just been dropped like a sack of potatoes after being used.
“That’s fair. I might do the occasional pick-up on my Saturdays here and there but how I meet people, what I do… I think we’re both aware it’s casual.” He pitches it to the guy’s back, swallowing his pride and accepting the jab but clarifying it in the face of this dude’s self-righteous judgement. “Someone may hope it can lead to something more permanent but that’s not what they signed up for.” Dean picked up, but they knew it was meant to be a pick-up. If he saw something he liked he turned the charm up to ten, if they were game, sweet. If not, their loss and Dean moved on.
The guy pauses, and Dean slows as he catches up before the guy moves again. Second floor landing, one more flight and they would part ways, Dean thinks as they move, him two stairs behind the dude.
“We went out to dinner. Ini - he, is someone I work with and I thought we…” When the guy rakes his hand through his hair and tugs at it, he sends it into even more disarray with an adorable tuff sticking out at the front. “It is perhaps my fault for assuming it was more than just a date and casual sex. It’s not like he said he wanted to date me.”
“I’m sorry man. That’s rough if you liked him… and now you still have to work with him.” The cynical chuckle that gets makes Dean wince, the coldness gives him an idea of what Mr. Workmate was going to be subjected to. “You can think what you want about casual sex but the way I do it, I don’t go breaking people’s hearts. I don’t doubt that guy at least had an idea you liked him.”
“So what? Casual sex is safer? Better?” Gravel-rumble voice fires back and Dean realizes as he hits the last step that they’re in the lobby, walls lined with people’s post boxes and the lobby is a length of less than ten feet out the front doors and into the wide world without this guy’s company.
He gives a shrug of one shoulder. “If all you want is company and to feel close to someone without expectations for more than you can give then...yeah.” Deans responds bluntly, without the slightest hint of shame. “I’m Dean by the way.” He sticks his hand out.
He looks at Dean’s hand, brows drawing together cutely as he looks confused. When he looks up he tilts his head at Dean who just arches an eyebrow and waits.
“Castiel.” Finally his hand is taken and shook. Bed-head sex voice has a name and boy!
“That’s a name. Nice to meet you.” Dean laughs, lingering in the squeeze of warm fingers before they disengage.
“I like it.” Castiel says dryly, almost sardonic. He’s probably heard it all about his name. Dean shakes his head, grin going crooked, sly.
“I like it too.” Dean ends up digging for his wallet, digging into a back pocket of his jeans with difficulty. “So - not that you have to necessarily subscribe to my thinking but,” He pulls out one of his business cards and hands it over jauntily between two fingers. “If there’s a Saturday you feel you might want to grab a drink or watch a movie… with a guaranteed happy ending, you can call me.” He can’t help the wink, dies inside a tiny bit in embarrassment but Castiel takes the card almost automatically, eyes glued to it.
“Thank you?” The 'you' pitches up and Dean fights a blush as the guy looks back up at him searchingly, even more confused the longer he stares.
“You should be. I don’t give out my card to just anybody.” He’s definitely never done it to try to pick someone up or flirt before, seeing as all his work stuff is on it along with his cell number. “But, I think I can trust you to not be a stalker type.” Dean hazards the joke grinning as the guy squints suspiciously before rolling his eyes.
“Goodbye Dean.” The dry tone and irritated but reluctantly amused expression has Dean opening the door for the guy and Castiel brushes past with one last look before going on his way as Dean steps out behind him.
He squints up into the bright daylight, shrugging off the guilt that he probably just threw a business card into the wind as the things weren’t freaking cheap but sucks it up and focuses instead on where he can get wrapping paper for Maddy’s birthday.