WHAT: Paiting Cas's Room WHERE: Castiel's Room at Pickman WHEN: Saturday WARNINGS:mentions of fighting/sparring. internalized homophobia, mostly just awkwardness and thinking/talking about homosexuality. STATUS: completed
“Alright, we’ll start with your room.” The shopping had gone fairly well. They at least had paint colors picked out for the both of them - Dean had some posters, they both had gotten lamps and a couple other things that weren’t strictly out of necessity but for pizazz. Dean was, quite obviously, very into this whole endeavor.
With bags galore, Dean led them both through the doors at Pickman and headed towards Castiel’s room. He still thought it was a little too far down the hall from him, but it certainly wasn’t ever going to be a thing he brought up to Castiel, or Sam, or anyone.
When they got to Cas’s door, Dean set a bag or two down, offering to take Cas’s so he could unlock the door. “We should order some pizza, get some beers. Make a whole thing out of it.”
Castiel, obviously, had no real idea how to decorate or even where to start with such a thing. Luckily, Dean seemed to have plenty of ideas and they’d wandered around Roxxcart for all sorts of things beyond just paint. It was somewhere between fun and stressful trying to decide what sorts of things he liked. He’d never really needed to make opinions or decisions on things like this before.
Cas unlocked his door once his hands were clear of bags and then pushed it open before picking up what had been set down in order to haul it all inside. “I think those things can be delivered,” he said, even though it’d obviously be faster for Castiel to get them himself – but he was starting to think that fast wasn’t always the point.
“Yeah we can have the pizza delivered… I don’t know, do they deliver beer in 2024?” Pizza, sure, but Dean had never been able to order beer and have it delivered by anyone other than, well, Sam, Cas, or Bobby. “Wait if they can deliver beer can they deliver pie?” Dean’s face lit up, you could practically hear a whole new world… playing in his head.
With all the items inside where they belonged, Dean shut the door with his foot and then dropped the bags somewhere in the middle of the walkway moving over to open any and all available windows in the place - not that there were many, but you needed at least a little ventilation for painting.
“Plus we got like, ten years of movies to catch up on.” Although it did not appear Western’s had made a comeback yet, and Dean was pretty disappointed in that.
“Grocery stores have delivery options now,” Cas said, and he only knew that because he’d spent a long time wandering town, reading the signs and everything else. He had no idea how it worked when it came to alcohol, but surely there was an easy enough way to manage it.
Castiel considered the room for a moment before nodding mostly to himself and removing his jacket (which was kind of a new concept, but it seemed wise for the activity) and laying it down on the back of the couch. The tarps they’d bought would protect both of those things.
“Only ten years?”
“Yeah, heard about those. Instacart and Doordash. Weird.” But he had the apps on his phone, because they were… just there on the phones they’d gotten when they arrived in Dunwich. Low and behold, he was in fact able to order beer to be delivered to Pickman - and pie. “Holy shit this is awesome.”
He shoved the phone into his pocket before taking his own jacket off and tossing it to the couch as well. Dean rolled the sleeves of his flannel, and fished a tarp out of one of the many bags strewn across the floor.
“Pizza in a bit, then, and yeah well for me ten years. For you, like… I don’t know man, a century at least.”
Castiel watched Dean move and mirrored him, rolling the sleeves of his white shirt up until they were tucked above his elbow. It would be easier to move that way, he supposed.
He had no interest in pizza, but he’d likely have a beer when they showed up – Castiel had decided that liquid didn’t taste as strangely as food tended to, and was rather fond of beer for reasons he couldn’t quite put to words.
“I’ll start wherever you feel is most prudent,” he said of the movies, and then: “the internet said to start by moving furniture to the middle of the room, and then taping off windows and corners.”
“We’re listening to the internet now?” Not like Dean had a ton of experience as a painter, but he’d done enough. “Just get the furniture away from the walls we’re painting.” He wasn’t sure if they were doing the whole room, just the living room, not that there was much distinction between everything in the little Pickman apartments.
Either way, he wasn’t planning on moving all the furniture to the middle of the room. Just - well maybe they would. It wasn’t a large space, they needed to be able to walk. “You know, we need space to walk. Why don’t we just push the couch and chairs into the middle of the room with the table?”
Like it was his idea. Which it totally was, you know. “You do that. I’ll tape the corners.”
“The internet has a lot of good ideas and tips, Dean,” Castiel said, bemused that something like advice on painting was what Dean felt the need to question. It seemed like perfectly sound advice to him. Still. “But fine.” He’d do the exact same thing he’d suggested, now that Dean had made it his own idea and no one was actually fooled at all.
Cas moved the little furniture there was in the “living room” – a small desk and chair combo against the wall, the couch. It didn’t leave for much room, but Castiel supposed they didn’t need a ton. It was just two of them, after all.
It took Dean longer to tape than it did for Castiel to move a few bits of furniture, so he sat on the back of the couch in the meantime and watched.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Dean didn’t want to hear about it, he waved his hand behind him as he got to work placing the tape in all the places it needed to be. It required more time and more accuracy, so it kept his mind from wandering too much. He was, essentially, trying to busy himself into not thinking about things.
Like run-ins with douchebags in the forest. Like what that might mean, for Dean.
So a while later, he finished, tossing the tape onto the table and leaning against the wall, arms folded over his chest as he looked over to Castiel. Stared a little at him, maybe. “Hey, Cas do you -” But before he could get any question out, the doorbell went off.
“That’s the beer, I bet.” Thank God.
It was the beer. And the pizza all at once because they were lucky, or just because Dunwich was small and there was no real wait on things in the middle of a weekday afternoon.
Castiel returned from the lobby with the beer, pie and pizza, all balanced easily in one hand as he closed the door behind him. “I’ll put these on the counter,” he said, as if there was anywhere else to put them now that they’d moved all the rest of the furniture.
It might well have been the first food to enter this little apartment, now that Castiel thought on it.
“What were you going to ask?” Castiel opened the lid to the pizza curiously. It looked greasy, but not unappealing.
He lost his bravado while Cas went and got the beer and pizza. Dean wasn't even sure what he was going to ask exactly, not quite decided on if it was worth asking. Or mentioning.
“What? Oh, totally forgot.” He lied easily, though he knew Castiel would likely see through it. He usually could. Dean grabbed himself a beer and popped the cap off on the counter out of habit, using the free hand to grab pizza.
“I ran into that Eadwulf guy again.” His face had gone pretty well unharmed in the fight, though his torso and arms would tell a different story, if Dean wasn't wearing a shirt. “We fought again, but you know, for fun this time.”
Cas absolutely saw through it, and offered Dean a narrow-eyed expression of dislike over the fact that he was being lied to even as he took a slice of pizza for himself. He wasn’t going to have any firm opinions on it, but Dean seemed pleased whenever Castiel went out of his way to eat things, so he did it anyway.
“Are you sure it wasn’t for fun the first time, too?” he asked. “I see you took it easier this time.” No one had called for his help, in any case.
He knew Cas didn’t like to eat - but it was nice to see him try it anyway. He ate his slice slowly, watching Castiel and looking at him in a way he hadn’t ever looked at him before - at least not consciously. Dean shook his head, like he could erase the thoughts if he shook hard enough.
“It didn’t start as fun the first time, but it ended up that way.” He said honestly, laughing a little as he took another bite of pizza. Not the best manners, but Dean had hardly ever been civilized. “He healed me this time, mostly. Still a bit bruised but he got most of it so I’m no worse than I probably would have been.”
Not to mention, they’d sparred again the next day. “He cheats, though.” He said, edging on the conversation he wanted to have.
That was quite the look Dean was giving him, and Castiel looked right back, eyes narrowed slightly even as he took another bite of the pizza. It wasn’t terrible. Still kind of molecule-y, though.
“Does he?” Cas asked, taking the lead because Dean clearly wanted to get somewhere with this conversation, but wasn’t just going to say it. Which was – the way of humans, he supposed. A little annoying, how they’d just as soon never get to the point. But Dean was clearly trying, which endeared Castiel to it, at least a little bit. “How’s that?”
It was easier to say it, with Jo and Sam. It was different with Castiel and Dean did not want to think about why that was. If he didn’t want to look at it for what it was, maybe he was worried about being judged by the angel. That would make more sense than anything else Dean was thinking.
Except it didn’t make any sense at all and wasn’t what he was thinking.
“Yeah. I had the fucker pinned and he kissed me to get out of it.” Still bullshit, in his opinion, but he had to admit it had worked out perfectly for Eadwulf. If he was a different man, he might have asked him about it more. But he wasn’t a different man. He was Dean Winchester, hunter. That’s all he’d been for most of his life.
This was uncharted territory and he was clearly uncomfortable.
Dean was clearly uncomfortable.
And Castiel found that he was also uncomfortable with the way the conversation had turned. Not because he had any kind of negative opinions on the going-ons of two men. Or two women. Or a man and a woman – or anything in between, either.
It was just –
Well. Castiel decided he very much felt something akin to anger over this news.
And, because he was unsure how to process that information, and because perhaps he’d been hanging around humans too often, he did what one if them might: he changed the subject.
“That is cheating,” he agreed, vaguely, and put his half eaten slice of pizza back in the box, no longer particularly feeling the need to pretend he cared about it. “Where do we start with the painting?”
Dean couldn’t tell emotions, not like Cas could - and while he saw some movement on his normally stoic face, he couldn’t place why that would be. What was it? Dean worried, his brows knitting together. Was it disgust? He set his mostly eaten slice of pizza down, chugging his beer a little bit as Cas said yeah, that was cheating.
Then just changed the subject.
Rejection hit Dean like a ton of bricks and he sat back against the counter for a moment, wondering why the fuck that was so hurtful. Why the fuck he felt this way, about however Castiel felt about it. It shouldn’t matter. If Castiel thought it was bad, well, he could fuck off, right? Sam, Jo - there was nothing wrong with what he was feeling. Right?
“Huh? Oh.” Painting. “No clue. Figure we should paint around the edges first so we can be careful, then use the big rollers to paint the wider spaces? So maybe… go around the windows, the bottom, next to the ceiling you know. Corners.”