Chapter Text
“And then he kissed me!” Cas was yelling in Russian to her friend Misha in Moscow over Skype.
“So what did you do?” was his calm response, damn him if he was always calm.
That’s why there had become friends the year Cas and her family had lived in Russia, they were both calm. Present rant excluded.
“I froze up and ran of course.” she groaned and he just chuckled and shook his head. “Well what did you expect me to do, he doesn’t even realize I exist for three years and then one confrontation and he makes my life hell for a semester and then he kisses me? I mean what?”
Misha’s laughter was escalating even as Cas’s anger did the same.
“Stop it! I’m serious! What did he mean doing that? Was it just trying to find another thing to mock me about?”
She could see it now. ‘Hey nerd was that your first kiss? Did you like that nerd? Oh now I’ve got your feathers ruffled, do I? I bet you liked it. Bet you wanted me to do that for months huh?’ Except he would probably just smirk at her and that was even worse than taunting. As if he knew that she really DID want him to kiss her. Because damn him if he wasn’t the most gorgeous guy in the whole university.
But then she froze mid rant as she heard a voice at her back that was not her roommate Bela.
“That’s the most I’ve ever heard you speak. And I didn’t even understand a damn word of it.”
Cas didn’t have to turn around, she could see on her screen the one and only Dean Winchester leaning against the door frame to her bedroom, hands stuffed in his pockets, easy smile turning up his lips. The lips that had pressed to hers so passionately the night before. Those lips she had run from and now couldn’t get off her mind. She quickly spit out a goodbye in Russian to Misha’s shocked face and ended the call. But she should have realized that couldn’t stop him.
Is that him????
The message popped up. Fortunately also in Russian.
Yes.
Came her quickly typed answer. Then she unplugged the Russian keyboard from her laptop and threw it in the drawer with the others. Cas stood to meet him, there was no way she was talking to Dean sitting on her bed. She squared off to him, arms crossed.
“What are you doing here” she spit out with as much venom as she could muster.
He shrugged, but she noticed he did look a bit uncomfortable and had started rubbing the foot he didn’t have weight on against the carpet.
“I came to apologize.”
She was stunned. Four years of taunting her and teasing mercilessly and NOW he was apologizing?
She tilted her head and narrowed her blue eyes. He had nothing to gain here, there was no one around but them.
“I had no right to kiss you like that, I’m sorry.” He looked at her then, and she saw something in those green eyes she had not seen before, he was genuinely sorry!
She opened her mouth to answer and closed it again. She tried again and all that came out was an “Ok”.
He gave her a pained expression that seemed to say he needed more from her, forgiveness perhaps. She kept her arms crossed, but nodded her head slowly.
“It’s alright, we were drinking, I let you dance with me like that, it’s forgotten.” She hoped he would leave it at that and get out of her apartment. Monday morning would have been awkward enough without this weird conversation. If you could really call it a conversation.
Where the hell was Bela anyway. Had she just let him in here? She knew of all people how mean Dean was to Cas. All because Dean had collided with her and Cas had called him an arrogant prick. Her stupid mouth. If she’d just kept quiet, picked up her books and kept waking, she would probably still be living her quiet life without Dean taunting her for being shy, for always getting good grades, for wearing the same trench coat everyday, for the business attire she always worse because of her afternoon job. Even when Cas never responded, he kept on an kept on. For four freaking years.
Until last nights party at the club where after initially keeping up with his teasing, had ended up dancing with her, rubbing their bodies close together and then kissing her… It was a pretty confusing to Cas to say the least.
“I don’t want to forget.”
Cas almost didn’t hear him above her own thoughts, her eyes snapped to his face, he was staring down at his shoes.
He cleared his throat and looked her square in the eye.
“I don’t want to forget Cas.” he said it loud enough that she definitely didn’t miss it, and was pretty sure Bela heard it too, if her betraying roommate was even still there…
She tilted her head in confusion, narrowing her blue eyes at him.
“Is this a joke for you? Another way to mock me? As if mocking my looks and behavior wasn’t enough, you have to mock my feelings too?”
She was sure of she’d been anyone else she probably would be yelling, but Cas just said it. Perhaps with a bit more edge than she would normally use, but by the way Dean was staring at her, he seemed to have expected yelling.
“No! I… No! I… I want to do it again!” he took a step towards her and she took a step back.
He stopped and held up his hands, showing he meant no harm. Her jaw flexed. He kept calling her Cas. No one was allowed to call her Cas. Having a nickname meant you were close, that you trusted each other. And Cas was neither close to, nor trusted anyone here. Especially not Dean Winchester.
“Don’t call me Cas. My name is Castiel.”
It was lame but she didn’t really know what to say. She couldn’t quite correlate the man who made her life miserable through her whole college experience, to the man who was saying he didn’t want to forget kissing her and now claimed he wanted to do it again.
“Alright, Cas.” He emphasized the nickname, using it purposefully. Cas glared and him and he glared back. This was obviously not going how he had planned. But then his face softened and he sighed throwing his hand out to the sides.
“I know why you don’t let anyone call you Cas. It’s the same reason you wear that ridiculous trench coat everyday. You don’t want anyone to get close. You’ve been hurt, or something and you don’t want it to happen again. I get it, I do. But I want to be close Cas. I’m not going to hurt you. I want to be the person you let call you Cas. Let me be that person.”
His speech hit Cas hard. What did he know about her? Nothing. He had no right to say those things to her, to expect her to just throw her arms open and welcome him into her heart. And he told him as much. Now she was yelling.
“You don’t know me! And you will NEVER be that person! I will never forgive you for the hell you’ve put me through just so you can get what ever this is out of your system. I’m not one of your whores Dean. Get out of my house. Now” she shoved him out of her bedroom and slammed the door. Not even letting him respond. Pretending she didn’t see that hurt look in his green eyes.
She threw herself down in her desk chair and let her head drop down onto her arms crossed on the desk. Cas heard soft talking and a heard the door to the apartment slam. She let out the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding, and heard a soft knock at the door. When she didn’t respond he heard the door open, and from the sound of it, it was Bela, not Dean walking into her room. She didn’t even look up a Bela sat on the bed next to her and touched her arm.
“Do you remember when you were a child, the little boys always pulled the girls hair and pushed them over, and our mothers always said ‘it’s because he likes you’, but we never believed it, because how could they be so mean if they liked us, right?”
Cas couldn’t see where this was going.
“I don’t understand”
Bela smiled, she was used to Cas’s cluelessness when it came to socialization.
“Dean is like a little boy on the playground who never grew up.”
Cas finally lifted her head and tilted it in the direction of her roommate.
“He likes you Cas. He always has. He picks on you because it’s the only way he knew to get your attention.”
Cas frowned.
“That’s ridiculous”
Bela laughed.
“Of course it’s ridiculous, he’s a boy!”
Cas just sighed and flopped her head back down. Bela patted her back a few times before slipping back out of the room.
This was just getting stranger and stranger.
The next morning when Cas stumbled out of her room, there was a large bouquet of flowers sitting on the coffee table in the living room.
“Bela? What’s with the flowers?”
“Why don’t you read the card, genius!”
Cas frowned in the direction of Bela’s room, but reached over and plucked the card from amidst the floral arrangement.
‘Cas, here’s my attempt at showing my affections like an adult instead of pulling your pigtails. -Dean’
Cas narrowed her eyes at the choice of words, considering it was exactly what Bela had said to her last night. Very suspicious. If she didn’t even register he’d called her Cas, well she could say she was distracted by his other words. She didn’t secretly like that he called her Cas. Not at all.
Monday morning Dean wasn’t in class. She found herself missing him, and wasn’t sure if it was because of his revelations over the weekend, or simply because she liked someone paying attention to her, even if it made her want to punch him in the face daily.
It was Wednesday before she saw him again, and even then he sat on the far side of the room and remained silent throughout the class. Cas spent the whole class debating what to do, but it wasn’t until she looked up and caught Dean watching her that she decided. He’d quickly looked away but not before she could see the obvious desire in his gaze. It sent heat through her from head to toe, and she quickly hid her face back in her text.
After class she stood to the side of the door instead of running off as usual. Dean was the last on out and she touched his arm, stopping him. He looked completely dejected, walking out of the class with his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans and eyes focused on his shoes. He jumped at her touch and his eyes grew wide as they focused on her.
“Thanks for the flowers” she said quietly, and knew if they hadn’t been almost the only ones in the hall he wouldn’t have heard her.
He moistened his lips with his tongue and nodded, still looking down. In a sudden momen of bravery, Cas put her hand on his cheek, forcing his face up to look at her.
“I really liked them.” she said, trying to emphasize the point, and hopefully encourage him.
She was being a total girl and enjoying this new interaction. Flowers and looks across rooms were much better then taunts and knocking books off desks.
Finally, Dean let out a breath and a small smile.
“Good. There’s more where that came from.”
Now Cas smiled back at him, and removing her hand turned, and walked away leaving him grinning like an idiot in the hall.
Friday morning Dean was waiting out side the classroom door holding two cups of coffee, and thrust one into Cas’s hand as soon as she arrived. She opened her mouth to question with her usual head tilt but Dean spoke first.
“Don’t forget I’ve had a crush on your for four years”.
She just stared for a moment, watching him blush, before thanking him and turning towards the class. He didn’t move right away so she looked back over her shoulder and gave him a small smile.
“Shall we?” he smiled, nodded and caught up to her, falling in the seat next to her in the back of the room.
Everyone look at the suspiciously, waiting for Dean to knock her books off the table or call her a nerd. But when it didn’t come, when instead she sipped her coffee that had an identical design on the cup as Dean’s and leaned over to help him on their homework, they just turned away stunned. Sure there were whispers of what the hell was going on with Dean and Castiel, but no one dared say anything to Dean Winchester’s face. They didn’t want to get punched.
Cas was a linguistics major, so it made sense that she was taking Spanish 4 in her fourth year of college, but Dean was an Engineering major, requiring only one foreign language class. Cas should have realized something was strange when he was in her Spanish class four years in a row. She got it now. He wasn’t in it because he like Spanish, in fact, he wasn’t even any good at it, he was in it because it was the only class he could be in with Cas. With that realization, she felt a little weak in the knees. Sure, none of it really made sense to her, but it was still there. After class they walked out of class together and Dean grabbed her wrist gently.
“Hey, have dinner with me tomorrow night.”
She tilted her head, considering him.
“Okay. Pick me up at 7?”
He grinned as she turned and walked down the hall to her next class.
It was just the beginning.