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“When anyone called me ‘Sweetheart'
It was passive aggressive
At the bar
And the bitch was telling me to back off
'Cause her man had looked at me wrong“
Dean was nursing his third beer of the night (and a hell of a headache thanks to the vamp throwing him around before his machete had hit the right spot) when it all went to hell. Truthfully, life hadn’t been all peaches and roses even before that. Dad had fucked off to God knew where again, and Sammy was still at college trying his hardest to ignore who he was and what he was supposed to be doing.
But it was fine – Dean was sure Dad was gonna pick up his phone tomorrow, and they could continue traveling the country in search of the latest monster trying to stir up some shit somewhere and take care of it.
Till then, he’d just enjoy his well-deserved IPA (lukewarm as it was, unfortunately) and watch the game from his perch at the dingy bar. Honestly, the place wasn’t much to write home about – another nondescript bar with sticky floors and moody servers, and given that it was a weekday, the few patrons that hung around were probably the type to have thrown back a fifth of vodka by noon already.
His eyes strayed from the TV mounted to the wall, the hunter in him urging him to be mindful of his surroundings at all times. Ultimately, they landed on a couple sitting a few stools down, both overdressed for the environment. The guy had dark hair, long enough to be slicked back artfully, and when he grinned at the woman, he showed off a row of perfectly straight, white teeth.
Dean would have thought he was handsome, if he’d let himself think this way about men. Which he didn’t, so he turned his attention quickly to the woman, wearing a skin-tight red dress, who was twirling the straw in her drink, looking kind of bored.
Dean couldn’t deny she was pretty, what with her wavy blonde hair draped artfully over just one shoulder, elegant necklace drawing attention to her cleavage purposefully.
She must’ve felt his eyes, because she looked up, the corner of her mouth curling in a suggestive grin. Dean’s instinct kicked in and he offered a polite, tight-lipped smile in return. Pretty as she might have been, he wasn’t in the mood for anything like that tonight. Not with the blood still drying under his nails and his ribs aching every time he breathed.
He turned back to the game.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the man push away from the woman, though he didn’t think much of it at first. That changed when a few seconds later the stool beside him scraped against the floor.
Muscles tensing, he looked up, straight into the angry face of Mr. Toothpaste-Commercial. A glance behind him told Dean the woman had fucked off to God knew where. Inwardly, he sighed.
“You think you can stare at my girl?” The man leaned in close, the scent of cologne and cheap liquor stinging Dean’s nose. “Think you’re cute?”
Dean held his hands up a little, palms out in a gesture of peace that was more about avoiding a scene than anything else. “Wasn’t staring. Just watchin’ the game.” If anything, she was the one who’d been staring, but he wasn’t dumb enough to say that out loud.
The man snorted, eyes dragging over him in a slow, deliberate once-over that made Dean’s skin crawl. Then that grin spread wider, uglier.
“Yeah?” he drawled. “Maybe you weren’t staring at her after all.”
For a beat, Dean didn’t get it. Then the implication landed, hot and cold all at once.
The guy leaned closer, breath sour. “Oh yeah, you look like one of them types.”
Dean’s stomach twisted. He wanted to roll his shoulders back, square up, make himself bigger, something, anything to shake off the crawling feeling under his skin, but he could already feel eyes on him from the rest of the bar. A prickle between his shoulder blades that felt suspiciously like one of his dad’s disapproving stares.
He forced a laugh that didn’t sound like him. “You done?”
“Yeah,” the man said, taking a swig of his drink, still grinning. “Ain’t gonna waste my time with you, sweetheart.” The word came out slick and mean, like he’d dipped it in poison just for him.
Dean’s hand tightened around his beer bottle, knuckles white. For half a second, he thought about swinging it, just to shut him up, but he didn’t. He swallowed hard, dropped a couple bills on the counter, and muttered, “Go to hell.”
He didn’t wait for a response.
Outside, the night was quiet. The cold hit him square in the face, sharp and grounding, but the words still echoed as he stood there, thinking about everything that had just transpired in that goddamn bar.
By the time he reached the Impala, his jaw ached from clenching it. He caught his reflection in the driver’s side window: the faint bruise on his cheek, the split at his lip, and wondered, just for a second, what it was about him that made people see that. Not that there was anything to see, it wasn’t like that.
He shook his head, climbed in, and started the car. The radio crackled to life. He turned it up loud enough to drown himself out. He was angry – at that guy, at the woman for getting him in the situation in the first place, at Dad, and at Sammy, those were a given. But, most of all, he was angry about himself, because an ugly, needy part deep down of him replayed that word – sweetheart – again and again, wishing someone would say it like they meant it just once.
***
“If anyone called me "Honey"
It was standing in the bathroom
White teeth
They were saying that skirt don't fit me
And I cried the whole way home“
The bathroom smelled like bleach and old cigarettes. Dean braced his hands on either side of the chipped sink, head hanging low as cold water dripped from his chin. Another job done. Another monster dead. Another day pretending like it didn’t all weigh a ton.
The mirror above the sink was clouded, the kind that turned your face into something half-formed. Under the humming fluorescent light, his reflection flashed pale skin, white teeth, and tired eyes; all edges, no warmth. He scrubbed at the dried blood on his neck with a paper towel until his skin burned. He frowned as he pulled at the collar of the leather jacket he was wearing, smudged with blood and dirt.
He thought about taking it off to clean it, but something inside of him rebelled at the thought. Wearing Dad’s jacket, dumb as it was, made him feel bigger than he actually was; stronger, smarter. Taking it off felt too much like leaving a shelter, so he just dabbed at it a bit and tried to rein in the damage.
When he finally stepped out of the restroom, the diner was half-empty, the kind of place that looked the same no matter what state you were in: cracked vinyl booths, the faint hum of a jukebox nobody played anymore, coffee that’d been burning since dawn.
He slid into a booth by the window and pulled out his phone. A new message blinked from Sam: Meet at mile marker 27. Got a lead. Don’t be late.
Dean huffed out a tired laugh, secretly pleased that Sam had finally been reaching out again, and muttered under his breath, “Yeah, yeah.”
“You ready to order?” the waitress asked as she came by, balancing a pot of coffee in one hand and a stack of menus in the other. She was older, her nametag hanging crooked, lipstick smudged just outside the lines.
He nodded, telling her what he wanted. “Thanks.”
She poured him coffee, then smiled - friendly, not flirting - and said, “Bit big on you, honey.”
Dean blinked, caught off guard. It took him a second to realize she meant the jacket. He managed a small smile. “Yeah. Used to be my dad’s.”
“Hmm,” was all she muttered, moving on to the next table, already forgetting him.
But he didn’t forget. The word stuck. Honey. Said gently, kindly, like it wasn’t meant to hurt at all, and somehow that was worse. She couldn’t have meant anything by it – yeah, his life had been weird lately, what with the demons spawning everywhere and resurrections and shit, but he wasn’t that paranoid – but the words cut deeper, like she was talking about more than just the jacket.
Or maybe that was just what Dean saw when he stared in the mirror every day – the life that had been laid out before him with footsteps way too big to step into.
He finished his coffee in silence, picking at his pancakes more out of habit than actual appetite, staring out at the endless stretch of highway and his reflection ghosting back in the glass. The jacket felt too heavy all of a sudden, the collar too tight around his neck.
When he finally got behind the wheel, the sky was turning the color of rust. Sam’s text still glowed on the passenger seat, and Dean drove toward it, one hand on the wheel, the other worrying at the frayed seam on his sleeve.
The word followed him down the road, soft and clinging, like something sweet gone bad.
He kept his eyes fixed on the asphalt, radio turned up too loud, pretending the ache in his throat was just from the smoke in the diner. But when the first tear slid hot down his cheek, he didn’t bother to wipe it away.
Just one. That’s all he’d allow. One stupid tear for everything that never fit quite right:
the jacket, the life, the skin.
***
“When anyone called me late night
He was screwing around with my mind
Asking, "What are you wearing?" Too high
To remember in the morning
And when anyone called me "Lovely"
They were finding ways not to praise me”
After years – decades, really – of living out of the Impala and motel rooms, Dean treasured the solidity and safety of the bunker more than he could – or ever wanted – to say. He had his own room for the first time since his childhood one had gone up in flames, and in the quiet of the windowless halls, the curiosity he’d been forcefully shoving away pretty much all his life finally reared its head.
Dean stared at the joint burning down between his fingers, the ember a slow heartbeat in the dark. He hadn’t done this in years – not since meeting that weird, high out of his mind, sex-addicted version of Cas. Truthfully, he couldn’t even remember where he’d gotten the weed from, or what had pushed him to light one up tonight - just that the quiet had gotten too loud again.
He should have just gone to sleep. Should have just gotten drunk to the point where he forgot that Sam was mad at him because of the whole Gadreel fiasco, and that Cas was somewhere out there slumming it with the rest of the humans and going on fucking dates.
Instead, he picked up his phone, frowning at the surprisingly heavy weight of it in his palms that felt light as feathers, then giggling to himself for no reason at all. Maybe this was better than getting blackout drunk after all. At least he didn’t feel the need to trash up his room or knock his knuckles bloody on a bathroom mirror.
He thumbed through his phone aimlessly, stopping only when he came across the glowing digits of a number he should have deleted, but didn’t. It was a guy from a hunt months back – Dean didn’t even remember his name. But he remembered the truck stop bar, the pool game, and the motel room whose walls hadn’t muffled a thing.
The line rang for a long time, long enough that Dean had almost forgotten what he was doing, toying with the hem of his shirt, until someone picked up.
“Hey,” came the voice, rough with sleep.
“Yeah, uh. It’s me.” Dean tried to sound casual, failed. “Didn’t wake you, did I?”
A low laugh. “And what if you did? You plan on making it up to me?”
Dean swallowed. It was why he’d called, but hearing the suggestive smirk from the other side of the line made him hesitate, even though his dick was twitching in his jeans.
“What are you wearing?” the other man continued, easily falling back into their game, muffled noises in the background. Dean could still picture him - broad shoulders, short dark hair, that easy grin people like him seemed born with - and imagined him settling down on his own bed, wherever he was.
Dean looked down at himself: bare feet on top of his sheets, jeans unbuttoned, flannel hanging open. “Nothing special,” he said, voice rougher than he meant. “Just… the usual.” God, he was stupid.
“Bet you still look… lovely.” Dean’s hands shook as he took a final drag of his joint before haphazardly putting it out in a bowl on his nightstand. It should have been a nice compliment, but the guy’s voice was flat and he sounded distracted. Dean wondered if he could even remember what Dean looked like.
The man’s voice turned lower, heat threading through the static. Dean’s pulse followed. He let himself drift with it, answering, trading half-cooked fantasies and saying the right things at the right time to get them both to their ultimate goal. The words didn’t matter; the tone did. It was something that sounded like wanting, and for a little while that was enough.
He shut his eyes. The joint had left the world cotton-soft around the edges, and he could almost forget where he was - almost forget why he’d called. The rhythm of the other man’s breathing filled his ear; Dean matched it automatically, losing the difference between them until it all blurred into sound and skin and memory.
He let the man’s words guide him: tightened his grip around himself when he was told so, moaning when he knew it was required, listening to the breathing pick up on the other side of the line. It felt good – nice, even, his high heightening each touch, the adrenaline of being hidden away in his room with this huge, dirty secret enough to make him forget how alone he actually was, and it even felt good enough that he could ignore the other man mistakenly call him ‘Dan’ a couple of times.
He played with his balls, toyed with his slit, biting his lips as he curiously brushed a finger as far back as he dared, shivering at the sensation. Dean let his mind drift, imagining the hunter on the phone until something else surfaced instead: the color of sky just after dawn, a flash of blue that wasn’t memory so much as muscle reflex. He tried to ignore it, but it only made his pulse sky-rocket, and sooner than he’d liked, he was coming all over his fist.
He lay there, breathing heavily as he listened to the other man’s moans until he, too, reached his climax.
“That was fun,” the man chuckled. “Good night, Dan.”
“Night,” Dean barely more than whispered, but the line was already dead.
***
“But you touch my face
Redefine all of those blues
When you say
"Honey"
Summertime spritz, pink skies
You can call me "Honey" if you want
Because I'm the one you want
Wintergreen kiss, all mine
You give it different meaning 'cause you mean it when you talk
Honey, I'm home, we can play house
We can bed down, pick me up, who's the baddest in the land? What's the plan? (What's the plan?)
You could be my forever-night stand
Honey
[…]
Sweetie, it's yours, kicking in doors, take it to the floor, gimme more
Buy the paint in the color of your eyes (Of your eyes)
And graffiti my whole damn life
Honey”
Dean found Cas in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, struggling with a corkscrew like it had personally offended him. The bottle on the counter wasn’t wine, just some sparkling something Cas had picked up in town because he’d apparently heard somewhere that “celebrations call for bubbles.”
It was still strange that this was supposed to be his life now, and it wasn’t even because ‘coming home’ now didn’t mean a car, or even the bunker, but a former angel that had defied the logic of life and death almost as often as Dean himself and a little house at a lake, a short distance from where his brother had settled down with his wife and kid.
All his life, he’d secretly wished for this – for the constant battles, the weight on his shoulders of saving a world he wasn’t even sure deserved it, over and over again, to be over; so much so that now that he had it, it almost felt… wrong.
Like he was caught in a Djinn’s dream, withering away in a fake world where he could have everything he wanted while his life was slowly being drained. It wasn’t all perfect – they saw Jack much less than they’d liked, what with him having to fix Chuck’s mistakes and being the new God and all, and of course there was the damage from that damn rebar in that barn he had to live with now.
He rolled a little farther into the room, the soft hum of his wheelchair’s motor breaking the quiet. After months of physical therapy, he was good enough to handle most things on his own; the chair wasn’t a reminder of what he’d lost so much as a reason to stop running. And honestly, Dean could bear his misplaced guilt about not wanting to hunt anymore after a life of doing nothing else much easier now that he had a legitimate reason for it.
“You know,” Dean said, stopping just shy of the counter, ”I would have been fine with root beer.”
Cas shot him a look, the kind that was equal parts exasperation and fondness. Outside, the sun had just started setting, the sky a pale pink that threw long shadows into the kitchen of their lake house, catching in the loose curls at the back of his neck. God, Dean was so in love with him.
“You’ve been human for way longer than I have,” he started, and Dean rolled his eyes at the familiar argument, if only to distract himself from the way those stupid butterflies wreaked havoc in his stomach at Cas’ soft smile, the one that was just for him.
He was in his mid-forties, he really should have been too old for butterflies, but alas.
“Therefore, I shouldn’t have to remind you that celebrations call for something special,” Cas continued, turning his attention to the bottle. Dean had to make a conscious effort to still his hand, mind filling with pictures of a hundred different ways Cas could hurt himself with the opener, now that he was human. (Cas claimed to hate Dean’s urge to plastic-wrap him, but if his reddened cheeks and crinkled eyes each time were anything to go by, that was a lie).
“Why do we even have to celebrate this?”
Cas turned to him quick as lightning, eyes narrowed in a look of pure affront. “Because I don’t take it for granted that we’re standing here, right now, together.”
“Not much standing from my side, buddy,” Dean quipped, earning himself the same look Cas used to wear when smiting other angels.
“I don’t even want to think about where we would be, had I not reached you in time.”
Dean gulped, not wanting to follow down that path either. Truthfully, he still felt more than a little guilty that Cas had to use up all of whatever little grace he had left after fighting his way out of the Empty to heal him at least most of the way.
Jack had offered to fix it, of course, but Dean could tell how important it was to him to stick to his “hands-off” policy. Dean had told him it was fine; he’d already gotten more chances than he deserved. And maybe, a tiny part of him was even thankful – after all, the pain and limitations were what made Dean tentatively start to accept that this was real.
The cork popped with a satisfying thwip, and Cas startled slightly, blinking down at it. Dean couldn’t help the grin that pulled at his mouth.
“I’m glad, too,” Dean said, closing the distance between them to softly take Cas’ hand in his own. Dean’s grip wasn’t as sure as he would have liked, but Cas had been nothing if not patient with Dean trying to get over decades of internalized issues with showing and receiving affection, especially from another man.
Cas squeezed back for a second before he pulled his hand away to pour the sparkling non-alcoholic drink into two mismatched glasses and turn around to hand one over. Dean took it, they clinked glasses, awkwardly, softly, and Dean took a sip. It wasn’t bad. Sweet, fizzy; it tasted like something that John Winchester would have hated, which maybe made it better.
Cas was watching him again. Not the way other people watched him, weighing and judging, but like he was still trying to memorize him. It had taken Dean an embarrassingly long time to realize that Cas had been looking at him this way from the start.
“You look tired,” Cas said. “But happy.”
Dean laughed quietly. “Yeah, well. I am.” The truth of it settled like a warm weight around his chest, in that place that had felt nothing but empty for far too long. Absently, Dean brought a hand up to rub his sternum, a tiny, wondrous smile on his face.
Slowly, Cas reached down, fingertips tracing the stubble along Dean’s jaw, the gesture so gentle his eyes fluttered.
“I meant it,” Cas said softly. “I don’t take a single day with you for granted, honey.”
The word landed like a heartbeat, steady and sure. Dean had been surprised to learn about Cas’ love of pet names. Maybe he shouldn’t have been that shocked – after all, Dean had been the one to throw in a ‘sweetheart’ or ‘sunshine’ every so often, trying to soften the hidden meaning of it behind a cheeky grin, hoping (or maybe not) that Cas didn’t possess the innate human knowledge of their meanings.
But Cas had taken to it like a duck to water, and most days, Dean was woken up by a rasped, soft ‘sweetheart’ and a kiss to his cheek. Dean hadn’t thought he could ever like it – too often had he heard those words drawled, wrapped in barbed wire to cut deep, to mock.
Cas, though… he loved it when Cas called him that, because he meant it when he said it. And just like that, all those other times, those other voices, faded away like dust.
Cas smiled, the corner of his mouth quirking in that familiar way that always undid him. He set his glass down and reached for Dean’s free hand, lacing their fingers together.
“Come here,” Dean murmured, pulling him closer until Cas perched half against his lap.
Cas leaned in, brushing their noses together before pressing a slow, deliberate kiss to Dean’s mouth. Dean reciprocated without protest. After all the years of fighting for and against the world, it felt strange and right to stop fighting this.
Even after months of being with Cas in that way, the kiss still set off those damned butterflies in Dean’s stomach, and he would probably never quite stop berating himself for having been so afraid for far too long to not take a shot at this sooner. But maybe that knowledge just made every kiss, every touch, every softly spoken word that much sweeter.
This kiss was the same as all the ones they’d shared before it, and so very different at the same time. Dean was still amazed at how that worked, time and time again. Right now it was steady, grounding; the kind of kiss that said I’m here, I’m not going anywhere.
Dean deepened it a little, enough to taste the sweetness of the bubbles still on Cas’ lips. The sound of the lake outside filtered through the open window, soft splashes of fish, the call of a bird, life going on.
When they parted, Cas rested his forehead against his. “You’re thinking again,” he said.
Dean huffed a laugh. “Can’t help it. I keep waitin’ for the catch. For the part where the universe decides I don’t actually deserve more than being covered in monster gunk and trying to fill some void with meaningless one-night stands, y’know?”
Cas’ thumb traced a line along Dean’s jaw. “You deserve this,” he said simply. “We both do.”
“You know, the longer I go without being struck by lightning every time we kiss, the more I think you may be right,” Dean murmured tentatively, feeling stupidly in love and giddy with it, or maybe that was the placebo effect of the sparkling wine after all. “Think it’s kinda time for a forever night stand.”
The words had the desired effect, making Cas laugh, soft and low, and the sound wrapped around Dean like warmth.
Cas didn’t say anything, but there was a soft smile on his face, eyes down on where their hands were tangled again. Dean blushed when Cas absently toyed with his bare ring finger. It kind of felt like a promise.
Dean kissed him again, slower this time, until the words stopped meaning anything and only the feeling remained, the taste of something sweet that finally stayed.
They were a bit more breathless once they pulled back, and Dean licked his lips absent-mindedly, as if still searching for a trace of Cas.
“It’s still light out,” Cas said, looking out the window.
Dean followed his gaze. The water was catching the last gold of the day, a flat sheet of calm with a few rings spreading from fish that broke the surface. “Yeah,” Dean said. “You wanna take a walk?”
Cas turned back, a soft, hesitant grin on his face. He had a much harder time joking about this than Dean, though he’d gotten better. Dean rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, buddy. Come on.”
Cas shook his head, pressing a sweet kiss to Dean’s temple before he fetched the blanket from the back of the couch and draped it over his lap before Dean could protest. “It’s chilly,” Cas said simply, and Dean fought hard against his blush at the easy thoughtfulness Cas never failed to employ when it came to him.
The path from the house to the lake was a gentle slope, packed dirt and gravel that crunched under Cas’ boots and hummed under the wheels of Dean’s chair. The air smelled like pine and water, and for once, Dean didn’t mind the quiet. He’d spent years chasing noise, anything to drown out his own head, but this kind of silence… he could live with.
They stopped near the dock, where the wood planks stretched out into the lake. Cas stood on the edge, close enough that his knee brushed the side of Dean’s chair. The surface of the water mirrored the fading pinks and purples of the sky, so still it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began.
Cas rested an arm along the armrest of the chair, fingers brushing Dean’s hand. “Do you ever miss it?” he asked quietly.
Dean looked out at the water. “The road? Yeah. Sometimes. Not the monsters, though. Not the blood.” He flexed his fingers on the wheel rim. “Can’t be any worse than you losing your wings.” There was that familiar guilt again, though Dean had gotten better at fighting it over time.
Cas nodded, eyes still on the lake. “I suppose. Still… if I were given the chance for a redo – I’d do it all over again. Well,” he added, with a sidelong glance at Dean (and, oh, looked like Dean wasn’t the only one still harboring old guilt), “maybe not everything. But everything that was needed to have me end up right here, right now.”
Cas looked at him for a long moment, eyes reflecting the fading sky, that same impossible shade Dean could never quite name. Sometimes, Dean thought everything they’d built here - the cabin, the quiet, the life that finally felt like theirs - was painted in that color. Cas had left his mark on every part of it, on every part of Dean, even now that his handprint had faded. Maybe that was what love was: graffiti scrawled over the mess of his life, loud and permanent and real.
They sat there for a while, watching the light shift across the water. A heron lifted from the reeds on the far side, wings flashing white before it disappeared into the trees. Their hands were tangled, like they so often were these days, and Dean felt the weight of the day settle into something easy.
Tomorrow, Sam would drop by with Eileen and their little daughter, and the house would be filled with laughter and shared stories about old times and, much more often nowadays, talks about the future. He was looking forward to it – but for now, he just enjoyed this moment of quiet, of peace.
When the sun finally dipped below the trees, they headed back toward the house. Cas walked beside him, one hand resting on the back of his chair, not guiding, just there. The porch light clicked on automatically as they reached their door, washing them both in soft yellow.
Cas leaned down, pressed a kiss to the top of Dean’s head. “You ready for bed, honey?” he asked, the word quiet, familiar.
Dean tilted his head up, grinning cheekily at the prospect of getting Cas under the sheets, which made Cas chuckle and shake his head fondly. “Yeah, sweetheart. Right behind you.”
Cas lingered a moment longer before disappearing inside, and Dean sat there, listening to the night settle in around the lake. Crickets, distant water, the steady beat of his own heart.
For the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel the need to chase anything. He was finally home. Home, where there were no salt lines along the windowsill for once. Where there was a cup in the bathroom with two toothbrushes, and a bed flanked by twin nightstands, and where Cas could call him sweet things like “honey”, if he wanted.