fic: 1961 (Dean/Castiel)
Originally posted here for the Secret Angels III fic exchange.
Title: 1961
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: R
Warnings: outdated mores, cigarettes, drunken driving, man/angel 69-ing
Spoilers: none
Word Count: 4600
Given prompt: "I don't know you, but I want you, all the more for that."
Notes: Inspired by Mad Men.
Summary: Angels rule the airwaves, Dean cruises in his '58 Impala, and desire is born.
1961
Angels were responsible for all the sounds that came over the airwaves in the summer of 1961. They worked long hours in Manhattan in wood-paneled offices, watched their secretaries bustle around from desk to desk, took longer lunch hours and plied themselves with alcohol in order to create the new frontier of dreams - cars the color of sherbet, sherbet the color of lipstick, lipstick the color of sunset, sunset the color of a bright, bright future, free from fears of emptiness, sleeplessness, and the end of the world.
Castiel - or Cas for short, as they were fond of nicknames like Chaz, Zach, and Ducky - worked among them selling ad time for the radio, filling the spaces between the theme from 'A Summer Place' and the Shirelles, Elvis and Ray Charles. His ever-present suit, tie, coat, shoes, hair, and hat were various shades of dark brown and gray, dry cleaned and pressed, only showing wrinkles when he started staying later at the office and spending nights in hotels, by request of his wife who had decided he was acting crazy - talking of Heaven and God like they were more real than a new Frigidaire, his brown station wagon.
He was in no way "hip" - as the kids were fond of calling each other - but he believed in the company above all else, and thought that there should still be some reward in this world for loyalty, something more than the gift of a brown leather briefcase for a job well done. His red-haired secretary, Anna, greeted him with a smile every morning when he walked by her desk, and said goodnight to him when she was done for the day. He would sit in his office in the dark, the shadows of venetian blinds creeping closer to his face, and sometimes pick up a glass of Scotch or a cigarette from the box on his desk, but more often he would just sit there, or lie sleepless in bed, contemplating the many demons who would cross seas to destroy the angels, or who would send a bomb inside of a rocket ship and bring the Apocalypse.
Sometimes he just wanted to sit in a diner with a cup of coffee - a ceramic mug of glazed spotless white sitting on a linoleum countertop - with Miles Davis playing in the background. Instead, he got Mark Dinning singing his hit 'Teen Angel' from last year. But he also got the coffee, loaded with as much sugar as he could stand and stirred with a silvery spoon. In hindsight, it was appropriate, and he wondered once more about the uncanny nature of angels, because that was the moment he first met Dean.
"If you're gonna be in here, you just can't hang out by the jukebox. You gotta order something," Doris called from across the counter.
"Alright, mama," the young man mocked, "I'll take the one egg breakfast. Throw in some bacon for me, would ya?" He flicked the collar of his leather jacket up to hide his neck and pivoted away from the red-domed juke against the wall, like he was heading for the counter the whole time. His white undershirt looked clean enough, though his jeans were tight in all the wrong places, and there was a scruffiness about his tightly-managed look, his short haircut not quite even enough to be a flat top. "What're you lookin at?" He asked Cas, though the angel was too stunned to even realize he was being addressed.
Instead, he turned back to his coffee, watched the oily swirl on top.
"My name's Dean." He proffered a hand, then waited just a second before slapping it down on the counter, swiveling away from Cas' direction and back again while waiting the much-practiced appropriate length of time before explaining his name. "Aren't you gonna ask me?"
"What?" Cas played dumb, which he was very good at with his wide blue eyes and generic tan raincoat. "Are you any relation to the actor? Because he passed away, oh, six years ago by my last count."
"Yeah, laugh it up. The good ones never die." Dean scoffed at the menu on the wall above the back wall. "Besides, he ain't got nothing on me. My car's even better'n his was."
"Is that so?" Cas took a sip of his coffee. "Well I hope you're a better driver at least."
"What? You don't like James Dean? Figures. You probly think Cary Grant is cool."
Cas shrugged. "Well, I think Sal Mineo is under-appreciated."
Dean just stared, sizing him up with his eyes.
"What?" Cas spoke into his coffee.
"Yeah, like you would understand," was the youth's snappy retort.
The angel appreciated subtle intergenerational cultural warfare, though by the looks of it Dean wasn't that much younger than himself - maybe five years at the most - though they were far enough apart they might as well have been living on two different planets.
"Lemme guess - you work in an office until 5 every day, pal-ing around with the suits and drinking like a fish, and then you go home to your wife who cooks you a steak dinner with a side of mashed potatoes from the box. Then you put the kids to bed, have a few Newports, and watch Ed Sullivan so you can scoff at the kids these days." Dean pulled a pack of cigarettes from his own pocket - Lucky Strikes - and lit one up, impatient for his egg to arrive on its little plate.
"Almost," Cas sighed. He pulled out a Lucky Strike of his own and burned the taste away with his coffee. "I thought everyone watched Ed Sullivan. Though, I prefer 'The Twilight Zone' and I don't have a family yet, but, well, you have me pretty figured out."
Dean narrowed his eyes and took a drag. "You one of those guys?"
"Which kind would that be?"
"You know. One of the angels. Always sellin' something."
Cas shrugged and left fifty cents for the waitress. "Last I checked, you didn't even know my name. I wouldn't get too presumptuous. I think you've figured me out enough already."
He walked out of the diner just as Dean's breakfast arrived, the bells on the door ringing behind him.
*
Days passed, and the angel didn't think much of anything. He continued to go to work just as he had always done, and stay late just as he had always done, and he tried calling his wife when she had stopped calling him, but even though nothing had changed, he found that his wires were getting crossed.
His proverbial airwaves were blocked with static, and the latest jingles seemed to blend into mindless white space. Very simply, things just weren't working anymore as they once had. At night, he woke up in a sweat thinking of the bomb and the coming end of the world, or he would awake suddenly and see Dean's bad flat top and scowling face judging him from behind his own eyelids. Cas had always thought he liked to keep his life as an angel simple and empty, so as to better help others, to give other people what they wanted most. But who were these others he'd always imagined? And where were they, really?
No, in the end, Cas found that he wanted an awful lot of things.
He wanted to have the guts to read that scandalous Nabokov novel in public and not hide behind a newspaper. He wanted to go to Hawaii, send greetings to the newest U.S. state. He wanted to know what NASA was created for, really. He wanted to sit next to whoever wanted to sit next to him at the lunch counter and not give a damn, maybe talk about the future, maybe just drink coffee and listen to Miles Davis.
Sometimes he just wanted a Coke, a cheeseburger, and some fries.
Cas wasn't so surprised to find himself back at the same counter, staring at the same red-domed jukebox (playing 'Runaway' this time), with the same sense of loss for something he couldn't name.
He wouldn't have guessed it's name would be "Dean" and he wouldn't have guessed it would walk in one afternoon with the same flick of a collar and a comic book in his hand, staring at Cas like he'd seen him every day instead of once, over a week ago.
"What are you looking at, Mister?"
"Dean, right? Like James Dean."
"Yup. Go figure. You never gave me yours - it's not exactly fair, you know." Dean opened his book and stared at the pages as if he couldn't care less about the man sitting down the counter from him.
But Cas wasn't wrong about people. He was rarely wrong about people. "Everyone calls me Cas."
"Well. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Hey, can a guy get a chocolate milkshake?"
Cas spoke when he figured Dean was never going to speak to him again. "What's the 'JLA'?"
"What, this?" The youth had a practiced air of nonchalance these days that the angels would envy, if they could. "Stands for the Justice League of America. Sounds kinda square, but I dunno, it's a gas. Well, look who I'm telling."
"What?" Cas blinked.
"Oh please. You're like, the mayor of squaresville."
"I'm very hip."
"Man - anyone who has to say they're hip, is so not hip. Trust me. Besides," his eyes never left his book, "I know you're an angel, and you guys are as corrupt as they come."
"What are you talking about?"
"I didn't even get out of the eighth grade and even I know about payola. I mean, I can read."
"I didn't have anything to do with payola. I don't handle the DJs or the music. Not enough to pay anyone off, anyway. I just sell ad space."
"Yeah, advertising - much less square, totally not corrupt, so not candyass."
"So what do you do if you don't go to school?"
"Hey, I would've finished school years ago if I'd wanted to."
"You're a professional juvenile delinquent?"
"I'm not juvenile - I'll be 21 next year. I work on cars in a garage. I'm real good at it too."
"I'll bet. So what are you doing up here?"
"Sometimes I drive the cars downtown. Take the bus back. Hey, you should see my girl - she's choice. A real cherry. Guess what she is?"
"I have no idea. Some kind of a hot rod?"
"Nah, man. A '58 Impala. Convertible. Souped up all nice. You should see her."
"Isn't that a bit of a 'Daddy's Car'?"
Dean just stared, mortally offended. "I bet you've never even been cruising. You have no idea."
"No, I guess I don't. I drive a station wagon."
Now Dean really stared. "Are you serious?"
"It's a Plymouth."
"Never mind. Jeez." Dean went back to his book, offended beyond speaking.
Cas frowned at the remains of his cheeseburger while Dean sucked his milkshake through a straw.
"Hey, you gonna finish that?"
"What? No. Be my guest."
"Hate to let a good cheeseburger go to waste, you know?" Dean took it off his plate and finished it in two bites.
Cas left the diner and spent the last ten minutes of his lunch hour looking at pigeons on the sidewalk, going every which way. There were ads all over the place, if you cared to look. He knew his business well. Neon signs and billboards shouted from the street corners and highways to buy Coca-Cola, magazine ads in color selling Maybelline and Jockeys, newspaper ads for Pan Am and Kellogg's, radio jingles for Alka Seltzer popping and fizzing, dogs barking for Purina, elves selling Rice Krispies, Fred Flintstone pushing Winston cigarettes. Angels were supposed to be immune to want, but since they could sense every human emotion, they were so very good at guessing. Still, Cas wondered if that was true. People like Dean knew. They had desires.
Sometimes he just wanted a vanilla milkshake. It was a very simple thought. A cool shake on a hot summer day.
That's what he was thinking about when Dean ran up behind him and slapped him on the back. "Hey!"
"Um, hey, yourself," Cas coughed.
"Come cruising with me on Friday."
"I can't. My wife is expecting me at home after work," he lied.
"Is that right?"
"Yes." Cas waited for Dean to stop staring right through him.
"So, tell her you're going out drinking at some club," he shrugged. "We'll get a bottle and drive around instead. You gotta see my baby. She's totally choice. Trust me. I'll pick you up right here at, what? 6:30? No one will even know the difference."
That's true. Cas wasn't sure how Dean knew that, but it was true. "Sure. I'll be here."
"Yeah. Easy!" Dean waved goodbye.
*
On Friday, Cas just wanted a drink.
He washed down his sandwich at noon with some scotch, and his nerves still wouldn't quit. Maybe he'd talk to Dean when he arrived - see if they just couldn't go see 'West Side Story' instead, or maybe even a French film like 'Breathless' or 'Shoot the Piano Player'. They would then be able to wander around free and do as they pleased in the most careless way possible, some kind of bridge forged between their two worlds made of Lucky Strikes, soul music, and psychic airwaves uncontrolled by any angels.
In any case, despite a valiant effort, he found himself standing on the sidewalk at 6:28 looking for an Impala. Its headlights were huge and bright, its fins not too loud but just loud enough to be obnoxious, its body clothed in shiny black - it had to be Dean's.
Dean pulled over somewhere approaching the curb, put the car in park, slid across the black vinyl bench seat far enough to roll down the window. At least he knew better than to attract attention by honking the horn. "Get in."
Cas found himself opening the door and sliding inside. Why any of this was happening, he didn't know, but he let out a breath he didn't even know he'd been holding. The loud world outside of the windshield seemed that much further away, and he found he didn't want to be anywhere else. He rolled up the window and they each lit up a cigarette, exchanging nothing more than a glance.
"Where to?" Cas looked over at Dean.
"I dunno. Just drive?"
"Yes," Cas nodded. "Perfect."
They drove, and the music played. Dean liked the radio loud, but Cas didn't mind it for once. It was his job, and his job was for people like Dean. It was sounds to make the world seem like the place you wanted it to be. At least, that's what he'd always hoped. The right sounds for moments such as these, if Cas had ever had moments like these in his life. Moments he would try to sell in a car ad, though really something he couldn't put a name to.
"Is this what you like to do when you have free time?"
"Are you taking a survey?"
Cas smiled. "No. No more work for today."
"Then just relax for once. Anyone ever tell you you're kind of uptight?"
"Do you have that bottle?"
"Under your seat. Help yourself."
Cas found the neck of the open bottle of Jack Daniels and twisted off the cap. Passed it back and forth. He watched the lights turn on as they drove past skyscrapers and out towards the cheaper bars and hotels, the crowd changing subtly, but still everyone looking basically the same. He might as well have been looking at one of his advertisements or TV shows, with just the muted colors added in, the sharpness of a neon sign. On the radio, Elvis asked them over and over again in a plaintive tone if they were lonesome tonight, and Ray Charles had Georgia on his mind - where all roads led back to the one you loved.
Cas watched Dean take another swig. "Aren't you worried about drinking too much?"
"What? You mean the five-oh-two? The fuzz? Nah, man, I always talk my way out of tickets. Can't pay 'em anyway."
"Is that right?"
"Yeah, don't worry about it. I know people. But I guess people like you don't have to worry about that either."
"People like me?"
"Look at you - your suit and tie. Mister, you're all privileged. Careless."
"I'm just a regular guy."
"You're an angel. Besides, only the really lucky people don't think of themselves as lucky."
"Well. I don't feel lucky. What does that prove?"
Dean looked at him for a long time. His gaze said a million things to Cas that he'd never seen before - unsellable and rare, and he could barely read it - but he liked to be looked at like that - really looked at - just the same. "Yeah," was all Dean said after awhile.
*
The caramel smoothness of the whiskey was getting to him, or the sugary glare of the neon lights in the darkness in the rain as it started to fall. Or maybe it was just Dean, his preference for milkshakes and superheroes, his sharp eyes and taste in cars and soul music. Cas didn't want to speak and ruin the spell, and for the first time in his life, he met someone who didn't seem to want to break it either. He missed the slang and attitude of Dean's voice, but not enough to break it. If he had to speak in half-formed thoughts, Dean would still answer.
"Heading out of the city?" He turned to look at the younger man's profile, the lights playing on his face.
"Out towards the highway."
"Bridges under the turnpike."
"Yeah, railroad tracks by the Hudson."
"As far as that." Cas knew where the river met the edge of the city. He knew of the place, but he rarely went there.
"Yeah, sure. Quiet." Dean shrugged. "Might as well."
Cas shrugged back. "Yes. Might as well."
The night was electric. The rain had sped up as they reached the turnpike, and now it fell in a light but steady way on the windshield and roof of the car where they were parked. There was too much light on the front seat, but the view was incredible - blinking red lights warning of oncoming trains that only passed by once in awhile, the city skyline lit up across the black water of the river, all around them the green painted steel girders of the bridge where cars flew high above them. And they were alone.
*
'Runaway' came on the radio, the same song that had played in the diner what must have been a lifetime ago, and they tried to out-sing each other like they'd been doing for at least half a dozen songs now. The high notes were high, and even for an angel, Cas could get nowhere close. Dean was closer, but he'd been attacked by hiccups. They laughed until they choked.
The bottle empty and the car full of smoke, Cas opened the door to get some air and fell halfway out of it, his head swimming.
"Where you going?" Dean spoke with his forehead on the steering wheel.
"Gotta lie down." Cas half-crawled to the backseat.
Dean laughed. "You sound like me when you're blitzed." He climbed over the front bench seats and half-pulled Cas inside the back by the shoulders of his raincoat. "Fucking A' - you are heavy."
"I know," Cas replied with his eyes closed. He let Dean peel his coat off his arms and watched him lay it on the backseat.
"C'mon, angel. Don't let your head spin but don't pass out on me neither."
Cas fell over on his side but his head landed on Dean's thighs instead of the seat. He grabbed onto the back of his knee, "No, stay," and held him there, hoping he was too drunk for Dean to object. He didn't even know what he was doing. He was so tired of thinking, and Dean was warm under his jeans, his hands still curled up in the hair at his temples. "Stay. You know, like the song."
"Yeah, like the song." Dean, of course, began to sing between his hiccups, "Won't you press your sweet lips, to mi-iiiiiiii-ine... Won't you say you love me, all of the ti-iiii-ime - Stay, just a little bit longer." Dean bent over him, cracking up.
Just then, the radio began to play it, the sounds of Maurice Williams' voice and the harmonies of the Zodiacs began to bleed through the air.
Cas could feel Dean's breath hot on his damp collar, the smells of him overwhelming and new surrounding him. He twisted his head closer, following the path of Dean's sweet whiskey-soaked breath. "Please," he whispered, and caught the back of Dean's neck, his shoulder blades, before he could twist away. "Please," and a kiss, their noses rubbing against each other's chins, tasting and dragging their lips together, Dean's hands in his hair and over his heart, his own scratching at the leather on Dean's back, his body sprawled out on the backseat, trying not to arch or move or do anything to take him away from this, just lips and hands searching, making sure this was real.
"What is this? What is this?" Dean rasped it out against his chin. Cas just shook his head, jerked it just slightly, unable to speak. The air around them was electric, their own bodies, connected to the sounds of the radio and each other, all static and light and energy and electricity. The car, the steel bridge, the train tracks around them seemed to hum in time with their bodies. In Dean's arms, he felt as strong as steel, his body hard and aching and about to burst, despite the whiskey, despite his fears of just this very thing, haunting him every night even worse than the bomb. The heaviness of Dean's own hardness through his jeans, pressing at the crown of his own head, scarier and more exciting than anything he could dream. He wanted it so badly, he could have wept.
"Dean," he almost groaned it. "I don't know - I don't even know you. I know that."
"I know," Dean said softly.
Cas felt his hands undoing the buttons of his shirt, fisting his hands in the Hanes underneath, where they were both the same.
Dean spoke again, "I dunno either. But I want it. God," pressing his lips to the soft cotton, past his nipples, his belly button, the exposed skin just beneath, over his belly, nose nudging at the waistband of his belt, the elastic of his briefs, "want you so much."
Cas fumbled with his hands in the darkness of the backseat, undoing Dean's clothes until he could see pale white skin from Dean's chest to his knees, his sex hard as a rocket, the darkened head dangling just inches from his tongue. His mouth watered from just the smell of it, saliva tingling at the back of his throat. "God, God," he breathed, shut his eyes up and writhed, his feet almost kicking the door, when he felt cool air and then Dean's warm breath on his aching cock in a matter of seconds. Too much, too much. "No," he gasped, his own spit making his voice sound wrecked already, "you know me enough. Better than anyone. Want you, need you, now, now, now," and forced his eyes open because he wanted to see.
He watched Dean's face, upside down and studying him with a red-faced curiosity, green eyes blinking and seeming to shrug at him. Then he saw the head of his own cock, the width and length of him, disappear past Dean's lips, over his tongue and deeper, until he felt the tightness of the back of his throat, his warm cheeks surrounding him. His entire world seemed to hum, thrum with electricity, light flashing behind his eyes. Cas shook with it, let it vibrate through his body and come out as a groan through his clamped teeth.
He felt his own body arching and his chin tilting his lips right up against the wetness dripping off the crown of Dean's dick. He licked his tongue from the ridge at the top of the head all the way back down the underside to the base. Then back again. He felt Dean moan so loud and so wet, saliva dripped and cooled on his balls beneath Dean's lips. So he did it again.
He'd never tasted anything half as sweet. He'd so rarely done this, so often dreamed it, and never exactly like this, but somehow always quite like this. The radio started playing a static hum to match the sound in his brain, voices floating in and out through the air, the sounds of trains and speeding cars all smashing together. He opened his mouth and took Dean down as far as he could, pawed at the fleshiness of his ass and thighs to keep him close, the young man almost bouncing his hips away from him when he felt the strength of Cas' sucking, the need that was milking his dick so hard his muscles were shaking underneath the angel's palms.
Cas would grow ever harder in Dean's mouth, ever larger, his need stuffing Dean's smart mouth full to bursting, and Dean would fist his hands in the angel's raincoat, keep riding him for all it was worth, while Cas would swallow his electric white light pitch perfect coming down his throat again and again, licking the length of his dick back to hardness, holding him fast while he shook against the angel's face, the sweat-slicked vinyl seat of the car.
The radio played static like the inside of their heads, trading electric messages back and forth through the satellites of their bodies, the airwaves of their senses. Cas grabbed onto Dean's head and his ass when he came, pressing their bodies together, and it felt like a sonic boom.
They ended up with their heads between each others' knees, turned on their sides and entwined together on the seat, the soft melodies and firm beats of the Shirelles slowly bringing them back to consciousness. Tonight you're mine, completely. You give your love, so sweetly. He would love Dean tomorrow if he wanted to, and though want was an entirely new and growing concept for him, he was pretty sure that he did.
They fumbled in the backseat to find the remains of their clothes and get dressed in near dark. It was easy enough, easier than they'd thought, now that the tension was just a cool buzz around them, the fevered spark of earlier cooled now in the crisp after-rain air. The angel leaned his cheek against the passenger window while the human drove back into the city to the sound of the strings playing 'Stand By Me' and the hot-cold thumping of the bass. He thought about the ideas he always tried to sell on the radio - the passionate heat promised by lips, the comfort of a milkshake shared with a friend, the identity gained from a car - and understood their meaning for the very first time.
The End
Title: 1961
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: R
Warnings: outdated mores, cigarettes, drunken driving, man/angel 69-ing
Spoilers: none
Word Count: 4600
Given prompt: "I don't know you, but I want you, all the more for that."
Notes: Inspired by Mad Men.
Summary: Angels rule the airwaves, Dean cruises in his '58 Impala, and desire is born.
1961
Angels were responsible for all the sounds that came over the airwaves in the summer of 1961. They worked long hours in Manhattan in wood-paneled offices, watched their secretaries bustle around from desk to desk, took longer lunch hours and plied themselves with alcohol in order to create the new frontier of dreams - cars the color of sherbet, sherbet the color of lipstick, lipstick the color of sunset, sunset the color of a bright, bright future, free from fears of emptiness, sleeplessness, and the end of the world.
Castiel - or Cas for short, as they were fond of nicknames like Chaz, Zach, and Ducky - worked among them selling ad time for the radio, filling the spaces between the theme from 'A Summer Place' and the Shirelles, Elvis and Ray Charles. His ever-present suit, tie, coat, shoes, hair, and hat were various shades of dark brown and gray, dry cleaned and pressed, only showing wrinkles when he started staying later at the office and spending nights in hotels, by request of his wife who had decided he was acting crazy - talking of Heaven and God like they were more real than a new Frigidaire, his brown station wagon.
He was in no way "hip" - as the kids were fond of calling each other - but he believed in the company above all else, and thought that there should still be some reward in this world for loyalty, something more than the gift of a brown leather briefcase for a job well done. His red-haired secretary, Anna, greeted him with a smile every morning when he walked by her desk, and said goodnight to him when she was done for the day. He would sit in his office in the dark, the shadows of venetian blinds creeping closer to his face, and sometimes pick up a glass of Scotch or a cigarette from the box on his desk, but more often he would just sit there, or lie sleepless in bed, contemplating the many demons who would cross seas to destroy the angels, or who would send a bomb inside of a rocket ship and bring the Apocalypse.
Sometimes he just wanted to sit in a diner with a cup of coffee - a ceramic mug of glazed spotless white sitting on a linoleum countertop - with Miles Davis playing in the background. Instead, he got Mark Dinning singing his hit 'Teen Angel' from last year. But he also got the coffee, loaded with as much sugar as he could stand and stirred with a silvery spoon. In hindsight, it was appropriate, and he wondered once more about the uncanny nature of angels, because that was the moment he first met Dean.
"If you're gonna be in here, you just can't hang out by the jukebox. You gotta order something," Doris called from across the counter.
"Alright, mama," the young man mocked, "I'll take the one egg breakfast. Throw in some bacon for me, would ya?" He flicked the collar of his leather jacket up to hide his neck and pivoted away from the red-domed juke against the wall, like he was heading for the counter the whole time. His white undershirt looked clean enough, though his jeans were tight in all the wrong places, and there was a scruffiness about his tightly-managed look, his short haircut not quite even enough to be a flat top. "What're you lookin at?" He asked Cas, though the angel was too stunned to even realize he was being addressed.
Instead, he turned back to his coffee, watched the oily swirl on top.
"My name's Dean." He proffered a hand, then waited just a second before slapping it down on the counter, swiveling away from Cas' direction and back again while waiting the much-practiced appropriate length of time before explaining his name. "Aren't you gonna ask me?"
"What?" Cas played dumb, which he was very good at with his wide blue eyes and generic tan raincoat. "Are you any relation to the actor? Because he passed away, oh, six years ago by my last count."
"Yeah, laugh it up. The good ones never die." Dean scoffed at the menu on the wall above the back wall. "Besides, he ain't got nothing on me. My car's even better'n his was."
"Is that so?" Cas took a sip of his coffee. "Well I hope you're a better driver at least."
"What? You don't like James Dean? Figures. You probly think Cary Grant is cool."
Cas shrugged. "Well, I think Sal Mineo is under-appreciated."
Dean just stared, sizing him up with his eyes.
"What?" Cas spoke into his coffee.
"Yeah, like you would understand," was the youth's snappy retort.
The angel appreciated subtle intergenerational cultural warfare, though by the looks of it Dean wasn't that much younger than himself - maybe five years at the most - though they were far enough apart they might as well have been living on two different planets.
"Lemme guess - you work in an office until 5 every day, pal-ing around with the suits and drinking like a fish, and then you go home to your wife who cooks you a steak dinner with a side of mashed potatoes from the box. Then you put the kids to bed, have a few Newports, and watch Ed Sullivan so you can scoff at the kids these days." Dean pulled a pack of cigarettes from his own pocket - Lucky Strikes - and lit one up, impatient for his egg to arrive on its little plate.
"Almost," Cas sighed. He pulled out a Lucky Strike of his own and burned the taste away with his coffee. "I thought everyone watched Ed Sullivan. Though, I prefer 'The Twilight Zone' and I don't have a family yet, but, well, you have me pretty figured out."
Dean narrowed his eyes and took a drag. "You one of those guys?"
"Which kind would that be?"
"You know. One of the angels. Always sellin' something."
Cas shrugged and left fifty cents for the waitress. "Last I checked, you didn't even know my name. I wouldn't get too presumptuous. I think you've figured me out enough already."
He walked out of the diner just as Dean's breakfast arrived, the bells on the door ringing behind him.
*
Days passed, and the angel didn't think much of anything. He continued to go to work just as he had always done, and stay late just as he had always done, and he tried calling his wife when she had stopped calling him, but even though nothing had changed, he found that his wires were getting crossed.
His proverbial airwaves were blocked with static, and the latest jingles seemed to blend into mindless white space. Very simply, things just weren't working anymore as they once had. At night, he woke up in a sweat thinking of the bomb and the coming end of the world, or he would awake suddenly and see Dean's bad flat top and scowling face judging him from behind his own eyelids. Cas had always thought he liked to keep his life as an angel simple and empty, so as to better help others, to give other people what they wanted most. But who were these others he'd always imagined? And where were they, really?
No, in the end, Cas found that he wanted an awful lot of things.
He wanted to have the guts to read that scandalous Nabokov novel in public and not hide behind a newspaper. He wanted to go to Hawaii, send greetings to the newest U.S. state. He wanted to know what NASA was created for, really. He wanted to sit next to whoever wanted to sit next to him at the lunch counter and not give a damn, maybe talk about the future, maybe just drink coffee and listen to Miles Davis.
Sometimes he just wanted a Coke, a cheeseburger, and some fries.
Cas wasn't so surprised to find himself back at the same counter, staring at the same red-domed jukebox (playing 'Runaway' this time), with the same sense of loss for something he couldn't name.
He wouldn't have guessed it's name would be "Dean" and he wouldn't have guessed it would walk in one afternoon with the same flick of a collar and a comic book in his hand, staring at Cas like he'd seen him every day instead of once, over a week ago.
"What are you looking at, Mister?"
"Dean, right? Like James Dean."
"Yup. Go figure. You never gave me yours - it's not exactly fair, you know." Dean opened his book and stared at the pages as if he couldn't care less about the man sitting down the counter from him.
But Cas wasn't wrong about people. He was rarely wrong about people. "Everyone calls me Cas."
"Well. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Hey, can a guy get a chocolate milkshake?"
Cas spoke when he figured Dean was never going to speak to him again. "What's the 'JLA'?"
"What, this?" The youth had a practiced air of nonchalance these days that the angels would envy, if they could. "Stands for the Justice League of America. Sounds kinda square, but I dunno, it's a gas. Well, look who I'm telling."
"What?" Cas blinked.
"Oh please. You're like, the mayor of squaresville."
"I'm very hip."
"Man - anyone who has to say they're hip, is so not hip. Trust me. Besides," his eyes never left his book, "I know you're an angel, and you guys are as corrupt as they come."
"What are you talking about?"
"I didn't even get out of the eighth grade and even I know about payola. I mean, I can read."
"I didn't have anything to do with payola. I don't handle the DJs or the music. Not enough to pay anyone off, anyway. I just sell ad space."
"Yeah, advertising - much less square, totally not corrupt, so not candyass."
"So what do you do if you don't go to school?"
"Hey, I would've finished school years ago if I'd wanted to."
"You're a professional juvenile delinquent?"
"I'm not juvenile - I'll be 21 next year. I work on cars in a garage. I'm real good at it too."
"I'll bet. So what are you doing up here?"
"Sometimes I drive the cars downtown. Take the bus back. Hey, you should see my girl - she's choice. A real cherry. Guess what she is?"
"I have no idea. Some kind of a hot rod?"
"Nah, man. A '58 Impala. Convertible. Souped up all nice. You should see her."
"Isn't that a bit of a 'Daddy's Car'?"
Dean just stared, mortally offended. "I bet you've never even been cruising. You have no idea."
"No, I guess I don't. I drive a station wagon."
Now Dean really stared. "Are you serious?"
"It's a Plymouth."
"Never mind. Jeez." Dean went back to his book, offended beyond speaking.
Cas frowned at the remains of his cheeseburger while Dean sucked his milkshake through a straw.
"Hey, you gonna finish that?"
"What? No. Be my guest."
"Hate to let a good cheeseburger go to waste, you know?" Dean took it off his plate and finished it in two bites.
Cas left the diner and spent the last ten minutes of his lunch hour looking at pigeons on the sidewalk, going every which way. There were ads all over the place, if you cared to look. He knew his business well. Neon signs and billboards shouted from the street corners and highways to buy Coca-Cola, magazine ads in color selling Maybelline and Jockeys, newspaper ads for Pan Am and Kellogg's, radio jingles for Alka Seltzer popping and fizzing, dogs barking for Purina, elves selling Rice Krispies, Fred Flintstone pushing Winston cigarettes. Angels were supposed to be immune to want, but since they could sense every human emotion, they were so very good at guessing. Still, Cas wondered if that was true. People like Dean knew. They had desires.
Sometimes he just wanted a vanilla milkshake. It was a very simple thought. A cool shake on a hot summer day.
That's what he was thinking about when Dean ran up behind him and slapped him on the back. "Hey!"
"Um, hey, yourself," Cas coughed.
"Come cruising with me on Friday."
"I can't. My wife is expecting me at home after work," he lied.
"Is that right?"
"Yes." Cas waited for Dean to stop staring right through him.
"So, tell her you're going out drinking at some club," he shrugged. "We'll get a bottle and drive around instead. You gotta see my baby. She's totally choice. Trust me. I'll pick you up right here at, what? 6:30? No one will even know the difference."
That's true. Cas wasn't sure how Dean knew that, but it was true. "Sure. I'll be here."
"Yeah. Easy!" Dean waved goodbye.
*
On Friday, Cas just wanted a drink.
He washed down his sandwich at noon with some scotch, and his nerves still wouldn't quit. Maybe he'd talk to Dean when he arrived - see if they just couldn't go see 'West Side Story' instead, or maybe even a French film like 'Breathless' or 'Shoot the Piano Player'. They would then be able to wander around free and do as they pleased in the most careless way possible, some kind of bridge forged between their two worlds made of Lucky Strikes, soul music, and psychic airwaves uncontrolled by any angels.
In any case, despite a valiant effort, he found himself standing on the sidewalk at 6:28 looking for an Impala. Its headlights were huge and bright, its fins not too loud but just loud enough to be obnoxious, its body clothed in shiny black - it had to be Dean's.
Dean pulled over somewhere approaching the curb, put the car in park, slid across the black vinyl bench seat far enough to roll down the window. At least he knew better than to attract attention by honking the horn. "Get in."
Cas found himself opening the door and sliding inside. Why any of this was happening, he didn't know, but he let out a breath he didn't even know he'd been holding. The loud world outside of the windshield seemed that much further away, and he found he didn't want to be anywhere else. He rolled up the window and they each lit up a cigarette, exchanging nothing more than a glance.
"Where to?" Cas looked over at Dean.
"I dunno. Just drive?"
"Yes," Cas nodded. "Perfect."
They drove, and the music played. Dean liked the radio loud, but Cas didn't mind it for once. It was his job, and his job was for people like Dean. It was sounds to make the world seem like the place you wanted it to be. At least, that's what he'd always hoped. The right sounds for moments such as these, if Cas had ever had moments like these in his life. Moments he would try to sell in a car ad, though really something he couldn't put a name to.
"Is this what you like to do when you have free time?"
"Are you taking a survey?"
Cas smiled. "No. No more work for today."
"Then just relax for once. Anyone ever tell you you're kind of uptight?"
"Do you have that bottle?"
"Under your seat. Help yourself."
Cas found the neck of the open bottle of Jack Daniels and twisted off the cap. Passed it back and forth. He watched the lights turn on as they drove past skyscrapers and out towards the cheaper bars and hotels, the crowd changing subtly, but still everyone looking basically the same. He might as well have been looking at one of his advertisements or TV shows, with just the muted colors added in, the sharpness of a neon sign. On the radio, Elvis asked them over and over again in a plaintive tone if they were lonesome tonight, and Ray Charles had Georgia on his mind - where all roads led back to the one you loved.
Cas watched Dean take another swig. "Aren't you worried about drinking too much?"
"What? You mean the five-oh-two? The fuzz? Nah, man, I always talk my way out of tickets. Can't pay 'em anyway."
"Is that right?"
"Yeah, don't worry about it. I know people. But I guess people like you don't have to worry about that either."
"People like me?"
"Look at you - your suit and tie. Mister, you're all privileged. Careless."
"I'm just a regular guy."
"You're an angel. Besides, only the really lucky people don't think of themselves as lucky."
"Well. I don't feel lucky. What does that prove?"
Dean looked at him for a long time. His gaze said a million things to Cas that he'd never seen before - unsellable and rare, and he could barely read it - but he liked to be looked at like that - really looked at - just the same. "Yeah," was all Dean said after awhile.
*
The caramel smoothness of the whiskey was getting to him, or the sugary glare of the neon lights in the darkness in the rain as it started to fall. Or maybe it was just Dean, his preference for milkshakes and superheroes, his sharp eyes and taste in cars and soul music. Cas didn't want to speak and ruin the spell, and for the first time in his life, he met someone who didn't seem to want to break it either. He missed the slang and attitude of Dean's voice, but not enough to break it. If he had to speak in half-formed thoughts, Dean would still answer.
"Heading out of the city?" He turned to look at the younger man's profile, the lights playing on his face.
"Out towards the highway."
"Bridges under the turnpike."
"Yeah, railroad tracks by the Hudson."
"As far as that." Cas knew where the river met the edge of the city. He knew of the place, but he rarely went there.
"Yeah, sure. Quiet." Dean shrugged. "Might as well."
Cas shrugged back. "Yes. Might as well."
The night was electric. The rain had sped up as they reached the turnpike, and now it fell in a light but steady way on the windshield and roof of the car where they were parked. There was too much light on the front seat, but the view was incredible - blinking red lights warning of oncoming trains that only passed by once in awhile, the city skyline lit up across the black water of the river, all around them the green painted steel girders of the bridge where cars flew high above them. And they were alone.
*
'Runaway' came on the radio, the same song that had played in the diner what must have been a lifetime ago, and they tried to out-sing each other like they'd been doing for at least half a dozen songs now. The high notes were high, and even for an angel, Cas could get nowhere close. Dean was closer, but he'd been attacked by hiccups. They laughed until they choked.
The bottle empty and the car full of smoke, Cas opened the door to get some air and fell halfway out of it, his head swimming.
"Where you going?" Dean spoke with his forehead on the steering wheel.
"Gotta lie down." Cas half-crawled to the backseat.
Dean laughed. "You sound like me when you're blitzed." He climbed over the front bench seats and half-pulled Cas inside the back by the shoulders of his raincoat. "Fucking A' - you are heavy."
"I know," Cas replied with his eyes closed. He let Dean peel his coat off his arms and watched him lay it on the backseat.
"C'mon, angel. Don't let your head spin but don't pass out on me neither."
Cas fell over on his side but his head landed on Dean's thighs instead of the seat. He grabbed onto the back of his knee, "No, stay," and held him there, hoping he was too drunk for Dean to object. He didn't even know what he was doing. He was so tired of thinking, and Dean was warm under his jeans, his hands still curled up in the hair at his temples. "Stay. You know, like the song."
"Yeah, like the song." Dean, of course, began to sing between his hiccups, "Won't you press your sweet lips, to mi-iiiiiiii-ine... Won't you say you love me, all of the ti-iiii-ime - Stay, just a little bit longer." Dean bent over him, cracking up.
Just then, the radio began to play it, the sounds of Maurice Williams' voice and the harmonies of the Zodiacs began to bleed through the air.
Cas could feel Dean's breath hot on his damp collar, the smells of him overwhelming and new surrounding him. He twisted his head closer, following the path of Dean's sweet whiskey-soaked breath. "Please," he whispered, and caught the back of Dean's neck, his shoulder blades, before he could twist away. "Please," and a kiss, their noses rubbing against each other's chins, tasting and dragging their lips together, Dean's hands in his hair and over his heart, his own scratching at the leather on Dean's back, his body sprawled out on the backseat, trying not to arch or move or do anything to take him away from this, just lips and hands searching, making sure this was real.
"What is this? What is this?" Dean rasped it out against his chin. Cas just shook his head, jerked it just slightly, unable to speak. The air around them was electric, their own bodies, connected to the sounds of the radio and each other, all static and light and energy and electricity. The car, the steel bridge, the train tracks around them seemed to hum in time with their bodies. In Dean's arms, he felt as strong as steel, his body hard and aching and about to burst, despite the whiskey, despite his fears of just this very thing, haunting him every night even worse than the bomb. The heaviness of Dean's own hardness through his jeans, pressing at the crown of his own head, scarier and more exciting than anything he could dream. He wanted it so badly, he could have wept.
"Dean," he almost groaned it. "I don't know - I don't even know you. I know that."
"I know," Dean said softly.
Cas felt his hands undoing the buttons of his shirt, fisting his hands in the Hanes underneath, where they were both the same.
Dean spoke again, "I dunno either. But I want it. God," pressing his lips to the soft cotton, past his nipples, his belly button, the exposed skin just beneath, over his belly, nose nudging at the waistband of his belt, the elastic of his briefs, "want you so much."
Cas fumbled with his hands in the darkness of the backseat, undoing Dean's clothes until he could see pale white skin from Dean's chest to his knees, his sex hard as a rocket, the darkened head dangling just inches from his tongue. His mouth watered from just the smell of it, saliva tingling at the back of his throat. "God, God," he breathed, shut his eyes up and writhed, his feet almost kicking the door, when he felt cool air and then Dean's warm breath on his aching cock in a matter of seconds. Too much, too much. "No," he gasped, his own spit making his voice sound wrecked already, "you know me enough. Better than anyone. Want you, need you, now, now, now," and forced his eyes open because he wanted to see.
He watched Dean's face, upside down and studying him with a red-faced curiosity, green eyes blinking and seeming to shrug at him. Then he saw the head of his own cock, the width and length of him, disappear past Dean's lips, over his tongue and deeper, until he felt the tightness of the back of his throat, his warm cheeks surrounding him. His entire world seemed to hum, thrum with electricity, light flashing behind his eyes. Cas shook with it, let it vibrate through his body and come out as a groan through his clamped teeth.
He felt his own body arching and his chin tilting his lips right up against the wetness dripping off the crown of Dean's dick. He licked his tongue from the ridge at the top of the head all the way back down the underside to the base. Then back again. He felt Dean moan so loud and so wet, saliva dripped and cooled on his balls beneath Dean's lips. So he did it again.
He'd never tasted anything half as sweet. He'd so rarely done this, so often dreamed it, and never exactly like this, but somehow always quite like this. The radio started playing a static hum to match the sound in his brain, voices floating in and out through the air, the sounds of trains and speeding cars all smashing together. He opened his mouth and took Dean down as far as he could, pawed at the fleshiness of his ass and thighs to keep him close, the young man almost bouncing his hips away from him when he felt the strength of Cas' sucking, the need that was milking his dick so hard his muscles were shaking underneath the angel's palms.
Cas would grow ever harder in Dean's mouth, ever larger, his need stuffing Dean's smart mouth full to bursting, and Dean would fist his hands in the angel's raincoat, keep riding him for all it was worth, while Cas would swallow his electric white light pitch perfect coming down his throat again and again, licking the length of his dick back to hardness, holding him fast while he shook against the angel's face, the sweat-slicked vinyl seat of the car.
The radio played static like the inside of their heads, trading electric messages back and forth through the satellites of their bodies, the airwaves of their senses. Cas grabbed onto Dean's head and his ass when he came, pressing their bodies together, and it felt like a sonic boom.
They ended up with their heads between each others' knees, turned on their sides and entwined together on the seat, the soft melodies and firm beats of the Shirelles slowly bringing them back to consciousness. Tonight you're mine, completely. You give your love, so sweetly. He would love Dean tomorrow if he wanted to, and though want was an entirely new and growing concept for him, he was pretty sure that he did.
They fumbled in the backseat to find the remains of their clothes and get dressed in near dark. It was easy enough, easier than they'd thought, now that the tension was just a cool buzz around them, the fevered spark of earlier cooled now in the crisp after-rain air. The angel leaned his cheek against the passenger window while the human drove back into the city to the sound of the strings playing 'Stand By Me' and the hot-cold thumping of the bass. He thought about the ideas he always tried to sell on the radio - the passionate heat promised by lips, the comfort of a milkshake shared with a friend, the identity gained from a car - and understood their meaning for the very first time.
The End