Chapter Text
The Bunker, like everything else in Dean’s hodge-podge life, happened because Cas wanted it.
It’s not that he’s whipped, per se (cue Sam’s obnoxious moose-snort, the traitorous dick) (and for that matter, cue Cas’ lecture about the patriarchy and all the sexist overtones of the term “whipped"), but it’s that Cas asks for so little. Cas was happy being the assistant manager of the little diner he worked at when they met. He was happy with his messy studio apartment, covered in books and (mostly) clean clothes. He was just fine.
And when they started being them (because God bless it, they never fucking dated, they’re grown men), he was happy with that, too. Fuck-all knows why he was happy being with a high school dropout bartender with anger issues, an unhealthy attachment to his car, who regularly had arguments with his dog, but he was. He was happy with frozen pizza and boxed mac and cheese while they watched soap operas in their underwear at Dean’s place. He was happy with walking The Colonel on brisk fall mornings with Dean, shyly reaching out to lace their fingers together and then beaming when Dean squeezed his hand and held on.
They moved in together, it was inevitable. Dean knew from the first that Cas was gonna be It, so when Cas started talking about his lease coming up due, Dean thought nothing of offering the other side of his queen bed. If he had had any reservations, the way Cas’ face lit up and his blue eyes softened would have banished them immediately.
Not to mention the mind-blowing, spine-melting blowjob Cas used to show his enthusiastic gratitude.
And so Dean and Cas became Dean-n-Cas, a whole unit, rarely apart. Dean became a fixture at the diner, Cas became a fixture at the end of the bar. They bought clothes and dishes together, Cas researched better quality dog food for The Colonel, and Dean discovered that Cas can’t cook worth a damn.
Dean also discovered the kind of shit Cas’ family put him through. He discovered the crippling anxiety Cas sometimes struggled with, and the bright, vivid fear of abandonment. He learned that the reason Cas doesn’t talk about his parents is that Cas doesn’t talk to his parents, and that his brothers are on his Christmas card list and not much else (also that Cas has a Christmas card list). The struggles he had with finding the drive to get out of bed sometimes, much less find a job and keep his apartment.
And then Cas discovered the fault lines in the landscape of Dean’s own heart and mind. The self-doubt and loathing he carries with him in everything. The almost paralytic need to take care of Sammy, which has led to more than one bad decision on his part. His strained (to put it politely) relationship with his own shitdick, abusive father. Not to mention the mother who couldn’t settle in one place long enough to have a forwarding address, much less take care of two sons. The anger in him, the fighting he used to do almost every night.
So, a few years, a few dogs, a lot of healing, and about a thousand blowjobs down the road, when Cas asked, in his soft, gentle way, if he could show Dean something, of fucking course Dean said yes. Because he’d do goddamn anything for Cas. He’d walk through fire, shoot himself in the leg, drive Baby right off a cliff if Cas wanted him to. Cas is such a loving, soft soul beneath his analytical, too formal exterior, and the fact that he loves Dean’s battered, broken ass means that Cas gets what Cas wants. No question.
They pulled up to a dingy building, settled in a not-so-good part of town between an all-night laundromat and a nondescript business on the other side that has no sign. A few of the windows had been busted out and boarded up, as well as the door. There was a sign over the door at one point, but the only indication of it left was a patch of lighter-colored building where it had been.
“It’s not much…” Cas said, hesitant in that way he gets when he doesn’t know how Dean will respond to something.
Dean just nods, reserving judgment.
“I just thought… Well, you’re a bartender, and I know how to run a restaurant, and it’s already pretty much set up as a bar. I was thinking how nice it would be to have something of our own.” He takes a deep breath. “And you could bring The Colonel in and he could hang out in the office, and eventually, we’d hire a few people, and there’s room for a dance floor in there, and I know you have ideas at the bar that they’re not letting you utilize, and I-”
Dean, at that point, had been studying Cas for a long, long time. He knew, then, a lot of the ins and outs of how Castiel thought. He knows the more now, of course, has travelled them many a time at Cas’ side, but then, he knew enough to realize a few things.
He realized that Cas was nervous. Then he realized that Cas was nervous because he wanted this so much.
There are few moments in his life that Dean can look back on and definitively say, “I did the right thing.” Cutting ties with his father as soon as Sam graduated high school. Following Sam to Stanford and helping his little brother out. Taking the German Shepherd puppy from the shady dude in the Wal-Mart parking lot and refusing to pay him for the little dude.
Saying yes to Cas’ wish to own a nightclub with him.
“Yeah,” he said, cutting Cas off mid-sentence. “Let’s do it.”
Cas’ eyes were wide and delighted. He was frozen. “Yes?” he asked, excited and breathy.
Dean grinned. “Yeah.”
Because Cas wanted it.