Blue Eyed Stranger [COMPLETE]

Chapter 11: Gabe the Wannabe Therapist

"You gotta date." Gabriel teases, slithering into Dean's office.

Dean cocks his head, not even surprised. "How many times have I told you not to dial into my line?"

Gabriel shrugs. "Have to make sure you don't order food without me."

Dean doesn't respond, just rolls his eyes. Gabriel was one to pry in other's business — if you couldn't already tell. It annoyed Dean like hell, but he had to tolerate it, he was his best friend. More like only friend.

"So, you gonna take him back here and show me him?" Gabriel asks for the fun of Dean's reaction.

Dean pouts. "Yeah I figured I'd put on a little showcase to get your approval." He answers sarcastically.

"Not my approval you need bro," Gabe says. "It's your own."

Dean frowns at him, always hating how Gabriel has to make everything into something. He couldn't have a normal conversation without trying to turn it into a therapy session.

"It's not my approval you need bro," Dean mimics to himself after the door closes. "It's your own."

-

Dean sits at a table in the café him and Castiel agreed on. It's your standard burger and chips café, which was always his favourite. It makes him think of when he was a kid, eating at cheap restaurants day in day out with his dad and Sammy.

He shakes his head of the stares down at the table, distracting himself from his family dramatics. A folder lays on the top containing the general paperwork essential for opening a case that he plans on sharing with Cas.

His mind however wasn't set on the case and rather Cas instead. It flickers between thoughts of him and then to what Gabriel goddamn said about approval.

He tries to convince himself it's not approval he needs, he doesn't need whatever he's feeling to be approved. He isn't even feeling anything... much. Heck, he doesn't care. Does he?

...Perhaps he did have problems with permission. His own relationship with his father was somewhat different; doing what he was told 24/7, being ordered around, not being able to do anything without authorisation. And then thereafter, nothing he done being good enough without approbation.

OK — so maybe he had some routed issues about that kinda stuff but it's totally irrelevant. Totally.

His mind goes blank and he continues to stare. Thinking deeply for the first time in a while.

Somebody who must be a waiter walks past and in his daze it looks like Ben, an assistant at his work. It isn't, but his eyes still follow him as he walks back behind the counter.

He tries to distract himself instead by staring out of the window. He's not — never mind...

He clicks out of his trance 10 minutes later when he's interrupted by Cas' arrival.

"I got you a drink." Comes out of his mouth first. "I mean, you don't appear to me as a milkshake type-a guy... but I thought I'd try it."

Dean looks to Cas, almost like "Really?". He can't remember the last time he looked at a milkshake, let alone drank one, maybe one of those times many years ago with his dad and Sammy.

Yet here Cas was, a chocolate and strawberry milkshake in tow with straws poking from his fist. Presenting the two straws at Dean, Cas gives him the option to choose between a pink or a blue one.

An unexpected defensive feeling waves over Dean, but he squashes it down and puts it to the conversation he had in his head prior to Cas' arrival. Still feeling like he has to make a point (and defending his masculinity of course), he squints his eyes as he takes the blue straw from Cas, who shrugs and pops the pink one into his own shake.