goodfemalecharacters:

A Destiel AU

Chapter Three: The Residence

Michael invited him to dinner.

Castiel’s years in med school had taught him to never pass down a free meal—Michael would certainly insist on paying as some sort of weird power move—so he accepted, as much as he didn’t want to sit across the table from a man he hadn’t spoken to properly in more than a decade and pretend that they were brothers.

He spent the few hours before dinner pacing around his hotel room, trying to get his thoughts in order.  He didn’t necessarily want the responsibility of raising a kid.  God knew didn’t manage to feed himself half the time, much less someone else.  Much less his sister’s son.  But at the same time, he knew Michael had to have an angle.

He never did anything without one.

He hadn’t brought any suit jackets.  He should have known that Michael would show up and turn literally everything into a formal situation, but he hadn’t prepared for it.  Instead, he toyed with the few ties he’d brought and eventually decided to go without.  He’d get the added bonus of the horror on Michael’s face at what he was wearing.

“You’re looking…sharp,” Michael said when Castiel walked into the restaurant.

Castiel normally ate at places with the kind of flickery fluorescent light that cast an odd blue-green glow over your food.  The warm golden candlelight seemed entirely too mellow for him.  Still.  He wasn’t about to force Michael to eat at a restaurant below his standards.

Castiel didn’t bother with the small talk as he slid into his seat.  Velvet cushions.  Really?

“What is your endgame here?”

Michael spread his napkin out over his lap and smoothed it flat, no wrinkles.

“Castiel, please.  What exactly do you think I am?”

(start from the beginning on ao3)