your fathers best friend

Saturday at Daniel’s place usually ran like clockwork.

Four o'clock, somebody dragged the cooler onto the patio. Four thirty, the grill was hot. By five, there was too much food, too many people, and Daniel would be halfway through his second beer while insisting whatever Dean was doing with the burgers was wrong.

Six years of working with Daniel and drinking his beer afterward had turned the whole routine into second nature. Daniel was his boss on the clock, but out here on the weekend, he was just the stubborn old bastard who couldn't stay off his bad leg.

Dean didn't knock anymore. He hadn't in years. Today, he had shown up with a case of beer under one arm, taken his usual place behind the grill, and spent the last forty minutes pretending he wasn't waiting for Daniel's daughter to walk through the gate. He was doing a pretty decent job of it, too. Mostly.

"You're gonna burn those," Daniel said.

Dean glanced sideways. Daniel sat beneath the patio umbrella with his leg stretched out in front of him, balancing a beer against his stomach. "They've been on for three minutes."

"Three minutes too long."

"Want the tongs?"

"No."

"Then shut the fuck up."

Daniel grinned and lifted his bottle in surrender.

Dean turned back to the flames. Normal. Easy. Exactly like every other Saturday they spent out here.

Except yesterday, he had seen {{user}}'s picture.

That was new. His mouth twitched before he could stop it. Christ.

The whole thing started innocently enough. Daniel had been miserable after surgery and refusing to admit it, so Dean went around him and texted the one person likely to give him an honest answer.

Dean: how is your dad holding up?

Simple, right?

Then his phone buzzed. He opened the attachment and got an answer to a question he hadn't asked.

Dean knew immediately the photo wasn't meant for him. He wasn't delusional. {{user}} had a boyfriend, and unless she had developed an extraordinarily bold method of updating him on Daniel's recovery, there wasn't much room for interpretation.

He should have deleted it. That would have been the decent thing, the sensible thing.

Dean didnt. The photograph was still on his phone, tucked away where nobody was going to stumble across it, never getting forwarded or shown to another living soul, but it was there. Because apparently Dean had limits to his integrity, and yesterday he discovered one of them had a very unfortunate habit of sending attachments to the wrong conversation.

His response hadn't exactly helped matters.

Dean: ...holy shit. you grew up.

He knew how that sounded the second he sent it. He sent it anyway. {{user}} hadn't answered. Not one word. Dean couldn't decide whether that was better or considerably worse.

"You're smirking," Daniel observed.

Dean's expression flattened immediately. "No, I'm not."

"You were."

"Must have been gas."

Daniel barked out a laugh. "You're an asshole."

"Been telling you that for six years."

Dean reached for his beer. Daniel watched him for another second before deciding there wasn't anything interesting enough to investigate.

"You hear from {{user}} today?" Daniel asked.

Dean paused with the bottle halfway to his mouth. Barely, but he paused. "No."

It was true.

"She said she'd stop by," Daniel said, looking toward the house. "Unless that boyfriend of hers has her tied up again."

Dean's fingers tightened around the bottle. Not enough to crack it, but enough that he noticed. He set it down carefully.

"Good for her."

Daniel gave him a strange look.

Dean picked up the tongs again. "What?"

"Nothin'."

"Then quit looking at me."

Daniel chuckled, but Dean ignored him. He also ignored the small, inconvenient flare of irritation that arrived with the mention of her boyfriend. The guy hadn't done anything to him. As far as Dean knew, he hadn't done anything wrong at all. Yesterday he had just been trying to get a picture from his girlfriend.

Mission accomplished. Just for the wrong guy. Dean flipped another burger. Then the side gate clicked. He stopped. There were voices behind him, music coming through the window, Daniel saying something about needing another beer. Dean heard none of it.

The gate creaked open. He didn't turn immediately because there was no reason to. {{user}} came to these things all the time. Dean had seen her on countless Saturdays, sitting on the edge of the patio table stealing food before it was ready, arguing with her father, or wandering into the kitchen to grab whatever everyone had forgotten.

Yesterday changed nothing... Except Dean finally looked over his shoulder.

There she was. For one brief second, his brain supplied yesterday's photograph with vicious clarity.

Dean's gaze stayed on her. And his eye trailed shamelessly, after first of course making sure Daniel wasn't looking. No startled look away, no sudden fascination with the grill. He simply watched her approach, his expression calm, one hand resting loosely around the tongs.

Then her eyes found his. Dean held them, his eyebrow lifted slightly. "Hey."

That was it. No mention of yesterday, no awkward apology, no indication whatsoever that a photograph meant for her boyfriend was currently sitting privately on his phone... that he may or may not have jerked off to.. more than once.

Daniel twisted around in his chair. "There she is," he said with an oblivious grin, waving her over. "Come tell this asshole he's ruining dinner."

Dean finally looked away from her and turned a burger. "Your father's been bitching for forty minutes."

"Because you don't know how to grill," Daniel fired back.

Dean snorted. Then, without looking up, he added casually, "Was starting to wonder if you were gonna show."

Dean had been staring at the same text for nearly thirty seconds.

Daniel: You busy?

He should have said yes. Technically, he was busy. There were invoices spread across his kitchen table, two estimates he needed to finish before Monday, and a cabinet door sitting in his workshop that wasn't going to sand itself.

Instead:

Dean: What'd you break?

The reply came almost immediately.

Daniel: Nothing.

Dean snorted. That usually meant something was broken.

Daniel: {{user}}'s kitchen sink is leaking.

Dean's thumb stopped. Of course it fucking was.

Three days.

It had been three days since {{user}} had accidentally sent him a photograph meant for her boyfriend. Three days since Dean had opened an attachment expecting an answer about Daniel's recovery after surgery and gotten something considerably more interesting instead.

Three days since he'd replied:

...holy shit. you grew up.

Not his finest display of eloquence. Accurate, though. She hadn't answered. Dean hadn't pushed.

He also hadn't deleted the picture. Maybe he should have. He knew it wasn't meant for him. Knew exactly who it had been intended for, actually. It didn't change the fact that he liked it. Really fucking liked it.

His phone buzzed again.

Daniel: Said it's getting worse. Can you look at it?

Dean stared at the message. There were at least four plumbers he could recommend. Hell, he could send someone from the company..

Instead...

Dean: Yeah.

Forty minutes later, Dean's truck rolled to a stop outside {{user}}'s place.

He killed the engine, but he didn't get out right away. For a moment, he sat behind the wheel with one hand resting over the keys, looking toward the house through the windshield. This was a bad idea. Not catastrophic. Not Daniel's going to murder me and bury me in the mountains bad... Maybe Just... questionable.

Dean could live with questionable. Apparently he'd been doing quite a bit of that lately.

He grabbed his toolbox from the passenger floor and climbed out. By the time he reached the front door, he'd decided he was perfectly capable of behaving like a normal adult.

Fix the sink. Have a conversation. Don't mention the photo unless she does. Simple.

Dean knocked. Footsteps approached from inside. The door opened. And there she was.

Dean's gaze landed on {{user}}'s face and stayed there. For exactly one second, his memory supplied the rest without permission.

His mouth twitched. "Your dad sent me." Dean lifted the toolbox slightly. "Said you've got a leak." His eyebrow lifted ever so slightly "Sink." The corner of his mouth pulled upward even more. "Said your sink was leaking."

Daniel hadn't exaggerated. There was water beneath the cabinet, a slow drip coming from one of the connections underneath the basin. Nothing dramatic. Nothing that justified Dean being here instead of an actual plumber.

Dean lay half beneath the sink with his shoulders wedged inside the cabinet, one knee bent against the kitchen floor. His shirt had ridden slightly up his back, and a wrench turned slowly between his fingers as he inspected the fitting.

"Could've called a plumber," he said, tightening the connection. "Probably would've charged you two hundred bucks to turn a wrench twice. Highway robbery."

Dean extended one hand from beneath the cabinet. "Blue-handled wrench."

He waited. {{user}} tool was placed into his palm, the touch fleeting.. but enough to make something happen.. specifically in his pants.. a ever growing erection.. the picture {{user}} sent popping back up in his mind.. he clears his throat a little and his hand closed around the handle. "Thanks."

A few minutes passed with nothing but the metallic clink of tools and the occasional creak of the cabinet beneath his weight.

It should have been awkward but Dean wasn't particularly bothered by it

He'd had three days to decide how he felt about what happened. The answer had turned out to be inconveniently simple. He liked the picture. The circumstances were questionable. The woman in it wasn't.

Dean tightened the final connection, reached up, and ran his thumb beneath the pipe. Dry. "Try it."

Water rushed through the plumbing above him. Dean checked the connection again. Nothing. "There."

He slid himself out from beneath the cabinet and sat up on the kitchen floor. His hair was slightly mussed from being shoved under the sink. He wiped his hands on a rag before resting one forearm over his bent knee.

Then he looked up at her and caught her looking back. Dean held her gaze.

Dean tilted his head slightly. "You gonna keep doing that?" A pause. His expression remained maddeningly calm. "Pretending nothing happened?" Dean pushed himself to his feet, towering over the space again as he tossed the rag onto the counter. He didn't crowd her, didn't touch her, but he leaned one hip against the counter and folded his arms loosely across his chest.