#follower fics

This is how Dean Winchester ends up standing in the University’s metalwork studio, with 24 hours left until his final exam, staring at a multi-eyed, multi-winged, metal…thing.

It’s due next week, Cas had said. I know it’s last minute. The only studio space I could get was Sunday.

And Dean had said yes, like a fool, because he can never say no to boys in eyeliner with pretty eyes.

Now, staring up at the sculpture, Dean lets out a low whistle. Cas, next to him, groans and drags one hand down his face. “I know. It’s—this is why I need help, alright? I think I can still salvage it if I just—”

Dean, who has taken a few steps forward to admire the intricacies, looks up sharply. “What?”

Cas frowns back. “What?”

Dean shakes his head. “No, I mean—I’m not an art guy, but this metalwork is great, man.” He traces one of the welded seams. “You, uh. Obviously have good hands,” he continues, and then winces. Great compliment.

There’s a soft huff and Dean looks up to see Cas watching him, bemused. “My good hands,” he emphasizes it, and part of Dean wishes he could melt like solder. “Make me a good artist. They do not make me good at making things move.”

Dean blinks at him. “Excuse me?” Move?

Cas frowns again, but it’s more out of worry than confusion. His arms are crossed, and Dean tries very hard not to focus on the black ink swirling down his forearm. “I sent you the plans yesterday.” Now he’s chewing on his lip ring, too, and Dean rips his attention back to the steel structure to stop himself from focusing on that, either. He tries to think about these plans. He remembers getting the text, opening them……and immediately disregarding them in lieu of getting as much studying done as possible. Internally, he groans.

Externally, he nods, pretends to know exactly what these “plans” are. “Sure, yeah,” he covers, and hopes it’s convincing.

The metal…thing, because Dean still isn’t sure exactly what it is, has a cluster of wings in the middle—6, to be exact, and they’re poking up around 3 large rings. He reaches out for one of the rings, right between two of its welded eyes, and gives it an experimental push. It creaks, and sways, and Dean winces when he hears Cas suck in a breath behind him. “Sorry”, he mutters, but when he turns back around Cas is frowning at the art piece and not at him.

Dean is expecting to hear either it’s alright or, more likely, never touch my art again, but Cas just hums and steps up until he’s standing next to Dean. “What do you think this is?”

It’s the closest they’ve been since he arrived, and Dean takes a moment to observe the other student from this distance. He’s wearing black boots, black jeans. A t-shirt with a band on it that Dean has never heard of. His nails are black but the rings he’s wearing are silver, and so is the cross hanging around his neck. His hair looks like he either spent an hour on it or no time at all, and his eyes—like at that party, the one neither of them has mentioned yet—are rimmed in black. Dean, in his sneakers and second-hand jeans and faded Batman shirt, has never felt less cool.

“It’s an angel,” Cas continues, and Dean isn’t sure if he’s given up on waiting for a response or if he’d never expected one in the first place. “A biblical one. You know, the ‘be not afraid,’ kind.” He lowers his voice for the angel impression, which Dean didn’t think was possible. He doesn’t know what to do with the realization that it is.

“Don’t think this is what my mom meant when she used to say angels were watching over me,” Dean tries for a joke, and it’s half-hearted, but to his relief Cas chuckles anyway.

“Yes, well. The church preaches them as significantly more…cuddly.” Cas frowns. “It makes praying to them easier to sell.”

The cross around his neck is starting to get confusing.

“And these—these are gonna move,” Dean hazards a guess, reaching out to touch one of the rings again. “All of them?”

“They’re electrons,” Cas nods, which Dean supposes is an answer. “They should all circle the wings together, like the classic atom diagram. But I can’t—” Cas reaches out for the ring this time, hand landing directly above Dean’s. He pushes it, and it sways. Obviously frustrated, he pulls back. “I need it to be motorized, to look right. And I have the motor but don’t know how…to do it.”

And, well. That, Dean understands. He smiles and, in a burst of confidence, claps Cas on the shoulder. Cas looks up at him, startled, but his expression morphs into a soft smile at the look on Dean’s face.

“Let’s get her moving, then.”

He tries not to think about the time slipping away as Cas hauls out the motor, or when he hands Dean tools. He does not stare too long at Cas’ biceps when he’s screwing something in, or when they have to do last-minute welding. They get it hooked up, and it whirs to life, and Dean does not think about how late it is when Cas gives him a hug in his excitement, or when he promises to follow up on his beer and pizza promise at his apartment.

It’s there, back in Cas’ apartment, sitting on his living room floor, both a beer or two in, when Cas finally mentions it.

“You’re the one who gave me that idea, you know.”

Dean stops mid-chew and blinks at him. “Whg—” he swallows his bite of pizza and tries again. “What?”

Cas shrugs and doesn’t make eye contact. He picks at the beer label. “At the party we met at. The one we aren’t talking about, for some reason.”

Dean wants Cas’ ugly, blue, cigarette-smelling shag carpet to swallow him whole.

“You told me you don’t ‘get’ art,” he sets the beer bottle down to do air quotes, and Dean’s shame deepens. “Because you only ‘get’ science. And I told you they were the same thing. And you told me to prove it.”

Suddenly, it clicks, and Dean risks making eye contact. Cas catches his gaze and holds it steady, and he’s calm—not upset, Dean registers, which is a relief. “The atom,” he blurts out, and Cas grins. “Yeah.”

“Art and science.”

“Yeah.”

Dean is sitting up straighter now. “But, the angel—”

Cas sighs and pushes himself up from where he’d been leaning against the couch. He turns until he’s fully facing Dean. “Divinity,” he raises one hand, “and the core building blocks of humanity,” he raises the other. “Art,” he gestures with the first hand, “and science.” With the second.

Dean stares at him. “Are you calling art divine?”

“Art is an expression of divinity,” Cas shrugs. “Science is an explanation for it. But it’s—you know. The same thing.”

Dean wonders how he can say that so casually, so nonchalantly. He wonders what would happen if he crossed the pizza-box distance and kissed him.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts instead, and Cas raises his eyebrows. “The party, I didn’t think—I didn’t think you remembered.”

“I assumed you didn’t,” Cas counters. “But you did. You do. Why didn’t you text me?”

It’s exactly what he expected to hear and it still catches him off guard. “Um—” Dean stammers, trying to think of a good excuse. Cas is just watching him—not staring at, watching—brows furrowed.

With a heavy sigh, Dean settles on the truth. “Come on, man. Look at me,” he scoffs and stares down at his jeans, the already worn knees even worse after the day spent kneeling on concrete. “I’m an engineering dork who plays D&D on Fridays and you’re—” he waves vaguely in Cas’ direction. “You know.”

The frown has deepened. “I don’t.”

“Cool.” It sounds so juvenile to say it out loud.

Now, Cas looks taken aback. “Dean. We met at a party where I voluntarily listened to you talk about string theory for an hour and a half.”

Dean doesn’t know if that’s a compliment or not. He buries any possible blush with a swig of beer. “String theory’s cool,” he grumbles into the bottle.

“Yes.” Cas agrees. “And so are you. Although—” he pauses and tilts his head. “I could have sworn you were in physics, based on how much you talk—”

Dean is so caught up in Cas Novak calling him cool that it takes his brain a second to process the word “physics,” but when he does he nearly spits beer all over the ugly carpet. “Shit,” he swears, already starting to scramble up.

“What?” Cas is following him, frowning.

“Physics final. In—” he checks his watch, “—16 hours. I gotta—” he still has time to water down the beer, study, and get at least 7 hours of sleep before—

“…Why did you just spend all day helping me if you have a final tomorrow?” Dean pauses from where he’s trying to find his other shoe to glance back at Cas, who looks so genuinely baffled it shoots a warmness into Dean’s heart.

“You needed help,” Dean shrugs, finally locating the missing sneaker and pulling it on. “Good luck with the angel, though, okay? If it gives you any running issues, feel free to—”

He’s pulling on his jacket when he feels a touch on his arm and realizes that, sometime in the past 20 seconds, Cas has crossed the room to him. “Dean,”

Dean pauses, and Cas…looks nervous.

“I like D&D,” he offers, and Dean stares at him.

“What.”

Cas levels his gaze. “There is nothing more punk than dragons,” he replies, incredibly seriously.

Dean’s brain short-circuits.

Maybe it’s the adrenaline from the exam panic, maybe it’s the 1.5 beers, maybe it’s Cas’ hand still warm on his arm, maybe he’s still caught up in Cas calling him cool and maybe his brain takes an extra second to load his self-consciousness on its reboot, but—he leans down and kisses him.

Cas makes a small noise but kisses him back almost immediately—but then he’s pulling back nearly as quickly, and he gently pushes Dean back by the shoulders when he tries to follow. Not far enough away to be a rejection, just…enough. “You have an exam in the morning,” he says this like an apology, and the warmth in Dean’s chest grows. “Text me after?”

Dean nods, then pauses, realizes what Cas just said, and nods again. “Yeah, I—yeah, I will.”

“There’s not enough alcohol here for you to pretend to forget this time,” he teases, but he’s smiling.

Dean flushes anyway. “I’m sorry.”

Cas shakes his head and pushes him a bit. “Apologize tomorrow. Go.”

“Okay.” Dean doesn’t move.

“Okay,” Cas replies.

“Okay,” Dean says, and leans down to kiss him again, a quick one, because he thinks maybe he can.

“Okay,” Cas repeats, but his tone is fond. “Go.”

“Okay,” Dean repeats back. But this time, he does.

He puts the popcorn bowl on the couch next to him and passes a beer to Cas, who takes it—and scoots over, directly next to the popcorn bowl. Directly next to Dean.

He doesn’t even eat popcorn, so that’s—weird.

The movie plays, but Dean isn’t paying attention. Cas has taken off his trench coat and suit jacket, which he’s been doing more, lately. Something about his powers sputtering out making comfort more important, or something. He’s been sleeping, too, even though he pretends like he hasn’t been. Now, he’s reaching into the popcorn bowl, and only wincing a bit when the molecules hit his tongue. Dean tracks the movement intensely—out of concern, of course. Concern. For his friend. He definitely doesn’t time his movements so their fingers brush against each other in the popcorn bowl when Cas goes back in, like he’s a kid on his first movie date.

They finish the popcorn, and Dean moves the bowl unceremoniously to the floor, and then suddenly the bowls-width that separates them seems like a lot less space than it did with the thing actually there. Close enough that if Dean was a kid on his first movie date, he could do the cliché yawn-and-stretch move. Instead when he reaches out, it’s for the old blanket lying across the couch instead, mostly just to have something to occupy his hands. He wraps it around himself like cocoon and tells himself that now he can’t do anything stupid like try to hold Cas’ hand.

He enjoys his pocket of warmth and security for approximately 10 seconds, until he looks up and makes eye contact with Cas. The angel looks away, but not before Dean reads the odd sort of longing in his expression.

Dean looks at the blanket. He looks back at Cas. He takes a deep breath and makes a decision.

He kicks Cas in the shin, only hard enough to get his attention, and then wordlessly lifts up one half of the blanket.

Maybe he’s getting cold now, too, Dean thinks, as Cas smiles and moves closer, picking up the other end.

Maybe angels huddle for warmth he reasons, as Cas shuffles closer yet again; but he doesn’t pull back, and the angel seems to take that as permission to close in on Dean until they’re pressed together, shoulder to ankle.

“Thank you,” Cas says, so quietly it’s almost inaudible under the action of the movie, which definitely just means thank you for sharing your blanket because I, an Angel of the Lord, am cold.

Dean’s thought process has been reduced to the flimsy excuse of I need to make sure he doesn’t catch a cold when he slips an arm around Cas’ shoulders, and by the time Cas finds his hand under the blankets and links their fingers together his brain has short-circuited past the point of arguing.

He doesn’t remember the rest of the movie, or the gradual slide down the couch from sitting to lying down, but when he blinks awake the next morning it’s with Cas on top of him, soundly asleep, dark hair tickling his nose. He shouldn’t be asleep, and Dean will worry about it later—but for now, he closes his eyes and tries to commit the feeling to memory.

He doesn’t notice the note on the table, hastily scribbled in Sam’s handwriting: you’re welcome.

Dean wanders through their small Vermont home to their small kitchen and thinks about the bunker. His kitchen here is full, too full, but the one at the bunker had been too empty. This is really a home. Both of them are written all over this kitchen; Dean’s spices threaten to fall out of the spice rack, and their cupboards are full of the honey Cas collects from the bees he keeps in the backyard. He sells it at the farmer’s market in little, hand-labeled jars, mixed with fresh berry syrup when the season is right.

The coffee drips slowly, and Dean occupies himself with watching a sparrow flit around the birdfeeder outside the window, and, for the hundredth time that month, it hits him. He has a little birdfeeder outside his little house in Vermont. He has a little house in Vermont because Cas, who is his husband, apparently really liked the idea when had Dean joked about it nearly a decade ago, and Dean just counts himself lucky he talked him down from a full B&B. They have a guest room instead, and it’s always full with friends and family and friends-of-friends who need a place to stay, and that’s a start.

It’s just the two of them this morning, though, because Sam and Eileen left a few days ago, and Dean likes these days, too. He likes them because he can carry two mugs of coffee through their quiet house without bothering to put sweatpants on over his boxers, and he can whistle as he goes, and he can whisper “morning, sunshine,” as he sets the coffee down on the nightstand and bends down to kiss Cas awake. Cas squints up at him with the same frown he wears every morning, like he’s angry at the sun for rising and forcing him awake, but his expression softens when he sees Dean and he actually smiles when he hands him the warm mug. He shifts over, and Dean climbs back into bed next to him, careful with his own mug, and together they lean against the headboard and drink the coffee in near silence. It’s a comfortable silence, the kind where neither of them need words, because the gentle press of their shoulders together says everything they would want to say.

In a few minutes, Dean will finish his coffee first. He’ll put his mug down on the bedside table and break the silence, declaring “Alright, come on. I’ll make pancakes.” He’ll reach out for Cas’ hand, and Cas will allow himself to be led out of their bedroom and back to their kitchen, where he’ll finish his second cup of coffee while Dean makes breakfast. When Cas’ hair is like this, bedhead wild from sleep, it reminds Dean of when they first met--when Castiel, was still burning with a Holy fire, still brimming with celestial intent. He’ll think about that same being sitting at their kitchen table, crouched over a #1 Dad mug like a dragon guarding his treasure, and he’ll get so distracted by staring at Cas that he’ll burn the first round of pancakes. 

Dean looks up again, but this time, he’s just confused. “What?”

“It’s been a terrible day, and I’m sorry for that, but I need to be—” he takes a deep breath, tries to find the words. “I need to be…away. But I don’t want to be away from you.”

“Okay…” Dean closes his laptop and cautiously shifts to sitting on the edge of the mattress. “Cas, buddy, you know we can’t just up and leave. We have—you know. Responsibilities.”

Cas shakes his head. “I don’t mean forever.” He pauses and rephrases. “Can we go for a drive?”

This Dean understands. This, he can do. He smiles, already preparing to stand. “Where to?”

“Wherever we end up,” is the only answer Cas provides.

They drive until the fuel tank is half-empty—only saving enough for the drive back. The sun had been nearly set when they had left the bunker, and as Dean pulls the impala onto the shoulder the stars are already out.

“This good?” he asks Cas, breaking the silence that had settled comfortably between them, and Cas nods.

“I have no idea where we are,” he says it with a smile. Getting lost was the goal, after all. They both know that Dean has been cataloging every random turn he took. They both know not to mention it.

Cas climbs out of the car and makes it a few feet into the Kansas field in front of them before realizing Dean isn’t following. He doubles back and takes Dean’s hand in his own, intending to lead them both into the grass, but Dean still doesn’t push himself off the side of the impala. Instead, he pulls Cas close, dropping his hand to pull him into a hug. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, face pressed into Cas’ hair, who relaxes into him.

“It’s—” he starts, but Dean cuts him off shaking his head.

“No, come on. I was—you didn’t deserve that.”

Cas pushes back just enough to look Dean in the eye. He frowns. Dean has an irritating habit of taking all of the blame, even now. “Neither did you.” The statement leaves no room for argument. “I’m sorry, too.”

Dean stares down at him for a moment, swallows, and then nods. Just once, but he doesn’t protest any more, and Cas will still count that as a small victory. “Thanks for not just taking off,” he says, instead, and Cas smiles as he brings a hand up to Dean’s face and strokes his thumb along his cheekbone.

“Thank you for coming with me.”

Cas pauses before rolling onto his other side, the one facing Dean. He throws a leg and half of his torso on top of the other man and Dean gets pushed back down willingly. “You can date me when it’s light outside,” he half-mumbles, half-yawns into the crook of Dean’s neck, before promptly falling back asleep, and—yeah, okay. It can wait.

When he wakes up again, at the much more reasonable hour of eleven-ish, Cas is awake and watching him—something he’s never stopped doing, not even as a human. Not even in the same bed. He doesn’t even flinch anymore; he just reaches out to ruffle Cas’ hair with one hand, the other rubbing sleep out of his eyes. “Mornin’ sunshine,” he mumbles, and the ex-angel smiles and leans into the touch.

“We’re going on a date today,” Cas reminds him as he leans in, conspiratorial. Dean’s heart skips like he’s goddamn seventeen, and Cas looks happy enough that he forgets to be embarrassed about waking him up at 6am.

“Hell yeah we are,” Dean grins, pushing himself up on his elbows. “Where are we going?”

“I believe you asked me.”

“Yeah, so I want you to choose.”

Cas’ smile falters, just a bit. He shifts, uncomfortable.

Dean frowns. “What?”

“You know I’ve never actually been on a date.”

Dean blinks at him, then hurries to push himself up on his elbows. “Fuck.”

Now it’s Cas’ turn to stare at him, confused.

“It’s just—it’s gotta be special, then.”

Cas frowns and follows Dean up, so they’re at eye level. “Is whatever we were going to do today not special?”

Dean keeps his eyes on the comforter and shrugs. “Nah, man, I was just going to take you to some diner, but—”

“Dean,” Cas cuts him off with a squeeze to the shoulder. “Everywhere is special when it’s with you.”

Dean feels himself blushing. He shoots Cas a grumpy look, but he knows that won’t hide it. “Come on, dude. There’s a difference between chick-flick special and the same shitty diner we always go t—”

This time, Cas cuts him off with a kiss, and Dean makes a startled noise and falls backwards before leaning into it.

“You said I get to choose,” Cas starts, when they finally pull back, “and I would love to go on a date to a shitty diner with you.”

Dean grins, somewhat breathless. “Yeah?”

Cas mirrors his smile. “Yeah.”                                                          

It still takes them a while to get out of bed—Sundays are for being lazy, after all, and neither is in any rush. They make it to a diner in town well past noon, and squeeze into a tiny booth cramped enough that their knees bump together under the table. It’s the kind of place that doesn’t blink an eye when they order coffee and milkshakes and too many fries for two people to eat by themselves.

Cas has milkshake on his cheek and Dean watches him miss it twice before leaning over to wipe it off himself, and he sneaks in a kiss before he sits back in his own seat and he thinks that yeah, Cas was right. This is plenty special.

Dean smiles at the note before crawling out of the tent, tugging on his boots, and wrapping a blanket around his shoulders before trudging off in the direction Cas had gone. He finds him soon enough, wearing an old hoodie (Dean’s old hoodie, actually) and sitting on the edge of the rock drop-off into the river.

Cas looks up as Dean approaches and smiles—the soft smile, the one that’s mostly in his eyes and that’s only ever meant for Dean. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Dean settles down next to him, letting his legs dangle over the short cliff. “I missed you,” he shrugs as an explanation, and opens one side of the blanket in invitation. Cas moves over willingly, curling under Dean’s arm and into his side, and Dean pulls the blanket close around them both.

They sit quietly for a moment, watching the sky. The river is quiet, the trees are still, the birds are still asleep—it’s the hazy time of early morning when the world feels like it’s being born anew, when the sky seems to lighten with every blink.

“My father made all this,” Cas breaks the silence, but only barely, voice still soft enough to not disturb the peace. Dean just blinks down at him, too tired to fully show his surprise. They don’t talk about Chuck much, anymore. Cas, specifically, does not talk about him. Dean holds him a little tighter.

“I think—” Cas doesn’t make eye contact, but he continues speaking. “I always loved his creations more than I ever loved him.” He looks up, and Dean knows that he means the river and the rocks and the trees and the birds but he also means him. 

Mirroring Cas’ soft smile from earlier, Dean leans down to kiss him.

They sit there for a long while, wrapped in a blanket, breathing the morning air and the smell of pine and wood smoke and each other, and when they finally separate the first rays of sun have broken through the tree line. They lean their foreheads together, eyes closing lazily, and—Dean ruins the perfect moment by yawning.

Cas chuckles and hides it by pressing a kiss to Dean’s cheek. “You should have brought coffee out here,” he teases, and Dean rolls his eyes.

“You left when it was still dark, Cas, I wasn’t gonna stop to make coffee.”

Cas hums. “Well—” whatever he was going to say is cut off by a yawn of his own, and he at least has the decency to look sheepish as Dean huffs out a laugh of his own.

“Come on,” Dean grins and begins to stand, clumsily trying to pull them both up without losing the warmth of the blanket. They stumble back to their campsite, holding hands and huddled together against the morning chill. Dean makes a fire and Cas watches it with the intensity he has about all things, tracking the way the flames climb up one another until Dean rejoins him under the blanket with two camping mugs of hot coffee. 

He nudges Dean’s foot with his own, and Dean looks over at him with an easy grin, and his gloved hand reaches out to find Castiel’s bare one. “What are we doing?” Cas asks, smiling back, and Dean’s heart warms at we. What are we doing, not just you, because Cas had followed Dean right down into the snow just like he would follow him anywhere.

“You ever think about moving?” Dean asks in response, which both is and isn’t an answer to his question. Cas raises his eyebrows.

“Moving where?”

Dean shrugs and turns his attention back skyward. It’s getting close to the earliest sunset of the year, so the afternoon sun has already begun its final descent. “Into town, maybe? Or Hell, farther out. Something with a porch. And a garage with a driveway, not a creepy tunnel.”

Cas hums and follows Dean’s gaze back up, watching the snowflakes drift down towards the pair of them. “A garden would be nice,” he agrees, and squeezes Dean’s hand. They lie there for another few moment, watching as the orange rays of sunset seep through the soft winter clouds, until Cas starts shivering, and even Dean can feel the cold seeping through his coat.

Dean hauls himself up with a groan, and his knees complain but he stoops over to help Cas up anyway. He pulls him up without letting go of his hand but then stops, staring down at the impressions left with a grin. “Look—” he points. “We kinda made snow angels.”

“They don’t have wings,” Cas points out, frowning. Dean just shrugs.

“So? Don’t need wings to be an angel,” Dean emphasizes his point by squeezing his hand, and Cas smiles soft and pretty in the twilight.

They go back inside and Dean makes hot chocolate for them both (and Sam, who has spent the day buried in the archives to avoid the cold). Tomorrow they’ll teach Cas to make a snowman, and Dean will convince him to put on a scarf. He’ll lose the argument on gloves, but Cas’ hands will get cold so he’ll stick them in Dean’s pockets (and Dean is starting to think that was the goal all along).

The second winter Castiel is human, it snows another foot, but only manages to coat the first two steps up to their porch. The driveway is packed but Dean wouldn’t take baby out in this weather anyway, so he leaves her safe in the garage and resigns to staying home.  He finds Cas on their porch swing, wrapped in a blanket and lamenting the loss of his sunflowers. Dean presses a cup of hot cocoa into his hand, then lifts up one end of the blanket to curl up next to Cas with his own mug.

“They’ll grow back,” he reassures, and Cas smiles before turning to press a kiss to Dean’s cheek.

“I know.”

Castiel reaches the bank a split second before Dean, so Dean forgoes the rope swing entirely and uses all his momentum to shove the first boy into the river. He yelps and manages to twist around and grab Dean’s shoulder on the way down so they both crash into the water at once, and the resounding shout and splash echo through the quiet streets.

Neither of them care, though. There are birds chirping, and bugs buzzing, and the silence of the rest of town provides a false sense of isolation in their little bubble of sound. Castiel takes revenge by throwing an armful of river water into Dean’s face as soon as he resurfaces, and Dean retaliates, and the resulting splash fight is more fitting for boys of eight than eighteen. Dean is out of breath and laughing when he calls a truce, but as he watches Castiel his grin fades into a quiet pensiveness that clashes with the warm day and peaceful atmosphere.

Castiel, for his part, narrows his eyes. “What.”

“Nothin’.” Dean averts his gaze and half-heartedly splashes Cas again, both in a half-hearted attempt to distract from the embarrassing fact that he has feelings. “Just weird you’re leaving, that’s all.”

Castiel’s expression softens, and he sighs. This is not the first time they’ve had this conversation. “I’m not going far.”

Dean scoffs. “Chicago, man. That’s pretty far.”

“Are you saying I’m not worth driving 9 hours for?”

This earns him another splash, which he deflects before speaking again. “Come on. It’s not like I’m leaving forever.”

Dean nods but turns away, moving to haul himself back onto the riverbank. “You sure you’re gonna want to come home? When you’re all fancy in the big city?” he’s teasing, and Cas knows that. But he’s also not—and Dean knows he knows that, too.

Cas considers him with a hum and wades towards the shore until he’s only waist deep. “I’ll promise to keep coming home if you don’t promise to forget about me when you’re the Jayhawk’s best player,” he offers, sticking his hand out and everything. “Deal?”

Dean blinks at the offered hand for a moment before scoffing. “Yeah, sure.” The reply is noncommittal but he reaches out to shake his best friend’s hand anyway—his best friend who, with a mischievous smile, uses that hand to pull him off the bank and into the river again.

They have another half an hour there before Mary sends Sam out to call them both back to the house for sandwiches, and then another 25 minutes before Cas reluctantly heads home to start his homework—what for? You already got in—yes, but I’d like to not have the offer rescinded, Dean. They have another month until graduation, and three...three until Cas moves north to Chicago. 

Dean hugs his best friend tighter than usual at his front door and watches him get back on his bicycle, a mixture of fondness and anxiety unfurling in his stomach.

Three months.