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“You cold, man?”
Cas’s head snaps up, untucked from where he’d just been burrowing in his trench.
“What? Oh—no, no I’m not cold. Thank you for asking.” Cas offers him a strained smile, which, yeah. That’s not suspicious or anything.
“Uh huh. If you say so. Just uh, crank the heat here if you need, ‘kay?” Dean motions to a knob on the dash but Cas has already looked away, face back inside his coat.
Rolling his eyes to himself, Dean refocuses on the road. Dude wants to be cryptic and cold? Well, he’s a big boy. Have at it.
*
They’re back at the Bunker and Dean’s on his forty-fifth sneeze, at minimum.
“What is this shit? Friggin’ dusty haunted houses!” He looks over at Cas but the angel’s got his face half-tucked in his collar, eyes closed.
Dean sneezes again, and Cas finally looks over. Dean ignores him. “Ah, hell, I’d better not be coming down with something—we’re supposed to head up to see the girls this weekend.” Dean grouses as he parks, rubbing his itchy eyes with his fists before climbing out of the car.
He grabs his duffel and heads inside, leaving the not-cold, not-sleepy angel in the front seat with a sigh.
Cas had stuck to his weird excuses the whole ride home, claiming he was fine even as he continued to hide inside his coat, and after about an hour of it, Dean gave up trying to figure out why.
Not to mention, the clogging up of his sinuses was a bit of a distraction.
Whatever. Cas wants to be shy about napping or feeling temperature fluctuations, that’s fine. Dean’s not gonna pester him.
*
One hot shower and two beers later leave Dean feeling right as rain, not a sniffle in sight.
He’s parked in the library, half-listening to Sam ramble on about some witchy shit when he spies Cas slink in the back door.
Without his trenchcoat.
Realizing he’s staring wide-eyed at Cas, spooked by the sight of him in just his suit—-‘cause that doesn’t remind him of all the times Cas wasn’t Cas, ‘course not—-Dean leans back in his chair and calls out to him.
“Nice of you to join us, Sleeping Beauty. Where’re you running off to in such a hurry?”
Cas stops short, absolute deer-in-headlights expression on his face, and Dean would laugh if it wasn’t so fishy.
“Oh, uh. I’m just… headed to my room.” He starts towards the hallway again, clearly determined.
“Oo-kay. Sure.” Dean watches him for another moment before asking, “Did you lose your coat?”
Cas looks down at himself and almost seems surprised at his lack of outerwear. He blinks and the emotion passes. Looking back up at Dean—-and Sam, who’s now watching the exchange with mild interest—-he smiles, just as woodenly as before.
“It’s in the laundry. I spilled something on it.”
With a last nod, Cas escapes out of the room.
Turning back to the table, Dean looks at Sam and shakes his head, downing the last of his beer.
“That was, uh…” Sam trails off, still staring at the door to the hallway Cas walked through.
“Fucking weird? Yeah. He was like that the whole way home. Dunno what was up with him, if he was just tired or something but he wouldn’t say. And then I kinda stopped paying attention ‘cause I spent the whole rest of the drive sneezing, so… I musta inhaled some dust when we smoked that spirit or something.”
“Yeah, man. Definitely weird. But like, weird-weird or just Cas-weird?” Sam questions.
“What do you mean?” Dean studies his bottle, rolling it between his palms.
When he glances up, Sam’s giving him a look that seems to have all sorts of things to say, but fuck if Dean’s about to try and figure out what.
He laughs instead, picking up their empty bottles and heading to grab another round from the kitchen.
*
The next few days pass much the same—-Cas either missing for hours with no explanation or caught trying to sneak past them in increasingly odd moments.
Dean bumps into Cas carrying a carton of milk and a mixing bowl, his excuse for needing them something to do with a video he saw on YouTube. Dean’s not about to ask for details.
The next afternoon, Sam enters the kitchen to find Cas mixing together canned tuna and shredded cheese, claiming he found a snack recipe he wanted to try, and oh, do they have any crackers?
The weirdness is topped off by Dean having intermittent bouts of sneezing and congestion, bad enough that Sam comes back from the store and throws some Benadryl at him so he shuts up about it.
*
Saturday morning, Dean’s up early doing an oil change on the Impala before getting ready to head to Jody’s. Sam’s in the garage as well, packing up the car with some odds and ends they’ve been meaning to bring up to the girls, when Cas walks in.
Dean looks up when he enters, still trenchcoat-less.
“What’s up, man? Did you forget to wash your coat?”
Again, Cas seems startled to look down and notice his lack of tan security blanket, but he shakes his head.
“No, actually, I just wanted to let you know I won’t be coming with you today.”
Dean turns away to catch Sam’s eye, silently communicating over the roof of the car.
Sam shrugs at Dean before nodding towards Cas.
Dean scowls.
Sighing inwardly, Dean turns back to Cas. “Okay. Any reason why? The girls are expecting all of us, y’know.”
Cas nods, and he actually looks like he feels a little bad about that. “I know, and I hate to disappoint them, but the truth is, I… I’m actually not feeling very well.”
“Not feeling very well…” Dean echoes.
Cas nods again. “Yes, I’ve been tired and a bit overheated, so I think it’s best if I stay home, just in case I have something contagious.”
He’s out the door before either Sam or Dean can respond, and they turn to each other in confusion.
“Can angels even catch something contagious?” Sam wonders aloud.
Dean shakes his head. “Nah, pretty sure they can’t. So whaddya think? He’s lying about being sick? Or he’s been getting a little more human every day and he’s been lying about that? ‘Cause last I checked, angels don’t get sick or sleep or eat, or hell, need to do laundry.”
He drops his tools back on the workbench and strips off his oily nitrile gloves, tossing them into the nearby trash barrel.
Sam watches Dean move around the space, wiping errant drips of oil off his arms and washing his hands aggressively. “What’re you gonna do? Go confront him about lying?”
Dean turns back to Sam with a frown. “No, but I am gonna go find out what the hell is going on with him.”
*
Dean’s barely made it to the hall by Cas’s room when he starts sneezing again.
Cursing and wiping his nose, he knocks loudly on the bedroom door.
There’s no response. He knocks a second time to the same results, and on the third knock, he calls out through the door.
“Cas, I know you’re in there. Open up or I’m gonna pick the lock. You can’t tell us you feel sick and then go silent, man.”
Dean hears shuffling within and then the sound of the lock clicking. The door opens a fraction and Cas appears, seeming a bit frazzled.
“Dean, I’m alright. I mean, I don’t feel well but I’m not dying. You and Sam should go on ahead to Jody’s. I’ll be fine here.”
Dean opens his mouth to respond but he’s suddenly overwhelmed by itchy, horrible congestion and a half-dozen consecutive sneezes.
Dragging the neck of his shirt over his face, Dean rubs his eyes. “What the hell? You know, maybe we’re all sick. Maybe there’s something going ‘round the Bunker. You think we caught something on the last job?”
Cas looks at Dean for a moment before nodding slowly. “Possibly…”
Another fit of sneezing pulls Dean out of the conversation for a moment and when he straightens up, he practically growls. “This is ridiculous. Whatever we caught, we definitely shouldn’t be going to visit anyone, ‘cause this sucks. I mean, I haven’t been this jacked up since that case we had a couple years back with the haunted cat lady house…”
Dean trails off, turning back to Cas, events of the last few days suddenly slotting into place in his mind.
Cas shuffles slightly in place, head tipping inward as though he’s hearing something inside the room.
“Cas… do you…” Dean rubs his irritated eyes and tries not to sigh. “Do you have a cat in your room?”
It takes all of thirty seconds for the Angel of the Lord to crack.
“I’m sorry, Dean. I didn’t know what to do. She was all alone in that house and she wandered up to me when you went out to the car. I couldn’t just leave her there!”
He looks so distressed that Dean feels any annoyance in him dissipate instantly. Which is in itself, kind of annoying.
“Alright well, let’s see the little stowaway, huh?”
Cas eyes him for a minute and then opens the door wider, walking over to his wardrobe. He slides it open to reveal a cardboard box lined with his trenchcoat and settled in the middle of it, what appears to be a tiny, sooty ball of cotton. The little grey kitten is curled up into herself, clearly asleep and even though Dean is currently worried his sinuses might actually explode from proximity, even he can admit she’s pretty fucking cute.
Not quite as cute as the look Cas is giving her though, because the angel is sending heart eyes at the little wisp of fluff in a way that’s making Dean’s heart feel like the Grinch’s after learning the true meaning of Christmas.
Attempting to stifle the fluttering in his chest—-because he really needs at least one part of his respiratory system to keep working right now, thanks—-Dean bumps his shoulder into Cas.
“What’s her name?”
Cas’s head whips around to look at Dean. “Well, I haven’t really named her, since I wasn’t sure how long I would be able to keep her. I figured once you found out we’d have to find her a new home.” He looks back at the puffball sadly.
And what the hell, Dean’s not actually heartless. He’s just really fucking allergic. But there’s like, medicine for that and shit, right?
‘Cause there’s no way he’s about to tell Cas he can’t keep this kitten, not after seeing how happy she makes him.
That fluttery feeling returns in full force at the idea of being the one who gets to make Cas happy, and he struggles to breathe again, but for a wholly different reason this time.
“Well, cat needs a name, y’know. We can’t just call her ‘cat’, that’d be weird. And she probably needs other stuff, so maybe we should find a pet store on the way up to Jody’s? I’m sure the girls will go crazy if you show up with a kitten.”
Cas stares at him for a moment, mouth open in surprise.
“Dean, I… thank you. I’ll have to find a name that suits her. Maybe you and Sam could help think of one, once you get to know her?”
The smile he’s levying at Dean is turning the fluttering into a full-fledged swarm. Trying to maintain some semblance of control, Dean claps Cas on the shoulder and grins back.
“Yeah, man. We can figure something out. Why don’t you make a list while I grab a shower and then we can head out, okay?”
Dean retreats before he can do anything stupid, but the fluttering carries him all the way through the hallways to the bathroom.
*
“Dean let you have a kitten?” Claire stares between them incredulously, her wide-eyed expression only amplified by the poor attempts at hiding smirks that Jody, Sam, and Donna are doing behind her.
Rolling his eyes, Dean plucks the tiny fuzzball out of Cas’s hands, thanking whatever deity is listening for the existence of allergy medication. “I don’t let Cas do anything, let’s be real. He just mentioned the Bunker felt one species short, and well, I happened to agree.”
Claire stares at him for a moment before snorting in disbelief, muttering something about ‘fucking Narnia’ as she stalks away.
Dean hands the still-nameless floof back over to Cas, rolling his eyes. He wasn’t wrong, he doesn’t let Cas do things because he’s not Cas’s keeper.
He knows what she meant though, he’s not blind. They’ve gotten comments like that for years, since the very start. For once though, instead of putting him on guard, the idea puts that fluttery feeling inside him again, and as he watches Cas play with the kitten, Dean wonders what it might be like to embrace it.
Cas looks up and catches his eye just then, smiling warmly, and Dean thinks maybe he’ll have to find out.