As If

It’s Christmas Eve and honestly, Dean would rather be holed inside a dim-lit bar, drinking his guts than be volunteering at the children’s wing of a hospital.
“I can’t believe you friggin’ talked me into doing this, Sammy”, he mumbles from behind clenched teeth, fingers fumbling with the nametag that’s hanging around his neck.
“Come on, Dean. It’s not that bad! All you need to do is smile and make them smile”, Sam huffs and rolls his eyes, doing his best not to replace his grin with a bitch face.
“I’d smile a lot easier with alcohol in my system”, Dean grunts but promptly plasters an almost-believable smile on his face as another small figure walks towards them, arms full of stuffed animals.

“You get that one whereas I’m going to walk around a little.” Dean stuffs his hands in his pockets, walking away from Sam – who is now kneeling next to the kid, moving a stuffed dinosaur around and making noises with his mouth.

The hospital wing is buzzing with children’s laughter and voices of staff and volunteers alike – quite a few people volunteer on Christmas, Dean has come to find out, sharing the Christmas cheer and all that.

“Please, Joanna Beth, I’ve told you before that you cannot keep all the toys to yourself.” A man is kneeling next to a little blonde girl, no older than six, his hand perched on her shoulder, waiting for her to let go of the dozen of toys she holds in her arms.
“No, I got them first so I get to keep them!” Joanna Beth whines and tightens her grip on the toys. The man sighs deeply, bowing his head, dark hair floppy over his forehead.
“The other children would want to play with the toys as well and I’m pretty sure that they’d share with you,” the man says, his voice laid back and patient.
As soon as the girl opens her mouth to squeak again, Dean decides to step in.
“Hey, what’s the problem?” he says, lowering so he’s at eye-level with the girl.
“Joanna Beth over here doesn’t want to share all these toys with the other children,” the man starts to say as he lifts his head to see who popped in on their little argument.
Dean shifts his gaze from the girl to the man and wow does he approve of his decision to step in. The man next to him is absolute eye-candy. Dark, sex-hair and blue eyes that would make even the bluest skies envious. Not to mention the full , half-parted lips and the stubble.
Friggin’ hell.

Dean forces himself to look away before the man realizes that he’s being checked out by some complete stranger – inside a children’s hospital.
“Now, Jo – can I call you Jo?” Dean starts, raising his eyebrow at the girl. She furrows her eyebrows, thinking for a second, before nodding.
“Okay, Jo. I don’t think that’s a nice thing to do. What if some other kid had a bucketful of candy and kept all of it to himself, would you like not having any of that?”
Jo frowns and shakes her head. The man next to Dean remains silent, merely watching the argument.
“So, how about you go leave the toys in the toybox and just keep the ones you want to play with. Come on, be a cool grown-up girl, huh?”, Dean nods at the girl.
“Fine,” she says and walks away towards the toybox. Dean smiles and straightens up, looking back at the man. He eyes his nametag – Castiel, volunteer – and makes a mental note to look the name up later.
“Thank you for that,” Castiel says, smiling lightly at Dean.
“Nah, don’t mention it. I figured you could use a rescue with the little kiddo”, he replies, nodding towards Jo – who is now suspiciously looking at the kid that’s asking to play with her.
“I did, actually. She is such a stubborn little girl, it’s adorable most of the times. But others…” his voice trails off as he shakes his head, shoulders shaking with laughter.
Dean gulps, trying hard not to stare at Castiel once more.
“Castiel, right? I’m Dean Winchester,” he says, putting his arm out. Castiel shakes it, nodding.
“Nice to meet you, Dean, Castiel Milton. I haven’t seen you before, I believe.”
“No, it’s…it’s the first time I come here, actually. My brother talked me into doing it, to be honest, I wasn’t really eager to come”. He lowers his face flushing a bit.
Castiel laughs once more. “Most of the volunteers don’t want to do it at first but then it kind of grows on you anyway”.

And Dean thinks that if it means seeing this guy again, he’s definitely letting this volunteering thing grow on him.

* * *
“Where’d you go, I looked for you all over the place!” Sam says as soon as Dean walks up to him, leaning on the Impala.
“I helped out some guy that was volunteering, who was dealing with a pissy kiddo and then went around cheering others up. Why, what’s up?” Dean replies, getting in the car and putting the keys on the ignition.
“Nothing, I thought you had gone off hiding in the staff closet until our hours were done”, Sam shrugs, rolling his eyes.
“Nah…”
Sam looks at him out of the corner of his eye. “What?”
He taps his fingers on his knee when Dean doesn’t reply. “Dean. What?”
“What, Sammy? I didn’t say anything!” Dean exclaims, lifting his shoulders as he drives down the highway towards their house.
“I can read it all over you face, something went down” Dean can practically hear his brother’s rising bitch face.
“Nothing went down. Jesus Christ, Sammy,” he says – sounding overly defensive even to his ears.
“Alright, alright”, Sam raises his hands in defeat and drops the subject.
They sit in silence for a while, Dean driving and looking at the road and Sam tapping his fingers on his knees and looking out the passenger window.
“We’re going back tomorrow, just so you know,” Sam says warily at some point, breaking the silence.

Dean risks taking his eyes off the road to give an incredulous look at his little brother.
“Of course we’re going back, dude. I’m up for volunteering for the rest of the week, or whatever.”
Dean remembers the shy smiles and the glimmering eyes of blue and something in him shifts with excitement.

Yep. Definitely going back.

* * *

They go back the next morning and parting ways as soon as they get inside – Sam doesn’t comment on that, other than raising his eyebrows and telling Dean not to get lost or run away from the volunteer work.
Dean just rolls his eyes and waves vaguely at Sammy before wandering deeper into the room.
Children are spread around, calmly playing with the volunteers and other children alike.
Dean keeps walking, smiling at the sound of all the kids laughing – so what if it made him smile, kids are cute and drool and are funny.
He walks around the place once and something inside him drops when he realizes he hasn’t even caught a glimpse of Castiel while walking around.
Frowning a little bit, he walks back to the room where he’d seen him the previous day but there’s still no sight of him.

Jo is there, however, leaning over a small tower made of bricks and talking to herself. Dean sighs in defeat before approaching her and sitting next to her on the matted floor.
“Hey kiddo, what’s up?” he says, making her look at him.
“I’m playing with the soldiers”, she says, her little face serious and less pale than the day before.
“Are you now? Wow, it sounds exciting. Can I play too?”
“Okay. You can be the bad guys soldiers”, she says and hands him a plastic ninja.

“Well Joanna Beth, you have never included me in your army before” he hears a familiar voice say and nearly hears his neck crack as he turns his head to look behind him.
Castiel is standing there, name tag swaying happily on his chest and hair even messier than yesterday. Dean barely stops his jaw from hanging open.
“Hi Cas. Happy Holidays”, he blurts out before he realizes the nickname he already gave to the guy. Castiel doesn’t seem to mind – quite the contrary, his eyes light up a bit at the sound of that.
“Hello, Dean. Merry Christmas.” Cas’ smile is bright and sincere. He looks at the two of them as Dean gets up and gives the ninja back to Jo after she declines to let them both play with her because “the peoples of her country don’t want to.”

They stay there awkwardly for a bit, neither of them talking.
“So, it’s good to see you back here again today”, Cas says as they begin to walk around the room.
“Well, yeah. It was true what you said about volunteering growing on you. I figured it would be nice to be here again. How about you? I figured less people would be here on Christmas – family stuff and all.”
Cas’ smile falters a little. “Not a big fan of family stuff, actually.”
“Me neither, I just spend it with Sammy every year anyway” Dean says, shrugging.
“Sammy?” Cas says and Dean thinks that he’s paranoid to detect a note of bitterness in his voice.
“My little brother – well, not that little anymore, but still” he smiles – he always likes talking about Sammy. He’s a good kid and Dean’s proud of him to say the least.

Cas’ shoulder seem to loosen a bit. “Oh, I see.”
Dean nods absentmindedly, walking next to Castiel as they walk through the children.
After a while, they stop at the front of the room, leaning against the wall in silence.
Dean’s eye catches the sight of a little boy – Adam, was it? – who is getting up to run back to the toy box, when suddenly he steps on a toy and trips. He acts reflexively, reaching for Adam as soon as he realizes he’s going to fall.

Cas reaches for the kid at the same time, and their shoulders bump together as they both grab on Adam’s arms.
Dean goes still – feeling Cas do the same right next to me.
“Sorry,” he mumbles and pulls away a bit. Cas doesn’t say anything, his ears a bit red at the top. They straighten up and start walking slowly again. Dean puts his hands in his pockets, feeling anxious in the silence between them.
“So, do you come here often, other than Christmas?”
Cas looks at him, thinking for a moment. “Yeah, I volunteer as much as I can. I like seeing the kids smile more, they really deserve it.”
Dean nods, his heart warming up oddly upon hearing the fondness in Cas’ voice.
“I guessed so, I can see it all over your face, you like hanging out around here. Not that I spend time looking at your face, yeah. I just- I just noticed that at some point,” Dean starts mumbling, yelling at himself internally to shut up.
Cas seemed taken aback for a second, but smiled. “I suppose I do hang around here more often than most people.”
“Sorry, gotta go to the bathroom” Dean says and rushes past Cas and into the bathroom – which thankfully was closer than he thought it would be.
He takes a few deep breaths, calming himself down and pushing the panic attack that is almost here further from his mind.
Unsure of what he’s actually doing, he fishes a receipt out of his pocket and rushes outside, looking for a pen. He gets closer to the reception, asking for one and grinning kindly at the woman sitting behind the office.
He hurriedly scribbles down a phone number – his house number – on the back of the receipt, thanking the receptionist after handing her the pen back.
Still having absolutely no idea what he’s doing, he walks back to the kids play room and casually joins Cas in playing with a girl with crayons.
He puts out his hand and slips the receipt in Cas’ hand. Blue eyes bore into his questioningly but he slips the receipt into his own pocket nonetheless, without phrasing any of those questions.
They don’t say anything about it until their hours are done, having gone by in a haze of small talk and children’s laughter. Dean is a bit hesitant to leave, something inside him quietly tugging on his will to stick around for a while longer.
He doesn’t want to figure out what that feeling in his gut is – not yet.

* * *
After leaving the hospital, Dean drives them to a diner to pick up some take-out and then go back home.
“Don’t forget to get pie,” Dean shouts as Sam gets out to buy them food.
He looks out the window, tapping his fingers rhythmically on the steering wheel, while humming under his breath, as he waits for Sam to get back.
He spots him walking back soon after, carrying two plastic bags – one of them luckily containing pie, as he comes to find out in a few minutes.

They get home and eat in silence, mostly because they’ve grown used to it rather than there being nothing to talk about.
“So, where did you disappear of again today?” Sam asks nonchalantly.
Dean lifts his gaze from his food. “What?”
“I’m asking because you just walked away and I didn’t see you until we were done and you were quite eager to go back there”, he raises his eyebrows but doesn’t look up from his salad – health freak, Dean thinks.
“I just did. No reason,” he replies and it’s a lie but he’d rather chop his arm off and throw it in the sea than admit his reasons even to himself.

A while later, Dean is in the bathroom when Sam knocks on the door.
“What?” he calls out awkwardly. People shouldn’t start conversations with people who are currently in the bathroom. Even though Dean is just washing his hands.
“What are you doing?”
“Do you really have to ask?” Dean says irritatedly. Sam groans.
“Some guy with a sex line voice called and asked if you were available,” he says and Dean’s stomach rolls around in his body.
“I was torn between the literal answer – meaning you can talk – and the answer that suggested you’re single” Sam’s voice continues from the other side of the door.
Dean opens the door, putting on his best poker face. “What did you say to him?”
“Who is he?”
“Sammy.”
“I said that you can’t come to the phone right now. He left a number.”

Dean rushes past his brother, towards the phone.
“Wow, okay. When are you bringing him home?” Sam bitches, following him half a step behind.
“Shut up, Sam”, Dean says under his breath as he fumbles around, looking for the number Sam supposedly wrote down.
“Is this what you’re looking for?” he hears Sam say behind him and turns around to see him holding up a piece of paper with digits scrabbled over it.
“Hand it over, Sammy,” he says, his voice dangerously flat.
“Just tell me who the sex line guy was!” Sam grins innocently.
Dean runs his palm over his face, mumbling nonsense.
“What?”
“I said, he’s some guy I met at the hospital – he’s kind of nice, I guess, I wanted to go for a beer or something like that”. He can feel his face flushing before he’s even half way through that sentence. He eyes Sam’s shit-eating grin and groans, putting out his hand to grab the piece of paper.
“I’m sure he’s pretty great”, Sam says, his tone softer than before.
Dean doesn’t like what his tone is implying. “Whatever, man, he’ll call back” he says and crumples up the piece of paper in his hand.
He can feel Sam’s eyes burn holes through his back but he won’t change his mind. No, he won’t.

Cas doesn’t call again all day and Dean doesn’t give in to his guilt.

He keeps the balled up paper in his pocket for the rest of the day, distracting himself with fixing up the car he’s got in the garage – his dad’s best friend had said he could use some help with the cars that were brought to his junkyard, so Dean had offered to fix some up.
Sam doesn’t try to talk about the ‘sex line voiced guy’ for the rest of the day, and only calls out for Dean when it’s time to have dinner.
They both sit in silence with Sam looking at Dean every now and then but not saying anything, and Dean not looking up from his steak.
“I think I’m gonna go sleep earlier today, I want to work more on the car after we come back from the hospital tomorrow” Dean says and gets up.
Neither of them comments on how Dean simply states that they’re going back there, although Dean thinks he sees Sam smile from his seat at the table, as he walks away after placing his dish in the sink.
Friggin’ Sam and his stupid knowing grin.

* * *
On their third day in the hospital, Sam doesn’t even bother telling him not to run away.
“Tell him I said hi!” he yells and laughs when Dean turns to glare at him before vanishing off around the corner.

He spots Cas sitting on a short chair, reading a book to a kid sitting in a wheelchair. Dean stops just a little out of sight, to look at the two of them. Cas reads slowly and patiently, making all the different voices and gesturing a lot, making the kid laugh at him.
At some point, Cas looks up from the book and sees Dean looking at them. He freezes, hand hovering over a new page. He stares at Dean and Dean is having a pretty hard time looking away. They hold their gaze for a few seconds before Cas breaks his hold and Dean realizes he had stopped breathing.
He watches the other man smile at the kid and hand him the book, telling him that he’s going to walk around a bit and see if he can come back soon. The kid smiles and traces his fingers over the pages, flipping them quietly.
Cas walks over to Dean. “Hello, Dean”.
“Hey, Cas,” he replies, voice nervous.
“I see you’re well, that’s good,” Cas’ voice is flat and unemotional. Dean feels guilt bubble inside him again – he didn’t call even after he realized Castiel wouldn’t call twice that day.
“I called yesterday. Figured that’s what you’d want me to do after you gave me your house number. I think your brother picked up,” Cas keeps on talking, looking at the floor. Dean shoves his hands in his pockets, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth.
“Yeah. Yeah, he told me. Look, I’m sorry I didn’t call, I completely forgot”, he lies and feels as if it’s written all over his face. Cas’ expression says the same but he doesn’t comment on it.
“But I suppose I can make it up to you by going out for a beer after we’re done volunteering here, huh?” Dean adds, fingers playing with his nametag.
Cas cracks a small smile. “I’d love to, but I don’t drink”, he says, cheeks tinted red with awkwardness.
“Coffee then. How about four, that’s when my hours are over.”
“Same with mine. Four sounds good. We can walk to a coffee shop, it’s not far at all.”
Dean feels his stomach expand with butterflies, which he’d gladly swat with a stick if he could. He smiles at Cas, nodding shortly.
“Awesome.”

After that, they both do what they’ve been doing for the past three days – just walking and playing and joking with the children, only this time it’s much more anxious because they’re both waiting for the clock to strike four.
As soon as it does, Dean rushes to get back to the car, hoping to find Sammy already there.
“Hey Sam. Sammy,” he speaks swiftly, looking over his shoulder to check if Cas is coming yet or not. Sam raises an eyebrow.
“You can go home without me, I’m going out.”
“Oh, with the sex line vo—Ow, okay okay. I hope you’ll invite me to the wedding!” Sam winces when his brother’s hand smacks him upside the head.
“There’s left-over dinner in the oven and you can –“ Dean starts saying but Sam cuts him off.
“Okay, mom, I will eat and sleep before midnight,” Sam teases, rolling his eyes, “is that- is that him?” he adds, looking at someone over Dean’s shoulder.
Dean turns around to see Cas walking towards them, his hands in the pockets of his jeans and his head slightly bowed. As if he heard Sam, he lifts his gaze to look at them, blue eyes striking Dean even from that distance.
“Yeah, that’s Cas,” he murmurs, unsure if Sam heard him. His brother nods, though, so he must have.
“Cas? That’s his name. Right, okay,” Sam grins and turns to look at Cas again, examining his appearance. “Yeah Dean, I see that you totally just thought he’s a cool guy. Go talk about politics and sports, sure. Just call me if you’re not gonna come home for the night,” he leans out of Dean’s reach, who starts angrily muttering nonsense at him before shutting up when Cas reaches them.
“Hello, Dean. And you must be Sam,” Cas says, putting out his hand. “I’m Castiel”.
Sam bites the inside of his cheek and smiles a small smile at Cas, shaking his hand.
“Nice to meet you, Castiel. I’m gonna go now, hope you two have a good time,” he emphasizes the word, biting his cheek harder to keep himself from chuckling out loud.
Dean throws a glare at him as Cas nods, oblivious to Dean’s younger brother’s remarks. Sam gets in the car and honks once before driving away.
Suddenly very nervous, Dean turns to look at Cas, to catch him already staring. Cas looks away, clearing his throat.
“Shall we get going, then?” he says and Dean nods. They start walking down the street, Dean lowering his head in a vain attempt of escaping the chill and Cas wrapping his scarf tighter around his neck.
It’s snowing as they reach a coffee shop that Cas has said to be his favourite. They walk inside, thankful for the warmth and coffee-tinted scent in the air. Cas takes the lead, walking in front of Dean and taking him to a table on the corner, next to the big window. Dean deliberately ignores the way the whole thing looks like date and sits opposite of Castiel, draping his jacket on the back of his chair. He sits down, rubbing his hands together to warm them up a bit, but thankfully they’ve already warmed up quite a bit from the heating.
Dean orders black coffee and doesn’t find it surprising when Cas orders tea. He does seem like a tea person, after all. He watches him for a bit, noticing how he turns his eyes to look at the busy street outside the store. He averts his eyes as soon as he realizes he’s staring.
“Are you going back to the hospital tomorrow?” Cas asks, pulling his eyes from the street to look at Dean. Dean leaves it to his imagination to make him think that Cas’ eyes look hopeful.
“Yeah, probably. Are you?”
“That’s what I was planning to do. And probably what I will end up doing, as well,” Cas replies.
“Oh okay,” is all Dean manages to say. Their waitress comes over, bringing their orders and Cas thanks her quietly. She smiles sweetly at him before leaving and Dean furrows his brows at the short, bitter-tasting twist he feels in his blood.
He beats himself inside his head. He’s acting like a friggin’ teenaged girl who has a crush on someone and they’re on their first date – which is not what is happening right now with him and Cas. He clenches his fists a couple of times.
Okay, maybe he does find the guy attractive a bit – a really, really big bit. But that doesn’t mean he’s got a friggin’ crush on him. He’s used to finding both genders attractive, so why about this guy with the ocean eyes and the million-dollar smile has him drooling all over the floor? He hasn’t even known him for more than three days and he already finds himself noticing little things he does when he speaks, walks, breathes.
Cas’ voice breaks his train of thought when he hears him say his name – his tone indicating that he has been calling out more than once before he caught Dean’s attention.
“Sorry, dazed off for a bit there. What’s up?” Dean says, shaking his head lightly as if to get rid of the way his thoughts had seem to wander off to.
“It’s all right. I was asking you about your occupation. I don’t think you’ve mentioned what you do before.”
“I don’t have a day-to-day job right now, but I take up fixing cars for a family friend’s junkyard.” Dean says, looking at Cas. “He pays me for the work I take off his hands. What do you do?”
Cas doesn’t reply, instead focuses on blowing into his mug before taking a sip from his overly-sweetened tea. Dean swallows, keeping his eyes from darting to the other man’s lips on the rim of the mug and the way his tongue gathers the few drops that stay on his lips.
“I am currently working in the book section of the mall. Books are something you’d expect me to know a lot about,” he smiles at the end of his sentence, a hint of shyness edging around his words.
“Oh? You read a lot?” Dean asks, feeling eager to make more mental notes about the man opposite of him.
“Yeah I do. But not the modern day stuff – I prefer to read old classics, the language is much more eloquent and beautiful at those times, in my opinion” Cas says and there’s a spark in his eyes now that he’s talking about books that Dean hasn’t seen in the previous days. Suddenly he gets an urge to want to find all the things Cas is passionate about and have him talk about those things for the rest of time.
“That’s great. I get what you mean,” he says, nodding at Cas.

They spend almost two hours talking about everything – Dean’s previous job at a diner, Cas’ obsession with history and archaeology, Sam’s law degree and Cas’ fondness for saving the environment and wildlife.
Before Dean even notices, it’s dark outside – half past six is already dark this time of the year – and he’s got to get going.
He reckons the waitress over, handing her a note for both their drinks before Cas can protest – “This was me making it up to you, remember?” – and getting up to put his jacket on.
Cas mirrors his movements, putting on the trench coat that seems as odd to Dean now as it did earlier, when he saw Cas walk out of the hospital wearing it.
“This was really pleasant, Dean. Thank you for suggesting it.” There he goes again, with all the smart talk and class. Dean chuckles lightly.
“Come on, it was great. We could repeat it if you’d like,” he adds hesitantly, looking at Cas’ expression for any hints of discomfort. Surprisingly, there are none – the only change being the widening of his smile.
“I’d love that,” he replies as they walk out into the cold. It hasn’t stopped snowing all afternoon and the layer of snow is now much thicker than before, stomped all over by the shoes of passer-bys.
They both stop walking and turn to each other. After standing awkwardly in the silence for a second, Cas lets out a small “Oh!” and smiles.
“Give me the receipt from the café.”
Dean’s brow furrows. “What for?” His fingers curl around the small piece of paper in his pocket.
“Just give it to me, please,” Cas says and puts his hand out. Dean pulls out the paper and hands it to Cas, shivering little when his cold fingers touch Cas’ palm.
Cas pulls a pen from somewhere in his coat and steps closer to Dean –right into his personal space. Dean’s breath hitches but Cas seems oblivious to that. He scribbles something swiftly in neat handwriting – numbers.
He then slips the receipt into Dean’s pocket – further invasion of personal space, Dean thinks to himself – and leans a bit closer.
“Please don’t lose it this time, okay?” he says quietly, next to Dean’s ear, before pulling away and smiling one last time before stepping to the side and walk past Dean.
Dean manages to recompose himself after a minute or two and turns to look at Castiel – he’s almost down the next block, and he doesn’t turn to look behind him to see the melted mess he’s reduced Dean Winchester to.

* * *
Dean gets a cab home, happy that he could find one before he froze to death. He finds Sam sprawled all over the couch, a bowl of popcorn in his lap and the TV on, playing some cheesy Christmas movie.
“Sam, sometimes you’re such a girl,” Dean says as soon as he throws himself on a chair opposite the TV. Sam throws a cushion at him and Dean smirks, as if that enhanced his remark.
“How did your date with Castiel go, you manly macho man?” Sam says in a girly voice, chuckling.
“It was not… a date,” Dean groans, crossing his arms. Sam’s laugh is louder than before.
“Sure it wasn’t. Did you kiss or did you two just hold hands in the frosty air?”
“Shut up Sammy, we just had coffee – well, I did and he had tea – and talked. I only said we should go because I was a jerk and didn’t call him to see what he had wanted yesterday.”
Sam’s eyebrows shoot up. “You asked him out? Oh, okay”.
Dean rubs his face with his hands. “Stop being a bitch.”
“Once you stop being a jerk,” Sam replies and drops the subject.
Dean smiles as he remembers the slip of paper in his pocket and Cas’ voice next to his ear – ‘Please don’t lose it this time’.
As if he had lost it the first time, anyway.
* * *
Dean wakes up way too early the following morning, images of Cas breathing against him still vivid behind his eyelids as he gets up to take a shower and get dressed for their next day in the hospital.
As soon as he and Sam are in the car – Sam driving for a change – he falls into silent thinking. Reliving his dream from the night before, how real and intense it had been and how uncomfortably hard he had woken up, mostly focusing on how he had yet to realize why he had such a dream.
It wasn’t that difficult to guess – what with Cas’ whispering and also being oblivious to the context of personal space.
He breaks off his train of thought when they pull up to the hospital’s parking lot.
“See you later, I suppose,” Sam says with a shit-eating grin on his face. Dean rolls his eyes dramatically before getting out and heading closer to the entrance.
As soon as he gets to the play room, he feels a bit put-off. Cas’ dark head is nowhere to be seen right now, so he decides to walk around and see if he can maybe find him.
He walks around twice before realizing that Cas is not there.
Hesitantly, he pulls out his cell and swiftly types the number he sees on the café receipt. Biting his lip, he brings the phone to his ear, his heart hammering in his chest with each ring of the phone.
“Hello?” Cas’ gruff voice answers the phone and Dean’s own voice gets caught in his throat.
He coughs lightly once. “Cas? This is Dean… Winchester?”
“Hello, Dean. What is – “ he stops talking, covering the receiver with his hand and shouting something to someone in the distance before resuming. “What is wrong?”
“Nothing, I just -,” Dean pauses. Why did he call? He was acting as if Cas not showing up meant the end of the world.
“Yeah?”
“I was wondering why you hadn’t showed up today.”
“Oh I just –,” he stops again and then there’s the sound of something huge shattering in the background.
Dean goes from awkward to worried in a nanosecond. “Cas? Cas.”
Short pause.
“Dean, I have a problem.”