Standing Together

Chapter 59

Jumping from month to month doesn't quite do football season justice. It's not a quick flow of events where Castiel doesn't have a down moment. It's not a constant string of fluff and cuddles. It's just fucking boring. Most of his awake time is spent sitting on the couch or playing guitar. Sure, Dean comes back eventually and they get to spend some time together, but it doesn't last long before it's time for bed.

It's even worse on weekends. For away games, Dean leaves first thing Saturday morning, and doesn't come back until Sunday night. For home games, Dean does get to come home on Saturday nights, but he must have decided Castiel's okay on his own, because he started going out for dinner with the team after a lot of the games. It's usually so late that there are times he won't see Dean at all on Sundays once he leaves in the morning.

But, despite Dean's busy schedule, Castiel manages to throw him a mini birthday party.

While Dean's at practice, Castiel starts baking the pie. He has to scroll through a bunch of different recipes online to find one that they have all the ingredients for, but thankfully, he does find one. Hopefully, Dean won't scoff at his amateur attempt to make an apple pie, because it's not easy.

Once that's in the oven, Castiel starts decorating the house. He cuts out little balloon shapes from the colored printer paper he finds in the closet and tapes them on the walls. He cuts out some multicolored letters, making the "Happy Birthday" as close to a rainbow as he can get it with Dean's very limited supply of colored paper. He sticks that over the doorway into the living room, right in plain sight.

He'd already wrapped all of Dean's gifts, but he takes a few minutes to carry them all from under their bed to the kitchen table. He probably should have put them all in one box, but it looks more impressive to have so many little boxes on the table.

But even after all that, he still has an hour or so until Dean gets home. What else can Castiel do? Everything's all set up. He should have saved the present wrapping until today just to kill time. Live and learn.

Castiel goes to their bedroom and grabs his Polaroid camera. The picture from Christmas is still sitting next to it, and Castiel picks it to look at it. It's the only picture he's taken so far, but he's not sure he'll ever get a better one. Dean's sticking his tongue out like a total dork, and Castiel is laughing at him. It's just a really pure picture.

He takes the camera out into the kitchen, the center of the mini party, to wait for Dean. Maybe he'll get a cute picture of Dean when he sees what Castiel put together — which is fairly impressive for not having left the house at all in five months. Using just the supplies he found in the house, he'd say he did pretty good.

Bored, Castiel decides to call Lucifer. Lucifer can always entertain him. He doesn't pick up until the last ring, which probably means Castiel's interrupting something, but he already knows Lucifer isn't going to mention it because he never does.

"Hey, whazzup, Cassie?" Lucifer greets him.

"I'm bored and you're good at making me not bored," Castiel explains.

"Then you must not have very high standards for 'not bored,'" Lucifer says. "But I'll unbored you anyway. Whatcha doing? Are you and Dean going to a fancy schmancy restaurant for his birthday? I bet you're going to a fancy schmancy restaurant for his birthday."

"Does the kitchen count as a fancy schmancy restaurant?" Castiel asks.

"Depends," Lucifer says. "What are you eating?"

"I don't know yet," Castiel admits. "I haven't really thought about dinner. I just made pie."

"Congratulations!" Lucifer says. "You have officially surpassed fancy schmancy restaurant status!"

"I literally just said I made pie," Castiel deadpans. "That's it."

"Exactly, and everyone knows that pie is the key to the Deanosaur's heart," Lucifer says. "Did you get our gift?"

"It's on the table with mine," Castiel replies. "It better not be too impressive, because mine isn't and I refuse to be out-gifted."

"I don't know, man," Lucifer say. "The way he reacted to your cassette tapes for Christmas? I think he'll just love anything that comes from you."

"I doubt it, but I'm sure he'll pretend to like anything I give him," Castiel replies.

"Well, yeah, that too," Lucifer agrees. "But, in other, more exciting news, it's almost time for football to end! There's just this Sunday and then maybe the next Sunday if Dean makes it to the Super Bowl, and then poof, you're free to do whatever you want!"

"Well, there next Sunday, Super Bowl Sunday, Grammy Sunday, and then we're free to do whatever we want," Castiel says. "And then a few months later, it starts all over again."

"But embrace these few months of alone time!" Lucifer says. "You can come hang out here with us! Or you can stay in Massachusetts and actually start planning the wedding you've been neglecting for the last nine months. Honestly, either one works."

Castiel chuckles. "Yeah, we should probably start planning the wedding soon. But I don't know what we're going do during his break. Maybe we'll come up and visit you. I haven't seen Alex since May."

"She's gotten so big!" Lucifer gushes. "And she's been crawling around everywhere and it's so cute and I love her with my entire soul and you have to come up soon and see her!"

Castiel laughs. "I'll see if we can make it up to Sioux Falls to see her."

"And to see me!" Lucifer adds excitedly.

"No, just to see Alex," Castiel says.

"I should be offended but actually I totally get that."