Standing Together

Chapter 96

It's July now, and that means it's getting way too hot to wear pajamas to bed. The nice thing about living with his fiancé is that there's no reason not to sleep in his boxers. God knows Dean won't complain about that.

Dean gets up before him, and the squeaking of the bed is enough to wake Castiel up, at least a little. He mumbles incoherently and reaches over to the boy, but he's already out of bed.

"'Morning, Cas," Dean says quietly.

"Mm," Castiel hums. He feels around the bed, but when he can't find Dean, he takes the pillow instead and wraps his arms around it, basically cuddling with it.

"Cas?" Dean says softly, stifling his laughter.

"Mm."

"Are you awake?" Dean asks.

"Mm."

Dean laughs softly. "Okay." He leans down and kisses the boy on the forehead. "Love you, Cas."

~~

When Castiel really wakes up, he's alone in the room, still cuddling the pillow. He sits up and rubs his eyes. He kind of just wants to go back to bed, but he'd rather go find Dean, so he tosses on a t shirt and sweatpants and goes Dean-searching.

Dean is sitting on the piano bench, eating a bowl of cereal. Castiel cocks his head in confusion and heads over to him.

"Sup?" Dean says with a grin.

"Why are you eating out here?" Castiel asks. "You do realize we have a kitchen, right?"

"I'm just admiring my new picture," Dean says.

Castiel looks over at their wall of nostalgia, scanning the photos for an unfamiliar one. It takes him a few moments, but he does find it. It's just him, lying in bed and cuddling with a pillow. It would almost be a cute little picture if he wasn't just wearing his boxers in it.

"Dean!" Castiel whines.

"Yes, Cas?" Dean says, exaggerating his sincerity.

"You can't put half naked pictures of me on the wall," Castiel says.

"But I like looking at you when you're half naked," Dean says with a smirk. "Almost as much as I like looking at you when you're fully naked."

"But on the wall?" Castiel complains.

"Like we're ever gonna have anyone over," Dean says sarcastically. "The only ones that are gonna see it are me and you — and then me again because it's really cute and I'll probably look at it a lot."

"But what if someone does come over?" Castiel asks.

"Then I'll take it down before they get here," Dean says. "But come on. No one's gonna visit us here. If we want to see anyone, we have to go visit them. That's how living in the middle of nowhere works."

"I feel like this is as far from the middle of nowhere as possible," Castiel says. "We're kinda in the middle of everything."

"Well, yeah, but no one else lives around here," Dean says. "Well, no one relevant, at least. We're about as far from our civilization as possible."

"Okay, fair point," Castiel agrees. "Although I wouldn't put it past Lucifer to show up unannounced."

"Honestly, if he didn't have a kid, he probably would have already," Dean says. "I was actually talking to him this morning, and he was basically begging us to go back to Sioux Falls so he can see us, so I don't think he has any plans for a surprise visit."

"Stupid kids, getting in the way of my surprise visits from Lucifer," Castiel pouts.

"You know what I just realized this morning?" Dean says.