#member one-more-offbeat-anthem
Star
The sun is a star that you can see during the day, and so is Cas, as far as Dean is concerned.
Cas has always been like this, a little different—and not just different from the other angels but different than everyone else. He carved a spot out in Dean’s chest just for himself and made a home there.
Dean used to resent that, fear it, but now he leans in. He doesn’t know what’ll happen tomorrow, how much time he’ll get, but if he’s gonna burn out one day, he’d rather do it happy.
Dean doesn’t always pay attention in his English class, but he has a good reason.
That reason’s name is Cas Milton, and Cas sits next to him in Intro to English Literature, taking thorough, color-coded notes with borderline terrifying precision and speed. Cas always lets Dean borrow his notes to copy and is often game for a study session at the campus coffee shop.
So maybe Dean’s not learning a lot about the core concepts of literature, but he’s gotten really good at flirting using Shakespeare.
(They don’t get a lot of studying done at the coffee shop.)
Don’t wake the baby is an easy thing to say, but a hard thing to do.
Sleepless nights turn into sleepy mornings regularly these days. Instead of making a pot of coffee first thing, Dean warms a bottle of formula. The war room has been taken over by a playpen and they baby-proofed the goddamn firing range.
Maybe Dean’s not getting a lot of sleep and his life has been turned on its head, but all of that means nothing whenever Dean rounds a corner and sees Cas with Jack in his arms. It’s kind of the best thing he’s ever seen.
And then Jack starts crawling.
Dean knows what people see when they’re working cases. Cas fills out a suit pretty well (really well, actually, why did he hide all those muscles under a trench coat for years?) and his blue eyes are all kinds of piercing, and that paired with his gravelly voice makes him appear stoic and maybe a little imposing to people they interview.
But Dean knows the other side of Cas, too, what he’s like when he trades his fed suit for a hoodie and an old pair of Dean’s sweatpants, how he is when he’s not angling for information but is instead curled up against Dean in their bed with reading glasses and sock feet.
It’s kinda the best thing ever.
Living in their new farmhouse, sun streaming in through the windows, white curtains in the kitchen and a wide front porch, has been magical. Cas loves waking up in the morning to a warm bed, his husband next to him, their dog jumping on the bed.
He does notlove the coffee grinder.
Cas prefers to wake up slowly and languidly, to patter around the house getting breakfast and a cup of tea ready, to stand on the porch and look at the breeze buffeting the tall grasses.
Dean prefers fresh-ground coffee almost as soon as he wakes up.
“Do you haveto do this every morning?” Cas says, a few months into living in the farmhouse. He knows he’s being over grouchy, but he doesn’t like that Dean leaves their bed to make a bunch of noise.
“Fresh ground coffee is better, Cas.” Dean pours water into the coffee maker and shuts it, turning it on.
“You couldn’t grind it the night before?”
“I’ve got other things to grind at night, Cas.” Dean is grinning at him.“Don’t try to flirt with me. I still hate the coffee grinder.”
“But you love me.”
And that’s true. Cas loves Dean more than anything, loves that they have a chance to have a happy life together. They have sunlight and a place of their own and each other. He supposes that part of love is compromise and putting up with the godforsaken coffee grinder in the mornings.
(Although Cas is still going to figure out how to strategically get rid of it. Maybe he can give it to Sam.)
