Chapter Text
"Dean. I'm considering a life of crime," Cas says in a near-whisper, dropping into a chair at the kitchen table.
"Uh, come again?" Dean says, only just avoiding spitting out his coffee. "And hate to break it to you, but we've both already got warrants out for multiple felonies, so..."
"I want to steal our neighbor's raspberries," Cas says with as much gravitas as if he's planning to rob the Bellagio. "And sweet peas. Possibly the carrots as well, though I can't be sure that's necessary yet."
"Okay?" Dean says, completely confused. "Wait, I didn't think we had any neighbors. This place is in the middle of goddamn nowhere."
"Three quarters of a mile up the road, there is a small farmstead. I jog past it sometimes."
Dean graciously relinquishes the opportunity to mock intentional exercise in favor of a follow-up question.
"Can I ask why? I mean, I'll help with the larceny obviously, but..."
"It's negligence, is what it is. The pea pods are swollen to the point of woodiness -" Dean bites back a laugh. Seriously, swollen and woody? "The raspberries are overripe, and who knows the subsurface condition of the carrots if the presence of various noxious weeds throughout the garden is any indication. Something must be done."
“What did you have in mind?” Dean says, sipping his coffee.
“A heist,” Cas answers with a decisive nod.
“Mmhmm. A heist.”
“A caper, if you will.” Cas glances shiftily from side to side, as though to check there are no wayward children around to corrupt with their conspiring. “To liberate the languishing produce.”
“Of course,” Dean says. Because honestly, he’s done a lot weirder things for people he cares a lot less about.
“It’s immoral, the actions of this quote-unquote gardener,” Cas continues, with the embellishment of air quotes. “It violates the sacred pact between a gardener and their crop.”
“The sacred pact?” Dean asks, spearing a chunk of perfectly cooked Eggs Benedict into his mouth, not laughing, definitely not smiling around his fork and loving Cas for all that he is.
“To honor the fruits of each plant’s labor,” Cas says seriously. “To care for each and every plant and shelter it from harm. To be its guardian.”
Suddenly, it doesn’t seem so funny.
“This really bothers you, doesn’t it?” Dean asks.
Cas huffs. “Yes. I am fully cognizant of the fact that our access to Charlie's perpetually limitless credit cards means we could buy whatever I can't grow myself. But -"
"It bothers you though. So it bothers me too."
Cas looks a little floored. His expression softens, shifting from agitated to fond, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes replacing the deep vee between his brows.
Dean shrugs. "What? Like you wouldn't commit a bigger crime for me, any day of the week. You helped me and Sam kidnap the president."
"He was possessed by Satan at the time," Cas scoffs. "But I suppose it's possible that the admittedly broken U.S. justice system wouldn't have taken that into account."
Dean laughs, shaking his head. He finishes up his coffee and squeezes Cas' shoulder as he heads to the sink with his dishes. Dried egg yolk is a bitch to clean if it's left to sit.
Cas stands too, taking his place next to Dean, towel in hand. Dean hands clean dishes to him one by one, Cas putting them away in their correct places. Not like Sam, putting all the spoons facing the wrong direction or worse, Jack, putting the plastic salad spinner in the oven and giving Dean a near-heart attack the next time he goes to pre-heat it.
"So. What weapons do you think we'll be needing for our mission tonight?" Dean asks, teasing. Cas waits a beat longer to answer than Dean is totally comfortable with.
“Uh, that was a joke, Cas,” Dean says, nudging him with his hip.
“Oh. Right. Based on the condition of the dust atop the gravel driveway, I am confident that the homeowner has been absent for at least three weeks. So I don’t think there is any significant risk for a violent human encounter.”
“Well, that’s good. I’ll leave the pistols and the flamethrower at home then,” Dean says, turning off the water and leaning back against the counter to watch Cas carefully line up the last of the mugs in the cupboard.
“However,” Cas adds, “Those fireproof gloves you keep in the trunk for burning bones might come in handy. The raspberry thicket is quite overgrown, after all. Some of the fruit may be hard to reach. Things could get...prickly.”
“Thanks for the heads up. I’ll wear my carhartts. Anything else I should be prepared for?”
“The sweet peas and radishes shouldn’t present any risk of injury. We’ll just need a few buckets to store what we harvest.”
“Gotcha covered. What time are we leaving?”
“Sunset is at 8:48 PM tonight, dusk at 9:20. I’d say 11:30, to be safe. That’s thirty minutes after the Wednesday night closing time for the only bar within a hundred miles, further reducing the risk of passersby.”
“Shit, this is a caper, isn’t it?” Dean says, grinning. “Do I get a codename? It’s ‘Clooney,’ for obvious reasons.”
Cas dries his hands carefully and then circles around in front of him, hands going easily to his hips.
“Fuck, I’m gonna make such a good pie out of those berries,” Dean says dreamily as Cas kisses up the side of his neck, hands slipping just under the back of his shirt.
***
Later, Cas is antsy during movie night with Jack and Sam. Tonight’s selection is Avatar. Jack is working his way through the top-grossing movies of the last twenty years as a sort of pop culture boot camp, and it’s been a mixed bag. Lord of the Rings was awesome, of course, and Dean definitely didn’t cry a little bit in Frozen.
Sue him, sibling dynamics are a bit of an emotional trigger. Whatever.
“You wanna get out of here?” Dean whispers in Cas’ ear as he fidgets during a hot blue guy’s monologue about the importance of environmental conservation. Dean’s not really paying attention either.
They make their excuses to Sam and Jack, earning a highly sarcastic eye roll from Sam. Dean’s fingers are laced with Cas’ as they make their way down the bunker’s long hallway to Dean’s room. Or, as it’s been for the last couple months, their room.
Cas kisses him into the mattress until Dean is pulling at his clothes in an entirely ineffectual way. Cas takes mercy on him, stripping first Dean and then himself before wrapping a lubed-up palm around Dean’s shaft, thumbing at the head on every twisting upstroke as Dean clings and gasps and doesn’t contribute at all, too overwhelmed in the best possible way.
He’s nearly there, so close, then Cas’ hand is gone and Dean groans something he’d be embarrassed about if he wasn’t completely, totally distracted by how good Cas looks and how fucking good he is at fucking him. Cas laughs softly, and it’s all kindness. Dean watches him slick himself up, using his free hand to maneuver the backs of Dean’s thighs up toward his chest and sliding his cock between them.
“In me, in me,” Dean chants, but Cas just shushes him instead and uses both hands to push Dean’s knees closer together, making a tighter space for himself.
“Touch yourself, Dean. Show me.”
Dean obeys - it’s hardly a chore.
***
“Dean, wake up.”
It takes some doing, but Dean eventually opens one eye to squint at Cas in the near-total dark. Cas has his arm around him, fingers tracing circles on the bare skin of his back.
“It’s time to go commit acts of horticultural vigilante justice.”
Dean is abruptly back to full consciousness at that call to arms. “Let’s do it.”
***
Cas parks the car a quarter mile past their target, going so far as to do a perfect, Driver’s Ed-quality three point turn in order to have the car facing the opposite direction from where they came.
“We don’t want to alert local law enforcement to our presence,” Cas says, tapping the side of his nose.
Dean doesn't point out that the area's only police presence consists solely of one Carl Baxter, the recently divorced county sheriff. Dean lets Carl beat him in pool at the Lebanon Tavern three nights a week out of sheer pity, so something tells Dean that he's not patrolling this stretch of Rural Route 11 tonight.
Buckets in hand, they make their way past the squeaking, rusted gate and weave through knee-high grass and around overgrown flower beds. The night is cool, the sky clear. Dean looks up for a second at the star-filled sky.
"Dean, over here," Cas whispers hoarsely from around the side of the house.
When Dean rounds the corner, Cas is kneeling in the dirt. He smiles into the beam of Dean's flashlight, holding up a glossy, red strawberry.
"Strawberries - heaps of them," Cas says, popping the berry into his mouth and humming.
Cas takes his hand and tugs him down, aiming his flashlight at the bushes which are full-to-bursting with perfectly ripe berries.
"We're going to require additional buckets," Cas says, reverence threaded through his voice.
***
Four hours later, the sky is just starting to lighten as Dean carefully shuts the trunk of the Impala. He'd had to get creative when he ran back to the bunker for more storage containers, but now there are ice cream buckets full of radishes, at least eight kinds of lettuce in fabric grocery bags, a laundry basket stuffed to the brim with asparagus and carrots, and a dozen shoeboxes packed shallowly with the most precious cargo of all: fragile raspberries and strawberries twice as sweet as anything they can get at the Thriftway in Mankato.
When he slides in behind the wheel, Cas is on his phone, scrolling.
“One more stop before we go home, Dean.”
Cas doesn’t say where they’re headed, just tells Dean where to turn until they’re pulling in front of a plain brick building a couple of towns over. The sign reads, “United Food Pantry, All Are Welcome.”
“I’ll just be a minute,” Cas says, leaning over and kissing him on the temple as Dean yawns and nods.
But when Dean hears the trunk open, he sighs and drags himself out onto the sidewalk.
“You need any help?” Dean asks, leaning heavily against the car.
“Thank you, yes,” Cas says, balancing the laundry basket against his hip. “We just need to place all of these containers under the overhang. The breakfast shift will be arriving within the hour and can bring them inside.”
“Uh...when you say ‘all,’ you mean...all?” Dean says, eyeing the shoeboxes of berries with no small amount of grief.
“Well, I suppose a box or two wouldn’t be missed.”
Everything unloaded, they pull back onto the county highway just as the sun peeks out over the horizon.
***
Dean sleeps until noon and wakes to the smell of bacon. It almost, but not quite, makes up for the fact that the spot beside him in bed is cold and Cas-less.
He shuffles into the kitchen, and is greeted by a steaming plate of breakfast on the counter. Eggs and bacon, and familiar-looking berries from the night before. He hears Sam’s voice from the war room.
“Are you thinking brownies? There’s a lot of Scottish lore about them,” Sam is saying as Dean rounds the corner, plate in hand. “Maybe the hogboon, given the lack of livestock.”
“I’m not sure,” Cas says, a thick tome spread out in front of him. “The fae of the British Isles are traditionally more transactional than this.”
“Gnomes, then?” Sam adds.
“Uh, what’s going on?” Dean asks, after swallowing a mouthful of perfect bacon. The day he taught Cas that the oven is far superior to the stovetop for bacon should go down in history. He’s benefited from it ever since.
“We’re doing research!” Jack interjects, head popping up from behind his laptop. “I’m helping.”
“We’re trying to figure out what’s up with that magic garden you and Cas found,” Sam clarifies.
“Huh? What’s he talking about, Cas?” Dean says, leaning against the side of the table next to Cas and knocking a knee into his.
“We think there might be supernatural forces afoot in the garden,” Cas answers, not looking at all worried about this. “Possibly.”
“Pretty sure gardens don’t spontaneously regenerate within a four hour period, Cas,” Sam interjects.
Dean sets his plate on the table with a clatter. “Regenerate? What the fuck?”
Cas sighs, leaning forward in his chair. “I jogged my typical circuit this morning, which as you’re aware, takes me past the garden, and I noticed something odd. It appears that it is in need of another nocturnal harvest already.”
“And that’s not...normal,” Dean says, looking down mournfully on the fruit he was really fucking looking forward to eating.
“I should say not,” Cas says with a scoff. “Dean, the carrots were back. We pulled them from the earth not eight hours ago. They typically require between sixty and eighty days from germination to harvest, not to mention, given the time of year and the force of the sun’s rays -”
“What Cas is trying to say,” Sam cuts in, “Is that there’s something going on with that garden. Our kind of thing.”
“Alright, well, then we’ve gotta burn it down, right? Salt the earth or something?” Dean says, stomach sinking. Or maybe that’s just hunger. He eyes his plate - the eggs are probably fine, right? If they weren’t touching the fucking possessed strawberries?
"Dean, I think it's friendly," Cas says, setting a gentle hand on his knee.
"Fuck that, I've had my share of spirits. I just wanted to make a damn pie, but these berries,” he stabs one with his fork and waves it in the air for emphasis, “Will probably hex me with gonorrhea or like, a tail."
“Probably not a tail,” Jack says, jumping in. “Unless it’s a glaistig. I'm reading that they can get a bit spiteful.”
Dean picks up his plate and heads to the kitchen to make some goddamn oatmeal.