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Your knees were bent with the points of your shoes face inward at each other, as if you were a stock photo in a woman’s magazine. In your slender pale fingers was a wilting dandelion. You picked off bits of its fluff in pinches and deposited them over the ground, flicking the lingering dust into the grass. There was something admirable in your patience. Instead of blowing it all off in one go you snatched each seed like it was something that you would hate to miss. Its journey from flower to grass was tragic; by the end of it, the fluff was worthless. Who would care to pick it up now? But you knew something different, in the way that you threw away the wilted stem to pluck another. There would always be more flowers to pick and more fluff to be distributed, which were two processes that were joined at the hip. All that you had to do was wait.
“What are you doing?” He said it suddenly, and you jumped.
“Holy crap, Cas,” The hand that had once been picking the flowers flew over her heart. “You startled me.”
“I—I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
You smiled wickedly at him. “It’ll take a lot more than that to frighten me.” You patted the curb next to where you were sitting. “Care to pop a squat?” When he didn’t react, you frowned at him. “Or sit?”
He shuffled over to where you were sitting. “I’m not familiar with that expression, Y/N.” He sat down.
You, in turn, sat up straighter. “Oh, I’m ‘Y/N’ today. That’s cool.” You pretended to fix the holes in her jeans. “You make me sound so proper.”
Cas frowned at you again. “I thought that was your preferred name?” He thought back to all the times where you had corrected Sam or Dean for calling you by a nickname. Y/N’s face always looked pinched, as if you were trying not to taste something bitter.
Y/N threw down the dandelion for another. “Lighten up, angel. It’s okay. Call me anything but ‘late to dinner’, right?”
Cas stared intently at her to try and convey his confusion. It felt like everything that Y/N ever said was to confuse him. Here he was, thinking that he had mastered the minutiae of human dialogue after six years with the Winchesters. You, he had noticed, seemed to have the habit of unraveling his assumptions.
He switched the topic, “I thought that you were supposed to blow the seeds off.”
You laughed a beautiful sound. He tried not to smile at it. You looked over at him, “Yes, that’s what people traditionally do. But I suck at blowing--”
“That’s alright, sweetheart, you’ll get it eventually.” Dean ruffled her hair as he walked by.
Cas’ moment of connection with you dried up at the spot. You pursed her lips and looked up at Dean in an annoyed manner. “Boy, I’ve never heard that one before.” You rolled her eyes, and half-smiled at Dean before looking back to Cas. “I am not very good and removing the seeds from said dandelion with the air power from my lungs in one blast. This way is much easier.” You went back to picking off the fluff. You had answered Cas’ question in a way that was all for Dean. He tried to ignore his frustration at Dean by staring extra intently at you and the flower.
“Aren’t they weeds?” he said. Weeds were supposed to be ugly, undesirable. And here Y/N seemed to love every minute out of the pollination process.
You shrugged. “Well, technically, yes. But, they can be pretty. Look at this.” You held some fluff in your hand. “You can still make a wish.” You flattened out her palm and blew the mass off of her hand. Cas felt something tighten in his stomach. At the end, there were still some stragglers on her hand, and you laughed again. “Do you think that’ll come true? I didn’t get if off in one go.”
Dean started laughing. “Kid, you’re just setting me up for these.”
You wiped her hands together briskly and gave Cas a knowing look. “Well—whoops.” You smiled sadly at Cas before standing up. Fully vertical, her legs seemed to go up for miles. Cas looked away when he realized that he had been staring.
“Where’s Sam with the food? I’m dying.” You complained good-naturedly. Everything about her was good-natured.
Dean waved his hand off in the other direction. “I don’t know. He’s probably off staring at his laptop. You know how he is.”
They exchanged a familiar chuckle, and you made a move to leave. You stopped before fully moving past him. “Getting up?” You stretched out her hand down to him. Cas found himself taking it before telling himself a good reason for doing so. When he was up, there was a definite, if inappropriate, part of him that wanted to lean too far in your direction so that he could feel your hand on his shoulder. “Whoa, there.” You smiled at him when he did this. “Looks like you need some food too. I’ll go pester Sam.” You let go of him and moved away. The warmth that your hand left on his chest made his skin tingle.
When you were out of earshot, Dean snorted.
“What?” Cas said. He still hadn’t forgotten his annoyance with Dean for ruining his moment with Y/N.
“You and Y/N/N; it’s cute.” Dean took a sip of his coffee. “But, boy, are you throwing yourself out there.”
Cas frowned. “Throwing myself?” He raised an eyebrow. “What—what make you think of that?”
Dean put on his most theatrical face. “Oh, Y/N, let me sit next to you. Let me stare inappropriately at your legs and hang on your every word. And that, uh, little leaning thing you had there just a second ago? Yeah, that is what made me think poor Cas is throwing himself at her mercy.” He grinned at Cas. “The funny thing is that it seems to be working for you.”
Cas pretended like he was blowing Dean off. “Yeah, sure.” Inside, he felt his vessel’s heart pounding at the thought of you actually reciprocating the bundle of nerves that he had inside of him. He glanced over his shoulder at you talking with Sam over at a picnic table. He could see the lines that the grass had made on the bottom of your legs: it made an interconnected web of red lines. Cas wondered in a moment of worry, if they hurt. Maybe he could help.
“Cas. Cas, you’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
Dean snapped next to his ear. “You’re staring. Go and talk to her if you have to ogle at her the whole time.”
Cas looked at Dean skeptically. “I am not ogling.”
“Ooh, who are we ogling at?” You came bounding up behind him, and Cas felt his stomach drop in tandem. You had tucked a pink blossom of some kind behind her ear. It made you look exceptionally lovely, like a cherub in spring.
“No one.” Cas said quickly. “No one is ogling at anybody.”
You gave him a penetrating look. “Ok,” you said slowly. “I thought you were looking at the blond down the lot. Dean,” you looked past Cas, “she has a dog.”
Dean shrugged. “So? Tell Sam.” he still looked past you, his eyes searching for the mystery woman.
Y/N leaned in conspiratorially, “And she’s wearing daisy dukes.”
Dean immediately looked up from his papers. “Well, stop the presses. Where is she?” He walked past the two of you, in between where you were standing so that he’d brush against both of your shoulders.
Cas didn’t look with Dean. He kept his eyes on your smiling face. When it came to this woman wearing daisies, he found that he could not care any less. The point was that you had thought to bring the matter to Dean. Why was it always Dean?
“Cas?” you said while peering into his eyes. You looked at one before the other. It always made him felt like you looked beyond the perception of normal humans. It was beyond the limitations that his father had placed on human beings, and it was something that made you unbelievably unique. “What are you thinking about?”
“Um.” His thoughts had liquefied to jelly. He couldn’t remember what he had thought about besides you that could translate into anything that wasn’t odd. The flower tucked behind your ear made him feel deflated.
You followed his gaze. “This? Oh, Sam picked it by the rest stop. Which, I believe is illegal, so, maybe I should hide it.” You moved her hand to remove the flower. Cas found himself reaching over to straighten it in your hair. Your hands met. Y/N dropped her hand down and looked away before flicking your gaze up to him. “Alright, angel. If you like it, it stays.”
Sam had a strange coughing fit behind them that sounded like thinly veiled laughter. Cas shot him a look of pure anger when you rolled your eyes. “They’re being so weird today. A lot of laughing, did you notice it too?”
Cas nodded mutely. Yes, the brothers were being particularly odd towards him and you this morning.
You tucked a chunk of hair behind her flowerless ear. “Do you know any reason why?”
Cas felt panic set over him again. Dean said to talk to her, but to what end? Perhaps he was throwing himself too much at her. Charlie had once said girls could sense that sort of thing.
He bent over to pick up and fuzzy dandelion. “Do wishing on these things work?”
You smiled at him sadly again. “I wouldn’t put too much stock into it. They’re just an old story, really.”
“What’s the story?”
You blushed. “It’s silly. You blow all the fuzz off at once and then you make a wish. Just don’t tell anybody or it won’t come true.”
“Oh,” He felt slightly disappointed. He had wanted to ask what you had wished for. Maybe he could help you with it.
Cas still was confused. “What happens if you can’t do it all at once? You don’t.”
“Says a lot, eh?”
Cas looked down at her lips before looking up at your eyes. You had stopped in the middle of a sad chuckle before looking at him too. “What?” You said and untucked the hair behind your ear. Maybe you had some sort of nervous habit.
Cas shrugged and smiled to himself. “If they don’t come true anyways, what’s the harm in telling what the wish was?” Through the course of their conversation, they were now standing close together. If he were to move his hip approximately five inches to the right, he would be leaning right into her—
“Hey, Cas. Stop ogling!” Dean called from over at the other end of the lot. He was walking back towards Sam with a small slip of paper clutched in his fist. Sam mock clapped from the computer.
“Five more minutes and then we’ll head out. Cas, can you lovebirds handle five minutes? Will that be enough, Cas?”
Cas shot them both a furious look, but you seemed to take it well. You blushed and rolled her eyes. He thought of ways to punish both boys later for making you turn so red. Only he should be allowed to do that. This thought gave him pause. Maybe he was throwing himself at Y/N/N. Honestly; he didn’t really care, so long as you gave as much back.
“I see why they were so giggly earlier.” You half turned so that you weren’t facing the boys. Your face was still a brilliant shade of scarlet.
“Why’s that?” Cas murmured. He was still shooting death glares at where the Winchesters were standing.
“They think you’re in love with me.”
Cas’ heart fell into his stomach. He breathed slowly. For a moment, everything seemed to stand still. He had to think of something, anything to say. This was as close to asking his feelings that he would ever get.
“Y/N/N, what did you wish on that dandelion for?” They were only a few inches away from each other now.
You leaned back a little. “So I’m Y/N/N today? That’s interesting.”
“Answer the question,” He said, slightly impatient. Whatever was in his stomach was tightening. Cas only felt like rushing towards you like thundering wave.
Her voice was small. “I wished for courage.”
His grand, romantic fantasy where you told him that you had wished for him fell flat. He squinted at you in confusion. “Y/N/N, you already have courage. You’re a brave hunter.”
You looked down at her shoes. “Some things are harder to do than others.” When you looked back up at him, he felt you stop breathing for a moment. Up close, your eyes looked like amber pools of petrified wood. He couldn’t tell you that. It probably constituted under Dean’s loose characterization of throwing himself at you.
Slowly, Y/N took one of his hands at his side and laced your fingers together. It was such a quiet movement, but a loud gesture that he almost didn’t recognize your hand until it was happening. A heat spread throughout his entire body.
“They may have been onto something,” Cas allowed. The scarlet had ebbed out of her cheeks, to be replaced with a warm flush. That was me, Cas thought, I did that to her.
“Hmm?” You breathed. Her eyes were low and her dark lashes fluttered. A base instinct inside of him threatened to cause him to lose all control. Had you really already forgotten Sam and Dean’s mocking words? Bravery coursed through him too. “I can be brave enough for the both of us.” He said suddenly, so much so that you jumped a little.
You flashed him the wicked smile that he had come to love so much, “Sexist.” You probably expected him to shrug or to blow off the words that made her sound so bitter. Cas wanted to suck all the bitterness out of her blood to make her laugh again. You cocked her head to the side. “What are you thinking about, Cas?”
He growled, “Kiss me.”
You sucked in a breath, and her eyes grew wide. Before you could offer up anything against it, Cas leaned in and pressed his lips to yours.
It was brief in the human perception of time, but to Cas it felt extraordinary. You smiled and Cas kissed the shape of your mouth as you smiled for him. It was all for him.
“So I guess the boys were right.” You whispered after they had broken apart for air. He had bit her lower lip just as you had let go. Her pupils were blown wide with lust.
“You look beautiful with a flower in your hair.” He managed to say.
Your smile turned radiant and you pulled him closer to kiss you. Cas wound his hand into your hair, unconscious of the world around you. Maybe Sam and Dean saw, and maybe they didn’t. He had you in his arms. Even if you hadn’t wished for this moment on that pollinating weed, Cas knew that he certainly had.
FIN.