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"I'm....tipsy," Cas says decisively, resting his toke on the ashtray and crashing back against the couch cushions. He starts laughing from his chest, staring out to the middle distance.
"You're spaced, dude," Dean corrects lightly, finding Cas’s giddy smile infectious when it turns toward him.
It seems to take a few moments for Cas’s eyes to focus on him, and as soon as they do Cas vanishes - reappearing knelt over Dean's knees instead. He grabs at Dean's face with curious hands, and Dean lets him, too relaxed and happy to try to push him off.
"Don't fly while high, little man," Dean advises, voice mushy from his cheeks being squished by one big hand, "you'll end up in Antarctica or something. You'll hit a bird."
"I won't hit a bird, birds are a different dimension."
"A different dimension?"
"Yes."
Cas raises his free left hand into the air, flattened out.
"The birds are here, and I'm..." he deliberates, Dean can practically hear the gears moving in his head. The slow laborious movement of Cas’s thumb into Dean's mouth is accompanied by a triumphant smile, "I'm here."
"Great," Dean says, sparkling with mirth, although it comes out more like 'gwath' with Cas’s thumb resting on his tongue, "good to know."
He moves his head back to free Cas’s digit, and laughs at Cas’s confused expression looking at his now wet, cold thumb. Cas refocuses on Dean and they grin conspiratorially at each other.
"I love seeing you happy," Dean confides, and Cas just hums, now reaching his hands into the short hair around the back of Dean's neck, "You are happy aren't you?"
"I am." Cas confirms, then scrunches his face up when his fingers slide up to the top of Dean's head and catch on the styling gel, "This is repulsive."
"You're repulsive," Dean says by rote, and he isn't sure if he meant it to but it comes out cloying and sweet, like an affectionate nickname. It fits on Cas though, like sunshine, pumpkin, huggybear. Cas is perfect.
"You're perfect," Dean amends, and Cas nods absently, leading to Dean sputtering with laughter, which knocks Cas’s hands where he's sweeping them through the gel and wiping it off against the back of the couch with a look of satisfied disgust.
"Dean," Cas reprimands, squeezing his head still between his palms, and something drops open in Dean's stomach, some well of stillness that softens his breathing until Cas pats the back of his neck and says, "Good."
Their eyes catch, closer now, Cas leaned slightly over him. His eyelashes are long, and they flutter when Dean grips the outside of his thigh. His mouth hangs open, pink, slack. Dean wants to kiss him.
"I want to kiss you," Dean says, and Cas laughs again, this one lazy, languid.
"No you don't," Cas says, but he's still smiling, still warm.
"Yes I do."
"You do now," Cas concedes, his gaze sticking to Dean's bottom lip for a moment, before returning to his eyes, "You won't tomorrow."
"I will."
"You won't."
"How do you know?" Dean demands, agitation burrowing through his good mood, "I think I'd know better than you."
"You'd think so, yes," Cas concedends airily, "But I know you, intimately," his hand appears on Dean's clavical, or perhaps it had been resting there since good, and slides down to cover Dean's heart-pulse, "And I know you don't want to kiss me."
"You don't know shit," Dean mutters, leaning in, but Cas leans back, precarious on Dean's knees.
"I bet you," Cas says, and a peel of laughter tears through his speech. He follows Dean as he sits back on the couch, keeping the same strict distance between their mouths, "Dean, listen, I bet that you don't want to kiss me tomorrow."
"You bet me?" Dean says flatly, then the absurdity of the suggestion sneaks up on him and he clarifies, "you bet me on whether I feel something inside myself?"
"Yes."
"Which you cannot verify one way or the other past me telling you."
"Indeed."
"Sure, Cas," Dean says, feeling his smile start to ache on his face but totally unable to stop, "Sure, okay. What are the stakes?"
There's a moment of consideration, Cas rolling his head back to stare at the ceiling, then he breaks out into his gummy smile.
"One thousand dollars."
"One - one thousand dollars?" Cas nods, but he's not serious, his eyes are sparking with mischievous joy. "Cas, I don't have one thousand dollars. You don't have a thousand dollars."
"I will tomorrow," Cas says with confidence, and that's what breaks him.
Dean laughs until he can only cough, casting a smiling glare to the skunk in the ashtray. He can't be too mad, because the coughing has Cas touching all around his ribcage with light fingers, and chuckling delightedly when Dean's lungs catch. He wants to call him freak in the same loving tone as repulsive, but when his breath has calmed down Cas is first off the mark.
"Sam has a thousand dollars."
"No way, you think Sam could keep hold of more than 5 dollars at a time? His Mr Responsible act, he's got you fooled."
"You think nothing's changed since you were children?"
"I know my brother," Dean says, trying to tap his own nose but missing by a good 5 inches, "if he had any amount of money it would be in his to-go bag in the closet, inside zipped pocket. We can sneak in and look."
"We can bet, then, if he has it. How much?"
"Winner takes the spoils. You'll be giving it all back to me tomorrow anyway."
"More fool..." Cas begins, then squints into nowhere, trying to complete the phrase, "more fool...fools."
"You got a way with words Cas, have I ever told you that? Real Wordsworth. A real Wiw, Will, Wiwyam-" Dean struggles over the first name a few more times and then lets it go. "A real Worbsworth. Words."
"Where is he?"
"Wordsworth? He's dead I think..."
"No, Sam."
"He's uhhhh, across the corridor 7 doors to the right."
Cas nods, then tips forward and pecks Dean on the forehead with his nose, which makes the world tilt sideways - suddenly they're falling onto a bed, and not an unoccupied one.
Sam, awoken by 2 fully grown men dropping on top of him, is not impressed with their giggly explanations, refuses to show them whether or not he has a thousand big ones (he definitely doesn't) and he sends both of them back to their room (spoilsport).
"You better walk this time," he warns them with trademark Sammy disapproval, "What if you hit a bird?"
Back in their room, they decide - or rather, Cas decides - that they should pull all the pillows and blankets off both beds and set them out in a nest on the floor. They tried getting the couch cushions, but they seem to be sewn in. It's not an especially impressive blanket fort, not like the one he and Sammy had almost made when they snuck around an Ikea and drew the curtains of a four-poster to deposit the cosiest looking cushions and pillows, only to get kicked out before either of them got around to assembling it.
"Don't make me compete with nostalgia," Cas complains, which clues Dean in that he'd said that out loud.
"You'd win," Dean promises, "You'd win every time."
Crawling into their cocoon, he tugs Cas in next to him, until they're curled into each other in the warm shelter holding hands loosely. Cas comes easily, settled with his nose a few inches from Dean's. Staring at him, something catches in Dean's chest.
"I don't want a thousand dollars."
Cas tips his head into his pillow, his gaze roving over Dean's face.
"If I win," Dean clarifies, "I'll want something else."
It takes a moment, but understanding rises in Cas’s eyes, and a blush over his cheeks. His mouth twitches, like he's forgotten how to smile.
"Can I tell you something, Dean?"
"Of course. Anything."
Cas takes a breath, then admits, "I don't want to win the thousand dollars either."
Tomorrow things might be different. Tomorrow he might retreat from his feelings, and Cas might disappear. This happy, floaty feeling may dissipate and they'll go back go normal. Tomorrow doesn't exist. Right now they're here, together.
"I love you Cas," he thinks he says, but Cas doesn't react to it, just smiles dreamily. They lie together, warm and quiet, until Dean blinks himself to sleep.