Graze (Best Friends 'Verse - 5)
Graze
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 2.2k
Characters: Dean, Cas and co., Gen (for now).
Warnings/spoilers: minor injury
Summary: AU, part 5 of the Best Friends ‘verse, where both boys are 12 years old. Cas trips over and Dean is there to fix him up. For new readers it’s best to read from the beginning, but if you choose not to, know that Cas is blind.
Graze (Best Friends ‘Verse - Part 5) by skylinehorizon
[Read in light format]
It’s Sunday morning, and Dean knocks on Cas’ bedroom door at 11am to tell him they’re going to go for a walk in the woods, seeing as it’s nearly summer and the days are getting warmer.
“Why is it you never call it advance?” Cas asks, feeling for his sunglasses on his bedside table.
Dean laughs from where he’s sitting on Cas’ bed, which Cas is sure must be untidy now, even if he made it earlier.
“Cas, if I called you every time I came around mom would probably kick me out of the house. The phone bill would be a thousand dollars. And it’s not like you ever answer your house phone.”
“Someone always does.”
“I don’t want to talk to someone, Cas, I come around to see you.”
Cas smiles at that and finally locates his sunglasses, slipping them onto his face.
“You just don’t want to talk to Gabriel,” he says, walking towards the door, hand reaching out to turn the main light off.
“That’s because it takes about five hours for him to stop teasing me before he passes the phone over to you.”
Cas smiles and waits until Dean’s stepped out of the room before shutting the door behind him.
“If it makes you feel any better, Gabriel’s sulking right now because he’s grounded for sneaking over to his girlfriend’s house.”
Dean makes a considering sound. “Hm, I guess that does cheer me up.”
They walk at a slow pace through Cas’ neighborhood, and it’s quiet apart from the occasional passing car and barking dog. The sun is beating on their backs, and Cas realizes they’re heading to the park, and cutting through it to get to the woods. To get there they pass Dean’s own house, and it’s from there on that he can’t keep track, unsure of where he is.
They’re haven’t gotten far, have only been walking for about ten minutes, when Cas hurts himself.
He loses his balance, tripping over something on the ground, and he flies forward, landing with a thump on the ground, hands spread out and stinging in front of him, and he’s momentarily stunned.
“Cas?”
There are suddenly hands all over him, over his shoulders, and chest, and then fingers curling around each wrist.
It’s taking him time to get his bearings and realize he’s sitting on the floor, and he’s fallen over, and his knees and his palms are stinging, and his wrists are sore where they took the brunt of his weight.
“Hey, Cas? Are you okay? Say something.”
There are fingers beneath his chin, Dean’s fingers, and Cas knows Dean must be staring at him and Cas blinks a few times, the shadow of Dean’s body a dark blur in front of him. “Dean?”
Dean’s fingers drop and he lets out a small breathy sigh of relief, and Cas misses the contact, settles on focusing on Dean’s voice instead. “It’s okay, I just need to look at your hands. Show me your palms, okay?”
Dean’s voice is gentle, and it goes a long way towards calming Cas. He turns his hands over and Dean takes Cas’ left hand in his, spreading his fingers to, Cas assumes, better assess the damage.
He attempts to touch the wound with his other hand, to find out if it’s deep, but Dean catches his wrist just before he gets the chance. “Hang on, buddy. Don’t touch it. There’s just a little bit of blood, but it’s not bad.”
“How much?” Cas asks.
“Not a lot. I promise.”
Cas relaxes again and lets Dean look over his hand. “Can you tell me how bad it is?”
“It’s about an inch long, and it’s not bleeding a lot. Just oozing. It’s sort of circular, and you’ve scraped some skin off. There’s some dirt though, so we should go back and get you cleaned up. I’ve got some water with me, but not a lot. How are your knees?”
Cas spreads out his legs in front of him and Dean lets go of his stinging hand. There’s a shuffling sound before Dean’s hands are on his calves, pulling up his pants leg, and then wiping at his left knee, causing it to sting a little worse.
“It was trickling a bit, but it’s not bad at all. Your hand is the only one that needs anything, really. We should get a plaster.”
“It stings,” Cas says, reaching for it again with his right hand, only to be stopped by Dean, his fingers loosely curling around his wrist.
“Don’t touch it because you could get more dirt in it. Just - give me your index finger. On your right hand.”
Cas holds it out and Dean gently takes it, before placing it on his left palm and moving it in a circle around what must be the cut. It feels large at first, but then Dean does it again, and once more, and Cas nods at him, before Dean lets go.
“See? Not so bad. Can you get up?”
Cas contemplates standing up, doesn’t want to go on his knees or use his hands, and he’s saved the trouble by Dean gripping his upper arm and helping him up, before brushing down his back.
Once Cas is standing up, Dean says, “I’ve got a bottle of water with me and I’m going to pour water on it. Is that okay?”
“Yeah,” Cas says, holding his hand out in front of him.
Dean’s hands are incredibly gentle as he takes Cas’ hand and slowly trickles water onto it. It stings even worse, and it feels too cold, and he goes to pull away but Dean tightens his grip just a little.
“One more second, I’m sorry, I’ve just got to…”
Cas relaxes his hand again and then Dean’s saying, “I’m going to dab it dry a little bit.”
Dean’s just as gentle as he dries it with what Cas assumes is his t-shirt and then he lets go, screwing the lid of the bottle back on.
“That will have to do until we get back. We can go to mine, it’s closer.”
They walk back at a slightly faster pace this time, Dean’s hand a solid grip on Cas’ elbow to guide him. It’s not long before they’re walking into Dean’s house and into the kitchen, where someone is listening to the radio.
“Oh, honey, what happened?” Mary asks, placing a hand on his shoulder and ushering him forward.
“He tripped over,” Dean says from the left of him.
“We’ll get a plaster on that, don’t you worry. Did you hurt yourself anywhere else, Cas?”
“No, I’m okay, it’s not bad.”
“Sit down -- Dean pull a chair out -- and I’ll go get the first aid kit.”
“I’m okay, really,” Cas says, although he thinks she’s already out of the room. “You don’t need to fuss.”
He feels for the wooden kitchen chair with his right hand and feeling the back of it, sits down.
“You know she likes to fuss,” Dean says from behind him. “Do you remember that time we thought Sam had broken his collar bone?”
Cas smiles at the memory. “It was just bruised.”
Dean voice is warm when he speaks. “Yeah. Just bruised.”
Mary comes back and takes Cas’ hand, telling him what she’s doing as she cleans it with an antiseptic wipe and puts a plaster over it.
“All done,” she says, closing the first aid kit. “I’ll go put this back. How about you stay for dinner tonight, Cas? Would you like that?”
“That would be nice, thank you,” Cas says, smiling.
“I’ll call your dad and let him now,” Mary says, kissing him on the top of the head before walking out of the room.
Dean’s being unusually quiet and Cas reaches out with his right hand to find Dean’s shoulder before he gives it a squeeze. “Dean?”
Dean doesn’t say anything and the atmosphere is suddenly uncomfortable, which is not something he’s used to experiencing when it’s the two of them. “What’s wrong?”
“I shouldn’t have let you fall over,” Dean mumbles quietly.
“You didn’t push me,” Cas says.
“No, but I didn’t catch you, either. I didn’t lead you away from the danger.”
“It was a tree root, Dean, not a car.”
There’s silence again and Cas gives Dean’s shoulder another squeeze, wants to get his point across that Dean has no reason to feel guilty.
“I’m supposed to watch out for you,” he says, finally, breaking the silence.
“That’s not your job,” Cas says. “You’re my best friend. You’re supposed to help me if I do fall over - and you did. Your job isn’t to try and prevent anything bad ever happening to me.”
“I don’t want anything bad happening to you.”
“You’re not my mom, Dean,” Cas says, softly.
They fall into another silence, and Cas is starting to feel nervous, thinks maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say, because he doesn’t want to hurt Dean, or make him upset. He only wants to make him understand he doesn’t need looking after just because he can’t see.
He’s just about to pull his hand away when Dean says, “I’m sorry,” placing his own hand over the top of Cas’, squeezing it and holding it in place. “Guess I still see you as the five year old in the playground.”
Cas smiles at him and then he laughs, shaking his head.
“What?” Dean asks, and there’s a smile in his voice.
“Do you remember when we first became friends? What you gave me?”
He still has it in his bedroom, safely stored away in a drawer beneath his desk.
It takes a moment and then Dean groans, embarrassed. “Cas, don’t do this to me.”
“A drawing. You drew me a picture.”
“You’re not supposed to remember that.”
Cas is still smiling and he slips his fingers through Dean’s, giving them a reassuring squeeze, just like they always do to communicate with each other. “It’s okay, I’m sure it’s a great drawing. I’ll have to find it for you.”
“Please don’t.”
Cas makes a mental note that he’ll have to get it out when he goes home tonight.
They eat a quick lunch of potato chips and sandwiches and watch movies in Dean’s room for the rest of the afternoon before they’re called down to dinner.
Cas sits in his usual seat, at the end of the table next to Dean, and smiles up at Mary as she places his dinner down in front of him.
“Pasta with tomato sauce and a sprinkling of cheese,” she says. “Just how you like it. Fork and spoon are to the right.”
“Thank you, Mary,” he says.
“You’re welcome, Cas.”
“Hey, how come Cas gets more than me?” Dean grumbles from his right and Cas smiles, keeping his hands in his lap until everyone starts eating.
“Don’t be silly,” Mary says, just as another voice says, “Are we having pasta?”
“Pasta and tomato sauce,” John says.
Cas can hear as a chair scrapes across the wooden floor as Sam sits opposite him.
“It looks yummy,” Sam says, and then another chair is being pulled out and Mary lets out a small satisfied sigh as she sits down.
“Okay,” she says after a moment. “Dig in!”
Dinner with the Winchester’s is a much different affair than at home. At Cas’ they don’t talk a lot, only speaking when asking each other to pass the vegetables or potatoes, and Cas’ dad is always making something elaborate, and sometimes he’s not even there at all.
At Dean’s house, everyone talks, and the food is always simple and delicious. As they eat, Sam tells them about a project he’s working on at school, and Dean regales them with the story of Cas falling over, except he makes it sound a little more dramatic than it was.
“Dean,” Mary says, and Cas can hear the fondness in her voice. “It was nothing a plaster and a good meal couldn’t fix.”
“I feel as good as new now,” Cas says.
Once the meal is over Dean walks Cas back to his house, and they go at a slow and leisurely pace, chatting about nothing and everything along the way.
“Thanks for today,” Cas says, once they’re outside his door. “It was fun.”
“Are you kidding?” Dean asks. “I still feel bad that you got hurt.”
“It was barely a scratch,” Cas says. “Honestly, I’m fine.”
“Good,” Dean says. There’s a firm grip on his right hand, and then their customary squeeze. “That’s good.”
“See you tomorrow at school?”
“See you then, Cas.”
Dean’s hand is gone as soon as it was there, and they say goodbye before Cas is turning around and heading towards his front door with a smile on his face.
Next part | 'Verse masterpost
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 2.2k
Characters: Dean, Cas and co., Gen (for now).
Warnings/spoilers: minor injury
Summary: AU, part 5 of the Best Friends ‘verse, where both boys are 12 years old. Cas trips over and Dean is there to fix him up. For new readers it’s best to read from the beginning, but if you choose not to, know that Cas is blind.
Graze (Best Friends ‘Verse - Part 5) by skylinehorizon
[Read in light format]
It’s Sunday morning, and Dean knocks on Cas’ bedroom door at 11am to tell him they’re going to go for a walk in the woods, seeing as it’s nearly summer and the days are getting warmer.
“Why is it you never call it advance?” Cas asks, feeling for his sunglasses on his bedside table.
Dean laughs from where he’s sitting on Cas’ bed, which Cas is sure must be untidy now, even if he made it earlier.
“Cas, if I called you every time I came around mom would probably kick me out of the house. The phone bill would be a thousand dollars. And it’s not like you ever answer your house phone.”
“Someone always does.”
“I don’t want to talk to someone, Cas, I come around to see you.”
Cas smiles at that and finally locates his sunglasses, slipping them onto his face.
“You just don’t want to talk to Gabriel,” he says, walking towards the door, hand reaching out to turn the main light off.
“That’s because it takes about five hours for him to stop teasing me before he passes the phone over to you.”
Cas smiles and waits until Dean’s stepped out of the room before shutting the door behind him.
“If it makes you feel any better, Gabriel’s sulking right now because he’s grounded for sneaking over to his girlfriend’s house.”
Dean makes a considering sound. “Hm, I guess that does cheer me up.”
They walk at a slow pace through Cas’ neighborhood, and it’s quiet apart from the occasional passing car and barking dog. The sun is beating on their backs, and Cas realizes they’re heading to the park, and cutting through it to get to the woods. To get there they pass Dean’s own house, and it’s from there on that he can’t keep track, unsure of where he is.
They’re haven’t gotten far, have only been walking for about ten minutes, when Cas hurts himself.
He loses his balance, tripping over something on the ground, and he flies forward, landing with a thump on the ground, hands spread out and stinging in front of him, and he’s momentarily stunned.
“Cas?”
There are suddenly hands all over him, over his shoulders, and chest, and then fingers curling around each wrist.
It’s taking him time to get his bearings and realize he’s sitting on the floor, and he’s fallen over, and his knees and his palms are stinging, and his wrists are sore where they took the brunt of his weight.
“Hey, Cas? Are you okay? Say something.”
There are fingers beneath his chin, Dean’s fingers, and Cas knows Dean must be staring at him and Cas blinks a few times, the shadow of Dean’s body a dark blur in front of him. “Dean?”
Dean’s fingers drop and he lets out a small breathy sigh of relief, and Cas misses the contact, settles on focusing on Dean’s voice instead. “It’s okay, I just need to look at your hands. Show me your palms, okay?”
Dean’s voice is gentle, and it goes a long way towards calming Cas. He turns his hands over and Dean takes Cas’ left hand in his, spreading his fingers to, Cas assumes, better assess the damage.
He attempts to touch the wound with his other hand, to find out if it’s deep, but Dean catches his wrist just before he gets the chance. “Hang on, buddy. Don’t touch it. There’s just a little bit of blood, but it’s not bad.”
“How much?” Cas asks.
“Not a lot. I promise.”
Cas relaxes again and lets Dean look over his hand. “Can you tell me how bad it is?”
“It’s about an inch long, and it’s not bleeding a lot. Just oozing. It’s sort of circular, and you’ve scraped some skin off. There’s some dirt though, so we should go back and get you cleaned up. I’ve got some water with me, but not a lot. How are your knees?”
Cas spreads out his legs in front of him and Dean lets go of his stinging hand. There’s a shuffling sound before Dean’s hands are on his calves, pulling up his pants leg, and then wiping at his left knee, causing it to sting a little worse.
“It was trickling a bit, but it’s not bad at all. Your hand is the only one that needs anything, really. We should get a plaster.”
“It stings,” Cas says, reaching for it again with his right hand, only to be stopped by Dean, his fingers loosely curling around his wrist.
“Don’t touch it because you could get more dirt in it. Just - give me your index finger. On your right hand.”
Cas holds it out and Dean gently takes it, before placing it on his left palm and moving it in a circle around what must be the cut. It feels large at first, but then Dean does it again, and once more, and Cas nods at him, before Dean lets go.
“See? Not so bad. Can you get up?”
Cas contemplates standing up, doesn’t want to go on his knees or use his hands, and he’s saved the trouble by Dean gripping his upper arm and helping him up, before brushing down his back.
Once Cas is standing up, Dean says, “I’ve got a bottle of water with me and I’m going to pour water on it. Is that okay?”
“Yeah,” Cas says, holding his hand out in front of him.
Dean’s hands are incredibly gentle as he takes Cas’ hand and slowly trickles water onto it. It stings even worse, and it feels too cold, and he goes to pull away but Dean tightens his grip just a little.
“One more second, I’m sorry, I’ve just got to…”
Cas relaxes his hand again and then Dean’s saying, “I’m going to dab it dry a little bit.”
Dean’s just as gentle as he dries it with what Cas assumes is his t-shirt and then he lets go, screwing the lid of the bottle back on.
“That will have to do until we get back. We can go to mine, it’s closer.”
They walk back at a slightly faster pace this time, Dean’s hand a solid grip on Cas’ elbow to guide him. It’s not long before they’re walking into Dean’s house and into the kitchen, where someone is listening to the radio.
“Oh, honey, what happened?” Mary asks, placing a hand on his shoulder and ushering him forward.
“He tripped over,” Dean says from the left of him.
“We’ll get a plaster on that, don’t you worry. Did you hurt yourself anywhere else, Cas?”
“No, I’m okay, it’s not bad.”
“Sit down -- Dean pull a chair out -- and I’ll go get the first aid kit.”
“I’m okay, really,” Cas says, although he thinks she’s already out of the room. “You don’t need to fuss.”
He feels for the wooden kitchen chair with his right hand and feeling the back of it, sits down.
“You know she likes to fuss,” Dean says from behind him. “Do you remember that time we thought Sam had broken his collar bone?”
Cas smiles at the memory. “It was just bruised.”
Dean voice is warm when he speaks. “Yeah. Just bruised.”
Mary comes back and takes Cas’ hand, telling him what she’s doing as she cleans it with an antiseptic wipe and puts a plaster over it.
“All done,” she says, closing the first aid kit. “I’ll go put this back. How about you stay for dinner tonight, Cas? Would you like that?”
“That would be nice, thank you,” Cas says, smiling.
“I’ll call your dad and let him now,” Mary says, kissing him on the top of the head before walking out of the room.
Dean’s being unusually quiet and Cas reaches out with his right hand to find Dean’s shoulder before he gives it a squeeze. “Dean?”
Dean doesn’t say anything and the atmosphere is suddenly uncomfortable, which is not something he’s used to experiencing when it’s the two of them. “What’s wrong?”
“I shouldn’t have let you fall over,” Dean mumbles quietly.
“You didn’t push me,” Cas says.
“No, but I didn’t catch you, either. I didn’t lead you away from the danger.”
“It was a tree root, Dean, not a car.”
There’s silence again and Cas gives Dean’s shoulder another squeeze, wants to get his point across that Dean has no reason to feel guilty.
“I’m supposed to watch out for you,” he says, finally, breaking the silence.
“That’s not your job,” Cas says. “You’re my best friend. You’re supposed to help me if I do fall over - and you did. Your job isn’t to try and prevent anything bad ever happening to me.”
“I don’t want anything bad happening to you.”
“You’re not my mom, Dean,” Cas says, softly.
They fall into another silence, and Cas is starting to feel nervous, thinks maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say, because he doesn’t want to hurt Dean, or make him upset. He only wants to make him understand he doesn’t need looking after just because he can’t see.
He’s just about to pull his hand away when Dean says, “I’m sorry,” placing his own hand over the top of Cas’, squeezing it and holding it in place. “Guess I still see you as the five year old in the playground.”
Cas smiles at him and then he laughs, shaking his head.
“What?” Dean asks, and there’s a smile in his voice.
“Do you remember when we first became friends? What you gave me?”
He still has it in his bedroom, safely stored away in a drawer beneath his desk.
It takes a moment and then Dean groans, embarrassed. “Cas, don’t do this to me.”
“A drawing. You drew me a picture.”
“You’re not supposed to remember that.”
Cas is still smiling and he slips his fingers through Dean’s, giving them a reassuring squeeze, just like they always do to communicate with each other. “It’s okay, I’m sure it’s a great drawing. I’ll have to find it for you.”
“Please don’t.”
Cas makes a mental note that he’ll have to get it out when he goes home tonight.
They eat a quick lunch of potato chips and sandwiches and watch movies in Dean’s room for the rest of the afternoon before they’re called down to dinner.
Cas sits in his usual seat, at the end of the table next to Dean, and smiles up at Mary as she places his dinner down in front of him.
“Pasta with tomato sauce and a sprinkling of cheese,” she says. “Just how you like it. Fork and spoon are to the right.”
“Thank you, Mary,” he says.
“You’re welcome, Cas.”
“Hey, how come Cas gets more than me?” Dean grumbles from his right and Cas smiles, keeping his hands in his lap until everyone starts eating.
“Don’t be silly,” Mary says, just as another voice says, “Are we having pasta?”
“Pasta and tomato sauce,” John says.
Cas can hear as a chair scrapes across the wooden floor as Sam sits opposite him.
“It looks yummy,” Sam says, and then another chair is being pulled out and Mary lets out a small satisfied sigh as she sits down.
“Okay,” she says after a moment. “Dig in!”
Dinner with the Winchester’s is a much different affair than at home. At Cas’ they don’t talk a lot, only speaking when asking each other to pass the vegetables or potatoes, and Cas’ dad is always making something elaborate, and sometimes he’s not even there at all.
At Dean’s house, everyone talks, and the food is always simple and delicious. As they eat, Sam tells them about a project he’s working on at school, and Dean regales them with the story of Cas falling over, except he makes it sound a little more dramatic than it was.
“Dean,” Mary says, and Cas can hear the fondness in her voice. “It was nothing a plaster and a good meal couldn’t fix.”
“I feel as good as new now,” Cas says.
Once the meal is over Dean walks Cas back to his house, and they go at a slow and leisurely pace, chatting about nothing and everything along the way.
“Thanks for today,” Cas says, once they’re outside his door. “It was fun.”
“Are you kidding?” Dean asks. “I still feel bad that you got hurt.”
“It was barely a scratch,” Cas says. “Honestly, I’m fine.”
“Good,” Dean says. There’s a firm grip on his right hand, and then their customary squeeze. “That’s good.”
“See you tomorrow at school?”
“See you then, Cas.”
Dean’s hand is gone as soon as it was there, and they say goodbye before Cas is turning around and heading towards his front door with a smile on his face.
Next part | 'Verse masterpost