Little Things

Chapter Eleven

Cas slept for another few hours and emerged dressed in his usual baggy jeans and red hoodie, his hair wild, and he walked stiffly into the kitchen. He stretched and yawned, and Dean felt heat creep up his neck at the little bit of Cas's toned stomach that was briefly revealed.

'Morning,' Dean said warily.

'Morning,' Cas mumbled back, and Dean let out a relieved breath. Cas seemed to have been too deeply asleep to remember that Dean had seen him naked. 'Is there a pool around here?' he asked, buttering a couple slices of toast.

'Yeah, why?' Dean asked as Cas sat down heavily.

'I didn't cool down well enough yesterday. My legs hurt,' said Cas.

'Right. Get a good soak in.'

'Where's Sam?'

Dean snorted. 'He won't be up until sometime this afternoon. He was raiding last night, whatever that means.'

Cas nodded, knowing exactly what it meant. 'I'll get a cab in a bit.'

'I'm going to the store, you want anything?'

'Ice-cream.'

'Sure thing.'

Cas left to swim not long after he finished his breakfast, but Dean waited until Sam stumbled down the stairs, to ask him what he wanted from the store.

'Snacks,' Sam grunted, grabbing a box of cereal and sleepily pouring himself a huge bowl.

'And more cereal,' Dean snorted, taking the empty box from him. 'Will you be okay here on your own for a while?'

Sam gave him a dirty look. 'No, Dean, I'm immediately going to set the house on fire and die,' he said, filling his voice with as much sarcasm as he could manage.

'You know, a simple "yes" wouldn't kill you,' said Dean, rolling his eyes, before calling himself a cab.

He took his sweet time at the store, filling his cart with snacks, soda, groceries he knew they needed, a few different flavours of ice-cream for Cas, and some generic frozen pizza. When he got home, Sam had holed up in his room again, and Cas was lying uncomfortably on the couch.

'It didn't help?' Dean asked, dumping his bags on the dining room table.

'No,' Cas said, rubbing one of his calves.

'I've got just the thing, hang on.' Dean quickly packed away the groceries, then went digging through the kitchen cabinets for the kit he'd kept from when Sam played lacrosse. He peeled the packaging off of some heat pads, and passed Cas some pain relief. 'Here, put these on,' he said, passing Cas the freshly warmed pads.

Cas pressed one on each of his hamstrings, and lay back, putting an arm miserably over his face.

Dean bit his lip. 'I can help... if you want,' he said hesitantly.

'What?'

Dean glanced up the stairs, making sure Sam wasn't listening. 'Sam never used to stretch properly, so I learned a couple of tricks, if you want to try it.'

'By all means...'

'All right, scooch over.'

Cas shuffled back and sat up so Dean could sit on the couch.

Dean lifted up one of his legs, Cas wincing even at that small movement, and pushed up the leg of his jeans. Dean grabbed what was left of the baby oil he kept in the kit, rubbed it over his hands, and placed his thumbs on either side of the tight tendon he could feel just below Cas's knee. Then he wrapped his hands around Cas's thick calf, carefully placing the tips of his fingers over the muscle. 'Ready?' Dean asked, and Cas nodded, so Dean squeezed and pulled his hands down Cas's leg.