— castiel. —
"you left the damn tv on again, cas?"
"quit using all the hot water. we shower too."
"you know, some of us have to do laundry too."
it's been a few weeks since castiel moved back with the winchesters, and frankly, every day castiel wanted to grab a gun and put a bullet in his head. their friendship was quite rocky now. honestly borderline toxic if you asked sam. dean doesn't exactly do it on purpose. castiel isn't exactly well-versed in the art of cohabitation and dean's admittedly a little fussy about keeping his home in order, but he's always had patience with it.
but now, dean overreacts. over every minor, innocuous infraction. and he's not nice about it either. it was dean's way of continuously punishing him for leaving. at first, when it started, castiel dealt with it. he'd apologize, clean up after himself, and then feel like shit about it later.
but it started happening more than once a day, to more than five times a day within the few weeks castiel had started staying. the angel puts up with it at first, but it isn't long before he's rolling his eyes at dean's complaints or making his own impatient comments in return, glowering with defensiveness every time.
it's ten am, on a monday morning. castiel enters the hall from his room that sam and dean welcomed him to, it's around ten-o-three, and sam is standing by the stove, there are three large pans on the burners, eggs, bacon, and pancakes. sam is using the spatula to flip an egg onto the other side as he hums along to the chorus of one of the songs by led zeppelin, one of dean's favorites.
dean's sitting at the kitchen table, tapping his fingers musically. his hair is combed back and spiked up slightly, followed by his clean shaved face, and his perfect white teeth. he always looks so beautiful to the angel.
he's wearing his usual flannel plus jacket combo with dark blue jeans with rips in the knees of the fabric, he's got his legs up on the table. his head thrown back as he sings along. the two brothers are laughing as dean sings off-key; moments in the mornings like this make castiel smile, but it doesn't last because once the two men are aware the angel is in the room, dean starts as if almost on schedule.
"oh, cas. good morning." sam greets, with this big silly toothy grin. he was very happy in particular to cas being back. he's been often saying what a win it was to have the angel back, so much, that even castiel has found it strange. the angel has barely walked into the room, and dean's already after him.
"good morning, sam." castiel grins towards him before closing the fridge, taking the milk and creamer out, and placing it on the counter. "you know, you could've cleaned the coffee pot last night, cas." dean raised an eyebrow at castiel who was already ignoring him, sam was quick to shoot his brother a look.
it was safe to say things were worse between them.
and, sam is witness to a lot of arguing, followed by one or both of them storming off in a huff, and long periods of excruciating silence stretch out between each altercation.
sam never makes any move to intervene or get them to patch things up, but he always watches with careful concern and a raised eyebrow. usually gives dean a look if he's pushed too hard. he's assumed this is some sort of punishment dean is giving him for leaving. something he thinks they can solve themselves.
dean's vigilantly aware of sam's presence in those moments, of how close he and castiel are standing within sam's field of vision. he invariably makes some snarky, but not entirely unkind comment that he barely means, and castiel rolls his eyes, and it turns into a whole thing, and the two of them are storming off in opposite directions again, sam sitting there in silence, confused.
