for the love of the game / Destiel College AU

ˡᵘᶜᶦᶠᵉʳ ˢʰᶦᵖˢ ᶦᵗ

When Dean came in the room, Cas was lying on a couch, grumbling into the cushions.

"How'd your finals go?" Dean teased, laughing as Cas mumbled something incoherent and covered his head with a pillow.

"I'm gonna make supper then," he added, getting out the food as the clang of pots and pans became apparent in the kitchen.

"Grhrghrhrrhrhhrgrml," Cas affirmed from under the pillow.

Cas and Dean had settled into a comfortable routine of managing classes and also managing their time together, which Dean cherished. A few times, Sam, Charlie, and Gabriel had come to visit, which had mainly consisted of:

"Destiel is alive, bitches! Sam, you owe me fifteen dollars. Oh, wait, Gabriel, is our bet still ongoing? Because Sam here looks like he hates your guts, I don't think he's going to-" (Charlie).

"What bet?" (Sam).

"No bet! None! What bet? Charlie's just a liar." (Gabriel).

"Ohhhhh-kay, Cas and my relationship is not a betting matter-" (Dean).

"Have you touched his butt yet? Because I have a bet on that too." (Charlie).

"THAT IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS-" (Dean, again).

"Touch the butt!" (Sam).

"Yeah, Dean! Touchy the butt!" (Faintly, from across the dorm, Gabriel).

All of a sudden, they heard, faintly, a voice from far away- a voice from the pit itself, that shook the very ground: "ᵗᵒᵘᶜʰ ᵗʰᵉ ᵍᵒᵈᵈᵃᵐⁿ ᵇᵘᵗᵗ" 

(Lucifer, from the pits of hell. Charlie and Sam didn't ask questions. Neither did Gabriel or Dean).

"Who the bleep was that? And Gabriel, did you really make a bleep noise when I said fuc-" (Cas).

"Language!" (Charlie and Sam).

So, yeah, they had a weird and unhealthy fascination with Dean and Cas dating, but it could be excused, given the fact that Dean suspected Sam liked Gabriel and Gabriel liked Sam back. It seemed a bit hard for Gabriel to hide his feelings, because he was, as he himself put it, a 'flamboyant gay' and it was 'twenty bi-teen'. Dean and Cas, in fact, had an ongoing bet on who was going to kiss who first. Dean bet on Gabriel, and Cas bet on Sam. He had an underlying suspicion that Cas was going to win, but never said anything. If it came to that, he'd always strike up another bet on who asked who out first.

Cas finally poked his head out from under the pillow.

Dean was causing a mess in the cupboard, trying to find the pepper. "I see the antisocial hermit has come out of his hidey-hole."

He could feel Cas's tilted-head squinty stare in his back before he turned around, grasping the pepper like it was his lifeline. "I have found the trophy!" he announced, holding it up.

Cas rolled his eyes, probably thinking that Dean was an idiot, which he was, and a disorganized idiot, which he also was. Dean turned around to shake the pepper on the food and felt Cas poke him in the shoulder for no good reason.

He retaliated by shaking the pepper over Cas's hair, which started an all-out food war and took an hour to clean up before they eventually had dinner, which consisted of fettucine alfredo that had maybe just a touch too much pepper. Of course, neither mentioned it, because it was both of their faults.

They were both sitting on the couch, a movie in the background that neither of them were listening to. Dean pulled his legs up and sat cris-cross. "So, seriously this time," Dean let out an unmanly giggle, reminded of the salt-and-pepper fight, "how were your exams today?"

"Well," Cas intoned, drawing out the 'l' so Dean was left in suspense, "The exams themselves were fine, but I think I scared two freshmen nearly out of their wits." Cas scrunched up his nose, remembering the freshmen in the hallway who were so innocent, so pure. He felt a twinge of pride knowing he ruined that innocence. Yay.

Dean blinked at him, unfazed. "We're sophomores, Cas, scaring freshman is our daily job. What did you do exactly?"

"So," Cas began, smiling in remembrance...

Earlier in Cas's Day

He was rushing down the hallway to his English exam, nerves frazzled and hair messy, when he came upon a pair of freshmen standing by the exam room.

"I heard this writing prompt that was like, 'If you kill people you get their IQ points' and honestly, I'd kill to pass this exam," one said.

The other laughed dryly, brandishing a few papers that Cas could see had a bright red 'F' on them and remarked, "If you killed me you wouldn't get any IQ points."

As Cas breezed by them, hurrying to his exam, he said, "I wouldn't need an excuse to kill during an exam."

Both freshmen's faces went white and they hurried away, glancing back over their shoulders with wary looks at Cas, who was internally laughing the hardest he'd ever laughed. Freshmen were just too jittery sometimes. Of course, last year he was like that, and was probably just as annoying.

By the time Cas was done telling Dean of his encounter with the freshmen, Dean was in stitches. He almost fell out of the couch, he was laughing so hard. All of a sudden, the light hit Cas's face just right, and he was outlined in gold, his eyes shining and smile glowing. He was actually comparable to a model, and what was Dean doing with him?

"God, Cas, you're so pretty," Dean said, before realizing how sappy he was being. What happened to his rule of no chick-flick moments? Cas was doing something to him, that was what. Making him weak in the knees, feeling fluttery whenever Cas smiled at him.

Cas snorted. "You're literally gorgeous. I wish I could count your freckles."

Then they heard a voice as if from far away, distorted and faint, coming from right beneath them, shaking the foundations of heaven and earth: ʰᶦˢ ʲᵃʷˡᶦⁿᵉ ᶜᵒᵘˡᵈ ᶜᵘᵗ ᵃ ᵇᶦᵗᶜʰ

Lucifer again. Neither asked questions. They'd learned not to.

a/n: so im gonna end this fic soon!!!!! thanks for reading and there's going to be an epilogue, so don't yell at me for the ending okay? okay!