(Not) Vanity

Fandom: Supernatural

Rating: K+

Genre: Friendship, Romance

Pairing: Dean/Castiel

Word count: 1091

Summary: [Dean/Castiel] "Come on, enough with the big fancy words, Clarence. Tell us who you think is pretty."

AN: I suddenly found Destiel inspiration once more, and so I churned this out. I thought it was quite cute, so I hope that you enjoy it too, my little sock puppets.

DISCLAIMER. I own nothing.

"What about her?" Jimmy spears another piece of mayo-covered pasta with his fork, nodding to the redhead, Amelia, who's sitting across the cafeteria from them. "She's pretty, don't you think?"

"Hm." Meg narrows her eyes, looking complacent. "She's the kid that pushed me off the slide that time."

"Are you still gripin' over that?" Gabriel rolls his eyes at his best friend.

"Er, yeah." Meg pulls a face at him. "It kinda hurt."

"You guys were, like, four years old when that happened," Jimmy points out.

"I don't care," the brunette replies, flicking a strand of hair from her shoulder. "I'm a Masters and a Masters never forgets."

Jimmy rolls his eyes. He and his twin hadn't been living in Lawrence when this slide incident had happened, having only moved to Lawrence three years ago, but, from the amount of times that Meg has brought it up, it's almost like he lived it himself.

He leans over to address his brother. "What'cha think, Cassie - Cas?" He nudges the other boy in the shoulder. "Castiel!"

"Hm?" The twelve year old snaps out of his daydream, blinking rapidly as he returns his full attention to the group seated at the table. "Sorry - What are we talking about?"

Meg sighs, melodramatically. "Honestly. What's going on in that head of yours, Clarence?"

"We're talking about who's pretty, Cassie," Gabriel supplies, slightly more helpfully, through a mouthful of chocolate cake.

"Oh." Cas pulls a face at the idea. "Isn't that a little vain of us?"

"No," Meg replies, sounding rather final about it, before nodding to the room at large. "Come on, enough with the big fancy words, Clarence. Tell us who you think is pretty."

"Oh..." Cas shrugs, seemingly nonchalant, but Jimmy knows better. "I don't know -"

"I think you do," his twin cuts him off, a sing-song tone to his voice.

"Yeah," Gabriel agrees. "Come on, who is it? Is it Ruby? Bela?" He gestures to a table roughly ten metres away, towards two other girls in their grade, who are studying something on a smartphone and laughing. "Hm. No. Maybe not your type, eh?"

Cas raises an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware that I now had a type."

"Of course you do. Everybody has a type," Meg says, in a tone that makes it sound like this should be an obvious fact that Castiel should already be aware of.

"What about Hannah?" Gabriel continues, nodding to the girl sitting on the steps on the other side of the cafeteria, head buried in a book, a wave of dark brown hair hiding her face from view.

Cas glances between Hannah and his friend several times before answering. "She's alright, I suppose."

"You suppose? Does that mean there's someone else?" Gabriel's expression splits into a smirk when Castiel doesn't reply. "There is! C'mon, who? Spill!"

Cas shrugs. "No one in particular."

"That means it's one person in particular," Jimmy translates, earning himself a glare from his twin brother. "What? M' just saying. I know you too well, Cas. So, now that's out of the way, are you gonna tell us?"

"No."

"Don't be such a spoilsport, Clarence. Just tell us. We've already told you ours."

"It doesn't matter, anyway," Castiel says, looking more than a little uncomfortable. "It's just a stupid infatuation." Gabriel and Meg give him blank looks. "You know, a crush. It's just a crush. It's not like he'll ever -" He clamps his mouth shut suddenly, as if he's said more than what he intended.

"Oh?" Gabriel raises an eyebrow gleefully. "It's a he, eh? Explains why we weren't getting any answers before. We're looking at completely the wrong side of things. Who is it?"

"Doesn't matter," Cas repeats.

"Yes, it does," Jimmy insists, taking a moment to survey the room in front of him. Besides himself, Meg and Gabriel, there really aren't many people in their grade who Castiel actually speaks to. His gaze slides past Balthazar, Cain, Gordon Walker, none of whom seem to fit the qualities that his brother would most likely want, until, finally, his eyes settle on -

Aha.

"Oh my G - Ow!" His sentence gets cut off by Cas, who kicks him in the shins.

"Jim-Bob?"

Jimmy exchanges reproachful glances with Cas, and then shakes his head. "Nothing."

Meg rolls her eyes, but the slightly older (by two minutes, so it still counts) Novak twin isn't paying her much attention. Because Dean freaking Winchester is the person that Cas is crushing on, and he can't quite believe it.

He shuffles closer to Cas, so that Meg and Gabriel - who are now bickering over whether or not Jo Harvelle is seeing that Ash guy - can't hear them. "Dean -!"

"Shh!"

"I am Shh!" Jimmy insists. "But I don't get it. Have you ever actually spoken to Dean Winchester?"

"Yes!" Cas replies. "We had to do that project together in History, remember?"

Actually, thinking back on it, Jimmy does remember that. Cas had complained the entire time because his partner hadn't done any of the work, and he'd been left doing it all, but Dean hadn't really seemed fussed at the time. If anything, he'd been too focused - on Cas rather than the work, but still. They still managed to score a B+, something that Cas hadn't been happy about, but Jimmy had simply shrugged it off. They had only been ten at the time, after all.

"I thought you said that he put no effort into any of his classwork."

"He doesn't. But he has good qualities too." Cas has suddenly got a faraway look in his eyes. "He's funny, and kind, and always happy, and his freckles are really cute -"

"Who's freckles are really cute?" Gabriel has shuffled closer to them, having since finished arguing with Meg over Jo Harvelle's relationship status. "No secrets here, guys. This is the table of friendship."

"Just trying to figure out who Cassie's special mystery man is."

"Can't be special if it's in a place like this," Meg comments, sounding distasteful. "I can't wait until high school."

Gabriel wrinkles his nose up at this. "Why?"

"You never know," Jimmy adds, glancing at Cas, who's gone back to trying to inconspicuously watch Dean to his heart's content. "Some people in this place might just surprise you."