Title: Independence Baby
Rating: PG-13
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Dean, Castiel; Dean/Castiel
Summary: Dean has no idea how old Cas is but that doesn't mean he can't celebrate his birthday. Winchester style! (Takes place post S5, with no soulless Sam or Heavenly war. Everyone lives happily ever after.)
Disclaimer: Supernatural and all associated characters belong to the CW and Kripke.
A/N: My first Dean/Cas fic. Still trying to find their voices in my head. Not American, have very little knowledge regarding pie. Google is my best friend.

It's a warm and sunny Sunday, and they've stopped in a small town in central Pennsylvania. It's too nice a day to spend indoors, so they grab some sandwiches from a diner and walk to to the nearby playground to eat them.

Castiel pulls off his socks and shoes to curl his toes in the cool, dry grass as he eats. It's a strange habit, but he's told Dean that likes the feel of grass on his feet, and well, Dean's seen stranger habits, so he makes nothing of it. It fact, he finds himself drawn to Cas's feet today, as he chews on his overly lettuce-y BLT.

Dean doesn't have a foot fetish. He's got his kinks, but feet aren't one of them. Still, he thinks today, Cas has nice feet. Well, Jimmy had, and it's probably his civilian life and excellent genes that have respectively left Cas with callous-free heels and nicely-formed arches. Cas' feet are narrow, a bit smaller and the toes splayed slightly wider than Dean's. As he watches, a tiny green insect crawls out of the jungle of grass and onto Cas' large toe, which suddenly twitches unconsciously, sending the insect hopping away. Dean decides that he has to find out tonight if Castiel's feet are ticklish.

"Why are those children dressed like that?"

Dean looks up at the sudden non-sequitur. Castiel is wearing his signature confused look, the one that appears on his face each time the crazy humans do something beyond his comprehension. Dean would rather listen to those stupid girl band songs Sam always denies liking than admit that he finds Cas' furrowed brow and head tilt adorable.

Okay, so it may have slipped his tongue once. He'd been drunk. Cas had been too, so he hopefully doesn't remember. Dean does remember him doing the head tilt after Dean's confession, but the angel had been completely shit-faced by then and the head tilt had been followed with his whole body tipping over and when Dean, who had been pretty wasted himself, had tried to catch him, they'd both fallen down. And then Dean had gotten it into his head that it would be a pretty good idea to kiss Cas then and there, and Sammy had finally proved his usefulness by dragging the both of them out of there before a riot broke out.

Hooray for Sam, who is currently staying with Sarah for a week, investigating a suspected haunted artifact in her father's auction house. Yeah, right. Dean's pretty damn sure all of the investigating is being done between Sarah's sheets. Not that he's begrudging his brother for the small degree of happiness and normality he has found. Dean's been doing plenty of investigating himself lately. (New lead: Cas likes it when Dean pins his hands to the bed while he fucks him. Possible conclusion: there may be use for Jimmy's ratty old tie Cas still keeps in his duffel.)

"Dean?" Castiel asks, and Dean is jolted from the memory of last night, when-

"Those children are wearing robes. And why are they hitting each other with those things?"

Dean looks across the playground. There's a group of possibly nine kids and their assorted parents, and each of those kids is tripping about in a brown robe and bashing each other over their tousle-haired heads with soft foam tubes. "Looks like some kind of costume party. Star Wars, I think." He glances at Cas, who is still watching them with something close to fascination. "You know, they dress up and pretend their mom's broom is a Jedi lightsaber and stuff. You remember Jedi, right? Star Wars?" He'd made Cas sit down and watch the entire saga with him a few weeks back. Cas, ever the rebel, had preferred the prequels over the original trilogy, though Dean suspects that has more to do with Cas' slight crush on Ewan McGregor than anything else.

"I see," says Cas slowly, then turns back to his unfinished cheesesteak. They eat in silence for a while when a sharp whistle makes them look up. The kids stop their playing sprint over to one of the picnic tables. A parent has brought out a cake, and the sound of the children singing "Happy Birthday" in various high and off-key voices drifts over to them.

"Do people always wear costumes for their birthdays?" Cas asks. Then he suddenly backtracks: "I mean, I know you, uh-" He trails off with a muttered "sorry".

"Hey, Cas," says Dean, quickly swallowing down the last of his BLT and washing it down with the warm dregs of his beer. "Me 'n' Sam, we didn't have birthday's like these, but we still had them. Sure, sometimes Dad forgot, but me 'n' Sam, we didn't, and we still managed to have some fun, so don't feel bad about asking."

Castiel looks up at him, and not for the first time, it feels like his bright blue gaze is looking right into the very depths of Dean's soul. "Your father loved you very much. Your brother does too."

"I know," says Dean, "I know." And because it doesn't look like Castiel is about to finish his cheesesteak, Dean plucks it from his hand and eats that too.

Later, when it's gotten too hot to be outside and Led Zeppelin is blasting through the Impala's speakers, Dean says, "We've gotta get you a birthday."

Castiel looks at him, impassive, but Dean has known him long enough by now to recognize the telltale crinkle of his eyes as they narrow slightly, the memories of the family Cas had turned his back on still hurting. Dean has known that hurt, that ache like a broken heartstring that mostly just throbs but sometimes whips about with every heartbeat, cutting deep. He takes his right hand off the wheel and curls it around the one Cas had lying limply on the seat. Without Sam to see, he can do chick flick stuff like this.

"I was created a long time ago," Castiel says slowly, his gaze fixed on their intertwined fingers. "There was no measurement of days and months and years as there is now."

"Okay then," says Dean. "Pick a number from one to thirty."

"Twenty-four," is Castiel's immediately reply.

Dean shoots him a look. "Fine, but make it January and I'll shoot you. No way I'm sharing my birthday cake with you."

"August," says Cas, then frowns. "I'd like it to be a Thursday."

"Okay then," says Dean, "then Google years where August 24th is a Thursday. Just make you don't end up sixty years old or something. Nineteen seventy something."

"Jimmy was born in nineteen-seventy-three."

"Is that a Thursday?"

Cas shrugs. "I don't know. I need a place with Wi-Fi." He suddenly tugs his hand out of Dean's grip and slides down on the seat to better get his wallet out of his pocket. "I was born on the 4 July 1975 according to the driver's license you made me."

"Oh yeah," Dean grins, "Independence baby. That's three days away."

"Dean, the motel is that way."

"I know. But we're gonna get you some pie first."

There's some fancy schmancy bakery on the same road as the diner they'd gotten their lunch from, that touts "The Best Shoofly Pie in the State". From experience, Dean knows that the best pies are usually hidden away in unknown mom-n-pop eateries, but through the large windows of the shop front, he can see that they have a pretty decent line of customers, so it can't be all that bad. They also have a small seating area, and seem to serve coffee too, so that's all right. He pulls up at the nearest free parking spot and gets out. Cas follows, and digs around in his pockets for change to feed the meter. Dean firmly sets his hands on his shoulders and pushes him to the bakery.

"But-"

"Forget it," says Dean, and a bell tinkles as he pulls open the door.

They take a seat at one of the tables near the window. Despite the fanciness of the place, there's none of that lace doilies and tiny flower vases crap, which immediately makes Dean feel a little better about the place.

It takes a few minutes for someone to come over and take their orders. The wet shoofly pie comes highly recommended, so he takes a slice of that. Cas, the chocoholic, chooses a slice of the equally recommended chocolate pie. They both have coffee. After the waitress has left with their orders, Dean gets up on the pretense to use the men's room and heads over to the counter to ask if she could arrange a little surprise.

The look of surprise on Cas' face when almost all the staff in the bakery crowd around their small table and start singing happy birthday is priceless. There's a candle burning on Cas' generous slice of chocolate pie, and there's a barely concealed expression of delight on his face when he leans down to blow it out. The staff clap, and some of the other customers clap along and wish him well.

"Dean," says Cas, once the staff have trooped back to resume their work, "I'm not one year old."

"I don't think they could have fit thousands of candles on your pie."

Cas chuckles, then practically beams at Dean. "Thank you, Dean. This was… perfect."

Dean has to blink rapidly. Dammit, there must be something in his eye. "Eat your pie," he says gruffly, but the look he sends Cas is fond.

Later that night, Dean almost gets kicked in the face for his troubles, but he does manage to find out that Castiel's feet are very sensitive. He may just develop a foot fetish after all.

fin