"Make sure that everything is turned off," Sam says quickly, Dean shoving him out the door after Jess, "And don't screw anything up," He leans in closer and says quietly, "And don't be rough with Cas, he's probably a-"

"GOODBYE SAM!" Dean yells, putting all his body weight into pushing him out and closing the door quickly behind him. He looks to Cas, who's setting up his camera on a pocket tripod. I hope he didn't hear Sam...

Cas hears Dean walking up behind him and says, "You should turn off the lights, Dean."

Dean's heart skips a beat. Damn it Sam, you've poisoned my mind... "W-why? Aren't they okay like this?"

"No, I think it would be much better to use a natural light source for this. There isn't much of it because it's late in the day, but I think it'll suffice. The fluorescent lighting might make the picture look flat; without any value, I mean." Cas answers, unaware of how uncomfortable Dean was at the moment. "Where are the light switches?"

"I'll do it," Dean says hurriedly. "Just get that thing set up." He flicks the switch, but thankfully it's still pretty light in the room. God this is like the start of a bad porno...

"Hey Dean, what do you think about switching it up and doing a bit of uh... Human photography?" Dean's stomach flips.

He stares at Cas incredulously. "P-pardon?" He's sure his face is red. Why is it suddenly so hot in here?

Cas gestures to his camera. "You know, you pose and I'll try taking different shots of you? And vice versa." Oh God. Is he nuts?

"W-why don't we stick to subjects that can't move?" Dean feels like an idiot. Why was he overreacting like this? This was stupid... Cas was the last person he'd expect to do something weird right now...

Cas chuckles, "If you want we can, but I think it'd be interesting to work with um... Well, with a human subject. Besides," He pauses, a smirk forming, "You have pretty eyes."

Did he seriously just say that? He laughs nervously, but says nothing. He can't think of any response that would sound casual.

"You alright Dean?" Cas walks up to him, a genuine concern on his face. Nononono.

"Let's just get this photo shoot done," Dean splutters, "I'm just... Tired." His heart feels like it's going to beat out of his chest. Why am I acting like a teenage girl!?

Cas puts his hand against Dean's forehead. It's so cold in comparison to Dean's flushed face... "You're hot," Cas mutters. Geez, did he have to word it like that...!? "Are you sure you're okay? We can do this tomorrow if you want. I think you should go home and rest."

"No, no Cas it's fine, let's do this now. Just... We should get it over with right?" He steps away from Castiel, putting just enough distance between them. "I'm okay, I swear."

Cas doesn't look convinced, but he backs up regardless. "Tell me if you've had enough, okay? I don't want you passing out on me or anything." He turns his camera on and sets it back on the table. "So what are we taking pictures of today?"

Dean sits down on one of the chairs near the camera and focuses on his breathing, willing his heart to slow down. I'm reading too far into this... Cas isn't gonna make a move on me... "Well, why don't you try a few macro shots?" He pauses a moment, thinking it over, then adds, "You said my eyes were nice, right? Why not focus on that or something?"

Grinning, Cas says, "Yeah, that sounds cool! I bet they'd turn out nice! Uh, you should move more into the light though, maybe I should take my camera off the tripod after all..." He turns the settings dial to the pre-adjusted macro setting and looks at Dean leaning against the shop window. He's perfectly silhouetted against it.

"That's perfect," Cas remarks, "Hey, if you weren't actually in the picture, as in, people can't tell it's you, would you be alright with that, Dean?"

Dean looks confused but nods anyways. "Yeah why?"

Cas readies his camera and once again puts it on the right setting. "Because that's perfect right there." He sits on the table behind him and puts the camera strap over his head. "Turn your head a bit maybe..."

"So what, we're not doing pics of my pretty eyes then?" Dean says with a slight lilt. Even though his face was difficult to see in the darkness, Castiel could make out a smug smirk.

Cas shrugs. "Later. Now turn your head."


Once Dean had gotten used to being the centre of attention, he started to enjoy the photo-shoot. He and Cas chatted the whole time, and they learned even more about each other. It was actually kind of fun.

"Hey Dean, how old are you anyways?" Cas inquires, snapping another picture. They've moved on from silhouette pictures to macro shots again. Dean is particularly fascinated by the button on his jeans, which he'd never really paid attention to before. He'd taken a picture of it by accident, and it had escalated from there. Some of the shots had turned out really nice.

"I'm twenty." He replies, embarrassed. He hopes Cas won't think any less of him knowing he's been held back a grade.

But Cas only looks intrigued. "Oh? You're two years older than me? I assumed we were the same age." He's sitting cross-legged on one of the chairs, working on homework.

"Yeah, I uh... My birthday's in January but I flunked a grade, dropped out last year. Only reason I went back was because Sam practically begged me to." There's another click of the camera, and Dean continues, "Lots of stuff happened last year."

Cas looks up from his huge stack of papers. "Wanna talk about it?"

"Nah. It's pretty boring anyways." He mumbles, eyes straining in the dark room. They'd switched to using an old flashlight about an hour ago, which had actually provided some pretty cool looking lighting.

"Dean, it must've been serious if you dropped out of school for a year." Cas' voice is gentle and quiet, and for some reason, Dean's chest constricts when he sees the worried look on his face.

Dean sighs. "There was a fire in my house. Sam, my dad and I got out in time; my mom wasn't so lucky. Dad went nuts. Started drinking, gambling... Then he just left. Sam got a letter saying the café was his, and of course he didn't know what the hell to do with it. I dropped out to run this place, but Sam went behind my back and sold it to one of my dad's old friends. Bobby Singer, the mechanic, owns it. His wife and daughter work here while Sam and Jess are at school. He's way too good to my brother if you ask me, and for some reason, he and Jess get half of the profits to share. He's been more like a father to Sam in one year than my dad ever was. Still think it would've been better for me to take this on full time though." He lazily takes a picture of his mismatched bracelets.

"You and Sam would kill each other if you were forced to work with him daily," Cas chuckles, "I think he made the right choice. Have you kept in contact at all with your father at all...?"

"No, not really. He's almost completely unreachable. Sam gets phone calls from him sometimes, but I haven't heard from him at all. Sammy said he mentioned something about hunting a few times, but he won't say where he is or what he's been doing other than that." Cas rolls his pencil between his fingers, mulling over this new information.

He looks back to his homework, but none of it really seems to be sinking in. Who's really gonna need to know this stuff anyways? "You talked to Sam about it?" He writes down an answer, then after re-reading the question, erases it. "I'm sure it's hard on him too."

"Sam's probably happy the old man's gone. They hated each other. Course, dad thought little Sammy was a friggin' angel; I was just a built in babysitter most of the time." He shakes his head, tongue stuck in the side of his cheek. It looked like he was barely restraining his anger. "I- Sorry, you don't need this. I didn't mean to rant..."

"Hey, you had to deal with my mess of a life story earlier, least I can do is hear yours. How many shots do we have left to take anyways?"

Dean presses a few buttons, then replies, "None. We've got 103 pictures. Guess we need to go through them and get rid of a few huh?" He turns off the camera and sets it down on the table.

Cas brushes his dark hair from his eyes and sighs dramatically. "Yeah. The worst part of every photography assignment." A smile appears on his face.

Dean laughs, "You're such a dork."