Dean Winchester got home at 1700 hours on the dot.

It had been a long day, juggling too many college classes with his job at the garage, and, as he parked the Impala and shut off her engine, he wanted nothing more than to flop onto his bed and crash. Sure, he'd eventually have to wake up and actually, well, do work, but a few hours wouldn't kill anyone, right?

It only took a few minutes for him to gather up his stuff and start heading inside - barely enough time to distantly register Cas' familiar tan Continental parked in the driveway - but even that was too much time for his preferences; his hands were jittery on the keys as he made to unlock the front door and head inside. He didn't bother doing anything but toeing off his shoes and dumping his bag by the door before heading for his room.

At 1705, he opened his bedroom door.

At 1706, he blinked. Then, he blinked again.

At 1707, he closed the door and walked into the living room.

It took until 1710 for him to be able to speak. "Cas… There's a… There's a cow. In my room."

Cas, unexplainably calm where he sat on the couch, nodded. "Yes, Dean."

Dean nodded too, brain still in the process of misfiring. It took a few seconds longer than it should have to think of a response. "Why?"

A shrug. "Because."

Dean nodded again, because what else was he supposed to do? Because. "Right." He walked towards the door again, easing it open a crack to avoid hitting the baby-proof gate stretching across the threshold. "Is that my shirt?"

"It was cold."

The cow - for it was definitely a cow, even if it was about the size of a dog and waddling around on fluffy, stubby legs that gave out at least three times just while Dean was looking at it - waddled its way over to Dean's window and plopped down, chewing contentedly on the hems of his curtains. "Cas… It's eating the drapes."

"It does that."

It did indeed, and it didn't show a sign of stopping either. Dean watched it for a minute, brain still trying to catch up with the holy crap, there's a freaking cow in my room, what the hell that had somehow buried itself beneath a rather distant confusion. "Uh… Cas." Something was bothering him, but he couldn't quite remem- Oh, right. "My dad's our landlord, Cas."

"I recall, Dean."

"He's gonna flip." His brain whispered an unhelpful or have a cow before he shut it down.

"Most likely."

"Oh." Dean nodded. "Okay." The cow twitched once, dropping the curtains in favor of a hitching whistle of a sneeze and struggling to its feet… Which promptly gave out and sent it tumbling to the floor. It twitched again, sneezing twice as something almost like a shiver - Is that right? Do cows shiver? - shook its fur. "It still looks a little cold. Where's that old scarf of mine?"

"I-" Cas paused, followed by the rustling sound of his coat as he joined Dean at the door. "I think it ate it."

"It ate my scarf." Dean should have been surprised. He wasn't. And then he was. "It ate my scarf? Why would it eat my scarf?"

"I told you… It does that."

The cow - some vague instinct reminded Dean that they should probably come up with a name for it - tried to stand again, managing a moderately successful three steps before slipping on the floor and careening into the gate at their feet. Dean could see into its mouth enough to see a scrap of familiar green scarf wool caught between square teeth before it flashed out of sight. It was almost grasslik- Oh.

"Did you feed it?"

"What?"

"It needs food, Cas."

"Oh."

Dean turned to look at Cas, well-aware that some gentle combination of exasperation and indignation rested on his face. "Oh? "

"I forgot."

"You forgot?" Dean looked over at the cow, then back again. "How do you forget that a living creature needs food?" Another glance at the cow. "And it's a cow. They're literally known for eating."

"Uh… It just…" Cas looked into the room, a soft, almost beatific smile on his face. "It looked lonely."

One of the error boxes filling Dean's head closed and he finally processed that there's a cow in my room. Specifically, the cow part. And the fact that Dean had only ever seen cows on places like actual farms. "Cas… Did you… Did you steal this cow?"

"Why would I steal a cow, Dean?"

"Not what I asked. Did. You. Steal. This. Cow."

"You cannot steal something if it comes with you willingly."

"No, Cas, that's just kidn- Uh… Cow- uh… Napping." Cownapping? "It's cownapping, Cas!"

"I- I just wanted to make it happy."

"You stole a freaking cow!" Cas looked away, eyebrow arching in something like fond disdain as he ignored both Dean's gaze and his words. A few seconds passed, interrupted only by the swishing sound of furry legs scrabbling against the floors. Eventually, Dean managed, "We have to take it back." He felt oddly unenthusiastic about the idea, but he buried it beneath a shaken head and eyes fixed on the floor at his feet. "Where'd you get it anyway?"

Cas tilted his head, watching the thing return to monching on the curtains. "I don't remember."

"Cas!"

"It wasn't like I planned it, Dean… I just… saw it. And it looked lonely. The other cows weren't talking to it."

Dean got halfway through opening his mouth to say something before he realized that he didn't know what to say and clicked his jaw shut instead. Two more aborted tries at speaking yielded only, "Cas… They're cows. They don't… Talk to each other."

"We're talking to one another." Dean managed a nod, but only got part of the way through speaking before Cas interrupted. "How are they any different?"

Dean blinked. Then, he looked at the cow. Then, he looked back at Cas. "... Because they're cows."

"And?"

"We're not cows."

"How do you know?"

"Because we aren't cows, Cas." Cas shrugged, and Dean could almost hear the dismissal of his argument that it contained, so he changed tactics. "Alright, look… We can't keep it."

"Why not?"

"Dad wouldn't even let you keep fish!"

"It's not a fish."

"I gathered that, Cas, thanks." The cow somehow managed to make its way across the room and clamber onto the bed, only to lose its balance as soon as it got to the top. It didn't seem to care that its legs were pinned in a clumsy sprawl beneath its body; it was too happy chewing up Dean's sheets for that. As much as Dean should be mad about it - he should, he should, he really should - all he ended up saying was, "It's kinda cute, ain't it?"

Cas nodded. Then, he leaned closer and added with a subtlety that really wasn't subtle, "It looks way happier here than in the field." He shifted back again, a proud grin on his face like he'd succeeded at something… And, honestly, at that point, Dean didn't have the heart to say no.

Dean allowed himself a sheepishly - cowishly? - wry smile at how easily Cas had won the debate before shaking his head and sighing out something vaguely like, "Alright, fine." It took another minute for practicality to win back over. "And how are we going to hide it from my dad, then, huh? It can't exactly just hang out in the backyard."

"I mean…" Cas looked away again, eyes narrowing in a happy squint as he watched the cow roll over on the bed. "It seems to like your room?"

That managed to disturb the soft edges that had slowly built around the idea of keeping the cow and Dean pivoted to look at Cas, only managing not to whirl abruptly by moving at approximately the speed index of molasses. "And where the hell am I supposed to sleep ? It ate my mattress!"

"Don't exaggerate, Dean, it was just your sheets. Your mattress is perfectly fi-" The sharp sound of rending cloth interrupted him. "Okay, now it's eating your mattress." They both stopped talking to stare at the cow digging happily into the cotton stuffing of Dean's mattress. Eventually, Cas added, "I hadn't thought about it."

"You hadn-" Dean broke off, passing his fingers over his face and stifling the sigh threatening to fight its way out. "Okay, look… get me a sheet or two that your new pet project hasn't eaten. I'll take the floor in here."

"The flo-" Cas frowned, eyebrow lifting again. "Dean. The cow isn't even sleeping on the floor."

"I know. You know why? Because it's in my bed. Literally. " The gentle whoosh-clang of a spring fighting its way free of his mattress and then bouncing to the floor punctuated the end of his sentence. "But it's fine. Did it with S… Did it with Sammy all the time."

The usual moment of silence that always followed his mentioning his brother - that rush of images, of a cream envelope and a fiery red seal, of You walk out that door, Sam, don't come back and train stations with routes to California - passed in a silence ended by Cas' rejoinder of, "Dean. There's a bed."

Dean nodded. "Yeah, genius. A bed. As in, only one. More than that, your bed. I'll be fine, man."

"You could take the couch?"

Dean snorted out something vaguely akin to a laugh. "You kidding me? Have you tried sleeping on it?" The expression on Cas' face suggested that no, he hadn't, and he thought it ridiculous Dean had ever tried… so Dean ignored the look. "That old thing is less comfortable than the floor. Got a spring in it that hurts like a mother, seriously. I'll take the floor."

"Dean, you can't-" Cas cut himself off at the expression on Dean's face. "If you're sure-" Dean nodded. "Okay. I'll go… get sheets, then."

"Great; I'm bushed." Dean watched Cas turn and head into the other bedroom before sinking down onto the - very, very uncomfortable - couch and muttering, "We'll deal with… this… in the morning and it'll all work out..." A too-loud moo sounded from the bedroom, somehow floating across the room without seeming to get any quieter, and his confidence evaporated. "I hope."