Within the first few seconds of blinking open bleary eyes, Cas came to the conclusion that he'd made a huge mistake.

It also became abundantly clear that he wasn't sure what that huge mistake actually was. On the one hand, it could have been drinking so much the night before; the headache he could feel pounding at the center of his forehead, the nausea that had firmly taken root in his stomach, and the fact that he couldn't actually remember the night beyond a blur of laughter were all doing a very good job ensuring that he'd never do it again. On the other hand, it could have been adopting a cow that had no qualms about mooing quite loudly as soon as the sun started rising. Or maybe it was both.

That sounded right; it was both. Both were bad.

The idea of getting out of bed was not a pleasant one; he'd barely gotten his eyes to open without having to slam them closed again to avoid the light - probably the gentle, diffuse illumination of a sunrise no matter how bright and glaring it seemed to Cas - and even the work of tossing off the sheet took way too much effort… so he stayed there for a bit.

School could wait.

Eventually, he actually worked himself up to getting out of bed - very smoothly, of course, no stumbling whatsoever (and certainly no almost-pitching-over-and-faceplanting-on-the-floor) - and managed to plot out a path to the door while somehow avoiding the blurry lump on the floor that was Dean as he went. He'd planned to head to the bathroom - they had to have aspirin in there somewhere or he was going to smite someone - but another of Samatha's plaintive mewls caught his attention so he huffed out a sigh and shuffled his way over to the bedroom.

Opening the door resulted in a squeak that really shouldn't have been allowed - daggers in his already aching head were not appreciated, thanks - as well as the fluffy brown shape that was Samantha bounding over. She actually managed to cross half the room before her legs gave out and sent her sliding head-first into the gate, almost doing a flip with how vigorously she overturned. (Then came half a minute of awkward shuffling to get back upright and… Cas looked away for both of their dignities.)

He ended up kneeling so that she didn't collapse again, fingers poking through the fence slats and stroking the bridge of her nose. "What do you want, girl?" She snuffled once, pushed into the contact, and let out another plaintive low. See, Dean, she can talk! Which… Well, did that mean it was rude to talk to her like a human? Maybe she wanted to talk to a cow.

Cas moo'd back at her. She looked unimpressed.

It was only when she started nibbling at his sleeve that he came to the conclusion, "You need food!"

It took a minute to scramble to his feet - he was glad no one was watching because he didn't want anyone to realize he was actually less coordinated than a baby cow - and head to the kitchen, and he was part of the way through opening the fridge to remember that the cow probably couldn't eat leftover cherry pie any more than she could eat fresh cherry pie.

She needed cow food and, apparently - despite all evidence suggesting that they consume cloth - that was hay. (Or milk, but that still felt wrong.)

Hay it is, then.

It took a minute to find where Dean had stuck the hay - in the completely nonsensical location of just outside Samantha's door - rend the plastic enough to dump the entire thing into the room, and wait for her reaction. She nibbled at a single strand of it. Then she sneezed. Then, she walked away from the hay and yanked at Cas' sleeve again, a low moo muffled into his sleeve.

Okay, so maybe the whole feed-the-baby-cow-hay thing wasn't working out too well. Better hope the Google knows what it's talking about. Grudgingly, he reached into the fridge to pull out the milk (and, for all Dean claimed he didn't support keeping Samantha, Cas couldn't help noticing that he still purchased organic, non-genetically modified whole milk to feed her).

Cas got about halfway to Samantha's bedroom before remembering that cows don't have thumbs. (Then he went back to the kitchen, pulled down a bowl from the cabinet, and poured the milk into it… It occurred to him part of the way through that he was a great cow-father.)

The extra time expense was worth it, though, and his hangover was momentarily forgotten beneath watching her start to drink… or, rather, flop her head into the bowl, start drinking, and slowly drift off. And then she started snoring and that was just a little too much for his aching head, so he turned, slammed the door - regretted that a few seconds later as it sent spikes jolting through his head - and then went to get ready for his day.

Cas quickly came to the realization that getting up at 7:45 was not enough time to be ready for college classes at 8:00. It was an unfortunate truth. (He still took the time to leave Dean a note, of course, because it wouldn't do to just leave… if nothing else, the Google was not a good cow-father.)

Actually leaving the note (and getting his trench coat from where he'd tossed it mid-John-appearance the day before) without waking Dean up was a bit of a tricky operation - whoever coined the term sleep like the dead had it wrong unless Dean had decided that death was a transient state - especially given the awkward way he'd contorted himself into the corner and was shifting awkwardly in his sleep.

Cas made a mental note to address it later - mental because he didn't have the energy to actually write it down - and eased the door closed.

– – –

By the time Dean woke up, Cas had already left for class. It was odd - usually, if Dean even bothered with going to sleep, he'd be the first up, making coffee for the both of them before Cas even got out of bed - and yet it wasn't exactly surprising; he'd slept like shit for the past few days. (Technically, he hadn't ever slept well… but that was another matter.)

Actually, the night before had been a relatively good one; he'd definitely had worse hangovers over the years. He still didn't feel like getting up - especially without the attraction of needing to make another cup of coffee anyway - but he might as well; sure, he was used to sleeping on the floor, but that didn't make it anymore comfortable.

Of course, rolling over to push himself to his feet was interrupted by the scratch of paper under his palm, so he gave up on the idiotic idea of getting up - who decided that was a good idea, anyway? - and flopped back down to read it.

Dean,

I'm off to class and running late. Don't forget to eat something; breakfast is important.

P.S. I gave Cow-Samantha some milk. The Google was right; she wouldn't touch the hay. Please keep an eye on her.

- Cas

Dean rolled his eyes and followed through on his earlier (ridiculous) plan of getting out of bed… floor. It was stupid - he didn't have class until afternoon, so he could afford the time off - but he… Well, okay, he was gonna listen to the stupid note and eat breakfast, wasn't he? It was important, and Cas had taken the time out of his day to leave the message, so it was only fair that he follow through, right? (Of course, that raised the question of why the hell he did take the time to leave the note… but that didn't matter at all. Nope. Not one bit.)

Breakfast would have to wait, though, at least until he didn't feel like he'd slept on the floor - was there anything like scalding water to wake you up in the morning? - and had dry-swallowed a couple aspirin… And, hell, by then, he'd actually managed to forget the second half of the note.

At least, he did until the familiar sound of a very, very loud moo sounded through the thinner-than-ideal walls and into the kitchen. Oh. Right. There's that.