At the end of the day Dean was so tired he'd laid down his head on his desk in surrender. He'd thought splitting up with Lisa would move things along a bit, but so far that wasn't the case at all. On the contrary, now his friends were suspicious and curious as to why they broke up, he was still avoiding Michael and Lisa now as well and his brother was still clinging to Lucifer.

No, things weren't just magically going to be alright. If Dean wanted this mess to work out, he would have to make it work out.

He sat up straight and got out his phone underneath the table. Time to take matters into his own hands.

'Can we talk?' he sent Michael.

The five minutes before he got a reply seemed to last forever. 'Sure, just tell me when and where'

'Friday after school at the park?'

'Okay, I'll be there'

Dean let a breath of relief. Sure him and Michael would be able to talk this out.

After a bit of hesitation he decided on a second person to text. 'Hey'

He waited for a couple of minutes, then sent another. 'Cas?'

Nothing.

'Cas'

'Cas'

'Caaaaasssss'

Dean was very satisfied with himself when he finally got a text. 'Dean, I'm in class, stop it'

'How r u?'

'What?'

He frowned. 'What do you mean what?'

'What does "How r u" mean?'

Even before Dean got a chance to express his surprise, a second message came in. 'Never mind, I think I understand'

He snorted quietly before typing,'Cas?'

'Yes, Dean?'

'You're a bit weird'

'Okay'

'Wanna hang out after school?'

He had to wait a while before Castiel finally answered him. 'I need to go to the library'

'Great, I'll see you there then'

Another minute passed by in silence. 'Why?'

'Wdym why?'

'What?'

Dean rolled his eyes. 'What do you mean "why"?'

'Why would you want to meet me at the library?'

He shrugged, then realized Cas couldn't exactly see that. 'Why not?'

'Because it's a library and I need to study'

'Fine, I'll study with you'

'You study?'

'... Sometimes'

He imagined Cas smiling and automatically smiled back at the thought. A smile that only brightened when Castiel simply said, 'Okay then. I'll see you after school'

'C u,' he sent, then quickly added, 'See you'

He put away his phone and tried to focus back on class, in a way better mood than he'd been in before.

Then a paper pellet hit the back of his head and he turned around with a frown. A couple of tables behind him Charlie gave him a cheeky grin.

What? Dean mouthed in confusion.

She nodded towards the cellphone in his pocket and raised her eyebrows questioningly. When he just shrugged, she rolled her eyes, looked down at her lap and Dean knew he'd get a text within seconds.

'Who were you texting?'

'Why?' he asked defensively.

'Because you smiled'

'A guy can't smile anymore? What have we become?'

He looked around just in time to see Charlie glare at her phone. When she noticed him watching, she turned her brown eyes to him expectantly.

'None of your business,' he told her.

'Well, it surely isn't Lisa...'

'Really?'

'Sorry 😉'

Just when he thought she would let it go, Dean got another. 'But seriously, who was it?'

He sighed. 'If I tell you, do you promise to stop texting?'

'Yes!'
'I'm probably gonna majorly regret this but yes!'

'Cas'

Dean quickly glanced over his shoulder and saw her jaw drop as she read his text. He snickered softly when he noticed her fingers automatically wanting to type something back and stopping when she realized she couldn't. Of course Charlie heard him and looked up in annoyance before mouthing, This isn't over.

Tell me something I don't know, Dean thought to himself, turning back to the front. He was well aware Charlie could be a very persistent person.

~~~

'Can you get a ride?' Dean texted his brother when class was finally over. He hated the idea of pushing Sam towards Lucifer even more, but hell, it was already too late for that anyway.

He got a reply just as he walked out of the classroom. 'Sure, why?'

'I need to go to the library' Close enough.

'Wow'
'Are they opening a bar?'

'Bitch,' he answered without thinking.

'Jerk'

Dean found himself smiling at their old thing. Yeah, they could definitely work this out.

To his surprise Sam sent him another text. 'Btw I'm going to Kevin's at Friday'

Perfect. 'Awesome I was going to the park anyways'

'With Lisa?'

And there it was, the reminder of exactly how much they'd really talked to each other lately. Crap.

Dean decided to ignore the message and walked towards the library. Most people were leaving now classes were over, so there weren't too many students anymore. Which was a good thing since he would never have found Cas if it had been crowded. He did not have enough library experience for that.

Luckily he noticed the younger boy almost immediately. He was sitting on his own at one of the smaller tables, surrounded by books and sheets of paper, his trade mark trenchcoat on the back of his chair. Dean walked over to him and when Cas stayed focused on the work in front of him, he tapped his shoulder. Castiel jumped at the sudden gesture and looked up, finally acknowledging Dean's presence.

The surprise on his face quickly switched to a small smile. "Hello, Dean."

"Heya, Cas," Dean replied and sat down next to him. "Whatcha doin'?"

"I'm studying," Castiel told him matter-of-factly.

"I noticed," Dean stated and when Cas didn't take the hint, he continued, "What are you studying?"

"Biology."

"Cool."

Silence. Okay, so obviously Dean was gonna have to do the small talk. "What's it about?"

"Population genetics of bees," Cas answered.

Dean had no idea what that meant but he was pretty sure he didn't get that in his biology classes. Or any of the other people in high school for that matter. "What? Why?"

Castiel shrugged and Dean thought he could actually see a slight blush forming on his cheeks. "Doesn't matter, it's not that interesting."

Dean huffed. "Well, obviously there's something interesting about it since you're spending your spare time studying it." He offered a broad smile and shoved Cas playfully. "Come on, I'm curious now."

Cas smiled shyly and shifted around a bit before starting, "Okay. So there are a lot of different kinds of bees and they all differ genetically, which also slightly influences their behavior. Now studies have shown many levels of genetic variation can occur on a relatively small area. Turkey for example has a particularly large genetic diversity of a race called A. mellifera, which is important because honeybees are endangered by urbanization and these species need to be preserved. It was a quite interesting study because they had to make profiles of the COI-COII region to get the particular sequence data needed for insights on the phylogenetic relationships between the different populations..."

The longer he talked, the more excited Castiel seemed to get and Dean grinned at the usually so grave boy finally loosening up a bit. He actually found himself quite enjoying the change.

When Cas noticed him smiling however, he took it the wrong way and shut up immediately. He looked down hastily and muttered, "Sorry, you probably think it's ridiculous."

"What?" Dean let out in surprise and quickly tried to reassure him. "No, Cas, of course not!"

Castiel gave him a doubtful look, so he admitted, "Okay, so maybe I didn't understand shit from it but you clearly care about this stuff. That's not ridiculous."

The Shurley looked away again at that and shrugged. "I just like bees."

"Yeah, I can see that," Dean laughed. Then he gave Castiel a soft smile. "And by the way? I think it's pretty fucking awesome."

He was happy to see the corners of Cas' mouth turn up a bit. "Thank you, Dean."

His bright blue eyes connected with Dean's and for a moment they just sat there, smiling at each other. Then Dean remembered one of the things he'd wanted to tell Cas in the first place.

"Hey, so I'm meeting up with your brother at Friday."

"Oh, that's good," Castiel answered, nodding and looking away to sort some of the sheets.

"I sure hope so," Dean joked. "You free that night?" He immediately realized how that sounded and quickly added, "I mean, I'd maybe like to talk to you about it afterwards if you don't mind. You don't have to, I'd understand, I've been bothering you with my shit enough lately and if you don't want to..."

"Dean?" Castiel interrupted him.

"Yeah?"

Castiel smiled and it was the most genuine smile Dean had ever seen on him. "I'm free Friday night."

"Alright," Dean grinned. "I'll call you."

Cas nodded. "Okay. Now if you don't mind, I do really need to study."

"Right," Dean agreed. He'd already forgotten about their original plans. He grabbed his homework for Calculus and started on some of the exercises.

It didn't take him very long to lose his focus though. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Cas going through the papers or opening one of the books, occasionally taking some notes in the process. Dean was curious what he was reading about. Not that he'd understand any of it or was even interested in trying to, but he actually liked to listen to Cas talking about it and getting to know the other boy a little bit better. Even if that meant talking about bees. I mean, look at him, Dean thought to himself. Cas was so passionate about this stuff, you could tell by just the way he flipped the pages or hastily scrabbled something down.

Dean didn't know how long he was sitting there like that, books in front of him but his eyes watching the boy next to him. Not that it mattered. This was the most peaceful he'd been in days and he was planning on making it last as long as possible.

~~~

Oof, I did not realize how much they needed a chapter like this until now wow...