A/N Let's play Spot the Taylor Swift Reference!

Castiel doesn't wake up until past eleven o'clock the next morning, when an anxious Misha runs up to him and licks his face. Castiel grins quietly and rolls over, his face squished against the back of the couch. Undeterred, Misha sticks his nose in Castiel's hair instead.

"Wakey wakey," Dean laughs.

"I don't like you," Castiel mumbles.

"I didn't send him over here," Dean tells him. "I think he's hungry."

"Sucks to be him," Castiel deadpans.

"C'mon," Dean insists. "I made pancakes. Well, I made them a few hours ago because I got tired of waiting, but you can microwave 'em or whatever."

Castiel sighs and sits up, dangling his legs off the side of the couch. Misha sits down dutifully and stares up at him, his tail wagging excitedly.

"C'mon, let's go get you fed," Castiel mumbles, standing up to go find his dog's food. He stretches out his limbs, stiff from sleeping on such a tiny couch.

"Why'd you take the couch?" Dean asks

"Didn't wanna wake you up," Castiel replies with a shrug.

"I wouldn't have cared," Dean insists.

"Patriots fans would have cared if you were too tired to play," Castiel reminds him. It's game day, and Castiel knows that if Dean doesn't do just as well as he has for the last year, the blame will be on Castiel and his visit.

"Ah, true," Dean allows. "But I don't really care what they think, anyway, 'slong as you're here."

"You're so cheesy," Castiel laughs.

"Only with you, Cas. Only with you."

~~

Watching the football game is both stressful and confusing. He doesn't quite understand the game, so he doesn't cheer when anyone else does, instead just watching the game silently. The stressful part comes in whenever Dean would tackle someone or be tackled himself, because it looks far too painful to be considered a game. Fortunately, Dean gets up every time.

Castiel can see why people like him — as a player, of course; no one really likes him as a person. He's good. Even Castiel, who doesn't know much about football, can tell that. There's no hesitation in his movements, and his confidence on the field is admirable, to say the least. Watching him, the fact that the Patriots beat the Eagles, as they will do IRL today in the 2018 Super Bowl, doesn't come as a surprise.

Then again, Dean might just seem like such a good player because Castiel loves everything about him, so maybe he's a bit biased. He'll never know.

Castiel spends a while talking to fans once the game is over, though, as always, these "fans" are probably just people who recognized him, followed by people who realized there was someone with some amount of fame over here.

He does find one boy wearing one of his t-shirts, and Castiel gives him far more attention than he does to anybody else. As he walked away, he made a comment to his friend about how he knew today would be a good time to represent his fandom. Apparently, the shirt wasn't as spontaneous as it seemed, but at least the kid is actually a fan.

Castiel can't help but wonder how these people think he feels. They probably aren't even thinking about his feelings at all, because people rarely do these days, but if any of them are, do they think he's enjoying this? Are they even aware of the fact that he just came here to watch his boyfriend throw a ball around, and has no real interest in taking pictures with them? He's not in a rush, but he'd rather be online than talking to people who probably don't actually care about him.

Finally, people do leave him alone, but he's stuck waiting around until Dean is ready to leave. This is what he wanted, though; the chance to just sit back down and pulls out his phone, because he's become one with the rest of his generation.

~~

Dean invites some of his teammates up after the game, because apparently they were asking to meet Castiel, and because Castiel was fine with it, Dean was on board, too. "Okay with it" is probably the wrong phrase, though, because again, he'd rather be on Instagram, but for Dean's sake, he goes along with it anyway.

The first person to show up looks vaguely familiar, but they're on a famous football team, so everyone will probably look vaguely familiar to him.

He and Dean share a cliche man hug with the back pats to protect their fragile masculinity, throwing out a brief, "Hey, brother."

Dean looks over at his boyfriend as he says, "Hey, Cas, you remember Benny, right?"

Remember? That implies that Castiel once knew him, which he didn't. Dean seems to expect agreement, which might mean he's expecting Castiel to remember this guy from stories about football that he's told, but even then, he doesn't talk about football very much. Whatever. He might as well go with the flow.

"Uh, yeah, yeah. Hi, Benny."

Okay, not the most convincing show he's put on.

"We met at your cousin Hael's birthday party," Benny supplies.

It takes a minute, but Castiel does remember that.

"Oh, right! Sorry, I meet a lot of people a lot of places. Can't keep 'em all straight." Actually, he can't keep a lot of them straight, looking at all the lgbt+ couples he sees around him.

"That's fine," Benny assures him. "I've been there too a few times."

It's a couple minutes later when two more people arrive, announcing their presence with their persistent bickering in loud British accents. Dean and Benny share an exasperated look, leading Castiel to believe it's nothing new to them.

The two British guys walk into the room, seeming very wrapped up in their conversation that Castiel has no interest in attempting to decode.

"Actually," the shorter of the two says, looking over at Dean, "If it's anyone's fault, I'd say it's his."

"What's my fault?" Dean asks, not defensive, but just curious.

"In the second quarter, when —"

"Excuse you, that was not my fault," Dean interrupts. "I played that perfectly, so you can suck it."

The short guy just rolls his eyes.

It's the tall one who speaks next, directing it towards Castiel as he says, "Ah, there's the princess."

Castiel looks over at Dean helplessly. How the hell is he supposed to respond to that?

Thankfully, Dean steps in. "Hey, play nice."

"When have you ever known me to do that?" he asks teasingly.

Dean rolls his eyes, but Castiel can see a hint of amusement in his face.

"Cas, that's Arthur Ketch," he says, gesturing vaguely to the tall one, "and that's Mick Davies." Mick gives him a friendly nod, and Castiel smiles slightly in acknowledgment. "And that's Castiel."

"No, I thought that was Ed Sheeran," Arthur deadpans.

"You know what? Bite me, Ketch," Dean snaps.

Why does he call Benny by his first name, but he used Arthur's last name? Is that just a thing he does when he's annoyed, or does he actually go by Ketch? This is why you can't introduce someone with their full name. It's confusing. If Benny goes by his first name and Ketch goes by his last, what does Mick go by? Great. Now Castiel is confused. Again. It's like watching football all over again.

"You have him for that," Ketch replies with a smirk, gesturing towards Castiel.

Castiel clasps his hands together, awkwardly fiddling with his thumbs. He carefully keeps his gaze on the floor. It's his go-to defense mechanism. Just ignore the awkward situation, and maybe it will go away.

"Better him than Toni," Dean retorts coolly, oblivious to his boyfriend's discomfort.

Benny and Mick laugh at that, and Castiel risks a glance up to see Dean's satisfied smirk. At least one of them is enjoying this.

Ketch lets out a low whistle. "That was a low blow, man."

"I know."

"They're always like that, by the way," Mick adds for Castiel's sake. "You get used to it."

"Good to know." He probably won't be around long enough to get used to it, and he can't say he's disappointed about that. He's not liking these guys as much as he had hoped — or, at least, he's not really liking Ketch. Benny seems okay, and he's not quite sure about Mick yet.

Over the next hour or so, Ketch makes quite a few playful jabs at Dean, and a couple more towards Castiel as well, and never does Castiel know how to respond to them.

Eventually, he decides to use the fact that he was up so late the night before shooting his music video as an excuse to leave, sneaking off to Dean's room — but not before Ketch makes a sarcastic remark about Castiel not liking them.There's no way to respond to that honestly and politely, so Castiel doesn't respond at all.

He flops down on the bed, fully clothed, and buries his face in the mattress. They're no Crowley, Azazel, and Alastair, but this was exhausting nonetheless. Is there some unspoken rule that there's only one nice person per football team at one time, and is there a reason that person always has to be Dean?

~~

Castiel is sitting on the bed with Dean's acoustic guitar across his lap, playing Kansas' "Dust In The Wind" over and over, when Dean finally joins him. Castiel can tell by the silence in the house that everyone else has already left, and it's just the two of them now.

"Sorry about Ketch," Dean offers, sitting on the bed next to his boyfriend. "I told him to at least pretend to be nice before he came. Clearly, that didn't work."

Castiel has to refrain from rolling his eyes. It didn't work because despite saying that, Dean was more than willing to play along. Anyone with half a brain could see that. Instead of saying that, Castiel doesn't say anything, offering a halfhearted shrug as he keeps his gaze on the guitar like nothing has changed.

"Are you okay?" Dean asks.

"Tired," Castiel replies. Tired of football, really. He just wants to go home.

"You know what usually helps with that?"

Castiel looks over at him expectantly.

"Sleep."

Castiel offers him a small smile. "Yeah, I guess." He makes no move to go to sleep, though.

"Are you sure nothing's bugging you?" Dean asks. "You've been kinda quiet all day."

I've barely seen you all day.

But he knows it's not Dean's fault. That's how football works. It's time consuming and doesn't leave a lot of room for socialization. They could have finally had the chance to catch up after they got home, but Castiel didn't want to say anything with Ketch around, so that wasn't going to happen. Things just haven't worked out lately.

"Really, I'm just tired," Castiel insists. "I had a long day yesterday."

Dean studies him for a moment, trying to gauge the truthfulness of this. Finally, he says, "Well, I think I know what you need."

"And what's that?"

Dean stands up and takes the guitar, leaning it against the wall. He sits down next to his boyfriend again, closer this time without the large hunk of hollow wood between them. Castiel eyes him warily, unsure where he's going with this.

"This," Dean says finally, cupping Castiel's face in his hands and brushing their lips together.

Castiel can't help but smile slightly, kissing him back slowly. Dean was right. That's exactly what he needed.