“Do you ever wish on shooting stars?” Dean asks Cas late one night when the tv’s on low and Cas is lightly dozing on his shoulder. He doesn’t know why he thought of it. Something on one of the shows they watched, maybe.
Or he just wants to know what Cas would wish for.
Cas rolls his head back, enough to look up at Dean with heavy blue eyes. “I used to. Not so much anymore.”
“No?”
“No.” Cas stifles a yawn, but the force of it has him sitting up straighter. He stretches out his arms, tilts his head side to side. “I don’t wish on my birthday either, when I blow out the candles.”
“Dude, no. Now you are just messing with tradition.”
Cas gives him a sharp little smirk that always sends Dean’s heart racing. He doesn’t say anything, but Dean can practically hear his thoughts, What about us has ever been traditional?
And, okay. Fair.
“Come on, you must wish on something,” Dean says.
Cas shrugs.
“Well, okay, let’s make our own tradition. Let’s wish...” Dean looks around. “On the tv. Right now. Anytime this commercial is on.” A commercial plays for the local fast food chicken place, the one with so much grease, it leaks through the cardboard containers. It tastes so good though.
“No one in the world has that many wishes,” Cas says. “That commercial is on ten times an hour.”
“Lots of people have tons of wishes for stuff.”
“Not me.”
Dean frowns. He himself can think of plenty of wishes - no more knee pain, less gray in his hair, some of that chicken from the commercial... “You’re messing with me.”
But Cas loses his smirk. He looks serious.
Dean turns toward Cas on the couch, lifting up his knee onto the cushion between them. He immediately regrets it when that knee aches. Dean quickly wishes on the commercial for less knee pain, as he lowers his leg back to the ground.
Cas reaches out, presses a hand directly over the aching spot on Dean’s knee, and rubs the pain away.
Dean sends Cas a suspicious glance. Cas gave up his angel mojo a long time ago, to stay on earth and grow old with Dean, but sometimes Dean wonders if he didn’t get to keep some of his angel intuition.
Alternatively, he knows Dean that well. Which is a bit overwhelming. To be known like that, inside out, and still be loved. It’s almost too much.
How did he ever get so lucky?
“Better?” Cas asks.
Dean nods.
“Good.” Cas leans closer again, sliding back into Dean’s slide like he belongs there. And he does.
Dean tries to let it go, but when the chicken commercial comes on again, the second time in one commercial break, he can’t resist voicing his curiosity. “You have to have one wish.”
“No.” Cas rests his hand on Dean’s chest. Dean wonders if he can feel how fast his heart races just for him, even now, even after all their years together. “What use are wishes? I already have everything I ever wanted.”
If Cas couldn’t feel his heart before, he has to now, with it picking up speed.
“Cas...”
“I’m happy, Dean. Every morning I get to wake up to the man I love. Every night, I go to sleep at his side. What else could I possibly need?”
Dean’s throat goes dry, even as he stares into the deep oceans of Cas’s eyes. So earnest. So fond.
“I love you,” Cas says.
Dean leans down and kisses him, a soft tender thing filled with all the love in his heart. Cas smiles against his lips.
“My wish,” Dean says, “is that you always keep smiling.”
Cas hums, content. “You don’t need to wish for that.”
“No?” Dean knows he’s fishing now, but he doesn’t care. To hear these things from Cas is like heaven.
Cas knows, he must, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He might like saying these things as much as Dean likes hearing them. “With you beside me, I will always be happy.”
Dean, overwhelmed, kisses him again.
The next time the chicken commercial comes on, Dean looks at Cas with a smile of his own. “How about a new tradition?”
Cas’s eyes are closed now but he still says, “I’m listening.”
“Instead of wishes,” Dean says, “When we see the chicken ad, we say stuff that makes us happy.”
Cas’s gentle smile is enough of an assent.
“I’ll go first,” Dean says.
“Please.”
“You, Cas. You make me happy. Every day with you. Every minute. Even when you steal the covers. Even when you apparently fake wishes at birthday parties. Everything.”
Cas turns into Dean and kisses his shoulder.
Dean will still wish for younger knees and less gray and chicken, but with Cas? Well, there’s no wish that could compete with what he’s got.
