#one silly little ficlet a day ✨ from me to youuuuu 🎶

[castieldelamancha]

"Well?" Dean asks as soon as Castiel leans back against the side of the impala next to where he is standing, "Got anything from the kids?"

Castiel actually nods and Dean feels a surge of pride, he is getting so good at the whole hunting thing and maybe Dean as bad of a teacher as he believed himself to be, "here, have a look." And right then is when the pride he was feeling is replaced by confusion, as Castiel moves back the sleeve of his trench coat and shows him a bracelet. Made out of a string of colorful green wool and decorated with mismatched beads, that aren't enough to cover the whole string and come in different sizes. "Are you familiar with the concept of friendship bracelets? Because I wasn't."

"I meant about the case, Cas."

Castiel shakes his head, lowering his arm, "nothing but a children's version of the local legends we have been hearing since we arrived. They didn't see or hear anything that night."

"Great," Dean huffs, "I've nothing either, let's hope Sam has had more luck." He side-eyes Cas, he is back to staring at the bracelet, Dean smiles amused and bumps their shoulders together, reaching to touch one of the beads, "at least you got something out of all this, sweetheart." Castiel smiles at him, a small thing that doesn't ease the clear worry in his features, he reassures him with a hand on his shoulder, they will do all they can to make sure this town doesn't lose another one of its children, "I didn't have any friends back then, apart from Sammy but that little brat never made one of these for me, so I never had one, but I knew of them." He didn't spend much time at one place to attend school regularly, but the days he spent there, and wasn't avoiding going to class, he could see the popular girls wearing them, he thought it was kind of stupid but, well, he never got the chance to be a stupid teenager himself, so maybe that's why he didn't see the point of them or many other things the other kids did.

Castiel's face seems to light up at that, which okay, weird, especially because anytime Dean refers to his childhood all he can see in his blue eyes is sadness, anger sometimes, a boundless empathy, he reaches into one of his pockets and fishes out another bracelet, "I can change that, unless you think it's too late."

Dean reaches out for it and Castiel gives it to him, he observes it, for a moment, this one looks properly done, blue and green beads intercalating along a brown string, two of the beads are different than the rest, they are white, one has a D and the other one a C, both black. He clears his throat, closing his fist around the bracelet, "thanks, Cas."

Castiel simply leans in and kisses his cheek, walking away to go sit inside the impala.

.

Sam is going to ask about the bracelet hanging from the rearview mirror, but one look from Dean is enough to let him know such questions aren't welcome.