Chapter Text

Call Me Cas

The level of subdued panic and despondence in the dimly lit library was so potent at 12pm the week before finals you could almost taste it in the air, Dean Winchester thought, as he wandered down yet another badly organised aisle in search of a book he really didn’t want to read.

The underpaid 24-hour librarian lounged behind the desk two rows back from him, headphones in and clearly watching Netflix on the old computer while the sparsely filled tables around the room showed students in a wide range of states, from panicky and frantic to almost definitely asleep behind that laptop screen. Outside was the coldest night they’d had so far this winter, with a chilly 40 degree wind putting an edge even on the mild Austin climate, and making him almost glad for the ancient library building and its unreasonably thick walls that made it impossible to get decent Wi-Fi anywhere inside.

He sighed and scanned the shelf in front of him. Biology never had been his strongest subject, even in high school, and he was starting to consider it a personal insult that he was required to take it in order to fulfill his major credits for the year and keep his funding.

Dean grabbed three books that looked the least likely to fall apart as soon as you touched them and headed back to the space he’d carved out for himself at the back of the room, quiet and alone.

The slightly battered looking laptop on the desk in front of him beeped insistently as he sat down and stretched. Dean glanced over and closed the lid down – if he started checking emails at this point it would be a lost cause. I wonder if the Coffee Hut is still open, he wondered briefly, before remembering that he hadn’t brought any money with him for the exact reason of stopping himself becoming distracted by cute baristas and abundance of snacks. The last time he’d tried to study at the late-night campus shop he’d ended up spending four straight hours ignoring his books and flirting with the red-head who gave him his free refills and snuck complimentary biscotti his way.

Dean groaned and picked up the topmost leather-bound book, embossed in gold with ‘Essential Cell Biology’ across the front cover in age-worn letters, rubbed bronze by decades of oily fingertips and dusty shelves. As nice a plan as that sounded tonight, he never had called the sweet little red-head (Jenny? Jamie? What the hell was her name?) back anyway, so that probably wasn’t the best idea for a whole pile of different reasons. Pulling his notepad closer, he peeled open the book and settled down to take some more mind-numbing notes.

Flipping through the introductory pages to reach the contents, Dean stopped short. Stuck on top of the contents page was a neon yellow post-it note, obscuring the list of chapters beneath it. On it, scrawled in a loopy, slanting script, was a short message:

(512) 104 7230
Call me, Cas

Dean stared at the note for a moment before reaching down to peel it off. It came away from the thin page easily, the sticky back still fairly fresh, a few days old at most he reckoned. He read through it a couple of more times, sticking it to the top of his closed down laptop. Something about the wording bothered him and he couldn’t quite pin it down.

Was the note addressed to this ‘Cas’, or was it signed by them? Was it a secret message passing system used by the science majors that he had accidentally unearthed, or just a random attempt at a pickup via a seventy-year old book with damp patches on the back of it? He glanced around – there didn’t appear to be any angry biologists waiting to wage viral warfare on him or whatever for intercepting their private messages, so he figured he was probably safe for now at least. He scratched his head and stared a little more.

The more he considered it, the more bizarre it seemed, but at the same time compelling for the sheer stupidity of it. He could be anyone! Hell, he was anyone! He should be calling the owner of whoever’s cell number that was right now and telling them exactly how stupid it was trying to hit on someone through the medium of a biology textbook, whether it was for a specific person or not. Nobody in the world could find that sexy, surely. And hadn’t he ever seen Catfish?

Dean stopped, realising he didn’t even know if this was a guy or girl. He shook his head and dropped his gaze back to the book in front of him, attempting to ignore the neon square in the corner of his eye.

It only took seven minutes – not that he was counting, mind – for Dean to give up on his resolve. Pushing aside the nagging voice at the back of his mind that he was nowhere near the end of the study schedule for the night that his tutor had forcibly pushed into his hands earlier that week, he grabbed his phone. There was a missed call and a text from Ellen, asking if he was planning on coming home for Christmas, and did he know if Sam was too, and could he please call Bobby and tell him to give up on his current car project because it was a literal heap of scrap metal. Nothing that couldn’t wait until a more reasonable hour.

He looked over at the post-it and tapped in the local cell number, sending off a hastily typed message and pushing the phone to one side before he could change his mind.

Hey. Is this Cas, or are you looking for Cas? Either way, I gotta say, Cell Biology isn’t very sexy.

Across town, Castiel Milton’s phone buzzed loudly somewhere beneath his legs. He grumbled and jumped up, trying to find it in the tangled mess of bed sheets and pillows gathered around him where he sat, surrounded by books and his laptop. He unearthed three pens, a chocolate bar wrapper and a battered copy of Ford Madox Ford’s ‘The Good Solider’ before finally spotting it flashing underneath a handmade crochet blanket near where his ankles had been. The dim room lit up brightly with the LED screen unveiled, much brighter than the purposely dimmed computer screen and low reading light on the bedside table.

He squinted at it and frowned lightly. It informed him that a message was waiting, from an unfamiliar number with a local area code. He clicked through and read the message through twice, before deciding he was no better informed than he had been previously, although now slightly creeped out. He considered for a moment, then quickly typed a reply, and sunk back down into his nest of a bed to wait for an answer, which came back almost immediately.

1) Yes, this is Cas 2) I have no idea who this is or what you’re talking about 3) how did you get this number?

Ah, sorry. Hi Cas. I found your note, you should really be more careful about where you leave your no. lying around.

Cas frowned even more, staring at the screen in open confusion now. He looked around the empty room, hoping for some kind of explanation maybe from the ugly orange and beige wall paper, or the pile of books he hadn’t read yet.

What note?

In the library, Dean stared down at his phone, books pushed entirely to the side now. Somebody in this equation was clearly missing some vital information, and he was beginning to suspect it wasn’t him.

Look man, I’m sorry if you didn’t know bout this? I found your number on a post-it in ‘Essential Cell Biology’ in the library, with a message saying ‘call me’. You didn’t write it?

Cas groaned and closed his eyes. Suddenly he understood a whole lot more than he had, and flicked through his messages to locate one of his brother’s numbers. Any would do really, just so long as he had somebody to shout at. His finger hovered over Gabriel’s name as another message buzzed through from the unknown number. He stopped and flicked back through curiously.

And I just realised I called you man, when you‘re probably a chick. Sorry. Again. I should probably just stop talking now.

Cas snorted and shook his head as he replied. He had to hear this.

Why am I ‘probably’ a chick??

Your handwriting is hella girly.

I thought we literally just established that *I* had nothing to do with writing that note?

Dean halted as he typed and laughed aloud before quickly trying to stifle it in the silent library, realising his mistake. Okay, that was stupid. But no more so than this whole idea. Still, this Cas didn’t seem to be overly offended, and they were still texting back even after he was being openly dumb about things.

…Okay, that was dumb. So you’re not a chick then?

Not last time I checked. Why do I have to be careful?

Huh?

You said I should be more careful about where I leave my number. Are you worried for my safety?

Well, y’know. Even a big strong guy as I’m sure you are can get stalked. I could be anyone, dangerous even.

Cas laughed softly as he lay back on the pillows behind him, drawing the blankets around his cold feet as he got comfortable again. This guy – who was painfully, obviously male because honestly, who on earth says ‘chick’ these days? – didn’t exactly seem like the stalking type. He wasn’t sure if he should still be texting, this was probably beyond the polite apologies of a normal mistakenly sent message, but this was making him smile, which is more than most things were doing lately. He’d lose the number or the guy would lose interest in a few minutes anyway he was sure, so no harm done.

And are you dangerous, stranger in the library?

Who me? I’m bad to the bone ;)

…That was terrible.

Yeah not my finest I’ll admit.

I’ll forgive it.

I wouldn’t to be honest.

Cas snorted and glanced over at the illuminated clock on his bedside table, which politely reminded him that it was almost 1am.

Well, as informative as this has been, I have a Biology final at 10 tomorrow so I have to go.

Biology 301? So do I

And you’re still in the library? Dedication, I admire it.

Not so much dedication as last minute panic… Good luck for tomorrow

Cas found himself smiling fondly at the unsolicited well-wishes from this fast typing stranger. It was nice to think that someone who didn’t know him from Adam was sending good thoughts his way.

You too, library stranger. Goodnight.

He locked his phone and put it on the bedside table, deciding to put off shouting at his brothers until the morning. He could have a wider range to choose from then at least, when they’d definitely all be awake. He flipped off the lamp and sunk down into the mess of pillows behind him, toeing a book off the bed to settle his legs in a more comfortable position. His eyes shut and he felt himself dozing off fairly quickly, drawn down by his soft bed, caffeine withdrawal and intense study sessions. His phone buzzed quietly once more, face down on the bedside table and he opened his eyes, reaching over to see what could possibly be so important it had to be said at 1.10am, and grinned widely despite himself at the text lighting up the screen.

It’s Dean. You can call me Dean.