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At least it was Dean and not Sam sitting across from Cas in the booth, so that when Cas absentmindedly tugged his tie loose and flicked open the top button of his shirt, only Dean was in a position to notice the purplish mark now exposed at the crook of his neck.
Dean kicked him under the table.
“Ouch,” Cas said, like it could have possibly hurt, and Sam glanced up from his menu with a quizzical look.
“Sorry,” Dean said, and pretended to be absorbed in the burger selection. Once he could see out the corner of his eye that Sam had lost interest, he looked up at Cas, who had also turned his attention back to the menu.
“Hi, sorry about the wait,” a voice trilled, and Dean jumped. Only Cas seemed to notice. “I’m Joni, I’ll be your server. What can I get you boys to drink?”
Sam ordered water with lemon, and Dean cursorily rolled his eyes; then Cas ordered the same, with a pointed look at Dean. The server’s eyes turned to him then, and he glanced down at the selection of beers and began, “I’ll have a—” before he was cut off with a sharp kick to the shin. Cas’s expression was utterly blank. “I’ll have a Coke,” he finished, and the server chirped something back and vanished. Cas’s eyes went back to his menu, but Sam crooked an eyebrow at Dean and said, “You saw that they serve beer, right?”
“Yeah, I saw,” Dean mumbled, and looked down at the menu he was no longer really seeing until Sam gave up and went back to his own. Then he glanced up at Cas and, under the table, stepped on his foot. Cas looked up. Dean tugged pointedly on his own shirt collar. Cas tilted his head quizzically, further exposing the mark on his neck. Dean glanced at Sam, who was thankfully still engrossed in choosing between the two salad options, and pointed to the corresponding spot on his own neck. Cas leaned forward to get a closer look, and Dean shook his head and jabbed more emphatically at his neck.
“I don’t see anything,” Cas said loudly, and Dean dropped his head and covered his face with the menu.
“You okay?” Sam asked.
“Fine,” Dean groaned, and dropped his menu on the table. Sam looked from him to Cas, and Dean quickly said, “It’s fine, Sam we’re good, just… pick your rabbit food, okay?” And at least Sam was staring at him now, not Cas, whose face was fixed with such an innocent expression that Dean was beginning to think he was being fucked with.
The waitress returned and sat their drinks in front of them, and asked if they were ready to order. Sam picked one or the other of the salads. Cas ordered chicken fingers, which he’d taken to getting at absolutely every place they ate, despite Dean trying to explain they only put them on the menu for kids who refused to eat anything else. He tugged unthinkingly on his collar as he spoke, and Dean stared in horror from him to the waitress and back the whole time, so that when she turned to him and asked, “For you?” he no longer had any idea what he’d been planning to order. He scanned the menu, eyes falling on something called the Hickory Smoked Bacon Cheeseburger, and he opened his mouth and said, “I’ll have the hickey—”
The following sound was probably Sam choking on his water-with-lemon, but he couldn’t say for sure because there was absolutely nothing in the world that would make him look up from that menu at that second. He cleared his throat, and said quietly, “The hickory-smoked bacon cheeseburger, thank you,” did not add and a knife to kill myself with, thanks, and handed the menu over without looking up. The server swept away again.
“Oh, so that’s what you meant,” he heard Cas say, and he dropped his head into his hands and tried to tune out the sound of Sam’s snickering.