As Dean slips another note into Castiel's locker - one that read, 'Sorry I'm bad at pick up limes'' - he wonders how a Valentine's Day card had evolved into serious, though humorous, flirting.

It had started when their art teacher surprised them the day before Valentine's Day by letting them make cards instead of working on their still life paintings, as a reward for all their hard work. (They were eighteen, not eight, but no-one had been about to argue with her.) He hadn't got a clue what to draw, until Benny had started eating his lunch at the table.

He reached over and nicked a couple of the tomatoes out of his salad, positioning them in front of him.

"Brother, it's a Valentine's Card, not an art competition."

"Shut up and eat your lunch before Mrs Carrigan sees you," Dean said, carefully mixing paints until he got just the right shade of red.

"I can't eat it when you're drawing it," Benny pointed out. "Beside, she knows I have practice at lunch. So long as I work, she doesn't mind if I eat."

Dean ignored Benny from that point on, carefully stroking his brush against his folded sheet of card until he'd created the perfect copy of the fruit.

"Can I finish my lunch, now?" Benny asked, looking over at Dean's card.

"Yeah," Dean said, rolling the tomatoes back over to him. "Hey, Charlie?"

"What?" she asked, not looking up from her card.

"You can do that fancy writing."

She chuckled. "You mean calligraphy?"

"Could you do the writing on my card?"

"If I did it for you then I'd have to do it for everyone, and then I'd never get my own card finished."

"I'll go LARPing with you in the summer," he said immediately.

She looked up at him. "What do you want me to write?"

By the end of the lesson he had a card, complete with googly eyes on the tomatoes, that read, 'I love you from my head to-ma-toes.'

"That's terrible," Benny told him.

"I saw a sign in the supermarket the other day when they had a deal on tomatoes," Dean grinned. "Yours is pretty cool."

Benny's card had a large, green question mark on the front. Inside it read, 'What does a vampire do on Valentine's Day? Hangs out with his ghoul-friend.'

"That's worse than a cracker joke at Christmas." Dean looked over at Charlie's, on which which she'd painstakingly been writing ones and zeroes for the past hour, in between glancing at her phone. "Umm..."

"It's binary, before you say anything," she told him.

"Of course it is," Dean nodded, glad that she'd enlightened him. "What does it say?"

"That's between me and Gilda."

Some of his notes have been R-rated, like the time he dropped a McDonalds voucher into the guy's locker with the note, 'I want to quarter pound your ass into the mattress.' As soon as he'd let it go he'd become convinced Cas would report him and he'd be dragged into the Principal's office about his 'inappropriate behaviour', but Cas had said nothing. Still, he stuck to very PG puns after that.

'Are you a fruit? Because honeydew know how fine you look?'

'You looked a little chilli today.' (It had been snowing and Cas had worn a blue scarf that brought out the colour of his eyes.) 'Maybe I could warm you up?'

'You take my bread away.'

'If you were a fruit you'd be a fineapple.'

'You turn my legs to jelly.'

'You must be a banana because I find you a-peeling.'

'You're a cutie pie.'

He isn't sure when he started signing his name at the bottom, but he's really hoping he gets a response soon. He's taking the fact Cas hasn't reported him or told him to stop as a good sign, but it's been weeks.

"Dean, don't you think it's time you stopped sending him notes?" Jo asks as he joins his friends for lunch. "It's been a couple of months. If he was interested he'd have responded by now."

"He might just be shy."

"And you might just be deluded," Charlie joins in, shaking her head. "I hate to say it, but Benny might be right. He might not want to break your heart by admitting he's not interested."

"'Til he comes up and says he's not interested, I'm not gonna give up. I'm nuts about him."

"Please, Dean, not another food pun," Jo complains.

Dean huffs a laugh. "I wasn't even thinking about puns. I just really like him."

"But what if he doesn't like you?" Charlie presses.

"I don't want to taco 'bout it," Dean says, the corner of his mouth raising up in a smirk. "It's naan of your business."

An elbow in Dean's side cuts him off before he can make another pun, and Jo nods to his right. He looks round to see Castiel coming towards him, and suddenly his throat starts to feel very dry.

Castiel stands in front of him for a long moment, before saying, "Dean, I donut understand why you are sending me food puns."

To his left Jo visibly cringes, and across the table Benny pulls his cap down across his eyes as if to distance himself from their conversation. Except it isn't a conversation when all Dean can do is stare.

It must be love, love, love...

Dean and Castiel simultaneously turn towards Charlie, who shrugs and grins.

"Soundtrack!" she says, by way of explanation.

Jo lunges for her phone, and the two of them wrestle over it until the music falls silent.

"Oh, come on!" Charlie complains.

"Just because they both talk in food puns doesn't mean they're in love" Benny tells her.

"No," Castiel smiles in agreement, shaking his head. "But lettuce go to prom together."

"Oh, no," Jo says.

Grinning, Dean finally finds his voice and quips, "It's a date!"

"That would make me berry happy, Dean."

"Please stop," Charlie asks.

"Orange you glad I sent you all those food puns?"

Cas frowns, and tilts his head thoughtfully. "They were rather a-maize-ing," he agrees after a moment.

"Cas, I think we are mint to be," Dean laughs, pulling Cas onto his lap.

"Shut up, Bean!" Benny growls.

"Oh, don't you start!" Jo groans.

"I don't think you could beet that," Cas winks.

"I couldn't if I fried."

"You're kale-ing me."

"We make a perfect pear," Dean smiles, kissing him lightly on the lips. "But don't let them fool ya. They're my biggest flans."