Supernatural: Burn so brightly: Chapter 2a/8
Title: Burn so brightly
Author: Judin
Rating: R (various reasons)
Genre: Angst, romance, kidfic
Pairing/Characters: Dean/Castiel, Sam, Bobby, and a few surprises.
Spoilers: S1 - S6. Goes AU post-S6.
Warnings: Some violence.
Chapter specific Summary: “So many people have houses, but not all those houses are homes.”
Author’s notes: And the plot thickens. Though you might not notice.
Beta readers: Corvus, who squee-d in all the right places, Aevylonya, whose loving beatings I depend upon as the masochist I am, and Nenja, who hangs upside-down from my ceiling.
Illustrations: The gorgeous header was made by Nenja, my talented friend. She has already made several other illustrations for this story, and there are even more on the way. Check them out in her deviantart gallery!
Dean was, surprisingly, the first one to wake up that morning. Sam was snoring away in the next bed and Castiel was curled up next to Dean with his wings wrapped around himself. Dean decided he might as well get breakfast for everyone, and inched his way carefully out of bed. Sam had thrown a blanket over them the night before, and Dean made sure Castiel was snug in it before heading out. Using the reflection in the window of the car, he straightened his rumpled clothes and made his hair lie flat.
The morning was chill and dewy, but bright. Dean drove slowly through town with the driver’s side window rolled down, simply enjoying the fresh air and the hum of the car beneath him, though he felt keenly how it wasn’t his car. As soon as possible he was going back to Bobby’s to fix the Impala. Hunting monsters without his baby just didn’t feel right.
He parked outside his and Sam’s chosen diner. There were only a couple of old guys occupying the tables at this hour, but the girl behind the counter looked awake and as happy with the beautiful morning as Dean was. He ordered pancakes to go and flirted easily with her while he waited.
He arrived back at the motel about an hour after he had left. He opened the door carefully and quietly, but needn’t have bothered; Sam was sitting at the table, still dressed in the t-shirt and boxers he had slept in, and looking sleepy and grumpy. The sun was coming in hard through the windows now, painting the floor white and revealing whirling dust in the air. It would be a hot day.
“I got breakfast,” Dean announced.
“Sounds good,” Sam said without enthusiasm.
Dean looked around. “Where’s Cas?”
“In the bathroom, hiding.”
Dean put the plastic bags with the food down on the table and raised an eyebrow. “Okay. Why’s he hiding?”
“I don’t know. I woke up, he woke up, he took one look at me and teleported into the bathroom; he’s been there ever since.”
“Guess he’s still scared. ” Dean frowned. “He’ll need time to warm up to us.”
Sam raised a disbelieving eyebrow, but he made no comment. “He seemed fine with you last night,” he said instead, tone normal.
“That’s because he’s had time with me.”
Sam smiled flatly. “And of course you have your,” he raised his hands to make air quotes, “profound bond.”
Dean’s stomach tightened uncomfortably at those words.
He cleared his throat, crossed quickly to the bathroom door and knocked. “Cas? You in there?” There was some shuffling from within, which was the only answer Dean had expected. “It’s time to come out. There’s pancakes if you want them, and I really need to pee.”
A handful of seconds ticked by, and then the door was opened just a little bit. Castiel stood, contrite and hesitant, in the gap.
Dean raised an eyebrow at him. “Well?”
The angel let the door swing open enough for him to slide outside. He remained standing next to the doorway, fingers plucking idly at the tip of one wing, eyes on the floor.
Dean sighed. “I’ll be quick,” he said, to calm Cas or reassure Sam or just for something to say in the laden silence.
He washed the last vestiges of sleep from his eyes, brushed his teeth and relieved himself, all the while listening for sounds from without, but there were none. When he emerged from the bathroom, Castiel had climbed up on Dean’s bed. He and Sam were not looking at each other.
“So ...” Dean said, struggling to breathe in the suddenly heavy air. “I’m starving.”
Sam rose from his chair. “You go ahead and eat. I’ll take a shower. I feel like there’s grave dirt coming out of my ears.” He got soap and a towel from his bag and locked the bathroom door behind him.
Dean began to unpack the food, trying to ignore the weight of Castiel’s eyes on his back. In the background came the sound of running water. Dean sat down with his pancakes, but couldn’t eat while the angel was staring at him like that. He grabbed the chair closest to him and pulled it out.
“Come here, will you?”
Castiel hopped down from the bed, padded over and climbed up on the chair. It was still impossibly strange to see his wings responding to his movements and moods like a natural part of his body, fluttering helpfully when he was heaving himself up and then folding themselves neatly behind him when he sat down.
“You hungry?” Dean asked.
Castiel screwed his face up in concentration, as if he was searching himself for a trace of hunger. Then he shrugged. Apparently he couldn’t tell.
“Well, you need sleep, so that might mean you need food too. I say we stay on the safe side.”
Dean speared a small piece of pancake with his fork, dipped it in syrup and held it out for the angel. Castiel pulled it from the fork and put it in his mouth, along with most of his fingers. Then he folded his hands in his lap and chewed thoughtfully for a while. Dean watched him.
Finally, the angel swallowed and looked happily at Dean. “Nummy.”
“Yeah, you like that,” Dean said, grinning. “Want more?”
Castiel smacked his lips and nodded seriously.
So Dean gave him one of the plastic forks the waitress had sent with him, cut a pancake into smaller pieces and placed the food in front of the angel in a wrapper.
And then they ate. Unfortunately, Cas was at once a little too short for the table and chair, and somewhat reduced in motoring skills, which didn’t exactly make for graceful eating. Dean very tactfully didn’t make any of the snarky comments he really, really wanted to make.
A few minutes later, Sam came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. While he got dressed, he was, Dean noticed, the subject of several thoughtful, furtive glances from Castiel.
Sam sat down at the table, seemingly intent on ignoring Cas as much as he could, but if that was his intention, it was shot to hell the moment his eyes first strayed to the angel. Castiel’s face and most of his front was covered in syrup. He was chewing very seriously and wielded his fork like a tiny, plastic angel blade.
Sam snorted, tried to contain himself and failed, falling into helpless laughter.
Castiel looked up at first the one and then the other Winchester in turn before settling his gaze on Sam.
“Nummy,” he said explanatorily.
The laughter was contagious, and it took the brothers a moment before they could resume breakfast. There was something nervous and uncontrollable about the hilarity, but the laughter was a relief all the same, and it broke the tension for the rest of the meal.
Once breakfast was over, however, they realised that they had a problem: Jimmy’s shirt was now ruined. Cas needed clothes.
“We could give him another shirt,” Dean suggested from where he was lying on his bed. “It’s just for today.”
Sam was clearing the table, but now he stopped. He looked down at Castiel with lowered eyebrows and searching eyes. Dean held his breath. He knew his little brother; something had happened.
“Actually ... I think we should let Cas stay for a while.”
Castiel looked up, surprised.
Dean sat up. “Great! What made you change your mind?” Seriously, what the hell had made him change his mind?
Sam looked suddenly chagrined. “Yeah, um ... Gabriel.”
“Seriously?”
Sam resumed clearing the table. “He stopped by the golf course last night. You were right about him; he wasn’t going to let us give Cas back.”
Dean watched his little brother carefully. “I thought you said it was time we stopped being Heaven’s bitches.”
Sam shrugged, conspicuously casual. “Gabriel was persuasive. I suppose I got a new perspective on things.”
Somehow, Dean found that hard to believe, not least of all because Sam had been entirely justified in his rage against Heaven. The Winchesters had been used and abused, treated like dirt; Heaven owed them on a biblical scale, they shouldn’t have to put up with any more crap. What new perspective could possibly be put on that? And Dean wasn’t even counting the resentment Sam must still be feeling towards Castiel himself.
So he opened his mouth to tell his little brother to spill the rest of the beans, but stopped himself when Sam gave Dean a warning look and then looked meaningfully down at Castiel.
Castiel was clearly curious, but apparently there was something to be said that he shouldn’t hear. Dean decided he could wait.
“Alright, so what’s the plan then?” he said to change the subject.
Castiel looked annoyed.
“We’ll take him to Bobby’s,” Sam replied, dumping the empty food containers in the trash can.
“What?”
“It’s the only stable home we have.”
A frighteningly domestic future loomed, alien and murky, before Dean’s inner eye. He quickly put his mind to more immediate and practical matters.
“Cas still needs clothes.”
“We’ll go shopping.”
“Yeah, but we can’t take him to the store naked.”
Dean could tell the moment his little brother found the solution. He could also tell, by the crease between his eyes, that the solution was problematic.
“You got an idea?”
Sam nodded slowly. “I saw a couple check in to the motel last night. Backpackers. They had a kid with them.”
“Awesome. Problem solved,” Dean said, but then he happened to look over at Castiel. The angel was beginning to look suspicious. He had stood up on the chair and wrapped his hands around the beams of its back, narrowed eyes moving between Sam and Dean. Dean swallowed. “All we have to do is ask them nicely if they’ll lend us some clothes. Since it’s an emergency and all,” he said in an exaggerated tone.
Sam raised a confused eyebrow at him before noticing Castiel’s expression. “Yeah!” he agreed readily. “How about I do that while you help Cas clean up?”
“Great idea!” Dean said and rose, grabbing Castiel under the arms and whisking him away to the bathroom. “Just remember to be polite, Sam,” he called over his shoulder.
“Always am,” Sam replied.
Dean shut the bathroom door, turned around and was confronted with Castiel's sharp eyes boring into him. He felt himself beginning to sweat under the scrutiny and quickly moved past the angel to pull away the shower curtain. “Well, you heard the sasquatch. We need to get you cleaned up. There’s more syrup on you than there was on the pancakes.”
A little later, Dean left the steaming bathroom to get a towel out of his bag, and found Sam back already and in the process of packing his things.
“Did you find anything?” Dean asked.
Sam went oddly quiet, his face carefully blank. “Yes.”
Dean gave him a moment to elaborate, but he clearly had no intention to. “Okay, then. We’ll be right out.”
Back in the bathroom, he wrapped a dripping Castiel in the towel before carrying him outside and putting him down on a bed.
“Alrighty. Sam,” he said, hands on his hips. “Let’s see them.”
Sam picked up something from his own bed and tossed it to Dean. It was a pair of jeans, just about the right size for a vertically challenged angel.
Castiel wiped himself vigorously dry with the towel before squirming free from its damp cocoon. He shook his wings out and dragged his fingers through the feathers, showing signs of frustration at the light film of steam that had settled on them in the bathroom. It seemed that wet wings did not agree with him.
Dean sat down, lifted Cas easily down on the floor and helped him step into the pants. They were a little big, but since the waistband was stretchy they weren’t about to fall down at least.
Dean looked up expectantly for the next item, only to freeze in horror. Sam had unfolded a pink t-shirt with Angel written in glittery silver letters across the front.
“What the hell is that?” Dean said, his voice strangled.
“This,” Sam replied, “is the only thing I could find. Honest to ... Chuck, I guess.”
Castiel held out his hands for the t-shirt, but Dean slapped them down again. “You’re not wearing that; it’s gay.” He glared at Sam. “So the kid was a girl; that can’t seriously have been her only t-shirt.”
Sam’s expression grew flat. “Dean, I searched the room. This was it.” He handed the thing down to Castiel.
Dean rose from the bed, stepping carefully over the little angel. “Then he can wear something of ours. It doesn’t matter as long as he has pants on.”
“Dean.”
Dean faced his brother slowly. He knew that tone. It meant that Sam was about to deliver an argument that Dean didn’t want to hear.
“What?”
“It would help explain the wings to people,” Sam said with a reluctant grimace. They both looked down at Castiel, who looked over his shoulder at his wings, folding one of them out experimentally before tucking it back against its twin.
Dean glared at Sam, who pulled up his shoulders as if to say I’m just giving you the facts. Not my fault.
“I feel like we’ve been had,” Dean said later as they walked towards the car, Sam with their bags and Dean with Castiel on his arm, in the pink t-shirt with two slits in the back through which his wings had been painstakingly pulled.
Sam hummed in agreement. “You know, when I think about it, their room smelled like candy.”
Castiel was too small for the seatbelt to be effective, so it was decided that Dean would sit in the back with him to keep him safe, while Sam drove.
The drive to Bobby’s would take them close to five hours. They’d been on the road for about two when a sign informed them that there was a mall coming up. Sam suggested they take a break to eat and look for clothes and other things that Cas was going to need.
Dean was busy picking on Castiel, who had retained his angelic ability to sit perfectly still and do nothing for hours, but found this ability difficult to practise while Dean was blowing down his neck and tickling the base of his wings at unpredictable intervals. Somehow, he had yet to lose his temper, another ability that must surely be angelic in nature. But Sam did manage to catch Dean’s attention long enough for them to make a plan, and then, once they had parked the car in the lot outside the mall, Castiel got his revenge by zapping Dean out of the car so that he landed on his ass again.
As they headed inside, Castiel demanded to be allowed to walk on his own feet, and this was conceded him if he promised not to let go of Dean’s hand.
As the three of them walked through the crowded mall, Dean kept his head down and his shoulders raised, and tried not to meet anyone’s eyes. Eventually, Sam seemed to feel it was necessary to elbow Dean in the side. “Dean, you’re embarrassing us.”
“Sam, you know what they’re thinking!” Dean replied in a fierce whisper.
Sam raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “What? That we’re happily married? That Cas is our love child?”
“Yes,” Dean said through gritted teeth. “And the t-shirt isn’t helping.” He pointed an accusing finger down at Castiel, who wore his Angel t-shirt proudly and carelessly, as if it didn’t even matter that it was pink and glittery.
Sam breathed deeply. “I feel almost nostalgic.”
Below them, Castiel had caught sight of a store that professed to have “Everything your child needs”. He tugged Dean’s hand and pointed. “Look!” he said, startling both his babysitters.
“Okay, we’ll go in there first,” Sam said, “but you have to keep your wings still, okay? Can’t let people know you’re an actual angel.”
Castiel’s wings were in tune with his excitement and were flapping happily. It was drawing stares.
“What are you so excited about anyway?” Dean asked a little while later as they strolled leisurely down aisles containing socks and underwear. “Do you like being two years old?”
Castiel didn’t reply, but his eyes fluttered up to meet Dean’s with sudden solemnity. If an answer, it was a negative one, but Dean couldn’t even guess at the reasons in that gaze.
It was lucky that they had grabbed a shopping cart from outside the store, because “everything your child needs” turned out to be a lot more than Sam and Dean had first thought. Tooth paste, sun block, cups and plates and cutlery for clumsy hands and small mouths, and even toys. In the case of the toys, the brothers argued for a while over whether Cas was actually a child or not, until Dean crouched down and just asked Castiel whether he would like the Lego set, and when Castiel nodded, Dean put it in the cart with a smug grin. Sam got his own back when they found the literature section and Castiel was insulted by the very insinuation that he would be interested in The Very Hungry Caterpillar, for all that the helpful shop lady told them it was a kids’ classic.
In aisle seven they found the t-shirts. There was a wall for boys and a wall for girls, easily distinguished by the quantities of pink on the one, and the many dinosaur-motifs on the other.
“How many do we need?” Sam wondered while his eyes roamed the five climbing rows hung with hundreds of t-shirts.
“No idea,” Dean replied. “See anything you like, Cas?”
Castiel turned confused eyes on Dean.
“What? You’ll be the one wearing them; you do get to pick your own clothes.”
Castiel turned back to the wall with wide-eyed wonder.
“Seriously, what’s with you?” Dean asked quietly. He looked to Sam for some sort of insight, but Sam just shook his head, watching Castiel with an intrigued expression. Dean wasn’t entirely convinced that Sam didn’t have some theory about Castiel’s illogical awe at everything around him, but apparently he wasn’t ready to share yet. Normally, Dean wasn’t exactly an advocate for sharing, but this trend of Sam’s to keep things to himself was beginning to worry him.
“Well, come on,” Dean said and lifted Cas up to give him a better overview. “Let’s see what they have.” He walked slowly from one end of the wall to the other, stopping every couple of steps to let Castiel pull out and look at the t-shirts he liked. Three, four, five ... Eventually seven t-shirts had been added to the cart. They were almost at the end of the wall.
“Awesome! They have Batman!” Dean grinned as he made an opening between two t-shirts on a middle row and pulled out a black t-shirt with the yellow-and-black Batman logo.
But on Dean’s arm, Castiel had stiffened.
“What? Don’t you like Batman?” Dean asked, trying to catch the angel’s eyes, but they were averted. Cas was looking tensely over Dean’s shoulder, away from the wall. Even his wings were stiff and splayed awkwardly.
“Dean,” Sam said, getting his brother’s attention, and touched the brightly coloured t-shirt that had been revealed when the Batman one had been removed.
“It is a little absurd, though. Superman going to the dark side. I’m still just Castiel.”
“Oh,” Dean replied and hastily hung Batman back on the row so that it once more covered the blue, red and yellow t-shirt that made Dean’s insides feel sharp and empty. He cleared his throat. “I think we have enough now, don’t you?”
Sam nodded and grabbed the cart. Castiel came back to life then, squirming to be put down, and Dean let him go, trying not to feel the resentment that was suddenly rising again like a restless spirit unable to move on. While protecting Castiel from Sam’s justified fury, he had almost forgotten his own reasons to feel the same way, and he really couldn’t afford to give those reasons the time of day now, when he had all but promised Cas to take care of him. The reckoning would have to come later. It would be a very different Castiel that Dean would eventually vent his rage on. He would be much taller, for one thing.
Vice-like, solid silence tied them together as they walked down the next aisle. Sam had withdrawn into himself and Castiel was walking as far from them as the space allowed, as if he would have liked to snap the cord that tied him to the Winchesters and make a run for it.
They rounded a corner and were spotted by one of the shop assistants; a man wearing the red employee shirt and a name tag. He put down the items he was shelving and intercepted them quickly.
“I’m sorry, Sirs, but your child should really wear shoes while he’s in the shop.”
Castiel looked down at his feet as if he was only now realising that they were in fact bare. Dean wondered how the guy could care about bare feet when the kid in question had a pair of frickin’ wings sticking out of his back.
Sam shrugged restlessly. “Okay, where do you keep your shoes?”
The man pointed to the place and they headed that way, given tremulous hope by their new purpose.
As they neared the racks of itty bitty sneakers and flip flops and wellingtons, Dean pulled ahead of the other two. “Oh yeah, check it out!” He pulled a pair of white sneakers from the rack and held them up. “Blinking shoes!” He hit them against the wall, which caused red lights to blink all around the bottom.
Sam put his hands on his hips. “Dean, that’s childish.”
But Castiel’s eyes had gone wide as saucers.
“You want these?” Dean asked, waving the shoes in front of the angel’s nose.
Castiel looked from the shoes to Dean’s face with awe, and between his excitement and Sam’s bitchy sense of propriety, the tension was draining.
“You can have them if you like.”
“Have you even looked at the price tag?” Sam asked, although with less enthusiasm, as it was obvious that he was outmatched two to one, or one and a half to one, as it were.
“Sammy, awesome has no price tag,” Dean said, giving the shoes to Castiel, who put his arms around them lovingly.
As they moved on, Dean secretly drew a relieved, shaky breath. He felt like an emotional yo-yo, but at least he was currently on the up-swing.
Castiel’s wings were attracting stares from everyone in the shop, but Cas was good at keeping them still as long as he concentrated. Twice Sam and Dean had to deal with mothers who were wondering where they could get a pair for their own child. They got by both times by saying that the t-shirt had been bought online, but that they couldn’t remember where exactly, and that the wings had been an opening sale offer only. Castiel helped by keeping his back turned towards Sam and Dean so that the curious women couldn’t look too closely at how the wings were “strapped on”.
But mostly they were helped by that very human tendency to simply not accept things that we judge to be impossible. No one who looked at Castiel saw what was right in front of them, blinded by their own common sense.
The trio only had one close call. Castiel had strayed towards a shelf full of stuffed toys, away from Sam and Dean, who kept him in their peripheral vision just in case, but were otherwise occupied with picking out soap, arguing about whether or not it was necessary.
Sam was pulling down bottles and reading the information on the back, throwing out arguments without even looking at Dean. “Look, maybe angels are naturally clean, but you saw him this morning. We’re going to need this, Dean.”
Dean scuffed his shoes against the white floor tiles. “Alright, but you know I’ll be the one who’ll have to sit with him.”
Sam raised an eyebrow doubtfully. “Sit with him?”
“To make sure he doesn’t drown. Or swallow the soap. Or fall and hit his head.”
Sam blinked disbelievingly at Dean. “When did your mother’s instinct kick in?”
“Shut up,” Dean replied and grabbed a rubber duck off the shelf, tossing it into the shopping cart.
They were interrupted suddenly by a pained, angry squeal from Castiel, and turned around to see him forcefully push away a little blonde girl who had grabbed his wings with both hands. The Winchesters hurried over as Cas wrapped one arm around the girl and put a hand to her forehead to exorcise her.
“Woah, woah, Cas that’s not okay!” Dean grabbed the angel and Sam grabbed the girl, and they pulled the two combatants apart.
Castiel was making a growling, oddly discordant sound in the back of his throat that made the hair on Dean’s neck stand on end. “Stop that,” he said with a shiver, tightening his hands warningly on the angel’s waist.
“What are you doing? Let go of my daughter!”
Sam let go of the girl as if burned and she ran to meet her mother, who was young and beautiful, with violently pink hair and tattoos crawling up her neck from under her top. The girl clung to her mother’s leg and the two of them turned identical, blue, steely-eyed glares on Sam, Dean and Castiel.
“I’m sorry,” Sam said quickly, giving Dean a look that said I’ll get this, you get gone. “They had a little scuffle, but I don’t think anyone got hurt.”
Dean pulled Castiel with him back to their shopping cart, carefully shielding him from the woman’s sight to keep her from asking about the wings. She looked just angry enough not to let this go. They took the shopping cart around a corner where they couldn’t be seen.
Castiel’s wings were in a disarray. He tried to shake them into shape, but Dean stopped him quickly. “Just because the shoppers aren’t watching doesn’t mean big brother isn’t.” He indicated the cameras in the ceiling. “Turn around, let me look at it.” It really was a mess. The girl’s grip had been purposeful. Castiel’s shoulders twitched; he was clearly uncomfortable. Dean deliberated for a moment. “I’m gonna see if I can sort this mess out. Is that okay?”
The angel looked over his shoulder quickly before lowering his eyes, eyelashes whipping up and down rapidly. Dean was hit by a wave of déjà-vu. He remembered an abandoned house in the pouring rain, a jug of holy oil, a trip to a den of iniquity and a face-off with an Archangel. And Castiel blushing.
But finally, Cas gave Dean a quick nod. Dean took a moment to contemplate his angle of attack. A few of the larger feathers had been bent out of place. He straightened them carefully.
Sam found them then. “Phew. Give me a vampire or a demon any day, but protective mothers?” He surveyed Castiel’s wings and gave a low whistle. “She did a number on you.”
Dean carefully combed his fingers over the worst patches. Then he began to untwist and straighten more individual feathers, unconsciously bending closer, intent upon the delicate work. When he finally looked up, Castiel was holding on to the shopping cart and breathing in quick huffs.
Dean pulled his hands away quickly. “Sorry. You’re okay now.” He rose, but must have been done so too fast because his vision blurred and became obscured by a strange glow. He held on to the shopping cart and waited for the feeling to pass. Probably just a dizzy-spell. Both Sam and Castiel were looking at him, and he waved them off with a quick smile, even as the sensation faded.
“I don’t think we’ll risk any more grab-happy girls, alright?” Dean said and swept Castiel up without giving him time to protest, but no protests were forthcoming. Instead Castiel put his head happily against Dean’s shoulder and curled one small hand in the material of his jacket. The warmth of the weightless body in his arms was like a balm, and Dean found himself breathing easier for no reason at all.
“I think we’re pretty much done here,” Sam said, surveying the contents of the cart. “We have socks, shoes, underwear, pants, t-shirts, and ... lots and lots of stuff. Can we afford this?”
Dean freed one hand from holding Cas so that he could rummage around in his jacket pocket. “No, we’re broke, but ...” he opened his wallet and held it up to read the name on the credit card in the window-pocket. “Adelbert Appelhof should be able to cover it.”
“Adelbert Appelhof?” Sam echoed disbelievingly.
Dean shrugged. “You try coming up with something good after your fifth priest, your fourteenth FBI agent and your forty-third credit card.”
They made it to the register with a newfound respect for what women could endure and even enjoy of shopping.
“Look Samwise,” Dean said and pointed at the exit. “The gates of Mordor. We made it.”
Dean watched as the woman behind the register folded their items and put them in a growing pile, and felt like something was missing. He looked down at Castiel, who was once more on the ground, and whose eyes were growing bigger for every item added to the pile. For all the new mannerisms belonging to the two-year-old vessel, there was still something undeniably unchanged about him. But he was missing something ... something very Castiel, if that made any sense.
“Ah!” Dean turned to the cashier. “Do you have trench coats?”
She was coloured, middle-aged, overweight and unimpressed. “We don’t sell clothes for men,” she drawled.
“I know, I meant for him,” Dean clarified, pointing down at Castiel.
The woman leaned over the counter and blinked down at the angel, who cocked his head to the side and blinked back. She looked at his wings and then up at Dean, who kept his face carefully blank.
She straightened up with a little shake of the head and resumed scanning and piling their items with the languidness of boredom. “I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t carry them at all.”
Dean made a disappointed grimace down at Cas. “It was worth a shot. Sorry, buddy.”
They had to eat something before moving on, but were burdened by so many bags that they decided to take a detour to the car first. Once there they opened one of the packs of socks. Castiel sat in the open doorway to the back seat and Dean showed him how to slide the socks on. Meanwhile, Sam was pulling the new shoes out of the box. He threw the box away, and Dean helped Cas push his feet into the shoes and showed him how to fasten the Velcro bindings.
Castiel jumped around next to the car to make the red lights blink.
Everything else went into the trunk. Socks and t-shirts and pants and underwear, all miniature, covering up an arsenal of weapons.
After slamming the trunk, Sam came around the car, and he and Dean watched Cas fawn over the shoes. Finally, Sam crossed his arms over his chest and said quietly, “You’ve never had clothes of your own before, have you Cas? You’ve never had anything of your own before.”
Cas looked up in surprise, and his eyes betrayed him then, for in them the Winchesters could count the many thousands of years that he had walked an Earth he had no claim to, no bond to, and yet loved.
“It’s okay, Cas,” Dean said quietly, running a hand over the angel’s hair. “They’re all yours.”
“Thank you,” Castiel said.
They went back inside to eat. Dean had a cheeseburger. Sam had a salad. Castiel had fries with ketchup, but managed to limit the spread of the condiment to the general area of his face, which meant they could wipe him clean with a wet napkin afterwards.
But the ride to Bobby’s house was quiet. Sam agreed to play Led Zeppelin if he could keep the volume on low. Dean stared out of the window, humming the tunes he knew by heart under his breath. Castiel was kicking the seat in front of him in the hopes of making his shoes blink some more.
It was getting dark by the time the car rolled in through the gates of Singer Salvage Yard, and inside the car the silence had become tense. By unspoken agreement, the boys didn’t get their bags or anything else out of the car, but walked empty-handed towards the front porch. They didn’t want to seem like they were expecting anything. Castiel had to jog to keep up with their long strides. In the growing twilight, Dean tried to read the angel’s body language to see if he was apprehensive or … well, anything, but for once since he became a child, he was completely unreadable. There was no way to tell if he was expecting a warm or a cold welcome.
But when Sam knocked on the door, Dean felt Castiel shuffle a little behind him, and a small fist grabbed on to the back of Dean’s jeans at the knee. He had realistic expectations then.
There was some muffled cursing and metallic clanging sounds before footsteps announced Bobby’s approach and the door swung open. Heat spilled out of the house along with the smell of food. Bobby was wearing an old apron and looked harassed.
“Since when do you two idjits need to knock?" he said irritably.
“Are you baking?” Dean asked incredulously and immediately wished that he could take it back when Bobby scowled at him.
“Yeah, I’m baking. And if you want any you should wipe that grin off your face.”
Dean’s grin had more to do with nervousness than anything, but he did his best to smother it.
Bobby turned in the doorway. “Come inside. I’ve got a soufflé that needs my loving care and attention.”
Sam looked over his shoulder at Dean and took a demonstrative step to the side. Dean raised an eyebrow at him and Sam mouthed Your responsibility. The bastard.
“Um, Bobby?” Dean called, steeling himself. He looked down for a moment and took courage in how much Castiel had come to trust him again in such a short time. Or maybe the angel was just clinging to Dean because he could tell that Sam, despite his change of heart, wasn’t entirely happy to have him around.
Regardless, Dean had made his decision, and he would not let Cas down.
“What?” Bobby replied, reappearing in the doorway.
“We didn’t come alone.”
*
Continued here.