Home in Motion: A Supernatural Dean/Cas Fanfic Ch. 3
Title: Home in Motion
Story Summary: Castiel swore he was done with spur of the moment decisions that permanently changed Dean Winchester's life. A year after the angel's most disastrous, his newest may present the largest challenge of Dean's life: Fatherhood.
Pairing: Dean/Cas most likely.
Chapter: 3 People of WalMart
Chapter Summary: The boys go shopping
Rating: T this chapter. Probably M throughout.
Warnings: Spoilers through the end of season 6, potential spoilers for 7, though I'm pretending 7 didn't happen. (I just may borrow beasties from that season for this fic later.) Though this story includes fatherhood, this is not an mpreg fic. I can't promise weird things won't happen/have happened to the boys, but that isn't where the child comes from in this story.
Chapter List Here
Chapter 3
People of Wal-Mart
"Hugs can do great amounts of good--especially for children."
Princess Diana
If there was any positive to the abysmal treatment that Johnny's mother had given him, it was that no one in the small town actually knew the boy. Castiel was already aware from the boy's records that the number of people who had any contact with the child were very limited, only those required by law for Meri to receive her state aid. Most of them lived and worked in the small city to the east. This allowed Castiel and Dean the ability to walk about the town with little worry about being accused of kidnapping.
Johnny was sound asleep on Castiel's shoulder with his left arm tucked under his neck and right dangling at his side as the angel. He was fairly certain the boy was drooling, but considering what muck had gotten on his coat in the past, a little baby spittle was nothing.
Dean was busy navigating their way through the aisles of Wal-Mart, which was for the best because the angel was certain he would have gotten lost in the oddly designed baby section, and he had a divine sense of direction. The hunter hardly skipped a section, though he would avoid anything pink and was drawn to any item featuring a character familiar from his own or Sam's childhood. Apparently Disney was acceptable, and that included Pooh, Looney Tunes were better, and the Muppets or Sesame Street the best. Castiel did not understand the reasoning for the hierarchy, but Dean stuck to it.
"And absolutely none of that Nick Jr. or Yo Gabba crap," Dean said. "Johhny's going to appreciate the old school kid's stuff."
Castiel had no doubt that Dean would do his best to ensure his son watched both Star Trek and Wars, westerns, and the Three Stooges. At least, if what he had tried to introduce to Cas was anything to go by. Dean had looked unbelievably proud of him when he'd remembered not only Moe, Larry and Curly, but Shemp, Joe and Curly Joe as well. The angel still had yet to see the appeal, but enjoyed that Dean did, and now, Johnny probably would as well.
On occasion, when he needed to get something at the end of an aisle that was clear of other customers, Dean would give the cart a strong push and then hop onto the metal bar at the back. He would ride to the end, then stop it with surprising ease and begin picking up whatever he thought they needed. Castiel was finding it remarkable how much "they needed" considering how small Johnny was. Angels were born fully formed and had few needs, so the fact that the cart was getting close to overflowing was particularly astounding.
"He'll probably need some actual food, since he's got a couple of teeth." Dean held up different jars of the food and compared prices. "Damn, this is going to get expensive. Good thing the money isn't ours."
Castiel had to admit some surprise that Dean was handling this so well. He had never doubted that revealing to Dean the state of Johnny's soul would influence the man into taking on the role of father. What he had doubted was that the hunter would be so at ease in buying the necessities. Dean had mentioned once that he and Sam had been forced to shop for a shapeshifter baby and how clueless they had been. He had been grabbing things at random, unsure how to care for the child, and only just started to adapt before the baby had proven itself to be a shapeshifter.
The angel had been grateful to hear the story, had even smiled as Dean laughed at his own ineptitude, but he also knew he had only gotten to share the story with Dean because Sam couldn't. That particular memory was from the time when Sam had been soulless, and neither the brothers nor the extended family--which Castiel was somewhat pleased once again, and perhaps always had, included himself--wanted to risk Sam's mental wall coming down.
Castiel felt Johnny's hand move and clutch at his coat. The boy's body began to tense, so the angel did what seemed most natural. He began whispering soft platitudes in the baby's ear and rubbing his back. It was only as Johnny relaxed again that he realized that he was being stared at.
"What is it?" he asked the bemused-looking hunter.
"Nothing. You're surprisingly good at that. You're kind of a natural." Dean shrugged before resuming what he had been doing before he began watching the angel, which was apparently comparing a jar marked with a 1 and another with a 2.
He wasn't truly a natural at caring for a baby. He just had some relatable experience. Though he would never tell the hunter, he had done similar for Dean at nights when he knew the man's nightmares were preventing him from getting a peaceful night's sleep. Castiel had not needed to rub the man's back or card through his hair as he did with Johnny. All that had been necessary was to lay his hand over the mark Dean still bore. He did not do it as he used to, since Dean's sleep had become even lighter than usual as of late, and the trust he had rebuilt with the hunter was still too tentative to risk.
"Guess the kid gets a 1. Looks less chunky," Dean said after sufficiently turning the jars from one side to another. "You said he was only on bottles before, right?"
"She didn't want to take the time to feed him," Castiel said, spitting out the mere reference to the woman who had given birth to the child in his arms, "and he's more than old enough to hold a bottle himself."
"Okay then."
With that decision made, Dean proceeded to toss jar after tiny jar into the cart. Formula would be next, which for some odd reason required the taking of a card to the front counter when they checked out. "Cas, do you remember what size diapers the kid wears?"
Dean had already declared that if Castiel had put him in this position, it was the angel's duty to change the soiled diapers, particularly the smelly ones. It only served to irritate Dean more that Castiel had the ability to just "zap away" the offending diaper and leave behind a clean baby in need of a fresh waste receptacle.
"He was in a three," he replied as he walked down the aisle. "But they were snug."
"Four it is, then," Dean said, looking between brands. "How the hell do you decide which is best? Leak guard? Super absorbency?" The man paused for a moment and then shuddered. "The last time I had to read those words, I was shopping for Lisa." Castiel tilted his head and frowned at his friend. The memory, whatever it was, appeared to be an unpleasant, and perhaps even humorous, one but not because it was sad or wistful, which he had come to associate with Dean's mentions of his former girlfriend.
"I was unaware that Lisa required incontinence supplies."
At that, Dean let out a laugh that rang out through the deserted Wal-Mart aisle. "No... Let me just say that you should be really grateful that you don't know what I'm talking about."
The man glanced around the diaper aisle, looking hopelessly lost until he spotted something that made his face split into a grin. "I am so getting these." He quickly threw two boxes of diapers that were designed to look like blue jeans into the cart. Castiel did not see the point in getting so excited over something that Johnny would be defecating in, but for once, he was not going to be the person to ruin Dean's good mood by pointing out the obvious.
"We need to get the kid some clothes," Dean said as they negotiated their way through the baby toys, with Dean snagging a few brightly colored plastic objects for Johnny to bang and chew upon.
The hunter had already gone ahead while Castiel stopped in front of a stuffed bear with angel wings in a praying position. He obeyed the button on the bear's hand indicating that he "Press Me Here," and listened as a childlike voice sounded from somewhere in the stuffed animals stomach.
"Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake. I pray the lord my soul to take."
"Always thought that prayer was creepy," said a woman's voice behind him. She smiled easily at Castiel, just as many people had while he'd carried Johnny through the store. Dean said that the baby neutralized the off-putting effect of Castiel's natural personality.
"It is well-intended," the angel said as he looked over the toys.
"Do you think you could recommend anything?" she asked. "I have to find a present for a baby shower, and I am at a loss."
"A baby shower?" Castiel asked, turning to face the blonde who was looking up at him expectantly. She was young, probably only in her very early twenties, and she wore a pair of jean shorts and a figure-hugging black t-shirt with a large pink heart.
"Yeah. You were probably lucky enough not to have to go to one. It's usually a real hen-fest." Castiel was now doubly confused. Showering babies and somehow involving hens? He was going to have to ask Dean about this later and play along as though he had some kind of clue what this woman was talking about. "I need to pick out a gift. Is there anything your little guy likes that you could recommend?"
Castiel looked at the toys, a little lost. "Well..." He tried to remember what he had seen babies playing with, what toys that miserable woman had used to keep Johnny entertained for those days, months on end when he got almost no interaction from her. He found a mat that had an attached arm with dangling soft toys that vaguely resembled a device that had been hooked over the top of Johnny's crib. "These seem to work well." It didn't seem all that different from the mobiles he had seen hanging and spinning over babies' heads in cribs. "And apparently, they make diapers that look like denim."
"I've seen those," she said, playing with a strand of her hair. "They're very cute. Do you and your... wife..." Castiel could hear the emphasis on the word "wife," though he wasn't entirely sure what it indicated. Perhaps she was trying to determine if he was single? "...buy them for him?"
"I am not married," Castiel replied as Johnny began to rouse with a wide yawn. The baby shifted for the first time since they had arrived at the store. His left arm rubbed at his face, and the angel tensed waiting for some form of repulsion from the young woman in front of him. He had witnessed it from others in the store before her, but he had hoped that she was as light and warm as she had seemed.
She obviously noticed it and was visibly saddened by the boy's handicap, but she quickly recovered with a smile. "Look at those pretty green eyes. I thought they might be blue like his daddy's."
"Oh, no, he does take after his father," Castiel said. He had promised Dean that people would see the resemblance between the hunter and Johnny, and he was determined to help them see it if they needed to.
"Hey, Cas!" Speak of the devil was the saying, Castiel recalled. Dean gave the cart a firm push down the aisle and then rode the back of it before bringing it to a stop in front of Castiel and the blonde. "Look at this. The car looks almost like the Impala." He held up a red shirt with a black car on the front that did look remarkably like Dean's first baby. "I needed the kid to compare sizes."
"Well, look at those green eyes," the woman said quietly with a small smile as she looked between Dean and Castiel.
"Oh," Dean was quick to put on his most charming smile. "Hello, there. I'm Dean."
"I was just speaking to ... Cas?" she half asked the question, obviously waiting for Castiel to affirm that was his name. Though he wasn't accustomed to people outside of his closest friends abbreviating his name in this way, he nodded his head all the same. "I have to shop for a baby shower and really need advice. Cas suggested this mat, but it is a little out of my price range."
Dean glanced around the aisle. "You could try for some of the necessities. My ex was really big on doing that for baby showers. Said moms always appreciated that in the long run anyway."
"You look like you're getting ready to go to a shower yourself," the blonde said with a smile as she pointed out the number of essentials they had in their cart.
"Uh, yeah... I forgot Johnny's bag when I packed up the car. So he needs just about everything," Dean said with a purposely awkward grin. The man was a professional at both lying and charming women; it never failed to amaze Castiel how many ways Dean had of just smiling at women to get them to do what he wanted. There was nothing rusty about the man's social skills. It could be infuriating, however, since the charming smile tended to come with a wandering eye and utter lack of focus on the discussion at hand. But when it wasn't serving in those ways as a hindrance, it was usually incredibly helpful when hunting.
Or when trying not to raise suspicions about how they had acquired a child in the last seven hours.
"I don't think I got your name." Dean was definitely interested in this woman, though that wasn't entirely surprising to Castiel. She was shapely, young, pretty, and an added bonus, she was genuinely nice. Dean typically only went for three of four.
"I'm Emma," she replied. "And I think I'll take your advice. After all, you two should know better than me."
It was at that moment Johnny realized Dean was there and turned fully around in Castiel's arms to offer a grin and tentatively reach for the hunter. The new father didn't hesitate for a moment to take the baby from Castiel.
"Looks like you get the cart now, Cas," Dean said as he held Johnny in one of his arms and grinned at the boy. It looked so natural that even Castiel began to believe that Dean had been doing this much longer than the last few hours.
"Are you three going to be in town for long, or just passing through?" Emma's hazel eyes were practically dancing as she watched Dean return a tight embrace from the little boy. It was fairly obvious, even to Castiel, that she found the father and son interplay endearing.
"We have a little business to finish in the area, so we might be around for a couple of days," Dean answered for them both. "Maybe we could grab dinner or something later."
Castiel could already hear Dean asking him later that evening to watch Johnny so that he could go out with Emma, but it was the young woman herself who threw a wrench into those plans.
"Absolutely." She began fishing in her pink purse--the same bright shade as the heart on her shirt--for a pen and a scrap of paper. "Here's my number. I'd love to see you and Cas and Johnny." She tentatively reached out to rub the back of the baby's head. "But even feel free to call if you're trying to find a good place to go out with the little guy. There aren't many restaurants in town, and the waitresses at the diner can be real ..." She looked at the baby for a moment and reconsidered what she was going to say. "Well, we'll call them witches for Johnny's sake. They don't do kids well."
She handed over the phone number, written on the back of what looked like a receipt for coffee, complete with a partial brown ring. "
She turned the corner. "I'm going to start making that gift basket. You three have fun with your shopping. Really nice to meet all of you."
Dean watched her go, looking incredibly confused. "So... did one of us land a date or ... what?"
"You mistakenly assume that I would have more information than you on something relating to dating."
"Good point."
#
Johnny was a damned good kid. He made it through most of the store without a fuss, and not just because he spent a large portion of it sound asleep on Cas's shoulder. He smiled and kept quiet when he was awake, and it all made Dean consider how grateful his biological mother should be that Cas never informed him of where she lived. Dean knew that he if ever met the woman on the street, he couldn't be held responsible for what he did.
He was learning quickly that if he did intend to follow through with Cas's harebrained scheme, he was going to have to rein in his temper. He had seen adults, old people, children talking about Johnny's left arm and his first reaction had been to intimidate, sometimes even thrash, the idiots who made derogatory comments about it. Dean couldn't exactly go around and beat up every single person who picked on the kid. (He could think about it. He could find other ways to get even, but he couldn't just beat them up like he used to do for Sammy. For one thing, He was now a legal adult who could go to legal adult jail. Again.)
They had nearly made it to the checkout counter, all the while Johnny was busy chewing at his fingers, when he heard the kid start to whimper and look even a bit distressed. His first reaction had been to see if the bitch of a mother was somewhere around, but the only people he could see was a man wearing jean shorts dyed to look like the American flag and the elderly woman who had loaded her buggy down with about a crate of expensive cat food.
Dean could see Johnny's bottom lip quivering, yet the boy hadn't started to cry yet. He remembered all too well the feeling of being in public with a crying child. It had been a one-time experience, and he had decided afterward if he never had kids, he could be grateful it might stay that way just to avoid a repeat of that embarrassment.
Still, Johnny didn't cry, but Dean wasn't going to let the boy suffer. The problem clearly wasn't the other people in the store, and from what he could tell, Cas wasn't going to have to take over diaper duty. Johnny didn't look hurt in any way, which meant he was probably hungry. It had been a while since they'd last given him a bottle, and Dean wondered just how hungry Johnny must have been. He didn't cry for things like most babies. He was already a Winchester in how well he suffered in silence.
"Cas, bottle time." The angel, who had remembered to take some baby necessities from Johnny's mom's house but failed to grab a diaper bag, pulled a bottle out of his coat pocket and handed it to Dean, despite the fact that the hunter had been prepared to pass the baby. He could handle this. He thought.
Dean took the bottle and handed over his wallet to the angel so that he could pay so he could find a place to sit and feed Johnny comfortably. As he watched Cas readily take wallet containing the faked credit cards, he was grateful, not for the first time, this wasn't the Cas of years before. He wasn't sure that the Cas of then could have handled making a purchase with a credit card that wasn't his. Lying or even supporting a lie had been completely against that Cas's nature.
In the meantime, Dean took a spot on a black bench positioned outside of a salon that smelled way too strongly of perm chemicals. It brought back frightening memories of his girlfriends in the early nineties, even a bit later in the small towns that were always a few years behind every trend.
Once the cap was off the bottle, Johnny had no issues in feeding himself. That might not have been surprising for a child his age; Dean didn't know for sure. He did know that this kid had probably had to learn the skill earlier than most.
The hunter watched as his friend attempted to pay for their shopping trip. Cas made quick work of the small items but fought with the box containing the car seat, which had wanted to fall off, and the diapers, which had wedged themselves diagonally in the cart.
Dean watched as the car seat was placed on the conveyor belt and sighed. That was one more thing he would be getting even with Cas for. He had been irritated with Sam placing an iPod dock in his baby, and now he was going to have a car seat and all the strappings of parenthood that went along with it. Hell, he was going to have to get into the Impala and fish out the seatbelts from God knows where they disappeared to. At least he knew they were there, which hadn't always been the case. He remembered installing a seat with them the last time he'd had to rebuild his baby from the ground up, but that didn't mean they stayed where they were supposed to.
The featherhead had even had the gall to suggest that Dean might want to consider a more family-friendly car in the future. He might have acknowledged that the sneaky bastard had made sure he wouldn't part with Johnny, but he'd be damned, again, before he used a minivan as anything but temporary transportation.
He and Sam had survived just fine in the Impala, and so would Johnny. He'd learn to love Dean's baby just as much as Dean did.
He looked down at Johnny, who was busy drinking away.
"I think you'll like her," he told the baby, not entirely sure why he was talking to him like this, especially in such a public place. It just seemed right. He'd been relying on instinct from the moment Cas showed him that momentary flash of Johnny's soul. If the boy had been older, he might have been more at ease, but he'd been five when Sam had been this age and still mourning his mother, so he had no practical experience with a child this young.
"My dad, the guy Cas named you after, he bought the car after I insisted it was a classic." Dean saw the boy's green eyes were focused on him intently. "Technically, I wasn't even born when he bought it, but that's one of a lot of things you'll have to have explained to you if you're going to be a permanent fixture of this family."
He sighed. Speaking of family, he was going to have a very awkward phone call to his brother and Bobby tonight, and he really wasn't looking forward to it. Though he could blame the initial stupidity on Cas, he was certain he'd be called an idjit, possibly much worse for agreeing to Cas's ridiculous plan.
He glanced up again at the angel, who was busy retrieving the credit card from Dean's wallet. He wasn't sure what was going on with him lately. This was considerably better than the events of the previous year, with Crowley and Purgatory, but it was still so out of character for Cas. And while Cas had apologized for everything he had done in that year and was still trying to atone for it, he still argued quite fiercely that he didn't regret trying to do something to stop Raphael.
To some extent, Dean could understand. After all they had done to ensure the apocalypse didn't happen, for the sacrifice that Sam had made to end it, of course no one wanted it to get restarted. What Dean just couldn't understand was why Cas had been so blind to other solutions, why he hadn't at least asked for Dean's help. Had he really thought that because he was with Lisa he wouldn't do everything in his power to help his friend, to do the job that came most naturally to him?
He had asked the angel a few times now, and he still had not gotten a straight answer. There was no denying that something had made Cas react out of pure emotion and instinct, and Dean couldn't begin to comprehend the cause. All he had learned was that Cas was still too new to the emotion game to have perspective on how to react to them. He was, thankfully, getting better.
"Do we want cash back?" Cas yelled to him from the cash register. Dean wondered what his friend would have done if he hadn't already been looking in the angel's question. Dean thought it was likely that Cas would have called out his name to get his attention and sort of ruined the opportunity to use the credit card of Mr. Wallace Strozokowski.
Dean shook his head and watched Cas pondering over the credit card reader like he'd just stumbled across an ancient artifact, and it happened to be covered in a language of which he had only the most rudimentary knowledge. Still, he plodded on and looked to be successful, if his somewhat proud expression a moment later was anything to go by.
He had to give the angel credit. He was at least getting more accustomed to technology and had become fairly proficient in using a cell phone when necessary. Dean had been quite proud when the angel successfully sent a photo of a shapeshifter last month. Though, no matter how many times he tried, he wasn't allowed to change his voicemail. Sam and Dean had both recorded that awkward thing and promptly replaced Cas's voicemail message with it every time he tried to update it more appropriately.
Dean heard slurping sounds coming from the baby and realized that the bottle was empty. They might need to give him more once they got to the hotel. The bottle Cas had taken from Johnny's mom had been on the small side, but with any luck, it would tide them over to the hotel
He pulled the bottle from Johnny's mouth and propped him up on his shoulder. Though he and his instinct had been getting along swimmingly with the kid over the last few hours, instinct was abandoning him now. Did he rub the kid's back, pat it? Do it softly or firmly? He wasn't entirely sure what he was doing at that moment, though he was suddenly having completely unhelpful flashbacks of trying to pat his head and rub his stomach as a kid.
He finally got the noise he was looking for just as Cas was approaching with the cart full of baby supplies. "I will find a way to earn money," the angel said, looking apologetic. "I did not realize that something so small was so expensive, and I will not leave it up to you to shoulder the entire burden."
"We'll work out the child support payments later," Dean said as they walked out of the store together, Johnny watching the outside world with hungry, eager eyes.
Next Chapter Here
Story Summary: Castiel swore he was done with spur of the moment decisions that permanently changed Dean Winchester's life. A year after the angel's most disastrous, his newest may present the largest challenge of Dean's life: Fatherhood.
Pairing: Dean/Cas most likely.
Chapter: 3 People of WalMart
Chapter Summary: The boys go shopping
Rating: T this chapter. Probably M throughout.
Warnings: Spoilers through the end of season 6, potential spoilers for 7, though I'm pretending 7 didn't happen. (I just may borrow beasties from that season for this fic later.) Though this story includes fatherhood, this is not an mpreg fic. I can't promise weird things won't happen/have happened to the boys, but that isn't where the child comes from in this story.
Chapter List Here
Chapter 3
People of Wal-Mart
"Hugs can do great amounts of good--especially for children."
Princess Diana
If there was any positive to the abysmal treatment that Johnny's mother had given him, it was that no one in the small town actually knew the boy. Castiel was already aware from the boy's records that the number of people who had any contact with the child were very limited, only those required by law for Meri to receive her state aid. Most of them lived and worked in the small city to the east. This allowed Castiel and Dean the ability to walk about the town with little worry about being accused of kidnapping.
Johnny was sound asleep on Castiel's shoulder with his left arm tucked under his neck and right dangling at his side as the angel. He was fairly certain the boy was drooling, but considering what muck had gotten on his coat in the past, a little baby spittle was nothing.
Dean was busy navigating their way through the aisles of Wal-Mart, which was for the best because the angel was certain he would have gotten lost in the oddly designed baby section, and he had a divine sense of direction. The hunter hardly skipped a section, though he would avoid anything pink and was drawn to any item featuring a character familiar from his own or Sam's childhood. Apparently Disney was acceptable, and that included Pooh, Looney Tunes were better, and the Muppets or Sesame Street the best. Castiel did not understand the reasoning for the hierarchy, but Dean stuck to it.
"And absolutely none of that Nick Jr. or Yo Gabba crap," Dean said. "Johhny's going to appreciate the old school kid's stuff."
Castiel had no doubt that Dean would do his best to ensure his son watched both Star Trek and Wars, westerns, and the Three Stooges. At least, if what he had tried to introduce to Cas was anything to go by. Dean had looked unbelievably proud of him when he'd remembered not only Moe, Larry and Curly, but Shemp, Joe and Curly Joe as well. The angel still had yet to see the appeal, but enjoyed that Dean did, and now, Johnny probably would as well.
On occasion, when he needed to get something at the end of an aisle that was clear of other customers, Dean would give the cart a strong push and then hop onto the metal bar at the back. He would ride to the end, then stop it with surprising ease and begin picking up whatever he thought they needed. Castiel was finding it remarkable how much "they needed" considering how small Johnny was. Angels were born fully formed and had few needs, so the fact that the cart was getting close to overflowing was particularly astounding.
"He'll probably need some actual food, since he's got a couple of teeth." Dean held up different jars of the food and compared prices. "Damn, this is going to get expensive. Good thing the money isn't ours."
Castiel had to admit some surprise that Dean was handling this so well. He had never doubted that revealing to Dean the state of Johnny's soul would influence the man into taking on the role of father. What he had doubted was that the hunter would be so at ease in buying the necessities. Dean had mentioned once that he and Sam had been forced to shop for a shapeshifter baby and how clueless they had been. He had been grabbing things at random, unsure how to care for the child, and only just started to adapt before the baby had proven itself to be a shapeshifter.
The angel had been grateful to hear the story, had even smiled as Dean laughed at his own ineptitude, but he also knew he had only gotten to share the story with Dean because Sam couldn't. That particular memory was from the time when Sam had been soulless, and neither the brothers nor the extended family--which Castiel was somewhat pleased once again, and perhaps always had, included himself--wanted to risk Sam's mental wall coming down.
Castiel felt Johnny's hand move and clutch at his coat. The boy's body began to tense, so the angel did what seemed most natural. He began whispering soft platitudes in the baby's ear and rubbing his back. It was only as Johnny relaxed again that he realized that he was being stared at.
"What is it?" he asked the bemused-looking hunter.
"Nothing. You're surprisingly good at that. You're kind of a natural." Dean shrugged before resuming what he had been doing before he began watching the angel, which was apparently comparing a jar marked with a 1 and another with a 2.
He wasn't truly a natural at caring for a baby. He just had some relatable experience. Though he would never tell the hunter, he had done similar for Dean at nights when he knew the man's nightmares were preventing him from getting a peaceful night's sleep. Castiel had not needed to rub the man's back or card through his hair as he did with Johnny. All that had been necessary was to lay his hand over the mark Dean still bore. He did not do it as he used to, since Dean's sleep had become even lighter than usual as of late, and the trust he had rebuilt with the hunter was still too tentative to risk.
"Guess the kid gets a 1. Looks less chunky," Dean said after sufficiently turning the jars from one side to another. "You said he was only on bottles before, right?"
"She didn't want to take the time to feed him," Castiel said, spitting out the mere reference to the woman who had given birth to the child in his arms, "and he's more than old enough to hold a bottle himself."
"Okay then."
With that decision made, Dean proceeded to toss jar after tiny jar into the cart. Formula would be next, which for some odd reason required the taking of a card to the front counter when they checked out. "Cas, do you remember what size diapers the kid wears?"
Dean had already declared that if Castiel had put him in this position, it was the angel's duty to change the soiled diapers, particularly the smelly ones. It only served to irritate Dean more that Castiel had the ability to just "zap away" the offending diaper and leave behind a clean baby in need of a fresh waste receptacle.
"He was in a three," he replied as he walked down the aisle. "But they were snug."
"Four it is, then," Dean said, looking between brands. "How the hell do you decide which is best? Leak guard? Super absorbency?" The man paused for a moment and then shuddered. "The last time I had to read those words, I was shopping for Lisa." Castiel tilted his head and frowned at his friend. The memory, whatever it was, appeared to be an unpleasant, and perhaps even humorous, one but not because it was sad or wistful, which he had come to associate with Dean's mentions of his former girlfriend.
"I was unaware that Lisa required incontinence supplies."
At that, Dean let out a laugh that rang out through the deserted Wal-Mart aisle. "No... Let me just say that you should be really grateful that you don't know what I'm talking about."
The man glanced around the diaper aisle, looking hopelessly lost until he spotted something that made his face split into a grin. "I am so getting these." He quickly threw two boxes of diapers that were designed to look like blue jeans into the cart. Castiel did not see the point in getting so excited over something that Johnny would be defecating in, but for once, he was not going to be the person to ruin Dean's good mood by pointing out the obvious.
"We need to get the kid some clothes," Dean said as they negotiated their way through the baby toys, with Dean snagging a few brightly colored plastic objects for Johnny to bang and chew upon.
The hunter had already gone ahead while Castiel stopped in front of a stuffed bear with angel wings in a praying position. He obeyed the button on the bear's hand indicating that he "Press Me Here," and listened as a childlike voice sounded from somewhere in the stuffed animals stomach.
"Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake. I pray the lord my soul to take."
"Always thought that prayer was creepy," said a woman's voice behind him. She smiled easily at Castiel, just as many people had while he'd carried Johnny through the store. Dean said that the baby neutralized the off-putting effect of Castiel's natural personality.
"It is well-intended," the angel said as he looked over the toys.
"Do you think you could recommend anything?" she asked. "I have to find a present for a baby shower, and I am at a loss."
"A baby shower?" Castiel asked, turning to face the blonde who was looking up at him expectantly. She was young, probably only in her very early twenties, and she wore a pair of jean shorts and a figure-hugging black t-shirt with a large pink heart.
"Yeah. You were probably lucky enough not to have to go to one. It's usually a real hen-fest." Castiel was now doubly confused. Showering babies and somehow involving hens? He was going to have to ask Dean about this later and play along as though he had some kind of clue what this woman was talking about. "I need to pick out a gift. Is there anything your little guy likes that you could recommend?"
Castiel looked at the toys, a little lost. "Well..." He tried to remember what he had seen babies playing with, what toys that miserable woman had used to keep Johnny entertained for those days, months on end when he got almost no interaction from her. He found a mat that had an attached arm with dangling soft toys that vaguely resembled a device that had been hooked over the top of Johnny's crib. "These seem to work well." It didn't seem all that different from the mobiles he had seen hanging and spinning over babies' heads in cribs. "And apparently, they make diapers that look like denim."
"I've seen those," she said, playing with a strand of her hair. "They're very cute. Do you and your... wife..." Castiel could hear the emphasis on the word "wife," though he wasn't entirely sure what it indicated. Perhaps she was trying to determine if he was single? "...buy them for him?"
"I am not married," Castiel replied as Johnny began to rouse with a wide yawn. The baby shifted for the first time since they had arrived at the store. His left arm rubbed at his face, and the angel tensed waiting for some form of repulsion from the young woman in front of him. He had witnessed it from others in the store before her, but he had hoped that she was as light and warm as she had seemed.
She obviously noticed it and was visibly saddened by the boy's handicap, but she quickly recovered with a smile. "Look at those pretty green eyes. I thought they might be blue like his daddy's."
"Oh, no, he does take after his father," Castiel said. He had promised Dean that people would see the resemblance between the hunter and Johnny, and he was determined to help them see it if they needed to.
"Hey, Cas!" Speak of the devil was the saying, Castiel recalled. Dean gave the cart a firm push down the aisle and then rode the back of it before bringing it to a stop in front of Castiel and the blonde. "Look at this. The car looks almost like the Impala." He held up a red shirt with a black car on the front that did look remarkably like Dean's first baby. "I needed the kid to compare sizes."
"Well, look at those green eyes," the woman said quietly with a small smile as she looked between Dean and Castiel.
"Oh," Dean was quick to put on his most charming smile. "Hello, there. I'm Dean."
"I was just speaking to ... Cas?" she half asked the question, obviously waiting for Castiel to affirm that was his name. Though he wasn't accustomed to people outside of his closest friends abbreviating his name in this way, he nodded his head all the same. "I have to shop for a baby shower and really need advice. Cas suggested this mat, but it is a little out of my price range."
Dean glanced around the aisle. "You could try for some of the necessities. My ex was really big on doing that for baby showers. Said moms always appreciated that in the long run anyway."
"You look like you're getting ready to go to a shower yourself," the blonde said with a smile as she pointed out the number of essentials they had in their cart.
"Uh, yeah... I forgot Johnny's bag when I packed up the car. So he needs just about everything," Dean said with a purposely awkward grin. The man was a professional at both lying and charming women; it never failed to amaze Castiel how many ways Dean had of just smiling at women to get them to do what he wanted. There was nothing rusty about the man's social skills. It could be infuriating, however, since the charming smile tended to come with a wandering eye and utter lack of focus on the discussion at hand. But when it wasn't serving in those ways as a hindrance, it was usually incredibly helpful when hunting.
Or when trying not to raise suspicions about how they had acquired a child in the last seven hours.
"I don't think I got your name." Dean was definitely interested in this woman, though that wasn't entirely surprising to Castiel. She was shapely, young, pretty, and an added bonus, she was genuinely nice. Dean typically only went for three of four.
"I'm Emma," she replied. "And I think I'll take your advice. After all, you two should know better than me."
It was at that moment Johnny realized Dean was there and turned fully around in Castiel's arms to offer a grin and tentatively reach for the hunter. The new father didn't hesitate for a moment to take the baby from Castiel.
"Looks like you get the cart now, Cas," Dean said as he held Johnny in one of his arms and grinned at the boy. It looked so natural that even Castiel began to believe that Dean had been doing this much longer than the last few hours.
"Are you three going to be in town for long, or just passing through?" Emma's hazel eyes were practically dancing as she watched Dean return a tight embrace from the little boy. It was fairly obvious, even to Castiel, that she found the father and son interplay endearing.
"We have a little business to finish in the area, so we might be around for a couple of days," Dean answered for them both. "Maybe we could grab dinner or something later."
Castiel could already hear Dean asking him later that evening to watch Johnny so that he could go out with Emma, but it was the young woman herself who threw a wrench into those plans.
"Absolutely." She began fishing in her pink purse--the same bright shade as the heart on her shirt--for a pen and a scrap of paper. "Here's my number. I'd love to see you and Cas and Johnny." She tentatively reached out to rub the back of the baby's head. "But even feel free to call if you're trying to find a good place to go out with the little guy. There aren't many restaurants in town, and the waitresses at the diner can be real ..." She looked at the baby for a moment and reconsidered what she was going to say. "Well, we'll call them witches for Johnny's sake. They don't do kids well."
She handed over the phone number, written on the back of what looked like a receipt for coffee, complete with a partial brown ring. "
She turned the corner. "I'm going to start making that gift basket. You three have fun with your shopping. Really nice to meet all of you."
Dean watched her go, looking incredibly confused. "So... did one of us land a date or ... what?"
"You mistakenly assume that I would have more information than you on something relating to dating."
"Good point."
#
Johnny was a damned good kid. He made it through most of the store without a fuss, and not just because he spent a large portion of it sound asleep on Cas's shoulder. He smiled and kept quiet when he was awake, and it all made Dean consider how grateful his biological mother should be that Cas never informed him of where she lived. Dean knew that he if ever met the woman on the street, he couldn't be held responsible for what he did.
He was learning quickly that if he did intend to follow through with Cas's harebrained scheme, he was going to have to rein in his temper. He had seen adults, old people, children talking about Johnny's left arm and his first reaction had been to intimidate, sometimes even thrash, the idiots who made derogatory comments about it. Dean couldn't exactly go around and beat up every single person who picked on the kid. (He could think about it. He could find other ways to get even, but he couldn't just beat them up like he used to do for Sammy. For one thing, He was now a legal adult who could go to legal adult jail. Again.)
They had nearly made it to the checkout counter, all the while Johnny was busy chewing at his fingers, when he heard the kid start to whimper and look even a bit distressed. His first reaction had been to see if the bitch of a mother was somewhere around, but the only people he could see was a man wearing jean shorts dyed to look like the American flag and the elderly woman who had loaded her buggy down with about a crate of expensive cat food.
Dean could see Johnny's bottom lip quivering, yet the boy hadn't started to cry yet. He remembered all too well the feeling of being in public with a crying child. It had been a one-time experience, and he had decided afterward if he never had kids, he could be grateful it might stay that way just to avoid a repeat of that embarrassment.
Still, Johnny didn't cry, but Dean wasn't going to let the boy suffer. The problem clearly wasn't the other people in the store, and from what he could tell, Cas wasn't going to have to take over diaper duty. Johnny didn't look hurt in any way, which meant he was probably hungry. It had been a while since they'd last given him a bottle, and Dean wondered just how hungry Johnny must have been. He didn't cry for things like most babies. He was already a Winchester in how well he suffered in silence.
"Cas, bottle time." The angel, who had remembered to take some baby necessities from Johnny's mom's house but failed to grab a diaper bag, pulled a bottle out of his coat pocket and handed it to Dean, despite the fact that the hunter had been prepared to pass the baby. He could handle this. He thought.
Dean took the bottle and handed over his wallet to the angel so that he could pay so he could find a place to sit and feed Johnny comfortably. As he watched Cas readily take wallet containing the faked credit cards, he was grateful, not for the first time, this wasn't the Cas of years before. He wasn't sure that the Cas of then could have handled making a purchase with a credit card that wasn't his. Lying or even supporting a lie had been completely against that Cas's nature.
In the meantime, Dean took a spot on a black bench positioned outside of a salon that smelled way too strongly of perm chemicals. It brought back frightening memories of his girlfriends in the early nineties, even a bit later in the small towns that were always a few years behind every trend.
Once the cap was off the bottle, Johnny had no issues in feeding himself. That might not have been surprising for a child his age; Dean didn't know for sure. He did know that this kid had probably had to learn the skill earlier than most.
The hunter watched as his friend attempted to pay for their shopping trip. Cas made quick work of the small items but fought with the box containing the car seat, which had wanted to fall off, and the diapers, which had wedged themselves diagonally in the cart.
Dean watched as the car seat was placed on the conveyor belt and sighed. That was one more thing he would be getting even with Cas for. He had been irritated with Sam placing an iPod dock in his baby, and now he was going to have a car seat and all the strappings of parenthood that went along with it. Hell, he was going to have to get into the Impala and fish out the seatbelts from God knows where they disappeared to. At least he knew they were there, which hadn't always been the case. He remembered installing a seat with them the last time he'd had to rebuild his baby from the ground up, but that didn't mean they stayed where they were supposed to.
The featherhead had even had the gall to suggest that Dean might want to consider a more family-friendly car in the future. He might have acknowledged that the sneaky bastard had made sure he wouldn't part with Johnny, but he'd be damned, again, before he used a minivan as anything but temporary transportation.
He and Sam had survived just fine in the Impala, and so would Johnny. He'd learn to love Dean's baby just as much as Dean did.
He looked down at Johnny, who was busy drinking away.
"I think you'll like her," he told the baby, not entirely sure why he was talking to him like this, especially in such a public place. It just seemed right. He'd been relying on instinct from the moment Cas showed him that momentary flash of Johnny's soul. If the boy had been older, he might have been more at ease, but he'd been five when Sam had been this age and still mourning his mother, so he had no practical experience with a child this young.
"My dad, the guy Cas named you after, he bought the car after I insisted it was a classic." Dean saw the boy's green eyes were focused on him intently. "Technically, I wasn't even born when he bought it, but that's one of a lot of things you'll have to have explained to you if you're going to be a permanent fixture of this family."
He sighed. Speaking of family, he was going to have a very awkward phone call to his brother and Bobby tonight, and he really wasn't looking forward to it. Though he could blame the initial stupidity on Cas, he was certain he'd be called an idjit, possibly much worse for agreeing to Cas's ridiculous plan.
He glanced up again at the angel, who was busy retrieving the credit card from Dean's wallet. He wasn't sure what was going on with him lately. This was considerably better than the events of the previous year, with Crowley and Purgatory, but it was still so out of character for Cas. And while Cas had apologized for everything he had done in that year and was still trying to atone for it, he still argued quite fiercely that he didn't regret trying to do something to stop Raphael.
To some extent, Dean could understand. After all they had done to ensure the apocalypse didn't happen, for the sacrifice that Sam had made to end it, of course no one wanted it to get restarted. What Dean just couldn't understand was why Cas had been so blind to other solutions, why he hadn't at least asked for Dean's help. Had he really thought that because he was with Lisa he wouldn't do everything in his power to help his friend, to do the job that came most naturally to him?
He had asked the angel a few times now, and he still had not gotten a straight answer. There was no denying that something had made Cas react out of pure emotion and instinct, and Dean couldn't begin to comprehend the cause. All he had learned was that Cas was still too new to the emotion game to have perspective on how to react to them. He was, thankfully, getting better.
"Do we want cash back?" Cas yelled to him from the cash register. Dean wondered what his friend would have done if he hadn't already been looking in the angel's question. Dean thought it was likely that Cas would have called out his name to get his attention and sort of ruined the opportunity to use the credit card of Mr. Wallace Strozokowski.
Dean shook his head and watched Cas pondering over the credit card reader like he'd just stumbled across an ancient artifact, and it happened to be covered in a language of which he had only the most rudimentary knowledge. Still, he plodded on and looked to be successful, if his somewhat proud expression a moment later was anything to go by.
He had to give the angel credit. He was at least getting more accustomed to technology and had become fairly proficient in using a cell phone when necessary. Dean had been quite proud when the angel successfully sent a photo of a shapeshifter last month. Though, no matter how many times he tried, he wasn't allowed to change his voicemail. Sam and Dean had both recorded that awkward thing and promptly replaced Cas's voicemail message with it every time he tried to update it more appropriately.
Dean heard slurping sounds coming from the baby and realized that the bottle was empty. They might need to give him more once they got to the hotel. The bottle Cas had taken from Johnny's mom had been on the small side, but with any luck, it would tide them over to the hotel
He pulled the bottle from Johnny's mouth and propped him up on his shoulder. Though he and his instinct had been getting along swimmingly with the kid over the last few hours, instinct was abandoning him now. Did he rub the kid's back, pat it? Do it softly or firmly? He wasn't entirely sure what he was doing at that moment, though he was suddenly having completely unhelpful flashbacks of trying to pat his head and rub his stomach as a kid.
He finally got the noise he was looking for just as Cas was approaching with the cart full of baby supplies. "I will find a way to earn money," the angel said, looking apologetic. "I did not realize that something so small was so expensive, and I will not leave it up to you to shoulder the entire burden."
"We'll work out the child support payments later," Dean said as they walked out of the store together, Johnny watching the outside world with hungry, eager eyes.
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