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Cas pulls up the driveway as the sun starts to set over the trees behind their house in North Cove, Washington. He puts the car in park, ignoring Jack’s wailing in the seat next to him
Jack didn’t enjoy his time at the pediatrician for his six-month-old checkup, but the nurses assured Cas that was normal. He could mostly sympathize with Jack: Cas himself had been stabbed a few times, albeit with an angel blade and not a DTaP-filled syringe, and it was an experience that was far from pleasant.
Jack cried the whole ride home. His behavior over the past eight hours has tried Cas’s patience like no one else - except maybe Dean, when he’s woken up and forced on the road with no coffee.
Cas does his best to banish that thought as he parks and clambers out of the car. He hums Hey Jude, putting a little too much emphasis on, “don’t make it bad,” as he unbuckles Jack from his carseat and lifts him into his arms. He walks with sure - but exhausted - steps to the front door.
Kelly said he was being paranoid when they picked a pediatrician four towns away, but Cas had to err on the side of caution. If angels, if demons, if the Winchesters caught wind of where they were hiding, who knew what havoc they could bring into Jack’s life.
For weeks after Jack was born, Cas remained hypervigilant for signs of the hordes descending. He at least expected the Winchesters to work their way around the wards and safeguards he’d set up.
But no one ever came.
Jack may have had a hand in keeping them warded beyond what Cas could provide, but Cas has no way of knowing for certain until Jack can talk for himself. Conversation might be less than a year away, judging by his current accelerated development.
All the nurses at the pediatrician’s office have remarked on Jack’s maturity. According to Cas’s books, six months is not entirely unheard of for a baby to start crawling, although it is rare. The nurse who took Jack’s vitals told Cas with a wide smile that Jack was clearly gifted.
She has no idea.
As Cas fumbles for the keys in his pocket, a prickling sensation raises the hairs at the back of his neck. He freezes, listening to the crickets chirp in the incoming twilight. Nothing about the disturbance has triggered any of his wards, so it’s more worrisome that it’s still enough to register with him at all.
Jack stops crying.
To their left, something else chirps - lower in pitch and less tonally pleasing than the crickets. A small green frog with black accents sits on one of the ledges halfway up the pillars supporting the front porch roof. It blinks up at them slowly, slitted pupils widening infinitesimally.
Jack fidgets in Cas’s hold, and Cas almost drops him as Jack lunges towards the creature, little hands reaching out with grabbing fingers.
Before Jack can get any more brilliant ideas, Cas muscles the door open and closes it behind them.
Jack lets out a warning sob.
“Are you hungry?” Cas asks rhetorically on the way to the kitchen. He drops off the baby bag on the table and sets Jack down in his highchair. It’s nearly seven at night, an hour after Jack’s usual dinner time.
Jack, sniffling, cranes his neck around to keep Cas in view as he opens the refrigerator and pulls out a few plastic containers of Jack’s food. “What do you think, Jack?” Cas asks, holding up the applesauce, mashed carrots, and sweet potato. He doesn’t have to wait long before the apple sauce goes sailing out of his hand to land awkwardly on the tray in front of Jack.
Jack bangs his fist on the lid happily, his forthcoming tantrum evidently abandoned.
Amused, Cas walks over with a spoon and pries the lid off of the container. That bit of grace dexterity is beyond Jack for the moment. He dips the spoon in the mush and holds the applesauce aloft for Jack to eat.
But Jack is already distracted, his bright blue eyes fixed on a spot over Cas’s right shoulder. He babbles excitedly, pointing. Cas nudges the spoon closer, but Jack ignores it.
(And Cas had thought fully grown humans were baffling.)
The kitchen window bangs open. Cas jumps at the noise, whirling in place, but Jack just claps and beams.
Sighing, Cas carefully sets the spoon back in the container, out of reach of Jack’s fists, and gets to his feet. He almost closes the window. He stops himself at the last moment.
A two-inch-long frog rests on the open sill, right in the path of the frame. In the overhead kitchen light, its back shines bright green with a black stripe running from each eye down both sides of its body.
Cas squints at it; it looks like the same frog as before. The one that entranced Jack by the doorway.
In the ensuing silence, the frog lets out an almighty, “Mrp!”
Cas swipes at it with a cupped hand to nudge it right back outside, but the frog evades him with one impressive overhead bound. To Cas’s complete consternation, it settles on top of the nearest kitchen cabinet. He scowls up at it, the complete opposite of Jack’s burbles of glee.
He turns to Jack. “You realize what you’ve done now?”
Jack’s toothless smile widens.
Cas purses his lips. He could climb on top of the counter to reach it, but the frog would probably only jump further out of his grasp. After the day he’s had, Cas has no patience left to chase a frog all over his kitchen.
So he ignores it.
Internally praying for strength, Cas tries to feed Jack again. He has marginal success; Jack is clearly only paying attention to the frog, but he lets Cas shove a few spoonfuls of applesauce into his open mouth and a little sweet potato since applesauce has fewer nutrients and vitamins than recommended by his parenting books. Jack winds up swallowing more than he lets dribble down his front, so Cas counts dinner as a success.
“Come on,” Cas says bracingly as he wiggles Jack out of his high chair. “Bedtime, Jack.”
Jack babbles irate nonsense into Cas’s shoulder.
“Yes, it is,” Cas insists as Jack’s fist makes contact with his shoulder and one of his legs kicks out. “I know you don’t like it, but you require sleep to grow. And you did not sleep well last night.”
Jack lets out a mutinous cry, his eyes welling up with tears.
Cas sighs. “What is it?”
Jack waves a clenched fist in the general direction of the kitchen cabinet.
Cas resists the urge to sigh again. “You’ve never cared about amphibians before,” he says, brow furrowing and glancing up at the frog. Shaking his head, he takes a tentative step towards the nursery door.
Jack releases another despondent wail.
“We don’t have the necessary supplies to keep a pet,” Cas says, exasperated. “And who knows what sort of bacteria and diseases it may carry.”
The frog lets out an indignant croak.
But Jack’s eyes glow gold, and the frog lets out an alarmed chirp as it zooms down from the cabinet. With a bit of midair flailing, it settles squarely on Jack’s head.
“Jack!”
Jack wriggles in his arms, turning this way and that to see the frog, but it’s stuck fast to the crown of his head.
Logically, Cas knows the frog can’t pass on anything harmful to Jack, and it's been such a long day. So, with shoulders slumped in defeat, he marches them both upstairs for bedtime. He doesn’t have the energy to argue this one.
Once Cas sets the frog on top of the posts of Jack’s crib, Jack goes happily to bed.
Cas keeps the door open in case Jack needs him and gets to work. He sweeps the first floor of the house, and it’s miraculous how much dust accumulates even when both occupants are away for a two-day trip to the pediatrician’s. He puts on the radio and listens to a female singer croon about her tarnished reputation and delicate situation.
Cas listens to the whole song - partially to think, partially as punishment.
He hasn’t dared reach out to Dean or Sam since he left them unconscious by the entrance to Heaven. That look in Dean’s eye as he yanked the stolen Colt back out of Cas’s hand - it was an expression Cas won’t ever unsee.
He idly brushes everything into the dustpan and dumps it in the trash. As he heads for the stairs to start on the upper rooms, he pauses.
The frog is perched on the banister, watching him beadily.
Cas frowns at it.
The frog frowns back.
Pursing his lips, Cas offers his hand out. “There’s not going to be much more excitement down here,” he says, jerking his head up the stairs. “I can transport you back upstairs.”
The frog squishes itself flat, its belly and chin practically melding into the wood.
“I’m not going to harm you,” Cas says gently. “I only assume it would be easier since my stride is longer.”
Gingerly, the frog unsticks itself and hops into his hand.
Cas sets the frog down on his desk in the study. He picks up the small rug and shakes loose any dust and debris. As he sweeps the whole mess into a pile, he says idly, “I suppose you need a name if you plan on staying.”
The frog blinks skeptically at him.
“We all have names,” he says reasonably, “I’m Cas. The baby is Jack.” He rests the broom for a moment. “How do you like ‘Wart’?”
The frog croaks. It sounds disapproving.
As Cas sweeps around the desk, he tells Wart, “I’ve been reading children’s stories to Jack, and we just finished the Sword in the Stone. King Arthur was called Wart before he became king, and I think it’s the perfect name for you - it’s quite hilarious actually.”
Sarcasm may fly over Cas’s head, but he understands irony. Wart doesn’t actually have any warts, so it’s a very funny choice.
Wart glares balefully up at Cas.
“I should really put you back outside,” Cas says after he empties the dustpan into the little trash can he keeps by the edge of the desk. “You can’t really prefer to be here, in this strange place, separated from all your frog friends.”
Wart croaks, louder this time.
“I don’t really know anything about keeping a frog.” Cas leans the broom against the wall and sets the dustpan down. He peers at Wart, his gaze taking in all of the frog’s telltale features, mentally cataloging through all species known to man and angel.
“You - you don’t belong here,” Cas says eventually.
Wart’s eyes widen. He releases a series of rapid chirps, hopping in place in his agitation.
Cas surmises unhappily, “European tree frogs aren’t native to the Pacific Northwest.”
Wart stops jumping. He glowers sullenly at Cas.
“Which means, you have to stay in the house,” Cas concludes. “If I let you back out into the wild, you might become part of an invasive species.”
Mollified at the word stay, Wart edges closer.
Cas takes a seat and reaches for his laptop. As he wakes the machine up, Wart hops in between his two hands, blinking curiously at the computer. His dark, horizontally slitted pupils reflect the bright screen.
Cas navigates to the web browser and types in how to care for European tree frogs. He scrolls through the options until he comes across a video of a leafy enclosure filled with half a dozen European tree frogs. Cas listens, rapt, as the host briefly covers the European tree frog diet and housing.
Wart will require frequent mistings not to dry out. Cas is sure he has at least one spray bottle around, albeit full of Windex. He turns to Wart, eyeing the frog critically, and reaches out to tentatively stroke a finger down Wart’s back.
Wart gives a little shiver, but doesn’t leap away. His skin doesn’t feel especially moist, so Cas quickly gathers him up into his cupped hands and carries him back down to the kitchen. He fills their largest bowl with water and drops Wart in.
Wart flails, his webbed feet pinwheeling every which way until he resurfaces.
Worried, Cas nudges him to the side of the bowl.
Wart clings to the hard surface, glaring reproachfully up at Cas.
“What an odd frog you are,” Cas says curiously.
Wart chirps, offended.
“I understand. I’m very strange for my species too,” Cas says, aiming for comforting but sounding more resigned. “But it’s not a bad thing for you,” he adds, “especially since you have Jack and me looking out for you now.”
Wart sinks down into the water, little bubbles forming over his nose holes.
Satisfied Jack’s new pet isn’t going to drown anytime soon, Cas ducks below the sink and fishes out the half-empty bottle of Windex. He pours out the unnaturally blue liquid into a spare container and rinses the bottle out thoroughly. After spritzing the air a few times to clear out the tubes, he sprays his palm until he can’t detect any of the isopropyl alcohol, ethylene glycol monobutyl ether or sodium lauryl sulfate that would irritate Wart’s skin.
Wart keeps Cas company through the rest of his nighttime chores, watching from a safe distance at the kitchen table as Cas boils more sweet potatoes to make into baby food. Wart even sticks out his tongue to taste a very small cube once Cas has let it cool enough.
Cas, by now accustomed to being with someone who can’t carry a conversation, keeps talking. He used to be content with the quiet. He once sat for millennia without saying a word - not much was going on during the Permian Age, anyway.
Cas can’t pinpoint exactly when, but silence has come to mean strained, awkward relationships and pregnant pauses before being asked to leave. No, he much prefers idle chatter and background noise to oppressive, foreboding silence - even if he has to provide it.
So he talks to a frog. He tells him about Jack’s birth; about Kelly’s strong personality and stabilizing presence; about the repairs he still has to do on this house he rented at a discount because it’s mostly falling apart.
He doesn’t tell Wart about his loneliness. It’s a moot point, anyway. Cas can’t be lonely anymore. He has a frog to keep him company now.
If anyone was actually around to call him crazy - well, it wouldn’t be the first time.
At least they’re not one species short, with Wart listening patiently from his water-filled salad bowl.
Jack wakes up promptly at five-thirty in the morning.
Wart starts out of his doze at the sound, splashing water all over the kitchen table.
With a sigh, Cas hauls himself to his feet. He briefly debates bringing Wart with him, but the frog doesn’t need to be present during Jack’s diaper change, and he might get in the way.
Upstairs, Cas shushes Jack with a few murmured words of comfort, lifting him out of his crib and carrying him to the changing table. Jack, used to the routine, is only a little fussy, so Cas makes quick work of cleaning Jack up and bringing him to the kitchen for breakfast.
At the sight of Wart in his bowl, Jack lets out a squeal. His eyes glow gold, and Wart chirps in alarm as he zooms across the kitchen.
Cas deftly plucks the flailing Wart out of the air. He holds Wart in his palm, petting his back soothingly with his thumb. Once Wart has calmed some, Cas tells Jack firmly, “You can’t summon Wart whenever you want him.”
Jack reaches for Wart, but Cas doesn't budge. With Jack’s powers, lessons on respect and boundaries cannot start early enough.
“No, Jack,” he repeats, his tone steely, “if Wart wants you, he will initiate contact himself.” He sets Wart down in the middle of the kitchen table, out of Jack’s physical reach.
Instead of watching Cas prepare breakfast as he has always done, Jack keeps his gaze trained on Wart, who has doubled down where Cas left him. Wart has tucked all his limbs beneath him, looking more like a rock painted like a frog than a living animal. He stares back warily at Jack, not moving a muscle.
As Cas finishes portioning out the sweet potato, Jack’s eyes flare gold again and Wart rises from the table.
“No,” Cas admonishes over Wart’s bleat of alarm, “Put Wart back, now.”
Jack turns unhappily to Cas as Wart descends to his previous position.
“Jack,” Cas repeats, gentler this time, “you can’t use your grace like that. If someone wants to spend time with you, let them come to you instead.” He takes a seat, bowl of sweet potato in hand. “If you force them, all you’ll end up doing is forcing them away.”
Wart chirrups his agreement.
Jack grumbles but doesn’t try to use his grace on Wart again.
Satisfied, Cas moves forward with breakfast. But he’s barely given Jack three bites of potato before the spoon wiggles out of his fingers and glides across the table to bounce off Wart’s head.
Wart blinks in shock, half covered in sweet potato.
Cas presses his lips together in a futile effort not to laugh.
Wart shakes off the food, croaking disgruntledly the whole while.
Cas smiles as he bends over to retrieve the spoon, still hovering in the air above Wart. To Jack, he says, “I’m not sure Wart likes that much sweet potato.” He sets the spoon back in the bowl and gets up for a napkin to wipe Wart off. But by the time he returns, Wart has mostly cleaned himself off, his long pink tongue darting out to pick up bits of orange mush.
“Or maybe he does,” Cas adds, amused, as he mops up the rest of the splatter.
Jack babbles excitedly, pointing at Wart.
“Yes, it’s always good to share,” Cas says as he resumes feeding Jack. “Wart is probably grateful, but maybe a little less enthusiasm next time?” He scoops out a small bit of sweet potato and holds the spoon delicately in front of Wart.
Wart’s slitted eyes dart between Cas, the spoon, and Jack and back again before his tongue snakes out, quick as a flash, to grab another morsel.
“Like that,” Cas says, turning to Jack. “Now that you’ve shown him you respect his boundaries and care for him, maybe he’ll come closer. What do you think?”
Jack turns to him eagerly, his blue eyes wide.
“Sometimes you have to be patient.”
Cas can’t get as clear a view into the minds of animals as humans - their thoughts are usually more instinctive and less sophisticated. He can mostly read impressions and general temperament, except for that ginger cat who lived in a nursing home in Oklahoma City; he was surprisingly articulate and entirely obsessed with a mouse named Jerry.
Wart’s thoughts are a little muffled, like Cas is hearing them from under several feet of water.
Painstakingly slowly, Wart rises out of his crouch and leaps for the tray in front of Jack’s high chair. He stays in an alert position, back legs still tensed as if poised for flight.
“Careful,” Cas cautions Jack. “See, you can touch him like this,” he says, raising a single finger and stroking down Wart’s back.
Face scrunched in concentration, Jack reaches for Wart.
Wart lets himself be pet with all the graciousness of a Winchester digging up their third grave of the night - a burden to be borne for the greater good. Wart shuffles a little in place, not entirely at ease, but without any good reason to move.
“That’s it,” Cas encourages softly, “Not too much pressure.”
Jack beams.
After the excitement of breakfast, Cas prepares to take Jack out for a walk.
Fog has been rolling in all morning, so they have plenty of visual cover from any curious neighbors or stray joggers. Initially, Cas was reluctant to leave the warding of the house for anything, but by his second month cooped up in this musty, drafty house with only an infant for company, Cas finally understood the human phrase “climbing the walls”.
He bundles Jack up against the early-morning chill, tucking him into a thicker onesie than he wears around the house. He wrestles small shoes onto Jack’s feet and straps Jack into their all-terrain stroller. Jack whines and fusses the whole time, so Cas capitulates on the hat, which stays behind.
Cas freezes as a wet plop comes from the kitchen.
Wart leaps over the threshold, likely nothing but a green blur of movement to human eyes. The frog sizes up the situation quickly, hopping up into the stroller seat.
Jack, delighted that Wart is coming along, giggles and babbles excitedly.
Sighing, Cas walks around and crouches in front of the pair of them. “I’m sorry,” he says sincerely as he plucks Wart off Jack and sets him down on the floor a few feet away. “Wart can’t come with us.”
Jack pouts.
“He might get out into the wild,” Cas says, turning to glare at Wart as he edges back towards them. “And because he isn’t a native species, he could eat food and take resources that the other frogs need.”
Offense radiates off Wart like steam over a pot of boiling potatoes.
Cas rises to his feet. “We will be back soon,” he says to Wart, “but you must stay behind.”
Chirping angrily, Wart makes a wild leap for the stroller, but Cas has already started pushing Jack out the door, so Wart lands with a despondent slap on the floor a few inches too short. He croaks what must be frog profanities as Cas carefully shuts the door behind them.
Jack chitters, equally irate, twisting this way and that in his seat to look for Wart.
“Come on,” Cas says, glancing up at the cloudy skies. Only six fifteen in the morning, and Cas is already looking forward to when he can put Jack to bed. It’s going to be a long day.
As Cas lifts the stroller down the porch stairs, Jack lets out a wail.
For God’s sake.
Cas deliberately pushes on until the house is out of view. “Wart will be there when we get back,” he assures Jack as they head down the familiar trail that loops around part of the lake.
Jack sniffles.
“You need vitamin D for healthy growth,” Cas reminds him, “and research has shown that greenery improves productivity and mood more than man-made, unadorned walls.” He smiles slightly to himself. “Not that you need to be worried about productivity yet. That can come in your own time. Right now, the most important thing is that you are happy and adequately stimulated.”
Jack grumbles a few nonsense words. Cas can barely make out a muttered, “’art!”
“Yes, we will see Wart soon,” Cas says. “But look at the trees!” He points. “That’s a Sitka Spruce. They’re the largest species of spruce in the world. And that’s a Western Red Cedar - it’s so sturdy, native people cut it down to make canoes and homes.”
Cas continues to point out various significant trees and, once, a squirrel, before Jack starts to flag. The soothing motion of the stroller wheels over the trail do their work, and Jack is down for his mid-morning nap, mid-walk.
Cas slows the stroller, taking in the scenery for his own benefit. The route of flowers is perfect, and Cas will never tire of watching everything play out according to nature’s plan. His favorite spot on the trail lies only a few paces away, so Cas takes the next fork that will bring them to a little patch of grass by the water’s edge.
He parks Jack’s stroller between two Douglas Firs and unbuckles Jack. The surface of the lake reflects the sparse sunlight filtering through the clouds and slowly dissipating fog. Behind them, a row of wild California Wax Myrtle shrubs block off most of the exits, save for the narrow footpath back to the more established trail. The nearest humans sleep three quarters of a mile away. Otherwise, there’s only birdsong from a pair of sparrows above them and the scuttling of a deer mouse in the underbrush.
It’s the kind of peaceful Cas has only felt before in the Impala, driving back to a motel from dinner immediately after a hunt, the Winchesters sated and tired, Led Zeppelin playing at half-volume from the speakers.
Cas sets Jack on the ground, double-checking that Jack hadn’t kicked off his shoes during the trip.
Jack plucks sleepily at the grass, staring up at the sun filtering through the trees.
Cas crouches by the lake, dipping his fingers in the freezing water. Minnows swim, unaware of their presence, only a few feet away. He turns his head as Jack makes a noise of surprise.
Jack babbles with a wide grin, his little fist jabbing at something underneath one of the Myrtle shrubs.
Cas rises to his feet, but before he can go investigate himself, Wart launches himself into the clearing, touching down squarely in front of Jack.
Cas can only stare.
Jack crawls closer, and Wart graciously endures a few pats to the head with the sense of a job well done.
“What are you doing here?” Cas asks, baffled.
Wart leaps, landing on Cas’s shoulder. Before Cas can say another word, Wart jumps into the closest Myrtle bush.
Jack, already crawling his way towards them, pauses as Wart disappears into the leaves. Frowning, he squints up into the branches.
Cas scans the foliage, his gaze catching on the telltale lighter patch of green. Wart is crouched about three fourths of the way up, his slitted pupils watching Jack with amusement.
When Jack locates him, Wart jumps down to land on Jack’s head.
Giggling, Jack cocks his head this way and that, trying to see Wart, but Wart is stuck firm. As Jack’s laughter subsides, Wart takes off, and the game starts again.
If Jack spends more than a minute searching for their wayward frog, Wart chirps out a clue.
After exhausting all the Myrtle bush perches, Wart climbs higher than ever before, halfway up one of the Douglas Firs.
Jack finds him after a few attempts, nearly falling over as he tilts his head to see that far up. He is rather top-heavy, but Cas’s parenting books assure him it’s only temporary.
Wart croaks in defeat and jumps down. However, he’s not airborne for long before Jack’s eyes glow gold, and Wart finds himself floating back down to Earth, light as a fluttering piece of paper.
Jack turns to Cas, the faintest hints of alarm lurking behind his eyes, but Cas just nods approvingly. “I’m sure Wart appreciates the softer landing.”
Trilling his agreement, Wart takes off for the trees again.
Hours later, Cas lets Wart ride back to the house in Jack’s stroller. The frog entertained Jack until nearly noon, and he more than deserves a rest. Jack falls asleep before the clearing is out of sight, head lolling and breathing even.
Cas doesn’t understand why Wart fixated on them so strongly; he had assumed the call of the wild would be much stronger than two celestial beings trying to live as humans, but Wart loyally stayed with them all morning. Looking down, he sees Wart perched on Jack’s knee, watching the trail scenery trundle by.
At home, Jack is pliant and happy to watch a movie, tired from the excitement of the morning.
Cas puts on Sleeping Beauty to keep with the animal companion theme. He briefly considers a National Geographic documentary on amphibians, but the little promotional clip shows a snake lunging at a toad, and Cas shudders at what else it might contain.
But Wart does not enjoy Sleeping Beauty. He sulks through most of the movie, only perking up as the prince rides off to rescue the sleeping princess. He leaps out of his salad bowl and hops over to Cas and Jack on the couch. For a better vantage point, Cas lifts him up and sets him down on the armrest.
Wart goes positively deranged as the princess wakes up from true love’s kiss. Hopping wildly and croaking furiously, he knocks over the spray bottle and nearly smacks Cas right in the face. Cas catches him in time.
“What has gotten into you?” he asks, bewildered. He strokes Wart’s back soothingly. “Are you sick?”
Wart wiggles free from Cas’s grasp and makes a series of leaps for his salad bowl. He splashes down and sinks to the bottom, sulking once more.
Cas turns to Jack. “That was odd, wasn’t it?”
Jack frowns at Wart, his face full of questions Cas can’t answer.
Wart comes out of his foul mood in time for dinner. In the kitchen, Cas ignores the wet plops as Wart jumps from the floor to the chair up to the table. Wart accepts a morsel of mashed carrot and watches, amused, as Cas tries to get Jack to do the same.
After Jack is put to bed, Cas brings Wart into Kelly’s room.
He carefully lowers himself on her bed. If he angles himself right, he can almost imagine she’s there with him, sitting propped up against the headboard, just out of his field of vision.
“It’s silly,” Cas tells Wart after a long moment, “but sometimes I can still feel her here.” He raises his gaze to the ceiling, unable to look at the frog. “Logically, I know she’s in Heaven. She was such a pure soul; she wouldn’t have gone anywhere else.” He inhales a slow breath he doesn’t need.
Wart wobbles closer, his eyes wide and unblinking.
“I knew I would be raising him alone, but I didn’t really know, ” Cas whispers like a confession. “Kelly, she was so positive I was the person for this, but I’m starting to doubt her judgement.”
Wart chirps, sounding almost comforting.
“I think I’m doing the right thing, but how can I know for certain that he won’t grow up like his father?” Cas shakes his head. “Dean raised Sam, practically on his own, and he was a child himself. It shouldn’t be this hard for a being my age who has watched countless generations of humans raise each other.” He swallows. “And yet it is.”
Wart hops up onto his thigh, a small, slightly damp, weight of assurance.
“I could ask Dean how he did it,” Cas says dully, “but I won’t. I can’t risk it.”
Wart croaks.
Cas takes it as a question - even though it isn’t because Wart is a frog. “Because they would take Jack away from me. And the worst would be having no hand in his upbringing at all instead of all of it.”
He stares out at the room, unseeing.
“Do you know what I really saw when Jack showed me the future he could bring?” he asks rhetorically. “I saw visions of everyone I loved at peace. Kelly, Sam, Dean.” He runs a hand down his face, his breathing coming unevenly. “Dean was so happy... I’ve never seen him like that before. And he thanked me-” Cas breaks off, pressing his lips together. “It’s been a long time since Dean thanked me for anything,” he finishes.
Wart croaks again, distressed.
Cas pets him on the head. He feels a little dry, but nothing to get worried about yet. “I try not to think about them - Jack should be more than enough to keep me occupied - but I can’t help myself sometimes.”
He lays down on the bed, careful not to dislodge Wart.
Kelly’s smell is long gone, but Cas can still feel her everywhere - in the blankets she chose underneath him; in the faded wallpaper she insisted on leaving up because it would give her more time to work on Jack’s room; in the scuff mark on the floor where she dropped the heavy metal bed frame because she told him she could help move it up the stairs.
“I miss all of them,” Cas murmurs to Wart. “I keep waiting for it to stop, but I don’t think it ever will.”
Wart cautiously picks his way up Cas’s body until he rests on his sternum.
Cas raises his head to keep Wart in view. “I wonder if you miss the frogs back where you came from. Does your species form strong social attachments?”
Wart, of course, doesn’t answer. But he hops closer, practically sitting on Cas’s neck.
“You’re a good listener,” Cas says, “Much better than Jack. He poops in the middle of conversation.”
Wart makes a strange warbling chirp, headbutting against Cas’s face.
Cas can feel Wart’s little three toed feet trying to find purchase amidst the stubble. He reaches up to pet Wart’s head, hesitating as his fingers ghost along Wart’s back. “You need another misting,” he says, cupping Wart in his hand as he rises off the bed. “You’re too dry. Come on, I suppose that’s enough wallowing.”
Cas carries Wart in his bowl of water for the rest of the night as he does chores around the house and reads his newest child rearing book. The eighty-six other titles strain the small bookshelf in the living room. But if the next book can tell him how to keep the devil’s child from turning evil, Cas will keep ordering more.
Rain pours down in sheets the next day, so Cas sets out the pots and pans to catch the drips from the leaking roof. He pulls up a few online videos on fixing shingles and ignores his feelings of inadequacy. Jack needs a roof that doesn’t drip water into their home, so Cas has to supply this for him.
Only a few years ago, he would have repaired the house with a quick flicker of grace. But divine fixes attract the wrong type of attention, and Cas already runs the risk of discovery by letting Jack use his powers without restraint.
Kelly had been adamant: Jack needed unfettered access to his grace. Cas tried to argue for a compromise, but she refused to budge. Jack needed his powers to save the world, so he should have them from the start. How else could he learn control?
So now, Cas only stops Jack from using his powers if they cross some other rule. His grace is a tool, neither bad nor good. It all depends on how he uses it.
As the rainy weather persists into the late afternoon, Cas occupies Jack by reading him a story. They finished The Once and Future King the day before his pediatrician's appointment, so Cas moves onto The Jungle Book. Jack will probably like it - after all, he has already recruited one loyal animal friend, just like the main character.
Said friend occupies himself by splashing between the two pans collecting the water leaking from the ceiling with unrestrained glee.
The rain doesn’t abate during the night. Cas does the laundry and checks the local news. The arrhythmic staccato of the rain beating against the roof outside and dropping into his various pots on the floor inside the house calms him in a way he can't put into words.
To Cas’s relief, he doesn’t read about any dead bodies with their eyes burned out or demonic omens. As he scans the obituaries and funeral notices, his gaze catches on an entry from Tillamook, Oregon. There will be a memorial for Amanda Fitzmartin tomorrow, three weeks after her death.
He reads aloud to Wart, “Gareth Fitzmartin says the family delayed the service due to the suddenness of his niece’s passing. ‘It was a senseless killing,’ says Mr. Fitzmartin, ‘and we agreed to give the police and forensics team all the time they needed to do their job and find who did this.’”
Cas searches for a news article.
“The investigation into the murderer of Amanda Fitzmartin, originally assumed to be an animal attack, is ongoing. However, recent forensic evidence suggests a human perpetrator. The police will accept any tips on the incident or the location of the missing heart.”
Cas turns to Wart. “I believe a werewolf is responsible.”
Wart croaks, and it sounds like duh.
His own heart unbearably heavy, Cas rereads the news article. Amanda’s school picture burns into his retinas. He closes the browser window, flitting through scenarios where he leaves Jack to hunt down the werewolf, where he brings Jack along as he hunts down the werewolf, where he does nothing at all and lives with the guilt.
Biting his lip, Cas weighs the last option before he opens the VPN Sam showed how to install a few years ago. He carefully selects a random IP address from Iowa and opens his email.
Sam and Dean, I believe this is a werewolf case. Please hurry; the full moon is in two days.
Cas includes links to the memorial service announcement and news article. They won’t need any additional details.
Feeling slightly lighter, Cas closes his computer and picks up Wart’s bowl. It’s time to take the clothes out of the dryer.
To his infinite frustration, Cas still can’t get Amanda’s face out of his mind by the time he’s finished folding the laundry. He braces his hands on the lid of the washer, closes his eyes and tries to clear his thoughts.
It doesn’t work.
Cas raises his head, staring out at the cracked window. Rain lashes against the panes, obscuring the lake beyond. “I feel so useless,” he tells Wart hollowly with no preamble.
Wart hops out of his bowl to land directly between Cas’s hands. He stares up at Cas, unblinking.
“What’s more, is that I know it’s a stupid feeling.” He swallows. “Even if I were to make it down to Tillamook with or without Jack, there’s no guarantee I would be able to kill the werewolf in time. After all, I ran away from my last hunt with my tail between my legs.”
Wart chirps, pushing upwards on his front legs to get a better look at Cas.
“Sam and Dean were imprisoned by the government - which is a whole other story - and I thought I knew what I was doing, but I couldn’t find the vampire.” He shakes his head. “I asked the wrong questions, or I asked the wrong people - either way, I failed.”
He told as much to Mary in that bar, but there’s no way he could ever impress how hopeless, how worthless he felt the entire time he was in Lancaster, Missouri.
Lately, those feelings have been returning.
“And now I’m on my own again,” Cas mutters. “And I don’t really know what I’m doing at all.” He smiles humorlessly. “At least, if Sam somehow tracks us down from that email, I won’t be so alone.”
Wart hops up on his hand.
He sighs. “Maybe I made the wrong decision in telling them. Maybe I just sacrificed Jack for a would-be werewolf victim in Tillamook, Oregon. I just don’t know.”
Wart shuffles in place, his toes sticking and unsticking from Cas’s skin.
“Every day, that vision of Dean happy seems farther and farther away.” Cas blinks hard. “All the books say parenting is stressful, but I doubt any of the authors ever raised the most powerful being in existence or told him he can’t have applesauce for three meals in a row.”
Wart lets out a sympathetic chirrup.
“At least I’m not doing it by myself anymore,” Cas says, cupping Wart in his palm and gently tipping him into his bowl for transport. He stacks the bowl on top of the small laundry pile and hefts the whole load into his arms. “I have you, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”
Wart doesn’t respond, not that Cas really expected it from the frog.
By the next morning it’s still drizzling and unsuitable conditions for roof repair, according to three online experts.
During breakfast, Cas persuades Wart to try mashed lima beans.
Wart barely tastes the green mush before he makes a noise of absolute disgust, flicking his tongue in and out, and even trying to wipe it on the table.
“You can always go outside to hunt for yourself,” Cas says, tilting his head towards the kitchen window, cracked open to maintain airflow but not let in too much rain.
Wart makes an offended croak at the very suggestion.
With a small grin, Cas gets up to fetch the sweet potatoes instead. “You can’t live off sweet potatoes forever.” He holds out a spoon for Wart to sample. “They don’t have nearly enough protein to sustain you.”
Wart glares and deliberately casts out his tongue for more potato.
“We can head up to the attic tomorrow,” Cas says. “There are more than a few insects living up there that should be more similar to your normal diet.”
Wart doesn’t think much of the idea, if the way he attacks the rest of the mashed potatoes is any indication.
To Cas’s chagrin, Jack takes his cues from the frog and also shuns the lima beans. Cas only convinces him to eat a couple spoonfuls before Jack’s face screws up, and he refuses another bite.
Cas makes do by combining the applesauce with carrots. Wart doesn’t care for it, if his look of disdain is any indication, but the mixture is sweet enough for Jack and nutrient-filled enough for Cas, so that’s what Jack is going to have for breakfast.
Once everyone with an appetite has eaten, Cas picks up Jack in one arm and Wart in his water bowl in the other, and brings them all to the living room. He puts on an innocuous children’s show about an intrepid Hispanic explorer.
Jack starts to fade by the second episode, so Cas hefts him into his arms to carry him upstairs for a more comfortable nap. To his slight surprise, Wart follows them, hopping diligently up the stairs a step behind. Halfway, Cas bends down to offer him a hand, and Wart makes a leap for his shoulder instead.
Cas sets Jack down in his crib, staring down at his charge. Such great power in such a small package. As he always does before he leaves Jack’s side, he presses a light kiss to Jack’s forehead. "I love you, Jack," he murmurs.
Jack doesn’t make a sound, deeply asleep.
Wart, though, he gives a little hopeful croak from where he’s perched on one of the posts of Jack’s crib. He leaps down and settles beside Jack, within reach. Watching over him.
Almost without thinking, Cas bends down and kisses Wart too.
The crib breaks.
A dazed Dean Winchester lies sprawled in the wreckage.
Jack wakes up with a cry before Cas can recover.
Dean, almost instinctively, scoops Jack into his arms. “Hey, no, little man, it’s okay,” he says, awkwardly clambering to his feet and sidestepping bits of broken Ikea furniture.
Cas can only stare.
Dean tucks Jack to his side and bounces him in a fluid, rhythmic way that always eluded Cas. He croons, “You were doing so well. That was a big shock, but you’re okay.”
“Dean?”
“Hey, Cas,” Dean says weakly. “Long time no see?”
“What the hell are you doing here?” Cas demands, hackles raising as he zeros in on Jack cradled to Dean’s chest.
“I - well, it’s a long story.”
“Make it short.”
Dean balks.
Cas’s blood boils. How dare Dean come here and try to trick him. Cas already knew they were no longer friends after all he’s done, but he had thought Dean had the decency, the respect, to meet him face-to-face. But no, he resorted to subterfuge, to magic - which Dean hates more than anything.
Except Cas, apparently.
“Give Jack to me.”
“What?” Dean freezes. “Why?”
“Because he’s mine,” Cas growls, all but grabbing Jack out of Dean’s arms. He clutches him close, probably too close, judging by Jack’s muffled whine of protest. “And you will not do anything to him.”
“Hold on.” Dean's hands are free of all-powerful infant, so he holds them up in supplication. “I wasn’t going to.”
Jack wails, and Cas does his best to mimic Dean’s easy grace with a baby in his arms. He fails miserably, and it’s one more thing to hold against Dean. “I will not ask again,” Cas says loudly over Jack. “Why are you here?”
Dean eyes Cas’s face warily, and whatever he sees prompts him to say, “I was cursed. I thought - I’d hoped - you could break it.” And he smiles.
Cas pauses. Some of his ire ebbs, replaced by confusion.
It’s not the smile he expected Dean to wear once he got Jack within his grasp. It’s not a smirk. Not a sneer. It’s more like the face Dean makes when he finds he’s secured the last slice of cherry pie, or when Led Zeppelin comes on the radio by chance. But it’s somehow more.
“You were cursed?” Cas repeats, frowning as Jack squirms, trying to get a better view of Dean.
“Uh, yeah,” Dean says as he shoves his hands in his pockets. His smile turns a shade wry. “In case you didn’t notice, webbed feet and ribbits aren’t usually part of the package.”
“No, I knew that.”
Dean snorts.
Jack, hanging almost upside down by now, grumbles his nonsense words. His face scrunches, and Cas quickly rights him. It’s too late, though, since Jack lets out a wail.
Dean winces, his gaze sliding back to Jack. “He okay?”
“He’s probably tired,” Cas says, his voice tight. Just because Dean says he came here to break a curse doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an ulterior motive in store.
God knows, the last time Cas visited the Bunker he didn’t have entirely pure intentions in mind.
“Anywhere we can put him down?” Dean asks, an apologetic tone to his voice. He kicks at a broken piece of crib with the toe of his boot.
Cas sighs. There’s only one bed in this whole house. “Kelly’s room,” he tells Dean in a clipped voice.
In Kelly's room, Cas practically burns with embarrassment. He avoids Dean’s gaze and the spot on the bed where Dean last sat as a frog and listened to Cas air all his insecurities. Instead, he busies himself with setting Jack down near the headboard, repositioning the pillow to block the left side of the bed and sitting to his right to keep him from rolling off that way.
Jack refuses to lie down despite his clear signs of drowsiness. He sits up, blinking slowly at the pair of them.
Dean takes a seat at the foot of the bed. Leaning in close, he almost breaches the incorporeal perimeter around Cas that constitutes his ‘personal space’.
Cas doesn’t ask; he has more pressing concerns than Dean’s many hypocrisies. He just meets Dean’s gaze briefly, mentally kicking himself. He should have realized Dean’s eyes are the exact same shade as Wart. Determined to get some answers, Cas demands, “How did you find us?”
Dean swallows. He inhales a sharp breath. “We’ve known where you were since Jack was born.”
Cas’s mouth falls open. “You what?”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Like you could hide from Skynet Sam. There were signs up the wazoo that the Omen was going down in Washington.”
“Jack is not the Antichrist,” Cas says, his temper rising again. “If you threaten him-”
“If we really wanted to launch an offensive against Growing Pains, here,” Dean says loudly over Cas’s warning, “we would’ve done it.”
Cas’s eyes flash. “Why didn’t you?”
Dean shrugs. “We weren’t a hundred percent sure if he was evil, and killing babies generally isn’t in the good guy code.”
Cas’s frown doesn’t disappear. “What changed your mind?”
Dean rubs his chin with the back of his hand. “Seeing you with Jack.”
Jack perks up at the sound of his name. He crawls to Dean, resting both hands on Dean’s thigh as he stares up at Dean’s face like it’s the most sublime piece of art in the world.
Well, at least Cas doesn’t need to worry about too little of his influence rubbing off on his charge.
“What?” Cas breathes.
Dean exhales a slow, belabored sigh as he strokes a broad hand down Jack’s back. “He obviously doesn’t have you brainwashed like we thought you might be.”
“Of course not,” Cas says defensively, “He’s only a child.”
“He’s the most powerful kid in the goddamn universe.”
“He’s still a baby,” Cas says pointedly.
Dean sighs. “Yeah, he’s still a baby.”
“But that wasn’t enough to sway you before,” Cas says carefully, in case the conversation drums up any lingering reasons to kill his charge. “You and Sam always knew he was an innocent, but you still planned to kill him.”
“Does it really matter?” Dean’s eyebrows rise in challenge. “I said I’m not gonna hurt him, and I won’t. You don’t believe me?”
“We’ve broken promises to each other before. What actually convinced you not to hurt him?”
If there is the slightest chance that Dean will change his mind, Cas cannot stay here. He cannot jeopardize Jack for anything.
Dean makes a noise of frustration, but, oddly, Cas gets the feeling he isn’t really angry. “It’s just - I like him, alright?” He glares down at Jack, like this is all his fault. “He’s cute as shit, and he’s obviously not about to start another apocalypse ’cause it’s Thursday. Hell, he’s the one who let me in here in the first place - no thanks to you, Greenpeace. I’m not gonna do anything to him except get him ice cream, stat, since those lima beans were nasty.”
Despite the dirty look Dean throws at him for the breakfast offense, Cas feels lighter than he has in months - years .
Dean tacks on, apparently unable to help himself, “It’s like you want him to hate humanity - feeding him that crap with no warning.”
Cas smiles. “They have important vitamins and nutrients for a developing human.”
“He’s a little more than that, so you can lay off the beans,” Dean says with a ridiculous confidence in his voice.
“I’ll take your opinion into consideration.”
“Good.” After a beat Dean adds, “Just don’t ask Sam about what he thinks.”
Cas’s eyes narrow. “Because he still wants Jack killed?”
“Because he loves lima beans, the freak.”
Cas laughs lightly; Dean grins; and silence falls between them.
Cas breaks it first, the uncomfortable itch between his shoulder blades setting in that flares up after going too long without conversation. “I’m glad I could break the curse.”
Dean turns to him, his eyes wide.
“Being a frog must have been very awkward for you.”
“Uh, it wasn’t so bad,” Dean says, reaching up to run a hand nervously through his hair. “The legs took some time getting used to, but I could get so much air, man, you have no idea.”
“I used to fly,” Cas says, deadpan.
Dean makes a sound that might be laugh dialed up several octaves. “Right, shit, I knew that.”
“Are you alright?”
“Fine.”
Cas’s eyebrows rise. “You seem agitated.”
“You seem agitated,” Dean retorts nonsensically.
“I am not,” Cas says, baffled. “I haven’t been this at peace in… six months.”
Jack is safe, asleep. Dean is here, and doesn’t seek to murder his son. Cas helped him, he saved Dean from life as an amphibian, in a way he hasn’t been able to do in so long. It’s a win for sure - for both of them. So why is Dean acting like the next threat is just around the corner?
Dean nods twice, his movement jerky. He averts his gaze for the first time since he turned back into a biped, and all of Cas’s warning bells go off at once.
“What is going on?” Cas asks, leaning across the bed to study Dean more closely.
Dean jumps to his feet.
Cas’s heart sinks at the increased distance between them.
But Dean doesn’t leave. He walks to the window, staring out at the lake behind the house. “The curse.”
“Is broken, I thought?” Cas says, a horrible thought occurring to him.
“Oh yeah, it’s a doornail,” Dean says quickly, flashing a reassuring smile. “It’s just - how to break it. It was, uh, pretty specific.”
“How specific?”
Dean paces back to the bed, his expression conflicted. He takes one look at Cas’s face and backtracks to the window. “Me and Sam, a week ago, we ran into a witch,” he says, a complete nonsequiteur.
As Dean hesitates in explaining himself further, Cas prompts, “Alright?”
Dean turns back around. “She set up this fairytale matchmaking service - literally. For a price, she casts a spell that gives you the chance to meet your very own true love. Your very own Prince or Princess Charming.”
Cas checks on Jack, sound asleep at his end of the bed.
“First, she made some poor lady mute,” Dean continues, “and Lonely Hearts disappeared three days later. We asked her best friend, and he said she turned into seafoam. And we thought, he’s just a wacko, right? Clearly, the guy spent too much time huffing paint cans on the beach. But the next thing we know, the sheriff’s office calls us with a weird murder of a guy the shooter swore was some sort of monster - horns, fangs, paws, the whole nine yards.”
“The witch modelled her spell after The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast,” Cas surmises.
Dean smiles tightly. “Nothing gets past you, does it?” He sighs. “You’re kind of right. Anyway, we found the witch and followed her home. It would’ve been a case of the hunter’s wham, bam, thank you ma’am special, but she got the drop on us.”
“How?”
Dean shrugs. “How do witches do anything? They’re all so skeezy. I try not to think about it.” He gives an exaggerated shudder. “She went for me first ’cause I’m the good-looking one. I don’t know what happened right after since I was little busy turning into a fucking frog, but somehow Sammy broke free and shot her.”
“But you stayed a frog.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Two for two, Sherlock.” He about-faces to the window again. “Rowena helped translate the bitch’s grimoire, and apparently she didn’t carbon copy the fairy tales, thank god. There was a one-sized cure fits all.”
“That’s good?”
“No matter what the setup,” Dean breaks off, a flush spreading down the back of his neck down into the collar of his shirt, “swans, glass shoes, dancing bears, all the curses could be broken by…” he drifts off, impressively managing to look even more uncomfortable, all with his back still turned to Cas.
After a beat of no elaboration, Cas prods, “By?”
Dean taps his fingers against the windowsill. “Sammy was supposed to explain it,” he says sullenly to the window panes. “He was supposed to be here, but he had to take off to deal with that Direwolf in Tillamook.”
Cas swallows. “Sam is taking care of Amanda Fitzmartin’s killer?”
Dean turns around, smiling crookedly. “Yeah, that’s how he could drop me off three days ago. We were already on our way west.”
“Good,” Cas says, exhaling a slow breath. “That’s good.”
Dean’s expression softens. “Thanks for the heads up. Turns out we didn’t need it, though.”
“That’s fine,” Cas says dismissively. “As long as the werewolf won’t be hurting anyone else.”
“Hopefully not, if Sam did his job right.” Dean crosses his arms over his chest, gaze darting all over the room. Except at Cas.
Cas watches him curiously. None of what Dean’s said so far warrants the agitation he’d been showing since the curse he supposedly broke. Eventually, he asks plainly, “Dean, how did I break the spell on you?”
Dean makes a face like he ate a moldy lemon. He doesn’t offer an answer.
At the continued silence, Cas says, a little irritated, “In the original fairy tale, the princess throws the frog against a wall.”
Dean winces. “Yeah, I’m real glad you didn’t do that.”
“You were a very admirable companion,” Cas says, “of course I wouldn’t. Not to mention, Jack would have been extremely upset.”
“This is stupid,” Dean mutters, mostly to himself. “I mean, I know you lo-" the next word gets caught between his teeth before he restarts, "Well, you have to, or else it wouldn’t have worked.” He scrubs his hand down his face, a weak laugh escaping him. But it sounds more desperate than humorous.
“I don’t understand.”
Dean snorts. “Of course you don’t because I’m a jackass who can’t just come out and say it, which is stupid. Telling you won’t change anything.”
Times like these make Cas grateful he can’t use his grace and smite Dean right on the spot. “Dean-”
“True love’s kiss, alright?” Dean blurts, gesturing between them forcefully. “That’s what broke the spell. That’s what broke all her spells, for the coma girl, for both coma girls, and the dude with all the hair.” The corners of his mouth lift into a forced smile. “Rapunzel gave Sam a real run for his money.”
Cas stares at him. He coughs, clearing an intangible lump in his throat. “True love’s kiss?” he echoes.
Dean nods jerkily. “Yeah.”
Cas still doesn’t understand. “You came here for true love’s kiss?”
Dean glares. “Obviously.”
Cas shakes his head, replaying all of Dean’s bizarre hesitations, obfuscations, and subject changes in this new light. Dean has always been tremendously uncomfortable talking about emotions unless someone’s life is on the line - even with Sam, and their love for each other has been well established.
Unlike with Cas.
“You love me?” Cas asks cautiously. He can’t leave this up to tacit interpretation, not with so much on the line.
“Well, I definitely didn’t come here to get a kiss from baby Satan,” Dean says sharply.
Cas’s expression hardens, but he doesn’t give up hope. With Dean, backwards as he is, an angry reaction might mean Cas is right. Dean has always been the most defensive at his most vulnerable. Still, Cas has to remind him, “Just because you’re uncomfortable with your emotions does not mean you get to disparage Jack.”
Dean’s mouth opens. It closes. Shoulders slumping, he nods. “Yeah, I know. Sorry.”
Cas shifts on the bed. “Why don’t you sit?”
On shaky legs, Dean makes his way back to his old seat. “I don’t know why I said that,” he says to his hands. “It’s a lot, man.”
Cas tentatively reaches out and touches Dean’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “And you think it isn’t a lot for me?” He smiles, and it takes everything within him not to let his true joy show all over his face. Dean is in a fragile state, and Cas can’t risk overwhelming him completely.
Yet.
But Dean loves him.
It’s a miracle.
“You don’t seem all that messed up about it,” Dean says frankly. He gestures to Cas’s face, his own brow furrowed in consternation.
Cas’s cheeks heat. “I’m not.” He clears his throat. “I’ve been at peace with how I feel for you for a long time. At first, I thought it meant I was broken. But I now take it as something to be treasured, something precious that I needed to nurture, not stamp out.” He lifts his hand from Dean’s shoulder to cup his cheek instead, the stubble rough against his palm. He half expects Dean to knock his hand away.
Dean doesn’t.
“Knowing you has changed me,” Cas says, his throat dry, “Because you cared, I cared. I cared about you. I cared about Sam. I cared about Jack. I cared about the whole world because of you.” He drops his hand. “How did you know?”
Dean’s mouth twists in distaste at the question. “It was, I dunno, a few years ago? In Purgatory, when I was praying my ass off, Benny kept telling me it was a waste. But no man gets left behind, not in my book. We’re friends. I wasn’t about to ditch you when the going got rough.” He shakes his head, staring hard at a nondescript spot on the bedspread by Cas’s left knee. “But it was more than rough. Benny got the whole story out of me - you betraying us, joining up with Crowley, betraying him, becoming God-”
A sickening, leaded weight drops in Cas’s stomach.
“- releasing the Leviathans.”
Cas has no idea how these series of events led Dean to the revelation that Cas loves him. Of course, in the beginning, Cas did it all for Dean - watching him with Lisa Braeden, knowing his supernatural-free life was in peril from the civil war. But he never told Dean that.
Oblivious to Cas’s confusion, Dean continues, “With any other friend, any one of those things would’ve been a deal breaker. I was fucking furious, don’t get me wrong,” Dean adds. “But I was always gonna forgive you.”
“You were?”
“It’s you,” Dean says, a strange look in his eye like Cas should have known all along.
Cas certainly didn’t. Part of his penance in Purgatory was removing himself from Dean’s life as permanently as he could.
“I need you, Cas,” Dean says simply. “I think part of me always will.”
Pleased, Cas coughs. “I meant, how did you know how I felt about you?”
Dean chokes on nothing, eyes wide and panicked. “What the fuck dude? And you let me spill my guts like that?”
Cas’s eyes narrow. “Most of what you said has to do with my past mistakes.”
“Not all of it!”
“Enough.”
Dean turns to him, unintentionally jostling Jack, who wakes up with a small whine. “Hey buddy,” Dean soothes, reaching for him. “Time to wake up already?”
Jack yawns.
“Or maybe not,” Dean says, amused, as Jack closes his eyes again.
“So?” Cas prompts.
Dean focuses on nudging Jack into a more comfortable position. “So what?”
Cas knows from experience he shouldn’t press Dean for so much personal information. Dean has never been a man who talks about what is most important to him, and there’s no surer way to send him reaching for the nearest bottle of alcohol, but Cas’s curiosity has reached its apex.
It’s just - this has been his most closely guarded secret for years, and Dean has never given him any sign that he was in on it. What else could Cas have overlooked if he never noticed?
“So how did you find out about my feelings for you?” Cas asks.
“I didn’t,” Dean says shortly without looking up.
“You didn’t?” Cas repeats, stunned. “You drove all the way here without knowing if it would work?”
Dean shrugs, finally meeting his eyes. “I’ve done more on less intel. You know that.”
Cas gapes at him. “But you were stuck as a frog,” he forces out.
“Yeah, and telling Sam to book it to Washington without a voice or opposable thumbs was no picnic,” Dean says darkly. “The idiot spent three days insisting he could break it himself even though I told him brotherly love didn’t count for shit.”
“He kissed you?”
Dean pretends to gag. “I got him back by getting frog slime all over his hair while he was sleeping.”
“You weren’t very slimy,” Cas says diplomatically.
Dean snorts. He sits back, palms braced behind him. His expression carefully neutral, he asks, “So what now?”
But before Cas can answer, someone knocks on the door downstairs.
Cas leaps to his feet, on his guard. “Watch Jack,” he tells Dean. Without waiting for an answer, he takes off down the stairs. His blade slides into his hand smooth as quicksilver, and he grips it firmly.
Thankfully, the tall shadow silhouetted against the window curtains can only belong to one person.
“Sam,” Cas greets as he opens the door.
“Hey, Cas,” Sam says sheepishly, straightening from where he’d been rummaging around the dead tree in the planter between the porch chairs. “Look, I know this is going to sound crazy - but have you seen a frog around?”
Cas’s eyebrows rise. “A frog?”
Sam runs a nervous hand through his hair. “Stupid question - you’re by a lake, of course you got hundreds of frogs - but maybe there’s been a weird one hanging around?”
“Hey!” Dean calls from inside the house, followed by his clomping footsteps down the stairs, “Who’re you calling weird, bitch?”
Sam’s face goes slack with relief.
“Dean turned back into a human this morning,” Cas says as Dean appears by his side, Jack cradled in one arm.
Sam’s gaze snaps to Jack. “Is that - ?” he starts, his eyes wide.
“Yup,” Dean says. “The Spawn of Satan himself. Say ‘hi’, Jack.” Grinning, Dean takes Jack’s wrist in between his thumb and forefinger and flops Jack’s fist around in the barest approximation of a wave.
Jack giggles.
Cas rounds on Dean, saying hotly, “He is not-”
“Jack likes mashed sweet potatoes,” Dean cuts him off in a carrying voice, “and he’s reading at a first grader level because he’s a nerd, like you.” Without a warning, he all but shoves Jack at Sam, who scrambles not to drop him.
“Dean,” Sam says, pained. “I don’t know the first thing about-”
“Have fun with him!” Dean says cheerfully. “He also likes frogs.” He closes the door in Sam’s face.
Cas could strangle him for his carelessness. “You can’t just do that! What if Sam-”
“Makes him into an even bigger nerd?” Dean interrupts. “Then that’s just a chance we’ll have to take.”
“You’re not taking this seriously at all.”
“Look,” Dean says, abandoning all joking pretenses with one word. “D’you want to come back with us?”
Struck dumb with surprise, Cas doesn’t answer.
Dean continues, “It wasn’t hard to read between the lines. You’re miserable out here by yourself with only a baby for company.” He gestures around the drafty, leaky house. “Come back home, Cas.”
Cas swallows the lump in his throat. “You’re asking me to stay with you?”
“You and Jack,” Dean says, nodding.
“We would put you in danger,” Cas says, watching Dean carefully for his reaction. “Many powerful entities want Jack for themselves.”
“No safer place than Fort Bunker, then,” Dean says with a confidence that doesn’t match the apprehensive look in his eye.
“Are you sure?”
Dean’s face falls carefully blank. “If you’re good here, fine. We won’t bug you - except maybe to text every once in a while to make sure you’re not dead.” He laughs humorlessly. “Like you told Jack, I can’t force you to come with us. No better way to send you running for the hills.”
Cas tilts his head. “How could you possibly know that? You’ve never tried to force me to stay.”
“’Course I didn’t force you,” Dean says bitterly. “You were always flitting off to Heaven or Bumfuck, Nowhere, to rescue a cat from a tree or whatever. I figured it was stupid to even try.”
Sometimes, Cas despairs of Dean Winchester. He has to be the most boneheaded human in existence with the greatest destiny in all of creation.
“It wouldn’t have been stupid,” Cas tells him.
Dean’s eyebrows rise incredulously. “It wouldn’t?”
“I will always come to you when you call,” Cas says, throwing Dean the most sardonic look he can muster. “It’s you.” He opens the door to find Sam holding Jack awkwardly above a rock covered in moss.
“Wait,” Dean hurries after him, “does this mean you’re coming back after all?”
Cas may love him with everything he is, but Dean is an idiot.
Across the driveway, Sam climbs into Cas’s truck to drive it back to Kansas.
Cas straps Jack down into his car seat. The Impala’s back seat wasn’t built for safety features of any kind - save the lap belts Dean installed himself - and the car seat wobbles precariously. Cas nudges it again, testing its stability.
“He’ll be fine,” Dean says from behind him. “He’s half-archangel. Practically indestructible. Ain’t that right, bud?”
Jack babbles happily at him.
Dean grins back. “At this point all you gotta worry about are mommy bloggers spotting that shitty anchoring job.” He points to where they jury rigged two tethers to the bench seat. “They’re brutal, lemme tell you. I thought Samantha could be bitchy during his time of the month, but one time, EightPackMommy-”
Cas straightens. “Dean, what on Earth are you talking about?”
After a beat, Dean mutters, “Parenting blogs.” He crosses his arms over his chest, as if daring Cas to mock him although Cas would do nothing of the sort. He continues, “At first, I was only looking for a good mac and cheese recipe. But there’s such drama, man. It’s compelling.”
“You’ve been researching how to be a parent?” Cas asks, intrigued and more than a little pleased. He’s mostly unfamiliar with online blogs, since he much prefers print sources.
Dean flushes a dull read. “It wasn’t research. ” He huffs an irritated breath. “Some of the moms are hot,” he says defensively.
Cas raises his eyebrows.
“Shut up,” Dean says. “Just ’cause we weren’t… a thing yet… that doesn’t mean I was a monk.”
Cas smiles at the word yet. “I didn’t think anything of the sort.”
“Turns out it was useful info,” Dean sniffs. He lowers his voice even though there is nobody around for miles, “Look, I like kids. You accidentally got yourself a kid. I didn’t think it would be a total waste to learn about sleep cycles and all the other bullshit they complain about.”
“It’s not all bullshit,” Cas says softly as he turns back to Jack. “Looking after Jack has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my existence.”
“Hmph.”
Cas tucks Jack’s blanket more firmly around his little body. “Of course,” he adds to Dean, “I still consider raising you from perdition to be the most defining moment that set me on the path I am on today.”
“Damn straight.”
Cas kisses Jack on the forehead. “I love you, Jack.” He straightens up and faces Dean. “I think we’re ready to leave.” He makes to step around to the passenger side of the Impala, but Dean stops him with a hand to his elbow.
“What you said to Jack - me too,” Dean says in an undertone.
Cas squints at him. “You love Jack as well?”
Dean rolls his eyes, his mouth twitching. “You know what I mean.”
“I know nothing of the sort,” Cas says gravely, and, by the way Dean chuckles, he knows Cas’s ignorance is feigned.
“I hate that you’re making me say this.”
“I am not making you do anything,” Cas says. He lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug. “I have realized by now making a Winchester do anything is an exercise in futility.”
Dean sighs loudly.
Cas waits.
“I love you.” Dean shakes his head, laughing under his breath. “You’re such a jackass.”
Cas smiles and, because he is not a jackass, he doesn’t make Dean wait before returning the sentiment. “I love you too. Shall we go?”
With one final look at his home for the past seven months, at the resting place for Kelly’s ashes, Cas gets in the Impala. Before Dean can start the engine, Cas lays a hand on top of his. As Dean turns his head, a questioning look on his face, Cas kisses him.
Dean’s mouth is soft and surprised under his. Hesitant only for a split second, Dean finally kisses back; his gun-callused hands are gentle as they cup the hinge of Cas’s jaw.
Cas has never understood the “butterflies in the stomach” idiom before, but it’s the only way he can describe the fluttery, jittery feeling growing stronger with every new touch and shared breath. It’s exhilarating and terrifying all at once.
If Dean is as nervous as Cas is, he doesn’t show it. His lips are confident as they press back - not hungry, not hurried, not desperate - but languid, like Dean knows they have all the time in the world.
The truck’s horn blares obnoxiously loudly.
“Son of a bitch,” Dean mutters as they break apart, breathing a little faster than normal.
Cas smiles.
Sam honks again.
“Alright, alright,” Dean grumbles as he starts the engine with one hand and cranks down the window with the other. As they pull past Sam, Dean sticks his arm out the window, middle finger up.
With his inhuman hearing, Cas catches Sam’s bark of exasperated laughter.
“Lemme know if I make a wrong turn to get to 105,” Dean says. He steps on the gas as he turns off the dirt path and onto North Cove’s main street.
Next to Dean in the Impala, with her engine rumbling comfortably in the background, the familiar smell of leather seats, and faintest whiff of mostly-cleaned monster viscera that would be undetectable by human noses, Cas relaxes like he hasn’t since Jack was born.
The photogenic Pacific Northwest scenery blurs past, but Dean pays it no mind, concentrating on the road.
It would all lull Cas to sleep if he was capable of it.
“Hey, Cas?” Dean says quietly as they merge onto the highway.
“Hm?”
Dean swallows as his right hand searches blindly for Cas's own. He gives it a squeeze. “Thank you.”
Shivers course up Cas’s spine. “For what?” he asks, straightening in his seat.
Without looking away from the windshield, Dean says, “For everything. Breaking the curse. Saving my ass. Raising Jack - he’s gonna be a hell of a kid.”
“How do you know?” Cas asks, twisting around to catch a glimpse of his son, sleeping peacefully in his car seat.
Jack’s vision hasn’t come to pass yet. There is still pain and hunger and hate. But if Cas learned anything in the past six months, it’s the value of patience.
Dean adjusts the rearview mirror, smirking. “I just have faith.”