Standing Together

Chapter 134

"Cas, come hither!" Dean calls from the other side of the house.

"What?" Castiel yells back.

"Come hither!"

Castiel groans. "Fine, hang on!"

He puts his book down on the bed and heads out of the room in search of his fiancé, whom he finds sitting on the couch in the living room. Castiel sits down next to him in silence, resting his head on his fiancé's shoulder silently and trying not to fall asleep.

"Are you ready?" Dean asks, far too energetic for the situation.

"Mm," Castiel hums.

Dean scrolls through his text messages with Lucifer until he finds a video and presses play.

Alex waddles out into the snow, bundled up in her snow pants and thick winter coat. She looks up at the camera, almost looking confused.

"It's snow!" Lucifer says, excited. "It's like water, but it's really, really cold."

Alex just looks down at the snow, confused.

"Here, look at this." Claire steps into view and lies down in the snow, wearing her own snow gear to keep her dry. She waves her arms and legs around and says, "It's a snow angel!"

"What?" Alex asks.

"Look, look!" Claire carefully steps out of the snow angel. "It's an angel! It has wings and a head and body and everything!"

Alex makes some incoherent but excited babbling noises..

"Do you want to make one?" Claire asks.

Alex just looks confused.

"Go lie down in the snow," Claire says.

Alex does as she's told, lying with her face in the snow. Lucifer and Claire both burst out laughing.

"The other way, silly," Lucifer says.

Alex rolls over and sits up. She puts a mittened hand over her face. "Cold."

"Yeah, snow is really, really cold," Claire says. "That's why you have a really big coat and really fluffy pants on. So you don't touch the snow."

"Oh!"

"Stand up, m'kay?" Lucifer says, and Alex does just that. "Now take three steps to the side."

Alex pauses, then takes three steps backwards.

"Okay, we'll work on that," Lucifer says, amused. "Now sit down on your bum."

Alex slowly lowers her butt into the snow.

"Perfect," Lucifer says. "Now, without moving your bum, lie down."

Alex does as she's told and lies down on her back.

"Now wave your arms and legs!" Claire says.

Alex flails her arms and legs in the air.

"Up and down, just like this," Claire says, moving her arms as if making a snow angel in the air.

Alex sits up and watches for a moment, then lies back down and does the same.

"Awesome job!" Lucifer coos.

"Good?" Alex asks.

"Sit up, okay?" Lucifer says, then adds a quiet, "Hold this, m'kay?" to Claire and hands his phone to her. He reaches down and pulls Alex to her feet, out of her snow angel. "Look at the pretty angel!"

Alex doesn't seem to care that the legs are all bumpy, or that the head is too small. She beams at her creation and looks up at her dad. "Good!"

"Yeah, it really is good," Lucifer agrees.

"She's so pure," Castiel says.

"I know, right?" Dean says. "God, I love her. I know she's, like, two, and she doesn't really do anything, but I love her."

"I can't wait until she gets a little older, and she's almost a functioning person," Castiel says.

"Honestly," Dean agrees. "As a general rule, I don't even like kids, but she's like the child I never wanted."

Castiel chuckles half-heartedly, but he can't deny that that kind of killed his mood. He's not sure why this never occurred to him. He's never even thought to ask if Dean wanted kids. They started dating in high school, after all. Kids aren't the first thing on a high schooler's mind. He's barely thought of it himself.

But somewhere in the back of his mind, he's always just assumed he'd have a kid one day. Sure, he'd have to adopt, but that never bothered him. There are enough kids who need homes. He figured that once his life calmed down a bit, that would naturally be the next step.

But if Dean doesn't like kids...

"Did I say something wrong?" Dean asks, immediately noticing his change in mood.

"No, no, not at all," Castiel says quickly.

"Had you said that in any other way, I might have believed you," Dean says. "What did I say?"

"Nothing, it's fine," Castiel assures him.

"Really, Cas, what's wrong?" Dean asks. "You know I'm going to keep asking until you tell me. That's how it works. Tell me what I said, then I won't say it again, and that way, we both win."

"It's nothing," Castiel insists.

Dean sighs and puts his phone down on the table, then gives Castiel his full attention. "Cas, you and I both know the root of most of our problems is you not talking to me."

Castiel sighs. Well, he's not wrong. But is it worth making things awkward now just to avoid future problems that may or may not happen?

... Well, it probably is. It's not worth the risk, at least.

"I just didn't realize you don't like kids." He says it casually, as if Dean had just made an offhand comment about hating the color purple. That doesn't stop Dean from figuring out what he's thinking, though.

"I don't think either of us are in a position to want kids," Dean says. "You've already told me you're worried about Alex. If you think she's going to have it bad, imagine how much worse your own kid would be. People talk shit about celebrities, and they talk shit about gay people with kids. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't want to lay that on some poor, innocent kid."

Castiel sighs. "Yeah, I guess that's true."

Dean puts an arm around him, pulling him into a side hug. "I'm sorry, Cas. It hadn't even occurred to me that you might want to have kids. But there's always Alex. It looks like she's starting to like you. If we stick around, I bet she'll be all over you pretty soon."

"Yeah..."

Dean presses a kiss to his forehead. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

"It's okay," Castiel says quietly. "What's one more reason being famous sucks? It's not like the list isn't long already."

A/N I bought John Winchester's journal from Hot Topic last night and I haven't read very much yet bc I've been really fvkcing busy but I've had a plan for a while to bring up Dean's past again bc that never really happens bc Dean doesn't like talking about it a lot and I've had so many ideas of how it's gonna go and now that I've read the beginning of the journal I have even more stuff to play with in my mind and I'm just so excited to get to that part