Content tags:
Pre-Relationship, Pre-Season 13, Carnival, Fluff, Pining, thirsty Castiel"I thought you preferred pie to cake."
"Yeah, but this is funnel cake. It's the pie of cakes. It's like… fried pie. Especially if you get the right toppings."
The bored-looking employee in the little concession stand hands Dean two stacked paper plates heavily laden with a lattice of fried batter, topped with a glistening mass of strawberries submerged in a thick syrup. A swirl of whipped cream sits atop all of that like a white crown. Dean forgoes the plastic fork shoved into the funnel cake and dips his head down to take a bite out of the cloud of cream. He licks his pink lips and grins.
"C'mon, let's go find some shade."
Cas doesn't mind the heat, but Dean looks happier at the picnic bench under the oak tree. He really ought to use sunscreen—they haven't been at the fair for an hour yet, but he's already pink across his nose and cheeks, and the backs of his arms where they aren't covered by his t-shirt. He spears a round, fat strawberry with his plastic fork and pops it into his mouth. He moans faintly around it.
"You wanna try this, Cas? I mean, I get that it's all molecules or whatever," he says, his mouth stained red with syrup, "but these've gotta be some pretty top tier molecules."
Cas smiles softly, arms crossed on the picnic table. "No thank you," he says. "Go ahead, eat."
Dean hesitates a second, then shrugs and digs in. The plastic cutlery is only so effective, and eventually Dean gives up and starts tearing off pieces with his hands. The syrup clings and drips from his fingers, and Dean sucks them into his mouth one by one to control the mess.
Cas thinks he's enjoying the county fair even more than Dean said he would.
Dean gets about two thirds of the way through the funnel cake before he admits defeat. The rest goes into a trash bin closely monitored by wasps, which Dean avoids by folding the plates in half and tossing them like a basketball.
"Let's walk off the food in there," Dean says, pointing to the Haunted House attraction with a silly grin. House is a generous descriptor—it's a metal trailer with a mural of carnival tents and murderous clowns painted on the side. While Cas doesn't quite understand why humans have decided clowns are something to be feared, he's beginning to see why Sam didn't wish to accompany them on this particular outing.
The hauntings consist of two workers in clown costumes brandishing plastic knives, an animal cage with a glowing skeleton inside, fans that tickle the backs of their necks while a soundtrack of off-key calliope music plays, and a hall of mirrors that actually reminds Cas fondly of wavelengths he'd once traveled to navigate the lesser-explored backdoors of Heaven. It was hard to recreate the experience in only three dimensions, but it was as close an approximation as he'd ever seen on Earth. Dean finds it tough to make his way through without walking into the trick panes of clear plastic face-first, and when they stumble out he's frowning, gripping the arm of Cas's coat.
"That funnel cake is sittin' like a brick," he says, a hand over his stomach. He buys himself a bottle of water and downs half of it in one go. Some of it escapes his mouth, trickling over his chin and down his neck, darkening the collar of his shirt, which clings to his back with sweat. It's August, and the sun is baking the grass brown. It really is important for Dean to stay hydrated. Cas decides to make sure of that.
They mill around in the shadier paths while Dean's stomach settles, along the rows of souvenir stands and carnival games. At one stand, a child in a bright yellow cap, turned around backwards and sending their hair clouding out around their ears, looks on the verge of tears, clutching a baseball tightly in one little fist. They throw, as hard as their arm can manage, and the ball connects with a milk bottle stacked on top of a tower of bottles. One bottle falls, but the others rattle and keep their place.
"Sorry, pal," says the carnie behind the counter, who resets the milk bottles with a twist of his mouth. The child's mother pats the back of their neck soothingly as their chin puckers and a fat tear rolls down their cheek.
"It's okay, baby. C'mon, let's go."
"No," the child pouts, and continues to cry. "I want the Jaws."
Dean lets out a low whistle, and Cas follows his eyes to the stuffed toys dangling from the back wall of the stand. There are little stuffed crabs, starfish, and squid. The largest of them is a shark, with gleaming black marble eyes and rows of white felt teeth.
"Let's go ride the Berry-Go-Round again," the child's mother suggests.
"I want the Jaws…" Their silent tears devolve into hiccups. The mother ushers them away, trying to calm them before the full meltdown sets in.
Dean steps up to the stand, five dollar bill in hand. "Can I have a try?"
The carnie hands Dean three baseballs. Dean reels back and tosses the first. It hits the base of the pyramid square on, but the jugs only budge a millimeter without toppling.
"Aw, what the—" Dean, with a determined set to his jaw, tosses the next ball twice as hard. It knocks the top bottle off, but none of the others. The third ball smacks a bottle on the base hard enough to nudge it an inch, but the pyramid stays standing.
"Better luck next time, man," the employee says.
"This game is friggin' rigged," Dean grouses. Cas steps up, tapping Dean on the shoulder.
"Dean, give me five dollars."
Dean snorts. "What's the magic word?"
"Dean," Cas says seriously. That just makes Dean laugh harder.
"Try again, dude," he says, but he fishes another five out of his wallet and hands it to Cas anyway. Cas then hands the bill to the carnie, who looks between the two of them for a moment before setting the bottles back in place and handing Cas his allotted three baseballs.
Cas winds up the pitch. He throws. The ball sails through the center of the pyramid's base and through the back wall of the tent, shattering the milk jug at its center and sending the others clattering down. The carnie startles, muttering, "What the fuck?"
"Did I win?" Cas sets the remaining two baseballs down on the counter. Cas has been looked at before in much the way the carnie is looking at him now. Like the time a volunteer at the shelter handed him a banana and, eager with hunger, he bit into it. He hadn't realized one was meant to peel it open first.
The carnie shakes his head, but he cuts the enormous stuffed shark down and hands it over without another word. Cas, victorious, turns to Dean with his arms full.
"You tryin' to get us kicked out?" Dean asks, but he's smiling wide, his eyes creasing handsomely at the corners. He pats the oversized toy on the head, then chucks Cas on the shoulder. "That was fucking awesome. Did you see that dude's face?"
Cas blossoms under Dean's attention, but he can't stay here letting Dean smile at him forever. He has a mission to accomplish. "Where did that family go?"
They find the pair waiting in line for the Berry-Go-Round, a ride where people sit inside strawberry-shaped cars that spin in circles on a track. "Excuse me," Cas says, and the child in the yellow cap looks up at him with wet brown eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. Cas kneels down to their level, holding the shark out towards them. "I think your friend Jaws wanted to ride with you."
The child's face transforms into a perfect picture of shock. Dean catches the young mom's eye, smiling apologetically.
"This okay?" he mouths. She looks between Dean and Cas, a hand on her chin when the child throws their arms around the shark, shrieking with glee.
"Uh, yeah—yeah, Jesus, thank you, that's so nice," she says, stunned. Cas stands, shoulders hunched, somehow managing to look diminutive next to a 5'2" mom and her five-year-old. He probably seems like a total weirdo to her, wearing a coat in the middle of this heat, but maybe his being with Dean and the brief respite from her child's tears makes him seem like less of an anomaly. "Justice, say thank you."
"Jaws!" The child grins up at Cas. The shark is bigger than they are, towering over their head and knocking their baseball cap askew.
"Thank you," their mother prompts again.
"Thank you, Jaws!" Justice squeezes the shark so tightly the stuffing bulges around their little arms.
"You're welcome," Cas says, and nods his head to the mother, waving goodbye to them both.
"You charmer," Dean says, elbowing Cas as they walk away. Cas ducks his head, smiling. Pride is a sin he is prone to, and he feels it now, shamelessly so. "What next? Think I can go on the Scrambler without puking?"
The Scrambler sees Dean and Cas seated side-by-side in a metal car, a bar latched across their laps to keep them from sliding or falling out while the car tilts and spins up and down and around through the air. Music blares crunchily through the speakers in the center of the ride, the sound of delighted screams rising and falling over the din. Dean joins in, hollering and laughing, white-knuckled hands gripping the lap bar.
"Whatcha think, Cas?" he says, leaning in to speak directly into Cas's ear, not quite a yell, but close. "This anything like having your wings back?"
To be truthful, it's nothing at all like flying. There's no folding of dimensional wavelengths, or even a facsimile of it, like in the hall of mirrors. Dean conceives of an angel's flight as being like a bird's, but in truth it's more like skipping the line for a ride, where the line is the concept of linear time.
But the wind is whipping around him, cool and sharp, and Dean is pressed against him from shoulder to knee, warm and solid, blood pumping wildly in his excitement, and Cas tells him, "Yes, a little."
The sun is slipping away quickly when Dean says, "I guess we don't have enough tickets left for anything but the ferris wheel. Kinda stupid, but, y'know. Be a waste not to use 'em."
Cas looks at Dean. He must really want to go on the ferris wheel, if he's lying like this about it. That was one of the first things he taught Cas, after all. Cas says, "Let's go."
This ride is much gentler than the others, the shouts and laughter of the fair's guests growing more distant the higher they rise. Dean's gazing out at the grounds, sitting across from him in the car rather than next to him. Cas mourns the loss of contact, but their knees touch when Dean grows careless, and Cas can't argue with the view. In the growing dark, the lights of the fair spreading out below them glitter in Dean's eyes like a cluster of stars. He looks impossibly beautiful.
"Thank you," Cas says, breaking Dean out of whatever thought he was lost in. His mouth quirks in a crooked smile.
"For what?"
"Taking me to the fair," Cas says. For being here with me, he thinks. For being here. For being.
"Sure, Cas, anytime." Dean scrubs a hand back through his hair. His bashful smile warms Cas through. "Honestly, I'm surprised we don't do jobs at places like this more often. Pretty sure half of all carnies in the continental U.S. are some kinda spooky something-or-other." He knocks his knee against Cas's, on purpose this time. Cas knocks right back.
The walk back to the car is quiet and companionable. Safely ensconced in the Impala, Dean gnaws anxiously at the skin of his lower lip.
"You really had a good time?"
"I did," Cas says. The car rumbles to life under Dean's hands, a low, comforting growl. He glances over at Cas, then back to his own hands on the wheel, fighting a smile.
"You're a real cheap date," he says. "You didn't even eat anything."
It's true, he didn't. Food doesn't interest Cas much, for all that he would very much like to lean across the seat to see if he could find out what funnel cake tastes like. He withstands the craving with practiced restraint.
"Maybe next time," he says. The road stretches out ahead of them, the wind roaring past, and for a little while, Cas doesn't miss flying at all.