So this is a story that obsessedwithstabler and I co-wrote about a year/18 months/who knows how long ago. We have a buttload more, actually.
Disclaimer: We don't own Supernatural. The title and summary are taken from No Questions Asked by Fleetwood Mac.
Cover art comes from sammycolt24 on livejournal.
Warnings: Mentioned minor character death.
Luke Novak was only six years old, and already he knew that he was different from a lot of his classmates. He liked to play on the playground and play games and he had a few friends, but he preferred to read under the shade during recess.
He was in the first grade and his father, Castiel, was a teacher for fourth grade. Luke lived alone with his father in an apartment a block away from the school. He didn't know his mother and even though he was curious, he never bothered to investigate.
Luke had a few friends in school and they had invited him to play football in the field, but he had politely refused the offer so he could read his new book and eat a snack at the picnic table. From his seat, he could see the playground for the younger kids and he occasionally looked up to watch the other children as they scrambled up and down the playground equipment.
One little girl in particular caught his attention; he had never seen her before, so he guessed she was in kindergarten. She was playing by herself on the swings and scooting forward so her feet would touch the ground.
As she dragged her red sneakers on the dirt, the swing slowed, but she lost her footing and fell forward. Luke stood up but made no move to approach her. Kids fell all the time. But when she didn't stand up and began to look upset, he put his book in his backpack and approached her.
"Are you okay?" he asked. He held a hand toward her. She didn't accept it and she wore a pair of glasses with dark lenses even though it was cloudy outside. "Are you blind?" he asked as he knelt in front of her.
The girl was trying and failing to contain her tears as she rubbed her skinned knee. "Yeah. I hurted my knee," she whimpered tearfully.
"It's bleeding. Your elbow is, too. You wanna go to the nurse?"
"I don't know how to get thereā¦" She sniffled. "But my knee hurts a lot."
"I can take you there." Luke grabbed her hand and stood up, helping the girl stand. "We need someone with us. I'll get my dad. What's your name? I'm Luke."
"Mary." She wrapped her fingers around his hand.
"What grade are you in?"
"Kindergarten," she answered, sniffling tearfully again when they started to walk. "I'm five."
"I'm six. First grade." Luke walked slowly so she could keep up without tripping and hurting herself again. He found his dad monitoring the larger playground with some other teachers. "Dad?"
Castiel turned at the sound of his son's voice. "Luke? What's wrong, buddy?"
"Can you go with us to the nurse? We need a teacher. This is Mary."
Castiel looked at his son and the trembling little girl. "Okay. Let's go." He ushered them off of the playground and straight to the nurse's office.
The nurse, whose name tag read Janice, looked up from her desk. "What's the issue?"
"She skinned her knee and elbow," Luke explained, gesturing to Mary.
"I see." Janice stood up. "Sit right here, sweetie." She patted the bench and Mary felt her way to it. "Did you fall?" she asked as she found a bottle of antiseptic and a box of Band-Aids.
"Off the swing." Mary took off her dark glasses and scrubbed a palm across her eyes.
"This may sting. Are you ready?" When Mary nodded, Janice squirted a small amount of antiseptic onto the scrapes and not to her surprise, Mary howled.
"That hurt," she spat accusingly. "You didn't say it would sting that bad!"
"Sorry." Janice opened the band-aids and put them on the scrapes. "There you go."
"Call my daddy," Mary demanded, still shaken from her fall.
"I don't think you need to go home, sweetheart. There's only an hour left for the day."
"I want my daddy!" Mary cried. "Call him! I wanna go home!"
Castiel nodded to the nurse. "Go ahead and call him. I'll stay with her until he gets here."
With a sigh, Janice nodded and left the room to get her phone.
Castiel crouched down in front of Mary. "Mary, I'm Mr. Novak, Luke's daddy. The nurse is calling your daddy, and I'm going to stay here with you until he gets here. Okay?" he murmured soothingly.
"Okay..." She sniffled and rubbed at her eyes again.
He continued to soothe and reassure her until her father finally arrived at the nurse's office.
Castiel saw him first and he quickly stood upright and offered him his hand. "Hello. I'm Mr. Novak. Are you Mary's father?"
"Yeah." Dean quickly shook Castiel's hand before he picked Mary up. "Are you okay, Mare? What happened?"
"I fell..." Mary wound her arms around his neck.
"She just scraped herself," the nurse explained. "I think it scared her more than anything."
"That happens." Dean situated Mary on his hip and looked her over. It was his day off and he had spiraled into panic mode the instant the nurse called him, but he relaxed when he realized Mary wasn't seriously injured. He looked at Castiel. "Dean Winchester," he finally introduced himself. "Thanks for staying with her."
"It was no problem," Castiel insisted. "My son was very eager to help."
Dean nodded. "Thanks, kid."
Luke shrugged modestly. "No problem."
Mary was starting to relax and finally lifted her head from Dean's shoulder. "Bye, Luke."
"Bye."
It surprised Dean that Mary was voluntarily initiating conversation, but he said nothing and thanked Castiel again before he carried Mary to the car.
As he buckled her in, Mary sighed. She suddenly felt very sleepy.
"You wanna head straight home or get some ice cream first?"
"Ice cream," Mary yawned.
"Okay, baby." Dean ruffled her hair before he started the car. He stopped at an ice cream place near his apartment and bought her a small sundae, which she ate just over half of before she nodded off. Then he took her home and carried her to her room. When he settled her on her bed, she curled up on her side and sighed in her sleep.
Once he was sure Mary was sound asleep, he quietly left her room. He loved his little girl more than anything in the world. She had come so far in the past year, but there were moments that reminded him she was still recovering and had a long road ahead.
Dean was a firefighter, something he had wanted to do ever since his mother died in a fire when he was very young. But he found that put out fewer fires than he had expected. It happened more often than not, but usually he was prying people out of totaled cars and getting cats and kids out of trees. Even if there were more slow days than anything else, he loved his job.
Dean met Lisa when she called the fire department to get her son out of a tree he had climbed and refused to climb back down. It wasn't long before they were married and welcomed Mary into their lives. Lisa's little boy, Ben, was eight years older than Mary and Dean loved him as his own. Lisa was pretty and funny and she made Dean happy, but he never felt madly in love with her.
Mary was four when the car accident killed Lisa and Ben and robbed Mary of her eyesight.
Dean had been at work when the call came in. A drunk driver had hit a car at a busy intersection, causing a three car pile up. Police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks were sent to the scene. Dean still remembered how his world had stopped when he recognized Lisa's car in the middle of the pile up.
Ever since the accident, Mary had been very shy and timid. She was still adapting to a world without sight, and Dean went to extremes to protect her. He had even changed his Impala's original condition by equipping it with secure seat belts and better air bags. He bought Mary the safest booster seat on the market and did everything he could to keep her safe. He had wanted to keep her home another year, but he didn't want her to fall behind and he couldn't afford to take an entire year's leave of absence.
He focused on taking care of his baby girl and making sure she had everything she needed. But sometimes he longed for someone to love. He missed having someone to stay up late with, watching movies and drinking beer as they cuddled on the couch.
Maybe one day, he told himself. Maybe one day he would find someone.
XXXXX
At the end of the school day, Castiel took his son home and began cooking dinner while Luke played in his bedroom. Castiel adored his little son. It had been just the two of them since shortly after Luke's birth, when Meg decided she couldn't handle the pressure of being a mother and wife and disappeared without a word. It had been terrifying at first, just the two of them, but they had quickly adapted. Now Luke was in the first grade and they were just fine.
But...
Castiel sighed as he thought of Meg. They had been dating for just a few weeks when she became pregnant with Luke, and Castiel felt honor-bound to ask her to marry him, even though he knew deep down she was not the one for him. She had refused his proposal and when Luke was two weeks old, she was gone. Maybe it was better this way, but it was extremely lonely.
When he was finished cooking, he laid two plates on the table, as well as two glasses of milk. "Luke! Dinner!"
Luke came out of his bedroom and rushed to the table, and Castiel couldn't resist ruffling his son's dark hair.
Maybe what he needed was to try dating again. Luke didn't need to know unless Castiel became serious with someone, and maybe it would break him out of this rut he had been in.
Maybe.
Review! It only takes a couple of seconds and it makes Destiel poop rainbows.
