The bunker was bustling and more lively than it had been in ages, more comfortable than Sam can remember it being since Kevin died, anyway. He could vaguely make out the sounds of Dean and Cas arguing over the merits of various pizza toppings from the other room, where Dean's voice was getting progressively louder. Sam was sure he heard something to the effect of, "It's a good thing you got your grace back, Cas, because anyone who thinks Vegetarian Pizza is the best does not fully appreciate the ways of humans. It's just wrong." Which, yeah, is kind of a dick thing to say, considering Cas probably couldn't or wouldn't be able to taste anything but molecules once again, but it was also so typically Dean that Sam knew any offense Cas might take would be very quickly forgiven. Soon after, he smiled at what sounded like a highly sarcastic response from Cas, just a little too far out of earshot to make out, and the gruff, low chuckle of his older brother.
Sam felt warmed by the familiarity of his brother and friend bickering, and there was a happy hum singing through his veins, though it was tempered by the guilt he felt for lying to everyone about burning the book. But he had to, he told himself, it might be the only way to save Dean. The thought doesn't make him feel any better though, so he saddles up to his favorite nerd at the map table.
"Hey Charlie, what's that?" he asked, leaning over her shoulder to get a better look at the plain, white paper she was folding into sections.
"Are you making Origami?" Sam receives no answer to either question. Instead, Charlie continued humming to herself and folding intently, pressing on the new creases to create sharper edges, darting her tongue out while scrutinizing the angles of the piece of paper.
"Charlie?" he echoed. "Hey, Charlie!" he waved a hand in front of the redhead's face, trying harder to get her attention. She seemed very invested in a single sheet of paper. Sam knew that if he didn't let his curiosity win out, he would be lost in his own thoughts about the book and his self-loathing for all the lies and secrets he had been keeping from his brother.
"Oh, Sorry,Sam." Charlie startled. "You mean this?" she asked, holding up the paper folded into something resembling a square.
"Yes, that. What is it?" Sam said, scrutinizing the folds.
"Sweet Griffindor, what kind of childhood did you guys have anyway?" It was a pretty senseless thing to say, considering that they were sitting in a secret bunker in the middle of Kansas, trying to find a cure for the mark that was slowly turning his brother into a mass murderer. This was their life. This is their normal. Something truly terrifying to nearly anyone else was the monotonous day to day of their lives. Sam could tell she realized this from the way she recoiled after asking the question, and he quickly decides that it's best not to comment on it.
"Charlie, that didn't actually answer my question" he prodded instead.
"Oh, um. right! Its a fortune teller, or a cootie catcher, I guess? Some people call them that, but I always preferred Fortune Teller, it has much more…" she continued, waving her hand in a large arch with a loose wrist like a queen, "...allure or grandeur to it, or something"
Sam was slightly charmed by his quasi adopted, little sister and her enthusiasm for a single sheet of paper, and it was easy to see how she had been able to charm her "subjects" to become the Queen of Moondoor.
"And you were looking for your quest, Right?" he said, smiling at her. "What is it for, exactly?"
"Okay, so, you write down colors and numbers or whatever else, and then a person asks the fortune teller a question and picks different options. You move the cootie catcher to spell out their choice, and they pick a new option until they get to an answer. It's a kids' game, playground stuff."
"Ohh-kay. And why are you making one, exactly?"
"I'm afraid that is top secret, young padawan," Charlie said, patting him contritely on the hand.
Sam stared at her for a beat or two, taking the time to review the last few minutes in his head. Why Charlie was being so evasive about a slip of paper that little kids use to play games?
"I'm sorry, what? The reasons you are spending time to make a…."
"Fortune Teller" Charlie piped in.
"Right, a fortune teller. These reasons are top secret? You wanna elaborate why for me?"
Charlie went silent and seemed to be studying him, judging him to see if he was worthy of an answer. He was not ashamed to say that he was fidgeting, Charlie could be very scary when she wanted to be.
Resting her chin against the palm of her hand and leaning into Sam's space without breaking eye contact, Charlie tilted her head and asked, "What do you think of Cas?"
"What? What do you mean, 'What do I think of Cas?'" Sam asked, "Cas is family, same as you, same as any of us." Now Sam was really confused. Why would Charlie ask him what he thought about Cas, unless... "Wait! Do you not like Cas?" He looked to her, concern and unease covering his features. "I thought from all the hugging and the 'oh-my-god-we-are-gonna-be-besties' happening an hour ago that you were at least okay with him. If he said something, I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding." Sam paused and grimaced. "He...well...he doesn't always get social queues." He looked back at her to find that she had started flapping her hands as soon as he had finished his sentence.
"Oh, no! The dreamy angel and I are going to be very good amigos, I think. Best friends, even. He's great, really," she ended, seriously.
Sam let out a rather dramatic sigh of relief. "Okay, good. That's good. Not that you aren't more than entitled to decide your own feelings about who you want to be friends with, ya know? But Dean would have been pretty devastated, I think."
From the corner of his eye he could see that Charlie was slowly starting to smirk, and oh no, he recognized that smirk. Hell, Dean practically invented that smirk and always wore it right before he found a sucker to hustle in pool or a new scheme to get them some quick cash. That smirk was trouble, and Sam wasn't liking the implications of it at all. "Not that I wouldn't have been pretty upset myself," he pushed on, "we don't have much by way of family. This is pretty nearly it, nowadays."
Charlie just smiled back at him and yeah, this was getting really disconcerting.
"Dean, would be devastated, though? Why do you think that is?"
"What do you mean?" Sam asked, and dammit if this conversation wasn't making less and less sense to him as time went on.
"I mean, you just said yourself, you would be 'pretty upset', but Dean would be 'evastated.' You said that— devastated. "
"Well yeah, him and Cas, they have a lot of history."
"Yeah, I remember. You both seem to forget pretty often that I've read the books."
"Oh, god," Sam mumbled, rubbing his face with his hand.
"Trust me, there are some things that I don't like to think about either. There are things about you boys that I do not need to know about. Speaking of, I've always wanted to ask... Ruby, she was really hot, wasn't she? Like, flying Voyager near a sun with low shields, hot."
Now Sam was just all kinds of uncomfortable, but his silence seemed to be enough of an answer.
"Yeah, thats what I thought. What a waste." Charlie said, looking to Sam as she grabbed a fist full of markers out of her messenger bag. He had a sullen look on his face and was glaring hard at the table, looking anywhere but at the enthusiastic redhead. "Sam, look at me."
Sam slowly met her eyes with some trepidation.
"I know that look. That is your self loathing look. You didn't know little miss sexy hellspawn was a dead ringer for Khan. I'm not judging you for it though, it's long in the past. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up." Charlie was quickly realizing how badly she needed to change the topic when Sam looked at her and resembled a very sad cocker spaniel. Thinking on it, it was probably the hair.
"Listen, I really am sorry, let's go back to Cas and Dean, yeah?"
Sam nodded absently, but suddenly somehow struck by the configuration of Charlie's words, he understood exactly what she was getting at. "Oh, you mean, "Casdean?" he said, smothering a smile. He took great pride in somehow managing to surprise Charlie so utterly, if the look on her face was anything to go by.
"Come again, Moose-man?" she said with a raised brow.
"That's what you're talking about, right? Des-ti-el?" Sam thought that Charlie might hyperventilate with the laughter she was valiantly trying to hold back.
"Oh merciful Merlin! Where did you learn that word?"
"Um, some kids...A musical...Michigan...I'll explain it to you sometime. Does it matter?" he looked across the table a little suspiciously. "Wait a minute! Where did YOU learn that word? Actually, wait, nevermind, please don't tell me. I might not ever be able look you in the eye again. I googled it once, the books I mean. It's…." Sam swallowed dryly, "It's scary out there. But, that's what you were talking about, right? Them two?"
"Not before you answer my first question, Chewie."
Sam gave her a hurt look. Comparing him to Chewbacca bordered on offensive. He had glorious hair that he routinely conditioned, thank you very much.
"What do I think of Cas?" he questioned back, searchingly. "Cas is already like another brother, it wouldn't make much difference to me if that's what you're getting at. Sure, the guy has messed up a bit, or a lot, but that just makes him a Winchester. He hasn't done anything worse than me or Dean, and if he did, I think I could forgive him considering he pulled us both out of hell." Sam looked back to Charlie, "What you need to know is what Dean thinks of Cas, not me."
Charlie tapped a purple sharpie on the table in quick succession, adopting a contemplative look before saying, "I think it's pretty obvious from the awkward patting, how Dean feels about Cas."
"I'm not going to argue the point, but is patting inherently sexual, now?" Sam sparred back, "I hadn't heard," He was amused by whatever type of womanly intuition or subhuman psychic powers Charlie possessed that allowed her tosee longing glances inside of hurried slaps on the back.
"Ha-ha, very funny. Listen, Dean's a Randy Savage-Macho Man, kind of guy, right?"
Sam let out a bout of laughter now, unable to suppress the thought of Dean in a horrible one piece wrestling costume, and yuck, better not think of that ever again lest he need to ask Cas to see his true form and burn out his eyes. "Yeah, I guess, what's your point?"
"My point is that even though Dean has this whole rugged lumberjack thing going on, he's still comfortable with people he cares about. He isn't scared to talk to us, and he hugs us more often than he would ever admit to. But when it comes to Cas, he has these scarce moments of 'I need you' and then the rest is just awkward patting? C'mon."
Sam wasn't sure if he was supposed to be contributing to the conversation or not, but he was too busy trying to reason out exactly what it was that Charlie was saying to care.
"Listen Sam, there's no way that he doesn't care about Cas as much as he cares about us. I mean, he literally had the dude's handprint on his skin. So what's the deal with the awkward patting, unless it's to avoid getting too close to him?"
Okay, yeah, that actually sounded a lot like Dean, now that Sam thought about it. Charlie was intensely terrifying, and not for the first time, hell, not even for the fifteenth time, Sam thanked whoever still actually gave a shit that Charlie had found her way into their little makeshift family.
"Okay, so can I ask now? What is the fortune teller thing for?"
This is step one in my master plan. Operation Destiel if you will.
"And, how does that work exactly?"
"Simple. I tell Cas that the fortune teller will tell him about his future; in this case, love life, and watch as he gets all super awkward around Dean until one of them explodes from sexual tension."
"First of all, gross. Second, how are you going to make sure it tells him he is supposed to be with Dean?"
"Easy, I make one flap really generic and when it's my turn I make sure I pick that one, and under the rest I put stuff that sounds like it's about Dean."
"And why is he going to believe a fortune given to him by a sheet of paper?"
"You're missing the point. He only needs to think about it enough to turn him into an awkward little caterpillar."
"So what are you going to put on the paper?"
"How about, 'your beloved's eyes will be the color of fresh pickled toad'?"
"That sounds horrible."
"It worked for Ginny Weasley," Charlie added depressingly. "Okay, how about, 'Your beloved will be dusted with freckles like stardust'? She looked pointedly at Sam, waiting for an answer.
"Everything you're saying is creeping me out, but that's much better than the thing you said about frogs" Sam nodded.
"Awesome, so are you going to join my special ops team or what?" she asked, writing very carefully on the sheet of paper.
"Alright, I'm in. Whatever makes the staring stop" Sam sighed.
"Hell yes, now hand me another sharpie, Gigantor."
A few minutes later, Dean and Cas shuffled back into the room with a stack of paper plates for their pizza.
"Hey Castiel, sit next to me!" Charlie said, tugging on the angels arm.
"Um, yes, of course Charlie." Cas sat next to her, a little stiff, but with a smile on his face.
Charlie moved her fingers back and forth in the paper fortune teller, and if Sam didn't know she was purposely trying to draw Cas' attention to it, he would have said that it was a nervous tick.
"What is this contraption? Are your fingers stuck?" Cas asked, studying the fortune teller intently.
Charlie caught Sam's eye across the table."Well, you see Cas, I can tell you your future."
End.