I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream

"So your taste buds are back to normal, right?" Charlie looks over her shoulder at Cas. "Now that you've got your real Grace back."

"Yes, if I choose to taste it, I can now." Castiel was looking curiously around the ice cream parlor.

"I'm still surprised that Dean has never given any to you, or that you didn't have any while you were human." She admitted, though she was glad that his Grace was all set. After all, there was no point to treating him if all he was going to taste was the molecules.

Her companion was silent, which wasn't unusual, but it seemed weighed down so she turned to look at him. Castiel looked uncomfortable and shuffled his feet a bit.

"While I was human," he paused and looked away, "I did not have enough money for excess expenditures."

Charlie stared at him as that sentence translated. In other words, he had been too poor. She could understand that as she had been there before. She gave him a small smile. "Well," he looked back up at her, "today's my treat!" Her smile widened as she felt the mood lift.

Cas returned her smile. "Thank you." With that, he lifted his eyes to the menu. He frowned. "What is the best choice?" His eyes were lit with a curious light as he glanced back over at her.

"Hmm." Charlie paused. After all, it was a tough decision. "As it's your first time, maybe we should stick to the basics: vanilla, chocolate, strawberry." She shrugged and looked at him. "Any of those sound appealing?"

"I like chocolate." He readily admitted. "But I have also tasted vanilla flavoring before and found it nice. Strawberries are also quite nice."

"In short, it's hard to choose." Charlie sighed. It should have occurred to her that the angel would take this seriously.

Cas doesn't respond, and when Charlie looks over at him, his head is tilted and he's squinting at the menu.

"What?" She asks, wondering what caught his attention.

Castiel opens his mouth then closes it. He opens it again, glancing from the menu to her and back. "Honey ice cream?"

She blinked. Charlie's not quite sure if that's a question or his selection. She looks at the menu herself and spots it. With a glance at the angel, she asks, "Is that what you want?"

Cas looks at the menu gravely. "Yes." He finally said.

"Alrighty." Charlie and Cas finally make their way to the counter where a bored looking teen is operating the cash register. Charlie finds that hard to believe, because who wouldn't want to work at an ice cream shop?

"What can I get you?" He asked monotonously.

Despite his attitude, Charlie gives him a smile. "A double scoop of honey for my friend and a double scoop of Funfetti cake for me."

"Okay." The scooper quickly makes up the cones and hands them over. He rings them up and before long, Charlie and Cas are outside in the warm sunlight at a park across the street, clutching their ice cream cones and several napkins.

Charlie quickly digs in, but she keeps her eyes on Castiel as he studies it for a moment. Then, he takes a tentative lick.

His eyes widened. "This is good." He says softly, reverently.

Charlie laughed. "Yeah, it certainly is. Can you see why people scream for it now?" Castiel paused and stared at her for a moment. "You might want to eat that before it melts," she prodded gently, noticing that there was a stream of melted ice cream already running down the side of the cone.

Cas looked down and noticed. Quickly, he began licking and biting his ice cream, Charlie following his lead. It didn't take long before the ice cream was gone, hands were wiped, and there wasn't a trace of their treat anywhere.

"What did you mean people scream for it?" Cas asked, looking worried. "Is it some kind of torture?"

Charlie suppressed the urge to laugh. "It's just an old saying. It goes, 'You scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream.'" She wrinkled her nose a bit. "It more of the scream in an excited way than screaming in pain."

"Oh." Cas said, looking mildly embarrassed again. "We should get more sometime."

"Totally!" Charlie agreed. They began to walk away from the shop when Cas stopped and looked back. "What is it?" She turned and followed his gaze back to the parlor.

"I noticed that they also sold tubs of their ice cream." Castiel noted. At Charlie's nod confirming this, he continued, "Do you think that Dean would like their apple pie ice cream?"

The smile grew on her face once more. "I like the way you think." Charlie said, as the two headed back to get some ice cream for their friends.


AN: The hardest part was deciding what ice cream to give them. I was thinking about giving Cas a basic flavor when I wondered if there was honey ice cream (because of how he used to follow the bees). There is, so he got that. I wanted to give Charlie something fun and unusual and finally decided to give her Funfetti, which I've seen before. It was a choice between that and Superman or Blue Moon. Anyway, as it is summer, it is the time of ice cream. Go forth and have some!