CHAPTER 10: Shopping Spree
I think it's about time to bring some humor back in this now. and sorry this took so long to do, I've been very busy lately these past few weeks.
Dean awakens with a groan, only to block the sunlight that beamed brightly on him. He suddenly came to realization that he was in bed, the last thing he remembered was passing out in the chair after Gabriel's attempt to heal Castiel. Dean sits up quickly, he worried for his angel, not knowing if was okay or not. He then wished he'd hadn't gotten up so fast for the dizziness almost made him vomit, not to mention he felt so damn hungry for some reason.
" You're awake..." Dean looks over to the said angel seated next to the bed. " How are you feeling?"
" ..." Dean was speechless for a moment, seeing Cas in good health; not a scar left behind from those awful wounds he had received from Zachariah. Dean was overwhelmed and relieved that the angel was alright. " aching everywhere... and hungry." he replies. Cas smiles warmly, rising to his feet.
" I believe Bobby has prepared breakfast for us... Shall we head down?"
Dean was about to speak but was interrupted by the growl of his stomach. Castiel chuckles. " Hell yeah I'm starving... but first..." Dean grabs Cas's coat and pulls him onto the mattress, the angel let's out a laugh, landing on top of his hunter. Dean held his lover in a strong embrace, his free hand brushed through Cas's messy hair. He looked deeply into the angel's orbs, something seemed a little different about them, they looked more alive, more... human. Dean pushed that aside for a later thing to discuss. " How long was I out?"
" Three days."
" ...Damn..." Dean chuckled.
" You were in a weakened state after Gabriel recovered me... I've watched over you since." Cas lays his head at the crook of Dean's neck. Dean smiled, he some how knew Cas would watch him, he always does.
" Thanks Cas... and I'm glad you're okay." Dean holds him more passionately. Then his stomach growled again and Dean can hear Cas's muffled giggles. " Let's go eat." Both leave the comfort of the bed and head downstairs. As they drew closer to the kitchen, they can overhear an argument between Bobby, Sam and Gabriel. What was it this time? better not be something stupid, Dean thought. " What's going on in here?" All eyes drift to Dean. Sam clears his throat.
" Gabriel has come up with a suggestion that you, me and Cas take a break.. which I told him we have no time for it!" he shoots a glare to the archangel who raised his hands in defense.
" I'm just saying, you guys are getting overly stressed about my big cry baby brother Lucy and that you could at least use a few days off from it." Gabriel implies. Dean would agree with Gabriel but this was humanities existence at stake, if it were an ordinary thing like a ghost, shapeshifter or whatever else he'd go with it. But time is growing thin and plans had to be made to stop Lucifer.
" Sorry Gabriel, but I agree with Sam." Dean says.
Gabriel shakes his head, sighing at their decision. " What if I were to say that I know how to help you with Lucifer?"
" What do you mean Gabriel?" Castiel asks.
" We can lock him back into his cage... with the rings of the horsemen." everyone narrowed their brows to him.
" You couldn't give us this information sooner, ya idjit?" Bobby raises his voice.
" You guys never asked." Bobby smacks the back of Gabriel's head. " OW!... look, Bobby and I will try to locate Pestilence's and Death's ring while you three take a break." Sam and Dean glance at one another, thinking. " Don't make me force you..." he then gestured by getting ready to snap his finger.
" Whoa, whoa! fine we'll go... sorry Bobby." Dean and Sam headed up to their rooms to pack, hell they both didn't want Gabriel zapping them to some made up crap like he did before. As Castiel waited for the brothers outside, Gabriel and Bobby continued to talk.
" What's the real reason you didn't tell us this?" Bobby asks after taking a gulp out his cup of whiskey.
Gabriel hesitated at first, looking away for a moment. " At first I didn't care which side won, that I just wanted the fight between my brothers to stop... but Dean and Sam said I was being a selfish idiot and I needed to pick a side." he leans against the counter. " I may love my brothers but I love humans more." Gabriel glances out the window, watching Castiel stroll back and forth patiently on the porch. " ... I thank Cas for that, he chose Dean over everything else, even his own existence..." this was the second time for the archangel to admit his feelings, first to Sam and now to Bobby, who found it strange but he understood. Bobby follows Gabriel's gaze to Cas and sighs.
" You care about him don't you?"
Gabriel faces the elder hunter with a weak smile. " I do... I just want him to be in good hands and out of danger for a while... After seeing what Zachariah done to him, and Lucifer about to kill him... I snapped..."
Bobby smiles and shakes his head. " You're kinda like Dean, you'd do anything to protect Cas."
The Winchesters come down with their duffels, Gabriel inspected their bags to be sure they weren't planning on hunting on their break. He then searches the brothers for hidden weapons, he found the demon knife on Dean. " No weapons... this is supposed to be a vacation."
" It's for a ' just in case' thing Gabriel, don't get your panties in a twist." Dean snatches the knife back.
" Fine... well you guys have fun." Gabriel shoos them to leave, he then snapped his finger and him and Bobby vanished.
... on the road ...
" So... where exactly should we go for our so called vacation Dean?" Sam asks from the back seat.
" No damn clue..." Dean replies with a sigh. In his hunting life there's no such thing as a vacation, maybe a day or two off slaying monsters, but a week? very rare.
Sam leans back, burying his hands in his pockets and stared out his window. His brows narrowed, looking down to his right pocket, then pulled out an envelope. " How did this get in there?"
" What?" Dean questions. Sam passes the envelope to Cas to show Dean.
Castiel opens it, taking out a piece of paper and a pamphlet. " Gabriel must've put it in your pocket... he left a note." Cas reads it aloud. " hey guys heres a resort I think you will find interesting, have fun and get a good rest- your friend Gabriel... p.s- I've reserved a house for you for the week." Castiel ganders at the booklet. " Corolla Light, a resort village..." he continued reading. " They have fairly interesting activities there... crabbing, volleyball, basketball, bingo and movies under the stars... what is bingo?" Hell Sam and Cas seemed interested in going now, but they needed to get Dean's opinion in this.
" We should go Dean, I mean Gabriel was generous enough to get us the house... It's by the beach, has its own pool-"
" I'm not driving all the way to North Carolina, Sam..."
" Even if I said that it also has its own jacuzzi you wouldn't go?" Sam made sure to prolong jacuzzi, he knew how much his brother loved hot tubs.
"... Okay we're going... but first we need to buy extra clothes for Cas." Cas sloped his head questioningly to Dean. " You can't wear the same clothes for a week, people might think you have hygiene problems, or that you're homeless... I know a place in town that sells nice clothes and bathing suits."
" Where are we gonna get the money for that?" Sam implies.
" Yeah... Gabriel slipped money in my pocket." Dean replies with a smirk.
...
" Walmart?... are you serious?" Sam complains, pushing the cart as they made their way towards the mall.
" Is there a problem coming here?" Castiel asks with curiosity.
" Sam and I don't usually go to malls... crowds aren't really our thing." Dean explains as they enter.
It didn't take long to find for them to find the clothing aisle. While Sam leaned against the wagon in boredom, he watched Dean search for shirts for the angel whom was busy trying to figure out how to put on the sandals Dean picked out for him. Sam moves to Cas and helps. " There, now walk and see how they feel." Castiel did as Sam told him, they felt very different than Jimmy's dress shoes but found the sandals to be more comfortable. " they fit?" Sam asks and Cas nods. " okay... you stay here with Dean, I'll find a pair of sneakers for you." Sam trails off. Castiel peers to his lover, who still fumbled through shirts.
" What size are you?" Dean asked, eyes glancing to him.
Cas only sloped his head in confusion. " Size?"
Dean chuckled lightly and walks up to his angel. " lean your head forward." Cas does as he asks, Dean looks at the tag on the shirt. " Medium.. good, I found plenty you might like." Dean moves back and goes through the cart, he pulls out a beige shirt. Dean turns it to show Cas. " how about this?" Castiel observed the perfectly designed portrait of the beach, the water looked so realistic; it felt as if he was there, and in old english font ' Life In Paradise' written across the top in black.
" I like it... what else have you picked out?" Cas digs into the pile of shirts to choose what he found suitable, Dean smiled; watching Castiel like this, it made Dean want to do this more with him in the future. His smile slowly faded as he drifted into thought. What would happen when they face Lucifer? How exactly are they supposed to get him into the hole? it's not like you can just throw a bone in there and say fetch. Who will die in the fight? so much was going through Dean's mind he hadn't noticed Cas talking to him. Dean snaps himself back to reality, right now he needed to push away these annoying questions. If he is gonna die fighting Lucifer, he wanted to spend his final days with the ones he loved. " This one looks pleasant, don't you think?" Cas hovers a black shirt before Dean, showing it's golden cross with wings spread out, reaching shoulder to shoulder.
" Looks like it was made for you, Cas." Dean implies. He gazes into the cart raising a brow, where'd all the other 20 or so shirts he put in there. Then realized Cas had tossed them all over the floor, the guy may be an angel but Dean just discovered Cas is picky. " Um babe?... don't throw them on the floor, we don't want to get in trouble."
Castiel glances his baby blues at him in a sorry way. " My apologies." Cas begins picking them up.
" It's okay." he chuckles, kneeling to help out. " You don't like these right? I'll put them back on the racks." Castiel quickly grabbed one off the pile in Dean's arms.
" Wait, I like this one too." it was one pink shirt with an adorable photo a of kitten tilting its head, Dean had picked it out because it really suited Cas's easily confused personality. Cas added it to his favorites in the cart. Dean can picture the angel wearing it now and seeing his head sloped like the kittens, Dean smiled widely; that be the cutest thing ever to see for real.
Dean just plops the unwanted shirts on top of the rack. " There we go... next is shorts." the two move down a few aisles, passing Sam. " Sammy, we'll be on aisle 7.." Sam gestures back with a nod, grabbing the sneakers and sandals he chose for Cas, Dean and himself, then followed the two. Dean first picked pairs for himself and Sam and tossed them into the cart, then he went up to Cas once more to check his size. After he gathered three or four pairs, they were off to pay up.
On line waiting for their turn, Sam occupied himself reading the pamphlet to their vacation. " Dean, you do know we'll need to head to a stop and shop next."
" Right..." he replies, taking a few steps forward. " We should've went on line 11." the line they chose was taking too long and there were people behind them.
" What is this stop and shop you speak of Sam?" always the curious one Castiel is.
Sam simply smiled to his future brother-in-law. " It's a food market, we need things to eat while we're there. It can get expensive eating out all the time."
" But why name it stop and shop? why not just Food Market?"
"... I have no clue." Sam replied.
" Well that's a first." Dean chuckled.
Sam shoots a glare at his brother. " Shut up Dean..."
...
After getting the clothing they needed and about an hour of getting food and snacks for the trip, they were on the road to North Carolina. Castiel sat quietly, watching the cars they passed, enjoying the fresh air beat on him through his window. Dean was listening to his ACDC collection, bobbing his head to the beat of Highway To Hell and taking a sip from the watermelon slushy he got for himself. Occasionally Cas stole a few sips but Dean didn't mind as long as he didn't drink it all. As for Sam... well.
" I find it unfair that I'm in the back with all the food crushing against me... I told you we should've taken Bobby's van." Sam complained, a couple of bags laid across his lap.
" I'm not driving in a van to feel like a soccer mom... I choose to go on vacation in style." Sam rolled his eyes to Dean's reply.
" Fine... but can you at least change the song?"
"... Like what? I got Bon Jovi, Kansas-"
" None of those."
" Then what? would you like to listen to I'm a barbie girl?" Dean teased.
" Ha... ha Dean, very funny."
" This is going to be a long trip." Castiel thought.
...
TBC
again sorry it took long for me to write this.