Cas was standing in the doorway to Dean's bedroom and watching the cow snuffling in its sleep when the creak of their screen front door pulled his attention away, followed by, "Hey, Cas, I'm home."
He eased the door shut and walked out into the living room, fiddling with the discomfitingly undone tie and untucked shirt and watching as Dean eased a handful of bags through the door, which closed with a bang. "Hello, Dean."
Dean set the bags on the floor, running his hand through his hair as he straightened, turning to look towards where Cas stood, still fiddling with his too-loose collar. "Uh…" He looked from Cas to the bags and back again, blinking in a familiarly flustered way. "I, uh…" Another pause spent staring at the bags before looking towards Cas, sniffing once, and settling on, "I got the hay."
Cas nodded once, wincing as a droplet of water slid off his unpleasantly damp hair and part of the way down his neck. "Did you get the pie?"
"Uh…" He blinked, refocusing. "Yeah, Cas, I got the pie." He turned, kneeling to rifle through one of the bags and coughing - or clearing his throat, but Cas couldn't tell which - in the process.
"Are you okay, Dean?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." He gestured slightly half-heartedly at the bags. "Hay. Allergies and shit. Probably."
It still didn't make any sense: why the hell do cows need hay? They eat mattresses just fine. And scarves. And, apparently, milk. "Dean, why did you get hay? I thought you said cows need milk."
He nodded, that familiar exaggerated double-nod that preceded an explanation for something Cas probably should already know. "They do. But…" He shook his head, shrugging and tossing his hands casually into the air. "I dunno, Cas, it's digestion or some shit… literally."
"Well. Cow has been sleeping after it talked…"
Dean nodded. "Uh… good?"
"It must have taken energy to talk to your dad earlier."
"Look, man, it didn't-" Cas raised an eyebrow, and it was enough to derail the utterly - udderly? - ridiculous idea that cows didn't speak. "Okay, never mind. We gotta give it a name, Cas. Cow ain't cutting it."
"Do we even know if it's a…" He broke off, fumbling for something to say that would actually make sense, completely at a loss for what to say.
"A bull or a heifer?" Cas nodded. "Uh… no. We could… check?"
"How do we check, Dean?"
He shrugged. "Uh… Hell, I dunno, Cas, we… look?"
"I've been looking at Cow all day. What do you mean?"
"No, not like that…" He paused, gesturing slightly feebly towards his room with a harsh swallow in the interim. "Under it. Its junk."
"Oh." Cas nodded. "How can we tell the difference?"
Dean blinked. "Uh… If it's a chick, it'll have udders. I think. And, I mean, a bull's a bull."
"How do we get at it? Cow's kinda energetic when it's not sleeping. Waking it up to go down and look at its 'junk' seems hard."
He didn't even get out the words fully before Dean devolved into a fit of coughing that left him turning around and coughing into his fist… but it must have been because of the air quotes he always said weren't needed. Or the hay fever. "Okay, Cas, uh… I'm gonna… go in there and deal with this." Cas moved forward to offer assistance, but Dean interrupted him with a hasty, "Alone!" A pause. "I mean… Just… stay here." He nodded once - oddly jerkily, Cas thought - before walking towards the door, easing it open, and stepping over the baby gate Cas had put up the day before.
When he walked out again a few minutes later, he looked vaguely traumatized. "Dean?" He eased the door shut slowly, both hands resting against the wood once it was fully closed as if ensuring it stayed shut. "Are you already finished?" A nod. "Oh. I thought that would last longer."
Dean's eyes closed and he slumped forward, head resting against the wood paneling with a somewhat resounding thump. "Uh, yeah, Cas. Cow's a she."
"So… she had udders?"
"Uh… yeah, Cas. That's… that's what that means."
Cas couldn't help smiling at the memory of her earlier cleverness. "Well… she's a smart girl. She talks so early for her age."
It took a minute for Dean to do more than bite his lip and huff out a slightly quiet chuckle. "She…" A sigh as he straightened, pushing off from the door and walking into the living room. "She isn't talking, Cas."
"Of course not; she's asleep. She doesn't talk in her sleep, Dean."
He shook his head. "She doesn't talk ever, Cas. She's a cow."
"We've been over this, Dean. Cow talked to your father earlier."
"Uh…" Dean shook his head, raising his hands in a vaguely exhausted moving on gesture. "We should give her a name."
"Okay." Cas paused, thinking for a moment. "What about Cow?"
"I mean… Cow is a species." Cas nodded, not getting the point. "It's not a name. Maybe something a bit more… personal?" Cas didn't even bother pretending at understanding, shaking his head. What's the point? Cow's a perfectly suitable name. She's a cow. "She's your pet? Maybe a more… pet-like name?"
"She's smart. She needs a smart name."
"Yeah, but… We can't just call her Cow. I mean, we don't call smart people by our species name." Dean smiled softly - the familiar kind of smile, the one that meant Sammy - and added, "Hell, smart, shaggy, and clumsy sounds like Sammy, but we sure didn't call him Human."
He fell quiet for a second, and Cas waited. (He'd figured out that five to ten seconds was the most appropriate duration of pause needed for Sammy-remembrance-moments.) He still didn't get why Cow wasn't a good name, but he'd go along with it, so, "Samantha, then? Samantha is a smart name." Cas offered up a proud smile; it was a good name.
Dean turned away - the hay fever must have been acting up again because there wasn't really much other explanation for the glimmer of something liquid in his eyes - nodding as he did. It took him a minute and another throat-clearing before he managed a slightly shaky, "Yeah, Cas, that'd work."
"Are you sure you're okay, Dean?"
He nodded, which Cas could only see from behind as he still hadn't turned back around. "Allergies, Cas. I'm fine."
"Right." He nodded, waiting for a second. "Does pie help allergies?"
"Uh… " He laughed - sounding oddly congested… Cas was starting to get worried about these "allergies" - and bobbed his head again. "Sure doesn't hurt."
"Okay, then. Pie it is." He moved towards the kitchen to cut it and only then realized that he didn't actually have the pie. "Where is it?" Dean reached down, pulling out a container of cherry pie and thrusting it towards him. "Thanks."
Their kitchen was surprisingly clean - honestly, if Cas were the only one there, it would have devolved into a mess in mere minutes, but Dean was (no matter how much he protested it) a neat freak and kept it near-obsessively clean - so it was a matter of moments to find a knife and dish out a few pieces of cherry pie.
Dean had turned back to the bags and yanked out a few plastic-wrapped packages of dried green grass, so Cas merely set one of the plates on the ground by him before heading for Dean's bedroom - well, Samantha's (even if Cow was a perfectly lovely name) room, apparently - with the smallest piece.
Of course Dean knew where he was going and why without even looking. "Cas, she shouldn't eat pie."
"Why not? We eat pie, and it's her big day, so she deserves pie!"
Dean turned his head, looking towards Cas with a bemused expression. "Uh… What do you mean, her big day?"
"She talked, Dean. She said her first words and she got her name. It's a big day."
"She didn't-" He broke off with a sigh, hanging his head over the bags in defeat (as he finally realized that Cas was right and she had talked. "Leaving that aside, it's still probably not healthy for her. Cows can't eat pie."
"She ate your scarf, Dean. And your mattress. Why not pie?"
"Cas, it's not healthy for her to eat cloth either. They eat milk and grass and shit like that." He shrugged. "I think. Not pie."
"What makes you the cow expert, Dean?"
"I… may have Googled it while I was at the store."
And? "What makes Google the cow expert?"
"I mean… it was a scientific journal, Cas. So… science?"
And? "What makes science the cow expert?"
Dean opened his mouth to speak, but he clearly registered the merit of Cas' argument because he didn't finish it. Then he shook his head and stood, heading towards the kitchen and muttering a "Where's the beer?" under his breath as he went.
"It's in the kitchen."
The fridge opened and closed, the seal hissing gently as it broke and reformed. "Yeah, I… I got that, Cas." He wandered out through the door, popping off the bottle cap with a swipe of his ring before rubbing at his eyes. "It's too damn early for this."
The bags under Dean's eyes were even more concerning than his sudden hay allergies. "You look tired, Dean."
His "Nah, I'm fine." was swallowed up by the dark brown of his beer bottle.
Well, the best solution Cas had to offer was, "Pie?"
