Dean regretted bringing Charlie to the pet store the second they walked through the door. He'd thought that bringing Cas would be difficult; he really should have expected that Charlie - all manic energy and squeals of "Dean, they have bunnies! Real bunnies! " in a tone equivalent to the manifestation of all-caps that he had to nix a second later - would be equally exasperating.

Idiot that he was, he hadn't made that connection and had gotten himself stuck repeating, "No, no bunnies." every two seconds on repeat instead. ("Dean, don't be such a downer; look at the bunnies!")

Eventually, he managed to get her to focus on finding the chew toy section - he may or may not have decided to take on the monumental task of getting her to focus on two other shopping list items before they left, and he was well on his way to regretting it. - but the eye roll she gave him was hardly a great start to their expedition. And that was before she started muttering "Chew toys, chew toys…" under her breath while speedwalking past the aisles.

"Clerk said aisle six, you kno-"

"Aisle, smaisle. We're going to chew toys, Dean-" Was that glare really necessary? He was just following instructions. "Not 'aisle six.'" He waited a few seconds before following her, and, by then, she was already exclaiming, "Look! Chew toys!"

Dean looked up at the overhead aisle marker before following. "Good job, Charlie. Real nice finding the chew toys from aisle six… in… aisle six. What a greatly unexpected development. Who'd have guessed?"

She either didn't either get or pointedly ignored the sarcasm. "I know. I'm just so clever." Two seconds of looking at the chew toys yielded, "We can't get her anything with rope..." She widened her eyes and shook her head as one, adding, "Trauma."

"I'm pretty sure she's never even seen a rope."

Her expression rebuked him for that particular statement. "You don't know what she's been through, Dean. Cows don't like rope, simple as that. Rodeos are cruel!"

And… well… clearly she and Cas had gone to the same etiquette lessons because they had the same expression against which he really, really couldn't fight back, so… "Fine. No rope." Which was made a lot harder by the fact that every single toy in the aisle was made of rope.

Of course, giving her that one concession had the rough equivalent impact of inviting a vampire into a home and she went rushing around the corner half-shouting, "Aisle seven!" On the one hand, at least she'd found non-rope chew toys. On the other, "It's a cow! How cute! And…" She bobbed her head. "Fitting."

Dean blinked. "Yes, because she won't be at all traumatized by eating a fellow cow." She shrugged. "That's cannibalism, Char."

"Should we go to a maternity store, too? A stroller for walks on the town… A crib-"

"Charlie, no . Chew toys and treats; that's it."

"Since when are we getting treats, Dean?" She grinned (and he still didn't like the expression it held). "Alright, softy, we'll get your cow some treats, too. What's she eat?"

He glared, but… well, he knew full-well that he wouldn't be winning any arguments, so he moved on. "Uh… I mean, she ate scarves for a bit-" She opened her mouth, but he couldn't deal with that either. "Don't ask." Thank goodness she dropped it. "She usually drinks milk, but I got her to start eating hay after Cas left this morning."

She smiled again, and… was that an aww? It was, and was followed by, "Caring cow father."

"Shut it. Necessity, meet invention."

"Necessity is the mother of invention, if you recall. Or, in this case… Fathers. And cow."

Dean was making a practice of yielding on unwinnable arguments. "Anyway … Chew toys first."

"Right, okay…" She reached down, yanking up a small blur of orange fuzz. "What about a fox?"

Dean must have been distracted by the chew toys because he somehow ended up mumbling, "Cows're vegetarian."

She frowned, but followed through on dropping the toy and picking up another. "What about this one? It's a… tire? Or something?"

"That's a dog toy. And a cow shouldn't be eating rubber. I don't think."

She dropped the toy back down, hands tossed up in frustration. "They're all dog toys, Dean. But okay… then what do you think we should get?"

"Nah, there's other ones somewhere…" Dean was still distracted by the merchandise. He had to be because he really, really didn't want to think about how he knew tha-

"Oh, really? How do you know?"

"Uh…" Was there any way she would drop that? Probably not. Luckily, he was still staring at the chew toys and thus distracted enough to answer it without an issue. "Sammy wanted a rabbit for a bit. Helped him research and there should be…" And there they were (a discovery to which he absolutely didn't react with a guffaw): "Hay-based toys!" And carrots are vegetables, too." He tossed it at her (totally not grinning). "There ya go."

"Nice." She nodded, snagging a few more - oh, he'd regret that once he got the bill, but screw it - and dumping them into the cart. "Very good paternal choice, Dean."

"Shut it." On a completely unrelated note, "We need some more hay, too. Cas dumped it all out on my floor so th' cow's literally surrounded in hay. I'm surprised she hasn't suffocated yet."

It said something that she didn't look at all surprised and instead merely nodded and added, "Does the cow have a name?"

"Uh… yeah. Cas named her." But don't ask about i-

"You gonna tell me what it is?"

No? Somehow, he doubted that would fly. Maybe if she can't hear it … He mumbled out, "Smtha" under his breath.

As if she'd ever let it go. "What?"

"Samantha, okay?" (He did not steer around the corner a little more harshly than was needed. The cart nearly tipped over for a different reason… stupid faulty wheel.)

Somehow, he just knew that knowing smirk would make an appearance. "Sam… of course. That's sweet."

Dean didn't cough and hastily brush past that particular topic of conversation; he just had a tickle in his throat because of his hay fever. "Shut it." He grabbed the hay — should four packages be enough? Better go with five, just to be safe — and dumped it into the basket with a rustling thump. All that left was… "The hell kinda treat does a cow need?"

She shrugged. "Ice cream?"

"No, Charlie."

"Cows drink milk."

"No, Charlie."

"It's basically milk."

Dean didn't really care about the cow, but that didn't stop something like horror from slipping into his tone. "And sugar? And chocolate, and-"

"Yeah, you're not protective of her at all." She raised her hands in reluctant surrender at his glare, wisely moving on. "Some don't have chocolate, you know. Maybe something more natural… What flavor do you think she would like? Vanilla?"

"None. She's not eating no damn ice cream."

Charlie… ignored him. "Strawberry?"

"No." But, that being said, the display stretching across one of the aisle caps caught his attention and, "Is it cannibalism for a cow to eat animal crackers?"

He'd never thought that Charlie of all people would ever look at him like he was crazy, but there she was, blinking at him. "They're... they're not real animals, Dean."

"Yeah, I know, I know, but…" He was rambling, wasn't he? Yeah, definitely rambling. Be quiet, Dean. "Shut it."

And then she had the audacity to add in another smirk. "You seem to say that a lot."

To spite her, he very pointedly didn't say it again. Instead, he reached out, snagged a pack of organic, whole-wheat animal crackers, and dumped them into the cart. "You do realize I can not take you to see Sam-the-baby-cow, right?"

There was the outrage he was going for. "Why not?!"

"Just saying…" He grinned the cheekiest grin he could manage and started pushing their supply-laden cart towards check-out. "Shut it."

"But, why would you deprive me of a baby cow?"

"Look, Charlie, I'm taking care of a cow, not adopting a pet. Cas' got that handled for the both of us; she's his cow."

She was quickly using up her eye-roll quota, he'd decided. She apparently decided that she still had plenty of room and promptly rolled her eyes. Again. "You know you care, Dean."

"You've no-" His brain - idiotic thing - whispered proof. "-reason to think that."

"Dean." Another eye roll and, really, he should impose a quota. "You bought her organic animal crackers. And a from-the-earth toy that she won't choke on." He opened his mouth to argue, but, "We both know it's true." And then she promptly snatched the cart from his hands, pushed it the rest of the way into the check-out line, and started dumping packages of hay out in front of a very flustered cashier.

Dean definitely did not stutter out a series of consonants - it was (not) the vocal approximation of askjfsl pronounced too-quickly and all at once in the middle of a pet supply store - and managed a very eloquent, "Shut it."

"Broken record, Mr. Winchester." She grinned, grabbing his wallet from his pocket and near-throwing a credit card at the clerk. "Methinks the lady doth protest too much."

To which, of course, Dean decided to be very original… "Shut it."