I'm so excited for the reviews, followers, and favorites I've gotten so far! Please continue to give me response on what you think nothing makes me happier! I would love to get feedback from any non-equestrian readers on what you think about the horse aspects and if they're too much too much to wade through. Also would you prefer more of an explanation worked into the writing or is the glossary at the end just fine? Constructive criticism if you have any is great too; if there is any way I can make this fic better I would love to know! Same warnings apply as always I hope you enjoy! Please Review!
Chapter Three – African Daisies
The pair got out of the car and headed into the store, the tinkling of bells above the door announcing their arrival. Harvell's Feed and Supply was a rather homely looking everything was wood with a distinctly country feel to it. The walls were lined with boxes of muck boots, pitch forks, shovels, and colorful nylon halters. Bags of horse feed were stacked in neat rows in the middle in front of shelves that held tubs of supplements and everyday medical supplies for the horses. Dean glanced behind him to check that Castiel was there, he was, a look of concentration on his face as he looked around the store.
"Dean my man!" Dean looked up to see Ash coming out of the back a big grin on his face, a worn baseball cap over his mullet. Ash walked up and grabbed Dean's hand pulling him into a hug slapping him on the back. "Who's this?" he asked looking at Castiel.
"Castiel Novak." The dark haired man replied extending his hand, Ash did the same as he had to Dean pulling him into a hug. His eyes widened and he stiffened a look of utter confusion on his face, Dean found himself smirking at the awkwardness of it.
"I'm Ash." He said to Castiel before turning and calling into the back of the store, "Ellen! Dean Winchester's here!" the woman walked up front and smiled at the group giving Dean a hug before saying a hello to Castiel who nodded in return staring at her for a second before replying.
"You're very dirty." He stated matter of fact-ly. Dean stiffened slowly turning his head to look over to Castiel, what? He thought making eye contact with Ash who seemed to have the same idea. Dean couldn't tell what Castiel was doing; he had said it so plainly, was he trying to flirt? Ellen just laughed.
"Yeah we have a garden section outside," she said holding up her dirt coated hands, "I was potting some flowers." Dean sighed in relief Ellen was almost thirty years older than him, and Castiel didn't look like he was much older than him if at all.
"You garden?" Castiel asked.
"Well this is a farm and garden supply store, I kind of have to." She said good naturedly.
"May I go look at your flowers?"
"Of course hon. Ash take him out there will ya?" Ash nodded, tapping Castiel on the shoulder and leading him to the fenced area outside. They watched them go Dean shaking his head slowly, when they had disappeared out the door Ellen turned.
"Now where on earth did you find him?" she laughed when the door closed.
"New stable hand. Dad got him off the internet."
"Well he certainly is a character."
"Yeah. He just got here today," Dean paused, "he's a little…odd." Ellen shrugged laughing.
"Well what can I do for you?" she asked, getting down to business.
"You remember Caesar? Lauren Harrison's horse? He's started losing weight since she's been riding more and we had to up his feed, we're running out faster than expected."
"Yeah, she gives him the High Performance from Southern States right?" she asked and Dean nodded, "How many bags you gonna need?"
"Might as well grab a few while we're here, five works." Ellen nodded going behind the counter and punching button at the cash register giving him his total. Dean pulled out his wallet paying in cash, Ellen pointed him to where the bags were, and he headed out into the garden section to find Castiel. The bags weren't terribly heavy, only fifty pounds each, but it would go faster with an extra pair of hands.
It had cooled down now that it was dark, the air smelled like soil, flowers, and hose water. The place was sporadically lit with fluorescent lights that cast shadows of the hanging flower baskets. He glanced around looking for Castiel or Ash, but couldn't see anyone. Frowning he started walking through the rows of flowers, trying to find him. The crickets hadn't died yet and were actually pretty loud, echoing off of the concrete wall behind him.
"Castiel?" he called out and the figure of a head popped up from behind some flowers from a few rows over and then ducked back down. Sighing Dean approached him and crouched down, he was looking at a flower in a clay pot, it was hard to tell in the lighting but it looked like it was yellow. "What'cha doin?" he asked after a few seconds of silence.
"I'm looking at this flower." Castiel replied not taking his eyes off of the plant.
"Really?"
"It's an African daisy. I used to have one in my room." He said the corners of his mouth turning up in the first smile Dean had seen on him since he'd gotten there.
"Cool," he replied, not really sure what else to say, "Well we should get going, I'm going to need your help getting the feed bags into the back of the truck." He started to walk only to find Castiel wasn't following him. He remained crouched by the flower looking up at Dean, who sighed again, "You can buy the damn flower." Castiel opened his mouth as if to say something, but shut it quickly, biting his lip. Right, Dean thought, he's probably broke. He strode over and grabbed the flower off of its stand, "You're paying me back for this." He grumbled heading back into the store, Castiel close behind.
Ellen looked up from the counter as they came back in, Dean setting the potted daisy on the counter. She raised her eyebrows, smiling at the annoyed look on Dean's face.
"This too?" she asked and Dean nodded handing the pot to Castiel once he had paid.
"Take it to the truck. Come back in and help carry out the bags after, Ellen will point out which ones." He told Cas who nodded walking out with his flower. Ellen hadn't stopped watching Dean, a smirk on her face. "What?" he growled.
"You bought him a flower?"
"He looked like he really wanted it." He mumbled. When Ellen's bemused expression didn't change he added, "He's paying me back later." She just nodded, placing the money into the cash register.
"You pretend to be such a hard ass Dean," she laughed, "but you're really just a big softy."
"Shut up." He glared, only making Ellen laugh harder. He turned and grabbed the first bag throwing it over his shoulder and walking out the door.
A few minutes later the bags had been loaded into the back and they were back on the road. Castiel was carefully holding his new plant in his lap and watching what he could see of the town in the dark. It was a pretty quiet trip home, the small town fading into country roads through farms and woods until the headlights illuminated the big wooden sign on the road, 'Winchester Stables est.1953' the place had belonged to Dean's grandfather and been passed on to John after he died. Dean turned up the gravel road and up to the house, killing the engine.
"Well, we're here." He said taking off his seat belt and reaching for the door.
"Dean." He paused, turning to look at Castiel, "Thank you….for the…flower."
"No problem. C'mon Dad probably has dinner ready by now."
"Shouldn't we get the feed into the barn?"
"Nah, it's not supposed to rain, we can get it in the morning." Castiel nodded and they got out of the truck. Dean headed up the steps, he was starving and could already smell what he thought might be meat loaf. Opening the door he realized that Castiel wasn't behind him. He looked around to see him by the truck still, flower in hand, dimly lit by the porch light. "You coming?" he called.
"I need to bring in some of my things, I only have a few boxed I won't be long." Castiel replied and Dean nodded heading inside to get his food.
Dinner was a quiet affair, mostly John asking Castiel questions while Dean swallowed plate after plate of food. He had just graduated from USC, a history major. After finding out that particular bit John started a lengthy conversation on the world war two and how it started. Dean had never really liked history; he didn't really see the point in discussing a bunch of old dead guys. It did strike him as odd that Castiel had been college educated but decided to get a job as a stable hand. I guess there aren't that many jobs you can do with a B.A. in history, he thought before excusing himself from the table, cleaning off his dishes and heading upstairs.
In his room he flopped down onto the bed, he lay there for a minute before deciding to call Sam. It rang for a long time, with each break his stomach jumped thinking Sam had picked up. After a while it went to voicemail. He hung up and threw the phone onto the bed it had been two weeks since the last time Sam had replied to one of his calls. He looked at the clock, it was eight thirty. He was pretty tired and needed to be up early the next morning. With a sigh he hauled himself out of bed, stripping on his way to the dresser letting the clothes fall to the floor with the false promise of 'I'll pick them up later'. He pulled on a pair of sweats and crawled back into bed, flicking off the light, and promptly fell asleep.
The alarm went off a five thirty and Dean jumped awake, for once he had gone to bed early and didn't have to drag himself out of the bed that morning. Turning off the alarm and flicking on the light he hopped up and went out into the hall. There was no light coming from under the door to Sam's room, so he guessed that Castiel hadn't woken up yet. He opened it quietly, greeted by the sound of the new stable hand's soft snores. It looked like he had started unpacking last night and gotten too tired, stacks of books were perched precariously on the desk and chairs, a couple of the dresser drawers were half open with clothes hanging out of them. The African Daisy was dimly silhouetted in the window next to a half empty glass of water. Castiel himself was sprawled across the bed, one leg out from underneath the covers an arm hanging over the edge.
"Castiel." Dean said quietly at first only eliciting a slight groan, "Castiel, get up." He said louder, this time he rolled over. Blinking heavily, he sat up turning on the light; apparently he only wore boxers to bed - not that Dean didn't most of the time - but he was still a bit surprised. Castiel turned and looked at him with squinted eyes, "Uh…dibs on the shower." Dean said quickly backing out of the room and into the hall heading for the bathroom. He turned on the water, letting it heat while he brushed is teeth. A few minutes later he stepped in, letting the hot water run over his shoulders. He was actually kind of looking forward to today; he would be able to work with all the horses that his dad wanted him to, and probably Cyrus too. It wouldn't take too long to feed, and Castiel was kind of weird, but he didn't look like an idiot, he couldn't fuck up mucking out stalls.
By six o'clock both had showered, dressed, and eaten. Outside everything was a dusky blue, the sun not quite rising yet, but getting close enough for there to be some sort of light as they walked towards the barn. Dean didn't bother to start out the day in work boots knowing he would be able to start hopping on horses pretty soon he had pulled on his tall boots over a pair of jeans. Castiel wore jeans as well, but had a pair of sneakers on. Turning on the lights to the barn Dean led him to the feed room.
"Alright I'll make the food, each of the buckets has the name of the horse it's going to on, the stalls all have nameplates so it shouldn't be too hard to find." Castiel nodded watching as Dean started scooping grain, "and if you ever have to do this alone, there's a chart right here." He said tapping a piece of paper on the wall before handing Castiel the first bucket. Feeding went surprisingly fast, it normally took him an hour to feed all three barns on the property as well as the horses that stayed in paddocks. It was only six forty five when they finished.
Back in the main barn Dean had dragged a wheel barrow into the aisle leaning a pitchfork against it.
"I'm going to teach you how to muck stalls and then I'll give you a list of things you need to do before the end of the day." Dean said walking over to one of the horses gesturing Castiel over. "This is Murphy," he said picking up the halter and placing it in Castiel's hand. Dean couldn't help but smile a little at the look on his face, as he looked at the halter. It wasn't all that complicated, but it wasn't too hard to tell that Castiel had no idea what he was doing. He looked up at Dean who took the halter back opening the stall door. "This," he said tugging on the circular part at the bottom "is where the nose goes through, and this," he said pulling at the top, "goes over the ears."
"Okay." Castiel said taking the halter back and standing in front of the horse holding the halter out.
"Stand on his left side." Dean corrected and Castiel adjusted himself, slipping the halter over Murphy's face.
"Now what?"
"Take that strap that's hanging on the opposite side of his face." He directed, "Now hook it the metal ring just above his cheek. Yeah, good." He said, and proceeded to show Castiel how to hold the lead rope adjusting his hands before having him lead the horse out of the stall. "Take him to one of the empty stalls down at the end would you?" Castiel nodded.
He was back in a minute, and Dean handed him a pitchfork. Ten minutes later Castiel had one clean stall and a whole list of chores as he watched Dean saunter out of the barn.
Wow what's this? I don't think I even need to put in a glossary for this chapter! Well I hope you all enjoyed and will review!