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“What are you drawing, baby girl?” Dean asked and sat down in the chair next to his daughter. They were in the kitchen where Dean had just brewed up some fresh coffee, knowing that Cas would be home soon and probably thirsting for a cup of Dean's famous 'cure for the brain-dead'. A huge collection of crayons was scattered over the kitchen table and Dean had to push aside a whole pile of markers to find space for his own mug. After taking in the various pieces of paper covered in scribbles and angrily crossed out creations, he looked back at his little one whose eyes were still glued to her latest work of art. Indeed, her nose almost touched the paper.
Dean leaned in closer, trying to sneak a peek but Mia covered it with her arms and gave him a withering look. “No, Daddy!”
“But I wanna see.” Dean replied with an attempt at puppy eyes, pouting a little. The five-year-old only rolled her eyes theatrically, making Dean wonder once again where she'd learned this particular gesture. Damn, he knew he shouldn't have let Rowena take her to the Zoo that one time!
“It's not done yet.” Mia explained, pulling her drawing away from her Dad so his sight was blocked by her narrow back and shoulders.
“Can I see when it's done?”
“Yeah.”
“I'll take you up on that one.” Raising a brow at his bossy little one, Dean shrugged to himself and got up to get his notes and his Dad's diary to work out some information about this new case in Alberta, Virginia, where a young woman had been found with her lungs missing but no visible external trauma. Sam had called him that afternoon, sounding at loss for the first time in a long time, edgy enough to hang up on his brother when the older lessoned him promptly for not taking their father's diary with him. One could only find so much literature on monsters in a small town library. “You're such a Dad!” he had hissed before the line went dead just to call again one minute later, sounding a little guilty. “Give Mia a kiss from me and tell her I did not forget about our fun day this weekend. Bye!”
When Dean returned to the kitchen table with a stack of papers and books he tidied a tiny corner of the surface to put his stuff on, checking on his daughter out of the corner of his eyes. Mia was still scribbling away, her dark curls falling into her serious face so Dean opened the folder and started to read in silence only disturbed by the scratch of the crayons on paper.
With the room so quiet, Dean soon lost himself in his work. He was in the midst of reading about a case involving a water sprite killing his victims by ripping their lungs out when a sheet of paper was slapped down over his pages, making him jump. He just barely avoided pushing over his coffee mug and ruining the documents. “Hey!”
“Done!” Mia was kneeling on her chair, almost falling off as she beamed at him, tapping her index finger on the drawing.
Cautiously Dean picked up the paper and stared at it with a furrowed brow, narrowing his eyes in concentration. What he saw was something looking like a longish potato with brown fur and something dark attached at the front and the end. Four stubby legs protruded from the 'body' and it had black dots for eyes.
Opening his mouth he hesitated for a moment before turning it upside-down. “What's it supposed to be, a cat or something?” he offered, earning himself a scandalised snort from his daughter who promptly plucked her art work from her father's grip. Dean huffed, irritated and trying to not let it show.
“Hey, 'm sorry, sweetheart, it's great but I just don't know what-” “It's a plapus!” Mia interrupted as if it was the most obvious thing in the world and she just could not understand how Dean was unable to see that.
His eyebrows almost disappeared in his hairline as he propped his elbow on the table to lean towards his daughter in confusion. “A what?”
“A plapus, Daddy!
“Yeah, heard you the first time, baby girl. The heck's a plapus?”
Mia was now waving her arms in unbelieving excitement as she climbed from her seat and onto her father's lap. Dean grimaced when she kicked his thigh, twice, barely missing some crucial parts of his as she kept on chattering.
“Unca' Gabe told me about it. He said that, when he was” she held up her hand to count on four of her little fingers, “four in angel years, Gran'pa Chuck gave him toy building blocks for his birthday and then he build the plapus with them.” She looked up at him, proudly holding her drawing. “It's my favourite animal!”
Dean covered his eyes with his hand in a quiet groan. “You shouldn't believe everything Gabe tells you. He's not a trickster for nothing.” Scooping Mia into his arms in getting up from his seat, he tried to dodge her flying curls as she wildly shook her head. “Nu-uh, it's real.”
“Is it now.”
“Yeah, Unca' Gabe never lies to me.” she announced, crossing her arms with a small pout and crumpling her drawing a little in the process.
“Then you are the one and only of your lucky species.” a voice sounded from the hallway before Castiel stuck his head through the kitchen door. Obviously He'd sneaked into the house in order to surprise them. Dean almost felt bad that someone could sneak into his family's home without him noticing, even if it was Castiel himself. Damn, his hunter senses were getting rusty.
Mia began to struggle in Dean's arms, waving her drawing excitedly. “Papa!” With a grunt Dean set her down before her kicking legs and knees would hit him again, watching Mia run over to Castiel and hugging his legs while he took of his trench coat. He and Dean shared a grin looking at each other before he bend to take their little one into his arms. “Hello, honeybee,” Castiel murmured, crouching down and kissing Mia's nose, making her squeal lightly, “what are you buzzing about?”
With a laugh, Mia practically slapped the sheet of paper into his face causing Dean to chuckle. “Look, I drew this for you and Daddy. It's a plapus!”
Castiel huffed a little. “Please don't shove your drawing into my face, I cannot see anything like that.” he reprimanded softly, taking the paper from their daughter's hand and holding it away from his face in a reasonable distance to take a look at it.
Leaning against the kitchen sink, Dean watched Castiel's face closely and waited for his reaction. But Castiel didn't say anything for a few long moments, his face a perfect copy of his best emotionless angel expression. Then he put his arm around Mia, pulling her closer to him so she sneaked her arms around his neck and pressed her cheek to his. He seemed collected but when he looked up at his boyfriend, Dean could see the helpless question in his eyes 'what the hell is it supposed to be?'. Dean just shrugged with one brow astray, none the wiser.
Not noticing the silent exchange Mia started babbling again. “Look, that's the beak and its fluffy beaver-tail. Unca' Gabe said that it has duck feet, too, but” she pouted a little, “I don't know how to draw duck feet.”
Once again, Dean and Castiel shared a 'what the hell' look. A beak? Fluffy beaver-tail and duck feet? This was getting more and more confusing by the second. What kind of crap had Gabe told her this time?
Castiel cleared his throat carefully. “What did you call it again?” he asked, squinting his eyes at the drawing. “A plapus!” Mia trumpeted into his ear. Castiel squinted his eyes for a second longer before all expression was wiped off his face. He pursed his lips, looking at Dean over their daughter's head. Dean rose his brow even more in question, not wanting to be left out on whatever realisation Castiel had come to.
“Honeybee, can it be” Castiel began, waving the drawing a little, “that you're talking about a platypus?”
Mia grabbed both of his cheeks, looking at him with wide eyes as if her Papa had just hung the moon. “Yes!” she shouted, “That's what Unca' Gabe called it! Plap-, plat-”
“Platypus.” Dean groaned, hiding his face in his hands. A fucking platypus. Then, at the same moment, Dean and Castiel burst into laughter.
“It's Platypus, honeybee, not plapus.” Castiel explained, carefully pronouncing the word correctly and let Mia repeat it. The little one looked a little ashamed, Dean gave her that. “Do you like it, Papa? Daddy did not see it was a – a platypus.”
Castiel grinned at Dean, unbending from his crouch with a quiet groan. “I am sure he was just teasing you.”
Mia looked up at her Daddy for confirmation and of course Dean gave her his best 'gotcha' wink. A broad grin appeared on her face, dimpling her cheeks. “Daddy!” she squealed accusingly, giggling. Dean held up his hands with a smug expression. “What can I say, still great at that.”
Rolling his eyes playfully, Castiel placed the shopping bag that had been resting against the door frame all but forgotten onto the table top and started to unpack the groceries. “It's a great drawing, honeybee,” he assured the little one, “so why don't you give it to Daddy and he'll put it on the fridge?” Mia readily handed over the drawing to Dean but insisted on helping him to put it up for she claimed 'he wouldn't know how to do it properly'. Castiel tried to mask his laugh with a quiet coughing.
Once the paper was placed against the surface Dean put his daughter back down and gently pushed her towards the door. “Now go 'n wash up for dinner, will ya? I help Papa with the groceries.” To his surprise Mia did not put up a fight and willingly ran down the hallway to the bathroom, her little feet's pitter-patter resonating from the hardwood floor.
With a teasing grin he sneaked up on Castiel from behind, hugging him around the waist and pressing a kiss to his neck right above the collar of his dress shirt. Dean felt the appreciative hum more than he heard it, causing his grin to broaden. “Nice team work there, babe.” he whispered.
Castiel turned half around, still embraced by Dean's arms, and gave him a sheepish grin. “I had no idea what it was supposed to be but I didn't want to upset her.”
Dean snorted. “No danger there, I already did that for you.” He watched over Castiel's shoulder how a net of oranges ended up in the sink to be washed, finally letting go to give him a hand.
“Hey, uhm, Mia mentioned something when I took a look at her scribble. Something about Gabriel playing with toy building blocks and stuff.” He looked at Castiel from the corner of his eyes. “Something I should know?”
Castiel sighed and kept on washing the oranges, handing them over to Dean to dry them off before they'd wander into the fridge. “I know the story from Michael and Gabriel himself, each giving a slightly different version so I cannot give it a hundred percent credibility as you may know.” Dean only looked at him expectingly.
Castiel sighed again. “Gabriel was a – let's say – difficult child, always wanting to assist my father in creating things for the world he was about to build. And sometimes my father would try to bribe him with some thing or another into leaving him work in peace. One day it was exceptionally bad” he gave Dean a meaningful glance, “and according to Gabriel our father said something like 'Here's a box of parts, go nuts.' to keep him occupied.”
Dean's eyes widened a little. “What did the little fucker do?”
Castiel cleared his throat. “A few hours later our father thought it might be wise to check on Gabriel So when he finally found him, Gabriel was holding this strange, unaesthetic creature in his arms. And, because the animal itself was not funny looking enough, of course, he also named it a platypus.”
“Cannot believe this guy.” Dean couldn't help but laugh. “What did your father say?”
Again Castiel gave him one of his sheepish grins. “He said 'Just put it in Australia with the other, uh, things.'”
With this Dean burst into uncontrollable laughter, almost doubling over. Castiel watched him in awe, grin broadening a little while Dean wiped tears from the corner of his eyes, trying to calm down. “Ow, ow, now my belly hurts.”
Castiel looked at him with concern. “Oh, don't worry, dinner won't take long.” he said but Dean shook his head with mirth in his eyes. “It hurts from laughing.” “Oh.”
Dean kissed his cheek, knowing Castiel was still a little embarrassed now and then about his short experience of being almost human and his lack of knowledge about the various facets of human life.
“It's okay.” he said, going back to drying off the rest of the oranges. “Just, uh, still gotta get used to the fact your fucking brother created the fucking platypus.”
“And your future father-in-law is God.” Castiel added with a straight face, looking at Dean innocently. They'd made this joke so often before Dean had stopped pretending to suffer a heart attack.
“Hm, that too.” Dean agreed, giving Castiel his easiest nonchalant grin. “You know the best part about that? Mia calls him Gran'pa Chuck.”
At that Castiel laughed so loud and straightforward that Dean couldn't help but join him. It was still so rare for Castiel to act so completely human that even Mia's eyes were wide and round when she appeared in the doorway of the kitchen.
“Why is Papa laughing so loud?” she asked while Castiel was still bend over the sink, fighting for breath.
Dean grabbed her under her arm pits and put her down on the counter where she sat dangling her feet. “Secret parent things” he murmured in a fake conspiratorial voice, “and that Gran'pa Chuck is one lucky bastard.”
“Daddy!” “Dean!” Mia and Castiel reprimanded him at the same time for his colourful language, and he rose his hands in mock surrender, biting his bottom lip. “Alright, alright! 'm sorry!”
They talked and joked around while Dean and Castiel made the sandwiches for dinner, talking briefly to Sam on the phone and then sat down to eat. It was quiet for a while, each of them munching away until Dean noticed Mia staring at her drawing hanging on the fridge.
“You okay, baby girl?”
Mia looked back at him from across the table, pursing her lips a little, and when Castiel got up to get some water from the fridge she leaned closer to Dean and whispered. “And you thought it was a cat .”