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“Do you like my shoes?”
Castiel looks down to find a girl - maybe four or five years old, eyes bright green, and hair hanging around her shoulders in soft, strawberry curls - blinking up at him.
The question seems fairly trivial, but then again there isn’t much excitement to be found waiting in line at the grocery store, so Castiel appeases her. He looks down at her shoes, mint, plastic looking numbers with cat heads just over the toes. “They’re very nice,” he replies.
“They’re Mini Melissa’s.” She tells him with a proud sort of delight. “My unca Sammy got ‘em for me.”
“That was nice of him.”
The girl nods. “They’re recycable.”
“Oh my,” Castiel says. “Those are quite the shoes.”
The girl bites at her bottom lip, hiding a pleased smile. She falls silent, but her eyes remain on Castiel. “Do you like my dress?” She questions after a beat.
Before Castiel can respond the man just in front of him turns and winces a smile at him. “Sorry.” He says. “Sometimes she’s too friendly for her own good.”
The man is, in a word, beautiful. Eyes just like the girls but a bit more muted, having seen more life than she has. There are freckles speckled across the bridge of his nose and cheekbones, and his presence is warm.
“She’s not bothering me.” Castiel assures the man - presumably the girl’s father. He looks back down at the girl and her dress. “It’s very nice.” Castiel tells her.
Her smile is bright, grateful, and the man offers Castiel a thankful nod before turning his back again and moving his cart forward in line.
“My dad is very nice. Do you like him?”
A flush creeps up Castiel’s neck. The girl is staring up at him, waiting for an answer, eyes wide and innocent. He opens his mouth to say something, but the man turns around again, cheeks pink and brows pulled into a nervous vee.
“Oh my God, Chevy,” he hisses. His eyes flick to Castiel’s, then away, then back again. “I’m sorry.” He says again. “She’s just- I- Sorry.” The man reaches down and takes the girl’s - Chevy’s - hand in his and pulls her gently away from Castiel and towards the register where the cashier is now waiting for him.
Chevy offers Castiel a glance over the man’s shoulder as he hefts her into the cart, and then the man is paying, and maneuvering his cart out of the store. Castiel watches him go, barely listening to what the cashier has to say.
Traffic in the parking lot is thinning when Castiel steps outside. It doesn’t take him long to locate the man and his daughter, and he takes quick steps towards the man’s shiny black car, heart racing and fingers twitching.
He’s never done anything like this before.
“Um,” He says to the man’s back, watching as leather clad arms lift groceries from the cart and into the trunk.
The man turns, recognition flickering in his eyes. “Oh, hey.” He says.
Castiel shifts on his feet, this is where he should say something back, but his words have left him. The man looks dazzling out from beneath the harsh florescent lights of the grocery store - eyes shifting from soft green to a syrupy amber color and one side of his face lit in gold by the sun.
“Sorry again about my kid. Like I said, too friendly-”
Castiel doesn’t let him finish, his words finally finding him. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to find out.”
“What?”
“Your daughter, Chevy; she said you were nice and asked if I liked you. I didn’t know how to answer because I don’t know you, but-” Castiel pauses, trying to decipher the man’s expression. He can’t. “I’d like to.”
The man stares, lips parted and eyes searching. For one horrifying second he says nothing, then he reaches out a hand. “I’m Dean.” He’s smiling, something almost shy, and Castiel smiles back.
“Castiel.” He says.
“So, Cas,” Dean says, glancing at his daughter, “where you taking us for dinner?”
Within an hour there are milkshakes, and french fries, and Dean’s bright laugh, and gentle way with his daughter, and Castiel doesn’t need much time at all to decide, yes, Dean is very nice.
And Castiel likes him very much.