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“Dean, you know how to tie a front-wrap cross carry, right?” is Jess’ opener and Dean almost hits his head when he straightens up from under the hood of the Civic he’s working on.
“Uh. It’s been a while, but, yeah, I guess. Why?” Dean frowns at his fingers, wipes some of the grease off with a rug, not that it makes much of a difference.
“When do you get off?”
And that’s a question everyone would get a wink and a dirty reply to, if it wasn’t his sister-in-law and that sense of urgency laced into her words.
Dean checks his watch. Almost 2.30pm. “Half an hour? Maybe earlier. Just finishing up this car.” The perks of working the morning shift.
“Okay, so. Sorry to spring this on you. But I just got this call.” She takes a deep breath. “For an emergency consultation. This guy found my number on the internet, and he was so frazzled and distraught, I told him I couldn’t come over in the next hours but if he’d be fine to be shown by someone who wasn’t a trained consultant but knew their stuff I’d send someone over straight away.”
“Okay.” Dean breathes, then scowls. “You want me to show someone how to wrap a baby?”
“Sam’s in court until six at least and the guy really was beside himself, there was a baby crying in the background… I told him I would only charge half of my usual for sending you and he didn’t even care, he was just about to sign me over his life’s earnings. And don’t we know what that feels like.”
Dean thinks back to baby Jack, always crying, his entire first year it felt like, until it got somewhat better. He only slept if one of them wore him in a sling or carrier, and Dean had moved in with Jess and Sam to at least take some of the stress off of them. That’s how Jess became a babywearing consultant in the first place.
“Yeah, okay, do you have an address?”
“I’ll send you a text,” Jess sighs. “Thank you, Dean. He said he only had a wrap and his sister explained it to him but now he doesn’t know what to do with it and Youtube isn’t helping, either. I tried to coach him through it but he couldn’t hear anything over the baby and… yeah, wasn’t pretty.”
Dean takes a guess that it also brought up some memories for her, just like it does for him, and he swallows the uneasiness down.
“So, listen. Get my suitcase from the closet, you know which one, and get the Oscha wrap. Okinami Wipeout.”
“Uh.”
“The green and teal one. With the big wave.”
“Gotcha.”
“And also take the Mysol with you. The green carrier. That was your favorite, right?”
“Yeah.”
"Thank you so much, Dean. It’s just, I’m scheduled for a surgery in ten, and it’s only planned for an hour, but I’ve known this dog all his life and I have a bad feeling it’s going to take longer than that, but anyway--”
She’s rambling, so she’s nervous, and Dean perks up. “Should I pick Jack up from daycare, too? When I’m done with the consult?”
“That won’t be necessary, I’ll be done in time. You’re a godsend, Dean.”
"Don't mention it."
Dean hangs up with a weird sense of responsibility, even though he’s way out of his depth.
By the time he rolls up to the small town house, built in a row with seven others that look exactly the same, Dean’s nervousness has taken over.
He tells himself he’s well-prepared and has all the experience needed, breathes out, grabs Jess’ creepy babywearing doll and the bag with the wrap and carrier and heads out to push the doorbell of house no. 8.
The door opens to the deafening wails of a baby and a guy whose eyes flicker away the second they meet Dean’s. He’s rumpled, his button-down askew, the top buttons undone and sleeves rolled up over sinewy, strong forearms.
Dean swallows, and swallows again when he notices tousled dark hair and clear, if stormy and dull, blue eyes. Yeah, this is not the time to gush over a distraught parent.
“Hi.” Dean waves, a bit awkward and a lot stunned, holding up the babywearing doll that looks like it’s straight out of Child’s Play . Like Chucky here is an explanation, a way in.
“Hello,” the guy nods, already talking loudly over the baby screaming down the hall. “You’re the... friend of the babywearing consultant?”
“I’m Dean,” Dean clarifies with a nod, but he’s not sure he’s heard over the noise and those blue eyes flickering back and forth between the source of the cries and him. “Looks like you need some help, uh...?”
“Castiel,” he says, and waves Dean in, already hurrying down the hallway.
What the hell kind of name is that, anyway?
Dean tries not to stare after him, and those dark jeans aren’t making it easy, but Dean has manners, okay? So he toes off his shoes and follows Castiel over to the crib. “Someone’s cranky,” he notes, catches Castiel’s irritation and adds, before he can take it the wrong way, “Don’t worry, I have experiences with cry-babies.”
“She’s usually so quiet and easy to soothe, but her mom says she hates the stroller and I’m on my own with her for the first time and—” Castiel throws his hand up, then presses his index finger and thumb into his eye sockets. “She hasn’t slept since Anna left at 10am.”
“Oh, well, that explains a lot.” Dean claps a hand on his shoulder. “Got it. Listen. With a baby that fussy, it’s hard to practice wrapping. I can show you how to do it, if you trust me to wrap the baby?”
Granted, it’s been the better part of a year since he did a front-wrap cross carry, and he’d be way more comfortable swinging Jack onto his back in a Simple Ruck or Double Hammock, now that Jack knows how to cooperate, is happy to be wrapped and holds onto Dean’s shoulders, but he’ll get this — what, one- or two month-old? — baby into a sling or so help him.
“Anything to make her stop crying. I tried everything, walked around with her, sang to her, it’s just… nothing works.”
“What’s her name?”
“Claire.”
“Okay, Claire.” Dean nods, gets the bag and grabs the wrap. “Castiel,” he says while he unwraps the sling and sorts out the edges, “Get your wrap and you can practice wrapping along with me. You can wrap the doll.”
Castiel nods and returns with a white-and-light-blue striped baby wrap.
“Okay, first, find your middle marker,” Dean says, showing the little flap in the middle of the 15-foot sling. “Put it on your chest. Grab the wrap behind your back, cross the tails over your back and get them around over your shoulders.”
Dean shows him how to roll up the middle section around his chest without twisting it, then moves Claire into the pocket he created. She kicks and screams when he grabs the wrap between her feet to pull it up to her bellybutton, her knees tucked up and to the side in an M-shape and god, she is so much tinier than Jack. There’s so much fabric, so little baby.
Steadying her by the bum, her head tucked safely under his chin, Dean sorts out the wrap over his shoulder. Yes, he’s rushing, but he can feel the desperation in both Claire and Castiel, and how tired she is, rubbing her tiny, red face against Dean’s sweaty shirt. The hair behind her ears, what little she has, is damp and curling from the exertion of crying. He just hopes she settles down quickly despite being wrapped to an unfamiliar person with an unfamiliar smell.
Dean tries not to be creepy about smelling the baby’s head but she still has that newborn smell. Sweet and clean and sparking every protective gene he’s ever had.
“Now, tighten, strand by strand. Grab the seam closest to your neck, that’s the one that leads around to baby’s head. Here, the dark blue edge, see that? White edge on yours,” Dean explains, tugs at the loose top rail, holds Claire and the tail with one hand and tightens the wrap once across the width of it with the other, works it through his fingers. She kicks as much as her little legs allow, but Dean has her, steady. “Head support is crucial when they are this young.”
Castiel nods along, copies him, watches eagerly. Those blue eyes are so focused on Dean’s fingers, Dean’s lips, that kind of undivided attention that gives him the wrong ideas about this.
Dammit, Dean, get your mind out of the gutter.
“Same on the other side,” Dean moves over, feels Claire’s head stilling against his collarbone as he tightens the upper tail.
By the time he has both ends of the wrap over her feet, twisted under her bum, and has wound them back around his waist and to his lower back, Dean notices that his instructions don’t need to be yelled any more.
“Tie it off with a double knot, always,” he finds himself saying with emphasis, “and then you can do this until baby falls asleep.” Bobbing on the balls of his feet, Dean goes from side to side. “Dance across the room, hang up the laundry, don’t forget to support the head. Usually, they fall asleep in minutes--”
“Yeah, she’s already nodding off,” Castiel groans a long-suffering sigh, head tipped back, long throat exposed. “You have no idea how elated I am.”
“Trust me, I do,” Dean grins, averts his eyes, swallows. Focus. “We had a baby who cried nine to twelve hours from day one up until about his first birthday. We didn’t catch much sleep.”
Castiel smiles at him ruefully, and if Dean hadn’t seen Jess that way for so often, he’d find the picture ridiculous, of a grown man with a doll strapped to his chest using a curtain-like, simple striped baby sling wrapped around himself.
Instead, he smiles, in sympathy and understanding. “So her mother carries her like this a lot?”
“Yes,” Castiel nods, finally looking into Dean’s eyes for what feels like the first time since Dean stepped through the door. “She says her shoulders hurt because Claire’s getting heavier, as she should, but she just hates the stroller, there’s no way you can get her to sleep in it. One might think it’s a death contraption, the way she reacts.”
“Um, about that.” Dean reaches up, careful not to tug on the seam of the wrap too much, so as to not disturb the baby, “Tell her she needs to spread out the wrap, for weight distribution.” He trails his hands over his back, turns around so Castiel can see, “Grab the point where the passes meet and pull down. Then run your fingers along the edges, start at your shoulder, spread the wrap to your hip, so it covers your entire back. The other pass, too. That distributes the weight evenly and is much easier on the back.”
Castiel tries to reach behind himself, but doesn’t quite get his fingers hooked under the point where the tails cross. He winces with the way his hand is twisted, tries and fails to look over his shoulder.
“Wait,” Dean mutters, feels like a creep all over again for being excited for getting to touch. Well, with consent. “May I?”
Nodding, Castiel turns his back towards Dean. A broad back, muscular shoulders, a perfect vee ending at a dip just above Castiel’s— yeah, completely unprofessional, Jess shouldn’t charge Castiel for this consultation. He coughs, then slips his fingers under the wrap passes, straightens and spreads them out, pleats them over Castiel’s shoulder. Decidedly does not feel Castiel up. Decidedly does not take note of the way Castiel smells, this close. Yes, Dean actually holds his breath, he knows his weaknesses, and this is not the time or the place.
“Work your shoulders,” he tells Castiel, who follows his instructions. “Finally, make sure there are no twists or overlapping seams on your shoulder, they’ll dig in. How’s it feel?”
A huff of breath and a smile in Castiel’s voice make Dean’s fingertips tingle. And something else. “Oh, much better. I can’t imagine the pain Anna is going through with Claire weighing more than this doll.”
“Tell her to call Jess, she has all kinds of carriers and wrapping techniques for slings. When Claire gets heavier, you want to wear her on your back. She’ll get to see more, will be happier, can still nap when she wants to, and you are hands-free and able to do what you want.”
“Sounds great,” Castiel sighs, then stares at Claire, snuggled into Dean’s chest.
Only then does Dean recognize the predicament he’s in.
“So, this might take a while.” Castiel steps from one foot onto the other, unsure. “She has quite some sleep to catch up on.”
“Do you want to practice wrapping with the doll some more?” Dean offers. “I also brought a carrier to show you, if you’re interested.”
Slowly, Castiel drags his eyes up from where Claire is snuffling in her sleep, and they are wide and so blue and Dean curses, inwardly, for agreeing to do this. Not that helping people isn’t worth it, because the look on Castiel’s face alone when Claire fell asleep — precious.
No, no-no. Hands off.
Why are the interesting ones always straight or married or both?
Dammit.
It’s Dean’s turn to drag his eyes away, except he can’t, because Castiel is untangling the wrap. Sorting out the tails and their twists.
“Okay, start from the beginning. Try to do it yourself — I’ll correct you as needed.”
It’s excruciating, watching Castiel’s fingers — long, dexterous, and oh, he should not imagine what these fingers could do to certain parts of his body — run along the wrap, find the middle marker. He hesitates here and there, takes the hints Dean drops and applies them instantly. Thanks him when he reminds him which seam is the blue and which is the white one. Dean shows him how to test which rail goes where, and how to double-check for twists. Turns out once the stress of a perpetually tense and crying baby is solved, Castiel is a quick study and the moment when he ties the wrap off, eyes flickering up to meet Dean’s, Dean can’t breathe. There’s a proud little smile on Castiel’s full lips and--
He looks away, clears his throat. “Close enough to kiss, nose and mouth free, M-shaped legs, back round but not slumped,” Dean reminds him of the most important rules. “Make sure to tighten well and consistently. If certain parts in the middle are looser than the rest, baby will sink in on herself. But it’s not witchcraft, you got this.”
A nod, and with that smile lingering, Castiel ducks his head. “Thanks. I’m hoping to get better at this to help Anna out more whenever I can.”
“Just wrap her at least once a day, every day, and you’ll consistently get better. And if you want to try different wraps, Jess has about a thousand and she lends them to people who are interested.”
“Why would I want another one?” Castiel asks, scowling adorably, head tilted just so, and Dean can’t help but laugh.
“Sometimes they spit up in it, sometimes it lands in the mud on the playground, sometimes you want to do a back carry with a shorter wrap. Once they get older, thicker wraps are more comfortable, but longer wraps allow more supportive carries…” Dean shrugs — this stuff, he knows. He grins. Wallows in Castiel’s shy smile in return.
Claire is still fast asleep after they have unwrapped and re-wrapped the doll another time. She turns her head exactly once, in the middle of Dean explaining to Castiel how the soft structured carrier works.
“So, um. Can I offer you a cup of coffee?” Castiel asks, casually, as he puts the carrier down, fumbles with the long straps, doesn’t know how to fold it so he just gives up and lets the fabric pile up in the middle of the table.
Feeling the exhaustion of a full day of work and an unplanned house visit settle into his bones, Dean sighs, nods. “I’d love some, actually.”
“I don’t have anything to go with it, though,” Castiel clarifies and sounds almost embarrassed, not that Dean gets why he would. “I meant to bake cookies for Anna once Claire was asleep, but...”
Ah. “Yeah.”
For a moment, Dean draws his lips between his teeth, considers whether he’s overstepping his welcome, but Castiel is friendly, thankful, and Dean still has his sleeping kid against his chest, so...
“Since I’m hands-free and all, why don’t we take care of the cookies?” And yes, it’s cheeky. And unprofessional. But sue him, Castiel is hot and he’s just human and also, he’s not actually a damn professional babywearing consultant in the first place.
Castiel’s smile is small, but grows, and grows, and then he nods, smacks his lips. Full, reddened, lush lips.
Dean just hopes he never meets Castiel’s wife because they have a conflict of interest.
When Castiel waves him towards the kitchen, Dean smirks and feels Castiel’s eyes lingering and well, shit. Reign it in, you don’t want to be the homewrecker, Dean.
“What were you gonna make?” he asks, to distract himself.
“Peanut butter and chocolate cookies. Vegan.”
“What?” Dean frowns. Vegan cookies? Why would anyone do that?
“Anna’s vegan, which I find very admirable,” Castiel states, apparently not even miffed by Dean’s reaction. “Might I ask you to peel and mash the banana?”
“If you got a bowl for me?”
Dean grabs a fork and goes to work, mashes some more when Castiel adds baking powder, a cup of crunchy peanut butter and a few tablespoons of flour, seemingly without weighing any of it. When the dough is still too soft and sticky, he just throws another tablespoon of flour into the bowl, and Dean stirs, with Claire still asleep against him.
“How does she sleep through this?” Castiel wonders.
“Babies are still living in the stone ages,” Dean chuckles. “Knowing that a grown-up is here ready to rescue them from the saber-tooth cat is good enough for them. Hearing a heartbeat is soothing, and it reminds them of their time before birth, as does the swaying and the movement. Trains their sense of balance, too.”
“You know a lot about this,” Castiel notes, then tests the dough once more, finds it to his liking apparently, because he signals for Dean to stop. A handful of chocolate drops joins the bowl, and then he motions for Dean to mix again. “Careful.”
“Jess taught me everything. She’s got the patience of a damn saint, but if we hadn’t taken turns with Jack, one of us would have lost their mind, sooner or later. So I had to learn. Best decision I could’ve made. Jack still loves being worn up on my back.”
Castiel turns, tips his hip to lean against the kitchen counter. “He does? How old is he?”
“Two and a half, now. So independent,” Dean chuckles, proud. “Wants to walk everywhere himself, but toddler legs, no matter how motivated, get tired, too. Oh, wait.” He fumbles his cell phone out of his pocket, finds a picture of Jack in a Ruck on his back during a hiking trip they took a few months ago.
“That looks amazing,” Castiel comments, fingers brushing Dean’s as he tips the phone towards himself to zoom in on the picture. “You’re in the mountains?”
“Hiking, yes. You wouldn’t be able to get there with a stroller.” So what if Dean is proud.
“The wrap is beautiful. Suits you.”
Dean coughs. It’s a handwoven wrap, probably the most expensive one Jess owns and the only one she never lends out. It’s an iridescent shade of dark blues and forest greens and it’s the equivalent of a cloud on your shoulder, even in a single-layer carry. And yes, he knows it brings out his eyes, or whatever. “Thanks. Now, cookies?”
“Right.” Castiel nods, slowly, takes the out. “This should be enough for six or seven cookies.”
They shape balls out of dough and flatten them, put them onto a baking tray and into the pre-heated oven. Cas puts ten minutes into the timer and starts the coffee machine.
“Can I ask… sorry if I’m nosy,” Castiel begins, runs his hand over his mouth.
Dean shrugs it off, tries not to think about Castiel showing interest in him and what that might mean. It can’t mean anything. “Ask away.”
“What do you do for a living?”
And so, Dean spends the ten minutes talking about the garage, and Bobby, how he loves the predictability of cars and doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty, and since Jess is a vet and only does babywearing consults on the side, mostly on weekends, he was the only one off work to come help. He only knows he really talked for ten minutes because the timer for the cookies goes off, and Castiel fills two mugs of coffee while they wait for the cookies to cool down enough.
Castiel spends another ten minutes talking about his work as an editor, that at least he can work from home more, now, to support Anna. Dean nods along and tells Castiel how important he thinks it is to have a village to raise a kid.
The cookies are delicious. Dean groans after the first bite, doesn’t even want to wash it down with coffee because it would dilute the taste, rich and creamy and chocolate-y and buttery and soft. “Oh my god,” he moans again, and Castiel has his cookie halfway to his mouth and is staring at Dean. “Cas, these are incredible.”
The nickname slips out, but Castiel only breaks into a warm, carefully controlled smile. “I’m glad you think so.”
For a timeframe that is entirely too long to be socially acceptable, Dean finds himself munching on his second, still warm cookie, coffee cup in hand and eyes locked firmly with Castiel’s.
“Thank you, Dean.” And the tone and the handwave makes it clear that Cas refers to more than just showing him how to do a front-wrap cross carry.
Dean looks at him, thinks about weeks, months in the same cycle of sleep, work, pick Jack up, play, cook, sleep, repeat. Thinks about meaningless hookups on the weekends he wasn’t babysitting for Jess and Sam, thinks about his last relationship — Carmen, all play, no interest in children when Dean wanted some of his own.
Life, he thinks bitterly as he studies the electric blue of Cas’ eyes, just isn’t fair.
And that’s when Claire pulls her head back and wakes with a scream.
“Holy…” Dean starts bouncing on his feet immediately, second nature, long practiced, and hums ‘Highway to Hell’, which Jack loved, while taking swinging steps through the kitchen, dancing the same choreography he did with Jack, too. Second nature, indeed.
Claire’s head drops forward after a minute, eyes still closed — she never quite woke, just a scare mid-dream, and then she sinks back into Dean.
“So ‘Highway to Hell’ works better than ‘Believe it or not’,” Castiel notes, amused, and Dean’s stomach flutters at the thought that he just got a glimpse into Castiel’s taste in music.
He chuckles, imagines a Castiel at the end of his wits, singing the theme song from The Greatest American Hero.
And so they are still stuck, talking about everything and nothing, over a second cup of coffee, at the breakfast bar.
Claire finally wakes half an hour later. Just blinks her huge eyes open, stretches her fingers out, soft fingernails scratching over the fabric of Dean’s shirt and its washed-out Metallica logo, and yawns in that adorable way only little babies manage. “Hi there, sweetheart,” Dean croons. “Slept well? Your daddy and I had a nice little chat while you were out.”
“Oh, I’m not her dad,” Castiel laughs, actually laughs, light and clear and beautiful. “Anna’s my sister. I’m just here to babysit while she has to take care of an emergency at work.”
“Oh,” says Dean, and his lips don’t quite close, he’s aware. His heart stutters for a second, then beats twice as fast as before at the myriad of possibilities unfolding in front of his inner eye.
“But I don’t want to keep you any longer, I can take it from here, if you would unwrap her? She’s probably hungry.”
Claire confirms that by searching for something, lips trailing over Dean’s sweaty workshirt, searches for anything to suck on, and Dean offers her his pinky, which she accepts, for the moment, but then spits back out when she notices there’s no milk coming out of it.
Wordlessly, Dean goes to unwrap the sling while Castiel grabs a baby bottle from the fridge, checks the date on the hand-written label and puts it in a mug of hot water. Dean remembers exactly the same process from the early days when Jess still expressed milk for Jack.
While they wait for the milk to heat up, Dean tries singing to Claire again, sways her in the crook of his arms. She’s not impressed, it seems, however Castiel hurries in soon enough, bottle and muslin burp cloth at the ready.
Their hands brush when Dean hands Claire over to Castiel, who is now sitting down on the couch with a cushion under his elbow.
“So, I guess this is goodbye?” Dean asks, hoping against hope — if Claire is Cas’ niece, he might…
“Oh! I still need to pay you!” Castiel realizes, horrified, eyes wide. Yeah, Dean might have completely forgotten about that, too. “If you could wait, I can give you the consulting fee after Claire is done, she usually doesn’t take long—”
“Don’t sweat it.” Dean waves him off, then goes to collect his stuff — the wrap, the carrier, Chucky the murder puppet.
Claire is already working at the bottle with satisfied little sighs and chortling noises. Cas shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I really don’t want to keep you, you probably want to go home to your son, too, I should’ve thought of it earlier.”
Wait.
“Hold up.” Dean spins on his heel, frowning.
Cas looks up, confused, but also — something else. Did he think…?
They talked a lot about the kids. So much so that Dean might have forgotten to mention Sam.
Slowly, Dean breaks into a grin. “Jack’s my nephew. Yeah, I’m raising him with my brother and his wife, but… I’m — uh — single.”
“Oh,” says Cas, collects himself, straightens minutely. “Then let me rephrase my earlier question. If you could wait, I’d like to give you my number, and this doesn’t need to be goodbye.”
Slowly, the rush of words catches up in Dean’s brain. “I really hope it isn’t,” he finds himself muttering, grinning lopsided.
Cas ducks his head, watches Claire, and takes a deep breath.
Dean sits down on his heels in front of him to meet his eyes. “Wanna go on a date with me?”
“Please,” Cas’ eyes sparkle, and something in Dean’s life slots into place and stays there.
THE END