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Sam’s eyes kept sliding to gaze at the dad at the back of the room. The man’s arms were folded across his chest, and he had not taken off his trench coat upon arrival so that it pooled on the floor at the legs of the too-small chair he was perched on. At first, Sam had thought the man was angry about something, since he was staring with a slight frown at the activities, and his posture was curled in defensively. But then he had seen the way his head had lolled back on his neck once, and he had snickered to himself.
That dad was falling asleep in the middle of Crafternoon.
Crafternoon was one of Sam’s favorite weekly activities for the kids at the public library. He didn’t do any of the crafts himself, but he organized it all for the volunteer teachers, and attended because it just made him happy to see how much the kids enjoyed it. He floated around the room, providing help with stubborn yarn or assisting by holding a pasta bow in place or ducking down to clean up glitter and assuring a child it was all right to make a mess so long as they cleaned up after themselves. It was becoming the highlight of his week.
He knew what Dean would probably say about that, but he didn’t care. He knew his brother would crumble the first time a set of little brown eyes landed on him and a little voice asked for help with a hot glue gun. Dean pretended he was immune to little people, but Sam knew better. Sam himself had been the first little person Dean had not been able to say no to.
“Mr. Sam, it’s falling apart!” one of the crafters wailed up at him. “Come down here! Hurry!”
Sam lowered himself to sit on his heels, and held together the twigs which had not finished drying yet. “Max, you can’t let go too quickly, or it won’t stay together. You have to let the glue set. This is the photo you’re going to put in it? Is that your sister?”
“Alicia,” Max sighed. “It’s gonna be a photo frame for Alicia for her birthday.”
“Okay. I think that’s really nice. And it’ll look great. But you have to be patient, okay? Just hold onto it till it doesn’t move.” He patted the boy on the back and moved on to help others.
But all the while, Sam kept watching the man in the back sliding further down in the chair built for an elementary student, and he couldn’t help beginning to laugh.
“What’s funny?” a small blond girl asked him.
Sam snorted, and he dropped down to sit next to her. He pointed discreetly at the man behind them.
The girl, probably about seven years old, smacked her palm into her forehead. “That’s my uncle Cas! He’s sleeping!”
He giggled, and shushed her. “It’s okay. He’s not hurting anything. You’re Claire, right?”
“Yeah. He’s my dad now, because I don’t have one anymore. Or a mom,” she sighed, staring hard at her photo frame, which was in much the same shape as Max’s had been.
He showed her how to hold the pieces together while the glue dried. “I’m sorry about that, Claire. That sounds really hard.”
She shrugged, then looked up. “Uncle Cas is nice though. He brings me to crafts.”
“I’m glad he does. We’re happy that you’re here. It’s your first time?”
“Yeah. I like it. But I watched the lady’s hands the whole time instead of listening to the other lady give directions, and I kind of don’t know how to do it right.”
Sam laughed kindly. “I like to watch Ms. Eileen’s hands too. It’s hard sometimes to watch and listen at the same time, huh? Do you know why Ms. Eileen moves her hands like that?”
“Uncle Cas says she’s a terpiter. Which I think is like a turtle, so I don’t think that makes sense.”
He swallowed another snicker, and nodded. “Well, a turtle is sometimes called a terrapin.”
“I read that in my book. But they don’t have hands, so Uncle Cas is wrong. He’s wrong a lot.”
The grin was getting out of control at this point. “Right. Well, I think Uncle Cas might have said that Ms. Eileen is an interpreter. That means that she listens to what Ms. Mildred is saying and then says it differently, with her hands, so our friends who don’t hear can still understand how to make the craft. What do you think of that?”
Claire watched him with interest. “I think that’s really nice of her.”
Sam nodded. “I think so too. Ms. Eileen and Ms. Mildred work together, and they both understand their hand movements. It’s called Sign Language. Would you like for Ms. Eileen to teach you a little bit after craft time is done?”
Claire’s eyes lit up. “That would be awesome!”
“I’ll ask her if she can.” He patted her on the back, as he had done with Max, and started to stand up, when he heard Claire speak again, softer this time.
“Poor Uncle Cas. I bet he’s snoring. He doesn’t sleep at home very much, but when he does, I can hear him snore.”
“How come he doesn’t sleep at home?”
She shrugged again. “I have nightmares a lot, and so he sits with me when I ask him to, and then he tries to sneak away to his room, but I wake up and ask him to stay, so he ends up just sitting in the chair all night to hold my hand, and sometimes he falls asleep there till morning.”
Sam felt his heart lurch. “Oh, sweetheart. I’m sorry you have nightmares.”
“It’s okay. Uncle Cas makes them stop. Do I have this right?” She held up her picture frame with a suspicious look on her face. “It doesn’t look like Ms. Mildred’s.”
“That’s all right. You don’t have to be just like anyone else. It’s okay to be different.”
Claire smiled up at him. “That’s what Uncle Cas says too. You two should talk. He doesn’t have friends anymore because of me.” She lowered her gaze again with another sigh.
“What do you mean?”
“The guy who was supposed to be my new Uncle Bryan ran away because Uncle Cas has to take care of me now. Uncle Cas says it’s okay, but he’s lonely, and it’s all my fault.”
Sam flinched. “You mean…his fiancé left him because he’s your guardian now?”
“Uncle Bryan said he didn’t want to deal with a little girl. I wanted to stab him. Uncle Cas said no. He said it was okay, that some people just weren’t meant to be parents, but if he didn’t want me, Uncle Cas didn’t want him. Which is cool, except now Uncle Cas doesn’t have a friend. And he’s sad about that, even when he pretends he’s not.”
He sighed, and glanced back at the man at the back of the room, whose head slumped against the wall. “How long have you lived with Uncle Cas?”
“Since I started kindergarten. I’m in second grade now.”
He snorted a soft laugh. “Poor guy hasn’t slept in two years, I’m sure not going to be the one to wake him tonight.”
Claire shrugged again and went back to work.
Sam watched the sleeping man for another moment. Then he returned to his own work, helping the children and the volunteer teachers. He signed to Eileen discreetly, and she stepped aside to speak with him. He had worked with her for years, and his sign had gotten fairly good by now.
“Is something wrong?” she asked, both aloud and in sign.
“No. But I wanted to ask if you felt like teaching a second grader some sign after cleanup.”
She smiled at him. “Of course. Is this the little girl whose dad is passed out on the back wall?”
He laughed. “Uncle. Yeah. Her guardian. This is their first day, and they’re going through some stuff at home. I thought it might be nice, and she was really fascinated with your signing.”
Eileen shrugged. “Sure. Happy to. So long as you are the one who has to peel her uncle off the floor when it’s time.”
He smirked. “If he makes it all the way to the floor, I might just leave him there. Thanks, Eileen. You and Mildred are awesome.”
She gave him a wave, and went back to working with the kids.
It was an hour later that the man finally snorted himself awake suddenly, and looked around a quiet room in disorientation. “Claire!” he yelped.
She looked up from the book Sam was reading to her. “Uncle Cas! I thought you were going to sleep forever!”
Her uncle pulled a hand down his face and stared at Sam. “Who are you? Where is everyone? Did I fall asleep?”
Sam laughed. “A little.” He stood from the floor of the library classroom, where he and Claire were camped out with storybooks all around them. He offered his hand. “I’m Sam. I’m the youth librarian here. I was just reading with Claire after Crafternoon finished up.”
But Claire was not so gentle. She popped up while her uncle shook Sam’s hand with bewilderment on his face. “I did Crafternoon and then I learned sign language from the terpiter lady, and then I read a million books, and you still didn’t wake up!”
He coughed awkwardly. “I’m so sorry. Sam, I’m-Claire, I’m sorry! I don’t know what’s wrong with me! We’ll get out of your hair right now! Is it closing time?”
“It’s all right, sir. Really, I didn’t mind. And no, the library doesn’t close for another two hours. But it was the last class in this room for the day, so we just let you rest. You’re Uncle Cas?”
He ran a shaky hand through his dark hair now. “Yes! Cas-Castiel Novak. Yes, I’m her uncle Cas. I’m sorry for any trouble. I feel ridiculous.”
Sam’s smile was kind. “Claire, can you put the books away, please? Do you remember where to put them?”
The girl nodded and grabbed the books to carry out of the room.
He turned back to Castiel. “Cas, it’s really no problem. But Claire and I talked, a lot, about what’s been going on with you. And you probably know this already, but she feels a lot of guilt.”
Shock and frustration filled bright blue eyes. “What? Why would she feel guilty? She’s never done anything wrong in her life!”
It was endearing the way the man seemed to take personal offense at the idea that Claire might have been at fault for something. “She says it’s her fault you’re not married to someone named Bryan.”
The pale face began to burn bright pink, and Castiel took a stumble backward. “God, she remembers that? That’s not her fault! I lived with him before her parents died, and then custody came to me, and he bailed. I mean, I get it, some guys don’t want kids, but what a crappy thing to do while I was mourning my brother, you know? The ink was barely dry on their obituaries before he realized I was going to suddenly have custody of my niece, and he walked. Anyway, I’m so sorry this drama got dumped on you today. I’ll talk to Claire, make sure she understands she’s got nothing to feel guilty about.”
Sam smiled at him. The man was attractive, he realized slowly. He wasn’t just a cute, clueless guardian of a fun little girl. He was handsome too, now that he wasn’t crookedly draped across a child’s chair. And now that his eyes were open, Sam couldn’t help staring at them a little. Most of all, there was that incredible voice.
“So thank you for your help. We will get going.”
He hurried forward. “Cas-Mr. Novak…”
“Cas is fine. Castiel. Cas.” He groaned. “You should call me by my first name. You babysat my kid for…” A glance at his watch made him cringe. “God, for over an hour! I’m so sorry.”
“Cas,” he pressed. “Maybe I could give you my number, and you could text me sometime. Claire needed someone to talk to tonight. One day, you might too.”
The blue gaze stared at him. Then at last he blinked and nodded slowly. “Someone to talk to…might be very, very nice. I haven’t really had that since…since Bryan. And we see how that went.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket, unlocked it, and handed it over.
Sam tapped in his phone number quickly. “A cute guy who stays up all night to hold his niece’s hand so she doesn’t have nightmares, until he’s so tired he falls asleep at Crafternoon? Dude, I’m a librarian for kids. I think I’d like to get to know a guy like that better.”
The bright pink was flushing into red now. “If I had known that’s what it took to get the attention of a good looking, smart guy who likes kids, I’d have come to pass out on your wall months ago.”
He laughed. “Text me. Maybe tonight, if you can’t sleep.”
The slow, crooked smile on the man’s handsome face was simply lovely. “Chances are good I won’t be able to sleep.”
“Good.”
Sam saw a little blond head pop around the corner into the classroom. A twig picture frame was in her hands.
“Claire!” Castiel cried. “Come on. Let’s-let’s go. You must be hungry; let’s grab cheeseburgers on our way home. I’m sorry again, baby!” he said as he ushered her out the door.
“Wait!” Claire hurried to Sam and looked way up at him. “You made Uncle Cas smile.” She raised a thumb for Sam, and winked. “That’s a sign for good job,” she whispered. “You can teach that one to Ms. Eileen.”
He laughed. “I will,” he promised. He watched Castiel as Claire rushed toward him. “Sleep well, Claire,” he called.
The handsome blue-eyed uncle sent him a hopeful grin, and hurried out the door.