Plaid Shirts and a Trench Coat

Chapter 7 *Dean's POV*

*Few hours later*

I took Sam aside once we got back to the motel. "We should throw Cas a picnic." I raise my eyebrows and smile, as I watch Castiel look out the window at the passerby's. "Well he deserves it."

"We have to get food first." Sam looked at Castiel and grinned. "Field trip for the Winchester brothers and their guardian angel?" I nod my head 'yes' and head over to Cas. "Sammy we have to take a trip to the grocery store." Cas's posture becomes higher, and this aurora of pink and orange started to glow around him. "The food store?" I nod my head and grab the keys to the impala. "Give me a second, I'm doing something." Sam takes a breath, with his eyes glued to his laptop. "Alright, I'll be in the car. You coming, Cas?" His eyes light up as he stands up and dusts off his trench coat, and pants. "Yes, of course." He follows me after looking back at Sam.

A few moments later Sam walks outside, and groans. "Sorry man, Cas gets shotgun this time." Cas shrugs his shoulders as Sam gets into the back, and buckles into the middle seat. "To the grocery store we go." Along the twenty minute trip from the hotel room, Cas stares out the window.

Asking the names of the trees, and the animals he sees. He asks about everything, and I do my best to answer him. "That's a fir tree."

"So it has fur on it? Like an animal?" I laugh to myself. "No, Cas. It has leaves- but it looks like fur, doesn't it, sort of?" He furrows his eyebrows and mumbles to himself. "Strange." I pull into the parking lot and Cas jumps out before I can turn the engine off. Sam follows him, and stops walking. I stand back, watching the two of them stare at the Walmart sign flickering. "A mart made of walls?" His head is tilted up, as he continues to stand in the middle of the parking lot.

"Basically." Sam shrugs and walks in front of Cas. "Expandable doors by the grace of a person's presence. Huh." He continues walking as I take a cart and make my way into the store. "Okay so we have to get food. What would you like, Cas?" He looked around at all of the isles of food there was. "Everything." He looked at me and gave me a sincere smile. "Okay. Let's get everything." Sam follows, throwing things into the cart.

He picks out frozen Dorito, cheese filled chips that you have to put in the toaster oven. Cas wants to try them tonight, and then picked out another box because he's sure he'd like them. I threw in a few frozen pizzas, because who doesn't like pizza? Apple jacks, cheerios, captain crunch. Cas picked out trix. This lady walks up behind us and mumbled "trix are for kids" and then walked off, which of course set Cas off. He looked at me, and I shrugged my shoulders. He started walking up to the brown haired lady and turned her around to reveal a frightened face. "I am old enough, to have never tried trix. I think I am entitled to add them to my basket of food items." He turns back around, and places another box gently in the cart. "In case I like them." And walks down the aisle. He picked out apricots, and cantaloupe. I threw in grapes and peanut butter. "Peanut butter, and grapes? That's good, together?" He asks. "I like it." I smile, and throw a few vegetables in.

For drinks, I placed a thing of beer on the bottom of the cart. Sam threw a few bottles of iced tea in, and Cas took every flavor of flavored water there was. "I think we'll have enough water for a while..." Cas looks at me and smiles, then looks at what's inside the cart. "I think we should have another picnic soon. I enjoyed the last one."

"I agree." Sam, says smiling. Cas looks up, as if he's a puppy that just got asked if he wanted to go on a walk. "I'll help you with the items." It took him a minute, but after that Cas rang the items up within ten minutes, bagged them, then put them in the cart. "I enjoyed that too. I've never bought food for myself." I swipe my card, sign, and crumble the receipt in my pocket.

*Back at the motel*

I look over at Cas and smile, as he places whatever can fit into the fridge. "Cas, chips don't need to be refrigerated." "Oh, right." He places them on the desk, and then finishes putting one of the bags away. "Before you put the rest away...would you want to have lunch outside?" I ask. "Outside? On the grass?" He places the bags on the ground and walks towards me. "Yeah, by the park over there." He smiles, grabs a blanket and slips on his shoes. "So we don't get stains from the grass on our pants." I nodded my head, smile, and hand a few bags to Sam, to put in the basket he snuck into the cart.

*Shortly after*

I took the ham sandwiches and beers out of the basket and placed them onto the picnic blanket. Followed, were flowers in a vase, and then fruit. "Flowers come first obviously." Cas scrunches his nose and smiles. "You took that line from me."

"That, I did." I nod my head as Sam smiles and leans back on his hands. "What is the use...of this so called, pic of the...nic anyway? Wouldn't this be considered a parch...or punch? A lunch on a park?" He asks. Sam sits up, and leans on his knees. "See Cas, people pack food into this basket. Any basket or bag, really. Then they pack a blanket and go to a park, like this one. They eat, and enjoy the outdoors. And no, it's a picnic." I laugh, and he looks around in amazement. After he finishes his 360, without moving off the blanket, he turns back to Sam and I. "Kids just come here with their birth-givers and go down trains of plastic, and swing off of these...monkey bars? Where are the monkeys?"

I laugh as I take chips out of the basket. "There are no monkeys Cas. The kids swing off of them for fun."

"For fun. Huh. Can I try these...monkey bars? After we eat, of course." "Of course, Cas." I take a deep breath and hand the food out evenly. Cas, has achieved this odd need for food a week or so after he came back to us. "Do you know how you developed this hunger anyway?"

"No, not exactly." He stuffs the sandwich into his mouth, chews, and continues. "It's like I was given back my abilities as an angel, but I have the hunger of a human. It's quite odd..." He puts a piece of watermelon into his mouth, then takes another bite of the sandwich. "But I'm not complaining, Dean. It's been great, with all these different flavors, and textures. Experimenting with a melon, made of what...water? It doesn't taste like water, from my experience."

Sam lets out a chuckle as he downs the beer. "We'll explain watermelon to you later." Castiel nods his head as he finishes off the sandwich. "I hope you made sure the pig was okay before it was...killed..." I choke on liquid inside my mouth, and almost have to spit it out. "I'm sorry to inform you, but we didn't kill it. We bought the meat at the grocery store, Cas." He drops his fork and scoots closer to me. "Grocery store...can we venture there sometime again? I've never been, other than earlier. It was great."

"Sure Cas." 

"I enjoyed this punch, very much. Thank you."

"Picnic."

"Right...Picnic." He smiles, and continues eating his chips. 

*Castiel's POV*

Dean doesn't seem okay. He's awfully quiet, but he won't tell me why. Whenever I ask, he says nothing is wrong, but I know something is. I know when he is okay. This isn't okay-Dean.