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“Cas, you need to go to bed.” Dean says firmly. They’ve been through two snacks, three glasses of water, a bathroom break, and a change of pants for quite literally no reason other than Cas demanded it, and he still would not go to bed. Dean really couldn’t figure out why, he never acts like this, and Dean can’t help but feel like things are escalating. Cas has this look on his face like he’s debating something, and Dean doesn’t even have time to fearfully worry what it is he’s thinking about before the yelling starts.
“No! No, no, no, no!” He shouts, stomping his foot for good measure. “No bed!”
Dean is shocked by the sudden tantrum. Cas never does this kind of thing, he’s always so sweet and gentle when he’s regressed. What’s going on with him today?
“Why not?” Cas grumbles and stomps again.
“Don’t want to! Wanna stay awake!” He demands firmly, glaring adorably at Dean.
“Cas, buddy, you have to go to bed.” Dean tries to put his hand on his shoulder, but Cas smacks it away. Dean being Dean, just reacts on instinct.
“Hey! What the hell?! Don’t do that!” Cas freezes and stares up at him, and Dean knows he’s made a mistake. Cas scrambles to get away, beelining to the bedroom and shutting the door behind him. He fumbles into the bed and hides under the blankets, curled into the fetal position. Dean must be so mad! What’s wrong with him? Why would he do this? He just… he thought it would be safe to disobey with Dean. He knew it was wrong, but… but he thought Dean wouldn’t be mad! He thought he was safe! But he’s not; he wasn’t safe to disobey in heaven and he’s not safe to disobey here, either.
He hears a knock at the door and flinches. Oh god, it’s just like heaven. Dean’s angry… he’s gonna punish him. He doesn’t wanna be punished! He’s scared!
“Cas…” Dean sighs. “Can I come in?” Cas peeks out from under the blanket at the door, shuddering fearfully at the sight of Dean’s shadow through the bottom. Dean sounds calm… but Naomi always sounded calm, too. Calm and clinical. And he’d trusted her, just like he trusts Dean. Maybe he should stop trusting people.
Dean slowly creaks the door open, and Cas scrambles back under the blankets when they lock eyes. Maybe if he’s super still and quiet Dean won’t notice he’s there.
Unfortunately, he seems to be out of luck, because Dean sits down on the bed next to him. He starts to tremble a little under the blankets, squeezing his eyes shut fearfully. He really, really wishes he grabbed his stuffed bee before he hid. What if he’s out there and Dean takes him away?
The thought makes Cas peek out again, scanning the room for his bee. He sees it, sitting on the dresser where he’d left it earlier when they went to have dinner. Now, he wishes he’d left him on the bed so he was here with him.
Dean follows his line of sight, then stands up, moving to go get his bee. Cas squeaks fearfully. He’s gonna take him! And Cas will be all alone! His eyes start to fill with tears, but he’s too afraid to come out from under the blanket.
Dean starts to walk back toward him, bee in hand, and Cas prepares himself for the worst. But all he gets is Dean kneeling in front of him and slowly holding the little, smiling bee out toward him.
Cas is desperate to take it, but… what if this is a trick? The angels used to trick him a lot. He’s very gullible, but eventually he learned not to trust anything they said.
Eventually, his desire for comfort wins over, and he hesitantly reaches out his hand. Once it’s close enough, he snatches the bee and pulls it under the blanket, tucking his head back under. He squeezes his stuffed animal to his chest, giving it a little kiss on the head, silently apologizing for leaving him out in the open.
He feels a hand rest on his leg and he jumps, making the hand retract.
“Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you, kid. Can we talk?” Cas anxiously chews his lip, wishing he had his pacifier, too. He hears Dean sigh.
“Listen, buddy… I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I’m not mad, you just startled me. But that’s not an excuse. I’m not…” He pauses, swallowing harshly. He’s Dean Winchester, damn it, he’s not gonna cry while he’s owning up to his mistakes. “I’m not great at this… caregiver stuff. I don’t have good impulse control, I yell, I… look at you, I scared the shit out of you just now. All because I couldn’t control myself. God, this is all my fault. You trusted me with your most vulnerable self and I fucking blew it.” He drops his head into his hands, wishing more than anything he could undo it. He didn’t mean to yell, and he really, truly doesn’t do it often it’s just… sometimes he feels the pain or hears the yelling and it just takes him somewhere else.
He feels a hand on his shoulder, and looks back to see a nervous looking Cas looking up at him.
“Daddy?” He asks softly, and Dean melts. He’d do anything for those big, blue eyes. But he sobers himself. He yelled at the kid, it’s his fault he looks so afraid.
“Yeah, buddy?” Cas crawls out from under the blankets, walking on his knees over to Dean and wrapping his arms around his shoulders.
“Not mad at you. Love you.” Dean smiles a little, and puts his hand over one of Cas’s.
“Both can be true, kid. You’re allowed to be mad.” Cas just nuzzles his shoulder.
“Not. Mad.” He states firmly, and Dean chuckles.
“Okay, okay. You’re not mad at me, got it.” Dean runs his thumb over Cas’s knuckles.
“I’m still sorry I yelled, baby. It wasn’t fair to you. I never want you to be afraid of me. It’s okay to act out sometimes. Your regression is supposed to help you cope, and if that means throwing the occasional tantrum, then that’s okay.” Cas nods absently. A moment later, he glances up at Dean sadly.
“Gonna punish me?” He asks fearfully, and Dean wants to cry a little.
“God, no. I already scared you half to death, why the hell would you deserve anything else?” Cas drops his head back against Dean’s shoulder, relieved. But… at the same time… does that mean he’s expected to make it up to Dean somehow? That’s how they did it in heaven. If you were lucky enough to not get outright punished, you needed to be practically perfect, not a single mistake to keep it that way. Maybe that’s how it works here, too?
“Okay…” He agrees. You were always supposed to formally agree in heaven, or else they just punished you anyway.
Dean is relieved, the crisis seeming to be over to him. He pats Cas on the back as he stands.
“Alright, kid. Anything you need before bedtime?” Cas thinks about it for a moment. He is kinda thirsty. No. He can’t forget, he has to be good. He shakes his head, then takes the initiative to tuck himself under the covers so Dean doesn’t have to.
“Oh, okay. Finally realized how sleepy you are, huh?” Dean chuckles to himself. “Want me to read you a story?” Cas is… a little confused, to be honest. He’s supposed to be making up for his misbehavior, why is Dean offering to read to him? He’s not supposed to be happy, he’s supposed to be compliant. Maybe Dean is testing him? Seeing if he’s really able to resist the rewards he doesn’t deserve? Either way, he shakes his head again, rejecting the story. Dean seems surprised.
“You sure, buddy?” Cas never refuses a story, he loves being read to. Regardless, Cas shakes his head again, snuggling further into the blankets and closing his eyes, his arms wrapped firmly around his stuffed bee. Dean just shrugs. It’s been an eventful night, maybe he really is just tired.
Dean steps to the side to change into pajamas, then returns and crawls into bed next to Cas, who twitches a little, wanting to move closer, but he restrains himself. He’s actually not sure if he’s supposed to snuggle or not, if that would be considered something for his gain or for Dean’s, so he stays still. If Dean wants to cuddle, he’ll move closer himself. But he doesn’t. And Cas realizes he’s forgotten how cold it is in bed without Dean up against him. He pulls the blankets tighter around himself and resigns himself to a cold, lonely night.
When he wakes the next morning, he feels… well, small. He doesn’t usually wake up regressed unless he had a really stressful day the night before. He guesses last night counts as pretty stressful, considering he’s still beating himself up over it.
He can tell that Dean isn’t in bed anymore, and he peeks his eyes open to see that he isn’t in the room either. This is another moment he’s unsure about. Is he supposed to be getting up now, or should he stay and wait for Dean to retrieve him and tell him what to do? He thinks back to heaven, and the angels there tended to want him to wait to be commanded, especially if he’d done something wrong that showed that he obviously couldn’t be trusted.
So he waits. And frankly, it’s quite boring. He fiddles with his stuffed animal, softly whispering little conversations with it to fill the silence.
When Dean walks in, he quickly sits up, giving him every fraction of his attention. Dean, being the wonderful caregiver that he is, takes one look at Cas and immediately clocks that he’s regressed.
“Well, hi, there. You don’t usually wake up like this, huh?” Cas thinks that’s rhetorical, but he shakes his head just in case. Dean just ruffles his already messy hair and gestures for him to follow.
“Come on, kid. I made breakfast.” Cas scrambles to get up, which amuses Dean, who assumes he’s just hungry. He obediently follows, and stands by his seat for about 20 seconds before Dean, seemingly confused, tells him he can sit.
He then waits patiently for Dean to plate his food for him, then proceeds to stare it down. To him, it’s obvious that he needs to be asking for permission before doing anything, but Dean doesn’t seem to have caught on yet.
After 10ish minutes of Cas staring longingly at his slowly cooling breakfast, Dean speaks up.
“You gonna eat?” Cas looks up at him, squinting slightly. Of course he’s not gonna eat without permission, who does Dean think he is? Dean looks pointedly down at Cas’s plate, and… it looks like permission. Cas slowly picks up an egg on his fork, and brings it to his mouth, hesitantly biting into it. Dean gives him a weird look as he slowly chews, waiting for Dean to yell at him that he wasn’t given permission.
Ultimately, Dean goes back to his own food, and Cas takes that as a sign that he’s free to eat now. He speeds up a little, having been quite hungry already.
Once he’s finished, he gently sets down his fork and sits patiently. Usually, he’d start bugging Dean, asking what activity is planned next, but right now, he’s worried that Dean will decide he should get a punishment if he gets too annoying.
“You okay, buddy? Still hungry?” Cas shakes his head. Even if he was still hungry, surely another serving would count as some sort of reward for good behavior? And he did not have good behavior, not even close.
It’s now that he starts to reminisce on everything he’d done the day before. Gods, he’d behaved like… like a heathen. All bursts of energy and incomprehensible rambles and a godforsaken tantrum. What is wrong with him, thinking that was in any way acceptable? It almost makes him want to cry, but obviously anyone who acts the way he acted yesterday doesn’t deserve to be held and comforted. This day is about making it up to Dean, not acting like a little angel who deserves the world.
He’s startled out of his thoughts when Dean takes his empty plate from him, presumably going to wash the dishes. He almost jumps up, wanting to tell Dean that he’s the one that should be washing the dishes, but he stops himself. If Dean wanted him to do the dishes, he would’ve told him to.
After breakfast, Cas finds himself standing patiently in the bedroom with his eyes averted as Dean changes into his day clothes. He didn’t say he was supposed to follow, but Cas thought he would just to be sure. Once he’s dressed, Dean turns to him.
“Alright, buddy. What do you wanna wear?” He asks, expecting Cas to start excitedly rambling about whatever shirt is his new favorite this week. But Cas just shrugs.
“You can choose.” Dean is almost tempted to grab his flask of holy water. What is up with Cas today?
“You sure, kid? I know you love choosing your outfits.” Cas nods.
“Yeah. But you can choose.” Dean is just confused now. Cas… wants to choose his clothes, but he’s making Dean do it for him instead? He figures he’ll just have to keep an eye on him today, making his way to the closet and digging through the shirts Cas likes to wear when he regresses.
He decides on a soft white sweater that Dean is still surprised has managed to stay white for so long. There’s been the odd spill, but nothing so bad they couldn’t get it out. He sets it to the side and grabs a pair of sweatpants, too, since they aren’t leaving the house today.
Cas eyes the clothing carefully. The white shirt must be a good sign, Dean seems to have regained enough trust to give him a shirt that’s easily made messy. But it means he needs to be so, so, so careful. If he gets something on a white shirt, he’s sure that’ll be the end of his chance to regain trust.
This show of trust gives him the courage to step forward on his own, stripping his pajamas and changing into his new outfit. He sighs happily at the softness of the sweater against his chest, rubbing it with his hands and for a moment getting lost in the sensation. Then he snaps out of it, dropping his hands to his sides. This isn’t about his pleasure, it’s a test. A test that he desperately needs to pass.
“Okay, dude. So, Charlie send me a text the other day, and she needs me to do a little researching and help her figure out what she’s hunting. Now, if you want me to, I can tell her I can’t and stay with you, but if you think you’re up for a little solo playtime, that would be super helpful for daddy.” Cas just stares at him, trying to conceal his sadness. He really wants daddy to stay with him. They don’t even have to play!
“I come research with you?” He asks hopefully, but Dean just ruffles his hair.
“It’s gonna be really boring, kid, sorry. And I need to focus, you know me, I’m distractible.” Cas mentally slaps himself. Of course Dean would have a hard time trying to get things done with a completely untrustworthy liability like himself. It’s no wonder he doesn’t want him in the same room as his work with how he acted yesterday.
“Okay… I’ll stay here.” Dean kisses his forehead and heads out the bedroom door.
“Thank you, baby. We can play later! I’ll be in the library if you need anything!” He shuts the door behind him, and Cas is alone. He grabs his stuffed bee and plops onto the floor. He really should’ve asked what he was allowed to do while he was in here, but he didn’t wanna ask too many questions. Dean said he should play, but did he mean with or without toys? Did he mean a specific type of play? Cas really isn’t sure, so he just sits. It’s better to do nothing at all than to do something and have it be wrong, he figures.
After 30 minutes of sitting there, he’s starting to get really bored. He sighs and scoots over to the closet, pulling out a plastic bin of toys and looking through it. Dean said play, so surely toys were allowed, right?
He settles on a coloring book and some markers. He usually prefers crayons, but he feels like branching out today. He gets lost in his mind, coloring in a picture of a smiling puppy, not even questioning the fact that puppies can’t smile as he usually would.
By the time he’s finished, smiling contently down at his drawing, he notices his marker covered hands. Then, to his absolute horror, he realizes he has various marker stains on the sleeves of his shirt. His white shirt.
Panic sets in rather quickly. Dean is going to kill him. Hurt him, just like Naomi did. All because he couldn’t keep his stupid markers on the stupid coloring book!
He’s been regressed, but all of the sudden his head feels that much fuzzier, and it’s even harder to think. Operating on instinct, he scrambles into the open closet, making sure to bring his bee along with him this time, and slamming the door behind him.
In the other room, Dean is snapped out of his work by a loud bang coming from the bedroom. He jumps up and runs in, worried that Cas has hurt himself somehow.
When he gets in there, he takes in the scene. There isn’t much to see, a coloring book and markers strewn across the floor, Cas’s tub of toys out, clearly having been dug through.
He hears a soft noise come from the closet, and he approaches slowly. He pulls the door open to reveal Cas, who immediately yelps and hides his face in his knees. The poor baby is trembling in pure panic, his breathing fast and choppy.
Dean, trying his best to stay calm despite his natural instinct to freak the fuck out, kneels in front of Cas as gently as possible.
“What’s got you so scared, baby? What’s wrong?” Cas tries to respond as best as he can, but panic and his continuously slipping headspace makes it really, really hard.
“I… I’m sorry! Sorry! Tried! Tried to be good! Make it up to you!” He dissolves into frantic sobs. “Sorry, sorry, sorry!”
Dean is… confused, to say the least. What on earth brought this on?
“Cas, you don’t gotta be sorry. Nothing you could do would make me so mad at you that you need to be this freaked out. And what do you mean ‘make it up to me’?” It takes a minute for Cas to catch his breath just enough to respond again, but at this point he’s given up on coherent sentences.
“Was bad! Tantrum! Sorry!” And then it dawns on Dean, and he wants to murder every angel to ever exist. Except for Cas, never Cas.
“Baby, baby… god, you don’t have to make it up to me. It’s okay, I’m not mad, really.” Cas peeks up at him, and god, this is the saddest thing Dean has ever seen. And he’s seen a lot of sad shit.
“But, but… tantrum…” Dean slowly reaches out and puts a hand on Cas’s shoulder, and fortunately it isn’t rejected.
“Listen to me, sweetheart. This is not anything like Heaven, okay? If you misbehave a little, we talk it over, and then it’s done, okay? You don’t gotta make shit up, and I’m definitely not gonna punish you for just being a kid. That’s what your headspace is for, huh?” He smiles, hoping to lighten the mood a little. Cas rubs at his teary eyes, starting to calm down, and Dean sees the marker on his sleeves.
“Oh, buddy… were you this worked up over a little marker?” Cas stiffens, slowly looking up at Dean like a frightened animal, and it breaks Dean’s heart.
“I’m not mad, baby, it’s just a sweater.” Cas looks unsure. He holds out his arms, hesitantly showing Dean the extent of the damage. Dean takes his arms in his hands and examines him. He thinks for a moment, then reaches into another compartment of the closet. He pulls out a tide stick and starts going to town on Cas’s sleeves. Soon, there’s not even a trace of marker.
“See? Not a big deal.” Cas examines his now cleaned sleeves, smiling softly in relief.
“Okay, kid. How about we get you out of the closet now, huh?” Cas reaches his arms out, making grabby hands at Dean, who chuckles, but happily lifts him into his arms. Cas flops against him, relaxing and snuggling in, relieved to find out that Dean isn’t really mad at him.
He pops his thumb into his mouth, sighing and suckling contently. Unfortunately for him, Dean rudely takes his thumb away. He squeals indignantly, and Dean laughs.
“I’m sorry, dude. That’s not good for you.” Cas grumbles frustratedly. He’ll show Dean “not good for you.”
A moment later, Dean’s brow furrows.
“Are you… sucking on my shirt?” Cas freezes reflexively, slowly looking up at Dean with the incriminating shirt tucked in his mouth. Dean takes a deep breath, reminding himself that Cas is already fearful of getting in trouble. He shrugs casually.
“Nothing wrong with that. It’s just a shirt.” Cas relaxes, resting his head back on Dean’s shoulder and suckling away on his shirt.
And while Dean would rather it be a pacifier, he’s happy to sacrifice his clothing for Cas to finally be content again after the day he’d had. The little guy deserves it.