#cas’s kids are jack and Claire of course

[violetfaust]

Top five children Dean should have gotten to keep:

1. Jack

2. Claire

3. Emma

4. Timmy from Bad Boys

5. Bobby John

(Runner-up: Ben, but his is the one case where the show made a compelling argument for Dean losing him)

(For the record, kids Sam should’ve gotten to keep in touch with (not counting Jack):

1. Amy Pond’s son Jacob

2. Jesse the antichrist

3. Magda (EVIL that we had to deal with Ketch for seasons and seasons after he killed Magda)

I think Sam would want to be more of a mentor/teacher rather than a parent, except for Jack.)

[confused-book-noises]

Once again thinking about Sam assuming Dean doesn’t like kids as if the dude didn’t literally raise him. Like bro’s been a dad since he was 4, he’s built for it. (Also of course he’s adorable with kids and I’m glad he gets to raise Jack and Claire with the love of his life, Cas)

[rocksalt-and-pie]

alright I've made a more in depth list of episodes I would like to see in a fanservice season 16 as previously mentioned in my other post:

- human Impala (should be portrayed by a 55+ years old actor or actress with a strong Detroit accent and a very loud deep voice. they have arthritis in their shoulders because Dean never oils their creaking door hinges)

- Sam and Dean body swap (the potential for jokes is just top tier and the outtakes from this will be out of this world) (Jensen playing Jared playing Sam and the other way around sounds like absolute chaos)

Cas immediately recognizes Dean even in Sam's body and it's revealed that all this time he has been looking directly at Dean's soul 😭 (no kissing in this episode though. God the psychological damage a Misha/Jared kiss would cause)

- parallel universe with female Sam and Dean that they get sent to and meet each other / alternatively: some kind of gender swap curse that makes them turn into women (the potential for misogynistic jokes turning into more understanding and therefore changed behavior is just chef's kiss)

Bonus points for Cas off-handedly mentioning that he doesn't think it's weird that he wasn't affected by the curse because technically he has no gender and the body he inhabits is just a vessel (close up on Dean's face Thinking Thoughts)

Rowena takes care of it and compliments the female versions of them and it's kinda gay ("do we have to turn you back? Shame, would have been nice to have some female company, we could have formed a coven! Or done other fun things" cut to irritated glances being exchanged between the brothers/sisters)

- Jack and Claire teaming up for a hunt (preferably saving their damsel in distress father and step-dad that got trapped in some dangerous place where they finally have nothing but time to talk things out because there is no way to escape, you have to be freed from the outside)

- stanford era Dean flashbacks (feeling lost and alone on the road)

- Bobby and Rufus in the 80s flashbacks (including baby Winchesters!)

- Bigfoot hunt (the teddy bear episode doesn't count) but it's just an escaped gorilla or something. I just wanna see them hiking again okay I like the woods

- some, like, desert monster idk. filmed on location in Arizona or Nevada in the sweltering heat. the boys being forced to remove layer after layer of plaid. show me Dean in a tank top (handprint included)

- birthday episode (either Sam's or Dean's idc. How come that in 15 years there was never a case taking place during one of their birthdays!)

- an actual wedding, either Sam and Eileen or Jody and Donna or Dean and [gun shots]

- beach episode, show me those bathing suits. give me a Bond girl moment

- another Wayward Sisters episode please

- reverse French mistake although it would be absolutely fucking insufferable and I would hate it with all my heart (but it would be sooo funny)

- resolve all the other loose threads of open ended episodes (there are so many! The tulpa from season 1! The girls in the hotel from the haunted house episode in season 2! Jesse the antichrist kid from season 5! The witch twins and how one of them brought the other back from the dead! The kid of that monster friend of Sam's that Dean killed in season 8 i think and told him to his face to come looking for him when he's grown up! That's five whole episodes right there!! and those are just the ones i could come up with from the top of my head but I'm sure there's more)

- BRING BACK BELA FOR JUST ONE SCENE PLEASE

- a lot of you mentioned a proper musical episode, which. sure why not. a curse that makes you sing/perceive everything happening as music perhaps?

- and then of course. The coconuts gently colliding but this goes without saying

[superawesome40]

Imagine this:

It starts with Bobby John. Dean can't let the baby go, he reminds him too much of Sam, way back when Sam was this age, and Daddy was always sad (or drunk), and when Dean tried to speak the words got stuck, and he could not make a sound. He can't let the baby go, so he doesn't.

Over time, they gather more. Bobby John, Ben, Joe and Ryan, Emma, Alex, Krissy and Aiden and Josephine, Magda, Claire, Jack. They find Jesse again, 16 years old and alone and scared of himself. They find Charlie and Kevin, and even though they aren't quite their kids, they treat them with the same care.

Somewhere in between the always rising tide of children, they find the Bunker. It's perfect - dozens of rooms for everyone to spread out, to have their own space. Bobby doesn't die, but he does move to the bunker "To keep an eye on ya' idjits,”. The modifications they make to the Bunker for his wheelchair are worth it to see the pride in his eyes. Linda Tran moves in, and she and Dean have an ongoing war over who's in control of the kitchen.

Of course, things aren't perfect. Chuck is still a problem, and eventually he must be dealt with. They win, but the cost is heavy. Cas and Jack are gone, and Dean... well he's as good as gone. He never leaves his room anymore, except to get a drink. Their dysfunctional family is mourning, both for those who they've lost and for themselves. Disappearing and coming back is much more traumatic than you'd expect.

Eventually, in an attempt to cheer him up, they convince him to go on a hunt. Just a small thing, a nest of vamps. They've killed a man and mutilated his wife, as well as taken their kids, two small boys. Someone (later, no one will remember exactly who) jokes that they can take in the boys. Sam and Dean leave, looking more cheerful than they’ve been in weeks.

They get the call a few hours later. Sam tells them over the phone, barely understandable through his tears, that Dean was hurt in the fight and that the doctors aren’t sure if he’ll pull through. Using the variety of cars in the bunker, they break a handful of laws and probably the sound barrier on their way to the hospital. Bobby pulls Sam aside and he explains, in detail, what happened. They wait for hours before a doctor finally enters the waiting room, asking for the family of Dean Fletcher* (Millie Winchester’s maiden name).

Dean survives, barely. Recovery is an uphill battle, and the damage done to his spine, muscles, and nerves leave him wheelchair-bound and in near-constant pain. Eventually, he’s able to move around for short periods of time using forearm crutches and leg braces, but it’s only after a few years and a lot of physical therapy. At the very least, the Bunker needs no new changes to accommodate him, having been updated for Bobby ages ago.

A year passes. The two boys from the vamp hunt are moved into the Bunker after their mother succumbs to her injuries in the hospital, and quickly adjust and thrive in the new location. Sam and Eileen quit hunting, permanently. They move to town, only fifteen minutes away, and visit every Saturday for family dinner. When they get married, Sam Winchester becomes Sam Leahy. Jody retires, and moves her hoard to the Bunker. They’ve got the room, after all. Donna follows not too long after. Miracle is officially trained as a service animal, to help Dean with his panic attacks.

One night, Dean can’t sleep. He hauls himself into his wheelchair and goes to the kitchen for a glass of water. He stops at the sight of three people sitting at the table.

The reunion is a tearful one. Dean cries from relief, and guilt, and of course the burning pain that rips through his back as a result of him temporarily forgetting he can’t stand and launching himself out of his chair. Cas also cries, sobbing apologies into Dean’s hair from where they are curled on the floor. Jack, pressed between the two of them and both overwhelmed and overstimulated, can only beg for Dean’s forgiveness. His dads wipe away his tears and press kisses to his cheeks, assuring him that he has nothing to apologize for.

The only one who doesn’t cry is Adam, sitting slightly stony faced at the table. Later, once the commotion of the reunion has died and Sam has been woken and summoned to the Bunker, the three sit down to chat.

Adam tells them that he’s not angry anymore, and begs them to explain everything to him, starting from the beginning. He is especially curious about their father, and realizes through their stories that John badly mistreated them. Dean invites Adam to stay in the Bunker, but Adam declines. He says that there’s a lot he needs to do, but hesitantly suggests that they stay in touch. Their relationship is tentative at first, but eventually he becomes a permanent fixture in the family.

Cas and Jack are filled in on what they missed. Dean pulls them each aside and apologizes privately for the things he said and did before the end. He assures Jack that he is part of the family, and always will be. He tells him he’s willing to be Jack’s dad, if that’s what Jack wants. Jack enthusiastically agrees.

He can’t quite bring himself to say “I love you” to Cas, but he says something along the lines of “maybe one day.” He also implies to Cas that John was extremely homophobic, and the combination of that and the sexual trauma he has experienced through his life (getting money for food/rent as a teen, Hell, Lydia) makes him hesitant now to form romantic relationships. Cas, understanding as always, agrees and comments on how he has improved at opening up, to which Dean replies that there wasn’t much else to do when he was trapped in bed and couldn’t escape Sam and his relentless therapy-talks.

Jack tells them as a group that he has decided there doesn’t need to be a God, and has stepped down after reforming Heaven. He says that he used his power for the last time to bring back Castile and find Adam. He confesses to his parents that the power is not gone, and likely never will be. He also says that he would like to grow up as human as possible, and promptly shrinks to the size of a toddler, much to the bewildered amusement of his parents. They discover that he no longer has his memories, and Bobby suggests that they may come back when he’s older, and that forgetting is his young mind's way of protecting itself.

As time passes, Cas and Dean open the Bunker to other hunters as a research facility and safe space to stay for a few nights. Neither of them hunt anymore, but they offer support and badly needed organization. With Charlie and Kevin’s help, they set up a system like the one Sam originally had.

When Eileen and Sam announce they are expecting, Dean is ecstatic. When they reveal the baby is a boy and that they are naming him “Dean II”, he cries for a solid hour. He’s the first, outside of Sam and Eileen, to hold the baby, who he affectionately nicknames “Junior”.

In the end, they are happy. They live together peacefully.

Would anyone be interested in reading this on ao3? I miiiight be planning to write this… also any suggestions/question/concerns are welcome! Also, if I missed any kiddos (canon only, please), feel free to tell me! I’m perfectly open to expanding their hoard.

Also, I cannot take complete credit for this story. Quite a few elements are inspired by foolondahill17’s stories, Dean Winchester’s half-way house for orphaned half-monsters (and humans), and the miracles ‘verse by the same author. Both are absolutely amazing stories, and I highly recommend.

*According to the Supernatural Wiki, Adam Glass wanted the actress Louise Fletcher to play Millie Winchester should she appear on screen.

[shallowseeker]

not the claire jack beef anon BUT i also think that they would have issues with each other at least at first. like, for one, that we see, cas never gives jack The Talk about claire, or vice versa, so they would absolutely see the other as this second secret family. dean also has a CLEAR favorite between the two, and each kind of lives the other's dream life. jack wants to be safe and loved unconditionally, and a chance at a normal life, like claire has with jody, donna, alex, patience, and wendy. claire is incapable of slowing down and wants the big adventures cas, sam, and dean get into. claire i think has maybe forgiven cas about jimmy, but being dumped in favor of this other kid, the child of the devil (who canonically killed jimmy!) might be a bridge too far and jack doesn't respond all that well to that kind of discomfort and misplace hostility.

I love your conceptualization of the vibes being reminiscent of the Secret Second Family. It also calls to mind an echo of Adam & Kate Milligan, doesn't it, even though it's not an exact one-to-one? It's uncomfortable. I like it.

Yes, Claire and Dean get along like hot jam on fire, and that's going to hurt, no matter how you slice it. Dean adores her.

And yes, you know, now that you mention it... Holy crap. Claire does have the life Jack wants. She's surrounded by a big family that loves her with built-in friends her own age that Get The Life. Absolutely, it would appear perfect to him, at least from the outside. I'm wholly accepting that little gem into my worldview.

And yes, it's a good observation that Jack doesn't respond all that well to that misplaced hostility. He can be very defensive.

And yes, I agree that this whole situation might be a step too far for Claire Powder-keg-Novak, even if she tries to swallow it down. I mean, she still sleeps with Grumpy Cat. In the 12x16 Ladies Drink Free script, Cas still emojis to her, sometimes, even two years out from their parting of ways.

She left them. Of course, she doesn't care. That's what she's going to tell herself, anyway.

CLAIRE: Who's Jack? ALEX/JODY (together): Lucifer's son. On Patience, silently reacting to that: Lucifer's son? What the fuck? On Claire-- a bit wounded to realize she knows so little about Sam and Dean these days.

13x10 Wayward Sisters, Writer's 2nd Draft

(Text Attributions// Supernatural scripts here via @spnscripthunt. Transcripts are located here via SPNWiki. Visit their Tumblr to donate.)

[quillquiver]

Happy 2nd anniversary to those two old guys from supernatural [[ao3]]

Their room is a mess.

It’s not their fault; though they’re largely retired, Claire and Kaia needed backup on a nearby mystery monster situation. So Cas’d cracked open the books and Dean had packed a duffle and when they’d stopped hearing from the kids, they’d gone in after them. ’Course, by the time they’d gotten back they’d pretty much just shed their viscera-covered clothing and dropped into bed.

Bright winter sun streams in through the window, causing Dean to groan and Cas to burrow further into his pillow. The duffle has been thrown at the closet door, the thing busted open and swollen with weaponry. Cas’s angel blade thigh holster hangs off the bottom-right bed post and Dean’s gun sits atop the dresser. The room smells like sewage and monster guts, which isn’t exactly ideal for a second wedding anniversary, but Dean figures they’ve done worse; last year, Jack had been so sick they’d spent the day trying to stop his puking. 

But Jack is with Sam and Eileen today, and after a shower and a change of sheets, Operation: Oops We Did It Again can finally commence. Starting, hopefully, with a vat of coffee and Dean getting fucked silly as many times as they can swing it. 

“Cas,” he whines, eyes closed. He shakes his shoulder. “Coffee.”

“You do it,” Cas says.

“Did it last time.”

Cas slaps at Dean’s hands. “M’gonna burn it.”

“S’automatic, you loser.”

“Can’t.” He rolls over. Tucking his face into the juncture of Dean’s neck, Cas applies half-asleep kisses everywhere he can reach, mumbling nonsense about how good and strong Dean is, how he’s the best provider and so manly and wouldn’t he prefer to make the coffee?

Dean stumbles out of bed grumbling.

Cas smiles. “I love you,” he murmurs, eyes still closed. 

Yeah, Dean bets he does.

By the time he comes back with two mugs and his present under his arm, Cas has moved from his side of the bed to Dean’s, his head face-down in Dean’s pillow. Dean still has no idea how he manages to breathe like that. “Hey, Sleeping Beauty. C’mon.”

Cas groans.

“Cas, seriously. There’s shit all over the room, I need you to grab this.”

He rises from the bed like a zombie from the grave, sitting up and offering his hands. As soon as the mug is cupped between his palms he sighs. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

“I love you.”

“I know.”

“Kiss.”

Dean grins. Pecks his mouth. “We’re so nasty,” he says. “Feel like I need to go through a human car wash.”

“Mm.” His blue eyes are only barely open. “Made it though.”

“Yeah by the skin of our teeth.” Dean frowns at his mug. “Gettin’ old.”

“For fighting, maybe. For everything else...” Cas shrugs. Smiles. “I think you deserve a real retirement.”

Dean purses his lips. They haven’t really talked about going whole hog on their apple pie life yet, and it’s not something he really wants to think about; if his family’s in trouble, he’s just supposed to sit around with his thumb up his ass? He’d never leave Jack, how could he leave Claire and Kaia?

“We don’t have to decide right now,” Cas says, clearly more awake. He shrugs. “It might be something to think about. I don’t like it, but Sam and Eileen’s network has been doing great things. And I think we scared Claire.”

“Yeah,” Dean chews his lip, distracted. “Maybe.”

“...Is that for me?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah.” Smiling, again, Dean takes the badly-wrapped package from under his arm and offers it. “It’s, uh, nothin’, y’know. Just... yeah. Happy anniversary.”

Cas kisses him, soft and sweet. “What is it?”

“You have to open it, you dork.”

“Alright, well...” Cas stretches and reaches under the bed, bringing up a present of his own. “Happy anniversary to you, too.”

Dean grins. “Open mine first.”

Cas’s gift is a riotously coloured cotton sweatshirt and short set. The thing looks like it’s been pulled right out of the 90s, soft and bright and Cas smiles so big his gums show. “I’m going to wear it once I’ve showered.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to.” He leans in for another kiss, grinning when Dean chases as he pulls away. “Open yours.”

Dean shakes his head, moving to press soft, wet kisses across Cas’s top lip. “Wanna make it last.”

Cas gives as good as he gets, shuffling until he’s practically in Dean’s lap. Their empty mugs have gotten lost in the dirty sheets somewhere, hands holding and squeezing and grabbing as the kiss deepens to something sexy and slow. Cas has this way this way of kissing that makes it feel like the main event. “Trust me,” he breathes. “We’re going to want what’s in there for the next part.”

“The shower?” Dean teases, leaning in again.

Cas nips his bottom lip. “The sex.”

Dean tears into the wrapping paper. 

“Oh hell yeah.”

Sheets. 

“Egyptian cotton,” Cas grins. “500 thread count.”

“Mm, talk dirty to me.”

“Single-ply,” he says lowly. “Hand-dyed.”

“Oh baby.”

They beam at each other. 

“Thanks, man,” Dean says. “I love ’em.”

“That’s only part of your gift,” he explains matter-of-factly. “I also plan to fuck you on those sheets. And to have pizza delivered later.”

“Hot.”

They make-out for longer than they probably should given how gross they are, until Cas is trying to hump him like some over-eager teenager and Dean is rapidly forgetting why they shouldn’t just add to the mess (the answer: that would be disgusting). “Sweetheart, we gotta—we should—”

“What if we just, ah, like this. Then later—”

Dean shakes his head. “Want it to last. I want—”

“I can do that. I can—fuck—”

“Cas, if you come without fucking me I’m gonna be pissed.”

Cas wrenches away, frustrated. “Then just let me—”

“Woah,” Dean interrupts. “What’s the rush? Sweetheart, hey. Castiel.” But Cas refuses to meet his eyes. Dean cups his face. Cas grips his wrists. “Talk to me.”

“I love you,” he blurts out.

Dean frowns. “Yeah, I love you, too.”

“I love you so much,” Cas says, like it’s a confession. Like it’s being ripped out of him. “I’m here. We’re married. We almost died. And I just—Dean, I don’t know—There’s something wrong with me, I—”

Dean’s eyes soften. “Nah, there’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Sorry,” Cas croaks, squeezing his eyes shut as if to stop himself from crying. “I want you. I-I want—So I don’t understand why I’m—I was fine. I’m fine.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees. “You are.” His dirty fingers thumb away tear tracks from the apple of Cas’s cheek. “Look, sometimes... we think we’re fine but we’re overwhelmed, y’know? S’okay.”

“I wanted to take care of you today.”

“Who says the day’s over?” Dean asks. “We’re gonna go take a nice long shower and I’m gonna wash your hair, and then I’m gonna go order like 40 pizzas and choose a movie, ’cause you owe me for coffee this morning. Then we’ll shove everything in the wash, and change the sheets, and you’re gonna fuck me so good I’ll feel it for the rest of the week.” Cas huffs a laugh. Dean smiles. “Darlin’,” he murmurs. “We’ll talk about hunting.”

Cas bites his lip. “I don’t want to die,” he breathes. “I only just got you back.”

The smallness of his voice hangs in the air between them. Dean feels something in him break. “...Yeah,” he swallows thickly. “I know.”

“But I don’t want to leave Claire if she needs help,” Cas argues with himself. “And you love hunting, I don’t want—”

“Alright well, first of all I don’t love hunting.”

“You know what I mean.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Dean promises. “We always do.” They’re quiet as he rubs at the cut of Cas’s jaw, a smile teasing at the corner of his mouth. “Not to change the subject or anything,” he eventually says. “But that was some serious real adult shit right there.” Cas rolls his red-rimmed eyes. Dean puffs out his chest. “C’mon, you gonna tell me I didn’t just make that conversation my bitch? I win at relationships, man.”

Despite the smile creeping across his face, Cas shakes his head. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“Whatever, I’m totally winning.”

Cas squints. “You routinely put things away without asking where they go. And then you forget about them, like a squirrel.”

“Please, you leave your shit all over the place. What am I supposed to do? Just walk right on by?”

“Yes! You...” Cas trails off, eyeing Dean’s shit-eating grin with a grimace. “Fine. Yes. Thank you. You’re very good at relationships.”

“Some would even say...” Dean prompts.

“They’d be wrong,” Cas says simply. “If the sample size is the rest of our lives, there’s no way to tell you’ve won yet.” A shrug. “And as we aren’t even through the whole day today, the jury still seems to be out on that, too. Sorry.” He doesn’t sound sorry. 

Dean hums. “So what you’re saying is, we should get in the shower to figure out who’s better.”

“As a start, yes.”

“Cool.”

Dean’s halfway to the bathroom when he suddenly pulled into a hug. Cas steps in and around until they’re pressed chest to chest, clinging to him in a way that would have broken bones if he was still an angel. He pulls away with a kiss to Dean’s closed mouth. “Thank you,” he says emphatically. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but I’ll never stop being thankful for it.”

A blush explodes across the bridge of Dean’s nose. “That’s cheating.”

“I meant it.”

Dean looks at him, helpless. “Cas.”

Cas stares his fill until he’s apparently done, nodding to himself before leading Dean, by the hand, into the bathroom. “Come.”

Dean does, for the record.

[zuzajs14]

I have a Christmas fic idea. Just hear me out real quick.

Donna and Jody decode to throw like a big family Christmas party. And the girls help them prepare everything. But while Donna hangs the mistletoe Claire gets a little bit defensive about getting a smooch. There is some chatter about it. Ratta tatta and stuff, Claire not being a big fan of displaying affection.

Buuuut. As Jody joins the conversation, she kinda pushes the idea or rather forms a joke about displaying mistletoe everywhere, so everybody would catch Claire at some point. And oh Claire decides it is on. Like some kind of game. She helps hang it, she memories the clean paths. She wants to be the only one standing proud, no smooches on her account. But she wants everybody else to be miserable because of the game.

So. The Winchesters come at the point when everything is already decorated. Jody welcomes them with mistletoe smooches at the entrance. Sam actually likes it. Dean is taken by surprise. Of course he will get a tad defensive. They all settle inside. Dona explains the idea of the "game" to them. To be honest most of them just want to get Claire and smooch her so she won't win her own ridiculous battle.

Jack appears out of nowhere. Claire gets into argument that he should have come through main door (the mistletoe ther is supposed to guarantee her that nobody else in the house has 0 kisses on their account as she does). Jack doesn't understand. But he likes the idea of game granting him kisses.

At some point Dean ends up under the mistletoe with Jack. After Claire putting her foot down about "no exceptions", Dean gives Jack the cutest smooch on the forehead.

"Don't get used to it, kid!"

Jack obviously tries to get more fatherly kisses after that. Because look, Sam grants them without reason, so it's not the same.

"I prefer my eggnog game" declares Dean at some point.

"How do you play it?" Naively asks Jack.

"You drink it."

Yeah, nobody is amused by that, Dean.

Buuuut. As they get more cosy, start chatting and singing, the doorbell goes of. And Claire gets the door. Of course she stays clear of the mistletoe, just pushing it with her hand.

And then there is Cas on the other side. Very confused as everybody yells from inside that Claire cheated. But hey, Cas doesn't care. What he does is kiss Claire's hand, explaining that there is a mistletoe above them. (He did his research about normal human behaviour at the festive season cause Dean is like a hyper excited kid about it and Cas wants to indulge him)

There are wining cheers, as Claire gets flustered and invites Castiel in. The competitive spirit of the game quiets down after that. Instead Claire decides to bug Castiel, trying to get him wear fluffy wings and a plastic halo.

"Our own tree topper."

Yeah, she got fond of him, alright.

Jack gets free forehead kisses from Cas. Because he still plays the game and nobody pays attention to the fact that there not always is a mistletoe around when the kid says so.

But then another game starts. As Claire teams up with Jack to get the best possible Christmas kiss for Dean and Cas. And you know what? They succeed.

And they are all happy. And there are lights, warm food, long hugs, ugly sweaters, reindeer headbands and not so spiced eggnog.

[elasgottoomuchfreetime]

My brain divides SPN into several… i don’t know… Sections? Seven to be exact (I think).

Season 1-2

Season 3 (cuz I always forget it)

Season 4-5

Season 6-10

Season 11-12

Season 13-14

Season 15

At this point I’m in fact not sure, why it’s like that? But between these sections it felt/feel like something changed, like a new book began or smth like that.

I am personally fond of 4-5 and very fond of 6-10.

The first two seasons seem like a separate thing to me because it‘s like, what they originally wanted the show to be about i think? The Prologue or smth so to speak.

Season 3, I never know what happened there, when we rewatched it I was frequently like „Oh! That was season 3?“. There’s just not much that really sticks out? Besides Dean going to hell maybe. Which I only remember because Cas pulled him out in 4.

Seasons 4-5, the apocalypse, I think I liked the concept of it? Dean & Cas‘s chemistry of course, Lucifer, the angels. I just enjoyed it.

Seasons 6-10, Cas betraying the boys, the Leviathans, Sam being soulless, Purgatory, Benny, Dean having a Crisis every other episode, Charlie, Metatron, Rowena, Alex, Donna being introduced, Claire being reintroduced, Crowley, the Mark of Cain- all examples of concepts & characters I adore. There is a distinct change after Season 5 was over, in Dean and Cas’s characters especially. Probably because it was supposed to end after S5? Whatever, I really enjoyed that. It was fun.

Season 11-12, I don’t remember much? I think it was the Amara/Darkness & Men of Letters Arc thing? The concept of the Darkness was nice. God, Lucifer and the whole squad teaming up to get rid of her was kinda cool I guess? Ketch was… I don’t know a little weird at first but I got used to him? Never grew overly fond of Mary’s character. Jack‘s birth of course was… something. Over all neutral ig. I don’t know why this is distinct for me, but I feel like something changed after 10 was over, can’t put my finger on it though.

Season 13-14, I’m currently watching 14, I think the whole parenting thing with Jack they‘ve got going on is nice. I‘m currently enjoying the whole Micheal trying to destroy the earth & possessing Dean arc and whatever the hell is going on with Nick. Gabriel coming back in 13 and the girl squad with Donna, Jody and the kids feeling more… prominent (?) was fun. What changed here is probably conditioned by Jack being added as a character. I like him, but it kinda changed the dynamic I guess? Also because it kinda conditioned everything that happened afterwards.

Season 15, I haven’t watched it yet. From what it looks like Dean’s character gets ruder than I‘m used to? Especially to Cas? Then there‘s the Destiel confession (that I naturally know about) and the weird way Dean dies in the end. Even though I haven’t seen it yet it already kinda feels like they were hastily trying to rip the whole thing off kind of abruptly? Correct me if I’m wrong. I‘ll report back when I watched it, currently I’m rewatching in German (currently S6) with my mother who hasn’t seen the show yet.

I don’t know what this is supposed to be? I think I just wanted to rant about this whole section thing in my mind and how/why I like said said sections. Maybe also for me to write it down and make up my mind about this stuff, because as I’m rewatching the show I’m reflecting and thinking about stuff a little bit more.

If you want to you can add on with your own opinions on the seasons & how/if you section them. Or if you can/want to add any bonus information.

I enjoy reading other people’s opinions & takes.

Anyway have a nice day. And thanks for reading.

[casbeeminestiel]

I had a really fun time writing this one. I've got zero plan for where this month takes me, but much like Dean in this fic, I'm enjoying the ride.

This one is mildly spicy. I haven't quite worked up to a full M or E, so I'll go ahead and rate this one a T for now. Ask to tag!

Day 4: Wicked

Hunts are few and far between these days. With Chuck’s downfall came a few months with no paranormal activity, giving every hunter in the country a bit of a much needed break. Even though cases have begun to appear once more, Dean has realized that they are nowhere near the volume they were before they iced God. In fact, about half of the leads they chase these days turn out to be false.

Still, a job is a job. This is why, when a potential haunting pops up in Rhode Island, he decides to take the case. Dean shoots a quick text off to Cas. The angel is currently out doing “bonding activities” with Jack and Claire, who had shown up shortly after breakfast for a surprise visit. Dean shakes his head and wonders what they’re up to, knowing that bonding activities probably means at least one felony. 

From the looks of it, the spirit is not out for blood yet. Right now, it seems to be more of a nuisance for real estate agents. Whatever it is has chased out four potential buyers from an old house in Newport.

He raps on Sam’s door.

“Sammy, I’ve got something in New England. You and Eileen want to come along?”

He hears a muffled curse from inside Sam’s room, followed by a thump. Sam’s voice carries through the door.

“What is it?”

“A casper in Newport is shaking up the housing market.”

Sam opens the door, hair in complete disarray and a deeply skeptical look on his face.

“And you need my help for that?”

Dean sighs. “Tone down the bitchface, man. I don’t need your help, but I thought we could make it a family thing. Sue me.”

Sam unclenches and reaches a hand up to smooth down his diva hair. “Yeah, ok. Give me an hour to get ready.”

“Make it two. This thing ain’t urgent. No one will touch that house. Plus we’ve gotta give Cas and the kids time to clean up whatever situation they’re getting into right now.”

Sam laughs a little at that. “What, you don’t think they’re apple picking or something?”

“Not a chance.”

“Wanna bet ten bucks that Claire is somehow roping Jack into trouble and the kid doesn’t even realize it?”

“We both know I would lose that bet. Claire is evil.”

“She gets it from you,” Sam teases.

Dean will accept that. “I feel sorry for Cas.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Cas can hold his own. He also gets that from you.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m a bad influence on the guy,” Dean shrugs. “At least his music taste is better than yours. I don’t know where I went wrong with you, but you really put the hair in hair rock.”

Sam just squints at him for a moment, letting him sit with his own joke before straightening. “Right. Anyways, I’m going to tell Eileen the plan and get ready. Let me know when the others are all set to go.”

“You do that, bitch.”

“Whatever, jerk.”

………

Almost exactly two hours later, they’re all packed in Baby. Cas and Claire are in the front with Dean, and Sam, Eileen, and Jack are in the backseat. Claire has her own car of course, but it died unexpectedly in the driveway when she tried to start it.

“No I didn’t leave my light on, jackass,” had been the preemptive reply to Dean’s question. Claire scares him a little, but mostly she reminds him of himself in a not-totally-reassuring way.

As snarky as Claire is, she chooses to be a good sport and rides with them rather than calling AAA. Dean promises to fix her car when they get home from the case. Her one condition is that she gets to sit shotgun. Nobody wants to argue with her, including Sam.

They roll Northeastward as fast as Dean can go without getting pulled over, taking all the backroads they can to avoid major traffic. Dean has been on some truly long drives before, where the roads seemed to lead nowhere and the next gas station was easily one hundred miles away. He shudders, thinking of US 95 in Oregon. Talk about desolate.

But this one is shaping up to be good. He’s got all his favorite people in one vehicle, his favorite cassettes on deck, a nice and easy haunting to squash, and no big bad on the horizon. Hell, he even has money to burn on a nicer hotel for the night, and he will be using it.

Maybe I can get some alone time with Cas. 

He glances at Cas over Claire’s head where she has it buried in a book, only to find him watching Dean already. Dean smiles bashfully and hopes Cas can’t see the pleased flush rising to his face. Judging by the way his eyes light up though, he can.

This thing between them is largely responsible for the high he’s been riding for the past few days. It’s a wonderful development, truly, but it’s also very new. Dean wants to enjoy the honeymoon phase of their relationship just a little longer before they settle into things more. 

He knows, of course, that he’ll enjoy being with Cas just as much in ten years as he will in ten days, because it’s Cas, and he’s perfect even when he’s the most idiotic and infuriating son of a bitch alive. But he reserves the right to be horny and dumb about his partner when he’s in his prime.

So yeah, he’s booking two singles and one double for the night. 

Humming along the highway, lost in his own mildly solicitous thoughts, Dean doesn’t hear Sam at first when he pipes up from the back.

“Dean, are you listening?”

“Hm?” Dean very resolutely does not look at Cas right now. He especially doesn’t look at his lips. Nope, that would be a bad idea. He needs to pay attention to the road. 

“I said,” Sam starts imperiously, “that I was reading this article about regional dialect, and there was this link to a quiz at the bottom. It’s supposed to guess where you’re from based on your vocabulary. I think we should take turns taking the quiz.”

“Huh, alright. Lay it on me.”

Sam starts in on a series of questions, asking Dean how he pronounces different words and the terminology he uses for a variety of commonplace objects. The others in the car offer their own commentary, especially Claire.

“There’s no way people call a water fountain that.”

“Claire, you’re literally from the midwest. Have you never heard anyone refer to it like that?”

“I like that word,” Jack says, not looking up from his game.

“It is a fun word,” Eileen agrees. “Bubbler.”

“Sam, did it give you my social security number yet?”

Sam is frowning in the rearview, clearly puzzled. “Actually, it can’t seem to pinpoint your region. Your map is showing some similarity everywhere.”

Dean thinks on this for a moment before he gets it.

“Dude, we were raised on the road. You and I have picked up words from everywhere.”

“Oh, I guess that makes sense. So we have generic dialects then?”

“Guess so.”

Soon, Claire demands to take the quiz, and is the first one who gets a fairly accurate location, unsurprisingly. She’s spent more of her life in the midwest than not. 

Cas thinks the quiz is a waste of time (“I don’t think they have enochian in their database, Dean.”), but he indulges his family anyway.

“Cas, the results are showing your location as somewhere around… Kansas.”

“I do spend most of my time in Kansas.” His tone is dirt dry, but Dean can tell he’s secretly amused by all of this dialect business.

“You’re a billion years old. Have a few years in Kansas really made that much of a difference?” Claire asks.

Cas tilts his head, meets Dean’s eyes with intention. “Perhaps.”

Oh, he’s flirting with you.

Dean swallows. Cas can definitely see that he’s blushing now. 

……… 

Sam seems to be down a dialect rabbit hole today, telling them facts about different regions and how they developed linguistically over time. By the time he reaches a few articles about New England, everyone's a little punch drunk and overtired. Dean is determined to make this drive in one go. The others can sleep if they want. He just needs a little coffee in him, and he’ll be able to make it to Cleveland before he switches off with Sam. 

“Get this. People in Massachusetts and Rhode Island emphasize things they really like as ‘wicked.’” 

Dean snorts, startling a half-asleep Claire from where she’s been nodding off against his shoulder. She glares at him, earning an apologetic grin.

Cas, who has been “resting his eyes” but is seemingly aware of this conversation, murmurs a request for an example from Sam. Dean wants to wrap him in a blanket so fucking bad right now.

“So uh, imagine you’re eating a good sandwich.”

“I don’t know what a good sandwich tastes like, Sam. I don’t need to eat.”

“It’s just a hypothetical.”

“I personally like the footlongs from Subway.”

“Gross, Dean.” Sam pulls a face.

“The more inches the better, right Cas?” He winks at the angel. The look he gets in return is so worth Sam’s disgusted noises from the back. Half-lidded eyes track lazy and hot over his frame from the passenger side. Dean finds his lips suddenly very dry.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Your face says otherwise, Sunshine.

“Anyways,” Sam coughs, “someone from New England might say the sandwich is wicked good or wicked awesome.”

“Doesn’t wicked have a negative connotation?”

“Normally, yes. But people make their own rules for this stuff, man.”

“After all this time on earth, humanity finds new ways to surprise me.”

“I’ll bet.” Sam chuckles.

“Hey Sam, what do they call a sandwich in New England?”

“They have a few terms for sandwiches. Subs, spukies, grinders-” Sam cringes, immediately knowing he messed up. “No, Dean. Don’t.”

“Grinder?”

“Please.”

“But Sammy-,”

“Stop.”

“I don’t even know her!”

Sam groans and buries his face in his hands. Dean for one is very pleased with himself. And hey, he even made Cas crack a smile.

“That was a wicked good joke, Dean.” Eileen, apparently not asleep, chimes in. 

“I’m here all night.”

“I don’t get it.” Jack is right behind Dean, so silent for the past hour that Dean forgot he doesn’t need sleep. Dean immediately does damage control to spare himself from Cas’ wrath.

But he’s hot when he’s mad.

Shut the fuck up, brain.

“I’ll explain it when you’re a little older, kid. Adult joke.”

“But physically I’m-,”

“Don’t care. You’re not old enough.”

“Dean!”

“Talk to your dad about it.” He means Cas, who does not look happy to be saddled with this conversation, but he forgets one important thing about Jack.

He is swiftly reminded.

“Which one?”

“The one who isn’t Lucifer, obviously.”

“You? I’m already talking to you.”

Dean gapes, just a little. He won’t get emotional about Jack seeing him as a father figure. He won’t.

Wait.

“Kid, you ain’t fooling me. You know I’m referring to Cas. Talk to him about it. He makes the rules.”

“Oh, but I was hoping you could override them.”

Dean’s mind is going down a very specific path regarding Cas and rules, so it takes him a second too long to catch up. Unfortunately for his overheated brain, Cas decides to intervene.

“Dean knows better than that.” There’s a suggestion in that rather confident statement that makes Dean go hot all over, the tips of his ears burning and his palms sweating. 

He really likes this, the back and forth routine they’ve got going on right now. They haven’t had sex yet, content for now to let things simmer while they get used to each other in this new capacity. They haven’t really talked about it either. There seems to be an understanding between them that they are both ready, and have been ready in some way for twelve years, but neither of them have made a move.

It feels less like first time nervousness and more like a game. It’s anticipation undercut with mutual responsibility and respect for each other. Cat and mouse, a delicate dance, etcetera. Bottom line is, Dean loves this, and he loves Cas even more. 

………

Sam takes the wheel in Ohio, and Dean passes out for a few hundred miles.

When he wakes up with a familiar crick in his neck, they’re well into Connecticut. The trees lining the freeway are a watercolor riot of red, yellow, and orange leaves and striking birch bark. He presses his palm against the window, feeling the chill seep into his hand from the pane. It must be early, then.

“Morning sleepyhead.” He’s greeted by a grinning Eileen, whose shoulder he has definitely not been drooling on this whole time. He knows immediately by the sing-songy cadence of her voice that she has a picture stored away for blackmail.

In the front seat, a ray of morning sun lights up Cas’ side profile as he appears to be deep in a discussion with Claire and Sam. Dean forgets all about his blackmail suspicions, breath caught in his chest and warmth percolating through his body at the sight of him.

It’s not even lust, is the craziest part. Obviously he feels desire too, but this is much bigger than that. Because for a moment, his sore neck and pins and needles and the other occupants of this car whom he cares deeply about all fade away when he simply looks at Cas. 

Goddamn, I want to wake up to see your face every day. 

He must’ve prayed it, because Cas turns to look at him with a smile so sweet, Dean swears his tooth begins to ache. 

Dean thinks, certainly not for the first or last time, that he might be dreaming. That Cas, grounding, charming, genuine, stubborn, perfect Cas couldn’t possibly be real. But when the angel winks like a dork and turns Dean’s insides into mush, what he does know is that what they have is too wicked damn awesome to ever let go.

[jackandclairearesiblings]

Claire and Jack are on a hunt and run into this kid around their age who is new to hunting because a monster killed his mom

They team up and Claire and Jack invite this kid traveling alone back to the bunker to recover and get actual food and sleep once it's over

The guys are all excited like "of course you can bring your hunter friend over!" and Dean goes all out with dinner and Sam prepares one of the spare rooms (Cas is just happy his kids are making a friend)

That is, until they walk in through the front door

It's Ben.

[trannydean]

Baby, I Love Your Way - Fictober Prompt #07

Prompt - #07, "Do you recognize this?"

Fandom - Supernatural

Rating - G

Warnings - Nothing but tooth-rotting fluff

Word count - 829

Summary - Cas, Dean, and Jaime are all taking a rare moment to relax when a familiar song comes on the radio.

A/N - This is just a sweet modern AU that's got Jestiel and some of their kids. I've got angst planned for other prompts so ik I needed to have a just fluff one shot written, too.

Quiet days were rare—always had been, probably always will be. Nowadays, it was usually because the kids were home, making a racket. Despite the house being large, it wasn’t hard to hear the clamoring of feet from one side to the other.

It wasn’t the kids’ fault—Jaime knew that, and so did Cas and Dean. Having four teens, plus Bobby John, under one roof was a recipe for little peace and quiet.

But today was a bit different than most days. None of the kids were home—Bobby John was at summer camp, Jack was at Sam and Jess’ for the weekend, and Claire, Emma, and Krissy were all at a friend’s place. The house was unnaturally calm, the only sounds being from the radio, softly playing classic rock in the background.

Currently, Jaime, Cas, and Dean were all relaxing on the couch. They had somehow lined up their schedules enough to where they were all out of work this afternoon, and they could spend the rest of today with each other.

Cas was the only one sitting up; he wore his reading glasses and had a book in hand, brow furrowed as he concentrated on whatever he was reading. Jaime and Dean were laying on either side of him, their heads resting on either of Cas’ thighs. Their legs hung off either arm of the couch, but they were comfortable, and they were happy.

Jaime was just figuring he could take a nap like this—head pillowed by one of his partner’s lap and just enjoying the evening with each other—when Dean suddenly sat up. This jostled the couch a little, and Jaime grunted in protest.

“What is it, Dean?” Cas inquired, and Jaime opened his eyes to Cas lowering his book a little to peer at Dean over his glasses.

“Do you recognize this?” Dean asked, and it took Jaime a moment to realize he was talking about the song on the radio.

“Uhh, Frampton, right?”

“Yes, yes, but the song itself.”

Dean got to his feet, a grin on his face. He looked at Cas and Jaime, waiting for them to say something, maybe. But both just stared at him, and his grin faltered a little.

“You guys, it’s our song,” Dean huffed. “Remember? This song was playing when we all met. At that party of Jo’s. She had soft rock going, and this was the one playing when—”

“When Jaime tripped with his punch glasses and managed to spill one on each of us,” Cas finished, amused. Jaime groaned and ran a hand through his hair.

“Oh, c’mon, you guys are just never gonna let that go, huh?” Jaime grumbled, furrowing his brow as he looked from Dean to Cas.

“Aww, you’re still embarrassed about that?” Dean cooed, sitting back down on the couch, next to Cas. He wrapped an arm around Cas’ shoulders and pulled himself closer, grinning down at Jaime.

“Well, you did choose to embarrass me consistently about it for the next—what, five years? It’s tapered off since, but you never stopped,” Jaime snorted. Cas hummed a little, but Jaime could see he was trying to hide his smile.

“Of course I did—‘cause it was funny, and you always get the cutest blush when you’re embarrassed.” If it was possible, Dean’s grin grew wider. Jaime made a halfhearted attempt to shove his arm, causing Dean to do the same back.

“All right, come on, that’s enough,” Cas chided, taking off his reading glasses. Jaime gave Dean one last shove before quickly sitting up on Cas’ other side, grinning smugly over at Dean. Cas shook his head and tsked.

“You two are just as bad as the children.”

“Of course—they had to get it from somewhere,” Dean said in a mock serious voice. Jaime nodded in agreement, then leaned back against Cas’ shoulder. Cas wrapped an arm around Jaime and pulled him close, giving him a soft kiss on the temple. He then turned and did the same for Dean.

They sat quietly for a minute, listening to the end of the song, then the start of the next. Their silence was broken when Cas murmured, “Hey, Jaime?”

“Yeah?”

“What made you trip and spill your punch on me and Dean? Did you actually trip over something, or what?”

Jaime felt his face heat up, and he sighed exaggeratedly, debating on whether he should tell the truth or not.

“Don’t laugh at me for this,” he said after a moment. “But you two were busy looking elsewhere, and I thought—well, I thought I could sneak past between you both while getting an eyeful. But I wasn’t paying attention, and I tripped. I dunno if it was over my own feet, or what, but—Dean, I told you not to laugh!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Dean apologized quickly, still laughing. “But you know what that means?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

“You fell for us. Literally.”

Cas snorted, and Jaime groaned, and Dean laughed some more.

[scripted-downfall]

I have finally got some titles for you! 😈😈😈

1.) to hook a star

2.) Shadows Ticking

3.) the Stud Muffin and the Cupcake

Have fun! 😌😚

Okay so.  On the one hand, kudos on the gif because I love that one.  On the other hand… WTF ARE THESE TITLES, MY DEAR???  I adore you but WOT.  ESPECIALLY number 3!?!??!!

Anyway :) 

1. to hook a star

This, my dear, is foul freaking play because you know full well that I have so many Howl’s Moving Castle thoughts… At this point, I’m not even sure which universe I’m going to choose (maybe more than one, but I’d have to take care not to get too repetitive), so I’ll give the possibilities.  I’ve considered fusions with: 

a) Supernatural.  Dean as Howl and Cas as Calcifer… Casting for Markl and Sophie are a bit more up-in-the-air, but I’m thinking Jack as Markl and Sam as Sophie — and this is obvious since you know me, but I want to clarify: no Wincest.  This would work within the HMC framework, but not be a complete fusion

b) Heaven Official’s Blessing, of course!  You know this too, because I’ve already mentioned it, but Hua Cheng and E’Ming as Howl and Calcifer respectively (this would take slight tweaks to the falling-star premise, but I think the parallels are visible), Xie Lian as Sophie, and… idk for sure about Markl.  I have to finish the series.  Ban Yue would be an option, but she was always more Xie Lian’s apprentice, so… meh.  There’s Yin Yu, I guess, but I haven’t seen much of him yet and idk if the characterization works.  Maybeeeee He Xuan, though it’d take some tweaking.  That has funny possibilities.  And maybe I could work in beefleaf :) 

c) I have kinda considered a few other universes --- Stranger Things, Good Omens --- but never especially seriously... They still deserve mention though.

I swear there were more, but this is all I can remember right now aldksjf

2. Shadows Ticking

Huh… Interesting.  Ummmmmm.  I just went through my writing doc, and this title would work for a From Dusk ‘Til Dawn fusion I’ve had planned for a bit… idk if it’s the title I’ll use whenever I get around to writing it, but I think it’s the only idea I’ve got rn.

Anyway, Sam and Dean stand in for the Gecko brothers, while you’ve got fallen (by which I mean “disgraced”, not “demonic”) angel Castiel with adoptive kids Jack and Claire.  The basic outline of the story is roughly the same, but I’m modifying it a bit… specifically, because Jack, Cas, and maybe Sam have varying degrees of supernatural heritage/biology, so they don’t die like their source characters in canon; instead they just… change.

3. The Stud Muffin and the Cupcake

Can I once again say wtf????  Uh… Suffice to say that, while both of those^ stand a chance of being written, I’m almost certainly not writing this one…  I don’t think I’ve ever said the words “stud muffin.”  Ever.  But anyway…

Crackfic, goes without saying.  I’m really trying to make this something about baking, and Heaven Official’s Blessing (and Xie Lian’s absolutely atrocious cooking, and the fact that people always underestimate Xie Lian/think he’s too sweet/polite/kind to take seriously) keeps invading my head, but I also don’t want to soil HOB by connecting it to this title, so… Frustration.  But I guess that’s my very-vague-because-I-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-it summary.  You suck :)

Thanks for the ask, Jezebel… You’re a problem child, but I appreciate it :) 

– – – 

(Title Ask Game)

[haus-seeblick]

Suptober Day 15: "Operation Don't Burn Down the House"

Dean’s determined to be Star Baker at the school bake sale, but a missed bus means he’s gonna fall behind. So Castiel and Jack step up to help bake the perfect cupcakes.

Turns out, Castiel has a lot of questions. Thankfully, Dean is just a phone call away.

Chaos ensues.

So pumped to have teamed up again with @tsujiharu for a Suptober fic this year! This is a sequel to our 2021 Suptober collaboration, Operation Stop the Flirting, but can also be read as a standalone fic.

Read the fluff & chaos under the cut, or on ao3 here! (wc ~7500)

*****

The early evening sun slants over the kitchen island, glowing in the steam that rises from Castiel’s cup of tea. He basks in the warmth and smiles as he watches Dean sift through his recipe folder and mumble to himself. 

“Have you decided what you’d like to make yet?” he asks, sipping his tea. Dean glances up at him, and Castiel’s heart does a happy little skip when the sunlight hits those green eyes. They’ve been together for a year, but it strikes him every day how hot his boyfriend is. 

Dean seems to contemplate a moment longer, then nods. “Yeah. Think I’m gonna go with the apple pie cupcakes like I originally planned. The salted maple buttercream will be a hit.”

“You’ll definitely stand out at the bake sale,” Castiel says, and Dean grins at him, leaning over the kitchen island to press a soft kiss against Castiel’s lips.

“That’s the plan. All right, now all I need is my helper.” He pulls away and calls, “Hey, Jack, you ready to bake?”

An excited shriek echoes from upstairs, and then footsteps patter loudly down the steps and along the hall. Jack slides into the kitchen on socked feet. Beaming, he bounces over to Dean. “I’m ready!”

“Awesome. Go grab your apron and I’ll tie it for you.”

Jack hurries to the pantry and snags his little apron from the hook inside the door. It’s light yellow with a pattern of guinea pigs, a fabric Castiel just couldn’t resist when he saw it at the store. Jack slips it over his head, and Dean kneels down behind him to tie the strings. 

As he watches them, Castiel can’t help but consider how far they’ve come. A year ago, Dean was just his neighbor; a friendly, sweet man who drove Castiel to work every day so he wouldn’t have to take the bus. Castiel would wake up every morning giddy at the prospect of spending twenty minutes in the car with Dean cracking jokes in the front seat and Claire and Jack strapped in safe in the back. It was a wistful window into his dream life, and though the months and months of flirting were painful at times, it all paid off once they finally confessed their feelings on that chilly day at the harvest festival. It took their children forcefully orchestrating that pivotal conversation, but once the words were said, that was that. 

After just a few months of actual dating, Castiel and Dean decided it was time to move in together. They consulted with Jack and Claire, who begged for a yard, and in the spring they moved into a cozy two-story house. The kids each got their own bedroom, much to Claire’s relief, and Dean has a full-size garage for his beloved car. 

Now Castiel wakes up each day with Dean wrapped around him and with the knowledge that both their children are just down the hall. They all get ready together in the mornings in a chaotic flurry of backpacks and socks and lighthearted bickering, and leave the house as a family. 

And every day is filled with moments like this one — Dean crouched next to Jack, smiling and helping him adjust his apron, Dean’s black t-shirt accentuating his toned arms and narrow waist, and— it’s all too much; Castiel loves this man more than he thought possible.

Dean and Jack are washing their hands when Dean’s phone rings. 

“Can you get that, Cas?” Dean asks, making sure Jack uses soap. 

“Of course.” Castiel slips off his stool and walks over to Dean, fishing the phone out of Dean’s back pocket. “Oh, it’s Claire. I’ll put it on speaker.” He swipes the screen. “Hello, Claire, it’s Castiel.”

“I could’ve figured that out,” Claire says in greeting. “Hi, Cas. Is my dad there?”

“He’s on speaker,” Castiel says, as Dean hollers, “What’s up, kid?” while handing Jack a towel.

“I need a ride home. I missed the bus, and Kaia’s gone home already.” 

“Can’t you wait for the next city bus?” Dean says, drying his own hands and swooping in to take the phone from Castiel. 

“The app says it’s an hour away,” Claire replies, a pleading edge to her voice. “Everyone from robotics club except the teacher is gone and it’s gonna be dark, can you please come get me? I’d just walk otherwise.”

“Okay, okay, hang on.” Dean puts the phone on the counter and scrunches his eyes in thought. “Um, all right. These cupcakes really have to get started.”

“I can pick up Claire,” Castiel offers. 

Dean sucks a skeptical breath through his teeth. “I don’t know.”

“I may not have driven in a while, but my license is current.”

“You haven’t driven in years, ” Dean corrects, not unkindly. “I think I’d like to teach you to handle Baby before sending you off into rush hour traffic.”

“That’s fair,” Castiel replies, and Claire calls, “Yeah, don’t let Cas drive!” from over the phone.

Dean rolls his eyes. “Don’t be a jerk.” He chews his lip. “All right, you comfortable starting the baking then, Cas?”

“Jack and I can definitely handle it,” Cas says, and Jack high-fives him. 

“It’s kind of a complicated recipe,” Dean hedges. 

“Don’t you remember the apple pie Jack and I made for Claire’s birthday last year? That had latticework and everything,” Castiel reminds him. “We are more than capable.”

He doesn’t mention that in order to make that pie, he watched the same YouTube video at least twenty times, a helpful step-by-step guide by a cheerful baker named Donna with a heavy Minnesotan accent. But the pie turned out great, and he’s confident that he and Jack can follow a recipe. 

“Cas and Jack can do it!” Claire’s tinny voice encourages, and though Castiel knows her support is entirely for her own benefit, he still thanks her. 

“All right, well, I don’t want you walking that stretch of highway when it gets dark,” Dean says, putting the phone against his ear. “I’ll head out now. Just hang tight, stay inside the school.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

Dean hangs up and nods for a moment, obviously recalibrating his plans. “Okay. The recipe is on the island. I shouldn’t be too long. Just get it all going, and I can take over when I get home.”

“Don’t worry, Dean.” Castiel smooths his hands down Dean’s arms and kisses him reassuringly. “We won’t ruin your baking reputation.” 

Laughing against Castiel’s lips, Dean winds his arms around Castiel’s waist and returns the kiss. “I trust you guys.” Pulling away, he heads out into the hall. Castiel and Jack walk him to the front door.

“You know, I’m still amazed that Claire is doing this robotics club. Never really pegged it as something she’d be interested in,” Dean comments as he laces up his boots.

“I think it has more to do with Kaia than it does with robots,” Castiel says, handing Dean his jacket. 

“Ugh, you’re probably right. I’m gonna have to have a talk with her pretty soon.” Dean grimaces, then ruffles Jack’s hair and kisses Cas again. “Good luck. Call me if you have any questions, okay?”

“We will,” Castiel assures him, and Jack waves vigorously as Dean heads outside.

Once Dean is out the door, Castiel turns to Jack.

“Alright, Jack. Are you ready to bake some cupcakes?”

“Yeah!” Jack replies with an enthusiastic whoop. He’s practically jumping in place, and Castiel thinks baking might be just the activity to tire him out before bedtime.

“Let’s go take a look at the recipe, then,” he says, guiding Jack back to the kitchen.

The recipe is actually a piece of paper that Dean’s scribbled the ingredients and steps onto. (“Nobody needs to know these people’s life story,” Dean explained to Castiel once, while copying down a recipe he found online.) It starts with a list of ingredients, and Castiel decides that gathering those is the logical place to start.

“What do we need, Daddy?” Jack asks. He leans against the island counter, fingers curled around the edge, trying to peek at the recipe in Castiel’s hands. He’s not tall enough yet, but he’s growing every day.

Castiel lowers the paper so that Jack can see. “Could you get me an apple, milk, two eggs, and butter from the fridge? I’ll get the dry ingredients.”

Jack nods and darts off to the fruit basket, ready to be of use. Castiel opens up the pantry and starts pulling out what’s on Dean’s list.

Flour, baking powder, brown sugar, vanilla extract, cinnamon—cornflour? He comes up short. Castiel rummages through several containers, checking the labels diligently, but he doesn’t see anything labeled cornflour. He looks at the few unlabeled containers that Dean uses for bulk items at the store and frowns. There’s no way Dean would have forgotten what seems like such a crucial ingredient (he was gloating about how he was going to be the Star Baker of the school bake sale for a week leading up to today), so Castiel knows he must be missing it somehow. He flips a few more containers around until he finds the cornstarch. He picks it up and squints at it.

With everything else he needs in hand (and the cornstarch), he turns back to the counter. Jack looks up at him with bright eyes, waiting patiently for further instruction, so Castiel asks him for two mixing bowls. Then he pulls out his phone and opens a browser to go to google.com.

Difference between cornstarch and cornflour

He clicks on the first result and skims the website, running a hand through his already messy hair.

“Daddy, is this okay?” In his excitement, Jack knocks the two large bowls into Castiel’s hips as he comes trotting back to the kitchen island.

Jack managed to drag out the largest bowls in their cupboard, which is likely unnecessary, but Castiel smiles down at his son nonetheless. “That’s perfect, sweetie, thank you. Daddy needs to call Dean really quickly, so can you hang tight until I finish?”

It’s a lot to ask a bouncy seven-year-old, but Jack nods and waits, counting out the ingredients sitting on the counter.

Dean answers after three rings.

“Hey babe, is everything alright?”

“Yes, I’m sorry to call, I just had a quick question,” Castiel explains, pushing down the nagging sense of embarrassment he feels for calling so soon after Dean left.

“Shoot,” Dean prompts.

“Your recipe calls for cornflour, but I couldn’t find the container. Is it one of your bulk containers?” Castiel asks. He watches as Jack reaches up on his toes to try and drag the bag of flour closer to himself, and steps in to push it toward the center of the island, safely out of his reach. Jack frowns, but doesn’t complain.

“Ah shit. Sorry, Cas,” Dean says. “I just copied it down from the website. It’s actually just cornstarch.”

Castiel squints. “But they’re not the same.”

“What?”

“I looked it up. They’re not the same,” Castiel repeats. “Cornstarch is made from the endosperm of the kernel.”

Dean snorts. “The what-sperm? No, dude. This lady called it cornflour, but believe me, it’s supposed to be cornstarch.”

Castiel huffs, dissatisfied. “If you say so. I’ll amend the recipe for next time, then.”

“Yeah, you do that. Everything else going okay?” Dean asks. Castiel can hear the smile in his voice. While he isn’t sure what Dean’s smiling about, he can’t help how his own lips curl up in response.

“I’m just gathering the ingredients for now. Jack is excited to help.”

Dean’s small chuckle is followed by a frustrated groan. “Okay, well traffic’s worse than I expected so it may take us some time to get home. I don’t know where all these people think they’re going on a fucking Tuesday evening!”

There’s a loud honk in the background and Castiel has to pull his phone away from his ear.

“Dean,” he chastises.

“People are driving like idiots, Cas!”

“Well, don’t stoop to their level.” Castiel leans his hip against the counter.

“Fine, fine.” Castiel can hear the eye roll in Dean’s voice. “Call if you need anything else, okay?”

“I will. I love you, Dean. Drive safe,” Castiel responds with a smile.

“Love you, too.”

With the necessary information acquired, Cas returns to the pile of ingredients and their two massive bowls, and rolls up his sleeves.

“Are you ready to begin, Jack?”

Jack offers an enthusiastic salute. “Yes, sir!”

Castiel chuckles and begins to line up all the ingredients. He goes through the list with Jack one last time, crossing out the cornflour and writing in cornstarch as he does so, and stares at the ingredients.

“Now what, Daddy?” Jack looks up at him expectantly.

Castiel looks at the handwritten recipe. The instructions are simple, and provide no context or details in the way Donna’s YouTube video did.

Preheat the oven to 325

Castiel does that easily, feeling slightly more confident in his abilities to complete the recipe without Dean. He looks at what’s next on the list.

Peel the apple. Cut 12 small cubes, finely dice the rest

“We need to peel the apple. Do you think you can help with the peeler?” Castiel turns to Jack.

Jack nods, running to the drawer with the peeler. On his way back, he drags over his step stool they keep next to the fridge, and steps up to the counter. “Can I start?”

“Yes, be really careful, okay?” Castiel gently pats Jack’s head.

“Yup! Slowly slowly!” Jack repeats the words he hears regularly in the kitchen and gets to work.

While keeping a close eye on Jack, Castiel pulls up Dean’s contact on his phone again.

“That was quick. Are you sure everything’s okay?” Dean’s greeting is a little more skeptical this time.

“It’s fine, Dean. Have you gotten to the school yet?” Castiel asks. He can still hear some honking in the background.

Dean sighs. “Nope. Still a little while away. What’s up?”

“How small are ‘small cubes,’ and how finely do you need us to chop the apples?”

There’s a pause on the other end of the phone, and Castiel checks his screen to make sure they’re still connected.

“Still stuck on step one, huh?” Dean replies eventually.

“It’s actually step two after preheating the oven. And the instructions aren’t the clearest,” Castiel grumbles.

Dean chuckles. “Fair. The cubes can be a bit smaller than an inch. Dice the rest as small as possible—they’re going in the batter and we want it properly baked.”

Castiel nods, though Dean can’t see it. “Smaller than an inch, and as finely as possible. I understand.”

“You’re going to be alright?” Dean checks again.

“Yes, thank you, Dean.”

“Alright, love you,” Dean says, his voice soft.

“I love you, too.”

“You don’t have to say it every time!” Jack hollers from the counter (an unfortunate callout he’s picked up from Claire).

Castiel hears Dean laugh through the phone. “Tell the kid I love him, too.”

“Dean loves you, too, Jack,” Castiel relays.

“LOVE YOU, DEAN!” Jack shouts.

They’re both laughing as Castiel hangs up.

*****

Getting the dry ingredients mixed together is a quick (albeit messy) affair.

Castiel lets Jack whisk the ingredients together, which in reality looks like Jack stirring the whisk around like a witch with a cauldron. 

With Jack occupied, Castiel checks the next step, which calls for the softened butter. The plastic-wrapped blocks of butter Jack grabbed from the fridge barely have any give when he grabs them off the edge of the counter. There’s a brief moment that Castiel considers the microwave, but he remembers Dean explaining to him while baking once that the microwave melts the butter too quickly and can’t be trusted.

He stands there contemplating with the butter in his hand for approximately thirty seconds before making the decision to call Dean again.

Dean answers after the first ring this time.

“I swear to god, Cas, the house better be burning down. My instructions aren’t that bad.”

Castiel frowns. “I’m sorry for not wanting to ruin your chances of being Star Baker of the bake sale,” he deadpans.

Dean groans. “No, no, you’re right. I’m just frustrated because of this damn traffic.”

“Are you on your way back yet?” Castiel asks, a little more sympathetic this time.

“Nope,” Dean answers, dramatically popping the P. “Almost at the school, though.”

Castiel lets out an empathetic hum.

“Anyway. What’s the next step I can help you with?” Dean pulls the conversation back on topic.

“The recipe calls for softened butter, and I know you don’t like using the microwave for that. What would you recommend to soften the butter?”

“Good memory, Cas,” Dean says, sounding pleased. “Get two bowls, fill one with hot water.”

Castiel starts getting that ready, when Jack calls out for him.

“Daddy, is this supposed to be everywhere?”

Dean must have heard him too, because after a moment he asks, “Is what supposed to be everywhere?”

The counter is covered with a fine dusting of the flour mixture.

“Uh,” Castiel hesitates. “It’s fine, we can clean it up. Jack, can you help me with the butter instead?”

“Yeah!” Jack hops off his step stool, abandoning his whisk in the bowl, and rushes over to help.

“Is what everywhere, Cas?” Dean asks again.

“It’s just some flour, Dean,” Castiel reassures him while bringing his focus back to the task at hand. “Okay, so the hot water goes into the bowl.”

Dean stays on the phone while they boil some water, instructing them to pull it off the stove before it’s fully boiling. Castiel eventually puts Dean on speaker phone so that Jack can follow his instructions easier.

“So then you put the butter in the bowl,” Dean explains.

Castiel is just about to ask which one, when out of the corner of his eye, he sees Jack pick up the two little blocks of butter and plop them in the bowl of hot water.

“That can’t be right,” he mumbles into the phone.

Dean pauses. “What can’t be right?”

“Jack just put the butter in the bowl, and—”

“How could that not be right?”

Castiel eyes the blocks of butter floating in the pool of water.

“Well, they're wrapped in plastic. It’s fine. I think we’ll manage the butter situation, thank you, Dean. Drive saf—”

“No!” Dean’s yelp echoes across the line. “Don’t you dare hang up! You’re just going to be calling me again in three minutes, we may as well do this together over the phone!”

Castiel frowns. On one hand, he senses some judgment in Dean’s response, but on the other, Castiel knows Dean’s not wrong about him having more questions.

He sighs. “If you insist.”

“Oh, I insist,” Dean gruffs, clearly frustrated.

“You know, if you knew you were going to need softened butter, you could have left the butter out earlier,” Castiel suggests.

“Wow, that’s really helpful, Cas. Thanks.”

Castiel’s brows pinch together. “Are you being sarcastic?”

Thankfully, Jack interrupts before the conversation can devolve any further. 

“Daddy, Dean, what’s next?”

Dean doesn’t miss a beat. “Get the sugar into the mixer so you can beat it with the butter.”

Once Castiel and Jack are done carefully measuring out the sugar, Dean asks, “How’s the butter doing? It should have some give if you try pressing a finger in it.”

Castiel glances at the hot water bowl with a significant amount of trepidation. Jack shows none.

He scoops the butter out of the bowl and squishes it in his small palms.

“They definitely have ‘give,’” Castiel murmurs. Dean doesn’t miss the change in tone.

“What do they feel like?” he asks.

“Like hot little wet socks of butter!” Jack explains happily.

Dean doesn’t reply, and Castiel takes that opportunity to snatch the wet wads of butter from Jack’s hand and squeeze them out of their plastic wraps into the mixer.

“Like what? I don’t think I heard that right.”

“Don’t worry, Dean. The butter is softened and in the sugar. Do we mix that together?” Castiel charges forward, determined not to get Dean’s blood pressure more elevated than necessary as he deals with traffic.

Castiel can hear Dean take a deep breath.

“Yeah, mix it together until it’s smooth. Then you break the eggs in, one at a time.”

That sounds simple enough.

Jack peers into the mixer as it beats the sugar and butter, and as soon as it looks smooth enough (Castiel is sure not to miss it with Jack asking “is it ready?” every three seconds), he looks up at Castiel expectantly.

“Can I break the eggs?”

“Of course.” Castiel smiles at his son, handing him an egg. He hears Dean whine over the phone, but ignores it. It’s one of Jack’s favorite parts of helping in the kitchen.

By the time Castiel realizes his error, it’s too late.

“One-handed break!” Jack shrieks, knocking the egg against the counter and then crushing it in his hands above the mixer.

Dean barely has the chance to shout “no,” before Castiel watches in slow-motion as bits of the shell crumble into the mixture.

Castiel jumps into action, stopping the mixer before the shells can break any further. He lifts Jack off his step stool.

“Wait right here,” he orders Jack as he goes and grabs a spoon to scoop out the little bits of shell.

There’s a groan coming from his cell phone on the counter, which Castiel once again ignores.

“I’m sorry, Daddy. Did I do something wrong?” Jack asks, lips quivering. His shoulders have deflated and the enthusiasm from a moment earlier is completely gone.

“No, no it’s fine. Daddy just needs to scoop out some of the shells that fell in. You don’t want to eat any yucky shells, right?”

Jack shakes his head. He still looks unconvinced, but he doesn’t look like he’s about to burst into tears. “I’m sorry I got shells in the butter.”

Just as Castiel is finishing up the process of painstakingly scooping out eggshells (the ones he can see, at least), he hears Dean pipe up again.

“Jack, do you think you can use two hands when you break the second egg?”

The question warms Castiel’s heart, because even after the atrocity that was Jack’s one-handed break, Dean knows how much it means to Jack to be involved.

“Yeah!” Jack replies, his excitement returning.

“Alright,” Dean says, sounding distracted. “I’m just pulling up to the school. One sec.”

A muffled rustle follows, most likely meaning Dean put the phone down on his lap. Castiel takes the moment to restart the mixer and help Jack with the second egg. 

Eventually, a car door opens on the other end of the phone, followed by the familiar tone of Claire’s sass.

“Jeez, it took you long enough. I almost started walking home.”

“Yeah, yeah, traffic was crappy,” Dean grouses. “Now get in. We’re in the middle of something.”

“Hi Claire!” Jack calls into the phone.

“Jack? I thought they were baking.” There’s a squeak of leather as Claire settles into her seat.

“They are baking.” Dean explains.

Claire barks out a laugh. “So then why are you on speaker?”

“I’m helping them out, okay?” Dean huffs impatiently. “Cas, you still there?”

“Yes, Dean. The eggs are in the mixer,” he says, checking one last time to ensure he got out as much of the shells as he could.

“Oh my god, this is just like Phoning it In.” Claire laughs. Dean must make a face, because she adds, “It’s a YouTube thing.”

Dean grunts. “Cool, I guess? We’re just finishing up the batter.”

“Nice. So we’re just getting to the good part,” Claire says. “What’s next?”

“We need to add the vanilla,” Castiel says, reading the next line of Dean’s handwriting. “Jack, that’s the little brown bottle next to the sugar. Can you hand it to me?”

Jack passes him the vanilla, and Castiel measures out a teaspoon, then starts the mixer up again, just long enough for the liquid to incorporate.

“All right,” Dean says, and Castiel hears the sound of a turn signal in the background. Dean must be pulling out of the school parking lot. “I’m gonna walk you through the next part, okay?”

“Let’s listen carefully, Jack,” Castiel says with a wink.

Dean guides them through alternately adding the milk and the dry ingredients to the bowl while the mixer runs (Castiel has Jack pour the milk, to avoid another explosion of flour). 

“Just make sure not to overmix,” Dean instructs, as Castiel shakes in the final third of the dry ingredients. 

Castiel eyes the churning mixture. “I don’t know what that means.”

There’s a sigh from the other end of the line. “Uh, it’s hard to explain. Does it look smooth? Are there any more lumps of flour, or white spots?”

“No spots!” Jack shouts, peering into the bowl. 

“Okay, let’s stop the mixer then. Go ahead and put in the diced apple from earlier, and fold it all into the batter.”

Castiel stops, holding the bowl of diced apple in midair. “...Fold them in?”

“Yeah, like—” There’s a rustling, as if Dean’s gesturing. “Just fold them in.”

Setting the bowl down, Castiel picks up a finely-diced piece of apple. “Fold them in half? Before putting them in?”

There’s a moment of silence, then Claire’s laughter peals through the speaker. “Oh my god, Cas, you should see Dad’s face.”

“Well, Dad is being rather unclear,” Castiel points out, but makes sure to keep his tone humorous for Claire and Jack.

As if he picked up on Castiel’s effort, Dean’s next words are very slow and measured, like he’s working hard to control his emotions. “Get the dough scraper from the utensil jar. That’s the soft rubber spatula. Then scoop the spatula up through the batter from the bottom and twist, until the apples are all mixed in. That’s folding.”

“Thank you, Dean,” Castiel says courteously. The spatula is already being pushed into his hands by an attentive Jack. “And thank you, Jack.”

He manages to “fold in” the apples without further incident (he privately maintains that it’s a dumb phrase). “All done.”

“Great,” Dean says. He sounds exhausted. “Now, there are cupcake liners in the cupboard over the fridge. Go ahead and put them in the tins.” He pauses. “One liner in each hole.”

“Obviously,” Castiel says, to a clearly audible snort from Claire. He stands on his tiptoes to retrieve the white liners, then hands them down to Jack, who fumbles the delicate papers out of their cylindrical packaging. 

“Slowly slowly,” Jack mumbles again as his little fingers separate the liners. 

Once the two tins are ready to go, Dean tells them to fill each liner about halfway with the batter. Jack and Castiel each grab a spoon and set to work on a tin. As Castiel scrapes the last of the batter out of the bowl, he sees that Jack managed to fill only eight of his twelve liners (with the rest of the batter making a gloopy trail from the bowl to the tin, clearly tracing the path of his spoon). Castiel figures that’s not too bad. All of the liners are filled a bit unevenly, but they’ll be covered with frosting in the end, anyway.

“Tins ready!” he declares, and Dean heaves a relieved sigh. 

“Awesome. Go ahead and tap the tins on the counter a few times to help the batter get level.”

“I wanna!” Jack grabs a tin. 

“Oh, Cas, please help him,” Dean pleads.

Castiel helps Jack get an even grip on each handle of the tin and gently bop it up and down on the counter. The amount of batter may be different in each liner, but at least the surfaces are all even.

“That one looks like it has a squirrel on it,” Jack comments, pointing at one that has some different shades of brown swirling along the top. 

Claire pipes up in the background, voice thick with amusement. “Hey Dad, are they supposed to have animals on them?”

“Mmmpf,” is all Dean offers in response. “Now you’ll want to put them in the oven on the middle rack, and set a timer for eighteen minutes.”

Castiel follows his instructions, letting Jack place the second tin in alongside the first, even though the adult oven mitts dwarf his hands. Then Castiel inputs “1 - 8” into the timer function of his phone before toggling back over to the call screen. “Done!”

“Step one done!” Dean cheers. Jack does a little dance, and even Claire joins in with a whoop. “Now you’re gonna use those other apple cubes you made. They’ll be the topping for the buttercream.”

“Ah, yes.” Castiel looks at the recipe. “Jack, can you please bring over the brown sugar and cinnamon? And we’ll need a little more butter, too.”

As Jack hustles around, Dean instructs, “Okay, first, grab a saucepan.”

There’s a whole array of pots and pans in the cupboard next to the oven, and Castiel crouches in front of it, contemplating which one Dean means. He must stay quiet a beat too long, because Dean, wearily, asks, “Do you know which one the saucepan is?”

“I presume it’s not the frying pan,” Castiel offers.

“It’s the little pot,” Dean says. “Not the big one for soup, but the one I make cocoa in.”

The pots and pans clang as Castiel lifts out the correct one. “Why is it called a sauce pan when it’s a pot, then?” He places it on the range and smiles at Jack as the boy sets the ingredients next to the stove.

The only sounds from over the line are deep breathing and the growl of Baby’s engine.

“Open your eyes, Dad,” Claire orders nervously. “Meditate later! The light’s green!”

Castiel figures he and Jack will push through until Dean’s ready to join them again. He turns on the burner, then chops the correct amount of butter off the stick and hands the rest to Jack so he can return it to the fridge. Then he puts two teaspoons of water into the pan, since that’s the easiest of the ingredients. 

By then, Dean’s brain seems to be back online, and he sounds much calmer. “Hey Jack, how about you measure out the cinnamon? Your daddy can show you which spoon to use.”

Castiel hands Jack the half teaspoon, and Jack sets about digging into the cinnamon container. The spoon he pulls out is piled high with a rather heaping serving of cinnamon, but Castiel figures it’s a key ingredient in cinnamon apples, so it can’t hurt.

“Great job.” 

Jack carefully stretches his arm up and tips the spoon over the quickly heating pot. He loses a good amount of cinnamon along the way, which Castiel decides makes up for the overfilling. Some of the powder drifts down and must get into Jack’s nose, because he sneezes. 

“Ow, cinnamon burns!” he complains, snorting and honking dramatically.

“What?” Dean demands from over the phone. “What’s burning?”

“My nose,” Jack says miserably. Castiel quickly checks that nothing got into Jack’s eyes, and deems he’s fine.

“Let’s try to keep the ingredients out of our noses,” Dean says. He then mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like “didn’t think I’d have to clarify that,” at which Claire laughs, but which Castiel chooses to ignore. He quickly places the butter, the correct amount of brown sugar, and finally the apple cubes into the pot. Then he and Jack look at the mixture.

“Okay, Dean, everything is in the pot. What do we do now?”

“Oh, fantastic, you did that without me.” Dean sounds surprised. “Well, you’ll want to turn on the burner over low heat. First step is to let the sugar dissolve. Grab a whisk, too.” 

Castiel blinks and checks the burner knob. He hadn’t paid attention to how high he’d set the heat; he’d just turned the button. It’s set at 6 out of 10, and Castiel quickly turns it down to 2. “It’s dissolving, all right.” 

“Why is it all bubbles?” Jack asks. 

“No,” Dean says immediately, voice very high. “Um. In which way? Did you whisk it?”

“I just had the burner set too high,” Castiel says soothingly. “I turned it down.”

“Take it off the heat, now,” Dean orders. “Quick.”

Castiel plucks the pot off the burner and sets it on a cool one. “Okay.”

“Now whisk it, do it fast so it has a chance to cool down and the sugar doesn’t start burning.”

That doesn’t sound good. Castiel quickly grabs the whisk and starts stirring the mixture, which calms down quickly. “Nothing burned.”

“Okay, let it sit for another few seconds.” 

Castiel takes the opportunity to move a few of the utensils over to the sink, since things are piling up quickly.

“Has it cooled down to being just warm?” Dean checks.

“Should I put my finger in it?” Jack wonders. 

“Don’t let him put his finger in it!”

“I’m gonna put my finger in it.” Before Castiel can react, Jack plops his finger into the pot. 

“Dean, he put his finger in it,” Castiel says, slightly panicked, as he rushes over.

Dean makes a wounded sound in the background. 

“It’s just warm!” Jack announces.

“Jack, do not put your fingers into anything on the stovetop,” Castiel chastises, wiping Jack’s sugar-buttery finger with a cloth. “That’s dangerous. Next time, let an adult check the temperature.”

Jack wilts. “Sorry.” 

Castiel pulls him into a one-armed hug, but lets the lesson stand.

“You’re gonna give Dean a heart attack,” Claire adds from over the phone. “He almost swerved into oncoming traffic.”

“Dean, please be careful. If you can’t focus on driving, then we need to hang up.”

“Oooh, he told you,” Claire sing-songs. 

“I—” Dean breaks off with a sigh. “Fine. Okay. Put the pot back on the warm burner, please, and whisk it all again.”

The sugar is still a bit grainy, but definitely dissolving. “I have a joke,” Castiel says conversationally as he stirs the mixture. “Do you know what my favorite baking strategy board game is called?”

“What?” Jack and Claire ask simultaneously.

“Whisk,” Castiel says with a flourish. Jack obviously doesn’t quite get it, but Claire giggles.

“You’re really funny,” Dean says, “but I might not laugh, because I’m stressed.” There’s some honking in the background. “God, this really is ridiculous. Claire, I should’ve just walked to get you at this rate.”

It must be truly bad for Dean to say something like that. Castiel decides he’s going to pay close attention to the rest of the recipe and make things easier for Dean on this end. “What’s the next step?” he asks gently.

“Oh, yeah.” Castiel imagines Dean rubbing a palm over his face. “Let the mixture sit and cook, five minutes or so. Enough to let the apple chunks soften. You’ll wanna stir it once in a while.”

Castiel decides not to ask for clarification on how soft right at this very moment. “Sounds good. Jack, let’s try to do a little bit of cleanup between stirring?”

Cleanup is definitely not Jack’s favorite part of helping in the kitchen, but he just blows a big breath up into his bangs and says, “O-kaaay.”

“Dean, we’re going to start a little bit of cleanup,” Castiel says. “But you’re still on speaker.”

“Cleanup is a great idea.” Dean sounds a bit distracted, and Castiel hears Claire say “Oh my god, that guy’s stopped in the middle of the lane, what is happening today.”

Castiel is glad that they’ve reached a point where he can give Dean a break. He whisks the apple mixture once more before starting to move some of the ingredients back to the pantry.

He’s just putting the cinnamon away when a smell hits his nose. A smell he really does not want to be smelling. In the same moment, Jack says “Um, daddy? Is that smoke?”, and a split-second later, the fire alarm goes off.

“What is happening?” Dean shouts, barely audible over the shrill beeping and the new addition of Jack screaming at the loud noise.

“Jack, open the kitchen window!” Castiel orders, hoping Jack hears him, as he races over to the oven. There is indeed smoke puffing out the sides of the door. Thankfully, there are no flames, and he shoves his hands into mitts and wrenches open the oven to pull out the tins of smoking, blackened cupcakes. He quickly turns off the oven and slams the door shut. 

Fire alarms blare all over the first floor, a feedback loop of ear-splitting beeps. Jack huddles next to the island with his hands over his ears and his eyes screwed shut, and amid the cacophony Castiel can make out Dean and Claire shouting as he runs to open the window.

“Are you guys okay?” Dean yells. “Castiel?!”

“Watch the fucking road!” Claire hollers.

“Watch your mouth!” 

“We’re fine!” Castiel bellows into the phone in passing, as he rushes to the hallway to switch off the main alarm. He fumbles with the tiny button for several agonizing seconds until he finally succeeds in silencing the beeping. 

Quiet descends over the house. Head spinning from the chaos, Castiel hurries back to the kitchen and crouches in front of Jack, gently prying his hands off his ears. “Hey, sweetie. It’s okay. I know that was really loud.”

Jack blinks open big, tear-glistening eyes. He hiccups. “Sorry I didn’t help you.”

Castiel gathers him into a hug. “That’s okay. Everyone reacts differently when they get scared.”

“Um, Cas?” Claire’s voice fills the kitchen. “Can you let us know you’re alive? I think Dad’s having a breakdown.”

“Yes, yes, we’re fine.” Castiel stands and picks up the phone. “I’m not sure why my timer didn’t go off, but we forgot to take the cupcakes out of the oven. Dean, I’m sorry, but they burned.” He fumbles with the screen of his phone, and realizes his fatal mistake — he typed the numbers into the timer, but didn’t hit start.

There’s the rustle of a phone changing hands, and then the sound of Dean’s heavy breathing. “It’s fine. It’s totally fine, Cas. I’m just glad you’re okay. No fire?”

“No fire,” Castiel confirms— just as he smells it again. Fresh smoke. Whirling around, his stomach drops as his eyes land on the apple mixture on the stovetop. It’s way past simmering, the sugar having blackened and burnt onto the pot. Tendrils of smoke rise up. 

“Cover your ears, Jack,” Castiel says, and Jack obeys just in time for the alarm to go off again. 

*****

The house still smells vaguely of smoke when Dean and Claire get home. In addition to the smokiness, the house is also completely chilled thanks to all of the windows opened in an attempt to air out the smell. When Castiel and Jack go to greet them at the front door, Jack is bundled up in his scarf as if he’s about to head outside, and Castiel is left wishing that the earth would just open up and swallow him whole.

Claire hides a giggle behind her hand. Dean blinks a few times while he shrugs his jacket off.

“Well, at least you didn’t burn the house down,” he jokes, but Castiel doesn’t have it in him to laugh.

His embarrassment must show on his face because Dean’s expression softens as he walks up to him.

“Hey, it’s all good, Cas. Let’s go see what we’re working with,” Dean says, gently rubbing at Castiel’s arm. Against the crispness of the air, the warmth of Dean’s palm is grounding. He takes Castiel’s hand and guides them back to the kitchen, the children following close behind.

The kitchen is a disaster, and that would be putting it lightly.

Castiel still hasn’t had a chance to clear up all of the flour that Jack whisked around from earlier, the burnt cupcakes are still in the tin, looking sad on the counter, and the saucepan with the blackened filling-attempt is abandoned on the stovetop.

“I’ll clean everything up,” Castiel mutters, letting go of Dean’s hand. “Let me just throw these away, and—”

Castiel goes to grab the cupcake tray, but Dean somehow gets to them before he does. He picks one of the charred, dry masses out of its liner and pops it into his mouth.

The entire family watches in disbelief as Dean chews… and chews… and chews. After what feels like an unnatural amount of time for one bite, Dean finally swallows.

After a long silence, he nods. “Exactly as I intended,” he says with a grin.

Castiel loves this man with all his heart.

“They’re disgusting, Dean,” Castiel says with a laugh.

“Eh.” Dean shrugs, putting down the tray. “They aren’t that bad.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Claire jumps in between the two, plucking a second burnt cupcake out of the mold. She scrunches her face before making up her mind and biting into it.

“Claire, you really don’t need to—”

“I wanna try, too!” Jack squeals, tugging at Claire’s shirt.

He doesn’t get a response, though, because Claire is making a suspiciously high pitched noise that Castiel can’t quite decipher. Her eyes narrow like she’s eating something sour (which is concerning, as there shouldn’t be anything sour in the cupcakes). Once she’s finally done with her bite, she nods slowly, her lips curling in over her teeth. She releases them with a loud smack.

“Well,” she starts thoughtfully. “The crunch of the eggshells was a bit of a surprise. If they were any bigger I’d say they might make me keel over and die, unfortunately.” Then she bursts out laughing.

Castiel would be mortified, but Claire’s joy is a contagious thing. Unbridled laughter is a rare look on the rebellious teenager. An arm wraps around Castiel’s waist, and he feels Dean’s warmth sidle up beside him. The two share a soft smile.

“Ewwww!”

The moment is broken by Jack’s cry. He must have gotten tired of waiting for someone to tell him he can have a bite, because Jack is on his step stool with his mouth, full of burnt cupcake, hanging open. Dean starts cackling, which gets Claire to laugh even harder.

Castiel brings him a paper towel. “Here, Jack. You can spit it out, it’s okay.”

It takes a while, but once Claire’s laughing fit finally dies down, she points at the offending burnt lumps.

“You can’t bring that. Forget Star Baker, you’re going to make someone sick.”

Dean shrugs. “I’ve got enough of the ingredients. I’ll make another batch.”

“I’ll help,” Castiel offers, earning a sideways glance from Dean. Even as his cheeks heat, he crosses his arms. “I’m perfectly capable of assisting as long as you’re here to do the actual baking.”

Dean chuckles. “I guess having a sous chef will help move things along.” He assesses Castiel with an arched brow. It’s a look that Dean often praises Castiel for, but Dean pulls it off just as well. A gentle heat starts to bloom deep in Castiel’s stomach.

“Ew. You two are gross.” Claire cringes. Then, after another glance around the kitchen, she asks, “So what are we going to do for dinner? I don’t see anyone cooking tonight.”

Before Castiel, who somehow managed to completely forget about dinner, even has a chance to panic, Dean steps in.

“Let’s just order a pizza. They’re on this side of the traffic—quick and easy.” He winks at Castiel.

Castiel leans on him, gratitude filling his chest. In the past, the extra stress of having forgotten dinner might have overwhelmed him, but now he has Dean's support to make it through these moments.

In the end, the evening isn’t the nightmare Castiel expected it to be. It even turns out to be quite pleasant.

The four of them sit in the family room with their two extra large pizzas (Castiel learned early in their relationship that Dean practically needs his own pie), watching an old episode of MasterChef Junior. Dean pauses every five minutes to explain the techniques being shown until Claire eventually gets impatient and snatches the remote away from him. It doesn’t stop Jack from snuggling up to Dean and asking him more questions as the episode goes on.

After dinner, Claire offers to help with Jack’s bedtime routine.

Castiel smiles apologetically. “Would you mind?”

“Nah. You can pay me in cupcakes.” Claire grins, reaching across the sofa to ruffle Jack’s hair. “Do you mind, Jack?”

“Bedtime with Claire? It’s my favorite!” Jack looks at them with a toothy grin.

“Your favorite? What am I, chopped liver?” Dean exclaims with mock offense.

The idiom is lost on Jack (to be fair, the saying makes little sense—many cultures prefer to eat the liver of animals), who tilts his head to the side.

“Not my fault that you just aren’t as fun as I am.” Claire winks at her father. “I’ll be in my room with my headphones after story time. Please don’t have too much fun down here. It’s a shared space.”

Dean sputters an incoherent response, a blush quickly rising to his cheek and ears.

Castiel cocks his head. “We’re just making cupcakes.”

“Mm-hmm,” Claire replies, clearly unconvinced. But she sits through Jack’s goodnights without another snide comment.

*****

It’s near midnight and Castiel feels like he owes Claire an apology.

Turns out buttercream can be a lot of fun when made right, with the right person.

[multifandom-lesbian09]

I think that if Jack, Kevin, Claire, Alex and Kaia all teamed up it would be the best and most chaotic thing on earth. Team Free Will 3.0; half Angel kid, depressed ex-prophet of the lord, one salty dream walker, an angry nurse in training, and her angry adopted sister, repressed huntress.

I mean seriously, you cannot tell me they wouldn’t be hilarious.

I have this fic idea for these five, where Jack either saves other-world Kevin or resurrects the OG, the finale doesn’t exist, somebody else becomes the new God, and Dean lives. Jack tells Dean that he’s joining his new hunting team, and Dean’s like “okay, and who’s part of this team?” Jack just kind of stands there for a moment, contemplating whether he should tell him or if he should just book it out of there and drive away with his new friends. But then he finally tells him and Dean has to mentally stabilize himself after hearing this.

They have this long talk, where Dean tells Jack what should and shouldn’t happen while he’s with these four reckless children, and Jack sits and listens patiently, completely disregarding the fact that Alex, Claire, Kaia, and Kevin are all sitting in the car outside the bunker, waiting for him.

Turns out, what they really teamed up to do, was save Cas from the empty. Jack’s powers started to fade again, so they all teamed up to work together to strengthen him enough to find Cas, who was being hidden from him by the empty. Hence, why he wasn’t saved immediately.

But while they’re trying to find other ways to power him up, they come across cases that they have to work at the same time. So every chapter of this is two different groups amongst the five of them, doing two different things. One group is trying to figure out how to strengthen Jack, and the other group is desperately trying not to die during a hunt. Because sometimes the group handling the case isn’t the best.

But of course, Alex still has a job and her studies, so a lot of the time it’s just Kaia, Kevin, Jack, and Claire, which is horrible, considering how incredibly and ridiculously messed up these four are.

I’m gonna need whoever reads this to add on because I’m running out of ideas. But yeah, I think the five of them having their own fic where they’re trying to get Cas back while also going on hunts and desperately trying not to die would be amazing.

Thank you for your time, SPN fandom.

[luna-nigthshade-wood]

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He etiquetado 2996 publicaciones en 2022

Solo el 22 % de mis publicaciones no incluye ninguna etiqueta

#supernatural: 1572 publicaciones

#dean winchester: 973 publicaciones

#castiel: 648 publicaciones

#destiel: 559 publicaciones

#sam winchester: 264 publicaciones

#supernatural incorrect quotes: 251 publicaciones

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La etiqueta más larga tiene 112 caracteres

#you can see sam´s mental struggle of wheter is worth they crash the car to save himself from being in the middle

Mis publicaciones más populares este 2022:

5

AU: Dean & his ducklings. After Dean gets called to the principal´s office to pick up the ducklings:

(Dean arriving at the school and seeing the ducklings seating in front of the principal´s offive)

Dean:...

Claire:...

Emma:...

Jesse:...

Kaia:...

Alex:...

Krissy:..

Bobby John:...

Jack, waving: Hello, Dean!

Dean: Hi, Jack. How are you? I was fine until I got three panic calls from your principal asking me to come pick up 7 of my kids. So would anyone like to tell me why I got said calls from your principal and why I had to plead for him not to expel 5 of you?

(cue ducklings talking all at once)

Dean, exasperated: Enough!!! One at the time. Emma, you start

Emma: I plead the fifth?

Dean: Cute, but no. One of you will tell me what happened or else...

Claire, mocking: Or else what? You will ground us?

Dean: Worse. I will sinc Sam at all of you and make you take 6 months of his “healthy emotions” classes

Krissy, horrified: You wouldnt

Kaia: You cant

Dean: I can and I will, unless somebody tells me what happened

Bobby John: They called you because I fell asleep at class. Again. The others got into a fight

Jesse: Snitch

Bobby John: I already suffered three of Sam´s classes, at this point is everybody for themselves

Alex: Harsh but fair

Dean: I will ask again, why did you start a fight?

Kaia, blurting: We didnt have a choice, they were bothering Jack

Claire: Some assholes where insulting and bothering Jack, so we told them to knock it off 

Emma: But they wouldnt listen and we decided to teach them why you shouldnt mess with one of us

Alex: Technically that was only Claire, Emma, Krissy and I

Descúbrela

119 notas. Fecha de publicación: 4 de marzo de 2022

4

I love the posts about Castiel loving bees and I just had this random idea that Jimmy was allergic to bees, of course this doesnt affect Cas until he is human, then he learns it the hard way and Dean has to take him to the hospital so the doctors can  treat Cas´ anaphylactic shock:

Cas, in the Impala with Dean after being released from the hospital: If I had a coin for everytime that I loved something so much that almost killed me, I will have two coins, which isnt a lot, but its curious that it happened twice.

Dean, trying to keep conversation: Relax, buddy, you will be fine. So besides bees, what is the other thing that you love so much that almost killed you?

Cas, with no filter: You, obviously.

*Cue Dean seering the Impala´s wheel and almost crashing into a tree. To this day they deny that this is how they got together*

120 notas. Fecha de publicación: 10 de enero de 2022

3

So I had this thought about that when the justice league figures out Billy´s identity there is a big fight about who is going to be his mentor, the biggest contestants being Batman and Superman, at the end they had to make a compromise and now Billy is part of both the superfam and the batfam

130 notas. Fecha de publicación: 25 de julio de 2022

2

Dean, Cas and Charlie at a party

Random guy: What a beautiful lady

Charlie: Thanks

Random guy: Now, which one of you fine gentleman is third wheeling for this beautiful lady?

Charlie: That would be the beautiful lady

208 notas. Fecha de publicación: 20 de marzo de 2022

Mi publicación más popular de 2022

AU: Where nobody but the Winchesters, Cas and Jack know that Lucifer is Jack´s bio dad, so whenever they met someone they know, everyone gives Cas and Dean a second glance before Dean tells them that he is not Jack´s bio dad. Nobody believes him though, especially since in here Cas and Dean are dating (that was after Jack was born not that anyone believes them either). Also ignoring canon they end up resucitating Bobby:

Bobby: Well, boy, I am glad you finally get your head out of your ass and get together with Cas, the kid is a surprise though

Dean: Yeah thats... Wait a minute, I am not Jack´s bio dad, why does everyone keep thinking that, Sam, tell them 

Sam, teasing: I dont know, I feel like I have a shortage of  memories of those months

Dean: No, just no. How would that even work?

Cas: Well, actually Dean, since I am an Angel of the Lord I could leave a little bit of grace behind when we...

Dean, putting a hand over Cas´ mouth: Okay, stop, that is not what happened and you know it

(Disbelief noices from the peanut gallery)

Dean: Guys, you believe me right? Guys? Alright whoever thinks that Jack is Cas and I biological son raise you hand

Bobby: *raises hand*

Jody:  *raises hand*

Donna: *raises hand*

Claire: *raises hand*

Rowena: *raises hand*

Crowley: *raises hand*

Garth: * enthusiastically raises hand*

Dean: ....

Dean, facepalming: Jack put your hand down

Jack: *Slowly lowering his hand*

Jack: But you are my father Dean and I love you and Castiel, you are the best parents anyone can ask for

Dean, crying: Okay *Hugs Jack*

236 notas. Fecha de publicación: 3 de febrero de 2022

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[desviacionito]

Today I'm thinking about Emma, and maybe Dean drags her out from purgatory after running into her on one of his late season interdimensional treks or maybe Chuck brings her back or whatever.

But just imagine how she she would go from being raised in a fucked up matriarchy to the nightmare of purgatory to suddenly being surrounded by fucked up men only. No one knows how to deal with a teenage girl (imagine Ciri staying with the witchers situation, or early seasons Claire) that is part Deans teen daughter part supernatural being which means... lack of emotion management skills. And after Dean and Sam reactions during Jodys sex ed dinner we know how adept they are talking about teenager issues.

Sam is trying to come to terms with the fact that last time he saw Emma he KILLED HER so not exactly a cute uncle - niece reunion.

Jack is excited to have a person his age living there who also can relate to growing up way too quickly. But it's weird because she's his age but also like 10 years older and mentally stressed bc she was just a little girl that had to survive purgatory (and somehow managed). And he's like that's OK I was sort of hunted from the first second I was born and my biological father is lucifer but instead I chose to have castiel dean and Sam as my dads.

Dean would have a bit of a HUH moment because he also doesn't know how to cope with a fact that a daughter he knew for half a day 5 years ago is now living with him and their parent-daughter relationship is fucked up and not common and maybe he could cut Mary some slack because this shit is sooo confusing.

Everyone wants Mary to talk to Emma because they are like, uh you're both women. Mary definitely doesn't want to deal with this and also now on top of all her other shit she's a grandmother at like 30 and has even more family that she doesn't know how to deal with. Emma is drawn to her like a duckling bc Mary is the only woman in the house and it feels safer around her.

In the end (after The Big Pad Meltdown) Cas texts Jody who just drives to the bunker to provide them all with emotional support, some "your body is changing" talks and maybe a hint at taking Emma for a couple of days to Sioux Falls so she can calm down in an environment of a functional family with a slightly healthier, feminine energy.

Of course Emma ends up staying with the wayward sisters obviously, Dean visits and tries to build a semi normal relationship but Emma is kinda over it because Jody is her mom now and she's known Dean for like 1 day, so.

Dean doesn't leave his room for a week after Jack tries to comfort him by saying he also chose his family the way Emma did, its all good, because wow thanks kid, putting me in the same boat as Lucifer.

To keep in touch Emma has a groupchat with Jack and Claire (who finds this whole thing hilarious and changes bunker landline name in her contacts to "Homewreckers (and Jack)". )