#yes this is inspired by when rosa came out on b99 <3

[one-more-offbeat-anthem]

family game night

“How bad do you think it was?” Sam asks, trying to juggle the snacks in his arms so that he can knock on Dean and Cas’s apartment door.

“Judging by Dean’s message? Pretty bad.” Charlie has all the board games, and she’s having just as much trouble knocking on the door. Eventually, she gives up and gives it a good kick.

The trouble had started about a month ago, when Dean’s longtime boyfriend, Cas, had decided to come out to his parents, which they were all supportive of. Their rag-tag group of friends--Charlie (high school physics teacher), Sam (law student), Benny (tattoo artist extraordinaire), and Meg (roller derby coach)--had, along with Dean (mechanic), spent several nights counseling Cas (English doctoral candidate) about how to come out.

It probably didn’t help Cas much that they all had a wide variety of stories of how that went, that Charlie’s involved getting a weird tattoo, or that Dean started with, “It’s much easier when both your parents are dead.”

But at least they’d tried.

Tonight was the night--Dean and Cas were going out to dinner with Cas’s parents, and they were going to discover that Dean wasn’t just Cas’s longtime best friend. 

Then Charlie got a text from Dean that just said home already, cas upset. bring games and friends.

(The snacks had been a Sam addition.)

The door swings open moments after Charlie kicked it to reveal Dean with a haggard expression on his face. He’s more well-dressed than usual, probably because of dinner, and it’s a bit jarring, since he normally looks a little bit like a lumberjack.

“Benny and Meg said they’re coming, too,” Charlie says by way of greeting, and Dean responds to that with a weak smile.

“Thank god,” he replies, “It’s--yeah. It’ll be good to have people here.”

Cas doesn’t emerge from his and Dean’s room until after Benny’s arrived with beer and Meg’s brought more board games--Dean has to coax him out. Charlie thinks that Dean was right; things didn’t go well. Cas’s eyes are rimmed red and he’s got an arm around Dean like he might fall over.

“What’s all this?” Cas finally asks.

“Family game night,” Benny says. “Meg brought Sorry, I know you can’t wait to cream us at that.”

“And there are snacks,” Sam offers, holding up a bag of popcorn that he’s already started eating.

It doesn’t take long after that for things to devolve into chaos, like things always do when they all get together. Dean and Charlie get into an epic fight over the rules of Monopoly until Sam accidentally-on-purpose upends the board, Meg pays marginal attention to the game of Sorry, instead inventing a drinking game while Cas and Benny duke it out, and Charlie hopes that Cas’s spirits are at least a little higher. 

But Charlie’s known Cas for a long time, and when Cas ducks out and goes down the hall, she wonders if things are actually better.

Dean follows him and emerges a few minutes later, sans Cas, so Charlie decides to abandon the game of Life that Sam and Benny are trying to start in favor of finding Cas.

She finds Cas in his office, staring out the window with a desolate expression on his face. Charlie loops an arm around his shoulders and Cas jolts.

“Hey,” Cas says, voice rough.

“Hey yourself,” Charlie replies. “How’re you feeling?”

Cas shrugs. “My parents...well. Maybe they’ll come around. But they didn’t take it well.”

Charlie tries to figure out what to say, and then she decides to go with honest and genuine. “It sucks,” she starts, “That your parents won’t accept you. But you’ve got another family right here. And we’re with you every step of the way.”

Cas’s eyes well up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. You want us to throw rocks at their windows, we’ll do it. You want us to all go to a pride parade, it’ll happen. You want us to wallpaper your kitchen with the rainbow flag? Well, we’ll have to ask Dean about that one first but he’ll probably be okay with it.” 

“Maybe just a rainbow backsplash in the kitchen,” Cas jokes in response. He lets Charlie turn him into a hug. 

“Every time,” Charlie’s voice is soft, “Someone says who they are, the world becomes a better and more interesting place.” She pulls back. “And you, Castiel Milton, are fucking awesome.”

“Thanks, Charlie.”

“Let’s join the others,” Charlie replies, “I still need to beat your boyfriend at Monopoly.”

“Oh, it’s on.” 

Charlie knows that Cas’s problems haven’t magically vanished, but as she watches Cas sit down next to Dean as they all gather around the Monopoly board, she hopes that at least for one night he’ll be okay.