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Claire shuts the door behind Alex and turns to Jay, hooking a thumb over her shoulder, her other arm crossed over her ribs. “Hey Dad, who’s, uh… muscle man, out front? With the car.” She moves as though to glance through the window looking onto the street, then stops herself.
“Huh?” From the kitchen, Jay glances up at his daughter, then out the window. “Oh, yeah, you know how I’ve been wanting to add that extension out back? Well, Benny—my usual guy, you remember him, with the stubble—he packed off for Louisiana. Recommended this guy, just moved in from Lawrence.”
“Lawrence? Lawrence, where?”
“No idea,” Jay says, and shrugs. “What do I care where he’s from? But this guy’s supposed to be good. Old friend of Benny’s. He says this new guy might be even better than him. Big compliment, if you know Benny.”
From her place by the fridge, a glass of water in her hand, Alex looks up at her mother, then around the room, and asks, “Where’s Haley?”
---
Haley walks over, all nonchalance and a little hip action, to the man leaning hipshot against a black car parked by the curb. He’s studying a piece of paper in his hand, and several pages of blueprints are spread over the roof of the car.
“Wow, that’s a nice car,” she says, and stops just a little too close.
The guy smiles a little and glances at the car. “You think? Built her myself.”
“Really. That’s so cool. Must’ve taken a lot of muscle.” Her eyes follow the lines of his abs through the thin material of his T-shirt, one finger drawn slowly along the hood of the car. Her white-tipped nails stand out brightly against the black paint.
The man laughs, but his eyes never leave her face. “Yeah, I guess. I get pretty into the work, though. Don’t really notice.”
“I bet all that heavy lifting’s nothing for you, huh?” She turns toward the car and throws a glance over her shoulder, eyes at half-mast. She sets her palms on the hood, shoulders back just far enough so her boobs are in silhouette. He quirks a dubious eyebrow. “Looks vintage. What kind of car is it?”
“’67 Chevy Impala.” He throws his shoulders back proudly and glances again at the car, grinning. “Took a friggin’ century to find all the original parts, but it was definitely worth it.”
“I always thought some of the best things are the things you have to wait for, y’know? Like, turning eighteen. I spent, like, my whole life waiting for my eighteenth birthday, and then it came, and it was even better than I imagined.”
The guy makes kind of a weird face, his lips pushing together and his eyebrows rising, but then he takes a deep breath through his nose and relaxes. “Yeah, I remember my eighteenth. Good times. Was before I met Cas, so I was still kinda wild. I can’t believe it’s been twelve years, man. Don’t tell anyone I’m that old, though,” he says, and winks.
“No, yeah, of course not. I never would’ve guessed, really.”
“Uh. Thanks.” He makes that face again, with the pursed lips and the eyebrows, then turns to the blueprints. “I should probably… you know,” he gestures vaguely. “Your pop doesn’t pay me to stand around talking about my car, right? Even if she is a beaut.”
“Oh, right, sure. It really is a nice car. Maybe sometime you can take me for a ride...” She looks up and meets his gaze boldly through her lashes. “Sorry, what’s your name again?”
He just looks at her, his eyebrows still slightly raised. “Hm? I’m Dean.”
“Right. Dean. I’m Haley.” She sways closer and turns, the back of her hand just barely grazing the hip that’s not pressed up against the car door. She glances back at him over a dipped shoulder. “Looking forward to that ride.”
“Hah,” Dean says, and when her back is turned he shoots her a wary, knowing look, then snorts and returns to his floor plans.
---
“God, Cas, it was really crazy. Totally hilarious, I’m telling you. No one’s flirted with me that obviously since high school. Dude, did I tell you how she spent like a whole minute telling me about her eighteenth birthday? I was like, what, you want a cake?”
Castiel leans back against the counter and raises both eyebrows. “She wasn’t asking you for a cake, Dean.”
Dean stares blankly for a second, then rolls his eyes, half-frustration, half-amusement. “Yeah, Cas, I—”
“She was offering you a muffin.”
A moment of silence falls before Dean bursts out laughing. Smirking, Castiel tries to hide it behind a spoonful of yoghurt. “God, you get me every time with that shit, man. After all this time, how do I keep forgetting you have a sense of humor?”
“It’s sweeter when you don’t expect it,” Castiel says solemnly, and takes another bite of yoghurt, spinning the spoon upside down in his mouth and smirking around it.
“God, Cas, I can barely stand to watch you eat that. Oh, no, stop it; not the tongue, man. Seriously, Cas, hey, Marie’ll be home in—”
“Honey, I’m home!” a little voice sing-songs from the opposite side of the wall. The door bangs shut, followed by the twin thumps of two sneakers kicked free and bouncing off the wall, before a little bundle of four-year-old bounds into the kitchen. She skids to a stop in front of Dean and holds her arms out.
“Hey, babe, how was school?” he asks, helping her out of her sweater.
“Yuck,” she says, pulling a face. She darts forward to kiss him on the nose, then leans back and smiles wide. “Hi, Dada.” He grins back and mouths an exaggerated Hello.
When Dean finally wrestles her arms out of the sweater and tosses it across the back of the nearest chair, she turns around and hops up onto the counter beside Castiel, bracing her foot against the cupboard handle for a leg up. Tugging on Castiel’s sleeve, she says, “Bite, Daddy?” He holds out the spoon and she stares at, blinking, then shakes her head. “Too much.”
As Castiel shakes some of the yoghurt back into the container and presents the adjusted portion to her, he says, “You don’t think school is fun, Moo?”
“Ew!” She shakes her head vigorously, then eats the yoghurt off the spoon.
“What’s wrong with school?” Dean asks, leaning back against the table. “All you do is color and write your name and take naps. What’s not to like?”
“Coloring, and writing your name, and taking naps.” She wrinkles her nose at him, and he laughs out loud.
“You love to color,” Castiel reminds her, frowning.
She sighs loudly and slumps forward, throwing her hands out in front of her. “I like to color my pictures, Daddy. Ms. Angela makes me color inside of lines on stupid pictures of Care Bears and princesses. She doesn’t even have Princess Leia! And there’s no pirate coloring book! Why is there just a bunch of stupid coloring books, and no pirates? I mean, how can you have a princess coloring book without Princess Leia? A dumb princess coloring book, that’s what kind. She’s coolest. And… uh… and…” She falters for a moment, brows furrowing as she loses the narrative thread. “Uh…
“And”she continues, her outrage intensified by the triumph of catching her previous train of thought, “how can you have a Care Bears coloring book, but not a pirate coloring book?! Pirates are super awesome and Care Bears are not super awesome. At all. Princess Leia could cut off all their heads with her light saber. Cha! Besides, It’s not really even school,” she adds disdainfully. “It’s day care. It’s for babies. Like Care Bears.”
“Ah,” says Castiel, nodding in sage commiseration, as though he understands perfectly, and Dean raises both eyebrows at him. “I don’t believe, however, that a woman as kind as Princess Leia would murder any innocent Care Bears.” Dean snorts and shakes his head.
“Wow, day care sucks,” he says to Marie, who nods vigorously.
“Tell me about it. Ugh. It super stinks,” she agrees, and slides off the counter to get to the fridge.
She tries to brace her foot on one of the lower fridge shelves to reach the juice, but Catiel grabs her around the waist and sets her back down on the floor. “No climbing on the fridge, remember? Don’t want a repeat of November the Third, do we.” She huffs while he fills an ancient plastic Rainforest Café cup halfway and hands it to her.
“Remember, remember, the Third of November, huh kiddo? The day of the Avocado Avalanche of 2013, Moo,” Dean says, grinning, and Marie glares back. “That’s why we don’t call you Monkey; we don’t wanna encourage you. But really, it would’ve been fine if you hadn’t stepped in the avocado.”
“And slipped in it,” adds Castiel, solemn voice belied by his twitching lips.
“And got your head stuck in that rotten jack-o’-lantern,” Dean finishes cheerfully. “Which totally just proves that I was right when I said nothing good would come from keeping Halloween crap after Halloween’s over. It’s bad luck just waiting to happen. A week of snorting pumpkin guts out your nose? Talk about bad luck.”
“You’re just scared of Halloween, scaredy cat,” Marie says, sticking out her tongue. Dean sticks his out right back. “It wasn’t a whole week,” she sulks, and hides her face behind her cup. It only covers one half of her face, only half-hiding her pout.
“I can see why you wanted to preserve it. It was a very good jack-o’-lantern,” Castiel says soothingly. “You carved a perfect likeness of the Impala.”
“What?” Dean scoffs. “It looked like the car Charlie Brown drives to his grandmother’s condominium. And that’s not even from the Halloween episode.” Marie’s eyes go wide, and Dean takes one look at her face—the glassy eyes and pouty, slightly-open mouth—and quickly backpedals. “Kidding, I’m just kidding. It looked so much like the Impala, if it was a whole lot bigger even I couldn’t tell them apart. And I made her, so I know her inside out.”
Marie mimes throwing juice from her empty cup in his face and wrinkles her nose at him. “Dada,” she whines. “Meanie. You tricked me. For a sec there, I though you really lied about loving it. I made it just for you,” she adds earnestly.
Dean stifles a laugh, pressing his lips together and trying to keep his eyes from crinkling at the corners. “Oh, yeah, I sure did love it, babe.” Then he looks at Marie’s Rainforest Café cup and lets the smile out, bending down to look closer. “God, I remember when me and Sammy went to that place, back in ’95. I spent all my October allowance, but it was so worth it. They had the best pie. Didn’t know we even still had these stupid cups.” Marie holds it at eye level to look at the pictures on the sides, and Dean taps it with his finger. “Look, the little cartoon frog. Sammy loved that.” He stands up straight, sighing. “Man.”
“I, too, have found that many unexpected things have resurfaced during the unpacking process,” Castiel says softly, and smiles at Dean.
“You guys are making those faces again,” Marie whines, turning away and standing on her tiptoes in front of the sink. Her arm is still too short to reach the faucet.
“Here, gimme that,” Dean says, and rinses the cup out for her. Castiel sneaks his empty yoghurt container under the tap before Dean turns it off, then lobs it across the room and into the recycling bin. “Good shot.”
“Thanks.”
Stepping into the living room, Dean rifles through the toy bin for the red light saber, and covers his mouth and nose with his shirt. “Marie,” he rasps, turning around to face her and brandishing the plastic weapon, “I am your father.” She shrieks out a laugh, darts past him to grab the green light saber, and swings it against his with a crash.
---
“His name… is Dean. And he is beautiful.”
“And then God made the Dean, and it was good,” Alex responds drily over the clicking of her keyboard.
“Oh, my God, are you quoting the Bible? I didn’t think you could get any weirder, or more embarrassing, but I guess I was wrong. Are you, like, a Norman now? Are you gonna start knocking on people’s doors selling Bibles and asking them if they found Jesus? Because, seriously, everyone knows Jesus is dead. They’re never gonna find him no matter how many people they ask.”
Alex looks up from her laptop to stare, pushing her glasses down her nose to emphasize the ‘incredulous.’ “Uhm, wow, there are so many things wrong with that I don’t even know where to start.”
“Um, then don’t start.” Haley sighs and flips over onto her stomach on the bed. “Seriously, don’t, it’s like you speak, and my brain shuts down.”
“You know that one time you went to make out with Dylan in the shed, then came back to our room afterward and whined to me about how the power shut down on you as soon as you shut the door? There was never any power in the shed in the first place. Maybe that’s why your brain shuts down, too.”
“Oh my God, now you’re talking about sheds, why are you talking about sheds? Looking for somewhere to move after you graduate?”
“Ugh, I can’t talk to you. I feel so smart while we’re talking, but then I walk away and realize I actually lost more in five minutes than the dumb slacker kids in school do over the entire summer.”
“I know a great place under a bridge on the way to my community college. You know, for your dream house.”
“And spend the rest of my life breathing in all the disgusting fumes from the idling cars? Yeah, right, no thanks.”
“Uhm, Alex, are you sure you’re not the dumb one? Cars don’t use gas when they idle.”
Alex slaps a palm over her forehead. “Lord, deliver me from stupidity.”
“Are you still quoting the Bible?”
“Yeah, actually, I read a really cool article by this Professor Novak—who is actually young and super hot, by the way, he’s like twenty-eight—and he is an expert in ancient languages and he came out with this new interpretation of the original Old Testament, translated directly from the Ancient Hebrew, and it’s really a fascinating translation. He believes—“
“Oh, my God. Oh. My. God. So I guess it’s not enough that I have a nerd for a sister, now she’s crushing on some random, probably fugly Bible professor, and she’s never even seen him but yet her pitiful uninquited love has already turned her into a Norman freak?!”
Alex sits up fully, turns to face Haley, and nearly shouts, “But and yet cannot be used in conjunction with one another. It’s unrequited, not uninquited, and Normans, are people, from Normandy. Mormons are members of a religious group. Mormons. With an M. Which is the letter that comes before N, which is the first letter in Norman. Which is, again, a person who comes from Normandy.”
“God, Alex, I know the alphabet. ABCDEFGHIJKM&NOPQR—”
“UUUUUUURRRRRGGGGH! L! L L L L L!”
“Oh my God—are you having a seizure? Do you have, like… Torrent’s Syndrome?”
Alex flops face down on her pillow and says through a mouthful of cotton, “I. Give. Up.”
“I,” says Haley determinedly, “will never give up. Hot Dean won’t know what hit him.”
Alex peeks up and smirks. “No, Haley, you’re the only one who wakes up and forgets the people you hit the night before.”
Haley throws her pillow in Alex’s face, and all hell breaks loose.
---
Dean follows Jay into the house through the back door. “—that the framework’s pretty much all finished, maybe a few more adjustments, but I’m trying to make the best possible use of space. It’ll be nice, not having to put in so much insulation, after so long working in Kansas. Had some killer snowstorms, there, when we were kids.”
“Yeah, I bet. Looks great so far,” says Jay, opening the fridge. “Want a beer?”
“Yeah, love one. Thanks, man,” he adds, clinking the necks of their bottles together and taking a long pull. “Ah. Good stuff. My brother likes the, uh… lite beer. None of that shit for me.”
“Hah. You’ve got good taste.”
“Yup, I like to think so. Oh—hey, little man,” he says, surprised, and looks down at Joe. He’s plopped himself between Dean’s feet, staring up at him. “Joe, right?” Dean asks, looking to Jay for confirmation.
“Yup. Didn’t even see him get in here. He’s really motoring.”
“He’s cute. My dad used to say they got the devil in ‘em, at that age. Don’t come across a single thing they won’t try to eat.” He glances down again to find Joe levering himself to his feet, chubby hands fisted in Dean’s jeans. “Wow, look at you. Hah. Superman.”
“Last I checked, Superman doesn’t crawl around on the floor.”
“Hey, even the Man o’ Steel’s gotta start somewhere. Isn’ that right, little guy?” he asks, looking down at Joe and pulling a goofy face.
Jay sets his beer down on the counter and regards Dean thoughtfully. “You have kids?”
“Oh—yeah,” Dean says, fumbling through his back pocket. “See? Look at that,” he says, opening a flap in his wallet to a worn picture of a baby in overalls and a little yellow hat. “That’s Marie. But, uh, it’s pretty old. Here,” he digs around in his hip pocket and pulls out his phone. “There she is. Isn’t she a little cutie?” She’s standing hands-on-hips in the middle of the kitchen with a polka-dotted blanket around her shoulders and an upside-down softball visor on her head. “She’s four now. Be five pretty soon, actually. God, it goes fast, doesn’t it.” He smiles down at Joe. “You’ll be batting .300 in no time, kid.” He looks back up at Jay and smiles wryly. “Cas gets sad about it sometimes, you know, but I just think, what can you do. They’re kids, it’s what they do.”
“I’ve got two grown-up kids, with families of their own. My son and his husband just got married, actually.”
“Hey, that’s great. Yeah. Look at that, that’s nice. Congrats to them.” He nods toward the wedding picture taped to the fridge. He takes one last swig of his beer. “Well, I gotta go. Nice talkin’ to you, man. Hey, you got a recycle?” he asks, brandishing the empty bottle.
“Uh, yeah. Just under there.”
“Cool. See you later, man. Take care. Buh-bye, little man.” He waves at Joe, who’s crawled over to sit at Jay’s feet and stare after Dean as he walks out the door.
---
“Oh, wow. He is pretty hot. Huh. I didn’t really get a good look at him, last time.”
“Whoa, back off, you little nerd, I saw him first. You can go make out with Professor Fugly.”
“I hate you. Hate.”
“You have a stupid crush on a Bible professor, and… you expect me not to make fun of you?” Haley snorts in a way that is somehow not unflattering, and Alex wonders how she manages that. “I’m really liking this.”
“Liking what?”
“You being the dumb sister, for once.”
“Hah. In your dreams,” Alex says, rolling her eyes.
“Hey,” Haley says, shrugging carelessly, “If you only believe, all your dreams will come true. Like me and Hot Dean, living happily ever after.”
“I think I now know why you make fun of my Bible references. You’re really just jealous, cause all you know how to reference is Disney Princesses, when even Lily has graduated to Hannah Montana.”
“Uh, no, actually. I make references to The Secret Life of the American Teenager all the time.”
Alex smirks. “Are you trying to make yourself seem smarter? I think that’s actually a step down.”
Flipping her hair over her shoulder, Haley turns to walk away. “Ugh, whatever.”
“Where are you going, Haley?” Alex asks, words slow and patient. “The house is that way.”
“I’m going to talk to Hot Dean. Maybe I can’t talk in Bible Language, but oh wait, that might actually be the reason why I can actually talk to boys.” She turns away and continues across the yard to where Dean is standing on the curb. “Hey, Dean,” she says, smiling coyly as she stops in front of where he’s rummaging through his tool box.
“Oh, uh… Haley. Hey. Look, sorry, but I’m kinda busy. I was just, uh… looking for this. Combination-jaw wrench… here. Yeah,” he flourishes said wrench and flashes an apologetic smile.
“Oh, no… that’s okay. Hey, if you need any help, I’m right here. I’ve, uh… helped people out, before,” she says, her voice dropping lower. “I can help you… clean your tools.” She takes a step forward, and his eyebrows shoot up. “I can… grab your wrench, you know, I can even work it pretty well, I think. I mean, all you gotta do is… twist. Right?” She looks up at him, scant inches from his face, and opens her eyes wide in faux-innocence.
Dean’s lips pinch together, his eyebrows still raised, and steps away deftly to rifle through his toolbox again, for all the world as though it isn’t just a way to remove Haley form his personal space. “Hah, I’m an idiot. Looks like this wrench isn’t even in the size I was looking for, Jesus.” He picks up another, nearly identical wrench and waves it in her direction. “Well, thanks for the offer, but looks like I’m good now,” and with that, he walks away toward the skeleton of Jay’s unfinished sunroom.
---
Two days after the project begins, everyone knows about Hot Dean. Naturally.
“Where is he?” asks Mitchell, striding through the kitchen to peek out the window. “Is that him? Wow. Wa-how. He is hot.”
“Told you, Uncle Mitch. My sexometer never fails.”
“Yeah, right, Haley. That one guy you—”
“Yeah, okay, shut up now or I will tell everyone at your school you still suck your thumb.”
“I do not!”
“I know. But they don’t.”
“Hate. I hate you.”
“You’re just jealous cause he’s so hot, and I saw him first.”
“Who’s hot? Is that Hot Dean?” asks Cam, coming to stand on the other side of the window and sneakily glancing out. “Oh, my God, you could cut yourself on those abs.”
Manny sniffs from his place at the island. “I really don’t understand the appeal.”
Gloria pokes her head in the kitchen door. “What are jou lookeen at? Oh, Hot Dean, yes. I have been keepeen lookeen at him all day, I can’t help it, he has a very, very nice body. He took hees shirt off after three houers, and I was so happy I could seeng.”
“But then I told her, what with the noise, he’d probably notice her spying on him, so she’d better not. Don’t want him to think we’re all creeps, do we?”
“Now, Jay, where would he get that idea?” Gloria asks, shooting him a Look, and he smiles an anemic little faux-smile.
“No, I have no idea. Really, none.”
“Hey, guys. You wouldn’t happen to be, ah… looking at Hot De—I mean, Dean—would you? Oh, wow. That’s, um. Yeah. Oh my God, I thought he was hot with his shirt on.”
“Mom, why are you guys all staring at him like that? He’s just building a wall, haven’t you ever seen a wall before?” Luke pushes between Claire and Haley to get a better look. “He must have super powers,” he declares.
“Oh, God, yes, I would so not be surprised. Wait, what, Luke?” Suddenly registering the oddness of his statement, she turns her stare on him, narrowing her eyes. “Why would you say that, honey?”
“Because he’s still just… working. I can’t even do my homework with one person in the same room, when they’re staring at the wall and not saying anything. And all you guys are staring at him and he doesn’t even… blink. Well, I guess he’s blinking because, like, his eyes would shrivel up if he didn’t, but—”
“Alright, yeah, okay, honey,” Claire says, having turned back to stare out the window halfway through his second sentence.
“Dad? What’s going on? I’m confused. Why are they all staring at him?”
Phil shoots his son a contemplative look, until inspiration strikes. “Well, buddy, put yourself in their shoes if that was Brittany from the Starbucks, and she’d taken her shirt off.”
“Oh. Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Lily sends the congregation by the window a suspicious look. “I still don’t get it, Grandpa. My dads take their shirts off all the time.”
“What?!” Jay yells, eyes darting between Lily in her chair and Mitch and Cam where they stand by the window. “You see them shirtless, all the time?!”
“Well, this is a new development,” says Mitch, attention finally diverted from Dean’s musculature.
“Of course I do, Grandpa, they don’t wear shirts when we go swimming. Duh. We go swimming… a lot.” Mitch and Cam both sigh in relief and return their gazes to Dean’s abs. “They don’t wear shirts and nobody stares at them for two hours.”
Mitchell doesn’t turn around as he says, “Oh, honey, it hasn’t been two hours, you’re exaggerating…”
“I learned from the best,” Lily replies, matter-of-fact, and Mitchell looks away from the window again to share a put-upon look with Cam, except that Cam is still busy admiring the view. Rolling his eyes, Mitchell looks back out the window, too.
“I know at least three of you are married,” Jay interjects, only to be shushed universally and spared not even a glance.
“Eet’s just lookeen,” says Gloria, “And just lookeen never hurt anyone.”
After another five minutes, Mitch hisses. “Ow.”
“What,” asks Cam, finally darting a half-glance over as Mitchell presses the palm of his hand against his left eye.
“I just got hit by a… a weird reflection. Ow. I think it burned my retina, God.”
“Wow,” says Jay with faux-nonchalance, “looks like looking just hurt someone.” Mitch rolls his eyes heavenward, then hisses and claps his hand over his eye with its allegedly burnt retina. Jay just laughs. “He’s got a wife and kid, you know.”
“What?!” asks Haley loudly. “Are you serious?”
“What’s the matter?” asks Alex, raising her eyebrows in a way that telegraphs an artful lack of caring.
“Well, I have nothing against being a marriage wrecker, but I don’t wanna be a home wrecker,” she says, and sighs loudly, disappointed.
“Uh… what?” asks Mitchell, staring at her incredulously.
“Just give up,” Alex advises him sagely. “I did, and my stress levels have decreased dramatically.”
---
At three in the morning, the door to Castiel and Dean’s room creaks open and Marie stumbles in, whimpering. “Dad-dy. Dada. Stuck.”
“Wha—?” Dean begins blearily, and Marie lets out a little high-pitched whine.
“Stuck! It hurts,” she adds pitifully.
“Oh,” says Castiel, sounding far more awake than Dean can hope to be any time within the next four hours. “Oh, look, Dean. Her eyes are stuck shut. Come here, Marie, come on up.”
Marie lurches, half-blind, to the side of the bed, and Cas lifts her up and sets her between them. “Oh, baby,” says Dean sympathetically. “They’re all gummy, huh?” Castiel pads over to the ensuite while Marie curls into Dean’s side, her small feet pressing into his stomach, her whimpering little breaths making his shirt damp over his shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay, Daddy’s… Daddy’s gonna fix you up. In’t that right, humm, Cas.”
“Yeah. Here, Moo, look at me, look at Daddy.” Castiel swipes a warm, wet washcloth over her eyelashes several times, gently. “There. Can you open your eyes now? Good. That’s better, isn’t it. Here, turn—yeah, like that, I’m just gonna stick the thermometer in your ear.” He looks at the display after the thermometer beeps, then lets out a loud breath. “Shi—well,” he corrects absently. “That’s not so good. She’s burning up,” he adds, addressing Dean.
“Hmmm. Flu?”
“I don’t know. Here, let me get the light.” Dean groans and Castiel shoots him a look. “Don’t whine, Dean, you’re not the one with a high fever.” The light clicks on and Dean moans again. Castiel rolls his eyes. “Cover your face.”
Dean does so, turning his face into his pillow and mumbling, “’M not whining. It’s my… uh, my inalienable right to manfully object to… hum… cruel and unusual…” he trails off and peeks over at Castiel, then winces and shoves his face back in the pillow. “The light, Jesus. It’s like a form of torture.”
“Hm. I think you’ll survive. Oh, look, Dean, her throat’s all cruddy,” he adds, frowning.
“I’ll take your word for it, Dr. Dad. Crud: that the medical term for it, now?”
“I’m not that kind of doctor, Dean,” Castiel says flatly. “Stop being difficult.”
“Hm. You’re just jealous, cause I… am, hm… awesome.”
“You’re worse than our sick child. Our sick four-year-old child.” Castiel’s gaze sweeps over Dean, contemplative. “I can still steal all your blankets, you know,” he says, and ducks back into the bathroom.
“Like I said. Cruel. And. Unusual. Maybe you should move to Serbia—humm—use some of those sadistic torture skills over there, you’d fit right in. Bite people’s fingers off and… bend them in half. Or whatever.”
Castiel returns from the bathroom and raises his eyebrows, and even though Dean misses it with his face smashed into his pillow, he can hear the skepticism in Castiel’s words. “You were hardly complaining last night. Quite the opposite, if memory serves.”
“Fu—unctioning. Your memory, is. Functioning.”
“Nice save there, Number Eleven,” Castiel says wryly, stepping up to the bed with a pipette full of cherry-red children’s Motrin.
“Hmmm, o‘course. Dean Winchester doesn’t tag out. And don’t you forget it. Also: double entendres, while your daughter sits beside you burning with fever? Dear me, Dr. Novak, dear me.”
“Blankets,” Castiel reminds him sternly.
“Go to hell.” Dean stretches his legs out and moans. “Maybe I wasn’t complaining last night, but I’m complaining now. ‘M sore,” he adds sulkily. “Besides, last night it wasn’t three-o-friggin’ clock in the morning.”
Ignoring him, Castiel gently nudges the medicine dropper between Marie’s lips and murmurs, “Open up.” She suckles up against it reflexively, eyes glassy, and Castiel smooths her hair back. “Good girl.”
Dean flops over onto his back, taking the pillow with him. “I feel so unloved.”
“What’s that? You’re mumbling, dear,” says Castiel, and Dean flops a hand out to hit him weakly in the arm. Castiel doesn’t respond, and turns to Marie instead. “You can sleep in our bed tonight, Moo.” He slides her back to the middle of the mattress and she goes easily, weak and pliant, Castiel following after her. “Of course, our daughter would bring home the flu in June,” he murmurs.
“Mmmh, it’s that day care. Full of germs,” Dean mumbles.
“And Care Bears,” adds Marie despairingly.
“The Care Bears Gave you the flu? Is that the story we’re going with now,” Castiel asks, low and amused, smoothing down Marie’s hair where it tickles his nose.
“I wouldn’t put it past them,” she agrees sleepily. Her breaths rasp through the blockage in her nose and she curls close between them.
Dean wakes three hours later to hot lips and wet noses pressed against his skin. He lets out a grunt and opens his eyes to find Marie and Castiel both pressing sloppy kisses all over his face. He laughs and yells, “Help! I’ve been kissed by sniffle monsters! I have flu germs! Get hot water! Get some disinfectant! Get some iodine!”
Marie giggles and presses her nose against his cheek. “Hee. Moo gave you flu germs.”
Dean wrinkles his nose. “Yeah, no thanks for those, by the way.”
“You’re very not welcome,” Marie replies, and smiles brightly. “Now we can all be sick together.”
“Wow. That sounds like a big barrel of laughs, right there.”
“Well,” says Castiel philosophically, “at least now you know you’re loved.”
---
A blue truck pulls up curbside in front of Jay’s house and an older man in a tattered baseball cap climbs out, pulling a tool box from the truck bed and leaving it on the sidewalk. He meets Jay at the door and offers up a strong handshake, all business. “Bobby Singer. Dean won’t be hauling his lazy ass out of bed today. Kid’s with the flu. I swear, they go crazy when she coughs twice.” He rolls his eyes, then shrugs grudgingly, but there’s something affectionate underlying his exasperation.
“Cas is pretty laid out too. Y’all’re gonna have to settle for me today, looks like.” He rocks back on his heels and grumbles, “Dean’ll get himself sick ‘fore the day’s out, the idjit. Don’t fool himself into thinking I’ll be back, though. I don’t care if he’s hacking up a lung; I retired for a reason.” Glancing up at the people huddled across the room trying to look casual, he scowls a little and adds, “I ain’t taking my damn shirt off. Dean might be a goddamn exhibitionist fool, but he sure as hell didn’t get it from me.” With that complaint, he turns and heads out back, stopping briefly to grab the toolbox on his way.
The crowd gathered around the back window retreats sheepishly and disperses, and Jay hides a chuckle behind his coffee cup.
---
“There,” says Dean, “All done.” At Jay’s raised eyebrow, he grins a little and adds, “Well, it still needs to be painted, but that’s a quick job. Don’t worry, I wasn’t planning on skimping out on ya.”
“Better not,” says Jay, and walks with Dean as he goes to pack up his tools.
Dean gabs a rag from the side of the tool box and scrubs at his hands. “Hey, uh, I’ve known you for, what—a month now?—and you seem like good people. We were wondering, uh—me and Cas—if you wanna come up to the house for our Fourth of July thing? It’s kinda like a joint house warming party.” He scratches the back of his neck. “There’ll be a barbeque, and Cas makes this vegetable stir-fry, learned it in, uh, India, and it is literally the best thing you ever tasted. I mean, I didn’t know vegetables could taste even tolerable, but it’s, uh, really something. Cas has, like… the magic touch. And Ellen’ll bring her famous blueberry pie, so yeah. My life will be pretty much complete. Hah.”
“Oh. Uh, well,” says Jay, uncertain.
“I mean, your whole family is invited, obviously,” Dean adds quickly.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to make Cas—”
“Oh, no, Cas’d love to have you. Kinda wants to meet you, after all I’ve said about you guys. All good stuff, no worries,” he adds with a grin. “Like I was telling you, we’re new around here. Thought we’d try the apple pie life on for size. Although, when there’s pie, I’m pretty much a guaranteed in: all bets off. But, uh… not a lot of friends from around here yet, but Sammy—my brother—he’s coming around, and his wife, and all Cas’ older brothers, family friends, you know. Sam’s buying a bounce castle for the kids, bet that, uh, Lily would like it. Marie’s pretty excited, Cas keeps saying she’s practicing for the bouncy house, the way she hops around when she gets jazzed. You know, the fireworks—she gets pretty into that. And she loves her uncles. Um. But. Well, there aren’t really that many other little kids, and it’d be nice, we thought, for Marie to get to know some other, you know… non-adults. And for us to expand our circle a little, in this town.”
Jay pauses for a moment, than nods. “That sounds great. I mean, usually we have our own little thing, just a cookout and stuff.”
“Hey, you could even bring your own grill along, man: I could use some help on all those burgers, anyway, it’ll be a pretty big crowd.” Dean throws the rag over his shoulder and closes the lid of the tool box.
“Alright. I’m sure my family will be happy. They like… meeting… new people,” he says, wryly, and smiles. Dean grins back.
“Sounds like a plan. It’s, uh, 25 Oak Ridge Road, it’s in the neighborhood. Take care,” he advises, slamming the trunk closed and climbing into the driver’s seat of the Impala. “The fourth, four o’clock,” he calls out through the open window as he starts the engine.
“We’ll be there,” says Jay, because yeah. No way were any of the ladies going to let him pass up on that.
---
By the time the Pritchett-Tucker-Dunphy-Delgado family arrives at 25 Oak Ridge on the fourth, bundled into three separate cars that together block most of the driveway and box at least three other families in, it is already four-thirty. The topic of every conversation is, of course, Hot Dean and his as of yet-unseen family.
“Do you think his wife’s pretty?” asks Alex curiously, hopping down from the back seat.
“Of course she’s pretty,” huffs Haley impatiently. “You don’t get a man like that if you’re just some ugly rat.”
“I bet she’s smart, though,” Alex offers stubbornly.
Haley snorts in her oddly elegant way. “Yeah, you think Hot Dean cares what’s going on in her head? I don’t think so.”
Alex sniffs and turns away as their whole family gathers and makes its way like one big, limping creature toward the backyard. When they draw level with the wall of the house, Dean looks up and waves his grill tongs at them from behind the hulking frame of a mammoth grill. “Hey, guys, what’s up? You’re in luck, we just started putting the burgers on!”
“Oh, my, God,” says Lily in awe, staring up at the multicolored bounce house dominating the skyline. “This is the bouncy castle of my dreams,” she pinches herself on the arm and seems not to register the pain. For a moment she only stares, transfixed, before taking off like a shot toward the entrance.
Inside the blown-up structure, a little voice shouts, “Higher, Ben! Bounce me higher!”
“Hey, kiddo, get your cute little butt over here!” Dean calls over his shoulder. “You ready for your sandwich?”
A little dark-haired girl with a wide smile and shocking blue eyes skids down the slide leading out of the bouncy house. She bounces over to bob happily by Dean’s elbow. “Yep. I was born ready!”
Dean grins down at her teasingly. “You like it without the cheese, don’t you.”
“Dadaaaaa,” she whines, frowning and wrinkling her nose.
“No, no, I’m kidding, look.” He picks a cheeseburger up with his tongs and stuffs it in a bun. “Here ya go, a perfect Moo Burger, nice and crispy, Swiss cheese, just the way you like it. Pickles and mustard over there at the table.” She moves to stand ponderously by a nearby folding table, then glances over her shoulder at Dean and points to it uncertainly. He nods and smiles. “Yeah, that one, you got it.”
Ten seconds later, he looks back over at the table and his eyes widen in alarm. “Hey, Cas, get your ass out here!” he calls in the general direction of the back door. “Condiment emergency cleanup at table two.”
“He gets away with talking to his wife like that? Gloria would take me out, Columbian Mafia-style,” Jay mutters. Looking around, he realizes that his family has dispersed around him, heading off in different directions. He shifts his gaze to the half-open sliding door to watch for Dean’s wife’s reaction. The woman who comes jogging out of the house is… a man.
“So he is gay! Wow, did not see that coming,” cries Mitch from his left, but all Jay can manage to do is stare. And stare. And stare.
“Hey, Cas,” calls Dean, oblivious, “you wanna help Chucklehead over there not cause another natural disaster with the Great Mustard Volcano of 2014?”
Cas quirks his lips and takes the mustard bottle out of Marie’s sticky yellow hands. “Oh, I don’t know, Dean,” he says solemnly. “It would hardly be a Winchester-Novak holiday without a food-related calamity of apocalyptic proportions.” He turns to Marie and smiles, amused, while she pouts up at him. “Heaven forbid any of your experiences with food ever end with the food in your mouth.”
“As opposed to, say, your nose,” Dean clarifies, smiling wide. “Or… wow, how did that get all the way up there?”
Cas regards his daughter’s mustard-covered head in thoughtful amusement. “I think she’s experimenting with a new breakthrough in organic hair care. Mustard and… is that potato salad?”
“Dad-dy. It’s pulling,” she whimpers, and Cas leans down for a closer look.
“Oh, oh, shhh, shhhhh, I’ve got it, let me just—” Cas grabs a napkin from the table and licks it, scrubbing it over her hair. “Oh, wow, that dried in there pretty quick, huh, Moo? No, sh, it’s okay, look at that, it’s coming… right… okay, maybe not. Ellen? Ellen!”
“Oh, my God,” says Alex from the other end of the yard, stunned, staring at Cas as he continues to rub at his daughter’s head with a damp napkin. “That’s Professor Novak.”
Haley turns to look, confused. “What are you talking abo—oh. Oh. Wow. That’s Bible guy?” She makes a considering face and nods, impressed. “He’s really not fugly. Huh. He’s actually… wow. He is definitely worthy of Hot Dean’s fine ass.” Her eyes travel appreciatively down said ass. “Which, by the way, in those jeans? Mmm.”
Rolling her eyes, Alex says archly, “You are such a slut,” before a wicked smirk steals across her face. “Well. Looks like Hot Dean prefers the smart ones after all.”
“Yeah, the smart, male, ones.”
“Speaking of which, maybe your sexometer never fails, but apparently your gaydar really does.”
“It’s not like you noticed either.”
“It’s not like I had three separate conversations with him. Didn’t you realize something was up when he failed to flirt back?”
“Dean’s a natural flirt,” says a dry voice behind them, and they both turn to see a pretty blond girl in jeans and a flannel shirt. Haley wonders vaguely if all of the people here shop in the exact same aisle of the exact same store, which caters mainly to lumberjacks and Wolverine. “He swings both ways. It’s totally okay if you thought he was into you,” Mystery Lumberjack Girl reassures them. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
They all look back at Cas and Dean standing close together over their daughter, Dean having handed the tongs off to a short blond man in a button down. Dean’s hand brushes down Castiel’s arm in a gesture that is half-soothing, half-possessive. “Oh my God,” says Alex, gleefully. “This is awesome.”
Both the other girls turn to stare at her until Haley says, despairingly, “Why are you so weird?”
“I dunno,” says the blond girl thoughtfully. “I actually kinda think they’re a hot couple. I don’t think many girls would mind third wheeling on that action. I mean, Dean is like a brother to me, so, like, just no. But… yeah. I can see it.”
Haley looks back at the two men, their heads bent close together and elbows touching, and her smile grows wide and sly. “Oh. Yeah. Suddenly, I’m seeing the whole world in a new light.”
Bobby finds Ellen talking to Sam and Chuck on the front porch and approaches respectfully, resting a hand on her elbow to catch her attention. “Hm? What’s up, Bobby?” she asks casually, tipping her chin in his direction.
“Your expertise in the raising of girl children is needed out back,” he replies gruffly, and she laughs out loud, rolling her eyes at Sam, who smirks knowingly. She heads back around the house to find Castiel and Dean collectively freaking out about the mess of condiments in their kid’s hair as it quickly hardens to the point of pain.
She slaps at their shoulders affectionately and pushes through. “Ah, you two men better clear out, this is a job for Mama Harvelle’s magic touch. Here, we’ll fix you right up, honey, don’t you worry.” She kneels by Marie and sets to work. “I’ve gotten stuff much worse than this out of a person’s hair before, although I won’t name names.”
Jay walks slowly over to where Dean and the man who is apparently Cas stand several feet back from the condiments table. “So,” says Jay slowly, addressing Dean, who turns around to shoot him a curious look. “Cas is a guy?”
Dean stares at him in apparent confusion. “Uh… yeah. Of course he is.”
“But… you…” Jay is so surprised he can barely string two words together, and when he does, they make very little sense.
Supposedly-Cas turns to Dean and pins him with a flat stare. “You withheld the fact that I am male from your employer of the past four weeks.”
“What?!” Dean asks, stepping back in alarm and holding up both hands, placating. “No, Cas, of course not, I mean… no! Besides, it was only… a little more than three weeks.” Apparently-definitely-Cas raises his eyebrows and begins to turn away, unimpressed, and Dean instantly backpedals. “Wait, no, don’t… Cas!” He touches Cas’ sleeve lightly and nudges him until they’re once again standing face to face. “Hey… babe. C’mon. I didn’t withhold anything, seriously, man. No withholding occurred in the making of this clusterfu—unkytime.” He glances nervously toward Marie, but she’s too busy fussing and begging Ellen to shave her head to notice his near-slip. “If they missed a few crucial pronouns, that’s really not my fault.”
“I would have noticed any glaring male pronouns in there, buddy, I am the only one of us,” Jay gestures toward his own scattered family members, “who isn’t swimming down De Nile.”
“Well, I… I didn’t mean to forego the use of proper pronouns?” Dean huffs and scratches at the back of his neck. “This is just weird. Dude,” he says, turning to Cas, “how can I have been talking about you for almost a month and never used a pronoun, once? How does that even work.”
“I don’t know.” Cas says slowly. “But, I do know that it’s left me feeling rather forsaken. I think you’re going to need to make it up to me,” he says, widening his eyes and pouting his lips. Jay clears his throat. No one seems to notice.
“Heh.” Dean swallows hard and runs hot eyes along the contours of Castiel’s body. “Not in front of the kids.”
Castiel starts a little and blinks. “Oh! I left the stir-fry on the counter. Hang on.” He turns away, spots the blond man at the grill, and spins right back around. “Also, you might want to reclaim your rightful place as King of the Grill. Gabriel appears to be making a hamburger skyscraper, and if I know that look in his eyes, he plans to set it on fire.”
“Ack!” Dean yells, and hurries to rescue dinner from Gabriel’s arsonistic clutches. A minute later, Castiel comes over to deposit the stir fry on one of the grill’s wide wings. He spins around and presses his back against the wing’s edge, moving to stand side-by-side with Dean, their hips brushing.
“Hello,” says Cas, lowly, and Dean smiles at him, soft and fond.
“Hey,” he replies, gently bumping Cas’ hip with his own.
“I can’t believe you spent every day for a month—fine, nearly so,” Castiel amends when faced with Dean’s glare, “and they didn’t once receive the tiniest hint that I was not, in fact, a woman.”
Dean shrugs one shoulder, light and easy. “Well, I guess I just think of you as Cas, that guy I live with, with the morning breath, and the stubble, and the crazy high alcohol tolerance. And the voice that gets me hot,” he adds, voice dropping, and Castiel leans closer until their noses are almost touching. “Anyway,” Dean says, his own breath reflected back at him by Cas’ lips, “I guess the ‘guy’ part just kind of gets drowned out by all the other stuff.”
“Yeah?” asks Castiel breathlessly, shifting ever closer toward Dean, steadying himself on the wing of the grill. “What else about me gets you—MOTHERFUNGUUUNH!” he shouts, lifting his hand to stare at the brand-new fiery red burn mark cutting across his palm, the flesh raised and raw. Dimly, he hears Marie screaming in tandem with himself somewhere off to the side, frightened by the pain in his voice, but he can’t look away from the long burn on his palm.
“HOLY SHIT, CAS, SHIT!” cries Dean, and he kicks open the cooler by his right foot, swinging Cas around his body to dunk his hand into the ice while—“AAAAAAARRRRGGGHHHH!”—steadying himself against the grill with the other hand. “Mother—guh,” he growls, his hand joining Castiel’s in the bottom of the cooler.
“Oh my God!” Jo and both Dunphy girls shriek simultaneously.
“Are you okay?” calls Ellen, concerned, and Marie stares at them, eyes huge as she gasps for breath, eyes wide as though startled by her own screaming.
“You stupid goddamn idjits!” Bobby grumbles from his slouched position against the side of the house, beer dangling from one hand.
“Well,” says Castiel wryly, looking up to meet Dean’s gaze before staring down at Dean’s matching burn, “now I guess we both know what makes you really hot.”
They look at each other for a moment, then burst out laughing, and soon everyone else follows suit.
---
"Aaaand… what’s in this one,” Marie asks Gabriel, pointing at a purple firework.
Gabriel grins proudly and proclaims, “Strontium, and copper.”
“And… this one?” she points at the gold.
“Cold, hard iron!” he cries, and she grins up at him, delighted. “Well,” he amends, “It’s mostly charcoal. Easier to explain to the authorities,” he adds with a wink, earning himself a giggle.
“How about that one?” Luke interjects, pointing toward the bright white one.
“Magnesium! That’s my favorite. Singed my eyebrows off with that stuff back in junior year of high school… it was awesome. I’ve always thought eyebrows are overrated, anyway,” he adds flippantly.
“Awesome,” whispers Luke. He looks up at Gabriel hopefully. “Can I help you light them off?”
“Stop corrupting the children, Gabriel!” calls a voice from the other side of the lawn. “They’re not old enough yet to understand you’re full of shit!”
“Shut up, Michael!” he calls back. To Luke, he says, “Sorry, buddy: not until you get a nice shiny pyrotechnics license of your very own.”
“Oh, thank God,” says Manny from his position at the picnic table. “He’d torch us all.”
“Hey,” calls Sam in mock annoyance, slinging an arm around Jessica’s shoulders. “We gonna set these babies off, or are we just gonna talk about them?”
“Aye, aye, captain,” calls Gabriel, jumping to stand up straight and throwing off a sloppy salute. Turning back to Marie, he whispers out of the corner of his mouth, “I refuse to bow before that tyrant! Even if he is The Bigfoot,” sending her into peals of laughter as Gabriel lopes across the lawn to the agreed up ‘safe distance.’
As the first firework explodes overhead in a shower of shimmering red sparks, Marie makes a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. “I can’t see! Victor’s stupid head is in the way.” Huffing, she crosses her arms grumpily until strong hands grab her around the waist, and she throws both arms out for balance as Sam heaves her up onto his broad shoulders. She lets out a squeal of delight and grabs both Sam’s ears in a death grip. “I’m on top of the world,” she shouts, and smiles wide.
Dean and Cas share a grin at Sam’s side. From her seat on the grass beside Jay’s lawn chair, Claire rests her head against his side, and he smiles, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. Luke runs forward to try to catch the falling sparks before they touch the ground.
The fireworks boom and crackle above them, and from Sam’s shoulders, Marie shouts, “Happy birthday, Jesus!”