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American Jacks and the Right Coat (but Wrong Shoes)
Sam, in his infinite wisdom, introduced Jack to audiobooks of all things. Jack had made an off-hand comment during one of his visits that sometimes being in everything, everyone, and even the freaking raindrops was a bit too loud for him to relax. So the kid, sorry… the new God, spends the majority of his time when visiting his Earthly family creepily staring out into nothing with kitty shaped headphones perched on top of his head.
Dean had no clue where the kitty headphones came from, he suspected that they were procured along with Marvelous Marvin the creepily talking Teddy Bear by Castiel. But, that was neither here nor there… he was not going to question Cas’ parenting choices. At least out of the three of them, Cas was the one who read the parenting books… ex postfacto making him the reigning expert on all things children. Or well… cosmic entity teenagers? Toddler shaped teenager? God Teen?
Dean doesn’t know. He knows that even if he wanted to read the damn parenting books, none of this would be in it.
Jack is God, Castiel’s parenting aside, he literally can do whatever he wants. And if he wants to listen to audiobooks wearing kitty headphones that lighted up like a Studio 54, Dean isn’t going to stop him. He definitely isn’t going to try to play salty stern Dad to the new God.
“The headphones are going to wear a groove into his head,” Dean mutters, sipping his coffee staring at Jack. Their kid is sitting at the map table with those damn cat ears on full blast assaulting his eyes. It truly is too damn early for this nonsense.
“He doesn’t sleep,” Cas grumbles, walking past him to the kitchen, hair sticking up and lying flat like he’s stuck his hand into a light socket. Dean’s hotdog PJs swishing around his bare feet, riding low on his hips. Cas is shirtless but Cas is grumpy, and Dean squints at him angrily for caressing his eyes with his delicious almost nudity and being so salty .
“Gee, I didn’t know that,” he mutters back sarcastically, “But those headphones are going to squeeze into his melon and before we know we’ll have a Gallagher situation.”
Castiel, the former Angel of the Lord or of Jack, looks dead into Dean’s eyes, squinting hard, and gripes out, “You know I don’t understand that reference.”
“I know, I know,” Dean waves off, Cas doesn’t understand half of what he says, “Pancakes?”
“Are you going to put pecans in them again and ruin them?” Cas accuses and slinks down on a chair at the table. Castiel has opinions about his food, newly human and all, and Dean bends to his will. It’s the least he could do.
“No, I got the message the first time- no nuts in your food,” Dean then chuckles and under his breath, he whispers, “Can’t say that about your mouth though. Heey-oooh.”
“Dean .”
“What?”
“Don’t talk about your testes,” Castiel commands as he closes his eyes and sips his coffee. Sam walks in right as he says the words “testes.”
“Say balls, Cas, sayin’ “testes” is like what the doctors say when you are at the free clinic getting checked,” Dean informs, assembling the ingredients for pancakes.
“Please,” Sam frowns and even looks bitchy, “Can we not talk about balls at all? Or genitalia? We all got them, I don’t want to hear about yours. Or what you do with them together.”
“Spoilsport,” Dean mutters and when Cas looks up, he gives him a lascivious wink, which Cas just rolls his eyes at.
You’d think that declaring your love for a guy, spending a hot minute in super hell, and then being rescued by your souped-up child would make you a little more agreeable in the morning… but Dean guesses it doesn’t. Not without proper caffeine intake. Tomorrow morning, he’ll just have to start Cas’ day with a morning blowie under the covers...then coffee.
When Jack walks into the kitchen, sans atrocious headphones, Dean waves the spatula at him, “Pancakes, bud?”
“Yes,” Jack smiles, lighting up at the prospect of food, and sits down next to Castiel. “I’d like to take a road trip to Spring Green, Wisconsin,” he announces in his chirpy little voice.
Silence descends upon the bunker and Dean is the first to bite, “Ok? Why not just zap there?”
“It won’t be the same,” Jack responds easily, “I want to experience a road trip like Shadow.”
“Shadow?” Cas rubs his eyes and looks over at his god-kid.
“From American Gods , Wednesday takes Shadow on a road trip to The House on the Rock. It’s real and it’s there and I would like for us to go,” Jack almost seems like old-Jack, pre-God Jack with that endearing innocent puppy enthusiasm.
“Eileen is coming over,” Sam quickly states, with only a hint of remorse. But he’s thrown out the fact as if it’s going to save him from road tripping with their God/kid.
“Today?” Jack questions, looking a little put-out.
“Well, yeah, we are setting up the hunter network base,” Sam says pointing around the bunker.
“How is that toes in the sand retirement?” Dean asks from his place at the stove. That’s what he wanted, but no one asked him.
“It’s not, but choosing between going out on hunts or being an information hub. I pick being the hub. I don’t want to hunt anymore, but I still want to help,” Sam explains so practically that Dean wants to poke his brother in the eye with the spatula covered in pancake dough.
“Why can’t we just wave away the monsters?” He asks Jack, and it’s definitely not the first time he’s asked this question.
“Balance,” he replies, serenely as he always does, and then he turns to Sam, “Can you put it off a few days and come with us?”
“Whoah, who said we were going?” Dean cries in fake outrage, though he knows they are definitely going. Castiel’s angry stare over his coffee cup says they are definitely packing up the Impala and 100% going. “Alright, alright. What is that? 10 hours?”
“Nine hours and twenty-six minutes,” Jack smiles, “I call shotgun.”
“No,” both Sam and Cas say at the same time.
“I’ll let you fight out that one,” Dean laughs, turning back to his pancakes.
After ten hours, Cas rides shotgun, and Eileen and Sam take their own car. The House on the Rock is a weird, magical, amazing place. The carousel alone is… Dean doesn’t know what to say. But he wanders around the place, loses Cas and Jack somewhere, but then winds up running into Eileen and Sam in the doll carousel room.
“You think any of this stuff is haunted?” He asks looking at one particular doll with angry eyes and lustrous brown hair. People's hair, he can tell even from this distance. Eileen, hair up in a messy bun, with an oversized sweater, just shrugs and wraps herself around Sam, leaning into his body. They are adorable together.
“Bound to be,” Sam mutters, he must be feeling like Dean… his eyes are assaulted with so much stuff to process. Dean shrugs, wandering through the house and somehow ending in this freaking concrete room with thousands of windows. Turning around hastily, because of heights and the fact his steps bounce the concrete, he basically has to fight his way out of getting turned around to the Japanese garden.
He finds Cas sitting on a bench, the son of a bitch wearing his original floppy trench coat.
“Whoah, where did you get that relic,” Dean asks, grabbing the lapel and flicking it.
“Jack procured it for me,” Cas answers, smoothing his hands down the sides to place his hands in the pockets.
“Strange gift,” Dean comments, sitting down next to Cas.
“I saw someone wearing one similar, just now, and I expressed that it looked like Jimmy’s coat. Jack just handed it over and told me he was going to look at the Carousel again,” Cas’ smile is small, soft, and amused. He wears the trench coat over his zip-up hoodie and cargo khakis.
“Well damn,” Dean chuckles, “Blast from the past. You gonna threaten me a little for good time’s sake? We are sitting on a bench, maybe you're feeling frisky enough to confess a secret?”
Cas tilts his head, amusement lighting up his eyes. He glances down at his new boots, wiggling his feet, and says in a very serious ‘Angel of the Lord’ voice, “I’m not wearing my sensible shoes. Need those to do the job properly.”
Laughing loudly, head thrown back, Dean pulls Cas towards him by the trench coat. He kisses Cas’ lips chastely. It’s taken a lot for Dean, the two of them both, to get here. “You’re an idiot.”
Cas lips twitch with a smile, “I guess Gaiman was right… There is a certain satisfaction and dissatisfaction to this place.”
“Next time,” Dean sighs, “Let’s just go to the beach, huh?”
“Of course, Dean.”