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John never used to think that silence had a sound. Now he knows better. It sings mournfully in the space where Mary used to breathe beside him at night. It hums where Dean used to shout out football plays in the backyard like ‘three-tooty-one!’ and John would laughingly correct him. It echoes every time Sam cries and the poor kid has to make do with his father’s work-rough hands instead of his mother’s soft touch.
In short, it fucking well sucks.
Probably not the most elegant way to describe it (he can picture Mary shaking her head, murmuring ‘language, John!’ in case the kids have overheard him) but it works. Everything has changed and John can’t help resenting all the new things that came along with becoming a widower.
New house. New suburb. New role as Mister Mom (hey, don’t get him wrong, he loves his boys like crazy but this was never supposed to be a one-parent gig). New neighbours...
Jesus Christ, the goddamned neighbours.
Who the hell decided that a casserole is the sorry-your-wife-died-but-welcome-to-our-street gift of choice anyway? His freezer is packed full of them and it’s taken every ounce of self-control he has to not growl at the well-meaning but overly-curious housewives that bombarded his door over the first few days. Dean retreats behind the couch every time the doorbell rings.
Okay, so Barker Avenue isn’t so bad. It’s leafy and quiet and kind of Better Homes and Gardens-esque. It’s just... it’s not home. It’s not the house that Mary walked into and immediately loved. It doesn’t have the Byrds playing in the background while John watches Mary cook dinner, hips swaying as she sings along to Mr. Tambourine Man. It doesn’t have some cheesy angel watching over his kids from the mantle in the nursery.
What it does have is perfect wiring. He’s had three separate electricians check to be sure.
It’s strange, having his own place again. He and the boys stayed with his parents after the fire and his mother had smothered them with concern and understanding until John couldn’t stand it anymore. She’d clucked and fussed over the boys, almost taking over Sam’s care completely, clucking that the baby needed a woman’s touch to settle him. Never in his life had John wanted to yell at his mother to back the hell off. Thank God the Robintree house had been insured. John bought the first place he looked at and moved in the second the settlement went through.
All John needs now is for the parade of well-wishers and sticky-beakers to stop so he can raise his kids in peace. Sam is drooling on his shoulder, warm and sleepy and full of baby food, while Dean colours quietly on the floor, looking far too serious for a four-year-old.
Of course someone chooses that moment to ring the goddamn doorbell. John curses under his breath as Sam startles and snuffles while Dean scurries behind the nearest piece of furniture he can find.
“Dean. Come on, kiddo...” John tries to coax him out but Dean is stubborn, as usual, and glares at the door as if it might explode and take someone else away. John sighs and answers the door.
The woman standing on his porch in a baby blue sundress and floppy white hat has a freshly-baked apple pie in her hands and two children about Dean’s age standing beside her with their hands clasped behind their backs like toy soldiers.
“Hello,” she chirps, smiling cheerfully and John is suddenly flashing back to The Stepford Wives. Do women really dress like that anymore? “My name is Grace Novak. We live on your left.”
“John Winchester,” he rumbles in return, settling Sam more comfortably against his shoulder so he can offer her his hand. It’s only polite, after all, and his mama raised him right. “Nice to meet you, Grace.”
Grace takes the proffered hand and gives it a squeeze. “I hope you don’t think I was being discourteous by waiting to say hello but you’ve had quite the rush of visitors since you moved in.” The woman speaks oddly, eloquently, maybe a little too formally. She glances down at the two children who still haven’t said a word. “This is my son, Castiel, and my daughter, Ananaurah.”
Casta-who and Ana-what? It’s on the tip of John’s tongue to ask but he bites back the impulse. “Hi,” he says lamely to the pair, summoning up a smile.
“Hello, sir,” the children say in perfect unison, all earnest blue eyes and solemn expressions, and now the Twilight Zone tune is spinning circles in John’s head. It’s like they’re androids or something.
Then Dean is peeking out from behind the door, his long hair falling into his eyes and it occurs to John that his eldest needs a haircut. He’s long overdue, in fact. Mary would have noticed.
John clears his throat and pats the baby on the back. “These are my sons, Sam and Dean,” he says, hoping that at long last Dean might actually say something – anything. “Dean, this is Mrs Novak and her children –” Oh Christ, he can’t pronounce those names.
“Castiel and Ananaurah,” Grace supplies helpfully and it occurs to John that she probably gets that reaction a lot. “Say hello to Dean, my darlings.”
Castiel blinks owlishly at Dean. “Hello, Dean.” Ananaurah echoes him quietly, pressing closer to her mother’s leg.
Dean ducks back down behind the door and peeks out through the crack near the hinges, staring at the blue-eyed boy curiously.
“He, uh... hasn’t said anything since his mother passed,” John confides gruffly. Dean hasn’t come close enough to any of the other visitors for it to matter. That he has even approached them is a minor miracle.
“Oh, I see,” Grace says sympathetically. “Well, perhaps it’s fortunate I brought you an apple pie instead of a casserole then. Something to cheer him up?” She’s holding out the pastry and John has to admit it smells pretty heavenly. Almost as good as Mary’s.
“Mother’s pies are full of sunshine,” Ananaurah chimes in shyly and John blinks. She sounds like a walking pie advertisement. No way are these people for real.
“Thank you,” John replies, feeling completely unbalanced by the threesome. Castiel is staring up at him intently and Dean is inching closer, lured by the promise of pie. That clinches it. If they can draw Dean out of his shell, even a little bit, they’re welcome in the Winchester house, no matter how weird they are.
“Come on in,” John offers impulsively, stepping aside and Grace beams at him, shepherding her robotic offspring inside. In no time at all they’re at the kitchen table, doling out slices. Even Sam is awake now, propped up in his high chair beside John and making a huge mess out of a tiny portion. Castiel and Ananaurah are sitting with their hands folded in their laps, awaiting their mother’s permission to begin eating.
And there’s Dean, stalking the visitors like a miniature commando, crawling behind the furniture and darting from the sofa to the television while Castiel watches him, head tilted like a quizzical bird. It’s the most attention Dean’s paid to anyone outside of John and Sam since Mary died.
“I believe Dean would like some pie,” Castiel announces in this freakishly precise manner and okay, isn’t this kid four years old? Five, tops?
“Dean knows we eat in the kitchen,” John tells him in the most neutral tone he can muster. He doesn’t want to make a big deal out of Dean’s mutism and aversion to strangers but the longer it goes on, the more John worries. This is a kid who never knew when to shut up, quiet only when he finally collapsed in a heap somewhere and one of his parents had to carry him up to bed.
“Thank you, sir,” Castiel says soberly as John sets a plate and fork down in front of him. Ananaurah (damn it, he’s never going to get used to these names) gives him a bashful smile and John starts to unthaw a little. Yeah, they’re weird but so far they seem harmless enough. The girl looks like a china doll with her fair skin and delicate features.
John almost drops the plate he’s about to hand to Grace when Dean suddenly pops up between the Novak kids, nose pressed against the edge of the table, green eyes fixed on Castiel’s slice of apple goodness. Castiel gazes down at him, head cocked to one side, while Ananaurah giggles softly.
“Dean?” John prompts the boy, hope swelling in his chest to see his son on the verge of actually interacting with a human being outside of his family circle. “If you’re going to eat, come over here and sit down with us.”
Dean vanishes under the table and the next thing John knows Dean is climbing into his lap and attacking his pie. John can’t bring himself to tell Dean he ought to get his own. The kid seems to be convinced that everything tastes better off Daddy’s plate. Sam burbles happily and drips saliva everywhere, his face smeared with baked fruit. For a moment it’s almost normal and John is incredulous.
June Cleaver and her borderline-mechanical progeny don’t stay long after Dean finishes licking his plate clean, a process Castiel had observed with a level of interest that John finds mildly disturbing. The boy seems to do nothing but stare. Grace grins at him and shakes his hand and shepherds her brood out in a sing-song voice that makes John wonder if she’s on lithium or something. She can’t possibly be that chipper all the time without chemical intervention.
Dean stares out the window for a long time after they leave.
Grace shows up again around mid-morning the next day, though this time she only has Castiel for company.
“Good morning, Mister Winchester,” Castiel says in that far-too-old voice and is rewarded with a smile from his mother. John immediately resigns himself to the fact that Castiel is creepy and he’d better get used to it.
“I thought that Dean might like to visit our house and play with my little ones,” Grace trills merrily. “They have a tree-house and a plethora of toys to share.”
John opens his mouth to reply (thanks but no thanks, lady; I’m still paranoid about letting my kids out of my sight) but Dean is tugging at the leg of his jeans and pointing towards Castiel and John’s saying ‘Okay’ in no time just to see his little boy smile.
“Excellent,” Grace enthuses and holds out her hand to Dean. “My two eldest, Michael and Gabriel, are waiting to meet you. You shall have plenty of playmates.” Dean hesitates and looks up at John for reassurance. John nods and Dean takes her hand. “I’ve plenty of lunch supplies to go around,” Grace continues. “Shall I bring him back at approximately two o’clock?”
“Two sounds great,” John agrees, figuring it’ll give him plenty of time to get his shit organised for work tomorrow. Sammy’s asleep in his bouncer about an hour later when John looks out the back window and catches sight of Dean and Castiel playing in the grass. They appear to be building something with Lego, passing pieces to one another without saying a word.
John’s not really sure what to make of the weird kid who seems to have mind-melded with his son. It’s like Spock had a child and dropped it off in Kansas to be raised by Carol Brady. Castiel has to be a Vulcan. There’s no other logical explanation. John honestly won’t be surprised if Grace one day drops the bombshell that the father of her children is from a galaxy far, far away.
As time goes by, John starts to wonder if Dean bonded with Castiel simply because he doesn’t expect Dean to talk. He still doesn’t speak but he makes noise now, which is an improvement. He pretends to be an dog and makes growling sounds or wields a stick like a lightsaber, making “sshhh” noises that have John wondering if letting Dean watch Star Wars with him was such a good idea.
By then, all Suzy Homemaker and Bicentennial Man-ish idiosyncrasies have been written off as a Novak family quirk in John’s book. He even calls Grace for help when his attempts at baking a cake for Dean’s first birthday without Mary fail miserably and she shows up in a white apron and yellow pinstripe dress that makes him flash back to episodes of Bewitched.
Not that John doesn’t breathe a sigh of relief when he meets Michael and Gabriel and hears the two boys bickering like typical siblings. Apparently Gabriel put Ipecac in Michael’s Gatorade (how the hell is the boy not still throwing his guts up?) and it might be funny except that it’s downright frightening that Gabriel is only six years old and already thinking up pranks like that. John decides to keep Sam away from Gabriel to be on the safe side.
In the end, there’s nothing particularly special about the moment it all changes. John is tucking Dean into bed (warm and sleepy in his favourite pajamas and trying to fight it, so much like his mother) and Dean mumbles something. John freezes and hears it again.
“Daddy...?”
Dean’s voice is husky and small from disuse but it’s the sweetest thing he’s ever heard.
“Yeah, kiddo?” Jesus, John thinks, is that him? He sounds thick, almost choked, to his own ears.
“Can I go see Cas tomorrow?” Dean’s voice cracks twice in that one sentence and John thinks to hell with bed time. He gathers Dean up and just holds him, telling him ‘you bet’ and ‘any time you want’ and Dean drops off cradled in his father’s arms. John can’t bring himself to care that the first thing Dean’s said in three months is about Astro Boy. He’ll take anything.
For this, John thinks, he can handle alien beings from another planet masquerading as a fifties housewife and her cyborg kids. For this, John can handle anything, and the silence suddenly doesn’t seem so loud.