Work Text:
--- Thirteen ---
There wasn’t much trouble a thirteen-year-old boy could get into in smalltown Kansas. Dean knew that from personal experience. Even so, he waited patiently with a forgotten book and a glass of tea, every single afternoon.
Brooklyn’s school was within walking distance of Castiel’s office, so she went there once her classes were done and spent an hour playing on her dad’s computer before riding home with him.
Boston, on the other hand, had demanded to be allowed the privilege of riding his bicycle the one point eight miles from his middle school. ’I’m old enough. I have a cellphone if anything goes wrong. It’s only a mile, Pops!’
The kid was getting above average grades and had never given them a reason not to trust him. But that didn’t mean that Dean trusted all of the neighbors along the route. So before school started, he had ridden his own bike to and from the school so that he could calculate the exact time it would take for Bo to arrive home. He gave the boy a fifteen minute window on top of that, where he could talk to his friends on the way out of school.
Any longer than that specific amount of time, and Bo better be calling his stressed out father to let him know where he was, or Dean was getting in the car and causing some major damage.
Bo had never been late, and that particular day was no different.
“You don’t have to wait like this every day,” he proclaimed, pushing his bike up to the front porch and leaning it against the railing. He climbed the steps, backpack hanging off of one shoulder, and reached out to grab Dean’s tea and take a sip. “I’m not going to take up Mr. Jenkins offer of candy, I swear. I’ve seen the movies—”
“What!” Dean looked up at him, shock and anger painting his face. “Boston! Is someone trying to take advantage of you? Seriously, tell me right this…”
The teenager laughed, winking at his father. “You’re really gullible, Popsicle.”
Boston walked into the house, still laughing. Dean shook his head and glared down at his book.
Sometimes he hated teenagers.
---
When Boston turned seven, Dean and Castiel decided to get rid of their cable box. They didn’t claim to be the most progressive parents in the world — ’I’m not giving up gluten!’ — but they noticed a significant difference in the way Boston and Brooke handled their emotions when they weren’t focused on television.
As time passed, things like family game night and bike rides together through the neighborhood, took the place of tv and movies. When Bo hit thirteen, he complained about the fact that the kids at school were constantly talking about things he had no knowledge of, and demanded a netflix account. Castiel decided the idea wasn’t particularly a bad one, as long as the time limit was two hours a day and all viewing happened in the living room after homework.
Brooklyn, Dean’s sweet princess, never had the attention span for television. ’It’s boring, Pops.’ She preferred to spend her free time in her room playing, or out in the treehouse Castiel had built.
Most days it was harder to get her to focus on family time, than it was her brother. Because a television could be shut off, but Brooklyn’s imagination never went to sleep.
“Samantha brought her baby brother to class for show and tell. He sneezed and boogers went all down his face — it was brilliant.”
Dean turned to his husband, eyebrows raised as he stared across the table. It wasn’t hard to see the smirk Cas was trying to fight. They should have never played those damn Cabin Pressure recordings on their road trip last summer. Brooke now thought everything was ‘brilliant!’
Tearing his gaze away from Cas, Dean noticed that Bo had been pushing his kale salad around his plate for five minutes. “Bo? Something wrong?”
“Bo has a boyfriend!” Brooke declared, before her brother had the chance to speak.
“Shut up, Brooke,” Bo hissed, glaring at his little sister.
Castiel quickly reprimanded Bo for the way he spoke to his sister, before asking him to explain what Brooke meant. “Boston, you know you can tell us anything. We will always—”
“I’m not gay,” Boston growled, dropping his fork on the plate. The boy turned to look at Cas and sighed. “I’m sorry. I love you and Pops, and I have nothing against people that are gay. But I’m not.”
For a half-second, Dean met Castiel’s gaze, before he dropped his own fork and reached out to lay his hand on Bo’s arm. “Boston.”
“Kids are mean, sometimes. I get it. I deal with it.” Bo hung his head for a moment, before continuing. “Some kids seem to think that because I have two fathers, that automatically means I’m gay. So when I asked Mariah James to go with me to the school dance, she looked at me like I was crazy and said she thought I was going with Robby.” He shook his head. “Can’t even have guy friends without people assuming you’re gay—”
“Mariah James?” Dean frowned. “I thought you told Robby last week that you had a thing for the new girl. What’s her name?”
“Clara. Her dad won’t let her have a boyfriend.”
Castiel spoke up from the other side of the table, “In all fairness, Boston, you aren’t allowed to have girlfriends at your age, and you know that. What if you asked Clara and Robby and maybe one of Clara’s friends to go with you to the dance as a group? Then no one is expecting any kind of feelings from the situation, and you have an opportunity to get to know Clara better.”
Castiel Novak, always the voice of reason. Dean ducked his head and smiled into his next forkful of mashed potatoes. Almost ten years and he was still smitten with his husband.
“Oh!” A sudden thought occurred to Dean and he grinned. “I got a note about that dance! Cas — they need chaperones.” He winked, “Will you go to the dance with me?”
“I don’t know, Dean, I had my heart set on Charlie from the football team asking me to go…”
Brooklyn snickered and Dean winked at her as well, before focusing back on Cas. “Well maybe Charlie from the football team would like to help you wash dishes tonight, because I certainly have better things to do now.”
“You two are gross,” Bo mused. “Seriously gross.”
“Just wait until you have to watch them slow dance and kiss,” Brooklyn offered. “Daddy and Popsicle sitting in a tree…”
Castiel laughed, leaning over to kiss Brooke’s forehead. “K. I. S. S. I. N. G.”
---
“This punch is disgusting.”
“Don’t tell poor Ms. Garrison that.”
“I swear that woman was teaching when I was a kid—”
Castiel smirked, knocking his hip into Dean’s. “Back when you had Joe Dirt hair?”
“Hey now! I rocked that mullet.” Dean pouted into his glass of obnoxiously orange flavored water. “My cousin Ash loved it. In fact, I think he cut it for me.”
“Those pictures are going to be our Christmas card this year,” Castiel stated, eyes warily watching the teenagers around them. Always ready to break in if someone got too touchy.
“You do that, and I’m pulling out the one of you as a baby sitting on the toilet.” Dean laughed at the look of horror on his husband’s face. It always worked. “Speaking of cousins — Sam wants to bring Jacie over to play with the kids this weekend. He said she has too much energy and needs to work it off.”
“Can’t she just chase Billy around the house? They both act like they’re the same age.”
Dean thought about his two-year-old niece and smiled. The girl was a mess, and Dean wasn’t quite sure how his brother and Billy managed to handle her. “Hey so…” He let his hand brush ever so slightly against Castiel’s. “I got a call back from the adoption lady.”