Work Text:
Claire’s phone vibrates annoyingly in her pocket. Beside her, Alex is jumping up and down in place, waving her arms in the air and shouting the lyrics (off-key) at the top of her lungs. It’s the most wild that Claire has ever seen her; she sort of wants to take a photo.
Another buzz. Claire pushes some of her sweaty hair out of her face and pulls her phone out. A series of bee emojis greets her. She smiles to herself as she swipes to unlock it.
Castiel: Jody told me you were in Omaha. I’ll be there later tonight if you’re up for midnight pancakes.
She quickly types her affirmative, telling him that it’ll probably be more like 3 AM pancakes since the concert seems like it’s going to last a while
“Who was that?” Alex yells over the music.
She sounds almost…jealous. Claire is too distracted by the thought of finally being able to grill Cas about the several months of radio silence a while ago to really consider the implications.
“Castiel. He wants to get pancakes.”
“An angel wants to get pancakes with y—oh, I love this song!”
The concert passes much faster than Claire would have liked. Alex has been getting busier and busier with school stuff—she’s thinking of trying to get into a big name college, the nerd—and Claire has been seeing less and less of her lately.
“So, you think things are back to normal with him?” Alex asks as they get into Jody’s car.
Claire shrugs. “As normal as they can be, anyway. It’s not like they lead normal lives, you know?”
Alex just looks at her. “I was raised by vampires and you’re technically in line to be an angel vessel. We’re not exactly pinnacles of normality.”
“Is that an SAT word?”
Alex glowers at her as she puts the car into reverse. Getting the car out of the parking lot is tricky. A lot of people are completely and utterly smashed. Alex comes very close to simply laying on the horn to get people out of her way.
“Do you want me to drop you off?”
Claire shakes her head. “No. I mean, if something is wrong, I’d like to have backup.”
And, she sort of wants Cas to meet Alex. It’s a little too close to meeting the parents for Claire’s comfort, but she really does want them to know each other.
“You just want to know why he stopped sending you memes. He’s a busy guy.”
Claire lets the battle go because they’re pulling into the parking lot of the diner Cas had texted her. Besides, Alex clearly doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation when Cas stops sending her lame memes from 2012 every few days.
Once they get inside, the waitress points them towards the booth where Cas is sitting, not that Claire could have missed him anyway. She’s surprised that more people aren’t weirded out by the fact that he never takes that trench coat off. Do they just assume he’s hot?
“Claire. It’s good to see you.”
Cas’s low growl still sounds odd to her coming from her dad’s voice, but it’s still comforting in a way.
“Castiel, this is Alex. Alex, Castiel.”
She can tell Cas is struggling to decide whether or not it would be weird for him to go for a handshake. Alex takes it easy on him by giving him a little wave instead.
Cas asks them how the concert was, so Alex eases the awkwardness of the moment by launching into a blow-by-blow of the lineup. Cas leans forward like he’s deeply interested in what Radiohead played.
He raises his eyebrows slightly when Claire leans into Alex’s side laughing when she describes the group of college boys in front of them who’d been so pumped that one of them had fallen headfirst into the row in front of him.”
“I need to use the restroom,” Alex says at last, getting out of the booth. “If the waitress comes by, order my pancakes.”
Sure enough, she swings by again just as Alex vanishes. Claire knows to get her chocolate chip. Cas does the weird eyebrow thing again. Claire tries her best to ignore it.
“Why’d you suddenly drop back on the radar?” she asks when their chocolate chip pancakes arrive.
Cas takes a large bite of his pancake, despite that Claire knows for a fact he can’t actually taste anything. Wait, Alex was right. Why did he want to get pancakes, anyway?
As if he could read her mind, Cas spoke up. “I thought you’d like pancakes.”
“Stop changing the subject,” Claire cut in. “Why’d you disappear on me?”
Cas sighs and looks down at his pancakes before he answers. “I was…possessed.”
Claire’s jaw drops. “You put my dad’s body out for rent?”
The words slip out before she can yank them back in. For a moment, she forgets that Jimmy Novak hasn’t inhabited that body in nearly eight years.
“I—He said he could save the world, and I didn’t think.”
Claire stares down at her plate. The half-eaten pancake makes a move in her stomach. She knows that Cas has a hero complex about a mile long—that’s why he came after her, after all—but it still hurts to know that he’d been so careless.
An awkward silence descends. Cas tries to break it.
“Are you and Alex—?”
Oh, God. She can’t have this conversation.
“Are you and Dean?” she snarks back.
The two of them stare at each other across the table in one of the most awkward moments that Claire has ever suffered in her life. She wonders if this is what it would be like with her parents.
“Let’s not have this conversation,” she says at last, just as Alex rejoins them.
She slides in flush beside Claire from ankle to waist. She feels her cheeks heat up under Castiel’s stare.
They finish eating their breakfast/late night snack at 3:30. Cas surprises her by hugging her before heading to her car.
“Ask her out,” he says in her ear.
“Right back at you,” she shoots back.
They watch him get in the car and drive away. And as they walk back to their car, Claire gets the courage to take Alex’s hand.