"Ice cream! Ice cream! Ice cream!"

Dean sighs, tapping the steering wheel thoughtfully and pointedly ignoring the shrieking children in his car. Why anybody thought it was a good idea to leave all the kids with him, he didn't know. How he had ended up driving a gaggle of children-in his baby- to Thirty One Flavors was even more of a mystery to him. He is contemplating whether a guy can become a Lady in White when the random shrieking becomes a chant.

"Ice cream! Ice cream! Ice cream!"

"We're almost there, guys," he tries to say cheerfully. "No need to shout."

Trying to reason with two five-year-olds, and a four-year-olds is fruitless though, and the shrieking barely stops long enough to let him speak.

He sighs. What was it Sam was always telling him about kids? Well, about shutting them up anyway. Both Castiel and Sam had seriously frowned on his giving them a couple drops of whiskey-what? Don't judge, it worked-so that was out as an option, even though he had a half full flask in the pocket of his jacket. It is, these days, admittedly more of a comfortable weight in his pocket than anything else.

An idea occurs to him suddenly.

"Alfie, you like singing, right?" he asks the youngest of the three, looking at the kid bouncing in his car seat through the rearview mirror.

Alfie starts bouncing even more, as high as he can manage while strapped into his car seat, and actually sings (off key), "Yes! I love t'sing!"

Dean smiles in spite of himself. "Okay then, buddy. I'll show you the only thing you ever need to know how to sing."

He then proceeds to pop a cassette tape into the player while a chorus of voices cries out from the back seat, "Music!" "What're you playing?" "I wanna sing!"

The opening chords of Stairway to Heaven sooth Dean's frayed nerves and manage to quiet the children for the rest of the drive. He even tries teaching them the lyrics, but apparently Led Zeppelin is a little over their heads still. They'll get there.

Thirty One Flavors is filled with other parents being dragged to go look at the many different colored ice creams and Dean is a little stunned to find himself just one among many. Here, he looks no different than any of the other adults trying to appease small children with overpriced cups of ice cream (okay, maybe the prices have gone up a bit since he was buying cheap ice cream bars for Sammy when they were kids, but still). It's a weird feeling. He kind of likes it.

Alfie gets strawberry and the twins each get hot fudge sundays, though Gabrielle gets it with pistachio ice cream whereas Mary gets it with bubble gum. Dean gets himself pie flavor-he may have squealed a little bit when he found out that that was a thing, but the kids sure as hell aren't going to tell anyone because he threatened them with no dessert ever again if they did-and they all eat at a table under a pink and white awning outside. It's nice and Dean honestly thinks that maybe this wasn't such a bad thing after all.

That lasts about ten minutes and then the sugar rush kicks in and he remembers why he hadn't wanted to be left with all three of them all day. These kids are freaking crazy. He wants his angel and his memory foam bed and he wants it now.

But first a trip to Sam's.

"Okay, guys," he stands and collects their discarded paper cups, throwing them away without turning his back on any of the little monsters. "C'mon, let's go. We gotta get you home."

"When's Daddy coming home?" Gabrielle demands.

"Yeah! What about Daddy?" Mary chimes in, as if she has just now remembered that she wants to see him.

"Don't worry," Dean tells them, herding them towards the Impala stoically. "Daddy'll be there."

There are cheers and it's adorable and Dean thinks his ears are going to start bleeding at any moment. The drive to Sam's seems to take forever even though it's technically only about another forty-five minutes from Thirty One Flavors. Thank god the moose convinced his wife to move up to Kansas so they could be closer to the bunker, where Dean and Cas settled.

The house that Amelia bought a little ways out from Lebanon, Kansas is literally everything his baby brother has ever wanted in life. There is literally a goddamn white picket fence for chrissake. Amelia's pickup truck is parked out front, but Sam's beat up Mustang is nowhere in sight. Dean groans to himself, because he has been looking forward to seeing his brother-it seems that they see less and less of each other these days, even though they still hunt together more often than not. Still, between Cas, Amelia and the kids, they both have a hard time making things work out.

Still, Amelia has been growing on him. For a brother-stealing-bitch, she's actually not all that bad. She puts up with their crap, which is actually really a plus in his book. Not very many people could handle the "oh yeah the supernatural is real" and "I'm gonna keep hunting" as well as she has. She doesn't even seem to mind the fact that Sam has to live under a fake identity in order to work or legally marry her. The chick's a saint-not that Dean'd ever tell her that. She'd never let him live it down.

Almost as soon as he pulls up, the woman in question is coming out to help him get the kids unbuckled and out of the car.

"Hope they weren't too crazy," she says, grinning at him like she really hopes that they were just to teach him a lesson.

He smirks right back at her and replies smoothly, "Nothing I couldn't handle."

She rolls her eyes because she knows better than anyone how crazy the three of them are. She does have to deal with them more than anyone else.

"Mommy!" Alfie clings to her when he can get a grip on her arm, climbing on her like a goddamn monkey. Dean can't help but laugh at the sight, even while Gabrielle is ripping herself out of his reach in order to attack her as well.

"Where's Daddy?" Mary screams, managing to unbuckle herself before either of the adults get to her. The fact that she can do that makes Dean nervous-he hadn't realized she could. He shudders at the thought that she could have gotten herself unbuckled at any time...

"Yeah, where's Daddy?" Gabrielle screams, tugging on Amelia's leg.

She meets Dean's amused gaze for a moment and he is honestly glad that he could give the poor woman a reprieve from this madness if only for a few hours.

"He'll be home any minute," she tells them, exasperated. "Come on, guys, let's get inside. I heard you had ice cream."

It is only later, in the quiet of his own batcave, that Dean lets himself be a little jealous of his baby brother. The kids, the wife, all that. Everything he wanted, and... He just looks so happy.

Not that Dean isn't happy. Hell, he thought he'd be dead by now, and he's not, so really it's all good. They've managed to go back to regular hunts. It's not the apocalypse, it's not the gates to any other planes, just good ol' run of the mill monsters. It's nice. Calm.

Very calm.

Castiel is wearing a zip up sweater that makes Dean wince when he walks into the room that evening and a thought occurs to him.

"Cas, you ever think about..." he pauses, knowing that once it's out he can't turn back. Castiel is giving him one of those long, I-may-technically-be-human-now-but-I've-seen-your-soul looks and he knows that it's probably too late to stop now.

"I mean, you ever think maybe we could get a couple of kids for ourselves?" he forces out, looking away immediately, afraid of how Castiel will react. When his answer is silence, he looks up again to find his ex-angel frowning at him with his head cocked to the side. When he speaks, it's with a note of sympathy in his voice.

"Dean, I don't believe that either of our bodies would allow us to have children together," he informs him solemnly. Dean stares at him. And stares.

And bursts out laughing. Goddamn, he always forgets how literal the guy can still be sometimes.

"Cas, babe," Dean bites out between laughs, "I meant, like, adopt. I know we can't... I know."

He's still laughing when he sees the realization flicker in those blue eyes.

"Oh." He looks thoughtful for a moment and then says, "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay."