Oops, I fic'ed. And it's an AU too, shame on me. This chapter is really just a prologue, the mushy family stuff gives way to asskicking soon enough :D
Reviews for the new author? I'll make Castiel do puppy eyes at you till you review!
Chapter one
The lock on the front door clicked, admitting one very tired Barbra Singer into the light and warmth of her house.
"Hey kids, I'm home!" She took of her tattered baseball cap, tossing it onto the side table and putting her car keys in the bowl it created.
"Sam? Dean?" She called to the silent house.
"Cas? Hey Castiel where are ya' kid?" Barbra poked her head into the den of the old farmhouse. No lights were on, even though the sun had long since dipped below the horizon. Castiel, a dark-haired 11 year old who was small for his age, sat on the worn couch, drumming his feet.
"Oh Cas hun, what're you doin' in 'ere? Why aren't the lights on?" Castiel looked at his adoptive mother standing in the doorway, his blue eyes large and reminiscent of kicked puppies
"I dunno…" He muttered, turning away and looking out the window.
"Cas…" Barbra sighed, putting one hand on her hip and rubbing the other across her face, the standard "Mummy's had enough now" stance.
"What am I going to do with… You smell smoke?" Castiel looked at her with a perfectly angelic poker face. She stared back blankly for a moment before asking slowly
"Cas… Where are the boys?"
"Don't know!" Cas said cheerfully
"God damnit!" Barbra yelped, crossing the room in two strides and wrenching open the basement door. The smell of smoke got stronger. Cas watched, highly amused, as she clattered down the stairs, before slipping off the couch and heading into the kitchen, and the unguarded fridge.
A large metal bowl filled with woodchips was set in the center of the basement floor, in front of a circle filled with weird symbols. The bowl was smoking, filling the room with fragrant smoke that made Barbra's eyes water.
"Sam! Dean! Where tha' 'ell are ya'?" She shrieked, Scottish accent bleeding through, as it did when she was under stress. Grabbing a bucket off one of the workbenches lining the walls, she put it over the smoking bowl. The fire would choke out, now that its oxygen was cut off. A door lock clicked and she spun around, glaring towards the panic room, which was really no more than a closet her children had commandeered for their own nefarious purposes, outfitting it with old chairs and blankets.
"Sam? Dean?" Barbra called, and the little peephole she had installed for them slid open.
"We aren't coming out 'till you promise you aren't mad." Sam, a 12 year old who was only a half inch shorter than her peered cautiously out from the panic room. She smiled at him
"Of course I'm not mad." She said earnestly, "I just wish you would tell me before you lit fires. I don't want you burning the 'ouse down!" She chuckled
"You sure you aren't mad?" Sam probed
"I'm sure." She smiled "Now come upstairs, dinner's ready."
"Ok" Sam was smiling as he slid the peephole door shut. She could hear Dean inside, muttering to his younger twin
"Don't trust her Sammy, she's gotta be pissed!"
"Language," Barbra drawled, shutting him up. The lock clicked and the door opened slowly, Sam poking his head out. She smiled at him, turning and heading for the stairs. She waited before she heard both boys fall in step behind her before turning sharply on her heel, "happy mommy" gone.
"Crap" Dean whimpered, ducking behind his bigger younger brother
"Ya' bleedin' ijits!" She shrieked, face dark "Wot the 'ell were you thinkin', startin' a fire down here? And wot's with the marks on the floor?"
"It was Dean's idea." Sam said quickly
"I don't care whose bloody idea it was! Wot the hell?" she rubbed her eyes, calming slightly.
"We were just trying out something we saw on Supernatural…" Dean muttered sulkily from behind his brother. Barbra's calm vanished like smoke in a tornado.
"You… You… WOT?" She groaned and hid her face in her hands. "For the last bloody time boys, Supernatural isn't real. It's just a show! A show you are now banned from!"
"What?" Sam and Dean objected at the same time,
"You 'eard me. Now get your arses upstairs, straight to your room."
"But what about dinner?" Dean had his priorities, food first. Always.
"Ya' can eat later, upstairs." Barbra pointed up the stairs and the twins filed past her, hanging their heads. Casting one last look at the mess over her basement floor, Barbra spotted a little white stick tossed into the corner.
"Is that my oil pastel?" She wondered aloud, and the twins broke into a dead sprint, bolting up the stairs two at a time. Shrieking again, Barbra lunged after them, dashing up the stairs and careening down the hall. The boys reached their shared room and slammed the door, clicking the lock just as Barbra crashed into it. She kicked and pounded at it for a minute, mostly giving up after the first few blows, but persisting because it was a good way to let off stress. She could hear the boys giggling inside, giddy they had gotten away with their crime. Giving the door up as a bad job, Barbra slouched to the kitchen. The boys could stay in there and starve for all she cared. Castiel wasn't in the den anymore, but she couldn't really be bothered to go find him. Call her an awful parent, but when you're a low income single mother with three adopted kids, sometimes you just stopped caring.
The full pot of spaghetti that had been keeping warm on the stove was gone, along with three plates and the half empty bottle of coke from the fridge. Fucks given? Zero. Barbra made herself a nice dinner consisting of a tall glass of whiskey before retreating to the den. Collapsing into her beat up old armchair, she balanced the glass on her stomach, staring out the window at the darkened world outside. It was later then she thought it was, and she was dead tired. Almost against her will her eyelids fluttered shut, glass of whiskey rocking precariously on her stomach as her breathing deepened and evened out.
The boys' bedroom door clicked open, Castiel poking his head out.
"Cas get your butt back in here. She'll kill you man!" Dean whispered urgently. He and Sam were sitting on the floor, next to the pot of spaghetti their little brother had pilfered for them.
"She's asleep," Castiel reported, closing the door and crossing to their little closet. Stretching up on tiptoes, the child's fingertips were just brushing the corner of the folded blanket. Taking pity, Sam stood and got the blanket for him. Castiel smiled shyly as thanks before leaving the room, going into the den as Sam and Dean watched from the safety of their room. He took the whiskey glass off Barbra's stomach, setting it on the little table next to her chair. He spread the soft old blanket over his adoptive mothers' dozing form, freezing as her eyelids fluttered open.
"Mmm, thanks angel." She offered him a sleepy smile, which he returned as she slowly drifted off again.