Blinking and Pie
by HR
Story two in my HoneyWalnutsFem!Dean verse
Deanna isn't sure if she's okay with Cass meeting Ben.
A/N: So yeah, story two in a verse (Mind you it's my first crack at a actually having a 'verse, though I have another one in the works, which I will get around to writing.. eventually, so I'm not quite apt at the er rules). Not sure if it could be read as a standalone. Probably not. Sorry DX

DC: I only watch the bees.

"He's weird."

Leo's watching Cass with an intent gaze, eyebrows drawn together in disapproval and lips slightly pouted in a way Deanna always liked. They look similar, she notices without really thinking about it – the same full lips and high cheekbones, the same black sex hair that sticks up all over the place – but their eyes give them away. Whereas Leo's are dark and shadowed in a mystery she never really quite decoded, Cass' are bluer than the fricking Windows XP-blue and filled with innocence and a fierce protectiveness that seriously turns her on.

"He's sweet," she counters to Leo's comment, taking a large bite of pie. God. She loves pie.

"Do you think bringing him here was a good idea?"

"Yes," she snaps, even though, no, she's not sure she is. She runs her fingers through her long, dirty blonde hair (she's really gotta cut it soon, it's starting to get in the way), like she does when she has nothing else to say. She looks up from her pie.

A ten-year-old Ben is handing Cass a pair of headphones – even from this distance, she can clearly hear AC/DC's Thunderstruck and smiles softly to herself. Cass dangles the headphones between two fingers, head tilted in a questioning manner.

"You put them in your ears," Ben says impatiently, taking the headphones from Cass and demonstrating once before giving them back.

Cass eyes them warily before repeating Ben's actions – and immediately flinches intensely, almost falling off the couch. Ben breaks out into loud peals of laughter, and Deanna's stomach turns. Oh, she misses Ben.

"He's still fucking weird." Leo folds his arms and leans back in his chair.

"You're face is weird."

Leo can't help but smile. "How are things anyway? How's Sam?"

Deanna flinches. She hasn't talked to Sam in weeks. Not since he almost fell off the wagon and they'd successfully snagged War's ring.

"He's fine."

"You're lying." Leo's eyes are trained on her face, studying every detail. She briefly remembers when he'd trace patterns over her freckles, as if he were drawing constellations into her face. "Come on, Dee. What's up?"

"If I told you the Apocalypse, what would you say?"

He didn't respond.

"This noise – what is it called?" She hears Cass say and looks up again. Ben's smirking at the angel, scrolling through the iPod in his hand. "It's called AC/DC."

"What's an AC/DC?"

"You've never heard of AC/DC?" Ben's eyes bug out of his head. "Seriously, man? They are only the coolest band in the entire world!"

"I thought a Led Zeppelin is?" Poor Castiel, only looks more confused.

"Mom!" Ben cries, and the pie she just ate burns in Deanna's stomach. She hates it when he calls her that. She doesn't deserve that title. "How could you tell him that?"

"Sorry, Ben," she offers a weak smile. "But they are." Her voice lacks all the sarcasm she usually has. Her son has that affect on her.

"Don't listen to her!" Ben turns back to Cass and sets a hand on his shoulder. Cass glances at, frowning. "AC/DC rules. Repeat after me! Go ahead, repeat it!"

"AC/DC rules," the angel repeats in that deep, gravelly, monotonous tone of his.

Ben looks pleased. "Good."

"We should go," Deanna says to Leo, even though she's still watching her two boys. "There's a case in the next state over, thought we'd check it out."

"Can't it wait?" Leo sounds surprisingly unsettled. "I mean, you haven't seen Ben in two years. He's going through a Doctor Who phase right now – there's a marathon or something on tonight, why don't you stay, watch it with him? Hell, even Cass can stay too." Leo's rambling, leaning closer to Deanna with every word, eyes flown wide and pleading.

"Leo, I –"

"Please? It'd mean a lot to Ben, you know it. You never see him."

"Stop that, stop making me feel so fucking guilty!" She's angry all of a sudden, screaming in a whisper. "I save lives, Leo, I can't – I can't just drop everything! There's too much out there for me too. I'm doing this for Ben. I'm doing this to protect him."

And then he says something that makes her stay. "Why do you have to do it?"

~X~

"Okay, so, Cass, listen," on the first commercial, Ben waves his arms in the always-baffled angel's face, "There's this time traveler dude, he's a Time Lord right? And he travels in a blue Police Box! It's called a TARDIS – Time and Relative Dimension in Space – and he basically fights all the bad guys, like rouge aliens, and protects the Earth and basically the whole friggin' universe!"

"TARDIS?" Cass repeats.

"Yeah! It's bigger on the inside, Time Lord Technology or something like that. Oh, this is a good episode, too! With the Weeping Angels!"

"Angels?" The two adults and the angel in the room repeat, all their voices going up an octave.

"Yeah! Well their actually like aliens or something but when you look at them they turn to stone. It's so friggin' cool. So don't blink!" And with that, Ben settles back into the couch, munching loudly on popcorn.

Cass doesn't blink through the whole marathon.

~X~

"Mom, next time you come over, can you bring Cass?"

"Of course, Ben," Deanna smiles largely, thrilled that Ben took well to her angel. It's one of the most important things to her, she decides. And that says a lot, because not a lot of things are, especially not these days.

Ben throws his arms around Cass then and Deanna decides that, oh yeah. It was a good idea to bring him.