Title: Bake Until Golden Brown
Author: mizra
Gift Recipient: madlyxxmadd
Gift Type: story / wallpaper
Rating: PG
Spoilers: set somewhere mid-season 5
Original Prompt: sugar cookies, a frosting explosion, santa-shaped oven mitts, ineptitude with a smig of adorableness... [Dean, Castiel, (pre-soulless) Sam, Bobby at Christmastime].
Notes: written for the spn_deanw holiday gift exchange, with visuals on the profile.
It was snowing in Sioux Falls.
Granted, it didn't happen often this close to the holidays, but it was snowing. Bobby Singer was in his den, reading up on the famed Chupacabra when the phone rang.
Normally, he would check to see what line it was, which person he had to imitate to get the boys out of trouble...again. But this time, he knew exactly which line it was. It was Sheriff Mills. Because the only person outside the hunting world that called him was her.
"Hello, Bobby," she said when he picked up the phone. "I know you're pretty busy around the holidays like the rest of us–"
Bobby snickered politely.
"But we could really use a hand with some baking this year for the school play. You know the one: where they always have a mountain of cookies afterward for the cast and crew?"
"Yeah, I know it," he replied gruffly. He wasn't much of a baker. They must be desperate.
"Yeah, well, Mrs. Castrano caught the flu and is out for the remainder of the holiday. Can you help bake the cookies?"
The silence over the phone was thick.
"Bobby?" Sheriff Mills asked again.
"I don't think so, Mills. Sorry, but I can't."
"I know what happened last week during that 'bust' at the end of town. That wasn't some drugs peddling through. I just know it, Bobby Singer."
Bobby thought for a moment. She was a smart woman, but there was no way in hell he would tell her what really happened.
"No, sorry, can't."
"You can bake the damn cookies, Singer, or you can play Santa Claus to about 300 kids tomorrow night. Take your pick."
Bobby mulled it over.
"Should I go with sugar cookies or the ones topped with M&M's?"
"That's the spirit! I'll be by tomorrow to pick them up." Click.
So, that's how Bobby Singer got roped into baking 12 3-dozen batches of cookies for Mark Twain Elementary.
Sam and Dean arrived later that afternoon to smell something they didn't normally find in Bobby's house. The usual was gun powder, odd spices and incense. Today, there was the addition of –
"Is that vanilla?" Sam asked, sniffing the air in the salvage yard house. Dean took a tentative sniff of the air, too. "Yeah, I think so." He gave his brother a pointed look, and stepped into the den.
"Bobby?" Sam called out, setting his bag down on the floor. Dean walked over to where Bobby kept his liquor and started pouring himself a shot.
"In here, boys," called a gruff voice.
Dean finished off his shot and sat the glass down. Both he and Sam walked through the den into the kitchen, pulling the door open.
What they saw both made them want to double over in laughter. Bobby was standing in the middle of his kitchen, with his 'Kiss The Cook' apron on, mixing dough in a large bowl. Three dozen cookies sat on his table, cooling, while it looked like more were in the oven.
"Thanks for the welcoming, Bobby, but you know we like your Snickerdoodles better," Dean remarked, poorly hiding his smirk.
"Shut-up, boy. I'm doing this for the kids," said Bobby, vigorously mixing the dough.
"What… kids?" Sam asked, eyeing the M&M cookies rather pointedly.
"For the grade school down the street. Sheriff Mills called, threatening to out me for that bust on that vampire outside of town. So, I owed her a favor."
"To bake?" Dean asked. "You never bake."
Bobby raised his wooden spoon, pointing it in Dean's direction. "No, but I do today. And while you're here, you can help me, too. I've got a ton of these to make."
Sam skirted the issue and Dean protested. In the end, both were wearing aprons and mixing batches of sugar and chocolate chip cookie dough respectively.
They had been baking for about two hours, Sam decorating the sugar cookies with some multi-colored sugar crystals and Dean's batch… well, it would be saved for the last of the plates. Dean wasn't much of a baker.
They took turns sharing the oven, using the Christmas mittens that Bobby still had from Christmases ago with his wife. It had Santa Claus printed all over it. Sam asked Bobby about the Chupacabra case, but Bobby said he only found legends so far, nothing concrete other than the random case that turned cold in the end.
Dean was just adding more chocolate chips to his next batch when a flutter of wings was heard.
"Dean, we need to talk about the next horsemen. I have a clue to where he might be."
Castiel stopped and looked around the room. He wasn't used to seeing the all the hunters doing something as domestic as baking. He sniffed the air tentatively. "What is that smell?" he asked, looking at Dean.
"It's vanilla, Cas, and we're baking," Dean gruffly retorted, as if the question was an insult to his manhood.
"Want a cookie, Cas?" Sam asked, holding up a sugar cookie, with red and green icing on top.
Castiel took the cookie and sniffed it gingerly. He took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. Then smiled wide.
"These are very good, Sam." He then proceeded to take one, but Bobby smacked his hand with the wooden spoon. Castiel looked confused and a bit peeved.
"We're baking for a school play. Can't eat them all," said Sam, explaining. Castiel decided it wasn't worth it to mess with Bobby, and stood there, waiting.
"Well, if you're going to just keep the linoleum from curling up, you might as well help decorate the cookies. He projected Castiel to the icing and the cookies Sam had already baked. Sam was piping red swirls on one cookie. He took up the bag of green icing, holding his hands as Sam did and piped green icing on his own cookie. After Sam finished his, he turned to get another when he noticed Castiel had already piped the rest of the baked cookies in green. He only took 10 seconds.
"Wow, that was, um, really fast, Cas. Care to do the rest?" Sam asked, showing the cookies to Bobby and Dean, who murmured in agreement.
"But of course, Sam."
"Where did you learn to make cookies like that, Cas?" Dean asked, acting casual, but very curious.
"My brother Gabriel loves sweets. He decided I should know how to bake, even when I implored to him that it was a completely unnecessary skill to learn."
They worked like that for a bit longer, piping icing, baking batches, long into the night. Bobby had to keep helping Dean with his cookies; they tended to come out doughy on the inside and burnt on the outside.
"You're cooking them too fast, son," he remarked, adding flour.
"I'm cooking 'em just the way the package says!" Dean fought, grabbing the pan with his bare hand.
He let out a yelp and dropped the cookie sheet on the floor, ruining yet another batch. He ran to the sink and stuck his hand under the faucet, trying to cool the burn.
Castiel looked up from his iced confections and murmured something low, unknowingly to all the hunters present. When Dean retrieved his hand, he saw the angry red burn mark was gone. He looked over at the angel, who was staring intently at a cookie decorated like a jingle bell. He smiled to himself, and turned to help Bobby with the cleanup to start over on his cookies.
After the last batch was made, Castiel announced he had some business to attend elsewhere and fluttered off.
"Of course, now that's it's time to clean-up, the bird-man leaves."
Bobby looked tired and both boys tried to send him upstairs, stating that they would be responsible and clean up. Bobby nodded and headed off to bed.
Both boys looked at the flour-covered, messy, sticky kitchen and decided that after a day like today, they needed some shut-eye, too. "We'll wake up early and clean it before Bobby gets up, alright?" nudged Dean, his eye-lids already at half-mast.
Both boys agreed and went to sleep on the couches in the den.
The next morning, when Dean got up, he looked in the kitchen to find it completely spotless. Everything was back in its place, all the cookies sitting on plates on the kitchen table and in chairs.
There was a lone plate covered with chocolate chip and a note.
Dean walked over and saw what looked like a chocolate-smudged post-it.
This is for the replacement batch for the cookies I took to eat.
I tried each one, but the chocolate chip cookies are my favorite.
They make me very happy.
-Castiel
Dean chuckled to himself. Leaving cookies out for an angel instead of Santa was definitely not what he was sure kids had in mind on Christmas Eve, but it worked nonetheless.
Sheriff Mills came later that afternoon to pick up all the baked goods. As she left the gravel driveway, Bobby clapped both Sam and Dean on the back, offering to fix them some of his chili. Castiel appeared later and was fascinated with the food, and ate half of the crock-pot. Dean joked that no one would want to be around the angel for a while.
This was also the first Christmas Dean remembered seeing those he counted as family with him.