A/N: This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. There is a more detailed note about it on my profile, but in brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.

This story follows "Darkness Rising," but can be read by itself, as it's mostly just a family Thanksgiving story. It also leads into the large Christmas story, up next in the Other Guardian 'verse, which will be called "Home for the Holidays."

Notes: Cas and Sam centric, slash or pre-slash; Dean is picky and Bobby is a smug bastard. Two-shot.

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Thanksgiving at Bobby's

Bobby Singer possessed an unusual number of books. They had conquered most of the flat surfaces in his house, and a good number of surfaces that were not flat, and were not arranged in any system Castiel could understand, though he had been warned by both Sam and Dean about moving them. The knowledge of the angels was infinitely more vast, of course, and there was little in Bobby's books that Castiel did not already know, except for the few works of fiction scattered among the piles, more than one of them being used to level a piece of furniture with uneven legs. But the books intrigued him all the same, the human perspective always so much smaller and more personal than the pure facts in Castiel's mind—so as he listened to the rhythmic chopping of potatoes in the kitchen, the dull click of knives against cutting boards and the brush of hands pushing the cubes into a metal bowl, Castiel walked through the other rooms of the ground floor and studied the books, searching for nothing in particular. Several times he picked one up to page through it, but he was careful to return it to its former spot; the organization held no meaning for him, but humans were more creative, irrational creatures than angels, and he had no intention of upsetting Bobby. Dean had accomplished that several times, and the result seemed unfailingly to be loud, even if the complaints varied.

The books were all different sizes and shapes, from volumes with torn paper covers that fit easily within the spread of Castiel's fingers to heavy leather-bound tomes with cracked seams that would have required two hands to lift, if his were normal human hands. One of those books stood out to the angel, perched at the edge of an overflowing shelf with its lined red cover extending far past the short paperbacks sitting next to it; Castiel pulled it out and held it open in one palm, flipping slowly through the pages. The solidity of the books fascinated him almost more than their content—knowledge for humans was such a physical thing, the texture of the paper and the play of light over the words, and Castiel tried to absorb the sensation of turning pages, his fingers hesitating at each corner as he read the exorcisms, blessings and recipes for charms, page after page of old remedies on brittle yellow paper. Then Castiel flipped one more and stopped abruptly, staring at the next page with narrowed eyes.

The next page was covered in crayon. Instructions for blessing a silver knife were still legible, barely, in the cramped black scrawl that had filled all the previous pages—but over and around them the page was overtaken by an explosion of rainbow colors, red and orange stick figures and a large blue heap filling every available inch of yellow paper. Castiel turned the book until the disfigured page faced him, and then he realized that the blue lump was the Impala, its four tires the most recognizable feature. Of the three stick figures, the largest was clearly Bobby, decorated with a misshapen hat and an orange scruff of beard, perhaps because there had been no brown. The smaller figures were Sam and Dean, set apart by the spikes on one large head and the flop of bangs around the other. Even if the artist hadn't signed his work, from the few scribbles he'd seen on napkins and discarded scraps of paper Castiel would have recognized the way that young Sam drew smiles, great curving grins that stretched past the stick figure faces—but the signature was there, and the angel tipped his head as he skimmed his thumb over the childish scribble in the bottom corner of the page, three capital letters with a backward S. The crayon felt cold under his finger, waxy green lines softening into the paper with the passage of time. He wondered if the blessing would eventually rise to the surface again, distorting the picture.

"Find something you like?"

Castiel turned to discover that Bobby had come up behind him, the older hunter leaning in the kitchen doorway with one hand braced against the frame. In the other he carried a paper bag full of long ears of corn. Bobby's eyes flitted to the book in his hands, and he squinted, trying to pick out shapes and words with eyes that were only growing older; then he snorted and stepped forward until he stood next to Castiel, the bag of corn swinging by its paper handle.

"Ah. That's Sam's work."

"Yes," Castiel acknowledged. He lingered for a moment over the signature, feeling the curve of the backward S against the pad of his thumb, before he withdrew his hand and held the book out to Bobby, turning the crayon so that it caught the light from the windows. "Why did Sam color in this book?" he asked. It had been his impression so far that children only colored on blank pieces of white paper, which seemed a better medium for their pictures anyway.

Bobby just shook his head, pushing his hat up from his forehead with the blunt end of his thumb. "That boy. Too smart for his own good, even when he was barely knee high." He nodded back toward the kitchen, where Castiel could still hear Sam chopping potatoes. "I was watching the boys for John one weekend—can't remember what fool thing he was up to, but it wasn't the first time. Dean was out in the yard—he'd found an old bike somewhere and he was riding it around like he was desperate to put his head through something—but Sam was only about three, I guess, since I was keeping him inside with me. Dean was being too crazy on that bike to watch out for pedestrians." Bobby reached out and raked one finger down the page, hesitating on the stick figure of himself. "Anyway. I got a call from another hunter who needed something looked up, so I set Sam up with some paper and a box of crayons, and I put this on the floor for him, you know, so he'd have something hard to color on top of. Next thing I know, I turn around and he's got the book open and he's going to town, like he was getting paid for it. Barely got him stopped before the next page was gone, too."

Bobby rubbed his fingers over one corner of the book until the pages separated, and then flipped the page, revealing an anti-possession invocation marked up with bars of thick green crayon. It took Castiel a minute to decide that they would have been trees, the tops just starting to spread out into leafless boughs, their green roots buried deep in the Latin words of the ancient prayer. Castiel turned the book so that the new page was facing him, but still he couldn't decipher the shapes at the top of the page, flat purple Ms growing smaller and smaller as they neared the edge of the paper. Bobby shifted and the bag of corn swayed against his knee.

"That kid, though." Castiel glanced up to find a thoughtful expression on the older hunter's face, hardening for one moment into an old anger before it eased out again to bemusement. "He was all ready to be yelled at, but all the same he looked up at me and said, 'You said it was for drawling on.' Only logic argument I ever got from a kid too little to pronounce his W's."

Castiel flipped back to the first page. He studied the figures again—Bobby, Dean, and Sam, all smiling and holding hands, and the Impala, its windshield blank, the driver's seat empty. There was no John. Castiel wasn't surprised. He shifted the book until it rested against his stomach and stared down into Sam's crayon face, studying that broad smile and the eyes that were bright green dots, the same color as Dean's. An illustration of a silver knife in the smoke of burning herbs cut through his center. Castiel felt a small frown touch his lips.

"Did you try to remove it?" he asked, brushing one fingertip over the crayon Impala.

Bobby snorted under his breath. "Hell, boy. Crayon don't come off paper." Then he paused and shrugged under his plaid shirt and thick brown coat, the same kind that Sam wore—Castiel wondered how it had escaped him until this moment that Sam had modeled his clothes after Bobby, not Dean or his father. The older hunter touched the book with the back of his fingers and then pulled away, resettling his hat to hide more of his face. "Anyway… why bother. I can read it just fine. Wouldn't recognize the blessing anymore without it."

For a moment, they stood there without speaking, staring down at the old crayon marks and the blessing beneath them, the clash of black and color, a family of three figures and a hulking blue car—the same as they were now, Castiel realized, except that Sam was a little taller. Then Bobby pushed his shoulder once with the palm of his hand and walked off across the sitting room, heading for the door to the yard behind the house.

"Well, when you get done with that, go help Sam in the kitchen. He's only got about a hundred potatoes to mash. I gotta shuck this," he finished, hefting the bag of corn. Castiel glanced at him and then back at the book, his fingers curling around the cracked leather binding.

"Sam is…" Bobby paused in the other doorway and Castiel stared into the bright green eyes of the smallest stick figure, wondering what hazel would look like in crayon. He shook his head once. "Sam is different. He is very… unique."

He wasn't sure the words were quite right, but Bobby just huffed. Castiel decided it was a laugh as he watched the older hunter's lips quirk up in a smile. "You don't have to tell me that," he said. Then he turned and disappeared from the doorway, the pound of his boots growing softer with each step before they disappeared behind the snap of the screen door.

Castiel looked down at the picture once more. He smoothed his hand down the page, and as he touched it the paper lost its yellowed color, tears and creases repairing instantly at the brush of his grace until the book was as new again, except for the crayon figures that stood out brighter than ever on the pristine paper. He slid the book carefully back onto its shelf, its smooth leather spine glinting in the sunlight through the blinds—then he turned and made his way into the kitchen, wondering if Sam as he knew him, slightly taller, with darker, more complicated eyes, would be smiling like that, too.

.x.

The small back porch beyond the screen door was just sideways of the kitchen windows. From where he was sitting on the concrete steps leading down to the yard and the wrecks of dead cars, the bag of corn on one side and cast-off husks on the other, Bobby could see into the kitchen with a glance over his left shoulder, and he could hear everything through the half-open windows, from the rush of water in the sink to the clink of beer bottles every time the fridge was yanked open.

It wasn't like it was a secret—everyone in the house heard the slam of the screen door when he went out, and Sam and Dean had been out here with him before, painting the usual sigils or sometimes just having a drink in the night air, when the house got stuffy. But somehow nobody thought about it all the same, and nobody ever expected him to be out there. At least that was what Bobby had to assume, given everything he'd heard through those windows—countless Winchester arguments and the silence that always came before or after them, Sam's footsteps when he paced the kitchen, turning over some problem in his head, the click and rattle of the bottle cap popping off the first time Dean ever tried to steal a beer out of his fridge, right around his fourteenth birthday. Bobby had let him get the first sip into his mouth before catching him in the act, the better to scare that idea right out of him—and though it had only worked for a few years, Bobby could still remember the look of horror on that brash little hellion's face, his eyes so wide they were more white than green for a minute. The thought made him smile as he gripped a handful of corn silk and let it fall, the yellow and white threads drifting down to rest over his steps.

But the point was, Sam knew he was out there. He'd told Castiel specifically where he was going, though sometimes he wondered if the angel was really paying attention with more than a few brain cells. Bobby wasn't eavesdropping—he was just sitting on his porch. But he got the sense all the same that no one was aware of him as the clear snap of Castiel's footsteps moved into the kitchen and the rhythm of Sam's knife on the cutting board slowed, every chop through a potato suddenly taking twice as long.

"Sam."

"Hey, Cas."

Sam's tone was light, almost surprised, as if he hadn't been distracted as all get-out from the second Castiel stepped off the living room carpet onto the wood of the kitchen floor. Bobby wasn't sure from that tone whether Sam was nervous about something, or if he was just that excited to have Castiel at his elbow, watching him chop potatoes into fourths. He rolled his eyes either way.

"Did you need something?" Sam asked, his words coming through all the clearer when he cranked the faucet off and the sound of the water disappeared. It was quiet enough then that Bobby could hear Castiel shift his feet.

"Bobby told me to assist you," the angel said, tactful as usual. Bobby yanked the husk from another stick of corn and set the clean ear back in the bag, shaking his head. If that boy were any blunter he couldn't cut butter.

"Oh." Sam's voice was smaller than before, a little of the hopefulness gone, though Bobby doubted he was aware of it himself. He could almost hear the gears in Sam's brain churning, and in a second he was off and running, worrying himself into a frenzy over something he'd half made up in his head. "You don't have to, Cas. I mean, if you don't want to. Bobby wasn't trying to give you an order or anything—and there's not that much left to do, so if you'd rather go find Dean or something, I can just—"

"Sam."

Sam's diatribe came to an abrupt halt with that one word; Bobby waited in the silence, shucking corn and trying not to wonder, before his curiosity got the best of him and he turned far enough to glance over one shoulder at the kitchen window. Sam was still standing at the sink, his head turned away from Bobby—but Castiel had moved up until he was right at Sam's shoulder, one hand resting on Sam's back with the fingers just curling up against his neck as Castiel stared up at the younger Winchester with those piercing blue eyes. Bobby wasn't sure if the angel was suddenly telepathic, or if his hand on Sam's shoulder was enough to bring that boy's processing speed down from lightning fast to a moderate buzz—but whatever it was, it was just a few seconds before Sam ducked his head and gave a tiny, breathless laugh, and Bobby turned back to his corn, staring deliberately at an old junker pickup as he pulled the husks off.

"Yeah. Sorry. Um. You want to…" Bobby could imagine Sam staring around the kitchen now, trying to find something the angel knew how to do that wouldn't just make the whole process longer. He glanced up once more to see that Sam had turned to face Castiel, one hand fiddling in his hair. "Uh… I'm just working on the mashed potatoes, but I've got to cut them all first. You want to wash them for me? There are still five or so I haven't gotten to."

Castiel didn't say anything for a long while, the silence in the kitchen growing awkward even for Bobby out on the porch. Another backward glance showed Castiel just staring at Sam's chest and Sam biting his bottom lip, probably already tying himself up in knots over what he'd said wrong. Bobby turned deliberately back to his corn and warned himself to knock it off. He was nobody's chaperone here, and it was none of his business—he was just out here to shuck a few ears of corn. He gripped the tassels on the next one and pulled hard.

"Are those instructions meant to be taken literally?"

When the angel finally did speak, it wasn't to make things any clearer, at least not to Bobby. He stopped shucking for a second to figure out if he'd misheard. Sam seemed to be doing the same thing.

"What instructions? You mean, about the potatoes?" Sam asked. Castiel's feet shifted again.

"No. Your apron. Is it just for decoration, or am I truly intended to… kiss the cook?"

Bobby raised his eyebrows and picked up the last ear of corn. He'd forgotten Sam was wearing that apron—hell, he'd had it so long he'd almost forgotten his apron even said anything. He didn't remember the angel showing any particular curiosity about kissing anybody when Bobby had been wearing that apron the night before, dishing up the pre-Thanksgiving chili; he wasn't sure whether Sam had put that together or not, but the boy was off again, transforming instantly into a stuttering bundle of nerves.

"Oh. Um. No, it's just—uh. It's a joke, Cas. We gave it to Bobby years ago as a joke. It's just something people put on aprons because they think it's kind of funny, I guess… I don't really know why, actually. Um. But it's… yeah. So it's not…"

Sam trailed off with a nervous laugh, followed by more silence. Bobby resolutely kept his eyes on the last ear of corn, picking all the little silk threads out to keep himself from turning around. Then the kitchen floor creaked, and the faucet sang as it turned back on, the water hitting the sink like a jolt back to reality.

"Which potatoes should I wash?" Castiel asked.

Bobby rolled his eyes. Then he threw the last ear of corn back into his bag and got to his feet, stretching once over his head before bending to pick corn silk off his jeans. He had to get inside and boil this corn, or he was going to have done a lot of shucking for nothing, but as he looked once more through the kitchen window—Sam and Cas standing side by side at the sink with Castiel sneaking small, confused glances at the man next to him while Sam hid behind the fringe of his bangs, the tips of his blushing ears poking out through his hair—Bobby just shook his head, because they might be blind, but he sure as hell wasn't. Then he grabbed the screen door and pulled it open, heading into the shadows of the house with the bag of corn swaying in one hand.

Suffice to say, if he walked into that kitchen someday to find an angel kissing the cook, he wasn't going to be even a little surprised.

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The second half will be up tomorrow. Thanks for reading!