A/N: Sorry for the late update. Claire wasn't talking and my muse, "Lucifer", just upped and left. Thankfully, they started cooperating 2 days back.
So, to make up for it, I have added two new chapters.

Part 7 A

Cas was nervous. Well, nervous would be an understatement. He was freaking out. This was the first time he was meeting Dean's family, in person, plus there was the wedding and the trip and… and he was going crazy.

He wished Dean was here, but Dean had said that Cas' nerves were getting on his nerves. Besides they needed someone sensible at the garage. He glanced at the clock, 3.30 PM. The flight landed at 4.30.

He straightened the couch cushions. They didn't look right, so he shifted them around. They still didn't look right, so he got out new cushion covers and changed them. He glanced at the clock again and realized that only 20 minutes had passed.

He walked towards the bedrooms. He had cleaned Sam's old room for Adam and his new girlfriend, and the master bedroom for Sam and Jess. He checked them again, making sure they each had fresh bedsheets and clean blankets, which he knew they did because he had changed them yesterday. He had also brought down Dean's old baby cot from the attic and set it up for Dee. There were clean towels in the bathrooms, along with fresh toiletries and extra toothbrushes in case they were needed. Satisfied that all was to his liking, he went to the kitchen to check on the dinner.

Dean had told him that a simple pot roast would do. He also had hamburgers and sausages, just in case, and fresh cut steak. He wondered if he should have made something else. He really wanted them to like him. The oven timer beeped and he rushed to get the brownies out, gently placing them on the wire rack to cool, and put a fresh batch in, this one without nuts for Jess. He had given up trying to bake pies a while back, but brownies were his strong suit. Even Ellen said so.

He went to the fridge to get a beer and realized that he had forgotten iced tea for the ladies. He quickly made a pitcher, then squeezed a few oranges for Dee. He finished his beer, and because he had nothing better to do, went for a shower.

By the time he came back, the brownies were already done, so he removed the cool ones from the wire rack and began replacing them with the hot ones.

That's when the phone rang, startling him, and in his hurry, he knocked the tray down. He listened in horror as Sam's voice filled the house saying they had almost cleared the check out and it would take another 30 or so minutes for the drive home. And that's when he lost it.

-x-x-x-

"Cas?"

Cas looked up from the floor to see his fiancé was sitting in the kitchen doorway, a worried expression on his face. "What?" he asked irritatedly.

"Babe, you alright?" Dean asked wheeling towards him, but stopping a little short of the mess. "What happened?"

"Nothing. I'm a clumsy oaf who can't do anything right. I knocked down the whole plate," he replied wiping his dried tears and starting to clean it up. He wondered if he had time to make another batch.

"That's enough," Dean broke into his thoughts. "Stop overworking yourself," he added, slipping down beside him and helping him salvage the goods. "We have enough to last a while. You have been at it for almost a week."

Dean climbed back into his chair, as Cas kept the desert out of his reach and slumped against the counter. "What if they hate me?" he asked dejectedly.

Dean shook his head and wheeled towards him. "C'mere," he said pulling at Cas' arm and manhandling him till he was sitting in Dean's lap. He circled his arms around his angel and pulled him close. He could feel Cas relaxing against him. "They've known you for five months. They all love you. Hell, even Claire and she has barely known us for a week."

"But this is different. What if… what if they don't like me in person? What if they think I'm a slob… or that I snore too much… or I'm too weird… or…something…" his faded away and he started concentrating on the large warm hands, massaging his back.

"Calm down," Dean muttered in his ear. "You are not a slob. You are a neat freak and you've been working nonstop for the past two days. You don't snore and Sam is no position to say anything because he not only snores, he's also gassy. I'm sure you'll survive," Dean whispered in his ear, as his hands continued to trail downwards, finally slipping under the sweats. Cas grunted but did not protest. He continued massaging pleased with rapidly hardening results. Cas wriggled in his lap and jerked his hips in Dean's hands. "Oh, I love it when you do that," he added kissing his ear.

Cas smiled, bringing a hand down to stop Dean's. "As much I love you taking me in the kitchen, there's open food here. And I'm not having your family eat my stray spunk for desert," he said, leaning back a little and pecking him on the cheek.

Dean laughed and removed his hands. "Fine. I'm going to shower. You're welcome to join me. But if you take longer than 5 minutes, you can forget about it."

Cas stood up and straightened his pants. He bent down, hands on his fiancé's shoulders, his thumb massaging into the collar bone, a mischievous glint in his eye, and asked, "Is that a challenge?"

"Not unless you want to greet them with a limp," Dean deadpanned and the blush that crept over Cas' face was totally worth losing sleep over.

"5 minutes," Cas murmured, taking out a broom and sweeping the crumbs away. Dean turned around and wheeled back to their room, happy that he had finally managed to slow Castielosaurusdown.

-x-x-x-

"They're here," Cas said, looking out the window and giving his hair the last cursory wipe. It looked dry enough. He checked himself in the mirror and hurried out to open the door before they could ring the bell.

The first thing that crossed his mind when he came first to face with Sam Winchester was "tall". The guy was tall. As in 6-and-a-half feet with a wide body, long limbs, longish hair... Hell, even his sideburns were huge. No wonder Dean called him "Sasquatch". He looked like the kind of guy who could literally crush you with his bare hands. But his face was anything but… his eyes sparkled with a rare trustfulness, the kind that would make even the most untrusting person entrust him with their new born babies, and a smile that confirmed it. When he reached out and pulled him in an awkward hug, Cas had no option but to comply.

"Hey Sammy," Dean called behind him. Sam released Cas and ran towards his brother. He yanked Dean to his feet and pulled him in a crushing bear hug. When he finally released Dean and let him drop back into his wheelchair, Cas could tell Dean was breathless, but his grin more than made up for it.

Just then Cas felt a tug on his leg. He looked down to see Dee staring up at him with a wondrous expression. He smiled and picked her up and she gave him her "Uncle Cas" as a peace offering. He laughed and ushered everyone inside.

Introductions were made. Jessica was tired and Cas couldn't begrudge her. He sent her off to freshen up and offered the bath salts for later. She winked at him, and he knew he had a made a friend for life. Adam and Claire were cordial, but after everyone had settled Adam cornered him in the kitchen and proclaimed that he had never seen his dad happier. He also apologized for his earlier behavior, but Cas dismissed it saying he wasn't exactly wrong to be skeptical.

Adam left and Cas started on dinner, sensing that everyone must be tired and would want to retire for the night as soon as possible. Everything was already done, so he just put the roast in to reheat, set the timer and started working on his salad, reveling in the little peace, possibly for the last time, for the next two weeks.

-x-x-x-

"Hey Cas?"

Cas looked to see Claire standing behind him, clutching something in her hand. "Yeah?"

"Who's this?" she asked showing him a framed photograph.

It was his graduation picture – him in his graduation gown, Nick in his new suit, arms around each other's waists, grinning for the camera. The photo now occupied a place of honour on the Winchester mantle. "That's my brother, Nick," he replied turning back to setting the table. "Can you call everyone for dinner?"

"Oh, okay," Claire replied turning around and walking back out.

The dinner passed without an incident. That is, unless Dean and Dee sporting identical sulking faces over being fed "rabbit food", or Sam's retort "Karma's a bitch, bitch" which earned him a solid kick under the table, could be called an incident. Cas found himself relaxing and joining in the inside jokes, as if he was one of them. Maybe he was. He really loved having a full table for dinner. He thought about hosting more family dinners in the future.

After dinner, Jess excused herself with the bath salts and one of the Vonneguts from Dean's collection, and Adam took Dee for a walk, giving Dean and Sam some alone time to catch up. On the way to the kitchen, Cas found them leaning close to each other and talking and laughing nonstop, like gossiping housewives. He smiled to himself and picked up a beer. As an afterthought, he filled a glass with iced tea and walked out.

"You got something on your mind?" he asked sitting down next to Claire on the patio swing he had installed a few weeks back, and handing her the glass. She had been quiet the whole dinner and he guessed she was as nervous to meet Adam's family as him.

"Do you remember Anna?" she asked instead.

"Anna?" he asked confused. He knew quite a few 'Anna's, some of them even biblically when he was very down on his luck.

"Anna Milton from Pontiac?" she asked again.

Cas started. Of course he remembered Anna Milton, Rev. Milton's spacy little daughter. She was about a year older than him and probably his only friend. She was the one who had started the whole fallen angel thing. "How do you…?" Then he remembered. Claire Milton. Maybe they were related. "How did you guess?" he rephrased his question.

"That guy in the photo. Your brother. That's Lucifer Novak, isn't it?"

Oh, he thought. No one could really escape their past. But for it to find him here, like this… "Yeah," he replied quietly. "But he wasn't like people said he was. He was a really good person…" he added quickly, jumping to his brother's defence.

"Oh, I know," she cut in. "I met him, once, when I was about 13. But Anna talked about him a lot… the fallen angel, the gentle Devil… especially during later stages."

"Later…?" Cas asked confused.

"She was diagnosed with schizophrenia," Claire replied sadly. "It kept getting worse… until all she could talk about was the fallen angels and how she overheard them over the radio."

Cas remembered that. It was cute when they were young. He had always thought she was a bit delusional, never mentally ill. "Was diagnosed? You mean she's…?"

"Yeah," she interjected. "Three years ago, she escaped her locked ward, and took a scalpel to her throat. Claimed it was the only way to stop the Apocalypse."

"Oh… I'm sorry," he said. He had loved Anna like his own sister. Rev. Milton was a good man. He had taken great care of them, especially Claire… Suddenly, something twisted in his stomach. How long was it? More than 20 years… but he remembered Claire having blonde hair and blue eyes. Like the girl beside him.

"Why are you telling me all this?" he asked suspiciously, increasing the distance between them.

Claire sighed. "I was adopted by Rev. Milton and his family after my parents died. They said my brother left me…"

"No!" he cut in. "No… no…NO!" He stood up so quickly, he knocked down the half-empty beer bottle beside him. It crashed to the floor. "It can't be. Claire went missing, you hear me. Nicky had nothing to do with it."

"Jimmy, please… He said it was to keep me safe... He said it was the only way…"

"Shut up," he screamed, balling his fists until his knuckles turned. If this girl kept talking, he would go against everything he believed in and hit her. "Nicky would never do that. He had sworn to keep us safe. He would've never let her go. He would have never separated his family." He vaguely heard footsteps coming to the door. "He would've told me. My brother was not a liar. You are a liar." With he turned and ran back inside, almost colliding with Sam on the way. Sam reached out to steady him, but he pushed him away and ran to his room, slamming the door behind him.

Outside, everyone gathered around the quietly sobbing girl. Dean was the first one to break the silence. "How long have you known?" he simply asked. They all turned to look at him, even Adam who had just walked in with Dee. "What? Her name's Claire. She's about the same age as his sister would've been. Plus you all saw..." he waved his arms around "That."

"I honestly didn't know," she replied quietly. "I mean… I knew Lucifer was my brother and we had a third brother named Jimmy. But when Cas… Jimmy… he said it was his brother in the picture…" her voice trailed away, as she buried her face in her hands.

Dean looked at Sam who nodded and took Dee and Jess, who was still dripping water, back to their room. Adam sat on the swing comforting his girlfriend. Dean sighed and rolled towards his room.

"Cas, babe, it's me," he called softly. He could hear whimpering inside. He tried the doorhandle and thankfully, it was unlocked. He went in and locked the door behind him.

The sight was heartbreaking. Cas was curled into a fetal position, his whole body shaking with the sobs that raked through him. Dean took a deep breath and wheeled towards the bed and climbed in behind Cas, pulling him flush against his chest, spooning their bodies together. Cas had done this for him more than once, but to see their roles reversed like this…

"Shh, babe," he whispered, gently rubbing his stomach. "Hush… I'm here. I got you… I love you…" he could feel Cas relax and straighten against him.

He turned Cas around till they were facing each other, and Cas promptly buried his face in Dean's shoulder, mumbling, "My brother was not liar. He would've told me… he would've told me… we were a team" over and over.

And for once, Dean was powerless to do anything. He could just hold his angel close till he stopped shaking and fell asleep.