August 2019 (Dean is 31, Castiel is 30, Adrian is 2 (almost 3) Eden is 5 (almost 6).
Eden and Jason had started in the first grade in mid-August in different schools. Jason was adapting well into his school and had found many friends, where Eden had a bit more trouble. Some of the children were still looking at her wings strangely since they weren't quite like demon wings and not like angel wings either, and sometimes a few of the other children would make fun of it. Dean and Castiel were trying their best to teach her how to overcome the bullies and ignore them, but it was hard on both of them. At least Eden's friend from kindergarten, Ariel, was still a good friend of hers and the two got along well.
Castiel had turned 30 years old on the 20th August, and Eden would turn 6 on the 28th. She was very excited about her birthday and couldn't wait.
It was the day after Castiel's birthday, and it had been a week since Eden started in school. They were busy doing the usual morning chores – waking up the kids, preparing breakfast and lunchboxes, getting ready for work, and keeping an eye on Adrian who was still curious about anything he could get his hands on. The boy was nearly 3 years old now and had started walking, and he was running around after Eden all the time, which both amused and annoyed her at times.
"No, that's my cup, Adrian!" Eden scolded and took a plastic cup out of his curious hands. It was a cup she had gotten as a present on her fifth birthday, and it was decorated with Disney princesses (most of them being either humans or angels, because demons were often seen as less delicate). She loved it very much and didn't like it when her brother used it. Adrian was very often interested in items that belonged to his older sister.
Eden's wings twitched with annoyance as she glared at her brother. Her feathers reached her knees now, but wouldn't reach her feet until another 10 years.
Adrian began crying after Eden snatched the cup from his hands, and Castiel came over and pulled him up in his arms to soothe him. "What's wrong, Adrian?" he asked and rocked the boy.
"Eden took da cup," Adrian sobbed and clung to the angel.
"It's my cup! Tell him to stop taking it, papa!" Eden spoke, stubbornly, and glared up at her little brother.
Castiel sighed and continued to comfort his son. "It's alright, you know it's Eden's cup. You don't like it either when she takes your cup, do you?"
"No…" The boy sobbed into the angel's shirt and kept clinging to him.
"There is nothing to cry about, sweetie."
Dean came out from the bathroom and watched the scene. Eden took her cup and walked into the kitchen to get some milk, while Castiel continued trying to calm Adrian down.
"Another sibling quarrel over the cup?" Dean smirked.
"Yes… And your son is not acting like an alpha at all, he's clinging to me," Castiel muttered and glared briefly at his mate.
Dean laughed. "Well, I don't blame him. You're nice to cling to." He gave the angel a suggestive wink.
"Be quiet, Dean," Castiel muttered and blushed. He put Adrian down on the floor again and the boy clung to his leg for a minute before moving over to his toys.
"Eden, get dressed, we're leaving soon," Dean told her.
Eden looked a bit conflicted. She stayed in her spot in the kitchen and took a step forward before slowly moving back again, and repeated the movements a few times. Her tail twitched nervously and she looked up at Dean and asked, "But daddy, what if they steal my books again?"
Dean looked at her, frowning. "What? They did that?"
"Some angel boy did, yes," Eden muttered and looked at the floor.
"Why?" Dean demanded, and tried to hold back the anger he felt inside. No one should hurt or bully his little girl without him taking affair.
"Because I can read better than he can, and he said I'm only better was because I'm a freak," she explained. Her eyes got teary, making both Dean and Cas alerted. Adrian didn't understand what was going on, so he kept playing with a toy car over by the couch, while his parents stared at Eden who was twitching and trembling.
Dean noticed Castiel's eyes getting teary as well as he listened to their daughter while feeling utterly helpless about what had happened to her.
Dean pulled himself together and kneeled down in front of Eden. He grabbed her shoulders firmly and made her look into his eyes. "You are not a freak; you're just good at some things that this boy isn't, okay? And I'll go talk to you teacher when I drop you off in school today and see if I can make it stop, alright?"
Eden nodded and wrapped her arms around Dean's neck to hug him. The demon rubbed her back and kissed her cheek.
"Are there any others than him who has said such things to you?"
"Not really, but some of them stare at me oddly," Eden sobbed.
Dean sighed and continued to comfort her.
Afterwards, they packed the rest of the stuff, dropped Adrian off in the daycare center and drove Eden to school. Dean pulled the teacher aside to talk with her and she promised she would explain to the children that Eden was just like any other child. The teacher seemed very understanding and fond of Eden, and they hoped she'd be able to make a difference. She did tell them, however, that the problem was not just the children but also how the other parents perceived the angel/demon hybrid and the way their opinions were reflected in their children's behavior – most of the children had already informed their parents about an angel/demon hybrid being in their class. She told them there would be a parent/teacher meeting next week and that hopefully she could talk to the parents about not letting their children bully Eden.
After talking to the teacher, Dean and Castiel went back to the Impala so the demon could drive them to work.
Castiel hesitated and didn't enter the car, and Dean glanced at him in worry. He walked around the car and approached the angel warily.
"Cas?"
Castiel took a deep breath and tried to hold the tears back. "This is what I feared… that our children would have to go through this because they are different. I don't like seeing her suffer, Dean, and I feel like it's all my fault."
"Whoa, Cas, don't think that. How can it be your fault?" The demon grabbed his mate's arm in a comforting gesture while he tried to make eye contact with him.
Castiel finally looked up into Dean's eyes, helplessly. "Because I don't know how to make other people stop hating us and stop looking at our children the way they do. I don't know what to do or how to protect our children from all the bad things out there."
Dean sighed. "Cas, there isn't much we can do about that… The only thing we can do it is to support them and ask the school for help. Hell, Cas, our children are gonna meet a lot of douchebags in their lives – but you can't go through life without meeting a douchebag or two, they're everywhere. But what we must not do is to give up and lose all hope, because if we do that, then our children are the ones who will suffer the consequences of not having our support, you understand? They need our full support and our love to get through this, and you can't give them that if you blame yourself."
They stared into each other's eyes for a minute, until Castiel's body finally relaxed and the angel nodded.
"I understand. I'm sorry…"
Dean smiled. "Nothing to be sorry about, I know how hard it is. Heck, I don't like watching Eden cry either, it makes me feel so helpless."
"But you handled the situation with the teacher well."
"Well, the teacher's nice… I think maybe she can help Eden out and make her fit in better," Dean pondered. "And I think we should attend the parent/teacher meeting to get to know Eden's classmates and their parents."
"Don't you think they'll treat us like most other racists do?" Castiel muttered. He wasn't very keen about going.
"Yeah, but if we can talk to them about letting their kids leave Eden alone, it would be worth it. I hope there would at least be one of them that is in the mood for listening."
"I believe you might be right…"
Dean's lip curled into a smile. "And now, let's go to work before we're late."
Castiel smiled and nodded, before finally getting into the car. Dean got into the Impala as well and drove them to work.
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Tuesday evening the following week, Castiel, Dean and Eden went to the school to attend the parent/teacher meeting. They had left Adrian with Missouri, who was happy to care take of him while they were gone for a few hours. They had started speaking to her a bit more over the past few years and they got along well. Castiel felt rather safe leaving his little son with her, but he couldn't help being slightly worried.
The children were allowed to go to the meeting as well, and teachers would show the parents around the school, introduce themselves, give information about school policies, teachers' emails, etc.
Eden held Dean's hand tightly as they entered the school, and stared around at all the other parents and children who were also walking into the school. Dean glanced down at his daughter in slight worry when he felt how nervous she was and gave her little hand a reassuring squeeze, which softened her up a bit.
The female teacher they had met the other day, Emilie, welcomed the parents and showed them around the school. Eden and Ariel giggled and had fun together while they walked around, and Castiel started chatting a bit with Ariel's angel mother. Dean had to tell Eden to quiet down a bit when the two girls kept talking and giggling when the teacher started speaking again.
They finally entered their children's classroom. The room was decorated with various colorful decorations which the children had made last week, and the upper wall had the entire alphabet posted on it. Each letter was represented on a paper with an animal or item which name started with the letter it represented. On the other wall there were numbers from 1-100 posted. It was for the children to better learn and remember the alphabet and number system, although they had started leaning them in pre-school last year. There were extra chairs put into the room for the parents to sit on, and they all looked up as the teachers came in to introduce themselves.
Because it was a mixed species school, the parents were both demons, angels, and humans, and they were mostly mixed couples with hybrid children. There were a few full blood children among them (whose parents weren't racist since they put them in a mixed school). Some of the parents were also hybrids who had mated either with another hybrid or a full blood. Eden was still the only angel/demon hybrid present in the room.
They were sitting next to Ariel and her parents. Ariel's parents were rather accepting of Eden and of Dean and Castiel, although Dean had felt Ariel's beta angel father being a bit skeptic of him and Eden first, but it had faded when he saw the girls' close friendship.
Castiel and Dean ignored the way some of the other parents stared, frowned and whispered about them. Castiel couldn't help but feel extremely uncomfortable when an alpha angel (who appeared to be a single parent) sitting behind him continued to stare at him. He wasn't sure if he was staring out of hatred or because he was interested in him, but either way the angel didn't like it. He was glad Dean didn't seem to notice, because the last thing he needed was for his mate to start a big fuss in front of everyone because someone was looking at him.
Castiel tried shrugging it off and instead concentrated on the teachers.
The evening went by pretty quiet at first. Several teachers came into the classroom and introduced themselves, and the parents got to know their children's teachers, school materials, schedules, etc., better.
By the end of the evening, Emilie returned and spoke to them.
The children had gotten tired and restless, so they went outside to play under the supervision of the other teachers, while the parents stayed inside and listened to Emilie.
"Hello, everyone, I hope you enjoyed the evening – it was nice for us to see you all here, and I do hope you got a better impression of what your children will be doing here at this school. Now, before we all go home, I would like to ask if there are any of you who have questions or anything before we leave?" The teacher smiled and looked around the class at all the teachers.
"I have a question!" an alpha demon blurted, making everyone look at him. "Why is it that this school allows an abomination like that angel/demon hybrid to attend classes together with the other children? Such kids shouldn't exist in the first place, and my son is not going to have to look at such a freak every fucking day here!" He spat the words out and glared over at Dean and Castiel in contempt.
Dean growled aggressively and his wings sharpened, causing some of the other parents, who didn't have sharp wings, to flinch back.
"You got a problem, asshole?!" Dean snapped and was about to get up from his chair to charge at the other demon, but Castiel held him back.
"Yeah, I do. Obviously you have a problem too, since you seem to have a weak spot for a nice, tight piece of angel ass!" the demon snarled back. He ignored his mate who tried desperately to calm him down, and the other parents gasped at his outburst.
Dean saw red.
He got up from his chair fast and spread his impressive, sharp wings out aggressively. The other demon got up as well, growling. Dean was about to charge but the teacher's voice stopped him.
"Stop it you two! We don't want any fights here! What would your children think?" Emilie shouted, and stared between Dean and the other demon in a mixture of authority and slight fear.
Dean backed down slowly, as did the other alpha, but their continued glaring each other down until Dean sat down next to Cas again. The angel looked utterly uncomfortable and he trembled slightly. He hated conflict more than anything.
There was a lot of talking and whispering in the room and everyone stared between Dean and the other demon with wide eyes.
Emilie sighed and seemed to collect herself again before speaking. "So… does anyone else have a problem with the hybrid? I can guarantee you that Eden is a very smart, friendly child, and I doubt she'll be any kind of trouble to your children."
There was whispering again, and the demon male from earlier snorted at her words. Dean growled at him.
Some of the other parents admitted feeling the same as the alpha demon and weren't comfortable with Eden being in the same class as their kids, while others said it didn't matter to them at all. The parents started fighting with other because of it and it got pretty loud.
Castiel stared into his lap the whole time, trying to calm down and shake the anger and violating feeling off of him. Dean could feel his discomfort through the bond and he grabbed his hand and squeezed it. The demon was trembling slightly as he tried to control himself and not start punching at the racist parents all of sudden.
"Well, I only see one option here: expel that damned hybrid and all the problems are solved!" the alpha demon from earlier snapped and rose from his chair.
Everything went crazy from then on.
Some parents started shouting and spitting racist words, and others were just trying to make peace between everyone again. Dean had gotten up and confronted the other demon, and the two started a verbal discussion which certainly didn't go kindly.
Everything got so out of hand that Emilie went to get the principal, who was present at the school.
When the principal entered, the alpha demon from earlier walked up to him and demanded that he took Eden out of school. Some of the other parents nodded in agreement while others protested, and the principal looked around at everyone with a serious, firm expression on his face.
"So you ask of me to let this angel/demon hybrid go because you are so racist and narrow-minded that you won't have your children be around an otherwise friendly and smart student? Is that it?" the principal spoke in a voice of authority, and glanced over the classroom.
The parents looked at each other.
"Was that an insult to us?" the alpha demon growled.
"No, it was a true fact. You must be racist since you – hybrid parents or parents with hybrid offspring – talk like that about an innocent, hybrid child, who isn't different from your own kids," the principal answered. His eyes darkened and his angel wings twitched. "And if you want me to expel an innocent student because you are being racist, then I guess I should also expel that demon boy who destroyed school property worth 1500 dollars last week… Say, wasn't that your kid?"
He looked at the alpha demon, whose eyes widened and took a step back unconsciously.
"Not to mention any of your kids who will break school rules in the future or just somehow 'destroy the ideal classroom picture' – I can expel them too if that's the rules you wanna play by," the principal continued, and grit his teeth as he glared at the parents. "If you don't want your children to interact with the hybrid, then tell them to not talk to her – but do not let them bully or harass her, otherwise it's your children who will face getting expelled."
Dean couldn't help but smirk smugly when everyone seemed to back down at the threat. He brushed his wing against Castiel's gently, and the angel looked at him with a small smile.
The alpha demon seemed to be in conflict with himself. He was clearly not pleased about what the principal had to say. Eventually he growled and lowered his spread wings. "Fine, let the hybrid stay. But my son is not going near her, ever."
The principal's lip curled into a tiny, barely visible smirk, and he shrugged his shoulders. "It's a free country."
The demon snorted and left the room to go get his son, before leaving the school angrily.
Everyone calmed down and began to leave. Some of them smiled softly at Dean and Cas as they left and said goodbye to them. Ariel's mother gave them a grin and a thumbs-up, making Dean laugh.
The principal pulled Dean and Castiel aside as everyone began to leave, and spoke with them once they were alone in the room.
"I'm sorry you have to go through such trouble with your daughter. I will do my best to prevent anything from happening to her, and if it does I will make sure there will be punishments."
"Thank you, sir, we appreciate it," Dean smiled, and shook the principal's hand when it was offered to him. "But… may I ask why you're so, uh, not racist?"
The principal laughed. "Well, I know quite a lot about angel/demon hybrids – my mother is one, and she married my father who is an angel. That is why I look completely like an angel."
Castiel's eyes widened in surprise, as did Dean's. They hadn't expected that.
The principal said goodbye to them and they left to room to find Eden, who was waiting for them in the hallway. She was talking to Garth, who was the math teacher they were introduced to earlier.
Garth was squatting down in front of her, and he had an old sock on his hand which he used to entertain her and Ariel with.
"Don't be scared of the bullies, little girl, I will protect you!" the sock spoke through Garth. The human moved the sock forward and bumped it against Eden's and Ariel's noses.
Eden laughed. "But you're a sock…"
The sock looked offended. "Now, don't be racist! Racists are bad, you know that."
Eden giggled along with Ariel.
"Hey," Dean smiled as he and Castiel approached. "What's going on? What's up with the sock?" He frowned and stared at it almost suspiciously.
Garth stood up and shoved the sock up in front of Dean's face, who flinched back a little. "I am Mr. Fizzles, and I will protect dear Eden from now on!"
Dean blinked at the sock and at Garth stupidly, while Cas chuckled in amusement next to him.
"Mr. Garth is funny," Eden smiled. "He just chased away two mean boys who were making fun of me and Ariel…"
"Oh, did he now?" Dean spoke and looked at Garth as if he was assessing him.
Garth chuckled. "Well, those two boys have no manners. I like teaching kids manners, but me being a math teacher usually makes them dislike me. Mr. Fizzles is a good help, though," he grinned.
Castiel smiled. "Thank you, Mr… Garth?" He frowned at the name.
"Fitzgerald is my last name. The children call me by my first name because most of them can't say my last name properly. I don't really care anyway," Garth shrugged. "And you're welcome. I was bullied myself in school, so now I would like to help Eden through it." He smiled down at Eden and did a high-five with her and Ariel, who seemed to like their math teacher a lot.
Ariel's parents began taking their daughter home, and she and Eden said goodbye and waved at each other as the angel girl left. Dean and Castiel prepared to leave with Eden as well.
"Goodbye, Eden, and see you tomorrow for math. It's your birthday tomorrow, right?" Garth said and smiled down at her.
Eden's eyes widened. "How did you know?"
Garth merely grinned at her and waved goodbye as they left.
Eden went ahead of her parents on the way back to the car. She was sleepy, but the thought of her birthday the next day kept her excited and cheerful.
Dean and Castiel held hands as they walked to the car and watched Eden jump around happily in front of them. She was completely unaware of the fights and discussions all the parents had had about her earlier, but they weren't going to tell her about it any time soon. It was better that she didn't know, for now.
"I hope there won't be another such meeting soon…" Castiel muttered and sighed.
Dean smiled. "Yeah, me too. I'm glad it went well. I just hope the parents will leave the matter be."
"Me too, but I'm not putting my hopes up too high just yet."
They helped Eden into the car and drove home, feeling exhausted after the parent meeting.
They picked up Adrian from Missouri's apartment and the boy was already asleep. Dean carried him into his room and tucked him into bed. After they put Eden and Adrian to sleep, they began wrapping up the last few presents to be ready to give them to Eden the next morning. They had bought various toys, clothes and shoes for her, and they knew that the rest of the family would likely also give her presents like they usually did.
Afterwards, they lay down in bed together and were relieved that the parent meeting was over. Dean nuzzled Castiel's feathers possessively and fell asleep, and the angel smiled and felt safe and protected in his mate's embrace.
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Author's notes: This chapter was really difficult, and I still don't quite like how it turned out. I felt that I needed to go into more depth about how the other kids and parents in Eden's school are reacting to her, and show how some parents are hostile while others are not. I promise that chapter 5 will have a lot more fluff and family time than this one :)
Thanks for reading, please review!