FIC TITLE: The Home for Wayward Children
Author- PTBvisiongrrl
Part- 5/? (I promise nothing else, which is why its marked complete, but ideas are a–brewing.)
Date- 7/29/16
Rating – PG-13/T (at least for now…I will clearly warn if it changes)
Pairings/Characters- Sam/Dean brother bond; Dean/Castiel romantic relationship
Word Count- 1,983
Genre- Angst, Family, Romance
Warnings- Spoilers- AU for Season 11. I had already written this before the finale.
Disclaimers- Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…so please don't sue me. If I did own them, there would be a lot more shirtless Winchesters and Angels of the Lord getting some on the show!
Summary-
At 39, Dean has taken more hits than a NFL quarterback, and his body has begun to feel it. His bones practically grate against each other when he gets up in the morning, and the rain makes him want to ball up into the fetal position until the Tylenol and Jack kick in. But if there isn't hunting, what is there? All there has ever been is hunting things and helping people, the family business. Well, maybe it's time to help other people hunt things and expand the family.
Chapter 5
Dean slowly came to consciousness. There was no warm body next to him in bed; the silence of the bunker currently was broken with the blaring sound of "This little piggie" in high-pitched children's voices; and his bladder was screaming for him to get up. Pulling his dead guy robe off the back of the door and shrugging into it, making sure it was properly belted and nothing inappropriate was exposed, Dean hustled his way to the bathroom.
A very irate, female teenage voice greeted the sounds of his relief. "Who's there?"
Dean jumped a mile. There was a girl in the bathroom with him. A naked girl, in the shower, who was not happy he was there. And neither was he. Shifting a little to keep himself covered, Dean barked, "STAY IN THE SHOWER!"
"Get out of the bathroom!" was shrieked in return.
Quickly shaking off and flushing, Dean re-belted and got the hell out of there, calling out, "I am!" over his shoulder on the way to his room. Once there, he washed his hands in the cracked sink, studying his face in the mirror and deciding he could go another day before shaving. Dean dressed quickly, muttering to himself the entire time. There was one bathroom in this entire place, and he could tell this was quickly going to become a problem with the new mix of genders.
Fuck. The things you don't think about ahead of time.
Entering the war room was like entering a war ZONE. Jerry was happily stacking books up as high as he could, before knocking them down. Rosie had moved on from piggies to Peek-A-Boo with Petie; given her continued volume, and the baby's rising screechy giggles, it really wasn't an improvement. Sam had his head phones on and was on his laptop, coffee cup in hand, oblivious to any and all chaos around him. Colton was not present, which gave Dean a moment of concern, until a pause in the peek-a-booing allowed him to hear music coming from the kitchen.
No one had noticed Dean's presence yet, so he continued on to where there would hopefully be Cas, Colton, and coffee.
There was Cas, sitting at the table, talking animatedly with Colton about the ways to kill a vindaloo (and Dean did not want to know WHY they were discussing an Indian demon no one in America had ever run into), and—thank Heaven—an almost full urn of coffee. Making his way over to the cups they kept stacked next to the huge Men of Letters coffee urn, Dean downed a full cup before refilling and making his way to the seat next to Cas. "Morning," he muttered, gravelly and exhausted.
"Good morning, Dean," Cas smiled brightly at him. Colton gave him a head nod.
"Why does Colton need to know how to kill a vindaloo?" Dean asked.
Colton bit his lip and looked down, studying Dean through his bangs. Colton very strongly reminded Dean of a young Sam in that moment. Shaking his head, Colton answered, "Colton doesn't need to know. Colton just wanted to know. Talking shop."
Dean nodded. "Good. I'd rather you not head out to hunt on your own, please."
"I won't, Dean, I promise," Colton answered. Last night seemed to have made an impression on the young man.
Nodding in acceptance, Dean asked what he really wanted to know. "What time did the kids get up? Did they eat yet?"
"Crack of dawn," Sam yawned from the doorway, coffee cup in hand making his sudden presence and dark circles make sense. "Like, five or so. They are NOT on a hunter's time schedule."
Colton laughed, rising to take Sam's coffee cup to fill and freeing a spot at the table for him. Dean cringed. "We need to train them to sleep later."
"We need to cage them, you mean, so that they can't wake us up or destroy anything," Sam muttered, sliding into Colton's empty chair and thunking his head down on the table. "Seriously, I need five, six hours to function."
Cas patted Sam's shoulder sympathetically. "I am sorry your room was closer."
Sam sat back up to accept the full coffee cup Colton presented him with. "No, you aren't."
"No, I am not, not really," Cas conceded. "I am actually rather happy about it."
Sam downed half the coffee in one go. "I woke up to creepy little eyes staring at me in my sleep from the edge of my bed."
Dean cracked a smile at that. "Could be worse. Imagine a full-grown angel doing that." He sipped at coffee and avoided Cas's glare. "At least no one peed in your bed."
Sam's eyes laser focused on Dean and he didn't say a word. Dean chuckled, "Or did."
"We need to get them settled into their own rooms today," Sam stated. "And buy some baby gates. Good, strong ones."
"I was actually thinking…" Dean started. "Maybe not baby gates, maybe just take the doors down and cut 'em in half. Put the lock on the bottom, a hook and eye on the top, inside and out. I'd feel a lot better with a stronger barrier than some cheap plastic bars held together with particle board."
Sam, Cas, and Colton all looked at Dean as if he had three heads. "What?" Dean demanded defensively. "I had plenty of time to think all about this on the drive back. I have a plan. Now, back to my other question—did the kids eat yet?"
Cas pointed toward the drying dishes in the drainer. "Morgan gave them cereal and did the dishes."
"Good," Dean stated, then remembered the bathroom incident. "Only part of the plan I forgot about was the bathroom."
Colton raised an eyebrow. "Huh?"
"There's only one with toilets and showers," Dean frowned. "And teenage girls don't like sharing with boys."
"Ah," Cas nodded. "Maybe we could place a sign on the door to indicate if there is a female in there?"
"Perfect," Dean agreed. "You are in charge of that. Sammy, Colton, and I will go clear out a few rooms for the kids. Then we'll bolt all the furniture to the walls so that nothing can get pulled over."
"What?" Sam asked.
"Kids climb," Dean answered. "I'm less worried about them falling than I am about furniture getting pulled down on top of them. So, we bolt it down."
"Okay," Sam agreed. "So we are cutting doors in half, and securing furniture. What else do we need to do?"
"Cas, can you keep an ear out for the kids, in case they need something, while rounding up enough bedding for five more beds?" Dean polished off his coffee and got a new one.
"You can't put a baby in a bed!" Sam protested.
"Did with you," Dean shot back. "But now I know better. We'll figure out something."
Morgan chimed in from the doorway. "Its call a pack and play. Like a crib, but portable. There's one in the car. Forgot about it last night." She made her way over to the coffee as well. "And we need to come up with a bathroom schedule or something."
"Already on it. Cas is making a sign for the door. You go in, you turn it and we stay outta your way," Dean raised an eye brown to Morgan. "Good enough?"
"Yeah," Morgan blew on her coffee a few times before sipping it. "That'll work."
"Okay, then we're ready to set up rooms," Sam downed one last cup of coffee before putting the mug into the sink. "I'll get cleaning stuff."
Everyone made their way to their particular job, Dean leading to way. Thinking more clearly now that he had both shut-eye and a sufficient amount of caffeine, Dean chose four rooms for the other kids—he let Colton choose his own—at the opposite end of the hall from his and Sam's rooms. It would give the adults some privacy, but allow them to be in reach of the children at night, if need be. It also put the kids closer to the bathroom, a good thing for nighttime.
Each room had a double bed, a dresser, a desk, a bookshelf, and a mirrored sink. The closets were small, but functional if you weren't a clothes horse. Even Dean—who could be a bit of one, now that there was storage space—could share his with Cas and have room to spare.
Dean took charge of organizing Jerry and Petie's rooms, while allowing the girls to come arrange their own. Dean shifted Jerry's furniture so that the bed was in a corner protecting him from falling out on two sides. Dean decided that Jerry didn't need a desk yet, but another bookshelf would be good as well as a little table and chairs to play at. The other bookshelf was easy—every room had one, so he just traded a desk into another room and took the shelf. Put together, they made a nice playing nook for Jerry and there was plenty of room off to the side if Dean could track down a table and chairs in an appropriate size, later. There was even room for a toy box.
Sam and Dean had never had many toys as kids—hello, no room for that type of clutter in a hunter's car with two kids and an armory—but Dean planned to make sure Jerry and Petie had cool ones, and a nice place to keep them. Books, too. And if these were their rooms now, they had to be decorated a little bit. The Bunker had been built for stuffy old men and the décor reflected it. Dean wasn't up for repainting everything or getting "kid" furniture, but maybe some posters or stuff.
Once the rooms were arranged (Petie's identical to Jerry's except for the pack and play pushed up again the bottom of the regular bed and diapering items on top of the dresser/make-shift changing table), Dean got tools out and started bolting dressers and bookshelves into the wall. Once furniture was secured, Dean removed the doors from their hinges with Colton's help and took them to the garage to cut, sand, and finish. Sam swooped in to clean and Cas replaced bedding; the men were followed by Morgan and Rosie bringing in the kids' clothes and stuff and putting the items away.
Most of the work was finished by the time Dean had to start dinner. Although Cas did not let Dean cook. "You worked hard enough already. I can cook."
Sam's saucer-eyed reaction to that made Dean laugh. "I think we'll stick to letting people used to the taste of food cook for a bit. Okay?"
Cas frowned but shrugged. "Fine. Sam can cook."
Sam's face got even less happy. "I didn't volunteer for that!"
"Dean is not cooking. So who is?" Cas demanded.
Colton volunteered. "I can make spaghetti."
"There's also meatballs and garlic bread in there," Dean added. "Thanks, by the way, Colton."
"No problem, Dean," Colton said as he made his way to the kitchen, leaving Cas, Dean, and Sam in the hallway.
"He's a nice kid," Sam said. "He didn't give me any trouble last night, even before I told him I wasn't dragging him back here."
Dean nodded. "I know. That's why he is NOT hunting and IS going to get his high school diploma. We talked it over last night. He wants to do cyber school again."
"I'll get him set up for it tomorrow," Sam volunteered. Dean was quite happy with that; he didn't hate technology, but it certainly liked Sam more than him.
"Alright, Cas, let's get these doors rehung," Dean led the way to the garage, where the doors and hardware were waiting. Even with Cas's limited handyman knowledge, both kids' doors were back up and additional hook-and-eyes installed by dinner time.