Chapter Text
January 24, 0730am.
The noise that woke Dean seemed to go on for a long time. The first BANG took him from peacefully trying to sleep in to bolt upright in one adrenaline surge. The following clangs, crashes and the final ominous gloi-oi-oi-oing sound simply made him very, very suspicious. Bobby and Sam had gone on a mini road trip to see Rufus and wouldn’t be back until later in the day. That left Cas, of whom the bedroom was bereft. He narrowed his eyes and sniffed. Aw, crap. A warm, sweet, smell permeated the house, but it was the bitter undertone of burning food that catapulted Dean swearing from the bed.
As he raced down the stairs, there was another series of crashes. He braced himself for the horror to come and skid around the corner into the kitchen. The horror that came did not disappoint. Flour covered surfaces like fresh snow and hung in the air. Every pot, pan and utensil Bobby owned was strewn across the room in varying states of use. Some of them had evidently been victims of Cas’ angelic strength. A pile of baking trays that looked recently relocated to the floor had evidently been the source of the noises. Dean opened his mouth to demand Cas show herself and explain why so many wooden spoons had had to die, discovered some of the flour in the air was powdered sugar and sneezed forcefully.
“Bless you, Dean.”
Cas’ voice had come from floor level, behind the table, near the oven. Dean shook his head.
“Bobby’s gonna shoot me,” he muttered. “Cas, get out here.”
She emerged, and she was not in much better a state than the kitchen. She had flour (or possibly sugar) in her hair and on her face. There were butter smears on her skirt and greenish, slimy looking stains on her shirt. She shut off the stove and proffered the fruit of the destruction. It was lopsided and singed around the crust, but was most likely some kind of pie. Dean noted that oven mitts were an alien concept to Angels.
“Happy Birthday!” She offered, proffering the slightly unfortunate looking pastry.
Dean looked from her overly earnest face, to the steaming pan in her bare hands, to the bombsite that had formerly been a kitchen, back to her face, and raised his eyebrows.
“I followed the instructions to the letter!” She assured him, before frowning slightly. “It should look more like that.”
She nodded to the open and miraculously unscathed recipe book on the table.
“I think your letter might be in the wrong language.” He told her, trying to stay resolute as her eyes widened in all their innocent, kicked kitten blue glory.
“I wanted to make you something by hand,” she pouted.
His resolution crumbled and he relented, about to reassure her when she stepped into the sugar cloud and sneezed the highest pitched, daintiest, girliest sneeze Dean had ever heard. He dissolved into hysterical laughter, choking on the sugar and flour in the air.
“Put…put the da-amn pie down!” He howl-coughed, as Cas dithered between trying to not drop the pie and tending to Dean.
She did so, and brought Dean a glass of water with which he managed to, just, get himself together.
“So, what d’ya make me?” He grinned. Now the source of the smell had been revealed, Dean could relax a little. It did smell like pie was supposed to, and since nothing was on fire and the stove was off, the hint of charcoal had ceased to hold terror.
“Apple pie?” She didn’t sound so sure. “I really do feel cheated that it doesn’t look like the one in the picture. I obeyed the book very diligently.”
Dean had never really been one to sweat much about what food looked like provided it was edible.
“Looks good to me,” he shrugged. “Love me some birthday pie.”
She preened a little at his praise.
“Would you like ice cream, pouring cream or custard?” She enquired, looking like the world’s worst waitress. “I found many conflicting sources as to which should be served.”
“Hey, ain’t you gonna try any?”
“If there’s any left,” she said, overly innocently. Dean tried to look hurt at that and failed, shrugging his resemblance to that remark. “Besides,” she continued. “The filling is apparently a temperature wholly unfit for human consumption.”
“That’s why you serve it with ice cream!” He told her, clapping his hands together and rubbing them in anticipation. Heading deeper into the kitchen and making some almost impressed faces at the levels of carnage, he managed to locate a plate and two forks that looked usable and a pie slice. He’d once asked Bobby why he owned a pie slice and had only gotten “Fer slicin’ pie, idgit!” As a response.
Careful not to burn himself on the pie tin, or the pie, he served a generous slice on to the plate and fetched the ice cream, serving up a heaping scoop of that too. He almost hesitated before taking a forkful, but Cas was watching him and he couldn’t bring himself to hurt her feelings. He braced himself in case it was awful, and brought the fork to his mouth.
It was…actually not that bad. Maybe not the best pie in all the state, but for a first time cook who only recently learned what food tastes like, it was a solid C+/B effort. He took a second, much larger forkful, and noticed Cas visibly relax.
“This is good,” He said, mouth full. “Try some!”
He held the next fork load out to her. She looked at him oddly. It was clear she understood the gesture, but didn’t get why he was doing it. He wasn’t, however, about to explain Being Human 101 (again) when there was pie eating to be done, so he gestured insistently with the fork. Warily, she leaned forward, mouth open. Carefully, he fed her the bite, secretly thrilled to be doing honest-to-goodness stupid couple crap for a change and noticing that now she got it, she didn’t seem to dislike it.
“S’good, right?” he asked, taking another massive mouthful. Why she could still taste things after her brief stint as a human no one could work out but since it was pretty harmless Dean was content to never look into that circle of hell again.
“The combination of hot and cold makes my teeth itch.” She said, bluntly. Dean paused in the business of eating to let this phrase work through his brain.
“In a good way?” He asked eventually, giving up on it.
She didn’t look sure. Dean handed her the other fork.
“Try some without the ice cream,” he suggested, before laughing when this seemed to go down well and she dug in with almost as much enthusiasm as him. Still eating, she produced a flattish black box from seemingly nowhere and slid it across the table to him.
“Whaffsat?” he asked, mouth full. She swallowed primly before answering.
“A birthday gift.”
Unashamed by his bad manners, Dean swallowed too. He picked up the box and inspected it, shaking it next to his ear. Nothing rattled, but it seemed to annoy Cas, so he did it again.
“I thought the pie was my present?”
“Is there a social convention limiting gifts to one per person?”
“Well, no, but…” he shook the box again, not missing how her shoulders shifted in sheer irritation. “What is it?”
“I believe there is a way one traditionally finds out,” she said, deadpan.
Dean glared at her, but carefully lifted the lid off the box. In the top was what appeared to be a neatly folded bar napkin. Judging by the look on Cas’ face, it was neither there by accident nor as padding for whatever else was in the box. He took it out.
“Well, this is, uh, nice?” He tried, before unfolding it and laying it out on the table as Cas practically vibrated with excitement. His jaw dropped. Across the serviette scrawled handwriting read:
”Hey Dean, Happy Birthday, man! James Hetfield”
He stared at it wide eyed, mouth still open for another long moment before raising his eyes to her now smug face.
“Cas, is this for real?” he demanded, voice gravelly. He didn’t dare hope. She nodded, still grinning like a cat. “How?”
“I asked him nicely,” she said, demurely.
“Asked him where?!” God, if Dean had been in the same town, the same bar as the lead singer of Metallica and hadn’t met him…
“Los Angeles,” she told him. He relaxed, but regretted not abusing the angel powers while he’d had them. He stared at the autograph again, shaking his head.
“I can’t believe you did this for me,” he grabbed her suddenly into a tight bear hug, which she reciprocated. “I’m having this framed!”
He pulled away, folding the napkin to put it safely back in the box when he noticed that the box wasn’t empty.
“Huh.” In the bottom of the box lay one single, black feather. It looked downy and spiky and glossy and cloudy at the same time, and the tip looked wickedly sharp. It was so black it looked almost like an absence of light. No bird has feathers like that. He reached out to carefully pick it up. “Cas.” His voice was quiet, again, disbelieving what he was seeing. “Is this…”
“One of mine, yes.” Her voice was quiet too, almost embarrassed. “I know it’s sentimental…”
“It’s perfect,” he nearly whispered, still mesmerised by it. He meant it. He had never seen anything so completely perfect in its construction. He gently ran a fingertip down the spine. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cas twitch. He did it again, just a little harder. This time she shivered. His grin widened. “Bold move, Angel,” he murmured evilly. “Maybe you shoulda kept that quiet.” His finger was continuously running up and down the feather now, Cas squirming and rustling her wings in enjoyment. Oh, this was going to be awesome.
“Don’t…please don’t make me...ah…plead with you not to abuse this!” She gasped.
“I dunno,” He drawled, leaning his chair back. “Pleading sounds kinda fun.”
“I’m serious!” Her voice was getting breathy. Dean could tell exactly what this was doing to her. Who knew wings were so sensitive?
He leaned back a little further, misjudged it and nearly toppled. He flailed, dropped the feather and instinctively grabbed it. Cas gasped again. He righted his chair. For a split second he thought he’d averted a disaster, then he caught the look on Cas’ face. That last gasp, when he’d caught the feather, that had clearly been pain. In horror, he looked at his hand. The feather was poking out either end of a closed fist.
“Oh shit, Cas, I’m so sorry!” He hurriedly unclenched his fist. She hissed again. “Sorry! I didn’t…” He stopped. “Cas, what just happened?”
Still apparently flexing the pained wing, she grimaced a little.
“That feather was plucked live, so for a short while I’ll still get all the neural signals from it.”
Dean stared at the feather, which looked entirely unmolested. No dents, no bents.
“How long is a short while?” He was learning fast which were the right questions about Angel shit.
“Just a few decades.”
He nodded grimly.
“Cas, you can’t trust me with this.”
“Don’t be an idiot. You had my grace for a week. You can be trusted with a feather.”
He glared and pointed at her, mouth opening and shutting as he geared up for a tirade. Just as soon as the words presented themselves. They did not.
“Don’t be logical and reasonable at me!” He snapped.
She giggled. He tried not to soften in response.
“Dean, be honest. Now you know this will you ever use it to hurt me?” He didn’t speak. They both knew the answer to that. “Or are you going to go back to what you were doing before?”
He looked up at her and she smiled suggestively. Tempting, but…
“We should probably do something about this mess before Bobby gets back and goes all Holy Oil on us.”
She blinked and looked around as though seeing the room for the first time. She waved her hand and the kitchen looked like a show room. Okay, that was a neat goddamn trick. She waved her hand again and all the flour disappeared from her hair and face, her clothes magically becoming a form fitting black dress. Yep. There’s tempting and there’s too good to resist. Grin starting to sharpen again, Dean carefully picked up the feather and blew on it gently.