Chapter Text
Mary got fourteen congratulatory calls and three unexpected just-popping-in-to-say visitors before her son came home from work. He was early, and he wasn’t alone, and she’d never been more grateful to have the day off, so that she could see everything unfold in real time instead of hearing about it all later on.
Castiel Novak-Shurley was quite a bit larger than he’d been the last time he sat at her kitchen table, but his hunched shoulders and contrite look—as if he was ready to apologize for something before even he stepped foot into her house—were the same. This time, however, she suspected that he might have done something to warrant it. The apology, that was, not the contrition, or the hunted way he looked at her in quick, nervous glances.
She’d never forgiven herself for not calling child protective services on her old neighbors years ago, before they moved to the outskirts of town and the Novak-Shurley children became even more isolated and afraid. They reminded her too much of her sons, back before she’d gotten her house in order, but she’d wavered too long on whether it was her place, and they’d all left. All except one.
Now, Castiel—Cas, as her son once called him, with all the sweet affection of a childhood crush—was at her kitchen table again, and this time, she intended to do something.
First, however, he needed to look a little less like he have a heart attack, and her son needed to stop looking at her so beseechingly over the top of Cas’s head where he’d deposited him ever so gently into a kitchen chair. His hands were still on Cas’s shoulders, moving in soothing circles that she was sure he hadn’t noticed yet.
“Welcome home, Dean, Cas, would you like some pie?” She smiled at Cas in particular, hoping he’d catch the invitation, and then turned around to the fridge before either of them could give her an answer. For the conversation she could sense they were about to have, they all would need something sweet to eat.
“Dean brought me this raspberry pie last week,” she said over her shoulder as she cut three generous slices, “so you’re in luck, because my son is the best baker this side of the county.”
She let Dean’s modest protests carry her through plating and sitting down, and then she looked them both in the eyes and said, with the practiced innocence of someone who raised two Winchester boys and divorced a third, “Besides, I hear congratulations are in order.”
Dean dropped his head to the table with an audible thunk, and cried, “Mom!” while Cas turned a fascinating shade of red and began to splutter apologies.
She laughed them all aside, waving her fork in their direction mock-threateningly. Dean, sitting as close to Cas as their sturdy kitchen chairs would allow, turned his head to the side and murmured reassurances, which did far more to calm Cas than her laughter had done. Cas subsided, red-faced but quiet, and Dean frowned at her.
“I told him you would be nice about it. Be nice,” he instructed, pointing a loaded fork in her direction.
“Alright, alright, I’ve had my fun,” she said. “Let’s hear it, then. I’m sure whatever mess you two have gotten yourselves into will go excellently with the pie.”
As Cas carefully explained his dilemma, she fought to keep a straight face. First, because it was so like Mrs. Mary-Ann Mays to have caused such a thing in the first place that she wanted to laugh about it all over again. Second, because she knew, she knew that that family had done damage to their kids. Such unnervingly well-behaved children, and all of them running for the furthest corners of the country the minute they got the chance. One of them disappeared off the face of the earth entirely, and the poor youngest child ended up trapped and fading away underneath their iron fist every time she saw him. She remembered the vibrant, mischievous little boy who had made her son so happy during the early years of their time in Lawrence, and her heart ached for the quiet, drawn young man she saw now.
“Well, if you need a spare last name, we’ve got plenty lying around here,” she said decisively, the moment he was finished. “I’m a Campbell, if you’d prefer, or if you’d like to be a Singer or a Harvell, Jo certainly wouldn’t mind a new brother.”
“If Cas really wants a new last name he can keep Winchester,” Dean said immediately, almost defiantly, she was amused to hear. “It suits him.”
“It does?” Cas asked, adorably breathless, staring at Dean.
“Well, yeah,” Dean said, rubbing the back of his head. “Castiel Campbell is too many Cs, Castiel Singer sounds like a stage name, and Castiel Harvell rhymes too much. So.”
“So, Castiel Winchester?”
“Yes,” Dean said immediately.
They were staring at each other again. It had happened more times than she could count when they were younger. As adults, when they went to parties or meetings, even though they never spoke, as far as she could tell, they’d lock eyes and she could see the rest of the room fading away. She wondered, often, whether they were actually communicating, if there really was some kind of telepathic body-language conversation happening, born from sharing so much of their early development, or if they were just… looking, watching, taking comfort in each other. She wasn’t sure which one she hoped for. Both seemed very promising.
“I think,” she cut in gently, when it became clear that neither one of them were planning on looking away any time soon, “that changing your name might be a bit premature.”
Their attention snapped over to her with a beautifully synchronized head turn and tilt, and she resisted the urge to coo. “Perhaps take a little time to hold your new name in your head, before you decide. Think about it as your own, and don’t rush into the decision. Take it on a few dates. Wine and dine it.”
Dean made a noise in the back of his throat, but didn’t call her on her unsubtle hints, and she took that to mean she could continue.
“In the meantime, you can stay here.”
This did get a vocal reaction, immediately, as Cas protested that he couldn’t possibly, and Dean talked over him to gratefully accept the invitation on his behalf.
“You can have Sam’s old room,” she said blithely, ignoring the overlapping arguments with the practice of a mother. “I’ve missed having people in the house, it gets lonely when there’s just little old me rattling around in here.” Dean looked guilty, again, and she made a mental note to reassure him that she understood why he wanted to move out, and that she supported him fully in that choice. Dean needed independence. Cas needed the sort of loving support that he should have gotten throughout his childhood, and luckily, she knew herself to be a very good mother. As proof, she laid out her final card for both of the boys. “I’ll go talk to Naomi and Chuck myself, and pick up your things.”
Cas immediately went deathly white, and didn’t appear to be able to make a sound. Dean reached over to pull him even closer into a sideways hug, tucking Cas's head under his chin and nodding firmly in her direction. “I think that’s a great idea,” he said, and Cas made a little gasping noise.
“It can’t be that easy,” he said, and then he choked over his own words.
The tears in his eyes were now making their slow progress down his cheeks. She picked up the tissues on the counter to bring with her as she made her way over to crouch down beside his chair. She patted his cheeks with a tissue, and gave him another to hold, which he clutched to his chest as he stared at her. He looked bewildered and frightened and so painfully young that she couldn’t help herself, and gathered him up into a hug.
She pulled Dean over with them, so that she could get part of her arms around her very first baby as well, to reassure him as she reassured his friend, and all three of them ended up on the kitchen floor in an awkward, but very loving pile. Cas was in the middle, shaking like a leaf, and both she and Dean murmured kind, soft things into his hair. Her son had learned well, she thought distantly, and she patted his arm where she could reach it.
After Cas had cried himself out, Dean and Mary pulled themselves up so that they were at least mostly upright and leaning back against the kitchen cabinets, with Cas cradled firmly between them. She took a deep breath to steady herself, and make sure that she wasn’t about to spin off into a sympathetic cry, and then she said, quiet but with steely determination, “I really will do it. Give me a list, or I’ll go through and use my judgment, but you deserve to have your own life, and you should not have to go back into that house to get it. You have earned so much more than that, sweetheart.”
“I can’t ask you—” he tried, voice hoarse, but Dean interrupted him.
“You’re not asking, we’re offering,” he said, and then, with a hesitant glance at her, added, “If you don’t want to stay here, you can stay with me,” and then he went fire-engine red, as if he’d just remembered that he lived in a studio apartment, and had therefore just essentially propositioned his childhood best friend in front of his own mother. “I mean, I could take the floor, or the couch, or—” and he trailed off, looking down at Cas’s tear stained face, his puffy red eyes making the blue stand out so much more strongly. “Or we could share the bed, I suppose,” he said, and then cleared his throat and looked back up at her, “You are my fiancé, after all,” with the sort of bluster that she might have bought if he hadn’t looked so entranced that she was fairly positive the only thing keeping his hands off of Cas’s face to provide more concrete assurance was her very own presence.
She decided to be merciful, and heaved herself up, clinging to the countertop and letting the force of her movement sway Cas more thoroughly into Dean’s lap. “I’ll go check to see when my next day off is, and make up the bed in Sam’s room,” she announced, heading out of the kitchen, “You two, make that list.”
She resolutely did not look back, but as she turned the corner, she caught a glimpse of what was definitely yet another staring contest.
Ah, well, she thought to herself, they have time, now, to figure it out. This was clearly a case of small town gossip being a self-fulfilling prophecy.
After all, Castiel Winchester did have an excellent ring to it.