#suptober2025

[whichstiel]

I recently tried making a miniature book, and liked it so much that I…. 1) made a template to print a 14 page storybook chapter and 2) wrote 3 stories for the first 3 days of Suptober, printed them, and sewed together the chapters. Hardback binding to come maybe tomorrow but!! So! Cute! And smol!

Story under the cut.

PUMPKIN

They say that love consumes you. This feels true during the first blue fire rush.

All I ever heard was that love was impossible, a human thing only created to placate poor ephemeral creatures until their end.

For a while I thought that I understood it as a cruel joke. Love scoops out your heart. Takes your entrails for toys, tosses you aside at a whim.

Love hollows you out.

Empty, it’s easy to fall to the sharp teeth of vermin. To the sick tickle of decay. You can fill up wrong, like a cup tipped in a well.

But we know.

Emptiness is not love.

I think love is the light you place inside another, and yet still allow yourself to hold their own glow within your own hollow core.

I used to be god-sworn and my oath inviolate. 

Now my oath is to us, and to change, and to you.

Small moments. Illuminated.

Ephemeral. Perfect.

[ladylilithprime]

6. Campfire - There'll Be No Sleep In Here Tonight

Pairing: Gen

Word Count: 920

Summary: The smell of burning flesh was in Sam's nose, which did nothing to make the flame-charred lizard his brother was cooking seem any more appetizing.

Tags/Warnings: The Bad Place, Sam Winchester Has Food Issues, Past Trauma, Dean Winchester Is Doing His Best, Dead Lizard: Eat At Your Own Risk

Read On AO3

THE SMELL OF burning flesh was in Sam's nose and it was all he could do to keep his stomach where it belonged rather than forcefully evicting its contents out onto the ground in this strange, literally otherworldly forest. It was a scent that was all too familiar after years… over two decades of being a hunter, from basic salt and burns to disposing of the bodies of monsters once the fighting was done and injuries were hastily patched up enough to last until they reached whatever shitty motel could shelter them behind closed doors and salt lines. He was very used to the smell, but the associations he had with that smell were usually pain, fear, exhaustion, and the distinctly queasy feeling he tried not to let on about having killed something - someone - sentient, always watching dully as the bodies burned in front of him to make sure the fire didn't spread beyond the corpses in the hole.

He could not, for the life of him, understand how Dean was able to sit there on the other side of the fire in the center of their makeshift camp, using one of his knives to carve strips of meat off the weird… lizard… thing, and just eat it. He knew his brother didn't have the same aversion to charred meat, or to large animal meat in general, that Sam had developed after a few too many traumas stacked up, but this… this was a far cry from burgers and bacon.

"No, no, no," he said tightly, hunching in on himself in his jacket as Dean looked up and made to offer him the knife. "Don’t tell me it tastes like chicken."

"No, Sam," Dean huffed around his mouthful, rolling his eyes impatiently. "It’s a lizard. It tastes like a lizard."

The urge to ask his brother how the hell he knew what lizard tasted like to be sure that this thing really did taste like lizard reared its head. Sam throttled the urge sternly, knowing with that little brother intuition that he would not want to hear the answer to that. Instead, he glanced around the trees, unable to shake the instinct that this was not a safe place to be, that they shouldn't be here, should get out of here, find better cover, find a way out….

"You know we really gotta get moving, keep looking for that door," he found himself saying, hoping to forestall another attempt from Dean to make him eat… that.

"Yeah, if there is a door," his brother scoffed, shoving the rest of the strip of meat into his mouth.

"Well last time we opened one, it stayed open," Sam pointed out, trying to sound reasonable instead of desperate. They needed to leave here, and soon, because—

"Yeah, for a few hours," Dean shot back, gesturing around the wooded area with his knife. "We’ve been here for what, two days, in change?"

—because this was pretty much the worst case survival mode scenario for them, trapped in an unfamiliar woods with unknown animals and plants of questionable origins, with no gear and only basic weaponry besides the clothes on their backs. They'd been lucky to find water, though there had been no way to sterilize it and Sam really hoped it was just nerves and some kind of psychosomatic illusion that made him feel like his guts were roiling with whatever strange, multiversal bacteria was contaminating it. Moreover, Sam was out of the granola bars he habitually carried in his jacket and couldn't reliably identify most of the plants out here. He had barely managed to choke down the strange bird thing Dean had caught the night before, the one he had tried to say tasted just like chicken but didn't because it was too stringy and had a sharper, almost fishy taste to the meat that Sam hadn't been able to ignore. Neither of them were exactly unfamiliar with rationing food to avoid starving because they didn't have the money to buy more, but that just meant they were both all too aware of how long they couldn't go without food.

Something of Sam's anxious thoughts must have showed on his face, because Dean grimaced and sighed. "I mean, look, man, I hope you’re right, I really do, but if you’re not and we’re stuck here in this freaking monster land? I mean, nobody back home even knows where to start looking for us."

"So what are you saying?" Sam asked, hoping that somehow his big brother might actually have some kind of plan to get them out of here, even as he knew there was very little chance he had any ideas Sam hadn't already thought of and been forced to dismiss.

Sure enough, the next words out of Dean's mouth as he carved off another piece of lizard meat were, "I’m saying, eat up."

Sam felt his gut roll and clench with distaste and nausea, and made a face. He was about to suggest that maybe he should try foraging again - some of these trees had gouges in the trunks from something sharp like massive claws that showed a decent inner bark that might be edible - when the sound of something growling and stomping in the distance made them both go still.

"That sound closer to you?" Dean murmured, low and tense.

"Yeah," Sam muttered back, eyes straying to the lizard corpse on the fire before skittering away nervously. "What do you think it is?"

"…Let’s not find out."

[ladylilithprime]

Day 2. Picnic - Food For Thought (and Humans)

Pairing: Castiel/Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester & Castiel & Sam Winchester

Word Count: 1573

Summary: Sam and Dean were getting used to the idea of making hunting a backseat priority, which involved buying their own property away from the Men of Letters Bunker and fixing it up with construction and wards to their specifications to be as comfortable for their needs as possible. So it's a bit odd when Castiel specifically invites them both to join him on the roof of the Bunker.

Tags/Warnings: Slice of Life, Canon Divergence, Angelic Bonds, Platonic Relationships, Secondary Romantic Relationship

Read on AO3

WHY ARE WE going up on the roof of the Bunker, again?" Dean asked as he shrugged into his leather jacket while stamping his feet into his boots.

"Because Cas asked us to," Sam answered dryly as he pulled his corduroy jacket on over the blue flannel shirt that he had noticed Castiel liked the most of the various flannel and plaid shirts he and Dean tended to rotate through. This wasn't a date - Castiel had made that very clear when he had specified that he was asking Sam to invite Dean as well - but he still wanted to put in the extra bit of effort when going out somewhere to meet his… his….

Sam's fingers fumbled a little with putting the keys to the farmhouse in his jeans pocket as his thoughts stumbled and stuttered. Was he supposed to call Castiel his boyfriend now? Or partner? Lover? He still wasn't quite sure how to characterize his relationship with the Angel these days. They shared a room and a bathroom on the second floor, shared a bed more nights than not even though Castiel didn't actually need to sleep, sat close within each other's personal space on the couch even when Dean took the armchair and left them plenty of room to spread out, and there had been a handful of kisses to cheeks and two rather daring ones lips to lips… but neither of them had made any move to start the conversation of what exactly they were to each other now.

"Okay, but why the Bunker?" Dean asked, breaking through Sam's. slowly circling thoughts. "Thought you'd already gotten most of the shit Jody sent us sorted and we were clearing out'a there unless it was, y'know, work-related."

Meaning hunting-related, because even with the farmhouse and Dean picking up a regular shift at the local autobody shop and Sam having applied for and gotten a job with the library as conservational archivist and historian, hunting would always be foremost in Dean's mind whenever someone mentioned his job.

"It's also more covered and remote than our house," Sam pointed out as they headed for the field behind the farmhouse that led to the woods on the far side of the property. the fact that the same woods also happened to be right up against the Men of Letters Bunker with just a quarter-mile's walk had not actually been a factor when they had decided to buy the place after it went up for sale, not when it was just a ten mile drive in the Impala on the twisty country roads, but it did mean that they could just walk between home and "work" and avoid drawing unnecessary attention to what was supposed to be a secret Bunker through repeated use of the roads in that area with their oh so distinctive classic car. As an afterthought, he added, "And the wards around the building don't hurt either."

"The wards we put up on the house and around the property during the renovations are better," Dean pointed out with a certain amount of justifiable pride.

It was true. While the Bunker did have very formidable wards against any and all supernatural threats, they were something of a hodgepodged jumble, at least according to Castiel's frank assessment. There were gaps and cracks that a powerful or even just patiently observant and tenacious being could slip through and the exclusion exceptions were a bit too "all or nothing" for comfort. Between the Angel's knowledge and Sam's creative intuition coupled with Dean's more practical consideration, the layered wards on the former Bethswaite farm were smoother, more elegant, and more refined than the Bunker's warding. Or, in Castiel's words, all and more of the function with a much more metaphysical aesthetically pleasing form.

"Tell you what," Sam said as they tromped into the woods along the path that they had yet to actually wear down with foot traffic towards the Bunker. "When we get there, you can ask Cas why he wanted us to come up to the Bunker's roof specifically."

"Don't think I won't!"

Barely five minutes later and they were emerging from the woods behind the Bunker where the notional road curved down and around to the Bunker's garage where they usually parked the Impala. There was a set of concrete steps up to the "roof" - more of an overgrown grassy knoll than a traditional roof - and Sam could just barely see the metal pole that acted as a signal relay for the ancient technomancy-incorporated computer system inside. As they walked up the steps, being careful not to touch the metal handrail beside them, the surface gradually came into view and, with it, the sight of Castiel sitting and waiting for them.

And the Angel was definitely waiting for them with intent. Sam found himself beginning to smile as he took in the sight of the red and white checkered blanket that had probably been someone's tablecloth before it ended up in whatever thrift store where Castiel had found it, along with the large wicker basket sitting open in the middle of it. Sam could just see the neck of a bottle of whiskey rising up from the interior of the basket above the edge, which would probably explain why the basket was being left open before they had even arrived.

"What's all this, then?" Dean asked, rather predictably leading with the most pressing puzzle of the moment rather than what he actually wanted to ask.

True to form, Castiel leveled a dry look at him and said, "A picnic, Dean. I realize your childhood did not afford you much opportunity to partake in such things, but I was under the impression you would at least recognize the set up from depictions in media."

"I know what a picnic is!" Dean spluttered as Sam valiantly pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. "I mean, what's with dragging us all the way out here for one when we've got a perfectly good field on our own property?"

"The most picturesque places to set up a picnic around the farmhouse are outside the boundaries of our wards," Castiel explained as he beckoned them over to join him and began unpacking the rest of the basket. "additionally, the open field does not afford the same level of visual privacy from passersby as the trees which are screening this location from view of the road, and I would prefer not to invite gawkers."

"Thought you said this wasn't a date," came the next predictable statement from Dean as he turned suspicious eyes on Sam, who rolled his own at Dean before pushing past him to take a seat on the blanket diagonal to Cas.

"It is not a romantic date," Castiel confirmed, shooting a quick smile at Sam and passing him a red and white checkered napkin from the basket. "It is, however, an event of great emotional significance to me, hence my provisions of both privacy for us and alcohol for you. And I brought pie."

"Bringing out the metaphorical big guns, huh?" Sam hummed, shooting Dean a look which his brother reluctantly acquiesced to and took a seat of his own. "What's up, then?"

"The opposite of down," Castiel deadpanned, smiling again when Sam snickered and Dean rolled his eyes. "More pertinently, I have requested you both join me here so that I may invite the both of you to bond with me."

"Come again?" Sam asked as Dean gaped at the Angel, mouth opening and closing like a particularly distressed fish. Castiel probably didn't mean it the way Sam's mind was frantically jabbering at him to interpret it, but he didn't want to just assume anything.

"At this point, it is more a formality than anything else," Castiel admitted, his expression going briefly sheepish before shifting to aggrieved. "The bonds are already there between us from repeated contact between my Grace and your souls, and have been duly misinterpreted by my various siblings at any given opportunity. Rest assured, Dean, I simply intend to formally claim the both of you as family equal in my eyes to any Angel."

"Okay," Dean said slowly, drawing out the second syllable uncertainly. "Wouldn't this have been easier to do back at the house?"

"The house is full of breakable glass and vulnerable electronics, which I would prefer not to shatter unnecessarily when I must speak the invocation in my true voice," Castiel answered, spreading his hands. "As well, a part of the bonding involves revealing my wings, which is why privacy is such a necessity as well as space. They are rather large, even as damaged as they have become over the last few years."

"And you're very sure this isn't a romantic thing?" Dean pressed, shooting a slightly panicky look at Sam. "'Cause I remember hearing something 'bout Angelic bonds and wing displays--"

"Very sure," Castiel broke in to assure him. "I will not be inviting you to touch my wings, just accept a feather from them, and you will not be the one I rest beside tonight. Sam and I can engage in that form of bonding at our leisure."

"Sounds like a plan, then," Sam said as steadily as he could, trying not to think too loudly or interestedly about "that form of bonding" in front of his brother. There would be time to discuss and (hopefully) explore that later. "Where do we begin?"

[ladylilithprime]

3. Garden - To Find Out Which One Grows

Pairing: Gen

Word Count: 1326

Summary: Sam Wesson needs to have a garden for school, and to put down roots for his spiritual health. Of course, property is expensive in California, too expensive for poor students scraping by on scholarship money even with a meagre allowance from the estate of his late "grandmother"... unless it was potentially haunted.

Tags/Warnings: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Sam Winchester Is Called Sam Wesson, Stanford Era, Witch Sam Winchester, Post-Thanksgiving, Tyson Brady Has PTSD, Post-Demonic Possession, Jessica Moore Is A Good Friend, Real Tyson Brady Is A Good Friend, Sam Wesson Is A Good Friend

Read on AO3

I'M GOING TO need to plant my own garden at this rate!"

"Famous last words, dude," was the joking response he got from Luis Rodriguez, but Sam Wesson (formerly Winchester) had never been more serious about anything that wasn't his coursework for Stanford— although considering what Sam was studying, a garden wasn't exactly unrelated to his schooling, even if the reasons for wanting one had very little to do with his degree and much more to do with what he planned to do with that degree later.

"Where would you even put a garden?" Becky Warren asked next, skeptical and concerned. "Unless you're planning to move back to Minnesota after college…"

"Not a whole lot left for me back there except memories," Sam answered with a grimace, earning a sympathetic wince and a hand on his shoulder from Jessica Moore. His friends all knew about his "grandmother" and her death midway through his sophomore year, even though none of them knew that he hadn't even known the woman until Pastor Jim had called her up asking for a favor and she had taken him in as her grandson and his guardian while he finished high school and started applying to colleges. Her house had been sold and the furniture put into storage for him to ship out to wherever he eventually found to put down roots, and he still hadn't figured out where those roots were going to be planted.

He did need to plant them, though, much the way he needed to plant a garden and for very similar reasons. His patrons, the gods that had reached out to him when he had done the questing ritual one of the few natural witches in the Stanford Metaphysical Society had slipped to him after a meeting, were Hades and Persephone. A god whose domain was below the surface of the Earth, and a goddess whose purview was growing plants and the shifting seasons. Sam's lack of roots had always bothered him to some degree, certainly more than it ever had bothered his brother, but now that lack was starting to seriously affect his magical health.

But that wasn't something he could just say in front of Luis and Becky. They were great friends and had been very cool about the whole "neo-pagan" thing, even if Luis had made a joke about not telling his Catholic family, but Sam's powers and rituals and relationship with his gods was private for more than just not talking about the truth of the supernatural.. Of his friends at the table, only Jess knew anything about it and that was mostly because he'd needed her help covering an incident just after they all got back from Thanksgiving break last year. Fortunately, he had a decoy reason that was just as important.

"Buying the herbs in the cuts, preparations, and quantities I need to actually make these tinctures and tonics like I'm learning in class is almost as expensive as textbooks," he told them, getting a trio of understanding winces that turned into outright cringing as he added, "And the scholarship I'm here on doesn't cover 'incidentals' even if they're for class. Planting, growing, harvesting, and preparing the herbs is a different class that I should have already taken but they were full this whole year so I have to wait for Spring quarter to sign up, and then there's gonna be the expense of renting space in the greenhouse since I'm still living in the dorms."

"Sounds more like you need a house than just a garden," Becky pointed out, stealing a chip from Zach's bag. "Like, a garden could be put into the yard of wherever you live, but you'd need a house to have a yard."

"And California real estate ain't cheap," Luis put in with a grimace just as Becky's brother Zach came up to the table with Sam's other best friend, Tyson Brady. Sam and Jess wordlessly parted to let Brady pull up a chair in between them as Zach sat down next to his sister.

"What're we talking about?" Zach asked as he began unpacking his laptop.

"California real estate prices and Sam's growing need for a garden to cut costs on uncovered classroom equipment," Jess summarized, ducking when Luis threw a wadded up paper ball at her for the pun. The move brought her right up into Brady's personal space and she gently knocked shoulders with him, earning a tight, weak smile back.

Not so great a day, then. The incident had been rough on all three of them in different ways, but Brady had suffered the brunt of it and even a year and a half and a couple of tattoos later he still had days where the scent of sulfur was in his nose and the scars on his stomach pulled and he couldn't really handle touch from anyone but Jess or Sam because they knew why he was having a bad day and they were safe.

"Ouch, good luck, man," Zach said, either oblivious to the byplay or pretending to be for Brady's sake. "Only way to get a place around here that's within a students' budget is if it's the size of a shoebox. Or cursed."

"What, like haunted?" Jess asked, carefully not looking in Sam and Brady's direction as she asked.

"I guess?" Zach shrugged. "I overheard a couple of my CompSci classmates talking about this house listing up in the mountains just north of here that's super cheap, but it's been on the market for years because of several weird deaths that've happened on the property. Cursed, haunted, just really shitty luck… I just know what I overheard Cecily telling Marisol when she advised leaving the place alone."

"What's the address?" Sam found himself asking, getting a surprised look from Zach and Luis and a slightly more wary one from Jess and Becky. Brady didn't look up, but he was tense in his seat next to Sam.

"Uh, something something Pineview Terrace?" Zach said after a moment. "I wasn't exactly paying attention, sorry. It's listed on Realtor-dot-com if you wanna look. Only place listed that's less than three hundred grand."

"Are we really going to spend the weekend touring a cursed house?" Jess asked Sam as she walked back tohis and Brady's dorm after they left the others.

"You don't have to come with me," Sam offered, raising his hands in surrender when both his friends just gave him a look. "It's a house within the budget of my inheritance from Nana that would give me roots and plantable garden space here in Palo Alto. Even without that… the mention of mysterious deaths and curses doesn't sit right with me. I'd wanna at least check it out for that alone, see if there's anything I could do…."

"Which is also why we're coming with you," Brady piped up with an almost invisible shudder before he set his jaw. "Someone's gotta guard your back while you do your thing."

"And someone else needs to be free to drag you out and patch you up if things go pear-shaped," Jess chimed in. "So. You're the expert here… what're we gonna need to have or do first?"

"Research," Sam admitted with a grimace. "Look up the address and the history of the property, blueprints of the building or buildings on it, and any obituaries tied even remotely to it along with the cemeteries where the people who died there are buried. After that…. Well, it'll depend on what all we find, but at the very least we're gonna need a lot of salt…."

He just hoped it would be something he could take care of himself without having to call Dean. His brother would come if he did, no questions asked, but the more contact they had the more they risked their Dad finding out Sam was still alive.

"Welp," Brady said with a sigh. "Guess we've got work to do."

[ladylilithprime]

Day 1. Pumpkin - They're Big On Vine

Pairing: Sastiel (Sam Winchester/Castiel)

Word Count: 1032

Summary: The season is turning, and there's a particular Autumn tradition that Sam never got to participate in but now gets to introduce to his son and spouse.

Tags/Warnings: Implied/Referenced Past Trauma, Castiel Is The Blurry Wife, Parental Sastiel, Curtain Fic

Read On AO3

THE CRUNCH OF fallen Autumn leaves beneath booted feet felt loud in the stillness of the woods as they tromped between the trees, following a trail that was little more than a deer track. Sam's heavy footfalls thumped and crunched beneath him in a steady march, well familiar with such treks from years past. Just out of time with his steps but no less rhythmically even, Castiel's boots came down more softly beneath their lighter weight and slighter frame. Over the top of both ran the playfully light crunch-swish-crackle of tiny booted feet tripping and skipping and scampering around, racing ahead only to dart off to either side as something caught the attention of the seven-year-old that was so eager to explore under the watchful eyes of his parents.

It was a peaceful sort of cacophony, and Sam let his eyes slip closed to breathe in this crisp Autumn air and the scents of wood, old leaves, and petrichor as he tried to keep himself fully in this moment. The memories of another time and place (a whole world away, no, don't think about it) threatened at the edges of his mind like so many other dark memories of the past, and he opened his eyes again, curling the fingers of his left hand into his palm. Press… His nails bit into his palm at the edge of the scar that was a good deal more faded now than it had been once upon a time. Faded, but not gone, lessened by the simple passage of time to heal rather than through any supernatural means.

A cool hand slipped into the cradle of his right hand, and he curled his fingers around it automatically before glancing over at the being by his side. Castiel was looking up at him, blue eyes full of gentle concern but without any question in them. Seeing that they had his attention, they smiled up at him softly and squeezed his hand. I'm here with you, the smile seemed to say wordlessly. This is real. I love you.

Sam squeezed their hand back, thumb brushing over the back of Castiel's hand as he returned the smile. I love you, too. Thank you.

A shout of excitement drew both their attention forward again. DJ had run ahead to where the deer track had opened up onto a small clearing and was now staring in awe at the clusters of pumpkins of varying shapes and sizes that waited in the middle of the cleared space. Sam had found the clearing and its secret pumpkin patch last Autumn and consulted with Castiel on the safety of the patch from anything magically nefarious before he had carefully asked around. The land the pumpkins grew on technically belonged to the McCalip family, but they apparently didn't mind having people from the community walking through their woods so long as everyone stayed respectful of everyone and everything else. The pumpkin patch had started as an experiment, or series of experiments, that Mrs McCalip had done with her kids starting with the seeds harvested from the guts of a Halloween jack-o-lantern and planted in paper cups of dirt at different times of the year with different care to see how they grew and had been replanted in the clearing when the survivors got too big for the cups.

And now it was a community pumpkin patch, free for anyone who walked out that way and could ccarry their choice of pumpkin away in their arms. The McCalips only asked that nobody resell the pumpkins, and that whatever bits of pumpkin didn't get eaten eventually be brought back to either plant the seeds or just be added to the compost pile. Sam could, in fact, see the compost pile already forming with pumpkin refuse and even some eggshells and coffee grounds that someone had brought to add to the mix. The likely "culprot" stood not far from the pumpkin patch sipping at a hot drink from a thermal cup while she watched a five year old little girl debating seriously with her older sibling about which pumpkins they should take back to be this year's jack-o-lanterns. Mrs McCalip caught sight of DJ, then Sam and Castiel, and smiled, saluting them with her travel mug.

"Five more minutes and then you two need to make a decision,"" she told the kids, who broke off their discussion to give their mother verbal acknowledgement before going right back to it.

"What makes one pumpkin better than another for carving?" Castiel asked, puzzled. Sam shrugged, just as nonplussed - it wasn't a tradition he'd ever participated in, and a certain demon from a decade ago had made it difficult to consider trying until DJ had begged - but Mrs McCalip heard the question and apparently had an asnwer.

"It depends on what your artistic vision is for your carving," she said with a wry smile. "If you want to just use the pumpkin as a canvas for wood carving techniques, a flat surface on one side is good, but if you want a more traditional jack-o-lantern then rounded or even funky shapes for a more dynamic pumpkin character. Really, whichever one speaks to you the loudest is usually the best."

"The pumpkins talk?!" DJ asked in astonishment. Sam pressed his lips together to keep from laughing, because that was a very Castiel sort of question, and indeed his spouse looked very interested in the answer.

"Wanna come listen?" the elder of the McCalip siblings invited with a grin that Sam suspected meant mischief. Mrs McCalip didn't look worried, so he hoped it was just playful mischief and nodded when DJ looked back to him for permission.

"You wanna join them, Cas?" he asked, glancing down at his spouse as their son trotted over to join the discussion about pumpkins and what to "listen" for when picking the best one. "I'll be okay here."

So long as I can still see and feel you, he thought, but didn't say. From the way Castiel squeezed his hand before letting go to join their son and the McCalip siblings among the pumpkins, he had a feeling the Earth-bound Angel had heard it anyway.

[ladylilithprime]

4. Orchard - Fruits Of Our Labor

Pairing: background Jamstiel (Jimmy Novak/Sam Winchester/Castiel)

Word Count: 906

Summary: When the Novak brothers get called in to help out a fellow hunter with a multi-ghost problem in an apple orchard, they were expecting to encounter some potential resistance to their methods. They got less than they expected, and for a surprising reason.

Tags/Warnings: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hunter Jimmy Novak, Human Castiel, Hunter Castiel, Castiel and Jimmy Novak are Twins, Retired Hunter Dean Winchester, Witch Sam Winchester, Mentions of Dead Bodies

Read On AO3

WHY ARE WE picking apples from a previously haunted orchard?" the hunter, some guy called Pete, asked furtively as he glanced over his shoulder from where he was standing and nominally keeping watch. In the tree a few feet away, John Castiel Novak scoffed quietly under his breath but declined to answer, no doubt too preoccupied with the aforementioned task of apple picking.

"We aren't picking apples," his brother, James Constantine Novak, said with as much patience as he could muster after nearly a week dealing with the guy. "Cas is picking apples for us to take back to our contact who can lay down some remote protections and grounds cleansing to ensure nothing nasty crops up further down the line. I am spotting him to make sure he doesn't fall out of each tree he climbs up to get the apples and keeping an eye out for anyone who might come looking to see what we're doing out here on private property in the middle of the night."

And I have no idea what you're doing here except potentially distracting me from hearing someone coming or catching my brother if he falls, he carefully didn't add out loud. The hunt was essentially over and Pete claimed he wasn't a greenhorn, which Jimmy was inclined to believe since he'd had the sense to call in back-up on this case to begin with when he'd realized there was more than one ghost and more than one body buried under the apple trees. He had even been willing to listen and accept a suggestion for taking care of the ghosts that didn't involve burning down part of the orchard, though he had made a disparaging remark about the carefully placed rune stone "net" being "too close to witchcraft for comfort" which was why Jimmy was being circumspect about collecting the apples for Sam to work his sympathetic resonance magic on. Granted, Sam had told the twins that he could do the spell just as well with a leaf from each of the afflicted trees, but Cas had seen an opportunity to get three metaphorical birds with one bunch of apples and Jimmy hadn't been able to think of a good reason to say no.

Besides the whole stealing apples from a private orchard in the middle of the night thing, anyway.

"Your contact the same person who gave you that, uh, rune stone trick for ghost-catching?" Pete asked carefully.

His tone was odd, softer than it had been when he'd first derided the rune stones, and Jimmy risked taking his eyes off Cas to get a look at the other hunter's face. "Why d'you ask?"

"'Cause it worked," Pete answered promptly, surprising Jimmy. "Moreover, it looked like it was more gentle on the ghosts than the usual salt'n'burn tends to be, even though they're dead and all. If it ain't witchcraft--"

"It is," Cas said shortly, dropping down from the tree to stand just in front of Jimmy, one hand casually holding one of his throwing knives at the ready. Just in case, Jimmy knew, and hoped it wouldn't be necessary. "It's not demon-dealing witchcraft - our contact is actually more anti-demon than some hunters we've come across a time or twelve - but he is a witch."

"That gonna be a problem for you?" Jimmy asked, not making a move to step up around Cas - he knew why his brother was putting himself between Jimmy and the potential threat of a hunter with an itchy trigger finger even if he hated it - but pulling Pete's attention to him would give Cas a better chance at getting him with his knife if that gun Pete was holding moved in their direction--

"Guess that depends on whether or not your contact might know a jackass ex-hunter with a pie addiction who owes me twenty bucks," came the steady answer as the corner of Pete's mouth twitched up. "And who I owe my skin to a couple times over from way back. Heard rumors about Dean Winchester faking his death to get out of the life after his paranoid old man finally bit it and settling down somewhere to shack up with a natural witch..."

"You have no idea how much I wanna see his face when he hears that," Jimmy said after a moment. "Both of them. For the record, he just lives next door to our contact, since the witch in question--"

"--Is our husband," Cas broke in smoothly, lifting his left hand a bit higher and wiggling the ring finger where the pure silver engraved wedding ring rested on his finger, a perfect match to the ones worn by Sam and Jimmy.

Pete whistled. "Wow. Can't fault you for being protective and suspicious, I guess. How many more apples you reckon you need?"

"Just a couple from that last tree near the gate," Cas said after a moment to count the ones he had in the bag already.

"Then if you two don't mind telling Dean to unbury my number and give me a call sometime, I'll take my leave," Pete said, tipping an invisible hat in their direction. "Love to hear what he ends up thinking of ghost apple pie...."

"So. Detour through Sioux Falls to see Jody?" Jimmy murmured to Cas as they watched Pete leave.

"Eeyup."

After all, there was no such thing as "too careful" to a hunter with a witch for a husband.