#jupernatural week
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Jupernatural Week Day 3: Sustenance (Food, Warmth, Understanding)
@jupernaturalweek
Miriam Campbell is an awful cook. Always has been.
When she marries, she decides to learn. She becomes the all-american housewife that her mother and cousins used to make fun of at Shabbos dinner. She cooks pot roasts and casseroles, bakes chocolate chip cookies.
When her son is born, she still can't figure out a decent apple pie to save her own ass. So when she buys one from the store, and it quickly becomes his favourite, she decides not to learn. Let the grocery store deal with the difference between beans and specialty pie weights.
Mary Winchester dies. She bleeds. She burns. It is slow. It is agonizing. It is in her mind, her own damn fault.
More than three decades later, she is awake. She feels the air on her face, it's cold and she's only in her nightgown.
Dean Winchester, her son who is not her son (her son is four, this is a different creature entirely) can cook. She watches him in the bunker kitchen, he makes casseroles and pot roasts, but also noodle kugel and brisket. Makes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (always jelly, never jam) for Castiel.
He feeds his family. Makes them whole. Dean gives the people who love him a sign that he loves them too.
When he finally works up the courage to present his new apple pie recipe at family dinner, he grins with that silly little smile, just a dash too devil-may-care, it keeps people from taking him too seriously.
The family seems to have accepted her among them, her sons that are not her sons, Dean's angel (partner??), their child too, with his sweet smile and pretty eyes.
Miriam Campbell takes a bite of her son's pie, and the lump in her throat finally starts to dissolve.
#jupernatural#jupernatural week#mary winchester#supernatural#spn#spn ficlet#dean winchester#sam winchester#castiel#jack kline#destiel
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@jupernaturalweek day 1: life
love | death | rites of passage
dean pats the bed, and sammy clambers up like a squirrel. there's a new book on dean's lap - well, probl'y not a new book, 'cause new things belong in stores and not with their bags in the 'pala - but it's one he hasn't seen 'fore, and if there's one thing sammy loves, it's stories.
dad never reads to him, not anymore, not since sammy found the book with the yellow-eyed creature and lotsa fire. dean don't read to him anymore, not 'cause he don't like to, but 'cause dean don't talk so good. he holds the pages open and sometimes talks with his hands, showing the shapes of words in the air, when sammy can't sound out the letters in his head.
the book on dean's lap has a soft, deep blue cover, and its title is stamped on in faded silver letters. they don't look like any letters sammy has ever seen 'fore, and he's excited to know what story dean is gonna share with him today. sammy frowns as dean opens the book, 'cause the cover is facing the wrong way, and he don't wanna know the end before he knows the start.
the inside of the book has a page with a buncha boxes on it, and there's a letter in each box. dean points to the page with one hand and talks with the other - he makes a sorta fist, then holds his fingers up like he's counting to four, and then shapes them almost like a circle.
"a, b, c?" sammy asks.
dean nods, and shows 'a' again while pointing to the box closest to the cover. the letter is sorta like an x, with one big sideways line and two smaller sideways lines, but they don't match like x does.
"this a?"
dean's talking hand goes wobbly; not a thumb-up 'yes,' but also not a thumb-down 'no.' it's not x, 'cause dean showed him already twice that it's a, but sammy's still confused. dad was the one who showed sammy the a, b, c on papers, and dean was the one who showed him in the air, but now dean's trying to say there's more?
"aleph," dean whispers.
sammy tries his best to repeat it back, 'cause dean only talks with his mouth when he's saying something 'portant. "a'eph."
he must have done a real good job, 'cause dean smiles at him, and dean almost never smiles, not even when the dog on tv does something silly.
dean shows sammy 'b,' wobbles his hand, and points to the letter next to aleph. "bet."
this one's easier for sammy to say. he still don't understand why there's more letters, but his big brother is talking with him, so he decides it don't really matter why.
the next letter is trickier, 'cause dean don't do c. he skips all the way to making his hand point into g 'fore doing his wobbly hand and saying, "gimmel."
"g'il," sammy tries. it's not a big word, but it's got two sounds. sammy can read lotsa sounds, but talking them is harder. dean still smiles at him, making sammy feel special and safe and loved, and making all the worries go 'way.
dean only shows 'd' and a wobbly hand 'fore going to the letter after it and showing 'h.' that's not right, 'cause dean's the most 'portant thing in sammy's life, more than peanut butter sammiches and stories and the binky he keeps hidden in his pocket, so sammy has gotta learn his new letter.
sammy looks up from the book, but dean shakes his head 'fore he can ask why his letter's missing. dean points back to aleph, and tells sammy with his hands that watermelon is w, but aleph is avate'ach. sammy nods, but he don't try saying it back; dean worked real hard to say it, and they both know sammy's not gonna be able to say it.
dean shows that bet is like b, and bayit is house. sammy knows uncle bobby and uncle rufus have a house, but him and dean and dad have motels. he can say bayit, though, so he does, and he don't know why but that word makes him sad. then dean shows him g and gimmel and ice cream, and tells sammy that gimmel is for glidah.
"glidah," sammy repeats.
dean closes the book and stands up, making sammy's tummy goes all flip-floppy. he said it right, didn't he? why is dean leaving?
dean holds out one hand, and points to the freezer with the other. sammy looks back and forth from his brother to the freezer, not sure what to believe. sammy takes dean's hand and follows him to the kitchen, 'cause he is kinda hungry and dean probl'y don't have ice cream but he's still gonna give him food. dean always gives sammy food, even when he don't listen and makes messes.
sammy holds on to dean's hand as he drags a chair toward the freezer, and he lets go so dean can climb up. he pushes dad's bottles to the side and pulls out a small plastic bag, and this can't be real, can it?
dean sets the bag on the counter and pulls the chair back to its spot. he points for sammy to sit down, so he does, and watches with wide eyes as dean opens the bag. he takes out a container of ice cream with an envelope on top of it, tied together with a big green ribbon.
sammy stares at dean, 'cause he likes ice cream, he does, but it's a special treat. why's he getting a treat? dean's hands move, showing sammy 'open', and he carefully unwraps the bow as dean gets spoons from the cup next to the sink. the envelope has a card in it, and the card is green, 'cause dean knows green is sammy's favorite color, and it says HAPY BIRTDAY SAMMY in big, happy letters.
"birthday?" sammy asks. he don't remember ever having a birthday 'fore. dean had a birthday, earlier, and dad got him some crayons so he could color on the newspapers after dad reads them.
dean holds up his thumb, then his pointer finger, and then his middle finger. three. dean is telling sammy that he's three now, so maybe that's why he's getting ice cream and new letters today.
"three," sammy says in an awed voice. "wow."
dean smiles as he gives sammy a spoon. "yom huledet sameach," he whispers.
sammy don't know those words, but dean said them to him and dean's happy, so sammy's also happy. he's got treats and his brother and he's having a very, very happy birthday, so he makes sure to show dean 'thank you' and 'i love you' before opening the glidah and taking a big bite.
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Jupernatural Week Day 4: Home (Reconnection, Ancestry, L'dor V'dor)
@jupernaturalweek
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Day 1 of Jupernatural Week - Life
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Fools Rush In
Chapter 1
chap 1/2, 5.9k words, rated T
Supernatural fic, Cas POV, TFW 2.0, Jupernatural, Yiddish folklore, the Wise Men of Chelm, about canon levels of Destiel
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Summary: Castiel accidentally drops several hundred foolish souls in an 18th century Polish town. He regrets it for a long time, until he doesn't.
An unusually introspective Chelm tale featuring storytime with the Winchesters, the Law of Buttered Toast, tortured heavenly geometry metaphors, and a found family comprised entirely of schlemiels.
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Notes: so this one isn't actually finished, but i wanted to get something posted for @jupernaturalweek! today is day 8: free space, but this behemoth could fit for several of the previous prompts (day 2: community | interfaith, day 4: home | reconnection, and day 6: judaica | stories)
the rest of this is entirely outlined and i'm hoping to have it finished by hanukkah, at which point i will cross-post to ao3. in the meantime, enjoy the wip and ask to tag if you'd like a notif when it's done!
Disclaimer: Sam and Dean are about as Jewish as I am in this—that is to say, they have one Jewish parent (Mary), they didn’t have their b’nei mitzvah, they don’t keep kosher or Shabbos, they celebrate some holidays and know some Yiddish and some children’s stories. If anything, they are even less connected with their heritage than I am, since I at least grew up with my dad and all the deeply Jewish philosophy he imparted on me. Dean has what he learned in four years, and Sam even less. If I messed something up, it’s not like the Winchesters would know any better than I do. That being said, I am open to corrections in the comment section for my own edification/enrichment. Or just let me know your favorite Chelm tale!
Content warnings: Naomi’s memory wiping.
---
"Khelem iz, vi ir veyst, a shtot und got iz, vi ir veyst, a foter.
Chelm is, as you know, a town, and G-d is, as you know, a father."
-Itzik Manger, "Ballad of Chelm," Lamtern in vint (1933)
---
The orders came down from on high several centuries before the end of days.
"Ishim, Mirabel, and Uriel will take the wise souls. Spread them far and wide. Castiel, Balthazar, and Benjamin will take the fools and place but one for each town."
"Is this not a task for a lesser rank of angel?" asked Castiel. "A cherub perhaps?" The distribution of souls seemed more the purview of Heaven's matchmakers than its warriors.
"It is not for us to question the will of Heaven," rebuked Anna, blinking harshly with her innumerable insectoid eyes. "Once the end times are upon us every soul must be in its proper place."
She was right of course, as she always was. Chastened, Castiel ruffled his feathers and accepted the souls, tucking them close inside his spinning wheels of fire.
The wise souls shone bright and ethereal. Mirabel’s peacock feathers fanned out behind them as they preened with pride. Ishim stared at his charges with thinly disguised fascination, passing them from one claw to the next tentacle, as if turning them over for inspection. Uriel held his souls as far away from his core as possible, a strange distaste written on the bared teeth of his lion’s maw.
Castiel thought Uriel ungrateful for his indisputably more glamorous task. His own souls were a dull, muddy brown. Nonetheless they pulsed with inherent power when he engulfed them, sending sparks sublime and sacred through his being. They felt heavy in his hands and his core.
Balthazar took three of his foolish souls and tossed them between two of his starlight limbs like the human juggler Castiel had once curiously observed at a masked carnival. Benjamin’s otter face tittered with amusement, but Anna’s rings spun quicker and her flames jumped high in reprimand.
“Take care,” she ordered. “Human souls are not playthings. You wouldn’t want to drop them.”
The angels took to the skies in separate directions, their precious cargo in tow. Had any human looked to the heavens that night they would have seen empyreal meteors streak across the stars in the south and the aurora borealis smear the night sky with blue and green in the north as Heaven’s servants set to work.
Castiel went from village to village, placing one foolish soul in each. In the morning, the parents-to-be would awaken, newly expectant with what was sure to be a challenging child. He had no concept of parenthood, yet he did not envy them.
To his consternation, the weight of the souls did not lighten as he unburdened himself one by one. If anything, they felt heavier and heavier. He took them from within himself and passed them from one limb of numinous starlight to the next. Still, they weighed him down. His massive wings, blacking out the night sky behind them, beat with difficulty against the weight of his cargo. He found himself flying lower and lower, skimming across the mountaintops of eastern Europe.
This was his mistake, and one he would certainly come to regret.
It was only several short hours after the angels departed—a blink of an eye to supernal beings such as they—that one of Castiel’s wings caught on a jagged mountain peak. With a jolt, his flight came to an abrupt halt. To his horror, he felt his grip slip. The rest of his charges went tumbling down the mountainside like a bag of luminous marbles cut open at the bottom. His wings still tangled up in the rocky crags, Castiel watched in helpless dismay as hundreds of foolish souls streaked down to the village below, where faint firelight flickered in the darkness and wisps of smoke curled from chimneys.
Oh. Oh no. For the first time in his millenia-long creation, Castiel felt the urge to let slip blasphemous words.
"You have returned early, Castiel," Anna said as the garrison reconvened in Heaven. Castiel had been buzzing with anxiety, wheels clicking like grinding gears, for the longest handful of hours in his eons of existence.
“Yes,” he acknowledged and said nothing else.
Anna prompted them each for a debrief. Ishim, Mirabel, and Uriel’s deliveries went off without a hitch, sprinkling wise souls here and there throughout the world.
“The wise will do great things,” proclaimed Mirabel, “create ingenious inventions that push humanity forward, cure illnesses, care for the people in their communities.”
“Solve the problems that the foolish create,” Uriel grumbled.
“Somebody’s got to do it,” Balthazar said with a jag of laughter from his hyena’s mouth. “One per town, as you ordered, sister. To create problems or to provide a bit of levity perhaps.”
Benjamin nodded in agreement. Anna turned to Castiel expectantly.
“Ah. Well,” he said, flicking his zebra-like tail.
Anna batted her great lepidopteran wings slowly.
“You see,” he said, his halo blushing aurora purple.
Anna cocked her eagle’s head to the side.
“I dropped them,” he said, finally.
Anna stilled. “You… dropped them?” she repeated, uncharacteristically hesitant.
“Not all of them,” he rushed to clarify. “Perhaps… half? All in one village in what the humans call the Carpathians.”
Silence stretched out between the angels.
“Well that is sure to be one idiotic village in a few decades’ time,” Ishim said drily from his cuckoo’s beak.
Uriel laughed unkindly. “Perhaps you ought not be the Angel of Thursdays, Castiel. Perhaps we ought to call you the Angel of Fools from now on.”
The garrison exchanged amused looks. Any joking moniker from Uriel was sure to stick. Shame-faced, Castiel kept his many eyes fixed on Anna.
“I will accept whatever punishment is deemed necessary.”
“It is not up to me,” she said, with a hint of apology in her resonant many-layered voice. “I will inform our superiors of the error.”
Castiel hung his heads low in acceptance.
Next time he handles a soul, he will be sure to grip it tight.
---
The Righteous Man’s soul glowed dimly beneath the blood and gore of Hell. Its rusty red was but a few shades from the brown of the fools’ and it felt as heavy as all those souls combined. Castiel clung tight enough to leave a mark.
---
The Lucifer Sword’s soul was within its vessel in the Cage, or so Castiel assumed. He raised the body from perdition, leaving Sam behind.
He can’t seem to get a handle on this soul business. Either he grasps far too tightly or not at all.
---
Castiel remembers all of this curled up in a lumpy sleeping bag in the backroom of a Gas-N-Sip in Rexford, Idaho. His back aches from sleeping on it all twisted up, there's a mosquito bite on his left elbow that won't stop itching, and his stomach feels like it's about to eat itself, it's so empty.
He's never felt more like the Angel of Fools. Rather, he wouldn't, if he were an angel at all.
There's one small blessing, though Castiel is torn between calling it a curse: Naomi's conditioning seems to be meant solely for angels. Now that all his multi-dimensional awareness has been folded up into relatively uncomplicated three-dimensional human neural pathways, her needle-sharp control over his mind is fading. Every other morning, he wakes from dreams of Egypt—caught literally red-handed as he painted lamb's blood on unmarked lintels—or of Sodom and Gomorrah—smuggling children from the city walls as the holy sulfur and flame came raining down.
The village of fools was not a memory she stole from him for it hadn't been a rebellion, simply an accident. They wanted him to remember his mistakes, as long as they weren't defiant, so that the shame kept him obedient.
It may not be a newly recovered memory, but Castiel finds himself revisiting that night in the Carpathians often lately, in the brief lulls between customers and the long hours of restless tossing and turning before he finally slips into unpracticed slumber. Watching the angels plummet to Earth, their wings burning to tattered sinew and bone, had been a lot like watching the souls fall to that tiny ramshackle town in the mountains, except that this time he had watched from below instead of above. He had dragged his brothers and sisters down to his level instead of simply letting them slip from the heavens. Either way, it was all his fault.
If not the Angel of Fools, he was certainly the king of them. The leviathans, Purgatory, Metatron—just the latest in a long string of foolish decisions.
Limited by just two eyes and two hands, Castiel can’t perceive souls anymore, the fuzzy edges of their auras pulsing gently behind a human’s eyes and around their heart. He’s not sure if he himself even possesses one. Had a soul sprung into being, cradled in his human ribcage, to replace the grace Metatron had torn and scraped from his core? Metatron seemed to think so with his jab about living a long life and returning to Heaven only in death, just another human soul among billions. There is no way for Castiel to tell anymore, but if he did indeed have a soul, he is certain it would be the same mud brown, flickering dully, as the fools’.
He doesn’t deserve even that much.
Dean visits him in Rexford for a case. Castiel aches for him even as the sting of Dean’s rejection clenches around his heart. Dean’s judgmental ribbing about Castiel’s current employment reminds him of Ishim’s critical eyes and Uriel’s sardonic name-calling. He is certain if any of his siblings saw him now they would let him know exactly how ugly his soul was, if it even existed in the first place. They would sneer at how low he’s brought himself.
When Ephraim tries to kill him, it is out of pity and a perverted sense of mercy. He is not the first of Castiel’s brothers to try to kill him, and he will not be the last. There are many more angels dead at his own hands.
Dean leaves again in the morning, gone as quickly as he came. If there is a reason Dean cast him out into the desert, he won’t tell Castiel what it is, but he can hazard a guess. What use is Castiel to Dean now that he is graceless, powerless? He is a liability more than anything, making mistake after mistake in his hubris. That’s fine. In Rexford, he is carving out a simple life, one he has some modicum of control over. There is dignity in the day-to-day grind of lottery tickets and burnt coffee and gas station taquitos. Besides, he doesn’t trust himself with the levers of the universe any longer.
Still, he misses Dean’s laughter, his incomprehensible movie references, his steady eye contact. He misses Dean’s soul, still wounded angry red from decades in Hell, but glowing warmly now after several years topside. He’s greedy for it.
After all these centuries, Castiel has found a reason to envy the souls he spilled. At least they had each other. Why should there be only one fool in each town? It is desperately lonely to be a foolish soul stranded by himself.
---
Dean apologizes to Cas while the King of Hell drives needles into Sam’s possessed body in the next room. Turns out, Dean made his own stupid mistake in the service of keeping Sam alive. Castiel is an angel again, at the cost of stolen grace. Needs must, but he can’t help the dreadful feeling that his act of cannibalism will loop right back around eventually; an ouroboros eating its own tail.
“I got played,” Dean says through frustrated tears.
“I thought I was saving Heaven. I got played, too,” Castiel responds. He has to remind himself it was Metatron who tricked him, Metatron who scooped out his grace, Metatron who pulled the trigger and cast all the angels out of Heaven.
Dean smiles weakly. “So you’re sayin’ we’re both a couple of dumbasses?”
“I prefer the word ‘trusting,’” Cas equivocates. “Less dumb. Less ass.”
Dean huffs out a silent laugh, more a quick shake of the shoulders and self-deprecating smile than anything else. Castiel can tell neither of them quite believe it.
---
It is several more years and additional cosmic pratfalls before Castiel finds his faith rewarded. Trusting in Kelly, in Jack, is his first choice in a long time—perhaps since placing his faith in Dean during the Apocalypse—that doesn’t come back to bite him. Well. He did die during Jack’s birth. But even that he cannot regret, now that the bunker is bustling with Apocalypse World refugees, with Jack and Sam and Dean, newly dispossessed of Michael. Even Mary on treasured occasions.
He had such a short time with Jack between his own resurrection and Jack’s stranding in the Apocalypse World. Already he’s grown into a sharp young man. Castiel can see Dean’s influence in his stubbornness, the way he shoulders the burden to care for everyone around him. Sam’s is just as clear in Jack’s curiosity and his drive.
Castiel is not blind to the parts of himself in Jack, but it’s easy to overlook the earnestness and love in favor of the faults; chiefly, the insecurity. Jack has clearly linked his own sense of value to his usefulness. Without his powers, Jack is floundering.
Castiel’s grace is long-since restored, though with most of it burned up in Metatron’s spell, he is not nearly as powerful as he once was, even before his promotion to the rank of seraph. Castiel remembers all too well the helplessness he felt locked in a flesh body. Though there are certain elements of humanity he misses—peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, afternoon naps, the slowed perception of time—it was like a part of himself was missing when he was human. Castiel does his best to alleviate those feelings of worthlessness and loss in Jack—taking him out on hunts, just the two of them—but still Jack is often frustrated with himself.
This culminates in an early morning breakfast in the bunker kitchen. Dean is frying up more than enough egg scrambles and bacon for whoever blearily wanders in. Maggie cheerily hoovers an unholy amount of food in two minutes flat before bustling off to the library for a hunt briefing with Sam. Stevie orders her eggs with highly particular cooking instructions—Dean rolls his eyes, but complies. Charlie slinks in and out to retrieve her morning coffee, doctoring it with enough sugar to keep a trickster’s sweet tooth satisfied and grunting a thanks in Dean’s direction. He stares at her retreating back, a conflicted longing around the edge of his downturned mouth.
It’s nice, having the bunker so full. It reminds Castiel a bit of life in the garrison, though angels did not so much live in each other’s pockets as much as they existed together as one, singular notes in the harmony of Heaven, cogs in the machine that kept each other and capital “e” Everything running smoothly. After all, there is no one multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent without the sinusoidal wave itself. Angels are defined as the empty distance between each other, between the troughs and crests of the cosmos. Castiel should know—removing himself from the wave threw the whole thing into discordance. Now it is a flattened thing, the frequency tuning lower and lower to the weakest of radio waves, stretched out to almost nothing as the wavelengths are plucked from it. Only nine angels left in Heaven. The absence of wavelengths. What is the absence of empty gaps?
Tortured geometrical metaphors aside, the point is that Cas has grown to appreciate his independence, but he still misses being a part of something larger. He has had the Winchesters for the past decade—or at least, for interrupted periods of the last decade—and now he has Jack. The presence of the refugees from the Apocalypse World is comforting, even though many still glance at him with suspicion when they think he is not looking. He cannot blame them for their wariness. Their world burned in holy fire at the hands of Heaven. Those that stuck around the bunker seem to have accepted Castiel into the fold—some begrudgingly and others wholeheartedly—as an extension of Jack, whom almost all of them have adopted as a brother or son or leader after the months he spent defending them against Michael’s forces.
So it is that everyone who comes into the kitchen offers Cas a friendly wave or at least a simple nod. He often migrates into the kitchen once Dean is up and banging pots and pans together. For his part, Dean took a while to warm up to the presence of all these strangers in his home. They’re still mostly “Chief” Sam’s people, but after a while, Dean’s caretaking instincts kicked in and he’s taken to making a ridiculous amount of breakfast in the mornings. Despite Castiel’s own distaste for food, he enjoys simply sharing space with Dean as he cooks. Castiel has been permanently banned from helping after a disastrous baking incident involving the over-application of yeast, so he mostly sits at the table with a book.
Dean may have banned Castiel, but despite Jack’s equally poor cooking skills, he is allowed in the kitchen under close supervision. Privately, Cas thinks Jack has perfected Sam’s hangdog puppy dog eyes: one of Dean’s many weaknesses. On this particular morning, Jack has already burnt a few panfuls of eggs, so Dean gently redirects him towards coffee and toast.
Castiel looks up from the entomology book he's been idly skimming when Jack lets out a frustrated groan. Jack stares down at a piece of toast he had dropped straight on the floor, blinking back the angry tears welling up at the corner of his eyes.
Cas is up, out of his chair, and resting a calming hand on Jack's shoulder before it can turn into a full meltdown.
"It's alright, Jack. It's just toast."
"Exactly!" Jack grumbles. "It's just toast and I can't even get that right." He gestures towards the stove with the blackened remnants of his attempt at a veggie scramble.
Cas shoots Dean an only slightly panicked look, but Dean doesn’t see it, busy bending down to pick the offending piece of bread off the kitchen floor.
“That ain’t true kid,” Dean says, waving the toast around as if it is a key piece of evidence in a trial. It had clearly landed butter side down, smearing grease in a small spot on the concrete. “Look, you buttered the right side of your toast.”
The nonsense statement seems to stump Jack out of his impotent anger. “Huh?”
Castiel is just as confused.
Dean sweeps the bread into the trash and turns back to the stove. “I dunno, it’s just from this story Mom used to tell me when I helped her in the kitchen as a kid. I was four, I probably got in the way more than I helped.”
Castiel steps on Dean’s foot. He yelps and glares at him before noticing the return of Jack’s sullen expression.
“Ah shit, I didn’t mean-” Dean sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. Castiel knows the feeling. It’s painfully easy to make a misstep in parenting. “It’s just- I dropped things all the time, but she never got mad. She’d just brush it off and tell me about the law of buttered toast.”
“What’s that?” Jack asks. He looks curious despite himself, like he’s furious that he’s letting himself be distracted from beating himself up.
“Pretty sure it’s a Chelm story—a Yiddish folktale,” Dean clarifies. He pauses and tosses some turmeric into the scramble he’s frying, clearly taking a moment to collect the fragments of his memory. “I think it goes like this: it’s a well known law of the universe, at least in the town of Chelm, that whenever you drop a piece of bread, it lands buttered side down.”
“Corollary of Murphy’s Law?” Castiel interjects. He’s all too familiar; it seems to govern their lives.
“Bingo,” Dean says, shooting a smile over his shoulder. “So this woman is making her breakfast one morning when she drops a piece of bread and to her surprise it lands buttered side up.”
Dean turns off the heat and piles a couple of plates high with eggs and potatoes and bacon. With a hand on Jack’s shoulder he guides all of them to the kitchen table and plops the food down in front of himself and Jack.
“She rushes to the rabbi. Obviously this is a serious matter, so it requires a rabbi,” Dean says wryly.
Jack cracks a small smile, idly moving his food around his plate without eating.
“The rabbi gathers all the elders and the wise men of Chelm together to ponder the problem.” Dean says ‘wise men’ with a lopsided sarcastic smile. Cas doesn’t quite get the joke, but that’s not uncommon. He’s given up on asking. “After seven days of fasting and prayer and debate, they finally figure it out. The rabbi summons the woman back and tells her: ‘It’s all very simple. The laws of the universe remain unbroken. The issue is, you buttered the wrong side of your bread.’”
There's a beat of silence before the punchline hits and Jack dissolves into laughter. His whole face lights up with it, the golden glow of his soul shining through in the tilt of his lips and the crinkles around his eyes. Even without his grace, Jack's soul pulses strong and brilliant.
Dean exchanges a sly smile with Cas. Crisis averted, breakfast saved.
---
The Buttered Toast Incident, as Castiel has dubbed it in his mind, seems to have unlocked a treasure trove of similar parables from the depths of Dean’s memory. Perhaps not parables; although Dean tries to wring significant life lessons and meaning from them, almost all of them are absurd little tales with backwards logic and ridiculous solutions to what should be simple issues. It becomes eminently clear that the supposed “wise men” of Chelm are quite the opposite.
There’s one in which the townsfolk of this so-called Chelm are felling trees at the top of a hill for their new synagogue. They carry each log down the hillside. Once someone points out how much easier it would be to roll them down the hill, the would-be carpenters applaud the idea and carry all of the logs back up to the top so they can do just that.
Dean tells this one to Jack during a hand-to-hand training session in the bunker’s gym as he adjusts Jack’s stance. “Lower your center of gravity and use your opponent’s weight against them. You’re making it harder on yourself than it needs to be.”
Well, that particular tale works better than most as a teaching tool. There’s a similar story about driving a cart through the village with logs piled lengthwise. The cart can’t make it through a narrow street because the logs would hit the buildings either side. Instead of readjusting the logs to be parallel with the street, the townsfolk demolish the buildings to make way for the cart.
Castiel finds it difficult to believe anyone would be as stupid as the villagers in Dean’s stories, especially not en masse, but he supposes that’s the point.
“So the humor is derived from the subversion of the seemingly obvious solution,” he muses.
Dean rolls his eyes. “It ain’t funny if you explain the joke, Cas.”
Jack grins from ear to ear. He eats up Dean’s folk tales with enthusiasm, lighting up with laughter no matter how groan-worthy the punchline. Dean relates them with a rhythm that speaks to years of repetition, though sometimes he has to pause and squint into the middle distance as he scrambles to remember the details. Castiel can picture him at age nine or ten recounting them as bedtime stories for Sam.
This supposition is confirmed on the fourth or fifth Chelm story, the first with Sam in the room. For once, it’s just the four of them gathered in the library, poring over esoteric texts on archangels and scouring the web for any hint of Michael’s activities.
After several fruitless hours, Dean, very clearly reaching the end of his rope, slams his book shut and leans over the table towards Jack.
“Hey, kid, want to hear another story?”
It’s the first time Dean has dropped the pretense of a life lesson and just wants to tell a story for the story’s sake. Jack’s eyes flick towards Sam as if to ask permission to break from research, but Sam’s eyes are glued to his laptop screen, his mouth pulled into an annoyed line, resolutely ignoring Dean’s interruption. He’s had a lifetime of practice at that. Castiel, on the other hand, has only known Dean for a precious sliver of his long existence and finds his attention wandering to Dean, as it is wont to do.
“What’s six plus six?”
“Oh, is this one a riddle?”
“Something like that. Come on, what’s six plus six?”
“Twelve,” Jack says slowly, squinting, as if he’s fairly confident in his answer, but suspicious of Dean pulling the rug out from under him.
Indeed, Dean’s grin broadens. “Nah. In Chelm, it’s nine.”
Jack’s brow furrows in confusion. Sam looks up from his screen, surprise and recognition on his face.
“And what misapplication of mathematical rules did they use to arrive at such a conclusion?” Castiel prompts.
Dean opens his mouth to continue, but Sam interrupts. “Dude, you’re telling it all wrong.”
“What? No, I’m not,” Dean says, affronted.
“Yeah, you are,” Sam throws back. “It’s seven plus seven equals eleven. Not even Chelm logic gets nine from six and six. And it’s Chelm, not Helm.”
He pronounces it with a perfect voiceless uvular fricative.
Dean squints, counts on his fingers, and—evidently failing to produce nine from six and six—slumps in his chair, defeated. “Whatever. You tell it then, nerd.”
Castiel and Jack turn their heads towards Sam in unison. On the spot, he squirms under the scrutiny. “Um. So there’s this mother, right? And she and her husband both remarried. And they each had four children from their previous marriage-”
“Now who’s telling it wrong?” Dean interrupts smugly. “Come on, Sammy, it’s all in the delivery.”
“Well at least I didn’t start with the punchline!”
“It’s effective storytelling-”
The story itself is forgotten in the ensuing squabble. Cas accepts that he may never know how to arrive at eleven from seven plus seven and exchanges a long-suffering look with Jack. Castiel loves them both, but a decade spent in the company of siblings, with all their indecipherable in-jokes, stories, and long-running arguments can grate on the nerves at times. Now, with Jack’s mirrored confusion and exasperation, he has a kindred soul in the Winchester household.
“Since when have you been telling Chelm stories anyway?” says Sam eventually. “I haven’t heard any since I was, like, twelve maybe?”
“Aw, you jealous that Jack gets bedtime stories and you don’t, Sammy?” Dean needles with a fake pout.
“Shut the fuck up. I was just curious what reminded you of them.”
Dean shrugs, turning to Jack. “Nothin’ in particular. Jack likes ’em. Don’t you, kid?”
“I do,” Jack affirms with a grin, clearly relieved to once again be involved in the conversation. “They’re funny.”
Dean smiles at Sam and waves towards Jack as if to say ‘See?’
“I find them quite perplexing,” Castiel says, although he was not consulted. “I don’t understand how an entire town could continue to function when all the inhabitants are knocking down buildings to make way for carts and building walls around the village to keep out the cold.”
“You’re missing the point, Cas,” Dean says. “They’re just fairy tales.”
“And what, pray tell, is the point of an entire village of idiots?”
Dean looks around the library as if searching for said point. Eventually, he simply shrugs. “Not letting common sense get in the way of a really good idea? I dunno. Not everything has to have a point.”
“They’re just fun,” Sam agrees. “You can laugh at the hapless schmucks and their misadventures but also relate to them a bit.”
Dean snaps his fingers and points towards Sam. “’Zactly. We’re all schlemiels here.”
That’s certainly true, Cas thinks with a healthy dose of self-deprecation. Who in the room hasn’t made a cosmic fool of himself on more than one occasion?
“Besides,” Sam adds, “it’s best not to think too hard about how the town functions. They’re harmless idiots. Maybe they’re knocking buildings down or building staircases in the middle of the synagogue, but they’re usually not hurting anyone.”
“Usually?” Jack prompts.
Dean claps his hands together. “I haven’t told you how Chelm gets destroyed!”
“Chelm gets destroyed?” Jack looks heartbroken, like Dean just kicked a puppy right in front of his eyes.
Dean hesitates, eyes flicking towards Cas for help. Castiel just raises an eyebrow, refraining from throwing Dean a lifeline. It’s not like he’s familiar with the story himself.
“No help at all,” Dean mutters. “Don’t worry, kid, no one dies.”
The attempted reassurance does little to alleviate Jack’s crushed expression.
“The way it goes is this,” Dean says. “Chelm’s got a rat problem. They're everywhere, getting into the pantries and the winter food stores."
Sam leans back in his chair, eyes fixed on Dean as he launches into the story, a small nostalgic smile tugging at his lips. His laptop is still open in front of him, but—for just a moment—Michael is the furthest thing from all of their minds.
“A traveling merchant sells the town a mouser cat. ‘Perfect!’ they all think. ‘The cat will eat all the rats and that's the problem solved.’”
Jack nods, but his face is still twisted up in worry over the fate of his beloved Chelmites. So far, no foolish logic.
“‘But what's the cat gonna eat once it runs out of rats?’ asks one villager. ‘Field mice and rabbits, I suppose,’ someone else answers. ‘And when it runs out of woodland critters? The only thing left in the town will be us!’”
Ah. Here we go.
“So they all get it into their heads that the cat’s gonna eat them once it gobbles up all the other animals in Chelm. Now they've got all their panties in a bunch about it, they decide they’ve gotta nip the problem in the bud. They chase the cat around but it’s way too wily for them. It ends up on the roof of the synagogue. The shammes—that’s like the caretaker I think—” Dean shoots Sam a look for confirmation, though neither of them are exactly regular synagogue or temple attendees; Sam nods—“yeah, he climbs up and tries to throw it off the roof. He falls ass over teakettle off the roof and breaks his leg, but obviously the cat lands on its feet.”
Jack huffs out a small laugh.
“The cat books it into the synagogue. All the townsfolk are so worked up that they light the whole thing on fire.”
“No!” Jack gasps in horror.
“Yep,” Dean says, shaking his head with faux mournfulness. “The fire spreads and next thing you know, Chelm’s in ashes. So it goes.”
“What happened to the cat?” Jack asks, his brows drawn together.
“Relax, the cat was fine!” Dean assures him. “Nine lives, yeah? Even more than a Winchester.”
Castiel himself is on his sixth.
“And all the villagers survived,” Dean continues. “They moved away and found new homes, becoming the local village idiots wherever they settled.”
“Spreading their particular brand of Chelm logic throughout the world,” Sam tacks on.
Castiel supposes it serves as a sort of origin story for foolishness in the wider world. The end of Chelm is just the beginning of something new. It’s bittersweet, but he can see how it would strike a chord with diaspora Jews—with Sam and Dean in particular, whose own childhood home burned to the ground, though Castiel doubts that Dean has consciously drawn that parallel himself.
Jack hums thoughtfully and after a lengthy pause says, “I don’t think I like that one. It’s sad. I bet they missed each other.”
“Eh.” Dean shrugs, a ‘whatcha gonna do?’ gesture. “Life’s sad sometimes. Even in Chelm.”
“I guess,” Jack grumbles, his head hanging low. He flips a page in his book without reading anything on it.
Sam clears his throat to get Dean’s attention and nods significantly towards Jack.
‘What?’ Dean mouths back, evidently content to leave it at that.
Cas rolls his eyes. “Any cheerier Chelm stories in the repertoire?” He, too, makes a subtle gesture towards the now despondent Jack.
Dean finally catches on. “Oh, uh… yeah, lemme think.”
Jack perks up, just a bit.
“Dean’s always starting at the end,” Sam says. “Has he told you how Chelm was founded?”
“I must’ve.”
Jack and Cas exchange a look and shake their heads.
“I don’t believe you have,” Castiel denies.
“No? Damn. Derelict in my duties. You’ll like this one,” Dean says to Jack. “It’s got an angel in it.”
Despite himself, Castiel leans forward in his seat, mirroring Jack’s interest. He doubts there will be any factual merit to the story; human tales of angels are invariably flawed depictions, galling and fascinating in equal measure. Castiel is still trying to dissuade Dean of the notion that he has a harp hidden somewhere in his trenchcoat.
“Legend has it that after dear old grandpa got done whipping up the universe, he sent the angels out to populate the world, sprinkling souls here and there. He gave one angel in particular two sacks; one with the wisest of souls and the other with the most foolish souls. The angel was supposed to scatter them evenly. One wise soul and one foolish soul in each town.”
Oh. That’s… uncomfortably familiar.
“But the sack of foolish souls was super heavy.”
“More fools than wise men in the world,” Sam says wryly.
“Right. So the angel flies lower and lower, dragged down by the weight of the fools, until whoops!” Dean mimes dropping a heavy load. “Butterfingers! He drops the sack and aaaall the souls fall out in one spot. The spot where they eventually built Chelm.”
Jack laughs, much more satisfied with this story than the previous.
“The angel didn’t get in trouble did he?”
Dean shrugs. “Dunno. Friend of yours, Cas?” He turns towards Castiel, but his grin fades when he takes in Castiel’s stricken expression.
“Cas?”
And then all eyes are on him. If Castiel could sweat, he would.
“It-” Cas coughs, tries to school his expression, but the damage is done. He can practically see the cogs turning in Sam and Dean’s brains. “It didn’t happen exactly like that.”
“No,” Dean says, amused understanding dawning across his face, like Christmas, Chanukah, and New Years just came early. “No way.”
Cas closes his eyes and—not for the first time—wishes he still had his wings, if only to beat a hasty retreat from this conversation and hang out on Saturn until his ego could heal.
“But-” Sam looks more confused than anything else. “That’s not how souls work.”
“You are correct, Sam,” Castiel says, getting to his feet. “It is not how souls work.”
Wings or not, he can still turn around and walk straight out, leaving the library echoing with Dean’s uproarious laughter and Jack’s confused “Wait, what’s going on?”
Even at his own expense, it’s nice to hear Dean let loose laughter that carefree and open. After he’s done licking his wounds, Castiel will surely forgive him for it.
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we're so fucking back
So, the world sucks right now. And the internet is not much better. In the interest of spreading some Jewish Joy on this website, the team behind Jupernatural Week have reunited to bring you...
Jupernatural Week 2023, starting November 5th!
If you've never participated before, hi, welcome! This event was created in 2021 as a way for the Jewish Supernatural fandom to celebrate what makes the show so uniquely ours. We have a calendar for prompts, but you're welcome to take it in whatever direction speaks to you. And you don't have to be Jewish to participate, we just ask that you take a look at our FAQ and Guide/Resources pages first.
Without further ado... the prompt calendar!
November 5th: Life
It's Destiel Day! We're looking at the Jewish Life Cycle today, the Rites of Passage, Love, and Death. Think big and small, even the tiniest moment can be made monumental.
November 6th: Community
Family doesn't end in blood, and neither does community. Think Interfaith, Intercultural, and Intersectional.
November 7th: Sustenance
What keeps us going? What fills us up? Think Food, Warmth, and Understanding.
November 8th: Home
Whether its the Impala or the cabin by the lake, the relationship Supernatural has with the concept of Home is pretty... complicated. Think Reconnection, Ancestry, and L'dor V'dor (from generation to generation).
November 9th: Character Spotlight!
During our time off, one of our mods created the @nicejewishcharactershowdown, which defines a Nice Jewish Character (NJC) as such. So, with those guidelines in mind, it's time to give some love to some of the many NJCs in Supernatural. From the canonical (Rufus and Aaron) to the implied (Moishe, Becky) to the transitive (Eileen, Jo, and Bela), it's their time to shine.
November 10th: Judaica
The things that remind us who we are, where we're going, where we've been, and of our continued existence. Think Physical Reminders, Inheritance (metaphoric and literal), and Stories.
November 11th: Shabbos
No need for elaboration, you guys got this one down.
November 12th: Free Space!
As always, if you want us to see a post, @ us or use the Jupernatural Week hashtags, we're tracking with and without the space. We look forward to seeing what you create!
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[ID: digital drawing of Emma and Dean Winchester framed in an open doorway. Dean has one hand on Emma's shoulder, with her hand overlapping his, and the other gesturing into the room, his hand passing under a purple mezzuzah on the frame. He's wearing a light green flannel, jeans, and has a blue hearing aid. Emma is wearing a pink t shirt, jeans, and a silver star of david necklace, that she's touching lightly with her free hand, and is leaning in slightly towards her father. Both are smiling sentimentally as Dean says 'Welcome home'.]
@jupernaturalweek 2023 - Home
Reconnection? L'dor v'dor? You know it has to be emmanatural time
#digital art#image description#jupernatural week 2023#jupernatural#dean winchester#emma winchester#emmanatural#supernatural#spn fanart#2023
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Fandom: Supernatural (TV 2005)
Rating: General Audiences
Words:1,668
Summary: Dean takes Castiel to his grandmother's house for a Friday night Shabbat meal. He ends up getting a bit of a history lesson.
This little one-shot came about because Bubby Kaplowitz just would NOT leave me alone. I originally wrote it right after Chanukah of last year and posted it on International Holocaust Remembrance Day (interesting fact, Israel observes Holocaust Remembrance Day the week after Passover ends, not in January).
As it happens, this short story fits a bunch of different @jupernaturalweek prompts, but I’m going to go with today’s prompt, Shabbat. Sorry, Shabbos... my Israeli is showing.
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@jupernaturalweek day 3: sustenance! featuring my Gabriel fankid Joan! You can see her in this FANTASTIC piece by @this-is-z-art-blog . (Also this one. And this one.)
Joan sits next to Kelly on the wicker couch on the porch, careful not to bump into her. She hands Kelly a coffee sweetened with hazelnut creamer, and Kelly gives her a conspiratorial wink. This is their routine: on Saturday mornings, Castiel goes to get groceries, and Joan and Kelly sit outside and drink coffee and chat. When Castiel gets home he will scold Joan for letting Kelly drink it, but he will also have gotten them another container of hazelnut creamer.
Joan sips her own coffee - Kelly asks, “Did you remember to add a little coffee to your creamer this morning?” - and looks out over the lake. Joan uses a trickle of her Grace to keep their mugs warm. Castiel would scold her for it, but Joan knows how to hide her Grace in birdsong and the whisper of wind through the trees.
Kelly is telling her a story about working in the White House (which Joan understands is a big deal, even though she doesn’t really get it) and Joan is half-listening, because she doesn’t know what a Secretary of Commerce is or does. She is busy thinking of her mother. She never thought much about her mother, because she knew her for all of 47 seconds, but she thinks about her more now that she knows Kelly. Did her mother love her as fiercely as Kelly loves Jack? Did her mother sit on the front porch of that cabin and drink coffee even though she wasn’t supposed to? Did Joan remove the chemicals from her mother’s blood the way Jack does for Kelly?
Did Joan’s father chase after her and her mother the way Jack’s chased him? What would it be like to be wanted so desperately?
—
Joan loves talking to Kelly. Kelly tells her about music and celebrities and politics. Joan tells Kelly about frogs and the tides and flying. Kelly teaches her about saints and sins on Sunday mornings after she watches a church service on the television. Joan listens but doesn’t believe, and she knows that this, too, is something Kelly is doing for Jack.
Joan does not like talking to Castiel. Every single angel she’d ever met had tried to kill her. She felt justified in assuming that Castiel would do the same to her and Jack as soon as he could, no matter what Kelly or Sam or anyone said. She’d ignore him or snap at him but he still kept trying.
When he went to the store he’d get everything she put on the list, and then would get her things she didn’t even want. Sweets and fruits and little toys and trinkets that matched the ones he bought for Jack. She’d told him to stop. He didn’t.
She told him that Jack wouldn’t be born a baby, that he wouldn’t need a crib or a Baby’s First Teddy or a little pouch for when he lost his baby teeth. He told her that it was for Kelly, not Jack. She already knew that. She just wanted him to be wrong.
—
For her entire life, the only things Joan has owned are the clothes she is wearing. The only things she ever thought of as Hers is the necklace sitting heavy on her neck.
But now she has a bedroom. Her own bed and her own window and her own view of the lake. Castiel gave her her own cellphone and Kelly taught her how to use it. She has every gift from Castiel she didn’t want lined up on the windowsill, except for a small stuffed toy that is resting on her pillow. She has a YouTube account and an email address.
If they stay longer, she’ll paint the walls. She’ll put a second bed in her room and that way Jack can sleep nearby so she can keep him safe. His toys can fill the space between hers. She’ll teach him how to hide himself and his Grace and then maybe once there’s two of them they won’t have to hide.
—
Castiel is in the kitchen trying to cook dinner. Joan can tell from here that he’s failing, but she also knows that when the fire alarm starts up, she’ll use the noise to cover up her Grace as she manipulates the molecules of their meal so that Kelly can enjoy it. Kelly’s show just ended and now they’ll chat until Castiel is done burning the chicken.
“Are you named after someone?” Kelly asks.
Joan shrugs. “Maybe.” She didn’t have enough time to ask, and she had no idea what family her mother may have left behind.
“I wonder if it’s a family name? Or maybe you’re named after Saint Joan of Arc,” Kelly mused. Joan had been wondering the same thing since she was given her name. Something in her gut screamed at the idea of being named after a Saint. Kelly was talking now as though it was a goal to strive for, and honor to be given; it just made Joan feel hollow.
“I don’t think that’s right.” Castiel’s voice was quiet when he interrupted Kelly. He looked at Joan like he could see right through to her core. “It’s Joan, from Yochana. God’s gracious gift. A Jewish origin is far more likely.” He nods towards the chain around her neck and Joan can’t breathe.
So she leaves.
—
She flies into town, hiding herself in a cold front. She stands in front of Beth Shalom for too long. Her mother gave her a name and a necklace and a command. For the first time Joan realizes her mother had given her a community, too. Joan doesn’t know what to do with that, so she stands on the sidewalk outside the temple until the sky is dark and full of stars.
When she gets back to the house, Cas is sitting in the living room. He’s holding a book - one of Kelly’s romance novels - but she doubts he’s actually reading it.
“Say it again,” she demands. “The- the Hebrew version.”
“Yochana. The direct English translation is Johana.”
Joan closes her eyes. Her mother gave her four things in 47 seconds and Joan hadn’t even known. “What if that’s what she was trying to say but she said Joan instead? Did she want me to figure this all out on my own or did she try to give me something more?” Castiel tilts his head and squints at her. She can feel panic clawing its way up her throat. “What if I want to be Johana and not Joan? She only had time to give me a few things so is it wrong of me to throw one away?”
“I think she would want you to be happy,” Castiel tells her. He’s silent for a moment while Joan struggles to remember how to breathe. “Yochana is the feminine form of Yochanan. It’s a variant of Yehonatan. The English version of that is Jonathan, which is the origin of the name Jack. No matter what you decide to do, that is something the two of you will get to share. You were both a gift.”
“Oh.” Joan sits down on the couch. She stares at the floor. “I’m glad I’m not named after a Saint.”
Castiel hums. “Yes, I think that Johana suits you much better than Joan of Arc would. Would you like to make some challah with me? I’m not very good at it. I have Dean’s family recipe though.”
Joan doesn’t like Castiel. She doesn’t like talking or being near him at all. But. “I’ve never made anything at all, so you’re better than I am. Will you teach me how to make that sound? I want to be able to say the name right.”
Castiel smiles at her the way he smiles at Kelly, and stands up to lead her towards the kitchen. “Of course.”
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between the days of awe, bisexual visibility week, and bruce springsteen’s birthday coming up this is a big week for people who are into bi!dean and bi!cas truthing, springsteennatural, and jupernatural
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crawling out of my accidental two year A Soft Place to Land hiatus to deliver a chapter at your doorstep like a long forgotten parcel. It's here. ASPTL is back. Long live Jupernatural.
@jupernaturalweek sparkle emoji
yes it's chapter five, it happens earlier, don't worry about it
(Oh, and it doesn't hurt that it fits today's prompt, either. Jupernatural Week 2023 Day Two: Community)
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Jupernatural Week Day 2: Community (Interfaith, Intercultural, Intersectional)
@jupernaturalweek
Inspired by this post: https://www.tumblr.com/minthoneycas/680363650268250112/hard-agree-that-dean-makes-a-killer-brisket-tell?source=share
Cas and Dean are still fighting about the fucking latkes. Cas is insisting that they make the beet, turnip, and carrot latkes more traditional to the diaspora, while Dean is firing back with the flawless argument that those are "G-ddamn disgusting, Cas." and "They'd have made 'em with potatoes if they'd had 'em."
Sam meanwhile, doesn't give a shit. He's never quite understood why Dean cares so much about these little cultural things. Their Mom didn't pass these things on to them, never intended for Judaism to be a part of their lives at all.
And yet, Dean still insists on the potato latkes, and bullies him for trying to make challah gluten-free. His brother doesn't keep kosher, but refuses to have any chametz in the bunker over Passover, pawning it all off on Charlie, who is only too happy to spend the week making brownies and (slightly burnt) cookies.
The shouting from the kitchen has stopped, which can only mean that the pair of them are otherwise occupied. He'd say to get a room, but to be fair, the kitchen is a room.
He sighs, and goes back to texting Eileen about how he'd prefer sufganiyot anyway.
#jupernatural week#jupernatural#supernatural#spn#destiel#sam winchester#dean winchester#sam POV#eileen leahy (mentioned)#saileen#spn ficlet#castiel#deancas
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@jupernaturalweek day 3: sustenance
food | warmth | understanding
the first time a goblet and a flimsy piece of bread is pressed into his hands, castiel is standing in a dark room with high ceilings. he can't recall what he's done this time, to land him in such a miserable place on earth, but he knows his time here is meant to be penance, so he accepts the offering.
even though he can't taste things, not in the way that mortals do, the wine and cracker leave an unpleasant sensation of ash and despair on his tongue. as he heads back to the pews, it takes every bit of his self-control not to vomit all over the stone floor.
the first time a goblet and a flimsy piece of bread is pressed into his hands, castiel finds himself surrounded by stained glass and marble statues. he can't recall what happened in heaven that led to his arrival on earth, but it must be for his own good, so he accepts the offering.
he's still an angel, he still can't taste things, but he can sense them on his palate and the way they make his insides crawl.
by the time castiel can remember being sent to earth, he's doubting whether or not there's a lesson involved. castiel can't be doubtful, so he remains dutiful, taking part in the ritual and living amongst the people until they inevitably destroy themselves to prove their god is good.
time on earth, like taste, has no meaning for castiel. time has no meaning, but there are moments that stand out amidst the expanse of existence.
the first time castiel watches someone recite a blessing over wine and distribute it among the congregation, it's because he followed a pull from his heart and wound up in a rectangular stone room. this room is more of a house than a chapel, and while he can perceive a chill in the air, there's a natural warmth surrounding everyone.
castiel is returned to heaven shortly after, and loses most of his worldly memories after reporting to his superior. he can't recall being in that room, but as he watches it being ransacked and plundered and burned, as he watches the people suffer on the basis of being different, he wishes he could be there to return the comfort they extended to him.
the people of earth continue to squabble and fight and kill, and as it is below, so it is above.
the fighting goes on for minutes or for millennia, interspersed with brusque talks of sacrifice and loyalty.
castiel knows sacrifice and loyalty in the same way he knows that allegiance and faith go hand in hand with one another. he knows that devotion is expected, that it's required, but he knows that in the same way he knows that just because something is revered, that doesn't mean it deserves to be respected.
the first time - no, not the first time. he hasn't been in this exact place before, but he has been here before. this time castiel finds himself surrounded by crucifixes and organ music and talks of a holy ghost, and something inside of him snaps.
castiel is doubtful, but he can't be dutiful, not here, not now. when the people rise to approach the altar, he uses the crowd as an opportunity to exit through the heavy wooden doors and go anywhere else.
anywhere else turns out to be heaven. they tell him before they wipe his mind that if he can't even learn proper behavior from mortals, he really must be lost, and the only way to return is through going through the trials again. the last thing he remembers thinking before the white walls of heaven fade to black is that if grace must be earned, can it really be called grace at all?
as above, so below.
you don't think you deserve to be saved?
time on earth, like taste, used to have no meaning for castiel. it used to, but now there are people and moments that stand out during his lifetime and give him insight into what it was that he was missing during his previous visits to earth.
the first time he catches bobby mutter hamotzi under his breath as he passes a burger to dean, the atmosphere changes around them and suddenly castiel is back in the lithuanian synagogue. he's hearing the kiddush from thousands of years ago while hearing this family talk about classic cars and castiel is struck with the realization that this is about being strengthened not just by the food but by the culture and community as well.
the first time dean says baruch hashem when jody and donna bring cholent on a friday afternoon, the sincerity and kindness overwhelms castiel. he's an angel; he's meant to be objective, to follow orders and to not concern himself with emotions. he maintains a neutral expression but there's something about everyone looking out for each other while acknowledging that this love extends to hashem as well that makes castiel almost proud to be involved with them.
the first time sam drunkenly raises a l'chaim, his dimpled cheeks tinged pink, castiel's entire being hums with joy. he even drinks a bit with sam, and helps him eat his confusing mixture of popcorn and gummy candies while they watch cartoons. castiel is still an angel, and he still can't taste things, but the salty-sweet smell combines with sam's smiles and the result is a warmth that castiel hasn't felt since his grace was taken away.
the seconds and thirds and hundreds of times after are no less impactful, and those are the moments that castiel wishes he could preserve in jars and hold in his hands like pieces of mann to nourish every aspect of his form.
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insane jupernatural fic concept just dropped in my brain. it features dean volunteering at a botanical garden, telling jack "i love you" at least once a week, shiksa mary and jewish john, and dean sam eileen and jack moving into a little house together. but i don't even have a computer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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catch me looking up lebanon, kansas weather records to see if it snowed on chanukah in 2018
the answer is yes! but only the first two nights.
chanukah was dec 2-10th that year, so it definitely happens before 14x09 the spear (xmas episode), but probably after 14x08 byzantium (aired dec 6th, but takes place immediately after 14x07 which itself aired nov 29th).
so it's cas's first chanukah with jack and he's already condemned himself to the empty :)))))))))))
#the timing on this is definitely debatable#the conversation between cas and jack in the spear reads as though byzantium happened much more recently#and they probably wouldn't have waited a full month to go after michael#but at the same time the wiki says 14x07 takes place 'a few weeks' after 14x02 which is in october?#so the timeline makes no sense#supernatural#jupernatural#chelm fic
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yooo i am SO hyped for jupernatural week, and can i just say the promo looks gorgeous!
Aw shucks!
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