Standing Together

Chapter 68

"Okay, but, like, do I have to do something else?" Castiel asks. "Even something minor. Do I need to grease the tray or something? Anything that would make this more complicated?"

"Apparently, it's already too complicated," Dean says. "Just preheat the oven, Cas. I promise, the cookies will turn out fine."

"Okay," Castiel says skeptically.

He preheats the oven, then opens the package of cookie dough, already separated into a 6-by-4 array of squares. He starts putting them on the tray, then pauses.

"Wait, how far apart do these need to be?" Castiel asks.

"12 on each tray," Dean replies. "Same as literally any other type of cookie."

"So, like, a 4-by-3?" Castiel asks. "Or a 6-by-2?"

Dean rolls his eyes. "You're such a horrible baker. I didn't even think it was possible to not know how to make these cookies. You literally just separate them and bake them."

He grabs his crutches and hobbles over to Castiel. He keeps the crutches under his armpits for support as he breaks the cookie dough into its designated sections, then lays them out on the tray, with four down the long way and three across the shorter side.

"Just like that," Dean says. "Think you can handle the rest?"

Castiel nods. "Yep."

"Awesome." Dean crutches back to the table to watch him work.

Castiel puts the other half of the chocolate chip cookies on the second tray, then opens up the next pack. These ones are cuter. They're more like Break and Bake sugar cookies, but even cuter because they have little snowmen on them to celebrate the winter.

"And these are 12 per tray too, right?" Castiel asks.

Dean rolls his eyes. "Yes, Cas. Cookies are almost always 12 per tray."

Castiel arranges the other 24 cookies on two different trays, finishing just as the oven finishes preheating. He puts the first batch of cookies in and sets the time, and it's only then that he realizes why people don't make these cookies all the time. There's nothing to do while you wait. At least with normal cookies, you can prepare the next trays, but that's way too easy with these.

Castiel sits down at the table next to Dean. "And now, we wait."

"That we do," Dean agrees. He props his head up on his hand. "Now I'm bored."

"Me too," Castiel agrees.

"Should we start packing for our two-week-long trek across the country?" Dean asks. "We're leaving tomorrow."

Castiel shakes his head. "Nah. That's boring, too. I'd rather make road trip cookies."

Dean chuckles. "Well, hey, whatever works."

The doorbell rings, and Dean and Castiel share a look. Do they answer it? There's always the possibility that it's going to be some psycho fan, and Dean can't incapacitate people with his bare hands on crutches. Castiel's always been afraid to check who's at the door, though. He's never sure what to expect.

After a few moments, Dean stands up, gathering the crutches to hop over to the door. Castiel follows, trailing behind him in case he doesn't want to be around when Dean opens the door. Fortunately, it seems no one is waiting out there for them. It's a bit weird — he's never heard of ding-dong-ditching a celebrity, but he wouldn't put it past people.

"Can you get that?" Dean asks. "I don't have enough hands."

Castiel cocks his head in confusion. "Get what?"

Dean gestured to the doorway with his head. "The package."

Castiel cuts in front of him to find a large package lying in the doorway. He grins. "I was worried that wouldn't come in time."

Castiel brings the package inside, and they head back to the kitchen. He opens it up to find a wheelchair, just as he'd suspected.

"I hope you don't expect me to use that a lot," Dean says. "I'm too independent to subject myself to that."

"Well, you can't be very independent if I have to keep carrying things for you," Castiel says. "At least you can wheel yourself around with it if you want, and you can put stuff in your lap. Plus, if we're walking around too much and your arms are gonna get tired, we have it for that, too." He pats the wheelchair. "It's gonna be the best purchase I've ever made, just you wait."

A/N Friendly reminder that Supernatural is nominated for the best sci fi show for the People's Choice Awards, which is great because they're fan voted! If you're in America or use a VPN, you can vote 25 times per category (spn is only up for one category) per email per day on the website, and each vote counts twice today and tomorrow, which means we can all vote 100 times in the next 48 hours! Idk where a normal person would find the link but I get it from the Taylor Nation twitter page. SPN has probably tweeted it, too. It's the last category of the tv shows section, so go to the section after tv shows and go back one category and it's near the bottom of the list.

You can also vote by tweeting, including retweets, but idk what tags you have to put in the tweets because I'm confusing the PCAs with the AMAs that are also going on now. I'm sure you can find it by searching ether twitter of google. I believe voting via Twitter is international, but idk use a VPN to pretend you're in America if you want.