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She wasn’t really surprised. It was impossible to be surprised at Castiel anymore, with the way he had made a habit of bringing home the little lost things he found. There had been countless kittens, puppies, broken-winged birds, even a fox kit, and once, when he was eight, he had kept an entire nest of orphaned baby squirrels in his bedroom closet for nearly two weeks before she had found them.
So she wasn’t surprised that he had snuck more strays into the house; what did surprise her, however, was that the expected alley cat or bedraggled puppy turned out to be two boys, one who looked to be around Castiel’s age and the other several years younger.
“Oh,” was all she managed to say at first, laundry basket balanced on one hip as she stood just a few stairs up from the bottom in the basement rec room.
The older boy looked ready to bolt, standing slightly hunched and tensed, one hand gripping the young boy’s arm. She watched green eyes flit from her to the basement door that led out into the back yard, and back again, as though the boy was gauging probability of escape. It broke her heart, a little.
She gave him a smile, hoping it would calm his nerves. The older boy looked to be eleven or twelve, dressed in jeans that looked too big for him but still worn, the cuffs frayed where they puddle around his battered sneakers. His t-shirt was plain and black, with the sleeves messily sheared off and the collar split open down the middle; it was too small, she could see, and the boy must have taken scissors to it to try and make it fit.
Her heart broke again, seeing his expression, tense and guarded and worried. He would have a sweet face, she thought, if he didn’t maintain that gruff exterior. Big green eyes with long blonde lashes, covered in freckles, and pouty lips that looked as though they hadn’t smiled in some time.
The younger boy seemed more interested than concerned, ducked just a little behind his brother – because they had to be brothers, the way the older boy stood to shield the younger, ready to run and pull him along – but peered out with wide, interested hazel eyes. His hair was darker than his brother’s, brown and shaggy and hanging into his eyes, as though he hadn’t had a cut in a good long time, and his clothes were just a little too big but looked newer than what the older boy was wearing.
“Castiel,” she said with a soft sigh, shifting the laundry basket to rest more easily against her hip, “Why didn’t you tell me you had friends staying with us?”
The pile of old blankets, and even a few pillows that looked to be from her son’s own bed, tucked into the corner made it clear they had stayed there at least the night before. Knowing Castiel, it had probably been longer; she’d found him making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches several times over the last few days, and had chalked it up to a growth spurt. She really should have known better.
“Um…” Castiel replied, casting his eyes at his new friends and then back to his mother. “I didn’t… I mean, I didn’t know…” he started cautiously.
His mother smiled. “Come on boys, why don’t you go get washed up for dinner? More than enough for everyone. I’ll throw these towels in the wash, and after dinner, we’ll set up some of our camping cots in Castiel’s room,” she said, though in the back of her mind, some part of her knew they’d be shopping for mattresses over the weekend.
She learned their names over heaping plates of spaghetti, and Sam and Dean ate like they were starved. The little one wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and slurped on his noodles, and Castiel’s mother smiled gently when Dean would hiss a quiet “Sammy! Manners!”
It took four days for her to learn more about them, and how they had landed in a little town like Belfast, Maine. Dean maintained that their father was just delayed, that he’d be back for them as soon as he could, and Castiel’s mother would nod, never contradicting the boy, even though she could see the doubt in his own eyes.
It took a month for Dean to allow her to register them at Castiel’s school. The boy had insisted that only Sam need attend, that he could find some place to work during the day, and make a little money to help pay their way.
“Nonsense, Dean,” she had said, shaking her head. “I won’t have an eleven year old boy running around by himself all day when he should be in school. I’ve already told you, both you and Sam are welcome to stay as long as you’d like.”
“Just until my dad gets back,” Dean said warily.
She nodded. “Of course,” she agreed.
She was surprised when the boy suddenly hugged her, his strong little arms circling around her middle with enough force to make her take a step backwards, but she held him back just as tightly, rubbing his back and dropping a motherly kiss atop his head.
He was sniffling just a bit when he pulled away, try though he did to hide it.
“Th-thanks, Mrs. Rourke,” he said shakily.
Castiel’s mother smiled. “You’re welcome, Dean. And please, you can call me Layla.”
It was four months before Dean began to confide in her, quietly when Castiel and Sam were off playing somewhere, out of earshot.
“I think he had a girlfriend or somethin’,” Dean said in a low voice, the two of them sat in the living room while Layla crocheted a new winter scarf for Dean. She was making it green, the color of his eyes; Sam’s had been in orange, the color of the boy’s choosing, and Castiel’s was red, but Dean had been too embarrassed to choose, telling her over and over that she needn’t worry about him.
“Oh?” Layla asked, the soft rustle of yarn against the crackling of the fireplace setting up a small soundscreen against the television, where Sam was still playing Super Mario on the Super Nintendo and Castiel had fallen asleep on the couch.
“He kept calling the same number, you know? Heard him sayin’ stuff too, like you say to girls. ‘Baby’ and stuff, and then…” Dean trailed off, his shoulders slumping. “Then it changed to ‘the baby’, like… like, you know? We were only s’posed to be here a week with Dad’s job, but then he said it got extended and he had to go a couple days, and… Well. You know.”
Layla nodded. “I know,” she agreed. She bit her tongue, refusing to say the things she’d like to about their father, this John Winchester character, wherever he had gotten off to. Oh, she’d love to give him a piece of her mind, but she held her tongue, for the sake of the boys. Her boys, as she had begun to think of them.
“You know, Dean,” she began quietly, crochet hook still looping away in one hand while Dean began to unwind the skein of yarn resting beside her and roll it into a ball, “Castiel’s father and I always wanted more children. We would have had a houseful, if we could.”
“But he died,” Dean filled in, with a sigh. Layla nodded; Sam had told her about the boys’ mother first, saying she was an angel; Dean had later explained during one of their quiet chats that it had been a house fire, and the impetus for their nomadic lifestyle.
“That’s right,” she agreed. “He passed away and it was just me and Castiel for the longest time. But I like having you boys here. It fills up the quiet, you understand?”
Dean nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I get it.”
“And you’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like. In fact, I’d like you to stay, for as long as you can,” she said. Dean nodded, and said nothing more.
Dean was fifteen when he started calling her ‘Mom’. Sam had started only a year after they had arrived, timidly asking one night if he could.
He’d never had a mom, he had explained. He had liked to pretend that he did. There was no way she could refuse him.
With Dean it had taken time; he remembered his mother, if only barely, and she thought perhaps he felt as though he were betraying that memory by accepting Layla into his life. It had come out casually, coupled with a kiss on the cheek as he and Castiel ran out the door to attend a school carnival.
Layla had cried to herself after they were gone. She could never be sure if the tears were for Dean, or for herself.
Dean was seventeen, and Castiel eighteen, when Layla realized that her boys were in love. It was a startling moment, one that made her stop in her tracks one day, just as she had on the basement stairs those many years ago, and say, “Oh.”
Once she understood it, it didn’t surprise her; for all of their quarreling over the years – and lord, had there been some – she would still catch Dean watching her son with an expression of wonder, as though the other boy had hung the stars. Castiel’s gaze would follow Dean with that same wonderment to it. It really was no surprise at all, when she thought about it.
It was a few more months before she caught them together, having kept quiet to allow them the fun of sneaking around after she had realized. Thankfully, it had been nothing more than some making out in that same basement rec room where Castiel had hidden his friends when he first brought them home.
A few years down the line, Sam’s best man speech had tearfully proclaimed that Castiel had been another big brother from the moment that they met, and now it was official.
Layla had cried; she cried more when Dean, hugging her goodbye before he and Castiel left for their honeymoon, told her in that same hushed tone he used in their old fireside chats, “He saved me, mom. He saved me then, and he saved me now.”
Years later, when she sat at a barbeque in their old backyard – Castiel and Dean had taken it upon themselves to keep the house in the family, moving in permanently when Layla herself decided she wanted something smaller for herself – Layla couldn’t bring herself to be all too surprised when Castiel came in a little late, a younger man in tow.
There was no doubt he was kin to Sam and Dean, with the same gangly frame the younger had sported into his late teens and the same dark blonde hair that Dean had even now. He looked nervous, hands shoved deep in his pockets, when Castiel brought him forward.
“Dean, Sam,” he called quietly. “This is Adam. Adam Winchester. Adam, this is Sam and Dean Rourke. Your brothers.”
The younger man’s face crumpled, and he began to cry. “I didn’t know!” he said, shaking his head. “I didn’t know, I swear I didn’t! My mom didn’t even know!”
They had found papers among John’s things, after he had passed from a heart attack some months before, with a faded photograph of two grim-faced little boys. It had taken time to find them, Castiel finally bridging the gap.
Layla watched as her boys approached and then tentatively shook hands with the other boy, Castiel flanking them, a careful arm around Dean’s shoulders. She knew in her heart they would work it out in the end, and that Castiel would help.
She couldn’t be surprised, after all. Castiel had always had a knack for bringing home little lost things.