Adventures in Baking

“I wish to bake a pie.” Sam looked up from the ancient text he was reading, eyes meeting Cas’ with confusion. He looked exhausted, and Cas had a feeling Sam hadn’t slept that night. It would explain why he was already in the library despite the early hour.

“We’re on a case, Cas.” He reminded, “Normally I’d be all for helping you, but people have been dying left right and center this week, I can’t just stop what I’m doing.”

“But I have to make one for Dean.” Cas explained, obviously expecting for it to make the situation different, to get Sam on board.

Sam smiled tiredly, “That’s sweet, but it doesn’t change things. Why not just buy him one? He’ll still love it.”

“I can’t, Sam.” Cas insisted, but the taller of the Winchesters had already turned his focus back down to the book in front of him. It was clear to Castiel that he would have to figure it out on his own, but he hadn’t the faintest idea on where to begin. He left the large library, moving towards his room in the headquarters that had become their home. He paced restlessly from one side to another. Eventually, Cas realized that a recipe would be the first thing needed. He remembered Sam finding a recipe for a spell on the computer once, and he figured that this couldn’t be too different. Cas slipped out of his own room and into Dean’s next door, knowing that his laptop would be left on the desk.

He quickly typed Dean’s password in—521983, Sam’s birthday. Cas smiled at the sentiment—and clicked on the internet icon on the bottom of the screen. When Google opened, he typed in “apple pie”. However, the only thing that came up were pictures and some very weird websites. Cas frowned, going back to the homepage and typing in “apple pie recipe” instead. Much to his relief, a plethora of options appeared. He clicked the first link and grabbed a pad of paper from Dean’s desk drawer with a pen, quickly jotting down the ingredients he would need before writing down the recipe itself on another piece of paper.

. . .

Getting to the supermarket was a challenge in itself. Cas’ driving had improved immensely since Dean had begun his lessons, but the Impala had gone with Dean to the morgue and Cas couldn’t wait for him to return as it would ruin the point of the surprise, not to mention Dean was two towns over and would likely not return until late that evening. He had struggled to remember what Dean and Sam did while performing Grand Theft Auto, but it took him multiple tries before the car came to life below him. Finding the supermarket proved to be his next task as he had only gone once with Sam, who had insisted Cas choose some of their groceries as he had to eat now, too. He tried to follow the same turns that Sam had, but ended up having to pull over and as an elderly lady walking a small dog, who too happily pointed him in the direction of the store, mentioning how much he looked like her ex-husband. Cas was starting to wonder why all of the elderly seemed to say that to him.

When he finally reached his destination, Cas made sure quickly he had the money he had been slowly accumulating from Sam before heading in, list in hand. “Hello, welcome!” A perky, young employee said happily, “Can I help you with anything today?”

“Um, yes.” Cas handed her the list, “I am trying to make a pie.”

“How sweet of you!” She started walking at a brisk pace, and Cas had to struggle to keep up, “Is this for your wife.”

“No, it’s for Dean.”

She started picking things off the shelf, placing them in the basket Cas was holding. “Brother?”

“No, we are in a relationship.” Her hand faltered briefly, and Cas remembered that Dean had told him not to broadcast their ‘thing’ because people wouldn’t like it. Cas couldn’t understand, because what they had was lovely, but he had nodded. “I apologize if I offended you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, sweet cheeks!” She beamed at him, placing the last of the objects in his basket before heading off in another direction, talking over her shoulder, “We just don’t get a lot of gay people, so I wasn’t expecting it.”

“I see.” She placed three more things in his basket. “That’s everything but the apples, but I trust you know where those are?” Cas nodded, “Good luck with your pie, Dean’s a very lucky guy!”

Cas moved towards the front of the store where he had seen the apples earlier. There were so many, and Cas was tempted to go back and ask which he was supposed to get, but he figured that it was one of those ‘common sense’ things Dean kept muttering about, and Cas didn’t want to confuse her. He grabbed a dozen of the red ones, hoping for the best, before heading to the front and paying for his items. He let out a breath when he got back into the car with his bags, glad that he was halfway done.

. . .

Cas didn’t understand why the dough had to be refrigerated for so long. Four hours? He looked to the clock on the microwave. It wouldn’t be ready until four! Dean would surely be returning shortly after six, and that didn’t give Cas much time to prepare. The hours seemed to pass by slowly, painfully. He knew he could start working on the filling after three hours, but they had still been the longest three hours Cas had experienced. Even the many books couldn’t keep his attention as he glanced back at the clock every five minutes.

When it was finally start cooking again, Castiel was anxious to finish. Cas searched through the cupboards, finding all the materials he would need and placing them in various places throughout the kitchen. He cut up the apples first, pulling the slices into cups until he had eight of them full and there was apple juice all over the place, seeds and cores haphazardly pushed aside. He continued following the recipe as closely as he could, finishing the filling just as the timer on the oven told him his four hours were up.

The recipe told him to knead the dough. Cas had to go back to Dean’s room and look up what that meant, and it wasn’t until he had been kneading for ten minutes that the recipe hadn’t clarified for how long he had to continued. The dough had grown stiffer, and Cas assumed that he had done enough. He lined the pan like it said before pouring the filling in and placing the other flat circle on top. He cut slits in the top as it told him to, but he didn’t know what it meant by “sealing” the edges. It said to use a fork, so Castiel did the only thing that made sense to him and stabbed his way around the edge.

The last thing the recipe told him to do was mix together egg yolk and mild and “brush” it on top. Castiel cracked an egg into a bowl before putting the milk in and stirring. The mixture didn’t look very good, but he spread it across the top anyway. He put it into the over and set it to the proper heat, sitting back and watching until the fifteen minutes had passed. Castiel quickly stood up and lowered the heat before sitting back down. He felt his eyes starting to droop, and he struggled to keep them open so he would know when the forty-five minutes had passed.

. . .

“Cas!” Dean’s voice rang in his ear and Cas jumped up, staring around blearily. It wasn’t until he took in the state of the kitchen and the awful smell that he realized he had fallen asleep. A glance at the clock told him that he had been asleep for over an hour. The smell had to be the pie. “What the hell, man?”

Cas looked at Dean, and then at the oven. He had obviously turned it off, but the contents had been left inside. “I-I’m sorry.”

“What were you thinking?” Dean asked softly, “ You don’t know how to cook yet.”

“Sam wouldn’t help.”

“Yeah, because we’re kind of in the middle of something.” Dean pulled Cas towards him, wrapping his arms gently around his waist, “What was so important you couldn’t wait a couple of days?”

“Happy Birthday,” Cas replied weakly, burrowing his face into the crook of Dean’s neck. “I wanted to… to make you a pie. I know it’s your favorite and I knew that you and Sam would forget about today because you’re so busy and I just wanted to surprise you.”

“That’s what this is about?” Cas nodded against Dean’s neck, “Cas, you didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to.”

“Let’s see this pie, then, yeah?” Dean pulled back slightly and Cas could see he was smiling.

“No, it’s probably horrible.”

“I don’t care, you made it for me so I wanna try it.” Dean let go and walked to the oven. He pulled the monstrosity out and even Cas could see how absolutely wrong it was. Dean chucked, though he looked like he was trying not to with everything in him. “Wow.”

“It’s horrible, you can’t eat that.” Cas protested, but Dean grabbed a fork from the drawer anyway and dug in, shoving a good-sized bite into his mouth. The inside looked worse than the outside and Cas saw dean cough. “I told you it was horrible!”

“No,” Dean shook his head, “I mean the crust isn’t really good, but the inside is okay.”

“I’m sorry it couldn’t be better.” Cas dropped his gaze to the floor, but the next thing he knew Dean was in front of him, his shoes coming into view as he tilted Cas’ head up so he could look into his eyes.

“It’s awesome, Cas.” Dean said strictly before sinking down to press his lips against Cas’.