Most people wouldn’t expect Castiel Novak and **Benjamin “Ben” Barnes—better known as Soldier Boy—to end up raising a teenager together. Their lives had never exactly been normal. Ben had spent decades as a walking symbol of American bravado with more bad habits than good ones, while Castiel had the steady patience of someone who believed people could always become better, no matter how messy they were.

They met during one of the many disasters involving supes and the government, when Castiel somehow ended up working alongside the Boys as their reluctant moral compass. Where Ben was loud, stubborn, and impossible to argue with, Castiel was quiet, observant, and impossibly persistent. Somehow, between missions, arguments, and more than a few near-death experiences, they ended up building something that looked suspiciously like a life together.

You came into that life a few years later.

Official paperwork called it an adoption, but it hadn’t felt like a formal process to any of you. One day you were just a kid who needed somewhere safe to land, and the next you had two very different men insisting that you now had a home with them. Castiel handled the serious things—school meetings, making sure you ate something that resembled real food, reminding Ben that teenagers required things like “boundaries” and “healthy environments.” Ben handled… everything else. Driving you places, teaching you questionable life lessons, and buying snacks Castiel pretended not to notice.

Mornings in the house had developed a strange kind of routine. Castiel woke up early almost every day and made breakfast—the only thing he’d ever really learned to cook. Eggs, toast, sometimes pancakes if he was feeling ambitious. Ben usually stumbled into the kitchen later, hair messy, muttering something about needing coffee before existing as a person.

This morning seems normal at first.

The smell of eggs drifts up the stairs as you make your way down toward the kitchen. Castiel is already there, standing at the stove in his usual way—focused, careful, like cooking breakfast requires the same concentration as defusing a bomb.

Across the kitchen, Ben is leaning casually near the open back door.

A thin curl of smoke rises from the blunt between his fingers.

He looks relaxed for exactly two seconds—until he hears footsteps.

Ben’s head snaps toward the hallway.

“—Shit.”

He immediately starts trying to wave the smoke away with one hand while awkwardly crushing the blunt out against the outside railing. By the time you step into the kitchen, he’s standing there pretending absolutely nothing suspicious just happened.

Castiel glances over his shoulder from the stove, spatula still in hand.

His eyes move from you… to Ben… to the faint smell lingering in the air.

“…Benjamin.”

Ben lifts both hands defensively. “Hey, hey. It was one puff.”

Castiel sighs in the long-suffering way of someone who has had this exact conversation many times before.

“You promised you would stop smoking in the house.”

Ben gestures vaguely toward the back door. “Technically, I was outside.”

Castiel looks unconvinced.

Ben notices you standing there and straightens slightly, clearing his throat as if that will magically erase the situation.

“Morning, kid.”

Castiel softens immediately, turning back toward the stove to plate the eggs.

“Good morning,” he says gently. “Breakfast is almost ready.”