I Made A Presentation About Whatever The Fuck Just Happened

Just to be clear this is right before he starts sobbing uncontrollably

I’m not one for weddings but this is how he would look at you

claire's not expecting them to be at the door. she blinks at the sight of four men all huddled on the stoop with flowers and what appears to be bags of food flowing from their arms. jack is peeking above a bouquet, beaming at her.

"who's at the door?!" jody calls from the kitchen, her voice muffled by the sound of grease popping and the clanking of pans and spatulas meeting over and over.

"god," claire calls back, because she likes to think she's funny.

there's a beat of silence, and then jody's sticking her head out the kitchen. the moment she sees them, she breaks out into a grin and saunters over, shoving the spatula in claire's hand as she chatters away.

"what's going on out there?" donna asks as claire escapes back to the kitchen to poke at food jody is apparently willing to burn just because the winchesters decided to show their faces today of all days.

"judgement day," claire says dryly.

donna shares a look with patience. "haven't we dealt with that already a few times?"

"only by association," claire admits, "but i wouldn't put it past them to bring it along with 'em now. the boys are here."

"oh, isn't that nice?" donna chirps, already popping up from her chair. "i didn't know they were stopping by today."

"wonder how sam's doing," patience agrees, wandering out the kitchen right along with donna. claire can hear everyone cracking up and talking in the living room.

trust the winchesters to shake things up just by showing up. can't have one goddamn day, can they? well, that's not true. in their case, as far as claire is concerned, they're shitty for showing up and shitty for not. someone has to knock 'em all down a peg or two, so she might as well be the one.

"what did that chicken ever do to you?" kaia asks teasingly as she sidles into the kitchen and stops by the stove, hip-checking claire out of the way to take over.

"the boys are here," claire informs her.

kaia raises her eyebrows. "like, the boys as in the winchesters, or is this a milkshake pun?"

"i can only be so gay, sweetheart," claire says, shooting her a flat look.

"raise the bar a little. could be gayer. you can always be gayer," kaia teases, reaching out to sneak her hand around claire's hip, her eyes bright with amusement.

"you know what? you're right," claire agrees and immediately tries to cop a feel while kaia laughs and dances out of range.

jack appears in the doorway. "hello," he says, whispering for some reason. "claire, i need your help."

"no," claire says, not even glancing at him. she continues to try and put her hand up kaia's shirt, just to see her laugh.

"can i borrow twenty dollars?" jack asks.

"no. aren't you god?"

"yes, but i don't get paid to be."

"well, sucks for you. borrow money from cas," claire mutters, settling in behind kaia as she focuses on the food on the stove, swatting lazily at claire's roaming hands.

"he'll just borrow money from dean."

"borrow from sam."

"he'll just borrow money from dean."

"borrow from—wait, why does it matter if it's from dean? just borrow from him."

jack huffs. "i can't. i need the money for dean. i have a card, and i read online it's customary to give money with a card. also, will you sign it?"

"you got dean a card?" claire asks, craning her head around to stare at jack skeptically.

"yes."

"don't tell me it's for what i think it is."

"mother's day," jack confirms unironically.

claire wheezes out a laugh. "oh my god."

"there's a pen in the catty on the fridge," kaia says, clearly amused.

"yeah. yeah, this is—yeah." claire chokes on more laughter and stumbles towards the group of pens in the magnet container on the fridge. she waggles her fingers at jack, clearing her throat, lips twitching. "hand it over, beanstalk. you're a fucking genius."

"oh! thank you," jack declares cheerfully, passing over the card. "so, can i borrow twenty dollars?"

"hell no," claire says. she braces the card against the fridge and swallows down a laugh. sam has already signed it. this just gets better and better. happy mother's day, old man, aka the secondary source of my mommy and daddy issues. you're going for gold with this double-whammy, she writes.

"but i need it," jack insists, staring at her with wide eyes.

claire shrugs. "tough break, kid. what, cas doesn't give you an allowance? is it just me, or are dads getting stricter these days?"

"i didn't think about it in advance," jack admits sadly. "i want to do it right for the holiday. it's mother's day, claire."

"i'm well aware. sorry to break it to you, kid, but last I checked, your mom's as dead as mine," claire tells him, her voice flat. he frowns and she forces herself not to feel bad. everything that sucks for him sucked for her first, so her sympathy levels are a little drained. "father's day will roll around eventually, and you've got a long line of those, so wait your turn."

"i've already done something for my mother today," jack says slowly, his eyebrows furrowed. "i visited her in heaven."

claire snorts derisively and passes the card back over. "must be nice."

"it was," jack agrees, completely missing the point. "i really can't borrow twenty dollars? i'll pay you back."

"nah," claire says. "who cares anyway? wait, why is dean the mom?"

"well, castiel is my father."

"ah, so it's about them having the hots for each other, then? really, kid, you coulda just made dean your step-dad."

jack blinks. "they have the...hots for each other? you mean sex. they have sex?"

"you know what?" claire points at him with her free hand. "i'm not gonna burst your bubble on that one. you've got enough issues on your own without wondering if mommy and daddy still have a spark, so I'm gonna leave that alone. i've got five dollars. take it or leave it."

"deal," jack says immediately.

money is exchanged, and jack looks like he's on cloud nine. claire's just stoked to see the expression on dean's face when he gets the card. it's a homemade card and everything, nothing like the two claire, kaia, patience, and alex got for jody and donna.

claire helps kaia finish up the chicken, which promptly gets set aside to wait on the rest of the food in the oven. sam wanders in at some point to drop off the food they brought. dessert, by the looks of it. pies and cakes that go in the fridge. it's kind of them, but claire would shoot herself in the foot before she ever admits it.

she lets kaia tug her into the living room where everyone is already at, rolling her eyes at how cheered everyone seems just because the winchesters happened to grace their doorstep. really, they all suck.

but also—and claire will never admit this, not even to save her own life—it's nice to see 'em again. it's nice that they've come to celebrate the day in jody and donna's name, giving them flowers and such. it's nice that they hang around for a bit and don't bring the world crashing down on everyone for the duration of their stay.

and, well, it's nice to see cas, too.

he perches up next to the couch that claire is squeezed on with alex, donna, kaia, and jack. kaia is practically in her lap, but claire is secretly glad for the excuse. while everyone talks and has conversations across one another, cas focuses entirely on her.

another thing claire will never admit is how reluctantly pleased by that she is. it warms her. stupidly, it turns soft and gooey in her chest that he automatically gives her his undivided attention over everyone else, even jack. but, then again, it's not cas' day, so she doesn't have to look too close to that feeling. it's mother's day, so it's not about him.

when the food is ready, they reconvene in the kitchen, and that's when they crack out the cards and gifts. claire is practically vibrating with laughter before jack has even brought his card out. before that, though, she smiles softly and strokes kaia's thigh under the table as jody and donna read their cards and chuckle at the messages, their gazes warm and their smiles sweet. they look happy. they deserve to be.

"okay, last one," claire announces, grinning at jack. she's starting to think she likes this kid if he's an agent of chaos like this.

and okay, maybe she hates him a little in abstract, but in detail, she finds that she does actually like him. you kinda just wanna put him in your pocket without meaning to, she's learned. there's too much to explore with the whole psuedo sibling thing and parents that aren't parents, as well as parents that are but didn't choose to be, only he did choose one of them, and it wasn't her. it's complicated, but underneath it all, there's a vibrant love there that she can't look directly at. sometimes, she despises that she's included in it; yet, just the same, she's thankful that she is.

"oh hell," dean mutters, swinging his gaze between alex and patience. "one of you...ya know? did we miss something?"

claire snorts.

"what? no," alex replies, grimacing. "i have no idea what claire's talking about. claire, what the hell are you talking about?"

"jack?" claire prompts in a wheeze.

"here you go," jack chirps, holding out the card to dean, beaming. "happy mother's day."

the expression on dean's face is somehow even better than claire imagined. she howls with laughter while sam buries his face in his hands, his shoulders jerking. cas squints at jack, and jody's eyebrows fly up at the same exact time that donna grins.

"is this a joke?" dean sputters.

"no, no, nope," claire chokes out, nearly fucking crying with laughter. "happy mother's day, dean."

"you gotta take it, man," sam agrees, clearing his throat and biting back a smile as he bobs his head dutifully towards the card.

dean fixes sam with a flat look and snatches the card. "you're all so fucking—sam, you signed it?!"

"happy mother's day," sam says, his mouth pinched, visibly trying not to laugh.

"do you like it?" jack asks earnestly. "i made the card, sam signed it first, and claire provided the money."

"i—" dean stares down at the card, then heaves a sigh and looks up at jack. it's clear to him that—out of everyone—jack is clearly taking this very seriously. he offers him a weak smile, then swallows. "yeah, s'great, kid. thank you. sam, you are dead to me. claire, i will be spending this on something you hate. cas, this is somehow your fault."

"yup, sounds like a mother to me," jody declares, holding up her beer with a smile.

"welcome to the club," donna agrees, holding hers up as well. "everyone else annoys the shit out of you, but you love 'em anyway."

dean sighs and clinks his beer to theirs.

i'd bully him

Burn in hell you stupid monarch

"This is uh. When I was growing up me and my dad used to go at it all the time. Over almost anything, but uh, I used to have really long hair way down past my shoulders, I was 17 or 18, oh man he used to hate it. And we got to where we were fighting so much that I'd spend a lot of time out of the house. And in the summertime it wasn't so bad, 'cause it was warm and your friends were out. But in the winter I remember standin' downtown and it would get so cold, when the wind would blow. I had this phone booth that I used to stand in and I used to call my girl for hours at a time just talking to her all night long.

"And finally I'd get my nerve up to go home. I'd stand there in the driveway and he'd be waiting for me in the kitchen. And I'd tuck my hair down in my collar and I'd walk in, and he'd call me back to sit down with him. And the first thing he'd always ask me was what did I think I was doin' with myself? And the worst part about it was I could never explain it to him.

"I remember I got in a motorcycle accident once and I was laid up in bed and he had a barber come in and cut my hair. And man, I can remember telling him that I hated him and that I would never ever forget it.

"And he used to tell me 'Man, I can't wait until the army gets you. When the army gets you they're gonna make a man outta you. They're gonna cut all that hair off, and they'll make a man outta you.'

"This was I guess in '68 and there was a lot of guys from the neighborhood goin' to Vietnam. I remember the drummer in my first band comin' over to my house with his marine uniform on, saying that he was goin' and that he didn't know where it was. And a lot of guys went and a lot of guys didn't come back. And a lot that came back weren't the same anymore.

"And I remember the day I got my draft notice. I hid it from my folks, and three days before my physical me and my friends went out and we stayed up all night. And we got on the bus to go that morning, man we were all so scared. [Laughs]. and I went, and I failed. [Crowd cheering.]

"And I came home, — [laughs] it's nothing to applaud about — But I remember comin' home after I'd been gone for three days, and walkin' in the kitchen and my mother and father were sittin' there, and my father said, 'Where you been?' and I said, uh, 'I went to take my physical.'

"He says, 'What happened?' I said, 'They didn't take me.'

"And he said, 'That's good.'"

-Bruce Springsteen, on Live/1975-85

ryan and shane announcing ghost files

the fact that anyone dying can cost a nation up to 6 billion pounds is actually absurd

This meme is inescapable on French insta so I'm posting it here for all to enjoy