The Winchesters and the Novaks are all sitting together when they hear the door open, followed by loud chatting. Castiel recognizes one of the voices as Bobby's, but the others are unfamiliar to him. After a few seconds, Bobby and two girls come into view. One woman is probably about Bobby's age, and the other is younger, probably in college.

"Hey," the younger girl greats them, tucking her blonde hair behind her ear.

"Hey, Jo," Dean replies. "Didn't realize you were coming up today."

"I noticed," she replies with a glance at Castiel, who is sitting a bit too close for their relationship to appear platonic. She doesn't seem judgmental about it, so Castiel is almost positive Dean isn't dating her.

"I take it these are the Novaks?" the other woman guesses.

"Yep," Sam confirms.

"Nice to meet you," she says to the other family. "I'm Ellen, and that's my daughter, Jo."

Jo gives them a smile. "Hey."

All the Novaks introduce themselves one at a time.

"Wait, are you the singer Castiel Novak?" Jo asks.

Castiel nods. "Yeah."

"Wow, Dean. Scoring high, huh?" Jo says with a teasing smile, causing Dean to turn a faint shade of red.

"'Course he is," Castiel replies. "I'm fabulous."

Jo laughs. "And very modest, too," she jokes.

"It's a gift," Castiel replies with a grin.

"You really broke out of your shell, huh?" Bobby observes.

Castiel shrugs. "Kinda had to."

"Well, good for you," Bobby replies.

The Novaks chat with the Winchesters and Harvelles for a while, and even though the author had a rough idea of how this scene was going to go, she completely forgets all of it. She's also too lazy to delete all this and introduce Ellen and Jo when she has a reason to because she's already written three hundred words and she doesn't want to have to write three hundred more words for the chapter. This has been an insider look at the laziness that is the author.

As the author quickly proofreads the chapter, she realizes the chapter would be long enough without this scene but she doesn't feel like deleting that so oh well. Deal with it.

~~

Anna finally comes home at around six that afternoon, and immediately, Lucifer is at her throat, which proves to be some nice entertainment for Castiel and Claire at the kitchen table nearby.

"Who's Cain?" he asks before she's even in the house.

"Who?"

"Cain," he repeats.

Anna shrugs. "I don't know a Cain, so..."

"Really? Not even your boyfriend?" Lucifer challenges.

This remark clearly catches her off guard. "My — my what? Luce, I'm not dating anyone."

Lucifer can see through her lie easily. Anyone could. A blind man could see through her lie, it's that obvious.

"Were you out with him today?" Lucifer asks.

Anna doesn't say anything at first, assessing the situation. Finally, she yells, "Samandriel, you're a dead man!"

"Wasn't him," Claire tells her.

Anna glares daggers at her. "Claire..."

"I wasn't even trying to screw things up when I said it," she adds. "You set that one up on your own. I mean, come on. Not telling your family you've been dating someone for years? You're smarter than that. Not much smarter, but smarter."

"Claire, that's enough," Lucifer interrupts, almost like a parent instead of a brother. "Anna, what's going on with Cain? Why didn't you say anything about him to us? I'm your brother. Why didn't I get to hear about him?"

"Never came up," Anna replies, her tone closed off.

"And that's why you told Samandriel not to tell us?" Lucifer challenges.

"Because I knew you'd make a big deal out of it," she replies dismissively, but there's something in her tone that make it hard to believe her.

"Or maybe there's something up with this Cain guy that you don't want us to know," Lucifer suggests.

"Of course not."

"Then there should be no problem with you inviting him over soon," Lucifer replies with a smirk, knowing he's won.

Anna groans in frustration. "Dammit, Lucifer, I've already got a dad. I don't need you here, too!"

"And when was the last time Dad was actually being a dad?" Lucifer challenges. "Right now, you've got Michael being the responsibilities part and I'm here for the social life part of being a Dad."

"Makes sense," Anna replies. "Neither of you are a full person, and you definitely can't be an adult on your own."

Though it was supposed to be an insult, Lucifer shrugs it off. "I don't agree with insulting Michael, but can't deny what you said about me. But hey, that's why I've got Mike. So, when are you inviting Cain over? I can't wait to meet him!"

"Why would I ever let you meet my boyfriend?"

"Because I told you to," Lucifer replies evenly, not letting her sass get to him.

"Yeah? And what are you going to do if I don't?" she challenges. "Gonna tell me I can't see him anymore? We go to the same fucking school, dipshit. I'll see him whether you want me to or not."

"Except, you know, we're kinda rich now," Lucifer reminds her. "I'm sure we could convince even the most selective private school to accept you, regardless of your grades or behavior. If I don't want you to see him, I could pull you from Wayward High in a second, take away your phone, keep you on lockdown in the house when you're not at school. So you will do what I say, or you won't even get to say goodbye to this Cain kid. Got it?"

If looks could kill, Lucifer would be dead.

"What do you want, Lucifer?" she asks finally.

"I want to meet Cain," he tells her, "and I want to meet him soon."

Anna sighs, knowing she can't win. "When?"

"How's tomorrow?" he suggests. "We can have spaghetti for dinner."

"Fine. And if you don't like him?" Anna prompts.

"Then you'll never see him again." Lucifer gives her a fake smile. "No pressure."

~~

"This is so stupid!" Claire whines.

Castiel sighs, trying his hardest not to snap at her. It's past nine o'clock, and the two of them are still doing math. Even after all that time, she has no clue what she's doing. He doesn't get it. It barely took five minutes for him to learn this. Why is it so hard for her?

"Try it again," Castiel suggests, drawing a new shape. They've already exhausted every example in the book, and he's had to resort to improvisational shapes with random numbers. The mental math he has to do to make it work is insane.

Claire looks at the problem for a minute before pointing to an angle. "That one is the same as that one, right?"

Castiel sighs. "No, those are supplementary, so they...?"

"Add up to 180°?" Claire says it more of a question than an answer.

"Yes, so that angle equals...?"

Claire quickly writes out the subtraction problem, and her inability to do simple mental math is really confusing him. Isn't this easy for everyone? Or maybe he's just too good at math. Probably the latter, actually.

"63°," Claire says finally, looking up at Castiel expectantly.

"Exactly," he replies.

She writes the "63°" inside the angle. "Okay, so that means this one is 63°, too?"

Castiel sighs yet again. "No, it's same side interior, so...?"

"It adds up to 180° and this is 117°, too?" Claire guesses.

"Yes," Castiel confirms.

She writes the "117°" in as well. "So... This is 117° because they're... They're the same thing, kinda, but lower, and this is 63° because they're supplementary?"

Castiel nods, grinning. "Exactly."
Claire returns his smile. "I think I kinda get it now."

"Kinda get it is progress," Castiel replies.

"And it only took a long ass time," Claire adds. "This must be pissing you off so much."

"What? Doing math after high school?"

"No, doing math with someone who can't," she clarifies. "I'm sure you were a freaking genius when it came to math like this."

"Not at all," Castiel lies. He was actually really good in school. "I get it. You just gotta wait for it to click. And I'll be here to help until it does."

Claire gives him a grateful smile. "Thanks, Castiel. I've never really had help like this. It really does help."

"No problem, Claire," he replies. "Anytime."