Chapter Text
Colette loved her job. To a lot of people, working with 4-5 year olds sounded like hell on earth. Sometimes, when she told people what she did they would openly wince and chuckle, elbowing her and saying something about how much it must have sucked.
And- well it wasn't easy, obviously. Like any job it had some difficulties.But ultimately, she loved it. Every child was just the cutest thing she'd ever laid her eyes on.
The way their kindergarten worked was every classroom had two teachers, with the one teacher doing the actual teaching with a small group of kids while the other would act as a TA. playing and keeping an eye on the rest; the teachers would rotate turns every day or so.
The first day of kindergarten, she was off rotation and was assisting the parents and new children while her coworker worked on setting up their class activity. She stood near the doorway of the classroom, anticipating the new arrivals. She'd been teaching kindergarten for three years now but she still got antsy at meeting the kids.
At exactly 8:30 (she knew they'd been glancing at the clock every few seconds), a man walked through the classroom door, with a little blond boy on his hip. Colette instantly moved forward to greet them, her voice pitching high and soft as she clasped her hands together.
“Hello! Welcome! It's so nice to meet you!” she sang, waving at the boy and his father. The dad nodded at her, setting the little boy down on the floor and patting him on the back, urging him to greet her back. He raised one hand and smiled up at her and her heart exploded. “Hello!”
He was beaming, like a small part of the sun dropped down and its rays would shine out his smile and the crease of his eyes. She went through their student list the last few days, trying to remember their faces and names, if at least vaguely, this had to be…
“I'm Jack!”
She crouched down, folding her ankle length skirt under herself and reaching out a soft hand to shake his. “Well hello Jack! I'm Ms. Hummer! I'm one of your teachers!” he smiled, grasping her hand with his tiny ones and moving them up and down in big, floppy movements.
Standing back up, her eyes landed on the boy's father. A tall, dapper man who looked maybe in his early 30 to mid 30s, wearing a full suit, a beige trench coat that almost reached the man's knees and a backwards blue tie.
“Sorry- Mr. Kline. It's so nice to meet you” she extended her hand to him as well, but unlike Jack who instantly took it in kind, Mr. Kline tilted his head, staring down at her hand. After a few seconds of staring he perked up like he remembered what to do and reached out to grip her hand and give it a few shakes before pulling back.
“Please, there's no need. Castiel is fine” he put a hand up, giving her a kind of pulled back, forced smile. Jack popped up back into her line of sight to get her attention.
“Hey, hey! Look! Do you wanna see my backpack?” Jack jumped up and down a few times before doing one big jump to turn his back to her, wiggling a bit to show off his back pack. “It's the princess and the frog, you see?” he asked, peeking over his shoulder to look up at her to make sure she was watching.
She nodded and gasped, covering her mouth a bit with the tips of her fingers in awe and excitement (not all fake, just… heavily exaggerated). “Wow Jack! It's so cool! Is Princess Tiana your favorite?" she asked, swinging her hands in a wide circle motion and resting her hands on her hips, looking down at Jack.
He turned back around, mindlessly grabbing his dads hand as he swung his body side to side. “I like Princess Tiana like one time she came to my birthday party. Did you know that? And then- and then we took a picture” he asked in that little kid way that never fully stopped, yet was filled with stuttering and filler words. She nodded the whole way along, making a small gasp with raised eyebrows.
“Really? That's so cool! I love Princess Tiana" Colette nodded, and his dad (Castiel) pulled his hand from the boy's small hand to place it on Jack's back, showing him over to the cubbies that were next to the door. “Why don't we put your back pack away and sit down”
She smiled, watching Jack nod excitedly and run over to the cubbies, and finding the cubie with his name and picture, putting his jacket up and taking off his dinosaur sweater.
A few more kids came in, and iIt took a while but eventually they got all 17 sitting at one of the four colored circle tables. Parents doing the usual routine she'd seen many times over, setting their kids at a table and taking a lot of pictures.
A few parents were already tearing up before they even started suggesting it was time for them to head out, but when they did, it set in on the kids that their parents weren't actually going to stay with them the whole day and they started crying. It was always a tear jerker for her, but she always tried to keep the sobbing kids to a minimum.
She looked around and zeroed in on Jack and his dad who was crouched next to him, patting and rubbing Jack's back. Castiel looked conflicted, like he didn't know what to do. She wanted to walk over there and try and help but it was always kind of a personal moment for the parents and she didn't want to ruin it. Jack was crying into his small hands but eventually calmed down when Castiel pulled out his phone, giving it to Jack.
The boy put the phone up to his ear, talking to whoever it was on the other end. Jack nodded here and there, shrugged once and eventually started smiling again. It made her heart all warm and fuzzy inside.
After 5 more minutes all the parents started to make their way out of the classroom, Castiel took back his phone but stayed on the line with whoever it was. He walked past her, with his phone to his ear only taking it away to say goodbye. She's pretty sure his eyes were a bit red too.
That day during pick up, Jack was the first one to have his name called out. He was practically vibrating in her hand, jumping up and down talking about his dad and how excited he was to go home.
She led him to the door that led directly outside and he ran off and straight into Castiel's arms, who picked him up in one swift motion. He turned and started walking off and over his shoulder Jack waved at her, yelling his goodbyes. He was just the cutest.
—
Kindergarten had only been going on for a few weeks but she already knew Jack was something extraordinary. For only five he was really advanced for his age. He could count up to 60 with no issue, he wrote his name perfectly, not to mention he had a very… advanced vocabulary.
But overall he was a sweet boy. He said his please and thank yous, he was extremely polite and thoughtful. But the one thing she had a problem with were his stories and drawings.
“Wow Jack! That's such a good drawing!” she crouched down next to where Jack was sitting, hands resting on the edge of the blue round table.
“Who are these people?” she asked, pointing at the picture. Not only was Jack advanced academically but he also had amazing fine motor skills. The four people he drew had well shaped circular heads (not shaky oval heads she'd seen from all her other kids), and distinctive outfit pieces that were neatly colored.
“My family” he only stopped coloring when the sun in the corner was fully shaded in; putting the crayon down and moving it for her to see better. She could only recognize Castiel, wearing a long trench coat and his dark blue tie. But Jack also drew him with black outlined wings.
“Is that your daddy?” she pointed him out, jack nodding excitedly, assisting himself to move closer to her.
“Yah! That's daddy with his angel wings! He's an angel, did you know that?” he asked, tilting his head at her. She tried to nod and pretend like she understood what he meant by that. “Oh really? And who's that?”
She moved on the line of people, going over to a woman shaped stick figure with a halo over her head. Jack nodded again, grabbing a green crayon to color in the grass.
“That's mommy! She's in heaven now”
She winced, instantly regretting the line of questioning, but it didn't seem to bring Jack's mood down too much. He pointed at her halo and Castiel's wings.
“Look, mommy is in heaven and daddy is an angel. He has super big wings! They're super cool and he can fly and do magic! Did you know that?” he asked, looking over at her with big, round, brown eyes and she could just squeeze the life out of him. He was so cute.
“This is dean! This is my other dad! And this is Sam! He's my dad aswell!” she nodded, was it three dads? She didn't know what kind of family dynamic they had but maybe Jack still didn't know the difference between a dad and simply a male father figure.
She examined the stick figures, one in a very detailed coat and necklace, the other tall and bulky, with long hair. They were both holding sticks? pipes? “What are they holding?” she asked.
“A gun and a knife! They kill monsters!” Jack said excitedly, kicking his feet, rocking back and forth. “They drive around and kill all the bad guy monsters! Like werewolves and vampires and demons and send them back to hell!"
“Oh- no jack we dont draw things like that in class. And we don't say hell.” She covered the drawing with her hand, shaking her head. “Ill let you finish your drawing and take it home, but we can't draw that anymore okay?”
Jack nodded, puckering his lips to make a face. “Okay miss Hummer”
She was going to get up and leave him to finish his drawing but stopped when he moved his arm to reveal another, fifth person; drawn in the corner of the page. Instead of all difrent colors the man was drawn in black crayon and not as much detail. A round head and sticks for a body and legs.
Most disturbingly though, he had two horns on his head, with a pointy tail and angry face with red blotches all around him. Blood so it seemed. She didn't want to ask but at the same time she did. Well- she had to anyway. Madaded reporter and all that.
“Jack? Who is that?” she gestured, and only this time did Jack's mood seem to dim, face falling and not looking up from where he was coloring in the yellow and orange sun in the corner of the page.
After a few awkwardly long seconds he responded "that's lucifer”.
That day, along with the picture Jack drew, she made sure to include a note, documenting her concerts to Castiel sending it home with jack in an envelope.