Goes with a lovely, fluffy AU-because-it's-too-happy-to-ever-really-happen 'verse on Tumblr. Here: .com. So there are really actually two levels of "I own nothing" going on here.

-{+}-

Castiel returned from errands to find the house in chaos. Not just disorder, which was moderately usual, but actual chaos. Papers and toys were strewn about the living room in places he had not thought they could be placed without flight. Half the contents of the refrigerator and bathroom cabinet were mixed on the floor, supplemented by the overturned, slowly emptying jug of Borox next to the puddle. A single, lone kitchen chair remained upright; its brothers were lying haphazardly around the wobbling table.

"Dean?" he called cautiously, dropping the groceries in favor of drawing the blade he still carried at all times. Just in case. But it didn't look like there'd been a fight, exactly...

"Yeah." His partner's voice called wearily from the bedroom. Following it, Castiel found another scene of destruction: sheets ripped off the bed and cast about the room, and everything covered in a thin layer of previously pillow-bound feathers. The hunter was sitting in the middle of the bare mattress, sucking something golden from a small plastic bottle. Zeppelin's head rested in his lap, snoring more loudly than would be expected of such a small girl.

"Dean," he repeated, lowering the blade and staring aghast at the mess, "what happened?"

"Um."

Castiel's gaze sharpened and focussed on the bottle in his co-parent's hand. "What are you drinking?"

"Whiskey."

The angel took the scene in again, and added some quick guesses. "You let Zeppelin imbibe whiskey? She's very young!"

Dean grimaced. "I didn't let her drink it. She did it by herself." He paused guiltily, then added, "I may have told her it was apple juice."

"Why?" demanded Castiel, still uncomprehending.

"Because stay-at-home moms at the park glare at you if you take a swig from a flask while your kid plays on the structure," he said irritably, "But if it looks like innocent apple juice, they sheathe their gossip."

"Why didn't you use a water bottle?" Castiel suggested, ignoring for the moment the inherent problems with consuming alcohol while their child played in the park. This was Dean, after all.

Dean sort of shrugged, affecting carelessness as best he could without disturbing the sleeping toddler. "That might've been a better idea, yeah. She got ahold of it when I was out back, trimming the trees. Little munchkin was supposed to be asleep. I didn't realize until I heard the chairs crashing."

Castiel's attempts to be stern faded in the face of Dean's obvious guilt. He'd never been able to stand against that. "It's not your fault," he said comfortingly, sitting beside his hunter and taking his hand. "She woke up and she was thirsty."

Dean gave him that crooked half-smile that let Castiel knew he knew what the angel was doing, and appreciated it anyway. "Probably. Anyway, by the time I got in, the only cleaning up I could do was keep her from bouncing off the walls any more. Only just barely fell asleep before you got back."

"I will put her to bed." Castiel leaned over and lifted Zeppelin tenderly from Dean's lap. She stirred and snuggled against his own chest, tangled brown hair falling over her face, but didn't wake.

"Thanks, Cas," said Dean gratefully. He glanced around at the chaos that used to be their bedroom and grimaced again. "Guess I'd better start picking up."

"That would be good, yes," Castiel replied serenely. "I believe there are some cleaning agents on the kitchen floor." Mercilessly abandoning his partner to sanitation duties, he carried their daughter to her own (miraculously undisturbed) bedroom. She never even stopped snoring.