Chapter Text

Angels were beings of function rather than emotion. This allowed them to remember everything despite their infinite existence without going mad. Exceptional angels existed who shunned this, which led to the creation of Naomi’s office. It was true for Castiel, who had fallen, had occupied a single vessel longer than most angels (barring Gabriel, who has not changed his since the Vikings walked), and had been seraph, human, god, then malakh.

So to cope without being broken, to remember without remembering the loss, Castiel had fractured some of his grace and planted it around some of his father’s creations. Castiel had buried one shard of it beneath the bench where he’d confessed his worst sins and told the Righteous Man that he was not a hammer. And though he broke his grace, he visited to remember.

Castiel touched down in his favorite place. Always hoping that though it had been long since forgotten, this would be where he would find the Righteous Man against all odds.

But it was still empty, his favorite bench surrounded by tall grass. The park was now filled with rusted metal. The humans have moved on from the suburbs and have long since built their cities inside enormous towers to expand, learn and find a place to keep their exponentially growing numbers. Only the immortal, ancient, and undying have seen the bench.

Unfortunately, one such immortal waited for him in this place. He couldn’t change his routine and abandon his favorite spot despite its predictability. One of his sisters, her wings tucked away while inside a vessel manifest on the mortal plane, was standing patiently while he regarded her. It must be urgent. Since the Gates of Heaven had accepted Heaven’s children back into its folds, angels have been reluctant to leave their respective circles.

“Castiel,” she said in the severe tones that marked her as one of Raphael’s garrison before the Second Fall, “you are being summoned.”

Since becoming the Caretaker, no one summoned him anywhere. As long as he attended the Throne and ensured it was bright, shining, and perpetually waiting for its owner, his brothers and sisters left him to his own devices. Being the Caretaker was vastly tedious work because his Father had not deemed it worth his time to hold court in the Throne of Glory for eons. The Caretaker of the Throne served a purpose when Metatron locked Heaven, but without an occupant, the title was mostly useless.

Gabriel was managing his circle, and after a few centuries, Raphael, who had grown back from the Void of being smote, had also resumed his post.

Gabriel was the right sort of contrast to Raphael’s seriousness. Castiel had forgotten how archangels worked in pairs; Lucifer and Michael were a matched set before the First Fall. Gabriel encouraged Castiel to govern Aravoth, the Seventh Heaven. So, Castiel was in a throne room without a ruler, surrounded by cherubim, seraphim, and ophanim.

Castiel unfurled his wings and flew, touching down in the Throne Room and genuflecting in front of the empty Throne. He turned towards his captain, Selaphiel, his summoner. The angel who has been given dominion over Thursdays. Castiel’s role as Caretaker did not exempt him from the garrison’s separate hierarchies. Castiel waited for his orders.

 “You have been without a charge for more than a thousand years.”

Archangels gave souls to Guides. He has not been a Guide since he lost the Righteous Man. Not since he was brought into the garrison under Anna (whose angelic name has been stripped off the records after she ripped her Grace and was Born).

“They have not entrusted me with those duties since my First Death.”

There was a beat of silence as Selaphiel regarded him carefully. “We are entrusting this to you now.”

It is against an angel’s nature to protest, disobey, or challenge. Yet, he took that defiant and deliberate step forward. The act of rebellion was beginning on his lips.

“It is time for you to live again, Castiel.”

“I am not worthy of this trust,” Castiel argued. He still had work to do. He still hadn’t found Dean. Castiel felt a dull pain in his chest. He rubbed the leather band on his wrist, its surface rough from constant wear. Threaded through it was Dean’s old ring, the one he had used to pop open beers, the metal dented and scratched from the bottles.

“You are worth second chances, Angel of Thursday,” His captain intoned, with steel in his voice that showed both conviction and his right. “But that isn’t why you’re disobeying, is it?”

Castiel took a deep breath; he hadn’t known that others had noticed where he had spent his time. He was looking. He seemed forever doomed to constantly searching for impossible things, didn’t he?

“We have not seen his soul for decades. Is it not time to set your sights elsewhere?” Selaphiel asked.

“The Righteous Man has been my responsibility since I raised him from perdition. I have cared for Dean Winchester since I rebuilt him from bone and sinew.” Castiel shook his head. “I cannot just leave him.”

“You will be on Earth, Castiel. Is that not what you want? To be where he is, so you can look?”

Hunter pulled up a shirt from where he’d discarded it in the middle of the fast frenzy in what was probably his victim’s guilty pleasure and what was a somewhat routine hunt for him. He spared a moment to rub his fingers against the bridge of his nose to stave off the headache that he was bound to get from the guilt his conscience muttered.

But he’d long since known when he’d been old enough to pull souls from the unsuspecting, what manner of souls he was willing to tarnish, and what souls he would leave alone.

“Hey lover boy, what’s the rush?” the redhead asked from the rug, trying to pull him back.

There was a twinge of annoyance because though he’d deceived her into falling into bed—or floor—with him, he’d been clear that it was a one-night stand. “Don’t you have a fiancé to get back to?”

She recoiled a little at that. Her willingness to cheat on the fiancé earlier meant she had no moral high ground. If she left the douche bastard, then even more soul-bright for Hunter. “Can’t I have your number?”

To cheat with him repeatedly? “No.”

That had never been his style. Besides, there wasn’t anything in it for him. Tarnish a soul too much, and it was useless as a bargaining chip. Take it whole, and he’d send the soul straight to a crossroads demon for the standard ten-year contract. He’d only sent one soul to a Crossroads demon in his twenty years stealing soul-pieces. He vowed never to do that again.

Abaddon wasn’t really into the whole Crossroads thing. Good thing Crowley was still lurking in Hell’s underground. What kind of fucked up life did he have to consider Crowley the lesser evil?? Goddamnit, where is my shoe?

It was then that Hunter noticed his illicit one-night stand dangling the missing item from one of her fingers. He snatched it from her wordlessly, dressing up and preparing to leave. She trailed her fingers against his right shoulder, caressing his birthmark before he flinched and shot her a glare.

“You want to stay awhile?” she asked conversationally, watching him from under her eyelashes. Hunter thought she might just be hoping to get lucky, but then he’d watched her for weeks. It was a hunt, one of the easiest types of hunts. She was just lonely. She was also marrying a class-A douchebag, so what did he know?

“Got something to do, lady,” Hunter muttered as he opened a vial in his pocket. With a flash and a quick sharp pop, it filled with a bright soul-piece, and the woman was unconscious.

Hunter tugged his shirt down, secured the soul-piece shut, and walked away. He looked back at the redhead. She’d fallen artlessly on the floor. He grimaced. There was his goddamned conscience acting up again.

He pulled her up from the cheap rug and laid her in the middle of the motel bed, kissing her forehead softly. “Sorry, it’s for family.”

Hunter slapped down the soul-piece in the middle of the bar’s counter. Pharzuph, the fallen angel he was, snatched it up appraisingly, lifting it against the light and eyeing the soul glow critically. The bartender of Crowley’s Inferno, flipped the long blond hair that fell over his shoulders so it wouldn't get in the way of the evaluation.

Hunter could never get the differences in the glow between soul-pieces he brought. There were plenty depending on whether the soul-piece was willing or if Hunter had taken it because his victim had lied or cheated. The seven cardinal sins were always shinier. Things that went against the Ten Commandments always earned more, but Hunter could never get himself to tempt a poor soul for that.

“This is barely enough for a month’s rent, boy,” Pharzuph criticized, showing off forearms that bulged from his too-tight shirt as he put the soul-piece away.

Hunter seethed internally. He was fucking twenty-six, getting called boy by every other person could give him issues. Of course, every other person he knew was a long-lived demon older than a hundred, so what did he know? “Much less feeding that worthless soul you’re protecting.”

Hunter knew his victim had been on the verge of cheating when he’d entered the scene and tempted her. Urging her to kill the bastard fiancé might have gotten him a brighter soul-piece, an entire soul even, but that would have earned her a one-way ticket to Hell. He wasn’t that heartless. Not yet. Although he was born under Inferno’s shadow and raised by demons, he had an indestructible sense of right since birth. He had no idea how it happened.

Pharzuph gave him a sharp look as if he could read Hunter’s thoughts. He turned the collar up of his leather jacket, its studs glinting in Inferno’s lights. “You’d best wield that pretty face of yours to earn your keep, human, else we’d just be riding that meat suit and do nasty things with it.”

“You just want some of this ass,” Hunter challenged. Although he couldn’t imagine bumping uglies with Pharzuph. He could have done without that mental image. Pharzuph was attractive enough with blond hair, the dark-blue gray of storm clouds for eyes, and always, always radiated sex. No matter what gender. Hunter had watched the fallen angel turn an utterly straight man into a night of debauchery once. And Pharzuph looked like a man’s man, bulging muscles with multiple tattoos inked into his skin and tight jeans that Parzuph would have needed both a lack of oxygen and food to get into. Pharzuph clearly knew what he was doing.

“I should take that up as a challenge, boy.” Pharzuph’s eyes glittered with the warning, but he inclined his head towards the right into the double doors leading to the back area, including Hunter’s rooms and their boss’ office. “But Boss wants you.”

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, then. He gave Pharzuph one careless grin before ducking into the boss’ hallway. By the time he’d entered Crowley’s L-shaped office and stood before the King of the Crossroad’s desk, he had wiped the smirk off his face.

Crowley had vials suspiciously resembling Hunter’s collected soul-pieces. Goddamnit, it was a performance review. Hunter hated those. This had sneaked up on him abruptly.

“Take a seat,” Crowley said, motioning to the chair in front of him. Crowley had the most uncomfortable chairs inside Inferno. Mainly because it amused him to see people who visited him fidget under his gaze.

“I’d prefer to—“

“Take a seat.” The chair moved without Crowley laying a hand on it.

Hunter didn’t want to wait before Crowley started flinging demon powers around and strapped him to the goddamn chair. Hunter took a seat. Go self-preservation, one point for you. Hunter cleared his throat. “Hey, boss, what’s up?”

“You’ve been underperforming,” Crowley said as he touched the vials of glowing soul-pieces on his table.

“I’ve been doing a long-haul plan,” Hunter corrected. If anything, Crowley appreciated long-term planning. Of course, Hunter still had to come up with this long-haul plan of his.

Crowley steepled his fingers and leaned forward, narrowing his eyes at Hunter. Hunter felt his brow sweat a little. Kings have broken on that gaze. “You know why I took you on, Hun, right?”

Crowley knew how to pick his nicknames, Hunter thought with mild distaste. He couldn’t protest the name, or Crowley would keep mocking it. Better to let it pass. “Mom got captured and killed by demons in Inferno, fortunately?”

Hunter, in fact, did not remember his mother. His earliest memories were living in Inferno’s broken rooms with an equally broken soul of his roommate. They had given him the name “Hunter” because his mother was a hunter, and the soul he was bunking with was a hunter, so Hunter he was. That and the entire Winchester Gospels had started a new religion. It amused the demons to call him that.

“You proved you’re one of the freak humans who could get a soul. You’ve even evolved to a point that you could take pieces of it instead of a whole. Even Death couldn’t break off pieces. I keep you because you’re useful. ”

Underneath those words was the threat that Hunter would be out of a job and out of a roof over his head if he ever stopped being useful. That is if he even survived the encounter alive. More importantly, he’d get the soul he was protecting thrown back into Hell, and he wasn’t willing to risk that. The job and roof were not a problem. Hunter was a survivor. He’d survive being homeless and broke, but he couldn’t abandon the only family he’d ever known.

“Yeah, well, I fly under Abbadouche’s radar. All your red-eye demons get under her scrutiny, and they get killed. Violently and irrevocably,” Hunter pointed out, another truth that Crowley couldn’t deny. Of course, it wasn’t a good idea to point out Crowley’s weaknesses to his face. Hunter was just full of brilliant ideas today, wasn’t he? “I’m a human harvesting souls. She’s got bigger fish to fry.”

“You getting cocky, Hun?” Crowley asked, his eyes narrowed.

Careful. Careful.

“I’m just saying, Boss.” Especially since Crowley is the underdog in this entire vote for Hell business that has been going on for longer than Hunter has been alive. Abaddon was cutting a swathe of blood across Hell, winning over demons with her fist. Crowley whispering for votes was losing because she was killing anyone who disagreed. She was ruthless that way.

Crowley said nothing, and Hunter resisted the urge to fidget. Crowley respected those who could hold their own against him. Being in a demon clan was worse than being in the Mafia. At least if he got dead with the mob, Hunter was sure he’d be done. There was no done with demons. If he died on them, he was sure he’d blackened his soul enough to earn him a few hundred years on the rack. He sincerely did not want to test the theory. Hunter’s solution had always been: to keep himself fucking alive.

“Hey, boss, do you ever see my soul?” Hunter asked, mostly because he was curious but also because it would break the silence, and he did not have a brain-to-mouth filter.

Crowley gave him an honest-to-goodness laugh. Hunter was on the fence about laughing. “What? You think you can pay for your debt by selling your soul? If you want a real appraisal while it’s in your body without a contract, you need a feather-duster. Although I doubt that you’ll get close enough with one to become chatty, what with the sticks up their asses.”

Well, at least Crowley had answered the question. It was probably why demons took souls rather than piecemeal as Hunter can. Not that demons took souls in pieces pre-Abaddon purges. But since it was more dangerous for red-eyed monsters, if the Queen of Hell noticed soul-stealing, contract-wielding, then pieces it was. Hunter gave Crowley a grin. “Well, I’ll tell you if I meet up with one, then.”

“If only I could be a fly on that wall. I would watch just to see if you can charm your way out of their smiting spree.” Amusement over Crowley’s eyes steeled. “This is a business. I am trying to take over Hell, do your part and you won’t get stranded. Git.”

With the audience over, Hunter found himself staring at the closed office door. Damnit, he hated it when demons moved him out of place. It was unnerving as hell to be standing after his muscles remember sitting. Hunter sighed as he backed away. Right, performance review over. Moving on.

Hunter lived in a cramped, windowless room at the back of Inferno. It had a bed, enough porn to satisfy lonely nights, and an old LCD with which he could load those ancient TiVos. He was still catching up on those ancient Game of Thrones when he had time. Not that he had a lot.

His roommate was in, disheveled, but mostly whole. His day of absence equated to about four months in Hell. Hunter picked up an unopened glowing vial, which he usually kept on his person. It was a soul-piece he saved from the others, dipping his fingers in and smearing it across his roommate’s cuts. His roommate glared at him, causing Hunter to almost spill the rest of the vial.

Hunter glared back. “John, you’re not seriously going to refuse treatment. You almost said yes the last time.” What Crowley was trying to accomplish, Hunter had no idea. According to the Winchester Gospels, Crowley wasn’t pro-Apocalypse. He was just plain pro-Crowley. Having John Winchester back in the rack didn’t seem like a pro-Crowley move.

Hunter’s roommate had been in Inferno for ages. The only family Hunter ever knew was John, but Hunter had never discovered how they had captured John’s soul.

“It doesn’t mean I have to like it, boy,” John growled, eyeing the vial like the plague. Maybe it was. Hunter’s history with demons altered his perspective.

“Look, I seriously take enough of that ‘boy’ crap from the demons. I have a name—“

“What you have is what those black-eyes gave you, Dean,” John growled.

“Yes, because you insist on calling me some saint’s name. Could you please move on?” Hunter said, patiently capping his soul-piece and hiding it in his pocket. “I ain’t a saint, John.” 

“You have your anti-possession tattoo?” John asked urgently.

Hunter sighed and lifted his shirt. He’d gotten it on his left hip to match the Enochian ones on his right. An angel-script protected him so that nobody could soul-stare at him. Having been in the soul business for so long, he knew soul-farmers must be hidden from angels. “You’re worse than my father.”

“You never knew your father—“

“Call me boy one more time and I’m leaving you here,” Hunter threatened, pulling his shirt down and throwing himself on the bed. He needed some shut-eye and a bottle of top-notch whiskey but loathed drinking. He couldn’t touch a bottle without throwing up. He must have angered the gods of whiskey in a previous life. That or he’d died on a binge.

There was a stretch of silence, and Hunter opened one eye cautiously. John wasn’t creepily staring at him, but his head was hung low in sorrow. “I dunno, son, I think it’s time that you moved on from this. I will manage well on my own. I have been managing.”

That got Hunter shooting up from his bed. If John had been corporeal, he would have shaken him by the shoulders. Damnit, self-sacrificing ghosts will be the end of him. “They want you for something John, they want you to spill blood in Hell, right? I’ve read enough of the Winchester Gospels to know they believe you’re the Righteous Man. So yes, I might be in a crappy place right now, but you ain’t breaking the seals. Not on my watch.”

John had told Hunter once that they crammed him up in Inferno because intermittently, Abaddon raids the rack. Crowley didn’t want anyone to know he had John Winchester because, hello, ace up the sleeve. Hunter’s room was the only option for a ghost. Conversely, it was also the only room they could keep a human baby in. Most of the rooms held demons that would eat a baby alive. It was how John had ended up half-raising Hunter.

Which is why John kept projecting Dean over to Hunter. Hunter allowed the old man to do it most days. “Dean” wasn’t the worst thing to be called. God knows John Winchester kept enough baggage for both of them. “John, stop. If you don’t want treatment, then at least get some pretend shut eye until the next round of torture.”

After Hunter’s last soul-mark, the entire cheating on her husband slash fiancé slash significant other left a sour taste in his mouth. So he’d ended up in one of the Biggerson chains spread across the Tower Cities, leaned against the corner booth, and just observed.

He couldn’t escape the gnawing gut feel of being a farmer, but he had no choice. It’s not like he could get another profession amid a demon-run brothel slash soul-factory. It was a wonder the demons didn’t get him addicted to their soul-drug concoctions or make him sex-starved. He’d seen a few humans that those had lured. He had Crowley to thank for sparing him from that, at least. They said he had touched his mother the moment he was born, and Crowley stood in awe as a fraction of her soul went into him before she died. It was why Crowley had kept him alive. He was a businessman, and souls were the currency of Hell.

He’d cleaned up some, gotten one of the ancient tablets he’d mostly refurbished, pretended to read one of those old greats he dug up in those free internet libraries, got a cup of coffee that he would refill perpetually, and waited for a mark.

He varied his hunting locations to avoid being noticed. Picking up marks in a single bar got him made almost instantly. He would also switch up his vices occasionally to keep finding new targets.

Something distinctly non-honey trap and more pride or greed, maybe. Hunter stayed away from wrath. That got people dead quickly. Admittedly, with his skill set, it was always easier to go with envy and lust.

That was where he met little Jack, with his weirdest, great baggy nanny…whatever.

Jack was probably around seven to ten, with reddish curls that might earn him the name carrot top, almost out of childhood, losing chubby cheeks. Freckles dusted his nose, and his dark gray eyes stared up at Hunter for a few seconds. Then, as if deciding something, he slid into Hunter’s chosen booth and silently stared at him.

That wasn’t even the most absurd thing. The kid’s parent, a man with short dark hair combed back neatly, finishing with stubble, slid into the booth next to Jack. He tucked the trenchcoat that had flared out neatly into the seat. Usually, parents would apologize for their kids. No, this dude just waited until the kid was seated in the booth comfortably and boxed the kid in.

Hunter stared at them for a few minutes in disbelief before clearing his throat. “What?”

The kid gave him a toothy smile, a complete set of pearly whites, which told Hunter that he was a cared-for child with enough dentist visits and would probably be missed if Hunter up and decided to take him.

“I’m Jack. You looked like you needed a friend.”

What Hunter needed was a mark. An honest-to-goodness mark that would fill his soul quota for a month. Jack’s age made him a potential kidnap victim if he tested positive for a soul-shard, but his weird dad-attachment made it impossible.

Hunter raised his eyebrow and made a swift hand motion towards his tablet so that it would close on its own before looking around Biggerson’s. Admittedly, Biggerson’s was a family place. Hunter came here in search of a sloth shard or a vulnerable child to lure into drug addiction. He wasn’t picky, but Hunter drew the line at kids that barely reached his hip.

“Dunno, kid, I don’t think I’m the type of friend your dad would approve of,” Hunter cautioned, nodding towards the guy in a suit under the weird trench coat that had accompanied the boy.

Jack’s eyes rounded before he looked at his companion. “I told you he was special!”

“Indeed.” The voice caught Hunter off guard. His voice was rough and gritty, cracked like dry earth in a drought. Hunter looked at the guy to find his intense stare had transferred from the kid to Hunter. “You can see me.”

“Dude. You’re a six-foot tall guy in a flasher coat. I’d be seriously missing a few points in the observation department if I couldn’t fucking see you,” Hunter said, annoyed.

Trenchcoat-dude raised an eyebrow, then comically raised his hand to flag one of the multitudes of waitresses that refilled Hunter’s table with coffee. Once that didn’t work, the guy stood up, marched toward a random server, and actively pointed in Hunter’s direction. All the while, the waitress who’d been serving Hunter ignored the dude’s crazy antics. She walked up to Hunter, leaned her hip against his table, and leaned down to give a flirty smile while topping up his mug.

“Who’s the kid?” she asked, eyeing Jack sideways, presumably deciding if the kid was worth the trouble of getting Hunter away. But Candy—as her nametag proudly proclaimed—wasn’t the type of soul Hunter was looking for, either.

“You ain’t gonna see what that dude wants?” Hunter motioned to the guy in the trenchcoat with his head. “He’s been trying to grab your attention for a while now.”

“What, dude?” Candy asked in the puzzled tones of the genuinely lost as she turned towards where Hunter was pointing. She shrugged and gave Hunter a weirded-out look before backing away slowly with her carafe of coffee. “You need to lay off the caffeine.”

As soon as the man slid into his seat, Hunter threw trenchcoat a fistful of salt he’d gotten when Candy was talking to him. It earned him an annoyed look from the man and strangled laughter from Jack.

“I am not a ghost,” the man muttered while dusting off the salt.

“He’s my Guardian!” Jack announced as he leaned forward, elbows on the table and chubby cheeks resting on his fists. “Everyone important has one.”

Hunter felt the beginning of a headache as he pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. He needed a mark, not a kid with his guardian scaring away his game. “Look, kid—“

“Jack, I think what he wants to say is: we need to leave.” The man in the trenchcoat said softly to his young charge.

Jack’s brow furrowed as he turned towards the adult. “This is where we are supposed to be. Now. We’re meant to see him today, Cas. I just—” The kid got frustrated, as if he couldn’t form the words he wanted to say, and looked up helplessly at his guardian, Cas.

“He’s warded,” Cas told his charge and Hunter’s eyebrows lifted quickly. An unseen guide that can detect wards. Who was this Cas dude, and what exactly was he? What was this kid that needed this guy’s protection? More trouble than they’re worth, for starters. “I’m sorry for taking up your time.”

“Warded!” Jack’s eyes lit up, and he leaned closer to Hunter. “Could I see? My first confession is coming up and my mom wants me to choose a Word for my protection and my penance.”

A Word for protection and penance meant that the kid belonged to the Church of the Hunter’s Cross. Which doubly meant that Hunter should not associate with the kid at all. Because if there was one thing about the Cross, it meant that down the line, this kid had a hunter’s upbringing and a hunter’s family. They might not be actively hunting, but he probably had a grandfather or a cousin twice removed who was actually a hunter.

Hunter had gotten his tattoos free from the church because he knew their words were Enochian sigils burned into flesh. They worked, and he was not turning down a free tattoo. That and he refused to get it from a demon.

“Dude,” Hunter reprimanded as Jack dodged down the table and scrambled up to his seat, trying to guess where the tattoos were.

Cas furrowed his brow at the exchange. “Jacob.”

The boy stopped as if suddenly realizing he had trespassed over multiple social boundaries. “Sorry, Cas.”

Cas gave a short, cordial nod towards Hunter, and the boy sheepishly turned towards him and mumbled a weak apology. “It’s just that it’s him, Cas. He’s important.”

“Look, kid,” Hunter said in exasperation. “I don’t know where you’re getting these vibes, but I’m practically a nobody. Go back to your playground.”

The kid moved out of the chair and gave him one last look before taking Cas’s hand. “We’ll meet again, sir.”

As soon as the kid was gone, Hunter decided that prey was decidedly short that day, and he’d move on to one of his other haunts while the kid was still there.

“This was your long-haul plan? I approve.”

The only thing that saved Hunter from jumping in surprise at Crowley’s sudden appearance was years’ worth of facial training, demon desensitization, and an awful lot of luck.

Say what now? Hunter wanted to utter because he was decidedly not getting anywhere with any program. Hunter gave Crowley his best blank look. Unless they’re in your body, demons can’t read your mind. It was unlike angels who could read freaking minds unless you have the handy Enochian on your hip. He should revisit the Cross and thank them for the tattoos profusely.

“I do love myself a wee minor prophet, and getting the trenchcoat into the deal is a sweetener as well.” Crowley clasped his hands together as he leaned forward to look at Hunter and narrowed his eyes. “Unless you didn’t know that and just stumbled onto the prophet of this age and his guardian angel. The somewhat newly anointed—give or take a few thousand years—Keeper of the Throne.”

The only word associated with Cas, trenchcoat, and guardian angel was an obscure angel reference in the Winchester Gospels. Hunter didn’t understand how he got involved in this mess. He was a virtual nobody in the entire demon slash mob hierarchy. He shouldn’t be getting fun-freaking-tastic angels and prophets dropped into his lap.

“I know what Cas and the kid are,” Hunter protested. But actually, no, he didn’t. Ever since the Winchester Gospels started to have a cult following, a lot of the masses had named their children Castiel, and some of those children grew up to become trenchcoat-wielding freaks. Seeing someone in a trenchcoat named Castiel didn’t usually bring to mind an angel. The angels haven’t actively meddled in human affairs since the Second Fall with the closing of the Gates. They had their problems.

Reading the Gospel of Chuck was tricky because Chuck was born in the age when information was free, and Chuck wrote himself into it. Four years after it came out, there were so many stories based on the gospel called—and Hunter just cringed to think of it—fanfiction that even scholars found it challenging to separate what were actual Words of God and which were merely very, very good imitations.

Religions devoted entire sections of religious studies to argue if Chuck simply was a prophet or God singing the kumbaya. Hunter didn’t care to believe one or the other.

The Gospel of Chuck, together with a later published Gospel of Kevin, comprised two of the books in the canonical gospels of Winchester. Between those two books was the Epistolary of Castiel, and the Winchester gospels finally finished with the Epistolary of Samuel. That was more than enough for a non-hunter to know, period. The only reason he knew that was because he needed to learn a bit of the religion to get his protection tattoos.

Maybe he should go and actually finish reading those goddamned books. Pleasing the hand that tried not to choke Hunter to death might earn him a break the next time there was a lull in the entire soul-harvesting thing.

“I’m sure,” Crowley said dryly, eyeing Hunter speculatively.

“Any special requests, boss?” Hunter asked because there was simply no way to be subtle around Crowley. The human picked up the coffee cup and pretended to sip. Keeping his hands occupied prevented fidgeting and panic, which Crowley did not appreciate.

“I need a fragment of the boy’s soul. The entirety of it would be better.” Crowley drummed his fingers against the laminated tabletop, eyes narrowed. “Getting me the angel’s grace would be bloody brilliant. Souls, whether prophetic or not, are a dime a dozen. Grace, on the other hand, is more difficult to get than virginity from a nun.”

Grace. What did Hunter fucking know about grace? Zilch, that was what. Where the hell can he acquire that knowledge without giving up something he deems irrevocable? Hunter gave out a low whistle. “Sure, boss, whatever you want, I can give.”

“I appreciate a good boot licking when I see it,” Crowley murmured with a satisfied sigh. “Wear more plaid, try to deepen your voice, you don’t look Winchester enough. You lack the symmetrical face and those goddamned pouty lips. But you’ll do. He’s not going to expect a replica. That’s not how reincarnation works.”

Hunter almost inhaled the coffee he was pretending to sip. “What? John mistakes me as his son more often than not already.”

“That’s the idea, you wanker.” Crowley rolled his eyes. “That trenchcoat has one weakness: Dean Winchester. The last intel I received was that his soul is lost on earth because he got reborn, for whatever reason running around in that little squirrelly mind of his. You’ll do as a copy. That little soldier has always had a stiffy for Winchester. He will want to believe, and he’ll believe any copy.”

“With a bit of skepticism. We’re not talking about Mulder here. He’s an angel of the Lord,” Hunter pointed out, putting down his cup of cold coffee before there were more mishaps.

“Those gits are programmed to believe.” Crowley tapped on Hunter’s old tablet, which lit up once before going back to sleep mode. “That is your poison, isn’t it? Selling the lie? Go sell the goddamned lie.”

Crowley disappeared right after saying those words. Hunter scrambled to hold the tablet, his eyebrow rising, when he finally found what Crowley had given him. An entire section worth of the Winchester gospels. He opened one file, and his eyebrow rose further. It contained creative insults littering the margins of the kind the former King of the Crossroads was known for. Those side notes included a lot of commentaries that the usual Bible didn’t contain, presumably helpful to sell the con.

Hunter shoved the tablet into one of the larger pockets of his coat. He had his next mark. Good to know.

Chapter Text

Being a guide was time-consuming work that bred both patience and discipline, Castiel thought. Jack, unlike Dean Winchester, was given to Castiel’s watch from birth. And while his function as a guardian was different this time, it was still right that he would stand and watch. The angel had watched the boy with the patience of an immortal. A child just born had little to no intervention needed since their parents, ever-loving as they were, kept close heed of a newly made child.

When Jack was old enough to walk and get into trouble, Castiel suddenly and fiercely remembered his last charge. And while the most trouble Jack got into was trying to eat his toys or stick his hand down most unnatural mechanical things that humans kept to make their lives better, he followed his father around with the hero worship that all young boys held.

Once when Castiel flared his wing out to catch the boy from tripping over the stairs, Jack gave the angel a toothy grin and tried to brush his wings. Castiel gave the boy a gentle, rueful smile and sent him on his way. Unlike his previous assignment, where he’d been required to act as a soldier and as a friend, this one needed him to be a mentor. He carried out his duty unseen by most other humans, especially since he read to the child at almost every waking moment. No matter how strong the cloak, though, Jack managed to find him unerringly. The youngest humans were still closest to their newly gifted souls. They could pierce the veil and could still see angels.

But as Jack grew older and grew into his sense of self, Castiel realized that it wasn’t just a child’s newly minted soul that made the guardian angel visible to his charge. It was also because that was the boy’s ability. There was no doubt that the boy was a prophet. All prophet names were seared into the angelic code when they were all created. Still, other than the prophetic, he could see the supernatural without the benefit of the veil. No other immortal could hide from the boy. He was a stronger prophet than even Kevin had been.

Since the Second Fall, angels were called back to Heaven and could only observe humans. Angels became myth and legend as they were wont to do. Humans were more prone to believe demons existed than angels. It was just as Sam and Dean had those years before Castiel came into their lives via a barn and the shadow of wings. When Jack was younger, his parents dismissed his ramblings about his angel as the creativity of a young mind.

A moment like this happened to Jack at age three. He walked up to his mother, Gertrude, and asked, “Mom, what happens to us when we die?”

His mother, entirely unprepared for an existential question from her son, was flabbergasted and on the verge of panicking, searching for an explanation that her child could grasp. But before she could form a half-coherent response, Jack comically hits his palm against his forehead. 

“Oh, never mind, mom. I remember.” Curious, Gertrude gives her son an encouraging smile, so Jack continues, “we become new again.”

Jack had an affinity to the afterlife and the Guf, the Repository of Souls, where souls were stored before they became babies. He informed his father about the Treasury. “We’re all light there, like itty-bitty little fireflies but teeny-tiny five-year-olds.”

His father indulges him with his so-called imaginings that Jack tells tales with big gestures. 

“So we’re all hanging out in this big treasury box under the Throne of God. We’re like a big class there waiting to pick the right parents. When we choose them, Gabriel carries us over to the Tree of Life so we can mature, and Leihla tells us all sorts of stories about God the Father.

“We wait at the Tree for weeks until we fall into the waterfalls before we enter our mommies. After a couple of months, our moms give birth to us at the hospital. Then you get a brand new baby!”

There were appropriate appreciative noises at Jack’s imagination, but Castiel knew it was a memory rather than some fantasy. 

Castiel worried because mundane parents having children with unnatural abilities never ended well. There comes the point that indulgence bled to an annoyance or possibly fear. This happens when Jack is seven. He stopped at a park, waiting for Castiel to approach him. His mother took Jack’s hand and tugged. “Let’s go, Jacob.”

Castiel shook his head, but Jack did not understand what Cas meant. “I’m waiting for Cas, mom,” and he pointed at Cas—who, since guarding Jack—was invisible to most human eyes.

His mother looked at the mostly empty park, and her lips thinned. It was a hard day for Jack when he realized he couldn’t tell anyone about Castiel. He was sent to his room for fabricating stories about having a guardian, and the other kids were unsympathetic.

Castiel had never understood why prophets were set up to live such solitary lives. Castiel sat down on Jack’s bed, silent, as he always was whenever watching his charges. He had warned Jack that not many people would understand him when they referred to Castiel, and sometimes, having his guardian angel was a curse. He wished Dean were there to advise him on guiding the prophet.

“Jack,” Cas had said once the precocious boy had stopped petulantly hiding under his blankets. “Let’s be secret friends instead. One that your parents don’t know about.”

“You said kids don’t lie to their parents,” Jack accused.

One of the other problems of raising a prophet was their nigh-perfect memory for details. It’s how they manage to write their prophecies and their stories. Jack hasn’t come to his full power yet. He has no prophecies yet to give. “Okay, what would Dean do?” Castiel asked because he wasn’t above using the hero-worship of the boy to get his way. 

“Dean wouldn’t need to prove you were here. All his friends know angels exist,” Jack answered. He threw off the blankets, sulking entirely over. That was one thing with Jack. He had ever-changing moods. “Could you ask Sam, please?”

Castiel gave his charge a fond smile and promised to consult the younger Winchester. That conversation started more regular visits with Sam, and those, in turn, had helped tremendously with watching and befriending a human child.

Watching Jack had been relatively peaceful until finally, on Jack’s ninth summer, which had been bound to be forgettable but wasn’t, Jack stilled in the middle of eating his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, looked at Castiel, and said, “We’re meeting someone soon. Someone important.”

Castiel was never more unnerved than his charge’s prediction in over a millennium of service. As soon as Jack slept, Castiel flew towards Sam.

He had startled Sam lounging with Jess, his first and last love, at the large fireplace where couples spend their lazy days together. Sam never did get to marry when he was alive, despite Dean’s heavy encouragement—from Heaven no less—because Jess was already dead, and he’d found someone else. 

They both looked up and smiled when they spotted him uneasily standing between the doorway, one foot in, one foot out, unsure of his welcome. Unlike when he had no idea of social norms, he felt like interrupting Sam now while he had his arms around Jess was impolite.

In contrast, Sam appeared untroubled. His smile didn’t falter when he spotted the angel and waved him inside the room, Jess’ smile mirroring his own. “Hey there, stranger,” Jess said teasingly, stretching her arms on the large, comfortable sofa they never had in real life. The room resembled their housing at Stanford but was upgraded once they had access to unlimited resources in Heaven. “It’s been a while.”

“I just visited a few weeks ago, when Jack decided that he wanted a K-2SO and I didn’t know what that meant,” Castiel reminded her, pulling up one of the chairs and sitting while Jess laughed. Rogue One had been long after the info dump Metatron had given him on pop culture, and sadly, Castiel still didn’t have time to update himself. Jess scrambled up from her position to pat his head before leaving the room, giving him some alone time with Sam.

“Going out to jog, Sam, maybe crossing over the gate to Mom and Dad,” Jess informed him before taking one of the leashes for the dogs.

One of the advantages of having the angels back again and having them patrol the third heaven was mortals could ask for gates between two doorways to be built. Heaven became a close-knit community as long as the mortals on both ends consented.

While angels had restricted humans to personal heavens because of malcontent, it was human nature to be jealous, envious, and sometimes plain adversarial. Ash’s doorways made the restriction obsolete. To address discontent caused by mixing, humans were given the choice of permanent isolation in their heavens. Not many human souls opted for that choice; mostly, heaven’s denizens got along.

“Sure thing,” Sam replied, sitting across from the angel and raising an eyebrow. “So what’s up Cas?”

Castiel thought about his answer as Sam’s question required more than a casual glance at the ceiling. (Using what’s up and ceiling had become outdated decades ago). “Jack seems to think we’re meeting someone important soon, but I still haven’t found Dean.”

“So, maybe it’s someone who’s going to lead you to Dean,” Sam suggested. “Why are you worried, Cas?”

Castiel wondered if Dean would have asked him that question in Sam’s place, or would he have known inherently what was causing the angel’s distress over the Righteous Man’s reincarnation? “There’s also the possibility that he’s not. Dean may not have been given such a pivotal role in the apocalypse. I may not be able to search for Dean if Jack and I meet someone important.”

Sam frowned and tensed his jaw, all traces of the lazy morning gone from his visage. “Dean decided to get reincarnated for a reason. I told you I’m willing to reincarnate and lead you to him.” As Dean's soulmate, Sam would have been reincarnated close to the elder Winchester and bound to meet within that lifetime.

“When we realized what he had done, at least a dacade of Earth years had already passed.” Sam matched his heaven with Earth’s time arrow, waiting for Dean. Castiel continued, “but you have Jess now, your brother wouldn’t want you to abandon her.”

Once a soul gets reincarnated, it changes them. And Dean surely wouldn’t want Sam to leave Jess until Sam was ready. Sam’s reincarnation might separate him from Jess permanently since she wasn’t his soulmate. It had always been Dean.

Sam ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “Dean wouldn’t have walked out on us if it wasn’t important. The reason might have been stupid, but mostly it would be because he’s stupidly loyal.”

Sam wasn’t saying things he hadn’t repeated before the first time they’d realized Dean had walked out of his heaven and wasn’t just exploring the edges of the Shehaqim—the third heaven. He sought reincarnation from the Tree of Life. Before Gabriel checked the Tree, they thought he was coming back.

There was something that Castiel was missing. They had all realized rather quickly how Dean was reincarnated. Despite the angels being back in the circles, Dean still visited the Tree. Gabriel already admonished Dean about the entire soul fiasco, then imprinted his grace with the Tree more strongly so that the Tree wouldn’t latch on to Dean instead. Like most vital things in Heaven, the Tree was sentient and recognized Dean’s importance.

The why was a mystery to Castiel. Even Sam couldn’t understand why Dean would choose to be reincarnated. Sometimes, he wondered if he had understood the older Winchester at all.

Castiel paused, tilting his head to the side to listen better. Jack was praying, and it always felt like a confidential but intense whisper when his charges called out in quiet prayer. Sam gave Castiel his space, already knowing from his long association with Cas that he was intent on his charge back on Earth.

“Sorry,” Cas excused himself. “Jack is about to sleep and was telling me about the missed dinner.”

“Jack’s turning out all right.”

“Yes.” Castiel smiled ruefully, pleased that his charge was coping well despite being touched by angels. “Well, he isn’t in a mental institution, yet.”

Sam’s face quickly turned into the stillness of awkward and not-quite-shock. If there was one thing Castiel learned, it was that the young Winchester still did not understand Castiel’s brand of humor. “Yeah, all right, Cas.”

A week later, Cas and Jack met the man at a Biggerson’s booth who saw angels when no one else could.

Hunter ended up reading in the middle of Inferno because John was having a fitful rest in his room, and Hunter was loathed to interrupt any form of shut-eye the ghost got. Although John didn’t need it physically, Hunter believed some R&R could do him well.

Inferno shared a doorway to the City of Dis in Hell, and its backdoors opened to level sixty-six, one of the seedier parts of the Tower Cities. Both entrances were regulated, and while it was easy to get into Inferno, it cost a pretty penny and a pound of both soul and flesh to crossover using a different doorway than what you entered. Its two exits made it a popular spot for business transactions between topside and below. 

A Devil’s trap and salt-reinforced walls made the tower’s back door a safe passage for demons and their ilk. The Devil’s trap by nature allows things in and keeps them in. The salt keeps the demons out.

A demon couldn’t enter the Tower Cities through its front gates because of the salt, but with some bargaining, they could enter this particular tower if they paid the price because Inferno had been built as a quantum superposition. It was inside the tower but completely present in Hell. They could bargain for souls that summoned them if they were so inclined. How Crowley got this place was a mystery, but it was a one-up over Abaddon’s.

Inferno’s quiet off time allowed Crowley’s staff to lounge and prepare for another night of debauchery. Hell’s denizens might not have night and day, but Earth certainly had, so Inferno had its office hours, so to speak. Hunter slid into the bar, using its light to read, while Pharzuph eyed him speculatively.

“You’re reading,” Pharzuph said in deadpan.

“Yes, sometimes I pick up e-books,” Hunter huffed as he swiped the tablet’s page to shift pages. “Sometimes, I even understand them.”

Pharzuph stopped wiping the table, his fingers circling Hunter’s intimately before leaning over to read the title. “The Winchester Gospels? That’s heavy reading for you. I did appear briefly there.”

Hunter closed the reader, disengaging Pharzuph’s hand from his. Despite Hunter’s discomfort over Pharzuph’s sexual innuendo, first-hand information was still valuable. “Which part?”

Pharzuph put away the rag he had been using, giving up all pretense of actually working. “Before I came to the dignified work that I have here,” Pharzuph waggled his eyebrows suggestively and waved around at the bottles of souls glinting under Inferno’s light before tapping Hunter’s tablet. “I was imprisoned close to Lilith along with my brothers. The opening of the Devil’s Gate was a sure winner.”

“Wait, wait,” Hunter interrupted. “You’re an escaped demon that they rounded up after that? Sort of like John? Who were you?”

“You humans and your need for names.” Pharzuph shook his head. “I took a female host the last time I was topside. I believe they referred to me as Lust in the books.”

“Lust as in the seven deadly sins lust, that Lust?” Hunter asked as Pharzuph rolled his eyes but confirmed it. Hunter almost jumped up in excitement. “You met Dean Winchester.”

“And was promptly dunked in a tub full of holy water for my efforts.” Pharzuph leaned close enough for Hunter to feel the demon’s breath on his ear and whispered, “but, there are some things worth getting exorcized for, isn’t there? A night with Dean Winchester and debauchery surely would have counted.”

Was Pharzuph actually coming on to him with Dean Winchester as bait? Hunter thought incredulously. “Well, did you get anywhere near Winchester?”

Pharzuph placed both hands on Hunter’s shoulders, probably to do another suggestive hand-holding or whatever Pharzuph did to keep his prey enticed, but Hunter gave him a slight push. “You don’t have any information for me other than you being Winchestered before you got your jollies, don’t you?”

Pharzuph’s eyes flashed black, but Hunter was unfazed by the demons’ attempts at intimidation. He’s been around them his entire life. The black flash thing was nothing but theatrics and smoke in his books.

If Pharzuph wanted him dead, he would be dead. If Pharzuph wanted him strung out on lust, he’d be that too. Hunter learned that in Inferno, demons craved the thrill of the hunt before they gorged on a soul.

Hunter gave Pharzuph a defiant look before Pharzuph hissed and rubbed his cheek against Hunter’s. Hunter’s skin prickled at the contact, and he wanted to recoil immediately, but Pharzuph would definitely see it as a weakness, so the human held his ground. Hunter may have won that round, but Pharzuph was still a demon and stronger than Hunter’s human frame. 

“One day, boy, I am going to string you out, fuck the cockiness out of you then take your soul out piece by fucking piece.”

“But not today,” Hunter said firmly, holding on to himself not to show disgust at Pharzuph just trying to scent him.

“No, not today,” Pharzuph laughed as he let go of him, nodding towards the doorway where Crowley gave them the stern eye. “One day Crowley isn’t going to be the boss of us, boy. On that day, I might just taste you.”

“Hard pass on the Rosemary’s babymaking.” Hunter was creeped out by the possibility of Pharzuph’s interest being either sexual or for a taste of his soul. Because Hunter didn’t have an ounce of self-preservation, he had virtually no brain-to-mouth filter, and he did need more information. He blurted, “I don’t even know how you could go from angel to sex freak in one breath. I thought you were dickless scumbags when you’re fully graced up.”

Pharzuph looked startled for a moment before he burst out laughing. “I had sex before I fell, mortal. Grace dulls emotions, it dulls sensation but it doesn’t negate it. Envesseled we feel differently from what humans feel but it is still felt.”

“It’s the difference between mediocre vanilla sex and pain play when an experienced hard-core masochist  submissive experiences an orgasm,” Crowley contributed suddenly beside Hunter, head leaning on his knuckles watching the two of them. “What? I’ve had a couple of birds in my day.”

Imagining Crowley and whips wasn’t so difficult. Imagining him dominating an angel had Hunter’s neurons short-circuiting. At least he wouldn’t get killed while Crowley was actively interested in his research. It didn’t bode well if Crowley took such a close interest that he had no secrets. “So angels can fall for a honey trap.”

“The trick for an angel that’s fully graced up and envesseled is the trap. Unlike mortals, angels do not feel the urge to procreate, they do not have animal instincts or mating drives because they were born fully formed and created by God’s power.” Crowley gave Pharzuph a cocky smile motioning for a drink. “But once you find the right honeypot, Hun, angels are natural submissives. They’re programmed to obey.”

Hunter was always uncomfortable with Crowley and his innuendos, which didn’t make sense because they were practically in the sex industry. Hunter wasn’t paid for it in cash and wasn’t labeled a prostitute, but his coin was sex, and he’d made peace with that. 

“No body horror Dawn O’Keefe teeth moments I should know about?”

“We should really update your popculture references if penis-eating-vaginas are your go to,” Crowley mutters before he motions to Pharzuph. “Nothing to irreparably damage you. There’s the wingflare but that’s just showboating. Their grace will naturally try to reach out and meld with you though.”

Pharzuph snorted while putting away the bottle of whiskey he’d served Crowley. “Angels naturally want a connection. It’s a byproduct of the Song. They get maudlin when alone. Why do you think so many Nephilim were born back when they were allowed to walk the Earth?” 

At Hunter’s lack of answer, Pharzuph shook his head. “The closer to graceless they are, the more vulnerable to the desires of the flesh, including sex and lust. But even with full grace, ambition or the need to kneel are both strong compulsions. The correct bait is crucial.”

The right bait. And Crowley has appointed Hunter as a honey trap. Brilliant.

While Jack’s family was nominally religious, Castiel had already ascertained that his parents were more appropriately classified as uncaring believers than genuinely faithful. He didn’t hold it against them because Castiel had moments of extreme doubts and self-reflection.

It didn’t come as a surprise, though, despite their lack of extreme religious beliefs, that Jack’s parents had planned for their child to receive the sacrament of reconciliation shortly after they believed him cured of his imaginings.

They had bought him a book of Sacred Words and asked him to choose one to be held at his first confession. Religion has changed significantly since Castiel’s last Earth visit. He had no idea why Jack had been given a text on Enochian runes for protection during his Rite of Confession.

Jack had been carrying the book around for a while, leafing through it indecisively. One afternoon, while they were on their regular wait-for-Jack’s-brother-who’s-dallying date, Jack pointed to a word and showed it to Castiel. “What do you think, Cas? Would this would work?”

“AB.” Castiel traced the two Enochian symbols together before sounding them out phonetically for his charge. “This means, ‘Daughter of Light.’”

Jack winced, then skimmed more pages and glanced at Castiel. “What did Dean have?”

Dean had a long scrollwork of Enochian carved into his ribs that Castiel had painstakingly written between one moment and the next. While it did not protect him from possession—the pentagram over his heart had effectively done that – it had hidden him from other angels. Although Castiel had never understood it, Balthazar had called it a tramp stamp.

“I do not think Dean received the sacrament from the church the way you’re implying, Jacob,” Castiel said kindly.

Jack furrowed his brow before rifling through the first part of the text and handing it over to Cas. Castiel looked at it curiously, reading through the passages before realizing it was a vague account of Dean receiving his anti-possession tattoo and the subsequent version of Castiel carving Enochian.

The denomination spiraling off the Winchester Gospels was still primarily Christian in nature. However, it was different enough that Castiel still didn’t grasp all the nuances. He wondered what Dean would have thought of it, irreverent and faithless Dean.

Castiel knew that attendees included hunters and their families and those saved by hunters. It seemed to be the case with Jack since his parents were bankers on the seventieth floor of their Tower City and only followed most hunter protocols because of the church.

“You are going to get a tattoo?” Castiel asked to confirm once he finished reading.

“No, they’re gonna give me a sorta permanent dye after confession to help ‘ground me against the dark’,” Jack informed him, taking the book back and flipping to another section. “They’ll tattoo it when I’m older. Pain as penance for sins.”

Castiel blinked. Sometimes, he couldn’t fathom how religions evolved to equate pain with penance. Par for the course at Winchester. And Castiel wasn’t one to judge. “Let’s approach it differently, what’s the message you want to convey??”

Jack was taken aback by Castiel’s unexpected gesture, causing his eyes to widen. “I want it to say that you’ll always protect me.”

Castiel smiled at the child fondly. Human interaction was one of the things that he missed about being a Caretaker. Humans had an innocence that the undying lacked. He thought Dean would have enjoyed Jack’s company given the chance to meet.

“That’s a given, Jacob. I am your Guide. But maybe something a little bit functional and aesthetically pleasing at least. It is going to be permanently emblazoned on your—”

“Butt!”

Castiel coughed. That’s also one thing he might have to talk to Jack about. What he finds amusing at nine may not be the same at thirty. There might be some merit to it being impermanent now that he was young, to change once he was of age. “So, what is it that you wanted?”

Before Jack could reply, a shadow fell over the book, and Castiel looked up to find Jack’s ‘premonition’ standing uneasily, waiting for their conversation to be over. Before Castiel could formulate any question, Jack beat him into saying, “you came!” 

The man shifted uncomfortably for a few seconds while Castiel waited for him to reply to Jack’s enthusiastic welcome. The prophet had been the one to invite himself to this man’s seat earlier, but now it was the stranger who approached them.

He was rubbing his hand sheepishly behind the back of his neck, in contrast to the annoyed patron that he and Jack had stumbled on their first meeting. “I—look, I’m sorry I was a little—ah curt?—the last time. I got laid off and was looking at job ads on jobNet. Can I buy you ice cream to make up for being a douche?”

He’d said in one big rush that Castiel had taken the time to decipher that entire sentence before Jack had clapped his hands over ice cream and just took the guy towards the till to order.

Castiel followed them to the line—always long in Biggerson’s—before placing a hand on Jack’s shoulder in warning.

The man gave Castiel a nervous smile before holding his hand out. “The name’s Dean, by the way.”

Castiel froze his hand midway between taking Dean’s and shaking it. His other thumb inadvertently rubbed the leather bracelet he wore. Dean wasn’t an idiot, though, and he picked up on Castiel’s discomfort. “My bosses, my ex-boss, called me Hunter. It’s my last name if calling me by a saint’s name is disturbing.”

“It’s perfectly fine. I was just surprised, that’s all,” Castiel recovered. “I didn’t expect to find many believers of the Third Testament in the towers.”

Dean shifted uneasily on his feet, a little embarrassed if Castiel could read his social cues right. Humans changed their social cues and language as fluidly as they changed their belief systems. “My mom was a hunter. There’s only one religion for hunters out there.”

Despite Abaddon’s reign and her penchant for killing hunters, one persisted in this day and age. It was rare for someone to admit it openly, especially to strangers. “And your mother?” 

Regret flashed in the human’s eyes before Dean shook his head. “Look, Jack, what do you want for ice cream, champ?”

Castiel recognized the evasion and had he and Dean been friends, maybe the angel would have called him out on it, but he and Dean were acquaintances. He eyed the man warily from his layered-on plaid, hunter boots, and the legs that weren’t bow-legged enough.

“Vanilla,” Castiel heard Jack say.

“Two vanilla scoops,” Dean said, then as an afterthought, “hand me some of that apple pie on your menu, please.”

The Garden reverted to its original verdant forest state once the angels returned to Heaven, instead of the botanical garden that fit Dean’s mind. Just as in the first folly of man, cherubim guarded the gates, and virtues tended the flora. However, human souls were allowed to enter for reincarnation.

Castiel looked at the Tree of Life. While it was a Tree on this plane, when Castiel saw beyond his vessel’s eyesight, he could see the light of grace reaching through all the circles of Heaven, crossing over the overlapping circles for access.

Castiel wove a piece of his grace into one of the bright, full-blown flowers circling the Tree’s vines and whispered a quiet prayer before dropping his offering into the void that was the waterfalls. His heart felt heavy as he watched his grace fade amongst the stream of light within the Tree. 

The apple pie and the vanilla ice cream at Biggerson’s had disturbed him enough to fly towards the gardens. Emotion was a heavy burden to angels, and this particular one was the heaviest. But at least he understood it. Longing was an easy emotion for an angel to understand, only topped by reverence and worship. 

“You know, the Righteous Man isn’t really dead,” Joshua said in companionship. 

Castiel had sensed Joshua’s arrival in the thrum of the Song and the whisper of his wings on the air. The Seraph didn’t expect the Virtue’s approach. Not when Castiel was almost lost in the choking despair that the recent encounter had left him. 

“He is the opposite of dead. He’s been reincarnated,” Castiel parroted words that both Gabriel and Raphael have used to lecture him time and time again about the situation. His mind understood it, but he still felt a crushing sense of loss. “He’s currently unreachable to us.”

“Grief is a strange thing. It feels like you’re falling, always falling. Once you’ve hit rock bottom, you realize the fall was just too overwhelming.” The Song was filled with the hymn of David. A dedication to his temple, it was Joshua preaching. But Castiel couldn’t be consoled by it. “You’ve always had the wings to fly.”

When Castiel had newly met the Winchesters, he'd once carved out an angel-warding sigil in his vessel's flesh with a box-cutter and activated it in blood. Cutting through the flesh hadn't been painful, but being torn apart, flung through dimensions, and ripped from his grace was an incomparable agony, followed by the indignity of being unable to heal and losing his grace.

Losing Dean this time somehow felt more painful than that moment, even if, logically, he knew it shouldn't be possible.

Sometimes, Castiel wished the Song was not so resonant in all of them. Wanting to be alone with pain was a very human desire. “I’m not grieving,” Castiel whispered, but there was a heaviness in his chest where his vessel’s heart was beating.

Joshua allowed him the lie, but his eyes bore through his grace. “When you were human, and the Righteous Man was dead, you went to my church. You did not mourn because you knew you would find him again. Heaven is a place that you will reach eventually.” Joshua paused, the leaves of the Tree of Life rustling in the soft winds that permeated the Garden. As an angel and him being reincarnated, you worry he’ll be someone different next time you meet. Changed.”

“That is selfish.” Castiel slid Dean’s ring back and forth on the leather band he wore, feeling its weight and texture. When he'd visited Joshua's church, he hadn't grasped his feelings then. It had taken him prolonged contact with Dean and his humanity to discover that even if he didn't understand emotions, it didn't preclude him from having them.

“But it doesn’t make it any less real.” There was a note of comfort in the Song, a strain that depicted warmth. It might have been construed as Joshua laying a hand on Castiel’s shoulder in human vessels.

“It’s been at least a quarter of a century. There’s been time enough.” Castiel felt his vessel start tearing up, and it was frustrating to be unable to control his vessel. His grace would have protected him from this much emotion in the past. Now he welcomed it. “There was jus—”

“Something reminded you of him,” Joshua finished standing to walk towards the falls to allow Castiel some privacy. “Angels are discouraged from putting their faith in humans not because they are weaker or less. It is because they burn so transiently that they burn brightly.”

And the Righteous Man was the brightest soul of them all, blinding, Castiel remembered. Would he consider the loss and give up on Dean’s return?

“Our grace fuels us, and it does not ebb. It does not dim unless we are cast off.” Castiel rubbed his chest at Joshua’s words. He remembered the feeling of being cast off. He remembers the feeling of being almost human. “Not until the Fall that strips our wings bare or our last Reaping when our wings are burnt to ash by either the Rit Zien or our enemies. Humans live in the now. They have short lives and try to matter for the moment they are alive. You weren’t meant to burn brightly for a moment.”

“But I am meant to care for them,” Castiel countered, his voice cracking on the emotion.

Joshua bowed his head. “The humans are resilient in the ways that we angels aren’t.”

Castiel remembered Dean facing insurmountable odds numerous times. Coming out better after remaining whole was the Winchester specialty. “Yes, they are,” Castiel whispered. 

“Ahh, there you are, child.” Joshua touched the Tree and then closed his eyes. The rustling stopped, and the thrum of grace became brighter. Communing with the Tree always felt like Revelation. “You found your wings, after all.”

Castiel closed his eyes and opened his wings. He lifted them up and hoped the heavenly winds would answer the prayer he could not voice.

Chapter Text

Jack’s sacrament of reconciliation was done on a Sunday on the church’s sprawling lawns. Unlike most of the populace that migrated to Tower Cities, the Cross prided itself on remaining in the lowlands, with the sun shining on their church and the open air. Powerful sigils of protection lead from the Tower cities to the church lands, always with a strong hunter contingent on its grounds.

If the church was large enough, the Cross had a centralized episcopal boarding school, a church, and a space for community gatherings. It was by no means a large population of attendees. The areas claimed by the Cross were inconvenient for citizens to get to. Traveling using Tower Cities elevators going up and down levels was more manageable than driving out of the towers.

Parents had set up a pot-luck for lunch after the ceremonies. Most families had placed picnic blankets across the lawn to watch the proceedings. After listening to their confession, the priest encouraged the five children who were receiving their sacrament. 

All the boys held a wooden knife, showing off their skill in sparring learned from the Cross. After the fluid motions and their exhibition, the priest gathered them all, blessed them with holy water, and laid hands on each of them before sending them off to their parents.

“As we all go forth and prepare for the ritual marking of our young ones after they receive their sacrament, let us reflect on the words that the Prophet Kevin has left us.” After running up to their blanket, the priest bowed his head, and Jack scrambled to get his bible out and opened it to the Third Testament.

Castiel sat beside Jack, giving his parents space as the priest read off the gospel. “A reading from the Gospel of Kevin 2:8.”

Jack’s mother, a petite redhead named Gertrude, helped Jack find the verse for the day.

“The prophet Kevin came from Neighbor, Michigan and needed to be shielded from harm. Just as they were about to leave to seek the Word, the Winchesters held them back and showed them the Winchester emblem. ‘Whoever walks the Winchester path must harbor the sigils of protection.’ And the prophet’s mother looked at these sigils and agreed.”

A scholar wrote the Book of Kevin using the information of Linda Tran and several other hunters. The Church revised it to fit with the cadence of the New Testament through the Men of Letters.

Jack tipped his head back and looked towards Castiel, whispering to the angel so his mother couldn’t hear him. “Was that really how they did it?” The child tried to say the words with his mouth closed, attempting not to draw attention to himself.

“I was still lost in Purgatory at the time Kevin and his mother received their tattoos,” Castiel informed Jack. He watched closely as the priest blessed the implements that would paint the children’s skin with their chosen marks. “I believe that Sam and Dean would not let Kevin nor Linda travel with them if they did not have protection, at least.”

Gertrude chose that moment to open Jack’s Enochian sigil book and asked, “Is this what you wanted, dear?”

Jack had chosen the Enochian sigil ‘shield,’ the root word of Castiel’s angelic name, stripped of its god suffix. He had wanted something straightforward but protective and held the essence of his guardian angel. Gertrude smiled when he nodded and noted the number corresponding to the Enochian before submitting it to the priest when he passed by.

“Gertrude,” the priest acknowledged once he received the slip of paper. “Your son is growing up. He’s almost of an age to train for hunting if you wish.”

Gertrude shook her head and leaned toward her husband. “Sending him away to the plains is difficult, Father, even though we need fighters against the darkness.”

The priest smiled kindly, accustomed to rejection. “The Men of Letters would welcome your assistance. They train a couple of non-legacy children every so often. Jacob is the type to read instead of gallivanting to save people and hunt things.”

There was a firm press to Gertrude’s lips that showed she wasn’t keen on getting her child into the Men of Letters either. Carting a child away to a place with few visits and an unknown location was not an ideal set-up for mothers. “He has some time left to make a decision.”

“I’d like to be a Man of Letters, ma!” Jack said, excited, his eyes moving over to Castiel, whom he knows has been in the bunker several times, even if it hasn’t happened in recent years.

Jack’s father knelt to talk to his son. “Come on, big guy. Let’s choose where you want to place that Enochian on you.”

“I want it here!” Jack said, pointing at his left ass cheek. His mother looked scandalized, his father amused. Despite Castiel’s and his parents’ talk with him, the boy insisted it was where he wanted the tattoo.

Castiel followed until he noticed one hunter teaching forms to the younger kids to the side. Drawn to the impromptu lessons and assured that his charge would stay on the church grounds with his father, Castiel approached to watch.

It surprised him to find Dean going through the standard knife angles of attack. Castiel watched him critically, approving as one form led to the next fluidly, and couldn’t help but compare him to Dean—the Righteous Man, and not this facsimile. The Righteous Man had always been skilled with weapons. Though deadly with a gun, watching him wield a blade was entrancing. The sword had a sense of purity and rightness with Dean that no other weapon could match.

When the man finally noticed Cas watching the impromptu practice, he said, “okay, guys, I think we’re through here. Father’s just about ready to ink.”

Cas approached slowly once the children had scampered off to find their parents and siblings. “You’re good with them.”

Dean grinned and took a towel off a duffel bag lying on the grass, wiping his sweaty face. “I’ve always wanted a younger brother. I learned my skills at home, but hunters here teach kids during ceremonies. Sometimes you get a partner out of it.”

Castiel hummed noncommittally, watching this imitation of Dean Winchester. It was frustrating because he couldn’t know if this was Dean’s reincarnation because the Enochian sigils on his hip kept him from Castiel’s soul-sight.

After Dean finished wiping his face, he stopped abruptly, realizing that he and Castiel were almost toe-to-toe close. Castiel hasn’t disregarded personal space in a long while. In an effort to see Dean’s soul, he looked through his eyes as if the distance would stop the Enochian sigils from interfering.

After a long, uncomfortable silence, Dean cleared his throat. “Dude.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes, then took a careful step back. “You’re a hunter?”

“More like a jack-of-all-trades,” Dean corrected, picking up a discarded flannel shirt and shrugging it on top of the plain one he was wearing. “I hunt when I have nothing on the table like a regular eight-to-five job.”

Nowadays, hunting was more legal than during the Winchesters’ time. While killing off people still landed you in jail despite being possessed by demons, exorcisms and salt and burns were tower-mandated. Hunters escorting people from one tower to another were high-paying jobs but rare. Government-sanctioned demon hunts on the plains were also coveted. 

“Want to grab a beer? I wanna make up for being rude.”

Castiel frowned, turning the invitation over his head. “No need for apologies. Jack was inappropriate. He should not have invited himself over to your table.”

“Look, I know you don’t know me from squat, but the truth is… I kinda like you.” Dean left that statement in the air, not breaking eye contact with Castiel. “No one really gets this hunting, working, seeing supernatural, and only a few hunters are in Tower Five. They mostly hunt in the plains. 

The plains were where most demons could walk free, and ghosts were unhampered by the towers’ strong iron content. Only the rare, powerful demon could enter the Tower cities. The humans built the towers because of their expanding population. They hadn’t realized that while it was protective, it had trapped themselves in it: demons and supernatural outside, humans inside.

Castiel’s eyes softened. He could understand what being alone meant. Dean would endorse going to a bar for information. “Once Jack is safe in level seventy, we could go.”

Dean gave him a brilliant smile. “Awesome.”

Dean chose a dive bar on level two. Being near the farmlands in level one, most workers went up to the next level for a drink and their preferred poisons.

Dean attempted to convince Castiel to ditch his coat, but since it had never been taken off, Castiel wrapped it more firmly instead. He understood the need to put on and remove things only after becoming fully human. Since Castiel had the full use of his grace again, he didn’t need it just to belong. Dean gave him a sideways glance because it was hot, but Castiel as an angel in a vessel, didn’t mind.

“Watch your drinks here,” Dean warned as they secured seats in a corner overlooking the bar and both entrances. Castiel approved. “I’m not sure about level two, but there’s a new drug they’re naming Sole Exit making the rounds now. If you’re not careful, it gets slipped in some unsuspecting people’s drink.”

Castiel raised an eyebrow. It was unlikely he’d be targeted for that type of malicious attack, as he didn’t have the profile of a druggie. Still, level two was the shadier part of the tower cities. The only thing worse would be the party levels in the nineties, where the tower cities' upper echelons resided. Castiel usually sat out going to dive bars, but he’d wanted to learn who this Dean was. Beer and company were the most convenient options to do so.

People were packed into the noisy bar at night, either celebrating or trying to forget their troubles. Cas was firmly in the people-watching department, only liking inebriation if drastic times call for it.

Dean left him shortly to find a pool table when a brunette took Dean’s seat and dragged it next to him at the table. She handed him a shot of whiskey.

Startled, Castiel cocked his head to the side and looked at the drink like it had magically appeared before him. “I didn’t order this.”

“Don’t you like whiskey? I could get something else.” The woman’s smile was flirtatious as she settled a hand over his.

Despite having lived as a human for some time, Castiel still did not have experience with this, and he grunted non-commital.

“What’s your name?” She asked, flagging down a waitress. Her cloying perfume wafted over Castiel.” I’m Lorraine.”

The angel straightened in his seat as Lorraine leaned towards him, the shot of whiskey ignored and no waitresses coming to the rescue. “Castiel,” he replied.

Lorraine paused and processed that momentarily before asking, “Could I call you Cas?”

Another woman arrived and slung her arm around Lorraine. Remaining standing, she grinned at them wide-eyed. “You’re named Cath? Isn’t that short for Catherine, Cathy? Were your parents hippies?”

“Good God, Mandy,” Lorraine muttered, shrugging out of the arm. “He’s Cas.”

“Well you’re sensitive,” Mandy griped. This abruptly breached Castiel’s threshold for nonsense.

Castiel cleared his throat once, forcing the two women to focus on him. “It’s Castiel. The -tiel isn’t silent.”

Before either woman could react to this statement, Dean swooped in, dropped two bottles of beer on the table, clapped Castiel on his shoulder (which earned Dean a look of consternation from Cas), and dragged a stool from an adjoining table to squeeze in between Lorraine and Cas. “Hey, all pool tables’re full. Got you beers to make up for it tho.”

Castiel nodded his thanks and took a swing of his beer before gesturing to the two women. “This is Lorraine and her friend, Mandy. They were just—”

“Leaving!” Lorraine finished the statement abruptly, standing and ushering her friend out of the table. “We were just keeping your man company seeing as you left him by his lonesome.”

Dean didn’t correct their misconception and saluted both women with his beer bottle as they left the table before breaking into a guffaw when they were out of hearing range. “You’re popular,” the hunter commented when the angel had his full attention.

“Your misguided opinion is false,” Castiel scoffed. He sipped the cold beer, hating its bitter molecules but accepting it as a social lubricant. He squinted at Dean to look at him properly. “I could have handled myself. I did not need saving.”

“Saving you? Oh no, no, no! I was saving ’em,” Dean protested. “You looked like you’re gonna go on a smiting spree.”

There was a beat of silence. “So the -tiel isn’t silent, huh?”

Castiel froze. The suffix was ‘for God’ in Hebrew. Stripping his name off it, he was, in effect, without a clan. Although not all angelic names included their Father, all angels were still his mirror. Their names, by extension, reflected one of his aspects. As Castiel was ‘God is my Shield,’ Gabriel was ‘God is my strength’ and so forth. Without the suffix, he was merely a shield. Wasn’t that his wish? A shield for the Righteous Man?

Castiel settled for “for them, it isn’t” as an answer.

“For the record, I’m still calling you Cas though,” Dean insisted.

Castiel had never been bothered by the shortened version of his name, truthfully. It was better than Gabriel’s usual iterations over the centuries. But while its use had scraped something raw with Castiel, it was still true that he did not mind it coming from Dean, even if it was this facsimile. “Of course, Dean.”

Castiel didn’t fully understand why he’d said yes to Dean. Maybe he was still looking for similarities, trying to find the Righteous Man in this not-Dean that was staring at him. He had no freckles, dirty blond hair, and a height just around Jimmy Novak’s. In truth, the only thing he shared physically with Castiel’s Dean was the almost heterochromic luster of his hazel eyes and the hunter’s build. What truly bothered Castiel wasn’t the trappings of the physical, but rather, he couldn’t see that bright shining soul that had always been marked as the Righteous Man’s.

Despite being silent, Castiel discovered Dean was surprisingly easy to talk to. He tolerated Castiel’s long pauses, the angel trying to parse the linguistics that had evolved from the past into the now. These new cultural references that Metatron had instilled in him had made him sadly outdated. Though language had always been an angel’s forte, there was a multitude in a human’s shared experiences and idioms that were still foreign to Castiel. 

Dean understood Castiel’s brand of awkwardness and let it slide in the cadence of the inane talk Castiel had never gotten down to knowing. He had no experience with small talk humans wanted to fill their lives with. Castiel only knew to talk about the apocalypse, impending doom, and duty.

“How strong is your tolerance to alcohol, man?” Dean asked, watching Castiel down another bottle while keeping an eye on the number his companion was drinking. Castiel hummed, thumbing the condensation on the bottle. “You’ve matched me bottle per bottle, and I’m woozy already.”

“I once drank an entire liquor store, if it’s any consolation,” Castiel shared because that seemed to be part of the ritual of these drinks and bars. He touched his wrist unconsciously, sliding his thumb over Dean’s ring, woven into his leather bracelet.

“Like the priest in Constantine?” Dean blinked, probably trying to connect with the angel of the Lord and simply trying to get drunk. 

Admittedly, Castiel had not attempted to get inebriated since then, lost when he realized he could not find his Father.

“Gabriel calls me that,” Castiel offered.

Dean snorted, probably seeing the resemblance, and his eyes sharpened. “Hey, Cas, you wanna partner up?”

Castiel studied Dean intently. The word ‘partner’ encompassed many things.’

“I’m unsure what that entails,” Castiel said slowly, not in rejection but clarification. It could be a job. This man may have suddenly desired a romantic relationship with him. Humans needed a language that was more specific, not more vague. “I have my responsibilities with Jack and my duties in Heaven.”

It was a fact that he always had a spool of grace on Jack.” 

Dean gave him a dejected pout, which made him look like a teenager instead of the grown man he was. If Castiel was the laughing type, he would have barked a short, rueful laugh at it because it was childish and absurd. “Looks like I’ll have no job for a while. I’m going out to do a few hunting gigs and I’m fresh out of a partner, so…”

“You want me to hunt with you?” Castiel asked, his usual perplexed frown deepening. He was flattered. The brothers worked as a team and didn’t usually need him in their hunts. Most hunters had considered him a liability when he was human, unable to hunt with Dean and Sam. 

“Yeah, but I get that you have your angelic duties and whatever, so totally up to you, man.”

Castiel gave him a tentative smile. He had reasons for not hunting with the Winchesters. Mostly, his superiors had frowned at it. Having an all-powerful being able to smite almost any evil did not balance make. I can accompany you if I’m not with Jacob or on my ‘shift’ in Heaven.” 

Dean’s face bloomed into a smile. He leaned closer and clapped Castiel in a clumsy embrace before the angel pried the bottle from his fingers.

“I sense that you’ve had enough.”

“Are you coming with, angel?” Dean asked. Although he wasn’t slurring, it was close.

Castiel stood up and pulled Dean with him. “I’m taking you home. I shouldn’t have indulged you in too much alcohol. I forget that hum—people sometimes have lesser tolerance than Dean.”

Dean’s face scrunched up as he stood, taking his jacket contritely but slightly more lucid than he was a while ago. “I’m Dean, man. No need to take me home. Not a girl.” It was a familiar line, similar to what his Dean would say.

“I can see that. But it would give me peace if I could at least accompany you to the city elevators.”

Dean frowned and looked at his watch, noting the time. “Only the main shafts are open this late. The express elevators are open to the residential areas and all.”

“I can fly you to your level if the elevator seems too dangerous for your state,” Castiel offered, looking critical as Dean walked out of the bar. His gait was straight, although Castiel was sure there was a bout of dizziness here and there with how Dean’s steps were measured and slow.

“Nah. I can walk, no problem.” They reached the elevators in no time, as it was central to all floors. The main elevator shaft was still lit. A few working men were waiting for the carriages to bring them home. “Look, I understand if this wasn’t your thing. Next time, let’s do something you like, ’kay?”

Castiel didn’t know if he was more perplexed by the ‘next time’ or the fact that Dean had planned it without asking. Before he could disentangle the thought, Dean pulled him closer and dropped a chaste kiss on his lips. “Thanks for the night, man. That elevator’s going up next. See you at the kid’s Biggerson’s outing, kay?”

Castiel was too surprised to comment, his face heating as Dean disappeared inside the elevator doors.

“Biggerson’s outing?” He meant when Jack usually waited for his older brother, Dave, to finish his shift in the Biggerson’s outlets. 

Cas stared at the elevator doors with an oversized two painted on them. With one last touch of his leather bracelet, he flew away when no one was looking.

Once the elevator shaft closed, Hunter leaned towards the glass corner and swiped a card to get on the 66th floor. The carriage was nearly empty except for a few drunks from the second floor. Unsure the carriage would stop at every floor, he stood at the back. Some express carriages landed only on even-numbered floors, business, and residential areas at night.

Hunter thumped his head on the glass, trying to collect his loose limbs. He had piss poor tolerance for alcohol, seeing as he unnaturally hated the drink since he’d tasted it, and only took Cas out to a bar because it was expected. He diluted his beers and ate fatty foods to avoid getting drunk, knowing that alcohol was essential and sobriety was crucial in honey-trap cons. 

Acting drunker than he actually was was always a little bit difficult to balance, going from mildly buzzed to inebriated. Especially since it was hard to find limits when he’d never pushed them. It always earned him a disbelieving eyebrow when he admitted that he’d never been buzzed out drunk. He couldn’t afford to lose control since his life was already chaotic.

Pulling himself from the lie was not easy. The alcohol always made Hunter a bit loose-limbed, his mind insisting that it was content with that hazy buzz. Scoring an in with an angel was what mattered. Hunter had invited himself to the angel and Jack’s almost weekly outing at Biggerson’s. He did research to find out Jack’s habits. Castiel was more challenging to track, seeing as he flew out of the Tower Cities into Heaven, the fields, or wherever when he wasn’t with Jack.

Now, for the part where he tells Crowley he has to go hunting for a while. He could just see that conversation going over well. The demons might go hunting season on his ass. He needed time to secure a safe house on the plains. No goddamned hunter lived all his life in the Tower Cities. It meant a car because the plains were a riot. A vehicle is necessary to go anywhere out there. Blazing hell, this entire con was taking more out of his pocket than he could afford. He wasn’t rolling in money. He barely had enough for food and shelter. If he dipped into his savings, he would never get out of Inferno’s clutches, much less to tow John with him.

This also brought him to the fact that he had to take care of John and tell his sometimes roommate that he’d be gone for a while. The ghost had a martyr complex, and Hunter didn’t know if John would be all right while Hunter was out. Especially since Hell ran at a faster clock than Earth, and John spent most of his time on the rack than out of it.

He’d circled the entire dilemma in his head a couple of times that by the time he was actually in Inferno and passed the doors, Hunter talked himself into a wall of the fact that he needed to inform his boss, handler, whatever Crowley was supposed to be. And seeing Crowley more than twice in the last month already gave him the chills.

“You’re back,” Crowley spat out once Hunter had seated himself at the usual grilling chair. Hunter resisted the urge to gulp. Okay, round two of the entire con, then.

While Castiel’s duties extended to prolonged time with his charge, he found that he spent the longest time with Jack when Gertrude worked late and Dave was working. The young teenager worked at Biggerson’s after school to supplement his money for date nights, and Jack wasn’t allowed to go home alone.

Most of Jack’s meetings with Dean took place here. The man didn’t invite Cas out after the bar fiasco but still met with Jack and Cas at Biggerson’s. Castiel didn’t know what to make of it and was too embarrassed to ask Sam or the other hunters for help.

“How goes the job hunting, Dean?” Castiel asked politely while Jack was distracted with his crayons and coloring book.

“There’s not a lot of job openings for a GED graduate and a barely trained Cross hunter.” Dean grimaced, rubbing his hands. “I’ll work it out. I have a bit saved up, and the rent is paid. I applied for a delivery man here at Biggerson’s. We’ll see how it goes.”

Before he could say anything further, one of the waitresses came in and refilled Jack’s water glass. With one flirty eye towards Dean, she was about to walk away when she noticed Jack giving her an intensely focused stare. A little uncomfortable, she ruffled his hair with a fond smile, “Hey, Jack, Dave’s about to come out from his shift, okay?” 

Jack had become somewhat of a regular occurrence in this particular Biggerson’s. Since Dave worked here as a busboy, all the waitresses had taken him in as a nephew, sometimes even sneaking him hot chocolate or some treats. With a distant look, Jack pointed and smiled at her stomach. “There’s a little tiny baby in there!”

The waitress straightened abruptly, sloshing the water in the pitcher and almost spilling it. “What?”

“Congratulations, you have a tiny little baby!” Jack said excitedly. His crayons were forgotten before he tugged on Dean’s hand. “Dean, the baby says that she chose this mama because she has the nicest smile out of all the mamas waiting for kids, and she’s been sad because her boyfriend left her.”

“Did Mark put you up to this?” the woman asked, visibly distressed. She either hadn’t known or hadn’t wanted the news.

Jack hadn’t had an episode like this in some time, but Castiel was ready to swoop in and save him from the waitress if necessary. Having never witnessed Jack’s prophecies, Dean was thrown off guard by the situation.

Fortunately for all involved, Dave came ambling over, distracting the woman from Jack. 

“You’re an asshole, Dave, don’t get your kid brother into Mark’s mind games,” she said before she stomped away in anger, a few of the restaurant’s patrons with eyes on her.

Dave, used to Jack’s prophetic pronouncements, sighed when Jack gave him the equivalent of a puppy-eyed whine. “You know you’re not supposed to say weird shit to other people, Jack. Mom freaks out as it is.”

Jack nodded, although sometimes, it was difficult for him to recognize the difference between ‘weird shit’ and what passed for normal. He was starting to learn. Prophets who don’t tend to face lynch mobs within a few years. 

Dave looked suspiciously at Dean when he noticed him but addressed his brother, “Come on, Jackalope, shift’s over. Let’s go back before you cause more trouble, or Mom will kill us.”

“Dean’s keeping me company, no worries,” Jack said before tugging all his books and crayons into his small backpack. 

“Yeah, you pick up stray kids a lot, mister?” Dave asked Dean as he helped his brother with his things.

Dean scolded him with his tone. “Seems to me like you should keep tabs of your brother more often.”

If Castiel weren’t guarding his charge, he would have worried when Dave left his brother alone.

Dave’s face crumpled to a petulant frown, tapping Jack’s wristwatch and noting the readouts. It had GPS and an alarm if Dave’s watch exceeded the predetermined distance.

Dave’s current girlfriend, whose shift started after his, caught up with them and hung on the teenager’s arm. “Aww, he looks like you so much, David!”

Jack gave her a polite smile before slinging his backpack over his shoulder. “Bye, Dean! See you next week.” 

Dave shook his head and took Jack’s hand, kissing his girlfriend goodbye before walking out towards the elevator shafts.

Castiel nodded to Dean in farewell before following Jack.

“Haven’t we talked about stranger danger, Jack?” Castiel heard Dave asking.

The angel saw Jack hesitate to tell Dave about Castiel’s presence. “Dean is awesome! He’s really nice, and I told him we’d read comic books next and all. I’m nine! I’m not a baby.”

Despite being an irresponsible brother, Castiel saw Dave’s love for his younger brother in his frustrated eyes. “And I’m stuck with babysitting you until you turn into a decent teenager. Besides, mom is just worried about the news. there’s some sort of drug making the rounds with the cool kids, and she’s just worried.”

“Just say no! I don’t need a babysitter!” Jack protested as all three of them waited for the elevator. “If they’d program my RFID for the elevators, I could go home before you!”

“Yeah, like mom wouldn’t worry you going all the way from school district to elevator shaft to home on your own.” Dave shook his head. The Biggerson’s was, in fact, midway between the school district and the elevator shafts, so it gave Jack the needed break from the commute and fed the child while waiting for their mother to get home. “Wait a few more years, she’ll get better in high school. So Dean, huh? You sure he’s not a creeper? Drug dealer?”

“Nope! I thought he was lonely and went to his table. He’s always alone there.” Jack frowned. “He’s not going there on dates, just reads and fills his coffee and looks sad.”

Dave groaned, realizing Jack had invited himself over. “Look you know how to activate that nanny watch of yours right?”

Jack pouted and pressed a button, eliciting a shrill alarm from Dave’s watch, which he frantically clasped to silence while the rest of the residents in the elevator glared at him. After pressing a few buttons on his watch, he shook his head. “Great, Jackalope. Never accept food, leave your food unattended, or go off with him alone. So tell me about this Dean guy.”

It started many run-ins with Dean in Biggerson’s, which Castiel suspected wasn’t accidental. Dean enjoyed Jack’s company, and the boy had been looking for someone to hang out with other than Castiel for a long time, so he had attached himself to the man.

It came to the point that Dean and Jack were such a frequent occurrence in Biggerson’s heads together, talking about anything they could think of and playing their quiet games, that the waitresses had started including Dean in the circle of Jack’s family. The waitresses knew how Dean took his coffee and Jack’s usual milkshake. It also helped that Jack was one of their own’s brother.

Dave started to relax around Dean, especially since, after that first encounter, Dean did get a job at Biggerson’s, and they had a couple of break times together. The Biggerson’s company shirt sometimes peeked out of the jacket the older man wore over it in his off-duty hours.

Dean and Jack had been steadily going through Jack’s comic book collection, which Dean had devoured alongside the prophet and had gradually evolved to gameboards and make-believe.

“I’m Robin!” Jack announced gleefully one day in the middle of their picking out characters and games.

“I’m Batman and you ain’t my sidekick, kid,” Dean said, ruffling the prophet’s hair fondly. Castiel was about to object, telling Jack that he could be whoever he wanted, when Dean continued, “you get to be your own superhero, not some freaking sidekick, and Jason Todd is a dick.”

“Dean,” Castiel warned in disapproval.

Jack chewed on his lip thoughtfully, looking up at Dean and Castiel. Dean apologized for the language before Jack said, “Dream Boy?”

“The who, now?” Dean spluttered out.

Jack tilted his head, reminiscent of Cas’ own head tilt before he’d stopped looking at the entire humanity as complex and unknowable but simply complex. The angel must still have been doing it for Jack to pick it up. “He’s part of the 31st century League of Superheroes? He’s a precog and clairvoyant.”

Dean recovered quickly and gave him a grin. “Okay, whatever you want. I just thought you’d go for Superman or something, Jay.” Dean had a propensity for one-syllable nicknames. Despite Jack already being a diminutive for Jacob, he had dubbed the child a new sobriquet once they started hanging around each other more.

Jack furrowed his eyebrows and looked at Castiel, who stared back as the conversation made no sense devoid of context. “Nooo… if you’re Batman, Cas is Superman!”

Dean considered the concept and turned to Castiel.

“This is the first time Jack has expressed such sentiments,” Castiel explained.

“I get it, man. I kinda agree with you there, squirt.” A wicked grin crossed Dean’s face. “I totally ship Bruce/Clark.”

Both turned to Dean with frowning, contemplative faces. Dean barked laughter, slapping the table. “Don’t mind me, Jay, I’m just messing.” Dean snapped his fingers a couple of times and motioned to Castiel. “I promise to take you out somewhere special once you get it.”

“Me too?” Jack asked, still frowning.

Dean clapped the boy’s shoulder, “Nah, we have something else to do, that’s just for Cas.”

“Could we try flying?” 

“Not the Superman in this duo.” Their banter washed over Castiel as he watched them tenderly. If Dean had stayed in Heaven, would he and Castiel have had an exchange like this? Would the Righteous Man be interested to learn about it? Would his Dean understand what this new Dean was implying with his teasing? He rubbed his thumb against his leather bracelet and wondered.

Chapter Text

All things considered, although this mark was extremely long, extremely draining, and so left of field from his usual marks, Hunter enjoyed the freedom it afforded him. 

As most demons and hunters are prone to do, he already had a house on the outskirts of the plains. It was mostly a fallback kind of thing if he ever got run out of  Tower City Five. Finding the place had been relatively easy, mainly because they had all been abandoned when the towers had been built. He just needed to stay near driving distance of Tower Five and the Cross’ haunts, stay out of the way of Abaddon’s usual territory and keep his head low from the rest of the supernatural creatures. They had a tendency to kill each other off anyway.

Since the safe house was near Cross grounds when Jack and his family were attending a congregation activity, Hunter didn’t really have to wake up at ungodly hours, nor did he have to cut through several floors, wait for his vehicle to get out of the Tower before he was able to get to Mass.

One of the deacons approached Hunter after the service. He had graying hairs at the temple and the usual gruff manner synonymous with most hunters. “Good morning, it’s always nice to see some of the younger generation in the flock.”

Which was almost hunter speak for who the hell are you, and why haven’t I seen you before. Frankly, Hunter had been in a few Sundays, and he was surprised he hadn’t been cornered before now. Hunter gave an easy smile. “Yeah I was baptized when I was a teenager here, got my penance marks here too.”

“Well it’s always good to see returning members.” Hunter could practically hear the gears turning in the priest’s head. The problem with going to the Cross as a religion instead of others was that they were inherently non-trusting of outsiders. Plus, they only served one Tower per congregation, so they knew their entire member population. “What did you use for the tattoo if you don’t mind me asking?”

All of the tattoos and members were recorded in their Book of Life. He should have known when he was younger, but he didn’t. Hunter had “Son of Light,” which was a unique, rarely used tattoo. It was the reason why he lied with, “I have ‘righteousness.’”

“Ah.” The deacon stood there momentarily, and Hunter knew he was waiting for him to flash the tattoo, which was why he’d faked one in henna over his upper thigh for this con. He could at least pass off the tattoo for a real one if push came to shove, but he’d rather not test his luck.

“You know how it is with teenagers, always wanting to look up to St. Dean and all. Placing it in awkward places,” Hunter said again with an easy grin. Tons of kids get righteousness. He was willing to bet one or two were a Dean, especially if they were named after that Dean.

The deacon shook his head ruefully. “Yes, I remember. It’s good that you’ve returned then. Are you volunteering for hunts?”

“Maybe once a month, I’m trying to get into a regular job in the tower.”

Before he could say anything else, one kid tried to topple him over, hugging his legs. He placed one hand against the kid’s shoulder to steady the child. Only to find out that it was Jack. “Heya, Dean, you gonna get a partner?”

Jack finding him was the goal in this little interaction. As one of the Cross regulars, the kid could vouch for him, which would lessen the priest’s suspicions. It also had the added bonus: wherever the prophet was, his guardian wasn’t far behind. “I was hoping to get Cas for a partner, Jack.”

The child thought about it for a while before he nodded. “Well, okay. If we’re not doing anything you can hang out with Cas.”

The deacon gave the young child an indulgent smile. “Jacob, still going about with Castiel? Your brother hasn’t been around lately.”

“David is on a date.” Jack prolonged the a and said the word with disdain that his face scrunched up. It garnered a laugh from the deacon.

“Have you known Dean for a while, Jacob?” the deacon asked.

“Yup! He’s important,” Jack confirmed.

The deacon nodded. “All right, Dean. If you’re serious about looking for a partner and volunteering in a couple of hunts, come to the parish and we’ll register your tattoo, your name, and list you up. You’d have to come for an assessment though.”

A skill assessment. This was why it took more work to go with Cross sanctioned hunts while maintaining cover. He would need a hacker to see if they could insert a new name and tattoo in his database or change his listing into this contrived one. Promising to think about it, he left the deacon only to be cornered by Jack’s harassed mother and Cas, looking at him with bemusement.

“Jack! What have I told you about latching on to strangers?” his mother reprimanded, looking at Hunter apologetically and trying to pry Jack’s arms around Hunter’s legs.

“But I know Dean! We spend time with each other at Biggerson’s!” Jack protested, reluctantly going with his mother.

She looked scandalized. “What have I told you about imposing on other people Jack?”

“He’s no bother, ma’am,” Hunter answered with all the charm he could muster. He needed some time with Cas. The only way to do that was through the prophet, so he would need to integrate himself into the prophet’s life without somehow being a creepy ass stalker.

Hunter knew Jack was a blessing and a curse to the entire operation. While Jack was the reason he was able to meet the angel, the only person in the Winchester Gospels that needed a guardian angel tethered to them was a prophet. Therefore, if the kid was lugging Cas around, it would be complicated to do any seducing. Not to mention that the prophet might actually see what he was.

Jack’s mother gave him a long look. “Do you have a picnic basket?”

After Mass, families went out on a picnic on the church grounds. They brought food, shared with other family members, and socialized. It was a rare enough occasion to be under the sun and warded that most families spent their days as much as they could on the grounds.

“Uh, I usually spend my Sundays with the boys and you know, goofing around.”

She smiled and invited him over to their blanket, her husband already picking out a space for them. Hunter hung back, watching the mother and son walk up to their picnic area so Cas would talk to him.

“You’re making it a habit to spend Sundays here,” Cas observed when he slowed enough to match Hunter’s footsteps.

“Yeah well, pretty much jobless. Getting out of the Tower, feeling the wind instead of just ventilated air is kinda nostalgic.” Hunter shrugged. “Nothing beats the company here too.”

“You do realize that it is going to take you a tremendous amount of acting to pretend that I don’t exist,” Castiel noted.

Hunter groaned. “Jack seems to have managed.”

“Jack has been with me his entire life. He’s had practice. You can’t keep staring into space.”

The few times at Biggerson’s, it wasn’t too much of a big deal, and the one time he’d asked Cas out at a bar, Cas had been corporeal for other people too. “I don’t recall Chuck having this guardian angel around this much.”

Castiel shook his head as he watched Jack eagerly unpacking the picnic basket with his mother and father. “Chuck was guarded by an archangel, the power difference in grace was incomparable, although that’s not the reason why I’m here.”

“Dean! Come on! I love mom’s spaghetti!” Jack called out from his place on the blanket, plate already on his lap and looking eagerly back at Hunter.

Castiel watched Dean and Jack fly a red kite over the plains. The wind had become gusty that afternoon, and Dean had lured Jack with sticks, paper, and string. It had them both running around the plains. They had gone with a few hits and misses designing the kite, but Dean seemed to have a natural knack for making things. With each failure, he’d constructed the kite to be more aerodynamic and finally managed with its last incarnation.

Dean was getting along with Jack. The child could do well with someone who would take the time to play with him. Although Castiel tried, he didn’t know much about children and wouldn’t want to presume to raise one. The prophet had his parents for that. Cas was a glorified tutor most of the time.

Pulling out a notebook, he thumbed through a few pages and looked at what he had written last. There were a couple of things that he’d marked down and tracked, but it was nowhere near complete.

The angel had stayed with Jack in almost twenty-four-hour surveillance when he was younger because he had told the prophet what he knew of receiving the Word of God. In times past, a prophet was sent out in the desert for solitude to gain this ability to hear the Word, but times were changing. Gabriel, who touches all souls through the Tree of Life, suggested pairing them as an alternative because young souls can pierce the veil more easily than a prophet.

Imagine Castiel’s surprise when Jack retained his ability to see the veil well beyond when children were supposed to lose it. It gave Castiel a reason to visit the prophet as a friend when the prophet’s burden was too heavy or Castiel’s solitude was daunting.

Jack was nine, so he still didn’t have the issues like privacy and space that adults had, but it also wouldn’t do if he was too dependent on Castiel. The angel tried to accompany Jack when he was out of the Tower, especially if Jack looked like he was going to be alone. Still, some days he could go and search—a fact that the angels would probably frown at once they knew. Mainly because they disapproved of what he was looking for rather than leaving Jacob. Jack was well protected.

“Whatcha got there, Cas?” Dean asked, dropping down lazily beside him in the grass, breathing hard from running around. Castiel curled his fingers around his book, snapping it shut protectively.

Cas looked up to see that Jack had the kite and was now trying to maintain it at the height it was flying with his father. A few other boys, new at the concept of such a thing as a kite, surrounded them in awe.

“Sorry, I—“Dean rubbed his hand at the back of his neck sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to poke my nose in your business. I just thought I saw a drawing of—“Dean cut himself off abruptly, probably realizing that he had once again intruded on Castiel’s privacy. 

Castiel sighed and flipped the notebook open, leafing to the page of the drawing Dean was most likely referring to. “You mean this?”

It was a drawing of one of those pagan gods, one with a humanoid face, bull horns, and an imperfect circle marked on its forehead. Dean examined the picture for a while before looking up at Castiel. “Yeah, that. Winchester artifacts?”

“Hmm,” Castiel gave a non-committal noise, then looked at the drawing again before closing the notebook and hiding it in one of the overcoat’s inner pockets. “I haven’t been searching for Dean’s things in a while, but I try sometimes.”

“The reason why I paused over the drawings is—I think I’ve seen that before.” Dean said the words slowly, his eyes moving from the notebook to Castiel.

“You want to find one and sell it?” Castiel asked,d his voice hardening into steel. A few unscrupulous souls have tried to sell fakes over the net, and Winchester artifacts were still sold at a hefty price to niche groups.

“Not really, man. It would get me what, exactly?” There was an appalled look on his face. “It’s too much trouble. The only people who’d buy it are the Cross, and they’d probably just shoot me than pay me. The Cross isn’t exactly known for billionaire philanthropists.”

The accusation had hung in the air, but Dean didn’t look too hurt by it. He had shrugged it off, unlike… Well, Castiel didn’t want to go down that train of thought.

“All I’m saying is: I did enough research for that when I was young, stupid, and thought I wanted to sell the Righteous Man’s artifacts for money,” Dean pointed out quickly. Admitting that he had considered selling it placated Castiel more than an outright denial.

“Are you, in your roundabout way, telling me you want to help acquire some of the Dean’s accouterments?”

Dean rolled his eyes at his word usage. Castiel thought people should read the dictionary more. It was a disgrace that no one ever used all the words in the English language properly. Words were placed there, to be precise.

“Yes. I have some of the research here in my safehouse here on the plains. It’s not really going to go anywhere. If you want, the next time you’re free, you’re welcome to it. Maybe next week after Mass.”

“That’s—“Castiel stopped, then tried again. “If I manage to find time for it, I’m doing it because I….”

“So that you’ll feel closer to the Righteous Man, huh?” Dean looked like he was pondering over something before coming to a decision. “You don’t need to accept the offer, Cas. Once Jack is safe back at his level, come back here, and I’ll take you to my safe house to look over whatever I have. I don’t care what you want to do with it.”

“Just like that?”

This time, Dean looked hurt. “Well, I kind of thought I would be spending time with you? I mean, this Righteous Man artifact, it’s never going to be anything for me. I’d need a full contingent to go after it and I’ll need proper connections to sell it. Losing battle.”

Spending time with Castiel? No one ‘spent time’ with him. He was a veritable example of a wet blanket. But there probably wouldn’t be anything wrong with accepting the offer. He was an angel. He could handle one artifact and see where it goes. It’s not like he was going to bring other-Dean around to search for the Impala. Mind made up, Castiel nodded in agreement. Besides, looking for an artifact with this Dean would show Castiel the man’s true intentions. A quest always brought adventurers together, did it not? It would test this man’s mettle and see if he was indeed what he seemed. 

Not for the first time, Hunter thought that the angel was his most exhausting mark as he threw down both—new—plaid shirts on his bed and grimaced. While, as Crowley said, he was all into projecting the lie, there were some things that Hunter had learned in his long business of farming souls.

One was that all lies must be a believable semblance of truth. Give them too much truth, and they spot you because the truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, lie too much, then it is tangled and difficult to recover from, especially for the long haul plan.

And Cas? Definitely the long-haul plan. He’d already read through the part where the angel and the saint were lounging in Purgatory, and they still hadn’t spoken anything that remotely conveyed feelings. Hunter knew that as emotionally constipated as Dean Winchester was, Castiel was more emotionally stunted. Especially since the angel’s only role model was a hunter allergic to feelings.

“Really, you just had to give me a honey-trap con again?” Hunter complained into thin air as he stripped out of Dean Winchester’s clothes and searched for the comfort of his own worn shirts. “What in the world did you think when you saw Castiel and threw him Dean Winchester? I could have gone at it as my own person, you know. Hunter, damned soul farmer of freaking Inferno, instead of Dean, saint of all churches hunters tread.”

Castiel was weary enough. Naïve and innocent as he might have been before, enough exposure to both Winchester brothers have taught him a little bit of survival instinct on his own. He was naturally wary of Hunter. The angel was still probably more trusting than Dean Winchester but not as trusting as Castiel was before he gripped the Righteous Man and raised him from perdition.

Hunter ran a hand through his hair and winced. He was going to have to cut it shorter. Dean Winchester never grew out his hair. It was the military upbringing John had instilled in him. Hunter did not even want to hide from his sometimes roommate that he was actively trying to emulate his son.

But Castiel had given him something to exploit. The angel was looking for Winchester artifacts. Hunter, like most enterprising young thieves, had some research on that topic. And since he wasn’t a fool, he’d abandoned it as soon as he realized it wasn’t tenable. Since Crowley’s plan, he had mostly been reading up on Castiel and his relationship with the Winchesters. If Castiel had wanted to go to his safehouse when Hunter had offered, Hunter would have had to pile up more lies.

With this in mind, Hunter stormed up to Crowley’s office and banged on the door as loudly as he could. Crowley made him wait outside, although Hunter knew the red-eyed demon was lounging, doing nothing, until most of the wind had left Hunter’s sails.

“What has you breaking my door, love?” Crowley asked slowly after he snapped Hunter in. “You do know that though you’re a farmer, you’re utterly replaceable?”

Not right now. Not if Crowley was really serious about wanting Castiel’s grace. Hunter wouldn’t say that out loud because demons were the most illogical when angered. Crowley might regret killing him, but there was no way he would expend powers to bring Hunter back from the dead if Crowley got mad enough to kill the human.

“Castiel isn’t going to believe I’m Dean Winchester. Not with mannerisms and clothes alone. He’s too wary,” Hunter said as fast as he could because if there was one thing he learned from the contender of the King of Hell, he was often impatient with his minions. “I need something more.”

Crowley narrowed his eyes at Hunter, and Hunter stood his ground. Crowley could be persuaded to listen to reason if there was solid enough evidence. Besides, he wanted grace, and Hunter would attempt to get it.

“If I had anything more, don’t you think I would have used it by now?”

“How about I release John Winchester’s soul to—“

“No,” Crowley growled.

“But why?” Hunter asked because he wanted to know, and he might just push enough buttons for Crowley to tell him. “I know your policy on the Apocalypse, it’s practically written in the Winchester gospels. You don’t want Lucifer rising, so why would you need a Righteous Man in your dungeon? It’s the perfect time to release him if you want the angel’s grace.”

“John Winchester will not break. There’s too much will in him for it,” Crowley growled. “And you do not question me.”

Well yeah, although Crowley didn’t need John for the Apocalypse, Hunter wasn’t expecting Crowley to agree to let the man go. That had been the moon, so to speak. When negotiating, ask for something impossible before asking for something improbable. 

“A Winchester relic? There are several. I looked them up in the gospels. There’s Dean’s ring—that was lost in the Apocalypse. There’s Sam’s lighter. Mary’s charm bracelet? Although the association isn’t that strong… What would really be very useful would be Dean’s amulet. That has a very strong Dean association.”

 “What do you think I am, your errand boy?” Crowley shouted the last words. Hunter gripped the chair tightly but tried to remain impassive. He’s had worse shouting matches with the Crossroads demon than this, and it was always in his best interest to appear nonchalant. “Those are bloody hard to track and practically demon-proof by now. They’ve been venerated holy by the bloody Hunter’s Cross, and by that meaning: no demons allowed! Not to mention that they were never demon-friendly in the first place!”

Crowley leaned forward before snapping his fingers and giving him an old, dilapidated book. “That’s a replica of John Winchester’s journal. I believe the Cross publishes it as much as the Winchester Bible and sees it as a companion. Maybe you’ll be able to find some of those rare and holy things in your own fucking time. And stop calling him Castiel. The squirrel calls all his friends with shortened versions of their names. It’s always been Cas!”

Hunter found himself back in his room with a blink, holding the tattered replica of John’s journal. Whatever information he found here was bound to be known by almost anyone who followed the faith religiously. Hunter shook his head as he opened the book to page one. More research. Great. Him and his dumb ideas. Awesome.

Hunter parked his vehicle, one of those weird unsightly jeeps pieced together with almost anything from the nineties, at the back of the house. Though he might have wanted a better car, the plains weren’t built for that type of thing, and it wasn’t easy procuring a vehicle to traverse the plains other than foraging for old parts.

As with most practices in the hunting community and the Cross, Hunter’s house had wards strapped to its fence and underneath the wallpaper, a devil’s trap on all possible entrances, and a canister of salt with a machete beside the doorway. The house even had the standard closet-spaced panic room those faithful to the Cross usually had. Although not quite as impenetrable as Bobby Singer’s had been, everyone who read the Winchester Gospels had taken that into account in their architecture, that is, until they moved into the Tower Cities.

Hunter was going to miss this house after this con. He’d have to find a new one Castiel doesn’t know after it. He hadn’t run away to this safe house because living in the Tower Cities was always safer than living in the plains—you never wanted to stress about the wards failing. And, of course, John Winchester.

“So, here’s my place, what ‘ya think?” Hunter asked with a smile that he’d long since practiced with a mirror that had downed a few of his marks into giggling girls. Unfortunately, trying to lead an angel of the Lord into iniquity was easier said than done.

Castiel took in the house with one sweeping look and passed some judgment on it. Hunter was a bit miffed at that, yeah, the place was run down, and it needed a lot of work. It was abandoned to the elements on the plains. It wasn’t really going to be spiffy.

Hunter did an inspection of the outer wards of the property. Intact wards meant no inside surprises. He lit a lamp he’d hung by the garage and motioned for Cas to follow. What this house did not have was electricity and running water. As soon as Cas was in, Hunter reached for the salt container by the doorway and closed his house’s inner circle with a salt line. This time he inspected all the salt lines. Humidity and rain did wonders for those.

Castiel looked up at the ceiling and the wards embedded in the walls. There were a couple of leaking spots in the rain, but the house was as defensible as he could make it, barring going to a power plant and creating a bunker. “Look, I know it ain’t much. Not a lot of houses in the plains are. But it’s—“

“Yours,” Castiel finished, his eyes landing on Hunter. Any human who could ward, protect, and bind a place in the plains to himself could claim a previously abandoned house on the plains. But it was rare that someone would leave their creature comforts in the Tower to live like this. Yeah, maybe Cas understood it somewhat. Cas touched the walls. “You poured your blood in its foundations and made it yours.”

That was a creepy ass way of saying it, but whatever floats.

“The garage is back there; cuts to the kitchen here.” Hunter could make food and eat in the safe house, but most of the things stocked here were for another apocalypse. And buying ready-made food was always cheaper than cooking for one.

Hunter picked up and lit a candle from a candelabra, handing the lamp that he held to Cas. They strode to the living room, which was just a couch and a television that didn’t work. Hunter had made use of the usable furniture that the former occupants had and hadn’t scrounged up more from the adjacent houses, but there was a red-bricked wood-burning fireplace. It had been electric before Hunter had converted it to use logs. At least he wouldn’t freeze to death during winters.

It wasn’t quite that cold yet, and Hunter tried to conserve firewood as much as possible because it was back-breaking work to haul wood, mindful of the lurking demons, and chop it out back. So yeah, no winters in his safe house unless necessary, but he kept a stockpile because you never know.

The living room opened to two more doors. “Bathroom, connected to my room.” Then he pointed to the stairs leading down. “Bullet-proof panic room, which is where I keep most of my non-perishables and stuff.”

Castiel put the lamp down on the low coffee table that served as Hunter’s desk, dining room, and whatever else function he could think of on the off weekends he spent his time here. “It reminds me of Bobby’s.”

Hunter snorted. “If he lived in a shabby, squat bungalow where you could see from end to end most of the time. Let me get that research I had.”

Hunter went to the only room with his bed and pulled out his notes in John’s journal. Although he’d been bullshitting his way through the backstory of how he’d actually researched the Winchester artifacts, it was true that he had done the research and deemed most of it spectacularly useless for him. If he could give the angel a couple of ins and get a night out of it, well, at least all that reading didn’t go to waste.

The research wasn’t in this room; it had been shoved hastily into his jacket. But he’d needed an excuse to bring the angel here. Walking back out, Hunter dropped the notes unceremoniously on Castiel’s lap. “This is all of it. Dunno if that’s any help to you.”

Cas scanned the pages, then looked up at Hunter. “This is very detailed work.”

It’s not like it’s more than what the Cross would have had. He didn’t know if it would help Castiel, so he told the angel that.

Cas shook his head, leafing through the papers. “Dean’s things fall into two categories: handed down to people who cared for him and those lost. Those handed down are definitely in the Cross’s or the Men of Letters’ hands, but those that were ‘lost’ are tricky. Not only do you have to find and track them down, but you’d also have to go through demon-infested land to do it.

“These are trails to things that are not really Dean’s, but are somewhat related to him that both the Cross and the Men of Letters never really bothered with, like Mary’s bracelet and Sam’s lighter,” Cas said as he touched the words almost reverently.

Hunter looked over Cas’ shoulder to read what he’d written there. It kind of made sense that the angel wanted all of that. “Okay. Glad to be of help.”

There was a long silence before Castiel commented, “You have a beehive behind your house.”

“I guess?” Hunter didn’t realize. He also didn’t know what that had to do with the research.

“It’s a wild one, maybe I can get them to go into a swarm and live in a constructed hive,” Castiel murmured distractedly as he kept the papers that Hunter had offered him inside the same pocket that he’d kept his dog-eared leather-bound notebook.

“Sure, I think?”

“You don’t understand.” Castiel frowned when he looked at Hunter. “You can make wax, and honey could be a sugar substitute.”

“Uh, I still think I don’t understand?”

There was frustration in the line of Cas’ brow that was probably adorable on someone else. It just looked perplexing on Cas. “You offered me a good turn. I could try helping with your house?”

Hunter narrowed his eyes. He didn’t want charity, and this house was his, not really the angels’. Although it would force them into close quarters. “If you promise to consider me when you go after one Winchester trinket, sure. I promise I won’t go lusting after it. No worries.”

Castiel looked a bit taken aback at the offer. It was the same look when he had asked if Cas wanted to be his partner. Damn it, hadn’t the Winchesters ever asked the angel to hunt with them? Hunting was their little club, and supernatural beings couldn’t come with?

“All right,” Castiel whispered in soft agreement.

Hunter smiled. Okay, he counted that as a win.

Other than the ghost of John Winchester, Hunter had never had to share his space with someone almost corporeal before. Not that Castiel shared it, exactly. The safehouse still wasn’t where Hunter slept and ate. It was just that: a house that he could hole up to lick his wounds and feel safe if he needed to hide for some reason or the other and secure if there was going to be another apocalypse.

In turn, Castiel himself had his duties too: Jack, whom they both spent time with every Thursday (Dave’s night assigned to look after his brother while on a shortened shift in Biggerson’s) and whatever angel things he did in Heaven.

But they spent a lot of their off time together at the house. Hunter suspected it was because the angel was lonely. Crowley had said it was because the angel was pining. Both were easily exploitable in Hunter’s game.

True to his word, Cas tried to make an artificial beehive for the wild honey bees. He did more than that: he taught Hunter more potent protective wards for the house, things in Enochian that were stronger than salt, human wards, and devil’s traps. He had dug out a well within the ward’s circles so Hunter didn’t need to fetch water from the river. It was useful to know someone who had first-hand insight into how to run a house before electricity. That first month of Hunter showing his prized space to Cas, the angel had taught Hunter a lot.

Once, Hunter had laid out sandwiches, something he’d packed from work—at Biggerson’s, not at Inferno. He set a place for him and Cas at the rickety table by the living room, and Hunter realized that it was pretty fucking domestic. That’s what it was. He was playing house (in his goddamned dilapidated safe house) with an angel of the Lord (his goddamned mark). If it wasn’t so hilarious, he would have scrutinized it because, How is this my life exactly?

He hadn’t even been actively trying to get the angel to do the dirty with him for some time now. Maybe for weeks now. He enjoyed the feather duster’s company, and it was… quite annoying.

When Hunter read the Winchester Gospels, John’s Journal, and whatever things he could pick from the demons in Inferno, he discovered a couple of things. For the research on grace, he learned that the only effective way to take grace was: either from an angel choosing to fall and collecting the grace-construct creation or taking grace via an angel blade through a slit at the base of an angel’s throat.

Pharzuph had waxed poetic about the physiology of grace in the lungs and the air, and Hunter had tuned him out after that. He did not need a biology lesson. He could also take a bit of grace from someone who had formerly been an angel’s vessel, using one of the special syringes from the Men of Letters, but that wouldn’t be enough to get Crowley off his back for a significant amount of time, nor was it pleasant for the said former vessel. Besides, the last vessel Castiel had was Jimmy Novak. From Hunter’s understanding, the angel was still using the guy even after several resurrections.

Either falling or the angel blade were viable options, and both worked in a honeytrap scheme. Crowley was right about that. Besides, the angel was a powerful being, and Hunter was weakly pathetic in light of that power, so he wouldn’t be able to strap Castiel down and just take him. He required a little more finesse than that. But Hunter had done nothing in the past month to further that agenda.

Castiel looked at the sandwiches tentatively, then back at Hunter before washing his hands in the makeshift sink he’d cobbled up. There was storage for water with a spigot and soap, and the drainage system worked just fine. They weren’t entirely in the Middle Ages. “Thank you, I think maybe I’ll be successful with the bees. As for the porch and the ceiling, we’ll see. It’s a good thing there isn’t a lot of demonic activity in the area.”

“Most of that is in the large industrialized towers. They need to tempt souls, and there’s not a lot of tempting in agricultural towers like Tower Five, but there’s still a couple,” Hunter said, still distracted by his entire revelation because he needed to get back in the game. “Ghosts, that’s most of the problem in these places but the Cross hunters take care of it. Government sanction and all. Mostly, I just realize if humans don’t bother the supernatural, the supernatural don’t bother them. The old magic is in these lands, not the tower cities of iron and steel.” 

“Unless demons need a soul.”

Or grace. Hunter’s conscience helpfully supplied. “Or an idiot witch with their grand coven wants a sacrifice. There’s still a lot of hunter work despite the iron and the Cross’s efforts.”

“Hmm,” the angel said noncommittally, taking a tiny bite off the sandwich and putting it down after gulping that, then drinking a full glass of water. 

Hunter noticed Cas picking on his food. “Sorry, don’t like Biggerson’s, huh? I could get something else next time.”

Cas smiled apologetically before pushing the takeout wrapper away, looking sheepish that he’d been caught. “The thought is nice, but I do not need to eat.”

Hunter quirked a brow, took Cas’ barely touched sandwich, then transferred his fries to Cas’ plate. “Maybe that’s more to your liking. You Shoulda told me what you liked, Cas. I’ve been serving you shitty food for a month now, and you never speak up.”

Unlike the sandwich, Cas did seem to like the fries, oily and stale as they were. “It’s all right. I don’t want to be a bother.”

What? When did this angel ever get the idea that he’d been a bother? Was that how the Winchesters treated their friends, by making them think they were a bother? If he ever got a chance to talk down to these Winchester dudes, he’d give them a piece of his mind. Then again, he was going to steal the poor sap’s grace. He didn’t exactly have the moral high ground here. “I invited you here. You’re fixing my hunter’s refuge. We hang out. I’d like to think you’re more than just a bother, Cas.”

Cas’ face was stoic, but he’d been around the angel enough to know that the change in the hard edges around his eyes was not nostalgia. It was wonder. Like no one had treated him well in a while. Was that why the angel had flown off many times when the Winchesters were doing brotherly bonding? Because he thought he was a bother? He had to wade through Winchester’s shit and Cas’ self-worth issues. A psychologist would have a field day.

“Thank you. I’d like to go and chop a couple of wood for the fire, maybe start a garden for you?” Castiel said. He always picked out projects he’d want to do for the day about the house before telling Hunter about it, asking for his tentative permission. As if Hunter wouldn’t allow Castiel everything in this house.

It made Hunter think that Cas needed his own space to grow things. A place to put down roots like he’d almost had with the bunker. Hunter almost laughed at the picture of Cas with a farmer’s hat and straw between his lips. Which reminded him… “You figure out that entire Bruce Wayne thing?”

Cas furrowed his brow. Obviously, he’d forgotten already. Many important things were going on, but Batman and Supes were equally important.

“You haven’t read any Batman, have you?” Hunter asked, exasperated. He shook his head, wiping his greasy fingers on his jeans before standing up and going to his room. He was bound to have one or two lying around. None of those first-edition things, but… aha! He snagged one tucked between his clothes. Collectors would be appalled.

Hunter walked back to Cas as he placed the comic beside the plate of half-eaten fries. “Here you go. I think an origin story suits you best.” Year One was good for a new reader. “I promised you something special once you figured out why I ship Bruce/Clark, didn’t I?”

Castiel frowned as he took the comic. Poor angel still didn’t understand. Well, at least he’d put the idea back there, and he’d given the guy ample ammo to think it over.

Hunter grinned as he clapped Castiel’s shoulder, then pointed out his favorite panels.

Gabriel had just finished his rounds of Aravoth and decided he hadn’t annoyed Castiel lately. He’d dropped by Raphael’s last time and hounded the Virtues walking around the gardens. He’d bullied the Malakhim making the new gates across individual heavens. Still, Cas had been busy shuttling from Earth to Aravoth to all these newfound heaven things that he hadn’t seen his brother in a while.

Gabriel decided to rectify that somewhat. So it was lucky that Cas was in his niche in the sixth heaven, Ma’on, when the archangel dropped by.

Gabriel sat beside Castiel noisily, crowding the seraph’s space while unwrapping a candy bar. It surprised Gabriel that Castiel even had a couch. The seraph made his home as Spartan as he could. Not that Cas spent a lot of time in it. Mostly he was on Earth or in some mortal’s heaven. Castiel gave the archangel a quick and baleful glare over a graphic novel and then returned to reading. Gabriel gave out a snort as he read over his shoulder.

“Cassie, I never expected you to be the superhero fan,” Gabriel commented, noting the title of the series and the careful way the angel was poring over the panels.

Castiel grunted. Castiel knew that Gabriel left to his own devices, would just poke incessantly until he got a rise, so Castiel took a bookmark, put down the novel, and raised an eyebrow at Gabriel. “Why are you here, Gabriel?”

“I just signed out of the grace leeching chair,” Gabriel said, flexing his wings and curling his grace, trying to fill out the spaces that the Throne had asked for. The Throne and most of Heaven didn’t need a lot of tending, but it did occasionally need to have contact with grace. Before the Fall, the Throne had been serviced by all four archangels and the Host singing Gloria. Now there was just Raphael, Gabriel, and its Caretaker, Castiel. “Rafe is there now.”

“Yes, and this is my break, which by definition means I get to spend it however I wish,” Castiel pointed out.

“Aww, can’t I spend time with my baby bro?” Gabriel asked dramatically. Castiel gave him the benefit of a long, pointed stare. Gabriel groaned. “Really? And of all superheroes, Batman? The most human and brooding in all the lineup?”

“I think by definition, superheroes were meant to be brooding—”

“You haven’t been reading the right comic books,” Gabriel muttered.

“—and there’s nothing wrong with being human. That’s very supremist of you.” Gabriel raised an eyebrow as Castiel continued, “He’s very… real. It’s about sacrifice, fear, and identity. But always, always it’s about hope. And that’s very human.”

“I knew you wouldn’t read just a comic book.” Gabriel grinned and then looked at the sheaf of papers the comic had landed on top of. “Who got you hooked on it, huh?”

“Batman was Dean’s favorite superhero.”

Gabriel gave a low whistle. “That makes… so much sense. Have you read Morrison’s R.I.P. yet? You should.”

“Sam only had this. I borrowed some from Jack, other friends.” Castiel seemed to be defensive over his lack of reading. It was actually surprising. Castiel had never shown an interest in updating any of his pop culture before. Good thing Batman was a classic.

“Read Superman. That’s someone you could identify with, stop idolizing someone else’s heroes,” Gabriel ordered.

“That’s surprisingly similar to what Jack told me.”

“That’s because I am right!” Gabriel gave in to the urge to cackle maniacally because they were talking about superheroes. “I can hook you up with some of the Man of Steel stuff, but maybe that librarian heaven would stay mostly to the script.”

Castiel looked unimpressed. Gabriel resisted the urge to sigh because, really, seraphim should always be impressed by archangels. That’s what archangels are for. Gabriel bit his cheek, but he couldn’t help it. The silence had gone too long. He kept his voice even as he said, “Your greatest ability isn’t being able to fly or see through walls. It’s always knowing what the right thing to do is.”

Castiel blinked a couple of times. “Did you just  quote—“

Gabriel stood up abruptly and gave a cheeky grin. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” He took the graphic novel Cas was reading through, A Death in the Family, and looked at Castiel. Again, he could see the appeal. He’d dislodged the papers they’d been sitting on, so he righted that too before handing Cas his comics, noting what was on them. “You were researching the Winchester’s stuff before you got hooked on Batman.”

“I’m allowed to be distracted sometimes, Gabriel. It’s not like finding any of Dean’s things would do anything at this point.” Castiel sighed, and there was that melancholy air again.

Gabriel could kick himself. Really, he shouldn’t have pointed that one out. There were enough things that kept the seraph maudlin as it was. Castiel had always loved Dean Winchester, whether he realized what kind of love it was. Dean decided to reincarnate without as much as telling Castiel was bound to be some sort of betrayal. Castiel hasn’t properly smiled since Heaven. 

Gabriel snapped and looked at the now comic-filled table. His new comics had successfully buried all Winchester artifact-related bullshit. “Gotta go, baby bro. Lots of beds to visit, wine to drink. That sorta thing.”

With a flutter of wings, he was gone as swiftly as he’d come.

He could almost hear the exasperated “Gabriel!” in the Song. Well, he wasn’t brooding over Batman or the Righteous Man now. Score for Gabriel.

Chapter Text

Claire Novak’s heaven looked like her childhood home in Pontiac, Illinois. She and Castiel had a rough start with each other. Still, they had begun a grudging friendship, followed by loving and familial companionship of shared and troubled pasts. 

Her heaven’s doorway to her parent’s own was an Enochian sigil cleaved into the tree’s larger branches. She had her hands on her hips, frowning at Castiel, who’d taken to a swing, hanging from one of the trees. “You’re making friends with people other than the Winchesters, who aren’t inherently connected to my father and Kevin. That’s a big step for you.”

Castiel thought about his friends and felt slightly appalled that that’s how Claire saw him. It had been some time since his isolation resembled what she was implying. He’d reached out to angels and had other humans like Nora, his charge, and those from the church. He had friends.

“Not really, Castiel.” Claire dropped on the dirt beside his swing. “You stopped interacting with people once Dean dropped out of Heaven. Like he was your filter for other humans—souls and stuff. What you have is the mission, the people who are connected to the mission and those that you deign to see because of that mission.”

But that was because Castiel didn’t know how to relate to others without Dean. His relationship with Sam had improved, and he could talk to Kevin for protracted amounts of time because they had been friends when he had been human and alone. But the angel had nothing in common with these souls, and he didn’t grasp “small talk” and—

Claire’s hands on his arm interrupted the spiral of those thoughts with a light touch. “Hey, it’s not a criticism. I just meant that you must really like this new guy.”

Castiel flashed back to this new Dean, with his house that wasn’t really his house and his care of Jack. A Dean of amiable smiles and ready banter. “Not really.” Claire raised an eyebrow, and Castiel felt compelled to explain, “he’s intriguing. He doesn’t seem to be what he says he is, and he’s trying to find a way to—be what he is. I don’t know, somehow, he seems lost.”

“That’s a thing that you do.” Castiel tilted his head, and she continued with, “you rally the lost to you.”

Without meaning to. Castiel had been thrust into that role several times already. He’s always just wanted to be just a malakh. That silence stretched out for a while. He had never visited a soul of one of his vessels before. He hadn’t seen Jimmy Novak but felt like Claire was his responsibility and sought her out.

She shook her head. She was intuitive enough to his moods. It could be because they had shared the same space before. Maybe it was because he had possessed her. None of them, none of their brethren, had taken the time to learn their past vessels. “Enough of that, silly angel. Weren’t you going to find more of Dean’s things?”

He had been; he wanted to. But he’d been procrastinating. He wasn’t sure if it was because he feared trying to look for Dean again and failing or because he would succeed. But finding him would have been fine. At least he would know. Knowing was a comfort, wasn’t it? He didn’t know how humans dealt with not knowing. “I was going to try for Mary’s bracelet.”

“You don’t know if you should trust this new friend of yours with his valuables,” Claire realized. She patted him on the back before brushing her fingers against the bright sigil of the Enochian word that was the gate towards her father’s heaven. “Okay, Cas, didn’t I tell you to trust better? The Winchester trust issues are in the past. He’ll probably understand. If he doesn’t, he’s not a good friend, okay?”

“I’ll… see how I can explain,” Castiel answered before flying off to do just that.

Hunter woke up with a gasp, and the insistent ringing of his wards breached with a pounding headache to boot. Slipping a knife down from his newly donned boot and a gun in hand, Hunter walked the salt lines inside the house. It was still whole, so he crept over the windows to look into his perimeter. Demons would knock his wards and test them as they were prone to. But demons had more pressing matters than raiding deteriorating houses.

Hunter found the angel standing in the yard, watching what Hunter assumed was his beehive. Hunter noticed that spending more time without Jack changed how they moved with each other. Before they had been polite, Hunter discovered things about Castiel that he hadn’t earlier.

Like the way he put Jack’s needs above his own. The way he’s focused on his endeavors, from the significant ones like guarding the prophet to the small ones, like his beehive project. How his eyes were the ever-changing blue of the skies. He wanted to see Cas’ grace flare out like the Winchester Gospels describe them; he would have asked once or twice, but it wasn’t his place to pry.

He didn’t know why the angel was here, in the plains, in the middle of the night even, but he was eerily still near the hives. Hunter closed his eyes and massaged his temple briefly. He’d only seen the angel because that overcoat and the dress shirt were light. It was pitch black outside the Tower Cities without electricity to sustain it. The movement must have disturbed the curtains, alerting the angel, because Hunter suddenly felt Castiel’s gaze on him. In a blink and with the sound of wings, Cas stood in front of him, close enough to see the intense blue of his irises.

“Cas, this couldn’t wait ’til morning?” Hunter asked, stifling a yawn and walking back towards his room to stow his gun. He’d woken up in the middle of the night and wasn’t willing to shove it down his pants without the holster. It was the easiest way to shoot himself in the ass.

Moving towards the kitchen, Hunter lit a candle and rummaged through his sorely lacking cupboards for a bottle of instant coffee. The angel looked like he wouldn’t go away soon, and the adrenaline of waking up was wearing out. Castiel had followed him, watching before saying, “I’m going to get a Winchester relic next week.”

“Good for you,” Hunter praised, and he didn’t know if the angel could detect the slight amount of sarcasm in that. Hunter was not fit for company at zero dark thirty.

Cas let a few moments pass without comment while Hunter stirred his piss-poor coffee before looking at the angel again. Cas continued, “My garrison offered to go, but bringing six angels with me to get a bracelet seemed like ‘overkill.’”

Hunter snorted. It was only overkill if you could fly and smite demons. Going through the plains was okay if he was sure he’d run across most of Crowley’s followers, but Abaddon was out somewhere, and he doubted she would just keep him for a chat. “What’s with the seven-man flight squad, anyway? It doesn’t make sense. If you need to split up, you’d go four-three.”

“Three is a stable number. The fourth is always the captain, or a medic. Someone who can coordinate both groups if needed. Don’t you notice your myths?”

Hunter raised an eyebrow. “I ain’t religious, angel.”

“Forget the Triune God, then. Religion aside, mythology itself is riddled with triple deities.”

Hunter processed that. The angel focused on minutiae, which others would have glossed over. This seemed important to him, though. “Which side of the triangle were you on?”

Cas jerked his head back at the question, his voice hesitant when he answered, “I’m with Gabriel and Raphael now.”

No. That wasn’t what Castiel considered important. The angel didn’t think of threes and immediately thought of the archangels. There was something else. “You’ve been in other threes.”

“Team Free Will was triadic,” Castiel enunciated slowly, a faraway look in his eyes.

“If angels work in threes and a fourth is always the core, but separate, who was the fourth in TFW? Gabriel?” Hunter wondered. It couldn’t have been the archangel. He didn’t care about humans like Castiel did. “Kevin?”

“Bobby before, Kevin later.”

“It’s why you feel… incomplete right now,” Hunter realized. “You’ve always been a part of a triple.”

Castiel slipped his hands in his pockets, avoiding his gaze. He tried to change the subject. “If you don’t want to come with me to get the—“

“Whoah, whoah,” Hunter interrupted, setting down his lukewarm coffee. He focused on the angel. “No one said we’re not going on this field trip. I’m just getting to know you.”

Castiel lifted his chin, his lips pursed in thought. 

Hunter grinned. As long as the angel wasn’t flying away. “So, we’re not leaving right now, right? Tell me when we’re going, so I can plan around my work at Biggerson’s and pack stuff.”

Once they had lined up their schedules for the hunt, Hunter studied Castiel. “You want to crash here for the night—what’s left of it, anyway?”

“I don’t need sleep.”

Hunter rolled his eyes. “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, man. You might get addicted.” But the angel was gone before Hunter finished the offer, and the man sighed as he looked at his half-finished muck. He shouldn’t have fixed a cup.

Rinsing it before he set it down on the sink to wash properly tomorrow, he trudged back to his dark room to catch up on much-deprived sleep. He wondered how the Winchesters ever got the angel to just stay.

Hunter spent so little time in Inferno because of Cas lately that it was a complete surprise when he found John Winchester sitting on his bed staring daggers at him. Hunter raised an eyebrow as he loosened the buttons of his shirt and put away the leather jacket.

“I’ve got to give you credit. That jacket looks a whole lot like my son’s,” John commented.

“They sell replicas everywhere. Haven’t you heard? They canonized your son a while back,” Hunter explained, although he knew perfectly well that John was informed of at least that. “Got a bunch of Church people following after him.”

John flickered in and out and was beside Hunter in an instant. Hunter was used to the ghost, but it was the first time John had frightened him a bit. “You’ve never tried to actively be like Dean before. What are you up to, boy?”

Had Hunter been more afraid of John, he might have confessed the whole shindig up, but he pretended for John’s sake that he wasn’t a demon lackey and wasn’t holed up under the demon’s thumb. He put on a show to give John a semblance of hope that there was still something pure in the world.

John narrowed his eyes. “I don’t need you to be like Dean for me to look after you.”

Hunter snorted. He hasn’t required anyone to look after him for a while now. But again, the ghost needed his hopes, as useless as they were. “I’m—trying to win someone over. They enjoy leather.”

“You realize that they’re not worth it if you have to change for them to notice you?”

“When did we turn to girls, man?” Hunter rolled his eyes before yanking off his jacket and shoving it inside his closet. “I wanna change for him because he’s worth it, not the other way around.”

John’s eyebrows raised past his hairline. Hunter didn’t care if it was because it was the cheesiest line he’d ever said, something admittedly wonderful for honey trap cons, or because John was surprised he was going after a man. Sexuality wasn’t really big in Inferno. “As long as you don’t downplay your self-worth, son.”

Hunter took a deep breath. Yeah, John giving him relationship advice. This was brilliant. Next, he was going to get sex advice from Pharzuph. Them’s the breaks.

Castiel didn’t start by looking for Dean’s things when he’d written in the leather-bound journal. It had been a gift from Dean. The hunter had attempted to teach Castiel the value of gift-giving at Christmas. Castiel had never gotten around to writing anything. An angel’s memory is absolute, and he did not require the book as a reminder.

But when Dean had reincarnated, chronicling the Winchester Artifacts was a way to pass the time. It was enough of a research project to take his mind off the fact that Dean had left and would not be seen for a human lifespan. The next logical step was retrieving them, so that is what he did. Imagine his surprise to find that most of them were barred from him.

While he was with the Winchesters in Heaven, centuries passed on Earth. When he finally focused on Earth, he saw that the Church of the Hunter’s Cross had grown, Abaddon had conquered most of the territory, and Crowley had influenced many people to build Tower Cities that separated them from Abaddon’s brand of demons.

This meant that the artifacts were not only in areas infested by demons but also venerated by humans who believed they were blessed. The Winchester gospel facilitated this transition, for it revealed the supernatural and the Winchester’s fight for the light instead of hiding it.

The artifacts were a challenge to get. Surrounded by demons because they were forgotten in the spaces that humans had fled, but resistant to these demons because they were Winchesters’ and through the hunters’ religion, the things have become holy.

The demons couldn’t get it because of their nature, humans couldn’t because of the demons, and angels? Well, the artifacts had been long abandoned. When Castiel had noticed its presence, the demons had already brushed past it, been burned by it, and so they’d sealed it away so that it couldn’t be used against them. Some of the more mundane things were just warded, but the truly strong artifacts were sealed, just as Lucifer had once sealed the angel tablet.

Cas flew Hunter to the outskirts of the vast and cloistered cemetery where Mary had been buried. 

“So you just need me to take it?” Dean asked in hushed tones as they crept from the heavy grilled gate of the graveyard to the marker that Castiel had previously sought. 

Castiel gave a perfunctory nod, but his attention was on the night and their surroundings. Angel or not, being in Abaddon’s territory made Castiel nervous, and Dean was likewise tense beside him.

They reached the headstone without incident. Mary Winchester had long since been exhumed and transferred into Cross-sanctioned grounds. The Cross, however, had left the jewelry as a remnant of the lady who had once occupied this space.

“They just left it out? In the open?” Dean asked, rubbing his eyebrow when he crouched low to look at the corroded metal. It hung lopsided on the gravestone, its color faded by the elements.

“Her sons had placed it posthumously when they found the artifact. When she had been exhumed, the congregation had left it behind as a marker.” Castiel stopped an arm’s throw away from the headstone, inspecting the Enochian sigils surrounding Mary’s grave while listening, keeping an eye out for demons that were littered in the plains. “Since then, many have tried to return for it, but as these are demon infested lands, the price had been too great for the Cross. I—”

Castiel was cut off suddenly by a demon who’d materialized on unwarded ground. The scent of rot and decay clung to the creature, but the knife it wielded looked wicked sharp. Castiel barely had time to react, twisting his body to avoid the blow. He felt the jagged blade slice through his coat, grazing him. Castiel grunted against the mass of the demon’s vessel as they both hit the invisible lines of the warding that surrounded Mary’s former resting place. In a quick flash of light, the demon died with an echo of a scream lingering in the graveyard.

Castiel’s relief was short-lived. He looked up and saw five more demons closing in on him, their eyes flashing black in their usual signal for dominance, sneering with malice. He reached for his angel blade, materializing it from his grace. “Dean! Hurry!” he shouted before focusing on the demons.

It has been a while since he needed to fight. 

“Dean! Hurry!” Castiel’s voice rang out in Hunter’s ears, urgent and insistent, before a clang of metal clashing and bones breaking rent the still air. 

Hunter, by nature, was impulsive but learned caution in Inferno. He hesitated to touch the bracelet, not knowing if it was spelled, but cursed and grabbed it so that he could help Castiel. Before he could do anything, a blast that blinded him hit him. 

“You’re wrong,” Michael pauses, looking at his one true vessel with pity because he was coming down to this. Explaining Heaven’s machinations so that they could grant him entry and save the world. Does this hunter know what’s at stake? “Lucifer defied our Father and he betrayed me. But still, I do not want to kill him.”

What the ever-loving fuck was that? Hunter thought to himself as he blinked rapidly, trying to clear his sight, realizing he was staring up at the sky above him, spinning and swirling. The vision had knocked him out on his feet for a few seconds.

Hunter rubbed his temples, trying to clear the noise in his ears, when he realized that the ringing wasn’t entirely in his head and that Castiel was still cashing his sword with the demon. He heard Castiel calling him, now sounding more frantic. 

Hunter looked at the angel. Castiel was surrounded by three demons with two dead ones at his feet. Hunter swore and forced himself to get up, staggering to his feet, ignoring the dizziness and nausea, only to be flattened on the ground by one of Castiel’s opponents who had broken off with the angel to deal with him. The demon wore a brunette middle-aged woman and came in swinging against him, getting a short but deep cut against the meat of his arm. 

The demons were carrying angel blades. It’s something that Hunter was thankful for because at least they weren’t carrying guns. Hunter pulled out his own slim and well-worn weapon from his belt and shot at the brunette. The demon didn’t bother to dodge, mistaking it for regular bullets. It flew backward on impact, exploding in holy light, leaving only ashes. 

Angel blade bullets. Great things in your arsenal. Hunter had made them himself, using scraps of metal that he had melted and molded. They were rare and expensive but worth it, killing most enemies in one shot. 

Hunter smiled grimly, turning to the next demon, wearing a fireman uniform, of all things. The demon hurled an angel blade at Hunter like a spear, hoping to catch Hunter off guard, but Castiel was faster. 

“Dean!” Cas called in warning as the angel flew between Hunter and the blade, saving the human from certain death by deflecting the attack.

It exposed Castiel to the third demon, a young man freshly gotten from the looks of it, the vessel with no signs of the wear of tears of the plains. The demon took advantage of Castiel’s distraction and slashed at him. He cut through Castiel’s coat and flesh, leaving a deep gash on his side.

Castiel gasped in pain, but he didn’t falter. “Shut your eyes!” he shouted to Hunter before he raised his hand and snapped his fingers, unleashing a blast of grace that blinded everyone in sight.

Hunter obeyed just in time for the searing white light to fill the cemetery. When the flash faded, Hunter opened his eyes to see scorched demons surrounding them. Castiel was kneeling just at the edge of the Enochian wards, clutching his side. “I guess they had alarms around the grave to check if anyone was interested.”

Hunter kneeled beside Castiel to examine the wound. It was oozing a pale glow that was barely visible in the daylight. “Could you fly us out of here, man?”

Eyes narrowing, his brow pinching to a V, Castiel focused his attention. A rueful, close-mouthed grimace crossed his visage before he touched Hunter’s forehead. They landed in the middle of Hunter’s safe-house, and, to Castiel’s credit, he wasn’t bleeding all over the rugs. 

While Hunter had been around demons plenty, he had never been around injured angels before. Castiel didn’t bleed out blood as a human, nor did he explode in fiery depths of hell with tinges of sulfur. Castiel leaked grace when he was wounded. Maybe the angel had been careless because he was resilient, but the moment Hunter saw the blinding white light—the angel’s true form housed inside the vessel—Hunter realized the angel was not indestructible.

Hunter almost froze when Castiel took the final blow, a blow meant for him, from a demon with an angel blade. His heart had stopped and restarted in the beat of a second when the blade pierced Castiel’s flesh. There were too many of those swords on Earth for the angels to reclaim.

Hunter shoved the angel down on his rickety bed before he got the supplies he needed to stitch the laceration. From what he knew of angel lore, angel blade-inflicted wounds needed external healing. He had heard of angels bleeding before, but this was his first time seeing a grace wound, and he had no idea how to fix it other than to treat the vessel.

Castiel seemed too drained after the fight to resist Hunter’s manhandling. He let him examine the injury but muttered, “leave it, it will close in time.”

Hunter snorted before his eyes left his task to meet Castiel’s. “Or you can find your vessel’s blood line and change suits?”

A flash of anger as Castiel glared at him. “I value this one.”

 “Then let me close the goddamned cut, Cas,” Hunter hissed as he reached for his emergency kit and threaded the needle. “You were an idiot. You could have gotten yourself killed!”

Castiel’s eyes narrowed minutely, piercing Hunter with his stare. Hunter didn’t know what got the angel’s feathers in a twist. The angel was the one who nearly gave Hunter a heart attack. 

“While I could have gotten myself ‘killed,’ as you say, you would have definitely been smote by that blade.” 

At any other time, Hunter would have called out Castiel for the use of air quotes, but he let it slide.

 “I don’t need you taking hits that are meant for me!” Hunter argued he might have been in this because any artifact from the Righteous Man had some value, and he might be a con-man, but he was a decent fighter. He did not need to be coddled goddamnit.

The angel had nothing to say to that, and Hunter pushed him down on his bed so that he could look at the wound properly and clean it. The forceps clipped against the needle, and Hunter’s labored breathing made the only sounds in the room when the angel allowed Hunter to mend the flesh. Castiel was stoic in his suffering. The long gash ran across the angel’s hipbone to his upper back, and Castiel leaned against the hand-carved headboard for support.

Exhaling slowly, Hunter looked up from his bent position to find that Castiel had been staring at him the entire time he’d been working. Hunter should have known to avoid his gaze, but he met the stare stubbornly. Something shifted in Castiel’s face; Hunter couldn’t say what. They weren’t close enough for that yet, but he understood the angel enough. “What?” Hunter grumbled.

Castiel shook his head. “It’s just that—“

Hunter put down the needle and straightened, huffing in annoyance when the angel hesitated. “Spit it out. I ain’t a mind reader.”

Castiel sighed, putting more weight on the headboard, breaking the staring contest. He looked at the ceiling as if searching for answers, then shook his head again. “You don’t think you deserve to be saved, either.”

There was a clanging of metal against metal, and Hunter realized he was clutching the metallic tray of his makeshift first aid kit with a white knuckle grip. He released it slowly, careful not to ruin his work. His chest felt tight, and his breaths came in short gasps. He shoved the tray away and abruptly stood up, leaving the angel’s wounds unfinished.

Muttering some excuse, Hunter blindly went towards the kitchen, putting an entire wall and a room away from the angel. He just needed to get away from him, his unwavering stare, those fucking blue eyes, and that enduring belief in Dean fucking Winchester.

Closing his eyes, Hunter desperately craved a smoke or maybe a soul-hit. He had never tried any of his soul shards, but he’d seen soul junkies. In whatever capacity Crowley had kept him, there were worse and darker fates than his. But the angel was testing his limits like nothing else. He let out a short, bitter laugh and clenched his fists. 

Hunter was a good con-man. He had lured many souls to Inferno’s collection. He could blend in with any crowd; he was invisible. Before now, he’d never had the urge to be seen.

He took a long exhale and ran his hand through his hair. He was well and truly screwed. 

Angels do not have lapses of consciousness, as humans define it. While he had been recuperating from his stabbing, he had been unmoving, but a small part of Castiel had been aware of Dean. Therefore, his awakening had been more of a return to the present than ‘waking up.’

To Dean’s credit, he only tipped his cup slightly, barely spilling his coffee. It was better than how Castiel remembered his own Dean reacting to surprises with a curse and a punch. Castiel stared at this Dean’s eyes and saw nothing, his soul hidden. It wasn’t the markings of the Hunter’s Cross that did it, but some other Enochian symbol tattooed on his body. It was frustrating. Souls were a way for angels to sense humans beyond their flesh. He might not comprehend them, but he knew them intrinsically. He didn’t realize how much he depended on the soul stare for first impressions until he met the one human who could evade it.

It was rare for a human to ward against the soul stare of an angel because it had been ages since an angel had graced the Earth, so this man was suspect. But… “Why did you not leave me?” 

“I’m sorry, what?” Dean asked, setting down his cup on a nearby table that held a couple of medical supplies before giving Castiel his full attention. 

Castiel noticed Dean’s massaging his shoulder. It was outwardly fine, but the angel sensed some bruises and cuts from the chase. “You could have avoided those injuries if you left me,” Castiel said. 

“Dude, I don’t know what kind of team you had for hunting before,” Dean said with disbelief, gesticulating widely, “but you do not leave your buddies behind with demons. Plus, I had better chances with you and angel wings than a car and a demon horde.”

“I am an angel of the Lord. I would have survived,” Castiel explained before nodding towards the shoulder wound. “You would not.”

Dean sighed and sat next to the bed where Castiel had woken up. He had put the angel in his own bed and brought a chair into the cramped room to keep an eye on him while he healed. “You’ve said that a couple of times already. Don’t want to be a broken record there, Cas.” He rolled his eyes and asked, “could you go up and recharge in Heaven?”

Castiel attempted to move his wings, but the knife wound had been extensive and had included the base of his left one. Incorporeal as it was, the angel blade had nicked it, and it was too sore to permit accurate flight. He shook his head. “It could be done, but I would rather not risk it. I’m going to have to stay earthbound for a while.”

“Okay, but while we’re here, we are working on your sword skills.”

Affronted, Castiel said, “I am a soldier of God. What possible issue do you have with the way I wield my blade?”

“Dude, I don’t freaking care if you’re Musashi. You may be a celestial being who fights while being a wavelength of intent, but you hold your angel blade awkwardly as a human.” Dean grabbed a surgical knife from the table, held it up, gripped it tight, and tilted to the side. “You hold it with a death grip like you’re going to hack someone. When you swing, it feels like you can’t get it back. How long have you been fighting in this body, anyway?”

Castiel glared. He slid out his sword, then twirled it on his fingers before holding it up. “I can maneuver the angel blade just fine.”

“Sure, you can do fancy twirling thingies with the sword, which is not at all functional. Maybe you could land a hit because you have power and grace to back you up,” Dean said, putting the scalpel down and taking Castiel’s angel blade, “but that’s not gonna wash against someone who knows how to fight.” 

“It’s a grip switch. I can go from an outward position to a chambered position. I have been fighting long before you deigned to criticize my sword hand, Dean, ” Castiel growled, offended at the insinuation that he’s been doing it all wrong. He’s been through more than enough near apocalypses, with enough battles under his belt to have experience.

“You’ve not been treating this vessel like it’s your body. You use it, but it’s just a weapon for you. Your body isn’t used to the movement of the sword,” Dean insisted. “You must look awesome as the Hulk, but right now you’re an awkward Bruce Banner.”

A stubborn silence permeated the room as they both gauged each other. “Look, it’s the same as the gun, okay? You have to develop the right muscles for it. Even if you go to the gym and build muscle, sword fighting uses your forearms and a lot of people don’t develop that well.”

Dean got up and dropped into a nice, comfortable stance, one foot forward in the ready. He raised his arm stretched, and started moving the sword backwards and forwards from the wrist in swift, agile, and small strokes. “Start with this. Let’s build your muscles. You’ve been using this blade as a stabbing knife, Cas. It’s a short sword, it ain’t a knife. Sure, you can stab people with it, but you can slash people with it. Learn to fight with it, not to survive it.”

With a frustrated huff, Dean tossed Castiel’s angel blade at him. Castiel caught it single-handed with an air of defiance, miming the movement Dean showed. 

“Don’t twist the blade. It’s a tri-edged sword, so it’s tricky, but you want to cut with the edge.” Dean shook his head as he pulled Castiel up.

The angel’s previous annoyance melted into amusement as he saw Dean’s obvious offense in his form. Castiel dropped his sword arm down and took a good look at Dean. “All right, I’ll work on it.”

Dean looked surprised at the easy acquiescence, but Castiel had always known that he was the less stubborn of the two of them. The fight taken out of him, Dean shoved the tray that he prepared for Castiel and almost forgot. “Here, eat. Get your strength back.”

Castiel wondered if he should point out that he didn’t need to eat but decided against it. He realized that the lecture and the food were Dean needing to mother hen. Castiel was getting the talk now because he’d scared Dean with the knowledge that the angel of the Lord was not infallible. 

Taking the sandwich, he gingerly took a bite out of it. It tasted like molecules, as always, but he didn’t need to remind Dean. It would just increase Dean’s worries. He ignored the bland taste if molecules could be considered bland to focus on Dean. Castiel wanted to reassure him he would heal, but words seemed inadequate. So he just smiled, nodded, and continued to chew the molecules, hoping Dean would understand.

“Slumming it, Cassie?” Gabriel taunted while Castiel tilled a patch of soil for the herb garden. The seraph didn’t bother to reply, knowing the archangel would continue with his spiel regardless. “Gosh, I’m hurt, brother. Although I dig the Jesus vibe you have going on.”

Castiel dusted his hands and gave Gabriel his full attention. “I trust you or Raphael has been tethered to the prophet?”

“Cassie, you know he’s been tethered to Raphael the entire time, even if you weren’t hurt?” Gabriel asked incredulously. The rules governing prophets haven’t changed since the millennia that Adam first understood the Word and wrote the twenty-one scrolls that taught the Word of God. “You were his Guide because the last prophet needed forty nights in the desert for his awakening and we don’t do that anymore. You’re like the desert for him. Except, you know, more talkative and dry.”

“You know Jack was given to me as a charge because you think he’s some sort of, of—therapy animal!” Castiel accused, glaring at the archangel.

“Humans have these nice googly enormous eyes when they’re young, and angels have this natural caring—“Gabriel stopped talking as Castiel’s glare intensified over the unimpressive rant. “Oh fine, we knew you could handle the prophet and you’re so sad over Winchester reincarnating that everyone thought we’d give you a pet project.”

“Jack is not a pet.”

A door opening interrupted the budding fight, followed by a throat clearing. Both angels swivel to Dean, standing at the entrance with a tray of sandwiches and a chipped but full water pitcher. Castiel noted Gabriel’s eyebrow rise in question and held back the groan. There was a reason he’d kept this from his older brother thus far. 

“Why hello there,” Gabriel drawled, eyes moving back towards Castiel. “I knew there was a motive for your frequent plains-side trips, but I didn’t know it was more of a wingless, green-eyed variety.”

“Ignore him.” Castiel gestured in the general vicinity of the archangel and grimaced. “He’s not had speeches for so long, and he’s addicted to the sound of his voice.”

Dean fixed them both with an assessing look. He pursed his lips and shook his head before he turned to Castiel. “He come to heal your wings?”

“Nope!” Gabriel said the ending with a loud pop. He waved his hand critically over Castiel’s back, dismissive. “Angel blade grace wounds, very difficult to heal with grace. You remember the time when Cassie here had no grace and was dying in the Winchester Gospels, right?” He chuckled and winked. “If you were healed, you’ll need to sit in the Grace sucking chair to sing Gloria.”

Dean leaned forward to give Gabriel his full attention.

Gabriel gave a full-body shudder. “Trust me, you do not want to listen to Cassie singing Gloria when half of his wing is rendered incapacitated. His wavelength will make clashing chords instead of harmonies. Nope, no Song weaving for you.”

“I was actually out to give this.” Dean pulled out something from his pocket, wrapped neatly in one of the excess scraps of bandage that he’d used to bind Castiel’s stitches. Through the thin cloth, Castiel could see the tarnished silver of Mary’s bracelet peeking through. “I forgot to hand it over.”

Gabriel’s eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open when Castiel showed him the piece of metal before the seraph stowed it away. “That’s not even Dean’s. If you were going to get yourself killed, why not something of his?”

Before Castiel could think of a suitably flat comment, Gabriel had snapped his fingers and manifested a stiff antique parchment paper in Castiel’s hands. It had a stylized drawing of the old Colorado state lines with a cartoonish representation of what amounted to a treasure map, complete with a large X.

“Now that is Dean’s pendant,” Gabriel said with a flourish. It was probably revered strongly as part of the Hunter’s Church. That reverence made it pulse with blessing enough to be noticeable as Heaven’s. Gabriel would have felt it as an archangel and Keeper of the Horn. “If you’re going to get yourself killed looking for things, you might as well look for something that’s closer to what you’re really pining for.”

A jolt thunders through Castiel at the mere chance of finding anything that belongs to Dean.

Gabriel’s gaze never left his brother as his eyes softened. “Brother, look at you.” With a flutter of wings, the archangel was gone.

Hunter found Castiel on the familiar open-aired porch overlooking the sun-drenched backyard. It had slowly become Castiel’s place while he was healing away from the towers and Heaven. He had started with a beehive and easy access to water but now had an herb garden with patches of flowers. The flowers were out of place in the desolate and abandoned suburbia, their horizon broken by the Tower Cities in the distance. 

Castiel had also set up a small compost pit on the side. He had tried to collect rainwater, too, but his carpentry skills were lacking. Hunter took pity on the angel’s poor, poor woodworking skills and built a rainwater collector that he hooked up to the gutters. The safe house felt more lived in than just a temporary space Hunter took refuge in when he was in the Plains. 

Hunter would remember this time as their halcyon days before everything spiraled out of their control.

It was because Castiel continued his homemaking projects. The massive stone-lined firepit was a lifesaver when he didn’t want a fireplace and just wanted warmth. It also doubled as a barbecue with some grills Hunter had scrounged with scrap metal.

Castiel hadn’t noticed him yet. The angel was bowed over, clutching the map that Gabriel had given, tracing the long stylized lines and the large X while rubbing his thumb across the tarnished bracelet of Mary. Castiel closed his eyes and took a deep and steadying breath like he was grounding himself. Then he murmured, “do you know that there’s no time limit on grief?”

Not entirely unnoticed, after all. Hunter shrugged when Castiel’s eyes swung from the parchment to him. Hunter had never grieved. He was a baby when his mother died, and there was no one to mourn in Inferno. But seeing Castiel sitting quietly by himself, maybe he’d been given a glimpse of it. 

This close, Hunter could see the unshed tears that were filling up Cas’ startlingly compelling eyes. He was blinking rapidly to stave them, but they were there, and Hunter acknowledged that this was a deep, abiding pain in Castiel. It wasn’t always apparent, but at this moment, Hunter knew that the angel was still mourning. It was as raw as the day he’d lost the Winchester. No matter how long ago it was.

“We could get it, you know, Dean’s ring,” Hunter suggested, sitting beside the angel. 

Castiel snorted and surreptitiously rubbed the back of his hand against his eye. Hunter chose to ignore it. He was intruding on the angel’s grief, and it was an intensely private and personal moment. The least he could do was choose not to see it.

“Not with my wings incapacitated.” Castiel touched the leather strap that was on his wrist. Hunter had never seen the angel without it, and he’d noticed that the angel would consciously and unconsciously run his fingers or thumb across the leather in a soothing motion when he was troubled. “This is deeper inland than Mary’s. It has been lost for a century or so. A few months or even years will not make a difference.”

“I think maybe it might make a difference to you,” Hunter murmured, looking at the yard. It felt deceptively domestic. Like a hunter’s retirement in the old days when they were still on the plains. Like the quiet between hunts. So far, no demons had bothered his patch of nowhere. The house-wards kept them away, but the house’s location had also helped. It was inside an old city-wide Devil’s trap, a prototype of the Tower Cities before they had perfected it and moved to the towers. 

Cas gave him a faint smile. Hunter wondered if Dean had difficulty getting smiles from the angel, too. If he got these blankly courteous smiles bordering on strained, or if he got full gummy ones. 

“Your offer makes enough of a difference.”

Envious of a man centuries dead, that’s what this was. Hunter pushed the thought away. “It’s still there, Cas. The offer stands.”

Castiel nodded and squeezed Hunter’s shoulder once before getting up. “Thank you, Dean. I’ll keep it in mind.”

Maybe being called some dead person’s name was also fucking up his head, but Hunter didn’t think he could stick to the long con. He watched the angel walk away, feeling a pang in his chest where he thought his heart had been cut out by Inferno. Castiel was still painfully in love with Dean Winchester. Hunter knew that. He had been counting on that when he started this, but he hadn’t expected it to matter. 

Hunter sighed and returned to his work, trying to forget the sting of those unshed tears.

Castiel polished Mary Winchester’s bracelet by hand instead of grace. There was a faint thrum of power in it, a connection to Heaven that his grace could sense despite his broken wing. He sent it to Gabriel to give to Sam, but Sam had returned it. They hadn’t located Mary Winchester’s heaven yet, which meant her soul didn’t want to be found. It was the nature of Heaven to grant its denizens their wishes.

The ordeal of retrieving the trinket had drained Castiel’s grace, and he hadn’t recovered yet but was gaining his reserves. Castiel’s duty to the Throne linked him to it, even though he couldn’t be there. As much as Gabriel’s function continued as long as he lived and was connected to the Tree of Life, so was Castiel’s connection to the Throne.

A grimace crossed Castiel’s face as he untangled the worn metal. Some charms were missing, and the smallest interlocking of the chains had snapped. The unicursal hexagram, crucifix, and pentagram were all still affixed and showed promise. The main body was intact, but the clasp was broken. Castiel unclipped the hexagram and strung it through a leather thong with two knots that could adjust the length. He put the rest away.

Jack glanced up from the car window as Castiel took his wrist to slide the bracelet in. “It’s for additional protection, Jacob. A part of Mary Winchester’s legacy.”

Because Castiel was earthbound while his grace healed, he spent it with Jack. He wasn’t as infirm as humans when they suffered wounds, and his vessel was fine, so he wouldn’t burden the child. Dean had moved back to his Tower apartment for the workweek because of his job at Biggerson’s anyway.

Castiel couldn’t wait until he could fly safely, his shoulders straightening as he stretched his wings, their span touching through the entire backseat. He could navigate with them soon, and though he could fly, evidenced by their retreat from that graveyard, it was more prudent to let his wings heal than force it. They were traveling to the church today for worship, and he’d rather have his wings when moving through the plains.

Jack held his wrist out to Castiel, who resized the bracelet and tested the fastening with his fingers. Before he could let go, Jack had gripped his hand, giving him an intense stare.

“Look to your Wells, Caretaker, for they are becoming tainted,” Jack warned, his voice commanding, the gaze serious.

Castiel blinked, his mouth slightly open. “The Wells?” he repeated, his voice rising in confusion.

“Protect the Key, for the Lock is weakened.” A Prophecy, in the middle of the drive out from mass on a murky Sunday afternoon. Where were the burning trees and the thunder? The lack of fanfare was unlike significant portents of old. “Fortify the Tree, for if it falls, the Cage will break. It is the Rapture, foretold.”

Gertrude shifted to get a good look at her son, asking, “What was that, Jack?”

Jack blinked away the fogginess of his consciousness caused by the divination and looked at his mother. “It’s nothing ma, just a—“

“Rhyme,” Castiel suggested, which was true but not the whole truth. Jack grasped the offering and repeated it, Gertrude turning back in her seat.

“By the Hunter’s Cross!” Jack’s father swore, slamming the brakes. 

Castiel peered out of the windows, his eyes drawn onto the asphalt that was the Cross bridge from the tower to the church grounds. A peculiar white-clad woman had darted into the street, clutching her bleeding hand. The grey family van screeched to a halt, throwing them all forward. Jack winced, rubbing his chest where the seatbelt had bitten it.

“Cas, don’t forget!” Jack hissed urgently before Castiel was flung out of his seat and into the light.

Castiel was disoriented when he jolted awake. Scanning the room, he noted the humble cot and a sizeable, uncluttered desk, rarely used. An old Walkman was on the table, and a single black cassette with its label smudged through time and recognition.

He groaned when he realized what had happened. The woman, whom their car had ‘run-over,’ had carved an angel banishing sigil on her palm and invoked it by smashing it onto the hood of the battered vehicle. His grace had been damped by the sigil and tumbled him into unconsciousness. The particular sigil she had used also effectively dumped him in his room in Makhon, the fifth heaven.

Thankful that he was in his vessel, unlike other angels who would have been ejected by the sigil. Castiel flared his healing wing to swoop down on Jack.

He arrived stumbling where the car had been, crashing a few paces from the new charred crater around it. Blood was everywhere, and a fine red mist lingered in the air that Castiel was sure he shouldn’t examine before his vessel’s stomach revolted. The air smelled of iron, and it was heavy in his lungs, making it challenging to take a breath.

“Raphael!” Castiel thundered because he would recognize an archangel’s power anywhere. Jack was the prophet of this age. He was tethered to an archangel. Archangels were the brute force and last line of defense for prophets should their lives be in danger.

The archangel swooped down at the center of destruction, materializing as soon as Castiel had summoned her, her feet touching the flattened car, a perfect eyebrow raised in question.

Castiel shook both in fury and in fear. “What happened to Jack?” 

“There was a demon attack. The prophet was in danger.” Raphael was being deliberately obtuse. It was a state that Castiel did not care for, especially when he needed information.

“Yes, I was there.” Castiel would have tapped his foot and rolled his eyes if he was prone to human histrionics. His voice was sharp and clipped when he asked, “What happened when they banished me?”

“I sent the Fire of Heavens down to purge them,” Raphael said as she turned her head towards the church grounds, tuning in to the winds that Castiel was too far to hear. She was probably listening to the prayers of the faithful there. Though the church was too far from the destruction, the Holy Fire would have been bright for miles, even on a flat plane.

“Raphael, they had hunter’s sigils. They wouldn’t have been possessed,” Castiel said in horror. He had known that the fire caused the circle of destruction; the power of the archangels was indiscriminate in its potency. “They were part of the Cross.”

In the past, Castiel would have never talked to Raphael this way, but then, Raphael would have never allowed it either. How living through the Winchester gospel had changed them. Raphael cocked her head to the side. The vessel she had taken this time had long flowing hair curled around her waist in the unnatural stillness after the release. 

“The father was faithful but was never baptized, Castiel.” And, therefore, never received the demon-protecting tattoo. “He was taken as soon as the demon realized it. He killed Gertrude.”

Never baptized? Were there still followers who were never baptized? That could only mean that the Cross’ followers were starting to think that demon lore was a myth. And he drove through the plains without protection. “Where is Jack?”

“It seems like Abaddon has taken a personal interest in the prophet.” Raphael hesitated as she stepped down from what had once been the car’s roof onto the flattened hood and then onto the scorched earth. “I killed all the demons she could corrupt and send against us. I burned them all, but she is a Knight of Hell, and though Heaven’s Fire weakened her, I could not kill her in the blast.”

Irritation was starting to rise in Castiel. Raphael was not answering his question, and hearing her roundabout words was frustrating. Why can’t angels be direct when they need to be? “What?”

 “The child has been taken, Castiel. The tether has been broken.”

Chapter Text

“My Sword,” Michael says in acknowledgement, nodding towards Dean, serious as the archangel was known for. Bright blue bars separated the hunter from the angel, indicating a rare reprieve after the Apocalypse. Michael was caged with Lucifer, while the Righteous Man accessed the prison through Heaven.

“I doubt you’ve come to say ‘yes’ at last,” Michael replied sharply.

No. Not even if the world wanted to end again. There were some sacrifices Dean was not willing to make. “I have some news for you.”

Tension crackled as Michael braced himself—then, a blinding light erupted from the Cage.

Lucifer, the morning star, with six blazing wings, stood poised in the Cage, arms wrapped around Michael, a smirk playing on his lips. “A visitor. You’ve given us a bargain. Do not forget.”

Hunter woke up with a gasp, his sleep restless ever since picking up Mary’s bracelet—even after he had returned the charm to the seraph. The chaotic memories hung over him like a storm cloud. Weeks had crawled by since he’d last seen Castiel—since the clusterfuck that was the ring of red mist, holy fire and a dead or missing Prophet of the Lord.

He’d been on the plains when the holy fire had struck down, close enough to see its blinding light, had not known what it was other than possible lightning until he’d driven up and seen the congregation of the cross—hunters, investigating. He remembered that had been the prophet's family car, engulfed in the thick, cloying red mist. The sharp tang of ozone lingered, mingling with the faint metallic bite of iron.

Hell was in chaos as Inferno slammed both sides of its gates shut, leaving agents stranded in the wasteland. Those caught outside found themselves cut off, Hunter among them, stuck in the plains and chasing a long-haul plan that was nowhere near finished.

The old demonic signs stirred a sense of dread—ominous, unsettling echoes of lore long forgotten, each whispering of impending doom.

Animals were dying. Birds crashed into the tower, wings snapping on impact.

Diseases thought long eradicated were creeping back. Malaria outbreaks had started cropping up—a disease thought dead in the towers, especially since it was carried by insect vectors. These were pests that had been kept in check for years with insecticide, making them easy to stop from breaching the walls.

The Cross ramped up field runs on the plains, trying to keep pace with the spike in demon activity threatening their side of the plains, a reminder that Jack was out there and needed saving. The powers that be never bothered to set up a railway system. Classic short-sightedness. The remnants of Old America had bet everything on planes instead of trains, leaving the western towers lagging behind their eastern counterparts.

Hunter knew sleep wouldn’t come easy after that vivid vision—Michael and the Cage etched into his mind. The night weighed heavy, wrapping around him as echoes of the dream clawed at his thoughts. Restless dread gnawed at his gut, forcing him to rise and check his wards.

The plains stretched out in eerie silence, broken only by the faint stirrings of demons and the whispers of tormented souls that clung to the shadows. Once-bustling cities lay in ruin, skeletal remains tangled with weeds, creating a grim mosaic of forgotten memories scattered under a menacing, overcast sky.

On the way to the Cross headquarters, he detoured to a crossroads in a forsaken suburb, a remnant of a once vibrant community. The preparations had been straightforward: graveyard dirt—secured without fuss during his recent hunt with Castiel—check; a black cat, after a taxing chase in the plains where feral cats roamed aplenty—check; yarrow and blood—trivially easy—check. With the shoebox stuffed and buried in the center of a carefully drawn Devil’s trap, he settled in to wait.

When the spell did its work, Hunter summoned and a squat man with a boxed nose appeared in a flash of brimstone, glaring daggers at him from within the confines. Doron, a demon known for his temper and efficiency.

“Really, Hunter,” the demon sneered, his eyebrow raised in mockery. “A demon summoning?”

Hunter knew that most crossroads demons still operating were under Crowley. Since it was difficult to broker crossroads deals in the tower outside of Inferno, these demons often took to learn bartending instead. Hunter figured his odds of summoning one were solid—and Doron didn’t disappoint. In response to Doron’s disapproval, Hunter snapped back, his words sharp and laced with irritation, “How was I supposed to touch base with the boss if Inferno was shut down?”

Doron raised his other eyebrow and looked at the devil’s trap. Hunter shrugged before he broke the circle. He could handle himself against Crowley’s lackeys, especially with Crowley keeping him on the payroll. It gave him some form of protection from Crowley’s red eyed followers. 

“Covering bases, man. What if I summoned someone loyal to Abaddon?”

“If that happened, you’ve royally botched the job and proved you’re even more of a screw-up than you look. Congratulations.”

Hunter dismissed the jibe, he had trapped Doron in a circle. “What’s the word, pal? Any news on the demon stuff from a while back? Red mist near cross grounds. Holy fire raining down from Heaven, the works.”

“Hell’s latest drama is just chef’s kiss delicious, Abaddon’s throwing her weight around, thinking she can snatch Hell’s throne like it’s a discount deal at the crossroads.” Doron wrinkled his nose when he stepped out of the circle. “She’s stolen the prophet.”

Hunter felt the weight settle in his chest—dread curling tight, but chased by something fleeting, something dangerously close to relief. Jack may be the target but at least the kid was alive. Abducted, sure, but breathing. And in a world that gutted him at every turn, carving pieces away with ruthless precision, that was enough.

Hunter let out a short, bitter laugh, running a hand down his face before glancing up. “Any orders from Crowley? Last I checked, he wanted me to rip out a chunk of the prophet’s soul or steal some of the angel’s grace. That still the plan?”

Doron snorted, his flicking his wrist towards the broken devil’s trap. “Crowley is a paranoid son of a bitch. The second he caught wind of Abaddon’s latest stunt, he locked down Inferno tighter than a miser’s vault. No one gets in, no one gets out—not unless they have something very interesting to offer.”

With orders still looming, Hunter knew he had to follow through on the con. Crowley might be a scheming bastard holed up in inferno, but eventually, but it was only a matter of time before he clawed his way out. And when he did, Hunter was still going to need that grace.

Best way to get it? Find Jack. The angel was protective of his charge and would come back earth-side for him.

He straightened, rolling his shoulders like it would shake off the weight pressing down on him. “Any word on where the prophet’s being kept?”

“Oh, not the where, my dear hunter—the why. And let’s be clear, that little nugget of wisdom isn’t free. We like to keep secrets well-guarded, and I’m not one to give them away without something shiny in return.”

Crossroad demons thrived as deal makers, but they also made for the best informants. They eavesdropped on most intersections, and they were notorious gossips among themselves. The tower cities might not have dirt, but crossroads are abundant. Though demons struggled to breach the city’s walls, there were plenty roaming the plains—enough, even with Abaddon’s iron grip on the territory, for enterprising men to hunt down what they needed.

Hunter unhooked a glowing glass vial from his pouch. It was a remnant from one of his last soul farming, and tossed it over to the demon. He still hadn’t replenished from the soul stealing, but he doubted Crowley was going to look for a performance review anytime soon.

The demon gave the container a shake, making the soul sparkle and flare before dying down, then nodded as he pocketed it. “Abaddon wants the prophet for some grand spell work.”

Hunter frowned. Large workings needed old blood and places of power. Desanctified grounds, or spots where the echoes of forgotten whispers still linger, heavy and unshaken. “Got it. I guess I should investigate that to get into the boss’ good graces.”

“Good luck with that.” Doron snorts. Getting into Crowley’s good graces was notoriously difficult. 

“How’s John holding up?” Hunter asked. All demons know that he and John were roommates, and that Hunter has formed a tentative attachment to his somewhat cellmate, somewhat prisoner.

Doron snorted. “That stubborn bastard’s been enduring Hell’s finest hospitality since the day they dragged him down centuries ago. I’d wager he’ll keep on holding out, right up until someone figures out who’s next on the Righteous Man prophecy roster.”

Hunter’s jaw tightened, his voice cutting through the tension. “What?”

Sure, John was a prisoner—Hunter had always known that. But Crowley? The King of Hell had been dead set against the Apocalypse, against the world going up in flames. The idea of Crowley letting John Winchester breaking was all kinds of wrong.

“Did I stutter?” Doron rolled his eyes. “You humans are idiots before you turn properly into demons, I swear. Crowley is holding on to John because he’s a Righteous Man, and Abaddon would use him.”

“I got that part, but why is he keeping him?”

“To stop Abaddon from getting her grubby claws on him, obviously.” Doron scoffed.

“And the torture?”

“Oh, please. We’re demons! What else were you expecting, a cozy guest room with mints on the pillow?” Doron’s grin was sharp and cruel as he vanished in a swirl of brimstone, leaving Hunter standing alone at the crossroads.

Hunter felt his gut twist like an awful premonition, the weight of John’s mess hitting him square in the chest. But there wasn’t time to wallow in the what-ifs, John’s situation pulled at Hunter, but h'es been in Inferno for centuries, Hunter had to focus on Jack instead. That was it—no second-guessing, no hesitation. Just action. At least they had a start.

None of the Cross hunters could shake the suffocating dread left behind by the aftermath of the Red Mist. Anyone who saw anything within that radius had died, either by the demons who had attacked or by the final fire that had been Heaven’s defense. Every shadow seemed to whisper of those who’d fallen in its deadly grip—whether it was the demons that tore through them or the final fire unleashed as Heaven’s last-ditch defense.

Even with all their meticulous digging, the Men of Letters found themselves running in circles, uncovering nothing useful. Their frustration showed as they doubled down, fortifying defenses at every chapter house like they were bracing for a storm they couldn’t see coming.

oOo

Jack was a secret computer genius—his parents didn’t know it, but he could use his school tablet to explore all kinds of cool virtual worlds and towers. His favorite place was a server called #MOL library, where he would talk to Henry, one of the admins. Jack had been trying to join the Men of Letters server for as long as he could hold a padd and learned to click, even before his folks knew about it and added parental locks when he was three. He was always curious, ready to chat with strangers, and brave—but maybe he was only brave because he’d never been alone.

From the moment Jack could form memories, Castiel had been by his side. Cas explained that when babies are born, their souls are granted from the Tree of Life by Archangel Gabriel, allowing them to see angels briefly before their minds formed, then they could no longer see.

Jack had been seeing the supernatural for as long as he could remember—and Cas had been there every step of the way. That’s why he was never afraid. Jack finally got what it felt like for other kids who couldn’t see angels. It’s been months since he’d been alone. There was an ache deep in his chest—an emptiness he couldn’t explain, like something important had been ripped away. It was only after Raphael tried to save him, raining fire from the sky and destroying the tether, that Jack understood what had been lost. The tether had always been there, unseen yet constant. He hadn’t noticed it was there until it was gone—and now the hollow space it left behind was all he could feel.

Jack didn’t know it had been there until he started missing it .

Afterward, Abaddon dragged him away from Tower Five. Tower Five was everything Jack had ever known. He’d spent his whole life there, from the farms in Level One to the skipped areas Dave liked talking about in Level Two, to the apartments way up in the higher levels and his school near Seventy-Three.

The elevators were awesome, with their quiet swishing sounds, taking people up and down the levels. Jack remembered the days when his mom had to work and his dad wasn’t home—he and Dave would sneak down to the candy shop, where it always smelled so sweet. On worship days, they would rent a car from Level Three and drive out to the Cross grounds, playing with kites and running in the gardens where there was real sky and grass and wind on his face. Sometimes Jack would chase dragonflies across the plains, his eyes fixed on their carefree flight as they zipped through the open sky, unbound and untouchable. Now Jack felt trapped, stuck, and all he wanted was that freedom again.

Jack’s parents were always careful about leaving the towers at night. They told him it was dangerous because demons, vampires, and other monsters were out there. The Cross grounds were supposed to be a haven since hunters watched over them during worship—but getting to the grounds wasn’t always safe. Now Jack was outside the towers feeling the dry heat on his skin instead of the cool, ventilated air of Tower Five. Every night, he prayed to Cas, hoping Cas would hear him and come, even though Jack was starting to think the demons had put up wards to block angels out.

Time with Abaddon was strange—Jack couldn’t figure out the days anymore. They fed him weird glowing food. At first, he refused it, but hunger and thirst got to him, and he had to eat. The food scared him because it made his head hurt and gave him bad dreams—dreams that made him wake up screaming for his mom, or Cas, or even Dave. And Dave wasn’t reliable—he was always off with a new girlfriend

Jack could see the demons around him weren’t just monsters. They had people’s souls trapped inside them, crying to get out. But Abaddon was worse—she was terrifying. Her presence felt like she was draining all the warmth, leaving Jack feeling cold. His instincts screamed at him to run, but he couldn’t. He tried hard not to show how scared he was—he didn’t want her to know he understood what she really was.

Abaddon gave Jack a room in an old, broken-down house in a suburb. It was strange being outside the towers. His dad had always said these old neighborhoods were dangerous, full of abandoned houses that could hide demons and other monsters. Now Jack was in a place with crumbling white picket fences where families used to live before the towers were built. His room had a mattress but no bed frame, and they didn’t lock him in because there was nowhere for him to run—no food, no car, only the empty plains.

Jack spent his time in the overgrown garden, pulling weeds and caring for the plants. As he worked, he kept praying. He wanted the plants to grow strong and survive, just like he wanted to escape Abaddon and get back to Cas. Every day, his silent prayer was the same: Cas, find me. Please.

oOo

Heaven’s bureaucracy was an exercise in eternal monotony—endless tribunals, tiered across countless levels, each dragging on longer than necessary, as though time was infinite for mortals as it was for angels. Thoroughness was valued above all else, a concept that might have been tolerable under normal circumstances.

With the prophet still missing, the celestial deliberations felt maddeningly disconnected from urgency. To make matters worse, Castiel didn’t know whether Heaven’s time stream was was speeding up or slowing down relative to Earth’s.

To Castiel, Jack’s absence felt like hours, but weeks could have slipped away in Heaven’s timeline. Precious moments were squandered as the celestial hierarchies entangled themselves in endless debates over the prophecy, their focus splintered.

Adding to Castiel’s quiet frustration, Gabriel—ever the Archangel and trickster—lounged nearby with a smirk, chewing gum and watching the chaos unfold with amused detachment, while arguments about tainted rivers and the prophet’s disappearance filled the air

“You know, this might seem like a novel concept,” Castiel remarked, his tone cutting through their bickering, “but we could just look at the rivers.”

The arguments came to a screeching halt as every gaze snapped towards Castiel. Gabriel popped his gum and false whispered. “You’ve done it now.”

Castiel rolled his eyes, red tape in heaven was worse than any bureaucratic delay he’d encountered. Imagine having all the time to argue moot points when they should have been forced into action sooner. It didn’t help that despite every attempt at scrying, the prophet remained shielded from them, and no cursory fly over through Earth has ascertained his whereabouts.

Gabriel sighed, raising a finger to snap them instantly by the rivers of Makhon. While the rivers of Aravoth had been molten fire, Makhon’s was still and life giving, winding lazily towards hte Tree of Life to sustain it.

Castiel crouched over the river and ran his fingers over the flowing waters. Each circle of Heaven was anchored by a central tree, a vital connection that linked all realms and upheld the celestial order. It was something that the Righteous Man had exploited when the Gates of Heaven had closed during Metatron’s brief reign. Through this structure, Heaven was navigated by angels through its superpositions. One Heaven and seven rings, all held together by the central tree.

The river was cool through his fingers, shining as it flows chilled from the mountains of Makhon, the fifth heaven, before dropping into the natural pool and feeding towards the tree. Gabriel was already knee-deep in the water, feet bare, wingtips dragging behind him on the current. Angels hovered overhead, keeping a wide berth as the archangels and Castiel strode across the waters with purpose.

Gabriel confirmed, shaking off the water with a dramatic flourish all if his six wings. “Yeah, yeah, the kid’s got it right—the rivers are a mess.”

Raphael and Castiel rose, their gazes fixed on the tree, fed by the river—a lifeline coursing through Heaven itself. Every river converged at the Tree of Life, the heart of their realm. If the Wells sustaining it were tainted, the Tree would weaken, putting all of Heaven at risk.

“Most of the Wells have been defiled,” Raphael murmured. “All but the one in Shehaquim.”

The Tree of Life didn’t just stand at Heaven’s core—it held it together, binding the realms. Its fall would unravel everything: the fourth circle, where countless souls resided, the fifth, home to angels. It had existed since creation, since the division of the spheres. If it crumbled, Heaven would crumble with it.

The spheres would shatter. Souls would scatter like ash in a storm. The angels? Cast out.

It would be Metatron’s spell all over again. Worse—Lucifer’s Cage would crack wide open.

“But how are they doing it?” Castiel asked bewildered. Heaven was all but impenetrable—a realm in metaphysical and quantum superposition, its seven distinct spheres woven tightly to guard against intrusion. If it were easy to get into Heaven, Lucifer would not need an army of demons to bide his time and take it. “We are secure behind Heaven’s gates, we’ve had no breach since I became the Caretaker.”

Despite the quiet hum of angels hovering nearby, a profound stillness hung in the air. Gabriel stood at its center, his subdued glow illuminating the space with the weight of his mantle as Messenger. The blue light of his grace cast shadows of solemnity across his form as he spoke:

“Then the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and the springs of water, and they became blood.”

“And I heard the angels in charge of the waters say:” Raphael paused scooping a cupful from her palms and letting it run down into the currents below. “‘You are just in these judgment, you who are and who were, the Holy One, because you have been so judged; for they have shed the blood of your saints and your prophets, and you have given them blood to drink as they deserve.’”

“The Seven Bowls of God’s Wrath?” Castiel’s voice cracked with horror. The other angels whispered among themselves, and the song trilled with the fast abrupt staccato of gossip. “But, but that’s practically an apocalyptic prophecy!”

“When is it not?” Gabriel asked, his grin a sharped-edged mask. “Daddy was all wrath of the Heavens before he found his hippie side and went over New Testament.”

“Gabriel, please refrain from casual references of our Father,” Castiel said, exasperation threading through his words as he mulled over the prophecy.

“Oooh, a millennia ago, you wouldn’t have been bothered by the reference,” Gabriel quipped, his tone laced with a mischievousness, at the same time that Raphael said, “Castiel, I’m worried by your priorities if that is your take away from all of that.”

“It’s an Apocalypse,” Gabriel said rubbing his hands together in glee. “That’s worthy of archangel attention don’t you think? Besides Rafe here is on Team Apocalypse, live a little.”

“Brother, need I remind you that if that prophecy is in effect right now then we need the prophet, and he is lost.”

“Yeah and who’s fault is that?” Gabriel shot back, his tone sharp. “It’s a tether Rafe, please, did you have to use all wrath of god and rain down fire when you could have just apparated the kid somewhere else?”

Between Raphael and Gabriel, while both had equal strength, Gabriel had more finesse with his use of his divine power. It probably came from all his time hiding as Loki. “Brother, I don’t think—“ before Castiel could finish his sentence, his wings and grace were torn from Heaven in a summoning, and he vanished in an instant.

oOo

The Hunter’s Cross carved out its grounds on the remains of the old American Men of Letters chapter houses, inheriting not only their arcane knowledge but also their fortifications and safeguards. From his readings of the Winchester Gospels and later poring over Castiel’s Epistolary, Hunter pieced together its origins—a bastard child of the bureaucratic Men of Letters and the devout movement born after the Righteous Man’s martyrdom.

But the Cross wasn’t some sanctimonious order, and it sure as hell wasn’t just a clique of dusty lorekeepers. It was a Christian denomination forged in the aftermath of a narrowly missed apocalypse, carried on the backs of soldiers who turned survival into faith.

Weeks had passed since the Red Mist—what everyone called the night Jack disappeared—but the chapter house Hunter approached still buzzed with the tension left in its wake. The grounds stretched wide, with dense trees shrouding the bunker at its core. A field had been cleared for gatherings, where the Cross held their version of a Eucharistic Liturgy beneath a collapsible tent raised only when needed. The high alert was palpable, a reminder of the chaos that had rippled across their ranks.

A chain-link fence coiled tightly around the perimeter, standing as a no-nonsense barrier against whatever threats might come knocking. Two guards lingered in the shadows, their faces half-hidden, sweeping the darkness with flashlights. As Hunter rolled past the fence, the guards aimed their beam at the driver’s seat, muttering “Christo” under their breath before waving him through the wards. Just before the guardhouse, Hunter spotted a Devil’s trap etched into the ground, with the entire enclosure fortified from edge to edge in High Enochian script and every warding trick the Cross deemed vital for survival.

Another checkpoint stood before the bunker—a solid wall marking the edge of its grounds. Manning this inner perimeter was a postulant, one of the Cross’s rookies, dressed in the group’s signature clerical attire: a black cassock paired with a replica of the original Winchester amulet.

“Christo, my friend,” the cleric hailed. “What brings you to the grounds at this hour?” 

“Hunter Dean, penance marks: Righteousness,” then Hunter recited his identification code when he’d been conferred as a hunter of the Cross right after he’d paid handsomely to hack the Book of Life and add his fake entry.

After the cleric inputted his data, the screen flashed ‘inactive, awaiting further orders’. “All right, park in underground basement 2. Lot 306 should be empty and able to charge your car. The deacon has not sent out new orders for hunter teams but there are several hunters in the bunker’s gymnasium that are looking for a partner if not sport. If you need healing, the infirmary is full, and you’ll have to get a virtual ticket from reception to be assessed based on urgency.”

Hunter nodded then navigated his way towards the inner sanctum. The bunker, repurposed from the old Men of Letters, clung to its distinct 1950s feel—like stepping straight into a museum frozen in time. While supposedly not as large as the one that could be found in Lebanon, this bunker had the bare bones needed for the Cross’ workings and large flat land for gatherings.

Although he had only integrated himself with the Cross due to his con, in the months that followed, Hunter had come to know the layout of the lands.

He swung by the mess hall to grab a sandwich from the stash they kept out for returning hunters, then made his way to the laboratory. To the left, a backlit digital keypad gleamed—a modern touch, courtesy of the Cross. The bunker had seen its fair share of upgrades, but this? This was one of the more practical ones.

Hunter punched in the code, the lock clicking open in response. As he stepped inside, he reached into his jacket, fingers curling around the familiar weight of chalk.

Hunter saw one novitiate busy with an experiment. Hunter gave a nod in acknowledgement before gathering the things he needed. One of the perks of being a Cross-sanctioned hunter? Access to their spellwork reserves. You could tap into their stockpile—no questions asked—as long as you paid it forward. Either by bringing in more supplies down the line or letting them take a cut from your next hunt.

Fair trade, all things considered.

With his spell ingredients at hand, Hunter set to work, methodically tracing an Enochian summoning circle with precise, deliberate movements. He placed a cast-iron basin at its center, ready to add spell ingredients.Hunter wrinkled his nose at the smell as he lit the four candles and invoked the spell.

A metallic clattered echoed to the side, before the unmistakable flutter of wings heralded Castiel's appearance with an icy glare.

“Hey, man, how has it been?” Hunter grinned while he picked up the food he’d swiped from the mess hall. He offered, “You want a sandwich?”

“*Dean*, I have been extremely occupied upstairs and you summon me for food I don’t even require?”

There was a broken strangled sound of surprise from the vicinity where the novitiate was, but Hunter put on his most charming smile as he pushed the food towards the angel. “I know you’re under a lot of pressure, but you need to take a moment to breathe.”

“Dean—“

“I know I’m not important in the grand scheme of things. But the last time we saw each other, you were bleeding grace on my bed, the prophet was kidnapped, and there was an entire red mist that urged the Cross rallying every hunter for a all-hands-on-deck situation.” Taking a deep, calming breath to steady himself, Hunter stepped closer to Cas, ready to express his concerns.

“So, yeah, I gave you two fucking months to see if you wanted some mortal’s help. But since Jack is still missing and you’re still AWOL, I thought that maybe I’d take initiative and summon you. You absolute ass.”

By the time he finished his long speech, Cas’s features had tightened, revealing a mixture of frustration and anger. Before Castiel could deliver a proper set down, the novitiate regained his voice, the words tumbling out in a rush, “How did you do that?”

Hunter swiveled around to blink at the guy, ‘Samandriel, was it?’ he wondered. Most of the novitiates were named after comrades that had died in the Winchester Gospel. “With sage—“

Samandriel gave an impatient little wave as he stepped forward gathering all his books “No, I meant—many Cross priests have tried summoning Castiel, but we’ve never... My goodness, your holiness, welcome to the 34th chapter house! We are yours to command.”

“There’s no need for this…” Castiel gave an entire gesture towards the fawning of the novitiate. “Dean and I would like some privacy.”

If at all possible, the novitiate’s eyes widened even more. “The Righteous Man?” He took a shaky step back, like he’d just laid eyes on something holy—or something dangerous enough to drop him where he stood. For a second, Hunter swore the guy was about to throw himself to the floor in full-on worship.

Let me know if this nails the tone or if you want a tweak!

Hunter glared at Castiel before putting what he hoped was a comforting hand on Samandriel’s arm. “Named after the Righteous Man, not the same thing. Uh why don’t you … go quietly pray? Morning service is about to start, right?”

“Morning service,” Samandriel echoed the words, but his gaze flicked to the clock, and panic set in. He fumbled for his things, scrambling like a rookie caught off guard. Whatever reverence he’d had a moment ago vanished in the face of early-morning chores and the looming threat of his superiors’ wrath.

Hunter watched him go with amusement before turning back to Cas, who was lost in thought. “So, you gonna fill me in?”

Hunter knew tracking down where Abaddon had stashed the prophet won’t be quick. Hell, even the Winchester Gospels made it clear—anything flirting with apocalypse levels meant the brothers spent half their time tangled up in smaller cases before stumbling onto the revelation that cracked everything open.

Summoning Castiel from the Heavens just to get graced with his presence? Felt a little indulgent. Even back then, Sam had gritted his teeth through enough unanswered calls to know their angelic counterpart wasn’t always listening.

But that was the thing with Dean Winchester and his deeply repressed emotions—he’d never asked for the angel to stay. Hunter didn’t have that problem. He knew Castiel’s attention was fleeting, pulled by duty, by Heaven, by whatever crisis took priority.

If Hunter kept Castiel’s eyes on him by researching about Abaddon and the demons that she surrounds herself with, then at least Hunter will still be able to endear himself to the angel. One day that attention will shift to more important things, another Apocalypse, Lucifer Rising, hell the true Dean Winchester come back from the dead. But maybe by then, he’d be more than just a fleeting thought—more than something brushed aside without a second glance. Maybe he’d be something that mattered.

That was how he ended up here—buried in research, drowning in salt and burns outside Tower Five for a year, chipping away at Abaddon’s trail, taking down demons in skirmishes just to inch closer to the prophet.

Hunter had a rough idea where the prophet might be, thanks to Crowley’s network—shady as ever, but it had its usesStill, knowing the location wasn't enough; with Abaddon remaining as elusive as ever, they desperately needed a plan—a feasible way to take her down.h. They needed a plan, a way to take Abaddon down.

Scrying spells? Useless. Angel radio? No help—Castiel had his ears open, but even the angels didn’t have a damn clue where the prophet had been taken.

Then, after months of dead ends and frustration gnawing at his nerves, they stumbled onto a break that hit like a shot in the dark.