Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sam’s excitement lights his eyes. His hands dart and dive, describing shapes in the air, and Castiel tries to listen. He does. It’s hard, though. Harder than it should be.

His eyes drift back to the other lights, the shifting lights on the TV screen. They form stories, lives that Castiel can sink into. Thousands of them. They almost swallow him, and he welcomes it.

It’s something about a murderer, the spark which has lit Sam’s enthusiasm. It seems an odd thing for a Winchester to find so much joy in, but Sam has often shown an almost angelic ability to become consumed by his interests, his goals. It is perhaps something Castiel should have warned Sam about, but changing someone’s nature is far from easy. It has occurred to Castiel, more than once, that attempting it could be considered an interference with free will.

“Oh course, Sam,” he says, because Sam’s hands are still, stationary along their arcs, and an answer is clearly expected.

He sees Sam’s brow crease, sees him lean and turn his head. Most likely, he is looking at the screen. The smile and shake of the head suggest Sam is amused by it, and Castiel wonders what his friend expected to see. Perhaps he is surprised that Castiel is watching this particular show, but if so then it is one of those cases where the reason is lost on Castiel.

In any case, when he next looks away from the screen, Sam is gone. He reaches out and finds no human life in the Bunker. Ah. Sam was possibly telling him about a case. It looks as though he did not intend to ask Castiel to come along.

As there is nothing to be done about it now, Castiel steals a few seconds before the next episode starts to text Sam a message. He tells him to enjoy himself. He considers sending a message to Dean, but the show starts and he drops his phone onto the bedding beside him.

He will text Dean later.

***********************************************

“Cas! Hey, what’ve you been doing?”

The shape and texture of the voice, the warm honey-gold and green of it, can’t be mistaken. It takes a moment to find the thread of the words.

“Dean,” he says, because that much he is sure of. Then, blinking, he pulls away from the lives lived in light before him and parses the sentence. “The same. Watching TV.” He wants to sink back into it, but makes himself flick the show to a standstill. It only helps a bit. “How’s the case?”

“Sam’s a freaking teenager going weak at the knees for Lizzie,” Dean says. He sounds disgruntled.

“Sam’s a teenager?” Castiel feels disconnected. Sam is older than a teenager, but for the moment he can’t remember by how much. “Is it a spell?”

A beat of silence suggests Dean has been thrown by the question. Ah. It will have been a turn of phrase, then, and not age-regression. That is something. From what Sam has told him, seeing Dean as a teenager was disturbing. He is glad it hasn’t happened again.

“No, Cas, not an actual teenager,” Dean’s voice tells him, although Dean’s silence has already done so. “He’s way too happy to be staying in murder-girl’s bedroom. He sprayed toilet water. This is what I deal with.”

“Where are you staying?” Castiel asks, because he doesn’t like the sound of Dean staying in a room with a murderer. He isn’t happy about Sam, either, but if this is linked to Sam’s excitement there is little point in trying to persuade him.

“Got a different room. It’s not quite as gross.”

Dean spends valuable minutes complaining about the decoration, minutes Castiel could be spending watching the end of the current episode, but he doesn’t say anything. Dean would be unlikely to appreciate the comment. Instead, he tucks the phone under his ear and slides off the bed, the blanket left in a pool of grey behind him.

As Dean speaks, he pads barefooted along the hallway. The tiles are cool under his feet. It’s far more pleasant than wearing those boots. He wonders what else will be more pleasant.

“And the bathroom’s running for some sort of competition,” Dean says, as Castiel pushes open a door and slips into the darkness of the room. “Seriously, you’d have to be shrunk down by a shrink-ray to find this place spacious.”

“It’s worse than all of the motels you’ve stayed in?” Castiel asks, because he remembers finding Dean in a bathroom once where the presence of two adult human forms had meant accidentally pressing into Dean’s back. It had been a good thing that Castiel could fly back then, or else they would have needed Sam to pry them out. The thought is distant and weighted, something he has to dredge up from the depths. Unusual, when it comes to thoughts containing Dean.

“It’s… That’s… Not the point, Cas.”

Dean doesn’t tell him what the point is.

Shortly after, Dean hangs up, after telling Cas there’s no need to do any research. Dean’s sure there’s no real case for them. Castiel flicks on the light in the room and sets his phone down on the top of a dresser. Dean’s room. Dean’s clothing is closer in size to what Jimmy used to buy, to what Castiel found would stay on him when he was Steve.

Bare feet are more comfortable in the Bunker than boots are. Perhaps softer clothing would be good.

He finds a leather jacket, something battered and huge, that he doesn’t ever remember Dean wearing. It’s similar to the one Dean used to don as a shield, the one which was lost somewhere during the fight against Lucifer. Castiel tries it on, but it doesn’t feel right. He has no idea if it’s because the jacket doesn’t fit on him, or if it’s the sense it’s something Dean picked up as a replacement and found didn’t work. It’s a feeling Castiel finds familiar.

He wonders if Dean finds this most recent version of Castiel to be something that doesn’t quite work.

A pair of jeans are more comfortable than his pants, but they’re a few inches too long. It isn’t much, but Castiel has been made to feel smaller than he used to be too many times. He puts the jeans back and tries one of Dean’s suits. The material is nicer, finer, than the suits Cas has worn. He strokes his fingers over the fabric. Not the sort of thing to sit around in, perhaps. Besides, it is clearly a better fit for Dean’s frame. All it does is remind Castiel how broad Dean’s shoulders are, how his body tapers.

The flannel shirts are warm. Warmer than he needs when he’ll be pulling the blanket back over himself soon enough.

When he returns to Sam’s room and the TV, he wears a pair of pajama bottoms and a baggy T-shit, both soft and clean. He leaves behind his pants and shirt, the tie coiled on top. He forgets to pick up his phone.

**************************************************

He isn’t sure how much later it is when he pauses the TV again. It’s strange, this not knowing. If he focuses, he knows he’ll be able to sense the threads of time, to know how much has unspooled since Sam spoke to him, since he spoke to Dean. If he focuses. It seems like too much effort for something that isn’t, really, all that important.

Dean has told him his job is to rest. Surely, that must mean relaxing his hold on time and location and everything else he usually monitors.

Instead, he investigates Sam’s dresser, his closet. There isn’t as much as he found in Dean’s. Sam has fewer clothes, it seems, and keeps more of them folded and ready in bags, as though at any moment he might choose to move out. He wonders if Dean knows.

Sam does have several interesting T-shirts, with patterns and pictures Castiel doesn’t remember seeing being worn. One is purple. The dog on it is appealing. There’s a too small hoodie, surely too small for Sam for a very long time, that Castiel tries on. He tugs on the sleeves, but they fail to cover the last few inches of his forearms.

Next, he tries one of Sam’s shirts. It drapes around him like a shroud, and Castiel looks down at himself in contemplation.

He takes care to return all of Sam’s clothing to their rightful places. Sam has had enough disruption in his life, of places he has thought safe and stable. Castiel will not add to it.

There are more episodes to watch, and watching allows him to quiet the irritation he feels under his borrowed skin at being confined to this place he was once denied. It must be that. He is an angel, and used to having purpose. That is all. Curling himself back under the blanket, he flicks his hand at the TV and disappears back into the glow.

**********************************************

Sam’s excitement has faded when he steps back into his room. That light is gone from his eyes and his shoulders slump. He still smiles when he sees Castiel.

“Hey. You been staying comfortable?”

Castiel is lying on his side across the bed, a pillow under his head and the grey blanket covering every inch of him save for his head and the fingers of one hand. Sam’s question is most likely rhetorical.

“How was the hunt? Was there a ghost?” he asks, his own questions rumbling up through his frame. He can feel his words vibrating in the shell of his ear.

“You didn’t get Dean’s messages?” Sam asks.

Castiel wonders if they will conduct this entire conversation in questions. He should probably sit up, at least, take a more active role. But the blanket is warm and he’s comfortable, and he doesn’t need to look directly at Sam with his vessel’s eyes to see him. He has more than one set of eyes.

He has taken too long to respond. Sam pulls one of those faces that says he’s amused and exasperated by Castiel. He never seems to realize that Castiel knows the expression, but as it does contain fondness he has never challenged it.

“Right,” Sam says. “Of course you haven’t. And Dean hasn’t prayed at all? Okay. Well. I’m going to get something to eat. You, er, might want to come out and see Dean. He got a bit banged up. Again.”

That should certainly draw Castiel from the bed, but his sense of dislocation lingers. The bed is real, the blanket is real. His cocoon of warmth is real. The rest seems…less so.

Still, he is going to move. It’s Dean. Of course he’s going to move.

Dean’s warmth seeps into the room before Castiel can reconnect with his surroundings enough to move from the bed, clapping Sam on the shoulder and flicking his gaze to Castiel. His eyebrows rise.

“Made yourself at home, Cas?” he asks. “This some sort of angel nesting thing?”

There’s a note of recrimination, of hurt. Most likely Dean is displeased that Castiel has missed his messages. Dean can be a creature of much emotion, driven by his need of the moment.

“No,” Castiel says, because it isn’t.

This is nothing any full angel would know. After years of being burned in strange crucible after strange crucible, Castiel is taking stock. He’s trying to find out what is left, what has been made of him. And Dean and Sam are the ones who told him to do that by lying on a bed and watching made-up people. They should have remembered that an angel, once committed, completes its task.

Dean turns to Sam as though Sam will have an explanation, but Sam shrugs.

They both leave him shortly after, Dean still unhealed. If Dean wants Castiel to heal him, he will say. Castiel remains in his blanket and sets the current show moving again. These people have plot-lines which will make sense. They have plot-lines which will finish.

*****************************************

It’s later that Dean reappears, arriving in the doorway with a creased look to his face. He’s wearing a robe, boxers and a dark T-shirt underneath. He must have been sleeping.

“Hey,” he says. “Cas, er, you planning on staying in here all night?”

Castiel shifts his wings, using the one working pair of eyes on them to look at Dean in the near dark.

“Yes,” he says.

His human eyes stay fixed on the screen.

Dean shifts, glancing at Castiel on the bed. If he thinks Castiel misses the way his eyes trail along the shape under the blanket, he is wrong. Castiel does not correct him.

“It’s just, Sam kind of wants to get some shut-eye.”

“Then he should do so,” Castiel says. Of course Sam should sleep. Humans need sleep.

“Yeah,” Dean says. He draws the words out like taffy. “It’s just, he needs his bed back, and you’re kind of…well…”

Dean finishes the sentence with a sweep of his arm.

Castiel freezes the show and sits up, the blanket still wrapped tightly around him

“Where can I go?” he asks. “The TV is in here.”

Dean blinks, smiles, like he can’t quite believe what he’s just heard.

“You really like that, huh? Well, look, we can get you set-up on my laptop. I’ll show you the best shows before I get back to bed.”

Castiel considers this. The laptop has a smaller screen. Size is relative, of course. When his true form is unfettered, it is massive: far larger than Dean has ever seemed able to comprehend. It shouldn’t matter that the screen will be so much smaller, so much less. But it does.

“I like this screen,” he says. He isn’t sure why he’s being difficult. Something about being left behind, about being told to ‘stay’ and to ‘rest’ as though he’s of no use, has irritated him. On this last case, he wasn’t even asked to help with research. Irritation bubbles darkly far too easily these days.

“Cas, come on,” Dean says, but the thread of annoyance is tempered by something Cas can’t quite name. It ripples the air between them, tugging at him.

He holds out for as long as he can. It turns out to be a few minutes.

“Fine.” He sighs the word and slips off the bed, watching Dean’s gaze flick down his body and back up to his face.

“You ditch the shoes?” Dean asks. “And are you wearing…? Where’d you get the pajamas?”

“From your room,” Cas tells him and watches Dean’s face go blank. “Where am I allowed to watch this laptop?”

“Er. Yeah. Yeah, right. Let’s try the library.”

He isn’t sure how he’s managed to fluster Dean, but he follows his friend in silence. Whatever the issue is, Dean will try to bury it or will let it explode, and neither one is likely to be much altered by Castiel. There is no sense in dashing himself against any more rocks than he has to.

Out in the library, Dean gets out his laptop and mutters over it as though trying to coax the magic of Netflix out of the thing with words. Sam appears briefly from somewhere else in the Bunker and disappears quickly when Dean tells him his room is free. Castiel wonders how much of an inconvenience he is being. The thought is both vague and one which conjures up a roiling mix of deep purple and grey, of sickly green and bruise yellow. He pretends the reaction isn’t there.

Finally, Dean gestures him to the chair in front of the laptop and pats his shoulders once he’s settled.

“Right. All ready for you. Just pull up what you want.”

“I preferred lying on the bed.”

“Yeah, well, we haven’t really got another bed set up now, so…”

Dean shrugs and turns to go.

Castiel lets him.

**************************************

Sam coughs, making Castiel jump.

“Er, sorry, Cas,” Sam says, but there’s an odd note in his voice, one Castiel can not fathom. “You want to take a break from the shows for a while, get some breakfast?”

It takes an age to bring the words up to the surface, to make them spill into the air.

“I don’t eat,” Castiel says at last.

He doesn’t start at Sam, at any human, walking into a room, either. Another thought he ignores. The show is engaging, that is all. His eyes drift back to it. If Sam says anything else, he misses it.

**************************************

The screen slams shut. This time, he jumps harder, his body spasming with the shock of losing his anchor, of being plunged back into the world without warning. He gathers himself, glares up at Dean.

“What did you do that for?” he growls.

Dean raises an eyebrow. He’s leaning over the table, his hand splayed on the laptop’s lid as though it needs to be kept closed. Castiel manages not to bat his hands away.

“You’ve been staring at that screen for hours.”

“You said I should watch-”

“Watch, Cas! Not become some junkie and blank us. I’ve tried to talk to you five times today.”

No. That can’t be right. Castiel would have noticed. He always notices Dean.

Movement to the side brings his wings up, useless as they now are, and he registers Sam, a look on his face that makes Castiel want to snap, to reject the pity or concern or whatever it is dripping down the taller man’s face.

“Dean’s right, Cas,” Sam says, his voice soft. “You’ve been zoned out. Time to give it a rest.”

“I was resting,” he says, sullen.

“Yeah, well, now the laptop needs a rest,” Dean says.

It must be annoyance making his words so heavy. They fall into Castiel and sink. Their passage disturbs the currents of his thoughts and he fights to bring back the stillness he felt when staring at that screen. He fails.

“What do you want me to do instead?” he asks. Because it’s always about what someone else wants. Always about demands and orders and expectations.

Instead of answering, Dean turns to Sam, his mouth opening but no words arriving. Dean shakes his head. Sam pulls a face, one Castiel has seen before when Sam hasn’t known how to say what Dean wants to hear. When Dean turns back, he points at Castiel with his free hand.

“You need to take a break from this. All right? I know you dive in to shit, all in, but sometimes that ain’t healthy, Cas. I mean, fuck, if I’d known you’d go all…” He waves his hand in a circle, as though trying to outline Castiel. “Whatever this is, I’d never have let you watch anything.”

“Let me?”

“You know what I mean,” Dean says, straightening and pulling the laptop away. “You need to get out, get some air. And you need to get dressed.”

“I am dressed.”

His wings are still up. There’s an itch across his skin, his real skin, making him feel like he might have to fight. Reminding himself Sam and Dean are his friends doesn’t help.

“You’re wearing my pajama bottoms, Cas,” Dean shoots back. “They don’t count as being dressed. Come on. I’ll take you into town, get you some different clothes if you’re done with the suit and tie.”

Is he done with those? He imagines putting them on again. Unbidden, his wings pull in, shielding him.

“What? You don’t want new clothes?” Dean must have noticed something about his vessel’s posture, something mimicking his wings. It does that sometimes. “Or do you just not want me to take you? Fine. Sam? You take Cas shopping. I’m going to put this away and you don’t get any more TV time until you’ve had enough time not staring at the idiot box, you hear?”

Dean is gone before Castiel can process it. Something must be wrong with his connection to time, because Dean should not be able to move fast enough for that. Somehow, he can’t bring himself to wind the threads of time more closely around his form.

“You, er, you gonna get your suit back on to go shopping? You can ditch it again after,” Sam says.

Castiel manages to look at him, though there is an odd stiffness in his neck, in his shoulders, that makes it harder than it should be to move.

“What?” he asks.

“Your clothes?” Sam asks. “You can’t go to the shops in those. We’ll get you something more comfortable. Hey. You all right?”

That’s concern. Sam’s voice is full of concern.

Before Castiel can answer, Sam ducks down, kneeling by Castiel’s chair with one hand hovering just over Castiel’s forearm.

“I’m fine,” Castiel says. He doesn’t lean away from Sam.

“Your breathing’s off,” Sam says. “Cas, are you telling us everything?”

And Castiel hates that Sam asks that, that he has, in the past, given either Winchester cause to ask that. After all, he now keeps nothing from them which could hurt them.

“I’m fine,” he manages. He has to clamp his mouth shut, jaw tense, to avoid the chattering noise inside him from flooding into the room.

Sam sighs, shifts his hand from its hovering to pat at Castiel’s shoulder. If he notices Castiel flinch, he doesn’t comment.

“Right. Well, then, go and get dressed. I’ll meet you at the car in ten.”

Castiel’s fingers grip more tightly around the arms of the chair. For a moment, he holds on, resisting movement, before he sighs and uncurls from the chair. He has his orders, after all.

********************************************

Sam glances at him more than once before he speaks, the soothing rumble of the Impala’s engine surrounding them. They’re pulling into the car-park and circling for a space before he finally says anything.

“You don’t look so good.”

“How am I meant to look?”

That came out too fast, too harsh. Sam doesn’t comment on it.

“Look, I know you’ve been through a lot, Cas, but you look clammy. Kind of…kind of panicked. Is there some reason you don’t want to be out?”

“I’m fine.”

Castiel refuses to say anything else as they park, as they make their way into the shop. It’s more like a warehouse, far larger than anywhere he went to as Steve. He follows Sam to the aisles with jeans and sweaters and other things he might need.

“Do you not see anything you like?” Sam asks.

“What?”

The way Sam asked that suggests it’s not the first time he’s spoken. Castiel looks around to see Sam standing by a rack of shirts, frustration and that same concern coming off him in waves. He looks like he discards several comments before he replies.

“We’ve been in here for nearly an hour, Cas, and you haven’t picked anything yet. Do you not know what you like?”

It’s the way Sam talks to Dean when Dean’s being especially trying and Sam is wanting to get things back on track without an argument. The upwards curl of Sam’s lips, the way his voice lifts at the end of the sentence, are things he does to placate his brother, to keep from keying into that part of Dean that sees threat and reacts. Castiel doesn’t know why Sam is using the tactic on him.

He also doesn’t know what to say. Why would he know? The only time in his life he’s had to choose his clothes he didn’t have the money to experiment with style. Nora pointed him to a shop selling second-hand items and he wore whatever was close to his size and appropriate.

Sam must pick up on something, because his eyebrows pull together.

“Do you want me to pick?” he asks.

When they leave the store half an hour later, Sam carries two bags full of clothing Castiel did not pick. He trails after Sam back to the car, his wings tucked tight to his back. It’s difficult, scanning the area with only the working eyes left to him. The sensation of blind spots is a constant irritant.

“Hey!”

Sam stops, throwing his arms out as though he needs to brake, and Castiel steps to the side to see a man in their path. He’s tall. Not as tall as Sam, but taller than Castiel’s vessel, and he’s beefy in that way that suggests real muscle under the coating of fat. He’s also swaying.

“Watch out,” the man slurs, swaying closer. His gaze is fixed slightly below Sam’s eyes.

“You nearly walked into me,” Sam says, but already he’s tamping down on his flare of anger. Castiel can see it, see the signs that Sam is pulling himself in. “Just…go easy.”

He steps to the side, but the man follows, blocking him. Castiel checks again, suddenly thinking the man might have friends nearby. He doesn’t see anyone, but they could be shielded by the cars.

“Look, man,” Sam says, and he seems to grow larger, somehow, “you don’t want to start something here. Trust me. Just let us get to our car.”

“Not until you apologize,” the man says, stumbling over the last word. He crowds closer to Sam.

Castiel tenses, gearing up to protect Sam if he needs to. His blade is close to phasing into the physical plane, the weight of it something Castiel knows he will find reassuring. He will. He’s an angel, a warrior, and his blade is one of the solid stones of his world. His hand doesn’t tremble at the phantom feel of its shape.

“Cas? Cas! Breathe. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

There’s warmth on his shoulders, the solid press of hands. It takes a moment to see Sam in front of him, and that should worry Castiel more than it does. But it doesn’t feel real. Nothing around him feels real. Another long moment passes before he realizes the ragged breathing is his.

He can’t keep looking at Sam’s grey eyes, any other colours in them pushed aside by emotions Castiel shouldn’t be causing him. It’s his job to protect the Winchesters, not to bring them troubles. Instead, his gaze skitters away over the car-park. The drunk man is gone. Instead, a small knot of people stand nearby, one of them with a phone pressed to her ear.

“Is your friend all right?” another woman asks, her bulky sweater making her look soft and warm.

Sam speaks up, which is good, because Castiel is having enough trouble understanding their human words right now. A slow stream of Enochian flows through his head, thick and sluggish, calling orders to fight, to run, to hide, to attack. He shivers at the effort of resisting.

“He’s fine,” Sam says, his hands still on Castiel’s shoulders. “Sorry. He’s not been back from deployment long.”

The faces around them shift, sympathy and discomfort and apology in varying degrees washing across each face. Castiel feels Sam turn him, lets himself be turned and guided, and hears Sam murmuring behind him. He isn’t sure if Sam is speaking to him or to the people still watching. Either way, he is relieved to slide into the Impala. As soon as the door shuts he is able to settle his wings. That last set of working eyes shuts, his whole true-form pulling in as though recovering from a battle.

Sam slides in behind the wheel and starts the car. Castiel keeps his human eyes on his own hands. He doesn’t want to know what is on Sam’s face.

“Where’d you go, Cas?” Sam asks, soft and careful, when they’re half-way back to the Bunker.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he tells his hands.

“You spaced out,” Sam says. “For at least five minutes. I almost called Dean.”

That sends a jolt through Castiel.

“Don’t tell him.”

Sam lets a beat pass and answers in the same careful tone as before.

“Cas, this isn’t the kind of thing you can hide from him. You shouldn’t hide it. Whatever that was, it’s not the first time, is it?”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have an answer. How could he know? Time slipped strangely when Sam and Dean were away, but that might not be what Sam means. There were times, before this, when he found stepping down from a fight to be a struggle, when he couldn’t be sure how long a battle had taken. He can’t think of another time when this exact situation has arisen, however.

“I don’t know,” he says, at last. He wishes he didn’t sound so broken. Dean will have no use for a broken angel. He made that clear before, the last time Castiel tried to step back, the last time he admitted he was damaged.

“Well,” Sam says, “if it was the first time, it can’t be the first sign that something’s off. Is it the spell? Did Rowena not cure it all?”

Castiel doesn’t reply. The spell is gone. He’s almost sure of it. Yet…yet something lingers. Perhaps it is the spell making him feel the need to hide away in the Winchester’s home, making him want to hide inside the TV shows and the blankets. Better than it just being him.

“Look,” Sam says once they’ve traveled another mile, “I don’t think it’s the spell. I mean, I think it’s linked, but… Did you hear what I said back there? To that woman?”

“That I just got back from deployment,” Castiel answers woodenly. His thoughts are circling around the idea of Sam telling Dean. He finds his wings drawing tightly around himself.

“Yeah. You think…you think there might be something in that?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Whatever Sam is trying to say, he seems to give up. They drive the rest of the way in silence, Castiel trying to work out where he will go once Dean decides he doesn’t want a broken angel in his home.

*******************************************

Sam leads him to a spare room, where Castiel blinks at the newly made-up bed. Dean said last night that there were no other beds ready to be used. He tilts his head at the TV standing against one wall.

“I don’t understand,” he says, knowing he sounds numb.

Dean appears behind Sam, slapping his brother on the shoulder as he peers at the bags Sam has dropped onto the bed.

“What did you go for?” Dean asks, looking a lot more interested in the contents of the bags than Castiel feels. “Anything worth wearing, or did you let him buy a load of crap?”

Sam doesn’t tell Dean that Castiel failed to make his own choices.

“Why don’t we let Cas show you when he’s sorted through everything?” Sam says instead. “You, er, you moved the new TV in here?”

Dean nods.

“Yeah. I know we got it for the main rooms, but I figure we can get a bigger one. He’s only getting a few hours a day, though.”

Castiel has no idea how Dean thinks he’s going to enforce that. He also has no idea why Dean is telling Sam instead of telling Castiel about rules which apparently apply to him.

“Yeah,” Sam says, and he has that look on his face that says he’s building up to saying something Dean won’t like. “Listen, Dean, we should let Cas settle in, get his new clothes unpacked. Why don’t we go start on dinner?”

If Dean is confused as to why Sam is suddenly including himself in food preparation, he doesn’t say anything. Castiel considers stopping Sam from going. Briefly. Whatever he says, if Sam has decided Dean must know about what happened back in the car-park, he will tell Dean. All Castiel can do is hope the fall-out is bearable.

At least this time he doesn’t need to eat to live. If Dean makes him leave, Castiel won’t need to find work just to survive. He won’t have to scavenge from dumpsters.

While he waits, he empties the bags. Sam has bought him pajamas. They look cheerful, a blue several shades brighter than his tie. And they’re soft. Still, Dean is right: he can’t wear sleepwear outside. He changes into a pair of dark jeans and a T-shirt, pulling a navy sweater over the top. If he is told to leave, he will be ready.

He sits on the bed. He waits.

***************************************

It isn’t long before Dean’s back, padding into the room and crouching to peer up into Castiel’s face. Dean’s expression is tightly controlled.

“Tell me straight, Cas,” he says. “Was that the first time?”

He tells him the same thing he told Sam.

“I don’t know.”

Dean sighs, sets his hands on either side of Castiel on the bed. It must be to balance himself, although Dean usually has excellent balance. Either way, it’s hard to say whether it’s more comforting or more…more bothersome. He doesn’t see Dean snarling at him, Dean’s fist heading towards his face. He doesn’t.

“I don’t know,” he says again, in case this time Dean hears him and replies. He needs to know if he is being thrown out.

“Sam said you zoned out,” Dean says. He’s speaking slowly. “He said you were shaking. You’re shaking now, Cas. Did you know? Can you feel that?”

Why won’t Dean just tell him if he’s being thrown out?

“Is this…is this why you’ve been binge watching everything? To stop from feeling whatever this is? Hey,” Dean says, ducking further and catching Castiel’s gaze. Dean’s eyes are warm. Not the way they looked when he told Castiel no-one cared he was broken. Not the way they looked when he threw Castiel out. “Hey, Cas, come on. Talk to me.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

A thin trickle of hope is all he can allow himself. Dean’s mood changes quickly sometimes. Castiel might still not be safe.

“I want you to tell me what’s going on with you,” Dean says. “I thought once the spell had gone, you’d be okay. Bit of rest, fine. You’ve been through a lot. But…but I should have known. Right? I mean, everything that’s happened since we met, that’s bound to catch up to you at some point. Fuck, Cas, I’ve had my moments. I have. But much as I hate to admit it, this isn’t going to go away by ignoring it. You’ve gotta tell me what’s going on with you.”

“I don’t-”

“Know, yeah. I’m getting that.”

Dean moves, rising and settling next to Castiel on the bed. His thigh’s only a few inches away from Castiel’s. Dean takes a few deep breaths.

“With me, it was after Hell. The first time. Then again after Purgatory. I figure at least some of that was you. Leaving you, I mean. Anyway, it was… It was fucking impossible to relax, is what it was. Flashbacks, cold sweats, my lungs feeling like they were going to burst out of my chest.”

“You’re talking about PTSD,” Castiel says, dragging the term up from wherever it’s stored. It floats between them, something he can’t attach to anything solid. It’s just a concept, just a name.

“Yeah, Cas, I am,” Dean says. He leans closer, until his shoulder is close to brushing Castiel’s own. “And it’s rough. And it sounds to me like you might be going through that.”

“No.”

“No? You think it’s something else?”

“No. I don’t know. But it’s not that. It can’t be that.”

“Why not?” Dean asks.

“Because I’m an angel,” Castiel says. “I’m a warrior. It’s what I was made for. I can’t get…PTSD. That’s for humans.”

“You’re an angel,” Dean agrees, “but I think at this point you’re pretty much human, too. At least, I think with everything you’ve been through over the past few years, any angelic warrior-shielding is probably not up for the job. Shit, Cas, look at what’s happened to you just in the last couple of months. That spell? Your own people chaining you to a ceiling, cutting into you. Hannah dying. Me.”

Dean says the last bit quietly.

“What do you mean, you?” Castiel asks.

He is trying to push aside the image of Hannah dying in front of him, but it’s far from easy, and behind her he sees Samandriel, Hestor, Balthazar, Rachel, others who he at one point or another called an ally, if not a friend.

“I’m sorry, man,” Dean says. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

He’s crying? Lifting a hand, Castiel is irritated to find his cheeks are wet.

“What did you mean, by saying ‘me’?” he asks, swiping at his eyes to make them stop.

“You know what I mean,” Dean says. And now he sounds as uncomfortable as Castiel. “I mean when I hit you, when I…when I almost fucking killed you. That has to be part of it.”

“What about when I beat you almost to death?” Castiel asks. He wavers, standing for one moment in that crypt, and then in the warehouse, before he’s back on the bed with Dean.

“Well, yeah. That could do it, too,” Dean allows. “God knows, I have my share of nightmares over what I did to you.”

“You really think I have PTSD?” The shape of it is wrong in his mouth.

“It’s got to be worth considering,” Dean says. “Even if it’s some angel form, it fits. You know? And hey, we can help you through it, all right? Sam’s already on his laptop, looking into it. And I’m here. If you need me.”

“I always need you,” Castiel says before he can stop himself.

Panic sets in a moment after the last word washes from his lips. He has no way to call that back. No way to stop Dean from hearing it.

“What?” Dean asks, after a pause.

Castiel stands, needing to be away, his wings flaring and then pulling in in a restless pattern.

“Cas?” Dean stands, too, following him across the room. “Cas, wait.”

He stops with Dean’s hand on his arm, caught between the need to run and the need to fight. The tides in him will tear him apart. He needs to face this, to fight it. If he could only work out what to fight.

“I don’t want to push you,” Dean says. “You’re going through enough. But can you tell me what you mean by that? That you need me?”

Castiel shakes his head, not able to look Dean in the eyes. Not with any of his own eyes.

“No? Right. Okay, then.”

Dean swallows, the sound too loud in the room.

“Well, then I guess I’ll say it to you. Get the ball rolling, so to speak. Sam had better be right about this.”

“About what?” Despite himself, Castiel wants to know what Dean is talking about.

“About letting you know you’re cared for,” Dean says. He clears his throat. “That…you’re loved. Sam says it’ll help to remind you. In case you didn’t know. Sounds kinda mushy to me, but Sam’s been doing this reading, and… Yeah. Anyway. So, there’s that.”

Dean squeezes Castiel’s arm and lets go, stepping back.

“I’m going to get dinner and we’ll come eat in here with you. Watch some TV. What do you say?”

Castiel can’t move. He seems to be frozen in place, right where Dean caught him.

“Okay.” It’s barely more than a murmur.

“Okay,” Dean repeats. “You choose something to watch and I’ll be right back.”

He isn’t being asked to leave. He isn’t being asked to leave and Dean has made him a space, has shown he cares. Said he cares. He isn’t being asked to leave, but Dean knows he’s broken. And now Dean and Sam will come in here and they’ll all sit together knowing Castiel is broken.

Dean’s been gone for several minutes. It won’t be long before Sam and Dean bring food.

Castiel tries to ignore the jittery feeling of grit under his skin, crawling and scratching at him. If Sam and Dean are right, it’s a result of trauma. In either of the Winchesters, it would be understandable, no cause for shame.

Castiel unfreezes, scans the items he hasn’t yet put away.

When Sam walks in, Castiel has just pulled on the second sock, deep blue and patterned with white lines. He looks up at Sam from the bed, seeing the tray with its plate and mug. He sees Sam’s eyes track across him and on to the rest of the room. With raised eyebrows, Sam takes in the bag on the floor and turns a look on Castiel that cuts.

“You going somewhere, Cas?” Sam asks.

Castiel can’t answer. He feels he’s been caught, no matter how many times he’s left to continue his missions. This time, it feels like he’s been caught planning to sneak away.

“Were you going to tell us? Tell Dean?” Sam asks.

To be fair, he has been caught trying to sneak away. Just badly. He should have known there wasn’t time. All of his words are drowning in his throat.

Sam sighs, setting the tray down on top of a dresser and pushing the bag over to the wall, out of the way, before sitting next to Castiel on the bed. He keeps his hands to himself, but Castiel feels as though Sam wants to reach out to him, maybe clap a hand to his shoulder.

“Look, Cas, I know this is…I know you don’t find it easy to talk about this crap, and that’s on us. I mean, you’ve learned how to do all this human stuff from us, right? Can’t imagine you were encouraged to be open about your feelings in the Garrison.”

“Understatement,” Castiel manages, like he’s reading a line from a script that isn’t even appropriate for the genre. This isn’t a comedy. He isn’t sure what it is, but it isn’t a comedy.

“Right,” Sam says. “And Dean’s practically allergic to talking about how he feels. Hell, I’m no better. I do a better job pretending, but I don’t really…” Sam trails off. He starts up again in a slightly different tone of voice. “I owe you an apology,” he says, and waves Cas into silence when he opens his mouth. “No, I do. I know I didn’t beat you, and yeah, Dean’s told me about that. New spirit of honesty thing we’re trying. So, I didn’t beat you half to death, but I did use you, and I shouldn’t have, and I’m sorry.”

“When did you use me?” Castiel asks, because he isn’t sure what Sam is counting and he finds he needs to know.

“Are you kidding?” Sam asks, but he doesn’t sound like that’s an attack on Castiel’s understanding. “I’ve seen it, Cas. Over the last few years, I’ve seen the way Dean bosses you around, gives you orders. And I’ve seen you do as he says, a lot of the time. More than I used to think an angel would. I figured it was partly some angelic obedience thing, when you cut ties with your superiors, you know. Kind of needing someone to follow?”

Castiel wants to protest at that, but hearing his own tendencies explained back to him stills his tongue. He isn’t sure Sam is wrong.

“And then part of it must just be Dean,” Sam goes on. “I’ve seen the way you two are. You’d do anything for him, wouldn’t you?”

“I’d do a lot for you, too, Sam,” Castiel says, because it’s true.

“I know,” Sam says. “Trust me, I’m not being all jealous here or anything. Me and you? We’re brothers, all right? I told Dean he should tell you how he feels, in case that helps, so I should take my own advice for once. I love you, Cas, just like I love Dean. You get that?”

Castiel nods. It’s…nice to hear. He knows that the way Sam loves him isn’t quite the same as the way Sam loves Dean. If Castiel dies, Sam won’t lose himself in the same way. Still, the way Sam and Dean are with each other can be as damaging as it can be wonderful, and he doesn’t want to be the potential cause of Sam unraveling.

“Thank you,” he says, because he has no idea how he’s meant to respond. “And…I love you, too,” he adds, because it’s true. If strange to say out loud. He never thought he’d be allowed to say that to either Winchester without a negative reaction. It does soothe some of the itch in his body.

“The thing is,” Sam goes on, “I knew you’d do whatever it took for Dean, and I let myself forget that it might hurt you. I let myself get so focused on saving Dean that I threw you under a bus. I should never have ordered you around like that. I shouldn’t have made you stay with Rowena.”

“I wanted to help,” Castiel says quietly, uneasily.

“Yeah, I know. But you didn’t like the way we were doing it and I refused to listen. I took advantage of the way I’d seen you react to orders before. And I’m sorry for that.”

It’s not news to Castiel that Sam will reason his way to decisions many people would reject, but it is hard to hear that Sam knew exactly what he was doing when he got Castiel to go along with his plans with the Book of the Damned and that witch. Still, Castiel knows strategy, knows tactics, knows that to achieve a goal you sometimes have to view others as nothing more than parts of a plan. And it was to save Dean.

Dean, who walks in at that moment with his own tray and stops to stare at them.

“Everything okay in here?” he asks, an edge to his voice Castiel can’t quite interpret.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “I think so. You decide what you want to watch, Cas?”

When he doesn’t answer, Dean takes over, choosing some film where a girl is taken by her family to a holiday camp. As the opening plays, Dean gets Castiel to sit back against the headboard and hands him a plate, waving off his protest that he doesn’t eat.

“Just indulge me, all right? It’s one piece of chicken pie.”

Dean settles on one side of him, Sam on the other, shoulders pressing against him. For a moment, that sense of crawling panic shifts inside him, but Dean leans in and murmurs something about the lead actor, some comment Castiel doesn’t fully take in, but which settles his wings in their restless movement.

“We’ll just watch this one film and then that’s it for today,” Dean announces once his food is gone. “You start to feel worked up, you come get one of us, okay?”

Castiel takes another small bite of the pie and nods. He doesn’t know if Dean has any real idea what he’s doing here, whether there’s an actual, established plan to help Castiel, or if his friend is making it up as he goes. Then again, that’s worked for them before, and he can’t deny that he feels a little more grounded here, with his family on either side of him. He’s glad Sam slid the bag out of focus.

The film isn’t over before he feels Dean sag against him, feels his weight grow and his breathing even out. Shortly after, Sam leans in and speaks quietly in Castiel’s ear.

“You okay with Dean using you as a pillow? Because if so, I’m going to get to bed. But remember what Dean said, Cas. You need one of us, you just come and wake me up, all right?”

Sam is gone before Castiel can think of a reply, of a way to say thank-you which won’t sound stilted and strange. He watches the end of the film by himself, wondering if Dean ever makes the connection between the girl in the film and his car, and has a confusing image of Dean trying to heave the Impala over his head in a lift. Perhaps Dean is right, and he has watched enough TV for now.

When the film is done, he waves the TV off and sits in the dark, Dean’s head almost touching Castiel’s. It’s comforting. He doesn’t know, still, quite how he’s going to recover from this condition Dean says he has, or whether Dean is quite right. He is still an angel, after all, and the horrors he has seen in his long existence should have driven him over this edge before if angels really can get PTSD, but Naomi is not around anymore to reset him, and the horror of hurting Dean, of having Dean hurt him…these things have a texture, a colour, which no previous terror has had.

It will take some thought, but with Dean asleep next to him, and with both of the Winchesters having declared their affection for him, he finds he can let his wings settle at last. The feeling that he must watch out for danger recedes, enough that he can cope without losing himself in the lives of TV people.

He closes all of his eyes and listens to Dean breathing in the dark.

Chapter Text

Sam brings him conversation, stories about the Winchesters as children or Sam’s time at college, stories that steer clear of any mention of Rowena or Naomi or other names which can jolt Castiel out of his current place in the time-stream. He sits by Castiel on the bed and talks, his voice soothing and gentle, and Castiel tries hard to look grateful.

Dean brings him trays of food, healthful things, tasty things, foods cooked from scratch which bear no resemblance to what he had to eat when he was Steve. Dean sits in the chair near the bed and watches Castiel eat, his eyes tracking every bite and every swallow, and Castiel tries hard not to look trapped.

They want something from him he isn’t sure he can give. They want him to heal. Castiel can heal others, and for most of his long existence he has been able to heal his vessel, his true-form, depending on the injury, but he has little experience with healing his own mind. He is coming to understand that such a thing was Naomi’s job, however she managed it. Perhaps an angel, once broken, can only be welded back together by someone like her. Left to himself, he fears he is meant for the scarp heap.

Dean and Sam won’t hear him say such things. Rather, Sam will hear it, but he uses soft words as bandages to hide that truth away. Dean grows upset. Sometimes Dean walks out. Sometimes Castiel says it to get that reaction. He adds it to the tally in his head of things he’s being punished for.

Sam has told him that punishment isn’t the right way of seeing it, that Castiel is suffering, not paying penance. Castiel sees the blood on his human hands, sees it soaked through the many limbs of his real self, even sees it on the dragging tips of his wings. Sometimes, he looks at the bunker through eyes drenched in red, no matter that an angel doesn’t bleed as a human does. His thoughts are tangled then, and he has to piece his memories back together, to remember anew that Balthazar exploded in light, that Rachel really didn’t bleed much human blood at all, that Samandriel’s death was almost clean.

Perhaps the film of red is from Dean’s hands, Dean’s knuckles.

He showers after such moments, stripping his vessel of fabric and then scrubbing it thoroughly with soaps and brushes. He wishes he could get at his true self inside the meat, to scrub at that, too. He has found himself looking at his blade, considering it.

Sam found him like that once, sitting on the floor of the shower with water pouring over his head and his blade in his hand. It took him three days to find the blade in a drawer in Dean’s room after that. Dean has rarely left his side since Castiel took the blade back. Dean doesn’t understand that it’s part of him. To be without his blade is to carry an open wound. An living angel doesn’t leave its blade.

When Dean leaves, Sam arrives, full of new old stories.

Castiel is beginning to twitch at their voices.

“You with me, Cas?” Sam asks, pausing now in his tale of the first time he took Jess out for drinks.

Castiel doesn’t know why Sam wants to tell him this. The pain of loss is clear in Sam’s mind, layering through his words as he speaks of Jess, as it always is no matter which story he tells. Castiel doesn’t understand why Sam wants to feel that.

“Yes,” he says, because it has been made clear to him that not answering upsets the Winchesters. “I’m with you.”

“Would you rather I stopped?” Sam asks. He leans a little closer on the bed.

Castiel would rather that Castiel stopped. He’s having one of those phases where he wants to cease, wants to stop existing. Sam asked him once if Castiel felt suicidal, with Dean looking on from the doorway with shadowed eyes. He said no. No, that was over. Dean smiled when he said that, but it was pained. Castiel isn’t sure if Dean believed him, but it wasn’t a lie. Not exactly. He doesn’t want to be dead. He just doesn’t want to be. He reasons it’s not the same thing.

“No,” he says now, because it eases some of Sam’s hurt to feel useful. “No, keep going.”

Sam’s words slip through him, even as he tries to grasp them.

“What are you two talking about?” Dean asks.

It takes time to work out that Dean’s standing in the doorway. It shouldn’t do. The day before, Castiel’s every sense focused on Dean, his wings shifting to keep Dean in sight through walls and floors. Today, he can barely tell where Sam is when Sam sits next to him.

“Just telling Cas a few stories. You want to tag in?”

Tag in. As though this is a game.

“No. You’re good,” Dean says, almost casual. “Either of you want something to drink?”

He does this, too. Brings Castiel drinks, even though he doesn’t need them. The night before, it was a mug of hot chocolate, heaped high with cream. Dean laughed at Castiel getting cream on his nose, right on the tip, as though Castiel wasn’t drowning right next to him, as though hot, sweet liquid could help.

“Nah,” Sam says now, “I was thinking we could get out for a walk in a while, though. What do you think? Get some air.”

Castiel feels Dean’s eyes drag over him, but he can’t quite latch on to the sensation. It slithers over his limbs, more memory than experience even as it happens.

“Yeah,” Dean says. “Let’s do that. I’ll get my coat. Cas? You going to wear that new coat I got you?”

Dean has been gone several times over the past few weeks, as Castiel has been working on healing. Each time, he returns with something for Castiel, as though bringing offerings to a temple. As though the right offering will grant Dean a blessing. Castiel finds himself wondering when Dean will stop trying. He is tired of failing to live up to Dean’s faith.

“Of course,” Castiel says. His lips barely move to form the words and he’s aware the gap before speaking was too long.

The dropped thread of Sam’s story isn’t picked back up, and after a passage of time Castiel doesn’t measure he finds Dean at the side of the bed, holding out Castiel’s coat. It’s black. Warm. Bulky. It’s like wearing a comforter, and he lets Dean fasten the coat, settling the collar, his hand twitching to a stop a few inches from the side of Castiel’s head. Perhaps he was intending on smoothing back Castiel’s hair. Castiel has seen that action, on the shows Dean lets him watch. Only a few hours a day.

So far, Castiel has let Dean dictate this to him. It is a small enough blessing to grant.

He drifts back to the surface of himself far enough to see Dean’s expression. It’s loaded with sadness, with hope and with determination. Castiel thinks that the blades wielded by his brethren hurt less.

“I’m sorry,” he finds himself saying, the words numb.

Irritation flashes across Dean’s face, the pinching of his features and shade of his eyes clear indicators. Dean’s hands rise again, stopping a few inches from his body, half uncurled.

“Stop with the ‘sorry’ crap, Cas,” he says. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for. You get that?”

His voice is gruff. Dean means what he says in this voice. In this moment, he does.

But Castiel doesn’t get it. He has tried grasping for the truth of Dean’s words with this, but the idea is wraith like, hard to catch. Instead, Dean’s refusal to accept his apology haunts him, a restless ghost he can’t vanquish. Castiel is not how Dean wants him to be.

Dean hasn’t told Castiel to leave, not at any point in the weeks since Sam cut open Castiel’s wounds and laid them bare. He’s told Castiel to stay. Still, the jittery, ground-bone feeling of dread caught hold in those first days and has lifted only for short stretches of time since. Dean is human. He is impatient. He will eventually tire of waiting for Castiel to glue the pieces of himself back together.

“I…” he manages, but his lips open on silence after that.

“Cas,” Dean breathes. He closes his eyes briefly, the green in them dulled when he opens them again. “Cas, man, you gotta keep trying. Okay? Let us help you.”

“You don’t let people help you,” Castiel can’t help but say.

Dean blinks. His lips press together.

“I… I’m an idiot, all right? And I should have been a better role-model. Hell, I should just be glad you aren’t drinking your pain, right?”

The smile is a sick parody of Dean’s real joy. Castiel’s brokenness has stolen the warmth from Dean.

He nods. He follows Dean from the room.

Outside, the air is biting. Sam rubs his hands together and cants his head to the right.

“Head up that way? There’s that stand of trees we can walk through.”

“What are you hoping for, Sammy?” Dean asks, almost hiding how forced his levity is. “You want to go searching in the forest for elves?”

“Yeah, no,” Sam says, huffing something close to a laugh along with his words. “That’s more your’s and Charlie’s thing.”

Even in his heavy state, Castiel sees the pulse of guilt and grief as Sam’s mind catches up with his words. He sees Dean, standing behind him, through the dim, reaching sight of the remaining eyes of his wings. Dean feels the same as Sam, beneath a coating of anger.

“Let’s just walk,” Dean says.

Castiel finds himself walking between the brothers, and tries not to feel that he’s being escorted to a trial or to punishment. This is a walk outside with friends. Family, they’ve both made a point of telling him. Sam says it like it’s a cure, Dean like it’s a lifeline. Neither has worked yet.

His breath huffs out in puffs of white. For a moment, he imagines it’s his Grace, wispy and almost gone. He used to feel so whole, so powerful and righteous. At least, he thinks he did. The fog that settled on his mind when he took on Sam’s pain has never entirely cleared and after Naomi’s words in that restaurant… Well. He isn’t certain he can trust anything he remembers. So far, he’s resisted the urge to ask Sam and Dean for confirmation of events. He doesn’t want to see the worry in their eyes when they work out what he’s asking. They each have so little of permanence in their lives. He doesn’t know how they’ll react if they realize how insubstantial Castiel really is, how little of him has solid foundation.

He follows Dean and Sam and his own breath up the road and off onto a meandering trail. Branches arch overhead, casting crooked bars across the pale sky, and he tells himself he’s not caged in. They aren’t bars. And he can’t use his ragged wings for flying in any case. Still, they shift and flex at his back, opening as far and as high as they can. It isn’t far enough. Even this much brings fresh bursts of pain to the breaks and tears. His view of the area increases as his wing-eyes gain height, letting him see over the horizon as his human eyes see it.

It goes on forever.

He can’t quite shake the feeling that out there he would free.

Something snaps, the crack sharp and sudden. Castiel’s wings flare, the Grace crackling along them, and he feels the hard edge of his blade on the cusp of separating from his true form. The moment hangs.

“Watch where you’re stepping, Sam,” Dean says, and Castiel feels a touch at his elbow. His blade slips into his fingers. The touch turns to a grip. “Steady, Cas,” Dean murmurs. “I’ve got you.”

He blinks his human eyes, then each of his remaining angelic ones. The damaged ones, the ones which are no more than sockets, try to blink in turn. His vision is fuzzy and won’t clear.

“Cas?” Sam sounds concerned. Sam has sounded concerned a lot of late. “Did I startle him? Cas, I just stepped on a stick. Okay?”

“You don’t need your sword, Cas,” Dean adds, still speaking low and steady.

He can’t move. His wings refuse to lower. His blade has slid as far as his fingers, the sharp edges cutting into his hands. His human lungs are burning, as though they need the air they take in from habit. He only needed air for a short while, but he grew used to it over those months. Now, he feels he needs it again only to find it’s all gone.

“We’re gonna head back. All right?”

Nodding is impossible, but with Dean’s hand putting pressure on his arm, he manages to turn his vessel. The drag of the stiff wings makes it hard, but he manages. Each step taken under Dean’s direction is hard. But he manages. He manages.

It’s only when he’s back in his room, his shoes removed and his coat put away, that his wings draw in. They won’t settle, but they sag. Dean gets supplies, cleans the cuts along Castiel’s fingers, each one an offering Castiel doesn’t know how to repay.

Dean’s hand tighten over his once the cuts are dealt with, and he feels the fine tremble in Dean, the tension. Dean says nothing, but his touch is heavy with meaning. Some sort of meaning. This is not a time when Castiel can read it.

Sighing, Dean slips from the bed, taking his supplies and his warmth with him, and Castiel curls into himself, wraps his arms around his knees, his wings around all of him, and burrows his toes into the blankets.

“Maybe we’ll try again tomorrow,” he hears Sam say.

“Yeah,” Dean says. Uncertainty infects his tone. Then, lower, quieter. “He isn’t getting any better, Sam. Are we doing something wrong? He nearly drew his blade on you just now.”

“But he didn’t,” Sam says. “It just takes time. And we’re all he’s got, Dean. Who else can he go to?”

“I suppose.” Dean doesn’t sound happy.

Castiel stares at his socked feet, at his toes tucked into the bunched blankets of his bed, and thinks about cages, and freedom.

****************

Dean clears his throat before he speaks. Perhaps he thinks Castiel will be startled if he doesn’t announce his presence. He looks at Dean, seeing the strain under his friend’s skin despite the way he leans in the doorway with his arms crossed, a suggestion of a smirk on his face. Dean has acted for so much of his life that he has trouble setting aside all of his masks.

“You gonna hide in here all day?” Dean asks.

“I’m not hiding,” Castiel says. He feels his wings draw in tighter. If Dean could see them, he would see they cover Castiel from above his head down his entire human body. They’re the only part of his true-form to exist outside this vessel. He isn’t even sure if the rest of it still exists at all. And they’re next to useless, even when wanting to shield himself from Dean.

He used to be God’s shield, and now he cannot even shield himself.

“Yeah, all right,” Dean says. “But come out and do something, buddy. Sitting in here all the time, it isn’t healthy.”

“Healthy?” Castiel asks. Healthy isn’t a concept he attaches to himself.

“Yeah, healthy.” Dean pushes away from the door-frame and crosses to stand at the foot of the bed. “You know, well-balanced, fit, in good spirits, not making me think you might leap off a bridge at any moment. Healthy.”

“There aren’t any bridges here for me to leap off.” Even as he says it, he know it isn’t the right answer. He hastens to add a more reassuring sentence. The last thing he wants is to cause Dean yet more pain. “And I don’t want to leap from one, in any case.”

“Good to know,” Dean says. “But come on, you’ve been in here since Tuesday. Time to shake it off.”

“Shake what off?”

He doesn’t ask the day. It must be less than a week since that walk, or Dean would have phrased it differently. His connection to time is something he knows he should fight to turn back on, but ignoring it is…comforting. In a way. A protection. Besides, Dean is often amused when Castiel takes a statement literally. He hasn’t the heart to tell Dean that, for years now, it’s mostly been done for that reason.

Dean’s smile turns real.

“Get off your ass and come do something. Idle hands and all that,” Dean says, his voice warmer now his lips are curving properly. “We’ll bake cookies or hang decorations or some shit.”

“Cookies? Decorations?”

“Yeah. Sam says we should do it right this year. Christmas. Cheer…cheer us all up.”

Dean’s hesitation leaves a space for Castiel to fill in. If Sam thinks indulging in the trimmings of this one version of a winter festival will heal Castiel, then he is perhaps growing frustrated with how slow Casitel is to be fixed.

“It’s December?” he asks, because the last time he noticed the time it was early November.

He regrets asking when he sees Dean’s smile fade.

“Yeah,” Dean says. “Come and help me hang the tinsel. Sam’s got a thing for it. I’m not risking leaving him to do it all. It’ll look like an elf puked all over the bunker.”

Normally, Dean would leave after using that tone of voice, assuming Castiel would be behind him. Now, he stays where he is until Castiel unfolds his wings and forces himself from the bed.

Out in the library, Sam looks up from the table where he’s sorting through boxes and bags. One of them has been out shopping again. Castiel didn’t even realize anyone was gone.

“Hey, Cas,” Sam says. Smiles. It isn’t much better than Dean’s attempt. “You going to help me get these lights untangled?”

“You just bought them, Sam,” Dean says. “How are they tangled already?”

Sam frowns.

“No idea. Must be a Christmas rule.”

Castiel finds himself seated at the table and tasked with unwinding the strings of lights until they lie in a sinuous line across the wood. It takes most of the first strand to find a rhythm, but after that he finds it oddly soothing. It’s such a petty, insignificant task. He sets himself to complete it.

One of them starts music playing, bright and cheery and loud with lyrics about trees and bells and snow. Castiel’s wings flinch in close to his vessel’s body. As far as he knows, neither Sam nor Dean can see them. Still, the music is changed moments later. Now, it’s harmonious and lilting, versions of carols Castiel has heard before, though not in these arrangements.

“Shut up,” Dean says, although no-one has said anything. “So I like a bit of cross-over.”

Sam snorts, and Dean throws a bauble at him. It’s a hazy outline to the eye Castiel turns on it, lines left trailing behind it in wisps of amber and midnight blue. The damage to this eye left it slightly unfocused in time, but after three years he is used to it. He watches the bauble hit Sam and bounce off. He doesn’t see where it rolls.

“Fine,” Sam says, like he’s conceding some point Castiel missed. “Are we going to get the tree in or what?”

They leave Castiel sitting at the table, still with several coils of lights to make useful. He has another set done by the time they return, a scotch pine held between them. It’s large enough that even with their years of hauling bodies and digging graves, they struggle to get it in place. Dean grumbles until it’s standing where he wants it, but when he turns to Cas and spreads out his arms, his grin is wide.

“Well? You gonna look at it, Cas? We got you a tree.”

Castiel is looking at it. He’s turned every one of his non-human eyes to the tree, drawn both to its presence and Dean’s joy in providing it.

“It’s very nice, Dean,” he says softly.

Dean’s smile wavers. His arms drop a little.

“You haven’t looked at it.”

Castiel closes his human eyes, three other sets following. This is more than he usually closes at once, since so many are damaged or gone. He isn’t sure why he does it now.

“I’m still finishing the lights.”

The burst of irritation isn’t new, but he still has no idea why Dean asking such a question annoys him. Dean doesn’t know what Castiel can see, not really. Of course he thinks Castiel hasn’t looked. Dean often fails to realize when Castiel is looking. Still, it angers him that his human friends don’t get it, that the version of him they hold in their minds is so…so limited. So human.

“Right,” Dean says. There’s no smile in his voice now. “Don’t strain yourself.”

Castiel watches Dean leave, sees the frustrated glance Sam throws at Castiel before following. He hears them stop in the corridor and sees Sam’s hand get shrugged off Dean’s shoulder. Despite evidence, they’ve never fully accepted what Castiel can hear, either. Their outlines are blurred and multi-coloured, but it’s enough.

“You need to lay off him,” Sam says, ducking his head to meet Dean’s eyes. “The lights thing is helping. He’s calmer. You can see that.”

Dean glares at his brother, and deflates.

“Yeah, I can see that.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “Doesn’t mean it’s easy. Why’s he got to be so stubborn? Would it fucking kill him just to look at a tree?”

Depending on the tree, it might, but he’s aware that isn’t what Dean means. Some of his irritation is washed out by guilt. He’s hurt Dean. Again.

“We’ve both been there, Dean,” Sam says. “We’ve both lashed out at nothing and we’ve both felt everything piling in on us. And at least we grew up with emotions, you know? It’s got to be hard for him, feeling all this. It’s not like angels are taught how to handle their shit, you know?”

Dean’s quiet.

“At least he’s here, right?” Sam says.

“Yeah, well. Maybe he shouldn’t be.”

The tiny light bulb between Castiel’s fingers shatters. He registers the tang of pain against his human skin. This is it. Dean is realizing he doesn’t want Castiel in the bunker. He doesn’t want Castiel near.

He brushes off the shards of glass and rises, leaving the rope of lights part-way untangled. There’s no sense in delaying things. Not really. But he has to make it easy on Dean. He has to make it as right as he can. That thought stops him only a few steps from the table and he looks back. He hasn’t completed his task. Dean and Sam told him to get the lights ready, and he hasn’t done that yet.

When Sam returns to the library, Castiel is on the last set. Dean doesn’t reappear until long after the lights are finished, and he comments on the way Sam has arranged them on the tree, his gaze barely landing on Castiel. He doesn’t thank Castiel for straightening them out.

**************************

The bag is still under the bed, still packed. After that first night, when Dean fell asleep leaning against Castiel, he pushed the bag deep under the bed and left it there. He didn’t give any thought to why it stayed packed.

He waits until Dean is asleep before he kneels and pulls the bag out.

The sound of the zip is loud in the darkness of his room, and he stills, reaching out to be sure neither Winchester has heard. No. They’re both asleep, breathing deep and even. Quickly, he checks it contains what he remembers it does.

There is one more pair of socks than he recalls, a pattern of deep blues and greens. Other than that, the bag holds what he thought.

He stops by the kitchen and adds some chocolate, some energy bars and a few bottles of water. He must remember that his Grace is weak and insubstantial. He isn’t sure how long it will last, or if it’s fading at all. He takes the water from the front of the shelf and leaves a noticeable space. Dean worries about him drinking enough.

The stairs up to the front door clang, no matter how carefully someone walks, so he leaves through the garage. There’s a stain on the concrete floor where his car stood, back in the span of time when he’d been welcome at the bunker and before Metatron stole her.

Turning away, he considers his options. He needs to be away from here, to leave before Dean can tell him to leave. And he isn’t sure whether Dean will tell him, but even so he’s hurting Dean by failing to heal and almost the only mission he has left is the one he set himself: don’t hurt Dean.

He takes the Thunderbird, pushing it out of through the bunker’s garage doors and far enough down the lane that the engine can’t possibly be heard in Dean’s room.

From there, it is easy enough to disappear.

Chapter Text

Rain spatters against the windshield and Castiel watches it, his hands wrapped around the steering wheel. The knuckles stand up, looking bruised in the red and purple and green neon signs.

He doesn’t know where he’s going.

The road has dragged him on, away from the bunker and from the weight of trying to get well. He thinks he may have lost time as he drove, but it’s not as though the road cares. And he feels more grounded, more together, directing the shell of metal and rubber at speeds greater than his vessel can match on its own. Closing the door of the Thunderbird shut him inside his own space, contained and separate. Perhaps it should feel like a cage. It is, after all, much smaller than the bunker. But it doesn’t.

A horn blares, making him flinch. His wings shudder, wanting to flare up. He restrains them. It’s not that the car will limit them. They don’t operate on the normal plane, no matter that the human brain he inhabits sometimes has trouble with that. It’s jarring, when he catches some part of himself reacting to human limitations, but it’s just one adaptation he’s had to make over recent years.

When the horn sounds again, he grimaces, ducking his head and trying to ignore the pulse of pain in his temples.

It takes a long second to work out the noise is from the car behind him, that the driver is telling him the lights have changes. Humans are impatient creatures.

He just wants to stop. Out on the road, it was movement so constant that it counted as stillness, but now he’s reached a town there’s noise and light and stopping only to start again. It’s tiresome.

He slides the car into movement, but turns off as soon as he sees a motel, searching through what he remembers of his last few years for any hint he’s been here before, or that Sam and Dean have stayed here. He comes up blank. As far as he knows, this isn’t somewhere either Winchester has been. It’s perhaps too expensive for them, in any case.

Leaving the car is…difficult. He sits with his hands on the steering wheel, his breaths loud and shallow, and tells himself this is just routine. It’s what people do. It’s what Sam and Dean have done for years. Check in to a room, spend the night, leave in the morning. There is no reason for the staff here to think it strange, to report him to…to… He doesn’t know who they’d report him to. It isn’t as though the rest of the world sees Dean as an authority figure.

Castiel is aware that he places too much faith in Dean. Logically, he knows this, but it doesn’t quite still the churning sensation that he’s left when Dean told him to stay.

As though Dean hasn’t told him to leave before.

This thought lends Castiel the resolve to let go of the steering wheel, carries him into the motel and through the process of acquiring a room. It is something he has done before, in those long months of borrowed Grace, and before that, when he was Steve. Once he had enough money for such things.

He sets his bag on the bed and strips out of his jacket and shoes, his sweater and jeans. He changes into softer pants, the sort he knows will be more comfortable on his vessel, and settles against the headboard with the TV remote in hand.

Dean’s restrictions are behind him. Here, he can watch the TV for as long as he wants to.

The flickering light of the screen tints the darkness green and blue, and he lets his mind uncouple from what’s been made of his physical form. He sinks into the lives in front of him and allows his own to fall away.

*******************

He comes back to himself when the vibrations from the door hit him, rocking him from his cradle of light and story. The door.

It takes effort to haul himself upright and off the bed, and his feet sink into the carpet in a way that seems odd. Wrong. Too physical and real and now.

On the other side of the door a man stands with his fist raised, ready to knock again. Castiel watches him, watches the outlines of amber and blue, and considers ignoring him. But no. The man will only knock again, and if he is a threat there is even less chance he will go away.

It would seem that being left in peace is not an easy option to find.

“Yes?” he says, once the door is open.

Dean and Sam have explained to him that staring without words until someone tells you what they want is…liable to draw notice. He had noticed that, from working with Nora, but it seems harder to remember with Grace licking at his insides.

“Check-out was an hour ago,” the man says. “You wanting another night?”

Does he? He could retreat to the bed and continue to let time and the world pass him by, cocooned in the light. But the longer he stays in one place, especially a place paid for with a card given to him by Sam, the more chance he will be summoned back.

If they’re looking for him. It’s so hard to tell when Dean will look and when Castiel will spill from his mind like so much dirty water.

“No,” he says. “No, I’ll be on my way.”

**************************

He stops more than once on his way out of the town, to withdraw as much money as he can. When he leaves the place behind him, the card is left in the hands of a homeless woman with instructions to use it for as long as she can.

And he drives.

Chapter Text

Dean slaps at his phone when it buzzes, not caring if he’s turned off the alarm or broken the damn thing. He’s tired. He wants to sleep. Sam’ll be long gone on his way to the farmer’s market, so there’ll be no-one to nag at Dean to get up and do anything.

He burrows deeper, shoving the side of his face into the pillow.

When Sam gets back, he’ll have some of those dough things that Cas likes. Well, doesn’t hate as much as he does most other stuff. Cas pretends he’s okay with the food, but Dean can see the way his nose wrinkles. It’s just a case of finding what gets past the whole molecules thing. Cas needs to let himself find something to enjoy, that’s what it is, and then…

Fuck. Sam’ll be long gone. No-one’s about to keep an eye on Cas.

The floor’s cold when his feet hit it, and he shuffles into slippers and a robe as he leaves the room, heading for the kitchen and coffee. Cas hates…well, right at the moment he seems to hate everything, but he will take coffee in the morning, even if it’s with the air of not being sure why he’s doing it. When he notices he’s doing anything.

Sam was right, though. That trick with getting Cas to sort out the lights seemed to help. Dean made a point of saying how good they looked. He was already thinking of other little tasks they could give to Cas, something to get him up and moving, even if just to untangle a few sets of wires at a table. Dean remembers how cleaning the guns took on an air of something solid, back when he was bad. Soothing, repetitive tasks. That’s the thing.

He’s thinking of what Cas can be given to do as he sorts the coffee. The kitchen seems a little off. It needs a tidy, but he isn’t too focused on what exactly needs sorting just now. He’ll look later, see if it’s something Cas can help with. Or maybe he should message Sam about stopping off and picking up some of those adult colouring books. They’d made him grimace when he’d read about them, but if it has any chance of helping Cas, then bring it on.

Anything. At this point, Dean just wants to see some improvement.

He takes the red mug with the pattern that looks like knitted snowflakes for Cas. It looks comforting. He’s got no idea if that helps, but it can’t hurt, right?

Cas’ door is closed, and Dean frowns. He told Cas to keep that open. Not like the guy sleeps or gets up to anything kinky. At least, if he does, Dean hasn’t caught him at it yet. And it’s all too easy to flash back to Sam, barely concealed panic in every line of his body, carrying Cas’ sword out of the bathroom. Sam hadn’t wanted to tell Dean how he’d found the angel, and Dean can’t blame him. He almost wishes he didn’t know. He does wish he hid the thing better. Cas got it back all too quickly and refuses to tell Dean where he keeps it.

So the door should be open. Just because.

“Cas?” he calls, as he nudges the door open and steps inside. A bar of light from the hallway falls across the floor, hitting the foot of the bed. “You actually sleeping for once?”

He has wondered whether Cas’ Grace is weak enough that he needs sleep and is just refusing. Being low on sleep has never helped Dean’s mood. But Cas is so touchy right now that Dean hasn’t thought how best to bring it up. No sense setting the guy off on one of his odd bursts of anger. It’s always followed by a low, for one thing, and Dean hates very little in the world as much as seeing that spaced, dead look in Cas’ eyes. It brings back all too clearly the times he really has looked into Cas’ eyes and not seen Cas staring back, through madness or Leviathan or death.

“I brought you coffee,” Dean says.

He gets no answer. His heart speeds up, thudding uncomfortably. But it’ll be nothing. Cas must just be in one of his phases of not speaking. They happen more than the guy seems to realize, him just staring into space and not reacting. Sam asked once if Cas was listening to angel radio, but Cas said he turned it off weeks back. Last time he did that, he also said he was worried he might kill himself.

“Cas?” Dean says again.

When he still gets no answer, he flips on the light-switch. Empty. The bed’s empty. The room’s empty. Of Cas, at any rate. All of his stuff is still there.

“Cas?” Dean yells it this time, leaning back into the hallway and bellowing.

The coffee gets left on the dresser as Dean turns and calls his friends’ name, moving through rooms and corridors, still getting no answer. Steam rises from it, then falters, then stops. The coffee is long cold by the time Dean accepts that Cas is gone.

***********************

There’s a gap where the Thunderbird should be. Dean’s in the garage staring at the space it once sat in when Sam rolls up in the Impala.

“Hey,” Sam greets, sliding out of the car and pulling bags with him. “Rest’s in the trunk, if you want to make yourself useful.”

“How’d you miss it?” Dean asks, because Sam can absorb his words, can shout back. Can tell Dean it’s his fault for not taking good enough care of Cas.

“Miss what?” Sam freezes a foot from the car, door still open. His expression turns wary.

“The fucking car, Sam,” Dean snaps. “How’d you miss a whole car being missing?”

Sam follows Dean’s arm, his eyes narrowing as he sees the gap.

“Well, it’s not like I count them every time I’m in here,” he says. His words start full of irritation and slow down. “Wait. Cas took it? Why? Where is he?”

“I have no fucking clue.”

Dean turns and slams his way back into the living areas, heading for Cas’ room again. He must have missed something. Cas must have got some call to go and help his angel family, again. He must have dropped everything, stopped caring about his own health, and just suited up to help his ungrateful species. Again.

He’s left Dean behind. Again.

Sam finds him minutes later, dropping the bags he’s carrying on Cas’ bed and ignoring them.

“When did you notice he was gone?” he asks. “What’s he taken?”

“Not until I brought his coffee, and as far as I can tell he’s not taken anything except the car, a pair of shoes and a jacket.”

Dean’s been through Cas’ dresser, through his closet.

“He take his wallet? Cards?”

Dean nods. Yes. He meant to include those in the list. He isn’t sure why he’s having trouble keeping calm. It isn’t like Cas has a history of sticking around. The last few months, he’s let himself get too used to the angel staying put.

“What about his bag?” Sam asks.

“What bag?”

Sam gives Dean a look he can’t read and kneels to look under the bed. After a moment, he reaches under it and feels around, even getting his phone out and using it to light up the underside of the bed.

“No,” Sam says, sitting back on his heels, looking grim. “It’s gone.”

“What is?” Dean tries hard not to let the worry in his throat pull any tighter. He fails.

“He packed a bag, the day we gave him this room. Put a load of stuff in it, like he was planning on going. I caught him before he went. Shoved it under the bed.”

“Why?”

“Because I figured you didn’t need to see it. Look, he stayed. All right? I figured the bag was just forgotten about. Or, maybe, some sort of comfort. You know? Not like he’s used to staying. Perhaps the thought he could be ready for a trip quickly made him feel better.”

“Nothing makes him feel better,” Dean says. “Not any more.”

He knows he sounds leaden. Dull. He’s already tried calling Cas, but it only took a few minutes to find the guy’s phone in a bedside drawer. He’s tried praying, but he’s got no response. Cas is in the wind.

Dean has missed something, and it’s driven Cas away.

*********************

He starts with books in the main library. Sam can haul a good few out from when he was searching for Gadreel, but Dean soon moves on to others. Huge tomes, with all kinds of lettering and languages. Some he can’t read, not even with the smattering of languages he’s picked up from research on hunts. He misses Bobby something fierce, wanting his knowledge of Greek and Japanese, his ability to work out even the most arcane of angelic texts somehow.

He just misses Bobby. Sam isn’t strong enough to take all of Dean’s weight, even though he’s trying.

Sam brings him coffee and sandwiches, picking up books to search through only to have Dean snap at him to fetch something else from some corner of the bunker. Dean isn’t sure himself whether he needs the books he’s sending Sam for, or if he just doesn’t want Sam to watch him panic. Because he is panicking, because how can he not? Cas has been tricked and captured and tortured over and over, and that’s when he hasn’t been in the middle of an extended breakdown.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Sam asks after setting the latest book on the table, the cover cracked and worn. “It’ll go faster if we go at this together.”

Dean stops with his finger under a word he still can’t translate, squeezing his eyes shut at the pressure Sam’s question pushes against his skin.

“I don’t know,” he says, barely audible. He doesn’t really want those words out in the air, where they can he heard. Saying them makes them true. “I have no fucking idea.”

Sam’s quiet for a moment, and Dean doesn’t look up at him. He’ll see concern or judgment or determination, and he isn’t sure he can cope with any of them right now.

“Right. Okay,” Sam says, the words practically breathed out. “So, tracking spell? Summoning? Something to let us know he’s all right? Any or all of the above?”

“We don’t need the last one,” Dean says, and he knows he sounds petulant. Doesn’t care. “We know he’s not all right. If he was all right, he wouldn’t have run.”

Sam’s reply is gentle, but there’s iron in it.

“Dean, if he was all right, he wouldn’t have been staying here in the first place.”

“Yeah, well it’s not like he always sticks around when he’s ill, is it? Thought you said he went off when he was sick with that Grace thing. He wasn’t exactly hogging the covers here.”

“That… That wasn’t just Cas wanting to go,” Sam says. His words are reluctant. “I might have wanted to focus more on finding you than he could help with. And he slipped up, wasn’t fast enough, when we got attacked once. I got hurt. My arm. You saw.”

He waits, and Dean nods. He remembers the damaged arm. At the time, he didn’t remember caring that Sam was hurt.

“I kind of… Well. Look, I might have learned more from Dad than I meant to.”

Dean feels his face set still.

“You blamed Cas for you getting hurt? When he was ill? You saying you pushed him away by blaming him, Sam? Wait. Are you saying I did something like that? I pushed him away?”

“What? No. No, Dean, I’m not saying anything like that. Or…” Sam stops, and now Dean looks up to see his brother standing a foot away from the table, body slumped and eyes red-rimmed. Sam shakes his head. “Maybe we both did something wrong. I don’t know, all right? A few classes of psych a million years ago and searching the web for tips doesn’t make me an expert. Hell, we’re both screwed seven ways from Sunday, and Cas has being an alien creature on top of all our crap. I have no clue if anything we’ve tried is even meant to work on an angel.”

“Cas is practically human,” Dean says, but that twist in his gut doesn’t let him even pretend to himself that he really believes that. Not really.

He’s starting to realize that there’s more than one Cas in his head: the one he sees as a human with a few fancy powers; the one who’s inhuman and terrifying and strange. There’s the broken one, the warrior, the confidant, the tool. Because he has to face facts, here. There are times Dean’s so focused on getting what he needs, to save other people, to save Sam or the whole god-damned world, and sometimes those are the same thing, that he’s set Cas as a person aside and thought about Cas the asset. And who does that to their family?

He can’t have got through to Cas that the guy’s family, or Cas wouldn’t have run. Family’s something you run to, not from. Dean wishes he didn’t have to keep teaching the people he loves that lesson.

“You’re saying everything we’ve done, for weeks, might have done no good?” Dean asks.

He doesn’t pick the book up and throw it. He doesn’t sweep everything off the table. But it’s only because the weight of Sam’s words keeps him pinned to his chair.

“I’m saying I don’t know,” Sam says. “Dean, this stuff, it’s not easy. About the only thing I’ve worked out for sure is that it’s not easy. I mean, have you ever found it easy to accept help? Look at you, right now.”

“Look at me?” Dean feels his face twist as he jabs himself in the chest with the fingers of his right hand. “What exactly are we looking at, here? Because as far as I can see, I’m the guy who’s been getting up every damn morning to make him coffee just to get him to stop staring at nothing when he takes it. I’m the guy who’s cooked for him and been there for him and fucking watched over him. Watched over him, Sam, like he used to do for us. You saying I’ve not been doing enough?”

“Over you, Dean,” Sam says. “Cas watched over you. Not us. Sure, he’s saved me, too. Hell, he took Lucifer out of my mind. But that whole watching over thing? That was between the two of you.”

“You jealous? Is that what this is?”

“No, Dean, I…” Sam breaks off and looks away, huffing out a breath. His voice is tight when he speaks again. “Look, I’m not jealous, and I’m not accusing you of not doing enough. I already said I don’t know if either of us were doing enough or the right thing or… And I mean look at that glass of whiskey, right by your hand, and it’s been there since mid-morning. How much have you had?”

“Since when is what I drink a problem?”

“Since always,” Sam says. He looks back at Dean, his eyes hard hazel, and leans over the table, bracing himself with his palms flat to the wood. “But right now I can’t let it get in the way of finding Cas. When it’s just yourself you’re drowning, I don’t like it, but I know you have your…you have reasons. All right?”

“Big of you,” Dean says. Sneers. “You gonna pat me on the head and hand me a leaflet about twelve steps?”

“Cas is gone, Dean,” Sam says, as though Dean could possibly have missed that. “Cut the crap and let me help you find him. He’s my family, too.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, dark heat bubbling up in his chest. “That’s why you blamed him for you getting hurt, threw him out when he needed you. That’s why you got him all twisted up and pulled his strings, had him help Crowley and Rowena cast that damned spell. That’s why you fucking left him with a witch who had enough power to cast a spell on him. You really think he’d have gone back to the angels if it wasn’t for that spell?”

Sam twitches, but other than that he doesn’t move. His face is carved lines. It’s impossible to tell what he thinks about Dean’s words. He doesn’t throw any back.

Dean stares at his brother, caught too far into this to just back out, not sure if he has the energy to go on. Looking after Cas has been wearing on Dean, making sure someone’s with or near the guy as much as possible, keeping an eye on every word and movement to see if Cas is getting worse. Better hasn’t seemed to be an option.

Time compresses around Dean, pushing at him like eddies in a current, and he feels words trying to push out past his teeth. He doesn’t let them.

Sam pushing away from the table breaks the stand-off, and Sam’s lip curls before he turns away and strides from the room, leaving Dean alone with the books. The books and the questions pounding at the inside of his skull.

*********************

Hours trickle by, slipping through Dean’s fingers as his mind throws up images of Cas hurting, of Cas chained up, beaten up, tortured. Of Cas driving the Thunderbird, untouched by anyone, with that ragged pain still choking him. In some ways, Cas is better when he has someone to fight against. Dean knows that feeling.

Cas said once he was a soldier. Dean remembers the way his Dad treated the hunt for Yelloweyes like a military mission. He isn’t sure how his dad would have coped if he’d lived to see that mission completed.

He can’t honestly say he’s paying full attention to the pages turning under his eyes. It’s been too many hours and there’ve been too many books, too many passages which don’t help him at all. The snatches he’s picked up about angels wind their way into his thoughts. It’s all likely made up, the product of some scholar’s mind back in the day, and some of it’s contradictory. Angels possess no bodies, angels have tentacles and tails and many heads, angels are a cosmos to themselves, each angel is just a speck in the whole consciousness of the Host, a single synapse firing in a near infinite brain.

Only Cas isn’t a cosmos and he isn’t part of a whole. Not anymore. He doesn’t have a mission, doesn’t have a place. Except with Dean. And Sam. And, somehow, they’ve let him down.

A shape on the page catches his eyes, halting him, and he sits forward, trying to focus on which symbol out of many struck him as familiar. There. Up in the top right of the page. He reaches out and traces the mark with his finger. Sam might love to make a thing out of Dean not reading, but Dean’s always looked out information on his passions. He’s looked up Castiel.

Under the pad of Dean’s forefinger lies the sigil for Cas’ name.

He knows the basics already. Of course he does. Angel of Solitude. That makes a kind of horrifying sense, the way he keeps getting kicked to the curb by his dick family. Angel of Tears. That’s even worse. Some information, like with angels in general, conflicts. Some sources say Castiel is Cassiel, but Dean’s never heard him use that name, not even once. He’s wondered, deep in the night or when in the middle of some long drive, when his mind is playing over random details and the music isn’t quite loud enough to drown it out, if Cas doesn’t use the name because it’s never been his, or because he had it blanked out. He wonders if Cas ever thinks about that.

They’re the kind of thoughts that never seem to make it to the next time he sees Cas.

Dean can’t read this book, either. He thinks that means something, in and of itself.

*******************

Dean wakes up slumped over the table, his right hand resting on the open pages of yet another book. He can read hardly any of it. He can read hardly any of anything with the pain stabbing through his temples, making everything he sees blurred, but he couldn’t read this one the night before, either, back before he upended the bottle of whiskey.

He’s barely spoken to Sam since their near-row, but he finds a lukewarm mug of coffee near his hand and thanks anything that’ll listen that the Winchester way includes learning to roll with accusations. Or maybe this is Sam’s way of telling Dean he knows the drinking got worse last night. Fuck it. Coffee’s coffee. And Sam can shut it.

“I put the last of the books on the end of the table,” Sam says from behind Dean, just as Dean reaches for the coffee. Sam doesn’t show any sign that he notices Dean jump, spilling some of the liquid over the nearest book. “Don’t know they’ll be any good, but I can go through any you had trouble translating. You just need to tell me which ones they are.”

Dean wants to tell Sam where to go, but twenty-hours is a long time to stew in his own worry, and he jerks his thumb at the teetering pile of books on the next table, the ones he couldn’t make sense of.

“Start with those.”

********************

“I’ve got a hit on his card,” Sam says, and Dean abandons the books to hover behind Sam, staring at the screen of his laptop. “A motel. Just one night.”

“Any chance he might be staying more than one night? Maybe hasn’t paid for it yet?”

“It’s worth a try,” Sam says. “There’s another hit, cash withdrawal. Here. Look.”

Dean scans through the information Sam’s pulled on the card.

“That’s a lot of cash, Sam,” he says.

“Yeah. And then a meal at a diner.”

“He suddenly wants to eat?” Dean asks. “Maybe he did want all of that food I made him. Hey, you, er, you don’t think his Grace is failing him, do you?”

The thought brings another flash of worry worming its way through his gut. Cas on his own is bad enough, but Cas alone and falling adds a whole new load of ways the angel can suffer. At least he has cash. And he’s had practice at being human. At least this time he won’t be starting with nothing.

It doesn’t do nearly enough to warm Dean.

Sam shakes his head.

“I don’t know. He never said it was, and he didn’t look sick the way he was when his borrowed Grace was burning out. Maybe it’s just…habit? Look, I’m going to get up there, see what I can find.”

“What we can find,” Dean corrects.

They’re in the car within thirty minutes, Sam taking the wheel with a pointed look at Dean. He lets it go, but he glares at Sam. He refuses to so much as glance down at his hands. If he doesn’t see them shaking, he can pretend it isn’t real.

*******************

The guy behind the desk leans back, gaze flicking from Dean to Sam and back. His hand creeps towards the phone.

“He left,” the guy says again. Perhaps he thinks Dean missed it the first two times. Perhaps he thinks if he just keeps repeating it that Dean will leave, too. “Didn’t say where. Just left.”

“Can you tell us what time? Anything at all could help,” Sam says, his FBI impression smooth and assured.

FBI is a mistake. Dean can see that reflected back at him from the motel worker’s eyes. Sam’s doing great, but Dean’s vibrating with the kind of energy a fed just doesn’t feel about missing someone at a motel. It’s personal, concerned, and he can’t turn it down. He’s not sure how Sam’s managing.

If Dean thought force would get him better answers, he’d have that guy across the desk already. Instead, he folds his fingers into fists, an origami which brings no peace, and waits for Sam to move through every question he can try and get the key to the room Cas stayed in.

“We got nothing,” Dean says a while later.

The room’s been cleaned, and even though it looks like a piss poor job, there’s also no sign Cas was here. He’s cleared himself out of this room the same way he used to vanish, leaving nothing behind him and no clue as to where he’s gone, when, or if, he’ll be back.

Sam runs a hand through his hair, the tense line of his back telling Dean his brother is feeling it, too, even though he’s doing a better job of hiding it.

“The diner,” Sam says. “You go ask around there. I’ll check out where he withdrew the money. We’ve got to find some clue. And I’ll check for any signs of his car. Any more uses of his card. We’ll find something, Dean. We’ll get him back.”

But Dean is beginning to wonder if they ever had him at all.

********************

The diner’s a bust. Dean can’t find anyone who remembers a tallish guy with dark hair and seriously blue eyes. And people remember Cas. There was this aura about him even back when he went through that phase of being human, and it’s stronger when he’s an angel, that draws people into his orbit. Dean isn’t sure why not everyone knows it’s there, but they must feel it.

Still…nothing.

He charms the waiter into showing him the limited film they have for the place, matches the timestamps with the day’s receipts. There, at the right time, he sees a woman hunch herself into a booth and place an order. She’s the only one to place an order for the right amount in a three hour window. She’s got to be the one using Cas’ card. There’s no sign of Cas.

Dean snaps the pencil he’s holding in half without even realizing and leaves both pieces on the floor when he leaves.

********************

He finds her so easily he wonders, for a moment, if God is helping him after all. It’s round the corner and there she is, huddled in a new coat that already looks grubby with her hands shoved in her own armpits, like that’ll do anything this time of year. She looks at him warily as he approaches, her whole stance saying she’s ready to run but doesn’t have the energy to do it too soon.

“Hey,” Dean says, catching himself before he can slip into his fed voice. “I just want to talk. Got some questions. Nothing bad for you.”

“So you say,” she rasps, the ghosts of a thousand cigarettes on her tongue. But she doesn’t try to leave. Instead, she stares up at him from under a fringe that looks like it was well kept, not all that long ago.

Dean finds himself holding his hands up, placating, and he doesn’t get as close as he wants to. Not that he wants to be that close. It makes his skin crawl when he’s near dirt and grease, no matter how Sam laughs at him with the work they do. He’s always feels…uneasy about the homeless, the specter of long ago fear that he might wake up and find himself one of them harder to bury than it should be. After all, Dad used to leave them money. Mostly. And his dad knew Dean could provide for Sammy. He didn’t just leave them. He left Sam with Dean.

Still, it’s too easy to place Cas in the role of this woman, someone who looks to be new to the world of no bed and no roof and no safety. Not that Cas ever really had a bed, not until recently, but that’s not the point. Cas shouldn’t have ever needed one, and this woman should have never been in want of one. Letting his eyes and mind slide off her is harder than it was before he’d been forced to think about Cas huddled under a bridge, cold and hungry.

“You got anywhere to stay tonight?” he asks, without thinking.

The fear on the woman’s face, followed by calculation, a kind of futile hope, has him stepping back, his chin jerking up as though he’s been hit.

“No! No, I didn’t mean… Fuck. Look, I’m looking for a friend. You might have seen him. I, er, I have money to pay for information.”

He has the cash he carries with him all the time, and he wishes, now, that it was more. He’s also sure, from the look of her, that he could get what he needs here without paying, but she’s still wearing shoes that would be better in summer, and even Dean knows she hasn’t picked the best place to stop. She’s new at this.

And she’s watching him the way a deer watches a wolf, but a wolf that might have food in a barren forest.

“What kind of information?” she asks slowly.

“My friend, he was in this town. I’m sure of it. And I need to find him, bad, to get him help, but you’ve got his card. Anything you can tell me about that?”

She’s silent for so long he starts to think he’s misread her, that mentioning getting Cas help isn’t the way to loosen her tongue, but after giving Dean another, searching look, she nods.

“He looks like he needs help,” she says. “I…I almost didn’t take the card. Thought he might need it, still.” She says that reluctantly. Dean can read the shame in her.

“Hey, trust me, the guy’s stubborn. He wanted to give you that card, it was going to happen. All right?” And Dean may not be going to cancel the card quite yet. Maybe. “I just need any help you can give me. Any clue which way he was heading? How was he doing? Anything.”

“I don’t know,” she says, and the way she drags it out suggests she wants to tell him more, but doesn’t have any more to tell. “He just… He got back in a car, a red one, and set off that way.” She waves back along the street. “But that can take you anywhere. He didn’t say anything about where he was going. Just to get a meal. I…I got the coat, too. I…”

She trails off and glances away.

“You figured the card would last long enough,” Dean says. “Hey. Like I say, no problem. You didn’t steal it. And did he look okay?”

“Okay?” She frowns. “He looked kind of shut down. I’ve seen it before, that look. My, er, my brother went like it, after…”

She stops, heaves a sigh that tells Dean she’s shutting down that thought before it can start, and it’s like watching something rise from the depths of a lake, breaking the surface only for a moment before sinking back into seeming nothing. It’s a nudge at the walls he keeps up, the ones that keep out the knowledge of how many people suffer. Cas told him once that all he saw was pain, and Dean argued it was better than pulling the kill switch on humanity. He can’t afford to see too much pain bob to the surface of others, or he might find himself rethinking. He doesn’t push her on whatever happened to her brother. He doesn’t ask how she’s ended up on the streets.

He does fold cash into her hands and doesn’t ask for the card back.

He leaves knowing Cas ditched the card on purpose, already knows he hasn’t taken his phone. Cas doesn’t want to be found.

Chapter Text

Sam finds him in Cas’ room, sitting up against the headboard, his hands curled loose in his lap.

“You going to come and eat?” Sam asks.

“I can’t find his blade,” Dean says, not looking up at Sam because he doesn’t have to. He’s mapped Sam’s expressions, could locate the exact shade of Sam’s eyes, the tilt of his lips, as he stands in the doorway. “Should have hidden it better.”

Sam’s quiet for a moment, a pause he leaves when he’s ordering his thoughts.

“You think he’d be safer without his weapon?” Sam asks, disagreement not quite hidden.

Dean can almost hear Sam working it out, how to remind Dean that Cas needs to be able to defend himself without just reminding Dean of how much danger Cas is in.

“I know the size of the target painted on his back,” Dean says, saving Sam the effort. “Maybe he wouldn’t have left without it. He was pretty cut up when I had it safe in my room.”

He had Cas safe in this room, and he hasn’t kept the angel for long enough, either. The thought rises like smoke, that he could have tucked Cas away in here, not given him a chance to leave. It’s dizzying and tempting and leftover poison from the Mark. Dean forces the thought away.

“We’ll find him,” Sam says.

It’s so meaningless as to be nothing more than texture to the heavy, unrelenting frustration in Dean’s head. He doesn’t bother replying.

“Look, Dean, we will,” Sam says. Dean hears the sound of Sam’s footstep as he comes closer. “We know he ditched the Thunderbird, right? Picked up a red car? That’s a lead. I’m still searching for reports of a missing car, of any sales-”

“We’ve got nothing,” Dean says. He means it to come out harsh. It doesn’t. “It’s been nearly a week, Sam. If there was something to find, you’d have found it by now.”

Not we. Dean can’t honestly say he’s been looking for the whole six days. He’s spent more and more time drifting through the bunker, checking lights are off and everything’s where it should be, until he’s ended up, without conscious decision, at Cas’ door. Where everything is not where it should be.

During his travels, he’s noted all of the other gaps in the bunker, the absences. Charlie’s room, which only ever got as far as a new set of sheets in an otherwise almost untouched room, has just that bedding and a single poster on the wall to brighten it up. Kevin’s room is one he can barely stand to look in, but he knows it’s still got papers all over it, the detritus Kevin’s mom couldn’t stand to take and Sam couldn’t see any use in.

This room, Cas’, has the clothes Sam and Dean bought for him, the few objects they got him to add a bit of colour. Dean isn’t even sure if Cas liked any of them.

There are the smaller gaps, too. The Thunderbird should be a gleaming green beauty, but grey concrete and empty air is all Dean has, now. It was the day after they got back from their fruitless hunt for Cas that Dean finally realised some of the bottled water was missing from the kitchen. Cas took some of that, at least. He has no idea if Cas even needs it.

Dean let himself think, when Cas showed signs of staying, that some of the spaces in his life would be filled in. They were going to do Christmas this year, because with three of them it seemed more worth the effort.

The tree is still up, but nothing else has been added to the decorations. Dean found a glass star on one of his shopping trips. He was going to ask Cas to put it on the tree. He figured it would get the guy involved. And angels liked stars, right? Or were stars. Hard to cram all of Cas in his head at once.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” Dean says. “All those crappy shows say he should turn up at our door. Christmas miracle.”

“Maybe he still will,” Sam says. “Dean, look, I get it. I really do. But sliding into feeling shitty yourself isn’t going to get him back.”

“So what? You want me to come and sing carols with you? Find someone to kiss under the mistletoe?”

He doesn’t say ‘someone else’. He’s pretty sure Sam hears that anyway. He hasn’t missed the fact Sam has been treating Cas as somehow more Dean’s responsibility than Sam’s, and he doesn’t think it’s that Sam doesn’t care about Cas. God, sometimes Dean’s left the room because the easier way Sam is with Cas gets him riled. It makes something drag uncomfortably under his skin, that his brother is calmer, more relaxed with Cas than Dean is. More relaxed with Cas than he is with Dean, in some ways.

“No,” Sam says. The ‘don’t be stupid’ isn’t put into words. “But if you wear yourself down then you won’t be able to help him. And don’t say you can’t help him anyway. You think I know what I’m doing? But we’re all he’s got, and whatever reason he has for running, we need to find him and make him see he needs to come back. And I can’t do that on my own.”

The strain at the end of that has Dean raising his head. Sam looks… Sam looks like he’s closer to a breaking point than Dean realised. It occurs to Dean that Sam might feel he has to support Dean, so Dean can support Cas, and that Sam has no-one left to support him. Dean doesn’t like to think that Sam is struggling with his own empty spaces, or that one of them might be Dean.

“I suppose I could come and get something to eat,” Dean says. “Maybe a drink. Coffee,” he adds hastily, when he sees the way Sam’s nostrils flare. “Or…or hot chocolate.”

That’s a Christmas thing, right? He thinks he remembers his mom making it, back at Christmas, and Lisa certainly thought it was hot chocolate season, even if he sometimes couldn’t see her behind the heap of cream she put on top. And Sam couldn’t protest at chocolate. It was practically a vegetable or something.

Sam pauses, tilting his head in a way he has to have picked up from Cas, and there’s something wary about him.

“Really?” When Dean nods, a suggestion of a smile flickers at the edges of Sam’s lips. “I’ll make us something, then.”

Dean still doesn’t want to leave the bed. It’s not that he wants to stay away from Sam, or wants to wallow in the gap where Cas should be, but he’s just so tired, so heavy with it all, and the effort of moving feels unreal. Still…

“Yeah. No. I’ll make something. You go find a crappy movie to watch or something.”

Sam only hesitates for a moment.

“We’re not giving up,” Sam says, and Dean isn’t sure which one of them he’s trying to convince. “We’re just taking a few hours to recharge. You get that, right?”

“Yeah, Sam. I get that.”

Dean watches Sam vanish into the hallway, hoping his brother has the sense not to pick out anything with angels in it. Sliding from the bed is harder than it should be, and Dean shuts the door when he leaves the room.

*************************

Sam mentions looking for the red car or for reports that might be Cas a few times, and Dean finds the piles of books on the library table moved around, but he doesn’t get into a heavy conversation with Dean about it. Dean does his own research, returning to some books over and over in the hopes they’ll make sense, tracking down other books that might help him translate what he needs to. He can’t find whatever will act as a Rosetta stone for him with some of them.

He hasn’t found a Rosetta stone for Cas, either. Raking through everything in his mind hasn’t given him a clue that pans out, and praying gets him nothing. He checks every phone at a few hour’s intervals, but the only calls are from the other hunters who still speak to them, asking after advice or seeing if they’re in the area.

Dean turns them all down for the first few days, up until the walls of the bunker start closing in on him. Sam’s looking twitchy, too. They’re hunters. They need to be up and doing. A case or two won’t stop them looking for Cas.

************************

A case drags them off to Texas a few weeks into the New Year, to Austin, and Dean is keeping it together.

He keeps it together all through interviewing witnesses, not even thrown by the weeping man who holds his husband’s leather satchel, the only thing not shredded by the monster they’re after, as though it might be some magic lamp that will grant him the wish of his love back. Dean holds it together as they track and kill the thing that destroyed the life of someone who’d only dared to ask his best friend to be his lover in the last couple of years, after far too long worrying the attraction was one sided. He even holds it together when they finish the case and pass on the news to the widower.

“It’s over,” Sam says, reassuring and solid as he sits on the settee in the small house. “You’re safe.”

The widower doesn’t respond. He just sits with that damn bag on his lap like it’s some sort of pet and stares off to the side.

Sam clears his throat, tries again.

“The whole nest is gone, so you won’t get any more trouble.”

“Right,” the guy says.

The word’s dragged up, distant. Dean isn’t sure he’s in the room with them.

Dean waits until they get outside to pull his tie loose, breathing easier as he eases the collar around his throat. Sam leaves his tie in place, throwing Dean a look that says Dean should wait.

“Fucking suffocating in this monkey suit, Sam,” Dean says. “Whole case was just irritating. How about we get a drink before we hit the road? Got to be a decent bar around somewhere.”

“Right,” Sam says. He turns as they reach the sidewalk and glances back at the house, his expression carrying some meaning Dean can’t fathom. “Maybe we don’t need a drink mid-morning. How about we go find something to eat, though? We missed breakfast staking out that warehouse.”

“If you want to be a little-”

“Dean,” Sam cuts him off. “Let’s just go.”

They find a cafe on 6th Street, Sam leading the way as Dean folds his tie into his pocket and follows. They grab a table against the back wall, Dean dropping his coat over the back of the chair next to him, and Sam changes the subject whenever Dean finds another item on the menu to complain about. They’re halfway through eating when Sam finally starts up a conversation.

“Got to be hard for him,” he says, “learning to live with it. With him being gone, I mean.”

It takes Dean a second to catch on, the weird burger he’s eating halfway to his mouth as his brow crinkles.

“What? Oh, right. Yeah. Still, he’s got that bag to keep him company.”

Sam doesn’t grin back. He just sighs and grimaces.

“What?” Dean asks again. He puts the burger down, narrowing his eyes at Sam. “Oh, come on. Like that wasn’t a little creepy. Who hugs a bag like it’s a person?”

Sam opens his mouth, closes it, swallows. His eyes slide away from Dean, to the side and down.

“What?” Dean asks, for the third time. The first thrum of a headache buzzes in his temple. “If I’d known working this case would put you in such a shitty mood-”

“You’d what?” Sam asks. He still doesn’t look at Dean. “Besides, I’m not the one in the weird mood. You really don’t feel anything for that guy?” Now Sam meets his eyes, and Dean sees an echo of the pain there that trailed after Sam the whole year after leaving Stanford. After Jess. “He just lost the love of his life. I’d think you’d be more sympathetic.”

Guilt flutters in Dean’s gut. He scowls.

“I’m sorry for him, all right? But it’s not like I can do anything about it. We ganked the bastard that did it. Best we can do. You want me to get all mopey over someone I never even met? Sorry, Sam. I feel for him, I do, but you can’t expect me to come over all empath. It was a job for us, and it’s not like it’s something I’ve gone through. And…” He pauses to slow down his words, not wanting to strike Sam with them. He’s irritable, must be something in the air, but he doesn’t really want to hurt Sam. “And I’m sorry that you get all those memories brought up by crap like this. I am. But we didn’t make it happen, and we did what we could to clean it up. Can’t do more than that, Sam. Now can I eat my burger, since you won’t let me get a proper drink?”

Sam’s lips press together, but he nods and goes back to his meal. They don’t speak again as they eat.

Dean pics his coat up from the chair and shrugs it on as Sam picks up a couple more coffees to go. He’s gone gooey eyed over the beans or some shit and insisted they get more, and that wriggling feeling of guilt for the look on Sam’s face earlier means Dean’s even agreed to drinking another one himself. He busies himself staring out of the window, taking in some of the truly weird fashions people wear these days. The guy in the beanie hat really doesn’t get that bright red hair means choosing coat colours carefully. Perhaps he doesn’t care.

With colour on his mind, Dean’s eye is caught by someone in a deep blue sweater and bright yellow scarf walking towards a car. Someone else who doesn’t really know how to combine colours. This guy has dark hair, curling at the nape, and Dean has one of those moments he hates. One of those dizzying, sucking moments where the world narrows down to some guy Dean’s eyes latch on to and he feels like a fish-hook’s been stabbed through his gut, yanking him to the latest stranger.

It isn’t Cas. It’s never Cas. It hasn’t been Cas the last fifteen or twenty times this has happened, and it won’t be Cas now.

The guy heads to a red car.

“Sam!” Dean shouts, and takes off running.

People cross in between the car and Dean, blocking his view of the man’s face, but that hair, that build, that godawful sense of style, and the red car…

A woman with a stroller gets in his way, making him leap sideways, and once she’s out of the way the car is in the flow of traffic.

“Fuck!”

Ignoring the filthy look from a couple near him, Dean runs.

He loses sight of the car within minutes, even the traffic in the area not keeping the car slow enough for him to reach it in time. Sam almost crashes into him moments after, his hand clamping down on Dean’s bicep. Through his attempts to get his breath back, and he must be less fit than he thought the way the air’s burning in his throat, Dean looks up to see concern in his brother’s eyes.

“I’m fine,” he says, pulling his arm away and straightening. “Where’s your fancy-ass coffee?”

Sam glances back down the road.

“Left it. Saw you took off,” he says. “What happened?”

Dean hesitates. It’s never been Cas before. But this is the first time it’s fit so well, and he’ll never forgive himself if he doesn’t check, and it is Cas, and later they find he needed them, now, and Dean didn’t look.

“I think I saw Cas,” he says, and realizes he’s shaking.

***********************

They book another night at the motel, Sam taking care of it as Dean boots up the laptop and gets to searching. Technology moves quickly, and he doesn’t have…anyone around to shore up the knowledge Frank gave him, but he gets into what he needs as Sam returns.

He lets Sam sort out their gear from last night’s hunt, focusing on searching for any sign of a red car or a man looking like Cas.

“Anything?” Sam asks after everything is cleaned and stored away.

“Not yet,” Dean says. “None of the cameras I can get into show the car I saw, and there’s no ticket, not for anything.”

“Cas doesn’t exactly drive like he’s in Wacky Races,” Sam says. “And ‘red car’ is a bit vague. Did you even catch the model?”

“Of course I…”

Dean stops, a sense of the ground being unsteady under his feet taking his words. He has no idea what kind of car it was. Red. He just saw red, and someone who pinged his radar as looking like Cas.

“It’s okay,” Sam says. “Let me take a look. You go grab a shower.”

Dean almost refuses, but that itchiness is back. A shower might help.

As the water, verging to luke-warm, soaks his hair and drums onto his shoulders, he squeezes his eyes shut and prays.

“Cas? Cas, you hearing me?”

It’s not new, praying to Cas. He has no idea if Cas hears him. He hasn’t picked up a phone and called back.

“Cas, come on, man. You gotta be hearing me. And I think, maybe, I saw you today. Hope I did, because if that was you, you looked healthy. Walking, at least. Still got a car. Just…if you’re here, if you’re in Austin, please, just come find us.”

Just to be safe, in case whatever weird way Cas has of finding him isn’t working, he whispers the motel and room number, adding in his cell number. Just in case. Cas has lost his memory before, and Dean’s had every scenario running through his head the last few weeks.

“One of us will be here all day, and tonight. I promise, Cas. Whatever I did to make you run, we can sort it out. All right? Come back to me…us. Come back to us. Er. Amen.”

Sam’s hunched over the laptop when Dean makes his way out of the bathroom, his hair dripping water onto his shoulders, and from the way Sam’s running his fingers through his hair, it’s clear he’s found nothing.

Dean doesn’t tell him to stop, and he doesn’t tell Sam about praying. He doesn’t stop hoping to hear Cas knock at the door until the sun comes up the next day.

*******************

They don’t speak about it. The drive back to the bunker three days later is almost silent until Dean finds a station he can stand and cranks up the volume. Sam lets him. Neither of them mention Cas.

Chapter Text

Castiel shifts, his wings unfolding and folding around him as he resettles on the bed. The blankets form a messy pile and he thinks, distantly, he should do something about that. He isn’t sure he’s using them anymore so much as existing on the same surface as them. One of his eyes is pressed up against the fuzzy edge of an expanse of fleece, the fibers large and jagged in his sight. That eye won’t set to the same scale as his others. Everything is magnified, gigantic. Unlike him. He isn’t gigantic. Not anymore. He’s small and huddled and not enough to hold up his own mass.

He’s cold. Blankets are warm. He’s been circling that thought for some time and hasn’t reached a conclusion yet.

Another stab of hot pain along his leading wing has him contracting his limbs, the giant fibers receding as he pulls everything in. He closes most of his eyes, holds himself still. He would check for injuries, but he isn’t sure which parts of his body are real. Maybe none of them. Maybe it doesn’t matter. All that matters is he finds a way to make the pain stop.

Foreign Grace had burned, demanding pain in payment of each act. Just to exist in a vessel is an act, and Castiel became used to constant pain. It has been a background, a base state, for long enough he can’t remember what it was like to live without it.

Still, this pain is wearing.

He thought reclaiming his own Grace would make it better, that it would slip into him and extinguish the pain. He isn’t sure if he hoped it would also white out the changes wrought in him these last few years. It hasn’t.

Being human, or as close as an angel can get to human, has left marks his Grace can’t heal, if it even would be a healing. Castiel isn’t sure what to make of the changes, of the fact he has changed. So many years he went without changing. That is, unless he has always undergone change and Naomi simply halted it, erased it, reset him.

He never thought he’d long for that needle in his eye.

Castiel opens his closed eyes, the extra layers of perception overlaying the outlines provided by four of his lesser eyes. He thinks he’s making progress, to be able to close as many eyes as he had this time. The layers reveal again the walls and floors of the room he’s taken and with no humans around to be wary of he takes in all of it at once. The pulse of life in the walls is comforting, that even an apparently empty place contains creatures experiencing their little worlds. As long as they don’t reach out to him, as long as they leave him in peace.

He doesn’t let his sight wander further, doesn’t listen for the sounds of the people in the next room, or the one beyond. He hasn’t listened so far since the second week he was here, and he rarely leaves. Leaving has become…an unsavory concept. He pays the rent each week, handing it to the woman who shuffles to the door and knocks, three times, her hand sticking through the opening far enough to grasp the notes. He takes the deliveries from the willowy young man who arrives at Castiel’s door at odd times, knocking a pattern that jars through Castiel’s mind enough to rouse him, and slips a packet into Castiel’s human palm. Other than that, he sees no-one. He does his best to hear no-one.

Castiel is refusing to consider how low his stack of notes is getting. The car is better than nothing, but he prefers to leave it where it is, where he thinks it still is, parked in a side-street not far away, and hide away in here. No. Not hide. Rest. He’s just resting.

He thought, when he left the bunker, that he needed air and space, but before he left the second town he stopped in he realised he needed a space to rest, and this one has served him well since he found it. The TV is large enough to feel as though it fills the space, and it didn’t take much effort, not once he sat and thought about it, to access the waves which brought the shows to the screen. They aren’t on this screen. He keeps some of his angelic eyes focused on the waves themselves. But his human eyes are easily fooled into thinking they are seeing the pictures on the TV itself, and out of some habit he has picked up he keeps his human head turned in that direction. He isn’t sure how focused his vessel’s eyes are, but that hardly matters. No-one is here to see.

He isn’t sure he’s seeing the TV waves as they are, or is inventing them in his own head, the stories Metatron stuffed into him spilling over. That doesn’t matter, either. It only matters that they continue, and continue to blank out all of his thoughts.

Every so often, a buzzing static tries to interrupt the images. He flattens the lines of that signal to nothing and refuses to register the signature of the source. That can be harder to do some times than others. Still, he’s managed to prevent all but the odd scrap from getting through. Sometimes, he manages to forget who the words are from. Two someone’s.

He can’t cope with the thought of properly hearing either one of them. Not right now. Maybe, once he’s rested, he’ll be able to listen.

There was static the day before, hissing and spitting through a show where people made impossible cakes for reasons Castiel doesn’t quite grasp. A few words slipped through, despite his best efforts. ‘Hope’ and ‘Promise’ and ‘Come back’. He curled around that pain until it died, and he’s been sitting in its ashes ever since.

Or perhaps he heard nothing, and it was just static. His head isn’t clear. It’s full of clouds and white-noise and whisperings. Some of the whisperings tell him to pick himself up, tell him to go back, but he drifts until those voices quiet. If he ignores them long enough, perhaps he’ll stop hearing them at all.

Hammering on the door jars the lines of his sight, setting everything to wavering. That didn’t used to happen. He doesn’t think it did.

Ignoring it isn’t an option. Slowly, spreading as many of his limbs as will cooperate, Castiel slides to his feet. He pauses for a moment, adjusting to the level of the floor. It hasn’t seemed as solid, these last few days. The hammering rocks him again, and he crosses the room with his wings still wide, every eye open. He’s almost used to the blind-spots by now.

He reaches out, sets one finger to the chain, slides it across. That chain is delicate. He wonders that anyone could feel safe just by using it.

“You in there?” a voice calls through the wood.

Castiel pulls the door open and squints at the man standing on the other side.

“Listen,” the man says, “I can’t get you anymore for a while. Okay? This has to be the last lot.”

The man has said this before. Castiel stares at him until he hands over his delivery and slides away, leaving Castiel’s awareness as soon as the packet is in his hand. He shuts the door, slides the chain across, lets his wings fold up.

This will ease the pain, for a while.

**********************************

He floats. His vessel is…elsewhere. Disconnected. All that exists are the waves and the other waves, the ones which are him. Even his wings are gone, their heavy drag lifted. He missed them, back when he was Steve, and then when he had Theo’s Grace, and Adina’s. Not his. His never used to hurt.

Now, he drifts, lighter than he’s been in years.

Being on Earth always warps perceptions. He’s had eons of being nothing but energy, shaped and shifting, and yet a few years on Earth and he feels he is a body, of some sort and fashion, that he has weight and sensation and form. That fists can hurt him and deprivation weaken him.

The white powder reminds him that’s not true. It blots out everything but him, and it blots out his body, so that all that remains is a fluid point in space-time.

The high-pitched, jagged lines of a scream saw through his space, hooking him, yanking him back to a fixed point. He doesn’t like this fixed point. It’s full of pain and regret, of guilt and longing and a grey, blank numbness which is worse than all of it. If the wavefront of his self has to collapse, he would rather by far it was to a point where his wings worked and where he’d never known the bite of abandonment, or the hurt of betrayal.

Another scream drags his eyes open, his human ones barely seeing in a room far darker than he expected it to be. He hasn’t put the light on. Again. It just never seems worthwhile.

It takes longer than it should do to gather himself, to roll off the bed. He falls when he tries to balance himself with a limb which isn’t there, bright pain registering as his human knee bashes against the floor. He bites back a curse and staggers to his feet.

The floor isn’t stable. It gives under his feet, the tip of one wing sinking into the boards. He can’t feel the drag of it, but he sees it.

It take more than one try to reach the window. Clinging to the window-frame, he allows the outside world to rush in, deafened by the chaos for a dizzying span. It clears, but slowly. In the darkness outside, he sees a figure cowering away from another, the aggressor taller and towering over the smaller one, whose arm’s raised to shield the face.

Castiel has troubles enough, but he’s seen so much pain, and he can’t stand by and watch another person be hurt, not when he can stop it.

He doesn’t stop to think properly about his actions before he pulls himself out of the window and drops.

The landing shoots pain up his shins. It doesn’t matter. It’s distant, still, not a part of him. He floats above the pain, or it floats above him. It’s hard to tell. Either way, he sees the man with his snarling face and the woman pulling back her legs, almost curling into a ball on the ground. It won’t do.

That snarl pulls into a different shape when Castiel’s hand wraps around the man’s wrist, forcing it back. Too far back. He hears the snap, feels the tremor through the man’s flesh. Hears the scream. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is the man is away from his victim. Castiel pulls, and the man is on the ground, screaming.

“Be quiet,” Castiel says. His words slip into the world easily, modulations in the waves.

The screams stop.

He watches as the man stares up at him, wide-eyed, as he scuttles back with the use of just one hand, as he tries to rise and falls. Whether the man leaves or ends in a heap is irrelevant. The woman is still curled on the ground, her own eyes almost as wide, as shocked, as the man’s.

“Are you hurt?” Castiel asks.

“What the fuck are you?” she asks, her voice hoarse.

He thinks. This answer feels like it should be important, like it should matter. He finds, after some thought, that it doesn’t.

“Nothing important,” he says. “Can you stand?”

She lets him help her up, her eyes darting from him to the spaces around him and back. He doesn’t comment on it. He can feel his wings flared out around him, still battle-ready, and feels regret that he can’t see as well as he would like. The outlines behind him show the attacker hasn’t made it far. He’s huddled behind a dumpster further up the street.

Ignoring the man, Castiel helps the woman limp from the alley, pausing when they reach the street. His brow crinkles.

“Where did you come from?” she asks. He hears the numbness of shock in her question.

“Heaven,” he says.

She nods as though she expected an answer like that, and adjusts the way she’s standing.

“Looks like it hurt,” she says. “You got a place?”

He thinks fleetingly of the small room with its blank TV showing him endless loops of illusionary light, of the bed with its nest of blankets. Of the dwindling pile of cash.

“No.”

“I do,” she says. “I probably shouldn’t invite you back. Probably a murderer or something. You going to murder me?”

“No. You aren’t an angel.”

Because he murders angels. He can’t seem to stop murdering angels, no matter how much he doesn’t want to.

She laughs as though he’s said something funny and adjusts her grip again. They’re two blocks away from his room before Castiel realizes she’s the one holding him up. The world is soft around the edges, the sidewalk spongy and wavering, and he watches the waves in the air as she leads him wherever it is they’re going.

It doesn’t matter where she takes him. He’ll float, wherever it is.

******************************

“So,” she says, handing him a cup of water and folding herself into the chair nearby. “What do you do? Hang out in alleys and leap on muggers?”

They’re in a room with chairs and a settee, with biscuit colored drapes at the windows and shelves of books against one wall. Castiel isn’t sure when they got here.

“I was in my room,” he says.

“There weren’t any windows-” She stops, her mouth forming an O. “Wait. Wait. You jumped from…? Do you need a doctor? Is that why you weren’t walking right? I thought you were just, like, high.”

“I was high.” The room was at least three stories up. “But I don’t need… There’s no point in a doctor. For me.”

What’s wrong with Castiel can’t be fixed. Dean and Sam already tried, and he failed them. He’s not sure he has it in him to try again. Buffering the pain is all he can cope with.

Another thought slithers across his mind.

“Do you? Need a doctor? Did he hurt you?”

She shakes her head, pulling in on herself. If she had wings, they’d be wrapped tight around her, the tips folding together over the tops of her feet. For a moment, he thinks he sees them.

“No. No, I’m just…I’m just bruised. I, er, I can’t seem to stop shaking.”

She laughs, a tiny, broken thing that judders the ends of her last word. Castiel tilts his head, one of his wings lifting to get a better angle. His eyes don’t seem to be working right, not any of them. He can’t focus on her properly.

“Are you cold?” he asks.

Unlike most of his memories just now, the bite of being cold is harsh and vivid. It was amongst the least favourite of his experiences as Steve.

“No. Er. Yeah. Yeah, I’m fucking freezing.”

“Do you want a hug?”

Because that had been about the only time he’d felt warm, when Sam had hugged him, when Dean had hugged him, after they’d found him in April’s apartment, once the Reaper who’d claimed her had burned out. Once Dean had tricked her into healing Castiel. And again, a greater shock by far, when Dean had pulled him into a hug the morning after the incident at Nora’s. Just before Dean had left, and Castiel had felt the chill sink right back into his bones. Such things mattered, when you were human.

She stares at him, and it occurs to him he may have said something wrong.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says. “I just…I…”

Thoughts are hard to hold on to. Keeping one long enough to wind it into a sentence is difficult. Perhaps he is out of practice.

“No,” she says. “It’s just, you don’t seem the type of hang out in alleys. Or above them. And you look worse than I do.”

She scrubs a hand over her face, her other arm still hugged around her knees. Her next words are practically muttered into her hand.

“I’d love a hug, but I don’t know you. I don’t know what I was fucking thinking, bringing you here.”

He should go. That’s not a sentence which says he should stay here, slumped on the settee of a woman he doesn’t know anymore than she knows him, but he finds he’s reluctant to move. The will has gone from his limbs.

“I’ll go,” he says, and makes no move to do so. One of his wings sags against the cushions, the telescopic eye pressing against the thick grain of a yellowed thread.

Still with her face hidden, she makes a noise that could mean anything.

Neither one of them moves for a long time.

Castiel drifts again, not so far and not so disparate as last time, but tethered to his body more lightly than when his vessel is clear of the powder. He thinks he’ll have to re-strategize. The powder’s useful, a balm to his wounds, but it harms the vessel when taken too often. He wants to drift always, and the human body to which he’s attached needs healing too often for him to do so.

If he had his full Grace, he could heal his vessel constantly and take as much of the powder as he liked. Then again, if he had his full Grace he wouldn’t want to, and it wouldn’t have much effect on his in any case. It’s only because he’s weakened that he can use this measure to escape the feeling of weakness. He wonders if Dean would find that amusing.

Now, hours after he took the last dose, he has to seek his way into that floating, chasing down the disconnect and slipping into it. He feels there must be a way to learn how to do this without the powder. It’s taking so much of his money, even though it’s not as expensive as some drugs. But it stops the pain. Softens it. He isn’t sure if other methods would and he lacks the energy to try.

“Hey.”

The sound trickles in, an eddy in the waves. He ignores it.

“Hey. You okay? You’re… How much did you take? Hey!”

Not an eddy, now. A sudden swirl, rocking him.

He focuses three of his eyes, locking onto the figure leaning over his vessel on the second attempt. It’s the woman, her hair disheveled and her skin still pale. She looks…concerned, he thinks. That expression, those sickly yellow and dirty blue shades leaking at the edges of her form, tend to be concern, anxiety. But she’s safe here, in her home. He thinks he remembers coming to her home.

Unless she’s afraid of him.

In the far distant past, humans being afraid of him had been right and fitting. It has been a long time since he had taken that as his due. Now, it cuts. It wakes him.

“What?” he asks, aware as he narrows down to this one point again that he, his vessel, is slouched until his head is resting on the back of the settee, his legs stretched out and one of his arms numb from being half-trapped under him. “Be not… Don’t be afraid.”

He tries to lift a hand, to reassure her, he thinks, but she catches it and presses two fingers against his wrist.

“Your pulse is all weird,” she says, and it occurs to him she is not afraid of him. She’s afraid for him. The concept sits strange on his skin. “And your eyes… Did you know you were staring at nothing? Like, totally nothing. Couldn’t get you to focus. You looked dead. Fuck. Tell me how much you took, and what. You said you didn’t need a doctor. Were you lying? Did you overdose?”

He considers it. Overdose. He doesn’t think he did. It takes more for his vessel to react than it would a human, this is true. He thinks it is. In any case, it doesn’t matter.

“No,” he says, because it might be true. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t…? Do you want to die? Was saving me some last rite or something?”

His frown deepens. It hasn’t occurred to him that the powder could kill. He’s not human anymore, not that weak, frightened creature he was forced to be.

“I’m gonna be sick,” he says instead, because it’s true, and because he doesn’t know if he can look at her face, with its concern and its shock and its vague disgust, any longer. It isn’t the right face, the right shade in the eyes.

She lets him go, pointing him in the direction of a bathroom, and he clutches at the cool porcelain of the sink and latches on to his own face in the mirror. The angel inside his skin is ragged. Twisted. No. No, not inside his skin. He is the angel. The skin is pale, wan. ‘Wan’ is such a lovely word, but not one he should be able to apply to himself. To his vessel, rather.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing.

It takes effort to heal his vessel and there is little he can do about the damage to his real self. It still isn’t healing. Some of it scarred long ago, of course, but he had hoped the more recent wounds might heal better than they have. Hope. He should have learned not to let that poison him.

Cool water on his wrists and around his neck helps a little, and he eyes the shower. It wouldn’t be appropriate to use it, but there’s a bathroom back at his room. He’s never bothered to use it, but it’s there.

“You dead in there?” the woman shouts through the door. “I don’t want to have to drag a corpse out of my bathroom.”

When he pulls the door open, taking two tries to latch onto the handle, she’s standing a couple of feet away, frowning, with her arms crossed.

“You’re not okay,” she says, and it’s a pronouncement. “I just got attacked by some bastard in an alley, and you saved me, and you’re not okay.”

Castiel waits for her to reach the end of her thought.

She bites her lip and stares at him for long enough he should probably feel odd. Instead, he has to push away an image of Dean.

“You can’t go wandering off again in that state,” she says at last. “I’ve…called my friend. She’s coming over. Bringing her sister. So, you can stay, because we’ll all be here to keep an eye on you. Right?”

He has to brace himself in the doorway with his wings to keep steady enough to stare back. She seems sincere. Forcing his eyes, his real eyes, to sharpen, he looks into her. As far as he can tell, she isn’t a Reaper. And he isn’t human, isn’t as fragile, has already woken up here once without a blade to his throat or ropes on his arms.

“Do you have a TV?” he asks.

Her friends arrive as he’s sitting with his feet tucked up on the settee and his arms around his legs, his chin resting on a knee. Bluish light plays across his human skin and he finds himself watching that as much as the screen. It’s been hard to lose himself in the show. He isn’t sure why.

The scrape of the front door opening distracts him from the scene, and he resettles his wings, folding a set around his feet, another round his body. He doesn’t hide his face. It isn’t as though there’s any glory left to shield.

“He’s in here,” he hears, and the space in the room becomes crowded.

“Hey, there,” a new voice says. A lower voice than the woman he saved, and who has taken him in without meaning to. “I’m Riva. Can you talk to me? Are you hurting anywhere?”

He frowns, his eyes flickering to a woman crouching before him on the floor. She got close without him realizing. He shouldn’t have let that happen. It’s…worrying. It should be.

“Can you at least tell me your name?” Riva asks.

She’s looking up at him, balanced on the balls of her feet, her hands curled loosely, relaxed. She’s heather-grey and sage-green. He turns every open eye on her, the wings at his back opening wider. It takes three goes before his tongue will form the shapes he needs.

“I’m fine.”

He watches the lie slide off her, her mouth tightening into some version of a smile, soft and sympathetic.

“I’m a doctor. I can see you’re not fine.” She ducks her head, as though that will give her a better view. “Listen, you saved my friend. Even with whatever you’ve taken and whatever’s wrong, you saved Beth for me, and there is no way I’m calling the cops or whatever it is you think I’ll do to you. I just want to help. Any way I can. Let me help you.”

“I don’t need help,” he says. “I just need…”

He doesn’t know how to finish the sentence.

Riva tilts her head. She speaks as softly as she smiles, as though it’s just the two of them in the room. Castiel should be able to keep track of a whole room easily, but his awareness keeps slipping away from him.

“You’re hurting,” she says, “and whatever drug it is you think is helping you, it’s only going to make it worse. But I’m not here to talk you into a drug’s program. Not right now. I want to know if I can help with any injuries. Come on. You helped my friend. Give me something to work with so I can help you. At least give me a name.”

A name. Not his name. Names are important, but…

He can’t give his name, not the one he’s worn for millions of years. Not any of them. And he isn’t human now; the name he wore then won’t fit, though he isn’t sure, in this moment, if it would be too large or too small.

“I don’t… I can’t,” he says. “I don’t have one I can use.”

Her eyes widen, just a fraction, and her lips part. Her wants to lean into her sympathy, wants to run from it.

“Right,” she says. “Right. Then we’ll just have to think of one for to you to borrow. For now. Now, will you tell me what hurts?”

The enormity of the question is still impossible, but he gives her what he can.

“Um. My knee. I…I hurt my knee.”

“Okay, then,” she says. “Can I see? Will that be okay?”

He manages to unfold himself enough to let her look, her hands as soft and warm as the rest of her, and he floats a little less.

Chapter Text

These sheets are cool against his human skin, and they burn. He lies flat on his back, because that is how Riva left him, the material she slid over his shins adding an unfamiliar pressure. His knee is just bruised, but she thinks he’s splintered his shins. He hasn’t told her it’s almost nothing against the fractures already running through his real body.

He caught the look in her eyes when she reached for his head, when he flinched. He wishes he didn’t see that.

It’s a fuller, heavier thought than it needs to be, but he had no powder on him when he jumped from that window, and despite his efforts he is tethered fully once again to this time, this body. He is trapped in it. And he still doesn’t know why it won’t heel.

After other injuries, he’s been able to fix the vessel almost at once. Not when he was cut off from Heaven, not when he had foreign Grace, and not when he was Steve, true. But other times, no matter the wound, he smoothed it away and moved on. Even when Dean…even back in the library, before he’d even pulled himself up from the floor, before he retrieved his blade from the book, he wiped away the hurts done to his human form.

He was always taught that a wound should only be considered at all while it lasted, and only then if it slowed down the mission. He taught that lesson to others, to the ones who served under him in the garrison. Reminded them of it, rather, because they had already been taught, or had it programmed into them. His own coding seems to be faulty. He can’t wash clean the wounds he’s suffered in the last hours, and he can’t move past the ones already healed. He’s letting it interfere with his mission.

Sam and Dean told him to heal. Riva says lying in this bed will allow him to heal. Those thoughts don’t seem to be lining up as they should.

The door to the room is shut, but he hears the voices outside it anyway. He isn’t sure if a human would hear, or if the women don’t care.

“He’s a drug addict, Beth. You brought home a bloody drug-addict. After all those reports of attacks. After you were attacked! Did you hit your head or something? Is this concussion? Riva, did you check her head?”

That’s the third person, the one whose name Castiel doesn’t know. It may have been said, but if it was it slipped past him and disappeared.

“Yes, I checked her head.” Riva, still calm and sage, but firm. “And he’s not caused any harm. I’ve a duty of care-”

“Duty of care? To some homeless drug-”

“He’s not homeless.” That’s the woman from the alley. Beth. That’s Beth. “He jumped out of his room to save me.”

“Yeah, right. He jumped from ten stories up to save you from a rapist. Sure he did.”

“I never said ten- No. You know what? I get that you’re worried, but he saved me, and we don’t know what that guy would have done, and, yeah, I must have been in shock or something to bring him back here, but he’s done us no harm. He fucking saved me! Listen to yourself, will you? It’s like you’ve swallowed a Republican or some shit. You’ll be telling me he’s an alien next.”

“You said he claims to be from Heaven. Can’t be much more alien than that.”

Riva shushes them both. Castiel lifts a wing, just one, so he can see the door, see through it. Their outlines are hazy, Beth standing with her arms crossed and Riva between the others and the door, one hand on the third woman’s shoulder.

“He’s ill, okay? I’m pretty sure he’s taken too much, and his legs are messed up. And he looks like he’s hurting pretty much everywhere.”

“And he looks like someone’s hurt him,” Beth adds quietly. “Did you see how he reacted when you reached for him?”

“So he’s been hurt. Abused. So what?” The third woman pulls back, letting Riva’s arm drop. “Everyone’s got their issues, you know. Doesn’t mean it’s safe to bring them home and go full healer on them. He’s not a stray dog. You going to get him a basket and a collar? A bowl with his name on?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Beth says, putting her hand to her face, echoes of her action trailing blue and beige after her. “I’m not saying he’s a dog. And I’m not saying this was a good idea, but I’m not throwing him out now.”

“Maybe he wants to go,” the third woman says. “He’s probably wanting a hit or something. He’ll be climbing the walls for a fix soon. What are you going to do then? Tie him down?”

An image of a chair, of being held down in a chair with white light all around, flashes through his mind. It wasn’t real. That chair was never real. Analogues and proxies, a shape crafted to last into his envesseled state. He tells himself that what was done to him there, in Naomi’s part of Heaven, wasn’t really being tied down in the sense these people mean it. He tells himself that.

His heart beats hard in his chest.

“If you’re going to be like this, just go,” Beth says, the edge of exasperation stronger. It’s a tone he’s heard on Sam. “No. Don’t look at me like that. I asked you both to come because I needed you, but I can’t cope with this. I’m not throwing him out and I’m not going to fucking tie him down. You sound like you’re the one who’s taken drugs. Fuck’s sake.”

Beth’s words strike him, shattering some of the panic. Yes. Panic. That’s what he’s feeling. He hates it, hates that he knows the shapes and textures and colours of things like panic, of emotional pain.

That he both fears Naomi’s chair and longs for it.

“I’m not going anywhere,” the nameless one says. Disgust makes her words slither into the air around Castiel. “Like I’m going off and leaving the two of you with him. You’ll have adopted him by the end of tomorrow, if I leave you to yourselves. God, Beth, I’d have thought… Never mind. I’m going to make something to drink. I suppose you’ll want me to make something for him, as well.”

And she turns and leaves, her outline wavering after her in streaks of ocher and lime-green as she vanishes down the hall. He lets her fade out of his sight, watches the other two.

“I hate to say it,” Riva says, “but she does have a point. The amount he must have taken, the state he was in when I got here, let alone the way you say he was earlier, he’s going to be wanting more. I didn’t find any on him. Did you?”

“Didn’t look.”

“Right. I suppose… Well, we could call someone.” Riva pauses, shifts on her feet. “I get that he helped you, and my heart goes out to him, it does, but he isn’t actually your problem, Beth. There are people who can help him.”

“Really?” Beth asks. “You’re going to try to sell me that line?”

They both fall silent. Castiel is finding it harder to keep an eye on them. His wing aches. Still, it’s wiser to know what they’re saying, to know where they are. He isn’t safe in his room here, and there’s no TV in this room, nothing to distract him. In theory, he could latch onto the correct waves with no screen to stare at, but the trick seems beyond him with nothing to tell his human eyes to look at. It must be some part of his vessel’s brain, some reluctance to stare at nothing and see everything. Humans rarely see the infinity coiled in every spec of their surroundings. It’s frustrating to know what’s out there and still not to be able to access it.

When they both move away, in opposite directions, he lets his wing sag. He’s torn between wanting to know everything that’s happening around him and wanting to not even be aware there is an around him. He wants to be back in his room, if he has to be anywhere, with the TV and his cash and his bag of clothes. He wasn’t wearing his jacket when he jumped. It must still be in the room, on the hanger where he leaves it, no matter how cold he is. Every time he’s tried to put it on, he’s felt Dean’s hands near his throat.

He’s let his wings sag through the bed and doesn’t realise anyone is coming until the door opens.

“Brought you a drink.”

It’s the third one. The doubting one. She frowns at him, the curls of her hair doing nothing to make her less hard, less sharp in her disapproval. He finds he wants to disappear. He’s had enough of being looked at and found wanting.

His throat works as he struggles to find suitable words. He fails. He closes every eye he can, turns the rest away.

“It’s mint. I find it helps, when I’m hung-over. No idea if it’s the same with…er. Well, anyway. Can’t hurt.”

The clatter as the cup touches down near his head makes him grimace.

“Headache?” He hears the drag of something across the floor, and the sound of weight settling. Her voice is closer when she speaks again. “I need to say something, all right? And I know this is going to sound harsh, and Beth’s grateful for your help last night, and I’m glad I don’t have to pick my friend up from hospital or..or worse, but she’s had it rough. Like, really rough. And she doesn’t need any more. So, you need to keep in mind that I’m keeping an eye on you. All right? And you’d better not cause her any pain. You got that?”

Even with trying not to see her, something of her fierce, blazing meaning soaks through to him, a brighter green than her sister, shot through with gold. It loosens the words in this throat.

“I got that.”

“Good. So. All right, then. Drink your tea.”

He catches sight of her back as she leaves the room, her hair a mass of dark curls, and he realises he still doesn’t know her name, and she still hasn’t asked him for his, but he feels he understands her better than he does the others. She wants to see her people safe. She burns with it. He gets that.

He will not bring harm to these women.

***************************

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

Beth skids to a stop in front of him, cutting off the front door, and it takes him a moment to stop. His bare socked feet skid on the wooden boards, his wings flaring in a pointless attempt to keep him upright. He isn’t so close to falling that he needs that.

“Home.”

It tastes like a lie.

“Home? In the state you’re in? Do you have anyone to look after you there?”

“No.” He turns his mind from the bunker, from the room with its bed and its TV and the piles of clothes bought just for him. With the cash and the jacket and the shoes he left behind when he jumped. “I won’t cause you trouble.”

“You’re not…” Beth stops, pressing her lips together and closing her eyes briefly. “She came and had a go at you, didn’t she? Gave you the protective, ‘Beth doesn’t need any hassle’ speech.” When she opens her eyes, the green in them is stronger. “Hang on a minute.”

She puts up a finger, as though that will be enough to stall him, and turns her head.

“Val! Get your ass in here.”

Moments later, all three women are crowded between him and the door, a solid wall he can’t go around and can’t go through without risking harm to them. He’s promised himself they won’t fall victim to the wave of destruction he leaves. He already owes them too much, just for their kindness. Even the third woman. Val.

“Why are you out of bed?” Riva asks, moving past her sister and reaching for him. She stops short of touching him, her arms out as though she can usher him where she will. “Are you looking for something?” She bites her lip. “You know that won’t help, right? The drugs? Not in the long term.”

“I’m not… I…”

But it’s a lie, of sorts. He doesn’t want to harm them. He wants to go back to his room. He wants to float. His skin itches and burns and his insides feel bruised. It must be jumping from that window. But the powder can let him float, and it can white out the thoughts in his head, of how he tried to help one woman and ended up needing help, of how he is causing upset to her friends.

“Listen,” Riva says, her voice dropping into that same soothing tone from the night before, “I don’t know how you feel, and I’m not trying to make whatever it is you’re going through worse, but you’re hurt. You shouldn’t be on your own. Is there at least someone we could call?”

It really doesn’t help that both Val and Beth have green eyes. It would be easier not to think of him if they didn’t both have green eyes. At least Riva’s are brown.

“I can’t call him,” he says, mostly to himself.

He catches the looks on their faces, but he isn’t sure what they mean.

“If you really need something from your place,” Beth says, stepping closer until she’s only just over Riva’s shoulder, “then I’ll take you to get it, okay? You can’t walk back with your legs like that. It must hurt just to stand.”

It does. Of course it does. But it has hurt just to stand, or sit, or lie down, for so long that it’s become meaningless. He doesn’t think saying that will stop Riva and Beth from looking concerned. He chooses silence.

“Beth-” Val says.

“No. You’ve obviously made your opinion clear,” Beth says, her chin up. “Riva? You stay here with Val. I’ll go get our friend here home.”

Riva looks troubled, but she steps back and lets Castiel past. He casts one last glance at Val as he goes, and thinks he sees something like triumph, something like shame.

***************************

Beth drives slowly, her car slipping into traffic and out as though it just happens to part before her. Castiel can’t say his own experience of driving has been like that. Not in a town or a city. The car itself is quiet, with padded cream seats and heating. It’s a different sort of luxury to the Triumph, to the Impala. He thinks Dean would hate it.

“You don’t have to call him, you know,” Beth says. “You don’t have to call anyone you don’t want to.”

He watches her, taking in the side of her face with her smooth skin almost golden where the light touches it, light brown where it doesn’t. Her hair curls even more than Val’s, gold again. She looks more like an angel than he ever has.

“Okay,” he says.

“No, I… I know that tone,” she says. “I used to use that tone. When my friends told me I didn’t have to stay with him, my him, I answered like that, and I went back, and… Look, I’m not telling you what to do, and you’ve obviously already left, and that’s a strong move, but I wasn’t telling you to ring him. You get that, right?”

Castiel isn’t sure he understands anything she’s saying, but his silence seems to be enough.

She adjusts her grip on the steering wheel, flexing her fingers and curling them back around the leather.

“You want to stay in that room, alone, and…shoot up, or whatever it is you do, then…” She sighs. “It’s not up to me to tell you what to do, but Riva said, from what she could see, you didn’t look like you’d been taking it for all that long, that your body…er…there weren’t all that many signs. So. Maybe it’s something you can… I mean, do you want to take it? I… God, I’m bad at this.”

“No,” he says. It surprises him, to feel that word slip out. “No, I don’t want… I don’t want to have to.”

“Then why do it?”

He can’t hear any judgment there. Just curiosity. Concern. Even so, it stings. He doesn’t need her to judge him. He’s already been judged and found wanting. He addresses his words to his own hands, to the long fingers and the knuckles which have bled and broken so many times.

“I want the pain to stop.”

And it’s so quiet in this car, so liminal in a way that lulls him into feeling what he says here won’t matter, that he finds himself going on.

“I’ve tried to make it stop, but it won’t. It just keeps hurting. I’m broken. He said I was broken. He said… I just want it to stop, but I can’t… Maybe it would have been better, if I’d chosen death.”

She can’t know about the Rit Zien, but her lips part and he feels the bolt of dark grey shock running through her. She is easier to read, all three of them are, than even Sam and Dean.

“Death isn’t a choice to rush into,” she says, her words calmer, brighter, than the roiling mass of reaction leaking through her skin. “I know it might feel, sometimes, like it’s the only way out, but it’s not. And you’ve already done something it took me years to do. You’ve left. Right? You have left him?”

“Yes,” he says, because it’s true. He has left Dean, because his presence in the bunker, where Dean had to see how Castiel was failing to heal, was causing pain, and only one of them had to hurt. “Yes, I left.”

“Good,” Beth says. Breathes. “That’s good. That’s a hard step.”

Words fail him, as they often seem to. She can’t have any idea how hard, or what it means to at least think he’s spared Dean more hurt, more disappointment. It causes an uncomfortable feeling, that even without knowing any details she knows it’s better he left. It must be more obvious than he thought that he shouldn’t have tried to stay.

They drive in silence for some time, and Beth pulls to a halt, switching off the engine and staring at nothing as she chews her lip. Castiel decides she must be waiting for him to get out, and he puts his hand out to the door handle. Her voice stops him.

“They don’t tell you how hard that is, do they? Leaving. Even after you know you have to, it can be so hard. And then what comes after is… And I had people around me, still. Enough of them. I had my job. Do you? Have anyone? Have a job?”

His only job is healing. Dean said. And he’s failing at it. But that’s likely not the sort of job she means.

“No. No job. No anyone. Just…me.” He can see she’s upset by his words. “It’s okay, Beth. I’ve been on my own before. At least I have a room to sleep in this time.”

He isn’t sure why that makes her look less happy. It’s good, to have a room.

“And I have enough money for a few more weeks. If I’m careful.”

If he doesn’t take much more of the powder, if he spaces it out. He’s faced pain before. He should be able to do that.

“What are you going to do then?” she asks.

But he can’t answer that. He doesn’t know.

*********************************

He has to break the chain on his door to get back in, and now it’s even less safe than it was. After some thought, he takes a chair from the kitchen area, wedges it under the door handle. It’s better than nothing.

He thought, for a minute or two, that Beth was intending to come up to his room with him. She asked which one it was, at any rate, and nodded as though she needed to know. But when he slipped out, said goodbye as firmly as he could manage, she let him walk away on his own. Hobble. Limp.

Now, he moves to pack the few belonging which have been scattered round the room into his bag. He feels he needs to have it all ready to go, just in case. Just in case.

When that’s done, he takes out another dose of the powder. And he goes to the bed. And he floats.

*********************************

Wood-grain is coarse against his forehead. He leans against the door, one hand near the handle, and thinks. Tries to think. He may need to leave his room, but there is so much noise and chaos out there. And he isn’t healed. The pain in his shins is bright sparks of lime green, of electric blue. High notes, sharp and small and more than enough to make him wish he could drift. But he must have been given less than he thought, because already he hasn’t any left. It should have lasted him more days, more time spent away from the flesh he’s forced to live in, from the true self which should never be allowed to survive with this much damage.

A new fear has bloomed in his mind, taking root after his conversation with Beth. He should have chosen death. Death would not contain this pain.

Still, a small, stubborn spark refuses, and is afraid that his pain will call another Rit Zien. Pain was enough on its own for Ephram to find him, warding tattoo or no, and his pain now is no less. It’s not human, but the Rit Zien never normally focused on human pain, so it follows one of their number is even more likely to come for him now.

Perhaps one is already looking for him, perhaps they have only been thrown by the powder, by the times he is not hurting. He needs more powder. But his supplier hasn’t been back.

He needs to leave his room. He needs to find more powder.

The door creaks as he presses down on the handle, creaks and doesn’t move. Ah. Of course. He’s still leaning his forehead against it. He needs to shift, to move his weight back and support himself entirely on his human legs. If he doesn’t, he can’t leave his room to find a way to be less human. He thinks there’s some irony in that, or some message, but he can’t work out what, or if there’s no meaning at all.

If a Rit Zien comes now, it will find him with his head pressed against a thin board of wood, sagging and useless. He isn’t sure, in this moment, if he will even beg for his life. The thought is so real he almost expects the door to move, to push inward, driving him back onto the ground. He remembers the feel of the floor under his knees as he looked up at Ephraim. He remembers the desperate desire to live. It’s frustrating that he can’t capture that feeling now. Such epiphanies should be lasting. Many things should be lasting. He’s lost track of the moment he realised they’re not.

Opening every eye, he pulls back, hissing at the flare of pain through his legs, and hauls the door open. The corridor beyond is empty. It doesn’t stop him from seeking the wavering outlines of people in the rooms, searching ahead to be sure no-one will appear suddenly around a corner. He’s let his guard down and suffered for it too many times.

His head throbs with every step, the floor solid under his feet in a way it hasn’t been for days. Maybe weeks. He finds it isn’t an improvement.

Holding on to the wall will only bring notice he doesn’t need. He forces himself to walk unaided, bracing himself with his wings where he can, and it costs him too much effort to reach the street.

He almost turns around as the noise and movement outside hits him. Almost. The need to find a way to soften his pain keeps him from limping back right away. It’s just, it was bad enough when he jumped to save Beth, and that had been later, quieter, and he’d been driven by the need to save, to protect. There is no-one for him to protect now but himself, and he has proved himself to be a poor choice for that task. Still, Dean said… Dean said he was to heal. He’s not been relieved of that mission, no matter that he left Dean and ran.

A tug under his breastbone turns him to the right, makes him point in the direction of that side-street. He’s aware he could follow it, that he could slip behind the wheel of the Triumph, where it sits with its warding sigils protecting it from those who have no right to it, and that he could drive. He could drive back to Sam. And to Dean. It would mean an end to being alone. It would been an end to hurting alone. His fingers twitch against his thigh. He turns the other way.

Two blocks away from his room he finds himself standing against the wall of a building, his back to the brick, the busy swirl of Charlottesville pushing at him. There are so many people. Where he lived before, when he worked for Nora and worked to hide that he was sleeping in the store-room, there weren’t so many people. The energy drains him, makes him hazy. There is too much, too much of everything, and not enough of him. He doesn’t want to be a fixed point, but he doesn’t want to be buffeted by the myriad presences of others.

The river of humanity threatens to drown him, as though it hasn’t done so more than once already. Pressing back against the wall, he tries to think, but everything is fractured, the colors discordant and refusing to line up. He just has to find his supplier. There must be some clue, in all this sea of people, as to where he might find the boy.

Castiel was a hunter. Tried to be a hunter. He should be able to track people the human way.

He first met the man near the Thunderbird, two days after arriving in town, when he’d been weak enough to let the car pull him back. With pain etching its way down his wings, he’d had the car key in his hand when the man had almost run into him, asking if he wanted something as a pick-me-up, or something to help him have a good time. That was the only time the man was in the side-street. He will have to hunt in other places.

A glimmer of a memory comes back to him, of the boy, talking about a lecture, about a lecturer who was hot and who should give him more attention. Castiel had ignored the comment, taken the powder, and shut the door in his face. Still, it’s a clue. Lectures mean colleges, he knows that much. He needs to find the college.

Movement used to be so purposeful, a matter of folding space and collapsing to the correct point, the ability to expand to multiple points always on the cusp of action. Now, he has to ask people for directions, people who look at him with pity or with irritation or with fear. He thinks he has seen each of those expressions in Sam or Dean’s eyes since Sam saw the cracks in him and pointed them out to Dean. He finds he doesn’t like it much better when it’s strangers staring at him that way.

He pulls his wings in and walks with his head down, setting his jaw against the jarring of each step. He isn’t sure how long splintered shins take to heal. He isn’t used to needing time to heal.

The walk is long. Arduous. More than one person has told him, when he’s asked those who look like students along the way, that he may find the person he seeks sitting on a bench. He thinks he has clear enough directions to find it.

By the time he arrives, sweat runs in a rivulet down his back and his shirt sticks to him. He finds the bench near a wavering wall and sits, closing his human eyes and letting five of his angelic ones keep watch. He just needs a moment. Just one moment, and he’ll keep a proper look out for the man who brings him a way to ease his pain.

He may sit there for too long, and his angelic senses are less and less focused in time. The irony of that, that he’s stuck in this form, in one moment after another, but that his real self can focus less and less on it, is not lost. Perhaps it should strike him as amusing. It hardly matters. When he opens his human eyes, the light is faded. It’s almost evening.

Losing time…he has no idea if he’s being doing that a lot, lying alone in his room.

He feels beached, cast up on the shores of humanity when he should be deep in the waves. It’s not a pleasant feeling. If he could just float again, could just slip back into the waters, even just the shallows…but for that he needs his powder.

“Hey. Hey, it is you. What are you doing here?”

That voice is edging on familiar. It takes valuable seconds to clutch the name, drag it up, and it reaches his tongue only as a warm body lands next to him on the bench.

“Val.”

She’s not as hard today, not as smooth-marble edges shot through with fire. Something of regret lingers as she turns her eyes on him. He shifts and lets his human eyes drift to his feet.

“You never did tell us your name.”

It’s an observation, but something in it hints at an invitation, too. Or a demand. He isn’t sure which.

“No.”

It isn’t that his name is important. Not now. Not with what he is, whatever that is. In the past, he name was an honor, a shield, but every name he’s owned now feels wrong. Besides, there is power in a name, and he has so little power that the thought of giving any to another sets a discordant note ringing distantly in his mind.

“Well, we’ve got to call you something,” Val says, as though he’s someone she will need to speak to again. “If you don’t want to tell me, I’ll have to think of something.”

He doesn’t respond.

“Beth’s been wondering about coming round to see you,” Val goes on, as though they have run into each other before, as though this is common. “She’s nearly got Riva talked round. Personally, I think they both need some sense knocking into them.”

They’ve been thinking of coming to his room? Castiel folds his wings more tightly to his back.

“Of course, they barely listen to me,” Val says. Her tone is far too cheerful for what she’s saying. “I’m only pointing out that having some strange drug-addict in the house might be a bit on the dangerous side, and that turning up at his door might not be a great idea. What would I know?”

This time, when he doesn’t answer, he hears her move. Two of his angelic eyes flinch up to track her movement, but she only turns to face him. She only trails her gaze up and down his human shell.

“You look like crap,” she says.

“Yes,” he says, because she’s most likely right.

“Have you even eaten since you were at Beth’s?” She snorts and stands, not waiting for an answer. This is good, as she isn’t going to get one. “All right, let’s get a few things straight. I am not a bleeding heart like they are, but I’m not going to sit here and watch the starve to death in front of me, so get your ass off that bench and come with me. There’s a pretty decent place we can get some soup and that. It’ll give me chance to think of a name. Well? You coming?”

He needs to find the man, to find more of his powder. But she burns brightly, brilliant apple green against the dull sky. He turns his human eyes to join his others, her light increasing as he does so. He finds himself having to squint.

Her hand is out. He takes it.

“Yes. Yes, I’m coming.”

“Great.” She tugs at him and he follows, letting her pull him into some form of movement. “Oh,” she says, as they take their first steps away from the bench, “and don’t you dare go telling Beth or my sister anything about this. You get me?”

“I get you,” he says slowly, though he has no idea that he does.

She nods in any case, adjusting the bag over her shoulder as they walk. It looks heavy.

“Awesome,” she says. “Because the last thing we need is them thinking they should take you on as a charity case. So, what do you think about tomato soup? Or are you more or a potato and leak kind of guy?”

Castiel find he has no words left in him, and he follows this woman in silence. The bench sits empty.

Chapter Text

A smear of soup glares on the edge of the bowl, near-orange against the white. It holds Castiel’s attention far more than it should. He has to avoid Val’s eyes, of course. She doesn’t like it when he uses. But he found his supplier, found him on a different bench, and he’s needed just a little, just enough to keep him from drowning out amongst all the people.

The clatter of a spoon on wood announces Val’s intent to speak.

“You do know staring at that bowl isn’t hiding anything from me, right? I can see just from the way you’re sitting that you’ve taken some. You’re all…floppy compared to normal.”

If he looks up, if he settles any of his true eyes on her, he’ll see her waving her hand, her lips pursed. It’s strange, to think he already knows this about her. It’s stranger that his wings only twitch a little when she speaks that way.

“Val,” he says, but doesn’t know how to continue.

“I’m not my sister. I’m not going to give you a speech about not pressuring you or not judging or anything. This shit’s got to be hurting you. But you’re old enough to make your own choices, so what can I do about it?”

She’s already given him reason to leave his room, however briefly, and however much he shakes himself near to pieces when he crawls back onto his bed. Leaving the room drains every bit of energy he has, and his shins still hurt. Even at the rate humans heal, it seems endless. He’s caught Val casting a look at his legs, a concern she won’t admit to in her eyes.

“Nothing,” he says, because it’s a game they play, it seems.

She must be able to believe she’s doing this purely to keep Castiel from bothering her sister and her friend, that she cares nothing for him and barely tolerates being in his presence. She must be able to pretend no influence or connection. He’s only known her for a short while, but already he adds these details to his store of knowledge about her. She cares too much and won’t admit it.

“Damn straight,” she says, but her voice is muted.

Castiel frowns at the bowl. His thoughts are sluggish, and piecing together a set of words to send into the world is harder than it should be. Still, he manages it.

“You’re worried about something,” he says.

“You’re not even looking at me,” she says. “How would you know?”

“I see you.”

The words slip out too easily now, his inability to stay focused stretching to his tongue. It’s disconcerting, how he’s slow and still and bound down by a weight he can’t identify, unable to move, and restless and light and almost non-existent, and overloaded and present and pained, in ever-changing, unpredictable sequence. His human head feels to be perched on his body, at risk of rolling off, and speech is barely under his control. Perhaps he took more of the powder than he’d realised, but it works less and less well, and he needs to dull the pain. If a Rit Zien finds him, him with his unhealing injuries, he won’t be able to protect the people around him. The thought of his own death fills him with nothing but a vague sense of relief, right here and in this moment, but he knows that this morning he wanted to live. A bar of sunlight fell across his bed, across him, and for a whole half an hour he wanted to live. It’s progress. He thinks it’s progress.

He realizes Val has stilled and glances up, his head still lowered. He’s stopped looking at her with his angelic eyes as much as he can. She burns green and vibrant and it stings as much as it soothes. Now, she bites her lower lip, her brow pinched, and avoids meeting his eyes.

“I’ve been thinking,” she says, a rush of sound tumbling from her barely parted lips. “I’ve been thinking you maybe aren’t going to kill us all in our sleep.”

She pauses as though giving him space to contradict her, and Castiel wonders if he should try a joke, if he should try saying he would only attempt to kill them when they were awake, for the increase in challenge. He has never been good at judging what humans will find funny. What anyone else will find funny, really. He decides such a joke may not appeal.

“So,” Val goes on, “Beth’s having, like, a party thing this weekend. Saturday night. And she knows I’ve been having lunch with someone. Some brat of a student blabbed to her in office hours. Can you believe it? Gossiping about a lecturer with another lecturer. Pathetic. Anyway, now Beth’s convinced I’ve got a boyfriend and says I should bring him along.”

Oh. The thought sits on the surface of his mind, eating its way only slowly into his understanding, but he can feel the shape of it, see the shade it casts. He’s aware that when it settles, it will adjust his thoughts, his feelings.

“I see,” he says, finally. “You…you should take him, if you want to.”

That seems like the sort of thing people say, on the shows where the characters are friends and where they support each other. He likes those ones best. They seem to have harmonious scripts, everyone reading from the same one, a thing Castiel has rarely managed. Perhaps he has chosen the right script this time.

Val snorts, her gaze flicking to him and away.

“Yeah, right. Bit of an issue with that one, though, isn’t there? Who am I eating lunch with right now?”

“Me?” Castiel tries. It doesn’t sound like a trick question, but he didn’t always recognize those with Dean until it was too late. Human conversation has too many snakes hiding in the long grass, and Castiel, so unsure of so much, is certain he doesn’t want to be bitten. Not again.

“Exactly,” Val says, and sits back, folding her arms as though she’s made her point.

The shape of what she’s telling him sinks further, descending after its shadow, and he forces his wings to still, his back stiffening as he feels their weight. He must be calm. Through the fog in his mind and the heavy smoke in his limbs, he must be calm. This isn’t important. It’s just…just soup, and sitting on a chair across from a woman who doesn’t trust him. It really isn’t so very much to give up.

“I see,” he says. “It… I understand.”

“Good!” She moves, unfolding, resting her forearms on the table. There’s more light in her eyes. Relief, or excitement. Something. “So you get it.”

“Yes. I get it.”

It’s a struggle to keep looking at her, but she’s met his eyes now, and he remembers how Dean’s lips pressed together whenever Castiel let his human eyes slip away from Dean during a conversation. Annoyance, he thinks. It didn’t used to cut.

“Again with the good,” Val says. Her lips tug into a smile, something almost fond settling on her face. “Beth is going to flip. I tell you.”

Castiel manages something like a smile. An approximation, at least. It’s just one more pretense after many over the years.

“Oh, come on. It won’t be that bad,” Val says. Her energy is rising, her body almost vibrating. Even with his human eyes, Castiel sees the waves of apple green and amber leaking from her skin. “Tell you what, we’ll not tell her, all right? Let her think what she wants. She’ll freak. It’ll teach her to call me-”

She cuts off, presses her lips together, shakes her head. The colors dim for a moment. Just a moment.

“You know what? Never mind. This is going to be awesome.”

Castiel tells himself he’s glad Val is so excited to take this new boyfriend of hers to a party. It really won’t be very much of a sacrifice, giving up meeting her. She’s right. Castiel taking up her time must be getting in the way, and she’s kind to let him know in person, instead of simply not turning up to meet him, instead of beating him and leaving him on the floor. He scratches over that last thought, tries to blot it out before it can taint this last meal with Val. He finds he has to do that with many images, many times.

She’s pleased with herself as she pays their bill, frowning away Castiel’s attempt to offer money. No. He must keep it. She always tells him this. He hasn’t told her how small his stack of bills is getting, but she seems to have an idea.

The sun is bright when they step outside, making him squint. He stares up at the clouds, at the wispy streaks of them, and startles at hands settling on his collar.

“You, Kasper,” Val says, as she tugs at his jacket until it’s properly closed, “need to remember you have a body, all right? Those…you might get in this mindset where you don’t have to worry about it, but the weather doesn’t care how insulated you feel in your head. You might still get a chill. And then who’d end up looking after you? Eh?”

That thought joins the other, the one already sitting, weighty and cold, in his mind. She’s right, of course. Who would look after him? He ran from the only two to try. He’s failed them by not letting them help him, by not being helped by them.

The coat collar tickles at the skin under his throat.

“I’d be all right,” he says. “I can look after myself. And I’ve asked you not to call me that.”

She mustn’t be made to worry about him. She’s right to cut him loose.

“Sure you can look after yourself,” she says, ignoring the rest, as she always does. The one time she responded to that, it was to tell him his other choice was to give his real name. Her hands are still near his throat. “That’s why Riva had to patch you up. That’s why I found you on that bench, and that’s why you look half-starved every time I see you. I swear, it’s like you only eat when I make you.”

He does. He’s an angel. Food isn’t necessary. But he can’t tell her that. It isn’t food he’s hungry for.

“Okay,” she says, moving past his silence as she often does, as though he’s answered. Maybe he has and just doesn’t realize. “So, I’ll be getting back to class. First years. Got to love them. Apparently. You get home safe and stay warm. And try not to take all the drugs, okay?”

She walks away without saying she’ll see him around. Of course she does. She’s not intending to see him again.

Castiel tells himself it doesn’t matter. He walks slowly back to his room, holding the collar of his coat tightly closed.

*****************************************

It’s two days before he jitters himself off the bed and out of his room, the pain sparking lurid and sharp in his shins, through his knee, through his wings, not enough to stop him. Leaping from that window has torn something in him enough that the room is not always safety, is not always respite. Sometimes, it’s a cage.

Today, he needs to leave the bars behind and spread his wings under the sky. More, he needs some purpose.

Meeting Val for a meal wasn’t much of a purpose, but it was some purpose. Enough, it seems, to reacquaint him with the idea.

This time, he turns towards the Thunderbird.

When he reaches it, he stands and studies it, taking in the smooth lines, the green paint. He wishes it were any color other than green.

It’s clean, shining, in a way that would make no sense if not for the sigils. No-one can notice him, this car, unless they have a legitimate claim. It’s an old sigil, one not much used even in the past, but one Castiel has used before. Adapting it for metal and rubber and paint was more difficult than it would have been, had his mind been clear, but he’s always found a measure of tranquility in sigil-craft. It’s one skill, at least, which has stayed with him.

He wishes angels knew enough of emotion that the underlying coding in sigils could be written to manage what he feels, but it seems that Naomi had special knowledge, some other system, because he hasn’t been able to write anything which will work. Or maybe she only knew how to shape an angel’s mind.

He’s considered trying that, in the moments when he comes close to trying flight again, when his wings ache to lift and beat at the air and pull him away from it all. There’s a way to take one flight into nothingness, or so it was always said. Such a flight, even if he were able to make it, would go against his orders. Dean’s orders. But rewriting his mind might not. Dean told him once not to change, but he’s failed at that already, and Dean has asked things of him which he’d never have been able to do without changing, so it must be an order Dean rescinded.

The question of whether blotting out parts of himself would count as healing has taken time and energy he cannot spare, and today, staring at this car, it feels like it would be wrong. He could just give up on such thoughts. He could just open the car, slide behind the wheel, and drive back. But Dean said Castiel shouldn’t be at the bunker, and the wisps of prayer he was catching have dried up, stopped.

Turning away, he sets the car at his back and walks.

*****************************

Shouting pulls him up short. He’s only a few blocks from his room, near a small park, and night is falling. Tilting his head, he listens, strains his eyes to see.

In a clump of trees, a young man is struggling against someone larger, stronger. His shouts aren’t making it as far as words, but Castiel sees the panic streaming from him, bright orange and muddy indigo, a clash of tones which makes the air around them scream.

They warp and waver as he watches, as he tries to decide what to do.

He’s stronger than a human. Still. He pulled that man from Beth with no trouble. The young man is hurting, is scared, and no-one else seems to be near. Even so, Castiel hesitates. He left his room, has wandered for a stretch of time he can’t hold on to, circling the same area, near the car and away, near the car and away, and he’s tired. It’s ground into him, the very air starting to stab at his skin. He’s avoided walking near people for the last few circuits.

Another scream has him across the street and into the park, the branches parting before him.

“Let him go,” he says. Commands.

He thinks he commands. He isn’t sure he even manages to say the words out loud.

In any case, the attacker turns, and Castiel takes a step back. It’s not human.

Castiel feels the tip of his blade touch the skin of his fingers. It slices. In the next instant, the creature lunges, forcing Castiel back a step, and another. His wings sweep forwards, cutting off the attack, and he feels the thing hit them. The vibrations run through Castiel, through his angelic and his human body both, jarring and solid.

Pulling in air he doesn’t need, Castiel pulls his wings up sharply, feeling the pain from the thing as it leeches into the evening. An angel’s wing can cut as well as its blade, but most things can’t be touched by them. This, whatever this is, can.

A hiss is all the warning he gets before the creature flings itself forwards again, too quickly for him to get his wings in place, and he jolts, falls, lands on the hard earth. Something sharp claws into his chest, his cheek, and is gone.

The world spins without him for a while.

************************************

It’s full dark when he wakes.

The hard earth is still at his back, his wings are splayed out across it. Sobs seep through the dark.

“Are you all right?” he asks, because whoever it is, they’re hurting. He’s hurting, too, more injuries added to the tally already carved into his body, but he’s a soldier and his wounds are hardly the first.

The sobs stop, replaced by a voice which wavers just as Castiel’s vision is.

“You…you’re not dead?” It’s a man, shock colouring his words.

“Not this time,” Castiel says. “What happened?”

“It…I was walking back from class, and it just…it… Fuck. What was that? And then, you just showed up, and it… And then it ran…and I thought…I thought…”

Another sob swallows the end of his words. In the absence of further information, Castiel gathers himself and pulls his body closer to upright. He presses his right palm to the earth to brace himself, and winces. Bright pain spears him. Panting, he turns his head, taking in the outline of someone slumped against the base of a tree. His angelic eyes see nothing but fuzz.

“It’s gone,” Castiel says. “You should be safe.”

Although he doesn’t know that. There can be no way of knowing that, not without knowing what it was and what it wanted.

“Are you hurt?”

“I don’t know. I…my arm hurts. And…and my cheek.” The shock of new experience shades his words. This man isn’t used to it and it’s holding him still.

A benefit to constant pain, Castiel finds, is that new pain doesn’t make as much difference as it otherwise might. Not that he has ever let mere pain stop him in battle, not until he’s reached the point where he can no longer go on. He makes it to his knees and over to the man against the tree.

This close, he makes out long, dark hair, in thick strands, and skin which blends with the dusk. With everything still shimmering and twisting, it’s impossible to make out much more, but that sick panic still coats the man’s body.

Castiel would reach out to him, but he can feel blood slicking his right palm, can feel it trickling down his chest and from his cheek, and he finds the thought of touching anyone makes his own nausea worse.

“Can you stand?” he asks, because the boy can’t stay here all night. Castiel will guard him, if needs be, but he will make a poor guardian just now. “Can you get to help?”

Another sob, and a shift which is likely a nod.

“Good. Then go. Get help.”

Castiel watches as the shape before him pushes upright, slowly, and he listens to the sounds of the man’s sobs becoming shaky breathing.

“I…Here,” the mans says, and reaches out.

Castiel flinches back, his wings twitching up around him.

“No, I just… Sit against the tree. Just sit against the tree. I’ll be as quick as…as I can.”

Oh. It didn’t occur to Castiel that the boy thinks he’s getting help for both of them. He pulls himself around until the bark of the tree is against his back and opens his mouth to say not to worry, that he’ll be fine. Instead, a wave of sickness sweeps through him and he retches, pressing his uninjured hand to the wet pain across his chest.

“Just don’t die,” the man says, and is gone.

Almost as quickly, he slips from Castiel’s mind. He’s sitting in an open space, under a tree. He knows that. He knows, too, that he hurts. Perhaps he’s imagined a creature attacking. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s thought he’s seen something and been left wondering. Just the day before, he could have sworn he saw Dean, but that is a foolish thought. Dean would not be in the alley outside Castiel’s room. Dean is not even in this State.

Castiel must face the possibility that, without Naomi, without her resets, the damage done to him has finally become too much. He must face the chance that he is losing his mind.

He’s sitting out in the dark and he isn’t sure why, or why he hurts. Trailing sticky fingers down his chest, he feels his wings curl around him, his brow furrow. There was something…some shape. No. He can’t hold onto the thought.

The pain, though, the sharp, hot, bright pain, that he can hold on to. Literally. He presses his palms together, a mockery of supplication, of prayer, and gasps at the neon blue shot of hurt. He’s in the dark, and he hurts, and he doesn’t know why.

Perhaps he’s made one mistake too many. Perhaps, this time, he’s destroyed everything to such an extent that he’s truly been abandoned.

Footsteps break the silence, booted feet on frosted ground, and jagged lines of green and amber smear across the scene. Val? How has she found him?

“Hey. Hey, I got you. I got you.”

Not Val. The figure reaches him, drops to its knees. A hand settles on his shoulder.

“I got you, Cas.”

Dean.

He can’t see Dean’s colors, can’t feel his warmth, but that voice saying his name… The boy’s tears must have shaken him, because he feels a sob climbing his own throat. This can’t be Dean, but he sees that outline and he hears that voice and he almost feels that hand on his shoulder. He wants it to be Dean, and not just more evidence that Castiel’s mind is unraveling. He wants it, but he can’t fool himself that much. And he’s tired. So tired.

One by one, his eyes slide shut. If he can’t see Dean, it might not hurt so much to know he isn’t really there.

Chapter Text

He wakes to a beeping. It beeps, beeps, beeps into his skull. He winces, tries to pull away.

“Whoa. Steady.”

That isn’t Dean, of course it isn’t, but it is familiar.

Hands follow, pressing on his shoulders, and he manages to open an eye. Not one of his human ones, but it shows him moss-green and concern. He struggles for a moment before he places it. Riva.

“I’m in a hospital,” he says. Another thought wriggles through the murk. “I can’t pay.”

It was something he’d needed to know, as Steve. It was why he’d had to let Dean patch up his arm that time, why it had taken so long to heal. He shouldn’t even need a hospital now.

“Well, I can’t say I’m keen to let you wander off again,” Riva says. “Can you open your eyes?”

He almost tells her he has opened an eye, catching himself just before the statement slips free. Instead, he pries his human eyes open, wincing as they adjust to the light. They aren’t as sturdy as his real eyes, but they shade in details, colors, textures, which his true eyes don’t always see. They pick up the shapes of Riva’s face, the way she’s looking down at him with warm focus.

“You really got yourself cut up this time,” she says. “Any idea who did it?”

The words hit him, but they seem to break apart on his skin. They don’t go in properly. Instead, he finds himself thinking back to the last words he heard before he went under, to words he fears and hopes were real.

“Dean,” he says. “Is Dean here?”

Riva frowns, glancing away and back. Her tone becomes more soothing.

“Is Dean the man you said you couldn’t call?”

“Is he here?” Castiel asks, because all he can remember just now is hearing Dean’s voice, and he doesn’t know why.

“There’s no-one waiting for you,” she says. Her hand slips over his forearm, grounding him. “What makes you think you imagined it? Have you been seeing things?”

“I…” He doesn’t know the right answer.

Riva didn’t call any authorities on him the last time they met, but then he’d just saved her friend and her bosses would have no way of knowing. Now? Now they are at her place of work. He closes his mouth and turns his head away.

“Look, I know this has to be hard for you, but I need to know.

“I don’t… He wouldn’t just leave again,” Castiel tries. He knows he’s messing this up, but his surroundings won’t stay still. It feels a little like he’s taken more powder. “He would have stayed. He’s been looking for me.”

He thinks Dean’s been looking for him. He thinks those voices, back before they fell silent, were Dean saying to call.

“Okay,” Riva says. “And you think you’ve been seeing things? Do you mean Dean? Or other things?”

“You think it’s the powder,” he says, the realization slower than it should have been.

“The paramedics didn’t find anything on you,” she says, far too carefully. “But you’ve taken something again, haven’t you? Ketamine? I thought that might be what you’d taken, before. It can mess with what you see. How’s your vision right now?”

“Fine.”

He doesn’t tell her the floor is wavering, that the walls are. He’s almost used to that.

“Right.” She doesn’t sound like she believes him, but she leaves it. “Look, I’m not saying I’m glad you’ve been brought in like this, but I am relieved to see you still kicking. I worried, after Beth took you home. Val talked me out of visiting about eight times. And she’s right. A guy I met once, weird circumstances. But…well. You seemed like you could do with a friend. And you did save Beth. And I’ve got to be honest. You look like shit.”

Despite himself, he blinks, turns his head back to see her.

“I what?”

“You’re all cut up and you look miserable. So. No more vanishing act, all right? And don’t worry about the bill. We’ll figure something out.”

He can hear the lie in that, but he also hears she means well, so he doesn’t challenge it.

“Who found me?” he asks, because the longer he’s awake the more the certainty that he saw Dean drains away. “Did…there was…a man?”

He thinks there was. He thinks he remembers sobbing.

Riva shakes her head.

“Some guy was out walking his dog, called it in. I’m going to have to let the police know you’re awake, all right? They want to talk to you.”

“Why?”

Would they arrest him? He reaches for his blade. It isn’t there.

Anything else Riva says washes away unheard. He dropped his blade. He dropped it and it isn’t there. An angel doesn’t leave his blade, not if it has any choice. He’s already dropped so much else, and now he’s dropped his blade.

He barely registers Riva leaving, and only jolts back to himself when someone clears their throat.

“The doctor says we can’t have long,” a woman says, her eyes sharp and grey.

Next to her, a man with a bristling mustache nods.

Castiel narrows his eyes at them. He doesn’t like the way they’re looking at him, appraising. He isn’t sure what they’re seeing, but it doesn’t feel good.

“Who are you?” he asks. But the way they’re standing, the notebook the man holds, even the looks on their faces, they all carry that sense Dean has, when he’s acting as a cop. Castiel is torn between folding his wings about himself and raising them in warning. “What do you want to know?”

The woman takes a step closer, and the look on her face is softer than he expected.

“We need to know who hurt you,” she says, “so we can stop it from happening again. Could you give us a description?”

He stares at her with half of his eyes, including both of the ones he inherited from Jimmy. The rest search the room, though he isn’t sure what he thinks he’ll do if he finds an escape. He can hardly run. He isn’t even sure he’s physically capable. Pain sits distant, but it’s there.

“Um. No.”

They exchange looks. He can’t translate them.

“Sir,” the woman says, and she takes a deliberate step forwards. Castiel thinks she means to be calming, a reassuring presence. “If you know who attacked you, your best option is to tell us. We can’t protect you if you won’t tell us.”

Castiel narrows his eyes. He doesn’t need protecting. He just needs them to leave and let him gather the strength to rise from this bed.

“I didn’t see who it was,” he says, because Dean has drilled it in to him, over the years, that civilians couldn’t simply be told about the supernatural. “I can’t tell you anything.”

“Can’t?” the man breaks in, more snap in his voice that his partner carries. “Or won’t? You get we can’t do anything unless you give us something to work with.”

“Bryan.” His partner holds out a hand, palm flat and hand a cutting edge.

Castiel pulls in, the vibrations in her tone ringing through his head, through his wounds. He just needs peace and quiet to pull himself together. That’s all. He must be able to heal, if he really puts his mind to it. Heal, and leave behind humans and their noise and their needs. Humanity fascinates him, but that doesn’t mean he wants to be so viscerally a part of it. He more than had his fill of that.

“You can’t do anything about it,” he says, because it’s true, and because he doesn’t like the way they’re looking at him.

“Not if you won’t tell us anything useful,” Bryan says.

This man is orange and yellow, and Castiel wants him gone. He opens his mouth to tell him so, and stops as moss-green appears in the doorway.

“I said no raised voices. No upsetting him,” Riva says. “He needs to rest.”

The grey-eyed woman taps Bryan on the shoulder and ushers him away from the bed. The man goes, but he fixes Castiel with a look that reminds Castiel of people who’ve had him under a blade. This detective wants answers. The phantom feel of slicing skin keeps Castiel quiet and still.

Almost as soon as they’re outside, they form a barrier between Riva and the room, directing their energy at her. Castiel could listen to what they say. Of course he could. Just as easily as he listened back at Beth’s house. Still, he’s tired and the walls are undulating and he doesn’t like that man’s colors. He isn’t sure he wants to know what he’ll say. And Riva is a comforting presence, for all he’s only met her twice, bringing healing with her at each encounter.

Besides, he needs to think about his blade. Without it, a part of him is missing, and he’s lost so many parts already. Who’s to say this isn’t the one which tips him over the edge into fraying apart entirely?

He tells himself he feels worry at the thought.

The blade was in his hand when he fought that creature. He still feels the sting on his palm, something which has only happened recently. He must have dropped it.

Riva appears next to the bed, swimming into his field of vision, and frowns down at him.

“How are you doing?”

He regards her as best he can, pulling his thoughts to him. It really shouldn’t be such a difficult question.

“I’ve been better,” he says. And then, remembering what he’s been taught. “I’ll be fine. When can I leave?”

Her eyebrows lift and she glances at the monitor by his bed.

“Not yet. You do know you’ve been sliced open? And you were out cold. Really, we should get scans, but…” She stops, something like guilt passing across her face.

“But that costs money,” he finishes for her. “So many things cost money.”

His money is almost gone. He has, perhaps, another three weeks in his room, unless he can find other funds. He imagines working at his old job in the state he’s in, and knows he would fail at doing an adequate job. It shouldn’t sting as much as his palm.

“They do,” she says. “Look, are you still living on your own?”

When he meets her eyes, she flushes, her tanned skin bronzing further as she dips her head.

“I didn’t mean that to sound weird. It’s just, you’ve got no contact information. Well, no information at all.” She pauses again, worry flowing round her, marring the green with its sickly undertone. “We’ve got you down as a John Doe.”

“You want me to stay here, but I can’t,” Castiel says, because sometimes he can read humans very well, especially ones who wear their emotions as openly as Riva does.

He isn’t sure why the realization causes a pang. He wants to leave, he has to. He needs to find his blade.

Her shoulders slump and she grimaces.

“I hate the thought of you alone in that place, all cut up with no-one to keep an eye on you.”

Castiel wants to reassure her. She’s been so kind, so welcoming of a stranger she has very little reason to trust or care for.

“I’ll be fine,” he says, and tries to mean it. “I’m used to being on my own, to taking care of myself.”

If anything, she looks sadder.

She doesn’t say much else before she leaves, telling him to rest as much as he can, but she does take his hand for a moment. It’s nice. Comforting. He closes his human eyes so he won’t be told he should be sleeping and tells himself he’ll be just fine with it not happening again.

******************************************

He’s jolted awake, panic flaring his wings, and pulls his blade. Tries to. His hand flexes, curls, ready to feel the slide of it against his skin, but it stays empty. It’s missing. He’s lost it.

“Hey. Hey. Calm down.”

Val. It’s Val. It’s like latching on to a rope when he finds her, something to hold on to, something which anchors him, even if he’s still swaying. She stands with her hands out and her eyes wide.

“Fuck,” she says. “You look even more like shit than usual.”

Time stills. It’s been dragging and racing for months now, and with no control by him. He sees her worry in the tension under her skin, the way she swallows as her gaze sweeps over him.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

“What?” That seems to throw her. “What do you mean? Riva let slip you were here. Think I’d just let you lie here all alone? After we ate soup together? That’s a bond that can’t be broken, Kasper.”

He doesn’t have the energy to reject the false name. Besides, it’s not as though it’s the first time he’s changed names, and rarely at his own choosing. Not really. It isn’t the first time he’s accepted a name from a new friend. Still, perhaps he shouldn’t let her call him something so close to his real name.

“Call me Aidan,” he says, because he has to tell her something to get her to stop saying that name, and it grates every time she does, so close and not close enough to the name he wants to hear. She isn’t the one he wants to hear it from, though, and he doesn’t let himself dwell too much on why. This name, at least, is distant from his own. He’s never been called anything like Aidan. He isn’t sure whether the meaning of name fits him or not.

She pauses, something passing across her face he can’t read.

“Okay,” she says. “Aidan. As long as I have something to call you other than weird addict.”

“You think I’m weird?”

He doesn’t even try to correct her on the second part. From her perspective, he must seem like an addict. She doesn’t know he’s an angel, that it has no such effect on him. She doesn’t know the reason he takes it is because he has to, to dull the pain, to stop a Rit Zien from finding him. There are so many things she doesn’t know, and for a moment it saddens him.

She shrugs.

“Most people are weird,” she says, as though that’s any sort of an answer.

He finds his words leave him after that, a blank space in their wake which Val fills with a story about a student, pulling up a chair and sinking down into it as though Castiel has invited her to join him. Her voice is soothing, but he can’t focus on the words.

“So, I suppose you won’t feel up to much, but we can plant you on the settee and throw a blanket over you,” Val says.

Castiel tries to catch the words which have gone before, but he’s lost them already.

“What?” he asks. He sounds raspy. More so than usual.

“At the party,” Val says. “I know you probably just want to stay home in bed, but I really think you should come. We can keep an eye on you, for one thing, and it’ll be good for you to meet more people.”

“Party?”

He doesn’t understand. It’s a feeling he’s grown far too used to over the last few years. He would truly like the chance to become unfamiliar with it, to find it strange.

“Yes. Party.” She looks at him as though he’s being slow. He thought he’d left that look behind when he’d regained his Grace. “It’s in a couple of days, still. And there’ll be a doctor there.”

She doesn’t seem to remember telling him she’s taking her boyfriend. The rush of gratitude sickens him. He shouldn’t be so needy, shouldn’t be so weak. This is what has been made of him, grateful for some sign of welcome from a woman he only knows because she came to warn him to stay away from her friend.

Still, his room has been echoing of late, the images in the waves refusing to stay steady, and he finds it impossible to say no.

************************

He sees Dean again, once looking in through his window and once across a crowded street. He dismisses both, but the pang he feels is real.

In the street, he’s with Val, who has insisted on collecting him and walking with him to the nearest coffee shop.

“You can’t stagnate in that room on your own,” she says when she turns up at his door. “I asked Riva. She said you should be able to get up and about a bit, as long as you don’t overdo it.”

He hasn’t left the bed since returning from the hospital, not even to find more powder, not even to search for his blade. He supposes ‘stagnant’ is as good a word as any to describe how he’s felt. Heavy, unmoving, corrupted. He lets her kneel and lace his feet into his boots, ignores the way she bites her lip as she handles him. He knows he’s broken. He still isn’t sure how he feels about seeing that knowledge on another person’s face.

Outside, he walks slowly where once he flew in an eye-blink round the world. Puck used to have nothing on him. Now, he may as well have been dosed with the juice of Oberon’s magic flower, leaving him asleep on the forest floor. He thinks perhaps he has been, and attempts to push aside the uncomfortable implications of that thought.

Riva talks about her week, filling Castiel in on her most troublesome student, who has been absent from class for several days and absent minded in class when he’s turned up.

“It’s like he’s forgotten half of the syllabus,” she says. “I’m half convinced he thought it was still last month. I wonder why some people are even on the course.”

He listens as well as he can, though he knows some of what she says fractures and floats away. And then he sees Dean.

It’s only the night before he saw Dean’s face at the window, but unless he’s learned to levitate it must have been in Castiel’s mind. This one is harder to push aside. This Dean looks solid, is wearing his usual jacket and jeans, has hair which is just a bit longer than the last time Castiel saw him. This Dean looks worried and pinched. And real. So real.

So real that Castiel stops walking. He stares.

“Aidan? What is it?” Val asks, pulled to a halt by her hand on his arm. “What are you looking at? Shit. You’ve gone white. I should keep calling you Kasper after all.”

He hears her, but not in any way that means the words attach to him.

This Dean looks so solid that Castiel almost calls out to him. He almost turns and tries to run. He left the bunker to spare Dean the pain and frustration of seeing Castiel fail to heal, and he has continued to fail. If anything, he’s got worse. Surely, if Dean felt Castiel should be gone from the bunker, he won’t want to see the angel now.

Except…except…

Back when he was human, Dean told him he couldn’t stay in the bunker. It stabbed as much as his blade had, when the Reaper wearing April wielded it. It’s hard to let his thoughts settle on that, and he skims it, landing on the fact that Dean visited him. When he was Steve. Despite not wanting him in the bunker.

Maybe this is like that. Maybe Dean wants Castiel gone, but wants to check up on him. Dean always has had a strong sense of responsibility for his tools.

A group of men crowd past on the other side of the street, and when they clear Dean is gone.

It’s for the best. Castiel will have imagined it anyway.

*********************************

Val collects him for the party in a car, fussing over him as he slides into the passenger seat.

“Remember, I can bring you back if you really need me to, but I do think you should give it a chance,” she says, as she signals and moves out into traffic.

Castiel, who used to filter prayers and longing and every type of wave at once, who used to hear the voices of every angel and still be able to focus on his mission, marvels at the way she holds a conversation at the same time as maneuvering her way along the road. He shut off even the TV signals two days ago, the warped images he was getting not sufficient to drown the thoughts he wants to avoid. He hasn’t listened for prayers or anything else in even longer.

“I remember,” he says, when it becomes clear she is waiting for a response.

“Good. And…I might have hinted at Beth a guest room would be a good idea.” She rushes on before he can process what she’s saying. “It’s not like you haven’t stayed before, is it? And she might be a bit thrown by it, but if you get really tired it’ll mean you can get your head down. Recharge.”

Not for the first time, he finds himself wondering why she’s taking such care of him, when she threatened him the first time they met. Then again, it’s hardly the first time he’s started a friendship with conflict. She didn’t stab him. There is that.

Unsure what to say, he nods and watches his hands. Val tells him more about her week, this time spilling details about her hobbies. She’s determined to learn to cook properly, she tells him, and he finds himself smiling at her account of managing to bake a cake with no rising agent.

“It was a cake cookie,” she announces, and one of his eyes catches her satisfaction as he smiles again.

**************************************

Beth won’t let him in the house. She stands in the doorway, a hand on the frame, and blocks their way in. The look on her face is one he has trouble parsing. Behind her, voices filter out from deeper into the house.

“This is who you’ve brought? Wait, do you mean this is who you’ve been seeing? Really, Val? After what you said?”

Castiel prepares to apologize, to turn and leave. But Val’s hand tightens on his arm.

“I can be wrong. Did you set the guest room up?”

And Beth shakes her head, lets go of the frame, lets them in.

As Castiel moves past her, she reaches out, her hand hovering, and looks as though she’s thinking of patting him.

“I’m glad to see you,” she says. “We’ll have to catch up.”

Perhaps he still needs work on interpreting human expressions. He could have sworn her expression fell far from welcoming. There truly is a lot he still doesn’t understand.

Inside, the voices rise. He could make himself pick out each one, follow each conversation. Or he could have done, when he was whole. He doesn’t make the attempt. Val guides him to the living room, which looks just as it did before save for the bowls of chips and other snacks on the coffee table and on the cabinets at the side of the room. People stand around with drinks in their hands, chatting and laughing.

He may as well have been hit by a wall.

It isn’t Val who finds him, perhaps ten minutes later, sitting on the front step with his hands curled round his knees and his head down. He knows he sat like this a lot, back when he was being watched over by Meg. It’s a habit he hasn’t always felt the need to revisit, but now it’s happened without him realizing.

When he hears someone behind him, he expects bright green and gold, but he gets yellow and blue. They aren’t as dirty as when he first met her, but the pulse of them still contains worry.

“I’m sorry,” he says, once she’s settled on the step at his side.

“Sorry?” She sounds confused. She won’t know he’s looking at her, that he’s seeing the way she tilts her head. “What do you have to be sorry about?”

“My behavior. I know it’s not…it’s not right.”

She doesn’t answer for a while, but she sighs and rests her forearms on her knees, her hands dangling between them. She turns away from him and appears to be looking across the front garden. When she speaks, it’s gentle and slow, a world of difference to Val, even when Val is being kind.

“I had real trouble in crowds for a long time,” she says. “And at parties. It all used to feel like it was coming at me in a rush, like if I didn’t watch myself I’d be knocked down by it. I felt I had to run, to find somewhere I could just be still.”

It’s another few minutes before she speaks again, and Castiel lets what she’s said slide into his mind, breaking the surface and rolling, smooth and steady, into his thoughts.

“So you don’t need to apologize,” she says. “Val didn’t warn me. She told me you might need a space to go and rest, but she didn’t say exactly why. She really does try, you know, and she’s had her own shit to deal with, but this? It doesn’t matter how hard they try, Val and Riva can’t feel it the way…well, the way we do. But I’m glad she’s given you a chance.”

There’s something almost like a lie there, but Castiel feels no hostility from her in this moment, so he tries not to let it make his wings curl around him.

“How do we feel it?” he asks, because she’s managed to explain his need to sit here more clearly than he could have done. He doesn’t know how she can work out what an angel feels, but he’s so far adrift that any rope is welcome.

“Well,” she says, “for me, it took months before I stopped looking over my shoulder, you know? I barely slept until I was so exhausted it was more like passing out. Always half expected he’d be there. It’s been over two years now, and I still find myself tensing up at random crap. A song, a saying, a smell. It’s a trigger. Everything flashes back up. And I know how to manage it. Shit, I should do, all that therapy I’ve been through. But it doesn’t act like a bottle of bleach, does it? It’s all still there. Nothing will ever wipe it completely clean.”

“Would you like it to?” he asks, his brow furrowing. His wings shift, opening enough that she sits half under the closer one, and he watches her with most of his eyes. “Would you like to…to bleach it clean?”

She purses her lips. Sighs.

“I don’t know. It’s still part of what makes me me. You know? And there were good times, a lot of them at the start, and other times I thought were good then. Besides, it’s not possible. We don’t stay the same. It’s just a fact. All we can do is learn to cope with the changes, make them as healthy as we can.”

“You don’t think we can be fixed?” he asks.

Her silence this time is longer, and she opens and closes her mouth more than once before she finally answers him.

“It’s not a case of fixing,” she says at last. “That idea of needing fixing? That was something he used to throw at me, back when he’d get tired of me flinching, like he wasn’t most of why I did. And that was one of the hardest things, learning that I wasn’t broken. Not like a vase is when you drop it, or a machine is when it stops working. I’m not a thing and healing isn’t always something that ends.”

“You’re not a thing,” he echoes. He finds he has to snip off a piece of what she says if there is any chance of it going in.

“No. And neither are you. You aren’t broken, no matter how much you’re struggling with things right now. But you can heal. And you will. I promise you.”

But he can’t. His shins are still shot through with lurid pain, and his chest and cheeks and hand hurt. And he isn’t so sure he can agree he’s not a thing.

Still, her words are tempting. He wishes he could believe them.

Chapter Text

He manages to sit in the kitchen, cradling a mug of tea Beth insists on making for him. Voices slip through from the other rooms and it’s a little like hearing prayers, back before prayers became pain. For a fleeting moment, he considers tuning back into those waves. A loud burst of laughter rings out from the other room and he flinches.

“Oh, shit,” Val says, and her hands steer him out of his seat, taking the mug from him, before he realizes he’s spilled the hot liquid over himself. All over his right arm and hand. The sleeve of his sweater drags with the wet. He watches redness well up on his borrowed skin.

“Damn it,” Riva says, and now there are two of them near him, and his hand it being cradled.

They guide him to the sink and he flinches again as cold water washes over the burn. He’s been burned before, by flames far hotter than this tea, but the pain was different. Everything used to feel different. He wishes he’d brought some powder with him, but he felt Val would prefer that he didn’t. He told himself he didn’t need it, anyway. He isn’t sure why he thought that.

“Hey, are you in there? Aidan?”

That’s Val. He should answer her. She doesn’t like it when he doesn’t answer her. The red really is vibrant and with the water running over it, numbing it, his hand doesn’t feel like part of him. Nothing feels like part of him.

“Aidan? Shit. He’s spaced out. How badly is he hurt?”

“It’s not too bad. Might be sore for a while. What made him jump like that?”

Riva’s voice is calmer than Val’s. Smoother. He can’t seem to focus on her with any of his eyes, not even the one which sees everything in too close detail, but he knows she’ll be pulsing moss green to Val’s more vibrant shades. He isn’t sure that his angelic eyes are seeing anything and his human ones can’t stop staring at his hand. His vessel’s hand. It’s still a vessel, despite everything. Not really him.

“Lots of things make him jump. I don’t think he always realizes. Do we need bandages?”

Val’s voice is fuzzy around the edges and it fades out into meaningless sound as she goes on. It washes over him as the water does. When the water stops, the voices keep going. There’s movement and sensation he can’t parse and then quiet. Darkness and quiet.

He opens his eyes.

He’s sitting on the settee, nothing but moonlight to shade in the scene, and his angelic eyes still aren’t working. He can’t see any colors.

“You okay?”

Turning, he sees Beth sitting in the chair she used before, when he brought her home after the attack. She has her feet up and her knees tucked up under her chin. The draping sleeves of her cardigan make her look ethereal.

“I’m fine,” he tries, after a pause. “What happened? Where…?”

But he isn’t sure what he’s asking.

“You spilled hot tea,” she says, “but Riva says it’s not too bad a burn. Not enough to need a trip to the hospital.”

She frowns, the shadows across her face chasing the movement.

“We sent Val up to bed. She was worrying herself out and it really isn’t a terrible injury. Still… She says you tend to jump, that you space out a fair bit. Is it… What do you think causes that? If you don’t mind me asking, that is. Um. Forget I said anything. I’ll get you some water.”

She unfolds one leg, starts to rise.

“No,” he says, stopping her.. “No, I…I don’t mind you asking.”

And he really doesn’t. The way Beth asks doesn’t feel like an attack, like he’ll be reporting failure. It feels like there’s a chance she’ll understand.

“I don’t know why,” he says. “I’m just broken.”

He looks away, down at his hands, and tries to make out the patch of burned skin. His human eyes really aren’t up to the task.

“We went over this,” Beth says, low and gentle. “You aren’t broken. It took me a long time to stop thinking of myself that way. I get that it’s hard. But it doesn’t help, telling yourself you’re shattered or damaged or whatever. And I asked because, maybe, if you know what causes it we could look at managing it. Or… Well. I’m going to get you that water, okay? And then do you want to go and get some sleep?”

He nods, because he can’t process how to explain to her that he doesn’t sleep, and he sits by himself, listening to the padding of her feet over the floor, the sound of a cupboard door opening, of water splashing into a glass.

The thought trickles up through his mind: he shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t have come. All he’s done is cause trouble.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Val says.

“What?”

He looks up to see her standing in the doorway, her arms crossed.

“You’re thinking of bolting. Aren’t you? I can see you thinking it. Fuck’s sake, Aidan. We’re friends, you dick. You think you get to go wandering off in the middle of the night, injured, when you can just stay here and let us keep an eye on you?”

“I’m causing trouble.”

Beth answers from his other side, and this time he manages not to jump. His wings flare up and around, shielding his back, but neither one of them will be able to see that. He still doesn’t know why he can’t see Beth behind him.

“And stop hunching,” Val says, moving into the room.

The moonlight falls across her face and she looks nowhere near as definite as she sounds. Her expression fits more into what Castiel has learned means she’s worried.

“Or hunch, if you want to,” she goes on. “But no running off. That water for him? I’ll take it up.”

“There’s only the one bed,” Beth says, as though this has only just occurred to her. “You said, er… It was a joke, wasn’t it?”

“A shitty and pointless one, yeah,” Val says. Sighs, really. Neither one of them explains what the joke was. “I shouldn’t have let Mom’s comments get to me. But he can have the bed. I’ll doze in the chair or something.”

There’s something in the air he can’t make out, some tension, and then Beth makes a sound that could mean anything and makes her way past him.

“Stupid idea,” she says. “Riva’s in that tiny single, so, um… Look, it’s not like the world’ll end if you sleep in my bed. It’s huge, anyway.”

Castiel sees Val’s lips part, sees the tiny curve at the edges, before her face is blank.

“Well, if you’re sure,” she says, reaching out and taking the water from Beth.

Neither of them is looking right at the other.

“Yes,” Beth says, in the sort of tone Dean uses when he’s pretending to be certain. It’s the tone of voice Castiel has used himself, more than once. “As long as you don’t snore, no harm done.”

They guide him up the stairs between them, and Val hovers just outside the door until he’s stripped down and slid under the covers, then brings him the water and insists he drink some, as though it’s a potion that will cure everything.

“Don’t worry,” she says, leaning down and dropping a kiss to Castiel’s forehead. “They know the pretend boyfriend thing was all my idea. Now you get some sleep.”

And she leaves before he can ask her what pretend boyfriend she’s talking about. She must have made up the man she was seeing, but he can’t imagine why. It’s painfully obvious that Val and Beth care for each other. He wonders why neither one of them seems to be able to see it.

The thought follows him down, and he just has time to feel surprise before sleep claims him.

*******************************

It’s Beth who comes to wake him, pulling back sharply when he gasps and curls in on himself, his wings folding about him like a cocoon.

“Sorry,” she says, her hands up. “Didn’t mean to startle you. Should have thought. Are you awake? Do you know where you are?”

“Yes,” Castiel says, knowing he should uncurl and not quite able to make himself do it. The pain up his shins is worse today and the new throb on his hand seems to underline every other hurt he has. His wings feel heavier and his human eyes are still the only ones working. He is trying not to think about falling. “I’m sorry.”

Something like pity crosses Beth’s face and he hates it, but it’s followed by understanding, which he finds he craves. He thinks she must be soft azure like this, and he wishes he could see it.

“Look, I’m not going to tell you to stop apologizing, because it took me… God. I don’t know how long. But you don’t need to. You saved me, weeks ago, and now Val’s made friends with you, so you’re our friend. Okay? My friends are welcome in my home. And my friends get their choice of hot drink at breakfast time, so what do you want?”

When he blinks, staring up at her without answering, she offers him a smile.

“Tell you what,” she says, “I’ll make a pot of tea. And waffles. Everyone likes waffles, right? You just come down when you’re ready.”

But he isn’t going to be ready. Any energy he had has drained out of him overnight. Sleep is supposed to grant energy, not steal it. But then, he’s not meant to sleep, so the rules perhaps don’t apply. Many of his memories from being Steve are muffled and foggy, but the pains stand sharp and bright. Few bite as strong as the exhaustion that sat in his bones, too deeply for the little sleep he found to shift. That washed away with the blood and wounds when he took Theo’s Grace, but now it’s back. He hasn’t worked hours upon hours of a shift, on his feet and fixing a smile he doesn’t feel to his face, day after day after day, only to make what bed he can on the cold floor of a stockroom. He hasn’t. Not lately. But he feels as though he has.

For a human, sleep is a necessity. For an angel, it’s a symptom.

If he stays in bed, he’ll insult Beth’s generosity. Dean and Sam let him stay in his room, but this isn’t his room, not even as much as the room in the bunker was. Getting to his feet is painful, and his hand twitches as he thinks of tipping white powder out, of taking it into him and pushing so much of the pain out. At least for a little while. But he hasn’t got any powder with him, and his supply is very low. He will have to make do.

Three sets of eyes look up at him as he makes his way into the kitchen, pausing and trying to settle his wings. They twitch more when they hurt, something he should be used to by now.

“Morning,” he says, his eyes sliding away from the women. It makes him jittery, not being able to see everything around him, like he should be turning constantly to take it all in. It doesn’t help that walls, the ceiling, the cabinets keep moving, just out of phase with what sees a moment earlier. “I… Thank you for letting me stay.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Val says. “Like we were letting you wander off into the night.”

“It was no trouble. Really,” Beth says at the same time. “Come and sit.”

Joining them feels easier than it should do, a slotting into place where he thought he had no place. When Beth slides a mug of coffee over to him, avoiding his injured hand, there’s no sense that he should have left, that he should be leaving now. There’s just welcome. It’s ill-fitting and uncomfortable, a garment not made for him, but he forces his wings to stillness and stays.

*******************************

It’s Beth who invites him back.

In the three days since he woke in her guest bed, Castiel has floated as much as he can. He’s on the last of his powder, but when he takes it he can almost imagine he sees colors, the way he should do. Without it, he has to face the fact he only has the two working eyes, both human. The human world is monochrome compared to that of an angel. A fully functioning angel, that is. It was one of the things he found most jarring, back in Rexford, the way everything was muted, washed out. Now, he’s washed out. Wrung out.

He still feels the weight of his wings, feels the shape and drag of them, but it’s beginning to eat at his mind that it might just be a phantom impression. Having a wing catch and snag on something would almost be a relief. It’s an extra cruelty that they still hurt, present or not.

He drifts, because settling into his damaged body - bodies - is too much and not enough and he doesn’t know how to fix it. He has never been taught how to fix himself. His mission is failing.

The last wisps of his latest dose still circulate in his system when Beth hammers on the door, offering a gentle smile when he manages to get the thing open.

“Hey,” she says. From the way her eyes move, she’s noting his physical condition, what she can see of it. She almost manages to hide her reaction. Almost. “I don’t mean to barge into your life,” she says, stepping into the room and frowning as she looks in the direction of his bed. She’s perhaps noticed the opened packets scattered across it. “I thought you might want to come by for a meal tonight. I’ve got a couple of friends coming round. No-one loud or jarring.”

And there’s that glimmer of understanding. If she’d just offered food it would have been easy enough to turn down, but instead she shows she’s thought about the type of people he might find it more taxing to be around. Such care is too much of a draw.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” he says. He’s heard that phrase, on one of the shows he watched before he turned off every wave he could without turning himself off entirely.

“Good. That’s good.” Beth looks at the window, nibbling at her lip. It takes her a few moments to say anything else. “You really jumped from there? To save me?”

“Yes.” He sees no point in lying.

She seems to freeze for a few seconds, a small frown pinching her brow, before shaking her head and looking back at him.

“Dinner’s at six, so one of us will come by and pick you up about five. That all right?”

“You don’t have-”

“How are you legs?” she asks, without letting him finish. When he doesn’t answer, she goes on. “You still wince when you walk. They should have healed by now. And the injuries from the other night? Are they any better?”

“My immune system…” he starts, but he can’t even summon enough conviction to pretend he’s fooling her.

Nevertheless, she doesn’t say anything else about it. She does hand him a flask before she leaves, telling him it’s soup, that Val made her bring it.

He waits until she’s left before he tries it. It’s only because it’s a strange feeling, to have someone try to nurture him like this. Needing to eat is behind him.

Once he’s drained the flask, he considers having a shower, but the walls warp and waver and he feels so tired. A shower can happen later. He returns to the bed and sleeps.

***************************

His hair is still dripping when Riva arrives at his door, swinging her car keys around her index finger and pressing her lips into a tight line.

“Will you let me look at you, at least?” she asks, when he hisses at a sharp pull to his side.

All he’s trying to do is change his shirt. Or change into his shirt. Riva arrived when he was only half-dressed and she’s staring a hole in the floor rather than look at him. It’s a courtesy he hadn’t given much thought to. Dean didn’t look away, back in Rexford, when they’d spent that one night in the motel. Perhaps it’s an issue of manners which Dean never learned.

“I’m fine,” he says, through he is aware that saying it through gritted teeth weakens his statement. Still, Sam and Dean would normally let such a thing go. It’s the rule: say you’re fine and keep going.

“Like Hell you are,” Riva says, instead of letting his statement stand. “Look, I’m not going to insist, but you’ve got a trained doctor here and injuries which aren’t healing like they should. Seems like the logical choice. And we’ll still be in plenty of time for food.”

He has one sleeve most of the way on, but any energy to continue the fight fails him.

“Fine,” he says, because it’s easier than arguing, and finds himself seated on the edge of the bed with Riva kneeling in front of him. He thinks Dean would have made a joke about that, but he can’t think why it would have been amusing.

Riva’s frown deepens before smoothing out. Despite the way the space around her shifts, he recognizes a carefully blank expression when he sees one.

“What is it?” he asks.

“It’s…” She looks up at him, and he’s seen that look in people’s eyes before. He’s almost sure he has. Just…he can’t remember when or where. She swallows. “It should be healing better than this.”

“Yeah,” he says, because she’s right. It should. He should be completely healed by now. He should have been completely healed within minutes.

“You must be in a lot of pain,” she says, her tone gentle.

He doesn’t trouble himself with replying this time. He does feel, suddenly and strangely, exposed, sitting here in boxers and pants and nothing else. Threads of fabric are a poor shield, and one he thought he didn’t need as an angel, but he finds he regrets not being dressed when Riva arrived.

“You’re taking the Ketamine for the pain, aren’t you?” she asks. “Is there anything other than your legs and the injuries from the other night? And that burn?”

She knows the answer’s yes. She has to. He was high when he saved Beth.

High.

He hasn’t thought of it in those terms before. But it’s true. He was high.

The thought is distasteful and he shunts it aside. The powder is necessary, for the pain, yes, but by extension to keep the Rit Zien away. He has to take it.

“Aidan?” Riva asks.

It takes a moment for him to remember her question, a moment longer to decide he’s tired of lying when he doesn’t have to.

“Um. Yes.”

He looks away, takes in the flaking paint on the cabinets in his kitchen area. Perhaps he should feel shame at the state of his dwelling, but that’s a distant thought, too. It’s hard to care about the state of his surroundings when they vibrate and judder so often, and when he doesn’t feel connected to them.

The silence is longer this time.

“Right,” she says, at last. “Right. Well. The burn isn’t too bad, at least. I don’t think there’s anything I can… We should go. Don’t want to miss the meal.”

She chatters about many things on the way to Beth’s house, none of them heavy, none of them dangerous. She doesn’t mention his wounds again.

********************************

Beth’s guests are work-friends, people who spend their lives thinking and writing and teaching. Castiel is jolted to hear Enochian slip from the lips of a woman at the far end of the table, but latching onto what she says tells him her accent is terrible. A little more listening suggests she specializes in areas of religion or history, in something which means having researched Enochian is a part of her experience.

She’s too far away for him to speak to her easily, and he finds he wants to. He hasn’t spoken his own language in so long, not in any way free of pain or pressure, and he hasn’t even realised until this moment that he misses it. Of course, he misses many things. As a warrior, he was taught not to let that distract him, but it takes more effort now.

For the most part, he lets the conversation slip around him. Or doesn’t fight hard enough to stop it from doing so. He has to concentrate on staying in his seat. Without his eyes to see at least most of what’s around him he’s finding it more and more difficult to be out of his room. At least there he can lock himself in and reassure himself he’s not about to be attacked.

Beth introduced him to everyone when he arrived, but he’s already lost the names, so when a man with a trimmed beard and hazel eyes leans in, Castiel stares at him in bafflement.

“Sorry,” the man says, sitting back quickly. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No. No, it…” Castiel tries to speak normally, but he’s never been in this situation before.

Back in Rexford, there were some evenings when co-workers met for drinks, but he never had enough money to accept. He has the feeling such evenings wouldn’t have been like this, in any case, sitting around a dining table with a full meal and filled wine glasses. His eons of existence haven’t prepared him for this.

“You’re Val’s new friend, right?” the man asks when Castiel doesn’t go on. “Aidan?”

Castiel feels movement on his other side, and Val leans around him, resting her hand on his forearm. It’s oddly possessive. It’s even more strangely comforting. Val has a smile on her face, but there’s an edge to.

“Is it twenty questions time already, John?” she asks.

The man, John, smiles in a way that suggests he doesn’t see Val’s tension.

“Just asking what Aidan does for a living,” he says. “Not another physics professor, I hope? Or math?”

From a few seats down, Beth joins in, and Castiel thinks her irritation is feigned.

“Are you maligning my subject again, John? We can’t all be architects, you know. Some of us have to do more than draw pictures of stacks of bricks.”

John holds his hands up and that has to be an expression of mock fear. Castiel finds it difficult enough when people show the emotion they’re feeling. He feels a stab of pain in his head, trying to work his way through the currents at this table. He thinks they’re joking. He thinks they are. Beth said the people were easy to be around. Surely she wouldn’t have invited him to an argument.

“Don’t go badgering him about physics,” Val says. “It’s a dinner party. He doesn’t want to talk about things being waves.”

At that, Beth and Val begin a spirited discussion which involves a lot more mathematics than TV had given Castiel to understand was generally to be found while eating roast lamb. It’s pleasant. Listening to the simple talk of numbers used to describe the world settles something in his brain.

The table falls silent when he corrects one of Val’s comments.

“I knew it!” John says, triumph clear. “Physics. Did the two of you meet through Beth?”

“I don’t have a mental link to all other physicists,” Beth says, and perhaps no-one else notices the way she’s looking at Castiel.

In any case, he realizes over the next hour that it’s become generally accepted he works in physics. Relief that he won’t have to explain that he isn’t anything carries him through to coffee, and when everyone leaves the table he looks to Val. She shrugs.

“Hey. You’re doing fine. And you’re so telling me how you know that physics crap. But later.”

“Physics crap?” Castiel asks. “I thought you taught math.”

“I do,” Val says. “Which isn’t physics crap.”

And she won’t move from that opinion.

In the living-room, Castiel finds himself seated near the woman who spoke Enochian, and his mind must still be focused on escaping having to tell these people how he lives, because without thinking he greets her in his own language.

For the second time this evening he shocks someone into silence.

“You speak Enochian?” she asks. At least she seems pleased about it. “Val, Beth, you didn’t tell me your friend speaks Enochian as well as studying quantum things. Do you know much?”

This time, Val just raises her eyebrows at him and shrugs when he looks to her for help. He has the feeling she’s compiling a list of topics to speak to him about later. He turns back to the woman, whose hair curls in silver strands over her ears.

“Um. I suppose so. Yes.” He pauses as it occurs to him he should ask questions in return. That seems to be what people do. “Do you?”

She laughs.

“Enough. My real area of expertise runs more to ancient civilizations in general, but I have a few side interests, you could say. There aren’t enough people studying the angelic tongue.”

“Angelic?” he asks, feeling his brows pinch together. He shifts, feeling his wings should be moving to act as a shield. He can’t feel them and it only makes him want to get his back to the wall and summon his blade. Not that he has that now. Not that he can show how unsettled he is. “You study angels?”

She shrugs.

“I study a lot of things,” she says. “And you must know Enochian is considered a language of the angels, if you speak much of it at all.”

“Of course. It’s just I don’t often meet people who know much about it.”

He thinks he’s speaking calmly, and not shouting at her to find out what she knows, if she suspects him. Dean has always been very clear that Castiel can not tell civilians what he is. Was.

The woman doesn’t seem to suspect anything. If anything, she is alight with interest, and he resists correcting the way her mouth shapes the words of his language. He’s already revealed knowing more about two subjects than was expected. Dean never likes it when Castiel reveals things he shouldn’t.

Castiel escapes to the garden a little later, the sounds of his native tongue echoing in his mind. Gertrude, the woman with the silver hair, can speak it, but her ability to shape the words isn’t high. Even Dean has a better grasp of the shapes and textures of the words, the few he knows, a skill forged from the need to say them correctly in spells. It’s clear Gertrude doesn’t realise that Enochian is a living language in a way human ones aren’t. The most weighted and magical of human languages lack Enochian’s power.

He used to believe the most vibrant and passionate of humans lacked a Seraph’s fire. There are many reasons that opinion’s changed.

He leans against the outside wall of the house, near the kitchen window, and waits until his heartbeat steadies. It shouldn’t be beating the way it is, and he can’t seem to slow it just by thinking, the way he should be able to. The ache in his shoulders, the needles of pain through his shins, the various other hurts, seem to throb in time with it.

Beth’s voice drifts out to him, and he realizes he’s hearing her in the kitchen.

“Did you know he’s a physics specialist?” Beth asks.

The sound of something clinking suggests she setting down plates.

“Nope,” Val answers. “It never came up. You think he’s actually a physic professor from somewhere? I mean, I can see it. Tidy him up a bit, put him in a jacket with elbow patches… Sure.”

“You’re a math professor, Val,” Beth says. “Don’t you think the disparaging comments about elbow patches count as shooting at yourself?”

“Nah,” Val says. “I’m a cool lecturer. Don’t suppose you could find a way to get him a job?”

Beth sounds regretful when she answers.

“You know it doesn’t really work that way. I can’t just show up with Aidan in tow and tell them he teaches for us now. And did you hear him speaking that language Gertrude goes on about? There’s a lot more to his story than we know.”

“Yeah,” Val says. “And you just know it’s all that dick who hurt him’s fault. Bet he had a great life until he had to run from it.”

“We don’t know that,” Beth says.

“We know enough,” Val corrects.

The clinking of plates grows louder and they drop the subject, but even once the kitchen light goes out, leaving Castiel unable to see much of anything, he stays where he is. He stays there until he’s shivering and until he hears Val calling for him, once all the other guests are gone. He stays quiet as Riva warns him that letting himself get cold will only make him feel worse, and as he’s given a mug of tea and a blanket.

This time, when Val drops a kiss to his forehead before leaving him to sleep, he finds himself wondering what kind of human life he could have had, if Dean or Sam had forged him papers, set him up with an identity. He wonders if he could have had this sort of life, whether he could have eaten meals with people who didn’t scoff when he mentioned equations or commented on the nature of the universe, whether he could have found people who spoke languages long dead, but still beautiful to Castiel’s ear. Whether he could have nurtured and taught and helped that way.

He knows this is only a glimpse. After all, these women who have taken him under some sort of care see him as a victim. He knows that much. Months of watching TV have made him familiar enough with what they’re suggesting. They think he’s a victim of some kind of abuse, and a drug addict, and injured past the point of being able to be of real use in their world.

He isn’t entirely sure they’re wrong.

Castiel folds himself up under the covers and imagines what life might be like if he weren’t broken.

Chapter Text

Val watches Riva leave the next morning, pulling away from the house with a wave. Aidan sits beside her, looking as pale and wan as he did the night before. He limped his way to the car, his shoulders hunched in that way he has, like he’s dragging something heavy behind him, and Val saw Riva holding herself back from supporting his weight.

“You think he’s going to be all right?” she asks, turning her head enough to see Beth tidying away left-over glasses. People hide them in all kinds of weird places at parties, even at small, boring ones with wine instead of beer. “Maybe we should go over later.”

“I’m still confused why you’ve switched from shouting at me to stay away from the addict to wanting to smother him in blankets,” Beth says. “You do know he isn’t your pet, right?”

Val blinks. That… She hasn’t been treating Aidan like that. Has she?

“Don’t be stupid,” she says. “And anyway, he needs someone to look after him. Out for him. Whatever.”

She hears Beth sigh, but Beth isn’t always the best at getting when someone needs watching out for. It took way too long for Beth to kick that dick of hers to the curb, and Val still feels twitchy when she catches sight of a tall man with long brown hair, just in case it’s him back again. Him back to make Beth feel like shit again. And even after coming to her senses and getting the Hell away from the bastard, even after therapy and crying on Val’s shoulder and swearing she’s on her guard, Beth still trusts too easily and values herself too little.

So sue her if it’s made Val a soft touch herself for people who look like they need a little guarding.

Besides, Aidan’s a decent enough guy, if you can look past the drug use and the fact he’s clearly hiding a bunch of stuff. And Riva’s convinced he’s taking the drugs as self-medication, which is…well. It’s something to keep in mind.

“Do you want some coffee?” Beth asks now, pulling Val away from her thoughts and back into the room. “I can make a fresh pot.”

The sunlight streaming through the window hits Beth’s hair just right, making it glow, and Val’s distracted by thinking how that hair looked feathered over the pillow this morning. She kept herself tucked safely over on her own side of the bed, but admiring a friend’s hair has to be all right.

“Val? Coffee?”

Val smiles, thoughts of their strange new friend pushed aside.

“Yeah. Sure. Coffee sounds good.”

**********************************

Val has a tray of coffees balanced alongside a stack of papers when Gertrude appears next to her.

“Oh, sorry,” Gertrude says, reaching out to take the coffees as Val saves the rest from slithering to the floor. “Didn’t mean to startle you. Just thought I’d say hi.”

The hallway around them is free enough of traffic that no-one jostles them, but still busy enough Val keeps half an eye out for anyone who might bump into her. She was up half the night grading these papers and has no wish to have to explain to her next class why they’re covered in coffee or footmarks.

“Yeah. Hi,” she says. She manages to inject enough warmth into her voice that it doesn’t sound hostile, but there’s a staff meeting she needs to get to, and what with it being her turn for the coffee… “I’ve got to dash.”

“Sure. Sure,” Gertrude says, before putting out her hand and stalling Val. She still has the coffees held hostage, too. “I was just wondering. That friend of yours? The young man with the hair?”

“Hair,” Val repeats.

“And the blue eyes. Like, really blue,” Gertrude qualifies, and the hint of interest is clear.

It still takes Val a minute. Sue her, but she doesn’t think of him like that.

“Aidan? From Beth’s party the other night?”

“That’s him,” Gertrude says, her smile lighting up. “I was hoping to hear he’s joining our general group. And that he might want to meet for a drink sometime.” She must catch something in Val’s face, because she rushes on. “Oh, not like that. Beth said something that hinted he was taking a break from anything like that. No. It was just such fun to speak Enochian with someone, and his accent is really unique. I want to know more about where he studied. I think he might know more about it than I do, and I have these tablets-”

“Sure,” Val interrupts, because she must be the only one in this place who doesn’t go off on long rambles about her subject. “He’s been through it, you know. Finding his way back to his feet. But I can ask him.”

After all, it might do Aidan some good to have a wider circle of people to talk to.

By the time she makes it to the staff meeting, the coffee is cooling and she’s got Gertrude’s card for Aidan. It’s up to him whether he wants to use it.

**********************************

She’s there the third time Gertrude and Aidan meet. She missed the second time, hearing about it later from Beth. She also heard how Beth had to talk to Aidan about the value of making more friends for something like two hours before he tentatively made the call about meeting. Now, she sips hot chocolate and listens to alien words spill from the living room. Beth shrugs when Val levels her with a look. Riva’s the one who chips in.

“Turns out he’s fluent,” Riva says. “Gertrude almost went through the roof with excitement. Oh, and get this - he speaks a bunch of other language, as well.”

“He’s been holding out on us,” Val says. “You talk any more about physics? Is he in the field?”

“Not as far as I can tell,” Beth says. “I can’t find any mention of him anywhere in academic circles, either, but… Well.”

Yeah. Well. It’s not like Aidan is forced to be his real name. Whoever he’s running from, he’s making sure to stay under the radar.

Once Gertrude has gone, thanking Aidan for his help with translating some text, he looks almost content. The shy smile that flits onto his face is something Val would like to see again.

“You looked to be having a good chat, there,” Val says.

“Yes. Enochian isn’t the most straightforward of languages,” he says, and there’s a note to his tone that says he’s explained this to someone before. Maybe he really has got a background in some sort of teaching. His gaze lands briefly on Val, showing a light in his eyes that normally missing. They almost seem to glow. “Gertrude says she values my assistance.”

No-one should marvel at being valued the way he does.

Before she can ask anything else, such as whether he might consider any tutoring work, a spasm of pain crosses his face and he lists to the side. Riva and Val reach him at the same time, lowering him down to the nearest chair and sharing a concerned look over his head.

He’s pale and breathing shallowly, his shoulders at that odd angle where it looks like he’s trying to hide inside something invisible.

“You okay?” Val asks, even though he clearly isn’t. “What hurts this time?” Weeks of experience has her correcting herself. “What hurts the most this time?”

He grimaces, closing his eyes. A split second later he has them open again, gasping as though something’s startled him. This is something else he does, and all he’ll say about it is that he doesn’t like not being able to see.

“Aidan?” Riva asks. “Is it your legs? Your chest?”

The wounds are healing more slowly than they should be, and Riva’s more or less begged him to go into the hospital, to at least make an appointment to see someone. Aidan always redirects the conversation. Val’s almost certain he thinks they haven’t noticed.

He shakes his head.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says, his voice tight.

It’s at moments like this that the depth of that voice strikes Val. It’s lower and more resonant than seems entirely possible for his frame, and when the tightness is added it sounds as though his voice is being held in to keep from splitting him apart.

“Of course it fucking matters,” she says. “You do get that if you won’t tell people what you need, they won’t be able to help you as well. Right?”

He flashes her a look of annoyance, dark enough she almost takes a step back. It’s impressive. He’s clearly in a lot of pain, but there are these moments where he lets that more fiery side show, and it’s then that she can imagine he really might have been in combat. Or the temperamental genius in an academic department.

“It’s my…my back,” he says, his expression set.

It’s clearly costing him a lot to say this. There’s some shame there, but Val can’t work out why.

Riva looks alarmed.

“Your back? You’ve hurt your back, now? How? Has it been hurting for a while? Wait, this wasn’t when you flung yourself out of a window, was it? Or during that attack? Aidan, you can’t mess about with your back.”

“No,” he says. This time, it’s nearly a snap. “It… You won’t see any injury, so there’s no point in worrying about it. It’ll pass.”

Clenching her jaw, Riva steps back and folds her arms across her body, clutching an elbow with the opposite hand. It’s the kind of posture people use when they feel defensive, but Val’s pretty sure it’s more to keep herself from yelling at Aidan. Or from dragging him bodily to the hospital.

“You get there are long term effects when you take ketamine?” Riva says, sounding more like Val than she normally does with that frustration in her voice.

“Yes. You gave me pamphlets. I read them,” Aidan says, but he says it like Riva’s worrying about the wrong things, like whatever the dangers are it’s irrelevant, and talking about them is wasting his time.

Val sees Riva catch herself before she says anything else, instead shaking her head and looking up at the ceiling. If she’s praying, Val hopes she isn’t expecting any actual help. Help only happens if you work for it.

“Maybe you just pushed yourself too far,” Val says. “It’s great you’ve got so much knowledge and can help Gertrude, but how about you pace yourself. Maybe meet up for a shorter time? Plan a nap after.”

And now she feels like she’s talking to a toddler, or some old man who hasn’t accepted he can’t push his body like he did back when he was thirty. Even worse, Aidan looks like he’s considering what she says, like what she’s suggesting is wise and sage and not blindingly obvious.

“I suppose that makes sense,” he says, at last. “It doesn’t have to all be done at once.”

And that’s said slowly, a searching out of something he hasn’t previously realised. Whatever his life was like before, it must have contained a lot of urgency and drive. At the very least, it’s left him struggling with a basic concept like pacing himself.

“It does,” she says briskly, partly because she’s getting a headache and partly because Aidan really does look like he needs to lie down.

His pain is more and more obvious when he visits, and she thinks he might be avoiding taking any drugs when he knows he’ll be visiting. She also thinks it keeps him twitchy and hurting, and there are times when he manages to get one of them to drive him back to his place earlier than planned. Val hates it. If he’s here then they can keep an eye on him. More and more, she doesn’t like taking him back to that run-down room to sit on his own and fester.

Still, he’s a grown man. A strange, hurting, grown man. She can’t exactly bundle him up and make him stay. She wishes she knew why she so badly wants to.

**********************************

She’s halfway through a stack of papers when her phone rings, telling her that Riva’s calling.

“What’s up?” she asks, only half listening as she scans the paper in front of her. It makes no sense, but still manages to be better than she expected from the asshole who sits in the third row and thinks she can’t tell when he’s sleeping through lectures. “You need help with a tricky surgery?”

“Sure,” Riva says, “and the first person I thought to call was you. Not any of the actual medical staff where I work.”

“Well, sure. What would they know?” Val says, flipping over the page to find the paper just cuts off. Good to know this student’s on form. He was coming dangerously close to competent there. “Bunch of knife-happy pajama wearers.”

Riva doesn’t rise to that one, and Val turns her full attention to the call.

“Seriously. What’s up?”

“Have you seen or heard from Aidan this week?”

“No. Not yet. Meant to be meeting him for lunch tomorrow.” By which she means taking a flask and sandwiches round to his room. He’s refused to come out and meet her for a while. She only sees him if she goes there or one of them brings him to Beth’s. “Why?”

“He’s missed an appointment at the hospital.”

“Didn’t know he had one.” And given the way he’s reacted every time Val’s brought up how much pain he’s clearly in, she’s surprised. Not surprised he’s skipped it, though. “You want me to call round?”

Riva sighs.

“No. No, I don’t want to smother him.”

Even though Val’s pretty sure that Riva made the appointment and just told Aidan about it afterward. She can only imagine how happy he was with that.

“He really needs a phone,” Riva says.

“He really needs a lot of things. Doesn’t mean he’s going to accept them,” Val counters.

She knows he won’t accept a phone. She tried to give him an old one of hers and he looked at her like she was trying to handcuff him. Not that she knows anything about handcuffing people.

“Maybe we should just have stayed out of it,” Riva says.

It’s a topic they’ve circled for weeks, since Val brought him to Beth’s party that first time, and they keep getting hung up on the fact that all three of them just…want to help him. There’s something endearing about him, something that makes them want to reach out. Besides, it’s good for Beth, feeling she can help someone else after all the time she’s spent feeling like the charity case. They’ve only almost had that conversation, but Val can see it.

“Bit late for that, now,” Val says.

“Yeah,” Riva says. “I suppose once you’ve started feeding the cat you’ve already lost.”

“Hey, Aidan’s not a cat,” Val says, as a knock at her door brings her attention back to the room.

A man in a suit stands in the doorway, a part-smile on his face. He’s tall. That’s the first thing that strikes her. And he’s fucking gorgeous. That’s the second thing. She dislikes him on sight.

“No. He’s a drug addicted abuse survivor, likely ex-service, who’s in constant pain and barely eats. And I’m pretty sure he’s on the verge of being kicked out of his place,” Riva says, her voice a tinny buzz in Val’s ear as she stares at the man. “You know, I don’t even think about that properly except in flashes. What are we even hoping to do here?”

“He’s our friend,” Val says, as though that answers everything. “Look, we can argue about this later. Discuss it. Whatever. When I see him, I’ll ask about the appointment, but I figure you’ll have to drag him to the hospital. He doesn’t want to go. I’ve got to run now. Got a visitor.”

Riva mutters something barely audible and ends the call, leaving Val free to take in the hulking mass of man lurking in her doorway.

“Can I help you?” she asks, knowing she isn’t doing a great job of hiding the bristle.

“Agent Bowie,” he says, holding out I.D. too quickly for her to get a proper look. She’s probably meant to pay more attention to his smile, which is, admittedly, almost dazzling. “I have a few questions regarding the disappearance of a student of yours. Ashley Daniels. I understand he was in one of your classes.”

This close to her desk, the guy looms. A bar of sunlight falls across his face, picking up the almost unnatural green of his eyes, and Val reminds herself that climbing an FBI agent for fun is probably not the right course of action here. Besides, he’s giving her the sort of vibes that make her want to cut him down at the knees. Smart coat, styled hair, a face that could be in a magazine - he’s got to know what he looks like. Hell, he probably relies on it. Being hot isn’t enough to make her like him.

“He’s missed the last few weeks,” she says. “There some reason to think he hasn’t just stopped turning up to lectures? Monday morning’s aren’t for everyone.”

“I’m afraid it’s more than that,” Agent Bowie says, taking the chair in front of her desk even though she hasn’t ask him to.

Now he’s at her level, she can take in the near-symmetry of his face. She assumes most bad guys just line up to be cuffed by the man.

“Mr Daniels hasn’t been seen by anyone for some time. I’ve spoken with his room-mate and with his family.”

“But you thought, what, his math teacher would know more? Because of that deep and abiding bond we lecturers have with…hundreds of students at once? I don’t sit around braiding their hair, Agent.”

His smile twitches, and there’s something hard in his eyes, now she looks carefully. It’s something that makes her glad there’s a desk between them. Charming and dangerous, that’s what this guy seems like. More the sort to be hunted by the FBI.

“I’m asking everyone who knew him, trying to get a sense of how he was before he vanished.”

“Knew? Was?” She lets her right eyebrow drift up. It’s an expression she knows throws people. Riva once called it her ‘disdainfully murderous Vulcan’ face. “You got some reason to think he’s dead?”

“Let’s hope he’s not,” Agent Bowie says. “I’m afraid we have nothing to suggest he dropped out and went backpacking. Really, anything you can tell me might help. Was he distracted? Did he seem ill? Any talk of strange occurrences? Anything.”

“I thought the FBI only got involved for certain crimes,” she says, but in her mind’s eyes she’s scanning over any memories of the boy in question. She does remember something… No idea if it’s of any help, but however she feels about good-looking, overly confident men arriving in her office, she isn’t stupid. When the FBI ask questions, answering is the best option. “Ashley was out of it sometimes, tended to daydream. I don’t remember him saying anything about any weird incidents, but he was… Well. He seemed to be sleepwalking through the day the last couple of times I saw him.”

“Sleepwalking?” the agent asks, his body language inviting further information. She can imagine a lot of people tell him anything he wants to hear, just to be the focus of that gaze. “As in, actually asleep or head in the clouds?”

“He seemed to have forgotten the last few days of his life,” she says, refusing to be drawn by his charm. Beth’s ex had charm. Didn’t make him a decent person. It just meant he was good at playing one, and even better at making you excuse him. “I figured he’d hit the beer. You know how kids can be.”

“Was he much of a drinker?”

“No.” And that should have been a warning, perhaps, but it’s not unusual for a student to break out into party mode once they’ve been away from home long enough to realise their parents won’t be waiting up for them. “Look, it happens. He was keen, bright, and I’m sorry to hear he’s run off, but I can’t tell you anything more.”

He holds her gaze for long enough she almost feels she should find something else to say, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a card.

“Thank-you for your time,” he says. “If you think of anything else…”

“Yeah. Understood. You need any help finding your way out?”

He doesn’t, which is a relief. She still has a lot of papers to wade through, a struggling friend to worry about and an intense and confused reaction to an FBI agent to sort out in her head.

Papers first.

Shoving the card in her pocket, she turns to the next piece of marking.

****************************

Aidan opens the door for her, but she isn’t entirely sure he sees her. His eyes are restless, and he peers into the corridor behind her as though checking for enemies. She isn’t sure why he checks above her as well.

To say they’ve eaten together so many times now, she still knows nowhere near enough about him. Beth’s convinced he’s escaped from a bad relationship, the sort that leaves scars, and Riva says she gets a veteran vibe from him. Val doesn’t see why it can’t be both. Not like soldiers are free and clear from abusive relationships just because they know how to shoot guns and follow orders.

His eyes are glazed, though, so maybe he isn’t taking in much of anything.

“When did you last leave the room?” she asks, because the place looks almost the same as it did the last time she was here, days ago, even down to the way one of his boots has fallen over under the chair in the corner, the sleeve of a sweater draped over it. “Have you been hiding out in here?”

“No,” he says, but he avoids her eyes when he says it.

“Right. Okay.” She wonders how he’s been getting food. There are no signs of takeaway containers. “Well, I brought food. Are you hungry?”

“No,” he says again, limping to the bed and sinking onto it.

He looks exhausted. Sagging. He looks to be summoning up a great deal of effort, the lines of his body tense and slumped at once.

“It’s very kind of you to share your food,” he says. “You don’t need to.”

Val wonders if he knows he’s lost weight. Just in the time she’s known him, he’s lost weight. That shirt drapes about him like a cape, and the jeans must be in danger of falling down.

“I like to share my food,” she says, even though Riva spends a lot of time telling her it’s the opposite. “Actually, um, I was thinking.” She stops, hesitating even as the thought occurs to her, and glances again around the room. It’s depressing. On its own, without any other factors coming into play, it’s a depressing space. “I actually need someone to come and move into my spare room. For the company. You know how it is.”

Aidan nods, but he doesn’t seem to be connecting her statement to himself. Now the idea’s formed, though, she pushes on. She doesn’t know much about him, and her mom will flip, but she just can’t leave him in this room. Not anymore. That agent turning up and talking about people vanishing… She can all too easily imagine turning up one day and finding Aidan just gone, and that hits her harder than maybe it should, what with only having known him for as long as she has. But it is what it is.

“I’d feel better knowing there was someone else there,” she says. “And I get a bit, you know, precious about who I let in my home, so I really want a friend.”

“It can get lonely on your own,” Aidan says.

His gaze travels from the door to the ceiling to the window as he says it, and Val can’t help but notice he’s pushed himself back on the bed so his shoulders are against the headboard.

“Yeah. Exactly. So, how about it? Wanna be roomies?”

That gets his attention, his brow slowly crinkling and his head turning. He manages to look at her for the length of a whole sentence.

“You want me to move into your spare room?”

“Sure,” she says, even as he looks away again, a quick turn of his head as though he thinks something’s there. “It’s not as nice as Beth’s place, but it’s not bad. And it’s closer to the campus, so we could meet up for lunch more easily.”

And it’ll be closer to his dealer, but she chooses to ignore that being a draw.

“I don’t have any money,” he says. Mutters. And he curls in on himself.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t have much-”

“No. I don’t have any. I…I ran out.”

And now he’s hunched up as though he thinks he can squash all six feet of him into something the size of a pillow.

“You ran out? Then how are you paying for this place?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Aidan? Aidan, how are you paying?”

She swears to God, if he says he’s paying in trade she’s bundling him into her car right now. Aidan’s too beaten up already to be facing that kind of work.

“I’m not.”

Silence follows the statement, and she has to grasp at an understanding.

“You’re going to get thrown out.” He doesn’t contradict her. “And were you going to tell us?”

He looks confused. Honest-to-God confused. A fresh flare of anger rises in Val’s chest and she quells the urge to demand a name, so she can hunt down the sorry son of a bastard who made Aidan think he’s so lacking in value that his own friends won’t care if he ends up on the streets. Sure, it might not just be the one guy, but she has a baseball and is quite prepared to use it on a whole line-up. She can pace herself.

“That’s it,” she says. “If you can’t stand living at my place, we’ll work something out, but for now you get your things packed and get yourself in my car. We’ll save the soup for when we’re there.”

He still looks confused as she shoves his clothes into the bag she finds under the bed, sliding to his feet and trying to stop her as she opens a flap at the side and-

“Oh. You have a gun. And…knives. A whole bunch of knives.”

“I can explain-” he starts.

Val shakes her head and drops the bag onto the bed.

“Don’t worry about it. If I were in your shoes, I’d have a stash of weapons, too.”

And perhaps, once they’re settled in her home, he’ll even tell her more about what his shoes are. Or something.

******************************

She gets three bowls of soup down him before he gets so drowsy she’s afraid he’ll drown in the bowl. He’s curled up on her couch, a blanket tucked around him, looking like he hasn’t got much idea what’s happening. She almost pats him on the head when she goes past, but Beth’s comment from weeks back about him being a pet stops her.

“Do you want to watch a film?” she asks, once she’s tidied things away.

It’s clear he’s been dozing from the way he blinks and looks around, but she doesn’t mention it. Aidan always says he isn’t hungry and he isn’t tired, even when he’s very clearly both.

“Maybe something stupid with no real plot and special effects a ten year old could whip up on his phone. You ever seen Sharknado? It’s a classic. I don’t care what Riva says.”

His total lack of response leads her to sit down almost on his feet, missing more by luck than by aim, and frown back at him.

“Look, if this is a bit like being kidnapped by someone you haven’t known long, then I get it. We can work on a plan. But for right now I’d rather have you sleeping in my spare bed, or couch if that’s where you want to be, than out on the streets. All right?”

“Why?” he asks. “What use am I to you?”

“What…? What?”

She could tell him he saved Beth, of course, but this feels like one of those moments where you have to pause and consider what you might be saying without meaning to.

“Why do you have to be of use?” she asks, after a pause where her fingers twitch for that bat.

Someone must have told him he has to be useful to deserve care. Some shit who needs telling.

He doesn’t seem to have an answer for that, as though it’s an angle he’s never considered.

“Friendship isn’t about being useful,” she tries at last, feeling bile at the near-afternoon special nature of it. She feels like a Hallmark card. “I mean, you saved Beth and it’ll be good to have some company, but that’s not why I want to know you’re safe. I like you, Aidan, and I don’t want you out on the streets. I don’t want anyone out on the streets, but I’m not a good enough person to go and save them all. I know you. I want to give you somewhere safe and warm to sleep. Okay? You don’t have to be useful to deserve people caring about you.”

She’s going to need to read some porn or watch a movie with a near hundred percent kill rate or something to get this sugary goo off her, but if he needs to hear it spelled out, then that’s what he’s getting.

“Do you understand?” she asks, ducking her head to try and catch his eye.

It’s clear from his expression he doesn’t, but he nods. Almost like he’s been trained to agree with a question like that, like it’s code that he has to claim he gets it. Code for what, she doesn’t know.

“We’ll work on it some more later,” she says, patting his leg. Screw the whole pet thing. She can pat a friend’s leg. “I’m putting Sharknado on and getting a beer.”

**************************

Beth doesn’t seem entirely on board with the new house-mate set-up.

“He’s living in your spare room?” she hisses, as Val boils water for that chamomile tea Beth likes and gets out plates for the lemon cakes. “When did this get decided?”

“Two days ago, when I went round and found out he was about to be kicked out. Look, chill, okay? It’s fine. He’s not a serial killer.”

He has a gun and more knives than one person can possibly need, all stored away in that bag of his, and his stash of drugs is in there, too, but she’s still almost certain he isn’t a serial killer. For one thing, she’s pretty sure serial killers have to be able to move faster than Aidan can right now.

“Anyway,” she says, only partially acting the scowl she sends at Beth, “you were the one who brought him home first.”

“Yes. I was in shock. We’ve been over this.”

“Do you think I should throw him out on the streets?”

“What?” Beth’s jaw clenches and she crosses her arms. “No. Don’t be stupid. I just wish you wouldn’t rush into things without talking about them.”

Val lets that one go. It’s an argument they’ve had before, and they’ve both taken a turn on each side of it.

“Speaking of talking,” she says instead, “I was hoping you might be able to get more out of him now he’s here. I think he feels safer talking to you.”

It’s a theory, at least. He’s let Val check his injuries, but she doesn’t have Riva’s knowledge-base and he point blank refuses to go to the hospital, even though it’s clear he needs some help. To be honest, Val’s biggest fear the last couple of nights has been she’ll wake up to find he’s died. She’s left her bed to stick her head into his room and check. A few times.

Beth looks dubious, but she heads off into the lounge and Val hears the murmur of voices. Even if they’re just talking about the weather, it’s company for him.

When she makes it back to the living-room, she finds Beth sitting with her legs curled up, facing Aidan, who’s looking down at his hands. She gets the feeling something important has just been said, so she sets the tray down quietly and slides into the armchair off to the side. Given the way Beth doesn’t even look around, it’s a time to keep out of it.

Aidan’s quiet for a while, his brow pulled down into a frown and his eyes lowered. His lashes really are long. Actually, if she wasn’t so worried about him, and if Beth wasn’t sitting right on the other side of him personifying physical perfection, Val could spend a good bit of time admiring Aidan’s profile.

It’s the longest she’s seen him go without checking out every corner of the room in ages. It’s like Beth’s found some code-word that’s switched him off.

Finally, he looks up, his brow still pinched, and looks at Beth.

“I don’t have a plan,” he says, as though it’s an admission. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Val shifts forwards in her seat. There are tears in there, making his voice thick. Beth waves her off, moving forward and setting a hand on Aidan’s shoulder.

“You don’t have to have a plan,” Beth says. “I just wondered if you had one, that’s all. It’s okay not to.”

“Absolutely,” Val says, when Beth shoots her a look. “You’re just fine crashing here for now. You can hang out, watch awesomely bad movies, meet up with Gertrude. Hey, and how about Beth shows you some of her research? You can nerd out over physics together. That sounds like plenty of planning.”

“Again, Val, you are a Math professor,” Beth says, and at least ten percent of that exasperation sounds real. “How are we the only nerds?”

Val could be wrong, but she thinks Aidan almost smiles at being included in Beth’s statement.

It isn’t much, but at least she has him somewhere safe for now, and Beth can help her to look after him. And if she ever finds the guy who hurt him, Val is going to make sure he knows how much damage has been done.

************************

They’re at Beth’s, waiting for Gertrude to bring round a friend who also waxes lyrical about that weird language they like, when a sharp knock at the door brings trouble. Riva goes to answer it.

She happens to be looking Aidan’s way when the low rumble of an almost familiar voice reaches the room and the way he tenses, pales, has her partway to her feet. Beth leans towards him, reaching out as though wanting to touch a hand to his leg or shoulder. To ground him.

“What is it?” she asks, but before he can answer Riva returns.

“FBI,” Riva says, and she looks worried. “They think Aidan might know something about their case.”

Agent Bowie walks behind her, trailed by a man who’d make anyone looks short. He has longer hair than seems right on an agent, long and brown, and Val dislikes him on sight. She isn’t ready to be reasonable about guys with long brown hair. Not yet.

Agent Bowie smiles at Beth as he steps into the room, that charm turning up as he sees someone new to entrance. God, Val isn’t even sure why she wants to shake him so much.

She watches as he glances round the room, waiting to see how he turns the charm on Aidan, who really doesn’t need any confusion in his life. Any more than he already has. The only question is whether the guy will pull the semi-seduction bit on Aidan like he has on Val and Riva, and now Beth.

She’s ready for a glint in his eyes, for a smile that seems more personal that it’s got any right to. What she’s not ready for is to see his expression freeze, his lips parting on a breath. She can’t be sure what he says. It’s too quiet to hear. A single syllable, it looks like. And he’s looking right at Aidan.

Who’s wide-eyed and staring, his gaze fixed on the agent.

“What are you doing here?” Aidan asks. He sounds cornered, so totally thrown that Val almost expects him to run. And there’s a note of something personal in it.

Realisation sets in, cold and chilly and not caring at all that she only has a few scant facts to work with. She could be about to say something monumentally stupid, but her instinct is good when it comes to protecting the people she cares about, and it’s screaming at her now.

“You’re him,” she says, turned back to Agent Bowie. “You’re the guy he ran from.”

She sees Beth’s eyes widen, hears Riva make some sound that might be a warning or shock or anything. She sees Aidan flinch, like he was hoping he was imagining things and Val just made it real. Maybe he’s anticipating the way this agent will react.

It isn’t smart to confront an abuser. She knows that. Not that Aidan has to go with him, at least. It’s not like the guy will have the chance to take it out on Aidan later. Aidan can stay safe and secure with them. But still, not smart.

And no wonder Aidan has so little money, lacks ID and won’t give his real name. His ex is a fucking Fed.

Without quite meaning to, Val pushes the rest of the way to her feet and puts herself close enough to block this agent from getting a clear pass at Aidan.

“What are you doing here, Buddy?” Agent Bowie asks, and for all the world he seems like someone greeting his lost love. To him, it probably is some tragic love story and not some screwed up, damaging nightmare. If he really is surprised to see Aidan, he’s covering it well. “Why’d you disappear on me? On us?”

Us?

The other agent has a look on his face which…oh. There’s some tangled crap going on here.

“Cas?” the taller agent says, taking a part step forwards. “What happened to you?”

“Sam,” Aidan says. No, Cas. Agent Bowie called him Cas, and he didn’t deny it. “You… You’re here about the case.”

Some tension goes out of him, but Val’s pretty sure she hears hurt. Does he want this Bowie to be here for him? Beth was mixed up when she finally left Greg. She said she wanted to go back, more than once, even though she never did it.

“If we’d known you were here we’d have high-tailed it here much sooner,” Bowie says. He shakes his head, blinks, and if Val didn’t know how Aidan flinched and hunched at so many things, she’d feel sorry for the man. “Shit, Cas, just look at you. What…? Do you need to eat? Are you eating, now?”

Aidan…Cas glances away, his gaze skittering around the room, and he pulls the sleeves of his cardigan over his hands, as though he’s trying to fold pieces of himself away. He towers over her when they stand, and she wants to tuck him up safe in her arms and keep this guy away. When he speaks, his words come out strained. He almost sounds guilty.

“No. Yes. I…I don’t know. You don’t need to be concerned.”

“Concerned?” Agent Bowie takes a step closer, looming, and the other guy, Sam, makes a move as though to grab his arm. He avoids it. “Concerned? I’ve been going out of my fucking mind. You know how many places I’ve checked out? We went after you, soon as we got a lead, but some homeless woman said you’d ditched the car. And you got rid of the credit card. What were you thinking?”

“Dean, calm it,” Sam says. He’s ignored all but for a flick of those green eyes.

“Were you thinking?” Dean asks. “You just up and leave in the middle of the night, take off without your phone and leave us hanging, I gotta figure something was screwed up in your head.”

“That’s enough,” Beth snaps.

Val’s glad, because it just beats her to taking action, and she isn’t sure she’d have used her words. Beth stands in the middle of the room, and the sunlight catches her, making her golden. She blazes with the sort of fight Val wishes her friend had been able to muster against Greg, but things are never that easy.

“This is my home,” Beth says. “I don’t care if you’re FBI, you don’t get to attack my friend in my home.”

Dean recoils, looking wounded.

“Attack?” he asks, like it’s crazy-talk. “I’m not attacking. If the stupid bastard’s gonna to run off when he needs looking after-”

“That’s how you speak about him? And you’re surprised he left you?” Beth asks, not letting him finish his sentence.

Val checks on Cas, and it’s going to take some time to get used to a new name for him, to find a glazed look on him.

“Guys,” she says. “We all need to can it.”

She looks back in time to see Dean’s eyes latch onto Cas again, and he’s good at looking worried, at looking caring. Shit, if she saw that look on his face with no context, she’d be begging Aidan to take him back. Cas. God, she needs a shot of something.

There’s a near tremble under her skin, right near her bones, as she holds herself still. She wants to fly into action, but throwing a Fed out of the house isn’t likely to help, and there’s a lot Cas has never told them. The edges of it have gaped in conversation more than once.

Beth snaps back into movement first.

“If you’re going to be here,” she says, the note of warning so clear that Val could cheer, “then you’re going to be civil. And you aren’t going near him.”

As if to prove her point, she sits down on the couch next to Cas, her back straight and her chin up. Val might never have loved her more.

Wait. Admired. That came out wrong. Whatever.

Val moves to take the seat Beth just left, so the agents, Cas’ ex and whoever the other one is to him, have no choice but the take the hard-backed chairs on the other side of the coffee table. Which they do. The charmer, Dean, looks like he wants to chew rocks, and there’s a look on Sam’s face that makes Val wonder if he isn’t a lot more dangerous than he appears, but they do sit. They even keep their hands where she can see them.

She really wishes she had her bat with her.

“So,” she says, taking over when Beth continues to stare right at Dean as though her gaze alone is a shield. “You really here for this case?”

Cas shifts. It’s subtle, but he’s listening, even though he still looks mostly checked out, his shoulders hunched and his hands hidden. These times when he spaces are about the only times, other than when he’s sleeping, that he’s properly still. He jitters and watches shadows and always looks like he’s expecting to be attacked. She thinks about how much weight he’s lost in the last few months, about the injuries he’s picked up that just aren’t healing, and wonders how many changes Dean and Sam are seeing. For Cas’ sake, she’d have liked him to face this Dean from a position of strength. Well, fuck it. Beth and Val, and Riva from where she’s standing behind the couch, will have to be his strength.

Dean pulls his eyes away from Cas for only a moment to glance at Val.

“Yeah. We’re really here for the case. But you better believe I mean it about being here sooner if we knew.” His gaze goes back to Val’s friend like it’s being drawn. “Cas-”

“You speak to me,” Val cuts in. Unless Cas shows he wants to join in, she’d rather he not have that voice aimed at him. Even now, knowing who he is, Val can feel the pull of the man. It must be worse for Cas. “And you better get it into your head that you’re not taking him with you. You get that? You can’t just show up and drag him back. He left. Deal with it.”

“Well, he shouldn’t have left,” Dean says. “We were helping him. He was getting better.”

“No,” Cas says. It’s more of the mutter than anything else, but Val keeps herself silent so he can be heard. “No, I wasn’t. You said I wasn’t. You said…” He drifts off again, tilting his head and checking out the ceiling, like there might be enemies hiding up there.

“I what?” Dean looks genuinely confused. “I never said that.”

But Sam shifts on his seat.

“What?” Dean demands, turning to face the taller man.

“You did say that, Dean,” Sam says. “Cas was sorting out the Christmas lights, and you said he wasn’t getting any better.”

It takes a moment, but Dean’s face crinkles in disgust.

“Out in the hall,” he says, dragging the word out. “Not where he could hear.”

Sam gives him a look like he’s being stupid, and Dean’s expression freezes.

“Fucking super-hearing,” he says. “Shit. Cas, listen, you weren’t meant to hear that. Okay? And you weren’t supposed to fucking run off. I say shit I don’t mean, all the time. You know me.”

“You lie,” Cas says. He says it like it’s a redeeming feature. “But that wasn’t a lie. It was just a truth you didn’t think you could say to my face.”

“What?” The guy seems stuck on that word. “No. No, I just wanted you better. You can’t just… Can you honestly say you’ve been better on your own? Come on. I know you. You go off on your own and end up screwing things up worse. Don’t you?”

“Yes,” Cas says. Whispers.

“Stop it,” Beth says, one hand reaching out to land on Cas’ shin. If he feels that, he doesn’t react. “I don’t know what you did to him, but he’s not yours now, and you can’t speak to him like that. He’s not screwed anything up and you don’t get to talk to him that way.”

“Lady, you have no idea what kinds of crap he’s got himself into,” Dean says, voice going cold.

“He got involved with you, so I think I’ve got some idea,” Beth says, her voice colder.

Dean’s eyes widen. His chin comes up.

“Involved?” he says.

His right hand tightens on the arm of the chair, and Sam leans forward, a hand cutting in front of Dean.

“Leave it,” Sam says. He turns to Beth and Val, one after the other, pain on his face when he passes over Cas. “Look, this is a lot more complicated than you know. But we’re his family, and he’s better off with us. Just let us talk to him properly, and-”

“And you’ll what?” Val asks. “Brainwash him into going with you so you can abuse him some more? What creepy-ass three-way have you got going on, anyway?”

“You wanna talk three-way-” Dean starts, as though that makes any sense in the aggressive tone he’s using.

Sam cuts him off again.

“Dean, walk it off,” he says. Snaps.

There’s a suspended moment where Val’s almost sure someone is going to get punched, and it might even be Sam, before Dean leaves his seat and strides out. The house rattles around the slamming of the door. In its wake, Val checks on Beth and…and Cas to find them both still. Cas is watching Sam out of the corner of his eye, but he looks like he isn’t sure if he wants to flit away.

Sam’s expression crumples into nothing short of warm worry.

“Did you really leave because of what Dean said?” Sam asks. He looks like a yes will wound him. When Cas doesn’t answer, just presses his lips into a tighter line, Sam sits back and lets out a breath. “Okay. Okay, so, Dean screwed up saying that. He should have remembered about your hearing. Hell, we both should have. But he was just upset he couldn’t help you get better faster, Cas. That’s all.”

Cas doesn’t look convinced, and Val’s starting to wonder what exactly was wrong with Cas before he ran. Something about this isn’t quite adding up.

“Look, you know Dean,” Sam goes on. “He likes to find a solution, find a way to hit out at the enemy. And your thing? His solution to anything emotional has always been to push it down, or to drink it. You’ve seen him do it.”

“Sometimes he talks to me,” Cas says.

If Sam looks surprised by that, he clears it from his face quickly enough.

“Yeah. Well, you’ve always been… It’s not like any of us are exactly poster boys for good mental health. Maybe… I don’t know. Maybe we weren’t the best people to help you. But just running off? What, you didn’t get enough of that back-”

There’s too much cutting off and loading sentences with meaning for Val to be sure what’s really being said, but the way Sam’s talking to Cas sounds like he cares.

“Just exactly who are you?” she asks. “Because you aren’t talking about Agent Bowie like he’s a work colleague. And how do you know Cas?”

The way he shifts in the seat is enough to tell her Dean isn’t the only one who lies, but his words come out smoothly enough.

“We served together. For a long time. Cas is my friend.” Just like Dean, his gaze is drawn back to Cas almost like he can’t help it. “Hell, I said before you’re like a brother to me, and I meant it. Mean it.”

The last words finally bring Cas’ head around so he’s looking at Sam properly. He looks like he isn’t sure what emotion he’s meant to be having, so he’s trying out several at once. It looks painful.

“You’ve both told me that, and you’ve both told me to leave,” he says. “No. No, I know why. I get it. I understand. You don’t want me around when I’m not useful.”

Oh. So that is where he gets that from. Fucking awesome.

“What?” Sam says, and he at least puts on a good show of being horrified by that. “Cas, why would you think that?”

Before Cas can answer, Sam flicks a look at Beth, and at Val, and shakes his head.

“Can we get some privacy here?” he asks.

“No,” Beth says, before Val has to.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Cas says. “It won’t change anything. Just tell me about the case. You think I might know something?”

The way he slips into an almost business-like tone is almost painful, like he’s had to do this a lot in his life: bury pain and shock and get on with a mission.

“No,” Sam says. “No, we’re looking for some guy called Aidan. He got attacked in the park the same night this Ashely kid came home with marks on him.”

Cas shifts on the couch, his gaze doing another circuit of the room before he almost looks back at Sam.

“Um,” he says. “That would be me.”

“No way,” Sam says, as though there can be no contradiction. “This Aidan guy’s a drug addict, practically homeless.”

There’s a terrible, strained moment as denial makes way for realization on Sam’s face. Cas has his eyes lowered now, as though he’s waiting for judgment. He’s never really hidden his drug use from Val and the others, and she just kind of assumed it was something he refused to be judged on, but he looks to be worried about what this Sam will think.

“Drugs, Cas?” Sam asks, his voice softening. “That… Shit.”

He drops his head, cradling it in his hands. Strands of long brown hair stick out and it’s a still-life for a while. When he raises his head, it’s only enough to show he now looks even more worried.

“I’m the last one to pass judgment here,” he says, and maybe he really meant it when he said they weren’t any of them the best examples of healthy, because that sounds like there’s a whole story buried somewhere, “but you’ve got to know that won’t be helping. What are you even taking?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Cas says, and he glances at Val, twisting his body to make contact.

It’s all she needs.

“That’s enough,” she says, standing when Sam opens his mouth again. For a moment, she manages to loom over him. Just for a moment, because when he stands she has to crane her neck to keep her eyes on his. She refuses to back up. “I have your partner’s number. If Aidan wants to speak to you again, we’ll call.”

From the way his eyebrows lift, a muscle near his mouth twitching, it’s clear he isn’t keen on that. She doesn’t know if it’s because she’s speaking for Cas, or because she used his chosen name, or what. Perhaps he just isn’t used to being ordered about, but if that’s the case he only resists for a moment.

“Dean and me, we’re staying at the usual place,” he says, and that has to be aimed at Cas. “You don’t need a card. I know you remember Dean’s number. Use it.”

Despite the phrasing, that last comment comes out warm, caring. Val clenches her jaw and keeps herself steady. Greg had some full weeping fits once he realised Beth had left him. Didn’t make him suddenly a decent guy.

She keeps her place until the agent is gone, the door closing softly behind him, and spins to check on her friends. Beth is folded over, head in her hands and a fine tremble in her shoulders. Standing up to someone like that has to be taxing to her, but even as Val watches she pushes herself up and offers a weak, but determined smile.

“Tea, I think,” she says. “Ai- Cas?”

He looks up, not looking like he’s taking much in.

“Do I want tea?” he asks, as though that’s the strangest thing he’s ever been asked.

“Well, yes. But also… Do you want us to call you Cas?” Beth asks. “Or do you want to stick with Aidan?

He frowns.

“Dean thinks he gave me that name,” he says. “I’ve never told him I’ve been called Cas before, by others.”

Beth shares a look with Val. It’s not one of his more helpful comments.

“So,” Val tries, holding out her hands, “to Cas or not to Cas?”

“I don’t think that’s how it goes,” he says, but the corner of his mouth twists up a little. He still sounds shaky. “I suppose…I suppose I do like Cas. And you know the name now.”

“All right, then,” Val says. If he’s happy to use the name his ex uses, that’s his choice. “Did we make a decision on the tea?”

Cas hobbles through to the kitchen as the water boils, managing something almost like a smile as Val helps herself to biscuits from the jar and Beth gets the drinks made. It’s a pale and unconvincing smile, but Val has to give him points for trying. They settle in something almost like relaxation at the table, with Bath chatting about the weather and about migration patterns or some such thing as steam winds its way up from their mugs. Finally, Cas sets down his mug and sighs.

“I suppose you have questions,” he says. “You always seem to have questions.”

The way he says it is odd, as though he means more than just Val and Beth, who’ve been really restrained with asking him questions in the past, thank you very much. Still, since he brings it up…

“If you’re okay to explain it,” she says, because she isn’t an ass, “I could do with you filling in a few things.”

He nods. His back’s straighter than normal and Val’s reminded of movies where a soldier’s being debriefed. They’ve still never talked about it, but Sam did mention serving.

“Were you in the army?”

“I was a soldier,” he says, and it sounds like a correction. “For a long time.”

“And you met both of them then? Sam and Dean?”

“Dean first. Sam later. We fought side by side on more than one campaign.”

“And they're, what, close friends? To each other?" Val asks.

"They're brothers," Cas says. He licks his lips and shifts on the seat. "Um. In war, it can be...there are bonds..."

Val narrows her eyes at that. She could swear this Dean and Sam are related, but Cas seems to be following Sam's lead over refusing to state it outright. And she doesn't see the FBI letting two brothers be partners. Cas looks uncomfortable with the whole thing, though, so she lets it drop.

"But you didn’t want to go into the Fed work when you got out?” Val asks. This is the most he’s ever talked about his past. Even after letting slip his knowledge of physics and that weird language Beth’s friend likes to speak, he’s not given much away.

“Got out?” He seems to mull that over for a while, and they let him, Beth refilling the tea as they wait. Finally, he shakes his head. “I don’t suppose it feels like getting out,” he says. “In many ways, I’m still a soldier. I always will be. Whatever else I do, there’s still that.”

“You would make a kick-ass physics professor,” Val says, because the way he’s sticking himself in one box is too much for her. “Liven up the usual boring dross.”

“Hey,” Beth says, but there’s no heat in it.

“I don’t think so,” Cas says. “I’ve tried to teach before. It…didn’t go well.”

She has one of those moments again, the ones where she feels to be teetering on the edge of some huge, gaping abyss only Cas really knows is there. As usual, the only outward sign anyone knows it’s there is a loaded silence.

“Well, I’m pretty sure you could do something with all the shit in your head,” Val says. “So, um, what are you thinking? About those two? Are you going to call them?”

He taps his fingers along the edge of his mug, expression pensive.

“I should,” he says. It sounds almost reluctant, partly hopeful. “I might know something about the case.”

“Fuck the case, Cas,” Val says, and now she uses the name she feels how right it is on him. “This is about what you need. You get you don’t have to call them? If you want, I can call. Tell them to back off and never darken our door again. Just say the word.”

He sighs, and his fingers still.

“No. No, I should call them. I should call Dean.”

Val wants to take his hand, to tell him again he doesn’t have to see that man, but she remembers that look of determination on Beth’s face, and it tells her Cas isn’t ready to listen right now. Well, fine. If he feels he has to speak to the guy, he’s at the very least not going to do it alone. One glance at Riva and Beth shows the same understanding on their faces.

“Okay,” Val says for all of them. “Then you call him. But don’t you think for a minute that we’re leaving you alone in this.”

It warms her, just a little, that he doesn’t look surprised.

Chapter Text

Sam finds Dean pacing by the Impala, his hands on his head like he’s trying to get a grip on his hair. The look on his brother’s face has Sam speeding up.

“Dean,” he says, stopping closer than he normally would. He needs Dean to know Sam’s in this with him. He needs Dean to calm down and listen. “Hey, we’ve found him. That’s a good thing.”

“And did you get a good look at him, Sam?” Dean asks.

Oh, god. His voice is almost breaking. This is a Dean who’s much closer to the edge than is good for anyone. Sam has to get him steady before he does anything stupid, like storming back to talk to Cas in the sort of mood where ultimatums and accusations are far more likely than anything else. Cas looked like a strong breeze could snap him. No way is he up for Dean in this mood.

“Yeah. I did. And he looks rough. No question. But, Dean, we know where he is. That’s a million times better than where we were yesterday. Right?”

A muscle jumps in Dean’s jaw. He doesn’t reply.

“Right,” Sam says again, because if he has to carry both sides of this conversation, that’s what he’ll do. “Look, I told him to call. And we’ll not let him vanish again. But right now we need to go back to our room and think about how we handle this. It’s too important to screw up.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Dean asks. He practically snarls it.

“No. Yes. I mean, of course you do.”

God, if Dean’s this close to the edge just from seeing Cas, Sam isn’t sure it’s a good idea the two of them talk. Not just now. Those women might be right about Cas needing to be shielded from the both of them, at least when Dean’s in this state. But not about them staying away for good. Cas is family, and Sam has lost enough family. They all have.

With a glare hot enough to roast a demon, Dean yanks open the door of the Impala and slides in behind the wheel. Sam doesn’t like Dean driving when he’s this wound up, but he likes the idea of prying Dean from behind the wheel even less, so he lets himself sigh again and heads around to the passenger side.

Anyway, he has a lot to think about and Dean needs to drive the way other people need air. Sam’s hoping Dean missed a load of the subtext in that conversation back there, because what those women were suggesting is horrifying. And even worse, he isn’t even sure how wrong they were. Are.

Before he makes another attempt to contact Cas, Sam needs to work through why three people the Winchesters have never met before think Dean is Cas’ abusive boyfriend.

***********************************

Dean found him. Dean found him and it was an accident of the hunt, not a true attempt to find Castiel at all.

He thinks Dean mentioned tracking down a lead, that he said Sam and Dean looked for Castiel, and Dean was angry about the card. But he also said Castiel ditched the car, and he didn’t. He hasn’t. It’s still in it’s space, hiding in plain view of anyone who walks past it. It’s his last refuge if these new friends of his turn him out, though he isn’t sure how far he’ll get with what gas he has in the tank.

Dean found him. And he was angry.

Warmth from the mug of tea curls into his palms, licking away some of the ice cutting through him. He can’t shake the cold these days, and it’s been getting worse. He hasn’t told them that.

“Do you want any more?” Beth asks.

This is already the sixth mug she’s given him since Sam left.

“No. Thank-you.”

They’ve let him sit in the orangery, a room Beth doesn’t use all year round, and he’s found a patch of sunlight falling across a wicker chair. It’s peaceful, and calming, and is doing nothing at all to sooth the ragged edges of him, but he can’t bring himself to leave.

“Mind if I sit with you?” Beth asks, after a pause. “I’ll keep it quiet.”

He nods. She has every right to be wherever she wishes to be in her own home. He hears her settle nearby, the wicker of her chair creaking, and the click of needles starts up. Beth isn’t good at knitting, but it doesn’t stop her from trying. She is good at silences. He finds he appreciates it.

With the background noise of the needles, he feels his mind drifting. It’s been almost a day since he last took the powder, and every particle of him aches. Seeing Dean has knocked something loose in his mind, and all of the thoughts he’s been working to keep settled in the lower reaches of his mind are rising, winding around each other and brushing against him.

Dean looked different without the ring of holy fire between them, but something of that same look was there, all the same.

He needs to find a way to stop letting Dean down.

Dean looked different through only his human eyes, as well, but that, at least, is something he’s seen before. Back when he was mortal, back when he was playing at human and pretending to himself that his heart wasn’t broken, he saw Dean as humans see him. He still shone.

But that isn’t the same as the way he should see him, and the loss of his trailing green and gold, honey and sage and threads of saffron, is almost as painful as the sharp wires of hurt in his wings.

After seeing Dean, and Sam, he’s been feeling his wings, or the phantom presence of them. The pain twines along the large bones, arcing up over his head and back down to either side, as though the wings are draped over the back of the chair, their tips trailing on the tiles beneath him.

It occurs to him that Dean has never seen his wings. Not really. Neither of them have. Sam could have done, perhaps, when he was host to Gadreel, but Castiel didn’t have his wings for much of that time and Gadreel was shutting down Sam’s knowledge. And Dean, when he was a demon, may have seen them. He’s never said. And Castiel has never dared to ask.

After all, perhaps Dean hasn’t mentioned it because the sight disgusted him. And not just the wings themselves. No. If Dean could see them, he would also be able to see some of Castiel’s true-form, enough to glimpse how inhuman he really is, and it has occurred to him that Dean prefers to think of Castiel as human. Indestructible, useful, but human. Dean sees being inhuman as being monstrous.

He fails Dean simply by existing.

“You’ve gone awfully still,” Beth says, and her tone is an invitation.

He can pick up that much about her, after all these weeks. A quick glance shows him she’s still frowning down at her wool, already tangling itself into something which will need unpicking. He knows she’ll do it, patiently and without complaint, and that she’ll start again. She hasn’t given up on this one just yet, though.

“What should I be doing?” he asks.

“There isn’t a ‘should’,” Beth says.

It’s something she does, something Val does, too. They take the time to tell him he’s allowed to feel, that he doesn’t have to be acting a certain way. It’s kind of them. He isn’t sure if he’s right to have started believing them.

“It’s…” he begins, and stops.

“It’s a lot, I’m betting,” Beth says for him. “Seeing him again. I know I found it a total mindfuck when I saw Greg again. After I’d left him properly, that is.”

She doesn’t add to it. Just leaves it there.

Castiel frowns, pulling the pain that is his wings closer in. The pain, at least, seems real.

“That’s not the same,” he says.

“No?”

“No. Dean.” And he does know he uses that name as a complete sentence. To him, it is. He tries again. “Dean isn’t like Greg. To me.”

He isn’t sure why that squirming feeling in his gut flares up. He’s telling the truth. Dean isn’t someone who’s hurt Castiel the way Greg hurt Beth.

“No?” she says again. “Do you… Can you tell me what it’s like? With you and Dean?”

Perhaps he was wrong to tell them they could ask questions.

As though sensing his discomfort, Beth speaks again.

“I’m not meaning to push, Cas. You don’t have to tell me anything about it, if you don’t want to. But I am here, if you want to. I mean, I’m here to listen. Sometimes, I think you just need to say it. You know? To make it real to yourself, so you can deal with it. But, like I say, I won’t push. Just tell me if there’s anything you need. All right?”

“I…”

What does he need? He needs his wings back, properly. He needs his sword. He needs to find a way to calm the pieces of himself and stitch what he can back together. But she can’t help with any of that. She’s human. Even Dean and Sam can’t help him with this.

He found his own Grace, after all, and his own way of coping with being Graceless before that. He’ll find a way now, too.

“I’m good,” he says, and does his best to mean it.

**********************************

Dean slams into the motel room like it’s done him a personal injustice, the door rattling behind him, and Sam’s pretty sure Dean wouldn’t even notice if Sam got smacked in the face by several feet of fake-wood.

“Okay, I get you’re reacting. I do. But you need to calm down,” Sam says, shutting the door behind him more carefully and slipping out of his Fed jacket.

Interviewing other witnesses since seeing Cas has been a nightmare. Dean’s been simmering, refusing to talk in the brief car rides from place to place, and Sam’s had time to think about the situation. It’s already occurred to him that pretending to be FBI is going to make being honest with Cas’ new friends all the harder, and there’s still a case here. Something’s taking people. They can’t lose sight of that.

“Calm down?” Dean says. There’s that dark edge to his tone that reminds Sam of the Mark. It’ll never really be gone. “You think I’m going to calm down? You saw him.”

Finally.

“Yes. Dean. I saw him.”

Dean glares at him, one hand out to the side as though making a point about something, and Sam stares back.

With a growl, Dean turns and strips off his jacket, his tie, his shirt. He slams into the bathroom and is back minutes later dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and Sam knows Dean’s had practice getting out of clothes fast, but that’s bordering on impressive. He’s only got as far as loosening his tie.

The minute or two it’s taken has been enough to slump Dean’s shoulders and pull the corners of his mouth down. Sam isn’t going to point out how close Dean looks to tears. The fiction that Dean’s not emotional is one his brother’s wedded to, no matter how much it’s bullshit.

“You think that’ll help?” Sam asks, when Dean reaches for a beer.

“Can’t hurt,” Dean says, and doesn’t even bother to plaster on a fake air of smugness.

Dropping onto the bed, Dean holds the beer between his hands, apparently engrossed in reading the label. Sam sighs and takes the opposite bed, wary of prodding at Dean but not able to just leave this alone. Leaving shit like this alone has always been part of their problem.

“We need to talk about it,” he says.

“Cas is hiding out with a bunch of strangers, he looks like six shades of crap and apparently I’m not allowed to talk to him. That about sum it up?”

“He’s Aidan,” Sam says, because he has to move this on from Dean reacting somehow. They need to get all of their facts together, look at it properly. Perhaps they should have been treating Cas’ illness like a case all along: something to hunt and defeat.

Dean freezes.

“What?” he asks his hands.

“Cas is Aidan,” Sam says, making sure to say it as calmly as he can. It isn’t all that calm. “He’s the guy we went to see.”

Dean unfreezes, shakes his head.

“No. No, he can’t be.” He glances up, his expression tight and wounded. “That Aidan guy was in the hospital. When has Cas ever been…?”

Sam’s remembering a Cas without Grace, calling from a hospital bed during the Apocalypse, and a Cas sitting in white in an institution. He isn’t sure which one Dean’s seeing.

“Yeah, I know,” Sam says. “But it’s him. And Dean, something’s wrong with his Grace. It has to be. The way he was sitting, he’s hurting.”

“And he’s taking drugs,” Dean says, and it sounds like despair.

Part of Sam was hoping that, just this once, Dean really would be as dumb as he pretended to be, that he would somehow miss that conclusion. It was a stupid hope.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Look, Dean, we need to get our heads straight before we go back. You get that, right?”

Dean rubs a hand over his face, the set of his jaw and the tightness of his shoulders making it clear he wants something to hit.

“Thought we’d avoided that,” Dean says. His gaze is focused on something Sam can’t see. “Fuck. I thought…”

Whatever Dean thought, it trails off into silence.

Sam waits. No way is Dean in a fit state to hear him just now, not with that glazed, defeated look on his face. And they have to play this right. Dean hasn’t ever let himself really get how diminished Cas is, how far he’s fallen. Even when Cas was fighting on with borrowed Grace, Dean acted like the angel was indestructible.

It’s what Dean does, putting the few people he lets under his guard up on some sort of pedestal. Once there, Dean battles against anything that might cause the pedestal to crumble. Take Dad… Well, maybe now’s not the time to think about him. But Dean rejects any suggestion that John Winchester was the abusive mess that he was. Dean has trouble keeping love and reality in the same head-space, as far as Sam can tell.

Sam doesn’t have that issue. He’s seen how Cas is weaker after getting his own Grace back. Hell, he’s cautioned Cas, more than once, to take it easy, to learn his new limitations. And Sam was the one to notice what was going on with Cas. He frowns as he remembers having to tell Dean about that.

Care, that’s what’s needed. He has to ease Dean into this, hard as that’ll be when Dean’s already seen Cas, when he’s already in the middle of reacting. Still, Sam can do this.

He just has to unsnarl his own thoughts first.

Cas looked so small, huddled on that couch. He looked broken.

***************************

Dean sits up long after Sam’s rolled into bed, still holding that same bottle of beer. He meant to drink it. He really did. It’s just, the bitter tang in his throat made the thought of drinking anything nauseating. Besides, he saw the way that professor and her friends looked at him, like he was dirt. Or danger.

Not like Dean’s a stranger to being thought of as a threat, or, Hell, even a monster. He is one. Or was. He isn’t sure which tense to go for. But he has never, not once, not even as a demon, treated the people he’s with the wrong way.

He wonders if Sam picked up on what Val and Beth were implying. Probably not. Sam doesn’t seem to have noticed Dean slinking off to meet and greet in bathrooms and in alleys and sometimes in motel rooms, not when it’s been the male kind of company Dean’s been with.

And it’s not like there’s anything between Cas and him, anyway. Cas doesn’t even think about that stuff, not unless someone leads him that way.

A flash of a memory lights up thoughts Dean doesn’t want to look at: Cas in a hut, wearing clothes no angel should be caught in, winking up at Dean.

Fuck, but he thought they’d skipped that. If nothing else, he thought Cas was spared that sort of despairing, bitter fall from grace.

Maybe all Dean’s done is delay it, make it worse. At least in that screwed up, nightmare version of 2014, Cas had more weight on him, and he looked Dean in the eye.

He doesn’t bother to turn on the light when he heaves himself up from the bed. Sam needs his sleep. It only takes a moment to slip his jacket on and ease his way out of the room, leaving the door on the latch. Dean just needs some air, needs to clear his head and take stock.

He doesn’t even realise at first when his feet take him in the direction of the house where he found Cas.

The street’s leafy, the kind of place you expect to hear classical music playing through an open window and to see people leaving a party where the food’s been more cheese and wine than anything else. It’s not the kind of place Dean’s ever lived, not even with Lisa. Not even before his mom died.

A fleeting thought almost stills his feet, of what it might have been like, to grow up with Mary, in Mary’s house. He’d have had a home, a place in normal society. Shaking his head, he pushes on. It’s an idle thought, something Dean shouldn’t even worry about. Even if he’d grown up in Lawrence, even if he’d gone to school and to college and to all the dances and ball-games and whatever else people got up to, he’d have found a way to screw it up.

And Cas didn’t look happy, scrunched up on that couch and barely looking at Dean. He looked everywhere else, like he had to keep an eye on the whole damn place to stop it getting away, but he didn’t really look at Dean.

The lights are still on in the house. Dean stops and stares at it from across the street. After a few minutes of staring, he blinks and looks away. He’s being a fucking creep, lurking in the shadows like this.

Another light snaps on in an upstairs window, and Dean takes a step back. Not that they can see him out here, but there’s no sense in risking it. They already blame him for Cas, as far as he can make out. He wonders what Cas has told them.

The outline of a woman crosses in front of the light, a shadow-character on the blind. Most likely that blonde, Beth. She stops and contorts, her shape stretching up, and Dean realizes he’s watching her pull her top over her head.

He really is being a creep.

Turning his head, he closes his eyes. What the fuck is he doing here? Like Cas is going to sense him and come out. If Cas wanted to talk to Dean, he’d have got in touch. Not like Dean’s changed his number. He never does, not the one Cas has. It’s been the same for years.

It takes a few minutes before he’s calm enough to head back to the motel, and when Sam stirs, mutters something about bars, Dean lets him think that’s where he’s been.

**********************************

Castiel lies awake in Val’s spare bed, bundled under blankets and wearing pajamas Beth picked out for him. He wonders what Dean would think of them.

Val pulled a face when he told her, as she tucked a hot-water bottle in to the bed, that he intends to call Dean tomorrow.

“If you want to,” she said. “But you arrange a time and place we can be with you, okay? I don’t have anything tomorrow I can’t shift around.”

And she lifted herself up on tiptoe to kiss his temple before leaving the room.

Now, he stares into the darkness and tries to float above the pain. There’s so much, he may as well be swathed in it, and a Rit Zien must be able to sense it. Dean and Sam are in town, and Dean saved him the last time, but Dean doesn’t know where Castiel is this time, and he doesn’t know to be on the lookout for a Rit Zien.

Strategically, it makes no sense for Castiel to pull one to him. There’s already something in this town, and Dean and Sam don’t need anything else to face.

Shivering, he slides to the edge of the bed and reaches under it, grasping his bag. There’s powder stashed in it, enough for a few days if he’s careful. After that, with no money, he isn’t sure what he’ll do.

He can’t stay here without the powder. He can’t bring a Rit Zien down on Beth and Val and Riva.

When the floating takes him, he sighs. His wings vanish with the pain, but at least he can drift now, at least he can drift free of thoughts of Dean, and of how tomorrow he’ll see the look on Dean’s face as he realizes properly how Castiel has let him down.

**********************************

Dean grabs for his phone on the first ring, meeting Sam’s eyes across the diner table. Sam’s eyes are widened. Hopeful.

“Agent Bowie,” Dean says, just in case.

“Agent Dean,” a voice says, and there’s a snap to it. An insult. He thinks it’s the one he met first. The Math professor. “You still wanting to talk to Cas?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Put him on.”

There’s a pause, and he’s just beginning to think the call has cut off when she speaks again, low and burning.

“You’d better not upset him. If you have any idea what you’ve done- Look, just… You did a fucking good job yesterday of looking like you gave a damn, so on the off-chance you really think you do, get that he doesn’t need kicking.”

“Lady-” Dean starts.

“Don’t hurt him any more.”

And she’s gone.

This time, the silence is shorter, and Cas’ voice spills into his ear.

“Dean?”

“Cas?” He sees Sam lean forward, lips parted, and holds his hand up. “Cas, that you? You okay?”

“I’m…” He imagines Cas closing his eyes, taking a breath. “No. No, I’m not fine.”

“Let me come get you,” Dean says, body tensing to rise and leave the diner.

“No,” Cas says. “No, it… No, Dean. It wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“You have got to be kidding me.” He sees Sam frown and glares at him to hold his questions. “When is it ever a good idea for you to go off on your own? Cas, you’re better off with us. Just tell me where to pick you up from.”

“So you can tell me to leave again when you realise I’m more trouble than I’m worth?”

Cas’ words aren’t even bitter. It takes Dean a moment to spot it, but that’s not resentment in his friend’s tone. It’s resignation. Exhaustion.

“I wouldn’t do that,” he says.

“You already did.” Cas takes a breath loud enough for Dean to hear. “Dean, I don’t mean to upset you. But I’m… I’m just starting to see that I need more help than you or Sam can give me. You have to focus on fighting, um, on hunting down…criminals. Not on me.”

“And these new friends of yours are doing such a great job of getting you well?” Dean fails at keeping the flare of anger from his voice. “You’re wasting away. You’re twitchy. You’re on fucking drugs. You gotta know that shit’s gonna mess you up, Cas. What are you playing at?”

“I need to keep the Rit Zien from finding me,” Cas says, almost a hiss.

“What?”

Dean’s thoughts stall, fixating on that one memory, of Cas on his knees before another angel. Another memory lies behind it, of Cas sitting on a crappy motel bed, talking about ending his own life.

“I can’t have anyone hurt,” Cas says. “Not again.”

Fuck. They never talked about that, not really. Cas mentioned the Rit Zien honed in on his pain, but Dean was too busy noticing that Cas didn’t tell Dean where he was staying, too busy worrying that Cas was ashamed of Dean and didn’t want his neighbors seeings them together. He should have asked how Cas felt. Not like he didn’t know how guilt ate at the guy.

“That wasn’t on you,” he says now, far too many months too late.

“All of it’s on me,” Cas says, and the exhaustion sits heavy on every word. “Leave me alone, Dean. If you want information on the case, if there’s really anything I can do to help, send Sam.”

And the call ends.

*********************************

Sam smooths his tie over his chest, doing his best to keep his frame relaxed and open. Any wrong move now will just set Dean off worse.

“I’ll come,” Dean says, but he doesn’t put down the beer bottle, doesn’t stop pacing on the other side of the room. “What can he do? Throw me out?”

“He said to send me,” Sam says. “I’ll talk to him. Sort this out.”

Dean grunts. He’s been agitated all morning, worse since talking to Cas.

“Just do what he’s asking,” Sam says. “I don’t want him out here alone any more than you do, but if he’s not ready to come with us then maybe we have to listen.”

He has to imply Cas will be coming back eventually. No telling what Dean will do at any hint the angel might stay away for good.

“Cas doesn’t know what’s good for him,” Dean says. “He never knows what he needs.”

“And you do?”

Sam pulls his jacket on and turns to look at Dean, noting the tightness of his brother’s expression and the way he’s gripping the bottle. Too many times, Sam’s had this conversation with Dean over crap he’s pulled as the big brother. This time, it’s Cas who needs the chance to make his own decisions. Even if they’re the wrong ones.

“Dean, I’ll do what I can. He’s my family, too. But if Cas doesn’t want to see you then you’ve got to back off, all right?”

Dean stops pacing and stares down at the bottle.

“Why you?” he asks. “Why won’t he see me?”

Sam’s never worked out how aware Dean is of his own feelings. Not on this one. God, even Bobby knew, Sam’s sure of it, but it’s like someone slapped a gag on the whole thing. They never speak of it, not really.

“You…” Sam isn’t sure how to finish the sentence. “Wait here. I’ll go play Fed for those women, see if Cas does know anything about the case. And I’ll talk to him.”

He doesn’t say he’ll try and get Cas to come back with him. There’s no sense inflating Dean’s hopes.

He tells himself he’s got his own hopes under control.

***********************************

Val opens the door, her eyes already hard when they meet his.

“If I let you into my home,” she says, “you do get you’re only here as long as you behave.”

“One slip and I’m gone,” Sam says, making his voice as earnest and non-threatening as he can. He has himself held in, body language safe and careful. “I promise, he’s my family. I mean that. I’m not going to do anything to screw this up.”

He’s seen more trusting expressions on vampires, but she steps back and gives him room to cross the threshold, holding her arm out to gesture him into the room to the right.

As soon as he reaches the doorway, he sees Cas sitting on the couch, hunched over with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. The points of his shoulder-blades are sharp angles at his back, and his forearms look thin. Not like Cas ever wandered around scantily clad, but Sam’s seen him roll up his sleeves for a spell enough times, and he’s sure the angel had more muscular forearms.

He must hesitate too long, because Val brushes past him and takes a seat on the other side of Cas. Cas looks up at the movement, and this time Sam is ready to pay attention. This time, he isn’t so thrown by walking in on Cas with three women that shock blinds him to the details.

Cas is haggard. Wasted. Dean’s right about that. There are shadows under his eyes. Well, there always are, but these look deeper and more bruised. The blue of his eyes is still rich, but it’s missing some spark Sam’s used to seeing, like the starlight has gone out.

He doesn’t examine too closely why he feels so awkward to even be noticing that. He’s just noting Cas’ outward signs of health. It’s not like he’s creeping on him, and he’s certainly not encroaching on someone else’s territory.

“Hey, Cas,” he says. He doesn’t need to work to soften his voice this time. He doesn’t come any further into the room yet, either.

“Sam.”

Cas looks away almost as soon as he’s said it. Sam’s used to keeping a check on where Cas looks, on whether he meets someone’s eyes. It’s one way to see how the guy’s feeling and how truthful he’s being, a lesson Sam learned through close observation. Now, it’s more like Cas can’t stop surveying the whole room.

His voice is rough, too. Pained.

“You mind if I come in?”

Sam’s given Dean too many speeches about respecting boundaries to be so stupid as to just walk in. One of the many thoughts he had during the long night, as he listened to Dean fret and then leave, is that he needs to take his own advice when it comes to Cas. He thought he was right to tell Dean about Cas spacing out, but he didn’t check with Cas first, or tell him. He just did it.

If he’s going to tell Dean that saving someone’s life isn’t a good enough reason to ride roughshod over them, then he needs to think about how he goes about things himself.

It’s longer than is comfortable before Cas nods, and Sam makes his way to the only spare seat before Cas can change his mind. There’s no sign of the other two women. He doesn’t ask why.

“I’d offer you a drink, but I don’t want to leave the two of you alone,” Val says. “You understand.”

“Is that what you want, Cas?” Sam asks.

He sees Val stiffen, and yeah, it could read as a ploy, but this woman hasn’t known Cas as long as Sam has. She hasn’t fought with him and against him. Odds are she doesn’t even know Cas is an angel, not from the way she’s been speaking. Sam’s willing to give Cas more choice, more boundaries, if that’s what he needs, but having some outsider tell him how to speak to his almost-brother isn’t going to fly.

“I don’t know what I want,” Cas says. “But. But I think Val should stay.”

And that hurts.

“Whatever you want,” Sam says. “Look-”

“Just tell me what you need for the case,” Cas cuts in. Some of his old determination sharpens his words.

It takes Sam longer than it should do to switch gears, but if this is what Cas needs, he’ll roll with it.

“We’re looking for something that’s taking people. Five so far. Your friends’ student, Ashley Daniels, was the third one. The first was some guy who’d been raving about being attacked by an alien. Far as we can make out, they all lost it somehow before vanishing.”

“Ashley didn’t lose his mind,” Val says, sounding offended.

“You told Dean he’d forgotten his own recent past,” Sam says. “Other people we’ve spoken to say the same. Memory loss. I’m not saying it manifests the same way every time, but all five victims acted messed up in some way before disappearing completely.”

“Something that affects the mind,” Cas says slowly, and Sam can see him trawling through his angelic knowledge. He shakes his head. “No. I can’t think of anything.”

“Hang on,” Val says, as it’s just occurred to her. “Did you say ‘something’?”

Sam sees panic swim into Cas’ eyes and moves in quickly.

“We just meant-”

“No. You said ‘something’,” Val says, fixing Sam with a look that says she isn’t letting this go. “Are you talking about some new drug? Wait.” She turns to Cas, who looks startled. “You haven’t taken any of this shit, have you? The ketamine’s bad enough.”

Ketamine. At least Sam knows what Cas is taking, now.

“I haven’t taken anything else,” Cas says.

Else. Hearing him admit to using is another hit. Sam pushes through it.

“And you don’t remember what happened in that park? When you were hurt?”

Sam sees Cas’ right hand drift to his chest, fingers half-curled into a fist, and the angel’s back to trying to look at the whole room at once.

“No.” He sounds upset. Cas isn’t meant to sound anything but calm. Certain. Sometimes pissed off. “I was out for a walk and then…then I wasn’t. I…” He cuts himself off, his gaze skating over Val and back to Sam. “I lost something.”

That hand finally makes its way to a fist, pressed up against Cas’ own chest.

“Lost what, Cas?” Sam asks.

But Cas shakes his head, presses his lips tight together.

“Listen, Cas,” Sam says, sitting further forward in the chair, “We can help you. You know that. Just let us.”

Cas stills.

“Beth’s been helping me,” he says. “Val’s been helping me. And Riva.” He’s speaking slowly, and not quite to Sam. “They’ve offered me a place to live. Friendship. Support.”

Sam wants to break in, to stop whatever zig-saw Cas is arranging in his mind.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Cas says. “I don’t know if I can do what Dean wants. Maybe I’m too broken. But I don’t think I can go with you. I’m sorry. I know Dean wants me to go back, but I can’t be any use to you now.”

Val shifts in her seat, but Sam beats her to whatever she’s wanting to say.

“Cas, you’re plenty of use, no matter what shape you’re in.”

That doesn’t seem to pull him back from whatever edge he’s on.

“I’ve told you everything I know. What little that is.”

Cas glances at Val and Sam doesn’t even need her to open her mouth. He’s about to be thrown out.

Before it can happen, he stands and straightens his jacket.

“Every little helps,” he says. “And if you decide you want to tell us what you’re missing, you let us know. Sometimes it takes a professional. And Cas?” He waits until Cas looks up at him, looking small and vulnerable and nothing at all like he should look. “You call if you want to talk to me. Or to Dean. You hear me?”

Cas nods, once, and looks away.

Sam leaves before he can give in to the impulse to haul Cas out of there. It doesn’t feel right to leave him behind, but maybe Cas has to find his own way back to them.

Chapter Text

Beth gets to Val’s place as soon as she can once her morning lectures are done. She already knows she’s too late to be there for Cas during the interview, but she also remembers the hours after seeing Greg again. Cas might find he needs the support more now the visit is done with.

And Val might need her to rant at.

Pulling the car onto the drive, she leaves her papers and just hauls her satchel in with her. There are research notes in there she likes to keep by her, in case she gets a chance to work on them.

To her surprise, the door’s locked.

It takes a minute for Val’s figure to waver into being behind the glass, and Beth looks a question at her once the door’s open.

Val shrugs.

“Seemed safer,” she says, and waits for Beth to come in before locking and bolting the door behind them.

“Did it go badly?” Beth asks, her voice hushed.

Val shakes her head, but she doesn’t look entirely convinced.

“He was kind of…considerate. Left before I had to tell him to.”

In the living room, Beth looks around and finds no Cas. The striped blanket he’s taken to wearing almost like a cloak is draped over the back of the couch, but Cas himself isn’t there.

“He’s gone to lie down,” Val says.

Ah. Probably with the help of his drugs. There’s a twist to Val’s lips that says she suspects that, in any case.

“You want to talk about it?” Beth asks, because sometimes Val needs prompting to get to the talking rather than the ranting.

Val drops onto the couch and pulls Cas’ blanket over her knees, hugging a corner of it. Beth curls up next to her with her back against the arm-rest and her arms around her knees, and watches her friend process whatever it is that’s going on in her head. She’s a protector, is Val, and it hurts her when she can’t keep her people safe. Beth knows that look on her friend’s face, a look she hated seeing there when she was the cause.

It turns out it’s not much better now.

“It’s just,” Val says, plucking at the blanket as though she wants to change it into something else, “that guy, Sam, I can’t make him out. If he’s this Dean bastard’s brother, and he claims he cares about Cas, then how could he let this happen? You’ve seen the way Cas flinches. Didn’t he know what his brother was doing?”

“Maybe not,” Beth says. “Or maybe he just didn’t want to know. We’re not always the best at seeing our own relatives for what they are.”

“Or maybe it’s not the way I thought it was,” Val says.

The thought doesn’t seem to cheer her. Beth needs to help her friend unpick this, before she snarls herself up over it and becomes no use to anyone, least of all to herself.

“How so?”

Val chews at her lip, her expression pensive. Beth gives her time.

“I don’t know,” Val says, at last. “But Cas didn’t seem scared of him. More…of letting him down? And even more of letting Dean down.”

“He probably feels he has to make things smooth,” Beth says.

She takes a moment to clamp down on a rush of memories, of all the times she soothed over a fight Greg started or anticipated how to channel his mood somewhere more positive. It got so even when there was no shouting, no snide remarks, and no hint of violence, she still spent her time tense and on alert.

The look Val shoots her says she’s aware it’s a sore subject, and Beth reaches for Val’s hand before any apologies can spill out.

“Whatever it’s like, was like, for him, it’s good he had you here.” Val needs to know she’s needed. “And I don’t have anything else on today. I’ve brought my notes with me. How about I stay and keep an eye on him? You get off to your classes.”

Val nods, but it’s quite a while before she lets go of Beth’s hand and leaves.

**************************************

Castiel wakes slowly, his limbs heavy. There are more of them than usual.

It takes long, groggy minutes for him to realise he’s sensing his other limbs, the ones he rarely feels while in a vessel. It’s dizzying, dislocating.

Fear grips him, fear that, when he opens his eyes and shakes away the last of sleep, his limbs will fade. That he’s really still more asleep than awake, and he’s dreaming them. He hasn’t felt like an angel in so long. He doesn’t want to wake and have lost it.

He can only hold on for so long, and noise filters in from outside: cars in the distance, the hum of energy throughout the house, a TV playing. The sounds send his other limbs wavering, dissipating even as he tries to hold on to them, and he’s left with nothing but four human limbs, curling into a bed with pain the only hot points on his body.

He’s thirsty.

It’s an unsettling realization. Val’s been making him eat, and drink, but he hasn’t needed to. He hasn’t really felt the need. Now, he knows he needs something.

Leaving the bed is harder than it should be. The house isn’t icy, but his skin pebbles and he has to make himself set his feet on the floor. Val bought him some slippers, but he doesn’t know where they’ve gone. He does know where the huge dressing-gown is, and he pulls it on slowly, the weight of it more than it should be.

Before he makes it to the living room, Beth appears in the hallway, her smile a little too careful.

“Hey,” she says. “How are you doing?”

“I’m thirsty,” he says, and knows she doesn’t see the magnitude of that.

Instead, she urges him to sit down and fetches him a glass of water. And another. And another.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to ring Riva?” she asks for the third time, when Castiel has drunk what feels like a lake. “It’s not normal to need this much water all at once.”

And for a second it’s as though she knows he might not have that information, that there might be some reason he isn’t as well-versed in humanity as she is. The moment passes, and he’s just looking at a worried friend.

“No,” he says. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

He’s sure it’s nothing Riva can help him with.

“Is it…could it be a reaction to Sam visiting?” And she asks that slowly. “I know I had some weird reactions to seeing Greg.”

“Why would it be like seeing Greg?”

He thinks Beth must have misunderstood, somewhere along the way, exactly what Dean and Sam are to him. She seems to think he’s scared of them, that they’ve hurt him. She doesn’t know, can’t know, what Dean and Sam have done for the world, or the times they’ve had to deal with Castiel’s disasters. There can’t be any link between Sam and Beth’s ex-boyfriend.

She lifts the glass from his hands before she answers and stands with it.

“He’s Dean’s brother, right? As well as his FBI partner?”

There’s a thread of doubt in that.

“Yes,” Castiel says, because they are partners in their hunts, more so than any FBI agents can be to each other. “They’re very close.”

“So, Sam would know what Dean gets up to?”

That has the sound of a question phrased very carefully.

“Not always. Sometimes, they keep secrets from each other. The…cases, they can make things difficult.”

“Right. I can see that.” Beth looks away for a moment, seeming to consider something. “Are you saying Sam didn’t know what Dean was doing?”

She asks that to the arm of the couch. It takes Castiel a good few seconds to work out what she might be asking, and he isn’t sure of his conclusions. More and more, he’s lacking the senses to be sure where he is, let alone what other people are meaning.

“You think Dean was doing something Sam wouldn’t approve of?”

Beth meets his eyes again, something startled in them.

“Do you think Sam would approve?”

She sounds faintly horrified.

“Dean’s done things Sam wouldn’t approve of,” Castiel says. He doesn’t like the thought of lying to Beth, even though he isn’t entirely comfortable with talking about Dean like this, either. “But Sam’s done things Dean hasn’t approved of. So have I. It’s all very complicated.”

“Complicated sounds tiring,” Beth says.

“Yes. It is.”

Beth falls silent for a while, and when she speaks again it’s with something like regret.

“Cas, there’s a lot you’re not saying, isn’t there?”

He stares at her, licks his lips. Nods.

“Is there a reason you aren’t telling us? That you aren’t telling me?”

“I don’t know how to,” he says. “I wouldn’t know how to make you understand.”

How can she possibly understand losing his Grace, his sanity, his wings? Just because some of those things have returned to him doesn’t mean the scars are gone.

“I’m not saying I would. But…” She shifts on her feet, looking unsettled. “Look, can I just ask? You don’t have to answer. All right?”

“All right.”

He owes her this, at least. She’s been very kind to him.

“How often has Dean hit you?”

That’s not what he was expecting. It takes a few heartbeats for him to gather a reply.

“That’s not… It wasn’t…”

But the images rise, of Dean throwing him to the ground, of Dean bashing his head against the table. Of Dean holding Castiel’s own blade up so it catches the light.

“He wasn’t himself,” he says.

For some reason, he finds he has to look away from Beth. He wants to explain that Dean has rarely hit him. That time was one of the most painful experiences of Castiel’s life, but Dean has more often suffered from Castiel’s fists than used his own against Castiel. He wants to explain that Dean was tainted by something so powerful that most people would have succumbed to it already. He wants to explain that Dean was only in that situation at all because he felt he had to take down a Knight of Hell and made a deal without knowing the consequences.

For perhaps the first time it occurs to him that describes his own deal with Crowley, to an extent. Archangel instead of Knight of Hell, but if he’s forgiving Dean for taking the Mark, doesn’t that mean he has to at least think about forgiving himself for taking the souls? He didn’t know what that would do to him, either.

Of course, Dean didn’t slaughter half of Heaven.

Instead of explaining any of it, even in terms a civilian would understand, he almost chokes on the words as it all spins around in his head.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Beth says, appearing next to him and placing an arm around his shoulders. “It’s okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. Just… Just cry if you need to. I’m here. He isn’t going to get you here.”

He tries again to tell her she’s got it wrong, but he really is crying. He doesn’t know why he cries, but he can’t stop it. And Beth’s arm is comforting, and there are so many tears.

***************************************************

Cas is hurting. She can see that much. And he can’t talk about Dean, about what Dean did to him. There’s something like guilt on his face when he tries, and Beth knows that could mean anything or nothing, but she remembers what Val said about it seeming odd, and she aches to know how to help him.

When he falls asleep again she calls Riva and asks her to take over. Her friend’s tired, is just coming off a shift, but she agrees she can crash at Val’s as well as at home.

As she waits for her friend, Beth turns her phone around and around in her hands. Val gave them the number Cas called, some strategy of spreading the information keeping them all safer. Which means she can stab out the number and listen to it ring. Which means that, when Dean answers, she can speak to him.

She goes into Val’s bedroom to make the call, leaving Cas sleeping under his blanket, curled up smaller than a man of his height should be able to manage.

“Agent Bowie,” the gruff voice says. Then, after a pause. “Cas?”

“No,” Beth says. “But I need to speak to you about him. Can you meet me?”

By the time Riva gets there, Beth has a time and a location. Now, she just needs the courage.

Chapter Text

Cas’ new friend has insisted on meeting somewhere public, with noise and people and security cameras. Dean hates that she feels he’s such a threat, but it’s not like it’s the first time someone’s seen him that way. Hurts more that it’s someone Cas knows.

He needs to know what Cas has said to her to get this kind of response. He needs to know how he’s screwed up this time.

The restaurant is busy, especially for mid-afternoon, and it’s more up-market than Dean’s happy with. He pulled on a suit, not sure if that was the right thing to go for, but Sam advised him to leave the jacket behind. From first glance, it looks like he’s hit it about right, and he knows his looks let him skate by a load of errors.

Still, there’s something about this Beth that makes him want to put aside the acting, as far as he can. He doesn’t want her to see through him. He doesn’t want there to be anything to see through.

She’s waiting at the table, wearing a deep blue dress that makes this look like it’s really a date. She even has her hair all fancy, swept up and tumbling at the same time. It feels like he ought to lean down and kiss her cheek, but this isn’t some con and she isn’t someone like Bela.

God, it’s been years since he’s thought of her. He must be more worked up than he thought.

“Hi,” he says, taking his seat and accepting a menu from the waiter. “So, you, er, you like this kind of place?”

Beth shrugs, her eyes wary.

“I came here a few times with friends. The staff are very attentive. It’s like they’re always watching.”

Okay. He’s been watched. Fair enough. Not like he can’t get out of things if he needs to. Beth will have to be a lot more than she appears to be to beat Dean at that game. From her perspective, though, it’s a smart enough move, even knowing Dean’s FBI. Supposed to be FBI.

“Understood,” he says, setting the menu down. He’s not hungry. “What exactly did you want to talk about?”

“I want to hear your side of things,” she says. “About you and Cas. I want to know what happened for him to be like he is.”

“He some kind of science project for you?” Dean asks, unable to keep the snap or the sourness out of his voice.

At the very least, he thought Cas had found people who meant well by him.

She bristles, her expression hardening. She looks constantly to be on the point of running and Dean pegs her as someone with a history, even though he isn’t sure what kind just yet. He’s met people like her before, though, people who are always on watch, always expecting some sort of an attack, and… Oh.

“Who was he?” Dean asks. At Beth’s frown, he pushes on, sensing a kill. “The guy who hurt you. Father? Husband? Boss?”

“Boyfriend,” she says, voice tight.

She’s bracing herself with her elbows on the arms of the chair and her back tense and Dean feels like a dick. She’s not hiding some monster. She’s a woman who’s been hurt by a guy, and Dean’s pretty sure from her body language it involved fists at least once, and here he is coming over all intimidating. And she’s not running. She’s clearly on edge, scared even, but she’s not running.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he says, making himself relax his posture and sit back. He doesn’t need to make her more afraid than she already is. “But I don’t get what you mean about Cas.”

Disbelief flashes across her face and Dean finally, finally gets it. Sick disgust fills him.

“You think I’ve… You think I’ve been hitting Cas? What, like he’s some abused spouse?”

“That’s exactly what I think,” Beth says, without even a pause to suggest Dean’s wrong. “I think you’re a very charming, very intelligent man with enough power to get his own way. And I think you’ve hurt Cas. And I think there are a lot of people in here who’ll come running if you-”

“I’m not going to attack you. Fuck.”

Dean looks away, trying to gather himself.

He can’t even tell her she’s wrong. Not entirely. Cas barely fought back when Dean… And he wasn’t sure himself whether he was going to bring that blade down into Cas’ heart, not until he missed. He can tell himself that wasn’t him, that he was being controlled by the effects of the Mark, but thousands of men and women use the same excuse about alcohol, and that doesn’t excuse them.

Doesn’t excuse all the people he killed that day, either, at least one of them a boy who wanted out of the whole nightmare. Cas is the one he sees when he tries to sleep.

“You aren’t going to deny it?” she asks.

“I’m not going to spill my whole sob story to you,” Dean says.

“Your sob story?” She sounds to have a bundle of emotions at work. “You’re going to make out you’re the victim?”

“Cas isn’t a victim,” Dean shoots back, because he hates any suggestion Cas is weak, and John always said ‘victim’ as though it was a synonym for ‘weak’. “He’s… Look, he’s had a crappy time of it, all right? And, yeah, some of that’s on me. We’ve fought. More than once. And I regret my part in that. But you want to know why he’s like he is?”

Beth stares back at him, apparently wanting to give him rope. But Dean isn’t going to hang for this.

“Cas has been to Hell and back,” he says. “More than once. Because his family controlled him and brainwashed him and sent him off to be a soldier, and when he got free of them? He didn’t know how to handle it, and he made some really shitty choices. And I admit it, I could’ve been… I don’t know. I could’ve listened more, or hugged it out or some crap. But he’s old enough and mean enough to cope.”

Beth’s jaw tightens as though she’s thinking of speaking. She doesn’t.

“And I was helping him,” Dean says, partly to stress that to himself. “I was helping him. Sam worked out he was spacing, that he had…that he had PTSD, and we were helping him. And he walked out. Just up and left and didn’t even tell me where he was going. Ditched his card, his car. Fuck, he left his phone behind. We looked for him because we wanted him home, not because I wanted to chain him up in the dungeon and punch the living daylights out of him.”

It doesn’t matter if Beth wants to speak now, because Dean can’t stop.

“You think I didn’t look hard enough? Of course I looked. Cas has gone off on his own before, and it never ends well. The one time I thought he had it sorted, that he’d got himself a job, that he had a chance at normal, he threw it all away and got himself neck deep in every piece of crap he’d escaped. So no, I’m not okay with him sitting in your girlfriend’s house with none of you knowing what he’s really been through, what he’s really like. And on drugs?”

Beth sits forward, words clearly ready to spill, but Dean puts up a hand and keeps going.

“Cas gets too involved. He hasn’t got brakes in his head like we have. We showed him Netflix and he was down the rabbit hole. Drugs?”

“He’s in a lot of pain,” Beth says.

“Then get him a doctor,” Dean says, even though he can imagine Cas won’t want one.

“Riva is a doctor,” Beth says. “And he isn’t healing. Is… Is there some reason for that? Some condition he isn’t telling us about?”

“What, like, auto-immune?” Dean asks.

He really doesn’t know enough about it, and switching from accusing him of being a wife-beater to asking for medical records makes his head spin, but he’s pretty sure auto-immune isn’t something angels have to worry about.

“I don’t know.” Beth’s the one to look away now, a quick dip of her eyes before she looks back at him. “Look, just tell me straight. Did you hit him?”

Dean swallows, and meets her eyes. He should just lie. It’s not like she has any hold on Dean. But…she’s helping Cas, or trying to, and Dean would have to be truly stupid not to get that Cas has a hold on him.

“Yes.”

“And did you tell him he had to be useful? Did you denigrate him, cut him down?”

Dean opens his mouth, closes it. Tries again, his voice hoarse.

“Yes.”

She shakes her head, looking pained, and Dean feels compelled to go on.

“But Cas can take it. All right? He knows it’s not like that.”

“Really?” She’s so quiet now that Dean has to strain to hear her over the clatter of knives and forks and the buzz of conversation. “Because he’s obsessed with being useful. If he thinks he’s got something wrong, he curls in on himself. He flinches when someone raises their voice. He didn’t even think we’d care if he was thrown out on the streets. Who thinks that about their friends?”

Someone whose friend did throw him out and then didn’t even check he had somewhere to go. Dean keeps that to himself. He’s already exploded at this woman and given her too much, things he can see she’s twisting in her mind to fit some story she’s picked up from somewhere.

No way will Cas have actually said this. Unless he’s really taken a knock to the head, and somehow thinks Dean is his boyfriend, and that Dean’s been abusing him. With the way Cas’ head’s been messed with in the past, maybe Dean shouldn’t discount that. Someone could have got hold of Cas and given him a reason to keep away from the Winchesters.

He needs to check in with Sam.

“Are we done here?” he asks.

“I have one more question,” Beth says, and takes a deep breath. “Do you love him?”

Dean’s usual answer queues up on his tongue. He doesn’t do love. But she already thinks Dean’s been involved with Cas, and somehow he hasn’t corrected her. No sense in throwing off Cas’ whole story, if these people are at least feeding and housing him for now. Not until Dean knows more about what’s going on.

Besides, Cas isn’t the only one who’s tired.

He tells the truth.

“Yes.”

“Then you’ll stay away from him,” Beth says. “Maybe you’re right, and most of his issues aren’t caused by you, but maybe you’re lying to yourself about that. Either way, if you really love him then you’ll let him have his freedom.”

******************************************

Sam jolts upright on the bed when Dean slams into the room. Slamming or sneaking: Dean only has two ways of entering their room these days.

“It went that well?” he asks.

Dean shoots him a look that shuts Sam up, at least until Dean’s got a beer in his hand and half of it down his throat. Sam doesn’t even point out the time. He doesn’t need Dean any more defensive than he already is.

“You gonna tell me about it?”

From the way Dean’s standing, hunched and tense, and from the way his eyes are darting, Sam can make an educated guess. Dean feels he’s been attacked, and it was clear those women had some ideas about Dean and Cas. Maybe Sam should have brought it up, but he hadn’t got it straight in his own head yet.

“What did she say to you?” he tries.

Dean laughs. It’s painful.

“Cas is my battered wife, Sammy. Looks like I’ve just been hiding it from you all these years.”

Sometimes Sam hates to be right.

“But, that’s not true,” Sam says. It really should have come out less like a question.

“Are you seriously asking me if…?” Dean trails off, his eyes narrowing and his mouth pulling into an ugly grimace. “Fuck. Is she right? Have I been abusing him?”

Whatever this Beth woman has said, it’s got inside Dean’s head. He isn’t rejecting it all outright.

“Were you and Cas together?” Sam asks, because with the two of them it’s never been easy to tell and he doesn’t think they were, but he’s never had this conversation with Dean. Something else always came up. He should at least know this before they go on. “Did you ever hook up? Tell him you loved him? Any of it?”

Dean seems to have become speechless. He opens and shuts his mouth, his expression one of shock.

“What?” he manages at last.

Sam knows he’s meant to pretend it was a joke, or that he’s meant to take that as Dean dismissing any chance of the whole relationship, but ignoring things is a large part of what’s got them here. Just from what he’s seen and been told since they’ve found Cas again, he knows that much.

And watching Dean over the last few months has been a special kind of torture. Sam didn’t have his mind in order the last time Dean thought he’d lost Cas long-term, but this time he’s fully cognizant and aware for all of it, and Sam’s never been into pretending he’s stupid. That’s Dean’s hobby.

Dean loves Cas. That isn’t even in question.

“Did you ever tell him you love him? Were you two together, at any point? Are they right about that part?”

“No.”

Sam knows that sound, too. Regret.

“But you wish you had been.”

Dean downs the rest of the beer, turning away, and Sam lets him. This has to be hard for Dean, being even this open, even when he’s not the one who’s started it.

“What do you want me to say, Sammy?” Dean asks, but he’s staring out of the window at the back as he says it.

“The truth,” Sam says. “Dean, at this point I think the only one who doesn’t know how you feel about Cas is Cas.”

“I never said I felt that way.”

That’s a lie, written in the line of Dean’s shoulders and in the vibrations of his words, so Dean’s told someone, at some point. Not Sam. Not that it matters.

“You’ve been saying it every time you’ve looked for him,” Sam says, and he doesn’t even care that it sounds like the sort of line Dean might scoff at in a romance he’s pretending not to watch. “Listen, you don’t have to say it if you really feel you can’t. I’m just letting you know that I know. All right? And whatever the reason you find it so hard to say, don’t let worrying about my reaction be one of them. Because I already know. And I’m good with it.”

The silence stretches for long enough that Sam’s starting to think he’s blown this, that he should try something else.

“You’re good with it?” Dean asks.

He sounds subdued. Sam isn’t sure if that’s a good sign. Dean at his emotional limit can be unpredictable.

“Yeah,” he says, because at least that’s true. “Of course I am.”

Dean turns, and it’s loathing on his face. His lip curls.

“Well maybe you shouldn’t be. Maybe Cas’ new friends are right. You know what she asked me? If I’d ever hit him. And I had to say yes. And she asked if I ever put him down, told him he’s got to be useful. And I had to say yes to that, too. So you tell me, Sam. Is that how Cas should be treated?”

“Oh, come on,” Sam says. “She doesn’t know what it’s like with you.”

“With me?” Dean ducks his head, as though he’s readying for a fight. “What’s that supposed to mean? With me?”

“It’s how you speak to both of us,” Sam says. “We know that. We just let it roll over us.”

Except even as he defends Dean to, well, to Dean, Sam remembers times when he’s had to point out that Cas’ feelings might be hurt. He isn’t even sure himself if he’s always meant that sincerely.

“I speak to both of you like that,” Dean says, as though it’s totally new information to him. “I tell you you’ve got to be useful to be cared about?”

Sam shakes his head, not sure how he’s on this side of the argument, what with all the times he’s wanted to tell Dean to tone it down, that it isn’t okay to just lash out with whatever comes into his head. But Dean’s hurting right now and Sam can’t get anywhere until Dean’s calmer.

“It’s not like that’s something you’ve just come up with yourself,” Sam says, knowing he’s losing the fight to be calm. “Dad shoved all that crap in your head.”

“So now it’s Dad’s fault that Cas’ using?”

Dean’s sideways leaps in logic have always left Sam dancing for his footing. Confusion sparks anger, hot and dark.

“What? No. I’m just saying, Dad used to lay all of that on you. Be useful. Be strong. Man up. Toxic crap, Dean. And he threw it at you until you didn’t even see it how it was.”

“Dad kept us alive!”

“He didn’t have to grind you down to do it!”

Sam’s breath is heaving, his chest inflating and deflating enough he can feel it move, and he hasn’t wanted to hit out at something so much in months. Maybe years. He’s worked on his anger, but it’s always bubbling away underneath, less obvious than Dean’s but more deadly.

He makes sure he’s quieter when he speaks again.

“All I’m saying is, maybe the way you talk to me, and to Cas, is shit you learned from Dad. And maybe we don’t really notice it because, well, because it’s just how it is with us. That’s all I’m saying.”

Dean visibly climbs down from whatever plateau of rage he’d reached, relaxing enough that his grip on the bottle eases. At least, his fingers aren’t white where they hold it.

“Maybe Cas didn’t get that,” he says. “It’s not like Dad brought him up.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, trying to remember if Cas seemed bothered by Dean’s way of speaking back when Cas was all angeled up. “Maybe. I suppose he’s working with a different set of codes.”

Grunting what might be agreement, Dean moves to the tiny table and sinks onto a chair, setting the beer bottle on the table and picking at the label.

“She said to keep away. Give him his freedom,” Dean says.

Sam hates to say it, but piling in on Cas now might not be the best idea.

“We should focus on the case,” he says instead.

Dean nods, but he doesn’t rise to pick up his jacket until he’s peeled the entire label from the bottle.

*********************************************

Riva looks up at the click of the door, the greeting on her lips changing to concern as she sees the haggard look on Beth’s face.

“Hey,” she says. “What’s up?”

“I went to see Dean,” Beth says.

Riva’s on her feet and by her friend’s side within moments, one hand out to offer…comfort? Support? She doesn’t know. Something.

Beth’s shaking, a fine tremble that sets the floaty material of her dress to shifting, like Beth isn’t quite a stable point in space.

“You went to see Cas’ ex?” Riva asks, just to be sure.

It’s important to get all of the facts lined up before acting. She’s always believed that, and it’s only been drilled into her more in her training. Acting without facts can kill. Of course, sometimes so can not acting, when facts aren’t there.

Beth nods. She doesn’t meet Riva’s eyes.

“Beth…” Riva isn’t sure what she’s supposed to say. “I thought you were going on a date. You rang and checked on that table.”

“Yeah. I did.”

“So…you got a table at your favourite dating place and then blew it off to see this Dean?”

Beth shakes her head, and Riva feels her own eyebrows try to climb up her forehead.

“You went on a date with Dean?”

Beth shoots her a look at that.

“Don’t be- Of course I didn’t go no a date with him. I just took him somewhere it would look like a date. Somewhere public. People don’t make a scene at that place.”

“And I’m sure he knows that,” Riva says.

God, she needs Val here. Val hasn’t known Beth as long, but Riva would have to be very, very dumb to miss the way her sister feels about Beth. She’s almost convinced her friend feels the same way. And Val took most of the talent in the family when it comes to shouting at people you love for doing something stupid.

Riva’s always been more about cleaning up and dressing the wounds.

“What did he say?” she asks.

Beth shrugs.

“Where’s Cas?” she asks.

“Went to lie down again,” Riva says. “Why-?”

But Beth moves away, down the hall to Cas’ room, and Riva follow a few paces behind. Just in case.

The door’s partly open and Beth slips inside quietly, moving straight to the bed and barely pausing before climbing onto the mattress next to Cas. He startles, eyes opening and his body tensing, and Riva hears her friend hush him.

“It’s okay,” Beth says. “It’s okay. I just want to lie down. That okay?”

Looking as bewildered as Riva feels, Cas nods, and Beth shuffles until she’s stretched out next to him, one hand right next to one of Cas’. Riva feels almost as though she’s watching something private, something she shouldn’t be here for, when Cas moves the fraction of an inch needed to brush the back of his hand against Beth’s. She almost looks away when Beth twists her hand and takes hold of Cas’ fingers.

When it becomes clear that Beth intends to stay there, and when Cas’ breathing evens back out into sleep, Riva frowns and pulls the door shut.

There is far too much going on here, and she for one wants answers.

*********************************************

The park looks peaceful in the late afternoon light. Tranquil, even. No way should this be where Cas was attacked by something he can’t even remember.

If he was attacked, and didn’t just pass out from an overdose. Dean can’t forget the angel’s turned addict.

“Anything?” he asks Sam.

Sam turns with a shake of the head, his expression unhappy. He has his phone in hand, but photos of a patch of ground aren’t likely to tell them much. In the absence of anything else, Sam took them anyway.

“No. I mean, there’s these scrapes on the tree, but…” Sam shrugs.

“Yeah. And blood.”

They’ve photographed that, too, but it’s mostly washed away, leaving a few marks most people wouldn’t look twice at. This is where Cas was found. They got that much from the police report, along with a few choice phrases from one of the detectives on what should be done to people who stalk and attack their exes.

Dean’s starting to wonder if he’s lived the life he thinks he has. He’s also starting to really need to speak to Cas.

Crouching, he sets his hand against the tree, hoping for some clue. Anything. Claw marks, prints that civilians might discount. Something to tell them what’s been attacking people. What attacked Cas.

Perhaps he told this Beth and her friends a load of nonsense after being hit by some kind of Djinn, one with poison creating nightmares. It could be an answer. Hell, maybe Cas experienced hallucinations so real he even thinks Dean was his boyfriend and did abuse him.

It would throw up a whole new set of questions, but it’s better than thinking Cas has reason to feel that way from what’s really happened.

Ducking further, he scans under the bushes nearby. There’s been nothing at any scene so far, although to be fair they’ve not really known exactly where attacks took place for the others. This is their one shot at something-

A glint of silver catches his eye.

“Hey, Sam? Come over here.”

He waits for Sam to be nearer before he reaches under the bush, just in case he’ll need pulling away from it, and closes his fingers around it on the second attempt. It cuts.

“Fuck.”

It’s just a normal cut, sharp and stinging, and he tries again, using a glove to grab at the object and pulling it out.

“Is that…?” Sam asks.

“Well, he said he’d lost something.”

Dean’s made Sam go over the whole conversation with Cas and Val, and this would certainly be something Cas would care about. The angel blade looks familiar, but so many of them look alike. The most logical explanation is that it belongs to Cas.

Dean finds he vehemently dislikes the thought of Cas not having his sword.

“We need to get this back to him.”

“Dean, he said to stay away. Beth said to stay away.”

Dean’s about to stand when he sees something else under the bush. Feathers. They’re harder to see, being black, but the way they seem to shift and waver tells him what they are.

“There’s angel feathers under here.”

And they can only be Cas’, too. Unless the thing that attacked him was another angel.

With those in his hand, Dean stands, biting his lip.

“If these are Cas’,” he says, “then his wings were injured. He ever tell you how that works out with him?”

Sam shakes his head.

“No. I mean, I never really thought about his wings, you know? He could fly, then he couldn’t. Didn’t seem like something I should ask about much then.”

“I wonder what it does to an angel, to have his wings cut up,” Dean says.

He prods one of the feathers. In the sunlight, it’s easy to think it’s just a feather from a large bird, but Dean’s used feathers before in spells. He can tell what these are. He’s not used to seeing them black, though.

They need to ask Cas about his wings.

Chapter Text

Beth didn’t mean to fall asleep. She didn’t.

She only knows she was asleep when she becomes aware she’s missed time, a groggy, floating feeling filling her. And she’s warm. Really warm, like she’s under a duvet.

That’s weird. Normally, when she wakes from a nap to find she’s not pulled a blanket over herself, she’s chilly. Instead, she’s cozy and comfortable. Protected.

Opening her eyes, she sees Cas is sleeping, his face still. He looks relaxed, and small. She knows he’s taller than her by quite some way, but curled up on the bed like this, his hand still in hers, he seems like he should be far larger.

And his skin is pebbled.

She should move, find him a blanket, but she’s safe and settled and doesn’t want to move so much as a muscle.

A few minutes later, her bladder makes itself known, and she grimaces. She can probably drift back to sleep and ignore it, but she isn’t meant to be sleeping now, in any case. She was meant to spend the afternoon on her notes, not on a dinner where she failed to eat anything and then napping on the same bed as her friend.

She hopes Cas is okay with her sleeping next to him. She asked, but she isn’t sure, now she thinks about it, how awake he was. Perhaps she should move before he wakes up and can be startled by it.

She only manages to move one leg a few inches before Cas’ eyes shoot open, his grip on her fingers tightening.

“Shh,” she says. “Shh. It’s just me. I fell asleep. Sorry.”

Cas moves his head, as though he needs a better angle, and sits up. The warm feeling vanishes with him.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

Beth wraps her arms around herself as she sits up, drawing her knees up, too. Perhaps it was just having Cas so close to her that was keeping her warm, even though he’s normally wanting a blanket or a hot drink or a sweater.

“I’m fine,” she says. She bites her lip, looking him over, trying to gauge what she should say. “How are you holding up?”

He looks away. He does that a lot.

His hair’s a mess, he’s paler than he should be and his eyes are far less brilliant than when she first met him, back when he saved her. She wants to pull him into a hug and just…just let that heal him somehow. She wishes she was naive enough to believe that was all it took.

“Okay,” she says. She knows how important it can be, to have lies taken at face value. When they’re this kind of lie. “But I went to see Dean.”

She also knows that, sometimes, being called on it is good. She hopes she’s going the right way with this one.

Cas stiffens.

“What? Why? What did he say?”

“A bunch of stuff,” Beth says. “Look, I’m sorry. I know you’re a grown man, and you’ve been in war for fuck’s sake, but I wanted…I needed to know…”

“To know what?” Cas asks, voice tight.

“What he’s like.”

To her surprise, Cas laughs. It’s sudden, sharp and over quickly, but it’s a laugh.

“You can’t work Dean out in one conversation,” he says, and she swears it’s with some degree of pride. “I’ve been trying for years, and he can still confuse me. Sometimes, I’ve thought I’ve worked him out, and…”

He shakes his head and falls silent.

Beth shuffles over and places an arm around his shoulders. She does it slowly, the way she’s learned has least chance of making him flinch, and sees his throat work around some word he doesn’t say.

“I think I got some idea, though,” she says. “He’s… He fills up the space, doesn’t he? I can see why you’d want to please him. If that helps.”

This is a risk. She knows it is. It’s not like she’s an expert on how to help people, just because she ended up needing help herself. Maybe this will go completely wrong, and maybe it won’t. She keeps watch on Cas, trying to see if she needs to back off.

He nods.

“Yes. He’s, um, larger than life?”

It’s one of those times he doesn’t sound sure of the phrase. Riva’s wondered aloud if Cas is from a different country, but somehow they haven’t got around to asking. He said they could ask questions, but none of them have managed to ask many. Yet. Beth wouldn’t be surprised to find Riva’s compiling a list. Val probably already has a list of questions in her head, all lined up and ready to fire once Val’s crossed whatever line in her head has been keeping her quiet.

“Yeah,” she says. “And passionate.”

Cas blinks at that.

“Passionate? I suppose so. Dean…he cares deeply, but he won’t, he can’t, let that show.” He sighs, and Beth feels it shudder through him. “He’s lost so much. He doesn’t deserve what’s happened to his family, to his friends.”

That’s…odd. She wonders how Dean’s the victim, here. Then again, when she went to group therapy, she had to bite her tongue more than once at some of the things people said, that they believed. The most painful lines were often the ones that pinged something in her own mind, the ones she had to acknowledge had dug into her thinking and taken root. Digging them out was always unpleasant and she rarely managed it right away.

“Do you want me to drop it?” she asks. “I can go and get you some water.”

“I would like water,” he says, and his mouth pulls into an unhappy line. “But I don’t mind talking about Dean. With you.”

That’s something.

Beth waits for a minute, the quiet in the room closing around them, pressing in. Cas doesn’t seem to want to move. And he’s honest, when he comes right out with something. If he says she can talk about Dean, then she can talk about Dean. She just hopes what she has to say won’t cause harm. But she’s spent hours agonizing over what might have happened if someone had sat her down and told her outright that they knew, back when she was still trying to tiptoe around it. Back when she didn’t realise how clear the bruises were.

Cas is doing this in a different order. He’s already left. She isn’t sure he’s accepted what happened to him, yet.

“I asked him,” she says. “I don’t know if I did the right thing, but I asked him-”

A hammering on the front door cuts her off, and she has one moment to hope, really hope, that she’s wrong about who it is.

Fuck. This is why she should have thought again. Why she shouldn’t have given into that impulse to ring Dean. Don’t prod at an abuser. She knows that. She does. Getting the abused to safety, keeping them safe, is more important. And she went and rang him, anyway, and that heavy handed bashing on the door, that can’t be some random visitor, it just can’t-

Cas pulls out of her one-armed hug, sliding off the bed and pausing in a part-crouch, as though he isn’t sure whether to run. When he’s like this, confused or panicked, he shifts his shoulders in a way that Beth can’t work out. His eyes go everywhere.

“Cas?” she says, slipping off the other side of the bed.

Crowding him now would be a bad idea. He hasn’t lashed out. Not yet. Maybe he won’t. But when he spaces it’s like losing him, and she’s been reading up on PTSD, and how it presents in veterans. She’s read just enough to be worried that one day he’ll have a flashback and think one of them is the enemy. She knows she doesn’t know enough to really get it, and that she could be wrong about all that side of things, but he’s larger than he seems and she can’t take too many risks.

“Are you all right?” she asks.

She gets no response.

“Cas?”

Still nothing, but she thinks he hears her. He’s more focused than he is when he spaces.

Footsteps in the hallway mean she’s facing the door when Val sticks her head in, barely suppressed rage in the lines of her body and the tightness of her expression.

“Cas,” Val says, and Beth works on not minding that Cas’ eyes snap right to her. “Sam and Dean are here. They say it’s about the case and they need to talk to you. They say they found something of yours in the park.”

Cas nods. And straightens. And just like that he’s pulled himself into some kind of battle-mode, his face almost blank and his stance more upright than it is at any other time. One hand clenches into a fist.

“Very well,” he says.

Val stands aside as he leaves the room, but Beth’s pretty sure it’s only because her other choice is being walked over. Cas drifts, mostly, looking like he could vanish entirely if they don’t keep an eye on him. Right now, he’s more like he was in that alley, solid and present and very much not someone Beth would want to cross.

She shares a look with Val and follows him.

******************************************

Cas looks like shit.

That’s the first thing Dean thinks when his friend walks into the room.

The guy’s steadier than he was back at Val’s place, not hunched or shifty looking, but Dean’s known Cas for years and he isn’t holding himself right. With what they’ve found in the park, Dean tries looking at Cas with the idea the angel’s cut up, and the tension across Cas’ shoulders makes it all too easy to imagine.

If they get Cas to come back from this, Dean’s going to sit the guy down and have him explain every single thing about being an angel. They can trade, one human fact for one angel fact, until they’re both caught up.

The second thing he notices is how Cas’ gaze barely lands on them before it’s off again, and he feels that sick jolt he always gets when Cas won’t meet his eyes. But this isn’t looking away, this is looking around.

And Dean’s done with not knowing what the fuck is going on in Cas’ head.

“What are you looking for, Cas?” he asks.

He can feel Sam glaring at him, but if people are going around thinking Dean’s been beating Cas up on the regular, he might as well cut to the chase. Not like anyone can think worse of him.

“What?” Cas says, locking on to Dean for a moment.

Dean waves a hand in front of his own face.

“The eyes. All over the place. What gives?”

“You’re criticizing the way he looks at things?” Val asks, and Dean can see the way she’s almost vibrating.

Must be killing her, not being in between Dean and Cas. Given half a chance, he’s sure she will be.

Cas’ eyes slide away from Dean.

“Can we all sit?” Sam asks, using his soothing talking-to-victims voice. “We really do have some questions we need to ask Cas.”

“Yeah. Sit,” Dean says, and takes a seat before Val can offer it.

He’s jittery. He knows he is. And he knows this isn’t the way to get it resolved without a fight, but old habits and all that. Push until something snaps.

Cas takes a place on the couch, Beth sliding in next to him like last time, and Dean just has time to wonder why Cas and Beth both came from the same part of the house before Val plants herself on the arm of the couch, on the other side of Cas, and crosses her arms. Sam shakes his head and crosses the room to the last chair.

“Do you have any real questions?” Val asks. “Or do you want to tell him off for looking at anything other than you.”

Sam jumps in before Dean can speak, pulling Cas’ blade from his jacket. Dean sees him hesitate, glancing at the women, at Beth and Val, and at Riva, who appears in the doorway and leans against it, looking sleep-mussed and confused.

“We found this,” Sam says, apparently deciding they aren’t going to get Cas alone easily. “At the park. Figured this might be what you’d lost.”

The way Cas jolts forward, his hand out, tells them this is definitely what he lost. His long fingers wrap around the handle and he lifts it up, turning it and stroking his other hand along the edge. Lightly enough not to cut, Dean’s assuming. Relief is something Dean’s seen on Cas a few times, and he sees it now.

Beth and Val both look at the blade, confusion clear in their eyes. They share a look that Dean can’t read.

“What is it?” Val asks, apparently the nominated spokesperson for this meeting.

In some ways, Dean prefers that to hearing what Beth thinks of him again.

“Something of Cas’,” Dean says, making it cutting. If Cas wants to tell them, he can, but Dean isn’t getting into it. “Something I didn’t know he’d lost. And trust me, Cas, if I knew you were without that I’d have camped out here. You can’t be taking risks like this. You get that, right?”

“What was he meant to do?” Sam asks, and the way he shifts and keeps glancing at the women tells Dean his brother’s on edge about what might be let slip, here.

“Call us,” Dean says. “Tell us he lost it. We could of high-tailed it here. Brought him a new one.”

“It wouldn’t be the same,” Cas says. “Thank-you for bringing it back to me.”

He isn’t looking at Dean or Sam or any of them. He’s focused on the blade, still turning it as though he has to check for something Dean can’t see, and it hurts more than Dean thought it would, to hear Cas thank them. Like he didn’t expect anything from them at all.

“Not a problem,” Dean says. He wants to ask to speak to Cas alone, but with Beth’s words ringing in his ears and Sam throwing all that at him about the way he speaks to the both of them, Dean can’t quite summon the words. He’ll have to do this here. “But, er, that wasn’t all we found.”

At Cas’ frown, he goes on.

“Feathers,” Dean says, trying to put as much meaning into it as he can.

Cas looks back at his blade and doesn’t respond. He has to know what Dean’s getting at. Has to. Dean licks his lips and glances at the women, at Val’s fierce expression, at Beth’s careful one, at Riva’s curious one. They don’t have enough of the picture to get what he’s about to say. Hell, they don’t know they have an angel in their midst.

Maybe they should.

It would change things, make them understand that Dean and Cas aren’t some normal human friendship. Or couple. Whatever. If they knew about Cas being a heavenly warrior, about all the crap his species has put him through, it’d force them to see that Dean isn’t the only one to blame, here.

He’s not saying he’s free and clear. Hell, he knows he hasn’t always done right by Cas, any more than Cas has always been squeaky clean with them, but he needs these people to stop looking at him like he’s some abuser.

He just has to say it.

Something must show on his face, because Sam sits up, eyes widening slightly, but Dean’s made a habit of committing to his choices in the moment and he speaks before Sam can stop him.

“We think they’re from-”

“No,” Cas says. It’s a bark of sound, sudden and cutting.

“No? What do you mean, no?” Dean asks.

“I mean ‘no’,” Cas says. He meets Dean’s eyes and it’s a shock, how they don’t blaze like trapped galaxies. It’s like someone pulled a fog over the evening sky. “You’re wrong.”

Now he has Cas’ gaze, Dean leans in, holding it. It’s something he knows he does better than Sam can, keeping Cas’ focus on him, even if it is harder right now than it has been at almost any time. For one thing, Cas’ pupils aren’t right.

“You high right now?” Dean asks, thoughts of naming Cas an angel fleeing at the force of the thought. It’s a demand. He knows it is.

Cas’ chins comes up, his jaw tensing. One hand curls and grips at the material of his pants. Pajamas. Cas isn’t even properly dressed.

“Yes,” he says, defiant.

Dean nods, and he sees Sam move to the edge of his seat, body language screaming that he’s thinking of intervening.

“Good move,” Dean says. “And no offense, but how do you know I’m wrong if you’re strung up like Christmas lights?”

“It’s my body,” Cas says. Hisses.

But he looks away, and this time it is looking away.

“Which means squat,” Dean says, barely letting Cas’ words finish before he’s speaking. “You don’t know why you aren’t healing. You don’t know how to fix yourself. So tell me, how can you say the feathers aren’t yours?”

Cas’ fist tightens, but he doesn’t answer. Dean could be wrong, but he thinks he sees tears in Cas’ eyes, being held back. Val looks about ready to fly at Dean, and Beth’s biting her lip, watching Cas with every sign she wants to grab hold of him and keep him safe.

From the doorway, Riva speaks up.

“What can feathers have to do with any of this?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Cas says, before Dean can answer. “None of you can understand.”

“Not if you won’t tell us,” Dean says. “For fuck’s sake, Cas. Just tell us what’s really going on with you! How bad is it? Are you sick?” A new thought hits Dean and he has to swallow against the burst of nausea. It’s not like Cas is great at naming his current threat-level. He might just not think it’s worth mentioning. “Are you…are you dying?”

Cas heaves a sigh, and shrugs.

“What…? What does that mean?” Fear licks at Dean’s insides. He finds the frustration warping into panic, hauling old memories up into the light, and it’s like he’s in more than one time, watching Cas declare himself God, watching him walk into a lake, watching him slip away from Dean’s grip. “Don’t make me lose you. Don’t you dare.”

Sam’s hand on his arm brings his head round, and he realizes he’s on his feet, looming over Cas. Val gets in front of him moments later, shouting something he can’t make out. His head’s spinning and nothing makes sense. Nothing makes sense at all.

He doesn’t know if he gets out any more words, but Sam has him out of the house and back in the car before he’s clear, pushing him into the passenger seat and slamming the door.

“No,” Sam says, once he’s slid in behind the wheel. “That was not the way to go, Dean. You and me? We need to have a talk about how to handle this.”

And Sam brings the engine to life, letting the rumble pull them away from the house.

****************************************************

His wings ache. They ache.

Castiel wants to curl them around himself, to shield himself with them the way he used to do in battle. But he can’t. He can’t because he still isn’t sure they’re really there and in any case he thinks that if he does hide in them he won’t ever unfurl them again.

If they ache, they have to be there. They have to be. But all he feels of them is that ache, deep in the bone and in every spot which should house an eye.

Dean looked at him like he was… Dean looked at him, and he was nothing.

Castiel feels the blind spots all around him, feels every place where he should be able to see and can’t. He’s tired of trying to see properly with only his human eyes. He didn’t feel this when he was mortal, when he was as close to human as he could get without tearing out his own Grace and being born anew. Even then, no angel is ever really fully human. But Castiel isn’t sure he’s an angel anymore, either. Not really.

Perhaps he isn’t anything.

“Cas?”

The voice filters through from a distance. He’s been without the never-ending voice of the Host for a long time, of course. Ever since he first turned his back on his superiors, the song, the chanting, the adoration of his father faded, became something only partly glimpsed. He thought he was used to it, the silence so loud it’s practically a roar.

“Cas? Hey, are you with us?”

It’s so loud now it blocks almost everything else. It even makes the blind spots seem irrelevant.

“He’s starting to worry me. Did you see him take anything? I didn’t see him take anything.”

He’s spent weeks keeping watch on everything around him, making sure to do with one set of weak, mortal eyes what a galaxy of celestial eyes once did. Now, he’s tired. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees shapes he knows are his friends, but he can’t bring himself to turn his head, to look at them properly.

“He said he was high. He must have had something before I went to nap with him.”

A touch of warmth settles on his left bicep. Without his real sight, without his colors, he can’t tell who it is. Beth, maybe. She worries.

“Cas?”

Yes. Beth. Perhaps some part of him can still see. Maybe his eyes are still seeing and he just doesn’t know. That happens with humans, their brains editing out or filling in details, patching over holes in the data. Maybe it happens with angels, too. Maybe his wings are still working and he can’t sense them properly, either. Perhaps he can still hear the Host. He has his blade back now, the part of him he cut off from himself and lost. One of those parts. Some of his strength must be back with it.

And it has been so long since he connected with the Host.

Ignoring the touch of this woman he saved, who seems intent on saving him right back, he adjusts tendrils of himself, alters the waves just enough, and…

“Cas!”

That’s Val. Her voice wavers and it brings pain.

“Fuck. Riva, get over here. Now! Cas? Hold on. Hold on, I’ve got you.”

No. Her voice doesn’t bring pain. The pain is inside him, outside him. It is him. It’s the wavelengths which should let him connect with the Host.

“Lay him down. Carefully. No, Val, don’t hold him. Move that chair. Move it!”

He’s fitting. His human body’s responding to the vibrations, juddering and spasming and he can’t stop it. He can’t stop it. He-

He shuts off the waves.

“Oh, thank God.”

That’s Beth. She sounds tearful. Castiel can’t understand what’s upset her.

A stabbing pain in his head pulsates purple and gold, color where he’s been without it for so long. It’s too much. Everything is too much.

He thought seeing Dean and Sam again was bad, and Beth and Val and Riva supported him, defended him. They were his shields. But now, he finds it’s more…difficult than he thought. More painful. It’s made him want to fill the voids he’s felt eating away at him, has made him want to connect with someone. If it can’t be Dean, who looked at him as though Castiel has failed again, then it’ll have to be his own kind. Surely, he’s paid enough by now to be allowed some small link.

But he’s shut off almost everything over the past years, over the past months, shutting down his links and awareness until he might as well be human, and clearly he’s left it too late.

Reconnecting causes only more pain.

The only choice left is to cut contact further.

“Cas? Can you hear me?” Riva. “Can you open your eyes? Squeeze my hand?”

She sounds upset, too. He’s hurting them, these women who’ve taken him in, cared for him. It will only help them if he disconnects.

Turning further inward, he seeks out that purple and gold, and snuffs it out. And all is silent.

***************************************************

Val’s heart is hammering. Thud. Thud. Thud. She thinks it might be breaking off into pieces, dissolving into that metallic taste at the base of her tongue.

“What the fuck just happened?” she asks.

Beth’s on her knees, holding one of Cas’ hands. Riva’s on his other side, thumbing open his eyes and pressing fingers under under his jaw. She shakes her head.

“Some kind of seizure. Has this happened before?”

“No,” Val says. “Not that I know of.”

Beth shakes her head. From the way her lips are pressed together, from the way they’re twitching, Val’s pretty sure her friend’s close to crying. She’s certainly got a death grip on Cas’ hand.

That’s a poor choice of words.

“Why’d Dean leap to asking about dying?” Val asks. “Did that seem…overboard to anyone else?”

“Up until Cas went into a fit?” Riva asks. She shakes her head. “Look, I know he’s going to hate this, but he’s not healing. And… I just don’t know what to do for him here.”

Val frowns. She has questions, so many questions, about silver daggers and feathers and why she heard a high buzzing sound as Cas’ body went into its fit. She files them away. She has this to deal with first.

“You want to take him to the hospital,” she says. “You know what he’d say-”

“I don’t know why Dean asked him about dying and I don’t know why he isn’t getting better and I don’t know what caused this fit!”

Val clamps her mouth shut as Riva’s voice rises. Beth gulps in air and it’s all too clear she’s losing the fight with the tears. And Cas… Cas is pale and still and fading. Val doesn’t even know why she feels this is a hill to die on. Anyone else, she’d have bundled them into the car and started driving already, but Cas reacts so badly to the thought of going back to hospital.

Still.

“Then we’d better get him there,” she says, and wishes she didn’t feel that’s a betrayal.

Chapter Text

Sam bundles Dean into the motel room, prising the feathers from his brother’s hand and setting them carefully on the table. Dean’s almost unresponsive, letting Sam guide him to his bed and sitting when he’s told to, and Sam’s feeling the bubble of worry in his chest when Dean’s eyes finally shift and he looks back at Sam.

“He thinks he might be dying,” Dean says.

“He didn’t say that, Dean,” Sam says, with one hand on Dean’s bicep. He almost feels he should be rubbing soothing circles, but Dean can react badly to shit like that.

“He looked away,” Dean says. “You know what that means.”

Dean’s voice is almost toneless. Hollow. The anger that flared so hot in Val’s living room has drained away. Sam can see it on Dean’s face, in the slump of his shoulders and in his words. There have been too many times like this over the past few months, times when Sam has found Dean sitting staring blankly at nothing, in the middle of tasks he’d normally have finished quickly.

“Whatever’s wrong,” Sam says, “he’s got some kind of hyper-alert thing going on. You got him to look at one thing for longer than I could manage. Might not mean what it used to, Cas not meeting your eyes.”

“Means he’s being shifty. Mean he can’t give me the answer I want,” Dean says, as though he’s reading from a set of instructions.

“Yeah, well.”

When Dean lapses back into silence, Sam raises himself up enough to nudge Dean out of his coat and shoes. It could be awkward, but what with all the crap that’s gone down in their lives it’s not the first time he’s had to do this, to basically get Dean ready for bed when his brother’s slipped too far into his own misery.

Dean has to be told to take his sweatpants and T-shirt and go to the bathroom to change. Sam strips and changes while Dean’s out of the room, moving to the table and opening his tablet as Dean turns on a tap, letting the water gush.

Cas didn’t give them a straight answer on the feathers, but Sam’s pretty sure these must be from an angel’s wings. He’s seen enough of them, the feathers, and although he only has brief, hazy memories from Lucifer and then from Gadreel, there’s a spark of recognition when he looks at the things.

It only takes him a few minutes to find a page worth reading, and he’s holding up a feather to compare it to the one on the screen when Dean emerges, his face still wet and his T-shirt not quite pulled all the way down.

“You find something?” Dean asks.

“Definitely angel feathers,” Sam says. “Not got much further than that. You want to help?”

Dean takes a book Sam hands him and opens it without complaint. Sam watches him from the corner of his eye for a while, checking Dean’s actually turning the pages and not just using the book as a shield to sink further into his thoughts. Dean and Cas have a lot in common. They both need a mission.

Sam needs answers. He wishes he thought he’d find them in his research.

**************************************

Beth doesn’t take in a lot of what’s going on around her. She knows there’s noise, that there’s movement. She knows there’s hard plastic under her and a cloying stink in her nostrils.

None of that matters. It’s separate, apart. She’s in stasis.

“They’ll tell us what’s going on soon,” Val says from the next seat. “Riva’ll tell us if no-one else does.”

Beth doesn’t answer. There doesn’t seem much point. They aren’t Cas’ family. Not really. Well, not legally. She has no idea what Riva’s put on the paperwork, but none of them are his blood relations and none of them are related by marriage. They might sit here all night and be told nothing.

“He’ll be fine,” Val says. “He jumped out his window and didn’t die. He’s tough.”

That tickles at something in Beth’s mind, but that sensation of lingering heaviness, of time turned to viscous liquid, tamps down on it and it seeps away.

More time must pass. More noise.

Beth sees familiar shoes in front of her and the world snaps back into its right time, rushing in on her as she lifts her head to meet her friend’s eyes.

“Is he okay?” Val asks.

Beth reaches over and finds Val’s hand already waiting for her.

Riva crouches down and she looks frazzled, her hair escaping in dark zigzags and her eyes tired.

“We can’t find the problem. And it’s not like I can sign a load of forms or prove he’s got insurance or anything. Admin’s blocking me. Us. I’ve got Dr. Williams on board with hunting down whatever this is, but she can’t get them to shift, either.”

“You aren’t thinking of calling Dean and Sam?” Val asks, as though that’s the worst idea anyone has ever had.

Beth kind of agrees, but there’s always the chance they know Cas’ medical history, or if he’s got insurance. And it’s not like they can do anything to him in a hospital.

“Maybe,” Riva says. “Look, he seems to be stable. We can’t wake him up, but he’s not had another fit. As far as we can tell, he’s just sleeping. I thought you might want to come and sit with him.”

Beth lets Val pull her up and along, trailing behind her friend down hallways and past rooms full of people who could be going through worse than they are. Normally, she feels for everyone when she visits. Today, she feels numb.

Cas’ bed has the curtain drawn round it and Beth has a moment, as Riva grips the material to pull it back, where she expects to find him gone.

He’s still there. Against the stark white of the hospital sheets, his hair looks black, even though she knows it’s really a dark brown. His skin is washed out, even more so than normal, and she thinks they should have made more effort to get him to spend some time outside, in the garden. Her mom always said people should get some air.

There doesn’t seem to be any air in here.

“And there’s no clue why he’s still out?” Val asks.

Beth forces herself to pay attention. If something important is said, she should know about it. She is the one who met Cas first. In a way, she brought him into their lives. She has a hazy idea that makes her responsible for him.

“Exhaustion. Maybe,” Riva says. “He’s not been well, he’s suffered at least the trauma of that one attack for sure, and he’s on drugs. It’s not exactly no idea. It’s more pin the tail on the idea with no proof it’s the right one. At this point, we either find a way to force admin to let me do more tests or we cross our fingers and wait.”

Beth realizes they’re both looking at her.

“What?” she says. She has to reach out and take hold of the foot of the bed.

“I think we should call Sam and Dean,” Riva says.

“And I don’t,” Val adds.

Ah. Tie breaker.

Beth looks back at Cas and considers.

“Call Sam,” she says.

**********************************

Sam’s phone buzzes as he reaches for another book. The Bunker records they have on his tablet are far from complete, but he has found mention of a few things he can follow and he pulled every book on angels he could find weeks ago, hauling them around in the Impala on hunts. Just in case.

After all, they’d run across Cas on hunts before.

Dean’s out of the room, sent to pick up some food before he passes out from hunger. Sam isn’t sure his brother would have gone if Sam hadn’t made him. He only went if Sam promised not to stop looking for a second, but…

It’s not a number he knows, which means it could be anyone. He answers non-committaly, just in case, avoiding names. There’s a pause before someone speaks and Sam doesn’t place the voice at first.

“Hi. Sam? That’s Sam, right?”

The third one. Rita? Something like that. It has to be her.

“Er. Yeah. Yeah, this is Sam. What is it?”

“You can’t tell Dean,” she says, an explosion of compressed sound.

“What? What can’t I tell Dean?”

Sam pauses halfway to his feet. He isn’t sure if he was going to head after Dean, but he feesl wrong-footed by being blocked.

“I don’t have to tell you,” she says. “He has no paperwork. I don’t even know if… Point is, I don’t have to tell you.”

She doesn’t sound sure about that, but there’s a determination Sam can’t ignore. And he needs to keep an eye on Dean, sure, but if this is something about Cas, well… Cas needs him, too.

“I won’t tell him,” Sam says, and hates the cold, slithering feeling that he’s going to lie to his brother again.

He said he wouldn’t, but he knows he will. For this, he will. If he needs to. It can be cleared up when Cas is well and back with them. Or he can go back on his word to this stranger. Whatever gets the job done.

“I…” She stops again and he hears voices in the background. Probably one of the others. Not Cas. Not deep enough for Cas. Her voice comes back stronger, more certain. “Does Cas have medical insurance? Do you know the details?”

That can’t be good.

“I can get you details for him,” Sam says, brain working on how fast he can fake something.

He’s got practice, but not as much as with other scams.

“Why does he need it?”

Maybe they’ve talked him into going in for some tests, but Sam can see a host of issues with that. Unless Cas really has fallen, and he’s human, and even then he doesn’t know that Cas would go to a hospital easily. He follows Dean’s lead in so many things, and Dean has always preached avoiding hospitals when possible.

“He could do with, um, tests,” Rita says.

No. That’s not right. Riva.

“What tests?” Sam asks, and he lets some hardness creep into his tone, some firmness. “Listen, I can come over. I get you might not be keen to see Dean so soon, but I can come on my own.”

“No!”

“No?”

Another pause. And a quieter voice.

“We’re not at home.”

Sam closes his eyes. Cas needs medical insurance and they aren’t at home.

“He’s at the hospital,” he says. “I’m coming down.”

And he ends the call before he can be told to stay away. He leaves Dean a note, claiming it’s about the case. Sam has to think of what everyone most needs, here, and Dean needs to not get worked up anymore than he already is.

*************************************

Val refuses to leave Cas’ side once Riva passes on the fact that Sam’s on his way. She seems to think Riva should have been able to stop an FBI agent from arriving in a public building.

Beth’s trying to convince Val to go and pick up a change of clothes for Cas, something he can be put in that’s more comfortable than the gown he’s in right now. Val’s refusing, seeming to think she’s the thin line between Cas and something dreadful. It takes time for Beth to win out, and she practically has to march Val to the hospital doors, promising she’ll return and watch Cas. Riva lets them sort it out. She has work to do and can’t go over this with Val even one more time.

It’s not an argument worth having, not when there are other thing to focus on.

Like the fact a little girl just walked out of Cas’ room.

She’s just come back from wading through a pile of paperwork, meaning to check on Cas before she suggests she takes her own turn to go home and grab a change of clothes, and she sees a little girl walk right out of Cas’ room.

It’s not unheard of for kids to wander in and out of rooms, no matter how many times staff ask parents to keep an eye on their offspring. After all, people can be in a state where watching kids is just not as important as whether or not someone’s going to make it to the next day. Or maybe it’s a kid who should be in a bed themselves, but they’re well enough to have a walk and boredom takes them all over.

This one, though, is Marianne Jenkins, and she can’t walk. She’s been in a chair for months and Riva doesn’t even know how the kid got down here.

But there she is, walking right out of the room Cas is in.

“Marianne?” she says, and goes down to one knee as she reaches the girl, reaching out and setting her hands lightly on the girl’s arms, who stops and looks up at her. “What are you doing?”

Marianne smiles. It lights up her whole face.

“I heard the singing,” she says. “In my sleep.”

“Singing?” It’s not unusual for kids to dream, either. Obviously. But Marianne isn’t fanciful. She colors and reads and makes overly serious statements, but she doesn’t talk about faeries or princesses or any of the things Riva always thought kids talked about. She isn’t the type to say something like this. “What kind of singing?”

But Marianne shakes her head, her hair bobbing and swaying.

“Just singing.”

“And you came down here?”

Marianne has a chair, but she’s normally too tired to have got herself all the way down from her ward to this one.

The girl nods and Riva is left feeling adrift. She’s lucky, she knows she is, never having had the kind of fatigue that comes with so many conditions and recoveries, but she’s seen enough people going through it to know that it’s not a case of just…wanting to move enough.

“The singing helped me.”

Which makes no more sense than anything else. Marianne said she dreamed about the singing, and she can hardly have wheeled herself here while asleep. And that doesn’t explain why she’s walking.

“And what happened when you got here?” Riva asks, putting that aside for now. One mystery at a time. Perhaps she’ll find one she can deal with.

“I saw the creature,” Marianna says.

She sounds quite upbeat about it.

“Creature?”

The girl nods, and smiles even wider, and the sound of booted feet behind her pulls Riva’s head around to see Sam heading right at her. She moves enough that her fingertips are all that’s holding Marianne, and she feels the girl move away, doesn’t turn back and stop her quickly enough before the child’s vanished around the corner. Skipping. That girl hasn’t skipped for over a year. Riva knows. She’s seen her in here with her parents often enough.

She just has time to wonder what will get written on the medical records before she has to stand to face Sam.

He looks harried, kind of drawn out and pressed thin, and his hair doesn’t look at neat as it did the first time she saw him, when he stepped into Beth’s house all ready to interview a witness and found his partner’s ex. Brother’s ex?

“Sam,” she says, stopping him short. “You can’t just go in there.”

“With all due respect,” Sam says, “like Hell I can’t. Cas is family.”

“Cas is a mess,” she says. “If he’s family, how did you let him get like this?”

And she knows that’s not fair. Not necessarily. Sometimes, family can’t help, or can’t help enough. But she feels sometimes that she’s the only one out of Beth and Val and herself who gets that what they’ve been doing is weird. A stranger appears from the sky, more or less, turns out to be on drugs, has symptoms she can’t explain and injuries which won’t heal and they take him in. Pretty much adopt him.

Beth sees something of herself in Cas, Riva can see that. A survivor. Someone who needs help working his way through the aftermath. And Riva has seen, has heard, how Dean talks to Cas, and, yeah, it’s not good. She does know that Cas hasn’t told her outright about some of the things Beth and Val are assuming have happened, and she’s worried for the both of them if it turns out they’ve got it wrong.

Val, well, she’s just a protector. Always has been. Where Riva gets confused is how Cas went so quickly from being someone Val was guarding Beth against to being someone Val’s protecting.

As for herself, she wants to know what’s up with him. She wants to help him heal. But she also wants to know why she has these dizzying moments of realizing that what they’re doing is so odd. More to the point, she wants to know why they’re only moments.

Sam’s staring at her, his lips pressed together and his jaw clenched. He gives every indicated he’d like to lift her out of the way and just walk in to that room.

He doesn’t.

“Look,” he says, “I get that you want to help, that you’ve come to care about Cas, but you don’t know him like we do. Trust me, we could’ve done more. Done better. But once I saw what was happening, the PTSD, we really tried. Dean tried. And…”

Sam cuts off, looking away and shaking his head. Whatever he’s bitten off, it’s causing him pain. He says the next bit to the wall of the hallway.

“Dean and me, we’re both messed up, too. Or have been. I’m not sure. And maybe that makes it harder for us to help him, or maybe it makes it better, because some of what he’s going through, we get more than anyone.”

He manages to look back at her, still brimming and bristling with something jagged.

“You know?” he asks.

It’s a plea. Riva can tell that much.

“No,” she says. “I mean, yes. Yes, I get what you’re saying, but PTSD? From, what, from serving? Is that the term?” She doesn’t wait for Sam to confirm it. Cas called himself a warrior, said the three of them had fought side by side. “It’s not the only thing, is it?”

Frustration, maybe anger, flashes across Sam’s face, and Riva has to make herself stand her ground. She’s still between Cas’ room and this giant of a man, and she intends to stay there.

“You think Dean abused Cas,” Sam says. “You think they were together, and he, what, he hit Cas?”

“We know he hit Cas,” Riva says. “He told Beth he had. He admitted it.”

“Cas and Dean have beaten seven shades out of each other,” Sam said. “But it’s not what you’re thinking.”

She sets that aside, too, just for now. There’s more to say.

“And the way he speaks to Cas? Because I heard that, and no way was Cas giving it back.”

The fight slips out of Sam, leaving him looking exhausted enough to fall over. He runs a hand over his face, huffing out a breath that sounds painful.

“Yeah. No.” He blinks and Riva pretends not to see tears in his eyes. “No, that’s about how he speaks to Cas sometimes. When he’s worried or scared.”

And he definitely looks like there’s more to add, leaving Riva thinking of when Beth first talked about what Greg was like, how she’d said it was when he was upset, as though it was a sign of caring. It had been a long time before Beth had said it was also when he was tired or angry or just irritated, and even longer before Riva heard her friend say it wasn’t her fault. That she hadn’t caused it and hadn’t deserved it.

“You know that’s not right,” she says.

“There’s a lot that’s not right,” he says. “And a lot we’ve been through that I’m not getting into here. You said Cas needed insurance. Why? Where is he? And where are the forms?”

Riva leads Sam away from Cas’ room, relieved he must have been roaming the halls looking for one of them rather than knowing which bed Cas is in. She’s also relieved when Sam fills in the paperwork, and she can push for those tests.

And now she has Castiel’s full name. It’s on the form, written in handwriting which doesn’t look as neat as she’d expected from Sam. Two words.

Castiel Winchester.

*************************************

Sam can tell when someone’s trying to misdirect him. He lets her. After all, he came here to make sure Cas had the insurance stuff sorted, first and foremost. But he isn’t just going to leave.

It takes him very little time to make it back to that room once he’s dealt with the forms and watched Riva get sucked back into the medical side of things.

Cas isn’t alone.

Beth looks unfocused at first, her hair messed up and her eyes drooping, but she snaps to attention when she looks at him, her head coming up and one hand groping for Cas’ arm on the bed. Sam’s pretty sure she must have been almost asleep in that chair.

“What are you doing here?” she asks. There’s a note of panic in that.

Sam tries to make himself seem smaller. He holds out a hand, palm down, the way he does when he wants someone to settle. To be calm.

“Take it easy,” he says, and watches her bristle. Okay. Wrong tactic. “I just want to see how Cas is doing.”

There looks to be a wary acceptance of that as a reason. She doesn’t snap at him, in any case. Instead, she narrows her eyes, her nose scrunching up at the same time, like this is the most confusing thing she’s ever had to deal with.

“We don’t know. He had a fit and won’t wake up. Has he ever been like this before?”

Sam is going to say no, but he remembers Cas fitting on the floor when he had that spell on him from Rowena.

“Not like this,” he goes for. That’s true enough. The time Cas was out cold for ages, it was when he’d just taken on Sam’s pain, and as far as Sam knows that hasn’t happened here. Besides, there was no fit that time and he didn’t pass out right away. Sam remembers the blank eyed look all too well.

He still regrets leaving Cas with Meg.

“Where’s your friend?” he asks.

“Riva’s working on Cas’ case and Val’s gone to fetch him some things from home. Where’s your brother?”

There’s definitely an edge to that. And he doesn’t miss the pointed note to ‘home’.

“At the motel,” he says. Hopes. “Look, can I sit here for a while?”

Beth stares at him for a while before nodding. It’s stiff, but at least she isn’t throwing anything at him and telling him to leave. It occurs to Sam, as he drags a second plastic chair over to the side of Cas’ bed, that his compass for decent interactions might be a bit screwed, too, that he’s taking that as a positive thing, and not just how people should be.

Maybe, just maybe, Dean isn’t the only one who’s been left with some off kilter ideas about relationships.

Then again, Sam navigated Stanford, and he coped that almost-year he spent with Amelia. Not letting his dad tell him who to be, that’s what’s helped him.

Really, out of the three of them it’s Sam who knows how civilians behave the best, so he should use some of that to help Dean, and Cas. Because they are getting Cas back. If they can get him back from death and from Purgatory and from brainwashing, they can get him back from three women who don’t seem to know anything about the supernatural at all.

He doesn’t speak at first, ignoring Beth when she slumps back in her chair, some edge of wariness still thrumming through her but not seeming to win the fight against her exhaustion. Instead, Sam looks at Cas. Really looks.

He’s seen Cas three times before this in the last few days and each one has been a shock. Now, with the angel out cold and not moving at all, Sam takes in the lack of color, the way his hair looks even darker by comparison and Cas look wasted and small under that hospital sheet. He’s in one of those horrible hospital robes, and Sam tells himself that at least Cas isn’t hooked up to tubes and drips and other things.

From this close, and without Cas’ movements and nervousness to distract him, Sam sees the signs of stress on his friend’s face. His skin isn’t just pale: it’s got sickly undertones, gray and washed out. And Cas always looks like he needs a good night’s sleep, but now he looks like he’s been kept awake for days. Sam knows what that kind of exhaustion does to a person, and they haven’t got enough evidence to work out if Cas has been needing to sleep and eat and drink. They don’t know what state he’s really in. What species.

Sam’s never really understood that.

Sam went deep with the demon blood, and he’s hosted two angels, been possessed by demons, been without his soul. He’s never changed species. Not like Dean has, becoming a demon, and certainly not like Cas has, becoming human.

It’s an unsettling thought, that to Cas becoming human could be anything like becoming a demon was to Dean. Then again, Dean gained healing and powers and who knows what else. Cas lost abilities to be human.

However wrong it made him feel, however unclean, Sam does remember the thrum of power in his blood when he followed the path Ruby set out for him. He wonders, sometimes, why being straight-up human is seen as being the best thing there is. It’s a view Dean seems to have a firm hold on.

Cas has spoken about humanity and its wonders so often, but Sam isn’t certain that’s the same as wanting to be human. Sam loves dogs. He doesn’t want to be one.

“What was he like,” Beth asks.

Her words startle Sam. She’s been so quiet he managed to almost forget she was there.

“Who?”

“Cas. Before he…was there a time before all this?”

Beth doesn’t know what Cas has really been through, and Sam has to take a moment to allow that he doesn’t, either. Not really. It’s been clear Cas has suffered correction, has suffered punishment, and that the only way it differs from Hell is the righteousness and not calling it torture. And he’s said a few things that suggest his mind’s not been exactly untouched. Sam has no idea how long all of that went on for.

He feels a pang of guilt at the thought that if it’s been for hundreds, for thousands of years, it lets Sam and Dean off the hook, at least a little.

“Cas was…” Sam stops and inspects his own hands, clasped loosely together on his knees. He takes a breath before trying again. “Cas used to be a lot more certain, a lot more focused on just getting things done.”

“Until he met Dean,” Beth says, like that’s a foregone conclusion.

She thinks she’s sitting opposite Cas’ abuser’s brother, and to her Sam’s a huge FBI agent, ex-military, who’s either ignored or missed Cas’ pain. And he’s in between her and the door.

Dean said she was careful when they met. Perhaps it’s worry over Cas that’s making her less wary.

Sam can talk his way out of a lot of things, but this one feels weightier. He needs to really get through to this woman who has formed a bond with Sam’s adopted brother.

“Cas saved Dean. When they first met, he pulled him out of…of a situation so bad, so…so awful there aren’t words. But he did it because of a mission. When they first met, when I first met Cas, it wasn’t about family. It was about, well, it was about stopping some really bad crap. Cas was a warrior. He had orders. And he didn’t let Dean’s attitude stop him from doing what he thought was right.”

“And did you?” Beth asks. “Stop the really bad crap?”

She says the words so smoothly that they’re almost stripped of meaning, and Sam isn’t sure if she even believes him that they were fighting anything. He can hardly tell her what it really was.

“Yes,” he says. “But Cas had to make some hard choices, and when the dust settled he found he’d made enemies, the kind who don’t just chew you out. He lost a lot. But he also found he had us. A new family.” And if Beth picks up from that the implication that Cas’ old family were the ones setting the missions for him, she doesn’t show any sign. “Cas and Dean? They’ve had a bond almost from the start, and I don’t even know how to describe it.”

“You don’t?”

He searches for derision or any sort of pointedness in her tone, but it’s just as smooth as the last statement.

“Beth,” Sam says, “you have got this all wrong. Dean and Cas were never together. Trust me. I asked him, to be sure. I mean, I could believe it, you know? I do think they love each other, but with the lives we lead it’s complicated. And I don’t think Dean’s ever even told him.”

Beth frowns.

“Not together? But, the way Cas speaks…”

“Cas doesn’t exactly get all the nuances sometimes,” Sam says, and hopes this isn’t coming across as him putting Cas down. “He takes things differently. It’s…it’s his upbringing.”

That sounds weak, but he toughs it out and Beth nods.

“We thought maybe he was from a different country,” she says, and her shoulders aren’t as tense.

“His background’s-”

“Complicated?” she says, and there’s a spark of attitude in that, at last.

Sam finds it oddly comforting.

“Yeah.” He lets himself sink back in the chair, as well. Can’t hurt to act more relaxed, see if that gets through to her. “And I get it, how it can seem like Dean’s…” He has to pause again, because this is hard. Really hard. “Dean’s not great at showing people he cares. Not unless it’s life or death, anyway. And the two of them have been through some crap which would have broken anyone else.”

“You’re saying Cas isn’t broken?” Beth asks.

“I’m saying Dean’s done some shit he’s not proud of. So’s Cas. So have I. And we all need to work on that. But you have it wrong, this idea that Dean and Cas were together, and Cas ran to get away from that. No way would Dean treat anyone he was with like that.”

“He admitted to hitting Cas,” Beth says, back to being steady. Shut down.

Sam reins in his frustration. This is like chasing the tide, watching it creep towards you and then pull away. And this isn’t like a case. He doesn’t just need to get information and get out. He doesn’t just need Beth to believe him for now. No way would he be saying as much as he is if all he needed was to fool her for a few minutes.

“There was a time Cas beat Dean so badly that Dean almost died,” Sam says, “and I know that messed Dean up, but he wouldn’t talk about it.”

Beth’s eyes widen and she looks at Cas in something like shock.

“But it wasn’t really Cas,” Sam says. “I told you, it’s complicated, and it sucks, but I think at least part of what’s eating at Cas is that his body was used to do those things, to hurt Dean. He used to think of himself as Dean’s protector. Maybe mine, too. Sometimes, I wonder if he still does.”

He sits forward, wanting to press this into the woman sitting opposite him.

“Not victim. Protector. And he was, in a lot of ways and for a long time. And that’s something else I think has screwed him up, that he can’t protect us any more. Lately, we’ve had to look after him.”

Sam’s had a lot of time to think over this, time when Dean sat and stared and drank and wouldn’t talk about it. Sam knows that helping Cas without knowing what the problem really was could be part of why it wasn’t getting them far enough. He’s pieced together what he’s seen and what he’s heard and what he’s been told, and he’s confident in these conclusions.

But Beth isn’t looking at him. She’s still looking at Cas, an expression Sam can’t read on her face.

“Are you saying he had some kind of flashback? Lashed out?” she asks, and it’s clear she’s struggling to put Sam’s revelation in the narrative she’s built up around Cas.

“Something like that,” Sam says, and tells himself it’s not really lying.

“And they were never together?”

“Dean says not.” At her quick look, he goes on, trying to work it out in his own mind. “You’ve got to understand, normal has never been the word I’d use for either one of them. They both need a mission. They both get lost in their missions. I think…I think some people can be married for years and not have their kind of connection, but it’s not the same.”

Beth nods, but she looks contemplative rather than agreeing.

“War buddies,” she says. “That… I really didn’t read it that way.”

Sam holds her gaze, but he doesn’t push it any more. He just needs Beth and her friends to loosen their hold on Cas, so there’s at least a chance to talk to him. He’s not going to make Cas come with him, or even make him see Dean. But Cas should know how much Dean misses him, at least. He should know they both want him home. And to be able to have that conversation, he needs to persuade these women to leave him alone with Cas once Cas is awake.

Shaking Beth’s read on the situation is a start.

***********************************************

Sam’s gone. Sam’s gone and all he’s left Dean is a crappy note.

The take-out is already cooling, the boxes leaking grease, and Dean shoves it onto the table and retreats to the bed, taking the book he was reading with him.

Sam promised he wouldn’t stop researching. He promised. And he’s left.

Dean makes it through a few pages, reading a confusing page about Reapers and shaking his head at the author’s list of different categories. Dean knows enough about Reapers. He makes himself keep going, reading through the mentions of Greek mythology and Sumerian songs and on to a page about Griffins and then Ifrit. This book’s all over the place, and Dean knows his attention is flagging when he has to read the last entry three times.

Sighing, he drops the book on the floor and goes for the laptop, balancing it on his lap on the bed.

He moves the cursor to the search bar and types slowly, biting his lip. It takes him at least thirty seconds before he hits enter, longer still to scan down the results, and he’s tense as he clicks on a page entitled ‘How to know if you’re in an abusive relationship’.

It takes everything in him to read the first lines on the page.

**********************************************

Val can’t believe what she’s hearing.

“You’ve swallowed what he’s said? Just like that?”

Beth stands with her arms crossed, leaning back against the wall by the vending machine, and shrugs. A strand of hair falls over her face, pale and insubstantial under the hospital lights.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I think.”

Her body language is defensive, but it was before Val spoke to her. Beth’s not happy about what Sam’s said, and Val isn’t sure whether it’s because she doesn’t believe him or because she does. Either way, Val feels her hackles rise.

“Cas isn’t even awake so we can ask him,” Val says. “We can’t go deciding we’re wrong about everything without even asking him!”

Beth pulls even tighter in on herself. Val catches herself on the verge of saying more and forces herself to take a moment. Shoulders down, deep, steady breath. Don’t snap at Beth.

“Okay,” she says, when she’s got herself calmer. “Okay. So Sam has a different perspective.” Or says he does, but Beth doesn’t look in the mood for an in depth discussion on who they can trust. Not right now. “Riva got the insurance details from him, so right now we don’t need him for anything else. Job number one is to get Cas well. Awake. Then we can deal with this.”

Beth glances at her, a quick flick of the eyes, and nods.

**************************************************

Sam calls Dean from outside the hospital, braced for anger. For something. He gets a dull, leaden voice, flattened and distant, and feels his hackles rise.

“What’s up?” he asks.

“You called me, Sam,” Dean says. He doesn’t sound overly interested. “You got something on the case?”

“I’ve got something on Cas,” Sam says. No answer. “Dean…he…” Sam takes a breath and spits it out. “He’s in hospital. I had to come fake some insurance for him. Man, he’s out cold and they don’t know why. I don’t think we can focus on the case, here.”

Dean’s voice is sharper when he responds.

“I’m on my way.”

*************************************************

Riva feels her eyes widen as Val flies for Sam. The guy has no trouble fending her off, almost casually evading her swipe and backing from Cas’ bedside, his hands up. The set of his features is probably meant to be calming, but there’s no give there.

“Dean’s his family, too,” Sam says. “He has a right to know.”

“He has a right to stay the fuck away from Cas,” Val hisses. She’s almost spitting.

“I’ve told Beth,” Sam says, “You’ve got it all wrong, all right? No way would Dean hurt Cas. Not on purpose.”

“You think crap hurts less when it’s not on purpose?” Val asks, sounding disgusted, and Riva finds her own fists clenching. “You don’t get to pull out that excuse like it means anything.”

“Look, you don’t have to like it,” Sam says, “but Dean needs to see Cas. He might be able to help. He’s pulled Cas back before.”

Like that makes any sense.

Riva steps forward and grabs hold of her sister’s forearm before Val can try pulling this giant apart with her hands. Maybe she’ll go full on Biblical and find a rock to chuck at Sam’s head.

“This isn’t helping,” Riva says, slipping into the tone she has to use with difficult patients. “If you two want to fight it out, do it someplace else.”

She feels the tension in Val and she feels the moment her sister slumps, guilt flashing across her face.

“Fine,” she says, but she glares at Sam until he leaves first.

In their wake, Riva rubs at her head. The headache that’s been gathering there tightens her skull. No time to hunt down a painkiller right now.

With the room’s finally quiet, she moves to the bed and pulls the sheet straight. Not that it’s anything but neat as it is, but she feels the need to do something, anything. Cas looks so pale, and they still don’t know what his story is, and Val and Beth are reacting to Sam being around, and Riva really, really needs her head to stop hurting.

She takes one of Cas’ hands and wishes he’d grip back.

“You really need to wake up,” she says. “It’s all falling apart out here.”

There’s no response. She sighs, a stab of pain through her temple making her wince.

“I seriously did not sign up for this,” she says. And feels awful for thinking, even for a moment, that it would be easier if Cas had never turned up. “Cas, you have to come back to us. Whatever the story here, you have to come back. Val is scarily invested in you, and maybe you don’t get it, because as far as I can make out you don’t always seem to get what’s normal, but she only lets herself care about a few people. It’ll hurt her, really hurt her, if you up and die on us. And Beth?”

Riva shakes her head, as though Cas can see it through closed eyes.

“Man, she sees you as some kindred spirit, I swear it. Listen, I don’t want you to have gone through what they think you’ve gone through. I don’t. I can see why they think it, but I’m just… Anyway. But if you haven’t? I just hope Beth doesn’t feel lied to.”

Another twinge of guilt bites at her, because it’s not as though Cas has said he’s on the run from being battered by Dean, and he’s never called Dean his ex. There’s a lot that can be said by silence, though. Maybe he doesn’t know that.

Worrying about it must be at least a part of her headache. She really needs to just…let it go. See what happens. Be ready to pick up any pieces.

God knows, with Beth and Val in her life, Riva has to be the one to do that. Not like they can rely on Mom, with her drama and her expectations and her long, rambling stories about how Janey down the road is married with a kid on the way and when will Riva or Val do the same?

She expects another pulse of pain from her head at that thought. Huh. No pain. Actually, no pain at all.

Okay, then. Talking to Cas, even if he can’t hear her, has maybe drained off some of the tension. Good to know.

“Thanks, I guess,” she says. “I really need to get on with some other stuff, now, but I’ll swing by later, see how you’re doing. Okay?”

She bites her lip as she glances round the empty room. Val and Beth might both kick off, knowing he’s on his own, but it’s not like visiting hours are all day. And Riva can’t, just can’t, sit in here and do nothing but wait for Cas to wake up.

And what can really happen, when he’s in a hospital bed, out cold?

**************************************************

Dean sees Sam talking to Val, his brother leaning down as though Val might be less of an angry, defensive ball of judgment if he gets closer to her. It’s easy enough to slip by unseen. Easier still to find the room Cas is in.

Cas Winchester. Huh. Sammy’s being sentimental.

Dean stops in the doorway, struck by the sight of Cas in the bed. An angel shouldn’t look so vulnerable.

Like this, with his dark hair feathered over the pillow and his eyes shut, Cas looks all too much like he did back in that motel in Rexford, when Dean made him spend the night. Cas needed his arm binding, had looked like he needed more than the one meal Dean bought him. Dean didn’t push when Cas avoided giving his address. Maybe he just hadn’t wanted Dean to see where he was staying.

Dean doesn’t like to think how long he sat up on the other bed, watching Cas sleep. How he nearly, so nearly, told Cas fuck it. Told him to get in the Impala and come home.

He didn’t though. He left Cas outside that damn place he worked and told him to stick out the human life, that Dean was proud of him. He even managed to sound like he meant it.

Anything to keep Cas safe. To keep Sam safe.

“Hey, Buddy,” Dean says, forcing himself to walk to the bed and setting the fingers of one hand on the covers, right near Cas’ hand. “I’d ask how you’re doing, but it doesn’t look like the answers great. You, er, you mind if I sit a while?”

He pauses, as though Cas can actually answer, and nods to himself.

“All right, then.”

The chair he finds is small and hard. He sits in it anyway, his hands folded on the bedding and his shoulders bowed. From this angle, he sees Cas breathing, sees the angel’s chest rising and falling. He can’t remember if Cas should even need to breathe.

“I have got to have a serious talk with you about this shit,” Dean says into the near silence. “We wouldn’t win one of those game shows, that’s for sure. You know the ones. You must have watched them during your telethon. Gotta say what your partner’s favourite cheese is and if they want a vacation in Narnia.”

Those shows are for couples, of course. He pushes that aside.

“Seriously, though. What do I really know about you? You have the weirdest sense of humor, you like burritos and you throw yourself on every grenade you see. Can’t see that getting us through to the big money round.”

That exhaustion Dean’s been trying to bury washes up, the way it does at odd moments, and he drops his head onto the bed. The cover is scratchy against his forehead. His words are muffled.

“You gotta wake up, Cas, and you gotta talk to me. Properly. I can’t drive away and leave you this time. And…and I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry for anything that…that seemed like I was angry with you, or didn’t want you around. I mean, yeah, I get angry with you. I do. You pull some stupid shit. Stupid, self-sacrificing, stubborn shit. And it scares me, Cas. Fuck, but it scares me.”

He shifts, resting his elbows on the bed and his head in his hands. He can’t look at Cas. He doesn’t know why he can’t look at Cas. He looked at him just a few minutes ago. But now he can’t look at Cas.

His voice catches when he speaks again and he has to stop, has to cough. The words are thick when he goes on.

“It only makes me so angry because I don’t want to lose you again.”

He has more to say. A lot more. That website he found took some reading, and he followed the links. Fuck, but he followed a lot of links, and he has more bookmarked to go back to. Some of them weren’t even about… Well, about anything recent. Some of them were about half-memories Dean has shoved down so far he can almost, almost forget about them. Some of them are about what it’s like to be a kid, and what it means when you haven’t got anyone you can tell that you’ve been hungry for the third time in a month.

So he has a lot to say, but he can’t find the energy to drag those words up into the dim light of this room.

Instead, he reaches blindly with his right hand until he feels skin, and he grabs hold of Cas, and he sits with his head down and waits until he can speak.

His words will come back. They will. If he just waits long enough.

Chapter Text

Sam stops when he sees Dean leaning on the bed. He throws his arm out when he sees Dean’s hand in Cas’.

Val grunts as she walks into his forearm, swatting at him a moment later.

“Get out of my way.”

“No.”

It’s not like he’s got very far with her. She’s still spitting out threats she can have no way of carrying out, glowering at Sam like he’s…well, like he’s still being worn by the Devil, and has her hackles up so far over Dean that Sam can’t, just can’t, let her see his brother folded over at Cas’ bedside like this.

But she’s pushing at his arm, wanting past, and she isn’t some creature or one of the humans who’s Hell bent on hurting others. This is someone who cares about Cas. A lot, actually, as far as Sam can see.

And he isn’t trying to make things worse, here.

Moving quickly enough he catches her off guard, he turns, sees her stumble, and holds his hands up as she steadies herself.

“Listen,” he says, “I know you don’t believe me, and I get you want to protect Cas, but remember this is a hospital, okay? And I promise you, Cas is safe.”

Her eyebrows rise and her voice is flat.

“Dean’s in there.”

Sam presses his lips into a thin line, holding eye-contact. He hasn’t got a chance of changing Val’s mind in the few seconds he has before she starts a scene, however much he might have shifted the ground under Beth’s assumptions. Some people are just harder to move than others. Some see themselves more as protectors.

Pointless to make another attempt to defend Dean when what she needs is to feel Cas is defended.

“I’ll keep an eye on him. All right? I swear to you, Cas is safe.”

“You’ve done such a good job of that in the past,” she says.

Thing is, she’s not wrong. Not really. Cas has been hurt, Sam’s let Cas get hurt. At least, he hasn’t stopped it: Cas cutting into his own chest in front of a building, Cas with his own blade through his body…Cas left behind with Rowena. There are enough times he’s not kept Cas from getting hurt, and he knows they aren’t all on him, or not only on him, but that last one’s been eating at him for months.

Something of that must lace his words when he speaks.

“This time’s different.”

Val blinks, frowns. Nods.

“Right,” she says, slowly. “You do get I don’t like this, no matter how many promises you make.”

“I get that.”

He doesn’t point out she has no choice. Sam’s put Cas down as a Winchester. If it comes to it, Sam and Dean aren’t the ones who’ll get banned from visiting. No need to rock that boat, though. Not yet. Not if he doesn’t have to. One thing Sam’s been thinking about is a support network, and how they don’t have one, and how Cas seems to have wandered into one. Sam’s not tearing that away unless he has to.

She nods again, and pushes at his arm. This time, he lets her past.

He’s right behind her into the room, so he sees the way her step falters, the way she straightens her back and lifts her head as she goes on.

He sees how quickly Dean pulls his hand away from Cas, sitting up and turning to face them.

No-one mentions the tears threatening in Dean’s eyes.

Sam moves to stand next to Dean, pretending to ignore Val, who rounds the bed and takes the seat on that side. Dean meets Sam’s eyes and shakes his head. Once. His mouth is twisted up at one corner.

“No change?” Sam asks, even though he can see there hasn’t been. He claps a hand on Dean’s shoulder, pretending it does any good. “He’ll pull through, Dean. He always does.”

“Always?” Val asks. “Exactly how often has he landed in hospital?”

“It’s not like that-” Dean starts, voice heating up.

“Then what is it like?”

Val cuts him off, pushing up from the chair she’s just taken and looking like she’d climb over the bed to get in Dean’s face, if only Cas weren’t on it.

“Guys!” Sam tries. “Hey, do you really think this will help Cas?”

Val subsides, but slowly, as though giving up the field and resenting it. Sam feels the tension in Dean’s shoulder. He’s pretty sure Dean won’t erupt, not in any way that means Sam might have to physically hold him back, not now the Mark’s gone. He keeps his hand where it is anyway.

“I thought you said Dean might pull Cas back,” Val says, not looking at them. “How’s that working out?”

Sam presses his fingers into Dean’s shoulder.

“More chance than the rest of us managing it,” Sam says, and feels the way Dean jolts at that.

It can’t be that Dean hasn’t noticed. It can’t be. If Dean’s still managing denial when they’ve talked about this…or Sam’s talked and Dean’s not stormed out or joked his way out of it…

Not the time.

Val’s eyes are hard, her expression granite, and Sam sees the fissures in her as she holds it. There’s something very familiar about Val, now he thinks about it.

He sees Val’s eyes shift away just before he hears footsteps in the doorway.

“Is everything all right in here?” Riva asks. She sounds wary.

“Sam’s keeping an eye on Dean,” Val says, sounding disgusted.

Dean doesn’t even react to that. Sam’s finding it hard to keep all those darker thoughts away, the ones that make him worry what will happen if they lose Cas for good. Dean was so close to the edge when they thought they’d lost Cas to the Leviathan, and when they did lose Bobby, as far as Sam can remember. Dean’s been on edge since Cas drove away and ditched that car, ditched his card and vanished. Watching Dean chase every lead, try every spell and summoning, all for nothing, cut at Sam. Seeing his brother lapse into bouts of drinking and apathy, or hearing him throw yet another bottle at a wall long after he should have been in bed, would be enough on their own to make Sam want Cas found. Cas is here now, but it’s still like they’ve lost him, in a lot of ways. He isn’t going to let it stay that way.

“Right,” Riva says. “Well, look, visiting hours are almost over. And I think Cas has had enough excitement for one day.”

“I’m not leaving,” Dean says.

“You fucking are,” Val says, almost over him.

“Can we not-” Sam starts.

“Just don’t, all right?” Riva says at the same time. “You can come see him tomorrow. All of you. But you should know I’ll have people keeping an eye on this room, and FBI or not I will call the cops on you if I think you’re going to harm my patient. You got that?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, because Dean flaring up right now isn’t going to help, and they can smooth all of this over later, once Cas is awake. Because he is going to wake up. He has to. “Yeah, sure. Come on, Dean.”

Dean doesn’t move.

“We’ll come back,” Sam says.

Dean’s mouth works and his hand on the bed clenches, unclenches, clenches again, but he stays silent. Finally, he nods and stands, pausing with the chair against the backs of his legs before he turns and walks out. Sam’s seen that expression on Dean’s face before, and he’s never liked it. Dean wants to fight back and doesn’t know who to punch, because there isn’t anyone. Which means Dean will turn the blows on himself.

“We’ll be back tomorrow,” Sam says, sparing a fleeting thought to wish he didn’t sound so threatening.

Riva nods.

“I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

It could have been a reassurance. It isn’t.

Val says nothing as Sam leaves, following his brother, but he feels the weight of her gaze even after he’s well out of her line of sight.

He catches up to Dean by the second corridor, falling into step with him as they make their way out in to the weak sunlight. It looks like they’ll have rain soon.

They’re in the Impala, Dean’s hand on the ignition, before he speaks.

“They don’t want me near him, Sam.”

“No. I get that.” Sam doesn’t look at Dean. He fixes his sight out the windscreen, at the gray sky and the low clouds and the few trees nearby that scrawl charcoal shapes. “Thing is, they can’t keep us away from him in there.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “I saw. Winchester, huh?”

There might be just a shade of something satisfied in that, but it’s hard to hear it under the leaden weight of whatever it is Dean’s feeling. Sam used to think he was fluent in Dean, but he’s wondering if maybe his dictionary’s a little off. He seems to keep missing some of the nuances.

“Yeah. Well, he is, isn’t he?”

Dean turns the ignition, the engine roaring to life.

“Damn straight,” he says, and sets off.

*******************************************

It’s empty, somehow, in the room. Cas is still there, Riva doing something to check on him that Val isn’t paying attention to. The bed’s still there, obviously, and the other furniture, and the other patients behind the curtains, but they’ve been distant to Val this whole time. Whoever they are, they’re asleep or ignoring what’s going on in Cas’ little bubble of the ward. Cas’ bed is the one near the door, anyway, and it’s easy to pretend he’s in a room by himself. Still, it’s like a packed room is suddenly echoing.

“They’ve got some nerve,” Val says, talking to her hands. One of her knuckles is scraped, but she can’t remember how it happened. Not from punching Dean, however much she wanted to. She’s not sure whether to be proud of that. “Turning up, claiming he’s family.”

Riva makes a noise but doesn’t answer.

“You don’t think it’s out of order?” Val asks.

“I don’t know what I think,” Riva says. She sounds distracted.

“Really? You really think it might be okay they just bulled their way in here and took over?”

At last, Riva turns to look at Val, her brows drawn together.

“Took over? Val, I’ve seen relatives having battles over which side of a family gets ownership of a patient. This isn’t even close. They insisted on staying, yeah, but if Cas is family to them like they’re saying, then wouldn’t it be worse if they’d just left? And all Dean did was sit there.”

“It’s not right,” Val says.

She isn’t going to just drop everything she’s thought over the past few months because it turns out Cas’ ex could have been carved by Pygmalion himself. And she’s certainly not going to take Sam and Dean’s word over anything, not with knowing what she does about how Greg tried to gaslight Beth.

Although he never claimed Beth wasn’t his girlfriend at all.

Still, abusive relationships can happen even without an official label, and, yeah, Cas hasn’t ever outright said Dean’s his ex, not in a way that could be entered into a court of law or whatever, but she still needs to hear it from him. Dean could have…could have hidden it from Sam, could have made Cas hide it.

It’s possible.

“Look, instead of winding yourself up over there, why don’t you come and get something to eat?” Riva says. When Val glances at Cas, Riva speaks hurriedly. “He’s as fine without us here. Trust me. Anything changes, and I’ll get a call. And visiting hours really are up. I don’t want to have to argue with people to let you back in. And you’re no good to him if he wakes up and you’re passed out from starvation. Come on.”

Much as she hates to admit it, her sister’s right. Doesn’t mean she has to rush to follow the advice, though.

Val takes her time leaving, leaning over Cas and pressing a kiss to his forehead before she goes. He’s very still. After weeks, months, of seeing him become more and more jittery, of watching him place himself with his back to the wall and his eyes all over, it always seems wrong when he’s still. Even asleep, he’s normally not got quite this air about him, as though he might never move again.

“You hang on in there,” she says to him. “And you come back to us, you hear? We’re all waiting for you.”

Including Sam and Dean, but she doesn’t say that.

It hurts to leave him lying so still in that bed, but Riva takes her elbow and steers her out of the room, refusing to let her go back to check on him one more time. Val knows she’s been ridiculous with that, but the last time she visited someone in hospital it was Beth, after a fall her friend still insists had nothing to do with Greg, and Val knows herself well enough to get she’s still all tangled up over it. If Beth had just said it was Greg, Val would have someone to blame, someone to focus her anger on. That Beth fell on her own leaves no-one to direct any of that at.

Not that it’s the case, here. Whatever exactly has happened with Cas, and whatever his exact relationship with Dean, enough has been admitted for Val to know Dean’s part of the issue. And there’s still a chance Dean is lying. Still a chance he thinks he can get Cas to go along with whatever he wants the story to be.

She stays quiet all the way to the car, all the way to Beth’s house. When they pull up at the curb, she looks a question at Riva, who shrugs.

“Beth thought we should all stay together tonight. I think she wants the company.”

Val can’t blame her. She wants the company, too. It’s good someone else has made that decision.

Inside, Beth draws them each into a hug that lasts a little longer than normal, and tells them to sit in the living room. Val hadn’t even realised fully that Beth had left the hospital, but she’s clearly been back long enough to make spaghetti.

“Do you really think Sam’s telling the truth?” Val asks, after a stretch of silence filled only with the scrape of forks against bowls.

Beth jolts. No telling where she was in her head, but it visibly takes her a moment to gather herself back to the now.

“I don’t know,” she says, “but he seemed to mean it. And it doesn’t mean we have to just swallow anything either one of them says.”

Still, she sounds less determined than she would have yesterday. Sam’s clearly shaken her.

“We can’t do anything about it right now,” Riva says. “And there’s other stuff…”

She sounds thoughtful.

“What are you thinking?” Val asks.

Riva puts down her fork and rests her bowl on the arm of the chair. She takes a second before speaking, and Val gets the feeling her sister’s gathering herself.

“He isn’t healing,” Riva says. “Cas. He isn’t healing and it’s just not…just not…normal. I’ve seen patients not heal, obviously, but this is just weird. And he jumped from his window. His window. All that way up. And he didn’t die.”

“So?” Val asks, but it feels like something under her feet is less steady than it was, Riva’s words bringing up thoughts that have been wispy, insubstantial, where they’ve existed at all.

“So,” Riva says, her voice gaining confidence as she goes on, “we have this guy just drop into our midst, literally, and he never really explains who he is and we just, what? We build him a back-story. But we don’t really know, not for sure, if we’re right.”

“You’re making it sound like Cas has tricked us,” Beth says, her voice soft.

“No.” Riva shakes her head, sitting up straighter and unfolding her legs so she’s upright, her bowl apparently forgotten where it rests. “No, I’m not saying he’s tricked us. Not on purpose, anyway. But he hasn’t told us all that much, has he? We’ve filled in blanks. And I’m not sure we’ve been filling in the right ones.”

“What exactly do you think we’re so wrong about?” Val asks.

She has to tamp down on a slithering feeling in her gut. She almost wants to tell Riva to shut up, to stow whatever ideas she has and just leave it, but she doesn’t. Hiding from things doesn’t help.

“I don’t know,” Riva says. “But that’s the point. Cas is ill. Or injured. That’s something we’re right about, one way or another, but we don’t know what’s actually wrong. And we thought some of his issues were to do with this guy he was running from, and then Dean turns up-”

“And he’s just as much of a posturing bastard as expected,” Val cuts in. “You’re not seriously telling me you’ve been sucked in by his charm? You get that nothing he’s said means we’re wrong?”

“Maybe not,” Riva says, “but Sam seems pretty convinced we’re not getting the whole story, from what he’s said to me and to Beth.”

“Sam might be wrong. Or lying. Or just think it’s okay to hit your…well, whatever Cas is to Dean, as long as you really, really love him.” Val doesn’t even try to keep the derision out of her voice. “Come on. You’ve seen enough people try to justify what they do. You can’t just believe them over the victim-”

“We don’t know Cas is a victim. Not of Dean’s,” Riva says. “Cas said himself he’s a soldier. PTSD from war isn’t exactly unheard of. But that’s not even what I’m getting at.”

“It’s not? Because it sounds like you’re setting up some argument that Cas has lied to us, or we should switch allegiance to the great Dean Bowie, instead of backing the guy we’ve been-”

“Been what?” Riva asks. “Making into family? Why’ve we been doing that?”

Val opens her mouth to say it’s because people help people who need it, but she isn’t sure she can really make that comment, not when they’ve all had reason to be careful about who they let in. Beth more than anyone, really, even though Beth’s the one who brought Cas into their lives all those months ago.

“How do you mean?” she asks, instead.

“I just think we’re more invested in Cas, and more quickly, than makes sense,” Riva says. “And before you take my head off, I do care about him. I do. But there’s something about it…”

“Like you feel you have to protect him?” Beth asks.

“Yeah,” Riva says.

There’s silence for a while, until Val makes herself laugh. It’s that or shout.

“So, what, you think he’s cast some spell on us? Are you accusing Cas, our Cas, of being a witch?”

“He did survive that jump,” Riva says, as though Val’s question is serious. “That’s not something he should have been able to do. And you know it. And it’s not like it’s the only weird thing.”

“The not-healing,” Val says. “Come on. You’re suspicions because he survives too well and because he doesn’t heal well enough?”

“No! Yes. I…” Riva stops and closes her eyes, sighing. “Sam brought him a sword,” she says, opening her eyes again. “And asked him about feathers. Doesn’t that seem bizarre? And at the hospital…”

Val stares at her until she goes on. The tension between them feels almost tangible. Beth’s not saying anything, but she’s got a look on her face that says she’s trying to work it all out.

“At the hospital?” Val prompts, at last.

“Never mind,” Riva says, and picks up her bowl, hunches over it, takes another mouthful of spaghetti.

“No. Go on,” Val says. “Whatever it is you have to say, spit it out. What, did he levitate? Glow blue? Sprout horns?”

Maybe she deserves the glare Riva levels at her, but come on. Her sister’s spouting nonsense. Cas is someone who’s fallen on hard times, someone who’s had the misfortune to get involved, one way or another, with a charming liar like Dean. No way is Val buying that Dean just wants to help and is pure as the driven snow. There’s a vibe about him that screams conman.

“I held his hand and my headache went away.” Riva says it in a near-mumble, mouth still partly full, looking down at her bowl.

Val waits, but that seems to be all there is. She nods.

“Right. Well, yeah. I mean, a headache going away? Sure sign of magic, that. We’d better get Salem on the phone, ask them how to handle it.”

“Can we not do this right now?” Beth asks, and the exhaustion in her voice is enough to pull Val up short. “At least eat, get some shut-eye, and then we can argue about this over breakfast. Please?”

Riva agrees, maybe a little too quickly, like she’s sorry she brought it up. Val shoves a huge forkful of noodles and sauce in her mouth and chews. Sleep does sound like a good idea, but she can’t see she’s going to feel any more like talking about this in the morning. Riva must be coming down with something to be going on about this.

“Good,” Beth says, and they barely say anything else.

************************************

Sam picks up the laptop as soon as they get back to the room, meaning to do some more poking around for the case. He hasn’t got any idea what to look for, but sitting around and waiting for inspiration to strike is more Dean’s style.

He settles on his bed and opens the lid, listening to Dean move around in the bathroom. It’s more likely his brother wants an excuse to be on his own than it is Dean really needs another shower, but Sam doesn’t call him on it.

There are a bunch of tabs already up, and Sam’s moving to shut them down when the first one catches his eye.

It’s an article on child abuse. It’s an article on how neglect is child abuse.

What the fuck got Dean reading an article about that?

Sam scans it, frowning as he sees details about emotional neglect, about going hungry, about being left alone. No way is this about Cas. Unless Dean really thinks Cas is like a kid, what with how little time he’s spent slumming it with humanity.

Sam doesn’t think that’s quite it, though.

He clicks on another tab and finds a page detailing fifteen signs you know you’re in an abusive relationship. The next one only has ten signs, the one after that twenty-one.

Clicking back, Sam retraces some of the paths Dean took to reach each page, finding too much evidence that Dean’s been researching the kind of relationship Val and Riva and Beth think Dean had with Cas. But Dean knows he wasn’t with Cas. Hell, when Sam spoke to Dean about it, after Dean got back from meeting Beth, he wasn’t even sure his brother was taking on board that he can get a bit…rough with the way he speaks.

Sam’s so engrossed in his reading that he misses the sound of the shower cutting off. He misses the door to the bathroom clicking open.

He tries to grab at the laptop as it’s lifted from his knees, but he misses, and looks up to see Dean staring down at him, his expression shut off.

“You done stalking my reading?” Dean asks. Dean’s wearing a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie, something he normally only pulls out when he’s feeling ill. Or vulnerable.

Sam almost apologizes. Almost. But this is his laptop, and if Dean really is looking into this, maybe it’s better he doesn’t feel he’s all alone with it. Even if he thinks he wants to be.

“You left the tabs open,” he says, instead of letting Dean wriggle away from this. “You think maybe it’s something we should talk about?”

“What? Me leaving tabs up on your laptop?” Dean shifts his stance, the smirk he throws on not quite cutting it. “Least it’s not porn, Sammy.”

“Maybe we should talk about what’s in these articles,” Sam says. He soften his voice. “Dean, I know how hard this crap is for you, but you’ve gotta know I’m here, if you want someone to talk it over with. You get that, right?”

When Dean steps back, the smirk faltering but not vanishing entirely, as though Dean’s hoping Sam might still be fooled by it, Sam pushes himself to the edge of the bed.

“Did you go looking in case it would help with Cas?” he asks, because making it about helping someone else might, just might, mean Dean will stand to talk about it. Sam has to use whatever tactics he has, here. “Are you thinking of how to help him?”

“Help him with getting over how I’ve abused him, you mean?” Dean says, and the smirk is gone now.

“No!” Sam pauses. “No, Dean. I never said you’d abused him.”

“Those women still think that. You telling me you can’t see that on their faces? They want me locked up or dragged away or some shit. They think-”

Dean cuts himself off and turns, dropping the laptop on the table and heading for the fridge.

“Dean, just don’t. Please,” Sam says, but he stays on the bed. He doesn’t want Dean to feel crowded. “Leave the beer alone and come talk to me.”

Dean stops walking, his shoulders hunched. He doesn’t reply.

“I saw the pages on relationship abuse, Dean, and I don’t think you’ve been battering Cas or whatever, but maybe we’ve both got shit to learn about how we treat him, anyway. That’s something we should do. Think about that, before he wakes up. For when he wakes up.”

Still no reply, but Dean isn’t storming away, either.

“And I saw the pages on children, on them being neglected.” He needs to be careful here. Even after all this time, Dean’s on a hair trigger when it comes to their dad. “If you want to talk about that, I’m right here for you.”

“Because it’s just me that…that maybe has a few things to work out there?” Dean asks, his voice rough.

“What?”

Dean finally turns back to look at Sam, and the expression on his face is part murder and part loss.

“If we say that, Sam, that Dad… That Dad…”

“Neglected you? Abused you?”

Dean flinches. And okay, that was a step too far. Still, Dean doesn’t shout or run or laugh it off. He goes very still, and Sam waits for him to unfreeze and speak again. It doesn’t take as long as he expected it to.

“Yeah,” Dean says. “That. Whatever. If we say that, and we say that a man can do his absolute best and just…”

Sam sees how Dean wants to play this.

“Someone could try their best and still do things that hurt their kids, Dean. No-one’s calling him a monster.”

Dean nods, once, and goes to sit on his bed. They’re facing each other now, the space between them not all that much, and Dean lowers his voice.

“If we say that, then it’s not just me, is it? You were there, too.”

“I never caught it like you did,” Sam says, and it’s like a firework going off in his brain. “I… Dean, I remember Dad being gone for days, but I wasn’t hungry, and he never laid a hand on me until I was older, and then you…”

Because Dean got in the way. Sam sees it. He sees the times John raised his voice, sometimes his fist, and Dean was right there, in between them, facing off against John. He remembers Dean saying he’d already eaten as he handed Sam a sandwich of cheap bread and claiming he didn’t like something anyway when Sam complained he was still hungry and eyed up Dean’s portion. He sees it, and it isn’t anything new. He doesn’t know how it’s taken him this long to put it together.

“Dean, I wasn’t in the same situation as you.”

“I didn’t protect you well enough to keep you out of it all,” Dean says. “And it’s not like Dad knocked me about. Sometimes I just needed telling.”

Right. Dean might be looking up pages and pages on what it means to be a kid and not to be treated like one, but he’s still got his barriers up. Baby steps.

“It wasn’t your job to protect me,” Sam says.

“Of course it was.”

Dean fires that back so quickly there isn’t any space between the talking.

Sam needs to speak very carefully, here.

“Dean,” he tries, “you’re my brother. Not my dad. You shouldn’t have had to look after me like you were my dad. And I’m grateful, I am, but I don’t want you to be my protector. I never did. I want you to be my brother. You don’t think that maybe some of our problems are Dad put that on you in the first place?”

“He didn’t have a choice,” Dean says, but he sounds stubborn rather than definite.

“Yeah. Maybe,” Sam says, because pointing out to Dean right now that they had Bobby, and Pastor Jim, and others who might have helped out, or that John could just have focused on his kids instead of his revenge, isn’t going to get this discussion where it needs to go. “But I didn’t feel I had a choice with that spell to get rid of the Mark, and it still ended up hurting Cas.”

He sees that strike Dean, sees the way his brother’s eyes widen and he leans back, his chin coming up.

“But you had a choice, Sam,” he says. “You could have let me handle it.”

“You were going to have Death throw you into the fucking Sun, Dean, or out into space or some shit.”

“And it would have dealt with the problem,” Dean says.

“But you wouldn’t even let me die after the Trials,” Sam says.

“And you said I should have, so you should have let me go. Can’t have it both ways, Sam.”

This is getting them nowhere, and they’ve slipped off track. Going round in circles on whether one of them was right to not let the other one die is an old song, and Sam can’t let this turn into an argument.

“Yeah. Well, we need to think about Cas, and on how we can be better for him. Right?”

He says it knowing Dean’s far more likely to work on his own issues if it means helping someone else, as long as that person is in Dean’s little box of people who need help from him. And Dean can be caught in the right frame of mind for it.

“Yeah,” Dean says. “Yeah, fine. I looked up those sites, didn’t I?”

He’s not looking at Sam. Actually, Sam’s not sure he’s really seeing anything that’s in front of him now.

“I know. You did. And now you need to think about what’s in them. All that crap Dad put on you, you need to find a way to deal with it. At least accept it’s there. It’s not good for you and it’s not good for anyone around you. Including Cas.”

Dean’s quiet again. Sam starts to think he’s pushed it too far, or from the wrong angle, but his brother finally nods.

“Okay. Okay, if I really speak at Cas like I’m attacking him, if it could have added to him being messed up, then yeah.” He meets Sam’s eyes. “But I’m not the only one doing this. No. You say I shielded you from Dad, but you still grew up in motel rooms and still had a gun instead of a girlfriend. You said that, more than once. Don’t tell me it hasn’t left you screwed up, too.”

There’s a ‘please’ in there somewhere, Sam’s almost sure of it. And if Dean needs to think Sam’s in this with him, then fine, he can play along. He can pretend he’s got shit to work through the same as Dean has.

“Sure, Dean,” he says. “We can both work it out.”

This time, Dean doesn’t try to take the laptop from Sam when he fetches it and clicks back to one of the pages on neglect.

Chapter Text

Val gives up pretending she’ll sleep at just past midnight. At least, she isn’t going to sleep here, lying in the spare bed when she’s gotten used to being close to Beth under this roof.

Cas being in the hospital is bad because Cas is ill, of course it is, but that tiny little flame of hope that warms her whenever Beth sighs and says she’d better share her bed is something she’s come to treasure, and tonight she doesn’t have any excuse to go in there unless she admits to more of an interest than she’s ready to.

Beth’s been through too much to have her friend hitting on her.

The whole house creaks, too. She hasn’t really noticed that before. But it does. Creaking and settling and shifting. She isn’t sure, right now, how she’s ever got any rest here.

Her feet chill as soon as she sets them on the floor, and she knows she’s pulling a face as she creeps about getting dressed. Screw it. There’s no-one around to see.

She makes it out of the room and down the stairs without making too much noise, and finds her boots without turning on the light. She’d send Riva or Beth a message to say she’s going to walk home and try sleeping there, but with them both being on edge about Cas and those agents, she isn’t sure whether it’ll wake them up. The last thing she wants is to drag either one of them out of sleep if they’ve managed to find some.

An early morning message will be fine.

It’s colder outside, and she huffs out a breath of mist as she makes her way to the sidewalk. She used to love this as a kid, used to pretend to be a dragon on a quest, but right now she doesn’t want to think of anything to do with magic or magical creatures. Riva’s weird comments still have her mind buzzing.

No. She isn’t going to think about that. She’s going to get home, make herself a mug of something soothing, and ignore Cas’ empty room. That’s what she’s going to do.

First she has to shiver her way across a chunk of town, but it’s not like she hasn’t made the journey before.

She’s almost halfway there when she catches sight of someone up ahead, someone vaguely familiar. She squints, trying to make out who it can be and why it’s caught her attention. Tall. Looks like a guy from what she can see. Big head of hair. It’s hard to see in the dark, but it looks black.

It can’t be…

“Ashley!”

Surprise has her calling out without thinking. Walking across town in the dark, by herself, is already something Riva doesn’t like her doing, and now she’s shouting at a potential stranger. But she could almost swear it’s him.

When he stops and turns, she knows she’s right. It’s Ashley. The student Dean came asking questions about. At least he hasn’t been brutally murdered, then.

“Ashley?” she says, speeding up and heading right for him. “Hey. What are you doing wandering around out here? Do you know how worried people are? The FBI are looking for you!”

Ashley stares at her, his features almost blank. There’s no recognition there, as far as she can see.

“Ashley?” she tries again, drawing closer and peering up at him.

He’s a good looking lad, or will be once he grows up a bit, but right now he looks drawn and pale, and far from alert. He looks stoned, or concussed.

“Where’ve you been?” she asks, and then, recalling what else Dean said. “What do you remember?”

After a pause, he shakes his head, a gentle side to side movement that doesn’t really convince Val he’s responding to her.

“Did something attack you? Are you hurt? How’s your head?”

“Stay away,” he says. It’s more of a mumble, and hard to catch, but Val makes it out. “Stay away from me.”

“Wh-”

She doesn’t get any more out before Ashely turns and breaks into a walk that’s only a breath from running. Right. That’s not happening.

“Hey! You don’t get to walk off when I’ve just found you!”

And it’s not that he’s her favourite student, or that they have any real sort of bond, but this is a problem that’s almost, suddenly, solved itself, and Val’s damned if she’s letting it slip away from her. There are enough issues she can’t do a fucking thing about. She can stop one wobbling student from wavering back out of his own life.

“Stop!”

As she takes after him, he speeds up, shifting into a jog, then a run, and Val, cursing everything as the breath in her chest hitches, follows. She follows him down the street and into the next one, out from a cluster of houses and across a parking lot towards a warehouse of some sort, or maybe an old factory. It’s brick and huge and crumbling.

She’s through the doorway before the thought hits her, that she’s tearing without a plan or back-up into an abandoned space, following a man who’s been missing and who’s acting weird.

Pulling to a halt, she stares around at the ruined insides of the space, rubble and walls and columns making the place look like some Steampunk version of Ancient Greece. Her phone’s in her pocket. She’ll call…she’ll call Sam, let him know to come get hold of Ashley, or at least to pick up his trail, and Val will go home to bed. Which is where she should be anyway.

She fishes in her pocket for her phone. It’s not there. Fuck.

She must have dropped it, somewhere in the run, and now she’s alone in this dark space, at night, with-

The door behind her slams shut, and she jumps. Must be the wind. There wasn’t any a moment ago, but weather can be tricky.

“Ashley?” she calls, and hates how her voice falls thready into the air. “You there? Come on. Come back here.”

A sound to her left brings her head around, and there’s a slithering sense of dislocation inside her skull. Whatever’s there, it’s not right. Whatever’s there is something she can’t get her eyes, or her brain, to focus on. Whatever’s there isn’t human.

Fear wells up, immediate and consuming, and she tries to step backwards, almost falls.

“What are… Who are you?” she asks, because it’s just something messing with her head. That’s all. Stress. Stress is making her see things. “What, you think this is funny?”

That sensation in her skull is like hot liquid giving way, sliding along and down, and she has no idea if a person can feel a blood vessel giving way, but she’s convinced, in this moment, that something’s sliding through her brain. Everything feels hot and dark and heavy, pushing outward and filling more space than she has behind her eyes.

Her vision’s going hazy and her head feels like it’ll burst outward from the pressure. Ashley’s standing nearby, she knows he is, he must be, but whatever he’s doing isn’t turning into help. Another human, even one acting like he is, will be comfort. Another human can tell her she’s lost it, that she’s imagining a solid shape in the air. She tries to find him and stumbles.

Reaching out, Val grabs at a spur of brick, hissing as her palm’s scraped open. It’s all she can do to sag against the bit of wall, her muscles straining to keep her mostly upright, her head hanging.

With her hair over her face and her sight wavering, she can’t see what’s coming for her. But she can hear it.

It scrapes along the ground, a sharp click followed by the drag of leather over concrete. Not knowing what it is makes it worse. Fuck, why did Riva have to bring up magic? Now, her thoughts are thronged with beasts and creatures, with the idea she’s been stalked by something with horns and claws and tentacles and wings, something Lovecraft would dream up.

She tries to tell herself it’s something normal, even if it’s still deadly, but she can’t believe it. Right now, in this moment, she feels it’s alien to her. It’s outside the world as she knows it.

And it’s going to end her.

She’s always saved herself, and saved others when she can, but just now she can’t move and she can’t see and she can’t process what’s happening. Just now she needs help.

She doesn’t believe in God. Never has. But someone has to be out there, or something, which can help her. Fuck. Just…just help her. She needs help. She needs saving.

She needs…

***********************************

A thread of colour in the darkness. He’s been floating in the absence forever, and not for long enough. It’s peaceful here, as peaceful as he’s found in a very long time, and he wraps himself in it, turning to avoid the thread.

It follows him.

But that’s not right. He shut it down. He shut it all down. He lost the colors, and he shut out the light, the noise, the voices.

He shouldn’t be hearing a voice calling to him now.

Irritated, prodded to movement when he wants to be still, he brings himself closer, turning his awareness more fully to that point. They’re familiar colors, familiar colors laced with something like longing. Jade green and amber. Need. Desperation.

Dean.

Castiel cut himself off from it all to stop the pain, but it’s followed him, and he can’t set down his duty. Not when he’s called.

Rising from nothing is a struggle, much harder than it should be, and Castiel can’t now remember quite why he closed himself off from the world outside, quite why he pulled himself away from his vessel’s sensory input and receded.

Noise reaches him first, the low hum of many voices and the cries of humans in pain and in sadness. Not a battle: it’s not chaotic enough for that, though there are pockets of chaos in the sounds. Perhaps the aftermath of a battle, when people are trying to pull themselves back from near-death and move on.

That call for him gets stronger, but it’s not his name. It’s not aimed just at him. It’s a plea for help from someone he knows. Not Dean. He can tell the difference now he’s closer to the surface.

Val.

Val’s in trouble, she’s hurting and scared, and she needs help.

He explodes back into contact with his vessel, and pain hits him.

This is why. This is why he shut down, because the pain was too much and the hopelessness was too much and the failure of himself was too much. It hurts. His vessel’s shins throb, his chest feels bruised and sore, and his wings… His wings are shot through with bright pain.

But Val needs him. She needs someone, in any case, and Castiel is here. And he isn’t going to lose anyone else.

The lights in the room are painful when he forces his vessel’s eyes open, and he squints into it. He has to orient himself quickly. Val needs his help now.

**************************************

Riva makes a grab for the phone, but she’s still mostly asleep and she rolls too far, overbalancing and almost grabbing the floor instead.

She gets hold of the phone on the second try, sliding from the bedside table and peering at the screen with one half-open eye. Fuck. It’s still night-time. Of course it is. And it’s the hospital.

“What?” she asks, hauling herself upright and shoving her mass of hair out of her face.

“It’s your friend,” a voice on the other end, which she vaguely recognizes as one of the newer doctors, says. “He woke up.”

Sleep flees, and she’s out of bed and hopping to pull on her jeans quickly enough she deserves a superhero cape.

“When? How is he?” she asks.

Silence greets her.

Pausing with one foot in the air, she waits. And waits.

“Well? How is he?”

There’s a cough, and the doctor goes on. Now she’s listening for it, she can hear the strain in his voice.

“We don’t know. He’s gone.”

***************************************

It doesn’t hurt. Not at first. At first, it’s just a numbness, a hanging moment of nothing at all. Val holds her breath, her eyes screwed shut, and waits.

The pain swells up, hot and full and throbbing, each gash a line of agony in its own right. Four of them. Four slashes across her arm, catching her from elbow to shoulder. Her other hand clamping onto her arm isn’t helping, but she holds on anyway. It’s something.

Crouched here, between two fallen pillars, she tries to keep her breathing quiet, but it’s hard, so hard, when she wants to whimper. She wants to curl up and cry, wants to scream and run. She wants to be elsewhere.

It’s moving out there, out in the wider room, and she isn’t at all sure she’s escaped it. She has no idea if it smells or sees or what. And she can’t remember what it looks like. She just saw it. She must have. And she can’t remember what is looks like.

A fleeting impression of horns and limbs, of something huge and slinking and inhuman, smudges across her mind, but she can’t bring it into focus.

She wishes Cas were a witch, and that he knew how to deal with this.

She only just got away. She thinks. She has four gashes on her arm and can’t even recall, for certain, how they came to be there.

A hollow, rasping thud freezes her up entirely.

That was closer. It’s closer. It’s almost on top of her.

It’s going to find her and she’ll be alone, in the dark and dead, and no-one she loves will even know where she is. Shit. Why did she leave the house? Why didn’t she just lie and stare into the darkness of Beth’s spare room?

Why didn’t she just bite the bullet and ask to be in Beth’s bed?

Another sound, even closer. She flinches, pulling in on herself, still pressing her right hand into her left arm as she tries to dig into the concrete beneath her with her toes, to push herself further back against the bit of wall behind her. If it finds her, she has no chance.

She’s used up all her bravery, swinging that piece of metal pole at it, rolling as it swiped at her. She thinks, anyway. That bit of memory seems stronger than her memory of the creature itself, but it’s still soft around the edges, still not as crisp as it should be for something that just happened.

Fuck, she’s going to die, and she isn’t even going to remember it as it happens.

This time, the scrape of something solid over stone is right on top of her, and she sucks in air to scream as the pillar leaning over her is pulled aside.

**********************************************

Beth blinks at Riva, struggling to get her mind clear of its sleep-fog. Pulling at her nightdress as though it’s going to turn into something warm enough to keep out the chill, she folds her arms under her breasts and frowns.

“What do you mean, Cas’ gone?” she asks.

Riva shakes her head, one hand still clutching the edge of Beth’s bedroom door like it needs keeping open, and waves her phone with the other hand. She’s lit by the hallway light, which glares into Beth’s dark room, barely outlining the rumpled bedding.

“He’s just gone. Pulled himself loose and left. Another patient swears he walked out, but I don’t see how he got out so quickly. Look, we need to find him.”

Beth doesn’t point out that they aren’t exactly the town’s go to people for a manhunt. Instead, she takes a step closer to her friend, half wanting comfort and half wanting to give it.

“What’s Val say?” she asks.

“Not woken her up, yet,” Riva says.

From the way her expression shifts, Beth gets it. Riva thinks Val might kick off less if Beth’s the one who tells her. Fine. Whatever works.

“You go get dressed,” she tells Riva, who’s managed to pull her jeans on but hasn’t remembered to do up the zipper or change out of the pajama top. “I’ll get Val.”

The door to the spare room hangs open, and Beth’s steps slow, a crawling sensation that she’s not on the same page as reality making her long to turn and hide back under her bed-covers. Val sleeps with the door closed, and she’d be up here asking what was up if she’d got up early. No way would she hear Riva and Beth moving around in the night and not want to know what was happening.

She reaches the room. Looks inside. The bed’s empty.

Riva’s sitting on the edge of the bed pulling on a sock when Beth drifts into her room.

“What’s Val say?” Riva asks, looking up. “She want to scour the town?”

Beth stares for a moment, not sure how to line words up with her mouth. But she has to make herself say something.

“Um,” she says. “Val’s gone.”

*****************************************************

Dean snaps awake, rolling from the bed and to his feet with his hand twitching for a knife, a gun.

The phone. It’s Sam’s phone that’s woken him.

“I’ve got it,” Sam says, snatching the phone up from the bedside table just before Dean’s hand closes over it, and answering it curtly. “What? What’s happened?”

Dean hears the voice on the other end, a high pitched noise that doesn’t resolve into meaning. He can’t parse it, can’t make it form words, and his head throbs with irritation.

“Right,” Sam says, but his eyes flick to Dean and away and it’s all too clear he isn’t liking what he’s hearing.

“What?” Dean asks, leaning in. He still can’t make out any words. “Is it Cas? What’s happened? What’s wrong with Cas?”

What else, he means.

Sam waves him off, the snap of his hand sharp.

“We’ll meet you,” Sam says. “No. Stay there. We’ll come to you.”

He ends the call and stands, moving right on to getting dressed as he speaks.

“We need to get to Beth’s,” he says. “Val’s gone missing.”

Dean opens his mouth to say, so what? Who cares? She’s a pain in his ass, is all she is. But Sam takes a breath and goes on.

“Cas is missing, too.”

And Dean feels ice-cold worry all through his bones.

**********************************

Val slips, catching herself with one hand as she tries to get her feet under her. All she manages is to bash her right knee against the ground. More pain, duller and hotter, blossoms in her leg. She barks out a cry and forces herself to keep moving.

She’s only just ahead of it. Whatever it is.

She’s limping now, her stride uneven, and she winces each time her right foot hits the floor. Step. Wince. Step. Wince. Step. Wince. Ste-

This time, when she stumbles, hands catch her. Deep brown hands, young and lean and shaking. She looks up into wide eyes and can’t get any words out past the aching choke of her breath.

“Professor?” Ashley Daniels asks. He sounds confused. He sounds like he doesn’t know why she’s there, or why he is. “Why…?”

Another scrape throws her words out before her, and she hurls them at him.

“Get us out of here!”

He moves, startled into action, pulling her with him, and she’s going faster now, covering more ground than she could manage on her own with her bruised and throbbing knee, but that thing’s still close behind them, close and closing, and they’re heading for a doorway which she hopes to Hell leads outside, but it’s so far, so far and it’s behind them, that thing, and-

And Cas is there.

He strides through that doorway like he’s an irresistible force, something which can’t be stopped and which will roll right over anything in its path. His chin is up, his mouth set in a firm line, and his eyes are blazing. Literally. Blazing.

“Wha-” she gets out, and Cas turns to meet her eyes.

“Get down!” he shouts.

It’s a command. She obeys.

Tugging at Ashley, who’s blinking at Cas like the sun’s in his eyes, she practically falls sideways and slumps them both half-behind a pile of rubble. As she moves, Cas flicks his wrist and he’s holding that sword Sam gave him. It’s bright and shining and has something of the same glow about it that Cas’ eyes have.

Riva’s witch theory might be right, but he’s some kind of warrior with it.

“Stay away from her,” Cas says. Snarls. His lip curls at one side, and it’s one of the most terrifying things Val’s ever seen. And the most comforting. “You can’t have her.”

Cas is thin and he’s weak and he’s pale, but right now he’s incandescent. Right now, he’s glorious.

The light about him grows, and shifts, and solidifies, and Val’s half-blinded by a flash of lighting in this enclosed space. She’s completely thrown by the shadows of wings thrown against the far wall, framing Cas. Rooted in Cas.

Fuck. He’s got wings. Wings and light and a silver blade that’s surely not of this world.

Her lips shape a word, despite herself, despite her terror.

“Angel.”

Cas is so much more than Riva has started to suspect.

The flare of light must have done something to the creature, some damage or warning or something, because Cas sets off moving again, stalking past Val and onward, further than the thing was. Ashley moans, low in his throat, and it could be fear or it could be some other distress, but either way Val fists a hand in the back of his jacket and shakes him. Shut up. Shut up and don’t draw its attention back to them.

A crash and the sound of metal clashing against something hard pulls her head around, and she catches a glimpse of Cas, his face set in determination and his eyes hard, swinging his blade. The other creature wavers, and she still can’t see it properly.

Cas twists, and the space before him is clear. He’s thrown it back.

For a moment, he turns his head and locks eyes with her again. For a flicker, he’s meat and blood again, and he’s running on fumes. There’s desperation and urgency in his voice when he shouts at her.

“Get out! Move!”

She wants to stay, to help him. She wants to bring that thing down and get them all out safe. But she’s hurt and she’s human and she’s out of her depth.

Tightening her grip on Ashley, she hauls him up and she runs.

******************************************

“Cas,” Dean says, as the Impala roars through the silent streets. “Cas, you fucking listen to me. You get yourself back where I can find you, you hear me? I’ve had enough of this disappearing shit.”

He sees Sam’s head turn, knows his brother has heard him, but Dean’s too wound up to care. He grips the wheel and sends the Impala careening round the next corner. The sooner they get to Beth’s, the sooner they can get on with looking for Cas. Dean doesn’t argue they should skip the first part. He’s already made that point, and Sam’s told him it’s better to have more people searching, that there might be some link between Val and Cas vanishing. It sounds like crap to Dean, but Sam won’t be moved.

“We’ll find him,” Sam says.

Dean ignores it. The wheel digs into his hands.

“Dean-” Sam says.

But Dean doesn’t find out what Sam wants to say, because Dean’s swerving the car, fighting to avoid the people who burst out into the road.

He’d drive on, but a glance in their direction shows a woman with a mass of long dark hair drop awkwardly to her hands and knees, and he might only have met few a few times, but…

“That’s Val,” he says, throwing the door open as he speaks.

Sam’s only a second behind him, and they reach Val and the guy with her, Dean dropping to the ground and grabbing at Val’s shoulder. She’s shaking.

“Hey,” he says, over her gasping. “Talk to me.”

He glances up to see Sam’s got hold of the man, and Dean’s sure he should care more when his brother frowns and speaks.

“You’re Ashley Daniels,” Sam says. “Dean, it’s that missing student.”

Not bothering to answer that yet, Dean gets a firmer grip on Val and heaves her to her feet, holding her up when she hisses and sways.

“What’s hurt?” Dean asks. “What happened?”

“Knee,” she says, through gritted teeth. “Monster. Cas.”

He should care about the rest of it, no doubt, but all Dean can hear is that last word. As soon as he hears Cas’ name, his focus narrows down, shuts out the rest.

“Where’s Cas?”

It’s only when she winces that he realizes he’s gone from holding her up to pinning her in place, his hands clamped so tight on her body it has to be hurting. He lets go, bringing his hands up as though someone’s ordered him to drop a weapon. She sways but manages to stay on her feet. Shock is scrawled across her face.

“He’s an angel,” she says, and Dean is almost sure she wants him to contradict her.

“Yeah,” he says, “but where the fuck is he? Where’d you take him?”

Val shakes her head, and her eyes are glassy, losing focus. Sam has hold of Ashley, now, who’s only part-upright, and Dean doesn’t want to touch Val again, not with what she already thinks of him, not when he’s likely left bruises on her upper arms already.

“I don’t… It’s a monster,” Val says, and Dean only just catches her again before she hits the road.

Chapter Text

Sam bundles the kid into the car, having to push on his head to get him to duck. The guy’s out of it, dazed and confused and unfocused. On the other side of the car, Dean has Val sitting sideways with her feet on the road, and he’s got hold of her face. Crouched in front of her like that, Dean looks nothing but concerned.

“We need to get her to Beth’s, or the hospital,” Sam says. “She’s hurt, Dean.”

“She’s going to tell me where to find Cas,” Dean says, and peers up at Val again. “Come on. Hey. Wake up properly.”

From the way she’s sitting, Sam can tell Val isn’t totally unconscious anymore, and he knows from experience that having Dean demand information at such a time is difficult at best.

“She can tell you when her brain’s back to being switched on,” Sam says.

“No. She’s telling me now,” Dean says, but he sounds jittery.

If Dean doesn’t get something soon, Sam can just see him tearing off looking for Cas and leaving Sam to get Ashley and Val somewhere safe.

“Dean,” Sam says, putting force into the name. He feels shitty after finally getting somewhere with how Dad’s left his mark all over Dean, but the fact is his brother responds to that tone sometimes when he won’t listen to anything else. “We need to get them somewhere safe. Val can’t tell us anything when she’s barely conscious.”

He sees Dean grimace, sees him pull back to sit on his heels like he’s thinking of pulling away entirely and leaving them all there. He sees the moment Dean gives in.

“Fine. But we’re coming right back to get Cas as soon as we have any intel. You hear me?”

Of course Sam hears him. And he wants to dash off searching himself. It’s not like Val can have got far. But there are houses and businesses and the huge outlines of older buildings and if they hare off with no clue at all they could just be chasing their tails.

Dean folds Val into the car, showing more care in his actions than he has in his words, and if he drives faster than an injured person might be comfortable with, Sam doesn’t say anything.

****************************

Beth sees the car pull up, but only after she hears it. Dean’s got to be laying down rubber driving like that. She sees the head of dark hair leaning against the window of the back seat.

She’s out of the house and halfway down the path before Dean’s even out of the car.

“You found her?” she shouts, far louder than necessary for the distance. She finds it hard to care, even as the sound echoes round the street. “Is she all right?”

Dean glances at her, a quick flick of his eyes, before yanking open the back door and catching Val as she slithers sideways.

Beth feels like she’s been doused in cold water.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

Dean doesn’t answer, but now Riva’s there, brushing past Beth and kneeling to check Val over. It’s only a moment before she directs Dean to carry Val inside, and Beth finds she can’t follow them. Not right away. She’s stuck partway down her path, feeling her own breaths weigh heavy in her chest, and there’s a buzzing at the edges of her hearing.

She watches as Sam guides someone else out of the car, only registering that it’s not Cas. He’s still missing, then. The sight seems distant, detached.

Val’s been hurt.

“Hey,” Sam says, jolting her back to herself. “You okay?”

He must see the answer in the lines of her face, because he nods and takes a step towards the house, the young man with him going along without protest.

“Come on. You’ll feel better when you see she’s all right.”

With no real sense she’s directing her own body, Beth trails after him, up the path and up the steps and into the house, where Dean’s laid Val on the settee and Riva’s leaning over her.

“What’s the word, Doc?” Dean asks. “She going to make it?”

“Dean,” Sam says, his voice a warning.

But the bitter edge to Dean’s question lingers. He’s brought Val back hurt and he’s acting like he’s the injured party.

But he has brought her back.

Beth’s ground hasn’t been steady under her for days, and it’s only getting worse.

“She’ll be fine,” Riva says. “I… I think she’ll be fine.”

“What do you mean, you think?” Beth asks. “Somebody tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“Your girlfriend had a run in with a monster,” Dean says. “She left Cas facing it. We need her awake so we can get a location and go get him. And we need it now.”

“A monster?”

Dean ignores her. He’s focused on Riva, who frowns up at him.

“She’s barely conscious. I don’t think she’s concussed. No evidence of a head injury. But her eyes are unfocused and she’s disoriented.”

She sounds detached. Clinical. Not in the way Beth’s detached, where some part of her is staring at everything like it’s some show she’s not part of.

“Yeah, well. Memory loss is a symptom of running into whatever this fucker is,” Dean says. “Maybe it can mess with people’s heads in other ways.”

“What do you mean, a monster?” Beth asks.

She catches the look the men share, but she can’t read it. There’s something there, though, something like the way her mom looked at her dad, in those days when they knew about his tumor but hadn’t told Beth yet.

“Tell me what you mean,” she says. Demands. Thinks she demands.

She doesn’t need a clear head to know she’s against the ground dropping out of her world. It’s a cliche for a reason. That rushing down of everything, the lack of stability, the sense of spinning over nothing that some knowledge brings: it’s one line away from happening again. And she’s telling them to do it.

It’s Sam who answers, sympathy in his voice, and she might hate him for it.

“We mean an actual, real-life monster,” he says. “Me and Dean, we hunt them. Vampires, ghouls, werewolves, you name it. I’m sorry, but most of what you think here is wrong. There’s a creature after Cas, and we need to find out where it has him.”

*********************************

Sam’s pretty sure Beth can see Val. He thought there was something going on between them, but Beth isn’t reacting anymore to Val being mostly out of it. Instead, she’s hugging her arms about herself like she’s cold and frowning at nothing.

“What kind of monster?” Beth asks.

“Why? You got a preference?” Dean asks.

“Dean.” Sam makes his voice harder than might be wise, but Dean needs to calm down. He hates having to tell people about this crap. It’s better to leave them ignorant. Better and safer. Right up until it’s not. They’ve more than reached that point here, and they don’t need Dean making it worse. Things are tense enough as it is, and they need to think of what they’ll do once they have Cas back. “Riva, is there any way Val can tell us where she was? We need to go after Cas.”

“Cas,” Val says, but she sounds groggy.

Still, it’s better than it was.

“Yeah,” Dean says, and he’s by Val’s side before anyone can react, practically vibrating. “Cas. Where’d you leave him?”

“Back off,” Riva says, and there’s no give there.

The glare she turns on Dean is fierce.

Sam sees the muscle in Dean’s jaw jump, but his brother backs up, his lips pressed together.

Riva crouches next to her sister and takes her hand, this time not aiming for a pulse.

“Val? Can you? Tell us where you saw Cas last? His…friends…are going to go get him.”

There’s way too obvious a pause there for it to be anything but deliberate. Sam has to agree with Dean on how frustrating it is, to be seen like this. Sure, he’s sort of used to it, after a fashion. Not like there’s a lot of love lost for Sam Winchester in some hunting circles, not with the demon blood and the End of Days and all. He hates to think what people will say when they find out about the Darkness.

This hasn’t got anything to do with any of that, though. This is people looking at Sam and thinking that, at best, he failed to stop his brother hurting Cas. He might have softened Beth’s view on it, or Riva’s, but they haven’t come around to welcoming Sam and Dean in. There’s still that wariness, that air they’re watching for anything Cas needs protecting from. It’s exhausting.

Val stirs, her gaze locking onto Sam. She looks confused.

“I was in a warehouse,” she says. “I found someone.”

“Ashley,” Sam offers. “You found Ashely. Good work on that. Was Cas in this warehouse?”

“Yeah.” She draws the word out, but it’s more like she can’t quite work out how to control it, like she isn’t sure when it should end. “Yeah. Cas. He was there.”

Suddenly, Val sits bolt upright and grips Riva’s arm, even though she keeps looking at Sam.

“He’s got wings,” she says. Her brows crease, and it’d be comical if Cas were safe and with them, if Sam could see the confused, offended look on the angel’s face. “Cas has wings. He’s a…a fairy.”

Sam knows Dean will never let Cas hear the end of that, once they’re all through this safely.

“He’s an angel,” Dean says, iron-flat. “And he’s too weak to be hulking out. Where’d you leave him?”

It takes another few minutes before Val is lucid enough to hazard an address, and Dean’s out of the door almost fast enough to leave Sam behind. He just has time to shout over his shoulder that they’ll bring Cas back, and they’re out of there.

He hears Val shout something after them, but it’s lost in the rush and he doesn’t look back.

*********************************

Dean’s heart pulses when he catches sight of Cas. The guy’s standing there, sword in hand, over on the other side of the echoing space, and he isn’t looking at Dean. Blood streaks Cas’ face, running in a line from his temple to just near his mouth, and his face is set in that warrior’s mode. His face is set, his eyes are glowing, and behind him, above him, are arcing black wings. They flash in shadow-shapes against the wall, there and gone, there and gone, and each time Dean takes in more.

Cas’ wings were far from smooth the first time Dean saw their outlines, but now they’re ragged remnants. He’s grateful he can’t see the wings themselves, not with the…the missing sections, not with the lack of feathers and the…the… It’s bone. There’s no getting around it. Cas’ wings are so wrecked the feathers and flesh are gone in places, and it’s down to bone.

Dean shakes aside a sense memory, of his shin bone stripped of meat, the calf muscle being pulled away by Alastair himself. It was in Hell. It wasn’t really Dean’s body.

Not like this is really Cas’ body.

And what kind of a mind-fuck is that?

“Dean!” Sam says.

Right. They need to help Cas, not stare at him from the doorway.

Dean jolts forwards, taking in the set of Cas’ body. There’s focus there, and intent, and more than a hint of exhausted pain just waiting to drag at the angel.

There’s no sign of what was attacking Val and Ashley. It has to be somewhere. Something Cas can’t just burn right out of the gate, even as injured as he is, has to be strong. No way can it be something easy to miss.

“Hey!” Dean yells. He sees Cas move, sees his wings twitch as they flash back into vision and out, but Cas doesn’t look at Dean. “Where is it? What are we fighting?”

“Leave this to me,” Cas says, and it’s as close to an order as he’s tried for a while. It’s also on that ragged edge of pain where thinking has to be close to impossible.

“Yeah. Like Hell,” Dean replies, finally getting close enough he can reach out and grab Cas by an elbow.

He sees Sam out of the corner of his eye, only feet away, scanning the area.

“Just tell us what we’re up against,” Dean says, and he sees Cas waver. “Come on. Let us help you, damn it.”

He feels Cas pull away. It’s not enough to break free of Dean’s hold, but it’s there. Dean wants to grip harder, to spin Cas around to face him and grab hold of both shoulders. He lets go instead, fingers curling into the empty space where Cas’ arm was.

“Cas,” he tries, and doesn’t know what to say next.

Emotional pleas work on Cas sometimes, but other times they seem to make things worse, and Dean’s wary of snapping out an order. He doesn’t know how he feels about what Beth said to him, or Sam’s take on it, but he can’t risk pushing Cas away entirely.

“I don’t know,” Cas says. He sounds uncertain, almost desperate, and like he isn’t sure why he’s telling Dean anything at all. “I don’t know what it is.”

Sam steps forward, the movement drawing Dean’s attention from Cas, and gestures at the expanse of empty warehouse in front of them, at the broken flooring and collapsed pillars and jagged chunks of masonry.

“I don’t see anything. We should get out of here.”

“No,” Cas says, and Dean swears the guy sways as he says it. “It attacked Val. We have to kill it.”

“No, we need to get you someplace safe,” Dean says, frustration at Cas’ priorities making his words harsh even to his own ears. “We can come back and kill it later, when we know what it is.”

“We won’t know what it is until we see it,” Cas says, but that thread of uncertainty is stronger.

“And what, you want us to pull out our research as it charges at us? Come on, Cas, you’re smarter than that.”

Dean doesn’t need Sam’s frown to know he’s let disgust and judgment into his tone, and he doesn’t need the way Cas flinches to tell him he’s fucked up. But he has to get Cas out of there. All the caring and sharing in the world won’t help if Cas is dead. If they’re all dead.

A sharp click of something hard on stone is all the warning Dean gets before Cas’ eyes widen and the angel moves, flinging himself in front of Dean and blocking Dean’s view. All Dean can see is Cas’ back and those wings. They flare into existence and stay for a long moment, glittering oddly with an absence of light.

In the brief moment he has, Dean is mesmerized by the sight, until his gaze is snagged by the lump of all too human looking flesh cutting through the darkness. It looks sore, and there’s something white…

He fights down nausea and opens his mouth to yell at Cas to get out of Dean’s way.

Before he can get the words out, the right wing shifts, pushing back, knocking Dean, and he feels the floor go out from under him.

A scream and a flare of bright light, and then silence.

The silence rings through the space, winding through Dean’s head and making it pound, and he feels gritty cold against his cheek, under his right palm, against the back of his left hand. It takes a while longer to work out he’s on the floor, one arm twisted round, and more time to get his thoughts lined up with the idea he should move.

Dean picks himself up from the floor, feeling at his head. There’s a tender lump and his vision’s off. Sam pulls him the rest of the way to his feet, and lets go as soon as Dean’s upright and holding himself up against a chunk of wall.

“What happened?” Dean asks.

“Cas fought it off. I think,” Sam says. “Couldn’t see much round Cas’…round Cas.”

Wings. Yeah. Dean can’t bring himself to say it, either.

“Cas?” Dean says. “You all right?”

He can’t get his sight to even out enough to look round, and any movement of his head sends waves of nausea sloshing through him in a chill.

“He’s over here,” Sam says.

Sam says. Not Cas.

“What’s wrong with him?” Dean asks. “How badly is he hurt?”

The pause before Sam answers is painful. Dean makes himself breathe through it.

“He’s alive,” Sam says, and that’s it. “I’ll bring him. Can you walk on your own?”

Of course he fucking can. He’s walked through Hell and Heaven and Purgatory. Dean isn’t going to be knocked out of commission by something he hasn’t even seen. He just might not be able to see much through his lurching vision as he goes.

“Yeah,” he says. “Let’s get out of here.”

************************************

Sam hauls Cas up, ending up with him cradled in his arms, Cas’ head nestled against Sam’s shoulder. Dean makes a movement as though he wants to take Cas from Sam’s arms, but Dean’s barely steadier on his feet than Cas was, as he stumbled to the side and collapsed right in front of Sam, and no way is Sam risking Dean dropping the guy when they’ve got him back.

Somehow, it feels like they’ve just got him back, even though Sam saw him in Beth’s living room and again at Val’s. But Cas was distant, then, in a way he wasn’t before, back when he drifted in and out of the Winchesters’ lives, or further back, when he zapped in and out. Somehow, Cas sitting on a settee in a normal house owned by a normal person, with normal people all ready to act as a shield between Cas and his family, was like Cas was further away than when he’d been on Heaven’s leash.

Now, Sam has Cas in his arms, safe, and he’s going to make sure this alien creature-turned-brother stays safe.

Cas is out cold, forcing Sam to haul him out of the warehouse, and Sam’s strong, he knows he is, but Cas is heavy, heavier than he should be with the weight he’s lost. Sam can’t shake the image of those wings, can’t stop thinking they’re adding to the weight, even though there’s no sign of them now. He wants to ask Dean if he saw them, too, but one glance is all it takes to see that Dean’s eyes are glazed and he looks one shaky step from folding up. Sam just has to get them all out of this place and into the car, and then he can worry about everything else.

Get out. Get to the car. That’s all.

It winds up as a mantra, sliding round his brain again and again, one word with each step, and Sam is short of breath and has sweat sliding down his back by the time he feels the brush of air against his face and sees the Impala parked a short way from the door. They only have to make it a few more feet.

Holding Cas is harder than carrying other people Sam’s had to get out of places. When it’s Dean, that’s all he can focus on, and it’s rare Dean’s out so far Sam’s had to hold him like this. Either way, Sam hasn’t been keeping tabs on anything other than the man in his arms in those cases. Now, he finds he’s lost sight of his brother.

“You still with me?” he asks Dean.

He gets a grunt in reply. It’s enough.

He struggles with the door until Dean falls against the side of the Impala and reaches for the handle, his face set in lines of determination. Sam doesn’t mention how it takes Dean three goes to get the door open. It’s open. That’s all that matters.

Dean protests at being told to get in the passenger side, and only moves when Sam tells him to get in the back with Cas, to keep an eye on him. With Cas curled up along the back seat, his head resting on Dean, Sam throws one last look at the warehouse. It’s quiet. There’s no sign at all that anything otherworldly is in there. Was in there. No telling where it is now.

Leaving something dangerous alive and free like this is painful, but Dean’s taken a knock and Cas dragged himself out of a hospital bed to fight that thing. Priorities.

Now he needs to work out what’s best, where to go. They have Cas back. One quick stop at the motel and they could peel out of town and back to the Bunker. They could. Sam could do that. It’d mean taking Cas from people who care about him, but Cas is Sam’s family. And they wouldn’t have to cope with those women staring at Sam, and at Dean, as though freeing Lucifer and starting the Apocalypse is the least of their crimes. In some ways, driving away from this town would be easy.

It’d be leaving that monster to do what it wanted, too, but it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve had to make a call.

Sam slides behind the wheel and sends a prayer to whoever might be listening that he’s making the right choice. Most of all, he prays his brother will forgive him.

He drives.

Chapter Text

Val’s shivering as she uses her grip on Riva to hold herself upright and shouts after the men.

“Bring him back,” she shouts, but Riva knows she’s saying more.

“They’ll bring him,” Beth says. “They will.”

Where Beth’s getting her faith in that from, Riva doesn’t know. She’s seen people in custody battles before, and Cas isn’t some kid, but there’s been an undercurrent of something there since those guys turned up, something that makes her twitchy about whether Cas will be whisked away from them. She told Val it wasn’t as bad as other situations she’s seen, and that’s true. More or less. But none of those cases had one side of the split dashing off to pull the patient in question out of danger while the other side stayed home. It wouldn’t exactly be hard for Sam and Dean to get Cas and drive off in the other direction.

If what they’re saying is true, though, then it’s going to take Sam and Dean to get Cas away from some monster, and much though Riva would love to think they could do that themselves, someone needs to stay with Val and neither of them know the first thing about hunting supernatural creatures.

“This isn’t fucking real,” she says, and only realizes she’s said it out loud when Val slumps back against the settee and stares at her.

“It’s real,” Val says, still sounding slurred. Slurred, but definite.

Riva’s heard that tone, too, when someone’s the first to grasp what a diagnoses means and has to stay strong as the rest of the family catches up. But…an angel. It’s…

She had suspicions. Of course she did. There was too much strange crap going on, and Riva isn’t stupid, but it’s one thing to wonder, even to mention some of her thoughts to her sister and best friend, and another thing entirely to have someone rip the band-aide off reality and throw the word ‘monster’ in her face. It was hard enough saying what she did the night before, and it wasn’t exactly like Beth or Val lapped it all up as gospel truth.

Not that she told them everything.

Val settles herself, pushing her head back against a cushion and sighing, and Riva watches as her sister calms down. She can see it in the way her breathing eases and the furrow in her brow smooths out, and it’s something, at least. Perhaps, if Riva can make herself come to terms with this, she can feel easier, too. She really should have pushed through and told them everything last night, and maybe they could have worked it out, got some sort of plan together before Val almost got eaten by a monster and Cas went stalking after her.

Now, Riva says it all in a rush, getting it out before she loses her nerve.

“At the hospital, a little girl who hasn’t been able to walk in months skipped away from Cas’ room. And right after that my headache vanished when I held Cas’ hand.”

All right, so she’s said that second part, but in some ways it’s what lets her believe the first bit. Something smaller, less bizarre, is easier to believe.

“So, he can’t heal himself but he’s healing others?” Beth asks, still softer than seems right with all the drama. It’s like Beth feels she has to move gently or risk tearing things apart even more.

“Yeah,” Riva says. “And that’s fucking weird, but…an angel?”

“I know,” Val says. She sounds stronger, just a bit, but enough that even with her head on a cushion and her hair spread in dark contrast over the butter-yellow fabric of the settee, she has more color to her and more fire in her words. “I saw wings, but it’s ridiculous. How’s he an angel? He’s…he’s battered and broken and sleeping. Do angels sleep? Aren’t angels giant spinning wheels with thousands of eyes? Cas is not a giant spinning wheel. And if he has so many eyes he shouldn’t need to keep looking around all over the place with those two in his head.”

There’s a look on Val’s face that’s almost painful to look at. If she feels even a tenth as twisted up as Riva feels, it’s going to be whiskey time for all of them.

“We’ll work it out,” Riva says, even though she’s by no means sure they really will. She isn’t sure she’s managed to fit the chilly knowledge of this into her head yet, even though they’re talking about it.

Val doesn’t answer. Not at first. There’s a stretch where none of them speak, but it’s loaded and far from comfortable. Val breaks it.

“You really think he performed a miracle? Holy light, singing, all that?” She shifts on the settee, grimacing and waving Riva away when she moves to help her. “It sounds… I mean, I know what I saw. I think I know what I saw, but even with that it’s fucking impossible to think the guy who saved Beth, who I took out for soup because he didn’t have enough money to feed himself, who I’ve had move into my spare room, is a fucking angel.”

Riva isn’t sure whether Val wants them to agree they can believe it, or that they can’t. Val probably isn’t sure. And whether or not they buy Cas being an angel isn’t the end of it.

“If Cas is an angel, or something like one,” Riva says, “then maybe we’ve got everything else wrong, too. Cas said they fought together. Dean said Cas’ family is what messed him up. We’ve been thinking in human terms, but what if we’ve been wrong?”

“Doesn’t change the fact Dean admitted to hitting Cas,” Beth says.

“Hitting an angel maybe isn’t like hitting a human,” Riva says, and feels a sick lurch at how that comes out. She’s never been one to excuse abuse, but they really don’t know anything about angels or how they see things. “And besides, Dean can be really, really wrong in how he’s treated Cas, but Cas can still be an angel. It’s not like they cancel each other out just like that. I’m not saying that.”

“Kind of sounds like you are,” Val says, and Riva knows that tone. That’s her sister latching onto someone to be angry at when things aren’t making sense, no matter that Val’s the one who blurted out Cas has wings.

“Well, I’m not. I’m just saying we should keep an open mind.”

“This isn’t keeping an open mind, Riva,” Val says. “This is splitting your skull open and displaying your brain to the stars. You really think it’s so out of character that we might get to like someone, that we might befriend someone, that we have to turn to ‘He’s a magical creature’ as an explanation?”

“To the point you’ve moved him into your house?” Riva asks. “Yeah. Yeah, I kind of do. And come on, you’re the one who saw the wings. You can’t take up the skeptical side when you ran around yelling ‘angel’.”

“I’d think there are a few steps between ‘Not seeming odd to me at all’ and ‘Must be an angel’,” Val says, as though most of the past hour didn’t happen, and she never saw anything odd about Cas at all. She grimaces, closing her eyes for a moment. “If I hadn’t seen it, I would. Fuck. It’s like we took a bunch of Cas’ drugs.”

And she must be thrown, to be speaking about the drug-use so casually. Usually, she watches Cas like the proverbial hawk, twitching to drag the powder away from him and knowing it wouldn’t do any good.

“It’s going to take some getting used to,” Beth says.

“If they bring him back,” Val says.

“We have to assume they will,” Riva says, “and we have to think about how we’re going to handle it. I mean, come on. Angel. How do I treat him? Do you think he knows he’s an angel? Is this some sort of falling from Heaven and forgetting thing?”

“If they don’t bring him back, we’re hunting them down,” Val says, for all the world as though she’s got secret black ops training the others never knew about. “And we’ll ask him what he remembers. If he can heal others, I want to know why he isn’t healing himself.”

Her words slur a little at the end, and Riva insists on putting a hold on the conversation as she checks her sister over again. Val protests, but not with as much force as she normally would, and Riva tries not to think of her sister setting off on some campaign to save an angel from monster-hunting FBI agents.

She’s got about all she can deal with as it is.

********************************************

Dean waves Sam away when his brother tries to help him out of the car. Cas needs help more than Dean does. A lot more. Dean’s had to swallow down nausea enough times in his life, and he isn’t about to be beaten by it now.

The angel hasn’t moved the whole way back, and Dean’s spent the time resisting brushing Cas’ hair back from his forehead. He gave in to stroking the backs of his fingers over Cas’ cheek, but that was just to check the guy was alive. Not that it told him much. It’s not like Cas always breathes, even.

“We need to get him inside, Dean,” Sam says.

It takes that for Dean to realize he’s still got a hold of Cas, and that Sam’s trying to move Dean’s hand out of the way so he can lift Cas out. He peers up at Sam and tries to pry both eyes open, but one of them refuses to work right.

“Come on. Just let me get him inside. I’ll come back for you,” Sam says.

Right. Sam wasn’t trying to help Dean at all. He was trying to help Cas, and Dean was getting in the way.

He pulls his hands out of the way and waits until Sam has Cas safely out and in his arms. It feels wrong, letting Sam carry Cas like that, but Dean’s got a fine tremble under his skin, running deep into his muscles, and he knows he’s not in a fit state to be doing that job.

“Why are we here, anyway?” Dean asks. “You should have taken us back to the motel.”

“Because that’s what we always do?” Sam asks.

He says it like it’s a bad thing, and he doesn’t add anything to it. Instead, he disappears from Dean’s sight.

With Sam occupied, Dean takes the chance to close his eyes and breathe though his nose, trying to settle his mind. They’ve got Cas back. Again. After another time that bastard rushed off to throw himself on to a bomb.

No. No, Dean’s calming himself down, here, not winding himself up more. He needs to breathe and calm down and not stalk into that house and tear Cas a new one for daring-

Still not working.

Giving up, he slides out of the car and follows Sam into the house. The pavement shifts under his feet, but Dean’s used to dealing with that sensation, too. He ignores it.

Inside, Riva looks up from where she’s sitting next to Val on the settee, her arm around her sister. At least, she is until Val’s on her feet and in front of Sam.

“What happened?” she asks. “What did you do to him?”

She looks around Sam as she says it, locking on to Dean.

Anger flares under his skin. It’s familiar, almost washing away the chill sickness, and he almost glances down at his right forearm. Just to check. Just to be sure.

“I didn’t do anything to him. We got him out.”

Sam got him out. Cas fought off something and Sam got him out. Dean didn’t do anything but stumble after them. He doesn’t say that, but the thought burns acid in his brain.

“You were supposed to save him from that thing,” Val says. “Does he look saved to you?”

“More saved than if whatever the fuck it is had clawed his guts out, yeah,” Dean says, stepping around Sam and crowding Val back.

He hears Sam start to say something, but he doesn’t want to hear about how he should watch himself, about how he should be careful not to intimidate or come across as an abusive whatever. There are plenty of times he hasn’t been there for Cas, that he hasn’t saved Cas. This is not one of them.

This Val doesn’t know their history and she needs to back off.

“Exactly how many monsters have you killed?” he asks her, and he sees her eyes widen as she steps back, sees her glance to the side, looking for help, and he doesn’t care. He wants her to realize she’s gone too far. “You had some plan to save Cas from this living room? Did I just imagine you tailing it out of there and leaving Cas to face that bastard alone?”

“No,” she says, voice thready.

A moment later, Dean sees her take a breath and straighten her back, and this time her voice is stronger.

“No, I’ve got no idea how to fight a monster. Up until a few hours ago I didn’t know they existed. But you did. And I’m betting this isn’t the first time Cas has got beaten up as part of your fight. Is it?”

“You don’t know the first thing about me and Cas,” Dean says, “about what we’ve been through. What we’ve all been through. So you don’t get to run your mouth.”

“Dean!”

His name in Sam’s mouth brings Dean’s head around, and he blinks. Cas is on the settee now, with Riva leaning over him, her shoulders set and her lips pressed together. Beth’s staring at Dean, unmoving, and he isn’t sure she’s breathing.

When he looks back at Val, it’s to find her glaring up at him, her hands curled into fists, but he can see the way she’s shaking.

She’s shaking.

And Beth looks terrified.

Fuck.

“It’s not what you think,” he says, moving back until he’s nearly at the window and rubbing a hand down his face, trying to breathe out his anger, his tension, his worry. “It’s not.”

“We don’t know what to think it is,” Val says, voice tight but pushing through, “so why don’t you fucking tell us?”

“How’s Cas?” Sam asks, and if it’s an attempt to redirect the mood then it fails, because Val doesn’t look away from Dean. “Can you see any injuries?”

“As far as I can make out, he’s no worse than before. I have no idea what to make of any of this. It’s not like I have a load of training in how to treat angels.”

There’s an icy edge to Riva’s words. Dean tells himself not to rise to it.

“He normally heals himself,” Sam says. “If he’s out cold, it’s worse, but he wakes up after a while and he’s better.”

If you ignore the last few years, since Cas lost his Grace. Since then, the rules seem to have changed.

Riva shakes her head.

“Not as long as we’ve known him. He’s had shin splints ever since he jumped from his window to save Beth.”

“Since he what now?” Dean asks.

“He jumped from his window,” Beth says. She sounds distant. Subdued. “A man attacked me. I was on my own. I…I guess I prayed, or something, and then Cas was there.”

“To be clear,” Val says, and for some reason there’s a challenge in it, “the window was several stories up.”

“And you thought he was human?” Dean asks, but really, trust Cas to fling himself into something like that.

“How much evidence did it take before you believed this shit?” Val asks.

Dean isn’t getting into that one.

“And you’re telling me he hasn’t been healing? How long has this been going on for? No. Wait. Is this why he’s been using? You let him use?”

“We didn’t let him do anything,” Riva says. “Have you any idea how hard it is to get someone to stop using?”

Dean pretends not to see Sam’s pointed look. Not like Dean hasn’t got his own memories of his Dad. How does Sam think Dean got his hands on booze so early on?

Not the point. He needs to focus.

“But it’s why he’s been taking, what, painkillers? Crack? How bad are we talking here?”

“Ketamine,” Riva says.

“Isn’t that horse tranquilizer?” Sam asks. He doesn't sound much like the type of drug is news to him. He certainly hasn't told Dean if he knew already.

“It can make you feel like you’re floating,” Beth says. “So I’ve been told.” She shrugs, her arms wrapped around herself as though she’s cold. “Some…friends of mine said so.”

Dean catches the look of understanding, of sympathy, thrown Beth’s way by Val, and he wonders if it’s something else to do with her ex.

“Cas wanted to float,” Dean says. “Doesn’t seem like it’s been doing him much good.”

Cas is wasted, thin and pale and Dean’s surprised, in a way, the angel wasn’t snapped in two before Sam and Dean got to him. Not that most of Cas’ power has ever been to do with the size or shape of his vessel. It’s still painful to see.

“Well, that crap stops now,” Dean says.

Val smirks at him. There’s zero warmth in it.

“Big guy, turning up and throwing his weight around,” she says. “Whatever the story here, Cas ran from you. Why’d you think he’s going to listen to you now?”

“He will if he knows what’s good for him,” Dean says, before he can process how that will sound.

Val’s chin comes up, but it’s too late to take it back. Too late for a lot of things, and disgust crawls in Dean’s gut.

“Don’t bother,” Dean says. “You, Riva, can you wake him?”

“With what? A slap to the face?” Riva asks, and apparently Dean isn’t the only one feeling disgust.

“If you can’t do anything else for Cas, can you take a look at Dean?” Sam asks, and doesn’t even have the good grace to look ashamed. “He hit his head pretty badly.”

“It’s fine,” Dean says. But it’s a reflex. His vision isn’t right and everything seems too large, too bright, too distant. There’s throbbing pain down the side of his face and he wants to squint one eye.

Riva ignores him anyway, rising and crossing to him and directing him to one of the chairs. She feels around his head carefully, her hands sure and steady, and maybe she isn’t the worst person to be looking after Cas’ physical wellbeing.

“We’ve got books,” he says.

Her hands stop moving.

“What?” she asks.

“Books. Er. On angelic lore. Load of symbols and myths and all sorts of crap, but some of it might help. With Cas. If you want.”

There’s a pause before Riva moves again, and she doesn’t say anything until she’s finished patching Dean up, as far as he can be patched up. Then, she crouches down in front of him and looks him in the eye.

“You have books about angels? And you’ll give them to me?”

“Yes,” Dean says, even as Sam frowns. “If it helps Cas. Just…just fix him.”

Riva tilts her head, regarding Dean like he’s something to study, and finally nods.

“Get me the books,” she says.

Chapter Text

Riva spreads the books out across the table and stares at them. Cas is as taken care of as he can be for the moment, Ashley’s still asleep in the tiny spare room, and Dean’s pacing in the living room. He didn’t take long picking up the books, but it was long enough to wonder whether she was up to this. And to decide she had to be. She would be.

She hasn’t felt this overwhelmed in years, but it’s not like anything in her training has prepared her for wading through a dozen books on angelic lore in search of a cure for an angel. It also doesn’t change the fact she’s the doctor, and it’s her duty to try.

“You got any idea where to start?” she asks Sam.

The guy is tall. There is that about him. It’s really hard to ignore it, truth be told, even when he’s put himself the other side of the table and is slouching down in the chair. She wonders if he thinks she doesn’t notice what he’s doing.

Right now, his hair’s looking a little less perfect, a little more tangled, and there’s a set to his jaw that speaks of frustration. His eyes snap to her when she speaks but it takes a few moments before he zones back in from wherever his mind was.

“Yeah. Actually, there are a few that might have something…”

He sits up and reaches for a heavy book with a cracked cover and a disturbing pattern on the front. It might once have been a recognizable design, but now it’s creepy in its lack of completion, something washed up in pieces from the past.

“This one has a chapter I think might be about angelic health.”

“You think?”

Sam shrugs, his lips twisting.

“Cas once called Enochian flowery.”

“And is it?”

She skated on by any surprise at Enochian being the language of the angels. It kind of makes sense, with Cas being fluent. She wonders how Gertrude will react to that. If they tell Gertrude. So she can deal with it being the tongue of celestial beings. It’s the fact Sam thinks she might be able to read it that’s stumping her, but he’s offered to help.

He shrugs again, and this time his lips almost manage a lopsided smile.

“What Cas calls ‘flowery’, I call advanced brain twister best approached in the same way as experimental physics. You never quite know what minor details might alter the meaning, or what might explode.”

“He is good with physics,” Riva says.

As Sam raises his eyebrows and pulls a face that says ‘huh’, Riva catches herself wanting to smile at him. She nips that in the bud. This guy is charming, maybe not in quite the same sun-in-your-eyes way as his brother, but still more than good enough to suck someone in. He may even mean it. It might all be some con.

She really needs to look them up. Two agents called Bowie have to show up in some sort of Internet search.

“Yeah, I guess he would be,” Sam says, apparently mulling it over. “He once tried to explain something with partial differential equations. Well. Offered to. But I’ve seen him be confused by the simplest things. I suppose angel brains work on a different level or something.”

“What was he trying to explain?”

“Time travel.”

Okay. Maybe she’ll stick to what’s in the present with her and worry about whether it was a hypothetical conversation another time. She’s watched enough episodes of Doctor Who with Val to know that’s not a tangle they need. Besides, time travel… Can’t be real. Maybe even angels like SciFi.

“I’m freaking you out,” Sam says. He sounds sorrowful. Caring.

Riva refuses to fall for it.

“No. Not at all.” She shifts on her seat and takes a moment to pull out her hair-band and retie it. She needs to feel more focused. “Let’s just worry about these books for now. Which chapter has the angel health stuff?”

Sam stays on his side of the table as he talks her through it, and even though it’s awkward to have him leaning over, she doesn’t tell him to come around to her side.

**********************************

Beth sits on the bed next to Cas, unwilling to leave him even to go as far as the chair nearby. It took Sam to carry him up the stairs, and Val was tense the whole time, as though Sam didn’t carry Cas into the house in the first place, and by the sounds of it out of that warehouse.

She thinks she might be guarding Cas, but she isn’t so sure any more what from. Dean, still. The way he shouted at Val, the way he stalked toward her… Beth pulls her cardigan more tightly about herself, and tries to forget the way she froze up.

She hasn’t done that for ages, and she didn’t think she ever would if it looked like Val might need help, but Dean is so large, so obviously physical in a way that writes him huge on the scene, and even Val was backing away.

Sam stopped him. She turns that over in her mind as she watches Cas’ face, as she watches the dark lashes against cheeks which shouldn’t be that pale.

There’s no sign of breathing, but Sam said that’s normal for an angel, even though he could have sounded more certain as he said it.

An angel.

There’s an angel in her spare bed.

Hesitantly, she reaches out one hand and touches her index finger to Cas’ cheek. It’s hard to take in that she’s touching something heavenly. Nothing heavenly should look so lost.

Movement in the doorway draws her attention, and she looks up to see Val leaning against the frame.

“Hey,” Val says, far more quietly than she normally would.

“Hey,” Beth says. She still has the back of her finger against Cas’ cheek, like she’s about to stroke him.

Val nods at Cas, shifting to slide her hands into the back pockets of her jeans as she does so.

“No movement?”

Beth shakes her head.

“You want some company?” Val asks. She glances away and her mouth pulls into some expression Beth can’t read before she speaks again. “I, um, I think we should…talk. If that’s okay.”

“We shouldn’t disturb Cas,” Beth says, and sees Val pull in on herself. Beth rushes to reassure her. “We can talk in my room.”

“Well,” Val says, not quite looking at Beth, “maybe we should wait until Riva can sit with Cas. It can wait, that is.”

Beth pauses for a short while, trying to work out whether she’s meant to insist they talk, but she doesn’t have the mental energy to untangle it all, so she nods and waves Val into the room. She doesn’t hold out a hand, but she thinks about it.

“You can still sit with me, though, right?”

“Yeah,” Val says. “Yeah, I can do that.”

Val takes the chair near the bed, the one Sam pulled over before he looked at Beth and said something about not crowding Cas. She pulls the sleeves of her jumper down over her knuckles, leaving only the first joints of her fingers showing, and doesn’t quite look at either of the people on the bed.

“You know this isn’t your fault, right?” Beth asks, because she doesn’t want to disturb Cas, but she can’t stand seeing Val like this.

Val has been the strong one, the one providing comfort and anger and protection as Beth’s needed them, and seeing her crumble is…well, it’s wrong.

“Yeah. No. I…I know,” Val says. She blinks and somehow manages to avoid Beth’s eyes even more. “But I did end up needing rescuing from a monster.”

Oh. Beth breathes in and adjusts her thinking. Not guilt. Or not primarily.

“You’re ashamed,” she says. “Embarrassed.”

“Wouldn’t you be?” Val asks, and it might even be an honest question, like she isn’t sure if she’s having the right response.

Beth shrugs and looks at Cas again.

“There’s an angel in my spare room. I’m not sure about anything right now.”

Well, she’s not sure about a lot of things. Some things are becoming clearer the more she lets herself think about them.

“When we realized you were missing,” she says, and it’s hard to get out, even though she trusts Val as much as she trusts Riva, and Riva’s been her best friend for years, “when you were just…not there, I had this moment.”

She stops and checks on Val’s reaction, but Val’s gone almost completely still, to the point she’s got her fingers paused mid-movement. Beth licks her lips and pushes on.

“It was a moment where I just, I don’t know, I just…stepped outside myself. Something like that. And I thought, well, that’s it, Val’s gone. And I looked at my life without you in it, and-”

She stops again, this time because her voice cracks and her cheeks turn heavy with tears. One of Val’s fingers twitches, but she doesn’t move, doesn’t look at Beth, and Beth manages to take a steadying breath and keep going.

“And knowing you were being hunted by some…some thing… Maybe that should make it worse. I don’t know. It makes it even harder to get my head around. But not as hard as thinking about doing this, any of this, with you just…just…”

“Gone,” Val finishes for her.

“Yeah,” Beth says. “I don’t- Listen, I don’t know how you ‘should’ feel about any of this, but I do know you aren’t foolish or stupid or anything for it. Sometimes we just need saving. And that can be okay. You know?”

Val swallows. She swallows hard enough that Beth hears the sound of Val’s throat working.

“I’m not supposed to need saving,” Val says, and it comes out hushed.

Beth frowns.

“And I am?”

“No. No, of course not,” Val says. “That’s not what I meant.”

Beth’s saved from having to work out her response to that when the bed shifts, and she looks down at Cas to see his right hand move, those long fingers curling into a fist.

“Is he waking up?” Val asks.

“Don’t know.”

Beth leans forward, scanning from Cas’ hand up to his face, where his eyes are moving. She can see it even though they’re closed, and she wants to reach out and calm him, somehow, but she doesn’t know what she should do. She doesn’t want knowing what he is to change the way she treats him, but it does.

His eyes open and she learns that a breath really can catch in your throat.

“Your eyes are glowing,” she says, and is too dazed to feel foolish for just coming out with it.

Cas stares at her for a second before his eyes narrow.

“What?” he asks, his voice hoarse.

“Your eyes,” Beth says, and hears Val move, hears her stand and step closer. “They’re literally glowing blue. Is that an angel thing?”

She swears she sees fear, just a flash of it, before resignation settles on Cas.

“You know,” he says, and shifts his gaze away from her, looking up at nothing, as far as she can see.

It’s tough, pulling her attention away from those eyes, but she looks up at Val, who’s standing right by the bed, and sees the same concern on her friend’s face. They’ve both seen Cas pull away before, and they’ve both seen him shut down, and right now he looks to be closing himself off from them.

Beth reaches for Cas’ left hand as Val drops onto the edge of the bed and grasps his right, and if things were less confusing right now Beth would laugh at the surprise on Cas’ face, like he can’t work out for the life of him how he’s got two people holding onto him. Beth pulls his hand up and cradles it near her stomach and Cas glances first at Val and then at her.

“Yes,” she says, when she’s sure she has his attention. “Yes, we know you’re an angel. Sam and Dean told us. Val saw.”

“Saw?” Cas asks, turning his head back to Val.

Val nods and manages a smile. If it comes out shaky, Beth isn’t going to criticize.

“Yeah. I saw wings. Shadows of wings.” The smile steadies, widens. “Not going to lie, Cas. You have awesome wings.”

It’s Cas’ turn to swallow, and Beth swears it’s enough to make her tear up, how grateful he looks at the comment. And how sad.

“Thank-you,” he says and, tentatively, “Did I scare you?”

“You mean compared to the monster trying to smash me to pieces?” Val asks, still smiling. “No. No, you saved me.”

Whatever conflicted feelings she has over being saved, she doesn’t lay them on Cas, and Beth’s glad of it.

She also notices neither one of them has let go of Cas’ hands, and he hasn’t tried to pull away.

“So,” she says, rubbing her free index finger over the back of Cas’ hands, “do you have a halo to go with the wings?”

There’s still a lot to say to Val, and she gets the feeling Val has things to say to her, but right now it’s more important to be here for Cas, to let him know they still love him, whatever species he is.

He looks bashful as he answers, as though talking about his angelic nature is akin to walking about naked, and he keeps glancing between them.

“I, er, I don’t know that it’s what you’d consider a halo,” he says. “It’s to do with waves, and…”

He trails off and Beth swears she sees hope dawn on his face.

“I’d need to explain it mathematically.”

He’s looking at Val as he finishes the sentence, and Beth looks across to see Val roll her eyes and groan, but it’s clear she’s joking.

“Not physics,” she says.

“Not if you don’t-” Cas starts.

“For the last time, Val,” Beth says, just about dizzy from the worry and the tears and now the joy, “you teach Math. It’s practically physics.”

“Yeah, but with fewer black holes,” Val says, and her lips are definitely twitching into something like a smile.

“Er. About that…” Cas says.

“No,” Val says. “Black holes are involved in your halo?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Cas says.

And no way is Beth leaving the room now, not when Cas is awake and talking and looking happier than he has in most of the time she’s known him. She supposes it must be a weight off, to finally let go of a secret. She finds herself looking at Val as much as Cas while the angel tells them, haltingly at first, about folded light and compressed time and waves upon waves upon waves.

************************************************

Sam watches Dean worry. His brother normally cleans his guns or fights something or, failing that, drinks when he’s this wound up, but bringing guns into Beth’s house would be wrong, and there’s nothing solid to fight, and Sam’s got an eye on getting these women to trust them, at least a little. At least enough that they can work around to getting Cas back.

As things are now, Sam’s not sure they shouldn’t get in the Impala and drive away. He doesn’t think they can try to take Cas away from his new friends, not unless the women reject him when the knowledge of what Cas is sinks in. There’s at least a chance for some stability here, and Cas needs that. No. Best for Cas to stay right here for the time being.

He doesn’t think he can face what it will do to Dean if the time being turns into forever.

So they need to ease the tensions, make these people see Dean as less of a threat. They need to open up the chance of at least…visitation rights or something.

Frustrated, Sam pushes his hair back and clenches his jaw to keep himself from snapping at Dean to calm down. Not everyone’s as in control of their emotions as Sam is. He needs to remember that.

“You brought the books,” Sam says. “There’s nothing else you can do right now.”

“There should be,” Dean says. “He’s not well, Sam. Fuck. He’s wasting away up there. You think hauling some books in is enough?”

From the table in the dining room, Riva looks over at Dean and scowls.

“Keep it down,” she says. “I’m knee deep in some weird metaphor that might not be a metaphor.”

Seeing that Dean isn’t going to be comforted, Sam gives up on him for now and joins Riva, pulling out a chair across the table from her so she won’t feel crowded.

“Here,” he says. “Let me take a look.”

She slides it over to him and slumps back, pushing both hands into her now loose hair so it stands up in dark fronds.

“I know this crap,” Sam says, tamping down on the irritation as he sees the passage she’s talking about, “about as well as any human knows it, but this one… I’ve never been able to work it out. Is it something about a castle?”

Riva shrugs, her hands still on top of her head, and narrows her eyes.

“Wait. How well do you know it? Like, as well as Cas does?”

Sam smiles.

“Doubtful. He’s an angel.”

“And we’re reading this instead of him why?” Riva asks.

“Cas isn’t well,” Sam says.

“Sure. I get that. And until he wakes up he can’t help us, but are you telling me you never thought about getting him to translate these? And we’re working on the assumption he might come round again, right?”

Sam twists in his seat and meets Dean’s eyes. His brother’s standing stock still with his lips parted, as though this is an idea he’s never considered. Looking back at Riva, Sam makes a vague gesture with one hand. He isn’t sure what it’s meant to mean.

“Yeah. I guess. I mean, Cas has helped research sometimes before. When he’s been around.”

Riva frowns.

“I thought he lived with you?”

As Sam pulls a face, she shakes her head.

“Never mind. You can give us back story later. I know someone who reads this language. Cas has been meeting with her. A professor who works with Beth and Val.”

Bringing someone else in on this seems risky. Three people in this town already know Cas is an angel.

“And you think she’ll be up for something like this?” he asks, not quite sure if he means the knowledge of the supernatural or being asked to wade through several heavy books at short notice.

“Are you kidding?” Riva asks. “She’ll probably bring cake and think it’s a party. From what I know, she’s published articles on angels.”

Riva vanishes to phone this friend, and Sam lets her go. At this point, they just need to find something that works.

“You think we should let her do this?” Dean asks. “Let her tell someone else about Cas? What if she turns on him?”

“Who?” Sam asks. “Riva? I think we’re pretty safe there. She’s taken in it stride. And Beth and Val are still up with Cas, and I don’t hear any screaming. If this friend of theirs is anything like them, I can’t see it being a problem. And I can’t get anything useful out of all this. You?”

Dean looks away, his expression tight.

Before Sam can say anything to help Dean work through that, the creak of the stairs draws his attention. He looks round in time to see Val appear in the archway to the hall. She hesitates as she sees Dean. A heartbeat later her chin comes up and she looks across at Sam.

“Cas is awake,” she says. “He’s asking what happened. Does anybody have an answer for him that isn’t just me spouting weird shit?”

“Cas is awake?” Dean asks.

“Is he well enough to help us translate these books?” Sam asks.

Val shoots him a look that makes him clamp his mouth shut. Yeah. Right. Probably should check Cas is okay first.

“Er. How is he?” Sam asks.

“He’s still beat up,” Val says. “Says he hurts. He seems…I don’t know. Happier? I think. He’s been telling us about his halo, but he wants to see one of you now. Not you.”

Dean only gets a couple of paces before Val’s words stop him again, and he scowls.

“Cas is family-”

“Being family doesn’t mean he’s safe around you,” Val says. “It’s not a magic word, Agent Bowie.”

Being formal to put Dean in his place. Huh. But Sam sees the name jolt Dean and knows it’s time to come clean. Cleaner, anyway.

“Winchester,” Sam says, so Dean doesn’t have to. “Our last name’s Winchester.”

Val freezes for a moment, confusion clear on her face.

“But, you said…”

“Yeah, well, we’re not exactly bona-fide FBI,” Dean says, and he says it with a smirk, even though no warmth or humor reaches his voice.

“You’re faking being Feds,” Val says, voice flat. “Is anything about you real?”

Dean doesn’t answer.

“What’s real is we hunt monsters,” Sam says. He stays seated. One of them has to think about getting these women to let their guard down. “And we do care about Cas. You say he wants to see one of us?”

At Val’s nod, Sam finally stands and crosses the room. He considers brushing a hand against her shoulder, some sort of comforting touch that will say he’s safe, he’s part of their team, but it’s too soon. She needs to stop looking so prickly first. She’s already less defensive than she was, but there’s still work to do.

“I’ll go up and fill him in on what we have,” Sam says, looking at Dean from the archway. “And I’ll check on how he is. You got anything you want me to say to him?”

Dean shakes his head, stops partway, and nods.

“Yeah. Tell him to pick better friends.”

Sam has no idea which friends Dean’s talking about.

*******************************************

Beth’s hand is warm in his, and she’s moved on, some time in the last half an hour, from stroking over the back of his hand to smoothing her palm up and down his forearm. It’s pleasant.

The throb of his wings doesn’t let him properly appreciate it, but he knows it’s pleasant. He’s tired after describing some of his true form to Beth and Val. Nice though it was, it was more effort than he’d expected, even with two women who kept up with a lot of what he said far past the point many humans would have understood him. Now, the lightness from earlier has faded, but not quite back to where he was before. There’s that, at least. He at least now has the memory of something warm.

“Are you doing okay?” Beth asks, softly.

Almost everything about Beth can appear soft, but she’s strong. Castiel is sure of that. Someone who’s gone through the struggles Beth has and who’s come out still so able to love is strong. He wants to repay her kindness with a better answer than the truth of his pain and exhaustion.

“I’m fine,” he says, and tells himself it doesn’t taste like a lie.

“Okay,” Beth says. Her smile is small and there’s a twist to it that hurts. She looks down, seeming to track her own hand as it moves along his arm. “But you do know you can tell me you aren’t. Right? It’s not a crime, Cas.”

“I…”

He can’t make himself go any further. What difference does his pain make? He broke so long ago he isn’t even sure when it happened and he long ago gave up on the idea of being whole again. Of being fixed. He’ll never again be what he was, and he’s spent enough time telling himself he’s okay with that, telling himself it doesn’t matter.

The trick only works if he doesn’t look at it too closely.

“You don’t have to tell me, either,” Beth says. “When I left Greg, my mom asked me so many times how I was, and I never did want to tell her. Telling her felt like it might tear me, you know? And not just because of her reaction, even though I was plenty worried about that. Not the type to think you should leave a marriage, my mom, and as far as she was concerned Greg and I were on our way to the church any day now. But it wasn’t that. It was more that if I could make her think I was okay, then I could pretend I really was. At least, that’s what my therapist got me round to thinking.”

Beth stops and shrugs. Her hand keeps stroking.

“And are you?” Castiel asks. “Okay?”

“This isn’t about me,” she says. “We’re officially worrying about you today. Understand?”

She looks at him and waits until he nods.

“Good. But we can pretend not to be worrying, if you want.”

It seems an odd suggestion to Castiel. Before he can ask what good that would do, footsteps announce someone’s coming, and he finds he can focus enough to make out a familiar tread.

He thinks of sitting up to greet Sam, but he doesn’t have the energy.

“Cas,” Sam says, and the relief is palpable, even from all the way across the room. “How are you doing?”

Castiel has the words lined up on his tongue, but Beth’s a warm presence next to him on the bed and her touch grounds him, makes it harder to lie now he’s been called out on it.

“I’ve been better,” he says. “What happened?”

He sees Sam hesitate, drawing himself up and in the way he does when he’s not sure he should go with his first instinct. He sees Sam glance at Beth.

“Tell me,” Castiel says, and if it comes out sounding irritable he thinks he can be forgiven.

He’s just starting to wonder if there could be other things for which he might be forgiven, but the thought is new and fragile, and he doesn’t want to risk putting too much weight on it.

“Sam, I need to know what happened.”

“You’re not the only one,” Sam says.

Before Castiel can ask what he means by that, Sam crosses the room and takes the chair by the bed. Castiel hears Beth take a breath, and her grip on his hand tightens, just for a moment. She still doesn’t trust Sam. Castiel wants to tell her that Sam is no danger to her, that he’s a friend, but he’s seen the damage Sam can do and he isn’t sure he has the right to tell Beth who she should trust. Castiel is sure that she is safe around Sam, but he remembers how hard it was to trust anyone after April, and he doesn’t presume to dictate her response.

“I remember waking up in a hospital,” Castiel says, but he can’t quite keep the doubt out of his voice. It’s all hazy. Indistinct. “I think I remember a…a creature of some kind. But I can’t recall seeing it. Just the feeling I had to stop it, that I had to stop it from hurting Val.”

He remembers a wash of colors, his old vision exploding back to him in a tidal wave. He remembers seeing shapes and shades he’d convinced himself he’d never see again. But that doesn’t seem relevant, and the colors are mostly gone again, leaving only an afterimage when he looks at anyone, Sam’s usual tones so muted they’re thin watercolor when they used to be vibrant oils.

“We don’t know what it was,” Sam says, and Castiel listens as Sam explains the way Dean fell, the way Castiel himself got in between whatever was attacking and the brothers.

Some of it’s more shocking than the rest.

“You could see my wings, too?” Castiel asks.

He wasn’t sure his wings still existed before this, mostly convinced they were burned away with his fading Grace, that whatever was stopping him from healing had destroyed what was left of those limbs, but the pain strung in bright lights at his back is a clear memory.

For a while there at least he still had his wings.

He never though either Sam or Dean would see them, and he isn’t sure he wants to hear what Sam thought of them.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Yeah, and, Cas…”

That’s pain. Something about seeing Castiel’s wings hurt Sam.

“It’s all right,” Castiel says, even though it isn’t, not by a long way. The girls had been kind, as they always are, saying his wings were beautiful. Beth didn’t even see them, and Val has been known to coddle him. “I know they must be in a terrible state. It can’t have been easy to look at.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Sam says. “Cas, I had no idea. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

Sorry that he felt revulsion at something that must be revolting? Castiel can’t understand what Sam’s apologizing for. He understands even less when Sam takes his free hand.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get how bad it is. I’m sorry we didn’t do more.”

“You…?” No, that can’t be right. Castiel was the one failing to heal. Dean told him to heal, and he didn’t. Couldn’t. “It’s not your fault, Sam.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t be thinking about fault,” Sam says. “Cas, we thought we were helping you. We did. But Dean and me, we’re not exactly roll models for healthy, you know? I’ve said that before, but I don’t think I got it. Maybe we couldn’t help. Doesn’t mean I’m not sorry, or that I couldn’t have listened to you more, let you know you could tell us… I mean, your wings have to have been hurting, right?”

Castiel nods, slowly. He isn’t sure if it’s the answer Sam wants.

“But you didn’t tell us,” Sam says. “And I’m sorry we made you feel you had to keep that from us. Did you…was it that you thought we wouldn’t care?”

“No, of course not,” Castiel says, although he knows his pain has never been as important as the mission. It was a lesson all the angels learned, and not one Dean had ever told him was incorrect. If Castiel’s state would compromise a mission, it was relevant, but otherwise it just…was. Especially if there was nothing to be done about it. “You had enough to deal with, and there was nothing you could do.”

“We could have listened,” Sam says. “I could have listened, Cas. And, I don’t know, offered sympathy. Something. You get not everything needs to have a solution to be worth bringing up, right?”

But that makes no sense. Dean doesn’t like problems he can’t solve.

Sam sighs.

“Yeah. Okay. You don’t believe me, and that’s on us. We got too used to thinking you’d always be okay. And I’m sorry for that, too.”

“Stop apologizing,” Castiel says. “I don’t-”

He doesn’t know how to finish that. Doesn’t deserve it? He’s felt so much time feeling like he’s worthless, that he has to have a use to have worth, but he isn’t quite so sure of that as he was. Doesn’t want an apology? Except maybe he does. Maybe he just doesn’t want there to be a need for one.

“Okay,” Sam says. “Okay, no apologies. Not if you don’t want them. But you’ve found people here who care about you, Cas, and we’re not going to drag you away from this. We’re not.”

He says the last bit to Beth, and Castiel feels her grip tighten again.

“So, you take all the time you need to get better,” Sam says, “and we’ll do what we can to help. Riva’s looking through our books on angelic lore. She’s got a friend coming round. Gertrude? Maybe she’ll find something I didn’t. Okay?”

“Angelic lore?” Castiel asks. He knew they had some books, of course. He remembers reading about the procedure to extract an angel’s Grace from a previous host. Still, he didn’t ever look for a cure for himself. It had seemed like a waste of resources. Now, he isn’t as sure. “I should look.”

“No, Cas, you’re weak. You should rest,” Sam says. “I’ll read them again, and Riva’s looking, and Gertrude’s coming over-”

“And you all know more about angels than I do?” Castiel asks.

He isn’t quite looking at Sam, and he sees Beth smile out of the corner of his eye, sees her eyes light up in an entirely human way.

“Well, no,” Sam says, but he sounds embarrassed. “Cas, it’s not that. I mean, Riva said you should look. I just…I just thought…”

“That I’m too sick to be able to read a book?” he asks. “I think I can manage most books, Sam.”

He gives Beth’s hand a squeeze and moves, determined to get up and do as he’s said. The room spins, and he has to stop when he’s barely up on his elbows, his teeth gritted against the pain.

“You really don’t-” Sam starts.

“I want to read those books,” Castiel says. He thinks there’s some of the powder, possibly, under the mattress. Not a good hiding place, but there’s a decent chance Beth hasn’t gone looking since Castiel last stayed here. He needs Sam and Beth out of the room before he can take it, though, and then he’ll be able to focus. “Just, help me up.”

They grab an arm each and do as he says, even though they both look concerned when he catches sight of them. He tries not to look again.

“I don’t suppose any of my clothes are here?” he asks, because he tends to lose track of things like that.

“I keep a couple of sets here for you,” Beth says, and slides off the bed.

Castiel doesn’t ask why she keeps them here. He knows he’s passed out more than once, and it isn’t a conversation he wants to have in front of Sam. Instead, he waits as Beth pulls a set of clothes out of a drawer and accepts them from her with a small smile. At least, he thinks it comes out as a smile.

“Thank-you,” he says, and waits for them to leave. When they don’t, he clears his throat. “I can manage to get dressed.”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course,” Sam says, but he looks at Beth as he says it and doesn’t move until she nods. “Shout if you need anything.”

Castiel is feeling just annoyed enough about everything that he has no intention of calling on Sam for help if it turns out he’s forgotten how to use his hands at all, but he nods. He’s confused by his own tides of emotion, but there’s only so much he can do to smooth them out.

Once he’s alone, he drops the clothing and feels under the mattress. There. One bag. It might well be his last one. He might had some more at Val’s, but not a lot, and he’s never sure she won’t dig it out and get rid of it. She’s made no secret of disliking him using it. She just doesn’t get how much he needs to keep the pain away.

Already, his pain may have called a Rit Zien. He can’t risk it.

Only… Only he’s just insisted on reading through those books, and he knows his head won’t be as clear if he takes this. And there are five people downstairs who want to look out for him, in their own ways. And both Val and Dean will look so disappointed if they see he’s high.

Grimacing, Castiel slides the powder into his pocket.

With the pain building in his body, getting dressed is a little tricky. His hands slip in the buttons, but he manages. He manages.

He makes his way downstairs one step at a time, holding the banister to be sure he won’t lose track of a step and fall. If he’s lucky, there’ll be something in those books and he can fix himself, and then he won’t need the powder at all.

Chapter Text

Sam comes back into the living room looking subdued, Beth just behind him, and Dean catches his eye.

“He all right?” Dean asks.

Sam shakes his head.

“I don’t know. He’s in pretty bad shape, Dean. I tried to let him know we’re here for him, but…”

Sam shrugs, and Beth stops beside him and looks up at him with something that might even be edging towards sympathy. There’s still wariness there, but it isn’t the full-blown thing Dean saw on her face the first time they met.

“It can be hard to let people help you,” she says. “But it does help to hear them offer. I promise.”

“And how do we get him to let us help?” Dean asks. “I mean really help. Because Cas has this habit of going off on his own with crazy schemes to fix everything that pretty much always end up breaking him more.”

Beth shakes her head and sighs.

“Maybe this idea he needs to be fixed is part of the issue.”

“Yeah, well. Not normally himself he’s trying to fix,” Dean says. When she looks at him with a crease across her brow, he feels compelled to go on. He wants them to get at least some of what Cas has been through, some of what Cas and Dean, and Sam, have been through, so they know it isn’t the way they think it is. “It’s usually stopping an apocalypse or an angelic civil-war or some crap.”

“An apoc…” Beth trails off, her lips still parted around the word that died half-done.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “When we said it’s not the way you think, we meant it.”

Beth nods, but her eyes look a little glazed again.

“Right. Yeah. I get that. So, you’re like…Buffy?”

“No,” Dean says. “I’m way cuter.”

From her place on the settee, Val speaks up.

“For God’s sake, will you all stop dancing around each other. You say it isn’t the way we think. Fine. We’re just about over the shock of playing host to an angel, so why don’t you sit down and actually tell us what it is like.”

“You believe us now?” Dean asks.

“I’m willing to listen now,” Val says, and it’s a correction. “But if we don’t buy what you’re selling, you leave when we tell you to.”

Dean has no idea how she thinks she can make him stick to that, but he nods.

“Fair enough.”

It isn’t. Maybe he gets it, the need to protect, and maybe, just maybe, there’s some….some truth to the idea that Dean has hurt Cas. Hell, he knows he’s hurt Cas. But Dean is not an abuser. He’s not his dad.

No. That isn’t what he means. His dad did the best he could, and Dean knows that, but… But maybe John Winchester could have put his children before his own pain. Maybe Dean needs to put Cas before his own pain.

He hasn’t made it to the end of that thought before he hears someone else on the stairs, and that has to be Cas. He sees Val start for the archway and, at Sam’s look, hangs back.

He watches as Cas, Val hovering at his elbow, makes his way to the settee. No question, Cas is in pain. Dean’s seen him hurting before, but he normally heals himself up, and he’s always a little stiff, a little stilted. This is more than just being stilted.

Now he knows to look for it, Cas walks like someone with pain on his back. There are many things over his life that Dean would like to forget, and the memory of those gashes in Cas’ wings has added itself to the list.

Beth gestures at him and he sits. Sam joins him, taking the seat next to Dean, just the way they did the first time they came in here, and Beth sits next to Val. Riva looks up from her place back at the table and frowns.

“If you start fighting, I’m throwing all of you out. Cas doesn’t need the tension.”

That seems to be all she has to say on it for now, but Dean can tell from the angle of her shoulders that she’s still listening. Cas looks vaguely confused. Dean sees his lips part, but Cas doesn’t say anything. Instead, his tongue darts out and licks his lips.

Dean coughs and looks away.

He’s in time to see Val start and soften as Beth slips her hand into hers, and he can only imagine how weird it would be if Cas did something like that.

“Well, go on, then,” Val says, catching Dean still staring at the joined hands. “Tell us about you and Cas.”

“That isn’t-” He cuts himself off and resists glancing at Sam. “I mean, that’s a huge story. Can’t really chop it down to a few words.”

“I bet you’re pretty good at chopping things down,” Val says.

For a second, Dean hears it as a chat-up line. It has the structure.

“What?”

“With the monster hunting,” Val says.

Sam cuts in, which is probably a good job, because talking to Val is like sparring, and Dean isn’t even sure what kind of fight it is. She delivers words like she’s landed a knock-out blow, even when the words themselves don’t carry a punch.

“We live busy lives,” Sam says, “and we’ve grown up in the life. No way can we get all of that across in a neat little speech. How about you ask us what you want, and we can go from there. Our main concern here is Cas.”

“Ours too,” Beth says.

Dean blinks. They’re discussing Cas like he’s some kid they’re trying to avoid a custody battle over, and Cas is Dean’s family and he’ll fight for the guy, but he doesn’t get why some women who’ve only known Cas a few months are acting like this, not when he’d think the whole monsters-are-real thing would still be throwing them.

Cas himself looks like he isn’t sure whether he should be speaking.

“Fine,” Val says. “How’d you come to meet an angel in the first place?”

“He pulled me out of Hell,” Dean says. “Literal Hell, before you ask.”

“Literal Hell?” Val asks. Her lips twist as though she wants to sneer, but there’s the start of some understanding lurking in her eyes, the sort some victims get once they’ve come up hard against the supernatural, and she turns to look at Cas instead. “Actual Hell?”

Cas nods. After a moment, he seems to get Val’s waiting for him to speak, and he blinks.

“Um. It was unpleasant.”

Dean isn’t sure about a lot right now, and his skin feels like it’s sitting tight on his body, hot and itchy and wrong-sized, the faint pain from his head injury still throbbing and jagged thought set slant-wise through his skull, but in this moment he feels a flush of warmth for Cas.

“Yeah,” he says. “That it was.”

Sam clears his throat, and Dean tears his eyes away from Cas’. He just catches Val, eyebrows raised, looking at Sam.

“So, yeah,” Dean says. “Hell. Kinda went downhill from there.”

“Dean and Sam stopped Lucifer and Michael from bringing about the End of Days,” Cas says, and something of his old cadence resonates in that, the intonations of an angel sure in what he’s saying. His chin lifts as he says it.

“Thank you?” Val says.

“Listen, bottom line is that we fought one apocalypse, and Cas turned his back on his own kind to help us save this sorry world. And since then we’ve just…”

Dean trails off, because how can he sum up what they’ve been through?

“We’ve kept fighting,” Sam says. “Always something else coming up.”

Cas looks down, and Dean can’t stand the way that moment of pride vanishes from his friend.

“And we get worn down sometimes,” Dean says. “No shame in that. Even the best players get benched sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “And you’ve been through a lot, Cas, and we all just want to help you get through this, okay?”

With a noise low in her throat, Beth runs her hand along Cas’ forearm and threads her fingers through his.

“I get this is something huge. Well, I get that I don’t really get it,” she says. “And I don’t know what Cas here has been through, not really, but you do get there isn’t always a ‘through’, right? It’s not…it’s not a tunnel you pass through and then you’re back out in the open air like it never happened.”

Sitting up straight, Dean frowns.

“I never said-”

“You didn’t have to,” Beth says. “Either of you. It’s all mixed up with words like ‘fixing’ and ‘cured’, like there’s some broken machinery to oil and crank back into use. Sometimes it’s, well, it’s about learning who you are now, after whatever’s happened.”

“Cas is an angel,” Sam says, “and he’s a warrior.”

“And he’s the best damn friend we ever had,” Dean adds.

“And he can still be those things, if he wants to be, once he’s worked through everything,” Beth says, as though Cas can just choose what species to be.

Although, come to think of it, Cas has changed a lot already since Dean met him. Hell, the guy’s been human, or as near as. Dean’s less sure Cas can ever, really, stop being a warrior. He doesn’t like to think about the last one changing.

“When was this apocalypse?” Val asks. “Averted one, I mean.”

“A few years back,” Dean says. “What, something like, around 2008?”

“Huh,” Val says, nodding like she’s going to be asked questions later. “And is that when you met?”

“We met a couple of years earlier,” Sam says. “A lot’s happened since.”

Val nods, and smiles. There’s a slightly odd look in her eyes.

“Well,” she says, letting go of Beth’s hand and clapping her hands together. “I think we have enough to be going on with. Riva, how’s it coming with those books?”

Riva pushes the book she’s looking at away and drops her head in to her hands.

“I have no idea what I’m reading,” she says. “Your notes are great, Sam, but I can’t translate all of this. I just can’t. I need someone who speaks the language. Gertrude should be here in a couple of hours or so, but…”

“I came down to read those,” Cas says, and Dean sees him squeeze Beth’s hand before he lets go. “Which bit are you stuck on?”

Val starts as Cas stands, and Dean only just catches himself from doing the same thing he’s pretty sure she wants to, hovering next to Cas to make sure he doesn’t fall. He notices the faint flush along her cheeks, as well, as she flicks a glance at Dean and away.

Cas doesn’t seem to notice.

Riva pushes out the chair next to her and pats it, waiting until Cas is settled with the book in front of him to lean into his space and point.

“This. Here. Something about walls?”

“Boundaries,” Cas says. “It’s about boundaries. Sam, where did you get this?”

Sam shoots a look at Dean and leaves his seat, joining Riva and Cas at the table.

“There were a bunch of books around the Bunker that we never dug out before. Why? This one special?”

Cas’ long fingers caress the edge of the page, and he has his head bowed over it, a slight smile tugging at his lips. It’s almost painful after seeing so little joy in him for so long.

“This reads true,” he says. “Most Enochian in books, it’s dead or dying. Humans just…tend not to be good at keeping it alive. But this? I can almost hear this singing.”

Thing is, Riva’s nodding like that makes any kind of sense and not like Cas is trying to translate something into human that isn’t really transferring well.

“So, these words are alive?” Dean asks. “That a good thing? Or do we have to get some word traps ready?”

He mimes throwing a Ghostbusters trap across the room, but no-one’s looking. They’re all looking at Cas.

“This is good,” Cas says. “Whoever wrote this, they knew Enochian the way an angel does. Or nearly. There may actually be something useful in here.”

Dean doesn’t ask why Cas was so insistent on reading the books, if before this he thought there wouldn’t be anything useful. Sometimes, he thinks Cas puts no value on his own survival at all, and wonders if God wrote nihilism into some angels just for fun.

“So, what’s it saying we could try?” Dean asks.

Cas frowns, trailing in index finger along the page as though he wants to be in physical contact with the words.

“It’s not that simple,” he says. “There’s never been an angel like me before. Not that I know of. I doubt there’ll be some spell in here we can just lift out, even if I can translate it into human terms.”

Dean’s seen Cas read from Enochian before, both in his own language and when he’s translating it for Sam and Dean, but he’s never really stopped to think of how the words themselves aren’t a problem for Cas. It’s getting the right meaning in English for Sam and Dean to understand that must be the issue.

Dean has enough trouble with people not getting his references that he truly does not want to know how frustrating that can be for the guy.

“Right,” he says. “Well. Let us know if we can help. I, er, there might be a couple more which looked similar. Similar age and writing.”

Cas nods his understanding and effectively shuts everyone out, and Dean leaves Sam and Riva sitting either side of the angel, asking questions every now and then and making notes on pads of paper.

They don’t seem to be finding anything that’ll help Cas, as such, but the notes grow and grow. They have to be getting close to something. They have to.

As the notes grow, Cas’ burst of energy seems to wane. He slumps more, twitches more, and his eyes drift from the book and round the room. Each time, Dean sees Cas catch himself and refocus on the book, and each time he’s back to looking round, more agitated each time, within minutes.

“You doing okay?” he asks Cas, more than once, and each time Cas nods, say’s he’s fine. Each time, Dean pretends to believe him. He manages not to snap or scold.

It’s later that Cas gets up and vanishes upstairs for a while, saying he needs a break.

It’s a while after that that Dean wins a staring match with Val and goes upstairs to find him.

*****************************

“Hey.”

Castiel came upstairs to rest, maybe to lie down for a while, and once in his room the shirt felt like ropes around his body, the material pressed too close to his back. It couldn’t be keeping his wings trapped, even if they really were there, but logic made no difference to how it felt.

He did what he could to ease the pain.

Getting the shirt off took the last of his energy with it. Castiel is half dressed, still floating, with a shirt held crumpled between his hands. He isn’t sure if he hurts or not, but he does know moving seems like too much effort. No. Not quite that. More that he belongs in this one space in the world and moving from it will dislodge something.

He isn’t prepared to hear Dean’s voice.

“Dean,” he manages, dredging the word through layers of fog.

That seems to be all he has.

“Can I come in?”

Castiel must nod, or else Dean only asked out of formality, which seems very unlike Dean, because the door creaks all the way open and Dean is right there, crouching in front of Castiel, peering up at him as he sways on the edge of the bed.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean says. “You, er, you doing all right?”

He’s a pillar of aching salt and he can’t decide if it would be better to still feel the pain in his wings because at least then he would know they’re still there. Dean’s question makes no sense at all.

“Yes,” he says, because that’s what Dean wants to hear.

Dean closes his eyes.

“Cas, man, don’t do that. Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear.”

“Isn’t that what you want to hear?”

Dean looks up at him again and he looks wounded. It’s a look Castiel has seen before. Without quite meaning to, he reaches out and brushes his index finger along Dean’s forehead. He’s healed Dean before. It’s entirely unfair, that he doesn’t seem to be able to it now. He isn’t even sure when he lost this particular ability. He isn’t sure about a lot of things.

He does know he misses the jade green and gold he should see when he looks at Dean.

Dean’s eyes part close again as Castiel strokes his finger back across Dean’s forehead and trails down to his cheek, where he stops.

“Why are you here, Dean?” he asks, still with the tip of his finger pressed to Dean’s skin.

“I…” Dean stops, swallows. Narrows his eyes. “Cas, are you high right now?”

Castiel blinks.

“It was hurting,” he says. “Now it isn’t hurting as much.”

That doesn’t seem to be the answer Dean wants, because those are tears at the edges of his eyes. He’s made Dean hurt, somehow. That isn’t Castiel’s job.

“What hurts, Cas?” Dean asks. “Just tell me. What hurts.”

“Everything. I’m sorry. I know that’s not what you want-”

“Shut up about what I want.”

Dean clamps his mouth shut, his jaw tight, and breathes through his nose. He doesn’t tell Castiel to move his finger, and Castiel flattens out his hand, fits his palm to Dean’s face. It brings him closer to Dean, but Dean doesn’t pull away.

An image tries to push into Cas’ vision, of another time Dean was on his knees, with Cas’ hand on his cheek. He feels pain well up, and this sort is different. It’s not physical, or not in the way a human would understand physicality. The powder softens it, lets him float it aside, and he’s just looking at Dean in Beth’s spare room, with no wounds, no blood on his skin.

There are tears in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Dean says after a while. It sounds strained. “I didn’t mean to snap. I just… Fuck, this is hard.”

“What is?” Castiel asks.

Behind Dean, the wall warps and wavers. Castiel ignores it.

“Listen, Cas,” Dean says. “There are some things I got to say, and I know you’re not…not exactly clear-headed, here, but I need you to listen. All right? Really listen.”

“Okay.”

If Dean asks it of him, he’ll try. Dean should know that by now.

Dean moves, pulling away and standing, and Castiel’s hand hovers for a moment, drifts slowly back to his lap. He doesn’t turn his head as Dean sits next to him on the bed, but he sees Dean’s hand come to rest an inch from Castiel’s thigh.

“I’ve had a few things pointed out to me,” Dean says, “and I’ve done a lot of thinking, and I owe you an apology.”

“No-”

“Cas, I said don’t… Let me finish.”

Dean doesn’t go on until Castiel nods, which he does slowly, feeling as though part of him is drifting. Maybe all of him is drifting, just not in the same direction or at the same speed.

“Probably ought to do this when you’re sober,” Dean says. Something seems to strike him as funny, because he chuckles. It’s not an especially happy sound. “And when I am. Hell, we’re not the healthiest people. Maybe no-one is, but we’re owed some medals or something.”

Whatever Dean’s trying to say, it’s taking long enough that Castiel wants to lie back down. He lets the shirt drop from his hand and gives in to the impulse.

“What- Cas, you okay? You’re not passing out on me, are you?”

“I wouldn’t pass out on you,” Castiel says. “I’d be too heavy. I’d crush you.”

Dean doesn’t answer that, and Castiel has time to think that maybe there was more powder in that bag than he’d thought, or else it’s affecting him more than usual, but the ceiling twitches, vibrations running along it the way sound waves ripple after a bell is struck. Castiel used to enjoy watching that.

“This is stupid,” Dean says. “I mean, not this. I… I don’t know what I’m doing. But, Cas, I do know I haven’t always been the best friend I could be to you, and don’t even start to argue. I shout at you and lash out and give you the cold shoulder, and all you’ve ever tried to do is the best you can at the time. And I’m not going to promise it’ll all be sunshine and roses, because I don’t think it works like that, but I am saying I’m going to try. I’m going to try and listen more and catch how I speak to you, that is. So… So, yeah. I think that’s about it.”

Dean doesn’t sound certain about that part, either, but when Castiel turns his head to look, Dean’s smearing into lines, and it’s almost like seeing him as colors again. He can’t help but smile.

“You’re geometric,” he tells Dean, because he thinks Dean should know.

“You are high,” Dean says, and he sounds disappointed. “And Sam brought you back here. You weren’t high at the Bunker.”

“I wasn’t healing fast enough for you,” Castiel tells the lines that used to be Dean. “I’m sorry.”

“No, Cas, I was worried I wasn’t helping you right, that’s all,” Dean says. “Cas? Cas, you with me?”

Of course Castiel is with him. He can’t quite seem to remember how to say that, though.

“Fuck. We have got to get you straightened out,” Dean says, voice tight. “Sam! Riva! Get up here!”

The noise blurs, and Castiel lets himself slide, lets himself float. He feels his wings spread out beneath him and can’t quite think why that’s strange. He’s an angel. Of course he can feel his wings.

There’s nothing wrong about that at all.

*****************************************

“I talked to him. That’s it,” Dean says, and he looks at Val like she might snatch Cas away from him.

“He’s high,” Riva says, thumbing back Cas’ eyelids one at a time. “No glowing eyes, though. And he’s not completely out. Help me get him back onto the bed properly.”

Sam helps her, Dean standing back and looking tense.

Beth feels for him. Even the day before, she doubts she would have done, but now? Now it’s different, like Dean said.

When she moves closer to him, and reaches for his hand, Dean throws her a look that’s about as startled as she’s seen. His lips part, but he doesn’t say anything, and a moment later he grips back.

“After what you’ve told me,” Beth says, “he’s more than strong enough to beat whatever this is.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “Yeah. He’s tough. He’s a tough little dude.”

There’s nothing little about Cas, but Beth doesn’t correct him. When you’re Dean’s height, maybe even someone as tall as Cas seems small. Or maybe it’s just Dean’s way of making Cas small enough to fit inside Dean’s head. She’s having enough of an issue with what it can really mean, to have an angel as a guest under her roof. Shouldn’t it mean her crops grow plentiful or something? She’s almost sure there should be quickening involved.

“Why would he do this?” Sam asks.

“He said everything hurt,” Dean says, wiping his free hand down his face. “I don’t know. Maybe…maybe we let him push himself too far. Should have made him take a break hours ago. I guess it got too bad for him to cope.”

“Gertrude will be here as soon as she can be,” Val says. “She’s just got held up with something, but she’ll be over. Perhaps she can keep going with it and Cas can rest.”

“How likely is it she knows Cas’ own language better than he does?” Sam asks. “And Cas hasn’t got anything concrete.”

No-one answers that. They just have to hope Gertrude is good enough.

Chapter Text

Gertrude takes the news about as well as can be expected.

“An angel?” she asks, the mug they’ve given her held partway to her lips. It’s been there for at least a minute. “An angel?”

“You’ve asked that eight times,” Dean says. “You think you’re going to get a different answer?”

He wants to be upstairs watching over his friend, not down here watching yet another civilian go through an induction into the Truth About Cas, but Sam listened as Riva explained the drug’s normal effects on the guy and turned those eyes on Dean that said not to push it. And maybe Sam’s right. Maybe they need to walk a bit more softly than Dean’s instincts tell him to.

So he’s down here, leaning against a huge bookcase with a mug of some herbal crap in his hand. It smells pleasant, but that’s not the point. He makes a point to grimace as he sips it. No need to let Beth know how he feels about her holding his hand back there.

“She just needs a minute,” Beth says. “Don’t you, Gertrude?”

“Yeah,” Gertrude says. Her hair is silvered and there are lines, but the smile that spreads across her face a moment later could belong to a young girl given a surprise present. “An angel. He’s really an angel?”

“Yes,” Beth says, as though she really isn’t annoyed at all.

“Well, I’ll be,” Gertude says. She shakes her head. “I guess that’s why he speaks Enochian so well. Wait. That’s literally the actual language of the angels.”

“Yeah,” Sam says.

He’s sitting next to Beth on the settee, the both of them leaning forward as they watch Gertrude in the chair opposite. Val and Riva have vanished into the kitchen, and from the clattering and the aroma of rich garlic they’ve taken it on themselves to cook.

“This is…a lot,” Gertrude says. “I’ve been learning Enochian from an actual angel. I don’t suppose I can cite him in a paper.”

“Probably not,” Beth says.

Sam shifts, his hand moving on his thigh in a way Dean knows.

“What are you thinking, Sam?” he asks.

Sam shrugs.

“What if you could cite Cas? As a fellow academic. I mean, he’s got the knowledge, right? It’d just be getting him some paperwork to back it up.”

“Paperwork and a reputation,” Beth says, but she sounds interested. “Are you saying you could fake documents for him?”

Sam nods.

“I…think I could. Yeah. If he’d like that.”

“I’d be more than willing to speak for him,” Gertrude says. “I’ll claim him as a past student. Given his age, people would believe it.”

Dean snorts.

“Yeah. He might look that age, but believe me, lady, he’s a whole lot older.”

“Still,” Gertrude says, chopping her hand through the air in a way that dismisses Dean’s comment, “people can be easy enough to convince. And I’d love to have him work with me on more than one project. But where is he?”

It’s a shame to dim the brightness in her eyes, but someone has to tell her.

“He’s out cold on drugs,” Dean says. “Took ketamine.”

“Dean,” Sam says, shades of John in his voice.

Beth looks at him with equal parts disappointment and sympathy, and Dean wonders if she gets it, really, how hard he’s finding it to change the way he approaches Cas, the way he approaches even thinking about Cas.

“Sorry,” he says, dropping his eyes.

“He’s still in pain?” Gertrude asks, and it’s clear the drug use isn’t a surprise to her. “Is it to do with being an angel?”

“We think so,” Sam says. “Maybe. Cas has been through a lot, and it’s caught up with the last few months. He thought there might be something useful in some books we have, but he’s burned himself out reading them, and, well, we, hoped you’d help. You got any questions about angels, I promise I’ll share what I know. Later.”

“Just show me where they are,” Gertrude says.

Turns out, they have to pry her away from the table to get her to eat the food Val’s made, and she’s right back to it after, but a few hours before Cas wakes up, she announces she might have something.

***************************

Gertrude spins the book around and pushes it over to Cas, who frowns as he stares down at it. Stares and sways.

“I don’t know what I’m looking at,” he says, but Beth isn’t entirely sure Cas is even seeing the book.

It can’t just be the drugs. He’s been bad before, and he’s spaced out more than once, and no way will all that have just…gone away because Dean’s spoken to him once, but this is on another level. This is more he doesn’t seem attached to the same time and space as them.

“Partial differential equations,” Riva says.

When the others look at her, she waves them off. Val nods. Beth isn’t sure why her sister’s using that specific phrase, but Cas is understood as much by math as by any human experience, because Cas isn’t human, and they keep forgetting that. Why would he respond to the monster the same way Ashley did? Or any of the others?

She keeps the thought to herself just for now, as Gertrude points at part of the page.

“Right here,” Gertrude says. “This section. It could be useful, don’t you think?”

There’s something hopeful about the way she says it, and Beth’s never seen Gertrude look quite so much like a kid who’s hoping teacher will hand out a gold star. Gertrude sags slightly when Cas just sits there.

“Yeah, he’s stoned,” Dean says, and at least has the grace to double-take and look apologetic when Val shoots him a look. “I mean, you know, it’s for the pain.”

“The poor dear,” Gertrude says, as though it’s news to her. She’s never sounded like that before, either, but Beth supposes you never know how you’ll react to meeting an actual angel until it happens.

It’s probably different when you’ve spent your life studying them, too, even if not as a main interest, instead of being vaguely aware some people make ornaments of them the way Beth was.

She tries to imagine Castiel as an ornament, and fails.

“Just tell us,” Riva says.

Sighing, Gertrude pulls the book back and traces over the symbols as she speaks.

“An angel isn’t really solid,” she says. “Not in its base state. Not the way we are. According to this, anyway. Bit different to the way my mum used to talk about them, but then a lot of angelic lore can seem to conflict, and-”

“I’m sure it can,” Sam says, much more smoothly than Beth would have managed.

She kind of wishes she’d met Sam under different circumstances, if only because he’d have been nice to date for a while. If he was a university professor rather than a hunter.

It’s really hard to focus.

She takes another sip of her tea to ground herself and makes herself tune back into what Gertrude is saying.

“So basically we’re dealing with a creature which isn’t designed to be solid, but is trapped in a solid form,” Gertrude says. “The book’s talking about overlapping, about a battle for ground.”

“What, different parts of Cas are fighting for the same land?” Dean asks. “Do we need to draw up a treaty?”

“Essentially,” Gertrude says.

“Cas?” Dean asks, turning to his…friend. Beth’s going to stick with friend, even if it’s taking some mental adjustment, and even if it feels like a lie. “You planning on weighing in on this? The Professor here’s saying you’re waging war on yourself. You got a moat dug we need to know about? Playing World of Warcraft with yourself?”

Cas blinks, slowly, and almost manages to look at Dean.

“My Grace,” he says, like he’s picking carefully through mud.

“What about it, Cas?”

Beth catches Val’s eye, and they must thinking something similar. There’s a softness in Dean’s voice that Beth certainly hadn’t expected.

“My Grace used to keep my forms in lock. Enough to prevent overlap from being…from being destructive. Waves crashing together.”

Dean looks, if anything, more concerned. It’s in the dip of his shoulders and the shapes of his lips, in the way his eyes trace Cas’ face and the fingers of one hand twitch.

“Yeah, but you’ve got your Grace, right? And it’s your Grace, not some stolen shit.”

Which is clearly another story they haven’t told. Beth sees how Cas flinches at that comment.

“Yeah, it’s mine,” Cas says. “But there’s not a lot left. Maybe, maybe it’s drained away too much.”

It’s Sam’s turn to lean in, his expression more calculating than Dean’s.

“But you were low on juice before, when you were cut off from Heaven. You didn’t have this issue then. The pain, I mean, and the phasing out.”

Cas laughs. It’s short and bitter and both Sam and Dean look like they’ve been slapped.

“You saying you were in pain and didn’t tell us, Cas?” Dean asks, tone half-way between disapproval and worry.

“What good would it have done?” Cas asks. He shakes his head and his eyes clear, just a little. Whatever cycle he’s on in his brain, he’s closer to them for the moment. “But this is worse. I think… I think there’s only so much my bodies could go through. For one thing, I didn’t think of this as my body at the time. And I’d never been human. And I’d never eaten a billion souls. And I’d never-”

He stops, looking confused, and the smile that quirks his lips up makes Beth feel a little ill.

“And I’d never been mad,” he says. “I’ve done lots of things since then, Dean.”

The thought seems to pull the smile, sick though it was, from his face, and his eyes glisten.

“You listen to me,” Dean says, and only briefly flicks his gaze at the others before narrowing his focus to Cas. It’s so obvious Dean’s tuned the rest of them out that Beth feels almost wrong to still be sitting there. She wonders how Sam stands it, if this is a normal thing for them. “You’ve done plenty, yes, and it’s all been to help, and you have helped. Cas, you’ve saved the world, and for what it’s worth you’ve saved me, and Sam. And Beth and Val, too. That counts. Okay?”

Cas calms, visibly drawing himself together, and he nods.

“This is…intense,” Val says, but Beth sees the way her gaze lingers on Cas, she sees the worried pinch around Val’s eyes. “Does that book say anything about how to write this treaty?”

When Gertrude nods, Sam pulls out a notebook and pen and insists she goes over it in detail. They try to include Cas, but his lucid moment seems to be over, and after a while Dean persuades the angel to go and lie down. The rest of them aren’t given much time before they’re sent off in search of ingredients, and Beth finds herself in the car with Val on the way to some shop across town that sells a certain type of rock.

She thinks it says a lot that Val gets in the car without warning Dean how to behave even once.

*************************************************

Dean watches Cas sleep. It must be the universe getting back at him for calling Cas a creep, because he can’t make himself leave. Or doesn’t want to. There’s some part of him that’s worried if he walks out now, Cas won’t be here when he comes back.

“Brought you a coffee,” Sam says, and is by Dean’s side before Dean’s really processed Sam’s there. “You planning on sleeping up here? Because you know we can’t do this spell until dawn. Gertrude checked the book five times on that one.”

“Not sure I’ll sleep,” Dean says.

He feels keyed up, like he wants very much to hit something, and it’s taking everything in him to be calm and quiet and supportive the way Cas needs.

“No-one’s expecting you to suddenly drop all of your baggage,” Sam says. “You get that, right?”

Dean feels a pulse of anger and tamps down on it. It’s exhaustion and worry and frustration, and now he’s let the idea into his head that it’s not okay to pass that right on to someone else, he’s putting a stop to it. He can do this.

“You think I should stay the same shitty person who made Cas think he had to leave?”

“Dean, no… That isn’t what anyone said, about any of it.”

“Kind of what Val said.”

“And her opinion matters more than everyone else’s?” Sam asks.

He doesn’t sound as exasperated as he sometimes might. Sam can act like he’s got it all together, but Dean isn’t the only one who’s been thrown out of his orbit by this, he can tell.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

He knows that’s not true, though. It’s just… Well. Val gives him a harder time than the others, and in some ways Dean’s used to that. He doesn’t want to admit that it reminds him of his dad, but, yeah, that… It’s just that this is like having John in a woman’s body telling Dean to stop being so bullshit macho.

“Yeah, I don’t believe that’s really true,” Sam says, but he moves right on without pushing it. “You given any thought to after?”

“After?”

“Yeah. I mean, we’ll gank whatever’s preying on this town, eventually, and once Cas’ bodies aren’t fighting each other we’ll need to decide what to do.”

“Go home,” Dean says. “What are you even asking?”

“I’m wondering if we should take Cas with us,” Sam says. “He’s got people here. People who aren’t rushing off to kill vamps or worrying about the end of times, and maybe he needs that.”

“You think Cas will sit out of the fight once he’s well enough to be in it?” Dean almost laughs at the thought. “Yeah, no. You can fancy it up by making him Professor Cas all you want, but it’s still telling him to walk from everything he’s known. It’s still telling him to step out of the fight. I tried that with him once. He didn’t buy it.”

“Maybe. But we should make him understand he has that choice, Dean.”

“His home’s with us,” Dean says.

“We’re his family. That won’t change,” Sam says. “But his home doesn’t have to be just one place. It’s okay to have family living somewhere other than the room down the hall or the seat right next to you.”

Dean takes a moment. He’s almost sure Sam isn’t just talking about Cas. Dean feels a weight over his answer.

“Yeah. Yeah, no, I get you. I do. I just… Cas hears a dismissal, Sam, I’m sure of it, when we just think we’re not tying him down.”

“Then I guess you need to say it really clearly,” Sam says.

*********************************************

When dawn comes, Sam double checks the spell ingredients and runs through the order with Gertrude again. She seems almost giddy, with spots of color in her cheeks. Sam pats her on the back and leaves her adjusting the placement of a sprig of rosemary, heading upstairs to fetch Dean and Cas. And stops in the doorway.

Dean’s asleep. Dean’s asleep on the bed next to Cas, not touching but close enough it would be easy to sling an arm over Cas and turn it into something. Sam’s pretty sure Dean meant to be awake before anyone found him like this.

“Er. Dean?” Sam says.

His brother wakes at once, sitting up and peering at Sam, one hand up as though to shield his eyes.

“What? Thought you’d be happy I was asleep.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m glad you got some rest,” Sam says. If Dean isn’t going to make anything out of being on Cas’ bed, Sam sure isn’t going to. “But it’s time. We need Cas downstairs.”

“It’s dawn?” Dean asks, and twists to look at the window. “Already?”

Sam watches from the doorway as Dean leans over, shaking Cas gently by the shoulder and smiling down at him as Cas blinks himself alert enough to ask Dean what’s happening.

Dean scoots off the bed and waves Sam over when Cas winces, and it’s painful to see how much discomfort Cas is in. He leans on Dean and isn’t quite managing to keep the hurt from his face, but he gives Sam a slight smile when he takes Cas’ other arm, and he lets them help him.

Downstairs, they get Cas settled at the table and Gertrude hands him the instructions for the spell, written in her own handwriting on pages from a notebook of Beth’s. She stands with her hands folded together, clearly waiting for his judgment, and Sam is struck again by that dislocated sense he got back when they saw Cas leading his rebel army. It’s an awareness that Cas is more, that Cas is powerful and awe-inspiring and everything Sam thought he was back when they first met. Getting to know him, to love him as family, has changed things for Sam. He wonders, now, if it was right to let it go that way.

“This looks like it might work,” Cas says, but he doesn’t sound hopeful.

Sam isn’t sure if hope is just something Cas no longer allows himself, or if this really is a futile plan.

“I’d rather you left now,” Cas says.

He speaks to the air above the table, and from the way people look around, none of them are sure who he’s talking to.

“Who, Cas?” Dean asks.

“All of you,” Cas says.

“Is it dangerous?” Sam asks.

“Not to you. No.” Cas licks his lips, his gaze dropping. “I…I’m not entirely sure what it will do to me. I’d rather you not all…”

He shakes his head, and Beth slides a hand onto his shoulder.

“You don’t want us to see? Do you really think we’d judge you?”

“I don’t know what you’d think,” Cas says, and he looks up and round at Beth, his hollow cheeks and dark stubble making him a pitiful sight. “It might bring out aspects of my true form. I…I just don’t know.”

“Cas,” Beth says, “Val already saw your wings-”

“No,” he says, earnest and with more emotion than Sam had expected. “No, she saw the shadows. That’s all she could have seen. And this, well, there’s a reason reports can’t agree on what an angel looks like.”

Gertrude looks like she wants to take notes, or photographs, but she’s also still nearly vibrating with that desire to please.

“You’re saying more than one report is true? That your form changes?”

Cas looks uncomfortable. It occurs to Sam they’ve never really sat him down and asked him about himself. Not like this. Not in a way that gets at him being an angel instead of a friend with a collection of powers.

“My form doesn’t change,” he says. “Not as such. Do you consider your body to have changed just because you raise an arm, or lie down?”

“You’re talking about the difference between spinning wheeled eyes and winged beauties playing harps,” Val says. “Bit more than bending an arm, Cas.”

“Not on the cosmic scale,” Cas says, but he mutters it, as though not wanting to contradict them all on something so obvious as to be embarrassing. His head is tilted down, and he looks sidelong at Beth as he goes on. “Before I took a vessel, I wasn’t used to being so…limited in time or space, but that’s not the same as being formless.”

“Water doesn’t change its nature just because it’s in a different vessel,” Beth says, an upwards lilt to her voice at the end as though it’s part way to a question. Cas doesn’t respond. “But water can be become steam, or ice.”

“I’m not actually water,” Cas says, tipping his head slightly sideways in Beth’s direction.

For the life of him, Sam isn’t sure if that’s some joke. Cas’ jokes can be hard to spot.

“But, if I’m being water,” Cas says, and the brief flicker of what might have been humor drains away, “I don’t want you to see me spill.”

“I don’t want you to be alone,” Beth says, and Val nods.

Sam knows what they mean. He’s no stranger to making hard choices, to leaving loved ones when you have to, even if he’s had trouble when it comes to Dean, and he knows he’s left Cas behind before. He pushes the thought of Rowena aside.

“He won’t be alone,” Dean says.

Cas lifts his head, whatever emotion he’s been feeling swept away by that burning intensity he reserves for Dean, and Dean holds up a hand.

“No. I left you in Purgatory. No way am I doing it now. Besides, I’ve seen what can happen when an angel explodes. We planning on clearing the whole block?”

Sam hears the concern under Dean’s words, even if the women look at him in something like shock, something like disapproval. It’s not their fault. Sam tries to keep that in mind; they don’t know the brutal pragmatism that can come with hunting, with fighting. They don’t know that Dean masks his real pain with a show of abrasive uncaring.

“You have a point,” Cas says. “I don’t…think this will have that effect, but maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps I should do this somewhere away from town. There’s open space-”

“Stay where you are,” Dean says. “You really saying you might be an explosion risk? Because we are not doing this unless you’ve got a good chance of surviving it.”

Cas’ jaw clenches.

“I told you, I don’t entirely know what it’ll do. It should…realign things. Perhaps.”

And he looks away.

“What aren’t you telling us, Cas?” Sam asks, so Dean doesn’t have to.

Despite how soft Sam’s made sure to keep his voice, Cas flinches. He turns his head until only his profile is visible.

“Cas?” Beth asks.

“I…As far as I can make out, this is meant to, um, to fix an angel who’s been in a vessel under stress. The details aren’t clear.” Cas swallows. “There’s a name attached to the spell.”

“Who’s name?” Dean asks, almost pouncing on the end of Cas’ sentence.

Cas closes his eyes.

“Naomi.”

He opens his eyes slowly, as though he doesn’t want to, and almost, almost, looks back at Dean.

“You want to cast a spell on yourself that’s from Naomi’s playbook?” Dean asks. “Naomi? Naomi who wiped things from your mind. Naomi who made you go all Borg. Naomi-”

“I remember who she was, Dean!”

In the wake of Cas’ outburst, Dean rocks back on his feet, blinking like he can’t quite believe what just happened. Sam wasn’t there when Cas went Terminator on Dean, but the way his brother wouldn’t speak about it afterwards, beyond the bare bones, has left an impression. Form the look on Cas’ face, Naomi certainly never got to wipe that incident.

“You sure this a good idea?” Sam asks.

“It’s the best idea we have right now,” Cas says. “Gertrude’s helped me double check the books, but so far we haven’t got anything concrete. This book, it has…procedures on it that can only be from Naomi’s…area of expertise. I don’t like it, but I think…”

He stops and frowns, and Sam has the dizzying sensation that Cas is close to tears. No-one, not even Dean, interrupts as Cas drags the rest of his words from wherever they’ve hidden.

“I think Naomi’s treatments might have been holding me together.”

Treatments. Cas is calling whatever torture Naomi put him through treatments.

“She carved pieces of you out,” Dean says. “Cas, she practically lobotomized you. That ain’t treatment. That’s mutilation.”

Cas has that stubborn tone to his words when he answers, the one that says he’s turning himself to rock and refusing to be moved by the tide. Even as frail as he is, it’s hard to doubt he can do it.

“She kept me from shattering. That’s all I can think- Dean, I know it isn’t important, me being broken, but if this can-”

“She never fixed you!” Dean says. It’s closer to a shout than it should be. Dean seems to catch himself, because he looks at Val, at Beth, and drops the volume. “She never fixed you. She broke you more.”

Cas is silent. It’s a loaded silence, one that makes Sam want to warn Dean to back off, before the dam breaks. But Cas thinks he’s already broken.

“Who the Hell is Naomi?” Val asks, and it couldn’t be clearer she’s adding a name to a list.

“An angel. She was an angel,” Sam says. “She, er…”

“She was in charge of correction,” Cas says, his words lacking all emotion. “Re-education. She was charged with keeping us on the right path. I used to think it was… But maybe she was our healer. Maybe she kept us sane.”

“She tortured you,” Dean says, despite never saying it outright like that in Sam’s hearing before.

“Maybe my kind can’t function without-”

“No-one needs to be tortured,” Beth cuts in. “Cas, if you think this will help you, then we trust you. But be really sure. And remember, it isn’t about fixing anyone. You remember that, right?”

Cas meets Beth’s eyes, which is something he’s refusing to do with anyone else, except for when he forgets himself with Dean, but he doesn’t speak. Doesn’t look convinced, either. Beth’s expression saddens.

“Cas…” she says, a soft breath, and her hand on Cas’ shoulder tightens.

“I’m not human,” Cas tells her, and Sam can’t tell if he’s regretful to have to tell her or regretful it’s the truth. “Your truth isn’t mine. I’m glad you’ve found some peace, Beth, and I’m grateful for all you’ve done for me. All of you.” His gaze briefly flicks to Val and Riva. To Sam and Dean. “But I’ve been almost as close to human as an angel can get, and I know the difference. I…can’t heal the way you can.”

There’s shame on Cas’ face, in his voice, and Sam has to stop himself from going to his friend. This is more vulnerable than he’s ever seen Cas let himself be. Cas was the one to tell Sam he’s more important than the mission, and it strikes Sam that he’s never said the same back to Cas. Not really. Not in words.

“Then we find another way,” Beth says.

“Yes,” Cas says. “This.”

“I need to talk to Cas,” Dean says. “Alone.”

He says it in the same voice he announces apocalypse ending plans, like there’s no question it’s going to happen, and maybe Sam would let him have that, what with knowing Dean and Cas’ background, and knowing how much it cuts at Dean whenever they think they’ve lost Cas. Whenever Dean’s lost Cas.

He isn’t so sure Cas’ new friends will see it that way.

“Cas?” Val asks, but it lacks the heat Sam expected.

Cas pauses, and sighs, his shoulder under Beth’s hand slumping.

“If it’ll make Dean feel better,” he says.

Surprisingly, Val’s the first one to leave, tugging Beth with her, and Riva heads out just before Sam. Sam drops a hand to Dean’s shoulder, hoping that’s enough to show his support, and his hope that Dean really has heard what’s been said to him the last few days, that he’s really working on it.

Whatever happens here has to be Cas’ choice.

Chapter Text

Castiel looks down at the spell ingredients as the others leave, Gertrude the last out. They form a pattern that’s pleasing to his eye, one which mimics a sigil he’s always been especially fond of, one which implies unity, order and rest.

He hasn’t felt any of those things for more than a few minutes at a time, not for years.

When Dean takes the chair next to him, Castiel doesn’t flinch, but it’s only because everything is drifting so much it’s hard to feel connected to anything around him. There really must have been more of that powder than he thought, because normally it would have have left him sober by now, sober and hurting.

Of course, the pain has returned. Even against what he’s used to, it seems unfair.

“Cas,”, Dean says, “you gotta tell me what’s going through that head of yours. Does this really have a chance to help you? Or is this you strapping yourself together with whatever might last long enough to make you useful to the rest of us?”

He says that as though being useful to his friends, to those he wishes he were strong enough to think of as charges, wouldn’t help him. He’s tired of being a burden.

“I need to try something,” he says.

Dean’s hand on his arm startles him: the warmth of it, the weight, the fact Dean’s touching him for longer than a few seconds when death is not immediate or recently averted. He thinks he might be hallucinating when Dean’s hand slides along Castiel’s forearm and meets his hand. Dean’s fingers twine with Castiel’s and if this is insanity finally coming to claim him again, he thinks he may welcome it.

“Tell me if you’re doing this because you think you have to be useful,” Dean says.

“Of course I have to be useful,” Castiel says.

“You really don’t,” Dean tells him. “You’re family. Family doesn’t have to be useful to be family.”

“The last time I wasn’t useful-”

Castiel catches the rest of it before it can get out. Dean explained that. He explained it was about protecting Sam, at Gadreel’s word, and not about the state Castiel was in.

Still, he spent months thinking it was his lack of powers, his lack of usefulness, which left him unworthy of support in Dean’s eyes, and it turns out that such thoughts are hard to root out entirely.

Dean lifts Cas’ hand, bringing it closer to Dean, and it pulls Castiel around with it. It’s one of the gentler turns Dean’s insisted on.

“Cas,” Dean says, and Castiel finds himself looking up at Dean, even with his head still lowered. “Cas, you said I didn’t need to apologize for that, and I’m grateful you get it, man. I really am. But I’ve been doing some thinking.” Dean’s mouth quirks up at the corner. “A lot of thinking. And this is what I figure: my dad loved me, and he didn’t mean to take my childhood or a bunch of other crap he took from me. And I get why he did it. But I’ve been reading some things, and I think, maybe, I still get to be pissed that he did it. I still get to be hurt. And I get to try and move past it. You understand?”

Castiel nods, still looking at Dean. At Dean’s eyes. There’s the color he’s been missing, the green and the gold.

“Yes,” he says. “You deserved more than your father gave you, Dean.”

He doesn’t understand why Dean’s eyes narrow, why his mouth tightens. How can agreeing with Dean annoy him?

“I’m not just talking about myself, Cas.”

“Sam, too,” Castiel says, because a part of his role he can still manage is to tell Dean what Dean needs to hear.

“I’m not going to argue with you on that one,” Dean says,“but that’s not what I meant. Sam and me? We got a crappy deal. And we’ve got work to do. I…I’m just getting that. I think. Now sure how yet, but, yeah. But I was talking about you.”

Dean specifically mentioned his own childhood, but…

“Oh,” Castiel says. “You…”

But the conclusion he reaches, that Dean was using his own life as a kind of mirror for Castiel’s, is preposterous. Dean deserves better. Of course he does. And so does Sam. They always have done, even before they saved the world so many times. Castiel? He’s an angel who’s broken Heaven far more than Lucifer ever managed to do, and even though most of what he’s done has been to help others, still there isn’t enough penance in the world for the slaughter of so many of his own kind. That’s before he considers what he’s done to Dean, more than once, beating him, leaving him.

“Hey,” Dean says. “I know that look, Cas. I wear that look. Okay? You don’t get to…”

Dean stops, and huffs out a breath. A moment later he has his free hand on Castiel’s cheek, his thumb under Castiel’s jaw, holding his head steady.

“You…we…maybe we don’t need to beat ourselves up all the damn time, Cas.”

Castiel swallows, feeling the movement push against Dean’s thumb. It’s an odd feeling. Intimate.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with this,” he says, needing Dean to understand. He’s ignored Dean before, but he’d prefer not to have to. “I’m not healing, Dean, and the pain…”

Dean’s thumb strokes a circle under Castiel’s jaw, slipping an inch or two down his throat. A hand on his throat shouldn’t be comforting, but it is.

“If you say this is the best play to get you back healthy, then I’ll back you,” Dean says. “Hell, I’ll light the candles myself. But you don’t look sure, Cas. Just tell me. Please. Do you really think this can heal what’s hurting you?”

And lying to Dean is something he promised himself he wouldn’t do, not since the souls. Not since that circle of fire with Dean and Sam and Bobby on the other side of it. He has to keep faith with something.

“I don’t know. It looks…promising, in that it might knit together parts of me, if they’re torn, and if they’re in conflict.”

“But you don’t know if it’ll work and you don’t really know if that’s the issue?”

Castiel knows he’s torn, but he isn’t certain it’s in the way the spell is designed to fix.

Dean sighs. His grip on Castiel’s hand is firm and he’s still stroking that thumb along Castiel’s skin. His vessel’s skin, but it’s as close as Dean can get to touching Castiel himself, and Castiel’s relationship with his vessel is far beyond usual.

“Exactly what injuries are we talking about? I’m guessing there’s a lot we can’t see.”

And this is something that makes a kind of sense. A report. Dean is asking for a status report. Castiel feels his spine straighten, just a bit, and his focus sharpens. He can’t present his wings correctly, but Dean isn’t a Seraph and wouldn’t be able to see that anyway. It still grates.

“My vessel isn’t healing,” Castiel says, because starting with the part of him Dean can grasp, physically and mentally, makes sense. Reports should be ordered. “My shins are damaged, and there are gashes along my torso. I cut my hand. None of it’s healing as fast as it should, as fast as Riva says a human body should heal.”

“Okay,” Dean says. “So, you’re angelic healing magic isn’t working for you. Can you still heal anyone else?”

Of course, Dean needs to know whether they can rely on Castiel for that, just in case. It’s a sound question to ask, strategically.

“No,” he says, and has to stop himself from breaking eye-contact. “No, I can’t.”

“Right. So, are you running low on juice? You cut off again?”

This part is harder to explain, and Dean only ever has so much patience for Castiel talking about his own kind, his own reality.

“I don’t know. I…it was too much, hearing everything, remembering everything. So I shut a lot of it down, and then more. And when I tried to listen again-”

His own throat closes over the rest of the sentence, drowning it, and Dean brings his other hand up to Castiel’s face. In the absence of Dean’s hand in his, Castiel finds himself reaching out and taking hold of Dean’s jacket. The material bunches in the cage of Castiel’s fingers. Dean doesn’t seem to notice.

“It hurt you? Or you just couldn’t do it?”

“It was agony. So I shut it all down. That’s…” He stops and licks his lips. He never used to notice how dry they can be. “That’s when I woke up in the hospital. But before that, I couldn’t always feel my wings. Or see the colors. The last of my eyes are blind, or gone.”

Dean blinks at that, but now isn’t the time to explain the differences in how Castiel perceives the world.

“Until I went to find Val, I wasn’t sure if I’d lost my wings again, and I’m still not sure how much is left of my Grace. This spell, it resets and realigns what it can. It’s the only thing we’ve found that might help. I have to try it, Dean. I can’t keep…keep fading.”

Dean’s quiet for a while, long enough that Castiel thinks it must be odd, to still be holding Castiel’s face cupped between his hands. Perhaps Dean’s so busy calculating, so busy taking Castiel’s report apart and putting it back together that he hasn’t noticed he’s still making physical contact.

“The last of your eyes?” Dean asks, at last.

With his head held still, Castiel can’t nod much.

“Yes.”

“How many did you have?”

“I’m making you uncomfortable,” Castiel says, as the tension in Dean’s face hits him, the tightness of Dean’s shoulders. “I’m-”

“If you say ‘sorry’-” Dean says, and presses his lips together. This time, he sighs through his nose, sharp and short. “Fuck, this is hard.”

“You don’t have to try and understand this, Dean,” Castiel says. “It isn’t your problem.”

Dean’s lips part, and Castiel’s seen a similar expression on his face when Dean’s been hit.

“It’s my problem, Cas, because it’s hurting you, and I’ve not known… You had a whole load of eyes, huh?” He pauses only long enough for Cas to nod as much as he can, which is to say he shifts his head in Dean’s hands a fraction. “And the last of them are dark?” Another shift of Castiel’s head. Another tightening of the skin around Dean’s eyes. “And when did that start? When did you lose the first one?”

“I don’t remember. Years ago.”

Dean doesn’t look happy with that answer. Perhaps he’s thinking, as Castiel is, that even if it had been thousands of years ago, losing an eye should be a memorable experience. It’s likely another thing Naomi wiped. Maybe Dean isn’t thinking that at all. Who knows.

“Then tell me if it got worse when you met us. Cas. Tell me.”

“I’m an angel, Dean. A Seraph. Or I was.” That doesn’t wash away the look on Dean’s face. “I’m meant to fight, and to praise God, and to follow orders.” He rethinks the end of that. “Most of which are about fighting or praising God. Losing a few eyes, or having a limb ripped off, or… The point is it was never something considered worthy of note. We’re soldiers. Were soldiers. Wounds happen. The mission still needs completing.”

And this is where Dean gives him a talk about knowing what that’s like, and how Castiel needs to buckle up to finish the mission they’re on now. He waits. But it doesn’t happen. Instead, Dean alters his grip, and his right hand curves further round the back of Castiel’s head, into his hair. He feels like Dean’s trying to cradle him, to keep him safe, and he isn’t sure what to do with that.

“That’s not an answer,” Dean says. “It sucks. And I hate that’s the crap you’ve got in your head. But it doesn’t answer my question. Has knowing us hurt you?”

That isn’t a question Castiel can possibly answer. Dean has hurt him, and he’s hurt Dean, and he’s been hurt, so many times, since knowing Dean, but he’d still rather know Dean than not. And it hasn’t only been pain.

“Fighting through Hell cost me,” he says, because the practical is easier to deal with. “My wounds from that time were never fully healed, not even when I was resurrected, and there’ve been more wounds, yes, since then. But it’s been for a greater cause, Dean.”

From the tear at the corner of one of Dean’s eyes, that wasn’t the right thing to say.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he tries.

“Maybe,” Dean says. He closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them he seems under control. “But I didn’t know how bad it was, and I didn’t take enough time to ask. So go through it again, and this time tell me when it got worse. Tell me what might have made your eyes go dark. Tell me anything I might need to know so we can work this out.”

A more detailed report. It’s not the first time he’s been asked for that, either. It is the first time it’s felt less like a demand, and more like support.

*******************************

Val’s the first one to say it, and from the way she’s been glaring at the kitchen door Sam’s only surprised it’s taken this long.

“They’ve been in there forever. What’s he saying to Cas?”

“And what’s Cas saying to him?” Beth asks. When Val shoots a look at her, a puzzled expression on her face, Beth waves her hand. “You’ve got to have noticed he’s trying, Val. Dean, I mean. And maybe Cas can share things with him he can’t say to us. No. Don’t look at me like that. They’ve known each other for years.”

“Sounds like they’ve hurt each other for years,” Riva says, but she says it calmly, and she looks a question at Sam as she says it.

He finds all of them looking at him.

“Dean and Cas,” he says, and waits for that feeling he gets, the one that says he’s being disloyal when he talks about his brother, that it’s not much better to talk about Cas. It doesn’t turn up. He starts again. “They’ve picked each other up a lot, too. And there are times Dean won’t talk to me, and I think, maybe, he sometimes talks to Cas. Look, I’m not saying either one of them is just fine, or they haven’t made bad choices, but from what I can see Dean really is trying. And, thank-you, for being here for Cas when he didn’t feel he could stay with us.”

It’s a bit clumsy, and maybe not the best time, but Sam read through a bunch of those websites Dean had up, and even though he never caught it from Dad like Dean did, he supposes there are some things he can work on, too. If he’s really being honest. And seeing Dean try to pull back from snapping at Cas, and seeing him fighting against everything Dad and the world has poured into Dean’s head to do it, makes Sam willing to at least try.

So he wants these women to know he’s grateful, and he wants them to know they have nothing to fear from him.

“If, when, we get Cas fix-” He cuts off at Beth’s raised eyebrow. “Er, if we can help him heal as much as possible, if he gets to a decent place, we’re going to make him understand it’s his choice if he comes with us. You get that?”

Seeing four people soften towards him at once is novel, and Sam finds he likes it. Well, three and Gertrude, who wasn’t particularly hostile in any case, but who gives him a nod of approval.

“Yeah,” Riva says. “We get that.”

Val shifts, rubbing the back of her neck and not quite looking at Sam, her dark hair spilling over her hand.

“For what it’s worth,” she says, “maybe you aren’t both as bad as I thought. And we won’t try to make him stay here if he doesn’t want to, either.”

Sam nods, and risks a smile, which Beth and Riva return. Val hops down from the table and gets out four glasses, pulling a slightly dusty bottle from a cupboard and grimacing at it.

“Cooking sherry,” she says, and shrugs. “I suppose it’s this or interrupt whatever epic talk they’re having.”

She manages not to sound quite so much like she wants to go in and tear Dean away from Cas, and she meets Sam’s eyes as she hands him a half-filled glass. There’s some warmth there, and he raises his glass to it, and drinks.

****************************

When Dean calls them back through, Beth notices the way Dean has hold of Cas’ hand under the table. She also notices the slight flush to his cheeks, and the way he isn’t looking at Sam. One glance is all it takes to see that Sam’s picked up on the hand-holding, and that he’s got feelings about it, but he doesn’t say anything.

“So,” Dean says, “we figured we should give you some warning before we try this. Cas has looked over it all again, and he thinks you should be safe.”

“What about Naomi being involved?” Sam asks.

“Last time I saw Naomi,” Dean says, “she sounded like she really thought everything she did was for the good of all the angels. Cas tells me, far as he remembers, she was meant to be some kind of angelic healer.”

“Took a wrong turn somewhere, didn’t she?” Sam says.

“Still,” Dean says, “Cas thinks this is genuinely supposed to knit an angel back together. Not rip out parts of their mind.”

And now Beth really needs to know more about this Naomi and her actions. Rip out parts of an angel’s mind? Cas said he’s had dealings with her, that she’d corrected him more than once.

“Anything cataclysmic will only happen to me,” Cas says, as though that’s reassuring. “There’ll be no need to clear the house, or the block.”

“And the risks of anything that bad are low. Right?” Dean asks, but there’s a slight shakiness that says he isn’t certain Cas has an accurate grip of acceptable risk. “So, the spell’s going ahead and then we’ll assess if there’s anything else we can do. We think, maybe, the attack by that creature caused some of the issues, so we’ll need to deal with that, still.”

Cas nods, but he’s frowning down at the table now.

“You keep saying ‘we’,” Beth says. “I thought Cas wanted everyone to leave.”

“Dean can stay,” Cas tells the table.

It’s a good job she’s got a better grasp of what Dean’s like, now, because if she still thought he was Cas’ abusive ex, the way he’s speaking for Cas and the way Cas is following Dean’s lead would be sending all kind of warning bells.

“I’ve seen parts of Cas’ true form before,” Dean says, and must notice the way Cas startles at that. “Sorry. Forgot to say. And only, kind of, shadows of it? You know, when, er, when I…”

He waves his free hand near his eyes, and Beth sees Cas nod. From the corner of her eye, she sees Sam do the same. Whatever else can be said about these three, they have a shorthand she’s not sure most people can manage.

“I didn’t know,” Cas says. He looks to be reassessing a few things.

“Yeah, well. Thought we’d already established we need to talk about shit more,” Dean says. “So, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m starving, and I thought maybe you could sort out food while we do this.”

“You want us to do catering while you watch Cas try one of Naomi’s spells? Sam asks.

“Actually,” Dean says, one corner of his mouth quirking up, “I thought one of you could do a beer run.”

**************************

Sam accepts the situation far more easily than expected, and Dean finds himself alone with Cas again. With Cas and an angelic spell.

He stops himself from asking if Cas is sure. Cas has already said this is the best option he can see right now, and Dean needs to start showing some trust. The websites were really clear on trust being shown, and vocalized. Hell, they seemed to think all kinds of things should be vocalized, and not even the fun kind of being vocal, but Dean’s determined to keep working on it. With that in mind…

“Cas, before you do this.”

Cas stops with a stick of charcoal in his hand, having just finished a flourish on one sigil. He wouldn’t trust anyone else to write them. Something about them needing to be active.

“Yes, Dean?”

“I just want… That is… Look, I get you’re not eager to have anyone see you with your underwear down.” Which was perhaps not the best image to be conjuring up, but he pushes on. “But nothing I see here will change the way I feel. Er. About you. You get that?”

Cas nods, but he doesn’t look much happier.

Dean manages not to curse, because he needs to stop sounding angry at Cas when really it’s frustration they aren’t on the same page. He’s got to stop showing love through anger. He hasn’t finished reading the pages on that one, yet.

“For the record,” he tries, “the way I feel about you is a good thing. All right? No disgust or anything, here. You mean a lot to me, Cas, no matter what you look like. Okay?”

“Okay.”

That’s marginally better. Only marginally. But Dean can’t shape the words he’s starting to think need saying. He just can’t. This has to be enough for now. He hopes it’s enough for now.

At least, when Cas goes back to the sigils, he looks a little less tense, a little less guarded.

*************************

The last word of the spell writhes on Castiel’s human tongue, and he spits it out into the world. He just has time to pray, to catch himself and stop, before the word hits its target and the spell explodes under his skin.

His vision whites out in moments, the ebb and tide of him worked to a violence that makes him worry if he’s cast the right spell. Perhaps this is one designed to kill, not to heal.

He isn’t sure when the screaming starts, but it feels like it goes on forever.

*************************

Val sends Riva and Beth on that beer run, asks Gertrude to go pick up some ingredients she’s missing, and sets Sam to chopping vegetables while she multi-tasks getting out the spices she needs and worrying about what’s about to happen in the dining room.

“We’ve cast riskier spells than this,” Sam says, without looking up from the chopping board. “They know what they’re doing.”

She’d feel more reassured if his jaw weren’t as tense.

They both pause at the faint who-mph from the dining room, and Val’s knocked off balance at the sensation of the floor rippling, but Sam keeps chopping.

“That normal?”

“Anything up to and including ripping a hole into another dimension can be normal,” Sam says, and a second later flashes her something which does a good impression of a smile. “Don’t think we’re looking at that level, here.”

She’s still looking at him when a high-pitched buzz starts up, rapidly climbing the scale and growing louder, and louder, until she presses her hands to her ears. Sam drops his knife and does the same. He’s paled.

“What is it?” she shouts.

He shakes his head, and opens his mouth, and the screaming starts.

She’s one step behind him as they head to the dining room. She’s close enough that she crashes into his back as he stops in the archway, throwing his arms out and trying to block her view.

“Let me past!” she shouts. “What’s going on? Cas?”

Over Sam’s head, something dark and writhing flashes past.

As Sam freezes, just for a second, Val ducks and slips past him, and-

“Fuck.”

Cas is on the floor, on his back, and Dean’s kneeling over him, hands on Cas’ shoulders, keeping him pinned. Cas’ whole body is taut, his back arched off the ground, and any fragile hope the screams were from someone else dies.

Sam catches her before she can run to Cas, grabbing her round the waist and lifting her from the ground. She gets ready to jab him with an elbow, but the shape is back.

No. Shapes.

All around Cas, bursting out from him, are shapes she never put with angels. With Lovecraft, yeah. Not angels. Not even after listening to Gertrude and knowing about the spinning wheels, which…

Cas’ eyes open, and they glow that blue-white, but brighter. His whole body is engulfed in light, the twisting shapes thrown into darker shadows, and now there are other shapes. These ones are mathematical, geometric, and she sees them spin, expanding and contacting with Cas’ screams.

Sam moves, pulling her back, and throws her across the living room.

She catches herself with a hand against the far wall, gasping, and turns her head to find Sam only inches away. The look on his face is intense.

The screams cut out.

“What was that?” she asks, her own voice echoing in her ears. “Was that… Did I just see Cas?”

From the way Sam swallows, she knows he picked up the emphasis on Cas’ name. Cas’ true form. Even in shadows, and even having seen the shadows of his wings, it was…a lot. There was only one pair of wings back in that warehouse. This time, there were at least three. And she doesn’t even know how to…

“Those were tentacles,” she says.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Can’t say I’ve seen that side of him.”

His hand touches down on her shoulder, just briefly, and she nods. She can cope. She’ll be all right.

“Dean?” Sam calls over his shoulder.

“Get in here!” Dean calls back.

There’s no sound from Cas, now. Val follows Sam back to the dining room, but slowly. She wants to be there for Cas, but she’s shaking and her legs feel weak. Just before she moves into the dining room, she finds herself hesitating, not quite wanting to know for sure what’s happened. Riva’s the one who’s used to dealing with people in that level of pain, the one who comes round sometimes and it’s clear she’s lost a patient. Val teaches Math. She isn’t supposed to have to deal with this.

“Val,” Dean says. “Get in here.”

Steeling herself, she steps through the archway.

Chapter Text

Cas is still on the floor. That’s all Sam takes in at first glance. Cas isn’t standing, isn’t looking at Sam calm and unhurt and fully healed the way he’s done in the past after his Grace has fixed him up. His Grace or God or whatever keeps bringing him back.

No. Cas is on the floor, but he’s sitting partway up and his body is curled into Dean, his forehead pressed to Dean’s shoulder.

Dean has one hand fisted in the back of Cas’ sweater, the other curved around the back of Cas’ skull. His lips are pressed to the top of Cas’ head, and Sam’s almost sure he sees Dean’s lips move.

His gaze meets Dean’s and his brother frowns, clearly looking for Val.

“Val! Get in here!” Dean calls, but he doesn’t let go of Cas, and Cas’ doesn’t move.

“Is he…?” Sam asks.

He isn’t sure what he’s asking, but Cas might not be sitting up under his own steam, and he isn’t moving, and it’s all too easy to imagine what that might mean. Only, Sam’s seen Dean’s face when they’ve lost Cas, more than once, and this doesn’t match.

“Not sure yet,” Dean says, but it answers something, because no way would Dean answer like that unless Cas is still alive. “Help me get him up.”

Dean’s asked for help, but he doesn’t let go as Sam takes one of Cas’ arms. Not right away.

“I’ve got him,” Sam says, and sees Dean grimace as he unwinds from around Cas and shifts to holding their friend’s other arm. “How you doing, Cas?”

As he takes some of Cas’ weight and lifts, he feels the fine tremble in his friend. Cas looks around, up at Sam, and the relief at seeing his eyes open and alert is a punch.

“You look better,” Sam says.

It’s true. Cas is shaking, and he’s still pale, still thinner than he was, but his eyes aren’t darting around and he looks at Sam, through Sam, in a way that’s been missing. Sam didn’t even realize it until now.

“Thank you,” Cas says. He frowns, his eyes narrowing, and tilts his head. “You’re larger than I remembered.”

“Eyes?” Sam asks.

Cas nods. He hasn’t made any attempt to pull away from their hold, but he’s standing a little steadier on his feet.

“My wings are back,” he says, as though that’s an answer to Sam’s question.

“So it worked?” Dean asks.

He’s got his hands on Cas, still, one on his arm and one on his back, and Sam backs off, just a pace or two, wiping his hands on his jeans. Dean doesn’t even seem to notice.

“I think so,” Cas says. “The colors are back.”

Dean’s expression freezes, and Cas manages something close to an eye-roll.

“It’s not the powder. It’s part of how I see.”

Dean doesn’t seem entirely convinced, given the way he flicks a glance at Sam, his brow pinched.

“You’ve been seeing in black and white? What, like a dog?”

“Dogs don’t see in black and white,” Cas says, as though that’s the point that needs settling first, and it hurts something in Sam’s chest to hear Cas taking that sideways view of something after so many months with him being gone. “And no. I’ve been seeing the colors you see. This is more.”

Cas scrunches his nose, looking up and slightly to the side, and Sam knows that look. It’s the one that means Cas is trying to work out how to explain something to them. The hurt in Sam’s chest pulses and warms, easing into something altogether better.

“It’s more like…auras,” Cas tries, but he doesn’t seem entirely happy with his own attempt. “Or synesthesia.”

“You see music?” Sam asks.

“In my true form, I can be music,” Cas says, and Sam is almost certain that’s a Cas joke. Almost.

“Are your bodies all lined up?” Dean asks. “You all fixed?”

Sam sees Dean wince as soon as that last word is out of his mouth.

“I mean, you healed?”

Cas frowns.

“I have access to my angelic form again, but I’m not fully healed. I think it just reset the connections.” Which is something Sam will need to ask about later. “My wings are still ruined, and my body still hurts.”

“Which one?” Dean asks.

There’s no sense in Dean’s words that he’s finding this especially tough, thinking of Cas as two bodies folded into one. Sam supposes that, when your best friend’s an angel, some things barely register on the weird scale anymore. He’s not exactly struggling with the idea himself.

“Both,” Cas says. “But I can feel my wings.”

He says it fiercely, and they really have to talk to Cas about what matters to him, about how he experiences things, because up until this Sam thought the guy only missed his wings the way someone might miss good access to an airport. Apparently there are some ideas Sam struggles with.

“Okay,” Dean says, not quite managing to hide his worry. “Well, that’s something. I guess. Come on, lets get you sat down somewhere more comfortable than the floor.”

Val’s biting a fingernail when Sam looks at her, her face hard to read, and she vanishes from the room without comment as Dean guides Cas towards the archway. By the time Cas is on the settee, Val is back with a glass of water. It’s clear she isn’t certain it’s needed, and the way she almost sags when Cas smiles and takes it pulls something like understanding onto Dean’s face.

Maybe they do have a way to salvage something for all of them, here.

“So,” Val says, still from behind the settee, “color, huh? What color am I?”

Cas’ lips part, but he shakes his head and smiles.

“Not gonna share, huh?” Dean asks.

Sam recognizes that voice. It’s the one Dean uses when he’s gripping tight to a win, knowing the battle isn’t done. There’s a good chance Dean was hoping this spell would cure Cas all up, and it’s clear it’s helped, but it’s far from done with. They’re going to need something else.

“That’s unfair,” Val says. “How about we guess? If we guess right, you’ll tell us, won’t you?”

Sam takes a seat and watches as Dean and Val make suggestions for themselves and then everyone else, with Cas just shaking his head and refusing to confirm or deny anything. Dean throws a cushion at Val when she suggests buttercup-yellow and pastel-pink for Dean, and Val catches it, laughing.

Which is about when Beth and Riva return.

“What’s going on?” Riva asks. “Have they snapped?”

She’s asking Sam, and he shrugs.

“How’s Cas?” Riva asks next, apparently deciding it isn’t all that important that her sister is now laughing with the man they all thought was the enemy not all that long ago.

“I have my wings back,” Cas tells her.

“He’s still pretty banged up,” Dean adds, dropping a hand to Cas’ thigh, just above the knee.

Cas regards Dean’s hands thoughtfully and makes no attempt to move away.

“Is it just going to take time?” Beth asks.

“No,” Cas says. “I think…I think whatever is hunting in this town is affecting me. And…”

He trails off and manages to avoid everyone’s eyes. He isn’t looking round the room as much now as he was, though, and Sam wonders if it’s because his angelic eyes are doing it for him.

“And what, Cas?” Dean asks.

Sam hears the usual gruffness at not being told everything at once, but it’s layered under a deliberate gentleness.

“And I think Sam may have been right,” Cas says, reluctance clear.

It doesn’t take long for Sam to remember what Cas is talking about, even though it’s been months.

“PTSD,” he says. “You’ve got PTSD.”

“Um. Yes,” Cas says, ducking his head, like it’s embarrassing. “And, certain injuries from previous battles have never healed. I, er, I seem to…”

“Hey,” Dean says, and Sam can’t be the only one who notices Dean’s hand tighten on Cas’ leg. “We’ll track down whatever this thing is, and we’ll deal with it, and then we’ll work on that head of yours, all right?”

Cas nods.

“We all will,” Beth says. “If you want us to help.”

Cas nods again, and looks at Dean. Sam isn’t sure, but he thinks perhaps Cas is asking for permission. No. Not quite that. Cas doesn’t need Dean’s permission, and he never has, but maybe he’s searching for understanding, for acceptance.

“I think that’s a good idea, Cas,” Dean says.

If Cas notices the note of hesitation in Dean’s voice, he likely thinks it’s because Dean still doesn’t trust Val and the others. Sam’s pretty sure it’s Dean steeling himself for Cas to decide Sam and Dean aren’t needed now, that he’s going to stay here in a new life. A life without Dean.

Still, Dean’s hand is on Cas’ thigh, and Cas finally reaches and covers it with his own.

Chapter Text

Castiel wonders if he should keep his wings tight to his back. With Val sitting so close on one side of him and Dean’s hand on his thigh on the other, he’s in danger of touching them. At the very least, if he stretches at all, his wings will come close to wrapping around them.

It’s enough he can see again. He doesn’t have to be greedy.

He can see, and Dean’s touching him, even though it’s been an hour or more since the spell. By now, Dean’s normally withdrawn again, but this time he hasn’t. This time, his hand is warm on Castiel’s leg, and every now and then Dean rubs a circle with his thumb.

It doesn’t erase the pain Castiel still feels, running down his shins and across his chest and through his wings, but it is a more pleasant sensation to focus on.

“You okay, there, Cas?” Dean asks, ducking his head and catching Castiel’s eyes. “You look a little out of it.”

And that’s another thing: the spell, whatever it was originally designed to do, has linked his human form and angelic self together again, or at least made that link tangible to him. It’s also purged the drugs from his system. Everything he feels now is him, meaning the way he feels he’s floating is him. He thinks, maybe, it’s relief.

The nagging thought that just a small amount of the powder would reduce the physical pain again is easy enough to push away. It is. He can do this. He’s an angel, and has lead a Garrison, has lead an entire army. He can do this.

“I’m fine.”

It’s not entirely the truth, but it’s further from being a lie than it often is.

Still, Dean frowns.

“You said you’re still hurting. You still needing to sleep, too? You think maybe you should go and get some rest?”

And Castiel finds, immediately and viscerally, that he can’t bear the thought of closing his eyes, alone in that room, knowing that Dean could still have been touching him.

“No,” he says. “I’m… I don’t need to sleep. Yet.”

He’s tired. He’s tired enough he can feel it dragging at him, but compared to how he’s felt so recently, it’s nothing. And he doesn’t want to miss whatever it is that has hold of Dean right now.

“Yeah, no,” Dean says. “I think you do. You’re spaced out. I know that look. I’ve had that look. Anyone mind if I take Cas up to bed?”

Dean asks that to the room, and Cas catches the look of surprise on Sam’s face, the smirk on Val’s. It’s good to be able to see them all again, even though they aren’t all in front of him, but he isn’t sure what’s causing that reaction. Perhaps they think it’s amusing Dean’s trying to treat him like a human child.

“I don’t need anyone to take me to bed,” he says, and it comes out more irritable than he meant it to.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Val says, still in that teasing voice she’s been using since she saw the spell had worked. “I think a lot of us need someone to take us to bed every now and then. Wouldn’t be averse to someone doing that to me, really. Shame there’s no takers.”

This time, it’s Beth whose expression changes, but Castiel can’t quite work out what the look on her face means.

He really is more tired than he wants to admit. He knows he should be able to work this out. It’s just…his angelic senses are sharper, deeper than human ones, but having access to them can haze out some of the nuances of human interaction. It’s like standing on the edge of a high canyon, looking down at the people on the canyon floor through a telescope - he can see them in astounding detail, even with the damage to his eyes, but he feels less a part of it than if he were standing amongst them with his eyes closed.

That sense of distance may be from the spell, too. Naomi would want to keep an angel from connecting with humans. She’d have seen it as a taint.

“Cas?”

This time, it’s Sam’s voice, and Castiel comes back to himself to realize he’s slumped sideways, onto Dean, who’s holding very still.

“Yeah, I think you’re done,” Dean says, voice soft near Castiel’s ear. “Let’s get you upstairs.”

He opens his mouth to protest, and he really needs to sit up, but Riva speaks up before he can.

“I don’t know much about being an angel, but I’d be advising any human who’s recovering after an operation to rest, and this is kind of the same thing, right?”

“Not…exactly,” Castiel says, and gives in to human understanding. “But I suppose it’s close enough. Maybe I should rest.”

He needs to gather as much strength as he can before he goes after whatever’s been draining him. He can’t let it continue to put innocent people at risk.

“You staying here tonight?” Sam asks.

Castiel almost answers that of course he is, if Beth’s okay with it, which she almost certainly is, but he realizes that Sam’s talking to Dean.

“Er, yeah. If that’s okay with you.”

It’s Dean who asks Beth for permission, which she grants far more quickly than Castiel was expecting. They seem to have softened towards Sam and Dean, but his new friends still don’t know the Winchesters properly and he doesn’t trust that they’re over the barriers between them. Allowing Dean to stay has to be a positive step.

He doesn’t quite follow how he ends up in the spare room, Dean by his side. Val’s there, too, which seems…wrong and right. Such contradictions follow his life since he met Dean. It’s probably not worth worrying about. And it is so pleasant to see the greens and golds of the pair of them. He could watch them for hours.

“You passed out standing up?” Dean asks.

He sounds amused, but Castiel thinks there’s a thin thread of worry there.

“No,” he says.

He has to balance himself by flaring out his wings, because his body wants to tip sideways again. Dean doesn’t seem to notice.

“I think you need to get him into bed,” Val says. “You, er, you can deal with that, right?”

There’s some unspoken question there, or offer. Castiel isn’t sure. He does see the way Dean softens at Val’s words.

“Yeah,” he says, low and warm again. “Yeah, I can do that.”

Val steps forward, peering up into Castiel’s human eyes. She’s got the edge of her lip caught under her teeth, and it makes her look less certain than she normally is.

“You okay with this, Cas?” she asks.

He thinks she’s trying to be so quiet Dean can’t hear her, but that’s ridiculous, because this isn’t a huge room.

“Yes,” he says.

He thinks he is. He thinks he has a hazy idea of what she’s asking. At least, he gets she’s checking he’s okay if she leaves him with Dean, and it warms him to think that she can trust Dean won’t do Castiel harm. Not that Dean has ever done Castiel physical harm when he’s been clear and in control of his own mind, but it’s been jarring, to realize these women who have given him so much thought Dean was dangerous.

Dean is dangerous, and to Castiel, but not in the way they mean. Not in any way a human would understand, he thinks.

Val reaches up before she leaves, and presses a kiss to his cheek. Her hand rests on his shoulder.

“You take care of yourself,” she says. “And I’ll see you both in the morning.”

And she’s gone.

In the silence she leaves behind, Castiel hears Dean’s breathing. He sees him, too, but from the unguarded look on Dean’s face, he doesn’t know Castiel can see him. Castiel can explain his angelic nature, can even give Dean as close-to-concrete details as he can, but Dean can’t seem to grasp what they mean.

“Do you know I can see you?” he asks now, because it feels wrong to witness the soft warmth on Dean’s face if Dean doesn’t know he’s sharing it. “One of the eyes looking at you is slightly out of temporal alignment, but I can see you well enough.”

Dean’s brow creases and his mouth pulls into that shape that means he’s taken aback, that he’s processing.

“You’ve got your back to me, Cas,” he says at last, but it doesn’t sound like the rejection of information he might have gone with even a short while ago.

“Yes,” Castiel says. “And no.”

“No?”

Dean does sound confused now.

“No,” Castiel confirms.

He could turn around, face Dean, make this more normal for him. For both of them, perhaps, because for years now Castiel has made a point of looking at Dean with his human eyes when they speak. For the most part. But this feels…intimate in a way he craves. To share something of his true nature with Dean is something he finds he wants, and he thinks he might be allowed to want this.

“You said you have eyes in your wings,” Dean says.

He gestures with his right hand, waving it in the air in front of his own eyes, and Castiel isn’t sure if that’s for Castiel’s benefit or Dean’s own.

“Yeah,” Castiel says. “I do.”

“Then, you’ve got your back to me but you can still see me,” Dean says.

“Yes. But… On this plane, I have wings, and I have a human body, and it can be easy to think of my wings as being behind me.”

“On this plane?”

Dean sounds more intrigued than disgusted, so there’s that.

Castiel’s lips quirk up at the corner. Speaking with Beth and with Val has made him…thoughtful, perhaps. It’s made him think how good it would be to share more of his true self with Dean. And with Sam, of course, who may be more interested in an intellectual capacity. But it’s Dean whose understanding he wants. Maybe he can have that.

“In one version of my true form, I have four heads, Dean,” he says. “The concept of ‘behind me’ doesn’t exactly apply.”

“Thought that was just artistic license,” Dean says. “You’re a light-wave or something right?”

“I’m multitudes,” Castiel says, but he finds the words sadden him.

For one thing, he isn’t sure how true that statement is anymore.

“Yeah, well,” Dean says, and he steps forwards, sage-green and gold trailing in the sight of that one eye, and sets a hand on Castiel’s shoulder.

The fingers tighten, but Dean makes no attempt to move Castiel. Instead, he presses closer, until his body’s almost against Castiel’s, and dips his head so he’s speaking right into Castiel’s ear. Castiel shivers as Dean passes into the space occupied by his wings.

“I like this version of you just fine,” Dean says, “but you want to tell me about the others, I’m listening. You get that, right?”

The smile reaches Castiel’s voice as he answers.

“Yes, Dean,” he says, and abruptly loses all trace of what he might want to say.

Dean is warmth, and he’s been so cold for so long.

Tentatively, not sure if it’s what this is about, he leans back. Dean takes his weight and slides his free hand around Castiel’s waist. He hooks his chin over Castiel’s shoulder and closes his eyes.

“Do you…” Castiel starts, and pauses to clear his throat. “Are you coming to bed? With me?”

“I want to,” Dean says.

It’s close to a whisper. A flare of green tinged ocher flashes through Dean’s colors. Regret. It’s clearer than usual. Sharper.

“But?” Castiel prompts.

“But your new friends, they have a point.”

It takes Castiel a second, and he shakes his head, knocking his cheek against Dean’s.

“No. They got it wrong,” he says. “You aren’t… It’s not like they thought. Dean, they must get that now, or there’s no chance Val would have left-”

“No. Yeah, I know,” Dean says, his other hand slipping from Castiel’s shoulder and folding around Castiel’s chest. “I get that. And I’m glad they’ve stepped down the security alert, I am. But, Cas, they weren’t completely wrong. No. Let me finish.”

Dean does pause, though, until Castiel closes his mouth again. The regret flashes again as Dean goes on.

“I’ve hurt you, Cas. And Sam says…he says I get angry and some crap about Dad, and… No. Wait. That’s not fair, either. Can…can we lie on the bed?”

“You just said-”

“Yeah. I know what I said. I just think this might be easier if we’re more comfortable. Okay?”

Castiel is comfortable enough, here with Dean’s arms around him and Dean’s chest pressed to his back, that he could stay right where he is for days, but he nods. If Dean wants to lie down, that’s what they’ll do.

He stays silent as Dean strips out of his shirt and boots, as he discards his jeans. Castiel is already wearing the sort of clothes you can sleep in, and Dean’s soon wearing nothing more than boxer-briefs and a T-shirt.

When Dean hesitates, Castiel lifts the covers and slides into the bed, settling himself and leaving it up to Dean what he does next. Dean closes his eyes for a moment, mutters something to himself, and climbs in next to Castiel. When the covers are pulled up over them both, Castiel wonders if he can stop Dean explaining to him, yet again, how much he’s hurt Castiel and how sorry he is. The memory of the first two times is hazy, and maybe Dean is right and they do need to work on some things, but sleeping with Dean so close to him sounds appealing, and he’d like to get to that part.

“Sam says I lash out at you,” Dean says.

“I can take it, Dean,” Castiel says.

After all, it’s not as though his superiors always spoke to him gently. At least Dean has only used holy fire against him once, and that wasn’t applied directly to his body.

Dean sighs and covers his eyes with a hand.

“Point is, Cas, you shouldn’t have to.”

“You already said you’d try to catch how you speak to me,” Castiel says, because perhaps Dean just thinks he doesn’t remember, that Castiel was too out of it to hear those words.

“Yeah, I did,” Dean says. “And I mean that. But… Cas, can I ask you something?”

Castiel nods, and remembers Dean may not be able to see him. It’s with his angelic eyes he’s looking at Dean now.

“Yeah, of course.”

Dean rolls onto his side, and his fingers ghost over Castiel’s arm under the covers.

“This?” Dean says. “This touching, being in bed together. You get this isn’t what friends do?”

“I’ve seen you and Sam hug friends,” Castiel says. “I see Riva and Val and Beth hug.”

“Not like this,” Dean says. “Not the way I’m touching you now. And they sure as hell don’t share a bed, Cas.”

“Val and Beth sometimes do,” Castiel says.

“Yeah, well those two need to get their act together. Anyone can see that,” Dean says. And laughs.

Castiel waits to be let in on the joke.

“Come on, man,” Dean says after a while. “You get what this is. Don’t you? I…I need to know you get this. I’m starting to feel like a creep, here.”

Ah. Something in Castiel’s mind clicks, and that distance vanishes. He isn’t watching from afar, if he really ever was. At least, if he has been for years.

“You mean lovers,” he says.

He sees Dean flush, and it takes two goes at opening his mouth before Dean replies.

“Yeah, Cas. I mean lovers. God, we need a different word for that.”

Castiel searches for a way to confirm what he’s thinking, because even what they’ve just said doesn’t make him entirely trust he’s reading this right.

“You said I was like a brother to you,” he says. “Years ago, that’s what you said. Brothers don’t…”

“Not unless you’re in Game of Thrones,” Dean says. “And you’re a brother to Sam, and I get it’s all weird and tangled up, but you ain’t a brother to me. I don’t want to do this with a brother.”

Dean’s lips are warmer than Castiel expected.

When Dean pulls back, only a few seconds later, Castiel still feels the press and texture as a ghost memory. His fingers twitch and he has to stop himself from reaching out and pulling Dean back in.

“Not a brother,” he says. “I think I get what you mean.”

“And…is that okay?” Dean asks. “Do you want this?”

“Do you?”

Dean laughs again.

“Fuck, yes.”

And Castiel gives in to the urge to pull Dean back to him. He’s not sure this counts as talking things through, but he isn’t going to complain. They’ve started the conversation. It can be finished later.

Chapter Text

Dean doesn’t sleep.

Cas sleeps. He’s a warm weight near Dean, his human body slumped into the mattress, and Dean resists folding himself around the guy.

That spell must have done some good, and it’s great Cas has his wings back, and his eyes, and if that isn’t something a younger Dean would have found freaky and wrong then Dean doesn’t know what is. Thing is, Cas is still hurting, and he’s still worn down and worn out, and Dean isn’t about to make that worse.

He’s determined he isn’t going to make anything worse. Not anymore.

In the stillness and darkness of the room he’s sharing with Cas, Dean touches an index finger to his own lips. He kissed Cas. Hell, he kissed Cas for long enough his body thrummed with it, and pulling back without taking things further was enough to leave him jittery and wanting. Pulling back was the right choice, though.

Cas was almost asleep by then, and Dean still isn’t sure how much experience he has. Sex is probably something they should talk about before they try it.

And, fuck, but he’s thinking about having sex with Cas.

Maybe Cas doesn’t even want that. Not just right now. Right now, Cas is in rough shape, and no-one can be feeling frisky when they’ve been used as a chew-toy by the universe. No, Dean’s wondering whether someone who identifies as a beam of light and a million eyes and wings and weird limbs and whatever-the-fuck-else Cas is can even want sex.

Sure, Cas had that experience when he was human, but Dean’s thinking maybe he handled that all wrong. For one thing, in his reading up on abusive relationships he stumbled across a page on people who end up in relationships just to have a roof over their heads.

The tendrils of uneasiness from that still catch at his mind. Not that it applies to Dean. Not really. Sure, there were those times he fell in with someone, when his dad was out of town, or when Sam was away at Stanford and John said Dean could hunt alone, but it’s not like Dean needed to trade sex for housing. He could hustle money, given a chance.

Maybe, once or twice, he’d been as pleased about a free place to sleep as anything else, but he always had the Impala. And back before Sam left he couldn’t leave his brother alone for too long, anyway.

No, Dean’s thinking about how much of a choice Cas thought he had with that Reaper.

He thinks he gave Cas a choice tonight.

Just the edge of the idea he might have put pressure on Cas, with everything from those websites so fresh in Dean’s mind, is enough to have him out of bed and halfway down the stairs before he thinks about it.

There’s a light on.

Thoughts of Cas and his free will dim as Dean steps softly, his hand feeling empty with no gun or knife. It’s the kitchen light, spilling through the living-room and into the hallway.

Dean makes it to the doorway and stops, uncurling from his crouch.

“Hey,” Val says, not looking up from her excavation of a tub of ice-cream. “You want to grab a spoon?”

**********************

Dean looks almost sheepish when he takes a spoon and digs into his own tub of ice-cream. There’s a glimpse of joy on his face as he eats, though. It’s pure enough that Val has trouble, for a minute or two, accepting a big, bad monster-hunter could be feeling it.

They eat in silence for a while, Dean licking the melting ice-cream from his spoon in a way which is not distracting. It’s not. At all.

Okay, so she has eyes and he’s easy on them, and maybe she should mention the spoon-licking thing is…interesting. But he must know. That first time they met, he struck her as someone who knew how to use his looks, his appeal, to his advantage, and she hasn’t changed her mind on that one.

“You want some time alone with the spoon?” she asks.

Dean freezes, his tongue flat against the metal, and his eyes swivel her way.

There’s a flush to his cheeks as he kicks back into action, pulling the spoon away and licking his lips.

“Uh. No,” he says. “I’m good.”

“You didn’t get enough action already?” she tries next, and knows she’s prodding him, and that maybe it isn’t fair.

But damn it, this is Cas. She knows herself well enough to get once she takes someone under her wing she gets a bit guard-dog about them, and knowing Cas is a celestial being doesn’t change the way she feels she should stab anyone in the face who even looks like the might be threatening him.

The irony of taking an angel under her wing, when he has actual wings, is enough that at this time of night it makes her smirk. It’s not even humor. Not really. It’s just that her brain has been close to overload for longer than she likes, and almost anything could set her off laughing or shouting or screaming right now. Her emotions are layered over exhaustion, and she isn’t sure they’re even properly attached to her, but she hasn’t got time to work it all through just now. So she lets her lips curl when they want to.

Dean hunches and scowls.

“It wasn’t like that,” he says, clearly defensive. “You think I’m that much of a sleaze? The guy’s still hurting.”

And just like her brief burst of almost-humor is gone. She drops her own spoon and runs her hands into her hair, gripping it and resting her elbows on the table. She can’t see Dean properly now, but she feels the need for the stability this pose offers.

Those slashes from the creature in the warehouse still hurt, even though they aren’t as bad as she thought they were at the time, and it’s not been long since she found out one of her close friends isn’t even human. And Beth didn’t ask her to sleep in her bed.

“Give me a break,” she says, and doesn’t mean to snap. “A few days ago I was all for running you out of town.”

The silence after that isn’t as tense or as hostile as it should have been. When she finally sneaks a look at Dean, he almost looks comforted. Which is… Well.

“You’re kind of screwed up, aren’t you?” she asks.

Dean nods.

“Starting to get that. Well, no. I’ve known for years. But I think I’m starting to get how it’s hurting the people I…the people I care about.”

Val doesn’t dare move too much. Something about the way he’s spoken, his gaze fixed somewhere in the middle distance, makes her think this is a rare thing for Dean, and that this is some middle-of-the-night spell. If she draws his attention to how he’s sharing, he might stop.

“How?” she asks.

She hopes it’s the nudge he needs, something he won’t register enough to resist it.

“My dad was a piece of work,” Dean says. “In some ways. Don’t get me wrong: he was a hero. Dedicated his life to chasing down and getting rid of monsters so other people didn’t have to lose their comfortable lives. Thing is, he could have worked on getting us our lives back instead, and he didn’t, and I…”

He gestures at himself, and closes his eyes, and grimaces.

When he opens his eyes again, his expression says that chapter is closed again.

“Look, I’ve been through enough shit since then, and learned enough to know it wasn’t all his fault, but maybe I’ve got crap to unpick over that. And maybe I don’t… I need to be able to… Cas doesn’t deserve any more of my…”

He can’t seem to get to the end of a sentence, and Val wonders, briefly, why she’s the one he’s telling.

“Just trying isn’t enough,” she says, and sees him sag. “But it’s a damn sight better than not trying. Seriously, Dean. I know we had you pegged as… Well. Anyway. And I’m not saying you’re free and clear, because the way you speak to him sometimes, it’s all wrong, but you’re not Greg. I can see that now.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m good for him, either,” Dean says. “Does it?”

Val shrugs.

“The other day, I wouldn’t have said so. But now? Now, I think you’ve got crap to work on, like you say, but I’ve seen you support him and reach out to him, and I’ve seen the way you two look at each other. Don’t get me wrong. Love isn’t enough. It doesn’t wipe away everything else, and if you tear at each other, it doesn’t matter how much love there is. But maybe, if you keep working on it, you can be good for him. Besides, aren’t angels all about devotion? The look on his face when he sees you, it’s pretty clear who he’s devoted to.”

And it doesn’t grate as much as it did when she first saw it, back when she thought Dean was nothing but pain and trouble.

“If I keep working on it…” Dean says. He shifts and meets her eyes. “There any chance you can get my back on that?”

When she frowns, he rushes on, leaning forward and somehow managing to fill her vision. She isn’t changing her mind that this one’s dangerous. There’s something compelling about him. Even like this, when he’s troubled and confused, he drags her attention to him and holds it. He could probably charm the world if he tried.

“I want to work on it. I do. But I’ve got a long history of circling the same mistakes, and if I slip up here, it might be too much. And maybe I won’t even notice. So I need to know it won’t just rely on me catching myself.”

Realization dawns and she blinks.

“You want me to keep a check on you? Pull you up if you do something wrong by Cas?”

Dean nods.

“Yeah. Will you?”

And this, more than anything, shifts the lines she’s drawn around Dean in her head.

She holds his gaze and nods back. It feels like a contract.

“Absolutely,” she says. “Just try and stop me.”

And the guy smiles, and relaxes, and picks up his spoon.

“Eat up,” he says, apparently over their moment. “Your ice-cream’s melting.”

Chapter Text

Castiel wakes to a bed significantly devoid of Dean.

His wings flinch in, cocooning him, as he curls up and searches through his memories. Dean was here. He’s almost sure of it. That silver-bright certainty he felt when he was fully a part of the host has faded and he doubts he’ll ever feel it again, but he isn’t so far gone he’s wrong about last night.

He didn’t even have any of the powder in his system.

There might be some, still, under the mattress. Dean won’t approve, and neither will Val, but they aren’t here, and the ache in Castiel’s wings is growing deeper.

With a low growl of frustration, he pushes back the covers and rolls to his feet. He only stumbles a little.

There are sounds from downstairs, and he follows them until he finds Dean and Val and Beth in the kitchen. Beth is whisking eggs and Val and Dean are sitting at the table, next to each other, reading something on a laptop’s screen.

“What’s going on?” he asks. “Have you got a lead?”

“Hey,” Dean says, shutting the lid in a gesture that almost manages to be casual. “I was going to bring you up some coffee.”

“Well, I’m up now.” Castiel says, because it’s true and because he isn’t sure what else is supposed to go in his part of this conversation.

He’s only had the one morning after experience before, and he isn’t sure if kissing and falling asleep on someone counts as his second. Besides, the situation with April hasn’t exactly left him with a good map for these things.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Dean says.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Val says, kicking out a chair to her other side. “Come and sit down before you fall down. Dean, get your boyfriend some coffee.”

Castiel waits a beat for Dean to protest at the term, but Dean’s lips curve into a smile.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll do that. Sit down, Cas. You sleep all right?”

Something in the world must have slipped sideways, because Dean’s acting like nothing momentous happened last night, and like the easy closeness Castiel has seen in couples is already theirs, both at once.

In lieu of understanding, he takes the seat he’s been offered.

Occupied with his own situation, it takes him a minute or so to notice that Beth hasn’t spoken, and that she’s got her back turned more towards Val than normal. There’s something hunched about her, and he finds it tugs at him.

Dean distracts him, placing a mug of coffee in his hands and hesitating. He looks up to see a thoughtful look on Dean’s face, the kind he gets in that split second before he leaps into a fight he isn’t sure he’ll win, and Castiel is about to ask Dean is he’s okay when Dean dips forward and presses a kiss to Castiel’s forehead.

Val smiles at Dean as he returns to his own seat, and Castiel is almost sure there’s something approving in it. Dean smiles back, a quick quirk of the lips that most people might have missed. Castiel is not most people. More to the point, Dean isn’t trying to hide it from him, perhaps at least partly because Castiel is looking at him with one of his celestial eyes, and it seems Dean is taking some time to adapt to the knowledge they exist.

With other eyes, he turns his attention back to Beth. She does look unhappy. Deflated. It’s not what he expected.

Maybe she’s rethinking what it means to have an angel in the house. Val may have described what she saw during the spell, and he knows no human can really fit an angel’s true form into their minds, let alone their hearts. Dean’s comments were reassuring, but Dean has never been ordinary. He’s both the most human and the least usual human Castiel has ever met.

Val may not have seen much, and she is fiercely loyal and determined and likely is just refusing to let her discomfort show, but Beth has always been easier for him to read. Even from a second-hand account, it can’t be easy to know a fraction of what he really is.

Even without that, he failed to save Val before she was hurt, and he’s brought confusion and trouble to Beth’s house, and Beth doesn’t need any of it. She may just be realizing it, finally.

“I can leave,” he says without thinking.

Leaving has so often been his solution.

Dean jolts, shooting a startled look his way, his mouth turned down. Val responds only a split-second later, frowning as she turns to him. Beth stops moving.

“Why would you leave?” she asks.

“You seem unhappy,” he says. “I don’t want-”

Dean and Val say his name as the same time, but it’s the hitch in Beth’s breathing that catches him, and he’s out of his seat and next to her before he’s processed he can’t do much with coffee in his hands.

He sets the mug down on the counter and lowers his voice. He’s close enough she’ll be able to hear him.

“I understand if you’re unhappy with me being here,” he says. “You didn’t ask for this. I should… I should have told you.”

Beth looks at him, and he can’t place the expression on her face.

“You aren’t making me unhappy,” she says. “It’s not… I don’t want you to go.”

He isn’t sure if she means his leaving wouldn’t help, or that the thought he might leave is making her sad. The idea someone could be upset at him going is new, and hard to grasp hold of.

He watches as she sets down the bowl of eggs and wipes her hands on her hips. She still looks upset.

“Are…?” he starts, and has an armful of Beth.

Her head tucks under his chin, and it only takes him a few seconds to remember to close his arms around her. His wings fold up of their own accord, wrapping around her back. Some of her hair tickles his chin.

He wants to ask her if it’s him that’s the problem, whether she’s worried he’ll leave, or if it’s something else entirely, but he feels trembling running through her body. She’s crying. He tightens his arms, splaying one hand out across her back and cradling the back of her head with the other.

Beth shouldn’t hurt. Beth should never hurt.

“What’s wrong?” Val asks.

Castiel looks at her with the wrong eye, with the one that expands everything it looks at, and catches nothing more than a strand of her hair, dark and coiled.

When he manages to focus properly, bringing other eyes to bear on her, Dean has the edge of his hand right next to Val’s. Castiel’s sure there was more space between them before.

Beth doesn’t answer. She just shakes her head, rocking it backwards and forwards against Castiel’s human chest, and the up-swell of affection, of protectiveness he feels for her almost staggers him.

Dean and Val stay watching from the table, tense and poised to step in, Castiel is sure, as Beth sobs in his arms. He doubts she can feel the ruin of his wings about her, but he can’t bring himself to uncurl them. Two pairs surround her, the other pair flared up so he can keep up a watch on the room.

Dean is here now, and he can keep guard, but Castiel has been a solider for too long to be comfortable letting his watch lapse.

Finally, Beth stops crying. Her body stills and she burrows her head closer.

“Are you okay?” Castiel asks.

There’s a pause before she moves, pulling back enough that he lets his hands slide to her shoulders. Her eyes are reddened and puffy. She smiles up at him, a wavering thing that looks like it could die all too easily.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she says.

“Nothing is wrong with you,” Castiel says, perhaps too fiercely.

Her smile grows, still watery but warmer, and she preses her open palms to his chest. It feels strangely like a benediction.

“Thank-you, Cas,” she says, soft and small. “But I mean I don’t know why I feel like this. I’m all jumbled up this morning.”

He sees her eyes skate sideways, just for a moment, before snapping back to him. He’s almost sure she was looking at Val, but it could have been Dean. Or nothing.

“Perhaps you need to sit down,” he says, because that’s something he’s heard people say when someone’s upset. “Dean can finish cooking.”

He isn’t sure why he volunteers Dean. Val has cooked before, although she still steers clear of baking, and it’s not usual for a guest to cook. He knows that much.

“Sure,” Dean says, before Castiel can feel awkward. “I can finish up the eggs. You got anything to go with them?”

Val directs Dean to the bread for toast, and Castiel finds himself taking Beth through to the living-room. Val brings him his coffee a moment later, and hovers near the settee.

“You, um, you two okay, then?” she asks.

Beth nods, but doesn’t look at her, and Val disappears back into the kitchen with a sigh. Maybe Castiel was wrong about the problem, here. He tests his new hypothesis as gently as he can.

“Do you want to talk? About…about Val?”

Beth smiles again, not looking at him now, but it’s the kind of smile that doesn’t mean happiness.

“I’m being stupid,” she says. “Really, Cas, there’s no need to worry.”

Castiel reaches out and takes one of her hands, almost drawing back when she jolts. A moment later, she tightens her grip, and draws both of their hands onto her lap.

“You told me I wasn’t broken,” he says.

“Because you’re not,” Beth says. “I know it can be hard, but I don’t like to hear you think of yourself like that.”

“And I don’t like to hear you call yourself stupid,” he says, and maybe it’s cheating to set her up with that line, but he’s been a tactician for billions of years and he knows enough about being human now to use some of that on them. “You told me that whatever I’m feeling is okay, that I don’t have to hide it or fight it.”

It was during one of the nights he stayed here, a night when he woke up and the screams didn’t stay inside his head. Beth sat with him for hours, making mug after mug of chamomile tea, and told him his feelings were valid and he could let them crash against him and pass or keep fighting them and have them drown him. It’s one of those conversations he’s never mentioned to anyone else, and that he’s not brought up with her again, either.

Now, he feeds her own advice back to her, hoping it’s what she needs to hear.

Beth closes her eyes and breathes out through her nose.

“You…” she says.

He waits. Sometimes, thoughts can take a while to travel out into the world. He knows this, better now than ever.

Opening her eyes, Beth reaches for his mug and takes it from him, swallowing half of it and pulling a face.

“I can’t believe you drink it that sweet,” she says.

“Don’t insult my coffee,” Cas tells her, to see her smile again. “What do you feel and why do you think it’s stupid?”

“Cas,” she says, tipping her head sideways as though she thinks that part of her might be able to leave the conversation, “you’re barely out of angel-surgery and you’re still hurting. And you’ve had a lot on the last few days. You don’t need to waste your time worrying about my feelings.”

“This is far from the biggest ‘lot’ I’ve had on,” Castiel tells her, “and you’re my friend. I want to help, if I can. And…and it’s helped me, to have you to talk to. To…confess to.” He knows she won’t like the connotations of that, but it carries a meaning to him he can’t quite escape. “If I can, I want to return the favor.”

“Fair enough,” Beth says. Breathes, really. “Okay. Okay, I suppose it can’t hurt.”

She shifts on the settee, pulling away enough to lean over and put the mug on the coffee table before pulling her legs up and hugging her knees. With her cheek resting against her own knee, and her hair spilling gold, she looks vulnerable and precious and Castiel is almost certain neither of those are the right thing to say. He waits for her to speak.

“I get emotional sometimes,” she says. “I don’t always know why. Hell, I once spent half an hour crying because the TV wouldn’t turn on when I pressed the button. And another time I laughed at a sheep for ten minutes when I was out on a walk. It was just a sheep. Standing there, doing nothing. And it was the funniest fucking thing I’d seen in weeks. So, don’t think there’s always a logical reason, not in the sense that everyone would see it as a good reason for whatever I’m feeling.”

“Sheep can be amusing,” Castiel says. “So can a lot of things other people don’t seem to find funny.”

“Yes,” Beth says. “But sometimes even I don’t know why I’m reacting that way. I don’t know why I’m upset this morning. You’re at least a lot better than you were, Dean isn’t the abusive asshole we thought he was. The two of you seem to be working something out between you.”

She flicks a glance at him then, a crease between her brows.

“Are you okay with that? Should we have told him to leave, or to sleep somewhere else, at least?”

Castiel shakes his head. He resists the urge to press his lips together, the memory of Dean’s lip against them still strong.

“No. No, I’m good with that. I…I wanted that.”

He still wants that. He would have been happy to wake up and find Dean still in bed with him. Perhaps he’ll get to have that another time, if the kiss on his forehead is any indication.

“Good,” Beth says. “Good, I’m glad.”

A thought crosses Castiel’s mind.

“Is that why you’re sad? Because of me and Dean?”

Beth shrugs, and hides her face against her knees.

“No,” she says, voice muffled.

“Beth…”

“All right,” she says, still with her face hidden.

Castiel has to stop himself from taking hold of her and lifting her head, because he isn’t worthy of having someone hide their face in his presence.

“All right,” Beth says again, apparently needing to gain momentum before she speaks. “Maybe. Not because I want you to be apart if you want him. It’s just… I think I had myself convinced Dean was like Greg, and he isn’t, and I’m over Greg. I am. I really don’t want him back. I just… God, I told you this was stupid.”

A thread of understanding reaches him.

“It upsets you that my situation with Dean isn’t what you thought it was,” he says.

Beth shrugs.

“Not your fault,” she says. “I shouldn’t have assumed as much as I did.”

Castiel sets the pad of his index finger on Beth’s shin, just enough so she knows he’s close. Physical proximity can be comforting, he’s found, if it’s from the right person.

“I am sorry, even so,” he says. “I didn’t know what you were thinking, not for a long time. I would have corrected you. I…I never want to lie to you.”

“Cas, to be honest, if you’d said I was wrong I’d probably have decided you were just defending him,” Beth says, and now she looks up. Fresh tears sit in her eyes. “It’s not like I gave up defending Greg right away, not even after I left him. There’s always some way to convince yourself it’s your fault, or you’re over-reacting. You know?”

“I suppose,” Castiel says, and quells the comments he’d been going to make about Dean not meaning it the times he has hurt Castiel.

Beth won’t be in the mood to listen to them right now.

“And I guess, yeah, a bit of me is envious,” Beth goes on. “For a while there, I’d have given my left arm if it meant all the blame could go away and it would turn out Greg wasn’t…the way he was. That we could just get through it, and he’d want to change, and… Please, don’t think I’m upset with you, all right? I want you to be happy, Cas.”

“I know,” he says, and finds he means it. “I want you to be happy, too. I’m sorry if-”

“Not your fault,” she says. “My reaction is my reaction. You get that, right? If you aren’t doing it on purpose and you haven’t ignored something I’ve let you know will upset me, then it isn’t your fault if I have a reaction.”

As with some other times Beth has talked to him, Castiel gets the sense he’s benefiting from a host of advice and wisdom Beth has gained for herself. It would be churlish and unwise to reject it.

“I get that. I’ll try to get that,” he says, because Beth doesn’t like it when people aren’t honest, and he can’t say he really gets it. “Your reactions aren’t my fault.”

“That’s it,” she says. “And neither are anyone else’s. And I might feel sad today, but I’ll be okay. And those eggs are starting to smell really good.”

The scent of food fills the room by now, so he lets her slip away on that excuse, and even manages not to watch her too closely through breakfast. Her reaction isn’t his fault.

He is no clearer than he was before on how to tell when something is his fault and when it’s not, but he is starting to think there might be a distinction to be found.

Chapter Text

Sam arrives with a box of pastries and another stack of books, and Riva liberates both when he’s still in the hallway.

“They doing all right?” Sam asks before she can vanish to the dining room.

Riva pauses, looking thoughtful.

“Seem to be. I only just got here a bit back, and they were all eating breakfast. No-one was at risk of being shouted at, far as I could see.”

Which doesn’t tell Sam half of what he needs to know, but he quells his impatience and follows her through the house.

Turns out he’s the last one to arrive. Gertude’s sitting at the dining table, Cas beside her, reading a book. She still has that slight air about her of a kid on Christmas morning, and as Sam watches he sees her glance up at Cas, who taps something in the book and murmurs words Sam can’t hear.

Dean’s the other side of the table, apparently deep in research, but Sam sees the way his brother’s eyes drift up over the edge of the page. At least there’s a softness to Dean’s eyes, so whatever Dean and Cas talked about, or failed to talk about, last night, it didn’t end in a row.

“Hey,” Val says, and Sam drags his attention to where she’s sitting cross-legged on the settee, yet another book in her lap. “Welcome to random reading central. You brought food?”

“We already ate,” Beth says from the armchair.

Her hair’s falling over her face as she turns the pages of a volume she’s rested on a throw cushion on her knees. It glints old gold in the light from the window.

“Your point?” Val asks, and reaches up to take the box from her sister. “Excellent. I need at least three of these. Dean? Am I going to have to fight you?”

“Nah,” Dean says, waving his hand lazily, his attention still on Cas. “Just chuck me whatever.”

“He’ll have the one with cherries,” Sam says, and lifts it from the box on his way past.

Dealing with Dean is always easier when he’s eaten something he enjoys.

Not that Dean seems to be in a difficult mood right now. If anything, the atmosphere is relaxed. Friendly. Sam has no clue what to do with that, so he allows himself to just enjoy it for a while. Experience has taught him these things rarely last.

“It going good, here?” he asks.

The notepads are covered, but there doesn’t look to be any particular thread being followed. Still in random research mode. Right.

Dean takes the pastry from Sam and stuffs in right into his mouth, chewing in a way that tells Sam Cas must truly love his brother, because no-one with less that total dedication would be up for a partner with those eating habits.

Then again, Cas is half-tentacle, so maybe normal standards don’t apply to him.

And the good mood in the room is getting to Sam, too. He lets his lips tug into a smile as he nods at Cas, who’s the only one to look up at him.

“Sam,” Cas says, and there’s actual warmth there. “I hope you slept well.”

It sounds like something he’s heard other people say, something he thinks is meant to said, and Sam wants to wrap the guy up in a hug and promise that if he comes home with them now they’ll do a better job of helping him learn how to be human. Or live among humans. Whatever part of that he wants.

Instead, remembering what he’s said to Dean, he assures Cas he slept just fine.

“Much better without Dean snoring,” he says, and from the crease of Cas’ brow just knows the guy’s about to say something, but he can’t head him off without it being awkward.

“Dean didn’t snore last night,” Cas says. “And he was very close. I should have noticed.”

And that is the kind of thing to set Dean off, right there, even with his lips carrying pastry flakes. Sam has five different comments lined up that could redirect Dean’s response, and opens his mouth as he tries to work out the best one to use, but Dean just…sits back and grins.

“Damn straight,” Dean says. And gets that light in his eyes that says he’s about to say something he thinks is freaking hilarious. “Well, ‘straight’ might not be the best word, but you get the idea.”

Sam shuts his mouth.

Okay.

That’s… That’s good, is what that is. Dean doesn’t need any help to not knee-jerk his way to upsetting Cas. And he’s being open about his thing with guys. A bit. That’s something Sam’s been wanting for years. He’s happy about it.

A bit lost. But happy.

“Right,” he says, trying to work out where to get back to the script. “So, er, any leads?”

“We’re looking for anything that can steal memories,” Gertrude says, as though she’s been given a treat. “And Cas has been telling me about his mind being wiped.”

“As much as I can remember of it,” Cas says, seriously. “As you can imagine, the nature of the event makes it hard to describe.”

“I still can’t get my head around angels meddling with each other’s heads,” Gertrude says. Again, with delight. “How can you even be sure you know who you are?”

She seems to catch on to the idea her words might be insensitive, because her smile slips and she starts to apologize, but Cas lifts a hand and waves away her attempt.

“There’s no need to apologize,” Cas says. “It’s what I can remember that’s worse.”

And there’s the awkward Sam thought they’d avoided.

“But,” Cas goes on, not seeming to notice, “I am sure that I’m Castiel.”

“Castiel,” Gertude says, and the only word to describe it is reverently. “Angel of Thursday, Solitude and Tears. Right?”

Cas’ eyes narrow and he tilts his head back as though he needs to see her better.

“Yes,” he says, the way he says it when he isn’t sure how to react. “Though, I may have taken some of that too literally, now that I think about it.”

“Yeah, your obsession with Thursday has got to stop, man,” Dean says.

He almost manages to hide the fact that this turn in the conversation has bothered him, that he’s giving Cas a way out of talking over anything upsetting.

From the quick flash of a smile, or something like a smile, that Cas throws Dean, Sam isn’t sure Cas knows it was an out, but he drops it anyway.

“Well, we’ve found plenty about memory loss, but nothing that fits the pattern here, and nothing that can affect angels.”

Sam almost points out that Cas, with his mangled Grace, might not count as a full angel anymore, but Cas isn’t stupid. Cas is far from stupid. He’ll have considered that. Cas thinking of himself as damaged and twisted is something they should be working on steering him away from: he has no trouble deciding those descriptions fit him all by himself.

“Let me see,” Sam says, and sits down.

Cas slides the nearest notepads over and goes right back to discussing the pages of the book with Gertrude.

Sam reads about creatures that can fog minds and breeds of demon that can steal thoughts, but he doesn’t find anything to fit their particular bill. It gets harder to concentrate when Dean grows bored enough to leave the table and steal the last of the donuts, drawing Val into a conversation that contains actual laughter. Laughter.

“Since when have they been so tight?” Sam leans in and asks Cas.

“Since they spent the night together,” Cas says, and looks up with alarm as Sam chokes. “Sam?”

“You, er, you what now?” Sam asks.

“Dean couldn’t sleep. He found Val already up and they talked,” Cas says, his tone reasonable.

Ah. Oh, right. Yeah, that makes more sense. Not a lot of sense, considering the way the two have been sniping at each other from the get go, but more than the image that flashed, thankfully briefly, across Sam’s mind.

“That’s good,” he manages, and sees Cas nod. “And how are you doing? This must be strange for you. You and Dean.”

“I suppose so,” Cas says, but he really doesn’t seem too sure what Sam’s getting at.

But Dean made that comment about not being straight, and slept right next to Cas, and surely he can’t have done that and failed to tell Cas how he feels. Not even Dean can have let Cas miss that. Right?

“Cas?” he asks, lowering his voice further and checking Gertrude is deep in the next page of her book. “You two, you did talk, right? Dean didn’t just fall asleep on your bed and not talk to you about this?”

Cas frowns.

“We talked,” he says.

Sam waits, but that seems to be it.

“About what, Cas?”

Because with Dean it could have gone into some reference Cas wouldn’t get, even with Metatron’s download in his head, and Dean might think it’s all cleared up when it’s…well, not.

“About me not being his brother,” Cas says, as though that answers any questions Sam might have.

Sam glances at Dean in time to see him smile and push Val’s shoulder, and that comment about not being a brother must have meant more to the two of them, to Dean and Cas, because Dean is lighter than Sam’s seen him in ages, even with the creature still out there.

He just hopes that isn’t all the talking done with, because Dean, and Cas, are both too good at deciding something’s solved and done with when it’s really just festering away beneath the surface. Sam’s going to have to keep an eye on them. He can’t let them lose each other now.

***********************************

Castiel leaves the table when the ache in his wings gets too strong, and murmurs something to Gertrude that makes her smile and not question where he’s going. He has no idea what he’s said, but it’s worked and that’s all that matters.

Dean is talking with Val and Beth, and Sam is in the kitchen making coffee. Probably. The clattering suggests he’s having trouble, but he’s busy and not asking Castiel what he’s doing, and that’s the key point.

Riva isn’t anywhere to be seen, but she might have left for work. She does that sometimes, just goes to heal people without Castiel realizing she’s gone.

He only needs a few minutes, just to check if the powder he thinks is upstairs is still there. He isn’t planning to take any. He just wants to know it’s still there and an option, for in case his wings become even more painful before they solve this case. Afterwards, he’ll let them bundle him back into bed and he’ll stay there, because they seem convinced it will help him and letting them think that might be all he can do for them by then. But first he needs to stay fit enough to help them hunt whatever is attacking people, to hunt whatever attacked him.

So he’ll just check. And then he’ll go back downstairs.

He’ll be able to concentrate better once he’s checked.

Riva’s coming down the stairs.

She smiles when she sees him, and stops on the bottom step.

“Hey, Cas,” she says. “You doing all right? You healed up at all?”

“Um. Yes.”

It’s not exactly a lie. He does feel a lot better than he did when he’d lost his wings.

“Right,” she says, her smile slipping. And she sighs. “You’d think a creature older than mankind could lie a little better. You still hurt, don’t you?”

“I…”

He looks away, his gaze catching on the patch of sunlight falling on the floor. Lying feels wrong. It’s not lying when it’s saying fine and everyone knows it’s just what you say, but when called on it, then it’s a lie to keep going. He thinks. These codes are confusing. He doesn’t want to lie to Riva, or to any of them.

Lying is a flaming circle and standing alone as black smoke descends.

“Yes,” he says, still not looking at her. “Yes, it still hurts. But it really is better than it was, Riva.”

It isn’t just his human eyes he’s turned away, and he doesn’t see her move. He hears her, the soft shuffle of her feet on the floor, and he feels her hand touch down on his arm.

“Well, look, I haven’t really worked out much from those books yet, but I’ll keep trying. Okay? We’ll do everything we can to help you heal, Cas. I promise.”

She squeezes and lets go, and Castiel sighs as she walks away.

The powder will still be upstairs, he’s almost sure, but going to get it now seems wrong. They so badly want him to be better, and he’s come to realize they see the powder as a sign he’s very much not okay.

So, he just has to be strong. He has to do without the powder. He can do this.

It was mostly to keep Rit Zien away, in any case, and with his wings back and with Dean and Sam around, they can deal with one, if needs be.

He turns back to the living room and leaves the powder where it is. The twinge in his wings is something he can ignore. After all, he’s been doing it for years, to some extent or another.

What’s a little longer, if it keeps everyone feeling so much happier than they have been? This is something Castiel can do for them. It is.

Chapter Text

Dean yawns, leaning back and stretching as he looks around at the others. They all look close to wiped out, as far as he can see. Sam’s got that dogged look on his face that says he’ll keep right on trucking no matter how long it takes, but Dean can see the signs: Sam isn’t too far from dropping face-down in that book.

Gertrude looks more alert than the rest of them, but as far as Dean’s been able to make out, she does this detailed research crap for fun.

“Hey, who needs a break?” Dean asks. “Because I need food and some air. I’m going to lose it if I have to sit here for much longer.”

“I’ve been on break for an hour,” Val says, and Dean turns to see her lying on her back on the floor, her legs bent so her feet are flat on the carpet. “I get we want to get rid of the thing that hurt Cas and me, and Ashley, who is still asleep by the way, so lucky for some, but if I have to read another line about hellish creatures from whatever land I am not going to be held responsible for my actions.”

“We should probably let the authorities know Ashley’s safe,” Beth says, not for the first time.

Just like before, the others shout her down.

“We’ll take care of it when we’re sure he can’t tell us anything else,” Dean says. “Trust me. His parents will be freaking out, I know, and I’m sorry about that, but once they whisk him away that’s it. He’s not local and I’m not driving fifteen hours to interview him if we need more.”

“Well, we need something,” Riva says. “We’ve been over everything more than once, and there’s nothing that fits all the evidence.”

“Maybe it’s not written down,” Cas says from the corner of the table. He’s paler than Dean’s happy with, and they really need to get more meat on his bones, but he’s a damn sight better than he was when Dean first found him here and Dean has the urge to go over and kiss the guy. “Not every creature has been seen by mortals. The Fall and Purgatory being opened and the disruption in Hell… There’ve been a lot of chances for beings you’ve never heard of to escape on to this plane.”

It says a lot about the kind of people Cas has found for himself that they listen with respect and with no sign at all that they want to run screaming for the hills.

“And you’re sure there’s nothing you know of,” Val asks from the floor. “Because that angel brain of yours must be just stuffed full of weird crap no mortal is wont to what of, or whatever.”

Dean sees Cas frown, and he sees the wince.

“Dude, is your head all right?” he asks.

“It’s fine,” Cas says, but he doesn’t sound very convincing. “And, no, I can’t think of anything.”

Dean wants to know more about this fine head that’s clearly hurting, but he latches on to the last bit of that.

“But you think you should be able to.” It’s not a question. “You’ve got something in your head you can’t get at?”

“Yeah,” Cas says on a sigh. “It’s a shape I can’t quite grasp. It’s very annoying.”

“Anything we can do to help with that?” Dean asks, and catches a look from Sam that seems approving. He manages not to challenge why Sam’s handing out mental brownie points just for Dean asking a question. “Can we jolt your memory or anything?”

“Jog,” Val says. “Unless you really mean you want us to run an electrical current through Cas.”

“I doubt that would help,” Cas says, and has to miss the expressions on everyone’s faces, because he goes right on. “Perhaps if we visit the scene of one of the attacks, I might be able to pick up a resonance.”

Resonance. Okay. Dean nods as Beth and Val perk up, asking Cas about what he means and apparently following the explanation well enough to ask follow up questions. He sees Sam paying attention, but his brother, big brain that he has, doesn’t join in. Dean supposes it’s a long while since Stanford, and not like Sam majored in Math or Physics.

“So what you’re saying,” Dean breaks in at last, some time after Val’s got up from the floor and come to sit next to Cas, “is that if you get close enough, you might be able to pick up its trail. Like it’s a slug leaving slime.”

“I…” Cas says and frowns. Dean can just bet the guy’s going through all the answers he has to that and realizing none of them will stop Dean calling this a slime-trail. In any case, Cas rolls his eyes and nods. “Yeah. Something like that.”

And Dean has that urge again, to grab Cas and kiss him, only now he kind of wants to pull him upstairs as well and do a lot more. He settles for grinning.

“So what are we waiting for? Road-trip it is. Who’s on the away-team?”

**************************

Sam pulls Dean aside as they head out to the car, lowering his voice as the others mill about.

“Why are we taking everyone? You think it’s a good idea to take civilians anyplace we know this thing hangs out?”

“We’re taking Cas because he can pick up the slime-trail,” Dean says, “and we’re taking Val because it might trigger something in her head. I want Riva there because you can’t tell me Cas is pain-free and all healed up, and she’s the only doctor we’ve got. Beth?” He shrugs. “You try telling her to stay behind. I already took my shot at it.”

Sam looks round, frowning as he faces Beth and Cas, who have their heads close together.

“They really care about him,” Sam says.

“Yeah,” Dean says. “Yeah, they do. Look, Gertrude’s not coming, right? She’s gone to get that tablet, and I hope to any god we haven’t ganked yet it doesn’t turn out to be another one of Chuck’s. We’re stuck with the rest of them.”

Which is how they end up pulling up at the park with Val’s car behind them, the huge red thing she drives towering over the Impala. From the backseat, Cas peers out at the scene. Dean knows, because he keeps checking on him in the mirror.

“You okay back there?” he asks, and sees Cas hardly seem to register the question before he’s saying he’s fine. Dean feels a sudden burst of frustration. “Look, Cas, you get you don’t have to be fine, right?”

“Dean-” Sam says.

“I’m just saying,” Dean goes on. “He’s been through it…Cas, you’ve been through it. A real shit storm. And you only just got your wings back where you can feel them. It’s okay to not be ‘fine’, that’s all I’m saying.”

Cas doesn’t look convinced.

“Okay,” he says. “We should get out now. Beth and the others are waiting.”

Dean gives up. He tried. That has to count for something, right? Ignoring the look Sam’s giving him, Dean throws open the car door and goes to stand next to Val on the sidewalk. She nods at him, but her gaze is pretty firmly fixed on Beth. Dean’s not far from telling the pair of them to get over it already.

“What’s the plan, Cas?” Dean asks when they’re all there, looking like a really odd field-trip. “We just walk you around until you beep, or what?”

“Not exactly,” Cas says, as though he thinks Dean’s being serious and isn’t the least bit bothered by it. He’s looking out over the park and Dean has no idea what he’s seeing. “I do need to get as close as possible to where I encountered the being. I just…I can’t remember where that was.”

Dean can’t stand the way Cas’ brow creases. The guy is permanently confused by and resigned to his own limitations, but he never seems to cut himself a break. He takes hold of Cas’ elbow and then, when Cas turns to face him and with quiet deliberation, he slides his hand down until his fingers brush against Cas’.

“I know where it was,” he says, and tries to act casual when Cas’ lips curl up and he takes hold of Dean’s hand. “Come on.”

He sees Sam smile, too, and considers telling him what he can do with that expression, but playing this off as no big deal is probably the better idea.

The bush they found Cas’ feathers under is a few minutes walk away, and by the time they reach it Dean’s almost used to having Cas’ hand in his. He is. He’s kind of drawn between wanting to pull Cas in closer and wanting to let go, but that’s probably something a lot of people feel when they’ve just come out to their brother, admitted loving their best friend and are walking around in public with a load of people who very recently thought he was an abusive asshole. No big deal.

He feels Cas’ grip tighten as they stop and when Dean checks on him the angel’s face is drawn.

“I sense…something,” he says.

“The creature?” Sam asks.

Cas shakes his head, his lips pressed together and his jaw tight.

“Give him a minute,” Val says.

Beth appears on Cas’ other side, taking his other hand and leaning into him. It’s never really occurred to Dean before all this that Cas might welcome so much open support, or physical contact, but the guy relaxes a fraction and nods.

“I’ll need to focus,” he says. “I haven’t tried this in a while. It…might not work.”

“Then we’ll figure something else out,” Dean says. “All you gotta do is give it a shot.”

He catches Sam’s look of approval and tries to tell himself he doesn’t feel relief. Now he’s accepted he needs to change the way he is with Cas, he’s got a nagging worry he’s going to screw it all up. He won’t make the same mistakes again. Not again. From now on, he is one hundred percent the way he should be.

“What do you need?” Beth asks.

Cas swallows and Dean swears the guy looks nervous.

“I need to concentrate, like I said,” Cas says. “I…I need to use all of my eyes.”

And that must be what he’s nervous about.

“Go right ahead,” Dean tells him, injecting as much acceptance and support into that as he can. “We’re all here for you, freaky angel eyes and all.”

Cas shoots him a look Dean can’t read and pulls away, moving to stand under the tree’s spreading branches. Under the dappled light he looks less human, but anyone walking past will just see a guy in his late 30’s having a weird communing with nature moment as his friends watch. Okay, so maybe there is no way this will look normal, but there’s no sign of Cas’ eyes, or the wings and other limbs the eyes are on. All Dean can see is Cas’ human body, eyes closed and head tipped slightly back, with a breeze lifting strands of his dark hair. He’s beautiful, but there’s no hint of anything otherworldly.

Until there is.

Dean’s had this…shadow vision, ever since the Mark. It doesn’t turn up all the time, and he can’t rely on it, but every now and then he sees faint impressions, smoke-like or the way ink fades into water, and he gets one now. Around Cas, through Cas, he sees shifting shapes. They’re kind of like the ones he saw when Cas cast his spell at Beth’s place, but from the way the others don’t react, Dean’s the only one seeing these.

He didn’t have time to take it all in before and his memories from the times he saw Cas back in his black-eyed days are hazy. For one thing, he never quite grasped that Cas has more than one pair of wings. Six of the fuckers arc out, surrounding the angel, and every one of them is studded with glimmers of light.

Dean finds himself wishing he could see it as more than a shadow-image.

As he watches, some of the glimmers brighten and the snaking tendrils of Cas’ other limbs fan out, moving as though they’re in water. Seeking. It lasts for long enough that Dean sees Sam shift his weight, probably wondering if anything is happening. Dean shushes him with a gesture, and from the way Sam looks at him there must be some hint Dean can tell what’s going on. Maybe some of the wonder he feels is on his face.

More time passes, and Dean watches as Cas’ wings move, angling this way and that. He watches as they snap up, all rising at once, and as Cas’ human eyes open. They glow blue.

“I have it,” he says.

********************

Cas refuses to get back in the car, even though Dean can see how tired he’s getting. They’ve hardly been out of the house and Cas is clearly exhausted, but he insists he has to walk the trail, and the way he says it gives no room for maneuver.

It’s an odd procession, through the park and along the side of a street, and another street, and across a road, and…

“We got any idea where this is taking us?” Dean asks.

Next to him, Beth shakes her head.

“Not a clue. It’s not going the direction of the warehouse it attacked Val in. I suppose we just have to keep following Cas.”

Dean isn’t happy, but it’s not like they have a choice. Cas walks ahead of them, those shadow-limbs spread out, seeking, and Dean stays as close as he can. If Cas pushes himself too hard and needs support, Dean’s going to be there. Right there, where Cas needs him. If it means swallowing his frustration, then that’s exactly what he’ll do.

They’re far enough across town that Dean’s not looking forwards to the walk back to the Impala by the time Cas nods at an office block.

“In there.”

“You sure?” Dean asks.

Cas’ jaw tenses and his eyes flash irritation.

“Right. Right,” Dean says. Be supportive. He told himself he was going to be supportive. “So, er, it’s in there now or what?”

“The resonance should bring me to its current location,” Cas says.

“Thought it was a trail,” Dean says, and sees Sam looking intrigued on Cas’ other side. “Doesn’t that mean we need to follow round everywhere it’s been? We’ve not been near that warehouse.” No, that sounds critical. Be supportive. “I’m just wanting to understand the process.” Better. He’s rocking this.

Cas turns his head and Dean sees at least one pair of wings adjust until the bright sparks of eyes are looking at him, too. Whatever Cas is doing that makes his limbs more visible, to Dean at least, is making him wonder how often Cas is looking at Dean with those angelic eyes in the normal way of things. Right now, his human eyes have that look in them that says Cas is about to explain something in a way he thinks will make a concept clear to Dean.

“Never mind,” Dean says. “You can explain it later.”

“Okay,” Cas says. “Then, yes, it might be in there now. We should investigate. Beth, Val, Riva, you should stay out here.”

“I’m pretty sure we shouldn’t,” Val says.

Cas frowns and Dean wonders if he’s about to see an argument between Cas and his new friends.

“No,” Val says, before Cas can say anything. “No, I get it. We’re, what? Civilians, did you call it? And I’ve got no desire to get anywhere near that…that thing. But you’re not in good shape, still. Well. Are you?”

“I’m an angel,” Cas says, just a thread of frustration in his voice. “I could be near to death and still have more chance against this than you would. Battle is what I’m made for.”

“Well, that’s just…upsetting,” Val says. She shares a look with Riva. “I don’t think any of us want to go in there with you, but you came in after me, and-”

“I’m meant to be a guardian,” Cas says. “I don’t want any of you hurt.”

“You want us to wait out here?” Beth asks. It sounds like a genuine question, not anything loaded. “We could wait, you know. If that’s what you need. But, well, we could stay behind the three of you, too. Keep the door open behind us. Run if we need to. And that way we’d all be together. Splitting up’s hardly ever a good idea in the movies.”

“This ain’t a movie,” Dean says. “We’ve been doing this for a long time. Right, Cas?”

“Since before humanity existed,” Cas says, as though it’s nothing.

“And how much of a break have you had in that time?” Riva asks. Whatever adjustment she’s needed to make to having an angel in her midst is either made or hidden, because she barely blinks at Cas’ statement. “Look, I’m with Val on this. I don’t want to go in. But I don’t want you in there fighting, either. And are you telling me every person who finds out about this stuff just…leaves it?”

“Okay,” Sam says, cutting a look at Dean and Cas, even though Dean is pretty sure Cas has stopped paying much attention. “You come in, you stay behind us. First hint of anything, you get out. Okay?”

That seems to be as good as it’s getting, so Dean insists on taking point. Cas is far from at full strength. It just makes sense for Dean to go first.

Inside, the space is dark, the strip lighting along the ceiling turned off. Dean checks around, ready to go for his gun if he needs to, but there’s nothing to see.

“Down that way,” Cas says, pointing off to a corridor on the right.

Sam turns to wave the women back at one point, but Dean’s pretty sure they aren’t keeping them from following. It seems strange that Sam’s the last one of them to accept that, what with his time at college learning about whatever students learn about. Dean’s pretty sure college kids are hot on the topic of equality.

As they poke into empty offices and conference rooms, Dean stops himself from asking Cas again if he’s sure the thing’s here. Or has been here. Cas still has his wings out, and Dean’s kind of glad the others can’t see them. Hell, he’s kind of glad he can only see them as impressions, because some of the outlines look jagged and he remembers all too well the sight of raw flesh and bone. He’s not asked Cas yet how come Dean could see the wings as solid and physical back in that warehouse. It needs adding to a very long list of things they probably should talk about.

Finally, they reach a larger space, some kind of hall, and Cas stops, throwing out a hand and bringing everyone to a halt.

“It’s here?” Dean asks. He flicks a glance back at Val and the others and sees fear and determination in the lines of their bodies. “You can see it?”

Cas shakes his head, frowning.

“There’s something,” he says. “I can’t lock on to it.”

“I couldn’t see it properly before,” Val says. “Or, I think maybe I could, but I couldn’t remember it? I don’t know.”

Before they have time for any more talk, a chair on the other side of the room flies six feet and crashes into a wall. Dean has his gun aimed before the echoes of the sound die, but there’s nothing there. Or…no. There is… It’s just…

“Can anyone else see that?” he asks.

It’s a heat haze, a distortion of the scene. There’s bulk to it and cold and a sense of endless nothing, pulling at him. It rises most of the way to the ceiling of the more than double-height room, and Dean can’t grasp the edges of it.

“Is that it?” he asks, when no-one answers.

“I don’t know,” Val says.

At the same time, overlapping, Cas says, “Yes. That’s it,” and stalks towards it.

Dean feels his breath catch, his finger squeezing on the trigger, but he stops himself from doing anything rash. Cas doesn’t always explain what he’s up to. He never has, even when Dean’s almost sure the guy thinks he’s been transparent and open. Maybe it’s something in the angelic mindset, the ability to speak with brutal honesty and still not manage a full truth.

“What are you?” Cas asks, loud enough Dean hears him. “What do you want?”

There’s another ripple in the air and Cas staggers. Dean fires a shot before he can process anything more than Cas is in danger, and the soft, encompassing explosion of pressure that follows knocks Dean back.

He lands on his back, winded, with his spine protesting, and rolls back to his feet as quickly as he can. Cas is still upright, his tendril limbs shifting the way there were back in the park. Whatever that thing is, he’s lost it again. Sam’s pushing himself upright on the other side of Cas. Beth and Riva are helping Val to her feet, and as Dean watches she nods, pats at Beth’s hands and turns her attention to Cas.

“Where’d it go?” she asks, almost managing to hide her shortness of breath. “Did it go? Is it still here?”

“No,” Cas says, a bite of frustration clear. “It left. Dean, you shouldn’t have done that.”

“I shouldn’t-?” Dean blinks and holsters his gun. If Cas says it’s gone, then it’s gone. “What do you mean, I shouldn’t have done that? It attacked you! I was just supposed to let it?”

“That wasn’t an attack,” Cas says, turning to face Dean. His eyes are narrowed, the blue of them hard. “It was reaching out.”

“It knocked you!” Dean says. Shouts.

“Guys,” Sam cuts in, and Dean looks over to see Sam on his feet, looking none the worse for wear. Not like getting knocked down is new to Sam, any more than it is to Dean. “Did we lose it?”

“Yes,” Cas says. “It ran when Dean fired.”

“I was protecting you,” Dean says, through his teeth.

“I didn’t need protecting,” Cas says, flat and cold.

“Okay. Okay,” Val says, suddenly in between them, even though they’re several feet apart. “We can argue about this later. Or, you know, discuss it like adults. Or ancient beings. Whatever. Have we lost it, or can we follow the slime-trail again?”

“It’s not actually…” Cas says and closes his eyes briefly. When he opens them again, the light has faded back to his normal blue and Dean watches as the limbs ripple out of existence, the last bright spark winking out at the end, even after the wing which carries it has vanished. “No. I can’t pick it up again. It exudes some kind of…of field. That must be why it’s hard to latch on to. But I think I have a better idea of what to look for.”

“Yeah?” Sam asks. He’s closer to Cas now than Dean is, almost close enough to reach out if Cas needs support, and Dean thinks Cas hasn’t even noticed. “That’s great Cas. So, we’re getting out of here?”

It’s not until Dean registers the undercurrent of worry in Sam’s tone and notes the way Sam’s not only closer but has his hand out near Cas’ elbow that he finally clocks how Cas looks. Drawn and shaking.

“We should go,” Dean says, before Cas can answer. “If you’ve lost it anyway, we might as well get out of here, right?”

Cas opens his mouth, pauses, and nods. His expression is tight.

“Yeah,” he says. “Sure.”

Dean tries not to mind that Cas walks out with Sam and Beth on either side of him, and tells himself Cas will come round. Dean was being supportive, making sure that thing didn’t attack Cas again. And Cas will see that. He will.

Chapter Text

Sam doesn’t mourn the loss of that lightness he saw in his brother. He doesn’t. He walks next to Cas all the way back to the park, and through it to the car, and he watches Dean’s expression as Cas says he’ll ride with Beth on the way back. Dean and Sam get Val in the back of the Impala instead, as though there’s some rule about how many people have to be in each car.

Dean’s got a seedling scowl on his face by the time they pull away, but Sam doesn’t worry. It’s just a set-back. Bound to happen, really, with the way Dean can be. Hell, given how over-protective Dean is at odd moments, and the way he never seems able to settle on where Cas sits on the vulnerability scale, it’s going to take time for the two of them to reach a balance. That’s all.

So Sam doesn’t worry and Sam doesn’t mourn. Sam plans. Because there’s no way his brothers are going to lose each other, not when he’s finally seen them start to get their shit together.

They pull up at the house in near silence, Val slumped in the back with her eyes mostly closed, and at least that means something’s stuck. Val hasn’t retreated to the bristling hostility she had going on before.

“We’re here,” Sam says, in case she’s more asleep than awake.

“Yeah,” she says, and sits up, yawning. “I am beat. Is hunting always this tiring?”

Sam doesn’t tell her what they did barely counts as hunting. The thing got away, after all. Instead, he turns in the seat and smiles, because Val’s an ally now and they still don’t have anywhere near enough of those. He wants her to like him, to open up and talk to him like she has to Dean. It’ll make the rest of the hunt easier, and if Cas does decide to stay here it’ll mean it’s more pleasant when they visit.

“It can be kinda exhausting sometimes,” he says. “And I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”

“I could eat,” Val says. She leans over the back seat towards Dean, her left hand only inches from his shoulder. “And I can talk to Cas, if you like.”

“Why would I need you to talk to Cas?” Dean asks.

“Oh, come on,” Val says. “The number of times I’ve put my foot in it with Beth. Man, but it’s all too easy to say the wrong thing. You know? I think it’s like something inside gets sore, like when you’ve grazed your skin on something and everything hurts more. Just…be ready to listen, okay? It took me way too long to work that one out.”

And she’s out of the car before Dean or Sam can ask what any of that means. Sam thinks he knows, though. He’s done plenty of thinking over the last few days, and he can only hope Dean’s taken on board everything he’s been looking up, too. There’s a beat before Dean breaks the silence Val leaves behind her.

“Did I screw this up, Sam?” Dean asks, the words more directed at his own hands.

“What? No. Dean, no.”

“It’s just, now I’ve…you know, read about crap…” Dean stops and waves one hand a few inches in the air. “I’m not going to keep being that way. The way you said…”

“And you, what, think you can just shift a gear in your head and be a different person?” Sam asks. “Dean, the both of us have got a mountain of crap to wade through.” And Dean has never been as good at working through it, or around it, as Sam has. Dean pushes things down until they explode. “You can’t expect to suddenly be perfect.”

“I could have managed not to piss Cas off in less than a day!” Dean hisses. “What did I even do?”

Sam has some inkling, but he’s also got no intention of being in the middle of a Dean and Cas therapy session for life. He’ll talk about it if Dean needs him to, but this feels more like something Dean should talk about with Cas. Still, a pointer might not hurt.

“You did kind of act like he was made of spun glass, Dean. The guy’s a warrior. A soldier. When has he ever wanted to sit out a fight?”

He knows even as Dean flinches that Cas wanting out of fighting isn’t the right image to bring up. Sam’s mind supplies the image of Cas in white scrubs, somehow looking smaller than he ever has since.

“Okay. Bad choice of words,” Sam says. “But, Dean, you remember how he got that time you told him to stay out of it, back when he was leading all those other angels. He doesn’t like being sidelined.”

“I wasn’t sidelining him,” Dean says, a sullen edge sneaking in. “I thought I was supposed to be more…more caring. More concerned.”

“Maybe it’s something else you need to be. Or try,” Sam said. “I don’t know. Maybe…maybe it’s not so much caring as listening?”

Dean looks thoughtful, and after a few moments he nods.

“Listening,” he says. “Yeah. Well, I can do that. I’m great at listening.”

Sam watches his brother nod again, push open the car door and get out. There’s a bit more bounce in Dean’s step. Sam just hopes he said the right thing to get Dean to actually take the bubble wrap off of Cas without swinging right over to letting the guy fling himself onto a fire.

For one thing, if Dean can work out that balance with Cas, maybe he can finally figure it out when it comes to Sam.

***************************

“So, we have nothing. That’s what we’re saying,” Val says, barely pausing in her pacing up and down the living-room to accept a mug from Beth. “We went all the way over town and saw a hazy blob of nothing, got knocked down, and are no further on. Great. Just great.”

She does smile at Castiel, though, as she swings around on her arc, and he’s almost certain there’s no heat aimed at him, no real sense she’s upset with him. It was so much easier, in so many ways, back when he didn’t care what any human thought of him. Back when their anger or displeasure or disappointment was beneath him, he could brush it off as nothing more than something to bear in mind for tactical purposes and move on. Now, there are times when it comes close to crippling him.

“We’re not exactly where we were,” he says.

He’s taken the chair Beth normally likes, and he can’t quite say why. Beth and Dean share the settee, Riva has the other chair and Sam stands over by the door to the hallway. Everyone seems slightly on edge.

“How so?” Sam asks.

And that’s another thing. Dean hasn’t spoken to him since they got back, beyond saying hey when he walked into the house. Castiel hasn’t determined yet how upset Dean is with him. Then again, he isn’t sure how upset he is with Dean, or if he’s upset, or why. The whole thing is confusing.

“We remember seeing a…a hazy blob of nothing,” Castiel says. “That’s more than I remember from before. Whatever power it has to confound our memories seems to be fading.”

“Or it just got confused by how many of us there were,” Dean says.

Hearing his voice is a relief. Dean sounds more contemplative than irritated.

“Yeah,” Castiel says. “Yeah, it could be. Val, you remember being in the warehouse, don’t you? When I arrived?” At her nod, he goes on. “And you didn’t lose stretches of your memory. Not the way Ashley did. Or the way I did from the park.”

Val stops pacing and frowns.

“Are you saying the more people there are, the weaker its memory stealing powers are?” she asks.

“Perhaps,” Castiel says. “I don’t remember the incident in the park, so I don’t know how many were there. But there were three of us in the warehouse, and more today. It bears consideration.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, and he smiles, the one which means he doesn’t really find something gut-level funny. “We’ll just get the whole town to form a posse. That’ll fool it.”

A noise from upstairs has them all looking up. Castiel’s wings flare, his working eyes swiveling. Through the layers of floorboard and ceiling plaster he sees a shape of orange and purple move, waving a little.

“Ashley’s awake,” he says. “He’s trying to stand and having some trouble.”

Other eyes pick up the way everyone looks at him. Not the same from everyone, but all some kind of startled. Dean softens in something like approval, and Sam looks impressed. The women aren’t quite as practiced at accepting non-human abilities, but Riva rises and flaps a hand at the others.

“I’ll go get him,” she says. “I’m just going to assume you won’t watch anyone through the walls as a general thing, Cas.”

“Yeah, and not in the bathroom,” Val says. “I need to hear you tell me that one.”

“I won’t watch you in the bathroom,” Castiel tells her, and manages not to glance at Dean.

With so much more understanding of humanity that he used to have, he knows Dean likely wouldn’t appreciate knowing how Castiel did used to watch Dean, and sometimes Sam, no matter what they were doing in the next room. He’s hoping even two men as intelligent as the brothers will fail to work out that an angel’s view of boundaries would be so very different. After all, bathing wasn’t a private activity the last time Castiel was allowed to interact with humans. Now, he’s come to very much value the fact that bathrooms are places a person can be alone, even if sometimes it’s just to sit on the floor and be quiet.

Riva isn’t gone long, and she returns with Ashley stumbling behind her, his skin duller than it was. He has his hands hidden in the sleeves of his sweater and his eyes are tired. Even his hair, dark and textured, looks deflated.

“Ashley’s hungry,” Riva says. “Any chance of some food, Beth?”

Beth nods and gives up her seat, and Ashley eyes the empty space with something Castiel is almost sure is worry.

“Relax, kid,” Val says, standing and waving him over. “You don’t have to sit next to your scary Math teacher. Look, I’ll go help Beth. You sit here and tell these guys what you know. All right?”

“Um. No. No, don’t,” Ashely says, even though he looks uncomfortable about saying it. “I, er, I know you. I don’t… I mean, the others…”

Castiel thinks he gets it. Although Ashley accepted being told he had to stay here, that there was a bed for him, the boy must have been worn out at the time. Now that he’s awake he must be realizing properly that he’s surrounded by strangers after going through something traumatic. Castiel can relate.

Val pauses, her eyebrows lifting. She shares a quick look with Dean and they must understand each other, because Dean stands and Val sits back down.

“Okay,” Val says. “Come sit by me and join us with our monster hunt.”

Ashley cringes a little at that, but he does as Val tells him to. Once he’s sitting, he drops his gaze to his hidden hands and chews his lip. Castiel is almost certain this boy is of a height with him and far from unmuscled, but he’s folded himself inward until he looks almost frail. Perhaps the lurch of pity is something Dean and Sam felt when they saw Castiel again. He tidies the thought away.

“Do you remember anything about the creature?” Castiel asks when no-one else does. “Anything you can tell us might help.”

Ashley shakes his head, frowning.

“I hardly remember anything,” he says. “I remember feeling…fuzzy? In my head.” One hand rises to touch his own temple. “Like static. It got in the way of everything. I…I think there were…”

When he trails off, his hand still raised, and closes his eyes, Val pats him on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I couldn’t remember it right after looking at it, and this time we just saw heat haze.”

“This time?” Ashley’s eyes fly open and he drops his hand to the arm of the settee, his knuckles white as he grips it. “You saw it again? Where? Here?”

“No! No, no, no,” Val assures him, half reaching out as Ashley looks about ready to flee. “We tracked it. It’s not here.”

The boy sinks back, but he doesn’t let go of the arm. He shakes his head.

“You should just stay away from it,” he says. “Soon as I feel up to it, I’m gonna ring my mom. Get her to come pick me up. And I ain’t ever coming back near this place. Not ever.”

When Val shoots a look at the others, Sam steps in, questioning Ashley with the smoothness Castiel has seen in him before, but there doesn’t seem to be much more to say. Ashley was on his own, as far as they can work out, and he has almost complete memory loss stretching back to before he vanished. Either the creature can take past memories, or Ashley ran up against it before he went missing. What Castiel can’t work out is why Ashley was with the being in the first place, not when it hasn’t come to reclaim him.

He rubs his own temples as the headache he carries most of the time flares up.

“You okay, there, Cas?” Dean asks.

Castiel feels a spike of irritation. He tamps down on it as ruthlessly as he can. Dean is being caring. He should be grateful.

“Yes,” he says. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

He can see doubt on Dean’s face and has to grit his teeth. Dean’s seen Castiel fight in all manner of situations, and he believed Castiel would be okay out on his own even as a newly fallen angel, Graceless and ill-prepared, so Castiel can never understand why sometimes Dean acts as though Castiel is incapable of anything.

“Okay.” Dean swallows and shifts, but he doesn’t ask any follow-up questions. “So, we need to look for anything that can steal memories but focuses on single victims. And so far we haven’t really found much that steals memories.”

“Except angels,” Castiel says without thinking.

“What?” Ashley is startled enough to look up. “Angels?”

The next half an hour is lost to everyone trying to explain enough to Ashley to keep him calm without him being so scared of Castiel that he insists on leaving then and there. Not that they can get much more from the boy. Tactically, it makes sense to let him go, but Val’s been overtaken by one of her protective spurts and is insisting that Ashley let ‘Agent Bowie’ contact the right people so his parents can collect him. No letting the boy hitchhike across the country so he can get away from what is clearly seeming to him like a pit of hellish nightmares.

Ashley ends up tucked up on the settee with a mug of hot chocolate and everyone else decamps to the dining room, where they can see him but create an illusion of greater distance. Dean finishes up a call, patting Ashley on the shoulder on the way back through the living room from the hallway where he’d gone.

“All sorted, kid,” he says. “Your mom will be informed real soon and we can get you picked up. Sound good?”

“Thank-you,” Ashley says. “And…I won’t tell them anything.”

He sounds nervous as he says it, like he expects Dean to do something awful to him at any threat of exposure, but Dean just nods and pats Ashley again.

“Probably for the best,” he says, and joins the rest of them in the dining room.

Castiel feels the warmth of Dean taking the seat next to his own, and has to stop one of his wings from folding around Dean. Dean knows about the wings now, and he’s admitted to being able to see them, sometimes. Sleeping together in the same bed was wonderful, almost enough for Castiel to feel less alone, but their near-argument earlier has him unsure about his right to touch Dean the way he did last night. Something feels prickly between them, even though Dean hasn’t responded with anger to Castiel’s reaction back at the office building. He hasn’t been ignoring Castiel, either. Not really. Castiel finds he isn’t sure how to classify their current status.

Sam coughs, drawing everyone’s attention to him, and Castiel turns an eye his way.

“So, we think whatever this is, it’s best faced in a group. And Cas might be able to track it again, but we aren’t sure. It steals memories, sometimes. We don’t know if it kills. No evidence of any bodies, but some people are still missing.”

“Yeah, but they could’ve wandered off with their minds blanked. Not everyone wanders back,” Dean says. His hand twitches, the little finger nearest Castiel almost closing the gap between Dean’s hand and one of Castiel’s, but there’s no sign of anything in his voice but focus on the case. “I gotta be honest, here. I’ve got no clue.”

“It didn’t feel hostile,” Castiel says and sees every pair of eyes snap to him. “I expected some aggression or sense of…of distaste, at least. But that’s not what I got.”

He tries to taste the sensations streaming by him, through him, in those moments, to pull them up and examine them. Sometimes, he can sift through the tastes and the colors and the sounds of other creature’s responses until he sorts them into near-clarity. There’s nothing easy about this one, but it didn’t reek of anything deliberately harmful.

“It attacked you before,” Dean says, his finger twitching again. “And it attacked Val. And Ashley.”

“I don’t know why,” Castiel tells them, tells Dean, “but I didn’t get that sense from it. And looking back, I’m not sure I felt it the first time. The first time I remember, anyway. It was more…it was…”

The others are quiet as he struggles for a word. Pinning down emotions is difficult, not least because it seems two people might use the same name for not entirely similar experiences. There was something almost familiar about what he sensed, though.

“Loneliness,” he says. “It was more loneliness. Confusion.”

“It wants a friend?” Dean asks, disbelieving. “Oh, well. Fine. We’ll take it to playgroup, let it play with the building blocks with the toddlers.”

“It was more than that,” Castiel says, but he can’t quite force the feeling into human language. It wasn’t just loneliness. It was something with which Castiel is even more familiar: it was disconnection.

A fizz of white and brown, spring blossoms and cinnamon, pulls Castiel’s attention to the space outside the house.

“Gertrude’s back,” he says, pushing his chair back and rising. He doesn’t normally answer the door or greet visitors, but it’s dawned on him that Beth and Val no longer quite consider him a guest in their homes. Somehow, he’s become more a part of their family and even though he can’t bring himself to trust that it does mean he can let Gertrude in. “Perhaps the tablets will have something useful.”

Gertrude smiles at him as soon as he opens the door, her eyes bright, and she starts to pull the first tablet from her bag before she’s properly inside.

“It’s wonderful to have you here to look at these,” she says. “I know I told you how much trouble I’ve been having, and when I went to fetch them it hit me how much you’ll be able to tell me.”

“I’m glad to be of use,” Castiel says, and looks up to find Beth in the hallway. “Gertrude has the tablets.”

“That’s great, Cas,” Beth says. “Why don’t you bring them through, though? It might be easier than reading them in here.”

Beth takes Gertrude’s arm and steers her to the dining room, past Ashley who barely reacts to yet another lecturer arriving, and seats her where Dean was a minute before. Dean’s on his feet, his expression hard to read.

“These more God tablets?” Dean asks, and the curl of his lip becomes easier to make out.

“I don’t sense that from them,” Castiel tells him. He sits back down and accepts the first tablet from Gertrude, who’s already got four of them set out in front of her. They’re tiny. He tilts it back and forth, letting the shadows cast the incisions in the clay into relief, but he doesn’t really need that. Even with the limited vision he has now, he can read this well enough. It’s written in the old style, with blood pressed into the tablet along with the impressions from a writing tool, and the trickle of Grace embedded in the words is sharp and shining to Castiel’s eyes. “This was written by a Seraph. I…I almost recognize the hand. But not Metatron.”

“The people who found them thought they were Sumerian,” Gertrude says, “but the writing system is quite, quite different. You see here, the-”

“How about we let Cas tell us what’s on them?” Dean says, but he at least sounds friendly enough, even if it is a little forced. Castiel can tell. He’s spent long enough studying Dean for signs the man’s hiding what he feels. “Maybe we’ll get a lucky break and these’ll actually be linked to a random memory stealing monster.”

Put like that, it does seem unlikely, but the three of them have found coincidences before, so Castiel does his best to remain hopeful.

“Yes. Well,” he says. “I’ll need a few minutes. This dialect isn’t one I’ve read in some time.”

Not that it matters. It’s a dialect he knows very well, one used primarily among his own sphere, and it isn’t that he needs time to remember it. It’s more that he needs a few moments to steady himself. Whoever wrote this, and he feels he should be able to work that out, is certainly dead. Maybe not long dead. Without being able to pull recognition of the exact script from the depths of his mind, he has no way of knowing. It’s entirely possible that Castiel killed the writer himself, maybe in the last few years. Yet now, looking down at a language hardly any creature still reads, yet alone understands fully, he desperately wants that Seraph here, sitting by him in its own vessel. He’s found a sort of family, he thinks, in the humans around him now, but it will never be the same as being a part of the Host. He will never again exist close to an angel who knows him the way a fellow Seraph would know him.

Dean’s getting impatient. It’s written in the long lines of his body where he leans against the wall just behind Castiel. Despite Castiel’s explanations, he likely doesn’t remember that Castiel can see him, and he isn’t making noise a human could hear, but it still jolts Castiel out of his reverie. He clears his throat, mostly because it warns people to pay attention. He’s learned these things now.

“It’s an account of interactions between humans and angels. A…well, almost a diary. Or a memoir, perhaps.”

“Anything in there about memory sucking beasts?” Dean asks.

“No.” Castiel strokes an index finger over the last line of script on the first tablet. “No, it’s talking about spending time with humanity, about not wanting to return to Heaven while the humans they’ve come to care for still live.”

“They?” Sam asks. “There was more than one angel living with people?”

Castiel shakes his head.

“No. This angel simply didn’t identify with gender. We don’t all. Some of us change. It depends.”

Riva nods.

“That makes more sense than you ever feeling you have a gender, really,” she says. “I mean, you don’t when you’re being a ray of light, do you?”

“It’s a lot more complicated than that,” Castiel says. He’s accepted that no human will ever really understand his reality, but every now and then he’s reminded of that gulf in understanding. “But this tablet doesn’t tell me anything except that other angels have needed to study their human friends closely to work out what’s required. Let me read the next one.”

He registers the silence that falls after his statement, but he isn’t sure why the people around the table look varying levels of confused or pained. He doesn’t think he’s said anything to bring that sort of reaction. The next tablet continues the same topic and by the time Castiel has read them all he mostly has an appreciation for an angel trying to live among humans back before TV gave so many hours of material to work from.

“Apart from it being pleasant to read my own language again, there’s nothing here to help us with the current situation,” Castiel says, sitting back and rubbing a hand over his face. He lifts one shoulder and lets it drop, ignoring the slice of pain that sends down his neck and back. “There are some comments on keeping their Grace and true form aligned in the vessel I could maybe look into, but I’m in here on my own. It’s different.”

“So, it’s a bust,” Dean says. “Great.”

The pain in his neck seems to connect to the pain in his head, and Castiel tries not to scowl. It tends to upset people. Still, he’s been working on this issue, in one way or another, for hours. He needs a break.

“Maybe we should give it a rest for now,” Sam says, before Castiel has to say anything. “I could go for some food and if we have no leads we might as well get some sleep tonight.”

“I can leave these here and put the word out to see if anyone else has anything,” Gertrude says. “Trust me, if I can hand back translations I’m betting I can get hold of almost any Enochian artifacts going.”

“Sure,” Dean says, falling into his role as defacto head of the mission, the way he does almost everywhere. “You okay there, Cas?”

Castiel pulls his hand away from his head and nods.

“I could do with a break,” he says, because saying nothing will also make them worry. There’s a lot to keep in mind when trying not to concern his friends. “If you don’t need me for anything else.”

When no-one tells him he’s still needed, he leaves the table and makes his way upstairs, trying to ignore the way the boy on the settee looks at him. He doesn’t have the energy to deal adequately with a stranger just now, and Ashley won’t be sticking around.

Castiel’s wings spasm when he’s halfway up the stairs, even though he can’t think why they would be connected to his human body in a way that would cause that at the same time as his neck pulses with pain. Perhaps the spell of Naomi’s connected him together more completely than he’d expected.

“Cas? Need a hand?”

Sam’s voice throws him. It shouldn’t. He can see as well now as he’s been able to for a few years, some of his damaged eyes working again when they hadn’t before he left the Bunker, but he finds himself gripping the banister and swallowing, trying to work out how Sam got so close without being noticed.

“I…” he tries. From a few steps below, Sam looks up at him. It’s odd to be looked up to by Sam. It’s a long time since his friend looked small to him.

“You look like you’re hurting,” Sam says. “Here, just let me help you to your room, okay? Dean has to help me sometimes after a hunt.”

Castiel knows the sort of damage Sam has taken and not let stop him, but he also sees the layer of determination under Sam’s words, and he nods.

“You got anything to help with the pain?” Sam asks, and winces. “Besides the ketamine, I mean.”

Castiel shakes his head, and lets Sam take hold of his arm and partly support him up the stairs. It isn’t really necessary - he can keep moving up until he’s close to passing out from pain. It seems to ease some of the tension in Sam, though.

“Not that I’ve found.”

“Maybe we should look into that,” Sam says. “Got to be something that can help, right?”

They reach Castiel’s room, the spare room, and Sam lets go as Castiel lowers himself to sit on the edge of the bed.

“Yes,” Castiel says. “That might be wise. Too much pain could be dangerous.”

Sam frowns and pushes his hair back from his face, something Castiel has noticed he does when he’s thinking.

“Dangerous?” Sam asks. “To you, you mean?”

As though Castiel’s main concern had ever been danger to himself.

“No.”

Sam opens his mouth and closes it again, looking away for a moment as though he expects to find answers on the wall or in the doorway. When he looks back, his face has that pinched look that means he’s more worried rather than less. That isn’t the way this is supposed to go.

“What do you mean, Cas? Dangerous to who? How?”

“The last time I felt this much pain and stayed in one place, a Rit Zien found me and tried to put me to a merciful death,” Castiel tells him, because he can never be sure whether Dean will have told Sam details about a case which only concern Castiel. “On the way, it killed others. Humans.”

Sam’s eyes widen and he crouches, getting much closer to Castiel, even if he doesn’t reach out and touch him.

“And you, what, you’ve been trying to stop this Rit Zien from attacking people here? That’s…wait.” Sam does touch him then, placing one hand on Castiel’s forearm, like he wants to be sure Castiel can’t go anywhere. “Cas, tell me you haven’t been taking drugs to stop some killer angel from going after people in this town. That’s not the reason. Tell me.”

“It’s not the only reason,” Castiel says, because it isn’t.

Sam deflates, his forehead creasing in what looks very much like pain.

“But it’s part of it,” Sam says, and this is in no way a question. “Dude, I read up on Rit Zien after Dean ran into one the other year, and they go after angels who are better off dead-”

This time, Castiel can almost see the thoughts connecting in Sam’s head. He can’t quite bring himself to fill in the gaps without prompting, though.

“When Dean faced off against a Rit Zien, it was coming after you, wasn’t it?” Sam says, and it’s clear that this is something Dean has failed to tell Sam. “You were in so much pain it thought you should be dead?”

Castiel must betray something, some flicker of an eye or twitch of a muscle, because Sam pales.

“You thought you should be dead,” he says, flat and gray. “Cas…”

“I chose to live,” Castiel tells him, but it comes out wispy, insubstantial. He can’t quite sound as though he still thinks it was the right choice.

“We fucked you over completely, didn’t we?”

Sam’s words are nearly as quiet as Castiel’s, and that seems to be all the words there are for now. When Sam pulls his hand back, when he stands and leaves, Castiel lets himself slump. His wings drape behind him, half on and half through the bed, and he doesn’t bother to focus on any one thing in particular. He’s upset Sam. He hasn’t done a good enough job of hiding everything, and now Sam is too upset to be in a room with him.

His fingers twitch at the thought of the powder he knows is still there, but he remembers the look on Sam’s face at the mention of using it, and he stays where he is.

******************

Step One of the plan hasn’t gone quite the way he wanted. Sam’s had his talk with Cas, checked in to see how the guy’s feeling, and now he wants to punch a wall. He won’t. He’s been years training himself to control that anger, an anger he sometimes thinks is deeper than the sort Dean feels.

It’s harder to tamp it down than he’s happy with, though.

Cas has been suicidal, and Dean never told him. Cas has been in enough pain that a Rit Zien, a class of angel Sam researched with grim pragmatism after Dean told him what that hunt had been, targeted the guy. Dean never said it was Cas that particular angel was after, but it makes a horrible kind of sense. And Cas has felt bad enough over the last months that he’s taken to drugging himself to stop exactly that kind of angel from finding him again.

Sam knew Cas was hurting, of course he did. He was the one to work out they needed to pay more attention, that they needed to try and help him through the after-effects of trauma, but somehow this hits him as though that information is brand new.

He hesitates at the bottom of the stairs. No way of telling how Dean will take this. Sam’s seen how his brother’s been trying, now that he’s accepted there’s something to work on, but he also saw how Dean hovered over Cas earlier on. Sam’s been on the receiving end of Dean’s protectiveness for long enough to know that it often comes out as anger, and Cas used to seem immune to that, but Cas used to seem immune to most things.

Movement in the doorway to the living-room brings his attention round and he sees Ashley watching him. The kid’s body language says he wants to be gone from all of this, but he offers a kind of smile.

“Is your friend all right?”

“He’ll be fine,” Sam says, because Cas is one of the most private people Sam has ever known, in some ways. At least, he doesn’t spill his life history to everyone he meets. A fleeting thought that it might be more Cas doesn’t think anyone could understand or be interested makes Sam grimace, and he rushes to reassure Ashley. “He’s tough. He always pulls through.”

“Good,” Ashley says. He glances away, then back, and wraps his arms around himself. “I, er, I suppose I should thank him. For saving me.”

“From what I hear, you were out and about on your own before Val found you,” Sam says, but they’ve been over this, and Ashley hasn’t been able to tell them what he was doing or why he went back. “Look, Cas likes to save people. I mean, you see him before you get picked up, then sure, thanks would be nice, but I’ll let him know if you don’t see him.”

Ashley nods, apparently picking up on Sam’s feeling that Cas doesn’t need bothering by a stranger right now.

“Okay. Well, I’m gonna head up and lie down again.”

It takes Sam longer than it should do to work out he’s in Ashley’s way and he shuffles aside to let the kid past, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. There’s still something hunched and folded about the boy that makes Sam think this one won’t be going the Hunter route. He looks more like he’ll go with trying to forget he ever came up against the supernatural.

Once Ashley’s cleared out, Sam takes a second to steady himself. The first flush of anger is over, but he doesn’t want to snap at Dean, not when his brother’s trying so hard. They do need to have yet another talk about sharing information, but maybe that can wait.

When he rejoins the others, they have sandwiches. Dean’s cheeks are stuffed full and he’s got something like a smile in his eyes as he listens to whatever Val’s saying. Looks very much like Dean’s picked up a new friend, and how typical of Dean it started with her looking like she wanted him dead.

Dean catches Sam’s eye and raises an eyebrow, the smile slowly fading at whatever he can see on Sam’s face. Before Sam can decide how to play it, Dean swallows and wipes his mouth, sets the plate he’s holding on the coffee table and sits back on the settee with every sign of relaxation gone.

“What is it?” Dean asks.

“Dean, maybe-” Sam says, but stops when Dean cuts a hand through the air.

“You went to check on Cas, didn’t you? And you’ve come down looking like you want to chew rocks. So what did he say to you?”

Gertrude, sitting next to Dean for once, looks between them and pulls a face.

“Um. If this is personal, perhaps I should go.”

“You’re our angel expert, aren’t you?” Dean asks, clearly part-way to mission mode. “Cas is an angel. You stay.”

“We all care about Cas here,” Riva says before Sam has to try and do anything. “Is it something we all need to know about, Sam?”

It figures the doctor might have some ideas about confidentiality. Dean’s always been more about need-to-know, which isn’t quite the same thing. Sam supposes he has to admit he’s not a million miles different, not all the time. He still isn’t sure if he went about it the right way when he told Dean about Cas bugging out back in that car-park, months ago, and he told himself he’d be more sensitive in the future. But…

“I don’t know,” he says.

No-one asks him anything else as he thinks, but Beth does bring him a sandwich and pat his arm. The tension in the room is thick enough to make eating uninteresting, but Sam takes a bite anyway. Got to be practical.

The thing with Cas is that it isn’t just his mental health that’s a worry. From what Sam knows, a Rit Zien turning up is a very real possibility. They still don’t know if every angel is back in Heaven, or which ones are still down on Earth, and they should have considered it themselves. It’s just another mark of how far Cas’ experience is from theirs. A Rit Zien is a tactical issue, not just an emotional one, and they already have one creature to sort out. If Cas is caught between being in pain and being drugged up, it’s already hard enough. Throwing in some duty to protect his friends, his family, from another angel is not going to be helping.

“He’s worried a Rit Zien might turn up,” Sam says, just as Dean’s about to take another bite. “Said the last one came after him.”

And if there’s a little bite to that, Sam thinks he does as well as can be expected at keeping it mild.

Dean glances at the sandwich and visibly gives up on it, throwing it back on the plate and crossing his arms. He doesn’t say anything for a few moments, and thankfully no-one asks what a Rit Zien is. Finally, Dean nods.

“Right,” he says. “Okay.”

“You got any thoughts on what we can do about that?” Sam asks.

“One of those bastards tries to come after Cas, I’ll skewer it,” Dean says, but he doesn’t sound like his heart’s in it. “Suppose it explains a few things.”

The women still don’t ask, but the lack of questions is getting louder. Sam reminds himself that not sharing is something he’s leveled at Dean enough times, and hopes he’s making the right choice.

“A Rit Zien is a kind of angel,” he says, and holds up a hand when Gertrude looks excited. “Not one we want to meet. They, er, have a pretty binary view of what counts as healthy and their job is the put an end to any angel who’s too badly hurt to fight on.”

“Heavenly mercy killings,” Dean says. Sneers. “But they think pretty much any level of pain counts, so when I ran into one it was counting a girl breaking up with her boyfriend the same way it counted terminal illness.”

“Not something we want around here,” Val says firmly.

Beth frowns and sits forward in her chair.

“It sees emotional pain the same way as physical pain?” she asks. When Dean nods, she shoots a look at Riva. “I don’t know how much physical pain Cas is in, but I’m thinking still quite a bit. Right?” Riva’s face gives the answer for her. “I know you keep an eye on that,” Beth goes on. “But the emotional side… I’m glad you’ve found him and that the two of you have worked some things out, Dean, but you know that isn’t going to have wiped away what he’s going through, don’t you? It doesn’t work like that.”

“Yeah, I got that memo,” Dean says, sounding bitter but managing to hide it better than Sam’s heard him do in the past. “Not like he’s big on letting me look after him, anyway.”

“He didn’t like you acting like he was weak,” Beth says, and looks exasperated at Dean’s expression. “I didn’t need to ask him. I know what that feels like.”

Sam notes how Beth doesn’t look at Val and the way Val very obviously doesn’t react. So. Maybe it’s not just Dean who has trouble finding the right line to walk on some things.

“When did this turn into a relationship workshop?” Dean asks.

Maybe the others can’t tell, but Dean’s not far from bolting, however much he’s been trying to get his head around the need to change. It says a lot that he’s not laughed the whole thing off and left already, or else made some comment designed to make everyone so uncomfortable that it’s just dropped.

“It hasn’t,” Val says. “Or, well, I suppose that it’s all wrapped up, isn’t it? If you say this killer angel zeroes in on pain, and that can be emotional, then it makes sense to do whatever we can on that front, and that includes passing on any advice we have that might help. So. Maybe not relationship workshop. Maybe…tactical emotional advice.”

Val shrugs and shares a look with Beth, who gives a small smile.

“Tactical emotional advice?” Dean asks, sounding skeptical. He sighs. “Fine. Got to be worth a try. Lay it on me.”

Val eyes him as though not sure if he means it, but when Dean just looks back at her she nods.

“Right. Okay. So, it’s like I already said. Listen. And…if you feel yourself wanting to offer a solution, maybe don’t.”

Beth visibly softens. Looks like whatever missteps Val made in the past are at least partly done with.

“Don’t offer a solution?” Dean asks, like he isn’t sure he’s heard right. He shakes his head and huffs in a way that screams he’s not in his wheelhouse. “Sounds like the kind of thing that should happen over beer.”

“No!” Val says, Beth and Riva joining in at the same time. Val goes on. “If Cas wasn’t having an issue with controlled substances, then maybe, but I don’t think it’s the right mix here.”

“You know he can probably hear us, right?” Dean says. “He’s heard me and Sam through walls before.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Val says. “If you don’t want to talk to him, someone else can. But whatever I thought when you first turned up, I can see how it is with you two. Knowing you’re trying to get it might help more than someone he’s not known as long trying.”

Beth nods.

“It mean more to you that Val gets it?” Dean asks Beth, who blinks. “You know, what with the two of you crushing on each other hard enough to break rocks.”

Okay. Sam was wrong. Dean isn’t completely avoiding throwing out statements to throw people off topic.

“What?” Val asks, as Beth laughs.

It isn’t even close to being a believable laugh.

“You’re…you’re crushing rocks,” Val says. “I don’t know what… I mean…”

Riva growls. Growls.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” she says. “Dean, it isn’t fair to drag that up now. We’re talking about Cas. If you can’t cope with us mentioning you and Cas being together, maybe you have some more thinking to do. And Val? Beth? It’s out there, now. Up to you what you do about it, but I’d really be happy if you dealt with the elephant now Dean’s pointed right at it. So, does anyone want coffee?”

Which is how Beth and Val end up out in the garden as the evening falls, and Dean goes up to have yet another go at talking to Cas. Maybe, Sam thinks, this will be the time there’ll be a lasting breakthrough. It’s a lot easier to hunt monsters than to hunt emotional issues. Monsters, once stabbed, tend to stay dead. The emotional stuff just keeps coming back. He sits with Riva and Gertrude, sipping coffee and making small-talk, and tries really hard to believe two of the most stubborn, battered, loving people he knows can actually break through some of their mental blocks and come out of this together.

Chapter Text

Dean takes a breath before he pushes the half-open door of Cas’ room. He feels like he’s trapped in some endless cycle of talking and trying and failing and having to go again. Stabbing a monster’s so much easier than this. But it’s Cas, and now Dean’s had his eyes opened to this whole thing he isn’t going to wimp out. So he nudges at the door and waits until he can see Cas, lying on the bed with his hands folded over his stomach and his eyes fixed on the ceiling, and he makes himself sketch a smile. Can’t hurt to sound warm and not irritable.

“Hey, Cas? You mind if I come in?”

“No,” Cas says, but he doesn’t offer anything else. He sounds…tight. Tight and small and maybe a little pissed. He doesn’t turn his head to look at Dean.

Of course, Dean reminds himself, that doesn’t mean Cas isn’t looking. Remembering about the freaky angel eyes is taking some doing. Not that it’s freaky, exactly. Well, Cas isn’t freaky. It’s more that it freaks Dean out to think how much Cas might have seen and heard that Dean didn’t know he had.

“Look, buddy,” he says, and stops. Cas is his friend. That hasn’t gone away, and it won’t. Shit, if Cas and Dean can stay friends through all the crap they’ve gone through, and that they’ve thrown at each other, then nothing’s likely to shake it at this point. But ‘buddy’ doesn’t feel quite right, either. “Cas. I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

He sees Cas frown, and shift, and lift his head enough to see Dean with his human eyes.

“What?” Cas asks.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Dean says, and holds his arms out. The smile he tries is beyond a bust, but it’s the best he can do. “I’m…I’m trying, man. I want to try. For you, and for me. And for…for us. But I keep getting it wrong. You know?”

At that, Cas moves again, sitting up and pushing himself back until his back is to the wall. He pats the bed next to him, not breaking eye contact with Dean.

“I am familiar with the general idea,” he says, and pats the bed again.

It takes Dean longer to get the hint than it should do, but he settles himself next to Cas and crosses his legs at the ankle.

“Feel kinda like we’re in high school, here, Cas,” he says.

“Why?” Cas asks, turning and narrowing his eyes.

For a moment, Dean forgets everything about Cas’ trauma and the monster and his own fears and longing and desperation. It’s just him and Cas and Cas not getting one of Dean’s references, and his heart aches.

“I miss you,” he says, without thinking.

“I’m right here, Dean,” Cas says.

“Yeah. Yeah, you are, but I still miss you.” And just like that he knows what he wants to say. “I feel like I’ve been missing you for years. Do you get what I mean? It’s just, you get swept away, or pulled away, by so many things and I feel like we’re always just finding the same page and it’s time to start over. And with all that, I keep missing things about you I shouldn’t be missing. The depression, the pain, the… You’ve been worried about a Rit Zien? And you didn’t… You didn’t feel you could tell me. And I’m not cross with you, Cas. I’m not. I’m frustrated, with myself and with how we keep doing this, the both of us. I want us to be better, with each other. For each other. You know?”

“You want me to tell you things,” Cas says. “You want me to…to open up?”

“Yeah, man,” Dean says. He thinks, if this were another relationship, one that had just started and had been going on for nearly a decade, he’s have a petname for Cas. Sweetheart or sugar or sunshine. Something. But none of that seems right just in this moment. Probably something to save for later. “Yeah. And I want to open up to you, too.” He huffs out a laugh. “Not gonna say it’ll be easy, for either one of us. But…yeah.”

“Okay,” Cas says, after staring at Dean for a while.

“Okay? What, just like that?”

“Dean,” Cas says. “I was part of the host for longer than humanity has existed. I’m used to…sharing.”

“You seem to keep a lot to yourself,” Dean says. “Even from the other angels.”

“In recent years, yes,” Cas says, and sighs. He drops his gaze to his own hands and Dean feels the loss. “But in the past? I don’t think so. I don’t remember it well. From what Naomi said, that’s likely deliberate. But I do remember connection. Unity. Necessity and education took our openness from us. But it doesn’t mean I want it that way.”

He hesitate, glancing at Dean.

“What is it?” Dean asks. “Come on. If we’re gonna share, we should give it a proper try, right?”

“Yes,” Cas says slowly, narrowing his eyes again. “I was going to say, I learned a lot of how to be human from you and from Sam, and you both keep a lot to yourselves. I thought it was how I was meant to be, in a human vessel.”

Which makes sense. Cas kept a lot from Dean right from the start, but he was under orders. In the years since, Dean has shut Cas down a bunch of times. Makes sense the guy extrapolated from that. And Dean…well. Dean got it from his dad. It all stretches back.

“About time we taught each other differently, then,” he says, and takes a second to marshall his thoughts. “You, er, you really worried a Rit-Zien will show up?”

“Yes,” Cas says. And slumps. “And no. I think…I think it’s a possibility, but perhaps I persuaded myself it was more likely than is the case. So…so I’d have a reason.”

“To take the drugs?” Dean asks.

Cas nods. He looks ashamed.

“Hey, Cas. I am no stranger to self-medication. Believe me. But, yeah, probably best to try another way. You talked to Riva about it? Maybe she has some ideas you can take out for a spin. And, hey, you can talk to me, right? And Sam. And we aren’t going anywhere until we know everyone here is safe. So tactically you don’t have to worry on that score. That help?”

He stops, suddenly not sure if he’s been doing that thing he was told to avoid, and solving Cas’ problems instead of listening to them. But Cas smiles. It’s small, but it looks genuine.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, that helps. Knowing I don’t have to watch out for all sides, it helps.”

They sit in silence for a while, and Dean wonders if Cas can hear Beth and Val in the garden. He’d kind of like to know how they’re getting on. Then he feels Cas move, and looks round to see the guy a bit closer, looking at him.

“Yeah?” he asks.

“I was wondering,” Cas says, sounding almost shy. Almost. A little bit hopeful, too. “Are we just going to share words?”

“What else do you want to share?” Dean asks, but he lets himself look at Cas’ lips, and they’re slightly parted. He feels his heart-rate speed up.

“I was thinking we could try kissing again,” Cas says. “If you want to.”

“Cas,” Dean says. “Trust me. I want to. But we aren’t using this to avoid the other stuff, all right?”

“No,” Cas says. “But we can do this, too. For a little while?”

And Dean can think of no argument against that. To be fair, he doesn’t try very hard. Instead, he leans in and lets one hand drift up to caress the side of Cas’ face, and he kisses him.

Chapter Text

Beth opens her eyes to see Val still sleeping beside her. It isn’t the first time. The two of them have been dancing around this for a while, finding excuses to bed-share and lying a few inches apart. This time, though…

She finds a smile pulling at her mouth and gives into it. Sometimes, giving in is the best course.

“Hey,” she says, lifting her hand from where it rests between them and brushing the hair back from Val’s face. She waits as Val shifts, her eyes blinking open just enough to show their color. “We should get up.”

“No,” Val says, sleep clogging up the word. She smiles sleepily and wriggles across the bed until she’s right up against Beth. “It’s early.”

Val presses a kiss to Beth’s shoulder, then along her collar-bone, then to the base of her throat.

Beth tips her head back and lets her.

“They’re going to wonder where we are,” Beth breathes.

Val’s hand curls around Beth’s side, stroking along the skin on her hip, and it’s hard to care if everyone is waiting for them as the touch tingles.

“Don’t care,” Val says, soothing her thumb in a circle before pushing lightly, urging Beth to roll onto her back and rewarding her with an open-mouthed kiss to her neck when she does. “Gonna do this first.”

“This?” Beth asks. She shifts as Val moves again, leaning over her and this time kissing her only an inch from the edge of her lips.

“You,” Val says, sleepiness giving way to a mis of lust and humor in her voice. This kiss presses to the corner of her mouth as Val’s fingers trail down her hip and over her upper thigh. “Gonna do you. You okay with that for a plan?”

“I’ll cope,” Beth says, and pulls Val over that last half-inch until they’re mouths meet fully.

***

Cas is a warm bundle against Dean, his back pressed along Dean’s front in a way that’s doing nothing to make Dean want to get up. From the light falling through the windows, it’s dawn already and Sam at least will be up. Dean doesn’t know where his brother spent the night, but with a case to solve and Sam’s usual energy levels, Dean is sure lying around in bed for hours isn’t an option.

“Hey,” he says, as Cas stirs. “You sleep all right?”

“Better than usual,” Cas says. “And you?”

It’s a little stilted, as though he’s reading from a script someone’s given him, but no matter how many hours of TV Metatron poured into Cas’ head, he’s thin on dress rehearsals for this sort of thing. Dean lets himself smile and kisses Cas’ shoulder, mostly to feel the way it makes Cas shiver. It’s the right kind of shiver, though, and not the sort that makes Dean want to wrap his friend up in a blanket and build him a fire.

Friend. It’s not wrong, exactly, but he might have to start putting a different word first.

“How’re you feeling?” Dean asks.

Cas sighs.

“The pain’s still there, Dean,” he says. “I think, maybe… I think maybe it always will be.”

Dean nods against Cas’ shoulder. He wants to tell Cas not to be such a downer, but the aches in Dean’s knees and right hip, and the swelling in his knuckles, and the way his back doesn’t seem to want to be straight sometimes these days, are all pains he’s having to accept won’t go away. It’s age, for him, and too many years by far of having his body hurled around by all kinds of nasty, but Cas has been through his own shit and expecting it to just be washed away is a kid’s dream.

Dean hates that he can’t just wash it all away.

“Maybe we should look into ways to help with that,” he says, and rushes on when Cas stiffens in his arms. Probably expecting some lecture or a sign Dean hasn’t really been listening. But he’s changed now, or is trying to be. “Look, there are ways to stop stuff hurting as much. Heat packs or pain relieving gels or, I don’t know, acupuncture or something. Gotta be worth looking into, right? Hell, I could do with thinking about it myself. Not, you know, that I’m saying what I feel is-”

“It’s okay, Dean,” Cas says, and wraps a hand over Dean’s forearm, the one draped across Cas’ stomach. “I… Yes. That sounds like something I should look into.”

“We’ll look into it,” Dean says, and catches himself. He has the feeling he’s going to be doing that a lot from now on. “I mean, if you want…”

In answer, Cas twists in Dean’s arms, his eyes holding a hopeful light that cuts at Dean. The guy really didn’t think help was being offered. Dean’s just going to have to keep catching himself, and make sure Cas gets to rely on help being there for when he wants it.

“I’d like that,” Cas says, and kisses Dean.

And maybe Sam can sit and wait for them to get up after all.

***

“You think they’re coming down any time soon?” Riva asks, holding up the coffee pot with a raised eyebrow.

Sam pushes his mug closer and watches as she refills it. It’s his third mug, but it’s not like anyone but Riva and him are wanting any. Gertrude isn’t here yet, even though she’s sent a message to the group chat she insisted they set up saying she’ll be round with another tablet she’s got hold of as soon as she can be. So there’s only the two of them to eat the pastries Sam’s went out to buy, as well.

He reaches for another one, Dean’s favorite, and sees Riva wince at the same time he does when the sound of bedsprings upstairs reaches a new pitch.

“I’m not even sure which room it’s coming from,” Riva says, pulling apart the croissant she’s taken and crumbling it between her fingers. “Not sure which one of us needs to be more embarrassed.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, and inspects his pastry with far more intensity than it really needs. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s two bedrooms, so we’ve both gotta work on wiping this from our minds.”

Riva shrugs.

“Or,” she says, “we could see which sibling can be turned the brightest shade of red later when we bring it up every chance we get.”

Sam feels a smile tug at his lips and lifts his coffee in a salute.

“Worth a try,” he says, and tells himself the walls and floors are far too thick for him to be hearing groaning. From anyone.

Chapter Text

Cas is quiet over breakfast. He takes one of the pastries Sam and Riva left for them, but he leaves it sitting on the plate Riva gets out. His mug of coffee cools by his right hand, which rests on the table, the fingers slightly bent. He kind of looks like he’s checked out, but when Dean asks if he wants a fresh mug, Cas glances over and sketches a smile.

“No. No, I’m… I’ve been trying to remember something.”

“Forgotten already?” Riva asks, her tone of voice the same as it’s been since they got downstairs. Dean’s working on ignoring it. “Can’t have been too memorable, then.”

Sam smirks. The bastard.

“Hey!”

Dean has a comment lined up to fire back, but Cas doesn’t seem worried and in any case it’s not like they got up to all that much. In a way, saying that seems wrong. Saying much of anything about it seems wrong. This is all pretty new, and Dean thinks he’s finding his footing with being better about things, but he isn’t sure enough about this new stage to his and Cas’ relationship to get into an argument with Riva over it.

Besides, Cas has drifted back into his head again.

“Something to do with the case?” Dean asks, turning pointedly away from Riva. He catches Sam’s smile as he does so, but screw him. “Or something else?”

“The case,” Cas says, slowly. “I think.”

“Well, maybe a coffee will help jolt your brain into action,” Dean says. “How about I get you a fresh one anyway?”

Cas nods, but his expression shifts into the one he uses when he’s telling Dean something that seems obvious to Cas and that isn’t obvious at all to Dean until it’s pointed out. He’s told himself he’s going to do better at listening at those times, so he pauses.

“Coffee has no impact on my actual mind,” Cas says, leaning a little toward Dean. Dean doesn’t think Cas is even aware he does that. “My human brain is only partly connected to my angelic one. Especially now I’m realigned.”

At that, Dean shares a look with Sam, who shrugs. It sure seems like Cas gets headaches and so on, like a human would, but maybe that isn’t anything to do with where the mind is. Or what the mind is. Dean’s sure the mind is synapses and energy and perhaps that isn’t so different to what Cas is, with all his talk of celestial intent and quantum mechanics. Or maybe it is.

Dean gets the coffee anyway.

“So, you got any idea what you’re trying to pull up from storage?” Dean asks as he sets about making more coffee. “Ballpark?”

“I woke up thinking of that creature,” Cas says, and looks confused as Riva and Sam both pull faces and stare at Dean. “What?”

“You were thinking about the creature no-one can remember when you were in bed with me,” Dean says, levelly. “Apparently, some people find that amusing.”

“Oh,” Cas says, and clearly rejects any concerns over why people would do that. “We’ve spent as much time talking about angels as we have trying to solve this case, and it’s been good to discuss my kind with you all, it has, but I’m sure there’s something…”

He pauses, frowning.

“Something about angels reminds you of the creature?” Sam asks.

Cas nods.

“I just can’t bring it into focus,” he says, a wisp of frustration seeping into his words. “It’s something, but…”

“Is it something you said, or we asked about, or something you read?” Riva asks, sliding into a more serious tone than she’s been using since Dean and Cas came downstairs almost an hour ago.

“Read,” Cas says, sitting up straighter. “I read it. I think… Yes. In a tablet.”

Sam nods and disappears, returning with a tablet. There are sticky notes attached to it, covered in Sam’s handwriting. By the looks of it, he’s spent some time noting down what Cas said as he read it. Sam pulls the notes off and stacks them neatly on the table before sliding it in front of Cas and sitting back down.

“In that?”

Cas nods and pulls the tablet closer, leaning over and peering at it as though he needs glasses. Dean wonders if that could possibly be the case, what with how Cas has essentially got hundreds of eyes and most of them aren’t the gooey ball things people have. He doesn’t have time to think about it for long when Cas sits back up, jabbing a finger down onto a part of the tablet that looks no different from any of the rest of it to Dean.

“This is it,” Cas says. He’s smiling. It isn’t much, but any smile from Cas these days is precious, and Dean did not just think that.

Except he did. And it’s okay to think that now: Cas and he are together and everyone in the room knows it. Huh. It’s going to take some getting used to, not having to be defensive about the way he feels.

Shaking himself, Dean rejoins them at the table and looks where Cas is pointing. Yeah. Just squiggles and wedge shapes.

“What’s it say?” he asks. “Were people forgetting things?”

“No,” Cas says. “It’s detailing other angels who made their homes on Earth during this period. They weren’t all the same kind. Seraphs did spend time here, but so did Grigori-”

“Met one of those,” Dean says to Riva.

Sam nods.

“Yeah, he was feeding from people’s souls. Keeping them tied down and taking a bit at a time. Kinda creepy.”

“A lot creepy,” Dean agrees.

“Yes. He killed Claire’s mother. I remember,” Cas says, and Dean is an idiot for forgetting Cas has his own bond with Claire, and his own reasons to feel a connection to Amelia. “Feeding on souls is… It isn’t unique to the Grigori, by any means, but generally an angel won’t feed so directly.”

He looks away, his eyes shuttering in a way Dean’s known for years means Cas is uncomfortable about a topic.

Riva looks a question at them, and Sam quickly fills her in on Jimmy and Amelia and Claire. He only sketches a few basics, but Dean sees Cas tracing a finger over the lettering on the tablet as though trying to avoid hearing it. There must still be a lot of guilt there, even though, now Dean thinks about it, Cas has fought against a whole lot of programing to even get to the point where he can feel guilty about it.

“Hey,” he says quietly, as Riva asks a question about Claire. “You did the best you could, man.”

“No,” Cas says, just as softly. “No, I didn’t. I took Jimmy from both of them and failed to keep them safe.”

And he’s right. He is. Still…

“Not sure what you coulda done,” Dean says. “We were fighting a war, Cas.”

“Not for the entire time,” Cas says. “And even so, I could have taken the time to consider them. Dean, I’m not looking for an answer, here. I regret a number of things, and what happened to Amelia, and to Claire, will always be on that list.”

“Well, you can’t change it,” Dean says. “So, I guess we just gotta make sure we look after Claire from now on, right?”

Cas meets his eyes, and there’s a warmth there. A hope.

“We?”

Riva interrupts before they can get any further, but Dean has more to say about accepting your mistakes and moving on. He has a lot of thinking still to do about it, too, but he’s starting to see an edge he can grip on to.

“Okay, so you said more than one kind,” Riva says. “Seraphs, which would be your kind. Grigori, which would be the creepy vampire kind. What else?”

“Several,” Cas says. “Even a Rit Zien.”

“They take away pain, right?” Riva asks. “Kind of like medical angels, but with euthanasia being a bit quick to reach the top of the options list?”

“Yes,” Cas says. “Yes, they take away pain, and-”

He stops, tilting his head and frowning.

“I wonder,” he says, a few moments later, and leans back over the tablet without explaining what it is he’s wondering.

Sam opens his mouth, but Dean shushes him. Cas has that intent look on his face that means he’s following a thread, and it’s so much better than the distant expressions or the pained ones or the ones that say Cas expects to be dismissed and overlooked. Cas in hunter mode is a relief.

Riva gets up and pours the coffee Dean has forgotten about, and she adds two extra mugs. Dean hears the noises of feet on floorboards, and on stairs, a moment later. By the time Val and Beth arrive, looking rumpled and pleased with themselves, Riva has coffee held out to them.

“Thanks,” Val says, taking hers and grinning.

“Figure you could do with the energy,” Riva says, straight-faced. “Don’t get the feeling you slept much.”

“Oh, I slept like a sleeping thing,” Val says, slipping her hand down Beth’s arm and taking her hand. “Already had a morning pick-me-up, too.”

Beth flushes, but she smiles. Riva rolls her eyes.

“Suppose you could have made that sound a lot grosser,” she says. She holds up a hand as Val opens her mouth, glee dancing in her eyes. “Don’t. I said you could have done. It wasn’t an invitation.”

Beth takes a drink of her coffee, looking away, but she keeps hold of Val’s hand.

“Whatcha doing there, Cas?” Val asks, bringing both of them over to the table. It’s getting a bit crowded, but no-one complains.

“He thinks there’s something in the tablets about a kind of angel that’s got something to do with the creature,” Dean explains, and slides his hand onto Cas’ knee without thinking, squeezing a little as he goes on. “Could be a lead.”

“Morning, Val,” Cas says, not looking up. “Beth. Did you sleep well?”

“About as well as you did,” Sam says, and the bastard sounds sincere enough that Cas might even miss the needling undertone. It’s like Sam and Riva have teamed up in some kind of younger sibling oath.

“Then you must have slept very well,” Cas says. “Dean’s presence is very comforting.”

“So is Val’s,” Beth agrees.

It takes a moment for Dean to notice the gleam in each of their eyes. Sam coughs.

“Unless you would like further details,” Cas says, “I think I may be on to something.”

“Er. No,” Sam says, sharing a look with Riva, who shakes her head and shrugs. “No, I think we’re good on that.”

“Let me know if you change your mind,” Cas says, with the air of someone who has noticed a game of chicken going on and decided he will calmly smite any feathered, squawking bird that comes near him. It can be too easy to look at Cas hurting and forget what a snarky, determined bastard he can be. “There’s mention of a Rit Zien, I think. It’s very poetic, even for Enochian, but the gist seems to be that a Rit Zien found love on Earth.”

“Are we heading to angel-kid land?” Dean asks. “You saying that creature’s a nephilim?”

“A nephilim is the offspring of an angel and a human,” Cas says. “So no. Because this doesn’t say the Rit Zien fell for a mortal.”

“But you said on Earth,” Riva reminds him.

“Yes. I did. But humans aren’t the only sentient beings who inhabit this realm. Or weren’t. Back then, the Gods were a great deal more active.”

“You’re saying this Rit Zien fell in love with a God?” Sam asks. “How would that even work? Wouldn’t God be even more mad at that, with the different pantheon issue?”

“Gabriel crossed pantheons,” Cas says. “And yes, he did it to hide, but the lines weren’t all so clear as that, in the beginning of your kind.”

“You got any more details?” Dean asks, and glances round the table. No-one is looking at him like he went too far, or was too snappy with that. “Er, like, so we know which God?”

“Goddess,” Cas says. “In those days, she was known as Ereshkigal by some, though as with many of the Gods, she’s split and merged and changed over time.”

“Split and merged?” Val asks, raising her eyebrows.

“Yes,” Cas says, and waves a hand. “It’s difficult to understand from a human perspective. If you have time later, I’ll be happy to take you through it. It has some fascinating implications in mathematical terms. I think you’ll especially enjoy them, Val. In any case, it’s hard to make out what’s meant by the final lines, but it could be interpreted as the two of them having a child.”

“A child of a Pagan God and an angel?” Sam whistles, pushing his hair back from his face and leaning back in his chair. “That… What would that even be like?”

“Ereshkigal was, or is, a God of the Underworld,” Cas says. “She wasn’t supposed to be able to leave her own kingdom, though of course most myths are wrong in key ways. And perhaps this is why she was confined. With so many of my memories compromised by Naomi and her people I can’t say. But a God of Death and an angel meant to take away pain could have off-spring with…unusual attributes.”

“Not like most angels are against messing with memory,” Dean says, perhaps a little bitterly.

“True, as far as it goes,” Cas says. “I could take away your memories, or alter them, up to a point, but the rules always forbade it unless it was under direct orders. Not every class of angel could do that. Remember, Seraphs were second only to archangels, even though the difference in power was very great.”

“Are,” Dean says, tightening his grip on Cas’ knee. When Cas looks at him with something like puzzlement, Dean goes on. “You’re a Seraph, Cas. So ‘are’.”

Cas seems to shrug that off, but he does shift his free hand to cover Dean’s.

“In any case, something about what I saw is making me think angel, and this feels connected.” Cas frowns. “It’s worth pursuing.”

“And how exactly do we pursue this?” Val asks.

“We contact the Gods,” Cas says.

Val looks like she wants to laugh, but when when the Cas just stares levelly at her she blinks and turns to Dean.

“Contact the Gods? Like…actually contact an actual God? Have you don’t that before?”

“Yeah.” Dean shrugs. “And the King of Hell. And Archangels. You should see my rolodex. So, how we gonna do this, Cas? You got a God in mind, or is this more of an all points bulletin?”

“Should I tidy up?” Beth asks. “If a God’s coming over, I mean. Will one get offended if it’s not temple-like enough in here?”

“You offered guest-right to an angel,” Cas tells her, affection and approval clear. “Your home is as close to a temple as could be needed. And yeah, I have an idea who we can call. She might not like it much, but she owes me a favor.”

“A God owes you a favor?” Sam asks. “Which one?”

Cas shrugs.

“She has more names than her sister does,” he says, “but if I can find the right ingredients, I should be able to summon her. You’ll like her, Dean. Or she’ll like you, at any rate. She’s always approved of people who enjoy the pleasures of the flesh.”

Dean chokes and Val reaches over and slaps him on the back.

“Pleasures of the flesh, eh?” Val asks as Dean gets his breath back. “Are you calling Venus?”

“An early aspect of her, in a way,” Cas says. “Gods merge, and split, remember, and overlap. If we want to know about Ereshkigal’s child, we’ll do better to speak with the version which called her sister. I’m going to summon Inanna. You may want to avoid looking too appealing. She has a habit of taking lovers wherever she likes.”

With that announcement, Cas drains his coffee and leaves, and Beth takes his seat. Val and Riva look about as stunned as she does.

“Don’t worry,” Dean says. “I’ve met Gods. They’re never as impressive as you think. But if it makes you feel better, Sammy here will run out for some flowers and fruit or something. Maybe a gift basket.”

Sam throws part of a pastry at Dean’s head, and they set about getting ready to call a God round for coffee and gossip.

Chapter Text

In end, Cas insists they don’t need much to summon Inanna. He does allow that she might feel mollified to find some sort of offering is available, but he goes out himself into Beth’s garden and comes back with several roses.

“Roses, Cas?” Dean asks. “Really? You sure this isn’t an old girlfriend of yours?”

“Hardly,” Cas says, a glimmer of his old wry sarcasm in his tone. “From what I remember, I knew Inanna more in her role as a Goddess of War, but unless we have a lion to hand, roses are the symbol she’ll most relate to.”

And with that, he sets up a circle. It isn’t the traditional chalk circle Dean’s used to from trapping demons. This one is made of earth, also brought in from the garden. Cas adds symbols, seven of them, and speaks words that are nothing like any language Dean has heard before.

“Sumerian,” Gertrude says, leaning across Sam as she gives them that detail. She also reaches for the bag of chips Dean is holding and helps herself to a few. Since arriving as Cas was out in the garden, she’s been almost vibrating with excitement. “I’ve never heard it spoken. Well, not to know it’s being said properly. It’s a dead language, you see, and a language isolate, so we can’t even trace it back from it’s offshoots. Oh, I should really be taking notes.”

Instead, she feeds the chips into her mouth one by one, glee in her eyes.

Beth comes in just as Cas finishes the last symbol and sits back on his heels. She looks around at everyone, at Dean, Sam and Gertude sitting squashed together on the couch and at her sister leaning on the wall by the arch to the hallway, and at her girlfriend sitting with her feet drawn up in one of the chairs, which has been pulled back as far as it will go, and offers a sort of smile.

“I’ve made a pot of coffee and one of tea,” she says. “I wasn’t sure what she’d like. And…cookies? Cake? Should we have cake? I mean, we know she’s coming, so…cake…”

She looks confused at her own rambling and draws to a halt.

“You’re over-thinking this,” Cas says. “And she prefers wine, in general.”

He stands, stares critically at his work for a moment, and speaks one final word. It crackles in the air. The heat-tingle that flashes through the room is like lightning, but without the blaze, and the sucking silence that follows is something Dean’s felt in thunderstorms when he’s been out somewhere with a wide plain.

No-one speaks. No-one moves. And no-one arrives.

“Er, Cas?” Sam asks, after a few minutes have gone by. “Should that have done a bit m-”

He’s cut off by an inrush of air, and for a moment the light in the room shutters out. When daylight returns, leaving dancing after-images across Dean’s eyes, a woman stands in the middle of the circle, a hand on one hip and an expression of mild irritation on her face. Her skin is not as dark as Beth’s and she is glorious. Dean tries to chase that thought out of his head, but it sneaks back.

“What?” she demands.

Now, no-one is speaking because they’re all looking from the woman to Cas, who simply stares at her. Dean is sure it isn’t for the same reason he might stare if he saw this woman out and about in a bar, looking like she was open to a bit of light flirting. She’s young, her hair and eyes both dark as well, and Dean’s not sure he’s seen many people quite so confident in their own bodies.

“Nice dress,” he says, without meaning to, and finds himself the focus on a gaze heated and intent enough to make him gulp.

It is a nice dress, he thinks. It’s all draped and red and there’s some kind of scarf thing, but he has no idea why he said that. And now he doesn’t know how to get her to stop staring. Cas was very clear they had to be polite to her, so Dean can’t snap.

“That one is mine, Inanna,” Cas says, and there’s an edge to his voice that Dean hasn’t heard much in recent years. It’s the way Cas used to speak before going into a fight, all certainty and power and grumbling grace. It’s not jealousy, Dean doesn’t think, but it is a warning.

She smiles, one side of her mouth curving into something that indicates a kind of pleasure not everyone will enjoy, and turns to meet Cas’ gaze.

“Is that so, Seraph?” she asks. “And what do…?”

Her words soften to a silence as she frown, the smile fading, and takes a step closer to Cas.

“Castiel? Is that you?”

She sounds much more businesslike, and much more friendly, and Cas nods, relaxing in a way that only now shows how tense he was.

“Yeah. It’s me. How’ve you been, Inanna?”

“Better than you, it seems,” she says. “I heard Heaven had been having its problems, but you know how my kind gossip. I thought… I didn’t know it meant…” She stops and shakes her head. “I am sorry to see it has come to this for you.”

Cas shrugs.

“I’m coming to terms with it,” he says. “It’s not as though Heaven was perfect.”

“You haven’t called me to help with this, have you?” Inanna asks. “Because I’m not a Goddess of Healing, Castiel. If you want me to manipulate or seduce or destroy, yes. I can do that. I’d do it with pleasure.”

She’s so matter-of-fact as she says it that Dean finds himself checking to see how the others are taking it, just in case she isn’t really so calmly talking about being a force for chaos or whatever. Sam’s eyebrows are raised high enough they might be in danger of wandering right off his head, and Gertrude looks awestruck. And thrilled. The women who have taken in Cas are all some version of straight-faced and focused.

“No,” Cas says. “No, I don’t need any of that. Though I do need to ask you a favor.”

“After what you did with Damuzi?” she says, and gives no further clue as to what that might have been. “If it’s within my power to grant it, and with the usual caveats, then ask away.”

Dean isn’t sure he wants to know what the usual caveats are. In any case, Cas pushes right on and asks about Ereshkigal. Inanna’s face sets.

“My sister’s angelic lover,” she says, and grimaces. Turning, she places her hands on her hips and glares at nothing somewhere to Dean’s left. “I knew that one would cause problems.”

“Anything you can tell us might help,” Cas says. He glances at Beth and shifts on his feet. “Would…would you care for some refreshment while we talk?”

Inanna’s brow wrinkles. She opens her mouth, closes it again, and turns back to Cas.

“Refreshments? No offerings?”

“We do have roses for you. But refreshments are a kind of guest offering, if you think about it,” Cas says. “It’s fascinating, really, how-”

“Yes. Yes, I’m sure it is,” Inanna says. She’s still frowning. “You always were strange, Castiel. Even for an angel. But a wonderful tactician, and I do owe you. I dislike owing anything to anyone, so…if it will help you, I can tell you what I know. And roses? Well, I suppose they will do.”

“And the refreshments?” Beth asks from where she’s sitting on the arm of Val’s chair. Inanna spins back to look at Beth, who sits up straight and clasps her hands together. “Um…”

The heat is back in Inanna’s eyes. Dean’s getting the distinct impression it never fully leaves, and she looks Beth up and down, her lips curving again.

“And those two belong to each other,” Cas says.

Inanna throws her hands up and takes the five steps to the edge of the circle until she’s as close to Cas as she can get. Leaning forward, she fixes him with a frustrated look.

“Are any of them free?” she asks. “You do understand I wouldn’t normally let them belonging to anyone hinder me, anyway. I’m being respectful of our friendship, here.”

If Cas is surprised to hear this Goddess considers him a friend, he doesn’t show it.

“In case you were confused,” Cas says levelly, “the refreshments mentioned include cookies and tea or coffee. Not a human.”

Inanna rolls her eyes.

“I was thinking more along the lines of entertainment,” she says. “And…tea? Really? Coffee? Where’s the wine? Beer, at least.”

“I can get you wine, or beer,” Beth says, starting up from the chair-arm and stopping when Val grabs her forearm. She twists to look back at Val. “I have that merlot Mom got me. Or the shiraz. I think. We didn’t drink it, did we?”

Cas snaps his fingers and the earth lines of the circle glow and vanish. Almost at once, Inanna steps over, brushing her hands down her dress as though something sticky has got on it, and running a hand over her hair. Dean doesn’t know why she bothers. She’s already perfect. And apparently something about her is seductive, because Dean did not mean to think that.

“I’ll take the wine,” she says. “If I really can’t have any of these humans, then let’s just get on with it, shall we? Now I’m in the mortal realm I want some fun, so the sooner we get his done the better.”

“I’m sure someone can tell you where a local bar is,” Cas says. “Dean usually picks people up in those.”

“Not now, I don’t!” Dean says, seeing Sam start to smirk before he even gets the words out. “Hey! I am in a relationship now. I don’t cheat.”

Sam snorts.

“Dean, you’ve been with Cas for, like, a day or two. Stop acting like you’ve been married for years.”

The thing is, though, Dean hasn’t picked anyone up in a bar in a real long time. And…and he just outright said he was in a relationship with Cas, and it didn’t feel weird. It felt…good. So, yeah, that happened.

He catches Sam’s eye and sees his brother narrow his eyes before softening, and clapping him on the shoulder.

“But good for you,” Sam says.

“Yeah,” Val says, even though when Dean looks round she’s watching Inanna and seems to have missed what was going on with Dean and Sam, “Let’s get the wine and the details so someone can take our Goddess guest out prowling for a hook-up, I guess.”

Inanna smiles and nods. She points at Val, who blinks.

“You, I like,” she says. “You will take me.” As Val chokes, Inanna gestures at Beth. “Now, where is this wine? If Castiel wants to hear all about my sister’s ridiculous and doomed fling with that angel, then so be it.”

When Beth heads for the kitchen, Inanna follows, her red skirts swishing around her legs. Cas is right behind her. Sam and Dean share a look and follow, the rest of the group trailing behind them. It’s far from the worst meeting they’ve had with a deity, even if Dean is a little worried it might end up being the only one ending in a bar-crawl.

Chapter Text

Inanna rests one hip against the kitchen counter and stares out at the garden. She has her arms crossed and doesn’t look like she wants to burn the house to the ground. Still, Beth moves carefully as she opens the cabinet and gets out one of the best glasses.

The diamond pattern catches the light as she sets the glass down and even though she told her mom that cut crystal isn’t something she’d be likely to use much, she’s glad she has something a little bit more formal. This is a goddess, for crying out loud.

Cas appears next to her and she jumps. When he leans in, she finds herself wanting to wrap an arm around him, but she resists. It’s probably not a good idea to make Inanna think random hugging is on the table, not with the way she looked at Beth back in the other room.

“You’re doing fine,” Cas tells her. “She’s in a good mood.”

“She’s a goddess,” Beth mutters. “That’s… There’s an actual goddess in my actual home. This is huge. She’s this powerful being and I’ve got half a bottle of wine to give her.”

She knew she should have checked on the wine before the last time anyone went shopping, but with so much going on she just…didn’t. She isn’t even sure when the wine was opened.

“And I’m an angel.” Cas sounds like he isn’t sure what the problem is.

“Yes, but… You’re…you’re you.”

“Yeah,” Cas says. “That tends to be the case. Beth, you do understand that in my uninjured state I’m more powerful than most gods. In a different way, perhaps, but-”

“What?”

“Am I supposed to be pretending I can’t hear you?” Inanna asks. She doesn’t look round, and she might sound amused. It’s hard to be sure. “Pour the wine and stop dithering.”

Beth jolts into action, but she throws Cas a look as she takes the glass to Inanna. More powerful than most gods? She wants to ask which ones, or which ones are, or were, more powerful than him, but it’s one of those moments where her brain can only catch at the edges of an idea. More powerful, but in a different way. She has so many questions.

Later. She can ask them later.

Without meaning to, she sketches a sort of part bow as she holds the glass out, and curses herself instantly. It isn’t a proper curtsy. She has no idea how to do that. It isn’t even a bow, really. It’s more of a…a bob. An awkward bob. And should she be saying something? Shit. This is not something she has any preparation for.

Inanna takes the glass and nods, and Beth steps back without saying anything.

“The information?” Cas asks. “Oh, and your roses.”

He drops them on the table and pulls out a chair, sitting and watching Inanna until she shrugs and joins him. She leans back in the chair she’s taken and sips her wine. There’s no grimace or any other sign the wine displeases her, but Beth still can’t quite get a full breath.

Dean joins Cas at the table, but he rests both hands on the table-top and looks more the way he did when he first turned up, when he was playing at being FBI. Business-like, or some version of it. No-one else takes a seat.

“The details,” Cas says, inclining his head in Inanna’s direction.

She tips the wineglass a little, seeming distracted by the red liquid making its way up the side, and pulls a face.

“You have to understand, things were a lot less…separated then,” she says. “People saw us walk among them and they brought tribute. As was fitting.” A slow slide of her gaze over to the roses seems to amuse Cas, from the barely there smile, but Inanna goes on before anyone says anything about it. “The angels coming down to Earth, and staying, now that sparked some issues. Oh, not at first. It was all terror and rejoicing at first.”

She says that as though they aren’t on opposite sides of the spectrum, and Cas nods as though it makes perfect sense.

“I didn’t take an angel as a lover myself,” Inanna says. “Well. Not as such. Not for more than a night. Three at the most.”

Cas nods again, but this time a little more abruptly.

“And your sister?” he asks.

“She felt the angels should have stayed in their own realm,” Inanna says. “Fitting, I suppose. But that’s why we didn’t realize at first that she was smitten with one of them. I should have seen it. I am a Goddess of Lust, after all.”

“Lust and love are not the same thing,” Cas says, with a grave certainty.

Inanna looks at him as though he’s said something obvious.

“Well, no. Lust is real.”

The silence after that is loaded, and Beth sees one of Cas’ hands appear on Dean’s upper arm, so quickly she misses it move. Dean judders, just a fraction. His face gives away no sign he was about to move.

“Your sister felt love was real,” Cas says, as though he knows this for a fact.

“When has my sister ever listened to me when she could be melodramatic and deep instead?” Inanna asks. “I love her dearly, of course. Don’t look like that, Castiel’s human. Love between siblings is real. But, really, she has always been better than anyone at causing me problems. You do know how she reacted that time I went to visit her?”

“I’m aware,” Cas says. “But the angel?”

“By the time we realized, she was already pregnant. And it was… Well. I thought Enki was going to raise the waters, but that arch-angel, the pretty one, turned up and talked him out of it. The angel was sent back to Heaven, of course, and my sister took the child to her realm. It was born there, actually.”

“What can you tell me about the angel? Or about the child? In terms of powers or character,” Cas asks.

“Got a way we can kill it?” Dean asks.

Inanna looks at Dean sharply, her eyes narrowing.

“You’ll not kill my sister’s offspring,” she says. It sounds more like an order, a dictate, than anything else. “Just getting into the underworld would take breaking through a barrier the living aren’t meant to cross.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Dean says. He says it like he’s laying down a card, deliberate and challenging.

Beth adds more questions to her list for later.

“The problem is that your sister’s child is here,” Cas says. He still has his hand on Dean’s arm, and Beth sees his fingers tighten, just a bit. “It’s attacked people. Left them without their memories. Some of them are still missing.”

Inanna sets down the glass and sits forward, her expression intent.

“Here? Attacking? That doesn’t sound right.”

“Why not?” Cas asks.

“Because attacking has never been its role. It’s father was a Rit Zien, a healer-”

Cas’ face shuts down at that, just for a moment, but Beth has gotten used to reading him over the last few months, and that is the way he looks when he’s taken a mental hit. She resists the urge to go to him. She wouldn’t thank Riva or Val for hugging her at work, even if she had just run into something that threw her.

“Yeah, well, I’ve met one of those,” Dean says. “Wasn’t exactly fixing people up. More blowing them up.”

Inanna frowns.

“The mercy of an ending is still a kind of healing,” she says.

“Not when the pain is manageable,” Cas says. “Not when healing is possible.”

“And not when someone else is just deciding for you,” Dean says. “There’re other choices, all right? Damn thing thought a paper-cut was the same level of pain as a terminal illness.”

At that, Inanna looks away, down at her drink, and presses her lips together.

“Human concerns, human pain, can be difficult to understand,” Cas says, his words soft. He sounds as though he’s speaking just to her. “If your sister’s child simply doesn’t understand, and is trying to remove painful memories, if it really is the Rit Zien part of its heritage, then we can try to reason with it. We can try to explain. It is possible to shift your perspective.”

Inanna nods, and meets his eyes. It’s not exactly a softness there, but it’s something that makes Beth think she’s listening.

“I’m not opposed to a certain kind of chaos,” she says, “but this shouldn’t be happening.”

“Then you’ll help us?” Cas asks.

“You want to track it?” she asks. “Have you lost the ability to do that yourself?”

Cas shakes his head.

“I tracked it once. I can possibly manage it again, but I’m not immune to the memory-loss, or the difficulty with sensing it accurately.”

He describes what he’s experienced, keeping it brief and sketching out the situation, and Beth finds herself less concerned that Inanna’s a goddess than she was. Hearing an angel and a deity talk about what, to them, must seem normal is making her itch to get down to the physics of it all. She keeps herself quiet for now.

“Perception and memory are mutable,” Inanna is saying as she finishes the last of the wine. “But you know this.”

“Of course,” Cas says. “But more so to humans than to angels.”

“In this realm, and in others,” Inanna says. “Not so much in my sister’s. Your kind are composed of light. Her realm is the darkness that strips away all things. Memory doesn’t last long in her lands, and neither does light, no matter what you are. My sister’s child found a function there.”

“It takes people’s memories for a living?” Dean asks. “What, and it’s on a busman’s holiday? Because this ain’t like a barman getting drunk in another country. This is hurting people. Hell, it hurt Cas.”

Inanna regards Dean thoughtfully before replying, and Beth half expects her to ask Cas if Dean is really off limits.

“Something about the disturbances of the last years must have thrown it out of my sister’s realm,” she says, after a pause. “I doubt it knows where it is or why.”

“How do we get it to go back?” Sam asks, speaking for the first time. He sounds more respectful than Dean, but there’s a sense he’s speaking more to a colleague than to a god.

Beth is running out of mental space for questions.

Inanna shrugs. She blinks and yawns, stretching with her arms above her head, and just like that her attention seems to have gone. When she answers, it’s with less focus and more indifference.

“Someone will have to explain. Maybe it’ll know how to get back. Maybe not. I can’t recommend my method. I got stuck down in the underworld as a corpse.”

Cas nods and a small smile flickers across his face.

“Well, thank-you for your assistance,” he says.

“We’re done?” Inanna asks, perking up again. “Good. When do these bars of yours open?”

“I’m not going to a bar with you,” Val says.

Before an argument can break out, Beth speaks up.

“How about we all go. And try to find the, um, creature on the way? We don’t know what language to use or anything.”

“I haven’t been out drinking with an angel in quite some time,” Inanna says, and grins. “Very well. I’ll come with you while you sort this out, and then we’re drinking. And dancing. And no talking your way out of it this time, Castiel. You can’t claim to have a battle to prepare for in the morning this time.”

Dean looks torn between irritation and amusement as he looks at Cas.

“I need to hear this story,” he says, and the room is filled with sound as Inanna throws her head back and laughs.

It’s the weirdest day of Beth’s life, and the bar has already been raised pretty high over the last little while. At least they have a plan now, of a sort, and she reminds herself that as Inanna chases them all off to get changed. Drinking and dancing don’t usually involve a pit-stop to ask a hybrid celestial creature to stop eating people’s memories and return to the land of the dead, but at least she can’t complain her life is boring.

Chapter Text

Dean keeps someone between him and the goddess at all times. He wouldn’t let her get too close even if she were human, not with that look in her eyes. Not that he needed Cas to come over all protective and possessive, declaring him off limits, but Dean’s been around powerful creatures enough to know Cas’ line in the sand will carry more weight with Inanna than anything Dean might say.

Maybe. He’s noticed a time or two that he seems able to persuade some pretty damn powerful beings round to his way of thinking. Still, they’ve a mission to complete. If he needs to, he can deal with Inanna then.

Right now, he’s got Cas on one side of him and Val on the other. Val keeps casting looks at Inanna, the kind that say there better be no moves made on anyone or a fight might break out. Inanna herself is strolling along like she really think this is a day out, her long skirts swishing as she walks. It’s not alluring.

Okay, it’s alluring. Just because Dean’s with Cas now, and just because he isn’t stupid enough to get it on with something like Inanna anyway, doesn’t mean he’s lost the ability to appreciate beauty when he sees it.

Thing is, Cas is beautiful, too, and Dean might be more willing to cut off an arm than yell that to the world, but it’s still true. Especially in the deep blue shirt and dark jeans the guy is wearing. Thank god for Cas’ new friends and their insistence on helping out, or Cas might still only have the clothes he left the Bunker in.

“You get we might be covered in blood after this, right?” Dean asks as they round a corner, yet another empty street stretching before them. It’s getting creepy. “I can’t see many places wanting to let us in if we look like we’ve just waded through a battlefield.”

“I do love a battlefield,” Inanna says, a bit wistfully. “I’ve always loved to dance.”

She says it like the two statements are connected. She doesn’t admit to listening to what Dean’s saying.

“Okay, then,” Dean mutters, and gives up.

“We aren’t intending any harm,” Cas says, speaking for the first time in a while. He’s moving more easily than when Dean first found him again, but there’s still a stiffness there that speaks of pain. “We’re going to reach out.”

“It’s been hurting people, Cas. For all we know, it’s killed some of the people who’re still missing.”

“It’s probably confused,” Cas says. “It can be confusing, being in this world, away from everything you’ve ever known. I can only imagine how much worse it is if you don’t know anything about the place, or why you’re here.”

Cas and his empathy. Dean sighs.

“Okay. Okay, Cas. We’ve said we’ll try it your way. But we ain’t walking away and leaving this thing out hunting. You get that, right?”

“Of course, Dean,” Cas says, a hint of impatience in his tone.

Spending time naked together, all pressed up against each other and working out new ways to, um, to interact, hasn’t changed all that much, it turns out. Cas can still be the same irritable, snarky bastard he’s always been, especially when he thinks Dean’s being difficult. That shouldn’t make Dean want to stop and pull the guy into a kiss right here in the street, but it does.

“Do the two of you have some tension to work out?” Inanna asks. “I find sex can be very good for that.”

She says it like most people would suggest a cup of chamomile or something. Hell, the way she says it isn’t a million miles from the way Dean throws lines like that at Sam. Except she doesn’t sound at all like she’s trying to rile them.

Not far behind him, he hears a snort that can only have come from Sam.

“Laugh it up,” Dean snaps. And grins. “You’re the one going to be hearing it from now on.”

That chokes off the laughter.

“The Bunker has thick walls,” Cas says, and there is no hint of that being a joke.

Dean opens his mouth twice before he gets a reply out.

“Yeah. Right. Guess that’ll save Sam and his delicate ears.”

Cas nods, looking satisfied that Dean has taken this information on board, and they walk the next few minutes in silence. Dean’s head is ringing with thoughts. Bunker. Cas mentioned the Bunker, and its walls, as though he expects him and Dean to be making noises there. Does that mean Cas is thinking of coming back with them?

Dean remembers every word of his conversations with Sam about this, and he remembers the hollow, echoing ache at the thought Cas might be better off staying here. And, yeah, Dean’s been thinking about it, about the ways he’s screwed up with Cas and how deciding for Cas might not be the best thing. Isn’t the best thing. But if Cas chooses to come back with them, with Dean, that’s different. Right?

“He’ll not feel at home,” Inanna says.

For a moment, Dean thinks she’s reading his mind, and he almost stumbles. But Cas answers before Dean can demand she stays out of his head.

“I imagine that’s adding to the confusion. Will he recognize you?”

“He might sense a family connection,” Inanna says. “My sister and I always had a bond. When she wasn’t turning me into a corpse, that is. In any case, I can’t see him wanting to stay here, not once we offer a way home. We shouldn’t need to waste too much time before we go dancing. Ah. And here we are.”

She stops, the rest of the them drawing to a halt around her, and Dean frowns up at a building that looks like it’s only got that name out of courtesy.

“We sure it won’t fall down with us in it?” he asks.

Inanna smiles at him, casting a sidelong look his way that could mean all sorts of things, and she steps forward with no sign of hesitation. From what Dean knows of her, it shouldn’t be surprising she’s fine with pushing her way into somewhere without fear.

They follow her.

Inside, it’s dim and dusty, and it must be some time since anyone did upkeep on the place. They leave a trail of footprints on the floor, cut out of the dust.

“I sense the creature,” Cas says, voice low.

Practically as he speaks, Inanna turns to the right, disappearing into a room that turns out, once Dean joins her, to be large enough for a party. Cas has that focused look in his eyes that means he’s on the hunt, and Dean scans the room. There. A hazy patch in the air over in the middle of the room. He squints, trying to force it to turn into something, and a sense-impression of many writhing limbs hits him hard enough his head snaps back.

“Don’t try to see it, Dean,” Cas says. “Let us handle this.”

Dean lets Cas move to stand next to Inanna. His hand twitches to reach out and grab the guy, to stop him and remind him to be careful at least, but he stills himself. He catches Sam’s look and pretends he doesn’t.

“Well, aren’t you a sight,” Inanna says, sounding genuinely delighted. “You have your mother’s eyes. About two hundred of them, by the looks of it. Tell me, have you ever considered Kohl? It could really make that color pop.”

She mimes some sort of explosion with her fingers, and Dean sees Cas roll his eyes. It’s comforting to know other people get that reaction, too.

“Will you speak with us?” Cas asks. “We can help you find your way home.”

“Or you can come party with us,” Inanna says, and waves a hand at Cas. “No? No, fine. You’re mother will be worried, in any case. I imagine. Assuming she’s noticed you’re gone. So many souls to oversee. It always sounded dull.”

“Inanna,” Cas says, a flash of his old self showing, that tone he used on Uriel back in the early days.

Dean braces himself. In his experience, pagan gods don’t much like being commanded. To his surprise, Inanna throws Cas a smile and subsides. He really has to get the story of their last meeting from Cas sometime. It’s always a little dizzying to be struck by those moments where he glimpses the deep history Cas has: it brings him closer and pushes him further away. But part of trying to be better to Cas, for Cas, has to include knowing Cas, and not trying to fit him into the box Dean’s made for the guy in his head.

In the meantime, Inanna and Cas both go still, and a humming fills the room. It’s not unpleasant, exactly, but it does make Dean feel…not exactly there. From the way Cas, and Inanna, nod now and then, it seems the creature is talking.

“We getting anywhere?” Sam asks, just as Dean’s head is feeling like it’s full of soft static.

“We’re not running for our lives or forgetting everything,” Val says. “Seems like a step up, to me.”

“He’s willing to listen,” Inanna says. “He’s confused. He doesn’t understand why he’s here or how to get back, but he knows it’s his duty to take memories. He feeds off them, but he’s also tasked with it - to take memories and pain and life.”

“Life?” Beth asks. “It…he has killed people?”

Inanna turns a little, her expression hard to read. It might be amusement, or condescension, or something else entirely.

“In the underworld, people are already dead. He’s one part of the process that takes anything left over, so the soul can move on.”

“And will he go back? If we can find a way? Can we find a way?” Riva asks.

“I can’t go back into the underworld without facing my own end,” Inanna says. “Not again. But I do know the way, and I can tell Castiel. If I lend you some of my power, you should be able to make it and take him with you.”

What? Dean feels suddenly drenched in cold water. He takes a step forward before he’s fully realized it.

“You’re saying Cas should take himself into some pagan underworld even one of its gods can’t come back from? Because, lady, if I lose Cas, you ain’t gonna be safe up here, either.”

“Dean,” Sam says.

“What?” Dean whirls to face his brother and sees everyone looking at him with varying degrees of concern. Concern and sympathy. “What, Sam? This time for another of your ‘let Cas decide’ lectures? Because last time I checked, it ain’t the same when someone you love is thinking of choosing to die!”

“Whoever said Castiel would die?” Inanna asks, sounding genuinely confused.

“You said-” Dean starts, spinning again and jabbing a finger in her direction.

“I said I couldn’t risk it,” she says, her voice irritatingly calm. “My sister and I…we have our issues. But Castiel is an angel. A Seraph, no less, and one with greater tactical skill than most. If anyone can make it back from the lands of the dead intact, it will be him.”

“He isn’t intact now,” Riva says. “Sorry, Cas. I won’t try and stop you doing what you think is right, but it’s true. Isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Cas says, and doesn’t sound especially happy to be admitting it. He goes on in that earnest tone of voice that makes Dean want to grab him and shake him and press into him how much he matters, when Cas so often fails to factor in his own wellbeing for any decision. “But I’m much better than I was, and I think, perhaps, this creature is part of why I was so ill.”

“Because it attacked you,” Dean says, flatly. “And now you’re thinking of risking getting yourself trapped in another purgatory to help it get home for tea?”

“No,” Cas says. “Well, yes. Yes, I was attacked. But I think it’s been draining me ever since. I think it’s been trying to take away what doesn’t belong. Think about it: his role is to drain what shouldn’t be in the underworld from each soul who arrives. When the Rit Zien was here on Earth, he tried the same: to continue his mission in a place where it no longer made sense. That doesn’t mean a deliberate attempt to harm.”

“No. But intentions don’t always matter much,” Dean says.

“Of course they do,” Cas says, again without seeming to have a light-bulb moment that his own intentions have always been good. Cas has always been better at applying forgiveness to others. “And it makes sense. Dean, if he’s been trying to take everything from me that doesn’t belong, then that’s…that’s…”

He seems to run out of words, but Beth is by Dean’s side, resting a hand on his forearm as though she wants to be sure Dean doesn’t speak without thinking.

“All of you?” she asks. It’s said in the tone of someone whose felt that herself, a time or two.

Dean waits to hear Cas reject it, because no way can Cas believe all of him is out of place. Torn between Heaven and Earth, sure. After everything that’s happened, that’s hardly a stretch. But everything out of place? That’s too close to thinking he shouldn’t exist, and Dean needs Cas not to feel that.

But Cas looks from Beth, to the others, and across to Dean. He nods.

“Yes.”

Chapter Text

Castiel sees the way Dean’s colors waver, the green clouding and the gold dimming, but he can’t take the time to properly parse what that means. At least, he knows it means Dean isn’t happy - Castiel has witnessed that in Dean enough times to be sure of it. He just hasn’t the time it would need to work through exactly what is upsetting Dean now.

Later. He’ll work it through with Dean later. Castiel feels a flicker of warmth at the idea of a later, wound through with the cardamom-yellow of fear. It’s not that he doubts Dean. Castiel hardly ever doubts Dean. It’s just that life has torn away almost everything Castiel has ever depended on, and it could be something close to a delusion to trust this wonderful thing will work between them.

Besides, he needs to complete this mission, first. It might not be his fault the creature is here, but it’s hard to set aside the damage he’s done or helped to do to the cosmic order of things, and he can’t help but wonder if Ereshkigal’s child would have moved on from the area without Castiel to feed on. An angel is a great deal more to erase than a human, in terms of memories and experiences, even an angel who’s been wiped and reset.

So, Castiel needs to see this done. It doesn’t mean he likes to see that look on Dean’s face.

“It’ll be fine, Dean,” he tries.

“Not heard anything about how you’re meant to be getting back, Cas,” Dean says, and that’s the tone Dean uses when he’s only a short step away from issuing an order, when Dean decides that the current plan is to be scrapped and Dean will instead attempt to bend the universe to his will. The most surprising thing about that is how often it works. “So Miss Sex and War here’ll give you a boost to get into the Underworld, but how’re you getting back? Because I remember you being as stuck in Purgatory as I was. More. Least I could use that portal.”

“Purgatory was designed to hold the Leviathan,” Castiel says, as patiently as he can when he just wants to get this done. It’s a jittery, uncomfortable sort of energy he’s feeling, layered over the exhaustion that’s been so much a part of him of late, but it makes him want to get on with this. Maybe, after this, he’ll finally feel he’s earned some respite. “Ereshkigal’s kingdom isn’t designed to take me, Dean. It isn’t designed to hold me.”

“Besides,” Inanna says, and the look she casts at Dean makes Castiel want to be as fast about this journey as possible. Miss Sex and War might not be a name the goddess cares for. Or it might be something that amuses her, and makes Dean all the more interesting. Inanna’s respect for Castiel’s tactical ability will only extend so far, no matter how many of her worshipers Castiel helped to save all that time ago. “Castiel won’t just be an angel. He’ll be a demon, too.”

As Dean starts, his eyes widening and his jaw clenching, and Sam shifts in a way that shows he’s none too happy to hear that statement, Castiel frowns.

“Inanna, don’t upset them.”

She shrugs, smirking.

“Relax,” she says. “You’re so…fixed in your own little worldviews, you American Hunters. All sorts of things have been called demons.”

“Yeah, ‘cos they’re demons,” Dean says. “Been there, done that. Do not want Cas to be wearing that particular T-shirt.”

Inanna raises an eyebrow, but seems to dismiss Dean’s comment for now. Later, no doubt she’ll want the story. She’s always liked stories. For now, wanting to get to the dancing part of the evening is perhaps keeping her on course.

“To my people, a demon is a servant of the gods,” she says. “Part human and part other, a demon carries out a god’s intent. A mission. I’d say this counts.”

Part human. Castiel feels the weight of that statement ring through him, sending ripples of electric blue and acid green, of burnt orange and evening purple winding through his true self. Part human. And part…is he even part angel, even with the reset from Naomi’s spell? An angel is meant to be an agent of God’s will. An angel is meant to be God’s intent in the world, and it’s been a long while since Castiel was that. He may as well be a demon for Inanna. In this, he might.

“How does that help?” Sam asks, throwing a look at Castiel that looks concerned. “So Cas is your messenger. How’s that get him back out? You said you wouldn’t get back out. You said even Cas’ light would be drained away in that place. I don’t see being a demon’s a better thing.”

Inanna shrugs again, tilting her head. Her hair swings, thick and dark and glistening. Castiel wonders how any of them can see her as human. Through his eyes, she’s energy and will and crackling words in languages hardly anyone now speaks, or even remembers. It must be lonely, he thinks, in its way. If it troubles her, she doesn’t show it.

“My sister doesn’t want me in her lands, but she can’t deny I have a right to send an agent to see my will done. Especially when that will returns her son to her. I have faith she’ll assist Castiel in returning to you, Dean. And to the rest of you. I must say, Castiel, I didn’t expect to find a Seraph with such a large and human family. You must tell me how you ensnared them all.”

Castiel frowns. There seems no point in explaining to Inanna that not a one of these people has been ensnared. He isn’t sure why they all seem to care for him, but he’s more grateful than he can say that they do. He only wishes he were worthy of it. No. Beth’s spent enough time talking with him about thinking like that. If they think he’s worthy, then he must be. In some way. If he tells himself that often enough, Beth has promised it might start to feel true.

“You have faith,” Dean says, voice flat. He part turns and pulls a face at Sam. It’s one Castiel has seen more than once when Dean is displeased with something he’s said. “Well, ain’t that nice, Sammy? She has ‘faith’. Because when has that ever screwed us over?”

He’s annoyed. But under it, Castiel senses fear. It ripples through Dean in waves of tepid brown. It’s automatic to assume Dean is worried about the mission, but Castiel sees Beth, sees the way she’s holding Dean’s arm, and remembers the talks they’ve had. The advice.

He catches his first response and takes the moment he needs to interrogate it. Dean has spent time lying next to Castiel, Dean has spent time holding him. Dean has spent time telling Castiel he’s cared for. The mission hasn’t been mentioned nearly as much. Logically, it’s him Dean’s worried about. The thought is new, almost jarring, but a good tactician takes on board new information, even if it’s strange or uncomfortable.

“Dean,” he says, and waits until Dean meets his eyes. “I’ll come back. I promise.” He takes a breath, something he doesn’t need but feels the need for, and tries the last part of his conclusion. “I’ll come back to you.”

Beth nods, a tiny smile curving the side of her mouth, and Castiel thinks her eyes are damp. The others blink or shift or glance at Dean, who seems to have frozen.

“You better,” Dean says, at last, his voice a rasp. “I didn’t pull my head out of my ass so you could get yours trapped in another Purgatory.”

“My nephew is getting impatient,” Inanna says, “and he isn’t the only one. I want to dance. Let’s get this done.”

Castiel nods, stepping back and towards Inanna, who is closer to the creature now. She moved without Castiel noticing, which isn’t something he’d ever think would happen. A god presses down on the world, a weight distorting everything around it, but Castiel long ago gave in to the fact Dean does the same to him.

Inanna is reaching up, one hand stretched out, and when Castiel adjusts his eyes he sees the distortion of space where the goddess and the demi-god stand. A demi-god. Part god and part angel, and Castiel never really thought he’d come across something like that. With Inanna making contact and with the knowledge of what it really is, Castiel finds the wavelength he needs to bring it properly into focus. The haze of half-glimpsed tendrils resolves into clarity, and Castiel sees the creature that’s been able to take so much from him without him knowing.

It’s a mass of void space, branching and splitting and shifting. It doesn’t writhe, exactly. It more…flows. As Castiel latches onto it’s shape, he sees one limb that looks very much like an angelic tentacle merge with something that looks almost like a wing, the two limbs melting into each other and becoming an arc scattered with pinpricks of dark-light. Castiel feels his own limbs twitch.

Inanna’s true form is a glowing presence more in the rough shape of a human, though Castiel knows if he were to stare into her he’d see thousands of other shapes, layered and compacted. Gods might pretend to be absolute, but they have always been subject to the whims of their worshipers. It’s the danger of tying their power so closely to the humans who follow them. Let someone give you a shape, and they have some measure of control over you.

“Are you ready, Seraph?” Inanna asks him, turning to look at him with her hand still resting on her nephew’s…well, human terms don’t work for angels or gods, but even angelic terms don’t really work for this creature. Somewhere on it’s form, anyway, there’s a point of contact.

Inanna smiles, something slower and deeper than he’s used to seeing on her. Whatever she says, being in contact with one of her kin has moved her to something like joy. She reaches out her other hand to Castiel, and he takes it.

The spark of power is immediate.

The spark becomes a flare, becomes a flash, becomes a flood, and Castiel has one last moment to turn three of his angelic eyes on Dean as the pathway he needs to take opens up in his mind, and he reaches through Inanna, latches onto Ereshkigal’s son, stretches out his battered wings, and flies.

***

Beth watches Cas take Inanna’s hand. He doesn’t hesitate, stepping right up and taking hold in one smooth movement, and she gets another of those flashes where she thinks she almost sees him as the warrior those little snippets of information have suggested he is.

She feels movement shudder through Dean, as he seems to catch himself. Perhaps he was tempted again to jump forward and drag Cas back to him. If so, Beth understands the impulse. It’s one thing to be told Cas is a warrior, that he’s a being more powerful than any human, and she thinks she’s started to get a sense of what he is, but it’s still tough, overlaying the images she has of him from all these months with the one in front of her now.

Right now, Cas isn’t the wounded man in need of support and care. As she watches, a flash of golden light spills out, seeming to burst from Cas himself. Beth shields her eyes with her free hand, gripping tightly to Dean with the other. She doesn’t know if it’s helping or not, but he doesn’t pull away.

When she drops her hand, she has to blink. The afterglow from the light sketches shapes in the air, and she thinks she sees, just for a moment, six arcing wings reaching up from around the shape left by Cas. By Castiel.

“Fuck,” she hears Val say.

She has to admit, it sums it up.

***

Sam keeps an eye on Dean as they wait. He knows his brother. He knows how Dean can get when he feels abandoned. And Sam has experience of being the one left waiting when people vanish in a burst of light. At least this time Sam isn’t left alone. It might not be the time to remind Dean that he hasn’t been left alone, either.

“How much longer do you think it’ll be?” Riva asks.

She leans next to Sam against a wall, her arms crossed, and she seems to be watching the others just as Sam is.

“No idea,” Sam says. “Some of these things are over in minutes… Others?” He shrugs. “Dean and Cas were stuck in Purgatory for a year. Cas for longer. I think.”

They never did really get the full story on that time. It’s another gap Sam thinks they should fill in, once all this is done with. Whether Cas chooses to come with them or not, he’s determined not to let the progress they’ve made vanish. Dean might struggle to see that someone can be family without sitting in the seat right next to him, but people seem to manage it all the time. Cas deserves a choice.

Hell, they all deserve some kind of choice.

“And how long do you think Inanna’s going to let us just wait here?” Riva asks.

Sam stops watching Dean pace for a moment and takes note of the way the god is standing, looking faintly amused in a way that gives no hint whether it’s real. She’s watching Dean and the empty space that recently contained Cas, one then the other, and she hasn’t mentioned dancing in the past twenty minutes. That coiled energy about her has been growing, though. Sam’s met too many gods, and he’s learned not to imagine he can guess their motivations. Still, she’s maybe more invested in seeing Cas come back than Sam had expected. Maybe.

Or else she’s heard more about Dean than she’s let on, and she’s worried how he’ll react if Cas doesn’t return.

“No idea,” Sam says. “Why? You prefer to go dancing?”

Riva laughs, a short, dry thing, and tips her head back against the wall.

“Not really my scene. You?”

Sam shakes his head, and finds it’s his turn to laugh that way.

“Yeah, me neither. Think my dancing days were over before they started. Dean, now? He can dance.”

He feels Riva’s interest in the way she shifts, but she doesn’t say anything. Her silence invites his words.

“He won’t admit it,” Sam says. “Or maybe he will. But if he does, he’ll throw it in your face.”

“Yeah. I can imagine,” Riva says, sounding wry. “Siblings, right?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, knowing they’ve said nothing and somehow feeling that they understand each other perfectly. Or as perfectly as someone can understand without going through what Dean and he have gone through. “Can’t imagine Cas dancing, though.”

“He sings,” Riva says, and must sense Sam’s surprise. “I’ve heard him. When he doesn’t know anyone can hear him. Got to admit, I thought an angel might be more in tune.”

This time, Sam’s laugh is more heartfelt, even though it stings a little.

“Cas kinda turns everything you think about angels upside down, I guess,” he says. “You must have had a lot of crap shifted about in your head the last few days.”

Riva nudges him.

“Don’t think I’m the only one.”

And Sam, looking at Dean again, has to agree that she’s right.

***

“You said she’ll send him back,” Dean says, when Inanna comes to stand beside him. “Where is he?”

“So impatient,” Inanna says, and she doesn’t sound anywhere near serious enough for Dean’s tastes. “Are you this impatient in everything?”

She flicks a look up and down Dean’s body, and changes her stance just enough that her intent is obvious. It’s probably a joke. Probably. She seemed to respect Cas’ claim. In any case, Dean hasn’t got time for innuendo right now. He’s past even using it to make someone, some thing, uncomfortable. Besides, he’s more than sure this god wouldn’t be thrown by it. She gives the impression she could give Gabriel a run for his money. And that thought just reminds Dean that even an archangel can die.

“Where is he?” he asks again.

“Walking the paths of the Dead,” Inanna says. “The road I showed him won’t have sent him straight to my sister. If he does need her help to return, he’s going to need to work for it.”

“What, you’ve sent Cas on a quest?” Dean asks. “This ain’t some 80’s teen movie. No Goblin Kings or dancing puppets needed, okay? There and back. Drop off the thing that’s been draining him and get on with our lives. Now you’re telling me Cas has to jump through hoops to even find your kill-happy sister?”

“My sister is not kill-happy,”Inanna says, her voice sharpening. It softens again, amusement threading back through, but Dean’s seen behind that mask now. “Don’t try to measure a god by your own standards, Castiel’s human.”

“Dean.”

“Dean,” she says, making it partway to mockery. “My sister believes in things being where they belong. And Castiel is taking her son back to her. If he wants to return, I’m almost sure she’ll help him.”

“If?”

Inanna tilts her head. Dean wants to tell her to stop. Instead, he glares at her as she studies him, one hand on her hip.

“He’s not human. Dean. You can’t see what’s been done to him, but I can. If that’s a result of being close to you, I have to wonder if he’s better off somewhere else. But, what do I know? I’m just a goddess of love.”

“You’re a goddess of being a pain in my ass,” Dean says, and holds up a finger in warning as her expression shifts and she glances down his body. “Don’t. You know what I mean. And Cas made it pretty clear - I’m off limits.”

Perhaps it’s down to the weird week he’s having, but he doesn’t feel even a little bit ashamed to play that card. If anything, it makes him feel…warm. Secure. Cas isn’t the possessive type, and that’s a good thing, but it’s good to know the guy is clear on Dean being, well, his. That’s got to mean Cas wants to be with Dean, right?

“Out of deference to Castiel, I’ll let you keep that finger you’re waving in my face,” she says, but Dean has the feeling she’s not angry. If anything, she seems almost affectionate. “In any case, it’s not like moping around here is going to help. And I was promised dancing.”

Dean sighs, pulling his hand back and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“You can’t be serious,” he says. “You think I’m leaving this spot until Cas comes back?”

“Yes,” Inanna says. “Because I want to dance. And I want a drink. And there’s nothing you can do anyway. If Castiel is coming back, it’s out of your hands now.”

***

“Of course Cas is coming back, Dean.”

Sam speaks calmly, even though he’s starting to feel worried. Cas has always come back. Sometimes, it’s seemed like this is the time he won’t, but even death hasn’t stopped Cas before, so why would now be any different?

“Why’d she say ‘if’, Sammy?” Dean asks. Every few steps he looks back over his shoulder as though he’s thinking of bolting back to the spot Cas left from. So far, he hasn’t. “Maybe I freaked Cas out with all that boyfriend crap. Moved too fast-”

“Dude,” Sam cuts in. “For one thing, Cas loves you. Been obvious for years. Okay, so I missed exactly what was going on, but come on. It’s Cas. And second? Moving too fast? Seriously? It’s been how many years now? You wanna slow things down, take the guy on a few dates when you get back. Buy him flowers. Hell, make him a mix-tape. But no way have you moved too fast here. Not as long as you’re trying what we talked about-”

Now, Dean interrupts, grunting and gesturing in a way that makes Sam shut up. Dean’s clearly working through yet more stuff. Sam’s a good brother. He can let the guy think.

“I’m trying, okay?” Dean says. “This shit’s harder than hunting demons. All the touchy feely tip-toeing around, not knowing if I’m saying the right thing.”

“Dean-”

“I know! It’s Cas. And I’m gonna keep working on it. Now can we leave it? Jeez. I need a drink.”

But at least Dean isn’t asking stupid questions anymore about whether Cas will want to come back to him. Sam still isn’t sure Cas will choose to come back to the Bunker, or that he should do, but he’s got no doubt at all that Cas is one hundred percent committed to Dean. Lack of commitment has never been Castiel’s problem.

If Sam thought hanging around a ruined building in the night was going to help at all, he’d have backed Dean and refused to leave. Cas is his brother, after all. Dean isn’t the only one with a claim there. But he’s thinking that, if Cas doesn’t come back, they might need Inanna on side. She might have refused to go herself so far, but Dean can be persuasive. They just need to keep her happy and then they’ve got her as back up.

So, in what has to count as weird even for them, Sam and Dean trail behind a god and Cas’ new friends on the way to a bar. With any luck, Cas will turn up, and all Sam will need to worry about is whether or not he should film Inanna’s attempts to get the angel to dance.

Chapter Text

Castiel has flown in Hell. He’s flown in Purgatory, though he doesn’t entirely remember how he got out, even now. He’s flown around the Earth and in Heaven and through Dean Winchester’s dreams, but he’s never before flown like this.

It’s more like being pulled along by a river, the pathway Inanna showed him opening up and dragging him along, and even with his wings so broken and bruised, he rushes. All he has to do is steer, balancing where they are in the stream, Ereshkigal’s son and him, and it’s almost like being whole again. Almost.

He feels the cloying give as they make it through the barrier between realms and the demigod ripples, twisting and reforming. It doesn’t throw Castiel off course, but a wave of sparking blue washes through him. Happiness. Relief. It’s glad to be home, this partway creature who never meant to wander into the human world.

They tumble to a stop a short while later, the creature detaching from Castiel and leaving a trail of blue-white tendrils stretching between them. Castiel’s Grace. Even as Castiel notices it, the demigod shudders and the lines of Grace snap. It can’t help it’s nature, Castiel supposes, not anymore than a river can resist pouring downhill, and it has at least stopped feeding as soon as it can. Inanna must have told it not to drain him.

“You’re brave, angel, to step foot here.”

The voice echoes in the gloom, not as rich or as full of amusement as Inanna’s, but still ringing with power. Castiel turns to watch the goddess step into view, coalescing like ink running back together on the surface of water. She’s as lovely as her sister, in her own way.

“Ereshkigal,” Castiel says. “I thought I’d have to search for you.”

If he needs her, anyway, which he probably will. There was always the chance that Inanna’s boost would last long enough to get him back out, and he feels a thread reaching back with the goddess on the other end - a result of being her agent in this, it seems. But carrying the demigod has also meant the creature feeding on him, and he already knows he won’t be able to get back unaided. The thought of accepting help doesn’t feel as alien to him as it did.

The goddess stares at him, giving no hint of what she’s thinking.

“I see my sister’s hold on you,” she says, at last. There’s no telling how she feels about that. “You should have announced that at once, passing into my realm without warning or invitation. Unless you’ve come to dwell here with us? Even here, I’ve heard tales of the disruption across the realms. Perhaps you seek somewhere more stable.”

“Hardly stable,” Castiel says, even though a voice that sounds like Dean’s snipes at him that insulting the goddess is a top grade choice. Castiel ignores it: Dean’s automatic response with most powerful beings is to insult them. “Your son washed up on Earth. I’ve brought him back.”

Again, she’s almost impassive, but Castiel sees her waver, just a bit. Her chin comes up.

“Why?” she asks. “Why bring him back? I know what you’re kind are like. You rage coldly, claiming to embody morality as you slaughter.”

“He’s part angel,” Castiel says, although he knows how little weight that really has.

So, it seems, does Ereshkigal. She takes a step to the side, towards her son, the long trail of her gray dress dragging on the ground. The creature flows towards her, enclosing her outstretched hand in itself. As the hum of communication rises, Castiel waits. They aren’t speaking to him, and he makes no attempt to tune in to what they’re saying. He’ll know his chances here soon enough.

Finally, Ereshkigal draws back, turning to look at Castiel with more warmth in her eyes. It’s the warmth of a still winter’s day, but it’s there.

“You have reason to resent my child,” she says, “but you’ve shown mercy. What a peculiar angel you are.”

For someone who fell in love with an angel, she doesn’t seem to have a very high opinion of their compassion. Or maybe that’s why. In any case, Castiel shrugs.

“I know what it’s like, being thrown out of home, doing harm without meaning to. Without understanding what you’re really doing.”

She nods.

“And do you wish to return?”

Castiel frowns.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

This time, she moves closer, staring up at him with clear, gray eyes. Everything about her is gray, and maybe that should be lifeless, but it’s not. It seems…restful. Calm. Just another phase, instead of an end.

“Angels don’t get a heaven,” she says. “An afterlife. Do they?”

“No,” Castiel says.

“They get eternity,” Ereshkigal goes on. “An eternity of serving, of worshiping. Of obeying. Or else they get an eternity of nothing.”

“Perhaps that’s a blessing,” Castiel says. “Nothing, I mean. Heaven isn’t exactly paradise.”

She blinks, but pushes on, resting a hand on Castiel’s arm.

“Here, you could rest. You could let go of what you want to, but you wouldn’t have to vanish. You could just…choose to set down your burdens. Understand, angel, I don’t offer this as some punishment for stepping foot in my realm. I offer you a choice, as payment for returning my child. You can choose to stop obeying, to stop serving.”

She doesn’t mention a lack of worshiping, and maybe she has some idea Castiel could be a powerful follower for her. Just his faith in her would be a boon to a goddess who can’t have the same level of devotion as she used to have. He doesn’t think that’s it, though. Ereshkigal is far from usual, for a god. There’s power, but not the same sense she’s looking for an edge. She really does seem to be giving him a choice.

And it’s tempting. He can’t deny it. Setting down his burdens sounds…peaceful. Restful, just like the goddess is. All those struggles, all that exhaustion, all the feelings of worthlessness could just go. If she really means he can chose what’s taken…

“No,” he says. “No, I have to get back. I, um, need to get home.”

“To Heaven?” she asks. “You don’t sound so keen on it. My realm is settled, even with a few displacements these last few years. You could find a sort of freedom here.”

“Thank-you,” Castiel says, and he means it. He’s made a lot of choices over the last few years, but he’s very rarely been offered one. “But no. Not to Heaven. To… To my family.”

“I can’t let you choose what to leave behind unless you stay here,” she says. “There are rules.”

“Of course,” Castiel says, though a part of him wants to know why. Why can’t she just lift the pain from him and leave him free of it? But he couldn’t risk losing himself, anyway. After Naomi, after everything he’s been through, he needs to build himself back up. Although, he’s learning, not entirely alone. “I have people, back home, who will help me.”

He only stumbles a bit over that. He thinks Beth would smile at him, that Sam would clap him on the shoulder. Dean would probably hand him a beer, but maybe, now, he’d also share a kiss.

“I really do need to get back,” he says. “Inanna said…you might…?”

“If this is what you choose,” Ereshkigal says. “Remember, angel - this is the only time you’ll be given this choice. If you find yourself here again, you won’t find such special treatment.”

“I understand,” Castiel says. “I don’t want special treatment, Ereshkigal. I really do just want to go home.”

And the goddess smiles, warmer this time, and nods, and reaches out. This time, Castiel extends his wings before the power sparks, and he dives into the current with every eye turned toward his destination.

Chapter Text

The thudding beat of the music crawled under Dean’s skin within minutes and now seems to be making a go of needling at every part of him.

“Do we really have to stay here?” he hisses, leaning in to Sam, who pulls a face.

“Cas has his phone, Dean,” he says, as though that’s always a surefire plan with the angel, or with their lives in general, “and Inanna’s the only one we know can help if we need it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean says. “Keep the powerful god on side. I get it.”

Not that they normally worry about that kind of thing, but then normally they aren’t hoping said god might play taxi for Cas if they need it.

“If you’re bored, you can try dancing,” Val says from his other side. She’s had a near death-grip on a tumbler of whiskey almost since they got here, and right now she looks even more pissed than Dean does. “Not like there’ll be any shifting the Goddess of Flirting.”

Dean follows her gaze to where Inanna is dancing in the space in the middle of the bar. With Beth.

To be fair, Beth is bobbing politely to the beat at best, or somewhere near the beat, but Inanna looks like the proverbial cat, smiling a slow curve of pleasure and looking like she may try winding herself around Beth at any moment. It doesn’t help that Beth blushes at something Inanna says, and Dean wonders if maybe he should take the glass from Val before it cracks.

“Oh, come on,” he tries. “I see the way she looks at you. Not like she’s gonna cheat.”

Val snorts.

“Of course she isn’t. That’s not the problem. I don’t like seeing her having to put up with that.”

Which…okay. Val seems pretty sure Beth won’t wander off. Must be nice. Then again, a nagging voice in Dean’s head says that maybe Cas wouldn’t have wandered off so much if Dean and Sam had made it clear to the guy how much he means to them. Him. Not what he can do.

Cas will come back. He’ll come back and Dean can keep building on making that point clear.

He takes another mouthful of his own drink and settles in to scowl at Inanna, who has gathered three or four other women and seems to be entrancing the lot of them. As Dean watches, the goddess lifts a hand and trails her fingertips along the tattoo one woman has snaking down her shoulder and on to her arm.

“She knows this is just a bar, right?” Dean asks the world in general. “It’s not the kind of place she can stuff dollars in that girl’s panties.”

“Dean!” Sam says, as though he actually has it in him to still be shocked by that kind of comment.

“Sam, she’s one step from licking that girl’s skin,” Dean points out.

“One small step,” Val mutters.

Before anyone can speak again, a rush of cold air blows through the room and Dean hears water. For a second, it’s like he’s standing by that river in Purgatory, the water flowing past as he stares at Cas, desperate to know why the angel left him, even more desperate to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

That time didn’t end so well. He shakes the memory away, or tries to, but he still hears water.

“Dean?”

And that’s Cas’ voice. The sound of rushing of water passes, leaving what feels like silence, even with the beating music, and Dean turns to see Cas standing the other side of Sam and…and smiling. It’s a small smile, the sort that lifts one corner of the angel’s mouth, but it’s definitely a smile, and it’s definitely aimed at Dean.

“Cas.”

He has the guy in his arms as Sam is still saying hi, and he doesn’t let his previous comments about Inanna stop him as he pulls Cas into a kiss. Cas doesn’t seem to have any issues with being in a bar full of their friends and family, either. He doesn’t even shift away when Inanna whistles and applauds. Dean tightens his grip and and vows he’s never letting go again.

Chapter Text

Castiel wakes slowly. Sleep is still strange to him, even after being, essentially, human for those months. He was still an angel, under it all, and angels don’t sleep. The idea of becoming void, of ceasing to have purpose and drive and deliberation, was alien to him, no matter how much his borrowed body needed it.

Now, he has a clearer idea of the healing rest can bring. It’s been a relief, taking a break from trying to right all the wrongs he’s caused. It’s been a greater relief to start to think, just a little, perhaps they weren’t all caused by him.

That’s a thought he can grasp only dimly and for short snatches of time, but if the past few years have taught him anything, it’s that even angels can change. Perhaps, with effort, this is of those things he can alter.

An uncomfortable writhing of burnt-yellow in his core tells him there’s still a long way to go with that mission, but Beth has spoken with him often about taking things a step at a time. The straight line has more seemed best to Castiel, and those times he’s tried his hand at subterfuge haven’t gone well, but Beth is wise in these things and means only to help Castiel, so he’ll do his best to listen.

The shifting of Dean’s weight next to him brings Castiel’s attention round, and he rolls over to find Dean sleeping with his cheek pressed into the pillow and his brow furrowed. Probably dreaming. Castiel could slip inside Dean’s dream, now that his Grace is more aligned than it has been for years. He could. But boundaries are another thing he’s been learning, not least the fact he gets to have some. So, he could reach into Dean’s dream uninvited. Instead, he reaches out and strokes a hand over Dean’s forehead, brushing the hair back and feeling the texture of it under his palm. He gets to do this now. A gift, after everything.

Slowly, Dean’s eyes open and his brow smooths out, a smile softening his face.

“Hey,” Dean says, sounding sleepy. He makes no effort to stop Castiel from stroking his hair, so Castiel doesn’t. “You sleep okay?”

Well enough. The pain is still there, still lingering under everything, but Castiel is working on adjusting to it without letting it drag him under. Beth tells him that might be something to take a step at a time, as well, that effort to work out what can be healed and what must be endured. He might have to build himself up around the breaks and scars, if he’s understood Beth correctly. Still, it’s a different view to deciding he must simply push on regardless, using himself up until the breaks become so large as to shatter him completely. Settling into a new shape, consciously, with a new kind of purpose, is something else he’s trying to accept.

“Fine,” he says. He thinks again. “Considering.”

He sees Dean blink, and move, and a moment later he’s pulled down into a kiss. Dean is free with his affection, now he’s started showing it this way. Castiel lets himself sink, his body pressing onto Dean’s, and feels the ripples in his Grace that are nothing to do with pain.

The kiss is slow, and lazy, and nothing like the night before, when Dean was bright and urgent. Dean kisses along Castiel’s jaw and buries his face in the juncture of Castiel’s neck and shoulder, breathing steadily. It’s…pleasant. More than pleasant. Even so, Castiel finds he needs to untangle Dean after a while, moving away enough to see his friend’s face.

“Are you all right, Dean?” he asks, because Dean has always clung onto what he loves, but not usually with his whole body.

And Castiel just thought of himself as something Dean loves. That is also pleasant.

“Yeah,” Dean says. The way he’s looking at Castiel says that isn’t entirely true, but Castiel waits. Space can be important. “Yeah. I just…”

Dean sighs. He drops his gaze, sliding his hand from Castiel’s shoulder to his left hand and stroking along Castiel’s fingers. Castiel reminds himself again that Dean might need time to work things through.

“I guess it’s just weird. You know?” Dean says at last. “All these years I’ve thought…and now…” He grips Castiel’s fingers, his thumb still stroking circles across Castiel’s skin. “And I’m freaking thrilled, Cas. I am. But I don’t know how to do this, man.”

“Do what?”

Castiel thinks he should ask Val to check out his heart, because it’s beating harder than it usually does, unless his powder is involved. And he’s resolved to try not to use that unless he really has to. Riva has suggested there are other ways to manage pain, and he intends to ask her about them. Maybe one will work. Maybe.

“I want us to work,” Dean says, his words thick and heavy. “I don’t wanna screw this up. To screw you up. Worse, I mean. I don’t know how to fix what I already did.”

“It isn’t your job to fix me, Dean,” Castiel says, and leaves aside for now the argument about not needing to be fixed. That conversation can happen later. Steps. It’s all steps.

“I shouldn’t break you worse, though,” Dean says.

But Castiel sees the slight pinching of Dean’s brows - he isn’t completely convinced about it not being his job to repair Castiel, it seems. Something else to work on.

“We should try not to break each other,” Castiel says, and moves so he’s holding Dean’s hand as much as Dean is holding his. He leans in and kisses Dean once, because already he knows that makes Dean’s colors shift and sing. He speaks the next words into the space between their lips. “It might take some, um, work.”

“Well, whatever Sam says, I’ve never been afraid of hard work,” Dean tells him, and he sounds a little lighter. Just a little. “I suppose we can work it out, when we get home.”

And Castiel doesn’t draw back. He doesn’t disconnect their hands. But he does feel his Grace shiver.

“Dean, I…”

Dean meets his gaze again, concern fresh in his eyes. He knows Castiel too well, it seems, to miss that note.

“What? You…? Cas, you don’t wanna come home?”

“Of course I want to,” Castiel says. “I want to move into the Bunker and to stay there. I want to learn how to be together without breaking. I want all of it. But… I think…”

“You aren’t ready,” Dean says.

Castiel nods, relieved not to have to say it himself. He still has so much pain threading through him, still has that nagging thought that he could stop it at any time, if only he let himself. He still has to argue himself into believing he’s worth the love Sam and Dean, and his friends, claim to feel. No. The love they feel. Not claim.

Castiel doesn’t feel ready to work on being properly with Dean, not yet. But he does feel he’s on the right path.

They talk more, enough to be sure as Castiel can be that Dean understands it’s not a rejection. Castiel will explain it to Sam, as well, but it’s Dean who struggles the most to cope with his people leaving, or with them staying behind.

It’s also Dean who’s in this warm bed with Castiel, and when Val bangs on the door, shouting that if she has to put Beth down then Dean and Cas can damn well take a break before they wear each other out, she isn’t entirely wrong about what they’ve been doing.

***

Sam hugs Riva, feeling her slap his back just before he pulls back, and she grins up at him.

“You keep an eye on that brother of yours,” she says. “Cas is going to need him in one piece.”

“I’ll try,” Sam says. “You, er, you keep an eye on my other brother, all right?”

Riva pulls a face.

“You get it’s weird, your two brothers being an item? Right?” She waves a hand before Sam can answer. “I know. I know. Not blood relations. Or…well, the same species. Still. You might not want to shout it across a crowded place, is what I’m saying.”

“How about you?” Sam asks, nodding back at the front door, where Beth and Val stand without an inch between them, Beth leaning slightly on Val. “Your sister and your best friend. You worried you’ll be a third wheel?”

“Are you?”

Sam laughs.

“Yeah. Point taken. Suppose we’ll have to keep in touch, make sure we’re not sidelined.”

And it’ll give Sam a second opinion on how Cas is doing. Riva must know that, from the way she looks at him, but she agrees. Sam already has her number, and Beth’s and Val’s, and for once he’s pretty sure these are numbers that will get to stay active.

“And you really have to come see our library,” Sam says, turning to Gertrude.

The older woman grins, still looking like this is an extended treat she’s having, and pats Sam on the arm. She gave him number without him even asking.

“Try and stop me,” she says. “To think, I’ve met an angel and a goddess and there’s still so much out there. I’ve sourced other tablets for Cas, er, Castiel to translate.”

Sam pushes aside the twinge of worry that there might be something on those to send Cas spiraling into yet another traumatic mission. The angel seems to be finding his footing, establishing some kind of stable base for himself, and Sam hopes that means the guy won’t feel such an urge to fling himself into anything.

When they get home, Sam is planning on asking himself a few searching questions. After everything with Cas, and with Dean, it’s probably time he took a look at his own state of mind. Not that he has to make a thing of it.

“Looking forward to it,” he says to Gertrude, and gives her a quick hug that leaves her flushed and smiling. “Hey, Dean! We gonna get on the road or what? Jody said she could do with a hand if we can get there in time.”

Jody had also said Dean should stay with Cas if he wanted to. Actually, Sam almost wishes he had Jody’s side of that conversation recorded, but the memory is enough to sustain him in jokes for hours. And it’s a lot of hours to where they need to go next.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean says, from halfway down the garden path. He almost sounds casual about the fact his brother just called him away from kissing Cas. Again. His attention doesn’t stray to Sam completely, or for long, before he’s meeting Cas’ gaze again. “You call me, you hear? None of this going silent crap.”

“Of course, Dean,” Cas says, as though that’s never happened. “And you call me. None of this, um, macho lack of communication crap.”

And those are words Cas has clearly learned from somewhere. Dean blinks, shoots a look at Val that gets a blank-faced response, and shrugs.

“Can I help it if I’m manly?” he asks, but he wraps Cas in another hug, and from the way Cas tilts his head it’s clear Dean’s saying something. Probably assuring the guy he’ll call and share all of his thoughts or something. Dean’s still a work in progress, but at least he’s getting somewhere. When the hug is done, Dean claps Cas on the shoulder, smiles, and turns for the car. “You all keep out of trouble,” he calls over his shoulder.

“No promises,” Val retorts.

They pull away from the curb quickly, Dean not lingering to stare at Cas anymore. Sam looks back, and sees Cas standing by Beth, who’s rubbing a hand along Cas’ forearm. Riva joins them as Sam watches.

The house is out of sight before long, and Sam doesn’t say anything about how quiet Dean is. A lot’s happened in the last few days. They can take a stretch of road to let it all sink in.

Chapter Text

Dean steps back, angling his head as though that’ll give him a better idea of whether the painting of crocuses looks right. Cas hasn’t slept in his own bed in the Bunker in months, not since he vanished overnight, but Dean wants the dude to know he’ll have his own space. When he comes back, that is.

Because Cas is coming back. He’s said so. He just hasn’t said when.

Maybe the painting would look better on the other wall. It turns out Cas really likes flowers, something Dean kind of knew but didn’t have as clear in his mind before they started speaking so much about things that had nothing to do with cases. And when Cas calls to say he’s on his way, Dean can run out and get some fresh flowers, so the place smells good, too.

In the meantime, he steps back and pulls out his phone. He’ll send Cas a photo, so the guy can say if he likes the painting where it is.

He’s just sending the photo when he hears the outside door clang shut, and he wanders out in that direction as he waits to see the symbol on his phone say Cas has picked up the message. Cas keeps his phone charged and turned on these days. Not that Dean has to worry Cas has left sooty wingprints over the walls of some warehouse. Not anymore. No, he has four people who’ll send Dean messages if needs be. Gertrude mostly asks him to fish out another book to send her if Sam hasn’t answered quickly enough, but it’s still a line of communication.

Jody suggested they set up a group chat. Dean snorted and told her she’d been spending too much time around Claire before changing the subject. But if Val could stop taking all the best jokes whenever one of the others says something funny, that’d be great. She beat him to a Batman joke three days ago, and Dean still isn’t over it.

“Hey, Sam, did you get that honey I want…ed…”

He draws to a halt, staring.

At the bottom of the stairs, Cas stands, a duffel bag in hand and his hair looking like someone gave him some advice on product. The clothes don’t hurt, either - bless whoever talked Cas into the deep blue shirt and black jeans.

“Hello,” Cas says. “I, er, didn’t know you wanted any honey.”

Dean is on the verge of making some corny joke about Cas being all the sweetness he needs, but thankfully Cas holds up his phone before Dean can, and smiles.

“I did just get the photo. I like the crocuses.”

“Yeah?” Dean’s mouth is dry, and he can’t understand why. “You sure they look right on that side of the room? Because I can move them. Want you to be comfortable when you visit.”

“Oh,” Cas says, and drops the bag on the floor. “I thought, maybe, I wouldn’t come to visit.”

Dean lifts his eyebrows.

“Not to call you a liar, Cas, but you’re here. Bag and everything.”

“Yeah,” Cas says, and he’s a lot closer without Dean realizing. He meets Dean’s gaze, and there’s something like fear there, but that’s been lurking in Cas’ eyes for years, ever since his sense of his rightful place was shaken. Now, there’s also a stronger impression of hope, of something Dean might even call close to peace. It’s a good look. “But I thought I’d stay. For good. If that’s all right with you.”

“I think I can get on board with that,” Dean says.

They leave the bag on the floor. They’ll have plenty of time to sort it out later, and Dean really does want to show Cas what his room is like now. They can settle whether or not Cas will actually use the room later. For now, they have other things to catch up on, and they’ve wasted more than enough time. Cas is here, and present, looking like he’s pleased about that, and Dean is going to make sure Cas knows how glad he is about it too.

The End