Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

pipe dream

/ˈpīp ˌdrēm/

 

noun

plural noun: pipe dreams

1. an unattainable or fanciful hope or plan.

”I love you.”

Dean couldn’t get the words out of his head, couldn’t push away the memory trying to worm its way to the front of his mind. A bloodstained white button-up, black ooze that held too much resemblance to the goo from the Leviathans, blackened cracks on pale skin, an old, abandoned barn. Every time he blinked, that was all he saw. His ears refused to register the sounds of the bunker around him. They seemed to be stuck in a loop of the past, hearing what Cas had thought would be his last words on repeat.

”I love all of you.”

His mind should’ve stopped by now, should’ve found something else to think about, something that didn’t make his chest feel like it was caving in. Dean rarely got trapped in his own head for this long, and usually driving helped, but this time, the bit he’d driven before handing the keys over to Sam had only made it worse.

”Thank you. Thank you.”  

There was no way he’d be able to sleep tonight, not that he often could. Still, he couldn’t let himself get something stronger to drink than coffee, he’d been trying to stop doing that every time something went wrong, and he didn’t know what else to do to distract himself. He didn’t feel like researching or for once helping Sam to organize the books in the library, and he couldn’t exactly go to the training room to shoot since Sam and Mom were already in bed, probably asleep.

”Knowing you, it’s been the best part of my life.”

Dean sighed and pressed his hands to his face, dragging them back through his hair as he squeezed his eyes shut. Why couldn’t he push the stupid fucking memory away?

”The things we’ve shared together-“

A voice cut through the loop of Dean’s thoughts, and it took him a second to focus on it enough to identify who had spoken: Cas. Cas, who was still alive, still here, and not just a voice in his head.

“Dean, what are you still doing up?”

Cas was leaning a little against the kitchen doorway, wearing a pair of sweatpants and an old T-shirt that Dean vaguely remembered giving him, when he looked up at him. He looked so damn human that Dean’s breath caught in his throat, his heart stuttering with both awe and despair as he averted his gaze back to the coffee swirling in his mug.

“I could ask you the same thing, Cas.” 

“I don’t sleep, I’m no longer capable of it.” Cas’s steps came closer to Dean and when he glanced up, he was sitting across from him.

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

Cas tilted his head to the side, the action hitting Dean like a punch to the gut, his earlier words coming back to him again, words he wanted so badly to mean something they didn’t. He’d almost lost the ability to ever see Cas do that again, to see Cas do anything, and the reminder hurt like hell. Dean gulped down half of his remaining coffee, ignoring the somewhat odd flavor it had due to it no longer being warm.

“I’m fine, Dean.”

He shook his head in disbelief, scoffing under his breath. “Cas, man, you almost died earlier, you don’t have to be ‘fine’.”

“I’m alive, Dean.”

“Cas…” Dean sighed, staring at him. Scarlet red, human-like blood. Black ooze. Words that sounded like a confession and a goodbye at once. Tear-filled eyes. Blackened, cracked skin. A muddied, dust-coated trenchcoat. He tightened his grip around his mug, squeezing his eyes shut against the images.

“Dean, what’s wrong?”

“You can’t keep… Cas, I can’t keep almost losing you. Especially when you say stuff like that before you-“ Dean broke off and shook his head, jaw clenched.

Cas blinked, as if it hadn’t occurred to him that him almost dying and what he’d said could’ve been what had Dean up at three in the morning after a tiring hunt. “I apologize… I didn’t—I’m sorry, Dean. If you would prefer, we could ignore that I ever said what I did, or I could make you forget, if you’d rather.”

“Damnit, Cas, no, I—That’s not what I—Fuck, I’m way worse at this then I thought I was…” Dean downed the rest of his coffee and leaned a little closer to Cas across the table, who was watching him with confused eyes, his head still tilted slightly. “I-I love you too, Cas. I don’t know if you meant it the same way, but—I do.”

For a long moment, Cas just stared at Dean, lips parted slightly in what Dean thought was surprise or maybe shock. Dean sighed, ready to get up and leave if Cas wanted him to, but before he could move, a smile broke out across Cas’s face. Dean’s breath hitched involuntarily at the sight of it; Cas so rarely smiled, especially this bright, and something in him wanted to keep it there forever. Jesus, when did he become such a sap?

“I meant it that way too; I love you.” Cas reached across the table, slowly, as if he thought Dean might move away, and placed his hand on his. Dean stared at their hands for a second, feeling heat rise up in his cheeks, before turning his hand over and interlacing their fingers. The heat in his face was unfamiliar, but for some reason, Dean didn’t really care.

“Good,” Dean squeezed Cas’s hand slightly, “good, okay. But, please, Cas, don’t die, not again. I can’t take it, I can’t lose you.”

“You won’t, Dean. I’m alive,” Cas squeezed his hand back, “and I plan to remain as such for the time being, I swear.”

“You better, because if you don’t, I swear I will drag your ass back to Earth and I’ll kill you again myself.” Dean meant it as a joke, but he knew there was no small amount of truth to it.

Cas smiled, blue eyes crinkling at the corners, and for a moment they both just stayed sitting there, content with the silence. Never before had Dean even really contemplated Cas feeling the same way, of this being possible. But still, simply sitting together, in the middle of the night, in the kitchen, felt so much better than he could’ve ever imagined. Breathing felt easier than it had in years, and for just a moment, Dean felt like he could forget about princes of hell, Kelly Kline, the British Men of Letters, and everything else that had been weighing down on his shoulders.

Dean yawned before he could stop himself, and Cas’s expression somehow softened further. He stood, dragging Dean up with him by their interlocked hands.

“You need to sleep, Dean.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

Dean put his mug in the sink, knowing Sam would be mad if he left it out, and let Cas pull him down the hall towards his room. He collapsed onto his bed once he was inside, letting out a content sigh as he sunk into the mattress. As he tugged at the blankets crumpled at the end of the bed where he’d thrown them the morning before they left, Cas turned as if to leave, and Dean froze. He wasn’t sure why, but the thought of being alone was somehow terrifying suddenly. “Stay? Please?”

Cas stopped and looked back at Dean, some emotion he couldn’t quite read in his eyes. “Alright.”

Somehow the bed that was really only meant for one person fit the two of them perfectly when Dean hesitantly curled up around Cas, who seemed to melt into him immediately. Dean stared down at Cas, at how at ease he looked. He’d only been there a few seconds, but he already looked asleep, even though Dean knew he wasn’t. His hair was soft against Dean’s forehead, softer than he’d thought it was, his lashes cast dim shadows on his cheeks, and his chest rose and fell slowly and evenly.

Something Dean hadn’t realized was pressing down on him lifted as he stared down at him and he sighed softly, letting his eyes fall shut. For the first time in over a day he didn’t fear what his mind would show him when he closed them and the rest of the tension in him finally bled out. The memories from the barn weren’t pushing at him, trying to force their way out. Cas was okay, he was here. Everything was okay.

Dean pressed his nose into Cas’s hair and let himself drift off to sleep with the reassurance that Cas wasn’t going anywhere. Things were good, really good, for maybe the first time in months, and Dean finally let himself just breathe and not worry for once in his life.

Chapter Text

“How long are you planning on staying, Cas?” Sam asked over breakfast, and Dean looked up from the eggs he was cooking, a strum of abnormal anxiety spiking through him at the thought of Cas leaving again. Cas shrugged and sipped his coffee that he drank even though it both had no effect on him and probably tasted like molecules, as everything did for him.

“I’m not sure, I have no proper leads on Kelly, but I think it’d be easier to find her from out there rather than from here.” Cas’s eyes met Dean’s for a moment before he looked back at Sam. “Though I would like to stay a few more days if that’s alright.”

“Course that’s alright, sunshine, why wouldn’t it be?” Dean grinned over at Cas, who tilted his head at the nickname but smiled a little anyways. Warmth blossomed in his chest and Dean turned away for a moment to hide the slight blush he could tell dusted his face and the grin tugging at his lips.

“Did something-“ Sam looked between the two of them, an eyebrow raised, though his lips were quirked up into a smirk. “Am I missing out on something here?

“Are you?” Dean grinned, knowing Sam had probably caught on already and was just teasing, though he still felt anxiety pool in his stomach at the idea of Sam knowing. Their dad would’ve yelled and hit him if he were here instead of Sam, and while Dean was pretty sure he wasn’t like him when it came to this sorta stuff, he wasn’t positive. Cas sighed, in the way Dean had learned he did when he didn’t understand why Dean did something. Sam blinked and glanced between the two of them as if he hadn’t actually expected his teasing to mean something.

“Wait, you—“ Sam spluttered, wide eyed, “when?”

“About a week ago.”

“Oh, I—wait, a week? Like… oh, that makes sense, alright. Good for you guys.” Sam smiled at the two of them and went back to the toast he’d been eating before and his laptop, which he was probably using to look for cases. A bit of the anxiety disappeared from Dean's chest, but it still felt heavy in his lungs and stomach, like the bit remaining was trying to suffocate him from the inside out.

“You don’t have a problem with it, right?” He couldn’t stop himself from asking, even though he was sure he knew the answer, even though Sam had stuck by him and hadn’t really judged him his entire life, no matter what he did.

“Of course not, you guys are my brothers, why would I have a problem with it? I love you guys no matter what.” Dean turned away to try to hide the tears he felt pricking his eyes that had sprung up for no real logical reason and scraped the eggs onto a plate for him and another for Sam.

“Thank you, Sam,” Cas said in a quiet voice and Dean let out a shaky breath before turning to face the two of them again, forcing his composure to be intact again. Sam had a small smile on his face and Cas looked almost pained, even though he was smiling. Dean put Sam’s plate in front of him and almost hugged him, but stopped himself before he did, instead just sitting down next to Cas and slipping his hand into his. Things were good.

“I’ll be back, Dean, I just need to find Kelly before someone else does,” Cas said, frowning ever so slightly, and Dean nodded. 

“I know.” He did; he knew Cas felt like it was his responsibility to do this since he was the one that was with her when she ran off, and he knew Cas would come back eventually, but still… something about this time felt different than the other times he left. Maybe it was because things between them were different, or at least out in the open, maybe it was because Cas had almost died about two weeks ago, or maybe it was just that Dean didn’t want him to leave, not again, whether he would come back or not. He trusted Cas to come back, he did, but he hated that Cas felt the need to leave so often. “I know. Just, you can always stay here, you know that right? This is your home too.”

Cas’s eyebrows scrunched together, like he was confused by what he was hearing, and he just stared at Dean for a moment before nodding. “I know, Dean. After this is over, I won’t leave again, I swear to you.”

“You don’t need to swear anything, Cas. Just, stay in contact, okay? Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Of course, and I wasn't planning on it, I’ll be careful.” Cas smiled at Dean, a little jokingly, and then glanced towards the clock, grimacing at whatever time it said. “I should get going. Goodbye, for the time being.”

Dean swallowed thickly and tugged Cas towards him, wrapping his arms around him and pressing his face into his shoulder. Cas hugged him back a moment later, letting out a small sigh. He didn’t want to pull away, but he knew he had to, and Dean hesitantly let go of Cas, stepping back but moving his hands up to cup his face for a brief second.

“Call if you find anything and we’ll be there. Bye, Cas.” Dean forced a smile and moved completely away, nodding towards the door. “Now go before I find some way to make you stay.”

Cas grinned in the subtle way he always did and nodded. “Goodbye, Dean, I’ll call later.”

Dean yawned, sipping his coffee and twirling his phone in his other hand. He wanted to call Cas, make up some excuse about just checking up on him so he didn’t have to admit he really just missed him, and talk to him about… he didn’t know. Nothing had really happened since he’d left, they hadn’t even found any cases, which was rare, especially with Lucifer back in his cage and Amara gone, leaving hunters the only thing for demons and other supernatural creatures to fear. He was starting to get kind of stir crazy, he’d only left the Bunker twice in the past week: once for a supply run and once just to drive, with no direction in mind, for hours until it got dark and he forced himself to come back.

His phone rang in the middle of his twirling of it and he nearly dropped it in surprise. Almost nobody called him on this phone since only about ten people in the world had its number, and half the time the person was calling because they needed help or something had happened. 

Cas blinked on the screen and he answered quicker than he was sure he’d ever done before with other people unless he knew something was wrong.

“Cas?”

“Dean ,” Cas said through the phone and Dean felt a smile tug at his lips, “how are you?” 

“I’m fine, you? Got any news on Kelly?”

“Unfortunately, no. I don’t understand how she can possibly still be so off the radar with the existence of the internet and almost every being from both Heaven and Hell looking for her, though I suppose if I haven’t even found a single clue pointing to her whereabouts, nobody else has either, so she’s likely safe. Hopefully. It’s more aggravating trying to hunt her down than I expected, especially since everything that seems like a lead turns out to be nothing but the earth slowly deteriorating and causing increasingly large amounts of odd phenomena.” 

“Yeah, global warming’s a bitch,” Dean finished the last of his coffee and stood up. “Anything else happen? The angels got anything to say?”

“No, angel radio's been quiet, almost abnormally so. I don’t plan to ask them for help though, not unless there’s no other option. How are things with you and Sam?”

“We haven’t had a case in weeks, but we’re good. I’m itching to do something, but unless Sam’s found a case since he woke up, we’ve got nothing.”

“I’d like to say you’d have something to do if you were here, but, in all honesty you’d likely be more bored.”

Dean snorted as he wandered through the halls of the bunker towards the library, purposefully moving at a slower pace than he normally would. “I’m sure I could find something to do, all I’ve got here is a shit ton of books and Sam, and he’s great and all, but he’s kinda boring to be around constantly.”

“Dean. ” Cas’s tone was mostly flat, though it had an undertone of amusement that Dean had never really heard from him before.

“I’m kidding. Mostly.”

“ Well, I’m sure we’ll both have better luck soon. ” Cas didn’t sound like he really believed what he was saying but it also sounded like he was trying to make a joke of some sort and Dean grinned despite himself as he walked into the war room. Cas still didn’t really get humor, even after years of being around Dean, but his trying was oddly… well, not amusing, but Dean wasn’t sure how else to describe it.

“Yeah, okay, well… you get any leads, let us know, we’ll keep working on it from our end.”

“ Of course, I’ll talk to you later. Bye, Dean. ”

Dean smiled, knowing he probably looked like some character in a chick flick, but he couldn’t bring himself to care because he liked the warm feeling in his chest. He had never felt like this before, the closest he could think of was with Lisa, and for some reason that he couldn’t put into words, what he had with Cas, no matter how new and undeveloped it was at the moment, felt like one of the best things that had happened to him in his life. “Talk to you later, sunshine, bye.” 

The line beeped a second later and Dean put his phone away, leaning back against the table behind where Sam was sitting in the back of the library.

“Anything?” he asked and Dean shook his head even though he wasn’t facing him.

“Nah, Kelly Kline’s still in the wind, and we have no idea when she’s gonna have Lucifer’s kid, if she hasn’t already.”

“Great,” Sam sighed, running a hand through his hair, and glanced back at Dean. “So we’ve got nothing at all with that. I do have something else though.”

Dean moved to his side before he really comprehended what he’d said, looking over his shoulder at the online news article that was open on Sam’s laptop. The bored, stir crazy part of him was suddenly screaming and he felt an odd sort of adrenaline rush from the thought of a case. Who would’ve thought years ago he would’ve been excited to have a case, no matter what it was. “A case?”

“Yeah. At a museum parking lot in Des Moines, Iowa, a teacher’s body was found, his tongue had been ripped out.” Dean frowned, skimming over the bit of the article visible without scrolling further down.

“Well, that didn’t kill him.”

“No, but having his internal organs crushed did. No obvious damage to the torso, though, no point of entry.”

“You thinking witch?” Dean really hoped it wasn’t a witch, especially given the fact that the last time he encountered one he’d forgotten his own name just under a day later, along with almost everything else. Sure, he’d take anything at this point, but he’d really prefer it if it wasn’t a witch.

“Maybe? I mean, he was seen alive just a couple hours earlier, giving some students a tour of the museum.”

“Huh, well… haven’t seen Mom in a while, maybe she’ll want to work on it with us.” Dean got the feeling she wouldn’t. She had seemed even more distant somehow since the whole Ramiel thing, leaving the day after and only texting and calling a couple of times even though it happened almost a month ago. Something was going on with her, but he just couldn’t pinpoint what it was, even though he knew it was something that made her prefer to stay further away from them. Maybe if he could get her to come along on a hunt with them, he’d be able to figure it out.

As he walked towards his room to grab the bag he had mostly prepacked for whenever they went on a hunt, he took his phone back out and called Mom.

She answered on the second ring with a somewhat out of breath, “ Hey, Dean .”

He chose to ignore why she might’ve been out of breath, knowing it probably wasn’t that big of a deal if she hadn’t told them about it before. “What you up to? We haven’t heard from you in a while.”

“ Nothin’. I’m… uh, I’m just at a hotel outside Newark .” It sounded a bit like a lie, but there wasn’t any reason why she would lie, so Dean figured he was probably just imagining things. She was still getting the hang of cellphones, even after months, and she probably still found it slightly odd when she spoke to someone over one.

“Well, I was wondering if you’ve got any plans or anything right now.”

“ No, no special plans. You know, pay-per-view, magic fingers, the usu’ ,” she said quickly and Dean couldn’t hold back a small snort. Before the bunker, he thought both were great, but now he wouldn’t trade the bunker for going back to spending all his nights in old, rundown motels for any reason.

“Well, Sam and I caught wind of a case out in Iowa and were wondering if you might want to join us on it, if you have the time.”

“ Oh, it’s so sweet of you to think of me. I… ” she trailed off, and Dean could tell he probably wasn’t getting anywhere with this. Still, he wanted her on the hunt, or really he just wanted to see her again, and he didn’t want to give up so quickly. Funny how after having gone almost his entire life without her there, the second she was, he felt like he needed her to be there even more than she would have if she had been all along.

“A teacher was found with his tongue ripped out and internal organs crushed, no damage to the torso or entry wound.” Dean knew he was reaching, trying to convince her to go even though it was already a lost battle.

“ Tongue ripped out, wow. ” He could practically see the grimace on her face at that visual, and he had to agree. “ I, uh… I’m actually still sorta resting up after that whole Ramiel thing. But, if you need me… ”

It was an excuse, Dean knew, but he again chose to just leave it. If she didn’t want to tell him what was going on, that was fine, it wasn’t like he had to know everything about her. Still, he hated the fact that she felt like she had to lie to them, for whatever reason.

“No, no, it’s fine. I just thought you might want in on it since we haven’t seen you in a while. But we’ll handle it,” Dean said as he stepped into his room and pushed the door closed behind him again with his foot so that he could more easily grab the jacket hanging on the back of it.

“ You sure? ”

“Yeah, we’re good, Mom.”

“ Okay, rain check? ” She asked, and Dean almost nodded before realizing she couldn’t see him as he grabbed the duffel bag from next to his door and dropped it onto his bed.

“Sure. I’ll call you next time we’ve got a case. Talk to you later.”

“ Kay, I love you. ” Dean smiled despite himself and unzipped the bag.

“Yeah, me too. Bye.” She hung up and he sighed, tossing his phone onto his bed next to his bag. Something was going on with her, but he didn’t want to think about it, especially not when they had a case.

“So… how are things going with you and Cas?” Sam asked, grinning over at Dean with a slightly teasing glint in his eyes covering up what he knew was genuine curiosity.

Dean glared at him out of the corner of his eyes and refused to answer. Baby rumbled under him, and he was enjoying the feeling of having an actual destination in mind, even if it was for a case where someone had already died, he didn’t need Sam questioning him about his love life of all things.

“I’m just curious, don’t give me that look.”

“We don’t talk about your love life, so we’re not going to talk about mine.” Dean knew there wasn’t really any reason he didn’t want to talk about it, it just felt odd, especially since it was still such a new thing, and they never really talked about this sort of thing.

“Dean, I don’t have a love life to talk about.” Sam actually sounded like he believed that, like he couldn’t tell that his love life was much more complicated, but still had more to talk about than Dean’s did.

“Oh please, you and Eileen are not just friends, Sammy. You can’t be that blind.”

“What?”

“I-wow, alright. Y'know what, this could be interesting, you can figure this out on your own.” Dean shook his head and smirked, ignoring the confused and surprised looks Sam was giving him.

“Whatever…”

“Well, I guess you were right, Cas. We did get lucky. Well, if you can call a case connected to a museum, and is most likely an old ghost, where three people have died “lucky”, I guess,” Dean said, leaning against the hood of Baby as Sam got keys for a motel room for them, his phone pressed to his ear.

“Yes, that doesn’t sound particularly lucky, though it is more than sitting around, I believe, and it includes saving others, which is almost always for the best.” Cas’s voice was oddly soft over the phone, and Dean could practically see his small smile. A pang of longing struck him and he had to resist the urge to ask when he’d see him again.

“Any luck on your end?”

“No, at this point I’m starting to think I won’t be able to find her until Lucifer’s child is born, because that is bound to cause anomalies that cannot be blamed simply on the weather.”

“You still not planning on asking the angels for any help?” Dean hated asking it, but finding Kelly Kline seemed more important at this point than how trustworthy the angels were. The angels were bad news and could cause a lot of damage, but if Lucifer’s kid was unleashed on the world… in comparison to each other, the angels seemed the lesser threat for the time being.

“No. I will not go to them for any help until not doing so would be damaging.”

“Look, I ain't saying trust em, hell, that’s the last thing you should do, but if we don’t find her soon, those dicks up there are going to be the most helpful to us, and might be our only chance.”

“I know, Dean, but not yet.”

“Okay,” Dean murmured, feeling a bit guilty but also somewhat relieved, and Sam pushed out of the front doors of the motel. “I gotta go. Stay safe, Cas.”

“You as well, Dean. Goodbye.”

“Bye.”

Dean hung up and slipped his phone back into his pocket just as Sam came up to him. “Was that Cas?”

“Yes, still nothing. C’mon, I want to sleep before Rowena gets here and I lose the chance.”

“What’s happened that made him all smiley?” Rowena asked not five minutes after showing up, the question obviously directed at Sam but about Dean.

“I am right here,” Dean said, but both of them ignored him.

“Cas.”

“I… y’know what? You two connect over what’s happening in my life for all I care, I’m going to go… call Gavin, get him to come here.”

“Castiel? The angel?” Rowena sounded less surprised than she should’ve and Dean suppressed a groan as he stalked towards the door. “It took them this long?”

Dean slipped through the door before he could hear Sam’s response and walked a few steps down the hallway, forcing himself to observe his surroundings instead of thinking of what was really trying to worm its way into his head. He never wanted this to be a big deal, and, while there was no universe out there where he would give up what he had with Cas now, he wished it could be… just something everyone accepted, didn’t talk about, nothing. That wouldn’t happen though, and he couldn’t handle it, but still he didn’t want to think about it. And apparently everyone had known they’d both felt the same way except for them, somehow.

Dean leaned against the wall across the hall, a few doors down from their room, and pulled his phone out, texting Cas that Rowena was there before dialing the number he remembered was Gavin’s. It rang almost to the end, but just before it stopped, Gavin answered with a confused: “ Who’s this? ”

“Dean Winchester, look, we need you to come here, to Des Moines, Iowa, it’s about your father—“

“Gavin, I’m sorry it had to end like this,” Dean said as they pulled into the Bunker’s garage, the engine continuing to rumble for a few more seconds before stopping, “Really, I am.”

“It doesn’t have to end like this,” he responded from the back seat in a defeated tone, “but it’s for the best. And I get to see my lovely Fiona again. I never should have allowed my father to convince me to stay here in the first place. I never belonged, and this never would have happened had I simply returned. You have no need to feel sorry or to apologize to me. This is my fault.”

“Kid, you had the chance to live a good life when you should have been doomed. Nobody can blame you for taking that, anyone would’ve.”

Gavin didn’t say anything in response, but out of the corners of his eyes Dean could see the expression on Sam’s face: surprised and oddly proud, though Dean wasn’t sure of what. Dean got out of the car before he started questioning Sam—which he didn’t want to do but felt the urge to nonetheless—and stalked towards the doors leading into the Bunker itself. They needed to do this before someone else died in case it only partially worked.

“Well, it looks like it worked. History seems to be back on track, everyone who died is alive again,” Sam said as he scrolled through a few things on his computer, and Dean texted Cas that they finished the case, everything was good again, and Gavin was back in 1723. Just as he hit send on the message, the door to the Bunker swung open, creaking on its old hinges, and Mom walked in with bags of fast food and beer.

“Hey,” both Dean and Sam said at the same time  while she came down the stairs. 

“It has been a long, long, long, long, long while.”

Sam snorted at Dean’s admittedly over-exaggerated words and shook his head, grinning at Mom as she came towards them. “Yeah, all right, he’s dramatic as you know. What he meant to say was: we missed you, we’re glad you’re back.” 

Dean’s phone buzzed with a text from Cas, but he decided to ignore it for the time being since it probably wasn’t anything besides an Okay or a thumbs up. Instead he looked up and smiled widely at Mom, not sure if it was completely genuine or not. She laughed and placed the bags of food and the pack of beer bottles on the table in front of them, saying: “Burgers; Beer,” respectively as she did so.

“You’re forgiven.” Dean grabbed one of the bags, grinning as he opened it and looked inside. Sam grabbed two bottles of the beer, popping the tops off of them. “What’ve you been up to lately?”

She hesitated for a moment, the smile dropping from her face somewhat, and Dean paused in the middle of taking a burger from the bag until she spoke. “Oh. Jogging, tai chi, meditation, melting rugaru brains.”

Both of them froze at that, staring across the table at their mother in shock. “Uh, melting… rugaru brains?”

It was silent for a long moment, with Mom fidgeting slightly. She shifted from foot to foot, obviously nervous and hesitant to say what she was about to. Something inside Dean froze and shriveled at the same time, filling him with dread. He had wanted to know what it was she was hiding from them, but now he wished she wouldn’t tell them; wished she would brush it off as a joke. But she didn’t.

“There’s no easy way to say this, so… I’m just gonna say it,” Dean swallowed thickly, not liking where this was going in the slightest. Something was wrong. “I have sort of been working with the British Men of Letters.”

If Dean had still had food in his mouth, he likely would’ve choked, but all he did was stare at her. The part of him that had shriveled seemed to die completely, turning into a pile of ash that felt as if it were coating his throat. He’d been expecting something bad, but this? His own mother working with the bastards that had tortured Sam just to get information they didn’t need to have? Honestly, her making some deal with a demon would’ve been less of a shock to him.

“You...you, uh, what?” Sam stuttered and Dean shifted a few inches closer to him, feeling a rise of protectiveness he hadn’t felt for him in a long time, at least not out of a battle where Sam wouldn’t get angry at him for it. Mom looked between the two of them, and there was no trace of the guilt Dean had expected. She didn’t even feel bad about working with those psychos!

“Uh-“ Dean broke off, unsure what exactly he wanted to say or if he’d even be capable of it.

“Um, Mom, we-we have a history with them,” Sam sounded like he had since he was a kid every time he was trying to hide how much something was hurting him, and a flicker of anger he had never expected to feel aimed at his mother sparked in Dean’s chest.

“I know that.” But she still didn’t sound regretful or even really pained at the thought of what they’d done. “And it was a hard decision. But they’re doing good work. I’ve helped them save people— a lot of people. We can learn from them.”

This wasn’t right. These people had tortured Sam , for fuck’s sake, and she thought because these people had more painful ways of wiping out supernatural beings, that was okay? How could she possibly work with them? It wasn’t as if the way they did things didn’t do just as much good or was any less effective!

“Do not give me the face,” Mom snapped at him, and Dean scowled, clenching his jaw as he tried to hold back the anger churning in his stomach.

“What face?”

“You know the face.”

“There’s no “face”.”

“That’s the face.”

Dean rolled his eyes, resisting the urge to hit something or just start yelling. Maybe she could explain this still, maybe this was some sort of misunderstanding and she wasn’t siding with them like it seemed like she was.

“Mom, “ Sam interrupted the silence they’d fallen back into as he picked at the label on his beer bottle, “we have our own tool kit, it works just fine, and for obvious reasons—like broken ribs, and burnt feet—we don’t trust the Brits.”

Mom looked down at the table for a moment and it almost seemed like a bit of guilt flickered across her face, except she still didn’t look sorry , or like she really cared about what they had done to Sam, hell, to Dean and Cas too when they were trying to save him.

“So, where does that leave us?” Dean couldn’t stop himself from asking even though he knew whatever her answer was, based on the way she was treating this whole thing—like it wasn’t a big deal—he doubted that given the choice she would give up working with the Brits for them.

“Same as always,” she said, but it had taken her too long to respond for Dean to be sure she really meant it, to be sure she truly cared as much as she wanted to, “family.”

Dean looked away from her, unable to stand the complete lack of understanding of why they cared about this so much, about why this was a bigger deal than her just leaving. Sam continued to stare at her, but his expression was near the opposite of what it was when she’d first walked into the Bunker—he didn’t believe her either, not really, that much was obvious to Dean.

“Just, hear me out,” she said, eyes pleading with them but not willing to give them the same privilege. “Please.”

“Wow,” Dean muttered, shaking his head somewhat as he turned his back on her and ran a hand down his face, “just, wow.”

“Dean, what the British Men of Letters are doing—what we’re doing—it’s a better way!”

Dean turned back to face her, unable to really comprehend what she was saying. How could she possibly believe that? How could she get further into the operation, find out they had weapons that didn’t kill so much as torture the “monsters” to death, and still believe they were better than hunters?

“They-“ she sighed, looking up briefly almost as if she was asking for help from up there. “Look, I’m not blind to who they are, or what they’ve done-“

“When?” Sam cut Mom off, and suddenly it struck Dean how much this felt like one of those arguments between Dad and Sam all those years ago, except this time he wasn’t too scared to admit he agreed with Sam. He almost laughed at that, because sure, none of their arguments had ever been about something like this, but if Dad were still around, he would’ve done the exact same thing and somehow that made it so much worse that Mom had done it.

She was quiet for a long moment, just looking between the two of them. Dean knew that meant they wouldn’t like the answer, but he really didn’t want to think about why. Their mother was supposed to be the one of their parents that didn’t do stupid, terrible things to do what she thought was right or just, but really caused more damage. She was supposed to be the kind one, the one who took care of them, not just a slightly less viscous version of their father. 

“When? When did you start working with them?” Sam repeated, and Mom looked at him again, gaze flicking to Dean for only a split second.

“Since… before the Lake House.” Something about the way she said that, the way she wouldn’t look at Dean, seemed incredibly off and Dean felt another part of himself freeze up in his chest. Sam sighed and looked away, but Dean couldn’t tear his gaze from her, not as she continued speaking. “It wasn’t Wally. They brought me that case.”

Dean felt like he was being dragged away by hellhounds again. That’s the only way he could think to describe the feeling that erupted in his chest at the realization that she was why Cas had almost died, why Wally did die. Looking at her, she looked like she had ten minutes ago, but he didn’t recognize her anymore. He’d known she wasn’t what he’d envisioned his entire childhood when she first showed up, but this- this was so far beyond that that he just couldn’t see her as the same person anymore.

“You were runnin’ an errand for the Brits.” Dean could barely tell that he was speaking, let alone what he was really saying, he just felt like something was sucking at his very being, pulling him down, down, down, “and you kept it from us. Cas… Cas almost died .”

Dean could feel the stinging at the back of his eyes that he really didn’t need right now and looked away as Mary swallowed, avoiding his gaze suddenly. He may have gotten something good—great, even—out of the whole thing, but that didn’t change the fact that he had almost lost Cas for good, all because the Brits told her to go after a fucking prince of hell, and she’d fucking listened!

“I-“

“A hunter got killed,” Sam added, doing what Dean couldn’t and staring her down.

“You think I don’t know?” Mary demanded, and she sounded guilty, but obviously not enough to realize how fucked up it was that she hadn’t even owned up to that and had instead gone back to the people that started the mission and failed to mention it for over a month. “I’m the one who burned his body. I’m the one who told his wife. I watch him die every night.”

“Good.” Dean knew it was cruel to say, but he didn’t care, not at that moment. She’d pulled a hunter with no experience with demons into a fight with a prince of hell, and hadn’t bothered to explain a single bit of the plan she had with any of them, which led to things going even more terribly wrong than they already would have. “What’d you steal?”

“What?” Sam looked between the two of them in confusion, obviously having forgotten that little piece of information. Mary stared at them for a long moment, not saying a word, before sighing.

“The Colt.”

“The—wow. Just…” Dean shook his head in disbelief. She’d almost gotten Cas killed—for good—for the fucking Colt of all things? “Well, good luck using it without bullets because we sure as hell aren’t telling you or those assholes how to make them.”

“You know how?” Mary demanded, eyes wide, and Dean rolled his eyes before squeezing them shut.

She shook her head, running a hand through her hair and looking angry at them for not understanding why she was working with them, as if they were the ones doing the wrong thing. “Fine! But you have to understand me, Dean: I’m doing this for you! I’m playing three decades of catch-up here!”

Dean had no idea how she could possibly think this would help them or her relationship with either of them, but he knew that somehow she wasn’t grasping the fact that she wasn’t the only one having a hard time. “And we’re not? How do you think this has been for us? We’re your sons , and you’ve been gone. Our whole lives, you’ve been gone. You said you needed time—no, you said you needed space . So we gave you your space. But you didn’t need just space,” his voice broke and he drew in a shuddering breath. He hadn’t meant to ever say this, any of it, he didn’t want to voice it because that made it real, that she didn’t care, not like she was supposed to. “No, no, you needed space from us .”

“That’s not true! Dean, I’m trying-“

“How about for once , you just try and be a mom !” Dean bit down on the sob in his throat, but tried and failed to stop a tear from finally falling. He’d gone his entire life wanting just that: wanting his mom to hug him and tell him it was alright, that it didn’t matter if he wasn’t the strongest person out there. But she wasn’t like that. She was more like Dad than he could’ve ever imagined she would be.

“I am your mother, but I am not just a mom. And you are not a child.” She sounded so angry and god, he wished she could just understand , that she could just listen and at least try to get to know them, try to see what they’d been through, what this was doing to them.

“Yeah, and I never was.” Sam looked up at him at that, tears shimmering in his eyes. He’d never said it before, not to anyone, he’d always been too scared to, but he just couldn’t take it anymore. He was tired, so fucking tired. “So, between us and them.”

“It’s not like that-“

“Yeah, Mary, it is.” She looked as if she’d been smacked across the face at the use of her name, but he just couldn’t bring himself to care. She wasn’t his mom, she’d said so herself, and he couldn’t think of her like that anymore, because it hurt too damn much. “And you made your choice. So, there’s the door.”

Dean turned and walked away before she could say a word. He needed a drink, or something to just… he needed some sort of distraction, something to do. 

The second he was in the hallway leading to the bedrooms, he pulled his phone back out of his pocket and called Cas.

The first ring hadn’t even finished by the time he answered and Dean wondered if he’d been waiting for him to call, like he did after a decent amount of cases, especially the interesting ones.

“ Dean ,” Cas said and Dean leaned against the wall, forcing his knees not to buckle and send him crashing to the floor.

“Cas, where- where are you?”

“ I- “ Cas stopped for a second, as if he had to figure out the proper answer to the question. “ I’m not too far from the Bunker. Only an hour or so. Why? Dean, what’s wrong ?”

“I-I just… get here, please. I… I need you. Here. I…”

“ I’ll be there as soon as I can. Dean, you need to breathe, okay, sit down if you’re not. I’ll be there soon, I swear. Be careful. ”

“Dean?”

A sudden touch on his shoulder shocked him out of the numb daze he’d fallen into the moment he’d stumbled into his bedroom, and he looked up. His eyes met bright, azure blue and something snapped inside him, flooding him with emotions that he’d been trying to push down his entire life. A sob caught in his throat and tears stung at his eyes again, and no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t hold them back.

Cas pulled him against his chest after only a second’s hesitation, and Dean buried his face in his shoulder, trembling. He didn’t ask what had happened, Cas seemed to know that he couldn’t say it yet, couldn’t tell him yet. “It’s alright.”

“No,” Dean murmured and he felt Cas’s grip on him tighten a fraction, “no, it’s not. She-she lied to us, Cas.”

“Dean, what happened?” he asked in a quiet voice, and he bit back the sob once again threatening to escape.

“Mom-She-she’s working with the Brits. She has been for months, and she—you almost died because of her and she didn’t even admit it. She just ran back to them, and… and she doesn’t even care. I thought her leaving before hurt, but this… she betrayed us, and she doesn’t fucking-“ Dean pulled back, out of Cas’s arms, and stood up, running his hands through his hair. The anger from before was back, eating at him inside, forcing itself out and to be known.

“You know what she said? She said she was our mother but she wasn’t just a mom and that we weren’t kids, as if we ever were! As if she knows what our lives were like! As if she didn’t leave us again and then never bothered to learn a thing about us! She doesn’t even really care that they hurt Sam! Sure, she seems aware of it, but she doesn’t care . And she doesn’t care that you almost died on her mission! She doesn’t care that because of her, I almost lost you !”

“Dean-“

“She acts like she’s the one who has it so terrible because she got pulled out of heaven and put back here, but she isn’t even trying! She hasn’t asked Sam or I one thing about ourselves since she came back, all she does is say she can’t be around us because we’re so different and she doesn’t know us, and then acts like it’s our fault that she doesn’t understand us! She doesn’t even know the way Dad treated us because she never asked what he was like, she just talked about how she missed him. She doesn’t know what we’ve been through! She doesn’t know Sam lost Jess! She doesn’t know about Ben and Lisa! She doesn’t… she never even asked how we met you. I-I don’t… Cas, I don’t know who she is anymore.”

All the anger dissipated at once, like it was never there in the first place, and was replaced with a deep-rooted exhaustion. Cas’s head was tilted ever so slightly to the left, eyes filled with sadness, sadness for him , and the sob finally escaped, ripping itself from his throat. He was wrapped up in Cas’s arms again, almost immediately, and he clung to him desperately. Dean hadn’t felt this destroyed, this broken, in years. It felt like he’d just lost his mom all over again.

“It’s okay, it’ll be alright, Dean.” Cas pulled him down onto the bed so that they were both sitting. Maybe he could tell somehow that his knees were about to buckle, or maybe he just knew it would be easier than standing. 

“Cas-“

“Even if your mother truly doesn’t care like you believe she doesn’t, you’re not alone , Dean. You have so many people who love you, and like you’ve said, family isn’t just your blood. You have me, Sam, Jody, Claire, Eileen, and so many others, Dean. You’re not alone.”

Another sob tore its way from his chest and Dean pressed his face into Cas’s shoulder again. His voice was rough and strained as he muttered: “I know.”

“Good.” Cas shifted them until they were lying down and slowly his trembling subsided, his tears stopped, and the tension bled out of him. He pushed his shoes off and they hit the ground at the foot of his bed with a soft thud. 

Cas sat up then, and Dean squinted at him as he pulled his own shoes off along with his trenchcoat, suit jacket, and tie. He stood up, put them on his desk chair, and then turned the light off before coming back. 

Dean had never really been the type to cling to anyone, to clutch at them when he hugged them like he’d never get to do it again. He’d always been the type to show affection briefly and hesitantly, but for once all he wanted was to do just that, and he did: he pulled Cas close and pulled the blankets up over the two of them, never wanting to let him go. Cas pressed his face into Dean’s hair, lips brushing his temple, and Dean let out a shuddering breath, eyes slipping shut.

Distantly, Dean heard the Bunker’s front door swing open just as he began to be pulled into sleep. The sound echoed through the entire Bunker, louder than it had any need to be, and he blinked his eyes back open, shifting slightly against Cas. “I swear, if that’s her…”

“It’s not,” Cas murmured and even though he had no reason to believe it was anyone else—Sam wouldn’t leave, that’s not how he worked—he believed Cas when he said it wasn’t Mary, “It’s okay, Dean. Sleep.”

And he did; he let himself relax again, sinking back into Cas and closing his eyes.

Chapter Text

Dean’s eyes felt heavy when he slowly blinked them open, squinting despite the near complete lack of light in his bedroom. Memories of the night before flashed through his mind, bringing pain with them and causing him to squeeze his eyes shut again for a moment. He wished it didn’t hurt this bad, he wished it got easier to see the people he cared about either leave or turn against him, but it didn’t and he knew it never would. Cas shifted beneath him and he looked at him until his eyes adjusted enough to make out the blue of his eyes, trying to push away the pain and pressure on his chest.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” Dean murmured and the corner of Cas’s lips tugged up in a surprisingly sleepy smile for someone who didn’t sleep. A bit of happiness cut through the pressure in his chest at the sight of it, and he brushed a strand of Cas’s hair away from his forehead. “You stayed all night?”

“Of course,” Cas said, tilting his head to the side, which looked somewhat comical with him laying down. Warmth blossomed in Dean’s chest and he smiled, managing to push the memories of his argument with Mary further into the back of his mind. He wanted to ask how Cas could handle simply laying in one place for hours, unable to escape his own mind, but he got the feeling somehow that hadn’t been an issue for him. Cas had always somehow been able to do that, without an ounce of annoyance or boredom. Maybe it came with having been alive for literal millennia, or maybe he just somehow had more patience than anyone else in the world, both seemed plausible.

“What time’s it?” Dean asked instead, and Cas looked thoughtful for a moment, eyebrows furrowing slightly.

“Approximately eight in the morning, I believe.”

Dean yawned and rolled off of Cas, pushing the blankets away. “We should get up.” He stood, rubbing at his eyes for a second and grimacing at the way the jeans he’d fallen asleep in were wrapped tightly around his legs; he really should’ve taken them off before getting into bed. “And I should check on Sam. God, why did I just leave him alone? I should’ve stayed with him instead of running off and hiding away on my own.”

His bed creaked slightly as Cas got out of bed, but Dean wasn’t really paying attention to him for the first time since late the night before. He almost tripped over the still full and sealed whiskey bottle he’d grabbed without thinking the night before and hadn’t ended up doing anything with, having been completely lost in his own mind before he’d even broken the seal unlike last time Mary left, and he threw the door to his bedroom open. Light flooded in from the hallway, and he paused for a moment at the sudden brightness, blinking.

“Dean-“ He glanced back at Cas and sighed. Cas’s eyes held understanding, reassurance, and concern, and a bit of Dean deflated again.

“I think he might already be in the kitchen,” Dean said, hating the sudden tremble in his voice, and Cas grabbed his hand as if he could sense it. His eyes slipped shut and he just allowed himself to stay there for a moment, squeezing Cas’s hand and forcing himself to stop trembling.

Together, they walked down the hall towards the kitchen, which indeed was lit, meaning someone was inside. Something sizzled loudly on the stove, the sound accompanied by the scraping of a spatula against a pan. Dean stopped short the second he stepped through the doorway, freezing in his tracks, because the person standing at the stove, cooking, wasn’t Sam at all.

“Jody?” Even to him, Dean’s voice sounded scratchy and still half-asleep, and he grimaced a little at it. “When did- that was you last night?”

“You mean, was it me who showed up at one in the morning because I drove all the way here at eleven?” She turned away from the pans filled with what smelled like bacon and eggs, and smiled softly at the two of them, not seeming the least bit surprised or affected by neither their interlinked hands nor the fact that they were suddenly standing there. “Yeah. Sam called. He was a bit of a mess, and I had some vacation time that I had no need to save. I figured you two could use some parental love, seeing as you seem to have lucked out on that, and it’s been too long since I’ve seen you boys.”

Dean couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at his lips even though the not too small amount of truth to those words felt like a knife being twisted in his heart. Guilt also clawed at his insides at the thought of Sam having been broken up enough to call someone too, while he’d done nothing for him.

“Don’t you go blaming yourself for a damn thing right now, Dean Winchester,” Jody snapped, and he could’ve sworn he heard Cas snort as he squeezed his hand. Cas pulled him towards the table and down onto a chair, before getting two mugs out of the cupboard and filling them near to the brim with coffee.

“Thanks, sunshine.” Dean smiled up at him as Cas sat down across the table, handing him the mug he almost always used. Jody smiled at them, and he expected some sort of comment about the two of them, about how it had “taken them long enough”, but none came. Maybe she would’ve said something eventually if Sam hadn’t come in closely followed by Eileen, but Dean had the strong feeling she wouldn’t have. Jody had always understood better than most what to say to make things better, or when it was better to not say anything.

“Morning,” Sam said in a quiet voice, getting his own mug of coffee and sitting next to Dean, slumping against the table. The dark bags under his eyes contrasted sharply with his abnormally pale skin, and his grip on his mug was so tight it looked like he might break the handle off. Guilt and worry ate at Dean’s insides and the question of whether Sam was alright or not lay on the tip of his tongue even though the answer was obvious. Instead of asking that, he just bumped his shoulder lightly against his and tried to smile when Sam looked at him, though he doubted it really worked. The corner of his lips tugged up for a moment into a small, sad smile, however, before he looked away again.

“Mornin’, Eileen, wasn’t expecting you here today. When’d you get in?” Dean asked when she sat down next to Cas. He knew she must’ve come because of Sam, she so rarely just dropped by, especially early in the morning, so he doubted it was a coincidence, and he felt a strong rush of affection for her. He’d liked her the moment he met her, but seeing the way she was with Sam made him grateful for her as well, no matter how odd saying that would sound.

“A few hours ago,” Eileen said with a soft smile, sipping at her own coffee and then looking over at Cas. “You must be Castiel.”

“And you must be Eileen Leahy. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Have you now?” She grinned over at Sam, an eyebrow raised, and his face flushed a deep red. Dean tried to cover up his snort with a cough, and Cas tilted his head to the side in slight confusion. 

“Sam talks about you all the time,” Jody added with a smirk and placed a stack of plates and silverware on the kitchen island next to the food that had been cooking just moments earlier. Sam turned an even deeper shade of red, like he was being teased about some middle school crush, and Dean couldn't stop his snort that time, which earned him a glare from Sam. “And breakfast is served.”

Dean smirked at Sam and mouthed: “He really does,” to Eileen before getting up to grab food for himself. The others followed and soon all five of them were sitting at the table that was really only made for four people at most. Warmth spread through Dean as he ate, covering the pain still churning through him. He hadn’t felt this easily happy, this relaxed, in a long, long time, and while he hated that Mary wasn’t part of it, wasn’t part of why he felt this content, he knew now that Cas was right: he and Sam weren’t alone without her. Hell, they still had a mom even without her, Dean realized, and smiled at Jody, hoping she could see how thankful he felt. She smiled back and nodded once, subtly.

Cas squeezed his hand across the table and smiled, talking about the vamp nest he accidentally found while searching for Kelly about half a week ago. Sam laughed at something Eileen said, the exhaustion and pain from before gone as if they hadn’t been there in the first place. Eileen said something in ASL that Dean didn’t understand, but Sam obviously did, and he laughed harder. Dean smiled. Things weren’t perfect, hell, they were far from it, but they weren’t alone and for the moment, things felt good. He just hoped they would stay that way.

Chapter Text

“I think I’ve got something,” Eileen said, and Sam swallowed the last bite of his toast, leaning towards her to look at her laptop screen. She had a news article open, along with multiple others open in neighboring tabs, reporting about the second of two families that had been murdered under unexplainable circumstances in a town in central Washington. No cause of death for any of them had been released, but there were reports of odd burn marks around the bodies that had no logical explanation. 

“What happened with the first family?” Sam asked, turning his face away from the screen so she could more easily read his lips. Without responding, she just clicked on the next tab, bringing up an article from the same news site a week and a half earlier.

“There was a survivor.” Sam stared at the screen, trying to figure out what could possibly be behind this case. Monsters rarely left a survivor unless they possessed them, and even then, it never happened at one but not the other. Besides, nothing about the case screamed ghosts or demons. They usually killed in more simple ways, they didn’t leave weird burn marks that weren’t even on the bodies.

A mug clinked against wood and a chair scraped against the ground as Jody got up from the armchair she’d been sitting in to sit next to Eileen on her other side. She leaned forward and opened her mouth as if to speak, but before she could say a word, Dean and Cas ascended the stairs from the war room and came into the library. Eileen looked up from her laptop and grinned when she saw the two of them.

“I think we found a case,” she said, and a flicker of something like relief, or maybe excitement, flashed across Dean’s face. He left Cas’s side and sat down across from Eileen.

“What you got for me?” Dean asked, and she turned the laptop around, pushing it towards him. He took it and pulled it closer as Cas looked over his shoulder at the screen. Both of them still had messy hair as if they’d just gotten out of bed, which Sam supposed was possible, though it was unusual on Dean’s part—he rarely got up after eight in the morning.

“Two families were attacked in their locked homes without their alarms being set off in Richland, Washington. There were reportedly odd burn marks surrounding the bodies but nowhere else in the houses, no fingerprints, no entrance wounds of any kind. Apparently, one person survived the first attack, but it seems the police aren’t letting anyone report much about her. The only connections between the two families besides the circumstances of their deaths are that a member of both families worked at the same university and they both had kids. I’ve never heard of something exactly like this, it might be some sort of demon, but I don’t know what it could be. It’s definitely a case though,” Eileen explained and Dean nodded, continuing to scroll through the news articles. A few moments later, he stood up and pushed the laptop back towards her.

“We could leave in an hour, get there by tomorrow if we don’t stop on the way,” he said, and Sam nodded, though he couldn’t stop the bit of concern that twisted his gut into a knot. Dean hadn’t been quite this ready to jump on a case since Cas had been possessed by Lucifer and all he had seemed to want to do was to go out and fight things without much regard for what happened to himself. Sam had seen how fidgety Dean had gotten since Mom left, had seen him checking his computer himself for cases at least twice a day for the past three, had seen him disappear into the training room and not come out for hours. At least the alcohol around the Bunker seemed to be surprisingly untouched, but that didn’t help his concern as much as he thought it should have.

“Jody, you coming?” Dean’s words snapped Sam out of his thoughts and he saw Jody nod at Dean, a bit of the concern Sam felt visible on her face.

“Course I am. I ain’t letting you kids handle this all on your own.”

Dean nodded and turned to leave, but Cas stayed where he was across from them instead of following him. He sighed, watching Dean disappear into the hall that led to the bedrooms with a small frown, a worried crease forming between his eyebrows. Sam obviously wasn’t alone in his concern.

Dean pulled into the motel Eileen had sent Sam the address of a few minutes earlier and swiftly parked next to Jody’s car. Eileen and Jody stood in front of it, Jody leaning against the hood, obviously both waiting for them. The Impala’s engine shut off, and Dean was the first out of the car, closely followed by Cas, who grabbed his arm as if to steady him even though he seemed more stable on his feet than he should’ve considering how long it took to get there. Sam was surprised to see that Dean didn’t shake his hand off, but instead relaxed somewhat, like he was letting Cas hold him up just a bit.

Cas and Dean had always been oddly close, to the extent that Sam had wondered more times than he could count over the years if maybe—maybe—there was something more going on between the two of them that they just hadn’t told him yet. And he’d been right, to some degree, but even though he’d suspected for years—never really thinking he was right, not with the way Dean was—and now had known for over a month, it was still surprising every single time to see how much closer they were, to notice how much Dean used to shy away from stuff that he’d never noticed before.

Sam slammed the backdoor of the Impala shut behind him and gladly took the key Eileen handed him, noticing that Dean had one as well, meaning they wouldn’t be sharing a room for once. Normally it would’ve bothered him, being apart from Dean usually felt odd, but between having gotten used to it at the Bunker and knowing Dean and Cas were together—and who knows what they did at night—he was glad to not share with them.

“We’ll share as long as that’s okay? Jody wanted the other king,” Eileen said, looking somewhat apologetic, and Sam nodded. He slipped the key into his jacket pocket and raised an eyebrow at the oddly smug expression on Jody’s face as if she knew something the rest of them didn’t.

“How about everyone gets some sleep and we check this out later?” Jody suggested just as Dean opened the trunk of the Impala, taking out his FBI badge and reaching for what was likely his suit.

“You guys can do that if you want, I’m going now,” he said, even though he’d driven the entire way there—all 25 hours—and hadn’t let either Sam or Cas take over once.

“Dean-“

“I’m good. I’m going, Sam,” Dean snapped before he could even finish speaking and the concern in Sam’s gut grew, mixing with just a bit of annoyance at his stubbornness. He was used to Dean being reckless, but usually—at least in the past few years—he’d been better about taking care of himself at the same time.

“You are only awake right now because of all the coffee you drank on the way here. You need to sleep , Dean.”

“I said, I’m fine , Sam!”

“No, you’re not,” they all said at once, and Dean scoffed, rolling his eyes. Still, he seemed a bit deflated, a bit defeated, like they’d gotten through to him just a bit.

“I-“

“Dean, please, you can’t possibly function as you are right now,” Cas said, and something shifted in Dean, shoulders slumping. He scowled at the four of them and dropped the badge back into the trunk, grabbing his duffel bag instead.

“Fine, four hours , then I’m checking it out, alone or not.” With that he stormed off up the stairs leading to the second floor, where their rooms were. Cas followed him, glancing back at them for a moment, and Sam saw the promise in his eyes— I’ll take care of him .

Sam’s phone buzzed in his pocket, pulling his attention away from his brothers’ retreating backs, and his fist involuntarily clenched. He shifted his gaze away from Cas and forced his fist to uncurl. Mom hadn’t stopped texting him since she’d left and almost every message was the same: it was either an apology, a “can we just talk about this?”, or some sort of attempt at an explanation. Sam knew she’d been doing the same with Dean, and he got the feeling that was a big part of what had been bothering Dean so much, what was making him act the way that he was when the morning after she’d left he’d seemed almost fine, good even.

Eileen raised an eyebrow at him, seeming to have noticed the shift in his mood from concerned to annoyed, but he just shook his head. He grabbed his own bag from the trunk before following Cas and Dean upstairs, pulling out his phone from his jacket pocket. A sigh escaped him when he saw the message from Mom, asking him again if they could talk, saying she just needed him to understand. Anger burned hot in his chest, and for the first time in three days, he actually opened the message from her, typing out a quick response: “ Mom, I know you think you’re doing the right thing, but I don’t care right now. You won’t listen to us, so stop trying to get us to join you. Text if it’s urgent, but unless you’re willing to hear us out, stop with this. ” Sam hit send and turned his phone off again, slipping inside his and Eileen’s motel room, hearing her following him up the stairs outside.

He hated distancing his own mom, but he just couldn’t handle it— her . She’d hurt them, especially Dean, but she wouldn’t listen, she wouldn’t bother to understand. She didn’t bother to understand how much pain she’d caused Dean, didn’t bother to understand why they couldn’t move on from the fact that Cas had almost died, that Wally had died, that they’d tortured Sam, that they’d tried to kill all of them, directly or indirectly. He knew that years ago he would’ve been able to look past what they’d done too, what she’d done, because they were working to erase all monsters from the country, and he had wanted that, back then. But now, knowing people that were technically monsters, that were monsters in the eyes of the British Men of Letters, but who were good , he couldn’t even consider it. Because the way it was, it worked, and it was better, because in the end it was more of a minority that went wrong, that actually hurt people. It was the same with people, you didn’t eradicate them all just because there were those that hurt and killed others, you dealt with those who did and left the others alone. And Mom needed to get that, needed to listen to them, to understand. But she wouldn’t, so she’d have to find it out on her own.

Sam blinked at the clock next to him, squinting against the bright sunlight shining in through a gap in the curtains of his motel room. 2:56 it read, and he sighed, pushing himself up to see Eileen already up and sitting at the table with her laptop. The bed creaked beneath him in a familiar and oddly soothing way when he swung his legs over the side of the bed and walked over towards her. Eileen glanced up and pushed a cup of steaming coffee across the table towards him without a word, as if she’d known he would wake up soon.

“Thank you,” Sam signed, and she smiled. Warmth spread through his chest, and Dean’s teasing words from a week before echoed through his head: “Oh please, you and Eileen are not just friends, Sammy.” He’d felt like this before, he knew Dean was right, but he couldn’t—not again. He couldn’t lose someone else, couldn’t risk it, especially with everything going on.

“You’re welcome,” she signed back and sipped her own coffee, “Are you going to get Dean or let him sleep longer?”

“I should probably get him up, he’ll be mad if I don’t.”

Eileen grimaced, while somehow laughing at the same time, and he was screwed. “That’ll be his problem, he needs the sleep.”

“It’ll be my problem if he tries to kill me for it.”

Eileen laughed and the warmth in his chest grew, spreading slowly through the rest of his body and making it impossible to hold back a grin. “I’ll protect you,” she signed after a moment, the grin not leaving her face, and he hid his own behind the paper cup his coffee was in—not the best in the world, but made exactly the way he liked it, with just a bit of milk (not creamer) and nothing else. 

“Thank you, I now feel truly safe going to wake Dean up.”

“Have fun.”

Sam smiled and stood, grabbing his coffee and phone. “I’ll be back, hopefully in one piece.”

Eileen snorted, and then turned to her laptop, which was open to police records that she must’ve hacked into. Sam slipped out of the room, and headed two doors down where he knew Dean’s room was. He knocked on the door, trying to keep it soft enough that it wouldn’t startle Dean awake, and there was a shuffling inside. Cas opened the door a second later and stepped back, letting Sam in before closing the door again and sitting down on the one bed in the room next to Dean, who was still fast asleep, luckily.

“He been asleep the whole time?” Sam whispered, and Cas nodded, his fingers carding through Dean’s hair slowly in a way that made Sam almost feel like he shouldn’t be in the room. “Good. I don't want to wake him, but…”

“He’ll be upset if you don't,” Cas finished for him, and he nodded. For a moment neither of them spoke, and the silence was surprisingly comfortable, peaceful.

“Dean,” Cas murmured and shook Dean’s shoulder lightly, “wake up.”

He groaned but was awake almost immediately, blinking up at the two of them until it seemed to hit him that they weren’t at the Bunker. “It been four hours?” he asked in a somewhat slurred voice, sitting up and leaning back against the headboard like Cas was doing.

“Yeah, you can sleep more though if you-“

“Just need coffee, I’ll be fine.” 

Sam sighed and nodded, meeting Cas’s gaze for just a second. Dean’s definition of “fine” was quite the opposite of what it really meant, but at the moment he couldn't bring himself to mention it. “I’ll find you coffee.”

Dean nodded, and Sam slipped back out of the motel room, noting that Dean didn’t move off the bed even as he left. At least that meant he wasn’t quite as bad as Sam thought, or maybe Cas just helped more than he thought he could.

 Dean downed the last of the coffee Sam had gotten for him and got out of the Impala, Sam following him and straightening his suit jacket as he did so. The police station was slightly bigger than the ones they usually visited; Richland wasn’t the smallest place, but that could play a bit in their favor. The small towns were always more suspicious of the FBI excuse. Sam glanced around at the almost abnormally full parking lot, but Dean just strode towards the doors and he quickly did the same.

There were multiple officers in the entrance, some doing paperwork, some just talking, but none of them paid them all too much attention, just looked at them for a brief second and went back to what they were doing. The guy behind the front desk glanced up at them and raised his eyebrows, looking them up and down like he was assessing what they could do and what they were doing there. He sighed and turned his chair to face them completely instead of the computer he was doing something on as they approached.

“I’m Agent Chase, this is my partner, Agent McClean, FBI,” Dean said, and they both pulled out their badges. The guy stared at them for a few seconds before rolling his eyes. 

“Not sure what y’all are here for this time, but I’ll get the sheriff,” he muttered and picked up the phone on his desk, dialing a number and pausing for a moment as it likely rang. “Yeah, Sheriff, there are two feds out here. Yeah. Alright.” 

The guy hung up and nodded at them. “She’ll be out in a minute.”

Sam nodded his thanks and sure enough, a moment later a woman who looked like she was in her late thirties, with graying hair and somewhat aged, tan skin, stepped out of a door in the back of the room and came toward them.

“I’m Sheriff Jones. Let me guess, you’re here about the murders?” She asked and they nodded. The Sheriff sighed and shook her head, turning and walking towards a hallway off to the right, clearly expecting them to follow. “Yeah, we’re pretty stumped on it; no fingerprints, no suspects that have any evidence pointing towards it being them, no signs of a break in at either house, and the weirdest thing… well, I’ll show you.”

She pushed in through a door labeled Morgue and opened one of the lockers, opening the body bag and picking up the clipboard of information on the person—who appeared to be a man in his thirties or forties. Nothing seemed strictly wrong with him besides him being dead, there were no entrance wounds of any kind, no burns, rashes, nothing to suggest a murder and not just an ordinary, natural death, like a heart attack.

“What was the cause of death?”

“See that’s the weird part: their organs all fried, like they were set on fire, only nothing on the outside suggests anything of the sort. Nobody has a clue how it happened, or what could’ve caused it. All we know is we’ve never seen anything like this before.” The Sheriff handed Dean the clipboard, and he flipped through it quickly, grimacing somewhat.

“Yeah, neither have we. That’s why we’re here though.” He handed the clipboard back and looked down at the body through narrowed eyes. “There was nothing in the throat or anything? No burns inside?”

Sheriff Jones shook her head with a shrug, “nothin’.”

“Could we have a copy of the reports? We’d like to ask the survivor of the first attack some more questions.”

“Sure, though I doubt you’ll get much else out of her.” Sam wasn’t sure what to make of that, but chose not to think too much about it.

 “She’s still living in the place her entire family got killed? Wow,” Dean muttered and slammed the door to the Impala shut behind him.

“Maybe she finds it comforting,” Sam suggested, though he himself was a bit surprised, especially considering the girl was just barely eighteen. Dean scoffed, but didn’t say anything, just walked up the steps towards the front door and rang the doorbell. For a moment, it was silent in the house, then there were footsteps and a girl with short, dark hair appeared at the foot of the stairs and came towards the door. She looked at them through the door’s window for a moment before slowly opening the door.

“Are you Ariana Holt?”

“Who are you?”

Sam pulled out his badge, Dean doing the same, and she looked from them to each of their faces. “I’m Agent McClean, this is Agent Chase, we wanted to ask you a couple questions regarding what happened to your family.”

She visibly gulped and opened the door a bit wider, not meeting their eyes for a moment. “Come in. What do you want to know? I already told the cops everything I know.”

“The police say you’re the only survivor of the first attack,” Sam said, and she closed the door behind the two of them, walking over to the couch right next to it. She scoffed and shook her head, not meeting their eyes when they sat down on the couch perpendicular to the one she was on.

“That’s what they’re saying about me? That I’m a survivor? I wasn’t even here, I just found them. The one time… the one time I didn’t just come home after practice and instead did what most people do on a regular basis, my family was murdered by… something . And I had to find them all, I-I wasn’t here. I didn’t survive it. I should’ve been here, I should be dead too. But I’m not! And I don’t know anything because I decided for once that I would hang out with my team off the field. I’m of no use to you, sorry…” she cleared her throat, sniffing, and inhaled a shaky breath. “Sorry, I...”

Dean glanced at Sam, who met his gaze for a second, before looking back at Ariana. Neither of them spoke for a long moment, and she fidgeted as if she was about to get up and do something just to keep herself moving.

“We’re really sorry about everything, we know this is hard. We just want to find who did this and we have a couple questions. If you don’t know the answers, that’s okay.”

She looked down at her hands where they were clenched in her lap, squeezed her eyes shut, and then nodded. “Fine, ask what you need to, as long as it helps you find the fucking Psychopath who did this.”

“Did anyone in your family have any enemies? People who would want to cause them harm?” Dean asked, and she shook her head.

“ They didn’t, as far as I know, which-which might be less than it should be. Nobody has a grudge against them or hates anyone else in my family.”

“Anyone else?” Dean repeated, and Ariana fidgeted, fisting clenching and unclenching in her lap. “Does someone hate you?”

“If I was the one… if I was the one dead, I’d say it was probably Mark Bradley, but it’s not and that doesn’t matter. It wasn’t him. It was someone else.” Her voice was desperate in a way, terrified, but it was a sort of fear of the person she was talking about. Dean looked over at Sam, gaze showing that he could see it too.

“Are you sure?” Sam asked, and she glanced away for a second before nodding.

“Yes, he would’ve used a knife… what happened to them… it was like I was thrown into It , or Buffy the Vampire Slayer …”

“What do you mean?”

“Like you’d believe me, the cops didn’t.”

“We’ve heard some pretty crazy things, we’ll believe you,” Sam said, and she glanced between the two of them, fear and unease in her eyes. Clearly she didn’t really trust them, but still, she didn’t tell them to leave. She stood up and walked over to the kitchen counter that was oddly enough in the same room, facing away from them as she poured herself a cup of what looked like coffee.

“There was a weird smell, but… but that’s probably normal. And before it kept getting hot inside, in certain rooms, even though it’s the middle of March. Like… my brothers’ bedroom was almost ninety degrees a couple days before. The electricity guy was going to come look at it that weekend, but…y’know. That's insane. And stupid. And there’s no way those things are related.” Ariana sat back down and clutched the mug in her hands, staring down into its contents. “Is there anything else?”

“Has anyone you know been acting out of the ordinary lately?”

“Um, no… not really. I mean…. My-my dad was kind of upset before but someone at his work died like a week before it... it happened, so… he was justified in acting kind of odd.”

“Who died?”

She shrugged, looking a bit guilty. “A professor, I think. I don’t know. Why does it matter?”

“It probably doesn’t, but it might. I think we have what we need,” Dean said and stood up, pulling out one of their cards with their numbers and handing it to her. “But if you can think of anything else, or if anything happens, anything abnormal, let us know. I’m so sorry this happened, and we’ll find who did it.”

“Thank you, I guess.”

 “Okay, so, the person who died at the university was a geology professor who was apparently known for claiming to be a psychic and could “manipulate the laws of nature”, and apparently she was shot with a bullet with odd engravings on it, which I’d say adds another level of complexity to this,” Sam said, skimming over the rest of the police report about it, from almost a month before.

“A witch?”

“Could be, or she was a fake. I don’t think that’s the case though, judging by the description of the bullet. It sounds an awful lot like a witch killing bullet.”

“So a witch ghost ?” Dean demanded as he pulled into the motel parking lot, where Jody’s car was already parked, meaning she’d gotten back from checking out the crime scene already. Sam shrugged and got out of the car when it stopped, leaning against the top of the car to look over it at Dean when he got out. “That doesn’t explain every other part of this case though. Ghosts make it cold, not hot, and burning people’s insides is not their general manner of killing.”

“We’ve never dealt with a witch’s ghost before, maybe it’s different.” Dean sighed, shook his head slightly and pushed away from the Impala.

“Fucking witches…” he muttered, and Sam snorted as he followed him up the stairs and into his and Eileen’s room. Inside, Jody, Cas, and Eileen sat around the table, bags of fast food between them, and they all looked up when Sam and Dean came in.

“What’d you find?” Eileen asked as Dean grabbed the bag closest to Cas, who pushed a cup from the same burger chain towards him. He huffed, and took it, sitting down on Sam’s bed.

“Well, it could be a witch’s ghost.” Dean made it sound like a joke, even though it was obvious he was being serious and was actually considering it as a possibility. 

“A witch’s ghost? Why do you think that? I didn’t find any hex bags and nothing pointed towards ghost for me, it went more towards demon, actually.” Jody looked confused and Dean just nodded towards Sam, his signal for You handle this .

“A woman—Catherine Allen—who was pretty clearly a witch killed by hunters worked at the same university that is the connection between the two families, and the “survivor” of the first attack—really not a survivor, she only found them—said her father was acting odd about her death before he died,” Sam explained, but the confusion on Jody’s face didn’t fade and Dean’s doubt was still visible. Eileen looked skeptical too, and Cas’s eyebrows furrowed, eyes a bit far away, obviously lost in thought.

“That doesn’t explain the other half of the details though, “ Jody said, and Sam shrugged. She wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t sure how to figure out the rest.

“Maybe different things are working together?” Eileen suggested and twirled her phone around in her hand, a nervous habit Sam noticed she had when she was speaking English instead of in sign, like she always needed to move her hands around just a bit. Dean looked up from the fries that he’d taken out of the bag and glanced between each of them one at a time.

“They do that? I thought they all hated each other, more than we hate them even.”

“There are some types of demons that do work with witches occasionally, though most are incredibly rare and “working” with them would really be more the witches controlling them. And that… would be incredibly difficult to do. Then again, the witch being dead could’ve gone in her favor. Some spells of that strength require the death of the caster.” Cas’s gaze stopped being distant and lost and he pulled a laptop—Dean’s—towards him, opening it and searching for something.

“Seriously?” Sam demanded, while Dean grumbled under his breath about how they had to deal with witches and demons, together.

“Unfortunately. We will need to discover what type of demon it is we’re dealing with however.”

“Why don’t we salt and burn the witch’s body first and then find out what kind of demon it is? Also, what if it isn’t even a witch we’re dealing with? We could be jumping to conclusions here.” Eileen looked around at each of them, gaze lingering on Sam just a split second longer than on everyone else.

“I don’t see another explanation for this, it matches the pattern this type of demon attack had in the past, when it was more common,” Cas said, “and burning the body now would only cause more issues. Right now the witch’s ghost is the only thing keeping the demon from killing everyone in this town.”

“Everyone? How powerful are these things?” Cas didn’t respond to Dean’s question—if you could really call it that—but somehow his silence was worse. Sam sat down on the bed Eileen had claimed earlier and sighed; what had they gotten themselves into now?

“I thought demons were demons, no difference between them unless they’re a prince of hell,” Jody protested and Cas glanced at her, something like unease surprisingly visible swimming in his eyes.

“Just as there are multiple types of angels, there are multiple types of demons.”

“Great… well, I’d start by looking for types that are connected with heat, or maybe fire,” Dean said with a sigh.

“Why can’t there just be a log of every type of monster that exists that can be searched through easily?” Dean grumbled five hours later—the sky outside a deep violet as the sun disappeared below the horizon—and scrubbed a hand down his face. “Almost everything I’ve found is fake, made up by some video game, movie, or book.”

“Maybe we should take a break? Get some sleep?” Jody suggested, closing her laptop, and Dean looked as if he was about to protest. Sam’s phone ringing cut him off before he could, however, and he fumbled for it in his pocket. Mom flashed on the screen, and a lump formed in Sam’s throat. Without realizing what he was doing it, he stood up and came up with some sort of excuse—undoubtedly one none of the others would believe—, slipping out onto the walkway outside the rooms. Even though she’d texted him dozens of times over the past three days, she hadn’t once called, and the fact that she was now, after he’d told her to leave them alone unless it was life or death, sent a shock of fear up his spine.

“Mom?”

“ Sam, thank God. Look, I know you’re mad- “ Mom sounded out of breath, like she’d just been running—or fighting.

“What do you need?” Sam could practically hear her flinch, but he couldn’t find it in him to force his voice to be softer, less cruel and angry.

“You said you knew how to make bullets for the Colt. I need to know too.”

“Why?” he demanded and she sighed, small and a little impatient, just like Dean did every time he thought Sam was being insufferable and should just get on with it .

“I can’t explain right now, but if I can’t make them, we’ll all die.” Another thrum of fear coursed through him, and Sam clenched his fist, tilting his face up towards the sky, which was slowly becoming speckled with stars. He wanted to ask who she meant by “we”, but he didn’t, not when there was a chance that Mom explaining risked her dying because she wasted her time.

“I’ll text it to you, but you need to explain when you’re good.” He hung up before she could answer and quickly opened their text chat, typing out the spell needed to make the bullets—hating that after so many years, he still remembered it, despite how badly the last time they’d used it had gone wrong, but relieved all the same. Sam wanted to know what she needed them for, wanted to know what the British Men of Letters had gotten her into, wanted to know why she wouldn’t listen to them when they warned her they were bad news, why she was so willing to leave them over and over. But now wasn’t the time, so he just sent her the spell and slipped back inside the motel room.

Everyone’s gaze moved to him when he closed the door behind him, but he ignored them and just slumped onto his bed. Dean raised an eyebrow at him, clearly about to comment on something , but Sam cut him off, “We should all get some sleep, living off coffee is not going to help us solve this case.”

Dean rolled his eyes but, unlike earlier, didn’t argue, just stood up and stretched. “Yeah, alright, but we’re starting bright and early tomorrow and you better tell me who called you, Sammy.”

Sam didn’t look at him, and he heard him huff before he, Jody, and Cas slipped out of the room. The door closed with a click behind them and for a moment it was silent. Sam closed his eyes, tempted to just let himself fall asleep then and there, with the lights and his shoes still on, but he couldn’t shake the worry twisting his stomach into knots and he sat up again.

“Was it your mom?” Eileen asked, voice cutting through the silence of the room. Sam looked at her, opening his mouth to respond, but finding himself suddenly unable.

“Not now. Please,” he signed, and she just nodded, as if she’d expected that.

“It’ll be okay,” she signed back and he sighed, looking away, unable to say anything in response. She didn’t know that, she couldn’t, but he wanted to believe her, so he just unlaced his shoes, dropped them onto the floor and got up to slip into the bathroom to change.

 Sam woke up to the sound of his phone ringing and just the faintest bit of pale orange light shining in from below the bottom of the motel room’s curtains. It took his thoughts a second to catch up with what was going on, and he fumbled around on the bedside table for his vibrating phone. He squinted at the screen, its brightness momentarily blinding him, and just barely made out the fact that it was Dean calling him. Immediately, all his grogginess was gone, replaced by a spike of adrenaline, and he sat up, answering the call as fast as he could.

“What’s going on?” He asked instead of a greeting.

“ There was another attack. Another professor from the university, same department as the other two. ” Dean sounded half-asleep, meaning he must’ve just been woken up by the Sheriff—or whoever had told him about the attack.

“I’ll be ready in five.”

He hung up and just as he was about to turn his phone back off, he saw a simple, two word text from Mom: I’m good.

 “Sorry to drag you outta bed so early in the morning but I thought you might want to see this before the press gets here,” Sheriff Jones said, and nodded towards the door of the three story house behind her, starting through it and going further into the house. “A neighbor called it in about an hour ago, said they were getting ready for work and thought they heard a commotion. It’s almost exactly like the other two.”

“Almost?” Dean asked, and she led them into a bedroom that had a forensics team swarming around inside along with a sheet covered body on the floor by the bed. Sheriff Jones grabbed a pair of gloves, slipped them on, and knelt down next to the body, pulling the sheet back from where it covered the right arm.

“First piece of any sort of evidence we have.” She indicated towards the wrist where, standing out stark against pale skin, there was an ink black handprint—fingers elongated and almost clawed looking at the tips, but a handprint all the same. “Not that it makes an ounce of sense, however.”

“Do all the bodies have this?” Sam asked, kneeling beside the sheriff to get a closer look, and she shook her head.

“No, just this one.”

Sam glanced up at Dean and saw him typing on his phone, most likely telling Cas about the handprint. He slipped his phone back into his pocket and nodded, gaze flicking to Sheriff Jones and then back to Sam. “Everything else was the same as the other murders?”

“Exactly the same. No sign of a break in, no fingerprints, no witnesses, no enemies, nothing.” Sheriff Jones stood up, throwing the sheet back over the marked arm, and shrugged. “We gotta hope this weird handprint will help us, though it looks more like a tattoo than evidence if I’m being honest, but there’s no record of this woman having such a tattoo before tonight, so we’re taking what we can get.”

Sam stood too and just as he was about to ask whether they could see the other bodies Dean’s phone started ringing. Dean’s eyebrows furrowed when he saw who it was that was calling him and he slowly answered, clearly hesitating, meaning it wasn’t someone in his contacts. “Hello?”

The confused expression on his face disappeared almost instantaneously and he held up a hand before ducking out of the room, Sam close on his heels.

“What? Slow down. What’s going on?” He waved Sam away when he tried to ask who he was talking to, eyebrows once again furrowing in confusion. “Okay, I don’t know what made you think to do that, but stay there, don’t move. We can help, I just need you to stay calm, alright?”

Realization hit Sam at that exact second and he was moving before Dean did, leaving the house and rushing towards the car, catching the keys Dean threw his way in a practiced motion. The Sheriff followed them out of the house, obviously confused and concerned, but Sam waved her off. If this was what he thought, then they did not need another person with a normal life involved in it.

“Sam, give me your phone and talk to her. I’m gonna call Cas.” Sam glanced at him for a split second before handing him his phone and taking Dean’s. He pulled out of the driveway of the house and took off, definitely breaking some traffic laws that usually only Dean would’ve brushed off.

“Ariana?”

“Ye-Yeah?”

“We’re on our way. It’s gonna be okay. Where are you?”

“My-My parents’ room, in their closet. I… I put salt in front of the door. Your partner seemed to think I did the right thing? I don’t know, I… this thing showed up and I-I panicked.” Sam glanced over at Dean to see him with Sam’s phone to his ear, talking to who could only be Cas, judging by the tone he was speaking in—not abundantly different from the one he used with everyone else, but just the tiniest bit softer, barely noticeable. 

“How did you know to do that?” Sam asked and there was a small thump on the other end of the line, followed by a whimper. “Ariana?”

“It’s just Ari.. I… I don’t know, I read it in a book? And saw it in a show once. I didn’t really think it would work, I just didn’t know what to do other than grab a knife and do that. What’s going on?”

“We think a demon’s going after people who worked in the same department as your dad and their families.” Out of the corner of his eyes Sam saw Dean send him a slightly incredulous look; which was fair, he supposed. He usually wasn’t the blunt one.

“What? Wh-“ she cut off with a shriek, and Sam sped up, glad the streets were so empty due to the early hour. “How far are you?”

“Five minutes, hold on.”

“O-okay.” Her voice shook, and Sam’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. This was the part of the job he’d always hated, the fear and helplessness that came from knowing someone was in danger, but not being able to do anything. “What are you going to do when you get here?”

“We’ll handle it, it’s kind of our job.”

“The FBI deal with demons?”

“We’re not really FBI.”

“Oh, that… that makes sense. I… god, how do characters in books always handle this so well? Oh god, I’m gonna die, oh fuck, I was such a wimp, I didn’t do anything with my life yet. All I did was let myself get pelted with Lacrosse balls for years and hide my writing from everyone. Oh god, I was such a terrible person…”

“You’re not going to die, Ari, listen to me. We’re almost there. It’s going to be okay, trust me.” Sam didn’t really believe what he was saying, it was a miracle really that the salt was working at all—the demon must’ve somehow been tied enough to the witch’s ghost that it had similar restrictions, that was the only explanation he could think of. “Dean, does Cas know what it is yet?”

He nodded. “Cas, okay, how do we kill it? You think? That… okay, okay, you do that, we’ll see how well we can hold it off until then. Call us the second it’s done, got it? Yeah, be careful… I know you can handle—just be careful, please, Cas, or I swear to—okay, yeah. Bye.”

Sam raised an eyebrow when Dean hung up and sighed. “It’s an afarit demon, known for their viciousness and their connection to fire and magic. Cas says usually, if the witch were still alive, we’d have to find a way to break the spell, then kill both of them, but he thinks if they salt and burn her first, we should be able to kill it with just an angel blade.”

Sam sped onto the street Ari’s house was on and up the driveway, throwing himself out of the car the second he could. He flung the trunk open and grabbed two angel blades, tossing one to Dean, who caught it with practiced ease. 

“Ari, where in your house are you?”

“Upstairs, is-is that you?”

“We’re here.” He hung up and together, they ran into the house and upstairs to the only room with an open door. Dean froze the second he went inside, like he’d walked into an invisible wall, nearly falling forwards with the force he’d built up running. Sam ran in after him and saw what Dean had seen that made him freeze. The creature in front of him was a lot more like what as a kid he’d pictured a demon to be: curled horns on its head, skin a deep, brutal red, hands clawed, smoke rising off its back, air shimmering with heat around it like a cloud. It turned to face the two of them, eyes the same pools of black that demons’ always were, and Dean flew through the air, hitting the wall behind them with a crack.

Shit, I should’ve brought the devils trap bullets.

“Ari, stay where you are!” He yelled, and the demon turned towards him, glaring. Cas, please hurry, man. Sam backed away a couple steps, moving towards Dean, but not letting his eyes leave the demon, who simply watched him as he slowly bent down to pick up Dean’s dropped angel blade, risking a small glance to make sure he was just unconscious, not worse. A sudden force held him in place, however, as he straightened, and he choked on a breath. This was not good, not at all. For the first time in years, Sam wished he hadn’t completely lost his powers all those years ago, they would’ve been an awful lot of help right now. 

A sudden heat enveloped him, like his blood was boiling inside of him, and he bit back a scream. Dean groaned from the floor, the angel blades slipped from Sam’s hands, and Dean’s phone rang, all at once. Relief rushed through Sam like a tidal wave, but it was short lived as the pain coursing through him increased and his knees gave out under him. Black spots danced in his vision and he was pretty sure he was screaming. 

Then it was gone, just as fast as it’d come, and he sagged, expecting to hit the ground, but instead found himself falling against someone who could only be Dean. His vision faded in and out and he could feel his consciousness slipping through his hands like water, pulling him down into the darkness.

The next thing Sam knew was that he was lying on his back on what could only be a motel bed, and there were multiple voices all talking at once around him. He groaned and blinked slowly, squinting against the sudden, bright light that hit his eyes when he opened them.

“Sammy?” Dean’s voice sounded worried and for a split second, Sam couldn’t remember why. Then he remembered—the girl, the demon, the pain, it suddenly stopping.

“Did you get it?”

Dean huffed out a laugh, but nodded as Sam pushed himself up so that he was sitting up, surprised at how fine he felt. Cas must’ve healed him, which usually he would’ve been a bit annoyed at, though this time he was just grateful. “Yeah, I got it. Ari’s good too.”

The second Dean mentioned her, Sam noticed her sitting at the table, pale and clutching a cup of what could’ve been either tea, coffee, alcohol, or some combination of them with trembling hands. “I think good is a relative term here…” she muttered and Jody snorted, though Sam could see the concern she was hiding. Sam imagined Ari probably reminded Jody in that moment of Claire and Alex when they first met her—damaged and thrown into a world different than what they’d lived with, their families ripped from them, no matter how problematic they’d been. “Thank you, though. Thanks for saving me and for getting the thing that killed my family. All of you. Thank you.”

“It’s our job. We’re sorry we couldn’t save your family too.”

Ari inhaled shakily but shook her head. “It’s not something you could’ve known would happen.”

Sam knew she was right, but like every other hunt he’d gone on, the deaths that led to him checking it out weighed down on him like sandbags tried to his shoulders. He knew Dean felt the same, and that really it wasn’t their fault, but it never went away, even if saving people made it a little easier.

“I’m still sorry.”

She nodded a bit, and flashed Sam a small, somewhat forced smile. “Thank you.”

Chapter Text

“I should probably head home. Alex has been home alone long enough, and even though I love that girl, I’m not sure I trust her alone for more than a couple days.” Jody grinned, eyes glinting with slight amusement, but Dean could see just a hint of sadness behind it. A lump formed in his throat and his voice didn’t work when he tried to ask about Claire, trying to delay the actual goodbye for just a bit longer. He’d known she would leave eventually, and he knew she would come back too, but a small, selfish part of him that he’d pushed down ever since his father had placed Sam in his arms when he was four and told him to run wanted to hold onto just this bit of domesticity for at least another day. 

“Isn’t Claire with her?” Sam asked, seemingly unfazed by the thought of Jody leaving. Then again, Dean really should’ve been unfazed too. It was always like this, and he was used to it. So why did everything feel harder to deal with now that Mary had left, leaving them with the heavy feeling of betrayal hanging in the air? They’d managed to get rid of the heaviness for at least a few days, and Dean should’ve been better now. Cases—having something to hunt, to fight, to kill—always brought him back, always snapped him out of the jumble of feelings that someone leaving him threw him into. Only this time, apparently, it hadn’t fully worked.

“Actually, she’s driving around the country checking out colleges, or so she says. I know her though, she’s scarily like you boys, always running after trouble.” Sam snorted, and Dean felt a slight pressure on his wrist. He looked over at Cas to see him looking fainting amused but also glancing at Dean briefly, his hand clasped loosely around his left wrist. Dean drew in a somewhat shaky breath and forced all thoughts of Mary out of his head. He’d deal with those eventually, whenever they had nothing else to worry about, nothing threatening them and the rest of the world—which might never be, but he pointedly ignored that flaw in his plan.

“So she’s hunting?” Dean managed to ask and Jody shrugged, leaning against her car.

“She hasn’t said so, but like I said, I know her. She calls every week though. I just hope to god she never misses one of my calls.” Jody grimaced somewhat but shook her head and glanced up at the sky, which was slowly turning orange as the sun disappeared below the horizon. They’d actually stopped a couple times on the way back to the Bunker, unlike on the way there, so it made sense that she’d be fine driving back home now instead of sleeping first. “It’s getting late, I really should go if I want to get home before morning.”

She pulled Sam into a hug first, then Cas, then Dean. He hugged her back for just a bit longer than he usually would, wanting the feeling of having a mother who really cared about him to last just a bit longer. Still, he pulled away, and she smiled softly, nodding at him.

She moved on to Eileen and hugged her, even though they’d only known each other for about a week. “You keep these boys from doing anything stupid, 'kay?” Jody said when she pulled back and Eileen laughed, nodding.

“Of course.”

“Good. Now you all better call if anything happens—and I mean anything at all, whether it’s Satan’s kid or one of you is sick.” Jody opened her car door, but didn’t climb in until they promised they would.

Part of Dean expected the Bunker to be different when they came back; the lights a bit brighter, maybe, the air a bit warmer, really just everything being more physically open and comforting than it had seemed before. His chest felt a bit lighter than when they’d gone on the case, his breaths coming easier, as if they had somehow been restricted before now. But the Bunker itself hadn't changed, the war room still felt slightly stained by betrayal, the lights everywhere but the library seemed almost cold.

He sighed, absentmindedly sipping coffee as he stared at his phone, not sure what exactly he was expecting. For the first couple days after Dean told her to leave, Mo—no, Mary —had texted him repeatedly, asking for forgiveness, wanting to be allowed to explain, to talk to them. But since the first day they were on the case in Richland she’d been mysteriously silent, not even sending one text in the last four days. Dean wondered if maybe her silence had something to do with who had called Sam on the same day she'd stopped—even though he hadn’t said it, he was pretty sure it was Mary who called him based on his expression when he saw the Caller ID and had slipped out the door of the motel.

Dean stood up and slipped his phone into his back pocket, where it felt like it burned a hole in his pants. If leaving it there wouldn’t have made him more paranoid, he would’ve done it. God, he needed to do something, something that wasn’t destroying or hitting something, he needed to fix something.

Before he’d even really decided what he was going to do, his feet were carrying him out of the kitchen and to where the entrance to the Bunker’s garage was. He hadn’t been there much in the past few months besides to park Baby or to drive off in her, and sure, there wasn’t anything wrong with Baby, but it was always calming somehow to just tinker, to make things that weren’t broken but weren’t necessarily in good condition either work better.

It didn’t take long for him to fall into the familiar rhythm he’d developed over the years of checking over Baby: Check the lights, the oil, the brakes, the tires, and anything else that could have an issue, fix the things that needed it, make sure the trunk was full and organized, and then clean her inside and out. 

Slowly the tension he’d almost gotten used to in his shoulders drained out of him and his thoughts dulled from a jumbled, tangled mess to a quiet buzz that didn’t threaten to pull him deep into what he didn’t want to remember or contemplate. The need to hit something and scream that had been sitting just under his skin for the past week faded with the tension, replaced by a type of calm that a hunt usually gave him. In a way, it felt better to have that not be the case for once, to have it be him just fixing his car that did that.

Then again, it wasn’t really just Baby, even though she helped a lot. Even though he felt like he was betraying his younger self and his mother, part of it was Jody, her leaving but swearing she would always be there and actually meaning it. Yes, he’d told Mary to leave and he’d meant it, but he still hoped somewhere in the back of his mind that she would break off from the British Men of Letters and come back, even though he was pretty sure she wouldn’t.

Dean sighed, dropping the soap filled sponge into the bucket he’d grabbed, and glanced over at the clock next to the door. 3:07 . He’d been out there for five hours, somehow, and he hadn’t even noticed. It was a bit surprising that neither Sam nor Cas had come in at some point to attempt to drag him away like they usually did. Or maybe they had and he’d been too distracted to notice.

He grabbed a towel, drying his hands off and then putting it down as he went back inside the Bunker. It was quiet, but not an empty, all-consuming kind of quiet, it wasn’t silent, somehow even without noise it felt like the air was almost alive. And as Dean stepped into the library where Sam and Eileen were pouring over books and signing to each other and Cas was scribbling in the margins of other books that were likely about angels, he realized that maybe another big part of why he felt better was them . His family.

Eileen and Cas both stayed at the Bunker for the next few days, all of them having come to the agreement that they wouldn’t look for a case and would instead try to organize the Bunker. Somehow even after having lived there for years, they still hadn’t finished that. They found any books or documents or anything else they had on demons and angels and Cas corrected any inaccuracies he found in them, as he’d done off and on over the years. Sam and Eileen organized all the books and papers in a way that actually made sense, and Dean organized all the ingredients, objects, and weapons that were only to some degree organized where they were—there was probably some system the Men of Letters who’d lived there had developed, but they’d never written it down.

But eventually they had to go back to the only remaining issue they could still really do anything about—Kelly Kline—even though they were getting nowhere.

“Angel radio got anything, Cas?” Dean ran his hand through his hair, looking away from the computer screen he’d been staring at the last couple hours. There was nothing hinting at angel activity, at demons acting up excessively in any area, at literally anything remotely related to an unborn half-archangel. Which either meant there was something controlling it, or it was much more calm than any of them had anticipated it would be. Normally things like this were easy to track down; there was almost always some sort of sign.

“No, I’m starting to think perhaps the angels cut me off from it.” Cas sighed, looking up from his own laptop with more exhaustion on his face than should’ve been possible for an angel.

“They can do that?” Sam demanded, looking up from the lore book he’d been invested in for the past few hours.

“It's uncommon, but… yes. They can block other angels out from everyday conversations, from anything except alarms about threats to the world and Heaven’s existence. I didn’t think much of not hearing them before, but thinking of it now, I’m relatively sure I’ve been cut off. Not that I blame them, but I think if I truly want any sort of information from them, I have to go up and ask.”

“Cas-“ Dean started, suddenly not sure about him asking the angels anything. For weeks he’d been saying maybe he should, but now the thought of him actually doing it was even more terrifying than the idea of him working with a demon would’ve been. 

Before he could finish speaking, tell Cas he had to stay out of trouble, his phone rang. Dean froze and turned it over so he could see who it was that was calling.

“Claire?” he demanded, turning the phone on speakerphone before Cas or Sam could ask him to.

“Hey, what are those British guys you mentioned like?” she asked without prompt, an odd tone to her voice that Dean couldn’t pinpoint.

“What, no greeting after not talking to us for three months?” Cas raised an eyebrow at him, expression annoyed, and he looked back at the lit up phone screen. “I’m kidding, kid, what’s going on?”

“It might be nothing, just curious; what are they like?”

“British.” Sam rolled his eyes at Dean and pulled the phone towards himself across the table.

“What he means is they usually dress in suits and the like. Most of them also wouldn't know how to fight if their life depended on it, only the information to get them through a hunt. But, Claire, Dean’s right. What’s going on? Jody said you were out looking at colleges.”

For a few seconds the line was silent. “I’m on a werewolf hunt—don’t worry, I’ve got it handled—but I’m pretty sure one of them is in town on the same case.”

“Why do you think that?” Sam asked, eyebrows furrowed, lips turned down in a small frown.

“Because after I finished interviewing the girl who was bitten, a British guy came into the hospital and went into her room just as I was leaving. Now she’s dead, with traces of silver in her bloodstream, and the surveillance cameras in that room last night were hacked into and turned off. I was going to ask you guys to ask Garth if he could help her get through being turned, she promised she would…” Claire let out a frustrated noise and trailed off for a moment. “One of those Brits killed her even though she didn’t do anything besides being attacked.”

“Damnit.” Dean leaned back in his chair, running his hand through his hair and glancing up at the ceiling before looking across the table at Cas, then at Sam. Eileen raised an eyebrow at them, obviously confused as to what was going on, and Sam signed something to her that seemed to explain everything because she nodded. God, Dean should really learn too.

“Yeah, I just thought you guys would wanna know about what they’re up to.”

“Yes, thank you, Claire. Are you sure you’re alright finishing this hunt alone with the Man of Letters there?” Cas spoke up for the first time, and Claire sighed loudly over the phone.

“I said I’ve got it handled. I know how to hunt.”

“Still, be careful, Claire, especially if there’s a Brit there who is fine with killing an innocent. Don’t do anything stupid,” Dean couldn’t stop himself from saying, and Claire sighed again.

“Geez, I forgot how much you guys acted like dads. I’m not gonna do anything stupid, Dean. Anyways, I have to go. Talk to you guys later!” She hung up before any of them could say anything else, and Dean sighed.

“Great, so now we know that they’re still out there and they still don’t care if who they kill deserves it.” Sam shook his head and closed the lore book in front of him with a loud snap.

“Who’d have thought a couple years back we’d be siding against the people hunting down monsters…” Dean muttered and shook his head. Their problem right now wasn’t the British Men of Letters, it was Kelly Kline and Lucifer’s kid, who could quite possibly bring about the apocalypse that they’d all tried a dozen or so times to stop. That’s what they needed to focus on.

“Cas?” Dean asked in a low murmur later that night. The room was pitch black around them, so the only way he knew Cas turned to face him was because he felt the mattress shift.

“Yes, Dean?”

He hesitated for a moment, not wanting Cas to hear the slight tremble in his voice, the longing for an answer that he wouldn’t receive. “How long are you planning on staying?”

Cas didn’t respond immediately, and when he did it came out as a sigh: “I don’t know. But… I think it’s time for me to speak with the other angels, despite the fact that they’ve cut me off.”

Dean sat up, turning the lamp on beside the bed as quickly as he could before facing Cas again. He'd forgotten that Cas had mentioned that earlier due to the whole British Men of Letters thing and Claire.

“What?”

“We’re getting nowhere with our search for Kelly, Dean. I fear this might be the only option we have left unless she decides to ask for help, which is highly unlikely.” Cas sat up too, the blue of his eyes brighter than usual while also simultaneously being darker, a swirl of color that looked alive, full of conflict. Dean could tell he wanted to do this just as little as Dean wanted him to—no matter what he’d said over the past few months, he didn’t want Cas anywhere near the other angels.

“I know, but…”

“I’ll be careful.” Cas placed his palm against his cheek and Dean involuntarily leaned into it for a moment before nodding. “I promise. I just need information, that’s all. I don't trust them any more than you do.”

"Eileen?" Dean slid into the chair across from her in the kitchen where nobody else was at the moment. His nerves sang as he did so, his throat unnaturally closed up with a fear he wasn't used to feeling. "Um… I…"

She raised an eyebrow, looking somewhat amused at his struggling but also just a bit concerned--at least he thought so, he wasn't sure if he could really read her as well as he wanted to. He fidgeted, glancing down at the table tracing the various grooves and scratches on its surface that had built up over the years. This shouldn't have been hard, it should've been easier than most things he talked to people about, but then again, he never really had been very good at asking for help, even if it was to help him help another person, or make something easier or better for someone else.

"Yeah?"

"I was… wondering if maybe you could… help me learn some sign language? I-" Dean cut himself off before he tried to explain it in some way that would hide why he really wanted to learn--which was just so he could talk to her better and make her feel more comfortable with all of them; it didn't feel right that only Sam was trying, he should too, and he wanted to.

"If you want me too, sure. Maybe you'll pick it up quicker than Sam." Eileen grinned slightly, and he hoped that meant he hadn't accidentally said something wrong.

"Maybe I will."

"You leavin' too?" Cas turned away from the bag he was packing--something Dean couldn't help but notice he wouldn't have done just a year or so earlier--and nodded.

"Not for long, but--yes. I'm just going to try to get some information about Kelly's whereabouts from the angels, then I'll return and with any luck we should be able to find her and therefore also the nephilim."

"Alright." Dean shifted slightly from one foot to the other. He didn't want to mention how quiet it would get again when it was just him and Sam again, not that the quiet was bad, it was just a bit lonelier, something he'd never admit to disliking. "Well… Don't do anything stupid and don't drop off the radar."

"I won't."

"Good, um…"

"Dean." He glanced up, somehow just his name seeming to say ten thousand things from Cas-- Don't worry, it's fine, I'll come back, calm down . 

"I know." Dean swallowed and looked up, stepping a bit closer to Cas until he could easily cup his face. He hesitated for a moment--why did he always hesitate with Cas? It had always been easier with everyone else; with Cassie, with Lisa, with the few couple weeks or month long boyfriends he'd had whose names he could barely remember anymore. Dean placed his right palm on Cas's cheek and closed his eyes for just a second, before doing something he didn't do much--he asked: "Can I kiss you?"

"Yes."

Dean looked at Cas, who smiled in that subtle way again, and pressed his lips to his. He rarely did anything gentle or soft, it just wasn't something he thought he was capable of, but that's what this was--it was short and agonizingly sweet in a way that was only somewhat familiar to him, and when it was over he leaned his forehead against Cas's, eyes still closed. He didn't want it to end, didn't want to see Cas leave again even though he knew it wasn't permanent, it never was. But it had to, so he pulled back just a bit and looked down at Cas, whose smile was no longer subtle--it was, well… radiant, Dean supposed was the right word, and it made his own lips tug up into a grin.

"I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Go interrogate some angels, sunshine."

Cas tilted his head, eyebrows furrowed, and Dean laughed softly under his breath. At least he had this, even if they weren't going to be in the same place--the reassurance that Cas wouldn't really change, no matter what happened, he was still the same Cas he'd first met all those years ago, the one who'd fallen from grace for them after less than a year.

Chapter Text

The air seemed to bite at Cas's cheeks as he stepped out of his car even though he couldn't truly feel the cold numbing him from the outside in. He'd never wanted to come back to this place, not after everything. Shame tied knots in his stomach as well as anger, because even though his brothers and sisters had done more bad things than good, he couldn't shake off the guilt of everything he'd done to them. The amount of their blood on his hands was thick and heavy, stark scarlet against his pale skin, an ever-present reminder of all those he'd hurt without a second thought since he'd first fallen.

He stayed where he stood, hand gripping the driver's side door, so tight that the metal creaked and bent. Normally, he would've stopped the second he realized he was damaging his car, but he couldn't seem to. He didn't have complete control of himself, he felt… unhinged, in a way, as if he wasn't properly attached to his vessel, even though he knew that wasn't true, wasn't technically even possible now.

They're all we have left, he told himself, trying to push back memories, and forced his hand to close the door and his feet to move one in front of the other. The pattern drawn into the sandbox in the corner of the playground was remarkably untouched by children--which implied there was likely a spell or something of the sort that he just couldn't feel surrounding it--and he hesitated again before walking towards it. The power of the entrance to Heaven, though it was currently closed, made the air sizzle and fritz and his damaged-beyond-repair wings rustle slightly at his back.

Heaven. He'd been expelled from the very place he was heading more times than he wished to think about--cast out, dismissed, ejected. And he'd sworn he wouldn't return, not after he'd let Lucifer control him and he'd caused irreparable damage to them. There was no reason for him to be welcomed back and he didn't expect to be--coming was likely pointless if he was truly honest--but he needed to try, if anything just to get it over with. Besides, there were a few angels that didn't hate him. Most likely.

He drew in a somewhat uneven breath, unsure of when that became something he did, something he could do, and stepped up to the sandbox. Just as he was about to pray to ask for entrance, a twig snapped behind him and he spun around, angel blade slipping into his hand on instinct. An angel, one he was sure he had seen somewhere before, stood there, mirroring Cas's stance: grip tight on a blade, muscles tensed, grace whirling close enough to the surface of his vessel that it could be used at any moment. 

"Castiel," he growled, and he remembered who it was: Lorium. They'd spoken maybe once in all of eternity, he couldn't recall what about, yet it seemed he had not left a good impression upon him. A fact which wasn't all too surprising, he'd never been much for socializing in Heaven and letting Lucifer in had turned most who had no opinion of him against him, rightfully so. 

"Lorium." Cas slipped his blade back into the small dimension warp where he usually stored it and his wings. Lorium did not do the same, though his expression shifted minimally into one of confusion and distrust, rather than murderous. 

"What are you doing here, Castiel?" Grace flickered in his eyes for a moment and he stepped closer to Cas, who stayed where he was.

"I only need a bit of information."

"On what?" Lorium's eyes narrowed further again, grip tightening on his blade. This wouldn't end well with the way it was going.

"The Nephilim and its whereabouts." Cas didn't want to tell him, he had no way of knowing what Lorium wanted or had the ability to do, but it might be the only way in.

"Why would we tell you that?" 

"Because we want it gone as much as you."

Lorium regarded him for a long moment, uncertainty clear on his face, before he sighed and loosened his grip on his blade.

"They say you may enter Heaven." Cas didn't bother to ask who exactly "they" were, it didn't matter much as long as they were Angels who would know something of importance that he didn't know yet--which was just about everything. He felt frozen for a moment, unable to move, as if there was some spell put onto him by a witch. Lorium raised an eyebrow at him and Cas gulped down the annoyingly human nerves twisting his insides into knots--how Dean would tease him for that if he knew. He sighed and stepped up and into the sandbox, which lit up around him.

The playground disappeared around him, melting away, and the usually empty lobby of Heaven materialized around him as the light faded. Blank, bright white walls greeted him, as did the familiar face of one of the only angels who'd ever truly been kind to him.

"Joshua?" Cas demanded, staring at him. He'd thought he was dead, or at least exiled from Heaven for what he'd done during the apocalypse all those years ago--the very first one they'd had to deal with. 

"Castiel." The angel's eyes crinkled as he smiled, something that was still disorienting to see on an angel and was part of why Joshua had always been… different, somehow, than the others. "I was wondering when you'd return."

"Actually-"

"You're not staying though, I see. I understand. Those Winchesters really have you wrapped up in their lives, not that I expected any less when you led them to me in Heaven, what was it… seven years ago now?" Cas blinked and tilted his head, confusion overwhelming his thoughts for just a moment. "Though, I must ask, if you aren't going to remain in Heaven, what are you doing here?"

"Kelly Kline and- I mean… the Nephilim and its mother." 

Joshua's lips parted in a look of odd understanding. "Ah, yes. That makes sense. I assume you want to know if Heaven knows anything of her whereabouts?"

"Yes."

"May I ask why? And why should I tell you anything we know if you are not going to work with us?"

"The Winchesters and I want to deal with the Nephilim just as much as you. We can't risk it getting into the hands of Hell, no matter the cost."

Joshua regarded Cas for a long moment--just long enough for him to suddenly wonder why it was only the two of them in the room and nobody else--and then nodded. "I suppose you have a fair point. It could be useful to have another angel on Earth instead of up here. I hardly doubt Duma will complain beyond not being informed previously. We don't have much on Kline's whereabouts, only that she doesn't remain in one place long. However, we do have evidence pointing to her currently being with a Prince of Hell, Dagon. An issue, we have as of yet been unable to deal with. Luckily, it seems the two are still on Earth, however. Hopefully you'll be more successful in terms of finding her."

Cas nodded slightly, a stab of dread going through him at the news that Hell had gotten there first. Not only that, they didn't seem… concerned or anything of the like. They were remaining on Earth, which either meant Kelly was being resistant in some way that made Dagon afraid to act against her wishes, or there was some bigger plan behind all of this. He needed to find her now.

"I will try my best. I believe I should go now, get to work on finding Kelly and the Nephilim before it's born."

Joshua nodded, not the least bit fazed by his abrupt wish to leave, and Cas nodded back, stepping back onto the pattern carved into the ground. It lit up around him and as before, everything melted away and he was back in the sandbox, the light fading around him. Lorium looked up from where he was leaning against a tree nearby and rolled his eyes, not commenting. Cas let out a sigh and walked, as quickly as he could without it seeming like he was hurrying, towards his car, pulling out his phone as he did so. He needed to call Dean.

Chapter Text

The door into the Bunker banged behind Sam as he let it fall shut and pushed his hair out of his face, regretting not having tied it back before leaving for his run. The cool air from outside seemed to follow him in as he descended into the halls of the Bunker towards the kitchen, clinging to him like the unease that hadn’t quite left him since Claire’s phone call about the Men of Letters. He’d known that they weren’t to be trusted, that they went too far regarding hunting down monsters, but knowing that they had specifically targeted and killed someone not even a day after they’d been turned… It only made him more sure that he and Dean had made the right choice telling Mom to choose between them and the Brits. Sam wasn’t sure if he could look her in the eyes now until she left completely, knowing that she was actively a part of it and had seemingly no guilt about it.

 “That’s all they know? Really? That… Alright, we can work with that, I guess.” Dean’s voice drifted out of the kitchen towards him as he wandered into the room and went immediately towards the cupboard to grab himself a cup. Sam raised an eyebrow at him and turned away from the sink, sipping at his water while he waited for him to finish his phone call. Dean glanced over at him, but didn’t respond to his questioning look, instead taking a swig of what Sam assumed was coffee and responding to whoever he was talking to. “Yeah, see you soon, Cas. Be careful.”

Dean dropped his phone onto the table and sighed, dragging a slow hand down his face before turning to face him. There was a sort of bone deep exhaustion evident on his face that Sam recognized from himself and they were both silent for a long moment. “The angels gave Cas part of a lead, I guess. Kelly’s with a Prince of Hell by the name of Dagon. But we don’t got a clue whether she’s doing so willingly or not, so… not sure what to do with that yet.”

“Another one, alright. No leads on where they last were or anything though?”

“Nope, the angels gave us practically nothing. Cas’s on his way back here now, says we should see if we can find anything on who we’re dealing with.” Dean downed the rest of his mug then stood up and wandered past Sam to the sink. Sam started to turn around to face him when his own ringtone cut through the temporary silence of the kitchen. He quickly set down his glass and fumbled for his phone, on which Garth’s name flashed up at him. 

“Hey, Garth, what’s up?” Sam picked up and Dean looked back at him, stopping on his way towards the kitchen door.

“Sam, thank god, I was starting to think no hunters were gonna answer me. Look, I know you’re probably busy, I’ve heard about the whole child of Lucifer thing you guys have been dealing with lately, but listen, we kind of need our help.” Garth sounded out of breath over the phone, panicked even, and Sam straightened. He hadn’t heard Garth scared in a long time, not to mention the fact that nobody else seemed to have answered him when he called, and fear gripped him. 

“What do you need help with?”

“Okay, not me personally, but… Monsters have been showing up dead all over the country, far more than usual and… far more gruesome than I’ve ever heard of before. Groups of peaceful werewolves, vampires, shapeshifters, and all sorts of others have been virtually slaughtered in the past few weeks in ways I didn’t even know existed. Nobody knows who’s behind it but… word travels fast and people are getting scared. I know of a vamp nest that went into hiding suddenly, and honestly, we’ve been contemplating it too. Something’s going around massacring innocent monsters. I was wondering if you guys could at least look into it? I'm not sure if you can do anything about it but… y'know.” 

“Yeah, yeah, of course. We’ll look into it. We don’t want anything like this happening either. Could you send us any information you have on the killings?”

“Course, I’ll get those right to you. Thank you, Sam.”

“No need to thank me, Garth, like I said, we don’t want this happening either. I’ll let you know when we get something.” The line clicked when Garth hung up and Sam let out a long sigh, slumping against the kitchen island. Honestly, he was pretty sure he knew who was behind it all without even looking into it; they should’ve expected this would happen eventually.

“Based on that look, I’m going to guess he wasn’t calling about an everyday case he found,” Dean said in a low voice and Sam looked up at him, tapping his phone against the counter.

“It seems like the Brits have given up being subtle. Whole groups—families—of monsters have been showing up dead around the country. I doubt it’s a coincidence. Garth wants us to look into it, I told him we would but I don’t know what else it could possibly be.”

“Damnit.” Dean looked up at the ceiling and pushed himself away from the kitchen island. “Yeah, that sounds like the fucking Brits. Alright.”

“It’s definitely them,” Sam muttered, dragging a hand down his face with his eyes trained on his laptop screen. There were enough tabs open on it to give most people a headache and, honestly, if he looked at any more articles and police reports on the murders of various supernatural creatures that obviously weren’t committed by any average hunters, he was pretty sure he’d get a migraine. 

“Yeah, but what do we do about it?” Dean looked up from his own laptop and across the table at Sam, expression exhausted.

“I wish I knew. We could… call mom, maybe.” Dean’s expression fell, shut down to the point where Sam could no longer properly read what he was feeling, and he closed his laptop. It banged loudly as it was slammed shut and Dean shook his head.

“Sam-”

“It might be the only way. She’s the only person that we know in the Men of Letters that we can remotely trust.” Sam hated the idea too, he didn’t want to talk to this version of their mom, not yet, but he knew that there likely wasn’t any other way. Dean, however, he wouldn’t do it, Sam could tell. No matter how much Dean had been trying to hide it, it was obvious how much Mary leaving had affected him, both times. “I get you don’t want to, hell, I’m not sure I really do either, but we need to stop this somehow.”

“Not yet, not until we know for sure that there’s no other way for us to stop them.” Dean stood up and pushed his chair roughly back under the table, seemingly done with the conversation.

“Dean, c’mon, man.”

“No, if we call her now, we’ll be letting them know we know what they’re up to and that we want to come after them. We’re not risking that unless we have no other option. I’m gonna go see if I can find anything about Dagon in the Men of Letters records, the internet is not exactly the most helpful or reliable source about this stuff.” Dean turned away and started to leave the library, his fists clenching briefly at his sides, and Sam felt a small flicker of annoyance with him even though he understood. Sometimes Dean was too stubborn for his own good.

“Dea-” He raised a hand in a clear dismissal and Sam stopped. Dean disappeared into the lower level of the Bunker. 

Sighing, Sam turned back to face his laptop and reached for his phone, staring down at his contacts. He’d listen to Dean for the time being, but even if Dean wouldn’t do it, Sam would text Mom if the need arose. First though, he had to at least tell Garth who it was that was killing monsters, so he pulled up their text conversation. ‘The ones behind it are the British Men of Letters. We’re working on how to handle it. We’ll let you know when we know more.’ It probably would’ve been better if he’d called him to actually tell him but this was a bit easier.

Just as Sam went to put his phone aside, it began ringing, and he quickly flipped it back over to face up. A grin tugged at his lips when he saw Eileen’s name flashing up at him and he answered her call immediately, placing his phone on his open computer, leaning against the screen, so it would face him as he signed.

“Hi,” he signed and a small smile appeared on her face as she returned the greeting. “What’s up?”

“I got a lead on Kelly Kline.” That was not what Sam expected her to say and he straightened in his seat, a bit of the happiness that had enveloped him when he saw her name fading. He’d almost forgotten she was out looking for her too, just like Cas. 

“Wait, you found her?”

“Yeah, I did.” Eileen grinned and something in Sam’s chest warmed at the sight of it.

“That’s great, are you there right now? We could come meet you wherever you are. She’s with a Prince of Hell, you shouldn’t go in alone.”

“I’m actually heading to the Bunker first, it’s on the way from the case I was working. I should be there in an hour.” A grin tugged at Sam’s lips again even though he knew that emotions like this never ended well for him.

“I’ll go get Dean to stop moping then. See you soon.”

“Yeah, see you then!” She waved and then hung up. For a moment, Sam stayed where he was before he got up and followed Dean. They may not have a lead on the Men of Letters, but they had something. Hopefully Cas would get there soon, who knows how long Kelly would stay where Eileen had found her. Either way, they needed to hurry.