Dean's routines when finishing a hunt were almost completely predicable. First he would have a shower then eat before packing up his stuff and leaving. He moved in an almost scripted motion about the dark hotel room that had been home for him and Sam for the past few days well they hunted a demon in the town that was possessing different people and killing their families before then killing the meat suit it was in. it had gotten though two families before Sam and dean had even caught wind of it and then one more by the time they had killed it. It was a pretty normal job for the pair and all had gone as planned. That was apart from dean getting knocked out and then almost killed by it that is.
Sam and dean had just finished packing their old and worn duffle bags in to the trunk of the impala when deans' phone buzzed violently in his pocket. At first he ignored it and continued to lode stuff in to the car but after a moment or so it began to irritate him so he dug it out of his pocket and stared at the screen blankly.
"Are you ever going to answer that or do you just plan to use your Jedi mind powers to see what whoever that is wants?" Sam said jokingly laughing to him self a he shut the trunk of the impala and locked the hotel door.
"Don't be stupid Sammy you know batman doesn't have Jedi mind powers." Dean said in a mild chuckle as the phone continued to ring in his hand. "It's- its Cas…" he trailed off and looked at Sam.
"Then answer it. Ask him where the hell he has been we haven't heard from him in months!" Sam said in a hurried voice as he became more and more weary of how long the phone would continue to ring. Dean continued to stare at the screen a look of panic mixed with relief was glued to his face; he finally pressed answer and moved the phone slowly up to his ear.
"Cas?" he said in a hushed voice "Cas you there?" more fear was rising in his voice now as he waited impatiently for Cas's gravelly voice to reply.
"Dean where are you? I'm at the bunker and you and Sam are gone. Just wondered if you needed my help on a hunt or something?" Cas replied eventually. You could hear the innocent smile in his voice as he spoke as if he had seen them only yesterday.
"Cas what the hell!" dean said as his worries were replaced with rage "where have you been. We haven't seen or heard from you in months!"
"Nice one dean" Cas chuckled. "We spoke yesterday. Remember?"
"No Cas that was nearly two months ago!" dean said as his panic stricken eyes looked up at Sam. Dean was met by silence at the other end of the phone. "Cas just stay at the bunker. We're about a day out. We'll get there soon okay. Look just doesn't go disappearing again?" dean said has he held the phone to his ear with his shoulder and climbed into the impala and signalled for Sam to do the same.
"O-okay. I'll stay here and wait then. It can't have been two months dean, I can't remember anything!" Cas's voice was now that of a scared child who had no idea what to do. Dean could almost see his face as he spoke, his lost little angle all scared and alone. He put his foot down and sped out of the hotel parking lot and down the road towards Cas.
"We'll be there soon Cas okay. Sit tight." Dean said as he disconnected the phone and looked over at Sam. "Cas's in trouble"
Cas had originally gone to the bunker to see Sam and dean. He thought that at least one of them would be there; he secretly hoped it would be dean, but nope, sure enough neither of them were there.
They must be both out on a hunt Cas thought to himself but they would have told me. Wouldn't they? He continued. He decided to ring dean to see where they had gotten to but the normal convocation didn't go as planned and Cas was left scared and lost in thought about where those two months could have gone. He remembered talking to dean what seemed like yesterday but yet his friend was adamant that more time had passed. Cas knew he had to do something to keep his mind buzzy well he waited for sam and dean to get back to the bunker and announce that it was all a prank and that they had in fact spoken the day before, so Cas decided to look around. He had never really looked around the bunker properly before, he had only had the brief tour that dean had taken him on the first time he came here and the rest of the time he had just sort of guessed where things were. He was more than often right but he still was yet to explore the barrels of the bunker. The very place where so many momentous moments had happened. It was the place where he had first met Charlie. The place Kevin had died, the place where the final members of the Frankinsitine family had come to rest (almost including himself) it was the place where the three of them had laughed and cried so many times and there was still so much to see.
Cas began walking in any direction he chose. He ventured down the narrow corridors turning left and right and left again until he was sure he was completely lost and had no clue if he had even seen this part before. The corridor he was in had many doors down its length and Cas thought he would start there. He began opening door after door finding storage rooms filled to the top with artefacts, many of which castile remembered well before they had come to reside here in the dark rooms of the men of letters bunker. The next door he opened happened to be deans. He knew it was his as soon as the door swung back on its hinges just from the smell of beer mixed with old vinals and gun powder.
Cas stopped before he walked inside. He stopped and stared. He took in every inch of the room for this was dean, this was his space filled with his stuff and smelling beautifully of him. Cas could see dean sitting comfortably at the foot of his bed smiling at him beautifully reaching a hand out to him but when Cas stepped forward to take it he was gone, just a wishful figment of his own mind. Cas's smile didn't fade but became sad. His eyes stared at the empty space where dean once was and hoped again that he would visit him in his mind. Just has the hope of fake dean's return had faded something caught Cas's eye. Something under Dean's pillow was reflecting the sight streaming in from the illuminated corridor. Cas gingerly turned on the single hanging light in the room and walked to sit on the bed before lifting the pillow revealing an array of both old and new photos. Cas scooped them up into his delict hands and began to look though them. First was a photo he had taken of Sam and dean in a bar laughing with tears in their eyes because Cas had just been hit on by the bar man. Next was an old photo of a young dean and a short haired Sam sitting on the trunk of the impala playing cards with bobby in the back ground smiling as if all evil that he had ever seen had never happened. Cas realised at this moment that john must have taken this photo, he smiled to himself at the thought of Dean Sam and bobby together before all hell had broken loose. He often thought of how it would have been if john had told dean what was going on, would dean have still gone to get Sam? Would jess be dead? Would Sam even talk to dean or john? Would john see all the mistakes he had made and try and try and fix them or would he carry dean on the destructive path he had set him on? Cas's head were often filled with questions like these. He shook his head and continued on to the next photo. He had seen this one before. It was a photo of Mary cradling a baby Sammy with dean stood on her knee peering over the blanket to get a good look at Sam. Castile studied the look of joy on dean's face well he looked down at Sam and the smile that came across Marys face has her two boys saw each other for the first time. Cas looked at the next photo briefly for it was a photo of a very young Sam, dean and john. It was one of the rare moments where the three were smiling. John had his arm round Sam and was looking at the camera and Sam was looking up at dean who stood next to him smiling loosely with his hand on Sam's head messing up his hair. The last photo in the pile was, much to the surprise of Cas, a photo of him. Just him. No one else, it was just him in his grubby trench coat leaning against the passenger side of the impala looking out at nothingness. Cas stared at the photo and looked for possible reasons for dean to keep this so close to him every night. He smiled at the thought of dean looking though them and pausing at this photo and smiling down at his grubby little angle. But he didn't let himself dwell on this thought for long before he gently placed the photos back in their right order and tucked them under the pillow. He stayed sat on deans bed for a while after this before lying down to rest his head on deans pillow. His eyes began to shut slowly as the unexpected and rather alien feeling of tiredness swept over him. He buried his head in deans' pillow and drifted of into a sort of sleep.