It was in a modest little city in the middle of nowhere, North Dakota, that Dean first saw it: a flash of tan cloth disappearing around the corner of a building. In the length of time it took him to pull over to the curb and hastily scramble from the Impala, the half-glimpsed figure had already vanished around another corner at the end of an alleyway.
"Damn," Dean muttered, "That looked like Cas."
But it couldn't be the angel. He was still in Minneapolis. He was going to meet them back at the Bunker in a couple of days – if the piece of shit car he drove didn't break down and leave him stranded. If a lead on a ghost, or a werewolf, or a freaking whatever didn't keep him away. If. Always if. Always something.
It isn't Cas, a little voice repeated over and over in his head. The logical part of his mind, he assumed. But every instinct he had screamed otherwise. And he hadn't lasted this long as a hunter by ignoring those instincts. It was Cas. He knew it was.
Dean tore off down the alley, making his way through a maze of trash cans as fast as he could. Of course, as he skidded through a final pile of litter and burst out onto another street, it was immediately apparent that his quarry was gone: swallowed by a bustling crowd of last minute shoppers, Christmas Muzak inciting them to a shopping frenzy as it blared from strategically placed overhead speakers.
"Damn," Dean repeated, his head swivelling this way and that, seeking an untidy mop of dark hair, a glimpse of a tan coat, a fucking miracle, any indication that an Angel of the Lord had passed this way.
Nada. Zip. Nothing.
Dean sighed and pulled his cellphone from his pocket, waiting impatiently while Castiel's phone rang and rang and finally went to voice mail. He hung up without leaving a message, and whipped off a text instead.
where r u? he typed.
Not surprisingly, there was no reply. That could mean the angel was busy, or he had forgotten to charge his phone again. Dean's money was on the latter.
He shivered all the way back to the Impala. The temperature had taken one of those sudden drops that happens in the mid-west, and huge flakes of snow clung to his eyelashes and coated his hair white by the time he finally slid back into the driver's seat. The old girl's engine protested as the key turned in the ignition, but her sputters soon transformed into a steady, familiar rumble.
By the time he made it back to the motel, the snow had tapered off and Dean was feeling pretty toasty, but the takeout food which had been the purpose for this excursion was stone cold. Eh, he shrugged, I've eaten worse. And as for Sam's meal, how bad could cold rabbit food be anyway?
There still was no word from Castiel in the morning. Dean tried hard not to let on that he was fretting, but when Sam caught him checking his phone for the fifth or sixth time in as many minutes, Dean felt his face flush at the knowing look his brother gave him.
"What?" he barked. "The dude doesn't have much winter driving experience. The forecast is for, like, a shit ton of snow starting late tomorrow afternoon. Let's wrap this case up and hightail it home. I, for one, don't want to spend another Christmas stuck in a damned motel."
Sam spread his hands wide in a gesture of surrender. "No argument here." he said.
The case was a bust: a murderous run-of-the-mill psycho, with not a trace of witchery in his bag of tricks. Nothing the local constabulary couldn't – and shouldn't – handle. Which put Dean in a foul mood, given that he had really been looking forward to ganking something. On the plus side, however, their plan to leave town was right on schedule. With their duffles packed and stashed in the trunk and the gas tank filled in anticipation of a long drive back to Lebanon, only Dean's growling stomach stood between them and blowing dodge.
Sam hummed a somewhat off key version of White Christmas as they cruised down Main Street, looking for a likely spot to eat. Preferably a place that served pie. Dean hunched over the wheel, peering through the windshield and grimacing at cutesy names like Pita Pan, Two Men and a Griddle and The Golden Spoon. He did slow slightly as a Fu King Chinese Restaurant came into view, chuckling to himself at the fun he could have with the name, but he figured the pie there would be crap.
"How about – " Sam started, a wide grin on his face as he spotted a tastefully lettered sign which read A Taste of Heaven Diner.
And that is when Dean caught another glimpse of a man in a tan coat striding along the sidewalk in the direction opposite to their line of travel. Briefly, in the rearview mirror, broad shoulders and dark hair were reflected in a storefront window. And then, in the space between one heartbeat and the next, the image was gone.
The Impala left a streak of rubber on the pavement as Dean slammed on the brakes. A protesting choir of car horns sounded behind him, but Dean ignored them all in favour of pulling into the nearest parking spot, one which happened to be clearly designated as a handicapped parking zone. He was out of the car and bolting down the sidewalk before Sam had time to utter more than an outraged "Dean!"
The crowd was even thicker today than it had been yesterday. Dean bumped shoulders and stepped on more than a few toes as he pursued what was proving to be a frustratingly elusive phantom. His steps slowed as his eyes darted from shop window to shop window. So many wares on display, artfully posed mannequins and gaily decorated Christmas trees obscuring his view inside most of the stores. So many doors... Castiel could have slipped through any one of them.
"Dean?"
Dean started as a hand fell on his shoulder, and blinked distractedly as his gaze travelled up and up to meet his brother's worried eyes.
"What's going on, Dean?"
"It's Cas," Dean replied. "I've seen him twice now."
"You've seen him?"
"Sort of. I've caught glimpses of him as I'm driving past, but he's always gone by the time I stop the car. Don't give me that look, Sam! He can't be here – but he is. I know he is."
"Or maybe it's just someone wearing a coat similar to his."
"Who'd be fool enough to wear that coat in this weather? They'd freeze their balls off. Cas doesn't care because he doesn't mind the cold..." Unless he's human again, Dean completed the thought, shaken to the core by the possibility that his friend was out there, hungry and cold, lost and alone. Again. He had sworn to himself that there would never be a next time.
Something in his expression must have alerted Sam to his state of approaching panic, because his brother instantly switched from doubting Thomas to efficient hunter mode.
"Okay, okay, Dean. I believe you. So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to move the car so we don't get a ticket, and then you and I are going to check out every store in town. You take this side of the street, I'll take the other. If Cas is here, we'll find him."
They didn't find him. Nor, when they asked, had anyone else seen a 'nerdy little guy in a trench coat'.
Neither brother received a response to their numerous texts or phone calls.
It was almost as if Castiel had vanished off the face of the planet, leaving only his restless spirit to walk the earthly realm. A thought which had Dean pacing the floor of the motel room they'd booked for another night.
Sam was getting a headache just from his proximity to the nervous energy sizzling through Dean's veins. It made concentrating on his research next to impossible. Still, he managed to determine that there were no bodies matching Castiel's description in a Minneapolis morgue, no traffic accident reports beyond a few fender benders, no scuttlebutt on the hunters' network that anything big was going down in Minnesota. Ditto for Kansas, North Dakota and all points in between. In short, it looked as if all the nasty things that go bump in the night had obligingly closed up shop for the holiday season.
"I'm going out," Dean declared, breaking the silence that had held the room prisoner for the past hour or so.
"Where are you going?"
"Christmas shopping," Dean snapped. "Where do you think I'm going? I'm gonna drive around. Clear my head. Look for Cas."
"The roads are bad," Sam warned. "The storm is arriving early."
"All the more reason to get Cas off the street," Dean countered, slamming his way out the door.
The roads were bad. Damn, but Dean hated it when Sam was right. Twice he almost skidded into a snowbank, the Impala fishtailing madly until he brought it back under control. Fortunately, the streets were deserted at this late hour: all the busy shoppers tucked in their little beds; the snow merrily tumbling down, its pristine white tinged here and there with reds and greens and golds, faithfully burning Christmas lights keeping watch through the long night.
He was just about to give up and head back to the motel when he saw him. Castiel. Standing with his nose pressed up against a coffee shop window. Staring in at the silent, empty tables and the pastries patiently waiting behind their wall of glass for the next day's rush. His hands were tucked inside his pockets for warmth, his shoulders hunched against the storm. As Dean pulled over to the curb, the snow-shrouded figure shuffled off between two buildings and disappeared.
This time, however, there was a trail to follow: footsteps in the snow. Footsteps that formed a narrow path as they wended their way from building to building, obviously seeking the shelter of a secluded entryway or someone's unlocked shed. Concrete proof that he wasn't chasing a shadow.
It took the better part of an hour, but the tracks finally ended where an overhanging roof gave shelter from above, and a vent offered a warm blast of air from below. Castiel was hunkered down against a brick wall, the coat pulled well up around his ears, only a few tufts of hair remaining visible.
It broke Dean's heart to see his angel like this. To see him so miserably cold. To see the familiar trench coat stained with dirt and grime, its belt trailing in the snow, the length of the coat's skirt drawn tight against jean clad legs.
The length of it... the belt... the colour...
Dean's eyes narrowed as he looked, really looked, at the garment.
Castiel wore a shorter coat these days. It didn't have a belt. It was a hideous taupe colour. This obviously wasn't that coat. But he'd bet his life that it was Castiel's coat. His old coat. He'd recognize it anywhere. How many times had he stood beside the angel as he wore it? How many times had he watched him walk away, taking a little piece of his heart with him? He'd pulled it from the water and dragged it with him from town to town in the trunk of stolen car after stolen car. He'd dug it out from its hiding place on lonely nights, when Sam was safely asleep and only the stars looked down on him clinging to it like a security blanket, wetting it with his tears. He'd spent nights wrapped up in it in Purgatory, shivering in the dark, surrounded by monsters, breathing in the scent of the angel, the scent of home, while Castiel kept silent vigil close by. He knew every worn seam, every loose button, every frayed thread at cuff and collar.
This was Castiel's coat.
It just wasn't Castiel who was wearing it.
"Hey," Dean said, and a stranger lifted his head, the wariness of a frightened wild animal in his eyes. Brown eyes. A pinched look on his too narrow face. Days worth of beard sprouting on chin and cheeks, though it was still basically patchy peach fuzz. At a guess, the kid couldn't be more than nineteen or twenty.
"Hey," Dean repeated more softly. "Everything's cool. I just need to know where you got that coat. I think it belongs to a friend of mine."
"And I suppose he wants it back," the young man said, his voice resigned. "Well, you can tell him he's got crappy taste in clothes. His coat ain't worth shit in this weather. But it was all I could afford. Goodwill is cheap, but it isn't free."
"Tell you what," Dean said. "We're close enough to the same size. How's about we make a trade? My coat for his."
The boy's eyes widened as they took in the thick, warm, winter jacket Dean was wearing. "You're shitting me," he said.
"No, I'm not. I'll even throw in a scarf and a pair of gloves."
"Mister, you must care a hell of a lot for that friend."
"Yeah," Dean admitted quietly. "I do. I really do."
Upon learning that Jon was on the streets because all the homeless shelters were filled up for the night, every cot and square inch of floor space taken, Dean drove them both back to his motel and booked the kid a room. He also emptied his pockets of all his cash and handed over the small wad of bills. It was under a hundred bucks, but Jon looked at Dean as if he'd just given him the moon.
"Thank you, he said, clasping Dean's hand in both of his. "You're an angel."
"Nah," Dean said, self-consciously disengaging his hand and cinching the belt of the trench coat a little tighter around his waist. "Not even close."
"Well, you are to me." Jon insisted. "That money's my ticket home. It's my mom's Christmas and birthday all rolled up in one. She hasn't seen me in a while."
Dean didn't quite know what to say to that, but before he had to stumble through a heartfelt chick-flick reply, he felt his phone vibrate three times in his pocket.
I'm at the Bunker, the first text read. Followed by an obviously pissy: Where are you? But it was the third text, a daringly bold: I miss you, Dean, that set the hunter's heart to jackhammering in his chest.
He misses me! He misses me! He misses me!
Dean felt a goofy grin spread from ear to ear. im on my way, he typed, and with a casual wave to a bemused Jon, he hastened towards his own room, still typing as he went. i just have to wrap your xmas present.
Or maybe, just maybe, he thought, I can be the present, and you can unwrap me.
He was still smiling as he bounced Sam out of bed and booted his sorry ass out the door.
Bad weather and a snickering little brother be damned. He was going home. He had an angel waiting for him.
This was going to be the best Christmas ever.