In the aftermath of what they were calling colloquially the Event, the Winchesters and the newly mortal Castiel were consumed in locating and retrieving as many angels as they could, transporting them to and sheltering them in the Men of Letters bunker. Rather, Dean and Sam were the ones involved in most of the rescue and recovery part; Castiel, still weak and adjusting to the restrictions of humanity, remained in the bunker, providing a calm presence and counseling for the dozens of traumatized fallen angels now under their care. Dean or Sam would return every other week or so, trailing a line of the newest bedraggled, bewildered former angels in need of comfort and safety before leaving again. Sometimes they would stay longer, sometimes not, but Castiel never depended on it and frankly barely noticed the Winchesters, much too preoccupied with healing his brother and sister angels.
The latest batch to arrive was led by Dean, a ragtag group recently freed from the psychiatric ward in a hospital two states over. Numbering around fifteen, Dean had commandeered a church bus to move them all to the bunker. The thought of him driving a bus full of angels in a church bus had brought a momentary flash of mirth, though the constant worry, fear, and confusion clear on the faces of the angels quickly snapped him back to his duty, and he felt a sense of relief as he pulled up to the bunker entrance.
He twisted in the driver's seat to look back at his passengers. "Stay here okay?" Most gazed back at him with the same uncomprehending expression Dean had so often received from Castiel in the old days.
One of the female angels near the front, who Dean found to be the most level headed of the group, responded after a moment of uncomfortable silence. "We will remain aboard the vehicle, Dean Winchester."
Dean blinked. "Uh..right then, I'll be right back." He muttered, fumbling with the seatbelt and climbing down out of the bus. Stretching his arms out and covering a yawn, Dean strode across the familiar unpaved road, blinking in the dewy morning air. Driving had taken most of the night. He checked his phone, grimacing as he read the time to be half past four A.M. Raising a hand to buzz a wakeup call to Kevin or Castiel, Dean stumbled back as the door swung open before he had the chance to even remove the cover of the buzzer, revealing Castiel.
Castiel was sharp and businesslike in his manner. "Where are they?" Dean stared at him, eyes roaming over the shadowed hollows beneath Castiel's eyes to the exhausted set of his shoulders before stifling another huge yawn and jerking his thumb toward the van. Castiel let his severe expression soften somewhat, laying a hand on Dean's upper arm. "You need to rest my friend. I will see to my brethren."
He started to protest but Castiel had already gone, striding down toward the bus. Worry creased Dean's brow as he watched Castiel board the stolen bus, speaking quietly to those on board. Under his patient guidance, the entire group disembarked and made their way into the bunker with minimal fuss or fight, a real problem with the first groups they tried to bring back to the bunker. Fresh from the trauma of the fall and in the grips of a particular terror, the angels had demanded answers that Castiel and the Winchesters didn't have. Sam and Dean were forced to restrain several angels after tensions boiled over and tempers snapped, causing violence and even more fright to the other angels. The newer groups however, after several weeks of living on Earth, stripped of power, were simply too exhausted to fight.
Castiel passed by him, holding the hands of an angel with the vessel of a young woman and murmuring to her, too low for Dean to catch. He straightened up. "Cas."
Glancing over at him, Castiel shook his head. "Not now Dean." Dean could only watch as Castiel led the group of fallen angels deeper into the bunker.
"Does he ever sleep?"
Kevin glanced up at him. "Castiel? Never. He's with them 24/7."
Dean frowned as he gazed back down into the huge space in the bunker they had converted into a sort of fallen angel triage and refugee camp. Castiel was down there, moving between the rows of beds, offering food, clasping hands, and in one case kissing the forehead of one of the angels. Some of the angels from the first groups seemed to be doing the same. Dean didn't know why the Men of Letters felt the need to include a huge space with nearly 300 beds within the bunker, but he chalked it up to his predecessor's eerie ability to foresee nearly all of their needs. Still, even with 300 beds they were running out of space. Sam was investigating a vast plot of land in the Northwest that the Men of Letters owned to see if they could create a fallen angel settlement there, but that would take some time to organize, and sheltering the angels were far from their only responsibility. Dean began mentally ticking off all the known groups that still needed to be collected, the supplies that they needed, the list of hunters calling in from all over the country with angels of their when a cry from the ground floor jerked him out of his musings.
"Castiel! Castiel!" A young male angel was on his knees next to Castiel, who was sprawled awkwardly on the floor. Around them, fear entered the faces of the angels once more and a cry of panic began to spread through the entire room.
Dean was on the floor in a second, roughly shoving the hysterical angel to the side. "What happened?"
"He just collapsed, I didn't see anything, is he alive?" the angel blubbered as Dean took Castiel's shoulders and shook them.
"Cas. Castiel! Dammit Cas!" Dean swore as Castiel blinked, sitting up with a confused expression.
"Dean. Divri, why are you weeping, I…"
"Right." Dean slung Castiel's arm over shoulder, hauling both of them to their feet. "You are going to get some rest whether you like it or not. He's fine," Dean groused to the still panicked angels. "Go read a Bible or something."
Dean hustled them both down the hallway. "Dean, you should not treat them so." Castiel chided, his voice gravelly and strained as Dean kicked in a door, grunting slightly under Castiel's deadweight. "They need help."
"No, you need help." Dean retorted, slinging Castiel down onto a cot in one of the private rooms in the bunker. Castiel slumped against the headboard though began to struggle to sit up. "When was the last time you slept?"
"No, I, I need to be there with them Dean. I'm the only authority figure to them with any sense of what has happened. Only I can calm them-"
"Cas!" Castiel fell silent at Dean's angry outburst. "When was the last time you slept?"
Castiel glanced around the room, shuffling his hands. "I haven't."
Dean blinked at Castiel's muttered answer. "You…man, it's been weeks! You're human now, you need to sleep!"
"No."
Once again, Dean was struck speechless. He rubbed his jaw and braced himself against a chair back. "Cas, I don't know if you realize, but I have more experience," he emphasized the word, glaring at Castiel. "at this whole being human thing. Seeing as though I've been one all my life and you-"
"Helping them is the only reason I'm still living Dean." Castiel finally gave up the fight to get vertical, leaning back against the wall, his breath quick and shallow. He gazed off into nothing, his shoulders slumped, exhaustion etched into every line of his face. "I close my eyes…I see everything I've done. All the wrong choices I've made. All the suffering, all the destruction. Helping my brothers and sisters…that's the right choice Dean. I stop, even for one moment…I won't be able to handle whatever I remember." Castiel finally met Dean's uncomprehending eyes. "I would kill myself as soon as I woke."
They stared at each other for one long moment. Suddenly Dean straightened, brushing his hands off on his jeans. "Okay then," the bravado masking the tremor they both could hear. "I'll watch you. Make sure you don't wake up alone and try to, to-"
"Kill myself?" Castiel finished dourly.
Dean glared at him. "Yea. That."
Castiel considered him uneasily. "It's a kind offer Dean, but I'm sure you have other tasks, responsibilities to-"
"Nope, got all the time in the world Cas." Dean cut him off, turning to swing the chair around. "In fact, I need a break too so…oh."
Castiel was already snoring.
It was a habit of Dean's to read his father's journal whenever he was stressed. It had a calming effect on him, from the soft feel of the worn leather to John Winchester's untidy scrawl. Sometimes Dean could almost hear his father's voice reading the text, branding every word, every obscure fact about every monster John had ever encountered in his son's mind. He supposed that's why Sam claimed he was so good with the lore; after rereading John's journal thousands and thousands of times, Dean figured he had the whole thing memorized.
The monster of the week that night happened to be vampires. Dean didn't need the refresher- on the contrary, after the countless kills, dealing with the Alpha vamp, and Benny, he figured he was as close to an expert on the creatures as he could be- but reading instructions on how to behead them, how to utilize dead man's blood, hearing the words in his father's voice and reading the words in his handwriting, reassured him somehow.
He smoothed his hand over the familiar pages, breathing in its comfortable scent.
"Arghh!" Castiel sat straight up on the cot with a cry as Dean swore, fumbling the journal through his fingers. It thumped to the floor, pages fluttering over the smooth stone.
Dean's voice shot up two octaves as he righted himself, his eyes round with shock. "What the hell Cas?"
Castiel turned his eye onto Dean. "He has a plan."
"A plan? What plan? Cas?"
Castiel's face had never been so white. "Michael."
