Location, Location, Location
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The angel ponders the question, turning it over and over in his mind like filthy laundry in an industrial strength washing machine. The stains of the problem refuse to shake loose and he realises he needs to add something extra to the wash cycle if he ever hopes to work out how to solve the conundrum.
With a weariness that borders on the bone-numbing, he decides he must seek out the annoying Winchester that somehow always manages to put just that kind of rinse and spin on the situation that, more often than not, sheds new light on a previously Stygian predicament. The angel knows he can never do this himself; the mix of anti-softener and bovine excrement remover that Dean spreads over everything he says and does is something Castiel can neither anticipate nor hope to emulate: it is so very human.
He spreads invisible wings. He closes his eyes. He homes in on Dean.
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Dean leans over the bathroom counter and picks up the pins, studying them with acute concentration that pinches his eyebrows into little triangles of worry. He looks at the pin in his left hand, then his right. He judges them to be identical and therefore, no help whatsoever to his deductive process. He looks down at the counter and marshals his courage.
He hears feet behind him and relaxes. Relief makes his hands drop with the pins in them, falling to the counter safely to each side of their target. The corner of his eye glimpses the bathroom mirror as he turns.
"Dad, I don't think I'm doing this--"
He stops. He gapes. He sees the tall man in the beige mac watching him with a disturbingly quizzical look. Dean leans back against the bathroom counter, conscious of the stool under his feet starting to wobble.
"Who - who are you?" he demands.
Castiel stares. His eyes run over the small boy, taking in the messy hair, the look of shock that hides determination to keep his tiny frame between the intruder and the baby boy kicking his legs on the bathroom counter behind him.
"Dean?" he manages, his voice a study in How To Comprehend When Your Eyes Lie.
The little boy takes a deep breath and opens his mouth. "Daaaaaaaaaaaad!" he bawls.
Castiel hears bumps, bangs, noises somewhere close-by.
"Dean? What is it?" comes a worried shout.
Castiel whips around to the bathroom door. He turns to appraise the boy once more. He raises his hands in a placating gesture completely lost on the small Winchester brandishing nappy pins at the tall stranger as if he could somehow injure him with them.
The angel blinks from the room.
Dean freezes, agog.
John pounds through the doorframe, finding his eldest son with his hands raised, the diaper pins held too tightly in his little hands.
"What is it?" John repeats.
Dean blinks. "Uh… A man," he squeaks.
"A man?" John demands, looking around carefully. "Where is he now?"
"He… went away," Dean replies. John walks up to him with a fond smile, patting him on the shoulder and turning him round. They look down at the tiny infant gurgling and shifting on the counter top.
"Of course he did," John allows. He takes the pins from the boy and puts a hand on Sam's front, holding him still. "I'll just help you get Sammy a new diaper then, huh? Then we can get ice-cream."
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Castiel opens his eyes. He finds himself in a field, the sun strong and hot, the breeze slight and cool. He hears the laughter of children, the sounds of balls being hit with wooden objects. He turns to his left instinctively, knowing he will find Dean Winchester somewhere there.
He sees the green park and all the happy humans running, playing, giggling, teasing. He walks slowly to the edge of a path, watching his Father's creations enjoy the world He made just for them. Castiel's head tilts slowly, wondering if any of the humans would believe what was watching them enjoy their divine gifts of life, home, family.
A hand taps his at his side. He looks down to see a small child, windswept brown hair sticking up like Stickle Bricks out of sequence. The child is smiling at him.
"Hello, mister," he says shyly.
"Sammy!" snaps a chiding cloud of annoyance. Castiel freezes at the voice, so familiar and yet so alien to his ears. "How many times have I told you - you don't talk to people you don't know!"
Another boy appears. He grasps the smaller lad's hand before daring to look up at the angel.
Castiel's eyes widen in curiosity and fascination. The taller boy is watching him with distrust and a guarded threat that the angel knows is all to do with his proximity to the young boy with them, currently unable to comprehend why talking to new people could be a problem. Castiel takes a step back, feeling the tiny green eyes follow him with a dour warning, should he undo the action toward the boy's miniature charge.
"Let's go, Sammy," the older boy says quietly. The toddler grips the bigger hand more tightly and the two Winchesters turn away, walking purposefully across the grass.
Castiel swallows. He watches them go, an awful feeling of comprehension, regarding a certain elder Winchester's constant burden being not unlike his own, knocking on the door of his awareness. He opens the door and lets it in, and for perhaps the first time, understands why Dean - the Dean he purports to know - is the professional cynic he seems.
He closes his eyes in sympathy.
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When he opens his eyes, he sees nothing. At least, not at first. As he realises it is simply night, he waits for his host's eyes to adjust to the gloom before moving. He makes out a car park, a motel off to the left garishly lit in neon pinks and blues. He takes a step toward the planking that will take him to the first door.
He pauses, certain he knows where Dean is. This time.
He turns to his right, and spots the infamous black car parked by itself on the opposite side of the tarmaced resting place for automobiles. He straightens his shoulders, remembers his question, and softly crosses the black asphalt toward it.
He notices the car appears to be moving slightly, as if someone is testing springs left to right. He does not find this odd. Once upon a time, he would have found cars themselves odd. Now there is no odd. Only events.
He stops by the side of the car, seeing the dark windows covered over on the inside with tiny bubbles of mist and condensation. He frowns, wondering how this can happen in the cool night air. He puts a hand out to the door and simply opens it.
"Whoa whoa whoa!" calls a familiar voice, and Castiel leaves the door hanging open, waiting for Dean to get out of the car and leave whatever restoration or patch-up project he is currently working on. "Dad - this is not what it looks like!"
Castiel takes a step back. A head pokes out from round the doorframe.
"Ok, it's exactly what it looks like. Ah - ah - don't get mad, just--"
The thinner, more angular face of Dean Winchester looks up at the angel in the dirty mac. Trepidation and preparation for battle are swept aside by astonishment and outrage.
"Who the Hell are you?" Dean demands with anger.
Castiel takes another step back. "I'm in the wrong time."
"You got that right, pal! Now take a hike, you pervert, before I find my pants and kick your ass!"
The angel, understandably spooked by such indignant rage from the teenager, puts his hand to the door and pushes slightly. Dean's bare arm shoots out and grabs it, slamming it shut. Castiel blinks.
"Dean, what's going on?" says a female voice from inside the car, and the angel feels a weight of understanding crash down onto his shoulders. He turns from the car, ignoring the smooth replies of the Winchester, and closes his eyes.
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Castiel opens a single eye experimentally. He finds a dingy motel room and himself barely able to make out shapes. He hears two attempts at snores but neither is particularly convincing; whoever the sounds belong to are far more tired than able to produce noise.
He turns to the far window, the pathetically thin curtains blocking out about as much moonlight as a fly swat. He pulls the wooden chair out of the desk by him silently, settling himself into it.
He waits.
Presently, one of the beds stirs and he raises his head. He looks from one bed to the other, takes in Sam's sleeping form. He raises his hand, looking at the place the tiny Sam had touched in the park. He looks back at Dean, his head to one side, one ear sticking up almost pixie-like in its freedom from the shaggy mop it had been in the bathroom as he had tried to pin Sam's diaper up properly. The Winchester lets out a sigh and rolls to his left, slapping his head into the pillow in a manoeuvre designed to indicate his absolute ignorance of everything not going on within his exhausted head.
The angel's eyes catch the red alarm clock between the beds. The date flashes away in the corner, proudly proclaiming it to be 2006.
Glad of an excuse to leave the slumbering Winchesters be, Castiel gets to his feet. He closes his eyes.
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He opens them to a cacophony of sound. He opens his mouth but his words are smacked over the head and stolen away by the noise all around him. He lifts his hands and presses them to his ears in a desperate attempt to save his host's skull from melting.
He is jerked forward as he senses a screech. The sound fades. He sees two heads looking back at him from over the back of the long bench seat in the front of the car in which he appears to be sitting.
"Cas?" Dean dares.
The angel blinks and appraises the faces of the two Winchesters, watching him with surprise and expectation.
"Do you want something?" Sam asks.
Castiel looks from one to the other, noticing the almost identical look of impatience and slight annoyance, a visual soundtrack to the Impala's steady idling.
"What is it now?" Dean sighs, as if merely asking is more than he can handle on the wintry, rainy afternoon going on outside the vehicle.
Castiel opens his mouth. "I have a problem," he states clearly. "I must ask you a question, Dean."
The elder Winchester rolls his eyes in a way that, had Sam performed it, would probably have taken out a few of those United States in epic disaster movie tradition. "Super," Dean accedes. "Well come on then. We have places to be, monsters to kill."
"This is important," Castiel frowns, and all of Heaven understands the mighty wrath he has managed to inject into his eyebrows.
All of Heaven, maybe. But not Dean.
"Yeah, whatever. Let me guess, your garrison's run out of smokes up there?"
The eyes of the angel, rather ironically, blaze with indignation. "You think this is easy for me," he growls.
"Hey, you're an angel. Popping in and out is what you do," Dean says off-hand.
"You do not know how hard it was for me to find you this time."
"No, I don't," Dean intones, as if he has repeated this a million times to a scolding father. He rests his elbow on back of the seat, letting his chin fall into his hand as he watches the angel. "So come on, what?"
Castiel stares first at him, then at Sam. He senses the twitching, burning desire in the younger man to make it all ok, to set things right as he sees it. He shifts his gaze to Dean, feeling instead the weariness, the impenetrable bubble of carefully crafted ignorance of all things Heavenly directed his way.
"I--." The angel hesitates, seeing the many Deans from his journey so far. He sees the protection and care of the younger brother, he sees the unfairness and burden, he sees the way Dean has spent all of his life trying to get something of his own and keep it. He sees, above all, the attitude Dean has toward anyone and anything that threatens his sibling.
"I… had a question," he admits. "But… perhaps, in coming here, I have already seen it answered."
Sam. Dean. Sam and Dean. They stare at the angel as if their time should be invoiced to Him Upstairs. Then they share a glance which convinces Castiel that he was right.
"Seriously?" Sam asks of the Heavenly creature. Castiel nods once. "Uhm… Oh-kay…"
"So you coming with us to the next town? We got vampires to kill and spare blades," Dean offers, and for a moment, just a tiny, shiny, sadly singular moment, it is as if he actually wants Castiel to come with them. Not as an angel, but as someone who might be useful, effective - a team member.
But Castiel knows he is not here for vampires. Nor is he here to join anyone's team - no matter who they may be. He is not even here to ask Dean Winchester the one question with which he started out - How far would you go to protect Sam, if it comes to it?
For the first time, he doesn't know why he is here. But he is glad he is.
Before he can stop himself, before he can control the mouth of his host, it has made a prompt, a challenge, of Dean. "Vampires?"
"Yeah, vampires," Dean nods, completely, comfortably, and in every way oblivious of the motivation behind the angel's borrowed eyes. "Abominations, right? Not what God wanted, right?"
Castiel's eyes lighten. He thinks about it. He looks at Sam, wondering how he will be received by the younger brother. But the taller Winchester simply tilts his head, begging the question. Castiel's face turns almost pleasant.
"Correct. Perhaps I could be helpful after all."
Sam and Dean exchange a glance. Then they turn back round in their seats, looking out the front windscreen at the rain.
"Then let's go carve some vampires," Sam shrugs.
Dean smiles to himself as he pushes the Impala into Drive. He checks his mirrors before rejoining the road. He flicks his gaze up to the rear view mirror, watching the angel look around the car with interest.
"Just don't toss your cookies if we have to let a little blood, Cas," he warns.
Castiel raises his head, looking back the mirror with confidence that can be felt. "After what I have seen today, I do not think I could be surprised by anything."
"Riiiight," Dean allows with patent lack of comprehension.
The Impala rumbles on.
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FIN