"Here. Just wear this until we can take you to find some clothes your size." Dean handed Cas a folded up black Led Zepplin tee he owned, and a pair of red boxers. "Pajamas. Just don't leave the house in these, okay?"

Cas nodded, he was still wrapped up in his towel. "I believe..it's indecent for you to see my vessel without garments." His voice was low and rumbly as he finally said something more than a few words.

Dean felt like he was teaching a two-year-old the social laws that governed the world. "Yeah." He answered simply. He didn't want to confuse him by telling him all about different outfits for different occasions yet, just knowing that he had to cover up was enough for now.

"What are pajamas?" He asked in a tiny voice, he still had the towel wrapped tightly around his shoulders and body.

"Like, sleepwear. Nice, comfy stuff to sleep in. Then you change out of it when your day starts." He smiled a little. "Of course, you don't absolutely need pajamas. I like to go commando. Well, not in those nasty motel beds. At home, though."

Cas tilted his head to the side. "Commando...?"

Dean looked away and chuckled. "You know what, never mind. Sammy's probably better off teaching you this stuff so you don't wind up a pig like me."

Cas finally dropped the towel, rested the egg on the bed and tried to pull on the boxers, swaying a little as he tried to get in both leg holes at once. Dean put a hand up to sheild his eyes. "One foot and leg at a time, Cas."

"You are not porcine in anyway I can see, Dean." Cas spoke up quietly, finally slipping the plaid material over his hips, reaching for the folded shirt.

"Thanks." Dean chuckled. "And it's nice to..hear your voice, Cas. Glad you're talkin'."

"I realized it's better to have a conversation...keeps the thoughts at bay. At least temporarily." He slipped the shirt over his head. The cloth was pungent with Dean's scent, and it was overwhelming his seemingly new sense of smell.

He tugged at the material, but only managed to get his arms up to elbows out of the holes. "...Dean?"

"I know. Shirts are tricky." Dean tugged a little roughly downward and his dark head of hair popped out of the neckhole, quickly followed by his head. Cas's eyes were downcast, his cheeks tinging with pink. He was embarrased, and he quickly reached and tucked the egg securely into his hands once more, hugging it as if for comfort.

"You'll get the hang of it." Dean tried to reassure him. "You'll get the hang of a lot of this- being human stuff."

"I would like to try on my own." Cas shot back moodily. "I know how to do many complex things on my own. I don't want to be treated like a child."

Dean narrowed his eyes. "Cas. Look at me." Castiel hesitantly met his jade green eyes.

"I know you're not a child. You're my friend who's in the middle of a rough patch, and I'm just trying to help you in any way I can. Adult to adult, okay?"

The ex-angel frowned and pressed his lips together before nodding.

"Good." Dean patted him reassuringly on the back just once. "Now, let's say we make our feeding rounds for lunch, what do you say?"

They delievered a plate with grilled cheese to Kevin first, who was in the room with the gigantic map of the globe that had been overwhelmed with red dots and blaring sirens the night the angels fell. He was ferociously scribbling something down, his button-black eyes flicking from a reciept-like paper with thousands of time stamps and codes back to his notepad.

"Here you go, Kev." Dean said, setting the plate down with a clink. "Real brain food this time. Not that mystery meat you'd been eating before."

"Thanks." Kevin shot out, taking the half of the sandwich with one hand as he still scribbled with the other, his eyes not leaving the papers. He took a large bite, his eyes still scanning the reciept paper, he seemed like he was making sense of the jumbled numbers and codes.

"Mmm. Vat's Goov." He said with a full mouth, and Dean clapped him on the back. "Keep up the good work, Tranny."

"Har, har." Kevin rolled his eyes, the hint of a smile twitching on his lips. "Haven't heard that one before." He suddenly noticed Castiel.

"Oh! Nice to see you're...uh, back! Look, I have a few names I wanted to ask-"

Dean led Cas away gently. "Hey, later. He's still a little..."

"Got it." Kevin said back, almost a little too quickly. "Well, I can talk about what I found at dinner, if you want." He covered up quickly.

"Yeah. That'd be great. I'll come by and pick up the plate later." Dean called back as they went back into the main room from there.

"Last stop Crowley." Dean muttered under his breath. "Should I..? I mean, one missed meal isn't gonna kill 'im..." He voiced aloud.

Cas shadowed Dean as he snaked his way through the room, heading down to the demon dungeon where he kept him.

"You seem to need to care for many people here, Dean." Cas commented quietly.

Dean shrugged. "Eh. It's not too bad. Full-time job, but it's not too bad."

Cas decided Dean had enough on his plate taking care of three other men already. He wouldn't burden him with his problems.

"Fuckin' finally." Crowley said irritably when he saw Dean had finally come into the dungeon. "I'm starved."

"Yeah, yeah." Dean rolled his eyes, roughly setting the plate down just far enough away so that the ex-(sort of ex?) demon would have to inconvience himself by reaching for it.

"Y'know,, if you let me go, I could cook all kinds of food. Way better than this American crap. I'm talking rich, Scottish dishes. I've heard I'm a mean cook. You didn't think Gordon Ramsay learned all that on his own, did ya? It ain't called Hell's Kitchen for nothing!" He raised an eyebrow mischeviously. "Eh? How about it?"

"How about hell no." Dean all but growled. "Or are you forgetting you're the one who almost killed Sam?"

"Dean, Dean!" Crowley rolled his eyes and tugged at his handcuffs. "He chose to do that to himself, remember? I was the one you two snagged, it's not my fault!"

"Sure." Dean turned away. "C'mon, Cas."

Castiel felt like each minute he spent with Dean was another minute he was a burden to his friend. He finally slipped away when Dean went to care for Sam again, spoon-feeding him some soup broth laced with vitamins and helping to drag him to the bathroom.

Cas thought about running away, but it wouldn't be fair to Dean to cause him even more worry. He chose to hide away somewhere out of sight instead.

It was a little hard to carry the egg and climb up to the roof of the bunker, but somehow he managed. And he went for close to four hours without another person's voice, and just those vile thoughts to keep him company.

"Cas!" He heard Dean's voice after a long solitude, breaking the silence, laced with relief. "There you are!"

He climbed up onto the roof with a little grunt. "Why are you up here, bud?"

Cas frowed and looked away. It was dark now, and a darkness had come over the rooftops, it was peaceful being hidden and tucked away in the shadows. Cas didn't quite know how to explain how he was feeling. "...burden." He decided to say quietly, hugging the egg to his chest.

"Look, I know you don't really want to talk all that much right now." Dean said, coming up and sitting next to Castiel as he was sitting alone on the roof, cradling the egg as he looked down at the lights of the town faraway, the yellow dots from the street lamps were shining, and to the right it was swallowed by black, the dark woods.

"I just wanted to let you know that...you're wanted here. That you're not a burden. And I mean, me n' Sam can start showing you how to do things around here. "

Cas simply hung his head, resting his chin on top of the egg. "I'm useless." He breathed, hugging the white egg close to his chest.

"No, you're not." Dean growled, putting his hand on Cas's shoulder. "Look at me."

It took a second of lag, but finally he gave Dean a sad, sidelong glance, frowning slightly. Dean narrowed his eyes back. "Cas, don't think that just because you're not an angel anymore. You're still Cas. Did you think I would just..." He swallowed back that tight feeling in the back of his throat. "I would never just..drop you, Cas. Frankly, I don't care if you're an angel or not."

Cas turned away and looked at those bright yellow streetlamps again. "You probably won't be saying that when you're hurt within an inch of death and need someone to heal you." He grumbled, unconciously smoothing down the shell of the egg again.

"Can I ask you a question about Eggy, then?" Dean changed the subject. Cas sighed but couldn't help but have a little smile creep onto his face.

"Eggy?" He asked, smiling a little.

"What? You don't like it?" Dean joked back. "What else am I supposed to name it?"

"This egg is not an 'it'." Cas said, smiling a little as he looked down at the round, white object. "It's a..them."

"Them?" Dean asked. "How do you know how many little critters are in there?"

"I don't know exactly." Cas replied, smoothing down the shell again. "But they're never only one. For example, Ana and I shared a shell." He sighed and cradled it closer. "I supppose I'm their father now."

"How..I mean, what happened?" Dean said, in a more sensative voice, tipping his head back and looking at that dim white pinpricks in the sky. "How'd you get the li'l guy in the first place?"

"The night the angels fell...I was able to find one of my sisters in her time of dying. She told me it was new life, I promised to protect it." He said quietly. "I have to protect them. I don't know if there are any more angels out there, and if I fail...maybe there never will be."

"See?" Dean spoke up. "You're not useless. You've got Eggy there to take care of." He bumped his shoulder a little. "See? You've got a damn important job to do."

Cas closed his eyes as a light breeeze played across his cheeks an combed through his hair. "I guess." He shrugged. They were both quiet for a minute, the wind picking up a llttle. Cas shivered slightly; he was only wearing a cotton tee shirt and some boxers, after all.

"When's little Eggy gonna crack open?" Dean asked, and Cas smoothed down the shell and seemed to contemplate.

"I'm...I don't know, Dean." He brought his knees up, the egg pressing to his legs and his chest, and his hugged around his knees. "Will you..will you and Sam and Kevin maybe.."

"Take care of them?" Dean finished. "Duh, Cas. Of course. Y'know, maybe this time we can make sure they don't turn out to be such dicks." He flashed him a reassuring smile. Dean had such a kind heart under that rough exterior, Cas thought.

The dark-haired man smiled. "Thank you, Dean." He said quietly, shakily.

Dean cracked a smile. "Cas, this is- I mean, this is your home now." He cleared his throat, he didn't want to sound cheesy. "I mean, Kevin's bunking down here with us too, and Crowley, but I guess he's the only one who's more of a prisoner than a guest. You, uh, get what I'm saying?"

"I'm a..guest?" Cas asked hesitantly.

"You're a resident. Welcome to the Casa de Winchester." He laughed a little. "Nice water pressure, you got me to slave over your meals and whatever. But do your own laundry, okay? I'm not the maid."

Cas smiled. "I understand."

Dean knocked him lightly on the shoulder with his fist. "Good. Well, you can uh, just enjoy the view, I'll be in the bunker cooking dinner. You can come down when you're-" He was about to say ready, but he changed his mind halfway through. "When you're done."

"Thanks." He said quietly, glancing down at the glittering yellow strands of streetlamps, strung like pearl necklaces. He unconciously smoothed the soft eggshell again. He let his mind wander, just wanting to think things over so he would get it out of his system and never have to think about it again.

It was so peaceful up here. It was hard to think about all those broken brothers and sisters of his that were here on Earth, maybe in some of the tiny houses he saw with the lights on. Maybe some of them were very hurt. Maybe some of them didn't even speak English. Maybe some were still wandering, lost, afraid, hopeless.

It hit Cas how grateful he should be that he was found so quickly, invited into a home with people he trusted with his life. All of the other Fallen were either alone or with complete strangers.

He looked down at the egg in his lap. He wondered how many little fledglings were within the white wall, what they would look like, what they would act like. And then he hated himself for being the one and only reason that these were possibly the only angels left out there.

He steadied the egg with one hand as he pulled something out of his pocket with the other hand. He kept the round object resting in his lap as he shook three pain pills into his palm, pretty little white dots like pearls, and he swallowed them with some whiskey from the flask he'd also slipped into his pocket.

My fault. My fault.

He let himself imagine taking that egg with two hands, pulling it over his head, and flinging it down off the rooftop and watching in smash in a puff of light below. He didn't deserve to care for infant angels, not after everything he'd done. Of course, maybe he was imagining it the wrong way. Maybe he should be the one to die, not the infants inside the shell.

The painkilers slowly began to numb the stinging from his shoulderblades, and had him feeling just a little bit calmer. His stomach growled, with a pinched, rumbly, unpleasant kind of hollow feeling. He tucked the bottle of pills and flask back into his pocket and climbed slowly, carefully down the roof for dinner.

Thank you readers for reviews :)

Fun question time- names for the little Eggy babies? I'm thinking about keeping Leoniel for one of them just because I've become too attached (people who have read my other stories will get this, haha). But I'd love a fresh start at characters for the other two/three. Boy or girl names that have struck your fancy will be read and strongly considered by yours truly! :)

Thanks for reading!