"Home sweet home," murmured Dean, turning on the light as he entered the house. His own house, where he'd been living for about six months now.
The clock showed 2:37 AM. Dean was beat and could hardly keep his eyes open, but he also felt deep satisfaction. After a painstaking week-long search, he and Victor had finally hunted down the rawhead and returned the kids to the parents. One boy needed hospital treatment, but the docs had assured he'd get better soon.
On days like this, he really felt that he mattered. There were lots of people who'd be able to wake up to a new day because of what he'd done. Saving people was a good way to earn a living.
Dean was brushing his teeth, trying not to doze off right in the bathroom with the toothbrush in his mouth when Cas appeared behind him. He didn't have the energy to flinch, so he just rolled his eyes and threw Cas a mildly annoyed look.
"Good evening, Dean," Cas greeted him in a gravelly voice.
"Evening, Cas," Dean said, rubbing his face dry.
Without warning, Cas put his two fingers on Dean's forehead and the cut in his left eyebrow vanished. The dull pain from the bruise on his scalp eased off too.
"You won't give me a chance to use my health insurance or sick leave, huh?" Dean chuckled, "You'll spoil me if you keep healing every scratch like that. I can handle pain."
"You need to be more careful," Cas answered seriously, scanning Dean for other injuries.
"I am careful. But I'm a friggin' FBI agent who hunts monsters, so injuries come in a package deal. How was your day?"
"Good. There were no emergencies, so I watched the bees. Have you noticed that pollen comes only in four colors – white, orange, yellow and greenish?"
Getting beehives was Dean's idea. Cas had seemed to be lost in this new universe with no Apocalypse and peace in Heaven, so one day Dean had set up two beehives in his backyard. Now the angel had a hobby and Dean was fine with the bees as long as Cas used his mojo to prevent them from flying into the house.
Dean turned on the computer to check work email before going to bed. Jo and Olivia reported to have finished their salt-and-burn in Montana; Bobby and Rufus were hunting a werewolf in Colorado tonight. Reidy had scheduled a team briefing for 10 AM.
"Okay, looks like I've got about six hours to sleep. Keep your ears on for Bobby. And for Sam, as usual."
"Sam's safe," Cas answered. Dean thought he heard a hint of amusement in his voice, but he was too tired to ask further.
He crawled into his bed (with a memory foam mattress!) and pulled up the covers, which smelled faintly of the floral fabric softener he'd bought the other day on impulse.
Cas was in the armchair. Dean had put it in the corner of the room specially for him when he'd realized Cas wasn't going to quit watching over him while he slept. Dean didn't quite understand why Cas was doing this, but he wasn't complaining because he secretly liked the feeling of safety Cas's presence gave him.
He didn't want to talk about it, so he'd just put the armchair in the bedroom and told Cas he could "read books here or something". There were no books in the house except for a volume of Vonnegut's short stories and a brand new copy of Monsters and Ghosts: How to track and kill them by S. Winchester and B. Singer, but Cas hadn't commented on that.
Sometimes, when he woke up in the middle of the night, he thought he saw the shadows of Cas's wings over him.
Cas was usually gone when Dean woke up, though Dean always had a feeling that Cas was still there just seconds ago. And more often than not there was a pie and a cup of coffee in the kitchen, hot and strong, just how Dean liked it most.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The Headquarters of FBI Supernatural Threats Branch were in one of the business centers in Chicago. They shared the floor with two finance companies, but all these workers dressed in neat business suits had no idea they were on the same floor with the FBI. In fact, the existence of their branch was kept secret even from the other FBI branches.
"I think I found two possible hunts," Caleb announced. "A woman on a parenting forum says her daughter has been unusually apathetic, clingy, and hungry for the last week, and – get this – she says she saw a zombie's reflection in the mirror once. I bet it's a changeling; Charlie's tracking her IP address now."
Dean nodded. Caleb was one of the first hunters along with Bobby and Jo to join the newly founded FBI branch. It was great to work with a family friend who, thanks to his travel in time, was now alive.
"And another case – a guy in his post on Facebook says that his dead brother has been calling him from a nonexistent number every evening for the last four days. Asks him to go to the park and meet him there. I checked the area, there were three unsolved murders in the last two months. Any ideas what it can be?"
"A crocotta?" suggested Steve Wandell, a hunter who joined them about a month ago. Dean always had a sense of déjà vu when he talked to the guy, but he couldn't figure out why he seemed familiar.
"Sounds like one. Anyway, we need to get this guy's phone number and give it to Andy. He'll tell him not to do what this voice says."
Offering Andy this job was Sam's idea. He'd felt slightly guilty about stashing Andy's brother in Antarctica and he'd thought they had needed to talk to him about his powers. Now Andy worked remotely and helped to prevent quite a lot of deaths. He also had all hunters' personal objects, just in case he'd need to transmit a vision directly into their heads.
Andy's most important responsibility, however, was talking to the Director of the FBI, who had only a general idea of what their branch was doing. Each time he called, Andy convinced him that their branch had a perfectly transparent reporting and he didn't have any questions left - such questions as why they purchased fifty pounds of silver last month.
There was a loud knock on the door and Charlie came in, holding an open laptop with one hand.
"Morning, everyone. Good news – I've finally finished the demon-detector program. It's not perfect yet, but the surveillance cameras caught a black-eyed bitch for the first time. Have a look," Charlie played a short video. A woman walked out of the department store, and for a second her eyes turned black. Definitely a demon.
Dean whistled. "Damn, Charlie, it's awesome."
"Wait till I teach it to recognize shapeshifters' retinal flare," she grinned.
Charlie was their savior when it came to everything IT-related. Initially, Dean had tried to persuade Ash to take the job, but predictably he'd refused to leave the Roadhouse. Instead, Ash put them in contact with Charlie, "the best damn hacker the darknet had ever seen" which was high praise coming from him.
"I've already got her address," Charlie continued. "Her husband is at work now, and her son must be at school."
"Okay. I guess Andy will have to make a few more phone calls. They'd better stay in a hotel in the neighboring town until we exorcise the demon. Ready for another hunt, Victor?"
"I can take this case if you're tired after tracking the rawhead," Jo offered, sounding hopeful. She was always eager to be assigned to new cases, the more dangerous the better.
"Nah, demons are in Class E, you can't hunt them yet. But kill ten more Class B or Class C monsters, and hunt whatever you want."
Reidy coughed. "Speaking of demons – I reached an agreement with a few home security alarm manufacturers, they are to start producing alarms with a built-in EMF in the next quarter. Also, we're distributing Ms. Blake's anti-possession tattoo sketches among tattoo shops. The negotiations with Pandora were successful, so anti-possession charms will be on sale soon too."
"Great job," Victor clapped him on his shoulder.
Dean vaguely remembered Calvin Reidy – in his past, the FBI agent together with Victor had arrested him and Sam the day when Lilith had launched a mass demonic attack on the local sheriff's office. Reidy wasn't as enthusiastic about hunting monsters as Victor was, but he did a heroic job and was dealing with all the red tape and organizational matters.
"Agent Harvelle, agent Lowry, you take the changeling, agent Wandell – crocotta is yours," Victor said. "Agent Winchester and I will hunt the demon. That's all we've got for now?"
"Sheriff Mills sent me details of one case in the morning," said Reidy. "A man was murdered under mysterious circumstances. I haven't looked into yet; if it's out kind of problem I'll delegate the case to agent Janklow."
"Let's get going then," said Dean, putting salt and holy water in the duffel. "Charlie, can you identify track the woman's phone location?"
"Already. It's a three hours' drive from here. I'll text you if it changes."
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Dean felt proud.
The FBI Supernatural Threats Branch wasn't perfectly organized yet, but they'd made impressive progress.
They'd started out as a team of eight people – he, Sam, who now was at Stanford, Cas, Victor and Reidy, Bobby, Jo, and Caleb. After some time other hunters had started to join, attracted by high salaries as well as health and life insurance, and now they had thirty-two hunters in different states. They'd printed their own textbook for newbies and were working on the two-week crash course program designed for FBI agents whom Victor planned to recruit.
There was still a long way to go. Ideally, they needed offices and at least five hunters in every state. Reidy's research showed they needed at least 250 hunters and 50 administrative workers to be comfortable.
Dean was optimistic. One day, their branch would be fully staffed and hunters would no longer have to forge documents, use fake credit cards, and hide from the police.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sam picked up the phone almost immediately. Dean could hear loud chattering in the background – students were probably having a lunch break now.
"Sam, when does your summer break start? I'm booking a hotel in Amsterdam. No, no flying, Cas will zap us. You think weed has an effect on angels? Relax, I'm joking. How are you anyway? Yeah, and why do you sound so pissed if you're fine?
"I've just had a lecture in religious studies. It's the elective I applied for," answered Sam.
"Don't tell me you told the prof the truth about God and everything I told you."
"Oh, I'm pretty sure the prof knows the truth," Sam snapped. "It's Gabriel."
"Come again?"
Dean hasn't heard anything from Gabriel since they killed Lilith.
"Gabriel teaches religious studies at Stanford now," Sam sighed. "He applied for the post right after I chose this elective."
Dean tried hard not to laugh.
"Well, who can teach religious studies better than the Messenger of God himself?"
"I'm thrilled," Sam deadpanned. "He promised to invite an expert on Norse paganism the next week. Do you have any idea who that might be?"
This time Dean couldn't contain laughter.
"I won't spoil the surprise, Sammy. But I'd sit in the last row if I were you."
Sam sighed. "Terrific. Well, at least Sarah doesn't worry anymore that I'll be eaten up by some kind of monster. She thinks it's good to have the archangel around. She visited me last week."
"Great. Finally you have someone but me to remind you to have a life."
"Yeah. Hope I'll survive the rest of the semester or Adam will have only one big brother at his graduation ceremony."
"It's gonna be fine. We'll have the best vacation ever."
Thank you for reading my story! Hope you liked it.
Comments are very welcome, I'm always excited to read your thoughts!