Days were starting to blend together and Sam tried to push away the crushing feeling he had each morning that somewhere he had failed. He had failed to save Dean from hell, failed to stop Lucifer from rising and keeping the demons from hurting Dean again, and now, failed to bring Dean home.

Time was starting to feel like it stood still yet just rushed past, a few hours blurring into a few days until he blinked and it was another month and his mind felt just as numb. Bobby had told him to park himself, figure out what he wanted to do now with his brother not in the driver's seat and it had been true. Dean had been the force behind hunting, the idea of saving people instead of just making vicious things bleed for all their sins. It had been the driving need behind his brother. John had always parroted the ideal, his brother had lived, breathed, and bled it.

It made Sam question just what Michael had been before. Did he have a wild side that stomped down evil while being able to console terrified children and bring his sick brother soup?

Thoughts like these were profoundly unhelpful when it was still a little dark outside and Sam got himself out of bed, dressing, though without Bobby here he felt the only reason he still bothered to get himself together was Cas. Not that the angel would care if he stayed in his boxers and T-shirt all day, but it felt lazy beside an eternal being even if Sam already felt like a burden.

He could smell coffee as he came down the stairs. Cas had picked up somehow how to work the thing once he sensed one of the humans awake. Sam liked to think it was because he and Bobby weren't always the most communicative early on and made a beeline to the thing, being frustrated by it taking too long in their clouded minds.

Sam quietly congratulated himself that he hadn't also become as reliant on a bottle as the old man.

Cas was staring out a window in the study, the lightening sky showing it was promising to be another stormy day. Bobby was out assisting two others in the field and Sam was waiting for the day when he got the notice that his profession was kaput because Dean went nuts and just wiped all monsters from existence. A part of him would miss it, part of him would want to know why no one did that in the first place or where the damn things even came from, to begin with.

Like, supposedly, a loving God decided to let these things run around with his most prized creation but then there was Lucifer, and Sam shoved the whole thing back in a box in his mind because all those questions only led him to confusion and resentment.

"Good morning, Sam."

"Hey."

Cas had turned a little, a slight nod towards him, and he considered, as he did every morning to ask about the angel's insistence on wearing the same clothes and like every morning, decided against it. The only reason it stood out was that it simply wasn't human. But decking the angel out in jogging shorts and a tank top wasn't going to take any of that away.

He got to the kitchen, taking down a mug, the coffee smelling good and he was almost hungry.

Without turning, he knew that Cas had drifted into the kitchen after him, and either to check up on him or simply out of boredom. It had become implicit that Cas was mainly on earth for him even without so many words. The angel was rarely away from him and no more than a couple of hours at most. Why that was – if he was simply seen as helpless or if there was a real fear for his safety, or a mix of both – he had never asked and didn't want to know. It was probably good that he wasn't left to his own devices and he wouldn't be surprised that after losing Dean in one of Gabriel's tricks, albeit in a much more traumatizing way, Gabriel had taken his own lesson to heart and made sure there was a 'keep Sam together' factor on earth while Dean was being Dean.

They rarely talked about Dean.

"What?" Sam asked, finding Cas staring intently at him when he did finally turn, mug at his lips. The angel made good coffee, though that had been more trial and error – more than a few days of going between weak as water and so much that each cup seemed half full of grounds from overflow.

"You should eat."

"Thanks." He rolled his eyes, not wanting to sounds as harsh as he did. "Not really hungry."

Cas was moving closer to him, eyes still on him and Sam knew what that expression was: concern.

"You've lost weight."

"Happens. Haven't been real faithful on my routines, need to run more." It was true, hard enough to get out of bed each morning let alone climb over the mountain of inertia to get him to put on his shoes at all.

"That is good since I would worry you would do harm to yourself."

"Don't need a nanny, Cas." He did snap now, instantly regretting it as he saw the angel shift away slightly, eyes dropping a little. "Sorry, didn't mean –"

There wasn't a good thing to say because he didn't want to talk about what was really bothering him and he just waved his hand, knowing Cas at least caught that movement. A lot of things he should be probably telling the angel and it wasn't like he didn't talk to Cas. He did. He had ended up telling Cas more about some things than he ever thought he would, not surprised to learn some of the stuff Cas had done himself, including the panic room door opening miracle, and had never been met with judgment. He'd felt better, went to sleep a little easier, not worried about Cas running off and gossiping with angel friends or Gabriel or anyone else.

Cas was safe to talk to, he knew this. Always gave Dean shit about not talking but at the end of the day, he just couldn't find his footing because the only person he had remotely talked to for years wasn't here.

"How's heaven?" he asked as their silence stretched into a couple of minutes and he realized he was fidgeting beside the table unsure what to do with himself for the next little while.

"They are as well as they can be."

Sam nodded, not sure if he should eat or go find a hunt or just go back to bed. Maybe it was being cooped up in the house so much. He had only done a handful of hunts, low-level stuff since being here and his biggest adventure each week was going grocery shopping, which the angel loved. Cas liked watching people, sniffing fruit, and asking strange, unnerving questions about products to the employees who probably inwardly groaned whenever they came in. It was the damn highlight of his week and wasn't that just sad?

"There's a breakfast special at the diner by the post office, some kind of fruit pancake combo deal."

Cas' face just lit up at that and Sam couldn't help a small smile. The angel had figured out strawberries a couple of days ago – and why they couldn't innately taste when in a vessel Sam didn't know – and had been wanting to try more fruit. Not like either he or Bobby had a garden here as his habits had fallen back to childhood standbys and college fare, packages, cans, and rarely from scratch.

The gaze Cas was leveling at him was hopeful and Sam felt a little overwhelmed by it. He knew the angel was over there plotting the best course to get Sam and him there, with Sam eating the main portion, Cas getting the pancakes, and the two of them actually doing something they both wanted to do without maybe feeling guilty about the whole damn thing.

He shifted a little on his feet, putting his cup on the table.

"You wanna go?"

"I'd like that."

Sam nodded, feeling uncomfortable still under that look, and just nodded again.

"I'll get the keys."

~x~

They sat in Singer's study, Castiel studying Sam as the man was restless tonight. He knew Michael came less and less frequently to ease his nightmares hidden from their sight. Some mornings Sam told him in a quiet voice that he had dreamed of something in their childhood, the happiness they both got so little of.

Thunder broke overhead, Sam shivered as he looked out the window. Castiel already knew what the man was thinking, of Dean being out there in that storm. Sam knew that his brother was not human, would not be threatened by the lightning, feel the chill of the rain on him if he was. All the same, it was that worry, of Dean suffering and Sam wanting to comfort him to care for him. There was little to be done until Michael decided to return home.

"It's been months, Cas," Sam's flat voice broke his reflection and he looked over, the hunter still looking out the window. "Months and months and I know he's alive. I feel him even if it's crazy but it's like he just can't come back."

Castiel bit back the words that were the truth that Michael felt he couldn't. They were already known and were raw wounds across all of them. Of what his brother was now so he tried to purge the wicked from the world without upsetting free will. Attempted to make it kinder and he knew the suffering Michael would see, how it would affect his soul.

He longed to tell him that heaven would welcome him back after hearing Father's voice after so long with the removal of Raphael but knew Gabriel was right. Michael was no more ready to accept that than he was that his human family still longed for him. The ramifications of Michael's condition meant that heaven was still a distant echo, faint whisperings lost in a sea of just earthly sounds, God's voice never reaching him.

This alone pained him in a way that he was unfamiliar with; had no words to even give it a voice.

Castiel reached out and laid a hand on Sam's shoulder, the hunter tilting his head to look up at him.

"I just – I just want him to come home. He doesn't have to stay I just -"

"I know," the angel said simply because there was little else that could be said. "He can hear us, Sam."

"I pray every day. Sometimes more. He'd probably tell me I have the worst prayers, all rambling and trying not to be angsty." The hunter curled a fist against the side of his thigh, the book still balanced in his lap. "I try to make myself not beg him to come back. To just tell him what we do, that we're alright. That he's missed."

Another sound of thunder that made the windows rattle slightly, the storm directly overhead now. Castiel tilted his head up, allowed his senses to flow outwards even though he already knew it was natural. That it was not caused by the grief of an angel.

"All we can do is love him," the angel told him and Sam nodded. More than likely thinking of his nightmares where Michael was broken and dying and Sam unable to save him. Watching his brother slip heartbroken and alone from this world forever. He had never been a great comforter, Dean had told him that once but it was his nature to want to help this human. He carefully squeezed the shoulder. Sam looked up more at him and smiled, his body less tense.

"Being here is probably really boring for you."

"It is not," Castiel intoned as the storm unleashed itself over them, rain beginning to come in droves now. He had learned of some human experiences when he was falling, those of restlessness and regret among them. "I do not feel I would ever be bored with this world if I knew such a thing."

Sam let out a laugh, and Castiel released his shoulder. The man turned back to his book and there was a strange feeling of safety. Of being inside against the elements that raged outside, among people who cared for him.

Castiel turned his face back towards the windows offering his own prayer to his brother, that he was always welcomed when he was ready.

~x~

It was harder to drown out the incessant hum in him, the one that drove him forward to wipe out all things that marred creation and he worried more about even seeing Sam from the shadows. The kid couldn't help what was done to him but that didn't mean that Dean couldn't smell it on him all the same. So, he tried to occupy himself more, focusing on demons that still lurked, feeling emboldened by Gabriel pulling most of the angels back to heaven and the dislike of a former cross-roads demon being their boss.

Dean always had to smile a little at Crowley's brazen act. The little upstart, after the re-caging of Satan, he apparently had deals in place to secure the crown. There was always a downside to having the keys and the good seat, and Dean was waiting for the reality of the strain to crash down on the demon's head when he caught the scent of something different. Faint, unusual, something not human but wanting to be, or at least attempting to be and he opened his wings landing behind a man struggling to keep walking.

Lucifer.

The effort the stay his hand, keep himself from manifesting was enormous when it shouldn't have been. After a glance, it was obvious his brother was suffering, steps shuffling, clothes damp, a rattling sound as he breathed, and a distinct cough that shook his body when it insisted on being heard. He looked like the vessel he fell to hell with, minus the soul – thankfully in heaven still where they had flung it when the trap was sprung – and the wear from an enraged archangel. Those blue eyes were cloudy as Lucifer tugged his coat around him tighter, trudging on the other side of a ditch that lined an old country highway. Not much else out here, just an occasional car that sped by without slowing, Lucifer long ago having given up any chance for a ride.

Dean drifted closer to listen to his mind and again had to still his hand.

All the thoughts crowded and focused with utter precision on one person, Sammy.

It made sense in a twisted sort of way. Not only was Sam the one human Lucifer would know to even go to, but it was also the human his brother would have been obsessed with alone in the darkness of hell. All his planning and scheming and moping centered around that one little bag of flesh and bone that was to bring his vengeance to all of this, even if he fell in the process. Dean was never going to claim to understand Lucifer's bizarre plan of the special children, of not just telling his demons to go pick up Sam Winchester, brother of Dean, when born, outside of the fact he doubted Lucifer trusted his creations more than any of this brothers.

A type of brazen hope littered the thoughts, some convoluted belief that Sam alone would understand what had happened to him and there was a sinking sensation in Dean that Sammy probably would. Here was Satan, banished back to hell and drug back up because Dad was in a good mood on his way out with Raphael, shuffling along an abandoned highway, broken and alone, and in need. His human brother was attempting to turn over a new leaf, figure out what he wanted to be doing, and not becoming a single-minded machine of revenge only echoing phrases about helping people when he really wanted to quell his anger. Sam would probably be terrified but would listen, especially since Morning Star had a clever tongue and the kid was still enamored by anything that could remotely be called an Act of God.

All of this mixed in with Lucifer's abject fear, reminders to himself to not pray, to not doing anything that could even remotely be a prayer, mixed frantic thought of 'Michael will find me, Michael will cast me away'.

Hearing that made the urge to just put a blade through his brother's heart to end his wickedness ease off a great deal. Lucifer, once a commander of heavenly armies, brightest of all Dad's works, wheezing and half dead trying to get to his human vessel to just get shelter.

It would be comical if he was someone, something else.

Reaching out a little as he walked beside his fallen brother, Michael tried to ease his breathing, take a little of the dampness from his clothes but felt his attempts blocked. He doubted being more aggressive would help and he let his hand fall, watching. His brother seemed to be denied heavenly intervention.

A truck was pulling to a stop, the window on the passenger side rolled down as an older man called out, "Hey, you need a ride?"

Lucifer stopped, standing so still, trembling and Michael wondered what had happened to him before this point to make him afraid.

Once, Lucifer would have never understood fear, now he stood bathed in it.

"Going to start raining again. Maybe take you up a ways so you ain't out here in the muck so much."

The man was genuine, nothing of ill-will or otherworldly floating off him, and Lucifer did look pale, tired, and just worn down out here in the brown grass and mud of the ditch.

Small drops of rain seem to coach Lucifer a bit more on accepting a ride at all as he cautiously stepped closer, working his way towards the shoulder, arms still around him unless he needed them for balance.

"I –" Lucifer stopped, coughing a little, his voice hoarse and the man looked more concerned. "Just trying to reach someone."

"Best to reach them with a firmer foot on this side of the living, then."

The lock on the passenger door was popped and swung open as the man scooted back to his side. Lucifer managed to get into the cab, Dean noticing how much his hands shook as his brother closed the door. After a moment's hesitation, Lucifer reached down and began rolling up the window and Dean moved onto the bench seat between them, unknown and unseen.

It was an old truck, not uncommon in the area, well-loved but slowly giving in to the elements with small areas of rust on the outside, worn carpeting, and faded dials within. The bench seat itself had been carefully repaired over and over again and the engine was still smooth as it idled.

"Under the seat there, a blanket. Look downright chilled."

Lucifer was still cautious as he put his hand under, his thoughts alarmed and unsteady, thinking it was some kind of trap and his brother was wary of things he could no longer sense anymore. Not just demons but monsters that took human form and his apprehension wasn't unwarranted even if it made his thoughts loud. Insistence in his brother's mind that there was no kindness, that these types of things were just a means to an end turned and fell over each other, stuck on repeat.

But Lucifer was also exhausted, hurting, and cold.

It was just a blanket, Dean knew it as his brother pulled it out and after wavering for a second, unfolded it and immediately curled up under it. The heat was being turned up in the cab, even though the driver himself was already a bit warm.

What surprised Dean was that as they started down the road again he heard Lucifer murmur 'thank you', the man just nodding a little having sensed that Lucifer was fearful and didn't need yammering in his ear. They were words he would have sworn Lucifer didn't know the meaning of but that was wrong. Lucifer, in these minutes, was truly thankful, wrapped up, not shaking so much, not quite as cold and Dean stayed with him, his uneasiness as his fallen brother closed the distance between himself and Sam.

No matter what purpose this whole exercise was serving, Michael wasn't sure he would be able to let Lucifer live in the end.