The Miracle Within

by BlackAster

Co-written with iamadreamysoul (on Ao3) for the 2k18 DeanCasMiniBang Challenge, with the cooperation of our amazing assigned artist, ShadowPaintedRose (check her out on Tumblr!) Spoilers for the first 5 episodes of season 13, warning for mild gore and disturbing themes. Full summary inside.

2. Chapter 2

It took the four less than two hours to get the city and, once reached their destination, they decided to split up. They would have covered more ground more quickly that way and, besides, it would have been more credible for FBI agents to investigate in pairs and not in a small group. Since Jack still wanted to learn as much as possible about hunting and to improve his "fake police" act, they agreed that that the nephilim had better stick with one of the Winchesters. While Castiel already had some solid hunting knowledge and had even managed a few cases on his own, he hardly had the amount of experience that the two brothers had and he still had to learn a few things about human interactions, despite all the years he had spent on Earth. They would have caught less attention if each celestial being had been paired up with one of the hunters.

Surprisingly enough, Jack was the one to make the choice for everyone. While, on one side, he would have rather go with Sam because he and the younger Winchester got along much better than he and the elder did, that wasn't the main reason behind his choice. He could tell that Dean felt much better now that Castiel was back, but he also understood that the men still had some unsolved issues, and not just because the angel had more or less implied it during their talk. There was a lingering, weird tension between them, despite the friendly way in which they acted around each other, and it was so evident that anyone who knew the two a little bit would have spotted it. So, in the boy's mind, they would have probably benefited from some alone time .

Sam of course instantly agreed with the nephilim's proposal. He had been aware of the many things unsaid and lingering in the air since the trip back to the Bunker and he honestly couldn't wait for his brother to figure them out. An edgy Dean was never good news and so the sooner the other hunter would have dealt with whatever was still bothering him, the better would have been for everyone.

On his part, the older Winchester, while reluctant, didn't really oppose the idea, mostly because he couldn't come up with a good objection that wouldn't have made him sound like an asshole or like he was avoiding Castiel on purpose. He had no choice but accepting to be paired up with the angel, since the latter, as expected, offered no resistance to the idea either. On the contrary, the older hunter had the feeling that Castiel had been hoping for such a result and the fact made him slightly uneasy, as irrational as it might sound.

After another brief discussion, they agreed that, while Sam and Jack would have checked on the latest crime scene, Dean and Castiel would have gone and talked to the local police and to the coroner, making sure to have a look at the corpses. If that case had something to do with the supernatural, either the bodies of the victims or the places where they had been killed would have brought something unusual to their attention.

Unfortunately, things didn't turn out to be as easy as Dean had hoped. The corpses didn't reveal anything too out of the norm, unless one counted the replaced organs, which were different for every time. Once it was the liver, another the heart, then the pancreas, the intestines and so on. In one case, it was the brain, which showed that whoever had committed the murders had to have a certain knowledge and experience when it came to human bodies and anatomy. That fact was also testified by the fact that the parts had been removed with a certain precision, even if it was also clear that it couldn't be the work of a surgeon. For the rest, though, the autoptic reports didn't offer much intel. There was no sign that the organs had been eaten and, besides, for all they knew there was no creature that ate all the body parts separately . It could have still been the work of some very human psycho, so not exactly their field.

After far too long talks with the sheriff and his agents and some researching through the case files, Dean texted Sam what they had found, or rather what theyhadn't , and the four opted to go and check all the other crime scenes, looking for any possible connection among the deaths or anything out of the norm.

During the hours they spent working side by side, Castiel couldn't help it and kept watching Dean carefully, still feeling worried about his friend and knowing that there were too many things they needed to talk about. Whenever they had been alone, in the car or inside the empty houses they were checking, the angel had tried to start a conversation about Jack or the hunter himself or his best friend's feelings, but each time the older Winchester had either cut him off or abruptly changed the subject, without really answering him, and had refused to talk about anything else that wasn't the case.

After the umpteenth failed attempt, the angel, while not feeling like giving up without a fight but understanding that his insistence would have taken him nowhere for the moment, had decided that, perhaps, it would be better to give Dean some time to adjust to the new situation and gather his thoughts. The man was probably still confused and unsettled by the many contrasting emotions he had experienced in such a short amount of time. Castiel realised that, while on one side his returned seemed to have given Dean some vitality back, on the other it had still been just another earthquake that had shaken the human's world, even if, for once, it hadn't been an unwelcome one. Still, even good news, when so sudden and unexpected, could require a period of adjustment. Just like human eyes needed some time to get used to the light once again, after having been staring in the dark for a very long time.

After a few hours of working on the crime scenes, the group met up again to compare all the informations they had managed to gather. Castiel instantly deduced that Sam and Jack had to have had more luck than he and Dean, because they both were looking quite excited and they were wearing matching triumphant expressions that screamed, loudly and clearly, "news".

"Guess what we found," the younger Winchester greeted them once they were all standing in front of the car, grinning at his brother and angelic friend. He held up a small bag made of a piece of cloth, kept close by a leather string, for them to see. If the familiar appearance had left any doubts on what it might be, the rune painted on it would have deleted them. "Hex bag! Apparently it's our kind of case and… We got a witch."

Dean let out a disgruntled sound at the news. He had seen a lot during the years spent hunting. Monsters of all kinds, the most disgusting things, and the scariest ones too. He had witnessed a couple of ends of the world, fought demons and angels. He had been to Hell and Purgatory. He had faced God's freaking sister and met the Almighty himself. However, even after all that, he was still of the opinion that nothing was worse than witches . Their acquaintance with Rowena had done nothing to change his mind on the matter, either. On the contrary, it had just made him even more hellbent in his beliefs.

"Damn. I should have guessed it, with that unhealthy obsession with organ replacements," he grumbled under his breath, a disgusted expression contorting his face. "Let's hope that whoever is doing this mess isn't making doll-people like that witch in Rock Rivers." He shook his head. That had been a nasty affair and it had had a very high price for the people involved. "I hate witches."

Jack exploited the small pause that followed the comment to step in, with a grin that was wider than the younger hunter's. "At least we found a proof that can tell us what we're dealing with. Must have been one messy witch, right? Or maybe someone inexperienced… Or perhaps they have just been sloppy or too emotional and forgot about it!" He rattled on, happy to have progress with the case. "Well, lucky us."

"Lucky us indeed," the older hunter mumbled in response, not ever remotely sharing the boy's enthusiasm, voice filled with sarcasm. The unhappiness in his comeback, though, wasn't directed at the nephilim this time. He was just annoyed with what that case had turned out to be about. And yet, despite not seeing what there could be so exciting in the news that they would be hunting down a damned witch, he still couldn't help a small smile at the boy's efforts to be helpful.. "But...Good job, kid."

Castiel and Sam exchanged a small, exasperated shake of head at his tone and an almost surprised look at the smile. Dean pretended to ignore both gestures for everyone's sake, his own in particular, and, instead, he fished out the key of the Impala. "Come on," he went on. "Let's go grab something to eat. I'm starving . Then we'll see what else we've managed to put together."

No one protested and they all got in the care. Dean didn't dare to even suggest that they should send Jack to grab the food, as he had been doing lately, especially not in front of Cas and not after all the realisations and the change of heart he had had. So, instead, the Winchesters chose a small diner not too far away from the police station and the four gathered around the table at the bottom of the main room, letting the waitress take their orders before addressing the case again. The place was quiet and almost deserted, also because it was a bit too late for eating and most of the usual patrons had already consumed their lunch and gone home. The perfect setting to talk about spells and witches and corpses without anyone eavesdropping.

The quick meal was spent discussing what their next move should be. Since none of them had a clue of what kind of spell the witch could be doing, they agreed that the best thing to do would be researching the victims thoroughly and trying to find any link between them. Usually the targets of a witch had a connection, be it a place, a living or dead person, a specific event. Discovering it was what allowed hunters to trace the spells back to whoever had been casting them and they hoped to be able to do the same that time too.

So, once they were done eating, they parted ways again, each pair taking a few victim files to investigate and that was how the rest of the day was spent. By the time the sky had started to darken, they had learned that all of the murdered people somehow knew each other. There wasn't a common, fixed denominator, since some of them had met during seasonal work, others at local parties, and a few while doing business together. However, they seemed to be all connected, one way or another. More in depth researches had also brought up the fact that, from all of that circle of friends and acquaintances, there was one person not dead yet, but who had been reported as missing some weeks before the beginning of the murders. Considering the circumstance, it couldn't be a coincidence.

As first thing in the morning, after getting some quick breakfast, Sam and Jack went to visit the missing guy's only living relative, who happened to be his sister. The police report of the disappearance hadn't told them anything that couldn't have been deduced by the facts and by using a bit of common sense, so, if there was someone who could have offered some real intel about what might have happened to the man it was her. None of them was very hopeful since, according to the transcript of the woman's interrogation at the time of the events, she had claimed to know nothing, but it was worth looking into it.

Cas and Dean, instead, remained at the motel. They didn't have any other lead at the moment and showing up all four at the woman's house might have done more harm than good. The older hunter, for once, didn't complain about having been left on the sidelines. It had taken him an unhealthy amount of coffee and greasy breakfast to return to the world of the living that morning, because after dinner he had decided to leave the others to their affairs and go for a walk. Or, at least that had been the idea, but his night had lasted longer and become busier than he had planned.

After they had driven back to their room, Dean had left the motel parking lot wanting to have some alone time, to sort out the thoughts that had haunted him all day, and surely not intending to gain a hangover, especially since they were on a case. However, at some point of his walk, he had found that he had nowhere else to go in the unfamiliar city, and, since he hadn't been ready to go back to the motel just yet, he had ended up in the closest bar. He had sat down at the counter and ordered himself a drink. The alcohol was supposed to be nothing but a distraction, and not a remedy for his emotional pain as it had been in the last weeks. For once, he hadn't been feeling the boiling need to down it in a go and ask for more. He had been just wishing for something to keep his hands busy while he was busy examining his head, something familiar that could ground him without pushing him to drift off completely.

The realisation had struck him deeply for how unusual it was, especially considering the precedents, and for the rest of the evening he had remained lost in his thoughts, ordering more glasses merely out of habit and even ignoring the barmaid's attempts at flirting. Before he could realise it, a few hours had passed and, since closing time had been approaching, he had found himself stumbling back to the motel, half drunk and with the blonde's phone number, which he had had no intention to get or use, stashed in the pocket of his jacket. The paper napkin, in fact, had ended up in the trash a moment before he had collapsed on his bed and passed out.

He remembered thinking about how glad he had been that Sam had gone to sleep already when he had come back, because he hadn't been in the mood for a scolding. Or in any shape to bear it. Castiel and Jack had been up, instead, since none of them really slept, but they had chosen, for everyone's sake, not to acknowledge his state. The angel had refrained from commenting and had just greeted him, while the nephilim had looked at him curiously when he had ruffled his hair while passing him. Dean had no idea of why he had. It had been a gesture born out of instinct, as most things he did while wasted were.

Now he was once again alone with Castiel and the latter was patiently waiting for his friend to make himself presentable, giving him time and personal space, even if he was worried. The angel could still sense that Dean was constantly troubled by something and the little drunk show the human had put on the night before had just deepened his concern.

When Dean finally emerged from the bathroom, dressed and looking soberer and mostly awake, Castiel decided that it was his chance to try again to get some answers. "Dean, we need to talk," he started in a tone that, while still soft, was more determined than the ones he had used during his previous attempts to approach the subject. He didn't want to scare the other off immediately, but he also didn't want to be cut off for the umpteenth time. "I'm worried…"

"Cas, I already told you. This isn't a good time for some chick flick crap," Dean interjected just as he had done all the previous times, without allowing the angel to even finish the sentence. He rubbed his face and let out a heavy sigh. He knew very well where that speech would end. His best friend being worried meant that he didn't want to talk about Jack, which would have been bad enough, but that he wanted to discuss Dean's condition, which was even worse. The hunter knew that he couldn't have kept on deflecting forever, but he still hoped that he could have bought enough time to be able to clear his head and force himself to face whatever was wrong with him.

"Then when is the time going to be right? We can't keep postponing important matters. We can never know when we might lose the chance to, Dean," Cas stated, almost echoing the older Winchester's thoughts, sounding deadly serious.

The angel knew that he was right. Having been killed again and finding himself thinking that, this one time, he wouldn't be allowed to come back had made him understand that in their lives nothing lasted forever and that the "right time" might never come. The clock kept ticking, merciless and uncaring of their needs and wishes. They had lost so many chances in the past, precious occasions that would never come back, for the sake of being too stubborn or too prideful. How many more would they have to lose before learning that lesson fully? How many subjects would stay unspoken because one of them would end up dead again before they could find the courage to talk, before it would be once again too late? And what if the next time the end would have been really permanent?

"Dammit, Cas," Dean started to shoot back, feeling anger and exasperation building in his chest. He didn't want to fight, not when his best friend had been back only for a bit more than a day, but he didn't know how else to react. Why couldn't the angel understand that he couldn't face that now? He couldn't have even if he had wanted to. Not when he didn't even know what exactly he was supposed to be dealing with. Not when he couldn't put up with whatever long overdue epiphany was waiting ahead for him, hidden behind the thick wall of his denial, with whatever harsh truth was pushing for him to open his eyes and just accept to see it. "I told you no-"

Before he could finish the sentence and speak words that he might have ended up regretting later, he was interrupted by the ring of his phone. He didn't waste any time to answer, gladly turning away from Castiel to get the call. For once his brother had had the best timing, saving him from a discussion he wasn't ready and especially willing to have. Not yet, and perhaps not ever . "Yeah, Sam?"

"Hey. Well… she's not home, but Jack had a bad feeling and convinced me to get inside the house and it turns out, she's our witch ," the younger hunter's voice replied from the other side of the line . "She has a bunch of spell books and we found potions and ingredients and other weird stuff in the basement."

"Dammit, alright." Dean rubbed his forehead. Why couldn't things be a bit easier, at least for once? "Stay there and look around. Maybe you'll find some leads to our missing guy or maybe she keeps him there somewhere?"

"Okay, we can do that. Listen, I found an old employee entry pass to a local museum. It's like two streets away from our motel."

"Good. Cas and I will check that one out. Give me a call if she comes back and we'll join you. You two be careful there."

" You too. Don't do anything rushed. "

Dean nodded, even if Sam couldn't see him, and ended the call before turning back to Castiel, their previous conversation long forgotten. "Let's go, we gotta find a witch," he said, reaching out to grab his jacket and his gun. He had loaded it with witch-killing bullets after they had found out what they would be dealing with. If the bitch wasn't home, perhaps she could be at that damned museum. He almost hoped that they would find her there. A fight was what he needed to get all that tension out of his body. Maybe, in the aftermath, he might have felt like thinking a bit more.

Castiel bit back a sigh, but nodded without voicing all the protests that had come to his lips. Perhaps Dean was right, perhaps it wasn't the right time to have that conversation, in spite of everything. The case had the priority, so, for now, he would have let the matter rest and waited until the hunt was over.

It took them around twenty minutes to reach the museum and Dean groaned at the sight of it. "You gotta be kidding me. A freaking doll museum ? Could this fucking case get more creepy?" He commented as they headed for the entrance. And then Sam had the guts to talk back when he complained about witches being the worst, weirdest shit they had to deal with.

Once inside, the hunter immediately stalked off to talk to the receptionist and learned that the woman they were looking for was indeed one of the museum employees. The man informed him that her job consisted for the most in repairing and restoring the dolls. However, she had yet to come to work that day, which was unusual, since he couldn't recall a day she had skipped, not even after her brother's disappearance.

The fact made Dean even more suspicious. Experience had taught him that a shift in the suspects' behaviour patterns was never a good sign. It usually meant that they were planning something bigger and nastier. Perhaps it could mean that their witch was approaching the final stage of her plan. They had to find and stop her before that happened, quickly. They were running out of time.

With renewed determination, he flashed his FBI badge, gesturing Castiel to do the same, and demanded to be allowed entrance and permission to have a look around the museum. The receptionist almost seemed to be about to protest, but when his eyes fell away from the badge and on the gun that the hunter was carrying in the waistband of his jeans he seemed to change his mind. Whatever his colleague had done to bring the FBI to their workplace, he didn't want to be involved. So he just shrugged and told them to have fun. The older Winchester grumbled a sarcastic comment at that, but didn't stop to discuss further, marching past the gate that had been opened for them instead, the angel hot on his heels.

Even if it was almost obvious that they wouldn't have found anything there, the two chose to have a look at the main part of the museum, the one open to the public, just to be sure. The place was bigger than it had appeared from the outside and the rooms were divided according to what age the dolls on show belonged to. There were also a couple of corridors where temporary exhibition had been set up, gathering objects from different centuries, all revolving around the same theme.

Despite the hurry that their search imposed on them, the hunter couldn't help stopping in front of some of the showcases, his eyes captured either by the creepy realism of some of the dolls or by the absurdity of the costumes they were wearing. He really couldn't fathom why people would be willing not just to pay to own some of those odd pieces of "art", but also to come in places like that one and spend hours looking at them. The appeal was completely lost to him and he, in a way, was thankful. It meant that he would never risk going crazy and start doing some fucked up black magic that implied stealing organs and replacing them with fake ones for who knows what reason. If he had gone nuts, again , he would have probably just leave behind some normal gory scenes.

Once they were done checking the various room, without having found anything relevant, they stopped another employee, asking where the laboratories were set, and the woman directed them to the basement, adding that she thought of having seen the person they were looking for heading down there a couple of hours before, even if she wasn't completely sure. Castiel and Dean exchanged a look. If the witch hadn't gone back home after sneaking inside, she was probably still in the labs. There was no more time to waste.

Saying that the basement was spooky would have been an understatement. The lights were low and the old floor was stained with substances of different colours. They were most likely whatever things the restorers used to fix the broken or damaged dolls, but Dean couldn't help thinking that some of the smudges looked like dried blood. The fact that the long corridor, with the doors of the several labs that opened on it, reminded him of the ones of an abandoned asylum didn't help the mental picture he was slowly building in his head. He wanted to find the bitch, shoot her and be done with that place. And he wanted it to happen fast .

They began to check the rooms, one by one, finding them deserted. There seemed to be no one and nothing there, aside from the working tools and the lines of dolls still waiting for repairs. Their empty eyes gave the older Winchester the creeps and, when he turned to look at Castiel, he found the angel frowning too. That couldn't be a good sign. He was almost tempted to ask the other if he was perceiving something in particular or if he was simply as disturbed as he was by the general atmosphere, but decided that risking to speak and perhaps alerting the witch wasn't worth it. So he just closed the door of the room they had just finished looking at and moved to the next one.

Castiel, on his part, remained quiet too. There was something in the air, a vibe that he couldn't fully decode. It was dark, powerful and it tasted like danger. Ancient magic, of the kind that always demanded a very high price from whoever practiced it. A price that was paid with significative amounts of blood and living sacrifices. Whatever was going on in the basement of that building wasn't good. He felt glad that Jack and Sam hadn't found the woman at home. As irrationally as it might sound, he didn't want her anywhere near the boy. The nephilim would have been no match for any human, not even a powerful witch, one at Rowena's level, but Jack was still learning to use his powers and who knows what kind of damage could have been done before he had managed to fight her back.

They checked a few more laboratories before they ended up in front of a door that seemed to be locked. The dark vibe was stronger there and it seemed to come from inside the room. Castiel turned to offer Dean a nod and the hunter silently met his eyes, before extracting his gun. His shoulders tensed slightly, body preparing for a fight, before he shot the lock and kicked the door open, raising his weapon, ready to fire again.

The room that presented to them, however, was empty, or so it seemed. The place was wrapped in dim darkness and was just as quiet as the rest of the basement. They slowly walked inside, glancing around carefully for any sign of movement. It wasn't much different from the others either and was filled with shelves and instrumentation not dissimilar from the one they had already seen. There were even a few dolls perched around. However, unlike the other laboratories, this one was dustier and most of the tools looked like they hadn't been used in quite some time.

What almost immediately caught Castiel's and Dean's attention, though, wasn't the dirt or the stale smell of the air, but the makeshift hospital set at the bottom of the room. Laying on it there was a man, hooked to some medical equipment that seemed to be a more outdated, less shinier version of the machines that filled the Styne family's labs. The older Winchester shivered at the memory of his last visit to the mansion and of what he had done. The terrified, helpless look in Cyrus's eyes still haunted him at times and he was sure that it would never stop.

Dean shook his head and did his best to chase away those thoughts. That wasn't the right moment for a trip down the darkest meanderings of his memory lane, especially the parts that concerned his period as the Bearer of the Mark. He had already too much he needed to deal with and rivisiting major traumas and regrets wouldn't help him. Not to mention that he was in the middle of a hunt and he should stay focused on the present. And, besides, that was a part of his existence he wished he could just forget, since he couldn't unmake it.

So, instead, he lowered his weapon a bit and approached the bed. The man didn't look in good shape. Quite the contrary. He was bare-chested and the hunter had reasons to believe that, under the sheets, the lower half of his body had to be naked too. His skin was pale, too pale to be healthy or even alive , even if his chest raised and fell regularly thanks to the ventilator to which his lungs were connected. There were several sewed wounds all over his flesh, as if someone had assiduously opened him up several times and then stitched him back together. The result was quite creepy and the fact that the guy's face was a mess of badly healed bruises just made the show even more disturbing. There was blood caked on one side of his head and the skull seemed hollow too there, but it was hard to be sure, with how swollen the flesh was.

Dean made a face. He couldn't even tell for certain if the guy was dead or alive. From the smell, he would be ready to bet on the former, despite the fact that the medical equipment showed actual life signs. He tilted his head, studying the stranger's features more attentively. They seemed familiar now that he had the chance to have a better look at the body and, suddenly, his mind connected all the dots. He knew this man. He was the missing person they had been trying to track down.

"Holy shit!" He hissed under his breath and made to turn towards Castiel. "Hey, dude, com…"

He couldn't finish the sentence, though, because, out of the blue, a wave of energy hit him, sending him flying against the wall. His head collided with the hard surface and he let out a heavy curse as his sight blurred. Apparently they weren't alone in the room. The witch had to have been hiding somewhere, most likely behind one of the shelves, in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to strike. He swore mentally. He shouldn't have got distracted.

As soon as his vision started to clear again, with a groan that was both pained and angry, he struggled to get back on his feet, his fingers finding something hot and wet in the spot where his skull had impacted with the cement. His head was spinning, badly enough to tell him that he had probably gained a concussion, but his mind still managed to reconnect with the present just in time to register some shouted, foreign words. The voice speaking them was female, but it was distorted by whatever spell it was chanting, to the point that it sounded almost demonic. Then, suddenly, a flash of blinding light filled the previously dark room and the next sound, which followed after an eerie silence, made Dean's blood run cold and a sick feeling spreading in his stomach. Another, loud scream. And this time it was Castiel's voice.

While Dean had headed straight for the makeshift hospital bed, Castiel had lingered backwards, looking around and studying the dim darkness that surrounded the room. He now had no doubts that the dark energy he was sensing came from inside that room, but he couldn't pinpoint the precise source of that power and he didn't like it.

His deep blue eyes scanned the room once again, looking for answers. Part of the magical energy seemed to be emanated by the man, or the corpse , lying on the bed. He could see the human's soul, under the sewed pallor of the skin, but there was something off about it. Something unnatural . It was as if the soul had been encaged and stitched to its material body, just as most parts of the stranger seemed to be. It shouldn't have been there, not anymore, but someone had stolen it away from its rightful place and forced it back in the almost rotting flesh.

The angel paused his search for a moment, fixing his gaze on the unconscious human the hunter was examining. The sight was disturbing, to say the least, as very few things he had witnessed were. And he had seen a lot during the centuries. Abominations, monsters, demons, the souls tortured in Hell, every kind of hybrid, soulless humans. Purgatory was filled with horrors and he and Dean had spent a whole year trapped there. For some reason, though, the vision of that particular spirit, withering inside its material confinement and attached to it by an ugly black thread, made his Grace tremble. Not in fear, but in disgust . Even if the magic that was being attempted there had been successful, it wouldn't have been able to stop the soul's decay. It would have gone on decomposing inside its forced prison, like a spoilt piece of flesh deprived of the blood vessels and the oxygen that were necessary to keep it alive and healthy. However, while a physical gangrene would eventually kill its bearer, there was no predicting what kind of monster could have been born out of a rotting soul.

Dean's cursing was what brought him back to the present, breaking the trail of the the thoughts in which he had lost himself without realising it. However, the angel didn't have the time to react, just as the hunter wasn't able to finish his sentence, because the blast of energy hit him too, catching him off guard, with enough force to shove him down on the cold, dusty floor.

A groan was torn out of Castiel's lips, but, unlike the older Winchester, he wasn't incapacitated and managed to recover almost instantly. His eyes darted towards the source of the wave of energy and quickly found the figure of their aggressor. She was standing a few metres away from him, just next to one of the metal shelves near the wall. The piece of furniture was slightly moved, which made it plausible to think that the woman had been hiding behind it, pressed against the wall, hidden in the dark. Her dark clothes were covered in dust, fact that seemed to be supporting that hypothesis. The lack of light had been the perfect cover for her hideout, making it seem just one of the many thick shadows and, if she hadn't come out, they would have probably never noticed her.

Those weren't, though, the thoughts that ran through the angel's mind as he looked at her. Instead he took in the unhealthy whiteness of her skin, which made her look barely alive, just as the man in the bed, the deep, dark bags under her bloodshot eyes and the desperate rage that filled her expression. She had to have been a beautiful woman, with flooding dark hair and very attractive light green irises, before the pain, the mourning and the obsession had taken over and consumed her. Now she just looked like a too thin shell that, once full of life, was now possessed by nothing but dark power, suffocating emptiness and the hints of a budding, already deep madness.

The witch let out an almost animalistic hiss and raised her hands. The tips of her fingers started to glow with magical energy, shocking red sparks vibrating on her skin as she prepared to attack again, and her eyes widened, flaring with the same crimson light. She wasn't tall and, if Castiel had been standing, she would have barely reached past his shoulders, but in that moment, as the power grew around her, she gave off the impression that she could have easily towered over both him and Dean.

The air suddenly became thick again and the angel decided that it was his clue to hurry up and do something, before she could hit one of them again. In a second, he was back on his feet, angel blade firmly held in his hand, and he was launching him towards the woman. He managed to tackle her before she could launch her spell, which had seemed to be aimed in Dean's direction. Perhaps it had been a rushed move, especially considering what had happened the last time he had thrown himself on an enemy that was attacking the Winchesters, but he didn't stop to think. He wasn't fighting Lucifer, or one of his brothers. As powerful as she might be, his adversary was still human. It was a risk he could take, or at least this was what he was trying to tell himself. The knowledge still wasn't enough to prevent a hollow feeling to settle inside his chest, in the same spot where the Morningstar's blade had emerged when the archangel had stabbed him.

The two rolled on the dusty floor, the blade dangerously swinging between their chests. Despite her scrawny looks, the witch was incredibly strong, even though it was hard to tell if it was the effect of the umpteenth spell or if it was that unique kind of strength that only desperation could gift. He had witnessed humans doing the unthinkable, and the impossible , just because they had been plumbed in the depths of hopelessness, pain and loss. So, when the woman eventually managed to shove him off, he wasn't completely caught off guard and that allowed him to quickly get back on his feet.

However, this time he wasn't fast enough. The witch didn't bother to raise from where she had ended up on her knees and instead she started to chant, the reddish energy filling her eyes once again. Castiel found that he couldn't move, his Grace and wings trapped in the invisible net that the ancient curse was weaving around him. He could just watch, as her voice grew louder and deeper, hoarser, until an explosion of light blinded him. At that point, whatever had been forcing him into stillness suddenly disappeared and he stumbled forward, reaching out blindly for his opponent, groping the electricity-filled air in front of him.

What happened next was too quick for him to register. His fingers closed around the cloth of the woman's shirt, but she hastily yanked it out of his grasp. All he felt after that were a push, which made him spin around, her hand on his shoulder, brutal and tough, and then a shock of pain running down his spine as something sharp sunk past his skin and muscles, sticking itself between his vertebras and tearing apart everything it found.

He didn't even realise that he was screaming until he heard the echo of his own voice filling the room. His legs gave out, losing sensibility, and he felt panic surging in his chest as the terrifying memories of the last, deadly wound he had received exploded in his mind. He struggled to breathe and to regain control of himself, fighting back the paralysing dread that was threatening to take over him. Despite the biting pain and the damage to his vessel, he tried to remind himself that he hadn't been stabbed with an angel blade. The knife, or whatever the witch had used to wound him, hadn't been pushed through his true core. The burning in his true form wasn't real, present. It was a vivid memory, not a reality. He wasn't being pushed down into the nothingness of the Empty once again. Not this time.

He closed his eyes and tried to focus on estimating the real extent of the damage he had received. There was blood pouring out of the wound and he could tell that part of his spinal nerves had been cut off, but the main issue was that he couldn't heal himself. He still felt his Grace, but it was as if it was stuck, encaged inside his vessel in a way that wasn't so dissimilar from the forced bond that was keeping the soul trapped inside the unconscious man's body. He couldn't access his powers and that left him as vulnerable as any human, even if more resilient. The wound wouldn't kill him, or at least it shouldn't have, as long as they managed to find a way to free his trapped essence.

His mind raced. It had to be the effect of whatever curse the woman had launched on him before attacking. She had somehow sealed his angelic powers and, most likely, the only way to undo it was to track her down and force her to lift the spell. Or kill her.

"Cas!"

Dean's voice snapped him out of his thoughts and moment later the hunter had more or less thrown himself next to him on the floor, a hand gripping hard at his arm as he helped Castiel to turn on his side. The human's green orbs were filled with the same kind of panic that the angel himself had experienced just a few moments before and they were frantically moving between his face and the wound on his back.

"That bitch !" The older Winchester growled out, his breath coming out in too short pants, more because of his emotional turmoil than because of his injuries.

As soon as he had recovered from hearing his best friend's scream, he had bolted towards the fallen angel, tripping on one of the old medical machines in the process. His hip was aching in the spot where the sturdy plastic corner had dug into his flesh, but he was barely aware of it, just as he wasn't paying any attention at the pulsing pain in the back of his head. Or to the fact that he was feeling slightly nauseous. All he could focused on was the sweat that covered Castiel's pained expression and the blood that had already spread a ruby, large stain on the back of the other's trench coat.

His hands shook as the image of the last time he had been kneeling at Castiel's side flashed in his mind. The angel had been dead back then and he couldn't help the irrational fear that it would be happening again. He didn't know what he would have done if it had. He didn't want to fall back into that endless darkness, consumed by that never satisfied, burning and yet dull pain that had filled his days and his thoughts. He didn't want to lose the sight of the light once again, to drown in the shadows of his own demons. He didn't want to crave for nothing but self-destruction once again, gripping at every single bottle of alcohol he could reach and jumping on every chance he got to cover the emotional sorrow with physical aching. He didn't want to go back dumping on Sam's shoulders the burden of keeping them all standing, to go back being unable to hope. He didn't want to lose that one single win that had been his only lifesaver. It would have been too much to bear.

" Fuck !" He cursed again, his voice sounding much angrier than before. Why wasn't the angel healing himself? Should he remove that cursed thing stuck in his back? And what the hell was it? "Who's the madman that stabs people with a fucking scalpel ?!" Honestly, he couldn't have cared less about with what the witch had stabbed his best friend in that moment, but the words were tumbling out of his mouth without control. "This is sick! This, the freaking zombie in that bed and...and all these damned broken dolls and -"

"Dean," Castiel tried to step in, but from how unfocused the hunter's eyes were it was easy to tell that the human hadn't heard him as he went on ranting. Despite his own conditions, he couldn't help feeling a deep worry growing in his chest. The only times he had seen the older Winchester so panicked had been when Sam had been in grave danger, but even in those situations, for the most, Dean had always managed to regain the slightest hint of control. Right now, instead, he looked like he had lost it completely. He had to do something, before the human gave himself a heart attack.

" Dean !" He tried again, in a firmer, louder voice. He even forced himself to reach out and grab his best friend's arm, squeezing it as hard as he could with his numb fingers.

This time, the man seemed to hear him, because he cut himself off mid-sentence and his green eyes finally moved away from the wound and landed once on the angel's face. He didn't speak a word, but he looked like he had in part regained a connection with reality and Castiel decided that, for the moment, it was good enough.

"Dean, I am not going to die," the angel resumed, spelling each word slowly, to make sure that they sank in. It hadn't been hard to guess that they had both shared the same fear, with the difference that he had managed to calm himself down, while Dean's thoughts had to have spiralled down towards the worst-case scenario. "The witch put a curse on me. I cannot access my Grace. That's why I'm bleeding and why I can't move. But I'm still an angel. It's just a flesh wound for me. I can hold on, Dean." Or at least that was what he hoped. However, he couldn't afford to give into those doubts, for the sake of them both. "But I need your help."

The hunter shook his head. Later, remembering that episode, he would have probably felt embarrassment, remembering how he had lost his cool, but in that moment his head still felt too light and his heart still beat too fast to allow him to care. The thought that Castiel couldn't heal himself, that he might keep on bleeding, until his vessel would be drained, was scaring the hell out of him, but his best friend was right. They could work with it. He just needed to get a grip of himself and stop acting like an idiot. He had spent his whole life working under pressure, he had walked on thin ice more often than not, knowing that his choices could either save or doom the whole world. He wouldn't allow his own emotions to overwhelm him. Not when he might be able to save the angel this time.

"I know! Like hell I'm letting you die again!" He exclaimed, with more vehemence than it was necessary, and he had to bite back a wince at the loud sound of his own voice. "I...I'll fix this," he continued, more quietly. There was a strong hint of hesitation in his tone, but he pretended not to have noticed it. Instead, he allowed his instinct and experience to kick in. "Just...Just hold on. I'm gonna find something to fix this damn scalpel and to stop the bleeding. Taking it out here is too dangerous, especially considering that..." His breath hitched, but he kept going. "Considering that your angel mojo is offline. Come on. We need to move you."

Sucking in a breath, he shifted in a crouched position and hooked his forearms under Castiel's armpit, carefully dragging him towards the closest wall. Thankfully it wasn't far, because the angel was a dead weight and he was still shaking, both for his probable concussion and for the strong emotions that still threatened to steal his lucidity away.

The angel allowed the man to move him, doing the little he could to help him out, half paralysed as he was. He used his arms to lean his left shoulder heavily against the wall, once they had reached it, and then offered his best friend a small nod, to tell him that he would be fine if he was left alone for a few minutes. It would also allow him to compose himself because, even if the hunter seemed to have calmed down, he could tell by the tension in the other's shoulders how easily it would have been to set him off again.

Dean quickly made his way back to hospital bed. The witch had been cutting open the man's body and stitching it back several times, so there should be medical supplies lying around somewhere. He rummaged in the few drawers that were set under the machines until he found a roll of medical tape, a few, more or less clean gauzes and a bandage. He also grabbed a bottle of saline solution, to wash the wound, hoping that it wouldn't be as ancient as the rest of the medical equipment seemed to be. He spent a few moments looking for any kind of medication or painkillers, but he didn't find any, just as he had thought. The guy on the bed surely didn't need any of it, in his status.

"Now, I need you to be still," he said, once he was back kneeling at the the angel's side. He would need to be extra careful, or he would have just worsened the bleeding. "I'll try to be as quick as possible, but you need to be patient, man."

He set down the supplies and pulled out his hunting knife from the inner pocket of his jacket. Carefully, he used the sharp way to cut the cloth around the wound, until he had exposed the point where the scalpel was. After having used the saline solution and a few gauzes to wash most of the blood away, it became evident that the tool was stuck deep inside the angel's body, down to the handle. Dean frowned at the sight, but he also reminded himself that it could be a good thing, for their situation. It meant that it wouldn't move unless it was pulled or pushed and that would have made securing it easier. He didn't have to worry about long-term spinal damage, because Castiel's Grace would take care of everything, once the curse would be lifted. He swallowed quietly. He had to think only of the short-term.

Trying to keep his mind on that last knowledge, he focused back on his task. He finished cleaning the wound as much as possible and then moved to press remaining gauzes around the scalpel, making sure that they would apply a certain amount of pressure and using the medical tape to fix them in place. He pondered whether or not to try and wrap the bandage around the angel's chest, to make sure that his makeshift medication would hold on better, but one look at his best friend's pale face told him that it wasn't a good idea.

"There, it's done," he announced, pressing his fingers on the gauzes one last time before moving away. He crawled around Castiel's slouched figure, holding what was left of the saline solution, till he was once again face to face with him. He settled down on his knees, reaching out to cup the other's jaw with his free hand as he brought the bottle near his lips. He felt his stomach clenching slightly at how wet with sweat the cold the skin under his palm was, but he did his best to ignore the feeling. "Come on, drink up. It will make you feel better. Then I'll see if I can get us out of here."

Castiel nodded, doing his best to swallow the small sips of liquid he was being administered. His throat felt dry and he could feel his vessel's skin cooling slowly for the loss of fluids. The pain in his back had become a dull aching, but he could tell that it was hardly a good sign. However, he also had the impression that the blood was dripping out of his body more slowly now that Dean had taken care of the wound and he decided to focus on that, instead of on the fact that his material form was most likely going into shock. His body was rigid for the efforts he had done to keep still while the hunter medicated him, but he found that he could still move his arms and fingers despite the general feeling of numbness he was experiencing in all his limbs.

He took a deep breath through his nose. It wasn't the worst discomfort he had physically experienced. He could endure it until they had found a way to break the spell. He only wished that he could have got in a more comfortable position, but the blade in his back made it impossible.

"Thank you, Dean," he managed to say in a hoarse voice. The water had helped a bit and his tongue felt less heavy now. "Go...Go check the door. I'll be fine."

Dean looked slightly reluctant for a moment, not wanting to leave his best friend alone again, even if not for long, but then he nodded and pushed himself up once again. He needed to see if they had a way out of that dusty basement. His head spun for a few seconds and he had to grit his teeth, hard, not to sway. Stupid wound. He couldn't deal with it, not now. He had to take care of Castiel. His damned head would have to wait.

The hunter made his way towards the door as quickly as his conditions allowed him to. It didn't look any different from how it had been when they had first stepped inside, but when he tried to push it open, it felt like trying to move a wall of reinforced concrete. Dean scowled deeply and tried a few more times, but it soon became clear that the door wasn't simply stuck. There had to be an hex bag on the other side or some other form of magic that kept it sealed, preventing them from opening it from the inside.

In a surge of renewed anger and worry, he kicked the metal hard, but all he gained from the gesture was just a new shock of hot pain running up his leg. Muttering a curse under his breath, he pulled out his phone, just to find that there was no signal in that god-forgotten basement. He couldn't call Sam, neither to ask for help nor to warn him that the witch was coming. The fingers of his free hand sank in his short hair and pulled, hard. Could this get any worse? Knowing the usual Winchester luck, the answer was most likely a positive one and he was afraid to find out how that might have happened.

His green eyes instantly darted towards his best friend, but he shook his head violently. No. Castiel would be fine this time. He needed the angel to be fine. He had to calm down and try to be rational. Having a panic attack or starting to punch the walls wouldn't help any of them. Jack and Sam would ice the bitch and then come to look for them. After all, his brother knew that he and the angel would have gone to check the museum. The younger man was smart. Not receiving news from them and finding that he couldn't reach them on phone, he would put the dots together. He and the boy would get there as soon as the witch would be dealt with. Till then, he just had to worry about making sure that his best friend would hold on.

"We're stuck in this freakin' place till rescue comes. There's not even the fucking signal," he grumbled once he had made his way back to where the angel was. He sat down next to him and leant his back against the wall, carefully resting his swollen nape on the cool surface. The cold soothed the throbbing of the wound a little and he slowly turned his head so that he could look at his companion. "But don't worry, Sammy and the kid will take care of the bitch and then come and collect our sorry asses."

Castiel offered a small, tired nod. "I'm not concerned," he replied, even if it wasn't the complete truth. Anxiety and a hint of dread still whirled in his chest, even if he was refusing to acknowledging them once again. "Your brother is a very capable hunter. One of the bests. And Jack has already proven himself useful, from what you and Sam have told me. Despite the...accidents. And they will be expecting her, since we didn't tell them otherwise. They will not be caught...unprepared."

Dean scoffed with bitter amusement at the last sentence. "Yeah. Usually Sam doesn't get as distracted as I do," he commented, with a hint of displeasure. That mess was his fault. If he hadn't lowered his guard as he had at the sight of the man on the hospital bed, perhaps they would have been able to put on a bit more of a fight. Perhaps he wouldn't have been knocked out and he would have been able to prevent the woman from harming his best friend. Instead he had allowed his own feelings to overwhelm him once again and that was the result.

He ran a hand on his face, openly frowning. All those what-ifs weren't helping the situation, he was well aware of the fact, but he couldn't help drowning himself in his own self-loathing. He had done it so often in his life that, as unpleasant as it was, the feeling almost tasted like home, deep down.

The angel felt a surge of exasperation and found himself raising his eyes towards the ceiling, despite his weakened state. If the tone that the older Winchester had used hadn't been enough of a clue to grasp what the human had to be thinking, his expression was a tell-all. Besides, he had known the two brothers for long enough to be able to guess what might be on their minds, especially when it came to the elder.

"Dean, this isn't your fault. She set up a trap for us. And I should have paid more attention myself," he interjected, breaking the human's trail of thoughts. He weakly raised a hand, preventing the other from opening his mouth and talking back. "What happened...that day with Lucifer wasn't your fault either," he went on and his voice shook only for a moment before steading and becoming determined. "I made my choice back then. And so did your mother, Dean. You cannot keep throwing all the burdens of the world on your shoulders. Because, no matter how strong and used to it you can be, it will eventually end up being too much to bear."

The "how happened this time" lingered between then, unsaid but still heavy. Dean's eyes had dropped away from the angel's face and were now glaring holes in the floor. He could already tell where his best friend's speech was heading for and he didn't like it. The day before, and that morning too, he had been able to dismiss and avoid that unwanted conversation because they had had more urgent things to deal with, but how could have he now that they were stuck in a basement with nothing to do but trying to stay alive and wait for someone to rescue them?

"Cas, man, come on. Do we really have to do this now ?" The older Winchester asked with a deep sigh, letting his eyelids fall shut. His head was starting to feel heavy again, or perhaps it was just starting to stop feeling light. He couldn't tell, but it was also true that he wasn't really trying to read into the sensation either. "We'll be stuck in here for who knows how much, you've got a scalpel in your spine and I have concussion. This is hardly the right moment to have a serious, heart-to-heart talk, don't you agree?"

Castiel narrowed his eyes, the exasperation on his face starting to take a more proper, annoyed hue. "I disagree. I believe that the fact that we are stuck here makes it a good chance for us to have this talk, Dean," he stated, firmly, his voice having regained a bit of strength. The makeshift bandage that the hunter had applied to his back seemed to have effectively, almost completely stopped the bleeding and that was allowing him a bit of a break, even if he was still feeling weak and numb. "You have been evading me since yesterday. Now you cannot."

He searched the hunter's face, but found only reluctance. His approached wasn't working and Dean was looking more and more like a caged animal ready to bolt. He sighed heavily, but then his eyes focused back on the man's face, blue irises shining slightly in the dim darkness. "Dean, we need to have this conversation. You know it as well as I do. What I'm really wondering is…" He allowed his voice to trail off for a moment as he tried to meet the human's eyes, but in vain, since they were still fixed on the floor. "Why are you so reluctant, Dean? What are you really afraid of?"

Despite himself, Dean found himself lifting his gaze at the question and, especially, at the intense tone that the angel had used to ask it. His forest green eyes met Castiel's deep blue ones for a moment, before he averted them away, this time towards the other side of the room. The inquiry kept echoing in his head, no matter how hard he tried to hush his own thoughts or to chase it away. There was no getting away, just as he most likely wouldn't have been able to avoid the confrontation with his best friend this time.

He took a deep breath through his nose. Perhaps he should take the hint and face all the feelings he had been so carefully avoiding once and for all. Why exactly was he trying so hard and desperately not to have this conversation? A few memories instantly rushed through his mind, as he carefully considered the question. The times in which he had accused Jack of being nothing but another evil incarnated, the way in which he had treated the boy and the names he had called him. All actions that now made him feel extremely ashamed of himself, just as the thought of how cruelly and purposefully he had attempted to crush Sam's already fragile, but stubborn hopes. He had been so full of darkness that he had felt the physical need to unleash it on the world around him. He couldn't bear the thought that he was the only one plunged into that pitch dark, while everyone around him, somehow, still had the light of hope. It had felt wrong , after everything the had lost.

He felt a small shiver running down his spine. The only other time he had felt so overwhelmed by his emotions, if one didn't count his forty years in Hell, had been when he was carrying the Mark of Cain on his arm. The darkness that the seal had spread inside his mind and soul had been of a different kind, bloodier, colder, but the intensity of the feeling had been the same. He had felt lost in the black power coursing through him, to the point that he had let it twist his soul in something ugly and demonic, just as he had drowned in the thick hopelessness that had filled his last few weeks. Still, all that didn't answer to the main question.Why? Why had he fallen so deep into it this time?

He had to fight back the strong impulse to hide his head in his hands. He was pretty sure that his expression was more telling than he would have ever liked it to be, so he didn't want to add any other embarrassing behaviour to the picture. For the first time since they had stepped in the basement, he was grateful for the cover that the dim darkness was offering.

He bit the inner side of his cheek, hard enough to taste blood. His mind was trying to stall, focusing on less fundamental details, and he couldn't afford that. Now that he had started along that path, there was no going back. It wouldn't have made sense, especially since he doubted that he could have just repressed it all again.

"Why…" He breathed out almost without realising it. He had faced losses before. He had seen his mother burning on a ceiling. His father had sold his soul to save his life. He had lost friends and people he had come to consider family in bloody, horrible way. Ellen and Jo, Ash, Bobby, Charlie, and the list was much, much longer. Then there were all the innocence people he had failed to save. What had been different? Had it been losing Mary again, after they had just got her back? No, that wasn't enough of a reason. After all, they didn't even know for sure if that was true. She could have been still alive, as Sam seemed to strongly believe, for how unlikely it was, considering that she was stuck in a post-apocalyptic world with Satan himself. There had been still a chance to get her back, there still was, even if he hadn't wanted to acknowledge it.

He closed his eyes again, feeling the tension that had been building in his shoulder suddenly relaxing. The feeling, however, wasn't pleasant, as one might have thought. It wasn't calm that had removed the pressure that his body had been trying to contain. On the contrary. It was as if his muscles had given out because the burden they had been asked to support was simply too much for them. The lassitude was almost physically painful and it made his stomach clench in a spasm. If Mary wasn't the reason why he had suddenly lost all hope, if she wasn't the wound that had made all the light bleed out of him, then the answer he was looking for was the very same angel sat before him, on the cold, dusty floor of that cursed basement. It had always been Castiel, even if he had always refused to admit it.

His mind flew back in time once again, days, months and years rushing before his eyes, too quick to be put into focus, but too intense not to be fully felt . They had gone through so much together, almost as much as he and Sam had. However, while somehow he had always managed his relationship with his brother, despite the betrayals and the ups and downs, because its foundations had been set in stone since their childhood, things had been somehow edgy between him and Castiel since their very first meeting.

The events of the Apocalypse had made the balance they had first established, with them both trying to fulfil their roles and follow their beliefs, come crushing down and had opened the door to whole new possibilities. The angel had rebelled, betrayed his kind, lost his Grace, died for them. For him . And that had been just the beginning. There had been the deal between Castiel and Crowley, a pact that his best friend had signed because he didn't want to ruin his chance at a normal life. A foolish mistake, which had cost them dearly, but that had been made with the purest intentions. Then the fight against the Leviathans, a battle that the angel had chosen to face even if back then his insane mind had been refusing the mere idea of fighting, and Purgatory . Naomi and her manipulative plans. Metatron and the angels being kicked out of Heaven, a fall for which Castiel had taken all the blame, at the end of the day. How the other had struggled to come back to them, running on stolen Grace, so that he could help them finding a way to get rid of the Mark. To make him human again. And again Castiel accepting to free Lucifer so that he wouldn't have to face the Darkness and because the angel had felt like he hadn't done enough for them.

Dean shook his head. It sounded all so crazy. They had parted ways and come back together in the most improbable circumstances. And when he had felt like there would be no way for them to do it again, his entire world had collapsed, spiralling down in a black hole. Castiel was that one person, together with Sam, whom he couldn't lose, without whom he couldn't live. The angel was much more than his best friend, but he wasn't his brother either. The warmth he felt when they were together were different from the one that Sam gifted him. It had another colour, a special hue he had seen and experienced very few times. However, those limited experiences were enough to recognise it. A single one would have been. After all, it was the kind of feeling that, once tasted, you could never forget.

The hunter bumped the sore back of his head against the cold wall. " Fuck ," he hissed, mostly out of incredulity than because of the renewed shock of pain. He knew that he could be blind at times, that he preferred avoiding to see the inconvenient truths and that he had years of biases and conditioning to cover them up, but this …This was huge, too huge to cover, even for him. Or at least it should have been, while instead he had been able to blissfully ignore the fact for whole years, without even sparing a thought in that direction. Or rather, pretending that he hadn't. He bit back a grown. What was he supposed to do now?

Despite the pressing need to speak he felt every time Dean's expression took a different hue, Castiel forced himself to remain quiet and simply watched as the hunter struggled with himself. He knew that, if he had stepped in and interrupted the trail of the man's thoughts, he could have risked preventing whatever realisation his best friend was slowly working towards from seeing the light. That would have been another mistake he would have regretted till the day of his final annihilation.

His breath hitched, against his will, when the hunter's eyes widened and the human cursed under his breath, a very peculiar emotion flashing in those forest green orbs together with shock and pained incredulity. The angel furrowed his brows, knotting them together, as Dean banged his head against the wall before his expression shut off again, a sentiment that looked very dangerously like hesitant denial replacing all the other.

The expectant, slightly confused expression on Castiel's face turned into a full frown at that. He didn't know what exactly Dean had graped in those few, intense minutes, but he wasn't going to allow the older Winchester to just bottle it down and pretend not to ever have had said epiphany. There was a feeling in his chest, a pressing, anxious one that told him that he had to force his best friend to speak his mind, because, otherwise, the moment would be lost forever. It was almost as if a part of him already knew what was hiding in the recesses of the man's mind. If he had been able to access to his Grace, he could have reached out for the borders of the human's consciousness, stealing away his most superficial thoughts and getting an idea of what the man was considering hiding from him. It would have helped him understanding what to say to make the other talk and especially how to say. However, that wasn't currently possible, so he would have to rely on the means he had.

"Dean..," he finally spoke again, trying to keep the agitation blossoming inside him out of his voice. He didn't completely succeed, since a small, breathless, rushed note entered in his tone, but he kept talking, not to give his companion a chance to address it. "We've missed so many chances already, risked so much. We have both died a few times, and this last one, it felt…" His voice trailed off for a moment, hesitating. He didn't want to pour salt over a still open, slightly bleeding wound, but he was aware that it would have been the most effective way to press the man to answer him. "It felt real . Definitive."

A shiver ran along his sticky skin, at the memory of how cold the Empty had been. The icy sensation filling his core, impregnating everything he was and felt, was what he remembered more vividly of that obscure realm. More than the dark, perhaps even more than the sense of absence that permeated the void space around him. It was hard not to compare it to the shivers and the numbness he was experiencing now because of the blood loss.

He shook his head, trying to chase the unpleasant sensations away. "If I am taken from this world once more...I don't want to leave behind unfinished business and unspoken truth. I don't want regrets, Dean. At least not with you. Not again," he resumed, clenching his fingers slightly. The tension in his shoulder was almost painful now and it reflected in how strained his tone was becoming. "It's too important." He was aware that he was almost openly begging by now, but he didn't care. They both needed to do this, no matter the consequences. They would face them in the aftermath. " You are too important."

Dean swallowed, still refusing to meet the angel's eyes. Hell no. How could have he ever confessed such a thing? It wasn't just embarrassing, bordering humiliating , and it wasn't just that he himself still couldn't wrap his mind around it. There was the fear, crippling and paralysing, that the reality of facts could have made him lose Castiel completely, that his own voice would have torn the other away from him in a way that not even death had been able to achieve. Not yet at least. However, how was he supposed to say no, when his best friend was almost literally pleading him? Maybe not with his words, but the tone with which he had spoken had been achingly clear. He felt already guilty enough at the idea of being what was keeping Castiel from finding the peace of mind he deserved.

Swallowing quietly, he forced himself to move his gaze in the general direction of the other's face, not really locking on those hypnotizing blue orbs, because he knew that, if he had even just touched them, it would have been the end, but close enough to be able to grasp whatever emotion was swirling underneath their surface. He needed something that could help him making a decision, a sign that could tell him whether or not he should reveal those feelings that still felt so out of place to him too.

What he saw made him freeze for a moment. There was confusion and worry in the angel's expression, but those were hardly the most noticeable emotions, at least in Dean's eyes. What caught his attention was the eager desperation and what he looked awfully like... longing . The feeling echoed inside him and rushed over his body, like a strong tidal wave that left behind a bright and addictive sentiment, something that he had lost and had just very recently rediscovered. Hope.

The hunter opened his mouth and closed it without a sound, feeling suddenly both the need to blurt everything out and to flee the room. He watched as Castiel inched closer, clearly by instinct and not consciously, at his own movements and he swallowed again. It was worth a try and he owed it to his best friend, for everything he had done for him and Sam in the past. For everything he had meant.

"Cas, we...we went through a lot together. And Hell, that's such an understatement," he began, letting his eyes fall on the ground again. He wouldn't have been able to speak a single word if he had kept looking at his companion. "All the crap we've seen, all the assholes we've fought...All the losses. The pain. The defeats and the wins that have never been really such." He scoffed. He was sounding like an idiot. Why had he never asked his brother to teach him how to properly talk to people without making an ass of himself?

"What I'm trying to say is that...You're family to me and Sam," he resumed, but his voice was almost shaking now. "We told you a thousand times, but it never seems enough. Not to mention that at times we might act as if...as if it isn't true, but that's just because...because we're idiots. And for that we don't really deserve you. All you've done and sacrifice so much and...Damn, all the shit you've gone through because we all risked to wreck the world, in a way or the other." He almost rolled his eyes. Now, that had sounded really pathetic. "Still, we mean it. Every time. Because you're important too. For us. For me. And you're family, but you see…What I mean is…I…"

He stopped again, trying to find a way to phrase it that wouldn't be an explicit, open admission, but the words refused to come out and he was left there stuttering out a few more broken syllables. Eventually he just growled in frustration and gave up, not by choice but because he couldn't do anything else. He couldn't do it. He just couldn't.

Castiel, who had been literally hanging from the human's lips since the first word the other had spoken, found himself frowning again. Dean's unfinished sentence had left him feeling like he had been robbed of something precious and dear that should have belonged to him. It was an irrational thought, but it disturbed him deeply, just as his once again raising confusion did. There was that part of him that still seemed to be a breath away from understanding what his best friend was unable to express, but his mind couldn't cover the small inch that separate him from comprehension and fulfillment. So, all that he was left to feel was frustration, the same one that the older Winchester had to be experiencing.

"Dean," he spelled once again, his tone openly urgent this time. He loosened his fingers, which had still been balled into a fist, and reached out for the hunter's arm, closing them around the patch of skin that his best friend's jacket left uncovered.

There was so much he wanted to say and ask. He wanted to tell the man to look at him, to reassure him that, no matter what he would say, they would be fine, to remind him that nothing was enough to tear them apart. However, he remained quiet, too busy struggling with the anticipation that threatened to choke him on his own breath, and waited.

Dean, on his part, bit back a frustrated groan. He hated how the words eluded him, making him unable to speak his mind. He would have probably been able to spit out the bare facts, without beating around the bush, but he wasn't ready for being directed just yet. He couldn't be that open with himself, inside his head, let alone with Castiel. Even if his confusion had finally started to fade away, there was still so much that he had to work out. He had a whole life of biases and conditioning to demolish. However, that would have to wait until later. Now, his attention was all focused on those deep blue eyes, which he knew were fixed on him, slightly disoriented and still asking for answers he couldn't spell.

"What I'm trying to say…Cas..." He tried one more time, but he ended up stumbling on his words again and finally decided that talking wasn't the right way to go around the matter. He should have known since the start that he wouldn't have managed to translate what he was feeling into a coherent speech. He wasn't used to it, that was the truth. He didn't even know where to start from. He had always been better with actions than with words.

"Fuck it," he hissed through his teeth. He would probably freak out about this, later, when he would have been sure that Castiel would be fine and when his head would have no longer been dizzy. Now, all he wanted, and needed , was to feel him close enough, to make sure that the angel was alive and that he would stay where he was, where he belonged . By his side, no matter what path they would end up walking. And he needed Castiel to know all that.

He moved almost by instinct, before he had actually made up his mind completely. If he had stopped just another second to think about it, he would have probably chicken out and denied everything. Again . He knew himself too well.

With sharp pull he freed his wrist from his best friend's grip, but instead of moving away he reached forward, shifting his body closer and fisting his hand tightly in Castiel's shirt, his fingers getting a firm hold of the fabric. His other palm, instead, planted itself steadily on the angel's cheek. He didn't wait for a reaction and refused to meet the other's eyes, preferring to close his own, not wanting to give himself a chance to back out. He heard Castiel's breath hitching, but he ignored it, also because a moment later his lips were pressed against his best friend's mouth. The contact was chaste but firm, purposeful and determined just as he had wished for his words, the ones he hadn't been able to speak, to be.

He broke away just a few moments later, even if they had felt much longer to him. The sensation of Castiel's cool, chapped but still soft lips lingered on his skin and it took him all his self-control not to try and lick it away. He had kissed a lot of people in his life, too many to remember the exact number, and most of those kisses had been much less innocent than the one he had just experienced. Yet he had the feeling that, while most of the others would all fade away, eventually, the contact he and the angel had just shared, in that dark, hateful basement, would be a memory that would remain branded in his mind till the day he died.

"That's what I meant," he mumbled under his breath, awkwardly, quickly glancing away as his face was suddenly flooded with heat.

Castiel remained frozen on his spot after the hunter had moved away, too shocked to do anything but staring at his best friend. The kiss had left him feeling unsettled because, on one hand, he would have never thought that this was what Dean had come to realise, but, at the same time, he had been somehow expecting it. Under the surprise, the feeling of the human's body close to his vessel, closer and more intimate than it had ever be, had melted the tension that had been wrecking his nerves and had even soothed the disturbing coldness of his skin. The gesture and the unspoken feelings it confessed weren't unwelcome. On the contrary. They were exactly what he had been longing for, deep down, even if he had never consciously allowed himself to admit it.

His expression softened, losing the harsh angles that the shock had painted on his face. The more he thought about it, the more right it felt. Dean had been his light and the core of his faith since he had chosen to give up on Heaven and side humanity instead, during the Apocalypse. The hunter had been his reference point even when he had lost faith in his own Father, when he had felt like he didn't belong anywhere, let alone in the realm that had once been his home. The man had showed him the meaning of free will and made him taste the bittersweet flavour that came with having to build your own path. Their bond was what had made him able to grasp what God had always seen in humans, why the Almighty had deemed them special enough to make him choose to sacrifice his favourite angel for their sake. The man had showed him why those fragile, finite creature were better, despite their flaws and their constant uncertainty. And, in Castiel's eyes, the beauty of humanity was perfectly summed up in the tormented vices and in the worn qualities of that infuriating, beautifully complicated being that Dean Winchester was.

Biting back a smile so large that it would have surely been painful if he had let it spread on his lips, the angel stretched out an arm again, his fingers this time seeking out the human's one. He felt the man stiffening under his touch, but the resistance lasted only a brief second and the hunter's hand quickly melted into his own without further hesitation.

"I understand now, Dean," he offered softly. This time, when he tried to meet his best friend's eyes, the man stared back, even if with a hint of uncertainty. The warmth spread even more in his chest and the shadow of that bright smile appeared on his lips. "I truly do."

Dean licked his lips, but nodded with determination and followed when the angel pulled his arm, a clear invitation to move closer again. His head was feeling lighter again, not because of his injury, but because both nervousness and excitement. He refused to acknowledge it, but his hands were shaking slightly once again as he wrapped his arms around Castiel body, pulling him in a tight hug, still cautious of the other's wound.

The feeling of their bodies pressed together seemed to give the situation a bit more concreteness. They were both covered in sweat and dust and the air around them carried the heavy smell of mildew, but he was able to focus on the angel's familiar scent. He had noticed it before, distractedly, but now it had somehow become more evident how Castiel seemed to smell like spring sunlight, under the more familiar scent of human skin.

Dean suddenly felt like he could breathe properly again. That was the path they had been more or less unconsciously following for quite some time by now and, while he didn't doubt that it would be a complicated one, he could already tell that they would make it work, somehow. Whatever hardship or pain would be put in front of them, they would face it together, as they had done in the past. The only difference was that now there would be no unconscious secret left unspoken between them.

Castiel felt better and better himself as the human slowly relaxed against him. He had been afraid that the older Winchester could still freak out, even after everything that had just passed between them. He could tell that the man was still edgy, but now he had the certainty that, under the tension and the insecurities, Dean was feeling the same relief and lightness he himself was experiencing, wrapped in the strong arms of the being that meant, almost literally, the world to him.

In that moment it was easy to let his eyes slid shut and to stop thinking, forgetting everything. The uncomfortable feelings of his wounded vessel, the pain, the numbness. The memories that still hunted him and that would for a long time. All he wanted and could focus on was the rhythmic, loud, steady sound of his best friend's heartbeat and the quiet pulsing of his soul, reminding him that they were both still alive, in spite of everything, against all the odds. Now, he had yet one more reason to want to make sure to keep it that way.

They broke away after several minutes, no awkwardness left in their movements as they both leant back against the wall, facing each other. Castiel's eyes were bright, even without the Grace making them literally shining, and Dean was sporting the smuggest, most sincere grin he had been able to conjure in a very long time.

"Man, Sammy will never shut up about this," the older Winchester commented, after a moment of comfortable silence, a hint of honest amusement in his voice. The idea of having a conversation with his brother didn't thrill him, but he knew that Sam would understand. More than he had been able to do, more than he was still able to do. No matter how embarrassing the talk would have been, at the end of the day it would be worth it. He was almost completely sure.

The quiet, throaty laugh he received as an answer was exactly what he needed to wash away the shadow of the last doubt he had left. Oh, it would totally be worth the trouble.

"This must be it. Just, let me…Dean? Cas? Are you in there?"

Sam's voice broke the mostly comfortable silence that had filled the basement for the last ten minutes. Almost a whole hour had passed since when the angel and the older Winchester had found themselves trapped in the dusty, ill-lit room. Despite the sense of closure brought by the revelation that had passed between them, the tension had still lingered in the air till when, not much time before, Castiel had suddenly felt his Grace starting to return. They had instantly understood what had happened. Sam and Jack had to have managed to kill the witch and her magic had faded away together with her life.

A moment later, the heart rating monitor connected to the body on the makeshift bed had let out a piercing beeping sound, signaling that the man's heart had stopped beating. The angel's head had instantly snapped in the direction of the stranger, just in time to see a pulsing sphere of light lifting in the dim darkness, invisible to human eyes, but impossible to miss for him. The black thread that had been trapping the man's soul inside the rotting corpse had dissolved, allowing it to freely fly away, towards the place where it rightly belonged.

"Yeah, Sammy! In here!" Dean answered in a loud voice, carefully pushing himself up on his feet. His head still spun whenever he moved, he had noticed while standing up to go and turn off the annoying monitor, but at least the pain had dulled. His best friend had offered to heal him as soon as his angelic powers had begun to return, but he had refused. He would have waited till Castiel would have fully recovered. Later, maybe, when there would have been no trace left of the scalpel that was now no longer stuck in the angel's back and of the effects of the blood loss, he would have considered the offer.

"Get us out of here! I'm tired of sitting on my ass," he finished as he reached the door, slamming the palm of his hand over it. He turned to shoot his best friend a slightly amused look. "Took you long enough. What were you guys doing, having a picnic with that bitch before you went down to business?"

The door shook slightly and then it finally pulled open, revealing the figures of the younger hunter and of the nephilim. Sam's clothes were a bit untidy and he was sporting a small cut on his left temple, both most likely gained during his fight with the witch, while Jack looked more or less as he had that morning, aside from the fact that he seemed to be vibrating with victorious enthusiasm once again. The older Winchester could have sworn that he had spotted a hint of worry in the kid's dark blue eyes, but the emotion faded as soon as Jack had made sure that, under their dusty and slightly bloody appearances, he and Castiel were safe and sound.

"We wouldn't have had to come and get your asses out of this basement, if you hadn't allowed the witch to kick them in the first place," Sam joked in answer to his words, the smile on his face taking a relieved hue.

He had got worried when his brother hadn't called him back, and finding out that he couldn't reach neither the older man's phone nor Castiel's had just fed his concerns. He had been seriously pondering to leave the house and head to the museum to look for his two companions when the woman had suddenly made an appearance, forcing him to put aside his apprehension and focus on the upcoming fight.

The witch hadn't been expecting them. She had most likely been thinking that she had temporarily got rid of all the hunters who were after her, now that she had dealt with Dean and Castiel, so she had been taken by surprise when he and Jack had met her on the doorstep. Her first reaction had been trying to deny, but it had soon become obvious that they knew what she was and what she had done. At that point her attitude had quickly changed, radically. She had become aggressive, dropping every pretence of good manners and of obliviousness. Even her already ghostly pale features had shifted, losing the last shreds of humanity they still had left to turn almost demonic.

The fight that had followed had been brief but messy and intense. There had been a few moments when Sam had feared that she could have managed to get away, when he had been slammed into a bookcase and had almost lost consciousness. Luckily, though, Jack had been able to hold the woman off and to distract her for long enough to give him the time to reach his gun and shoot her to death. The fact that the woman had been left astonished when she had realised that her curses didn't work as they should have on the boy had definitely helped them winning. Lost as she had been in her rage and madness, she most likely hadn't been able to fully realise that she was facing the most powerful creature she had ever landed her eyes on and that had made her even sloppier.

"Shut up," Dean grumbled, rolling his eyes, but he patted Sam's chest as he moved past him, clearly eager to get out of that hateful room.

The younger Winchester, however, didn't fail to notice how his brother almost instantly turned back towards the door, almost greedily seeking Castiel with his eyes, and he also didn't miss how readily the angel followed after the older hunter, aiming to go standing by his side. There had definitely been a shift in the atmosphere, and it was very noticeable, especially compared to how awkwardly the two had been tiptoeing around each other since when he and Dean had picked their angelic friend up the night before.

Sam blinked, a hint of surprise spreading in his chest as a strong suspicion entered his mind. His hazel eyes locked on Dean's and Castiel's retreating backs for a moment and then they moved in Jack's direction, finding that the nephilim was staring at their companions curiously too. The boy eventually turned to meet his gaze and the younger hunter couldn't help a small smirk as they shared a knowing look. Jack might be young and still very naive under some points of view, but he had already become pretty good at reading people, especially when it came to the ones he considered family. As for Sam himself, he survived literal years dealing with the heavy tension between his brother and Castiel, so it was hardly surprising that he had been able to deduce so quickly what had to have happened between the two in that basement. He shook his head, biting back a chuckle that was both amused and relieved. Hopefully his misery would have soon been over. And it would have been about time.

After a brief stop by the motel, to give Dean some time to clean up, the two Winchesters spent the next couple of hours wrapping up the loose ends of the case, while Castiel and Jack remained behind to get everything ready for their departure.

The local police force had retrieved the corpse of the witch's brother from the basement and the autopsy was carried out as soon as the body was in the coroner's hands. The examination revealed that the man had died after a bad fall, which had caused him to crack the side of his skull, and the wound had caused enough brain damage to kill him. No defense wounds or any other sign that could push to think that there had been a struggle ante mortem could be found on the body, even if it was hard to tell with absolute certainty, considering all the surgeries and the transplants the body had undergone. The formulated hypotheses were that the victim had either accidentally fell or had willingly jumped. The detective in charge of the case chose to give more credit to the second theory, mostly because, according to the victim's most recent medical records, the man had already attempted suicide twice, in the weeks before his disappearance.

There was only one detail that the coroner couldn't explain, meaning how the woman had managed to keep the body and especially the transplanted organs vital for all that time, without a proper, technological medical support. The corpse was showing an initial, generalised stage of decomposition, but nothing even close to the state in which it should have been, considering that the man should have been dead for weeks. Sam and Dean had exchanged a look at that point of the discussion, but they had avoided to speak. It had been hard enough to explain to the sheriff why they had been forced to kill the witch instead of arresting her.

When they were finally allowed to leave the station, the older Winchester couldn't help noticing that there was a bitter, nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach and Sam had to be experiencing a similar one, judging from the look on his brother's face. While that case had turned out to be without doubts a needed, meaningful experience and while it had met a happy ending, a few shots had come too close to home, especially for what Castiel and Dean were concerned. They had risked too much too soon, not giving to the still sore, open wounds time to start healing.

However, that wasn't what was troubling the two men in that moment. The source of the unpleasant sensation in their chest was the tragic tale that had taken place behind the gory scenes of that hunt. All the facts and circumstances considered, the witch's savage acts took a new, more disquieting and yet disturbingly understandable hue. She had taken her revenge on the people responsible for having made her brother so determined to take his own life that the man had tried over and over, till when, eventually, he had succeeded. Her choice to kill them and take their organs was a literal and symbolic way to use their lives to bring back and repair the one they had so cruelly broken. It didn't justify her actions in the least, but it almost made her motivations relatable. It was hard not to wonder how different the woman's life could have been, if she hadn't been indelibly marked by such a deep, unfair loss.

They found Castiel and Jack already waiting for them in the motel parking lot, bags in hand and ready to leave. There was nothing left for them to do in that town, so they didn't waste more time and instantly hit the road to head back to the Bunker, stopping just briefly along the way to grab some late lunch that was consumed inside the familiar space of the Impala. Dean kept making sarcastic jokes about witches for half of the trip back, most likely to play down what they had experienced while working on the case, and Sam couldn't help rolling his eyes each time his brother made a ill-placed pun. He had lived with the older hunter for too long to be able to even just pretend to appreciate the other's macabre humour. Especially after a hunt.

However, in spite of everything, once again the younger Winchester didn't miss the still unwavering, new, stabler and warmer shift in his sibling's attitude, the same he had noticed when they had left the basement. Just as he noticed the still lingering, brighter light in Castiel's eyes and how the two men kept sharing glances through the rear mirror when they thought that no one was watching. The sight made him smirk to himself once again and he had to turn towards the window and cover his mouth with a hand, to hide his grin. Dean would be in for a lot of teasing, as soon as he and the angel would have grown accustomed to the change in their relationship. However, that didn't mean that Sam would have just dropped the subject and pretended that nothing happened.

The roar of the Impala echoed in the Bunker's garage as Dean drove the car in and parked, before killing the engine. The older hunter hummed under his breath the last notes of the song that had been playing on the radio and then drummed his fingers on the wheel. "It's good to be home!" He claimed in an almost cheerful tone, opening the door on his side. "Now, after all those disgusting spells, I really need a beer. And some chill time."

"I thought you were still hungover," Sam teased back, getting off in turn and walking around the car to open the trunk. "Jack told me that you weren't looking good when you got to the motel last night."

He ignored the middle finger he was showed and handed to Castiel one of the bags, turning to watch the angel as he led Jack towards the stairs, a hand resting between the kid's shoulder blades. His lips curved into a smile at the sight, glad that the two had managed to bond so quickly. They both deserved it. Their angelic friend had earned the right to have some light in his life after having spent weeks in the most complete darkness and the nephilim needed to have the person he had already learnt to call "father" standing side by side.

His grin only widened when he turned to look at his brother, noticing that the hint of irritation the other had shown at his teasing was already gone and forgotten. It seemed to be the right moment to test the waters.

"You're in a good mood, aren't you?" Sam inquired, keeping his tone studedly casual not to scare his sibling off from the beginning.

Dean turned to face the younger man at those words, the hint of a frown forming on his face. He could already tell what was coming for him: a chick flick chat. If he had to be honest with himself he had been wondering why Sam hadn't spoken a word yet. He had caught a few of the amusement glances the other had been shooting him since when he and Jack had rescued him and Castiel. Apparently the younger hunter had been waiting for them to be alone, before speaking his mind. He had to bit back a groan at the thought. He loved his brother, but he really hated how awfully perceptive was at times.

"Yeah. And?" He asked, in a tone that bordered defiance, but that didn't carry any trace of hostility. He didn't want to talk about what had passed between him and his best friend in that basement. He wasn't ready. He still had a lot to work out, with both himself and Castiel, before he could even just come close to be. However, at the same time, he didn't feel like shutting his brother out again, not after how he had treated him in the last few weeks. Sam deserved better than that kind of behaviour and he could recognise that, now that most of the darkness was gone.

Sam raised his hands, in a pacifying gesture. "Nothing. No, no, I-I-I just...Uh, you've been having a rough go, so it's just...good to see you smile." He made sure to pick his words carefully, even though this time Dean, despite the slight intimidating hue in his tone, didn't look like he was going to cut the conversation off immediately. He had all the intentions to exploit the opening he was being offered.

"Well, I said that I needed a big win. We got Cas back. That's a pretty damn big win." Dean answered truthfully, even if there was a hint of reluctance in his voice. However, even in spite of that, he wasn't able to hide the small smile that appeared on his face at the simple mention of Cas. As confusing and still slightly troublesome his real feelings for the angel were, they still made him feel... brighter .

"Yeah. Fair enough." Feeling reassured by the lack of attacks, Sam smirked just slightly at Dean's words, glad to see his brother opening up about his emotions. He didn't expect the older hunter to speak plainly, of course, because that wouldn't be like him, but even just seeing him willing to have that conversation was a little miracle.

"That's not all, though, right? He's not...just a win?" He pushed, without losing the caution in his tone, wanting to get as much as he could out of Dean without making him mad or turning their talk into a fight.

The older Winchester hesitated once again at the question. He seriously considered to pretend that he didn't know what Sam was talking about or to crack a joke that would still tell everything and nothing. It would have been the easiest solution and he knew that his brother wouldn't have pushed, since they both knew that he had never liked talking things out anyway. However, the way in which Sam had phrased his inquiries told him clearly that his brother already knew the answer and that he was just looking for a confirmation. Or, maybe, he was just asking to make Dean himself admit it out aloud, more for his own sake than for the one of the younger man. Lying about what was already obvious wouldn't have helped any of them.

"No, he's not," he finally admitted, after a few moments of silence, looking away and licking his lips in a show of nervousness. His shoulders were a little tense, but he tried to force himself to relax. "Cas and I… We had a talk. Realised few stuff, before any of us die again so… We're good." He nodded, more to himself than to his brother. "Yeah. More than good, actually. Great."

Sam's smile grew wider again at that reply. He could have considered himself satisfied, since the subtly admission he had obtained was more than what he could get out of Dean on a normal day. There were still many questions he would have liked to ask and he felt torn over the impulse to throw them out, because, as much as he was eager for answers, he knew that one false step could have sent his brother straight back into the denial the other was trying so hard to dismiss.

"Hey guys? You still there?" Jack's voice called out from the stairs, before the younger Winchester could make up his mind, sparing him from the trouble to make a decision. Perhaps it had been for the best. Maybe, in the next days, they would get a better chance to resume that conversation and finish it properly, but for now they all deserved a break.

A moment later, the nephilim had stormed inside the room excitedly. He was wearing one of his broad, naive grins and his eyes were sparkling with enthusiasm. "Hey! Can we maybe turn on that projector Sam found and watch a movie?"

The two Winchesters shared a look. That projector was an ancient piece of crap for the most, Dean's own words, so they doubted that they would have managed to find a way to watch modern movies on it. However, they would come up with something, because they couldn't have said no to the hopeful, awfully effective puppy eyes Jack was offering them. The older hunter couldn't help thinking that kid was already starting to master the expression almost as much as Sam had.

And that's how the four of them ended up spending the rest of the afternoon in the library. The table and the chairs had been moved aside, so that they could all sit on the floor on a bunch of pillows and blankets they had laid down. The projector had been set on the other table and pointed towards the wall, just as they had done the previous times they had used it. Sam had miraculously managed to find a movie, among the bunch of dusty, old tapes that were stashed away in the Bunker's archive, while Dean had insisted to get fresh popcorns and cool beers for everything, since, in his opinion, you couldn't watch a movie properly without those two essential supplies.

Jack took the spot between Sam and Castiel, while Dean sat down next to the angel. The hunter hesitated for a moment before shifting slightly and slowly more and more closer, clearly failing at not drawing attention because both his brother and his best friend turned to shoot him looks, while the nephilim, luckily for Dean's pride, was too absorbed in the starting movie to notice his pathetic attempts at being subtle. Sam rolled his eyes at him, shaking his head with a mixture of exasperation and amusement before turning his attention back to the projected scenes. Castiel, on his part, just tilted his head and narrowed his eyes in an inquisitive look, confused about what the human was trying to do.

Dean felt his face heating up a bit and he once again felt grateful for the luck of light that covered his expression and the small hint of redness on his cheekbones, as he had been a few hours before in the basement. He closed his eyes for a moment, muttering a curse very quietly through his teeth and then decided that he should just stop caring about what the others might or might not think. He was making a fool of himself and he also had no reason to be worried. He didn't have to hide from Sam and Jack, since the two were most likely even more ecstatic than he was about the development in his and Castiel's relationship, so he should just try to relax and have a good time, for once.

Those thoughts brought a determined expression on his face and he followed the wave of determination he had just gained, before he chickened out again. He shifted even closer to his best friend, covering the few inches that still separated their bodies, and then wrapped an arm around his shoulders, gently pulling him in and trying not to feel like he was an awkward teenager on his very first date. With all the experience he had had in that field, he should be past that phase, even if this thing with the angel, whatever name it would take, wouldn't be like any of his previous romantic and sexual entanglements.

Castiel blinked again at the hunter, when the latter finally made his move, but his perplexed expression quickly turned into a pleased, slightly amused grin as he let the human to pull him closer, his head going to rest on Dean's shoulders. He had seen humans sharing that kind of poses and closeness many times, but he had to admit that he had never thought that such a simple, innocent act could feel so good and bring so much inner warmth.

Careful not to move, because he could tell that the older Winchester was still a bit on the edge under his mostly relaxed attitude, he glanced in Sam's and Jack's direction and then up towards Dean's face. It was rare to see them all looking so carefree , especially after everything that had happened in the last few years. The two hunters' eyes had lost most of the haunted hardness that they usually sported and, while the shadows and the marks were still there, indelible and unforgettable, in that moment the light seemed to prevail above the darkness and dried blood.

His gaze slowly returned towards the makeshift screen, blue orbs sparkling slightly. The future ahead of them would never be easy and perhaps not even beautiful, but if they could keep clinging on small, precious moments like the current and if they could have the strength to keep fighting, then the light would eventually find them. Because, at the end of the day, in a world ruled by free will and personal choices, most miracles weren't gifted by an external saving hand, but they were born from within.

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So, this is it. We really hope that you have enjoyed this little ride. Questions and comments of every sort (as long as we respect each other) are welcome and encouraged. Let us know what you think!