Disclaimer, timeframe, summary: see first chapter.
In the Wake of Angels: Part VII
The drive back to the motel was unexpectedly comfortable. When they'd first gotten in, Cas had turned to him and opened her mouth as though about to say something, but hadn't complained when Dean shook his head no and told her, "we'll talk later." The silence they'd fallen into had been more companionable than awkward, and was broken by the stereo and Dean's occasional explanation of a certain song. Cas seemed content just to listen, and Dean was happy not to question anything at the moment-- to block off his mind from what had just occurred, set up a temporary but airtight embargo against it. For now, he was just… warm, just warm and comfortable, safe inside the Impala while outside it was beginning to drizzle.
Sam and Jimmy were in bed when they got back-- which made sense, seeing as it was almost 4 in the morning. But Dean could tell that Sam wasn't asleep. He turned to Cas but before he could say anything she cut him off. "I need to talk to Anna," she said simply, and was gone, into the rain.
Dean sighed, a little of that warm, safe feeling fading now, and turned back to Sam, who had sat up in bed.
"How'd it go?"
"Bad," Dean replied. "No leads. Nothing. Just two less bastard demons roaming the earth."
"That's something," Sam said quietly.
"Yeah," Dean agreed, but didn't really think so.
"What's with Cas?"
"Dunno."
They lapsed into silence, which Dean found markedly less comfortable than that which he'd shared with Cas in the car just minutes ago. Finally, Sam broke it. "Dean, we need to talk."
Dean's stomach clenched up uncomfortably. "'bout what?"
"About Jimmy."
Although he knew that logically Jimmy was a heavier topic than any sort of boy-girl or boy-angel drama, Dean felt himself relax at Sam's answer.
"And then we can talk about your crush on Castiel," Sam added.
Shit.
"What about Jimmy?" Dean asked, hoping to gloss over that last sentence entirely. Sam stood, stretched, and went to the mini-fridge in the corner. He pulled out a bottle of water and opened it, sucking at the mouth nervously.
"I'm worried about him."
"How's he doing?"
"You'd know if you were ever here," Sam snapped, then shook his head. "Sorry. Sorry." He winced. "He's bad, Dean. Really bad." He paused. "I think he gonna kill himself."
Kiss completely forgotten, Dean shot up from his seat on the foot of Sam's bed. "What makes you think that?"
"Just… the way he's been acting. Things he's been saying, not saying. I just don't think he wants to be here anymore, Dean. And I can't say I blame him."
"I know," Dean said, growing panicked, "I know. His family just died, Sam. His family just died. How do you expect him to be acting?" And yet, something about the concept was pulling at his insides, whispering maliciously like only a truth could.
"There's more than that," Sam continued. He made his way back to the bed but didn't sit down; Dean did, though stiffly. "I think he took a gun."
"What?"
"You know I've been training him. Trying to teach him basic defense skills and stuff. And then tonight when I went to reload all the guns we had here, I came up one short. Checked myself twice."
"Which one?"
"Um, the oldest forty-five."
Dean's stomach unclenched, though only slightly. He reached down to his ankle holster and pulled the aforementioned weapon out, holding it up for Sam's inspection. Sam grabbed it and stared at it like a man seeing a miracle.
"I didn't know you had this one."
"Last time I checked, I didn't have to register my shit with you," Dean told him, but without any hint of anger.
Sam was breathing just a little too heavily, holding the hand with the water bottle in it to his forehead. "That's one more than you usually take."
"Times is rough, pard-ner," Dean drawled. Sam didn't seem to find it funny.
"I like to know where they all are, okay, Dean? At all times."
"Jeez, all right, Serge." As it seemed that one crisis had been well averted for the night, Dean decided to reward himself and went to the fridge, grabbing not a water but a beer and popping it open.
"I'm still worried about him," Sam remarked, facing away from Dean, towards Jimmy, sleeping fitfully in the far bed.
"He needs time, Sammy. We both know what it's like to lose people that close to you. There's nothing we can do to fix this."
"We can let him out of this dump," Sam said quietly. Dean said nothing, waiting for him to go on. "He's getting good, Dean. Good enough to come with us. I think it would be better for him than sitting around here all day. Travis told me about a group of demons about two hours from here, all very low level. I think we should go, and take him with us."
"Hold up there, Sammy," Dean warned, not ungently. "How old were you the first time you fought a demon? I was twenty, so you had to be sixteen. They were the one thing Dad didn't let us near when we were kids, and for good reason. Even with a decade under our belts, they still kick our asses. And you want to take Jimmy?"
"Okay then," Sam agreed, obviously prepared for this response. "Not demons. There's a nest of vampires close to here. Bobby thinks they're running errands for the demons. Finding them new bodies." In the months since Lucifer had risen, all manner of unsavory creatures had allied themselves with the armies of Hell, until it now seemed that any individual threat they might face down was instead just a node in a vast network of badness. "How about we go after them?"
Dean still didn't like the sound of it. "You're gonna have to try a little harder than that, Sammy," he growled.
"Okay." Sam looked him straight in the eye. "Pretend it's three years ago. Pretend Dad just died. Now pretend that you've been locked up in a crappy old motel room and told that the most you're allowed to do is take a supervised walk to the supermarket. You can't do anything."
Sam had pressed the exact button that Dean had known he would, and Dean had also reacted as expected. Because of this, he didn't know why he'd even made Sam say it in the first place.
"Okay," Dean relented. "Vamps it is, then."
Sam nodded, briefly assuaged. But then the talker kept right on talking. "Now. Cas. You have a crush on her."
"I know," Dean replied.
"Don't prete-- what?" Nothing derailed Sam's word train like agreeing with him right from the start. "You know?"
"Well, yeah." He couldn't meet Sam's eyes, instead concentrating at the generic painting on the motel wall. "I just kissed her."
"You just-- what?"
"In the morning. Please." He fell into the empty bed, leaving Sam standing with his jaw still dropped. "You'll catch flies, Sammy," Dean said into his pillow, and then he was out like a light.
***
Castiel stood in the middle of a field in northern Michigan, where she and Anna had been coordinating their meetings for the past few months. It was taxing to both of them to travel, and life with the Winchesters took Castiel all across the country, but they'd both agreed that it was easier to have one set rendezvous spot now that they had a diminishing mental connection, and were less able to find each other. It was the time of night between moonset and sunrise, but even with human eyes, Castiel was able to appreciate the bounty of stars that the otherwise pitch-black night offered. She stared up at them and breathed, the air pleasantly cold, and waited, praying Anna would hear her calls and appear.
It took a while, but eventually she did, looking rumpled and wary. "What's wrong, Cas?" she asked immediately.
Suddenly, the feeling that Jeanette had helped name 'guilt'-- a relatively new one-- rushed at Castiel, knocking her words away momentarily. How could she take up Anna's time with something so… trivial? "I need your advice, sister," she said quietly. Anna nodded impatiently for her to continue. "It's not a matter involving Lucifer," Castiel admitted. "In fact, it's not a matter involving anything of that nature."
"Just tell me."
"You know," Castiel said slowly, "that I've been experiencing more and more emotions as the days go on. I've told you that."
"Yes."
"I've come across a new one."
"Do you know what it is?"
Castiel paused; she did, but she prepared herself for the word to feel strange on her borrowed lips. "Attraction."
At this, Anna's eyes lit up. All traces of impatience vanished and she actually smiled. "My God, I never thought I'd live to see it. When did it happen, then? From what? Someone on TV?"
Castiel cocked her head, confused. "No, real life."
"Oh," Anna said, and was beginning to say something else that was cut off when Castiel said slowly, clearly, "Dean Winchester."
Silence fell over the clearing, and Castiel remembered-- with further guilt-- Anna's own romantic experiences with Dean. "Well, I can't say I blame you," Anna said at last. "He is one good-looking bastard."
Castiel blinked, still perplexed. Despite everything else she had come to learn about humans, and about feeling, the concept of physical attraction still evaded her. She couldn't care less about what Dean looked like, and she told Anna that. Anna just smirked. "So, what happened?"
"We kissed."
"And?"
"And," Castiel said. "I don't know what to do."
Anna shook her head. "I mean, you kissed, and…?"
At last Castiel understood her meaning. "There wasn't anything else physical involved," she said curtly.
"Oh."
Castiel knew that Anna was hurt, and she regretted it; nevertheless, she needed advice, so she pressed on. "I'm confused, Anna," she said quietly. "Nothing before has been like this."
"Well, talk to me," Anna replied, seeming to swallow her discomfort and focus all her energy on her friend, which Castiel appreciated. "Tell me what you're feeling. How do you feel about him?"
Castiel paused before replying, again struggling to put by-now-familiar sensations into the clumsy medium of words. "I've always been concerned with Dean," she began slowly. "And since I was… capable of … caring, I suppose, I've cared for him." Anna nodded encouragingly. "I consider him a friend. But it's not like you, or Sam… I feel more for him than friendship. When I'm with him I feel comforted. Like it used to be, before all of this started. I want… to be near him. You know, I'm still not used to… physical contact. But I don't mind it when he touches me." Castiel felt her mouth pull, and realized that she was smiling. "I want to… hold him."
She looked up at Anna, who was shaking her head and grinning. Castiel saw nothing funny about it and yet, her smile widened too. "Cas," Anna said, laughingly. "Oh, Castiel. You are too cute."
"What do I do?"
"Hold him, if you want to. Do whatever feels right."
"Our Father…"
"Our Father," Anna interrupted, "started everything because of love. Everything good that's ever happened has happened because of it. And any angel who says otherwise is speaking out their own ass, not from our Father. He wants us to be happy, Cas. So be happy."
Trying to absorb this, Castiel took a few steps away. The sun was finally beginning to rise, obscuring the stars with a thickening film of orange-pink. "Anna," she said, after a moment, "I never said anything about love."
But Anna was gone.
Castiel wandered, watching the sun come up, thinking of Dean, her mind working sluggishly. She thought of how he made her feel: comfortable, exhilarated, weak, strong. She thought of love, which had been the original-- and for a time, sole-- emotion of angels. It was something they'd lost sight of in the past few millennia, it seemed. And despite the fact that she wanted to take Anna's comfort, she still wasn't sure how Father would feel about this. Finding love again, this was undeniably a good thing, but finding it because of a human? Was that acceptable? Even allowable?
Jeanette spoke up eventually, reiterating to her what Anna had said, that love was never anything to look down upon. Though Castiel was tempted to ask what authority the human thought she had on such matters, she kept quiet, listening again, hoping her host could convince her of the statement's truth despite the fact that Anna had failed to. Then she listened on as Jeanette told about the people she had loved in her life: her parents, her friends, and a young man who, in the images Jeanette showed her, reminded Castiel unaccountably of Dean. It was a ridiculous notion to compare them-- a college boy and a demon hunter, but Jeanette just smiled inside her head. Every man reminds you of him, she remarked pensively. Every song is about him.
I'm not sure about music, Castiel told her. But it does seem that the entirety of my existence by now involves Dean Winchester in some way. Jeanette laughed at that, about to say more, but retreated without argument when Castiel asked her politely for time to think in peace. Then, alone, her vessel's mind dozing, she wandered until the sun was fully above the line of trees before realizing that she should return to the motel.
In all those hours, she still came to no conclusions.
***
Morning came, and Sam felt like a Scoutmaster preparing for a camping trip as he loaded the Impala and quizzed Jimmy for his first real supernatural encounter… well, his first one during which he'd be completely in control of his own body. Castiel was gone and Dean sulked around the motel room-- Sam was quite certain that the two phenomena were related-- and was less than helpful when it came to preparing for the journey and the fight. What the brothers had discussed last night-- the second thing-- was never far from Sam's mind, but he knew that analyzing it further would have to wait until after the fight. Dean, he realized, must have known this as well when he'd initially postponed the conversation last night.
Sam wanted to arrive at the address Bobby had given them around eleven or so, to make absolutely sure that the vampires would have already gone to sleep for the day. This meant, by his (Mapquest's) calculations, leaving around ten. He'd packed guns for all of them, the bullets painted with a thin coating of dead man's blood, as well as machetes for him, Dean and Castiel, whose blades had been treated as well. For Jimmy, he supplied a smaller knife; he didn't expect, or want, the man to attempt a killing blow on his first hunt. In fact, he'd told Jimmy how to identify the leader of the nest upon entrance and ordered him to stay away from him no matter what.
When it was quarter of ten and there was still no sign of Castiel, Sam knew he had to ask. "Do you have any idea what time Cas is getting back?"
"Nope."
Sam sighed. "We're gonna have to leave without her soon."
"Leave a note with the address. She can meet us there."
Sam didn't like it, but ten came and went, and he knew that was exactly what they would end up doing. Besides, he argued to himself, there had been a time before Cas, before Heaven and Hell and all related paraphernalia, when the Winchester brothers worked alone. They were still more than capable of it. It just felt… odd, was all.
But when they were a few miles from the reported location of the nest-- an old boathouse on a nearby river-- Dean stopped the car and pulled over to the shoulder. Absorbed by his laptop, not seeing what his brother had seen, Sam was slightly surprised when the back door opened and Castiel slid in, seating herself next to her former vessel.
"Glad you could make it," Sam remarked. Castiel smirked, but said nothing. Dean guided the car back onto the highway, staring pointedly out the windshield. Lovely: now Sam felt like a high school dance chaperone. "How do you kill a vampire, Jimmy?" he asked, desperate for something to say.
"You cut off their head," Jimmy answered, his voice hollow.
"But are you gonna be doing any of that?"
"No."
They parked a safe distance away, marching on foot to the boathouse, lugging their weapons with them. "There are four," Castiel said quietly as they approached, and Sam didn't question how he was able to sense that. "Two pairs of mates. The older female is the leader." Sam glanced and Jimmy, who nodded, understanding.
"Okay," Sam said, "we're gonna give it a shot interrogating them, but I'm pretty sure they won't know anything. But according to Bobby, they've been snatching humans like crazy. So in the end, we aim to kill either way. Ready?" They had reached the building. Sam turned once more to look at Jimmy, and found him already sweating, his skin a sickly green.
"Ready," he replied.
Dean opened the door.