Author's note: Long chapter. It's unbeta'd, but I just wanted to get this up for you all.

Warning: none

—00—Chapter Five—00—

It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester

Dean stared at Castiel.

The small man was sat on the balcony his legs dangling stiffly over the edge and his hair fluttering and curling like waves around his face. He was a small block of black against the pastel wash of twilight and Dean thought he had never looked so human, silhouetted against the untouched backdrop.

"What are you doing here?"

He hadn't seen or spoken to the angel since he had fallen asleep, clinging to the boy like a pathetic girl and begging him not to leave and had been beginning to think the angel would never show up again. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. In a way he didn't want Harry's presence but that would be oversimplifying how tangled the web of emotion the angel and vessel caused.

Castiel glanced at him over the sharp edge of his shoulder, his star lit eyes taking in Dean's form before turning away to face the moon. "Harry likes to be in high places" the angel said softly and something flickered across his face; a terrible yearning that Dean thought had nothing to do with Castiel at all. "It reminds him of better times"

Dean hesitated before sliding onto the stone ledge, his skin growing hot in fear as he swung his legs over the drop. He was scared of heights but death had taken the edge off nearly everything and even his most fierce mortal fears dimmed in comparison to his memories.

"You know him, inside." It was more of a statement that a question, because after the last time he had seen the angel he had been pretty convinced there was more to Castiel's actions that just angelic apathy.

Castiel nodded slowly, a frown marring Harry's delicate features. "Yes. Unlike my other vessels Harry is still conscious and aware. He is fond of you Dean Winchester." Castiel glanced at Dean once again, his pale face a contrast of edges of light and pools of shadow. "It is not an easy possession for either of us. Harry's... Harry's humanity is tainting me"

Dean scowled at the angels words, "Humanity isn't a poison, Cas"

Castiel shrugged and it was a gesture of such forced apathy that Dean almost understood him, "It is for Angels"

Dean stared at him silently, watching as the light filtered across Harry's too thin face. The man seemed to have lost weight since the last time he'd seen him, his cheekbones were butter-knife sharp beneath his skin and the lines of his jaw looked almost cruel without the softness of extra flesh. He looked ill.

"Dean. Bad things are about to happen. Do not doubt yourself" Castiel said quietly, his gaze locked unwaveringly in iced shards of emerald on the horizon, "and try not to think too badly of us."

Dean wasn't surprised when he disappeared.

--00—

Bobby had been long gone by the time Dean had woken up and Dean had been too grateful and too hurt to demand answers from the older hunter right away about the connection between his dad and Harry. But Castiel's odd visit made his insides clench nervously and he decided to call the man before they were swallowed up whole in another case of ghosts and demons and things that wanted to kill them.

"Singer."

"Bobby?" Dean asked slowly, glancing out of the motel window in anticipation for Sam's return. His brother had disappeared some time ago on yet another one of his mysterious walks and Dean wasn't sure he wanted Sam to hear this conversation.

"Dean? You sound better than last time I saw you," Bobby drawled, dark humour obvious in his voice.

"Yeah, well ghost sickness does crazy things to a man." he quirked back.

"Well at least you're very own angel teddy bear to cry into." Bobby's teasing was almost humorous and Dean would have responded with automatic, sarcastic indignation if it wasn't for the bitter edge to Bobby's voice that was sharp with memories and unpleasant thoughts, reminding Dean how tangled and unfair the situation they had all found themselves in was.

Dean sighed, "Actually that's why I'm calling. You see, I did some digging about Harry."

Bobby was carefully silent at the other end of the phone, his breathing quiet whispers of hollow emotion and Dean couldn't help but wonder how long he'd been preparing himself for this conversation.

"Bobby, why didn't you tell me my dad kept in touch with Harry? Was he as close to him as you?"

"Dean," Bobby exhaled heavily, his voice so weary it hurt to listen to. "I didn't tell you because there are some things you probably don't want to know about."

"What the hell does that mean? This is my Dad!" Dean snarled and felt the same familiar tug of pain at his heart whenever he thought about his dad and the sacrifice his dad had made to save his life. His anger at Bobby was sharp and hollow and entirely unfair, but it was easier to feel angry at Bobby for not telling him of the connection between his father and Harry, than to feel hurt that his Dad hadn't trusted him with the same thing.

"Yeah, and so what?" Bobby huffed back, his voice rising and crackling down the line. "You've painted this rose tinted view of your Daddy, made him out to be a saint or a hero ever since he died. But he wasn't, Dean, and you damn well know it. John Winchester was a flawed, selfish, pig headed bastard and he made a lot of mistakes in his life. Harry was just another one of the many people he hurt, messed the kid up to hell and back and kept taking and taking until there was nothing left to give. I didn't mention it because I was trying to protect you, idjit."

"Don't you talk about him that way!" he hissed but Bobby's words had hit him a little too hard, John hadn't been a perfect man, Dean knew his father had faults and sins, but problem was, Dean didn't care, he loved the man too much.

"Grow up," Bobby snapped back but then sighed a little and there was a pause of hesitant, bitter silence. "You remind me of Harry, both of you completely blind to John Winchester's faults."

Dean didn't have time to respond before Bobby had hung up on him, rather effectively stopping their conversation and the jumble of questions it had evoked in him.

He was getting sick of Bobby hanging up on him.

--00—

Dean hated witches.

They freaked him the fuck out. Unlike demons and ghosts and werewolves they weren't predictable, they weren't confined to patterns and rules, they were messy and emotional and human and it made them dangerous.

"I hate witches," he moaned, fingering the hex bags and starring at the charred bones of infants with sickening disgust.

Sam hummed and bent over his laptop, Dean didn't think for even a moment that his brother was really listening to him. Sam was too busy researching and until Dean dragged him away from his computer Sam would just made noises that other people mistook for interest.

"I mean, I don't get it what does razor blade guy and boiled cheerleader have to connect them? They're both squeaky clean. There is no reason for wicked bitch payback."

Sam uncurled himself from his hunched-researching position and ran a hand thoughtfully across the back of his neck. "Maybe this witch isn't working a grudge. Maybe it's a spell. Check this out" Sam said and gestured Dean over to his laptop and read out a tattered book: "Three blood sacrifices over three days, the last before midnight on the final day of the final harvest. Celtic Calendar, the final day of the final harvest is October 31st".

"Halloween. That's tomorrow." Dean said, feeling a headache starting to spark into life beneath the pinched skin around his eyes, "Okay what does this spell do?"

"Well if I'm right; the witch is trying to raise a demon. But not just any demon; Samhain."

Dean shrugged, "Am I supposed to be impressed?"

From Sam's little scoff of irritation he guessed the correct answer was yes. "Dean, Samhain is the damn origin of Halloween. The Celts believe that October 31st was the one night of the year when the veil was the thinnest between the living and the dead, and it was Samhain's night. I mean, masks were put on to hide from him, sweets left on doorsteps to appease him, faces carved into pumpkins to worship him. He was exorcised centuries ago."

Dean sighed and plucked the book from Sam's hands, running his eyes over pages of too graphic details of blood and gore and carnage. "Well it sure looks like a lot of death and destruction for just one demon."

"That's because Samhain, once he's raised, can do some rising of his own." Sam stared at him hard eyed and brow furrowed and Dean knew he should be scared, or at least apprehensive but just felt tired and irritated and huffed a response out wearily.

"Raise what?"

"Ghosts, ghouls, demons, zombies" Sam listed slowly, "Evil things follow him around like the piped piper."

Dean hummed, "Leprechauns?"

"Dean-!"

Dean smirked at him with mock seriousness, "What those things are creepy." He stood up and slapped the book against Sam's chest gently, giving an overdramatic shudder and wriggling his fingers at Sam, "little hands."

Sam shook his head in exasperation but Dean was pleased to see him looking at least a little less serious as they went to find their witch.

Except it wasn't as simple as he thought, because witches were still just human and that made everything messy.

--00—

Dean's neck prickled moments before they stepped back into the motel room.

It was the only warning he got of the angels' presence and he barely managed to catch up Sam as his brother stormed into their room, brandishing his gun threatening.

"Sam," he called out hurriedly, "It's Castiel."

Sam's eyes flickered down to Harry's small, unmoving form and the muscles in his back unlocked, his arms flopping down at his sides "We've met."

Dean really didn't want his brother in the same room as angels he realised as he stepped next to Sam, his gaze searching Harry's face to try and establish how much Castiel he was dealing with and how much Harry was there to temper the angel's blank apathy. Castiel's emotionless, heaven lit magnificence beamed blindingly out of Harry's thin face and Dean winced a little in anticipation. It only got worse when he finally noticed there was another figure, turned away from then and standing unmoving at the far end of their motel room, outlined by sharp shafts of sunlight that emphasised his dark skin and crisp clothes.

"Who's your friend?" he asked Castiel, gesturing with a sharp nod towards the looming figure behind Harry.

Harry's green eyes darkened slightly, and his forehead bunched a little before Castiel's heavenly emptiness overwhelmed him. It was all Castiel that spoke to them after that. "The rising of Samhain, have you stopped it? Have you located the witch?"

"Well no..." Sam stumbled to interrupted, scuffing his feet awkwardly.

"But we know who the witch is." Dean finished, hoping it would be enough for the angels. The dark man behind Castiel huffed in bleak amusement and Dean decided right there he didn't like him.

"Apparently the witch knows who you are too." Castiel said slowly and uncurled his hand to offer out another hex bag to Dean. "I found this in the wall. If we hadn't found it, one or both of you would be dead. Do you know where the witch is now?"

Dean and Sam exchanged uneasy glances and Harry's eyes narrowed at their expressions, the thin slits of green burning too bright in his pale face. "This is unfortunate. The rising of Samhain is one of the 66 seals."

Dean scowled, oddly hurt. "So this is about your buddy Lucifer?"

"Lucifer is no friend of ours." The dark figure growled; his voice was a low rumble of thunder that just promised heavenly retribution and Dean really, really didn't like him, especially when he finally turned round and swept his contempt filled over eyes over Sam and oddly enough Castiel. "Enough of this."

The man moved surprisingly lightly for a big guy and it was only when he stopped next to Harry's painfully slender form did Dean realise how physically imposing he was. The man was all but glowing with angelic possession; the whites of his eyes gleamed almost demon white against the midnight smooth skin of his face and hands were spades of flesh that curled threatening at Dean's stare. Harry wasn't glowing like that.

"This is Uriel. He is what you would call a... specialist." Castiel supplied softly, his eyes burning with intense meaning in Dean's direction, and Dean couldn't help but think he was missing something Castiel was trying to tell him.

"What kind of specialist?"

Uriel's smile was full of sharp teeth and deadly intention and his gaze flickered over to Harry's tiny form with a face darkened by emotion that made the shadows smear and paint their way across his skin. "We're going to destroy the town."

Harry's shiver of disgust was almost unnoticeable and Dean might not have even had seen it if it wasn't for the way Uriel's eyes were trained and burning on his companion and again he felt like he was missing something.

"You can't!" exclaimed Sam immediately, "There are a thousand innocent people living here!"

"One thousand, two hundred fourteen." Uriel corrected; his voice cold, but his eyes diluted and pulsated darkly with the sick pleasure Dean had previously only associated with demons.

Sam gave a pained grunt and started into a shocked horrified conversation with Uriel and Dean would have helped but his eyes were locked with Harry's. It was like watching a battle rage behind a thin mirror of green; Dean could see the war between the angel and the man. Harry

's face was marble consistency but his eyes shifted colour and intensity, even the pupils shuddered in response and the whites of his eyes seemed to strain and glaze as the internal battle raged.

"Cas?"

"Enough." Castiel interrupted and both Sam and Uriel snapped around to stare at him silently. Sam was speechless in horror and Uriel in barely hidden anger.

Green eyes peered up from beneath the too long curls of Harry's hair and Dean felt like he was again missing half of what Castiel or Harry was trying to convey to him. "I suggest you hurry and find this witch."

Dean didn't miss Uriel's expression of unadulterated rage, or the way Harry's eyes flickered up at the taller angel, narrowed and smouldering with unspoken defiance.

--00—

Sam's face crumpled.

"They weren't what I expected. I thought angels were meant to merciful, not dicks."

Dean hummed in sympathy and stared at Sam's lost, miserable expression. He hated seeing his brother hurt but it never stopped to amaze him how oddly hopeful he had to be to get hurt in the first place.

"Don't give up on them yet, Sammy" he replied softly and reversed the Impala down the road with enough speed to make her hum lovingly beneath them.

When he glanced back up Sam had tilted his head to look at him, his expression shadowed and entirely unreadable. "I guess so."

--00—

"You are pushing it Castiel."

"You know what Dean wished for."

"We should drag Dean Winchester kicking and screaming from here. I don't care what he wishes for."

"I do."

"And that is why they're going to destroy you and that abomination of a vessel."

--00—

They didn't manage to stop Samhain from rising.

Dean didn't know why they even tried sometimes, everything they did was just a little too late, too weak, too everything and it seemed they were losing all the battles that mattered at the moment. It was only pure luck and Sam's smarts that was keeping them alive and Dean couldn't help but wonder which of those things would break first as they raced after the demon.

"So this demon's pretty powerful. It might take more than the usual weapons." Sam interrupted him slowly, cautiously; peering over at him, with eyes that were wide with sincerity and emphasis.

"Sam, no" Dean hissed, his eyes flickering to stare into Sam's blood smeared face, "You are not using your physic whatever. Don't even think about it. Use Ruby's knife."

"Why?"

Dean was sure his brother had meant to sound fierce and demanding and all that other manly crap but instead he just sounded like a child, blindly questioning the adults around him with utter bewilderment about his actions. It made Dean's heart clench.

"Well for one, the angels said-"

"I don't know Dean" Sam cut in softly, "it doesn't seem they're right about much. They wanted to completely destroy a town."

If Dean hesitated at that he didn't let Sam notice it, "Forget about the angels then but you said it yourself. These powers they're like playing with fire. Remember?"

He picked up Ruby's knife; finding an odd comfort in the heavy weight of the wooden handle and the shimmer of the metal with its craved markings that shone black against silver. He flipped it around and held the handle out to Sam, staring beseechingly up at his brother's frowning, closed off face. "Please."

Sam didn't say anything but he took the knife and for a moment Dean thought it was going to be okay.

--00—

Zombies stunk.

It only made sense, what with all the rotting flesh and everything but Dean would have rather taken the great big, evil Samhain over a locked room full of moulding corpses any day. Sam always got the nice jobs.

A fist struck out at him, hitting him hard enough to send him flying across the room and into a thin limbed woman. Her face peeled off in layers like an onion as they tumbled together to the floor and her breath smelt of death as she gasped and twisted over him.

"Ugh." Dean scrambled away in disgust and stabbed the woman through with a metal spike, locking her to floor where she withered and spasmed like a pinned up butterfly, her flayed skin as fine and translucent as wings that slithered and fell in chunks around her.

Dean turned away and slipped past the next zombie towards the entrance to the crypt, wondering desperately where he'd throw his other metal stake as the man advanced sluggish, his boneless leg dragging behind him.

The glint of metal sent him diving in the corridor and he scrambled for the spike, spinning around and expecting to be faced with a horde of Zombies.

What he actually saw was worse.

Sam was facing off the Samhain just beyond the border of the next room, his hand outstretched and harsh, gulping shudders racking his body as his powers pulsated through him. Samhain was stood unmoving and wide eyed in shock, black demon smoke dragged out and curling from his mouth, falling to the ground in rolls of pure demon. The marble beneath Samhain's vessel burnt and smouldered as the demon was sent back to hell, leaving a ring of black ash.

Sam gasped in pain and clutched at his head, his knees almost buckling as the last of the demon burnt.

"Sam."

Sam spun around, defiance and guilt racing in a battle across his features and blood trickling out of his nostrils till it painted his top lip in a smear of colour. Sam's pupils were too blown large and too dark and Dean felt all that stupid hope wither into sharp, betrayed anger as the scene that had just taken place.

Dean had to look away as his brother's tongue darted out to taste his own blood.

--00--

The morning was fresh and full of sunlight.

Dean had been sat silently watching the playground for hours, taking comfort in the lives they had saved, enjoying the innocence of children that screamed in delight around him because there wasn't much else for him to take from this experience at all.

He didn't have words for Sam's actions. He didn't even have much feeling left if he was honest; most of his anger towards his brother was hollow these days, everything felt pretty hollow actually. He felt like he'd left something behind in the pit and had come back too different, too defeated and broken to ever be the same person again. He was a car running on fumes, waiting for the final gasp of life to be sucked out of his in a billow of smoke and he just didn't have the energy to keep fighting Sam. Didn't want to.

He didn't hear Castiel appear, didn't really need to.

"Why are you here? I failed." Dean asked slowly.

"I'm not here to judge you." Castiel's voice was calm as he lowered himself almost tentatively onto the bench next to Dean, awkwardly folding Harry's thin limbs in towards his torso. "Our orders were not to stop the summoning of Samhain but to do what you told us."

Dean glanced over a little surprised, staring in the half lidded profile of the man next to him, "Your orders were to follow my orders?"

"Yes. I was praying you would choose to save this town."

Dean nodded slowly, Castiel sullen intensity in the motel room suddenly made a lot more sense. He had thought that maybe Harry hadn't agreed with the angel's and was fighting for control, but maybe Castiel was just a little more human than he let on.

"I'm guessing Uriel wasn't praying for that, huh?"he asked slowly, thinking back on the other angel's unmasked irritation, "he didn't seem to happy with you."

Castiel turned to look at him, a frown marring his forehead and his eyes bright with heavenly light that was shadowed by the troubled crease of his brow. "Uriel obeys the will of our Father" he stated firmly before glancing away thoughtfully, "he doesn't approve of my vessel."

"Huh? What's not to like about your vessel?"

A small sound of amusement seemed to escape Castiel and the angel bowed forward a little, his body still strung tight as he stared downward, his hair sliding in a curling curtain across his features, hiding himself from Dean's gaze. "Harry is an unusual vessel."

"Yeah, you've said that already, he doesn't sleep. More crypt angel talk" Dean said impatiently and reached forward to give Harry's forehead a tap through his hair, Harry's skin was feverish beneath his fingers and Dean almost flinched away from the heat of it. He wondered if all angels burnt that hot in their vessels.

Castiel titled his head slightly and stared up at Dean hesitantly, almost considering. "Harry says I should talk to you more, but that I should use plain English because you have the attention span of a five year old." Castiel frowned a little at that, his confusion oddly clear on his usually passive features.

Dean chuckled a little, "He seems like a man of great intelligence."

"He is of above average intelligence," Castiel admitted passively, obviously not quite understanding that Dean had been joking and that made Dean smile a little more because sometimes dealing with Castiel was like dealing with someone without any social skills what so ever, except with the power to kill him with a glance which wasn't quite so funny.

"Human emotion is not something I have ever experienced. I am not sure I am meant to, Uriel does not like my vessel because Harry makes it easier to feel and to understand these feelings. He thinks I am being corrupted." Castiel sighed and Dean didn't think he sounded too happy about it. "Emotion causes doubt. Doubts cause questions. I don't know what is right and wrong anymore. I don't know what the right decision here was, if you have failed or passed this test. Angels don't doubt."

Dean sighed, "Humans do."

Castiel glanced back up him, eyes burning bright with stars and heaven and the beginnings of anger. "I am not human."

"You're possessing one though," Dean countered and poked Harry's thin chest for emphasis. Harry was ridges and hollows beneath his hand, burning hell fire hot which was probably lucky considering he was only wearing a thin t-shirt and jeans.

"That's what Harry said." Castiel looked up into the sky; his eyes, circles of bottle green glass that held reflected fragments of the sun and a thousand untouchable thoughts of angelic origin. Finally he stood up and glanced back down at Dean, his face smoothed out to familiar, untouched apathy. "Bobby's waiting at the motel,"

Dean felt his insides clench at that, wondering what could be so important that Bobby had decided to meet them in person instead of just speaking over the phone.

--00—

"Boys, I think I just saw your father."

Bobby was slumped against the wall of their motel room, narrowed eyed and hollow cheeked. It wasn't obvious, because nothing with Bobby ever was but Dean hadn't seen the man so spooked since the rising of the witnesses. With Bobby it was all about the things he didn't say or do and his slumped, frozen position was enough for Dean to realise how much this had affected the older hunter.

"Demon?" Dean asked automatically.

Bobby shook his head and licked at his lips, "That's what I thought, except he was hunting. Throwing metal and salt and all kinds of stuff into to his trunk and driving off with that same, obsessive gleam in his eyes."

Sam who had had been silent since Dean had returned gave a noise of irritation and stood up, shoulders hunched and tense. "So it's a shapeshifter. Let's just get some silver and go after it. You didn't need to come all the way here Bobby."

"What's eating your goat?" Bobby peered up at Sam thoughtfully from beneath the rim of his hat. "I wasn't even going to tell you two, except this is where the bastard led me."

"So he's after us?"Dean asked and sighed "Great, just great. As if our lives couldn't get any more complicated."

Sam's eyes were dark and boring into his back and Dean wasn't quite sure what that meant but he doubted it was anything good. He wondered what had happened to his brother while he was gone but didn't really have the energy to ask.

"Alright let's get our stuff and go kill this thing." Dean ordered and started to throw stakes and guns into his duffle-bag. The bag had been his dad's.

"Dean."

"Jesus!" Bobby spluttered and Dean didn't even need to glance over to know that Castiel had appeared, immobile and intense behind them. "Does he always do that?"

"Yeah, apparently angels can't knock" Dean retorted and threw the duffle over his shoulder, turning to face the angel's shadowed face. If it was possible, Harry looked like he'd lost ten pounds since the last time he'd seen him and that had only been minutes ago. "Look Cas, we're a little busy right now, so if you can-"

"He's real." Castiel interrupted and his shoulders seemed to slump weakly at his own words, drawing in on himself like a barrier which was probably quite appropriate considering the haze of rage that flickered across Dean's vision in a red, painful haze. "This is the real John Winchester."

"What? How? We saw him die!" Sam demanded, flailing wildly and advancing towards them in stumbling, bewildering steps.

"My dad is alive." Dean repeated slowly, and the bag dropped from his hands, landing with a thump onto the floor, "My dad is alive and you knew this and didn't tell me?"

Sam was at his shoulder, looming just as menacing over Harry's gaunt form, words spluttering out of him like bullets. Castiel wavered before them, his forehead knotted and his mouth draw tight into a line of too bright red, his eyes darted in slivers of iced green over at Bobby before meeting Dean's gaze. "We did not think it was important."

Bobby made a noise of bitter incredulity behind them but Dean didn't really hear, his arm shoot out automatically and his hand coiled and curled around Harry's arm, forgetting for a minute he was clinging onto an angel. "You didn't think it was important?"

"Angel's aren't just jerks, they're cruel" Sam hissed and picked up Dean's duffle bag, throwing it over his shoulder with jerking movements of barely suppressed anger. "Take us to our Dad"

"He's hunting," Castiel responded, oddly toneless even for him and refused to look up. His eyes were drawn to the place where Dean's hand was gripped his arm, holding so tight that his skin was bloodless and white and waiting to blossom with bruises.

"I don't care! Take me to him now!" Dean hissed and shook the smaller man, or tried to; the angel was unmoving in his grip and seemed to be made of steel in his hands suddenly. Harry stared up at him, his face shadowed, "Please."

Dean spotted the moment when all aspects of Harry disappeared, he could see the man withdrawing into his head; the dim, crackling presence of humanity dimmed from his face and Castiel's angelic apathy painted itself blinding and untouchable across Harry's pale face, his eyes electric green with sudden brilliance.

"Okay, Dean." Castiel said slowly, his voice deep and gravelly and for a moment Dean thought he saw anger, true anger that didn't have anything to do with Harry's influence at all staring out at him.

Dean hand tightened around Harry's arm, "You're coming with us."

--00--

The demon screamed as light flickered through its chest in a series of electrical currents, illuminating its skeleton before it crumbled to the floor with a final gasp of life. Dean hissed in relief and looked forward to see who had rescued them.

His father stared back at his inquisitive eyes.

Fog curled and rubbed like a cat around his ankles and his familiar features were half shadowed in the billows of demon smoke and gun powder. It was John Winchester all right, Dean had spent his entire life watching and shadowing the man and his face, with its hard eyes and thin mouth set in obsessed determination was burnt in his eyelids. He hadn't aged a day since the last time Dean had seen him and that had been when he'd wrapped up his corpse and set it on fire; a hunter's funeral.

"Dad?" he breathed and John's eyes met his. His breath caught in his throat and he stumbled forward, away from Sam's immobile warmth.

John's eyes widened as well and his gun went slack and fell against the dew covered grass and he stepped forward and Dean almost didn't realise he wasn't looking at them in his own blinding desperation. Their father hadn't noticed Bobby or even his sons; his wide, shocked eyes were locked on the small, figure behind them.

"Harry?"

The name was said in such a way that Dean knew, knew there was something there, something more than a passing acquaintance or even a long distant friendship. He didn't know what, but there was a raw edged familiarity in his father's voice, the type that was coated with emotion and memories and pain; and he flinched at the depths of it, feeling like he was intruding on something and knowing exactly what his father would find in those sun lit, heavenly eyes.

"Hello John Winchester" Castiel's voice was cold, almost icy and Dean wondered if it was entirely the angel speaking. If not it seemed something about John sparked feeling into the usually emotionless being.

John was still moving forward, half floating through the smoke, his feet fumbling over the other and he caught himself by bracing his hands on Harry's slender arms, his blood coated fingers painting the boy's angelically illuminated skin. His grip was harsh enough to leave bruises blossoming in petals of violet but Castiel simply stared patiently up at him and it seemed to infuriate his father.

"Dad, that's not..."

Sam shushed him but it was enough and their father turned sharply, his eyes wild as he took them in and then he glanced back at Harry. Dean could only see the edges of his dad's face and didn't understand the emotion that smeared ugly and violent across the man's face before he spun around and folded him and Sam against him.

"My boys" He mouthed into Dean's skin, his stubble rubbing like sandpaper against his neck as his hands gripped into their clothes. Sam shuddered faintly against him.

It was reminiscent of the hugs John used to give them when they children, smothering them against him until they struggled to breath and felt as if nothing could possible hurt them ever again. It didn't feel like that now and Dean mourned the loss of comfort silently.

"John. This is Castiel; the angel"

Bobby interrupted softly and yet again there was history echoing in his voice and Dean didn't understand what it all meant as John stared back at the old hunter, his eyes echoing the same grief.

"I knew that thing wasn't Harry the moment I looked into his eyes" John hissed and his hate filled eyes slid over to Harry's unmoving body, "Might as well be a demon"

Castiel eyes flashed brilliant green for a moment before fading back to the star lit glow and he glanced at Dean, Harry's features made tense and tight in an expression of unrealised pain before he disappeared.

The sound of feathers echoed across the swamp

Ash is by the way definitely returning sometime late season five. Whoo. I'd like to pimp out Mumford and Sons while I'm here; I'm pretty sure the entire album was written while watching supernatural.

Next chapter: Wishful Thinking- Dean finally realises the nature of Harry and his Dad's relationship and John finds out what saved him from the pit.

Review please.