We made it back to the Bunker and saw a beat up late seventies Toyota truck parked in front.
"Why can't he steal anything with class?" I grumbled. "It's like he has no sense of style at all."
"You are aware he's been wearing the same clothes almost a decade now, right?" Sam pointed out.
"Well yeah, but still. I mean, he could at least try."
"Uh huh, sure. Angels don't seem to be big on aesthetics."
"Gabriel had style," I reminded him as we got out of Baby.
"And how many eons had Gabriel been away from Heaven by the time we met him?
"Yeah but that just shows there could be hope for Cas."
Sam didn't even try to reply to that. He just gave me a skeptical look, walked down the stairs and opened the door.
"Sam? Dean?" Cas's voice worked it's way up to us.
"Who else has the key?" I said.
He was sitting at the first of the long tables, his coat was torn up, again, but I didn't see any blood anywhere. That was good, what wasn't good was the look on his face when he looked up. His eyes narrowed, then widened in surprise and he got this wary look on his face, "So, your definition of complications is that none of you, except Diggle, are still human."
"Pretty much. Any ideas on how to fix that?"
"Dean...," he shook his head, "I've just now seen you," he kind of snapped, "I don't even know what you are. You're not the standard werewolf. Why, exactly, would I know how to fix you?"
He turned more to look at us, that's when I saw the blood, not sure why I hadn't smelled it. Guess angel blood doesn't smell, which kind of makes sense I guess. "You okay?"
He looked down at his shirt, "Yes, I was resting up some before I got rid of the stains."
I took a better look at him, he didn't look all that great. "What happened?"
"I evaded capture, that's all. It's nothing that concerns you."
He's always been close mouthed about Heaven, I'd push him for more information later. "All right, well here's what we found it." I filled him in on everything and the plan Sam and I had come up with. Oliver and the rest took seats around the table while I talked.
"No." Was all he said when I stopped talking.
"Uh, no what?"
"If any angel is going into Purgatory it will be me." There wasn't an ounce of hesitation in his voice, or willingness to compromise, "We will see what Death and Crowley say, if it is required that someone has to go to Purgatory to close the portal, I will. And no, there will not be any discussion of that. Are we clear?"
"You've done your time down there, we all have," Sam protested. "There are other things that can do this, Dean made the point that all of us have more than done our share of saving the world. It's their turn."
Cas straightened in his chair and stared right at Sam. Now normally, that's not an issue, but it turns out any challenge to us and the wolf side gets pissy. Sam started growling, I kept a lid on my wolf with Coyote's help.
"Sam! Look away!" I ordered. Sam stopped his growls, lowered his eyes and gripped the table for a second.
"Sorry Cas. That wasn't me."
"I know," Cas said, "However, it is because of me that Dean was dragged into Purgatory, therefore allowing the monsters to figure out a way to escape."
"Bullshit," I said, "Benny knew exactly how to get out, he told me about the portal and how to use it. I doubt he was the only one down there who had a clue. He never said when the portal opened, he just said he knew we could get out. So it could have been there the whole time. That's why we need answers, with all the archangels gone and God absent as usual, we're hoping Death or Crowley know. No way in hell am we're asking Metatron, I trust his ass even less than Crowley."
"Who's Metatron?" Roy asked.
"Scribe of God," Cas replied, "Who used me to destroy Heaven and cast out the angels."
Roy'd learned by now when to not ask for more details, "Oh, okay."
It was pretty obvious he still had no clue but I wasn't going to fill him in, we had other things to do. "Look, before we get all up close and personal with my least favorite people, we need to find an easy hunt for Coyote and the rest. We don't want them anywhere near Death and the rest, plus they need to practice not wolfing out when in sketchy situations."
"It seems you do as well," Cas pointed out.
"That's why you're staying here," Sam said, "Dean or I grow fur at the wrong time, knock us both out. We're pretty sure Coyote can keep Oliver and Roy in check. Dig can go with them too. That may help."
Cas thought it over and nodded, "Seems to be a decent plan."
He kept giving us the super-intent Cas look. I love feeling like I'm under a microscope, really I do. "Anything making more sense the more you stare at us?"
"Not as of yet. I am trying to observe all the changes in you, and there are many. It's fascinating."
"Great."
Sam pulled his laptop out, fired it up and started searching. "This could take awhile, you all may as well get comfy. Hauntings are hard to track down. Not a lot of hunters look for them so not sure I can find one that I can try to take from someone else. Most hunters stick with things that kill more people and are easier to find."
"I have my laptop too," Roy chimed in, "I'll help."
Oliver looked around, this was really not his scene, "What can Dig and I do?"
"Research werewolves and Fenris," Sam replied, "I'll write down the sections that you should go to. I've changed things over the last year. Dean can show you how to find them all. Cas and Coyote can help too. Once you get a stack of books, Dean can help look on the site, I've added a lot of diaries from the Men of Letters, so maybe one of them other than Magnus has some theories."
"Sounds good," I said, "You guys go pick out some rooms while Sam's writing all that down."
"All right," Roy said, "I'll show them all the empty ones."
"Thanks."
They grabbed their bags and followed Roy, Sam wrote out his list of books and once they all got back I led them to the various shelves and started shoving books into their hands.
"All of these are on werewolves?" Dig said after I stacked the fourth book into his arms, Roy and Oliver already had a full load.
"Nope, all of those have references to werewolves buried somewhere in them." I pointed to the stacks in Roy and Oliver's arms, "Those are on were-anything, not just werewolves and are mostly hypothetical theories," Then I pointed to the ones I had been putting on the floor as we went, those would be my load. "Those are on Fenris and Norse mythology and the ones Coyote has are werewolf specific. This is about half the list. When we're done with these we get more. I'm not sure what all Sam has in the database he's been working on but he and I will probably be at that for a few hours at least."
Dig looked down the shelves of books then back at me. "And everything in here is about something supernatural, or spells, or whatever."
"They were called the Men of Letters, it wasn't just a catchy phrase to put on a shirt. There was a reason behind it."
"I can see that."
He had that look, reality was crashing into all the horror movies and supernatural things he'd ever read or heard about. It was one thing for him to hear whatever we'd told him but seeing row upon row of books about these things written by men who'd been studying this shit for years was something else. Beheading vamps and shooting werewolves was just the tip of the iceberg.
Oliver looked less than excited about the prospect of sitting for hours flipping page after page. I knew that feeling all too well. It took years for me to really enjoy research, that had always been Sam's thing. I'd do it, and do a good job at it, didn't mean I liked it.
"Let's get at it," I said as I set the last book on Dig's stack, "They won't read themselves. Oh, and a lot of this crap may be in Latin, when you see that, or any other random language, ask Sam, Cas or I to translate."
"You know Latin?" Oliver asked.
"Yup, comes with the job. Hunting is one of the few careers that still uses dead languages. Hell, Bobby, the man who pretty much raised us, knew a ton of languages; Japanese, Chinese, Latin even some Spanish. Monsters are in every culture around the world so it helps to know as many languages as you can. Sam and I are spoiled though, we have Cas, he's kind of a universal translator."
We'd gotten back to the tables and set the books down, they all picked one to start diving in to while I grabbed Sam's old laptop and settled in.
Five hours later and no one had found anything, not that I was surprised. The lore on Fenris was all pretty basic and none of it referenced him creating werewolves, all the lore we had on werewolves was stuff we already knew. There were some more hints in a few of the diaries about different species of wolves but they were all still supposedly affected by silver, we weren't. Oliver had been getting more and more restless, Roy seemed to be losing hope. Coyote was taking it in stride, she knew how this worked. Oddly, Dig seemed to enjoy reading through all the information. Maybe he was some sort of history buff or bookworm,either that or the fact that this was brand new for him made it exciting. Cas, well he was just Cas and Sam hadn't really said a word outside of when the others asked for help with some of the language. He was hyper focused on finding a hunt.
I decided to call a break, "All right, food break. Sam? The menus still in the same place?"
He nodded, "Yeah, the Chinese place closed, there's a new bar-b-que place there though. It's not too bad."
"Damn! That Chinese place had the best kung pao chicken."
"I know. Sucks." His eyes were still locked onto the screen.
"Man, oh well." I dug the menus out of the drawer where we'd always kept them and tossed them onto the table. No one reached for them. "Uh huh, okay let me rephrase. We need to eat, I'm hungry and I can tell you guys are too. I know you're tired, frustrated, worried and scared. I get it, trust me, but all of us have been in fucked up situations..."
"No Dean," Oliver interrupted, the iron control he'd been keeping on his emotions started to slip, "Not like this. I've spent the last five hours reading about the horrors that werewolves commit, about how they are and fucked up situation doesn't even begin to cover this. Are we going to go primal on the full moon and have no memory of what we do? Do you know? Nothing in these books tells us that. Five hours we've sat here and we still don't have any idea of what we really are!" He barely stopped himself from hitting the table as he stood up, "We've spent hours researching and we still have nothing to go on! Are we supposed to just accept that we can feel each other's emotions? That you or Coyote could order me to do something and I'd have no choice? That there's this other being inside of me? Well? What if we lose it around people we love? Then what? Should we just have Thea and Felicity move here so we can keep watch over each other 24/7?"
The more questions he asked, the more panicky he got, can't say I blame him. He'd done a damn good job of holding it together so far, it was bound to all burst out at some point or other. "Short answer? No, I don't know about the full moon. The rest of the things you asked before the last one? Yes. The last one? It's a possibility, or maybe Sam, Coyote and I move out to Starling." He really didn't like that answer, "We accept it because right now that's our only option."
"Dean's right," Sam chimed in, "You know how long it took for Dean and I to find an answer for the Mark, and we found it completely by chance. Our Father spent close to thirty years looking for the demon that killed our Mom. You accept it, but you never, ever quit trying to find an answer. Accept, adapt, learn everything we can and never give up. That's the only way we get through this." He got up, walked around the table and stood directly in front of Oliver, "I got you into this, I asked for your help, I will not rest until I get answers for you, for all of us. We will find a way back to being human again, I swear."
Utter determination fueled by guilt and a desperate need to make things right soared through all of us thanks to the pack bond. I knew how Sam was, how I was, when it came to these things, but the others didn't really have the slightest clue until right then. Sure, they'd seen us during that ritual and they'd gotten to know Sam over the last year but the bond was a window into all of our deepest feelings.
I could tell the moment Oliver felt it, his entire body language shifted. I wouldn't say he calmed down, it was more along the lines of him finding an anchor, something to hold onto. "I know," Oliver said, "I just..."
"Don't worry about it," Sam interrupted, "If Dean and I hadn't been through all the shit we have over the years we'd be freaking out too. Trust me, we've done plenty of freaking out in the past. Let's get some food and take a break."
Oliver nodded and sat back down, "Sure."
There was another reason I'd called a break, "Sam, just get my usual from where ever you order from. I'm going to go work on Baby a bit since she's got all those holes in her. Cas? Why don't you come help? Haven't seen you in a year, may as well catch up."
"I haven't been doing anything out of..." he started to say, then he paused, and I could see him process what I was really saying, "Oh, oh course, yes. I'll come help."
Coyote shot me a quick look, I shook my head, Cas wouldn't open up if she was there. She got the hint and picked up a menu. He opened the garage door, I pulled Baby in, got out, leaned on her roof and dove right in. "So, they didn't believe you were banished?"
He shifted his weight, but instead of getting that usual Cas answering uncomfortable questions look, his face went completely blank, "I have been exiled, therefore the method of my ending up in Heaven does not enter into things. I thought you wished to discuss your situation, not mine."
"Cas, last time I saw you, you weren't exiled. It's been years since the Leviathan clusterfuck, so what changed over the last year? I've been out of the loop but I'm pretty sure Sam would have mentioned a major event, like if you wiped out more angels or went into destruco-god mode again somehow."
"It doesn't..."
That did it, "Don't pull that crap with me, I'm not into the whole hiding shit from people I care about thing much anymore. Sam said he had no clue you'd been exiled. Why?"
The blank face slipped and I didn't like what I saw when it did, Cas had lost hope. Not good.
"Because his knowledge of the situation would in no way change it. It would upset him and I saw no reason to do that. He had enough concerns as it was. The only reason I told you was to explain why I could not help like I had in the past. If it hadn't been for that, you would not know either."
"Right, I'll come back to why that was a completely idiotic thing to do in a minute. Why are you exiled?"
His face hardened again, "For my past transgressions. That is all."
"It took them this long to get around to that? Not buying it."
"It is up to you to choose what you believe. I have other, more useful things I could be doing than having this discussion with you." Complete monotone delivery, he was pissed off. He turned around and started walking towards the door.
Cas only gets like that over things or people he cares about, "Who'd you sacrifice yourself for?"
He froze, his back went from ramrod straight and stiff to slumped forward in about a half a second. "Stop asking Dean, please."
"So, I'm right. Angel politics again. For fuck's sake!"
"Dean!" He snapped, "There were reasons."
"Reasons for you to get screwed over by your own kind again? Jesus Cas, why? Why do you keep taking it in the ass for Heaven? When was the last time they helped us?"
He spun around and I knew that I'd pushed too far. His eyes were glowing and a pretty serious gust of wind swept through the place.
"I took one in the ass, as you say, for the same reasons you and Sam do. To save my home and my family. It does not concern you. I am not unleashing dark forces into the world, as you and Sam have repeatedly, my exile affects me and only me. This is the last we will speak of it. Do I make myself clear?"
"Crystal clear, you sacrifice, your "family" treats you like shit and you can't even see your home anymore. Funny thing about Sam and I though, end of the day, we still have each other, can still walk out the front door and see the people we saved. It was Hannah wasn't it? This was your compromise for her staying in charge."
I didn't get a reply, but his eyes dimmed and the wind faded.
"Yeah, thought so. You realize that this won't stop them from fighting, they'll find something to be pissed off about. For angels, they're a shit ton like us humans. They just can't get along."
"Yes, that may be, but at least they are no longer fighting because of me. I've done everything I can to heal the wounds I caused in Heaven..." he paused, "well almost everything."
Those last words were whispered which set off all kinds of alarms in my head, "Cas? Don't you dare go there."
His eyes were empty of all emotion, not in the bad ass soldier Cas kind of way either. "We aren't accomplishing anything. If you don't wish to talk about ways to deal with the monsters escaping Purgatory or the fact that you are a werewolf, I'll return to the books. I saw some more references..."
"Stop." I interrupted as I walked around Baby and blocked the way back to the door into the Bunker. "Castiel, I could care less about being a werewolf right now, the monsters are getting taken care of, the rest Sam and I will handle later. Do you know the most important thing I've learned living with Coyote?"
He shook his head.
"That not talking will destroy you. So, this is what is going to happen. You're going to go sit on that stool and start talking. I don't give a shit if you think it's pointless, you're a wreck."
"There's nothing to say."
"Really?" I keep my eyes locked onto his. It took a minute or so but the emptiness faded and spiraled into sadness. "I owe you a saving or two, right? We've got nothing but time."
I'd seen Cas on the edge of defeat a time or two before, seen him push himself to the limits of his Grace and beyond, but I'd never seen him look so lost and alone. His eyes slid away from mine as he turned around, slowly shuffled to the stool and sat down. "I only wanted to help, that's all I have ever wanted to do." His voice cracked, "Just help my brothers and sisters, be a loyal angel, save Heaven and humans from Lucifer. How did it get so complicated?"
I sat down next to him, put my arm around his shoulders and listened to an angel who'd done more to save the world and Heaven than any other angel or God out there pour out his pain at being punished for doing his job when no one else would.