Red Sky At Morning

by Serie11

Dean Winchester's life at twenty five isn't exactly what he expected; his brother's in the wind, his pro-surfing career is far behind him, and he has a steady job caring for the little penguins of Phillip Island. But this peace shatters when Dean meets Castiel, who is running from a past that he doesn't want to acknowledge, into a future that he knows cannot last...

4. Chapter 4

May

Castiel keeps finding Dean's things around the house.

At first it the obvious ones – his toothbrush, and the shirts in Castiel's washing. Then it becomes more subtle. The knife he borrowed from Dean is still sitting in his kitchen drawer. Castiel startles when he realises that one of the shirts that he absently pulls on is one that Dean had left here. And he nearly breaks down in the middle of the shopping aisle when he grabs Dean's favourite shampoo out of habit.

He asks Gabriel to take everything to the small house two roads away. He can't bear to face Dean again, not after what he said. Even if it's to protect Dean in the end, his heart still aches and his stomach turns over uneasily when he thinks about that night. It doesn't help the low ache of loss that he tries to ignore, but which follows him around as he goes about his daily activities.

Gabriel opens his coffee shop. He hires two full time and two part time employees – Castiel meets Kali and Baldur on the opening day, when he sits around and smiles and watches as Gabriel starts serving customers with his usual happy-go-lucky attitude.

It makes him happy, to know that Gabriel is happy. His brother now has something to do, and it keeps him out of the house during the day. It also has the added bonus of Castiel not having to listen to him complain about how the café isn't open each night. Instead Gabriel comes back with stories and jokes, which always manage to make him smile, somehow. Castiel wonders if that's why Gabriel tells them to him.

He learns to live by himself again. He visits Anna, he goes to work, he Skypes with Balthazar and Samandriel. None of them mention Michael or Lucifer.

It's hard. He had thought that it would be, but Dean had leant a vitality to his life that he hadn't realised had been missing. Where Castiel was clinical, Dean felt. Where he was impassionate, Dean yelled from the rooftops. Without him around, everything turned down from vibrant to a kind of adequate normality.

Just normal. Nothing special. Go to work, check on the penguins, talk to Jo, head home, watch TV, share dinner with Gabriel, go to bed, sleep. Get up, get dressed, go to work, check on the penguins, talk to Jo…

He falls into a routine of living, which everyone has to do, sooner or later. He finds a way to live around Gabriel, somehow. He doesn't mind that his brother's search for his own place seems to have come to an indefinite halt.

Every time he thinks of Dean, his mouth goes bitter and his heart aches. Lost opportunities are rampant there, and he doesn't want to think about them. He cares about Dean too much to bring him into his life. Into his problems, where he could get hurt, or worse. Where that vibrant spark of life and energy could be snuffed out for good.

He lives and he grieves quietly by himself, but he moves on. He'd left people behind before, and he's determined to let this one go as well. For Dean's sake. He can let him go, to keep him safe.

He had to. He can't screw this one good thing up, not with his history of breaking the things that he touched.

Dean is better off without him.

come home Cas. pleease (11:59pm)

I can't, Dean. I'm sorry. (7:47am)

no youre not (8:01am)

I am. I wouldn't do this to you if I didn't think that it's for the best. (9:56am)

how is leaving me for the best? Thats bullshit. youre just 2 scared to face w/e it is you think is going to happen with me there. i can help (10:03am)

Cas (12:42pm)

Cas please talk to me (9:13pm)

June

Sam knocks on his door three weeks after Cas left.

Dean opens it, not expecting anyone in particular, only to find his brother there, looking haggard and with a small battered suitcase behind him.

"Sam?" Dean says, dumbfounded. "What…"

"Hi Dean," Sam says tiredly. "Can I come in?"

Dean slowly steps back and then closes the door after Sam. He's suddenly self-conscious about the mess everywhere, plates that he'd been meaning to clean up, junk all over the floor and kitchen table. Sam doesn't comment on it, just puts his suitcase next to the couch and sits down tiredly.

"What happened?" Dean asks, voice flat, after it's clear that Sam is just going to sit there looking at his hands.

Sam looks up at him. He looks terrible, shadows under his bloodshot eyes.

"Ruby left me, again," Sam says listlessly. "You were right, Dean. About her."

"She didn't take anything this time?" Dean asks him urgently, because he needs to know if some random drug dealer is going to show up on his door. He has to know if he's going to protect Sam.

"No, no, nothing like last time," Sam sighs. "Just my laptop and the money in the apartment."

Dean sits down next to him slowly.

"Are you alright?" He asks hesitantly. It's a stupid question. Of course Sam isn't alright. He'd been living on and off with Ruby for the last year and a half, at least, and something like that didn't just brush off easily.

Sam stills his hands between his thighs.

"Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. I think I might be. Later."

Dean looks at him. Sam is looking at the floor, head bowed, shaggy hair framing his face. It couldn't have been easy, coming back. Dean knows that Sam is proud, prouder than him. It took a lot of guts to go back to your brother, who had been telling you that your girlfriend was bad news, and tell him that he was right and that you needed a place to stay.

Dean sucks a breath in slowly and releases it in a sigh. "Tell me what happened," he says, trying to make his voice understanding and not critical.

Sam keeps looking at his hands. "We didn't head back to the US. I told Ruby that I wanted to stay here, and she agreed, although it wasn't straight away. We rented an apartment together – this terrible little place. I didn't know where her money was coming from. I only had a little bit saved up, so I had to rely on her while I looked for a job. Got one at K-Mart, cashiering. So I was bringing in a little more, and then Ruby shows me the drugs that she had. Tells me that we just need a bit more, and then we can start raking in some real money. I asked where she got them from, she just brushed me off, saying something about, I don't even know, 'Angel Brothers?' Sounds ridiculous. Maybe I'm just remembering wrong. Anyway, that should have been my first clue. Should have gotten out sooner, but I was," he shrugs, "in love. Or at least I thought I was. Started using again, just a bit here and there. But it wasn't long until that turned into more."

It's a slippery slope. Dean's read about it, when Sam was here after coming back. Staying clean was too difficult, just one will help, just one… And then more, and more. Sam looks terrible, certainly. But he doesn't look high. Dean's grateful for that.

"Things kind of went to shit after that. I tried quitting, but Ruby was always there with more. Then I woke up one morning, and everything was gone. Ruby, everything valuable. That's when I realised that maybe you had been right, and I had just been blinded by my own feelings."

Dean blinks at too much honesty being laid out all of a sudden. He knows that admitting that Dean had been right would have been hard for Sam, so he puts a hand on his shoulder and picks his words carefully.

"Sam. You always have a place here, but I need to know. If she comes around again, are you going to leave?"

"No," Sam says. "I'm done with Ruby and the drugs. She's tied up with them inextricably, and I don't think she wants to quit using either. She's not coming back here, not soon. She was talking about heading back to the US for a while. That's probably why she left. She knew I still didn't want to go with her, so she just took everything that she could sell and left."

They sit in silence for a while. Sam eventually looks up at him, face open. Dean can see that he's hurting, physically and mentally.

"Like I said, you've always got a place here," Dean repeats softly. "You can stay as long as you want."

Sam shudders and turns to hug him tightly. "That's a lot more than I deserve, Dean," he mutters. "Thank you."

"What are brothers for?"

Dean breathes in Sam's familiar smell and feels himself relax for the first time in weeks. He has part of his family back.

Things brighten a little bit.

i found your extra boots in my closet (10:25am)

I've been looking for them. (10:50am)

i can bring them over if you want (10:53am)

No, Dean. Leave them on your porch and I'll come and pick them up. (10:54am)

friday? (10:54am)

Yes, okay. (10:55am)

u know u dont have to avoid me. u can talk to me if you want to (10:57am)

Cas u cant just stop texting me dont do this (4:02pm)

Cas (11:47pm)

It's not easy, of course.

They're still brothers, and they get along as well as brothers do. They fight, but they both know that it's nothing to their relationship, really. They can both argue and know that they are safe, that they can say what they want and come back a few hours later, mutter an apology, and have everything right between them again. It's how they've always lived, and Sam doesn't think that that's ever going to change.

They relearn how to live around each other again; Sam spends more time in his room and Dean spends more time at work. The time they have together is eating and doing tasks next to each other in the morning and evening, whichever Dean spends at home. Sam tries to call up Ellen to humbly ask if she would let him bartend for her, to which she'd replied that she loved him, but she needed to know that she could count on him before he came back. That stung, but he understood.

Without a job, Sam is left at home with a lot of time to think. He cleans the house, scrubbing and vacuuming while wondering how Dean had made such a mess. The only place he doesn't go is Dean's room. The door to his room is almost always closed, and Sam respects the clear message. He doesn't begrudge his brother his space.

While he's cleaning, his mind is free to wander. It goes over the last three years, how things just went from bad to worse. He quietly acknowledges to himself that going with Ruby wasn't a good idea. He runs through his memories, thinks about their outcomes and consequences, and tries to ignore the shaking in his hands that he knows comes from not using. He'd already tried to go straight before Ruby left for the second time, so he knows that it's not as bad as it could have been. But the cravings still keep him up at night, so he turns to coffee, substituting one drug for another one that hopefully isn't as bad.

Dean tries to ask about it, sometimes, but Sam always reassures him that he's fine. He can see that Dean doesn't believe him, but that's okay. Sam isn't sure that he believes himself, but he's going to prove it to both of them. It's fine. It's going to be fine.

After one of their not-arguments, Sam leaves to go walking. He puts his hands in his pockets and lowers his head so the freezing cold winter wind doesn't cut through him as easily as it could, and heads to Cowes. It's a decent walk, but the bracing weather and the simple pleasure of light exercise clears his head.

Cowes is mostly the same as it's been since he was a kid, but there's a new, brightly coloured sign where an old clothing shop used to be, sitting on the corner of the block with a view of the sea.

Sam frowns at the shop. Loki's Luck is scrawled above the door, and from what he can see inside it looks like a small café.

He pushes open the door, and looks around the interior. There's a few chairs clustered around small tables, and the shelves on the walls have coffee in bags on them, both pre-ground and post-ground. There are three girls sitting around one table chatting away, and an older man with a newspaper sitting at another. There's a short man and a dark skinned woman behind the counter, who are bickering good-naturedly, banter flowing between them. Sam feels a pang in his chest as he watches them – he and Dean used to be like that.

The woman looks up and sees him, then elbows the man towards the counter. He smiles at Sam as Sam glances over the menu, resisting the urge to lift an eyebrow at some of the more… exotic options.

"What'll it be, kiddo?" He asks. Sam snorts quietly, because this guy is like, half his height.

"Just a cap, please," Sam asks. The nametag on his shirt reads 'GABRIEL XD.' He's going to guess that the 'XD' is an addition to his nametag, not his name.

"Coming right up," Gabriel drawls. He bumps the woman with his hip, and she rolls her eyes before she starts messing around with the coffee machine. "You know, your issues with your brother wouldn't be so bad if you just talked with him."

"What?" Sam asks, taken aback. He has no idea who this guy is and then he just says something like that?

"Your brother. And you. Have issues," Gabriel says, drawing 'issues' out to three syllables. "Serious ones. You should talk about them rather than brooding in hipster coffee shops and avoiding him."

"You don't… I'm not…" Sam replies, flustered.

Gabriel rolls his eyes.

"Okay, I can't believe you pulled that one out of nowhere," the woman says as she's heating the milk.

"Oh Kali, you underestimate me once again," Gabriel says dramatically. "But you're right. I only know Sammy here because Dean has about five hundred photos of him lying around his place. Although I didn't know that you'd made it back from the US of A."

"How do you know Dean?" Sam asks suspiciously.

"What, someone can't make new friends in the six months his brother's gone?" Gabriel huffs out a breath. Sam tries not to tense, but Gabriel sees it anyway. "Ooh, hit a nerve there. Dean never told me why you two broke up, but I'm going to guess it's got something to do with the drugs you're in withdrawal from? I can see your hands shaking from here. I'm glad Cassie got out of that one."

Something in Gabriel's fast paced chatter finally makes sense, and Sam latches onto it.

"Cassie? Castiel? Who Dean dated for a while?"

"I never liked him much in the first place," Gabriel admitted, flicking imaginary dust off his finger nails. "But he didn't really deserve what Cassie did to him. He over it yet?"

"He just said that he and Cas broke up," Sam says lowly. "Not much else about him."

"Huh," Gabriel mutters. "I would have thought that Castiel would have left more of an impact than that." He shrugs, and Kali puts his cappuccino down on the bench a metre to his left.

"Order up," she says.

"You look after Dean, yeah?" Gabriel tells him, face suddenly serious. "You might be hurting, but he needs support as well."

Sam leaves the café feeling Gabriel's eyes burning into the back of his shoulders.

He almost wonders if it was worth the excursion, until he takes a sip of the coffee.

It's really fucking good.

i miss you (3:47am)

sams back. Ditched that ruby bitch (3:59am)

he told me he went to gabriels cafe. im glad he opned it (4:14am)

y do i keep texting you when there's no response? (4:17am)

they say insane people do the same thing again and again and expect different results (4:36am)

what does that make me? (5:00am)

i might be a little drunk (5:10am)

That's not the last time he finds himself at the café.

At first it's just Oh, the coffee's pretty damn good, or They have excellent raspberry and white chocolate muffins. But in the end, Sam has to confront the fact that he goes just to talk to Gabriel most of the time.

It's got nothing to do with wanting to talk to the guy in particular – Sam could talk to other people around who he would probably like more than Gabriel. But the guy had no past experiences with him, so he doesn't have to put up with mildly hidden discomfort or disappointment that he experiences when he's with people who knew him before he left for the US. But the real kicker is that he can read Sam. And he had no problem telling Sam that he knows his personal details; one time he had walked into the café, only to have Gabriel tell him that thinking about going back on drugs was not a great idea, and that he'd been off them for at least two months now, which was since the first time Sam had come into the café, and that he was doing good, he was doing great.

It's unsettling, and Sam snapped at most people for an hour or three after he'd been in, but for some reason he kept coming back. Maybe it was because Dean tip-toed around him, not talking about any of his very Clear And Obvious Issues, and because even Ellen had told him he needed to re-evaluate his choices before she offered him shifts at the Roadhouse, because she loved him, but he needed to know that there were consequences for his actions.

He knows there are consequences. He knows.

Gabriel doesn't bullshit him, and he doesn't shy away from talking about everything Sam's trying to hide away from the rest of the world.

It's unsettling, but Sam needs it.

There's the added bonus that Gabriel sometimes talks about his little brother, 'Cassie.' Dean won't say anything about Cas, no matter how obscurely Sam words it. And Sam can tell that Dean is having Clear And Obvious Issues because of Cas, as well. Sam can tell because of the bottles on the kitchen table and how Dean won't talk about him, no matter how Sam approaches it.

Gee, how well do they fit as a family?

Gabriel hints at Cas every now and then, starting a story with "…Well Cas thought it'd be a great idea to…" or "…So I'm living with my brother, and the shit I have to put up with sometimes, let me tell you. Like yesterday, when…"

Sam learns more about Cas through these often one sided conversations. As the weeks turn into months, he grudgingly admits that the coffee at Loki's Luck might be pretty damn good, but it's Gabriel he goes back for. He wonders, sometimes, if Gabriel sees him as anything more than another customer; but he does come in every other day, and those times when he sits and stays inside the café for longer than it takes to order (he swears that it's just for the WiFi), Gabriel's remarks to other patrons seem witty and sharp, but not as piercing as Sam knows some of his opening topics can be. Although, who knows. Maybe the young woman who came in had a break down later over the washing left out in the rain. Sam isn't one to judge, but he does seem to feel a recognisable difference between his conversations with Gabriel and the ones he has with others.

It helps. Talking about things helps.

i asked Jo today if u were alright and she told me that i should suck it up and talk to u myself (6:39pm)

'get over whatever it was and make up already' (6:40pm)

i love her. shes like my baby sister but she doesnt understand (6:42pm)

that ur stubborn and im not the one who isnt talking (6:43pm)

i never talk. i dont do relationships (6:45pm)

made an exception for u tho. still im not sure if i regret it or not (6:55pm)

July

He begins to talk back. It's not much, at first; sometimes just a reply to a question, or an observation of his own. Three months after he'd walked into the café he's got enough familiarity with both the café and Gabriel to notice that something's off.

Gabriel greets him with a terse nod and "Sam," before making his coffee.

"Something up?" Sam asks, trying to make the question mild. There isn't anyone else inside the café, and Gabriel is alone behind the counter. "Where's Kali?"

"Sick," Gabriel tells him, but there's something in the cadence of his voice that doesn't belong there. The one word reply unsettles Sam even further.

"You wanna talk about anything?" He offers slowly, looking at the back wall of the café.

"Nothing's wrong," Gabriel says. "Just… family issues."

"Cas being a pain again?" Sam asks, just to rule out one of his many siblings. He thinks there's got to be at least seven or eight of them, by the way Gabriel talks sometimes.

"Castiel is fine," he sighs. "It's my… older brothers. Nothing out of the ordinary for them, but they're starting to get on everyone's nerves."

"What are they doing?" Sam asks, looking at Gabriel in time to catch his expression shift from worry to fear to neutral.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," Gabriel repeats again. Sam frowns but accepts the coffee that Gabriel offers him. Gabriel waves away his money when Sam tries to pay. "No charge for today, Sam. You're a good customer, a good friend." He takes a breath in and exhales slowly.

"Gabe?" Sam asks slowly. It's the first time he's used the shortened version of his name out loud, and Gabriel jumps slightly at it. "Are you sure that everything's alright?"

"Yeah, Sam," Gabriel says softly. "I think so. I hope so."

But he says it like someone who needs something to be true, and it makes Sam uneasy.

"You know you can talk to me about it, right? I'd like to think that we have more than a coffee drinker slash coffee supplier relationship."

"You're a good person, Sam," Gabriel tells him, and that shakes something in his core. He can't remember the last time someone called him a good person. "Misguided, made some bad choices, perhaps. But good. That's why you need to not ask if things are alright Sam. You don't need to be caught up in my shitstorm. I wouldn't forgive myself for making things harder on you than they need to be."

Sam frowns at him, but before he can say anything there's a soft chiming from Gabriel's pocket. He digs his phone out, and Sam literally sees the blood drain from his face as he reads the contact name.

Shaking, he brings the phone to his ear. "Michael?" He whispers lowly. Sam watches in confusion.

Somehow, Gabriel's face gets paler as he listens to whoever is on the other end of the phone. "You did what?" He hisses. Sam sees his hand tighten on the phone and fury start to gather behind his eyes.

He carefully places the phone down on the counter, undoes the apron from around his waist, and starts to march out of the café.

"Whoa," Sam says, following him and leaving his coffee on the counter. "Gabriel, what –"

"You need to leave, Sam," Gabriel says firmly. The soft chime of the door opening goes off as Sam follows him outside. "It's not safe."

"What do you mean it's not safe –" Sam tries to ask, but that's about the same moment as the car opposite the café opens fire.

Sam doesn't realise that they're being shot at, at first. He's heard guns being fired in the States, sure, but they were just handguns. He hears the glass window behind them shatter, feels it as something splashes onto his face and something red flies across his vision. Gabriel has already started to crumple to the ground by the time Sam realises that he needs to throw himself to the floor to escape the deadly shower.

He feels something nick his thigh (a bullet, some calm part of his brain tells him unhelpfully) but it's only small and sharp.

The one that goes through his arm hurts a hell of a lot more. Then something hits the back of his head, and it becomes a lot harder to think.

Sam lies on the ground unthinking for a long time. He hears the screech of tires on asphalt, someone's scream, glass falling and shattering. He moves his head slightly, feeling as if the movement is too hard, his head too heavy. There are people moving in the background in slow motion (or are they moving faster than normal? He isn't bothered enough to figure it out) and Gabriel stands out in sharp relief in the foreground. His eyes are fluttering between open and shut, and he's pressing his hands against the bright red wound in his stomach.

Oh, Sam thinks rather giddily. Blood. That's blood. Gabriel is covered in blood. I am covered in blood. The pavement is also covered in blood. I wonder if Gabriel's insurance covers shootings.

Then there's a figure crouched over Sam. Sam narrows his eyes until they focus, and Jody is suddenly looming above him, talking into a phone while asking Sam if he's alright. At least, that's what he thinks she's asking. He tries to nod, and is pleased when his head moves slightly. He rolls his eyes in Gabriel's direction, trying to get her to look over there. Jody is apparently satisfied that Sam isn't going to bleed out in the next few minutes, because she moves over to Gabriel, and is then yelling (Sam can hear the loudness of her voice, but he cannot make out any of her words) for help (he assumes) while she presses down on the wound in Gabriel's stomach.

Sam closes his eyes and lets it all slip away.

I'm sorry. (5:59am)

Dean gets the call just after he's come back in from an early morning patrol. He's just dumped the keys to the buggy in the communal bowl when he feels his phone buzzing. For a moment his heart jumps a little in his chest; Cas had texted him back for the first time in two months this morning, and he hadn't had the guts to reply yet.

He fishes it out of his pocket, only to find Jody staring back at him. Slightly puzzled (and trying not to be disappointed), he answers.

"Hey Jody, what's –"

"Dean, where are you?" Jody gasps.

"At work, why –"

"There was a shooting. In Cowes."

"What?" Dean asks, startled.

"At your boy's brother's café, um, Loki's Latte or something."

"Is anyone hurt?" Dean asks, ignoring the squeeze of his heart at the mention of Cas.

"Yeah. Gabriel Novak took two bullets, one to the stomach and one to the thigh, but Dean, Sam was here. He's being treated for concussion and he was shot as well."

Dean feels an icy hand come up to grip his throat, and for a moment he can't breathe, let alone say anything.

"Is he okay?" He finally manages to gasp. Why does this always happen to him is Sam hurt is he going to leave as well he can't do this not to Dean not when they're finally alright with each other again he can't be alone please don't leave please please please –

"He's in surgery, getting a bullet taken out of his arm, but the doctors are saying that he's going to live. I've been running around like a chicken without its head trying to figure out what happened, and this is the first moment I've had to call."

"I'm on my way, Jody," Dean promises. He goes over to the TV in the corner of the room, turns it on and flicks the channel to ABC 24. Predictably, the woman on screen is talking about the attack in Cowes, Breaking News running across the bottom of the screen.

"Could it be terror related, Marius?"

"There's certainly an argument for that, Zowee. We have to remember that the police are withholding evidence, and there may be more information that they have that does lead in this direction. For viewers that have just joined us, we're reporting on a shooting that happened just south of Melbourne, on Phillip Island. A drive by shooting occurred at approximately ten thirty this morning, resulting in two injured men, both of whom are in surgery now. Their identities are being protected, in case this was not a random attack…."

Dean turns away from the TV and the crowd that it's attracted. He knows what happened, and it's what they're not reporting on that has him terrified.

Where's Cas?

Cas where are you (11:54am)

im being serious where the fuck are you (11:55am)

did you see the news (11:55am)

jody called me and sadi that its gabriel and sam (11:55am)

please pick up your phone (12:01pm)

please be safe god please tell me that you just havent picked up ur phone (12:02pm)

Jo said u didnt come into work (12:09pm)

fuck dont tell me that your crazy brothers picked u up and organised a hit on Gabriel (12:10pm)

i feel ridiculous even writing that (12:10pm)

just be ok (12:11pm)

Castiel starts the day normally. He gets dressed, eats breakfast, and heads out to his car so he can drive down to the Clinic.

He's out just as the sun is rising, and he takes a moment to admire the view, and the deep red clouds on the horizon. The sky is stained a blood red as well, the clouds highlighting the view.

I hope that's not a sign of things to come, he thinks to himself as he grabs his keys to unlock the car.

Of course just as he's thinks that, he's jumped, a cloth pressed to his mouth and handcuffs clipped around one wrist.

To the detriment of his would-be captors, Castiel has been in situations similar to this before (some were just training exercises that Michael put him through – another was a real attack, when he was fifteen years old. He doesn't want to know what might have happened to him if he hadn't wriggled free of those men). He stops breathing the second something touches his face, and tries to elbow his attacker while stomping down on his foot.

Of course, with Michael being in charge of his training, he'd know how to get around it as well.

He hears the man holding him grunt with pain, but he doesn't let Castiel go. Another one appears in his vision, and grabs his arm, holding it steady for the needle that finds its way under his skin.

Of course, the chloroform was a distraction, Castiel thinks somewhat hazily as the world darkens around him.

thye must have taken ur phone (12:12pm)

if ur reading this then im going ot find him. dont u lay a single fucking hand on him (12:13pm)

He wakes up slowly.

At first it's the handcuffs around his wrists. The coldness of them has created bands around his arms that he can't feel because they're numb. Then there's the smell. Anti-septic, the type that you can only find in hospitals, just covering disease and death with forced neutrality.

He knows he isn't in a hospital, so he opens his eyes, slowly, unwillingly. He isn't blindfolded, or gagged, just bound. There's little light in the room that he's in, but he can still make out a figure a few metres away from him.

"Hello?" He whispers. "Are you awake?"

The figure jolts. "Castiel?"

"Anna?" Castiel whispers, recognising her when she moves slightly, shaking her hair out. "What is going on?"

"I don't know," a third voice says. Castiel looks to his other side, just able to make out Samandriel in the murky light. "But I don't think it's good. Balthazar is here, as well, but he's still passed out."

"Where's Gabriel?" Castiel asks, squinting into the darkness.

"Not here," Anna tells him.

There's a silence after that. Castiel tries to fight off the urge to be sick. If Gabriel isn't here, with the rest of them… It means one of two things. Either he went back to Michael and Lucifer, willingly, which Castiel knows would never happen, or…

Or he's no longer in the picture to be dealt with.

"I'm sure he's fine," Samandriel says, trying to reassure them. Samandriel can say that, but he doesn't look fine; out of all of them, Castiel would have expected him to be the most put together, since he'd spent more time than any of them in situations like this. But seeing the thinly veiled fear in his brother's eyes is reminding him that spending more time in situations like this could also mean that Samandriel is currently trying to not break down. After all, he'd thought that he'd gotten out of the type of life where this happened to him – Castiel wouldn't blame him if he's only just holding it together.

There's a long silence after that. Castiel tests the handcuffs around his wrists, but they're not going anywhere. The chain between them is threaded through a metal loop that is anchored in the concrete that he's sitting on.

No one comes in, and there's no sound besides the occasional drip, drip, somewhere in the distance.

"This is a pretty shit way of treating us if they're still hoping to have us back," Anna mutters, probably an hour after Castiel woke up. His sister is breathing steadily in the way that lets Castiel know that she's carefully controlling each and every breath. Anna only usually does it when she's trying to calm down. Castiel shuffles a bit closer to her to try and provide a bit more comfort – being in a situation like this is probably tripping up Anna's anxiety.

"Unless they've given up on that," Castiel murmurs quietly. He's sure that they're being listened to, whether it be someone else in the room or more likely, a recording device planted somewhere close. "But I don't think that they'll leave us here for too long."

Balthazar stirs awake a short time later. "What?" He slurs, shaking his head back and forth. "Where…"

"We're here as well," Samandriel says lowly. "All of us but Gabriel."

Balthazar grimaces and then turns in a circle. He leans over to grab something and then Castiel watches as he tries to break his handcuffs by awkwardly hammering at them with a rock that he'd found. He's handling being cooped up just as well as Samandriel is. A few minutes after Balthazar wakes up, the door to the dark room opens.

Castiel winces slightly at the bright light streaming in from outside. The door is shut, and then whoever it is turns the lights on.

Castiel squeezes his eyes shut for a few seconds, getting used to the light before opening them to see who is in the doorway. He's not really surprised that it's Michael.

"What did Lucifer do?" Michael tuts. "I told him not to tie you up."

Michael goes around unlocking the handcuffs that bind all of them, and Castiel wonders if this is another tactics – good cop bad cop, or rather, good brother bad brother. He tries not to tense when Michael approaches Anna. He doesn't want his brother anywhere near his twin, and he feels his heart beat faster as Michael nonchalantly unlocks Anna's handcuffs.

"Where's Gabriel?" Anna asks, lifting her chin defiantly after Michael had freed her and moved onto Castiel.

Michael smiles as he clicks open Castiel's handcuffs, making Castiel's shoulders bunch as he shows too much teeth. Michael's actions aren't helping his heart rate, and he can feel sweat gathering on his forehead. "He isn't a worry for you anymore," Michael says lightly.

"He's our brother," Balthazar growls softly, and Michael's smile turns predatory.

"I'm your brother as well. We shall all get along, because we're family."

Castiel exchanges a look with Anna as Michael moves on to Samandriel. Their disappearance can't have gone unnoticed, not all of them. There would be people looking for them. But if Michael kept them inside this room, away from anyone who might possibly see them and tell someone that they're here… Michael and Lucifer had been able to hide from the Australian police for half a year now. They are probably being held in the same place where their base of operations are, and that's probably in the last place that the police are going to look. Castiel takes in a quiet, shuddering breath to try to calm down. Anna grabs his hand and squeezes it tightly before letting go.

"What do you want?" Castiel asks. Michael finishes unlocking Balthazar's handcuffs and turns to Castiel, a disappointed expression on his face.

"Oh, Castiel. I just want us all to be happy, together. We can support all of you, and you can have anything you want. Just stay here, with us."

On cue, Lucifer opens the door and walks over to Michael, leaning his head on his shoulder. "Hello there. I hope you all had a nice trip here." Castiel shifts uneasily at his smile.

"We don't want to be here, Michael, Lucifer," Anna says, tilting her chin up. Her words don't shake, but Castiel can see how her hands tremble as she hides them behind her back. Castiel goes and stands next to her, supporting her silently. "Let us go. We don't want to have anything to do with you."

Michael and Lucifer look at her silently, faces matching in their blankness. Castiel shivers at the memories they raise. He's had too many experiences with Michael and Lucifer's blankness to think that they're neutral on a subject. They were always planning something, and they always executed their plans together. It's one of their greatest strengths.

"We just want us all to be together," Lucifer says sweetly. "If you won't co-operate, then we'll have to keep you here. We don't want that, of course. It's the last action that we want to take. Until you all agree to not leave, you are going to stay here, and think about your options. I'm sure that you'll come to see that there's only one real option in this scenario. No one knows where you are or where you disappeared to. I made sure that you were all taken in a way that there were no witnesses. You will simply be gone. They cannot track you here, and you cannot leave without going through thirty trained guards ordered to keep you inside."

Anna steps a bit closer to him. Castiel swallows and looks at her, trying to smile reassuringly.

He's pretty sure it comes out pained instead.

i love you. i couldnt say it before and u deserve more than a text but. fuck. i love you Cas (9:34pm)

Dean paces outside the door to Sam's hospital room, unable to stand still. Jo is watching him with worry written across her face, and Dean is sure that it isn't just for Sam. She's worried about him, even though she shouldn't be. It's Sam that got shot, for fuck's sake.

Gabriel is still in surgery. When Dean asked about him, they said something about patient confidentiality, but Dean had 'accidentally' run into one of the nurses, knocking the things in his hands to the ground. Dean had apologised profusely and gotten down on his knees to 'help' clean things up, while actually just messing things up more and taking the time to glance over the sheets. He only had only had to scrabble around for a few seconds before coming up with Gabriel's sheet, and had read as much as possible before handing it back to the harried looking nurse, still apologising.

So he knows that Gabriel is still alive, is still being operated on. Dean isn't sure if there is anything to be done for a gut shot, but they must be trying really hard to save his life. Dean finds himself hoping that they'll succeed.

They'd been kicked out of Sam's room when half a dozen doctors had walked in and started speaking in their doctor language, fussing over Sam, who hadn't woken up yet. A few had come out of his room, and others had gone in, and it was driving Dean to work a track into the floor outside Sam's room with his pacing.

"Sit down, Dean," Jo tells him for the third time. "Pacing isn't going to help Sam, and you're getting in the way of other doctors."

Dean grudgingly sits down next to her, only to start running his hands through his hair repeatedly. Jo sighs quietly next to him, but he needs to do something with his hands. He can't just sit here while Sam lies in the next room over, broken and bleeding.

There's a TV on mute in the corner of the corridor, and Dean can see the CCTV footage from the café being played on it. He twists his hands together in his lap, thinking about what he's going to do next.

Gabriel would know what was going on. He might not know exactly where Cas had been taken, but he would know something. He had told Jody about Cas not picking up his phone and not being at the hospital for Gabriel, and she had told him that someone needed to be gone for forty eight hours before she could do anything at the police station.

Cas cares for Gabriel. Dean is pretty sure that all of Cas's siblings like Gabriel, and none of them are here. That says more about what is going on than Dean would like to admit.

He just needs to make sure that Sam is okay, find a way to talk to Gabriel and figure out where his crazy brothers, who had been in hiding since they got here, had taken Cas. No big deal.

Okay, it is a big deal. Dean isn't dumb enough to just go after Michael and Lucifer by himself. But Jody had no people here, and while he was sure that there would be someone around to get Gabriel's statement, they wouldn't be asking questions about where he thought they might be hiding out. Dean had to pry that information out of Gabriel himself.

But that couldn't be done until he was awake, and he wouldn't wake up until he was out of surgery. Which he wasn't. So until then, Dean just had to sit and stew in his thoughts.

The doctors eventually started to trickle out of Sam's room. Dean restrains himself enough to wait for a minute after he's sure everyone is gone before he quietly walks back inside to sit down again by Sam's bed.

Jo sits down on the other side of Sam with a soft sigh.

They wait for just under two hours. Jo is doing something on her phone, but Dean is just sitting, watching Sam, so he sees when Sam shifts.

"Sam?" Dean whispers. "You awake?"

Sam blinks slowly a couple of times before turning his head to face Dean.

"Dean?" He asks, voice rough. "What…"

"It's okay," Dean tells him. He looks over at Jo. "Go get the nurse, yeah?"

Jo nods, and Dean turns his attention back to Sam. "How are you feeling? What do you remember?"

Sam blinks a few more times and narrows his eyes. "I was at Gabriel's… there wasn't anyone else there, which was weird. Gabriel and I were talking, and then his phone rang? I think. And then he started to go outside…" Sam trails off, eyes gaining sharpness and awareness. "Are we in hospital? What happened?"

Dean sighs quietly. "There was a drive by shooting outside Gabriel's café. You and Gabriel were both shot twice. You in the arm and thigh, Gabriel in the thigh and stomach. You had to go into surgery to get the bullet out of your arm, and last time I checked, Gabriel was still in surgery."

Sam stares at him for a long moment, and then the door opens and two doctors come in to fuss over Sam for ten minutes. Dean steps back and sits down to let them ask Sam questions, write things down on their clipboards, and do their doctor thing.

Dean slouches down in his chair and tries to appear unobtrusive, so that none of the doctors will ask him to leave. He just wants to stay and watch over Sam.

The doctors eventually leave as quickly as they came in, probably going to go and deal with some other emergency in the sweeping halls of the hospital.

Sam sighs as one last nurse fills out a few more things on his chart at the foot of the bed. Jo had made her way back to the other side of Sam's bed in her own chair, this time with a bottle of juice in her hands. She had used the break to go and get some refreshments.

She passes Dean the bottle, and Dean sees another one beside her chair. He uncaps it and swallows a mouthful before turning his attention back to his brother.

"You need anything?" Dean asks lowly.

Sam blinks slowly and then shakes his head. "No, I'm fine for the moment, I think."

"Mr Winchester, they'll be a tray coming up for lunch, you should eat all of it," the nurse tells Sam.

"He will," Dean nods to her. "Do you know what happened to the other drive by victim?" He tries to ask offhandedly, digging a little to see if she'll give out any information.

"He made it out of surgery a while ago, and is resting now," she told him as she walks out the door.

It's more than he'd had a minute ago, and he'll take it. Gabriel probably isn't awake yet, so he had time to sit with Sam before he goes to find Cas, wherever he had been taken.

"I'm gonna go check on Gabriel," Jo says, looking at him as she stands up. He'd shared his suspicions with her, and she had gone by Cas's house on the way here, to check if he was home. His car is still out the front, and the house is locked up, so Jo had decided that he was right, and that Cas had likely been taken. He hadn't turned up, and neither had any of his many siblings called asking about Gabriel. Dean is becoming surer as the hours tick by that Cas is somewhere that he doesn't want to be, and that it probably isn't pleasant, wherever it is.

Jo would sit outside Gabriel's room and send him a text when he woke up. Until then, he had Sam all to himself.

"How did this become our lives?" Dean asks, not really expecting Sam to answer.

Sam huffs and leans his head back to look up at the ceiling. "Isn't that what everybody in this situation asks themselves?"

Dean leans forward to rest his head in his hands. "True." Sam doesn't say anything else and Dean sighs. "Sam. You can't do this to me."

"Can't do what?" Sam asks. Dean shifts slightly so he can look at his brother, bandages wrapped around his upper arm.

"Can't go and get shot and almost die."

There's a long pause as Dean looks at Sam and Sam looks at the wall.

"I didn't mean to get shot," Sam says, almost surlily. "Just because I was with Gabriel…"

"That isn't the start of it though," Dean presses, trying to keep his voice under control as he talks. "You left, Sam. Just packed and left, and didn't call, didn't drop a letter, didn't let me know you hadn't died in a gutter somewhere. I didn't know what country you were in, let alone if you were okay or not!"

Sam swallows and looks at him. "It wasn't my best decision, I admit that."

"You kept making it, Sam," Dean says lowly, running a hand through his hair. "You left, and you didn't talk, and then you left again, and you didn't talk. What reassurance do I have that you won't do it again?"

Sam holds out a hand to him and Dean looks at it for a few seconds before he takes it. Sam's palm is warm against his, and it calms something in him, to know that his brother is okay.

"I'm reassuring you, Dean. I've decided that I was a bit of an idiot, and that the choices that I made were not okay and I'm not going to do that again. Even if I travel, I'm going to tell you where I am. I promise." Sam sighs and quirks a smile at him, but Dean can see something nervous lurking in his eyes as he waits for how Dean will react.

Dean sucks in a breath and tightens his hand on Sam's. "Thanks," he says quietly after a minute has passed.

Sam flashes a smile at him. "No problem."

They sit in quiet, Dean silently basking in the assurances that Sam had given him, until Dean's phone buzzes on the table next to Sam's bed.

Gabriels got doctors and nurses coming and going from his room. no police as of yet u were right they rnt really thinking of him as a source (4:56pm)

"Who is it?" Sam asks him.

"Jo. She thinks that Gabriel's waking up."

"It was his family, right? Who shot up the café? He was the target?"

"Yeah, that's what they're saying," Dean tells him. "I'm going to go and visit, make sure he's fine."

"Okay," Sam nods. "Just come back later so that I know he's okay."

"Will do," Dean smiles at Sam as he gathers up his gear. He'll send Jo back later but as soon as he has what Gabriel is going to tell him, he's going straight to Jody.

She's got a few rogue Novaks to clean up.

He's in Gabriel's room when he wakes up.

"Dean?" Gabriel asks, confused. He looks around the room, and then starts, trying to sit up suddenly.

"Whoa there, cowboy," Dean says. He puts a hand on Gabriel's chest to push him gently back down onto the bed.

"I need to leave," Gabriel says, words slurring together somewhat.

"You can't walk at the moment with all the drugs they've pumped into you," Dean tells him. "Calm down."

Gabriel seems to realise that he's telling the truth, because he grudgingly settles back down.

"Where am I?" Gabriel asks, looking around the room. There had been a few nurses in and out of the room, and Dean thinks that he has a few minutes before another one comes back in and wants to check Gabriel over.

"Hospital," Dean tells him briskly. "You'll be fine. Sam is fine, as well. He woke up a few hours ago, before you."

Gabriel nods, looking relieved. Then he looks at the door.

"Are any of my family here?" He asks the question casually, but Dean can hear something under it.

"No," Dean tells him. "Just me. Jo's with Sam." He takes a deep breath in. "I'm not an idiot, Gabriel. Cas is gone; he's not at your house, and he didn't come into work today. I need you to tell me where they've taken him."

"You've figured that out, huh?" Gabriel is still looking at the door, as if he could magic up his siblings from wherever they are now and pull them into the room with him. "Maybe you're not as dumb as you look."

Dean huffs. "Yeah."

Gabriel is quiet for a few seconds. "I've had a few ideas since I found out they were here. Nothing concrete. I didn't want to damage my reputation with the police, so I didn't say anything."

"Tell me, Gabe."

Gabriel raises an eyebrow at the nickname, but doesn't comment on it.

"Why should I tell you? Are you going to charge off there and get yourself killed? Because even though you broke up, I don't think Cassie would forgive me that."

"No," Dean says, teeth grit. "I'm going to tell Jody, who is going to do something about it. I'm not stupid. I know that if they can organise someone to shoot you as you come out of your café and kidnap all of your brothers and sisters, then they have enough firepower at their base to keep me out. I'll tell the police what you know, because they haven't worked out yet that talking to you about this is a good idea. Sure, they want to take your statement about your version of events, but only because you were shot at. Not because they think that you might know where your brothers are hiding. Cas and probably your other siblings aren't even officially missing yet – they have to be gone for forty eight hours, and they've been gone for about twelve."

Gabriel takes a deep breath in. "You're right." He leans his head back against the pillows and sighs. "Okay. Do you have something to write with?"

Dean grabs a small notebook out of his pocket that he usually uses for keeping records of where burrows are around the island and flips to a new page. He's got a small stub of a pencil as well, and he's ready to write down what Gabe tells him.

Gabriel looks at the notepad and nods slowly.

He tells him.

Dean knocks at the door to Jody's office and waits for the hurried "What?" that comes from inside.

Dean pushes open the door to find Jody hidden behind a veritable mountain of paperwork. She lifts her head and her scowl eases somewhat when she sees who's knocking on her door.

"Dean," she says, and Dean can see that she's trying not to sigh. "I can't file the paper work for your boy yet. Come back tomorrow and I'll have a manhunt out for him, but I can't do anything until then."

"It's not about that," Dean says. "Not directly, at least. I talked to Gabriel. He told me some places where he thinks that Michael and Lucifer might be hiding out."

Jody stands up abruptly and stares at him with wide eyes. "What? Why didn't you tell me about this sooner?"

"I just came from the hospital," Dean tells her. "Look, Gabriel said that he didn't say anything to you because he wasn't completely sure about these places, but he gave them to me and told me that Michael had called and claimed that he had taken his brothers and sister. They did the hit on Gabriel and Sam, as well."

"Well, I'd figured that." Jody is typing away furiously on her computer, a concentrated look on her face. "Now, tell me about where they might be?"

Dean lists the four locations that Gabriel had given him, and Jody calls in what looks like every police officer on the island as she debriefs them on the situation. Dean knows most of them, and they all nod or look at him worriedly. The community on the island is tight, and they all want to catch the person who disrupted the peace that they work so very hard for, even those that don't know Dean personally.

"We're teaming up with the Melbourne police force on this one," Jody was saying. If, technically, Dean should have left way before this meeting had started, well, everyone was just tactfully not looking at the corner where Dean was sitting.

jodys got things going on thid end. hows sam and gabe? (11:55pm)

Yeah fine. Sams complaining about the beds here being too small and gabriel isnt saying anything at all. I'm worried about him. (11:59pm)

Ur stories always made him sounds upbeat and obscenely chatty. (12:01am)

samll be fine. gabes worried about his family. i know how that feels (12:03am)

Do you know if its going to go down today? Tngiht? W/e. When? (12:07am)

theres like 50 cops here idk if its going to get organised so quick (12:09am)

Ugh. I want cas back like yesterday. (12:10am)

Dean could relate to that.

Anna's hand is warm against his palm. Castiel has his eyes closed and is trying to ignore the urge to tap his foot against the ground. After Michael had untied them, the duo had left. They'd been given several meals, which Castiel had reluctantly eaten. Anna had as well, when she'd seen him eating, but Samandriel had only picked at the food and Balthazar had refused to eat anything. Castiel thinks that it's probably been over a day, but the time in here seems to drag, and he's not sure if he's been overestimating because he's so bored.

It's strange, the boredom. If anyone had posed this situation to Castiel a week before, he would have said that he would be tense and alert until the situation was over. But nothing had happened besides a shift change in the last few hours, and the silence in the room is beginning to wear at him.

There's a single man by the door, who constantly watches them. Castiel can feel his eyes on him every time he moves at all, and it freaks him out. He takes a deep breath in and tries to relax. Castiel thinks that there are another few men on the other side of the door, since he can see a radio on his hip, opposite the gun that sits solidly in its holster, gleaming black in the low light.

He's been staring at the gun for the last few hours.

He's not stupid. Gabriel was the best at shooting, out of all of them. But Anna had always been a close second, and they are the ones sitting closest to the guard.

He just had to figure out a plan with Anna; his sister isn't an idiot. She must have seen the gun, and she must be thinking something along the same lines as him. They'd always thought alike, when it came to their brothers. They could do this, together. He tries to ignore the tiny voice in the back of his head that's telling him that this is a bad idea, and that he always takes unreasonable risks when he's stressed that he would never consider under normal circumstances. He breathes in and tells himself that these are not normal circumstances. They had to get out of here, and that is the only way that Castiel can think of.

But they need a distraction. Castiel looks at Balthazar and Samandriel out of the corner of his eye, keeping it discreet. Balthazar is looking at him, his last untouched meal in front of him.

Untouched meal.

Castiel bites his lip as an idea forms in his mind. Balthazar is the furthest away from the door. Samandriel is the next to Balthazar, where he could stick out a foot to trip him… Balthazar could grab his radio and try to stop him while Samandriel, Castiel and Anna grabbed him and tied him up in the cuffs that are still where Michael had dropped them…

Castiel grits his teeth. It's flimsy, and they would still have to deal with the people outside the door, and they had no idea where they were, or how many people are in the building…

Now, he just had to figure out how to communicate the plan to the others. They'd all have to work as one, or they'd never have a chance. He had an advantage – they would all be thinking about getting out.

He squeezes Anna's hand until she shifts to look at him. Castiel twitches an eyebrow and then looks towards the guard. Anna lowers her eyebrows and looks towards the guard without turning her head. Castiel makes the classic gun shape with his left hand, thumb up and pointer finger out, hiding it with his body. Anna looks down at it and then her eyes flash to the guard again. She shakes her head, a tiny negative – she thinks it's a bad idea.

Castiel stares at her fiercely and nods slightly. Anna scowls at him.

Balthazar clears his throat and Castiel tries to look at him subtly. Samandriel and Balthazar are staring at them. Balthazar's eyes are alight while Samandriel looks more cautious, but both look willing enough to make trouble.

"Hey Balthazar," Castiel calls. Anna looks like she's about to hit him, but then she sighs and her eyes take on a calculating glint. Castiel has to stop himself from grinning. She's in.

Balthazar is looking at him expectantly, and he can feel the weight of the guards gaze on them all.

"Remember that time when I was in third grade and you tripped over the seat in front of my classroom after school? Broke your arm doing it and everything. Samandriel had to hold your hand in the hospital to keep you from screaming because we had to wait for someone to set it."

Balthazar narrowed his eyes, obviously trying to recall such an incident when none had ever happened. Samandriel caught on faster; his face smoothed over, and he nodded.

"Yes, I remember. Balthazar wouldn't eat any of the hospital food, and demanded better. Remember, Balthazar?"

"Hmm," Balthazar says. "I see."

There was a few minutes of silence and Castiel kept looking at the ground, hoping that everyone had an idea of what was going on. It had to be before the shift change; Castiel was sure that this guard would tell the others about their exchange, if they didn't know already.

An hour ticked by, and then two. The guard was just getting restless when Balthazar stirred.

"Hey, you," Balthazar calls out. The guard looks at him sharply, but doesn't say anything. "Hey, can I have some, you know, actual food?"

"There's food there if you want it." The tone isn't dismissive, but he doesn't give any room either. He isn't going to budge.

"Hey, it's not good enough." Balthazar's voice takes on a whining edge, and Castiel winces. He recognises it from when he was younger – Balthazar could get anyone to do what he wanted, if he annoyed them enough.

"It's good enough," the guard replies. He's looking straight ahead, but Castiel can see that his jaw is clenched already. He resists the urge to laugh. If he's annoyed already, he wouldn't stand a chance against Balthazar.

"Not for me," Balthazar says, sighing loudly. "Come on, I bet you get better food than this. Can't I have some of that?"

"Look, you get what you're given, and I don't have any say over that," the guard snaps.

"Come on," Balthazar implores. "Please?"

The guard walks over to Balthazar and Castiel felt Anna hold her breath beside him.

Samandriel flashes his foot out and the guard trips. Balthazar punches him as he falls, and Castiel hears the wind rush out of him. Castiel and Anna jump on him as soon as Samandriel trips him, Anna ripping the gun from the holster on his belt as his hand tries to reach for it. Castiel shoves the piece of his shirt he'd ripped off into his mouth to act as a gag.

Balthazar punches him again, this time in the head, and Samandriel grabs one of his hands and bends back the first two fingers. Anna takes a step back and unclicks the safety, staring coldly at the guard as Castiel and Samandriel clip the discarded handcuffs around his wrists and ankles, and Balthazar tears a longer strip off his shirt so he can tie it around the guards head to secure the gag.

They all step back and Castiel smiles as the guard squirms in confusion.

All four of them gather between the doorway and their new prisoner huddling together tightly.

"There's going to be more outside," Anna said, looking at the doorway.

"It we can even get outside. It's probably locked," Samandriel mutters.

They all look at the door. "Well, there's only one way to find out," Castiel says, trying to sound positive.

Anna crosses the room and turns the handle of the door slowly. It clicks open.

"Don't you love it when everything turns out well," Balthazar says.

There's the sound of a gun firing from outside. Balthazar lunges forward to close the door. Castiel stares at Anna as the sound of a firefight gets louder and louder. Castiel steps away from the door and his siblings follow him to the corner of the room, where they stare at the door and each other.

"It's got to be someone coming in," Samandriel says lowly.

"No, because most of the time you welcome guests with bullet holes," Balthazar says scathingly.

" Be quiet," Anna whispers. "It probably has nothing to do with us. Who knows how many people are unhappy with the Angel Brothers making a new home here?"

" True," Castiel replies. "We should use the chaos as a distraction and leave."

"And get caught in the middle of a firefight?" Balthazar hisses. "Don't be ridiculous!"

"Balthazar is right," Samandriel adds. "Look, this isn't going to go unnoticed. Someone will report it."

"And what happens when they move us somewhere else?" Anna asks. "I agree with Castiel. We need to move, now."

Castiel looks at the door as Anna and Samandriel start to argue.

"Look, we need to choose," Castiel tells them all. "We can't just stand here."

"We won't get another chance like this," Anna says earnestly. "We need to take it."

Balthazar bites his lip and then nods hesitantly. Samandriel looks between them and sighs.

"Alright. What the hell. Everyone stay close, and do not get separated. We need to get out of here together. Just some of us aren't enough."

Castiel nods. "Anna, you go first. Everyone else, just follow closely."

Anna nods and takes a breath. "Okay. Stay close."

Castiel follows her as she opens the door again. Anna slips outside and Castiel follows her, keeping his eyes open for any movement. They move down the corridor in a single line, Castiel stepping where Anna does. The gunfire in the background doesn't slow as they steal down darkened passages.

Castiel narrows his eyes when he hears a shout, but the words of it are too low and distorted for him to make out.

"What was that?" Samandriel hisses.

"Shh!" Balthazar bites out.

They go through a few more rooms, Castiel carefully stepping over bodies in some of them. He doesn't look to see if they're unconscious or dead, focusing on his sister's bright red hair instead.

They round a corner and Castiel hears, very clearly, "Clear!"

Anna looks back at him, eyes wide. She lowers the gun in her hand slightly as they round another corner, and come face to face with about twenty police officers suited up in black tactical suits.

There's a simultaneous shout of "Put your weapon down!" Anna flicks the safety on and drops the gun, putting her hands up. Castiel follows suit, and he closes his eyes as Anna stammers out an explanation.

It's over. It's over.

"… infamous crime lords Michael and Lucifer Novak have been arrested this morning when a raid in northern Melbourne proved to be holding both brothers. Official talks between the United States and Australia mean that the infamous 'Angel Brothers' are likely to be extradited within twenty-four hours. Responsible for crimes in over –"

Dean mutes the TV in Gabriel's room, letting the news run silently. Gabriel is asleep, had been since they had gotten here. The sun is setting, casting a glow over the room.

Cas is sitting next to him in an uncomfortable hospital chair. His eyes don't stray from Gabriel – they haven't since they entered the room. Balthazar, Samandriel and Anna had been in here for half an hour before the nurses had ushered them out. Dean and Cas had sat silently outside while they had been inside, and now it was their turn.

"So, it's all over then?" Dean asks lowly. "No crazy brothers hanging around anymore?"

"Well, you still have to put up with Gabriel," Cas tries to joke, but it falls flat in the staleness of the room. "If he wakes up," Cas continues, a lot lower.

"He was up and talking before," Dean tells him. "Don't worry. I'm sure that he'll wake up soon and start being his annoying self again soon enough."

Cas's face is blank as he stares at his brother, but Dean knows him well enough now to tell that he's feeling guilty about what happened. "Gabriel… and Sam…"

"Hey." Dean puts his hand on Cas's shoulder, and he imagines that he can almost feel the feathers under his palm. "It was Lucifer and Michael's fault. Not yours. And they're gone now. You'll never have to worry about them ever again."

Cas lets out a shuddering breath and when he speaks next, his voice is shaky. "Why, Dean? Why are you still here?"

Dean doesn't reply for a long moment, staring out the window at the sunset. He slowly reaches down and takes Cas's hand in his, interlocking their fingers. Cas sucks in a shuddering breath and Dean can tell how close he is to cracking.

"You never wanted to break up with me, Cas. You just did it out of misplaced protectiveness – you wanted to stop me from getting hurt."

"That didn't help Sam. Or Gabriel," Cas mutters. Dean squeezes his hand.

"Exactly. Cas, it was never going to work. Even Gabriel knew it; why else would he build up a relationship with Sam, when he knew who he was?"

Dean turned his head so that he could watch Cas's face. Cas is staring at Gabriel, face blank but eyes clouded with emotion.

"But I had to protect you," Cas says lowly. "It was my fault that you got hurt. I should have –"

"Hey. Don't say stuff like that."

Cas flinches and turns his head. Dean looks at him searchingly. "Cas. You can't blame yourself for this. Like I said, it was Lucifer and Michael's fault."

"I had to do something," Cas hisses. "I…"

Dean sighs and leans over to wrap an arm around Cas. "You should have talked to me, damnit," he says.

"Yeah." Cas mutters.

They sit like that for a while, Dean's arm around Cas, Cas leaning his head on Dean's shoulder. Dean watches the sun slowly sink, casting a glow over everything in the room.

"Looks like we're in for some good weather," Dean comments, taking in the vibrant red sky over the sea.

Cas moves his head slightly, turning to look out the window. "What do you mean?"

Dean nods at the red sunset.

"Red sky at morning, sailor's warning. Red sky at night, sailor's delight."

"I'm not sure that that's a good way to predict the weather," Cas murmurs, but he's looking out the window as well, an introspective expression on his face.

"Despite all of what just happened," Dean says, waving his hand around to indicate the craziness of the last few days, weeks, months. "I think we're in for some good weather ahead."

Cas smiles at him, and Dean feels a warm glow start up in his chest.

Some good weather ahead, indeed.

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