Cas was losing a little bit of time every here and there, forgetting what hour it was or when he needed to do something. There were so many people who wanted to talk to him and he did his best to connect to them, sometimes that resulted in him sitting on the phone longer than he thought or using Skype for hours. It wasn't a bad thing, he didn't mind it and Dean was always right there with him to help if he needed it.

Their episode blew up bigger than he would've thought in the short amount of time after it aired. The little clips he'd been watching on obscure channels started to appear all over the place, shots of his wings or Desirae. People were trying to catch a glimpse of him, some wanted to hear his story or ask questions about the things he'd said on the air. He even ended up on a radio show or two and it had only been a few weeks.

"You look tired," Dean smiled and kissed his forehead, Cas immediately dropped back against his boyfriend and let his weight either be caught or dropped to the floor unexpected.

He got lucky, Dean's reflexes were pretty quick. "Not that tired," he said as he smiled up at Dean, "It's a lot in a few days, that's all."

"Tell me about it," Dean pulled up a chair once Cas regained his own balance and sat upright. "Jet and Sam have been handling most of the phone calls around Desirae, though some people just really want to talk about Jet's experience. Hell, we're all being asked for our side of the story since we're all so close to it. Bobby told me he got bombarded at the grocery store yesterday."

"Ooh," Cas cringed and laughed softly, "That's unfortunate, is he okay?"

"Yeah, he told them to get lost." Dean smirked and looked at the way Cas' reclaimed Facebook was blowing up. "You regret doing this yet?"

"Not even a little," Cas watched with endearment as his friend requests went off. "I mean, maybe reactivating my Facebook was a bad move but whatever."

"You can set it to like celebrity status, can't you?" Dean furrowed his brow and leaned in, "I mean, I can't just send requests to Robert Downey Jr. so there's gotta be a way to do it."

"Maybe," Cas shrugged again and closed the tab, "But I'll look into it later, maybe Gabe or Anna could handle that for me." He drummed his fingers on the table as he thought over what he was going to do next, "I wanted to call Captain Stevens and see how everything is going over there."

Dean nodded, "That sounds good, we haven't touched base for a little while." Cas was grateful that Dean was so supportive, keeping him close was the best idea he'd ever had. Dean just smiled and watched as Cas dialled, putting it on speaker phone for the both of them.

"Hello, Captain Grant Stevens speaking."

"Hello, this is Castiel Novak and Dean Winchester, how are you?"

"Ah, good evening, I'm well and we have a few updates for you."

"That's why we called," Dean was fairly upbeat, it didn't seem that any news could be bad news at that point in time.

"All living suspects have been apprehended and questioned that were on the list, and some that weren't. It turns out that there were a few individuals not mentioned in the lists because they weren't scientists, but clean-up crews."

"I guess that makes sense," Cas glanced at Dean, "I mean a bunch of living creatures killing each other would make for some mess."

"Yeah, speaking of, my team wanted to thank you for leaving so many bodies." Stevens laughed and Cas could hear others nearby him laughing and cracking jokes too.

Cas just smiled and shook his head, "You're welcome, I guess."

"Back to the clean-up crew, I thought you would want to know that one of them was Rufus Turner. You all mentioned him at one point in your stories, you might want to know that he was taken into custody as well."

Cas wasn't sure what to say, he looked at Dean who stared at the phone as wide-eyed as he was. They shared a glance that said nothing more than 'what the fuck' between them. "That's… really shitty." Dean managed to say, Cas could hear the anger starting to rise in his voice. "Can't say I expected it but I'm not surprised either…"

"Mr. Turner told us he was unaware that any experiments had been freed, he never would've returned otherwise. I'm glad he didn't manage to shoot you."

"Thank you," Cas reached over and took Dean's hand, he did it without thinking and was silently glad for that reaction. Dean squeezed and created a small wave of relief, Cas knew he was safe, it was just bad news. Unfortunate.

"Is there anything else I can help you with?" Stevens asked after a moment of silence.

"I guess just keep us informed if anything comes up," Dean replied for them both, Cas wasn't sure what to think just yet.

"There are a few things though I'm not sure if now is the time, maybe you'd like time before-"

"Now is fine," Cas interrupted as kindly as he could, "I'd like to know, please."

"Very well," Stevens didn't sound upset, ebbing a little of Cas' guilt for forcing the conversation. "A facility is being set up for proper care of your clones, so far none have shown the level of intelligence that you all described so we'll see what happens in that regard. Fergus MacLeod has been investigated further and we discovered some of his connections. A short list of buyers is currently being looked into, he was known as Crowley on the black market. It seems majority of his fortune was acquired by selling his experiments, though he used to work for the government before his work went over the line many years ago." There was a pause as the Captain let them take in the information. "Once we speak with these possible buyers we'll be looking for any other operations like the one MacLeod had set up."

Cas leaned back in his chair, not letting go of Dean's hand he sighed and tried to let any building stress out with it. "Thank you for telling us," he was pretty sure the information about Rufus was harder to take but it was never fun to hear about MacLeod. He hated that man for everything that happened, and if it were possible he'd kill MacLeod again. Maybe he'd make it bloodier, but he would have definitely prolonged it.

Though the reality of the situation wasn't really that pleasant either. The way he'd killed MacLeod was almost entirely mental, the nightmares he put that man through were horrific and Cas really didn't want to remember the details. He smiled to himself at the thought, maybe he'd already done everything necessary involving MacLeod's torture.

He'd spaced out for the last of the conversation with Stevens, Dean had finished it up and turned the phone off for him. Cas looked up at his boyfriend, watching little crinkles in his skin, "Are you okay?" he asked and Dean's gaze snapped back to him.

"Yeah I'm good, just not sure what Bobby's gonna say about this." He ran his hand through his hair and Cas took that opportunity to steal a little kiss.

"It'll be okay," He said softly and wrapped his arms around Dean's shoulders, "The important thing is we all made it out, the rest we can take one step at a time."

Dean smiled and kissed him back, slower and more deliberate. "You're right, maybe I'll let him know later."

"Maybe when it all comes up again," Cas agreed as he slid into Dean's lap, "I don't really want to bring it up if no one else is thinking about it."

"Deal."

As their kisses turned more into making out Cas heard a light tap on the door just before it opened. "Hey guys?" Charlie peeked in, completely unfazed by the state of their increasingly messy hair. "We thought it'd be cool to take a picture, you want in?"

Cas lit up and nodded, slightly embarrassed but not really. "That sounds fun, who's all in?"

"Well it was Michael's idea, he wanted to put up a picture of the main crew that dealt with everything for the website I'm making." She was grinning and Cas could tell she was barely containing her excitement over the amount of attention they were getting. She'd volunteered to create a website, Cas had no idea what she'd all put on it but he was happy to help with it.

"I like it," Dean agreed and helped Cas stand up again.

"Can you guys get Jet and Rae from her room? I'll go grab Sam from the pool." Charlie was quick to disappear, happily running down the hall to get everybody ready.

"I'm not exactly wearing anything flattering," Cas looked down at his long-sleeved shirt, it was just plain and almost form-fitting, nothing website worthy.

"You look amazing, c'mon let's go get my favourite idiot," Dean took his hand and led him out of their room, successfully stopping him from standing in front of his wardrobe for ten minutes. Cas just laughed and went along with it.

When they walked into Desirae's room Cas kept his laughter to himself, Jet was sitting on a very short chair trying to entertain his daughter with a tea party. He looked up at them and waved a little, unaffected by their grins.

"What's up? Come to join us?"

"It's my first tea party!" Desirae chimed excitedly, lifting her little pot for them to see.

"Looks like fun," Dean walked in, tugging Cas along.

Cas was still getting used to Jet's prosthetic, he was going to be in surgery in the next few weeks but there was a temporary prosthetic on his arm to help balance him. It was very basic but it could do a few movements, he'd be upgrading soon and Cas was looking forward to seeing that.

"We're taking a picture downstairs," Dean told them as Cas tuned back into the conversation. "Charlie wants us for her website."

Jet smirked and looked at Rae, "I think it'd be cool to have a group shot, what you think kiddo?"

"Let's go, let's go!" Desirae had already put the teapot down and was hurrying to the door.

Before Cas knew it they were all piled outside and lined up, Cas was conscious of where his wings were, making sure not to knock anyone out of the picture. "You sure you don't want to be in it?" he looked at his brother who shook his head.

"Nope, I'm not a main focus of this thing, you guys are the ones everybody wants to see." Michael stated as he moved in and pushed Charlie a little more into frame. He stepped back and stared at them for a few seconds; Jet was holding Desirae on one side, Sam stood slightly behind them but close to make sure he could help Jet if Rae fell. Then it was him and Dean; he had is arm around Dean's back and Dean just draped his arm over Cas' shoulders. And on the other side stood Charlie, Michael couldn't figure out where to place her to get the shot right. He moved her back to where she was originally and glanced at Cas, "Cas, could you spread your wings out?"

He did as he was told, smiling as Michael nodded vigorously. At least no one could say that Mike wasn't invested in their public image. It took longer to set them up than to let everyone get ready, but if the picture turned out nice then it wouldn't really matter all that much.

"Alright," Michael readied the camera, "Everyone smile! Three, two, one!"

Author's Note:

I did draw this picture, it's somewhere in my deviantart (zafona) and zafonart tumblr account. It's also pasted in this chapter on AO3 if you guys wanted to see it! Thanks for all the support so far, it means a lot!