Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The shadows clung to her like dew to the morning grass.

Down the hall, the fire burned—merry and bright, she thought with a smile. The smoke had not yet reached her, but it would soon if the growing snap, hiss, pop of the flames was any indication. The master bedroom was a death trap by now, and still, John Winchester had not woken up. The dimple in her cheek collected a pinprick of darkness. A silver lighter pressed, vaguely cold, into the palm of her hand.

"It's a shame," she cooed, tracing a manicured fingertip down the baby's soft cheek. "Snuffing out this Resistance before it even really goes. You would solve all our problems—let us live in peace." She tickled his stomach, and he gurgled happily. "If only he hadn't been so damned specific. I hate that little clause of his."

"Mommy?"

She paused, cocking her head to the side. "What is it, sweetie?" He was behind her, hesitating in the doorway; the toddler was barely past her knee. She looked enough like his mother from the back—the willowy form, the flowing golden hair, the long white nightgown. Perhaps—

"What happened to your face?" he asked, voice wavering.

Exposed by a four-year-old. I'm losing my edge. "Got the sight, little man?" she said, turning from the crib.

Dean's soft green eyes were wide, the white showing all the way around, and they weren't watching her face—not the woman she projected on seven planes—but her true face. Her burned mask, charred and flaking, would strike terror in even a grown man's heart. He didn't answer, just watched the mask move, frozen a step inside the threshold.

"Too bad," she sighed, kneeling down before him. "You shouldn't have come, darling. You'll only get yourself hurt."

"What're you doin' to Sammy?" he demanded, a little bolder now.

"Sammy's a problem for my boss," she said sweetly.

"Don't hurt him," he interrupted, toddling a step closer to her. "Sammy didn't do nothin'."

"Oh," she crooned, a secret smile stretching her soft pink lips, "he will, little man. He will."

The floorboards in the hallways creaked, giving way under heavy footsteps. "Get away from my son," a man's rough voice barked.

She rose, as fluidly as she'd knelt, and stepped back. John's eyes were watering, his sleeve over his nose and mouth to combat the smoke.

"Ah," she said softly. "The king awakes to find his castle burning."

He reached out to clasp a hand around Dean's shoulder; he pulled the boy back, safely into his shadow. "Move," he said.

"No," she replied, turning back toward the crib.

She heard the click of a safety being flicked off. "Now," he snarled from behind her.

"They get all their talent from mommy, then?" she remarked idly. "Shame."

She flicked open the lighter and struck the flint with a manicured thumbnail. It would be a relief to put the thing down; it was a minor discomfort. For the moment, though, she just held out the flame to a corner of the baby's blanket, already doused with lighter fluid. It caught with ease.

John cried out in anguish and fired. The silver from the chamber seared her essence, but she was no djinni; she could not be cowed by a single bullet. When she glanced over her shoulder to express her indignation, Dean was crying, struggling to get out of his father's hold.

"Stop," he begged, his eyes fixed on the swiftly burning crib. "Don't hurt him!"

"He's an inconvenience, little monster," she murmured. "I don't have a choice."

The crib was engulfed now, and her job was done. She took no pleasure in it, but her regrets were cursory—selfish. "A shame," she repeated. A world without magicians was one that she would never see, she was sure. A contradiction in itself. They always rose again, determined to spoil everything they touched.

She pulled herself together to take flight, lighter abandoned with the baby, when the rustle of wings roused her from her brooding.

"Lilith," a dark voice greeted.

She checked her sneer and turned to meet her challenger.

Chapter Text

His quarry didn't move.

There was a frown at the man's mouth, a little wrinkle between his eyebrows. Occasionally, his fingers twitched toward the overpowering coffee scant inches from his grasp. He was too involved in his reading to notice Castiel, idly spinning a web in the corner of the room, waiting for his moment, which would undoubtedly come soon.

He looked tired, Castiel observed. Bloodshot and red-rimmed eyes, shadows standing out beneath the vaguely unfocused gaze. It was no wonder, either. Dean Winchester had been on the run a long time. Castiel felt a vague pang of displeasure at his assigned task. Ordinarily, he'd have no quarrel with a man like Dean; this was the kind of job that left a bitterness in his essence, the sort of thing that took years to fade, even left alone in the Other Place.

He had done precious little more than these kinds of jobs since Jimmy's death.

Dean yawned; Castiel heard his jaw pop as the man clapped a hand to his mouth. The djinni stilled, withdrawing further into the shadows. Dean's abilities were known, and caution was necessary for this mission. Castiel's spider guise would have fooled many of the others in this cold camp, but not Dean Winchester. Dean Winchester had the sight, and would look straight through to the seventh plane if he so much as glanced in Castiel's direction.

The spider wiggled two legs in irritation. Truth be told, this job was more repulsive than all the jobs in the last ten years combined. This was the pup he had once saved from certain death on Jimmy's orders; killing him now seemed a waste of effort after all he'd expended twenty-six years ago to keep the Winchesters alive, not to mention an insult to the memory of the only decent human being he'd ever known. And if that wasn't enough, the job had to be difficult, too. Castiel was formidable against an ordinary human, but Dean was not ordinary. No enemy of the state was, after all. There was something special about all of them.

He could have swept in and simply smothered the man—after all, Dean had the sight, but he was as susceptible to a spirit's attack as the average human—but Dean was bound to raise the alarm before he died, and then Castiel would be lucky if he got out alive. This nook of the Appalachians, deep away from the prying eyes of the government, was rigged with things that were already gouging an ache into Castiel's essence. Iron and silver everywhere. And if Castiel was really unlucky, Sam Winchester would be the first on the scene, and the djinni would be all but useless against the assault.

They had grown in the last few decades, this Resistance. Pity they weren't going to amount to anything once their general was dead. Castiel had done enough surveillance to know that Dean was the heart of the group—the big brother, the understanding father, the tragic hero—and humans without hearts...there was no precedent for that kind of thing.

A shaggy head poked into the room. Dean looked up again, and Castiel shrank further into his dark corner. "You still awake?" a voice accused from within the mane.

Dean didn't have the grace to look sheepish; he gave the other man a hard stare. "Work to do, Sam," he grunted, dropping his gaze back to the book.

The spider watched as the lion sighed and came into the room, shutting the door behind him. He pulled up a seat across from his brother and plopped himself down, smoothing the wild hair back from his face. Sam Winchester was not on Castiel's list tonight, but he would be someday soon; if Castiel didn't deliver the final blow, the job would surely be given to one of his fellows. Maybe Anna, whose power was still new to this world. She wasn't as worn down as Castiel. Her chances against Sam's resilience were much higher.

The Winchesters were no longer welcome on Earth, that was certain. Castiel doubted they ever had been.

Though younger, Sam looked scarcely better than his brother. They were both prematurely aged, the lines and wrinkles in their faces standing out. Sam's hazel eyes brimmed with worry; Dean's had the quality of flint, hard and flat.

Sam was focused, honed in on his brother, and he didn't have the sight. It was as good a time as any for Castiel to creep into position behind Dean and await Sam's eventual departure. He didn't think it would do any favors for his essence, but perhaps a quick swallowing was the best way to go with Dean. It would eliminate noise, at the very least.

Castiel moved carefully, staying out of Dean's line of sight and sticking close to the shadows in case Sam became suspicious of the spider's movement. He was a small spider, though, and he would have been almost impressed if Sam did catch sight of him. Displeased, of course, but impressed. The vigilance of their people was largely to thank for their continued survival.

"What're you looking for, anyway? You've been over that report a dozen times."

Dean scrubbed a hand over his face; Castiel could no longer see his expression. His voice was rough from long disuse. "You know what I'm looking for."

That was all nicely ambiguous. Azazel wouldn't be pleased with the mediocre intelligence. Though it wasn't Castiel's primary mission, his master expected something other than an assassination to come out of this trip. He wanted information. Something that would help him understand what the Winchesters were planning.

"There's no chink in the armor, Dean." There was a tiny, ruffled bit of Castiel that wanted them to stop talking. Almost. He didn't want to be compelled to tell Azazel anything about these rebels. He actually wished they would succeed, even if it was a hopeless desire. He was about to squash almost all chance of that, given a few minutes.

The bitterness gnawed at him anew. He only hoped that after this job, Azazel would dismiss him for good. There were other things in the works—bigger things—and his master would hopefully begin to overlook him, in time. Perhaps his name would not be unearthed again for centuries. Perhaps no magician would find a footprint containing the name Castiel and think to summon the demon to their side.

But it always would be unearthed, eventually, because this Resistance would fail, like so many others before it had failed. In the short term, maybe not; the rebels in England had done the job well enough, thirty short years ago. The magicians always rose again, though, cropping up like a determined patch of weeds...

"Force is our only option," Sam continued. Castiel balanced between wall and ceiling, waiting. "We know enough, we could—"

Dean slammed his fist down on the table, hard enough to knock over his coffee. It spilled, and neither brother took notice. Both Sam and Castiel flinched at the impact. "We're not stooping to their level," Dean snapped. "That's that, Sammy. I'm not Dad. I can't." His voice cracked. "I won't."

"I could," Sam suggested, too casually to be truly casual. "It'd be safer for me, anyway."

Dean laughed. It was a starved, exhausted sound. Castiel flipped through the planes and studied Dean's aura, the stifled brightness of it. It was all muffled by that ugly human pain. Underneath, though, it was a nice aura. For a human.

"It's never safe," Dean shot back. "They've been enslaved for centuries, Sam. For millennia. Our lifetimes are a blink to them. Do you think they'll really be taken in by this? They won't believe for a second that you're actually offering them a way out."

Sam's mouth popped open a bit, eyebrows scrunching upwards. "But I am," he protested. "I don't want them in this world any more than they want to be here—"

"I know," Dean said, a little gentler. "But why should they believe you? Why should they believe us? We'd have to use the magic that binds them in order to summon and talk to them at all, and that's not exactly a gesture of good faith. It's slavery, plain and simple."

"You're too black and white," Sam said mulishly, but the heat of his argument had subsided. "It's the only way to talk to them."

Castiel considered rubbing a leg into his tiny spider ears, just to check that he wasn't mishearing things, but no, they were really talking about this. About an alliance with spirits. Onethat put them on equal footing, rather than enslaving them. How quaint.

"You heard what happened in London," Sam continued quietly. "Same as me. It worked for John Mandrake."

"It was a shot in the dark, Sam. And Mandrake's been missing ever since, and so's the spirit that helped him, and you know what missing means. You really think any of the rest of 'em are willing to go on a suicide mission for the good of the people?"

"But it would be in the best interest of spirits, too," Sam said, frowning.

"They don't have bonds like we do. Magicians ruined that for them."

In the form he was currently manifesting, Castiel couldn't actually frown, but the sentiment was there. For being commoners, the Winchesters seemed to know an awful lot about magic and spirits. Of course, they were bound to have picked up some bits and pieces while the Resistance had actually given their allegiance to American magicians, but that was years ago, well before their time—and the Mandrake affair had been strongly classified.

Perhaps it had something to do with that manila folder loosely grasped in Dean's hand. If Castiel could get closer...

He banished the cobweb he'd been trailing behind him and instead started to spin a faint strand of web, anchoring it to the ceiling. He was only two feet behind Dean; if he lowered himself far enough, he would be able to make out some of the fine print.

"You should clean in here more often," Sam remarked as Castiel carefully worked his way into midair and swung silently forward. He could make out some of the Latin—basic summoning rituals, neatly typed into printer paper—but he strongly suspected some level of encryption at work.

"Yeah, okay, Mom," Dean shot back.

Castiel should have been prepared for what came next, but they were the type of men who changed tack in conversation at lightning speed, for no apparent reason; he could not have imagined that this, too, was a code, the cue for Dean to turn, a fine silver net already grasped in his fist. The djinni saw the net too late to flinch back from it, and the silver burned hard into his essence. He had been in the world too long; had he been stronger, he might have put up a fight.

As it stood, he blacked out as soon as the net made contact.

*

"For a demon, the thing's not bad-looking."

"The term is spirit, Dean."

"Yeah, yeah," Dean muttered. "Call it what it is."

Sam glared at him, full of righteous indignation, but Dean ignored him, examining the demon—fine, spirit—they'd caught in his room barely an hour before. It wasn't a surprise—to Dean, at least. The thing had been tailing him for a while, biding its time. Watching his patterns. He'd only caught glimpses, but they'd been enough. Azazel wasn't screwing around anymore. This wasn't an imp or a foliot—too complex. It had long since lost its spider guise, but underneath the puddle of slime it was now, Dean saw its true form, cramped up and flinching away from its prison.

"Aren't they usually..." Sam hesitated, staring at the slime. "I mean, usually you say they're ugly."

"Fugly is the term, and yeah, they usually are. All tentacles and bulges. He's still got a form on the seventh plane. Looks sort of polished."

Sam was already digging a small notebook out of his back pocket, full of eagerness. "What's it look like?"

"Cut it out," Dean instructed sharply, moving forward to adjust the netting. It clung to a large cage, constructed of iron bars. A platform inside gave the spirit enough space to avoid the damaging elements, but only barely. Dean could just as soon give the cage a good push and send it howling right into the pain.

"Think it's an afrit, maybe?"

Dean snorted. "No. See how easy it went down? It's not that strong. Probably a djinni."

Sam mouth tightened, a worried line that had Dean rolling his eyes. "Azazel's getting serious."

"Yeah. Still, should've sent a better sample than that." The spirit was starting to stir; Dean raised his voice. "Gets knocked out by one silver net, that's not a thing that can take me down."

Dean saw it move. Abrupt and sudden, it reared skyward within its prison, which wasn't nearly big enough for it; its essence quailed, avoiding the walls with its many masked faces, but the form within materialized into something on the lower planes.

A man. He wore an overlarge, tan trench coat with a threadbare, plain suit beneath. The white shirt was too big for him, the blue tie rumpled and off-center. He cocked his head to the side, the lines at the corners of his eyes deepening. He considered Dean with a gaze that was both very, very blue and very, very alien. Dean stood his ground.

"That was embarrassing," the spirit admitted, almost rueful. "It happens to the best of us. I'm surprised you haven't killed me yet."

"Information first," Dean said casually. "As much as we can get, anyway."

The spirit went on staring at him. It hadn't blinked at all. "Then you know that I am, in all likelihood, bound by my master not to reveal anything to you, should I be captured." His eyes narrowed, only minutely, as though scrutinizing Dean, who didn't enjoy the feeling.

"We know there are loopholes," Sam piped up.

The man's lip curled up at one corner. The half-smile was predatory; Dean stood his ground with some effort.

"Are there, boy?" he asked, cool as you please, and Sam flushed. Dean started to smirk, but quickly scowled instead. He admired the thing for making Sam squirm, but it was still the enemy, technically speaking. "And why would I sing for you?"

"No love lost between you and the magicians," Dean said clinically. "You're a slave to them."

The spirit's attention turned back to Dean. "Yes," it said cryptically. "That is the term."

"We're your best bet," Dean said. "Being the Resistance, and all."

"You are not the only Resistance," the spirit said idly, "and Azazel is not the only magician."

"So it is Azazel, then," Sam interrupted, frowning now.

The man in the trench coat didn't stop looking at Dean. "Yes," he intoned, obviously bored. "It's no secret that he wants you both dead, but this mission was for Dean alone."

"Sam isn't a target?" Dean asked. He hoped that his face didn't show how his heart had picked up speed.

"I didn't say that. It was not, however, on my to-do list."

The brothers exchanged a glance.

"This is nothing you don't already know," the spirit pointed out.

"Then tell us something we don't," Dean suggested, taking a step closer to the cage.

The spirit tilted its head to the side again. "Ask, and perhaps you shall receive. Though it would be preferable for you to release me after your interrogation, rather than attempt to kill me."

"It wouldn't be an attempt, buddy."

"Easy," Sam warned. "We can make a deal."

Dean snorted. "Yeah? And what's going to keep him upholding his end of the bargain? The instant we let him out, he'll kill us. He's got a prime directive."

Sam looked on the verge of throwing up his hands. The spirit's eyes narrowed. "A crude summary," he said. "But accurate."

"Look," Dean said, half to Sam, but looking at the spirit. "You've got your orders."

"Yes."

"And you can't violate them."

"It's not within my power, no."

"You'll have to stay here, then."

The spirit eyed its prison. "I'll be dead in a fortnight. I might not be touching it, but the silver's proximity still does me no favors, and I am already weak. Azazel has kept me in his employ for too long."

"We could dismiss you," Sam volunteered. The faces on the seventh plane curled back in disbelief; Dean offered up a tiny shrug. "We know the words."

"Only my master can give the Dismissal," the spirit returned. Sam looked crestfallen. "It would be easier for you to kill me." It settled within its cage, sitting cross-legged on the platform, the great tan trench coat spread around it.

"Let's not get hasty." Dean stepped back. "You think of anything useful, give us a shout. I'm sure we'll hear you."

He felt the blue gaze on the back of his neck as he made for the door. There was something eerily familiar about those masked faces.

Chapter Text

The truth was, they had all the information they could really ask for. It was just bad news, all of it.

He left the demon research to Sam and poured over Henriksen's report one more time, trying to read between the lines, see from every angle, but it was just as bleak as the last dozen times he'd read it, and just as bleak as the last dozen reports he'd read before that. While the Resistance had dwindled over the last three years, the magicians had only gained in power. They were inclined toward Empire-building and gaining ground fast; every colony the British gave up was more territory for America to gluttonously consume. One for another, Dean thought wearily. The magician-controlled Parliament had barely fallen thirty years ago, and a new government infested with sorcerers was already well-rooted—on this side of the Atlantic this time.

Weeds, John had always muttered, and on this issue, Dean heartily agreed with him.

"Hah!" Sam announced, punctuating the silence. Dean's chin jerked up. "Oh, it's, ah—I think I've got a name. Castiel. It's in this endnote."

"God," Dean muttered, scrubbing a hand over his burning eyes. It was nearing daybreak, and he hadn't slept. "They all have such weird fucking names."

"Castiel of Babylon," Sam read, "a fourteenth-level djinni, has been most frequently summoned by American magicians in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Since the 1980s, when he spent two years in the service of Jimmy Novak, he has been known to take on the guise of the late magician. Explains that flasher coat," he commented. Dean snickered. "Novak was well-known and criticized for his controversial stance on spirit-magician relations. His devout interest in Ptolemy's Aprocrypha earned him enormous scorn from his peers. That sounds..."

"Interesting," Dean agreed, standing. It had been a long time since he'd touched the Apocrypha; it was required reading among magicians, but even so, no one took it seriously. "I'm gonna have another crack at him."

Sam looked up at him blearily. "We've got nothing to offer him, Dean."

"Yeah, well. Maybe he's feeling more subversive after a few hours in that net."

The truth was, Dean doubted it, but he couldn't stand to look one more time at the report, the one that hinted in no uncertain terms that they were all doomed, and that if this spirit failed, more would come. Dean and his Resistance were as good as dead, and he and his brother were only the beginning. For fuck's sake—there was a child among them, and the magicians would kill her, too.

He found Castiel in the same position he'd been left in: cross-legged, utterly still, watching the door. His eyes met Dean's immediately. On the seventh plane, his masked faces stirred, lethargic but watchful. The ping of recognition went off again, raising hair on the back of Dean's neck.

"Found anything?" the spirit asked politely.

"Castiel of Babylon," Dean said, his voice half a groan as he seated himself a few feet in front of the cage. "Sam found a footnote. Wasn't particularly enlightening."

"You know my true name. We're now on more equal footing."

"You can still eat me," Dean pointed out.

The corner of Castiel's mouth crooked up in the tiniest of smiles—not an absent curl, but an expression that warmed his blue eyes. "I can," he allowed. "Not from here, however."

They sat quietly for a few moments. Dean studied Castiel's true form, which was watching him and his every twitch with mild interest. On the seventh plane, Castiel was just a bundled manifestation of visions: enormous, shadowy wings, folded up and rustling occasionally in discomfort; masked faces, emerging from the feline body of the spirit, which conveyed no real emotion at all, but just stared at Dean impassively through the eyes of a black panther, a beady-eyed bluebird, and a structure made all of bone, a face that Dean didn't at all recognize as animal, mineral, or vegetable; legs that ended in paws and sharp claws, which were gently at work scraping the platform inside the cage. On the first plane—the human plane—Dean could see little curls of wood rising up from the makeshift scratching post.

Dean, to his consternation, felt like he was being scanned for signs of superior intelligence. The gaze of the masks—and those blue eyes—was direct and unblinking. The wings were all that moved involuntarily, it seemed, rustling occasionally as the spirit shifted, probably out of discomfort.

He remembered those wings, but he had to swim bag through the fog of memory and disjointed childhood to place them. He'd last seen them lofted through smoke and flames.

"Ever do a job in Lawrence?" he asked, his tone too casual for the heart that stuttered suddenly in his throat.

Every one of Castiel's faces flinched, as though the memory pained him. He tipped his head down, an acknowledgment, and the masks went on watching Dean.

"Dad always wondered what magician bothered to send a demon to save our asses," Dean fished. "Never could track the guy down."

"He died," Castiel said shortly. "Later that night."

The spirit didn't seem inclined to say more on the subject; if Dean didn't know better, he would say it regretted the death of its former master.

"Well," Dean said awkwardly. "Thanks. I guess."

Castiel's eyes narrowed. "Do not feel indebted to me," he snapped; he'd gone from still to feral in a matter of seconds. He bristled with violent energy. "My master was your guardian angel. I was following orders."

Dean raised his eyebrows, doing his best to ignore the display. "That's good. I hate being indebted to demons."

The silence that followed was arctic compared to the quiet they'd sat in before. Well, Dean thought bracingly. Good talk. He got to his feet, made a mental note to get a chair for their next exchange, and turned to go.

"Dean."

The spirit's voice was tired now. When Dean looked back, its essence seemed weighed down, forlorn and defeated.

"You were right," it said, blue eyes unblinking as it regarded him. "Your brother's plan is impossible to execute. You will find no allies among spirits."

"I know," Dean muttered. He let the door slam pointedly behind him.

*

The sharp pain in his essence had subsided to a dull, constant ache when Dean next visited. Castiel had lost track of time, though he thought he remembered the sun rising and setting a few times since Dean's last appearance. He didn't have enough power left to maintain the form of a man; shortly after Dean's last departure, he'd transformed down to a small black housecat and curled up as far from the silver as possible. The constant throb of pain allowed him to drift unthinking as time passed, focusing only on the steady thud of his essence protesting its confinement.

This job was a death sentence, he thought bitterly as a creak in the floorboards roused him from his stupor. Azazel must finally be done with me.

"Not looking so hot," Dean's voice remarked casually, a good six feet above him. Castiel didn't make the effort to stir. "Don't think you've got two weeks left in you, Cas."

A chair scraped the floorboards. Dean settled into it with a heavy sigh. Castiel, very pointedly, curled tighter into his temporary fur.

"I could help you out, you know," he continued. His voice was so smug that Castiel felt compelled to hit him. Or maybe set his feet on fire. All the djinni could do from within his prison, however, was try to block him out by nuzzling his ears deeper into his fur. He could dream. Dean would look fantastic with a black eye. His indifference toward the man was definitely wearing thin as his imprisonment went on.

"I doubt Azazel classified the kind of information we actually need," Dean continued.

Castiel thought again of the manila folder on Dean's desk. No, the Resistance obviously had an informant for that kind of thing. An informant whose job it was to inform them of how poorly things were going, judging by Dean's myriad of depressed facial expressions. Castiel thought of reminding Dean of this, but chose to stay silent.

"We're more interested in spirits themselves," Dean went on, unfazed by Castiel's continuing quiet. "We've both got the short end of the stick here, Cas. Just tryin' to even the playing field."

His voice was nothing like it had been that night. It was a peculiar thing to remember, but Castiel had precious little that he was proud of doing when it came to humanity. Dean and his family were a bright spot against his blood-bathed career. Plucking the toddler from the flames along with his infant brother and his reluctant father—it was a memory colored by what came after, but still worth remembering. Dean's eyes had been wide as they stared at his wings. Are you an angel? he had asked in tones of awe, reaching for one of Castiel's masked faces as they made their escape from Lilith and the burning house.

Another demon, John had croaked, stinking of loss, sent by another damn magician, don't touch it, Dean—

"Castiel," Dean said, and the djinni roused himself from the memory. Had he been the gambling kind, he would have bet that Dean had lost any hint of that childlike wonder not long after his mother burned.

Resigned, Castiel lifted his head. Dean smiled encouragingly; the vague flicker of concern that had touched his features fled as soon as it arrived.

"Just tell me," Dean coaxed, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. "Let me help you out, man."

There was something uncomfortably predatory in Dean's eyes, nothing left of the boy Castiel had carried from the flames twenty-six years ago. Nothing left, even, of the exhausted man from a few days before. Someone else had taken his place. It nauseated Castiel, deep down in his essence, as though he'd swallowed inorganic matter.

"Have you decided on an interrogation technique?" Castiel asked, dropping his head back to his paws. He could see Dean's shoelaces, close to the net that held Castiel prisoner, and that was all, really, that he wanted to see of the man.

"It doesn't have to come to that," Dean said. Castiel could hear a placating smile, poisoning the smoke-stained voice.

"You remind me of someone," Castiel commented.

A pause. "Someone?" he ventured finally. "Or something?"

"Something, I think," Castiel said idly. This probably wasn't wise, but the nostalgic fool in him wanted to crack open Dean's current façade and make the man look at it very, very closely. "He was human, but it was only a distinction of matter. A sadistic, mercurial man. Very proficient at getting what he wanted."

Dean's minute, flowing movements—the slow adjustment of his hands, the fluid roaming of his gaze—suddenly ceased. From the floor, Castiel saw the leg of his jeans twitch, as though the muscles beneath had suddenly stiffened.

"A magician," Castiel continued, perfectly neutral.

"That so." The honeyed persuasion had gone from Dean's voice; his tone was cold and clipped, lacking inflection.

"You don't know him, by any chance? I think his surname was Alastair. He had a brutal reputation. The kind of magician your Resistance would happily murder. I would, too, given half a chance."

Dean didn't answer.

"I hope he isn't still operating," Castiel went on. "The way he treated spirits was bad enough, but his apprentices—"

"You have a death wish," Dean said roughly, "if you thinking talking about that fucker is a good idea."

"I have had a death wish for a long time," Castiel snorted, turning his head into his paws, where he could no longer see Dean's feet. "By all means, go ahead."

Ten seconds later, the door slammed.

Alone with his dwindling livelihood, Castiel drifted.

*

It wasn't the first time Dean and Jo had had a shouting match, and it wouldn't be the last.

"When has this ever worked for you, Dean?" she demanded as he paced the floorboards of her cabin, burning with excess energy, the memory of Alastair curling beneath his skin.

"That's not the point," he snapped back. "I am not the point. I hate his methods, but they work. The point is to get him to talk—"

"At what cost? Your sanity?" Her fingers clenched into her desk; she looked on the verge of throwing something, or maybe throwing herself across the room to hit him.

"I'm fine," he snarled. "I have to explore every option—"

"Even the ones that violate everything we stand for? Even those? Did you come looking for forgiveness?" A hint of incredulity threaded into her rising voice. "I don't have it. Fucking hell, Dean, I hate them, too, but that doesn't justify—"

"I didn't do anything," he muttered, running a hand over his jaw. "He knows Alastair. He saw through the tactic right away. It was...ineffective."

When he looked up, she was shaking her head, eyes wide with anger and fear. "Some days I don't know you anymore, Dean," she whispered. "This is what John would have done."

The name fell with paralyzing force on Dean, who sat down hard just as Charlie blew in the front door.

"The whole camp can hear you," she said frankly, untucking her handgun from the back of her jeans. She left it on the table just inside the door and went to Jo's side. Since Castiel's arrival, they had all been on their guard, even though silver bullets would only slow down a higher-level spirit, not stop it entirely. Dean took no comfort in that thought.

"We're all on edge," Jo said diplomatically, pressing a kiss to Charlie's temple. "They'll understand."

Her fury had already tempered; Charlie's arm around her waist seemed to deflate her entirely. In the absence of her anger, she looked tired again. Dean envied her. There was no outlet for his rage, nothing that would reduce the tension boiling inside him now. It was almost worse than following through. Almost.

"Try acting like a human being, Dean," Charlie advised. "By all indications, that's what he seems to respond to. And you could both cool off," she added, turning her attention back to Jo, who grimaced at Dean.

"Later," she said, pointing at the door.

"I'm going," he muttered.

The camp was quiet when he stepped outside. The kitchen had closed by now; he ran no risk of running into questions there. He couldn't say the same about his cabin. If Sam wasn't lying in wait, there was still the presence of the demon to contend with, barely a dozen feet from any given location.

He was halfway there before he made a beeline for the trees instead, leaving the questionable safety of their permanent campsite. He picked out a rifle from the trunk of one of their Jeeps on the way out. The night chill was good for his head—good for the rapid pace of his heart and the elevated blood pressure. Eating wouldn't help; walking it off would.

Jo was right. He had been stupid to try it. At best, following through with Alastair's methods of...information-gathering...left him numb; at worst, it provoked panic attacks and made him completely ineffective. He was already running on progressively less sleep, and the nightmares were old hat, but the daytime anxiety was more risky than sleep deprivation.

Especially now.

The leaves crunched underfoot. His pace slowed as the racing heartbeat in his ears subsided, until finally, he found a likely-looking tree and sat, breathing evenly. He leaned his head back against the bark and closed his eyes, listening. The game in this area had gotten progressively scarce, a bad sign if he'd ever seen one, but if he was lucky he would put the rifle on his shoulder to good use instead of riddling the trees with target practice.

"I heard the shouting match."

Then again, he could be followed to death, too.

"Go talk to Jo," Dean grunted, not opening his eyes, even when Bobby sat down a foot away.

"Jo's taken care of." Even if he wasn't looking, Dean could see Bobby's gesture. Biting his tongue, he offered his wrist. Fingers closed on his pulse point, nails biting into his skin, a little harder than necessary. "If you don't cut the crap, though, you won't live to see thirty-one."

Dean chuckled. "You've got enough crap of your own, old man. Little hypocritical."

"Comparing our baggage doesn't get you anywhere, son." Satisfied, Bobby dropped his wrist. "What are you going to do about this demon of yours?"

"He isn't mine."

"Far as I can tell, he's in your cabin and your custody. Seems to me that's not the point. What're you going to do about him?" Dean heard the rustle of Bobby getting comfortable: stretching his legs out on the forest floor, folding his arms across his chest, arranging his shoulders against the trunk of the tree, just out of Dean's eyeline.

They never did seem to look at one another when they had important conversations anymore.

"What do you think I should do about him?" Dean grunted, counting the leaves above him. "Seems you have an opinion."

"You know what I would do." He heard Bobby's shoulders scrape against the tree as he shrugged. "I'm not in charge. For that exact reason, in fact."

"Sometimes I think you've got it right." Dean started to chuckle and stopped, just as quickly; he was out of the energy to put a brave face on this. "But you know they're not the problem. Not the real problem."

"Right."

The silence was short-lived. "He's the one," Dean said finally. "He's the one who pulled us out of that fire. Says his magician is the one who ordered it. He seems...different...than others I've met. Less hostile."

"Seems to me he's out of the energy to be hostile," Bobby commented. "Time's tickin', right? Could be a ploy."

"You don't think they can be...loyal." The word seemed wrong on Dean's lips, which was probably his answer right there, come to think of it. "To a person. Or a cause."

"I've got an awful bias, Dean, and it's a lot fresher than yours. Could be they can. I don't know that I would take the chance, but the choice is out of my hands. I think I'm grateful for that." Bobby snorted. "Some days I don't know."

"It's a shitty job," Dean complained, resettling the rifle on his lap. "Trust me, you really don't want it. Charlie told me to act like a human being." He snorted. "Whether or not the damn thing cares, I don't know if that's the best route. Seems like he's been as abused by our kind as we are."

"Magicians ain't our kind." Bobby's voice had gone flat. That was how he did grief: the cold neutrality that sent crawlers up Dean's spine.

"They're not your kind," Dean corrected.

Bobby nudged his shoulder. "They ain't yours, either. What you can do isn't the same as how they do it."

"Sounds like a justification to me," Dean muttered. "A bad one, too. You know what I've done for information. I'm no better than they are."

"You use the weapons you've got when your back's against the wall. I don't think you've ever hurt anyone who didn't deserve it, Dean." Bobby sounded more emphatic, now, as though concerned that Dean truly didn't believe him.

Maybe he didn't. Maybe that was none of Bobby's business.

"Maybe," he relented, and that was that.

Bobby heaved himself to his feet and held a hand out to Dean. "Well, moping out here in the cold isn't going to change anything. Might as well get warm. Make a plan."

Dean took the offered hand. When he was on his feet, Bobby clapped him on the shoulder. "I knew John," he said firmly. "I liked John. But you don't hold a candle to his brand of cruel. I would know. You think he ever had an ethical crisis out in the woods?"

Dean huffed out a tired laugh and followed Bobby back to camp. He didn't think it made much of a difference, but it was a nice sentiment, and that was better than nothing.

Chapter Text

Dean didn't visit again until two mornings later. Castiel estimated that he had been in captivity for nearly a week now, and he was declining more swiftly than he had anticipated. The housecat looked bedraggled, its coat ruffled and dull, like a creature suffering a terminal illness. He doubted he had the energy to do much more than transform into subsequently smaller creatures.

"I can make you a better cage," Dean said. He didn't take the chair this time; he sat on the floor instead, within inches of the silver netting. The exhausted man was back, his tone heavy and defeated, with an edge of wariness. Their last encounter was clearly on his mind. "One that won't kill you. Just give me somethin', Cas."

"I have nothing to offer you," Castiel grated. "I meant it. Let me die in peace, Dean."

"There's got to be something."

"There isn't. I'm under orders. I have no power to disobey, especially now."

"Especially now?"

"The weaker I become, the more likely I am to die if Azazel punishes me for failure. I have been in this world for two years with no respite." Castiel shifted, enough to see Dean, who leaned toward the cage. "My essence has suffered from lack of contact with the Other Place. Truthfully, I suspect he may have sent me on this job to dispose of me permanently. He must have known I would not fare well against your defenses, and I am a liability."

"Yeah?" Dean smirked. "What'd you do?"

Castiel affected as much of a reproving disposition as a dying cat could and directed it up at the human. "Perhaps you should attempt to evict more of my history from those dusty books."

"That's Sam's thing. I'd rather hear it from the horse's mouth."

"I'd rather not discuss it," Castiel said stiffly.

"It's something about the trench coat guy, right?" Dean went on. "Jimmy. Sounds like he was breaking the rules. Usually frowned upon by magicians."

"Jimmy was a good man," Castiel snapped, his well of patience dry. "One of very, very few. Nearly unique, among magicians. I have met no other men like him."

Dean had no reply for that. Castiel congratulated himself on shaming the boy into silence and tucked his ears back into his paws.

"Ironic that Azazel sent you to kill me," Dean finally said, just when Castiel had dared to hope he was about to leave.

"His love of irony had nothing to do with it," Castiel muttered. "Jimmy and I thwarted a very important scheme. He meant it as the basest insult to my old master's memory, that I should kill what I once saved on his behalf."

"You saved Sam, not me," Dean pointed out.

"My memory is more reliable than yours."

Dean snorted. "What, because I was a kid? I'll never forget that night." When Castiel peeked out from under his paws again, Dean's eyes were focused far away, the crow's feet at the corners deepening. His mouth pulled down in a particularly unhappy frown.

"That doesn't mean you saw everything that happened."

Dean shook his head, exasperated. "Tell me, then."

"No."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "You're not in much of a bargaining position."

"Better than yours."

"I'm not the one slowly expiring inside a cage," Dean returned, a touch too smug for Castiel's liking.

"And, therefore, you have much more to lose."

Dean paused for a beat, and then sighed heavily. "Do you want to die?" he asked flatly. "Now? Here? Because if you're that eager, I'll kill you myself. Everyone will be fucking pissed at me, but I'll do it anyway."

"A charitable offer," Castiel deadpanned. "Your camp would be angry with you?"

"Not all of them." There was a rustle as Dean shifted, settling in. "Most of them, probably. We have standard codes of conduct for spirits, and killing them outright is not in the terms and conditions of our little gang. You're not the enemy. Technically. The magicians are. You know the saying."

"I'm sure I don't," Castiel replied.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend. That one."

Castiel chuckled. "And you believe that?"

"Better than the alternative."

Castiel listened to the sound of Dean's fingers erratically drumming the floorboards. It would be easy, he thought, to ask Dean for the small mercy of death. It would also be disgraceful, a mercy he didn't for a second think he deserved.

"What," he asked, already regretting his inability to simply let injustice lie, "do you wish to know?"

The pause in tapping was strained with barely-contained hope. Dean's aura flared suddenly, so bright that it burned through the cat's eyelids. When Castiel looked up from his paws, though, Dean's expression was frozen.

"What do I have to do to keep you alive?" Dean answered in tones of measured calm.

"No silver. No iron. You can accomplish the same...imprisoned...effect with chalk and the right runes."

"I'll get Sam." Dean got his feet beneath him and rose, brushing hands down the legs of his jeans.

"That's it?" Castiel said, disbelieving.

Dean glanced up, long enough to meet his eyes. "I'm not unreasonable," he said bluntly, "and I'm not going to watch you suffer while you're cooperating. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Cas."

*

Dean did the bulk of the work to expand Castiel's prison. He glanced cursorily at a dusty, crumbling book a few times, but most of the diagram he chalked out around the cage he did from memory. A standard pentacle, some additional runes, equations etched out in legible Latin along the lines. When Dean finished, though, he stepped outside the pentacle, and Sam stepped in to pull the silver net off the cage. Just this removal was enough to make Castiel slump a bit in relief; the farther that net was from him, the better.

Dean stayed at a distance, a few paces outside the pentacle's boundary lines, while Sam opened the iron cage. This confirmed what Castiel already knew: Sam's physical resilience was very, very strong—or he at least believed Castiel to be too weak to currently injure him.

Stepping out of the cage gave Castiel enough energy to change back into Jimmy's form. The minute transition offered brief relief from the cramp in his essence. Curious, he lifted a hand and set off a minor Detonation. Sam absorbed the small explosion without so much as blinking, still folding up the net.

"Done wasting your energy now?" he asked smugly, hauling the cage out of the chalk line while Castiel bent to inspect the runes. They'd done well; there wasn't an error large enough for him to slip through.

"Interesting," Castiel muttered, straightening up. Dean's eyes had tightened at the corners, as though Castiel's experiment had angered him. "Commoners don't usually know how to draw this kind of diagram."

Dean smiled humorlessly. "We're not commoners. Enjoy the new digs." Castiel had expected him to stay—to start what would surely be a tedious trial-and-error of information extraction—but he left with Sam without another word.

The ache in Castiel's essence was dulled by his lack of immediate proximity to anything silver or iron, but it was still present. Two years, he thought, settling near the window. He had started to forget anything other than physical manifestation. Two years was a blink for a spirit—for most spirits, in fact—but two years on Earth and two years in the Other Place were different things entirely. Two years on Earth was enough to cloud his mind, dull his senses, make him a shadow of the creature he'd been, make him a slave to physical form. It passed with brutal slowness. Decades in the Other Place seemed too fast and long ago in comparison. Worse, his respite between this assignment and the last had been his shortest ever; Alastair had barely dismissed him before Azazel summoned him back.

He had watched their camp and its inhabitants before. It looked no better from the inside than it did from an outsider's vantage point. It was small, definitely not the military base that the magicians made it out to be; it certainly had no more than two dozen or so occupants, few of which knew any magic at all. Not all of them had resilience, or even a form of the sight. He watched a small blond female, no older than mid-twenties, cross the courtyard between a handful of dilapidated cabins. She carried a shotgun over her shoulder, and she looked tired. They all did. The war was not going in their favor.

Jimmy's form grew too large and tiresome after a while. He stretched, just slightly, and shrank back down to the unobtrusive black cat—a little healthier in appearance now. Tired of watching the mostly-motionless courtyard, he curled in on himself in the center of the room, tail over his nose, and went still enough to make a mockery of a statue. Off in other parts of the cabin, he could hear vague movement, but otherwise, all was still on all seven planes. That didn't happen often, anymore. The cities were congested with varying levels of spirit, swirling around at all hours. The plague of the magician never burned out, just moved: most recently from Prague, to England, and now to America. England's vogue had been shortest of all.

Castiel let his eyes close. There was nothing to be on watch for in the unnerving quiet of the Appalachians.

*

Dean didn't visit again until sundown. By the look around his eyes, it had been a long time since he'd last slept. Castiel wondered how long the average human could run on coffee and stubbornness alone. Dean appeared to be making a bid for it.

He didn't come alone. An old man Castiel had caught a few glimpses of during his reconnaissance limped into the room beside him. The scruff of his gray beard and his shadowed eyes beneath the worn trucker hat gave him a surly, unfriendly look. This was a man who would chase anyone off his property with a shotgun and pack of frothing dogs. Like everyone else in these cabins in the mountains, he wore jeans and flannel—none of the absorption with style that magicians in the cities had. Castiel found the change refreshing, but he didn't move from his good-as-dead position on the floor.

The old man let out a low whistle. "He's not long for the world."

Dean's features were still tight with irritation. "Maybe it's better that way," he muttered. He was clearly regretting giving Castiel any room to breathe.

The old man bent to the floor to examine the runes. "Might want to consider adding a Mournful Orb," he grunted. "If his magician summons him, he'll still drain right out of there."

The cat rose, stretched, and stepped slowly to the other side of the line of runes. "How," it asked in Castiel's rough, low voice, "do you know anything about Mournful Orbs?"

The man glanced up and stared directly at Castiel's masked faces. He clearly possessed the same sight that Dean did—powerful group, this Resistance. He hadn't heard of many humans who could see right up to the seventh plane.

"Use your brain," the man muttered, getting back to his feet. "If you've got one behind one of those masks, anyway."

Castiel transformed into a fierce, oversized Grizzly bear, complete with blood splashed across the muzzle, though the effect was admittedly lost on men who could see through every one of his disguises. It almost wasn't worth the effort. He always got a nice twitch out of Azazel when he became anything with more than seven eyes, but these two didn't so much as bat an eyelash at his sudden change in visage.

"I know you," Castiel said finally, when it seemed that the two of them would go on staring at him indefinitely.

"That so," the old man said noncommittally.

"You're supposed to be dead, Robert Singer," he remarked. "All the magicians think so."

"I'll write the runes," Dean said flatly. "He can't be allowed to get back there."

"Whether or not they know I'm alive is insignificant," Singer said, still watching Castiel. Castiel stared back, made mulish by his impotence. "But make the Orb all the same."

Dean didn't speak to Castiel at all while he chalked out the diagram. The old man left after giving the djinni a last, hard stare.

"I wouldn't try that, if I were you," Castiel pointed out in an attempt at helpfulness. Dean's demeanor had changed half a dozen times over the last week, and this newest, brooding incarnation was possibly his least favorite of all of them. "You're not a magician, Dean. You'll make a mistake in the diagram, or the words."

Dean didn't answer. He was in the middle of double-checking something in an old book, bound in decomposing brown leather.

"You'll probably let me out on accident," Castiel continued. "Azazel knows better than to summon me now. He'd ruin the whole operation if he did. Trust me, I'm perfectly safe exactly where I am."

Dean stood, brushing the chalk off his hands, and scanned another page in the book. Searching for the incantation, probably. Castiel nearly ground his teeth.

"It's a rule of thumb not to do any magic while you're exhausted or sick, and you look as if you've got one foot in the grave," Castiel hedged. "It might kill you to cast this spell."

Dean cleared his throat and spoke. His voice didn't waver, not once, even as his features grew more haggard while the casting progressed. His green eyes stayed fever-bright, though, firm with conviction, and a few moments later, a crackling blue web of magic materialized around the grizzly bear. Hurriedly, Castiel returned to his housecat form, carefully keeping all shreds of essence away from the walls of the cage. Proximity didn't hurt the way silver did with Mournful Orbs, but if it touched him, his demise would be instantaneous. At least he was allowed to remain standing on the floor; the Orb continued down into the floorboards of the cabin, only half of it visible above the wood.

Dean had stepped up to only an inch away from the Orb and crouched down. He still loomed over Castiel. The djinni stared back balefully at those furious green eyes.

"You put a toe out of line," Dean said softly, "and I'll kill you. I won't hesitate. You've got nothing to offer us, and you're more of a liability than we need."

"You've decided your earlier, more merciful stance wasn't in your best interests, then," Castiel muttered.

Dean braced his hand against the Orb. It did not, of course, pose any threat at all to him. He was safely on the outside. "My people are off-limits. You're lucky I didn't throw you back in that death trap."

"Sam can obviously handle more powerful magic than that," Castiel scoffed.

"I don't care," Dean snarled. "I have no reason to trust you, and if giving you the benefit of the doubt means I have to constantly worry about the safety of the whole camp, I won't give you the benefit of the doubt. One more demonstration like this morning, and I'll squeeze your essence down to nothing." He snapped his fingers, and the Orb shrank just enough to make Castiel uncomfortable.

So that was what this was about. Dean didn't appreciate anyone attempting to harm—or appearing to attempt to harm—his brother. It turned him into a frothing-at-the-mouth killer, in fact. The look on his face was made nastier by his obvious exhaustion, and yet, even though he should have been wobbling on his feet after the exertion of creating a Mournful Orb—that was high-stakes magic, right there—his back was ramrod-straight. He paid no attention to the sweat trickling down from his light-brown hair. His eyes burned, a man on fire.

They'd under-exaggerated his devotion to Sam in the reports.

"We had a deal," Castiel reminded him. "I could have useful information, Dean."

Dean's eyebrows went up. "I've learned my lesson. I don't make deals with demons."

He strode from the room. The door trembled under the burden of his rage.

"Overreaction," Castiel muttered, but he didn't dare say it too loudly.

Chapter Text

Dean didn't come to see him again, and he got the sense, when Sam tiptoed in at half-past three in the morning, that everyone else in the camp had been banned from talking to him, too. Sam winced when he accidentally stepped on a squeaky floorboard, and took great pains to close the door without so much as a click. He listened carefully for a long few moments, his great mane of hair tipped toward the door, as though he expected Dean to come tearing through the cabin and find him out. Castiel watched the proceedings with interest.

Finally, Sam's chest heaved with a relieved sigh, and he turned to look at Castiel, who stared up at him with the closest approximation to mournfulness that he could muster.

"You shouldn't have done that this morning," Sam rebuked sharply, ignoring the softly pleading gaze of the housecat. "You're lucky he hasn't killed you."

"Overprotective," Castiel muttered, giving up on the beseeching expression. "Why are you here, then?"

Sam smiled. It was a quick motion, but genuine. "I'm more forgiving than my brother, and it was a very low-powered Detonation. Even if I didn't have resilience, it would've barely singed me. You were just curious. Dean's bad at reading in between the lines. Besides, you couldn't hurt me if you really tried right now."

"Is he," Castiel said dryly, ignoring Sam's final comment and unbearably triumphant look. "I never would have deduced that on my own."

Sam pulled up the chair from the corner of the room and sat down in front of the Mournful Orb, stretching out his long legs until they almost touched Castiel's prison. "You had to have known that," he commented. "You've been watching him a while, it's not like he's a complete mystery to you."

Castiel didn't dignify that with a response. Humans could be utterly obtuse about how very mysterious their behavior was, and Dean's little tantrum over his minor Detonation was exactly the kind of behavior that he couldn't have predicted.

"You seemed to be getting along okay," Sam continued. "Shouldn't've screwed it up, man. He's a pain in the ass when he's offended. Can really hold a grudge, my brother."

"Why are you here, then?" Castiel asked, irritated.

"I can still see a bigger picture," Sam replied. "And I don't feel threatened by you. You're not in good shape."

"I'm recovering," Castiel retorted.

"It's not like you're going to get back to full power in there," Sam pointed out.

"It's been two years," Castiel intoned. "I'm not getting back to full power anywhere except the Other Place. A strong gust of wind would finish me off. In fact, I stand a better chance of recovering something of my formidable powers safely in this...Orb." He eyed the crackling magic with distaste.

"All the more reason for you to cooperate with us," Sam said with an air of finality. "We're you're only chance, you know. We get a good shot at Azazel, and you're free. Better yet, we get an actual regime change in place, and we can guarantee that you won't be summoned ever again."

"You can't guarantee anything, Sam Winchester," the housecat replied. "I have seen a dozen Resistances over the last few millennia, and the magicians always return. You cannot break the cycle, and you cannot guarantee anything."

His ominous pronouncement was greeted with an irritated huff. "All right, I can't guarantee forever. But I can guarantee something. I can promise to do what I can. Is that enough for you?"

"No," Castiel returned, amused.

"Why the hell not?" Sam exploded, standing. The chair got knocked back with a bang. The youngest Winchester flinched; they both listened carefully for movement, to be sure that heavy boots weren't coming to interrupt the conversation. The cabin stayed silent. "It's a hell of a lot better than what you've got now," Sam finally hissed. "I want to help you, you idiot. What the magicians have done to you isn't fair, and I want to change it, so why won't you let me?"

"Because you aren't the general," Castiel replied. "And you don't have the authority."

Sam seethed silently in his direction for a long moment, and then, slowly, his anger lowered to a simmer. They were different in this aspect, Sam and Dean; Dean's anger was stone and stillness, Sam's a violent explosion.

"So if Dean gave the go-ahead," he said slowly. "If Dean made you the promises I'd made—"

"I'd consider it," Castiel interrupted him. "Good luck accomplishing that, though. I've heard the man can hold a grudge. He was willing to trade yesterday, but I doubt that's the case any longer."

It was disquieting to see the terrible delight spread over Sam's features. "Yeah," he said, grinning. "That's never stopped me before."

Sam took his leave. Castiel stared after him, vaguely annoyed by the air of determination that clung to the youngest Winchester.

*

"I don't think that we have any other choice."

"We have plenty of other choices," Dean ground out, glaring down the scuffed table at Charlie, who only raised a challenging eyebrow at him. "The most obvious one is that we can kill him, right now, and the immediate problem is solved. Like that."

"It violates our whole code of ethics, Dean," Charlie tried, her hazel eyes earnest. At her side, Jo let out a long sigh. "How do you think we'd ever get any of them to trust us, if they found out that we'd killed one of their own because he was a little inconvenient—"

"He's more than a little inconvenient!" Dean exploded. "Do I need to remind you all that he was going to kill me?!"

"He's not in any shape to do that now, grumpy," Pamela pointed out. "You can practically hear his essence flaking off. He's not hurting anyone."

Missouri nodded in agreement. "Calm down, boy. Your brother's right. Castiel is a powerful ally."

Sam smirked at him over Missouri's head. The way she rolled her eyes suggested that she knew exactly what he was doing, but wasn't about to reprimand him. Dean glared back. The increasing feeling of impotence was incredibly humiliating.

"He's also a liability," Bobby said from Dean's elbow. "That Orb takes a lot of power to maintain, and the longer he stays here, the more he learns about us. If you think he won't repeat it all to Azazel the second he gets an opportunity—"

"He won't," Sam cut in sharply. "You know his history, Bobby. He's not exactly a fan of magicians, and Azazel has worked him into the ground."

Bobby's lips tightened in disapproval. At the end of the table, Ash tap-tap-tapped away at his laptop. Everyone waited, listening for the sound of Dean's anger to simmer down, for him to listen to reason.

He didn't want reason. Demons made his skin crawl, and the fact that Castiel had been sort-of okay before he went and tried to barbeque Sam made it even worse to consider keeping him alive. He was dangerous, unpredictable. Didn't they all see that?

"Castiel of Babylon," Ash announced finally, his voice a languid drawl. He seemed utterly unaffected by the tension in the room—him and Garth, who sat at his elbow, twirling a pen idly on the table. "That's our guy, right?"

"What've you got, Ash?" Dean asked, forcibly unclenching his jaw.

"Funny you should mention his history, Sam," Ash commented, eyes rapidly scanning the computer screen. "He's all tangled up in that Novak guy. Before that summoning he's nothing worth mentioning—pops up every hundred years or so, does his job, poof, he's gone. But after he gets summoned by Jimmy, he really goes off the rails. Well," he amended. "Not off the rails. But magicians report that he's been increasingly difficult to deal with—always reading between the lines, you know, scanning the fine print for loopholes. A few times in the 90s he found a weakness and exploited it, leading to the magician's death, before he evaporated back to the Other Place. Looks like everyone knows about it, too. There's a group of higher-ups at the FBI who keep what looks like a constant cycle of summoning for him. Something's fishy. They don't usually repeat demon summons so often. It wears them down. Guy hasn't gotten a decent vacation in years."

"So what's the point, then?" Bobby demanded.

"No idea, padre. Better talk to the spirit, if he's in a sharing mood."

Everyone at the table turned to Dean, who was now grinding his teeth and no longer attempting to stop. He couldn't tell them that this—that Castiel—was the specter that had saved his family's life. That the reason he was being worked to death was because he'd conspired with Novak to preserve the life of their failing Resistance. That Dean owed him. He thought the humiliation would bury him.

"Just to be absolutely clear," he gritted out. "You all want to harbor a demon—"

"Spirit!" half the table chastised with varying levels of outrage.

"A spirit," Dean amended through clenched teeth, "who has direct orders to kill me."

"He doesn't have the ability, Dean," Sam tried, for the twelfth time in as many hours. "Can't you see how much pain his essence is in? I don't know if he could've done it even before we caught him. And he only got worse while he was inside that cage."

"How do you know?" Dean demanded, pushing back from the table. "You can't see him!"

"I could see how much it cost him just to set off that tiny Detonation," Sam shot back. "And I'm not an idiot. Two years is too long for a spirit to be on Earth. Way too long. Especially if he hasn't had a long enough break since his last summoning."

"And he wasn't lying," Ash piped up, his eyes still darting back and forth over the laptop screen. "They're all required to keep records now, of which spirits are under their command, to discourage the kind of rivalry that tore apart the British magicians. Castiel has been under Azazel's employ for the last two years. Says so right here."

They all looked at him again. Not for the first time, he thought he might snap under the weight of that collective stare. It was too tempting to go the way of his father—too tempting to demand that they fall in line, just do what hesaid, instead of listening to their pleas—

"Fine," he said, before he could change his mind. "Fine. If that's what we all want, that's what we'll do. He says he'll help," Dean directed at Sam, "if I offer him—what am I offering him?"

Sam glared. "He was ready to help before you went off the rails, Dean."

"Before he went off the rails," Dean muttered.

Sam got the face he always had when Dean wolfed down a double cheeseburger within five feet of him. "Just a guarantee that if we come out on top, we'll make an effort to be sure he's never summoned again," he said, as if this was an easy thing to promise. "Not even a guarantee. Our word that we'll try. That shouldn't be a problem since, if we overthrow the magicians, no one's going to be practicing magic here for a good while."

"That's only here," Bobby pointed out.

"He's only really been in high demand here," Sam reasoned. "Magicians aren't good at international relations, I doubt any in other countries even know about him." Bobby didn't look convinced. "Look, he knows we can't control everything. But we should be thinking about what we'll do if we get the magicians out of the way, anyway. Are we really going to be happy to know that somewhere else, some other country, is being subjugated by the same reign we overthrew?"

"We shouldn't be thinking about it," Dean cut him off, and this time, Sam glared back at him. "Get your head out of your ass, Sam. If we're not focused on winning this goddamned war, we're going to lose."

Silence—stiff, anxious, heavy—greeted this pronouncement. Unable to look at them all one more moment, he pushed heavily back from the table and made his way out of the cabin, heading for the tree line.

He held with the same ideology as they did, for fuck's sake. They didn't have the right to look at him like that, like they'd seen the shadow of John in him and were terrified of it. He didn't have to like demons—spirits, goddammit, spirits—to refrain from hurting them, but this one—this one was being a little shit, and they all had a history with the goddamned things, so why didn't they understand? Why didn't they get that seeing it take a potshot at Sam was too much to shrug off?

He found her half a mile into the forest, right where he'd left her, under a protective tarp and the kind of forest debris that let her blend into the surroundings. He didn't bother moving the dead foliage that covered her; he just shifted it enough to get the driver's side door open and slid in, shutting the door behind him.

"Hey, baby," he said softly, leaning his forehead down against the steering wheel. "Long time."

None of them had seen the white-eyed, burning thing that killed Mary. Not even Sam. They'd had brushes with demons, they had their resilience, but they didn't understand. They didn't have to fight knee-jerk loathing—actual, physical nausea—every time they set eyes on one of those things. One of those things had killed his mother, and it was still out there, somewhere, ruining other lives.

There was a soft rap on the roof of the car, and then Jo's blond hair swung into view on the passenger side, the door open just a few inches. "Mind if I come in?" she asked, but then she slipped inside the Impala anyway, not waiting for a response.

They sat in silence for a long moment, Dean's forehead still against the steering wheel, before Jo ventured another few words: "Want to talk about it?"

Dean shook his head, but at least leaned up and back against the leather seat. Tentatively, Jo reached out, as though intending to tuck her hand through the crook of his arm, but he stiffened, and she pulled her hand back.

"Sorry," she said quietly.

He closed his eyes. "I know."

She kicked her feet up to the dashboard, and they fell into an easy pattern of breathing, deep inhales and exhales that let his muscles unwind. Not completely, but enough. Jo was like that: his little rock, fierce and small and unyielding, and she could ground him the way no one else could.

And she had always, always been better at separating spirits from magicians than he was. Three years ago, they'd both lost their fathers—the backbone of their little Resistance—and Jo had, unquestionably, handled it better than Dean. How many times had they shouted themselves hoarse at each other after John's death? How many times had he, blind with rage, thrown his arsenal into the back of the Impala and turned the keys for a last assault on the monsters and men who'd killed his family? And how many times had she stood between him and oblivion, demanding that he see the bigger picture, that he not abandon them all to his grief?

Three years was not enough to sand down his rage; he doubted fifty, a hundred years would be enough. John had been a lot of things—a lot of questionable things, even Dean could see that—but he hadn't deserved to be hung as a deranged anarchist. What remained of the Resistance had watched the press conference in numb horror. "They were only men," Azazel had told reporters. "Deranged men who believed that magicians meant them harm, and plotted against the peace of mind of this entire nation. We could not let that stand."

The beaten pulse of his anger flared and died. And still, he resented Bobby for escaping alive; and still, he hated Sam for being okay when John was gone; and still, he wished he could untangle the legend from his father, and see where he could have done better, been stronger—kept his family alive.

"I miss them," she said eventually, her voice a little stiff. "I keep wondering what they would do if they were here, and I don't know anymore."

"Yeah," he said, though when it came down to it, he knew what John would do, and it was too gruesome an idea to entertain. "Me too."

He was so tired, he thought. He just wanted to rest—for a few hours, maybe, but he didn't have the luxury, shouldn't even really have taken these few minutes to collect himself. He didn't have the time. He needed to talk to the damn demon, to offer it the deal that Sam had extended but couldn't back up.

One thing was for sure, he thought. It didn't need to worry about being summoned when the dust cleared. He didn't want to see its impassive faces ever again after this was all over.

*

"How do I know you aren't going to go back on your word?" Castiel asked, eyeing Dean with distinct distrust. "You don't exactly look thrilled to be here."

"I'm not," Dean said brusquely. "But it's what we've decided, and I'll stick to my end if you hold up yours. Obviously, if I'm dead, you don't get anything out of this deal. Other than that swift death you've been wishing for."

Castiel was in Jimmy's guise again. He wore the man like armor, even though the tan overcoat seemed to dwarf him, and the suit beneath was shabby with age. Dean wondered if that had been Novak's natural eye color. It was an unnerving, too-bright shade of blue, if that was the case.

"What will you do with me in the meantime?" Castiel said.

Dean leaned back in his chair, tipping the legs off the ground a bit. "Don't know," he said idly. "Obviously can't let you out, because we don't want Azazel summoning you." He snapped his fingers, and the orb expanded by a good few feet. Castiel visibly sagged in relief. "Guess you'll have to stay in there."

"And you'll just leave me alone," Castiel said slowly, clearly suspicious.

"Well, no."

"Of course not," Castiel muttered, watching his fingers warily.

"Lemme ask you something, Cas," Dean said, and ignored the puzzled little frown that crinkled the djinni's human face. "If you're such a rebel—don't give me that look, I did the reading—why don't you find a way out of Azazel's service?"

"There is no way out," Castiel replied flatly. "He is careful. He is meticulous. They all are."

Dean let the legs of his chair fall back to the ground with a sharp thump. "I know magicians are a paranoid bunch, but their behavior with you doesn't make much sense."

"Doesn't it?" Castiel returned.

"No," Dean mused. "I mean, don't get me wrong, they're unpleasant assholes, but it seems like they've been singling you out for a while now. What's the point of keeping you on Earth for so long if it runs you down?"

Castiel's lips were pressed into a thin line now. "That's precisely the point, Dean. The more tired I am, the less of a threat I am to them."

"Yeah, but—you're only a djinni. No offense. What kind of threat are you to them, to begin with? The usual, sure—mischievous dem...spirit—but you're not an afrit or a marid. Those are the high-rollers."

"You are missing the point of my enslavement. It is not my power which is a threat to them, though I assure you, it is more formidable than you seem to believe." Feathers rustled irritably.

Dean hastily stifled a snort. Castiel's glare intensified.

"So it's whatever's in that noggin of yours that they don't like," Dean said. "Well, noggins."

Castiel nodded, though Dean thought he saw the blue eyes roll skyward, too.

"You've gotta give me more than that, man." Dean leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. "What's so important in those screwy heads of yours?"

"They aren't screwy," Castiel said, clearly trying for dignified, but it sounded snobby instead. "They're very nice, especially for a djinni of my level."

He was preening a bit, if Dean wasn't mistaken. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes right back at the spirit.

"What's so important in those pretty heads of yours, then?" Dean tried.

"Are you familiar with Ptolemy's Apocrypha?"

"Sure," Dean said, frowning. "All that shit about crossing over to the Other Place, sounds like a pipe dream to me—"

"It's not," Castiel said sharply, and then drew in a breath, as though checking himself. "It's not a pipe dream. It's possible, and Jimmy was ironing out the problems with the process. Lowering the risk to the humans who tried it. That's what's in my head. That's what they want. Because they killed him and burned his life's work, but before he died, he let me go, and he locked it all in my head." Castiel's lip curled up, a triumphant expression devoid of any pleasure. "I think he hoped that someday, another magician like him would summon me—another man like him. But there are no men like him."

Melodramatic, Dean thought, not as unkindly as Castiel would probably believe.

Chapter Text

"So you've said," Dean commented. Castiel's grim pronouncements did not, apparently, have any effect whatsoever on the Winchester brothers. It was surprisingly annoying, yet another thing about them both that he was growing to dislike. "Still not clear on why they're keeping you around, though. Azazel doesn't strike me as the type to have any interest in crossing over to the Other Place. Seems like they'd just kill you."

"Yes, I can see why you would think that," Castiel said stiffly, "since you seem so eager to kill me yourself."

"You were going to kill me," Dean said, jabbing a finger angrily in Castiel's direction. "And then, when I helped you out, against my better judgment, you decided to test Sam's resilience."

"It was a minor Detonation!" Castiel exclaimed, fed up with this fixation of Dean's. "Even if he had no resilience to speak of, he'd have barely been burned! As much as my pride loathes to admit it, I don't think I'm physically capable of hurting him at present." Castiel scowled at the thought.

"It's the principle of the thing, Cas."

"I've never encountered someone with as much resilience as Sam," Castiel continued, musing now. "He didn't even register it as an attack."

"Yeah, well," Dean grumbled. "I can see the eighth plane, but you don't see me braggin' about it."

The eighth plane? "That's posturing," Castiel snapped, frowning.

"Posturing?" Dean laughed, as though more amused by his word choice than by the accusation. "No. No, it isn't."

"Dean, I can't even see the eighth plane."

Dean's smug look was really, horribly unbearable. Castiel didn't like it at all. He thought he might hate it, actually. "Well. Sucks for you, man. On the other hand, though, you probably don't want to see it. That's where the real uglies come out to play. Makes my fillings ache." He rubbed his jaw absentmindedly.

"I'm not convinced there is an eighth plane," Castiel reasserted weakly.

"We're getting off-topic," Dean said, waving this off. "I won't threaten to kill you again as long as you don't play around with Sam's resilience. Capiche?"

"I capiche," Castiel muttered resentfully. "I don't have much opportunity to do anything from in here, anyway."

"So why haven't they?" Dean asked again. "Why haven't they just killed you?"

Castiel considered the question, frowning. It wasn't as if any of the magicians who had employed him over the last twenty-six years had made it abundantly clear why they wouldn't just let him be—or let him die. It was true, however, that they were unusually strict with him; that they summoned him to Earth for long, uncomfortable periods of time; and that, every once in a while, one of them carefully tried to pry out the knowledge that was still locked deep in Castiel's essence, the work that Jimmy had died protecting. The pang of loss was dulled, and older than it should have felt. Twenty-six years prior was hardly a long time for Castiel, but his perception of time had been warped by his long tenure with humanity, and Jimmy felt far away, the night of the assassination long ago.

Azazel had tried the hardest, and was the most persistent, but Jimmy's work was heavily protected in Castiel's essence. He had made no progress, and his frustration had started to show—just before he sent Castiel on this suicide mission.

"They're disruptive things, magicians," Castiel mused aloud. "You know that."

Dean grimaced. "I wouldn't be living in a cabin in the woods if they weren't."

"I won't pretend to know what their exact plan is. They have often attempted to pry the secrets out of my essence, but Jimmy made that act almost impossible."

"Some kind of spell?" Dean probed, leaning back in his seat.

"No. It stays locked of my own volition. In a way, it is a spell—the only kind that has ever granted me a shred of free will. If I chose, I could spill his life's work to anyone. I could have done it years ago. I believe that this is why the magicians continue to fail; they think that Jimmy installed some kind of actual lock, something that prevents me from conveying the information, when actually the opposite is true." Castiel looked down at his hands, remembering how they'd shaken as Jimmy uttered the words of Dismissal on that, the last night. "There is no lock. There is only my discretion, which can withstand the fiercest magicians."

When he looked up again, Dean's stare had softened, his hard features minutely relaxed. "You've kept his secrets for twenty-six years, and you didn't have to," he said, and his voice was gentler, somehow—still gruff, but not demanding, not at all. The transformation was something to behold: even Dean's aura softened, expanded, as though he was touched. Castiel watched in interest and vague alarm. "Why? They might have let you go. They might have made you the same promise I did."

"I have been summoned by magicians for several thousand years," Castiel said, compelled to honesty. "There have been tolerable masters and terrible ones, but Jimmy was of a different breed entirely. Jimmy was not a magician at all, at heart. He was a man of faith in his own broken society. He had the power to command legions, but he turned away from it all, wanted an olive branch between spirits and humanity. He trusted me with his wife. With his daughter." He remembered Amelia's determined features, stubborn even in death, and Claire's set jaw with Jimmy's bright blue eyes. It had seemed wrong to leave those glassy, accusing eyes open. "He was not a master. He was a friend. A brother. He went to his death trusting me to keep this information safe, so I risk my life, trusting that it is important enough to keep out of Azazel's hands."

Dean surveyed him with full attention now, not the hard stare of a soldier sizing up his adversary, but a studying look, the kind that swept over Castiel's true form as though he was absorbing rather than repelling. The silence went on for too long, until even Castiel was uncomfortable, and he only rarely picked up on human things like the way social interaction was supposed to work.

Dean finally cleared his throat. "You said you don't know what their exact plan is."

"No," Castiel said, relieved at the change of subject. Talking about Jimmy bogged down his essence; it made his entire being feel heavy and sad with old pain.

"But you have a guess."

"I do."

Dean beckoned. "Let's hear it."

"They have a precarious balance," Castiel said. "More precarious than many commoners realize, I think. They are at constant war with the things—things like me—that give them the bulk of their power. They are looking for a way to make their lives easier. Assert their dominance with less risk to themselves."

"But Jimmy was all about equal footing, right? How could what he knew help them—"

"The first step," Castiel interrupted, "is to find a way into the Other Place, which is our refuge. Ptolemy's Apocrypha details a way to do so, but it relies upon a magician who has a close bond with a spirit on the other side—someone who will welcome and invite him across the boundary. Ptolemy achieved this with a djinni of my level called Bartimaeus, I believe."

"Jimmy didn't ever try it with you?"

"I refused," Castiel answered. Jimmy had been furious. What do I have to do to prove myself to you, Castiel? he'd shouted, hurt and desperate. "I knew the price it demanded of him, and I was unwilling to let him pay it. His hope—that he would be able to see the Other Place without such consequences—was part of what drove his work."

Dean was silent for another long moment, but now his gaze was absent, looking through Castiel rather than at him. Castiel, tired of human forms, changed again to a lithe black panther. He had room now within the Orb to stretch out. Dean didn't appear to notice the change. A small frown had formed between his eyebrows.

"Could they really do anything, once they were there?" Dean finally asked. The panther's head tilted to the side in silent question. "The magicians," Dean amended. "If they did get into the Other Place—what could they do?"

"Be generally disruptive, for starters." If Dean was perturbed by Castiel's voice emanating from the panther's mouth, he didn't show it. "The Other Place thrives on the kind of changeability that a physical world—your world—doesn't possess, and magicians are all about order. Trying to impose that kind of order on the Other Place en masse would be dangerous for us. Painful."

Dean's silence was longer this time. Castiel paced, back and forward, and the Orb widened again, giving him more room. When he shot a surprised look at his jailor, Dean was still lost in thought.

Finally, he got to his feet. Castiel sat back on the pather's haunches and stared up at the man. "Cas," he said. Castiel turned over the bizarre nickname, testing its weight, and found that he didn't quite hate it. His true name had done nothing for him, after all, than allow his continued imprisonment. "I know you said that Sam's idea isn't any good."

Castiel waited.

"Were you just being pessimistic, or do you really believe that?"

"Magicians have made us very hostile to humanity," Castiel said carefully. "I'm sorry, Dean, but I meant what I said. You can't hope for an alliance with us. There must be another way to win this war."

"Yeah," Dean grunted, turning away. He shut down as quickly and unexpectedly as he'd opened up, and paced away from the Mournful Orb while Castiel watched him go. "You get any bright ideas, let me know."

The Orb swelled up to encompass the entire room as the door shut behind him.

*

From his vantage point at the window, Castiel watched and listened.

As though chased out of hiding by a lift in Dean's mood, the camp became suddenly more active than it had in the last few days. He saw two women, perhaps in their mid-twenties—one with blond hair, one with red—emerge from a cabin with rifles slung over their shoulders, their elbows bumping in camaraderie as they approached the tree line; the gruff old man from earlier crossing to another cabin, knocking, and gaining admittance; a younger, scrawnier man with questionable taste in hairstyle juggling a load of computer gear as he wobbled across the courtyard.

He learned from the sounds and comings and goings that he was still in Dean's cabin, and much of the time, Dean was very much alone in it with him. It appeared that even Sam didn't stay in this structure; Castiel saw him coming in and out of the cabin directly to the right of them, along with another woman, her long blond hair curly and wild. They moved in peculiar orbits around and near each other, the kind that signified a connection on a deep subatomic level that even they weren't fully aware of.

Humans, Castiel thought, were so blind.

He was comfortable in the cabin, but he was also terribly, horribly bored. There was only so much to watch, and while he was good at surveillance, he wasn't satisfied with doing surveillance for surveillance's sake. Some moral code felt violated, too, to be watching the people he was tenuously allied with now.

Azazel, no doubt impatient after more than a week without news, attempted to summon him not long after he curled up, a housecat again, tail over his nose. He settled in to withstand the pain, nails clawing into the floorboards, occasional mews of agony strangled in his throat whenever the pain of the summons drove sharply into his essence. It hurt worse, when he was in this kind of constraint; it was much different than the usual sucked-down-a-drain sensation. The faraway words latched into him, but couldn't pull him down and away, and instead just rankled, rankled, rankled.

Azazel tried for ten minutes, then finally gave up. When he was able to see straight again, Dean was back in the room, the Mournful Orb shrunk down just enough to accommodate his chair near the door. He watched Castiel with something that looked suspiciously like pity.

"Will he know that you're trapped?" he asked, in a tone too conversational to be truly casual.

"No," Castiel answered, his voice more guttural than usual. "Only that I'm not answering his summoning, which is impossible unless I'm trapped or dead. What does Azazel know of your...abilities?"

"Too much," Dean said darkly, turning back to the book in his lap. There was a whole stack next to his chair, too, interspersed with folders and a thick leather journal. Castiel hadn't even noticed him come in; he wondered if Dean had heard his pain and come to investigate. The thought was humiliating. "He knows about my apprenticeship with Alastair, obviously. He would be stupid if he didn't assume that I'd shared what I learned with the rest of the camp." Dean shrugged. "Fuck, I wish he was stupid. It would make things easier."

"Obviously," Castiel said dryly, stretching.

Dean hesitated, and then asked, a little stiffly, "Is there anything I can do?"

"No." Castiel wondered if Dean was mocking him. The facial expression seemed wrong, but he was sometimes wrong about those interpretations. "What are you doing?"

"Research," Dean said, his eyes already back on the page as Castiel padded closer.

"I thought that was more Sam's area."

"Sam's good at research. I'm good at innovation."

Castiel seated himself as close to the barriers of the Mournful Orb as he dared. "Can I help?"

Dean shot him a surprised look. Castiel yawned pointedly. Dean rolled his eyes and held up the book he was reading. The page featured a brief introduction to the Mournful Orb and multiple cringe-worthy diagrams.

"You obviously know how to make one of these already," Castiel pointed out.

"Yeah, but it'd be good to make a smaller one." Dean set the book back in his lap and paged forward. "I'd let you out, but I don't want Azazel summoning you."

"A smaller one," Castiel repeated, frowning, though it wasn't obvious on the cat's face. He disregarded Dean's last comment; it wasn't like it had any truth to it. Dean might have been over his bloodlust, but he wasn't about to let Castiel roam their encampment without fetters.

"Like a collar. So that you could, physically, move around freely—but you wouldn't be able to respond to a summoning."

"You're absolutely certain you aren't a magician."

Dean smirked at that. "Much to dad's disappointment, no. I'm not."

Castiel paused at that, squinting up at Dean, whose eyes were roaming over the page, pen tapping against his lips. "Your father headed the Resistance. For more than twenty years."

"My father," Dean grunted, "needed a bargaining chip, and I would have been his best shot, if I had just behaved." His eyes were hard again, cool chips of jade. "I could have been the perfect inside man, a go-between for the magicians and the Resistance. Chiseled away slowly, risen to power, deposed them all from the inside…" Dean hesitated, as though he knew this bordered the realm of too much information. "But I didn't get along with my master."

"Ah," Castiel said. It seemed unreasonably cruel, even to him, for a father to throw his son to such barbarians. "So that is how you crossed paths with Alastair."

Dean's chin jerked in confirmation. Castiel was beginning to recognize Dean's peculiar mannerisms—the way he held himself when something pained him, the way his jaw tightened and his features hardened when he remembered something unpleasant—and he had all those warning signals now, even as his eyes continued to scan the page in front of him. Castiel shivered.

"I'm sorry," Castiel offered quietly. "He is an exceptionally cruel master."

Dean nodded stiffly, as though in reluctant agreement. His Adam's apple bobbed; his throat had clearly locked up. As though he wasn't conscious of the movement, he scrubbed absently at his shoulder. They subsided into silence, and Castiel let his burning curiosity go unsatisfied. It was unseemly, and he knew it. He had always been too drawn to them—to humans. This was not the first man, and not the first Resistance, to compel his attention.

*

He was getting too personal with the thing.

It wasn't hard to do, when it stared up at him with those sad blue eyes and voiced something that sounded like empathy. Castiel was sort of funny, too, in that deadpan kind of way that made Dean's chest squeeze up in humor, and finding him on the floor cringing in pain had been—well. Dean felt bad for him. For Castiel.

For a demon.

Dean didn't react well to others in pain. He hated it. He did everything he could to prevent it or make it stop. He could handle it himself, better than most—thanks to Alastair, he reminded himself, vaguely nauseated—but watching someone else, even if it was actually a something else, shivering on the floor...it was intolerable. It left a metallic taste in his mouth, accompanied by the realization that he'd bitten his own lip too hard.

He shook his head a bit to clear it; Castiel perked up at the sudden movement, but Dean ignored him. He was close to answers, if he could just focus, but he wasn't sleeping great anymore, and it seemed like the caffeine wasn't having much of an affect these days unless he never stopped drinking it, and—

"Dean," Castiel said, and this time, Dean's head jerked up. The blue eyes burned. "You're only human. Leave it, and go to sleep."

It sounded suspiciously like a command. Dean bristled and ignored it, forcing himself to focus on the page before him, and added another scribble to the yellow notepad balanced precariously on the right arm of his chair. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Castiel slump, melting into another, different form—a bluebird that would fit cupped in the palm of Dean's hand—and settle close to the ground, silent and shaking. Azazel was summoning him again.

The beady black eyes were glazed with pain; the little bird's feathers were puffed out, as though it was trying to keep warm. Worse, though, was Castiel's form on the seventh plane, which had collapsed to the ground. Only the spirit's wings remained aloft, and those were painfully tensed, as though an electric current ran through him. Its masked faces were screwed up in agony, even the one made entirely of bone, features squinting so hard that Dean thought they might shatter.

Castiel, though, didn't make a sound.

Dean wondered how much torture he'd endured, to master that kind of control, and his stomach clenched tight at the unwelcome memories that thought provoked.

Dean focused on the little bluebird, took a deep breath, and scooped his notepad up as he stood. From there, he spoke: the incantation he'd cobbled together, the thing that he hoped would take the Mournful Orb and reduce it down to something more palpable. He felt the energy of it draining him, felt his muscles wobble from the effort, but he kept talking, watching through double vision as the Mournful Orb shrank and solidified and finally, finally, settled in a glowing, snug collar around the bluebird's neck.

Dean was down on his knees now, one hand braced to hold himself up against the floor, but he reached out the other shaking hand to scoop Castiel up. At first touch, the bird stiffened, still shivering in the aftermath of the failed summoning, but then its glassy black eyes focused, tilting down curiously at the glowing blue collar fastened around its neck.

"I should be singed, right about now," Castiel remarked. That gravelly, roughshod voice sounded bizarre emanating from the tiny bluebird's mouth.

"I removed the damaging properties," Dean rasped, struggling to focus. "All it does is keep you here. I hope."

If bluebirds could smile, Dean thought Castiel would be smirking. "That could have gone disastrously. For either of us. Or both."

"Learn to live a little, Cas," Dean said, and managed to drag himself back up to his chair, holding the bluebird carefully aloft. Castiel's true form still spilled out of his palm, a buzz of light and energy, not unlike static electricity running over his skin and off into the air—but there was no weight to it, and the bluebird itself felt barely a fraction of a pound. All feathers.

"Will it hold against transformations?" Castiel questioned. "It gets very...uncomfortable, having to hold one form for a long time."

Dean squinted at his notepad. "It should expand with you."

"Should," Castiel repeated, but obliged with a test: he shifted back to a black housecat, leaping down from Dean's hand and onto his knees instead. The collar rested, its light blue glow intact, sealed around the cat's neck. Castiel stretched, and Dean sneezed.

"Allergic?" Dean heard the smirk in Castiel's voice, plain as day, this time.

"Asshole," Dean grouched, his eyes already watering, but Castiel sighed and shook out his fur. As abruptly as the symptoms had set in, they faded. Castiel sheathed his claws, sighed again in what sounded suspiciously like contentment, and wound his way up Dean's thigh, onto the armrest. The paws reached out to brace against his bicep, as though about to climb up to his shoulder. He froze; the hair on the back of his neck bristled; but Castiel either didn't notice, or didn't care. The djinni pulled himself up and perched beside Dean's ear, purring.

"Personal space, Cas," Dean grumbled through gritted teeth. He could only be thankful that Castiel hadn't chosen the other side; he would have thrown the spirit off, and where would their tenuous alliance be then?

"Thank you, Dean," the spirit said, ignoring this. "This is infinitely more comfortable."

"Glad you think so," Dean remarked, slumping sideways into the chair. Fucking hell, he was exhausted; his anxiety about Castiel's proximity couldn't keep its legs for long. He hadn't done this kind of intensive spellwork in years, and never anything this creative. His eyes were already beginning to droop.

Castiel was peering down at the yellow legal pad in interest. "This is remarkable. You've only been working on this today?"

"Since this morning."

"I've never seen a magician do anything like it."

"Yeah, well," Dean mumbled, letting his eyes fall shut. He was dangerously powerless, too wrung out to struggle awake. The caffeine was failing, his sleep schedule had been all over the map, and he realized, too late, that he had finally reached his body's limits. "I'm not a magician."

"Dean," Castiel said, and the rough voice was suddenly more urgent. Claws dug into his shoulder, but the sharp pinpricks of pain were muted against the pounding in his head. "Dean!"

He couldn't drag himself back. Dean succumbed to sleep.

Chapter Text

When he woke up again, he was in bed, minus boots and jeans, sheets and comforter pulled up to his waist, and Sam was glaring at him from a nearby chair, arms folded across his chest.

"You're a fucking idiot," his brother announced fiercely.

Dean blinked blearily and made a half-hearted effort to sit up, swiping for the glass of ice water on his bedside table. His mouth felt as though a desert had blown in overnight, and he chugged the entire glass in one go. When he'd gotten it all down—much to the protest of his stomach—he glanced up at Sam.

"How long have I been out?" he asked, ignoring the glower that Sam was still radiating in his direction.

"Ten hours."

"I feel like I got hit by a truck."

"I'm not surprised." Sam unclenched long enough to heft the yellow legal pad. "Considering the spellwork you've done over the last few days, you're lucky you're not dead."

Something stirred at his feet. Dean looked down. Lounging over the blankets—and across his ankles, it turned out—was Castiel in housecat form, blue eyes peeking open lazily as his limbs stretched. The soft blue glow of the collar pulsed at his throat, still intact.

"Good thing, too," Castiel remarked. "It'd negate all that hard work if your heart just stopped."

Sam's glare turned to Castiel.

"You," he snarled, his tone remarkably inhospitable, "shouldn't have let him go through with it." Dean wondered how they hadn't ripped one another to shreds while he was unconscious.

"I was distracted," Castiel said imperiously. "You try enduring a summoning inside a Mournful Orb. It's not exactly a walk in the park. I wasn't aware he was doing it until he'd already done it. I came and got you right away, didn't I?"

"I'm fine, in case anyone was curious," Dean grumbled, dragging himself up against the pillows. He braced his back against the headboard; he still felt a little woozy.

"You brought this on yourself," Sam snapped, still engaged in a hearty staring contest with Castiel.

"Jesus," Dean muttered. "Calm down. Didn't really have a choice, Sam. This is your code of ethics, not mine."

Sam glowered, but Dean knew that Sam knew that he had a point. If it was up to Dean—if Dean was operating alone—he'd never let a spirit as powerful as Castiel out of the cage. He'd never compromise, or consider an equal allegiance. This had all been Sam's idea, and he was going to have to live with the consequences.

"Fine," Sam gritted out, conceding. "But get some more sleep, for fuck's sake, Dean. Magicians have died from less exertion than that when they're running on fumes."

"He's not a magician," Castiel pointed out, the hint of a smile—not a smirk—in his voice. His blue eyes caught Dean's, who let out a reluctant grin in return.

"Christ," Sam muttered, standing up. "What have I done?" Without another word, he rose and strode from the room. The door rattled angrily in the frame as he left.

"I don't know what he's so pissed about," Dean remarked, staring longingly at the empty glass of water. Some food would've been nice, too. Now that it was over its initial queasiness, his stomach grumbled. He'd been eating poorly in the last few days, and it was having an effect. "He's been trying to get me to get on this plan of his for years. Alliances with spirits, all that crap, ever since Dad died. The second I get on board—"

"If there's one thing I've learned for certain about humans," Castiel interrupted, "it's that they're strongly opposed to change. Sam has relied on you to resist his plans and ideas for a long time—probably longer than the last few years. Seeing you behave differently has required his worldview to shift. It will take some adjustment."

"Well," Dean grunted, wondering if he could turf Castiel off the bed and free his feet at the same time, "he better get over it fast. We don't have time for him to be digging his heels in."

"Has a plan of action occurred to you during your coma?" Castiel asked dryly, rising carefully and moving out of the way of Dean's feet. Dean snickered.

"No, but it's coming together. We have to stop hiding out here. We need a plan of attack."

"You're not exactly an army," Castiel said brusquely. "There can't be more than, what—two dozen of you? Not all of you are like Sam. Not all of you are even like you, Dean. How can you possibly hope to finish them all off?"

"I don't know," Dean said, throwing the covers back. "But I'll figure it out. Are you going to help me or not?"

Castiel gave him a long look and then heaved an ever-suffering sigh. "Fine," he said. "I don't see what I can do for you, though, if we're marching to battle. I'm a shadow of my former self."

"We'll figure something out," Dean said absently. "For now, though, I could use some food."

There was an odd displacement of air next to him, accompanied by a rustling sound suspiciously similar to wings taking flight. By the time he'd swung his legs out of bed and turned to investigate, Castiel was back, once again wearing Jimmy Novak, and bearing an enormous sandwich artfully arranged on a chipped plate. A few cabins over, Dean heard Garth's belated yelp.

The corner of Castiel's lip twitched up. He extended the plate to Dean. "I may have startled a few of your soldiers."

Dean eyed the food suspiciously, but his mouth was watering, and if it had come out of their own kitchens, he didn't see the harm. He took the plate. "Good to keep them on their toes," he consented.

Castiel sat down beside him as he tore into the sandwich, eating a little more vociferously than necessary. The blue collar had slipped beneath the collar of Castiel's shirt; if it weren't for the faint blue glow emanating from behind the disheveled knot of his tie, it would have been impossible to tell it was even there.

Dean, though, couldn't lose his awareness of what Castiel really was, because the three masked faces loomed up and over Jimmy's shoulders and head, their attention on him even if the blue eyes weren't turned his way. They were shadowy figures, considering him with cool regard, and the wings that flared out behind them weren't so much terrifying as they were impressive.

"Can you tell me anything?" Dean asked, swallowing a bite of sandwich with difficulty. If Castiel was repulsed by his enthusiastic eating, he didn't show it. "Anything at all, about what they're planning, what they're doing? Besides the big stuff? Any immediate moves we should know about?"

"I don't know the details," Castiel said. "And what I do know, I have been strictly...instructed...not to share." His Adam's apple bobbed, as though he was trying to form words but couldn't. Dean flinched in sympathy. "They share information with us very rarely. But they are tired of you, Dean. They will not allow you to continue hiding out here for long. I suspect I am barely a scout in a much grander scheme."

Dean tried to ignore the unsettling feeling that gave him. He dug back into his sandwich, and Castiel's eyes shifted between the window and door, as though keeping watch.

*

"This," Dean announced, shuffling his weight to his right foot, "is Castiel."

The people who filled the meeting room stared at him with various combinations of awe, distrust, and outright malice. There were a few curious eyes, and some of them followed the movement of his true form's wings as though spellbound. Castiel had been optimistic in his estimation; there were less than two dozen of them.

"He came here under strict orders to kill me, but since we captured him before that scenario could play out, the situation has changed. He's agreed to help us, however he can."

The scruffy old man wearing a trucker hat was staring at Dean with more than a little disbelief. Singer, Castiel reminded himself.

"Won't Azazel summon him back, if you let him run around loose like that?" a redhead halfway down the table asked in interest.

Dean reached over and tugged down Castiel's shirt just enough to expose the blue ring around his neck. Several people at the table quailed in distaste; those who didn't react had clearly been able to see the aura of the magic prior to Dean's reveal. "This keeps Azazel from successfully summoning him," Dean explained. "But he has his full abilities, and it doesn't hurt him. He can still transform, too."

Before Dean could ask him to demonstrate, Castiel became a peregrine falcon. The collar remained at his throat. He perched on Dean's shoulder, taking a little too much pleasure in the man's palpable discomfort. He didn't do well with his personal space being directly invaded. Castiel wanted to know why that was. Sam, standing on Dean's other side, quickly suppressed a smile; he sensed his brother's discomfort, too.

"So," Dean said bracingly, while more than just Singer stared at him in something approaching disgust and the rest of them looked half-queasy, half-hopeful, "he won't hurt any of you." Castiel gave an encouraging nod. The redhead caught his eye and smiled. "And by popular decision, he's here to help, so no...fighting. That's it. Feel free to introduce yourselves or steer clear, whatever you prefer."

Not surprisingly, Singer was the first out of the room, closely followed by a man Castiel recognized as Rufus Turner, one of his closest associates. Dean didn't watch him go, but Castiel saw the corners of his eyes tighten again.

As the rest of the camp moved around the room, either shuffling for the door or making their way to vacated seats, Castiel murmured in Dean's ear, "They really do think he's dead, you know. Good disappearing trick. There was a body and everything. The spirits on the scene believed it, too."

"He knew what he was doing, and the magicians didn't visit him personally for his execution," Dean replied, just as quietly. "Others weren't so lucky."

Castiel's eyes roamed over to the blonde seated next to the redhead; her body language stated clearly that she did not want to be there, but the redhead was murmuring soothingly beside her, their arms linked loosely at the elbows. There was another woman—older, her features carefully empty of expression—on the other side of the blonde, sitting close, but not touching. Their facial structures were similar enough for Castiel to guess that they were mother and daughter.

"John Winchester," Castiel commented, and Dean nodded. "And Bill Harvelle. I'm guessing the two over there are Jo and Ellen."

"And you say they don't tell you anything," Dean muttered.

"Oh, they tell me plenty about you," Castiel said, and shifted back to the housecat form, modified to spare Dean the allergies. The redhead, who had been watching him, grinned in delight. The flash of mirth made her face suddenly younger, less drawn. "Just not much about themselves. They're not the sharing kind, magicians."

The room had emptied of half its occupants. Those that remained eyed Castiel with wariness and curiosity. Dean seated himself at the table, and Castiel spilled into the empty chair to his left, shifting back to Jimmy's form, which the camp by and large seemed the most comfortable with—at least, to those who couldn't see him on the seventh plane.

"So," Dean said, louder this time, "is everyone here familiar to you?"

Castiel squinted around the table, matching up learned profiles and blurry pictures with faces. "Most," he conceded. "Not all."

Dean leaned back with half a smirk. "Demonstrate to us what you know."

Azazel had never forbidden him from sharing the information he knew about individual members of the Resistance. He turned to his left first, where a man who hadn't so much as glanced at him once was tapping away at a heavily modified computer.

"Ash," Castiel said with confidence. The man didn't pause in his tapping, his brow furrowed. "Strongly suspected to be the technological heart of your entire operation. Unfortunately for the magicians, he's managed to erase his actual identity from all known records, and any resilience ability is unknown."

Ash's eyebrows raised. "And it'll stay that way, partner," he said, not glancing up from his frenzied typing.

Castiel turned his attention to the man beside him. "I don't know you."

"Garth Fitzgerald, the fourth," the scrawny man said, extending his hand across the table. Castiel heard Dean heave an irritated sigh beside him, but he returned the handshake briefly.

"He's new," Dean muttered.

Castiel shifted his attention to the next in line. "Pamela Barnes," he said. The psychic—ironically nicknamed for her onetime falsified palm reading business—lifted her sunglasses to expose her glass eyes. "I would be too hopeful to pray that you don't remember me, I think."

Dean raised his eyebrows. Pamela smiled. "Don't be so worried, Dean," she teased, though her sightless white eyes were on Castiel. "You know I had that run-in with a spirit, a few years back."

Dean's eyes flicked sideways to Castiel.

"No hard feelings," Pamela said, sliding her sunglasses back into place. "I know how it is. You did what you were told."

Ellen cast an angry glance Pamela's way; Jo wasn't nearly as expressive as her mother, but her lips visibly tightened. The psychic's casual disregard of their encounter had upset the two.

Castiel tipped his head in acknowledgement. "So it goes," he replied. "Missouri Mosley. Your senses are renowned."

And so it went, around the table: Castiel identified Annie Hawkins, who was moderately resilient against spirit attacks and could detect the aura of magical traps and security systems; Jim Murphy, a former pastor, who saw up to the fifth plane; Olivia Lowry, who had no resilience to speak of, but was dogged by the haunted look of loss.

His information failed him when he came to the redhead, who smiled brightly at him. "I'm new, too," she said, but she didn't stretch out her hand as Garth had, perhaps because Dean shot her a warning look before she could. "Charlie Bradbury."

Castiel nodded when she volunteered no further information. Smart. "Jo and Ellen Harvelle," he said, turning his attention to the two women. They stared back at him with impassive faces, their brown eyes now identically unyielding. "Powerful resilience. Not as strong as Sam's, or so I've heard, but good enough when it mattered the most."

Jo's lips twitched toward a scowl before falling back into place. Charlie squeezed her hand; their fingers were tightly interlaced. Beside him, Dean's muscles were taut. They were all, no doubt, remembering the night when that resilience had been tested.

Castiel had heard whispers from other spirits who weren't under oath. The strained stalemate between the Resistance and the American magicians constantly attempting to root them out could not last forever, of course. Everyone knew what had happened in the not-so-United Kingdom barely thirty years ago, even if details were vague. The only reason the United States could claim independence was the sudden collapse of British Parliament, and that was all thanks to the dominoes their own little Resistance kicked over, no matter what lies the commoners who took over in the aftermath told. It was hardly surprising, then, that when they were granted their freedom, American magicians took pains to stamp out the resilience already spreading and intensifying throughout the nation.

The Winchesters had survived that attempt at extermination—well, most of them—but only because of Jimmy's intervention, and they were some of the precious few. In the aftermath, the few resilient left had little chance of finding one another. When they finally did—when they became dangerous enough—another extermination had been ordered, but Azazel and his most devout had only targeted the organization's leaders. John Winchester, Bill Harvelle, and Robert Singer: only the last of them had survived. Neither Sam nor Dean had been with their father when he was accosted, but the Harvelles were together, and by the sound of the rumors, Bill's wife and daughter had only escaped with their lives because of their superior resilience. They were clearly not undamaged, though, mentally or physically; Castiel could see the peculiar silvery glint of raised scar tissue winding around Ellen's left hand and disappearing into her sleeve, and Jo's was more obvious, a pattern that covered her left cheek and curved around her jaw and neck. It looked like she had missed the brunt of The Black Tumbler, and her resilience had saved her eyesight; the wavy gray streaks had a fainter impression than those who took the full force of the attack, and one tendril of the scar fell directly over her right eye.

There were swaths of time unaccounted for, though, and Castiel glanced sideways at Dean, wondering when his father had been stupid enough—or desperate enough—to bend the knee and hand his son over to the magicians. It couldn't have been long after Lawrence. They generally wouldn't teach children past a certain age.

"So what are you bringing to the table, Castiel?" Ellen asked, her gaze still hard, her voice cool.

"I'll do what I can," Castiel replied, "as soon as your fearless leader decides how I can help."

"Right now, you can help by not being such a smartass," Dean growled.

"You're still under oath with Azazel," Ellen commented.

"Yes."

"Which means that he can't tell us anything," Ellen surmised. "And if Azazel knows where he is, and finds him, he can be turned against us."

"Azazel is a coward," Castiel said, even as Dean's mouth opened to answer this problem himself. "If he can't summon me to a pentacle—and thanks to Dean, he can't—he won't come after me himself."

"They know where we are," Jo pointed out. "Since you obviously found us without issue."

"I would not say without issue," Castiel said. "But, yes. You should assume that they are aware of your location."

"Then why haven't they attacked us?" Charlie asked, frowning. "They could wipe us out within an hour. No offense, Dean," she added quickly when he glowered at her.

"You're not a formidable force, that's true," Castiel said; Dean's glare turned on him. "But they aren't as confident of their success as you seem to be. Otherwise, they would not have sent me to disorganize you before mounting an attack."

Dean's glare had reduced to a thoughtful frown.

"What if we let you go?" Charlie asked. "Sent you back, and you lied to Azazel, told him you'd successfully killed Dean? We'd have time to devise a plan, and then attack when they aren't expecting it."

"Good in theory," Dean agreed. "But we're screwed if Azazel slips in any obligatory-honesty phrases; Cas will have to tell him the truth, and then we're out an ally."

"And Azazel is puritanical with his obligatory-honesty clauses," Castiel agreed. "They've all been very careful. Great Britain is on their minds, and they know that I have a history of…inventive disobedience." He heard Dean strangle a snicker beside him.

"He stays," Dean said, and the mood of the room relaxed, as though their leader's decision put them at ease. It was peculiar, the way they all revolved around Dean, the tight way he held his shoulders even when everyone else had put their burdens down. "I've got a few thoughts, but I'm still organizing. At ease. This will all be over soon."

Even Jo reacted to that with a smile. Her mother didn't budge, but she did look on Dean with fond eyes, as though she trusted what he was doing even if she didn't like it. Humans. So peculiar.

Sam rose beside Dean. Dean gestured, and Castiel followed them reluctantly out into the hallway. The room behind them filled with the sound of scraping chairs, whispers and murmurs as the occupants discussed the new member of their camp; Castiel would have liked to stay, a fly on the wall, and learn more about them.

"I didn't know you knew Pam," Dean remarked, gesturing for Sam to move back so that Castiel could walk beside him.

"Knew is too strong a word," Castiel admitted. "It was ten years ago. She was young, and helping out the commoners with their magician-related problems by determining who controlled the spirits who had done them harm, and then devising items that would irritate or harm the magician in question. I was assigned to...send a message. She relied on her sight, so I was instructed to burn her eyes out."

Dean opened his mouth to reply, but before he could speak, Sam cleared his throat. "I'm going to go check on Jess. Be careful." He bounded past them, out of the cabin and straight to the one next door.

"You're lucky she didn't skin you," Dean remarked. "Pam's tough. It's not like it's screwed with her sight, either. She can still...sense things."

"It didn't serve a practical function," Castiel said. "I'm sure her sight is good as ever. It was an intimidation tactic, and it worked. She stopped helping people, went underground with your Resistance instead. It accomplished its purpose. I am sorry to have been a part of it."

Dean glanced sideways at him, eyebrows lifted in surprise. "You're weird, y'know. For a spirit."

Castiel returned the look with a puzzled one of his own. Dean rolled his eyes and exited the cabin, and Castiel followed.

Chapter Text

They were past the tree line, and Dean could feel Castiel preparing to ask him where they were going, when the voice rang out behind them.

"Dean. Just the man I was looking for."

He closed his eyes, counted slowly to three, and turned on his heel to face her. Castiel paused next to him, head tipped curiously to the side as he considered the approaching woman.

"You weren't at the meeting, Bela," Dean snapped. "I've told you and told you about this—"

"And I've ignored you," she said, slipping her hands into the pockets of her jacket, her lips stretching in a coy smile. "And ignored you. What did I miss? Is this our new mascot?"

Castiel bristled at the insult; Bela's smile turned on him. "Poor dear," she crooned. "Don't let me wound your pride. Just winding Dean up a bit."

"This is Castiel," Dean gritted out.

"The djinni?" she said, her eyes widening in delight. "The one who was sent to kill you? Oh, Dean, Dean, Dean. You must stop taking in strays. It's going to get you in trouble someday."

"It already has," Dean retorted. "You're more trouble than you're worth."

"You won't be saying that when you see the newest inventory. I've found some rarities." Her smile turned placating.

"I've got things to do. What do you want, Bela?"

She slipped a business card from her pocket, a single name and telephone number embossed on the thick cardstock. "He'll deal, but only if you give the go-ahead. Don't blow this, Dean. We could use him."

"Fine. I'll make the call next time I'm in town." He slid the card into his wallet. "Anything else?"

Bela's green eyes had tracked over to Castiel. "Get him to tell you how we met," she said, already beginning to back towards the camp. "It's a brilliant story, really. I think you'll be amused."

"Ugh," Dean muttered, turning away from her. "Come on, let's get out of here."

"Was Bela sent to kill you, too?" If he wasn't mistaken, Castiel was laughing at him a little, the corners of his blue eyes crinkled in amusement. Even his masked faces were upturned, somehow, a little bit of that alien coldness leeching out of them.

"No," Dean grumbled, digging in his pockets for the keys. "She was sent to steal from me."

"Did she succeed?" There was definitely a disguised chuckle in that voice.

"Not permanently," Dean said sharply. "I got it back."

"What did she steal?"

"My car," Dean grumbled, yanking the tarp from the Jeep stashed between two unmarked trees. Castiel helped clear the branches from around the vehicle.

"This car?"

"No, not this car," Dean growled; the corners of Castiel's mouth were both turned up, now, as though he was barely repressing a grin. "This car is not worth anything, but I can't drive the Impala anywhere these days. It's too noticeable. The engine purrs too loud," he added resentfully.

"A classic car, I take it."

"A '67. Black. Had her since I was a teenager. Was my dad's car, back in the day."

Castiel paused, considering this, but when he spoke again, after Dean had turned the key in the ignition, the laughter in his voice was gone. "You shouldn't be going on supply runs at all."

"Don't know if you count hunting as a supply run. We need fresh meat once in a while, or everyone goes out of their fucking minds, and Jo and Charlie didn't come back with anything on their last outing. We need to go further out if we have a chance of shooting anything."

"Regardless, you'll be going toward a city soon, correct? To get in touch with Bela's...contact."

Dean ignored the curiosity in his tone. "Maybe in a few days. We're running low on some things. Like toilet paper. People get cranky."

"Do you know why I was sent to kill you?" Castiel's voice was abrupt. "You, and not Sam?"

Dean glanced sideways at the spirit, who regarded him with all four faces. It made the hair on the back of his neck prickle uncomfortably.

"Because I'm the leader," Dean replied, shrugging it off. "I guess."

"You're the general, yes, but you're more than that, Dean. This Resistance revolves around you. I don't know how it was before your father died, but everyone in that camp moves in orbits around your words, your moods, your actions. Do you know what would happen to them, if you died?"

"They'd be fine," Dean said, unnerved. "Sam would take over, or Bobby, and they'd keep on keepin' on."

"No," Castiel said, settling a bit deeper into his seat, "they wouldn't. You should take better precautions. You underestimate your worth."

There was an uncomfortable pause as Dean considered this, and he swept it out of his mind as soon as the thought had entered, because who was Castiel—his would-be assassin—to tell him what he was worth? He knew what he was worth. He knew what his job was. His people trusted him to bring down the assholes who had persecuted them and every other ordinary citizen for the last few dozen years, and that was what he would do. That was it.

"Well," he said at last. "Seeing as I've got a bodyguard for this trip, I think I'll be fine."

Castiel rolled his eyes, as though to say that wasn't what I meant at all, but he let it lie.

*

"Can I ask you something?"

Castiel, crunching silently through dead leaves beside him—seriously, he would pay good fake money to be as quiet as Cas, especially while tracking reluctant deer—glanced up from his study of the forest floor. "Go ahead," he said, and it seemed an honest invitation, if a little wary.

"So a spirit like you goes through thousands of years," Dean said, trying not to think too hard on that number, which made him a little queasy. "Serving dozens of magicians, doing their bidding—reluctantly, admittedly, but doing it nevertheless. Never stirs up any trouble."

"Indeed," Castiel said dryly. "That is the fastest way to be released back to the Other Place, which, as you've noticed, is the only way for us to survive."

"Right," Dean said, frowning. "But then this one magician comes along, and all of a sudden, you're an insubordinate little shit."

Castiel chuckled. Quietly, but in definite good humor. "That's one way of putting it."

"Guy must have been something else," Dean pried.

Castiel was quiet for a moment, but when Dean snuck a glance at him, the frown between his eyebrows seemed to indicate that he was gathering his thoughts, so Dean waited quietly. His other faces were restless, his wings a little twitchy, as though whatever he was remembering caused him some anxiety.

"There have always been spirits who served a cause above a magician," Castiel finally said. "They seek freedom, or destruction—our own kind of rebellion. I had never been one of them. I gritted my teeth, I got the job done, I went back to the Other Place to heal. I didn't aspire to a cause. It stinks of humanity, and those spirits who have causes...they've been too long on Earth, too often. You rub off. I thought that taking on any kind of higher ideal would leech away at my essence, the way I've seen it leech away at theirs."

He paused, frowning again. "That's not to say that I wouldn't attack a magician who didn't bind me right. We all would. It's a matter of self-preservation. A job could feasibly get us killed, but if there's a loophole, we murder our would-be master and flee back to the Other Place, safe and sound. A spirit can always take on a magician on his own. He's only human, after all. All his power comes from us."

"That's reassuring," Dean muttered, and the corner of Castiel's mouth turned up in a small smile.

"Isn't it? Without spirits, they're only men. And men die if you apply pressure in the right places. But it was always a murder born of opportunity, if I escaped a magician who summoned me. It was self-preservation at its most basic. No spirit wants to linger on Earth. You see what it does to us, if we stay here too long."

He paused again, the frown reappearing. Dean studied him without glancing away now, because Castiel seemed too distracted to catch him out with that piercing blue stare. Jimmy had been mid-thirties when he died, Dean guessed, judging by the lines around his eyes and mouth—not so much older than Dean himself. Magicians did age more quickly than commoners, though, so perhaps he'd been younger than he looked. And he'd had a wife, a child—something Dean never let himself imagine he would get a chance to have. He left that to Sam. He'd be satisfied with a nephew. The picket-fence thing wasn't in the cards for the leader of a doomed Resistance.

"Jimmy...convinced me...that I was better off giving up my survivalist instincts for something greater," Castiel said finally.

"Just like that."

"No, not just like that. It took a lot of convincing. He was persistent."

"Why you?" Dean asked. "Why did he pick you?"

"I don't know," Castiel said dryly. "I'm sure he had his reasons."

"You don't know them?"

"I don't think he had a list," Castiel returned. "As I've said, he was a man of faith."

Dean snorted. "You could have eaten him."

The corners of Castiel's eyes crinkled up. "I could have. He didn't seem concerned. He followed the Ptolemaic school of conduct with spirits."

Dean thought back to Ptolemy's Apocrypha. He'd only read the volume once, long ago, and been strictly instructed to not take it seriously, and to definitely not get any funny ideas. "That doesn't ring any bells."

"Bartimaeus was Ptolemy's closest friend. At least, it was said," Castiel replied, picking his way around a log. Dean hefted his rifle further up his shoulder. He doubted they were going to find any gun-shy buck while having a conversation like this, but he didn't mind so much. They had hours until dark, and his curiosity was strong, and it had been weeks since he'd been away from camp—there were worse places to be than stuck out in the woods with a weird djinni.

"That was the djinni involved with that Mandrake kid," Dean commented.

Castiel nodded. "Other spirits gave him a wide berth after his involvement with Ptolemy. Not that he stirred up any trouble, in the aftermath. No more than the usual. I think getting involved nearly destroyed him. He was as fond of Ptolemy as Ptolemy was of him, and the way the boy died..." He grimaced, as though the thought pained him. Dean wondered if it had been the same with Jimmy, and thought that it must have been, given the way Castiel mimicked his form.

"Their bond was deep," Castiel finally continued. "Ptolemy followed Bartimaeus to the Other Place at great cost to his personal health. As we waste away in the physical world, humans waste away in the spirit world. His body decayed during the relatively short time he was there. By the time he returned, he was an old man. It was the ultimate show of trust, that he would join a spirit in the Other Place—and that a spirit would let him through. He could only have passed the barrier if Bartimaeus had answered his call."

"How did they get to that point?" Dean asked, vaguely repulsed. "I can't believe a magician would ever be friends with a spirit. That's a lot for something that usually just wants to kill you. Not to mention—spirits aren't human. Aren't emotions kind of a mystery for you? How do you establish that kind of trust?"

Castiel shot him a wounded look. "We weren't so different, once," he rebuked sharply. "Before magicians learned the power to summon us to Earth, we were much like you, without physical form. We loved, we hated. We no longer establish bonds as you do because magicians have used them against us and against each other. We cannot be loyal to our fellow spirits when a man is commanding our every move. It is self-preservation, Dean, but that does not mean that we do not feel. You have a soul, and so do I. Just because I do not choose to display it doesn't mean it does not exist."

Dean, abashed, didn't respond. After a moment of picking quietly over more dead leaves, Castiel let out a heavy sigh.

"I shouldn't berate you so harshly," he said. "You only know what magicians and your Resistance have shown you, and it does not cast spirits in a favorable light. It is easier for them to believe that we are things of evil intent. Enslaving us provokes more sympathy if it's known that we are more human than you believe."

"Sorry," Dean muttered, because it did provoke more sympathy. A vague revulsion turned his stomach. He thought of the things he had seen Alastair summon in a new light, and the nausea intensified.

"Jimmy, like Ptolemy, understood," Castiel went on, ignoring his apology. "He was a man of great empathetic ability, and when he was finally released to be a magician in his own right, he stopped using any form of punishment on the spirits he summoned. He gained a reputation for being insane—for being a demon-sympathizer—very quickly. Spirits came to know him as a kind and judicious master. He usually only summoned us to talk—to learn. About us. About the Other Place."

"There are more of you?" Dean interrupted.

"Were," Castiel corrected quietly. "I am the only one who survived that night."

Dean stifled his second knee-jerk apology, because it would have been meaningless. The pain in Castiel's voice was old and terrible and raw, and seemed far beyond his understanding. He tried to bury his discomfort.

"He sent me away," Castiel continued, his voice hard again. "He sent me away, knowing that they were coming for him, and I went, because I thought I was doing good work—his work—saving the resilient from a magician's wrath. He thought that you would be the ones who bought us all time, who would be most equipped to handle dealings with spirits, because you had no preconceived prejudice against them, because you stood against magicians just as we did, and because your resilience put you on even footing with us. Other spirits didn't make it from their battles alive, or returned early and fought at his side as the magicians staged their assault. I only returned in time to watch him die. Amelia and Claire had already been killed."

Dean, though he tried, couldn't think of anything appropriate to say. The sympathy—the sadness—he felt for the creature striding beside him was almost crippling. Jimmy had been his family—his only family—and the man had been ripped from him. Dean remembered his mother, her features blurred and ill-lit in his memories now, and his father, hung as a warning, and his always-beating hatred for magicians surged up, choking him.

"He used his remaining strength to give me what he'd learned over the years, about us, about a possible bridge between Earth and the Other Place. Even after that massacre, he thought that things could change. That I could help them change." Castiel's disgust was obvious, twisting his deep voice until it was no longer remotely impartial, but heated and rising; it was only when he went on that Dean realized the revulsion he felt was for himself. "But I am as powerless as I have ever been, and for the last twenty-six years I have just hoarded his research, keeping it out of their hands but doing nothing with it, escaping their chains when I could but usually being used as an instrument to undo any progress he once made."

"Hey," Dean said, and impulsively—because he didn't do well seeing others in pain, and it radiated from Castiel in blistering waves—he reached out to clap a hand around the spirit's shoulder. Castiel glanced up in surprise. He was as warm as a human being beneath the thin fabric of the trench coat, and his blue eyes were less alien, tempered with grief, than Dean had seen them yet. "We can fix this," he said, fingers squeezing tight. "I'm not saying peace between us and the spirit world is nigh, but we can at least shut those fuckers down."

Castiel smiled sadly. "Your faith is moving, Dean."

Dean snorted. "Who said anything about faith? This is good old-fashioned vengeance."

He removed his hand, a little awkwardly, and they went on, Dean trying and failing to catch sight of any likely trail. His heart beat too hard in his ears; his palm still tingled from the current of electricity that hummed just beneath Castiel's deceptively warm shoulder. His throat was painfully dry, too parched to swallow right.

"Thank you, Dean," Castiel said finally. "I'm glad I didn't manage to kill you."

"There it is," Dean muttered, but Castiel smiled, a little brighter this time, and the strained silence eased into a companionable one. Dean managed to turn his attention to the hunt, and when they finally did startle a buck out of hiding, Castiel became a sleek mountain lion and took it down before Dean could even raise his rifle. The oversized cat shouldered the dead animal and brought it back to him with a look of self-satisfaction on its face, but it also seemed a little like a peace offering.

It wasn't nearly as weird walking back to the Jeep with a mountain lion prowling at his hip as it should have been.

Chapter Text

Dean left Castiel alone.

He got the feeling, of course, that if he strayed too far from the cabin's boundaries, Dean would know. As the creator of the modified Mournful Orb latched tight around his neck, Dean had some idea of Castiel's general location. But Dean did not dog him day and night; in fact, after their successful hunt, the djinni didn't see his human companion for two days. He heard Dean leave the cabin early in the morning, and return late at night, but Dean didn't look in on him. Each night, Castiel heard the sound of boots being kicked off, a mattress groaning under a falling body, and then silence.

Castiel kept watch from his window. He stayed in Dean's cabin, in the room he had once been caged in. He read Dean's books, many clearly pilfered from magicians, few in good shape, all well-used. He did not, however, approach the desk where he'd seen Dean working, the night the assassination attempt had gone awry. Dean had made it very clear that nothing in that desk was for Castiel's eyes, and given humans and their need for privacy, Castiel gave workspace a wide berth. Dean's good mood was worth a little unresolved curiosity.

No one—not even Sam—came to visit him, but he couldn't blame them. They treated him well enough by giving him room to breathe, and he suspected that Dean would not have reacted well to anyone entering his cabin unasked, anyway. The only person he had seen come and go from Dean's home was Sam, though maybe that was because Castiel was housed there. Maybe they were afraid of him. The thought helped his wounded pride.

Azazel attempted to summon him twice more, with increasing desperation each time. Castiel gritted his teeth and waited for the pain to pass. He wondered if his longtime master would eventually believe him dead, and he told himself not to get his hopes up.

On the third day, Dean came back to the cabin at noon. It was raining outside; Castiel heard him stamp his boots free of mud before kicking them off just inside the door. In sock feet, he approached the room where Castiel sat, cross-legged, carefully turning the brittle pages of a rare novel he'd found in Dean's bookcase. It was a refreshing change of pace from the ceaseless drone about demons and spells. When Dean opened the door and stuck his head in, his light brown hair was wet with rain, there was a vague smile on his face, and he was distinctly bearded. He grinned at Castiel, who blinked back in confusion.

"Hey, Cas," he greeted.

"What happened to your face?" Castiel returned blandly. Dean rubbed a hand over his jaw.

"I've been busy, and we're out of razors. Supply run. Next week." Dean frowned. Castiel took a strange pleasure in teasing him. "What?" he asked self-consciously. "Does it look bad?"

"Like a small squirrel decided to attach itself," Castiel agreed, and Dean rolled his eyes.

"Hilarious. Whatcha reading?"

Castiel turned back to the cover. "Galápagos," he said. "An interesting piece of literature."

"Not his best," Dean said, letting himself into the room. He nudged Castiel's knee with his big toe. "Wanna help with something?"

"Is this whatever mystery has kept you out all day for the last several days?" Castiel asked, reluctantly marking his page and getting to his feet.

"Turns out, one of Bela's rarities is actually useful. Hopefully it'll keep out riffraff like you from now on." He grinned, and Castiel scowled. "Or at least give us a heads-up when something nasty is coming our way. We haven't had the resources to put together our own security system, they require a lot of moving parts."

"I hope you don't want me to test it," Castiel said darkly, following Dean out.

"Only sort of," Dean reassured, hopping on one foot to pull his boots back on. The area around the door was grimy with mud in various states of drying out. "Just get near it and let me know how it feels. I don't want you to step on it, or anything, you'd probably vaporize on the spot."

"Charming," Castiel muttered.

"We'll be careful," Dean promised, yanking open the door. "You're just the only spirit on hand to test it. If I had an imp lying around, I'd use it. Gotta do your part, man. You're part of the Resistance now."

He said it with such false enthusiasm; it reminded Castiel of the propaganda being shouted in the streets thirty years ago, when the Americans had been fighting to the last gasp for their independence from Britain, and as soldiers on both sides continued to drop, the recruiting tactics got increasingly cheery and simultaneously desperate. He chuckled wanly. Those had been simpler times.

Dean led the way. The camp was quiet; Castiel saw a few chimneys belching smoke, as though their inhabitants were curled close around the fire, keeping warm. His human companion didn't seem to mind the light rain; his jeans were soaked, the hems an inch deep in mud, his hands buried in the pockets of his windbreaker, but he hummed tunelessly under his breath. Dean, Castiel thought, was a man of action—and doing anything, no matter how futile, put him in a more tolerable mood.

It had been strangely cathartic, talking about Jimmy with Dean. He had never shared as much information about the magician with anyone before, human or spirit. He hadn't been close to anyone, from either category, since that night. There were spirits he knew well and liked, of course, but if he had been quiet over the last few decades, well—that wasn't so much time, to things like them. He doubted he would have shared anything about Jimmy to any of them, even given the opportunity. But Dean, despite his deep distrust of spirits and magicians, had obviously empathized. Castiel could still feel the warmth of Dean's palm and fingers, reassuring and solid. He rubbed his shoulder absentmindedly. It had been some time since he'd last felt something so...comforting.

Dean, for all his instinctual revulsion toward spirits—as was his right, Castiel allowed reluctantly—had offered him comfort. Dean, who had shuddered at being touched by a housecat, had voluntarily grasped his shoulder and offered vengeance. He sensed that the man would continue to confuse him. Dean's history was not a book he had access to; with his technological expert and his many historical volumes, Dean could piece together more about Castiel than he would ever likely know about Dean.

That was unfortunate, he thought. Dean compelled him, but he was also painfully closed-mouthed when it came to personal history. With Alastair involved, though, it was hardly surprising that he should be. Castiel's three years in service to that magician had been his most painful on Earth by far.

He couldn't imagine the wide-eyed child he'd saved growing up under the watchful eye of a monster like that.

The painful tug of a proximity marker roused him from his thoughts. They were half a mile from the cabins now. Castiel stopped in his tracks.

"I feel it," he announced, deliberately backing up a step. "Who did Bela buy this from?"

"She didn't buy it," Dean hedged. "Strictly speaking."

"She's a thief, then."

"A great thief, if you take her word for it, and right now, I'm inclined to. She's a pain in the ass, but she gets the job done. Better to have her working for us than the other guys." Dean walked another dozen paces and knelt; when he brushed aside a line of wet leaves, the previously dim glow of an active security line shone through the falling rain. "Good one, then?"

"It probably won't stop a marid," Castiel said, grimacing. Even several yards away, the line tugged unhelpfully at his battered essence. "It will warn you it's coming, though. It would definitely injure a djinni, even one not as damaged as me."

"Awesome," Dean said, rubbing his hands together. "Let's walk the perimeter and make sure there's not a weak spot."

Bela's thieving proved exceptional; Castiel twitched the whole way, and by the time they headed back toward camp, Dean was practically beaming. The beard actually looked nice, Castiel thought, or maybe it was just the relieved smile that gave Dean a less hardened look.

"I won't feel safe," he said cheerfully, "but at least I'll know they're coming."

"All the same," Castiel said dryly, "I'll keep keeping watch."

"You've been keeping watch?" Dean asked, obviously amused.

"At night," Castiel replied. "I perch on the windowsill. I have a good view of the route I followed in. If anyone tries to follow my trail, I'll know."

Dean cleared his throat. The atmosphere went, very suddenly, from joking to serious. The man's discomfort was palpable, but Castiel thought it probably wasn't a bad kind of discomfort. He'd heard there were good kinds, too.

"Thanks, man," Dean said, a little awkwardly.

"I'm part of the Resistance now," Castiel parroted, straight-faced, and Dean let out a loud guffaw, clapping Castiel on the shoulder as they crossed the tree line.

"Careful," he said, grinning. "I'm starting to like you."

The crinkles around Dean's eyes were different when he smiled. The little valleys seemed like welcoming hills rather than dangerous mountains. Castiel watched them as they crossed the courtyard to Dean's cabin, and thought that he was starting to like Dean, too.

*

Sam visited Dean's cabin the next evening, not long after Dean stomped through the door, muttering under his breath. He'd spent most of the morning in the room with the desk, occasionally cursing, before leaving for what Castiel assumed was a routine group meeting. It was after dark when he returned, boots thunking sullenly to the floor, and unlike earlier, he didn't stick his head through Castiel's door to say hello. Judging by the direction of the footsteps, he'd gone right back to the desk room, which was where Sam found him.

Castiel tried not to eavesdrop, but the brothers had short tempers, and an unfortunate habit of raising their voices when they were angry with each other.

"I'm just saying, Dean, now is not the time to mount an assault," Sam said, his voice desperate. Castiel drifted closer to the window and tried very hard to focus on the bird huddling on the windowsill, feathers puffed out to shake off the rain and the cold. "Jess is due soon. Give it a week, maybe, or—"

Something—presumably Dean's fist—slammed into a nearby surface with a hollow thump. "I've told you a hundred times to just get out of here, Sam. We can handle this. I don't need you."

"That's bullshit. I've got the strongest resilience of anyone here, by a long shot—"

"You're compromised." Dean's voice was bitter. "She has to be your priority. Especially now."

"Is that what this is about? You're fucking jealous because you're alone and I'm not?"

"Dammit, Sam, I just want you to be safe. What's gonna happen to her if you die, huh? She'd fucking kill me, for starters."

"That's no reason to take me out of the fight!" Sam shouted.

"It's every reason," Dean replied, more quietly than before. "You've gotta protect your family, man."

"You're my family," Sam said, and his voice was small, too.

"I'm a dead man," Dean said. Castiel could see the set of his jaw in the sound of his words; he had shut down, closed off, and Sam had no chance of reaching him now. "My number's been up for three years. Let it go and get out alive."

Quick, heavy footsteps tracked through the cabin, and then the front door banged shut. Dean's sigh was heavy enough to reach Castiel.

The door creaked open. Castiel turned from the window in time to see Dean drag a second chair into the room and fall into it, beer in hand. He looked as haggard as he had after altering the Mournful Orb.

"We'll need to run a check on all our vehicles tomorrow," he said with a grimace, holding out a second can with a questioning eyebrow. Castiel wondered how long he'd been drinking; the scent of alcohol hovered around him in a thick cloud.

"Again, I must strongly advise that you not orchestrate such a thing at all," Castiel said. He settled into the other chair, opposite Dean, and waved off the beer. Alcohol, like most food and drink, disagreed with his essence, and he was weak enough as it was.

Dean hacked out a laugh. "Are you my advisor now?"

"No one else seems to be capable of doing the job," Castiel said carefully.

Dean scrubbed a hand over his eyes. "Eavesdropper."

"An unfortunate habit," Castiel replied, unapologetic.

"Sam doesn't get it," Dean muttered. "Never has. He doesn't remember that night. He never got sent off to magic camp. Even dad's death didn't really shake him. He's always had that strong-as-fuck resilience, always managed to protect the people he loves. When they came for him and Jess and they were on their own, they got out fine. He doesn't understand that these...people..." His lip curled in distaste, as though the word didn't suit magicians. Castiel quietly agreed. "They're dangerous, and they've got most of the deck stacked against us. I'm trying to make sure he makes it. If...if something happened to him, Jess would kill me. Worse, if something happened to Jess..." Dean's mouth twisted down.

"His wife?"

"Would have been, if we didn't end up in hiding right before they were supposed to make it official. Sudden deaths in the family make weddings kind of tacky." Dean took another deep swig of his beer and made a face. "Christ, I would kill for a decent drink these days."

"And she's..."

"Yeah. Awesome timing, I know. It's a thing for them." The attempt at humor fell flat.

"And you want him to flee. I see."

"What?" Dean said defensively. "You think it's a bad plan?"

"No," Castiel said, shaking his head. "But Sam seems to be a man of action, not unlike yourself. Running and hiding is as much his operating principle as it is yours."

"You have a point." Dean slouched deeper into his chair. His eyes were very bloodshot. Secretly, Castiel agreed with his earlier assessment—he was, indeed, a dead man, if he didn't attempt to take care of himself sometime in the near future. He was surprised to find that that bothered him, a little more than he had expected it to. Human lifetimes were fleeting, and whatever small friendship he had with Dean would not last long, anyway. Better to get it out of the way sooner rather than later, before he became too attached. The thought, strangely, did not soothe him much.

"But he has something to lose," Dean went on, brandishing his beer. "More than me, anyway. If I go down, Sam loses his brother, but that's it. I'm not leaving a kid behind."

"You think you mean so little to your Resistance? That they wouldn't all lose a brother—a son—if you died?"

"Maybe," Dean acquiesced. "But it's not the same."

"Maybe not," Castiel said. "Few things are."

Dean rolled his eyes, but stayed quiet.

"Do you have a plan?" Castiel asked finally.

Dean made another face. "Not one that the others approve of. They shot me down. Said it was too risky. But I think we're running out of time. If there's going to be risk, might as well take it to them."

"Why don't you all run?" Castiel asked. "Aside from your aversion to living a long, healthy life, anyway."

Dean smiled. The crow's feet at the corners of his eyes deepened. He looked younger, somehow, when he was enjoying a good joke. As soon as the expression faded, though, his age crept upon him again, and then some; the years stacked up in every fold and crinkle of his skin. They were thin lines, but Castiel saw time passing too quickly through them.

"There's nowhere to run, Cas," he replied. "They'll always find us. Hell, if you, a djinni on your last leg, could get to us up here, then we really don't stand a chance. And I couldn't live with myself if I didn't go out trying to ruin their lives."

"You wouldn't live at all," Castiel snapped. The desire to grab Dean and shake him was sudden and consuming.

"There are worse things than being dead," Dean returned, just as quickly. His gaze shuffled from Castiel to the window, as though the rainy night was suddenly an object of incredible fascination. Castiel knew better. Perhaps humans were still a little mysterious at times, but one thing they had in common with spirits was their tendency to look away and gather themselves, as though they had something to hide.

Dean took a deep breath—it gasped through his throat, uneven—and gulped down the rest of his beer. Castiel braced himself for being heartily shouted at and asked the obvious question.

"How long were you Alastair's apprentice?"

Dean's fist clenched around the aluminum can, crushing it. "Long enough," he said. His face twisted, as though speaking of it at all caused him unbearable pain, or perhaps blinding rage. Castiel's lighthearted companion of the day before was long gone. "I don't need your pity. I know it fucked me up. I'm over it."

"I didn't need yours, either," Castiel said, treading carefully. "Surprisingly, though, it made me feel better. Not the usual indigestion at all."

For a second, he thought Dean might try to hit him—or maybe re-activate the damaging properties of the modified Mournful Orb still humming around his neck—but instead, the man chuckled reluctantly.

"Wish you wouldn't do that," he said, and before Castiel could ask what, he went on. "Eight years. I was nine when Dad handed me over. I was seventeen when I escaped. I didn't see Sam or dad in all that time. Got letters. Didn't have a lot of opportunity to write back. Not the truth, anyway." His free hand reached up and kneaded his left shoulder. His throat worked, stifling whatever words had been about to emerge.

"I'm surprised you got letters at all," Castiel commented, skirting the more dangerous issues Dean had presented. Going cautiously was the only way to make the taciturn man talk at all. "That's not standard procedure with magicians."

"They're supposed to get you young enough to purge your name, make you forget your parents, but Dad didn't give me up until we were really desperate. It bought the Resistance time. The magicians had a hostage; they were satisfied that Dad wouldn't try anything while his son was there to be punished for his transgressions." He huffed out a hollow laugh. "They didn't know him too well.

"But yeah, I got letters. It was part of the deal. Dad wanted to be able to stay in touch. It was the one concession he asked them for. They knew they would be able to control what I wrote back, so they didn't care. Besides, they hoped they'd convert me. That I would be the perfect thing to take out the Resistance someday. Be their inside man." He cracked open the second beer. "Dad and the magicians were so alike—sometimes I couldn't tell them apart. Sure, Dad never..." Dean swallowed and covered the sudden blind terror in his face with a deep drink. "But he didn't have to. By the time I got back, he couldn't have done anything worse than what Alastair did. And I hated them just as much as he ever had. Maybe more. I put up a fight with Alastair, but I was totally willing to fall in line with Dad. Thought he had all the answers."

"He didn't?"

Dean threw out his arms, indicating their camp. "Does it fucking look like it?" he growled. "The bastard's dead."

Castiel held up his hands, placating. Dean's gaze dropped back to his drink.

"He thought using the shit that guy taught me—the magic—was the answer, since I'd fucked up the original plan. The only way to fight fire with fire. I know I'm good at it." Dean sounded almost ashamed. "But I started young, and there was only so much I could teach him. He got impatient. All the supplies, all the languages. It's a lot of pointless work, being a magician, and he'd already been waiting more than ten years. When it was more than twenty years and we didn't have results, and he still wasn't as good as I was, he had one last spectacular fight with Bobby and took off with Bill to go out in a blaze of glory. Next thing I knew, they were captured, I shuffled everyone into the mountains before the magicians could come knocking, and then they were dead, and everyone was looking at me. Like I was supposed to know what came next."

"You've kept them together," Castiel pointed out quietly. "You kept them alive."

"Lot of good it does if we're all just going to kick it next week," Dean muttered.

It was almost instinctive, the pull that prompted Castiel to reach out. He didn't know what it would accomplish; it felt suspiciously like one of those human things, an emotion he had kept purposely dormant since Jimmy, because if he looked at it too hard he felt gut-wrenchingly devastated. He thought to touch Dean's shoulder, pass back some of the comfort that had been offered to him, but Dean flinched when his hand hovered in range and didn't meet his gaze.

"Don't," he said, quiet and strained. "Just..."

Castiel didn't push, but he couldn't linger there, either, letting the man shoulder silently through his pain. I should leave, he thought, but it seemed cruel to abandon Dean to his harsher memories, and Castiel had long since given up the practice of cruelty.

Summoning some of his reinstated energy, he returned to housecat form and stepped carefully across onto Dean's knees. His muscles stiffened beneath the light tread of paws, but he didn't speak or push Castiel away. The cat stepped delicately up onto the arm of the chair and then hauled itself up to the back. Slowly, Castiel brought a paw to stand on Dean's shoulder. He was still strung tight beneath the pressure, but he didn't fight back.

Deliberately, Castiel settled in. The cat draped itself over the back of the chair, overflowing onto Dean's shoulders, and nudged its face up against Dean's neck. Something that might have been a choked sob or a strangled chuckle died in Dean's throat.

"Cas," he said. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I've heard that small animals are comforting to humans in despair," Castiel deadpanned.

"Furry bastard," Dean muttered, but his head tipped sideways to rest against Castiel's. The djinni felt the tension slowly drain from him. Beneath his paws and through Dean's thin t-shirt, Castiel felt the raised ropes of scar tissue, and tried not to remember the stories told about the magician called Alastair. The man hadn't had an apprentice while Castiel served beneath him.

"Cas," Dean whispered, long moments later. His rough voice was low, defeated. He hadn't lifted the half-full beer to his lips since Castiel had situated himself against his shoulder. Beneath the stench of cheap alcohol, Dean smelled like rich leather and warmed skin. "Can I tell you something?"

The cat nodded. Its ears brushed, feather-light, against Dean's beard.

"I know we're going to lose," he murmured, his eyes closing. "I'm just trying to keep them going. Give them hope until it's over. Sucks to be like this. Knowing how it ends."

"You don't know anything," Castiel tried, but he knew he was far from persuasive, and that the reassurance of a broken spirit would do little to convince Dean.

"Nice try," Dean said, his words slurring, and then his breathing evened out, and he was asleep. The can dropped from his grasp and spilled across the floor, but he didn't wake at the tinny sound of contact, and Castiel watched it spread, wishing bitterly that he didn't care.

Chapter Text

Loud footsteps jerked Dean awake the next morning, and for a moment, he didn't recognize his surroundings. He knew he'd dozed off in the room that Castiel inhabited—slumped down in an uncomfortable wooden chair, the cat stretched out over his shoulders, soft puffs of air against his neck—but his memories of staggering to his bed in the middle of the night were hazy, mere snapshots: alien concern in too-blue eyes, an arm propping him up as he dragged his feet, a wry voice as he dropped down to the mattress.

He groaned. Humiliating himself was really all the rage lately.

Sam barged into his room and gave him a flat, unimpressed look.

"I'm sorry," he announced. He didn't sound sorry at all.

Dean stared blearily up at him. "Good morning?"

"But I'm not going anywhere," Sam continued, glaring down at him menacingly. "I know you're trying to protect me, but I have to be here. Can you deal with that?"

Dean rubbed a hand over his eyes, trying to disperse the sand half-gumming them shut. "Fine?"

Sam deflated, as though he'd expected another shouting match. After last night, Dean just didn't have it in him. Let Sam talk them into a truce—he didn't care. Selfishly, he wanted Sam here, anyway, though it made him feel worse to satisfy this instinctual need for his brother's presence. Having Sam out of sight was too much like being with Alastair again.

"Fine," Sam repeated. "Good talk."

He stomped back out of the cabin. Dean gave up on trying to get vertical and fell back to the bed. Castiel was close by, probably reading more Vonnegut in the room next door, but the cabin was eerily quiet.

"Stop eavesdropping," he said experimentally.

"Stop being so entertaining, then," was Castiel's muffled reply through the wall. Despite the ache in his temples, Dean's lips twitched up. The djinni was hilarious at the most inappropriate times. Castiel was growing on him.

To the displeasure of his muscles, he made a second attempt to get out of bed. Outside, it was still raining, but he needed to do the vehicle check today; he needed to put together a concrete list of what they needed the next time they drove to a nearby town; he needed to make sure that their emergency bunker was correctly stocked—

Even though he'd made it upright, it didn't feel like much of a victory. The crushing weight of the things left for him to do before they were ready for anything threatened to flatten him to the floor. Setting his jaw, he headed for the bathroom and tried to put his to-do list out of his mind.

Their cabins had once been a vacation home for wealthy people who liked to rough it, so they were, technologically speaking, very blessed. There was a generator that gave them enough power to run a few industrial freezers and refrigerators, and could have even heated the running water for them, but Dean never let their camp use more power than strictly necessary; they needed to do their best not to attract any attention. They were all resigned to cold showers by now; hot water was a luxury they hadn't had in a long time. It was saved for washing dishes and cleaning wounds, and that was it.

Dean turned the faucet and splashed water in his face, shivering. On rainy days, it was like ice; it reminded him of the Colorado River, a vague memory of squealing as the freezing water hit his toes in Yosemite while his dad hoisted him onto his shoulders. It was a recollection from before the fire, from before even Sam. He hadn't been to California since.

"A nice Inferno would warm that up."

Dean jumped. Castiel had snuck up on him; he'd left the bathroom door open.

"If I thought you were able to cast an Inferno, I would've had you roast that deer the other night," he returned, blinking water out of his eyes.

Castiel rolled his eyes and snapped; in the corner of the bathroom, a glowing ball of flames hovered midair, radiating warmth. The sudden change in temperature gave Dean goosebumps.

"Enjoy," the djinni said dryly, wandering out of the room again. A folded-over paperback was clasped in his hand; Dean glimpsed Cat's Cradle inked across the top of a worn page. Castiel appeared to be going through his Vonnegut collection. He shut the door to the bathroom, dismissing the warm feeling in his chest.

The shower was still cold, but the balmy heat that greeted him when he stepped out made it almost worth it. He scrubbed his hair mostly dry, scurried back into clean, warm clothes and socks, and vigorously brushed his teeth, spitting out the remains of last night's binge. He didn't do that much anymore. The fucking Tecate wasn't really worth it.

When he finally emerged from the bathroom, warm and dry, the Inferno sputtered out. Castiel was in the room across the hall, seemingly oblivious to Dean's movement, his face buried in the paperback. "Thanks," Dean muttered, hoping the spirit could hear him, and headed back to his office.

"Dean," Castiel said calmly.

Dean paused on the threshold. "Yeah?"

"It's my understanding that humans need to eat regularly, or they'll expire."

Despite the disturbing feeling that he was being mothered by a fucking djinni, he chuckled. "That so."

"Yes," Castiel said idly.

"Fine. I'm going to the kitchen, then. Wanna come?"

"I don't need to eat," Castiel replied, as though repulsed by the thought. Dean stifled another laugh, shrugged into his jacket and tugged on his boots, and called out a goodbye as he headed out into the gentle drizzle, turning up his collar.

Sam was only collateral damage from the meeting yesterday, truth be told. No one had been enthused by his suggestions; if they weren't all so desperate to survive—if he had been a stricter leader, like his father—he thought he would probably have a mutiny on his hands by now. But he was out of ideas, and they were running out of time, and that combination was good for no rebellion, ever. They had been squatting in the mountains for three years, scraping by, left alone by magicians and everyone else because they'd been neutered, but Azazel clearly wasn't satisfied with their mere paralysis anymore. He was looking for a more permanent solution, and Dean refused to wait here until the next wave of assassins came for him—came for all of them.

But his plans of attack sounded terrible, even to him. His only inside man had his hands tied, and one low-level magician couldn't break them into Washington no matter how great his connections were. Henriksen was good on his word, but he could only do so much. And even with an armada of spirits at his back—something he wasn't sure he was capable of in a physical or moral capacity—Dean couldn't hope to remove everyone from Azazel down. It was, at best, a suicide mission. At worst, it was a suicide mission that accomplished nothing, and then the Resistance was down a general, and Dean might as well have let Castiel swallow him whole.

He was so tired that it didn't even sound half-bad, and he knew that was the worst part. I know we're going to lose, he'd whispered to Castiel, and half-drunk and tired, he'd meant it. Hell, he still meant it. He didn't know why the spirit was tagging along with a guy who'd long since given up on the light at the end of the tunnel.

He'd thought the djinni would leave him alone when he flinched back from the offer of comfort. Take it as the insult it was, no matter what Dean intended, and go haunt another part of the cabin until Dean needed him for something utilitarian again, but the damn spirit had seen right through him. He'd never even told Sam why, after those eight years with Alastair, he often couldn't stand physical contact; his brother just learned that spontaneous hugs made Dean seize up, and everyone else picked up on the subtle body language and left him alone. There were very few people who had managed to overcome his defenses, and even they rarely lingered as long as Castiel had.

He wanted to question Castiel's motives—wanted to demand what the spirit got out of it, if this was a manipulation that he should have shoved off—but he thought he knew what it was without having an awkward conversation about it. They were both lonely. And maybe it made him a sad fuck, that he was so out of touch with humanity that he couldn't connect with anyone but a broken-down djinni, but he was long out of dignity.

"Mornin'," Garth greeted, offering up the usual bowl of oatmeal, granola, dried cranberries, and peanut butter. The scent made Dean's stomach growl. It wasn't exactly luxury fare, but it did the job well enough—complex carbs, protein, the good kind of fat. Balanced nutrition was one of the few things keeping all of them alive.

"Thanks," Dean grunted back, taking the bowl. Pam and Missouri were talking quietly on the opposite side of the cabin, huddled over their own bowls of oatmeal. Dean poured himself a cup of coffee and made his way to the only one currently sitting alone—Jess. He was willing to bet that Sam had taken off for their community garden after confronting him. Jess was barely picking at her food; the stab of guilt hit him directly in the stomach.

"Hey," he said quietly, sliding onto the bench across from her. She looked up and—even though she should have been angry at him—smiled.

"Hey, Dean. Haven't seen you in a while."

"Got my hands full," he admitted, peeling the foil back from his bowl. "It's not a picnic, having a djinni camped out in your living room."

"I think I've seen him in the window," Jess said, poking at her oatmeal with her spoon. "The cat, right? You'd never have a cat otherwise."

"That's him," Dean confirmed. "Oatmeal not good enough for you, kiddo?"

The corner of her mouth tipped up. She was a grown woman, well over eight months pregnant, but she always smiled when he called her that, like having a surrogate big brother made her happy, even if he was as fucked up as Dean.

"My stomach's feeling a little weird," she admitted with a sigh. "The baby doesn't like it when you guys fight."

"Tell sasquatch to stop resisting my authority, then," Dean said weakly.

"He's just worried, Dean," she said soothingly. "He doesn't want to lose you, and he's convinced that's what will happen if we march on the capitol."

"I don't know what else to do, Jess," Dean muttered, looking down at his oatmeal rather than meeting her worried gaze. "If Cas could find us, anyone can. If we took them by surprise, maybe we'd stand a chance, but we're sitting ducks out here."

"I know," she whispered. When she reached out to cover his hand with hers, he tensed but didn't pull away. "You're doing your best. But I will never forgive you if my daughter doesn't get to meet her uncle."

Dean chuckled. "You don't know it's a girl."

Jess squeezed his hand. "I know. I can just tell. She hates your bullshit fights the way only a woman could."

Dean squeezed back, his throat too tight to speak. They ate their breakfast in companionable silence, Jess trying to sneak a sip of Dean's coffee now and then, and he wished again that she and Sam were far away from all of this—safe. Like such a thing existed for any of them, anymore.

*

Castiel found Dean in the garden a few hours later, pulling up weeds.

He had already been through their small array of vehicles. The combination of Jeeps and old SUVs were fully stocked for an emergency or a long trip; the last check had been six months ago, and hardly anyone had been in or out of camp since then. Gas tanks were full; tire pressure and oil was topped off. The only member of their sad little fleet that Dean had put out to pasture was an old Suzuki. The belt squealed every time he turned the key in the ignition, and after two hours of digging around in the car's guts, he'd discovered a half-dozen things that needed fixing. He cleared out the emergency kit and hauled it back to camp, to be distributed among the other vehicles, and left the forlorn little car to be salvaged for parts.

Even with it out of the picture, they had enough room to evacuate everyone. He didn't think running for it was a good option, but all the same, he considered their possible destinations: west, until they ran out of land and hit the western seaboard; north, until they crossed over to Canada, but the Americans were sizing up that vast territory and it wouldn't be an asylum for long; south, and yes, it was a long way down before they ran out of places to run, but some of those little nations in South America had already been recolonized and would be no safer than where they were now. Someday, no matter what, if the magicians were left unchecked, they would run out of safe havens.

"The default brood," Castiel commented, kneeling down in the damp dirt a yard away from Dean. He was appearing as Jimmy again. Dean absentmindedly reflected that Jimmy was a good-looking guy, with nice, capable-looking hands, just before he firmly shut down that train of thought, which couldn't possibly go anywhere good. "Heavy thoughts, fearless leader?"

Dean thought he could have used Castiel a few years back, when everything first went to shit. His macabre humor and simultaneous light mockery was a relief. Too often, Dean felt the burden of the entire camp, waiting for him to call the shots, waiting for him to lead them to paradise, and Castiel, seeing right through that impossible notion, made him feel human again.

A djinni made him feel human. Fuck me, he thought, shaking his head.

"Advise me," Dean invited, yanking up another patch of weeds from around the tomatoes. "If they know where we are—or, you know, it's not so hard to find us—why don't they just come and get us?"

"It's noisy," Castiel replied, gently shaking free the weeds peeking up from near the chives. "It would draw too much attention to your cause. A mass slaughter like that would provoke sympathy. It's why they sent me, probably hoping that the Resistance would crumble from the inside once you were dead." Castiel paused; from the corner of his eye, Dean saw the spirit squinting at him again, blue eyes pinched tight. "I feel compelled to ask what plan you pitched to the others yesterday. I could better advise you on that than on speculation. Even I don't know why magicians do the things they do."

"I proposed a few things," Dean hedged, shuffling over on his knees to the onion patch. Sam had obviously cleared the potatoes, all the way on the other side of the garden, earlier that morning; the area looked almost too clean. "A full-on assault, for one. Run at them with every artifact and able-bodied man and woman we've got."

"Do you know how heavily guarded Washington is?" Castiel asked, exasperated. He looked so out of place, Dean thought, kneeling in the mud in a suit and trench coat—and that was without considering his true form, which looked even more alien lounging in the garden. Even so, he pulled weeds like he knew what he was doing; it was only his appearance that was out of place. "There aren't even enough of you to choose targets. You would be dead before you came within five miles of anyone important."

"Maybe we're not supposed to live," Dean said, trying to keep his voice neutral. "Maybe we're just supposed to kill each other, wipe out the magicians and the Resistance, let the commoners pick up the pieces."

"I'm not here to indulge your self-pity, Dean," Castiel said sharply.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Guess not. What are you here for, then? Besides our awesome retirement package."

Castiel blinked at him. "I thought I was here to keep you alive," he said dryly. "If your desires have changed, feel free to tell me last."

Unbidden laughter bubbled up in his throat. Though it was the last thing he wanted, he burst into guffaws, hands braced on his knees, weeds and dirt crumbling in his fingers. "I hate you," he managed to cough out when the worst of his sudden humor had passed.

Castiel's lip twitched. The mask made of bone seemed upturned, somehow. "I'm not surprised."

"You're good at this," Dean chuckled, wiping his eyes with the relatively clean part of his wrist. "Stick it on your resume. Proficient advisor to the opposition when captured."

"I wouldn't get a lot of job offers with that kind of declaration."

"That's the point," Dean said, still breathing unevenly as he went back to weeding. "It would solve all your problems, man."

"Ah," Castiel said, smiling now. "I see your point."

They went on weeding quietly for a few minutes, before Dean's curiosity finally got the better of him.

"Hey, Cas?"

"Hmm?" the spirit replied, obviously distracted by the thick growth of wildflowers jauntily springing up around the basil.

"Jimmy had a daughter?"

Castiel looked up, but Dean kept his gaze focused on the soil.

"Claire," the djinni answered after a few seconds. "She was lovely. Very smart. Very stubborn. She liked my griffon form best. Sometimes I took her flying. Jimmy always berated me afterward."

Dean imagined the niece he might never meet. He hoped she had Jess's blond hair, he thought, and Sam's hazel eyes. She would be a spoiled little kid, even if they spent their lives on the run.

"I thought that wasn't allowed," Dean said. "Magicians having kids, I mean."

"The policy was different, when the British were in control," Castiel replied. "Colonial magicians had their own way of doing things, and the British were too busy side-eyeing one another to keep strict tabs here. Various organizations thought that giving magicians a little more freedom to develop personal lives would keep them from their more destructive habits."

"Seems like it worked," Dean said, frowning. "With Jimmy, anyway."

"One of the very few it would work for," Castiel agreed. "His ambition was still enormous, just not directed toward political power-grabbing."

"What did he figure out, anyway?" Dean asked, untangling some of the blossoms from one another. His second glance over Ptolemy's Apocrypha the day before had told him next to nothing; an incantation, a wing and a prayer. "Doing that research of his?"

Castiel didn't answer; when Dean looked up, he was frowning, gazing down at the wildflowers as he shook them free.

"Sorry," Dean said, shaking his head. "I don't need to know specifics. I just wondered."

He went back to his weeding, wondering if he'd pried too deeply, but to his surprise, Castiel spoke.

"It was a theory, nothing more," the spirit said. "A very detailed theory—the kind that I believe would work nearly faultlessly, if put into practice—but still a theory, because I refused to help him test it. We were still at that stalemate when he died. I wish now that I had relented. He might have lived, if I had not been so determined to protect him."

"What?" Dean interrupted. "How?"

Castiel sighed. "In order to reduce the risk of death to the magician as he returns to his body from the other place, he must become more…spirit-like, for lack of a better word. Jimmy saw it as a transformation of essence. The soul would be made less vulnerable when outside the body, and the body could be moderately independent of the soul. The hybridity is complicated, but after the first journey to the Other Place, the magician would be able to come and go as he pleased, without any adverse effects to his physical form.

"The only problem, of course, is that the magician in question would need a spirit he trusted on the other side. The spirit needs to both answer his initial call, to guide him through the Gate, and to then send him back with the right incantation. Otherwise, he faces Ptolemy's predicament: the soul disjointed, the body aged, and death eminent."

"And there are only a few magicians who have ever trusted a spirit that much," Dean said.

"And just as few spirits who returned the sentiment," Castiel agreed, nodding. "I suspect that if they knew what was truly in my head, they would be very disappointed. Traveling to and from the Other Place might eventually be achieved without a spirit's help—I don't know. But I do know that our worlds were separate until the first magician found a way to invite us here. I would hope that the reverse is true—that because it is our home, it will hold against intruders unless we let them in." The spirit hesitated. "I don't really believe that, though. Magicians have found a way to enslave us here, and it was still a magician who first found his way into the Other Place. The spirit involved did not create the incantation. Our home seems more vulnerable than yours."

"Sorry, Cas," Dean offered quietly.

The spirit shrugged and didn't seem inclined to say any more. Dean let the subject drop.

Chapter Text

"Dean."

The hiss was soft, but fierce, and Dean was a light sleeper; he sat bolt upright, already reaching for the loaded gun on his bedside table. Castiel hovered beside his bed, tense, his eyes on the door, a hand stretched out to touch Dean's shoulder.

When Dean opened his mouth to ask what was going on, Castiel shook his head. "Quiet," he murmured, his deep voice the softest possible rumble. "There's another spirit on her way in. I believe she's alone, but it would be best if you were not where she expected to find you. Go." He nodded at the window.

"And what?" Dean whispered back, vehement. "Leave you here to deal with her alone?"

Castiel's blue eyes glowed up in the darkness of the room. "I'm not helpless," he said.

"Neither am I. I'm not going to run and hide while you fulfill your death wish." Dean kicked back the sheets and vaulted out of bed; he'd long since gotten in the habit of sleeping in jeans, uncomfortable as it was. "Besides, I'm the tastiest bait there is. We'll set a good trap."

"This is a bad idea," Castiel growled, following Dean to the closet like a determined hound. When Dean pulled a silver net down, though, he took a step back, putting distance between himself and the damaging substance. "She's strong, Dean, I don't know that silver will hold her—"

"Djinni," Dean interrupted, "or afrit?"

"Djinni," Castiel confirmed. "But a higher level than me, and fresh. They don't usually summon her." He wrinkled his nose. Whoever the newcomer was, Castiel was not fond of her.

"We're fine," Dean reassured. "Has she gotten past the security line? That should hobble her, at least."

"She flew in," Castiel said, back to anxiously watching the door. "Too far above the line to catch any of its detonations."

Dean cursed, infuriated by the failure of his brand-new security system, and shook out the silver net. "If something goes wrong," he said, refolding the silver into a useful shape and slipping it under his pillow, "go alert Sam, and encourage them to leave, right now. Two damn weeks of relative peace," he added in a mutter, resettling the blankets with enough room for him to crawl back in. He pulled another net from the closet, keeping it clenched tight in his fist. "And now they come pouring out of the woodwork."

"Azazel must be scouting for me," Castiel muttered; he looked half-ashamed, Dean noted, his eyes on the floorboards. "He wants to determine whether I am truly dead, or just trapped. If he discovers it's the second, Meg will likely have orders to kill me herself."

"Meg?" Dean repeated, frowning. "Megaira, you mean?"

"The same," Castiel agreed, still looking at the floor.

"Cas," Dean said, taking a hesitant step forward, "it's not your fault—"

Castiel's chin jerked up; his blue eyes glowed again as his head turned swiftly to the door. "She's here," he hissed.

"Out of sight," Dean murmured, too quiet for any human to hear him, but Castiel would. "Follow my lead."

To his credit, Castiel only wasted a fraction of a second glaring before he shrank down, a housecat again, and bounded lightly beneath the bed, where his true form wouldn't give him away immediately. It was nauseating to watch that massive creature squeeze in under the mattress, with not so much as a feather poking out to indicate his presence. Castiel had guessed Dean's plan, it seemed, and he wanted to be in a position to help. Dean tried not to let that give him the warm and fuzzies. There was a hostile spirit in his cabin.

Again.

The floorboards in the hall creaked. Meg—a well-renowned, particularly slippery djinni, one with a nasty reputation for eating masters that gave her any leeway at all, disarmed by her devastating looks and slow smile—had taken shape once beneath the crack under the front door. Dean settled back under the covers with his head hidden beneath the fall of sheets, the silver net clutched in his hands, and waited, breathing softly and evenly to get his heartbeat under control.

His bedroom door opened without a sound, but he felt the displacement of cool air. Swift, slight, she strode to the bed, leaning down to examine the shape apparently sleeping there. "Dean, Dean, Dean," she murmured, and he felt a hand clenched around the blanket, prepared to fold it back in order to consume him.

From beneath the bed, a scuffle heralded Castiel's attack; he hooked a paw around her ankle and yanked, hard. She went down in a jumble of essence and projected form, with the softest huff of surprise, and Dean was out from beneath the covers fast enough to throw the silver net over her. She thrashed, fighting the burn against her essence, but Castiel gave her a good shove, one that pushed her deeper into the net's folds, and Dean yanked the drawstring tight, trapping her.

A few moments more of thrashing knocked her out cold. She didn't lose form, though the beautiful woman she impersonated was burned, now, the imprint of the net everywhere her bare skin had been. Her neck and face were a tapestry of angry welts, and her hands had fared much worse, the skin red and inflamed on every inch of her palms and fingers. Her dark hair, spilling over the silver and floorboards, smoked faintly in places. Her true essence had taken much worse damage, though her tentacles and multitude of burned masks had not looked very appetizing to begin with. Dean pulled the extra net from beneath his pillow, just in case, and sat at the edge of the bed, watching the spirit for signs of movement.

Castiel dragged himself from beneath the bed, carefully skirting the net, and returned to Dean's side. "Are you all right?" he asked, resting a heavy hand on Dean's shoulder.

"I'm alive," Dean croaked, and didn't add, thanks to you, because he was unsure how Castiel would react, and he wasn't sure what he didn't want to see more: a look of smug superiority, or an expression of deep relief.

He got the second one regardless, and rested his face in his hands for a few moments, elbows on his knees, until it went away.

*

Castiel watched as, in the predawn light, Sam helped Dean drag their captive back to the room that he'd once been imprisoned in. Jess stood in the hallway, her light blue eyes tired and worried as they opened the door to the iron cage and rolled the djinni in. Castiel drifted toward her as the brothers conversed in low voices.

"I don't think we've been introduced," Jess said, a kind smile turning up her lips even though it was early, and she was clearly exhausted. "I'm Jessica."

"Castiel," he returned, politely enough, though he itched to get out onto the grounds and inspect the skies for activity on the higher planes. It wasn't like Azazel to send a second, single attacker; if he failed at first, he usually attacked in force, so that there was no possibility of a repeated failure.

"Thank you," she said, reaching out to clasp his elbow, "for looking out for Dean."

He glanced back at her, his attention caught. She was sincere, her lips trembling a little, but she held firm.

"You could have just let him die," she continued.

"I'm not so eager to go back to Azazel," he replied, confused.

"Of course," she said, her smile more amused now, her eyes dancing with mirth. "That's all."

"That's all," he echoed, frowning, and she let him go with a little shake of her head when Dean called for him—not a command, but a request. Sam passed him on his way in, making a beeline for his wife.

"You should have stayed in bed," the younger Winchester scolded.

"You know me," Jess replied, her voice teasing. "I hate missing out on the excitement."

As Sam ushered her out, Castiel went to Dean's side. The man stood stiff and tall, even considering his would-be assassin; it had been no different two weeks ago, when Castiel had been the one tied up. Meg, however, would be less comfortable. With the silver still wrapped tightly around her, it was unlikely that she would wake again before she died.

Dean folded his arms over his chest, staring her down. "Advise," he said quietly, with no air of demand in his tone.

"If she's allowed the opportunity to do so, she will escape," Castiel warned. "She will return to Azazel, she will tell him that you and I are both still alive, and he will call down what forces he can summon to decimate you."

Dean ran a hand over his face, fingers flexing. "Will she have information?" he asked, flat now.

"Maybe," Castiel said, considering the burns with distaste. "Maybe not. Is it worth the risk of letting her wake?"

"I don't know unless I know what she might have," Dean replied, a hint of frustration seeping into his voice. "And I don't know how the camp will take the news that I've killed one of your kind, so soon after letting you live. It sends mixed messages." He didn't smile.

"You're not considering leaving her alive," Castiel said, aghast. "You know of her, surely you understand—"

"I know how dangerous she is. She isn't like you." Dean patted Castiel's shoulder absently. The djinni frowned at the contact; Dean hardly seemed aware he was doing it. "She's one of those pure-chaos souls, no ideology to guide her at all. But I can't discriminate based on what she does, Cas. Kinda goes against the whole principle of this little community." He grimaced, as though he knew this was very weak reassurance.

"If you let her live, she'll kill you," Castiel said firmly. "I can't let you."

Dean's eyes snapped to his, his awareness returning suddenly, and his fingers tightened hard on Castiel's shoulder. If the djinni had been a mortal man, it would have bruised. He winced accordingly.

"If word gets out that you murdered her while I was sleeping, they will be even less kind to you," Dean said, fierce and low. "Understand? Let it lie. I'll make a Mournful Orb, and she'll be trapped, and that's that."

"Not here." Castiel was vaguely aware that he was pleading. "Don't keep her here."

Dean heaved a tired sigh. "Where else can we put her? I can't ask any of my people to harbor a violent spirit in their midst. She stays. If you don't want to hang out with her," and a smirk turned up his lips at this, trying for a struggling humor, "you can stay in my office or my room. No big. Pretend she's not there."

"That is easier said than done," Castiel said balefully, turning to glare at the prone form in the iron cage. "If you want her to live, you'll have to remove the net."

"Eventually," Dean said lightly. "We'll let her sweat a while first."

"I'm glad your common sense has not deserted you entirely," Castiel snapped, pulling away from Dean's hold. Something in the man's eyes shuttered at the motion, closing off.

"You're free to move," he said, with no inflection to the words. "If you'd rather stay with Sam and Jess, and they'll have you—I'm not keeping you here."

"Don't be ridiculous," Castiel said angrily. "I'll watch over you. Humans are unfortunately vulnerable while they sleep."

Dean fought the smile, but warmth spread back into his green eyes, giving him away. "That so," he said, as though teasing.

"You are in an infuriating mood," Castiel grumbled. "I'm going to read in your office until it passes."

He made for the door, and it had almost fallen shut when he heard Dean's voice, soft and sincere, murmur, "Thanks, Cas."

He ignored the resigned flutter it caused in his essence. Already, he had invested himself too deeply, and this was how the man repaid him—by harboring a dangerous spirit the next room over, someone who could thwart their safety if given an inch to maneuver. He had long since accustomed himself to the feeling of helplessness, but this, somehow, was a new and terrible low.

*

Castiel had known before that Dean did not sleep well, but knowing it and watching it were two entirely different things. The second was like little pricks of silver, nettling him until he couldn't focus on the job he'd been captured to do.

"Dean," he said at last, distracted again from his watch at the window, "if you don't settle, I will settle you myself."

A tired, stifled laugh rose up from the blankets. "Will you," Dean replied, his voice vaguely challenging. "Well, I hate to break it to you, Cas, but some people can't just fall asleep at will. I've got a lot on my mind."

"Like the dangerous spirit shackled not twenty feet away," Castiel agreed, distinctly grouchy at the thought. He'd thawed over the afternoon, but it wasn't as if Meg's presence didn't still rankle. He'd encountered her more than once in his lengthy existence, and she was unpleasant every time, going out of her way to cause excess pain and irritation. It was above and beyond the call of the ordinary spirit. Even her presence in the Other Place was disruptive.

He didn't like to imagine the dissension she would sow if allowed to remain in camp.

"Among other things." Dean's sheets rustled. "Two assassination attempts. It's enough to go right to a guy's head."

"This is not a joke, Dean." Castiel's patience was limited tonight. He scanned the higher planes, worried that he would miss a marid—if Azazel had the resources to summon one so soon, which was unlikely, but the paranoia that came of guarding a man like Dean would get to anyone.

"The really funny things never are, with you. Look, you're freakin' me out, all tensed up on that window like that."

"I'm a cat," Castiel replied imperiously. "Pretend I'm looking for mice."

"That doesn't really work, since I can see your actual form, and all," Dean pointed out. "Just come down from there. Christ, this is why Sam and I had to stop sharing a room," he added in a mutter, more to himself than Castiel.

The djinni bristled, but leapt lightly from the windowsill. Without invitation, he clawed his way up onto the bed, sprawled over Dean's feet, and rooted himself there, hoping Dean would take this as an invitation to stop shifting around and distracting him from his job.

"It's not that I'm ungrateful," Dean grumbled, settling deeper into the covers. "I am. Grateful, I mean. I would have been digested by now if you weren't looking out for me. But if you want me to sleep—"

"I can keep watch from here," Castiel interrupted, kneading his paws into the quilt. "Go to sleep, Dean."

"You say it like it's easy," Dean joked feebly, his head flopping sideways on the pillow.

Castiel purred, forcefully, more emphatically than the average housecat could. Dean's eyes drooped; his toes twitched, jostling Castiel's form just slightly.

"That's cheating," Dean accused sleepily, his words stretching through a yawn.

Castiel scanned the planes and, finding all quiet, purred again. The white noise accomplished what little else could; within moments, Dean was snoring softly, his muscles limp. Castiel went on scanning the planes. He, after all, didn't need sleep, and he wasn't about to make the same mistake twice.

Chapter Text

Dean didn't attempt the same variety of interrogation tactics with Meg as he had with Castiel. Either he'd run out of energy, or he knew how useless it was; Castiel wondered, not for the first time, if Dean had had a prior run-in with the djinni. It had been several years since Castiel had last run into Meg, after all, and Dean's path could have easily crossed hers in that time. Meg had been a favorite of Alastair's. The two had gotten along as only fellows in inflicting pain could.

Sam resettled the silver outside of the iron bars and closed the door, locking it firmly, just as Meg stirred. She sat up slowly, and as she did, the damage to her projected form began to knit; soon, she was her usual self again, with full smirking lips and dark eyes glinting beneath her tumble of dark hair. She didn't stand up within the cage, and pretended not to notice her accommodations, but Castiel knew better; her essence quailed from the bars, and she was still badly damaged. Sam backed away, close enough to the cage to interfere if she broke free, but far enough that he was not her focus. Dean, with Castiel standing beside him, drew her gaze first.

"Dean," she purred, tucking her legs beneath her. "It's so nice to see you again."

"I don't have the patience for your games today, Meg," Dean said, leaning back in his chair. Meg's eyes flicked briefly to Castiel, fixing on the glow of his collar, before returning to Dean. "The sympathy of this camp is the only thing keeping you alive, but it won't be a comfortable existence."

"Comfort is boring," she dismissed, her eyes dancing. "So, Mr. Patienceless, tell me what you wish of me, if it's so urgent."

"What are you here for?"

The corner of her mouth tugged up. Her eyes moved to Castiel and stayed there this time, one eyebrow cocked. "Your standard surveillance and assassination," she said. "Azazel wondered where you'd got to, Castiel. He was worried when he couldn't seem to summon you." She tsked. "So he sent me to check up on you, and finish the job if you'd failed. I have to admit, even I never expected you to have defected. We just thought you'd finally expired."

"He sent one djinni," Dean said calmly, "when he knew another might have already failed. So cunning. I underestimated your master."

Her smirk froze; it was feral now, with a rabid edge that made Castiel tense. "Azazel is not my master," she said, lifting her chin. "But neither are you, and I won't dance to your tune the way Castiel does. He's always been a little funny. Haven't you?" she directed, a touch smugly, at Castiel. "Don't take offense, kid. It's endearing, in a way." She wrinkled her nose.

"Fine," Dean interrupted, before Castiel could reply. "We'll leave you to rot. If you considered it, though, there are sweeter digs out here than there are in there."

She threw her head back when she laughed, full-bodied and trembling. "How quaint," she sneered when she recovered. "My options are not so limited as Castiel's, Dean. This squabble between you and those puffed-up magicians is peanuts to what comes next."

"Yeah?" Dean leaned forward, elbows on his knees, voice gone soft and dangerous. "And what's that?"

She scoffed. "You make a girl all gooey, talking like that, but I'm done talking. Go run your little revolution. Time's a-wastin'." She smiled and settled back, making herself comfortable in her cage—and if he couldn't see her essence, Castiel would have believed it. She made it out to be a throne, when that same prison had nearly killed him.

"Come on," Dean said, his eyes still on Meg's. "We've got hunting to do."

Sam waited until they were outside the cabin to frown at Dean. "You shouldn't be hunting at all, especially after this."

"You heard her," Dean dismissed. "If Azazel could afford to spare more spirits, he would have sent them already. Besides, if another lone agent decides to strike, I've got Cas."

Sam threw up his hands and stalked back to his cabin, obviously done arguing with Dean. Dean, as though he didn't notice or care about Sam's exasperation, led the way to the Jeep hidden beyond the treeline.

"I would also advise against going hunting right now," Castiel commented, though he knew it wouldn't do any good.

"You drive," Dean said, as though he hadn't heard, and tossed Castiel the keys. "I need to move the security line so it doesn't fry you when we pass over. I'll close it behind us." Castiel considered running Dean over, but instead resigned himself to being on even higher alert during their outing and settled himself behind the wheel. Nothing could keep the man at camp if he wanted to leave—of that, Castiel was absolutely certain.

Dean nudged him into the passenger seat when the security line had been replaced, and they drove on in silence. Dean's brow furrowed as he turned onto the highway, in the opposite direction from their last hunt; he was obviously thinking, and thinking deeply. Castiel left him to it and scanned through the planes, watching carefully for signs of another attack, but as much as it grated him to admit it, Dean was probably right.

Meg's words had not sounded like the desperate lie of a cornered spirit, after all. Even from within that cage, she still played the part of the predator; she affected the stance, her humor was good, and Castiel had seen her in worse situations, when her sharp control of her own demeanor had shattered. Something was still in her favor, or she would be more worried about being held captive in a prison that could eventually kill her, just from proximity.

"You're thinking what I'm thinking," Dean finally remarked when they left the Jeep behind. His rifle was slung over his shoulder, but he hardly looked as if he expected to bring down another deer out here.

Castiel squinted at him. "What am I thinking?"

"That something's up. Something big. She shouldn't be so comfortable. I know Meg. She was one of Alastair's favorites." Dean frowned as though remembering something unpleasant. "If she's in a corner, this isn't how she behaves."

"No," Castiel agreed. "It isn't."

"So what comes next?" Dean asked, idly scanning the trees for any signs of prey. "Do you know?"

"No," Castiel repeated, a little affronted. "I would have told you—"

"Cas." Dean turned to look at him; a smile tugged up the corner of his mouth. "I'm not accusing you of anything. You saved my life, man. Twice," he added, and picked up pace again. "Sure, the first time was under orders, but we both know that you believed in what you were doing. And you could have let me die, the other night. It would have been easy. Quick."

"I wouldn't—"

"I know," Dean interrupted again. "That's what I mean. I trust you." His smile turned a little bewildered. "What the hell, right? You've given me no reason not to."

"I did try to kill you," Castiel pointed out, a little abashed.

"Water under the bridge. That was, what, more than two weeks ago." Dean laughed, scrubbing his hand over his jaw. "Can you believe that? Feels like months. Anyway." He cleared his throat. "What I'm asking is, before you came—had you heard any rumors? Any rumblings? Any spirits getting up in arms about something? Anything at all that might be connected to this?"

Castiel shrugged, appeased. There was something about Dean's camaraderie, now so easy—and so impossible—that lowered his hackles. "I mentioned before," he said slowly. "I told you—there are spirits who have been in the world too long. Humans rub off. They pick up causes, ideas, vengeance. There have been spirits who muttered, but they never did it loudly enough for magicians to hear. Perhaps they have decided to stop muttering and act. I don't see what they could accomplish, though. The magicians are more paranoid than ever after what happened in London."

Dean's jaw tightened. "I know. But she's too comfortable, Cas. It's wrong. And how come he only sent the one djinni?"

"It's off," Castiel agreed. "His summons have felt…strange, when he's bothered to try. He seems distracted. When he gets the energy to try, he feels desperate. Something is happening in Washington."

"Five words I hate to hear," Dean grumbled.

They walked in silence a while longer, and then, compelled to honesty, Castiel said, "I trust you too, Dean."

Dean smiled, though it was more of a grimace. "Don't see why," he replied, ducking his head. "I nearly killed you."

"It makes no sense," Castiel said mildly, his own lips twitching up in answer.

"Come to think of it, most things don't," Dean said, clapping Castiel on the shoulder. "Come on. If you sense deer around here anywhere, let me know."

*

Dean didn't like having Meg in the house any more than Castiel did.

He'd grown used to Castiel's presence quickly, even when the djinni was still imprisoned in the room that Meg currently occupied. Castiel blended well with the cabin. He was unobtrusive, he was useful, he was good to have around. With their misunderstandings behind them, they got along well—too well, sometimes; Dean often forgot that he was laughing and joking with a spirit, at least until he glanced sideways and saw that bone mask with its features turned up in amusement.

But Dean wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Castiel was a spirit, and that was fine. If Dean didn't know himself better, he'd believe that he'd become fickle in his old age. There was no knee-jerk of revulsion left in him; that was saved for the laughing, singing, annoying demon currently occupying his spare room, not for Cas.

"I hate her so much," Dean said into the darkness, knowing that Castiel would hear him.

The djinni stirred at his feet. He'd taken to draping across Dean's ankles at night, a housecat if Dean didn't look too closely, and purring with enough force to knock out the whole camp. Dean didn't protest. There was precious little that could get him to sleep these days besides imbibing a lot of alcohol, and they were nearly dry. That supply run couldn't wait much longer.

"I hate her more," Castiel intoned, his paws kneading into one of Dean's feet. Dean yelped, jerking his leg back, and Castiel gave a howl of protest. From the other room, Meg's singing stopped abruptly.

"I didn't claw you, did I?" Castiel asked, the mildest of concern in his voice. "I could have sworn I didn't give this form claws."

"No." Dean's cheeks were burning. "No, it just, uh—no, stop that!"

The cat leapt at his withdrawn foot, and Dean wasn't fast enough; when the paws made contact, he let out another uncontrollable guffaw, feebly trying to kick Castiel away.

"The fearless leader of the Resistance is ticklish." Castiel managed to say it without inflection, but the cat was still busily batting Dean's foot around with his paws, clearly delighted. "Do your people know this about you, Dean?"

"No," Dean chuckled, giving Castiel a harder shove in the ribs with his toes, "and if you tell them, I'll—"

"What?" There was definite amusement in Castiel's voice now. "What will you do?"

"I don't know!" The cat dodged his next attempt at a kick and leapt onto his stomach instead. Now that he was primed for it, there was no helping it: every touch tickled. It was a cruel flaw for a man like Dean. The cat's paws kneaded into his belly and he went on laughing—because he couldn't help it, and because this was all a touch too absurd for him, and because Meg had finally, finally shut up. "Something. Something unpleasant. Like make you sit in the room with Meg for a while."

"You wouldn't." Castiel sounded wounded, now. The cat walked up his chest and planted himself just below Dean's chin, purring. "That's torture."

"It would teach you to not tickle me," Dean grumbled, but he relented and raised a hand to stroke the cat's ears. "It's undignified."

It was second-nature, really, and it was only on the second pass that he froze, realizing that the touch might be unwelcome to the djinni—but Castiel butted his hand with a fury head, meowing. Dean knew that it was a manifestation. He did. But the point of a good manifestation, he supposed, was that it looked and felt real, and Castiel the housecat, purring on his chest and imperiously demanding a cuddle felt very real indeed.

Dean's chest didn't even stiffen up the way it was supposed to—the way it did whenever anyone else tried to touch him.

How about that, he thought, running his fingers gently over fur. The electric-shock of essence hummed just beneath his touch.

"I think we're all out of dignity," Castiel commented idly, good humor in his voice despite the sobriety of the statement.

Dean, already drifting off to sleep, didn't answer. The last sensation he clung to was the cat's whiskers, softly trailing over his skin—a cool, damp nose nudging up against his beard. It was awful, how quickly he'd learned to feel safe in Castiel's presence, but he was wrung too dry to do anything but go along with it.

Besides, he really, really needed the sleep.

Chapter Text

Dean and Castiel fell into a routine, and the camp fell in around them.

There was no longer a chance that Castiel would let Dean out of his sight for things like meals and chores. He was forever at Dean's elbow, always on guard, Vonnegut abandoned on the bookshelves of Dean's cabin. At first, this caused a disturbance among members of the camp; some people refused to be in the same room as the djinni, and some people shifted in discomfort even if they remained, but Dean ignored them all. At breakfast, Dean had little to say, anyway. He wasn't much of a morning person until he'd downed at least one cup of coffee.

On the second day, Sam and Jess ate with them. The camp relaxed minutely.

At dinner, the pair ate across from Jo and Charlie. Castiel realized that this was what Dean did: ate with his troops by turn, always spreading his attention evenly.

"Caught another one, huh," Jo directed at Dean, just when the silence was about to get uncomfortable. Charlie flashed Castiel a sympathetic smile before ducking her head back to her food. He got the impression that she didn't particularly mind spirits, and wasn't sure whether or not he should disabuse her of that acceptance.

Jo, though, with those tendrils of smoky black folding over half of her face, had every right.

"I'm collecting," Dean sighed, nudging a spoon around in his stew. "Actually, they're just trying to collect me. I'm the one fucking up the plan."

Jo smiled, the slightest tick up at the corner of her mouth. "How'd you manage to catch her?"

"Cas warned me," Dean said, his voice suddenly gruffer than usual. "We were prepared."

Jo's brown eyes turned, surprised, to fix on Castiel. Her suspicion softened as she scrutinized him. "That so," she said slowly.

Castiel shrugged. "I'm a member of the Resistance now, aren't I? Might as well go all in. Save the fearless leader from the inevitable assassin."

Jo laughed, as though the sound had been startled out of her, and went back to her stew. From beneath her red bangs, Charlie winked at Castiel. He stared impassively back, but that only seemed to amuse her further.

There were members of the camp—Robert Singer, Rufus Turner, Ellen Harvelle, Lee Chambers—who would always leave at the sight of him, or at the very least, put as much distance as they could between him and their person, even in cramped meeting rooms. But they seemed to have a grudging understanding that Castiel was there to stay, and even if they didn't like it, they didn't complain. He saw Singer give Dean more than one squinty-eyed glare, but Dean appeared to be ignoring him.

"If you get tired of them," Dean commented idly, on the third day when they took their shift in the garden to pull up weeds, "you don't have to leave the cabin, you know. You can just…stay there."

Castiel leveled him with a glare. "And if a spirit breaks through your defenses and kills you before I can reach you?"

Dean held up his gloved hands in surrender, dirt crumbling from his palms. There was a light drizzle today, but the man didn't seem to notice it; on the contrary, he was in fine spirits, his eyes crinkling at the corners as they did when he was fighting a smile. They still hadn't been on a supply run, and so Dean's beard had evened out into a uniform fur. Castiel reminded himself to make fun of it later.

"I'm only saying," Dean said, going back to the weeds. "I'm sure you'd be able to get to me in time."

"I'd rather not risk it," Castiel grumbled, pulling up a patch of wildflowers with more force than strictly necessary.

Dean chuckled, soft and easy, and let the subject drop.

Despite the less-than-welcoming atmosphere, Castiel liked it here, in this little haven in the mountains. There was something to be said for even being capable of seeing an attack as it arrived; in the cities, so congested with spirit life, he would have had a much harder time keeping Dean safe. Here, the signal was clear enough to spot threats well before they arrived.

And it was peaceful. It wasn't as though he wanted or even needed acceptance from his fellow Resistance members; he had lived long enough without acceptance from anyone that Dean's was balm enough. His existence here was satisfying, more freeing than anything he'd experienced in years, and he realized, on his knees in the dirt, that he was grateful for it.

He wouldn't tell Dean. It would go straight to the man's head.

*

While Castiel sat quietly in the passenger seat, Dean ran again through the list of things the camp needed in his head. They'd have to go a little further north this time; their usual town had been chock-full of demons when they'd made their last run. Sam had barely gotten out ahead of the horde of magicians clamoring for his blood, and Jess had shouted at Dean for about five hours that night. He flinched at the memory.

Sam was still irritated with him, and he'd looked downright murderous when Dean had announced that he was going on a supply run. He checked his response to a heavy sigh and left his brother to fume, Castiel in his wake. Taking anyone else would undoubtedly attract too much attention, and leaving the rest of them to protect the camp—and Jess—was the best way to get this supply run over with quickly. Hardly anyone approved of him going alone with the djinni, but even if Castiel had retained more strength than the average foliot, he wouldn't have felt unsafe with the spirit at his side.

Even Sam might have called him an idiot for that, if Dean gave him the chance.

But he trusted Castiel, even if he knew he shouldn't, just on principle. Embarrassing personal revelations aside, they were on the same team now. Vengeance was as good a unifier as any.

Besides, there was something...genuine...about the spirit. He seemed more human by the day, and Dean was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. His anxiety, especially, felt very human indeed; Azazel had not attempted to summon him since Meg had appeared, and Dean could tell that Castiel thought this boded ill.

The Jeep rolled over the last leaves and emerged onto the WV-28. The highway was deserted. He turned the car north; Petersburg would be as good a place as any to stock up. It was small enough not to attract the kind crowd that magicians ran with; it was small enough not to attract magicians, period. If they were really lucky, no one in town would have any resilience, either. Not the kind that would spot Castiel, at least.

It had been three years since they'd fled to the mountains, Dean reflected ruefully, and they'd been living like this ever since: running credit card scams and hustling pool to get enough toilet paper for the whole camp, picking up necessities that they couldn't grow or hunt for themselves by scraping the very lining out of their pockets. They stole, too, when they absolutely had to, and sometimes there were emergencies, but Dean tried not to let it become habit, because it could get them noticed.

They pulled into the Petersburg Foodland an hour later. Dean shrugged into his jacket—not his dad's leather one, which he'd retired three years ago, but a more practical black windbreaker, the kind that would protect him from the renewed rain softly dotting the parking lot—and jammed a baseball cap onto his head.

"Try not to look too suspicious," he said as they got out of the car. The blue glow of the collar was barely visible against Castiel's throat; he reached out to straighten the starched white shirt and snugged up the blue tie while he was at it, effectively concealing the glow from view—on the first plane, at least. On all the others, it was loud and clear, a bright neon sign advertising their presence.

When he glanced up from smoothing the tie down, Castiel was looking at him again, in that hard, staring way of his—but it wasn't hard, not exactly. It was considering, as though the spirit was reading every line in his face, trying to piece together a story from what he saw there. The masked faces that loomed over his shoulders and head considered Dean, too, but the expression here was, for once, more telling than the one on his human face: deep, enduring sadness.

That's enough of that, Dean thought bracingly, and yanked Castiel's trench coat straight. "Come on," he said. "We're burning daylight."

They kept their heads down inside the supermarket, Dean muttering to Castiel the things that he could go pick out for their group. Toilet paper, canned goods, maybe some fresh fruit for once—but Dean cringed at the price and realized the last wasn't an option. There just wasn't enough money to go around. He loaded up in the canned foods aisle, and hoped he wouldn't have a mutiny on his hands when he brought home canned pears in syrup again.

Castiel returned from a few aisles over, balancing an impressive stack of toilet paper in his arms. He dumped it unceremoniously into their basket.

"Anything else?"

"Tuna, I think," Dean said, still yanking vegetables off the shelves. His stomach churned for a good burger; it had been ages since they'd last been able to eat fast food. "See any sales?"

"We're not alone," Castiel said suddenly, and immediately, instead of being beside Dean, the spirit was at his back, wings rustling out on the seventh plane.

Dean saw them: a pack of foliots and what was probably a low-level djinni, sweeping in from both the front and back of the store. Predictably, the cashiers didn't notice anything amiss, chattering on about their weekends across the registers. The foliots were disguised as middle-school children on the first plane, but their disguises vanished on the fourth plane and higher; the djinni's adult visage, bright fanny-pack and all, was intact through the fifth plane.

"Can you handle the djinni?" Dean muttered over his shoulder, already easing his handgun—packed with silver rounds—out of the concealed holster beneath his jacket.

"Of course," Castiel said, unperturbed. "This is a scouting party. No doubt they were hoping you would surface."

If there was a faintly accusatory note in Castiel's voice, Dean ignored it. "We'd better make it count, then. If word gets back to Azazel that you're still alive—"

"I doubt very much we'll escape this encounter without alerting Azazel to my continued livelihood," Castiel said smoothly. "But that, for now, is the least of our worries."

Dean brought his handgun up in one fluid motion just as Castiel raised his palm toward the other end of the aisle.

"It would be better for you to stay out of the way," Castiel remarked, as though he didn't for a second believe that Dean would take his advice. "You can see them, but they can still hurt you."

"Not if I hurt them first," Dean muttered. He thought he heard Castiel voice an exasperated sigh, just before the shelves started coming down in the next aisle over.

Predictably, the cashiers screamed. Castiel felt the prickle in his essence that announced silver close at hand—probably in Dean's handgun, very smart—and gathered what little energy he had into a Detonation that would buy them time. He hoped, anyway. He was sure that on another day, maybe in another lifetime, he and Dean would have made a formidable force together. Today, though, Dean was just a man, and Castiel could hardly be called healthy, even before his recent capture.

One of the foliots appeared at his end of the aisle. Before he could disperse it, Dean fired, quick and automatic, and it fell back howling.

"We've gotta move," was Dean's only response to Castiel's irritated look. He gestured at the shelves, which were teetering dangerously. The spirits had flanked them and were planning to bury them. Not a bad plan, but...

Castiel unceremoniously grabbed Dean by the shoulder—he yelped—and transformed. The griffon shot straight up, Dean clasped in his claws, leaving the shelves to collapse, food and all, directly beneath them. The foliots jabbered angrily. The cashiers, who had by now worked out that something very unusual was going on, had fled for the door. None too gently, Castiel dropped Dean safely out of range of any more falling shelves and landed beside him. The foliots were upon them within seconds.

While Castiel slashed through the air with sharp talons, spilling essence from the shrieking spirits, Dean's shots went off steadily behind him; they had a kind of rhythm, as unfaltering as a metronome, and the wail of injured foliots was overwhelmingly reassuring. Castiel had the djinni to handle at the end of them, though, and that was a bit more complicated than a pack of howling foliots, since he also happened to know the djinni in question.

Through the mayhem going on behind them, Anna called the remainder of her foliots to heel. "Castiel," she acknowledged, her sweet voice echoing; she'd chosen to appear as a kelpie, and looked as though she was drowning, her fiery hair and coat dripping seawater all over the supermarket's ruined goods. "When Azazel summoned me, I thought that you were dead. He seemed to be under that impression. How have you evaded him?"

A last foliot squawked behind him, and Dean gave a satisfied huff before turning around and coming to stand beside the griffon, shoulder to shoulder. "You two know each other?" he asked, sizing up the kelpie.

"Anna and I fought together at Babylon," Castiel explained. "Dean has...devised a method to keep me from Azazel," he added to Anna.

Anna gave an exasperated sigh. Dean was eying the djinni's true form with what looked like distaste. Castiel couldn't blame him; Anna was a lower rank than he, and few djinn had the polished seventh-plane form that he did.

"You should have just finished the job," Anna was saying, exasperated but a little fond. "He might have released you out of sheer drunkenness in the aftermath of his victory."

"I doubt that," Castiel countered.

Anna glanced around at the felled foliots. "I guess this wasn't a great attempt, either." One of the spirits gave a little moan. "We weren't expecting to catch Dean unarmed, but we weren't expecting you to be with him, either."

"Please," Dean snorted. "I did all the work."

"You would be a mashed pile of bone and sinew if I hadn't been here," Castiel gritted out. "Be quiet."

Dean ignored him in favor of reloading his handgun. Anna rolled her brown eyes.

"Come back with me, Castiel," she said, a note of hope in her voice. "Things are...happening. Everything will be different soon."

Dean stiffened beside him. "What do you mean?" Castiel asked. The griffon pawed nervously at the floor. The kelpie glanced warily at Dean.

"Just trust me," Anna coaxed. "If you want your freedom, Castiel, come with me."

"Anna," he said, trying for gentle. She was an old friend, and he had no desire to offend her. "You know that I can't take you at your word."

"I can't do anything with my words when he's standing right there," she said with frustration, rolling her eyes toward Dean. "I don't think he'd approve of our plan."

"Mmm," Dean said noncommittally. "I hate plans."

"It would take some convincing, but I think Lilith would—"

Dean's chin snapped up. He'd only been peripherally watching Anna, but now she had his full attention. Castiel tensed. He had wondered before if Dean remembered the name.

"You're working with Lilith?" Castiel asked, trying to keep his tone neutral.

"I know you've had your disagreements," Anna wheedled. "But we're on the same side, Castiel. What she's doing—it will free us from magicians forever. From humans forever. You can't tell me you don't want that. You've been so trapped, the last few decades. That could all stop. And the magicians will get what's coming to them," she directed at Dean. "Isn't that what your Resistance wants?"

"Depends," Dean said. Castiel was almost surprised at how calm his voice was, given the hard glint in his green eyes. "What's the catch?"

The kelpie tossed her mane. "There doesn't have to be a catch."

"When did you start buying into a high spirit's schemes, Anna?" Castiel asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dean's jaw tighten. "You've always stayed out of it."

"I'm tired of being forced into slavery whenever a magician gets an itch for someone else to do his dirty work," she said forcefully. "You'd think that you would feel the same way, Castiel. Everyone knows that they've kept your nose to the grindstone for the last thirty years."

"That's true," Castiel conceded. "Which is why I've thrown my lot in with Dean."

She neighed a disbelieving laugh. "Are you serious? You think the Resistance has your answers? They'll turn on you, too. And I've heard rumors about this one. He's practically a magician, Castiel. He certainly trained under one. You would trust him with our fate?"

"Trust is a strong word," Dean said dryly. "Call it a mutually beneficial partnership, if you want. I get what I want, he gets what he wants, we all walk away happy. Easy. No catch."

"There's always a catch," Anna parroted.

"What are you planning?" Castiel interrupted. "What makes you so sure that we'll all be left alone?"

"It'll be hard to ignore us when we're running the show," she said smugly.

"I hate the sound of that," Dean muttered. "I know bloodthirsty revenge, and I really, really don't want to get caught in the middle of that fight." He glanced sideways at Castiel. "Go ahead," he said bracingly. "It'd be a shame to kill you, but I'll try my best not to let it get to me."

Despite himself, Castiel let out a startled laugh. "I gave you my word," he said, even as Anna snorted in disbelief. "Besides, I don't think I'd agree with Lilith's methods."

A surprised smile tipped up Dean's mouth. "You'll have to tell me about it later," he said. When he fired off a round of silver at the drenched kelpie, Anna was too shocked to sidestep quickly enough. It caught her in the chest, and as her essence tore and she screamed in pain, the stationary pack of foliots sprang to life.

While Dean picked them off one by one, Castiel swept forward to take care of Anna. With a bullet of silver lodged in her essence, they were on a more even playing field. Dean whooped behind him as Anna, trying to get her hooves back beneath her, glared up at Castiel.

"You're a dumbass," she hissed, "or a sentimental fool, if you're protecting him just because he's the pup precious Jimmy sent you to save—"

"That's enough," Castiel said sharply, just before lodging his talons deep into the kelpie's flank and dragging them down. Anna screamed out again and smashed the griffon's beak with a kicking hoof; the keratin crumbled beneath the assault and Castiel wrenched his talons free, momentarily blinded.

As he staggered, she got her hooves back beneath her, her essence bleeding out in small wisps, and charged forward, knocking him back. He slashed up blindly with his talons, trying to dislodge her weight, but the strikes he landed barely scratched the surface as she trampled his wings, breaking through bones with sharp little crunches of agony. The physical form was just a manifestation, he reflected dazedly, but it was still distractingly painful when someone sank their teeth in.

Just as he gave one last desperate heave to throw her off, Dean shouted and fired; another round of silver caught her full in the face, throwing her back. Dean's footsteps were quick as he approached, still yelling something unintelligible, but Anna was nothing if not smart. She knew when she was beaten. She staggered out of Dean's reach and transformed again, this time into a robin so tiny that it didn't present much of a target, and flew off toward the open door at the back of the store, her path wobbly and prone to sudden drops. Dean was cursing fluidly now, running after her. She was still bleeding essence, but she darted through the door and out of reach.

Still growling under his breath, Dean jogged back to Castiel, prone on the floor. With something of a struggle, he pulled his essence back into Jimmy's form, though Dean's look of shocked horror indicated that this was probably not the most reassuring course of action. A cut across Dean's forehead bled freely, but he didn't seem to notice the blood dripping down his face as he dropped to one knee beside Castiel.

"You're bleeding," he said grimly, touching Castiel's neck. His hand came away bloody. "Not just physically. Your essence is flaking off."

"I noticed," Castiel gritted out. Dean gripped his forearm and hauled him to his feet.

"We've gotta get back to camp," Dean muttered. "Let's grab some bandages, I can't fucking see to drive with blood dripping in my eyes."

Castiel limped after him, skirting the wreckage of their battle. The foliots were all dead, smoking gently on the gritty tile. Castiel reflected, a little morbidly, that he was glad he'd defected to Dean's side. The man was up against a wall, but he seemed to function very well there.

Dean cleaned and bandaged the deep cut in his forehead in the dimly-lit bathroom; he slapped packed cotton over the gash in his arm without so much as a wince and wrapped gauze around it; he carefully applied pressure to his own ribs, as though checking for breaks, and all the while Castiel squinted at him and wondered if he was actually a man at all.

When Dean finally turned around, though, he flinched. "Looking at you hurts," he informed Castiel, who glanced over his shoulder to the mirror. Jimmy's nose was broken; two black eyes gave him the appearance of a raccoon; and his essence was obviously in bad shape, his wings broken and hanging limp, his masked faces bedraggled.

"We can't do anything about it right now," Castiel told him. "We need to leave before the cashiers alert the local authorities. If they report it, Azazel won't be far behind."

Dean rubbed a hand over his mouth. Swelling had started to appear around one of his eyes, too. "Yeah, you're right. Let's get out of here."

They ran to the Jeep—or, rather, Dean ran; Castiel staggered after him as well as he could—and by the time they collapsed inside, the wail of sirens had gone off in the distance. Jaw set with tension, Dean twisted the key in the ignition and slammed down on the gas, squealing out of the parking lot more urgently than Castiel thought was strictly necessary.

"Sam's going to kill me," he muttered. Privately, Castiel agreed.

Chapter Text

Beside him, Castiel slumped against the passenger-side door. His seventh-plane form looked worse, somehow, than Jimmy's beaten and bruised visage, though that was enough to make Dean flinch on his own. Those great, feathery wings looked badly broken; Anna had been trampling them when Dean chased her off. Chased her off. Christ. She could already be reporting to Azazel. She could be on her way back with reinforcements. They could be leading her right to camp.

But there was no question that they had to go back, and fast. They had to move, all of them. This was too close, nothing like the run-ins they'd had with spirits over the last three years—mostly accidental, and rarely damaging. This had been planned. Azazel was finally getting impatient, and Dean and his Resistance were out of time. It rankled that the magician could have done this at any point over the last three years, that they had been so vulnerable for so long. Dean's tenuous hold on their livelihood was slipping, slipping, slipping...

Castiel coughed. His essence was flaking off; Dean could see wisps of it, curling up toward the ceiling of the Jeep and vanishing. He was bleeding slower now, but still bleeding.

"You okay?" Dean asked.

Castiel shot him a look that was suspiciously venomous. "Use your eyes, Dean. How often have you seen spirits keep it together in this shape?"

"I've never seen this before," he muttered back. "Do you need that essence?"

"I'll heal," Castiel replied, less sharply now. "If I ever get back to the Other Place, I'll be able to restore it. Until then, though, I am increasingly useless to you."

"Nah," Dean said. "You're still my advisor. Don't need much essence for that."

Castiel hacked out a laugh. They drove on in silence.

When they reached the turn off for camp, Dean didn't remark on the column of black smoke rising in the distance. The Jeep rolled over dead leaves, and he tried to keep his hands on the wheel steady, even as blind rage pulled so hard in his chest that he could no longer breathe evenly. Castiel was tense and silent beside him.

He parked a few hundred yards from camp, and didn't bother dragging the cover back over the Jeep. If the choking smoke still rolling out of their nest of cabins was any indication, they would need it again soon.

"Fuck," he muttered, automatic, "we were only gone a few hours!"

The demons that had razed their camp were long gone. Some cabins, Dean's included, were still gently smoldering. There was no sign of any of his friends, his family—Sam's cabin was a pile of ash and smoking beams on the ground, and all was silent except for the bright cackle of flames. The scent of smoke threatened to choke him; he staggered, and Castiel grabbed his elbow to yank him back upright.

"Dean," he said, his voice low and strained. "We have to go. There's no one—"

Dean shook off the spirit's hand and forced himself forward, to the opposite side of camp, to the bunker carefully buried. If their security system had worked—if everyone had gotten inside in time—

He cleared off the hastily-arranged tarp and leaves, hardly daring to hope. "Dean," Castiel said, urgently now. "What are you—"

With a last, heavy grunt, Dean yanked the cellar doors open, dead leaves gently falling through the swinging opening. Belatedly, he realized he hadn't done the special knock, and if anyone was down there—

Sure enough: Sam was right under the entrance, a shotgun pointed upward, but when he caught sight of Dean, he sagged in relief. "We should clean in here more often," he said weakly, slinging his shotgun back to his shoulder. Dean reached out a hand to help him scramble up the ladder, and the rest of the camp followed. They looked largely unharmed, all of them—terrified, maybe, but otherwise untouched.

Sam hugged him, too sudden and briefly for Dean to register, and then turned to help Jess get up the ladder.

"The security system worked," he said. "We had ten minutes to get out of sight. Thank god we set that up. What the hell happened to you?"

"Dean," Jess said in alarm. Maybe she'd seen the look on his face, or maybe she'd just caught sight of his injuries; he could feel blood dripping from beneath the bandage on his forehead again, sliding down his face. "Are you okay?"

"You have to go," Dean croaked out.

Sam's look of relief quickly faded to one of fury. "You can't be serious," he snapped. "We can't run, not now!"

"Only some of you are running." He cast a quick look around at the camp huddled around him, and, making his mind up, started reeling off names. "Pam, Missouri, Ash, Ellen, Jim, Olivia, Lee and Krissy, Bela, Chuck—you're going with Sam and Jess. Head south, and don't stop running until you hit the border. After that, walk quickly. Jody, Garth, Jo, Charlie, Annie, Rufus, Bobby—congratulations. You're going to Washington."

"Fantastic," Jo said happily, shouldering her shotgun. "Charlie, Garth, Jody—my car?"

"No," Sam said, a look of numb horror on his face. "Just come with us, Dean. If we're going to run, let's run together. It's a suicide mission."

Dean shook his head. "I've got a plan. And unfinished business. Me and Cas will lead the others in, and you guys can get the hell out of dodge."

Until that moment, no one had noticed Castiel, hovering unobtrusively by Dean's shoulder and still bleeding essence. Those with the sight let out a few gasps of horror.

"That's your wingman?" Bobby said dryly. "He's going to fade any moment now."

"I have a few days left," Castiel retorted. "Not productive days, but I'll be a good distraction."

"I don't like it," Bobby said doubtfully, and Dean, pushed to the brink of his patience, snapped.

"Do I need to fucking remind you who put me in charge?" he demanded, taking a step forward. The few members of his Resistance ringed closely around him automatically sprang back; Castiel stayed exactly where he was, barely a pace from Dean. "You didn't want it, Bobby, so I stepped in. This is not your decision. It's mine. And I'm not asking. I'm telling. If you don't like it, go with Sam and Jess."

After a beat of shocked silence, Bela spoke. "Well, you don't have to tell me twice. Get in touch with Crowley if you can, Dean. If you're planning a suicide run, he'll have what you need to go out with a bang." She smirked, turned on her heel, and headed for the outskirts of camp.

"Dean," Sam said, pleading now, as the rest of the camp slowly trickled away, murmuring their goodbyes to Dean as they went. "Don't do this."

Dean tried to smile. It came out as more of a flinch; his face felt too messed up to do anything else. "Made up my mind," he said. "They can find you so easily. Someone's gotta keep them busy. Make sure you get out alive."

Jess nodded, tugging gently at Sam's elbow. "C'mon. He's right, Sam. Let it go."

"Yeah," Dean said, smirking. "Listen to your girl."

"You're a fucking idiot," Sam said, but he reached out to clap Dean's undamaged shoulder anyway. "Come find us, if you get out."

"Don't come back," Dean said bluntly. "Not unless Washington is burned to the ground, and even then...there are better places."

Sam nodded; his throat bobbed; finally, he allowed Jess to tug him away. Dean turned back to Castiel. At his pointed look, the spirit quickly rearranged his expression into something less mournful.

"One thing," Dean said, raising his voice so that his small offensive group could all hear him. He was so tired, suddenly, but it didn't matter. It would all be over soon. "If my cabin isn't totally in cinders. And then we go."

Behind him, Ellen and Jo hugged goodbye; beside them, Garth and Ash made hopeful plans to meet up south of the border if Garth made it out of the fray alive; Krissy was clinging tight to Jody, clearly struggling to contain her sobs. Members of his ragtag little Resistance said goodbye to one another, and neither side of the line really believed they would ever see one another alive again.

Dean didn't do more goodbyes than were strictly necessary. Castiel waited outside, watchful, while he ducked into his gently smoking cabin. The fires here were minimal; they'd clearly been set at other points in the camp, and only spread to Dean's cabin just before their arrival. Meg, of course, was long gone, the silver net and iron cage hacked open. He trusted that Castiel would warn them if she was about to spring out of the shadows and ducked down to his bookshelf to yank out one of the last report Henriksen had sent. Shoving multiple books aside, he pulled open the back of the shelf and yanked out a gently rattling box of the Resistance's most potent magical artifacts. They were still peanuts against powerful spirits, but against a magician off his game, they would work perfectly fine.

He wiped the blood out of his eyes, waved the soot off the papers, coughed one more time, and walked out of the cabin. Fuck the Jeep, he thought.

"Okay," he said, and everyone crowded in closer. The rain was starting to put the remaining fires out. "Here's the plan. Bela's contact is a fucking snake, but he'll get me and Cas in the door. After we get captured and hauled off to the FBI headquarters, you guys can sweep in and…confiscate…the entire contents of his little shop, which will definitely be useful for eliminating our problem."

Jo smiled, even though her cheeks were still damp; Dean knew that if the situation wasn't so dire, she would have let out an exclamation of glee. She really, really liked explosives.

"Follow us in on foot," Dean continued, and handed over the folder to Jody. "There are easier routes inside than the front door. Once you're in there, though, you're going to have to be careful. Don't paint yourself into any corners. Stealth is the name of the day until you meet back up with me, okay? And if you find me dead, you'd better burn them to the ground."

"Why bother with the capture in the first place?" Jody asked.

"Because if they've got me and Cas, they aren't going to see the rest of you coming, and we could really use the element of surprise right now," Dean answered. "Henriksen will turn us loose once we're on the inside." He held up his burner phone—one of only three that the Resistance owned—to display the last text message sent: I'm stuck in Folsom. Meet me there. It was one of the few code phrases they had between them, and Henriksen would know he was coming. "Don't go after Crowley until Cas and I are at least an hour gone."

"Got it," Jo said brightly.

"Someone else can have the Jeep," Dean added. "I'm taking the Impala." He tossed the box of artifacts to Bobby and gave a joking salute. "See you on the other side."

"Be careful," Bobby growled. Beside him, Rufus looked skyward, as though he knew how futile that demand was. Dean knew that Bobby knew it, too, but that he couldn't live with himself if he didn't say it.

"You too, old man," he said. Signaling to Castiel, he took off toward the tree line, heading for the Impala. If he was really going to go out swinging, he couldn't do it without her.

"This is the car," Castiel commented, leaning heavily against the passenger door as Dean dragged the tarp off.

"This is the car," he confirmed, and even though the world was going to shit and he was probably going to be dead by tomorrow, he couldn't help the hint of pride in his voice.

"It's nice," Castiel said, and fell in, the door thumping shut behind him. Dean rolled his eyes and dropped into the driver's seat.

"You've got the understatement thing worked out really well," he grumbled, turning the key in the ignition.

"It took centuries," Castiel said flatly. Dean thought he might be serious about that, and, shaking his head, turned toward the highway, guiding the Impala carefully around dead trees and sudden dips in the forest floor.

"Your plan," Castiel said, as the wheels touched pavement and Dean turned east toward the 33, avoiding the route that would take them back through Petersburg. They could be in Washington in a few hours if he really, really pushed. "It's not as bad as I feared it would be."

"Yeah, well," Dean muttered. "Having backup helps."

"It's still not great," Castiel informed him. Even with blood and essence trickling from his nose, he managed the kind of astute expression that made Dean feel uncomfortably abashed.

"It's not," Dean admitted. "I don't know about you, but I really hate Phase 1."

Castiel's lips thinned into a hard line. Dean resisted the impulsive, unwanted urge to laugh. "I think the capture is unnecessary," he said pointedly.

"I think it's the only way we have a shot at surprising them," Dean replied. "And that's the best chance we have for all of us to live through this."

"Not you," Castiel pointed out. "They might just kill you on sight. Or once they've dragged you up in front of the nation."

"Well, they could kill you, too," Dean shot back. "You seem okay with that."

Castiel was silent a long moment. "If there is anything worth dying for," he said at last, "this is it."

Dean nodded. "Well. There it is."

"I hope it's been a long time since they've been on watch for this car," Castiel said, closing his too-blue eyes, "because it's very ostentatious."

"Watch your mouth," Dean said sharply, and, eyes still closed, Castiel smiled. Dean watched him out of the corner of his eye, and the masked faces gazed wearily back at him, and maybe it was the adrenaline running Dean's system into the ground, but after everything that had happened in the last few weeks, having Castiel at his side reassured him. Maybe they were both going to die. Maybe they were all going to die. But they had, maybe, a snowball's chance in Hell, and that was better than expected.

And if he bought Sam and Jess enough time to get out of sight, he thought he could even die in peace.

*

Castiel knew Dean's plan was all they had—and better than he'd hoped, truth be told—but he didn't have to like it.

He'd grown...attached...to the eldest Winchester over the last few weeks. He knew it was ill-advised, but it wasn't as though it had been a conscious choice. By all rights, he should really not get along at all with Dean. He was abrasive, impatient, had a tendency to lash out at the slightest provocation, and yet—and yet. Castiel saw something honest and pure in him, buried down deep where no amount of grief or loss or pain—not even eight years of Alastair and losing both his parents to magicians—had been able to touch it. It was a little, flickering light in his aura that even Dean was too blind to see; he was so twisted up by all his worries that he thought himself too corrupted to still be worth something.

And now they rode into battle, and Dean, in all likelihood, would die never knowing. The thought was half-unbearable. Humans were half-unbearable. Castiel turned back toward the window, trying to get the sudden burst of emotion under control. That was always the problem with getting accidentally attached, he thought angrily. Their lifetimes were blips in the radar, compared to his. Even bleeding essence all over Dean's leather seats, he stood a decent chance of recovery in the Other Place—as long as Azazel either died or dismissed him—but Dean's shot at survival was almost nonexistent.

"I can practically hear your negative vibes, man," Dean said. They merged onto the 81, heading north. "Think a little quieter."

"They're not negative," Castiel countered. "They're realistic. Do you know how low your chances of success are, Dean? Let alone your chances of living this encounter out."

The corner of Dean's mouth twitched up in a half-hearted smile. "You can stop advising me now, Cas. My mind's made up. Got a plan and everything."

"I know what I said," Castiel said reluctantly.

"What, half an hour ago?"

"Yes," Castiel snapped. "I know what I said. But I've lived for thousands of years, and I've nearly died multiple times over the last few decades. It's easier for me to lay down my life for a cause than someone who's barely lived. Or it should be," he added, faintly accusatory.

Dean shot him a look, eyebrows arching up. "This isn't all about me," he said sagely. "I'm not the first human who rankled your survivalist instincts."

"No," Castiel said wearily, "you're not. That doesn't make it more palpable."

"If you'd rather not watch me kick it, feel free to go find Sam," Dean said dryly. "They could use the help."

"No," Castiel said again. "I gave you my word. I just wish we had a better plan."

"Eleventh hour, Cas," the man replied, smiling again. "There are no good plans in the eleventh hour." He paused a long moment, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. The radio hummed in the background, turned down low; the rumble of the engine largely blocked out the music. "I don't want to die," he said at last, a strange calm in his voice. "Jimmy probably didn't want to, either. There's a lot left to do. Always is. But at some point, you run out of time, Cas. We've only got so many years to begin with, and I drew the short straw."

"You could have run," Castiel pointed out, feeling resentful again.

"They're watching us," Dean countered. "Probably, anyway. If I was with them, we'd all be in one place—they wouldn't have to pick who to go after. But with all of us separated, and me going for the heart of their little operation, who do you think they're going to worry about? The people fleeing or the people approaching with s-foils locked in attack position?"

"You have a point," Castiel conceded, though all but the gist of Dean's last comment was lost on him. Dean smirked.

"I've made my peace, have no god, all that shit," he said. The attempt to lighten the conversation fell horribly flat, at least for Castiel. "You probably should, too. I'm going to try to get you back to the Other Place if possible, but I doubt we'll get that lucky."

"I doubt it, too," Castiel said. "Azazel is unlikely to dismiss me. Given my little rebellion, he's more likely to kill me himself."

Dean flinched. "I'm sorry—"

"Don't," Castiel cut in. "I meant what I said. If I'm going to die—and we both know it was coming, with you or without you—I'd rather die trying to make this right."

"You make a convincing human," Dean said smugly.

Castiel sighed, choosing not to dignify this with a response. Gonna start a fire, the casette half-screamed beneath the roar of the engine. Castiel vaguely remembered the song being popular in the eighties, played over boom boxes and loudspeakers everywhere he went, until it made his very essence ache. The quiet went on for another few moments before Dean spoke again, softer this time.

"Hey, Cas?"

Castiel turned back to Dean.

"What happens to spirits when you die?" he asked, eyes fixed on the road.

Castiel shrugged. "I don't know," he said honestly. "Our afterlife is as much a mystery as yours."

"That's reassuring," Dean muttered.

"I wasn't under the impression that I was ever here to be reassuring," Castiel said darkly.

Dean huffed out a tired laugh. "Nah," he said. "Guess you weren't. You could lie, though. Offer some solace for a dead man walking."

"Dean," Castiel said sharply; the pain that lanced suddenly through his essence made his voice brittle. It wasn't funny, he thought. It wasn't funny at all. Given that it was in the habit of the world to be horribly unfair, there was probably nothing waiting for Dean on the other side, just an endless oblivion where his soul would fade out and cease to exist. All his peculiar mannerisms—his habit of laughing just when Castiel thought he was about to strike, the cocky smirk that twisted up his features even when his eyes said he knew there was no chance, the gentleness of his hands when he offered comfort—would cease to be, and if the world truly stuck to its guns, Castiel would be left in the aftermath to try and recover the pieces of himself that he'd lost to the humanity he had stupidly invested himself in.

Dean, even though he didn't look sideways to see Castiel's face, seemed to know. He reached out across the car, squeezing Castiel's shoulder. "Sorry," he offered quietly.

Castiel didn't answer, but he did lean into Dean's touch; his fingers lingered, palm warm on Castiel's borrowed shoulder, and the spirit offered no further explanation. What would he have said? That the idea of Dean sacrificing himself for this Resistance made him feel more remorseful, more resentful, than he had in decades? That he liked the man—cared about him, even, a dangerous and stupid mistake—and would miss him, when he was gone?

It would amuse Dean, certainly, but Castiel doubted it would change anything, so he let it lie, focusing on his aching essence rather than his pained hearts, of which he clearly had too many.

Chapter Text

Maybe it was because Sam was safe, or maybe it was because he'd truly made his peace, but Dean felt at ease as they approached the outskirts of Washington. Crowley's shop was in a dingy back alley—not the standard for magicians at all, but he was in disgrace; it wasn't so surprising, in the end. This would be an opportunity he couldn't pass up: Dean Winchester, leader of that pesky Resistance, walking right into his shop and handing himself over. If he didn't see that as a way to get back in with the big wigs a few miles east, then he really didn't know a good deal when he saw one.

And nothing would get them closer to the heart of the magicians' growing empire than being captured and led straight in.

From there, though, he just had to hope that Henriksen would be able to get to them in time, and maybe they could make a mess of this after all.

"Okay," he muttered, tucking his handgun into the back of his jeans. "If this is going to be convincing, we'd better look really desperate."

"I haven't checked a mirror for a few hours, but you look the part," Castiel returned. Dean rolled his eyes.

"Back at you, asshat." Castiel chuckled weakly as Dean stepped out of the car. They were still a good mile from Crowley's dingy back-alley shop, but no way was Dean leaving the Impala close to that snake. He'd been the one who sent Bela to steal it from Dean, after all. In the horrible event that Crowley survived the coming hours, Dean didn't want him to have the satisfaction of making off with the Impala.

"See you, baby," he said quietly, patting the hood for luck. Castiel, groaning, evicted himself from the other side of the car. Dean yanked the tarp out of the backseat and covered her shiny black paint with dull canvas, tugging the edges straight.

"What if Crowley doesn't turn us in?" Castiel asked, cringing as he straightened up.

"There are two things I know for sure," Dean said, gesturing for the djinn to follow him. "One, Sam is going to haul ass right back here in a few hours, and probably be very disappointed that he missed all the action. Two, Crowley knows a good deal when he sees one, and since there's nothing in it for him if we take all his stuff and ride gloriously into battle, there's no way he doesn't call his old associates on us."

Castiel gave a heavy sigh that might have been agreement or just resignation, but followed Dean forward anyway.

"What's Lilith's deal, anyway?" Dean asked his companion, remembering Petersburg. "What was Anna talking about?"

"Specifically, I don't know," Castiel returned, frowning. "She certainly seemed convinced of Lilith's chances at success, though, which is new. Anna is usually a neutral party—not one of those spirits who gets caught up in vengeance. Not like Meg. Lilith must be making convincing movements if Anna has followed her."

"The following thing didn't seem to be working out so well," Dean pointed out. "She's still taking orders from Azazel. Bastard," he muttered compulsively.

"Maybe she thinks it's only short-term," Castiel said.

"Surprised you didn't take her up on the offer. Seemed like a good one."

"I would never willingly throw myself at Lilith's mercy," Castiel said dismissively. "We have old disagreements. Much older than you," he added, as though he'd guessed that Dean was about to ask about Lawrence. "Spirits don't cultivate much in the way of bonds anymore, but we do have rivalries. Lilith and I have been pitted against one another often, and we have personality differences. It wouldn't be a good fit, no matter what Anna thinks."

Dean snorted. "'Personality differences?'"

"Some spirits have a more similar moral code to humans than others," Castiel elaborated. "Hers is fairly far from human. That's usually the case, the more powerful the spirit is. Lilith is a marid."

Dean let out a low whistle. "Didn't you take her on yourself? How'd that work out?"

If he wasn't mistaken, Castiel's wings puffed up a bit in pride, even though they were clearly worse for the wear. Dean resisted the urge to roll his eyes as the djinni preened. "It was one of my more difficult battles. She has more raw power, of course, but cunning does count for something among spirits. Obviously, I did not manage to kill her; my priority was getting the Winchesters out alive, so my techniques were meant as a mere distraction to buy us time."

"Still," Dean admitted. "Impressive."

Castiel smiled. "Thank you."

"Don't get too full of yourself," Dean added. "If we get through this alive, then you can start bragging."

"You mean if I get through this alive," Castiel pointed out. His voice was hard again, the deadpan edge a poor front for his irritation. "You are, as they say, a dead man."

"Nice," Dean muttered, rolling his eyes. They fell back into silence as they approached the dingy back alley. The door to Crowley's shop swung open before they could reach it themselves. The man himself—short, bearded, and with the typical portly stature of a shopkeeper—held it open, a look of smug satisfaction on his face.

"Dean Winchester," he called, beckoning. "Finally climbed down from your high horse, I take it?"

Crowley, like Bela, was British, and even after more than twenty years stateside, he still had a smooth, arrogant accent to prove it. He'd been a young magician when the British Empire fell, and in the chaos that followed, had fled the country before he could be prosecuted with the rest of the remaining British magicians. As far as Dean knew, he'd been a shady shopkeeper ever since, dealing in artifacts and minor demons, because the Americans didn't trust him enough to let him into their ranks.

Dean didn't blame them. He didn't go to great efforts to look particularly trustworthy, after all.

"Could you be any louder?" Dean growled. Crowley glanced past him to Castiel, but clearly didn't notice anything amiss; he probably had the contact lenses that most magicians did, but those only saw to the third plane at best, and Castiel's disguise was intact up to the seventh. If he was surprised by their bloody and beaten appearances, he didn't show it.

"It's not often that a general himself comes to see my humble business," Crowley replied, letting the door shut behind them. "I must win my credibility where I can."

"I wouldn't count on us for that," Dean said, glancing around the shop. The shelves were half-bare; whatever special stock Crowley had, he clearly kept under wraps.

"How can I help you, Dean?" Crowley said, moving around them to take up his position behind the register. Dean would be surprised if a man like Crowley had a panic button back there, but at the very least, they couldn't see his hands, and the right phone call would work just as well.

"Bela said you would deal," Dean said. "Word on the street is you've got the best stock of magical artifacts there is. The most potent."

"Given your sudden arrival in Washington," Crowley said, shuffling around beneath the register, "and judging by your brother's sudden flight with the entire Resistance toward Mexico, I suppose I can safely assume that these are to be put to immediate use." He glanced up, finally taking stock of their injuries. "Seen better times, have you."

Dean forced a laugh. "No." Castiel shuffled, suddenly anxious, beside him.

"I thought I knew all your associates," Crowley said absently, heaving a large box up to the counter. "This one's not familiar. Word on the street is you've had a demon following you around lately, Dean. Have you become that desperate?"

"I think you can tell how desperate I am," Dean gritted out. "Are you going to deal or not, Crowley?"

The disgraced magician waved a dismissive hand over the box. "See what you like. Make sure you have the coin to pay, though, Winchester."

Dean moved forward. The balance between suspicious and obvious was a difficult one, but, if all went well, he'd be knocked off his ass and dragged right into Washington in a few minutes, anyway, and then he wouldn't have to bother with this stupid play-acting at all.

Castiel let out a muffled shout behind him. Before Dean could turn and glare at him, Crowley snapped, and a load of black powder rose up out of the box. Dean tried to take a step back before he realized he was doing it, and something behind him held him in place.

"Hold still, Dean," Crowley said, a smug look of self-satisfaction plastered on his face. "This won't hurt much."

The black powder swarmed up, swept down his sinuses, and left a burning in its wake that deprived him of oxygen. Gravity tugged hard at him, and he collapsed within seconds. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

*

By the time Castiel regained consciousness, he thought it would have been better for everyone if he'd stayed asleep.

He recognized his location. He'd been summoned to the chambers multiple times by as many masters, and a number of them were in attendance. Dean, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen; undoubtedly, he was being held somewhere else. Probably, he was still unconscious. Humans were more fragile than spirits. In the meantime, Castiel was on his own.

The only small mercy was that Dean's modified Mournful Orb was still locked around his neck, which meant that no magician—not even Azazel—could do much to him in the way of punishment. They could, however, freely sic other spirits on him, and he was hardly in a position to defend himself. His freedom of movement had been taken away; he was back in a pentacle, though it was hardly necessary at this point to keep him contained.

It had been a long time since he had been so aware of his chains. They had become almost forgettable over the last several decades; in a state of constant imprisonment, one usually forgot that the bars were there and simply acted within them. But he had been free for weeks with Dean—allowed the leisure to move around, use his powers at will—and now his shackles seemed intolerable.

Castiel got to his feet within the pentacle, brushing off dusty suit pants. From across the room—amidst the swell of angry, terrified conversation—Azazel saw him stir.

By all rights, the man shouldn't have commanded as much respect as he did. He was short, for a human—Castiel found himself thinking that Dean, given the chance, would dwarf him—and he had peculiar eyes that were just this side of too yellow. Wherever they caught sunlight, they shone like molten gold. His face was heavily lined, aged beyond his actual years, his hair short and peppered liberally with gray. There was nothing particularly notable about him, and yet, as he moved across the room, the other magicians present—only the highest-ranking, Castiel noticed—fell silent as he passed, watching him with eager eyes.

"This one has been inside the heart of the Resistance," Azazel called out to the room. "And do you know what he found there? A leader powerful enough to subvert all my efforts, and turn a loyal slave against me. You all see the collar around his neck?"

The men and women in the room nodded, fearful again; their lenses would allow them to see the slim blue ring settled at Castiel's throat.

"We should have known better," Azazel continued, "than to think that John Winchester's brat wouldn't use the magic we taught him to overthrow this government. We have no defense against this, ladies and gentlemen. I had hoped that by eliminating Dean, the Resistance would crumble, but I was wrong."

The crowd whispered. Sheep, Castiel thought resentfully.

"I have no doubt that Dean has passed on his skills to his followers," Azazel went on. "This one will be interrogated. This one will tell us everything he knows. But an attack is imminent, and we need my solution to have any hope of defending against it. This Resistance is more dangerous than we could have ever imagined."

From the corner of his eye, Castiel glimpsed Lilith, disguised in the crowd as a woman with long, blond hair—the same guise she'd worn in 1983. She smiled sweetly at him. He frowned back. She had been working on this a long time, he realized absently, still watching Azazel's movements warily. Dean should have run for his life. The capitol would self-destruct in its own time.

Castiel settled in to watch. He almost wished he had popcorn.

Azazel stepped into the nearest pentacle, connected to a much larger one. "Lilith," he called, and she shuffled from the crowd, stepping delicately into the empty chalk across from him. She dropped her head respectfully.

"Ready," she said sweetly. He stared across at her and started the chant.

It would break Dean's heart not to tear through Azazel the way Lilith was about to do, Castiel reflected, but he would have to live with the fact that it had at least been done. Azazel would be no more in a matter of moments, and if Dean had any sense, he would run the instant he realized what had happened.

Lilith drained through the connecting pentacles and absorbed into Azazel. His eyes briefly shone white, the pupil and iris swallowed completely. He twitched, jerked, a puppet on disjointed strings, breathed too harshly, and then, suddenly, he was still.

"Take your pentacles," he announced firmly. "We will face their attack with more power than we have ever dared imagine."

Castiel watched him warily. He didn't seem particularly possessed, as Castiel had anticipated. The other magicians, in various states of fear and exhilaration, lined up behind one another near their chosen pentacles. Incantations echoed around the room. Castiel heard more than one name he recognized—Anael, Megaira, Abbadon, Uriel, Balthazar, Rubye—and suppressed a shudder. A few of them were djinn, but more were afrits, even marids; their summoners couldn't possibly hope to control them.

He risked another glance at Azazel, who stood calmly, apparently completely at ease, fingers drumming against his arms as he watched the proceedings. The FBI Director seemed fine. He even retained the self-possessed way Azazel usually held himself, back ramrod straight, feet firmly supportive. From what he'd heard of London, this was not exactly the way Castiel had expected a mass possession to occur.

"Can I help you, Castiel?" the man asked, and while there was still a familiar husk to the voice, the sweet undertone was unquestionably feminine. Lilith was definitely in there.

"You seem very comfortable," Castiel said carefully, wishing he had something more protective than a cage and a Mournful Orb at his disposal. If he'd been able to dispose of the pentacle, he would have had a good shot at fleeing, at least. As it stood, he was effectively waiting for Lilith to settle their old grudge.

"Oh, I am," she said amendably. "This isn't the first time he's invited me in. We're very close, Azazel and I."

"We have common goals," he added. It was Azazel's voice now; Lilith's was a mere echo.

"He has a very shrewd mind for a human," she continued. "I can appreciate his talents."

Castiel felt, unsurprisingly, nauseous. Lilith turned her attentions back to the proceedings, and Castiel found himself desperately hoping that Dean was on his way back to the Impala. Magicians were one thing, spirits were another, but the two of them, amiably working together—that was something they weren't prepared to deal with.

Chapter Text

Dean hated being knocked out.

True, it had sort of been part of the plan—an unavoidable one, in fact—but the grogginess that came after wasn't really good for survival. There were always a few minutes of struggling to remember where he'd been, what he'd been doing, why was he flat on his back in a cold cell with non-iron bars as though whoever had built it wanted to make it easier for demons to move around—

Right. Crowley's, black powder, capture. All going according to plan. The crick in his neck was unfortunate, and the bruises tenderly pulling around his knee and hip sucked, too, but that was peanuts compared to the overall situation.

They were in. He was in. Unarmed, and all that, but Phase 1 was done and Henriksen undoubtedly knew he was here, so—

There was a muffled scream in the distance. Dean sat up, listening hard, and tried not to admit how uneasy that made him. Come to think of it, this wasn't how he'd imagined the capitol being at all; the anxiety in the air seemed wrong and misplaced, somehow, as though there was more here that shouldn't be than just him. And why the hell as no one even watching him? He was a very important political prisoner—their most important, in fact, and not so much as a jabbering imp was keeping tabs on him.

There was another problem, of course. Cas was nowhere in sight. Obviously, they'd separated the pair of them for holding.

"Not a great time to make a stand, Dean."

Victor Henriksen, bald and bearded, stepped into the room. Despite the situation, Dean felt a grin sweep over his features. Reluctantly, Henriksen grinned back. He looked more disheveled than the last time Dean had seen him, his dress shirt coming untucked from his slacks, and one of his holsters was empty; the gun was firmly in hand instead.

"No time like the present," Dean shot back, getting to his feet and moving forward to the bars. "You gonna let me out of here, or what?"

"Stand back," Henriksen warned, lowering his gun to point at the lock.

Dean leapt backward again, covering his ears just in time; the shot went off, the lock smoked, and Dean rubbed furiously at the ringing in his eardrums. "Little obvious," he pointed out.

"Yeah, and I don't have time to be subtle," Henriksen said, pushing the bars open. "Like I said, Dean, this is bad timing."

There were more screams in the distance. "I'm getting that," Dean said slowly. "What the hell is going on?"

"I'm not totally sure yet," Henriksen admitted. "All I know is that a lot of high-level magicians have been in the summoning chambers for a few hours now, and by the sound of it, they're not coming out again. I don't know if it's a pissing match or what, but the sounds..."

It'll be hard to ignore us when we're running the show.

"Christ," Dean muttered, holding out a hand for his gun. Henriksen handed it over. "It's a lot worse than that."

The lines around the magician's eyes tightened. "What do you know?"

"Lilith's been Azazel's favorite pet for a long time now, right?" Dean asked. "How friendly have they been lately?"

"You think this is London again?" Henriksen said, frowning. "I have a hard time believing Azazel would be that stupid."

"I have a hard time believing Azazel wouldn't be that greedy," Dean returned. "Any chance you know where my partner is?"

"Now I really don't believe my ears," Henriksen said flatly. "You're working with that djinni?"

"Desperate times," Dean muttered.

"Azazel himself took the demon. Into the summoning chambers. Like I said, they haven't come back out. He didn't look possessed, Dean."

"What does possessed look like?" Dean said, exasperated.

"You saw the Jones report," Henriksen replied. "They take a while to get used to their bodies. Unless he's been possessed for a while, I'd have a hard time believing he is now. Totally smooth movements. Same mannerisms. It's Azazel in there, or it was a few hours ago."

"Yeah, well, it might not be anymore," Dean said. "Are my people in the building yet?"

Henriksen nodded. "They came through quietly—one of the tunnels I marked. No one noticed. You're lucky I'm a smart man, Dean."

"Luck has nothing to do with it," Dean returned. "We've gotta get in that room."

"No," Henriksen corrected, "you have to get in that room. I have to evacuate the rest of the building until we figure out what's going on. There are innocent people in here, Dean."

"Fine," Dean agreed reluctantly. "Do that. Meet up with me when you can. Which way to the summoning chamber?"

"Follow the screams," Henriksen said dryly, but pointed right down the hallway. They split off, and within sixty seconds, Dean heard the magician's booming voice, shouting for people to evacuate in an orderly fashion. Dean couldn't help his sudden smirk. That was Henriksen: fucking unshakable, even as his capitol came down around him.

If he knew his people, they would be following the screams, too. Hopefully they would meet up before he hit any serious obstacles.

*

By the time Dean burst in, Castiel had just started to believe—a little resentfully, if he was honest—that the man had actually left him to his fate. He was carrying a gun, for what little good it would do him, and the blood dripping from the bandage on his forehead had finally stopped long enough to turn to a path of rust, curving over his cheek. Castiel, conflicted between relief and anger, frowned vaguely in Dean's direction.

"Hey!" he shouted, and the assembled spirit-magician hybrids turned with varying degrees of success to look at him. Lilith was used to her borrowed body, but the rest, thankfully, were not so lucky. None of the magicians had been devoured by their possessors yet, but Castiel thought it was a close thing; Megaira in particular was a chaotic entity, and her host's facial expression frequently shifted from boredom to outright terror. Meg was undoubtedly whispering threats in the magician's mind at every opportunity.

"Dean," Azazel greeted. "Nice of you to join us."

"Yeah," Dean said, still walking, gun held at an angle toward the floor. He was quickly coming within range of Castiel, the djinni realized, and the instant Dean was beside him, just outside the pentacle, he came to a halt. Azazel was still a dozen feet away. Maybe Dean had realized that—

"Well," Dean said aggressively. "I'm here."

"I don't think anyone invited you," Castiel muttered under his breath.

"Yes," and now it was Lilith speaking. "Yes, you are. Shush," she said, her eyes flicking white. "I know you've waited a long time to get your greedy little hands on him, dear, but I need to play catch-up with Dean for a moment."

She came forward; the way she moved in Azazel's body was too fluid, too graceful, to be the man himself. "Dean, Dean, Dean," she sighed. "Always interrupting. We would have gotten to you in due time."

"What can I say," Dean replied with the hint of a smirk. His features were otherwise utterly expressionless; he didn't blink, his eyes full of her. "I'm an impatient man."

She came to a halt, a bare five feet from them. "I should really thank you," she said softly. "If it weren't for the little stunt you pulled with Castiel, I don't think I could ever have convinced him that my way was the only way."

"Dean," Castiel muttered, trying to put more urgency in his tone this time.

"No problem," Dean said, as smoothly as if he'd expected Lilith to offer him her gratitude. "Guess you owe me, huh."

"Indeed," she said. Her voice sounded alien, coming from Azazel's mouth. "And I always pay my debts. I am not ungrateful. So. What will it be?"

For a moment, Castiel thought Dean had frozen—that he was so surprised by her bizarre offer that he had nothing to come back with. A snappy refusal would have been a good start, Castiel thought, but in the next second Dean was wrenching apart his jaws and saying—

"Dismiss him."

Lilith laughed, a long, musical note. "I could give you so much, Dean. The thing you ask for is paltry in comparison to my power."

Dean's smile looked horribly forced. "I'm a simple guy," he said. "And this is not so easy. You happen to be in the only body that can let him go."

"Dean," Castiel said, louder this time. A numb chill was spreading through his essence. Lilith, caught by the sound of his voice, turned to look at him.

"He is suffering," she agreed softly. "I had no idea you were so fond of us demons, Dean."

"Thought the term was spirit," Dean said blandly.

"How very politically correct of you," she said, her eyes still on Castiel. "Why?"

"Why what?" Dean said.

"Why," Lilith said slowly, as though Dean was very stupid, "do you want to release him?"

"Look at him," Dean said flatly. "He's dying. He's been getting worse for weeks. He's done."

Castiel was vaguely aware that his entire essence was vibrating in protest. The conversation echoed shrilly in his ears; it seemed a dream, an imagining. No. He couldn't—he wouldn't. This was worse, a hundred times worse, than believing that Dean had abandoned him to his fellow hungry spirits. That Dean would send him away—would undoubtedly die alone, in this hollow, cold room, only seconds after he was enveloped in the safety of the Other Place—was unbearable. There was no sign of their backup. Were they even in the building? Did they stand even the smallest chance of reaching Dean in time? Of protecting him?

"No," he said, fiercer than he'd intended. "Use your favor on something else. I'm not going."

The pair of them ignored him, staring each other down now.

"Your kind comes too late," Lilith said, her voice almost soothing, placating. "If there had been more of you..."

"I know." Dean's voice was raw now. He'd tucked the handgun, his only futile weapon, back into the belt of his jeans. Castiel wanted to shout at him, but couldn't seem to make the appropriate sounds. "Maybe it wouldn't have come to this."

"Yes," she said thoughtfully. "Well. I suppose we'll never know. This is your boon, then? Dismiss Castiel, so that he may live?"

"Make sure," Dean said, his mouth twisted down, "that he's never, ever summoned again."

Lilith nodded Azazel's head. "Castiel has been through enough. Your sympathy is almost moving."

"Will he be satisfied with just me?" Dean said. Despite how clear the words were, they seemed warped, twisted, as though Castiel was listening through mud.

"You sell yourself short, Dean," Lilith said, a little smugly. "You are no small wanted criminal to my partner."

"Good," Dean said shortly.

"Your Resistance may even be safe for a time," the spirit continued, "if they run far and fast enough. The common people, on the other hand...we are hungry, and our hosts are hungrier still."

For a moment, the lines around Dean's eyes tightened, and Castiel thought he might call it all off and open fire. Do it, Castiel urged silently. Don't deal with her, don't bargain for my life, don't send me away, don't send me away—

"I know," he said, through the pinched look around his mouth. "Do it."

"No," Castiel said, finding his voice at last. It was panicked, desperate; it didn't sound like him at all. "No, Dean—don't do this—"

Lilith turned her back, perhaps nauseated by the display, and Dean, finally, tipped his head to look at Castiel.

He was the last gasp of a desperate man. His green eyes burned through the bruising on his cheek. He was silent, screaming fury, powerless, doing the one thing left to him to do.

"I got you into this," he said without inflection. "I pay my debts, too."

"We're not done," Castiel said, and he was begging now; he knew it by the look of pain that crossed Dean's features.

"You did what you could," Dean said, almost gently, and crossed the line of the pentacle to grasp Castiel by the shoulder. "I'm not going to hold you to it until you die in the line of fire. I'm not a magician, Cas. You're dying, and I can't—" Dean swallowed; Castiel heard the gulp, the sudden stifling of whatever was supposed to come next. "I can't have that on my conscience, man," he finished, his smile crooked.

"You're not going to have a conscience much longer if you don't let me help you," Castiel snapped, lifting a hand to grasp Dean's arm. Dean's palm moved to his cheek; through the pain, his green eyes were strangely wistful. "Don't send me away, Dean. Don't—"

He faltered, unable to repeat it; Dean's thumb swept over his cheekbone, and he tried to look, to see what Dean had to be trying to tell him, but in those eyes there was only warmth and regret and something like a desperate plea.

"Trust me," he said, his crushingly gentle. "Castiel, come on. It's me."

He couldn't seem to deny Dean that. He nodded, without giving his essence express permission to do so. Dean's touch lifted; as he stepped back, Castiel's fingers fell, numb, from his elbow. The space between them yawned, cavernous, open and empty and cold.

"Lilith," Dean said, his voice too thick, his eyes still fixed on Castiel's face. "Do it."

Lilith, still grimacing with Azazel's lips, strode back to them. Castiel tried to straighten up within his pentacle, to stare down the adversary who would do him this last great injustice, and she didn't know the half of it. She had no idea how deep this wound would go, even though she sneered in pleasure as she spoke the words. But he couldn't look at her, not properly, anyway, when Dean held his gaze fast, unblinking, deliberate.

Just before the last, Dean's green eyes strayed from his to look over Castiel's shoulder. His lip twitched up, knee-jerk, into a triumphant smirk, just before he caught Castiel's gaze again—and winked.

Before Castiel could shout, before he could call an end to the Dismissal, he felt his essence being pulled softly from the Earth, and he was powerless to resist. What could I have done? he thought, giving up sight and sound as he drained away, Dean's features frozen in his mind's eye. He would have died, slaughtered, cut down at Dean's side, had he stayed. Maybe Dean had something planned, or maybe he didn't; it wasn't his problem, not now.

But it would never be that simple, he thought. When it came to Dean, it could never be that easy, and if he just had a way to claw his way back from the Other Place, to appear miraculously at Dean's side—but he didn't.

He was alone with his grief, and perhaps he'd never forgotten how that felt, but the pain was sharper than it had a right to be.

Chapter Text

Dean dropped to the ground just in time. A dozen feet from him, flying through the air, a silvery orb exploded. He put his head down, covering his ears, and felt the muffled blast sweep over him, just before someone—magician or spirit, it was hard to tell—started screaming in agony.

He only had a few seconds while they were distracted. A few seconds to slip out of sight, take cover somewhere safe, and go after Cas. His plan didn't seem likely to work, but he hadn't bargained on these half-possessed hybrids crashing the party, and given the circumstances, he was doing what he could.

While Henriksen and a familiar female voice—Jody, he thought—shouted from the doorway and lobbed more orbs into the fray, Dean scrambled away, toward the door at the opposite end of the summoning chambers. He tried, very pointedly, not to think about the look on Castiel's face as he'd begged Dean not to send him away, but he didn't think he would forget that. If he lived long past this whole incident, he would never, ever forget that horrified look of betrayal.

I'm coming, Cas, he thought, straightening up outside the opposite end of the summoning chamber. Just give me a few minutes, buddy.

The ritual wouldn't be difficult. Certainly no difficult than summoning a run of the mill spirit, and, in fact, probably easier; any broken pentacle would be good enough, and Dean guessed that he could find silver or iron in any abandoned office. The real question was whether he would have a body to come back to when this was all over, or if the magician-spirits would have found and devoured it by then.

"Dean!"

Jo's eyes were bright, just this side of too wild; Charlie, beside her, looked significantly more grounded, if half-terrified.

"Hey," he said, relief sweeping through him. "Everyone okay?"

"Without a hitch," Charlie said, resting her shotgun against her shoulder. "What's the plan?"

"I need you to keep them busy," Dean said, his mind already racing away, toward the Other Place—toward Cas. "For fifteen, maybe thirty minutes. Kill what you can. Some of the lower-level magicians are going to help you."

"Why?" Jo said, alarmed. "What are you going to do?"

"We're going to need better firepower to take down Lilith," Dean said, trying to sound reassuring. "I have to go after Cas. He got dismissed."

"Dean," Charlie said urgently, "that's suicide."

"Everyone can shut up about that anytime," Dean growled. "I've got a plan. We've got a plan. I don't have time to explain it because a bunch of spirits decided to crash the party, but trust me, okay? I know what I'm doing."

Reluctantly, they let him pass. He headed for the nearest stairs, aiming to hide out in a forgotten dusty room somewhere while he attempted to pass through the Gate, and heard Jo yell for one of the spirit's attention just as the fire doors slammed behind him.

The true depths of the building went down, not up, and he was already several levels underground if Henriksen's memorized maps were anything to go by. The summoning chambers were on the fourth floor below the surface. There were at least twenty going deeper, if he remembered correctly.

When there were no more stairs to half-fall down—and the echoes of explosions and roars of pain had subsided into the distance—Dean turned off into an old office. The hardwood floor was mostly covered with a rug, but when he pulled it back, an old pentacle, connected to its larger partner, stared up at him. He rummaged through the drawers of the nearby desk until he found enough iron tokens to fill his pockets. Pulling a knife from his belt, he broke through the lines that would have made it a complete circle. Quickly, deliberately, he pulled off his jacket, bunching it up to use as a pillow. He shivered without the extra layer; it was cold down here, in the deepest reaches of the building.

He sat, trying to get comfortable, and finally, finally, closed his eyes, curled up on the ground. From here, he could feel the gentle vibration of the entire building.

His heart was too loud in his ears; upstairs, people were running, screaming. This was the easy part, he told himself. Like taking a nap. And when I come back…

He knew what he planned to do when he came back, but the thought left him nauseous. It was a long shot, and even if he made it through the Gate and back in one piece, their chances were still slim. Hopefully the lesser spirits were dead by now, and only the high rollers would be left for them to take care of. It would require careful timing, and a lot more firepower than they currently had. Dean shuddered, struck suddenly by a bleakness so all-encompassing that he couldn't breathe.

He'd had little enough idea how to even stagger the magicians themselves, but when it came to spirit involvement, he knew they were depressingly outnumbered. Castiel was one drained djinni, and after this trip, if Jimmy's old research couldn't be put into practice, Dean would probably be more helpless than before, but he couldn't imagine facing them at all without Castiel.

Before he could change his mind, he spoke the summoning incantation, swapping out the spirit's name and putting his own in its place. At the end, he called Castiel's name: three times, and then silence.

It didn't take long for stiffness to set in. Dean's body was battered and bruised, worse than it had been in months, and every joint protested his prone position on the cold, hard floor. He tried not to focus on the weight that seemed to settle him into the very ground—the horrible discomfort—it would tie him to the world rather than let him drift away from it.

The shouts and explosions were even more distant now, and the soft vibration beneath his cheek had stopped. He wondered if the hybrids had moved out into the open world, and suppressed a cringe. Their best chance was to keep the building contained. Without that boundary, they might never catch up with the worst of the spirits loose in the world.

There was a bell ringing, somewhere, and it was getting louder while all the other noise faded. Dean tried to shift, to ease his discomfort a little, but felt no reaction from his body. The ringing intensified, long and without break. Finally, hoping he would see something a little more promising than the underside of a broken down desk, he opened his eyes.

The room was spread out beneath him. There he was, already looking cramped and cold, his feet just barely fit into the pentacle. He was still rising, or maybe falling—it was hard to tell, at the speed he was moving—but the hallways spidering out from the room where he was hidden were clear, and the streets, now that he could see them, were still neatly organized, cars moving like ants along designated paths. The spirits and their human hosts were still contained, then. That was a start, anyway.

As quickly as he had noticed the building, though, it was gone; he turned his attention back to the drawn-out ringing, vaguely annoyed by the noise, and the world twisted out of focus. In the next instant, it was gone. He was hurtling through empty space—there was the sudden impression of being twisted and pulled, prodded and stretched, burned and frozen, and the rage of the boundary between worlds pushed in on him as though to crush him—but then he was cast adrift in a sea of light and color and sound, dazed, as the ringing faded.

He was through the Gate. This was the Other Place.

He had no form here, which was more annoying than anticipated; he'd taken being a fixed point in space a little too much for granted before this moment. There was nothing to him, though he could see all right. If this was being a spirit, he thought he'd pass. It made him a little nauseous, even though there was no sign at all of him having a stomach.

That gave him a vague jolt of panic. How the hell was he supposed to locate a single djinni in this swirling mess?

Castiel, he tried, though being disembodied, he doubted he had much volume. The swirling fronds of matter nearest him perked up at the thought, though. A reaching tendril of pale mauve came a little bit closer and waved, as though listening. Castiel, he repeated, and the tendril vanished.

Frustration mounting, Dean looked around again—though it wasn't as if he had stopped seeing in the first place. The sea of colors and lights stretched on, and on—there was no horizon, so "as far as they eye could see" was a poor description. It seemed endless. It was a little like being caught in a cold waterfall, constantly pummeled and manhandled, unable to see anything but the most minute detail, but surrounding him for miles. And in the lights and colors, images flickered—brief snatches of faces, places. Some even looked familiar. He thought he saw John, head bent over a desk, and Sam, only five years old and reaching up with grubby hands, but when he tried to move toward them, they left as easily as they'd come.

Cas, he thought again, increasingly desperate now. I don't know how long it's been, but I think we're running out of time, and you need some damn signposts, man. I can't find you.

Relax. A familiar voice reached out; it was less a sound, and more a feeling, the sensation of being engulfed carefully in warmth and the grit of sand. If he had had eyes, he would have closed them in relief; it was like the barest fingertip touch on his skin, grounding him amidst this sea of change. You haven't been here long.

Oh, thank fuck, Dean replied. The nearest bright blue peel of matter came forward, closer. I thought I would never find you.

The chuckle felt like balmy waves, washing over skin he no longer had. On second thought, Dean thought he could actually like it here. It was confusing as hell, but given the time, he could appreciate the vast feeling of this place, battering against him incessantly.

You've only been here a few seconds, Castiel teased. He seemed lighter, somehow, airier—less bogged down than he had been on Earth. He seemed free. Dean realized now that, modified Orb or no, Castiel had always been in chains. Some prettier than others, some trickier, but always shackled. You weren't looking that hard, Dean.

Felt like it, Dean shot back, trying to move closer to that blue tendril, but moving himself anywhere seemed too difficult.

Stop fixating, Castiel told him. I'm no more in that spot than I am in any other. Everything is jumbled here. We're all spirits, made of the same essence—it all mixes.

Dean paused. If we're the same, how are we talking, then?

I meant that our matter is mixed, Castiel returned patiently. In terms of a single point, a separation—there is none. Except for our consciousness. That is separate.

Place is weird, man.

Yes, and now Castiel's voice—thoughts—whatever—had a dry tone to them. I could say the same of Earth. I believe you have more important matters to attend to than philosophical musing on the state of one's identity?

Don't use big words just because, Dean shot back automatically, and Castiel laughed again. It was so soothing, that feeling. It reminded Dean of the warm hugs he'd once received from Sam as a kid. It reminded him of a cat pouncing on his feet, purring on his chest. A hand on his shoulder, reassuring. It was like home. But, yeah, I'm—wait. I lost track. I was expecting you to be kind of...angry.

For what? Castiel asked, serious again. Sending me away? Trying to save my life? Anger is the wrong word, Dean. I felt only grief. And now I'm simply glad that you appear to be still alive—though whether you will be or not once you go back to Earth remains to be seen.

Have a little faith, Cas, Dean said. I had a plan.

A hasty, last-minute plan, knowing you.

Those are the best kind.

So why are you here, Dean? Castiel said, and now all traces of joking were gone. What are you trying to accomplish?

You mentioned, Dean said slowly, that Jimmy was working on stuff. That there's a way to send me back better. Less human, more spirit.

Castiel's pause was numbing, not the balmy summer night of before, complete with fireflies and frogs croaking. Now it was a waterfall, cold and harsh, sudden and disorienting.

It's not reversible, Dean, Castiel told him, full of foreboding. It's not something you can cut out when you're done saving the world.

I know, Dean returned, uncomfortable.

His research was never tested, the spirit went on. For obvious reasons. I don't know what changes it will make on you. You might end up more spirit than human.

Runnin' out of options, Cas, Dean said, impatient. Beggars can't be choosers. Besides, this place seems okay. And I'd have company. And I wouldn't die, which you always get so up in arms about.

Yes, it's so illogical of me, Castiel deadpanned. Dean, even if this succeeds, you can't hope to be powerful enough to take on Lilith.

I just need to be powerful enough to distract her for a while, Dean said. Maybe lead her around. Wouldn't be so hard.

For a while, Castiel was quiet again. Dean watched the movement of the little lights, adrift on the waves of sound and color, and tried to track the flow of textures rising and falling within it all. They faded as soon as they were born, thrown back to the ether.

If I do this, Castiel began. If I send you back to Earth with the right incantation.

Yeah, Dean replied. We're burnin' daylight, Cas.

If the djinni had been corporeal, Dean suspected that he would have rolled his eyes.

You have to swear that you'll summon me back, too, he said. If it's at all within your power, you have to bring me with you.

Dean felt a vague jerk of revulsion. He couldn't tell if it came from him, or from one of the thousands of other beings swarming here, listening to Castiel offer up his servitude when he was still so broken.

There are a few reasons why I don't like that plan, Dean started carefully.

Oh? Castiel seemed unimpressed.

One, there's no way your essence has healed enough to do us much good.

Unimportant. If it's a distraction we're aiming for, I'm healed enough.

Two, Dean pressed on. There is still the very strong possibility that I am going to die very soon, and if you're hanging around when it happens, you're probably going to die, too.

This preoccupation with my good health is very touching, Dean, Castiel replied, weary now. But I thought we agreed that beggars can't be choosers. Besides, this is my war as much as it is yours. I have a right to be there.

Three, and most importantly, Dean continued, ignoring this, there is only one way to summon a spirit, and it makes him a slave. I can't chain you like that, Cas. It's not...it's wrong.

Castiel's silence was worse this time, deafening and devoid of any of the feelings of before. Dean waited nervously. When feeling trickled back through the sound and light of Castiel's consciousness, it was gentle, welcoming.

Break the pentacle before you summon me, Castiel said, and we'll both be free.

Dean let that sink in a moment, before he wondered what was so strange about it, and then he realized; it was because he wasn't afraid. He didn't for a second think that Castiel would flow into that pentacle and murder him out of spite. He trusted the djinni—and Castiel trusted him, because he had let Dean in.

Okay, Dean agreed, glad he didn't have a voice to get choked up by this sudden, overwhelming display of trust. I'll do it.

The pentacle you used to get here, you broke it, too? Castiel asked.

Yeah, Dean confirmed. Otherwise I'm guessing our dynamic from here on out would be a little unusual.

Castiel laughed at that. Dean, he said, and it was like Castiel was murmuring in his ear, like a puff of breath was rustling his hair. You are truly an extraordinary man.

The light and sound pressed in from all sides, swamping him, engulfing him, but with Castiel's words anchoring him it didn't seem like he would drown. And then, all too soon, the Other Place expelled him, and he hurtled to the Earth, too exhilarated to be afraid.

*

It was no time at all before Castiel felt himself being pulled from the Other Place.

He suspected that Dean had barely had the time to straighten up inside his new body and scuff out a line from the neighboring pentacle before he started chanting, but that was Dean; they were, as he'd said, burning daylight. Castiel submitted himself to the tumult of the Gate and painfully assembled Jimmy's form as he materialized on Earth. The brief respite had done his essence good, but he was still brittle, fragile. One gust of wind wouldn't knock him out anymore, but any good hit from a fellow spirit certainly would.

And Dean—

Dean had aged ten years, at least, in what had barely been ten minutes. There were wings of silver in the hair at his temples, speckles of gray throughout his light brown scruff; the lines on his forehead, around his eyes, around his mouth had all deepened; the shadows under his eyes were more pronounced. But his eyes—his eyes burned. What had been soft green now glowed with raw ability as he finished the summoning; the light of them shone through the dark, dusty room, drowned out the screams and explosions still coming from above. The Other Place was bright in Dean's eyes, as though he'd brought a part of it with him.

He let his hands fall.

Castiel's essence was brittle, but the shackles weren't there. He could, at any time he wished, flit back to the Gate and dart through to the Other Place; and then, again, he could return to Earth. He let out a disbelieving laugh, and Dean grinned; the glow ceased, transforming his features back to the man Castiel knew, if a little older, more weathered.

"Holy shit, Cas," he said; there was delight in every new line of his face. "This feels incredible."

"What can you do?" Castiel asked, stepping out of his pentacle. Dean did the same, completely unperturbed by Castiel's movement, and something strange clenched up in the djinni's borrowed throat.

If he had had any doubt of Dean's trust, it was long gone. Dean approached him as though he had no fear, and before he could say another word, he found himself wrapped tight in Dean's arms, one of Dean's hands threading through his hair. His essence swarmed closer to Dean's touch, basked in the proximity. It was so intimate that it should have been revolting, but he felt Dean's grin against his cheek and his heart racing too fast against Castiel's chest and it was, instead, brilliance itself—and then, just as soon as Dean had embraced him, he was letting go.

"Don't know," he said, his eyes bright—not with the power humming under his skin, but with some emotion Castiel hardly recognized. He didn't say a thing about the sudden outburst of physical affection; if Castiel's essence hadn't still been clamoring, he would have thought he had imagined it. "Let's go find out, though, huh?"

Numbly, Castiel nodded. Still smiling—a little sheepishly now—Dean led the way out toward the stairs.

He wasn't pure spirit—no, he still had a body, a body that would have to be left behind whenever he journeyed to the Other Place. Castiel wondered if it would continue to decay, or if it was just a shell, one that would go on housing Dean without aging because of the being encased inside it; Jimmy's research hinted at the latter, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. He didn't throw off a higher-plane form the way other spirits did, but he did throw off shadows, big things, peculiar shapes and creatures that had no name; they moved in his footsteps as though they were all contained within him.

"Okay," Dean said with a strained face as they jogged up the stairs. "I can't transform the way you can."

"You still have a physical body," Castiel pointed out. "I'm not surprised by that."

"I can still see," he continued. "Like before. But the eighth plan is clearer now."

"Dean," Castiel groaned. "Posturing."

"I'm not!" Dean said indignantly. He didn't appear to be sweating, or even breathing more quickly than usual, but Castiel had felt that heart beat—too frantic for a human. "I'm serious, Cas, I can see it. It's there."

"Congratulations," the djinni returned acidly. "You're a higher rank than me, then."

Dean grinned. "Aww, Cas, don't be jealous. I still can't make myself into a bird and fly away."

"Try a Detonation," Castiel said, ignoring this.

"Like a tutorial for every RPG I've ever played," Dean muttered, and screwed up his face. As they hit the tenth landing, he lifted a hand, his eyes snapped suddenly bright, and a smoking crater erupted in the wall just in front of them, exposing the bedrock on the other side. Dean whooped in delight.

"Awesome," he said smugly. "So, I have a plan."

"So you've said," Castiel returned. The scent of smoking plaster followed them down the next flight of stairs. The explosions were getting closer, now, and jumbled up in them were the screams and moans and jabbering of spirits being assaulted. How long had it been since Dean left that room? Thirty minutes? An hour?

"Yeah, see, the thing is," Dean continued, still not breathing heavily at all, "I've got a guy on the inside. Henriksen. Magician. Started sympathizing with the cause when Dad and Bill were killed. He's been feeding us information ever since. So I know this building better than I should, and I've learned one very important thing about magicians."

"They have horrible fashion sense?" Castiel asked.

Dean snorted. "Besides that. They're paranoid bastards. I don't know how they manage to keep so many of you enslaved—you terrify them. So they're always prepared for something catastrophic to happen, especially in that big summoning chamber. Problem is," and Dean cocked his head to the side, listening, "it sounds like they've moved out of that area, whatever's left, anyway. We've gotta get the big guns back in there, because there's one big awesome send-Dorothy-home button that could solve all our problems. Whatever happened in London scared the shit out of all of them, because they made that thing powerful enough to drain the worst baddies right out of there."

Castiel only vaguely remembered The Wizard of Oz. He hadn't liked it.

"With any luck, not that we're known for that kind of thing," Dean continued, "it'll take the magicians along with them, and shazam, problem solved."

"It can't just be a button," Castiel pointed out.

"No, there's an incantation, there's always an incantation, and technically I think it's actually a switch hooked up to a hell of a lot of electricity, and yes, before you ask, it takes a lot of power, but I think I can handle that now." Dean paused to take a breath. "You need to find and throw the switch, and I'll get my people to help me lead them in. Once they're all in there, I'll say the chant, through to the Other Place they go, and everyone's happy."

"Do you understand the amount of power it will take to hold the rip between our worlds open for that long?" Castiel demanded. "I think you might be overestimating your strength, Dean."

"Maybe," Dean said honestly. "But of the two of us, I've obviously got more juice right now. When you've rested up, we'll have to compare notes, see if we're on more of an even playing field than you think." He grinned, and it was such an outlandish invitation, so absurd and cocky, that Castiel couldn't help but laugh.

Dean threw up a hand. They skidded to a halt, listening. The hallway outside rumbled; there were rogue spirits not ten feet from them.

"You ready?" Dean asked quietly, his eyes glowing suddenly bright again. The shadows multiplied, changed so swiftly that Castiel could hardly make out the individual shapes, and Dean's smirk was both anxious and excited. He was chomping at the bit, more bright and fierce and hopeful than Castiel had ever seen him, and Castiel's borrowed heart swelled up in his chest at the sight.

"Ready," Castiel confirmed, and Dean kicked down the door.

Chapter Text

Dean had never felt his mortality more keenly than when he was no longer, technically speaking, mortal. At least, he definitely didn't feel mortal.

All that rage—all that powerlessness—burst forth from the dam that had stopped it all up inside him, because he didn't need to hide it anymore, because he wasn't powerless anymore. Thanks to Castiel, he was free. For the first time in his life, he could do something more than scrape their best shot together and pray.

He was their best shot now, and he wasn't just the last available option; he was a good choice. He could see this through.

Castiel transformed beside him, a sudden, lithe panther, and took off through the chaos, drawing the attention of the assembled spirits away from Dean. He picked his first target and fired; the resulting Detonation was powerful enough to send the entire hallway rippling backward. The spirit nearest him gaped through its host, and he flung out a hand, trying to focus on a single intent, recalling the basic attacks most spirits used—and the magician and its rider went up in a sudden torrent of flame. From the other end of the hallway, he heard Castiel yell in encouragement.

He hardly felt drained, though he knew the magic was more powerful than a standard attack for a djinni. Sweeping his arms forward, he summoned a wind strong enough to force them all backward again, closer to the open door of the summoning chamber. All of the spirits in this hallway were djinn, he could see that clearly now—a formidable foe, had he still been human, especially in a pack like this.

He sensed, though, that Lilith and her fellow marids would be the only ones to offer him much of a challenge.

"There are more," Castiel called out, quickly shutting the door that the spirits had been forced through. Dean, as soon as it had occurred to him to move, was at Castiel's side, bringing down the silver gate that locked over the exit to the summoning chamber. It stung, but just barely; the iron still jangling in his pockets hadn't registered at all, though he wasn't touching that with his bare skin.

"Is Lilith still inside?" Dean asked, turning toward the next hallway. They ran, side by side, Castiel's trench coat flapping out behind him; he was Jimmy again, wearing fresh bruises beneath his five o'clock shadow.

"I didn't see her," Castiel said, and took off again, wading through a swarm of spirits engaged with lower-level magicians, who were valiantly fighting back. Dean picked his targets more carefully this time, eliminating individual spirits one by one to avoid frying the magicians who were fighting on their side. Henriksen was among them, sweating profusely; he had long since traded his pistols for a shotgun. Jody, too, was firing at will, Garth only a few paces from her.

"Dean?!" he shouted, astonished, as Dean cut through the crowd, weakening the magicians casting through their spirit companions with a hearty array of Fluxes; from there, a few rounds from a pistol or shotgun would ground them.

"Don't ask!" Dean yelled back, catching one of the more potent spirits in the hallway with a Hurricane. Garth whooped with glee, the sound ragged with disbelief. The magician it was riding screamed in terror as it spiraled up toward the ceiling, trapped in the forceful gale.

"Where are the others?" Dean asked, holstering his power for the moment; the hallway was still, and Castiel was back at his side.

"In the other three hallways, leading out of the summoning chamber," Jody answered, swiftly reloading her shotgun. "Trying to contain them. There's a switch—"

"I know, I know, I'm getting there," Dean said.

"What the hell happened to you?" Henriksen asked, eyeing Dean's smoking palm with suspicion. Garth appeared more interested in the new lines on his face; Dean hadn't yet managed to look in a mirror, but he thought the change was probably significant.

"I went to the Other Place," he said shortly, "and got juiced up. Jimmy Novak did some research in the 1980s. Just had to put it to practice." At Henriksen's look of discomfort, Dean pressed, "Look, I'll explain it all later, we don't have time, the others—"

"This way," Garth urged, and they took off for the next corridor.

Bobby was here, hurling elemental spheres with uninterrupted rhythm to keep the spirits and their magicians as close to the summoning chamber as possible. A small band of lower-level magicians—all mere clerks, by the scrawny, underfed look of them—were huddled up behind him, casting cloaking and distraction spells.

It was the best they could do, but Dean could do better. He raised a Hurricane and sent it off; it carried the majority of the spirits, stammering in protest, back into the summoning chamber. He only hoped that they remained disoriented enough on the other side to not go streaming back out the two doors that were still open.

There were two spirits left in the hallway—a djinni and an afrit, controlling their respective magicians: a slight woman with fierce red hair, and a hulking man in a crisp business suit.

"Anna," Castiel said bleakly. "This—this isn't the answer—"

She darted forward to attack, and Dean planted an Inferno in her way. She reeled back, her magician's skin bubbling horribly, the woman trapped inside shrieking distantly; she sounded like a mere echo.

"What is this?" the man demanded; his voice was two octaves too low to hear comfortably. "What are you?"

"Dean," he said, raising his palm. "Nice to meet you."

His Detonation didn't have as much of an effect on the afrit, though he still leapt back, hissing. Bobby took up again with the elemental spheres, keeping the spirits distracted while Dean hurriedly planted attacks—a Flux, another Inferno, until the air was full of fire and thick black smoke, and the spirits were breaking free of their human vessels, no longer able to stay contained in something so damaged. Their disorientation was great enough that Dean's quick Hurricane swept them back into the summoning chamber, and he slammed the door after them, locking the silver in place.

"What have you gotten yourself into, boy?" Bobby barked.

"Later," Dean said. "We've got to get to the others, there are two more hallways—"

"I know," Bobby grumbled. "One of them's already shut off. The one we first came through—one of those spheres of Crowley's buried the whole damn area. No one's getting out through there."

"So it's just one left," Dean said. "Where's Rufus?"

Bobby shook his head. "Buried. Too close to the explosion. Don't know if he's still alive in there, but we didn't have time to check. Annie too."

"Dammit," Dean muttered. A whoop came from the next hallway over; he recognized Jo's voice, ringing out in a taunt undoubtedly directed at a nearby spirit. Castiel close at his side, he took off, following the sound of Jo's continued cursing.

She and Charlie were backed up to the end of the hallway, running out of ground to hold. Lilith fought with her lieutenants, shaking off the spray of silver rounds and the pop of elemental spheres with only moderate difficulty. She and Azazel moved seamlessly, deflecting, dodging; Dean could see them wearing down, but not nearly enough, and two more spirits, both riding women with dark hair—one short and slight, the other tall and curvy—were still battling beside her.

"Go find it!" Dean shouted to Castiel. "I'll see you in there!"

His voice got Lilith's attention; while she was distracted by his sudden, bizarre reappearance, Castiel skirted around her and fled to the summoning chamber. A resounding cry from the spirits trapped within went up, and Dean knew he had to make it fast, or Castiel would be torn to shreds.

Lifting a hand, Dean stared down the hallway at Lilith. "Miss me?"

"Dean," they growled back, and it wasn't Lilith but Azazel. "I should have known better than to—"

Dean set off the Inferno. Lilith and her host leapt back, narrowly avoiding the blaze. Dean hefted an unbroken orb from the ground nearby and tossed it into the fray; it shattered, booming with impressive force and volume when it made contact with the flames, spraying the whole hallway with shards of silver. The pungent scent of rosemary filled up the room from floor to ceiling, and Dean didn't think he would ever be able to eat anything like that again, because it turned his stomach in a surprisingly forceful fashion.

Lilith recovered quickly, but he was ready; ducking the Compression flung out by the shorter woman, he sent out enough sparks to confuse an already bright and smoky fray, and ran past while Azazel was still coughing. "Come on!" he roared, passing through the doorway. "I'm right here, come and get me—!"

Through the door, where the smoke cleared, he spotted Castiel, hovering near a panel in the far wall. The chambers echoed with the jabber of dozens of imprisoned spirits, and when Dean turned back toward the threshold, Lilith had crossed over in pursuit, her two lieutenants in tow. That was it, as good as he was going to get, so he threw up a harsh wind and slammed the door behind him, letting the silver jar into place on the other side. He heard his people shout from the other side, demanding to be let in, but he didn't have time—he had to make this happen, and make it fast.

"Now!" he shouted, and Castiel threw the switch. The entire building groaned, the lights flickered, and slowly, surely, a pinprick of darkness grew in the center of the room.

"You little cockroach," Azazel snarled behind him, "you'll take the entire damn city down with you—"

Dean didn't dodge the Detonation in time; it singed the length of his arm when it exploded, making his exposed flesh bubble. The pain was distant, as though his connection to his body was superfluous now, but it hurt somewhere deeper, somewhere sharper, than a flesh wound—whatever part of him that had transformed to essence rather than matter was feeling it, and it was draining him.

He ran, dancing out of their reach, making his way to Castiel and giving the growing vortex at the middle of the room a wide berth. It tugged, peripherally, on his limbs, but he was more man than essence, he thought, and as long as he stayed outside the boundaries of the thing—there was a painted, enormous pentacle, marking out the edges of the room—he would be fine. But the portal needed the words to open wide enough to drag them all back to the Other Place—

He chanted, the incantation he had memorized the moment that Henriksen had sent it out of Washington, like the rest of the reports that had spelled out in no uncertain terms how doomed they all were; and while he shouted, he ran for Castiel. The djinni's teeth were gritted, his manifested form beginning to warp at the edges, his wings straining to hold him back from the tear and to keep the switch thrown—

"Go!" Dean shouted, finishing the first repetition as he skidded to a halt beside Cas. "You have to get further back, it'll take you through!" He placed his hands over the djinni's on the switch, and Castiel, reluctantly, nodded; he stepped back, slipping his fingers from beneath Dean's, to a dozen feet from the enormous pentacle's boundaries, safely out of harm's way, as close to the first door they'd closed as he could get.

Dean started the incantation again. The spirits nearest the center were already being drained into the tear, crying out as they went; this wasn't the Gate, not the traditional buffer between worlds, but something worse, something sinister, something that could rip them apart as they fell through, and certainly killed their hosts on impact.

Lilith and her lieutenants, despite their best efforts, were being dragged to the torn edge of reality, too; Azazel's yellow eyes were fixed defiantly on Dean, blood vessels erupting in the whites, Lilith's voice screaming on his lips. His fingernails tore off as he clawed at the hardwood floor. The man who had been so composed, so deliberate when he announced the death of Dean's father, was apoplectic with rage now, decomposed with his indignation at his impending death.

"Do not pass Go," Dean muttered, and started on the final repetition. He had finally started to sweat.

*

Dean was fading.

He was powerful, but not that powerful, and his strength was new, easily sapped; Castiel heard him gritting his teeth through the final words, saw the sweat soaking through his thin t-shirt, the flickering brilliance of his green eyes, and knew he was almost out of energy. He hovered as close as he dared, kept back by Dean's warning hand, ready to spring to his aid if it was possible for him to do so. That Dean was hardly compelled by the growing tear in reality spoke to his remaining human identity; no spirit inside that pentacle could have resisted the pull of that deep, terrible darkness.

Lilith was swallowed up, Azazel dragged with her, before Dean sagged and let go; the singularity collapsed on itself, and Dean fell to his knees.

The silence was deafening, until Dean gasped.

Castiel ran forward, ducking under Dean's arm before he could get all the way to the floor. "Hey, Cas," he greeted sleepily, his green eyes half-open.

"Don't go to sleep," Castiel ordered, his voice shaking. The tear had pulled so horribly at his essence, and Dean's weight was too much for him, but he couldn't let him fall. "If you go to sleep—"

"Right," Dean agreed, trying to get his feet back beneath him. Castiel helped, pulling Dean's weight upward, but when he was there, Dean still had to lean heavily on him for support. "Think I'm out of juice," he slurred.

At that moment, the last door that Dean had slammed shut banged open; the surviving members of the Resistance poured through, weapons at the ready, arms full of glowing spheres. Jo caught sight of Dean first; her sigh of relief was loud enough to reach Castiel, a hundred yards away.

"I can't," Dean croaked. "Cas, I've gotta sit, I'm so busted…"

"Told you," Castiel said, a little petulant, and slowly lowered his weight to the floor. Dean stretched his legs out with a groan, holding his blackened, dead arm away from his body. Castiel kept him sitting half upright, an arm supporting Dean's shoulders. They trembled minutely against him.

"Dean," Charlie called out, her voice reedy with shock. The group was approaching fast. "Dean, what happened?"

"They're gone," Dean reassured, though he didn't speak loud enough for them to hear yet. "They're gone, right, Cas?"

"They're gone," Castiel confirmed, tightening his hold on Dean's shoulders.

"Where?" Jody asked, shotgun still ready in her hands; they all stopped about two feet back from Dean, giving him space. Jo dropped down to one knee. Castiel saw Dean try to smile at her, though it seemed more like a cringe. She let out a hoarse laugh of disbelief, but her eyes stared at his damaged limb.

"The failsafe," Dean rasped. "It worked. Sucked them all in. Probably got torn up en route to the Other Place, if we're lucky. Look, I need to rest for a few minutes, okay? But Bobby—Jo—Jody—please, go check the rubble in the first hallway. We need to find Rufus and Annie, whether they're alive, or…"

Dean trailed off; the idea that they could have died obviously pained him. He coughed. Jo rose fluidly to her feet, nodding, and took off with Bobby and Jody at her side. Jody slipped her hand through the crook of Bobby's elbow, rested her cheek against his shoulder, and draped her free arm around Jo's shoulders. They all slumped a little, relief weighing them down.

"We should check the building," Charlie said. There were tears glittering on her face, but she didn't seem to have noticed them; she made no move to wipe them away. "Make sure that—if anyone's hiding out, or if there's any more that got past us—"

"You and Garth," Dean agreed, coughing again. "And Henriksen." The magician nodded, swinging his shotgun to his shoulder. "But be careful. Check every floor above this one—they would have tried to get out to the street. The survivors can wait. If there's still a threat, we've gotta contain it."

Charlie nodded jerkily, climbing to her feet too. She, Henriksen, and Garth left, heading for the hallway closest to the stairs, and the summoning chamber was quiet again. As soon as they were out of sight, Dean sagged back into Castiel's support, no longer trying to hold himself up.

"You're fine," Castiel reassured, even as Dean made a low, wounded noise in his throat. "We'll get out of here, and you'll be fine."

Dean's teeth chattered; a fine tremble went through him as his body succumbed to shock. Castiel lowered himself to a sitting position, cross-legged, and gently braced Dean's shoulders against his thigh, letting his head rest back on the muscle. Despite his obviously limited faculties, Dean's fingers clung tight into Castiel's arm as the djinni lowered him gently down, letting the tile floor take the whole of his weight.

"Can't go yet," Dean muttered. "I've gotta rest. Five minutes. Please."

"Maybe ten," Castiel hedged. "I'm worried about the stability of the building after what you did."

Dean smiled at that. "What we did. We've got time. They wouldn't have built the thing if the building couldn't stand it." He took a deep breath; the way the air shuddered out of him told how hard he was trying not to cough again. "I can't tell if I'm dying or just about to pass out. Don't make me move. I think I might throw up."

"No, you won't." Castiel, at a loss for anything else to do, stroked Dean's hair back from his dusty, newly-lined forehead. Dean closed his eyes at the touch, breathing shallowly; his chest rose and fell, the rhythm of it disjointed. He turned his head so that his cheek pressed into Castiel's thigh.

"Am I dying," he asked into the dusty fabric of Castiel's trench coat. "Do you think I'm dying?"

"No," Castiel repeated. His voice was shaking. "You just used too much energy at once. You'll be fine."

Dean slit one eye open to look up at Castiel, just briefly. Castiel's fingers stilled, but when Dean didn't protest the touch, he went on separating the dust from the sandy-brown—now streaked with silver—strands.

"How do you know?" Dean's muffled voice demanded.

"You're too stubborn to die," Castiel retorted, "despite all your claims otherwise."

Dean hacked out a laugh; the sound must have torn his throat on the way up. "I feel terrible."

"A dramatic overstatement."

Dean chuckled again, clearer this time, and lifted a hand to bunch his fingers into Castiel's trench coat. It was his undamaged arm; the other hung limply at his side, pressed carefully between Castiel and his own body.

"You can call it dramatic when one of your limbs is fried extra crispy," Dean muttered. "This body's actually mine, you know."

"We'll fix it," Castiel said, trying to sound dismissive.

Dean smiled, tipping his chin to look up at him. "Hate to break it to you, Cas, but I'm better at breaking things than putting them back together."

"You won," Castiel pointed out.

Dean snorted. "You sure I'm not imagining the whole thing?"

"It would be a narcissistic delusion of grandeur if you were—"

But Dean was looking at him, his eyes bright with that unnamed emotion again. "Hey," he said huskily, and it had nothing to do at all with the smoke of the debris or the pain radiating through them both. "Cas."

Automatically, instinctively, Castiel fitted his free hand against Dean's cheek, trying to soothe him. The lines around Dean's mouth deepened as he smiled; his hand crawled from Castiel's trench coat to cup a palm around the back of Castiel's neck, his fingers sliding up into Castiel's hair.

"Supposing I don't die," Dean said quietly.

"Supposing," Castiel allowed, his borrowed heart beating, beating, beating. Dean's echoed faintly, a whisper away, a thud-thud-thud that was still too fast.

"And you get back to the Other Place long enough to heal," Dean continued, his eyes straying briefly to Castiel's lips.

"You'll have to come with me," Castiel said firmly. "I doubt there's another way to replenish your energy enough to fix that burn."

Dean nodded, and from him the gesture made it seem like he was impatiently waving all this off. "Will you stay?" he asked.

"Stay where?" Castiel said blankly, frowning.

Dean swallowed. Castiel watched his throat bob, fascinated. "With me," he clarified. "You know, freedom and all that—visits to the Other Place, traveling the world, but—would you come back?"

And Dean, as he'd done since the beginning, dragged Castiel down, palm clasped around the back of his neck; or maybe Castiel was dragging Dean up—did it matter?

Because Dean, with his remaining strength, was kissing him, and it was like the Other Place flowing in an electric current through Castiel's veins. He made a muffled noise of surprise and Dean's fingers pressed hard on the back of his neck; Dean answered him with a broken moan, a thing of pain and trembling exhaustion but also the deepest, purest relief.

Dean was familiar, as though Castiel had known him all along: Dean was a grimace, and the wet warmth of moving lips, and an enthusiasm that Castiel would have thought—just seconds ago—was beyond him. And when Castiel touched back, when he carded fingers through Dean's hair, when his mouth clumsily matched Dean's eagerness, Dean hauled him impossibly closer until there seemed to be no space between them at all.

Dean made a little choked gasp deep in his throat and then, as soon as it had begun, it was over, and Dean was falling back with bright eyes and a laugh of hoarse delight on his bruised lips.

Castiel couldn't imagine where else he would possibly go.

Chapter Text

Dean had been wrong about Sam's return timetable. It was a week before they managed to get in touch; Sam called his burner phone from a hospital in Texas, his voice garbled with exhaustion and relief when Dean picked up. "I saw it," he stammered out, "on TV, the night Jess—Jess—"

"Just tell me it's a girl," Dean said, grinning, and Sam half-laughed, half-cried a yes.

"We're on our way home," he promised. "I saw Bobby on TV, are you—are you still in Washington—"

"No," Dean said, clearing his throat. "No, I left them to clean up the mess. I'm back at camp. Got Cas and Garth with me. City life didn't suit them."

"We'll be there tomorrow," Sam promised. If he found anything strange about Dean relinquishing the capitol to his surviving allies, he didn't mention it. "God, Dean, I can't believe you're alive."

"Yeah," Dean said, chuckling. "Yeah, me neither."

It seemed wrong, to tell Sam over the phone—all the details were a mess; it would take hours to explain. Dean would rather do it in person, now that his arm wasn't a total eyesore.

"Oh my god—Dean."

He straightened up from his cabin's porch—he'd only just finished the last repair, returning the place to its former mediocrity—and turned to face his brother, who didn't look nearly as shocked by the new streaks of silver in Dean's hair as he should have been. His knee-jerk exclamation gave away more than his facial expression, which was curiously pinched.

"Bobby told you," Dean accused, striding forward.

Sam offered up a sheepish smile, relaxing a little. "Yelled it at me, more like." When Dean was in arm's reach, he reached out and grabbed his brother into a fierce hug, letting out a deep breath of relief. "Man," he said as he pulled back. "I didn't really believe it until right now. I was sure—"

"Yeah," Dean said, squeezing Sam's shoulder, "I know." He didn't know how to begin explaining to Sam what had happened to him—the things he'd seen in the last week, the places he'd been, and Cas, interwoven in all of it—so he didn't try. He had all the time in the world, anyway. They would get to it someday.

"Where's Castiel?" Sam asked.

"The garden, probably," Dean said. "He's still trying to weed out the damage from the attack." He turned to smile at Jess. "Hey."

She smiled back, radiant. "Hi, Dean."

"Who's this?" he asked, dropping his gaze to the sleeping infant in her arms, swaddled in a thick blanket.

"Mary Deanna Winchester," she said, half a coo; the baby turned her head a little toward Jess's voice. "Want to hold her?"

Dean held out his arms, sinuses burning, and let Jess transfer the little girl into his hold. She squirmed a little, opening sleepy eyes. They were Sam's color, a soft hazel that gazed up at him with interest.

"Mornin', sunshine," he murmured, and she smiled.

*

Only some of the group that had fled on Dean's orders returned, and of them, not all came back to their half-destroyed home in the mountains. Bela, of course, was long gone; she'd split the second they'd heard the news that the American government was in disarray, headed south. Chuck, too, had taken off, but toward the north instead, Canada in his sights. Only Pam, Ash, and Missouri accompanied Sam and Jess back to Seneca State Forest. Ellen went straight to Washington to find her daughter; Lee and Krissy planned to integrate back into city life, complete with hot water; Jim and Olivia both headed back to the Midwest, where they'd originally hailed from before spirits and magicians had consumed their lives.

They'd lost Rufus and Annie to that cave-in, and that, Dean suspected, was why Bobby elected to stay in the capitol and rebuild: to keep his mind off the loss of some of his oldest friends. The quiet of camp would have reminded him too much of his grief, and Bobby had never been good at that. The old man was still adjusting to Dean's new abilities, too. He would come around in time, Dean thought, but until then, the space was good. There had been too much sniping between them over the last three years; they could stand to clear the air.

Jo and Charlie had stayed, too, along with Jody, to sort out the lower-level magicians and help the transition to a commoner government. Unsurprisingly, cowed by what their superiors had done, the magicians were playing nicely with Dean's Resistance representatives. Congress—dissolved ten years ago by Azazel and his fear tactics, and never reconvened—was slowly being recalled. Jo reported in every few days, and they all promised to visit when things settled down.

Progress was slow; the people were terrified; but Dean trusted his stalwart family. It would take years—decades, maybe—to recover from what the magicians had done to the common people, but it was a start.

"I like it here," Castiel announced, startling Dean from his thoughts. "It's a good base, especially when it's not being dogged by the atmosphere of impending doom."

Dean chuckled, scrubbing fried chicken from the pan he'd used for dinner. Castiel rolled up his sleeves and nudged in beside Dean, plunging hands into the soapy water to attack another dish. Their elbows brushed; Castiel pressed his shoulder to Dean's. Dean leaned into the contact, enjoying the easy quiet.

Their last visit to the Other Place had been much longer than the first. Dean had needed the extra time there; he had what amounted to essence now, damaged heartily in their last confrontation with Azazel and Lilith. After twenty-four hours, he'd blinked awake to pre-dawn light, Castiel settled against him—and his arm, though a little stiff, was as good as new again.

Castiel, of course, was still too busted for Dean's liking. He'd gotten in the habit of flitting away to the Other Place while Dean slept, but it would take a while still, that way, for him to recover fully from his long tenure on Earth.

"Maybe we could take a vacation," Dean commented, rinsing his hands. "Whole week or two in the Other Place. I wouldn't mind. We fucking deserve it."

Castiel smiled, waving his hands dry. "We could," he allowed, not bothering to dig at Dean's motivations. "Do you think you could stay away from your niece for that long?"

"Time passes differently in the Other Place," Dean hedged, hands falling to Castiel's hips. He tugged the djinni nearer, trapping him against the sink.

"Not in your favor," Castiel reminded, his smile wry. "It always feels longer to be there than here, remember?"

"Shut up," Dean grumbled, and dropped the subject—for now. "You're coming tomorrow, right?"

"If you want me to," Castiel replied, amused by the sudden shift in conversation.

"Maybe you shouldn't," Dean teased, a sly grin spreading on his face. "Last time I took you on a supply run, the world almost ended. You were supposed to be my bodyguard, buddy."

"I guarded," Castiel said defensively. "You would have been dead if it wasn't for me."

Dean raised his eyebrows and pointed to his forehead; the gash, though healed, had left a scar. Castiel cupped the back of his head, fingers threading lightly through hair, and pressed a kiss to the mark on his skin.

"It was a battle," Castiel murmured. The tender note in his voice made Dean's heart surge on a little faster; his pulse was always too rapid these days, but Castiel pushed it to its limits. "I told you to stay out of the way."

Dean, fingers curved around Castiel's hips, pulled him a little closer, and Castiel came willingly despite the reprimanding scowl on his face. When Dean kissed the corner of his mouth, the frown relaxed.

"Dean," Castiel said quietly, as though asking a question, blue eyes deep and fierce and hungry.

Castiel's mouth was warm beneath his, half-parted, waiting. Dean, leaning in to silence him, offered the only answers he had.