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Nine.
Castiel tucks his hands into his pockets as he lets the door to the bunker fall closed behind him. The lights flicker slightly for a few moments—he thinks of Heaven, of flashes of Grace barely holding it together—before he reins in his emotions and the flickering stops.
Well. At least there’s enough Heaven left in him for a few party tricks.
“Sam? Dean?”
The Impala is in the garage, so he knows they’re home to stay, not dodging back for a little bit of research before heading out again. Sam calls from the library, so Cas wanders in that direction, head still elsewhere.
It’s a miracle he drove all this way without hitting anything.
Sam sets his book aside. “Did you manage to talk to someone?”
For a moment, Cas considers not telling him. It suddenly feels deeply personal—his family is dead. He sucks in a breath he doesn’t technically need. It doesn’t make it feel any better.
“I—yes. They can’t help us find Gabriel, but they promise the full strength of Heaven when I track him down.”
Sam shrugs. “Better deal than I was expecting.”
“The full strength of Heaven is eight angels, Sam. Nine if you count me.”
The words fall, sticky and heavy, from his mouth. He can almost see them land on the table in front of Sam. For his part, Sam just stares. Cas clears his throat. He’s not ready to have this conversation right now. He doesn’t deserve the condolences Sam will surely offer. He’s the reason Heaven is so weak.
He smote half of them with the Purgatory souls churning in his gut and he’s killed more every year since then. He’s managed to destroy his own species while claiming to be their savior, and isn’t that just ironic?
“There’s magic on you,” he says, mostly to shift the conversation.
Sam glances down, as if it’s something he can spot, like a stain on a shirt.
“Yeah, that’s Rowena. Long story short, Fate isn’t going to become unraveled anytime soon. Well. At least not because of her.”
Cas decides not to ask. Instead, he leans across the table and presses two fingers to Sam’s forehead. A steady flow of warm Grace seeks out the last electric sparks of Rowena’s touch and erases it.
“Thanks.” Then, “I’m destined to kill her, apparently.”
He shifts in his seat, hands clasping in front of him, one lone finger tapping against the knuckles of his other hand. His gaze drifts away from Cas’s and down to the tabletop in front of him.
Cas scrutinizes his face carefully for a few beats. “Do you want to?”
Sam grimaces. “No. Not really. I don’t like her, but I get her. And in a weird way, I think she gets me too. I don’t want to murder her.”
“When have you ever listened to destiny?” he asks.
“Fair point,” Sam says. “Dean got a little beaten up. I think he’s trying a few home remedies, but I don’t think he’d say no to a bit of a tune up.”
Cas heads for Dean’s room. Usually, he’ll find Dean in the kitchen after a hunt, making himself the largest sandwich he can stomach, but when he’s injured, he’s usually patching himself up in his room.
Sure enough, he’s sitting on the end of his bed, wincing as he dabs some iodine on the scrapes on his face.
“Glad to see you took my advice and didn’t get yourself killed,” Dean says wryly at the sound of his light rap on the doorframe.
Cas knows that in Dean Winchester, that means, ‘Good to see you,’ so he doesn’t comment. Instead, he strides into the room and places a careful hand on Dean’s shoulder. A little voice in the back of his head reminds him of Heaven’s flickering light, how he should be saving the power he still has left.
Heaven can wait. The Winchesters need him.
“Jessica said that guy was ex-military,” Dean explains, gesturing at the mottled bruising on his face that is slowly draining away. “For the record.”
Cas can’t help a smile. “Am I supposed to be impressed?”
“It was pretty impressive.”
For a moment, it’s easy to forget that the only place he ever really called home is wilting. Then, it all comes roaring back. Some of it must show on his face—just another way he’s become more human these last few years—because Dean offers him a space beside him on the bed.
He doesn’t say anything, which Cas knows is a prompt for him to speak. For all of Dean’s posturing, all of the insistence that he doesn’t do emotions, he’s always been a good listening ear.
Well. Not always, but they’ve had their rough patches.
“I saw Naomi again.”
Beside him, Dean stiffens. One hand twitches toward his pillow and the gun Cas knows he keeps beneath it.
“But she’s dead! You said Metatron got her with that drill thing!”
Cas nods. “A drill is not an angel blade, I suppose.”
Dean leans toward him. “Are you all right? Seeing her again, I mean, that had to—”
“It—stung. Yes.”
He thinks of an empty white warehouse and a thousand different copies of Dean Winchester strewn around him. Number 429, the first to plead. Number 763, the first to touch him. Number 1110, the first to say three little words that Cas has only forced out once in his life.
The real one, on his knees in front of him in a crypt, never even lifting a hand to defend himself.
“I don’t have much of a choice.”
He explains about the angels and the ticking clock on Heaven. Dean’s jaw actually drops at the admission of how few there are left.
“Cas, I—I’m so sorry.”
It doesn’t really make it hurt any less, but Castiel forces a small smile anyway. He’s only trying to help.
“Do you want to stay?”
Dean flushes a little as he realizes, the pink making its way up his neck and to the tips of his ears.
He corrects, “I mean. I wouldn’t want to be alone right now if I were you, and Sam and I are pretty beat so it’s not like we’ll be wandering around the bunker much later. So you can stay, if you want. I promise, no cracks about it being creepy that you watch me when I sleep.”
Cas smiles, real this time, as the ache eases, just a little.
“Yes. I think I’d like that.”