Chapter Text
It started with a witch hunt.
Of course, it started with a witch hunt; these were always the nastiest ones and the points, at which things normally went spiralling down. Okay, maybe Dean had a quite distorted view on witch hunts, but after what happened this time, nobody could hold it before him.
They had found mysterious deaths in a small town in Michigan called Greenville. With no other hunter available in this area at that time, the Winchesters jumped in the Impala and rode of. Well, they probably didn’t jump, and Dean’s frown could probably be seen till Canada, but he liked to change the colour of the events a little, when he wrote them down in their Men-of-Letters/Hunters-diary.
After having arrived in Greenville and checked in into an only mildly crappy motel, they made their way to the town’s morgue to question the dead. Before they entered, Dean once glanced towards the sky, more out of habit, than to really pray to their angel and scolded himself internally, because Cas was a Winchester and belonged to nobody.
With a sad sight Dean followed Sam through the door, which the other held open patiently. They had their FBI-badges out in no time and Dean wondered for a brief moment, how anybody could believe, that agent Donovan accidently ended up working together with agent Lestrade, before following his brother down to the victims.
“So, what do we have here?” Dean asked as soon as he had approached the mostly covered body of a bald man in his mid-thirties.
“Dean,” Sam replied but not replied. When the older Winchester turned around to him, he could see the full on bitchface his brother was already sporting. “I already told you all about it in the car. On our way here. Did you listen to any of that?”
Dean briefly recalled Sammy saying ‘So, get this’ a few times and some talk about disappearing organs. “Well,” he started but Sam interrupted him quickly.
“Three victims, all of them have partly missing organs, two men and one woman, age between twenty and forty,” he droned out the information. “The weird thing is: The bodies have not been opened before the obduction and the victims just died in their sleep or at dinner table. So, I assumed witch, because-”
“They are sons of bitches.” “Or daughters of bitches,” Sam supplied helpfully but Dean had already turned around again to find somebody who worked here. They had to find and gank this evil bastard fast so Dean could get back to the bunker and to worrying about a certain stubborn angel.
So, they found the witch, male for Dean’s records and narrowed his operation centre down to a weird old cabin in the woods. A lot of clichés, Dean mentally noted, but better because of the witness situation. Or the lack of any.
The older Winchester really wanted to pray to Cas as shit went down and Sam got separated from him, but refrained from it, because the guy probably had better stuff to do. With those dicks, who called themselves angels for example.
And it was not as if he wasn’t in control. He yelled “Sammy!” a few times to make sure the witch thought he was in panic and then rounded the corner, just in time to see Mr. Witch complete a spell for his tied up younger brother. Of course, he shot him with witch-killing bullets immediately. And of course, the witch turned to him and fired the spell in his direction instead of in Sam’s. At least, that was a win.
After that, Dean didn’t really remember much. He got his brother free and both of them to the car, but the spell must have been stronger than the times before, because he got the rest of the events from Sam’s notes.
Apparently, Sam immediately prayed for Cas, a thing they should have done ages ago. After all, it was a witch case for Chuck’s sake.
Apparently, Cas had taken them to the bunker, and they had laid Dean down on the war room table. And apparently, they had discussed for two minutes, until they had decided, that they couldn’t save the older Winchester directly this time and needed more time to do it.
After Sam had found a preservation spell, he had been looking through a few months ago, Cas laid down next to Dean and let his blue, shining grace float out of his body and into the one next to him.
Of course, Dean didn’t know about any of that. And of course, Dean was completely dumbstruck, when in his twisted, never resting hunters mind an all too familiar blue-eyed man appeared and asked, if he could come in.
“Hello, Dean,” were the words the hunter remembered vaguely afterwards. “Uhm, it’s me. Wait.”
Suddenly he was sitting in a diner, and his favourite angel was opposite of him. “Dean,” he said again with his gravelly voice. “You are dying, and Sam just got me in time.” During his last words his facial expression turned into a frown.
Dean shook his head to get it clear. “So, what now?” he asked and looked around to locate himself. He had no idea how he got here.
“I can not heal you directly, Dean.” This seemed to frustrate him very much, as the Winchester noticed. “So, Sam and I decided to preserve my… vessel for an unknown amount of time and keep you alive by having an angel inside of you. Only if you consent of course.”
At the term ‘angel inside of you’ Dean almost choked on air.
“You want to… you want to occupy my vessel? I mean body?” Dean asked, trying to figure out how he ended up in this mess.
Cas crocked his head. “Dean, you have to know that I would never act like your body is my real vessel. I can stay in the background, even shut off from all outer influences if you want.”
Images of him peeing or masturbating with Cas in his head crossed Dean’s mind and he really wanted to say no and act scandalized about the other even asking, but then again, he would die if he didn’t affirm.
“Okay, yes,” Dean said, and the angel’s eyes widened at that, as if he had expected the other to fight a little bit more first. Yeah, he couldn’t really hold that before him, could he.
The next thing, Dean remembered was that he was staring into Sam’s eyes. And that his brother was upside down, but that was probably because he was laying on a table. On a frickin’ table. Couldn’t they at least have put him on his mattress, was that how they treated the almost dead now?
“Heya Sammy,” he said, bringing his hand to his forehead to rub it. The relieve in his brother’s face was a sight he at the same time liked to see and didn’t like. Because it always meant, that something had been wrong before and this time as well as many other times he was the cause. “How long have I been out?”
He tried to sit up but grabbed something soft as he wanted to push himself up with his hands. Turning his head to the side confirmed, that Cas was lying next to him, but apparently not conscious and for a second, he almost panicked. Then he remembered.
“Cas?” he cautiously asked out loud, because he didn’t know if they could actually communicate like that. When Ezekiel, or as it turned out Gadreel, had been occupying Sam, the human of the both hadn’t even known of the pact.
“Hello Dean,” a familiar gravelly voice said inside his head. For a second, he was back inside the diner again, sitting opposite of an angel pouring unholy amounts of sugar in his coffee. Then Sam came back into his view, extending an arm to help the other hunter up and of the table.
“Man, I’m hungry.” Eying the body sprawled out on the war table, Dean didn’t know what else to say.
Sam sighted loudly, while apparently trying to rely his tense shoulders. “Yeah, let’s get some food. But please stop dying for a weak now okay?” He thought I would say no, Dean thought. Why did nobody believe in his will to live?
-
Living with Cas inside his mind turned out to be rather easy than weird. Of course, there were still moments, when Dean used the toilet or showered and very, very strongly tried not to think of Cas or picture him in any form. He didn’t dare to masturbate, what was really getting onto him the first two weeks but then he stopped caring.
Having Cas in his head was also kind of lonely, because, of course, before the angel also hadn’t been present all the time, but now he only answered when spoken to directly. He took the thing with the privacy so far, that once Dean had to recede to the image of the diner in his mind and search for the other for ten long minutes.
Also, Cas refused to take over Dean’s body in any occasion, what let to the hunter being kind of a transmission between the two book nerds, who seemed to have more conversations than Dean had known of.
The first time it had happened like this, they had been in the middle of a research for a possible angel related sighting a few towns over. Sam, without looking up from his laptop, had asked a kind of long question about leaving traces of grace on humans or animals and Dean had registered very fast, that this was directed to Cas. So, he told the angel to open his ears, if he didn’t want to piss of Sam.
During Cas answer he stopped listening half the way, because he had found an ad for an auto shop for old cars and was looking for one particular piece for Baby after the last crash.
As Sam looked at him expectantly he closed his laptop hastily. “Eh yeah, Cas says, that angels do leave traces or something, but only if they want to.”
It was silent for a moment.
“This is not what I said,” a gravelly voice in his head uttered. It sounded kind of grumpy and the older Winchester felt a little bit bad, because it was also not a nice situation for Cas and after Lucifer he must be reminded of that kind of loneliness and helplessness.
Somebody sighted in his head. “It’s not that bad, Dean,” the angel voiced and the hunter blinked a lot of times.
“Are you reading my mind,” he said out loud, because, yes, he sometimes forgot and it made Sam look very irritated. Dean shot a grimace at his brother.
“I’m not reading your mind, Dean.” Was there a hint of exhaustion in his voice? “You are just sometimes screaming your thoughts at me and then it is impossible to not not listen.” Screaming? Dean was not screaming! Not now, not ever.
Dean tried to think of innocent things. Sheep. One sheep, two sheep, three sheep.
When he looked at his brother again, the other had lifted his eyebrows as if to ask if everything was all right. Dean rolled his eyes and then got out a pen and a paper. “Just dictate me what you want to say,” he thought, this time silently and the problem seemed to be kind of solved.
-
One and a half month after the incident with the witch, a rather big hunt came up, which Dean and Sam wanted to investigate themselves, because it sounded fishingly like winged assholes. It was possible, that the research from before was related to this case and they didn’t want to risk sending anybody else there.
The drive to Montrose, Colorado, was very awkward in Dean’s eyes. When sitting in his beloved Impala and not listening to his brother brabbling about his research, he normally let his mind wander in any possible direction. This was what he normally loved about driving a car, but now he very often had to recede to counting sheep or naming porn stars, when his thoughts took the wrong direction.
It must have sounded a little bit like this: ‘Remember this one time we went through a similar town when we were kids and we were with dad and he screamed at me for- NO, no, one sheep, two sheep… Maybe I can pursue Sam to get a cheeseburger with me; you know who loves cheeseburger? Cas. If Cas was here right now, I mean for real, he would be all exited at the sight of having one and that would be kind of cu- Wait no, where was I, sheep yes. But what if this hunt is something big and I can’t manage to protect Sam, or I’m not alone in my body, what if Cas gets killed…’
Dean didn’t know, what Cas heard of that, because the angel didn’t utter a word for the whole drive, but the Winchester was nonetheless very relieved, when they arrived in the small city.
“The club for the anonymous alien friends is on the way to the motel, and they have a meeting right now, wanna stop there first?” Sam asked without lifting his eyes from his laptop. Dean sighted. He wanted greasy food and a long shower, but of course he agreed. He couldn’t have the latter anyways right now.
Changing into their FBI suits in the car became more and more a challenge with age, but they didn’t have time to waste. As they entered the building, that was probably made for communal activities, a nice young lady at the entrance told them where to go. At the sight of her cleavage Dean thought of sheep. A lot of sheep.
“Agent May and Taylor,” Sam said after he had opened the right door and Dean looked at him funny as he passed by him into the room. “We are sorry for the interruption, but we need to ask a few questions to Michael Foster.” He read the name from the notebook in his hands.
The relative small room inhabited fifteen people, who were currently sitting in a chair circle. In the middle of them, there was a collage of what Dean could only just identify as creatures from above. One specific, very bad drawing of a four-winged creature caught the hunters eye immediately. With the strict clothing of a tie and white shirt, it reminded him a little bit of Cas, but it probably resembled also every other angel.
“That’s me,” a slim guy in his twenties said and stood up. The girl next to him, as Dean noticed rose her eyebrows and tried to hide a grin. In her case the older Winchester wouldn’t have believed his eyes either. The FBI, the facility they probably were the most sceptic towards, finally paid them attention and then because somebody of them claimed to have seen a creature, that was not even typical alien. She had nice blue eyes, though. For a crazy person.
Outside, after closing the door carefully, Sam started the interrogation and Dean crossed his arms.
The guy asserted to just have wandered around at night, because of course he couldn’t sleep with all that was going on without people knowing and he had passed a church and there he stood. Or she, he stammered, it had been too dark.
“Okay, come to the point,” Dean grumbled after rolling his eyes only a little bit dramatically. The guy pouted.
“Well, that person, he or she just stared at me, but her eyes were glowing bluish white. Or his. I drew a picture.” He pointed at the door of the room, but as none of the Winchesters reacted, he continued. “Also, there were wings. Like, they were more like shadows and not white and shiny, but I swear I saw them.”
Sam nodded and lowered his pen from the notebook. The brothers shared a look.
“What now? Do you believe me? Am I going to area 51, or where are you taking me?” the guy said, and his face suddenly turned from exited to afraid. “Are you going to kill me?”
Dean almost laughed, but suddenly a voice in his head popped up with: “I believe him.”
“Ah yeah? And what have you been doing all day?” Dean thought as clear as possible and with more anger than he intended.
“Dean,” Cas started, but the hunter silenced him after seeing the dumbstruck expression on the alien-guy’s face and the concerned one on his brothers. Maybe he remembered to say the words only in his head, but he certainly had forgotten to control his visage.
“Let’s go,” he said to Sam and started into the direction of the exit. As he passed the guy, whatever his name was, the other opened his mouth to say something, but Dean patted him on the shoulder. “And no more going out in the dark for you, boy.”
After a short drive they arrived at something called Black Canyon Motel, what Dean eyes suspiciously. Not that he was too much of a pussy for these kinds of places now, but when he closed his eyes, he always just saw his memory foam mattress in his own four walls.
Sam went out to pay, what, apparently, signalized the angel in his head, that Dean was okay to talk.
“Dean,” he started and why did the hunter feel a little bit warmer at mention of his name by a certain gravelly voice? “I am sorry that I didn’t ‘drop by’ today, but you seemed to be occupied, so I didn’t want to disturb you.”
Oh god, Dean tried not to groan internally. Cas probably had tried to stop by, but every time he had heard the hunter screaming something in his mind and had been afraid to overstep the boundaries. Dean really, really missed having one body for each of them, so he could freely talk to the other without revealing too many of his hidden thoughts. He really, really missed Cas.
“Dean,” the angel started again, because of course he had heard the last thought but as the addressed tried to come up with a way to take back what he had just thought or to make it less weird, his moosy brother arrived with a key and two coffees to go. Well then, the shower was waiting.