Chapter Text
“Cas. Wake up.”
The voice floated from what felt like very far away. Cas’s eyes opened in narrow slits, just wide enough to bring the rumpily crocheted blanket in his arms into focus. Then, the voice came back.
“Come on, Cas. It’s time to get up.”
Cas hugged the blanket closer and mashed his face into the pillow. He could almost feel sleep sweeping over him again when the sheets next to him rustled as someone sat down and the lamp on the nightstand flickered on.
“Too early,” Cas grunted.
“It’s 9:30, babe.”
“Exactly.”
Cas pulled the blanket over his head to punctuate his point. The sheets next to him rustled again. Cas curled into the warm chest next to him on instinct, only for freezing cold hands to come to a rest on his stomach.
“Traitor!” Cas yelped, jerking back out of reach.
The cold hands, though, had accomplished their purpose. Cas sat up, the sheets pooling around him, and scrubbed the last of sleep out of his eyes.
Dean sat up, too, grinning in a way that made Cas want to whack him with his pillow. The small crinkles around his eyes stopped him.
“Not too much a traitor. I brought you something.”
He flopped over and reached for the cup on the nightstand. At the sight of Cas’s grabby hands, he stifled a laugh.
“I know I shouldn’t have let Sam get you hooked on this stuff.”
In the weeks after Cas had become human, he’d been exhausted all the time. It had taken them all an embarrassingly long time to realize that getting three to four hours a night was nowhere near enough for someone who was just getting used to humanity. Sam’s temporary solution had been to hand him coffee every time he so much as yawned.
“I like the taste.”
Dean made a face. “Dude, no one likes the taste of coffee. The bean juice just brainwashes you until you decide that you need it to survive.”
Cas shrugged. He’d always liked the smell of it, especially since it meant that Sam and Dean were getting up in the mornings in the bunker. He liked the familiarity of it now more than he liked the rush of caffeine.
“You’re wearing my t-shirt again,” Dean observed.
Cas looked down. Ever since Dean had stumblingly invited him to move in with him, their clothes had been steadily mingling anyway. (Not that Dean would ever be caught dead wearing the bee sweater that Sam had gotten for Cas in the Goodwill in Smith Center.)
This particular shirt—a well-loved Led Zeppelin tour shirt that Dean had also dug up on that Goodwill trip—had been migrating into Cas’s wardrobe for about a week now.
“It smells like you.”
Cas pulled the collar of the shirt up to his nose. It was faint—motel shampoo and cheap detergent—but still there.
He might have imagined it, but he was pretty sure that Dean’s voice was a bit wobbly when he spoke.
“You’re a sap.”
Cas tugged the crocheted blanket out from under the sheets and threw it over both their legs.
“I’ve got to get up!” Dean protested.
Cas’s only response was to set his finished coffee down on the nightstand and snuggle down into the sheets again.
“I told Sam I’d go for a run.”
Cas opened one eye to arch his eyebrow at Dean skeptically.
“What? You were the one who told me you didn’t want me to drop dead of a heart attack before I turned fifty!”
“I meant for you to stop ordering extra sides of bacon when we’re out,” Cas said with a yawn, already half asleep again.
Dean grumbled something about how Cas was standing in the way of his healthy lifestyle, but Cas knew he’d won when Dean pulled out his phone and fired off a quick text. Then, he laid down next to Cas, still grumbling under his breath.
“You’re getting better at crocheting,” Dean mumbled into his shoulder.
Cas opened his mouth to thank him, but before he could, he was drifting off to sleep again.
Dean’s worry had always had a way of hanging over him like a personal raincloud despite his best efforts. Sam kept sending sideways glances at him to make sure that he wasn’t going to drift off the road.
“We’ll find him,” Sam told him. “It’s Cas. He’s tough, he’ll be fine.”
Dean didn't answer. If Sam hadn’t spent most of his life trying to read his microexpressions, he probably would have missed the slight nervous twitch of his jaw.
“You don’t know that.”
Sam looked down at the tablet in his lap. “Take a left up here.”
He hoped to God he was right, that Cas would be okay.
The grimy, disused warehouse looked like virtually every other one that Sam had seen in the last seventeen years. At the point, he was beginning to theorize that if America were just to clean up all the old warehouses and factories, hunters would be out of a job.
“I can’t get his phone signal any more specific,” Sam said, tucking the tablet away.
He pulled his gun out of his waistband and broke into a slight jog to keep up with Dean.
“I’ll take the second floor.”
Breaking the lock took significantly less effort than it should have—the rusted-out metal snapped easily under Sam’s precise strike.
He took off for the nearest stairwell, his own words not quite comforting enough, even for him. Tough or not, Cas was still new to being human, much less a human hunter. He had a lot to learn before Sam would stop worrying about him.
The second floor seemed to be made up of offices. Sam had to poke his head into every disused cubicle. The former occupants had left a few trinkets behind—was anything ever as creepy as coming across a tattered photo of somebody’s baby in an abandoned building?
“Cas!”
He didn’t stir at the sound of his name. Sam’s heart leapt into his mouth as he dropped to his knees beside him. He was already thinking of the best way to tell his brother—thinking of the way that Dean’s hands would tremble, how his face would crumple—when he noticed the ragged rise and fall of Cas’s chest.
“Hey. Cas? Can you hear me?”
Cas didn’t so much as shift. Sam’s hands skimmed lightly over his sides, his head. No major injuries as far as he could tell. Sam slung one arm under Cas’s knees and one underneath his armpits.
Cas was a heavier load than Sam had expected, but he was still a hell of a lot easier to carry than some of the monsters that Sam had lugged to the Impala before. He hefted Cas down the stairs and almost crashed into Dean headed up two steps at a time.
“He’s not—Cas!”
Dean’s voice notched up slightly in alarm, even as he automatically shifted to take half of Sam’s burden.
“He’s breathing,” Sam confirmed. “Not hurt, either. I’m not sure what’s going on.”
“Djinn, you think?” Dean asked as they broke out into the crisp night air again.
Sam shrugged the best he could with Cas’s knees still weighing him down. “Wasn’t the right setup for a djinn. No IVs or anything.”
Maybe it had been a more primitive version than the ones they’d dealt with in the past, but Cas had been missing the telltale blue eyes or any of the marks.
“So then what is it?”
Sam dutifully ignored the slight quaver in his brother’s voice.
“We’ll figure it out.”
It took a little maneuvering to get Cas bundled into the backseat. Dean tossed the keys over to Sam and clambered in behind him.
Sam glanced in the rearview mirror as he stuck the keys in the ignition. Dean tucked the half-finished crocheted blanket that Cas had been working on for the last few weeks around Cas’s shoulders.
He didn’t shift in his sleep. Sam steadfastly ignored the way that Dean fumbled for Cas’s limp hand in the dark.