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In an ideal world Dean would now be sitting in front of the TV, enjoying a beer and watching the newest episode of Dr. Sexy. But this was hardly an ideal world, was it? Nope, today Dean was on phone duty and he would be on phone duty until Maggie’s shift started. Why Dean, of all people, was put on the phone duty roster by Chief Longhair, was beyond Dean.
To add insult to injury, it was a very boring, painfully slow day. One request for a consultation from Hendrickson that ended up being a 20-minute debate about vampire bite patterns, a butt dial from Garth and one check in call from Sam. As if Dean couldn’t manage the phones for one day, emphasis on day. It wasn’t like a lot of monster activity was happening during the day time. Maggie would probably have more to do than him. Dean slowly wheeled his chair away from the monitors showing where Sam’s hunters were stationed, towards the laptop. He might as well continue working his way through the reports, even though that wasn’t Dean’s idea of a good time either. Seriously, had nobody ever heard of a spell check?
Dean had made his way through three reports by the time the emergency phone rang.
“Thank god,” Dean grumbled even though it was probably insensitive to be relieved about the emergency phone ringing. Dean picked it up right away.
“This is Dean, how can I help?” Dean asked and cringed internally. Dean hated that he sounded like a customer service person and not a hunter. But Sam had vetoed Dean’s more to the point greetings that Dean had as his voicemail.
“Uh… Hello, this is Jack,” the voice on the other side of the phone said. Dean’s straying thoughts about better lines vanished the moment he noticed he had a kid on the phone. “I was told to call this number if I ever got into trouble of the… not normal kind.”
“Yes, you’re right, buddy,” Dean said and checked the monitor, tracking where the phone call was coming from. Smith Center. Locals were pretty rare.
“I think there’s a ghost in my closet,” Jack said and he sounded agitated. Not afraid, but this didn’t seem like some kid’s idea of a prank call. “I forgot to close it. I’m pretty sure it’s haunted now.”
“Uh… okay, a ghost,” Dean said and stopped looking through the list of available hunters.
“I’m doomed,” Jack said and he sounded like he meant it. “I’m going to get grounded for letting something supernatural nest in my closet!”
“Okay, calm down. Are you in immediate danger? Apart from the grounding?” Dean asked. “Flickering lights, cold spots?”
“No,” Jack said, sounding pensive.
“Run it by me again. Why do you think there’s a ghost in your closet?” Dean asked.
“Leaving a closet door open invites ghosts in. A friend in school swore it was true. She knows about these things,” Jack told him. Dean managed to bite back a snort. “Please, you have to help me.” Dean debated telling the kid that there was no such thing as inviting ghosts in by leaving a door open. But at the end of the day this was a worried kid and stranger things have turned out to be unusual hauntings. It wouldn’t hurt to check it out. Dean checked his watch. Maggie would be here for her shift in 15 minutes.
Sam would probably laugh at him if Dean sent their closest team over to check out Jack’s closet (or worse, the team would laugh at him. He was sure they’d say he had been thrown into walls too many times and could no longer tell nonsense from a real case. Urgh. Dean hated some of the hunters he had to tolerate in his home.)
“Okay, Jack. I’ll come over and check it out. Can you manage to wait a little bit longer?”
“Sure, I’m not scared,” Jack assured him, relief obvious in his voice. “Thank you, Dean.”
“Of course. See you later,” Dean said and terminated the call. He sent the coordinates to his Chief Longhair mandated work ipad. He logged in and opened a new case file, even though he was pretty sure he wasn’t gonna send it off for review. Just in case (because Dean wasn’t an idiot) he logged the phone call as “potential haunting, Smith Center” and put himself on the case.
He waited for Maggie to show up and did the usual shift transfer, catching her up on the argument with Hendrickson (which she seemed to be more fascinated by than this topic deserved) and Garth’s butt dial. Since Maggie wasn’t an asshole, he did tell her about the trip to Smith Center because she was gonna see it as an active case anyway.
“You’re so sweet, Dean,” she told him with a smile. “And I’ll be sure to tell Sam that you’re on a beer run in case he asks.” Dean rolled his eyes, but thanked her, then he grabbed his stuff and left.
The drive to Smith Center was short and he found his way to the kid’s address with no issues. It turned out to be a totally normal looking house, looking almost identical to the ones next to it. Just normal suburbia. Dean parked his car and checked his ipad. No entries in the data base about anything supernatural happening in this location. A quick search through the linked newspapers didn’t reveal anything either. That didn’t necessarily have to mean anything. Dean looked out of the window and at the house registered to “C. Novak”. Jack had said he was told to call the Bunker in case of emergencies, so he must know about hunting in some capacity. It was likely that someone related to the kid was in the life, maybe even this C. Novak. But that name wasn’t on file either. This wasn’t really cause to worry. Sam’s whole organized hunting thing was relatively new and American hunters were almost impossible to work with. C. Novak could have listened to Sam’s outreach team and then told them to fuck off.
Dean got out of the car, then he grabbed his bag from the passenger side and made his way to the door. The door opened almost immediately after he rang the bell. The kid that opened the door, Jack presumably, looked relieved to see him.
“I’m glad that you’re here before my father comes home,” Jack told him, waving him inside. “Hello, I’m Jack.”
“And I’m Dean,” Dean said, stepping inside.
“Hello, Dean. I came home from school and was shocked to find that I have left the closet door open. And now I’m sure it must be haunted,” Jack summarized his dilemma dutifully. Dean nodded along, still looking around. Normal house from the inside as well. He gave the door mat a little shove with his boot and saw red paint peeking out. He bent down and lifted the mat, finding neat sigils painted on the floorboards.
“My dad made those. They are supposed to keep demons and other entities out,” Jack said. “But not ghosts!”
“Oh, really?” Dean said, amused by Jack’s vehemence.
“No. According to the research I did, ghosts can still come here, despite those sigils. Iron and salt keep them out. But I’m sure father wouldn’t like me spreading salt everywhere,” the kid said. Dean nodded along, but he wasn’t sure what he thought about hunters giving people half-assed information on the supernatural. It was very easy to get yourself killed if you only had partial information. He had given enough people the talk, but usually he only did out of necessity. He supposed being a hunter with a kid was a necessity. He wondered what kind of person Jack’s dad was. Dean would have to ask later, first he had to do his job.
“Can you show me to your closet?” Dean asked. Jack nodded at once and led Dean up the stairs and down the hall into a tidy bedroom. Jack pointed towards the closet. Dean grabbed his EMF reader and switched it on, all under the watchful eyes of Jack. Dean showed him the device. “This is what we call an EMF reader. It will pick up on a ghost’s presence.” Dean held it towards the closet, but the reader remained silent.
“What does this mean?” Jack wondered, looking over Dean’s shoulder, no concept of personal space.
“It means that there’s no ghost,” Dean said and put away the reader. Jack breathed a sigh of relief.
“I got lucky,” he decided. Dean chuckled.
“I don’t know who told you this whole open closet door business, but usually ghosts don’t just float around looking to find an open closet to hang out in,” Dean informed him while he logged his findings into his ipad. Case closed. “Usually, ghosts are tied to a particular location, typically one that was relevant to them, like the place they died,” Dean explained. Jack listened with interest. He wondered if he should give the kid the “monster 101” guide he had written some time ago while he had been laid up with a broken leg, maybe the kid would be interested in that. “Sometimes they are tied to objects as well and can be moved from place to place. So if you’ve got no skeletons or cursed things in your closet, you should be fine.”
“Oh, no. I don’t think I do,” Jack pondered, his expression serious.
The sound of the door being opened downstairs stopped Dean from answering.
“Jack? I’m back,” a deep voice called and Jack’s face lit up. He signaled Dean to follow him. Okay, so Dean was going to meet the mystery father after all. Dean wasn’t exactly looking forwards to it. If the guy was like any other hunter Dean knew, he was probably not gonna like Dean being here. Well, to be honest, most fathers probably wouldn’t like seeing their son come downstairs with a strange man in tow. But when Dean reached the bottom of the stairs where Jack’s dad was, all disarming smiles or alpha posturing approaches fell away and he just stared.
First of all, Dean knew a lot of hunters, but he had never seen Jack’s dad before. That guy didn’t really have a face you forgot. He wasn’t dressed like a hunter, but instead wore a somewhat ill-fitting black suit, topped off with a rumpled trench coat. He had wind-swept dark hair and a beautiful face. He didn’t look older than Dean, so he must have been very young when Jack was born. But yeah, the face and that super intense stare he sent Dean’s way blew away most coherent thought.
“Hello,” the man said, his voice even and deep and sending shivers down Dean’s spine.
“Uh. Hi. My name is Dean… Uh, Dean Winchester,” he said and was momentarily proud that he remembered his own name. The dude’s eyes were very blue. “Uh, Jack called the Bunker for assistance regarding a potential haunting.” Now the dude slowly moved his head in Jack’s direction, but his eyes stayed on Dean until the last possible moment. “Don’t worry though. I didn’t find any supernatural interference.”
“I called the phone number you gave me!” Jack added, clearly proud of himself.
“Well done, Jack,” the man said, his stoic expression shifting slightly to allow for an encouraging, small smile. Jack looked very pleased, then he excused himself to grab a snack in the kitchen, leaving Dean alone with his dad. Dean wasn’t entirely sure what to say now, somewhat uneasy under the intense stare. Should he joke that the last time someone looked at him like that, he got laid? Or would that just end up in Dean being chased out of the house via shotgun (a Winchester special, though he hoped he wasn’t as infuriating as his dad had been). In any case, the signals the guy’s stare was sending Dean (and Dean’s dick) were very unclear.
“Uh… So… pretty rough weather outside, huh?” Dean said and wanted to hit himself in the face right afterwards. The man’s eyebrows lowered lightly and then he tilted his head. Stupidly, Dean lifted his hand towards his own hair, waving his fingers around. But he could stop himself from saying anything about the wild hair. Instead, he scratched his head. Nice safe!
“I suppose,” the man said.
“I was pretty sure that there wouldn’t be a case here, but the kid sounded unsure. And since the Bunker is close by, I decided to have a look. Just in case, you know? Make sure it’s fine.” The man didn’t comment, but his face had evened out again. Unsure what to say next, Dean pointed at the door mat. “I saw the sigils under the rug, nice work.”
“Thank you,” the dude said. Dean was about ready to pull out his hair. Clearly small-talk wasn’t working.
“Are you a hunter?” Dean finally brought himself to ask, trying the straight-forward approach. “I don’t know your name but there’s no C. Novak listed in the catalog,” he added and then he lifted his eyebrows, hoping the dude would get the message.
“My name is Castiel,” he said, “you can call me Cas.” Dean breathed a sigh of relief.
“Cas, cool,” he said.
“And no, I’m not a hunter,” Cas continued. “I’m not human and neither is Jack.” Dean nodded along until – wait, what?
“What?” he asked, taken aback. Pretty face and intense eyes aside, the whole situation just became a whole lot more dangerous. Dean’s hand went towards his side, where he kept his ipad with the emergency button and where his gun was. Cas clearly saw Dean’s hand twitch towards his gun, but his calm demeanor didn’t change at all.
“I can sense your discomfort, but you are not in danger,” Cas informed him. This didn’t actually put Dean at ease, not yet. He wasn’t the kind of dick who thought every supernatural creature was bad (take Garth for example) but it didn’t hurt to be careful. “Jack is a Nephilim.”
“Half angel, half human,” Dean breathed, turning his head to the kitchen where Jack was happily eating a peanut butter sandwich, uninterested in what was going on between Dean and Cas. Then Dean turned his attention back to Cas. If Jack was half angel and this dude wasn’t human, that meant…
“Shit,” Dean hissed.
“Heaven doesn’t approve of Nephilim, since they pose a danger to humanity. I was sent to monitor him and deal with him if he was too dangerous. But he’s just a child. If I raise him right then he will fit in among humans,” Cas explained, then he looked at Dean. “If you are not here to harm him then you are in no danger.” Dean lifted his hands.
“No way. I didn’t know about what Jack is or what you are, I promise,” Dean vowed and apparently that was enough for Cas because he nodded.
“There’s not a lot that could kill Jack, so I wasn’t particularly worried, but it’s my duty to protect him,” he said. Dean nodded and then he stared at Cas some more. Because pretty face aside, the dude was an angel! Sure, there was enough evidence that angels existed, but all the lore suggested that they never came to earth anymore. Dean had merely filed angels away as “just another monster” and he wasn’t particularly religious, so he wasn’t gonna shit his pants in awe. But he was kinda in awe. Or maybe it was just because Cas was his type.
“Yeah so… I guess I should be heading home or else my brother is gonna send a search team,” Dean said reluctantly. “But if you’re okay with it I’d like to add you and Jack to our records. We try to keep friendly creatures on our radar.” Cas opened his mouth but Dean rushed to add: “It’s not public. Only me and my brother have unrestricted access to this info.”
“I see.”
“I mean… It might be nice to have an angel on our side,” he admitted. Cas’ mouth twitched into an almost smile and Dean hoped that was a good thing.
“I read about the Bunker online!” Dean gave a start when Jack suddenly appeared next to him. “I wasn’t sure if it existed. I would love to see it if it does!” Jack looked up at Dean with big, hopeful eyes.
“Uh, yeah sure,” he said and then Jack was turning his expectant expression towards Cas. And angel or not, clearly Cas was struggling to deny him anything.
“That should be okay,” he eventually decided and Jack grinned. Dean reached into his pocket to fish a card out of his wallet.
“How about I give you my personal number? So you can come along with Jack and check out the Bunker?” Dean offered. Cas now addressed the card with one of his very intense stares and Dean feared it could combust any moment.
“Oh, Cas! I’ve seen this in movies!” Jack said, much to Dean’s confusion. “If Dean’s giving you his number that means he’s flirting with you!”
“Uh- what? Wait a-“ Dean sputtered.
“And usually that means you will have sex,” Jack added sagely. Dean couldn’t even say anything, pretty sure his face was moments away from bursting into flames. But other than smite him on the spot, Cas actually seemed intrigued. He looked at Dean and then, very deliberately, took the card from Dean.
“In that case, I will be in touch,” Cas said.
“Oh, okay. Uh, cool,” Dean managed to answer, then Cas opened the door for him.
“Good-bye, Dean.”
“Good-bye! Thank you for your help,” Jack chirped cheerfully. Cas sent him another stare, then he smiled and closed the door.
Dean was smiling like an idiot by the time he made it to his car. His phone pinged with a message and he found it to be from Sam.
“Beer run, huh? Anything you want to tell me?” Trust Chief Longhair to monitor him, but Dean couldn’t even be too annoyed at this.
“You’re not gonna believe this one, Sammy,” Dean said to himself, excited. Maybe phone duty wasn’t that bad after all.