Archive of Our Own ^beta

A Walmart at three in the morning is certainly not the strangest place that Castiel has encountered a fallen angel, but it manages to catch him off guard nevertheless. It’s more difficult to immediately recognize them for what they are now that he can no longer see their true forms, but some part of him will always be able to tell, if he looks carefully enough. Like calls to like.

He doesn’t need to be able to see her true form, anyway. He’d recognize her face anywhere. It’s always been hers and hers alone.

“Anna.”

She stands in a halo of grocery store fluorescents, and regards him warily. “Castiel,” she relents, after a long moment. “I didn’t…” She fades off, staring at him with an expression that he can’t parse.

His fingers ghost over his ribs, as though he’d be able to feel the tattoo through the fabric. Anna tracks the movement, hawklike.

“I’m warded,” Castiel admits, filling in the blanks. “That’s why you couldn’t sense me.”

With his free hand, he tugs absently on the hem of his sweatshirt. Eileen had brought it back as a gift from her last visit to Ireland, and it’s far too large on him. Usually this is something he prefers in his clothing, but he can’t stand the way the sleeves flop around. He often has to roll them up, defeating the purpose of a sweatshirt entirely. Dean wears it more than he does, and it smells like him.

He wears it under a jacket, and he’s still too cold, and it had been long enough that he’d thought Anna hadn’t been one of the ones to make it. “I didn’t realize you were alive,” he says, taking a hesitant step towards her. “I had hoped, but…”

Almost a year since the Empty, and he’d never once heard about her from the others. She wasn’t a popular figure when she died, even though it’s not like Castiel was either. Still isn’t, with some, but Naomi will have to cope. She has more important things to do.

For several seconds, Anna just stares at him, weighing a container of cinnamon in her hand. Then she shifts, returning it to the shelf before she faces him fully. Her eyes are shrewd, studying him the same way she used to study the battlefield in Assyria, and he still can’t quite understand the expression on her face.

“Honestly, Castiel, I was…angry. I didn’t want to see you yet.” It stings more than it should. He has no right. He had been the one to condemn her to her fate, after all. She’d been trying to help him. “And I wasn’t –” She cuts herself off, finally tearing her gaze away. Her lips tug into a tight smile. “There are many things I regret, and I was in there a lot longer than you.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, no matter how hollow it feels.

“Yeah, well.” Anna lifts her chin. That strange expression is back. He’s starting to think it may be something like grief. She watches him for long enough that he doesn’t think she’s going to say anything more. He’s begun to plot his escape when she quietly adds, “I’d been told you were human, but I’d never quite believed it until now.”

The corners of his mouth lift. “It’s not even the first time.”

“What?”

“It’s a lot more pleasant, this time around.” Despite the crippling insomnia, and the temperature regulation issues, and every other damn thing that’s gone wrong since he sacrificed his grace. The bar is on the floor, as Claire likes to say.

Her eyes soften. “There are worse things.”

Yesterday, he nearly tripped over Jack while he was sprawled on the floor, using the dog as a pillow. He was very upset with Luke Skywalker over something and actively debating with Sam about it. Dean occasionally chimed in with relevant plot points from his spot on the couch, and Castiel had wanted to wrap himself up in the warmth of that moment and never leave.

“Yes,” Castiel murmurs. “There are worse things.”

“Every emotion,” Anna says, “even the bad ones.”

He’s not really sure what she means by that, but it doesn’t matter much. There are more pressing concerns. He’s been trying to keep track of all of the angels left on earth, even the ones who don’t want anything to do with him. “Who told you that I was human?”

Anna tilts her head and almost smiles. “Uriel, actually.”

Castiel blinks, taken aback. “I hadn’t known he’d escaped, either.” He doesn’t know how to feel about that. He’ll reexamine the emotion once he’s no longer in a Walmart and has slept for more than two hours.

“You created more than one tear,” Anna replies. “Not many, but. I imagine there’s even more of us out there.”

It’s not the first time he’s wondered how many escaped the Empty before it collapsed in on itself. He doesn’t think he will ever be certain. For as many angels who seek him out, there are more who refuse to acknowledge his existence, or even actively long for retribution. Angels he killed, mostly, or Naomi’s ilk who blame him for the destruction of Heaven. He got lucky; many of them did not choose to remain on Earth. Angels need purpose, and Billie was more than happy to provide.

They continue their staring contest. Anna hasn’t moved, and he remains similarly rooted to the spot, basket hanging uselessly at his side. He’s probably quite the sight, in his oversized sweatshirt and flannel pants and army jacket. A far cry from the angel she knew for millennia beyond counting.

She’s not going to attack him, that much is obvious, so he gives up the pretense and closes the distance between them. She glances briefly, curiously, into his basket. He’s not sure what she expects to find in there, but it’s likely not a snowglobe and the nougat Jack likes. He’s not sure what Anna wants anymore, now that Lucifer’s atoms are scattered across time and space.

“Why are you here?” Castiel asks.

Anna arches a brow. “Angels don’t sleep.” She gives him a pointed look. This close, he can see she hasn’t aged a day. She’s wearing the same clothes she died in. “Humans are supposed to.”

His mouth twitches. “My, uh, body seems to forget that sometimes. I needed…” He adjusts his grip on his basket. Swallows. “It. Doesn’t matter. But I meant, why are you in Kansas, of all places?”

She shrugs. “Wandering, I guess.”

“You still have your wings,” Castiel says, “and believe me when I say that was a rare thing for many years. You can be anywhere in the world, and you choose the American Midwest?”

Anna’s lips curve into a tiny smile. “I’m from the Midwest. I think it’s more surprising to find you here.”

“I live here.” Her brow furrows. “Well. Not here, Concordia is just the closest Walmart.” And Concordia still means an hour in the dark. He’s really grown to hate Lebanon. “The only things open at this hour are Walmarts and gas stations.”

She blinks once, slowly, then says, “I still don’t understand the logic.”

Castiel sighs, fingernails scraping through the stubble shadowing his jaw. Anna’s stare shifts, her eyes widening. His hand freezes in place, and then he realizes that his sleeve had slid down to his wrist, and it’s not the hand she’s staring at. It’s his finger. The narrow iron band glints.

The only sound is the distant chatter of the overnight stockers and the faint thrum of the fluorescents.

“I didn’t believe Uriel about that, either,” Anna says. “I thought it was another one of his jokes.” His hand slowly falls back to his side. “He wasn’t joking about any of it, was he? You really opened Purgatory? Stole grace?” He holds her gaze, unflinching. “Tell me he wasn’t serious about Lucifer’s son, too.”

“He’s not Lucifer’s son,” comes Castiel’s quiet reply. “He’s mine.”

Anna’s lips are parted, eyes going round with shock. Castiel knows this expression well; he’s seen betrayal on her face before, inflicted by his own hands.

“I don’t know you anymore,” she finally says, but it doesn’t carry the weight of accusation like he’s expecting, despite the hurt in her eyes. It’s simply a statement of fact.

Castiel tilts his head. “You told me it was time to think for myself.” He waves a hand, gesturing to the clothes that don’t quite fit. That part doesn’t matter, what matters is that he chose them. “This is me thinking for myself.”

“This isn’t what I meant.”

The fatigue hits him all at once. He doesn’t want to be here, having this conversation in a half-empty Walmart in Concordia at three in the morning. This is the sort of knot that takes hours to untangle, and Anna may have had almost a year to get used to the changed world she’d found herself in, but the truth of it is long. He wouldn’t tell her rumors and tall tales. He’d tell her all of it, if she wanted.

He shifts his basket from one hand to the other, and doesn’t miss the way Anna’s eyes drop to his ring again before his sleeve falls back into place. “You were dead, Anna. You don’t know.”

The silence that hangs between them is thick enough to suffocate, but Anna’s always been brave.

She says, “I’d like to.”

****

“– cross referenced four different books that are all translations of texts that date back to, like, the High Middle Ages, bunch of monks who were in some kind of proto-Men of Letters group –”

Sam is talking at a speed that human beings should not be able to achieve, and certainly not at seven in the morning. Castiel barely understands a word he’s saying. His brain is barely functioning, one thought oozing into the next, and by the time he processes what Sam said, he has already moved on. Castiel has experienced all the wondrous side effects of insomnia in his time as a human, and this is his least favorite by far.

At least Dean seems to be keeping up with his brother. He makes a vaguely agreeable sound whenever Sam pauses long enough to take a breath. Sam sits at the table across from Castiel, hunched over a six inch stack of papers and far too many sticky notes. Dean, meanwhile, stands at the stove, glaring down at the pan as though that will make the eggs cook any faster.

It’s too early for this, Castiel thinks. From what he understands Sam has been researching all night, but he is too tired to sympathize with his self-inflicted sleep deprivation. There are no lives at stake. The only safety being threatened is that of the bunker’s pantry.

“I mean,” Dean tries, “have you looked into –”

“Yes, Dean,” Sam interjects, unusually testy. “That was the first thing I thought of.” Then he continues on as though Dean hadn’t said anything.

Dean glances over his shoulder, mouthing what the fuck. Castiel merely shrugs. Dean frowns, but then the toaster pings, and effectively distracts him. Castiel watches silently as he limps over to pop out the toast, then holds up jars of various jams and preserves until Castiel nods his approval.

All the while Castiel clings to his mug of coffee, trying to leech as much heat from it as he can.

“Sam, are you sure it’s not just a really messed up gnome?” Dean asks, smirking to himself when Sam immediately threatens to set all of his favorite shirts on fire. Castiel is less amused. He’s partial to many of those shirts.

“And I just wanna know what the hell fairies are doing in Kansas,” Sam finishes, exasperated.

Dean scrapes some of the eggs onto a chipped plate and hobbles over to the table, flinching every time he puts too much weight on his bad leg. Beneath the table, Miracle’s tail thumps against the linoleum. “I don’t know, Sam, why was the door to Lucifer’s cage in friggin’ Maryland?” He goes back to the counter for the toast and jam. “Take it up with Chuck if it really bothers you so much.”

“Sure, I’ll just give Billie a call to see if she’ll let me borrow his ashes for a bit. Maybe I’ll get lucky and she won’t kill me on the spot.”

Dean pauses, jar tucked into the crook of his arm, face contemplative. “Do you actually have her number?”

“No, Dean.”

They bicker. Dean insults Sam’s hair. Sam calls Dean short. Castiel stops trying to listen.

Instead, he finds himself focusing on the heat of the coffee in his hands, the weight of the dog leaning against his legs. His shoulders ache, but his shoulders always ache. He stares at the food in front of him and doesn’t touch any of it. The thought of eating anything nauseates him, but he’s nauseated because he hasn’t eaten, and how does that make any sort of sense?

There’s movement in the corner of his eye. He tears himself away from his staring contest with the toast to see that Mollie and Caleb have wandered into the kitchen, likely lured in by the smell of cooking food.

Dean’s grin falters at the sight of them. “Take whatever you want,” he says once he visibly collects himself. “I’m making the whole carton.”

Caleb grabs two plates from the cabinets and starts piling eggs on them. Mollie takes a seat one chair over from Sam, presumably leaving that spot open for Eileen. “Did you figure out what it was?” she asks.

Sam immediately launches into a new tirade, only now with Dean’s additional commentary. Mollie and Caleb interject with their own loud ideas, and Castiel doesn’t remember getting up, only that one moment he’s sitting at the table, and the next he’s halfway down the hall with Miracle trailing along behind him.

The bunker’s halls are labyrinthine, and where he once could wander without interruption for hours, now there seems to be a person around every corner. Members of Sam’s fledgling hunter network that Dean refers to collectively as baby hunters, even though the hunting they do is minimal at best and there is not a single one under the age of twenty. They stare at him as he shuffles past, one or two brave enough to mutter a hello. Sam brought them in about a month ago, and they all make Dean nervous, no matter how much he swears they don’t. Castiel, on the other hand, cares very little how they look at him.

His feet eventually lead him to Dean’s TV room, the only room in the bunker that Dean has barred the young hunters from entering. Apparently he caught them going through his movie collection, and their horror opinions offended him so thoroughly they’re never allowed to set foot in here again.

Jack is stretched out on the couch, propped against a pillow as he squints down at his Switch. Donna gifted it to him for his birthday and there isn’t a day that goes by that he does not resent her for that, as it’s the only thing that can hold Jack’s attention lately. Jack doesn’t even notice that Castiel is there until he is moving Jack’s legs so that he has somewhere to sit. It takes him a few seconds longer to realize that Miracle is also there, snuffling at his arm until he curls up on the floor next to them.

“Good morning,” Jack greets. “Are you hiding?”

“There are too many people in the kitchen,” Castiel replies, “and they’re all trying to talk at the same time.”

Jack nods sagely. “Hiding.” He sits up, setting his Switch down in his lap. On the screen, Castiel can see pixelated farmland, and Jack's character riding a tiny horse. The horse is wearing a cowboy hat. “Are Sam and Dean fighting again?”

Castiel grimaces. “No,” he says. “But Dean was antagonizing him on purpose. It was his own fault that Sam brought up his height.”

“I never understand why they do that.”

“That’s because you’re an only child,” Dean says from the doorway. He’s holding a steaming mug of something that smells like lemon. “You able to put the device down long enough to get breakfast?”

Jack looks down at his lap, frowning in consideration. Then he presses a button, and the screen goes dark. “I only just woke up, so it just saved.” He reverently places the Switch on the coffee table.

“Sure.”

“What did you make?” Jack asks. He stretches his arms above his head until his spine pops. Dean wrinkles his nose at the sound.

“Only got to the eggs and toast before the vultures started descending,” Dean says. “So you might want to move fast.” As Jack pushes past, he adds, “And Eileen got that juice from the store that you like.”

Castiel hears a muffled “Thank you!” from down the hall, and then it’s only the two of them in the room.

“Alright, grumpy,” Dean sighs as he skirts around the edge of the couch, easing down beside him with a flinch. “Fuck me,” he hisses under his breath, before holding out the mug in offering. “Stole some of Sam’s tea. You should really eat something, but it’s better than nothing.”

“I’m too hungry to eat.” Castiel takes the mug anyway. It’s pleasantly hot between his hands. “Which is idiotic. Evolution has failed you in so many ways.”

Dean huffs a laugh. “Yeah, doesn’t make much sense to me either.” He rubs at his injured knee, wincing. Castiel catches him doing it often now that the cast is off. “Tea should help with that too, I think. Better than coffee.”

“Nothing is better than coffee.”

“True.”

Castiel takes a hesitant sip. The tea is scalding, but he likes it best that way. When his stomach doesn’t make any further protests, he takes another longer sip.

He startles when Dean drops his phone in his lap. “Left that in the kitchen,” Dean says, draping an arm over the back of the couch. Unlike Castiel, he’s already dressed for the day in jeans and a worn flannel. “Your phone has been going off.”

Castiel’s brow furrows. He shifts the mug to one hand to thumb open his phone, and is immediately flooded with messages from Gabriel in their shared thread with several other angels. He silences the chat, grumbling to himself.

“Guess it wasn’t anything important.”

“Gabriel,” Castiel sighs, which is answer enough. He inches back until he’s settled against Dean’s side, and smiles victoriously to himself when Dean’s arm comes to curl around his shoulders. He takes another sip of tea. There is a blurry spot forming in the corner of his eye that promises a migraine to come, but he’s too comfortable where he is to do anything about it. That’s a problem for later.

They sit together in companionable silence for a few minutes, until Dean quietly says, “You didn’t come to bed last night.”

Castiel swallows a mouthful of tea. “No.”

“Sam says you left the bunker?”

“I did.”

“At, like, one in the goddamn morning?”

“Yes.”

He feels Dean’s eyes boring holes in the side of his head. He takes another drink.

“You gonna share with the class, or am I just gonna have to guess until you tell me?”

Dean put honey in this, he thinks. “Walmart.”

“Walmart?” Dean repeats. “What the hell was so important you had to go to –” He cuts himself off, sputtering. “You went to Nebraska at one in the morning?”

“Concordia.”

Dean throws up an arm. The other is still wrapped tightly around Castiel’s shoulder, and Castiel hums when Dean uses it to tug him closer. “Oh Concordia, yeah, sure, it’s still in the state, that’s fine.”

“I got you a snowglobe, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Thanks,” Dean says flatly, “it does.”

Castiel can feel him frowning into his hair. “I had to…” He cuts himself off with a sigh. He awkwardly folds his legs, shifting about restlessly until he can successfully tuck his ankles underneath him. The tea splashes over the rim of the mug. Dean grunts when Castiel accidentally elbows him in the ribs.

He nurses his tea. Dean slowly taps a finger against his arm, once, twice, three times.

“You drove an hour,” Dean tries again, when Castiel still doesn’t continue. “In the dark.”

“There were headlights,” Castiel says, but it sounds weak even to his own ears. On the nights he can sleep, they keep a lamp on. He can’t wander through the dark corners of the bunker, anymore.

The light is how he can be sure that he’s real. For all its illusions and tricks, the Empty could not mimic light, only wield the memory of it against him.

“You drove an hour one way, in the dark, when you haven’t slept in almost two days,” Dean says, each word coming out harsher than the last, his frustration boiling over. “Have you lost your damn mind? You could have gotten yourself wrapped around a tree and I wouldn’t have known until the fucking hospital –”

“Anna escaped the Empty.”

“– called and told me I’m married to a goddamn vegetable, and, what?”

He knows Dean’s anxieties come from a place of concern, but he has a veritable wealth of them and Castiel is very tired. “Uriel as well, apparently. I wouldn’t have expected him to stay on Earth.” He polishes off what’s left of his tea, leaning away to set his mug on the side table. “I ran into her in the spice aisle.”

Dean slings an arm around Castiel’s stomach, leans down so that his breath is pleasantly hot against Castiel’s ear. “I know what you’re doing.”

“What is it I’m doing?”

“Changing the subject. Avoiding the problem.”

Castiel closes his eyes and lets himself fall back against Dean’s chest. “I don’t want to fight with you. It’s already done. I couldn’t stand spending another moment in this bunker.”

Dean’s arm tightens around his waist, and for several minutes he says nothing at all. Castiel is contemplating if he could manage to doze while sitting like this when he hears a quiet, “We won’t be here for much longer.”

“I know that, but my brain doesn’t seem to care.” Castiel tilts his face, nosing along Dean’s jaw. “You’re welcome to try and convince my hypothalamus to be reasonable, maybe you’ll have more luck than I did.”

They lapse into silence again, until Dean asks, “But why Walmart?”

“They’re open 24 hours,” Castiel says, “and Eileen needed cheap t-shirts.” He lifts his face, squinting up at him. “What’s the phrase? With the two birds?”

“One stone.”

He settles back down, tucking himself beneath Dean’s chin with a contented sigh. “That one.”

****

Due to their mutual hatred of the bunker’s ancient coffee maker, there is a coffee shop that Castiel and Sam visit several times a week. Dean and Eileen have been known to join them on occasion, and Jack can be lured to come along if he is promised a raspberry croissant, but for the most part it is just the two of them.

Castiel is still mildly guilty that he’s come without Sam, even though there are only so many places to meet in Lebanon. Not to mention, he isn’t sure how comfortable Anna would be in a bunker full of Sam’s students, relatively pacifistic as they may be.

(There’s also the small fact that before Michael destroyed her, Anna had tried to kill Mary Winchester. Naomi’s reprogramming is much to blame for that desperate choice, so he’s fairly sure that they’re past that, but it never hurts to be cautious.)

Anna sits across from him at their booth, nursing a black coffee. Castiel is already halfway through the caramel concoction the barista convinced him to try – Heidi knows his preferences well – and he’s considering going back for another.

“Did you ever sleep?” Anna asks, ripping open a packet of sugar and dumping it into her mug.

Castiel licks foam off of his thumb. “My body gave up eventually. It took another twelve hours, though”

Anna eyes him, brow furrowing. “Does that happen…often?”

“It comes and goes. Sometimes I sleep too much. Sometimes I have crippling insomnia.” He wraps his fingers around his cup. “It’s starting to even out.”

She shakes her head, reaching for another sugar packet. Sam would be appalled. “My parents said I was a very fussy baby,” she says, pinching the edge of the packet and shaking it. “I don’t think I slept through the night until the tail end of elementary school.” She shrugs. “Fallen angel thing, maybe.”

“Maybe.”

They sip their coffee. Anna makes a face, muttering about molecules, and reaches for a third packet. Castiel ducks his chin, hiding his smile. Their conversation is quiet, occasionally interrupted by a customer saying hello or asking after Sam or Dean or Jack or all three. Castiel talks more than Anna does, trying to catch her up on all the years she missed. A few times she interrupts with a question, or for clarification, but for the most part she just listens. She had known most of it already, having learned secondhand over the months since the Empty, but only the bigger picture.

“It took a…while for things to start making sense,” Anna murmurs into her fourth cup. Castiel refrained after his first. “I don’t know how long it was before I started believing any of it was real, but eventually there were just. Too many details that the Empty couldn’t have come up with.”

“Like sunlight.”

“What?”

Castiel fiddles with his empty cup. “That’s how I’m able to tell.”

Understanding dawns on Anna’s face. “I never thought of that.” She glances out the window, into the empty street, a sad sort of smile pulling at her mouth. “It’s…touch, for me.” She runs a finger around the rim of her mug. “Everything started feeling so muted in there, but out here it’s. When I first got out, I could feel every individual stitch in my shirt. Even in a vessel, it was overwhelming, but it actually helped once I got used to it.”

“Because in the Empty, it was all memory.”

Anna’s smile widens into something genuine when she looks back at him. “Exactly.”

He mirrors her smile, he can’t help it.

For all he loves Dean, it’s not something he can understand, not really. His time had been brief, the illusions he had experienced were blatant falsehoods, not memories. Jack’s sleep had been dreamless by design. Sam had never set foot there at all. Gabriel, Hannah, the handful of other angels who sought him out, they don’t speak of it.

Anna would have been content to sit there into the night, but eventually, Castiel has to get up and stretch his legs.

“I get very stiff,” he explains as they meander down the street, and Anna nods.

“Herniated discs ran in my family,” Anna says, “I had already started to get pinched nerves before I got my grace back.”

“That sounds unpleasant.”

“Extremely.”

They lapse into a comfortable silence, wandering the muted streets of Lebanon until they end up at a small park. The playground is empty except for the pair of them. It should startle him how easily they’ve slipped back into their old camaraderie, as though several apocalypses haven’t been thwarted in her absence, but instead he’s relieved. He’s missed her.

Castiel leans against a thin tree. “The gates of Heaven were housed in a sandbox, for a while.”

Anna, on the other side of the tree, peers down at the sandbox by their feet. “Interesting choice.”

“Who am I to question the will of Heaven?”

She throws her head back and laughs.

****

He returns to the bunker at dusk, and the garage isn’t empty. When he pulls in, Dean waves a greasy hand from where he’s bent over the Impala’s engine in a way he definitely shouldn’t be, considering his knee.

In all honesty, given Dean’s apparent social anxiety, Castiel should have expected this. The garage has become one of his frequent hiding spots for when he’s avoiding the new hunters or he’s having another explosive fight with Sam. He hopes it’s the former and not the latter. Now that they’ve reached some kind of tentative armistice, they’ve been getting better.

Dean grabs a rag as Castiel climbs out of his truck. “We gotta worry about her ganking us to stop the Apocalypse?” Dean jokes as Castiel crosses the garage.

Castiel rolls his eyes, and lets that be answer enough.

A wry grin splits Dean’s face. He tosses the blackened rag onto the workbench, and the hands that reach for Castiel are relatively clean, save for the oil under his fingernails. “Hey, it’s a valid concern,” he retorts, tugging Castiel closer by the sleeve.

“If she were going to do it,” Castiel says, “she would have attempted it at any point over the last year. She knows Lucifer is dead.” He was one of the few that they’re certain of, in fact.

Dean snorts. “Yeah, well, Heaven kind of fried her brain and the Empty shit didn’t h-help.” He’s only mildly startled when Castiel smoothes away the sweaty hair clinging to his forehead. “She feelin’ as benevolent about Jack?”

Castiel grimaces, fingers tangling in Dean’s hair. “She’s not going to try to hurt him. Even if she wanted to, she knows I’d kill her if she tried, but…she was desperate to stop Lucifer. Nephilim have the potential to be the most dangerous beings in all of creation, and a nephilim with archangel parentage? The Apocalypse wasn’t ten years ago to her. It’s going to take time to come to terms with.”

“Doesn’t surprise me.”

He pulls away to return his tools to their box. Castiel leans against the Impala’s side, hands in his pocket, fiddling with the truck’s keys. They recently got transferred to a sea turtle keychain that Jack had gifted him, picked up at the aquarium he’d gone to with Sam after a salt and burn in Atlanta.

“I didn’t expect you to be out here,” Castiel says, as casually as he can manage.

Dean doesn’t answer immediately. He gathers rags in a pile, closing the lid on the toolbox before he turns around. “Yeah, uh,” he starts, rubbing the back of his neck and wincing. “Some of the kids got back from that poltergeist thing and were hanging out in the library. Sam started telling them about that, uh, revenant case we had forever ago? But they already knew all about it.” He chuckles quietly to himself. “Not ‘cause we told them or anything. They read about it in the books.”

“Oh.”

“Just. Makes my skin crawl when they start doing that shit.” Dean scrubs a hand over his mouth. “Bunch of baby hunters lookin’ at us with stars in their eyes. I think they’d bother me a lot less if they didn’t know every little thing about us.”

“The books didn’t tell the whole story.”

“They told enough.”

Castiel stares at him a long moment, then pushes off the Impala. “You said it yourself,” he says, “we won’t be here much longer.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dean sighs. “But god, it feels like Charlie’s taking forever.”

“Government documents are difficult to forge in bulk. There are pastries in the meantime.”

Dean quirks a smile at him. “Yeah?”

Castiel nods. “In the truck. I got that danish you like.”

“Marry me.”

“Let me think about it.”

Dean laughs, loud and bright. Castiel fights a smile, but it’s a losing battle, especially when Dean wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him in for a messy kiss. “C’mon,” he murmurs into his mouth. “Maybe we can lure everyone out of their caves.”

****

Even into September, Kansas is relatively warm, something that Castiel appreciates greatly. When he’s out in the sun, he finally feels as though he can peel off all of the layers of clothing he has to wear to be able to survive the bunker’s frigid temperatures. He sits in a rickety chair by one of the bunker’s hidden back doors with a book, gazing out into the surrounding landscape.

He’s spent a lot of time over the years fantasizing about planting a garden out here, but the truth of the matter is that there isn’t really anywhere to put it. The bunker had to be built into a series of small hills, and they are too rocky and the dirt too poor to produce more life than the spindly trees that somehow managed to grow. Castiel may have the time to spare and the assurance that he is wanted here, but it remains a distant fantasy at the end of the day.

Still, he spends most of his time out here, especially on the bad days and even when it’s raining. This door has an overhang that does a decent job at shielding him from any precipitation, but not from Dean’s constant fretting. On those days is when this little spot is the most important. He thinks he’ll miss it when they leave.

Though he reads a lot – like he’s presently pretending to do – he spends just as much time watching. This baffles Dean and Sam alike, as they don’t see anything to observe, but Jack requires no explanations. He’ll often come out to join him, and they’ll sit in the old chairs that Sam pulled out of the bunker’s storage and watch. Jack has gotten very good at identifying birds and insects at a glance, and especially enjoys when Castiel tells him all of the names they have had throughout history that he can remember. He keeps a spiral on hand for when the lists get shorter, when he feels a memory beginning to dull around the edges and he has to record it before it fades entirely.

In his pocket, his phone vibrates again, and Castiel closes his book in defeat. It’s decent enough, a thriller that Eileen loaned him, but he’s struggling to pay attention. If his phone doesn’t distract him, the woodpeckers will.

Another text from Anna waits for him, and he smiles in spite of himself.

“Is that Anna?” Jack asks from over his shoulder, and Castiel starts.

“I’m beginning to understand why Dean hated that so much,” he replies.

Jack grins sheepishly. “Sorry.” He claims his usual spot in the empty chair next to him. “You’ve been talking to her a lot.”

Anna’s visits have become a regular part of his week. She flies to Lebanon every Friday from wherever in the world she spends her time, and they visit the same coffee shop or wander the town. She doesn’t come to the bunker, and he doesn’t bring anyone else along for their meetings, though everyone is perfectly aware where he’s going. Sam does complain that he is going to their coffee spot without him, so Castiel makes sure to bring something back for him every time he goes.

“She was my superior for a long time,” Castiel says.

Jack tilts his head. “You missed her.”

“A great deal.” Castiel leans back in his chair. “I don’t think I realized how much. I’ll introduce you soon, once she’s…she tried to stop Lucifer by any means necessary. She needs time to adjust.”

“You think she won’t like me.”

“I think I’ve had enough of people looking at you like you’re a monster.”

The corners of Jack’s mouth twitch into a small, private smile. “Oh.” He pulls his legs up onto the chair and rests his chin on his knees.

They stare out into the surrounding hills and beyond, to the flat fields that stretch into the horizon. The sun is starting to set, draping the world in shades of vibrant orange. They’ll have to head back inside soon, but for now, they can enjoy the last dregs of summer.

A firefly flashes near Castiel’s head. He stretches out a hand, catching the firefly on his index finger. He reels in his hand, watching as it slowly scuttles across his knuckles. “You know,” he says, “fireflies typically start to disappear around the end of June.”

“Huh,” Jack replies, in a voice that is not at all suspicious. “Weird.”

“Jack.”

“...climate change?” he suggests weakly.

Castiel huffs a laugh, tilting his hand so he can watch the firefly’s progress. “There are worse things to use your grace for.”

“Do you miss it?”

His voice is so soft, Castiel almost doesn’t hear it. “Sometimes.” When his shoulders ache with the phantom weight of wings, when his once infallible memory starts to fail, when Eileen comes limping back to the bunker with an infected ghoul bite, when he can’t sleep or Dean can’t sleep or they both sleep only to be plagued with relentless nightmares.

“I’d give it back to you, if I could.”

“I know.”

He reaches towards Jack, offering up the firefly, smiling as it crawls into his waiting palm. It flashes, once, a bright spot in the rapidly descending dusk.

****

He didn’t do it for Dean, contrary to popular belief.

The Empty was rapidly destabilizing, enough so that rifts had started to form. Crowley hypothesized that a concentrated burst of energy could widen one enough to escape through. To where, he didn’t know. “Anywhere’s better than here.”

He’d do it again. He’d do it every time.

****

When things began to settle, after Chuck and the Empty and all the rest, Castiel performed a not insignificant amount of research. Well, research is perhaps a strong word. He spent a majority of his sleepless nights following Wikipedia links, deeper and deeper, until he wasn’t sure how he had gotten from Chlorophytum comosum to the Pepsi fruit juice flood. Many of the topics were new to him, but sometimes the topics were things he knew; historical events he had witnessed or he knew he had witnessed, but the memory was taken from him, or was among the many that had already faded. The human brain was not made to contain the breadth of angelic knowledge. He does not get to choose what he retains. It is a source of endless frustration.

The point is, insomnia was one of those things he researched. He already knew the basics. It was some of the information his human brain chose to keep, and he tries not to dwell too deeply on that. So he understands the differences between short term and chronic, the irritability and the anxiety and the depressive mood swings, the problems with concentration and memory. He knows, of course, that insomnia can lead to mental health issues and an increased severity in long-term health conditions.

He would feverishly follow threads from Wikipedia to the National Library of Medicine to PubMed and JSTOR and dozens of other online repositories, desperate to understand why he couldn’t do something as simple as sleep. He thought if he understood the biology behind it, he could begin to adjust accordingly, but his biology will never be ordinary. No matter how human he becomes, it does not change the fact that he was once anything but.

Castiel did begin to sleep, eventually, once his body adjusted. It became one of his favorite things about his humanity, other than coffee. When he slept, Dean could not drag him from bed even if the bunker were threatening to collapse all around them.

But the insomnia comes back. With a slower and slower frequency, certainly, but it does come back. Recurrent episodic insomnia.

He begins to notice a pattern. Two days before he met Anna in that Concordia Walmart, there had been a power outage in the bunker. It had been brief, maybe only an hour, but it had been enough. He’d sat there, frozen, in suffocating darkness while everyone fought with the ancient machinery.

Of course, Castiel had thought, more from resignation than terror, I should have known better. The fantasy was elaborate, even by the Shadow’s standards, but when has his life ever been allowed to be so pleasant? The rug had to be ripped out from under him eventually.

Dean found him paralyzed in the hall, the light of his phone a beacon in the dark, bringing him back to himself. Sam got the power back on quickly after that, but the damage was already done. The bunker had become a prison.

It had eased for a while after that, but they’re leaving the bunker for good tomorrow, and his insomnia has returned with a vengeance. It’s not a part of his usual pattern, and he doesn’t think he’s nervous about change. Unlike Dean, whose moving anxiety was manifesting in a somehow even shorter temper and near constant fidgeting.

He’s getting what he’s always wanted, isn’t he? A life where his family can be at peace. He’s not sure why he finds himself alone in the library, possibly the most wide awake he’s ever been. Why that relentless little voice is hissing in his ear that none of this is real, when he’s never been more certain of it.

At least, he thinks he’s certain.

He’s…mostly certain. He can feel the cotton of his shirt, the plastic shell of his pen. That has to count for something.

The rest of the bunker is asleep around him, silent save for the usual hum of the bunker’s endless machinery. All of the library’s overhead lights are turned on, as well as the handful of lamps that are scattered among the tables. Castiel has seated himself in one of the leather armchairs, legs folded beneath him, one of his spirals propped up on his knees.

He clicks the cap of his pen, again and again and again, staring down at where his tidy script trails off. Something about the Plagues of Egypt, a fleeting memory he’d grasped for a few minutes before it had slipped away again. He thinks that one is Naomi’s doing, or maybe the Shadow has devoured it.

Clawed feet click against the hardwood. Miracle shoves his face into Castiel’s lap, his breath hot and sticky on his skin. Castiel squints down at his spiral and says, “You’re supposed to be asleep.”

“So are you,” Dean replies, coming in close enough for his sweatpants to drag against Castiel’s foot.

“I’m not the one who has to drive six hours tomorrow.” Castiel clicks his pen one final time. He likes the sound of it, and won’t use any of the twist tops that Sam continues to insist on buying. “I thought insomnia and driving were not to be mixed.”

Dean pulls a face. “Jack can always drive,” he tries, in an effort to avoid blatant hypocrisy, and looks mildly terrified even as it’s coming out of his mouth.

“He’s a very good driver, you know.”

“I know!” Dean retorts, offended. “I taught him!”

“Mhm.”

Dean’s mouth twitches, but he remains stoic. “What’s that about, anyway?” he asks, bumping the spiral with his knee.

Castiel sighs. “Something Gabriel mentioned reminded me – doesn’t matter. It was here and now it’s gone.”

“He actually stopped bragging about bagging porn stars long enough to say something useful?”

“I know, I was impressed too.” Castiel picks up his phone, thumbing to the thread with the other angels. “It didn’t last long. At least he’s enjoying himself.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Too much.”

“He always does.”

“True. Scootch over.”

Castiel squints down at the armchair. “There isn’t anywhere for me to…scootch.” He flips the spiral closed, setting it on the side table with his phone and pen neatly atop it.

“Okay.” He has enough time to unfold his legs and push Miracle out of the way before Dean drops unceremoniously into his lap.

Castiel holds his arms up while Dean arranges himself to his liking. It’s a complicated task. Small is not a word that could be used to describe either of them. “This chair isn’t big enough for the both of us,” he says, just to be contrary. The way Dean has draped himself over Castiel is slightly uncomfortable – his elbow is digging into Castiel’s stomach – but he has no intentions of letting him stand up again.

“Tough.” Dean eventually settles at an angle so that he can hide his face in the crook of Castiel’s neck, tangling their legs together. If any of the other hunters come wandering in, Castiel will smite them on sight. The lack of grace won’t be an issue, he’ll find a way.

Dean hums contentedly. Castiel winds an arm around his hip, sneaking a hand under his shirt to palm at the warm skin of his stomach. Dean jolts at the touch.

“Your hands are fuckin’ icicles, man.”

“This bunker is freezing.”

“We’re underground!”

“It’s uninhabitable.”

Dean snorts a laugh. His face burrows impossibly further into Castiel’s neck. Castiel soothes a hand through his hair and is rewarded with a pleased sigh. Maybe the Shadow will forget him, and he’ll be allowed to stay like this forever.

He gets maybe five minutes before Dean’s tugging at his collar. “Hey.”

Castiel cracks an eye open. “What.”

“You okay?”

“Yes?”

Dean pulls his face up enough so that Castiel can see his dubious expression. “Liar.”

“I’m not. Lie back down.”

Instead of doing that, Dean leans back further. “You can’t sleep. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that means you’re all freaked out.”

“The same could be said of you.”

“Literally everyone expects me to act insane about this,” Dean says. “And I am, but that’s – completely not the point. No one would fault you for also being freaked out. Like, even just a little bit.”

Castiel squints at him. Dean stares back. His hair is peppered with grey hairs that have been appearing with increasing frequency over the last year. Castiel can feel each individual strand beneath his fingers, details too small for the Empty to ever replicate. Dean leans into the touch.

“This is real,” Castiel says.

“Yeah, sweetheart, this is real.”

The one thing I want is something I know I can’t have, he thinks, but he has it. He studies the faint sigils that Rowena etched into his wedding ring, the buttery light of the table lamp. “I love you,” he tries, softly.

“Love you too,” Dean replies, easy as anything. Call and response. He lowers himself back down, tucking his face back where it belongs in the curve of Castiel’s neck.

The Empty doesn’t come.

****

1:07 PM
To: Anna Milton
If Hell no longer exists, where do exorcised demons go? 🤔👿🔥

1:09 PM
From: Anna Milton
This doesn’t sound rhetorical.

1:09 PM
To: Anna Milton
It isn’t. There’s a demon in my living room.

1:09 PM
From: Anna Milton
You would think they would know better.
Anyway. I’d assume they’d float around the atmosphere searching for a new host.

1:10 PM
To: Anna Milton
I was afraid you’d say that.

Their wards were still a work in progress, but at least they’d had the foresight to paint that devil’s trap on the living room floor. It had been easy enough to lure the demon inside and easier still to fall back into the hallway once trapped there. From there, he watched as the demon peeled back the area rug, spitting curses and promising to rip his throat out.

“Will you now,” Castiel says absently, squinting down at his phone while he drafts a text to Rowena. He leans against the wall, Miracle laying dutifully at his feet, angel blade sitting on an unpacked box but within arm’s reach. He doesn’t expect that he’ll need it, and would prefer not to harm whoever the demon is possessing, but he’s also died enough for one lifetime. He’s just being cautious.

Not that he really has to be. This isn’t a particularly bright demon.

It’s possessing a young woman, unsteady on its stolen legs in a way that indicates to Castiel that she is very much fighting back, and that the demon is not used to possessing a body still occupied by a soul. Definitely one of Rowena’s, then.

He watches impassively as it finishes its rant and then collapses back on its ankles, spent. “I’m surprised you honestly thought this would go well.”

“I had to try.”

Before Castiel can press further, the lock on the front door rattles, and his eyes drift shut. Dean holds the door open with his shoulder, Jack walking in with several grocery bags hanging on each arm. He’s in the midst of explaining some kind of video game lore to Dean – Dean’s eyes are glazed over, this probably started all the way back in Sioux Falls – but he cuts himself off mid sentence when he sees the guest in their living room.

“Oh,” he says. He tries in vain to wave, but he’s too weighed down by plastic bags, and Castiel still has the energy to be irritated, despite their current situation. He specifically told them to use the cloth bags. “Hello.”

Dean drops his bags at the foot of the stairs before he comes to a stop at Castiel’s shoulder, ignoring the dog pawing at his legs. “What the hell.”

“Winchester,” the demon hisses. It’s still slumped on the floor.

“I already texted Rowena,” Castiel says. “She’ll be here shortly.” He frowns at the shards of wood scattered across the rug. “I tried to avoid the coffee table.”

Dean’s staring at Castiel’s side. “I literally don’t care about the coffee table.” Castiel flinches as pain suddenly shoots up his arm. He glances down to see Dean’s fingers trailing over a gash on his forearm and, oh, he’d somehow missed that. That’s unfortunate, this was one of his favorite sweaters.

He says as much to Dean.

“Jesus Christ,” Dean says, taking Castiel gently by the wrist. “Jack, keep an eye on her?”

“I’m going to flay the skin from your bones,” the demon says.

“Yep!” Jack replies cheerfully.

Dean leads him into the first floor bathroom, which is as nightmarishly ugly as the kitchen, so Castiel tends to avoid it as much as possible. He pushes Castiel down onto the toilet and promptly starts rummaging around in the medicine cabinet, muttering under his breath.

“– get it through their thick skulls that retired doesn’t mean easy pickings –”

Castiel peers at his forearm, wincing as he peels away bits of ruined fabric to better access the wound. The cut on his arm isn’t deep enough to require stitches, but blood still trickles slowly down his skin in thin rivulets, dripping to the floor and staining the tile. No great loss, there.

Dean perches on the edge of the tub, pulling Castiel’s arm into his lap. He covers the gash with a thick scrap of cloth and presses down. “Is it bad that this is the most normal I’ve felt in weeks?”

Frowning, Castiel lifts his eyes, but Dean is very pointedly looking at his lap. Castiel watches his Adam’s apple bob in his throat, the way his nostrils flare and the set of his jaw. He reaches out to trace his thumb along the lines around his mouth, and Dean’s eyes flutter shut.

“I don’t think so,” Castiel says. “I think normal is always going to have a different definition to us than to other people.”

That earns him a snort. Castiel’s hand unfurls to cup his cheek, and Dean tilts to press a kiss into the palm of Castiel’s hand.

The only sound in the room is the relentless drip of the leaky faucet. Dean keeps the pressure on the wound, lifting the cloth every few minutes to check if the bleeding has stopped. They could just ask Jack, but it’s the hunter equivalent of a paper cut, it would be a waste of his recovering grace. There are more important things, like fireflies.

“Better it was you that was here and not me,” Dean murmurs.

Castiel’s brow furrows. “Because of your knee?”

“Because I would have just…” Dean’s mouth hangs open, head shaking minutely. “I wouldn’t have stopped.” It comes out quiet, ashamed.

Oh.

“You would have,” Castiel assures him.

“No, I really wouldn’t have. Walk in on a demon in my living room? Dead before you can say exorcizamus te. It’s just automatic.” He huffs a laugh, but there’s no mirth in it. “Sam had a point, y’know? I don’t know when or why we stopped caring about the people the demons were riding.”

Dean peels away the cloth. The bleeding has stopped. He stands up to turn on the tap, taking Castiel with him, watching as he runs his forearm under the cool water. The blood rinses away, scarlet circling the drain.

“Rowena is on her way,” Castiel says. “She will figure out what to do with the demon, and then we will take the girl home.”

The tap turns off. Dean gently dabs away the excess water before tearing open a package of bandages. He clears his throat. “Alright.”

“Dean.”

“I said alright.” Castiel tugs sharply on the hem of Dean’s shirt. “Jesus, what?”

“You wouldn’t have done it.”

Dean clenches his jaw. “Cas.”

Another tug that has Dean’s eyes narrowing. “You wouldn’t have done it, because we’re not those people anymore. Alright?”

They stare at each other for a long time, each too stubborn to look away. Dean breaks first. “Okay.” He takes Castiel’s arm and fixes two butterfly bandages onto his freshly cleaned wound. Then he says, “You’re lucky you don’t need stitches, we’re out of floss.”

He can tell that Dean doesn’t believe him, but that’s fine. They have time. “I’ll never understand your aversion to sutures.”

“That shit ain’t cheap.”

“You can get kits on Amazon.”

“Oh, so now you like Amazon?”

****

Leaving Lebanon means that Anna and Castiel have to find a new meeting spot, and they eventually settle on a diner in Sioux Falls. The first time they meet there is coincidentally the first time Dean comes along.

Castiel peers down at the laminated menu, weighing his options, while Dean shreds his napkin into tiny pieces. They’re sitting side by side in a booth, having left the seat opposite them empty and earning strange looks from the waitress.

“They seem very proud of their French toast,” Castiel comments idly, bringing the menu closer to his face when the letters start swimming out of focus. It’s been happening a lot lately, much to his chagrin.

“Is this gonna be weird? I feel like this is gonna be weird,” Dean says.

Castiel frowns. “What’s going to be weird?” He usually prefers pancakes to French toast, but he finds the vanilla cream filling greatly appealing. Gabriel’s penchant for sweets is starting to rub off on him.

Dean grabs Castiel's left hand and lifts it up, shaking it pointedly. Castiel blinks at him, then at his hand, still in Dean’s grip. The menu floats back down to the table.

Castiel says, “I still don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

Dean sighs, letting go of his hand and dropping his forehead to Castiel’s shoulder. “The fact that I,” he says, voice muffled by Castiel’s sweater, “and Anna.” He does not continue, forcing Castiel to put the pieces together.

This man used to describe his various sexual escapades to him in disturbing detail, and now he can’t even – “You think the fact that you had sex with her, once, over a decade ago, will be somehow “weirder” than the fact that she attempted to wipe you out of existence?”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Dean mutters into his shoulder. He pulls his face up. “I’m just saying, we weren’t married before. Stop making that face.”

Everything about him is baffling. Castiel loves him. “I’m not making any faces.”

“Yes you are.”

The waitress comes by with water for the table, and Dean orders coffee for all three of them. When she leaves to fetch the carafe, Castiel checks that they have enough sugar packets. Anna has finally found a combination that she can tolerate, though it requires an unholy amount of sugar.

His phone vibrates on the table when the waitress comes back with their coffee. Dean plucks it off the table as Castiel selects a creamer. “Claire texted you,” he announces, presenting it for Castiel to see.

She has sent him a blurry photo of some kind of owl with the caption, look it’s u, and even though Castiel fails to see the resemblance, he’s always pleased whenever Claire talks to him.

“Hm.” Castiel’s never sure what to say, especially as most of her texts to him involve images with vague, acidic commentary, so he elects to send her four owl emojis. Her response is immediate; exactly. She doesn’t elaborate further.

Anna appears in the seat opposite before Castiel fully sets down his phone. Dean jumps at the sight of her, jostling his mug, coffee spilling over his fingers.

“I hadn’t missed that,” Dean says flatly, shaking out his burned hand.

Anna’s smile is warm. “Hey, Dean.”

“Hi. Good to know some things never change.” He sucks coffee off of his thumb. Castiel pretends not to watch. “At least I’m not driving this time.”

“You’re lucky I finally got some new clothes.” Anna holds out her arms for emphasis. She’s wearing a new pair of jeans and a dark blue shirt. “I thought it’d be weird to show up wearing what I tried to kill you in.”

“The first thing I do after coming back from the dead is change clothes,” Dean says. “You people are fucking morbid.

“What? I liked that shirt.”

Castiel snorts, pushing her mug across the formica. Her eyes light up, and she begins methodically tearing open sugar packets while Dean watches with mild disgust.

Once Dean seems certain that there’s no awkwardness, they slip quickly into conversation, floating between topics with an ease that surprises Castiel.

“I don’t really know what I want,” Anna says at one point, lips pursed in thought. “I could go back to school if I got really bored. I never finished my degree, and I’m still technically only twenty-three.”

Dean makes a sound like he’s been hit in the stomach, which gets a laugh out of Anna but Castiel doesn’t find very funny. The fact that he gets to grow old is a blessing that Chuck was determined to deny him.

Also, Castiel likes his grey hair.

Anna circles a finger around the rim of her mug, around and around and around. She politely refused breakfast, but she’s almost done with her third coffee, something Dean mutters about peevishly as he slips out of the booth to run to the bathroom.

A comfortable silence unfurls between them. Castiel lets it linger for a minute, listening to the quiet chatter of the customers around them. They both stare out the window to watch the cars go by. He can almost feel the hum of her grace, like an itch he can’t scratch.

“Have you seen the others?” he asks.

The finger pauses. Anna’s mouth twists into a frown. “No,” she admits, after a long moment. “I avoid them. Uriel was an accident.” Her nail taps a beat against the edge of her mug. “I keep forgetting that this isn’t the Apocalypse anymore. The Empty…”

He understands. Of course he does.

Castiel slumps back in his seat, looking down at his lap. Twists his finger around and around and around. “We started making a habit of seeing each other regularly after the other angels left. You should come. You don’t have to be alone.”

“I’m not alone,” Anna says. “I have you.”

“And you aren’t lonely?” Castiel asks, fighting through the surge of warmth in his chest.

“Isn’t everyone?”

“I’m not.” And isn’t that some kind of miracle in of itself? “You shouldn’t have to be either. There’s nothing…selfless or redemptive about depriving yourself of companionship.” When he glances up, Anna is staring at him with the ghost of a smile. “What?”

“Nothing,” Anna replies. “Just – it startles me, sometimes, how much you’ve changed.”

“Oh.”

“It’s not a bad thing. Peace looks good on you.”

His mouth quirks. “I spent far too long thinking I didn’t deserve it.”

Dean slides back into the booth, throwing his arm over the back of the bench. He stuffs a piece of bacon into his mouth and asks, “What’re we talking about?” as he loudly chews, making Castiel’s skin crawl. Castiel leans into him, in spite of this.

Anna’s eyes drift between Dean and Castiel. “The other angels. Castiel invited me to their next meeting.”

He has been for weeks, and Dean knows that, but that’s beside the point.

“No shit?” Dean finally swallows, much to Castiel’s relief. “You’re gonna willingly hang out with Gabriel?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“Have fun with that.”

“Gabriel isn’t allowed to choose locations anymore,” Castiel interjects. “Not since Atlantic City.”

“Still have to be in the same room as him and Balthazar,” Dean retorts, “which is my personal fucking nightmare.”

Castiel leans towards Anna conspiratorially. “He has a vendetta.”

“He put my brother in a time loop –”

“That was over a decade ago. Rowena has tried to kill us far more recently, and you two play Words with Friends.”

“Wait,” Anna says, wriggling her phone out of her pocket. “Add me.”

****

A few weeks after Claire vacates their guest room, their second November in South Dakota, Anna finally visits their house. Castiel hears the telltale rustle of feathers just as he’s finishing covering the last of the garden beds. He sits back on his heels, glancing up at her while she peers curiously at the house.

Castiel is very fond of their house. It required a lot of work – and still does, the kitchen is hideous – but that is part of the reason he chose it. That, and its relatively close proximity to Sioux Falls and Jody Mills. A thirty minute drive to civilization isn’t terrible after living in Lebanon for so long. It provides far easier access to Walmarts at three AM, though he hasn’t required that in some time. The nightmares remain consistent, as they likely always will be, but the insomnia has eased considerably.

Their house sits in a clearing in the middle of the surrounding woods, perched on a small hill that overlooks the nearby lake. It’s two floors, with three bedrooms and a spare room on the first floor that they intend to use for supernatural business. Currently it serves as a repository for books and unpacked boxes, but that is what it will be.

Eventually.

“The warding seems…extensive,” Anna comments, tilting her head idly. She squints at something that Castiel can’t see, though he can easily imagine the bright glow of painted sigils and the thrum of magic. He can still feel it, sometimes, like a phantom limb.

“Hex bags under the floorboards, modified Enochian warding, several devil’s traps….” Castiel slowly gets to his feet. He grumbles quietly when his knees pop, wiping dirt-stained hands on his jeans. “We’re warded against most things. It was necessary. Dean’s paranoia runs deep, and the list of people we’ve angered is –” he makes a face “– excessively long.”

Anna gives him a sidelong glance. “Including angels.”

“Not you,” Castiel replies easily. She arches a brow. “Rowena and Sam figured out a way to key the warding to allow certain angels entry.”

Anna casts her eyes back towards the house, a pleased sort of glint to them. “That’s clever.”

Castiel twists until his spine cracks. Anna scrunches up her nose at the sound, but keeps looking at the house, even as he steps up beside her. Their arms brush. “We thought so. Even though Gabriel abuses the privilege.” He claims it’s to spend time with his nephew, which isn’t entirely a lie, but he also enjoys pissing Dean off too much for it to be entirely truthful.

He leads her up the steps to the porch, holding open the door for her politely.

Anna pauses on the runner once inside, tensing like she’s waiting to be banished. A few stiff seconds pass, and then she’s nodding to herself, seemingly satisfied.

Castiel closes the door behind them, and when he turns back, Anna has wandered deeper into the house. She’s still in the hallway, looking around curiously at the photos framed on their walls and the tchotchkes that are arranged on the console table. Her fingers ghost along the edges of one of Rowena’s protective charms, curl briefly around the leaves of his spider plant.

She smiles at him over her shoulder, a little sad. “My parents’ house is for sale,” she says. “I’m thinking about buying it.”

“Why don’t you?”

“I don’t know if I’m legally dead, but I definitely don’t have a bank account anymore.”

Castiel nods. “We know someone who could fix that, if you wanted to.”

Anna starts looking around again, that sad smile still fixed in place. “I think I might.”

Dean’s voice floats toward them from within the spare room. He doesn’t notice as they pass, his back to the door, hunched over a book on the desk with a phone balanced in the crook of his neck. Anna’s eyes linger on him and then float around the rest of the room, but she doesn’t stop, trailing dutifully along behind Castiel.

Jack is already in the kitchen, his laptop open in front of him and several of his textbooks stacked beside it. He sneaks bits of sandwich under the table where Miracle lies in wait. “Oh!” He flashes Anna a lopsided smile, lifting a hand in a cheery wave. “Hello!”

If Anna still had any doubts regarding Jack, Castiel watches them crumble away. The tension in her body subtly eases the longer she looks at Jack. He has that effect on people.

“Hello,” Anna says. “I’m a friend of Castiel’s.”

Jack takes a bite of his sandwich and chews thoughtfully. Miracle drops his head onto Jack’s knee to sulk. “You’re Anna?” She nods, hesitantly. Jack pats the chair next to him. “Cas has told me a lot about you.”

Anna’s mouth twitches. She eyes Castiel over her shoulder. “Only good things, I hope.”

“Very.”

While she claims the chair Jack offered her, Castiel gets the coffee ready. He pulls down two mugs from the cabinet, the creamer from the fridge. He listens to their quiet conversation, humming contentedly as he waits for the coffee to brew.

The smell of coffee eventually lures Dean out of the spare room, whatever hunter he was speaking to hung up on. He has Nettle tucked into the crook of his arm. When Dean sees the three of them seated at the kitchen table, nursing their coffee, he jumps so hard he slams his hip into the door frame.

“Jesus.” He rubs his hip with a grimace, Nettle grumbling as she is shifted to his other arm. “It’s like attack of the freakin’ clones in here.” Castiel tilts his head, squinting. Dean jabs a finger at him. “That! That shit right there!”

He looks to Anna and Jack, only to find that they’re both doing the same thing.

“You have a cat.” Anna seems surprised by this for some reason.

Dean glances down at the cat cradled in his arms. “She has a name.” For a man who claims to dislike animals, he’s become excessively defensive of his.

Anna’s eyebrow lifts. Jack interjects, “Her name is Nettle, because she’s prickly.” He grins, visibly satisfied with himself.

“...prickly,” Anna echoes. The cat in question is currently tucked against Dean’s chest, purring so aggressively that they can hear her from across the room. She turns her imperious stare on Anna, blinks once.

Dean snorts, adjusting her again, much to Nettle’s displeasure. She reaches up bat at his collarbone with a comically loud thwap.

“See?” Jack says.

“I left coffee in the pot for you,” Castiel says, tilting his head towards the counter. “What was the phone call about?”

Dean grabs a mug and pours himself some coffee, all one handed. Castiel is never sure whether it’s the cat who doesn’t want to be put down, or Dean who doesn’t want to put her down. “Donna got wind of something weird in the water out by Duluth.” Dean takes a noisy sip. “Some kind of wannabe Nessie shit, who the hell even knows. Eileen’s on it.”

He comes and takes the last available chair, curling his foot around Castiel’s ankle beneath the table. Nettle remains his contented passenger. Jack asks if the Loch Ness Monster is real, to which Anna says, “Yes,” and launches into a story about one of the saints who supposedly encountered it.

Dean watches the exchange, amused, his eyes flitting between the three of them. He leans over and murmurs low into Castiel’s ear. “Gotta be honest, it’s uncanny.”

“What?”

“The family resemblance.”

Anna explains that a monster of that sort would not actually have been stopped by the sign of the cross. Jack hangs on her every word.

Castiel smiles into his coffee.