Chapter Text
When Cas arrives, Sam is sitting on the couch with his face in his hands, Dean is staring up at the ceiling with a what am I doing with these morons roll of his eyes expression, shaking his head, and Charlie is looking like a deer caught in headlights.
“Um.”
The deep, graveling voice is one they’re all expecting, which is the reason for their stupor of classic reactions. It’s familiar, all-too-familiar, to Dean and Sam, the latter of whom looks up, pressing his lips together in an imitation of what might have been an attempt at a smile. But it’s not familiar to Charlie, who hasn’t even seen the two brothers in over a year, and she’s never met the third member of their motley little fellowship. And considering that all Sam said was, “Angel. Wears a trenchcoat. Talks like this” when she had asked about him, her imagination, of course, had gone slightly berserk with trying to figure out this magical being, this angel who could smite those freaking terrifying, human-eating things.
He’s not what she expected.
For one thing, he’s just a man (she may or may not have been envisioning some enormous, white and shining figure with wings and a blazing sword). He’s of average height (though shorter than the two Ents currently sprawled on her couch), and average build, with dark curly hair that’s sort of spiky. His face is lightly tanned, and he’s got a bit of scruff around his mouth and chin, trailing a bit on his neck (Which is kind of adorable, actually, Charlie decides, but then mentally panics for a moment - can you call an angel adorable? Is that kosher? Do they get mad and smite you if you can’t?).
Most of all, however, what Charlie notices about Castiel is the overwhelming sense of weariness that emanates from him. She’s not even a hunter thing (whatever Dean and Sam call themselves), and she’s never met Cas before, but even she can tell that he’s been through a great deal. His shoulders are rounded, slumped a little, as though he bears the weight of the world on them. His eyes are dark, a little hooded, but filled with intelligence and knowledge that spans far beyond Charlie; years, decades,centuries. Castiel is an old creature, but a tired one.
Charlie opens her mouth to say something, thinks better of it, and abruptly shuts it again.
“Hey, Cas,” says Sam, giving Dean a brief look before he says, “Glad you, um, made it.”
“Yes, well,” says Castiel heavily. "I heard you call," and again Charlie is struck by that sense of weariness. He doesn’t look strong or fierce right now (though Hobbits never look fierce either, and Hermione was no giant); just the quiet shadow of something he used to be.
“So,” she squeaks, and her voice comes out several octaves higher than she meant it to. All three of them look at her, even Dean, who before now was muttering something under his breath that Charlie couldn’t hear, but that made Sam give him a pointed look.
She turns to Cas, giving him a bright smile that is probably a bit too wide, too much.
“Sooooo,” she says again, and now Castiel is looking at her, and his eyes are so very bright blue; a blazing fire of color in an otherwise somber looking body.
“You’re…Cas,” Charlie finishes lamely, one hand lifting and falling to gesture pathetically at the person in front of her. He regards her calmly, though says nothing, merely nods, dark eyes flickering with something she cannot read.
“Cas, this is Charlie,” says Dean, speaking audibly for the first time in several moments, sounding slightly disgruntled, or maybe irritated, though she doesn’t know why. And though he is introducing her, he is looking at the angel. “Charlie, Cas.”
She sticks out her hand - the proper greeting - which Cas regards with an almost curious expression. After a moment, however, he reaches out, accepts her hand, and shakes it gently, his fingers worn, his skin soft and rough simultaneously. Charlie beams at him and nods fervently, but then drops her hand quickly when he gives her a bemused look, tilting his head to the side like a bird might do.
He reminds her slightly of the parakeet she used to have when she was a kid, and this amuses her too much, so she gives a little cough to dispel any indication of amusement, clearing her throat.
“So, um!” says Charlie brilliantly, and clasps her hands together, rocking on the balls of her feet to avoid any sort of awkwardness that stems from first greetings and stumbling conversation. She’s already helped these guys kill Leviathans; that means they’ve bonded in her book, at least.
And apparently in theirs too, since they were the ones who had sought her out. Not that she really should be excited about that, because the last time they met, things had tried to eat her, and she had almost lost her favorite pair of Avengers sneakers, and then she’d had to go into hiding (again). But this time, surely, they’ve got a much better handle on things with an actual angel on their side. For a moment she lets herself look back at the angel in question again. She’s never seen one before, and, well, she didn’t really expect them to look like…that. With a suit, backwards tie, and trenchcoat.
Maybe she’s just gotten a little too into the anime lately.
“So,” says Sam, and Charlie is jerked abruptly from her inner musings.
“We’ve been looking for this tablet,” continues Sam, with a nod towards Cas, as though confirming something. “And we haven’t had much luck, especially since losing Kevin. And we’ve lost track of Crowley…”’
He’s still talking, but Charlie’s mildly distracted by the fact that Cas has not moved from the place where he stood when he arrived (out of nowhere), right after Sam insisted on praying to him and Dean saying stubbornly that, a) they did not need to call Cas all the time, and b) “he just got out of freaking Purgatory, the dude needs some downtime, man.”
He’s standing stock-still, arms loose at his sides, fingers lightly curled into loose fists. He’s made no effort to move closer, to sit down, or to partake in the conversation. His face is pale and wan and he seems drained somehow. And, Charlie discovers, when she follows to where his gaze is, he’s looking at Dean.
Charlie is not an expert in angels whatsoever. She’s not even an expert in humans, or really anything that doesn’t have a save button. She can’t read what Castiel is thinking, or figure out how he is by his mannerisms (which, at the moment, are severely lacking and very bewildering, not to mention a little freaky). But what she can tell, from this one small thing, is that there is something heavy and unspoken between Castiel and Dean.
His expression is inscrutable, bright blue eyes slightly narrowed, as though he is X-raying something or someone, reading right through them - in this case, the stocky figure of Dean Winchester who is currently getting dirt all over Charlie’s nice clean couch. Sam is still talking, and Dean is nodding to what he’s saying, comprehending it, but his eyes are not on his brother.
His eyes are on Cas.
And though he looks tired and exasperated and a little frustrated, he is looking at Cas with an expression that Charlie has never seen before (not that she’s even seen much of Dean, since it’s been a long time, and she only knew them for a short time before, but still). Something gentle and firm simultaneously, something confused and messy and agonized, something completely blown to hell. She can’t read what lies beneath the emotions, and really, she’s not sure if she wants to, because this feels almost like a private moment that she and Sam are both intruding in on, and man is that just awkward all over the place. She’s not sure if Sam just doesn’t pick up the heavy tension between Dean and Cas and is choosing to ignore it, or if he’s just dense.
Charlie really hopes it’s the former, because tension this heavy is basically the equivalent of being clobbered over the head with a wooden mallet. Man do these two need to figure out whatever it is that they’ve got going on between them, of which Charlie isn’t quite sure, and of which she is now very curious.
She wonders briefly if they’re, you know, a thing - but then she shakes her head, because no way does Dean Winchester swing the same way she does.
…but they’d be a very cute thing, she decides, her eyes flicking back and forth between the two of them. Whatever it is that there is between them - which is obviously something, romantic or not; though from the way Cas looks at Dean, she might guess something one-sided - but then she remembers the defensive growl in Dean’s throat as he told Sam not to call for Cas, the protective, instinctively cautious sort of tone to his voice as he talked about him, and okay, maybe there is something between the two of them after all, and really, if there’s not, there should be -
“…Charlie?”
Sam’s voice snaps her out of her reverie.
“Yes?” she says, glancing around and realizing that all three of them are now looking at her (again). Dean raises his eyebrows.
“Tuning in for the conversation?” he says, and she blushes, pink spreading over her pale face.
“Oh,” she says, flustered, and promptly sits down in the nearest thing - a rocking chair that creaks loudly - folding her hands neatly into her lap like Hermione would have done in this sort of situation. “Yeah, yeah, I'm good.”
But there’s a small smile on her face as the conversation continues.