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It's beginning to rain as Dean makes the turn to the Bunker, fat drops that plummet from the sky and spatter on the windshield. He lets his thoughts surge ahead—the Bunker, home, Sam and Cas will be waiting, they saved the world, Sam, Cas, his mom. He breaks out into a grin, then winces and touches his tender jaw.
"I can't believe I hit you," says his mother contritely, for the hundredth time that day.
"I can't believe you made me rent a car," says Dean.
***
The moment Dean opens the door he knows something's wrong. The Bunker is dark, the air too quiet. He holds up a hand to stop Mary from entering, his other hand going automatically to his gun.
"What is it?" his mom whispers.
"I don't know," says Dean quietly. He draws his gun. "Stay behind me."
He goes softly down the stairs, knees bent, gun out. His stomach turns over as he spots the blood smeared across the floor, the lamp in the corner that's been knocked over. His heart is beginning to pound. This can't be happening. There has to be another explanation. They just saved the world, for crying out loud. His mom is back. He's supposed to bring her home to Sam and Cas. Not home to this empty, breached building full of shadows.
"Sam?" he calls softly, moving a little deeper into the room. Then he sees it—the scorched remnants of a banishing sigil drawn on the doorframe.
"What is that?" Mary comes up behind him, and despite the situation Dean can't help marveling at how softly she moves, how silent her footsteps are. But of course she was a hunter; grew up a hunter, like him and Sam.
"Angel-banishing spell," says Dean. He'd told her about angels during the hours-long car ride to the Bunker, and about so much else, in bits and pieces—the words bubbling up from him in an enthusiastic, tangled retelling of everything that had happened over the past decades. You'll love Cas, he'd said. Cas is great. The words taste ashen in his memory, now.
"I'm going to try calling him again," says Dean, though Sam hadn't picked up the last half dozen times. He pulls out his phone, dials. The ringing in his ear is matched by the louder sound of Sam's actual phone, off to his left. Mary kneels to retrieve it from under a toppled stack of books.
"Crap," Dean mutters. "That explains that." Sam's phone continues to ring pointlessly in Mary's hand.
His mom turns to look at him, her eyes dark with worry. "Who did this? I thought you said the danger was over."
"It was," says Dean. Frustration and anger are welling up inside him. God could have fixed this, he thinks, before frolicking off on a family vacation. He hangs up; Sam's phone goes quiet. In the silence that follows, the click of the front door can be heard.
Dean's gun is up in a flash, then down just as quickly as he recognizes the figure at the top of the stairs.
Castiel descends slowly, one hand on the rail. His hair and clothes are soaked. He reaches the bottom and stands there, staring at Dean.
"Dean, who is that?" says his mom quietly.
"Cas," says Dean. Relief is washing over him, a gentle wave that helps to slow his frantic heart. "Mom, it's Castiel."
"Dean," says Cas, slowly. He doesn't look happy; his face is stricken, his eyes huge in his pale face. He makes no move to come closer. Dean moves instead, shoving his gun back into his belt and striding across the room, reaching for Cas's shoulder.
Cas shrinks back from him, though, brows drawn together in a look of anguish. Dean stops. "Cas," he says. "Cas, it's me."
Cas looks at him with those huge uncertain eyes. "Are...are you real?" he says. His voice is lost, wrecked.
"C'mon, man," says Dean, a little impatiently. "Yes. Yes, I'm real." He grabs Cas by the shoulder and pulls him in for a rough hug. And hell, he just saved the world, so he uses both arms—wraps one around Cas's shoulder, hand at the small of Cas's back, angles the other upward, so that he can press his palm against Cas's head and neck, fingers carding briefly through Cas's sopping hair. "Feel that?" he says brusquely. He gathers a fistful of the back of Cas's coat, tightens his arms. "I'm real. It's me."
Cas exhales, a ragged, punched-out sound. His arms come up to return the hug, fingers gripping the very edges of Dean's shoulders, hanging on as if for dear life. "Dean," he mutters into the collar of Dean's shirt. Dean can feel the warm ghost of Cas's breath against his throat.
There's too much riding on that word. There's too much grief and wonder and exhaustion and relief and devotion vibrating in the rich, wrecked tones of Cas's voice for Dean to take or even begin to know how to return. Even if he did just save the world. "You're dripping wet, man," he says instead, clearing his throat to keep the words from getting caught and confused and turning into other, more sentimental things.
"It's raining," says Cas. He lets go of Dean slowly, almost reluctantly, and his eyes go to something over Dean's shoulder.
Belatedly, Dean remembers his mom. He's been doing that—forgetting she's real, that it's not just a dream, forgetting his mom is alive, and here. He turns now, gesturing. "Cas, this is—"
"Your mother," says Cas. His tone is reverent. He steps toward her, extending a hand. "Mary Winchester. I am honored."
"Likewise," says Mary slowly, sounding bemused but pleased. She moves forward to shake Cas's hand, and her smile is sincere, but her eyes flicker briefly to Dean and he can see that they're still sharp, focused, preoccupied with the problem at hand.
"But how are you—" Cas looks from Mary to Dean and back to Mary again. "Neither of you is supposed to be alive."
"Long story," says Dean tersely, so that he can ask, "Where's Sam?"
The anguished look drops back onto Cas's face. "I don't know," he says. "There was a woman, when we got back to the Bunker—I don't know how she got in—she had the sigil prepared—I wasn't paying enough attention, I'm sorry, Dean—"
"Okay, okay, alright." Dean holds up his hand to stop the tide of panicked fragments issuing from his friend. "Cas, it's okay."
Part of him is screaming that no, it's not okay, that dammit, Cas only had one job and that was to keep Sammy safe once Dean couldn't anymore, and that they need to leave right now, get on Sam's trail right now. But he pushes it down. The words sound cruel even in his head, and Dean's looking at Cas with his soaked clothes and exhausted eyes and the sadness that carved into his face, and he doesn't want to say them out loud. He thought I was dead. Dean's been cruel to Cas too many times in the past already.
"It's okay, Cas," he repeats. "We'll figure it out." He lifts his free hand to Cas's shoulder, squeezing gently, trying to make the gesture reassuring.
But Cas is still talking, and the words Dean hasn't said are leaving the angel's mouth in a torrent of self-loathing. "You told me to take care of him and I—and I was careless, I wasn't—and I'm so sorry, Dean, but we'll find him—we'll get him back, I swear it to you, I'll leave now, I'll start looking, I can—"
Dean doesn't know what to do, doesn't know what he can say to stem the flood, so he just holds onto Cas's shoulder, tries to get through to Cas by touch since he can't with words. Mary is looking at Dean with raised eyebrows that say are you quite sure he's alright, although they could also be saying is he off his rocker, and Dean is thinking to himself that no, Cas isn't alright, and maybe hasn't been for a long time, longer than Dean should have allowed. Except he'd been busy with the Darkness, and before that with the Mark, and before that with Abaddon, and before that with Gadreel, and before that with the Trials, and—well, there had always been something, hadn't there? And now there's Sam, missing, and Dean can feel it, that overwhelming instinct that orders him to shelve everything else, put it all aside and focus on the mission, ignore it all and find his little brother.
But maybe, he's realizing, maybe he can save Sam and still care about everything else. It's not okay, the voice down inside insists. But Dean's just saved the world, and he's not dead but he sure as hell thought he would be, and the angel who stood in front of him with aching eyes and said I could go with you is shaking with cold or something else and repeating, "I'm sorry—I'm sorry—I'm sorry—"
Dean prays.
Not a prayer with words. Cas, he thinks, and lets the rest be feeling—lets it be warmth and care and worry and trust and reassurance and concern and determination. And love, he realizes, there's love in there too. He doesn't try to hold it back, doesn't try to hide it. He's Dean Winchester and he's just saved the world. He lets it be.
Cas shuts his mouth with a snap and stares round-eyed, emotions that Dean can't read flitting across his face. Dean is just starting to relax his hand and slide it off Cas's shoulder, carefully, moving it down the angel's upper arm, when there is another sound from the region of the door. Dean turns again, gun flashing into his hand, and fucking hell, he thinks, can anybody just walk in here now?
"Cas, is that you?" says the newcomer, and it's Sam. It's Sam, drenched and weary, rubbing one hand over his eyes, and Dean's eyes go first to Sam's bloody knee and then to Sam's bloody shoulder, because before there was anything else there was take care of Sammy. But Sam limps, upright, down the stairs, still wiping water and his stupid sopping-wet hair out of his eyes.
Sam gets to the bottom of the stairs, going, "Cas, we have to get out of here, it's not safe here anymore—" and then he sees the three-person tableau in the middle of the room and stops. He sways on the spot, mouth slightly open. Dean's crossed the space before he has time for conscious thought, holding Sam up, folding his brother against him.
"Dean," says Sam, clutching Dean's arms as he tries, with what appear to be the very last dregs of what Dean knows is a vast reserve of willpower and strength, to remain standing. "How...what..."
"Yup, it's me," says Dean, and then, as relief makes him lose all sense of tact, "What happened, Cas says you got kidnapped by some random chick?" And then, because it comes bursting out of him like a great light-filled balloon, "And mom's alive too, Sam—look—look."
And Sam, who had managed only a repeated "Dean," to the first part and a feeble "hit her on the head and took her car" to the second, trails off and stares and stares, and on his face there appears a expression of such wonder that Dean comes to his senses and looks away, to try to create privacy for that moment, for Sam and his mom's moment. He looks at his mom, who is staring at Sam with the same mingled disbelief and bewilderment and immense love that she had fixed upon Dean in the forest after he'd finally convinced her of who he was. He looks at Cas, who had been looking at Sam with a small smile but who turns now to fix those endless eyes on Dean.
Cas is looking at him like Dean just fucking hung the moon and stars and Dean doesn't think he's ever deserved a look like that, nor will he ever, but for once he can't find it in himself to push back, to push it away. He's not afraid. He's alive. Cas, Dean prays again, and lets everything spill out into that word. In a moment he'll move and there'll be things to explain and questions to ask and Sam's injuries to look at and he needs to find more clothes for Mary and find out, really find out, how Cas is doing, but for now? For now the world is safe. His world, contained as it is for the moment within these four walls, is safe.