.au/ar fic: The thing with feathers (Dean, Sam, Castiel) PG/PG13 | 22,170 (2 of 3)
The thing with feathers | previous
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The only thing worse than school is starting at a new school when it's almost the end of the year. Dean fumbles along through the history and literature as best he can and doesn't bother with the books; he knows how to read, and Bobby's taught him Latin, which is all he needs. The math he can do mostly in his head, thanks to Dad, with the decimals and everything. Lunch, for the most part, is torture.
He's used to being alone in a crowd, a good thing because all the other kids have their groups and watch the new kid suspiciously and talk behind his back. The only person who doesn't do this is the blonde girl from down the way, who introduces herself as Jo, Joanna Beth Harvelle, and is that baloney? Wordlessly, Dean hands over his sandwich, and is sort of glad for peanut butter and grape jelly in return, even though it comes with the price of having to sit next to her and listen to the fifth-graders singing about Jo the freak and the new kid sittin' in a tree.
"Go to hell," Jo advises them, which makes Dean blink and the other kids gasp in horror. She's on the shrimpy side, all skinny bones and second-hand clothes, and she's a grade behind him. Also, a girl. "Morons," she mutters, and takes a bite of Dean's baloney sandwich.
Dean endures the stares and all of it, and wishes escaping back to class and Ms. Appleton's civics lesson didn't sound so wonderful. It's freaking pathetic.
It also gets worse in civics class, when Ms. Appleton is droning on about how bills become laws, and the door opens. Thirty heads, including Dean's, swivel around, and to his unending mortification, Dean sees Ms. Conley, the assistant principal, standing there, with a tearstreaked and rebellious Sam next to her. Ms. Conley asks Ms. Appleton over, and they hold a whispered conference with a lot of meaningful looks in Dean's direction. Sammy sniffles, loudly.
"Well, there's nothing else for it, then," Ms. Appleton sighs. She kneels down and smiles at Sam, who determinedly looks away from her. "Sweetie, you want to go sit next to your brother?"
Sam doesn't answer, just marches over to the empty desk next to Dean and clambers into it. Dean, on fire with humiliation, tries to melt into the plastic and plywood, but it doesn't work; he stays whole, with every other kid in the third grade staring at him, and Sammy rubbing tears and snot off his face.
"I told you to behave yourself," he hisses.
"I knowwwww," Sammy whimpers, so despondent that Dean almost, almost feels bad enough to stop being embarrassed by his little brother turning up in class.
"Sammy," Ms. Appleton tells the class as she deposits some paper and crayons on Sam's desk, "will be spending some time with us today. Now, while I talk to Dean, why don’t you all answer the first three study questions in the back of your chapter?"
Everyone else pretends to answer the study questions while Ms. Appleton kneels by Dean, and explains that they tried to call his father, and then Mr. Singer, but couldn't reach either number, and is there another number they could try? Dean registers the question through the haze of this is the worst day of my life and I'm gonna strangle you, Sammy, and a fierce yearning to go home. He shakes his head.
Ms. Appleton makes noises about parent-teacher conferences and sighs before walking away.
"Why couldn't you just suck it up?" he growls at Sammy, who's wiped away his tears and is drawing happily. "And what the hell is that?"
"Castiel," Sammy says. He points to two large black scribbles. "These are his wings."
"You have got to let that go," Dean says to his civics book.
"I do not." Defiantly, Sammy adds another black flourish to Castiel's wing.
Dean bites his tongue. Probably Ms. Appleton's already annoyed with him, and he's been in two fights already in two weeks; he maybe has one more chance before she writes him off. Anyway, starting the Castiel argument up again isn't going to achieve much for Dean; it hasn't done much yet except annoy him and make him angry enough to storm off to his room - their room - and slam the door and barricade it with a chair. He'd buried his head under a pillow to drown out Sammy's howling and furious banging.
"Why won't you believe in him?" Sammy had asked later as he'd plowed through macaroni and cheese. "He's an angel."
"Just shut up about it, okay? Jeez." There's no way, no way he can talk about Castiel without talking about that night when Mom had died, and the last words she'd said to him, because if angels were real and actually watching she wouldn't have died. Castiel, or one of his equally-imaginary friends, would have heard Dean praying and swooped down to save Mom, and killed whatever it was that had put her on the ceiling.
He thinks all of this again, stewing in anger and just wanting to grab Sammy and shake reality into his stupid five-year-old head. Dad's the only thing that's real, he wants to say, only he has no idea how to say it that doesn't sound crazy, so he has to shut up, and that just makes him madder. The anger lasts him through the last period of the day, almost sharp enough for him to try to get a seat by someone else on the bus, but Sammy, oblivious to the fact that Dean is seriously, seriously pissed, clings to his side, one hand knotted in Dean’s shirt, the other clutching his sheaf of Castiel doodles.
Dean glares at the brown and black and blue scribbles, the dull, waxy gleam of what Sam says are supposed to be Castiel’s wings. What kind of angel has black wings? Dean thinks about asking, but he keeps his mouth shut; Sam doesn’t need any encouragement to ramble on about Castiel, and Dean doesn’t want to hear any more about the angel than he has to.
But, really, what the hell kind of an angel wears a trench coat anyway? A Castiel angel had been Sam's answer that one time when Dean had been dumb enough to open his mouth and ask.
The bus rumbles up and down hills, through the dying light of afternoon, and Dean hears a rumble that isn't the bus's engine, but thunder. The bus is too big to fit on the road up to their house; it's almost a mile of bad, narrow asphalt, a walk Dean likes less and less every day, and especially dislikes when it rains.
"Freaking awesome," he mutters. "Come on, Sammy, we're gonna have to make a run for it."
Sam protests about the drawings, the rain, it'll smudge Castiel, and Dean sighs, stuffs them in his backpack as they climb out, along with Jo, into a humid breeze and a darkening sky.
"You kids hurry home," the bus driver tells them.
"Duh," Jo says.
The rain starts up the second the bus leaves. Sammy shrieks and Dean mutters curses under his breath. Jo produces an umbrella and hands it to him.
"What?"
"It's an umbrella, idiot." Jo shakes it meaningfully, and water sprays on Dean's shirt. "I don't mind getting wet, and I bet you'll catch it if your little brother gets sick."
"Thanks," Dean mutters gracelessly, taking the umbrella and handing it to Sammy, who clutches it happily in both hands. "Say thanks, freakazoid."
"'M not a freakazoid," Sam says instead.
Jo takes off without waiting, all skinny legs and small feet dodging the puddles. Dean can't run that fast, not with Sammy stumbling along and stepping in every puddle on the way, but he manages to move faster when the sky suddenly goes really dark and the wind whips up and the trees hiss and rustle angrily. The rain comes down in sheets, and the road twists on and on, Dean soaking because even though he's stolen the umbrella from Sam the umbrella isn't very big and Sam needs to stay dry.
At long, long last the house looms up out of the forest, almost swallowed by the trees and the rain, and all of it dwarfed by the oak. Dean hustles Sam in through the front door, and they track rainwater and mud all the way upstairs to the bathroom. Sam doesn't protest much when Dean pulls his clothes off and dumps him in the tub, although there's some whining at the hot water.
"I'll put clothes out for you," Dean tells him, and squelches his way to the bedroom.
Eventually they both go downstairs, the house echoing silently around them, only the sound of the rain and the hum-tick of the generator. Technically they're not supposed to be here, Dean knows; the place is owned by a hunter who lets other hunters use it in exchange for information and weapons, cash sometimes. Dean's not really supposed to know that, but he figures it could be useful.
Just like it would have been useful to know that Bobby'd gotten called away on something related to the current case. Their dad, though, Bobby's note informs him, will be back tonight. When he learns this, Sam is euphoric. Mostly, Dean is relieved.
The afternoon drags on, Sammy pestering Dean to come look at his drawings some more, which are mostly huge black scribbles of wings bracketing brown and white and tan scribbles, and a ragged blue line that Sam says is Castiel's tie. Dean pretends to be interested, gets Sam's snack, goes back to pretending to be interested until he thinks his eyes are going to explode in their sockets.
"It's getting dark," Sam moans from the epicenter of a disaster of drawing paper.
"So turn on a light, baby." Dean makes a point of sitting in the easy chair and staring at the mostly-invisible page of his math book. Not like he was paying attention to it anyway. With an aggrieved sigh, Sam rolls to his feet and goes to turn on the lights, and when Dean looks out the rain-streaked window, the darkness outside is approaching absolute.
"When's Dad getting home?" Sam asks as he restores himself to the center of the paper storm.
"When he gets home. Quit whining."
"When's that?" Already Sam's pretty good at pretending to be doing something else while pestering Dean to the point of murder.
"When it is. Shut up."
"I wanna go wait for him."
"Yeah, well, I want Holly Hunter and pizza for dinner, but it ain't happening. Shut up."
"Who's Holly Hunter?" Sam's back on his feet again, roaming around the room. He makes a circle around the coffee table, the one other chair, brushes deliberately close against Dean's feet, so Dean jerks back with an exasperated noise.
"A girl at school."
"I wanna go down and wait for Dad." Sam's voice is definitely shading toward whiny, and Dean has to suppress the urge to strangle him. Instead, he points out that they need to stay put and Dad will skin him alive if anything happens to Sam and Dean's in charge, and all Sam has to say to that is, "I wanna go down and wait for Dad."
Which is how Dean ends up at the rainy, half-flooded turnoff to their road, huddled under one umbrella while Sam, in his raincoat and boots, moaning about how he's too tired to hold up his umbrella but nonononono he doesn't want to go back up to the house, leans wetly against him. The water slicking off his coat seeps through Dean's jacket and jeans.
"It's a good thing you're my little brother," Dean tells the top of Sam's head. Sam nods, either in agreement or because he's sleepy and has totally violated naptime by insisting on coming down here in the rain and getting Dean all soaked. Sighing, Dean props Sam's umbrella - Jo's umbrella, really - against his leg and tries to keep it from falling over.
At least Sam's quiet, Dean tells himself. Everything's quiet, except for the soft machine-gun patter of rain on the leaves and the ground and Dean's umbrella, and the rushing water in the culvert nearby, all muddy from the gravel and dirt on the roadside. Just that, just the water, no birds, no wind, the air heavy and still, and nothing to look at except long dark green stretches of woods, and the shiny road, the dirt, the two dress shoes that have appeared, visible under the margin of Dean's umbrella.
The two shoes, Dean realizes, and the black feathers that trail in the water.
He tries to edge away and look up, and do both these things at the same time without being obvious about it. The feet and the feathers don't move, even as Dean shifts enough to see the long tan coat, the scrap of blue tie, rain-damp dark hair and a serene and unconcerned face, like just appearing out of nowhere on a rainy and deserted road, is normal. Dean thinks about the knife hidden in his pocket, and the guns back at the house, and reminds himself he's an idiot.
"Sammy," he breathes, shaking Sam firmly. Sam huffs and leans against Dean more emphatically.
Okay, not natural. With some effort, Dean worms his hand between himself and Sam, and gropes for the knife. The spirit, person, Castiel - there can't be more than one guy with wings and a trench coat running around Vermont - doesn't move, only stands there and lets himself get soaked and stares calmly off into the forest across the street.
"You're Castiel," Dean says, once he's sure his voice is going to work, and once he has a hold on the knife.
One blue eye slants in his direction, and Dean receives the faintest nod in return. Other than that, Castiel doesn't move.
"You're real."
This earns him a tilt of the dark head, more of the creature's attention. Castiel, the angel - the thing, Dean reminds himself, tightening his grip on the hilt - regards him silently, something huge and inhuman behind two blue, blue eyes. Behind him, the huge black wings shift, stretching a little as though to remind Dean they're there. He stands with his arms loose at his sides, but not relaxed, more like he's not entirely sure what to do with his body when he's just standing.
"You should have more faith, Dean." The angel's voice is rough, like he doesn't use it very often. Maybe, Dean supposes, he doesn't, hanging out in a forest all day. He ignores the comment about his faith, and points out that Sammy's barely in kindergarten, he makes up crap all the time.
Castiel briefly glances at Sam, who's still leaning his tiny, heavy self against Dean's side. Sighing, Dean adjusts Sam so he's standing more under the umbrella, acutely aware that the angel's watching everything he does.
"You shouldn't be down here alone," Castiel says once Dean has Sam resituated.
"Tell me something I don't know." Dean peers down the murky road. It's growing darker by the second, the rain more determined, and one side of him is getting soaked. He can feel the chill of the water through his boots, even though they're new and shouldn't leak. Tired of being stared at, he tilts his umbrella and glares up at Castiel, who gazes calmly back. "You shouldn't be out here without an umbrella."
Like everything else, Castiel is well on his way to being soaked, his dark hair matted and long, darker wet streaks running down the shoulders of his coat. What faint light is left the rain gathers to itself, and glistens in long, racing drops and lines on Castiel's wings. Dean imagines the heavy, hot smell of wet feathers.
Sighing, he offers Castiel Jo's umbrella. Castiel takes it hesitantly, long fingers curling around the handle, close to brushing Dean's, and holding it the way Dean's seen his dad hold machetes. After a moment of fiddling and intense staring on the angel's part, the umbrella pops open with a snap - without, Dean realizes, Castiel's hands doing anything. Castiel starts, wings flapping and splashing muddy water against Dean's back. Dean winces as more cold and wet starts to work its way through his jacket and then his jeans, insinuating itself against his skin.
Once he has the umbrella in position - even with his wings drawn all the way in, Dean can see they don't quite fit underneath - the angel looks up at the thin metal skeleton and the plastic stretched across it. The pink plastic, decorated with pastel ducks and other girly things. Rain patters and thuds, rolls and drips off the edges.
Castiel's wings flap once again, hard, and he shudders, a full-body, full-wing shudder. A fine mist drifts down on Dean, some of it deflected by his umbrella, some not.
Like he's gotten something out of his system, Castiel folds back in on himself again, ramrod straight and at attention, his wings pulled up tight, although the tips still trail in the puddle. Dean wonders if it's normal, to feel like he's in the presence of something more weird than terrifyingly supernatural. Probably it isn't, although Dean's more preoccupied with the depressing knowledge that he's going to have to admit that Sammy was right about the damn angel all along.
For a while, the world is only gray and the endless patter-and-splash of the rain off the umbrellas. Sam snuffles but doesn’t wake up, his hand sticky and hot in Dean's. Castiel doesn’t seem inclined to say anything.
"So where's your halo?" Dean shuffles at the wet grit underfoot.
"I don't have one." Castiel's looking down at him again, and Dean looks up, and he almost sees a glint of amusement in those serious eyes.
"I guess that means you don't have a white bathrobe either. You look like an accountant or something, or the detective on TV." They get crap shows in most of the motels they stay at, and it's just ten channels here, so his TV diet is mostly reruns.
Castiel still doesn't say anything. Sam breathes noisily through his open mouth, which seems to intrigue Castiel a bit. With a sigh, Dean resituates Sam, who just oozes bonelessly against him.
"If my dad were here," Dean ventures, "he'd shoot you. Probably anyone would."
"They would," Castiel agrees serenely, "although it would be a bad idea if they tried."
Dean shivers, and it doesn't have much to do with the rain. The angel stands quietly next to him, hands loose at his sides, apparently content to stand there until the end of the rain or the end of the world, whichever comes first. He seems impervious to the rain still soaking into the shoulders his coat and his wings and hair, and Dean wonders if that extends to things like knives and bullets. And Castiel, who'd been gazing with some interest up at the umbrella over his head, glances down at him, barely-there smile to say that, yes, it does extend to guns and knives.
"You should have more faith than you do," the angel says.
"Sorry," Dean grunts, unable to figure out if the angel's judging him or just making an observation and hating it either way. "But maybe if you guys had shown up at my house five years ago, I would."
He really wants to hate Castiel, because if he really is an angel, his kind did fuck all to help his mom, and they were supposed to help people. That was what angels did, Mom always said: watched over people, watched over him. He wonders if maybe that night the angels had been watching over him, just him, and had forgotten Mom, because his memory of everything after Dad had thrust Sammy into his arms and told him to run is a blur of light and heat and his thundering heart, so anything could have happened.
"It isn't our fault we aren't what you believed we were," the angel says coolly. The huge wings arc out, collecting raindrops, a reminder that Castiel isn't the fluffy white-winged type, like the angel figurine Dean hazily remembers from his old bedroom.
"You're a jerk," Dean tells the angel. The word he wants to use is bastard, except the angel's a grownup, way grown-up if he's thousands of years old like angels are supposed to be.
That actually seems to surprise Castiel, who needs a moment before saying, low and menacing so the chills down Dean's spine deepen and throb, "You should show me some respect," and there's power in the words, raw and grating, ancient and with brimstone in it. The entire world - or at least Dean's corner of it - tightens in anticipation, the rain pausing in its endless fall, the trees listening. Sammy stirs to life, sucks in a startled breath, but then he goes quiet too.
Headlights appear from around the bend, still far in the distance but bright in the gloom, and almost the second Dean sees the lights cutting across the dark bank of the forest and the rain, he hears the grumble and thrum of the Impala's engine. In the corner of his eye he sees the angel tense
Castiel vanishes in a gust of wind and a swirl of wet feathers. Dean winces as the backs of his legs are comprehensively drenched.
A moment later the Impala rumbles up, going too fast. Dean pushes a reluctant Sam back a bit further as the car skids briefly, brakes fighting the water for traction, and slows to a stop. Through the window, Dean can see the vague shadows of his father's face.
The window rolls down and Dad looks out, forehead creased.
"What the..?" Dad stops and coughs. "Boys, what's going on?"
"Sammy," Dean offers feebly. He nudges Sam in the back. "He wanted to come down and wait for you."
"Okay…" Dad gives Dean a look that says they're going to talk about this later, him putting Sammy in unnecessary danger, going against orders. Dean clamps down on the resentment and reminds himself he's earned the lecture he's going to get after he's put Sam safely to bed.
At least for now, Dad drops it. "Why don't you boys climb in?" Dad reaches behind him and the back door swings open. Sam squeals and clambers in, tracking water and mud all over the upholstery.
* * *
The next day, Dean itches and fidgets his way through school. With their dad back, Sammy stays put in his class, and Dean almost misses the distraction of having to look after him. Civics goes back to being boring, and the kids go back to being assholes - worse now that they know Dean has a whiny brat of a little brother hanging off him. As it is, he doesn't see Sammy again until the bus, when Sammy greets him with a crumpled fistful of Castiel drawings. When he shows them to Dean, Dean finds he can't be annoyed. In one of them, Castiel stands under a triangle that, according to Sammy, is an umbrella.
Dad's there when they get home, and after the hell of yesterday, Dean can't quite believe it. He's home and not working, which means the case is going well - not that he's going to ask with Sam right there, scarfing down cheese and crackers.
"I'll put Sam down for his nap, then get a bit of work done," Dad says, and it's something he almost never does, and Sam's happy enough to have him home that he slurps up the rest of his juice and lets himself collapse into Dad's arms when he's picked up. "C'mon, big guy."
"Ooooof," says Sam, resting his Ritz-covered face on Dad's shoulder.
And Dean's already halfway out the door, barely remembering to grab a comic book for cover. He gives himself a couple minutes for Dad to get upstairs and begin the complicated process of getting Sam out of his sneakers and socks, and a few more seconds to steel his courage and work up a decent lie in case Dad calls him. After that, he races down the hill and over the bridge, feet landing thump-thump-thump on the wood and quiet again on the soft dirt path leading into the forest.
Almost immediately the woods close around him, silent, close with greenness and life. Dean heads downhill, following the faint fork in the path. A few moments later the oak tree, Castiel's home, according to Sam, looms up in front of him, ancient and silent, all its branches heavy with leaves. Even Sam's crazy, rambling story about his adventure, told with all a little kid's hyperbole, doesn't quite prepare Dean for the tree, the utter size of it, its bark rough under his palm and pulsing with something like what had come off the angel.
Dean edges his way up along a solid limb that's almost encased in earth, trying to remember Sammy's half-incoherent stories. The roots are massive, steps he can climb like a staircase. Sam had mentioned that, and had the skinned knee to prove it.
So I walked up onna branch, and then I fell down this tunnel thing and I saw the angel.
Dean's not doing any falling if he can possibly help it, so he lowers himself as carefully as he can. It's awkward, and despite his best efforts he slides on his butt part of the way before he can catch himself,
"Damn." The soft grass at the bottom catches him, and he's rolling to his feet cat-quick. Already the air is different, not as heavy, but still and quiet, and improbably there's light even this far under the shade.
And there, on the branch (just like in Sam's story), Castiel's sitting, legs drawn up to his chest and his wings wrapped around him, the tips trailing over the grass.
"Hello, Dean." Castiel regards him attentively from over the shelf of his wings. Slowly, like curtains, they draw away, stretching full-length and closing up again, resettled along the length of the angel’s spine. Dean thinks of the origami Bobby showed him once, and feathers folding back together. Castiel shrugs once, as if to shift something into place, and goes still once more.
"Hey." He scuffs at the grass, nervous and at a loss and not liking it at all. Castiel doesn't say anything, only stares; it doesn't help. "Listen…" Crap. "Do you just, like, hang out here all day?"
"No."
The single word hangs in the air. Dean glances around quickly, taking the measure of the hillside, the curious, grassy bowl that cups them, the light radiant on the angel's black wings.
"Is there anything else to that?" The angel says even less than Dad does, which is some kind of record.
"No, I don't hang out here all day," Castiel says. "But I knew you were coming. You have questions." He says it right out; it's not a question.
"Stay out of my mind," Dean says crossly. Not like the angel couldn't have guessed. Why the hell else would a kid come down here? What else would Dean have after standing next to a silent, mysterious angel in the pouring rain? "You wouldn’t believe Sam," Cas says, almost off-handedly, "but then you saw me down by the road," and Dean rolls his eyes, knowing what's coming, "and I knew you would come."
The amount of knowledge implied, like Castiel knew the future or had somehow figured out what Dean was like despite never once seeing him before yesterday, pulls at Dean's hackles. Castiel looks at him, no expression - no human expression, anyway. Dean thinks uncomfortably of a large bird of prey, looking at you with feral intelligence and curiosity, either wondering what you are or wondering the best way to get his talons in you.
Dean turns around, deliberately craning his head to look up into the fluttering, rustling canopy of leaves far overhead. Looking away from Castiel doesn't work; he can still feel the angel's gaze, flat and hot and heavy, on the back of his neck. "So," Dean says, swallowing around the word, "so what, you like the view here?"
"There is a crossing place near here, in the crater of an old volcano." Castiel says it almost indifferently, but the peculiar stress on crossing catches Dean's attention. He turns back, in time to catch Castiel staring off into the distance, the fierce attention directed somewhere distant. "Witches, if they're powerful enough, can stand in the center of it and call up spirits." Dean shudders, "Witches?" and Castiel nods. "Not many of them know of that place, but they still come every now and then."
"And you're guarding it?"
Castiel sighs, a soft, impatient sound. "Yes," and the word is a warning not to push.
"Okay." Part of him, the part that wants to ask Dad or what? when Dad tells him to do stuff, wants to push the matter, but a larger part is way too aware of the angel's thin, annoyed mouth and how you don't ever, ever piss off the supernatural.
It occurs to him, in the weirdest, dimmest way, that he's been spending the past ten minutes or so talking to something not of this world, complete with wings and thousand-yard stare, and the thing - the angel, Castiel, it has an actual name - hasn't tried to kill him. Instead, he gets the impression Castiel's bored and unimpressed and definitely irritated at having Dean intrude on whatever he was doing.
"Sorry I crashed your totally rocking party," Dean says, as sarcastically as he possibly can.
The angel stares at him, definite puzzlement there, Dean's ten-year-old sarcasm knocking something ancient off its stride.
"I don't have many visitors," the angel tells him. He doesn't sound particularly upset about it, or particularly anything.
Dean hesitates, remembers the small flat package stowed in his jeans and pulls it out, hands it to the angel, who inspects it curiously. It's just cards; Dean plays a mean game of solitaire already, necessary when killing time waiting for Sammy to really fall asleep.
"Want to play?"
* * *
In the end, they play two games before Dean registers the deepening shadows and, like the evening, fear rushes up on him: what the hell his dad will say, Sam probably opening his big mouth and blabbing their secret, all kinds of trouble ending with Castiel incinerating their house. So, along with the stakes from the first game, he extracts a promise from Castiel not to burn anything down. Castiel gives the promise unwillingly, and isn't mollified by the dollar-fifty Dean had fished out of his pocket to serve as the pot for the second round.
He steals through the undergrowth, stumbling his way through impossible roots and shadows until he reaches the road. As he walks, he concocts his story: went down the road to see a friend about some notes he'd missed when Sam had had his meltdown the other day, got hung up because Jimmy had a new game system and his mom baked cookies and he'd lost track of time. Dean almost wants to believe the lie actually happened, he can see it that clear. Never mind he can't stand Jimmy and for all he knows Jimmy's mom can't bake for crap.
At least his dad buys it, so score one for the second rule of lying (believe in your lie, right behind Number One: Make sure the lie has a bit of truth in it), and lets Dean off with a muttered reminder to call next time, and not to wander off.
"This is a safe spot," he tells Dean for the zillionth time, and Dean can almost taste the words, they're that familiar, "as safe as any we've been to, but when you're safe, you get careless. Sloppy. We can't afford that, Dean."
"Where's Sam?" Dean asks instead of saying 'yes, sir.'
"Just getting up." Dad's attention swivels back to his work, his journal and a stack of maps and newspaper reports about some mysterious deaths up in Amity. Dean holds back a sigh and instead of asking the question with the inevitable answer ("You got a case?" "Yeah.") shuffles upstairs to Sammy.
Sam greets him with a plaintive moan and underprivileged expression that digs in under Dean's ribs. Where werrrrrrre youuuuu? Sam wants to know, the words drawn out on a whine as he stretches and kicks back his covers. Dean flops down on the edge of the bed, close enough to feel Sammy's little-kid heat as Sam squirms into position against his side.
"You were out," Sam accuses, "you went out without me."
"I can't be draggin' you everywhere, twerp," Dean mumbles.
Greedy fingers are already in Dean's right coat pocket, where Sam would have felt the small bulge. In a heartbeat, Sam - who can usually be counted on to drop things he's got a good hold of, and still hasn't figured out how to hold crayons - has the small leather bag out and unknotted.
"Seeds?" Sam blinks as they scatter on his pajama'ed stomach, some of them small, smooth and light brown, the others larger, like sunflower seeds, others white with a reddish film. Carefully Sam picks one up and studies it. "Why you got seeds, Dean?"
"Cas gave 'em to me," Dean admits.
After Dean had won the first game, Castiel had pushed the small leather bag - his contribution to the pot - at him. Dean had stared at it until the angel made an impatient noise and took his hand. He almost jumped, the angel's had that human and alien, smooth skin and under it a rolling heat right on the edge of burning. The small package almost fell from his grip and he started to say no, he really really didn't want this whatever-the-hell it is, but the angel told him, to take it, in no uncertain terms.
Sam's big, dumb brain only needs a second to jump from Cas to Castiel, and he shoots upright, the seeds spilling to his lap. Dean reaches up and slaps a hand over Sam's mouth a heartbeat before the shrill accusation brings Dad and holy wrath down on their heads.
"Not a word," Dean advises him, "or your life won't be worth living."
"Mmmkay," Sam says to the flat of Dean's palm, even though his eyes are truculent. When Dean cautiously lowers his hand, Sam hisses, "You went and saw him?"
Dean rolls his eyes. "Is he your boyfriend?" Sam snorts. "I just had a couple questions for him, like what he's doing hanging around here like some kind of freak."
"He's bein' a guardian angel." The duh is all but spoken. "It's what angels do."
The assurance Sam says it with, all five-year-old confidence that can't ever be wrong, makes Dean's heart hurt, and makes him want to punch something. And he wants to tell Sam the truth, that no, angels really aren't watching over you, and the big black-winged headcase down in the woods has his eye on some crossroads and not on them.
He blinks back to reality when he feels Sam plucking at his coat; thinking it's a demand for attention, he almost snaps back what?, but then realizes Sam's picking up the seeds and placing them back in the bag. "So why've you got seeds?" Sam directs the question mostly to the bedspread and the few seeds scattered there.
"I dunno." Dean shrugs. Maybe they were all Cas had, until he won Dean's lunch money from him. "But he told me to plant 'em the next time the full moon comes around."
* * *
One of the many parts of Dean's not-formal education is in basic astronomy and meteorology, learning how to read star charts for astrological stuff (some ceremonies can only be performed under certain constellations, or with planets in alignments Dean's pretty sure he'll never remember in a million zillion years) and to pay attention to the phases of the moon. Full moon is a bad, bad time to be a hunter wandering through werewolf territory.
They have a week until the full moon comes around, and Cas had been specific, plant them on the first night of the full moon, and despite himself Dean's curious about the stupid things. And like he senses Dean's curious and has questions - or maybe that Sam's curious and has more questions than can fit in his head - Castiel's gone all that week, except one day when Dean slips out of the house again during Sam's naptime and Dad's working on that top-secret project of his, about Mom, and Dean can't be in the same space sometimes, when Dad's doing that.
Like before he grabs his cards, and as an afterthought, a sheaf of Sam's most recent drawings, and spirits down to the forest.
"This does not look like me," is Cas's verdict when he sees the drawings, his wings represented by wild black scribbles or else by the five spokes of Sam's fingers and thumb, like the tail of a Thanksgiving turkey. "Look, he ain't da Vinci," Dean points out, even though the pictures are pretty damn good for being done by a five-year-old (in Dean's opinion, anyway). Cas makes a confused noise.
"See? He got your hair." Dean points to the dark brown-black hybrid scribble, which actually isn't too far removed from Castiel's actual hair, crazy and windblown as it is. When he grins up at Castiel, he gets only more confusion, and possibly a hint of puzzled offense.
Despite the screwed-up tie and the puzzlement, Dean's willing to bet Castiel's a mean son of a bitch if he wants to be; it's there in the military sharpness of his shoulders and the way he talks, a lot like Dad when he's in full-on Marine mode, the precise way he takes a card when Dean hands it to him. Scary smart, too; Dean can't cheat even when Cas solemnly swears not to read his mind, and he learns the rules for seven-card stud and Texas Hold 'Em as fast Dean can explain them. Once he figures out a large part of poker is lying about what you have, he takes to it like a huge, black-feathered duck to water.
"Strategy and bluffing," Castiel says ruminatively as he studies his cards, and he sounds way too familiar with those concepts. "Deceiving your opponent into believing your advantage is greater than it is, or lesser, depending on the resources you have." Dean screws up his courage and asks about it.
"I'm what you would call a specialist." Cas studies the five cards spread on the grass between them. His wings are half-unfurled behind him, stretched so the faint light plays across the long flight feathers the way it plays across old steel. "You would think of it as intelligence and espionage," and geez, maybe Cas and Dad would get on like a house on fire.
"So why they got you watching this place?" Dean studies his cards and tosses a nickel into the pot.
Cas doesn't answer, and they don't speak again until Dean realizes the hours've slipped by almost to evening. He stands up and pockets the twenty-five cents he hadn't sacrificed to Cas's sneaky gameplay, says an awkward "so long" that Cas answers with his own "Good night, Dean," soft and oddly formal. Like before Dean leaves him in the growing dimness, the straight shoulders in their trench coat and the dark wings, as he clambers back up the hill to the path. There's a soft rustle of wings and wind, and Dean knows if he turns back around, Cas'll be gone.
By the time he gets back, Sam's clamoring for his dinner and their dad's in the last stages of assembling it, hamburgers and broccoli, something about how they'll eat vegetables while they actually have a place to cook them. Sam gulps his milk and asks, the moron, where Dean's been.
"Out at Jimmy's," Dean breathes, which is code for with Cas by now. Sam nods, wide-eyed and clearly about to ask something else. Dean gives him the most ferocious look he can manage. Sam shuts his trap just in time for Dad to plunk their plates down in front of them and refill Sammy's cup.
"We gotta plant the thingies tonight," Sam whispers. It's the loud, totally-obvious kind of whisper Dean's pretty sure they can hear down by the road.
"What thingies?" Dad asks from his station by the stove, where he's fixing his own plate. "And why at night?"
"Science project for school." Dean doesn't look too closely at how he's lied to Dad more often in the past couple of weeks than his entire life. "We're learning about plants. And it's not tonight, it's just Sam being dumb." At least Sam is smart enough not to say anything about how Cas did too tell them to plant these at night. Dean figures he's going to have all sorts of hell figuring out how to get outside and not having Dad on their cases.
"Let me know if you need any help," Dad tells him as he sits down with his dinner. Dean says something noncommittal and stares at his burger. Sam munches his broccoli and, with uncharacteristic delicacy, separates his hamburger into parts (bun, pickles, burger, other part of bun) before eating them. It's a phase, some weird five-year-old thing Dean's pretty sure he never went through.
Another phase is trying to get the toothpaste to squirt onto the toothbrush with that perfect, smooth curl at the end, like in the commercials, and Dean has to breathe a soft reminder that toothpaste costs money, and he's not going to be late because his dumb little brother needed an hour to brush his teeth. Sam races through brushing, flossing, and face-washing, and is scrubbed and in bed in record time.
* * *
Sam can't wait until he's old enough to not have to take naps, and go outside whenever he feels like it and not when Dad decides it's "safe" enough. In general, he can't wait for most things, like Dad saying good night and going off downstairs to do Work, the important kind of work he never lets Sam in on, but that Sam's getting suspicions about. In bed next to him, Dean idly flips through a comic book, like he isn't every bit as excited as Sam is about this.
"Why d'you think he wants us to do this?" Sam asks.
"Maybe he doesn't like getting his hands dirty," Dean says, and turns a page. "I dunno, Sammy. Geez."
"He lives in a tree," Sam points out, although it's something he's wondered, why Castiel, or Cas like Dean calls him, lives in their woods instead of Heaven, where Pastor Jim says all the angels live.
"Maybe he's just really bad at gardening." Dean snaps the page as he turns it, which means he's not in the mood for more questions and Sam'll be told to shut up or else if he opens his mouth again. Sighing, Sam curls down into the covers and tries to close his eyes and stay awake at the same time, outwaiting Dad who's probably Working in the office by now.
The next thing he knows, he's standing outside, the night-damp grass cool against his toes, the earth soft. Dean's standing next to him, the small leather bag making a bulge in his pocket. He's the only really warm thing about the night, which is right on the edge of spring and still coolish. Above them, the moon swings high and full, bleaching out the sky so they can't see all the stars. Still, it's worth looking up at, all that endless dark and the bright dots of the stars like curious eyes peering down.
"They're just large balls of plasma," a familiar, rough voice says, and just in time Sam clamps down on the squeal of delight. The glare Dean gives him, the shut up or I’ll glue your mouth shut glare, helps, even though it melts a bit into something like welcome when he says hello to Cas. "Hello, Dean. Sam," the angel says, sounding vastly unaffected.
"We were gonna plant your seeds," Sam tells him, as Dean fishes the bag out of his pocket. "You gonna help?"
The great wings twitch and shift, stretching so the night breeze catches some of the feathers and ruffles them. With a gesture Dean understands as being right on the edge of patience, Cas points to the ground, where Sam had already cleared a little strip of grass down to dirt. Dean figures, if anything, he and Sam can tell Dad it's for some science project, something Sam wants to help out with. Sam makes a soft, shrill noise and grabs the small package of seeds from Dean's hand, flopping into the dirt like an earthworm.
"Don't like getting your hands dirty?" Dean asks, as he takes one of the seeds. He digs a hole with one finger, drops the seed in, and covers it up.
"It's better if you plant them," Cas says, and the huge wings shift and flex against the wind, a reminder that no, Cas probably doesn't mind getting his wings dirty at all. He's standing at alert, sparing only the briefest glances for Dean and Sam, his attention somewhere else. "Okay, fine, whatever," Dean mumbles, and starts to work. The soil is damp with the night dew, soft and squishing between his fingers, and cool.
He thinks about making a remark about planting weed, or something for Cas's secret stash, but the stillness is heavy, too heavy for words to break it. Overhead the light is unreal, the stars turning slowly in their course as heaven wheels them up over the towering trees of the forest. Methodically he works his way down the line: dig out a hole, drop a seed in, cover it back up, step to the right, dig out a hole, drop a seed in, cover it back up, step. Sam lags behind, kneeling down and very deliberate in his pace. For once, Cas doesn't seem to mind them being slow, intent on other things, and with the quiet settling around them, Dean can hear him saying something.
It's a chant, he thinks, words he doesn't recognize. The words have Cas's usual rumble and something more, deeper, an earthquake working its way up through the ground. Dean's bones start to thrum, his spine tingling, and still Cas's voice gains strength, ananael i caosyi, laiad I caosyi, kathanim ante ananel a laiad so adonan, and more that Dean starts to lose track of as the words come faster. Cas's wings unfurl, starlight edging them so the long flight feathers look like blades, black steel tipped with silver.
Sammy's quiet next to him, and closer now that Dean's realizes he's stopped, almost clinging to Dean's legs. It doesn't help his balance, and he needs it, because the earth is shaking under him, Cas's rough, flawless voice woven through the vibrations. It's like the words are pulling something up through the dirt, a power in them Dean's never once heard from Dad or Bobby's chants. In the middle of it all, Cas stands unmoved, the words rolling on and on. Transfixed, Dean forgets to watch the ground, despite Sam's sudden huff of surprise, Dean, lookit, because Cas is… Cas is something he's never seen before.
There's no choice but to look away, because Cas isn't Cas anymore, is huge and brilliant like the sun just come up all of a sudden. Or a comet, maybe, just landed right there in their corner of the world, obliterating all the shadows and so hot and bright Dean feels like maybe he's dissolving too. Sam's hand clasped in his is the only solid thing that's left, and there's nothing to look at anymore because Cas is gone, and his eyes hurt, the blood thin and violent and pounding in his head so he has to look away and try to find some darkness. Only there's nothing, nothing except the endless, fierce roll of Cas's voice that wants to break apart Dean's skull.
And then, like that, it's over.
The world snaps back around him, the air cold against the memory of searing heat. The night rushes in again like a wave, and Dean's blind all over again. Under his feet, the earth goes still again, leaving a weird echo throbbing up and down his spine, and he almost loses his balance, it's that startling. All that's left, other than the dark he tries to blink away, is the faint, remembered hum of Cas's voice in his ears, and the faint awareness of the angel standing next to him.
"Lookit, Dean," Sam whispers, tugging at Dean's hand.
Dean opens his eyes, blinks twice against the afterglows that swim across his pupils. Sam tugs again and obediently he looks.
"Wow."
Their small garden isn't a garden anymore, but towering trees and undergrowth growing up in front of him, sweet grass and the flowers nodding heavy with dew. The stars don't shine under the trees' spreading branches, but the night wind sighs through them. Around one giant trunk, Dean can see the house, a rectangular silhouette against the velvet black and the stars, still and silent.
Cas sighs, a sigh that blends in with the breeze and the stillness, unexpectedly human. Dean hears the soft, living sound of his wings folding back together.
He opens his mouth to ask a question, How'd you do that? Are you looking out for us and our dad?, but Cas's face is shadowed and strange now, and utterly inhuman, and you don't - Dean knows this, the knowledge coming to him as though from a long way away - you don't ask questions of beings like this. The night goes still, and Dean can feel it in a way he hasn't quite ever felt it before, aware of the cool air along every inch of exposed skin, the warmth of his t-shirt, the damp and breathing quiet of the world. He stands silent, long enough for two of Cas's long, slender fingers to press against his forehead, and the next thing he knows it's morning, and there's birdsong in the window, Sam stirring to life beside him.
next
* * *
The only thing worse than school is starting at a new school when it's almost the end of the year. Dean fumbles along through the history and literature as best he can and doesn't bother with the books; he knows how to read, and Bobby's taught him Latin, which is all he needs. The math he can do mostly in his head, thanks to Dad, with the decimals and everything. Lunch, for the most part, is torture.
He's used to being alone in a crowd, a good thing because all the other kids have their groups and watch the new kid suspiciously and talk behind his back. The only person who doesn't do this is the blonde girl from down the way, who introduces herself as Jo, Joanna Beth Harvelle, and is that baloney? Wordlessly, Dean hands over his sandwich, and is sort of glad for peanut butter and grape jelly in return, even though it comes with the price of having to sit next to her and listen to the fifth-graders singing about Jo the freak and the new kid sittin' in a tree.
"Go to hell," Jo advises them, which makes Dean blink and the other kids gasp in horror. She's on the shrimpy side, all skinny bones and second-hand clothes, and she's a grade behind him. Also, a girl. "Morons," she mutters, and takes a bite of Dean's baloney sandwich.
Dean endures the stares and all of it, and wishes escaping back to class and Ms. Appleton's civics lesson didn't sound so wonderful. It's freaking pathetic.
It also gets worse in civics class, when Ms. Appleton is droning on about how bills become laws, and the door opens. Thirty heads, including Dean's, swivel around, and to his unending mortification, Dean sees Ms. Conley, the assistant principal, standing there, with a tearstreaked and rebellious Sam next to her. Ms. Conley asks Ms. Appleton over, and they hold a whispered conference with a lot of meaningful looks in Dean's direction. Sammy sniffles, loudly.
"Well, there's nothing else for it, then," Ms. Appleton sighs. She kneels down and smiles at Sam, who determinedly looks away from her. "Sweetie, you want to go sit next to your brother?"
Sam doesn't answer, just marches over to the empty desk next to Dean and clambers into it. Dean, on fire with humiliation, tries to melt into the plastic and plywood, but it doesn't work; he stays whole, with every other kid in the third grade staring at him, and Sammy rubbing tears and snot off his face.
"I told you to behave yourself," he hisses.
"I knowwwww," Sammy whimpers, so despondent that Dean almost, almost feels bad enough to stop being embarrassed by his little brother turning up in class.
"Sammy," Ms. Appleton tells the class as she deposits some paper and crayons on Sam's desk, "will be spending some time with us today. Now, while I talk to Dean, why don’t you all answer the first three study questions in the back of your chapter?"
Everyone else pretends to answer the study questions while Ms. Appleton kneels by Dean, and explains that they tried to call his father, and then Mr. Singer, but couldn't reach either number, and is there another number they could try? Dean registers the question through the haze of this is the worst day of my life and I'm gonna strangle you, Sammy, and a fierce yearning to go home. He shakes his head.
Ms. Appleton makes noises about parent-teacher conferences and sighs before walking away.
"Why couldn't you just suck it up?" he growls at Sammy, who's wiped away his tears and is drawing happily. "And what the hell is that?"
"Castiel," Sammy says. He points to two large black scribbles. "These are his wings."
"You have got to let that go," Dean says to his civics book.
"I do not." Defiantly, Sammy adds another black flourish to Castiel's wing.
Dean bites his tongue. Probably Ms. Appleton's already annoyed with him, and he's been in two fights already in two weeks; he maybe has one more chance before she writes him off. Anyway, starting the Castiel argument up again isn't going to achieve much for Dean; it hasn't done much yet except annoy him and make him angry enough to storm off to his room - their room - and slam the door and barricade it with a chair. He'd buried his head under a pillow to drown out Sammy's howling and furious banging.
"Why won't you believe in him?" Sammy had asked later as he'd plowed through macaroni and cheese. "He's an angel."
"Just shut up about it, okay? Jeez." There's no way, no way he can talk about Castiel without talking about that night when Mom had died, and the last words she'd said to him, because if angels were real and actually watching she wouldn't have died. Castiel, or one of his equally-imaginary friends, would have heard Dean praying and swooped down to save Mom, and killed whatever it was that had put her on the ceiling.
He thinks all of this again, stewing in anger and just wanting to grab Sammy and shake reality into his stupid five-year-old head. Dad's the only thing that's real, he wants to say, only he has no idea how to say it that doesn't sound crazy, so he has to shut up, and that just makes him madder. The anger lasts him through the last period of the day, almost sharp enough for him to try to get a seat by someone else on the bus, but Sammy, oblivious to the fact that Dean is seriously, seriously pissed, clings to his side, one hand knotted in Dean’s shirt, the other clutching his sheaf of Castiel doodles.
Dean glares at the brown and black and blue scribbles, the dull, waxy gleam of what Sam says are supposed to be Castiel’s wings. What kind of angel has black wings? Dean thinks about asking, but he keeps his mouth shut; Sam doesn’t need any encouragement to ramble on about Castiel, and Dean doesn’t want to hear any more about the angel than he has to.
But, really, what the hell kind of an angel wears a trench coat anyway? A Castiel angel had been Sam's answer that one time when Dean had been dumb enough to open his mouth and ask.
The bus rumbles up and down hills, through the dying light of afternoon, and Dean hears a rumble that isn't the bus's engine, but thunder. The bus is too big to fit on the road up to their house; it's almost a mile of bad, narrow asphalt, a walk Dean likes less and less every day, and especially dislikes when it rains.
"Freaking awesome," he mutters. "Come on, Sammy, we're gonna have to make a run for it."
Sam protests about the drawings, the rain, it'll smudge Castiel, and Dean sighs, stuffs them in his backpack as they climb out, along with Jo, into a humid breeze and a darkening sky.
"You kids hurry home," the bus driver tells them.
"Duh," Jo says.
The rain starts up the second the bus leaves. Sammy shrieks and Dean mutters curses under his breath. Jo produces an umbrella and hands it to him.
"What?"
"It's an umbrella, idiot." Jo shakes it meaningfully, and water sprays on Dean's shirt. "I don't mind getting wet, and I bet you'll catch it if your little brother gets sick."
"Thanks," Dean mutters gracelessly, taking the umbrella and handing it to Sammy, who clutches it happily in both hands. "Say thanks, freakazoid."
"'M not a freakazoid," Sam says instead.
Jo takes off without waiting, all skinny legs and small feet dodging the puddles. Dean can't run that fast, not with Sammy stumbling along and stepping in every puddle on the way, but he manages to move faster when the sky suddenly goes really dark and the wind whips up and the trees hiss and rustle angrily. The rain comes down in sheets, and the road twists on and on, Dean soaking because even though he's stolen the umbrella from Sam the umbrella isn't very big and Sam needs to stay dry.
At long, long last the house looms up out of the forest, almost swallowed by the trees and the rain, and all of it dwarfed by the oak. Dean hustles Sam in through the front door, and they track rainwater and mud all the way upstairs to the bathroom. Sam doesn't protest much when Dean pulls his clothes off and dumps him in the tub, although there's some whining at the hot water.
"I'll put clothes out for you," Dean tells him, and squelches his way to the bedroom.
Eventually they both go downstairs, the house echoing silently around them, only the sound of the rain and the hum-tick of the generator. Technically they're not supposed to be here, Dean knows; the place is owned by a hunter who lets other hunters use it in exchange for information and weapons, cash sometimes. Dean's not really supposed to know that, but he figures it could be useful.
Just like it would have been useful to know that Bobby'd gotten called away on something related to the current case. Their dad, though, Bobby's note informs him, will be back tonight. When he learns this, Sam is euphoric. Mostly, Dean is relieved.
The afternoon drags on, Sammy pestering Dean to come look at his drawings some more, which are mostly huge black scribbles of wings bracketing brown and white and tan scribbles, and a ragged blue line that Sam says is Castiel's tie. Dean pretends to be interested, gets Sam's snack, goes back to pretending to be interested until he thinks his eyes are going to explode in their sockets.
"It's getting dark," Sam moans from the epicenter of a disaster of drawing paper.
"So turn on a light, baby." Dean makes a point of sitting in the easy chair and staring at the mostly-invisible page of his math book. Not like he was paying attention to it anyway. With an aggrieved sigh, Sam rolls to his feet and goes to turn on the lights, and when Dean looks out the rain-streaked window, the darkness outside is approaching absolute.
"When's Dad getting home?" Sam asks as he restores himself to the center of the paper storm.
"When he gets home. Quit whining."
"When's that?" Already Sam's pretty good at pretending to be doing something else while pestering Dean to the point of murder.
"When it is. Shut up."
"I wanna go wait for him."
"Yeah, well, I want Holly Hunter and pizza for dinner, but it ain't happening. Shut up."
"Who's Holly Hunter?" Sam's back on his feet again, roaming around the room. He makes a circle around the coffee table, the one other chair, brushes deliberately close against Dean's feet, so Dean jerks back with an exasperated noise.
"A girl at school."
"I wanna go down and wait for Dad." Sam's voice is definitely shading toward whiny, and Dean has to suppress the urge to strangle him. Instead, he points out that they need to stay put and Dad will skin him alive if anything happens to Sam and Dean's in charge, and all Sam has to say to that is, "I wanna go down and wait for Dad."
Which is how Dean ends up at the rainy, half-flooded turnoff to their road, huddled under one umbrella while Sam, in his raincoat and boots, moaning about how he's too tired to hold up his umbrella but nonononono he doesn't want to go back up to the house, leans wetly against him. The water slicking off his coat seeps through Dean's jacket and jeans.
"It's a good thing you're my little brother," Dean tells the top of Sam's head. Sam nods, either in agreement or because he's sleepy and has totally violated naptime by insisting on coming down here in the rain and getting Dean all soaked. Sighing, Dean props Sam's umbrella - Jo's umbrella, really - against his leg and tries to keep it from falling over.
At least Sam's quiet, Dean tells himself. Everything's quiet, except for the soft machine-gun patter of rain on the leaves and the ground and Dean's umbrella, and the rushing water in the culvert nearby, all muddy from the gravel and dirt on the roadside. Just that, just the water, no birds, no wind, the air heavy and still, and nothing to look at except long dark green stretches of woods, and the shiny road, the dirt, the two dress shoes that have appeared, visible under the margin of Dean's umbrella.
The two shoes, Dean realizes, and the black feathers that trail in the water.
He tries to edge away and look up, and do both these things at the same time without being obvious about it. The feet and the feathers don't move, even as Dean shifts enough to see the long tan coat, the scrap of blue tie, rain-damp dark hair and a serene and unconcerned face, like just appearing out of nowhere on a rainy and deserted road, is normal. Dean thinks about the knife hidden in his pocket, and the guns back at the house, and reminds himself he's an idiot.
"Sammy," he breathes, shaking Sam firmly. Sam huffs and leans against Dean more emphatically.
Okay, not natural. With some effort, Dean worms his hand between himself and Sam, and gropes for the knife. The spirit, person, Castiel - there can't be more than one guy with wings and a trench coat running around Vermont - doesn't move, only stands there and lets himself get soaked and stares calmly off into the forest across the street.
"You're Castiel," Dean says, once he's sure his voice is going to work, and once he has a hold on the knife.
One blue eye slants in his direction, and Dean receives the faintest nod in return. Other than that, Castiel doesn't move.
"You're real."
This earns him a tilt of the dark head, more of the creature's attention. Castiel, the angel - the thing, Dean reminds himself, tightening his grip on the hilt - regards him silently, something huge and inhuman behind two blue, blue eyes. Behind him, the huge black wings shift, stretching a little as though to remind Dean they're there. He stands with his arms loose at his sides, but not relaxed, more like he's not entirely sure what to do with his body when he's just standing.
"You should have more faith, Dean." The angel's voice is rough, like he doesn't use it very often. Maybe, Dean supposes, he doesn't, hanging out in a forest all day. He ignores the comment about his faith, and points out that Sammy's barely in kindergarten, he makes up crap all the time.
Castiel briefly glances at Sam, who's still leaning his tiny, heavy self against Dean's side. Sighing, Dean adjusts Sam so he's standing more under the umbrella, acutely aware that the angel's watching everything he does.
"You shouldn't be down here alone," Castiel says once Dean has Sam resituated.
"Tell me something I don't know." Dean peers down the murky road. It's growing darker by the second, the rain more determined, and one side of him is getting soaked. He can feel the chill of the water through his boots, even though they're new and shouldn't leak. Tired of being stared at, he tilts his umbrella and glares up at Castiel, who gazes calmly back. "You shouldn't be out here without an umbrella."
Like everything else, Castiel is well on his way to being soaked, his dark hair matted and long, darker wet streaks running down the shoulders of his coat. What faint light is left the rain gathers to itself, and glistens in long, racing drops and lines on Castiel's wings. Dean imagines the heavy, hot smell of wet feathers.
Sighing, he offers Castiel Jo's umbrella. Castiel takes it hesitantly, long fingers curling around the handle, close to brushing Dean's, and holding it the way Dean's seen his dad hold machetes. After a moment of fiddling and intense staring on the angel's part, the umbrella pops open with a snap - without, Dean realizes, Castiel's hands doing anything. Castiel starts, wings flapping and splashing muddy water against Dean's back. Dean winces as more cold and wet starts to work its way through his jacket and then his jeans, insinuating itself against his skin.
Once he has the umbrella in position - even with his wings drawn all the way in, Dean can see they don't quite fit underneath - the angel looks up at the thin metal skeleton and the plastic stretched across it. The pink plastic, decorated with pastel ducks and other girly things. Rain patters and thuds, rolls and drips off the edges.
Castiel's wings flap once again, hard, and he shudders, a full-body, full-wing shudder. A fine mist drifts down on Dean, some of it deflected by his umbrella, some not.
Like he's gotten something out of his system, Castiel folds back in on himself again, ramrod straight and at attention, his wings pulled up tight, although the tips still trail in the puddle. Dean wonders if it's normal, to feel like he's in the presence of something more weird than terrifyingly supernatural. Probably it isn't, although Dean's more preoccupied with the depressing knowledge that he's going to have to admit that Sammy was right about the damn angel all along.
For a while, the world is only gray and the endless patter-and-splash of the rain off the umbrellas. Sam snuffles but doesn’t wake up, his hand sticky and hot in Dean's. Castiel doesn’t seem inclined to say anything.
"So where's your halo?" Dean shuffles at the wet grit underfoot.
"I don't have one." Castiel's looking down at him again, and Dean looks up, and he almost sees a glint of amusement in those serious eyes.
"I guess that means you don't have a white bathrobe either. You look like an accountant or something, or the detective on TV." They get crap shows in most of the motels they stay at, and it's just ten channels here, so his TV diet is mostly reruns.
Castiel still doesn't say anything. Sam breathes noisily through his open mouth, which seems to intrigue Castiel a bit. With a sigh, Dean resituates Sam, who just oozes bonelessly against him.
"If my dad were here," Dean ventures, "he'd shoot you. Probably anyone would."
"They would," Castiel agrees serenely, "although it would be a bad idea if they tried."
Dean shivers, and it doesn't have much to do with the rain. The angel stands quietly next to him, hands loose at his sides, apparently content to stand there until the end of the rain or the end of the world, whichever comes first. He seems impervious to the rain still soaking into the shoulders his coat and his wings and hair, and Dean wonders if that extends to things like knives and bullets. And Castiel, who'd been gazing with some interest up at the umbrella over his head, glances down at him, barely-there smile to say that, yes, it does extend to guns and knives.
"You should have more faith than you do," the angel says.
"Sorry," Dean grunts, unable to figure out if the angel's judging him or just making an observation and hating it either way. "But maybe if you guys had shown up at my house five years ago, I would."
He really wants to hate Castiel, because if he really is an angel, his kind did fuck all to help his mom, and they were supposed to help people. That was what angels did, Mom always said: watched over people, watched over him. He wonders if maybe that night the angels had been watching over him, just him, and had forgotten Mom, because his memory of everything after Dad had thrust Sammy into his arms and told him to run is a blur of light and heat and his thundering heart, so anything could have happened.
"It isn't our fault we aren't what you believed we were," the angel says coolly. The huge wings arc out, collecting raindrops, a reminder that Castiel isn't the fluffy white-winged type, like the angel figurine Dean hazily remembers from his old bedroom.
"You're a jerk," Dean tells the angel. The word he wants to use is bastard, except the angel's a grownup, way grown-up if he's thousands of years old like angels are supposed to be.
That actually seems to surprise Castiel, who needs a moment before saying, low and menacing so the chills down Dean's spine deepen and throb, "You should show me some respect," and there's power in the words, raw and grating, ancient and with brimstone in it. The entire world - or at least Dean's corner of it - tightens in anticipation, the rain pausing in its endless fall, the trees listening. Sammy stirs to life, sucks in a startled breath, but then he goes quiet too.
Headlights appear from around the bend, still far in the distance but bright in the gloom, and almost the second Dean sees the lights cutting across the dark bank of the forest and the rain, he hears the grumble and thrum of the Impala's engine. In the corner of his eye he sees the angel tense
Castiel vanishes in a gust of wind and a swirl of wet feathers. Dean winces as the backs of his legs are comprehensively drenched.
A moment later the Impala rumbles up, going too fast. Dean pushes a reluctant Sam back a bit further as the car skids briefly, brakes fighting the water for traction, and slows to a stop. Through the window, Dean can see the vague shadows of his father's face.
The window rolls down and Dad looks out, forehead creased.
"What the..?" Dad stops and coughs. "Boys, what's going on?"
"Sammy," Dean offers feebly. He nudges Sam in the back. "He wanted to come down and wait for you."
"Okay…" Dad gives Dean a look that says they're going to talk about this later, him putting Sammy in unnecessary danger, going against orders. Dean clamps down on the resentment and reminds himself he's earned the lecture he's going to get after he's put Sam safely to bed.
At least for now, Dad drops it. "Why don't you boys climb in?" Dad reaches behind him and the back door swings open. Sam squeals and clambers in, tracking water and mud all over the upholstery.
* * *
The next day, Dean itches and fidgets his way through school. With their dad back, Sammy stays put in his class, and Dean almost misses the distraction of having to look after him. Civics goes back to being boring, and the kids go back to being assholes - worse now that they know Dean has a whiny brat of a little brother hanging off him. As it is, he doesn't see Sammy again until the bus, when Sammy greets him with a crumpled fistful of Castiel drawings. When he shows them to Dean, Dean finds he can't be annoyed. In one of them, Castiel stands under a triangle that, according to Sammy, is an umbrella.
Dad's there when they get home, and after the hell of yesterday, Dean can't quite believe it. He's home and not working, which means the case is going well - not that he's going to ask with Sam right there, scarfing down cheese and crackers.
"I'll put Sam down for his nap, then get a bit of work done," Dad says, and it's something he almost never does, and Sam's happy enough to have him home that he slurps up the rest of his juice and lets himself collapse into Dad's arms when he's picked up. "C'mon, big guy."
"Ooooof," says Sam, resting his Ritz-covered face on Dad's shoulder.
And Dean's already halfway out the door, barely remembering to grab a comic book for cover. He gives himself a couple minutes for Dad to get upstairs and begin the complicated process of getting Sam out of his sneakers and socks, and a few more seconds to steel his courage and work up a decent lie in case Dad calls him. After that, he races down the hill and over the bridge, feet landing thump-thump-thump on the wood and quiet again on the soft dirt path leading into the forest.
Almost immediately the woods close around him, silent, close with greenness and life. Dean heads downhill, following the faint fork in the path. A few moments later the oak tree, Castiel's home, according to Sam, looms up in front of him, ancient and silent, all its branches heavy with leaves. Even Sam's crazy, rambling story about his adventure, told with all a little kid's hyperbole, doesn't quite prepare Dean for the tree, the utter size of it, its bark rough under his palm and pulsing with something like what had come off the angel.
Dean edges his way up along a solid limb that's almost encased in earth, trying to remember Sammy's half-incoherent stories. The roots are massive, steps he can climb like a staircase. Sam had mentioned that, and had the skinned knee to prove it.
So I walked up onna branch, and then I fell down this tunnel thing and I saw the angel.
Dean's not doing any falling if he can possibly help it, so he lowers himself as carefully as he can. It's awkward, and despite his best efforts he slides on his butt part of the way before he can catch himself,
"Damn." The soft grass at the bottom catches him, and he's rolling to his feet cat-quick. Already the air is different, not as heavy, but still and quiet, and improbably there's light even this far under the shade.
And there, on the branch (just like in Sam's story), Castiel's sitting, legs drawn up to his chest and his wings wrapped around him, the tips trailing over the grass.
"Hello, Dean." Castiel regards him attentively from over the shelf of his wings. Slowly, like curtains, they draw away, stretching full-length and closing up again, resettled along the length of the angel’s spine. Dean thinks of the origami Bobby showed him once, and feathers folding back together. Castiel shrugs once, as if to shift something into place, and goes still once more.
"Hey." He scuffs at the grass, nervous and at a loss and not liking it at all. Castiel doesn't say anything, only stares; it doesn't help. "Listen…" Crap. "Do you just, like, hang out here all day?"
"No."
The single word hangs in the air. Dean glances around quickly, taking the measure of the hillside, the curious, grassy bowl that cups them, the light radiant on the angel's black wings.
"Is there anything else to that?" The angel says even less than Dad does, which is some kind of record.
"No, I don't hang out here all day," Castiel says. "But I knew you were coming. You have questions." He says it right out; it's not a question.
"Stay out of my mind," Dean says crossly. Not like the angel couldn't have guessed. Why the hell else would a kid come down here? What else would Dean have after standing next to a silent, mysterious angel in the pouring rain? "You wouldn’t believe Sam," Cas says, almost off-handedly, "but then you saw me down by the road," and Dean rolls his eyes, knowing what's coming, "and I knew you would come."
The amount of knowledge implied, like Castiel knew the future or had somehow figured out what Dean was like despite never once seeing him before yesterday, pulls at Dean's hackles. Castiel looks at him, no expression - no human expression, anyway. Dean thinks uncomfortably of a large bird of prey, looking at you with feral intelligence and curiosity, either wondering what you are or wondering the best way to get his talons in you.
Dean turns around, deliberately craning his head to look up into the fluttering, rustling canopy of leaves far overhead. Looking away from Castiel doesn't work; he can still feel the angel's gaze, flat and hot and heavy, on the back of his neck. "So," Dean says, swallowing around the word, "so what, you like the view here?"
"There is a crossing place near here, in the crater of an old volcano." Castiel says it almost indifferently, but the peculiar stress on crossing catches Dean's attention. He turns back, in time to catch Castiel staring off into the distance, the fierce attention directed somewhere distant. "Witches, if they're powerful enough, can stand in the center of it and call up spirits." Dean shudders, "Witches?" and Castiel nods. "Not many of them know of that place, but they still come every now and then."
"And you're guarding it?"
Castiel sighs, a soft, impatient sound. "Yes," and the word is a warning not to push.
"Okay." Part of him, the part that wants to ask Dad or what? when Dad tells him to do stuff, wants to push the matter, but a larger part is way too aware of the angel's thin, annoyed mouth and how you don't ever, ever piss off the supernatural.
It occurs to him, in the weirdest, dimmest way, that he's been spending the past ten minutes or so talking to something not of this world, complete with wings and thousand-yard stare, and the thing - the angel, Castiel, it has an actual name - hasn't tried to kill him. Instead, he gets the impression Castiel's bored and unimpressed and definitely irritated at having Dean intrude on whatever he was doing.
"Sorry I crashed your totally rocking party," Dean says, as sarcastically as he possibly can.
The angel stares at him, definite puzzlement there, Dean's ten-year-old sarcasm knocking something ancient off its stride.
"I don't have many visitors," the angel tells him. He doesn't sound particularly upset about it, or particularly anything.
Dean hesitates, remembers the small flat package stowed in his jeans and pulls it out, hands it to the angel, who inspects it curiously. It's just cards; Dean plays a mean game of solitaire already, necessary when killing time waiting for Sammy to really fall asleep.
"Want to play?"
* * *
In the end, they play two games before Dean registers the deepening shadows and, like the evening, fear rushes up on him: what the hell his dad will say, Sam probably opening his big mouth and blabbing their secret, all kinds of trouble ending with Castiel incinerating their house. So, along with the stakes from the first game, he extracts a promise from Castiel not to burn anything down. Castiel gives the promise unwillingly, and isn't mollified by the dollar-fifty Dean had fished out of his pocket to serve as the pot for the second round.
He steals through the undergrowth, stumbling his way through impossible roots and shadows until he reaches the road. As he walks, he concocts his story: went down the road to see a friend about some notes he'd missed when Sam had had his meltdown the other day, got hung up because Jimmy had a new game system and his mom baked cookies and he'd lost track of time. Dean almost wants to believe the lie actually happened, he can see it that clear. Never mind he can't stand Jimmy and for all he knows Jimmy's mom can't bake for crap.
At least his dad buys it, so score one for the second rule of lying (believe in your lie, right behind Number One: Make sure the lie has a bit of truth in it), and lets Dean off with a muttered reminder to call next time, and not to wander off.
"This is a safe spot," he tells Dean for the zillionth time, and Dean can almost taste the words, they're that familiar, "as safe as any we've been to, but when you're safe, you get careless. Sloppy. We can't afford that, Dean."
"Where's Sam?" Dean asks instead of saying 'yes, sir.'
"Just getting up." Dad's attention swivels back to his work, his journal and a stack of maps and newspaper reports about some mysterious deaths up in Amity. Dean holds back a sigh and instead of asking the question with the inevitable answer ("You got a case?" "Yeah.") shuffles upstairs to Sammy.
Sam greets him with a plaintive moan and underprivileged expression that digs in under Dean's ribs. Where werrrrrrre youuuuu? Sam wants to know, the words drawn out on a whine as he stretches and kicks back his covers. Dean flops down on the edge of the bed, close enough to feel Sammy's little-kid heat as Sam squirms into position against his side.
"You were out," Sam accuses, "you went out without me."
"I can't be draggin' you everywhere, twerp," Dean mumbles.
Greedy fingers are already in Dean's right coat pocket, where Sam would have felt the small bulge. In a heartbeat, Sam - who can usually be counted on to drop things he's got a good hold of, and still hasn't figured out how to hold crayons - has the small leather bag out and unknotted.
"Seeds?" Sam blinks as they scatter on his pajama'ed stomach, some of them small, smooth and light brown, the others larger, like sunflower seeds, others white with a reddish film. Carefully Sam picks one up and studies it. "Why you got seeds, Dean?"
"Cas gave 'em to me," Dean admits.
After Dean had won the first game, Castiel had pushed the small leather bag - his contribution to the pot - at him. Dean had stared at it until the angel made an impatient noise and took his hand. He almost jumped, the angel's had that human and alien, smooth skin and under it a rolling heat right on the edge of burning. The small package almost fell from his grip and he started to say no, he really really didn't want this whatever-the-hell it is, but the angel told him, to take it, in no uncertain terms.
Sam's big, dumb brain only needs a second to jump from Cas to Castiel, and he shoots upright, the seeds spilling to his lap. Dean reaches up and slaps a hand over Sam's mouth a heartbeat before the shrill accusation brings Dad and holy wrath down on their heads.
"Not a word," Dean advises him, "or your life won't be worth living."
"Mmmkay," Sam says to the flat of Dean's palm, even though his eyes are truculent. When Dean cautiously lowers his hand, Sam hisses, "You went and saw him?"
Dean rolls his eyes. "Is he your boyfriend?" Sam snorts. "I just had a couple questions for him, like what he's doing hanging around here like some kind of freak."
"He's bein' a guardian angel." The duh is all but spoken. "It's what angels do."
The assurance Sam says it with, all five-year-old confidence that can't ever be wrong, makes Dean's heart hurt, and makes him want to punch something. And he wants to tell Sam the truth, that no, angels really aren't watching over you, and the big black-winged headcase down in the woods has his eye on some crossroads and not on them.
He blinks back to reality when he feels Sam plucking at his coat; thinking it's a demand for attention, he almost snaps back what?, but then realizes Sam's picking up the seeds and placing them back in the bag. "So why've you got seeds?" Sam directs the question mostly to the bedspread and the few seeds scattered there.
"I dunno." Dean shrugs. Maybe they were all Cas had, until he won Dean's lunch money from him. "But he told me to plant 'em the next time the full moon comes around."
* * *
One of the many parts of Dean's not-formal education is in basic astronomy and meteorology, learning how to read star charts for astrological stuff (some ceremonies can only be performed under certain constellations, or with planets in alignments Dean's pretty sure he'll never remember in a million zillion years) and to pay attention to the phases of the moon. Full moon is a bad, bad time to be a hunter wandering through werewolf territory.
They have a week until the full moon comes around, and Cas had been specific, plant them on the first night of the full moon, and despite himself Dean's curious about the stupid things. And like he senses Dean's curious and has questions - or maybe that Sam's curious and has more questions than can fit in his head - Castiel's gone all that week, except one day when Dean slips out of the house again during Sam's naptime and Dad's working on that top-secret project of his, about Mom, and Dean can't be in the same space sometimes, when Dad's doing that.
Like before he grabs his cards, and as an afterthought, a sheaf of Sam's most recent drawings, and spirits down to the forest.
"This does not look like me," is Cas's verdict when he sees the drawings, his wings represented by wild black scribbles or else by the five spokes of Sam's fingers and thumb, like the tail of a Thanksgiving turkey. "Look, he ain't da Vinci," Dean points out, even though the pictures are pretty damn good for being done by a five-year-old (in Dean's opinion, anyway). Cas makes a confused noise.
"See? He got your hair." Dean points to the dark brown-black hybrid scribble, which actually isn't too far removed from Castiel's actual hair, crazy and windblown as it is. When he grins up at Castiel, he gets only more confusion, and possibly a hint of puzzled offense.
Despite the screwed-up tie and the puzzlement, Dean's willing to bet Castiel's a mean son of a bitch if he wants to be; it's there in the military sharpness of his shoulders and the way he talks, a lot like Dad when he's in full-on Marine mode, the precise way he takes a card when Dean hands it to him. Scary smart, too; Dean can't cheat even when Cas solemnly swears not to read his mind, and he learns the rules for seven-card stud and Texas Hold 'Em as fast Dean can explain them. Once he figures out a large part of poker is lying about what you have, he takes to it like a huge, black-feathered duck to water.
"Strategy and bluffing," Castiel says ruminatively as he studies his cards, and he sounds way too familiar with those concepts. "Deceiving your opponent into believing your advantage is greater than it is, or lesser, depending on the resources you have." Dean screws up his courage and asks about it.
"I'm what you would call a specialist." Cas studies the five cards spread on the grass between them. His wings are half-unfurled behind him, stretched so the faint light plays across the long flight feathers the way it plays across old steel. "You would think of it as intelligence and espionage," and geez, maybe Cas and Dad would get on like a house on fire.
"So why they got you watching this place?" Dean studies his cards and tosses a nickel into the pot.
Cas doesn't answer, and they don't speak again until Dean realizes the hours've slipped by almost to evening. He stands up and pockets the twenty-five cents he hadn't sacrificed to Cas's sneaky gameplay, says an awkward "so long" that Cas answers with his own "Good night, Dean," soft and oddly formal. Like before Dean leaves him in the growing dimness, the straight shoulders in their trench coat and the dark wings, as he clambers back up the hill to the path. There's a soft rustle of wings and wind, and Dean knows if he turns back around, Cas'll be gone.
By the time he gets back, Sam's clamoring for his dinner and their dad's in the last stages of assembling it, hamburgers and broccoli, something about how they'll eat vegetables while they actually have a place to cook them. Sam gulps his milk and asks, the moron, where Dean's been.
"Out at Jimmy's," Dean breathes, which is code for with Cas by now. Sam nods, wide-eyed and clearly about to ask something else. Dean gives him the most ferocious look he can manage. Sam shuts his trap just in time for Dad to plunk their plates down in front of them and refill Sammy's cup.
"We gotta plant the thingies tonight," Sam whispers. It's the loud, totally-obvious kind of whisper Dean's pretty sure they can hear down by the road.
"What thingies?" Dad asks from his station by the stove, where he's fixing his own plate. "And why at night?"
"Science project for school." Dean doesn't look too closely at how he's lied to Dad more often in the past couple of weeks than his entire life. "We're learning about plants. And it's not tonight, it's just Sam being dumb." At least Sam is smart enough not to say anything about how Cas did too tell them to plant these at night. Dean figures he's going to have all sorts of hell figuring out how to get outside and not having Dad on their cases.
"Let me know if you need any help," Dad tells him as he sits down with his dinner. Dean says something noncommittal and stares at his burger. Sam munches his broccoli and, with uncharacteristic delicacy, separates his hamburger into parts (bun, pickles, burger, other part of bun) before eating them. It's a phase, some weird five-year-old thing Dean's pretty sure he never went through.
Another phase is trying to get the toothpaste to squirt onto the toothbrush with that perfect, smooth curl at the end, like in the commercials, and Dean has to breathe a soft reminder that toothpaste costs money, and he's not going to be late because his dumb little brother needed an hour to brush his teeth. Sam races through brushing, flossing, and face-washing, and is scrubbed and in bed in record time.
* * *
Sam can't wait until he's old enough to not have to take naps, and go outside whenever he feels like it and not when Dad decides it's "safe" enough. In general, he can't wait for most things, like Dad saying good night and going off downstairs to do Work, the important kind of work he never lets Sam in on, but that Sam's getting suspicions about. In bed next to him, Dean idly flips through a comic book, like he isn't every bit as excited as Sam is about this.
"Why d'you think he wants us to do this?" Sam asks.
"Maybe he doesn't like getting his hands dirty," Dean says, and turns a page. "I dunno, Sammy. Geez."
"He lives in a tree," Sam points out, although it's something he's wondered, why Castiel, or Cas like Dean calls him, lives in their woods instead of Heaven, where Pastor Jim says all the angels live.
"Maybe he's just really bad at gardening." Dean snaps the page as he turns it, which means he's not in the mood for more questions and Sam'll be told to shut up or else if he opens his mouth again. Sighing, Sam curls down into the covers and tries to close his eyes and stay awake at the same time, outwaiting Dad who's probably Working in the office by now.
The next thing he knows, he's standing outside, the night-damp grass cool against his toes, the earth soft. Dean's standing next to him, the small leather bag making a bulge in his pocket. He's the only really warm thing about the night, which is right on the edge of spring and still coolish. Above them, the moon swings high and full, bleaching out the sky so they can't see all the stars. Still, it's worth looking up at, all that endless dark and the bright dots of the stars like curious eyes peering down.
"They're just large balls of plasma," a familiar, rough voice says, and just in time Sam clamps down on the squeal of delight. The glare Dean gives him, the shut up or I’ll glue your mouth shut glare, helps, even though it melts a bit into something like welcome when he says hello to Cas. "Hello, Dean. Sam," the angel says, sounding vastly unaffected.
"We were gonna plant your seeds," Sam tells him, as Dean fishes the bag out of his pocket. "You gonna help?"
The great wings twitch and shift, stretching so the night breeze catches some of the feathers and ruffles them. With a gesture Dean understands as being right on the edge of patience, Cas points to the ground, where Sam had already cleared a little strip of grass down to dirt. Dean figures, if anything, he and Sam can tell Dad it's for some science project, something Sam wants to help out with. Sam makes a soft, shrill noise and grabs the small package of seeds from Dean's hand, flopping into the dirt like an earthworm.
"Don't like getting your hands dirty?" Dean asks, as he takes one of the seeds. He digs a hole with one finger, drops the seed in, and covers it up.
"It's better if you plant them," Cas says, and the huge wings shift and flex against the wind, a reminder that no, Cas probably doesn't mind getting his wings dirty at all. He's standing at alert, sparing only the briefest glances for Dean and Sam, his attention somewhere else. "Okay, fine, whatever," Dean mumbles, and starts to work. The soil is damp with the night dew, soft and squishing between his fingers, and cool.
He thinks about making a remark about planting weed, or something for Cas's secret stash, but the stillness is heavy, too heavy for words to break it. Overhead the light is unreal, the stars turning slowly in their course as heaven wheels them up over the towering trees of the forest. Methodically he works his way down the line: dig out a hole, drop a seed in, cover it back up, step to the right, dig out a hole, drop a seed in, cover it back up, step. Sam lags behind, kneeling down and very deliberate in his pace. For once, Cas doesn't seem to mind them being slow, intent on other things, and with the quiet settling around them, Dean can hear him saying something.
It's a chant, he thinks, words he doesn't recognize. The words have Cas's usual rumble and something more, deeper, an earthquake working its way up through the ground. Dean's bones start to thrum, his spine tingling, and still Cas's voice gains strength, ananael i caosyi, laiad I caosyi, kathanim ante ananel a laiad so adonan, and more that Dean starts to lose track of as the words come faster. Cas's wings unfurl, starlight edging them so the long flight feathers look like blades, black steel tipped with silver.
Sammy's quiet next to him, and closer now that Dean's realizes he's stopped, almost clinging to Dean's legs. It doesn't help his balance, and he needs it, because the earth is shaking under him, Cas's rough, flawless voice woven through the vibrations. It's like the words are pulling something up through the dirt, a power in them Dean's never once heard from Dad or Bobby's chants. In the middle of it all, Cas stands unmoved, the words rolling on and on. Transfixed, Dean forgets to watch the ground, despite Sam's sudden huff of surprise, Dean, lookit, because Cas is… Cas is something he's never seen before.
There's no choice but to look away, because Cas isn't Cas anymore, is huge and brilliant like the sun just come up all of a sudden. Or a comet, maybe, just landed right there in their corner of the world, obliterating all the shadows and so hot and bright Dean feels like maybe he's dissolving too. Sam's hand clasped in his is the only solid thing that's left, and there's nothing to look at anymore because Cas is gone, and his eyes hurt, the blood thin and violent and pounding in his head so he has to look away and try to find some darkness. Only there's nothing, nothing except the endless, fierce roll of Cas's voice that wants to break apart Dean's skull.
And then, like that, it's over.
The world snaps back around him, the air cold against the memory of searing heat. The night rushes in again like a wave, and Dean's blind all over again. Under his feet, the earth goes still again, leaving a weird echo throbbing up and down his spine, and he almost loses his balance, it's that startling. All that's left, other than the dark he tries to blink away, is the faint, remembered hum of Cas's voice in his ears, and the faint awareness of the angel standing next to him.
"Lookit, Dean," Sam whispers, tugging at Dean's hand.
Dean opens his eyes, blinks twice against the afterglows that swim across his pupils. Sam tugs again and obediently he looks.
"Wow."
Their small garden isn't a garden anymore, but towering trees and undergrowth growing up in front of him, sweet grass and the flowers nodding heavy with dew. The stars don't shine under the trees' spreading branches, but the night wind sighs through them. Around one giant trunk, Dean can see the house, a rectangular silhouette against the velvet black and the stars, still and silent.
Cas sighs, a sigh that blends in with the breeze and the stillness, unexpectedly human. Dean hears the soft, living sound of his wings folding back together.
He opens his mouth to ask a question, How'd you do that? Are you looking out for us and our dad?, but Cas's face is shadowed and strange now, and utterly inhuman, and you don't - Dean knows this, the knowledge coming to him as though from a long way away - you don't ask questions of beings like this. The night goes still, and Dean can feel it in a way he hasn't quite ever felt it before, aware of the cool air along every inch of exposed skin, the warmth of his t-shirt, the damp and breathing quiet of the world. He stands silent, long enough for two of Cas's long, slender fingers to press against his forehead, and the next thing he knows it's morning, and there's birdsong in the window, Sam stirring to life beside him.
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