Home is Where Dean Is

Home is Where Dean Is

A Supernatural story by Axy @Aaaahhhxy

Art by @taylorsadlowski. For more, search #TaylorDraws on Twitter. 

“Castiel, are you OK?”

At times, it was easy to forget that Jack remained a light sleeper, despite his recently stolen grace. And so, I was surprised to see him haunting the corridors, even if it was still early in the evening.

But beyond the surprise, I always felt a little happy pinch where I guess my heart is supposed to be every time I heard him calling my name. After months of intense search and despair, feeling like I let down Kelly in ways that I couldn't fathom, he was finally back home.

Even if, lately, it didn't really feel like home anymore.

It's such a strange concept, “home.” Something that took me a long time to fully grasp. All my time on Earth, I sought something I could never find. To say that I was searching for my place in this world is an understatement.

Before… Before Dean, who I was existed within the limits of my tasks and duties. I never questioned my orders, however wrong they might have been, because, if you aren't taught that you can oppose them, then you aren't tempted to do it. And second-guessing the management just isn't in the basic angel toolbox.

The Winchesters woke me up to the very thing my father defended so vehemently. I now find heaven’s, or whatever is left of it, lack of free will to be the very proof that we failed everyone, and ourselves to begin with.

Beyond free will, though, family is the one thing I understand because of Sam and Dean. Home isn't a place. It’s people. I’ve felt at home in motels, and inside the car, and in the alternate universe. And here, of course. Home is wherever Sam, Dean and Jack are. To some extent, Mary and Bobby are two very welcome bonuses. I only feel truly myself when I am among those people.

And lately, there is a staggering and growing gap between my ideal and our reality. I now fully understand what missing someone truly means.

I experienced it a million times, over a million situations, and for a million reasons, but it really, truly dawned on me when Sam and Dean got locked into that high-security prison last year.

It was the very first time they were both gone, and the very first time I didn't know whether they’d come back to me. I would have given the world, literally, to get them back.

The emptiness of the bunker only echoed the void I felt from within. I missed them before, but this was like my grace was being ripped from me all over again. The tightness in my throat, the soreness in my muscles, the fire inside my head…I didn't know that loss could physically hurt for an angel. Even my own waves of energy were hurting, as if being deprived of my family could damage me on the subatomic level.

As it turns out, even that kind of pain was only a fraction of what I could truly experience. This time…This time, it’s way, way worse.

At first, I felt guilty. How dare I feel worse missing Dean alone, than missing the two of them? It made no sense.

It felt wrong, and I was ashamed…To a point of loathing myself, which, thankfully, didn't go unnoticed to my closest kin.

So I reluctantly discussed it with Sam, half-terrified he would detest me for my lack of logic. But he didn't. At all. He simply showed me that as hopeless as the first time was, this time was a bottomless pit of despair. And he explained to me that I knew when he and Dean were imprisoned that they were, somehow, together, and that it made things a little less awful. But this time…

Sam Winchester is among the greatest friends anyone could have, and the best of what humanity is. I am more and more convinced that my father had the Winchesters in mind when he created their kind.

Sam’s resilience is inspiring, and his capacity for forgiveness floors me regularly. I tried to express how I felt when he got attacked and bled to death in the tunnel, and how sorry I was for not being able to help, but he didn't let me go any further.

He told me that whatever happened there was long gone, and besides occasional nightmares, he was over it. And he was happy for those nightmares -- because Lucifer wasn't anywhere in them, and that was a major improvement for him.

He has dreams, now, sometimes. Most of the time it involves us on a beach, and something about umbrellas in glasses that I don't understand but that seems to make him smile. He says he sleeps a lot better now than he ever did, and that when Dean comes back, he’ll likely get rid of all his sleeping troubles for good.

I don't think I really fully measured how tortured Sam remained, after all these years, but I can't pretend knowing what it feels like to have nightmares, since I don't sleep.

When I was human, I was always too tired to even remember having dreams. Sam says I did dream, but I just didn't get any memories of it.

If I had to dream today, I know exactly what those dreams would be about.

Jack was just by the doorstep, his curious face smiling from the outside of the room.

“Why are you in the dark, Castiel?”

I looked at him with a mix of pride and concern. As happy as I was about how beautifully he was growing up despite all that he been through in his first year of existence, I felt guilty that he had to deal with the strangeness and the sadness of the bunker as it now was.

I immediately regretted that he had found me inside Dean’s room, as I knew he would feel and absorb the pain, and the loneliness, and the utter despair surrounding me, and that it couldn't be a good thing for a young recovering nephilim.

I looked at him with as much faith in myself and in the future as I could muster, but it fell flat. I extended my arm to reach the light switch, and I tapped the empty space on Dean’s bed next to me to invite him to sit down.

Instead, he sat on the floor in front of me, cross-legged.

“I, uh…Sometimes I need to stay on my own for a little while,” I said.

“Why don't you do it in your room? The bunker is quiet at this time of the day, the library is empty, so is the kitchen. Why here, Castiel?”

“Because when I’m in Dean’s room, it feels like he’s still with us.”

Jack looked around, quietly, slowly, pausing to observe each thing, from the firearms on the walls, to the collection of old editions from that one magazine full of ladies from Asia with ample bosoms and a poor sense of what being decently dressed means.

Even Jack was all too familiar with it, now. He raised an eyebrow when his gaze fell on a small replica of the Mystery Machine on the desk, but Dean’s passion for Scooby-Doo wasn't a surprise for Jack either.

Before it all happened, when we were just back from the alternate universe, Dean showed Jack a few episodes of the cartoon on his brother’s laptop, and told him the exciting tales of our brush with two-dimensional friendships.

Sam and I joined the conversation, as we all tried to give Jack the realest report of our uncanny adventures with the gang. But Sam and I weren't nearly enough to cool down Dean’s ecstasy about it all. Nor did we want to.

Good times. Precious, fading happy days. How I wished I’d enjoyed it more.

Once Jack was done reviewing the room, he smiled at me, in a way that still had so much innocence in it, it made me consider whether he’d one day lose it. And it reminded me that we needed to protect it as long as we could.

This child’s heart was even purer than Kelly thought, and that wasn't a small achievement.

“It is true, Castiel. I can feel it too.”

He remained silent for a while, observing the room in that new light.

“Is he going to come back, Castiel?”

“I don't know, Jack.”

“I miss him.”

“So do I, Jack.”

Jack cocked his head in thought. “I remember when he called me ‘family’ for the very first time. It felt like my heart was going to burst. I was so happy.”

“He loves you, Jack.”

“I know he does. Sam says he always did. I’m not sure that’s the truth.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He was always mad at me, at the beginning. He wanted to kill me.”

I sighed. Yes, that sounded like him.

“Dean is…He has this strange code of conduct,” I said.

“Code of…conduct?”

“The Winchesters call it ‘shoot first, asks questions later.’”

Jack looked puzzled. “But he didn't shoot me…At least, not at first.”

“It's a metaphor, Jack. Dean will feel threatened until he has time to wrap his head around something.”

Jack pondered the validity of my analysis for a while, before nodding. “I understand.”

“He never wanted to harm you, but he was in a strange place.”

“And you were gone. He missed you so much.”

Another pinch inside my chest -- one that felt equally warm and cold, sweet and sour, comforting and painful. All of a sudden, the weight on my shoulders felt heavier.

Jack said, “I never stopped thinking of you when I was on the other side.”

“We never stopped either, Jack. You were on our minds constantly. Everything we did was to bring you back.”

For a second, his expression went from somewhat pained to relieved, as if he was touched by a light I wasn't familiar with.

“I was afraid you would forget about me,” he said.

I could relate. And I could understand. But it felt like I had been stabbed with an angel blade right through my heart.

“Never, Jack, you hear me? Whatever happens, we would never.”

Taken aback by the underlying anger in my voice, Jack’s smile faded for a second.

“Am I a Winchester, then?” he asked.

“Yes, you are, Jack. Just like Castiel is.”

Jack and I looked up at the doorway. Sam had caught the last bit of our conversation, and it felt right that a Winchester by blood had answered that particular question.

Jack’s smile grew even wider, as it did every time Sam was in his vicinity.

I’d probably underestimated the bond they were able to forge, but I owe Sam a great debt of gratitude. He did a lot to make sure Jack wouldn't suffer after my unfortunate experience at his birth, and he set him on the right path.

I used to feel angry at Dean for having let Jack down, at the beginning, but I know that Sam probably made sure that however unsafe Jack felt, Sam would always be there.

There was so much I didn’t know. The gap between Jack’s birth and my run-in with…whatever I’d met in the Empty was a few weeks long, and we’d never really found the time to talk about it.

As per usual, Dean would just brush it off as water under the bridge, as if there were things he was ashamed of -- or afraid of, maybe.

Now I understand that he was not particularly proud of the way he’d treated Jack, but still, there are things I might not know and probably never will. Those days were paramount in Jack’s growth and development, and I wasn’t there. I’ll never get them back. I’ll never be able to witness how he really found his way to the Winchesters.

I don’t suppose they welcomed him with open arms. Did he flee? Did he run out in the wild, naked and alone? He could have met so many bad people. Anything could have happened to him.

I know that there are fates worse than death in this world, and he could have been used. Tortured. He could have built his life on trauma and pain. More than losing Kelly and me.

Sam, still in the doorway, ran a hand across his face. He was afraid of coming into the room, and I could relate. It took me a while just to open the door, let alone walk in. But, after hours, when everyone was sleeping, or trying to, it was the only place that brought me a weak, but persisting sense of comfort.

Sam’s eyes were shining, and his voice was breaking.

“It feels like he’s just gone for a beer run…”

Jack nodded at Sam, and smiled again.

“Or a pie run!”

I couldn’t refrain from a smile of my own, as Sam laughed weakly at Jack’s characteristic enthusiasm. Anytime Jack could show that he was a part of the family, he did it with such pride, and it was hard not to feel our spirits being lifted.

Sam hesitated a while before entering the room, and when he did, he didn't go far. He stayed near the desk, leaning against the old wood, trying his best not to let his grief take over.

I wished I could help him. I wished a touch on his forehead would relieve him of it all, but there wasn't anything I could do.

Most of the time, I felt useless. I was a celestial being, and lately, all I’d done was heal a burn on Mary’s forearm after she had a run-in with an evil pan in the kitchen, and clean up the liver of an unsuspecting Bobby.

At times, I felt like a ghost. All I did lately was haunt the corridors, the library, this room. I don't sleep. I don't eat…I can’t let go, and there is no way I’ll ever move on. So I guess I’m no better than one.

Dean’s room fell silent again. Jack was lost in his thoughts, something that happened often since his return from the apocalypse world.

I could probably have listened, one way or another, to the depth of his reflection. And as a parent, I wish I knew. It would help me figure out who he was becoming.

But I could never bring myself to violate the only space that was truly his. I knew how it felt, to get my thoughts stolen, and if I crossed that line, I’d be no better than them.

Everything on Earth was a question of choices, and sometimes, mine were questionable, if not downright wrong. What if allowing Dean to go the way he went, what if not finding the right argument, what if not fighting harder was the worst one?

Even the Leviathans -- not my finest hour -- didn’t make me feel quite as defeated as letting Dean go.

For a long time, his anger at me or at the world helped me calibrate my own moral compass, sometimes in accordance with his, sometimes not. Now, it felt like it was gone for good, and I had a hard time figuring out my place in a world he wasn’t part of anymore. And there was no relief in sight, because our resources to bring him back were limited at best.

“What do you think Dean is doing right now?”

Jack’s innocent question brutally interrupted the course of my thoughts, and I could tell that it did the same for Sam. We both stared at each other for a second, while Jack waited for an answer, and I realized that it was something that was truly torturing him -- the not knowing.

Sam replied first, carefully weighing his every word, following my exact train of thought.

“Do you want me to tell you what I think, or what I hope, Jack?”

Jack considered the question for a while, as Sam figured out the latter on his own.

“I hope he is drowning Michael’s thoughts under a loud and completely out-of-tune rendition of every Led Zeppelin song he can think of.”

I smiled, because the picture was probably accurate. Dean would try every single annoying thing he could to get on Michael’s nerves.

Jack chuckled, then tilted his head slightly, not unlike puppy dogs do when their curiosity is spiked. “I heard him sing in the shower once. It wasn’t so bad.”

Sam and I both looked at him, me with a slight expression of concern, Sam with pure wonder.

Jack shrugged. “What? I was walking back to my room and I heard him. And it was good!”

Sam laughed. “Then you need to re-evaluate your musical tastes, Jack.”

Humanity never ceased to surprise me. As our fragile laughter faded away, I considered the strange communion of sharing the same feeling, but from three different perspectives.

Sam would probably think back to his millions of miles on the road, half of which were accompanied by his brother’s grating humming.

Jack had, for some reason, experienced our troubled interpretation of what personal space means, something that took me almost a decade to grasp and that I still struggle with.

And I…

Oh, memories. I’d been trying to gather them all over the past few days, but they always struck out of nowhere, from innocent things. A sight. A smell. A taste, even, when for some strange reason I accessed it, rather than a collection of bland molecules. I think my brain stored some of those when I was human, and still has the capacity, if correctly stimulated, to relive them even today.

As a messenger, a soldier of heaven, I did remember things, but I never attached any emotion to those memories. Feelings aren’t from my realm. They define humanity.

Memories unattached to feelings are just facts, easy to store away and forget. But the second they mean something on a personal scale, they become heavy and vibrant. They refuse to go away. And if they do, anything, however small and insignificant, can bring them back.

Thinking about Dean’s singing abilities, or lack thereof, ignited the memory of an uneventful day, a few years ago, in the garage…

It was something I couldn’t remember on my own, but right here, right now, everything about it felt palpable. He was fixing his car, and we were just talking. Things weren’t ideal, but they weren’t so bad, and I wished I knew back then what I know now.

I remembered the smell of the oil. I remembered the way the crude light of the bunker felt just like the sun in my eyes. He was singing one of those pop songs he listens to when he’s alone, and pretends he doesn’t like when Sam confronts him about it.

I can’t remember what we talked about. It probably wasn’t anything important, some random worries about whatever mess we were neck-deep into at that time, but I have a perfect picture of how it felt, to be able to talk with him.

And that memory made me feel defeated.

It made me feel alone, even surrounded by most of my family.

Most.

It made me miss him even more.

Memories, at the end of the day, were as beautiful as they were murderous. They were here to keep our emotions afloat, even if, most of the time, those emotions are unbearable.

Humanity is built on paradoxes.

I wish I had the chance to talk with Dean today. About nothing. About everything. Just talking.

Heaven’s hierarchy didn’t allow us to communicate from subaltern to subaltern, and even less to the upper ranks. Staying in line and keeping thoughts and concerns to ourselves was the way I lived for a very, very long time. It was the only way I knew.

I never knew how unsatisfying it was until I started to understand that humanity communicates. The part that works, at least. And that the lack of communication ignited a vast majority of the conflicts I was sent to investigate and resolve.

When Dean, and Sam, and Bobby, and everyone I met along the way listened to what I had to say and carefully considered my opinion and my take, it was such an extraordinary sensation. To exist on my own. To know that I wasn't just a weapon, but also an individual, with thoughts of my own, and, later on, feelings.

That I knew love. Pain. Joy. Sadness. The intoxicating embrace of bliss. The cold bite of losses. Heaven wouldn't allow this. But maybe it should. That’s what I tried to bring them, a while ago, when I couldn't possibly imagine that freeing them would lead to the devastating and deadly quest of yet another leader.

I hoped for free will to make them feel as complete as I felt among humans, but instead, it sent them to their deaths. I will never pretend that heaven hasn’t suffered immeasurable losses because of me, but I will forever refuse to say that my intentions weren't pure and selfless.

All of those things, I gained from talking with the Winchesters. And now my biggest wish was to get the chance to talk with Dean about nothing of import.

Just talking.

Even if we were all hoping beyond hope to get him back, it was the first time in a long time that neither me, nor Sam, nor anyone else really had the slightest idea of what to do.

All of our ideas seemed to fall flat, and to lack the inspiration and the courage needed to bring him back.

None of us even knew if anything of Dean was remaining. Of all the desperate thoughts that ran through my mind lately, this one was, by far, the worst.

I couldn’t even bring myself to talk about it with Sam, and yet I knew he was thinking the same.

I could tell from the badly concealed pain in his eyes. He’d pretend it didn’t exist most of the time, in order to be strong, to be what Dean taught him to be, to protect the rest of us now that Dean was gone. To make him proud. The Winchesters and their pride was one of my biggest concerns, always, and had been for a while.

However, the minute Sam was alone, the mask would fall, and all I’d see was a lost boy. The couple of times I’d walked on him alone, he’d actually appeared smaller, as if the magnitude of his sorrow could diminish his height.

I’ve seen it a few times now. How grief eats away at people. How it makes them shrink.

The very first time I witnessed Sam’s distress, out of some strange reflex, I texted my concerns to Dean.

It took me longer than I’d like to admit to understand that he wouldn’t answer.

At times, when my own pain became too prominent, I’ve called him on the phone. I didn’t want to use the speed dial like I would normally, so, instead, I dialed each number out of memory.

That his phone number still existed elsewhere than within the shortcuts of my phone meant something for me. If it was still there, then so was he. Most of the time, I got his voicemail -- another concept that took me a long time to fully understand.

I didn’t leave any messages, but hearing his voice was enough to appease my mind for a minute or two.

One time, it rang. The hope I felt was impossible to qualify.

It rang a long, long time before I even had the courage to hang up. Sam says that sometimes, when the network is busy, it happens. I didn’t know. I wish I did. It made it all worse for a while.

While it was ringing, I thought about what I would say if Michael answered, what could possibly make any kind of difference.

I realized, afterwards, that talking to Michael didn’t scare me at all.

Talking to Dean did.

I found a form of comfort in considering that, maybe, in the happiest of all my theories, Dean wasn’t aware of what was happening…But what if he knew?

What if he was unable to control Michael at all and was just forced to see what damage he’d eventually inflict on us, all while powerless, the silent witness of what could possibly be yet another apocalypse?

Could the rage and the anger consume Dean from within to a point where nothing of him would remain?

If I could talk to Dean, regardless of how much I missed it, it would mean knowing more. At times, ignorance is bliss. And assessing Dean’s situation accurately could very well mean that the truth was worse than we could possibly imagine.

How could I live knowing that this is happening to one of the most important people in my entire, millennia-long existence? The Winchesters had taught me more about what it means to exist in a decade than I’d gained in centuries.

I knew that pain was part of the package. I didn’t regret anything.

I just wished I was alone to suffer. If I could take Sam, Dean and Jack’s worries as my own, could guarantee that they’d never have to suffer again, I’d do it instantly, without a second thought.

In more ways than one, I’ve been their guardian, first and foremost. Of all my missions, it was the one I couldn’t bear failing. And yet it had happened, far too often for my taste.

I must do better. I need to do better. I need to bring Dean back home, I need to fix heaven, I need to end Michael, I need to make sure that my people are safe for as long as I can.

I failed heaven. I can’t fail humanity.

“Cas, you OK?”

It took me a while to even hear Sam or perceive Jack’s concerned look. Apparently, I was in too deep in my own thoughts to listen to them.

That was something else new for me. Usually, I was alert at all times. Not anymore.

Communicating was a struggle, because, deep down, it was Dean who had made it all so easy. He had no filter, or very few, and used humor and sarcasm to make me stumble in my own mind and face the reality of my feelings.

Sam usually confronted his emotions with a disarming honesty, and sometimes, that was exactly what I needed. But most of the time, being that open would pain me. I used to think I was different from either Sam or Dean, but now that I look at it under a different light, I understand that I’m more like them, like both of them, than I ever thought.

That means that a good half of what I am is currently missing. It explained a lot.

“Define ‘OK.’”

That made Jack smile. “You’re talking like Dean.”

Sam smiled, too. “Jack’s right. It does sound like him.”

Ultimately, I smiled, too. “At least I don’t use his colorful choice of words as punctuation.”

Sam knew immediately what I was talking about, but Jack looked at us both with the utmost confusion, shaking his head.

“What colors does Dean use?”

I sighed. “Jack, I…”

And then it hit me. I looked at Sam with the sudden realization of something that had escaped me for a long time. “Was I like that?”

Sam silently nodded, the timid memory of my most naive moments coming back for both of us. Jack still had a long way to go before he could navigate all the nuances of the English language, but ultimately, Sam explained: “That’s one way to express some words Dean uses that most of us usually don’t.”

Jack had a eureka moment and grinned happily. “Son of a bitch!”

Another one of those pinches, half pain, half joy, bit me in the chest, as Sam validated Jack’s theory by a sign with his palm. “That’s probably the thing he’s said the most in his entire life.”

I disagreed. “The second thing.”

Sam didn’t immediately understand what I was implying, and I tilted my head in his direction.

He gave a half-smile. “Yeah, you’re probably right. It’s my current recurring nightmare. I hear him calling my name so clearly, it feels like it can’t possibly be just a dream. It never fails to wake me up. And…”

“There’s no one calling you after all,” I finished.

“Yeah. Just empty corridors, and silence. It feels nothing like the last time, man.”

Jack curiosity was immediately spiked. “The last time?”

Sam and I shared the look of two rats that had trapped themselves in a maze.

“There are still a few things you don’t know about us, Jack,” Sam said. “Dean was a demon once.”

Jack’s naive spirits reached a new high as his jaw slowly dropped, trying to figure out whether Sam was messing with him or not. “You’re joking.”

“Oh, I’m not, Jack. A while ago, he had this mark on his arm and he got killed, and he came back as a demon.”

Apparently, Jack’s shock hopped from imagining Dean as demon to the other highly disturbing fact that Sam had let slip. “How many times exactly has Dean died?”

Sam groaned. “Over a hundred times.”

Jack frowned, completely lost, as Sam attempted to explain to him that his late Uncle Gabriel’s sense of humor sometimes crossed the border to cruel, and to shortly recap Dean’s countless brushes with death, ending with Metatron’s God complex, pushed to another level.

“And there was one time, at the Meadows house, where he tried to kill himself to…”

“KILL HIMSELF?”

Well, I was pretty sure that the whole of heaven, or what was left of it, heard me.

Jack pressed his knees to his chest and tried to make himself smaller, suddenly concerned by the tone of my voice.

Sam whispered a “damn it” loud enough for us all to hear, with the look of sheer despair you only find in the mouse that’s about to get devoured by the family’s feline pet. “He killed himself to save some ghost kids trapped in the veil, in a haunted house.”

“That’s not an excuse!”

“I know it’s not, Cas. But Dean wasn’t exactly himself when you were gone.”

I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t find anything relevant to reply to that.

Sam continued. “I wish you knew how much your death affected him. The way you feel right now, it’s the way he felt, only worse. We burned your body, Cas. We thought you were gone forever.”

“I can’t be an excuse for despair,” I whispered.

“Well, you were,” Sam said.

Jack nodded, hidden in the corner of the room near the headboard of the bed. “I remember that. I remember what you told me, Sam. I remember that Dean was so angry. I remember the fire, and feeling so alone.”

“It’s the first thing we did with Jack, Cas. A hunter’s funeral for his father. We've lost many, many people, but this was something else. It was terrible for me, and for Jack, but it was even more violent for Dean.”

“He would have been OK,” I said. “In time.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Cas. Without you, he wouldn’t have been OK ever again.”

Visibly defeated, Sam ran his hand through his hair and tried to shake off another ice-cold embrace from all the unspoken things between the three of us.

I was stunned by the wave of revelations, unable to decipher whether it made me happy or sad, angry or relieved, or even more worried. Besides sacrifice, I would never have thought that the Winchesters could walk the path to self-harm. I knew Sam had issues after he came back from the cage, but that was Lucifer’s doing, and all the subsequent trauma...

This was something else entirely.

Sam patted me on the back before making his way out of the room. “I’m gonna go watch a movie, guys.”

Jack jumped to his feet almost instantly, happy to escape the sudden increased heaviness of the room. “Can I come?”

Jack ran past Sam as he smiled and nodded. I could hear them both in the corridor.

“Can I pick the movie?”

“As long as it doesn’t involve light sab…”

“‘Star Wars’!”

Sam chuckled and agreed. “You got it. You know what, Jack, maybe it’s time we showed you how it feels to watch ‘Star Wars’ on the big screen.”

From what I could tell, Jack sounded impressed by Sam’s proposal, and I couldn’t quite understand. Sam walked back to the room, with Jack on his heels.

“Cas, have you ever been to the movies?”

“What do you mean?”

“To a movie theatre. With a big screen.”

Behind him, Jack looked more excited than I’d ever seen him, and I was trying to figure out what Sam was trying to get me into.

“Listen,” Sam said. “We’re all miserable here, and I know Dean wouldn’t want us to be. We need a break. There’s a new ‘Star Wars’ movie, Jack deserves to know how it feels to see it on the big screen, and you need to experience it at least once.

“You know what? It’s not a question,” Sam decided. “We’re going.”

Jack looked thrilled, and I couldn’t deny how happy I felt looking at him being a regular kid. Whatever it was that Sam was proposing, none of us had anything better to do anyway. A few hours wouldn’t change much. If Michael decided to wipe humanity from the Earth in the interim, there was nothing we could do on our own. Sam was right.

As he often is.

He checked his phone for a minute, then his watch, then his phone again.

“According to…um, moviesaddict.com, we have time to catch the 10 p.m. screening if we leave now. And you’re coming with us. I’m not leaving you alone.”

“Give me a minute,” I said. “I’m coming. I just need…a minute.”

There was no way I could back down, and I didn’t want to. Jack was about to burst from excitement, halfway to the garage already, and he needed to be a child from time to time.

Now that his grace was at least partially gone, there was very little chance of things going wrong. He knew how to control himself. Being in public wouldn’t be such a problem, and he’d earned it.

I looked around Dean’s empty room once again.

“Sam?”

“Yeah, Cas?”

“Will I still be your friend if I can’t help save Dean?”

Sam stared at me for a long while, and smiled.

“I’m not your friend, Cas. I’m your brother.”