Technical note: Hover over Latin phrases for an English translation.

***

“You shouldn’t have told him,” Castiel said.

“He asked me, Cas.”  Dean threw his flannel shirt on the bed and held his hands out to his sides.  “What was I supposed to do?  He’s my brother.”

Gabriel was also his brother, but Castiel was reluctant to point this out.  No one was in the same league as Sam – not when Dean was human, and apparently not now that he was an angel, either.  Castiel wasn’t sure when that had started to mean he and Dean told each other everything, but he knew enough not to ask.

“Sam’s reaction hurt Gabriel,” he said instead.  “Your reaction hurt Gabriel.  Do you feel that he’s not good enough for Sam?”

“Oh, gee, an archangel?” Dean countered.  “Let me list the problems I have with that... oh right, I can’t.  There’s too many!”

Castiel would rather have had the list, all things considered.  “Do you believe my standards are lower than Sam’s?” he asked.

Dean was peeling his t-shirt off, but he found time to frown over at Castiel.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re an archangel,” Castiel pointed out.  “You’re good enough for me.”

Dean snorted.  “Cas, I’m nowhere near good enough for you.  You’re just too dumb to realize it.”

There was a tug on his grace, and he felt the corner of his mouth quirk in response.  The Dean Winchester style of flirting was brutally straightforward, but it somehow made more sense coming from an angel.  It was one of many things he did that was now cast in a different light – and Castiel was a little alarmed at how easy it was to see Michael in Dean.

“Now,” Dean was saying, as he toed off his boots.  “I’m gonna take a shower.  And you –”

“I will take a shower as well,” Castiel interrupted.

Dean paused in the act of reaching for his socks.  “What?”

Dean had heard him.  He saw no reason to repeat what he’d said, so he just waited.  For a protest that he had come to expect: one that he was more tired of than he could have imagined just a few weeks before.  Dean might not act entirely like an angel, but he was certainly treating Castiel like one.

Castiel hadn’t realized how much he would miss Dean’s efforts to make him more “human” until they stopped.

“Cas,” Dean said, focusing on his socks again.  “You’re an angel; you don’t shower.”

“You’re also an angel,” Castiel reminded him.  “And yet you do.”

“I can’t unlearn thirty years of habits overnight,” Dean said.  Which was untrue, even if Dean wasn’t exactly leading by example.  “Besides, showers feel good.”

“Then I will have one,” Castiel said.  “And afterwards, you can explain to me why shower stalls are so small.”

“Because they’re made for one person at a time,” Dean retorted.  “You’re not sharing my shower, dude.  Wait your turn.”

“That’s inefficient,” Castiel told him.  “I want to take a shower with you, and I don’t want to hear about how you need your space and we should keep our distance and earth has enough to worry about without our grace exploding all over it.”

“I never said that,” Dean said.  “‘Exploding all over it’?  Come on, give me some credit.”

“I believe your exact words were ‘the fucking light show is going to give puppies and small children epilepsy,’ and ‘the world’s come close enough to being destroyed in an explosion of grace as it is.’”  Castiel watched with interest as Dean paused, barefoot and shirtless, to consider this.

“Mine sounded better,” he said after a moment.

“You’re avoiding me,” Castiel told him.

“I can’t avoid you,” Dean snapped.  “You’re fucking everywhere.”

“You’re trying to avoid me,” Castiel said.  “Why?”

“Because I don’t know what to do with you!”  There was a moment of agonized silence, typical of Dean when he admitted something he hadn’t meant to share, followed by a glare.  “Happy?  I don’t know what we are, okay?  I don’t know who I am, half the time.  How’m I supposed to do right by you?”

Castiel frowned, testing the words out.  “Do right by me?”

“Look.”  Dean was obviously uncomfortable.  “You’re an angel.  I’m – I don’t even know.  We don’t work well together, never have.  I gotta change that.  I gotta figure out how to make it work.  I have no idea where to start, but I’m pretty sure it’s not with sex.”

Castiel closed in with a sweep of wings, cornering him as best he could.  “Dean,” he said, searching for some kind of outside influence and finding none.  “We’ve always worked well together.  Why would you say we don’t?”

Dean tried to step back, but he didn’t have room.  He turned his head to one side – briefly, like a memory – before staring back at Castiel like he was heaven’s second most powerful force.  “Because now I can see it the way an angel would,” he said.  “I’m an unholy bastard, Cas.  You should have sent me back to hell when you had the chance.”

For the space of a heartbeat Castiel wavered between rage and grief, the conflicting emotions tearing at his awareness in a way that made it hard to act.  Dean was Michael.  He was the reality of Michael in a way Castiel had never understood so completely.  What could have happened to an archangel to make them believe they belonged in hell?

Anger won.  He saw Dean’s eyes glow white, had no idea what he looked like that could have prompted that reaction, but he slammed into Dean’s grace and pushed.  Without warning, without permission, he shoved Dean... he shoved Michael, everything that made him Michael, back in on himself.

A hot buzz of warning seared along the edges of his awareness: resistance, rejection, the sense of someone just barely letting himself be restrained.  He knew he was setting off all of Dean’s internal alarms, knew Michael could crush him with a thought, but he trusted Dean and if he wasn’t trusted in return then nothing he did would make a difference anyway.

This, he thought, engulfing Michael’s awareness with his own.  Isolating him.  Cutting him off from the host, slapping away every nuisance that tried to re-establish contact.  He’d had practice, after all.  Dean had even asked him to do it, back when he’d first stepped into Michael’s role.  This is what I lived with: this silence.  This nothing.  For months I bore it and you didn’t even know.

I’m sorry, Michael began, and if Castiel could have shut him up he would have.

I don’t require penitence.

It wasn’t enough.  The connection was purely spiritual and his anger was too physical.  He couldn’t hold onto it and he reached for Dean instead, grabbing his shoulders and pushing.  Hard.

He didn’t know which of them was more surprised when Dean’s body yielded.  Castiel landed on top of him, the bed beneath them, and he shoved Dean’s shoulders into the mattress.  “Don’t be sorry,” he growled.  “Just be here.  Don’t deny us your presence because you think you’re undeserving.”

Dean opened his mouth.  Castiel wanted, with a desperation that almost hurt, to kiss him before he could start speaking again.  To stop him from arguing, to seek the comfort he knew Dean could be.  To just claim what he’d been fighting for since before he knew it was possible.  But there were some things that couldn’t be won.

There were some things that could only be shared.

Dean was staring at him, and just like that, the barriers between them were gone.  The space that opened up in front of him was dizzying, vast... too much of a shock to process all at once.  Castiel scrambled back.  Only once he was sitting up did he realize he’d stopped breathing, and he drew air into his lungs abruptly.

Dean hadn’t moved.  “If you want it,” he mumbled.  “I’m always yours, Cas.”

“I want you,” Castiel whispered.

“Okay,” Dean said, just as softly.  “Okay, you got it.  But –”

He closed his eyes.  He felt Dean reach out before he could pull away, felt a hand fumble against his arm and squeeze hard.  “Cas,” Dean insisted.  “Listen to me, okay?  Listen.”

Castiel opened his eyes, because that was what Dean seemed to be waiting for.

“You want to do it now,” Dean said, “we’ll do it now.  But we’re gonna miss Gabriel’s thing, and Sam’s gonna be disappointed in us – well, me, probably, since he doesn’t blame you for anything – and I’m not kidding when I say everyone is gonna know what we were doing and why we weren’t there.

“I’m okay with that,” he added.  “But if you’re not, please, let’s just pick this up later.”

He couldn’t remember the last time Dean had said please.  “When,” he muttered.

“Tonight,” Dean said quickly.  “We can totally be out of there by midnight, right?  You and me, we’ll hook up after the campfire thing.  Then I’m keeping you for the rest of the night, so don’t make any plans.”

Castiel tried to take the promise in the spirit it was intended, but he was still being put off.  Dean rarely put anyone off when it came to sex.  “I was not aware it would take so long,” he said at last.  “It seemed relatively straightforward last time.”

Dean rolled onto his side and pushed himself up, clearing his throat.  “Last time it was just me,” he said.  “I, uh – my body’s used to it, I guess.  I’m still pretty... human.”

“You’re an archangel,” Castiel said.  “Your body has no more sway over you than mine does over me.”

Dean sighed, leaning forward to rub his fingers against his forehead.  “Cas, don’t make me say some stupid shit about making your first time special.”

Castiel frowned.  “What?”

“Look.”  Dean got up, snagging his t-shirt and pulling it back over his head.  “C’mere,” he added, gesturing for Castiel to follow.  “I want to show you something.”

“Wait.”  Castiel didn’t move.  His grip on Michael’s grace hadn’t eased, and it didn’t seem to faze Dean at all.  The loneliness was a perpetual ache that Castiel sometimes thought he might drown in.  Dean acted as though he hadn’t even noticed.  “You offered communion.”

Dean paused.

Don’t change your mind, Castiel thought unbidden.  He should have taken it the moment Dean opened up, should have lost himself in grace, should have let go the way any other angel would have.  But that instinct was long suppressed now.  He’d conditioned himself to avoid his brethren so thoroughly, so ruthlessly, that it was difficult not to flinch when they got close.

Then Dean was right in front of him, taking Castiel’s face in his hands.  Castiel looked up at him and all he saw was heaven as the sky spread out behind Dean’s eyes.  Michael’s dome, before it had been a dome, filled with Gabriel and Raphael and Lucifer.  The first four angels of creation, lit up in song and memory.  The air rushing past his wings, the younger archangels, the laughter and love that were the first things Dean thought of when he thought of home.

Gabriel, Dean thought, but it didn’t go anywhere.  Cas, he added.  Come on.

Gently, he disentangled Castiel’s hold on his grace, filling the void with an embrace of his own.  With all the affection Michael felt for him, everything Dean saw when he looked at Castiel: the inevitability of heaven come for him.  The unbroken link from God to his first fallen son, and Dean and Castiel were only the bridge carrying that forgiveness all the way to hell.

Gabriel, Dean repeated.  Distantly and only through Dean, Castiel was aware of the bedside lamp bursting, showering them with electric sparks like glitter.  He spread an archangel’s wings, joining in the choir with a voice louder than any he’d ever possessed, and he couldn’t tell whether it was he or Dean who apologized.  Sorry.

Yeah, Gabriel’s voice replied.  Whatever.

And he was Michael.  He could feel everyone in the entire world.  He was the strength of God, a son of the stars.  He was where he was because he was home.  And for the first time, he felt Michael trying to get him to stay.

Say your name, Michael told him.  Don’t go until you say your name.

Michael, he thought.  He wasn’t going anywhere.

Castiel, Michael replied.  We’re Michael and Castiel.  You’re everything I am, Castiel.

Because that was what communion meant.  It meant connection.  It meant family.

It’s more than just me, Michael insisted.  Can’t have a communion of one.

It was all of heaven in front of him: ages he’d never seen, angels he’d never met.  Not all of them were from times gone by, but everyone welcomed him.  All of them recognized him as one of their own.  Michael was everyone’s family.

Say your name, Michael demanded.  Don’t tell me to be here and then deny yourself.

He didn’t want to let go of that feeling of warmth, of belonging... but he’d been given an order.

Cas, he admitted.  With a tingle of daring, that unmistakable edge of defiance.  The name Michael had given him was the best he would do until he was told otherwise.  

Cas, Michael agreed, and he felt a thrill of amusement.  He was separate again, with Michael but not of him... and the light of heaven didn’t fade.  It flowed around him, buoying him, loving him.  Loving him.

Forgiving him.

It was dark in their room when he opened his eyes.  Dean was still standing in front of him, but his hand had slipped into Castiel’s hair.  The other hand hung loose and blurry until Castiel realized it wasn’t Dean that was out of focus.  It was his own vision, unsteady in the dimness.

Then Dean’s thumb brushed against his cheek, just below his eye, and it came away wet.  Dean crowded up against him, whispering, “Jesus, Cas.”  Out loud, words in the air, too far away.  Castiel felt his fingers clench in Dean’s t-shirt.  A hand cupped the back of his head and pulled him in until his head rested on Dean’s chest, tears falling unchecked.

“Cas, we love you,” Dean was saying.  “I love you.  I don’t know what to say, man; I’m kind of out of my depth here.”

Dean’s free hand had found its way to his shoulder.  The fingers of the other hand were carding through Castiel’s hair.  Wings, he thought, his own aching with a tension he couldn’t will away.  He didn’t dare ask, but he felt Dean’s envelop him anyway.  The sudden warmth wrung a sob out of him, and Dean’s hands tightened their hold.

“This is good,” Dean said after a minute.  “This is great: Michael’s consort cries his way through communion.  They’re gonna kick me out of heaven.”

“They already did.”  Castiel managed to get the words out, but he was horrified by the sound of his own voice.  He was familiar with the effects of emotional release on the human body.  Surely, though, he wasn’t supposed to sound so impaired?  Also, Gabriel’s going to be angry.

“About the lights?” Dean asked aloud.  He didn’t seem worried.  “He kidnapped my brother and took him on a tour of Wonderland; he can suck it up.”

Castiel gripped his belt to make it clear he didn’t want Dean moving as he slid forward.  Off the bed, onto his feet, pressing closer into an embrace that tightened around him.  He felt Dean relax a little, holding him more easily.  He let his eyes close while he basked in the sensation of support.  Of connection: to Dean, to the choir, to all of heaven the moment he opened himself up to it.

Something that had once been as involuntary to him as breathing was to humans now seemed a dangerous luxury... but one that every part of him cried out for until the pain was unfamiliar in its absence.  He wondered if the part of him that fit naturally into the whole was broken.  If he had changed too much to rejoin the choir without effort.

Right now he didn’t care, if only he could have this relief a little longer.

“You’re not broken, Cas,” Dean whispered.

He didn’t answer.

“We’re all fallen.”  Dean’s voice breathed across his skin, warm and present and real.  “We still have each other.”

“Don’t leave us,” Castiel whispered.

“I never did,” Dean said.  “You told me that, remember?”

He wasn’t sure how long they stood there, but Dean eventually sighed, tipping his head against Castiel’s and resettling the wings that wrapped around his shoulders.  “I don’t know what to do,” he murmured.  “If you were Sam, I’d try to drag you out to get drunk.  But Sam’s a happy drunk, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know what it takes to get you wasted.”

It took some amount of force to come up with a verbal reply.  “You were going to show me something.”

“Anna’s garrison,” Dean admitted after a brief hesitation.  “You seen it?”

“No.”  He didn’t have to explain his reaction.  “I don’t go there.”

“Right.”  Dean cleared his throat.  “It, uh, it looks like a student center.  You know, geek central.  Books, white boards, computers everywhere.  Christmas tree lights.  Lots of coffee.  That part’s good, actually.”

“Is there a point to this?” Castiel mumbled.

“She was halfway through college when she got her grace back,” Dean said.  “The human thing... it still influences her.  She’s not all angel.  Not anymore.”

“So,” Castiel said.

“So neither am I,” Dean said softly.

Castiel didn’t answer right away.  Gabriel seemed to think that pieces of Dean’s soul were still integrating with his grace.  That, worst case, he might wake up one day and be all Michael with none of Dean’s humanity left.  Castiel had pointed out that if he was waking up in this hypothetical scenario then he probably wasn’t all angel, but Gabriel had just scoffed and said Castiel should try sleeping before he wrote it off completely.

“It’s different for me,” Dean said.  “I know sex, okay?  I get it.  It’s –”

“You want it,” Castiel interrupted.

There was an awkward silence, and he almost smiled.  He didn’t know why embarrassing Dean would provoke such a response.  He tried to press his wings back, up against the warmth that reassured him it was all right.  He felt Dean shift, the pressure easing until Castiel stilled.  “Yeah,” Dean said quietly.  “Maybe.

“Okay, yes,” Dean added.  “I don’t know why I’m lying to you.  I want sex.  But I need you to like it, too, or we’re not doing it.”

Castiel considered that.  It seemed as though a disproportionate amount of the responsibility rested with him.  He was perfectly willing to shoulder it, but given Dean’s past actions, he suspected Dean didn’t see it that way.

“I like it when you do it,” he said at last.

“Uh-huh.”  Dean didn’t sound any more comfortable now.  “That’s... uh, embarrassing.  But good, I guess.  Can we talk about something else now?”

“That depends.”  Castiel turned his head so his lips brushed against bare skin, and he added, “What time is it?”

There was a startled pause, followed by a laugh.  “Too early to go to bed,” Dean said.  “And hey, there was a time when I wouldn’t have said that was possible.  Hope you appreciate how respectable I’ve gone for you.”

“I don’t think I do,” Castiel told him, quite honestly.

It made Dean laugh again.  “Well, maybe Gabriel will.”

“Probably not,” Castiel said.

“No,” Dean agreed, digging his fingers into Castiel’s wings playfully.  “Probably not.”

“Can I share your shower now?” Castiel asked, without lifting his head.

“Oh, we’re way past the time when that would have been a good idea,” Dean said.

Castiel frowned over his shoulder, annoyed that he’d missed it.  “What time was that?”

“If I take a shower now,” Dean replied, as though he was answering the question, “Gabriel will have burned the entire place down by the time I get out.  Ellen’s already been through that once, so I think I’ll pass.  Let’s just... go make sure no one’s killed each other yet, okay?”

“Rarely do angels within a garrison turn on each other,” Castiel said.  He remembered a time when he wouldn’t have bothered to add “within a garrison.”  When it wouldn’t have even occurred to him.

“Yeah, we’ve already met our quota for this week.”  Dean wasn’t happy with Jophiel.  He didn’t say it aloud, but it was impossible to ignore.  “You okay?” he added, like maybe they could not talk about it some more.

“You’re upset with Jophiel,” Castiel said carefully.

He felt wings flatten against his, warm and consuming and for a breath he forgot what he wanted to know.  “You know,” Dean murmured in his ear, “I go to a lot of trouble to actually talk.  To say things instead of just shooting shit.  So let’s try this: you answer the question I asked, and I’ll answer the one you didn’t.”

“Yes,” Castiel said.  “I’m okay.”

Dean’s lips brushed against a cheek that was still damp.  “Try again.”

Castiel concentrated on breathing, wondering if this was a moment when the human mannerism of swallowing would be appropriate.  “I’m functional,” he said at last.  “I can do what is required of me.  Since returning to heaven my resources are significantly enhanced.”

“But,” Dean prompted, when he didn’t continue.

He swallowed, then afterwards realized he hadn’t meant to.  “I –”  He didn’t know, that was what he wanted to say.  It wasn’t true.  Not exactly.  He just didn’t want to talk about it.

“Cas,” Dean said roughly.  One of his hands wormed free to cup the back of Castiel’s neck.  “You started crying during communion.  Why?”

“I’m no longer used to it,” he whispered.  What kind of an angel wasn’t used to communion?

The answer was obvious, of course, but Dean spoke before he could finish.

“So get used to it again.”

The phone in Dean’s pocket vibrated.  Castiel could feel it against his leg, but he didn’t move.  Dean didn’t reach for it either.  “Cas,” he said softly.  “It’s called being lonely, and it sucks.  But you’re the last person in the world who should have to deal with it.  You’re a freakin’ angel.  Ask your angel buddies for help.”

The phone continued to vibrate.

“They’re angry with me,” Castiel said.

Dean paused.  His phone vibrated one last time before going still, and he asked, “What do you mean?”

“My angel buddies, as you call them,” Castiel said.  “I don’t believe they’re feeling very generous toward me right now.”

“Okay, Cas, there are millions of us,” Dean said.  Or Michael.  It was pretty clearly Michael talking to him right now.  “Thousands in this century alone.  You’re forgiven, and they’re family.”

Dean’s phone vibrated again, and he swore.  It made Castiel smile, because that wasn’t very Michael of him at all.  “Is this about Jophiel?” Dean asked, as he tried to fish his phone out without stepping away.  “Because she’s already on my bad list for trying to ditch Gabriel against orders.”

“That’s why you demoted her,” Castiel realized.

“Yeah, what,” Dean told his phone.  He let one of his wings fall so he could speak without having the phone right in Castiel’s face.  Castiel would have been willing to stay silent if it had meant they stayed in that embrace a little longer.  Dean still had his free arm around his shoulders, though, so he was careful not to say anything else.

“Dean.”  Sam’s voice was perfectly audible over the little device.  “You planning to make an appearance, or what?”

“Yeah, I’m doing important leader things,” Dean told him.  “I’ll be there in a few.”

“Cas isn’t a leader thing,” Sam said over the phone.  “Let me talk to him.”

“Sam, back off,” Dean snapped.  “This is serious.”

“I’m sure,” Sam’s voice agreed.  “Give him the phone, Dean.”

Dean glanced at him, and Castiel just waited.  It wasn’t his phone, after all.

With a sigh, Dean handed it over.

Castiel took the opportunity to press closer under the pretense of accepting the phone, and Dean took the hint.  His body followed his arm behind Castiel, draping his wings over Castiel’s shoulders while both arms slid around his neck.  His chin rested on Castiel’s shoulder.

“Hello, Sam,” Castiel said, lifting his free hand to Dean’s wrist without thinking.

“Cas, people are asking for Dean,” Sam said.  “Tell him the kids are going to bed at ten and he needs to be down here before then.”

“I will,” Castiel agreed.

“Okay, thanks,” Sam said.  “You can give the phone back to Dean now.”

Castiel refrained from pointing out that Dean could hear him perfectly well.  Dean didn’t offer the information either.  He just put his hand over Castiel’s when the phone was turned back toward him and said, “Yeah, Sam, I’m here.”

“Look, Dean,” Sam said.  “I know you’re going through some stuff.  But you and everyone else, okay?  We’re all better off together.”

“Okay, thanks, Annie,” Dean said.  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Jerk,” Sam’s voice said.

“Bitch,” Dean answered.  He drew Castiel’s hand away from his face and curled their fingers together to snap the phone shut.  He teased it free without another word, and the edge of one wing whispered across Castiel’s skin as Dean stepped back.  “It’s good advice.”

“Going downstairs?” Castiel asked.  He felt the loss of that warmth keenly.

“Sticking together,” Dean said.  “I’m gonna do something really corny, so don’t laugh, okay?”

Castiel tilted his head.  “Why would I laugh?” he wanted to know.

Dean squeezed his shoulder, tucking his phone back into his pocket as he pulled away.  “I’ll be right back.”

He heard the implicit request not to move, so he stayed where he was while Dean went into the bathroom.  He heard the water run – the sink, not the shower – heard splashing, and then a towel being pulled free.  When Dean came back, he was carrying a washcloth.

“I’d just give it to you,” Dean said, “but I kind of doubt you’d know what to do with it.  So.”  He laid a hand on Castiel’s cheek, steadying him while he lifted the washcloth.  Wet warmth trailed across the other cheek, brushing against his eyelashes when he tried to look down.

“Close your eyes,” Dean said quietly.

Castiel obeyed, and he felt the cloth press gently over his eyes.  Dean’s hand slid out of the way, and that rough warmth followed it.  Castiel’s skin was already clean.  The gesture was completely unnecessary, but he had no desire to say so.  Dean certainly knew.

“Sam’s right,” Dean told him.  “We’re stronger together.”

“I agreed to have you downstairs before ten,” Castiel said without opening his eyes.

“Well,” Dean said.  “Can’t make a liar out of you.”

He was capable of deception, but he suspected that was one more thing Dean already knew.

“You can open your eyes,” Dean said softly.

When he did, he found Dean watching him with a look that was more than convincing.  “You know if I wasn’t scared of messing this up,” Dean said, “no stupid campfire would be enough to stop me, right?”

“How can you mess up something I’ve asked for,” Castiel murmured, “with full knowledge of what it entails?”

“Save the pep talk for later,” Dean advised.  The washcloth was gone, but he sat down on the bed to pull his socks and boots back on the human way.  “Hey, do your friends have sex?”

Castiel blinked.  “You do,” he said.  “Sam doesn’t.”

“No, I mean –”  Dean lifted a hand from his laces to gesture in a way that was probably supposed to mean something.  “Your angel friends.  I’m not real up on what the kids are doing these days.

“Not the kid kids,” he added hastily.  “Not your kids, I mean.  Not our... uh...”

“The lesser angels,” Castiel said.

“Yeah, I’m not big on that phrase,” Dean said, frowning.  “Let’s not use that.”

“But they are who you refer to,” Castiel said.

“Jo and Sach,” Dean said.  “They sleeping together?  Or is that like a ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ thing?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Castiel said, watching his fingers twist easily through the foreign motions.  “If they are, they don’t broadcast it to the choir.”

“Yeah, I got that.”  Dean stamped his other foot down on the floor and stood up.  “You seriously don’t know?”

Castiel frowned.  “Why would I know?”

“You don’t, you know –”  Dean waved his hand again.  “Talk?  Or something?”

“The choir is sufficient communication for most,” Castiel pointed out.

“Okay, but what about when you’re cut off from the choir?” Dean said.  “You can’t tell me you never tried anything else.  I know language isn’t much compared to the whole mind-meld thing, but it’s something.

“You seem to think there was some sort of network for fallen soldiers,” Castiel said.  “Before you, we were grateful to be alone.  It meant those hunting us hadn’t found us yet.  When the choice is solitude or extinction, there isn’t much in the way of gossip.”

Dean was frowning at him, but Castiel had no idea what he was seeing.  The silence began to stretch, and he almost reached out.  If Dean was going to think, surely he could do it a little closer?

As though he’d heard him, Dean put a firm hand on his shoulder.  “You’re not alone,” he said.  “Not anymore.  You get that, right?”

There wasn’t any reintegration plan for angels who fell from heaven.  None of them had ever returned – with the possible if fleeting exceptions of him and Anael, and neither of them were what humans would call a success story.  “Intellectually,” he said at last, “I understand what it means to be restored to the host.”

Dean just shook his head.  “I’m gonna take that as a ‘no,’” he said.  Fingers tightening on Castiel’s shoulder, he added, “C’mon.  Let’s go work on the whole ‘not alone’ thing.”

Castiel didn’t feel that the quantity of the company made up for anything that quality wouldn’t.  He would have been satisfied to wait out the hours from now until midnight with Dean.  Dean clearly would not be, however, and Castiel didn’t resent the demands on Michael’s attention any more than he resented his father’s absence.

“Subtle,” Gabriel said.  He was positioned near the fire door at the bottom of the stairwell, either to catch them or to make a quick escape himself.  Possibly both.  “Stare a little harder; maybe he’ll be able to feel you from across the room.”

Dean was already gone, caught by Ben thundering up the stairs even as they headed down.  Dean had taken seconds to blurt out both their names in a parody of introductions before he let himself be pulled away, grinning as Ben tried to explain the difference between dragons and dinosaurs.  (Fire, as far as Ben was concerned.)

Castiel had followed more slowly, pausing at the edge of the main room to wonder where the smoke hole lead.  There was a smoke hole, invisible to humans in the middle of the holographic night sky that covered the ceiling.  There was also very little smoke, given the campfire blazing away inside a fire circle that didn’t seem to offer much in the way of protection.

It was warm, though.  Castiel had tried to notice temperature more since Dean complained, and he found tonight’s Roadhouse unexpectedly pleasant.  It was certainly more compatible with familiar human comfort levels than the outdoor evening it imitated.

“You could just ask him, you know.”  Gabriel still hadn’t moved.

“Ask him what?” Castiel inquired.  Apparently his brother didn’t believe he was only taking in the environment.

“To do whatever you want him to be doing right now,” Gabriel said, rolling his eyes.  “He probably doesn’t even know what it is.  I dunno if you’ve noticed, but we’re a pretty focused bunch.  And it’s not like Dean’s ever been quick on the uptake.”

“We’ve discussed it,” Castiel said shortly.  “This takes precedence.”

“Family night?”  Gabriel glanced around the room with a disdainful sneer.  “Yeah, I see how this would appeal to Mike the Magnificent.  Little human hive in the middle of a celestial coven.  Like nesting dolls.”

Castiel didn’t really see the parallel, but then, it was Gabriel.  He probably wasn’t meant to.

“You get your communion?” Gabriel asked abruptly.

Castiel looked at him in surprise.  “Yes,” he said, because he had.

Gabriel’s arms were folded over his chest, which Castiel was sure humans considered a defensive stance.  But his wings were sprawled against the wall behind him, lazy and uncontrolled and spilling grace over everything he touched.  “You can ask us, you know.”

For an archangel to offer communion with a foot soldier... but Gabriel was his garrison leader.  It was his responsibility – or was it?  Castiel chose to answer Sam’s summons when they came, but he felt no compulsion.  He felt no affinity for Gabriel, no loyalty beyond that which he chose to give.  It was possible that the Roadhouse didn’t count him among its official number at all.

Michael had told him to choose a garrison, and he had.  He hadn’t put himself on the roster because he hadn’t needed to.  Now he wondered if that had been an oversight.

“Huh,” Gabriel said.  “That’s weird.”

Castiel tried to follow his awareness, but they weren’t close enough.  Or Gabriel was an archangel and didn’t want him to.  It was hard to say which was the determining factor.  “What?” he said instead.

“You can’t tell, right?”  Gabriel shook his head.  “What about them?  You know what they’re thinking?”

Castiel looked around the room.  Gabriel hadn’t indicated anyone in particular, so he could only assume the question applied to everyone.  “The humans,” he said.  “Of course.  The angels, less so.”

Gabriel snorted.  “You don’t think that’s a little backwards?”

A year ago, a member of his garrison had drawn a sword on him and told him to rebel or be killed.  He’d been saved only by the intervention of their former garrison leader, then a rebel herself whom he had been under orders to kill on sight.  Sparing her life in return for his own had meant his exile from the halls of heaven – and the choice to rebel or die became the choice to obey or die overnight.

Choice.  Not all it was cracked up to be, as the humans would say.

“Say it,” Gabriel said.

“No,” Castiel said aloud.  “I don’t think it’s backwards at all.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Gabriel declared.  “This weird patchwork of truce and common interest we’ve got going here.  We’re not a garrison; we’re just a bunch of soldiers who act like they’re on the same side.  Most of the time,” he added, “except when I’m involved, in which case everyone seems just as happy to flip a coin.”

Castiel looked at him again, watching grace spill off of his wings and go... nowhere.  Into the floor.  It pooled along the bottom of the wall, crawling slowly upward, making the building glow faintly where Gabriel stood.  He was reinforcing the wards with his presence; there was no doubt about that.  But a garrison leader’s grace shouldn’t dead-end in a physical structure, no matter how powerful.

“You’re only connected to the building,” Castiel said, surprised.

“Oh, you have eyes,” Gabriel retorted.  “Congratulations.”

“Why?”  It was a question he never would have dared before raising Dean’s soul from hell.  If he had occasionally wondered, as silently and as privately as he could, then Dean had seized that curiosity and fed it with doubt and conviction and choice.  Always choice.

“You think you’re the only one who doesn’t trust archangels?” Gabriel asked, and it wasn’t really a question.  “We’ve all been on the wrong side of the sword, bro.  Even me.”

“This garrison is not what you expected,” Castiel said slowly.

Gabriel snorted.  “There’s so much wrong with that, I don’t even know where to start.”

It sounded too familiar, and instead of backing down, Castiel felt his wings shift irritably.  “Try,” he said.  He was tired of not knowing, of having no access to information that should have been instantaneous.  Of hearing that something was so obvious it didn’t even deserve to be said.

Maybe this was what Dean meant when he said words were better than nothing.

Gabriel was studying him.  “Getting pretty audacious there, little brother.”

“Someone has to be,” he replied.

Gabriel smiled.  The expression was both bright and genuinely amused, and Castiel had never seen its like on his face.  Not that he’d had much occasion to observe Gabriel’s face, so he couldn’t conclusively call it unusual, but it certainly wasn’t what he’d expected.

“C’mere,” Gabriel said.  “You might as well get some grace out of it if you’re gonna listen to me bitch.”

Castiel frowned, not sure when he’d offered to do that, but Gabriel seemed relatively relaxed.  More than he’d seemed since Samael had come after him.  Castiel saw no reason to take that away from him.  He approached cautiously, but Gabriel just twitched one wing out of the way to make room for another beside him.  No other part of him moved.

The air around Gabriel was warmer, kinder... magnetic.  It made Castiel stop, ready to pull back, until he caught Gabriel’s measured look.  It was a look that tried too hard to be blank, devoid of pity or sorrow or sympathy.  Because Gabriel didn’t feel sympathy for any of them.  But he did love, as fiercely and as completely as any archangel, and to see a creature of heaven flinch from that love must be strange.

Unpleasant, even.  Gabriel had surely become accustomed to his own solitude, but perhaps he had assumed – as Castiel had – that coming home was a matter of choice.  That turning back was still possible.  That it might mean giving up everything he had become but heaven was waiting, just as he’d left it, ready to take him back the moment he fell into line.

The realization that nothing was the way they remembered it could be as shattering as it was satisfying.

“It’s not just you,” Gabriel said, casting his gaze over the room again.  “You’re all like that.  I got tired of getting my wings yanked by twitchy outlaws, so I let it go.”

Castiel eased into the space beside him.  You feel like Anna, he thought, unbidden.

Gabriel laughed.  The sound was silent, unmistakable, and almost as sad as it was amused.  Yeah, thanks, kiddo.  How many garrisons were you assigned to?

Including this one? he thought.

Two, Gabriel finished for him.  Great.  That’s a great basis for comparison, Cas.  Remind me to get your kids a tutor.

You called me Cas, he said.

That’s what you said your name was, Gabriel reminded him.  When Michael asked you, you said “Cas.”

That wasn’t what surprised him.  Or perhaps it was, a little: Michael often seemed to think they were the only two entities in creation, and that what they said was between them alone.  It was an odd delusion that Castiel found himself indulging in more often than he should.  What surprised him more, though, was the fact that Gabriel thought what he said mattered.

“Hey,” Sachiel’s voice said, uncharacteristically quiet.  She was right in front of them, maybe a little closer to Castiel than to Gabriel.  She hovered just beyond the luminous overflow that lit the floor around Gabriel’s feet.  “Is this a private grace party, or can anyone join?”

“What do I look like, a dealer?” Gabriel demanded.  The words didn’t make any sense to Castiel, but the invitation was perfectly clear when he said, “Come here.”

Castiel could feel those wings shift again, one sliding into him while the one on the other side pulled up to let Sachiel in.  She didn’t hesitate this time, slipping past Castiel to lean against the wall on Gabriel’s other side.  Gabriel huffed out a sigh, and Castiel felt him shift again.  He glanced over to see Gabriel wrap an arm around Sachiel and tug her closer still.

She laid her head on his shoulder without protest, closing her eyes and letting her wings relax over her frame.

“What?” Gabriel said, catching his eye.  “You’re not a hugger.  Don’t give me that look.”

“Father?”  Maribel, too, had approached from Castiel’s side.  He’d thought that to warn her off would draw more attention than letting her slink in without comment.  He spared a brief moment of regret for the thought of any angel slinking.

“I’m cold,” she was saying.  “It’s warmer over here.”

It was warmer.  Not in terms of human temperature, which he was still trying to monitor... but it was difficult, with the distraction of grace.  Gabriel’s grace, specifically.  An archangel’s grace reached out instinctively, touching everything around it.  Lighting.  Loving.

Warming.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Gabriel muttered.  Castiel was already tense when he lifted his hand, snapping a couch into existence right in front of them.  Gabriel bent down and grabbed hold of Maribel, which made every protective instinct Castiel had scream.  The burst of fear and anger got Michael’s attention from all the way across the room, and he was standing in front of Gabriel by the time he straightened up.

“Gabriel,” Dean said, eyes bright and glowing.

“Angelface,” Gabriel replied, deadpan.

Dean just glared at him.  “What are you doing?”

“My job,” Gabriel snapped.  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but your ragtag army of fallen angels is pretty messed up.  It’s like they, I don’t know, lost their home and family to a vindictive pack of screwed up sadists or something.

“Oh, wait,” he added, like he was just remembering.  “That was my victims!  Whatever.  The point is, I know what they’re going through.”

“I think we’ve interfered enough,” Dean said pointedly.

“And that’s where you’re going wrong, Dean-el.”  Gabriel was holding Maribel in both arms.  She looked perfectly content.  “It isn’t mess up or give up.  It’s mess up and keep trying.  Because like it or not, they need us.”

Castiel blinked when he realized Dean was looking at him.  No going back, he heard Dean say.

No letting go, Castiel corrected.  We do need you.  We need everyone to make this work.

“We need them,” Dean said, keeping his voice low.  Castiel was struck by the realization that none of the humans in the room had the slightest idea what was going on: angels were, for once, trying to resolve territory disputes amongst themselves.  “I want your word that you won’t hurt the kids, Gabriel.”

Gabriel snorted.  “Oh, because my word meant so much to you in the past.”

“Just say it,” Dean said.  “I want to hear you say it.”

“You want to see me say it,” Gabriel corrected.  “So you can try to guess whether I’m lying or not.  I’m a trickster, bro; I guarantee I can lie in ways you wouldn’t recognize even if I warned you beforehand.”

“Dean,” Castiel said quietly.  “His grace is connected to the building that protects them.  He has, in essence, laid down his life to keep these children safe from harm.”

Dean stared back at him for a long moment.

We need everyone, Castiel repeated, and this time he didn’t try to keep it quiet.  He didn’t try to keep it private.  Privacy was a learned habit, foreign and defensive and it was a terrible thing to become ingrained so quickly.  Any angel who was listening should have been able to hear this conversation.

Dean didn’t look away, even as he stepped to one side and let Gabriel set Maribel on the back of the couch.  In a flash of wings and light, Gabriel was on the other side, holding out his hand to Sachiel while she walked around to join them.  Dean was only watching Castiel.

No one is unwelcome, he thought.  The words rang with the echo of a heaven that had recently refused to acknowledge Castiel’s existence.  That the shunning had been the best he could hope for in the face of hunting, fighting, and potentially dying beside brothers killed by his own blade was something he’d tried not to despise.  Regret, yes, but surely there were better outlets for irrepressible anger.  They were only following orders.

If only he could be sure it was righteous anger, he might have some answers.

He didn’t even realize he was following Gabriel until he passed Dean and felt a hand brush tentatively against his arm.  He drew in a sharp breath as warmth flowed over the edge of his wing.  Breathing.  Speaking so that other angels could hear and understand was no longer automatic, but breathing was.  What had he become?

“Someone I love,” Dean muttered.  It wasn’t loud, but it was perfectly audible, and Castiel was sure he’d never said it out loud around other people before.  His garrison, Dean had said.  His whole world.  “I know it’s not an answer,” Dean added.  “But it’s something, right?”

“It’s an answer,” Castiel told him.  It was more than just an answer, and somehow he didn’t think Dean knew that.  “It’s enough.”

“You’re enough,” Dean grumbled.  Castiel didn’t ignore his delivery.  He’d said it the way he called Sam “bitch,” and that couldn’t be a coincidence.

“Oh, get a room,” Gabriel said over his shoulder.  “You guys are sickening.  ‘You hang up first.’  ‘No, you!’  We can all hear you, you know.”

“I’m surprised you can hear us over the sound of Sam and Sarah whispering across the room,” Dean retorted.  “You want me to tell ’em to speak up, save your hearing?”

“Fuck you,” Gabriel snapped.  The teasing was gone from his tone.

“Line starts behind Cas,” Dean told him.  Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, “Maribel, don’t imitate this.”

“Which part?” she asked.  She’d wormed her way into the space Castiel had been occupying, back braced against Gabriel’s side with her knees pulled up in front of her.  Gabriel’s arm was on the back of the couch, not quite touching, but definitely forming a protective curve of grace that shone over her entire body.

She looked very warm, Castiel thought distantly.

He felt a touch at the small of his back, and the glow that had brushed up against the edge of his wing spread deeper.  The side of him nearest Dean soaked up the heat greedily until he was torn between the draw he felt from the couch and the desire to push closer to Dean.  He was frozen, the contrast unmistakable: one side hot, the other cold.  He was closer to shivering than he’d ever been.

“Uh, the swearing and the insulting part,” Dean was saying.  “Don’t swear.  And you should try not to insult people unless they’re being really stupid.  Or if they’re Sam.  You can insult Sam; he thinks it’s funny.”

“Does Gabriel think it’s funny?” Maribel wanted to know.

“Probably not,” Dean said.  “He usually falls into the ‘really stupid’ category.”

“Oh,” she said.  She twisted her head enough that she could see Gabriel – not impossibly far, Castiel noted, which meant she was keeping up with her human observations.  “Daddy thinks you’re being stupid,” she said.  “Is it because of the way you’re watching Sam?”

“Here’s the thing about me and Michael,” Gabriel told her.  “I think he’s dumb, and he thinks I’m stupid.  That’s just how it goes.”

“Yeah,” Dean said.  “It’s because of the way he’s watching Sam.”

Sachiel had her head on Gabriel’s shoulder, and Castiel blamed his momentary lack of focus for the shiver that wracked his body.  He wasn’t the only one looking on enviously, he noticed.  Aramel and Isithiel were drifting around the edges of the room, and he wondered if it would be selfish to take a place on the couch before they could get there.

“Does insulting him make him change what he’s doing?” Maribel asked.

“Not so far,” Dean admitted, bumping Castiel with his shoulder.  “I keep hoping.”

He could stop his body from trembling.  He should; it was likely obvious and could draw unnecessary attention from anyone who was looking.  Any of the humans, at least.  Who, so far, seemed uninterested.  The shaking was definitely pulling Dean’s concern, though, which he was reluctant to write off.

“You okay?” Dean murmured in his ear.

“Michael,” Gabriel said without turning around.  “Try to be less dumb for a few minutes.”

The hand that had ghosted over his back now went solidly around him and came to rest on his hip.  The warmth came with it, creeping over his skin and spreading deep into his other wing.  Castiel fought the urge to just turn into him, to bury himself in that light.  Instead he held very still, trying to let the warmth relax him without demanding more.

“Does insulting him make him change what he’s doing?”  It was the same question, but Maribel seemed to be asking Gabriel this time.

“Oh, that wasn’t an insult,” Gabriel replied.  “That was a helpful suggestion.”

“What’s he being dumb about?” Maribel wanted to know.

“Castiel’s not on the garrison roster,” Gabriel said.  “Don’t blame him; he’s too young to know better.  Michael hasn’t noticed, though.  There’s no excuse for that.”

“May I join you?” Isithiel asked.

Sachiel was already shifting closer to Gabriel to make room.  A sharp stab of yearning cut through the ache of what Dean called loneliness, and before he knew what was happening, Dean’s hands were on his shoulders.  Wings twisting, sliding over each other, bright comfort as Dean pushed him forward.

“Hey, Maribel,” Dean was saying.  “You wanna sit with your father for a minute?”

Maribel’s head lifted toward him, studying him even as she scrambled forward to make room.  “Are you cold too?”

“Yeah,” Dean said roughly.  He gave Castiel a shove.  “He’s pretty damn cold.”

“Gabriel gets warmer the more of us there are,” Maribel told him.  “Why do you swear if I’m not supposed to?”

Castiel didn’t really want to step away from Dean, but it was clear that he was meant to and Maribel was right.  The cluster of angels in front of him would feel more – there were more of them.  It made a difference.

He felt Dean’s hand in his hair after he’d settled carefully beside Gabriel.  Maribel was already climbing into his lap, and he’d completely missed what Dean told her about swearing.  He wasn’t sure where his focus had been, but Aramel was already slipping into the space on his other side and he could feel Wildfire watching them longingly from somewhere behind Jophiel.

Join us, Castiel thought.  It was intended for Dean, but he didn’t try to keep anyone else from overhearing.

Always, Dean replied.  The fingers that had been gentle against the back of his head dropped to his shoulder, and he felt all-too-human muscles give beneath Dean’s hands.  Wings pressed up against Dean’s chest, but Dean was ignoring them.  Castiel tried to let them fall, to ease them into something approaching relaxation, but he felt like he was vibrating right out of his body.

“You feel funny,” Maribel remarked, reaching for Wildfire as she came slipping in past Jo and Jenny.

“It’s because we’re not part of the garrison,” Dean said from behind him.  Those hands were kneading his shoulders, human-hot and weirdly reassuring even as his grace hung back, the gentle overlap with Gabriel’s no different from any other angel.  Nothing like the power that should have burned between archangels.

“I like this couch idea,” Jo was telling Gabriel.  “Any chance we could see some more of those around the campfire?”

“What’s in it for me?” Gabriel retorted.

“Well, Sam asked me to teach the kids to pray,” Jo told him.  “That should be good for a laugh.”

“I can laugh at you whether you’re sitting awkwardly on the floor or reclining in comfort on one of my delightful couches,” Gabriel pointed out.  “Will there be candy?”

“Not for you,” Dean muttered, and Castiel swallowed hard.  Gabriel’s grace was comforting.  Dean’s grace was comforting.  He didn’t know why the two of them together made him feel so... strange.

“Hey, Dean!”  It was Sam yelling for him, standing next to the fire with a little boy holding a long, thin stick.  Toasting a marshmallow.  Castiel recognized the activity in principle, even if he wasn’t familiar with the practice firsthand.  “How much of that Michael prayer do you have to hear?”

“Depends who it is,” Dean shouted back.  “Why, you want to teach ’em that one too?”

Wildfire had inserted herself between Castiel and Aramel – he assumed she’d been warned to stay away from Gabriel – and her young grace sparkled in the companionable light.  It wasn’t enough to distract Castiel from the fact that Dean was taking his hands away.  His wings, restless and somehow unsoothed by the spill of grace, felt less itchy when he drew them in close.

“I’m sorry you’re cold,” Maribel whispered, twisting enough that she could wrap her arms around his neck.  “I’m not on the garrison roster either.  Does that mean we don’t have a home?”

“No,” Castiel told her.  “The garrison is –”

For the first time in his adult life, he reached for the definition of “garrison” and came up empty.  Nothing he used to know about it applied any more, and he wasn’t going to lie for the sake of passing on tradition.  Blind expectation was what had brought on the apocalypse in the first place.

So he gave her the only true answer he had.  “Home is with the people you love,” he said.

“Oh.”  She sounded surprised.  “So we’re home.”

He wasn’t certain, or content, or any of the qualities that he had for so long associated with the only home he knew.  But he could see Dean arguing with Sam in front of the campfire, and he knew it was so.  “Yes,” Castiel said simply.  “We are.”

“So why are we different?” Maribel pressed.  “You don’t feel like the other angels.  And Gabriel says I’m an abomination.  Sam says he says that about everyone, but I haven’t heard him say it about anyone except me and Wildfire.”

Castiel could feel some of the tension leaving his body and he didn’t know why: surely hearing that the children had been called an abomination shouldn’t be relaxing?

It wasn’t what she was saying, he thought.  It was the fact that she was speaking, to him.  The hugging didn’t seem to hurt either.

She was grounding him in his human form.  He understood all at once, why Dean’s grace pulled out and Gabriel’s pushed in, why he was drawn to them both but couldn’t stand between them without trying to crawl out of his skin.  He didn’t know why it was so strong all of a sudden, or why it didn’t seem to bother anyone else, but his grace was reaching out for connection and his body was just trying to hang on.

This must be why Michael had left himself the vision of Sam with his children.  To remind himself why being able to interact with humanity was worth the constant imprisonment.  The suppression of sense and perspective was only the cost of being able to experience creation in a different way, and being able to discuss that way with those who had been born to it.

“We don’t love people who are the same,” Castiel told her.  “If we could find fulfillment with someone identical to ourselves, we would be very solitary creatures indeed.”

Maribel nudged Wildfire with her knee, tangling her fingers behind Castiel’s neck again.  “So they’re the ones who are different.”

“We’re all different,” Castiel replied.  “It is perhaps the one thing everyone has in common.”

“Dear Cas,” Dean was saying, and it cut straight across the room to him.  If he’d been in the middle of anything at all he would have stopped.  As it was, there was a brief moment while Dean was talking when nothing else seemed to matter.  “Please help me.  Love, Dean.”

“Dean,” Sam said.

“What?” Dean wanted to know.  “That’s how I pray.”

And Castiel remembered to breathe again.  Because of course: it was just a demonstration.  Jo had said – 

“You’re an angel,” she was telling Dean.  “That’s really the best you can do?”

Dean shrugged.  “It gets the job done.”

“Angele Dei, qui custos es mei,” Gabriel intoned, “me tibi commissum pietate superna.  Hac nocte illumina, custodi, rege, et guberna.  Amen.”

Castiel didn’t miss the reaction from Dean’s grace.  Gabriel hadn’t directed the prayer at anyone in particular – at least not that Castiel could feel – but Michael had certainly heard it.  It was clear that he wanted to answer.  It was equally clear that he was trying not to say anything, that he meant to let it go.  To pretend that Gabriel’s appeal meant nothing.

“I think Latin’s a little beyond us,” Sam said.  “We should probably stick with something that’s easier to remember.”

Latin was not beyond Sam.  He was looking around at the children, though... the human children.  The ones who hadn’t been born knowing how to pray.  Castiel assumed they were the “us” Sam had referred to.

Claire had taken a place at the end of one of the latest couches, and every angel in the room heard her murmur, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the lord my soul to keep.  May angels guide me through the night, and keep me safe ’til morning light.”

Castiel held very still.  Her father didn’t speak to him any more, but he listened to her prayers every night.  It touched him the way it touched every other angel and, intentionally or not, it felt like some kind of forgiveness.  Someday he hoped he might be able to repay the debt he owed her family.

“Thanks, Claire.”  Sam sounded relieved.  “That’s great.”

She was looking over at him before he realized it.  Thank you, Claire mouthed.

In a stage-whisper, Gabriel announced, “Mine was better.”

It earned him a glare from Sam, but Claire just waved at him with a smile.  Gabriel waited until she turned away to lower his voice for real.  “Fucking vessels,” he muttered.

Castiel doubted that his former vessel was the source of Gabriel’s irritation.  You’re jealous that Sam likes her prayer more than yours, he thought, distracted and reckless and warm.

Oh, please, Gabriel scoffed.  He doesn’t even know what mine means.

Sam is a Latin scholar, Castiel reminded him.

“Now I lay me down to sleep,” Sari was whispering.  Until her little brother joined in, and their voices both lifted together.  The other kids started murmuring along – including Claire.  The words were a pleasant wash of gratitude and supplication, rolling over all of them and making the light seem a little brighter.

“If you need someone in particular,” Jo told them afterward.  “Like if you really need to talk to Sam, or Dean?  You can add that in at the end if you want.  Or the beginning.  They’ll probably hear it either way.”

“Well, I won’t,” Sam said.  “I’m not an angel.  You’ll have to call me.  On an actual phone.  Or you could text me,” he added, as though he’d just thought of it.  “How many of you want my phone number?”

A significant portion of the room raised its hand.  And not just the children, Castiel thought, although maybe that made sense.  Surely some of them were too young to operate such complicated machinery?

“I’m pretty sure Gabriel would let you know if someone was praying for you,” Jo was telling Sam.

Sam scoffed, not even bothering to look in Gabriel’s direction.  “Let’s just say I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t,” he said.  “And we’ll leave it at that.”

He did give out his cell phone number, which Castiel was given to understand was somewhat dangerous.  Apparently, though, this particular night – or these particular people– felt safe enough to relax the hunting rules that had for so long defined their existence.  He wondered if that was what Gabriel was doing for the angels: extending the feeling of safety so they could rest, if only for a few minutes.

A few hours, maybe.  A breath, a heartbeat, a lifetime if they chose to exist in this moment.

“You don’t have to ask God,” Jo was saying.  “I know everyone has different ideas about, um, divinity.  But angels do hear prayers, and if you don’t think the one you want will notice yours, you can always ask the others to pass the message along.”

“Yeah,” Dean interrupted.  “Jo here pages all of heaven when she wants someone.”

“Shut up, I didn’t know you were all listening!” Jo exclaimed.

“I like your prayers,” Castiel heard himself say.  He hadn’t actually meant to join the conversation.  But he hadn’t really meant to tease Gabriel, either, and somehow the words were just there.

“Thank you,” Jo said.  It was a deliberate reply: grateful and unembarrassed.

“Show us,” Charlie said.  “I mean, if you don’t mind?  What do you say?”

“Honestly?”  Jo glanced over her shoulder, and Castiel saw Ellen pause beside Ben.  Maybe to see what she would say.  “I use the bedtime prayer my mom taught me when I was little.  I can tell you from firsthand experience it’ll get the attention of an archangel if you ask nicely.”

“We’d like to hear it,” Emily said.

Women from a time before demons, as Castiel understood it.  Years ago, when demonic possession had been an inconvenience instead of a full-out war.  He knew their stories, from the time their lives had intersected with Dean’s and Sam’s both forward and back.

“To all the world, I want to say,” Jo began, and Castiel recognized the cadence but the words were not the same ones she had used before.  “Thank you for your love today.  Thanks for my family and all the time you give to me.  Guard me in the dark of night, and in the morning send your light.

“If I’m looking for someone,” she added, “I’d put it at the end.  Like I asked for one of the other garrison leaders once by saying, ‘If Anna’s listening, please tell her we need her help,’ or something.  I usually say ‘bless us’ and ‘amen’ at the end too, but I don’t think you have to.”

Dean snorted, then seemed to realize they were all staring at him.  “Uh, no,” he said.  “No, you don’t have to say that... stuff.”

“What Dean means,” Sam said, “is that it isn’t really what you say that matters.  It’s what you mean by it.”

“Like when Dean prays for Cas,” Jo said.  “He could say pretty much anything and Cas would still hear him, because no matter what he says he always means the same thing.”

“Okay,” Dean said loudly.  “So.  Who’s memorizing Jo’s prayer?”

“What if we can’t?” Charlie wanted to know.  “I mean, what if we’re in trouble and we can’t remember them?  What do we have to, like... mean, so you can hear us?”

“Any kind of prayer will do it,” Sam told her.  “The lord’s prayer, the serenity prayer, anything you learned in church.”

“Sam,” Dean said.

Before he could say it, though, Ben said, “I don’t go to church.  And I don’t know any prayers except the internet prayer that everyone uses in the Supernatural forums.”

From her place on the other side of the campfire, Becky let out a squeak and clapped her hand over her mouth.  Chuck had an arm around her on the couch they were sharing with Lisa, but he just stared morosely into the fire.  Castiel thought he was drinking less now that he was around Gabriel more.

“Yeah?” Dean said.  He sounded very calm.  He usually wasn’t when they were talking about prophecy, but Ben had been the one who asked.  Dean was never rude or harsh with children, angelic or otherwise.  “What do they say on the internet?”

“Now I stand upon this ground,” Ben recited obediently, “and pray that God is not around.  May the angel Castiel hear my call, and safely come to meet us all.”

Castiel met Dean’s gaze across the room before glancing at Becky again.

“Um, I think it started in Vegas?” she offered.  “There’s a neutral ground treaty there you know, and the non-aggression pact kind of, um, circulated.”

“Yeah,” Dean said after a moment.  Only then did Castiel realize that they had all been waiting.  Not just the humans: every angel in the garrison was waiting to see what Michael would say about a prayer that explicitly denied God.  “Yeah,” he repeated.  “Okay.  That works.”

“So I can use it?” Ben said.  “What if I say your name?  Will you hear me?”

“Ben, I’m gonna hear you no matter what you say,” Dean said.  “That’s what Jo’s talking about, when she says that what you mean is more important.  If you need me, and you ask me to come, I’m gonna be there.”

“Uh, I’m sorry to be rude about this,” Emily interrupted.  “But I used to pray, and no one helped me.  No one helped you when my whole town came after us.  Believe me, I don’t want to piss off a room full of supernatural beings, but since when does heaven even care?”

“They care,” Dean said, with an uncharacteristic sigh.  Castiel looked at him sharply.  Even when he added, “They just don’t perch,” it didn’t really sound like Dean.  It had to be a trick of the light that made his eyes look more blue than green.  Right?

“Heaven has a sort of a non-interference policy,” Sam said.

Dean scoffed, and Sam shot him a warning look.  “The whole point of being human is that we have free will,” he said.  “We have responsibility.  Our decisions matter, okay?  It’s not heaven here, it’s earth, and we get to choose what we make it.”

“Whatever, Jesus,” Dean snapped.  “You’re the one who says we’re in this together.  Heaven could take some responsibility for the stuff it screwed up.”

Castiel closed his eyes, trying to stay calm for the sake of the young angel still pressed up against his chest.  Gabriel would feel it if he started to shake.  Maribel and Wildfire would want to know why.  Even Aramel would look at him strangely.

Gabriel was right: Dean and Michael were fighting for dominance in Dean’s mind.

“Not for the stuff we screwed up,” Sam insisted.  “Humans mess up too, Dean.  With or without your help.  You can’t fix everything.”

“What’s the matter?” Maribel was asking.  “Father?”

“Time out,” Gabriel said.  His voice wasn’t loud, but it was clearly meant to be heard beyond the couch.  Castiel opened his eyes immediately, trying to look less remarkable in case that voice drew attention to them.  He had learned something about humans since Dean tried to get him to blend in.

Dean was already looking at him, apparently ignoring Gabriel entirely to frown in Cas’ direction.  Sam was looking at the kids, like he was just realizing this was an argument they didn’t need to have around a family campfire.  Or like he didn’t want to look at Gabriel, and he’d just found a plausible way to avoid it.

“Michael,” Gabriel was saying.  “It’s not working.  You need to deal with this.”

They were talking about him, Castiel realized belatedly.  Gabriel was talking, and Dean was listening.  Or Michael was.  He didn’t want to distinguish, and the thought that he might have to was too terrifying to consider.  So he set it aside as best he could, again, and tried to reassure Maribel.

“It’s all right,” he said, as he’d seen Dean do for Sam in the past.  “I’m all right.”

“Then why are you scared for Daddy?” she asked.

“Michael,” Gabriel said in a singsong tone.  “Important leader things.  Now.”

Castiel saw Sam start at that, but he was more concerned with the way Dean was talking to the kids.  “G’night,” he was telling them.  “Sorry, we gotta go but I’ll see you in the morning.  Listen to Sam and Jo; they know about this prayer thing.  Angels can’t always help, okay?  But we’re always watching over you.”

He was touching them, patting them on the shoulder or hugging them.  Not just the children: Emily, and Charlie, and even Jenny.  Lisa got his hand in her hair and a kiss on the cheek.  There was a time when Castiel would have looked away, and he didn’t know why he couldn’t now.  Instead he stared, feeling Maribel’s little hands pat his neck while Dean hugged Ben against his hip and reached out to ruffle Richie’s hair.

Dean’s friends didn’t get the same treatment.  Sam just nodded at him, like he knew what was going on, and Jo waved.  Ellen didn’t even look up, though Castiel thought Sarah smiled when Dean glanced her way.  They didn’t say good night to each other; it wasn’t what they did.  So why was he doing it for everyone else?

And why was he leaving?  Even the youngest children were still awake, so it couldn’t be late enough that Dean was keeping his promise to Castiel.  There was no rule that said he had to stay at the Roadhouse until midnight... but he’d certainly indicated that he would be occupied here for the duration.

“Hey, Maribel.”  Dean was standing in front of him, suddenly, giving her a very different smile than the one he’d directed at the human children.  It was a grin, secretive and knowing and it made her light up.  The way Wildfire lit up when Jophiel called her, Castiel thought distantly.  He wondered if she did that when he spoke to her, too.

He wondered why he’d never noticed.

“I gotta take your father for a while,” Dean was saying.  “Me and him, we’ve got some stuff to do.”

“Important leader things,” she said, not moving.

“Yeah,” Dean agreed.  “Sorry to take away your pillow.  You’re gonna check in with Aramel tonight, right?”

“Yes,” she said, sliding into Wildfire on the Aramel side of Castiel.  “I’m going to practice time travel.”

“Be careful,” Dean said.  He reached out to tweak her nearest wing with his fingers, and she snatched it back with a squeak and something that sounded very much like a giggle.  “Don’t talk to anyone who isn’t on the list unless Aramel’s with you, don’t leave Aramel if she tells you not to, and come back to the Roadhouse if you get in trouble.  No matter what it is.”

“I will,” Maribel said.  “You should be careful too.”

Dean glanced at Castiel.  “Yeah,” he said.  “I should.  You coming, Cas?”

It was an unnecessary question.  If he was welcome, he was coming.  Even if he wasn’t welcome, he would probably end up wherever Dean was.  He didn’t bother to say so, since he suspected Dean already knew the answer.  Both answers.

As he stood, he felt hands brush against his wings.  It wasn’t so strange, coming from Maribel: she had plenty of human influence, and seemed to feel as Dean did that the casual interaction of human and angelic forms was perfectly normal. It was more surprising that Gabriel had done it.

Before he could turn, though, Dean was saying, “We’ll be upstairs.  Try not to need us.”

Gabriel scoffed.  “Like earth can’t get along without you.  Don’t knock out your fake electricity.”

“Wait –”  Sam looked as startled as Castiel felt.  “You mean... upstairs, upstairs?  What if...”  He trailed off, his expression impossible to interpret.

“Sam.”  Dean put his palms together briefly and glanced upward.  “It’s not like we can’t hear you.  We’ll be back in the morning; we just have some stuff to work out.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”  Sam frowned anyway.  “Good luck, I guess.”

“We’ll be back,” Dean repeated.  He was edging toward the stairs, not the door, and Castiel didn’t know what that meant but he followed anyway.  Dean raised a hand over his shoulder then, adding, “Night, everyone.”

“Why do you wish the people you know less well a fonder farewell?” Castiel asked, as Dean shouldered through the door into the stairwell.  “I would have thought the reverse would be true.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dean said over his shoulder.

Castiel stopped at the bottom of the stairs, watching Dean climb.  “Where are we going?”

Dean turned then, saw him frozen where he stood, and he just stared down at Castiel for a long moment.  If light flared behind him, making him look oddly haloed in the cramped space, it was just the lamp on the wall casting his shadow across the stairs.  “Wow,” Dean said, sinking down to sit where he was.  “I’m really bad at this.”

“At what?” Castiel asked, frowning.  He missed the proximity of angelic grace already, but he had gone longer than a few minutes without it before.  Much longer.  He was perfectly capable of existing in isolation.

Well.  Not perfectly.  Barely capable, perhaps.  But capable.  Surely.

Dean had braced his elbows on his knees and lowered his head to his hands, scrubbing his fingers through his hair.  “Telling you how important you are,” he muttered, apparently talking to the stairs.  “Seriously, Cas.  You deserve a lot better.”

“Dean –”

“I know,” he said, lifting his head.  His hands slid down his face and he was staring again.  “I know, you don’t want better.  Thank God.  I don’t know what I’d do without you, man.”

Castiel returned that gaze without flinching.  “I don’t intend for you ever to find out.”

Dean let out his breath in something that was almost a laugh, locking his fingers behind his neck as he tipped his head back.  Just for a second, but it was long enough for Castiel to know.  To hear the appeal he sent skyward, through the stairs and the ceiling to the stars beyond.  Please, let him stay.

“I’m sorry,” Dean said abruptly, looking back at him.  “About the campfire thing.”

Castiel wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for, but it was forgiven.  “You must be everything to everyone,” he said.  “I understand.”

“No,” Dean said, surprising him.  “No, I tried that.  Believe me, I tried, and you know what that crap gets you?  Nothing.  It gets you nothing to no one.”

“Dean,” Castiel said quietly, because he suspected this wasn’t the point but he couldn’t let it pass.  “You’ve never been nothing.”

There was no mistaking the light behind Dean now.  His eyes were blue – absolutely, unnaturally blue – and the casual way his wing shifted to trail shining feathers down the stairs made Castiel take a step back.  He didn’t even realize he’d done it until he felt the wall at his back, his own wings stiff and aching with reaction.

Danger.  Salvation.  He no longer knew which was which.  What he’d trained himself to feel in an effort to keep himself free went against every instinct he’d been created with.

“Cas.”  Michael’s voice was rough, so much like Dean’s that all he wanted was to close his eyes and deny what he was seeing.  “I’m still me, okay?  I just gotta prioritize, and you know I suck at that.  You gotta help me.  Okay?  Cas?”

He’d closed his eyes.  It didn’t help.  He could feel Michael’s grace filling the stairwell, bright to bursting.

“I shouldn’t have even gone to the campfire,” Dean was saying.  “I didn’t get it.  I was scared, okay?  I’m still – I’m still kind of scared.”

“Dean,” he whispered.  Maybe it did help a little.  It was like Dean was talking while Michael hovered there, right behind him.  Listening.

“Yeah,” Dean said quickly.  Desperately.  If he were Sam, Castiel knew, Dean would have come down and grabbed his arm by now.  Trying to force the words into him.  “Talk to me, Cas.  I’m freaking you out and I don’t know how to fix it.”

Would Michael grab Sam’s arm, Castiel wondered?  Would he hug Sam the way Dean did?

“It’s the Michael thing,” Dean said, when Castiel couldn’t answer.  “Listen, do me a favor, okay?  Stop listening to Gabriel.  I know he’s all, ‘I’m an archangel of the lord and I can turn this building into the elysian fields,’ but you know what?  Fuck him.  He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“He’s right,” Castiel said softly.  He was careful not to open his eyes.  The person talking to him sounded very much like Dean when he ignored everything else.  “Michael is taking over.”

“I am Michael,” Dean said.  “I’ve always been Michael.  I just didn’t remember.”

“And I didn’t know,” Castiel told the darkness that wasn’t anything.  He could see the light of heaven no matter how hard he tried not to look.  “I don’t know Michael.  I only know Dean.”

There was a heavy silence, and only after the words were out did he realize he wouldn’t be able to take them back.  He’d drawn the line, as Dean would say.  He had nothing more important to share.

“Look.”  Dean’s voice broke the silent roar at last, and he sounded frustrated but not... tired.  Not resigned.  It almost made Castiel open his eyes, wondering what expression went with a tone like that.  “I’m not two people, no matter what Gabriel tells you.  I just know a lot more than I did when I first met you.

“Which, let’s face it,” he added, “is probably a good thing, right?  I mean, you could have spent a lot of time explaining shit I still didn’t get when you were done.”

“Explanations were never a chore,” Castiel murmured.

“Bullshit,” Dean’s voice told him.  “You’re just a freakin’ angel, and not in the literal way.  I’m not and I know it, so believe me, I’m not saying it’s gonna be easy.  But I know you.  And if you give me a chance, I think you could get to know me again too.”

Castiel forced his eyes to open.  “Gabriel thinks you’re going to kill me,” he said.

Dean didn’t flinch.  “No he doesn’t,” he said.  “He’d be keeping a lot closer eye on you if he did.”

There was a moment where Castiel wondered if this was true, and then Dean said, “You think I’m going to kill you.”

Castiel forgot to breathe.

“It’s okay,” Dean said, even though it obviously wasn’t.  “I get that, right?  You spent all that time with me and Sam wearing a giant target on your back, and god knows we weren’t any kind of help.  It was kill or be killed, and we know what that’s like.  But for it to be your own fucking family... I get where Gabriel’s coming from.  I really do.

“Not about me,” he amended.  “About you guys.  The fallen.  The hunted, ’cause let’s call it what it was.  You said we’d all be hunted.  And you feel like you still are.”

“We’re not the same,” Castiel whispered.  “None of us.  Nothing is the same.”

“No.”  Dean put his hands on the stairs and pushed himself forward, sliding onto the step below.  “Nothing’s ever gonna be the same again.  And you know who taught me that?”

Castiel managed to draw in a breath.  He still couldn’t answer, but the tiny concession to humanity was somehow reassuring.  He let it out again, watching Dean move another step down.

“Sam,” Dean said.  “Sam took off, our dad died, and the shit hit the fan.  But guess where Sam is right now.”  He raised his hand long enough to point past Castiel, at the door, at the great room beyond.  “He’s right out there, and me and him, we’re okay.  He’s different.  I’m different.  And you can bet we ain’t never gonna hunt like we used to again.

“But we’re okay,” he repeated, sliding down another stair.  Still not standing up.  Like he could sneak up on Castiel if he didn’t make any threatening moves.  “You and me, we’re different too.  Heaven’s different.  Who knows what’s going on in hell.  But just because it’s not like it was before doesn’t mean we can’t make it work.”

“It’s difficult,” Castiel said.  He found himself trying not to smile as Dean’s foot crept down another stair and his hand reached up to grasp the railing.  An archangel’s effort to be subtle was nothing if not distracting.

“Life’s tough,” Dean replied.  “Give me a chance, Cas.  Please.”

Castiel eyed him.  “It’s going to be tomorrow before you get down those stairs.”

Dean grinned.  His wings flashed as he used the railing to yank himself up, and the human contradiction looked completely unstudied.  Not as though he was trying not to fly, Castiel thought, watching him bound down the last stairs.  As though it didn’t occur to him that he should want to.

“Did I mention the campfire thing was a mistake?” Dean asked, stopping inches from him.  His face was right there, but his eyes roamed: over Castiel’s cheeks, his chin, down to his shoulders... back up to his wings.  “Should have let you give me that pep talk after all.”

“Everyone seems to be enjoying the campfire,” Castiel said quietly.  He still didn’t understand the apology, but he wasn’t about to distract Dean when he had this much of his attention.

“Except you,” Dean said.  “The responsibility thing, was that it?  Gabriel said it freaked you out when I said the angels should do something.”

Castiel swallowed.  He didn’t want to talk about this anymore.  Not when he had Dean’s interest and Michael’s grace pouring over him in waves.  “You think we should do something,” he muttered reluctantly.  “Michael does not.”

Dean put his hands on his shoulders.  “I,” he said, sliding one hand up Castiel’s neck.  “Am.”  The other hand snuck into his hair.  “Michael.”  Dean held his gaze for a long moment, then leaned in to rest his forehead against Castiel’s.  “Just because I can’t make up my mind doesn’t mean I’m two different people,” he whispered.  “I’m conflicted, okay?  Sue me.”

“Conflicted,” Castiel repeated.

“I want to do it right,” Dean murmured.  “I don’t want to do anything that screws it up.  Story of my life.”

“The story of humanity,” Castiel said softly.  “With the power to choose comes the responsibility for your choices.”

“I’ll defend it ’til I die,” Dean agreed.

“Again?”  Castiel didn’t move, couldn’t see Dean’s face so close, but he felt the charge of amusement.

“Yeah,” Dean said, tilting his head so that his lips brushed against Castiel’s cheek.  “Again.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Castiel said.

“Hmm?”  Dean’s thumb was tracing a line across his jaw.

“Die,” Castiel said, patient and settled in a way he hadn’t felt since their communion before the campfire.  “I’d rather you didn’t die.  It would cause a lot of upheaval.”

He felt Dean’s huff of amusement across his skin.  “Ditto,” he said.  “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Castiel tipped his head just enough that Dean’s mouth could slide beneath his ear.  He recognized the gesture, knew what it meant and why Dean did it.  It was comforting in its familiarity.  “Coming from you,” he murmured, then paused as he remembered he was expected to touch in return.  He let his hands settle on Dean’s waist and tried again.  “I can’t imagine that your definition of stupid rules many things out.”

“Ha ha.”  Dean didn’t hesitate to shift his hip so that Castiel’s left hand brushed against bare skin.  It had to be a calculated move, but Castiel had no idea how he could be so aware of his body – of his clothes – that he could make it happen unobtrusively.  “Says the guy who threw himself in front of archangels.  Repeatedly.”

“I was only following your example.”  Castiel curled his right hand in the hem of Dean’s shirt, and his knuckles slid over the skin beneath.  He felt Dean hum against his ear, hopefully in appreciation.  Sex seemed to involve a lot of skin contact.

“Can I show you something?” Dean murmured.

Castiel considered the question.  “Is that a euphemism?”

Dean paused, his breath warm against Castiel’s ear.  “What?”  He got it before Castiel could repeat his question, though, and his laugh sounded surprised.  “No.  No – I mean... do you want it to be?”

“It’s not yet midnight,” Castiel allowed.  “I understand that, by the terms of our agreement, I should not expect any different.”

He felt Dean’s face press against his neck, muffling his groan.

Castiel tightened his grip on Dean.  He already felt out of his depth.  “I don’t know what that means,” he said.

“It means,” Dean mumbled into his shoulder, “that I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Castiel waited, but no further explanation was forthcoming.  “You were going to show me something,” he said at last.

Dean lifted his head, still close and warm and solid.  “Can I kiss you first?” he asked.

The only thought Castiel gave it was to wonder why Dean felt the need to ask.  “Of course.”

He’d thought the gentle press of Dean’s mouth against his face and neck constituted kissing, but either Dean had a different definition or he was simply seeking approval for his actions.  He had it, Castiel thought.  Kissing turned Dean warm and greedy, and Castiel wished he would do it more often.  It was so rare that Dean could close his eyes and lean on someone else.

Something in the back of his mind said maybe it was even rarer for Michael.

The way Dean’s mouth brushed against his was softer than his lips had been on Castiel’s neck.  The sensation was strangely dry and unintrusive, careful in the same way that Dean had been with the others.  With the children.

“Benedictus Deus in angelis suis,” Dean whispered.  His warm breath was too controlled to really be relaxed, and Castiel closed his eyes.  He understood that this difference was because of him.  Dean was not restrained when it came to intimacy.

“I can’t help what I’m thinking,” Dean added.  His hand was rubbing over the back of Castiel’s neck, arm teasing the edges of his wings as it moved.  It occurred to Castiel that he wasn’t noticing the difference because it was obvious to him, but because Dean couldn’t ignore it.  “Sorry about that.”

“Either think louder,” Castiel mumbled, trying to speak without pulling away, “or do more.”

Dean chuckled and finally, now his mouth was open, inviting the experimental lick that Castiel had been waiting all evening to give.  So many things he wanted to try with Dean, so much he hoped Dean would allow.  The human body wasn’t his area of expertise, but he’d certainly had reason and opportunity to observe more closely of late.

Dean’s tongue ambushed his, pushing him back, hands buried in his wings as he was shoved up against the wall.  Dean was leaning on him now, and his kiss was suddenly a whole lot wetter.  Castiel felt himself relaxing, because yes.  This was right.  Dean was sucking on his lip, tangling their legs in a way that was certainly intended to stimulate arousal, and he shifted his weight carefully in return.

The sound Dean made was not unfamiliar.  Touch, Castiel reminded himself, stroking his hands up Dean’s sides.  He needed to touch.  Humans were solid and distinct, and they didn’t simply melt together because they wanted to.  His leg had to slot between Dean’s legs, his arms had to fit under Dean’s arms.  His mouth had to be open to exploration and his tongue had to be quick enough to return the favor.

It was a lot to remember, but the way Dean shuddered against him was very motivating.

Pone me ut signaculum super cor tuum, Castiel thought, because there were more important things to be doing with his mouth.  He and Dean hadn’t kissed like this for days.  Ut signaculum super brachium tuum.

Dean’s left hand clenched on his shoulder, and their first night in the same bed came back to him with sudden clarity.  “Why’s that sexy?” Dean had wanted to know.

Now, as then, Castiel had no answer.  But he wasn’t entirely sure why anything was sexy, and so far his ignorance hadn’t gotten in the way.  So he shifted one arm out from under Dean’s, catching his wrist and then his elbow when it seemed like he might misinterpret the movement as a request for space.  When he was sure of Dean against him, he slid his hand up, covering the glowing reminder of Dean’s rescue forever imprinted on his soul.

His lip stung, a tiny flare of pain when he moved his mouth, and Dean’s hands were clamping down on his arm and the curve of his wing even as he jerked his head back.  Castiel didn’t move, except to let his own hand fall when Dean shrugged it violently away.  “Shit,” Dean was whispering, “I’m sorry.  Fuck.  Why are we doing this in the hallway, anyway; Gabriel’s gonna kill me.”

“I find that unlikely,” Castiel said quietly.  He was reluctant to move until he knew what had prompted Dean’s response.  It hadn’t been what he was expecting, but then, Dean rarely was.

Yeah, so, we can see you, Gabriel’s voice interrupted.  I wasn’t going to tell you, but Sam made me.

Castiel had a vivid mental image of light pouring from the edges of the door.  He caught, at the same time, a hint of the long-suffering act that Gabriel was putting on solely for Sam’s benefit.  No angel on earth would begrudge Michael moments like these – not with the heavy degree to which Michael’s happiness infused the choir.  The fact that Gabriel would pretend otherwise for Sam was... interesting.

“You okay?” Dean’s voice muttered, his thumb tracing its earlier route over Castiel’s mouth.  The split from the bite had already healed, and Castiel thought the answer was obvious.

“Of course,” he said anyway, because Dean had asked.  “Did I do something wrong?”

“You really don’t have to try so hard,” Dean whispered.  “You turn me on just by breathing, you know that?”

“You don’t have to whisper,” Castiel pointed out, but quietly.  “Yet you do.”

That made Dean laugh, and he wasn’t sure why but Dean seemed to understand what he meant.  “Yeah, well,” Dean said in a more normal tone of voice.  “It seems appropriate.  Let’s get out of here.”

“Where?” Castiel asked, committing the green of Dean’s eyes to memory.  If Sam had been correct in his assumption, the color would soon be gone again.

“Heaven,” Dean said.  “I want to show you something.  You mind?”

He hesitated.  “No.”

“Okay, yes,” Dean said, gripping both of his shoulders.  “You mind.  You haven’t been back to heaven since Maribel.  Why?”

“It isn’t me,” Castiel admitted reluctantly.  He knew he had to say this.  “It’s you.  I’m afraid that if you go to heaven... Dean won’t come back.”

Dean just looked at him – and it was Dean.  It was Dean, and it was Michael.  He’d given up on archangels before, but it had never been easy.  He didn’t know what he’d do if this one turned out to be a lie.

“I will,” Dean said at last.  “I will, Cas.  I know that’s not real reassuring, but look.  If something happens, you’ll fix it, okay?  You can do that.  You’re all...”  The words trailed off into handwaving, and finally Dean said, “Magical, now.  Or something.  Geez, you created angel children; I think you can fix me if something goes wrong.”

“But will you want me to,” Castiel said quietly.

“Cas.”  Dean’s hands slid up to cup his face, and for all the tenderness of the gesture it was somehow more forceful than the pressure on his shoulders had been.  “I’m yours.  If you ever doubt that, ask me.  Ask anyone.  Ask Sam, okay?  He’s a smart kid.  He’ll tell you what to do.”

He put his hands on Dean’s wrists, moving them all the way up to hold Dean’s hands against his face.  “I’m asking.”

“Still yours,” Dean replied.

Briefly satisfied, Castiel let him go, and Dean’s hands lingered a moment before falling.  His wings rose instead, obscuring the stairwell.  The light from around the door would finally have faded, Castiel thought, when they found themselves elsewhere.

Bypassing the gate was still strange.

“Raphael,” Dean said aloud.  Sort of aloud.  Dean’s earthly perception was still influencing Castiel’s, and he didn’t realize how much until it wavered.  Raphael.

Loud and unapologetic, Michael was banging on the door of his younger brother’s garrison.  Figuratively speaking.  No angel would be denied entrance – no angel of heaven, at least, and until recently there hadn’t been enough of the fallen for the distinction to matter.  Michael and Gabriel had never been considered fallen, anyway, and the garrison opened for him without question.

Raphael greeted them with a very small bunny looking on.

“Hey, bro,” Dean said easily.  He sounded very much like Gabriel in that moment, and perhaps never more so than when he glanced at the bunny and corrected, “Bros.  Vaguely bipedal and otherwise.”

There were angels everywhere.  Earth belonged to humanity, and the relief of Earth-based “garrisons” had become an undeniable balm to every exiled angel.  It was reassuring to be reminded that none of them were the last of their kind, to see wings not their own somewhere other than in memories... but it wasn’t home.  It wasn’t this.

It wasn’t halls and roads filled with grace, the light of God’s first children sparing no darkened corner.  It wasn’t song loud enough to drown out individual thought, strong and united by love of the divine.  It wasn’t constant prayer.  It wasn’t unceasing gratitude.  It wasn’t righteousness, or reverence, or any of the things Castiel had been told made angels what they were.

It wasn’t garrisons filled with armor and certainty, waiting only on assignment to fulfill their purpose.

“Did you miss me?” Dean was asking.  “Hey, hey, you don’t have to kneel.  You’re my brother, right?  Although I guess if you think have to... nah, I’m just kidding.  Which reminds me.”

The words washed over him, strange and not quite echoing, but Castiel couldn’t miss it when the tiny rabbit suddenly burst outward into a brilliant and probably furious archangel.  Castiel wondered if it had occurred to Dean to mention this plan to anyone – if he’d been intending to do it all along, or if it had just been an impulsive act prompted by the presence of the bunny.  Castiel doubted that he was the only one of the hunted who would have appreciated a warning.

“And then there were three,” Michael declared.  “Zachariah, want to try again?”

Michael wasn’t anything like still, weaving among soldiers and support alike, his feathers rough and wild in the midst of this gleaming perfection.  He stood out on every level: power, presence... projected appearance.  Castiel couldn’t help a sharp stab of guilt when he realized Michael’s wings might  be his responsibility now.

When he let Dean’s vision color the view, however, the only thing that separated them was the uniforms.  Raphael’s soldiers were identically attired, sword and shield in evidence if not actually drawn.  Dean – Michael – wore exactly what he would have been wearing on earth.  His jeans and layered shirts were dark against all the white, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Lucifer,” Zachariah said.  As though he was actually speaking, responding to Michael the way their vessels would communicate on earth.  Castiel couldn’t tell if he was just humoring Michael, or if on some level he identified with humanity the same way Dean did.  Zachariah had always been unpredictable.  “He’s been... forgiven?”

“Not exactly,” Dean said.

Castiel frowned over at him.

“Kind of,” Dean amended, glancing back at him.  “It’s, uh... I guess it’s a work in progress.”

“And myself?”  Zachariah looked like he was just waiting to be told, quite literally, to go to hell.  He wouldn’t fight it.  Whether Michael was within his rights to cast an archangel out of heaven was debatable, but in the absence of a higher power his word would likely stand.

“Dude, you’re home,” Dean said.  “Piece of advice?  Try to be less of a jackass.”

You’re home.

Dean’s undeniably human view of heaven faded with the force of that simple declaration.  Castiel wanted it to be true, wanted the souls around him to be his family and the light they shared to be that of unconditional love.  For almost his entire existence he had believed in that so strongly he hadn’t seen anything else.

But now he remembered the last time heaven had welcomed him back.  The promises they had made when they tore him from his vessel and tried to reinstate him as a servant of a broken hierarchy.  He was his father’s son, his flaws were part of the plan... as long as he didn’t try to understand the plan.  As long as he didn’t try to be anything else.

There were always conditions.

No conditions.

Michael’s voice didn’t overwhelm him.  He didn’t even notice the difference until Raphael’s did: Forgiveness is given to the penitent.

That’s crap, Dean replied.  I have it on good authority that forgiveness is in the eye of the beholder.

Forgiveness is in the will of God, Raphael said.

Forgiveness is the will of God, Dean countered.

Castiel didn’t know when Dean had gotten good enough at theology to argue it with archangels... except that he did.  He knew exactly when it had happened; he’d pressed Michael’s grace into Dean’s soul himself.  And now he was surrounded by the host of heaven, minus the man he’d died protecting from these very angels.

The shivery slide of open communion cascaded through the garrison, faster than thought, undeniable and unwelcome with its association of loss.  Before he could even flinch – or flee – Michael stepped in front of him and the wave broke where he stood, leaving Castiel untouched in its wake.  Letting him think.  Letting him see how much Michael wanted him to have this.

Letting him leave without stipulation, if that was what he wanted.

He reached out instead.

It wasn’t just Michael’s grace that responded.  The vast awareness of multiple archangels was too much, and he understood very little of the impressions that followed.  All he knew was that this was what he had been raised to and this was what he had lost and he didn’t know how he could stand to have it torn away again.

Zachariah would rejoin his own garrison.  Lucifer would stay where he was.  The nephilim were to be given wide berth by the angels of heaven.  The angels of earth were sovereign under Michael.  Raphael had just become heaven’s field commander, while Gabriel would fill that same role on earth.  Samuel Winchester and Jesse Turner were to pass the gates of heaven only in the willing company of an archangel.

None of the knowledge registered as new.  It was all a whirl of memories and vision and things that simply were, and he wouldn’t understand which parts weren’t his until he was a separate being again.  As separate as an angel ever was.

Which, lately, could be very separate.

I love you.

The words were unattributed, for everyone.  The garrison was his garrison.  He’d never left heaven, he’d only recently returned.  His perfect wings were windblown and ragged.  The pieces of his own experience began to unmerge as the communion rolled on, and Castiel felt the pull of earth when Michael’s eyes opened a heartbeat from his.

You, he thought.  I love you.

Bright white uniforms with silver blades and glowing wings: he couldn’t remember if that was Dean’s imagination or his own.  Either way, it definitely wasn’t them.  They stood apart, even in the midst of this uniformity.  This acceptance.

Price of thinking for yourself, the voice replied, and this time it was definitely Dean.  Sorry.

You’re forgiven, Castiel told him.  Dean could hardly be faulted for the decisions Castiel had made, but he finally understood that the apology itself was an effort at connection.  You’ll always be forgiven.

Yeah, well.  Denim and green glowed brighter than any white, and he thought there was a smile in the middle of it somewhere.  You too.

Listening to Dean here, now, like this, made Castiel wonder why he’d ever thought heaven would change him.

Come on, Dean added, and the impression of an extended hand was unmistakable.  I’ve got a poster to put up.

It didn’t make any sense, except in the way that it did.  He thought about asking, but it didn’t really matter.  Castiel would always follow.

“Huh,” Dean said, looking around the dome that dimmed around them.  It was harsh and distant compared to the bright proximity of Raphael’s garrison, and Castiel felt the empty ache of earth seeping back into his soul.  “I should have set my garrison up here.”

“Your garrison is on earth,” Castiel said.  Michael’s soldiers had been disbanded decades before, in preparation – heaven had assumed – for a reorganization that would determine the course of the apocalypse.  He didn’t like reminder of Dean’s divided loyalties.  “Your experience here is very... human.”

“What, in the dome?”  Dean stared at him.  “You’re seeing it too, aren’t you.  The way I do.”

It was possible that he depended too much on Dean’s perception.

“See,” Dean said, without waiting for an answer.  “This is why I need some posters.  Who wants to come back to an empty room?”

Castiel refrained from pointing out that Dean had been doing exactly that for most of his human life, but Dean heard him anyway.  “Yeah, I’m tired of it,” he said.  “I always wanted to have, you know, pictures on the fridge or something.  This place is just depressing.”

“You... could invite company,” Castiel said carefully.  It was very quiet.

“I did,” Dean said.  “You.”

He was hardly an adequate substitute for the soldiers Michael could make whole with a shared thought.

“Cas,” Dean said.  “What I’m saying is... it’s your place too.  If you want to open it up, you can.  Fill this place with angels, hold parties if that’s what it takes.  I’m just here because I don’t know where else to go, and I want you with me, so...”  He gestured with one hand, the human perception remarkably thorough.  “Here you are.”

Castiel considered this, and some of the explanation was definitely missing.  But he was tired of trying to figure out what everything meant.  If he was close enough to human to not understand – and to be frustrated by it – then he was close enough to human for this.  “I’ve already told you what I want,” he said.

“Yeah,” Dean agreed, easily enough.  Like he knew it.  Like he’d expected Castiel to say that.

When he didn’t say anything else, Castiel said, “Time moves more rapidly on earth.”

And Dean laughed.  “It’s already midnight,” he said.  “That your argument?”

“If the hour is so important,” Castiel said, “I don’t see why we can’t bend time to be there.”

“The time doesn’t matter,” Dean said.  “Or... well, it does, as long as it’s now.”

“Now,” Castiel repeated.

“I know I was kind of, uh, big on privacy the first time.”  Dean looked more than a little awkward, and Castiel hadn’t even been paying attention.  He was looking now, and he suddenly thought Dean was less comfortable than he was.  “But Gabriel’s only gonna fix the lights so many times, you know?”

Castiel thought Gabriel would probably rebuild the entire electric grid.  As many times as it took.  He was more concerned with what Dean seemed to be implying.  “You believe we should have sex for the first time in heaven.”

“Uh.”  Dean was clearly embarrassed.  “Okay.  That, uh... that sounded less blasphemous in my head.”

“Your plan is flawed,” Castiel told him.

“Yeah.”  Dean sighed this time, but his mouth quirked at the corners and Castiel didn’t think he was entirely upset.  “I figured.”

“Sex is a physical act,” Castiel said.  “We exist here without physical form.”

“Dude,” Dean interrupted, lifting his hand and waving it in Castiel’s direction.  “I’ve got your physical form right here.”

“You mean your physical form,” Castiel corrected.  “And it isn’t.  Not really.  It’s only your perception of your physical form.”

“Which is different how?” Dean wanted to know.

“It’s different,” Castiel insisted, stepping closer.  He reached out, running his fingers over Dean’s face.  It was warm.  Actually warm, in the way that human temperature would be.  And unexpectedly soft.  Like skin.

He had more experience with the feel of skin than he’d ever expected to want.  The fact that it wasn’t anywhere near enough likely had something to do with the way his hand lingered, cupping Dean’s jaw.  “You’re very –”

“Human,” Dean said, when he didn’t immediately finish.  “The word you’re looking for is human.”

“Perhaps.”  He brushed his thumb against Dean’s lips, felt the ghost of a kiss pressed back, and he wondered why it no longer seemed to matter.  Dean was human.  He wasn’t, and he had never wanted to be.  Now he found he didn’t even wish that he had been.

“Okay,” Dean said, rough and quiet and so familiar.  Castiel’s fingers drifted down his neck, and Dean tilted his head.  Just enough.  “So let me show you.”

“We can go,” Castiel said.

“Here,” Dean insisted.  “You can feel it like I do, here.”

He doubted that very much.  He wasn’t going to argue with Dean’s hands on his wings, but it did remind him of the other discussion they should be having.  “Your wings,” Castiel began.

“Awesome, right?”  Dean swept his wings around them without apology.  One hand fell to his hip, the other tugging gently on feathers that weren’t supposed to move.  Castiel shifted his wing, trying to ease the pressure, and felt it brush up against Dean’s.

Dean’s wings were warm.

The pull abated when he didn’t respond, and he felt Dean take a breath.  A deep, obvious breath, that was as foreign here as the contrived warmth that Castiel himself tried to affect when he was close to Dean.  Dean seemed to manage it easily.  Like breathing.

“Okay,” Dean repeated.  “What about them?”

It would have been tricky issue with fallen angels, but before Michael, Dean wouldn’t have cared.  Castiel had no idea how he might react to the observation now.  “Your wings haven’t been groomed recently,” he said.  “They are in disarray.”

Dean actually laughed, and Castiel reflected that maybe he should have expected that.

“Yeah,” Dean agreed, still grinning.  “Like I said.  Awesome.”

“You like them that way,” Castiel said slowly.

Dean shrugged.  It made his shoulders bump Castiel’s hands, his wings sliding over Castiel’s arms and wings and back.  Castiel wasn’t moving, but they were still getting closer together.  Like Dean was sneaking up on him by pushing instead of pulling, and pretending that he wasn’t made it all okay.

“I’d like ’em better if you neatened ’em up,” he offered.

Castiel found himself frowning.  It was possible that Dean meant it: from any other angel, it would have been a given.  It was also possible that Dean was just saying it because he knew that, because he knew Castiel expected it, and he was trying to make him more comfortable.

“Or,” Dean added, “I might be saying it because I think you’ll agree, and if you agree it gives me extra time to convince you that sex in heaven could be pretty sweet.”

He wanted to think about that the way it deserved, but all he could concentrate on was, could be?

“You don’t know how it is?” he asked.  “Or you think I don’t know?”

“What?” Dean said.  “Sex in heaven?  Seriously, when would I have done that?”

Castiel had forgotten, in the very brief time he’d associated with humans, what it was like to hold an uncertain conversation with someone who knew exactly what you were thinking.  “This is not an experiment, Dean.”

“This is totally an experiment,” Dean retorted.  “We’re freakin’ different.  We can’t just fall into bed and hope for the best.  I’ll pull out all the stops, okay, do anything you need; hell, I’ll stand around and talk about my feelings for the rest of the night.  But I’m just letting you know, if you don’t meet me halfway?  It’s gonna take me a lot longer to get to wherever you are.”

He felt as though he was being chided, but Dean’s wings slid over his before they could bristle.

“I’m just letting you know,” Dean repeated, more quietly.  “If you can’t, you can’t.  That’s okay.  I said it was okay.”

Dean was almost wrapped around him now, so close Castiel could feel his completely unnecessary heat even where they weren’t touching.  He wished it wasn’t so comforting.  It made it hard to be properly frustrated.  “Don’t treat me like a child.”

Dean would have laughed.  Back when he was just Dean.  Laughed, or scoffed, or... rolled his eyes or something.

Now he said he was still Dean, but he was also Michael.  And Michael didn’t laugh.  He just lifted Dean’s hand to Castiel’s face, so human even in this hall of grace, and he murmured, “Believe me, I don’t see you as a kid.”

Castiel leaned into him, intending to answer.  To find out what was so hard about it.  Dean had had sex plenty of times.  There was a time when Castiel had believed all he had to do was indicate his willingness and Dean would show him what it was.  If that time had existed, it was clearly past.

Dean kissed him instead.  It was an odd sensation, not entirely of heaven, but independent of physical form nonetheless.  He knew, intellectually, that it was his grace wisping against Dean’s.  But it felt like Dean’s mouth on his, soft and warm and entirely welcome.

He could, he reasoned, at least practice kissing here.

That’s the spirit, Dean thought, his mouth still gentle on Castiel’s.  It feels good, right?  Better than on earth?

He froze.  Better than on earth.

Better than on earth? he repeated.

The fingers on his hip curled against his skin, sliding through a shirt that wasn’t really there like it... wasn’t really there.  It sent a shiver of sensation through his awareness: not a feeling to be noted and either acknowledged or not, but one he couldn’t ignore.  Something he didn’t want to ignore.  Something that was pleasant for reasons he couldn’t explain.

Yeah, see?  Dean mouthed his lower lip, sucking enough that his tongue got in the way, and Castiel tipped his head in an effort to get closer.  He didn’t even realize his mouth was open until he and Dean were sharing breaths, and the hand on his hip distracted him long enough that he didn’t even notice when that tongue slid past his lower lip.  It’s not so weird when it’s just a representation of grace.

Dean’s voice in his head was strong and reassuring, if a little hard to concentrate on.  There were fingers stroking the back of his neck, teasing his hair, and he wanted to press his head back until they slid more solidly against his skin.  But he didn’t want to pull away from Dean’s mouth.  He twisted a little, not thinking, trying to shrug the hand on his hip higher.

“Fuck,” Dean gasped, turning his head so that Castiel’s kiss landed on his jaw.  The skin under his tongue was rougher there, and he licked carefully.  Dean often thought about biting his skin, sucking on it right where his tongue was now, so he mouthed it experimentally.  Dean tasted clean and new.

The hand behind his neck withdrew, turning over so Dean’s knuckles dragged down his chest on their way to his other hip.  He caught his breath as those fingers melted right through his shirt and drew tingling heat back up his ribs.  He wanted to feel that again, but Dean’s hands were on his shoulders now, pushing him back.

Into Dean’s wings.  He lifted his own, full contact with the inside of Dean’s embrace, feathers sliding over each other as grace mingled up and down their length.  He arched his back, pushing higher even as Dean’s fingers clenched, inhumanly tight on his shoulders.

Dean’s wings let go.  They just shuddered and slipped away, releasing him to the cool room and the absence of grace.

Or at least, the not-as-proximate grace.  He tried to give Dean his disappointment, tried to show it to him without saying it because he didn’t know how.  He was confused and empty and he just wanted to touch.  To commune.  With Dean, mostly, except that every time he did it he was very aware of Dean’s body responding.

Much as it was now.  Or would be, if they were on earth.  Since the first time, Dean had clearly associated the communion of their souls with the closeness of their bodies.  Castiel was reluctant to ignore the other half of their shared expectation – especially when it seemed to be largely Dean’s half.

“Look,” Dean muttered, holding him in place with his hands.  “I need you to do me a favor.”

Castiel frowned.  “Of course.”  He’d thought he already was, but it wasn’t as though there was a limit.  He could hypothetically handle any number of favors at the same time.

“Could you –”  Dean didn’t look comfortable with the request.  Whatever it was.  Castiel found himself wanting to apply his mouth to that downturned expression, to see if he could soothe it away.  More than just a desire to kiss because Dean wanted it, he actually thought it might... feel different.

Was that a power he had, now?  Kissing felt good, suddenly – like sharing grace – and things that felt good counteracted things that felt bad.  He tried not to think that maybe that was why Dean wanted to have sex here, instead of on earth.

“Would you, uh.”  Dean was still struggling to get his request out.  “Work on my wings?”

Castiel had opened his mouth to acquiesce again when Dean added quickly, “Until I, you know.”

He frowned at Dean.  “Until you what?”

Dean closed his eyes, tipping his head back, and Castiel studied the curve of his neck with interest.  It was, he knew perfectly well, identical to Dean’s body on earth.  But the human projection Dean held onto here was unexpectedly appealing.

“That,” Dean said, without opening his eyes.  Not that he needed them to be aware of Castiel.  “You’re getting it, right?  But I am so far ahead of you right now, it’s not even funny.  So if I could, uh, stop thinking about it so much... I could do this better.  I think.”

“You’re doing fine,” Castiel told him.  He didn’t understand what the problem was, but one clearly existed.  “That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t enjoy the chance to –”

Dean was already talking again.  “So I won’t – I mean, it’s kind of rude.  Humans think it’s rude.”

“Dean.”  Castiel understood less the longer Dean spoke.  “Turn around.”

Dean’s wings flared, bright and half-spread before he pushed Castiel back another step.  “Wait,” he said.  “Just... hang on a second.”  He was thinking at the same time, words and emotions flickering into overlap.  You said – can I – there are beds in heaven.

Castiel didn’t like being so far away, not now.  Dean’s head, Michael’s memories: something wasn’t working.  He couldn’t pull up the appropriate knowledge when he needed it.  Dean could remember what Castiel had said, but Michael couldn’t remember whether it was true or not.

“No, Cas –”  Dean drew in a careful breath, fingers flexing as his hands fell.  “It’s okay.  I can’t think; it’s not because of –”

There was an image in his head, vivid and maybe shared, maybe just understood.  Him kneeling over Dean’s back while Michael’s wings lay spread, brilliant and gleaming, in either direction.  A bed beneath them.  Bright sunlight streaming through the windows overhead, replacing the glow of heaven with something almost... earthly.

“You want to lie down,” Castiel said, trying not to look for Dean.  He was right there.  He wasn’t buried under Michael, and he wouldn’t be.  Ever.

They were there.  He didn’t know where, but the place felt like it was Michael’s, and the windows above them – too close, he thought, and why Dean thought “privacy” when he looked at them Castiel had no idea – were reminiscent of the dome.  He might almost have missed the transition, except that Dean was sitting on the edge of a bed significantly larger than the one he slept in back at the garrison and he didn’t look like he was struggling for words anymore.

“C’mere,” Dean said.  “Give me five minutes, and this show is all about you again.”

Castiel frowned.  Dean was barefoot but otherwise clothed, and also, he wasn’t willing to concede on the heaven versus earth discussion just yet.  “I don’t recall agreeing that this would happen here,” he said.

That gave Dean pause.  “Here, here?” he asked.  “Or here, in heaven?”

“I prefer to have sex on earth,” Castiel informed him.

He could feel Dean trying not to disagree, trying not to point out that he had no idea what he preferred, because that would be rude and insensitive.  And for the first time in his life, Dean Winchester apparently cared about being rude.  Castiel wasn’t sure whether he should be flattered or irritated or just very worried, because it was possible that Michael had a higher standard for politeness than Dean.

“Okay, fine,” Dean said.  “You don’t know!  Are you happy?  You don’t even know, but you will, because trust me, this isn’t gonna be the only time we do this.  We’re gonna do it there too.  We’re gonna do it frickin’ everywhere, so either tell me why you’re so stuck on earth or let me be the expert for once and pick the place!”

“Earth is your home,” Castiel said simply.

Michael didn’t give it the slightest consideration, and Castiel didn’t know whether to be relieved or dismayed.  “My home is with you,” Dean’s voice told him.  “And you might as well sit down, because all this talking is making it a lot safer to be around me.”

“Safer?” Castiel repeated, troubled but immediately ready to accept the invitation.

Dean shifted until he was behind Castiel, hands stroking his wings without intent: casually, like he was just acknowledging them before he... pressed his fingers up against the back of Castiel’s neck?  Castiel tried to relax, to let his wings be pushed aside, but it wasn’t –

Until Dean’s hands slid out to his shoulders and his mouth took the place of those fingers.  He didn’t make a sound other than the soft slide of tongue on skin and the air that went in and out, heating Castiel’s hair and making him wish that he could enjoy breathing as much as Dean seemed to.

Better than the kissing, though, was the way Dean’s chest had to press up against his wings in order to reach his neck.  Like it? Dean asked.  One hand slid to his wing, while his mouth was working its way around toward Castiel’s ear.  I know the whole sharing thing is weird for you.  If I do anything that doesn’t work, you gotta let me know.

It took a second for Castiel to gather his thoughts.  You already do, he thought.  It’s working.  You’re working.  I would tell you if something was strange.

He could feel Dean smiling, though not as clearly as he could feel fingers tickling his feathers or a tongue creating patterns on his skin.  “I’m just not sure how much our definitions of ‘strange’ overlap,” Dean said quietly.  “But yeah.  Do that, okay?”

“I just said I would,” Castiel reminded him.

The words made funny lines on the back of his neck, but it wasn’t anything compared to the little huff of air when Dean didn’t laugh at him.  “Good,” Dean said.

“I believe I offered to do this for you,” Castiel said quietly.  

The gentle teasing paused, and then Dean asked, “Does it feel like grooming?”

That was when he realized Dean’s hands were on his back.  Not his wings.  His mouth was skimming over Castiel’s neck and shoulders, leaving cool trails in its wake, and his fingers were solid and steady on skin instead of feathers.  The only pressure on his wings came from Dean leaning up against them, his own draped casually over one of Castiel’s but not moving as he concentrated on rubbing warmth into his back.  Through a shirt that either wasn’t there, or just didn’t get in Dean’s way.

“Yes,” Castiel said.  “It – what are you doing?”

“Giving you a backrub?” Dean suggested, but from the amusement in his voice Castiel guessed this wasn’t entirely true.  “This is what it’s like for me, Cas.  Having someone rub my shoulders is like someone stroking your wings.  Physical... stuff, and grace, the way it feels when you’re next to another angel – it’s not totally different.”

“It feels different,” Castiel muttered, tilting his head forward.  He tried to shift further onto the bed, but even he wasn’t sure if it was to force Dean’s wings to slide over his or if it was to get those hands pressed harder against his skin.

“Not here,” Dean said softly.  “Not with me.  It should feel pretty much the same.  Especially if you’re seeing the dome the way I am right now.”

He didn’t know what that had to do with anything, but it was possible that the image of angels in flight distracted him.  Clearly, strikingly, he could see light against the darkness, wings tangling together as they flew.  A backdrop of stars that he suddenly identified as the night sky over Vancouver: the first time he and Michael flew together.

He thought of lying in bed with Dean that night, spread out underneath him while Dean’s arms and legs and wings spilled in every direction.  Safe while Dean slept, grace pressed up against his own, the room black but for the light of the words on the page.  Things Michael deemed worth recording.

His name had been there on the last page, in an angelic script he’d never seen Dean use... written the century before.

Dean’s throat was pressed against his shoulder, and he felt the vibration through his skin when Dean hummed into his ear.  As close as communion.  Dean was responding to the reminder of his journal, to the memory of reading it while he slept, and it was communion.  He hadn’t even noticed when their awareness slid together.

Except that now he knew what Dean meant about the dome.  He knew why they were here, he knew why it mattered to Dean, and he knew he’d been right in thinking that good things counteracted bad.  But Dean wasn’t anticipating bad things.  He just wanted the good things to be shared.

“We’ll do it again on earth,” Dean whispered in his ear.  “As much as you want.  I promise.”

“This is practice,” Castiel said aloud, startled that he hadn’t realized how apt his first thought had been.  “You’re practicing on me.  To see how I think of it, so you can see how to do it on earth.”

Dean laughed, and his whole body shifted against Castiel’s.  His wings shivered happily when he moved, but it was the way his hands dug underneath them and up, stretching tight muscles and firing dormant nerve endings that didn’t even exist here that made Castiel draw in a sharp breath.  “That’s a good idea,” Dean said, pressing another kiss to his shoulder.  “Wish I’d been that clever.”

Castiel understood then, without him having to explain, that all he’d hoped for was that Castiel would be able to feel what he felt without the details of biology, to understand what it meant by experiencing his own pleasure alongside Dean’s.  In a place where they could literally feel the same thing by perceiving it differently.

“Can I?” Castiel demanded.  Turning into him, he forced Dean’s hands to drag over his back as they twisted, pushing until Dean went down underneath him.  “Practice?  On you?”

Dean was bright and vibrant and encouraging, breathing hard even as he let himself be pressed into the mattress.  The mattress-like thing.  Castiel tried, instinctively, to resolve it into what it really was, but he failed.  When Dean’s fingers dug into his back and pulled it didn’t matter anymore – it should, and so he resisted, but it just meant that Dean arched up against him and he really didn’t care about anything except how Dean saw it right now.

He did know that Michael’s wings shouldn’t be hurt no matter how hard Dean fell back on them, or how hard Castiel pushed.  But Dean flinched, grace rippling when Castiel let himself go, the light behind his shoulders forced out as his wings absorbed the weight.  Castiel was horrified to see feathers bending under the pressure.

“No,” Dean gasped, his back arching again.  Making it worse.  “Cas, it’s not – don’t –”

He rolled off of Dean, putting an elbow on one of his wings accidentally as he went.  He heard Dean stifle a whimper.  “Dean,” he whispered, agonized.  He couldn’t – even here, he didn’t know what was good and what wasn’t.

“Cas,” Dean said desperately.  He flung one of his abused wings over Castiel’s body as he twisted, catching him before he could pull farther away.  “Cas,” he repeated, climbing on top of him when Castiel stayed.  Waiting.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Dean said, still panting, his eyes bright and his wings wild as he resettled them behind his shoulders.  They looked considerably more ruffled than before, which didn’t make sense – time around other angels should soothe them, even when they weren’t being actively groomed.  They shouldn’t be getting messier just because he was pretending to roll around with a...

“I was human,” Dean insisted, the words breathless and careless and fast as they tumbled over each other.  “I was human, Cas; I haven’t had wings in forever.  I like ’em, but they’re sensitive, and I’m doing it on purpose.  It’s not ’cause of you.

“Well,” he added, shifting, evidence of his humanity pressing up against Castiel’s leg.  He smiled ruefully when he felt Castiel notice.  “It is ’cause of you, but it’s not like you did something wrong.  More like you’re too right.”

Dean was making his wings awkward and human.  Castiel understood that much, and he was only seeing it because he was seeing everything the way Dean did right now.  Almost everything.  He didn’t understand why Dean wanted it that way.

“I want you,” Dean said roughly.  “Way more than you get.  The messier I make it for me, the more – it’s more like the way it is for you.  Still not sure I can –”

He cut off, and in an overwhelming flash of imagery and emotion, Castiel understood.  Dean was afraid that his human stamina wouldn’t be able to withstand angelic communion, but he was holding onto it for Castiel’s sake.  Because he wanted Castiel to feel what sex felt like – good – here, while he could.  And he wouldn’t be able to do that if Dean wasn’t human enough to share it with him.

Dean laughed, raking his fingers over the wrinkles in a shirt Castiel was apparently still wearing.  “That’s a really generous way of putting it,” he said with a grin.  “I’d have said I’m gonna get off way before you figure out what I like about this, and I don’t want to do something stupid when I’m not thinking.”

“I like you liking it,” Castiel told him.  He tried to press his leg upward, because he’d seen Dean do this before and he understood the basics of human bodily function.  Even if Dean mostly tried to keep his hands above the waist these days, he had fantasies that Castiel couldn’t help observing.

He couldn’t move.  Dean was impossibly heavy on top of him, eyes green and dark even with bright wings spread out behind him like an invitation.  “I like it,” he said.  Not laughing anymore.

“Let me see,” Castiel said.  “Let me up.”

Dean hesitated.  “It’s, uh, polite,” he muttered.  “To let the –”

“Virgin go first?” Castiel finished for him.  That was what he’d been trying to say before, and Castiel hadn’t gotten it at all.  He still didn’t.  “That makes no sense.  You’re distracted, I’m frustrated, and it will never be easier for me to do this than it is right now.  It’s why you brought me here, isn’t it?”

Dean groaned, closing his eyes, and that didn’t help at all.  “Why did I have to fall for the smart one,” he muttered.  But he let himself be pushed off this time, and Castiel tried not to wince in sympathy when those wings bent underneath him.

They flexed a moment later but didn’t quite pull themselves free, and he found he couldn’t stand it.  “Turn over,” Castiel demanded.  “On your stomach.  Please,” he added belatedly, when it occurred to him that ordering someone into position might not be very sexy.

Indeed, Dean made a small, dismayed sound as he rolled over, and Castiel reached out.  “I’m not very good at this,” he said apologetically, settling his hand on Dean’s leg with some care.

“Mmph.”  Dean had buried his face in his arm, and his voice was muffled when he told the mattress, “Trust me, Cas.  You’re awesome at this.”

Dean had let his wings flop wherever they fell when he moved, and Castiel had to push one carefully off of his leg in order to extend it even partway.  There wasn’t anywhere he’d be able to reach all of them, but he did have Dean’s vision to go on.  They already had the bed and the sunlight.  He had to nudge his knees under the base of Dean’s wings in order to make room on Dean’s lower back.  It wasn’t graceful or smooth, but he managed to settle there, bracing his hand between Dean’s wings.

Dean’s shirt was gone.  Castiel thought he should have noticed that, considering how important touch was for sex, but perhaps he’d been distracted by Dean’s too-clumsy wings.  It did allow him to run his hand up Dean’s back, pressing his palm into grace that felt very much like skin.

And it let Dean push back, shoulders rolling under Castiel’s hand.  If rubbing his shoulders felt like wing-grooming...  Castiel shifted his weight onto his knees, putting his other hand against Dean’s shoulders and pushing lightly.  Dean made a choked sound.  This time it was his hips that moved, though, and Castiel dropped his hands to the base of his wings to check for stress.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Dean ground out.  “Just –”

He broke off before he could finish the instruction, and Castiel shifted uneasily.  He found himself stroking Dean’s wings out of habit, trying to make right whatever he was doing wrong.  Dean’s knuckles were white where they clutched the sheet, his face still buried in his arm.

“See,” Dean mumbled, barely audible but clearly intending to be heard.  “This falls into the category of ‘something stupid.’

“Me, not you,” he added when Castiel’s hands faltered.  “I should be –”

“Enjoying yourself,” Castiel said miserably.  “I’ve seen you do this many times, and it has never been difficult for you.”

Dean groaned.  “What part of this are you not getting?” he asked his arm.  His hips rocked into the mattress once, twice, warmth spreading into Castiel’s groin with the unexpected movement.  He pressed back, eager and interested, and that was the moment all pretense at humanity vanished.

Michael’s grace poured out from under him.  Rising.  Engulfing him.  Dean’s arms were around him, his chest hot against Castiel’s as he whispered, “You make me fucking crazy.”  One of Dean’s knees hooked over his thigh, braced against his hip as he pushed impossibly close.  “I wanna go all in with the soul thing.  You okay with that?”

There was nothing for him to say, no answer that could be enough, but he couldn’t keep a sound from escaping his throat anyway.  He needed this.  He felt like he needed this contact to survive, for his existence to have meaning.  He didn’t know if it was because it would help him keep Dean specifically, or if it was a general fear of eternal isolation.

Either way, his answer was unequivocal.  Castiel fell back into communion as soon as it was offered, and the painful, awkward edge of doubt disappeared instantly.  He was pressed up against Dean, Dean was pressed up against a headboard, and suddenly kissing was the most important thing in the world.  He was twelve, he was seventy-one, he was ageless and he knew what it was to trust this much.

It wasn’t just awareness.  It was the sharing of souls he’d been denied that first night.

It was everything.

It was flying over the ocean, wingtips trailing through the sparkles of sun on surf.  It was standing on top of a skyscraper that hadn’t been built yet, wind whipping through the canyons of human habitation.  It was life under the ocean, in the tropical canopy, on the moon.  It was everything either of them had ever done or would do, and a feel of growing peace blanketed everything.

It wasn’t the deepest communion he’d ever had: he agreed with himself on that, which was a strange feeling, because it might not be the deepest but it was close and it was rare.  He wasn’t used to the single point of view.  He couldn’t even wonder if this was what he’d felt when his grace was restored, because he knew it wasn’t.  This was more immediate, more accessible.

Easier.  Nicer.

Warmer.

This was half the connection that held him on earth.

He was with Jophiel in the archives.  He was with Gabriel at the beginning of time.  He watched Lisa unfold like the dawn, light through the forest as sun poured between the leaves.  He let Sachiel pull him toward the garden, down a well-worn path of starlight and clouds.  He saw Adamel staring at the tree as though eating the apple was the only reasonable choice.  He felt something cat-like nudge his ankles, except that when he looked it was brown and grey and wearing a little bow in between its very dog-like ears.

He didn’t know how many moments were passing.  He didn’t know whether or not his human heart was still beating.  His grace was sinking deeper into his soul, twining in on itself, and he approved.  He remembered certainty like this, the absolute reassurance of another being standing guard.  What they couldn’t do wasn’t worth doing.

Maribel wandered through at one point, and he didn’t miss it.  She wasn’t trying to be subtle, but it wasn’t until she recurred that he realized she was more than just a memory.  She was an angel.  A human.  A child of two races, because if she was here in this timeless joy then she was also of him.

Hi Daddy, she said.

They were standing in the middle of a stone circle, the perspective and the certainty easing enough that communication mattered again.  Dean was there next to him, disconcertingly separate.  Castiel wrapped his wings around his own shoulders to make sure they were still there – that he still existed as an individual entity – and Dean was watching.

“Sorry,” he said, the word echoing with comfort.  His grace swirled reassuringly, still bound up in Castiel’s.  Warmth rippled between them, and Dean was reaching out for Maribel.  “Still working on the disengaging thing.”

Castiel extended a wing for Maribel on the other side, and she slid into them without hesitation.  “Sam says they have a small problem,” she said, her voice not muffled despite the way she was pressed up against them.  “He says to tell you they’re handling it.”

Dean snorted.  He was crouching down, still leaning on Castiel but somehow closer to Maribel when their faces were on the same level.  “Sam always says that,” he told her.  “You know how often I believe it?”

“He says never,” she said.  “So he also told me that you should come back by three-thirty in the morning the day after you left.  To Australia.”

“Australia,” Dean repeated, glancing up at Castiel.  They couldn’t quite see each other from this angle, but Castiel knew he was looking.  He knew that Dean was interested and curious and still nowhere near ready to go charging off – except that it was Sam.  It might be Sam.  They didn’t even know what was happening, but there weren’t many things that could pull Dean away right now.

Sam was one of them.

“Samael asked for their help,” Maribel said, like that explained it.  “Well, your help, I guess, but you weren’t there so Sam and Gabriel are handling it.”

“Okay,” Dean said.  “How come we’re the only earth garrison that can deal with its own problems?”

“Because the Roadhouse is the only garrison defended by more than one archangel,” Castiel replied.  The mathematics of it were straightforward.  Unlike the travel likely required to get them from wherever they were back to earth at the requested time.  It was strange and a little disturbing to realize that he didn’t know how to do it.

“Yeah, right,” Dean scoffed.  “Lucifer is totally on Samael’s doorstep every time she turns around.”

Castiel considered this statement, the tone in which it was delivered, and the likelihood of Dean knowing anything about the other garrisons’ day-to-day business.  “Is that a euphemism?” he asked at last.

“What?”  Dean sounded more surprised than inquisitive.  “Dude, no.  I mean, literally: Lucifer’s spending a lot of time at Samael’s garrison.  You know.  With Jesse and Adamel and everything.

“Although I like the way you’re starting to think,” he added.

“Jesse and Adamel,” Castiel repeated, because he hadn’t known that.  “Are they often with Samael?”

Dean shrugged.  “They like Samael’s garrison because it’s near the water, I guess.  And Lucifer likes Samael, so.  They’re there a lot.”

“I visit them,” Maribel put in.  “Wildfire’s not allowed to.”

Castiel saw Dean attention track inevitably back to her.  “Really,” he said.  He wasn’t really asking, but Castiel couldn’t tell what he was thinking.  “Huh.”

“I can’t tell what you’re thinking,” Castiel said aloud.

“Join the club,” Dean told him.  He paused, though, maybe at the expression on Castiel’s face.  “Wait, really?”

“I can’t tell what you’re thinking either,” Maribel remarked.  “Gabriel doesn’t like it when I’m too loud.”

“Oh,” Dean said, then frowned.  “Okay, wait.  One, and most important, Gabriel can shove it.  Two, what do we think about Jophiel telling her kid to shun other angels?  And three –”

There was a brief but noticeable pause.  Castiel was aware of the warmth before he realized what was behind it.  Maribel hummed even as he smiled, and she burrowed deeper into Dean’s wings.  Castiel wished, fleetingly and impractically, that he was small enough to do the same.

“You’re warm again,” she murmured.

Which was forgivable since she was, after all, partly human.  Using temperature differentials to describe the sensation of grace was awkwardly effective for a human tongue... but it didn’t explain why he’d started to think of it the same way.  Michael’s grace was pouring over them, kind and generous and loving, and all he could do was think of Dean.

“That’s because I’m awesome,” Dean’s voice reminded him.  “Guess I went a little overboard with the whole giving you space thing.  It’s weird, but I don’t always notice when all the voices go away.”

“Maybe it’s because you’re partly human,” Maribel volunteered.  “Like me.  Sachiel says we’re lucky because we don’t need it as much, but I think that means we don’t notice as much, either.”

Castiel reached down and touched her hair.  Carefully.  More than a little uncertain.  Physical comfort was rarely given to new angels, as there should be no requirement for it.  But sometimes they came to it later in life, and Maribel, unlike most of her sisters before her, did have a physical form.

She was also very much Dean Winchester’s daughter.

“Good going, kiddo,” Dean was telling her.  “You just got something it takes most people a lifetime to learn: there’s always a tradeoff.  Having one thing means not having something else.  You gotta prioritize.”

“I’ll prioritize this,” she offered, from somewhere between the two of them.  “You’re my family.”

Dean laughed out loud.  His fingers raked through the underside of Castiel’s wing, his other hand patting Maribel’s shoulder like he wanted to pull her into a hug but didn’t have the right angle for it.  “You’re our kid all right,” he said, ignoring Castiel’s obvious concern.

“All of heaven is your family,” he reminded her.

“And earth,” she agreed.  “And maybe hell, if Lucifer ever lets Adamel actually talk to us.”

That... wasn’t the direction he’d expected her to go with that.  Though he found it hard to fault her logic.

He could feel Dean’s amusement at his confusion.

“Keep a good thought,” Dean said.  “Let’s go find Sam.  Everybody ready?”

“Yes,” Maribel said, her little wings flaring as she wriggled free of Dean and stepped toward the edge of the circle.  “I’m –”

“Whoa, there.”  It was the first time Castiel could remember Dean interrupting Maribel.  He made it sound lazy and unconcerned but it was evident that he didn’t want her stepping out on her own.  There was something about the circle, apparently.  Some sort of power that was... doing something.

It was frustrating to have no clear idea what was going on.

“All together,” Dean was saying.  “Okay?  Cas?”

“Yes,” he said.

And they were in Australia.  It might have been less disconcerting if he wasn’t so sure, but as it was the transition from unknown to completely familiar was staggering.  He didn’t even register the sub-tropical foliage until Dean whistled.

“Yeah,” Sam’s voice said.  “See?  That’s what I’m talking about.”

“Who cares if Dean’s surprised?”  That was Jesse asking, and Castiel didn’t think it was laziness or affection that made him use Dean’s human name.  It was, like so many other things Jesse did, a calculated move designed to achieve certain ends.  Namely, winning Michael’s sympathy and by extension, his protection.

“Maybe it’s a good surprised,” Jesse continued.  The fact that he sounded more like a human child than any of the angels didn’t escape Castiel.  “You don’t know.”

“It’s not a good surprise,” Sam said, with something that wasn’t quite an audible sigh.  “Trust me.  That’s the all-encompassing, ‘we’re about to be really screwed’ expression.  Right, Dean?”

His tone, Castiel thought, seemed designed to discourage conversation.

“Nah,” Dean replied.  Perhaps he hadn’t understood the tone.  “This is the ‘you’re already screwed and I’m gonna sit back and watch’ expression.  Anybody got any popcorn?”

Castiel knew from personal experience that most of what humans called the Australian continent was arid and often scorching.  This was not the experience that had greeted them on arrival, and although Maribel seemed intrigued by the unnatural variety of jungle and desert life presenting itself in her immediate vicinity, Castiel understood Sam’s concern.  Someone had radically altered both climate and ecosystem.  The global environment would be reeling.

“Dean.”  Sam packed an amount of irritation into that one name that Castiel could only aspire to, and he wondered absently if Sam might offer him some instruction in the matter.  “This isn’t the day after tomorrow.”

It was a scolding that meant little to Castiel, and it only made Dean grin, so he thought it probably hadn’t had the effect Sam intended.  Nonetheless.  Sam’s success rate when it came to making Dean do what he wanted was considerably higher than Castiel’s, so he paid attention.

“Dude, that movie was lame,” Dean was saying.  “This is not lame, therefore, it’s nothing like that movie.  Who did it?” he added, glancing around at the audience.

The two being singled out via significant glances and uncomfortable shrugs were Adamel and Jesse, which wasn’t exactly a surprise.  Samael had several angels with her, all of whom he recognized only nominally: angels from the early days of the fall.  Those who had been long gone from the halls of heaven before his voice ever joined the choir.

“Adamel,” Gabriel said.  He was leaning against a prickly tree, apparently unconcerned by the spikes.  His eyes flicked to the child in question, but his words were unmistakably for Castiel.  “Congratulations, Dad Jr.  It’s started.”

Castiel hadn’t spent his entire existence as a soldier only to mistake regret for revenge.  His sword stayed where it was.  He didn’t fail to notice, however, that Sam’s gaze on him was worried.

“Gabriel,” Sam muttered, though they could all hear him.  “Shut up.”

Gabriel didn’t answer.  He wasn’t following orders, Castiel thought.  He’d already given up, and he didn’t see any point in arguing over it.  He’d been forced to side with heaven once.  He’d explicitly tendered his resignation to Michael since, and this time Gabriel didn’t think exile would be enough.

This time, Gabriel expected to die.

“Hey, hey, whoa,” Dean said, breaking him out of the vision with a wing splayed against his own.  His hand cupped the back of Castiel’s neck, hot and reassuring.  “We’re not there yet.  We’re right here, we’re all fine.”

Adamel was looking at Jesse, who frowned.  “What’s going to happen to Gabriel?”

Dean held up a hand.  “Hang on – the choir.  You can hear it?”

Jesse gave him a confused look.  “The what?”

“Angel radio,” Dean said, gesturing incomprehensibly at his head.  “You can hear us talking?”

“No,” Jesse said, like it was a ridiculous question.  “I’m not an angel.”

“But you –” Dean began.

“Lucifer’s weird about asking questions,” Jesse said.  “I told Adamel he could ask me instead.”

“Okay, we’re not all telepathic,” Sam told them.  “Either tell me what’s going on, or tell me what we’re going to do about Australia.  The whole continent’s like this, by the way.  Apparently humans can’t see it yet.”

Dean gave him an odd look, and Sam shrugged.  “Most humans,” he added.

“Adamel,” Castiel said.  “Can’t you change it back?”

“I could,” Adamel agreed, looking up at him.

Castiel nodded, because that would seem to solve the problem.  “Do so, please.”

“Why?” Adamel asked bluntly.  “Isn’t it better this way?  Jesse says people die in the desert every year, and Sam says it’s not good when people die.  The death rate in jungles is lower, and the biodiversity is higher.  I like biodiversity.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel’s voice interrupted.  A glance at him revealed a meerkat peering intently at his knees.  “I see that.”

Castiel saw Sam glance at him, giving him a look that usually meant: like you should talk.

“Meerkats are desert creatures,” Castiel said.  “They will not survive long in this environment.”

Adamel followed his gaze.  “Is that a meerkat?”

Castiel’s eyes met Gabriel’s, but he wasn’t sure he’d find sympathy there.  He looked to Michael instead.  “They need full access to the choir,” he said.  “Children can not be expected to learn everything by word of mouth.”

“They have access to the choir,” Gabriel said.  “I can hear their cutesy questions every time I turn around.”

“You told us to be quiet,” Maribel declared.  She edged a little closer to Dean when Gabriel looked at her, but she continued stubbornly.  “You said, don’t touch my grace again.  So we didn’t ask anything that archangels could overhear, which was a lot, and then your grace came to us when you put us all in the Roadhouse and now we can’t keep you from noticing.  We try to only ask the important things, but we don’t know what’s important, so you get mad.”

It was, as far as Castiel knew, the most Maribel had ever said to Gabriel at one time.

“They’re angels,” Dean said firmly.  His hand slid off of Castiel’s shoulder, falling to the top of Maribel’s head.  Castiel looked down in time to see him mess up her hair – on purpose, it seemed – and one of Maribel’s wings flicked back against Dean’s.  “They can ask whatever they want.”

“Uh, excuse me,” Gabriel said.  The meerkat was circling him now, sniffing the trailing edges of Gabriel’s wings like it could sense that they were there and had no idea what to do with the information.  “But they’re not angels.  They’re curious, they’re disobedient, and they’re partially unformed, which is a totally human thing.  

Castiel went very still.  He felt Maribel’s confusion, but it was overwhelmed by Michael’s swift and electric rage.

“Gabriel,” Dean said, and his voice sounded calm.  Cold, perhaps.  It was hard to distinguish that human sound from the crackle of fury that had ignited his angelic form.  “Did you just disown every angel who’s disobeyed?”

Gabriel stared back at him.  Castiel knew exactly what he saw, knew too that the impression echoed through every angel in existence: the second son of God, filled with all of heaven’s power in the absence of the first.  The only angel ever granted the power of creation standing at his side.  And between them, pressed into the shelter of their wings, the heir to heaven and earth.

An heir, Castiel thought.  Not the first, and not the last.

This one would survive.  He would see to that.

Gabriel shifted.  His wings rose, curving away from his body so they wouldn’t bend with his motion.  He didn’t lower his eyes, but as he sank slowly to the ground his intent was clear.

For the first time since Michael had returned, Gabriel knelt.

“Did you,” Dean repeated tersely, “disown every angel who disobeyed a direct order.”

“No,” Gabriel said.  “I don’t own anyone.  No one’s mine to disown.”

“In the name of our father,” Dean said, raising his voice, “I claim as family every angel in creation.”

“In the name of our father,” Castiel murmured, and he heard the words echoed by Samael, by all of her soldiers, even by Gabriel.  He could feel them spreading through the host, repeated through sky and song.  As was their way.

“Okay,” Sam said with a sigh.  “I’m sure this is an angelic bonding moment and I’m sorry to interrupt, but Australia is still a jungle.  Eventually someone’s gonna notice.”

“Parts of Australia were always a jungle,” Maribel offered helpfully.

She hadn’t said “in the name of our father,” Castiel noted.  Clearly the children needed more angelic instruction than they were getting.  He opened his mouth to provide it, but Dean got there first.

“Gabriel’s right,” Dean said abruptly.  “They’re not just angels.  They’re human too.”

Castiel frowned, glancing at Gabriel, but he didn’t look any less confused.

“Uh, bro,” Gabriel said, still on one knee.  “Not so split hairs or anything, but that’s not exactly what I said.”

“Don’t remind me,” Dean snapped.  His wings were still sparking, lightning strong with a bleed of ozone that Castiel thought even Sam must be able to sense.  “And get up.  I’m sick of all this fucking submission.”

Castiel saw Sam raise an eyebrow, though whether it was the phrasing or the fact that Dean seemed to like it just fine when everyone did what he told them to, he couldn’t tell.  “You don’t seem to mind it when you’re giving orders,” Sam remarked.

Dean didn’t miss a beat.  “Shut up, bitch.”

It made Sam laugh out loud.  This seemed a strange reaction to Castiel, and given the way Gabriel’s sideways look went when he stood, he wasn’t the only one.  “You’re a jerk, Dean.”

“It’s the angel in me,” Dean replied.  “So to keep these kids on the straight and narrow, I say we send ’em to school.”

Sam grinned, though the look faded as he studied Dean’s expression.  “You’re not serious.”

Dean shrugged.  “Someone has to teach ’em science, and it’s not gonna be me.”

“They don’t need science,” Gabriel complained.  “They just need to be less stupid.”

“Well, they’re not gonna get that from you,” Dean retorted.  “Cas is the only one I’d trust to teach them human stuff, and he has other things to do.”

“I could –” Castiel began, uncertain what would be required.

“I need you for other things,” Dean repeated before he could finish.

“Dean,” Sam said.  “They’re not gonna learn anything from pre-school.”

“Sure they will,” Dean said.  “They’ll learn the stuff we don’t think to teach them.  Sharing and caring and muppets and stuff.  It’ll be good for ’em.”

“Dean,” Sam insisted.  “They’re not four years old!”

“They’re like two weeks,” Dean shot back.  “Aramel’s teaching them time travel.  Sach is teaching them to fight.  With swords.  You don’t think they could use a few muppets to teach them about the golden rule?”

Maribel reached up and put a hand on his belt, curling her fingers around it.  He still wasn’t entirely accustomed to the absence of his trench coat.  “What’s the golden rule?” she wanted to know.

“See?” Dean said, waving at Sam.

“It’s a human precept,” Castiel told her.  “It’s considered to be a divine or karmic instruction to do no harm.”

“Look,” Sam said.  “I’m not saying I’m against muppets.  But they’re not gonna pass in a classroom, and it’ll be ten years before they learn anything about science that Cas couldn’t tell them in five minutes.  Hell, I could give them a five-minute lecture that would be better than anything they’ll get in elementary school!”

“Yeah?” Dean said, giving Adamel a look.  “And how’s that going so far?”

“Science means you should recycle,” Jesse said.  “Global warming doesn’t make summer hotter, it just makes storms worse.  But I didn’t get that from school,” he added.  “That’s from the movie.”

“Yeah, well, score one for the movie of lame fame,” Dean grumbled.  “The point is, there’s stuff that lives in Australia.  It likes it here.  And it should get a say in what you do to the place.”

Adamel tilted his head curiously.  “The inhabitants of hell don’t get a say in what Lucifer does.”

He didn’t say it as though those rules had to apply everywhere, but it was very clear that he hadn’t realized they didn’t until now.  Castiel tried to breathe, tried to feel that sense of rote calmness that seemed to reassure Dean, because Lucifer wasn’t evil.  He had fallen, like so many others.  Fallen and evil were not synonymous.  Adamel could learn from Lucifer without –

“Cas.”  Sam sounded as flat and controlled as Dean’s human voice had when he was reprimanding Gabriel.  “That’s my kid.  He’s my son as much as he is Lucifer’s; you said he was.  I want a chance to answer his questions too.”

“I have a lot of questions,” Adamel said quickly, before Castiel could reply.  “Can I ask Sam?”

Castiel frowned.  “Of course.  You may ask anyone you choose.”

“Lucifer says I shouldn’t ask anyone in hell,” Adamel said.  “Except for him or Jesse.  Or Michael, when he’s there.”

Castiel shot Dean a surprised look, and Dean shrugged uncomfortably.  “Yeah,” he said.  “That’s, uh.  That’s probably good advice.  Right, Cas?”

“It’s not so much that you shouldn’t ask them,” Castiel said, “as it is that you shouldn’t believe anything they say.”

He could feel Maribel’s fingers curling on his belt again.  “Should I not believe anything the people in hell say either?” she wanted to know.

“No,” Dean said.  “Listen to Lucifer.  He knows who you can trust down there.”

“What’s everyone doing in hell?” Sam demanded.  “Since when did hell become a vacation destination?”

“We’re not there a lot,” Jesse said.  He looked awkward, and Castiel saw Sam soften the second he looked at him.  Jesse was very good at reading humans.  “We’re on earth, mostly.  But sometimes Samael’s busy, and I have do something else, so Lucifer lets Adamel stay in hell for a while.”

Sam held his hands out to the sides, glaring pointedly at Dean.  What the point was, exactly, Castiel was unsure.  But Dean seemed to get the message even before Sam exclaimed, “Why is my kid a latchkey?  I’m as close as we’re gonna get to a stay-at-home dad right now, Dean!”

Dean glanced at him, and Castiel blinked.  Some response was apparently expected from him, but he had no idea which one.

Dean sighed.  He dropped down into a crouch that put him at eye level with the kids, which Castiel had seen Sam do several times now.  He didn’t see the point, but then, they weren’t addressing him.  “You wanna spend some time with Sam, Adamel?”

“Yes,” Adamel said.  Then he added, “As long as Jesse can come too.”

“Anytime,” Sam promised.

Recklessly, Castiel thought, but it seemed that his opinion was no longer being sought.

“We need you to put Australia back the way it was,” Dean was telling Adamel.  “Dad made it that way for a reason, okay?”

“Why are humans allowed to change it?” Adamel asked.

Dean exchanged glances with Sam, but it was Gabriel who answered.

“Because they suck at it,” Gabriel said.  The meerkat had scampered up to his shoulder while he was kneeling, and it still perched there now.  Hanging off of one arm, batting idly at one of Gabriel’s wings.  Gabriel didn’t seem to notice.  “They’re so slow, see, the world has time to compensate.  It works with them.  It’s kind of a symbiotic thing.”

Adamel considered that.  “The way heaven works with angels?” he asked at last.

“Yeah,” Gabriel said.  “In the fairy tale version of life, sure.  Let’s go with that.”

Sam shot him a warning look, and Gabriel made a face right back at him.

“What’s a fairy tale?” Adamel wanted to know.

“It’s a story where one character gets what they want and another character doesn’t,” Maribel said.  “It’s supposed to teach people how to behave through warnings and promised rewards.”

Gabriel snorted.  “It’s a candy-coated version of ‘do what I say, not what I do,’” he said.  “If people didn’t act like douchebags, they wouldn’t need fairy tales.”

Sam was talking to Dean while Gabriel spoke, muttering, “You really want to send a kid like that to school?”  He proved that he hadn’t missed Gabriel’s answer by adding, “Gabriel, you turn life into a fairy tale.  On purpose.”

“Nothing wrong with candy,” Gabriel replied.

“Come on, Sammy,” Dean was saying.  “They’ll be just like you.  Teachers loved you.”

“Teachers hated me,” Sam said.  “I was a freak.  Don’t put them through that, Dean.”

“Sam, it’s kindergarten,” Dean said.  “Hell, it’s pre-school.  It’s cutting out paper crowns and putting frosting on cookies.”

Sam rolled his eyes.  “And what’s that going to teach them?”

“It’ll teach ’em that there’s good things about humanity,” Dean retorted.  “Like paper crowns and frosted cookies and kindergarten teachers with stickers.  It’ll teach ’em about democracy and chocolate milk and lining up in alphabetical order.  What d’you want, Sam?  You want them to grow up in an angel garrison?  You want them to grow up in hell?”

That made Sam flinch.  “No, of course not.”

Dean didn’t relent.  “You’re the one who said Dad shouldn’t have given you a gun,” he said.  “They’ve already got swords.  The least we can do is let them have some freakin’ Sesame Street in their spare time.”

“Okay,” Sam snapped, glaring at him again.  “Okay, I get it.  I get that you want to give them happy kid stuff, Dean, but they’re not kids.  Maribel already knows languages I’ve never even heard of!”

“And she can’t sing the alphabet song in any of them,” Dean countered.  “I dunno about you, but I think that’s a crying shame.”

Maribel tugged on his belt again, and Castiel braced himself for the inevitable question.  “What’s the alphabet song?” she murmured.  As though she didn’t think she was supposed to interrupt, but she wasn’t sure how important this might be.

Unfortunately, he would be no help there.  “I don’t know,” he said quietly.

“See,” Dean said.  He didn’t look at Castiel, but there was no doubt he’d heard.  “It’ll be good for everyone.  Vicarious remedial kindergarten.  I’m sure we’ll all learn something.”

Castiel didn’t realize then, as the trees retreated and the desert wind gusted around them once more, that he would remember this as the day Michael took back heaven.  He thought he could be forgiven the oversight, since it didn’t actually happen in heaven, and the rest of the host would by and large point to the day Michael’s grace was restored.  Or, more commonly among the fallen, the day Dean re-opened the gates.

Those were important markers, to be sure.  But the moment they returned to the Roadhouse garrison, Dean recruited Gabriel to discuss heaven-earth integration.  Not in the name of the nephilim, he said, but for the fallen angels.  Whether this was his actual motivation or not, it was veiled in a way Gabriel would accept, and Castiel found himself the unexpected focus of their planning.

He wasn’t sure he was representative of the fallen, and he said so.  When Dean used the term “hunted,” though, Gabriel was immediately on board.  “Yeah, do you even know how many angels you went through?” he demanded.  “Whew.  They sure regretted training you.”

Horrified, Castiel could only stare at him.  “I took no pleasure in standing against my brothers in battle,” he said stiffly.

“See, there you go,” Gabriel said, nodding to Dean.  “He’s like the poster child for post traumatic stress.  It’s perfect.”

“Leave him alone,” Dean snapped.  “I personally think the first step in this plan is for you to stop being such a fuckwad.”

“And the step before that is for you to realize I never will,” Gabriel retorted.  “Buck up, Dean-el.  Your boy is touched by God; I think he can take a little ribbing.”

“He shouldn’t have to,” Dean told him.  “They’ve all been through enough.”

“Well, we could use you as a guinea pig if you weren’t totally contaminated by human weirdness,” Gabriel said bluntly.  “Seriously, do you even notice when he cuts you off from the choir?  ’Cause the rest of us do.”

“Yes,” Dean said, but it was automatic and he frowned as soon as the word was out.  “Sometimes.  Most of the time.”

“Weird,” Gabriel said in a singsong.

Sam had taken Adamel off on a tour of the Roadhouse as soon as they returned.  A quiet tour, since it was very early in the morning by human reckoning, and for once Ellen’s rooms really were full.  Castiel couldn’t be sure that Dean had dragged Gabriel into this conversation in order to give Adamel time alone with a human, but the chances seemed good.

“Look, I’m not a good model,” Dean was saying.  “I was born.  I grew up human.  I know what it’s like, and I’m used to way more isolation than any of you guys.”

“Hello, what did I just say.”  Gabriel kicked his feet up on the table and leaned back in his chair.  “Why are we talking about this now, anyway?  Aren’t you supposed to be off popping Cas’ cherry?”

“Weren’t you supposed to stop eavesdropping on Sam and Sarah?” Dean retorted.

“You don’t think it’s strange that she just happens to be up at four in the frickin’ morning?” Gabriel countered.  “Because I think that’s strange.  I’m just doing the kid a favor, making sure he doesn’t get eaten by a succubus or something.”

“One, succubi don’t eat you,” Dean said.  “Two, Sarah’s not a succubus.”

“I like how that came second,” Gabriel put in.

Sarah had been up, but Castiel was used to humans keeping odd hours.  They were all up, after all.  Maribel had been perfectly happy to accompany Adamel on the tour Sam offered, and Sarah had gone with them when Sam mentioned the barn.  That, Castiel supposed, was Gabriel’s own fault for creating it in the first place.

“Let him have some normal company for a change,” Dean was saying.  “D’you know how many human friends he has right now?”

“Yeah, all of them,” Gabriel retorted.  “This place is overflowing with humans, and they all love Sam.  Don’t try to play the pity card with me, Dean-o.  I’m immune.”

“You mean you’re a heartless bastard,” Dean said.

Gabriel shrugged.  “One man’s heart is another man’s smashed-up woodland corpse on the side of the road, bloodless and alone.”

Castiel considered that, glancing at Dean while he did so, and to his surprise he found Dean looking back.  While he suspected that comparing one’s heart to roadkill was not particularly eloquent, even by today’s standards of language use, it did send a message.  One that Gabriel could only have intended for them to receive.

“What?” Gabriel was asking.  “Not Zeppelin enough for you?”

“Did you just compare yourself to a dead chipmunk?” Dean replied.

“More relevantly,” Gabriel said, “I compared your brother to a very fast car.”

Dean seemed not to disagree, which wasn’t unexpected given that Sam wasn’t within earshot.  “He has his moments,” Dean said.

Castiel was more interested in the fact that Gabriel was still calling Sam Dean’s brother.  Not “your human brother,” or “your other brother.”  Or, knowing Gabriel, “your not-brother.”  Just “your brother.”

“Yeah, so, speaking of that,” Gabriel began, and Dean held up a hand.

“Dude,” he said, “I really don’t want to hear it.  Believe me, I know way too much already.”

“Did you know about his soul?” Gabriel demanded.

Castiel reached for Sam’s soul immediately, too aware of Dean’s concern to let such an implication go.  He found nothing unexpected there.  Sam’s soul was bright and present, untainted by the blood that coursed through his veins.

Dean was glaring at Gabriel.  “What are you talking about?”

“It’s not human,” Gabriel said.  “You didn’t know?  How could you not know?  You’re like conjoined twins; you never communed with him?”

“Why would I have done that?” Dean retorted.  “He’s human; he doesn’t –”

“So were you, and that didn’t stop Cas,” Gabriel said.  “True, you were totally oblivious, but he hung out in your head like it was a hobby.”

“Sam’s got a weird psychic thing,” Dean said.  “I can’t read his mind.  Neither could you,” he added suspiciously.  “Last I knew.”

“I don’t think it’s a psychic thing,” Gabriel said, ignoring the implicit question.  “I think it’s an anti-angel thing.”

Castiel slid his awareness closer to Sam’s soul.  He had always been closer to Dean, but there was nothing about Sam’s mind that warned him away.  He slipped in, easy and inoffensive – and out the other side.  Or off.  There wasn’t anything there.  He could see Sam when he looked for him, but when he reached out, it was as though he wasn’t there at all.

He tried again, with similar results.  He didn’t see anything to indicate that the illusion, or diversion, or whatever it was, had anything but accidental intent behind it.  There was no reason to think Sam knew what he was doing, or that he was doing it on purpose.  There wasn’t anything to say the effects were specific to angels, either.

On the other hand, there was also no evidence to the contrary.

“I know what you’re doing,” Dean said without looking at him.  “He’s not a science experiment.”

He was a potential threat.  Castiel knew better than to say so aloud.

“The demon blood didn’t mess up his soul,” Dean told Gabriel.  “I’m the one who went to hell.”

“Has nothing to do with his demonic tendencies,” Gabriel said.  “Though sadly, I now believe you really didn’t know.  That little revelation is more disappointing than I expected.”

Dean narrowed his eyes.  “How do you know?” he demanded.  “If you didn’t read his mind, where’d you get it from?”

“It’s not in his mind,” Gabriel said.  “He has no idea.”

“So, what,” Dean growled, like he already knew.  Castiel abandoned Sam’s supposedly non-existent thoughts long enough to brush up against Dean’s, and Dean relaxed the slightest bit.  “What does that even mean?”

“Means exactly what you think it means,” Gabriel said, smirking at him.  “He asked for it.”

“He didn’t ask for communion,” Dean snapped.  “What’s your problem with his soul, anyway?”

“His soul knocked me clear across the room when I got hold of it long enough to drag it through his conscious mind,” Gabriel informed him.  “Or try, anyway.  I don’t know how much of it he got, but I got my head against the wall and the rest of me on the floor.  It was a little undignified.”

“Good for him,” Dean said.  He didn’t seem bothered by the fact that such a thing shouldn’t be possible, but Castiel frowned at Gabriel in confusion.  “Could we get back to the point, here?”

“Oh, do tell,” Gabriel drawled.  “I can’t wait to hear what you think the point is.”

“The point is,” Dean said, “you’re an archangel with nothing to do except protect a garrison that won’t take your power, and it’s making you freakin’ crazy.  Not that it’s easy to tell, considering how weird you are normally, but we gotta do something for them.  And you.”

Castiel transferred his surprise to Dean, but Gabriel just sneered.  “Aw, Michael, you care!” he exclaimed.  “What’s next, half-off counseling?  A trip to the spa?  Happy Boss’ Day cards?”

Dean was looking at him again.  Not Gabriel.  Michael was trying to repair the fractured host, one garrison – possibly one angel – at a time, and a fair amount of that effort still seemed to involve Castiel’s opinion.

He found he didn’t mind.

“How much do we reach out to them?” Dean was asking him.  “Do we have to sit back and let ’em come to us, or could Gabriel start doing what he did tonight more often?  Last night?  Whenever.  You know what I mean.”

He did.  That didn’t mean he had an answer.  “I’m afraid we’re not as uniform as we once were,” he said at last.  “Those who’ve fallen most recently may not yet realize they can ask.  Those who’ve been on earth longer may have learned... they may not think to reach out.”

“Or they could be too scared to,” Dean finished for him.  “Look, do we need to declare some kind of all-encompassing immunity, here?  I don’t know how to do this, but we’ve gotta make people more comfortable.”

Gabriel made a strange buzzing sound that Castiel didn’t recognize, but Dean gave him a glare.  “Sorry, try again,” Gabriel said.  “Can’t make people be comfortable.  You forgave ’em, you opened the gates – it’s up to them to walk through.”

“Yeah, and what about you?” Dean countered.  “You have to stop yourself from pouring grace on every single one of them; I’ve seen you.  I see you right now, trying not to freak Cas out by keeping your wings to yourself.  He’s not even one of yours and you still want to.”

“He should be,” Gabriel said unexpectedly.  “He should be mine.  Or yours.  Or someone’s.  He’s a soldier without a battalion, and eventually that’s gonna grate.”

Castiel stared at him in what might generously be called shock.  “Eventually?”

“Whoa,” Dean said.  “Okay, you’re pissed.  My bad.  Are we talking deadly sins kind of bad, or not getting any for a week bad?”

“That’s a terrible scale,” Gabriel told him.  “It goes straight from awesome to seriously inconvenient.”

“Not helping,” Dean said.

“Oh, you dug that hole all on your own,” Gabriel replied.  “Enjoy your time as a bunny.”

“This isn’t a joke,” Castiel said, horrified by their nonchalance.  “We are soldiers, all of us, and to fall from the hierarchy that gave us form is the end of everything we knew.  It’s the end of our world.”

The half-smile was gone from Dean’s face.  “I know, Cas,” he said.  “I get it.  I really do.”

Castiel didn’t think he really did.  “You think the apocalypse is bad?” he said.  “The destruction of everything you care about, every reason you’ve ever had to give a damn what happens to this planet?  Try not having it in the first place: no caring, no reason, just a gaping hole where the meaning of your existence used to be.  Tear that out and then say it’s an inconvenience.  Compare it to not having sex, because clearly the lack of a single physical pleasure is very much like dying.”

“I could make a case,” Gabriel remarked.  “Depends which pleasure.”

“Shut up,” Dean said, not looking at him.  “Cas.  I did.  I lost that too, okay?  I’m not saying it’s like it was for you, but it sure sucked.”

“You forgot,” Castiel snapped.  “Don’t tell me you know what it’s like to go on without heaven.  You forgot it even existed.”

“Yeah,” Dean said.  He was just standing there.  “You’re right.  I couldn’t handle it.  I ran.”

Anger.  It was anger he was feeling, and he only recognized it as it went, collapsing completely at Dean’s unflinching admission of guilt.  “Why?” he said quietly.  He didn’t care why Michael had done it, why he’d had to do it himself, what had led them to the place where they were.  He just wanted it to be over.  “Why are we so alone?”

“Cas –”  Dean made an abortive motion toward him, and Castiel looked away.  Before he knew it, Dean’s hands were on his shoulders, and his head jerked up in surprise.  “I could say you’re not alone,” Dean was saying.  “Not really.  But we all are, right?  That’s why we have choices.  When we were all the same we had one goal, one way of seeing things.  What one person saw, everyone saw.  It doesn’t work that way anymore.”

“Free will’s a lonely business,” Gabriel drawled.  “You could start a band.”

“You’re still part of something,” Dean said, ignoring Gabriel.  “I figured if you wanted in on one of the garrisons, you’d just sign up or something.  Since you haven’t, I thought you were, uh... maybe you kind of liked the fallen thing.”

“I hate it,” Castiel said.  He didn’t understand how this could be a question.  “I thought it was obvious that I am part of your garrison.”

“Mine?” Dean repeated.  “Or Gabriel’s?”

He sensed that he was supposed to know the answer to this question, but it didn’t make any sense.  “Is there a difference?”

“Yeah,” Dean said, an odd smile on his face.  “There’s gonna be a difference.”

He didn’t understand, but if this loneliness was a consequence of free will, then the least he could do was exercise his choice.  “Yours,” he said.

“Amen,” Dean agreed.  He lifted a hand and pressed two fingers to Castiel’s forehead.

Grace poured over him, into him, pulling him apart.  He was vaguely aware of his head falling back before every image of the Roadhouse faded into memory.  In its place was bright, unfiltered sunlight and a sort of pine scent.  The circle of stones was much larger and the ground less barren, with tiny shoots of green along the edges.  They had shadows, now.

“Huh,” Dean said, staring around them.  “That shouldn’t have happened.”

“Where are we?” Castiel asked, because he hadn’t gotten the chance last time.  He still couldn’t tell.

“Heaven,” Dean said absently.  “Hang on.”

Just like that, they were back at the bar with Gabriel, his feet banging to the floor as Jophiel came in.  Castiel couldn’t fathom either reaction, nor did he know what to make of Jophiel’s expression.  All of it was overshadowed by the flood of conviction and strength that made him feel as though he stood in heaven still.

“Castiel,” Jophiel said.  “I understand that Maribel and Adamel are to attend a human school.”

“Yes,” he said.  Such a simple word, yet it felt right.  It felt strong.

“Wildfire too,” Dean said.

It felt like he had an army at his back.

“I fail to comprehend the goal of such a thing,” Jophiel was saying, almost lost in the sense of how little it mattered.  “Surely there is nothing more a human educational system could impart than what we will teach them ourselves.”

“Surely if that were true,” Dean mimicked, “the host wouldn’t have to rely on humans to solve our problems for us.”

“Gabriel,” Ellen’s voice cut in.  “Don’t think I believe your feet haven’t been on that table.”

Ellen herself had arrived alone, but she was quickly followed by Sam and Jesse and the two children.  The Roadhouse was waking up, the barn had apparently exhausted its entertainment value, and angels were beginning to appear for check in.  Yet in the midst of everything, Castiel felt only calm.  Confident.  Certain in a way he might have forgotten was possible.

It was, truth be told, somewhat frightening.

“Picky,” Dean whispered in his ear.

He didn’t jump, though if Sam’s reaction was anything to go by, Dean hadn’t been standing next to him a moment ago.  He didn’t jump because why would he?  Michael felt like everything he’d been trying to run from and the only thing he’d ever wanted, all at the same time.

“That sucks,” Dean murmured.  “Didn’t even think of that.  I just figured the garrisons would be useful, right?  If they make people more comfortable, it’s all good, but I definitely wasn’t expecting them to freak people out with flashbacks or anything.”

Dean would call that reading his mind, and had in the past protested the treatment loudly.  Now Castiel was just glad that Michael could find something of import in what was there, because as soon as he started thinking about it he got stuck in a focused mental loop.  It involved Dean’s proximity, Dean’s desirability, and what had happened the last time the combination was so spectacular.

He felt Dean chuckle.  Though he remembered numerous discussions of which displays of public affection were acceptable and which were not, which had been uninteresting and uneventful considering the topic, he had very little idea what might be appropriate here.  That wouldn’t stop him from trying.

“If you’re going to be in my head,” Castiel said, “you might as well make yourself known.”

Dean laughed again, drawing more than just Sam’s attention this time.  “Put up or shut up, huh?  I can do that.”

Welcome to the garrison, Michael’s voice added in his head, and Castiel drew in a sharp breath as an arm was slung over his shoulders.  It used to be bigger.

Michael’s garrison had once been the most formidable of heaven.  Soldiers who wore his sigil were hallowed and heeded without question.  Everyone was heeded without question, as all their orders came from the same place.  But Michael... the first four archangels had seen the face of God, and Michael was one of only three who remained.  His garrison was the oldest, the strongest, and the most sure.

You emptied it on purpose, Castiel thought.  He hadn’t understood until now that Michael’s garrison no longer existed.  Not in any form.  This congregation on earth, this gathering of angels that filled a human structure... this stood in Gabriel’s name, despite the way Dean casually claimed its allegiance as his own.

Michael was a rallying cry and an omen of hope.  Not a field commander.

You’re all mine, Michael replied.  Not just the few, but the whole of heaven.

He wasn’t going to fill another garrison.  The five that stood were the five that would remain, unless – 

Castiel could see Lucifer in Michael’s mind, hovering always on the edge of his thoughts.

You took me, he said.  Michael’s relationship with Lucifer, like Dean’s with Sam, was not for him to understand.  Not unless he could somehow grasp it on his own.  He knew without asking that it wasn’t something Dean could ever explain.

Yeah, not really so much, Michael said, and in that moment he sounded exactly like Dean.  You took me, actually.

Castiel reached out for a connection he hadn’t had to learn and could never forget: the solid bond of garrison support.  It had been missing these long years, an absent ache that had started even before he’d understood what he was doing.  Before he realized the road he was on would lead him back to a home he’d never had, destroying everything he’d thought he knew in the process.

It was there.  It was the source of his sudden certainty, that feeling that there was another behind him if he fell.  It was Dean’s grace that augmented his, Dean standing up beside him... Dean, in his mind, kneeling before him.

Congratulations.  Michael sounded frighteningly amused.  You have your own garrison.

No, Castiel thought pushing indiscriminately at the vision.  No, I don’t want this.

Yeah, you do.  Michael’s words were followed by a disturbing echo, farther away than he’d expected when he remembered where they were.  The fleeting image of the Roadhouse, with a five o’clock rush at the wrong end of the day, was mostly filtered through Dean’s perception.  And it was Dean’s whisper that added, “I pledge allegiance to the sigil of Castiel.”

No, Castiel repeated, floundering in the fear that flared bright and sharp in the middle of his confusion.  His grace was overwhelmed, the presence of an archangel so close drowning out every other awareness, and that was wrong.  He knew it was wrong, knew Michael should amplify his connection to the host, not smother it.  DEAN.

Dean wasn’t there, hazy and indistinct through heated intent that Castiel couldn’t resolve into reality.  Michael wanted to kneel.  Dean had never knelt.  His pledge was false, the vision a travesty.  Castiel shoved hard at the grace tangling around him, clawing at tendrils of unwelcome pleasure and unconditional support, frantic to get free.  To find Dean.

Hey.  The light was dimming, burning, trying to pull away.  They were tripping over each other, hot as stars tearing through the void, and he heard Dean whisper, “Hey.  Cas.  It’s okay.  Okay, it’s okay.  I’m right here.”

“Dean,” he gasped, hands clenching in an effort to hold on.  He felt fabric tear under his fingers and scrabbled against it, pulling harder.  He felt Michael’s grace falter in its retreat and he blasted it with the force of his own fury and agonizing loss.

Dean’s hands were rough on his arms.  He was holding on, holding him down, keeping them from getting any closer.  “Cas,” Dean whispered.  He looked like he was in pain.  “Get it together.”

It took Castiel long seconds to remember he shouldn’t be able to do that.  He tried to throw off the restraint, tried to yank himself free, and he stumbled when one of those hands let go.  Dean’s fist slammed into his jaw.  His head twisted with the blow and he felt the floor hit him hard, mean enough to shock a feeling of heat into his skin.

Michael had pulled his punch, he thought numbly.

“This isn’t the way we solve most of our problems,” Sam was saying, and the words drifted through a roar of celestial chaos.  “Jesse.  Would you take them upstairs, please?”

Castiel could feel the attention of the archangels, deafening in its shared intensity.  Apparently he was now considered a threat to the second son.  Michael’s voice, in contrast, was gentle and soft and maybe as close to a whisper as an archangel could get.  Castiel thought distantly that it wasn’t very convincing, but his brethren seemed to accept the reassurance.

“Forget it,” he heard Gabriel say.  “Let them stay.”

“Gabriel,” Sam said.

“You want them to not know?” Gabriel countered.  “They have eyes, Sam.  They can hear the host.  They’re half human and they’re not entirely stupid.  What do you think their imaginations are gonna come up with if you don’t let them watch?”

“This one of those things humans should stay out of?” Ellen’s voice asked.

“Yes,” Sam and Gabriel said at the same time.

“Cas.”  Dean’s voice came from somewhere that wasn’t nearly far enough away.  “I’m not messing with you, okay?  I didn’t know the garrison oath would come across like that.  I shouldn’t have joked about it.”  There was a brief hesitation, and he sounded more forceful when he said, “I’m sorry, man.  I screwed up.”

It sounded just like Dean.  It was what Dean might have said, and it sounded as embarrassed and frustrated as Dean would have been.  Borderline angry, which was, after all, Dean’s default setting.  His eyes found and focused on that face, and the lack of light there was shocking.

He was on his feet without thinking, without being sure which way he was going to move.  Toward Dean or away.  Michael’s grace wasn’t gone, wasn’t even completely suppressed, but it was pressed down clumsily beneath power and dismay.  His wings were a ghostly outline of waning grace, fading even as Castiel watched.

“Dean,” Sam said warily.  He would be able to see it too, and perhaps his concern was understandable, but Castiel felt a sharp spike of anger at the intrusion.  Dean was his.

“Yeah, about that,” Dean said.  He sounded careful and... contained.  “I think whatever creation powers you got work for this, too.  Which kind of makes sense, I guess, but it’s not like we’ve ever had to figure it out before.  What makes an archangel?  No one ever asked.  We just were.  But now you’re...”

“Wait,” Sam interrupted.  “Cas is an archangel?”

Castiel glared at him for the continued distraction, but Dean didn’t answer.  No one did.  He looked at Gabriel, because it was easier to stare at him than Dean right now, and received nothing but a shrug in return.

So he turned back to Dean.  The wings were all but gone, and Dean’s eyes shone with something that wasn’t grace.  They glinted in the light of the Roadhouse, reflecting sparks of human electricity from lamps and the grey predawn blur through the windows.  There was nothing else behind them.

Tears, Castiel realized abruptly.  Dean’s eyes were filled with tears.

“Shut up,” Dean ground out, though no one had said anything since Sam spoke.  “You try putting your grace in a hole.  It fucking hurts, okay?”

“Dean,” Ellen snapped.  “Little ears.”

“We’ve heard much worse,” Maribel told her.

“I’m sure you have, honey.”

“Stop,” Castiel whispered.

Dean drew in a shuddering breath, and the faintest wisp of pain escaped his careful control.  It whipped wildly across the intervening space, lancing Castiel’s wing with a shock of pure agony.  Unprepared, he heard an all-too-human sound of distress escape and knew it came from him.

Dean only stared.  He knew containing the horror of what he was doing prevented any expression of sympathy, but the hollow-eyed look was awful and angelic and Castiel didn’t care.  “Stop,” he repeated.  His voice was unsteady and he didn’t know that he meant it.  But it had to be said.

“Make up your mind,” Dean gritted, skin flushing as the effort started to tear at his human form.

“Dean,” Castiel insisted.  It was instantly wrong, and he knew why.  “Michael.  Please.”

“You’d be happier with just Dean,” Dean whispered.  The separation of his grace could kill him.  He might die anyway; there was a reason he and Anael had chosen to forget.  To lose something like that, to be so incomplete...

They’d all fallen.  They all knew.

“I need all of you,” Castiel said, watching his human vitals as intently as his fading grace.  If this was his responsibility, if this was on him, then heaven was right.  He was a threat to Michael.  Which wouldn’t have bothered him at all if he could be sure where Dean ended and Michael began.  “I want you whole.”

The light wavered, and he didn’t think it had been right, it hadn’t been enough.  He searched desperately for some truth that would convey how much he didn’t want Dean to hurt like this, how far he would go to save Dean from this kind of existence.  He couldn’t find it.

“God damn it, Cas.”

He reached out even as Dean crumpled.  They staggered against a chair while the jagged edges of Michael’s crushed grace raced to repair themselves.  They might have gone down if Castiel hadn’t been able to brace his arm against the table, his grace surging into the pain.  Trying to fill the cracks and chasms with his own faith.

Dean groaned, falling into the chair, and the table splintered beneath his grip.  “Ow,” he grunted, leaning into the hand Castiel brought up to hold his head.  “Ow.  Ow.  Ow.”

“Don’t be such a baby,” Castiel muttered.  He was fighting the sucking wound that Michael himself had created, siphoning grace like accelerant, feeling it burn, burn him, burn Dean.  It was so much better than the cutting agony of a soul under attack that he let it, trying to speed the recovery process as best he could.

“Ow, fuck, Cas –”  Dean shoved him hard and Castiel lashed out instinctively, pouring more grace into him, depleting everything he had and feeling the host fall into line behind him with the force of divine inspiration.  Michael’s wings flashed, incandescent and inevitable with the influx of power.  Dean’s body shuddered and slumped against him.  He wrapped grace around it until the burn abated and the pain was pushed away, wringing a moan out of Dean and Castiel realized he was shaking.

Him.  Not Dean.  He tried to will it away, tried to stop it, because it was unnecessary and distracting and humans would find it odd.  They did have what Dean might consider an unfortunate number of human onlookers right now.

He couldn’t stop the shaking.

“I’m not exactly comfortable with this,” he heard Ellen telling Sam.  Her voice was probably low by human standards.

“Cas knows what he’s doing,” Sam replied.

Ellen snorted.  “Well, Dean doesn’t,” she said.  “And I’ve seen them together.”

Tell Ellen.  Dean’s voice was weak against the thunder of heaven, a thready sound that strengthened with every word.  To have some fucking faith for once.

Keep talking, Castiel told him.

Aloud, he added, “Ellen, Dean would like you to have faith.”

There was complete silence from the room, and he couldn’t tell how different that might or might not be from what had just been happening.  He hadn’t had much attention to spare for the physical space they occupied.  He heard Ellen huff now, though, a sharp breath that he thought must be relieved.  “I’m sure that’s exactly what he’d like.”

It’s your garrison, Dean said.  You got that, right?  I dunno what makes an archangel, no idea if you qualify or not, but it sure looks like your grace can hold angels’ allegiance.  You can strengthen them the way we used to strengthen you.

“Don’t try to do that,” Gabriel was telling Maribel and Adamel.  “They’re both boneheads; we don’t need anyone imitating them.”

“You all helped Castiel,” Maribel said.  “When he tried to fix Dean.”

“Fix him?” Sam repeated.

Castiel lowered his head and breathed into Dean’s hair, “I don’t want an oath from you.”  He didn’t know why he didn’t want anyone else to hear.  Michael’s allegiance was everyone’s business.

Too fucking bad, Dean replied.  You’ve got one.

“I can’t bind Michael,” Castiel whispered.  “I won’t have him pretend.”

He felt Dean hesitate, knew it wasn’t clear, didn’t understand how to make Dean see that he could be manipulated.  There was one thing that Castiel would give anything for, and Michael knew it.  Michael knew it all.  He could play, he could pretend, he could turn both their lives into hell on earth just by making Dean say a few words.

A few words he didn’t mean.

What’s binding have to do with it? Dean asked, face still buried in his chest.  I’m against binding.  Binding sucks.  What’ve we been fighting for all this time if not the right to do away with freakin’ binding rituals?

It occurred to Castiel suddenly that everything Dean was saying would reverberate through the ranks of the host – and it would spread with the power of Michael behind it.  “You said,” he whispered, very softly.  “You said you were mine.”

I can say whatever I want, Dean told him.  You’re not making me do it.

But it wasn’t Dean’s word he doubted.

He knew the instant Dean understood, because his own grace screamed in sympathetic agony.  He held on tighter, refusing to let Dean cut away anything that didn’t slice through him as well, and Dean fingers grasped at his clothes like he could physically stop the wounds he was inflicting.  Fuck you, Cas, let me go!

Castiel breathed, silent and momentarily safe.  Dean wouldn’t hurt himself if it meant hurting him too: not like this, not this badly.  He wouldn’t.  Castiel wouldn’t either, and they both knew it.

If you don’t trust Michael, Dean said, you don’t trust me.  Let me be who you want me to be, Cas.  Please.

“No,” Castiel said.  He wasn’t whispering anymore, didn’t care.  “I trust you.”

You think Michael’s giving you Dean as a freakin’ reward for good behavior.  The anger and frustration behind the words made them snarl through Castiel’s mind.  Dean’s body was still braced against his, head on his chest and his hands gripping Castiel’s hips like he was actually there.  Like holding onto his body meant holding onto his soul.

On the other hand, Castiel’s wings cradled Dean’s fragile human form like it might be torn from him at any moment, so perhaps he shouldn’t judge the gesture.

“You knelt,” Castiel murmured.  “Dean would never kneel.”

Cas.  Dean’s voice sounded exasperated.  You’re really hard to flirt with, you know that?

He froze, and the trembling was all the more obvious.  It was starting to annoy him.  “What?”

“I’m making coffee.”  Ellen’s words drifted through the accumulating angels.  They were reporting, Castiel knew, but they weren’t leaving when they were done.  “Someone let me know if you need a gun.”

“Cas,” Dean muttered, pushing himself up within Castiel’s embrace.  He didn’t step back, didn’t try to pull away, but it was clear that the infusion of grace had done its job.  He was standing on his own, and his mouth was right next to Castiel’s ear.  “There’s other reasons to kneel in front of a guy.  I wanna show you, but not here.  Not now, okay?”

You were propositioning me, Castiel thought.

On the other side of the room, he heard Gabriel laugh.

Dean’s hands crept up, sliding over his neck and cupping the back of his head as he pressed their foreheads together.  Fuck yeah I was, he said.  You’re still a fucking virgin and that’s on me, Cas.  That’s all me.  Makes me look bad, you know?

No.  He didn’t know, and he didn’t understand, and sometimes he thought that at least Michael made sense.

“Yeah, well,” Dean breathed against his mouth.  “You frustrate the hell out of me, too.”

“They probably won’t kill each other,” Gabriel said, apparently taking pity on Sam.  “Whether they die of sexual frustration in the meantime is a whole other thing.”

“Really don’t need the details,” Sam said with a sigh.

“You’re not supposed to talk about that around us,” Jesse informed them.

“What are you, the prude police?” Gabriel demanded.  “Where do you think you came from?”

“Not from two gay dads,” Jesse replied.

“I don’t understand what that means,” Maribel said.  “What aren’t we supposed to talk about now?  What are the prude police?  And why don’t you have two dads, Jesse?  Don’t you have two moms?”

For a long moment, all Castiel heard or cared about was the sound of Dean’s heartbeat, steady and reassuring under his hands.  The front of Dean’s shirt had been shredded.  He still hadn’t fixed it, and Castiel didn’t know if that said more about the level of his distraction or the level of his grace.

“Dean,” Sam said.  “Your kid has some questions.”

“You messed up my shirt,” Dean murmured.  “You can fix it.”

He lifted his hand to Dean’s collar and dragged it down, trailing heat through the fabric that re-stitched itself under his fingers.  “You could have done that,” he said softly.  Not because there was any doubt.  Because he didn’t want to wonder what Dean would have said.

“You could have freaked the fuck out again,” Dean whispered.  “I think once a day is enough, don’t you?”

Castiel curled his fingers at Dean’s waist, knuckles against skin as his thumb slid underneath Dean’s belt.  “You don’t have to stop being an angel for me,” he said.

“Apparently I do,” Dean replied.  He sounded rueful, like it was somehow his fault.

“Hey, coffee.”  Gabriel’s voice was impossible to ignore, though every angel who came in managed to deliver their report without attracting Castiel’s attention in the slightest.  “My day just got better.”

“Humans try not to talk about sex,” Sam was saying to Maribel.  “Uh... casually.  In polite company.”

“Which isn’t us,” Maribel said, like she was just checking something she’d already been told.

“Not so much,” Sam agreed.

If he elaborated on who was “polite company,” Castiel missed it in his effort to correct Dean.  “You never changed who you were for me before,” he said.  “I don’t want you to start now.”

Dean’s breath huffed against his cheek.  “Cas, we both changed.  I changed because of you, you changed because of me.  Choice means change, that’s just the way it is.  We can do this.”

“Not if you make me choose for you,” Castiel blurted out.

He felt Dean’s thumb rub soothingly against his jaw, but that was the only response he got.

“I remade you once,” Castiel whispered, closing his eyes.  “I can’t do it again.”  It wasn’t right; he didn’t know the words.  He didn’t know how to make Dean see that it wasn’t knowing Michael he was afraid of: it was losing Dean.

“Not if you want it to be real,” Dean said quietly.  “I get that.”

He lifted his head, eyes meeting Dean’s.  Meeting Michael’s.

That’s why I could never do it, Dean said.  It wasn’t private; it hadn’t been private since they’d come back.  Everyone heard him say, I can’t pretend I’m not Michael.  I can’t pretend to be Dean, only Dean, just to keep you in line.  It’s either real or it isn’t, and I can make it real – I can tear out my grace and I can make myself forget – but I can’t lie to you about this.  It’s not gonna happen, Cas.

“Are the prude police like polite company?” he heard Maribel ask.  “A phrase to describe a hypothetical group of people whose composition changes depending on the speaker?”

I don’t want you to lie, Castiel thought.

I don’t want you to not believe me, Dean replied.

“Seriously,” Sam was saying.  “Kindergarten.  What the hell is he thinking?”

“I heard that,” Dean said aloud, without looking away from Castiel.

“Great,” Sam said.  “That, you hear.  Clearly the most important thing you could have picked up.”

“I heard you,” Dean repeated.  His fingers were warm in Castiel’s hair, rubbing idly while his wings stretched and melted against the grace that still engulfed him.  Castiel pushed back, aware in some small, secret corner of his mind that having Dean understand what it meant to be an angel wasn’t all bad.  “I just wasn’t listening.”

“Yeah, well, glad you’re with us again,” Sam said.  “Because Dean?  You’re my brother, but there is no way I’m having the birds and the bees talk with your daughter.”

“Hey, Adamel,” Dean tossed over his shoulder.  “Know where babies come from?  Human ones?”

“You need a male and a female of the species to procreate,” Adamel offered.  “Whether sexual activity is involved depends on the technology.”

“They must have the internet in hell,” Dean muttered.

“I don’t understand what that has to do with Jesse’s parents,” Maribel said.  “He has two moms and a dad.  That covers the biological requirements.”

“My parents aren’t gay,” Jesse said.  “That’s all I said.”

Dean sighed, leaning forward to rest his forehead against Castiel’s again.  “This is gonna go well,” he whispered, then added, I wish I was kissing you right now.

Castiel also wished that.  He was somewhat unclear on why Michael seemed to have less time for such activities than Dean had, given that archangels needed neither sleep nor societal approval.  He would have thought that being in charge of heaven’s earth-based armies would mean that one could make their own schedule.  This did not seem to be the case.

Wow.  Dean’s vaguely impressed thought breathed across his mind the same way his fingers were still skimming over Castiel’s neck.  Way to lay on the guilt, there.

That was not my intent, Castiel thought, startled.

Maybe not as startled as he should have been.

Uh-huh.  Dean just sounded amused.  Can I try to help settle the kids down first, or do you wanna get out of here now?

“Michael.”  Gabriel’s voice didn’t wait for their acknowledgment, but perhaps he already knew Dean was listening.  “We got this.  Get out of here.”

Dean, for once, didn’t have to be convinced.  “Yeah,” he said, easing his wings free of Castiel’s unrelenting embrace.  “Okay.  Sam?”

“You know, most people take their honeymoon after they get married,” Sam grumbled.

Dean made a face that Castiel was only peripherally aware of, but he saw Sam roll his eyes in return.

“Back later,” Dean said.  “You know how to find us.”

The Roadhouse vanished, replaced in a flash of wings and warmth by human heat and the sparkle of moonlight off the water.  Earth, this time; he could locate them immediately on an island in the south Pacific.  It was dark in a way heaven hadn’t been for ages.  He lifted his face to the stars without thinking, feeling wings slide over his shoulders as Dean’s closeness breathed across his skin.

“Cliché,” Dean murmured, “I know.  But there’s a reason it’s a classic, right?”

The island was deserted but for them.  He was certain of it, despite the single dwelling tucked into the shadows just up the beach from where they stood.  Without taking his eyes off of the stars, Castiel asked, “Did you bring me here to seduce me?”

Human sight was so limited.  The stars appeared to them as flecks of glitter on a finite surface, the sky wrapped around this planet to which they were bound.  Yet humans felt the same awe he knew, standing here and staring into something so eternally unfathomable.

“That was my plan, yeah,” Dean agreed.  He seemed uncharacteristically awkward, given how many times Castiel had seen him bluff his way through unknown situations.  “You want something different?”

Castiel smiled up at the sky.  “You consider this romantic,” he said.

“I consider having a conversation that everyone in the world can’t overhear romantic,” Dean retorted.  “The rest of it’s just kind of...”  He gestured in a way that could only be self-conscious.  “Window dressing, I guess.”

Castiel lowered his gaze, studying Dean in the reflected light of the moon.  “You deliberately spoke so they all could hear.”

“You thought I was messing with you,” Dean said.  “I know you’re freaking out about this Michael thing – hell,” he interrupted himself, “it confuses me, and it was my idea.  But I figure, the more the host knows about what I will and won’t do, the more likely they are to call me on it if something goes wrong.”

Castiel didn’t want to hear the answer, but he had to ask.  “Why do you keep saying that something will go wrong?”

“Because you keep thinking it,” Dean said.  His exasperation was obvious even as he cupped Castiel’s face, staring at him with eyes that glowed with more than moonlight.  “I don’t feel any different!  The weirdest part is dealing with everyone else!”

“You’re completely different,” Castiel blurted out.  “We rarely have any idea who we’re talking to.”

“I get that.”  Dean looked like he would be a lot more frustrated if Castiel wasn’t standing so close.  Whether he was actually being reassured or just distracted, Castiel didn’t know, but he found himself in much the same situation.  “I get that it’s hard to learn something like this about someone and then just... go on, like everything’s normal.  Like it’s all the same.”

“It’s not the same,” Castiel interrupted.  “You’re Michael.  You’re the oldest archangel in heaven.”

“Okay,” Dean said, his hands sliding gently down Castiel’s neck.  “First off, we’re not in heaven.  And second, I thought you’d gotten over the whole hero worship thing when Raphael gave up and Gabriel turned out to be a jerk.  We’re just like everyone else, Cas.  We’re trying to do what we think we’re supposed to, but we don’t know any better than you do.”

Dean’s hands were on his shoulders now, fingers kneading gently over muscle and bone while his thumbs slipped under the collar of his shirt.  The fact that he was still there, still holding on, gave Castiel the courage to murmur, “I wish you wouldn’t say ‘we.’”

To his surprise, all Dean said was, “Okay.”

“Is that unfair?” Castiel asked after a moment, tipping his head into the hand that slid up his neck again, Dean’s fingers burying themselves in his hair.  “Like Dean asking me not to speak for all angels?”

A fleeting kiss made his lips part, waiting for more even as Dean whispered, “Okay, here’s my wish.  I wish you wouldn’t talk about Dean and Michael like they’re someone else.  Like I’m not either of them.  Like I’m just some random guy they sometimes possess or something.”

Castiel sighed, and he knew Dean felt his dismay.  “I didn’t intend to make you feel –”

“It’s not about you, Cas,” Dean interrupted.  “Wishes are about the person who makes ’em.  You don’t have to make ’em real or anything, but you can’t change them.  That’s the rules.”

“According to who?” Castiel wondered, since it didn’t seem like something Dean would say.

“Sam,” Dean said.  “A long time ago.”

“Ah,” Castiel said with a smile.  “Sam was a very mature five.”

“Yeah, that’s what he says.”  Dean didn’t sound convinced.  “I’m guessing there’s nothing I can do to make you feel like this is all gonna be okay.”

Castiel’s smile faded, but stepping away from Dean was pretty much the opposite of his highest priority right now.  “I haven’t felt like everything was going to be okay since Anael saved my life and I was cast out of heaven,” he said quietly.  “Yet there is nothing about the journey I would change.”

Dean was staring at him, eyes wandering over his face, and Castiel wondered when he had accepted that Dean saw him.  That when Dean looked at him, like this, he was seeing the angel Castiel really was.  He should have known all along, of course: he’d pulled this soul, graceless and broken, out of hell with only his sword and his wings.  If Dean hadn’t been able to see him after that, he wouldn’t have been the person Castiel rescued.

But he’d denied it for so long that Castiel had started to doubt.  Not Dean’s ability, but his willingness to use it, which was unfortunately a very similar thing.  Without one, the other had no discernible effect.

Perhaps, then, he had accepted it at the same time Dean did: the night Dean admitted that he could see his wings.

“Really?” Dean said.  “Nothing?”

“Well.”  Castiel considered this.  Dean was tracing the outline of his jaw, and the pleasant tingle of sensation that followed his fingers was strangely frustrating.  “I might have kissed you sooner.”

It made Dean laugh out loud, fingers sliding over his cheek as he leaned in for a swift kiss.  “We could go back and try again,” he murmured, pressing small kisses to the corner of Castiel’s mouth in between words.  “Get a vacation at the same time.”

“No,” Castiel said before he realized Dean was joking.  “We’re here,” he said anyway, tipping his head a little when Dean’s lips started to follow his fingers over Castiel’s jaw.  “I don’t want to have to get here again.”

Dean huffed in agreement.  His breath, warm and damp and oddly appealing, made Castiel’s throat feel cool in its wake.  “Amen,” he murmured.  “Here’s to new problems.”

“You never used to say ‘amen,’” Castiel observed.

He could feel Dean’s smirk against his skin of his neck.  “You never used to want to sleep with me,” Dean replied.  The words tickled his ear even as one of Dean’s hands slid off his shoulders and landed on his wing.  The sudden attention prompted him to lift his wing, pressing it into Dean’s hand.

“That’s not,” he whispered.  “Not entirely...”  It was an admission that could once have cost him his role as Dean’s handler, back when he cared about such things.  “One hundred percent true.”

Dean snickered into his shoulder, and it was a happy sound.  Moreso when warm breath and hot tongue suddenly converged with his laughter.  The sensation was pleasing and affectionate and it made Castiel hum in a way that wasn’t familiar to him.  He hadn’t meant to say anything.  The noise was involuntary, but Dean licked harder and then sucked gently in the same place, and he found he wanted to do it again.

“You totally want me,” Dean mumbled, one hand squeezing the top of his wing while the other slid down his chest.

“I do,” Castiel agreed.  He’d meant to pitch his voice for Dean’s ears only, as Dean had done, but the words came out rougher than he’d intended and he wondered if perhaps this was a symptom of arousal.  Could being kissed by Dean – so kindly and so briefly – really have the desired effect?

“Back at you,” Dean murmured, both hands running over the outsides of his wings now.  He slid underneath Castiel’s arms on his next pass, lifting his hands over Castiel’s chest, and yes, he was still wearing his shirt.  Earth was clearly going to involve some obstacles.

He felt Dean laugh again, leaning in to kiss him and taking Castiel’s open mouth as a given.  So he was doing that right, at least.  He wasn’t sure if the kissing was supposed to deepen, abate in favor of other things, or remain just as it was for a certain period of time.  He had observed many people doing this – he had observed Dean doing it, repeatedly – but the memories were of little use when confronted with the actual experience.

“Did you just get annoyed about your clothes?” Dean asked, still smiling against his mouth.  His lips were gentle and welcoming when Castiel muffled his words by kissing back, but his hands felt hot through the thin material of Castiel’s shirt.  How the latter could feel warmer when separated by more than the former puzzled Castiel.

“They’re in the way,” Castiel murmured.  This he was sure of.  It occurred to him that he could press his hands against Dean in return, and Dean might feel the same strange temperature difference he did.

“They’re awesome,” Dean replied, shifting under his touch.  As though he hadn’t been expecting it, and now he had to make room.  “I like what you’ve been wearing.  I like the fact that I get to take it off you even more, but that’s part of the whole –”  He gestured in a way Castiel didn’t understand.  “Clothes are fun,” he finished awkwardly.  “You’ll see.”

“When?” Castiel wanted to know.  “I don’t understand when I’m supposed to touch you, or kiss you, or take my clothes off.  How can humans do this so casually?”

“Most of ’em don’t think about it that much,” Dean said.

“What do they think about?” Castiel insisted.  Dean had thirty years of human instinct to draw on.  All he had was Dean’s instruction and his own observations.

“Cas,” Dean said.  His hands slid up Castiel’s back, into the place where grace burst out of his human form.  “Forget about what happens next.”  His fingers made the juncture of wing and shoulder tingle.  “Just enjoy what’s happening now.”

One of his wings twitched involuntarily, and he felt Dean smile.  “Wanna fly?”

“I...”  He wasn’t sure he did.  He ached in a way he couldn’t define and hadn’t been able to fix, but trial and error suggested that the farther he was from Dean the worse it got.  Dean called it loneliness.  Castiel thought if all he needed was companionship, then it shouldn’t matter whether it was Dean or anyone else.  Yet it did.

“I don’t know,” he said at last.

“Walk instead?” Dean suggested.  “The whole moonlit stroll thing is supposed to be... I dunno.”

What he really wanted was for Dean to be closer, to hold him harder until he couldn’t remember what it was like to shake.  To say his name over and over, so he could be sure he was with someone who knew him.  To press human hands into his wings, maybe the only person who could, and whisper words that humans no longer knew into his mind.

“If this is your attempt at courtship,” Castiel said with a sigh, “I wish you had started earlier.”

“Yeah?”  Dean turned his face into Castiel’s neck and waited, clearly asking a question.  What the question was seemed less clear.

“I don’t want to let you go long enough to perform any other courting rituals,” Castiel admitted.  “I’m afraid you’ll do something reckless the moment I let go.”

“Won’t,” Dean mumbled into his skin.  “Promise.”

“You,” Castiel added carefully, trying not to seem too hopeful in case he was wrong, “seem equally unwilling to let go of me.”

He felt Dean’s breath huff, warm and tempting – tempting him to what?  He tried to figure it out.  He was aware that this could be the key, the answer to the most human expression of closeness.  What did Dean make him want to do?  Other than whatever Dean wanted?

“Yeah,” Dean muttered, lifting his head so that his face rubbed against Castiel’s cheek.  “Can’t think about much except kissing you, actually.  The rest is just sort of...”

He hesitated so long that Castiel ventured, “Window dressing?”

“Mmm.”  Dean hummed into his ear, fingers scratching gently at a place on his back that no one else touched.  Not since Jophiel stopped speaking to him.  “Something like that.”

“Perhaps,” Castiel said softly, “we could fly some other time.”

Dean’s mouth found his, and he was more than happy to enjoy it.  He knew how to return kisses.  He knew how to kiss casually, and he was learning how to make it deep and serious – partly through still sparse experience with Dean, and partly through the even more sporadic strategy of time travel.  Dean had, after all, kissed many people before him.

They stood on the beach for longer than he bothered keeping track of.  It would come to him if he thought about it, he knew, but Dean had told him to think less.  Dean had told him to enjoy the moment.  It was wise advice, if not particularly practical during times of crisis, so he hoped that the rest of their night – cleverly extended by virtue of relocation – would be free of interruptions.  Or at least free of interruptions that required their continued attention.

Dean laughed at him when he mentioned how hard it was to remember to touch and kiss at the same time.  He’d heard Dean laugh more this night than he had for days before, so he thought it would have been worth it even without the kissing.  After that, though, the kissing was accompanied by deliberate touches that would start and stop while Dean waited for him to mimic them.  There was perhaps nothing Dean could have done that would have helped him relax more.

It wasn’t long before Dean’s hands were on his back again.  Castiel’s wings lifted a little in unconscious anticipation, and sure enough, fingers slid up under his wings and paused there.  So Castiel ran his hands up Dean’s back, fumbling a little with the precise boundary, the shift from almost-human to mostly not.  He came very close to melting his grace right through Dean’s wings before he caught himself, but Dean’s sharp inhale told him that he’d gotten it right.

“Inside,” Dean whispered.  His wings stretched strong and brilliant behind him, but he paused to ask, “Okay?”

“Why?” Castiel wanted to know.  His hands fumbled at the almost corporeal manifestation of Dean’s wings, intrigued by the strange feeling.  Dean had turned his face away, so Castiel kissed his neck instead.  The combination of kissing and touching was enjoyable – he thought that if they were lying down, there could be more of it.  Of all of it.

“Because I’ve had sex on the beach,” Dean gasped, wings dipping when Castiel squeezed at the base of them experimentally.  “And if my wings are gonna be weirdly human, they’ll get sand in them.  Which –”  He broke off, making a sound that Castiel thought he might be encouraging.  “Just for the record?  Totally sucks.”

“How do you know?” Castiel asked, curious and a little skeptical.  How often would Michael have had “weirdly human” wings?  He dug his fingers into the small, hot feathers pressed against Dean’s skin: his wings were angelic enough to go right through his shirt, but they still seemed to trap the heat of his body where they were closest to it.

“I’m imagining it.”  Dean’s voice sounded rough.  His eyes were closed and his hands had stilled on Castiel’s back.  “You wanna do it out here?”

He didn’t know the right answer to this question.  If Dean thought he would be more comfortable inside, then it was logical they go inside.  But he also knew that Dean sometimes found things that were new or foreign to him arousing.  “Can I see what you’re imagining?”

Dean opened up to him without a moment’s hesitation, and he knew the vision had been his for the asking all along.  Dean put such a high value on privacy that it was sometimes difficult to guess what he wanted to share... but this.  Castiel thought this should have been communicated to him much earlier.

There was a bed.  A recurring theme in Dean’s sexual fantasies, but this time it was Castiel who lay sprawled across it with Dean above him.  He was vaguely aware of moonlight and cool sheets and possibly curtains.  Much more important was the intensity of Dean’s focus, directed solely at him.  Interested only in his happiness.  Concerned only with his pleasure.

“Yes,” Castiel whispered.  “Please.”

They were inside before he drew another breath, the room both cooler and brighter than Dean had pictured it.  Or, since Dean had likely created the place out of nothing, perhaps it was only his perception that was different.  There were definitely curtains, long and sheer and rippling with the wind of their arrival.  The bed was behind him: he knew, he could feel it, even as Dean tensed against him and everything changed.

“Jesus Christ,” Dean spat.  The ring of metal announced his sword, though there was nothing for it to ring against.  Dean’s first instinct – to protect – made Castiel momentarily useless as he was pressed against Dean’s body.

“You kidnapped my son.”  Lucifer’s voice was flat and frankly terrifying.

Castiel shoved Dean enough that he could turn, his own sword drawn in defense.

Lucifer stood on the other side of the bed, his face in shadow and his wings a crackling mess.  The grey was frayed and the infrequent glint of white stood at odd angles to his flight feathers.  His sword was not in evidence.

“You crashed my honeymoon,” Dean snapped.  “That’s totally worse.”

In the time it took Castiel to process this, Dean had turned his head to mutter, “Is that worse?”

Castiel didn’t take his eyes off of Lucifer.  “I don’t know.”

“I could make it worse.”  Lucifer’s tone was lighter than Dean’s and many times more menacing.  “You restricted my interaction with Maribel and... Wildfire.”  His gaze flicked to Castiel when he used the nickname, but his attention returned to Dean immediately.  “Will you not grant me reciprocal responsibility when it comes to Adamel?”

“Look.”  Dean lifted his hand, sword disappearing as he did so.  “Adamel’s yours and Sam’s.  You’re gonna have to work out custody between the two of you.”

“You kidnapped him,” Lucifer repeated.

“Why are you here?” Dean countered.  He sounded suddenly suspicious.  “Where’s Sam?”

“Sam,” Lucifer said, smooth and very ominous, “is protected by an ancient ritual Gabriel modified in my absence.  Why am I now denied entrance to the place I helped protect?”

Castiel should have been helpless in the face of an archangel’s wrath.  He knew very well that heaven’s foot soldiers were not made to withstand a confrontation with the devil himself.  But he knew too that he and Lucifer would light up the sky if it ever came to blows over Dean.

There was no uncertainty in Dean’s tone.  “You’re not,” he said.

Lucifer raised an eyebrow.  “I am,” he replied.

“Oh, for –”  Dean’s wings flared sharp and intentional behind him.  “Let’s go.”

The sun was up over the Roadhouse when they arrived.  Directly between Lucifer and Castiel, Dean didn’t take a single step closer to the Roadhouse as he yelled, “Gabriel!  Get out here!”

The air shifted and Gabriel was standing in front of them.  He took in all three of them, a smirk on his face and an irritatingly tolerant tone in his voice when he remarked, “Kinky.”

“Why’d you lock him out of the Roadhouse?” Dean demanded.

Gabriel crossed his arms, looking only slightly less amused.  “Because, Dean-el,” he began.  “Lucifer is not on the list.  You remember, the one you got endorsed by every archangel on pain of even-I-don’t-know-what?  No list entry, no entrance.”

“Adamel’s in there,” Dean said.  “And Lucifer can’t go in to get him.”

“Them’s the rules,” Gabriel agreed.  The front door of the Roadhouse banged open, but Castiel already knew who it would be.  For all Sam tried to ignore Gabriel, he seemed bound to him in ways he didn’t understand.

“Change them,” Dean said, even as Sam yelled for them from across the cars.  “It’s his kid.  If Sam wants Adamel around, Lucifer’s gotta be able to pick him up.”

Gabriel just shrugged.  “You’re the boss.”

The snap of his fingers was loud despite Sam’s footsteps crunching across the gravel to them.  The snap made Sam freeze, and Castiel watched with interest as he looked back at the Roadhouse.  “What did you do?” he demanded.

“Hey, Sam,” Dean said.  “You and Lucifer want to work out some kind of custody sharing with Adamel?  Me and Cas were kind of in the middle of something.”

“Did you make Gabriel change the wards?” Sam wanted to know.  He hadn’t looked away from the building, and he seemed totally unconcerned that Lucifer was hovering darkly beside Dean.

Which made one of them, Castiel thought.

“Hey, hey,” Gabriel protested.  “What am I, a pet monkey?”

“Lucifer should be allowed in the Roadhouse,” Dean said.

“Then I should be allowed in hell,” Sam replied.  He finally turned back to them, catching Lucifer’s eye and staring at him without blinking.  It was a remarkably angelic look.

Dean snorted.  “Sam, get a grip.  Do you want to go to hell?”

It wasn’t enough to make Sam waver.  “No,” he said.  “But I’m tired of being stuck here while everyone else disappears to god knows where.  You show up whenever you feel like it, you stay just long enough to wind everyone up, and then you’re gone again.  I know you have stuff to do, okay?  All of you.  But if I can’t control who comes and goes, then I need to at least be able to get in touch with you.”

“Fine,” Dean said.  “We’ll get the devil a phone.”

Cas.  It was Jophiel’s voice, calling him by a name she’d never used, and she sounded terrified.  Help me.  Please.

MICHAEL.  Anna was far louder.  There wasn’t any way her call would get lost in the song of heaven: every archangel in existence had heard her.  Castiel saw Sam glare from one of them to the other as they all looked up at something he couldn’t hear.  We need you.

“Damn it,” Dean said aloud.  “What now?”

“What?” Sam demanded.  “What’s going on?”

“Anael’s asking for help,” Gabriel said.  It wasn’t lost on Castiel that he was the first to reply, or that he did so without humor.  At some point Gabriel had started to actually answer Sam’s questions.  “Zachariah’s at her garrison.”

“Yeah, and Lucifer’s at mine!” Sam exclaimed.

Dean didn’t bother to answer Anna, but Castiel knew he would go.  And before he left, he would ask Castiel – 

“Cas,” Dean said.  “Can you get this?”

“Dean,” Sam snapped.

“Jophiel is with Anna,” Castiel said.  “She asked me for help.”

“Yeah.”  Dean’s expression was unreadable, but Castiel didn’t think it was as easy as he made it look.  “I heard.  You should go, I should stay.  But we can’t.  It won’t work.”

Because Zachariah wouldn’t obey Castiel.

“Dean,” he said.  He still wasn’t sure Dean understood.  “Jophiel –”

“I know,” Dean interrupted.  “She’s your library buddy, I get it.  I know.  Sam’s my brother.  Help him.”

Dean was gone before anyone else could protest, and they were left to stare at each other.

Michael will protect you, he told Jophiel.

“Great,” Sam said.  “I’m really starting to hate angels.”  One hand on his hip, he ran a hand through his hair as he turned away.  “No offense,” he added over his shoulder, though it was clear he’d meant it exactly as it sounded.

“Sam,” Castiel said, because this was his responsibility now.  “Michael has allowed you through the gates of heaven.”

Sam stopped where he was.  “What?”

“If you’re with an archangel,” Castiel said.  “And if you’re willing, the gatekeepers have been instructed to let you pass.  I believe you’ve already talked your way into hell.”

“Yeah, once,” Sam said, turning around.  He was frowning.  “It’s not exactly a regular thing.”

“Hell would welcome you, Sam Winchester.”  Lucifer hadn’t moved.  “That’s reason enough to stay away.”

“But it’s okay for Adamel to be there?” Sam countered.

Lucifer was still staring at him.  It occurred to Castiel that he usually mimicked human mannerisms better than that, and he wondered what was different.  “I prefer that Adamel avoid hell as well,” Lucifer said.  “But he’s safe under my supervision, and there are moments when hell is the only place I can keep an eye on him.”

“Dean wants them to go to school,” Sam blurted out.  “All the kids.  A human school, I mean.”

Castiel glanced at Gabriel.  He wasn’t sure they were supposed to let Sam and Lucifer talk.  He also wasn’t sure there was anything either of them could do to stop it.  And Dean had, after all, told Sam to work out “custody” with Lucifer himself.

“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Lucifer said.

“Uh...”  Sam hesitated, and inexplicably, the ghost of a smile flickered on his face.  “You do?”

“Of course.”  Lucifer lifted one shoulder in an approximation of a shrug, and Castiel saw Gabriel frown at him.  “I can’t teach Adamel about humans, Sam.  Only humans can do that.”

Sam raised his eyebrows.  “Did we teach you?”

Castiel wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but it made Lucifer tip his head in acknowledgment.  It was, if Castiel wasn’t entirely mistaken, a sign of respect.  From an archangel – from the ruler of hell – to Sam.  “You still are,” Lucifer replied.

“Oh, is this real?” Gabriel demanded.  “I mean, come on, are you serious?  You’re not flirting with him!”

“What?”  Sam finally looked away from Lucifer long enough to stare at Gabriel.  “You know you just said that out loud, right?”

Castiel frowned.  He didn’t understand what was happening – or what Gabriel thought was happening – but he did need to make sure that Sam and Adamel stayed safe.  “I do not believe Dean would want you to flirt with Lucifer, Sam.”

Sam gaped at him, but it was Lucifer who answered.  “Michael would no doubt prefer many things to be different,” he said.  “But I assure you, if I want to flirt with Sam, there are more effective ways to go about it.”

Lucifer sounded amused.  Sam looked impatient, his surprise giving way to unmistakable irritation.  “Could we have one conversation that isn’t about my love life, please?  I personally think sending these kids to school is a terrible idea.  I’m still waiting for someone to give me one good reason it’ll work.”

“They want to go,” Castiel said.

“Which isn’t as new as heaven would have you think,” Gabriel muttered.  He’d folded his arms, chin lifted rebelliously, and Castiel suspected his input was deliberately ambiguous.  “But it turns out when angels want something, they have ways of making it work.”

Sam rolled his eyes, but he didn’t comment.

“I’m sure the children are aware that outing themselves as supernatural beings is not one of those ways,” Lucifer said.  “They will pass.  At least as much as you and Dean ever did.”

“Okay, the memory of my school years isn’t exactly a convincing argument for me,” Sam told him.  “I’ve already had this fight with Dean.  Just because they’ll probably live through it doesn’t mean it’s going to do them any good.”

“It made you stronger,” Lucifer said.

“Not a selling point,” Sam retorted.  “That’s a lousy justification for any childhood experience.”

“It was a childhood experience,” Castiel said.

They all turned to look at him.  Lucifer’s curious expression was perhaps the most alarming, and Castiel tried to ignore it.  “We were never children,” he told Sam.  “Angels simply are.  We are told what is, and what to do about it, and we obey.  If there was anything about growing up that you valued, consider letting them have it.”

Sam studied him for a long moment.  Castiel didn’t know what he was looking for, but he hoped Sam knew that whatever it was had been his for the taking for a long time now.

“Okay,” Sam said at last.  “But if they turn out like me, I get to say ‘I told you so.’”

“We should be so lucky,” Gabriel muttered.

Sam gave him an odd, sideways look, but he didn’t ask.  Or answer.  “They’re gonna need regular schedules,” he said instead.  “They can’t keep popping in and out whenever they feel like it.  They need to be here in the morning, and one of us has to take them to school.  They have to stay there until one of us comes to pick them up in the afternoon.  I don’t care what they do the rest of the time, but they’re going to one school the whole year.  No dropping them off wherever you happen to be that day.”

“What do you have to take them for?” Gabriel demanded.  “They’re perfectly capable of subtlety.  It’s not like anyone’s gonna see them arrive if they don’t want to be seen.”

“We’re taking them,” Sam said firmly.  “Teachers want to see parents.  Parents want to see parents.  You asked,” he added, catching Cas’ eye, “what I valued about growing up, and let me tell you, it wasn’t explaining my absent dad to everyone I knew.”

Castiel nodded.  If Sam thought it was important, then it was important.  “You know more about human customs than any of us,” he said.  “We will follow your example in this.”

“Well, I won’t,” Gabriel said.  “But they’re not my kids, so.”  Glancing at Lucifer, he added, “I suggest you get a phone.”

Lucifer gave him an unfathomable look.  “What makes you think I don’t have a phone?”

Castiel blinked, but Sam just pulled out his little electronic device and asked, “Do you answer it?”

Lucifer quirked an eyebrow at him.  “That depends who it is.”

Castiel was familiar with this phenomenon through Dean, who always checked his phone’s display before answering.  The name on the screen seemed to decide whether he put it to his ear or back in his pocket.  Perhaps it was because Castiel only received calls from two people that he had no such need to prioritize.

He did wonder how many people picked up their phone to call the devil.

“If Gabriel leaves the wards the way they are,” Sam said, “will you answer your phone when I call?”

“I would advise against trying to bargain, Sam.”  Lucifer sounded faintly amused.  “That’s a game I’ll always win.”

Despite his words, he held out his hand.  There was something in it.  Sam eyed it suspiciously, and Lucifer only looked more amused.  “My cell,” he said.  “My number is the one on the top.  I don’t recommend giving it to anyone else unless you never want to see them again.

“The second number isn’t mine,” Lucifer continued.  “Don’t use it.”

Sam clearly wasn’t convinced he should even touch the phone.  “Then why are you giving it to me?”

“Adamel might need it someday.”  Lucifer’s gaze was dark.  He turned his hand over as though he planned to drop the phone if Sam didn’t take it.  “Don’t let him call it unless you’re dead.”

“Okay then,” Sam said, reaching for the phone.  Castiel would never understand why the most illogical things seemed to convince humans of another’s sincerity.  “It’s your turn to pick the kids up from school number, check.  Emergency death number...”  He shook his head, already tapping something into his phone.  “Also check.”

“Do you have a phone?” Castiel asked Gabriel.  It seemed an unnecessary question, but certainly the trickster had surprised him before.

Gabriel just scoffed.  “What do I need a phone for?” he asked.  “To remind me of my next smiting appointment?  Thanks, I can keep track of those myself.”

“I need to be able to reach you,” Sam said.

“You reach me just fine,” Gabriel drawled.

“Shut up,” Sam said without lifting his eyes from his phone.

Lucifer was watching them with what looked like idle curiosity.  Castiel assumed the actual reaction was something else, but he couldn’t logically extrapolate what it might be.  “Is this what you owe him for?” Lucifer asked.  “His interest?”

Sam pushed something on his phone and stared at it expectantly.  Lucifer’s phone emitted a shrill tone a moment later.  Sam put his own phone away and Lucifer’s fell silent as Sam handed it back.  “My number,” he said.  “You probably don’t need it, but it’s only fair.”

“You’re under no obligation,” Lucifer told him.  “It’s not like there’s a contract.”

“I don’t owe him,” Sam said.  “I just like him.  Is that really such a foreign concept to you?”

Lucifer tilted his head.  “Yes,” he said.  His phone was gone, but he didn’t take his eyes off of Sam.

“Maybe Adamel can explain it,” Sam said, glancing at Castiel.  “I’m pretty sure they teach that in kindergarten.”

“When will they start?” Castiel wanted to know.  

“Let me talk to Ellen,” Sam said with a sigh.  “I’ll get back to you on that.”

“In the meantime,” Lucifer said.  “I’d like to see Adamel.”

He didn’t wait for any acknowledgment.  He was just gone, and when Castiel saw the wards sparkle in his wake, he knew Gabriel had obeyed the letter of Dean’s instruction.  Sam grunted.  He either saw it too or felt it himself, and if the latter was the case, then Gabriel had put a great deal of effort into including a human in the garrison alert system.

“Cas,” Sam said.  “Could you give us a minute?”

“Of course,” Castiel said, studying the Roadhouse proper.  The wards woven into its exterior were something of a patchwork, but they’d been woven together and collectively overwritten by something stronger than he was.

Or at least, stronger than he had been.

“Cas,” Sam repeated.

He glanced at Sam when no further message was forthcoming.

“Alone,” Sam said, giving Gabriel a pointed look.  Either he noticed Castiel’s confusion or just became impatient with his presence, because he added, “Could you go away so I can ask Gabriel something I don’t want anyone else to overhear?”

“Ah,” Castiel said.  He would very much like that, actually.  “If you have no further need of me, I’ll go to Jophiel now.”

“Yeah,” Sam said.  “That’s a good idea.”

“Tell Zachariah I liked him better as a bunny,” Gabriel remarked.

Castiel inclined his head and let his grace draw him to where Michael was.  It was as fast as going to Jophiel directly, he reasoned, and... well, no, he didn’t.  He didn’t actually reason at all.  He just knew that someone needed him, and he had to make sure it wasn’t Dean before he could do anything for Jophiel.

The structure that housed Anna’s garrison was shockingly familiar.  He didn’t bother to look around when he appeared inside, and he might not have even noticed if it wasn’t full of tables and couches and all the human accessories that no celestial being should need.  There was no bar, but there were computers and coffee and the focus of the room seemed to be a giant fireplace, and for a moment he was dizzy with the thought that every archangel on earth wanted the same things.

“Cas,” Dean’s voice said.  He was fine, and Castiel’s attention was already on Jophiel.  “Everything okay?”

It occurred to Castiel, distantly, that Michael must know he was fine as easily as Castiel could tell the same.  Yet he still asked.  The same way Dean insisted on verbal confirmation before flying.  The way Dean seemed to think he would know what other angels did that they didn’t tell the choir.

The way we have words for prayer instead of just intent, Dean’s voice said in his mind, and the distance was gone.  His gaze went to Dean involuntarily, found him with his hands in his pockets, standing at Anna’s shoulder... his wings rumpled and fierce at her back.

“Yes,” he said aloud.  “Lucifer is allowed entrance to our garrison, and Sam will determine the hours of the children’s schooling.”

“Great,” Dean said.  “He’ll probably give them homework and stick them in study groups.  Hardest kindergarten class ever.  On the plus side,” he added with a grin, “I bet they go on awesome field trips.”

“All of the children?” Jophiel asked, and she sounded tired.  She sounded so weak and resigned that if Castiel’s instinct for communion hadn’t been brutally suppressed, he would have offered it to her without thinking.  As it was he held out his hand, and her sense of connection still burned brighter than his because she took it.

With Sachiel at her side she hadn’t had to give up all companionship when she fell.  He wondered if that helped or hurt her now.  To be surrounded by angels again, to have the possibility of communion with an archangel – was it as frightening as it was for him, too much, to be reminded of death at every turn?  Or was it still too little, not much more than what she had with Sachiel: an isolated band of soldiers for whom ties to heaven were uncertain at best?

He lifted a hand to her face as she stepped in close.  Castiel felt her fingers slide out of his as she returned the gesture, her hand gentle against his cheek.  She didn’t wait for him to lean in, but he followed without hesitation.  For the first time, the impulse to kiss flared as he rested his forehead against hers.

He knew she recognized it too, and he wondered if that answered Dean’s question about her and Sachiel.  Her lips curved in a smile even as she closed her eyes, but her wings stayed drooped against her own shoulders and he wished he could offer some greater comfort.  Communion, or closer contact, or both...

But they were waiting on Dean.  On Michael.  Jophiel had asked a question, and he had the answer.

“Your call,” Dean said quietly.

Castiel knew that expression.  He didn’t know whom it was directed at, nor did he know what Jophiel wanted for Wildfire.  “She will learn as much from humans as she will from us,” he said.  “Would you... care for some guidance, in which humans she is exposed to first?”

“Oh, please.”  Zachariah’s opinion was not welcome, but he didn’t seem to care.  “Angels are out of time.  First, last, anonymously middle-of-the-line, it doesn’t matter!  She’s already met every human she’ll ever know.”

He’d managed to avoid slurs, Castiel thought.  That was, for Zachariah, something of an accomplishment.

“You really don’t get it, do you.”  Dean managed to sound more amused than irritated, and although he tried not to, Castiel couldn’t help but think that it was a very Michael tone of voice.  “They’re capable of human perception.  They’re constantly exposed to entire garrisons that exist in linear time.  What part of your training do you think their life is like?”

“Do you trust them?” Jophiel whispered.  There was little reason for it; every angel in the room would be able to hear her if they tried and the answer seemed obvious to him.  He wasn’t sure why she would ask.

“I do,” he said.  “Sam knows what it is to be a human child.  He has already given me and Lucifer instruction in what we must do to help the experience go smoothly for the children.”

He felt Jophiel stiffen, wings still flat but tense in a way that made his own ache in sympathy.  She was exhausted, he realized suddenly.  Her grace had been drained to the point of collapse, and he didn’t know why he hadn’t seen it before.  He didn’t know how any of them could have missed it.

“I will not have Lucifer anywhere near Wildfire,” she said.  “His company is unacceptable.”

“Sam can speak with you separately,” Castiel told her.  This was not the time to argue with her.  She glowed with enough grace to appear battle-ready, but when he looked he could see that it didn’t come from her.  She was leaning on someone hard enough that their connection to the host had almost completely replaced hers.

“Fine,” she murmured.  “I will listen.”

“Zach,” Dean said.  “Stay away from the kids.”

“I didn’t hurt yours,” Zachariah said crossly.  Like they’d been over this already and he had no idea why Michael was still upset.  “What do I care if you want to keep little hybrid pets.”

“They’re not pets,” Dean snapped.  “There’s a list; you’re not on it.  Anna’s soldiers were right to get in your way.”

“I outrank everyone in this room who isn’t you,” Zachariah said.  “I’m allowed to enforce my decisions.”

“It’s my list,” Dean told him.  “If your decisions contradict it, you’re disobeying me.”

“I hadn’t even seen this list,” Zachariah complained.

“Because you wouldn’t look at it when they showed it to you,” Dean said.  “I told you, I told Raphael yesterday: heaven’s garrisons stay away from the kids.  If anyone’s gonna mess with them, Gabriel’s way ahead of you in line.”

If that was meant to be funny, Castiel thought, it failed.

Sorry, he heard Dean say.  Quietly, without echo.  A message meant for him alone.

Why the apology should be private, he didn’t know.

“Gabriel’s gone soft,” Zachariah sneered.  “His memory clearly isn’t what it used to be.”

“Gabriel,” Dean said, and his voice was mild in a way that reminded Castiel of Lucifer, “likes you better as a bunny.  I wouldn’t get on his bad side if I were you.”

Too late, Castiel thought.

Zachariah scoffed, but that was his only sign of disagreement.  His wings flared above him and he was gone before, making the twinkle lights around the edge of the room sway gently in his wake.  The computers continued to hum along without interruption.  Castiel wondered if Anael had found some way to protect them from angelic interference.

“Jo,” Dean said.  “Where’s Wildfire?”

“Away,” she said.  She didn’t lift her head from Castiel’s.  She was less stiff, now, but he thought that was as much depletion as anything else.  If she lost any more power, she would have trouble even holding onto her vessel.

“You got a problem,” Dean said, “you can tell us, okay?  You can ask for help, Jo.  You’re not alone anymore.”

“Dean,” Anna said gently.  “She did ask.  She came here.”

You should go back to heaven, Castiel told her.  He didn’t bother to hide it from anyone, because anyone who really looked would see it.  If it weren’t for Sachiel – he assumed it was Sachiel funneling power into her – she’d be as close to human now as most angels ever got.

I can’t, she said.  I won’t take Wildfire, and I can’t leave her.

I’ll watch her, Castiel said.  I’ll go with you.  I’ll do whatever you need.  I never intended for this to be a burden on you.

I don’t know what else you expected, Jophiel said.  She felt too tired to be angry.  I’m not made for this, Castiel.

That was the price of falling.  She knew it, had known it all along, and had still chosen to defy heaven to help him.  The children’s creation had been a less than controlled process, but he was as certain as he could be that she had a child now because he believed she was the best of them.

You are for this, he said.  Now.  You have become someone who can do it.

I’m not you, she said.

We can do it together, he told her.  Dean... Michael is right.  With the gates of heaven open once again, no one is alone.  I can help you, Jophiel.  We can all help you.

I can’t accept help from beings who would have cheerfully watched me burn.

Then accept it from us, Castiel insisted.  He couldn’t deny empathy for her reaction, but –

I don’t know who we are!  She didn’t pull away from him.  I don’t have your judgment!  I don’t know who will help me and who is only taking orders; I don’t know whose orders are genuine and whose are not.  I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.  I don’t trust anyone.  I’m lost, Castiel, and I can’t see what will happen to Wildfire without me.

Because she won’t be without you, he said.  Trust your garrison.

My garrison is run by Gabriel!  Your own consort just said Gabriel would destroy the children before Zachariah would, and Zachariah is the one I came here to escape!  How can I trust the voice that announced the destruction of the world?  How can I allow him to protect the grace you’ve entrusted to me?

“Jophiel,” he said aloud.  “Is Wildfire safe?”

How can I know!

“Come with me.”  Castiel put his other hand on her shoulder, reached back to bless Michael for his help, and spread his wings to heaven.  The bridge stretched before them in an instant, Simea at his side, helping him catch Jophiel as her connection to Sachiel faltered.  He should have thought that a flare of grace that strong might overwhelm the narrow channel that pulsed between them.

Simea didn’t say anything, only gave him a worried look that made him close his eyes.  How many others were like this?  Too afraid to reach out, to accept the support of heaven after it turned its back on them?  So many were so grateful to be allowed back at all, let alone welcomed by Michael himself, that whatever doubts they had had been set aside.

But he and Jophiel couldn’t be the only ones to struggle with this.  Dean was right to ask how much they should reach out.  She hadn’t sought assistance.  He hadn’t looked for help.  The only reason they hadn’t lost every bit of grace they possessed was the intervention of...

Of their friends.  Too late, he knew what he should have said to Jophiel when she asked him who to trust.  He understood Dean’s confusion when he didn’t know where to turn for communion.  He understood what had prompted creation to choose her, and why she had asked for him in turn when that creation was threatened.

He knew with sudden vivid clarity just why she and Sachiel had fallen for him.

“Your friends,” Castiel murmured, though Jophiel’s grace was so dim that he wasn’t sure she was aware of him.  “You can trust your friends, Jophiel.”

“She’s very low,” Simea said quietly.  “She might do better with another angel instead of me.”

Sachiel, he thought.  We need you.

She was there almost as soon as he called, and she slumped in what looked like relief when she saw who he held.  “Praise God,” she murmured, a hand falling to his shoulder even as she knelt beside him.  “And bless you, Castiel.  She’s just too stubborn for me sometimes.”

“I’m familiar with that particular challenge,” he admitted.

Sachiel grinned, leaning in to press a kiss to his cheek.  “Thanks, Simea,” she added.  Her wings were sliding around Jophiel, who shifted and brightened and curled her fingers in an oddly human way.  Her eyes didn’t open, but they could all feel her awareness ghost over them.

“Wildfire’s fine,” Sachiel said quietly.  “She wanted to come but I think you’ve scared her away from heaven for years with your terrible stories about armories and battle drills and no one having any feather charms.”

Those are the good stories.  Jophiel was lighter already, and Castiel was gripped by a sudden irrational urge to breathe.  To exhale, as Dean would.

“Yeah, to you,” Sachiel said with a smile.

She smiles, Castiel told himself.  I can breathe.

Cas?  It was Michael’s voice – Dean’s voice, sheepish and worried at the same time.  It came with a sense of reluctant impatience, like he knew he shouldn’t be checking in and if it were anyone else he would already be on the bridge beside them.

Conflicted, Castiel thought, didn’t begin to describe Dean these days.

Ask Gabriel if he knows who’s been in communion recently, Castiel said.

“Simea,” he said aloud.  “May I look at your log book?”

She seemed to think about it, sitting back on her heels and studying him.  “I suppose so,” she said after a moment.  “Are you checking in?”

“Do I need to?” he asked curiously.

She frowned a little.  “I don’t think so.  You don’t register as an archangel, but you don’t... the gate isn’t complaining, either.  It’s like your usual place is – it’s like you never left.  It doesn’t consider you incoming because you were never outgoing.”

He tried to remember the last time he had passed through one of the gates of heaven: a time he hadn’t been in the company of an archangel.  He was almost certain he’d been leaving.  “But I don’t have a clone,” he said at last.  He understood that this was a common explanation in human entertainment.

“No, I think we’d notice that.”  Simea sounded amused, and he let out a careful breath.

I made a clone joke, he informed Dean with no small amount of satisfaction.

Were there wars? Dean replied immediately.

No.  He frowned.  He assumed this was a deeper reference than generic clones, since he couldn’t imagine any logical train of thought that would go from clone jokes to micro-wars.  Not yet?

That’ll probably be in the prequel, Dean said.  Gabriel says everyone in the garrison except Jophiel, which I think is a lie, because hello, Sam.  But if your point is, which of our angels is on the verge of snapping?  She probably should’ve been at the top of the list.

He memorized the log book Simea had passed to him before handing it back.  “Thank you,” Castiel told her.

The list of those who have not been in heaven since the gates were first opened is considerably longer, he said.  We should check with Anael and Samael as well.

On it, Dean answered.  You wanna run me through heaven’s roll call?

It didn’t occur to him until much later that the fact that he and Dean spent the rest of the day trying to identify potential breakdowns among the fallen might cause some frustration.  In Dean.  Castiel hadn’t given much thought to Dean’s earlier accusation that Lucifer had “crashed their honeymoon,” as they hadn’t been on a honeymoon and Lucifer had certainly had legitimate reasons for his concern.  Dean had clearly been exaggerating for dramatic and possibly humorous effect.

But it was dark outside before he and Dean were both at the Roadhouse again, and he watched the children overwhelm Dean the moment he walked in the door.  Not the angels, but the human children who had been drawn by the ritual Gabriel had initiated to protect the garrison.  Dean moved through them slowly, carefully, answering questions and grinning at their stories and informing Claire that no, anything Sam told her was a lie, as always.

Castiel didn’t think Claire believed him.

“Cas,” Dean said, bracing himself against the bar.  “You got a second?”

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Castiel said.  Confused, because he’d thought Dean knew that.

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Dean agreed cheerfully.  “Sorry, guys.  Angel conference.  Be right back.”

His wings burst outward.  More than the flight Castiel noticed those wings, bright and huge and cramped in the impenetrable shadows that closed in around them.  They were very close, surrounded by things that were even closer, and his human eyes didn’t register anything but light in the darkness.  “Did you intend to hold your conference in a closet?” Castiel wanted to know.

“Sue me,” Dean said.  “I have a weakness for closets.  Good memories.”

Yes, Castiel wanted to say, I know.  He’d been devoting what little uncommitted time he had to the task of understanding human sexuality – mostly not in the abstract.  Mostly in the very practical sense that involved Dean, Dean’s past liaisons, and a fair amount  of what Dean would probably call “stalker behavior.”

“If I shove you up against the door,” Dean was saying, “are you more likely to be freaked out or turned on?”

“If you shove me up against the door,” Castiel said, less patiently than he’d intended, “the door will likely come down.”

“Right,” Dean said.  “Yeah.  Well, what if I pretend to shove you up against the door?”

He had no idea why they were talking about this.  “What if you stop asking stupid questions and just do it?”

“Because if I didn’t have you to keep me in line,” Dean said, and at least his hands were moving now, sliding up Castiel’s chest, tugging experimentally on his shirt, “I’d just do this, all day long.  With you.”

“I’m not opposed to that option,” Castiel told him.  He lifted his hands, reaching for Dean’s without thinking.  Warmth drawn to warmth, movement drawn to movement.  “But as of right now, you don’t do it at all.  There must be some transitional moment.”

Dean would probably say that he’d had warning.  That he’d had plenty of warning, physical and otherwise.  But he was still caught off guard when Dean’s fingers fisted in his shirt, bright light of grace flaring as he was slammed back – 

Into wings.  Into pure heaven, suddenly between him and the door.  Catching him in an impossibly strong embrace as arms forced him back and wings yanked him forward, the impact canceled out even as the pressure shuddered through him.  He might have gasped.  He might have cried out, head thrown back as the rush of almost-communion threatened to wash away the physical sensation.

It didn’t.  The song of the host was drowned out by the hum of Dean’s happiness against his throat.  He tried to echo it, tried to hold on to this thing that was holding him together, but he couldn’t get a grip.  He couldn’t even push back, because there was nowhere to go.

He felt Dean’s knuckles on his ribs like sparks of cold fire in the midst of that overwhelming pressure.  Teeth grazed his skin, making his neck arch, and he thought maybe it was pain that penetrated that haze of not-quite-enough.  But it felt like something to latch on to, and his wings ached with the absence of that pinprick focus.

“Cas.”  Dean’s voice in his ear wasn’t trying to get his attention, and that was all he needed to know.  It was louder than the choir, louder than any of them, so close and so immediately inevitable.  “Cas, fuck, just...”

He felt something, Dean’s knee, jammed between his legs until it caught his wing.  He was up against the door after all and that knee pressed both their wings hard against it.  Hard enough to bruise, had there been anything to bruise.  Instead their grace forced itself together – without communion, without anything shared except the line between them.  As close as they could get without falling into each other... and they stayed separate.

“Just tell me,” Dean whispered.  “Anything, Cas.  Whatever you want.”

Don’t let go, he thought.

And he was tilting, falling, already out of control when Dean’s wings stopped holding him up.  He didn’t care.  They were still around him, and that was all he could ever remember wanting.  He would fall forever with this man.

He didn’t notice when they stopped, but he couldn’t miss the warmth, the golden sparkle over Dean’s shoulder as the curtains rippled enough to let in the light.  There was space, suddenly, room to breathe that he hadn’t missed until Dean flung one wing all the way out: catching himself as he rolled onto his back, wrapping Castiel up with him and laughing as he scrabbled to stay close.

The wing returned as Dean rolled on top of him again.  Grace was all around him and Dean’s body only pushed him further into something that should yield.  Something that did yield but refused to melt into him, hot and liquid and perfect as it spilled across his skin.

“Pone me ut signaculum super cor tuum,” Dean murmured.  “Ut signaculum super brachium tuum.”

Fortis est ut mors dilectio, Castiel thought, ritual words the only thing he could generate in the face of an onslaught such as this.  Sensation, separation, human and not and he had no idea what Dean was doing to him but he wanted him to keep doing it forever.

“And jealousy’s hard as hell,” Dean breathed in his ear.  His body was heavy and his grace was light and between them he was crushing pleasure into Castiel like the first days of creation.  Like the way the universe was too much to contain, like the way it was all so close the only place it had to go was out.

“Dean,” he gasped.  He was doing it, he was breathing in the sunset light that painted Dean’s skin in amber and orange and fire.  He was panting, shuddering against an unbreakable grip.  The tremors blossomed and eased, as though the sheer futility of it was enough to give his body pause.

“I guess this counts as kinky for angels.”  Dean’s voice was rough and amused and Castiel would have asked him to keep talking if he could have strung together enough presence of mind to speak himself.  “Not communing, right?  Not being together.  It’s like –”

I will always be with you.  He had words when Dean got it wrong, apparently.  But he couldn’t do anything else, couldn’t push past the barrier Dean had poured between their souls... so like the first time.  So careful, so tempting, so ephemeral.

So human.

He felt it tear through him, rendering his physical form momentarily useless.  He felt Dean’s exhilaration as his body stiffened beneath him, wondered how he could tell.  Didn’t care.  It was the most obvious thing in the world.  It was beautiful and satisfying and really... far too brief.

“Mmm.”  He heard Dean’s sigh, more like a groan than a simple exhalation.  “You get off on humanity,” Dean muttered.  His voice was strained and much too far away.  “Explains so much about you, Cas.”

He mumbled something in return, something meant to be, you feel good, but even he didn’t think it had come across coherently.

“Uh-huh,” Dean said.  He’d buried his face in a chest no longer covered with clothing.  His hands were on bare skin as well, and Castiel wanted to rouse himself enough to see.  To enjoy the appearance of a Dean who, for this one moment, cared about nothing else but him.  “So tell me: was it the poetry, or the soul thing, or did you just want it that bad?”

He was too tired to lift his head.  Or, not tired exactly.  Something that felt like tiredness, but more pleasant.

“Because wow,” Dean continued, “you’re a lot easier than I thought.  We are so doing that again.”

“Now?” he mumbled, a twinge of longing sparking something in his grace.  His voice sounded strange, and he hadn’t realized his eyes were closed until he opened them and found Dean grinning down at him.

“Dude, you rock,” Dean informed him.  “And also, no freakin’ way.  I’ll lose it if I watch you do that again.”

Their bodies were naked, Castiel realized distantly.  He was fairly certain that his was exhibiting signs of the refractory period: after arousal, post-ejaculation, too soon for continued sexual activity.  He was also unfortunately convinced that Dean was not.  On top of that, he felt restless deep in his soul and he had no idea what it meant.

“Hey,” Dean said, more quietly.  His hand cupped Castiel’s face, sliding down his neck and pressing against his chest.  His own body was still tense, his skin flushed, but he didn’t move.  “You okay?”

Castiel couldn’t do anything but smile up at him.  He didn’t really know what had happened, but if they were going to do it again then he would have time to make up for lost observations.  He managed to hum a little in agreement.

“Okay,” Dean said with a smile.  “I’m gonna –  um...”

He hesitated in a way that Castiel recognized from the past, and he was fleetingly proud of himself for all the time he had spent studying Dean.  “May I watch?” he murmured.

That was, he thought, exactly the right question.  Dean’s flush deepened, and he leaned in to kiss with a fierceness that made Castiel’s entire body arch against his wings.  It was only then that he realized Dean was pinned as surely as he was, held in place by the weight of Castiel on his wings.  The same way Castiel was held in place by Dean.

Guess we’re stuck with each other, Dean thought, and the brush of his soul wrung a pleading noise out of Castiel.

“Oh, yeah,” Dean said aloud.  He sounded torn between laughing and choking, and only when his grip tightened again did Castiel realize that he was moving.  He only wanted to be closer but Dean was holding him down, pulling his hands free and gripping his wrists painfully tight.  “I’d feel a lot more sorry for you if you weren’t the one lying there looking all blissed out.”

“What should I do?” Castiel asked.  Dean always said he didn’t have to do anything, that just his presence was plenty awesome enough.  And by “awesome,” Castiel finally understood him to mean “arousing.”

Nonetheless.  It wasn’t in his nature to do nothing.

“Do you jerk off?” Dean countered.  It sounded more curious than challenging, and Castiel thought Dean might simply be trying to distract him.  “Like, at all?”

He frowned.  “Why would I?”

There was a brief pause in which he suddenly wondered if Dean had expected him not to recognize the phrase “jerk off.”  It was possible that a younger Dean had explained it.  Then Dean said, “Because.”  Which, as an answer, wasn’t particularly helpful, but he followed it up with, “I’m gonna show you.

“And then,” he added, apparently as an afterthought, “if we’re really lucky and the garrisons manage to run themselves for one night without a major crisis, we’ll talk about the kneeling thing.”

Dean showed him where his hands went, what to do with them and what not to do.  He practiced on Dean, which was strange and scary and exhilarating all at once.  They didn’t quite get to the kneeling, though Dean did call Sam – from the bed – to tell him that he was taking the night off to teach Castiel to swim.

Castiel almost protested that he knew how to swim very well, but Sam didn’t sound like he believed Dean’s story anyway so he tried to ignore the small untruth.  Instead he concentrated on the feeling of Dean there beside him, the warmth and the lingering pleasantness.  The sensation of being wanted.

“Cas,” Dean mumbled into his skin.  “You’re gonna break my friggin’ heart, here.”

Castiel knew this was completely untrue.  His fingers wandered through the underside of Dean’s right wing, smoothing feathers with as much dedication as he could muster without really moving.  “Your heart is safe with me, Dean.”

He could feel Dean smiling as he pressed a kiss to Castiel’s shoulder.  “You want communion?” he muttered.  As though it meant more to voice the words than it might have to make a wordless offer.

And the answer was probably.  He suspected it would ease the itch in his soul.  But Dean wasn’t entirely wrong when he focused on Castiel’s fascination with humanity.  This, right here, was a very human version of a heavenly moment: a time when peace and love and togetherness were not sacrificed one for the other.

“Will we end up in the stone circle again?” Castiel wondered aloud.  He didn’t know how else to answer, so he asked.

Dean hitched his wing a little higher, allowing Castiel better access.  “Right,” he said at last.  “Good question.”

“Not a good answer,” Castiel murmured, tugging gently on Dean’s feathers.  He felt a sharp exhale against his neck.

“I don’t know,” Dean admitted.  “I don’t know what that is.  But it... it kind of calls me, right?  When I’m with you.  In communion.  Or at least, it has the last couple of times.  I didn’t mean to drag you there.  I don’t even know whether being there is a good thing or not.”

“It got larger.”  Castiel didn’t know what to think about Michael’s ignorance, because surely there was little in heaven he didn’t know?  Perhaps the memories were harder to access when he was concentrating on being... on the more human parts of his perception.  “From one time to the next.”

“Yeah, probably not a coincidence,” Dean said with a sigh.  “I hear you.”

“There’s no reason to think it’s malevolent,” Castiel pointed out.

Dean snorted, mouthing his skin in some sort of amusement or apology.  “No reason except it’s us,” he murmured.  “And that’s pretty much our lives.  We hunt the weird shit, and sometimes it starts hunting back.”

“It’s difficult for me to accept,” Castiel said softly, “that any place our daughter was also drawn is... impure.”

Dean lifted his head.  “She’s been to hell, Cas.”

“So you have you,” Castiel said.

“Case in point,” Dean agreed.  Before Castiel could argue that he had neither a case nor a point, Dean disarmed him with, “But I like hearing you say ‘our daughter.’”

Momentarily without words, Castiel gripped his wing harder.  Maribel had been the right choice.  In a world of doubt and disbelief, it was sometimes hard to remember that.

“We’re the right choice,” Dean said quietly.  Nonsensically, his fingers pressing comforting warmth into Castiel’s skin wherever they were.  “We gotta believe we’re doing our best, Cas.  We just have to keep going.”

“Do you ever think, what if it can’t work?” Castiel blurted out.  “Are you ever worried?”  Once he’d started, he couldn’t stop.  The words that had eluded him just kept coming.  “That this is too fragile, that it will all come crashing down?  That the truce with Lucifer rests on a kindergarten class, and the best hope the garrisons have is that they’ll be too busy not falling apart to go to war with each other?”

“Mmm.”  Dean, to his surprise, let out a gentle huff of laughter against his collarbone.  “Still think you can read my mind.”

Castiel considered that, but further reflection didn’t make it any clearer.  “Is that a yes?”

“Look.”  Dean didn’t lift his head, but Castiel knew Michael was staring straight into his soul.  “A month ago we were facing down the apocalypse.  The world was gonna be destroyed.  But, surprise: it’s still here.  And the only thing we can do is keep being in it, right?  It’s not perfect.  It’s messy and scary and confusing.  But we’re in it together.  We just gotta make sure that whoever gets through it has a reason to be glad they did.”

“You,” Castiel whispered.  “You must get through it.”

“Someone,” Dean said, just as softly.  “Someone has to.”

“For me to make it and be glad,” Castiel amended, “you must make it through as well.”

There was a long pause where he listened to a human heartbeat, felt warm breath on skin that had never been so important, and he didn’t regret spelling it out for the man – the angel in his arms.

“I’m not gonna tell you that’s messed up,” Dean said.  His voice was low and rough and filled with an uncomfortable weariness.  “Because I’ve been there.  I am there.  Which may make it more messed up, actually; you should probably stay away from my lousy attempts at emotional clarity.

“But here’s the thing,” he added.  “Just because we can live forever doesn’t mean we will.  Believe me, I’ve got no plans to die anytime soon, but you gotta remember: it’s the living that’s important.  Not just avoiding death.”

Castiel’s hand fisted in his feathers, squeezing in a way that wouldn’t have hurt an angel.  Not an ordinary angel.  But Dean and his determined attachment to humanity... it made his wings vulnerable, filled them less with grace and more with passion.  His words – his stupid, human words – were cruel, and Castiel lashed out.

“Don’t say that to me,” he growled.  “Not after everything.  Not after what you did for Sam.”

“Cas.”  Dean’s voice rasped against his ear.  “You know that hurts, right?”

“I fell for you.”  Castiel didn’t loosen his grip, didn’t care right now what it took to get Michael’s attention.  “I came for you in hell after you went willingly, and I pulled you out despite your wailing and self-loathing and attempts on my life when I dared suggest you didn’t belong there.  I kept you out.  I gave up everything.”

His fingers suddenly relaxed as he realized what he was doing.  What he was trying to mimic.  The threat of loss he’d faced every moment for what had once seemed like forever.  It had been a brief eternity, as it turned out, but he hadn’t known that when the archangels came and he’d believed he would never see Dean again.

“I feel for you,” Castiel whispered.  “I feel because of you.”

“You doubted before me,” Dean said, just as softly.  Like it was the sin it really was.

“But I didn’t love.”  Castiel smoothed the feathers with care and awe and a silent apology for their mistreatment.  “Not the way I do now.”  Not so viscerally, he thought.  So fiercely.  With a desperation born of fear: that what he had now was something he could lose.

It was terrifying to think that this might be something he couldn’t learn.  That he had been a soldier first, and perhaps that was all he could ever be.

That he wasn’t human enough to get anything but divine love right.

“That’s ’cause I’m awesome,” Dean said, pressing a kiss against his jaw.  “Also, did I mention that I can read your mind now?”

Castiel smiled in spite of himself.  “I had assumed,” he murmured.

“Yeah.”  Dean pulled away, no longer warm and heavy at his side, but when he twisted to straddle Castiel’s hips he found he didn’t mind so much.  “I should apologize for all those times I yelled at you for doing it to me,” Dean said, staring down at him.  “But I’ve got a better idea.”

He watched Dean’s wings shift behind him with a sort of absent grace – he treated them better when he wasn’t paying attention to them than he did when he was – and he couldn’t stop smiling.  “I assume I’m not going to like it,” Castiel said.

“No, probably not.”  Dean’s hands were both on his chest, but he didn’t lean down.  “I think I should get back at you.  Do it every time you turn around, so I know what you’re going to say before you even open your mouth.”

Castiel had been fairly certain Dean was already doing that.  “That’s acceptable,” he agreed.

“Okay, so.”  Dean cleared his throat.  “You know where it’s coming from when I say love makes everyone feel like shit, right?”

His smile faded.  “No.  I don’t.”

“It makes you afraid,” Dean said.  “If you don’t have anything, you’re not afraid of losing it.  If you have the most awesome thing ever, you’re terrified it might not last.”

That had not been true in heaven, but he assumed Dean knew that.  “Are you saying you’re the most awesome thing ever?” Castiel asked instead.

Dean grinned down at him.  “Yeah,” he said.  “Me and you.  Never known anything better, Cas.”

“Never?” Castiel repeated, sure Dean didn’t mean it the way it sounded.

Dean’s eyes were lightening, blueing even as Castiel watched.  His wings glowed brightly behind his shoulders even as he lifted one of his hands and laid it alongside Castiel’s face.  He had to lean forward to do it, and his expression was somehow more impassive up close.  “Never,” he said.  Castiel could hear the ring of his true voice through the words.

Castiel swallowed.  Somewhere in his memory, he heard Dean saying, You’re kind of creepy when you do that.

A smile broke over Dean’s face, blue eyes disappearing as he closed them and lowered his head to kiss.  It was gentle and human and somehow more overwhelming than anything else he’d done.  Castiel felt the last of the shudders shake themselves out, tension dissipating beneath a being who could see everything he was and respond with a smile.

“Serves you right,” Dean mumbled against his lips.  “The golden rule doesn’t mean be nice to people, you know.  It means payback is sweet, and karma’s a bitch.”

“Is that what you wanted me to tell our daughter?” Castiel murmured.

Dean chuckled, kissing him again.  “No.  You did good with that.”  Lips pressed against the corner of his mouth, his cheek, up to his temple, and Dean whispered in his ear, “Least one of us will make a good parent.”

“I told Maribel that you are an excellent father figure,” Castiel said softly.  “I believe this to be true.”

“Yeah, she mentioned that.”  Dean shifted, all his weight on one arm as he pulled his other hand free.  “Speaking of... you know what time it is?”

It seemed an odd question, but Castiel took the opportunity to slide his hand under Dean’s arm and run his fingers through the feathers of his other wing.  “Yes,” he said.

“Ellen got the kids kindergarten space,” Dean said.  “I guess their numbers were down this year or something.  Morning for Maribel and Adamel, afternoon for Wildfire.”

The particulars of it meant little to Castiel.  “This has something to do with the time?” he guessed.

“They leave at eight-thirty,” Dean said.  “I think we should be there.”

“Why?” Castiel asked curiously.

“Because,” Dean said.  “It’s nice, okay?  You go out into the world, it’s nice to have someone standing behind you.  Waving, or making cupcakes, or something.  I don’t know.”

Castiel dragged his fingers through a tangled group of underfeathers, and he felt Dean twitch his wing a little straighter to make them easier to reach.  “They’re already in the world,” he pointed out.

Still braced on his elbows, Dean lowered his head to Castiel’s shoulder for a long moment.  “Sam waved to me,” he muttered.  “I liked it.”

“If you want to wave,” Castiel said, “we’ll wave.”  He nudged a flight feather back into place and added, “However, I feel I must remind you that you haven’t taught me to swim.”

Dean lifted his head, searching Castiel’s expression.  “You said you knew how to swim.”

Castiel raised an eyebrow at him.  “Does that matter?”

Dean laughed, and Castiel felt himself smiling.  “No,” Dean said, leaning in to kiss him again.  His tongue was warm and slow, and Castiel reached up to cup his neck with his free hand.  He felt Dean’s knee slide out from under him, leg stretching alongside his, and Castiel pushed before he could think, before Dean could guess what was coming.

Rolling on top of him, Castiel was relieved to see Dean’s wings unbent beneath him.  He leaned over Dean’s shoulder and pressed a kiss to the curve of his wing.  It wasn’t any more difficult than using his hands to trace the junction of back and wing, and it elicited a similar response from Dean.  He kissed the leading edge again, hooking his chin over Dean’s shoulder and breathing into grace like feathers and light.

“If you –” Dean began, but Castiel had already wondered.  He let his tongue slip tentatively into the light, strange smooth feeling where feathers would have met his hands.  Dean groaned, knee pressing between Castiel’s legs as he tried to get enough leverage to push up.

Castiel, having been instructed to think less, licked the wing again, mouthing over the tops of the feathers and wondering what would happen if he tried to bury his face in them.  Dean had done it to him, but his human body didn’t respond the way Dean’s did.  He imagined Dean’s body arching up off the bed, shoving hard against his even as he turned his head away, beautiful neck exposed in the light of his wings.

Dean grunted, gripping his arms and pushing even as Castiel tried to get deeper.  He didn’t want to think about biting, because it seemed impractical and perhaps unkind to wings that had been through so much, but he was afraid Dean might have sensed it anyway.  He managed to squirm closer, caressing feathers with his tongue in silent apology.

“Cas.”  Dean’s voice sounded strangled, and when he tried again it wasn’t much more than a gasp.  “Cas, I – I can’t believe I’m saying this, but –”  He trailed off, muscles in his leg flexing against Castiel in a way that was enticing and much too restrained.  “You gotta stop.  I’m so... so turned on by that, you don’t even know.”

“Good,” Castiel murmured, licking a longer swath through what little of Dean’s wing he could reach.  He was glad to hear that.  He still wasn’t sure how much he could rely on his own judgment when it came to what felt good and what didn’t, but so far Dean was very willing to share.

“Cas,” Dean whispered.  Stop.  “I’m not kidding.”

Dean didn’t move, and it was only then that Castiel realized he wouldn’t.  That he wouldn’t make Castiel pull away.  So he stopped waiting for it, dragging his leg over Dean’s as he sat up.  “Shall we go?” he asked.

Dean groaned, rolling away from him.  His face was buried in a pillow, fingers fisted in the sheets, and his wings both swept away over his back so that they didn’t come anywhere near Castiel.  His reply, when it came, was largely incomprehensible.

“I didn’t understand that,” Castiel said carefully.

Dean let go of the sheets to turn the hand closest to him over, middle finger upraised.

Castiel was relatively certain that smiling was not the appropriate response.  “I see,” he said.  “I’ll just... get dressed, then?”

Dean made a muffled sound that could have been anything, but it seemed unlikely that it was disagreement.  His shirt and pants were back in place before he’d slid off the side of the bed.  Dean’s clothes were scattered haphazardly across the floor, a pattern with which he was not familiar.  Before the Roadhouse garrison, Dean had tended to sleep in his clothes, taking them off only to change and putting them away immediately afterwards.

Since the Roadhouse garrison, he’d been reluctant to sleep at all.  Castiel hoped it wasn’t because of him.  He didn’t think it was typical of romantic partners who shared a room to sleep in separate beds, and it was possible that pressing this issue with Dean had driven him to avoid it altogether.  Thus, there had been little opportunity to observe what domestic habits he might be forming in the weeks since he and Sam had been on the road.

“I can feel you staring from all the way over there,” Dean mumbled, turning his head so that he wasn’t talking into the pillow anymore.

“I’m standing by the window,” Castiel pointed out.

“But you’re not looking out it,” Dean said, opening his eyes and staring back.

Because there was no other answer he could give, Castiel inclined his head in acknowledgment.

Grace swirled around Dean.  His wings beat once, and then he was standing in front of Castiel.  “So,” he said.  “We’re coming back here to swim sometime.  Right?”

He would have preferred to wrap Dean up in his wings and drop him in the water right now, dark ocean on a warm night with moonlight turning everything silver and grace-like.  Failing that, however, he would settle for a promise to return.  “I would like that,” he said.

The corner of Dean’s mouth quirked.  “I like yours better.”

Unexpected exasperation flared, and he wasn’t sure if it was with himself or Dean.  “How long has it been everything?” he wanted to know.  “Every single thing I think?”

He wasn’t completely surprised when Dean laughed.  “It’s not an accident,” he admitted.  “I was kind of waiting to see how long it would take you to get mad.  You can do it back, you know.  I know I’ve, uh.”  He shrugged in a way that didn’t look very smooth.  “I’ve been kind of a jerk about it.  Before.”

“You’ve told me many times to stay out of your head,” Castiel reminded him.  “Not everything you think stays in your head, but outside of communion, I’ve tried to respect your request.”

“Yeah.”  Dean waved his hand, and absently, Castiel noted that he was wearing clothes again.  “Thanks, but you can stop now.  Every angel on earth has more access to my mind than you do, and... that’s pretty backwards, right?”

“You may –”  Castiel stopped when Dean raised an eyebrow at him, suddenly realizing what he was about to say.  Dean was offering him everything, and he was about to say no.

“Yes,” he said instead.  “It is.”

“Okay,” Dean said.  “So what number am I thinking of now?”

It seemed an insignificant inquiry, but the image that went along with the number and Dean’s unmistakable amusement made him smile.  “Is the number sixty-nine often associated with sexual acts?”

“Just that one,” Dean said cheerfully.  “Wings are gonna make it way more awesome.”

“Perhaps we will try it later,” Castiel suggested.

“Tonight,” Dean agreed.  Then a frown flicked across his face, and he said, “We don’t sleep, do we.”

Castiel wasn’t sure what that meant.  “You do,” he said.  “Sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Dean said slowly.  “We’re gonna need to do something about that.”

Castiel brushed up against his mind again – already enjoying the privilege more than he’d tried to think about when he didn’t have it – and he tried not to flinch when the first thing he understood was privacy.  Not directed at him, though, and he also understood that knowing what Dean thought carried with it an inherent danger.  That he would take more responsibility for it.  That knowing why Dean was upset could make him feel obligated to fix it.

“Here’s the thing,” Dean was saying.  Even though he already knew what the thing was, now.  “If we were human, people would let us sleep.”  The look he gave Castiel was pointed.  “Well, the angels wouldn’t let us.  But we’d be able to bitch about it until they left us alone for a few hours.”

“I don’t need to sleep,” Castiel said.

“Yeah, that’s my point.”  Dean hadn’t waited for him to finish, so Castiel did something he’d wanted to do since first meeting Dean Winchester.  He reached out and put a finger over Dean’s mouth.

“I’m not done,” he said.  “I don’t need to sleep – but you might.  Everyone in heaven knows or can easily discern my capabilities.  All heaven knows of the archangel Michael is what he tells them.  Especially now that he’s been human.”

Dean smiled against his finger, and Castiel let it fall.

“You’re very sneaky,” Dean told him.  “I like it.”

Castiel wanted to kiss him, but what if it was too arousing?  He didn’t want Dean to have to tell him to stop again.  So he just reminded him, “Maribel will be leaving soon.”

“Yeah.”  Dean curled his fingers in Castiel’s shirt, just above his hips, and leaned in to kiss him.  Gently, lips moving over his, and Castiel knew how to do that.  “I’ll tell you,” Dean whispered against his mouth.

Castiel kissed him, tentatively, because he understood now that continuing to kiss was different from bestowing a single kiss.  Even if the kisses themselves were exactly the same.  Dean accepted it, though his hands didn’t move and Castiel wasn’t sure enough to touch him in return.

“I know it doesn’t feel the same to you,” Dean said quietly.  “I’ll tell you when it’s too much, or not enough, or whatever.  Just... do the same for me, okay?”

Dean hadn’t seemed to need much input from him.  He didn’t know if that was because Dean had been reading his mind the entire time, or if he was just that skilled at judging other people’s reactions.  But he remembered Dean promising that he would get there, whether Castiel met him in the middle or not, and he didn’t want Dean to have to cover all the ground alone.

“Yes,” he said, laying a hand carefully on Dean’s arm.  “I will.”

“Good.”  Dean’s fingers uncurled, hands pressed warmly against his waist for a moment before he stepped away.  He cleared his throat, acting more awkward than Castiel thought he had any reason to be, and said, “Let’s go send the kids off to kindergarten.”

Castiel nodded.  His hand fell, but he made no other movement.

Several heartbeats passed before Dean glanced at him and cracked a smile.  “This the angel equivalent of ‘you hang up first’?” he asked.  “Gabriel would fall over laughing if he could see us.”

“I think avoiding Gabriel’s ridicule is an impossible task,” Castiel said.  “But I would fly with you, if you’re willing.”

“I’m ready,” Dean agreed immediately.  Ceding control of the flight to Castiel.

He was tempted to close his wings around Dean and disappear, but he was aware that this would mean being inappropriately close when they landed.  He’d been aware of the social connotation for a long time, but sometimes it was more amusing to annoy Dean than others.  The smirk Dean gave him let him know that he, too, knew perfectly well why Castiel did it.

Castiel stood beside him instead and let his hand rest on the small of Dean’s back before he raised his wings.

The main room of the Roadhouse closed in around them, and Jo – Dean’s Joanna Beth, not his own Jophiel – stepped neatly around them.  She didn’t spill a single thing she was carrying, but the interruption was still enough to draw Ellen’s ire.  “That’s it,” she declared.  “I’ve had it.  No more angels appearing inside the building.  Use the door like everyone else.

“Gabriel,” she added.  “New rule.  I expect you to enforce it.”

“Whoa,” Dean said.  “Bad morning?”

“Dean, I love you boys,” Ellen said.  “But I’m not set up for this.  You gotta give me some authority to make decisions the angels will respect, or we’re gonna have law enforcement crawling all over this place.”

“Right, yeah,” Dean said.  “You think they’re gonna like having people mysteriously appear from thin air out in the parking lot?”

Ellen glared at him.  “I’m sick of running into people who weren’t there a moment ago!”

“Hi, Daddy.”  Maribel’s wings glowed as she tucked them in behind her back, walking out of the air into Dean’s legs.  “Sam’s going to drive us to school.  I said he could take your car, but he doesn’t want to.”

“Sure, that’s really sweet,” Ellen said.  “But we can’t all see them coming, and if I trip over a little thing with wings, they’re gonna be fine but I’ll break something and probably feel bad on top of it.  Use the back door.”

“Racist,” Dean told Ellen, patting Maribel’s head.  “You don’t want teach them segregation, do you?”

“Bite me,” Ellen retorted.

Dean grinned, which Castiel assumed meant the conversation wasn’t as serious as it sounded.  Still, the issue had come up in motels before.  “Perhaps a designated arrival area,” he offered.  “Out of sight of the road.”

“Inside,” Dean insisted.  “We don’t need random townspeople keeping track of how many people come and go.”

“I want a door,” Ellen said.

Dean just nodded at this.  “Yeah, I hear you.  Can we do an entryway out front or something?”

“Like a coat room?”  Ellen sounded skeptical.  “Only if one of you builds it.  And if humans use it, it doesn’t really solve the problem.”

“Okay, so, an angel entryway,” Dean said.  “No outside door.”

“I can do that,” Gabriel offered.

Dean snorted.  “You’re not doing it.  Your idea of subtle is an invisible My Little Pony stable in the backyard.”

“You’re the one who let them have a unicorn,” Gabriel reminded him.

“Okay, guys,” Sam called, coming through the front door and pausing to pull it shut behind them.  “Anyone going to school – oh, hey, Dean.  Cas.  Thought you were gonna be gone today.”

“What, miss their first day of school?”  Dean scoffed.  “No way.”

“Sam knows how to use the door,” Ellen said.

“Great,” Dean said.  “Sam can –”

He paused, and Castiel glanced at him curiously.  Dean was mentally reviewing the last day or so in his mind, lining up his timeline with Sam’s in a fraction of a second and arriving at a very human conclusion.  “Drive,” he said, as though he hadn’t hesitated.  “I’ll work on the coat room.

“Maribel says you’re not taking the Impala,” he added, frowning at Sam.

“Dean.”  Sam gave him a look that said the idea was clearly flawed, and he had no idea why Dean was even suggesting it.  Castiel had given him that same look many times.  “It doesn’t have airbags.  Or seatbelts.”

“So don’t crash it!” Dean retorted.

“I’m not driving kids around in that car,” Sam said flatly.

Castiel could see the argument rise and fall before Dean even opened his mouth.  They weren’t human children; they would be as safe in Dean’s car as they would be in anything else Sam put them in.  And there would be no explaining that to the parents Sam was sure they would encounter, or to the police Dean envisioned pulling them over.

“Right,” Dean said.  “Okay.”  Then his eyes narrowed.  “What are you driving them in?”

Sam put his hands on his hips, which Castiel could tell from Dean’s reaction meant he was defensive.  It was also, Castiel thought, an oddly angelic way of posturing, with his arms mimicking the wings he didn’t have.  He wondered if Sam had developed that particular mannerism before or after meeting members of the host.

“I have a car,” Sam told them.

“Oh, yeah?” Dean countered.  “Since when?”

“Since I needed one,” Sam said impatiently.  “Can we go now?”

“Sam,” Dean said.  “Where’d you get the car.”

Sam didn’t answer, but the glance he shot in Gabriel’s direction meant he didn’t have to.

“Seriously?”  Dean seemed to find this hilarious.  Castiel wasn’t entirely sure why, but he suspected everyone was happy enough that Dean had stopped arguing that they didn’t want him to ask.  “Well,” Dean said, “I guess that’s okay, then.”

“Shut up,” Sam said.

Dean just held up his hands.  “I didn’t say anything.”

“Where’s Adamel?” Sam wanted to know.

“Outside,” Gabriel answered, from the direction of the bar.  “Apparently Lucifer doesn’t feel welcome – can’t think why – so the kid went out to talk to him.”

“Okay, well.”  Sam didn’t look very happy about that, but all he said was, “We’ll pick him up on our way out.  You ready to go, Maribel?”

“Yes,” she said, stepping away from Dean.  “I’m ready.”

“Hey,” Dean said suddenly.  “Nice, uh...”  He gestured awkwardly at his own shirt.  “You go clothes shopping or something?”

“Sam showed me some pictures,” Maribel said.  She looked up at him, as serious as any angel on assignment.  “I’ll make note of what the other children are wearing so I can be sure to blend in.”

“Okay,” Dean said.  “Good.  That’s a good idea.  You, uh... if people ask you who Sam is, you know he’s your uncle, right?”

Maribel considered this.  “Being your brother makes him my uncle, doesn’t it?  Should I call him ‘Uncle Sam’?”

“Yeah,” Dean said.  The corner of his mouth quirked, although Castiel wasn’t sure why it was funny.  “Yeah, you probably should.”

“What about Lucifer?” she wanted to know.  “Is he my uncle too?”

“Oh, god,” Sam muttered.  “I didn’t even think of that.  What if we have to introduce Lucifer to someone?”

“Don’t tell me he’s riding with you,” Dean said.

“Of course he is,” Sam said.  “You don’t think he trusts me alone with Adamel, do you?”

“Ask him if he’s okay with a nickname,” Dean said.  His lips twitched when Sam glared at him, and Castiel watched him shrug carelessly.  “Or never introduce him to anyone.  Your call.”

“Would humans be surprised to hear Lucifer’s name?” Maribel asked.

“I wouldn’t mention that the devil drove you to school,” Dean said.  “In fact, the less you say about your home life, the better.  Sorry, kiddo.”

“That’s okay,” she assured him.  “I’ll just do whatever the other children do.  Aramel says I learn quickly.”

“You do.”  Angel things, Dean thought, but he didn’t say it and Castiel didn’t see any reason to make her doubt herself.  “You’ll be great.  And hey, you get in any trouble, you know what to do, right?”

“Come back here,” she said.

Dean laughed, and Castiel thought maybe he relaxed a little.  “I was thinking ‘call us,’ but yeah.  Yeah, just come back here.”

“Dean.”  Sam made a gesture against his ear that Castiel thought meant “phone,” then added, “They’re not allowed to have phones in school.  Not in kindergarten.”

Dean almost said, So? and Castiel felt it when he caught himself.  “Maribel,” he said.  “You know Sam’s number?”

“Yes,” she said.  “But Sam said I should give them yours if my teacher needs to call a parent.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed, exchanging glances with Sam.  “He’s right.  Okay, you’ll be fine.  Go.  Have a good time.”

“Bye, Daddy,” she said.

Castiel thought she did an admirable imitation of a human child, but Dean sounded a little strained when he replied, “See ya, kiddo.”

“Coat,” Sam said, before Maribel could step out the door.

She lifted her hand and there was a tiny “snap.”  A children’s parka appeared around her shoulders, complete with brightly colored mittens and a hood.  Castiel saw Sam glare at Gabriel, possibly for the snapping, but he held the door and Maribel walked out without looking back.

“Sam,” Dean said.  “Remind her not to do that at school.”

Sam rolled his eyes as Dean trailed after them.  “No kidding,” he said.

Dean got through the door before he stopped again, staring at the car Lucifer was leaning against.  “Dude,” he said.  “You’re joking.”

“You love Chargers,” Sam said.

“Not new ones,” Dean complained.  “You know it’s made out of plastic, right?”

“It’s fifteen times safer than your car and it gets better gas mileage,” Sam told him.  “Shut up.”

Dean glared at Gabriel while Sam walked Maribel around the other side of the car.  “I’m holding you personally responsible for this.”

“I care so much,” Gabriel told him.  “Really, your opinion matters to me.”

All Castiel felt qualified to judge about the car was its color.  It was black.  Beyond that, he assumed that Sam’s long association with Dean had taught him enough about cars to select something appropriate.

He felt Dean’s shoulder bump against his.  He was watching Maribel clamber into the backseat beside Adamel, but he heard Dean whisper, “Traitor.”  The word carried with it a wash of fondness that canceled out every negative connotation.

“Princess,” Castiel replied, very quietly.

Dean sputtered even as amusement blossomed in his mind.  It made Castiel smile.

Lucifer didn’t get into the car until Sam had finished checking the kids, giving them a brief lecture on how to ride in a car.  Castiel listened, wondering why he had never received such instruction.  Apparently leaning into the front seat from the back was not advisable.

Sam closed the back door, telling them not to open it while the car was moving, and glanced across the top at Lucifer.  “Ready?”

Castiel blinked.  He looked sideways at Dean, but Dean didn’t seem to find the question strange.  It was only the same thing he insisted on being asked before Castiel flew them anywhere.

Lucifer didn’t answer, but when Sam swung into the driver’s seat, he took the passenger side and pulled the door shut behind him.  There was a brief moment between Sam putting the key in the ignition and actually turning it where they appeared to speak to each other.  Sam made a pulling motion across his chest, tugging on his seatbelt.  Lucifer reached for his own.

“Don’t that just warm your heart,” Ellen’s voice said dryly.

“No,” Dean and Gabriel said at the same time.

The car started up, but before it pulled away Sam put an arm over the back of Lucifer’s seat and said something to the kids.  He pointed, and both little faces turned toward Adamel’s window.  Sam waved, and Maribel and Adamel both followed his example.

Out of the corner of his eye, Castiel saw Dean lift his hand in return.  On his other side, Ellen also offered a wave.  Before they could look away, Castiel nodded at them, silently wishing them well.  Perhaps it was no different than a hundred other challenges they would face.  Some he would know about, some he likely would not.  But if they saw that they had someone standing behind them now, maybe they would remember where they could turn in the future.

Sam had both hands back on the wheel as the car pulled away.  They all stood and watched as it maneuvered toward the street, slowing to a complete stop before turning out onto the road.  One of the rear turn signals was on, Castiel noted.

“Okay, that’s great,” Dean said abruptly.  “That’s gonna go real well.”

Gabriel snorted.  “It was your idea, big boy.”

“Whatever,” Dean said.  “Can we move on?  How about some breakfast?”

“You design me a coat room that isn’t ridiculous or racist,” Ellen said, “and I’ll find you some breakfast.”

“Sounds fair,” Dean agreed, clapping Castiel on the shoulder.  “You got stuff to do?”

“Yes,” he said truthfully.

“You want breakfast first?” Dean asked.  “Most important meal of the day.”

Castiel considered that.  He didn’t need breakfast, of course.  But neither did Dean.

“Yes,” he said after a moment.  “I believe I would enjoy that.”