Chapter Text
Title from the Ellie Goulding song ‘Home’
“Sammy! Get your ass out here! We’re about to go!” Dean yells, twisting the key in the ignition, causing the Impala’s engine to roar to life. The throaty rumble is music to Dean’s ears, but that doesn’t stop him from blasting an AC/DC song. As he waits for his brother to get in the car, he hits the steering wheel in time with the song’s rhythm, bobbing his head and closing his eyes. Dean hears the door open, and Sam is folding himself in behind the dash to ride shotgun, slinging his black dufflebag into the back seat to join Dean’s. Sam smirks and chuckles at his brother, who is now dramatically banging on the steering wheel and singing along with the guitar solo.
“Someone’s in a good mood,” Sam notes, grinning as Dean rolls his eyes and keeps air-drumming.
“‘Course I am. Anytime we get to gank a witch I’m happy. Those things are the worst, man, I swear. Plus, we have a long drive ahead of us, and I’ve been itching to get out of here and on the road again,” Dean justifies, turning in his seat to see out the back windshield as he backs out of the motel parking lot.
Being out on the open road is home to the Winchesters. The two of them in Dean’s baby, accompanied by the growl of her engine and the resonating whir of tires on asphalt is what freedom feels like. The road blurring by in the rearview mirror, a smear of greens and blacks and browns, makes Dean feel in control, makes him feel exhilarated. It’s a like a fresh start each time, where they leave the stresses of the last hunt behind and can focus on what lies ahead. Dean can’t help but turn and smile at his brother, feeling like things are exactly where and what they should be when he is behind the wheel, his brother riding shotgun, and a long stretch of nearly vacant road ahead of them. So why does there feel like there is some little but significant piece missing?
“Diner up ahead,” Sam remarks, gesturing to an exit sign marking a turn off. Dean slows and takes the narrower road, getting off the main stretch, and starts searching among the various stores, gas stations, and houses for the diner. His mind is only half there, the other half gingerly prodding at why the picture feels incomplete when it should be how it is. Dean’s not one for deep introspection, and he’s not about to start now. They pull into an empty parking space outside a typical no-name diner, one with a glowing neon red sign in the window advertising ‘ample portions’. Dean kills the engine and him and Sam swing the doors out of their way and head into the warmly-lit diner. They take a seat at a booth table, Sam already inserting all their various chargers into the electrical outlet and plugging in their phones and his laptop.
“What’s on your mind, Dean? Out of nowhere you just got all mopey or something. What’s up?” Sam asks, finishing up plugging in the other emergency phones. Dean glares at his brother, rubbing his temples with his index fingers as if to ward off a headache.
“Nothing, shut up and figure out what rabbit food you’re gonna order,” Dean insists, making a point to look engrossed in the menu so Sam will stop badgering him with all his questions. Sam sighs wearily but looks through the assortment of items. Even though Sam let it drop (at least for now), what he said still begs the question of what is making him feel out of place when things are looking up. He figures he should at least know, even if he doesn’t talk about it with his brother. A waitress with bright red lipstick and wrinkles around her mouth and eyes asks what they’d like, her pen poised above a worn notebook.
“I’ll have a double bacon cheeseburger with fries and a beer.” Dean says, closing his menu and sliding it over. The waitress nods, scribbling it down, then looks pointedly at Sam.
“I’ll have a grilled chicken salad and a beer too,” Sam adds, handing her his menu. She smiles and says she’ll be back with the food shortly, and sweeps up their menus and leaves.
It’s at that moment Dean figures out what’s on his mind, when he wants to recommend that his brother and Castiel try some of the cherry pie Dean plans on ordering to go.
Cas. Cas is what is missing from the picture.
“I miss Cas,” Dean blurts out, with the two of them back on the road and heading for downtown Sandy, Oregon, in hopes of finding where the witch is hiding out. Dean is shocked the words actually made it past his lips; he sure as hell hadn’t intended to say that. But it’s out of his mouth now, and Sam clearly wasn’t going to let this slide. Dean does the best he can to cover up the unusual and unforeseen display of emotion, stumbling over his words in his hurry to get them all out. “I mean like where is the guy? We haven’t seen him in forever. Do you think he’s dealing with stuff going on upstairs?” The response he gets from Sam is a deep look that seems to see straight past everything, and Sam looks infinitely wise, like he knows things even Dean doesn’t know about himself. Finally, Sam eases the tension mounting and looks back out the window.
“Maybe you should pray to him and ask for some backup on this hunt,” Sam suggests.
Dean’s grip on the steering wheel tightens and he peers through the windshield speculatively. It’s starting to pour, and he has the windshield wipers up on full to combat the raindrops obscuring his view of the road. Sometimes how perceptive and analytical his brother is scares him. He considers the possibility that maybe Sam does see more than Dean is willing to admit is there. “I don’t wanna bother him. It’s just one witch, nothing we haven’t dealt with fine on our own before,” Dean argues half-heartedly. He wants to kick himself for the stupidly hopeful feeling surging through his chest at the prospect of Cas joining them on the hunt. He hasn’t seen the angel in so long….Dean screws his face up into a look of disgust. Why does it matter? He’s fine with Sam. Great, actually.
Or so he keeps telling himself.
Sam asks if they should get a room for the night, but Dean just shakes his head and says that they can get a room the next day, once they’re finally in Sandy. Sam is obviously exhausted, so Dean turns down the pounding classic rock and encourages him to sleep. Sam is out within minutes, snoring lightly a half hour later, causing Dean to chuckle and smile softly. Some part of his brain vaguely notes how soft he’s becoming, his feelings more and more ‘soft-hearted’ as Charlie would put it, but he can’t really find it in himself to care. He’s a hunter, dammit, who has survived Hell, Purgatory, helped stop the apocalypse and return Lucifer to the pit, and so much more. If he hasn’t earned the right to feel something every once in awhile, then he’ll be damned. He drowns his worry in hard liquor and fills things that threaten him with bullets. He can dig a bullet out of his chest using tweezers, all with a straight face and a fifth of whiskey. Dean is a man, and the fact he can feel affection for his brother or compassion for Castiel doesn’t change that fact at all.
So that’s how Dean justifies the warmth he feels secondary to being startled when Castiel suddenly appears in the back seat. Dean jumps a little, almost getting whiplash turning to look back at the trenchcoat-clothed angel. Castiel offers him his barely-there smile. “Hello, Dean.” He pauses, waiting for Dean to regain composure over himself. No one is more attuned to Dean’s body language and facial expressions and what they mean than Castiel, though Sam comes a close second. It’s just a gift Cas has; to be able to understand what even the smallest flash of eyes or grunt could mean. He’s good at understanding Sam like this as well, but by far, he is able to derive meaning from everything about Dean that would mean nothing to a stranger.
Castiel realizes he must’ve just disturbed Dean from a deep train of thought, because Dean looks a little disoriented, his eyes straying down and back to the road, the faintest hint of pink dusting his freckled cheeks. “Heya, Cas. What have you been up to?” Dean asks, his voice a bit huskier, a tone Cas recognizes as suppressing emotion. “Haven’t seen you in awhile. Everything going okay?” Castiel clears his throat, answering succinctly as always.
“Everything is fine. I have not had many tasks to attend to, so I have come to join you on this hunt, if that is acceptable with you and Sam, of course,” Castiel realizes how tentative he is with asking permission. He doesn’t want Dean to tell him that no, they don’t need help, Cas can go. He longs to stay here, riding in the back of the Impala, listening to Dean’s loud music and remaining quietly amused by the brothers’ playful bickering.
Most of all, he wants to accompany his charge, just because his heart warms at the thought of Dean Winchester. The beauty and light radiating from Dean’s soul is so lovely Castiel feels privileged just to be able to bask in it when in Dean’s presence. Oh, how breathtaking Dean’s soul is, singing of his selflessness, righteousness, and how he does love in the purest, loyalest, deepest form, even if in his stunted emotional perception he does not know this. “Sure, back up would be great. Y’know, if you want to stick around, you don’t have to just for hunts, Cas. You’re family, you’re always welcome,” Dean says, the green fire of his eyes engaging the ethereal blue of Cas’. Castiel senses the emotion behind the words, and despite Dean playing it off nonchalantly, this is an offer that means a lot to him.
Castiel is all too eager to accept. “Thank you, Dean. I will keep that in mind.” He wants to say that he’ll always be here, right here, that he’ll never fly off without Dean, but his zealousness would most likely make the hunter uncomfortable. Dean smiles his crooked, unintentionally disarming smile and Castiel smiles back, a feeling like melting honey seeping through his chest. He feels not just needed, but wanted by the older Winchester. Dean’s sentiment of ‘you’re family’ makes something distinctly tender and warm arise inside of the seraph.
Dean feels like some weight he didn’t know was there has been lifted off his shoulders now that Cas has appeared in the back of his car. He breathes a little easier now, smiles a little more. His shoulders have a less tense set to them. All these things Cas notices as Dean goes on about the hunt, about what Sam and him researched on the witch and what she has been doing. Castiel both enjoys the rough, deep sound of Dean’s voice- like the ocean churning in on itself during a storm- and absorbs the information while Dean points out the highlights of what’s been going on. “So the sonovabitch apparently has been creating these weird plague like spells that end up infecting the people she injects them with, and they start to doing some pretty weird shit. Sam said it was like forcing the people to spill their guts, not in the nasty way, in between being really sick.
“So say a girl gets infected with it, and she’s been hiding that she’s cheating on her husband. Well, she’ll get sick, then end up telling her husband and revealing all the shit she has going on behind his back, and then she’ll get even sicker and die. I guess it makes them show what they keep hidden before they die- pretty much everything. Sam says it’s gotta be her way of getting people to be ‘true to themselves’ or some stupid shit like that before they end up puking their guts up. It’s deranged, but I’m guessing she has her reasons for creating it. Either way, we’re gonna gank her tomorrow,” Dean finishes, squinting to see through the liquid gray haze of rain pelting down outside. He can see the individual drops illuminated in the two golden beams of the headlights, and focuses on them while he thinks about the finer points of the case.
“It sounds like the witch we are dealing with is a Caledoni wicken. The magick they use is based off of emotional magicks. They specialize in trying to unite emotion with the magick realm, and it often involves the human soul being exploited to do so. They’re very powerful, but tend to focus their magick on exploiting the soul for its emotional power and using it to do whatever they deem needs to be done. Based on what you’ve told me, this witch is violating people’s souls to release the emotional power within them. When something as pure as a soul is exposed to magick of dark origin, it will essentially poison the host and rot them from the inside out. The emotional outbursts and confessions are a side effect of what her magick is doing.” Castiel explains.
Dean plows a hand through his hair, filling his cheeks up with air and exhaling a gusty breath. “So what, we gank the bitch and she can’t poison people with her Magick anymore, and everyone can stop spilling their guts, both literally and figuratively?” Dean questions, getting to the point. When Cas nods, Dean asks the biggest question. “So how do we kill it?”
“A poppy seed extract and juniper -infused bullet through the heart.” Cas answers. Dean shrugs.
“I’ve heard weirder. Any idea on how we can make one?” Dean asks.
“I think we have a few buried in the trunk somewhere,” Sam chips in, yawning hugely as he sits up, blinking away the sleep in his eyes. Dean smirks.
“Well good morning, Sleeping Beauty.” Dean says, then fills Sam in on what Cas told them about the witch, or more accurately: Caledoni wicken.
“Okay, cool. When we get to Sandy, we’ll scope out the trunk for the bullets, then hunt her down and kill her.” Sam sums up. Dean slaps the steering wheel with his palm, grinning at his little brother.
“Now we just gotta get to Sandy.” Dean finishes.
The brothers alternate driving and sleeping, and Cas sits quietly in the back seat, feeling better than he has for weeks now that he has been reunited with the Winchesters. He feels a certain sense of belonging here. Dean also is noticeably in a better mood, and Sam just smirks to himself, reading those two like a book. Sam likes to entertain himself with wondering who is gonna crack and spill their feelings for the other first. His money is on Dean; Dean always seems to lose his shit, emotionally speaking, when it comes to either him or Cas. Before the sun comes up, Dean pulls up to Sandy Mountain Lodge, a motel that looks cheap and weird enough to suit them, and parks the car. “Cas, you wanna come with me? Or you can stay here and try to wake Sammy up,” Dean grins at his snoring brother and then looks over at Castiel. Castiel looks contemplative, but Dean sees the corner of his mouth pulled up in a lopsided smile.
“I think I’ll come with you. Waking Sam up will not end up well. He’s in his fourth REM cycle; he would be very unhappy with me.” Castiel amends, opening the car door and joining Dean. Dean laughs freely, showcasing his straight, white teeth when he does so.
“Well then let’s go and we can flip a coin to see who has to wake him up in a minute,” Dean proclaims. The rain has faded out to a light, cold drizzle, darkening his hair and leaving little spots on his jeans. Once the hunter and angel are inside the lobby of the motel, Dean strides up to the counter, Cas in tow, and asks for a room with two beds.
“Did you want your own room, Cas?” Dean asks, on second thought. Angels don’t sleep, but where would Cas stay?
“I do not need one. I won’t be sleeping,” Castiel explains what Dean already guessed. He turns back to the guy at the front desk and nods.
“Okay, so one room, two beds.” The guy nods, typing it in on his computer, then handing a set of keys to the room to Dean.
“Room 117. Enjoy your stay,” the attendant says, then goes back to reading the Sports Illustrated magazine he was reading earlier. Dean sighs, looking reluctantly outside.
“Time to go wake Sam up. Wait here.”
Dean returns minutes later with a tired and slightly cranky Sam, whose flannel is creased and wrinkled and his hair is even more of a chaotic mess. The three find their room, Dean switching on the light and setting their bags down by a nightstand. As is typical with these places, the wallpaper is a hideous pattern that doesn’t match the one on the carpet, and it smells vaguely of cigarette smoke. Still, Sam doesn’t seem to care, seeing as he’s kicking his shoes off and already sliding underneath the blankets on the bed closest to the door. The minute his head hits the stack of flat pillows, he’s asleep again, despite the light being on. Dean smiles at Sam’s sleeping form, turning a lamp on and switching the overhead lamp off so there is less light, but they can still see. “I’m gonna get my four hours, and then we’ll go hunt down the witch and see what’s up with the situation. Where are you gonna go?” Dean asks, shrugging out of his cargo jacket and draping it over a chair.
“I’ll be picking up the ingredients and making the poppy seed extract and juniper bullets while you are asleep. I checked the trunk; you do not have any.” Castiel announces. Dean scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms, his desire to sleep surfacing now that he’s sitting on the edge of a bed.
“Okay, sounds good. We should be up in four or so hours.” Dean says, reaching over to turn the lamp off. Castiel holds his gaze, his oceanic eyes seeming to smolder with something Dean can’t distinguish, but it sets off a peculiar feeling like spilling sunshine beneath the surface of his skin.
“Goodnight, Dean. Sleep well. I will return in the morning.” Castiel finally breaks the intrigued silence, and then with the sound of rustling feathers, he is gone. Dean sighs breathily, turning out the light, and swings his legs underneath the mildly scratchy blankets, shutting his eyes.
For the first time in several weeks, Dean is going to bed knowing he’ll wake up and Cas will be there.
The darkness of the room masks the small, contented smile that finds a home on Dean’s lips.