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Castiel
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Castiel is staring at New Mexico postcards, trying to decipher which one Claire will like the most when someone taps his shoulder.
“As I live and breathe,” Ramsey says and pulls him into a hug.
Castiel pats him awkwardly on his back. “Ramsey.”
In all his six-foot bearded glory, Ramsey isn’t out of place in a roadside convenience store, but it is startling to find him in ‘this’ exact roadside store, very far from his usual stomping grounds in Georgia.
“New coat?” Ramsey asks, running his hands down the labels of the trenchcoat and Castiel grabs his wandering hands, pulling them away, watching over his shoulder towards where Sam and Dean are engrossed in a fight about which beef jerky to get.
“No,” Castiel says distractedly. “It’s the same.”
Ramsey tilts his head towards Sam and Dean. “They don’t know?”
“It’s complicated,” Castiel mumbles and instinctually takes a step back from Ramsey when Dean looks over his shoulder and sees him near the postcards.
“Come break the tie, Cas!” He shouts. “Chili Lime or Jalapeño Cheese?”
“He will obviously pick Chili Lime,” Sam says, rolling his eyes.
“Yeah, because it’s the best, Sammy!” Dean exclaims. “And Cas has great taste.”
“Cas doesn’t eat!”
They have been wandering closer to Castiel and Ramsey while bickering and come to a stop in front of them, only then realising that Ramsey is standing there.
“Who’s Cas?” Ramsey asks.
“Uh,” Castiel stutters. “No one of import.”
He hates the curious stare Dean gives Ramsey.
“And who are you?” Dean asks.
“Chris Ramsey,” Ramsey says, holding out his hand for Dean to shake. “Friend of Jimmy’s.”
Dean seizes him up while Sam awkwardly shoulders him out of his way to shake Ramsey’s hand.
“This is Sam and Dean,” Castiel says. “They are also my friends.”
“Jimmy, huh?” Dean says. “Haven’t heard that name in a minute. And how did you two meet?”
“Ramsey is a private investigator I met in Atlanta,” Castiel says. “He is very good at finding missing people.”
“Working a case next town over,” Ramsey says. “Grizzly stuff.”
Castiel looks at him sharply. “That is unwise.”
“I live for that shit, Jimmy,” Ramsey says and pats the gun hidden beneath his flannel jacket. “You know that.”
“Yes, I am aware that you are stubborn,” Castiel says. “In this case, I would appreciate if you could be less stubborn.”
“Sorry,” Ramsey says but he doesn’t mean it.
“Looks like we’re working the same case,” Sam says. “Wanna knock our heads together? Share info?”
“I don’t work with civilians,” Ramsey says and is rewarded with two FBI badges being shoved in his face. “Yeah, like I’ve never made a fake badge at Kinko’s.”
Castiel gets in between them, shoving the fake badges down and giving the brothers a stare. “Do you trust me?” he asks Ramsey over his shoulder.
“You know I do,” Ramsey replies instantly.
“You are going to need our help.”
-
He told Ramsey many lies.
“I was looking for Claire,” he tells Sam and Dean in the Impala, following behind Ramsey’s Dodge. “So I told him I was Jimmy Novak. He thinks I’m a tax accountant.”
“Guess you took that holy tax accountant joke seriously,” Sam remarks.
“We would’ve helped you look for Claire,” Dean says.
“I don’t have to explain every single decision I make, Dean,” Castiel says annoyed.
“You don’t even pay taxes,” Dean mutters.
“Okay, okay,” Sam mediates. “So, he doesn’t know about… stuff?”
“No,” Castiel says.
There’s silence in the car for another five minutes.
“Hey Cas,” Sam says cheerfully. “You made a friend.”
Castiel frowns. “I suppose.”
They drive into a Super 8 just on the outskirts of Creek Hill and parks beside the Dodge.
“Cas has friends,” Dean mutters beneath his breath.
“You can have more than two friends, Dean,” Sam says pointedly.
Dean huffs.
-
Amy Roberts joined a cult.
“Her parents said it was like she was a different person,” Ramsey says. “One day, she’s a sweet church going lady and the next…”
“Almost like she’s possessed,” Sam says.
“This is the last place she used her credit cards,” Ramsey says. “Her husband just wants her back home.”
They didn’t come here looking for Amy Roberts, but when Sam caught the case, it was a cult where miracles happen. All of it seems a little too good to be true. It’s either crossroads demons or angels - neither of which Ramsey is in any way prepared to deal with.
“Look, we will go first thing in the morning, okay,” Sam says. “Interview some of the cult members, see if Amy is there.”
It is late and they retreat to their rooms, Sam and Dean will research the case, and Ramsey to do his own thing.
Castiel will watch over them when they sleep all. He likes having Sam and Dean in his sight, their souls weaving through the rooms they inhabit, the colours of their dreams when they sleep, and the gentle way he nudges the bad dreams away. It isn’t something he can do at the bunker because of the warding, but here in this motel… what they don’t know won’t hurt them.
Ramsey has the room two doors down booked.
When Castiel knocks on his door, he’s already out of most of his clothes.
“Hello,” Castiel says and Ramsey opens the door wider.
“You’re… an odd one, Jimmy,” he says. “Why are you tangled up in cult stuff?”
Sam and Dean’s lie to cover up their fake FBI badges had been a simple one - fake but effective. They are part of a group who helps former cult members escape from their often fundamentalist families.
“I was in one - a cult,” Castiel says, and it’s the closet to the truth he has ever been. Following orders without question certainly qualifies, he thinks, and searches Ramsey’s face.
Jimmy Novak’s church had been fundamentalist, but in a way where it was mostly potluck and Sunday school. He believed in miracles, the sanctity of marriage and God. When Castiel first asked him to show his faith in God, Jimmy had been surprised, but not suspicious. Angels had been as real to him as the sun and the moon.
“Dean,” he says. “He showed me a new way.”
Ramsey pulls him in by the labels of his coat. “Did he kiss you?”
“No,” Castiel says and sighs into Ramsey’s touch. “He showed me what freedom means, freedom to do this.”
Ramsey chuckles and backs him up against the bed. “Good.”
-
“Where were you last night?” Dean asks accusingly.
Pretending to be asleep, Castiel thinks, and pointedly sits down across from Dean instead of to his usual left.
A waitress comes up to take their orders.
“Pancakes, heavy on the bacon.”
“Cinnamon oatmeal, side of fresh fruit.”
“Eggs over easy on rye,” Ramsey says and looks at Castiel expectantly.
“Just coffee,” he says.
The waitress juts down their orders, her hair coiffed and neat, despite having been on her feet for hours and the full diner.
“Can you tell us anything about the Creek Hill Church?” Sam asks her.
He is in his ‘fed suit’ and look every bit the character he is supposed to be.
“Strange bunch,” she replies with a shrug. “Not a lot of people skills. Must grows all their own stuff because the town don’t get any of their business.”
Sam nods along. “Notice any strange smells or noises coming from the area around the church?”
She frowns at him. “No, they have excellent hygiene.”
“Sorry,” Sam says, laughing it off. “Standard questions, you know how it is, bureaucracy.”
She nods along like she understands.
Another waitress fallen under the spell of a Winchester brother ‘fed act’.
“You’re good at that,” Ramsey tells Sam. “You have any kind of formal training?”
Sam shrugs. “Just doing our part to make the weird a little less weird.”
“So, tell me again,” Dean says. “How did you and C… Jimmy meet again?”
“I told you,” Castiel says sharply. “I was looking for Claire.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Right, Claire. Because it’s funny how you didn’t come to us.”
“We are not having this discussion again, Dean. It’s futile,” Castiel says, annoyed.
“It’s what you’re supposed to do for your friends, okay. Help. But oh no, you’re once again above asking for…”
“That’s enough,” Ramsey says and his tone of voice brokers no argument. “I’m doing this as a favour to Jimmy, but you ain’t talking to him that way. You understand me?”
“Dean,” Sam says sharply. “Stop.”
Dean pushes his chair backwards and gets up. “I’m not hungry.”
-
Castiel decides to go in Ramsey’s car. Because he can, and Dean is not going to stop him.
“Some friend,” Ramsey says.
“I have had a tendency in the past to not ask for help when I needed it,” Castiel admits. “More often than not, Dean has had to deal with the consequences. I understand his anger.”
“I don’t,” Ramsey says. “You could tell me about it if you wanted to.”
Castiel marvels at his generosity, of the human condition, the devotion they have to what they call ‘their people’.
“You wouldn’t understand,” he says instead.
“The help me understand,” Ramsey says and Castiel stares at the side of his face, illuminated by the low winter sun. “I want to know things about you.”
Instead of answering, Castiel feels a thug in his consciousness and he frowns at the buildings coming up in front of him, the Creek Hill Church grounds.
“Go back! Ramsey, go back!” He yells and pulls out his phone, tapping Sam’s name. “It’s angels!”
But it’s too late.
Ramsey stomps on the brake, only managing to stop the car from hitting the angels who has suddenly appeared in the middle of the road.
The Impala is surrounded in front of them, angels pulling out the brothers with blades to their throats. Castiel can see the broken wings of the angels pulled along their backs, ready for a fight.
“I’m sorry,” Castiel tells Ramsey. “I shouldn’t have let you come.”
“Castiel!” Elemiah says, banging on the window to the passenger seat. “Come out here, you traitor!”
“Just do what they say,” Castiel says. “Just tell them what they want to know.”
“Jimmy!” Ramsey shouts fearfully when Elemiah pulls Castiel out of car.
“My name is Castiel,” he says gravelly and is knocked unconscious.
-
He wakes to the smell of burning oil.
Sam and Ramsey are tied up to his right while Dean is tied to a chair just outside the burning circle, face a dotted map of bruises.
“Dean!” he calls and watches Dean react to his voice, opening one swollen eye to look at him.
“Always the concern,” Elemiah says spitefully. “For mud monkeys. For ‘this’ mud monkey.”
“Elemiah,” Castiel says. “I see you finally found someone to fight for you after being Raphael’s loyal dog for so long.”
“Once you fought in Michael’s grand garrison,” Elemiah says. “Castiel, the Angel of Thursday. #he one who first reached the Righteous Man in Hell. To think I was jealous of you.”
“Jealousy is unbefitting of our kind,” Castiel says.
“But how the mighty have fallen. You have banished us to Earth and stolen our wings.” Elemiah unfolds his wings, to human eyes, merely shadows, but Castiel can see the wreckage being thrown from Heaven and hurtling towards Earth.
Elemiah was made with six sets of wings and a hundred eyes. Now, most of his eyes are closed, no longer able to see the past, present or possible futures, no longer able to soar through the sky in an instant.
“Where is Lucifer?” Elemiah asks.
“Lucifer?” Sam asks from his spot to the side. “Why do you need Lucifer?”
While Elemiah stalks towards Sam, Castel gives Dean more than a cursory glance.
Cas, I’m okay, Dean prays, staring at him intently with his bruised face.
“Order! We want order!” Elemiah shouts.
“Lucifer is chaos,” Sam says. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he’s too busy being a rockstar to restore order in Heaven.”
Elemiah holds out his hand and pulls Sam off the ground, invisible fingers clenching around his throat. “How dare you speak to me!”
“Hey, assface!” Dean calls out. “Leave my brother alone!”
Elemiah turns his attention away from Sam, who crumbles against the wall, and a sense of trepidation washes over Castiel.
Everyone knows.
Raphael certainly knew.
Elemiah grips the fabric of Dean’s jacket over his right shoulder and rips, exposing bare skin. With his other hand, he hovers over the brand invisible to human eye, and pulls.
Castiel shouts in pain.
-
Something nudges him awake, a gentle hand and two dark eyes.
“Welcome back,” Ramsay says.
Castiel lifts his head and grunts in pain.
“Dean?” He rasps out.
Across two sets of bars, Sam cradles his brother. The handprint is blood red and angry from where Elemiah had ripped Dean’s jacket. “I think he’s okay, just out,” he says.
Castiel lets his head fall back onto the ground in relief.
“Some cult, huh,” Ramsay says, huddled into the corner of the cell. “I swear that guy had wings.”
“It’s not a cult,” Castiel says.
“Yeah,” Ramsay says. “Obviously. But I guess I found Amy Roberts. She dragged us in here after you… stopped screaming.”
“We take vessels on Earth,” Castiel explains.
“‘We’?”
“Cas is an angel,” Sam says.
Ramsay laughs. “Yeah, sure. I tore through your entire life to find your daughter. I know your birthday, your parents…”
“Jimmy Novak was a godly man, so when I asked to inhabit his body, he gave his permission,” Castiel says and it never ceases to surprise him how much regret he feels at the fate of Jimmy Novak. “He, like Amy Roberts, were not aware of what they agreed to. She is most likely lost to her husband, just as Jimmy is.”
“What about Claire? I thought she was your daughter?” Ramsey says.
Castiel swallows. “I feel responsible for her. But I am not her father.”
Ramsey is not tied to anything, Castiel realises, when Ramsey gets up to pace the small cell in frustration.
The angels don’t see him as a threat, and that will always be their downfall. With a quick glance, Castiel sees that they did have the good sense to chain up both Sam and Dean.
He struggles to his feet and runs his hands over the bars, revealing the Enochian sigils keeping him inside. They flash blue to Ramsey’s human eyes and Castiel feels weak from the relentless attacks to his grace.
“What did they do to you?” Sam asks. “They didn’t even touch you.”
Castiel falls backwards again, too weak to stand. He can guess. No, that’s a lie, he knows.
“I pulled Dean from Hell,” he says and it fills him with equal parts pride and shame. “A piece of me was left behind.”
“Oh,” Sam says.
Castiel is not ashamed to see Dean alive, to have knitted his body back together, but it has always been a secret how much of himself he left behind.
“You never told us that,” Sam says.
“Well, we have been a little busy since,” Castiel remarks and looks away.
-
Dean doesn’t wake and Castiel grows weaker. He stares at the Enochian sigils on the bars without seeing until he finally realises something important.
“The door is unlocked,” he whispers.
Ramsay has been uncharacteristically silent since Castiel’s confession. “What?” he asks.
“In all of creation, there is one mistake we always make,” Castiel says. “Underestimate humankind.”
“I can leave?” Ramsay says.
“Yes.”
Ramsey gets to his feet. “Jimmy…”
“I prefer Castiel.”
He swallows and nods. “Castiel. I…”
“There are phones in the Impala,” Castiel says. “In the glove department. There’s a number for Crowley, tell him where we are, and then save yourself.”
“Okay,” Ramsey says and Castiel knows him to be a man of action. A man who needs a mission. He watches him slip out of the cell, and with the grace of man used to secrecy, he walks quiet as mouse out of the barn that is their prison.
-
Crowley lays siege to the church grounds with his hellhounds.
Castiel watches as Hanael, with the human face of Amy Roberts, running from a group of vicious hounds, stumbles ungracefully and ends up on her back with claws holding her down to the barn floor.
“Hello boys,” Crowley says from the doorway and tsks at the hounds. “Another day, a whole new rescue.” He surveys the scene in front of him, landing on the unconscious form of Dean. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Get me out of here,” Castiel demands and Crowley barely pays attention when he twists his hand and the bars break in two, instantly releasing some of the pressure keeping Castiel weak. The bars were only ever made to keep angels in. He scrambles to his feet and covers the ground between him and Dean in four strides.
He kneels in front of him and covers the imprint of his hand, severing the enforced bond Elemiah dragged to the surface and knits it back to what it originally was - a faded handprint that Castiel left behind on accident.
Dean shoots up, breathing harshly, face clear of injuries.
“Thank god!” Sam says and Castiel breathes out in relief.
“What happened?” Dean asks.
“We’ll explain later,” Sam says. “Let’s get out of here.”
Castiel walks out first.
He sees the hellhounds’ vicious faces and Elemiah kneeling on the ground. The other angels have fled, he senses, and wonders what it will mean. He hopes they go back to Heaven.
He senses Ramsey in the periphery, but most of all he feels Dean, upright and annoyed, just behind him.
It’s been many moons since he felt such anger. The lights pop around them as he strides closer to Elemiah, the tip of his angel blade appearing in his hand. He pulls it down and holds it to Elemiah’s throat.
“I had mercy for you,” he says. “Once.”
“Converting with demons and apes,” Elemiah spits out, blood dripping from his mouth. “I don’t want your mercy.”
“Good, because I have none,” Castiel says and jams the blade through his chest.
Elemiah tips his head, alight with grace, and dies in a blinding light. The shadowy imprint of his most visible wings are burned to the ground and none of his hundred eyes will see creation again.
-
Amy Robert looks shell-shocked in Ramsey’s car.
Hanael is gone.
“I saw your face,” she tells Castiel. “Your true face.”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
Her eyes are wet and he leaves her to cry in peace.
Ramsey is knocking back one of Crowley’s dangerous concoctions at the bar while Crowley is busy talking Sam and Dean’s ears off about his hellhounds and how amazing they had been during the siege on the church.
Castiel sits on the bar stool beside Ramsay.
“I don’t even know what to say to you now,” Ramsay scoffs.
“I understand,” Castiel says.
Ramsey pushes over one of his two shots.
“I don’t drink, or eat or sleep,” Castiel says and watches Ramsey’s Adam’s apple bob as he downs both shots.
“So all those times we went out, you…” Ramsey asks.
“I enjoyed the company, but food is particularly aggravating to get down.”
“… Imrah held him by the ankles,” Crowley continues to regale Sam and Dean in the background and Castiel catches Dean’s gaze before looking away.
“Do you love him?” Ramsey asks, knocking his shoulder. “Because my gaydar ain’t pinging his way.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Castiel says truthfully. He knows what kind of love Ramsey means even if he doesn’t understand the word.
“They hurt him to get to you,” Ramsay says. “For no reason but to see you suffer.”
“I know,” Castiel admits. “Maybe I deserved it.”
Ramsey kisses him, holds him by his tie and folds them together. Castiel hears glass being broken and an annoyingly British voice exclaiming ‘I knew it!’ in the background.
“You’re not scared?” Castiel asks when Ramsey lets him go.
“Nah,” he shrugs. “You pretended to like my food and I can’t cook for shit. That means something, you know.”
“It was inedible,” Castiel nods along.
Ramsey breaks out into a toothy smile. “So, what are you going to do now?”
“Feathers and I have some Devil hunting to do,” Crowley says behind the bar, sliding over festive drinks with hearts in them. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Castiel nods and takes another few steps back from Ramsey. He nods at Sam and Dean and runs.
-
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Ramsey
-
Castiel and the fast-talking Brit disappears in the blink of an eye. Ramsey blinks. And blinks and then once more for good measure.
What do you do when you find out your maybe-something-one-day thing is an angel?
“What just happened?” The man Jimmy/Castiel had called Dean exclaims bewildered.
“You never seen two boys kissing before?” Ramsey says pointedly.
“What?” Dean exclaims. “What?”
“Um,” the tall one says. Sam, he thinks it is.
“I mean, what?” Dean continues, his boot crushing what’s left of his beer bottle that he dropped on the ground to stare at Castiel.
“I don’t think they’re friends, Dean,” Sam says.
“You gonna clean that up, gentlemen?” The sour-faced bartender says, coming out of the back room. Ramsey had seen the guy with the accent slipping him a couple of hundreds when he came in, but with no further money coming in, the sour-faced bartender didn’t seem to have any patience left.
“Cas is gay,” Dean says, unaware of the bartender.
“Cas is an angel,” Sam says. “I don’t think he cares.”
“Seven years! Seven years since Hell and I find out via kissing! Kissing, Sam.” Dean points like someone having a light bulb moment. “Those girls with the musical, they knew.”
Sam sighs. “I’m sorry,” he says and turns towards Ramsey. “This has nothing to do with you. I’m sure you’re very nice.”
Ramsey scoffs. “I don’t need your approval.”
“I mean, there was the reaper and, and, Meg and that weird wife when he lost his memory…” Dean continues to mutter, not listening to a word either of them have said.
“You do actually,” Sam says and for a moment Ramsey is intimidated. “We care about Cas. A lot. Plus, the King of Hell just saw you kissing him - that means you’re a target and if Crowley one day decides we aren’t good pals anymore, you’re gonna want us on your side.”
“What?” Ramsey says, realising he’s echoing Dean’s mad rambling. “Who are you people?”
They’re the Winchesters, he learns, which is supposed to mean something. But since he just learned angels existed three hours ago, he’ll wait to pass judgment because everything he thought he knew about the world, about the man in the trenchcoat who calls himself Castiel has turned him around.
Ramsey leaves the town with a former vessel, one huge revelation and a card with a number on it, wondering how meeting a guy with a trenchcoat could lead to this.
-
Jimmy Novak seemed dejected the first time Ramsey saw him in his office.
“I’m looking for my daughter,” Jimmy had said and pulled out a picture of a young blonde girl from a beat up wallet.
“Okay,” Ramsay had said because that’s what he did.
Claire Novak was an angry teenager, apparently abandoned by the very parent asking for his help. But everything he learned about Jimmy Novak was in stark contrast to the godly man who disappeared and left family.
In hindsight, Ramsey can now see the similarities between Amy Roberts and Jimmy Novak. Like they’d joined a cult - but the cult was actual angels.
Amy finally stops crying when they cross the state line to Georgia.
“What happened?” He asks.
She tells him a story about dreams and tasks to prove that she was worthy, about burning bushes and acts of miracle. Bible stuff, old school Bible stuff. But God, essentially.
“I could see them,” she whispers. “Their true faces. Hanael was scared of him, of the angel they called Castiel.”
“What did he look like?”
“Elemiah had six pairs of wings, but Castiel was the size of the Chrysler building, towering over them. He was… starved, I guess is the only word for it, skin and bones but it wasn’t really skin or bones and he flickered constantly. Hanael couldn’t bear to look at him.”
Ramsey thinks about the slightly nerdy and awkward dude he knew who liked staring at nothing and bringing him muffins because they were his favourite. He thinks about the fact that angels don’t eat and Jimmy/Castiel had still swallowed half a muffin without complaining.
He thinks about the ghostly ash wings that Elemiah left behind when he died, when Castiel killed him, the bony structures that should have had feathers.
“They say he stopped the apocalypse,” Amy whispers. “And they weren’t very happy about it.”
First they had dragged Castiel out of the car by the church, lifeless, sharp silver knives clutched in their hands and pointed towards him. Then the brothers who struggled, but followed along. Ramsey could have run then, but after three tours in Afghanistan, leaving someone behind wasn’t something he was hardwired to do.
Dean called Jimmy ‘Cas’ and snarked at the leader like he wasn’t afraid.
“He gave you free will and this is how you repay him,” he shouted.
“Free will is an illusion,” Elemiah had said coolly and had smashed the butt of the pointy knife into Dean’s jaw.
None of it made sense.
Not until he realised with crystal clarity that Castiel’s greatest weakness was Dean.
Amy runs into her husband’s arms. Ramsey gets paid, but the world is a different place.
-
-
Castiel
-
He has trouble looking at Dean.
Lucifer is free. The British Men of Letters are an annoyance. And Castiel can’t look Dean in the eyes.
“So Ramsey ‘is’ your boyfriend?” Sam asks.
He has returned briefly to the bunker when another lead fell through about Lucifer’s whereabouts and he could no longer make excuses to stay away.
“No,” he says. “I am a celestial being. I don’t have boyfriends.”
“Cas, you know we don’t care, right?” Sam says.
Castiel rolls his eyes.
Dean is across the room, hiding behind the row of books, halfway through a bottle of whiskey. He looks up and Castiel looks away.
He does not need their approval, but he appreciates Sam for trying, for continuing to surprise him in the best way possible.
“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Sam,” he says. “But there are more important things to consider - like Lucifer.”
“Come on, Cas,” Dean mutters from behind the books.
“Come on, what? What do you want me to say? Ramsey is a nice man. He is a soldier. He is loyal and brave. I enjoy his company.”
“So, he is your boyfriend,” Dean says.
“What could I possibly offer in a relationship?” Castiel says frustrated. “There is always a new apocalypse or Lucifer or something else. It never stops.”
He gets up and paces around the table.
Crowley’s amusement knew no bounds after he saw the kiss. An amusement that Castiel knows can turn sour the moment Crowley found a use for it instead.
“He’s a nice stand-in,” Crowley had gloated, cocktail in hand with little devil’s horns peeking out. “For the one you really want.”
“I don’t…”
“You do! Don’t kid a kidder, feathers. Dean Winchester… he is…” Crowley had had a faraway look in his eyes and once again Castiel wonders what happened during those months where the Mark of Cain had overtaken Dean’s soul. “He ‘is’, you know.”
Castiel does know.
Because Ramsey showed him. He showed him that what he feels is not just friendship or brotherhood. And knowing it makes him ache, ache for something he can’t ask for, will never ask for.
“Being human,” Castiel tells Sam and Dean. “Was profound. I felt things… Ramsey helps.”
“Jesus Christ!” Dean says and leaves.
Castiel looks after him.
-
“You don’t get to be mad,” he says, barging into Dean’s room. “You certainly don’t get to have an opinion.”
Dean rolls his eyes, standing in front of his bed. “Don’t I?” He spreads out his arms.
“He is a good man,” Castiel says.
“Yeah, you certainly have him on side, all right.”
“What is so horrible about me caring for someone else?”
Dean freezes.
“What is so horrible about me wanting something… more?”
Castiel has never seen these emotions on Dean’s face, cornered and conflicted, like he’s bursting at the seems. He has seen the evil of the Mark of Cain run like ice through Dean’s soul while he struggled to control it. He has seen him lay his life for the world over and over again.
He has never seen jealousy.
“Dean,” he says softly.
“Don’t,” Dean says, voice hoarse and wound tight.
“I will never love him,” Castiel says.
“Cas, I swear to God…”
“Don’t swear to God. God left.”
Dean’s shoulders slumps.
It always comes back to this. All the things they know about each other, all the things that can hurt them and punish them.
Being seen, being known…
“You can’t do this to me,” Dean says and his voice cracks in a way that Castiel finds heartbreaking. The pain on Dean’s face and the stubborn refusal to acknowledge the words unsaid.
“You don’t want me to be honest?” Castiel asks.
Dean sighs. “No, Cas, of course I want you to be honest with yourself. Don’t ever let anyone tell you, you have to be something you’re not, okay? Not even me.”
“Dean…” Castiel tries but Dean holds up a hand and he falls silent.
“You’re my best friend,” he says. “Like, apart from Sam, no one has ever given two shits about me like you have. And I’m not stupid, okay? I know the angels think they know something, and Crowley and probably Meg, but I swear I didn’t get it until I met him.”
Castiel frowns. “Until you met Ramsey?”
Dean nods. “He can give you something I can’t, Cas, and it’s killing me.”
“But I don’t need anything,” Castiel says.
There are things he knows about Dean. He knows what Dean’s soul looked like after forty years in hell, rotting and torn, a tiny spec of light in the suffocating darkness. He knows how John Winchester’s upbringing shaped Dean in every sense of the word, both good and bad. He knows that when the Host of Heaven played their most powerful hand, Dean said no.
He knows that this very conversation, even hidden away in Dean’s room, is costing Dean something he may not ever be able to put words to.
“When we were in the church, Elemiah was able to hurt you,” he says and lifts his hands slowly towards Dean’s shoulder.
Dean flinches at the touch, looking away, but he stays still.
“I rebuild you,” Castiel says. “Every molecule and atom was knit back together by my grace. Something so profound leaves a mark and Elemiah knew it. He used it.”
He hid the handprint when he realised how significant it had become, how it had marked Dean in a way that put an even bigger target on Dean’s back. Considering it was the Apocalypse back then, targets had been plenty and this was one he could hide away from the curious eyes of their enemies.
“My devotion to you is complete,” he says truthfully. “Until I met Ramsey, I never realised that that meant in every way possible.”
There are equal parts devastation and affection playing out on Dean’s face. “Jesus, Cas,” he says, voice shaky.
Castiel gives his shoulder one last squeeze and drops his hand.
But before he can, a hand closes around his wrists, keeping him in place.
“You really love me like that?” Dean asks.
Castiel knows every function of his vessel. But not this, he realises and stares at all the colours shaping Dean.
Hope.
Is it hope?
“Yes,” he says.
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Ramsey
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The bell above the door jingles.
“I’ll be with you in a second,” Ramsey calls out and dots a few notes down on a yellow post-it, sticking it on a few financial records he’s been going through.
It’s only then that he gets up to go to the front office.
A man sits sunken on the bright blue sofa that he uses to interview clients.
Dean Winchester.
He looks up when he hears Ramsey approach, his face haunted, and an uneasy feeling appears in the pit of his stomach.
“Is it Castiel?” he asks.
He knows it is.
“He’s dead,” Dean says.
Ramsey sits down heavily on the couch beside him. “Son of a bitch.”
“Yeah.”
They sit together in silence for a while.
“Thank you,” Dean says. “I know you meant a lot to him.”
“He meant a lot to me, too,” Ramsey says. “How did he die?”
How does an angel die, he asks himself.
He saw Elemiah light up from the inside, leaving behind the edgings of wings on the ground. He saw the sharp blade that all the angels at the Creek Hill Church carried, that Castiel himself carried.
He spent months considering the implications of something the size of the Chrysler building dying in a vessel the size of a man, but he never once considered that one day, it would be Castiel.
“Being stupidly brave, like always,” Dean says and it comes out hallow and proud. “Lucifer snuck up behind him. He… he died right in front of me.”
Ramsey nods like he understands, like he understands the world Castiel inhabits… inhabited. He swallows.
“We burned his body where he died,” Dean continues. “A beautiful place near a lake in North Cove, Washington. God made him to be a soldier, so he never made things like mountains or stars, but sometimes when he still had his wings, he’d stand at the foot of the Rockies for days on end.” He hands his head. “He’d have liked it there, I think.”
“You knew him better than me,” Ramsey tells him.
He looks outside, through the glass doors, and sees the Impala parked there. Two men lean against its side, one of them is Sam Winchester, the other one he doesn’t know.
“Did he get to tell you that he loved you?” He asks.
Dean swallows thickly and finally nods.
“I don’t think there was anything in this world that meant more to him than you.”
“So close,” Dean whispers and gets up, holding out his hand. “We almost got it right.”
Ramsey stands up, takes his hand, and they shake on it. “I don’t ever wanna see you again.”
Dean nods and walks out of his life.
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End (December 2025)
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