Holly Jolly | Part Two
There are approximately twenty-four hours of travel time between Palo Alto and Sioux Falls. Castiel remembers this, and the long winding route across the mountains, from reading over Sam's shoulder as he'd purchased the bus tickets that now will go unprinted and unused. A day is such a short thing, he thinks. Infinitesimal. Surely it will pass by quickly enough.
"You know, I never really liked Christmas," Gabriel muses from the back seat, less an hour in.
“You what?” Dean asks, eyes belligerent in the rear-view mirror, and hope dies a swift death in Castiel’s chest.
Gabriel leans forward a little to make sure he's heard, arms rest on the seatback between Sam and Dean. "Christ was born in early spring, and most of these traditions you cling so tightly to were passé in the fifties. And Saint Nick has always annoyed the hell out of me. Never trust anyone that jolly all the damn time, and every year, bam! Naughty list. Guy never gives me a break."
"Pretty sure that thing you did with the ferrets was an automatic qualifier for a couple decades," Sam offers. "That, and the fact that you're an asshole. To everyone."
Gabriel levels a finger at him. "Then you're definitely in the running, Samsquatch."
"Don't call me that," Sam says, in the tones of a long-running argument.
Dean meets Castiel's eyes in the mirror with a raised eyebrow. Castiel shrugs and tries to look as apologetic as he can.
"Hold up," Dean says, "just hold the fuck up. The Christian Bale movies are amazing. Instant classics."
"Please," Gabriel sneers, "They're shiny, masturbatory pieces of crap. Michael Keaton is the only Batman."
"The Dark Knight grossed over a billion dollars worldwide!" Dean protests.
"And the Dark Knight Rises was a bloated, ridiculously pompous shit of a film that should have never made it out of the editing room."
"I swear to God-"
Castiel, who has kept hours almost as long as Sam's the last few days, is growing increasingly irritated with Gabriel's sprawling limbs and slow encroachment on Castiel's side of the seat as he vehemently disagrees with Dean about every aspect of pop culture in the last two decades. Perhaps unsurprisingly, though, it's Sam who finally snaps, "Would you two just shut the fuck up? It's eleven at night, I'm running on about two hours of cat naps in the last forty-eight, and I need some freaking sleep."
"It's actually twelve," Gabriel offers.
"We passed into the Rocky Mountain time zone a few miles back," Dean adds.
"I will murder you both with the road atlas," Sam says flatly.
They switch seats at a rest stop six interminable hours into the drive, low brick building unsettlingly identical every other rest stop Castiel has seen as they cruised past. The dim orange glow of industrial lighting is easy on his tired eyes as he watches Sam shuffle around to the back driver's side door and climb in, while Gabriel simply crawls over the bucket seat in a move that has Dean interrupting their ongoing argument long enough to snap, "Hey, rule four!"
"At no point have my shoes so much as brushed your precious leather seats," Gabriel says. "Much like Christopher Nolan never has and never will touch an Oscar."
Dean makes a low, angry noise and throws the car into sharp reverse. "Just put your goddamn feet on the floor, okay? Thank you!"
The backseat is dark and warm and Sam's shoulder is extremely comfortable when Castiel maneuvers in under his arm. Sam's feet end up in the opposite foot well, Castiel's on the seat (shoes off), and Sam mutters into his hair, "If they don't quiet down in the next thirty minutes, we bail and start hitchhiking. The code word is 'batshit'."
"Understood," Castiel yawns, “I think,” and Sam snorts tiredly.
Although Castiel admits a mild interest in experimenting with the phenomenon of hitchhiking, it proves unnecessary. After a minute or two, the dispute seems to pitter out on its own, and it’s blessedly silent for a time.
Eventually someone turns the radio on, and mellow brass swells through the car under a man singing, "And so I’m offering this simple phrase, to kids from one to ninety-two-"
Castiel slips in and out of consciousness, the radio and Sam’s breathing and the sound of the tires on the road blending into a seamless wall of white noise.
At some point, he becomes aware that the car has stopped moving. Sam doesn't stir, though, and no one speaks, so Castiel lets himself drift off into a deeper sleep.
He's awakened by an extremely rude ray of sunlight and a sudden cold breeze, Sam trying to extract himself from under Castiel without jostling him as he eases out the open car door. Castiel makes a noise of protest, shielding his eyes, and Sam's face swims into view as Castiel blinks.
"Morning," Sam says softly. "You can go back to sleep."
"... I have to urinate," Castiel says, still squinting up at him.
"Then get the fuck out of my car," Dean grumps from somewhere outside the vehicle. "Crap, my neck. I'm too old to be sleeping in here, Sam."
"I think we both passed that point somewhere around age twelve," Sam says dryly, and helps Castiel climb out of the back seat after him.
Dean stands a little ways away from the car, hand shading his eyes from the merciless glare of the dawn sun. The Impala is parked on a ridge overlooking the sear gold plains at the base of the mountains, and Sam steps up to the edge to join him.
"Utah?" he asks, nodding at the terrain.
"Mostly Wyoming, I think," Dean says, stretching up with an arm over his head. "Ngh. Think I see a diner down there. They fucking better be open."
Gabriel appears to be still sound asleep, strangely enough, mouth slightly open and a thin stream of drool exiting the side. He snorts awake when Dean turns the key and the engine revs to life, eyes wide and surprised before he settles back to glower at all of them.
"Hey there, sleeping beauty," Dean says with a smirk. “You going to clean up that puddle?”
"You breed with the mouth of a goat, pastor," Gabriel growls in Enochian, and Castiel lets out a shocked huff of laughter.
"Were you actually sleeping?" Castiel asks him in the same language. "You?"
"You breed with the brother of a goat-fucker," Gabriel groans, slumping down in his seat.
"I don't know what the shit that is," Dean says, pointing at them, "but either share with the class or shut up. You're hurting my ears."
"Cas, you didn't tell me you spoke another language," Sam says, leaning over. "I didn't recognize it; is it Slavic? Is it your native-?"
"Shut up, Sam," Dean and Gabriel say in concert, and glare at each other.
The diner Dean spotted from above is just opening as they pull into the parking lot, and the sixty-year-old waitress looks annoyed at having her smoke break interrupted. Castiel uses the men’s room, and stops Gabriel from ordering everything on the menu, but only just. The arrival of a heaping plate of bacon touches off a battle between Dean and Gabriel for the most pieces, and Sam watches the two of them with judgmental eyes over a plate of fruit pieces and plain Belgian waffles.
Gabriel, eventually victorious with the majority of eight crunchy slices wedged in his mouth, smiles big and broad and says, "Meat is murder, right, Samwise? Tasty, tasty murder."
Sam looks ill. Castiel feels vaguely guilty, but it doesn't stop him from eating what little bacon he'd managed to steal in the fray, or from slipping Dean some to stop the sulky looks he aims at Gabriel's pieces.
As the meal winds down, Sam slaps the credit card Dean offers the waitress out of his hand and holds out his own.
"Well, fine," Dean says, leaning back with his fifth mug of coffee. "Your treat, then."
"Better me than Mr. 'Roy G. Biv'," Sam says, reading off the card as he flicks it back at him. It nearly lands in the mug. "Roy G. Biv? Really, Dean?"
Dean shrugs as he slips it back in his pocket. "Hey, I could be a Roy."
Gabriel starts in on a second steaming stack of pancakes that hadn't been sitting on the table two seconds previously. Sam and Dean don't appear to notice, but Castiel reaches through the aether with a wing and smacks Gabriel's smallest arm. In the mundane realm, Gabriel sticks his tongue out.
They stop at a gas station sometime in the afternoon, and Dean and Gabriel climb out of the car together to rustle up some sandwiches from the attached Arby's. They've stopped arguing, per se, but this groove of agreement they've fallen into is almost worst.
"No, you have to see the director's cut," Gabriel maintains, "there's a whole scene they took out of the original where the husband comes back, and they DP her on the inflatable raft."
"You're disgusting," Sam says, twisting open the gas cap. "Both of you."
"Casa Erotica: Poolhouse Pootang is a cinematographic masterpiece," Gabriel says loftily, and Dean nods in agreement. "Now, the sequel with the swim coach-"
The two of them walk through the doors still talking, and presumably continue once inside the building. Castiel is just glad they've gone.
Sam stays next to the Impala, leaning a hip on the frame as the gas pumps sluggishly into the car's tank. Castiel stands next to him in a kind of solidarity, even though it's markedly colder now than it had been in California and the coat Gabriel had snapped into existence for him isn't nearly thick enough.
They'd started seeing snow almost as soon as they'd crossed the mountains, but so far it's been patchy and sparse, more grey than white with road salt and mud. That might not be the case for much longer, if the clouds amassing on the western horizon are any indication. Castiel watches them build, wishing he still had the power to read the earth as effortlessly as he once did.
When the tank is full and the gas paid for, he and Sam climb in the car and drive up to an empty spot in front of the Arby's and park. Through the glass, Castiel can see Gabriel sitting on the counter, swinging his legs back and forth and gesturing lewdly as he and Dean speak animatedly. The girl behind the counter looks both scandalized and intrigued.
"What do you want to bet they're still talking about porn," Sam mutters. "I used to think you and Dean meeting would be a disaster, but Dean and Gabriel- ugh."
"Really?" Castiel says, playing with the large container of salt he's found in the glove box. Dean must keep it for icy roads. "A disaster?"
"...it honestly turned out much better than I thought it would," Sam says with a slow smile, and Castiel feels a little warmer despite the weather.
Dean ducks out of the glass doors with a large greasy bag and a tray of jumbo-sized drinks. Gabriel, coming out behind him, is carrying what looks like half the gas station candy counter, long ropes of licorice and brightly-colored bags in his hands, several different chocolate bars wedged into his back pockets.
Dean- very lightly- kicks the driver's side door where Sam is. "Out of my seat, bitch."
"You've been driving for fifteen hours," Sam counters. "Get in the back, jerk."
"Shotgun," Castiel says immediately, as Dean's angry scowl shifts to him.
"Hey, you used it right," Sam says, surprised, and Castiel holds up his hand expectantly. Sam laughs and gives him the high-five.
Dean wastes a few more seconds glaring before he maneuvers himself into the back seat with ill grace, casting dark looks at the back of Sam's head as he settles in. "Rule eight, people," he warns as he hands out the food. Castiel balances his and Sam's drinks very carefully in his lap while Sam starts the car and backs out into the parking lot, then forward onto the entrance ramp to the highway.
"Okay, fry me," Sam says as they merge into traffic, holding out a hand.
Gabriel helpfully adds, "He means hand him the fries, Cassie," when Castiel tries and fails to parse this request.
Castiel digs hungrily into his fried chicken strips while Sam methodically demolishes a carton of curly fries, and Dean and Gabriel polish off two sandwiches apiece and start discussing burger toppings, which leads to ice cream toppings, which leads (perhaps inevitably) to an examination of the benefits and drawbacks of using various kinds of foodstuffs in sexual exploits. Castiel listens with attention; having no practical experience of his own in this area, he takes every opportunity to learn more about human habits of copulation. Just in case, he thinks, with a furtive glance at Sam’s face.
"Christ," Sam mutters. "Does everything circle back to porn with you two?"
"… well, yes," Gabriel says.
"Mostly," Dean agrees.
Sam rolls his eyes and turns the radio on again. A man croons, "I heard the bells on Christmas day, their old familiar carols play..."
After a while, Dean says, "Jesus, Gabriel, can’t you keep your feet to yourself?"
Castiel is still looking at Sam, and sees his lips shape words, Oh, goddamn it.
He absolutely concurs.
The sun goes down. The road rolls on. The radio stations fade in and out, and Dean and Gabriel's newest topic of conversation- the best hole-in-the-wall restaurants to be found in middle America- slows, quiets, and finally stops altogether. When Castiel looks back, they're both asleep, Dean slumped against the door, Gabriel with his knees propped on the seat and his chin on his chest.
Sam's been driving for hours now, leaning back in the seat with his long arms and longer legs barely moving as they streak across South Dakota. Castiel himself descends into an almost trance-like state, head resting on the back of the seat with his face turned towards Sam.
At one point, Sam reaches for his drink and glances over at Castiel, and when he sees him looking he smiles.
"Doing okay?"
Castiel thinks on this.
"I am very happy," he answers.
"Yeah?" Sam asks, smile widening. "Glad to hear it."
They're quiet for another few minutes before Sam speaks again, soft in the dark interior of the car.
"I think… I hope you're going to like it. At Bobby's, I mean. We're getting in early enough that we should be able to help with a lot of the prep work- the decorations and stuff- and that's one of the best parts of the whole thing."
"I'm looking forward to it." Castiel says. He is, he finds, very much looking forward to 'home'.
"I’ll be home for Christmas," sighs the radio, as if in response. "You can plan on me..."
A few small flakes strike the windshield and lodge under the wipers. Castiel gazes past Sam out the window, where, almost imperceptibly, it begins to snow.
They arrive at the house in the bitterly cold hours before dawn, Gabriel and Dean completely dead to the world until Castiel shakes them bodily awake. The sun is a thin rime of gray light on the horizon, but the moon is high, shining through the dense clouds that have followed them to the eastern edge of the state. The house stands a little apart from its neighbors, solid but dowdy, worn around the edges- like something much used but well-loved.
"And here we are," Sam says, looking over the top of the Impala's roof at the house. "Bobby's place."
"Is that a junkyard?" Gabriel asks incredulously, squinting into the darkness.
"Couple acres of broken-down cars, rusty metal scrap and old tires," Dean says, stretching with his hands up and fingers laced over his head. "Mmmm. Love this place."
Sam and Dean go to the trunk to unload the bags, and Gabriel wanders over to the front gate, pausing there for a moment before lifting a hand. He flicks his finger against something in the air that chimes when struck. The house is warded.
"Not bad," he says in aside to Castiel. "Not enough to keep out anything really determined, but color me impressed."
"Holy- hey!" Dean calls from the car. "Whoever packed the bag of bowling balls and shit, I'm not carrying it!"
Gabriel makes an imperious shooing motion and Castiel sighs, turning back to the Impala to collect their luggage.
The wards are a pleasant breeze against his cheeks as he crosses the fence, but Gabriel's assessment is correct: they're hardly strong enough to do more than tug at his pinions, a sensation like sticky cobwebs that fades the moment he crosses them. Perhaps it would be different if he were one of Crowley’s cohort, but as it is, he hardly would have noticed them.
The four of them climb the broad steps and Dean stands on tiptoe to feel for something along the top of the front door's lintel. Sam, flat-footed, reaches up and snags a key, grinning at his brother when Dean glares and snatches it from his hand.
Inside, the house is dark and silent, the faint tick-tick of a hidden clock the only noise. In the dim light of the entryway, Sam presses a finger to his lips and points, and the four of them step softly through cramped, crowded rooms to a staircase that rises up into a dark void.
"The fourth step creaks," Dean whispers, and Castiel dutifully counts as he follows him up, Sam coming behind him, Gabriel bringing up the rear.
The void proves to be a narrow hallway, and at the landing Dean holds out a hand to stop them and silently opens the first door to the right, peering in for a moment before closing it again. "Ellen. Jo too," he says to Sam, who nods and follows him to the next door.
This strange ritual occurs up and down the hall- "Bobby," "Rufus", and finally, “Bingo,” a final, empty room on their left. Dean leaves that door cracked.
"Okay, guys," he says. "Looks like we've got a pretty full house. There're two twins left in here, so Gabe, Cas, why don’t you take those. Bobby has some mattresses and cots in the attic, so if you need us-" Dean points to a door at the far end of the hall. "We're right upstairs. Get some sleep, 'kay? We'll save the hi-how-are-yous for the morning."
He steps away, and Gabriel takes the opportunity to slip through the door to the proffered room. Sam hesitates, a vague shadow looming over Castiel in the darkness.
"So," he says quietly. "See you at breakfast, then?"
"Yes. Goodnight, Sam," Castiel says, and leans into it when Sam’s finger’s catch at his arm, feel their way to his shoulder for a brief squeeze.
“‘Night, Cas.”
Sam’s hand drops, and he turns to follow Dean. Castiel’s eyes lose his outline almost immediately in the dense darkness, but he stands in the hallway until he hears the attic door close.
In the guest room, Gabriel has turned on a lamp and is surveying the small, spare space with a thoroughly unimpressed expression.
"Well this is… cozy. Say the word and I fly us to the nearest five-star," he says, fingers poised to snap.
Castiel assesses the room, the small potted plant on the windowsill and the blue-painted dresser in the corner. The walls are bare, the bed linens a faded floral pattern, and the second mattress, when Castiel sets his bag down and sits, creaks loudly. It has the consistency of potatoes in a sack.
"I think it’s nice,” he says.
"Nice," Gabriel says dubiously. "That’s one word for it."
"You may leave if you wish to," Castiel says solicitously. He knows how seriously Gabriel takes his creature comforts.
Gabriel slants him a look that's part annoyance and part amusement. "Castiel, leaving now would kind of defeat the purpose, don't you think?"
"Purpose?" Castiel asks.
Gabriel flops down onto his bed, and it doesn't squeal or groan like Castiel's did. In fact, the mattress looks markedly thicker than it did a moment ago, and the sheets are transforming as he watches. "I'm staying," Gabriel says, “and we're going to have a fun family Christmas." His smile is a wry twist of lips. "All the trimmings. No substitutions. Goose. Tree. Snow."
Something about the way he says the last word has Castiel glancing towards the window in concern. He doesn’t think he’s imagining the sudden increase in snowflakes. "Gabriel, interfering with natural precipitation patterns can have devastating consequences on crop yields and the local watershed."
"Brother-mine, I've heard every flavor and genre of “White Christmas” ever made over the past two days," Gabriel says with a yawn, stretching back on his suddenly cloudlike pillows. "We're having a Belial-bedamned white Christmas if it sinks the whole state."
Castiel thinks he slips into someone else's dreams that night, but he can't be sure. Perhaps they're his own. His unconscious mind does that, now. Dreams.
Sam and Dean, facing each other in Sam's tiny studio. Castiel sits on the couch, watching. It’s the night he first met Dean.
"I was checking up on you, okay?" Dean says gruffly. "We do that, you know."
"Really," Sam says, flat and hard.
Dean sets his jaw, glances at Castiel and away. "Yeah. More than you probably realize."
Fast forward. The day plays out in a series of images: Dean, Sam and Castiel. The Impala. Pie. Castiel walks impatiently through the memories, because there's really only one he wants to see, wants to understand.
And it's this moment, here. In the dream, Sam stares at him, arms immersed in a tub full of soapy dishes. Castiel breathes in, and he can still feel the lingering sensation of lips pressed to his own. "Sam?"
In reality, Sam had turned back to the dishes, hiding his expression. He’d suggested in a strained voice that Castiel go back to sleep. It was late. He was probably tired.
In the dream, Sam's eyes are heavy-lidded, and he sighs "Cas," in reply, and lifts his head, leaning into Castiel's space. They kiss, again, and it’s just as perfect as the first time. The smell of dish soap and the humid heat of the room feel real, real as Sam's wet hands where they slide around Castiel's waist to draw him closer and-
"Please have your sad vanilla fantasies somewhere where I can't see them," Gabriel groans from the next bed. "Or spice it up a little, at least."
Castiel, tangled in the blankets and blinking groggily at the water-stained ceiling, thoughtlessly asks, "Spice it up?"
A full-sensory image of himself poised over Sam, the man naked and tied to a bed with leather straps and some kind of hard rubber ball in his mouth sears itself into his mind, and Castiel yelps, flailing his way out of the sheets to glare fiercely at Gabriel.
"Why would anyone want that? Why was he crying?" he says, highly alarmed. "What was I doing with my fingers?"
"Oh, in time, dear Castiel," Gabriel says smugly, turning over. "In time."
Castiel is now more thoroughly awake than he has been at any point in the last week, and for a moment he weighs the satisfaction it would give him to throw a pillow at Gabriel versus the inevitable and punishing retaliation.
"Any time you want to go, little bro," Gabriel says sleepily, and a second later a thin snore issues from underneath the comforter.
"Your wings are as the dodo's," Castiel mutters in Enochian, and swings his feet to the floor.
It's still fairly early, the sun dim and low in a gunmetal-grey sky. When Castiel pulls the curtain back, fat white flakes are drifting down in slow, heavy sheets, blanketing the ground. There are at least two more feet of snow then there'd been the previous evening.
"Is this going to fall all day?" Castiel wonders aloud, turning to dig through his bag until Gabriel gives an impatient snort and a pair of slippers appear. "Thank you."
Gabriel grumbles something and Castiel is suddenly in the hallway, facing an open bathroom door with a pouch full of hygiene products in his hands. Castiel turns to give their door a glower, but slouches in to use the facilities all the same.
When he comes out, he notices for the first time a murmur of conversation from downstairs, and the comfortable smell of things cooking. He remembers Sam’s promised breakfast, and makes his way carefully down the stairs, which are no less narrow and rickety for the daylight streaming in through high windows.
The moment he steps into the kitchen, though, the conversation stops, and belatedly he sees that all the faces are strange. He pauses in the doorway, unsure.
"Well, hello there," a woman says finally, hair in a messy ponytail and her brown eyes wary. She's sitting at the kitchen table, holding a mug in one hand and a piece of toast in the other. Behind her, a man stands at the stove, paused in the motion of flipping an egg with a spatula. There's a second man sitting at the table, chewing slowly as he takes in Castiel's fuzzy purple slippers, baggy pajama bottoms and plain tee.
"Uh, hello," Castiel says awkwardly, folding his hands together. "I-"
The front door bangs open and Castiel turns towards the sound, just in time to see a snow-caked boot arc across the foyer and hit the far wall. "I got your freaking newspapers!" someone calls loudly, and another boot follows. "All the way down in the street, I'm probably going to lose some toes, I hope you're freaking happ- oh."
The 'oh' is for Castiel, who has interrupted a girl's headlong charge into the kitchen, two newspapers in plastic bags brandished in front of her like swords. Trotting beside her is a large, old dog, who gives Castiel a disinterested sniff before continuing on to the table.
"Heeey," the girl says to him, eyes lighting up. "Hi! What's your name?"
"I am Castiel," he says, grateful that she at least seems friendly. It gives him the courage to turn to the room at large and say, "I apologize, we came in very late last night and didn't want to wake-"
"That's fine, it's fine," the girl says, grabbing his elbow and steering him further into the kitchen. "Happens all the time. I'm Jo, by the way. That's my mom, that's Bobby," she points to the man at the stove, "and the guy giving you the stinkeye is Rufus."
"Nothing against you personally, you understand," Rufus says, picking up his fork. "We just usually have met a couple times before folks feel comfortable dropping in."
Beside him, Jo gives a loud huff. "He came in with John and Dean, duh."
"John's here?" Bobby asks, taking the pan off the stove and bringing it to the table.
"Unless you know anyone else who drives a black '67 Impala," she says. "Which is practically buried, by the way. I hope we have enough food to make it through until spring."
"Just you three, then?" Ellen asks Castiel, setting her mug aside. "Let me start another pot."
“There’s no ‘John’ that I know of,” Castiel says carefully. "It's Dean and I, and Sam, and my brother-"
"Wait. Sam? Sam's here?" Jo says, eyes wide.
"Uh, yes," Castiel answers.
Ellen points at the ceiling, brows rising to her hairline. "Here, as in upstairs?"
"… yes? They’re in the attic-"
Jo lets out a full-bodied shriek and springs from her seat, running full-tilt out of the room and, from the sound of her pounding footsteps and the sudden creak from the fourth step, all the way upstairs.
"Hooboy," Ellen sighs.
From somewhere above them, there's a startled yell and a few dull thuds, followed by a muffled, "What the fuck-" that sounds like Dean, and a long, drawn out squeal of glee.
"So," Rufus says, eyeing Castiel over a forkful of potato hash. "You a hunter, then?"
"I don't believe in killing for sport," Castiel says uncertainly. "For sustenance, certainly."
Rufus, Bobby and Ellen share a speaking look that Castiel doesn't understand, but the moment is broken by Jo's re-entry into the kitchen towing a tousle-haired Sam by the wrist. Dean follows, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands and scowling deeply when he sees Castiel.
"This is your fault, isn’t it," he growls.
“My apologies,” Castiel says meekly.
"Whatever,” he grumbles, dropping his hands. “Just gimme some damn coffee.”
Jo pushes a bemused-looking Sam towards the table, where Bobby is building a plate of scrambled eggs and thick pink sausages, setting it in front of an empty chair with a flourish. Sam winces when he sees it.
"What, no hug for an old lady?" Ellen asks with a grin as he moves to sit, and before he can stoop down she stands up to give him one. "Jesus, kid, you got big."
"That was the first thing I told him," Jo says, scooting onto the bench seat that lines half the table. "He's enormous!"
"Hair's still dumb," Ellen says, sweeping his bangs to the side.
"Thanks guys, really," Sam says with a roll of his eyes, pulling the chair out.
"No one said you could sit down yet, boy," Bobby says gruffly, and motions Sam over for a hug of his own.
"God, could it get any more Lifetime in here," Dean mumbles into his coffee.
"You know what they say about the prodigal son," Rufus says mildly.
"Dean, honey, if you wanted one too all you had to do was say," Ellen says, opening her arms.
Dean makes a face but he squeezes her tightly enough to lift her off of her feet with a surprised laugh, and then all seven of them are crowding in around the table, banging elbows and knocking knees. Dean circles back to the counter and returns to the table with a piping-hot mug for Sam, an extra for Castiel. Castiel takes it gratefully, and squeezes in on the edge of the bench next to Sam. The crowding is made all the worse when the old dog heaves itself to its feet and determinedly maneuvers through the forest of legs under the table, it’s haunches ending up squarely on Castiel's feet. Jo presses in close to Castiel's side as she reaches over him to snag an orange from the bowl on the table, and stays there. It’s a strangely comfortable feeling, this closeness.
"So, Castiel, tell us all about yourself," she says brightly.
"Me," Castiel says, looking between her face and Sam’s. There's a panicked moment where the only thing he can think of is, it was given to me to watch over the shepherds of Chaldea, and when I had proven myself, to govern the thirteenth hour of the fifth day. "I. I teach Latin?"
"He's an aide for a few of the introductory language classes at Stanford," Sam explains around a long slurp of coffee, and Castiel is grateful for it.
"Yes. And Sam and I, we cohabi-"
"He's my roommate," Sam says over him. "We met at the Stanford library, and he kind of moved in with me over the course of a year. Bobby, you should show him some of your books, he’s a huge history buff."
“That’s right, Stanford. Tell us more about school, Sam," Ellen jumps in. "The last we heard you wanted to be a lawyer. Is that what you’ve been doing this whole time?"
The pressure to speak successfully removed from him, Castiel repays Sam by stealing his sausage, link by link. When he realizes what he's doing, Sam gives him a small, grateful smile and nudges the plate closer.
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