FIC: Humanity Service (1/2)
This turned out a lot longer than I thought it would... oops? :P
Title: Humanity Service
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Characters: Dean/Castiel, Sam and a handful of others
Genre: Romance, AU
Spoilers: None
Warnings: None
Word Count: ~16,500
Summary: On a mission for Cupid, Castiel finds locating Sam’s soul mate more difficult than he anticipated. Lucky for him, Dean Winchester is more than happy to help and Castiel learns more than he expected.
Author's Note: A big thank you goes out to pyjamagurl for betaing this! Written ford_hearts_c for the prompt: Castiel is quite content with his life studying to be a Soldier in Angel Uni. Unfortunately, one of his classes requires Humanity Service. Equally unfortunate, he waits too long to sign up and all the 'easy' jobs are taken. Luckily, it's almost Valentine's Day on Earth and Cupid's backed up just enough to give him a job.
Humanity Service
Castiel never thought twice about how things in Heaven were run. It was an easy process: Angels came into being, angels were tested for strengths, angels were put into training groups to enhance those traits. Castiel was lucky enough to land himself in the Garrison, the sect of angels that trained as soldiers. There were other ranks-the miracle workers, the healers, the shepherds, the scribes, etc.-but Castiel always thought he was well suited to the cut and dry issues that the Garrison dealt with day after day: the seeing to, and carrying out, of God’s will.
Training lasted for several decades, often stretching into centuries, but once an angel was done with his or her training, he or she was went out into the general ranks of angels to perform his or her well-deserved title of soldier, or healer, or scribe.
Castiel, however, missed a step somewhere. And he’s informed by Zachariah one morning in the form of a sheet of paper saying that he’s missed, in all his centuries of training, fulfilling his requirement of Humanity Service.
There aren’t many basic requirements. Humans 101, Humanity Service, Dealing With Humans, and Human History are the few that deal with the basics of what occurs down on Earth while Castiel and the rest of the angels deal with their own assigned tasks in Heaven. Castiel’s own prowess, that of the battlefield, lends itself to the learning and retaining of information, before adding his skill and stamina needed in a fight.
And so Castiel doesn’t know how missing a requirement happened. Whether it was because he’d been misinformed or because he was too tied up with his commanding duties doesn’t really matter in the end. Because no matter how he adds it all up, unless he finds a position, fast, to fulfill his Humanity Service requirement, he’s not going to be able to step into his rightful place in the Garrison.
And that, he knows for sure, is not an option.
*
It takes Castiel a total of fourteen hours to figure out that finding a position isn’t going to be as easy as he’d originally thought.
It’s halfway through the training year, and so most of the positions that are usually available to angels required to fill their Humanity Service requirement are taken up by angels that hadn’t forgotten such a requirement existed. The miracle workers, when he visits them, have a few angels just bouncing from cloud to cloud, mumbling to themselves about starting a few troubles on Earth just so they can have something to do. As a last ditch effort, Castiel travels to the clouds where the guardian angels usually keep themselves. They are stingy with their wards, and Castiel takes one look at Azrael and knows that it’s a lost cause.
“I’m sorry, brother,” Azrael says. “We guard our flock well.”
Castiel bolsters his feathers and prepares to fly off when Azrael’s hand lands on his shoulder.
“Check in with Cupid,” Azrael says, and turns to fly back to his business before Castiel can respond.
Castiel stares after Azrael for a long moment before he shakes off his sense of dread and takes to the skies.
*
He finds Anna on the edge of a cloud.
“I do not like this requirement,” is the first thing out of his mouth.
Anna smiles as she looks down at the earth. It is far, far away, many miles below them. But still her eyes move like she can see each individual human and animal and is following their progress across the globe.
“Only because you forgot it.”
Castiel stands rigid at her side. Anna is his superior. Even when she was in training herself she lead the small group they had been formed into, dealing out commands that Castiel followed without a moment’s hesitation.
He still follows her, just as he leads his own small group of angels now, and can’t imagine a time when he might not.
“Why did no one remind me?” Castiel looks askance at her, and Anna sighs.
“Just because you are so driven to ascend the ranks of the warrior class does not mean you can neglect the smaller details, Castiel.” Her voice is gentle, but there’s a reprimand in her words. Castiel looks away from her and to the Earth below. “You fight to serve God,” Anna says. “And God’s orders say to protect and serve man.”
Castiel frowns.
“You do not believe this?”
Castiel shakes his head. “It’s not that. Humanity is precious, God’s works of art. But I do not see how… serving them in their world would benefit a soldier.”
Anna sighs. “And maybe that is why we are all required to help them at some point in our training.”
Silence descends between them for a moment, and Castiel’s wings draw close to his back.
“Anna,” he finally says. “What did you do to serve man?”
Anna’s smile is small, precious. “I was able to help the miracle workers,” she says, but leaves it at that. “And you?”
Castiel’s eyes narrow. “Azrael suggested I go see Cupid.”
Anna remains motionless. “Then I suggest you see him before all chances for you to help humanity are gone,” she says.
Castiel shakes his head. “The cherubs are ranked below soldiers. Their jobs are… tedious. It seems foolish to lower ourselves to those tasks.”
“Maybe someday you’ll learn to appreciate the small things,” Anna says. When Castiel turns to ask her what she means, she shakes her head and ends with, “Find the good, the little things you can believe in, in an order if you can't find yourself agreeing completely with it.”
Castiel is left wondering what she’s ever questioned.
*
In the end, Castiel appears to Cupid and nearly fails to secure a position. But one thing goes right, and that’s his timing with the human calendar.
“You’re in luck,” Cupid says. His wings are flapping lazily. His feathers are white and fluffy, making his wings look two sizes too large for him. “It’s February.”
“February?” Castiel tries to remember back to his Humans 101 lessons, and pulls up the knowledge of February: named after the Latin term februum meaning purification, contains 28 but sometimes 29 days (he still does not understand why humans complicated the passage of time and the calendar for themselves). “Why is February important?”
“Because it’s Valentine’s Day, silly!” Cupid’s grinning at him now, and Castiel does his best not to show his irritation. “You remember the holiday from your lessons.” He sounds almost disapproving.
Castiel thinks harder and nods. He never understood the importance of Valentine’s Day.
“Well, you’re in luck! I sent out all my helpers, but this year’s been even more busy than usual, what with another mini baby boom coming of age and everyone panicking over the 2012 End of the World craze.” Cupid laughs, and Castiel stares. “You know humans,” he says, fondness in his voice. “Always run run run until the end of the world comes along and then it’s ‘time to find true love and smell the roses!’ In any account, we could use your help.”
“With?”
Cupid bats a hand in his direction. “Oh, you soldier types,” he sighs. “Never appreciating the little things. Here.” He holds out his hand and a folder full of a small stack of papers appears in it. “Your missions,” Cupid says, holding the folder out for Castiel. Castiel takes it. “Humans that need your help in the love department. Silent desires for a cuddle bunny to share those long, lonely nights with. And you’re going to help them. Okay, love?”
Castiel grits his teeth and nods.
Cupid beams at him. “Fabulous!” Cupid turns back to walk away, but stops and turns at the last moment. “Oh! And don’t forget,” he says. “You have two weeks.”
“Two weeks?”
Cupid sighs, and Castiel’s not heard condescension like that since his first year of training.
“Until Valentine’s Day,” Cupid says. “You have to fulfill all those missions, or I can’t pass your Humanity Service requirement, okay?” He’s grinning again. “Toodles!” He waggles his fingers at Castiel, and disappears.
Castiel stares after him a moment before dropping the folder to his side and flying off to make arrangements.
*
It takes Castiel only a matter of hours to set his affairs in order. It’s relatively simple. Castiel is, if nothing else, organized. He runs a tight shift in the commanding duties he’s taken over during the last few decades, and he prides himself to know that when he graduates from training, the angels that he’s been leading will follow him into the field. Uriel, his second in command, frowns when Castiel tells him that he won’t be available to help with their next mission.
“You’re going to be on Earth,” Uriel says. “To fraternize with those mud monkeys while we battle demons?”
Castiel sighs. Castiel trusts Uriel with his life, and admires Uriel for his absolute and terrible power, but Uriel is one of the angels that does not agree with the Humanity Service requirement of their training. He had fulfilled his Humanity Service during the first few years of his training in order to get it out of the way. From what Uriel told Castiel of it, his duties had required nothing of him but to collect a portion of the prayers that came through every day and hand them off to the miracle workers and healers that were waiting for a command.
“I trust you to be able to handle the demons while I’m away,” Castiel says. “And do not blaspheme,” he adds. “We’ve talked about this before.”
Uriel shakes his head, but in the end holds his tongue and takes up the mantle Castiel passes to him in his absence.
Castiel trusts Uriel with his life and his career. Despite Uriel’s view of humanity, Uriel is an excellent soldier. And that is all Castiel can think to hope for in any of the angels under his command.
Castiel settles his affairs quickly after that. He’s never taken time off to visit Earth, and so when he tells his superiors where he’s going to spend the next two weeks he has no trouble with authority.
So all that’s left is looking through the file he’s been given and setting out on his task. He sets out with thirteen days left until Valentine’s Day.
*
Castiel has two hundred cases in all. He applies himself with a soldier’s training, letting the intelligence supplied for each person flow into him as he goes over his or her case file. Some cases are easy, consisting of two people that are destined to be together, and so all he has to do is find one, then the other, and make sure their paths cross. Usually it’s no more difficult than that. The first time they see each other, Castiel feels something in his grace vibrate, a kind of knowing that his mission is complete. Each time he takes on a new mission, a strange restlessness settles in his Grace and doesn’t let up until his subjects or subject meet their significant other.
He assumes these small changes in his Graces are how the cherubs that have been assigned this duty go about their work, how they judge if they’ve completed their mission to satisfaction or not.
At first, it’s disconcerting. Castiel is used to the restless energy of battle, the intense pride and satisfaction he gets when he’s completed a mission, knowing that he’s carried out his Father’s will.
This time, it’s a subtle thing, a subtle invasion of his Grace, and he’s not sure he likes it.
Other jobs are a bit harder, and they involve only one subject. In such a case, Castiel is required to find out what the subject likes, prefers, desires, abhors. And when Castiel figures it out, he searches for the person that suits the subject desire for desire, like for like, abhorrence for abhorrence. These cases are more time consuming, but for the most part these humans already have an object of their affection, and all it takes for Castiel to complete his mission is a quick check to make sure both subject and desired object of affection are well-suited for each other, and he either nudges them together or else makes sure their paths cross.
In these cases, he is sometimes required to manifest himself on the human plain of existence. His body already has a shape similar to that of a human, and so all it takes is a little extra effort on his part to conceal his wings from human eyes, dim down the intensity of his Grace as he’s been trained, take on the attire he’s seen men of this day and age wear, and then he’s ready to walk amongst humans.
Most humans don’t even know he’s among them. And Castiel is content with that, and goes about his business with a determination and a single-mindedness that blinds him to most other aspects of humanity that go on around him. And he is content.
*
The first few cases are easy. Castiel’s been on enough missions that locating each of his subjects takes very little effort. He’s had to find demons in the first level of Hell. Finding a single human among the great masses of humanity is simple after that. By the end of the fifth day, he’s completed all but twenty cases.
It’s this one hundredth and eightieth case that gives him pause for the first time.
He’s hidden his wings and has toned down his Grace so that humans can’t pick up on it as he makes his way through the groups of people to his subject. The subject in question is a thirty year old woman that goes by the name Cassie Robinson. Cassie has recently moved to the town, though when Castiel finds her she is sitting in a café with a man a year or two older than her. Cassie is smiling, and a general observation of her tells Castiel that she is happy, relaxed, at ease with the man sitting opposite her, and Castiel wonders briefly if maybe this job is over before it even began.
But when he gets closer nothing in Castiel’s Grace changes. Usually when he meets someone who is destined for his subject, his Grace flares up, becomes restless, and will not settle until Castiel can either calm it, or else throw one human in the path of the other and his mission is complete.
In this case, there’s nothing.
So Castiel enters the café and takes a seat beside the table Cassie and the man are sitting at. He orders coffee, conjures a newspaper out of thin air, and listens. Cassie’s conversation isn’t anything out of the ordinary. It involves, mostly, stories of her recent move, of the trying to fit all her belongings into a single U-Haul which she then drove across three states. Something in her voice allows Castiel to envision a small ranch, old furniture that’s been bought at antique shops and inherited down through generations. It’s been a while since Castiel focused on gathering intel alone, instead of preparing for battle, and he sees how this entire Humanity Service requirement can be used to benefit his soldier training. He sits, and listens.
Every now and then the man sitting with Cassie speaks, and Castiel finds his eyes torn from his newspaper to glance over him. The man has short, dark blond hair, full lips, green eyes. By Castiel’s knowledge of human standards, the man is handsome, attractive, but that hardly matters to Castiel. He’s seen many angels and men and women, and never been attracted to their looks. But the man’s voice is surprisingly rough, and there’s something beneath the surface of his words, at the way he keeps glancing around the café as if he’s looking for trouble, that has Castiel’s curiosity piqued.
At one point, when Castiel’s coffee is halfway gone, he can’t contain his curiosity any longer, and he sends out a small tendril of his Grace to search the man, to see why he can’t seem to stop taking small looks at him. Castiel stiffens when his Grace touches nothing. It’s not the nothing of demons, a not-there that feels wrong, but rather a nothing that shows secrets and self buried beneath layers and layers of falsities and lies and safety nets. Castiel’s never encountered this before, though he’s heard about it before in his Dealing With Humans session. But he never had the opportunity to see what tapping his Grace against that nothing would feel like.
And Castiel doesn’t like it. It feels as though his Grace is tapping against nothing, and yet there’s resistance shoving his Grace back at him. He pushes his Grace a little harder against the man’s soul, but all that does is make his Grace vibrate a little in warning. So Castiel sighs, and pulls his Grace back. He looks up, trying to get a glimpse of the man again, and is startled when the man’s eyes are on him, watching. They are incredibly green.
Castiel expects the man to look away. It’s his usual experience that when humans make eye contact with strangers, one or both parties will hastily withdraw their gaze. It’s not common practice to look a stranger in the eye. But the man is still staring at him, and there’s a small question Castiel can read behind his eyes but can’t translate. Castiel clears his throat, shakes his newspaper, and looks away. When he glances up at the man a few minutes later, the man’s concentration is back on Cassie.
Castiel listens for the next half hour as the woman and man talk. He gains a few more important tidbits of information, but his mind keeps wandering back to the man and how he had looked at Castiel like he knew Castiel was trying to read him. Although that’s impossible. So when the man puts a twenty on the table and the woman starts to stand, Castiel still doesn’t have enough information on Cassie to successfully throw her in the path of her one true love.
Castiel sighs. Dealing with humans, he’s found, can be frustrating.
He maneuvers his table subtly to the left, refills his coffee with a thought, and so when Cassie takes a step back from her table she collides right into Castiel’s. Castiel’s mug tumbles onto its side, and Castiel slows his reflexes enough that the coffee just manages to soak through the leg of his pants. The liquid is hot, uncomfortable against his skin, and he startles at the sensation. A genuine reaction that he wasn’t expecting. But then he sends his Grace to the area on his leg that’s aching with a burn, and the hurt dissipates.
“Oh, fuck,” Cassie says. Castiel looks up to see her eyes wide on Castiel. “I’m so sorry, are you alright?”
Her hand comes to touch Castiel’s shoulder, and Castiel is inundated with information about this woman. About how she likes snow but hates rain, about how policemen make her nervous sometimes but she grew up with aspiring politicians. She’s a smart woman, and once upon a time might have had affection for the man now standing beside her looking at Castiel with slight concern, but not anymore.
“Yes.” Castiel nods, picks a napkin up from the table and wipes at his pants leg. “I’m fine. Please don’t concern yourself.”
“Are you sure?” Cassie asks. “At least… let me buy you another coffee?”
Castiel shakes his head, smiles a bit to put her at ease. “No, thank you. I was just about done,” he says.
Cassie looks doubtful, and Castiel raises a hand. “Really,” he says. “I’m quite alright.”
Cassie nods, and her eyes flicker to Dean. “Alright, if you say so,” she says. “Just… sorry.”
Castiel shakes his head, and looks down to right his coffee mug. He uses it as an excuse for the woman to step away, for her to let the incident go and continue on with her day. And she does. She steps away from the table, gathers her purse to her shoulder, and starts walking away.
Castiel looks up, prepared to see the man following after. And he is. But he also looks over his shoulder at Castiel. And this time his eyes flicker over Castiel’s body. Castiel would think it was a simple concern of a stranger, simply a measuring to see if he was alright. But the man’s eyes linger on Castiel’s shoulders instead of his leg where the coffee is slowly drying a stain into his slacks, brush over Castiel’s rumpled hair and around his features. And Castiel feels something different happen to his Grace. A slow unfurling that has something like heat rising to his human skin.
The man looks hastily away, and Castiel watches for a moment at the man’s slightly bow-legged walk as he jogs to catch up with the woman and follows her out the door, down the sidewalk, and away.
Castiel turns around and stares at his newspaper for a moment, collecting his thoughts and his Grace near. When he feels settled again, has banished those green eyes to the deep recesses of his mind, he casts his Grace over the town, over the surrounding counties to search for a soul that answers the remnants of Cassie Robinson that Castiel collected. After a few minutes, he finds it. It belongs to a man named Chris Tucker, and he lives an hour away. Castiel plants in Chris Tucker’s mind a tendril of thought that will prompt him, tomorrow, to head in this town’s direction, to the greenhouse on the outskirts of town to buy a plant for his mother. And Cassie, Castiel nudges, will discover her new house needs some green life in it. The two will cross paths, meet, fall in love, and Castiel will be able to mark off another mission as complete.
He opens his eyes to see a waitress approaching his table.
“Anything else for you, sir?” she asks. Her eyes flicker over Castiel’s empty mug, over the clean table that Castiel’s cleared of spilled coffee with his Grace.
“No,” he says. “Just the check.”
*
The rest of the jobs Castiel has lined up are easier. He finishes them in a matter of days, and so by the time February eighth rolls around, Castiel has only one more mission left. Sam Winchester, Castiel’s file tells him, is a graduate student studying law. Castiel closes his eyes, attaches himself to the tendril of restlessness inside his Grace, and lets it pull him to where Sam Winchester is.
Sam is easy to spot in the crowd, even without the nervous tension of a job filtering through Castiel’s chest. The man stands easily a head taller than most of the fellow students that surround him in the parking lot where’s he’s talking to a man who is slightly shorter than him and wearing a leather jacket. Sam’s hair is dark brown, flopping into his eyes, and when he talks to the other man, he smiles. Castiel lets his Grace flow over the parking lot, nudges it against Sam, and tenses.
It’s the same nothing as the man in the café days before. The same resistance that pushes Castiel’s Grace right back at him. It’s not as strong as the other man, and Castiel catches a glimpse of liquor bottles on a worn kitchen counter, a vague sense of dissatisfaction, before the image fails and his Grace is rebounded back.
Castiel sighs. It figures the last case he had would have to be his most difficult.
Castiel watches the man from underneath a cherry tree on the edge of the parking lot. Sam seems to be lingering, talking to the shorter man, and Castiel hopes, for a moment, that maybe all he has to do is nudge one man to make a move in order for his job to be done. But when he nudges the bond between them, he gets a fierce, protective feeling of “brother,” and Castiel sighs. His job still waits.
A bell sounds far off, and Sam raises his head to look at the building a few hundred yards behind Castiel. Castiel can see him sigh, and his hand comes up to clap the shorter man on the shoulder. As he takes a step to walk past the other man, the other man turns, and Castiel freezes.
It’s the same man that sat with Cassie Robinson the other day. His face is more animated now, more open, but as Sam walks away from him, his expression closes off and settles into something half-harsh and completely unreadable. He reaches into his jacket pocket with a hand and glances around the parking lot much like he did at the café, as if looking for potential threats. As his eyes skim over Castiel’s end of the parking lot, the man’s hand stops rustling around in his pocket and he stares at Castiel. Once again, Castiel finds himself thinking, absurdly, that staring at strangers is not a normal human reaction.
Vague recognition flares in the man’s eyes and his stance changes from casual and slightly on guard to alert. The change in him is strange and almost stunning. Castiel’s not seen that quick of a change in a human, even in the few short days he’s been dealing with them face to face.
Castiel is so distracted by the man that he almost fails to notice that Sam has reached the edge of the parking lot and is walking mere feet from where Castiel is standing. Castiel snaps to attention, and pulls his gaze away from the other man to call out to Sam.
“Sam.” He keeps his tone casual and light, and when Sam glances up, he looks confused when he sees Castiel instead of someone familiar, but he offers a smile in greeting regardless. Castiel steps away from the cherry tree and into his path.
“Yeah, hey,” Sam says, and he pauses before Castiel.
Castiel nods. “Sorry to stop you,” he says, and looks quickly at the books in Sam’s hand, nudges gently at Sam’s mind. He doesn’t get much from his mind, but he can read Constitutional Law I on the cover of Sam’s book, and he searches the minds of the students that are milling around them. “But I was wondering, I missed class on Monday. Dr. Wilson is tough, so…”
“You wanna borrow notes?” Sam asks, looking surprised.
“Yeah.” Castiel forces a sigh of relief. Acting human is tedious, but if this is what he has to do for the job, then he’ll do it. “I’m sorry to ask you, but-”
“No no, it’s fine,” Sam says. He’s smiling, and Castiel knows that Sam, no matter how hard he is to read, is a good man. “Glad to help…”
Castiel shakes his head, puts out his hand out for a handshake. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m Castiel.”
“Right, yeah,” Sam says, like it’s a name he’s heard on class rosters for years. He takes Castiel’s hand in a quick shake. Castiel prepares himself for the onslaught of images and memories and sensations that usually accompany a physical touch with a human. Even if his Grace is repelled, touch can transfer a large enough amount of information to get the job done, like it had with Cassie.
This time, however, there’s nothing. Just the warm sensation of Sam’s overly large hand engulfing his.
“Um,” Sam’s voice startles Castiel out of staring at Sam’s hand, searching desperately for a rush of… something. Anything. “Castiel?”
Castiel jerks his hand away. “Sorry,” he says.
Sam looks bemused. “It’s okay. I just need to get to class.” He looks over his shoulder, and Castiel follows his glance to see Sam’s brother watching the two of them closely. He’s frowning slightly. “Listen, I’m having lunch with my brother, Dean, this afternoon, but maybe around four? I’ll be in the library then. You can look over the notes, ask questions, whatever.”
“Sure. Thank you,” Castiel says, and tears his eyes away from the man-Dean-to Sam. “I appreciate it.”
Sam smiles again. “No problem.” He starts walking away, lifts his hand in a half-wave. “See you later.” He turns, and Castiel doesn’t watch him go.
There’s a bench underneath the cherry tree. It faces away from the parking lot, looking out onto the campus, and Castiel sits and contemplates what he’s going to do next.
*
Intel, Castiel thinks. Recon. Undercover work is his next move. He had meant to fool Sam Winchester for only as long as it took to shake hands. Once they touched, Castiel would have collected whatever information he needed in order to cast his Grace out and find a suitable match for Sam. He’d be done with this ridiculous Humanity Service requirement and back in Heaven now, strategizing and planning another offensive against demons and other evils that threatened humanity from afar.
Instead, his plan had failed, and he’s left with nothing else to do but to keep up the lie he created. Pretend to be a student, ply Sam and Sam’s acquaintances for information, drag the search out for days before he has enough intel to find Sam’s proper match.
This could get messy. And Castiel doesn’t think he has the patience for it.
Castiel keeps his eyes glued to the campus, even when he feels someone sit next to him on the bench.
“Are you stalking me?”
Castiel’s gaze snaps up. It’s Dean, and he’s staring at Castiel with a new look that Castiel thinks is almost amused, despite the wariness he sees in his eyes.
“Excuse me?”
“Or the people I know?” Dean looks quickly around campus, the same surveillance gaze from before. “This is the second time I’ve seen you in, what, three days? And each time you’re running into people I’m talking to.”
Dean’s voice is casual, inquisitive, but at the same time there’s a warning beneath his words that has Castiel looking more closely at him. He reaches his Grace towards the man again, but is met with resistance once more.
Dean frowns, like he can feel it. Castiel pulls his Grace back.
“No,” Castiel says. “I merely need to ask Sam for notes regarding a class we have together.”
“Oh?” Dean leans back against the bench, gazing lazily up at the tree above them. “This about the Criminal Law course or the Civil Procedure thing they’re making him take for this insane degree?”
“The Criminal Law course,” Castiel guesses.
Dean nods, and then he’s sitting up again, leaning his elbows on his knees and resting his chin on his hands.
“Sam took that class last semester,” Dean says. Castiel’s Grace snaps to attention.
“Sam-”
“Okay, listen,” Dean says, and gone is the slight inquisitive tone of before. Now he’s all harsh warning. “I don’t know what you want with Sam, but-”
‘I’m a friend,” Castiel says. Dean stops talking.
“Excuse me?”
“A friend,” Castiel says.
Dean raises an eyebrow. “Really.” He clearly doesn’t believe him.
Castiel sighs and looks away back to campus. “Sam has some information that I need, and all I need to do is ask him about it, and I’ll be gone.”
Dean’s silent next to him for a long time, and when Castiel looks at him Dean is watching him again. He still looks on edge, like he’s ready to push Castiel bodily away from anywhere near his brother. But there’s also a strange, curious look on his face.
“You’re awfully cryptic,” Dean finally says.
Castiel raises an eyebrow. “You’re awfully protective. Sam’s a grown man, he can handle himself.”
And just like that, Dean’s mostly hostile again.
“Okay, listen, dude-”
“Castiel.”
Dean’s eyes widen at the gruff tone of Castiel’s voice. “Come again?”
“My name is not ‘dude,’” Castiel says, voice like thunder. “It is Castiel.” This man may affect him differently than any other human has, any angel has for that matter, but Castiel is still a soldier and an angel, and answers to no one but his superiors.
Dean shakes his head, holds up a hand. “Okay, Cas, whatever.” Castiel startles at the shortened name, too stunned to offer a rebuttal or a question in return. “Just don’t go stalking my brother, alright? We’ll be on our merry way, then. Understand?”
“I already explained,” Castiel says. “I am not here to ‘stalk’ your brother.”
“No?” Dean’s eyes travel up and down Castiel’s body then, a kind of lingering look that’s more intense than the once over Dean gave him at the café when he was with Cassie. Castiel’s body reacts differently as well, and Castiel doesn’t know what to do with the way his heart beats a little faster, or how he can feel a dampness gather on his palms.
“No,” Castiel repeats.
Dean pauses again. Then, “Okay, fine. Maybe I’ll pretend I believe you.” His eyes flicker to the campus, and he sits up again, leans back casually. “Are you really one of Sam’s friends, though?” he asks suddenly. “Aren’t you a little old for college?”
Castiel raises an eyebrow. “I was under the impression college was for anyone, of any age, sex, or orientation.”
Dean rolls his eyes and snorts what Castiel thinks is amusement. He seems to be acting as if he’s annoyed, but the rigid hold of his shoulders has relaxed, and there’s no longer the harshness that lay behind the set of his eyes and his mouth a few moments before. Dean Winchester seems to be an extremely complicated man.
“Okay, you don’t have to impress me with your study skills,” Dean says. “I got it. He shoots Castiel another look before his mouth opens to say something. But he stops.
Castiel waits.
“You know,” Dean finally says. “Sam’s still in class for another forty-five minutes or so.”
“Oh,” Castiel says. He didn’t much think of time. Time rarely matters. No one has ever disrupted his vigil before. But with Dean watching him now, time is suddenly a huge issue.
Dean snorts again. “Yeah,” he says. “Oh.” He looks Castiel over again before he lets out a breath and stands. “Come on,” he says, waving a hand in a gesture that surely means for Castiel to follow. “I’m meeting Sam at the diner for lunch. You can wait for him there. If you’re going to question him about whatever it is you need, might as well do it where I can watch you.”
It’s not exactly a statement that fills Castiel with hope and confidence, but Dean walks away without making sure Castiel’s following behind, and Castiel stands and watches him for a moment. Dean Winchester is completely different from Sam, changeable and protective where Sam seems helpful and steady. While Castiel knows he has to collect information from as many sources as he can, Dean seems unwilling to let Castiel near Sam, let alone let Castiel become privy to information about his brother. So accepting Dean’s invitation to wait with him for Sam seems counterproductive. Fraternizing with Dean is unlikely to get Castiel any closer to the end of a successful mission, to knowing Sam’s likes and dislikes and what would comprise of a suitable match for him. And yet as Castiel watches Dean walk away, Castiel stands and his foot takes a step forward, his mind trying to follow after Dean without having made a conscious decision.
And Castiel, in all his training to be a soldier, has no idea what that means.
*
Dean leads Castiel to a small diner. As soon as Castiel walks in, his senses are overwhelmed with the scent of grease and fried meat.
“Hope you’re not vegetarian.” Dean smirks when he sees Castiel stop before sitting at the booth Dean’s sat at.
“No,” Castiel says. The truth is, he doesn’t need to eat at all. He takes a seat opposite of Dean, and watches the man.
“You gonna stare at me the whole time we wait for Sam?” Dean asks.
Castiel blinks and looks towards the front window for a moment. It’s decorated in red and pink cutouts of small outlines of infants with wings. The human version of a cupid. Castiel sighs and turns back to Dean.
“No,” he says.
“Okay,” Dean nods slowly. “So-”
“Why did you invite me here?”
Dean freezes in opening a menu. “To talk to Sam,” he says after a moment.
“I could have talked to Sam tonight, at the library.”
Dean snorts. “No,” he says. “You’re a strange dude walking around in a trench coat asking to meet with my brother for information. I don’t really trust you.”
“Then why’d you invite me here in the first place.”
Dean lays his menu flat on the table, looks over it as he says, “Because you also looked really desperate when you said you needed to talk to Sam, and I might be ‘protective,’ as you call it, but I’m not a douchebag. So shut up and let me read.”
Castiel stares at Dean as the man looks over the menu, surprise making him follow Dean’s orders.
After a few moments, Dean looks up from his menu, sees Castiel staring at him, and sighs. He leans back a little, turns the menu around with a hand, and slides it towards him.
“Sam says it’s all a bunch of heart attack on a plate, with a side order of cholesterol,” he says with a grin. “But I say live dangerously, right?”
Castiel looks at the menu, his Grace jumping slightly at how Dean’s smile transforms his face into something almost beautiful.
After a moment, between reading up on what a reuben is and what comprises of the Triple Decker Threat, Castiel asks, “Sam does not prefer restaurants like this one?” If he’s going to be here sitting with Dean for a time, he might as well attempt to start collecting information.
At Dean’s silence, he looks up. Dean has some of the sugar packets stacked in a kind of house in front of him, and he has one hand poised above the small structure with another packet. He’s staring at Castiel.
“Uh, no,” he says. He clears his throat and tosses the sugar packet to the table.
“So what does he prefer?”
Dean raises an eyebrow. “You looking to take Sam on a date or something?” Dean asks.
Castiel pulls back in shock. “Excuse me?”
“’Cause Sam doesn’t swing that way.”
“No,” he says. “I merely wish to discern what your brother’s eating preferences are.”
“That’s…” He leans forward, and the sugar packets tumble to the tabletop. “Okay, that’s just weird,” he says. “Is that what you wanted to ask him at the library?”
Yes and no, Castiel thinks. But Dean is staring at him with a kind of dangerous curiosity, and Castiel can only stare back.
“You’re kind of weird,” Dean says. And Castiel is startled to find that Dean’s smirking when he says it. “Anyone ever tell you that?”
Cunning, tactful, skillful, yes. Weird? No.
“No,” Castiel says, his chin rising a bit.
And that… pulls a smile from Dean. “Dude, relax,” he says. “Geeze, if you weren’t so gung-ho about Sam-” he cuts himself off, shakes his head, and reaches for the menu. “Come on, what have you decided on? Might as well interrogate my brother on a full stomach.”
Castiel doesn’t answer. Because Dean uses a finger to tap Castiel’s hand away from the menu. And in that small touch is a flare of recognition in Castiel’s Grace. A small tendril of curiosity laden with… something. Something big and dark and heavy that makes Castiel’s heart beat a little faster and his eyes snapping up to Dean’s. Dean’s eyes are wide on Castiel now, like whatever Castiel felt he got a taste of as well. There’s surprise written in the slack o of his mouth, but something else that has everything in Dean focused on Castiel.
There’s a clatter on the other side of the diner as a waitress drops a fork on the ground, the murmur of hasty apologies. Castiel pulls his hand back and stands.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I forgot…”
Dean’s looking up at him, eyes still wide.
“Tell Sam in no longer need his assistance,” Castiel says instead. His Grace is roiling within him, and he tries to calm himself with a deep breath in.
“Hey,” Dean says, but Castiel is turned away and walking out the door. As soon as he hits the sidewalk, passes to the left and walks past the front windows of the diner, he cloaks himself, and stands invisible by the side of the building.
*
Forty minutes pass before Sam Winchester shows up at the diner. It takes every single one of those minutes for Castiel to compose himself. Never, in all his centuries in Heaven or his days on Earth has he felt anything like he felt when Dean touched his hand. He had expected nothing at first, since Dean seemed to be closed off from him. And yet he’d received something from the man. And not the regular something. What he felt was no memory, no like or dislike or small part of himself. Instead, it was what Dean had been feeling: a combination of curiosity, amusement, uncertainty, but most of all… attraction. Castiel had never felt that. Not towards any of the other angels, and he stares off into the street, keeping watch for Sam, and has no idea what he’s supposed to do with that now.
When he sees Sam, he pulls himself together through tricks he’s learned over the years fighting in the field, and he strengthens his invisibility and stands outside the windows of the diner. If he can’t get the information he needs through undercover work and direct questions, then it’s back to watching and gathering information. It’s a gruelingly slow process, but it’s better than nothing.
Dean’s house of sugar packets has been rebuilt and increased to three levels by the time Sam approaches his table, slings his backpack into the booth, and plops down. He folds his long legs under the table, not without bumping it, and Dean curses as the house of sugar falls to the table.
“Gee,” Dean says. “Thanks, Sam.”
Sam shrugs, grabs the menu that’s still sitting where Castiel left it. “Sorry,” he says. He doesn’t sound it at all. He frowns at the menu. “Really?” he asks. “You couldn’t have picked a place with a little less Death on a Plate.”
So Dean was right, Sam doesn’t like the food this kind of restaurant serves.
Dean frowns at Sam. “You secretly love it,” he says.
Sam snorts. “Not really, Dean.”
The brothers banter back and forth before a waitress comes over to take their order. And Castiel watches. And as he watches their casual conversation, their interactions with the waitress and the other members of the diner, it clicks. Everything falls into place inside Castiel’s head. Sam Winchester has, so far, been difficult to read. He’s a smart man, brilliant in fact, but he treats everyone with the same kindness and caring. Except maybe his brother, who he treats a little rudely, a little crassly, but with an even greater care than anyone else Castiel has seen him interact with. Sam Winchester is, in short, difficult to read.
But Dean… Dean Winchester is spouting out stories left and right. Stories about his work at the garage in town, stories about their childhood, stories about Sam’s study habits. And Sam is reacting to Dean. He’s cutting off Dean’s stories at parts he finds embarrassing, and prompting Dean to tells other stories that Sam finds most amusing. When the waitress comes over with bottles of salad dressing, Dean plucks one from her hands and places it in front of Sam’s plate almost absent-mindedly, and Sam accepts the gesture as if this is normal. The same thing happens during dessert. Dean orders pie for himself, and simple black coffee for Sam without asking him. Dean, Castiel realizes, knows his brother probably better than Dean knows himself.
And Castiel knows he made a horrible mistake. Dean Winchester is not a hindrance to his mission. Dean Winchester, on the contrary, is the key to figuring out who Sam is and finally completing this mission.
*
Angelic ways and subterfuge have both failed Castiel. The only route left to go, then, is with the truth. It’s not the usual way, it’s not even a way as far as he knows, but it’s the last option he can think of. And if he doesn’t hook Sam up with his soul mate in four days, then Castiel is in deep trouble. He’s never failed a mission before, and doesn’t plan to now.
He shows up on Dean’s doorstep at four in the afternoon, when he knows Sam is usually at the library thanks to the conversation of the day before. When Dean answers the door, he’s wearing jeans that are torn and covered in black grease, and the t-shirt he’s wearing fits snug over his shoulders. There’s a patch of the grease running along his bicep.
Dean raises an eyebrow when he sees who it is.
“So the stalkers back?” he asks. He’s almost grinning, despite a wary look in his eyes.
“I’m not-”
“Yeah, yeah, sure.” To Castiel’s surprise, Dean steps out of the doorway and heads into the house. “Come in.” Castiel follows, closes the door behind him. “Sorry for the mess,” Dean says when he sees Castiel staring at his torn jeans. “Just got back from the garage. Haven’t had time to clean up yet.”
Castiel shakes his head. “It’s not important. I have something I’d like to discuss.”
Dean stands in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, watching Castiel with curiosity now.
“You don’t beat around the bush, do you. You don’t want Sam this time?” Castiel doesn’t answer. “Okay, shoot. What is it?”
Castiel tells him. Everything.
Dean, of course, doesn’t believe him. Castiel hadn’t expected him to. But in the end, after half an hour of calling Castiel crazy and threatening to kick him out, Castiel shows Dean his wings, shows him how he can zap from one place to the next in a matter of seconds, and Dean is forced to believe him.
It’s not Castiel’s most eloquent argument, but it has Dean believing him, and that’s all that matters.
“So why do you need my help, if you can just… search people’s souls or whatever it is that you do?”
“Because you and your brother are hard to read,” Castiel answers. “It happens sometimes, especially when the human has… guarded him or herself, or had a hard past.”
Dean stiffens, and Castiel holds absolutely still.
“Makes sense,” Dean says, mumbling the words.
“Why?”
Dean shakes his head. “Okay, no. You know what? This is really weird.”
Castiel can see in Dean’s face a vague sense of panic, and Castiel tries to sink into the couch a little bit where Dean offered him a seat.
“Do you love your brother?”
“What?” Dean snaps, looking vaguely panicked at the prospect of an angel in his living room.
“Your brother,” Castiel says. “You love him.”
“Well, yeah,” Dean says, as if it’s the most obvious thing on the planet.
“You want him to be happy.”
“Yes.”
“I can help him.” Castiel waits for that to sink in, and Dean looks contemplative, like he’s mulling over Castiel’s words. “The… mission that I was sent on did not come out of nowhere. Sam has, even if he’s not acknowledged it himself, wished for this.”
Dean snorts. “A love intervention?”
“If that’s what you want to call it, then yes,” Castiel says dryly. “But angels have been calling it a search for a soul mate. That might sound more poetic.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Or girly.” He frowns. “And more like Sam. Oh, Christ.” He plops down on the couch opposite Castiel. “I can’t believe I’m actually considering this.”
Castiel’s quiet for a moment before he says, “You’ve already helped me a great deal. Whether you know it or not. I just need a little bit more information, and then I’m done. I’ll be out of your way, and Sam can be happy.”
Dean looks up then. He looks uncertain again. But he seems to push that aside when he asks, “You can guarantee Sam’s happiness?”
“Yes.”
Dean nods. “Then fine. Okay.” He shakes his head. “Let’s play cupid to Sam’s pathetic love life.”
Castiel doesn’t know why, but he smiles.
(continue to part 2)
Title: Humanity Service
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Characters: Dean/Castiel, Sam and a handful of others
Genre: Romance, AU
Spoilers: None
Warnings: None
Word Count: ~16,500
Summary: On a mission for Cupid, Castiel finds locating Sam’s soul mate more difficult than he anticipated. Lucky for him, Dean Winchester is more than happy to help and Castiel learns more than he expected.
Author's Note: A big thank you goes out to pyjamagurl for betaing this! Written ford_hearts_c for the prompt: Castiel is quite content with his life studying to be a Soldier in Angel Uni. Unfortunately, one of his classes requires Humanity Service. Equally unfortunate, he waits too long to sign up and all the 'easy' jobs are taken. Luckily, it's almost Valentine's Day on Earth and Cupid's backed up just enough to give him a job.
Humanity Service
Castiel never thought twice about how things in Heaven were run. It was an easy process: Angels came into being, angels were tested for strengths, angels were put into training groups to enhance those traits. Castiel was lucky enough to land himself in the Garrison, the sect of angels that trained as soldiers. There were other ranks-the miracle workers, the healers, the shepherds, the scribes, etc.-but Castiel always thought he was well suited to the cut and dry issues that the Garrison dealt with day after day: the seeing to, and carrying out, of God’s will.
Training lasted for several decades, often stretching into centuries, but once an angel was done with his or her training, he or she was went out into the general ranks of angels to perform his or her well-deserved title of soldier, or healer, or scribe.
Castiel, however, missed a step somewhere. And he’s informed by Zachariah one morning in the form of a sheet of paper saying that he’s missed, in all his centuries of training, fulfilling his requirement of Humanity Service.
There aren’t many basic requirements. Humans 101, Humanity Service, Dealing With Humans, and Human History are the few that deal with the basics of what occurs down on Earth while Castiel and the rest of the angels deal with their own assigned tasks in Heaven. Castiel’s own prowess, that of the battlefield, lends itself to the learning and retaining of information, before adding his skill and stamina needed in a fight.
And so Castiel doesn’t know how missing a requirement happened. Whether it was because he’d been misinformed or because he was too tied up with his commanding duties doesn’t really matter in the end. Because no matter how he adds it all up, unless he finds a position, fast, to fulfill his Humanity Service requirement, he’s not going to be able to step into his rightful place in the Garrison.
And that, he knows for sure, is not an option.
*
It takes Castiel a total of fourteen hours to figure out that finding a position isn’t going to be as easy as he’d originally thought.
It’s halfway through the training year, and so most of the positions that are usually available to angels required to fill their Humanity Service requirement are taken up by angels that hadn’t forgotten such a requirement existed. The miracle workers, when he visits them, have a few angels just bouncing from cloud to cloud, mumbling to themselves about starting a few troubles on Earth just so they can have something to do. As a last ditch effort, Castiel travels to the clouds where the guardian angels usually keep themselves. They are stingy with their wards, and Castiel takes one look at Azrael and knows that it’s a lost cause.
“I’m sorry, brother,” Azrael says. “We guard our flock well.”
Castiel bolsters his feathers and prepares to fly off when Azrael’s hand lands on his shoulder.
“Check in with Cupid,” Azrael says, and turns to fly back to his business before Castiel can respond.
Castiel stares after Azrael for a long moment before he shakes off his sense of dread and takes to the skies.
*
He finds Anna on the edge of a cloud.
“I do not like this requirement,” is the first thing out of his mouth.
Anna smiles as she looks down at the earth. It is far, far away, many miles below them. But still her eyes move like she can see each individual human and animal and is following their progress across the globe.
“Only because you forgot it.”
Castiel stands rigid at her side. Anna is his superior. Even when she was in training herself she lead the small group they had been formed into, dealing out commands that Castiel followed without a moment’s hesitation.
He still follows her, just as he leads his own small group of angels now, and can’t imagine a time when he might not.
“Why did no one remind me?” Castiel looks askance at her, and Anna sighs.
“Just because you are so driven to ascend the ranks of the warrior class does not mean you can neglect the smaller details, Castiel.” Her voice is gentle, but there’s a reprimand in her words. Castiel looks away from her and to the Earth below. “You fight to serve God,” Anna says. “And God’s orders say to protect and serve man.”
Castiel frowns.
“You do not believe this?”
Castiel shakes his head. “It’s not that. Humanity is precious, God’s works of art. But I do not see how… serving them in their world would benefit a soldier.”
Anna sighs. “And maybe that is why we are all required to help them at some point in our training.”
Silence descends between them for a moment, and Castiel’s wings draw close to his back.
“Anna,” he finally says. “What did you do to serve man?”
Anna’s smile is small, precious. “I was able to help the miracle workers,” she says, but leaves it at that. “And you?”
Castiel’s eyes narrow. “Azrael suggested I go see Cupid.”
Anna remains motionless. “Then I suggest you see him before all chances for you to help humanity are gone,” she says.
Castiel shakes his head. “The cherubs are ranked below soldiers. Their jobs are… tedious. It seems foolish to lower ourselves to those tasks.”
“Maybe someday you’ll learn to appreciate the small things,” Anna says. When Castiel turns to ask her what she means, she shakes her head and ends with, “Find the good, the little things you can believe in, in an order if you can't find yourself agreeing completely with it.”
Castiel is left wondering what she’s ever questioned.
*
In the end, Castiel appears to Cupid and nearly fails to secure a position. But one thing goes right, and that’s his timing with the human calendar.
“You’re in luck,” Cupid says. His wings are flapping lazily. His feathers are white and fluffy, making his wings look two sizes too large for him. “It’s February.”
“February?” Castiel tries to remember back to his Humans 101 lessons, and pulls up the knowledge of February: named after the Latin term februum meaning purification, contains 28 but sometimes 29 days (he still does not understand why humans complicated the passage of time and the calendar for themselves). “Why is February important?”
“Because it’s Valentine’s Day, silly!” Cupid’s grinning at him now, and Castiel does his best not to show his irritation. “You remember the holiday from your lessons.” He sounds almost disapproving.
Castiel thinks harder and nods. He never understood the importance of Valentine’s Day.
“Well, you’re in luck! I sent out all my helpers, but this year’s been even more busy than usual, what with another mini baby boom coming of age and everyone panicking over the 2012 End of the World craze.” Cupid laughs, and Castiel stares. “You know humans,” he says, fondness in his voice. “Always run run run until the end of the world comes along and then it’s ‘time to find true love and smell the roses!’ In any account, we could use your help.”
“With?”
Cupid bats a hand in his direction. “Oh, you soldier types,” he sighs. “Never appreciating the little things. Here.” He holds out his hand and a folder full of a small stack of papers appears in it. “Your missions,” Cupid says, holding the folder out for Castiel. Castiel takes it. “Humans that need your help in the love department. Silent desires for a cuddle bunny to share those long, lonely nights with. And you’re going to help them. Okay, love?”
Castiel grits his teeth and nods.
Cupid beams at him. “Fabulous!” Cupid turns back to walk away, but stops and turns at the last moment. “Oh! And don’t forget,” he says. “You have two weeks.”
“Two weeks?”
Cupid sighs, and Castiel’s not heard condescension like that since his first year of training.
“Until Valentine’s Day,” Cupid says. “You have to fulfill all those missions, or I can’t pass your Humanity Service requirement, okay?” He’s grinning again. “Toodles!” He waggles his fingers at Castiel, and disappears.
Castiel stares after him a moment before dropping the folder to his side and flying off to make arrangements.
*
It takes Castiel only a matter of hours to set his affairs in order. It’s relatively simple. Castiel is, if nothing else, organized. He runs a tight shift in the commanding duties he’s taken over during the last few decades, and he prides himself to know that when he graduates from training, the angels that he’s been leading will follow him into the field. Uriel, his second in command, frowns when Castiel tells him that he won’t be available to help with their next mission.
“You’re going to be on Earth,” Uriel says. “To fraternize with those mud monkeys while we battle demons?”
Castiel sighs. Castiel trusts Uriel with his life, and admires Uriel for his absolute and terrible power, but Uriel is one of the angels that does not agree with the Humanity Service requirement of their training. He had fulfilled his Humanity Service during the first few years of his training in order to get it out of the way. From what Uriel told Castiel of it, his duties had required nothing of him but to collect a portion of the prayers that came through every day and hand them off to the miracle workers and healers that were waiting for a command.
“I trust you to be able to handle the demons while I’m away,” Castiel says. “And do not blaspheme,” he adds. “We’ve talked about this before.”
Uriel shakes his head, but in the end holds his tongue and takes up the mantle Castiel passes to him in his absence.
Castiel trusts Uriel with his life and his career. Despite Uriel’s view of humanity, Uriel is an excellent soldier. And that is all Castiel can think to hope for in any of the angels under his command.
Castiel settles his affairs quickly after that. He’s never taken time off to visit Earth, and so when he tells his superiors where he’s going to spend the next two weeks he has no trouble with authority.
So all that’s left is looking through the file he’s been given and setting out on his task. He sets out with thirteen days left until Valentine’s Day.
*
Castiel has two hundred cases in all. He applies himself with a soldier’s training, letting the intelligence supplied for each person flow into him as he goes over his or her case file. Some cases are easy, consisting of two people that are destined to be together, and so all he has to do is find one, then the other, and make sure their paths cross. Usually it’s no more difficult than that. The first time they see each other, Castiel feels something in his grace vibrate, a kind of knowing that his mission is complete. Each time he takes on a new mission, a strange restlessness settles in his Grace and doesn’t let up until his subjects or subject meet their significant other.
He assumes these small changes in his Graces are how the cherubs that have been assigned this duty go about their work, how they judge if they’ve completed their mission to satisfaction or not.
At first, it’s disconcerting. Castiel is used to the restless energy of battle, the intense pride and satisfaction he gets when he’s completed a mission, knowing that he’s carried out his Father’s will.
This time, it’s a subtle thing, a subtle invasion of his Grace, and he’s not sure he likes it.
Other jobs are a bit harder, and they involve only one subject. In such a case, Castiel is required to find out what the subject likes, prefers, desires, abhors. And when Castiel figures it out, he searches for the person that suits the subject desire for desire, like for like, abhorrence for abhorrence. These cases are more time consuming, but for the most part these humans already have an object of their affection, and all it takes for Castiel to complete his mission is a quick check to make sure both subject and desired object of affection are well-suited for each other, and he either nudges them together or else makes sure their paths cross.
In these cases, he is sometimes required to manifest himself on the human plain of existence. His body already has a shape similar to that of a human, and so all it takes is a little extra effort on his part to conceal his wings from human eyes, dim down the intensity of his Grace as he’s been trained, take on the attire he’s seen men of this day and age wear, and then he’s ready to walk amongst humans.
Most humans don’t even know he’s among them. And Castiel is content with that, and goes about his business with a determination and a single-mindedness that blinds him to most other aspects of humanity that go on around him. And he is content.
*
The first few cases are easy. Castiel’s been on enough missions that locating each of his subjects takes very little effort. He’s had to find demons in the first level of Hell. Finding a single human among the great masses of humanity is simple after that. By the end of the fifth day, he’s completed all but twenty cases.
It’s this one hundredth and eightieth case that gives him pause for the first time.
He’s hidden his wings and has toned down his Grace so that humans can’t pick up on it as he makes his way through the groups of people to his subject. The subject in question is a thirty year old woman that goes by the name Cassie Robinson. Cassie has recently moved to the town, though when Castiel finds her she is sitting in a café with a man a year or two older than her. Cassie is smiling, and a general observation of her tells Castiel that she is happy, relaxed, at ease with the man sitting opposite her, and Castiel wonders briefly if maybe this job is over before it even began.
But when he gets closer nothing in Castiel’s Grace changes. Usually when he meets someone who is destined for his subject, his Grace flares up, becomes restless, and will not settle until Castiel can either calm it, or else throw one human in the path of the other and his mission is complete.
In this case, there’s nothing.
So Castiel enters the café and takes a seat beside the table Cassie and the man are sitting at. He orders coffee, conjures a newspaper out of thin air, and listens. Cassie’s conversation isn’t anything out of the ordinary. It involves, mostly, stories of her recent move, of the trying to fit all her belongings into a single U-Haul which she then drove across three states. Something in her voice allows Castiel to envision a small ranch, old furniture that’s been bought at antique shops and inherited down through generations. It’s been a while since Castiel focused on gathering intel alone, instead of preparing for battle, and he sees how this entire Humanity Service requirement can be used to benefit his soldier training. He sits, and listens.
Every now and then the man sitting with Cassie speaks, and Castiel finds his eyes torn from his newspaper to glance over him. The man has short, dark blond hair, full lips, green eyes. By Castiel’s knowledge of human standards, the man is handsome, attractive, but that hardly matters to Castiel. He’s seen many angels and men and women, and never been attracted to their looks. But the man’s voice is surprisingly rough, and there’s something beneath the surface of his words, at the way he keeps glancing around the café as if he’s looking for trouble, that has Castiel’s curiosity piqued.
At one point, when Castiel’s coffee is halfway gone, he can’t contain his curiosity any longer, and he sends out a small tendril of his Grace to search the man, to see why he can’t seem to stop taking small looks at him. Castiel stiffens when his Grace touches nothing. It’s not the nothing of demons, a not-there that feels wrong, but rather a nothing that shows secrets and self buried beneath layers and layers of falsities and lies and safety nets. Castiel’s never encountered this before, though he’s heard about it before in his Dealing With Humans session. But he never had the opportunity to see what tapping his Grace against that nothing would feel like.
And Castiel doesn’t like it. It feels as though his Grace is tapping against nothing, and yet there’s resistance shoving his Grace back at him. He pushes his Grace a little harder against the man’s soul, but all that does is make his Grace vibrate a little in warning. So Castiel sighs, and pulls his Grace back. He looks up, trying to get a glimpse of the man again, and is startled when the man’s eyes are on him, watching. They are incredibly green.
Castiel expects the man to look away. It’s his usual experience that when humans make eye contact with strangers, one or both parties will hastily withdraw their gaze. It’s not common practice to look a stranger in the eye. But the man is still staring at him, and there’s a small question Castiel can read behind his eyes but can’t translate. Castiel clears his throat, shakes his newspaper, and looks away. When he glances up at the man a few minutes later, the man’s concentration is back on Cassie.
Castiel listens for the next half hour as the woman and man talk. He gains a few more important tidbits of information, but his mind keeps wandering back to the man and how he had looked at Castiel like he knew Castiel was trying to read him. Although that’s impossible. So when the man puts a twenty on the table and the woman starts to stand, Castiel still doesn’t have enough information on Cassie to successfully throw her in the path of her one true love.
Castiel sighs. Dealing with humans, he’s found, can be frustrating.
He maneuvers his table subtly to the left, refills his coffee with a thought, and so when Cassie takes a step back from her table she collides right into Castiel’s. Castiel’s mug tumbles onto its side, and Castiel slows his reflexes enough that the coffee just manages to soak through the leg of his pants. The liquid is hot, uncomfortable against his skin, and he startles at the sensation. A genuine reaction that he wasn’t expecting. But then he sends his Grace to the area on his leg that’s aching with a burn, and the hurt dissipates.
“Oh, fuck,” Cassie says. Castiel looks up to see her eyes wide on Castiel. “I’m so sorry, are you alright?”
Her hand comes to touch Castiel’s shoulder, and Castiel is inundated with information about this woman. About how she likes snow but hates rain, about how policemen make her nervous sometimes but she grew up with aspiring politicians. She’s a smart woman, and once upon a time might have had affection for the man now standing beside her looking at Castiel with slight concern, but not anymore.
“Yes.” Castiel nods, picks a napkin up from the table and wipes at his pants leg. “I’m fine. Please don’t concern yourself.”
“Are you sure?” Cassie asks. “At least… let me buy you another coffee?”
Castiel shakes his head, smiles a bit to put her at ease. “No, thank you. I was just about done,” he says.
Cassie looks doubtful, and Castiel raises a hand. “Really,” he says. “I’m quite alright.”
Cassie nods, and her eyes flicker to Dean. “Alright, if you say so,” she says. “Just… sorry.”
Castiel shakes his head, and looks down to right his coffee mug. He uses it as an excuse for the woman to step away, for her to let the incident go and continue on with her day. And she does. She steps away from the table, gathers her purse to her shoulder, and starts walking away.
Castiel looks up, prepared to see the man following after. And he is. But he also looks over his shoulder at Castiel. And this time his eyes flicker over Castiel’s body. Castiel would think it was a simple concern of a stranger, simply a measuring to see if he was alright. But the man’s eyes linger on Castiel’s shoulders instead of his leg where the coffee is slowly drying a stain into his slacks, brush over Castiel’s rumpled hair and around his features. And Castiel feels something different happen to his Grace. A slow unfurling that has something like heat rising to his human skin.
The man looks hastily away, and Castiel watches for a moment at the man’s slightly bow-legged walk as he jogs to catch up with the woman and follows her out the door, down the sidewalk, and away.
Castiel turns around and stares at his newspaper for a moment, collecting his thoughts and his Grace near. When he feels settled again, has banished those green eyes to the deep recesses of his mind, he casts his Grace over the town, over the surrounding counties to search for a soul that answers the remnants of Cassie Robinson that Castiel collected. After a few minutes, he finds it. It belongs to a man named Chris Tucker, and he lives an hour away. Castiel plants in Chris Tucker’s mind a tendril of thought that will prompt him, tomorrow, to head in this town’s direction, to the greenhouse on the outskirts of town to buy a plant for his mother. And Cassie, Castiel nudges, will discover her new house needs some green life in it. The two will cross paths, meet, fall in love, and Castiel will be able to mark off another mission as complete.
He opens his eyes to see a waitress approaching his table.
“Anything else for you, sir?” she asks. Her eyes flicker over Castiel’s empty mug, over the clean table that Castiel’s cleared of spilled coffee with his Grace.
“No,” he says. “Just the check.”
*
The rest of the jobs Castiel has lined up are easier. He finishes them in a matter of days, and so by the time February eighth rolls around, Castiel has only one more mission left. Sam Winchester, Castiel’s file tells him, is a graduate student studying law. Castiel closes his eyes, attaches himself to the tendril of restlessness inside his Grace, and lets it pull him to where Sam Winchester is.
Sam is easy to spot in the crowd, even without the nervous tension of a job filtering through Castiel’s chest. The man stands easily a head taller than most of the fellow students that surround him in the parking lot where’s he’s talking to a man who is slightly shorter than him and wearing a leather jacket. Sam’s hair is dark brown, flopping into his eyes, and when he talks to the other man, he smiles. Castiel lets his Grace flow over the parking lot, nudges it against Sam, and tenses.
It’s the same nothing as the man in the café days before. The same resistance that pushes Castiel’s Grace right back at him. It’s not as strong as the other man, and Castiel catches a glimpse of liquor bottles on a worn kitchen counter, a vague sense of dissatisfaction, before the image fails and his Grace is rebounded back.
Castiel sighs. It figures the last case he had would have to be his most difficult.
Castiel watches the man from underneath a cherry tree on the edge of the parking lot. Sam seems to be lingering, talking to the shorter man, and Castiel hopes, for a moment, that maybe all he has to do is nudge one man to make a move in order for his job to be done. But when he nudges the bond between them, he gets a fierce, protective feeling of “brother,” and Castiel sighs. His job still waits.
A bell sounds far off, and Sam raises his head to look at the building a few hundred yards behind Castiel. Castiel can see him sigh, and his hand comes up to clap the shorter man on the shoulder. As he takes a step to walk past the other man, the other man turns, and Castiel freezes.
It’s the same man that sat with Cassie Robinson the other day. His face is more animated now, more open, but as Sam walks away from him, his expression closes off and settles into something half-harsh and completely unreadable. He reaches into his jacket pocket with a hand and glances around the parking lot much like he did at the café, as if looking for potential threats. As his eyes skim over Castiel’s end of the parking lot, the man’s hand stops rustling around in his pocket and he stares at Castiel. Once again, Castiel finds himself thinking, absurdly, that staring at strangers is not a normal human reaction.
Vague recognition flares in the man’s eyes and his stance changes from casual and slightly on guard to alert. The change in him is strange and almost stunning. Castiel’s not seen that quick of a change in a human, even in the few short days he’s been dealing with them face to face.
Castiel is so distracted by the man that he almost fails to notice that Sam has reached the edge of the parking lot and is walking mere feet from where Castiel is standing. Castiel snaps to attention, and pulls his gaze away from the other man to call out to Sam.
“Sam.” He keeps his tone casual and light, and when Sam glances up, he looks confused when he sees Castiel instead of someone familiar, but he offers a smile in greeting regardless. Castiel steps away from the cherry tree and into his path.
“Yeah, hey,” Sam says, and he pauses before Castiel.
Castiel nods. “Sorry to stop you,” he says, and looks quickly at the books in Sam’s hand, nudges gently at Sam’s mind. He doesn’t get much from his mind, but he can read Constitutional Law I on the cover of Sam’s book, and he searches the minds of the students that are milling around them. “But I was wondering, I missed class on Monday. Dr. Wilson is tough, so…”
“You wanna borrow notes?” Sam asks, looking surprised.
“Yeah.” Castiel forces a sigh of relief. Acting human is tedious, but if this is what he has to do for the job, then he’ll do it. “I’m sorry to ask you, but-”
“No no, it’s fine,” Sam says. He’s smiling, and Castiel knows that Sam, no matter how hard he is to read, is a good man. “Glad to help…”
Castiel shakes his head, puts out his hand out for a handshake. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m Castiel.”
“Right, yeah,” Sam says, like it’s a name he’s heard on class rosters for years. He takes Castiel’s hand in a quick shake. Castiel prepares himself for the onslaught of images and memories and sensations that usually accompany a physical touch with a human. Even if his Grace is repelled, touch can transfer a large enough amount of information to get the job done, like it had with Cassie.
This time, however, there’s nothing. Just the warm sensation of Sam’s overly large hand engulfing his.
“Um,” Sam’s voice startles Castiel out of staring at Sam’s hand, searching desperately for a rush of… something. Anything. “Castiel?”
Castiel jerks his hand away. “Sorry,” he says.
Sam looks bemused. “It’s okay. I just need to get to class.” He looks over his shoulder, and Castiel follows his glance to see Sam’s brother watching the two of them closely. He’s frowning slightly. “Listen, I’m having lunch with my brother, Dean, this afternoon, but maybe around four? I’ll be in the library then. You can look over the notes, ask questions, whatever.”
“Sure. Thank you,” Castiel says, and tears his eyes away from the man-Dean-to Sam. “I appreciate it.”
Sam smiles again. “No problem.” He starts walking away, lifts his hand in a half-wave. “See you later.” He turns, and Castiel doesn’t watch him go.
There’s a bench underneath the cherry tree. It faces away from the parking lot, looking out onto the campus, and Castiel sits and contemplates what he’s going to do next.
*
Intel, Castiel thinks. Recon. Undercover work is his next move. He had meant to fool Sam Winchester for only as long as it took to shake hands. Once they touched, Castiel would have collected whatever information he needed in order to cast his Grace out and find a suitable match for Sam. He’d be done with this ridiculous Humanity Service requirement and back in Heaven now, strategizing and planning another offensive against demons and other evils that threatened humanity from afar.
Instead, his plan had failed, and he’s left with nothing else to do but to keep up the lie he created. Pretend to be a student, ply Sam and Sam’s acquaintances for information, drag the search out for days before he has enough intel to find Sam’s proper match.
This could get messy. And Castiel doesn’t think he has the patience for it.
Castiel keeps his eyes glued to the campus, even when he feels someone sit next to him on the bench.
“Are you stalking me?”
Castiel’s gaze snaps up. It’s Dean, and he’s staring at Castiel with a new look that Castiel thinks is almost amused, despite the wariness he sees in his eyes.
“Excuse me?”
“Or the people I know?” Dean looks quickly around campus, the same surveillance gaze from before. “This is the second time I’ve seen you in, what, three days? And each time you’re running into people I’m talking to.”
Dean’s voice is casual, inquisitive, but at the same time there’s a warning beneath his words that has Castiel looking more closely at him. He reaches his Grace towards the man again, but is met with resistance once more.
Dean frowns, like he can feel it. Castiel pulls his Grace back.
“No,” Castiel says. “I merely need to ask Sam for notes regarding a class we have together.”
“Oh?” Dean leans back against the bench, gazing lazily up at the tree above them. “This about the Criminal Law course or the Civil Procedure thing they’re making him take for this insane degree?”
“The Criminal Law course,” Castiel guesses.
Dean nods, and then he’s sitting up again, leaning his elbows on his knees and resting his chin on his hands.
“Sam took that class last semester,” Dean says. Castiel’s Grace snaps to attention.
“Sam-”
“Okay, listen,” Dean says, and gone is the slight inquisitive tone of before. Now he’s all harsh warning. “I don’t know what you want with Sam, but-”
‘I’m a friend,” Castiel says. Dean stops talking.
“Excuse me?”
“A friend,” Castiel says.
Dean raises an eyebrow. “Really.” He clearly doesn’t believe him.
Castiel sighs and looks away back to campus. “Sam has some information that I need, and all I need to do is ask him about it, and I’ll be gone.”
Dean’s silent next to him for a long time, and when Castiel looks at him Dean is watching him again. He still looks on edge, like he’s ready to push Castiel bodily away from anywhere near his brother. But there’s also a strange, curious look on his face.
“You’re awfully cryptic,” Dean finally says.
Castiel raises an eyebrow. “You’re awfully protective. Sam’s a grown man, he can handle himself.”
And just like that, Dean’s mostly hostile again.
“Okay, listen, dude-”
“Castiel.”
Dean’s eyes widen at the gruff tone of Castiel’s voice. “Come again?”
“My name is not ‘dude,’” Castiel says, voice like thunder. “It is Castiel.” This man may affect him differently than any other human has, any angel has for that matter, but Castiel is still a soldier and an angel, and answers to no one but his superiors.
Dean shakes his head, holds up a hand. “Okay, Cas, whatever.” Castiel startles at the shortened name, too stunned to offer a rebuttal or a question in return. “Just don’t go stalking my brother, alright? We’ll be on our merry way, then. Understand?”
“I already explained,” Castiel says. “I am not here to ‘stalk’ your brother.”
“No?” Dean’s eyes travel up and down Castiel’s body then, a kind of lingering look that’s more intense than the once over Dean gave him at the café when he was with Cassie. Castiel’s body reacts differently as well, and Castiel doesn’t know what to do with the way his heart beats a little faster, or how he can feel a dampness gather on his palms.
“No,” Castiel repeats.
Dean pauses again. Then, “Okay, fine. Maybe I’ll pretend I believe you.” His eyes flicker to the campus, and he sits up again, leans back casually. “Are you really one of Sam’s friends, though?” he asks suddenly. “Aren’t you a little old for college?”
Castiel raises an eyebrow. “I was under the impression college was for anyone, of any age, sex, or orientation.”
Dean rolls his eyes and snorts what Castiel thinks is amusement. He seems to be acting as if he’s annoyed, but the rigid hold of his shoulders has relaxed, and there’s no longer the harshness that lay behind the set of his eyes and his mouth a few moments before. Dean Winchester seems to be an extremely complicated man.
“Okay, you don’t have to impress me with your study skills,” Dean says. “I got it. He shoots Castiel another look before his mouth opens to say something. But he stops.
Castiel waits.
“You know,” Dean finally says. “Sam’s still in class for another forty-five minutes or so.”
“Oh,” Castiel says. He didn’t much think of time. Time rarely matters. No one has ever disrupted his vigil before. But with Dean watching him now, time is suddenly a huge issue.
Dean snorts again. “Yeah,” he says. “Oh.” He looks Castiel over again before he lets out a breath and stands. “Come on,” he says, waving a hand in a gesture that surely means for Castiel to follow. “I’m meeting Sam at the diner for lunch. You can wait for him there. If you’re going to question him about whatever it is you need, might as well do it where I can watch you.”
It’s not exactly a statement that fills Castiel with hope and confidence, but Dean walks away without making sure Castiel’s following behind, and Castiel stands and watches him for a moment. Dean Winchester is completely different from Sam, changeable and protective where Sam seems helpful and steady. While Castiel knows he has to collect information from as many sources as he can, Dean seems unwilling to let Castiel near Sam, let alone let Castiel become privy to information about his brother. So accepting Dean’s invitation to wait with him for Sam seems counterproductive. Fraternizing with Dean is unlikely to get Castiel any closer to the end of a successful mission, to knowing Sam’s likes and dislikes and what would comprise of a suitable match for him. And yet as Castiel watches Dean walk away, Castiel stands and his foot takes a step forward, his mind trying to follow after Dean without having made a conscious decision.
And Castiel, in all his training to be a soldier, has no idea what that means.
*
Dean leads Castiel to a small diner. As soon as Castiel walks in, his senses are overwhelmed with the scent of grease and fried meat.
“Hope you’re not vegetarian.” Dean smirks when he sees Castiel stop before sitting at the booth Dean’s sat at.
“No,” Castiel says. The truth is, he doesn’t need to eat at all. He takes a seat opposite of Dean, and watches the man.
“You gonna stare at me the whole time we wait for Sam?” Dean asks.
Castiel blinks and looks towards the front window for a moment. It’s decorated in red and pink cutouts of small outlines of infants with wings. The human version of a cupid. Castiel sighs and turns back to Dean.
“No,” he says.
“Okay,” Dean nods slowly. “So-”
“Why did you invite me here?”
Dean freezes in opening a menu. “To talk to Sam,” he says after a moment.
“I could have talked to Sam tonight, at the library.”
Dean snorts. “No,” he says. “You’re a strange dude walking around in a trench coat asking to meet with my brother for information. I don’t really trust you.”
“Then why’d you invite me here in the first place.”
Dean lays his menu flat on the table, looks over it as he says, “Because you also looked really desperate when you said you needed to talk to Sam, and I might be ‘protective,’ as you call it, but I’m not a douchebag. So shut up and let me read.”
Castiel stares at Dean as the man looks over the menu, surprise making him follow Dean’s orders.
After a few moments, Dean looks up from his menu, sees Castiel staring at him, and sighs. He leans back a little, turns the menu around with a hand, and slides it towards him.
“Sam says it’s all a bunch of heart attack on a plate, with a side order of cholesterol,” he says with a grin. “But I say live dangerously, right?”
Castiel looks at the menu, his Grace jumping slightly at how Dean’s smile transforms his face into something almost beautiful.
After a moment, between reading up on what a reuben is and what comprises of the Triple Decker Threat, Castiel asks, “Sam does not prefer restaurants like this one?” If he’s going to be here sitting with Dean for a time, he might as well attempt to start collecting information.
At Dean’s silence, he looks up. Dean has some of the sugar packets stacked in a kind of house in front of him, and he has one hand poised above the small structure with another packet. He’s staring at Castiel.
“Uh, no,” he says. He clears his throat and tosses the sugar packet to the table.
“So what does he prefer?”
Dean raises an eyebrow. “You looking to take Sam on a date or something?” Dean asks.
Castiel pulls back in shock. “Excuse me?”
“’Cause Sam doesn’t swing that way.”
“No,” he says. “I merely wish to discern what your brother’s eating preferences are.”
“That’s…” He leans forward, and the sugar packets tumble to the tabletop. “Okay, that’s just weird,” he says. “Is that what you wanted to ask him at the library?”
Yes and no, Castiel thinks. But Dean is staring at him with a kind of dangerous curiosity, and Castiel can only stare back.
“You’re kind of weird,” Dean says. And Castiel is startled to find that Dean’s smirking when he says it. “Anyone ever tell you that?”
Cunning, tactful, skillful, yes. Weird? No.
“No,” Castiel says, his chin rising a bit.
And that… pulls a smile from Dean. “Dude, relax,” he says. “Geeze, if you weren’t so gung-ho about Sam-” he cuts himself off, shakes his head, and reaches for the menu. “Come on, what have you decided on? Might as well interrogate my brother on a full stomach.”
Castiel doesn’t answer. Because Dean uses a finger to tap Castiel’s hand away from the menu. And in that small touch is a flare of recognition in Castiel’s Grace. A small tendril of curiosity laden with… something. Something big and dark and heavy that makes Castiel’s heart beat a little faster and his eyes snapping up to Dean’s. Dean’s eyes are wide on Castiel now, like whatever Castiel felt he got a taste of as well. There’s surprise written in the slack o of his mouth, but something else that has everything in Dean focused on Castiel.
There’s a clatter on the other side of the diner as a waitress drops a fork on the ground, the murmur of hasty apologies. Castiel pulls his hand back and stands.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I forgot…”
Dean’s looking up at him, eyes still wide.
“Tell Sam in no longer need his assistance,” Castiel says instead. His Grace is roiling within him, and he tries to calm himself with a deep breath in.
“Hey,” Dean says, but Castiel is turned away and walking out the door. As soon as he hits the sidewalk, passes to the left and walks past the front windows of the diner, he cloaks himself, and stands invisible by the side of the building.
*
Forty minutes pass before Sam Winchester shows up at the diner. It takes every single one of those minutes for Castiel to compose himself. Never, in all his centuries in Heaven or his days on Earth has he felt anything like he felt when Dean touched his hand. He had expected nothing at first, since Dean seemed to be closed off from him. And yet he’d received something from the man. And not the regular something. What he felt was no memory, no like or dislike or small part of himself. Instead, it was what Dean had been feeling: a combination of curiosity, amusement, uncertainty, but most of all… attraction. Castiel had never felt that. Not towards any of the other angels, and he stares off into the street, keeping watch for Sam, and has no idea what he’s supposed to do with that now.
When he sees Sam, he pulls himself together through tricks he’s learned over the years fighting in the field, and he strengthens his invisibility and stands outside the windows of the diner. If he can’t get the information he needs through undercover work and direct questions, then it’s back to watching and gathering information. It’s a gruelingly slow process, but it’s better than nothing.
Dean’s house of sugar packets has been rebuilt and increased to three levels by the time Sam approaches his table, slings his backpack into the booth, and plops down. He folds his long legs under the table, not without bumping it, and Dean curses as the house of sugar falls to the table.
“Gee,” Dean says. “Thanks, Sam.”
Sam shrugs, grabs the menu that’s still sitting where Castiel left it. “Sorry,” he says. He doesn’t sound it at all. He frowns at the menu. “Really?” he asks. “You couldn’t have picked a place with a little less Death on a Plate.”
So Dean was right, Sam doesn’t like the food this kind of restaurant serves.
Dean frowns at Sam. “You secretly love it,” he says.
Sam snorts. “Not really, Dean.”
The brothers banter back and forth before a waitress comes over to take their order. And Castiel watches. And as he watches their casual conversation, their interactions with the waitress and the other members of the diner, it clicks. Everything falls into place inside Castiel’s head. Sam Winchester has, so far, been difficult to read. He’s a smart man, brilliant in fact, but he treats everyone with the same kindness and caring. Except maybe his brother, who he treats a little rudely, a little crassly, but with an even greater care than anyone else Castiel has seen him interact with. Sam Winchester is, in short, difficult to read.
But Dean… Dean Winchester is spouting out stories left and right. Stories about his work at the garage in town, stories about their childhood, stories about Sam’s study habits. And Sam is reacting to Dean. He’s cutting off Dean’s stories at parts he finds embarrassing, and prompting Dean to tells other stories that Sam finds most amusing. When the waitress comes over with bottles of salad dressing, Dean plucks one from her hands and places it in front of Sam’s plate almost absent-mindedly, and Sam accepts the gesture as if this is normal. The same thing happens during dessert. Dean orders pie for himself, and simple black coffee for Sam without asking him. Dean, Castiel realizes, knows his brother probably better than Dean knows himself.
And Castiel knows he made a horrible mistake. Dean Winchester is not a hindrance to his mission. Dean Winchester, on the contrary, is the key to figuring out who Sam is and finally completing this mission.
*
Angelic ways and subterfuge have both failed Castiel. The only route left to go, then, is with the truth. It’s not the usual way, it’s not even a way as far as he knows, but it’s the last option he can think of. And if he doesn’t hook Sam up with his soul mate in four days, then Castiel is in deep trouble. He’s never failed a mission before, and doesn’t plan to now.
He shows up on Dean’s doorstep at four in the afternoon, when he knows Sam is usually at the library thanks to the conversation of the day before. When Dean answers the door, he’s wearing jeans that are torn and covered in black grease, and the t-shirt he’s wearing fits snug over his shoulders. There’s a patch of the grease running along his bicep.
Dean raises an eyebrow when he sees who it is.
“So the stalkers back?” he asks. He’s almost grinning, despite a wary look in his eyes.
“I’m not-”
“Yeah, yeah, sure.” To Castiel’s surprise, Dean steps out of the doorway and heads into the house. “Come in.” Castiel follows, closes the door behind him. “Sorry for the mess,” Dean says when he sees Castiel staring at his torn jeans. “Just got back from the garage. Haven’t had time to clean up yet.”
Castiel shakes his head. “It’s not important. I have something I’d like to discuss.”
Dean stands in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, watching Castiel with curiosity now.
“You don’t beat around the bush, do you. You don’t want Sam this time?” Castiel doesn’t answer. “Okay, shoot. What is it?”
Castiel tells him. Everything.
Dean, of course, doesn’t believe him. Castiel hadn’t expected him to. But in the end, after half an hour of calling Castiel crazy and threatening to kick him out, Castiel shows Dean his wings, shows him how he can zap from one place to the next in a matter of seconds, and Dean is forced to believe him.
It’s not Castiel’s most eloquent argument, but it has Dean believing him, and that’s all that matters.
“So why do you need my help, if you can just… search people’s souls or whatever it is that you do?”
“Because you and your brother are hard to read,” Castiel answers. “It happens sometimes, especially when the human has… guarded him or herself, or had a hard past.”
Dean stiffens, and Castiel holds absolutely still.
“Makes sense,” Dean says, mumbling the words.
“Why?”
Dean shakes his head. “Okay, no. You know what? This is really weird.”
Castiel can see in Dean’s face a vague sense of panic, and Castiel tries to sink into the couch a little bit where Dean offered him a seat.
“Do you love your brother?”
“What?” Dean snaps, looking vaguely panicked at the prospect of an angel in his living room.
“Your brother,” Castiel says. “You love him.”
“Well, yeah,” Dean says, as if it’s the most obvious thing on the planet.
“You want him to be happy.”
“Yes.”
“I can help him.” Castiel waits for that to sink in, and Dean looks contemplative, like he’s mulling over Castiel’s words. “The… mission that I was sent on did not come out of nowhere. Sam has, even if he’s not acknowledged it himself, wished for this.”
Dean snorts. “A love intervention?”
“If that’s what you want to call it, then yes,” Castiel says dryly. “But angels have been calling it a search for a soul mate. That might sound more poetic.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Or girly.” He frowns. “And more like Sam. Oh, Christ.” He plops down on the couch opposite Castiel. “I can’t believe I’m actually considering this.”
Castiel’s quiet for a moment before he says, “You’ve already helped me a great deal. Whether you know it or not. I just need a little bit more information, and then I’m done. I’ll be out of your way, and Sam can be happy.”
Dean looks up then. He looks uncertain again. But he seems to push that aside when he asks, “You can guarantee Sam’s happiness?”
“Yes.”
Dean nods. “Then fine. Okay.” He shakes his head. “Let’s play cupid to Sam’s pathetic love life.”
Castiel doesn’t know why, but he smiles.
(continue to part 2)