Fic: Dean's Adventures in Babysitting: Angels Watching Over You
Title: Dean’s Adventures in Babysitting: Angels Watching Over You
Author: alexjanna91
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Castiel, Dean, (past) Dean/Lisa
Series: Apple Pie Life
Rating: PG-PG13
Genre: Gen, Post-Season 5
Word Count: 3,596
Warning: allusions to child predators, violence against children, domestic abuse, monster of the week, angels
Summary: While Cas was whipping Heaven into shape and indulging his stalkerish tendencies, he discovered something that was just impossible. But since when had Dean ever obeyed the rules of the impossible?
A/N: The next installment in the Adventures in Babysitting arc of the Apple Pie Life verse.
*
Castiel once described himself as the size of the Chrysler building, a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent. It was a simplistic description, a mere fraction of all that Castiel’s true form really encompassed. At the time he highly doubted Dean would have been interested in hearing about the burning rings of angelic flame circling his nearly humanoid chest, his three sets of wings of lightning and aurora borealis locked in a battle, or his three faces; raven, wolf, and blank human mask.
No. Dean Winchester, The Righteous man, would not have cared for an explanation more complicated than what Castiel had given him. He was not a man that dwelled over much on seemingly inconsequential details.
Perhaps, once they had earned each other’s trust and grown into their friendship, Dean would have listened as Castiel tried to communicate to his first and only friend what it truly was to be an angel. Perhaps, but unfortunately Castiel never got the chance to find out in between rebelling against Heaven and helping The Righteous Man “shove the Devil back in his box”.
He was forever affected by these events and not just in the sense that after being smote by Lucifer he was resurrection with more angelic power and rank than he knew what to do with. He was also changing, adapting. Something that hasn’t happened in the Heavenly Host since- well, since ever.
Heaven was a mess and absolutely directionless, Castiel was looked to for blame and guidance both. The angels clamored at him for orders, and explanations, and to teach them how to actually be free. God had given him the divine responsibility of leading his brethren in this new and unfamiliar world and he was struggling. His Father had given him just enough rope to hang himself with if he stumbled and fell in his new duties.
It was a challenge to say the least.
However, being one of the most powerful angels still in Heaven and being an almost universally acknowledged leader had some advantages. Castiel was able to delegate his duties for the short amount of time it took to fly down to Earth and observe his friend living a life after the world hadn’t ended.
At first, it was not pleasant to witness.
Dean spent more time in a haze of alcohol and depression than he did conscious. He had attempted to resume some kind of a relationship with the woman, Lisa Braeden. The attempted had ended when Dean woke up pinning Lisa to the bed and holding a knife to her throat after a particularly vivid night terror. He moved into a separate bedroom and sank deeper in despair, letting his grief overwhelm him.
Castiel ached, or an angelic approximation thereof, for his friend and struggled not to break his resolve to not interfere in Dean’s new life. He had heard Sam drag a promise from Dean that he would live a normal “apple pie” life after he jumped. Not that Castiel really understood what a baked desert had to do with a specific way of life he understood the meaning. Because Castiel understood the concept, he assumed having a celestial being appear regularly and seemingly out of thin air was not considered normal within the parameters of “apple pie”.
Keeping that in mind, Castiel kept watch over his friend invisible to human perception. Despite this restriction Castiel refused to cease coming down to Earth. Truthfully it was the only peace and quiet he got these days. In Heaven there was always an angel around every corner begging for his guidance, his thoughts, his wisdom, his leadership. Even his favorite place of rest, an autistic man’s Heaven of eternal Tuesday afternoons, was invaded by his aimless brethren.
He had no idea why anyone would bother to lie to “become president” as Dean said. Having this kind of power was far more trouble than it was worth.
Day after day, night after night, Castiel watched his friend suffer unimaginable grief and still he couldn’t bring himself to take that last step into Dean’s world. For months it continued, the only marginal respite in the pain came on the (purely metaphorical) wings of Benjamin Braedan. He demanded Dean’s attention as the closest thing to a father figure that he had ever known. Despite his crippling grief and hopelessness Dean was compelled to drag himself out into the world for Ben’s sake.
This cycle of darkness with fleeting moments of dim light didn’t seem to have an end in sight until a chime of a doorbell tossed Dean a lifeline. He grabbed it, clutched at it and, thankfully, didn’t let go.
Castiel stood silent witness as Dean was surrounded with children and his soul began to sing again. Ever beautiful regardless of its battered state, his soul flickered into its natural blinding glow that pulsed with renewed life and hope.
It was an amazing thing to watch; it was mesmerizing and Castiel felt his own Grace respond in a swell of joyfulness. The other angels were no less affected, but Castiel hadn’t noticed the ripple effect yet. At this point he was simply grateful that his friend had ceased existing and began living.
*
Time in Heaven, in the unearthly planes, moves differently. Like in Hell, years, decades, centuries have a different meaning than it does on Earth. It is easy for a “multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent” to lose track of time. That being said, by the time Castiel was able to make another sojourn to Earth to see Dean unmeasurable, by human methods, time had passed in Heaven.
Dean, in a matter of weeks, had found traction in his new duties as a childcare provider. As he spent more time with the children he allowed himself to feel fleeting glimpses of happiness and wispy moments of usefulness.
It was a weight lessened on Castiel’s shoulders. He had grown to be frantic with worry for his friend when Dean’s unanswered, unintentional prayers echoed through heaven with almost unmeasurable pain. It was especially troubling when he was inebriated which was unhealthily often.
God, I want him back. I want my little brother back.
Cas. God Cas, it hurts so much.
Why didn’t you take me instead!
I’m lonely, Cas. All alone.
Just make it all stop.
He knew Dean didn’t know that his prayers were heard, even though they remained unanswered. He knew Dean didn’t even realize he was praying nor would he appreciate Castiel, and a faire portion of the Host, being unwitting voyeurs to his inner thoughts of despair.
The desolate, bordering on suicidal prayers slowly tapered off the more Dean was exposed to the innocent unfettered happiness of childhood. Castiel was thankful for this. He didn’t like the idea of his brethren being privy to Dean’s prayers, the directionless ones having been broadcasted to the Host as a whole.
As Dean slowly healed, his prayers centered more on fleeting thoughts of the children, hopeful thoughts for their wellbeing, and grief tinged utterances of how much being around them reminded him of Sam. Thankfully the utter desolation and despair of his earlier prayers became steadily less and less.
Castiel breathed a sigh of relief for this improvement, though he generally didn’t need to breathe. He didn’t notice that the Host seemed less uptight and unmanageable.
However, despite the hopeful outlook for Dean’s future, he wouldn’t be a Winchester if life didn’t throw him some “curve balls”.
The first such obstacle Castiel witnessed was upsetting in the way that it harmed Dean more than he had harmed the perpetrator.
With a thought Castiel had spread his wings and flew to Dean as if he were a homing beacon. He coalesced in an unfamiliar house to see Dean kneeling over a man with a twisted, septic soul. He beat the man into the floor then broke the thin bones of his hand with ruthlessness. Castiel hadn’t seen the taint and scaring of Hell this close to the surface of Dean’s soul since The Righteous Man had first been pulled from Perdition.
What was more alarming than the fact that Hell was encroaching on Dean’s conscious mind was the realization that Dean had pulled it to the fore voluntarily. When Castiel brought himself out of his initial shock and moved his attention entirely on the situation before him he understood why Dean had done such a recklessly, idiotic thing. The victim of his ire had beaten, raped, and terrified his wife, and when that ceased to satiate his unchecked sadism, he turned his attention to his son.
Dean had fought so hard to lock away his time in Hell, to keep from releasing even a hint of his potential for savagery awakened by his time as Alistair’s apprentice. Castiel was momentarily enraged that there was cause for him to release the darkness inside him. He had to stamp down his urge to unleash a smiting that would leave half of the state as a smoking crater.
If Castiel couldn’t unleash his wrath, he settled for satisfaction in Dean’s violent and brutal method of punishment for this human monster. It went against what he was trying to teach his brethren, but he approved of Dean’s wrathful actions. He justified his feelings with the knowledge that this man’s soul was destined for the Pit.
Watching Dean extract his vengeance, Castiel did not interfere. He watched, silently approving, and yet he worried that the dregs of Hell inside Dean would not let his friend go without a fight. Evil had more power when you invited it in.
Despite Hell creeping around the edges of his mind like a beast stalking its prey, Dean gave the traumatized mother and child protection and a new life. His strength against overwhelming darkness still amazed Castiel.
That night he ignored his practice of noninterference long enough to rebury the marring of Hell and insure that Dean would have a restful night free of memories or nightmares.
Of course, he also flew back to the husband and planted the compulsion to follow every one of Dean’s edicts with the added impulse to move out of state.
Castiel returned to Heaven with a clear conscience.
*
Heaven demanded the majority of his attention. Angels were not creatures that took to change very well; especially the ones that were “dicks with wings”. Sometimes Castiel thought it would be easier to just start throwing his brothers into alternate universes. It would give him some peace and quiet at least.
It was beyond exhausting even for a being that was supposed to have infinite patience. If Rachel, Hester, and Inias -angels he had commanded in his old garrison- hadn’t been shouldering some of the burden (with heavy guidance from him), Castiel was sure he would have moved permanently to Earth a long time ago.
His trips to Earth were his only respite and he took them every chance he could regardless of feeling guilty for neglecting his duties.
The reordering of ranks, placating the dicks, and the constant feeling of banging his head against a brick wall, Castiel’s sanity practically depended on his trips to observe his friend.
He landed in what appeared to be a lesson in human methods of self-defense. It was highly amusing to watch the excitable and eager children try and mostly fail to execute the moves. Usually Castiel violently protested injury befalling his charge, but he felt no guilt for succumbing to the laughter echoing through his grace as he watched Dean take repeated punches and kicks to delicate and painful parts of his anatomy.
The lesson ended and the children ran off to play, but Castiel’s amusement quickly faded as unease began skirting the edges of his awareness. Dean’s instincts noticed the change as well and pinpointed the source before he did.
It happened quickly, Castiel was a second away from an involuntary flex of angelic power that would have struck devastating lightning in the middle of the park. As it was, Dean moved almost faster than humanly possible and had the situation controlled before Castiel had even built up the power.
This time when Dean used violence, Castiel noticed that not an ounce of Hell slipped its chains. Regardless of the savagery awakened by Hell, Dean had always been capable of ruthless, merciless destruction of the things he hunted. It was impossible not to acquire a measure of those traits in the life of a hunter.
And merciless, Dean was. The current object of his wrathfulness was a man of putrid, impure, and disgusting desires; he had attempted to take one of Dean’s charges. He hadn’t stood a chance of escaping punishment.
Castiel watched it all play out never tempted to interfere with Dean’s chosen method of retribution. When it was over and Dean was satisfied, the authorities questioned his actions. When a detective with a righteous, honest soul recognized Dean as a wanted criminal Castiel felt unreasonably angry. Falsely accused; the very thought that his friend -uncompromisingly moral and blessed by God himself- was suspected of being a murderer was unacceptable.
Shoving down the renewed temptation to “smite a bitch”, Castiel flew to hover over Detective Jeffery Hart’s shoulder and give life to the seeds of doubt that Dean didn’t fit the expectation of a coldblooded murderer. He whispered of the care and watchfulness of the children that was easily observed in Dean’s behavior. He whispered of the swiftness of Dean’s reaction to a threat against his charges. He brought attention to the safety the children felt under Dean’s care and the absolute faith they had in his protection. He whispered that these were not the actions of man accused of such unspeakable crimes.
Just whispers and doubt took hold. It only needed further investigation to grow.
Dean left the park a free man and the Detective watched him go with the desire to justify his decision with facts and evidence.
All in all, Castiel was satisfied and feeling capable of once again returning to his duties.
*
The next few times Castiel descended in search of respite, he was glad to find Dean continuing to heal, fulfilling his duties with an increasing amount of enthusiasm. He acted as teacher, protector, caretaker, and the instigator for small changes in his kids’ and their parents’ lives. It affected their actions more than they or Dean realized.
Over the course of these observations Castiel began to notice more changes in Dean and, surprisingly, the Host.
He was relieved by the changes in his siblings and was thankful that they were now asking questions that were actually questions as opposed to complaints phrased as questions.
Castiel almost collapsed in relief, if a celestial being could do such a thing, but he didn’t spend much energy wondering about the sudden change. The angels were finally beginning to take steps toward actually learning; tiny, miniscule steps, but still. They were starting to observe Earth and humanity (from a safe distance, of course) with more puzzlement than scorn. It was progress, if agonizingly slow progress.
Meanwhile, Dean was marginally happy and slowly setting aside his grief for the hard to resist enjoyment of caring for children.
Castiel visited Earth, he haltingly edged his brethren in the right direction, and he surgically cut away at the necrotic corruption that had infected Heaven. All in all, the constant struggle that had become his life was steadily lessening.
It didn’t occur to him that something greater was happening until he landed on Earth in the middle of Dean’s first hunt since his brother had fallen.
A rawhead, Castiel immediately discovered, was hoarding children to eventually consume in its hunger. He recalled that Dean had nearly died in his previous encounter with the creatures. The thought was worrying enough that Castiel shadowed Dean through the tunnels until he found the taken children. Castiel searched for the cause of Dean’s sudden and uncharacteristic surge of urgency as he spoke to the children. He found it quickly.
Castiel knew with the certainty of a celestial being that the soul of the child, Jeremy Carver, was soon to be on its way to Heaven. However, he didn’t have time to mourn the futility of Dean’s attempt to save the child because something impossible happened.
A pulse of power burst from Dean when he heard that Jeremy had been taken. It spread out through the tunnels and Castiel tracked its journey to where the monster, very much a creature of Purgatory and darkness, held the child captive.
As the power touched him Jeremy suddenly overcame his paralyzing fear and began to fight the monster. He had no hope of overpowering it or escaping, but he was no longer a passive victim. Additionally, the monster was no longer solely focused on its goal of eating, distracted when its meal began struggling. It focused on physically subduing its prey instead of following its instincts and simply snapping the child’s neck.
Castiel watched the child’s fate reforming even as he watched the impossible scene play out before him. Previously scheduled to ascend into Heaven within the next fifty-three seconds, Jeremy’s future was now unspooling into infinite possibilities.
Stunned, Castiel watched Dean fight the creature, watched him use his ingrained skills to battle it with cleverness and the pure force of his stubbornness, and yet he knew that it wouldn’t be enough.
He could see the immediate future. Dean would be electrocuted and he would die. One of the infinite threads of Fate locked into place; it was inevitable. Castiel prepared himself to step in and save his friend from being thrust into an existence of repetitive idleness in Heaven. Or, at least, that’s how Dean would see it.
Before he could intervene, however, Dean proceeded to execute a physically impossible maneuver saving his own life and simultaneously killing the rawhead. If Castiel hadn’t felt the surge of power propelling Dean through the air and out of danger, he would not have believed it had happened. Even seeing it with his own eyes, he was having trouble.
Following the aftermath of the hunt, Castiel followed along idly as he began piecing together the now obvious clues of this development.
A burst of unnatural speed in the pursuit of a pedophile, an easily overlooked breeze ushering dangerous animals and insects away from two children’s hiding place, the almost palpable aura of protection and comfort that captivated children and set parents at ease. These and a dozen other overlooked instances when combined with the nearly imperceptible intensifying brightness and increasing power of Dean’s soul were all evidence of something that should not be possible.
Castiel snorted wryly to himself. Since when had Dean Winchester ever yielded to the impossible? Of course discounting Dean’s compulsive stubbornness and willful disregard for the laws of the universe, he was The Righteous Man, he was the first Holy Warrior in centuries to be hand-picked by God, he was a true Servant of Heaven; he was the literal savior of humanity and the world. It shouldn’t have been so surprising the rules of Transcendence didn’t even slow him down.
Sometimes, Castiel’s own obliviousness surprised him. He had returned to Heaven thinking himself a wiser and worldlier angel than the rest of his brethren. Clearly that was prideful foolishness.
Castiel had failed to recognize this momentous development. He resolved not to let such ignorance continue. The changes in Dean and the inevitable repercussions in Heaven required close watching. If the signs truly meant what he suspected they did, it could have unpredictable effects both on Earth and in Heaven.
Decision made, Castiel communicated to his Lieutenants the need to extend his sojourn on Earth and “monitor a situation of great importance”. He then spread his wings and took flight, a strategy of information gathering and closer observation already forming in his mind.
*
Dean had been sleeping, dreaming of the usual, you know; scantily clad chicks and driving around in Baby, and one memorable time a physically impossible combination of the two. For once it wasn’t nightmares of Hell or watching the devil ride his little brother into the Cage.
He didn’t know what woke him, but it must not have been too urgent because he didn’t bother dragging himself to full wakefulness.
His eyes were barely open and his mind was still groggy with sleep, but a familiar warm presence demanded at least a fraction of his attention. Rolling onto his back Dean looked around and distantly registered the figure standing there watching him. It was opaque and indistinct, impossible to see clearly. Dean thought somewhere in the back of his mind that it looked like nothing that could not possibly exist on Earth much less be standing there calmly at the foot of his bed.
Dean blinked blearily and suddenly the figure no longer seemed so very alien to him. For all that the thing still didn’t look even remotely human; he would have recognized that intense stare and the complete failure to obey the rules of “personal space” anywhere. He huffed out a breath that was both annoyed and amused.
“It’s creepy to watch people sleep, Cas.” Dean said before rolling over and slipping back into restful dreams of frisky women and driving his awesome car.
In the morning he would have a hazy memory of seeing Cas in his dreams, but Dean wouldn’t think too hard on it. After all, compared to that one nightmare about the tentacled minivan and the voyeuristic Yorkie, a dream about Cas’ stalker-ish tendencies wasn’t all that weird.
*
End.
Author: alexjanna91
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Castiel, Dean, (past) Dean/Lisa
Series: Apple Pie Life
Rating: PG-PG13
Genre: Gen, Post-Season 5
Word Count: 3,596
Warning: allusions to child predators, violence against children, domestic abuse, monster of the week, angels
Summary: While Cas was whipping Heaven into shape and indulging his stalkerish tendencies, he discovered something that was just impossible. But since when had Dean ever obeyed the rules of the impossible?
A/N: The next installment in the Adventures in Babysitting arc of the Apple Pie Life verse.
*
Castiel once described himself as the size of the Chrysler building, a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent. It was a simplistic description, a mere fraction of all that Castiel’s true form really encompassed. At the time he highly doubted Dean would have been interested in hearing about the burning rings of angelic flame circling his nearly humanoid chest, his three sets of wings of lightning and aurora borealis locked in a battle, or his three faces; raven, wolf, and blank human mask.
No. Dean Winchester, The Righteous man, would not have cared for an explanation more complicated than what Castiel had given him. He was not a man that dwelled over much on seemingly inconsequential details.
Perhaps, once they had earned each other’s trust and grown into their friendship, Dean would have listened as Castiel tried to communicate to his first and only friend what it truly was to be an angel. Perhaps, but unfortunately Castiel never got the chance to find out in between rebelling against Heaven and helping The Righteous Man “shove the Devil back in his box”.
He was forever affected by these events and not just in the sense that after being smote by Lucifer he was resurrection with more angelic power and rank than he knew what to do with. He was also changing, adapting. Something that hasn’t happened in the Heavenly Host since- well, since ever.
Heaven was a mess and absolutely directionless, Castiel was looked to for blame and guidance both. The angels clamored at him for orders, and explanations, and to teach them how to actually be free. God had given him the divine responsibility of leading his brethren in this new and unfamiliar world and he was struggling. His Father had given him just enough rope to hang himself with if he stumbled and fell in his new duties.
It was a challenge to say the least.
However, being one of the most powerful angels still in Heaven and being an almost universally acknowledged leader had some advantages. Castiel was able to delegate his duties for the short amount of time it took to fly down to Earth and observe his friend living a life after the world hadn’t ended.
At first, it was not pleasant to witness.
Dean spent more time in a haze of alcohol and depression than he did conscious. He had attempted to resume some kind of a relationship with the woman, Lisa Braeden. The attempted had ended when Dean woke up pinning Lisa to the bed and holding a knife to her throat after a particularly vivid night terror. He moved into a separate bedroom and sank deeper in despair, letting his grief overwhelm him.
Castiel ached, or an angelic approximation thereof, for his friend and struggled not to break his resolve to not interfere in Dean’s new life. He had heard Sam drag a promise from Dean that he would live a normal “apple pie” life after he jumped. Not that Castiel really understood what a baked desert had to do with a specific way of life he understood the meaning. Because Castiel understood the concept, he assumed having a celestial being appear regularly and seemingly out of thin air was not considered normal within the parameters of “apple pie”.
Keeping that in mind, Castiel kept watch over his friend invisible to human perception. Despite this restriction Castiel refused to cease coming down to Earth. Truthfully it was the only peace and quiet he got these days. In Heaven there was always an angel around every corner begging for his guidance, his thoughts, his wisdom, his leadership. Even his favorite place of rest, an autistic man’s Heaven of eternal Tuesday afternoons, was invaded by his aimless brethren.
He had no idea why anyone would bother to lie to “become president” as Dean said. Having this kind of power was far more trouble than it was worth.
Day after day, night after night, Castiel watched his friend suffer unimaginable grief and still he couldn’t bring himself to take that last step into Dean’s world. For months it continued, the only marginal respite in the pain came on the (purely metaphorical) wings of Benjamin Braedan. He demanded Dean’s attention as the closest thing to a father figure that he had ever known. Despite his crippling grief and hopelessness Dean was compelled to drag himself out into the world for Ben’s sake.
This cycle of darkness with fleeting moments of dim light didn’t seem to have an end in sight until a chime of a doorbell tossed Dean a lifeline. He grabbed it, clutched at it and, thankfully, didn’t let go.
Castiel stood silent witness as Dean was surrounded with children and his soul began to sing again. Ever beautiful regardless of its battered state, his soul flickered into its natural blinding glow that pulsed with renewed life and hope.
It was an amazing thing to watch; it was mesmerizing and Castiel felt his own Grace respond in a swell of joyfulness. The other angels were no less affected, but Castiel hadn’t noticed the ripple effect yet. At this point he was simply grateful that his friend had ceased existing and began living.
*
Time in Heaven, in the unearthly planes, moves differently. Like in Hell, years, decades, centuries have a different meaning than it does on Earth. It is easy for a “multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent” to lose track of time. That being said, by the time Castiel was able to make another sojourn to Earth to see Dean unmeasurable, by human methods, time had passed in Heaven.
Dean, in a matter of weeks, had found traction in his new duties as a childcare provider. As he spent more time with the children he allowed himself to feel fleeting glimpses of happiness and wispy moments of usefulness.
It was a weight lessened on Castiel’s shoulders. He had grown to be frantic with worry for his friend when Dean’s unanswered, unintentional prayers echoed through heaven with almost unmeasurable pain. It was especially troubling when he was inebriated which was unhealthily often.
God, I want him back. I want my little brother back.
Cas. God Cas, it hurts so much.
Why didn’t you take me instead!
I’m lonely, Cas. All alone.
Just make it all stop.
He knew Dean didn’t know that his prayers were heard, even though they remained unanswered. He knew Dean didn’t even realize he was praying nor would he appreciate Castiel, and a faire portion of the Host, being unwitting voyeurs to his inner thoughts of despair.
The desolate, bordering on suicidal prayers slowly tapered off the more Dean was exposed to the innocent unfettered happiness of childhood. Castiel was thankful for this. He didn’t like the idea of his brethren being privy to Dean’s prayers, the directionless ones having been broadcasted to the Host as a whole.
As Dean slowly healed, his prayers centered more on fleeting thoughts of the children, hopeful thoughts for their wellbeing, and grief tinged utterances of how much being around them reminded him of Sam. Thankfully the utter desolation and despair of his earlier prayers became steadily less and less.
Castiel breathed a sigh of relief for this improvement, though he generally didn’t need to breathe. He didn’t notice that the Host seemed less uptight and unmanageable.
However, despite the hopeful outlook for Dean’s future, he wouldn’t be a Winchester if life didn’t throw him some “curve balls”.
The first such obstacle Castiel witnessed was upsetting in the way that it harmed Dean more than he had harmed the perpetrator.
With a thought Castiel had spread his wings and flew to Dean as if he were a homing beacon. He coalesced in an unfamiliar house to see Dean kneeling over a man with a twisted, septic soul. He beat the man into the floor then broke the thin bones of his hand with ruthlessness. Castiel hadn’t seen the taint and scaring of Hell this close to the surface of Dean’s soul since The Righteous Man had first been pulled from Perdition.
What was more alarming than the fact that Hell was encroaching on Dean’s conscious mind was the realization that Dean had pulled it to the fore voluntarily. When Castiel brought himself out of his initial shock and moved his attention entirely on the situation before him he understood why Dean had done such a recklessly, idiotic thing. The victim of his ire had beaten, raped, and terrified his wife, and when that ceased to satiate his unchecked sadism, he turned his attention to his son.
Dean had fought so hard to lock away his time in Hell, to keep from releasing even a hint of his potential for savagery awakened by his time as Alistair’s apprentice. Castiel was momentarily enraged that there was cause for him to release the darkness inside him. He had to stamp down his urge to unleash a smiting that would leave half of the state as a smoking crater.
If Castiel couldn’t unleash his wrath, he settled for satisfaction in Dean’s violent and brutal method of punishment for this human monster. It went against what he was trying to teach his brethren, but he approved of Dean’s wrathful actions. He justified his feelings with the knowledge that this man’s soul was destined for the Pit.
Watching Dean extract his vengeance, Castiel did not interfere. He watched, silently approving, and yet he worried that the dregs of Hell inside Dean would not let his friend go without a fight. Evil had more power when you invited it in.
Despite Hell creeping around the edges of his mind like a beast stalking its prey, Dean gave the traumatized mother and child protection and a new life. His strength against overwhelming darkness still amazed Castiel.
That night he ignored his practice of noninterference long enough to rebury the marring of Hell and insure that Dean would have a restful night free of memories or nightmares.
Of course, he also flew back to the husband and planted the compulsion to follow every one of Dean’s edicts with the added impulse to move out of state.
Castiel returned to Heaven with a clear conscience.
*
Heaven demanded the majority of his attention. Angels were not creatures that took to change very well; especially the ones that were “dicks with wings”. Sometimes Castiel thought it would be easier to just start throwing his brothers into alternate universes. It would give him some peace and quiet at least.
It was beyond exhausting even for a being that was supposed to have infinite patience. If Rachel, Hester, and Inias -angels he had commanded in his old garrison- hadn’t been shouldering some of the burden (with heavy guidance from him), Castiel was sure he would have moved permanently to Earth a long time ago.
His trips to Earth were his only respite and he took them every chance he could regardless of feeling guilty for neglecting his duties.
The reordering of ranks, placating the dicks, and the constant feeling of banging his head against a brick wall, Castiel’s sanity practically depended on his trips to observe his friend.
He landed in what appeared to be a lesson in human methods of self-defense. It was highly amusing to watch the excitable and eager children try and mostly fail to execute the moves. Usually Castiel violently protested injury befalling his charge, but he felt no guilt for succumbing to the laughter echoing through his grace as he watched Dean take repeated punches and kicks to delicate and painful parts of his anatomy.
The lesson ended and the children ran off to play, but Castiel’s amusement quickly faded as unease began skirting the edges of his awareness. Dean’s instincts noticed the change as well and pinpointed the source before he did.
It happened quickly, Castiel was a second away from an involuntary flex of angelic power that would have struck devastating lightning in the middle of the park. As it was, Dean moved almost faster than humanly possible and had the situation controlled before Castiel had even built up the power.
This time when Dean used violence, Castiel noticed that not an ounce of Hell slipped its chains. Regardless of the savagery awakened by Hell, Dean had always been capable of ruthless, merciless destruction of the things he hunted. It was impossible not to acquire a measure of those traits in the life of a hunter.
And merciless, Dean was. The current object of his wrathfulness was a man of putrid, impure, and disgusting desires; he had attempted to take one of Dean’s charges. He hadn’t stood a chance of escaping punishment.
Castiel watched it all play out never tempted to interfere with Dean’s chosen method of retribution. When it was over and Dean was satisfied, the authorities questioned his actions. When a detective with a righteous, honest soul recognized Dean as a wanted criminal Castiel felt unreasonably angry. Falsely accused; the very thought that his friend -uncompromisingly moral and blessed by God himself- was suspected of being a murderer was unacceptable.
Shoving down the renewed temptation to “smite a bitch”, Castiel flew to hover over Detective Jeffery Hart’s shoulder and give life to the seeds of doubt that Dean didn’t fit the expectation of a coldblooded murderer. He whispered of the care and watchfulness of the children that was easily observed in Dean’s behavior. He whispered of the swiftness of Dean’s reaction to a threat against his charges. He brought attention to the safety the children felt under Dean’s care and the absolute faith they had in his protection. He whispered that these were not the actions of man accused of such unspeakable crimes.
Just whispers and doubt took hold. It only needed further investigation to grow.
Dean left the park a free man and the Detective watched him go with the desire to justify his decision with facts and evidence.
All in all, Castiel was satisfied and feeling capable of once again returning to his duties.
*
The next few times Castiel descended in search of respite, he was glad to find Dean continuing to heal, fulfilling his duties with an increasing amount of enthusiasm. He acted as teacher, protector, caretaker, and the instigator for small changes in his kids’ and their parents’ lives. It affected their actions more than they or Dean realized.
Over the course of these observations Castiel began to notice more changes in Dean and, surprisingly, the Host.
He was relieved by the changes in his siblings and was thankful that they were now asking questions that were actually questions as opposed to complaints phrased as questions.
Castiel almost collapsed in relief, if a celestial being could do such a thing, but he didn’t spend much energy wondering about the sudden change. The angels were finally beginning to take steps toward actually learning; tiny, miniscule steps, but still. They were starting to observe Earth and humanity (from a safe distance, of course) with more puzzlement than scorn. It was progress, if agonizingly slow progress.
Meanwhile, Dean was marginally happy and slowly setting aside his grief for the hard to resist enjoyment of caring for children.
Castiel visited Earth, he haltingly edged his brethren in the right direction, and he surgically cut away at the necrotic corruption that had infected Heaven. All in all, the constant struggle that had become his life was steadily lessening.
It didn’t occur to him that something greater was happening until he landed on Earth in the middle of Dean’s first hunt since his brother had fallen.
A rawhead, Castiel immediately discovered, was hoarding children to eventually consume in its hunger. He recalled that Dean had nearly died in his previous encounter with the creatures. The thought was worrying enough that Castiel shadowed Dean through the tunnels until he found the taken children. Castiel searched for the cause of Dean’s sudden and uncharacteristic surge of urgency as he spoke to the children. He found it quickly.
Castiel knew with the certainty of a celestial being that the soul of the child, Jeremy Carver, was soon to be on its way to Heaven. However, he didn’t have time to mourn the futility of Dean’s attempt to save the child because something impossible happened.
A pulse of power burst from Dean when he heard that Jeremy had been taken. It spread out through the tunnels and Castiel tracked its journey to where the monster, very much a creature of Purgatory and darkness, held the child captive.
As the power touched him Jeremy suddenly overcame his paralyzing fear and began to fight the monster. He had no hope of overpowering it or escaping, but he was no longer a passive victim. Additionally, the monster was no longer solely focused on its goal of eating, distracted when its meal began struggling. It focused on physically subduing its prey instead of following its instincts and simply snapping the child’s neck.
Castiel watched the child’s fate reforming even as he watched the impossible scene play out before him. Previously scheduled to ascend into Heaven within the next fifty-three seconds, Jeremy’s future was now unspooling into infinite possibilities.
Stunned, Castiel watched Dean fight the creature, watched him use his ingrained skills to battle it with cleverness and the pure force of his stubbornness, and yet he knew that it wouldn’t be enough.
He could see the immediate future. Dean would be electrocuted and he would die. One of the infinite threads of Fate locked into place; it was inevitable. Castiel prepared himself to step in and save his friend from being thrust into an existence of repetitive idleness in Heaven. Or, at least, that’s how Dean would see it.
Before he could intervene, however, Dean proceeded to execute a physically impossible maneuver saving his own life and simultaneously killing the rawhead. If Castiel hadn’t felt the surge of power propelling Dean through the air and out of danger, he would not have believed it had happened. Even seeing it with his own eyes, he was having trouble.
Following the aftermath of the hunt, Castiel followed along idly as he began piecing together the now obvious clues of this development.
A burst of unnatural speed in the pursuit of a pedophile, an easily overlooked breeze ushering dangerous animals and insects away from two children’s hiding place, the almost palpable aura of protection and comfort that captivated children and set parents at ease. These and a dozen other overlooked instances when combined with the nearly imperceptible intensifying brightness and increasing power of Dean’s soul were all evidence of something that should not be possible.
Castiel snorted wryly to himself. Since when had Dean Winchester ever yielded to the impossible? Of course discounting Dean’s compulsive stubbornness and willful disregard for the laws of the universe, he was The Righteous Man, he was the first Holy Warrior in centuries to be hand-picked by God, he was a true Servant of Heaven; he was the literal savior of humanity and the world. It shouldn’t have been so surprising the rules of Transcendence didn’t even slow him down.
Sometimes, Castiel’s own obliviousness surprised him. He had returned to Heaven thinking himself a wiser and worldlier angel than the rest of his brethren. Clearly that was prideful foolishness.
Castiel had failed to recognize this momentous development. He resolved not to let such ignorance continue. The changes in Dean and the inevitable repercussions in Heaven required close watching. If the signs truly meant what he suspected they did, it could have unpredictable effects both on Earth and in Heaven.
Decision made, Castiel communicated to his Lieutenants the need to extend his sojourn on Earth and “monitor a situation of great importance”. He then spread his wings and took flight, a strategy of information gathering and closer observation already forming in his mind.
*
Dean had been sleeping, dreaming of the usual, you know; scantily clad chicks and driving around in Baby, and one memorable time a physically impossible combination of the two. For once it wasn’t nightmares of Hell or watching the devil ride his little brother into the Cage.
He didn’t know what woke him, but it must not have been too urgent because he didn’t bother dragging himself to full wakefulness.
His eyes were barely open and his mind was still groggy with sleep, but a familiar warm presence demanded at least a fraction of his attention. Rolling onto his back Dean looked around and distantly registered the figure standing there watching him. It was opaque and indistinct, impossible to see clearly. Dean thought somewhere in the back of his mind that it looked like nothing that could not possibly exist on Earth much less be standing there calmly at the foot of his bed.
Dean blinked blearily and suddenly the figure no longer seemed so very alien to him. For all that the thing still didn’t look even remotely human; he would have recognized that intense stare and the complete failure to obey the rules of “personal space” anywhere. He huffed out a breath that was both annoyed and amused.
“It’s creepy to watch people sleep, Cas.” Dean said before rolling over and slipping back into restful dreams of frisky women and driving his awesome car.
In the morning he would have a hazy memory of seeing Cas in his dreams, but Dean wouldn’t think too hard on it. After all, compared to that one nightmare about the tentacled minivan and the voyeuristic Yorkie, a dream about Cas’ stalker-ish tendencies wasn’t all that weird.
*
End.