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Old habits truly do die hard.
Castiel knows it, but he still can't help but be pissed off when Dean calls him to tell him that he and Sam have taken off to an impromptu hunt in Texas, possibly following the traces of a vampire nest that sounds like something much more dangerous than what two, admittedly strong and capable hunters, can take on.
He tells himself that he should have seen it coming as he enters his truck, early in the morning, ready for his six-hour drive back to Kansas.
Of course, the Winchesters would become restless alone in the Bunker with not much to do apart from wasting away on thousands of books. Of course, they would try to find something to keep their minds occupied. Of course, they decided to take on a nightmarish hunt that could possibly end up in tragedy and leave them moody for weeks right before Patience's wedding. He should have known. After fifteen years of friendship and partnership forged in blood, he should have definetely known.
The road stretches long in front of him, empty and impossibly straight.
He stops for gas and reads the message his husband sent him.
Dean🥰❤️👨❤️👨🗡️
Hey Sunshine, just met with victims best friend. Reminds me of us, don't know how to feel bout that. Hope we find the guy, seems like he's a good one. And he has a son so… Anyway we're doing fine, going to the police to get footage then maybe we follow a lead. Ill update u. Love you
Of course, the message does nothing to soothe his anxiety. Them going somewhere to follow a lead could mean being in danger and getting killed. He knows they're good at what they do; he hasn't forgotten the many battles that they have fought side by side. But they keep ignoring the fact that they're not getting any younger and that they're more vulnerable than ever, so they often put themselves in danger for no reason and don't even notice.
He sighs, knowing full well that worrying too much won't help them.
If he calls them at the wrong time, they could get killed, so he has to trust that they keep him updated while he waits anxiously for any news.
Thing is, after they got resurrected- and consequently defeated the Empty's entity and saved Heaven's from destruction- they were supposed to have the long-awaited peace that they should have earned after having stopped at least three Apocalypses.
At first, the plan was just to retire.
The first three months after everything, after Dean confessed he was in love with him as well, and they got together, they dropped everything and went on a long vacation with Sam and Eileen. They drove around the country just to visit it in a way they had never done before. No hunts. No monsters. Just them acting like tourists, taking photos, going to cheesy tourist traps, and having fun.
The two of them even prolonged their stay when they reached Florida to have a sort of honeymoon. Not that they could get married, of course. But since they were calling each other 'husband' because everything else felt too juvenile, too dull compared to the immensity of their relationship, it seemed fitting. And also, Cas was just happy to see Dean enjoy a vacation in the way he had always dreamt of doing: toes in the sand, drinks with mini umbrellas, and even a four-star hotel with a nice room.
They came back to the Bunker without a big plan, just to gather ideas, maybe find two normal houses, and live their lives as civilians.
But with every passing day, all of them had started to become… restless, to say the least. Especially the two Winchesters, who weren't used to spending their time in leisure. Dean became angrier and more irritable than usual, while Sam fell into a sort of depression in which he hardly came out of his room.
It was obvious that they needed to occupy their time with something. Cas had told his partner to apply to become a mechanic, as he had attempted to do before he died, and Eileen had suggested to her boyfriend that he could try taking online classes and going to law school, as he had once dreamed of doing. Sadly, it was obvious that things had changed too much from when those were their dreams, for better or worse, and they couldn't put their hearts into those careers as they would have before.
What finally turned things around was embracing their unconventional existence.
They had been at it for so long that they had an expanded knowledge of most monsters, knew how to navigate the bunker, were capable of creating spells, knew where to search when they needed a specific book or an artifact in the chaos that was the place. They could use that and make it a base where hunters from all over America could find a safe haven, a place to relax or train, and discover the lore of some of the most unknown monsters.
They slowly, but steadily, built a real hunting net, efficient and, much to everyone’s surprise, fair. The Winchesters were already well known by everyone who ever had anything to do with the supernatural world, so it didn’t take long for them to prove themselves worthy of being the heads of this newly established community.
People looked up to them. Trusted them to know what to do even in the most desperate of situations.
Soon, the Bunker started to fill with hunters, some who wanted to study, some who wanted to train. Most of them just needed a place to stay for a while, never staying longer than a few weeks. The only people who actually had designated rooms were he and Dean, Eileen and Sam, and Claire and Kaia, who came around so much that they ended up just earning the spot.
Overall, their life was plenty busy, with so many people who needed them. Sam and Eileen ended up taking on the project of digitizing some of the most useful books that hunters couldn’t easily find in libraries, so that they could consult them even if they were far away from the Bunker or didn’t have a way to contact them. Castiel and Dean, instead, mostly took over the training of the newbies, who sometimes had the confidence but not the skill to survive against monsters.
It should have been enough.
But of course it wasn’t.
Hunting is something that has carved itself into the brothers’ DNA. Sometimes they get an itch they can’t scratch, and so they just take off to go hunting. And on a lot of these occasions, they come back somehow banged up, much to his and Eileen’s distress.
In later years, they have managed to get them to promise to slow down a bit, maybe take just one hunt every few months. And, to be fair, they do stick with the plan most of the time.
But, as stated before, they don’t do well with boredom.
Boredom means a lot of thoughts flying through their heads.
And a lot of thoughts flying through their heads means trouble. It always does.
Castiel arrives at the Bunker around lunchtime. He's surprised- although he really shouldn’t be, considering the situation- to see that Eileen is home earlier than expected and is currently trying to make some pasta with her, admittedly poor, skills in the kitchen. She’s nervously stirring it in a large pot while some store-bought pesto sits abandoned on the counter. She’s obviously lost in thought, her eyes fixated on some grease on a tile that she’s not actually trying to clean up.
He walks up to her, trying not to startle her too badly, but she still ends up jumping a little when she feels his presence looming near her. At least she’s not holding a knife, or things might have ended up a bit bloody for him.
“You’re home early,” he signs to her, a sad smile decorating his lips. She frowns, much more annoyed than he’s actually feeling at the moment.
“I can’t believe they waited to be in Texas to tell us that they went hunting,” she signs angrily, the hand gestures almost twitching because of how much she’s trembling.
One thing they did say wasn’t negotiable was that if they had to go hunting, they at least needed to let them know beforehand. Leaving them in the dark isn’t an option, or at least it shouldn’t have been. But it seems everything about this hunt has been about breaking the rules they themselves established five years ago, so this ugly Winchester trait of keeping things hush seems to have seen a sudden resurgence.
“They knew we weren’t going to approve.”
“For good reasons, since we all went on a hunt not more than a month ago and Sam twisted his knee.”
“I don’t really know what to do with them,” he says, using this voice this time, although he keeps signing. “They’ve been hunting since they were kids, and I fear they don’t know how to quit.”
“I thought being on bed rest for nearly six months and having to ask that ghoul-pire to help me up with PT in exchange for dead bodies would be enough to stop anyone.”
“You mean a Nachzehrer.”
“Yeah, that.”
Cas lets an amused smile slip from his otherwise neutral expression.
It wasn’t funny at the time, to be honest, but in retrospect, the whole situation had been so surreal that if he thinks about it, he can’t help but laugh a little.
Two years ago, the four of them went on a hunt in south Nebraska because everyone had been a bit on edge after the pandemic hit. Not too far from home, but still breathing a different kind of air. They were supposed to just deal with a lone werewolf attacking some people in the woods. Only, it wasn’t one monster, but a full pack of them, none of which seemed to have any intention of backing off their ways and turning to a more peaceful lifestyle. They ended up having to kill them off, and in fighting them, Eileen received multiple fractures in both her legs.
Of course, they couldn’t go to a hospital, so they went to one of the Alternate Universe hunters who had a clinic for their people, not too far from the Bunker. She fainted a bunch of times on the way because of the pain, which told them everything they needed to know about how bad it must have been.
It took her several months to heal, during which Sam didn’t dare to go anywhere that wasn’t by her side. And then, she had a hard time learning how to walk again. Thankfully, Garth had a friend, an awkward middle-aged man named Norman, who was more than your average Nachzehrer. He was also a physician and didn’t mind working with anyone, not even hunters.
He reminded Cas of Crowley, which started a small beef between them. Thankfully, he wasn’t as awful as the demon had been, so it ended up being short-term. Also, he did ask them, as payment, for at least three dead bodies of adult males, which meant that he and Dean had to go grave robbing in the cemetery of a family of white supremacists to find said payment without feeling too bad about it.
Not the best hours of his life, but he does think back to that time with fondness, maybe because those had been actual relaxing weeks, with Sam and Dean not feeling like running into danger.
“Well, it seems like it wasn’t.”
“They’re regressing.”
Cas nods. After all, it has been a long time since they last decided to go hunting something potentially incredibly dangerous on their own without even telling them about it, and only a month after a big hunt in which one of them got a sprained knee.
“We can’t stop boredom forever. It would mean that we can’t go anywhere without them.” Because it’s not the first time that there hasn’t been a lot to do at the Bunker. It happens that hunters don’t come for weeks at a time, and they only reach them by phone to ask for tips.
That’s when they find most of the hunts. And if he and Eileen are present, they can usually stall them or force them to call somebody to go instead. But if they’re not, they just take off and run, just like they did a few days ago.
“Well, we have to find something,” she concludes, using her voice for the first time since he arrived.
“What do you suggest?”
“Maybe we should scrap the whole being more stationary thing.” He looks at her with an arched eyebrow, trying to guess what she’s trying to say. “Staying in the same place with rarely going hunting is obviously not working. Not like it did for Bobby.”
“We can’t be on vacation all the time. I don’t think it would work either.”
“I was thinking more… helping in the field.”
“Helping in the field?”
“We’re establishing this big hunting community from the Bunker. Which is not bad, but…” She finished her concept with just her hands. “It makes us look like we’re far removed from everyone else when we’re not.”
Eileen feels vibrations from her phone, so she immediately drains the pasta and smears a few spoons of pesto over it. He waits for her to fill two plates with food and bring them to the huge wooden table behind them before continuing with the conversation.
“You mean that we should, what? Hunt with other people?”
“I think that we’re creating a great network with the other hunters, but that we could do more. Why don’t we establish more headquarters in every state? Why don’t we use the other chapter houses to host hunters who don’t have places in which they can stay? And what about helping peaceful monster packs and having them work with us? We have decades of work to do, and we don’t have to do it from here. It would keep them occupied, but out of trouble.” She signs to him, stopping every once in a while to take a bite of her food.
“It’s a great idea.”
“The Bunker will always be home, and we will still need to train new hunters and help those who ask us to from there. But if traveling around in the Impala and being occupied helping people, it’s what soothes them, we can embrace it. We'll talk more about it when they come back.”
The afternoon goes by slowly.
Castiel tries to distract himself by reading a book, while Eileen keeps scrolling on her phone, trying and failing to hide how anxious she’s feeling. He can see her sometimes check her notifications, as if she wouldn’t notice a message from Sam coming through. The tense silence stretches through hours. They have a small dinner together, and then they go to their respective rooms early.
Of course, he can’t sleep.
Dean doesn’t check up on him that evening, and thousands of scenarios come up in his mind.
What if something happened?
What if they died and nobody is able to reach them to let them know?
He should have never listened to his husband when he told him not to come. He should have just driven to Texas and helped them out. Instead, he’s lying on their bed, Dean’s side cold and empty, and he keeps turning towards his phone set up on the nightstand, hoping to see it light up, even if it’s in the middle of the night.
At seven in the morning, his eyes shoot open when he feels a vibration near his head. He must have fallen asleep at a certain point during the night, but he still feels like hell, his head throbbing and his eyes painfully red.
He grabs the phone and sighs in relief when he sees that it’s Dean.
Dean🥰❤️👨❤️👨🗡️
Sorry fell asleep yesterday. Found out it wasnt vamps just a rogue Djinn. Found his lair so were going there now. Love u
Not too much information, and not something that should make him feel much more at ease, but it’s still better than a full nest of vampires. Sam and Dean are skilled enough to handle a single Djinn, hopefully.
He gets up and makes a pot of black coffee. Eileen promptly meets him in the kitchen, looking like she hasn’t slept either, so he pours her a cup and then gets one for himself.
“Dean wrote to you, too?” She signs slowly, her phone set up on the table.
“He did. Told me it was a Djinn.”
“Sam did too. I hope they’re careful with it.”
“They’re great hunters, they know what they’re doing.”
“I’m scared they’ll take it lightly now that they know it’s not a nest.” Cas can’t say it hasn’t crossed his mind, but he knows that if they start thinking like that, they’ll spiral, so he puts a hand on her shoulder and squeezes it.
“They’ve been hunting for long enough that they know even the smallest treat can become a catastrophe. They’re going to be fine.” She doesn’t look convinced, but there’s nothing else they can do while they wait for news, so they have to believe that their husbands are going to be alright, for the sake of their sanity.
They go through the motions mechanically.
He goes out on a run, takes a shower, and gets dressed. Then, he waters the plants, collects the fruits and vegetables that seem ripe enough to eat, and takes his time to take care of the bees he has been rescuing for the past five or so years. It’s good. It’s soft. It’s routine. It takes his mind off what’s happening for long enough that he doesn’t freak himself out for most of the morning.
At lunch, he uses the vegetables he just collected to make stuffed eggplants, one of Eileen’s favorite dishes that he makes, to hopefully cheer her up a bit. And to be fair, she does smile at him when she smells the food, but it’s obvious that everything is still pretty tense at the Bunker.
He gives up on waiting as Eileen washes the dishes. He calls Dean, and when it goes to voicemail, he tries Sam. He’s actually surprised that the man answers him, telling him that they’re done and that they’re in the hospital where they brought the victim, alive. He only has the time to call him and his brother stupid for going on a hunt without telling them anything, before the man tells him that he has to go and that he’ll make Dean call later.
Said call never arrives, because about an hour or so after lunch, he and Eileen receive a video call from Sam.
He looks fine, if a little pale. He’s obviously exhausted by whatever happened there, but he’s smiling brightly at them, so Dean is most probably fine and just finishing with the Djinn’s body or something like that.
“Hey, guys! Are you both back at the bunker?”
“What do you think?” Snaps, Eileen, signing at the same time. She doesn’t try to hide how pissed she’s feeling, but her husband is still sappily staring at her, like she’s all that matters in his world. It’s sweet to finally see his friend this happy, which is one of the things he's always wished for him. Well, maybe not always. Since they actually got closed.
“I know you were worried, but we’re fine. Everything went okay. Turns out that there’s a group of young Djinns in El Paso who don’t take human victims, which pissed off one of their family members who decided to lure hunters to them to get them all killed.”
“Which you didn’t, right?”
“Of course we didn’t, Cas! Who do you take us for? Anyway, turns out that one of the kids got involved with the Djinn. He didn’t kill anybody, but he did put me under for a few minutes.” Eileen’s eyes widen, but before she can say anything, Sam raises his hands. “It was fine, we’re fine. Killed the older Djinn, let the kid go with his group, and even saved the Uber driver. Actually, we got a little help.”
“There were other hunters in town?”
“Nope! So, get this. The guy we saved? He’s a firefighter from Los Angeles and moved here when his kid ran to his grandparents. It’s a long story; I’ll spare you the details. What’s important is that he has this friend in Los Angeles, also a firefighter, who came to El Paso when he heard the news to stay with the kid. He’s like… his second dad or something. Anyway, he got suspicious of us and somehow found out our real identity. Thought we were serial killers for a second there.” They both frown.
“Did he report you?” Asks Eileen, going back to looking worried about the safety of their idiot husbands. He doesn’t really feel like retrieving them from a high-security prison again, so he understands the concern.
“Nah. We explained to him about the supernatural world.”
“And he just… what? Believed you?” Eileen frantically signs.
“Well, kind of? I think he was too busy being worried about his friend to care, and then he was kind of forced to believe by having proof in front of his nose.” He pauses for a second, like he’s trying to find the words. “You see, he kind of… didn’t trust us? Because of the whole serial killer thing? But confronted us anyway, which is insane if you think about it. And then, because he didn’t trust us, he asked to come with us.”
“And you let him?”
“Dean insisted, said that he knew it would be better for him. I think it’s because the man’s obviously in love with the guy… I mean, you should see him. He’s almost worse than you and Dean were before you got together. Almost.” He rolls his eyes, but can’t come up with a reply.
At the end of the day, Dean had told him the same thing in his message. And also, if he thinks about it for a bit longer, he completely understands the idea of going crazy for the person you’re in love with. Not that he hasn’t done his fair share of stupid things for the rest of his family, but he’s aware that his wildest stunts came from trying to protect Dean in some sort of way. Definitely the most self-sacrificing bullshit he did was because of him, as his husband so nicely likes to remind him.
“Bringing a civilian with you guys was dangerous, Sam.”
“A firefighter knows a bit better than your average human how to function in crazy situations.”
“Still, what if he had hurt himself?”
“Well, turns out, that it actually worked well for us, because he came into the shed that the Djinn used as lair, even when we told him not to, and distracted him long enough for Dean to kill him. I… I’m gonna be honest. I was out for the entire thing, but I think Dean would’ve been put under as well if it wasn’t for him.”
“So, let me get this straight. You two got taken by surprise because the Djinn had involved the kid and would have gotten yourselves killed if it wasn’t for this guy?” Eileen asks, obviously fuming.
“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds bad.”
“It is bad!” She shouts, losing a bit of grip on her pronunciation with how mad she is. Sam seems to be realizing how close they came to a bad ending, and it makes his skin crawl. “I knew you would act recklessly. And you did! Why can’t you see that you’re not immortal?”
“I know… I know it was bad. And I know we came close this time. But if another hunter had come, they probably would have killed those kids. Buck would have lost Eddie, and I’m telling you, that man didn’t deserve to die. He survived a helicopter crash, being buried alive when a well collapsed on him, and being shot in the middle of the day. So, no, I don’t regret taking this hunt, even if it almost cost us our lives.”
Silence falls between them.
Buck would have lost Eddie.
He assumes Buck must be the best friend and Eddie the Uber driver or firefighter victim. It’s in that moment that Cas realizes that this story has hit Sam a bit too close to home. Of course, it has. He was the only one there for his brother when he had been taken by the Empty, or even before, when he had died at the hands of Lucifer. The situation probably reminded him of that time, so much so that those strangers became a priority immediately.
Eileen also seems to reevaluate the situation. Of course, she’s still mad, just like he is, but it’s obvious that this story ended up being something deeper, and that there were many emotions at play when they took those risky decisions.
She repeats the first name she heard a few times, like she’s tasting it on her tongue. It’s a weird one, for sure, but he assumes it’s a nickname of some sort for the man, so he doesn’t question it too badly.
“Buck?” She touches her forehead with her right thumb and then puts both hands at each side of her head with her palms facing forward and the thumbs touching her temples. Cas recognizes it as the sign for a buck, a male deer. “Did I get it right?”
Sam laughs softly.
“Yeah. His actual name is Evan Buckley, but he goes by Buck. Dean’s talking to him right now, and I wanted to give them privacy.”
“Why is my husband talking in private to another man?” He asks, playing up the jealousy a bit to break the tension.
“Eddie wasn’t waking up when we killed the Djinn, and the antidote wasn’t working. So Dean and Buck used African dream root to enter his mind and wake him up. I was still out of it, so I didn’t join them. I don’t know what they saw. I didn’t ask, but I think it showed Buck something he didn’t expect to see. He probably wanted to give him a tip on how to deal with loving your best friend.” Sam looks at his wristwatch and frowns. “Actually, I think I gave them enough privacy. I should get going. We’re going to grab something for lunch and then head home. We’ll be back by morning.”
“Alright. But don’t think we’re done with you two just because of the fairytale love story you told us, okay? You still almost got yourselves killed.”
“Yeah, I know. We’re dumb.”
“You’re both sleeping in the car,” Eileen signs, a smile tugging at her lips.
“Sure. I love you,” he signs back with a sappy look on his face.
“Tell Dean that I’m mad at him.”
“I will, Cas. Don’t worry. I gotta go now… bye you two!”
For the first time in at least two days, Castiel and Eileen can finally relax.
Their partners are going to be okay, they’re not in danger anymore, and they’re coming home to them in less than a day. Suddenly, he feels completely exhausted, the lack of sleep catching up with him.
Since officially giving up his grace, he has gotten used to most human things, even the daily struggles, and bodily functions like peeing, which he used to get extremely annoyed at. But the feeling of tiredness is something that reminds him too much of the many years in which he was gradually losing his powers, so it’s never the most pleasant sensation to him.
Cas turns to look at Eileen and notices she’s staring at her phone, her thoughts obviously somewhere far away. He taps the back of her hand with a finger, and she snaps out of it.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m just thinking,” she answers. She doesn’t elaborate on it, but it's obvious there’s something more than just the fact that Sam and Dean almost got killed by two Djinns.
“About, uhm, Buck and Eddie?” She nods. “What about them?”
“Do you remember when I went driving and hunting around? After we discovered I came back to life thanks to Chuck?” He nods. There was a lot going on at the time, but he remembers her leaving the bunker and Sam being heartbroken. He vaguely remembers her coming around sometimes, and the two of them having video calls every now and then, and also going on dates when she passed through Kansas. “I went to Los Angeles for a few weeks. I think I was hunting a werewolf?”
“And you… You met them?”
“No. But I remember, when I was there, that they were talking on the news about a firefighter stuck underground. Sam said something about that, right? A well collapse?” He nods. “It’s a strange coincidence, right?”
“We could search if we find anything about it.”
Eileen nods, already jumping out of her seat to take her laptop from the library where she left it. She comes back less than a minute later, a determined look on her face, the screen lifted, showing that she has already started turning it on.
Settling on the kitchen table, they agree to start with a simple Google search. They type ‘firefighter LA well accident’, but they find a bunch of articles about random firefighters around the country doing well after random injuries. Definetely not what they’re looking for.
Typing ‘LAFD’ simply limits the area of the accidents to Los Angeles, but doesn’t include anything about a well.
“Do you remember when it happened?”
“Late 2019 or early 2020. COVID wasn’t a thing yet.”
When they search for ‘firefighter stuck in a well Los Angeles 2019’, they finally find a few articles that seem to be about the accidents that they’re searching for. They click on the first one they see, titled ‘LA firefighter discharged from the hospital after brutal well collapse’, and it’s from January 2020, so before the pandemic hit and before Chuck killed them all.
The firefighter in the article is only named Firefighter Diaz. In the photo of him leaving the hospital, he looks extremely handsome, with tan skin, a slight but powerful physique, fluffy hair, and big, brown eyes. A brief text explains that he was buried alive after he rescued a kid from an old well when the mud over it collapsed because of the heavy rain, but that he had miraculously found a way out and had only suffered from a bit of hypothermia, in the end.
“Do you think it’s him?”
“Possibly, yes.”
“We could look him up?”
They search for the name Eddie Diaz, putting together the information they just found and what Sam told them, and a few profiles on various social media and work platforms come up before anything else can, so they immediately add ‘LAFD’ beside it.
The first results that come up are an article about something Castiel kind of remembers hearing about on TV a few years ago
Los Angeles Daily News- Sniper targets the LAFD: Two firefighters shot down in broad daylight are now struggling between life and death
They skim through the article. At the time it was written, they didn’t know much about it, apart from the fact that there had been two accidents on the same day, which had made the police think that it was a targeted attack. The names of the two people shot are not present in that article, but there’s a follow-up one at the end of the page that states that both Firefighter Edmundo Diaz and Firefighter Dakota Atkins made it through surgery, and that the sniper had been found to be former police officer Ethan Copeland, shot down before he could kill a third firefighter.
“Sam did say that he was a victim of a well collapse and being shot in the middle of the day, didn’t he?” Cas says, staring at the words in the article.
“That’s an unlucky guy if I’ve ever seen one.”
He smiles. Of course, it says a lot that they feel like saying something like that, considering how shitty their lives have been, but it’s still weird to see a civilian go through such traumatic events and live to tell the tale. He’s pretty sure those aren't even the only accidents the man has gone through.
The information they found about him should be satisfying enough, but it doesn’t feel like it is, so, without exchanging a word, they mutually decide to keep on with their small investigation.
Searching for ‘LA Firefighter Edmundo Diaz’ this time, they discover it’s not just him who’s unlucky, since the first article that comes up when they do is called ‘The Unlucky 118’, written by reporter Taylor Kelly sometime in the past September. Castiel knows who Taylor Kelly is because he likes watching the news from all over the country, much to Sam and Dean’s annoyance, and Skywitness News Eight is one of his favorites. He wasn’t aware that the nice, red-headed reporter also wrote articles, and the fact that she might know these guys is a coincidence he doesn’t want to look into too hard.
The article goes through how many freak accidents one particular group at Fire Station 118 has been through.
Apart from the two aforementioned accidents that happened to Eddie, Firefighters Wilson and Han had apparently been kidnapped by a paramedic who tortured them by stopping and restarting Han’s heart over and over again, their Captain Nash had been exposed to dangerous radiations that could have given him major consequences and was one of the last people to leave that Cruise Ship that had sank a year or so ago, and Firefighter Buckley, the Evan Buckley who seems to be Eddie’s best friend, was crushed under a ladder truck once and got struck by lightning, dying briefly. They were also apparently all involved in a major overpass collapse and all hospitalized.
The article also mentions, without stating names this time, that the people around them also got involved in serious situations like those. It doesn’t give much more information about that, for privacy reasons, which Cas thinks is pretty stupid, since the members were already all called by name earlier in there.
“So, it’s not an unlucky firefighter, but an unlucky firehouse,” says Eileen, her mouth hanging open in shock as they discover more and more details about this group of people.
“They all seem to have been through a lot, yes.”
Taylor Kelly ends the article by stating that all the stories she examined were public record and that, having been involved with the 118 for a bit, she knows those aren’t the only traumatic experiences they have been through.
He has always known that Firefighters are heroes among men, which is probably one of the reasons Dean wanted to be one as a kid in the first place, but it’s still jarring to know how much they have to put up with, helping their community.
Going back to the main Google page, he discovers that there are other pieces about them, under the one made by Taylor Kelly.
One in particular catches his attention.
In the small preview under an article about a jail break, the name Firefighter Diaz appears in bold lettering. Near it appear the words ‘Firefighter Buckley’ and ‘kidnapped’. He immediately clicks on it, his eyes skimming the many pictures of the accident and the words that describe it.
There’s a photo of the jail in question on a normal operational day. It says that earlier in the morning, firefighters were called to a fire at Jamestown State Prison while a brawl was underway. A little bit further down, there’s a photo of a group of police cars with their sirens on surrounding an ambulance. The article explains that two of the prisoners broke out dressed as guards, using one of the ambulances that was transporting a man, and then kidnapped the paramedic and firefighter who were inside, which is when the two names he saw on the preview finally appear. In the photo, he can see that the ambulance has the number 118 on it, confirming that the Diaz and Buckley who were kidnapped, are obviously Eddie and Evan.
The last photo makes him stop scrolling. He makes a double, triple-take, even rubbing his eyes to see if he’s having a stress-induced hallucination. But no, the face that stares back at him is still the same. The person in the mug-shot doesn’t change.
“What the hell?” He murmurs, pinching his arm and hoping that this entire situation is just a weird nightmare. It’s not, of course, but it was worth giving it a try.
Eileen, who isn’t reading his lips and hasn’t noticed his hesitation, keeps scrolling, but before she can pass through the photo, he stops her. She turns to look at him, confusion obvious in her frown.
“What is it?”
“That man…”
“What about him?”
The article states that his name is Mitchell Trent, a death row inmate who had been in prison for eighteen years and broke out on that day because he wanted to have his heart donated to his dying son once he was finally killed, a thing that California prevented him from doing since he was a convicted murderer.
But that’s not how he knows him, even though it doesn’t make sense at all.
“That’s Lucifer:”
He would know that face anywhere. He has been killed by that face once and twice by the entity inhabiting it.
But it makes no sense, because here it says that the man has been in prison for eighteen years and killed himself in front of everyone so he could donate his heart to his son. Besides that, he knows for sure that the vessel Lucifer was using was called Nick, and he’s also pretty sure that his family, his wife and kid had been killed decades ago, so they couldn’t be alive in 2022, the year the article was made.
“Lucifer? You mean his vessel?” Castiel knows all too well that Eileen hadn’t been there for the whole Nick situation. She had been stuck in hell for years, a traumatic thing that still bothered her greatly even years later. Even if Sam had told her anything about that happened, and he doubts he had, she still wouldn’t be able to picture the man from his recountings alone.
“That’s him… or somebody that looks like him.”
“Could he be one of his seven look-alikes?”
“He has seven look-alikes?”
“You know? The theory about how we have statistically seven look-alikes in the world?”
“DNA doesn’t work like that. And that’s not just a look-alike.”
“Evil twin?”
That makes him stop for a second. He realizes now that, besides his dead wife and kid, he doesn’t know much about Nick’s life. Not that he ever tried to have a heart-to-heart with him about childhood trauma, but maybe it’s still weird that they haven’t even tried to learn more about the man who was causing them so much stress. He doesn’t even know his surname.
“Perhaps? I mean, it could be.”
“How do we find out something like that?”
The answer is definitely not a normal Google search. Because, of course, trying to find anything about him through that just leads back to that one prison escape that brought him to his ultimate death.
And so, they try other means. Eileen knows how to find his criminal records, apparently, but it just shows that he wasn’t the first in the family to be convicted, since both his father, Charles Trent, and his grandfather, Gregory Trent, died in prison. Nothing about sibilings or a mother. And the only person he seemed to have registered as somebody he contacted a lot was the woman who got him sent to prison, the mother of his child.
There’s one particular thing that does pique their interest, though.
“It says here that he appeared in court in 2008 for something that doesn’t have to do with the three people he murdered. It’s a testimony about a double homicide that happened in Pike Creek, Delaware.”
“Pike Creek?”
“Does it sound familiar to you?”
“It’s where Nick used to live with his wife and kid. And I think 2008 was a little after they were murdered.”
“It can’t be a coincidence. I’ll look further into it.”
Now that they know what to look for, it’s not hard to find the court documents and the transcript of what was said during the hearing. It’s a little bit harder to access them, but Eileen eventually manages after a few tries that almost end up with the site blocking them for an indeterminate time.
Castiel slowly reads the entire document, his eyebrows shooting up as he puts together the puzzle pieces that make up this Mitchell Trent’s life and, consequently, Nick’s.
Q: Mr. Trent, what’s the relation between you and Mr. Nick Vaught?
A: We’re twins
Q: Care to explain why you have different surnames if that’s the case?
A: Shouldn’t you know this already?
Judge Harrington: Just answer the question, Mr. Trent
A: While I was in juvie and my father was in jail, my mum divorced him and took my brother away with her. Changed back to her maiden name, and my brother took it as well. So I’m still Charles Trent’s son, and he’s Viola Vaught’s son
Eileen stares at the words, looking as shocked as he feels, even if she never personally met the man or the angel that was inhabiting him.
“I can’t believe that Nick had a convicted twin…”
“What are the odds even?”
Q: Did you know he had moved to Delaware?
A: I was aware, yes
Q: Do you know where they went exactly?
A: Why should I care?
Q: So, what you’re saying is that when you came out of the juvenile detention center you were sent to and found your house empty, you didn’t search for your family? I mean, it says in your records that you had said your brother was involved in your actions as a minor, and yet he runs free now. Didn’t you want revenge?
A: Yeah, maybe I searched for them. Word got out that they were in Pine Creek, so I drove there. And I found them. But I discovered my brother had a girlfriend, Sarah, and that he was trying to get back on his feet, so I decided to leave him to fail on his own.
Q: Fail?
A: We’re all rotten in my family. My dad was, and my grandfather before him. Just because he acts like he can be better, that doesn’t mean he’ll actually be better than the rest of us. It’s only a matter of time before he’ll do something
Mitchell Trent sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy. He thought it was his destiny to become a criminal, to live as if he were just his father's legacy. And when his mother ran away, bringing with her the ‘better’ twin, it just confirmed his thoughts.
It’s a pessimistic look at existence, but an understanding one.
What’s jarring about the whole exchange is that, at the end of the day, Mitch had been technically right. Nick did end up on a killing spree, even though it had been caused by the lasting damage left by Lucifer and the extreme trauma of finding out that his family had been killed by a demon for no reason at all, apart from breaking him.
Castiel still has nightmares about Nick’s face sometimes, but he can’t help but feel bad about what happened to him. It’s in the same category of guilt he feels every time he thinks about what happened to Jimmy Novak, to his wife Amelia, and their kid. Although he and Claire are good now, and she seems to have forgiven him a long time ago, he can’t help but get reminded of how he has ruined her life every time she says something depressing about her past.
Q: Were you aware that your brother had a kid with his wife, Sarah Vaught?
A: I wasn’t, no. Didn’t even know he got married.
Q: So you also don’t know anything about their murder, I assume
A: Murder?
Q: We know you’ve been contacting a person outside of prison. A Savannah Richards, if I’m not mistaken. Did you instruct her to go to Delaware and kill your family?
A: I don’t even know who’s been killed! Is my brother dead?
Q: Sarah Vaught and her child, your nephew, Theodore Vaught, have been slaughtered in cold blood. Is that your revenge plot? Did you want to take away everything from your brother as he did to you, leaving you to deal with your crimes alone? After all, you’re already on death row, it’s not like you’re going to be losing much
A: This is insane! And how would I possibly have done that? The prison guards control the letters, don’t they?
Q: A code might not have been detected, Mr. Trent
A: Well, that bitch was the one who sent me to prison in the first place. She’s not going to fucking help me do something like that. All I ask about in those letters is my own son. I didn’t know about my brother’s kid, and frankly, I couldn’t care less about him or my mother. So, no, I got nothing to do with that
“Was he saying the truth?” Eileen is staring at him, inquiring for more.
“Yes. His wife and child were killed by the demon Abraxas. Lucifer needed a body when Sam was unavailable, so he sent one of his lackeys to kill a person’s family so that he could use a vision of them to make them say yes. That’s all it was, really.”
“That’s horrible.”
“It is. Still didn’t justify the killing spree Nick went on later. But he was already corrupted at that point.”
“Do you think it’s just a coincidence?”
“What?”
“Sam and Dean went on a hunt they weren’t supposed to take and saved a guy with the help of said guy’s best friend, and now we find out that those guys happened to have been kidnapped by the twin brother of Lucifer’s vessel?”
“I don’t know, honestly. It could be, sometimes it happens. When Chuck was still in charge, I wouldn’t have been able to answer fully, but now I can say that if this is somehow Jack’s doing, he might have a reason he wants us to meet. Or maybe he just found the coincidence interesting, who knows?” Eileen nods, not completely satisfied by the answer, but not having anything more to add to the conversation.
Truth is, since discovering that their lives have been piloted by God, everyone has been a bit on edge. Cas knows that he’s an exception to the rule. He was the one who couldn’t be controlled, the one who made choices outside of what Chuck wanted for him. He has seen the version of himself that never broke free, and he was thoroughly unimpressed by him.
But he stands by what he just said.
This could all be just a weird coincidence.
Or, there’s something more going on, he has no idea. But if that’s the case, he trusts that Jack knows not to meddle too much, to just nudge them in the right way if needed.
They don’t search for anything else about the unlucky people of the 118 that afternoon. They end up having a video call with Donna and Jody about Patience’s wedding and have a light dinner while watching The Towering Hell. With all the talk about firefighters, it seems appropriate to watch something with them as the protagonists.
That night, he falls asleep feeling a little bit lighter than the day before.
He wakes up hours later to the sound of the door to their room opening. He can recognize Dean’s heavy footsteps anywhere, so he just smiles against the pillow and holds out an arm for his husband to grab. He does that, interlacing their fingers and kissing his knuckles softly.
“I didn’t want to wake you up. I’m sorry. It’s early, you can go back to sleep.”
“You joining me?”
“Of course, sunshine. Let me change.”
Cas dozes off, but wakes up again when he feels the other side of the bed dipping under Dean’s weight. He feels strong arms circling his torso and a firm chest settling against his back. For the first time in days, he feels like he can finally fully relax.
“I missed you,” he murmurs, turning his head so that he can leave a kiss against his husband’s jaw.
“Missed you too. How was it at Jody’s?”
“Good. Everyone is excited.”
“Even Claire?”
“She seems stressed, but you know how she is with me.” Just because they’re okay, it doesn’t mean that she actually wants to share her problems with him. “Maybe you could talk to her when we see her.”
“You think she’ll handle the two weeks until the wedding?”
“She’s a strong, young woman with a lot of good examples in her life. I trust she’ll go to Jody or Donna if she’s struggling.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“What about the case?”
“You still pissed about us going on the hunt?” He is and isn’t, to be completely honest. Of course, they’ve talked so much about how the Winchesters shouldn’t put themselves in danger in that way if they can help it, that the lingering fear of losing them is keeping him at least a little bit mad. But he and Eileen talked a lot about it, and with what Sam said and what they discovered about Buck and Eddie, he can’t say that he’s angry.
“I think the four of us need to have a conversation. Eileen and I had a few ideas about things we can do to keep you entertained and leave the more taxing hunts to the younger generations. But, no. I’m not mad you went. Sam said something about the man who saved you being in love with his best friend?” Dean chuckles against the nape of his neck.
“Yeah, he was. It was kind of sweet, you know? He talked about Eddie so much that I felt like I knew him. And he was really protective of him. Police dude I talked to made him sound like an asshole who abandoned his kid, but he was just a good guy going through a lot of shit.” Cas is surprised that Dean has actually changed his opinion about a guy he thought had abandoned a child. He must have really made an impression, somehow. Or his best friend made it for him.
“I’m glad you got to help them.”
“You know what’s funny? Buck was so sure that his dear best friend Eddie was straight and in love with his dead wife that he kept dramatically telling me how he had to be happy for him, even if it hurt. Reminds you of anybody?” He smiles.
“You were incredibly dedicated to making yourself look like a ‘macho’, if I recall correctly.”
“Well, turns out that when we entered his Djinn dream, in it his wife was alive, but they were divorced, and he had been married to Buck for years. They even had a kid together. A second one, I mean.”
“Second one? Is the first one the child Buck went to Texas for?”
“Yeah, Christopher. Apparently, they were raising him basically together since they met. And even after all of that, I had to have a conversation with him, because he still thought it was all fake. We didn’t stick around to see how it went, but I gave him my number if he ever needs us for anything. I don’t know, I have a feeling he’ll call. Does it make sense?”
Castiel nods.
“It does. Eileen and I actually went on a deep dive about them. Turns out their firehouse is pretty unlucky.”
“He did say something about a curse!”
“And you won’t believe this, but we discovered that Buck and Eddie were kidnapped by the twin brother of Nick, Lucifer’s vessel.”
“...wait, WHAT THE FU-”
Patience marries Lukas on a warm Saturday morning in late Spring.
She looks like a princess in her long white dress, and Cas can’t help but notice that Jody’s eyes are blurry with tears. Donna is crying freely, holding her hand and drying her cheeks with a handkerchief she stole from Dean’s breast pocket.
Her father is walking her down the aisle, a proud look on his face, as his hands tremble slightly. They’ve come a long way from when he banned her from using her powers: after she saved him a few years ago from a demon, they reconnected, and, while never going back to how things were before, they seem to be doing fine.
Somehow, she managed to convince all her bridesmaids to wear matching green dresses. Claire seems deeply uncomfortable and keeps trying to fix the skirt. He’s sure she has complained the entire time about having to wear something like that, but she has a heart of gold when she wants, and even if they had a rocky start, she and Patience have become great friends in later years, and she would never do anything to disappoint her.
And yet, he can tell that something is bothering her. And if he has to take a wild guess, he thinks it might have something to do with Kaia, since she looks like she hasn’t slept in a week and is avoiding being anywhere near her girlfriend.
The ceremony takes place outside Jody’s cabin, with Lukas’ uncle celebrating the wedding. They have set up the clearing around the hut as a sort of venue, and both families have cooked plenty of food so that no one is left with an empty stomach.
Alex’s boyfriend, James, has a band, and they perform together for most of the afternoon. When they’re not playing, everyone has free rein of the aux to play whatever's on the playlist.
They’re still there late in the evening. The string lights that they have hung a little bit everywhere finally turn on, making the cabin look like a place straight out of a fairytale. Most people are extremely drunk or dancing to a type of music that Dean has described as ‘scratching noises’, or, more likely, both things at the same time.
Castiel is just quietly enjoying the company of his family.
He’s sitting at their table and has scooched his chair near his husband’s to use his right shoulder as a pillow. Dean is chatting with a hunter from the alternate dimension about cowboy movies, of all things, but he is too zoned out to care. Eileen is having a dramatic conversation in sign language with Lukas’ brother-in-law, while Sam is too drunk and probably too engrossed in watching his wife to care at all about what they’re saying.
“Hey, sunshine, you doing good?” He raises his head a little to meet Dean’s beautiful emerald eyes. Everything about him is beautiful, from the small freckles adorning his nose and cheeks to his hair that he’s letting grow slightly, a thing he has never let himself do in all those years.
Sometimes, Castiel misses his soul. And yet, when he looks at him, really looks at him, he can still catch its brightness, perceive its pureness. It’s in the way that he acts, the way that he speaks, the casual warmth that he radiates when they’re touching each other.
“Mmh mmh. I’m fine. Just a little tired.”
“Yeah, it makes sense. It was a long day.” There’s something like a bit of edge in his words, but Cas can’t really point out what it is about. He doesn’t need words to show his concern, and Dean doesn’t need to act all strong and independent, faking everything is great, when he sees his eyes studying him for a reaction that would get him anyway. “It’s okay, really. I just read an article about something this morning, and it shook me a bit.”
“Is it about a case?” He straightens up, staring at his husband in concern. They shouldn’t be doing this at Patience’s wedding, but at least Dean is talking to him.
“It’s about the firefighters from the Djinn case in El Paso.” Cas frowns.
“Are they okay?”
“I think so. Apparently, there was a big accident in a research lab in Los Angeles. A few firefighters were put in lockdown inside after it exploded, and they contracted this dangerous virus. One of them died, a paramedic. There was a photo of the accident in the article, and the truck outside was the 118, so I thought that maybe something had happened to them.”
“Did it?”
“I didn’t recognize the names. I think they were from the same firehouse but another shift. Also, I’m pretty sure Eddie wouldn’t have been able to join the team so soon after the Djinn. Maybe Buck, but I have a feeling he may be staying in Texas for the time being… but I also didn’t want anything to happen to any of them, even if I just briefly met them in Eddie’s dream.”
The two of them had talked about what happened in El Paso after Dean came back that morning. Castiel knows what happened and what he saw, how he had thought that Eddie had dreamt about having a kid with his wife Shannon, and how shocked he had been to learn that, in reality, the kid was his and his best friend-turned-husband’s, since from Buck’s retelling of their relationship, his feelings could have never been requited.
It’s not that Dean doesn’t care about the people he saved or killed. Sometimes he seems to remember too much, actually. There are days in which he’ll be lying in bed, eyes shot open because a nightmare has reminded him of somebody he couldn’t save, and there’s nothing he or Sam can do to get him to have at least a conversation with them.
But somehow those two firefighters are different. He remembers the people he saved, but he rarely gets involved in their lives. He can count on the fingers of one hand the times he has seen him give out his work contact, which says a lot about the fact that he gave Buck his own phone number.
It feels different in the same way that finding out about the coincidence of Mitchell Trent, the murderer who kidnapped Buck and Eddie, and Nick Vaught, the vessel who gave them hell, being brothers felt.
It’s like there’s something more about their encounter. Like they were always destined to meet.
“I’m glad that they’re safe. They seem to have gone through a lot.”
“Yeah. Man, I wish I had asked Buck for his number to ask him if everyone’s doing good.”
“You said it yourself, right? You have a feeling you’re going to meet him again. Just have a little bit of faith.” Now more than ever, since Chuck is gone, he doesn’t add. Dean seems to understand him anyway.
“I guess, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Cas would love to keep talking about that- he enjoys seeing his husband being able to express his feelings about things more freely nowadays- but before he can add anything to the conversation, Alex approaches their table.
She seems worried about something, and her coming to them is a clear red flag. Not that she has anything against them, but they’re definitely not her first choice when it comes to asking for help from anybody.
“Hey, Alex. How are you doing?”
“Claire and Kaia had a fight.”
“Not to be an asshole, but they’re adults. They should be able to solve things themselves, don’t you think?” Says Dean, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion. They’ll always be kind of protective of the girls. Cas is fully aware that he can’t stop his brain from wanting to take care of them, no matter how much he logically reasons that he doesn’t need to, since they’re all almost thirty. But he does feel like he should have to draw the line at lovers' quarrels.
“Kaia left, and Claire is chugging an entire bottle of whiskey behind a tree. I would’ve asked Jody or Donna for help, but they’re too drunk to do anything. I don’t want to ruin things for Patience, and I would love to take a shot myself, but sadly, she never listens to me. So, you’re my best choice right now to get through her.”
“What do you mean she left?”
“I think they broke up, I dunno.”
And here it is, the reason why Alex looks so worried.
The girls have been living under Jody’s roof since they were just teenagers, and only recently have they found their own space.
Patience, of course, went to live with Lukas, and Alex, thanks to her steady job at the hospital, has gotten herself a small condo in Sioux Falls, even though she still seems more comfortable staying in the house that had welcomed her at her lowest.
Claire had always used Jody’s house as a sort of headquarters. She was like a house cat left in the street: she preferred to travel around, never staying in the same place for more than a few weeks, but always came back to the place she called home one way or another. Everyone had quietly hoped that Kaia would help her settle down a bit, but the girl who had seen more nightmares than the real world had immediately jumped at the opportunity of traveling the world with her new girlfriend.
In the months when they had worked together to beat the Empty and save him, they had used the Bunker a lot, so it was added to the places they had decided to call home.
Now, they travel back and forth from Sioux Falls to Lebanon all the time, staying here and there for days, weeks, or even months at a time, which is also how their relationship got better, and Claire managed to fully forgive them and move on.
The bottom line is that she and Kaia are inseparable, have been since they first got together before Chuck killed everyone, and that means that something terrible must have happened. Something bigger that they probably won’t be able to solve tonight, and the only thing they can do is make sure that both of them know that they have someone in their corner.
“We’ll check on her.”
Alex nods, obviously relieved by their answer, and points a finger towards a few bushes near the cabin’s front door.
“She’s there. Call me if you need anything.”
“Sure, thank you.”
They quietly get up and leave the reception, walking towards the woods, where they can hear the sound of liquid splashing and the soft sobs of someone crying. When they finally find Claire, she looks… pitiful. She’s lying on the ground in a fetal position, nursing a bottle of whiskey that’s thankfully still more than half full and trying desperately to muffle the sound of her cries. Her face is red and blotchy, snot is running from her nose, and her makeup is completely ruined, making her look more like an overgrown raccoon than a human.
“Hey Claire, everything is going to be alright,” starts Dean, soft in a way he rarely gets to see outside of their bedroom. “We heard what happened.”
“S-she left,” she simply states, her eyes glossy as she stares at them. Castiel crouches near her and grabs her cold, trembling hand.
“We’re here for you, okay? We’re not going to leave your side.”
“Y-you will. That’s okay.”
“We won’t, Claire. We wouldn’t.”
“Everyone leaves. Dad, Mom, my entire family, and now Kaia. Am I that easy to leave?”
“You’re not. Life just decided to hand you a shitty deal, that’s all. Why don’t you give Cas the bottle, and then we can go home to rest?” Home, in their case, being most likely one of the rooms at Jody’s place.
“O-okay. I… I’m sorry we ruined it for everyone.”
“You didn’t, don’t worry.”
Everyone is too drunk to notice as they slip out of the party and take the car to go back to the house. Claire is fast asleep in the back of the Impala, her face smushed against the window and her arms tightly holding herself. Thankfully, Cas might not be an angel anymore, and his body may be pushing fifty, but he’s still strong enough to carry his almost kid in his arms to her bedroom.
She wakes up enough to cooperate as they help her out of that uncomfortable dress and into a comfier pair of PJs. She’s snoring away a few seconds later, so they leave her room and make way to the sofa.
Tomorrow they’ll talk better about what happened. They’ll have a discussion, and probably they’ll try to chat with Kaia, listen to her version of the events.
But for tonight, they just fall asleep, conscious that whatever happens, at least they can face it together.
“We’re a good team, aren’t we?”
“Of course, Dean. Now try to catch a few hours of sleep. I love you.”
“Mmh… yeah, I love you too.”