#spnbbverse

Some days were ok.

Gabriel won’t go around inventing absurd pranks far too articulated for a toddler (even though one who used to be an archangel prior the unfortunate encounter with a crazy witch). Balthazar would behave, deciding not to spend all his time trying to get to Bobby’s booze. Castiel would sit quiet on the older hunter’s knees, watching carefully as the man went through obscure and ancient texts, not once disturbed by his mischievous brothers.

Some days were ok, but most of them were nightmares.

Specifically, Dean’s nightmares.

He loved kids, sure. Since he was a child himself, Dean Winchester was used to deal with Sam, protecting, raising and nurturing him with a special care defined by a natural inclination, more than the obligation to do it. And, once grown up, the hunter kept this trait, using it every time the occasion presented itself.

But he never imagined to stay stuck in a situation like that, with three mighty angel reduced to nothing more than little winged children.

Also, he didn’t imagined to be the only one with the useful abilities to accomplish the task to keep the three kids at bay.

Sure, Sam and Bobby were in the same situation, too, but he was the only one knowing how to coax the children to stay quiet thanks to an animated movie, or convincing them to eat something else other than junk food, or finding new ways to tire them enough to make them sleep for eight hours straight.

So, it was completely rational that when the occasion to leave behind all the mess caused by the winged kids for a few days presented itself, Dean jumped on it with no second thoughts.

It was a ghost, a simple salt and burn just a couple of states away.

He didn’t even let Bobby finish his talking, he just said he’ll take care of it and rushed on the stairs to his room, eager to pack and get on the road.

Dean was stuffing some clothes in his duffle bag when he heard a little voice coming from the doorframe.

“Dean.”

The hunter turned around, finding Castiel, blue eyes wide and pointed on him, who probably followed him upstairs just few minutes before.

“Hey, kiddo.”  he greeted, getting back on his task.

“Where are we going?” the little angel asked, tightening the grip of his chubby hands on the worn fabric of his trench coat.

Dean stopped his movements, turning again to face the toddler “Uh, we aren’t going anywhere.”

“Then why are you packing?” Castiel retorted, tilting his head on the side.

“Because I have to go away. Just for few days.” added hurriedly, with a second thought that maybe the child could had start crying with such answer.

“Are we leaving Bobby’s?- Cas asked again, a little frown creasing his soft features- I like it here.”

Dean sighed heavily  “We are not leaving, Castiel. Just me.”

The little voice cracked a bit while posing the next question “Are you going to leave us?”

“I’m not be gone long.- the hunter explained, his tone soft- Just a couple of days.”

Castiel seemed to consider those words “Can I come with you?”

“No, buddy. It’s a grown-ups thing.”

“I am an angel of the Lord, Dean.” the winged child declared, with a seriousness in his voice too strong to belong to someone whose height didn’t permit him to sit on a chair without first climbing on it.

“Yeah, sure.- Dean huffed a laugh, before ruffling the kid’s hair- Maybe next time, ok?”

Castiel didn’t argued more about his departure.

His brothers, on the contrary, were being much less collaborative.

It took them a lot of coaxing and using the distracting technique of putting on a Disney movie in order for them to leave Dean alone.

The younger angel, anyway, didn’t follow them.

He just stayed next to the door, dirty trench coat hanging from his hands like a security blanket.

He didn’t speak. He just stared at the older Winchester with wide and oh-so-sad eyes.

“You’ll be fine, Castiel.- Dean assured him again- There’re Sam and Bobby, they’ll take care of you.”

As if proving this point, Sam lifted the child, placing him on his hip and posing a reassuring hand on his little back.

Even if the physical contact with the younger Winchester seemed appreciated by the angel, his face still had the expression of a kicked puppy.

Dean sighed heavily for the umpteen time that morning, then placed a hand on Cas’ dark hair  “Look, when I’ll be back, we are going to eat burgers.”

The kid stared at him hopefully “Really?”

“Really.- the hunter smiled at him- Now be a good boy and let me leave. I’ll be back in no time, you’re not even going to miss me.”

  Castiel waited.

He waited curled near the door, crayons sprayed on the floor and a notebook with colored pages in his hands.  

For the whole day, he refused to go and play with his brothers. He just sit there, busying himself drawing Enochian sigils on the empty pages of his notebook while waiting for his favorite person’s return.

For Bobby and Sam was easy forgetting about him, way too busy running after Gabriel and Balthazar, trying to prevent some of their tremendous messes. The usual quiet Castiel, gone even quieter since Dean’s departure, was left alone all day, except for the occasional check of the passing hunters, praising him by ruffling his hair for being the only one sane in that house.  

It was only during dinner, while Sam was scolding Gabriel for eating like a starved animal, that Bobby noticed something was off with the younger angel.

“Why don’t ya eat, boy?” he asked, eyeing the untouched food in his plate.

Castiel continued playing absent-mindedly with his paper napkin “Dean promised me we are going to eat burgers when he’ll come back. I rather wait for him.”

Sam stopped his battle against the little trickster  hearing that “Cas, Dean isn’t going to be back tonight.”

The dark haired angel frowned “If he’ll be back during my bed time than I’m going to wait for him.”

“I’m sorry Cas, but he’s not coming back today.- the younger Winchester gave him a sympathetic smile- This case is going to take a couple of days, maybe something more.”

“He’s not coming back?” asked the boy, eyes wide and fearful.

Sam regretted immediately his choice of words “He is! Just, not today.”

“But he promised!- Castiel protested, highly alarmed, wings flapping uncontrollably behind his back- He  promised me!”

Bobby stood up and took the little angel in his arms, attempting to calm him.

“Is Dean really gone forever?” asked Balthazar, his tone matching his brother’s.

Gabriel looked back and forth the two hunters, equally upset “Did he abandon us?”

Bobby sighed, before heading for the door, still with an agitated Castiel in his arms “You deal with them, I’ll try to calm down this idjit.”

It took more than half an hour to Bobby for calm Castiel down, but it drained him so much that the old hunter refused to help preparing the angels for the night.

When Gabriel and Balthazar were ready, waiting for the bed time while watching a Pixar movie, Sam thought about talking again to Castiel about his little tantrum.

The younger Winchester approached him again on the subject while bathing him.

“Hey Cas?”

Wide blue eyes stared back at him, wary.

“You know Dean is going to be back, don’t you?”

The little boy didn’t answer, just kept watching the man while he passed a soft soaped sponge over his milky skin.

“He just needed a break, you know?- Sam kept explaining, voice soft- Sometimes everyone needs some time for themselves, to clear his thoughts and stuff.”

“Why did Dean need time alone?- Castiel asked, voice small while he played with some bubbles in the bathtub- Don’t he like to stay with us?”

Sam rinsed his soaped hair “Of course he does. He just missed the job.”

“He didn’t want me with him” the angel mumbled, a little sad.

“You know you guys can’t do what you did before, now.- the hunter caressed the child head affectionately-  He just wanted for you to stay safe.”

Castiel didn’t answer, and Sam took him out of the bathtub and started drying him with a washcloth “Look, I swear Dean is coming back soon. Tomorrow we’ll try to call him and he’ll tell you himself. How does it sound?”

The angel blinked his incredibly blue eyes at him, the closed he was gonna get to a positive answer.

Sam took it, hoping his brother would be back sooner rather than later.

  They never touched that subject again.

The next day Castiel seemed calmer, meaning he was his usual quiet self, even though he kept doing his activity near the door, waiting.

Bobby and Sam checked on him often, worried about his reaction the previous day, but although the little angel seemed more contemplative than usual, they shrugged it off, that behavior obviously connected with him missing Dean.

As promised, Sam tried to call his brother, multiple times, with no success. His calls were going straight to voicemail. The younger Winchester wasn’t too worried about that, what worried him, however, was the way the dark haired angel would face that information.

Contrary to his and Bobby’s believes, Castiel seemed to take the fact that he couldn’t speak with Dean on the phone quite well: he just nodded curtly towards them and then went back to his crayons.

“He took it better than I expected.” Bobby commented, grabbing Balthazar by the waist in order to remove him from the counter where he climbed in one of his ‘stealing booze’ attempts.

Sam nodded slowly “Yeah. I guess the little talk we had yesterday was enough to reassure him.”

All in all the ‘second day without Dean’ was going quite well.

That was, until the ‘second night without Dean’ came and with it came its craziness.

That night Sam woke up, after just a couple of hours of sleep, to a weight on his belly and when he jumped up, hunter’s instincts on high alert, he found his arms full of Gabriel.

“Gabriel?- he asked, worried by the tears rolling down the usually cocky child’s cheek- What’s wrong?”

“C-castiel is…is missing!” the little archangel cried, hands fisted in his t-shirt.

If Sam was on alert before, after that statement was undoubtedly concerned “What do you mean? He was sleeping in your nest with you and Balth. I saw him sleeping.”

Gabriel sniffed noisily “He’s not here anymore. We searched, Sam, he’s not in the house.”

As for confirming that it was not one the kids’ usual pranks, Bobby stepped in the room carrying an equally anxious Balthazar. The older hunter probably had the same wake up call as Sam.

The two men looked at each other, eyes mirroring the same fear, and then began to plan their moves.

  The hunt was easy.

A simple salt-and-burn, just what he expected.

What was not easy, even if it was the main reason he left Bobby’s, was staying away from the kids.

Dean never expected to actually miss all that mess, the shouts and the noises, but he did. He missed Balthazar creative plans to get to Bobby’s booze and even Gabriel unrestrained exuberance.

But, most of all, he missed Castiel and how the angel, even if small and vulnerable, always seemed to try to take care of all of them.

Even if he’ll never admit it, especially to Sam, he was glad to be on his way to the thing in his life most resembling a home.

Dean was already with the Impala’s wheel in his hands, when he turned on his cellphone, newly provided  with a new battery, after the previous one decided to stop working just when he arrived in the town of the hunt.

The hunter frowned, reading the messages on the screen, and then dialed his brother’s number “Dude, what’s going on? I found, like, seventeen missed call from you on my cellphone. My battery died, I had to change it and...”

Sam didn’t let him finish “Dean, Cas is missing.”

“What do you mean Cas is missing?” Dean asked, straightening himself on the driving seat.

“I mean is missing.- Sam repeated slowly, voice full of concern- We searched everywhere, we can’t find him.”

The older Winchester took a deep breath, trying to not freak out “Maybe is one of Gabe and Balth’s pranks. You know them and you know Cas, maybe they convinced him to participate in this and…”

“No.- the other hunter cut him off immediately- They’re way too worried for that, Dean. They’re actually crying thinking something bad could had happened to him.”

“Look, I’ll be there in a couple of hours. Where are you searching for him?” Dean asked, feeling his anxiety starting to swell up.

“Literally everywhere. I’m looking in whole Bobby’s propriety now, you know all the bunch of crap he keeps, maybe he’s hidden somewhere here. I’m also going through the nearby fields. I don’t think he ventured in the city, or by now we’ve heard about a winged kid found there.”

Dean gazed in the darkening street “It’s getting cold outside. Please, tell me he has a jacket.”

“No. He’s also barefoot, that’s way I’m so worried: you know they don’t have any of their angel mojo, he could get sick or…” Sam couldn’t finish the sentence.

“We’ll think about it when we’ll find him.- the older brother couldn’t let himself thinking to the worse- You keep searching, I’ll be there in no time.”

“Hurry. Bobby has to stay with Gabe and Balth and I definitely need some help here.”

  It was morning when Dean was back at Sioux Falls and, by then, Castiel was missing for more than seven hours.

Dean was welcomed home by a concerned Bobby and two crying angels. The older hunter pointed him in the direction where Sam was searching and the older Winchester left the house immediately, starting his own quest.

He knew those places by heart, memories of all the time he spent there with his brothers when they were kids, and he was well aware of all the possible threats hiding there for a little boy unused to the world.

What if Cas ventured towards the road and an inattentive driver hit him, shrugging the whole fact off when, seeing his black wings, mistanken him with a too big sparrow?

What if a demon found him? What kind of awful thing could thought a demon with a baby angel for himself?

Dean shook his head, trying to erase those terrible scenarios, focusing himself in finding Cas, possibly safe and sound, maybe chasing after a honeybee.

He remembered the pond where Sam almost drowned when he was six the same time he saw its outline in the morning fog, and it was enough to add another wave of panic to the one he was already living.

What if Cas fell in there? Was he able to swim and get out? Or the weight of his wet wings had him sinking, alone and desperate, in the cold water?

Dean hurried, every possible scenario way too terrible to think of, and then was when he saw a tan trench coat with the corner of his eyes.

The object was way too familiar to be mistaken.

“Cas!” he called, while picking up the kid’ security blanket, for the umpteen time since he started his search.

He didn’t expect an answer, but he got it anyway.

A weak voice reached him from not too far.

“Dean?”

The older Winchester halted on the spot “Cas?”

“Dean?” the voice called again, small and alive.

Dean found himself running towards him, trench coat still firmly in his hand, till he finally –finally!- found a trembling and pale little angel tucked against the trunk of a tree.

“Cas.” the hunter exhaled, voice full of relief, while he knelt near the winged child in order to check him over.

“God, you’re freezing.” Dean whispered, shrugging his jacket off his shoulder and placing it gently around the kid’s little frame.

He took him up, his grip strong as if he was afraid the angel could disappear again.

“What the hell were  you thinking, Cas?- Dean scolded him- Going around by yourself in the middle of the night! We were going crazy looking for you.”

Castiel didn’t answer, blue eyes locked downward and fingers tight around the torn fabric of his newly found trench coat.

“Did you hear me?- the hunter asked again- Why did you do that?”

The angel mumbled under his breath “I was trying to find you.”

“Trying to find me?- the older Wincheder repeated, incredulous- I wasn’t missing, Cas, I was on a hunt!”

“But you were gone.” Castiel pointed out, his voice meek.

Dean rolled his eyes, irritated “For God’sake, Cas, it was just an hunt, I was coming back, I told you!”

The boy’s bottom lip started quivering at his harsh tone “I-I…I didn’t know. What if…What if it’ll be like when Father left?”

The hunter stopped walking, eyes fixed on the child “Cas…”

“He didn’t even tell us.- the angel breathed, his tone heartbreaking- He just…left. Wasn’t I a good child? Did I behave wrong? Why would He left me without a word, Dean? Why?”

So that was it, Dean thought.  He left alone an angel who was already been abandoned by God and him, just a little kid without mojo, panicked.

“I don’t know.- Dean whispered, stroking softly his dark hair- I’m sorry, buddy.”

Castiel took a deep breath trying, unsuccessfully, to calm himself and his trembling voice “I-I just thought that maybe…the first I started searching for you, the first I’ll have found you…- he explained, burying his face in the hunter’s strong chest- Not like with Him…I-I…”

Dean hushed him, still caressing his head “It’s ok, Cas. I’m not gonna leave anymore. I’m not gonna leave you.” he promised, heading back to Bobby’s with his precious charge.

  When they were back everyone was so happy it looked like Christmas’ morning. Sam was so relived and hugged Cas so tight that Dean had to take the angel out from his grip. Gabriel and Balthazar were finally calm, they both took one of their brother’s hands in theirs and started whispering Enochian and soothing words in his ears. Even Bobby, usually not so prone to physical contact, kept stroking the little’s angel soft hair.

Soon enough, anyway, everything was back to normal.

The two angels, drained from the recent events, were back to their nest and taking a nap, Bobby was at his desk, reading who-knows-what, and Sam was simply enjoying the unusual peace sitting on an armchair and surfing on his laptop.

Dean was slumped on the couch, Castiel cuddled on his chest, surely not quite ready yet to leave the hunter.

“Don’t ya wanna sleep?” the older Winchester asked him, when he saw the winged child yawning cavernously.

Cas shook his head slowly, obviously tired “No.”

Dean couldn’t hold back a little chuckle “Ok. We’ll just stay up and awake, ok buddy?”

“Uh-uh.” the angel agreed, fisting his hand on the hunter’s shirt.  

And Dean, still smiling, started singing the only lullaby he had ever known.