Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dark blue, dark blue

Have you ever been alone in a crowded room?

Well I’m here with you

I said the world could be burnin'

'Til there's nothin' but dark blue

Just dark blue

—Jack’s Mannequin, “Dark Blue”

Castiel hated becoming someone else. The process was revolting; skin sloughing off like wet clay, muscles pulling into unfamiliar shapes, but necessity left no room for disgust. He was fortunate that when he normally altered his appearance he just… changed. His mother said that some shifters went through the whole shedding process any time they changed their appearance at all. If that’s how it’d been for him, he would never change forms. Or at least he’d wait until it was an absolute necessity. 

The only time it was like this is when he stole someone else’s appearance. It was a penance he had to pay. He’d come into the bar as a young woman yesterday, mostly to just scope out the place. Dale had come right over and started flirting. Dale was much too old for the form Castiel had been in. The man was in his late 40s while Castiel had altered his appearance to be 21 or 22. 

It had suited his purposes well enough, though. Castiel had been flirty and asked questions and found out that Dale was working at the bar the next night as well. 

It hadn’t been hard to slip something into Dale’s drink when they’d returned to his apartment for a “nightcap”. When he passed out, Castiel copied his form, dressed himself in the man’s work clothes, and took his place behind the bar. The actual man was tied up in his bathroom.

There’d been attacks during the last several full moons. That meant a werewolf. And that meant hunters.

Castiel had missed them the last few towns. He kept showing up too late, the hunt already finished and nothing but ashes to prove they’d been there at all. He needed to be faster this time.

Hunter bars were out of the question, too risky. No matter what he looked like, silver still burned.

So he waited. Drove aimlessly around the country. He stayed in cheap motels and researched possible hunts on his laptop. He had several trackers he had already connected to his laptop. 

When he finally found a hunt, it was thanks to a newspaper article about a wild animal that had been killing people in a Kansas town. He was lucky it was less than a four hour drive from his current location.

Castiel had left immediately and kept a low profile as he waited. From what his mother told him about hunters, beyond the ‘avoid at all costs’ and ‘keep a low profile so you don’t attract their attention’, they were a rough alcoholic bunch and the bar was the perfect place to find one.

He nearly missed the guy when he walked in. He was young, early twenties maybe, with dark blond hair and a worn leather jacket that didn’t match the way he slumped into the stool. He had freckles, a gun at his hip, and he brought with him the faintest trace of blood.

Jackpot.

Castiel grabbed a bottle. “What do you want?”

The man didn’t even look at him. “Jack.”

For a moment, Castiel almost corrected him. Then he remembered, or rather Dale’s stolen memories did, he meant Jack Daniels.

He poured a shot, slid it across the counter, and moved on. Restocked the mixers. Watched the game. Ignored him.

The man didn’t talk. Just drank.

One shot. Another. Then another. Four in total, then he switched to beer.

Only after the fourth did Castiel return.

Eventually, Castiel asked, “Long day?”

The man gave a noncommittal shrug. “Long year.”

“Professional or personal?”

“Both.”

Castiel nodded like that meant something.

The man took another sip, then leaned forward, elbows on the bar, eyes on the bottle. “You ever do something for so long you forget why you started?”

The question wasn’t really meant for him, but Castiel answered anyway, “Sure.”

The man huffed a dry laugh. “Yeah.”

He rolled the beer bottle between his fingers.

“Used to think the job meant something. Helping people. Making a difference. Being the kind of man my dad wanted me to be.” He took a swig of his beer. “Turns out, that guy’s dead. And maybe he never existed in the first place.”

Castiel tilted his head. “What changed?”

The man didn’t look up. “I got tired of lying to myself.”

Another moment passed. Then he said softly, almost like it hurt,  “We’re all just pretending to be the people we wish we were, anyway.”

Castiel licked his lips. This was supposed to be easier. This man, this hunter, was not what he was expecting. 

We’re all just pretending to be the people we wish we were, anyway.

The words settled in Castiel’s chest. Thankfully, the man didn’t look up, and didn't seem to be waiting for a response. He just stared at his bottle like it might give him an answer he could live with.

Castiel turned back to the bar, ignoring the man. He didn’t want to pay him too much attention and bring attention back to himself.

Hunters, according to his mother, were monsters in human skin, zealots with dead eyes and dead hearts. The kind of men who smiled while they killed. 

But this man… he was young. Tired in a way that went deeper than bone. His knuckles were split, one still bleeding where the scab had cracked. He didn’t seem evil, but Castiel had seen the gun and smelled the blood.

When the hunter had spoken, it hadn’t been with pride or bravado. It sounded like a confession.

We’re all just pretending…

Castiel didn’t know what to do with that.

He was pretending, too. Pretending to be Dale. Pretending to be human. Pretending not to notice the way the man’s hands shook when he reached for his drink.

Maybe they weren’t so different.

Hunters thought people like him and his mother were monsters. They thought hunters were the monsters. 

He needed to know more. This might be his only shot.

Castiel slid a folded bar towel off the sink and moved toward the man, adopting the easy rhythm of someone used to cleaning up after drunks.

“Hold still,” he said quietly. “Something on your collar.”

The man blinked, but didn’t pull away.

Castiel reached forward, brushing the edge of the towel against the back of the man’s jacket. His other hand palmed the modified tracker: an old RFID chip housing stripped from a pet tag, soldered to a short-range radio transmitter no bigger than a button battery. Two days of juice if he was lucky.

He tucked it just beneath the jacket collar seam. A little adhesive and the fold of the fabric to hold it in place. Crude, but effective.

“Got it,” he said.

The man didn’t flinch. Just reached for his beer like nothing had happened.

Castiel turned away, keeping his expression neutral. His pulse ticked faster than he liked.

One tracker planted. One hunter tagged.

The tracker would only ping if the man passed within twenty feet of the receiver Castiel had wired to his burner phone.

Not perfect but it bought him time.

He watched the man lift his glass again, slow and heavy, then went back to wiping the bar like nothing had happened.

Later, when the man left, Castiel would follow. Close enough to catch a plate number, maybe a make or a model.

The other tracker, a police-issued one, still in its stolen case, was hidden in the trunk of his car. That one could last days. Weeks, even, but first, he had to know which car to put it on.

***

The hunter didn’t speak again. To be fair, Castiel didn’t try to engage him in any further conversation either. He’d spent plenty of time as a bartender. If people wanted to talk, they would. If they didn’t, no amount of questions or prodding would have them opening up.

Over the next few hours, the man drank, slow and steady. He nursed several beers up until closing, eyes fixed on some far-off point behind the bar like he was trying not to think too hard. Castiel wondered what he was thinking about. He assumed that the werewolf in town was dead and the man would move on tomorrow. Hopefully he’d lead Castiel to other hunters.

When Castiel flipped the lights on and gave the closing call, the man didn’t argue. Just slid off the stool, dropped some cash, and left without a word.

Castiel counted to ten. Washed a glass. Made a show of wiping the counter.

Then he grabbed a trash bag, shouldered open the back door, and stepped out into the alley.

The air was cold, sharp with the smell of asphalt and wet leaves. He didn’t shiver.

Uneven footsteps echoed faintly down the road. The hunter’s gait was steady enough to walk, but loose with liquor. Castiel watched him head east, toward the motel he’d passed earlier.

Good.

That meant he was staying local. It gave Castiel time.

He dropped the trash in the bin, but lingered outside, leaning against the wall, watching the night settle.

The man’s words kept circling in his head.

We’re all just pretending to be the people we wish we were, anyway.

Castiel had assumed that was the sort of burden only his kind faced. The pretending and the performing. Wearing faces like masks, becoming what others needed, what survival required.

But this man, this hunter, maybe he wore his skin like a lie too.

It didn’t make sense. Hunters weren’t supposed to be like that. They were supposed to be sure. Monsters in their own right, no doubt. They killed without mercy or regret. He wondered if his mother had ever met a hunter before the one who took her life. If all the stories he was told were the equivalent of humans being told about the monster under the bed. 

Was this one different or had his mother just not known what they were really like?

It was frustrating, to care at all about what a hunter thought. He could almost forgive hunters for going after the ones that killed. That at least he understood. But his mother hadn’t ever hurt anyone. She had spent his and presumably her own entire life trying to keep hidden, keep safe.

Safe from hunters.

Yet this one made him curious, made him wonder. He wanted to understand how someone like that could say something that sounded…true.

Castiel told himself it didn’t matter. That he needed information. That if he could find out where the man had come from, who he answered to, it would bring him one step closer to the hunter who’d killed his mother.

That was all it was.

Still, he stayed outside a moment longer, just in case the man doubled back. Just in case he looked over his shoulder.

Just in case.

***

Castiel told himself he wasn’t a monster.

He said it to himself as he drove by the motel he thought the hunter was at and waited until he got a confirmation ping from the RFID chip as he walked in front of the room doors.

He repeated it like a prayer as he stepped into the stifling heat of Dale’s apartment and caught the sour stink of urine before he even reached the bathroom. Dale was still in the tub, still gagged, still cuffed. He’d pissed himself, and he was crying now, quiet, panicked sobs that hiccupped through the fabric gag stretched across his mouth.

Not a monster.

Castiel crouched in front of the tub, knees popping as he sank onto the closed lid of the toilet. The tiles were cracked beneath his boots, the light above buzzing faintly, casting shadows that twitched and moved like they didn’t belong to either of them.

Dale wouldn’t meet his eyes. Just glanced at him, at himself, and flinched away. That made sense. People weren’t meant to look at themselves like this. Reflections were safe. Familiar. Castiel wasn’t a reflection. He was wearing Dale, and Dale knew it.

“You know what’s happening to you?” Castiel asked, voice low.

Dale shook his head. His face was sallow and wet, blotchy from too much sun and not enough water. He looked younger than his years now. Small. Wrecked.

“You’re dreaming,” Castiel told him gently. “I’m your subconscious. I’m trying to help you.”

That got him. Dale looked up, startled—almost hopeful.

“The drugs you’ve been doing, they’re hurting you. You keep this up, you’re going to die. Do you want to die?”

Dale’s head snapped side to side, quick and desperate.

Castiel nodded slowly. “Good. I’m going to help you get cleaned up. Then you’re going to sleep this off. In the morning, you’ll go to a meeting. Narcotics Anonymous. No one gets clean alone.”

The man still looked dazed, but he nodded again. Castiel could see the edges of belief curling around him like steam, fragile and rising.

“I’m going to take the gag out. But if you attack me, I will kill you. I don’t want to. Don’t make me.”

Another nod.

Castiel reached forward, slow and deliberate, and pulled the gag free.

Dale coughed, worked his jaw, licked dry lips. “What are you?” he rasped.

“I’m you,” Castiel said.

Dale cried harder.

He wanted to feel something for him. Pity. Sympathy. Anything. But all he felt was tired. The kind of bone-deep fatigue that sunk into his joints and made everything feel slow. He’d been on his feet all night at the bar, pretending to be this man. He had been taking his place, his job, his life, and now all he wanted was to get through the rest of this without blood.

Letting someone go was dangerous. Letting someone live was stupid. But Castiel wasn’t a monster.

He fished the key from his pocket and bent again, his motions unhurried but alert. This was the moment. If Dale was going to fight, it’d be now. But the man just sat there, trembling.

With a click the cuffs fell away.

Castiel rose, stepping back. Dale looked up at him. No sudden moves, no tension in his limbs. Just confusion. Surrender.

“Get yourself cleaned up,” Castiel said. “I’ll throw your clothes in the wash. There’s a sandwich and some water waiting for you.”

Dale wiped at his nose, voice shaking. “You gonna kill me?”

“No.” Castiel’s tone didn’t change. “This is your wake-up call. Take care of yourself.”

He turned and left the room, half-expecting to hear footsteps behind him. He didn’t. Just the creak of the shower curtain being drawn and the pipes groaning to life.

In the kitchen, he unwrapped the sandwich, plain turkey on white bread, and left it beside the bottled water on the counter. He collected Dale’s soiled clothes when the man was done and dumped them in the washer. Stripped off the ones he’d stolen, too. The fabric clung, still warm with another man’s sweat. It all went into the machine.

DNA wouldn’t be an issue, not when he wore Dale’s skin, but caution had kept him alive this long.

He changed into one of his own outfits—loose jeans and an old tee, neither of them fitting right on this borrowed frame—and did one final sweep of the apartment. No blood. No hair. Nothing left behind.

He’d shed this skin somewhere else. Safely.

Before he slipped out, he paused in the doorway and listened. The shower still ran, and Dale hadn’t moved. Hopefully, by the time the man came down, he’d chalk it all up to a bad trip. A hallucination.

Something he’d never speak of again.

Castiel closed the door behind him without a sound.

Not a monster. Not yet.

***

Castiel didn’t look back as he left Dale’s apartment. No scrambling footsteps behind him, no screaming threats. Just the night air and the dull throb of exhaustion in his skull. He got into the car, started the engine, and drove.

The motel wasn’t far, just down the road from where he’d last seen the hunter disappear. Close enough to keep watch without raising suspicion. He pulled into the lot with the ease of someone used to transience and grabbed his bag from the trunk.

Inside, the room smelled like stale cigarettes and mildew. The wallpaper was curling at the edges, and the sheets had been washed but never really cleaned. Castiel didn’t notice. Or if he did, he didn’t care.

He locked the door, set the chain, and turned toward the bathroom.

It was time to shed.

He stripped without ceremony, folding his clothes into a loose pile on the counter. He laid down the plastic sheeting, a standard part of his kit, and climbed into the tub. The porcelain was chipped. The drain rusted. It would do.

He closed his eyes and summoned the shape he needed: someone unremarkable. A man in his mid-thirties. White. Average build. Someone people saw without seeing . The kind of man who could linger in a parking lot and draw no more attention than a lamppost. No sharp edges. No personality.

The shift started under the skin, a ripple that built pressure in his chest, then his spine, then all at once broke .

Castiel exhaled as Dale peeled away.

The skin sloughed off in wet, meaty folds, thudding against the plastic tub like raw meat dropped from a height. Hair, flesh, fat… all shed in clumps that steamed in the cold air. The sound was soft, but thick. Viscous. Familiar.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t gag. This was routine. A cleanup job, nothing more.

By the time the new form emerged, Castiel felt clearer. Lighter. Not better. Never better. But more himself. Whatever that meant.

He stepped out of the tub and onto the plastic sheeting, eyeing the mess like it was a pile of laundry. Functional. Disposable.

He turned the shower on, lukewarm, and reached for the lye.

It came in plain plastic tubs, marketed to homesteaders, soap-makers, the occasional chemistry teacher. He bought it in bulk. Sprinkled it across the gore in practiced motions, watching as it hissed and frothed. The reaction was slow but steady. Occasionally, he stirred the mixture with a plastic spoon, breaking up the thicker chunks until they dissolved.

Once the worst of it was gone, he rinsed the tub, then stepped in again, this time to wash himself. He scrubbed every inch of skin until the water ran clean. Blood and memory spiraled down the drain together.

Afterward, he sprayed the tub with bleach. Saturated the corners, the grout, the rim. It smelled sharp, like scorched lungs. He clicked off the bathroom light and pulled out a tiny blacklight from his kit. Nothing fluoresced. Nothing to suggest he’d ever been here.

When he turned the light back on, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

Too young. Closer to the hunter’s age than intended. The face looking back at him was passable, forgettable, but wrong in a way that wasn’t about shape or symmetry. It was wrong because it meant nothing.

He met his reflection’s eyes and felt the weight of it: not revulsion, not shame. Just... resignation.

This wasn’t him. None of them were.

His mother had told him he’d grow into a form that felt like home. Said he’d find one that fit , if he gave it time.

But Castiel had started shifting before he could walk. Before he had words. Before he had a face to miss.

He was jealous of the photographs she’d shown him, of herself, before. Of her small, steady face at two years old. A baseline. A beginning. He didn’t have one. He’d never had one.

Just endless variations of what other people wanted to see.

He sighed. “Good enough.”

The motel mirror didn’t argue.

He dried off, dug through his bag, and tried on three pairs of jeans before finding one that fit well enough. Taller and leaner than planned. Again.

Dressed in neutral layers, he packed up his supplies, zipped the bag, and loaded the car.

***

The motel parking lot was still, lit by the weak glow of overhead bulbs that buzzed faintly against the dark. Castiel pulled into a space near the back, cut the engine, and let the silence settle around him.

He was tired. More than tired. The kind of exhaustion that seeped into his joints and pressure that built behind his eyes. Shedding a real person always did this to him. And it wasn’t just the physical mess of it. Like borrowing someone else’s shape left an itch inside his bones.

He leaned back in the seat and watched.

The hunter had left the bar drunk, or close to it. Castiel didn’t expect to see him anytime soon. Still, the adrenaline hummed beneath his skin, keeping him wired, keeping him here. Eyes scanning the lot, watching for movement, for headlights, for any sign of which room the man might’ve stumbled into.

Time slipped past. By five, the sky had started to shift at the edges, that murky hint of dawn blurring the stars.

Somewhere nearby, a door creaked. A dog barked. A moth slapped against the windshield.

Castiel scrubbed a hand over his face.

Then came the knock, two raps against the window.

He startled and turned. A woman in a ratty hoodie leaned down, eyes squinting at him through the glass.

“You selling?” she asked.

He didn’t even hesitate. “Fuck off.”

She flipped him the bird and walked off into the dark.

He exhaled slowly. His stomach gnawed at him, a reminder he hadn’t eaten since the bar, and even then it had only been a few peanuts off the counter. He scanned the lot and spotted a vending machine across the courtyard, glowing blue in the half-light like a beacon. He checked his watch. It was close to six. Early enough that most people would still be out cold.

He rifled through the ashtray, the glovebox, under the seat. Eventually scrounged enough coins to make it work, or so he hoped.

The gravel crunched under his boots as he crossed the lot. The vending machine’s offerings were dim behind the glass: chips, candy, something pretending to be a granola bar. He picked the trail mix. Or maybe it was just salted peanuts. Either way, it looked like food.

The coins clinked into the slot. He pressed the button. The metal coil turned… and stopped.

The bag drooped against the glass, caught on the edge of the spiral.

“Of course,” he muttered. He smacked the side of the machine. Nothing.

Another hit. Still nothing.

Then, behind him, a voice: “Let me help with that.”

Castiel turned.

It was him.

The hunter.

Closer than expected. Awake when he shouldn’t be. Hair messy, eyes shadowed from too little sleep, or maybe too much to drink, but steady and alert.

Castiel stepped back on instinct, wary, even as his heart jumped.

The man sized up the machine, then gave it a solid whack near the base. The bag dropped.

He bent down, picked it up, and held it out.

Castiel didn’t move at first. Just stared. The hunter’s eyes were green, shockingly so. Not the grayish kind, not moss or hazel pretending. Green, like glass lit from behind. A color that didn’t belong in motel parking lots.

He realized he was staring. They both were.

He took the bag. Looked away.

“Thanks, man,” he mumbled.

The hunter gave a quiet nod and walked off.

Castiel didn’t breathe again until he was alone.

He watched the man go, trying to trace his steps, to catch which room he’d come from, but it was too late. He hadn’t been looking when it mattered. All he could do was sit there holding a crinkled bag of trail mix and cursing himself for stepping away.

Back in the car, he peeled it open, but didn’t eat.

He kept scanning the lot, hoping to see which door opened, which car the hunter approached. Nothing.

His stomach twisted, not with hunger now, but frustration.

Focus, he told himself. You’re doing this for your mom. Not to make small talk over peanuts.

He clenched the bag tighter and sank lower in his seat, eyes on the lot.

No more distractions.

Castiel’s nerves buzzed beneath his skin, jittering and sharp. He leaned back in the driver’s seat and stretched his legs out. From a distance, he looked like someone napping off a long night. But his eyes were open. Wide. Scanning.

He’d been at this for weeks. Bar to bar, town to town. Following rumors of hunts, whispers of silver bullets and salt lines. Hoping to find one, just one, real hunter. And now he had. A live one. Close enough to touch. Which meant close enough to lose.

His heart thudded against the back of his throat.

He needed to get the tracker in place. Needed to follow this man wherever he went. Hunters moved like shadows, and if this one slipped through his fingers, Castiel might never get another chance.

His mother’s face flickered across his mind. Her voice. The way she used to say be smart, not seen .

A door slammed somewhere and Castiel sat up straighter.

There at the front office was the hunter.

He walked with a paper coffee cup in hand, shoulders stiff, mouth in a grim line like the caffeine wasn’t helping. He crossed the lot without looking around and disappeared into one of the rooms, door clicking shut behind him.

Castiel's pulse kicked higher. He stayed still. Watched.

Minutes passed.

Then the man reappeared, this time with a duffel slung over his shoulder. He walked toward a big black car parked near the edge of the lot. Sleek, heavy, powerful-looking. The kind of car that could eat miles in a single bite.

He popped the trunk and tossed the bag inside. The sound echoed too loud in the quiet morning.

Castiel tensed. Is he leaving now? Was he about to lose his window?

The hunter stood there a beat longer, eyes sweeping across the lot. Not alert, exactly…but watchful. Frowning.

Castiel didn’t move. Barely breathed.

Then the man turned. Walked back toward his room. The door clicked shut behind him.

Castiel was already moving.

He shoved open his door and sprinted across the lot, gravel crunching underfoot. His hand was already in his jacket pocket, fingers wrapped around the tracker, about the size of a deck of cards, matte black, and smooth-edged.

At the hunter’s car, he didn’t hesitate. He yanked the back door open just enough to slide the device under the rear seat. He wedged it deep between the metal bracket and the carpet, fingers moving fast but precise.

It was hidden. Probably.

Hopefully.

He shut the door as gently as he could. No click, no slam. Just pressure and silence. Then he turned and walked, didn't run, back to his own car.

When he got in, he didn’t breathe until the door was shut behind him. This time, he let it slam. The sound felt earned.

His hands were shaking now, the rush leaving him all at once. The crash hit hard. It always did. All that focus and speed bleeding out of him in the aftermath.

But the tracker was in. He wouldn’t have to tail the man now. Wouldn’t have to keep his eyes on the road for hours or risk being spotted. As long as the hunter didn’t check the backseat too closely, Castiel could rest.

He dropped his forehead against the steering wheel. Let his eyes close.

Just don’t find it, he thought. Please don’t find it.

He’d come this far. Found the hunter. Planted the tracker.

Now all he could do was wait and hope this man would lead him to the others.

Chapter Text

Castiel drove east, following the direction the hunter had taken, but after an hour on the road, his body rebelled. Sleep pulled at him with leaden fingers, heavy and insistent, and no amount of open-window air or low radio static could keep him from nodding off at a red light. It wasn’t safe, he knew that. Not to drive like this. Not to follow someone like this. If the hunter switched cars, he might lose the trail since the tracker was in the car, not the man’s belongings. But something about that car… black, gleaming, classic, told Castiel it mattered. It wasn’t the kind of car you gave up easily.

He pulled off at the next exit, found a roadside motel with paper-thin walls and a neon sign that buzzed faintly in the still air. Paid in cash. Didn’t remember the clerk’s face even as he handed over the key.

Inside, he dropped his bag and collapsed onto the bed without even taking off his shoes.

Sleep swallowed him whole.

Twelve hours later, he woke up dry-mouthed and aching, limbs glued to the scratchy comforter. The sun had shifted across the room and left a warm streak across the floor. He blinked at it for a long time, not moving, unsure if he felt more alive or less.

Eventually, instinct won out. He padded to the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and splashed cold water onto his face. It didn’t help much. He grabbed the cheap toothbrush from his bag and scrubbed his teeth until his gums stung. Then he looked up.

The man in the mirror wasn’t the one he’d worn last night. Not Dale. Not the plain, forgettable shell he’d shifted into for the motel. This was closer to default—something halfway familiar, though he’d never had a true default to begin with.

He frowned.

Too young again. That was happening more often lately. A slip of intention. Not dangerous, but inconvenient. People asked questions when someone who looked twenty wandered around alone. White men in their thirties, though… they could go anywhere. No one looked twice. They blended in, invisible in the way only the majority could be.

He focused. Watched his reflection shift.

Hair first, darkening at the roots, growing just a shade more brown. His nose sharpened. His chin squared. Skin tone adjusted a fraction. The eyes changed last. From blue to hazel. From unusual to unremarkable.

He exhaled slowly.

This kind of change didn’t hurt. Not like stealing. Not like taking someone else's shape.

When he shifted into something original, a new variation of himself, it happened cleanly, smoothly. Like magic, not biology. No shedding. No blood. Just thought and will. It was almost beautiful, the way the body could become what he imagined.

But stealing a real person’s form…that was different. That came with a cost.

The first time it happened, he hadn’t even meant to do it. He’d been young and he’d touched someone’s arm, just trying to understand what made people feel so solid. The shift took him without warning. His mother had found him an hour later, curled on the bathroom floor, slick with another person’s face. The viscera had soaked into his clothes, clumped under his fingernails. He’d cried until he vomited, until his mother rocked him back into something like stillness.

She didn’t have an explanation for why it was different. Why copying a real person meant tearing, bleeding, and breaking open. She held him and promised she’d help him learn to control it.

And he had. Mostly.

Still, every time he had to steal someone’s form, he braced for the horror of it. The peeling. The weight. The smell of his own body remaking itself like it hated him.

His mother could also change both ways, but her transformations were slower and she had far more trouble creating an original form compared to stealing someone else’s. When he was little he assumed it was because she was older, but she’d corrected him and told him it’d always been that way. Castiel got faster at it as he got older, better at controlling it. His mother had called him strong.

He ran a towel over his face and stepped into the shower.

The water was lukewarm, barely more than a drizzle, but it rinsed away the worst of the exhaustion. The soap smelled like generic citrus. The shampoo stung his eyes. It didn’t matter. He scrubbed until he felt more human.

Afterward, dressed in clean jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, he opened his laptop and plugged in the tracker receiver.

It took a moment to ping.

Cadillac, Michigan.

Castiel leaned forward, fingers drumming against the trackpad. Cadillac. He typed it into the search bar, then added the usual keywords: ”missing”, “strange”, and “deaths”.

The third result snagged his attention.

Second Hiker Disappears in Manistee National Forest

An article from the Cadillac Evening News. It was short, thin on details, but Castiel had read enough of these to read between the lines. Two experienced hikers gone, less than a month apart. Both vanished along the same stretch of trail. North Country, near Caberfae Peaks. Both had signed into the trail registry. Neither came back.

No bodies. No signs of struggle. Just missing.

Castiel sat back, considering.

Wendigo.

The pattern fit. Isolated location. Experienced prey. No physical remains.

Wendigos were smart. Patient. They waited for hunger to break their victims down, then struck with brutal efficiency. Some mimicked voices. Others screamed like dying animals. All of them preferred remote wilderness where no one could hear you scream.

He closed the laptop.

If that’s what the hunter was here for, it made sense. It was a serious job. Not the kind of hunt you took on drunk or alone but then, the man didn’t seem to care much for rules.

Castiel would need gear. Camping supplies. Something that said I’m just here for a hike, nothing suspicious about me. He’d have to blend. He could do that. He always had.

And he’d need a weapon. Just in case.

He wasn’t sure how a wendigo would react to someone like him. Maybe it would smell the wrongness on his skin. Maybe it wouldn’t care. Monster was a wide category. Some of them didn’t draw lines.

He’d learned to fight. His mother made sure of that. But she’d also made him promise never to pick a fight he couldn’t finish. Be smart, not seen. Be quiet. Be safe.

He wasn’t any of those things now.

Castiel reached for his bag and zipped it closed. He was tired. Still sore. Still scraping the edge of too much. But beneath it, a thrill curled deep in his chest. He was getting closer.

He stopped at a thrift store just south of the Michigan border. The parking lot was half-mud, half-gravel, and the whole place smelled like mildew and motor oil, but he found what he needed: a weathered flannel, jeans worn soft at the knees, and a pair of boots already scuffed and broken in. Nothing gave you away faster than looking too new. Real people didn’t dress like mannequins. They wore memories. Scratches. Clothes that had lived a little.

Castiel paid in cash. Bagged it himself.

At the army surplus store, he picked up the rest: a paracord, a compass, some rations, and a torch meant for lighting controlled fires. Too powerful for a campfire and too suspicious for a hike, but plausible enough if questioned. He tucked it away in his pack, just in case.

The hunter had a good fourteen-hour lead. But even the best ones had to sleep sometime. And Castiel had patience in spades.

His mother had always spoken of hunters like the monster under the bed. The real kind. The ones that didn’t just stalk, didn’t just kill, but made sure you knew why. Zealots with guns and silver, more dangerous than anything they hunted. When he was small, she used to tell him stories at night, not to lull him to sleep but to keep him alert. She’d whisper them like prayers, like warnings. She’d given him a talisman, said he should wear it always, that it would keep him safe. It had been hers once, and she was passing it onto him. He wished she had kept it for herself.

He’d spent six months chasing shadows. Always a town too late. A day too slow. Ashes in the wind and no names to go with the bodies. This was the first time he’d gotten close enough to follow.

He didn’t know if this one had killed her.

But hunters didn’t live in isolation. They had networks. Connections. If Castiel could track this one, maybe it would lead him to others. To names. To answers.

To justice.

He merged back onto the highway, the landscape blurring past. Fields gone fallow, pine groves dense and shrouded with the early evening shadow. He drove on autopilot, windows cracked to keep himself awake, but his thoughts wandered.

He wondered what his mother had done to attract their attention.

She’d been so careful. She didn’t kill. Didn’t shift unless absolutely necessary. They moved every few months, and left no trail. She kept them out of sight, off the grid. No phones. No photographs. He didn’t have a single picture from his childhood, not that any of them would have been the real him. Just her, and the road, and a dozen different identities.

He used to scream at her for that. As a teenager, it felt like a prison. He accused her of paranoia, of cowardice. Demanded to know why they couldn’t live among others like them. Why she had no family. Why he’d never met another shifter in his life.

Her answer had never changed.

Not all shifters are good, Castiel.

Some of them kill. Some of them enjoy it.

He’d argued, what if they found the good ones? The careful ones? Weren’t there others like them, just trying to survive?

But her eyes had gone distant then, hard in a way he rarely saw. She made him swear. On her life.

Don’t go looking for them. Don’t go looking for anyone.

And he hadn’t. He’d kept that promise. But it hadn’t saved her. A hunter had still found her.

Now she was gone, and all he had were fragments. And one tracker pinging softly from the woods of Michigan.

Castiel tightened his grip on the wheel. He kept his eyes on the road.

He wasn’t hunting out of revenge.

He told himself that a lot.

But some nights, when the ache twisted sharp in his ribs, he could still smell the scorched hair. The blood. The silence that followed. It didn’t feel like survival anymore.

It felt like reckoning.

***

The motel wasn’t hard to find.

There weren’t many options in a town like this. One road in, one gas station, and a diner with a flickering “Vacancy” sign that looked like it hadn't turned off in decades. The motel sat just past the edge of town, squatting behind a row of wind-worn pines. The sign out front boasted cable TV and free continental breakfast, but the lot was mostly empty.

Mostly.

Castiel spotted the car before he even parked. Sleek, black, and imposing. It looked even more out of place here than it had in the last town, like a shadow cast too sharply against the soft edges of rural Michigan. He let himself look for only a moment, then pulled into a space near the back.

The tracker had worked.

Inside, the lobby smelled like burned coffee and dust. The manager sat behind the desk, flipping through a fishing magazine with more holes than pages. He looked up when Castiel entered, blinking like the overhead light was too bright.

“Need a room?” the man asked, already reaching for the registry.

“Yeah,” Castiel said. “Couple nights.”

The man slid the book toward him, then squinted. “You here for the trails?”

Castiel didn’t hesitate. “Yeah. Planning to do some hiking.”

The man grunted. “Careful out there. Couple campers went missing last month. Real experienced types, too. Whole town’s been on edge. Park ranger’s even staying here, trying to figure out what happened.”

Castiel’s fingers paused over the pen.

Ranger.

Right.

He glanced down at the registry.

The name before his was written in careful block letters: Robert Plant.

A lie. Had to be. Who used a rock star’s name as a real alias unless they were trying to be funny?

Castiel signed the next line. Steve Smith. The kind of name no one remembered.

He handed the book back and took the key.

“Second floor,” the manager said. “End of the row.”

Castiel nodded his thanks and made his way up the creaking stairs.

If the hunter was here, that meant he hadn’t gone into the woods yet. He was probably waiting until morning. Maybe scouting the trailheads. Maybe talking to locals. Either way, it bought Castiel time.

The room was basic. It had a bed, TV, a desk with a Bible in the drawer, but it was clean enough. The curtains hung stiff from the rod, and when he pulled one back a few inches, he could see the black car clearly from his window. 

He sat on the edge of the bed and stared.

Did he need to go into the forest at all?

He could wait. Stay quiet. Follow the man when he left town. Track him back to wherever hunters went when they weren’t killing things. Watch him long enough, and maybe he’d lead Castiel to the one who had killed her.

He didn't need to risk the woods. Didn't need to draw attention.

Still, the idea of talking to him, just once, tugged at him. Could he do it? Pretend to be another camper, another concerned stranger, cross paths by chance and get a read on him?

No. Too risky. He wasn't ready for that yet.

Besides, wasn’t that what his mother warned him about? That curiosity got people killed. That talking to hunters never ended well.

And yet…

He didn’t even know the man’s name. Didn’t know if he was truly the kind of hunter who’d smile while he burned your family alive, or if he was just doing a job. Just tired. Just pretending, the way they all were.

Castiel lay back on the bed, eyes still on the parking lot. He left the curtain open a crack and turned the TV on low. It played a game show rerun, the sound tinny and bright.

He meant to stay awake. Just to keep watch. Just for a little while.

But his body had other plans.

The screen blurred. The car stayed still. And Castiel, finally, drifted off with the blue light flickering against his face and the weight of questions he couldn’t afford to ask pressing heavy against his chest.

***

Castiel woke with a start, his body stiff, mouth dry, heart pounding like he’d been running.

It took a moment to remember where he was.

The motel ceiling looked unfamiliar in the gray light. The TV was still on, murmuring faint commercials into the silence, and the edges of the curtain glowed soft with early morning sun. The room smelled like static and worn carpet.

For a breathless second, he thought he’d lost the trail.

Then he turned his head.

The car was still there.

He sat up fast, rubbing a hand over his face. His thoughts felt sluggish, sticky around the edges, but the adrenaline helped. He checked the time. Just after 6:00 a.m.

Still early.

He dressed quickly in layered clothes and neutral colors. Grabbed a wallet, shoved a protein bar into his pocket, and headed downstairs.

The front office had been converted into a makeshift breakfast nook. It had one folding table, a stack of Styrofoam cups, and a few sad trays of food. The coffee smelled scorched. The muffins looked like they’d been there since last week. He grabbed a banana, too soft, freckled with brown, and a bagel that felt like it had been left out overnight.

It would do.

Castiel was pouring coffee when he saw him, the hunter.

He was seated at the far end of the room, dressed in a park ranger’s uniform that looked just slightly too neat for someone who spent their time hiking through forests. The badge caught the fluorescent light. The shirt fit too well. A disguise, but a practiced one.

The man’s back was to the wall, eyes on the door. It wasn’t casual, the way he sat… it was strategic. A man used to checking exits. Cataloging faces. Watching for movement.

Predator instincts.

Castiel didn’t let his gaze linger.

He chose a table on the opposite side of the room and sat down, angling himself so he could observe without being obvious. He peeled the banana, ate it in three bites, then tore the bagel in half. Dry, flavorless, but filling. His coffee steamed faintly, too bitter even with the powdered creamer, but he drank it anyway.

The hunter didn’t acknowledge him. Just sipped his own drink and stared out over the room like he was waiting for something or someone.

Castiel waited too.

Maybe backup would show. Maybe another hunter would come through that door, meet him with a nod or a muttered update. But no one came. No second shadow. Just the man. Alone.

Eventually, the hunter stood. Tossed his cup. Adjusted the collar of his uniform and left without looking back.

Castiel watched him go, pulse steady but sharp.

He finished the last of his coffee, wiped his hands on a napkin, and walked calmly back to his room. Once inside, he drew the curtain wider and crouched just out of sight, waiting.

The hunter didn’t take long. He reappeared ten minutes later, crossed the lot with purpose, and climbed into the car.

Still alone.

Maybe he was meeting someone at the trailhead. Maybe this was part of the cover. Maybe he didn’t have backup at all.

Castiel’s fingers twitched around the strap of his bag.

He could wait. Let the man go ahead. See if he came back with anyone.

Castiel grabbed his pack from the bed, slung it over his shoulder, and slipped out the door.

If the hunter was heading for the forest, then Castiel would follow.

And this time, he’d stay close.

Chapter Text

By the time Castiel reached the trailhead, the sun had climbed higher, slanting through the trees in sharp golden angles. The lot was mostly gravel, bordered by a wooden fence and a faded trail map pinned beneath cracked plastic.

The black car was already there.

No other vehicles. No backup.

Just the black car.

Castiel cut the engine and sat for a moment, watching the quiet. His fingers tightened around the wheel. This was either arrogance or stupidity. Maybe both.

Hunting a wendigo alone. Christ.

He pulled his pack from the passenger seat and checked the straps. He’d packed light: flashlight, extra socks, protein bars. The torch nestled near the bottom, hidden beneath a rolled-up sleeping bag. His jacket was zipped to the throat, his boots laced tight.

The air was damp, still clinging to the chill of morning. Birds chirped in the distance, unconcerned. The trail was empty.

He started walking.

The forest swallowed sound the deeper he went. Dirt crunched underfoot, soft with leaf litter. The path was narrow, winding through dense pines and underbrush that clung to the edges like it wanted to take the trail back.

Castiel kept his pace steady. Measured. He didn’t want to catch up too fast. Didn’t want to spook the hunter. But the further he went, the more it struck him… there really was no one else out here.

No groups. No other hikers. No sound of boots or distant voices. Just trees. Wind. The occasional rustle of something unseen in the brush.

An hour passed.

Still nothing.

He was just starting to consider turning around, maybe checking a side path, or circling back to keep an eye on the car, when he spotted movement up ahead.

The hunter.

He was crouched low near the edge of the trail, one hand brushing through the dirt, the other steadying himself against a tree. His attention was focused, the tilt of his body alert in a way that said he wasn’t just sightseeing.

Castiel slowed.

The man’s head turned. Eyes locked onto him in an instant, and he stood, casual but with authority, arms spread wide across the narrow path.

“Hey, man,” he called. “Trail’s closed. You need to turn back.”

Castiel blinked. Kept his expression blank, slightly confused. “No one said anything when I signed in this morning.”

The hunter’s mouth tightened. “Then someone messed up. We’ve got a wild animal out here killing people.”

Castiel raised his eyebrows, like it was news. “I heard about a missing hiker. That was weeks ago, right? You found a body?”

There was a beat of hesitation, just enough to confirm what Castiel already suspected.

“Listen,” the hunter said, tone shifting. “We suspect a death, but nothing confirmed. I still need you to turn around.”

Castiel tilted his head like he was weighing the odds, debating whether to push it. Before he could answer, a voice, raw and distant, cut through the trees.

“Help! Please—someone!”

Both of them turned toward the sound. Castiel’s heart leapt. The hunter’s hand dropped toward his belt, instinctive.

Their eyes met.

For the first time, the hunter didn’t look annoyed or suspicious. He looked ready. Maybe not a rookie after all. Maybe reckless. Maybe alone. But not unprepared.

Another cry rang out. Closer this time. High-pitched and panicked.

The hunter jerked his chin toward the sound. “Stay here.”

Then he was moving, fast and low through the brush, vanishing into the trees.

The hunter vanished into the trees before Castiel could speak, fast and sure-footed, barely disturbing the underbrush as he moved.

Castiel hesitated but only for a breath. Then he followed.

The cry for help came again, thinner this time. Fainter. Whether it was moving or just fading, he couldn’t tell. He ducked low under a branch and picked up speed, boots crunching against damp soil, brush tugging at his sleeves.

He caught sight of the hunter up ahead, already slowing, pausing at a clearing, weapon drawn. His posture was sharp. Focused. Like a wire pulled taut. He turned as Castiel approached, eyes narrowed.

“I told you to stay on the trail,” he snapped. “It’s not safe out here.”

Castiel didn’t flinch. “Someone’s calling for help.”

“I know. And I’m handling it.”

“But if they’re hurt—if they need to be carried—”

“I can take care of it.” The hunter’s voice was clipped, controlled, but Castiel heard the tension underneath. “What I don’t need is another civilian getting hurt. Turn around and go back. Now.”

Castiel planted his feet. “I’m not going back.”

“For god’s sake—”

“If someone’s injured,” Castiel pressed, keeping his tone even, “you might need two of us to get them out.”

The hunter exhaled sharply, like he was biting back something stronger than frustration. “There’s nothing you can help with. It’s not what you think.”

Castiel lifted his chin. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that’s not a person out there.” The hunter’s jaw tightened. “It’s a creature. It mimics people. Voices. Cries for help. It’s not someone lost. It’s hunting.”

A beat of silence stretched between them.

Castiel blinked. “What, like one of those Appalachian ghost stories? A monster in the woods?”

“Yes.” The hunter’s eyes didn’t leave him. “Exactly like that.”

The words were flat and unapologetic.

Castiel stared at him. At the calm certainty in his face. The absence of fear.

“I’m not making this up,” the man said. “You need to get out of here. Now. You stay, you’re just another liability. I can’t—” He cut himself off, jaw working. “I can’t be responsible for another person dying out here.”

Castiel’s mouth was dry. “You think I’m going to get myself killed?”

“I think you don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

“And you do?” Castiel stepped forward, not aggressive, but firm. “You’re out here alone. No backup. No ranger team. Just you.”

“I’m trained for this.”

“And you still might die,” Castiel said, voice quiet.

The hunter’s shoulders tensed but he didn’t deny it.

Castiel adjusted the strap of his backpack. “I’m not going back.”

“You’re going to get in the way.”

“I’m not useless.”

The hunter gave him a long, searching look, eyes flicking from his face to his boots, his stance. 

“You have no idea what this thing is,” he muttered.

“I’ve heard fire works,” Castiel said, and didn’t miss the way the hunter’s eyebrows shot up. “And I know if you go in there alone, you might not come out.”

They stared at each other for a few long moments, then the hunter huffed. “Fine. Whatever. You want to get yourself killed, be my guest. Just stay out of the way. I’m not dragging your body out if you do something stupid.”

Castiel’s mouth curled faintly. “Maybe I don’t want something happening to you and it being on my conscience either.”

That got a reaction, somewhere between surprise and disbelief.

Then the hunter turned. “Let’s move,” he said over his shoulder.

And Castiel followed.

They moved through the forest in silence, the canopy thick above them, filtering the morning light into scattered bands of gold and green. Castiel kept a careful distance, not close enough to provoke more suspicion, but not far enough to lose him in the underbrush.

The cries came again. Fainter now and somewhere to the east.

The hunter paused, head tilted, body angled toward the sound. He didn’t move.

“It’s luring us. Deeper.”

Castiel stopped beside him. “I’ve got a compass,” he said, calmly. “And a map. I marked the trail junctions before we came this far. I’m not worried about getting back.”

The hunter gave him a sidelong look. “You really do come prepared.”

Castiel didn’t answer. Just adjusted the strap on his pack and kept walking.

The man followed.

For a long stretch, the only sound was the crunch of their boots over fallen leaves and the occasional distant birdsong. The wind shifted, colder now, and Castiel caught the scent of pine and something else beneath it, faint and sour.

Eventually, the hunter spoke again. “So what are you even doing up here, really? Most people don’t just wander into wendigo country for fun.”

Castiel kept his eyes ahead. “A friend of mine went missing last year. We’d gone camping. She left the tent to go to the bathroom, and she never came back.”

The lie tasted bitter. Too close to the truth to feel safe.

“I filed a report. Talked to the rangers. But they never found anything. No tracks. No blood. Just… nothing.”

The hunter was quiet.

Castiel continued, “Since then, I’ve kept an eye on strange disappearances. Anytime someone goes missing out in the woods, I check it out. Try to see if it’s connected.”

“You think a wendigo got your friend.”

“I think something did.”

The hunter grunted. “Yeah. I’ve lost people too.”

Something in his voice changed. He sounded less guarded, more tired. He didn’t elaborate, and Castiel didn’t push.

The trail narrowed as they moved deeper into the trees. The air grew colder. Still, the voice came, faint, desperate, ragged: Help me... please...

Castiel didn’t flinch.

“You ever fought one before?” the hunter asked.

Castiel shook his head. “No. But I know what they are. And I know how to kill them.”

That got a snort. “Sure. Everyone knows fire works. But how exactly do you plan to do that out here? You got matches and a prayer?”

“I have a torch,” Castiel said simply.

That made the man stop.

He turned to look at Castiel full on. “You brought a torch?”

Castiel met his gaze evenly. “Yes.”

There was a pause. Then the hunter huffed a dry, incredulous laugh. “I’ve got a flamethrower.”

Castiel blinked. “Of course you do.”

“When we find it,” the man said, his voice turning businesslike again, “just stick close to me. Don’t get in the way. I don’t want to hit you with friendly fire.”

Castiel nodded once. “Understood.”

But his thoughts were already moving faster than his feet.

He’d misjudged this man.

He still didn’t trust him. Still didn’t like that he was out here alone. But he was starting to believe it wasn’t out of arrogance or stupidity.

It was something else.

Something sharper. And lonelier.

They pressed on.

The forest swallowed them whole.

They walked in silence for a while, the forest pressing in tighter the deeper they went. The trail had all but disappeared, the trees growing denser, the undergrowth thicker. Whatever passed for a path now was more instinct than guidance. Footsteps weaving between roots and rocks, ducking under low-hanging branches.

Castiel kept pace easily.

He was watching the hunter now. Not just the way he moved, but the way he listened. How his eyes flicked toward shifts in the shadows, how he paused just slightly at forked paths, checking wind direction, terrain, signs Castiel couldn’t read at a glance.

It wasn’t flashy. But it was efficient.

He’d assumed the hunter was reckless. Arrogant. Maybe even stupid, for coming out here alone.

But that flamethrower wasn’t nothing.

And the more he watched him move through the woods, the more Castiel began to think maybe he could have handled this on his own. Maybe he’d even done this before.

Castiel still didn’t agree with it. Alone was dangerous. Alone was how you died. But there was a discipline in the way the man carried himself, a readiness Castiel hadn’t expected. He didn’t know if that made him brave or broken.

Maybe both.

After a long stretch of quiet, Castiel finally said, “My name is Steve.”

The hunter glanced at him. “Okay.”

“And you are… Robert?”

There was a beat.

Then the hunter sighed. “No. Dean.”

Castiel looked at him, raising a single brow. “Dean.”

The hunter, Dean, shrugged, a little sheepish, like the admission cost him something. “It’s not like I wanted to check in under my real name.”

Castiel nodded. “It’s nice to meet you, Dean.”

And strangely, it was. There was something about the name that rang true in a way “Robert” hadn’t. Castiel believed it. Believed him.

They kept moving.

After a few more minutes, Castiel slowed. He sniffed the air.

Rot.

Faint but distinct. Sour and sweet all at once. Organic decay that clung to the back of his throat. It was enough to make the hair on his arms rise.

He stopped walking. “We’re close.”

Dean turned, hand already at his weapon. “What do you mean?”

Castiel’s eyes scanned the darkening trees. “The forest’s gone quiet.”

Dean paused, listening. And now that Castiel had said it, it was obvious: the birdsong had stopped. No wind. No rustling leaves. Just silence.

Dean nodded once, jaw tight. “Yeah. Okay.”

They both moved instinctively toward their packs.

Castiel unzipped the outer pocket and pulled out the torch. He tested the ignition and gripped it tighter. Dean crouched beside his bag and pulled free a long, matte-black flamethrower, larger than Castiel expected. He raised an eyebrow despite himself.

“I’m impressed that fit in your pack.”

Dean shrugged. “Kind of all I had room for.”

Castiel allowed himself the faintest smile. “Good thing I’m here then. Someone has to help get you back out of the forest.”

Dean snorted, shouldering the weapon. “We’ll see who’s dragging who.”

They exchanged a look and then they stepped forward, deeper into the stillness, together.

The air grew colder the deeper they moved into the trees, the kind of cold that bit through layers and settled in the joints. The smell of rot thickened, became something living, wet and crawling and close. Castiel’s skin prickled. His grip tightened on the torch.

They were almost there.

Dean slowed beside him, raising a hand. Silent signal. Stop.

Castiel did.

A low sound, not quite a growl, not quite a moan, rippled through the trees.

And then it was on them.

The wendigo lunged from the shadows, a blur of bone and sinew and filth. It moved fast, impossibly fast for something so gaunt and twisted. Dean shouted and fired a short blast from the flamethrower, but the creature veered left, avoiding the flame and crashing into Castiel.

The torch went flying.

Castiel hit the ground hard, shoulder-first, air knocked from his lungs. The creature reared back over him, jaws open wide, breath reeking of blood and decay. Clawed fingers reached for his chest.

Dean roared and slammed into its side, knocking it off balance. The wendigo shrieked, twisted midair, and lashed out with a backhanded strike that sent Dean sprawling into the underbrush.

Castiel rolled, grabbed a rock, and threw it hard. It hit the creature in the side of the head, not enough to hurt it, but enough to get its attention.

He scrambled to his feet, searching for the torch, just as Dean recovered and unleashed another burst of flame. It caught the edge of the wendigo’s arm, blackening the twisted skin. The thing screeched, half-lunging toward him again, then pivoted straight at Castiel.

Castiel didn’t run. He ducked low, feinted left, and grabbed the torch from where it had landed in the dirt. He clicked the igniter—once, twice, and the flame burst to life.

He turned just in time to drive it upward into the creature’s chest as it reached for him.

It shrieked, high and inhuman, and staggered back, smoke pouring from the wound. Dean moved in behind it, raised the flamethrower, and fired a concentrated blast.

The thing howled, caught between fire and fury, and collapsed in on itself in a mess of charred limbs and ash.

It didn’t move again.

The silence afterward was unbearable. 

Castiel stood over the remains, heart pounding, lungs burning. He turned to find Dean already scanning the area, weapon still raised, jaw tight.

“No others,” Dean said finally. “I think this was it.”

Castiel nodded. “I think so too.”

They found the remains a few yards away: scattered bones, shredded fabric, things no one wanted to look at too long. No survivors. No hope of even pretending otherwise.

They stood over the clearing in silence, the only sound the crackle of smoldering brush.

Eventually, Dean turned. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

They didn’t speak as they made their way back through the woods. The sun had shifted. The air was warming again. Somewhere far off, a bird called.

Castiel’s arm throbbed where he’d hit the ground. Dean walked with a slight limp. Nothing critical. But enough to slow their pace. Enough to remind them how close it had been.

When they reached the main trail, Dean finally broke the silence.

“So,” he said, voice dry. “I’m not saying you were useful or anything, but… I might’ve been a little fucked without you.”

Castiel glanced at him. “I’ll take that as a thank-you.”

Dean huffed. “Don’t get used to it.”

But there was something in his face, a wry, grudging flicker of respect, that hadn’t been there before.

Castiel didn’t smile but it settled in his chest like warmth.

The trail looked different on the way back, less mysterious, less alive. The silence that had felt ominous now just felt tired. They walked side by side, a comfortable distance between them, neither speaking much. The burn marks still smoked in the clearing behind them.

The wendigo was dead.

But Castiel’s questions weren’t.

Dean adjusted the strap of his pack, grimacing slightly as he walked. “You’re full of surprises, Steve.”

Castiel didn’t respond. Just kept walking.

After a few minutes, Castiel broke the quiet. “I’m surprised you didn’t bring backup.”

Dean snorted, but didn’t look over. “Don’t usually need it.”

The answer was casual, but Castiel could hear the edges of it. Defensive. Maybe a little hollow.

Dean glanced sideways. “You didn’t bring anyone either.”

Castiel nodded. “No.”

Dean was quiet for a beat. Then, “So… you think that was the thing that got your friend?”

Castiel slowed. He turned his head just enough to study Dean’s profile: his jaw, the way his brow furrowed slightly, like the question wasn’t just small talk.

“No,” Castiel said finally. “I don’t think it was.”

He looked at him a second longer, trying to read something behind his expression. There was nothing there. Nothing to suggest guilt or recognition.

But something inside him settled anyway.

He didn’t think Dean was the hunter who killed his mother.

There was no proof. No logic behind it.

But he didn’t think it was him.

He looked away. “But I don’t know. How would I ever know?” he said, quieter. “It’s not like I could ask it. And even if I could—monsters don’t tell the truth.”

Dean didn’t answer.

They walked the rest of the way in silence.

By the time they reached the trailhead, the sun had dipped lower, catching in the trees and painting everything gold. The black car was still parked exactly where it had been. So was Castiel’s car. The normalcy of it felt strange.

Dean paused by the driver’s side door, then turned. “Hey.”

Castiel stopped.

“If you ever find yourself in another situation like this,” Dean said, reaching into his jacket pocket, “and you want someone who knows what they’re doing…”

He pulled out a small notepad and pen, scribbled something, tore off the sheet.

“This is one of my cell numbers,” he said, handing it over. “You know. In case you need help.”

Castiel took the paper, eyes flicking over the numbers. “You carry multiple phones?”

Dean gave a small, tired smile. “Doesn’t everyone?”

They stood there for a moment, awkward but not uncomfortable, then Dean extended a hand.

Castiel hesitated just a second, then shook it.

His hand was warm.

They broke apart, and without another word, Dean slid into the car and shut the door. The engine growled to life. He pulled out of the lot, gravel crunching under the tires, and disappeared down the road.

Castiel stood there, staring after him.

Then he looked down at the slip of paper.

He had the hunter’s number now.

But the hunter also had this face. This car. This name, or one of them.

Which meant it was time to disappear again.

Time to change.

He exhaled slowly and climbed into the driver’s seat. The key turned, and the engine sputtered to life.

He wasn’t sure what would happen next.

Not just yet.

The road back to the motel was nearly empty, the sky streaked with the fading hues of sunset, dark blue bleeding into amber. Castiel drove without turning on the radio, the engine’s low rumble the only sound.

He kept thinking about what he’d said to Dean. About the monster who’d killed his friend. About not knowing. About how monsters lie.

But the truth was, he hadn’t been talking about wendigos.

He’d been talking about hunters.

Even if he found one who’d been there… The one who’d crossed paths with his mother, who’d followed a trail to whatever name she’d been using at the time… what then? What proof could he hope for? A confession? They could lie. Say they hadn’t done it even if they had. Or worse, say they had when they hadn’t. Say they’d burned her alive and never even known who she was.

He gripped the steering wheel tighter.

What was he chasing?

What would he even do if he caught it?

The headlights cut through the dusk. The motel sign came into view, buzzing faintly in the still air.

He pulled into the lot and parked away from the main office. His room was still the same. No one had noticed him leave. No one would notice him go.

He packed quickly.

Toiletries. Burner phone. The clothes he hadn’t worn. He zipped everything into the duffel with practiced ease and paused at the doorway, scanning the room one last time.

It already felt like someone else had stayed here.

Maybe someone had.

As he shut the door behind him, his thoughts circled back to the Wendigo. The bodies. The stink of rot. The silence of the forest.

That thing had been a monster.

There was no question.

But then… what did that make him?

He’d helped kill it. He and Dean had burned it alive.

Was that justice?

He thought of the families. The ones who would never know what had happened to the people they’d lost. Just like him. Just like the way he’d never know what really happened to his mother. He couldn’t bring himself to believe it had been Dean, but what difference did it make? Someone had done it. Someone who looked human. Someone who told themselves they were doing the right thing.

Monsters lied.

But maybe monsters didn’t always look like monsters.

And maybe that included him.

He tossed the bag into the backseat of his car and climbed behind the wheel.

He wouldn’t be staying the night. He needed to get back to a city. Somewhere with traffic. Anonymous crowds. New cars with doors left unlocked and faces he could blend into.

Dean knew his face now.

Knew his car.

He’d have to change both.

Again.

The engine started with a low growl. He backed out of the lot, headlights sweeping over the cracked motel sign.

He didn’t know where he was going.

But for the first time in months, he wasn’t sure if chasing the truth would ever lead him anywhere at all.

And he didn’t know what scared him more, that he might never find the hunter who killed his mother or that he might, and still never know for sure.

Chapter Text

Chicago wasn’t part of the plan.

But Castiel wasn’t sure what the plan was anymore, so he picked a city large enough to disappear into and drove east until the skyline scraped the edge of the sky.

The car wasn’t his, of course. Two towns back he swapped into a silver Civic with a cracked bumper and a toddler’s sock shoved under the passenger seat. He’d changed the plates in a gas station parking lot just after dusk. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do for a while.

He spent the first day walking.

Downtown buzzed with energy—tourists, street performers, businessmen with gleaming watches, families gathered around public art installations like they were shrines. Castiel moved through them like water. Forgettable.

He picked pockets when the timing was right. Tapped cards. Lifted a wallet from a distracted man watching his child pose with the Bean. Took a money clip from a woman fumbling with a camera strap.

Tourists.

That was his justification.

If they could afford to travel, they could afford to lose a few hundred dollars, at least temporarily. Until they canceled the card, disputed the charges, or made a phone call and got it all reversed.

At least that’s what he told himself.

By the end of the second day, he’d hit three neighborhoods, skimmed a couple grand in petty theft, and cashed out what he could. Most cards would last a week or two. Some longer. He didn't splurge. He didn’t really know how.

He visited Navy Pier. Walked through Millennium Park. Bought a soft pretzel and watched the boats drift through the river locks.

The city was loud. Busy. Alive in a way that scraped at his nerves and dulled them at the same time. It was easy to blend in. Easier still to feel numb.

He didn’t think about Dean.

Except, of course, he did.

He thought about the flamethrower. The way Dean had moved in the woods. The moment he’d offered his number with the casual weight of someone who knew what it meant to be alone in this kind of life.

Castiel hadn’t called. Didn’t plan to.

But he also hadn’t thrown the number away.

On the third morning, he checked the tracker from his laptop. Louisville, Kentucky.

A man had fallen down an elevator shaft. That was the official story.

But the hotel was old. Newly renovated. Staff was tight-lipped, and the article mentioned something about maintenance issues and sudden “unexpected delays in reopening select guest floors”.

The kind of language people used when something wasn’t quite right.

Castiel stared at the screen.

Then he shut the laptop.

Time to move.

He had cash. Cards. A new car. A face no one would recognize. Not even Dean.

He didn’t know exactly what he was chasing anymore—justice, revenge, closure, connection—but he knew one thing: Dean was hunting something again and Castiel wasn’t ready to let him out of his sight.

Castiel didn’t leave Chicago until dusk.

He’d checked out of the motel under one name and changed his face in the mirror under another. By the time the sun dipped low and the streets flushed gold, the man he’d been in Chicago was gone and in his place was an older woman.

Late sixties. White. Hair curled at the ends, a light dusting of powder at the temples, tasteful lines etched into the corners of the eyes and mouth. Wealthy, well-preserved, with just enough sternness in her posture to be above suspicion.

It wasn’t the first time he’d worn age.

Older people, especially rich older women, were invisible in the ways that mattered. They were allowed to be quiet. Eccentric. Alone.

He stole the car just before the city limits. A champagne-colored Lexus, ten years old but spotless. Leather seats. Analog dashboard. No onboard GPS, no tracking interface. Someone had loved this car, had kept it waxed, filled the ashtray with mints.

He adjusted the seat, slipped on sunglasses, and drove south.

It took hours to reach Kentucky. He passed the time with public radio and silence, letting the road lull him into that drifting space between thought and non-thought.

He told himself he was just keeping an eye on Dean. That it was smart. Strategic.

But something about the decision to book a room in the same hotel, the exact same hotel where the elevator death had happened, felt more personal than that.

He could’ve stayed nearby. Could’ve surveilled from a distance.

Instead, he checked in under the name Glenna Holbrook. Gave a sweet smile to the woman at the front desk and said something about how he'd read about the renovation in Southern Living and wanted to see it for himself. He even asked about brunch options.

No one blinked.

The lobby was all polished brass and refurbished oak, retrofitted charm made palatable to people with credit. Castiel walked the halls like he belonged. Smiled at bellhops. Rolled his modest-but-chic suitcase behind him with slow, even steps.

His room was on the sixth floor. Not the floor where the death had occurred, but close enough.

He unpacked slowly. Placed a silk scarf over the lamp to soften the light. Changed shoes. Uncapped a pill bottle he’d lifted from someone’s bag in Chicago and poured out Tic Tacs instead. Theater.

Then he sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the phone number still folded in his wallet.

Dean.

It was starting to feel like a mistake, this fixation.

If he wanted to find the hunter who killed his mother, following a man like Dean, someone who kept to himself, who didn’t run with others, was probably a waste of time. Everything Castiel had been taught about hunters said they traveled in packs. Shared information. Left trails.

But Dean didn’t seem to do that.

He showed up. Solved things. Disappeared.

Castiel told himself he was still doing this to get closer to the truth.

That if Dean ever met with another hunter, he’d be ready.

That this was still about his mother.

But it wasn’t.

Not really.

Because even now, sitting in this overpriced room in a face that wasn’t his, Castiel wasn’t looking at the doors. Wasn’t scoping for signs of other hunters.

He was thinking about the sound of Dean’s voice in the woods. The way he’d said I might’ve been a little fucked without you. He hadn’t known how to respond to that. He still didn’t.

So he settled in for the night. Watched the hallway from the peephole. Waited for Dean to show up.

He told himself it was strategy. Not obsession.

**

In the morning, Castiel dressed with care.

The blouse was pressed, the slacks creased just right. A touch of lipstick, tasteful earrings, a pair of modest heels that made just enough sound on the tile to signal money. He made her into someone real. Someone no one would question.

Downstairs, the brunch buffet was already bustling. There was chatter over mimosas, the clink of cutlery, and the smell of coffee and bacon. Castiel filled a plate with fresh fruit and French toast, ordered a mimosa, then a second, and settled into a small table near the windows.

He didn’t rush. He people-watched. Wealth radiated off these guests in subtle gradients: monogrammed luggage, casual jewelry that could pay a mortgage, toddlers dressed like catalog models. Tourists and retirees, moneyed families on curated getaways. Castiel blended easily among them.

Around 11:30, he saw him. Dean.

The suit hit first. It was charcoal gray, off the rack, maybe a size too big. The tie wasn’t quite knotted right. The shoes were scuffed. He looked like a kid who’d raided his father’s closet and felt uncomfortable.

But he wore it anyway, shoulders squared, stride practiced. His expression was serious, calm, professional.

And then he flashed the badge.

Castiel almost choked on his mimosa.

Dean was playing fed.

He kept his laughter to himself, tucked into the polite smile of a woman who’d had just enough to drink at brunch to find the world amusing. But the absurdity of it tickled something deep in his chest. A man like Dean, young as he was, claiming to be FBI? Maybe in some backwater town they’d buy it without looking too close. But here, in this polished hotel with security cameras and concierge service?

And yet… the staff didn’t question him. Not really.

They glanced at the badge, nodded, leaned in to listen.

Castiel tilted his head, curious.

Dean asked questions the way a hunter would—subtle, but just off enough that Castiel could hear the pattern.

Had anyone noticed strange smells? Unusual temperature changes? Cold spots in the halls?

Any guests reporting hallucinations? Or hearing voices when no one was there?

Had anyone seen someone in old-fashioned clothing?

Classic haunting indicators. Not too obvious, not too obscure. Just enough to sound concerned without tipping his hand.

He was working and he was good at it.

Castiel sipped his drink and watched. Kept his posture relaxed, her face neutral.

He thought again about what Dean had said, all those nights ago in the bar.

We’re all just pretending to be the people we wish we were.

And here Dean was, still pretending.

Still trying. A suit too big. A name that wasn’t his. A badge that wouldn’t pass federal scrutiny. But he was doing the job and no one had stopped him.

Castiel didn’t move from his table. Just watched Dean cross the lobby, asking his strange, polite questions with the easy charm of someone who’d learned how to lie early.

And despite himself, Castiel felt something tug, faint and persistent. Maybe it was understanding.

Dean was mid-conversation with the concierge, badge tucked away now and his posture easy but alert, when he looked up.

Right at Castiel.

Their eyes met across the lobby, and Castiel froze. For a single breathless moment, he was sure, certain, that Dean saw him . That somehow, despite the new skin, the altered gait, the soft curls and coral lipstick and sensible jewelry, Dean had recognized him.

But Dean only frowned slightly, curious, and made his way over.

Of course he hadn’t recognized him. Castiel didn’t look anything like the man from the woods. That man had been young. Lean. Tense behind the eyes. This body was older. Softer. The smile lines were real. The posture, regal.

Still, something in him jumped as Dean approached.

Dean stopped beside the table, pulled out his badge with a practiced flick. “Sorry to bother you, ma’am. I’m with the FBI. Would you mind if I asked you a couple questions?”

Castiel smiled warmly. “Do sit down, young man. I will not have you lording over me.”

He patted the bench beside him. The invitation was gentle, but firm.

Dean blinked. Then, after a second, he sat, somewhat stiffly.

Castiel leaned in slightly, her voice a bit lower now. “Honestly. Standing over people like that. I don’t care what they teach you in Quantico—it’s rude.”

Dean gave a quiet, bewildered laugh. “Yes, ma’am.”

He cleared his throat and pulled out a small notepad. “Just checking in with guests to see if they’ve experienced anything unusual during their stay. Cold spots, power flickers, strange sounds, visual disturbances…”

“Excuse me,” Castiel interrupted smoothly, tilting her head. “Would you mind terribly if I fixed your tie?”

Dean faltered. “My… tie?”

“Yes, dear. It’s crooked.” She reached forward delicately. “I was always so good at fixing my late husband’s ties. Let me do yours.”

Dean blinked again but nodded slowly. “Uh. Okay.”

Castiel’s fingers moved with practiced ease. He undid the knot gently, smoothing the fabric, looping and pulling with quiet competence. Dean sat motionless, unsure what else to do.

“There,” Castiel said, giving the finished knot a little pat against Dean’s chest. “Now you look much more like an FBI agent.”

Dean stared at her.

Castiel smiled sweetly.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, ears pink. “Appreciate it.”

He glanced down at his notepad, apparently needing the visual prompt. “So… yeah. Cold spots? Any flickering lights or strange smells? People in old-fashioned clothing?”

Castiel sipped her mimosa and made a show of thinking. “No, I haven’t noticed anything like that. What exactly are all these questions for?”

Dean hesitated for just a breath. “Oh. Just… covering my bases.”

“Mmhmm.” Castiel didn’t press. Just let the weight of the observation sit.

Dean flipped his notebook closed. “Well, thank you for your time, ma’am.”

“Where’s your partner?” Castiel asked lightly. “I didn’t think they sent you boys out alone.”

Dean stood, stiff again. “No partner. I guess they didn’t think the job warranted backup.”

Castiel, Glenna, clicked her tongue. “That’s a darn shame.”

Dean gave her a nod, polite but moving to leave.

Castiel reached out and caught his wrist gently.

Dean stopped, blinking.

“Do you have a wife?” Castiel asked. “A girlfriend?”

Dean looked briefly stunned. “No.”

“You’re quite a handsome young man. Why not?”

Dean’s mouth twitched like he wasn’t sure whether to smile or excuse himself. “I work a lot. Kind of hard to keep a relationship.”

Castiel hummed. “That’s a shame. One shouldn’t be alone all the time.”

Dean nodded, a little awkwardly. “Thanks for your time, I guess.”

And then he was gone, moving across the lobby again, in his too-big suit and borrowed authority.

Castiel watched him go, hands folded around his mimosa glass.

***

Castiel made a promise to himself that morning: no more interference.

Dean could handle this one alone. He didn’t need help, and more importantly, he didn’t need to start recognizing patterns, especially not ones that connected a young man in a Michigan forest with an older woman sipping mimosas in a Kentucky hotel.

Castiel wasn’t here to disrupt. He was just watching.

So he took his meals downstairs. Brunch, lunch, tea. He requested corner tables with views of the lobby and kept his posture poised, his smile gentle, his manner warm and slightly old-fashioned. He chatted politely with servers, complimented the floral arrangements, occasionally asked if the pianist knew any Beethoven.

And Dean came and went.

Not frequently enough to draw attention, but regularly enough to track. Always in that ill-fitting suit, sometimes with the jacket slung over his shoulder. Sometimes more dressed down in dark jeans and a flannel with a duffel slung across one shoulder like he was just another guy passing through. But he was always looking. Always reading the space.

Castiel tried not to stare.

He kept his eyes lowered over crossword puzzles or curled around the handle of a teacup. But sometimes, just sometimes, he’d glance up and catch Dean looking at him.

It always made his stomach dip.

Dean never held the gaze long, just flicked his eyes away, like a man cataloguing the room, doing his job. Like he wasn’t suspicious exactly… but not dismissive, either.

Castiel wasn’t sure which was worse.

So when he caught Dean looking, he leaned into the role. Gave him a wide, cheery smile and waggled her fingers in a little wave.

Every time, Dean gave a single, polite nod.

Expression unreadable.

And every time, Castiel turned back to his tea or her crossword, heart tapping a little faster beneath layers of silk and powder and practiced calm.

He didn’t know if Dean’s glances were driven by instinct or by habit, if something in him still pinged Castiel as wrong or if he was just naturally observant. A good hunter, after all, saw everything. And Castiel had spent his entire life trying not to be seen.

But this wasn’t about being a monster. It was about being a person. And all Glenna Holbrook was, on paper, in posture and in presence, was a slightly eccentric old woman who liked fresh fruit, overpriced tea, and watching the world go by.

Nothing to fear.

Nothing to question.

He kept reminding himself of that.

Even when Dean looked at him a little too long.

***

It had been two full days since Castiel had last seen Dean inside the hotel.

He told himself that was a good thing. That it meant Dean was out doing the kind of deep research that came with ghost cases. Looking at old records, burial plots, census data, and tangled bloodlines. 

Still, the Impala remained in the lot. Same space. Same angle. No sign of fresh dirt on the tires.

So Dean was still here.

Castiel just didn’t know what he was doing.

As Glenna, he couldn’t exactly wander the parking lot without drawing attention. So he found a workaround and took up the habit she didn’t really have.

Smoking.

He told himself it was part of the character. Something for Glenna to do. Something that would explain her occasional solitary escapes to the edge of the lot, out past the dumpsters and utility access path where hotel staff rarely passed.

Sometimes, he just stood and looked at the car.

This time, he was watching the last light fade across the chrome when he heard a voice behind him.

“You seem a little posh to be someone who smokes.”

Castiel startled. Turned too fast. Felt it in his hip, even grabbed it and winced.

Dean stood a few paces back, duffel slung over one shoulder, a garment bag in the other. His expression was casual but curious.

Caught.

Castiel quickly stubbed the cigarette out on the curb and waved the smoke away with a flutter of his fingers. “Yes, yes, I know. It’s a dreadful habit. My late husband hated it. I’ve tried not to smoke, I really have. But occasionally—” he shrugged, a bit sheepish, “—even old women like me have our vices.”

Dean smiled faintly, and for once, it wasn’t guarded.

Castiel’s eyes flicked to the bags. “I suppose you’re heading out then?” he asked. “Does this mean you’ve finished your case? Did you catch the bad guy?”

Dean looked down, adjusted the strap on his shoulder. “I think I’m done here. I don’t think there’s anything left for me to do.”

Castiel nodded slowly. “Well, I guess that means we’re lucky to have such nice young men like you out in the world protecting us.”

Dean huffed softly. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“Who else would protect us from the monsters,” Castiel said gently, “except for people like you?”

At that, Dean looked up.

His eyes were a little too still. A little too direct. And for a second, Castiel wondered if he’d said too much, if the words had hit something they weren’t meant to.

Dean didn’t answer right away. Just stared at her—at him.

“I guess so,” he said finally but he didn’t turn to leave.

And Castiel wasn’t sure why.

The silence stretched, gentle and waiting. Not awkward, but full.

“So,” Castiel said after a moment, breaking it with a warm, brittle smile, “where are they shipping you off to next?”

Dean shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to figure that out.”

Castiel nodded and reached out, patting Dean’s shoulder once, lightly.

“Stay safe.”

Dean met his eyes again, and this time something behind his tired expression softened.

“Yeah,” he said. “You too.”

Then he turned, walked to the car, and slid behind the wheel.

Castiel stood there as the engine turned over.

He didn’t wave this time.

And Dean didn’t look back.

Chapter Text

The motel room was too cold. The heater rattled in its cage beneath the window, blowing tepid gusts that did nothing to warm the space. Castiel sat on the edge of the bed, knees spread, fingers still poised over the trackpad. The screen cast a dull blue glow across his face, blinking every few seconds.

The tracker signal was still holding but barely. There were two battery bars left, maybe less if it started pinging frequently. 

Dean was in Belleville, Illinois.

Castiel had told himself, after the hotel in Kentucky, that he’d pull the tracker. That the next time the man stopped for more than a night or two, he’d get it out and move on. Dean hadn’t met up with any other hunters. He hadn’t even made calls as far as Castiel could tell. Just one solitary case, then another.

Following him made no tactical sense.

The goal had been simple: find the hunter who killed his mother. Find one hunter and use them to track back to others. Castiel had waited six months for one, just one , and now he was clinging to this single thread like it meant something. Like Dean would suddenly unravel a network of names.

Castiel watched the cursor blink on the screen a moment longer, then opened a new tab. He searched “Belleville, Illinois” and most of the headlines were about the winning streak the high school football team had been on. Some of the articles mentioned how the team they’d been playing had suffered a setback due to unforeseen accidents.

Castiel found newspaper stories from nearby towns about their football players getting injured in unrelated ways: falling down stairs, locker collapses, or sudden illness. It was always the star players and always the night before the game.

Statistically, it could be a coincidence.

Castiel reviewed the articles and timelines then opened another tab and started looking at enrollment policies.

If Dean was investigating, that meant the case had merit. Just one more hunt, then he’d move on.

He told himself that twice. Just one more.

***

Castiel found his locker with minimal effort. The number was written on a sticker at the bottom of a folded schedule, which had been handed to him by the vice principal with all the enthusiasm of a man doing community service. The hallway was loud, shouts, laughter, the shriek of sneakers on linoleum, but nothing dangerous. Just teenagers being loud because no one had ever taught them to be afraid.

His hands moved, spinning the dial of the combination he'd memorized at a glance. The locker clicked open.

Two days ago, he'd taken the shape of a tired woman with a mild perm and the kind of voice that suggested she’d been "just about to call" for weeks. He’d named her Diane, dressed her in soft floral layers and a wide purse packed with forged documents. The school receptionist hadn’t even blinked when Diane explained that her poor nephew, Silas, had been bounced between relatives after the death of his parents and just needed a little stability to finish out the year.

Tears had helped. Just a few. Castiel could summon them at will. The woman had patted Diane’s hand. “We’ll take care of him.”

Now here he was. Silas. Seventeen on paper, eighteen by the look of him. Dark hair razored at the edges, piercings that hadn’t been there yesterday, a faded black hoodie that smelled faintly of someone who didn’t do laundry on purpose. He’d gone with the punk loner look. Someone deliberately antisocial. Not enough to be flagged, just enough to be ignored. People gave kids like him space. Teachers didn’t expect much. It was the perfect disguise.

He shoved the schedule in his bag and leaned against the locker, watching the tide of students churn around him.

He was supposed to be scanning for patterns, tracking conversations, picking up names, and finding out which players had been injured and who might be next. But instead, he found himself just… observing.

There was a girl near the water fountain crying into her phone. Two boys shoving each other near the stairwell, laughing hard enough to draw a halfhearted warning from a teacher. A cluster of kids huddled by the trophy case, whispering fast and excited about someone named Tasha who had apparently cheated on someone else named Mike.

It was all so loud. So desperate.

So small.

They had no idea what the world was really like.

To smell blood on your clothes. No one had ever had to move in the dead of night, change their name, their face, their very skin.

Castiel watched them laugh and cry like it mattered. Like it would always matter.

He didn’t know whether to envy them or pity them.

His mother had taught him how to read using signs on the highway, menus, the instructions on a first-aid kit. She taught him math through rationing canned food. Science came through the study of bodies they shed. She taught him how to lie. How to steal. How to vanish.

And he’d loved her for it.

But he’d never been here. He never had a locker. Never sat at a desk beside someone who passed notes and worried about prom. Never got detention for skipping class. Never got a crush on a teacher. 

It wasn’t grief, exactly, that swelled in his chest as the bell rang. Just… awareness. A kind of sadness that a version of him, in another life, might’ve liked it here. Might’ve had friends. Might’ve been someone.

He filed into his first class, English. He slid into a desk in the back row and slouched like he didn’t care. The teacher gave him a book and a syllabus with the robotic cheer of someone six years past burnout. The room smelled like pencil shavings and floor cleaner. The desk beside him was empty.

As the teacher droned on about The Great Gatsby, Castiel traced the edges of the laminated desktop with one fingertip and wondered if maybe, to someone else, his own mission might seem just as small. Just as stupid.

Who killed my mother. Who was there. Who pulled the trigger.

He’d let those rule his life.

But sitting here, in a room full of children who thought a D-minus was the end of the world, he couldn’t help but feel the weight of it differently.

He told himself he was just going through the motions, that he didn’t care. But he caught himself wondering what his name would’ve been, if he’d gone to school like this. If he’d had one face.

He stared down at the book on his desk, already doodled on by some previous owner.

Maybe he could be that boy for a few days. Just until the hunt was over. But for now, he reached for a pencil, and under the name “Silas West” scrawled on the class roster, he added a single word in the margin of his notes.

Pretend.

***

By third period, Castiel had already memorized the floor plan of the school, the names of most of the faculty, and the approximate schedule of every bell between first and last. The curriculum was insultingly simple, he could’ve passed these classes when he was ten, but that wasn’t why he was here.

At lunch, he took a seat at the edge of the cafeteria, tray untouched in front of him. The food smelled like processed cheese and lukewarm grease, and he had no intention of eating it. His hoodie was pulled low, earbuds in but silent, just enough to give him the appearance of disinterest.

That’s when he heard it.

“I’m telling you, it’s a curse,” a girl said, her voice lilting with mock drama.

“No,” her friend groaned, rolling her eyes. “It’s not a curse. It’s just a coincidence.”

“Yeah? Tell that to that kid from Tri-County who broke his ankle last week. Or the quarterback from Wilmore who got food poisoning the night before the game. I saw the pictures. Dude was green.”

They laughed, but there was a current beneath it, the nervous energy, the thrill of maybe, what if ?

Castiel kept his posture relaxed, eyes on his tray, but his attention sharpened.

“Didn’t the coach say it was, like, divine intervention?” the first girl asked.

“Oh my God , he did,” the second said. “Something about fate favoring the home team? He’s such a weirdo.”

Castiel waited another beat, then casually pulled out one earbud and turned toward them, blinking like he was only half-listening.

“What’s this about a curse?” he asked, voice flat.

Both girls looked at him, startled. 

“You’re new, right?” the first one asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Silas.”

They exchanged a look, that particular teenage glance that said they’d already invented a dozen stories about him.

“It’s just a dumb rumor,” the second girl said quickly, brushing her hair behind her ear. “People are saying that every time we go up against a good team, something bad happens to their best players.”

Castiel tilted his head slightly. “Bad how?”

She shrugged. “Injuries. Sickness. One guy had a seizure, I think. That was a couple months ago.”

“Right before the game,” the first girl added, eyes widening. “He was totally fine, and then—bam. Out of nowhere.”

“Nothing provable,” her friend said again. “Just… weird.”

“But it’s always the best player,” the first girl insisted. “It’s like, targeted.”

They laughed again, but it was thinner this time.

Castiel nodded like he was only half-interested, then leaned back in his seat.

“Creepy,” he muttered, then popped the other earbud in and turned his gaze back toward the wall.

The girls kept whispering. He didn’t listen.

He didn’t need to.

There was a pattern here. And if Dean was already sniffing around, it meant the curse, or whatever this was, had crossed the line from gossip into threat.

Castiel stared at the pale yellow cinder block wall and let the noise of the cafeteria fade around him. One more hunt.

He’d just stay long enough to figure it out.

Then he’d decide what to do about the tracker.

Then he’d decide whether to leave.

***

Gym was last period, and the fluorescent lights in the gymnasium buzzed like hornets. The air hung thick with the scent of teenage boy. Castiel stood at the edge of the basketball court, arms crossed, sleeves shoved up to the elbows of his black hoodie. He hadn’t changed into the mandatory gym uniform, no one had forced him, and he wasn’t inclined to volunteer.

“Let’s go , ladies,” the coach barked, voice reverberating off the walls like a starting pistol. “Five laps, then we break into drills.”

Coach Rutherford was built like an aging linebacker: thick neck, buzzed scalp, a whistle perpetually clenched between his teeth like he’d chew it if provoked. His polo shirt was tucked too tightly into his shorts, and his tone carried the casual cruelty of someone who never outgrew high school but still ruled its remains with an iron whistle.

As the other boys started jogging, Castiel walked deliberately slowly. Enough to be marked as a problem, but not enough to get kicked out.

Coach Rutherford blew the whistle again. “That includes you, newbie. I didn’t say to stroll five laps.”

Castiel didn’t answer. Just kept walking.

Behind him, a soft wheeze caught his attention. A shorter kid, maybe fifteen, already flushed and struggling to keep pace. Pale, with glasses sliding down his nose and a gym shirt that bunched awkwardly around his middle.

Coach Rutherford stalked down the court, barking at the slower runners. “Jesus Christ, Bennett, you planning to finish this lap before graduation?”

Castiel muttered under his breath, “Someone’s on a powertrip.”

It was loud enough that the kid with the glasses, Bennett, snorted so hard he nearly tripped over his own feet. He caught himself, straightened, and glanced sideways at Castiel like he wasn’t sure if he was about to get in trouble or get a friend.

Their eyes met.

Then Bennett grinned, not big, just a quick, crooked kind that meant ‘I heard you, and you’re not wrong.’

As they slowed together near the wall, Bennett leaned in and whispered, “He was a student here, you know. Coach. Big deal.”

Castiel raised an eyebrow.

“State championship game,” Bennett continued. “They were gonna win. Best season in school history. But the night before the big game? He breaks his arm. Doesn’t play. Team loses. He never got over it.”

Castiel glanced across the gym. Coach Rutherford was yelling at another kid now, gesturing wildly like someone had insulted his mother. Castiel didn’t doubt a word of it.

“He’s been trying to get a team back there ever since,” Bennett added. “Whole town talks about it. Something happened to his friend the same night. Like it’s some tragic folk tale or something.”

Castiel hummed low in his throat. “Explains his need to make everyone else feel like shit.”

“Dude,” Bennett said, still grinning, “you have no idea.”

The whistle shrieked again, and Bennett groaned. “Kill me now.”

Castiel smirked, just barely. “You’d miss the thrill of state-mandated humiliation.”

“Oh, totally,” Bennett deadpanned. “Living the dream.”

They fell into step together, jogging half-heartedly.

And for a moment, Castiel let the rhythm of it wash over him. The ache in his knees. The thud of sneakers on wood. The way Bennett’s breath caught unevenly beside him.

Just a couple of kids, killing time in gym class.

Chapter Text

Castiel walked the long stretch from the school to the motel with his hood up and his hands shoved deep into his pockets. The sky had that flat Midwestern grayness to it, featureless and still, like the day hadn’t decided whether it would rain or not.

The sidewalks were mostly empty. Just a few teenagers peeling off toward side streets or idling at gas stations. No one paid him any attention. Perfect.

He reached the motel, his motel, not the one Dean had checked into, and let himself into the room without flipping on the lights. The glow from the laptop was enough.

He opened the tracking program. Dean was staying across town, just past the strip mall and the shuttered movie theater. There was something oddly reassuring about the signal. A flicker on a screen that said: still here, still real.

He told himself he was only monitoring it so he’d know when Dean moved on. So he’d know when to pull the tracker and let go.

Maybe after this hunt.

Maybe.

***

The next morning, school passed in a blur. First period dragged, something about electromagnetic fields, but Castiel barely heard it. He sat in the back, half-listening to the whispers drifting through the hallway outside.

“Did you see him?”

“Oh my God, right? He’s like... actually hot.”

“I swear he looks like that guy from that old movie—what’s it called? With the car?”

Castiel blinked, disinterested, until he caught the name.

“Mr. Page.”

He froze, just for a second. Then he grabbed his bag and headed toward his next class.

Math.

Castiel slipped into his seat, already bracing for disappointment. He expected someone forgettable, Dean trying on yet another borrowed skin. He imagined a half-assed performance: vague instructions, leaning on the textbook, maybe pretending to know what he was doing just long enough to poke around.

But then the door opened, and it was him.

Dean.

Dressed in slacks and a wrinkled white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. Hair still messy. Jaw shadowed in stubble. He looked, Castiel thought distantly, exactly wrong for this place.

But he smiled, easy, teacher-warm, and strode to the front like he belonged.

“Morning, everyone,” Dean said. “I’m Mr. Page. I’ll be subbing for Mrs. Peterson while she’s out this week.”

He picked up a marker and scrawled the name across the whiteboard in careful, bold print.

Mr. Page.

Castiel stared.

“Today we’re diving into a little review on factoring polynomials,” Dean continued, voice steady, “and if that just gave you hives, don’t worry, we’re gonna take it slow.”

He wasn’t bluffing.

He wasn’t faking.

Dean walked through the problem set like someone who actually understood it. Explained terms. Wrote out examples. Called on students without hesitation and helped them through wrong answers without condescension. He even told a joke, a bad one, something about X breaking up with Y because it couldn’t solve their problems, and a few kids actually laughed.

Castiel sat motionless, pencil poised but unmoving in his grip.

This wasn’t what he expected.

Dean was a hunter. Castiel had seen him take on a wendigo and come up swinging. The man lived in motels, carried more weapons than clothes, and had whiskey in his blood.

And yet here he was. Teaching math. Well.

Castiel didn’t understand it. Didn’t want to.

He stared down at his notebook and wrote nothing.

When the bell rang, students scattered. Castiel gathered his things quickly, but Dean caught him at the door.

“Hey—hold up a sec,” Dean said, flipping through a clipboard. “You’re the new kid, right? Silas?”

Castiel nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

Dean offered him a thin textbook. “I think the office forgot to give you one. Here, make sure you’ve got Chapter Six for tomorrow.”

Castiel took it, slipping it into his backpack. “Thanks.”

Dean’s gaze lingered for a beat. Then he squinted slightly. “Vonnegut, huh?”

Castiel blinked. “What?”

Dean nodded toward the open flap of his bag, where Cat’s Cradle was barely visible beside the math book. “Good choice. I’m a Slaughterhouse-Five guy myself, but Vonnegut’s Vonnegut.”

Castiel looked up fast, eyes narrowing.

Dean just smiled and shrugged like it was nothing.

“I didn’t peg you for a reader,” Castiel said before he could stop himself.

Dean raised an eyebrow, but didn’t answer. Just said, “See you tomorrow, Silas,” and turned back to his desk.

Castiel paused in the doorway a second longer, then walked out into the hallway, the book heavy in his bag.

After the last bell, Castiel lingered.

He waited until most of the students had filtered out of the locker rooms and onto the buses before doubling back through the athletics wing. The halls were quieter now, filled only with the clatter of janitor carts and the distant squeak of sneakers from basketball practice.

Coach Rutherford’s office sat at the far end of the hallway, tucked behind a door marked Staff . Castiel checked both directions then pulled the lockpick kit from his pocket.

He shouldn’t have known how to do this. Normal kids didn’t carry picks, but his mother had taught him young: some doors don’t open unless you make them.

The lock clicked open with a soft metallic snick. He slipped inside.

The office was cramped and dimly lit, the only window half-covered by a broken blind. The space reeked of stale coffee and locker room funk, but nothing sharper. Nothing wrong . No traces of rot. No coppery tang of blood. No herbaceous undertone of spellwork.

If there was magic here, it wasn’t witchcraft. He was certain of that.

Still, he moved carefully. He opened drawers. Checked for books, charms, anything out of place.

Nothing.

The desk was cluttered with paperwork, game schedules, a worn whistle on a lanyard. An old photograph was framed at the corner of the desk, two boys in football gear, arms slung around each other’s shoulders. Both were grinning, sweat-streaked and sunburned. One was clearly Coach Rutherford. The other wore a jersey with the number 7. Quarterback, maybe.

Castiel studied it. Number 32, that was Rutherford. The other boy, leaner and dark-haired, looked familiar but he couldn’t place why.

He made a note of the numbers and turned back to the room. Nothing else stood out. The jersey mounted on the wall was faded, glass-framed, with a brass plaque beneath it that simply read In Memoriam – 1992.

Castiel had assumed it was the coach’s.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

He slipped back out of the office and let the door fall shut behind him, the lock clicking back into place. If anyone asked, he’d say he’d come for a gym uniform and found the door unlocked.

But no one stopped him.

He walked through the halls until he arrived at the school library. He wasn’t sure if it would still be open past the end of the school day, but there were a few students here and there. Some looked like they were involved in tutoring and another group looked like a gathering for some kind of a club.

He asked the librarian where the yearbooks were. She pointed with one hand and never looked up.

He found the stack easily enough. Cracked spines. Gold-embossed covers. He pulled 1992 down and carried it to a table near the back.

It didn’t take long.

There, in a team photo spread across two pages, were the numbers, 32 and 7. Rutherford and…

“Eli Monroe,” Castiel murmured.

The caption listed him as team captain. Quarterback. Senior.

Deceased.

The text beneath his senior portrait confirmed it. He was killed in a car crash the night before the state football championship. 

Castiel stared down at the photo. Monroe had that kind of face you could put on a billboard. All-American. Handsome. The kind of boy towns built myths around. And then mourned forever when they broke.

It wasn’t the coach, Castiel realized. Or at least, not just the coach.

Maybe it had never been about Rutherford’s career.

Maybe it was about his friend’s legacy.

The framed jersey in the coach’s office hadn’t been Rutherford’s number. It had been Monroe’s .

Castiel ran a thumb over the grainy yearbook page, thinking.

Something had been tied to Monroe… his death, or his memory, or his jersey. The question now was whether Rutherford knew. Whether he was feeding it on purpose, or whether he was just haunted in the oldest, most dangerous way.

By love. By guilt. By something he couldn’t let go of.

***

The next day Castiel got to school early.

The parking lot was mostly empty, save for a few early-arriving teachers. He skirted the edge of the lot, past the loading dock and around the dumpsters, settling into the farthest corner where the cameras didn’t reach and the air still smelled faintly of old fryer grease from the cafeteria vents.

He lit a cigarette and leaned back against the brick wall, one foot braced against it, keeping his eyes on the entrance to the staff lot.

The tracker had maybe a day left in it, two if he was lucky. He still hadn’t decided whether to pull it or replace the battery. That meant finding out where Dean was parking. How early he got here. 

Castiel dragged smoke into his lungs and exhaled slowly, watching it curl into the pale morning air.

Dean’s car rolled in five minutes later.

Black. Gleaming even under a gray sky. The rumble of it reached Castiel before the car itself came into view, low and throaty, like something alive.

Dean pulled into one of the back spaces, well away from the other staff vehicles. He cut the engine, grabbed a worn canvas bag from the passenger seat, and stepped out.

Then he looked up.

Their eyes met.

Castiel dropped the cigarette and crushed it under his boot like it hadn’t mattered.

Dean slung the bag over his shoulder and strolled toward him, squinting a little against the wind. His jacket flapped slightly with each step, collar turned up against the chill.

“I’m not gonna turn you in,” he said, voice low and even. “But you know how bad that shit is for you, right?”

Castiel shrugged. “Everyone has their vices.”

Dean stopped a few feet away. His head tilted slightly, like the words had caught him off guard.

Then he gave a short huff of breath. “Yeah. That we do.”

Castiel studied him. “What, like you’ve never done anything you shouldn’t have?”

Dean’s gaze flicked away. He licked his lips. “Plenty,” he said. “Just… be smart, alright? If a real teacher catches you—”

“You’re not a real teacher?”

Dean smirked. “Let’s just say the paperwork’s temporary.”

Castiel raised an eyebrow. “Duly noted.”

Dean tipped his chin back toward the building. “If you’re gonna light up, at least do it off school grounds. I don’t want to have to write you up. Some of the other teachers are sticklers.”

Castiel gave him a half-nod. “Thanks. I guess.”

He glanced at the man’s car, sitting sleek and proud in its space like it belonged to a different decade. “Nice car.”

Dean’s posture shifted, shoulders relaxing like someone had just complimented his kid.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “That’s my baby.”

“What kind is it?”

Dean grinned. “’67 Chevy Impala. Used to be my dad’s, but I’ve driven her since I was a teenager.”

Castiel cocked his head. “Must be expensive to keep it in that condition.”

Dean looked almost pleased to be asked. “Not really. I do the work myself. Learned everything I know from my dad and my uncle. Bobby owns a garage back home. They taught me right.”

Castiel watched the way his face changed when he talked about the car, unmasked and genuine. Like this was the real Dean, or at least the closest version Castiel had seen.

“So it’s not just that you like old cars,” Castiel said softly. “It’s that one.”

Dean’s smile faded to something quieter. “I mean, yeah, I like old cars. They’ve got weight. They last. But yeah… this one’s different.”

Castiel nodded once. “Cool.”

He pushed off the wall and slung his bag higher on his shoulder. “I’m gonna head in. See you later, Mr. Page.”

Dean gave him a mock salute. “Don’t be late. I’m giving a thrilling lecture on quadratic inequalities.”

Castiel didn’t smile, but something like it tugged at the edge of his mouth as he turned away.

The halls were still mostly empty when Castiel stepped inside.

His boots echoed dully against the linoleum, and he kept his hands shoved in his pockets, his shoulders hunched against the stale morning chill still clinging to the walls. The fluorescent lights flickered once overhead, settling into a steady hum.

He hadn’t expected the morning to go like that. Hadn’t expected him to be like that.

Dean.

Mr. Page.

Castiel wasn’t sure which one he was meeting anymore.

He moved through the corridor slowly, letting the crowd thicken around him as the first bell crept closer. Other students trickled in, laughing, yawning, complaining about homework, but their voices felt far away.

He kept thinking about what Dean had said in the bar, days ago now: We’re all just pretending to be the people we wish we were.

Those words had lodged themselves in Castiel’s chest like a splinter. 

But now, watching Dean step into these different lives, different roles… he wondered if that was the whole truth. Maybe Dean wasn’t just pretending. Maybe he really was all of them. The hunter. The substitute teacher. The guy who knew how to factor polynomials and quote Vonnegut and take care of a classic car in the same breath.

Maybe these weren’t masks. Maybe they were fragments.

Puzzle pieces.

Castiel had always thought fragmentation was a shifter’s curse. That only his kind slipped from shape to shape, never solid, never whole. His mother used to say that humans were steady. Singular. Easy to understand because they only had one face.

But Dean… Dean wasn’t steady. Dean didn’t have one face.

And the more Castiel watched him, the more he wanted to know what held those pieces together.

He didn’t think of people as puzzles. Not usually. Most humans were background noise. Shadows moving through a life he didn’t share. He observed them, sure. Understood them well enough to blend in. To pass. But they rarely pulled focus.

Dean was different.

Not just because of what he was doing here, because he was here , now, pretending to be someone else again, but because it didn’t feel like a lie. It felt like some quiet truth Castiel didn’t understand.

And he wanted to. That realization settled heavy in his chest as he reached his locker.

He wasn’t used to wanting to understand people but he wanted to understand Dean. Not to manipulate him. Not even for the hunt. Just… to understand.

That was new.

He opened his locker and stared blankly at the books inside, his mind still stuck on the smell of motor oil and cigarettes, the shape of a half-smile when Dean talked about his car, the way he’d said I’m not gonna turn you in like it meant more than just a cigarette behind the dumpsters.

Castiel shook his head.

This wasn’t the point. He was here for the case. For answers. For the thing tethering this town to pain.

But his gaze drifted toward the end of the hall, toward the classroom where Mr. Page was probably scribbling equations on the board, or drinking bad coffee, or sitting at his desk and pretending not to notice the whispers of teenage girls who thought he was handsome.

Castiel didn’t go that way.

Not yet.

But the pull was there.

And it was growing.

Castiel found Bennett leaning against the lockers near the science wing, fiddling with the lock like it might open through sheer willpower. His hoodie sleeves were pulled halfway down his palms, and his hair was sticking up at odd angles; he looked like he’d had one too many late nights and not enough breakfast.

“Hey,” Castiel said, quietly.

Bennett startled slightly, then relaxed when he saw who it was. “Oh. Hey, man.”

Castiel glanced down the hall, making sure no one was close enough to hear. “I need a favor.”

Bennett blinked. “Okay…”

“It’s nothing weird,” Castiel added. “Just… do you think you could pass a message to Mr. Page?”

Bennett raised an eyebrow, clearly intrigued. “Sure? You guys friends now or something?”

“No,” Castiel said flatly. “I just think he should know something. And I don’t want to be the one to tell him.”

Bennett frowned a little, but nodded. “Alright. What’s the message?”

Castiel hesitated, then said, low and deliberate, “Tell him: ‘The jersey in the coach’s office isn’t Rutherford’s. Look up Eli Monroe.’”

Bennett blinked. “Uh. Okay. Is this, like, a prank?”

“No.”

“Is he gonna know what it means?”

“He’ll figure it out.”

Bennett stared at him another second, then shrugged. “Alright. I mean, I’ll tell him. You owe me one.”

“Sure.”

Castiel started to turn away, then paused. “Thanks.”

Bennett gave him a lopsided smile. “This place is boring as hell. I’ll take weird.”

Castiel skipped third period.

He waited until the bell rang and the halls emptied, then slipped out the side door near the science wing and cut across the back lot. The wind had picked up, tugging at the corners of his hoodie, carrying the bite of late fall.

Dean’s car was parked in the same spot.

He moved fast, hands already working the lock pick from muscle memory. The door gave with a muted click. He slid inside, careful not to leave prints, and reached under the driver’s seat.

The tracker was right where he’d left it—wedged under the carpeting beneath the seat, pressed between metal and rug. It had held longer than it should’ve, but the battery indicator had gone from yellow to red the night before.

He popped the back open, swapped the batteries, and closed it. He tucked it back into place and smoothed the carpet down, fingers brushing over the seam once, twice, until it looked untouched. If Dean ever went digging, it might be found. Hunters were careful, but Castiel had gotten good at hiding things.

He slipped out of the car and pulled the door shut with just enough force to seal it without sound.

It didn’t make sense.

Dean wasn’t leading him to any other hunters. He wasn’t a threat. Hell, Castiel was starting to wonder if he even had anyone left. He was working alone, taking substitute jobs, chasing ghosts in small towns like someone with no place to be.

And yet…

Castiel shoved his hands into his pockets and started the walk back toward the building, already rehearsing the excuse he’d give his teacher.

Dean was fragmented. Just like him.

Not physically. Dean didn’t change his shape. But the roles, hunter, teacher, mechanic, smart-ass bar philosopher, they didn’t line up. Not cleanly. They clashed in ways that felt familiar.

Castiel had spent his entire life slipping into new faces. Adapting. Becoming. He’d always thought it was different for humans. That they had a true self underneath all the layers.

Dean made him question that.

And maybe… maybe if he understood Dean, he could start to understand himself.

It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t strategic.

But it felt true.

Chapter Text

The next day, the whispers started before first bell.

Did you hear?

The fire alarms went off last night.

Coach is losing his mind.

Apparently, there’d been a fire in Coach Rutherford’s office. The damage was minor but a jersey on the wall had been reduced to ashes. Rumor had it the security cameras had glitched and there was no footage. Another kid said the hard drives had been fried.

Rutherford had stormed through the halls that morning like a man possessed, threatening to suspend anyone who’d even been in the gym wing. Castiel didn’t react, he just finished his oatmeal in the cafeteria and waited for the crowd to thin.

He found Bennett by his locker between classes, head down, rifling for a book.

“Hey,” Castiel said.

Bennett glanced up. “Yo.”

“I just wanted to say thanks. For passing along that message.”

Bennett gave him a long look. “Yeah. About that.”

Castiel waited.

“He, Mr. Page, he asked me about it,” Bennett said. “I didn’t tell him it was you. I figured you had your reasons.”

“I do.”

Bennett shifted his weight. “Was it connected to the fire?”

Castiel hesitated. “You don’t need to worry about it.”

Bennett crossed his arms. “Too late. I am worrying about it. So maybe just tell me so I can stop thinking you’re some kind of arsonist.”

Castiel sighed. “You’re not going to believe me.”

“Try me.”

Castiel glanced down the hallway. No one was close. He lowered his voice. “It was the curse. The jersey was tied to it, Coach’s old teammate. The one who died. Destroying the jersey broke the curse, hopefully.”

Bennett stared at him. “...Seriously?”

Castiel nodded.

“Why didn’t you get rid of it?”

“I’m not supposed to know anything,” Castiel said simply. “I’m keeping a low profile. I had to pass the info along in a way that didn’t trace back to me.”

Bennett considered that for a second. Then shrugged. “Okay. Weird, but… okay.”

“You believe me?”

“No,” Bennett said. “But I don’t not believe you either. I mean, this is Belleville. Stranger things have happened.”

Castiel huffed a quiet laugh. “Thanks. For not asking more.”

Bennett grinned. “Whatever, man. I’m not exactly Mr. Popular. Who am I gonna tell?”

***

Castiel sat in the back row again. He hadn’t expected Dean to still be here now that the hunt was over. The jersey was gone and the curse or the ghost, was dealt with. There was no reason for Dean to linger.

And yet, there he was. Mr. Page. Substituting one more day.

Castiel told himself it made sense… Dean was probably just waiting to see if the game went smoothly. Just hanging around to see if any more “accidents” occurred. He was just tying up loose ends. That’s what hunters did.

Still, when Dean walked into the classroom that morning, Castiel felt something hitch behind his ribs.

He watched as Dean took attendance, as he scrawled the day’s assignment on the whiteboard, as he moved through the review problems with his usual easy rhythm. 

But something about him was different. Dean’s eyes moved more. He scanned the room as he talked, gaze lingering a beat too long on some students… It was like he was cataloging or evaluating them.

He was looking for someone.

Looking for whoever told Bennett.

Castiel stared down at his notebook, forcing his body to stay relaxed, to keep the mask in place. He didn’t flinch when Dean’s gaze swept past him. He didn’t shift in his seat.

But inside, something was burning slow and bright. He told himself he didn’t want to be noticed. That he needed to stay invisible.

Attention from a hunter is what got my mother killed.

He’d grown up on that belief. It was carved into the bones of his survival.

And yet… He wanted it anyway.

He wanted Dean to look at him like he saw him. Like he recognized something beneath the surface.

It didn’t make sense.

But it was real.

***

After school, Castiel lingered in his hotel room, tracking Dean’s car on his laptop. The Impala hadn’t moved; it was still parked at the motel across town.

He waited.

An hour passed. Then another.

Finally, just before sunset, the tracker pinged.

Castiel watched the dot move east.

Not toward the football field but toward the bars.

He stared at the screen for a long moment then he closed the laptop.

***

He didn’t usually take this type of form. It brought on too much attention, too many eyes.

But tonight, Castiel shaped himself into someone people watched.

Blonde. Hazel eyes. Red lips. A soft leather jacket over a slinky black top and jeans that fit like they were made for this version of him. The form was young, early twenties maybe. She was pretty enough to turn heads. 

He checked himself once in the mirror, adjusted the tilt of his smile, and left the motel room.

The bar he chose was small and noisy, tucked between a gas station and a laundromat. The kind of place that didn’t check ID too hard. They didn’t care who you were as long as you tipped and didn’t puke on the floor.

Castiel walked in and scanned the room. No Dean.

He took a seat at the far end of the bar, ordered a whiskey sour and let the noise of the room settle around him.

If Dean didn’t show, he’d try another.

There were only three decent bars in town. He’d find him eventually.

But even as he sipped the drink, even as men glanced his way and the jukebox crooned something low and slow, he knew the truth: He hadn’t come here to find another lead. He hadn’t come to protect his cover. He’d come to be seen.

By him.

The bar was louder now. The music had picked up, something twangy and over-produced spilling out of the jukebox. Castiel nursed his drink slowly.

He was debating whether to finish the glass or move on when the stool beside him scraped across the floor.

“Evenin’, sweetheart,” a voice drawled, low and thick with the weight of too many beers and too many years. “You here all by your lonesome?”

Castiel didn’t answer right away. He kept his eyes on the rim of his glass.

The man didn’t take the hint. “Wouldn’t want a pretty thing like you drinkin’ alone. Not safe in a place like this.”

Castiel glanced over. The man was in his fifties at least. He had ruddy skin, a gut pressing against his flannel, and a smile just wide enough to show the gap in his molars. His breath reeked of cigarettes and stale beer.

Castiel smiled thinly. “I’m fine, thank you.”

“Aw, come on now. You don’t gotta be shy.”

“I’m not shy,” Castiel said, turning back to his drink. “I’m just not interested.”

The man’s laugh was low and lazy. “What’s the harm in a little company?”

Castiel sighed, slow and even. “Please. Leave me alone.” The words came sharp now.

But the man only leaned in closer, bracing an elbow on the bar. “You don’t gotta play hard to get, sweetheart. I know your type. You come in here lookin’ like that, wearin’ that smile, sippin’ whiskey like it’s water—you’re here for a good time.”

Castiel stood, pushing his stool back. “I said no.”

Before he could move, the man’s hand caught his arm. The grip wasn’t painful but it was firm and possessive. “I just wanna talk—”

“Do not touch me,” he said and his voice wasn’t panicked. It was dangerous in the way a locked door is just before it opens and you don’t know what is on the other side.

The man’s smile wavered. “Hey now, no need to be a bitch about it—”

“I believe the lady said to leave her alone.” The voice cut through the noise like a blade.

Castiel froze and so did the man.

Dean stood a few feet away, his shoulders square, and his expression unreadable except for the heat in his eyes. He wasn’t holding a weapon but he didn’t need to. His voice carried weight all on its own.

The man let go, scoffing as he stepped back. “Jesus. It was just a joke.”

“Then here’s the punchline,” Dean said coldly. “Get lost.”

The man muttered something under his breath and slunk toward the other side of the bar.

Dean turned to Castiel and his expression softened, but only slightly. “You alright?”

Castiel hesitated then nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

Dean looked him over once, like he was checking for bruises that hadn’t formed. He gestured toward the stool. “Mind if I sit?”

Castiel blinked. “Go ahead.”

Dean slid onto the stool beside him and flagged the bartender with two fingers. “Next round’s on me.”

Dean settled on the stool beside him, nodding his thanks as the bartender slid a whiskey his way. He didn’t say anything at first. Just took a sip, eyes on the bar, like he wasn’t sure how close to stand to whatever line had just been drawn.

Castiel glanced sideways at him.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. “But I could have handled that.”

Dean smiled, not smug, just knowing. “Yeah, I don’t doubt it. But me stepping in ends the situation a lot faster.”

Castiel hummed his agreement. “True.”

He took a slow sip from his glass then added, “I hate being a woman.”

Dean let out a soft laugh. “Yeah. I don’t envy women. Having to deal with assholes like that? Guys who think the world owes them a smile just because they bought you a drink.”

Castiel nodded. “Somehow, it’s always happening. Too many men think they’re entitled to your time, your attention... your body.”

Dean tilted his glass in a silent toast. “You’re not wrong.”

“It’s not just the old ones, either,” Castiel said. His voice was calm, but beneath it was something colder. “It could be anyone. You can’t tell by looking. Some are polite. Charming. Say all the right things. But you don’t know if they’re good until it’s too late.”

Dean went still beside him. His smile faded, replaced by something more thoughtful.

“I know most men are good,” Castiel continued. “I do. But it’s hard to tell which ones are the good ones. Especially when the most vile among them are so good at pretending to be kind.”

He turned his head slowly, eyes finding Dean’s.

Dean looked back at him, unflinching.

Castiel studied him in silence.

The man who taught math and knew Vonnegut. The man who chased ghosts and saved strangers. The man who could fix a classic car and end a confrontation with a single look.

Which version is the truth? Is there a truth?

Or was he just another man hiding something behind a practiced smile?

Castiel didn’t know but he wanted to. He watched Dean’s face, looking for the crack, the sliver of something darker beneath the surface.

Dean raised an eyebrow. “What?”

Castiel shook his head. “Nothing.” He took another sip of his drink and kept watching.

They sat in silence for a few moments, the noise of the bar humming distantly around them. Laughter rose from a nearby table. A cue ball cracked. Someone fed the jukebox another dollar.

Castiel turned back toward Dean, studying the amber light reflected in his drink.

“So,” he said softly, “are you one of the good ones?”

Dean glanced at him.

“Or are you a monster?”

Dean choked.

He sputtered mid-sip, coughing once, then twice, and had to grab a napkin from the bar to wipe his mouth. He looked over at Castiel, eyes wide with surprise and just the hint of amusement.

“Well,” he said, voice still scratchy, “that’s a hell of a question.”

Castiel said nothing. Just watched him.

Dean let out a quiet laugh. “I’m not a good man.” The words came easily. 

Castiel tilted his head. “But you stepped in.”

“Yeah,” Dean said. “Doesn’t make me good. Just means I hate assholes.”

He glanced away, then back again, face more serious.

“What about you?” he asked. “Are you a good person?”

There was a beat. “Or a monster?”

Castiel looked down at his glass. Turned it in his hands like the answer might be carved into the curve of the glass. He sighed through his nose then looked up. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

Dean didn’t respond right away. He just watched Castiel for a moment longer, the line between suspicion and interest blurring behind his eyes. Finally, he nodded, like he understood.

They drifted into easier conversation after that. Not easy exactly—Castiel didn’t do small talk well, not even when he wore a body designed for it—but there was something about Dean’s voice that smoothed the edges. Or maybe it was the whiskey.

“What brings you out tonight?” Dean asked, resting his elbow on the bar.

Castiel shrugged. “Nothing important. Just wanted to get out. Clear my head.”

Dean nodded like he got it. “Rough week?”

“You could say that.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “Work? Family?”

Castiel smiled thinly. “Something like that.”

Dean took a sip of his drink. “Were you… waiting for someone?”

Castiel shook his head. “No. Just passing time.”

“Did I interrupt?”

Castiel glanced over at him. “Would it matter if you had?”

Dean’s smile crooked a little. “Maybe. But I’m glad I did.”

Castiel huffed softly. “That’s bold.”

Dean shrugged. “Comes with the job.”

“What job is that?”

Dean paused just a second too long, then he said, “Teacher.”

Castiel didn’t call him on it. Another silence passed, it wasn’t uncomfortable, just heavy with something unspoken.

Dean cleared his throat and said, “Look, I’m not trying to be an asshole—and I hope this doesn’t come off wrong—but you’ve got really pretty blue eyes.”

Castiel froze.

Blue?

His heart lurched up into his throat. He didn’t look at Dean. He didn’t even move.

Instead, his gaze flicked toward the mirror behind the bar to his own reflection and there it was.

His eyes weren’t hazel anymore.

They were blue.

Not the shade he’d chosen for tonight, but his own blue. His real eyes. The ones he hadn’t meant to show.

When did they change? How long had they been that way?

Had Dean seen it happen?

Was this some subtle test? Did he know ?

Castiel’s fingers curled tightly around his glass.

He forced his voice level. “Thank you for the drink,” he said, forcing himself to remain calm. “But I think I need to head home.”

Dean blinked. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” Castiel stood quickly. “It was nice meeting you.”

He turned on his heel and walked out quickly. He probably looked suspicious as hell, but he couldn’t help himself. 

The night air hit like a slap, cold and sudden. Castiel’s boots scraped against the parking lot as he moved toward the street.

He saw. He must have seen. Why else would he say that?

He kept walking, pace just under a run.

Does he know what I am? Does he know I’ve been following him? Is he coming after me now?

He risked a glance over his shoulder.

Nothing. Dean wasn’t following him

His heart was hammering.

The body he wore felt wrong now. His skin felt tight and wrong. He needed to shift. He needed to disappear but not yet, not in the open.

He kept walking, heart pounding and mind racing.

Dean had looked him in the eye and for a second, Castiel hadn’t been anyone else at all.

Just himself.