Map of the World: August 15

Here comes the most specialest boy ever

—Day 12—

The radio makes a lot more sense when he assumes that they’re lying through their teeth. The tension in the news briefs is a lot easier to hear, too. He guesses that’s probably the natural result of someone with a military rank wearing a gun standing a couple of feet away making sure they’re following the right script.

There’s no way to tell how many cities were destroyed before Houston, unreported within infected zones that the public has been happy to ignore if that was the price of their own safety. They’ll probably keep thinking that until they see the planes in their own skies, and from what Dean can tell, that’s not just a vague possibility; it’s gonna happen and probably soon.

While it’s impossible to be sure about the current locations of all infected zones, the East-coast heavy reporting gives him a hazy idea that a lot of the Midwest may be terra ignore it these days. The previous Dean Winchester in residence didn’t leave much of a paper trail, with the occasional brief note from informants tucked between pages of books Dean recognizes from his and Sam’s or Bobby’s collections, masses of undifferentiated papers and a notebook holding up one leg of the table he has yet to feel inspired enough to check out. A skim of his journal, however, confirms that most of his attention was on the supernatural threat in the general and Lucifer in particular, which sure, that makes sense. Except for the fact that while he was chasing Lucifer for the great battle that wasn’t, the world was falling apart piece by piece and from what he can tell, on the rare occasions this Dean paid enough attention to notice, he really didn’t seem to care.

Cas’s collection of patrol reports covering a single week already outnumbers everything that the other Dean collected in his entire tenure in Chitaqua. Taking a stack with him back to this Dean’s cabin, he spends most of the day reading through them, starting with the earliest, which by date (Cas has patrol date them, Jesus) was five days after he arrived.

Despite the sheer repetition and unholy minutia that the truly anal among them (Phil) seemed to think was worthy of documentation, it’s interesting reading. From them, and using the journal as a reference point, he gets not only the current patrol routes, but a hazy idea of what the patrols were trained to look for and how it must have worked under this Dean. Even more interesting, though, is seeing the changes Cas made to standard operating procedure, especially requiring written reports when his memory is probably just as creepily perfect as it was before and this could all be done in oral form.

On a guess, Dean thinks Cas isn’t just doing this to keep the patrol distracted from wondering what the hell is going on (though great idea, he’ll give Cas that one). The fact he’s not making any attempt to lower the word count is pretty telling, and he’s got an idea why. An angel’s used to a shitload more information at their fingertips—or gracetips, whatever—and Cas is restricted to his human body in all its limitations. Even if he could tell them what to look for, he probably couldn’t afford to take the risk that would make them miss something he didn’t expect and needed to know, or worse, didn’t know how to explain. As a very roundabout way of training an entire militia to be very thorough spies, it’s not the worst way to go about it.

In the piles of uninspiring narratives, however, Vera and a member of the group checking the perimeter of Kansas City, Joseph, break the curve by combining brevity with thoroughness. Dean concentrates on theirs, marking cryptic one line references to other missions, the history of the occasional skirmishes at the borders stuffed into only a few words, and when he puts those together with the little he’s picked up around the camp, he thinks he gets the other reason Cas is taking a minimal approach to instruction. The lack of supernatural activity—all of it—is worrying him, and not just because it might mean that Lucifer is preparing to march on earth with his full army of whatever will fight for him. Reading between the lines—and especially the pages that have been folded back numerous times, ink slightly blurred from fingers that aren’t Dean’s or the writer’s—Cas is beginning to wonder if it’s because of Lucifer at all.

It’s a chilling thought. Like maybe Lucifer’s not taking advantage of his victory because there’s something else out there that’s keeping him safely in Hell and out of its way.

All the more reason to be there for the evening patrol report, Dean thinks philosophically. He really doesn’t want to miss this.

---

An hour before dusk, the night patrol straggles toward Cas’s cabin trying to look enthusiastic and ready for duty when they’re already resigned to a night of being bored out of their minds followed by writing an essay about it. Thinking about it, that might explain the creative license being taken to the most recent reports that are starting to resemble the beginnings of a mediocre survivalist novel.

Dean’s flawless timing assures he arrives in time to ignore Cas’s alarmed look and settle himself in the kitchen to watch how Cas, formerly of the Lord (and most recently of the Junkies), exercises his people skills.

It’s just as amazing and weird as he expected.

Cas’s entire strategy seems to entail everyone else talking as much as possible while looking interested—or trying, anyway—and answering questions if they occur—which is not often. That Cas doesn’t know what he’s doing isn’t nearly as obvious as it should be, which Dean puts up to the fact that anyone who looks that utterly serious can generally get away with almost anything.

It’s the same group from yesterday, which reminds him to find out what kind of schedule Chitaqua has for patrol, but makes it a lot easier to put names to faces and get a decent idea of the kind of people Cas is dealing with.

Vera takes up valuable wall space to give Cas the best performance of respectful attention he’s ever seen, but he gets the impression it’s also genuine; of all four members of this patrol group, she’s the only one who seems to have some idea that something else is driving Cas, even if she’s doesn’t know what or why.

Phil—short, brown-haired, and terrifyingly focused on every move Cas makes—begins a soliloquy not unlike his reports: long, boring, and way too interested in what his team members should be doing in an unsettling amount of detail (fifty-six potholes, recited in order of size and severity; seriously?).

The tall blonde behind Phil, Amanda—or at least, she turned around when Vera said that name when they came in—doesn’t say anything, but like Vera, she’s weaponized listening, and despite the fact she’s ungodly hot, Cas noticeably avoids looking in her direction, which isn’t easy considering she towers over Phil. Dean can’t prove it on two days of observation, but he doesn’t think it’s an accident that she keeps a wall at her back and a line of retreat to the door at all times.

The fourth member, a tall guy with stringy black hair who’s natural position seems to be a disconsolate slump, hangs back with the sulkiest expression Dean’s seen since Sam, age eight and denied permission to go to the State Fair because they were moving on the next day. By process of elimination using last night’s reports, Dean figures this must be Sidney, who’s only claim to fame so far is that when he’s not staring resentfully at the floor, he’s doing it to Cas, who ignores it so completely that Sidney looks about two seconds from doing something incredibly stupid.

Someone, Dean thinks, isn’t happy with the current situation, and that someone is wearing a miniature armory and looks like he knows how to use it. Despite himself, he moves to hover in the kitchen doorway, watching Sidney until he finally gets back to making the floor the object of his discontent. Sure, Cas is a dick, but Sidney gets no points for acting like doing his goddamn job is a waste of his time, and looking like that at anyone who’s technically on his side isn’t cool by any stretch of the imagination.

Vera, who seems to be this night’s patrol leader, is the last to report, succinct in summarizing the events of the night before, much to Cas’s almost-visible relief. Before he can relax, however, she straightens from her slouch against the wall. “Cas?”

Cas’s eyes flicker to her with a hint of uneasiness. “Yes?”

“Chuck’s wanted me to ask you about the supply sitch,” she says, cocking her head. From Cas’s expression, that isn’t the question he expected. “We’re about three weeks from this being a problem, and he’s pretty worried about the—”

“Tell him to explore the myriad uses of leaves,” Castiel snaps before closing his eyes in a visible effort to stop himself and completely missing Vera’s here-and-gone smirk, Amanda finding the far wall really interesting, and Phil’s glare—Sidney, no surprise, doesn’t react at all. “I’ll speak to him. Is there anything else?”

Vera shrugs, straightening the rifle at her back unnecessarily. “That’s it.”

“Then we’re done today. Please report anything unusual immediately.” At Phil’s hesitation, an unexpected note of command creeps into his voice, the kind he used to use when talking about anything from the Lord’s work to the bitter reality of the limits inherent in cell phone plans. “I expect your reports in twenty four hours.”

Dean waits long enough for the patrol to vanish out the door and out of sight, Vera in the rear, before he abandons the kitchen, ignoring Cas’s steady stare of accusation to drop on the couch and pick up the latest reports.

“It’s not like they even knew I was there.”

“I don’t know what you found so amusing,” he answers flatly, which makes Dean grin at him before flipping to Vera’s latest report for a sneak peak of future events. They’re getting more acidic every time, and remembering that conversation he overheard, he’s getting the impression that every one of these is a continuation of that argument. He just wishes he knew what exactly she had in mind that she was willing to risk the border guards, who was important enough to contact about Dean’s disappearance.

“You wouldn’t.”

Joe’s team isn’t due until tomorrow morning from their check around Kansas City with strict instructions to not enter for any reason, so he’s saving Vera’s for last, since it’s gonna be the only interesting reading and motivate him to get through the rest. Phil’s is beginning to have some worrisome asides about the moon and its allure and beauty, which is weird since he has yet to see a break in the constantly overcast sky. Dean’s not sure where that’s going, but it’s definitely going somewhere.

“If it wouldn’t be too difficult for you, try to avoid requiring the sigils to compensate for your lack of control,” Cas answers tersely. “Not to mention hysterical laughter is annoying.”

“What do they do again?” Dean asks curiously. “You said I’m not invisible or anything—”

“You’re not, technically speaking.” Cas looks around the room with an irritated frown, as if searching for something. “When someone sees you, they are—convinced, I suppose—that nothing is there. Humans,” he adds, falling into the voice of angelic superiority specifically to irritate Dean, “are trained from childhood to trust their perceptions. The dichotomy is enough to make them avoid the source of that mental dissonance, and they forget it.”

“Who are you going to believe, magic or your own eyes?” Dean says with a smirk. “Nice.”

“It’s not as effective,” Cas says slowly, and kind of like maybe he’s talking between his teeth, “if it must combat two of their senses at once.”

“So sex is probably out of the question,” he answers flippantly before he thinks better of it, and right, he had to go there, didn’t he?

Cas’s head snaps up. “Personally, I would enjoy the novelty.” There’s a genuine note of bitterness somewhere in there, though, and Dean has just enough time to wonder where the hell that came from before he adds, “Your disappointment in my activities is, as always, crushing.”

Whoa, didn’t see that coming. “You gotta know that you aren’t doing anything I haven’t—that he probably hadn’t done,” Dean answers a little desperately, wondering in existential horror what the fuck he’d become. Bed hopping with an entire connection speech is a-okay, but getting it on with a dozen people is, like, wrong? Cas raises a mocking eyebrow, and Dean grudgingly adds, “Or seriously thought about.”

Cas’s expression doesn’t change, and Dean wonders if this is the middle of an entirely different conversation, and for that matter, not with the current Dean Winchester.

“I apologize,” Cas says abruptly, looking away. “I haven’t been sleeping well. Or at all, really.”

Disarmed, he swallows. “I get being around me is—” he forces himself to keep going, “—a problem for you, but if me being here every night is fucking with you like this, I can stay at Dean’s cabin.”

Even saying it makes him faintly nauseous. It’s bad enough to be there during the day, but most of the time, he can distract himself from the fact he’s more or less a ghost in his own dead self’s cabin. At night…

“No.” Cas doesn’t glance at the sigils on the doorway, but Dean remembers what he said that night, habitation rules are ridiculous. He still has no idea what that means exactly and a glance through Cas’s books haven’t given him much to work with. Establishing domicile he gets, but why it has to be here, specifically, he doesn’t. “In any case, whether or not we’re in the same place has no effect on the fact you’re a problem.”

Dean doesn’t wince; it’s all he’s got, but he’ll take it.

“However, you can absolve yourself of any responsibility for how well I sleep,” Cas adds, looking surprised by what he’s saying. “That has nothing to do with you. I’m becoming accustomed to your presence.”

“Thanks,” Dean tells him, startled. “Glad to hear it.”

Cas seems to accept that, padding through the open bedroom door toward the bathroom, one hand rubbing absently at the back of his neck, and Dean sees a flash of dark red edged in the beginnings of purple where his collar pulls down, an outline that is not at all unlike teeth, and wonders all over again when the fuck Cas sleeps. When he comes out again, for an unguarded minute Dean can see the exhaustion underneath the brittle calm, which goes to show responsibility and hedonism just don’t mix, especially with the schedule Cas is doggedly keeping to like it’s his last hope of sanity. This may be the first documented case of sex actually adding to someone’s stress level, Dean reflects depressingly. He hadn’t even known that was possible.

“If it helps,” he offers when Cas rubs his eyes tiredly, “you’re doing the leader thing okay.”

“You’re a terrible liar.” Cas glances at him with a flickering smile that he thinks may actually be genuine. “I now appreciate Dean’s restraint during meetings when I was sober enough to provide commentary and he was fully armed.”

“If I see you start to draw on one of them, I’ll stop you,” Dean assures him. After a second of thought, he adds, “And I wasn’t lying. I don’t like you that much. You’re doing okay.”

Cas pauses. “Thank you.”

“What’s Sidney’s problem anyway?” he asks before he can think better of it. Cas looks at him blankly, but Dean doesn’t think he didn’t understand the question. “Just curious.”

“His team leader was among those who died in Kansas City,” Cas answers too casually. “It’s stressful for everyone right now—”

“Because Dean’s not here or because you’re in charge?” he asks deliberately, watching Cas’s face carefully. “Gonna go out on a limb and say it’s you.”

Cas raises his eyebrows in exaggerated surprise. “That bothers you?”

“Yeah,” he answers honestly. “I mean, above and beyond you’re the only person who even knows I’m here, it’d be shitty to show up and find someone shot you in the back for the glory and the dream of running a camp low on toilet paper.”

“They wouldn’t—”

Cas catches himself a moment too late, and Dean goes still. “‘They’?”

“It’s not important,” Cas says dismissively on his way to the kitchen. “But I appreciate your concern. That’s what you say when people tell you things you don’t care about and you want them to stop, correct?”

Dean reminds himself firmly that he’s not here to fight, though it’s starting to feel inevitable whenever they’re in the same given space “Fine, but you might think about finding something to keep everyone occupied and not considering mutiny. I get why you don’t want them in any of the cities right now…”

Holding an unmarked bottle, Cas stops in the kitchen doorway. “You do.”

It’s not a question, but Dean treats it like one anyway, since he’s kind of tired of guessing and Cas may just give him some answers.

“The military,” he answers casually “Chitaqua had a deal with them. So Dean wouldn’t be shot on sight or arrested or whatever? You worked with them.”

Crossing the room, Cas tugs a second bottle from somewhere, dropping it into Dean’s lap. Kicking the coffee table back a few feet from the couch, he sits down, giving him the entirety of his attention. “Keep going.”

“You’re worried that if anyone runs into someone from the military, they may want to talk, and patrol may ask them how the search for Dean’s going,” he says, picking up the bottle and trying not to react to that much undiluted attention focused on him all at once. “What is—”

“Beer, Joseph has a useful hobby,” Cas interrupts. “What search for Dean?”

“The one you told them the military was doing,” he answers as he twists off the lid, taking a wary drink and fighting not to moan. Joe’s got a gift. “I’m guessing that’s the reason everyone here isn’t wondering why they aren’t spending every moment searching for him themselves.”

“Dean’s standing order was not to search for him should he go missing—”

“Which I’m guessing by this time, everyone would start ignoring,” Dean finishes for him. “You needed to make sure they wouldn’t go looking anyway.”

To his surprise, Cas smiles at him, some invisible tension easing, and it hits him how alone Cas is right now. End of the world, his leader dead, hiding Dean, doing a job he doesn’t know and hates, and lying to everyone about pretty much everything because the alternative is worse. Thinking of Sidney, of Cas’s aborted ‘they’, he adds in ‘may be in danger of being killed’ and has to admit he’d be drinking like a lifestyle choice by now.

“You’re correct,” Cas says, taking a drink from his own beer before studying Dean thoughtfully. “You saw the MREs in supply? You haven’t been to the armory yet—”

“There’s an armory?” Dean asks, trying not to sound too eager and from Cas’s expression, failing badly. “Where?”

“I’ll leave you the keys in the morning,” Cas answers, smile widening, before he continues. “Soon after Kansas was quarantined and the military units arrived, Dean was able to negotiate a deal with them. We received supplies and information, and they had our help patrolling the cities and eliminating those infected with Croatoan.”

“So they’d look for him.”

“They liked him a great deal,” Cas answers, taking another drink before Dean can identify the here-and-gone flicker of something on his face. “The team leaders were the only other ones who had contact with them, but I couldn’t risk that patrol might take it on themselves to speak to the first person in a uniform they saw.”

Dean nods. “How long do you think you can keep it up?”

“When I told them that, I didn’t think we were going to survive long enough for it to become an issue,” Cas admits, looking annoyed with the continued existence of the world. “As that seems to be in perpetual delay, however…”

“And Kansas City is where you think Lucifer will start when he comes back.” Cas’s startled expression tells him he got it in one. “Lucifer would like the entire ‘ending the Apocalypse’ thing to start in the place he killed the only person who could stop it, not really a surprise.”

“Yes.” Cas’s mouth quirks. “Archangels are prone to bouts of melodrama. When his army arrives, it will be, if possible, literally on the ashes of Dean’s body.” There’s a long pause before he murmurs, in a voice Dean doesn’t recognize, “He can be surprisingly predictable.”

“So you need something for them to do,” Dean says, cocking his head. “Preferably something that keeps them busy and not fomenting rebellion when you turn your back. Which gotta say, when it comes to Sidney, don’t turn your back. Just a suggestion.”

Cas’s smile fades, but this time, he doesn’t blow it off. “Being deposed wouldn’t necessarily be unwelcome.”

“Yeah, if you survived it, but I’m guessing there’s a reason you haven’t quit yet,” Dean answers, meeting Cas’s eyes. “You said no one else would do the job, but what you meant was too many people wanted it, right?”

“With both Dean and the team leaders gone, there was no clear line of succession,” Cas answers, turning his bottle absently. “I’m not sure what would have happened if I hadn’t accepted, but it wouldn’t be an improvement, even by my standards.”

“There’s something you’re not telling me.”

Cas rolls his eyes before taking a drink. “That list is very long, Dean. I appreciate your concern—”

“But you don’t care,” Dean finishes for him, not hiding his frustration, and Cas pauses, bottle half-way to his lips. “Tell me another one. Something makes it worth getting up every morning, and it’s not the orgies.”

“They are fun.” Cas puts down the bottle, subjecting him to a searching look before saying, “You read the reports today? They aren’t particularly stimulating reading, which is possibly the only thing that is at all interesting about them.”

“Nothing’s happening,” Dean agrees reluctantly. “On a guess, the current peacetime is weird.”

“Even minus an apocalypse, I would call it unprecedented in human history,” Cas replies. “However, the explanation for this seems to be that there is nothing within a fifty mile radius of this camp that might be a danger to us.” Before he can absorb that, Cas adds, “In fact, I suspect that may also include most forms of wildlife, unless patrol is editing itself when it comes to fauna while waxing lyrical on every other conceivable subject.”

“The animals are gone?” He has to have heard that wrong.

“Or hiding extremely well, yes.”

Dean mentally reviews the reports with a sinking feeling and realizes Cas is right. Phil, at least, would have used a sighting for at least two pages of material. “How’d I miss that?”

“Generally, it’s more difficult to notice what’s absent, rather than what’s there,” Cas answers, taking another drink.

“You saw it.” Cas shrugs, not looking at him, and Dean files that away for later thought. “What about the rest of the state? If it’s just here or—”

“I thought about that,” Cas says, sounding annoyed. “But I don’t—I may not have been clear enough on this point, but I don’t actually know what I’m doing. Patrol, at least, I had experience with from observation, but this…”

“Think of it as long patrol,” Dean says encouragingly. “You said everyone here can fight?” Cas nods in surprise. “So get everyone split up into teams—you always do four people or that just patrol?”

“Yes,” Cas answers, setting the bottle aside. “That’s how they were trained.”

Interesting, and something he’s gonna follow up one day. Tipping his head back, he tries to think what they’ve got to work with realistically. Mobilize everyone not needed to keep them in working plumbing and food, split up the state, and send them out for a fast and dirty check of what’s going on. The reports will be unreal after over a week under Cas’s paper fist, but they’ll also be thorough as hell. Straightening, he looks at the kitchen table; he needs a map, like, now.

“You could…” He trails off belatedly when he realizes Cas is watching him. “Uh, not that I—uh, know how this works.” He already knows he’s gonna regret this, but he says it anyway. “I could help you figure it out, if you want.”

Cas gets to his feet and goes to the kitchen before Dean’s got the last word out, getting the stack of maps by shoving everything else to the floor and then ducking under the table briefly before returning to the living room. Dumping a second bottle in Dean’s lap, Cas kneels to spread one out on the scratched surface of the coffee table—he tries to remember if he’d always had one of those or if it’s a new for no particular reason—anchoring it with a bong (used recently, he notes in private amusement) and an empty bottle fished from under the couch. Unearthing a broken pencil, he makes a mark on the map.

“We’re here. This is the local patrol route,” drawing a circle so perfect it’s gotta be some kind of leftover angelic power. “Dean designed our patrols to protect the camp and to assist the military in containment of the major cities and on the border.”

Dean’s head jerks up. “Wait, the borders? Keeping people in?”

“Keeping Croatoan from getting out of—or into—the state once we’d successfully isolated them in the cities,” Cas answers. “Dean’s agreement with them was to handle the supernatural threat, nothing more.”

In the spirit of retaining his own sanity, he decides to believe it. “That’s it?”

“Yes.” Cas continues outlining the patrol routes, and Dean watches as Kansas City, Overland Park, Olathe, Topeka, and then Wichita get their own circles before adding the eastern border and sitting back. “With the additional requirement that any demon discovered was ours, no questions asked.” He shrugs, indifferent to demon-torture in exchange for services rendered.

“The army units assigned to the major cities quickly discovered they were fighting more than human monsters, and their training was often not sufficient to deal with it. That’s part of the reason Dean’s help was accepted.”

Dean studies at the map, the cluster of circles in the east with a single exception for Wichita in the south, eyes travelling over the uncircled vastness west of Topeka. If the military was having problems handling the reality of every fairy tale they ever heard, the civilians couldn’t be doing much better, but then it hits him: infected state. Croatoan spreads fast, he thinks numbly; quarantined to avoid the spread of infection, the people who lived here had been acceptable casualties. After this long…

“That’s everything I remember.” Blinking, he takes the pencil Cas offers him, wondering what he’s supposed to do with it when Cas glances expectantly at the map and then at him again. “What do you have in mind?”

Dean stares at Cas blankly. “What?”

“Currently there are sixty-five members of Chitaqua still alive,” Cas says, apparently interpreting that as a request for more information about their resources. “Eight are needed for local patrol, eight for watch, and Chuck should be excluded from consideration as he handles our supplies, of course—”

“Wait, Chuck can fight?”

Cas raises an eyebrow. “Yes.”

Until this moment, Dean entertained the vague hope that he was actually in a shitty dream after too much Jack or something, but that’s blown out of the water. Apocalypse, sure, random fucking time travel, fine, but Chuck able to pick up a gun—and know how to use it—isn’t the stuff that even his brain would be able to come up with.

“Dean taught him,” Cas adds straight-faced, but the blue eyes are suddenly animated, a glimmer of someone else lurking in their depths: not so bitter, not so jaded, not so goddamn angry that it burned out everything else. Someone Dean wouldn’t mind meeting, maybe.

“Oh.” Still clutching Cas’s pencil, he stares down at the map, trying to figure out what he’s supposed to be doing here. He’s read enough of this Dean’s journal to be painfully aware of how much he doesn’t know; it’s not just the history he’s missing, but what this Dean learned how to do. Reminding himself of what this Dean became and how it ended doesn’t change the fact that while they both began as hunters, this man became so much more than that, and was really fucking good at it.

It’s gotta be the idea of Chuck fighting or something, he thinks bitterly; there’s no fucking way he’s feeling inferior to a fatalistic dick who tortured demons and turned his own lieutenants into bait for a chance to fail at killing Lucifer. Willing bait, willing to die just because he told them to. Because they believed in him.

“How many other people do you need—minimum—in the camp to keep it running other than watch and local?” Dean asks a little desperately, and then realizes that’s actually a good question. “Mess, laundry…whatever.”

Cas hesitates. “Five?”

“I like it,” Dean says firmly. “Supplies: give ‘em those MREs. How long are you willing to let them be out of the camp?” He really wishes right now that the cell towers weren’t a casualty of isolation; they could really use some phones. Tentatively, he starts at Chitaqua, mentally dividing up the state into something vaguely possible, then starts to sketch potential routes. “Five days work for you?”

Cas hesitates, eyes following Dean’s penciled lines uncertainly. “I don’t know how much time they’ll need to be thorough. If it can be done in five days—”

“We can’t be thorough in less than a month and a shitload more people, but five days will give us an idea.” He pauses, tapping his pencil on the map when Cas doesn’t answer. “Cas?”

“How long do you need—”

“We can finish this tonight,” Dean answers, meeting Cas’s eyes. “Everyone doing overnights is back tonight, right? They can all leave tomorrow morning.” Cas nods slowly as he stares down at the map, but Dean’s pretty sure what he’s seeing right now isn’t anywhere in this room. “You mind if I stick around when you give them their orders?”

That gets his attention, startled blue eyes meeting Dean’s, wide and relieved and grateful, there and gone in an instant like a flash of lightning across a clear sky and leaving nothing but a retinal burn to prove it was there at all.

“Not at all,” Cas says, looking down at the map again, and Dean swallows, wishing desperately he didn’t see that look; he thinks he might like to get to know the guy who made it.