Map of the World: September 13

Georgia on My Mind

—Day 41—

Over the previous weeks, Castiel showed Dean almost all of their patrol routes, both present and historical, explaining what he understood of the reasons for choosing or discarding them (very little), one of the ubiquitous hand-annotated maps spread on the dashboard for Dean to consult if he has questions. Like his counterpart, it seems almost instinctive to him; he only needs to ride each once before they’re slotted away in that extraordinarily practical mind, understanding the way that Castiel never quite has how and why they were chosen.

“And Dean really never told you his reasons?”

He shakes his head, again. “Why would he? I didn’t ask.”

Dean sighs, picking up Castiel’s open notebook as he consults the journal thoughtfully. Having finished with the first one, the second notebook is already almost a quarter filled, almost entirely composed of everything that he remembers of the camp’s standard operating procedure for missions as well as patrol. It’s simple to recall the relevant events, but lack of understanding makes it a challenge to know what to relate other than a verbatim recital of all details. Dean’s getting better at asking the right questions, however, and to his own surprise, he’s getting better at knowing what Dean actually needs to know and what’s simply irrelevant detail.

“All right, last six months he had two teams on patrol while the other two were helping with the hunt for Lucifer and catching demons for fun with interrogation,” Dean says, squinting at the journal. “The rest did patrol. Question: why are there only four teams? He was using everyone, I get that, but why only four official teams?”

“Five,” he corrects him absently. “Dean also had a team.”

“You were on that one, yeah. He went out regularly?”

“Of course.” He looks up in belated understanding of this line of questioning. “No, not yet. You’re not ready.”

To his surprise, Dean lets it go with suspicious ease. “But that night,” a euphemism as strange as it is welcome, “he didn’t take his team, just his team leaders and you. Forget his team; why didn’t he take the whole damn camp? This is the big battle, end of the line, Apocalypse or bust—”

“Your point is noted.”

“Glad someone does, since he didn’t.” Closing the journal, Dean fixes his gaze out the windshield with grim dissatisfaction. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Very little Dean did made sense to me,” he offers. “You get used to it.”

“Really?” Dean makes a face, filing away the problem for future rumination, like so many of his unanswered questions. The problem is, Castiel finds himself ruminating as well. It’s strange; the differences between them are far more noticeable than the similarities, spaces that Dean pokes at with a kind of morbid fascination.

“You know,” which Castiel has come to recognize as Dean returning to an earlier subject, “Ana was a Marine. Kamal came from a line of Nepalese hunters, did time in the military there, and he was—” he starts to reach for the journal, but the skillsets of Chitaqua’s residents are familiar enough that it’s not necessary.

“Kamal speaks thirteen languages, including Chinese.”

“How many books do we have in Chinese?” Dean demands. “What the hell did anyone here do that wasn’t on one of those five teams?”

“Everyone who came here could fight,” he answers, stopping automatically at the rusting remains of a stop sign. It’s impossible for him not to do it, and it has the unexpected benefit of making Dean smirk every time. “That doesn’t mean they were all equally skilled—”

“You’re saying you didn’t get them into shape during training?” Dean interrupts in elaborately staged shock. “Where’s your professional pride?”

Castiel makes himself ignore that. “—or that they didn’t have other, more individual talents that were also needed.”

“Like speaking Chinese.”

“Kamal is a professionally trained translator as well as an interpreter in several languages, but more importantly, given a minimum amount of text in a previously unknown language, he can learn it well enough to give an accurate, if minimal, summary of the text.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “I’m convinced.” He’s not.

“Ana is a former Marine engineer whose experience in explosives translated to designing controlled demolitions in urban areas,” he continues determinedly. “Patrol was only one of the responsibilities of the camp.”

Dean lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Break it down for me again. Twenty people in a camp of sixty were on those teams and everyone else did…what?”

“Besides patrol? Automobile and generator maintenance, supply, weapon repair, mess and inventory, watch, ammunition manufacture—”

“Salt load and silver bullets, not something the military could get us, yeah.”

“—and those with the skill were sent across the borders on specific missions for Dean when he was unable to go himself. For obvious reasons, they couldn’t be integrated into the regular teams because they had other responsibilities that precluded a regular mission schedule.”

“Because patrol was only one of the duties,” he says, and encouraged, Castiel agrees. “Right. You know I can count, right?”

Castiel pauses. “What?”

“Cas, you make the patrol schedules now, and you’ve explained enough for me to do the math. There were twelve regular patrol routes, but only four team leaders and their teams. Either they didn’t sleep, they were wizards, or they didn’t actually lead patrol.”

He should have anticipated this. “Their teams—”

“Words, they mean something,” Dean continues casually. “I just realized that team leader isn’t the same as patrol leader. You said the entire leadership went to Kansas City that night, which on a guess, means that the team leaders did more than lead patrol teams, if they even actually did that.”

“They supervised all the patrol teams as well as led teams of their own,” Castiel says, ignoring Dean’s scowl. “Among their duties, they oversaw those who provided local coverage while they and their teams would handle the cities, as they were the most experienced.”

“Their duties also included running the entire camp for Dean,” Dean finishes, eyeing him mockingly. “Bingo. He went on missions, and guy can’t do it all. Though on a guess, he tried; he used them to do it.”

“More or less.” Dean raises his eyebrows. “Those assigned to various duties around the camp as well as the patrols reported to them, yes. Dean couldn’t always be here.”

“And you didn’t feel like explaining…wait.” Dean turns in his seat. “The team leaders now only worry about patrol. So who’s doing the rest?”

“Fortunately, most people know their duties, so they simply need to be told to keep doing them.”

“You’re doing them.” Dean’s eyes widen. “You’ve been doing all of it since—”

“Vera’s successful revolution, yes.”

“Holy shit,” Dean says, sitting back with a dangerously thoughtful look. “I knew that was too many people going to your cabin every day even once I got patrol down…”

Castiel just avoids running into a pothole. “You counted?”

“Yeah, of course.” Dean shrugs. “It was like a sex train wreck or something: once you see, you can’t unsee that shit. Morning orgies: don’t tell me, you were actually regretting sobriety while listening to Chuck talk about toilet paper and Penn about food.”

“You—”

“Explains why Zoe always looked cranky in the mornings when she left,” he adds thoughtfully. “Ammunition, right? You know, this—”

“I really think we should talk about something else,” he says firmly, aware of Dean’s smirk. “Anything.”

“You’re right,” Dean says unexpectedly, turning in his seat triumphantly. “You’re still doing it. Why?”

Sex was a safer topic after all. “I made Chuck take some of it, of course. He reports twice weekly.”

“And the rest of it?”

Castiel sighs. “They report to me weekly—”

“When?”

“When you’re asleep.”

“Of course they do.” Dean looks at him incredulously. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Patrol has priority,” he answers truthfully. “There’s no reason to overwhelm you at this time. It’s not a hardship. They report once a week, so it’s only an hour or so a day—”

“An hour.”

“Maybe two, I don’t really notice. Compared to having to run patrol meetings, it’s much less stressful.” Compared to patrol, unarmed combat with a troll would be far less stressful.

Dean nods dubiously, chewing his lip before saying, “If you want the team leaders to do it…”

“They don’t know how, any more than I did when I started doing it. At least I have a month’s experience pretending I understand their duties.” Carefully, he adds, “You wish to encourage more autonomy from those in the camp, correct? They know I know less than they do, and it encourages them not to ask me questions I can’t answer and honestly don’t care enough about to even try.”

“That works?”

“Surprisingly well,” he admits. “It’s simply being willing to sit relatively still while they expound about their week. They don’t even insist I pay attention, only give the appearance of it.”

“I could help…” Dean grimaces. “With my non-existent free time, yeah.”

“It would be better to wait until you are comfortable enough with patrol to have time to familiarize yourself with their duties yourself,” he says, concentrating on the extremely featureless road. What he wouldn’t do right now for some obstacles, perhaps a large pothole or convenient dragon. “Besides, it’s educational. Penn is extremely interested in the culinary arts, and apparently not many have time to listen to her expound on methods of flame broil. It’s fascinating.”

“Flame broiled spam, she came up with that one?” Dean looks impressed. “If you’re sure—”

“Before, it was more practical to have the team leaders handle those duties, but that was when our population was much larger and we had a great deal more to do. The new patrol leaders are also still very new to their duties. There’s no reason to overburden them right now.” In retrospect, he should have started with that. “Do you have any objections?”

“Yeah,” Dean answers flatly. “You shouldn’t have to do everything.”

“I don’t mind.” He doesn’t, which is still a surprise; after years of having only the vaguest idea of how the camp functioned, it’s unexpectedly fascinating to realize what that meant. “I took very thorough notes, I assure you.”

“Can I see them, at least?” Dean asks, a thread of amusement in his voice. “Just to get caught up.”

“Of course,” he agrees cautiously.

“Maybe sit in on the meetings once in a while,” Dean adds. “You know, if you’re not worried that it’ll scare me.”

He should have anticipated this. “Dean—”

“I get it,” Dean interrupts, grinning at him outright. “Thanks, by the way.”

Relaxing, he smiles back. “You’re welcome.”

Dean opens his mouth and then stops, frowning at him for a moment, then abruptly sits back in his seat far too casually. “Okay, just hear me out.”

Castiel stops the jeep in the middle of the road and puts it in park, turning in his seat to meet Dean’s startled eyes. “What?”

“We’re in the middle of the road.”

“Yes, the heavy traffic might be a problem if it existed,” Castiel agrees, crossing his arms. “Please continue.”

“Yeah, this is gonna be fun.” Dean sighs, sounding annoyed. “Look, I was thinking. I should see this live and in action, right?”

“The patrol routes?” Dean nods… “This is—not those things?”

“Not—okay, let’s get this over with.” Dean straightens, boot dragging down the dashboard as he turns to look at Castiel. “I want to go out with the patrol.”

“No.”

“That’s an order,” Dean points out. “Patrol meetings don’t tell me anything but how they act in the camp, not how they work in the field. That, I gotta be there for. Sidney and bridges, let me remind you here.”

“True,” Castiel agrees. “The next time the patrol goes out, you can go with them.”

Dean starts to answer, then looks suspicious, “When’s the next time they’re going out?”

“After they finish a training exercise that will doubtless take some time. Weeks, perhaps. Even months.”

“I could countermand you,” Dean answers in resignation. “It’d be like living a shitty prime time comedy, if it wasn’t for the Apocalypse thing.”

“Dean, if those are your orders, I won’t disobey you. You don’t have to ask me for permission.”

“And you wouldn’t argue with me?”

It’s an effort, but he manages to fight down the reflexive response to that. “No.”

“You had to think about it,” Dean observes. “You aren’t used to taking them.”

“My entire existence was predicated on taking orders.”

“And Dean trained you into hating them just on principle.” Before he can argue that he obeyed—most of the time—Dean shakes his head. “You’ll obey, great, fine—”

“I don’t understand. Your job is to give orders and I assure you, I’ll obey them.”

“This is exactly what I was worried about. What if they’re the wrong ones?” Dean turns in his seat again, looking at him challengingly. “Would you tell me or obey just to prove to me you’re totally into orders? If I was about to get everyone killed, would you stop me or stay the goddamn course because you said you’d obey?”

“Why would you—” He stops short. “You think I should have done more to stop Dean from going to Kansas City.”

Dean blinks at him, startled. “Uh, no, and Jesus, that came out wrong. You couldn’t stop him—trust me, I was there, I know—but hey, you could stop me from suicidal stupidity. By telling me, because me? I’ll listen.”

Castiel nods warily, which makes Dean sigh.

“Okay, consider this a test run. I’ll listen to your reasons I shouldn’t do this, you listen to mine, and if you still disagree—I’ll table it.”

‘For now’ is both implicit and crystal-clear, but the fact Dean’s willing to do so at all is novel enough that Castiel finds himself nodding agreement. “All right.”

“So give me a good reason why I shouldn’t go with them. Yeah, the whole monsters coming back thing could happen at any time, but we’re doing what they do every day right now. What’s the difference?”

“I’m here.”

“Right, and that’s great, but on the off-chance anything happens, a whole goddamn team is gonna be there.”

“Dean,” he asks carefully, “have you been falling asleep when you observe Amanda and I on the training field?”

“Yeah, you’re—-fine, I’m impressed, happy?” Dean says impatiently. “But you can’t always be with me, and hey, I can take care of myself. So why—”

“You can’t.”

Dean blinks. “What?”

“This isn’t a criticism of your abilities. It’s a result of the world we live in,” he says quickly, seeing the flash of hurt Dean almost immediately hides. “I wasn’t merely mocking you when I told you that you were not as good as he was; you aren’t, but more importantly, you didn’t even realize I was there before I pinned you to the floor.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” Dean says sourly.

“Your reflexes and your reactions, as well as your training, were more than sufficient for the world you lived in. Here, they aren’t enough, not for what we do. That was why Dean taught me; so I could learn from him and from other hunters and pass that knowledge on to others. Dean didn’t have me train Chitaqua’s militia simply because it was something to do with my time on earth; it was his purpose for me. This world required that kind of skill just to survive and be able to fight back.”

Dean looks into the middle distance with an unreadable expression.

“If it were simply a matter of skill, I’d worry less,” he continues a little frantically. “But I’ve watched you every time we leave the camp—”

“You’ve been evaluating me,” Dean interrupts. “I thought you were just being your creepy angel stalker self when we’re in the city, not like I’m not used to it.” His expression is curious. “You were testing me?”

“More passive observation,” he admits, which has the unexpected benefit of increasing Dean’s curiosity, hostility and hurt fading. “I needed something to do, and you were available.”

“I’m that bad?”

“Not at all,” he assures him somewhat untruthfully, trying to find the right words to explain. He’s never had to before, and unfortunately, that was left out of his education. “You weren’t ready.”

To his relief, Dean understands immediately. “Nothing was in the city, Cas. We both…” He sits back. “It didn’t matter nothing was there. Like in the cabin, got it.” Dean gives him a long look, and to his bewilderment, his mouth quirks. “I stressed the fuck out of you wandering around like that, didn’t I?”

“If there had been any cats or rats, they wouldn’t have survived inadvertently revealing themselves, no. I’m not used to being in the open without the expectation of combat at any moment.” Dean snorts. “When we left Chitaqua, we weren’t simply hunting; we were hunted, every moment we were outside the wards. There was never a time we weren’t under attack.”

Dean’s amusement fades. “That must suck.”

“The adrenaline rush was adequate compensation. I understand far better why you chose to be a hunter as your life’s work. “ Dean rolls his eyes but doesn’t deny it. “It’s just a matter of time for you to adapt.”

Dean looks at him speculatively. “Okay, so you’d know. How far off the curve am I?”

“If you were a recruit, you would be accepted, but I wouldn’t have let you outside the camp walls for the entire three months training would require,” he answers honestly. “Don’t take that personally, everyone had to complete the entire three months of training, including other hunters, by Dean’s order.”

“They were okay with that?”

“No,” he replies. “But Dean set the requirements for new recruits; they had to finish three months with me or they couldn’t stay. I didn’t care how they felt about it either way.”

“What if they weren’t good enough after three months?”

“That never happened.”

The speculative look strengthens. “You evaluated them first, like you did me these last few weeks.”

“Dean did that himself, though he liked to have me confirm his judgment.” Dean’s interest sharpens considerably. “If I was going to teach them, I had to know what they were capable of. Usually, I did it on the training field, but watching you in the city was adequate, if extremely stressing.”

“Right.” He nods firmly. “So you gonna take care of it or what?”

“What?”

“You said it’s gonna take three months,” Dean answers reasonably. “So when do we start?”

He couldn’t have heard that correctly. “You want me to train you?”

Dean frowns. “What? That’s what you do, right?”

“It’s been a very long time since I trained anyone.”

“I won’t hold it against you.” Dean shrugs. “Get back to me on that. Okay, patrol—look, we don’t know how long this hiatus is gonna last. If you’re right, I might not have another chance to see how patrol works for a while.”

“I know,” he answers reluctantly. “I wouldn’t have risked taking you outside the camp if there was any sign of anything returning.”

“So you get why I gotta go.”

“I know that you feel you have to,” he agrees warily. “What I don’t understand is why.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure either.” Sitting back, Dean taps his fingers absently against the seat, thinking. “I want to take just the patrol leaders.”

“The patrol leaders,” Castiel repeats blankly; suddenly, this afternoon is showing a pattern.

“Yeah.” Abruptly, he realizes Dean is watching him. “There’s something going on with them, and I get the feeling—never mind. They’re not gonna question me, I get that, but if I go out with them, maybe I can, I don’t know, get something out of them.”

“You mean they may talk to you if I’m not present.”

“I was really careful not to say that,” Dean protests, expression half-guilty, half something else. “If the old team leaders used to run the camp for Dean, they probably know that their predecessors reported directly to Dean about any problems. So maybe if you’re not there—”

“I could stop attending patrol meetings.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Jesus, Cas. No.”

Castiel’s hands tighten on the wheel. “You think their problem is me. That would be the easiest solution to the problem.”

“I don’t know what their problem is,” Dean says. “They’re new at their jobs, maybe. I could be imagining it, I get that.”

He’s not; the only surprise is that it took this long for him to notice. Before Dean can continue, he puts the jeep back in drive and resumes their return to the camp. “You could be evaluating them.”

“What?”

“The reason you want to take only the patrol leaders,” he says, keeping his gaze fixed on the road. “In that case, if you don’t give them any orders, or give them ones that they don’t expect, they’ll assume you want to evaluate their competence. They’ll probably assume you waited this long to do it to give them time to adjust to their positions.”

“Sounds good.” He can feel Dean studying him. “Cas—”

“I apologize for what I said,” he interrupts. “You surprised me, and I reacted badly. You’re right, of course; Dean often took patrol shifts when he didn’t have a mission, and it’s been enough time since your miraculous return that they would expect you to return to your regular duties. I’m sure the last few weeks have been very confusing for them.”

“Maybe they miss the way things were,” Dean says casually, then abruptly changes the subject. “Joe’s back next week. I’m almost gonna miss Phil’s reports. No one can make a salvage job sound like an epic novel in progress.”

“His reports seem to have acquired a narrative voice,” he agrees warily, glancing at Dean, who smirks back. “I’ve read worse.”

“Dude, you read hippo porn,” Dean answers, smirk widening. “So you gonna wait until he hits novel-length before you tell the poor guy you’re not interested?”

Castiel snorts. “If all he wanted was to have sex with me, why wouldn’t he simply ask?”

“You know, not even gonna argue,” Dean says meditatively, straightening as Chitaqua comes into view. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

“No.”

Dean grins at him as they reach the gate, and it’s almost as if the earlier conversation didn’t happen at all. “Wanna bet on it?”

---

Standing at the doorway of her cabin, Vera blinks at the sight of him sitting on the sagging stairs of the small porch.

“Hey.” Belatedly, she comes out, pulling the door closed behind her and joining him on the step. “How long’ve you been sitting here?”

“Why I’m sitting here would be more to the point.”

“Trip to Georgia by any chance?” Startled, he looks at her. “It’s been six months, Cas; much longer, they’re gonna be wondering…”

“I know.” He thinks of Dean in the jeep today. “I need more time.”

“Okay.” She nudges him with her shoulder. “So, if you came here to talk—well, that’d be different, yeah. If you didn’t, I’ll get it out of you eventually anyway.”

Castiel gives her a sidelong glance. “I’m sober.”

“So I can’t use my old tricks,” she agrees. “I don’t mind learning new ones.”

“Your knee seems better,” he observes, which makes her grin widen.

“Yeah, it’s great,” she says, straightening her leg ostentatiously before cocking her head. “The weather’s nice, too.”

“The flora is very lush,” he offers. “Small talk is complicated to utilize appropriately.”

“It gets easier when you use it regularly,” she says, hiking up one leg and resting her chin in her hand. “Or ever. I didn’t think you even knew what it was.”

“Asking inane questions to acquire answers I either already know or have no interest in always seemed a waste of time I could be spending doing—well, anything else. Watching paint dry, for example.”

“You’ve watched paint dry?”

“It would be interesting to calculate the exact speed of coagulation and compare the rate of the first coat compared to the second.”

“Start small; paint your fingernails,” she advises. “The answer is, the amount of time it takes you smudge it; it’ll dry right afterward, every goddamn time.”

“A corollary of Murphy’s Law, I assume.” It’s well past dusk, and Castiel finds himself staring at the sky, wondering when he last saw the stars. “When Dean was gone, whose decision was it for me to assume his duties until he could be found? Don’t tell me there was an actual vote; the sheer irony might kill me.”

“I wondered if you were ever going to ask about that.” Stretching her legs out in front of her, she looks down. “Still pissed?”

“I’m sure if I had the time, I would be,” he answers. “Until then, assume this is simply morbid curiosity.”

“Okay.” She sighs quietly. “You get there wasn’t a lot of time, right?”

“The obvious solution would have been for someone on one of the patrol teams to take command.” Sidney or Kyle, he doesn’t say, but she knows that as well as he does. “So why didn’t they do so?”

“Command, yeah, that would have been nice,” she says reflectively. “What we got was a continuous argument on whether to go search for Dean immediately or wait since he’d ordered us not to, and God knows you don’t disobey Dean’s orders. Not that they’d do anything,” she adds in disgust. “Good luck there, though; it bought us some time. We followed the chain of command, like we were taught when we were wee hunters, and everyone fell right into line, it was like magic.”

He lifts his head. “‘We’.”

“Mark was on watch that night.” She gives him a sideways glance, unrepentant. “Fine, maybe it was a little coup, I had to move fast, okay? Not like anyone argued with a fait accompli. The revolution begins in your mind, and no one had a lot of that going on that night.”

“You mean obedience.” he agrees bitterly.

“I mean, the only person besides Dean no one would disobey. You better thank whatever you believe in these days that was true or—Cas, you ever think, really think, about what would have happened if you hadn’t come back that night?”

The break in his voice would be reminder enough if he hadn’t. “I know.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“When you came to see me the other day, you said you wanted to know if I was okay. I thought at the time it was small talk.”

Vera doesn’t answer for a moment, then lets out a breath. “Okay, I’m impressed. I didn’t think you noticed.”

“I didn’t, then,” he answers. “I was just reminded today why that might not have been a casual question. Dean is taking the new patrol leaders on patrol to evaluate them.”

“That’s what he told you?” she asks neutrally.

“That’s the excuse I told him to use, since he didn’t want to tell them outright that he’d noticed they want to tell him something and my presence was inhibiting them.”

“Yeah, the old team leaders didn’t have a problem getting Dean alone. Now?” Vera kicks her heels against the step restlessly. “Cas, gotta tell you, I’d be surprised if—”

“Do you trust them?”

She hesitates, biting her lip. “I don’t know yet. Which is more than—do you?”

“I don’t know.” Castiel doesn’t look at her. “I should have told Dean that there would be repercussions from having me—”

“Doing something?” She shakes her head. “I think he knows that, better than anyone here. If he doesn’t care—which Dean is known for—then why do you?”

“The former team leaders thought I had too much influence on Dean before this, when I was actively working to alienate him in the rare times I wasn’t drunk or high,” he answers brittlely. “Now—”

“They’re dead.” He remembers Chuck asking him about the team leaders the night they went to retrieve the bodies; he sounded the same. “Cas, I don’t think they…wait.” She straightens in alarm. “Are you worried about them turning on Dean? You think they would? Why?”

“No, of course not.” He closes his eyes, trying to think, but there’s no way to explain. “Perhaps I’m paranoid.”

“Welcome to the club,” she answers wryly. “He’s—different.”

Fighting down alarm, he looks at her, but she’s frowning at her knees. “How?”

“Nothing big, and—I mean, whatever happened with Lucifer, maybe that—I don’t know where I was going with that. He’s doing new things. I mean, change is great.” She blows out a breath, looking surprised at herself. “I don’t even mean that ironically. Never thought I’d say that.”

“Everyone thinks I had something to do with it.” She shrugs, non-committal, which for her is as good as agreement. He closes his eyes. “Vera—”

“It’s more the other way around, though. What he’s doing has something to do with why you’re—” She gestures with her free hand. “Seriously, did you start a twelve step program? Are there meetings? Where?”

“He asked for my help.”

“Which right there is—well, not a miracle, we don’t have those anymore, so—something.” She looks at him thoughtfully. “You gonna tell me why?”

“Why I’m helping him?”

“For a start, yeah.” The brown eyes are suddenly very sharp. “Cas, come the fuck on. He’s back and a few days later, it’s a whole new world where Castiel actually gives a shit about what happens on Earth.” She winces, closing her eyes. “Okay, that wasn’t fair.”

“It was very fair.” Castiel waits until she looks at him. “I didn’t think it mattered what I did because it wouldn’t change anything.”

“And now?”

Castiel wonders how to explain; because he thinks what I do matters, and while I don’t believe that, I know it matters to him. “I don’t actually know what I’m doing.”

“Yeah, but you know who you’re doing it for,” she answers quietly. “It’s a start.”

“Are humans always this oblique?”

“We do it to fuck with ex-angels. You didn’t know?”

“I suspected.” Vera flashes a grin, glancing down at his hands; following her gaze, he sees the lead still smeared on his fingers. “Not maps this time. I’m translating something for Dean. I thought he might find it interesting reading.”

“What? Wait, let me get some coffee, I just made some.” Automatically, as humans always do, she adds as she gets to her feet, “Uh, you want anything?”

“I’d like some coffee as well.” She blinks at him in surprise. “Do you have cream and sugar?”

“Yeah?”

“I like those,” he says. “Four spoons of sugar. I’m not sure of the amount of cream, but it was very light.”

She cocks her head. “I’ll make a guess. Be right back.”

When she comes back, he takes the cup, pleased to see the color of the coffee is similar to that Dean achieved. “So what are you translating?”

Castiel waits patiently until she takes a drink. “Hippo porn.”