The Game of God: Day 152 - part 2

Snuggies Mark II: All the Candles

Your email client will most likely clip this message because of its length. If so, please read this in your browser.

— Day 152, continued —

Here’s the thing: when Alison insisted all the Alliance people (aka Chitaqua) move to Second, she talked about more space, electricity, plenty of room for everyone to sleep and not even in shifts, give Chitaqua a home base.

All that’s true; it’s three stories of spacious interiors and what Vera swears are hardwood floors, and the rooms are painted in soothing shades of beige and beige-er, for variety, he assumes. There are even working bathrooms and three showers (why? No one knows), a huge-ass break room on each floor, and the one on the ground floor has an attached kitchen. By description, Dean wondered why the hell it was made storage instead of living space.

Then he saw it.

Alison didn’t tell them (because she’s like this) that the building in question looks like the horrifying offspring of a really trendy corporate headquarters or something and a gothic-themed prison block. The entire exterior is all weird dark grey stone over solid concrete that someone (crazy) who was probably drunk (and crazy) thought would look modern or something and pulls off ‘place you go into and never come out again’ while simultaneously sucking all available light and it’s not like they get much of that these days. He was told when there used to be regular sunlight, it had a shimmering thing going on, and like that, Dean was immediately reconciled to never seeing the sun again because the last thing this needed was glitter.

Looking down the street at the quaint re-imagining of small-town life complete with fake storefronts, he surveys the building again, which is now larger, greyer, and even more wrong up to and including the huge ass balcony running the length of the third floor overlooking absolutely nothing; Second Street is not what he’d call an inspiring view. Imagine this shit with glitter: no thanks, ever.

“Dean.”

It’s also unnaturally rectangular, like someone was very exact with the measurements for summoning something purposes; seriously, you could cut something on all these sharp angles. The windows’ dead stare down at them is unsettling, but not nearly as much as the fact that they’re all exactly the same distance apart as they are from the corners, he knows it, though as yet, no one will get their asses up there and verify the goddamn obvious.

“Are we sure—”

“Dean, the company was probably based out of LA or something,” Joe says patiently. “They probably thought they were being—I don’t know, trendy. Why does this bother you so much? You never struck me as being into architecture. Or even…” He trails off without saying ‘know the meaning of the word’ which is insulting but technically not exactly wrong.

“You exorcise enough ghosts, you get a feeling about places,” he says, staring incredulously at the brick facing of the gaping door—alcove thing?—that you have to cross for six steps (in darkness, if you don’t have the super weird bulb thing they use in there) before getting to the massive wooden double doors like something out of a crappy movie about medieval fortresses, each twelve feet tall; why do you need doors that big? For something really tall that you summoned to come in, maybe? “If this isn’t haunted, it should be.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

Dean glares up at the window—embrasures?—the taped-over glass like (weirdly striped) eyes and wonders if he should talk to Cas about giving all the kids a refresher on ‘how to spot an evil fucking building’ because this is ridiculous.

With a deep breath (and Joe pushing him, dude), Dean braves the endless near-darkness to the doors and emerges into the ongoing chaos of a move of buildings and stripping all their jeeps of anything useful they might need. Which means, in layman’s terms, anyone coming in this godforsaken building will be met by what appears to be some very serious weapons traffickers offering a decent size war at a discount price and soldiers to fight it. Plus—fuck his life—all the boxes of emergency condoms plus backups in the corner by several boxes of ammunition (along with all their emergency supplies in the jeep, but Jesus, that’s a lot of condoms). And…bags of rock salt, which should be neutral but brings it all together in some really creepy way, though he can’t explain why or how. He suspects it’s because this room may be an unnervingly accurate symbol of Chitaqua’s collective priorities and life goals (kill all the monsters; have all the sex). His people need hobbies.

“Dean’s here,” Joe bellows like he’s announcing the second coming, clapping Dean on the shoulder as scurrying soldiers turn to look at him with the cheerful smiles of people who have maybe already been possessed by the ghosts of this goddamn nightmare building.

“Morning, Dean!” echoes around him. Natalie glances up with a smile from where she and Tara are sorting ammunition by type (maybe), and Jeremy waves in passing while carrying four duffle bags with Brad following with three more. Dean hopes those aren’t more weapons knowing it’s futile.

“Hey,” he manages, trying to look professional. He glances up at the three fucking story ceiling and empty art deco light fixtures, textured walls and three floors of activity and visualizes a perky receptionist’s desk dead center smiling at him forever and gets it. “This was a law firm.”

Joe gives him a confused look. “What?”

“Did some contract negotiating once,” he says absently, eyeing the curving metal stairs that join the three floors in disfavor and how it somehow makes the beige even more utterly lifelessly wrong. “Same feel.”

He can feel Joe silently judging him for being crazy. “You’re not even trying to make sense, are you?”

“Joe, someone sold their soul for success, defined by having a firm in a freaky grey sparkly building in downtown Ichabod, Kansas. Before it was Ichabod, anyway,” Dean explains, knowing he’s right. “It’s reassuring to have proof there are worse deals to be made, and someone thought making that one was actually a good idea.”

Joe tips his head sideways, studying Dean before abruptly reaching out and pressing his palm against his forehead. “No fever. Should I get Cas?”

“Fuck you,” he says without heat, shoving Joe’s hand aside and ignoring his smirk. “Don’t believe me?”

“Not even a little.”

“You’re a hunter, right?” Dean asks him curiously. “Gotta be born to it, I guess.”

“Funny,” Joe replies, sangfroid unimpaired.

Lena, on her way to the stairs, grins at him from over an armful of rifles—Christ, how many do they have here? “Cas is in the Situation Room with Amanda and Sean.”

“Situation Room?”

“In the back,” she says helpfully, pointing with her elbow. “Go right of the stairs, turn right at the first door, turn left and it’s three rooms down. Also, Vera said to tell you she’s at the infirmary with Alicia; they’ll be back in a few.”

“Thanks.” He looks at Joe. “Hey, go to Admin and find out when we can talk to Alison and either Teresa or Manuel. Oh, and tell Gary he’s done. We’ll debrief him—sometime, I guess.”

“On it,” Joe answers with a sloppy salute, and Dean goes to the right of the stairs and turns left into a tunnel-like archway that opens up into a series of three large, interconnecting rooms all in exactly the same shade of beige like—oh, maybe—it’s just one room and he’s trapped in a loop forever, or at least until he gets into the last room, which just proves his entire point.

Something’s wrong with this place.

No Sean but there’s Nate, showing Cas something on a clipboard—a clipboard?—with Amanda well on the other side of the room taking stacks of paper out of a box in the definition of ‘not going to engage.’ Because she knows everything, is friends with Sean (who is seeing Zack and used to be with Nate; how did this shit become relevant to his life?). People being people, he reminds himself firmly, and not the kind that shoot other people (anymore).

“So, how’s it going?” he asks when it becomes obvious no one’s going to notice him otherwise. It should be a relief after the front room, but it’s not.

“Good,” Amanda says over her shoulder as Cas nods at him with a flickering glance, eyes unreadable and okay, not good.

“It’s fine, I promise,” Cas tells Nate (who looks kind of like maybe he’s not tracking…well anything). “These are the correct numbers, I assure you.”

“Right.” Nate squints at the clipboard uncertainly. “Should I—”

“You did very well,” Cas says, and there’s no way to miss the deliberate note of reassurance in his voice. “I promise, you’re done.”

Nate nods jerkily, bloodshot eyes only coming up to see Dean when he almost runs into him. “Hey, Dean.”

“Hey.” He looks between them. “Everything okay?”

Nate blinks at him vaguely. “Yeah, fine. Checking our numbers—bullets, I mean.” Dean meets Cas’s eyes and reads a lot of not good things. “Got it right this time, so—”

“You were right the first two times,” Cas says conversationally, and from the corner of his eye, Dean notes Amanda’s really busy stacking and restacking a pile of papers. “I’m sure Tara simply needs assistance with basic arithmetic. You may go.”

“Go with God,” Dean says seriously, moving out of his way and seeing the faint tremor in his hands, gauze wrapped around two fingers: construction with Tony’s crew, almost forgot. “And get some coffee—are you even awake? What time did you get to bed?”

“I’m fine—”

“Around three, when James physically dragged him from Fifth Street and just one more something,” Cas says. “He’s going to give that clipboard to Tara and go to a room with a bed and/or sleeping bag and sleep until I say otherwise. And that is an order.”

Nate makes a face. “Yes, sir.”

“Tony would very much appreciate your help when you wake up,” Cas adds casually. “I already approved it, provided you rest enough I can be sure you know which side of a hammer is which.”

“Got it. Night—sort of.” Nodding at Dean, he wanders out, rubbing the back of his head sleepily.

Joining Cas, Dean frowns at his vanishing shape. “He okay?”

“Physically exhausted and likely emotionally as well, which I understand isn’t uncommon when one is subject to a series of exceedingly petty acts of passive-aggressive hostility in addition to personal stress,” Cas says conversationally, and glancing over his shoulder, Dean sees Amanda stiffen and really doesn’t like the sound of this. “Tony was impressed; he told me when he came by to check on Nate that he has a truly startling amount of knowledge on repairing structural stability, which I assume he was instructed in by Winchester House when he worked on it. Tony has reclassified several buildings out of pink-yellow to yellow already and has very high hopes he can double his original estimate of habitable buildings with Nate’s help.”

“I said I was sorry for making him get his ass out of bed to help out a little for the move,” Amanda says, not sounding sorry at all as she slams down another box. “Not like the rest of us aren’t on triple shifts during an emergency, but let’s keep talking about poor Nate’s goddamn interrupted sleep.”

Dean really wishes he’d brought coffee or maybe more weapons. A list of safe conversational topics, too. “So—wait, Winchester House really taught Nate how to fix it?”

“Generally, contractors don’t last very long there,” Cas answers. “Nate’s firm, however, was renewed due to unprecedented progress, and I do mean unprecedented, as it’s not a house that needs fixing.”

“So what was he doing if he wasn’t fixing it?”

“He was fixing it,” Cas corrects him, and Dean wonders if he’s tracking. “From his description of the rooms staying in place after he worked on them, he seemed to be repairing the dimensional rift itself.”

Dean doesn’t even try to wrap his mind around that any more than he has to. “How?”

“Drywall,” Cas says and it takes a second for Dean to realize that’s not a non-sequitur. “And paint.”

“Jesus Christ,” Amanda mutters, but whatever, what?

“You can fix those with drywall?” Christ, no wonder you can’t see the bullet holes in their cabin.

“No,” Cas says helplessly. “You can’t, but apparently Winchester House didn’t tell Nate that, and it worked. Whatever your next question is, the answer is ‘I don’t know’ but plan to explore the subject with Nate at the very next opportunity.” Looking into the middle distance, Cas looks thoughtful. “I wonder how much Nate has guessed about what happened when he was in the attic.”

He’s pretty sure that’s connected, somehow. “What was in the attic anyway?”

“On a guess, it was,” he answers slowly. “Or rather, when Nate wondered where the attic was, it brought him before it remembered it wasn’t an attic at the moment and needed to be if Nate was going to be there.”

Dean thinks he knows why House needed to be a house. “Seeing Winchester House when it—wasn’t a house…is this the part where a glance drives people crazy?”

“No, it’s the part where Nate—if only for a moment—existed in the exact same discrete area of interdimensional space that the entity occupied and that is—to say the least—not hospitable to reality as it exists on this plane, much less corporeal life.” Cas hesitates, looking at Dean almost apologetically. “Nate shouldn’t exist any longer, and yet, here he is, alive and well, which…”

In all the time they’ve known each other, he’s never seen Cas this genuinely thrown by something. “You okay? It saved him, right?”

“Obviously.” It takes a second for Dean to hear the amusement laced through the shock for what it is. “If by that you mean, gathered up all the infinite pieces of Nate from inside itself and put them back together correctly before sending him back to continue painting as if nothing had happened, then yes. It can’t even consistently maintain its appearance as a house and loses entire floors at times or forgets where to put doors, but it….” Slowly, Cas starts to smile. “I’m impressed. Old Ones don’t see humans—they barely see each other other than as prey. As you see a single-celled amoeba, they see everything but themselves. Yet it saw him. It knew him, so well it could gather him up again from infinity and remake him without flaw.” His mouth quirks. “And play what I think was multidimensional hide and seek in an infinite house and have fun with tourists and learn about numbers. I wonder if Nate introduced it to television; that would explain a great deal.”

“Good God,” Amanda mutters, slamming the empty box down, and Dean winces; he forgot she was in here. “Crazy house likes him, you can take that as a recommendation, fine, and he’s helping out here like a decent person, fine. That doesn’t make him not shitty; it just makes him selective about it. Me, less building skills, better people skills would be my choice, but takes all kinds, I guess.”

“You have a very nice room at Alison’s with central heat,” Cas observes, turning to a nearby table and opening a box with a precise rip of the tape. “People do tend to value least what they have no need of themselves.”

Dean sees that hit Amanda and wonders if he really needs to be here for this. “So—”

Amanda spins around, looking at Cas incredulously, but Dean at least doesn’t miss the guilt behind it. “He makes his own fucking problems and then makes them everyone else’s!”

“I wasn’t aware he’d had sex with you,” Cas says, reaching into the box and taking out—candles? “Or you were at all involved in his personal life, or Zack’s for that matter. I think it was you that said those weren’t my business, so it would only be fair for you to follow your own mandate.”

“And we’ll pick this up later,” Dean decides. “Amanda, I need to—”

“Yeah, I got real problems to deal with, not Nate’s poor sad feelings when his own fuck-ups come home to roost or Cas playing concerned leader because he recently learned all about feelings,” she snaps, then stills. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Apology not accepted,” Cas says over his shoulder. “But I do appreciate you didn’t try to convince me you didn’t mean it, merely the act of saying it.”

Looking shaken, Amanda takes a quick breath. “Cas, look—”

“You’re dismissed,” Dean says softly, and has the satisfaction of seeing her flinch. Nodding jerkily, she heads out the door, and Dean takes the precaution of going to close it behind her before looking at Cas. “She had him counting bullets?”

“Tara told Nate that his math was wrong and, from the look of that paper, changed his numbers at least a few times.” Setting the box carefully under the table, Cas starts to sort the candles, though the criteria is unclear. Then again, so is the reason they have enough candles to need sorting. Useful if the power goes out, maybe? “For what greater joy could there be than taunting someone too exhausted to know what they’re doing, much less fight back?”

Yeah, and she’s on Sean’s team. Great. “Amanda defended her?”

“No, of course not. She simply didn’t see any problem with it,” he answers flatly, moving a red candle slightly left and trying not to look like he’s rediscovering the stress headache. “She thought it was very funny.”

“Cas—”

“Nate didn’t want to come back to sleep,” Cas says abruptly, turning around to look at him. “James did actually have to almost carry him and not because he was tired, though yes, that was a factor. James and Mira are worried, and if this is why….”

“Not defending—any of them,” Dean starts, knowing it’s a mistake but it’s gotta be said. “This is the definition of ‘make your own goddamn problems and also other people’s.’ People get pissed about that and react. He’s been doing this since—when, he got here?”

“Doing what? You mean have sex with people who were very aware of his issues and still indulged and mocked him afterward?” Cas asks, and wow, so this is going even more wrong than he thought. “Or those who did that and at this very late point have decided it’s unacceptable behavior that should not be stood for? Or those who he didn’t have sex with or even speak to other than in a professional capacity who feel the need to join in the mass condemnation? Or—”

“Point taken,” Dean says hastily.

“He’s been doing this—whatever that means—since he was thrown out of his family’s home, moved to California and got a job in construction while living in a cardboard box,” Cas continues bitterly, because Dean can’t just be wrong, he’s gotta be wrong on a traumatic fucking scale that includes living in boxes. “The one exception—the happiest period in his life—was spent with a cosmic entity that looked like a house who liked him fixing it, and if that isn’t an obvious metaphor as well, I’m not sure what to tell you.”

Christ. “Right.” He needs coffee, Jesus. Starting to add to that, he frowns, searching Cas’s face and remembers something. “You said Tony wanted to check on Nate—something happen last night?”

“It’s not public knowledge yet, as the family needs to be informed,” Cas answers, and wow, Dean doesn’t like anything that starts like that. “There was a death while they were surveying the library on Sixth for potential use as a shelter; one of the volunteers slipped on a broken tile and fell five stories. Tony told me when he stopped to ask for Nate’s assistance again when he was available and ask how he was doing.”

Right, it just keeps coming. “He saw it.”

“He tried to catch him.”

What the hell is wrong with this morning? “You talk to Nate?”

“Briefly, but he was exhausted and I felt rest would do him more good. Tony said the other witness already gave him a report, so he didn’t feel there was any need to question Nate until he’d rested and eaten,” Cas answers, mouth tightening before turning to look at Dean. “He helped Callisto and her subordinates with the body—which after a drop from over a hundred and fifty feet could not have been pleasant—and then insisted on returning to work until James fetched him and put him to bed. At which time Amanda got him up to count bullets and Tara erased his calculations when he wasn’t looking because after over two years, now is the time to punish Nate for his sins with sleep deprivation and sabotage of his work.”

“I don’t think—”

“Or Sean is insecure regarding Zack’s previous relationship with Nate and is expressing it in the most ridiculous way possible,” Cas continues, and yeah, that’s what Dean was thinking. “Mira and James have been spending a great deal of time with Nate the last few weeks, and I don’t think it’s unrelated.”

“Yeah, I noticed at the party.” He wonders how long this has been going on and what exactly James and Mira saw that got them sticking with Nate like this. “You said they’re worried. Are we talking the kind of worried where Nate shouldn’t be wandering around on five story buildings in case of conveniently loose tiles?”

“I don’t think so,” Cas says, staring at the candles. “It’s not just this, he—have you ever been tired?”

Dean comes up beside him and fixes his gaze on the candles as well. “Yeah,” he answers quietly. “So tired I couldn’t stop moving even though I wanted to. Couldn’t even remember how.”

“Yes. I didn’t realize—” Cas abruptly stiffens. “Do you hear that?”

Dean actually doesn’t (or know why that’s relevant), but Cas is already out the door, and Dean thinks coffee and follows him from sheer lack of any other idea what to do. By the time he reaches the front room, Cas is half-way up the spiral staircase, and Dean’s got a very bad feeling why there is hammering and ignores the (not exactly bewildered but he’s gonna say guilty) eyes on him as he jogs (fast) behind Cas and almost runs into him when he reaches the top.

Across the open area (weren’t there more people here earlier?), by a definitely closed door, Sean is hammering (and ruining) the hideously shiny wood paneling. Dean’s gonna go out on a limb and say that Nate is definitely not sleeping but may be considering the alternative of jumping out the window after all. And Cas hasn’t moved an inch.

Resting a hand on Cas’s back—and relieved he doesn’t shrug it off—Dean cocks his head. “Hey,” he says clearly, watching Sean jerk and almost drop the hammer, “is this why they stopped stalking us?”

Sean turns around and God, the look on his face; great, but Dean is kind of not okay with the reason he’s seeing it right now. And this is doing nothing at all for Cas right now, especially after yesterday.

“Where I’m from,” Cas says softly, but the entire goddamn building seems to drop ten degrees with each word, “we do our rivals the courtesy of offering challenge when they face us, not smile and wait for them to turn their back.”

Looking at Sean’s pale face, wide eyes staring at Cas like he’s never seen him before, Dean just barely restrains himself from calmly crossing to that door and punching him in his incredibly stupid face.

“Cas,” he says softly, pitching his voice for Cas’s ears alone. “Let me handle it, okay?”

The blue eyes flicker to him, alien and chillingly cold, but to Dean’s relief, it’s all surface: leftovers from yesterday in the mess and the argument with Amanda downstairs, which at this rate seems to be setting the tone of the day. Cocking his head, Dean waits, and after a long moment, he feels the tight muscles beneath his hand loosen.

“As a recent victim of a mob,” Cas says, which has the happy effect of making Sean close his eyes, “I feel recusing myself from judgment would be best.”

“As the partner of a recent victim, I’m okay with doing it,” Dean assures him, squeezing Cas’s shoulder and catching one corner of Cas’s mouth uptick briefly, there and gone. “Any coffee in this building?”

“If there’s not, there will be.” He glances at Sean briefly before he turns away, and Dean sees the deepening creases across his forehead, mouth thinned and tight, and it’s like how Dean found him at their old headquarters last night all over again. He watches Cas go back down the stairs, one hand rising toward his temple in an aborted gesture that he suspects is one fuck of a stress headache already in progress. He makes a note to get someone to find Cas’s art supplies stat, or at least an enemy to kill; he’s not gonna be picky.

“Look, Dean—” Sean makes the incredibly obvious mistake of saying.

“Shut up.” Sean shuts his mouth. “So what, Zack yell Nate’s name last night or something?”

Sean flushes, and it’s possible he might be thinking about punching him. He kind of hopes so, even better if Sean actually tries; he’d feel better, Sean would feel worse pretty goddamn fast, and he’d have a clear idea of what to do with this. All the times he thought about the consequences of his decisions as Chitaqua’s leader, how he’d handle situations of every variety great and small, none had included how to handle a group of (supposed) adults, number of at least two (and he has no illusions that Tara was the only guilty party on Sean’s team), getting together to fuck up Nate’s bullet homework and mess with his sleep by hammering on the wall for fun and that’s the part that he knows that’s occurred in the last few hours. Who the fuck does that; this shit doesn’t even make junior high level.

“Where are James and Mira?”

Sean seems to be having trouble looking at him. “Volunteer Center with Zack. They got up early to go help out.”

“Had to wait until he was alone, right.” Sean doesn’t answer, but not like it’s not pretty goddamn obvious. “That would be when Amanda went to wake Nate up at—what time?”

“Four-thirty.”

“To count bullets, and Tara to mess up his count and make him do it all again for over two hours now?” Sean closes his eyes. “So Tara, you with the hammer, I just need to find out what Lena and Kim were doing—did you actually recruit your team to fuck with your boyfriend’s ex?”

Sean did do something very much like that, and from the look on his face, not only just noticed but may almost grasp how deeply fucked up this was on concept.

“Great teamwork,” Dean adds, for what is a fucking knife for but to twist. Turning, he goes to look down over the railing and the sea of very worried eyes who were casually avoiding the second floor just a few minutes ago for no particular reason. Before he can comment, the door opens and Alicia and her team come in and abruptly stop short, looking around in bewilderment before following the collective gaze upward.

This is Alicia, of course. “Hey, Dean,” she says cheerfully, unbuttoning her coat while her team picks up the slack by looking deeply weirded out by the number of unmoving people around them. “I’m free for the next two hours; give me things to do for I bore easily. Perimeter need help? I can do that.”

Dean makes an effort not to grin. “And what are you doing in two hours?”

“Could be anything,” she admits, cocking her head. “But definitely something. You can’t rush revelations, Dean; then it’s just guesses and might as well get yourself a magic eight ball and be done with it, you know what I mean? So? Things to do until then?”

“Cas has got a job for you,” he answers, and she brightens. “He’s in the—”

“Situation Room,” Alicia finishes, nodding as she pulls off a glove with her teeth. “Got it, thanks!”

Dean watches her bounce out of sight with her team before scanning the group again and finding his little trifecta, all together and looking very nervous. “You three,” he says, and sees Tara’s shoulders stiffen. “You want to come up here for a minute?”

“Dean, they were just—”

“Following orders?” The resigned clatter of feet on metal is like music—shitty music, but at least not alt-rock—and he watches them trudge by him like they’re going to the fucking principal’s office. Surveying them, he can’t help but reflect these people are theoretically competent to carry and use military-grade weaponry at their discretion.

“Wait here.” Dean goes to the door, knocks three times—habit—and pushes it open to take in Nate sitting on his sleeping bag against the opposite wall right under the window, expression eerily blank. Carefully, he closes the door, and—nothing.

“Nate?”

Nate starts, squinting at him uncertainly. “Insomnia. I was just about to—”

“When did it start, what were they doing, who’s involved, and why the hell didn’t you report it?” he asks before he can stop himself.

Nate’s eyes widen. “Dean—”

“And don’t tell me nothing’s going on, I just watched nothing make a fuck of a dent in the wall outside the door.” Nate’s mouth snaps shut. “Why are you protecting them?”

“I don’t care.” He looks away, shoulders slumping briefly, and Dean gets exactly why Cas asked him if he’d ever been tired; like calls to like, and the only surprise here is Nate was able to hide it this goddamn long. “I’m not just saying that, Dean. Wish I was.”

What the fuck do you say to that? “I care.”

Nate’s head snaps up, looking so surprised Dean would be insulted if he could forget the first half of that convo with Cas a few minutes ago. “Uh.” Nate squints at him. “I appreciate it?”

“You lose a point for the question mark,” Dean tells him, and Nate’s mouth twitches reluctantly as he leans back against the wall. “Look, I get it, but come on; if you gotta start outsourcing because you don’t think you’re making yourself miserable enough and need the extra help—”

“I’m not doing that,” Nate protests, straightening, and there we go.

“That’s exactly what you’re doing, no matter what bullshit you fed to James and Mira to keep them from reporting it,” Dean says, and has the satisfaction of Nate looking away.

“I’m on his team,” Nate says finally. “He’s a good leader—”

“If he was just being a good leader, he would have reported it,” Dean says deliberately. “Friends, on the other hand, are the people that make sure they’re around so there’s nothing that needs reporting. How long, Nate?”

“About a week, maybe, but it wasn’t anything like this. Just….” He trails off, searching Dean’s face. “Just fucking with me, that’s all, I swear.”

“And if I ask James and Mira?”

“They’ll tell you the same thing. You know them, Dean,” he adds, and Dean doesn’t miss the thread of warmth in his voice. “If it was more than that, they would have come to you or Cas no matter what I said.”

Yeah, that he believes. “Cas told me what happened at the library.”

Nate stiffens, and Dean regrets bringing it up. “Cas said the report could wait. Me and three other guys were on the roof and—”

“I’m not asking for a report,” he says hastily. “All I want to know now is if you’re okay.”

Nate hesitates before nodding. “Yeah. Though that could be the sleep deprivation talking.”

“That a hint?” Nate looks at him worriedly before making a face. “Look, get some sleep, okay? Tony wants you back, but it’s just a loaner; I’m expecting him to return you in one piece. I’ll be pretty pissed if you walk out a window because you fell asleep on your feet.”

Nate nods and sighs before reaching for the top of the sleeping bag. “Got it.”

Dean watches until he’s actually in the sleeping bag before carefully going back out and closing the door with a click that seems to echo. He’s halfway to the stairs before he remembers Sean and company are still waiting. He still has no idea what to do, but thinking about Nate slumped by that goddamn window when he opened the door is pretty goddamn inspiring.

“This is done,” he says finally, and sees them all nod, very possibly experiencing a vague feeling that has nothing to do with what they did and everything to do with getting caught doing it. Focusing on Sean, he tips his head toward the members of his team. “They were just following orders?”

Sean nods quickly. “Yeah. Dean, it was my fault, not theirs.”

Dean waits for the three suspects to deny it; they don’t. Good: he can work with this.

“You get this isn’t downtime at Chitaqua,” he says quietly. “I don’t know if you noticed, but right now we have real problems, not your issues with your boyfriend’s sexual history. This would have been shitty anyway, but you couldn’t have picked a worse time if you tried. Congratulations: you almost beat out Kyle there and only because you didn’t add ‘high,’ ‘drunk,’ and ‘disobeying a direct order’.”

Sean’s flush can probably be seen from space right now. “I know, Dean.”

“So you probably also know that right now, I can’t afford to demote you when I don’t have enough teams here as it is. You’re good at the job, and more importantly, I don’t have anyone to replace you.” Sean nods jerkily, and if Dean saw a trace of satisfaction in that, he’d demote him now, but he doesn’t. “When we get back to Chitaqua, assume you’re losing your team and suspended from patrol for the immediate future.” Sean nods again, and Dean turns his attention to the other three. “You three will be off patrol, probably permanently, but I’ll leave the final decision to Cas.”

“What?” Sean asks blankly, but Dean’s watching the other three: shock, horror, anger, a fuckload of regret, but still the wrong goddamn kind. “Dean, why—”

“You’re good at your job—most of the time—but they failed at theirs,” he answers Sean before turning his attention back to them. “I can’t put a team in the field that if they were told to jump off a cliff, they wouldn’t even ask for a fucking rope. Or have the common sense to stop their leader from doing it himself. You three couldn’t even manage to separate ‘work-related orders’ from ‘being used as a weapon of petty revenge against leader’s boyfriend’s ex.’ I’m not sure you should be allowed to wear weapons at this point, since I can’t trust you’d know when it’s okay to use them.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Sean argues frantically, while Kim, Lena, and Tara look satisfactorily stricken. “That’s not fair, it was me—”

“Fair?”

Dean thinks: let me tell you about fair. Go outside and take a long look at the entrance point where people are waiting who walked all fucking night in the snow to get here when their cars ran out of gas. Talk to Manuel and Teresa about how they feel knowing the people who tried to burn her alive could be out in that crowd waiting to get inside; you know what else? They’re gonna let them in anyway, no questions asked.

Tony lost one of his people last night falling from a roof to get just a few more buildings safe enough for shelter; the town is emptying its winter stores to feed the people coming in and when that’s gone, there’s no grocery stores to stock up from until spring; two weeks ago, they lost sixty-three of their people, ten of them kids, to outsiders coming here pretending they needed shelter and a new place to start over; they’re still not turning anyone away.

You go to the mess for coffee and get jumped by five guys and a bullet in the wall that just missed your head just for existing.

All of that—all of it, Sean—and then you can talk to me about fair.

“You want fair?” Who is Dean not to give him exactly what he wants? “I don’t have time to deal with this shit right now, and Cas sure as fuck doesn’t deserve picking up the slack, so guess what: you’re gonna do it for us. So here are my orders; until we get back to Chitaqua, they’re still your team and you’re responsible for them, which means I need you to watch them every minute that we’re here.”

“What?”

“I don’t trust them,” Dean answers. “But I think that I can trust you to make sure they don’t jump off a cliff—or shoot themselves—because someone ordered them to, which at this moment is a genuine concern.” Sean stills. “To assure the safety of themselves and those around them, you, personally, will disarm them now and leave their weapons at the front desk downstairs, and they aren’t allowed anything more dangerous than a spoon—or a fork—while in this building. When you have shifts on perimeter or have any duties that require leaving this building armed, you will give them their weapons back inside the front door and when you come back, you will disarm them yourself once you’re inside the door. Until they are safely behind Chitaqua’s wards and I don’t have to worry about them being a danger to themselves or others, you will keep them in your line of sight at all times.” He just manages not to grin at Sean’s expression. “Sean, be the charismatic leader you have proved you are and make sure they don’t disobey these orders or you’ll have to discipline them. Not sure how, so you’ll have to come to me so I can think of something.”

“Dean, that’s—” Sean bursts out incredulously.

“—petty? You think?” Sean shuts his mouth. “This isn’t a life lesson, and I’m not here to teach you the error of your ways, but you might consider this an example of how a professional gets it done when it comes to petty and I’m barely getting started.” He cocks his head. “Do you understand your orders, Sean?”

“Yes, sir,” Sean grates out.

“Leave their weapons at the reception desk downstairs,” Dean says, then frowns. “After we get a desk, so hold onto them until then, about an hour. You’re dismissed.”

Sean nods jerkily, and Dean goes back to the railing, peering down at the still-silent masses who really need better hobbies, but until then he’ll just have to keep them busy himself.

“You got an hour to get this building secure, reception area clear, pick your rooms, get armed, and ready for duty. New shift schedule goes up after the meeting at one; until then, if you need something to do, get your ass to the Volunteer Center and maybe help out people who have walked twelve goddamn hours in the goddamn snow to get here.” He searches the blurred faces looking up at him and takes a deep breath: people aren’t always good at being people, but that doesn’t mean they don’t get better at it. “Time to save the world, and this is how we start doing it. And someone find us a desk and a coffee pot.” He searches their faces and breathes again; just a bad morning, that’s all. It happens. “Dismissed.”

---

“Hour and a half at most, no problem,” Alicia agrees as she goes out the door—almost skipping, because Alicia—and finally, he and Cas are finally alone in the Situation Room.

Dean seriously considers locking the door, calmly crossing the room, taking Cas’s replacement laptop (thing he will set on fire in the goddamn street) where he’s furiously rewriting the shift schedule and organizing them all into a smoothly running militia machine, and seeing how Cas feels about quickies during work hours. Less fun but more work-appropriate, he could update Cas on the Sean situation (handled, thank you). For that matter, this being work hours, he could maybe find out what work he should be doing, being leader and all. It’s gotta involve more than disciplining people for acting like cranky six year olds or giving speeches from the second floor to a captive audience, though he’s not knocking the rush.

And yet, he can’t quite make himself stop staring at the two tables shoved together that were the first thing he saw when he came in and could be considered a concrete display of the concept of non-sequitur.

Ruthlessly organized in horizontal rows by size and vertically by color, with a colony of weirdly shaped ones in the very front, Dean stares blankly at what appears to be a candle army taking up the entirety of two tables. Ten rows of thirty in lines so straight that even a ruler couldn’t pull this shit off; this takes the kind of anal-retentive precision that only a stressed (ex-)angel can provide. It’s not that Dean objects to candles in general or in a variety of sizes and colors, but—

—does it smell like mint in here? He tears his gaze away from candle central to track down a blue-green example by Cas’s laptop, flame burning merrily, and okay, that explains that.

The tables of candles, on the other hand…

“Cas,” he starts, surveying their candle army again just in case revelation decides to happen (it doesn’t), “I give up. Why do we have three hundred random candles? If you tell me it’s because of potential electricity loss so light, that would make sense, yeah, but I don’t buy it.”

Dean listens to Cas close his laptop and the slide of his chair against the floor before footsteps cross the room to join him in his observation of all the candles…in all the colors and sizes, none of these can be found in stores, oh God.

Reaching to pick one a sky-blue example of the power of completionism in action, he freezes at feel of smooth wax against his fingertips, rolling it over his palm in surprise.

“Dean?”

Frowning, Dean studies the chiseled exterior, narrow veins of lighter blue and off-white twisting across the surface, and scans the decorative swirls for any pattern as he chases down the feeling; it’s not the slippery-slimy feel of wrongness he’s sometimes picked up when hunting and touching shit he shouldn’t, but it’s definitely something. “What….”

“Infused wax by a master class practitioner,” Cas says calmly, and Dean almost drops it, looking at him incredulously. “She’ll be an adept before her fifth decade if I’m any judge of quality. That kind of talent tends to require time to gain strength and precision.”

“These are magic candles? Why do we have magic candles?” Dean just barely stops himself from asking if there’s such a thing as magic candles: obviously, there are, so might as well get to the important questions. “Wait, where did you even get them?”

“Wendy,” Cas says like it’s a universal answer to all the questions anyone could ask. “She had them delivered late last night.”

“Who’s Wendy?” He wonders if this is how Amanda felt yesterday and reluctantly gives her props for not grabbing Cas and shaking relevant words out of him. Wait, candles: that booth Cas was hanging out at, talking to a woman—hey, bet that’s Wendy. Who sells candles that are also magic. “Wendy, the merchant you were talking to on New Year’s Eve? She’s a witch?”

Cas nods agreement. “And sibling to the mayor of Noak,” he adds, like he’s building a character defense. “She also makes candles for Teresa.”

“And she’s a witch.” Dean looks at the blue candle suspiciously, but—is that blueberry? Fresh blueberries, even, the kind so ripe they’re almost bursting out their skin when you eat them. “What do they do?”

“These are primarily related to the influence of mood and state of mind,” Cas explains while Dean processes ‘witch’ from all angles. Cas wasn’t wrong about his general feeling on the subject of practitioners, but he does get life as a hunter means he generally deals with the percentage who do harm for fun and not those who just have a talent and do cool things with it. “Nothing that contravenes free will, of course.”

“Like what, aromatherapy?”

“Like aromatherapy created to elicit a specific response that always works and exactly as it is designed to, yes,” Cas agrees, picking up an off-white pillar candle as long as Dean’s arm with a swirl of glittering gold just beneath the surface. “The primal human brain is hardwired to respond to scent, but how can be idiosyncratic and sensitivity is also a factor; these simply take advantage of the brain’s own functions while assuring it responds appropriately and without fail.”

“How?”

“That’s the difference between aromatherapy and a very skilled witch,” Cas answers patiently. “Wendy’s infusions are successful because they’re backed by her will.” He glances at the blue candle as Dean sets it down warily. “That one promotes serenity and a placid frame of mind.”

Dean looks at it skeptically: he can state without fear of contradiction he does not feel serene or placid. Scent’s nice, though. “And that works?”

“Extremely well,” Cas answers. “I tested it yesterday and it was very effective.”

He starts to ask when and then glances back at the candle still burning merrily by Cas’s laptop; now that he thinks about it, he vaguely remembers the scent of mint in headquarters yesterday. Huh: he thought he imagined it.

Surveying the candle table again, he makes himself be open-minded; witches are just people, who can be good or bad at being people like anyone else, they can just be bad at it in weirder and sometimes dangerous ways. Still—candles. Cocking his head, he wonders what the others do: make you happy, sleepy—is that a mood? What does that even mean, a mood, put you in the mood for….huh.

“So,” he starts, pretending this is purely an intellectual exercise, “she can do that with anything? I mean, when you say mood, what does that cover?”

“If you mean anger or fear….” Cas shrugs. “She could—and probably very well—but unless I misjudged her severely, she’d probably find that as abhorrent as you or I would.”

God, he wishes that was it (also, good to know), but no. “No, I mean….never mind.”

There’s a long moment of silence before Cas says, “Sex.”

Dean stares at the candles intently and doesn’t deny a goddamn thing.

“Desire,” Cas continues, shoulder brushing against Dean’s in an electric charge and if this ends with Dean getting off on vocabulary lessons, he won’t be surprised at all. “Hunger. Lust. Obsession. Passion.”

Dean glares at him (yes, all that, obviously). “What? Just—”

“Curious?”

Meeting the amused blue eyes, Dean smiles slowly and watches them darken. “That’d be it, yeah.”

Pausing to carefully move the candle Dean put down an eighth of an inch to bring it back into alignment with the others, Cas leans back against the table. “Wendy did say she does experimental and custom work, and this would definitely qualify. Considering the subject, she’ll need both our consent first, of course, as well as an explanation of what exactly is desired from the final product. To satisfy your….curiosity”

Dean wants to believe that’s a dealbreaker (tell her what is desired? Really?) but now that it’s on the table—almost literally, like right on the table in front of him…. “If you’re gonna be making new friends,” he starts, casually appropriating Cas’s personal space, “you should introduce me to them.”

“I think she knows who the leader of Chitaqua is.”

“As your boyfriend,” Dean clarifies, hooking his fingers in the waist of Cas’s jeans. “Human skills, Cas.”

Cas tilts his head, mouth curving faintly. “As you wish.”

“So you didn’t answer my question—why all the candles?” Dean asks, stepping between Cas’s knees and sliding his thumbs over the soft skin above his hips beneath his shirts.

Cas makes a face. “There were so many options. I wasn’t sure which I wanted, so.…”

“So got ‘em all and figure it out later,” Dean finishes, nodding: Snuggies Mark II: All the Candles confirmed. “What’d you trade?”

“I’m not sure,” he says, reaching to unnecessarily smooth Dean’s unbuttoned flannel, fingers tugging at the edges. “Amanda handled the transaction.”

A question he forgot to ask Cas that day: exactly how many Snuggies constitute all the sizes and all the colors including those not found in stores? “How many boxes is all of them?”

“Fourteen that she brought with her, one hundred to a box: twelve infused in various combinations and two mundane, one unscented,” Cas says, meeting Dean’s eyes with bar none the most effective use of ‘innocent’ Dean’s ever been privileged to see as he tugs at Dean’s collar, tongue flickering out to drag across his upper lip. “Amanda assured me that we could afford it.”

Dean walks right into it without regret. “Anything you want.” And means it.

“Thank you.” Reaching up, Cas braces his forearms on Dean’s shoulders and draws him closer until he can feel the press of Cas’s cock against his thigh, and oh hell yes. Giving up on subtlety, Dean shoves his hands under the layers of flannel and thermal and t-shirt, palms sliding up the sharply cut bones of Cas’s hips and over warm skin to settle low on his back, following the outlines of bones and faint ridges of scars he wants to learn by touch as well by sight, Cas’s history written into his skin. “Werewolf.”

Dean raises his eyebrows, spreading his hand out to the right of Cas’s spine and finding all four. Sliding a thumb along the outermost, he feels the thick scar tissue beneath the deceptively thin, raised lines. “Eighteen, twenty months?”

“Sixteen and a half,” Cas answers, smiling faintly. “I heal at the same rate as a human, just one that doesn’t have their resources divided to fight infection. Or so Vera thinks.”

“She’d know.” It takes a minute for him to get this is an invitation, that if Dean wants to know, he can ask and Cas wants to answer. Dean has a list and it only grows longer, but on further thought, it’s the kind of list where show and tell should be done in nakeder conditions. On a bed. Freeing one hand, he tucks Cas’s hair back, knowing he’ll never get tired of how Cas stills when he does that, and leans forward, breathing, “You gotta tell me about that sometime,” before tasting Cas’s smile.

---

---

The situation room—as it’s apparently known to everyone (even people he’s pretty sure haven’t been here)—is now redolent with the scent of fresh lemon from the three fat yellow pillar candles settled on a battered former bedside table with a hastily taped leg near the door.

(Dean’s not sure if they’re having any effect on his ‘mood’ (or that ‘clarity,’ ‘focus,’ and ‘inspiration’ were moods) but he’s really enjoying how the first thing anyone sees when they come in is the table of candles and the stages of ‘what the fuck’ that follow. Also, the lemon scent is unbelievable; it’s like someone just cut one open in front of him or something.)

Despite having been what he suspects was Grand Central Station for lawyer meetings, he’s starting to like the room. Sure, evil building, but the textured beige actually kind of works for it, and now that they’re settling in, it’s not that bad. The one thing this town doesn’t lack is a lot of useless furniture (better furniture than this, he’d think, but whatever). They now have five (5) tables, chairs enough for at least fifteen people (thirty if there’s sharing involved) and a hideous couch, and even some vaguely abstract art as soon as they find wherever the hell Cas banished his table-art-map.

More than that though; he’s already getting spoiled having an actual room (that’s not their cabin) in which they can meet with a number greater than twelve people without effort (and even with twelve a lot of maneuvering). And also—this is key here—not in the same place he and Cas eat and sleep. And will be having sex like a lot.

(Okay, yeah, they’re gonna have to do something about that.)

So yeah, not so bad, and the amenities are nothing to sneeze at; for reasons lawyer (he guesses) the meeting room has a direct line to the kitchen and back stairs (why does a law firm need a full kitchen anyway?), its own (really nice) non-functional elevator separate from the one in the front, and an attached bathroom, which is where he had the satisfaction of seeing Joe’s eyes narrow. It’s three rooms, all granite and dark (expensive) looking wood and shiny fixtures, complete with (big) Jacuzzi tub, an enclosed shower the size of their cabin’s kitchen with five separate heads, on a platform (a platform), and a sauna. Off the meeting room.

(“Eight,” Cas said after staring at the Jacuzzi speculatively and doing what Dean assumed was experience-based sex-to-person-space math. He’s got no one to blame but himself for that one; when he and Joe (in retrospect, pretty goddamn stupidly) wondered out loud how many lawyers you could fit in a Jacuzzi that size, they did it in the hearing of a person who lives to answer rhetorical questions. “Sixteen in the sauna, twelve in the shower, but I wouldn’t recommend the latter due to the risk of concussions.”)

The obvious lawyer sex bathroom isn’t even the weirdest thing they’ve found, though discovering that there’s a larger version on the third floor off what was definitely their soul-selling lawyer’s glass-walled office with attached balcony that takes up a quarter of the goddamn floor was definitely up there. The rings bolted into the walls at different not-entirely-random points were bad enough, but Cas raising his eyebrows in what was unmistakably recognition did nothing for anyone, or at least for Dean, since Joe was with them. During a tour of the rest of the building with Joe (because Cas needed time with his replacement laptop and he can deal), they discovered the roof has a helipad (a helipad. In goddamn Ichabod) and the remains of a rooftop garden, and even Joe had to take a moment when they were called down to blink at the (empty) swimming pool tucked into the basement along with a small (but kind of nice) gym.

(Dean stands by this being a shitty, shitty thing to sell your soul for, but if you were the type who prized possessions and group sex Jacuzzis and hardwoods and marble everythings, in that sense he has to admit the guy (or woman) didn’t do too badly. He’s got to wonder what it was like to work here, and if their lawyer was a good boss; if he was, must have been the best job ever.)

Dean also finds out what his job is when not being inspiring and leading people; it’s to be given a clipboard and a fresh sheet of paper and sent on his way to find out where everyone is staying and Joe glumly following along with a stack of numbers and labels to tape on the door of each occupied room or common room and check the functionality of the bathrooms.

(All are working, more or less, but Dean doesn’t fool himself anyone is gonna use them if they can help it. Bathroom, breaks, and downtime are gonna be on the third floor every chance they get even though he gave a direct order that no, the Jacuzzi could not be tested to make sure it works, come on. He wonders if he should get Evelyn or whoever’s front desk to put up a sign up sheet, then remembers that no one in this building will care.)

All and all, the only sane part is touring their new armory on the first floor in a repurposed something room with a good lock. Surveying the metal shelving units crammed into all the available space, Dean nods approval as Natalie explains the logical organization thing going on while one of Amanda’s students assists, a tall brunette in her mid-thirties who smiles wryly at his attention and gets to her feet to extend a hand.

“You probably don’t remember—”

“Vicky,” he interrupts, shaking her hand; some things stick with you, and those reports from the attack on Ichabod he can almost recite verbatim. “Maggie was your sister, right?” She nods, surprised smile fading. “Amanda told us a lot about her. And you, offering to take her place.”

She licks her lips. “First thing Maggie did when we came to Ichabod was volunteer for patrol. She was always better at sports, it was easy for her. I was more the—you know, stay home and crochet type, but I went to all her games.”

“What’d she play?” he asks, touching her side to move them out of Natalie’s way as she goes for yet more boxes.

“Everything, but mostly basketball and volleyball.” She starts to smile again, brown eyes warming. “I was her running buddy, though; said sunlight was good and I should learn that more than in theory and actually see it once in a while. Amanda was surprised; she made me run laps, I could do that. The rest….”

“It takes time,” he says when she trails off, reminded it’s only been a couple of weeks since she lost her sister. “Really. Amanda didn’t tell you stories about Joe yet?”

“I heard that,” Joe says from outside the door, but he doesn’t sound annoyed. “It’s all lies, especially—pretty much all of it. By the way, Dean, we got more rooms to inspect. Cas gave us a list and—”

“Yeah, fine.” Dean blows out a breath, and has the pleasure of seeing Vicky relax, smile returning. “Duty calls. See you around. By the way, Haruhi’s your team leader in training, right? You see her around this morning? Or Derek?”

Vicky tilts her head. “Dolores said she was still in isolation when we went by this morning.”

Huh. “Thanks,” he says, waving at Natalie on his way out and waits until they’re well down the hall before turning to Joe and then realizes something. “Why is Vicky here? Doesn’t she have—things to do?”

“Not with training suspended,” Joe reminds him blandly. “Yes, all our recruits do, but they got downtime like everyone else—Alison’s orders, by the way—and seem to like spending it here. They’ve been stopping by to help us get the place in shape, bringing snacks, hunt up anything we need, show us where to do laundry.”

Dean frantically calculates how many changes of clothes he still has and remembers he packed for a week. “Good call. Where?”

“Down the street somewhere,” Joe answers. “At least until Nicole finishes rehooking whatever needs hooking in the one downstairs off the gym. Alonzo is going to work on the kitchen when he goes off duty at noon, no idea why, but I assume he knows. Kind of like having interns, now that I think about it, but they’re actually useful.”

Dean wonders if this place had interns before and shakes himself. (But seriously, what was the first day like? Here’s the helicopter pad, the swimming pool, and the downstairs orgy bathroom?)

“Right, but—hold up.” Noticing how close they are to the reception area from the sound of cheerful voices, he grabs Joe’s elbow and drags him into a conveniently empty room (beige, again). How many rooms does this building have anyway? “Why would Haruhi be in isolation?”

“Unexpected and unprovoked outbreak of homicidal violence in the mess?” Joe asks with attached sarcasm. “Alison and Teresa gave the order as soon as Naresh saw the mess. Teresa can’t guarantee the wards would catch anyone before stage one.”

“They can’t hold them at the entrance point…” Dean makes a face; most of them have been there for hours already and it’s fucking cold. “Stupid question: how are they managing to hold the entrance point now? I saw the numbers out there, Joe; if those people wanted to stampede the line, they could. It’s a rope.”

“They don’t know that, and we’re not going to tell them,” Joe says bluntly. “First rule of crowd control; you don’t let the crowd guess you even feel like you need to control them, much less that you’re doing it. Right now, it’s just cold and they’re tired, and Dolores has Lewis on the line pulling medical cases and Serafina kids under six and a parent with kids under one, anyone nursing—”

“You’d think that’d piss off the rest.”

“These are mostly families,” Joe answers. “Mom and Dad want their kids okay, families want grandma somewhere warm to rest, partners want their spouses with babies out of the cold. They brought their families to get them somewhere safe; they see the most vulnerable are going to be okay, the wait is worth it. Mostly, anyway. They’re also exhausted, which trust me is a depressing plus here, but when that storm comes in—self-preservation is gonna kick in and that line’s gonna break one way or another.”

Dean stares at Joe for a long minute, then shoves the clipboard in his hands and goes out into the hall, crossing the reception room and through the door out into the street to look up at the churning-grey sky, scanning the horizon and picking out the distant, heavier darkness in the west that’s been growing for days. Even yesterday, though, he doesn’t think it looked like this. When the snow happened two weeks ago, it didn’t look like this.

Hearing Joe come up beside him, Dean says, “You know, I didn’t ask this and that was stupid: how big is the storm? Nice snowy evening, overnight….”

“The lack of meteorologists in our lives is a problem,” Joe answers, following his gaze. “You didn’t miss anything; I just found out when I went to set up the meeting with Alison.”

“Found out what?”

Joe’s mouth tightens. “Dina and Antonio have been watching, trust me, but early this morning they went to Alison and told her to upgrade storm prep, just in case. She’s meeting with all the leads now.”

“They weren’t sure until then or it built really fast?”

“I got the impression they were really surprised,” Joe says reluctantly and Dean just bites back a curse. “Maybe worse than the one a few weeks ago, but how much, hard to say.”

Focusing on the entrance point, the faceless mass of bodies and people spilling into view from the Third Street entrance point—how many people are out there?—the enormity of it hits him all at once, what they’re dealing with, what Ichabod’s trying to do right now with a resident population at barely a thousand. Why Tony’s got everyone with hands helping with the buildings in near all-day shifts, Dolores’ extra infirmary, Volunteer Services showing up like it was always there when Claudia got it up and running by yesterday mid-morning, only hours after they realized what was happening.

“You’re telling me we have a local refugee crisis and potential blizzard?” Dean asks. “We got who the hell knows how many people walking in the snow out there and there’s a fucking blizzard coming?”

“I know it sounds bad—”

“No, it is bad right now,” Dean interrupts, unable to look away from all those gathered people and more coming every minute. “And now we’re talking near-future natural disaster on our front steps!” He turns to look up at Joe. “Tell me that Alison didn’t move us to Second because she thinks they won’t be able to keep the grid powering anything but Second, Main, and Syracuse and didn’t want us to freeze to death with—”

“She didn’t,” Joe says quietly. “This is Alison—and Tony, for that matter. Walter’s at the plant now, doing—no idea, but give them some credit here. It’s—Dean, you get this isn’t in your responsibilities and I don’t mean in the sense of ‘other people’; you can’t do anything. None of us can but keep the perimeter stable and help out where we’re needed. Residents—and early arrivals—have been storm prepping since yesterday, so it’s just—you know, leveling up. Mercedes is leading the groups getting the livestock under cover and also, because this is shit you share, the culling has been going on since last night, so think about that at lunch.”

He gives Joe a sour look and catches the faint, playful grin. “Thanks.” Which reminds him. “I left yours and Rachel’s names at the mess when I was there yesterday equating ‘bullet’ with ‘incident’; just tell ‘em when you get something to eat and it’ll be porkless, promise.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Joe protests. “Judaism is practical when it comes to food restrictions and emergencies, and I, my friend, am very practical indeed.”

“Yeah, but you also hate it more than squirrel,” he explains, and Joe makes a face that’s not in any way a denial. “Besides, variety in meat isn’t a problem; trust me, that’s just more chorizo and bacon for the rest of us who really like it.” Jerking his head at Joe’s skeptical look, Dean starts back to the building when he can’t ignore Joe’s shivering (or his own, fine). “Over a quarter of the residents don’t eat beef, they got kosher, halal, and vegetarian covered fine, not a problem, but Jordan and Deepika need the lists so they know how much to make of everything so they don’t run out of anything. Leah’s not here to add you and Rachel, and I figured you’d forget to mention it and end up resenting bacon, which dude, that’s just wrong.”

“I’d just give it to you,” Joe counters. “And resentfully watch you eat it.”

Dean frowns. “I didn’t think of that.”

They’re almost at the door when Dean remembers what they were first talking about. “Haruhi’s in isolation.”

“Yeah,” Joe says patiently. “So Vicky told us. Why?”

“It’s been over eighteen hours since what happened in the mess,” he answers as Joe pushes open the door. “Window for Croat is eight hours on the outside, so why’s she still there?”

Joe frowns. “Want me to find out?”

“Let’s talk to Alison first,” he says. “By the way, any idea what Alicia was doing this morning?” She was in the infirmary this morning, so she might know what’s up with Haruhi, but it occurs to him he has no idea why she was there in the first place.

“Not sure,” Joe admits, letting the door close behind him as he follows Dean into the neat reception area, clear of weapons and condoms, and Jeremy at the new front desk looking very earnestly bored. Waving, Dean starts toward the Situation Room. “The ways of Alicia are mysterious and not for our kind to understand, which is everyone.”

With Vera, he remembers suddenly. Who didn’t say anything about going back there when they talked this morning, either. He assumed emergency something and Dolores needed her help. “Vera still at the infirmary?”

“Yeah, she sent Esperanza to tell us she’d be back in time for the meeting with Alison.” Hands tucked in his coat pockets, he gives Dean a thoughtful look. “Something bothering you? Alicia reports to Amanda, just ask her.”

“I did,” Dean says, wondering if he should be pissed or impressed. “She distracted me. Just said Alicia would report about the investigation before noon.”

Joe is suspiciously silent but it’s not like Dean doesn’t know what he’s thinking.

“I’m not going to just walk in there and shoot them, come on!”

“I know that,” Joe says reassuringly before adding, “but once you’re in that room, will you remember that?”

“That’s—”

“Anyway,” Joe interrupts, loudly, “you can’t do everything—”

“I don’t do anything!” he exclaims, stopping short of the closed door to the Situation Room to glare at Joe.

“—and no offense, but this kind of thing—it’s Alicia’s thing, trust me.”

Yeah, he was wondering about that. “Why is Alicia handling the investigation, anyway?”

“Because it’s her thing, like I just said,” Joe states, and Dean wonders uneasily if this is one of those things he should already know, but the look on Joe’s face is less ‘my leader is secretly someone else or he’d know this already’ and more ‘smug.’ “So—no, you gotta experience it to understand. Which I’m assuming is what’s going to happen when she reports before noon.”

“What?” Dean asks in frustration, but Joe, looking inscrutable, just starts toward the door. Jogging to catch up, he glares up at him and then decides a change in tactics is in order. “Did you know we have nets in inventory in Chitaqua?”

Joe gives him a wide-eyed look of utter don’t care. “No, why?”

“Was wondering why Alicia needed them,” he says, and watches Joe’s hand freeze on the door knob. “Something about situational awareness and the element of surprise or something.”

Joe stares at him in horror.

“And roofs. She and Cas are working on it together,” he adds maliciously, and beneath the stubble, Joe visibly pales. Awesome. “You gonna open the door or what?”

---

The table-map is the last thing to arrive, and the expression on Cas’s face tells him that his instincts weren’t mistaken; he wonders what Cas’s instincts told him when he was drawing it.

He wants to hang it up, get some perspective, but it’s the size of a six person dining room table and heavy enough to take two people to carry and one to spot, and while the wall’s concrete, he’s not sure what to use to hold it up.

“Dean—” Cas starts, again.

“It’s cool,” Dean argues as he has it set against the wall opposite the hideous couch-thing they scavenged out of what was probably a goddamn grave or something. Even covered in a sheet, it’s not like he doesn’t know what horrors lurk below it. “Gives the room a certain something. Horizontal,” he says belatedly and gets twin dirty looks from Laura and newly-freed-from-daycare-indentured-servitude Gary as they turn it on its side.

“Oh, cool,” Laura echoes when she and Gary join him to look at it in all its colorful majesty. “I didn’t know Cas did art.”

“I don’t,” Cas lies from the other side of the room; they all ignore him.

“I hate kids,” Gary says, staring at the frame; it’s the third time that Gary’s said that in Dean’s presence with no sign of it ending until he’s sure everyone knows all about it. Or possibly ever: he wonders if he should talk to Glenn, find out where Gary was stationed and how long. Toddlers, he’s gotta admit, can be an acquired taste.

“Where are you off to now?” he asks Laura, because Gary’s answer will be ‘anywhere not the daycare, please,’ which isn’t helpful.

“Check in at Volunteer Services, then the mess to give them the final count for lunch,” she answers. “Oh, we just got one of Tony’s crew stopping by, she said—”

“Storm prep?”

She nods, brown ponytail bobbing. “There’s gonna be a meeting in a couple of hours about prep. We need three people to go to the meeting; they’re doing that for every building. Volunteer Services is handling most of it, but I said we could handle our building ourselves. And I would like to say, I grew up in Utah; I know blizzards and what to do before, during, and after.”

“All yours,” he says in relief; one less thing for the volunteers to deal with. “Pick two buddies, you’re in charge of storm prep. Do me a favor: see if you can get to the east part of town and hit the houses Volunteer Services didn’t, get bedding, mattresses, whatever. I don’t want to take anything from Ichabod’s supplies or that the volunteers got already if we can get it ourselves. They’ve got enough on their plate.”

“Got it.”

At his nod, she and Gary leave, and Dean wonders vaguely whether magic candles can do anything about evil buildings when the door abruptly swings open and he hears someone who sounds a lot like Alison say, “Okay, this is much nicer than I thought.”

“We have guests,” Vera says brightly, leaning against the doorway. “Also, coffee pot delivery from didn’t ask at the front desk. Where do you want it?”

“In here is acceptable,” Cas says without looking up from the laptop, and it takes everything in Dean not to walk over there and shut it and have an air-tight excuse of ‘guests.’ Cas is correlating data or something and that may be important, fine, but what the hell.

“I’ll get it if I get a cup from the first pot,” Vera offers.

“Coffee that bad in the infirmary?” Dean asks casually and gets a distracted nod in return.

“Done,” Cas agrees. “Also, tell Alicia, Kamal, and Amanda their presence is requested, as well as your own.”

“I don’t remember it being this nice,” Alison continues from the middle of the room, confirming Dean’s suspicions of her motives as she looks around their (pretty kick-ass) Situation Room. They even got maps taped to the wall, very official militia-like. “You have floors. No gouges in the walls, either.” She stares at the doorframe accusingly. “And paint.”

“Baby,” Teresa says with a sigh in her voice as she drops on the couch, which squeals like someone just stabbed it to death, “you hated this building. Everyone hated this building. We built the warehouses six months early just so no one would have to come here to get food because they might just starve to death.”

Sitting on Cas’s left, Joe drops his pencil, looking at Dean suspiciously. “You got them in on it now?”

“Swimming pool in the basement,” Dean tells Alison gloatingly and has the satisfaction of watching her mouth drop open. “Check out the bathroom over there. Does the word ‘Jacuzzi’ mean anything to you?”

Alison pretends she gives no fucks about the bathroom; no problem, he can wait. She glares at the (really nice) hardwood floor before focusing on the sheet-covered couch with more satisfaction and smiles when it squeals under Manuel’s weight when he drops down beside Teresa. Then her eyes fix on Cas and the smile fades before she sets her shoulders and crosses the room.

The moment Cas looks up (wow, so Alison can get his attention from ‘thing Dean will set on fire in the kitchen-break-room’), she says, “Cas, look—on behalf of Ichabod, I apologize for what happened in the mess.”

Cas stares at her blankly. “What?”

“I didn’t think about making sure we had adequate coverage for everyone coming in,” she says, and Dean realizes she’s been thinking about this; the words are practiced, at odds with her expression. “We know how to handle security, we had it at the party, so it’s not like I don’t know how this works. The mess should have had a couple of people there from the start, and I didn’t think to order it. It’s fixed: Naresh has people at all the public buildings and on each street just in case anything like this happens again.”

Cas shuts the laptop (really?). “It wouldn’t have helped, in this case. As victim—and perpetrator—of the events in question, I can tell you that for certain.”

“You’re wrong,” Alison says, a familiar irritation breaking the rigid calm, “but it doesn’t matter. They should have been there, and they weren’t because I didn’t think about it.”

“Apology accepted,” Cas says immediately. “From Ichabod and its mayor, for an oversight you couldn’t possibly have anticipated during an emergency that no one could have imagined. However, Alison, if you try to take responsibility for anyone’s actions but your own…. I can’t make you stop, but—it might finally clarify the definition of ‘awkward’.” He studies her. “Vera told me about the meeting with the Alliance, though the notes are still—misplaced, it seems. You don’t like the way you used what happened to get help from the Alliance?”

“No, I don’t,” she admits, the rigidity vanishing as she drops on the chair across from Joe and Cas with a sigh, and Dean sees the long night and already long day written all over her face. “People are going to die tonight, there’s no way around it. I thought and thought, and that’s going to happen, I can’t fix that. I can’t stop the storm, I can’t make more buildings safe, I can’t feed everyone indefinitely, the list of ‘can’t’ goes on forever. So we stick to what I can do; I can give people space in what we have until it runs out, and that’s not yet. I can feed them until there’s no food, and that’s not yet, either. I didn’t know how to get the Alliance to help me do those things—and then, I had a way. That doesn’t mean—”

“It means,” Cas says, “that it was worth it.”

Alison’s gaze flies to Cas. “No, it wasn’t—”

“It was to me.” Dean swallows at the cool honesty, knowing Cas means it. “The seed was poisoned by chance, but it doesn’t follow that the tree must be, and the only stain on the fruit is in what is chosen to do with it. You used it to buy lives that would otherwise perish. Well done.”

“Profound,” Alison says after a long moment, cocking her head. “Nice.”

“The poisoned fruit metaphor is simplistic, badly interpreted, and never used for any situation to which it might actually apply,” he says, looking pleased with himself. “I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to see what I could do with it.”

“It worked,” Alison tells him, and he doesn’t think he’s imagining the lessened strain. “It’s not even noon and I feel like it’s already been a week. I’ve never been so excited than when Joe said Chitaqua officially requested a meeting. I’ll agree to anything, and not just because of guilt, just can we stretch it to about two, two and a half hours?”

Teresa giggles, leaning against Manuel’s shoulder tiredly, and Dean searches her for any trace of strain from what she did with the wards. It’s true about them only needing power from her when they’re tested, but even passive ones have a cost when they’re raised. It’s probably tiny under normal circumstances, something she barely notices any more than the energy he expends to breathe, but it’s still something.

Taking the chair at the end of the table by Cas, Dean starts to spread his legs and (kind of) regrets it; the sharp spear of pain shoots up his thigh, and Dean just avoids making a really embarrassing sound, another shot of heat coiling in his belly and its only with an effort he suppresses the video that tries to play through his mind of early morning events. Worse, Cas is right beside him, oblivious to how he’s fucked up Dean’s life with good sex, God.

“So,” he starts, relieved he sounds normal. “Storm prep?” Alison’s too good a poker player to give anything she doesn’t want to, but he thinks he knows her well enough to make some guesses, and the faint line between her eyebrows means ‘trouble.’ “How bad?”

She grimaces, but the hazel eyes meet his head-on. “Could be bad, terrible, or catastrophic,” she answers. “Dina and Antonio have been watching and even they didn’t see the build coming. It’s slowed down, so ETA is midnight to six AM—they think—and it could break up before it hits, no idea.”

Cas frowns. “When did the build start?”

“Hard to tell,” she answers. “None of us are meteorologists, and doing this by eye is a lot harder than it looks on TV. Antonio thinks at the current rate, an hour after dusk yesterday at the earliest and hasn’t slowed down since. Of all the times….” Shaking her head, she straightens. “Volunteer Center started recruiting at dawn for storm prep, checklists and fact sheets are being copied as we speak, and Tony and Walter are at the plant doing—fuck if I know, but they’re reporting to me at noon with the plan on what to do about power.”

“However,” Teresa says, “I did get some good news from my last tour of the entrance point and the road crews; we’re definitely clear to five miles, all cars off the road and moved ten feet off the sides, along with the snow. We should reach the first feeder road an hour after noon.”

“Yeah, about that,” Dean starts as Kamal abruptly appears at the door carrying the—really goddamn big—coffee pot, Vera just behind him with a box of what Dean assumes are all the coffee-related paraphernalia they could need.

“Alicia and Amanda are on their way,” Vera says as Kamal sets the coffee pot on the desk they brought from the old building that’s currently holding the boxes of collected maps and reports and plugs it in before backing away for Cas to deal with. Something no one knew until Cas started drinking coffee in places not home: he has feelings about the amount of coffee that goes in the filter for x number of cups and is less than subtle about expressing them. And opinions on creamer. Dean didn’t know you could have opinions on creamer, but Cas has them.

Giving the box to Cas, Vera leans back against the table by Joe to look at the two rows of maps pinned to the east wall, acquired from the people coming in. Amanda had sorted all they’d found into groups, and as of this morning, there are twenty unique variations hanging on the wall, each one representing a slightly different version of Amanda’s original map.

Even with the sheer shittiness of the Xerox quality—which makes sense, these are copies of copies—it’s not hard to see the differences when set side by side, and especially compared to Amanda’s original. The thick black line on each version traces a different route to Ichabod, and not just from different start points in the state; some of the same start points have two different routes entirely, and three had the same start point but diverged a quarter of the distance to match that of one of the other maps.

The start points are weird on their own; some are close to several clusters of existing communities, some in areas that patrol confirmed are nothing but farmland or dead towns, some from a single small town. To compound the not random but what the hell, everything technically to the east of Ichabod (like someone drew a line north-to-south through Kansas with Ichabod at the center) ends up forced to drive almost to the western border to one of those empty-area start points and go from there.

Using Amanda’s (color) version makes something else very clear; not one of the routes, even by accident, is the most direct path, and some are so insanely convoluted people drive literal circles on a random assortment of good to shitty as fuck roads without any particular reason. It also makes another thing clear; whatever the reason, whoever did this was committed to making sure people followed their version of the map, enough that entire stretches of roads are erased entirely.

In the margins of their representative sample is Cas’s handwritten Greek letters (of course) that mean things like ‘erased all of the western roads mid-green and darker’ and ‘erased all the roads but lime which is dirt roads’ and ‘I think these are cow trails or something.’

“Cas,” Dean says as soon as percolation has commenced. “Go ahead and start.”

“I sent Alicia out this morning to find at what point the landscape accommodates maximum visibility of the countryside,” Cas starts. “Her job was to find that point, mark it, and continue for ten miles beyond it to see if there was any sign of clear roads.”

There’s a knock on the door before Alicia comes in with Amanda. It seems impossible by any normal standard, but she actually looks perkier than she did earlier. Unlike Amanda’s severe braid, Alicia’s ponytail looks like it’s gone through a small war, and each step looks like she’s barely stopping herself from bouncing; despite seeing her carry two visible weapons (and God knows how many knives) when she sheds her coat, tugging her gloves off with her teeth as she approaches the table, big blue eyes clear as a kid’s, it’s an effort to see a soldier.

Then again, that’s probably why even knowing something is eventually going to be happening involving nets and roofs, he’s still going to be surprised when she lands beside someone and covers them with a net. Hopefully beside them. Hopefully only covering them with a net. Christ, the possibilities really are endless.

“Alicia,” Cas says, “please report what you told me.”

“Me and my team went out to find where the hills stopped,” she says, taking the chair between Dean and Alison while Amanda chooses the one facing Dean at the other end of the table with Kamal perched at the corner. Scanning the table, Alicia tugs one of the updated maps with Ichabod’s incoming roads closer. “Best view; starts at five and a half miles, half a mile from the first feeder coming in,” she says, pointing just short of the first road to intersect with the road coming into Ichabod. “I split us up; each of us took five miles down each of the four feeder roads from the point where it branches from what we shall call IH-Ichabod.”

“We are?” Cas asks, and before Dean can deny it, leans out of his chair and writes it on the map. “So decided. Continue.”

“Thank you,” Alicia says smugly. “Distances are as follows: Road A six miles from Ichabod; Road B, roughly seven and a half; Road C, ten and a half, and Road D, fourteen. At five miles out on each one, we surveyed all within our line of sight, visibility in our current pre-snow mood light and variations in landscape roughly twelve miles; rough count, there are fourteen roads feeding directly into A, B, C, or D, and that includes those composed of nothing but dirt according to my map. On all views, all roads are filled to capacity. So we can assume greater than twenty miles worth of traffic jam out there from all directions but east. Since we’re east in this scenario and all.”

“Son of a bitch,” Alison whispers. “And the people….”

“All walking, all the time,” Alicia confirms. “Some have makeshift sleds—color me impressed—snowshoes, a few intrepid souls on skis, but lots and lots of walking through the snow.”

“What,” Alison asks, “the fuck is going on out there?”

“I have an idea regarding what to do about those coming in,” Cas says, looking at Dean uncertainly, who nods encouragement because this actually is a good idea. Reaching for another map, he pushes the others to the side and sets it in the middle of the table. “I think this might, with some alterations, help.”

Alison leans forward as Manuel snags a notebook from those colonizing the table and gets a pencil. “Let’s hear it.”

---

Hearing it again—and after Cas and Teresa sketch out a rough draft with a few alterations—Dean starts to see a lot more possibilities in how this will work.

“So from this point,” Teresa says, pointing at spot about a quarter mile from Ichabod’s patrol line and the bottom of the steep incline leading into Ichabod, “we set Ground Zero, and clear every vehicle from the roads between there and Point D, the most distant feeder road, a little less than fourteen miles.” Cas nods, checking his draft. “Block points A, B, C, and D to traffic when they merge into IH-Ichabod—I like that name, we’re definitely keeping it—and make them pick-up points.”

“Point D is eight miles from Point A,” Manuel says, frowning. “How about relaying everyone from B, C, and D to A and pick them up there to bring them to Zero? That way, we get more vehicles on the road for relay between Zero and A.”

“I agree,” Cas says, making a correction. “Chitaqua’s patrol was trained to deal with civilians in a protective capacity, not combative. I don’t promise our social skills are the best, but—let’s say we’re more used to dealing with angry people who believe we are just being lazy in not immediately slaying their monster on arrival than you are. Also, if there is anything chasing them, we can act as first defenders and send word back to Ichabod to give you time to prepare.” He gets one of his ruthlessly honest looks. “I’ve been told we’re also somewhat intimidating, so that might help.”

“One good reason, one slightly depressing one, and an absolute universal truth,” Alison agrees, wrinkling her nose and looking over Teresa’s shoulder. “You don’t have enough teams here to hold all the roads. I mean, you gotta sleep.”

“All of us can work with each other, not just the official teams; that’s how we were trained,” Amanda says, looking at Cas and then away. “Including the recruits. They’re far enough along to know how to work together, and this will give ‘em good practice in how to deal with people in large numbers early.”

“That gives us ten teams,” Dean says, doing the division on the twenty recruits.

“Nine,” Amanda says briefly. “At least, until we get our non-regular patrol members organized, so set the potential number at eleven.”

“Kyle’s competent,” Cas says out of nowhere, and Dean forgets his protest at the way Amanda’s head snaps up. “During the crisis, perhaps he should be given a temporary team—”

“No,” Amanda says in the exact same voice Cas uses raining down judgment for sins great and small, including wet towels on the bathroom floor and the inexcusable lack of internet in their lives. Cas blinks at her, startled. “Look, he’s—do we really want someone who decided that an hour before going on duty was a good time to get high, drunk, and stupid because Alicia remembered what common sense is and threw him out on his ass?”

Alicia sets an elbow on the table and frowns, bracing her chin on one hand. “Ouch, but fair.” She meets Amanda’s eyes for a long (really significant) moment before turning her attention to Cas. “She’s right and I do not say this as his maybe stalkee. All sins can be forgiven—and I do mean all—but unreliability is a cardinal one when it comes to your team, and if we can’t trust him to do his job, he can’t be trusted to lead others doing theirs.”

“Sean is still performing his regular duties,” Cas argues, and Dean has the feeling he’s missing something. “Under the circumstances—”

“Sean is also concurrently experiencing his rightful bout of serious humiliation for being, as we say, a dick,” Alicia interrupts, wrinkling her nose. “It’s not a matter of degree in sins committed, but trust in your leader. Kyle fucked over his own team when he pulled that shit on New Year’s Eve. No one’s going to trust him to lead them to the bathroom right now.”

“That’s it?” Dean asks quietly, and has three sets of unreadable eyes fixed on him. “Anything else I should know?”

“He’s also sulking,” Alicia says without so much as pausing for a breath. “And doing it loudly. Dean, it’s not easy to get everyone pissed at you, but Natalie practically gave him the cut direct—”

“The what?”

“Ignored him super publicly,” Alicia explains. “Anyway—”

“How about this,” Kamal says, leaning forward. “I’ll give you Ana and take Kyle myself while this is going on.”

“You’re running short with Leah gone,” Dean says with a frown, annoyed that he forgot about that.

“It’s fine,” Kamal says soothingly. “We’ve been working directly with Ichabod’s teams since we train with them while we’re here and we all know each other. Anyway, Kyle’s assigned to Ichabod now anyway, and Ana’s been my second pretty much since we were assigned here. Good choice for a future team leader, by the way; she knows the countryside for miles, the locals, and Ichabod’s patrol teams. If you want, I’ll take Gary off your hands, too, until Leah gets back at least.”

Alicia sits back, looking impressed. “I like it. Even more with that Gary part: you know he hates kids? Ask him about it.”

“Don’t,” Dean tells him, shaking his head at Kamal’s confused expression. “Really.”

“It’s an excellent idea,” Cas says approvingly. “Amanda?”

“What?” She straightens, looking startled, like maybe she forgot Ichabod is her command. “Yeah, that’s fine,” she answers, eyeing Kamal suspiciously. “What do we owe you and don’t pretend it’s not something.”

“I’ll think about it,” Kamal offers, then belatedly glances at Dean. “Uh, you okay with—”

“Cas does personnel, Amanda answers for Ichabod,” Dean says sourly. “I just, you know—whatever I do. What do I do? Anyone know?”

Ignoring him (not a surprise), Cas nods, making some notes. “Vera, get the list from Amanda of all our recruits and you both create a rough draft of the shift schedule for everyone after the meeting is over. I’ll provide you with a list of those who aren’t patrol who are compatible and can work together.”

“We get shift control for the road outposts?” Vera asks in elaborate shock. “Careful, Cas, the power may go to our heads.”

“Hey,” Dean says hopefully. “I have an idea—”

“I didn’t coup Chitaqua,” Vera says clearly, eyes narrowing. “And even if I ever wanted to, I sure as hell don’t want to do it now. All yours.”

Yeah, that’s what he thought; leadership whatever, this is bullshit.

“Even so, that’s a lot to handle….” Alison frowns. “What about civilian teams from Ichabod—not regular patrol, though I’ll make sure they do regular monthly rotations—and put one with each Chitaqua team, give them some help? And instruction in remedial social skills?”

“I like it, but your call,” he says firmly. “Your town, we’re just helping out.”

“We’ll need to clear the remainder of the road as quickly as possible,” Cas says as Alison nods at Manuel to add that to their notes. “Chitaqua can’t set up the checkpoints until that’s done, and once those are established, we’ll stop all foot traffic to give you time to retrieve all the people remaining on IH-Ichabod and send the first four vehicles to retrieve people; if we do it quickly enough, there will be very little time for the crowd to become difficult to control. Once they see what we’re doing, hopefully they’ll understand this is to their benefit and we can implement the entire relay plan.”

“Point A to Ground Zero,” Teresa agrees, then sighs. “That goddamn hill isn’t gonna be fun for anyone on foot.”

“Gas,” Manuel says succinctly. “I did the math; it takes way too much gas that we could be using to bring more people in. They gotta walk it or we’re going to run out fast.”

“I know.” Teresa frowns for a moment. “One problem averted at least; we never got around to cutting down all that brush around the road—hiding, you know, didn’t want anyone to pay attention—so it’s gonna take some effort for anyone to wander off the road even in a blizzard without getting stuck in the shrubbery.”

“We’ll have the walkie-talkies,” Manuel says, grinning at them. “Walter can start powering up our surplus; God bless lithium-ion batteries. This is Snow Rescue 102: I’ll remind everyone to grab their fact sheets to review, but it’s not like last winter wasn’t saving people from that totally unexpected snow that had been falling for a month.”

“You have fact sheets?” Dean asks, wondering why Alicia looks so interested.

“Of course we do,” Alison says with a faint grin as she looks over Teresa’s shoulder at Manuel’s notes. “What about using the horses with those sleds?”

Teresa and Manuel exchange a look, but not mocking, which means these are people who do ride around on horse-drawn sleds in a winter wonderland. “We don’t use them much in winter other than the basics for emergencies and ride them between the fields to save gas, give them some exercise,” Teresa says. “The last storm hit so fast we haven’t had time to do anything but make sure the stables and the barn are warm and our resident equestrians exercised them. First time in harness for months, at night, during a blizzard: oh God no. I can’t see how that could go right.”

Dean doesn’t pretend to know horses. “What’s worst case scenario?”

“They bolt and run into everyone on their way to no idea where they’re going,” she answers grimly. “Difference between a horse-drawn anything accident and a car accident? Horses are like attaching a smart car to another car to pull it, and the car fights you when you try to help while destroying other cars—trust me, it’s like a nightmare and all my childhood screaming and crying at me at the same time.” She frowns, eyes distant. “But a person on a horse could be a guide or carry double or triple, maybe; we have several trackers with perfect direction sense, so assuming they can ride and control their horse, the blizzard could drop visibility to zero and still they’d get everyone home fine. Even if the horses don’t work out, they can do it. We tell them to hit the patrol line at Third Street, they will literally show up right there, no drifting toward Sixth.”

“I need Claudia, Tony, Walter—no, they’re at the plant, so Denny and Njoya—Rohan, Neer, Sreenivasa, Dina, and Tyrone,” Alison recites and looks at Teresa, who thinks before nodding agreement. Getting to her feet, Alison sighs. “Might as well call Lanak in as well, she knows the inventory and supply lists and where everything on them is. Sooner we start, the sooner we maybe can get this working.”

“Any chance you could talk to them really really fast or have someone else do it?” Alicia asks, looking at a startled Alison hopefully “Yeah, it’s been two and a half hours—my bad, I misjudged, but just got this assignment this morning, slowed me down a little. Also, Teresa, if you could stick around, that’d be a big help.”

“For what?” Dean asks.

“My report on the incident in the mess,” she explains like it should be obvious. “And—depending on the next hour or so if we’re not interrupted—part of what’s going on with all the people coming here.”

“Thirty minutes,” Alison says without hesitation. “Manuel, let me brief you on the way to Admin.”

“Do I need to ask permission to go do something?” Alicia asks Dean in the electrified silence. “With Amanda, I mean. I really need everyone here before I start anyway, and we need to double check something, if that’s okay?”

“Yeah,” he says belatedly when he notices both of them are waiting. After they leave, he turns to look at Vera—sketching absently on a piece of paper like maybe she’s avoiding looking at him—and Joe—really into whatever the fuck he’s doing—while Kamal (not having paper or a pencil of his own) searches the table intently and randomly moves papers like it’s the most important thing in the world. “Leader. In case anyone knows what that is. Anyone?”

Cas, caught in the act of starting to reach for the lid of the laptop, gives him a curious look.

“Nothing,” he sighs, getting up and grabbing Cas’s empty cup as he stalks to the coffee pot, which just isn’t far enough away for anyone to notice he’s stalking. “Anyone want coffee?”

“Yeah,” Vera says, reaching for her mug, and Joe silently holds up his cup while Kamal looks hopeful. “Two cream and one sugar, thanks”