"Wow."

"Yeah," Dean laughed. "Hell is gonna close up shop if we manage to play our cards right. Sometimes I can't believe it either."

John ruefully shook his head. "Christ, the game has really changed since I've been gone. Back in my day we killed ghosts and vampires. Manageable things. I never thought you two would have to deal with this, this crazy biblical stuff." His face was soft with wonder.

"But we've dealt with it. In fact, we saved the world a whole bunch of times. Not bad for two little hunter brothers from Kansas, huh?"

John's eldest son grinned widely, pride radiating from his every pore. He looked older and rougher at the edges, like a man rather than a cocky kid. There were wrinkles around his eyes when he smiled. His voice was low and gruff with added years of alcohol consumption and physical strain, but it still contained the same boyish devotion, the same eagerness to please.

John absent-mindedly caressed the upholstery. "You took good care of the car," he remarked.

"Thanks. You left her in good hands, dad. Sir."

"Mmm." John sighed, and decided to cut to the chase. "Look Dean, about your… friend in the trenchcoat…"

Dean's expression soured immediately, as if he'd expected the topic to come up, and had been dreading it like the plague.

"Cas? What about him?"

"He's really an angel?" John asked neutrally.

"Yeah. Yes. He's a proper angel. He even has wings and everything. Right now he's inside the body of this ad salesman called Jimmy… uh… it's kind of a long story."

"Well, I guess your mom was right."

"About what?" Dean frowned, confused.

"Maybe angels were watching over you," John explained, his expression unfathomable.

Dean chuckled humorlessly. "Oh. Believe me, that's not a good thing. Those divine asshats are complete dicks to us. Turns out that heaven is just as corrupt and dysfunctional as the folks downstairs. Hey, not Cas, though," he added hurriedly. "He isn't like the others. He's stuck with us through everything, even if it meant slamming the door on his angel buddies. You don't have to worry about him."

John noted how quickly his son had jumped to the defense of the creature wrapped in borrowed flesh. It bothered him. From the moment he had laid eyes on the strange man-shaped thing, every hunter alarm bell had gone off in his head.

"Dean. He's not human," John said with finality. "Do you truly believe you can trust him? You just admitted that angels are no better than demons."

Dean was becoming increasingly agitated. "No, come on, it's Cas! You don't know him like I do." Decades seemed to have fallen off his face in a matter of seconds. Suddenly he was a teenager again, desperately defending Sam's latest stupid rebellion. But he was no longer pleading for his little brother. "He's family to us just as much as you were, or Bobby, or mom. I would trust him with my life in a heartbeat. I would even trust him with Sammy's life, that's how much faith I have in Cas."

"Right. That 'Cas', is it the same Castiel who turned into a God and massacred his own kind?" John said icily. "I've heard of him. He caused quite a stir in heaven. He sounds no better to me than any other power-hungry monster we've ganked."

Dean closed his eyes. "Why do you always do this?" he whispered.

"I'm worried because you're recklessly throwing away your common sense, all right?" his father snapped. "If you want to risk your life hanging around a genocidal maniac, that's fine, but don't put Sam in danger too. Or have you forgotten your responsibility to your brother?"

Dean's knuckles went white around the steering wheel. "You don't get to say that to me," he growled. "You do NOT get to say that to ME." His entire body was tense like a bow string, and he looked ready to rip the wheel out of the dashboard. "I raised Sammy by myself while you were off killing things. And you know what? He turned out fine! He turned out better than both of us combined, though God knows the kid has seen some serious crap. He's a giant grown ass man, and he's the smartest hunter in the country, and he doesn't need me to make his decisions for him. And Cas! He pulled Sammy out of Lucifer's freaking cage! He fixed Sam's head from the hallucinations, even though he needed to take the damage on himself. I have better reasons for trusting him than I've got for forgiving YOU."

"Dean… I spent a hundred years on the rack to save you." John's words sounded much more reproachful than he'd intended them to be. He wasn't sure what he intended from them. Did he want acknowledgment for his sacrifice? Or did he simply want absolution?

Dean's anger wavered visibly, but a lifetime of repressed bitterness could not be washed away by old guilt.

"Dad, I'm not ignoring what you did. But if you'd asked for my opinion, I would've told you to let me die." He sounded exhausted and absolutely adult. "I would've followed my reaper rather than let you make that stupid deal, and I'm sure you knew it. But even after all these long, terrible years, sometimes… sometimes I wonder, why was it easier for you to damn yourself than to give your kids a childhood?"

Sam chose that exact moment to scramble clumsily onto the backseat with handfuls of plastic bags. Dean jumped, and stiffly pried his fingers off the wheel.

"So, did you two bond over Baby's upkeep?" Sam asked brightly. His smile faded when he spied his father's thunderous expression.

"Um, what happened here?"

Castiel joined the backseat as well, his scooting no more graceful than Sam's. "John was telling Dean about my lack of trustworthiness," he interjected helpfully. "He says I'm a genocidal maniac, and that I am danger to you both, Especially you, Sam."

"Dad, what the hell is WRONG with you?" Sam shouted. "Did you make us go away just so you could give Dean crap about Castiel?" He'd rarely looked so completely and utterly furious.

"For Christ's sake, man, stop eavesdropping," Dean mumbled at the angel with a familar annoyance, as if they had this conversation regularly.

"I'm a celestial being. It's not eavesdropping if you're aware that I can hear you."

"Look, Cas, I don't usually mind that much, but I was having a private convo over here…"

"I apologize. You were discussing familial matters, it was wrong of me to…"

"Shut up, Cas!" Sam yelled. "Dad, I'm really glad to see again, but we are not letting you run our lives anymore. Cas is our friend. He saved our asses a couple hundred times. And Dean, he spent a whole friggin' year looking for his angel in purgatory! D'you think he'd do that for just goddamn anybody? No, of course not! And I'd die for the guy, I really would. It's only fair after all the times he got himself blown into little angel pieces because of us. So you don't get to say another word about Cas. We've stopped the apocalypse without you, and we can totally do without your help on this hunt. Is that clear?"

The silence following Sam's passionate speech was deafening.

Finally, John licked his lips, and said, "How on earth did you boys end up in purgatory?"

"Exploding Dick."

"…What? "

Dean threw a grateful glance at his brother while he explained Dick Roman's plans, and tried to unravel the entire messy Leviathan affair in a way that made sense. Sam nodded back reassuringly.

"Thank you Sam," said Castiel, sober and quiet.

"Don't worry about it. We've got your back."

Castiel smiled for the rest of the car ride. Dean threw little glances in the rear-view mirror, and occasionally smiled back when he thought his dad wasn't looking.

AN: Thanks to deathbycoldopen on tumblr for the title!