Chapter Text
The first time Agent Winchester had seen Castiel Novak's folder, it was rather unimpressive. The plain manila folder was thin and bland, and had almost gone unnoticed in the pile of mail that Dean had grabbed that morning. Which in retrospect, would have been very bad, considering Sammy hadn't moved out yet. But at the last moment Dean saw it and snatched it up along with a bagel as he went around back to the garage.
Since that first debriefing letter, the folder had grown considerably. The small folder in his briefcase had gone from barely worth his notice, to dominating his life. Maps and photos and reports had consumed the desk of his motel room, to the point where he couldn't find the keys to the Impala without digging through stacks of letters and print-outs. At first, it had been that the man was impossible to find. The small town in Pennsylvania had become immense to him, a constantly changing playing field. It was so different than the large cities and corporations and mafia lairs that Dean was used to. It seemed to him like every person in this fucking place wore the same ugly sweaters and baked the same cookies and (thank God) pies. In the week and a half he had been there, he had stumbled upon more homeless shelter benefits and PTA fundraisers than he could count. And Novak seemed to attend every God-damned one.
It was impossible to figure out what days the events were. It wasn't like they had advertisements or flyers, no that would have made sense. The entire town seemed to run by word-of-mouth, and it had only taken Dean two days to figure out that the the type of crowd he was looking for didn't frequent the village's one bar. So, after a suggestion from Bobby back in Washington, he had taken a different approach.
And it was that approach that led him to his first contact with Novak. It wasn't intended, of course. You were never supposed to make contact with the target, it drew unwanted attention. But at the same time, he drew attention everywhere he went in town. He was the outsider. The guy in the jeans and Black Sabbath tee that seemed so out of place. Dean wasn't used to being the center of talk. That was the whole point of him. No one ever looked twice at the mechanic. No one ever looked twice at him.
And for his entire stay in the town, he never noticed that he was being watched by ever person there. He didn't realize it until he walked into the local church and found a pair of bright blue eyes staring him down from across the pews. He stared back, unblinking for a few moments. The face plastered on his motel wall. The face that had slowly been stacking up in his briefcase. The face that he had been playing a damned game of Where's Waldo with for the last week and a half. The face that was wearing the tight-collared black shirt of a pastor. Aware of the growing number of eyes on him from the Sunday church-goers, he quickly took a seat in the back, a small inclination of his head apologizing for interrupting. Dean then proceeded to politely wait out the next two hours of the service, letting his mind drift as he watched the sermon, and more importantly, the person delivering said speech.
Pastor Novak, or Castiel, as the town informally called him, seemed very well-liked by everyone. The town had opened up a lot more after he had attended a service, everyone seemed pretty tied to the church. The folder hadn't contained a home address, which was somewhat peculiar and had made his life much more of a hassle than it should have been. But that was soon explained as he learned Novak lived in an adjoining complex to the church. Go figure. After that piece of knowledge, the mission should have been pretty easy. Except that the damned man was never alone. He wasn't married, thankfully enough for Dean (he didn't want to have to deal with avoiding family members to do his job), but he was still always surrounded by people almost day and night. He manned confession and was there to help anyone that seemed to need help. Which prodded Dean to wonder who the hell wanted the man dead.
As another day passed, Dean noted that while Novak was always busy with people, he wasn't exactly a social person. While he was loved and admired, it didn't seem to Dean like his target had many very close acquaintances. Sometimes a phone would emerge, but the conversations never lasted very long. A bit of research revealed that his family had long since moved on to different towns and cities. His two brothers, Michael and Raphael ran companies in New York. His sister Anna was a designer for a private fashion company in Los Angeles. Both his parents had passed on when he was little.
With each new tidbit of information, the folder on his desk got larger, with still no valid reason anyone should ever want the man dead. But he supposed it wasn't his job to ask questions.
**
There was a sniper rifle in his hotel drawer. An automatic in his briefcase. A small vial of poison in his mini fridge. Latex gloves in his closet. It would be simplicity itself. There was no way in Hell that it would take very long. Heck, he should have already been done by now. Much longer and Bobby would start to ask questions. Any longer than that and Sam would start trying to research the Mechanics convention Dean was supposedly at.
Tuesday, Dean thought as he stared at Novak's schedule. Not a bad day to die.
After that hurdle had been made, his hands had seemed to act by themselves. Not too soon after that he found a few church pamphlets on his bedside table, and a time and place penciled in to have dinner with the guy. Now that it was obvious Dean was an outsider anyways, discreet didn't matter. And a slow acting poison would work the best, he supposed. He could always mask it as a previously unnoticed heart problem or late-onset medical condition. It wasn't bloody. It wasn't messy. Just, simple.
**
The diner had been small. Novak had ordered pie. He had even left to go say hello to another table. The perfect opertunity. Dean couldn't seem to move his hand.
**
Castiel liked pie too. Apple, he had commented, was the best type of pie there was. "Closest we can get to Eden," he had joked. Dean had smiled. After all, it was polite. And the pie was great. Small towns seemed to have the best diners. More mainstream places could never get it right. The flakiness of the crust, the tartness of the filling. He bet Castiel could make a great pie.
**
Castiel had always wanted a cat. Dean had never been much into animals himself, but something about the way Castiel looked at them when he worked with the Shelter.
"Animals can't judge you, they have untarnished souls. Innocent. They want nothing more than to be happy and content with you. All they want is love, is company. Animals are pure, but broken. Sometimes broken people need broken animals."
Sam had always wanted a dog. Maybe it wouldn't be too bad to have one around. Brochures on breeds and care snuck into pockets and folders of his briefcase.
**
Castiel loved poetry. It was a bit too girlish for Dean. Love and pain and mushy feely stuff. No chick flick moments for him, thank you very much. But Castiel seemed to have poems etched inside every crevice of his mind. He would work pieces into his sermons and services. He called music poetry once, when he had seen Dean's Led Zeppelin tee.
Each of those lyrics, each of the lines was poetry. Dean wondered whether or not Cas listened to Metallica or Black Sabbath or Led Zepplin.
**
Cas had the bluest eyes Dean had ever seen. He doesn't remember if he ever actually stopped to really look at them. So deep, so many shades and hues of blue. It was like the ocean, or the sky, or the rivers or lakes. It was everything combined. Like, if you were staring at the reflection of clouds in the water. They were so clear, so sharp. It was like if someone had gone in and photoshopped light into them. At every second of the day Cas was smiling or laughing. He was always so happy. He didn't seem to have a care in the world.
**
Cas wasn't a threat to the nation. He couldn't be. What in the world could one person do to upset so many people? The worst thing on his police record was a parking ticket from when he was 16. It had to be a mistake, it must have been a mistake.
It had to be.
**
Intel surveillance. That was what it was. Getting to know the target and his habits. A lazy mid-day lunch, complete with yet more pie. At one point Cas's nose was smudged with ketchup, and it took Dean's every will not to lick it off. It was intel, damn it. Nothing more.
No wife. Or girlfriend for that matter. God came up more than once over the afternoon. Cas was so...devout. So enthusiastic. Every word out of his mouth was full of energy and, Dean hated to say it, holiness. It was impossible to frown while he was talking. The pastor lit up the room with his grace and charm.
Who the holy hell would put a warrant out for his head?
**
Two weeks in, Bobby called. He wasn't too happy. "Get your God-damned ass in gear boy, Sam's called twice, and soon Washington will be knockin' about too."
Dean was running out of options.
**
He had to know. What constituted Cas's bounty? He wasn't a serial killer, he was a fucking pastor, or a priest, or whatever the difference was. He wasn't a threat, he wasn't.
**
The door hadn't been open. Dean felt wrong, for the first time in his life, as he picked the lock. The suburban house was so different, home-y in a way that Dean had never gotten the chance to experience. He smiled softly to himself. It was the sort of place Sam would settle down in, the agent predicted. A wife, a dog (a big one, maybe a lab or a Saint Bernard or something), and two kids. He'd be a big-shot lawyer, they'd be a family. Dean wouldn't get that, ever.
The door clicked open.
The pictures on the wall showed a family before conflict. He recognized a younger version of Cas, next to his sister and brothers. A mom or dad wasn't anywhere in those pictures. Absent parents? Dean could relate.
Cas wasn't home, he of course had checked beforehand. His target was off at a Wednesday night youth service. The bedroom was empty, the bed made and the closet full of neatly-ironed clothes. The bathroom spotless, no poisons no illegal drugs. Normal.
Dean moved onto the neighboring room, the study. Books were scattered around on various tables. Papers littered the ground, a stark contrast from the cleanliness of the rest of the house. As he walked in a bit further, a flash of manila caught his eye, his vision trailing towards the desk.
And Dean was laughing. A light chuckle of disbelief at first, and then it elevated as he looked closer. He then was laughing harder than he could ever remember. Full blown hysterics.
***
As he flipped open the cover of the overstuffed manila folder, between the maps and charts and police profiles, he could see his own face staring right back at him.