When the Fog Clears

The bunker’s garage hummed with the steady throb of classic rock—some seventies station Dean found comforting, guitars grinding like gravel. The Impala’s black flank caught the overhead lights, shining like a promise. He’d washed her that morning even though she didn’t need it. He’d checked the oil. Rotated the tires. He was out of excuses.

So, guns.

He worked the slide on a Colt, thumb pressed to cool steel, movements efficient, automatic. Rag, solvent, careful pull along the barrel. The smell of oil and metal sat thick in the air. It fit in his lungs the way a lullaby might fit in someone else’s. He set the Colt down, lined it up with the others in a neat row that satisfied some quiet itch. Order. Control. He told himself that mattered. He told himself it mattered more than the way his chest felt tight and jumpy, like he’d guzzled bad coffee.

AC/DC poured over the concrete like sunshine. He turned the volume a notch higher anyway, the notes filling the spaces not even the bunker could fill. He knew better than to call it boredom. Boredom didn’t have edges. Boredom didn’t follow him from the kitchen to the library to nights spent staring up at the underside of his eyelids. This was something else. An itch beneath the skin. Hunter restlessness. The kind that crawled up his spine when the world went too quiet and he wasn’t ready to listen to what his head tried to whisper in the quiet.

He picked up the cleaning rod and let his fingers find the rhythm they always did—push, pull, twist. Clean lines. Clean noise. Safe territory. He thought about the last case. Witches in Iowa. Easy salt-and-burn after, no surprises. Sam had called it good luck. Dean had shrugged. Luck never stuck around for long. He wouldn’t say he missed the hard hunts, but straightforward felt like chewing gum someone else had already chewed. He needed… something. Motion. A target.

He rolled the tension out of his shoulders and checked the chamber again, even though he knew it was empty. Nothing to fix. Nothing broken. He set the Colt aside, reached for the sawed-off. Its weight was familiar, a comfort he didn’t look at too closely. He broke it open, checked the barrels, wiped along the edges. The rag snagged a burr at the seam, and he focused on that, the tiny imperfection he could erase with a few careful passes.

Sam’s footsteps didn’t echo anymore in this part of the bunker. Sam had taken the morning to jog, to think, to breathe. He had his own ways of clearing his head. Dean respected it. Avoided it. He preferred noise loud enough to drown the thoughts that tried to push their way forward—what-ifs and maybe-somedays and that hollow, wary ache that crept in when a hunt ended and he didn’t have a next step in mind. He could manage empty time most days. Today felt heavier.

He glanced at the far wall where an old pinup calendar hung crooked. He knew exactly how many times he’d replaced it. He knew exactly when he’d stopped pretending to be someone who collected anything so obvious. He checked the shelves—ammo stacked by caliber, tags in his handwriting. Everything accounted for.

The Impala gleamed back at him. She was fine. He was the one who wasn’t, and he didn’t have a word for it. He could blame it on the weather if he wanted to. The Midwest did this—too much gray sky, too many hot, airless afternoons in the bunker, nowhere to point all this restless power. He told himself it was that.

He sat on the rolling stool and wheeled closer to the table, turned the music down a bit when the solo kicked in, then back up when the song dropped into chorus. He didn’t want to think about the last time the bunker had felt crowded and loud. He didn’t want to think about the first nights after the quiet came back. He didn’t want to think about Cas standing in the doorway sometimes, looking like he had words and swallowing them.

He scrubbed a smudge off the shotgun’s stock with more force than he needed. The friction warmed his palm. He flexed his fingers and told himself to take it easy. He wasn’t angry. Not exactly. He just had nowhere to put his hands if they weren’t full of something that could bite back.

He paused, listened to the subtle hum of the ventilation, the far-off drip of a pipe he kept meaning to fix. Even the bunker’s bones sounded steady. He could almost pretend the world had settled into something that might hold. He could almost pretend he didn’t keep waiting for the other shoe.

Dean blew out a long breath, sat back, and surveyed his lineup. Perfect. Uselessly perfect. His knee bounced. The song changed. He reached for the rifle because he couldn’t think of anything else to reach for. He knew, even as he unscrewed the bolt, that he was stalling. Not for a hunt. For something else he didn’t want to name. Something that made the empty stretch of the day feel like it was crowding closer.

He kept his head down and let the music do what it could. He let his hands move. He didn’t look at the doorway. Not yet. He didn’t ask for distraction, but he wanted it—clean, simple, something he could shoot. Something that would fill the space. He waited without admitting he was waiting, working steel until it gleamed.

The shift in the air was subtle, like someone turned the volume down on the universe just a notch. Dean felt it before he looked—pressure easing at the back of his neck, the faint rustle that wasn’t fabric so much as presence rearranging itself to fit a room.

He kept his eyes on the rifle anyway, gave the bolt an extra check it didn’t need.

“Dean,” Castiel said, voice low, steady.

Dean glanced up. Cas stood framed in the doorway, trench coat darker today, a damp shine near the hem like he’d walked through rain that didn’t touch anyone else. He held a book that looked like it belonged in a museum or a dragon’s hoard: cracked leather, corners worn to pale, soft fiber. Dust clung to it like it didn’t want to give up its home.

Dean cleared his throat and leaned back on the stool. “Hey, sunshine. Lose your library card or mug a curator?”

Cas looked down at the book as if surprised to find it in his hands. “I found this in one of the locked stacks. It concerns Midwestern weather deities. I thought… it seemed relevant to several cases you and Sam discussed last week.” He stepped inside, the quiet following him, and set the book gently on the workbench edge, careful not to smudge the oil. His gaze flicked to the guns, then to Dean’s face. “And I have a question.”

Dean smirked automatically. “Always a pleasure. Hit me.”

Castiel’s brow knit the way it did when he was preparing to navigate human weirdness. “What is a ‘Final Boss?’ Garth used the term on the phone yesterday. He said his dentist was the ‘Final Boss’ of molars. That seems anatomically inconsistent.”

Dean barked out a laugh that surprised him with how good it felt. “Okay, yeah, that’s… not a monster. It’s from video games. The last big bad at the end of a level. The toughest thing you fight. If your dentist is that, you probably need better floss.”

Cas absorbed that with grave attention, head tilting. “So the ‘Final Boss’ is not a literal person, but a metaphor for ultimate difficulty.”

“Yeah. Don’t tell me Heaven doesn’t have metaphor.”

“Heaven has parables,” Cas said, completely serious. “They are… less entertaining.”

Dean wiped his hands on a rag, trying to scrub off the new warmth pooling in his chest. “You should’ve seen some of the old arcade cabinets. That was church.”

Cas’s mouth pressed in that almost-smile Dean pretended not to catalog. “I also heard ‘redshirt’ used to describe a deputy who did not, in fact, wear a red shirt.”

“Star Trek,” Dean said, pointing a finger, pleased to have the answer. “Early series. The guys in red uniforms were the ones who usually bit it on away missions. Background crew. So now it’s shorthand for cannon fodder.”

“How grim.”

“Humans cope with humor.” Dean shrugged. “And data sets.”

Cas’s eyes lingered. “And you?”

Dean looked down, found the bolt he’d already cleaned twice, and turned it anyway. “I cope with rock and solvent.”

Cas nodded, as if that explained everything. Maybe it did. He slid the book closer, opening it carefully. The paper made a soft sighing sound. “This text mentions a regional spirit that travels with storm systems. The ‘Gray Sister.’” He traced a line of Enochian marginalia someone had scribbled centuries ago. His fingers were steady, strong, the nails blunt. “I recognized the symbol from a sigil we found in Nebraska.”

Dean leaned in, the smell of dust and old ink passing under the sharper notes of oil and metal. Their shoulders nearly touched. Almost. He could feel the heat, a tangible border his body registered even when his mind tried to keep it simple. “Huh. Never heard of her.”

“She’s territorial. Punishes disrespect,” Cas said softly. “It reminded me of you.”

Dean snorted, then caught the rest of the sentence and faltered. “What, the territorial part?”

“The part where you guard what you consider yours,” Cas said, eyes on the page but voice aimed at him. He didn’t seem to realize the way that landed. Or maybe he did.

Dean felt that tightness in his chest hitch and then loosen into something that made his hands restless. He shifted his knee against the bench. “Well. I take good care of my stuff.”

“Yes,” Cas said, and there was something gentle there that pulled at him. “You do.”

Silence stretched, not uncomfortable, exactly—familiar and edged with all the things they never named. The radio wailed a chorus that didn’t belong to the moment, but Dean let it fill the parts of him that wanted to spill out. He reached, turned the volume down a notch.

Cas’s gaze flicked to the dial. “You like it loud.”

“Drowns out the ventilation,” Dean said. “And my thoughts.”

Cas’s mouth moved like he was about to argue and then didn’t. Instead, he tapped a paragraph with the tip of his finger. “The Gray Sister gathers in low places, especially valleys and old mining towns. Her fog is described as… purposeful.”

Dean felt the word settle. Purposeful. He glanced at Cas’s hands, at the careful way he weighted the page, thumb braced on the margin. “You’re saying she’s not weather. She’s a person.”

“A will,” Cas corrected. “Personhood is—” He stopped when Dean rolled his eyes, a small smile loosening his features. “Fine. A force with intent.”

“Great.” Dean closed the rifle with a crisp click. “Sounds like my kind of weekend.”

Cas looked up, and there it was again—that quiet light behind his eyes, focused and unshakeable. “You wanted a distraction.”

Dean’s breath hitched. He covered it with a grin. “What gave me away? The six cleaned guns or the thousand-yard stare?”

“The way you turned the music up when I came in,” Cas said, and Dean felt heat crawl up the back of his neck. Cas leaned a little closer, as if to read his face the way he read the page. “You don’t have to be loud with me.”

Dean swallowed. The words slid right under his ribs, lodged there. He shifted, shoulder brushing the edge of Cas’s coat. It was the smallest touch, not even a touch—fabric whispering against denim—but it crackled through his nerves like static.

“Yeah, well,” he said, softer. “It’s a habit.”

Cas inclined his head. “I’m learning your habits.”

Dean let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “And I’m trying to teach you the difference between redshirts and molars.”

Cas’s eyes warmed. “Then we’re even.”

Dean tapped the book. “So. Weather gods. You think we’ve got one in our backyard?”

Cas nodded, gaze going distant like he was seeing a map overlay the garage floor. “Not here. But close enough. Garth mentioned a town—Last Chance. He called it a ‘final boss’ situation with fog.” The corner of his mouth tilted, pleased with the usage.

Dean laughed quietly. “Look at you, speaking nerd.”

“I’m multilingual,” Cas said, and there was no boast in it, just fact.

Dean’s fingers hovered near the book, near Cas’s hand, as if pulled by some mild current. He drew back before it could be obvious, wiped his palms on his jeans. “All right. Let’s see what the Gray Sister has to say for herself.”

Cas looked at him, steady and sure. “I thought you might say that.” He closed the book gently, a soft thump that sounded, somehow, like a starting gun.

The phone started buzzing, vibrating against the metal bench with an irritated rattle that made both of them look down. Dean snagged it before it danced off the edge, glanced at the screen, and huffed. “Speak of the werewolf.”

He thumbed it on and put it to his ear. “Garth. You interrupting my afternoon date with Hoppe’s on purpose?”

Garth’s voice came through breathy and bright, background noise like a TV low in another room. “Hey, Dean-o. How’s the bunker life? Kiss the dog for me. Okay, so—I’ve got something. You sitting down?”

“I’m always sitting when you call, man.” Dean leaned back on the stool, catching Cas’s eye. Cas tipped his head and mouthed Garth? Dean nodded. “Shoot.”

“Colorado. Tiny place off the main highway. Calls itself Last Chance, like it’s a theme park for bad decisions. Population two thousand on a good day. The last week, they’ve had five disappearances. No signs of struggle, no bodies. Doors locked from the inside, windows latched. People just… gone.”

Dean frowned, the little itch of interest sharp under his ribs. He balanced the phone on his shoulder and reached for a pen, dragging an old invoice closer. “Names?”

“Sending you the list. Sheriff is Deirdre Collins. She left me three voicemails in a row and one email with all caps. The fog there is bananas, man. Like pea soup, but angrier. Rolls in after dark, clears by morning, then comes back. Folks say it smells like the air before lightning.”

Dean felt Cas shift at his side. “Ozone,” Cas said quietly.

“Yeah,” Garth said, like he’d heard him. “And the power grid keeps dropping whenever it gets thick. Weather guys on TV say it’s a freak static thing, maybe wind patterns. Locals say it’s the Devil’s Elbow. That’s what they call the bend in the highway outside town. You go through it when it’s foggy, you feel… watched. A couple of missing folks lived right off that stretch.”

Dean scribbled: Devil’s Elbow. Sheriff Collins. Ozone. He met Cas’s steady look. “Any signs it’s a human creep? Break-ins? Vehicles missing?”

“Nah. One guy disappeared from his recliner. His TV was still on. His beer was warm when his wife got home from bingo. She swears she only left for an hour. Another was a teenager from his bedroom. Mud tracked in, but not like footsteps. More like the fog itself dripped through the frame.”

Dean tapped the pen against the bench. He could hear Garth exhale, calmer now that the case was leaving his hands. “Locals buy in to any stories? Urban legends? Hashtag monster?”

“Bunch of old miners have folklore about ‘the Misty Man.’” Garth chuckled apologetically. “You can roll your eyes if you want. They say he pulls folks who talk big about how nature’s nothing. Like it’s punishing hubris. Honestly, that sheriff’s at her wit’s end. Her words. ‘I’ll take FBI, I’ll take ghostbusters, I’ll take anybody with a plan.’ You guys are… you know.”

“The plan,” Dean finished dryly. He felt the edge of the bench under his fingers, cold and grounding. “All right. Send me the address for the sheriff, any news links you’ve got, and the contact who gave you the miners’ tales. We’ll head out tonight.”

“Storm system’s moving that way, too,” Garth added. “So bring your rain gear. And Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t let that fog get in your head.”

Dean snorted. “Please. It’d need a map.” He hung up, tossed the phone onto the workbench, and blew out a breath. For a second, the garage seemed too still. Then he turned, all motion again, reaching for the duffel he kept half-packed. “Well. There’s our milk run.”

Cas watched him, eyes thoughtful, like he’d been following both sides of a conversation. “You don’t believe that.”

Dean shrugged, not denying it. “I believe in not letting an old miner out-name us. Misty Man? We can do better.”

Cas’s mouth softened. “The sheriff’s name is Collins?”

“Yeah.” Dean stuffed salt rounds into a pouch, then paused as Cas slid the old book back toward him, open to a page with a crude illustration: a smear of gray sketched around a crude figure. A note in cramped English read: she takes the brash.

Cas tapped the margin. “Territorial. Punishes disrespect.”

“Great.” Dean zipped the duffel, the sound decisive. “We’ll go in polite, then.” He jerked his chin toward the halls. “Grab your coat. And your bedtime stories. Garth said the fog has a smell.”

“Ozone,” Cas repeated. He was closer than Dean realized, close enough that when Dean shifted, their shoulders brushed again. That quiet crackle hit him in the same spot as before. It wasn’t new, but it felt newly admitted, like letting a fact into the room.

Cas reached for the book. Their fingers almost touched. He didn’t pull away fast. “I’ll bring it,” he said. “The sheriff will be more receptive if we can explain.”

“Yeah.” Dean swallowed, aware of the way he was standing in his space and not moving. He stepped back a fraction. “I’ll tell Sam we’re out for a couple days.”

“Do you want me to—”

“I got it.” He grabbed his phone again, thumbed out a quick text. Gone hunting. Fog thing. Back when we’re back. He didn’t add more. Sam would read between the lines—he always did.

Cas slid the book under his arm, its weight like a promise. “Last Chance,” he said, trying out the name. “It sounds appropriately dramatic.”

Dean smirked, a little edge of excitement cutting clean through the restless mess he’d been circling all day. “Let’s go give them a better one.” He tossed the duffel over his shoulder and killed the radio, the silence folding in.

At the doorway, he paused, glancing back. Cas was still at the bench, turning the page to mark it, careful fingers pressing down. Dean watched for half a beat too long, then shook himself. “You coming, or you gonna date that book?”

Cas looked up, the smallest curve pulling at his mouth. “I’m learning your habits.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean said, heart thudding a little faster than a hunt should earn. “Come on, angel. We’ve got a fog to meet.”

They moved together down the hall, boots soft on the bunker’s concrete. Dean’s duffel thumped against his shoulder, a familiar weight that usually settled him. Today, it just reminded him he’d been itching for something to punch. Preferably fog. He snorted under his breath.

At his room, he tossed the duffel on the bed and opened drawers with brisk, practiced motions. A few shirts, extra socks, a worn hoodie for the motel chill. He checked his arsenal again—because checking twice meant not thinking too hard—running fingers over the cool lines of knives and the neat stack of iron rounds. He liked order. He liked a list he could cross off.

Cas stood in the doorway, still holding the book. He didn’t come in. He looked like he wanted to, which did something strange in Dean’s chest.

“You don’t have to hover,” Dean said lightly, stuffing a half-empty bottle of whiskey in with the gear. “I’m not gonna forget my toothbrush.”

Cas’s eyes dragged to the bag, then to Dean’s hands, careful in their own way. “You never forget your toothbrush.”

“See? You are learning.” Dean zipped the bag halfway. “Grab your stuff. Layers. Garth says storm.”

“I am always prepared for storms,” Cas said, almost automatic. Then he added, quieter, “This fog is not weather.”

Dean paused, the zipper tab catching his thumb. He didn’t let the moment hang. “Then it’ll be a quick talk with a local spook. We salt it, burn whatever’s binding it, and grab a burger on the way out. Milk run.”

Cas’s mouth pressed into something that wasn’t a smile. He dipped his head, acceptance without agreement. “All right.”

They split—Cas to his room, Dean down to the kitchen for road sustenance. He dug through a cupboard for the stash of protein bars and tossed a handful into the bag on his way back through, augmenting it with a battered thermos. He filled it with coffee strong enough to scald and popped the lid with a snap that sounded like control.

When he passed Cas’s door, it was open. Cas stood inside, a knapsack on the bed, his coat open. He was rolling a stack of shirts with a focus like the sigils he drew—precise, deliberate. The book lay open beside the bag, the pages bristling with old ribbon markers. Dean leaned on the frame.

“You bring that thing and the motel will think we’re doing bedtime stories.”

Cas didn’t look up at first. “You prefer I keep it out of sight?” He glanced up, searching Dean’s face for a boundary Dean hadn’t decided yet whether he wanted to set.

Dean shrugged, easier than truth. “Flash it when it helps. Otherwise we’ll stick to the usual. Agents, badges, charm.” He threw in a grin he knew always got at least a head tilt from Cas. It arrived on cue, but it was thin.

“The sheriff,” Cas said, “is described as pragmatic. She will respond to facts, not charm.”

“You wound me.”

Cas’s mouth quirked properly this time. He slid a small packet of chalk and paint sticks into the bag, Enochian supplies Dean recognized by habit now. “I’ll bring the things you won’t admit we need.”

Dean watched his fingers, the way they lingered on the edge of the page before he closed the book. The light over the bed made a dull halo on the paper and the curve of Cas’s knuckles. He felt the urge to say something too honest and stuffed it down with a cough. “Good. Teamwork.”

They met again at the garage door. The bunker was cooler near the exits, the air smelling faintly of oil and steel. Dean slapped the light switch. The Impala gleamed in the harsh overheads, black and certain. He found himself grinning for real.

“Road,” he said, because it always felt good to say. “Music. Bad coffee. Piece of cake.”

“You keep assigning baked goods to hunts,” Cas noted, walking with him toward the car. “It implies a… sweetness you rarely experience on them.”

Dean opened the trunk, the familiar sound like a friend. He tucked his weapons case inside, thunder of closure, and glanced over the lid at Cas. “It implies they’re manageable. Manageable is nice.”

Cas met his eyes, steady. “Yes.” He hesitated. “Dean.”

“Yeah?”

Cas shifted the strap of his knapsack. “If this is not manageable, you don’t have to pretend. With me.”

The words landed like they always did—solid, unadorned, leaving no room to hide. Dean’s throat went dry. He shut the trunk with a careful hand, not slamming. “I’m not pretending. I just… like the sound of manageable.”

A beat passed. Cas nodded once. “All right.”

Dean rubbed his palms down his jeans and moved to the driver’s side. “You’re on weather watch. If the fog starts doing tricks, I want a heads up.”

“It will do tricks,” Cas said, as if that was inevitable. He rounded to the passenger side and paused with his hand on the door. When Dean looked up, Cas’s expression was that unreadable mix again—concern, certainty, something else that made Dean’s stomach tip. “We may be walking into more than a reprimand from a territorial entity.”

Dean forced a smile he let turn a little real at the edges. “Then we’ll be polite, like I said. ‘Yes, ma’am, no, ma’am, please don’t murder the townsfolk.’”

Cas’s gaze warmed. He opened the door and slid in. Dean followed, the car wrapping around him, familiar and right. He fit the key in the ignition; the engine caught and the radio came alive with an old riff he could’ve played in his sleep. He kept it low.

As they rolled out, the bunker door groaned open above them. The sky was already bruising with thick clouds, a bad mood drifting over Kansas. Dean tapped the steering wheel in time to the music and glanced at Cas. Cas was watching the horizon, profile stark, jaw set.

“You got a feeling,” Dean said, not a question.

Cas’s eyes flicked to him. “Yes.”

“Is it… bad?” He hated how his voice wanted to soften around that word.

Cas thought it over like he didn’t want to lie. Finally: “It is complicated.”

Dean huffed. “Of course it is.” He pressed his foot down, the Impala eager. The road unspooled. “Good thing I brought coffee.”

Cas’s mouth curved. He reached for the thermos. Their fingers brushed when Dean passed it over. Small, unremarkable. It burned all the same. Cas held his gaze a second longer than necessary. “Yes,” he said. “Good thing.” He unscrewed the lid and inhaled as if grounding himself there. “I’ll navigate.”

Dean nodded, grateful for the simple call-and-response of the thing that was always theirs. Hunt. Drive. Breathe. He let the road take them, the storm ahead a promise and a dare. Cas settled in, his knee a warm line near Dean’s. The distance between milk run and complicated was thin, stretched like the sky.

They crossed it together.