Chapter Text
John Winchester came to the Novak pack lands the year Castiel turned twenty-seven, the same year Castiel returned from his term of service with the Garrison. Coincidentally, they arrived on the same shuttle from town. Winchester and his family were the only non-Pack on the shuttle, so they stood out to Castiel immediately. Winchester shouldn’t have been there, wasn’t the kind of man they would welcome as a trial pack member, Castiel knew, but he was a specialist in certain things and his specialty was needed.
He’d brought his two sons with him, a delicate, almost frail, nearly sixteen year old Omega named Dean and a surly, hormonal cloud of dirt and noise named Sam, an obvious Alpha on the verge of presenting. Dean, now that Castiel saw him in person, was stunningly beautiful, with fine, symmetrical features. His eyes were pure green, like growing plants or moss and there was a spray of freckles on the ivory skin across his nose. He was young looking, probably a side effect of his size more than anything.
“The car will be fine in town, Dean,” Winchester had snapped at the Omega after the Omega had made some worried whisper to him. “This pack doesn’t want cars on their pack lands, so we honor their customs.”
That was true. It was a long custom that they kept technology in general far away from their pack lands. Castiel had had a breakneck introduction to things like phone, computers and automobiles when he’d gone to serve in the Garrison. It had been rough, but he also had been the only recruit who passed all his physical trials on the first go around, his teenage years spent on chores, running, or tussling with his pack mates and not in front of a computer screen. The shuttle to and from town was a compromise, as were the pack offices in Folsom, the small town closest to the pack lands. When Castiel had been young, there hadn’t been a shuttle. If a teenager wanted to go to Folsom or just about anywhere else, they got there on foot or bicycle, so Castiel found the fifteen mile hikes of his military training to be simple and routine.
Castiel had considered not returning to the pack. He could have made a very successful lifelong career in the Garrison. Or he could have used the skills learned during his enrollment in any number of ways. Garrison veterans were in demand as private security contractors. Or his secondary specialization in logistics could have gotten him work in a corporation easily. He was needed at home though.
As one of the younger Alpha sons of the pack Alpha, it had been expected that he would go his own way and leave the pack. In the end, only one of his Alpha brothers would remain with the pack, so there would be no conflicts when it came time for their father to pass on. There would be a smooth transition of leadership. That was their custom. It should have been Michael, of course, as the oldest. But in a way, that was why he was sharing the shuttle with the Winchester family. The others had gone away first, made their own way in the world one way or another. Lucifer was in prison, for life, locked away in a super secure Federal facility known colloquially as ‘The Cage.’ The less that was thought of his crimes, the better. Gabriel had just disappeared. Raphael had tried to forge an alliance with the neighboring MacLeod pack in order to unseat the pack Alpha while he was still living. Their father had survived the coup attempt and put Raphael down, at great cost to himself. Lucifer, Gabriel and Raphael had all been expunged from the pack enrollment book.
As for Michael. Castiel shuddered at the thought.
Chuck, his father and their pack Alpha, had been weak ever since Raphael’s coup and not fit for leadership anymore. He had started talking about retirement rather than waiting for his death for leadership to change. It should have been the right time for a smooth transition to Michael as the pack Alpha. But Michael had been. Castiel could hardly dare think it. He had been corrupted. He had been suborned by one of the Grigori. He had become one of them, just as any Alpha could. He had become one who fed on souls. Seven of the weaker pack members had died before he’d been caught. Chuck wasn’t able to put him down, but had rallied enough of his council around him to drive Michael off and out of the main village of the pack lands. Michael still lingered though, on the fringes. That was why Castiel was returning home. As the oldest Alpha son still on the pack rolls, he was now the heir, something he had never expected, what with how many older brothers he had.
That was why Winchester had come. He was a hunter and he had the skills and strength to put a Grigori down. The corruption and the power gained from the consumption of souls meant that no ordinary means could kill them. They could bleed but they would not die. Hunters had special skills and weapons though.
The shuttle stopped at the pack Alpha’s house and they both got off.
“Hello, I’m Castiel,” he said as they walked to the porch of the cabin.
“The new heir, right?” Winchester said. Castiel nodded in response. “You known this ain’t going to be easy, right? The stronger the Alpha was, the harder it is to kill the Grigori. The heir apparent to a pack Alpha the size of the Novaks. There’s a good chance of this going South. And its never just one. They travel in packs just like we do.”
Castiel realized that what Winchester was asking for wasn’t assistance, but additional remuneration of some kind.
“If this is about the fee,” he said.
“No, that’s generous enough,” Winchester said. He looked over at where his sons lingered behind, out of earshot of the grown Alphas talking business. “It’s about my boys. You see Dean. And Sam? Looks like he’s about to present Alpha, but so did Dean right up until his first heat. My late mate Mary, her family tends to throw up a lot of Omegas. World’s not kind to Omegas unless they got a good pack behind them. The Novaks got a good reputation about Omegas.”
Castiel wasn’t sure about that. As far as he could tell, they did the bare minimum and treated Omegas like people. Before he could continue the conversation, Jimmy rushed out to greet them. Winchester did a spit take as he looked at the pair of them and Castiel was wrapped in familiar arms.
“Cassie! Thank Goddess you’re home,” Jimmy said.
Jimmy was the younger brother, by a whole three and a half hours. They were identical twins in all but temperament. When Castiel had gone to serve, Jimmy had gone to college. He had ended up in charge of the pack’s business matters, mostly managing the AM talk radio station that the pack had invested in and was their biggest cash revenue stream outside of the pack tithes, but also picking up other tasks as they were needed. It was a lean organization, the radio station. Jimmy was also the lead salesman of ad time and picked up a sleepy Sunday afternoon slot where he did religious programming.
“I’m glad to be home,” Castiel said. “I’m glad you could reach me in time.”
Castiel had been on the verge of signing for another tour. He would have been obligated to the government had he signed on that line like he had been planning for later in the day he got the call. He would not have been able to come home. Jimmy would have been named heir. Something no one wanted, especially not Jimmy. He’d been acting Pack Alpha since their father couldn’t any longer and was obviously relieved to have Castiel home to take up the reins.
“Claire and Amelia are well?” He asked. Jimmy had mated young, while still in college. Castiel had never met his niece and it had been years since he’d seen Amelia, though Jimmy’s letters and calls had always been so brimming with news of them Castiel felt he knew Amelia and the baby.
“They’re safe,” Jimmy said. “I had all the children, the Omegas and the other vulnerable members of our pack gather in the Hall where they can be guarded. Michael is openly attacking now.”
“Not Michael,” John Winchester said. “By time they start eating souls, the human in them is gone. That’s just a shell that looks like your brother. You think of it in any other way, you won’t be able to do what you’ve got to do. Your brother is dead. The Grigori are hungry ghosts, nothing more.”
“John Winchester, I presume?” Jimmy asked. Winchester nodded slowly. “Your reputation precedes you.”
John shrugged at that. He was a man who knew his reputation and that it wasn’t all good but that it also said that he was the man for the job.
“Jimmy, can you take John’s children to the Hall to be guarded with the others?”
“If I don’t,” John said, quietly, as Jimmy stepped away taking Sam and Dean with him. John didn’t have to say it out loud. There was always a chance that a hunter of the corrupted like John might not make it out of the hunt alive or untouched. Castiel shuddered internally at the thought of what the powerful Alpha might become if corrupted by a Grigori.
“Yes, your children will have a home here with our Pack if needed. I promise as Heir.”
“Even if I make it, I want a place for them. This hunting life, it’s no life for an Omega. Dean’s sick. Doc says it’s because I don’t have a home for him. If I don’t get him a home, he’ll keep getting sicker. It’s that failure to thrive thing.”
Castiel understood. Omegas needed a home. They needed stability. Without one, they could get something like pining sickness. Before an Omega could bond to a mate, they had to form a bond to a stable home. There were misguided Alphas who thought this meant that there was an inherent weakness in Omegas, that they didn’t have a place in a strong pack for this reason, that Alphas should cast out these weakest members to struggle in the world on their own. Castiel had always thought that it was the opposite. Omegas bonded strongly to a pack and home strengthened that pack. The more Omegas, the stronger the pack.
“Of course. They’ll have a home here, always,” Castiel promised. “When this hunt is over, we’ll talk about what form that home will take.”