Prison Break (Sequel to "Wanted")

Chapter 2

Castiel is between cases at the moment. He'd just stopped a group of men from blowing up half of New England a couple days ago, and Michael's yet to give him a new assignment. He says it's because he doesn't want to waste his best detective on something small, but Castiel thinks he's just trying to give him and his partner a chance to rest. One day, Michael is going to realize that he not only doesn't need to rest, but that he doesn't like to. He's here to work, and that's what he wants to do.

Castiel and his partner of two years, Charlie Bradbury, spend the day working on paperwork. Typically, Charlie does the bare minimum of her work and leaves the rest for Castiel, because she is a fantastic friend. He doesn't mind. He tends to do it at home so he can make the most out of his time in the office, but, given that there's nothing else to do right now, he opts to work on it now. Charlie's even doing her fair share for once, which means she must really be bored.

"So, I've been wondering," Charlie says, which is never a good sign, "what you've been up to these last couple nights if you're not staring at whiteboards or writing case summaries or whatever."

Castiel rolls his eyes. She makes fun of him for his work ethic all the time. As much as Charlie likes her job, she likes her free time more, so she doesn't quite understand why Castiel would choose to spend all his time on work. He's fully aware that "I enjoy working" is not a suitable answer for her, because it didn't satisfy her curiosity the first hundred times, so he eventually decided to let her keep up the teasing.

"I started a new book," Castiel tells her. He rarely finds time to read, so this is a big feat for him.

"Ooh, fun!" Charlie says with a grin. "Maybe you'll finish it by the end of the year!"

For context, it's currently March.

Castiel chuckles. "Well, not all of us want to spend every waking moment of our lives pretending to be fairy princesses or whatever it is you do."

"It's called LARPing, and I'm not a fairy princess!" Charlie says for the millionth time. "I'm a —"

"Castiel."

The sound of Michael's voice shuts Charlie up immediately. They both look up from the desk they'd been sharing — technically Castiel's, though Charlie rarely uses her own — to see Michael looking at his brother solemnly.

"What's up?" Castiel asks. "Everything okay?"

"I need to see you in my office." Michael glances at Charlie, then adds a firm, "Alone."

"Okay?" Castiel gets up and starts to follow his brother, but, behind Michael's back, he glances over his shoulder and mouths, "What the fuck?" to his partner, who shrugs.

Michael leads Castiel to his office and shuts the door behind him. All the blinds have been closed already, as if he'd prepared for this in advance. When Michael sits down, Castiel stands warily by the door. Whatever this is, it looks serious, and Castiel doesn't like it. He doesn't want to get comfortable if this is going to shake his world up in some huge way, and it looks like it will.

"You can take a seat," Michael says, gesturing to the chair on the other side of his desk.

"I think I'll stand," Castiel says.

"I know it sounded like an offer, but it wasn't," Michael says.

Castiel raises an eyebrow but sits down as he was told. "What's this about, Michael? Am I in trouble for something?" He can't think of anything he's done wrong lately. Sure, he's been goofing off with Charlie lately, but that's because Michael won't give him a case yet. There's nothing to do but tell stupid jokes. That's not a punishable offense, is it?