Dean was pissed. This wasn't the first time Castiel hadn't shown up on time, but he had always called Sam to let them know. Especially after the last time, when Dean had yelled at Cas for worrying him and accidentally woke up Sam, who proceeded to call Dean 'mother hen' for the rest of the week. (There were some really weird looks from pretty waitresses and Dean was not going through that again, damnit.)

And this time was different, because he'd promised to eat dinner with them. They'd even bought extra food, but it sat there growing cold as the minutes turned into hours and Dean finally ate the burger that they had left for the angel. Sam had gone to bed hours ago, and so Dean had been left to his own thoughts, none of which were good. He was worried for the angel, although he'd never admit it.

Castiel had been acting strange lately, almost skittish. He hadn't been around much, and every time he was he refused to stay long. Dean got that he was an Angel of the Lord, and had other things to do besides hanging out with two lowly humans, but he missed Cas. He'd never utter those words to any living soul, but yeah, he missed Cas.

He was pacing back and forth in front of the cheap motel beds, agitated. He glanced at the clock again. It was 2:34 am, and they had to leave in the morning to deal with a witch in Utah. Dean sighed and finished the last of his beer, then made his way into the bathroom. He started getting undressed and let the shower run for a few minutes to warm up. He got in and let the hot water just run down his body, relishing the warmth and letting it undo all the knots in his muscles. Dean stood there until he was dead on his feet. He got out and wrapped a towel around his middsection and grabbed the mouthwash, too tired to brush his teeth.

"Hello Dean."

Dean was so surprised that he almost swallowed the mouthwash and ended up coughing and sputtering over the sink. He looked over at Castiel, eyes watering. Cas was just standing there staring, which made Dean feel incredibly uncomfortable and he grabbed the towel on his waist to make sure it didn't fall off or anything.

"What the hell, man?" Dean asked angrily, because inexperienced or not, you do not just pop into the bathroom unannounced. Cas seemed to be mulling over his
words, because he had a slightly puzzled sort of expression and didn't answer.

Dean sighed. "No, you know what, don't answer. I'm too tired to be dealing with your shit, Cas. I'm going to bed."

"I don't understand." Cas said, and now he really did look confused. "You're angry."

"Yes Cas, I'm angry, because you completely blew us off when you said you'd be here, not to mention the fact that you just popped into the bathroom without a single freaking warning!"

Dean was yelling rather loudly and he thought it had something to do with how tired he was or the fact that he wasn't all that sober, but he kept rambling on anyways because he wanted to make a point to Cas. Or at least a half assed one. Okay, so there really was no point other than yelling at the angel for not showing up, but Dean's sleep deprived brain was okay with that. "I waited 7 whole hours for you, Cas! Hell, I could have been sleeping right now! We've been getting our asses kicked by demons all freaking week, and the last time I got a good night's rest was 3 days ago because I got knocked out by a djinn! All we asked of you was to show up on time. You didn't even bother calling Sam!"

Cas kept staring at him, and it was really throwing Dean off. "I'm sorry Dean, I was in the Himalayas looking for a talisman that I thought could help you. There was no cellular phone service there."

And now Dean felt like an ass. He rubbed his eyes and sighed. "So there's nothing big and important that we need to know of?" he asked.

"Nothing at this moment." Cas replied.

"Great, well, I'm going to sleep. Feel free to fly away and do whatever you angels do. Just- don't watch me while I'm sleeping, kay?" Dean was so exhausted that he walked out of the bathroom and collapsed onto the bed in just his towel, and passed out as soon as his head hit the pillow.

...

This had to be a dream, because there was an amazingly attractive girl dressed in an angel costume straddling him in his own motel bed, and Sam was nowhere to be found. But the thing was, if this was a dream, it was pretty freaking realistic. The clock on the bedstand ticked. The bed creaked. The sink dripped slow and steady and the brown stain was still there on the couch. Everything felt strangely vivid and solid. He could even feel the the way the girl's hips rolled under his hands. Sure, there was a stranger on his lap, but she seemed intent on making sure he was having a good time, and he wasn't about to send her away.

Things were getting heavy, and her tongue was moving in a particularly pleasing fashion when there was an extremely loud bang, like a rocket going off, and a blinding flash of brilliant white and blue burst through the windows, making them shatter and spray glass everywhere. It lasted no more than a couple seconds, at best.

"What the fuck?!"

The light looked suspiciously familiar. Dread was pooling in his stomach, effectively killing his hard-on, but Dean couldn't pinpoint why. He looked up to see the girl's reaction, but all that was left of her was a small spattering of ash and a single charred feather. He bolted upright out of bed, properly frightened, and swung his legs down to the floor.

He heard a creak to the side of him, and the hair on his arms stood up.

There was something completely off about everything around him, and he couldn't quite explain it. It felt as if the shadows were darkening, like there was an edge to something Dean couldn't quite put his finger on. Subtle. He wanted desperately to turn on the light, but the bulb had shattered with the explosion, or whatever it was.

Dean stood up, the scratchy carpet under his feet steadying him, and he took a deep breath and walked to the door. He heard the noise again, the creak that told all of his instincts that there was someone behind him, but he spun around and the room was empty. If anything, it looked even more cramped than he remembered, like the walls had suddenly compacted by a few inches.

The shadows were playing tricks on his eyes, he told himself, and faced the door again, wanting to take a walk and get out of the motel room. He quickly remembered pants, and a jacket, hurrying up his movements. His body was on red alert, tense and quick. There was something off, something playing with his senses here.

"God, I really need more sleep." He told himself, chalking the paranoia down to insomnia. He was going to go out, and get a hot chocolate, and call Sam, and then he was going to get a legit good night's sleep. He snatched the keys off the table and suddenly straightened up, smelling something like charcoal and ash. Like the smell that lingers after an exorcism. He whirled around again, eyes searching the room.

There was nothing there.

He let out a deep breath, scrubbing his hand across his face. He really needed more sleep. But Dean was a hunter, so he reached for the holy water they kept in a flask in their duffel bag. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean swore he saw something under the bed shift.

It was nothing, like a shadow moving when you shift the light.

He crouched and slowly lowered his head so he could see everything underneath the bedframe. Besides the usual odd stains, there was nothing there. Dean closed his eyes and breathed deep, trying to calm himself.

Swish.

His eyes snapped open and landed on the curtains. They moved again in the slight breeze, making the sound heard earlier. He stood up, more than ready to leave, and snatched his phone when he was struck with another wave of uneasiness, that something was off here. His eyes scanned the carpets, the beds, the walls. Everything was clean. He frowned again and looked at the couch. He could have sworn the stain was brown, not deep red, but it had been late when they'd stumbled in. It was just a trick of the light.

All of a sudden his chest constricted and he was hit with complete and utterly debilitating fear. His eyes searched the room wildly, heart pounding. This fear was almost as bad a what he'd been forced to face when he caught the 'ghost flu'. His eyes landed on a small scratch next to his bed, something that looked almost like a tally mark. It was completely ordinary in every aspect, except for the fact that it scared the living shit out of him.

He had to get out of here - now. He took in a lungful of air and jumped to his feet, reaching the door before hearing a soft noise. He couldn't quite place it, but as he turned around, he could see the second scratch on the other side of the bed.

Dean stopped. He stopped making noise, stopped breathing, stopped moving.

Nothing happened. There was no telltale signs of a ghost, or any other creature in the room with him. Was it all in his head, like with the banshee and the djin? Dean froze at the thought, panic overtaking him. He needed to call Sam. Sam can be the rational one here. Sam will know what's going on. Dean reached for his cell, not daring to remove his back from the door, and speed dialed Sam. It rang once, twice, three times. Dean hung up and dialed again. Again, it rang once, twice, three times, then went to voicemail. Dean swore. Sam never ignores his phone. Never. He let out a breath, and the sound of his heart pumping softened, enough to hear a faint ringing. Fear squeezing his throat again, Dean dialed.

There it was, the ringing. It was Sam's phone. Dean was freaking out. He was practically paralyzed and Sammy was nowhere to be found, his phone forgotten in a bag somewhere in the room. The room. Dean looked around the room again, sensing for the billionth time something was off. And then he saw it. There was another scratch next to the bed. And that was when Dean decided it was time to leave.

He tried the door, but it was locked. He shook the handle, and in his desperation tried to kick the door down, but just ended up with a very sore foot and an even greater sense of fear. The wind picked up, almost sounding like whispers. Dean looked around wildly, trying to place where this was coming from. It didn't feel like a ghost, or a creature, for that matter, and he couldn't see anything in the too small room. He turned around, ready to try bashing the door down with his body, but the door was gone.

In its place was a blank wall, with five neat tally marks scratched into it. Dean stared at it in horror. He looked at the wall next to the bed, where two new scratches resided. Dean tried to control his breathing, to understand what was going on here, but it was pretty fucking hard when his heart was racing like this.

He slid to the floor and closed his eyes, hoping when he opened them the whole thing would be gone. The whispers didn't subside, if anything they had picked up. He opened his eyes and was pretty fucking sure that his heart had stopped for a second, because the entire bottom part of the walls was covered in the same type of tally marks. The lamp had also mysteriously fixed and turned itself on, causing the shadows to move in all kinds of directions, making the beds seem closer to him than they really were. He took gulps of air, mentally running through a list of all the things that could do something like this. He came up empty.

He was so screwed. He reached around to grab his gun, instead feeling something hard and fabric clad and very much alive.

He froze, again, not daring to move a single muscle while all his hunter instincts were telling him to run, to attack, to do anything except freeze. He was sure his heart was going to explode by the way it was racing.

"Dean."

He refused to move and respond to the familiar voice, his attention held by the way the shadows moved, like liquid, receding into corners and under the bed and concentrating until they looked almost ink black. He couldn't quiet his breathing.

"Dean. Look at me." His voice seemed to swell and flow throughout the room, the whispers rising and falling around him.

He slowly turned around. Castiel was standing right behind him.

"C-Cas? Are you doing this?" he squeaked. Castiel just stared at him, his blue eyes glowing faintly. Dean stared back, because his voice wasn't working and he was too terrified to see what had happened to the wall behind him. Then he felt, rather than heard the same creak behind him. He whipped his head around, to find four new marks right above the headboard of his bed, where Castiel was now sitting.

There was a small drop of blood spilling from the fourth mark.

"Dean. Come here."

Castiel's voice sounded warped and different and all wrong, but Dean got up and walked towards him anyways. As soon as he was within arm's reach of the angel, he was being pulled down by the lapels of his jacket into a bruising kiss. He stiffened and tried to pull away, alarmed at Cas' actions, but it was like the angel was made of stone. When he finally pulled away to allow Dean to breathe, he was naked from the waist up, and started working on Dean's clothing, getting to his shirt before Dean stopped him.

"What - Cas I don't - what's- what's going on?" He spluttered. Cas was positively glowing now, and Dean could see the outline of his wings on the back wall.

The back wall that suddenly had two new marks on them, both spilling a drop of blood that looked almost ink black in the light.

Dean was pulled back into another kiss, which Castiel refused to break until Dean was a shivering, moaning mess. Cas pulled at the hem of Dean's shirt until it came off, and then the angel caressed every inch of his skin with just his fingertips, each path creating sparks under Dean's skin. Castiel's fingers slowly slid up both of the other man's arms until his hand was hovering right above the handprint that Cas had left. He softly pressed down on the mark that grew pleasantly warm then suddenly Dean was hit by waves and waves of pleasure, each one tearing through him and leaving him gasping and shaking, only to have another hit him again. After the fourth wave, Dean placed his trembling hands on Cas' chest and managed enough coherent thought to form the word "Stop."

Instantly Castiel removed his hand, and after a minute or so Dean had regained enough of himself to realize that he had come in his pants, and that Castiel was shaking and glowing brilliant white. Dean shielded his eyes and stared at the angel in horror.

"Cas? Cas, what - what is this? What's wrong?" Dean was practically yelling now, because his angel was thrumming quite loudly.

"Dean!" He gasped. "Sp- spell .. I can't -" He lurched forward and grabbed onto Dean's shoulders, but Dean couldn't see because his eyes were screwed shut. The sound became louder, and he clapped his hands over his ears, but that didn't drown out the piercing scream of the angel's true voice.

There was a blinding flash, searing pain, then silence and the lingering smell of burning flesh.

Dean opened his eyes, and the scene before him nearly stopped his heart.

Cas was slumped at his feet, with half of the usual scorched wingmarks covering the area in front of him. Every single solid surface was covered in the same scratches, and in the space between the two beds were two words branded into the wall. He tried to move his arms, but his entire torso screamed it's protest and he looked down.

On his chest, were the seared in imprints of the beginnings of two wings.

He looked to the wall again, the words there stopping his breath in his throat.

" TRY AGAIN "