Charlie snapped awake from the horrors of yet another dream of a gruesome hunt with the boys. She was panting heavily, trying to pull herself away from the vision one strand at a time, back to her own reality. But the calm that was beginning to settle over her was short-lived. The sickly orange glow of the street lamps spread through her bedroom window, illuminating the figure of a man standing just a few feet from her. Watching.

Her eyes went wide and a scream erupted from her lips, muffled by the quilt which she was pulling up around her, huddling her knees into her chest and backing against the wall on her bed. The man immediately moved towards her, holding out a hand as if to tell her to calm, which she did once she heard the familial guttural croak saying, "I've startled you. My apologies."

In her frustration at being scared like that, Charlie automatically lashed out at the Angel, hitting his hand which he slowly dropped back down to his side. He was quiet then. Charlie pouted for a few moments, silently fuming before she suddenly became self-conscious of her appearance – even in the darkness. Her hair was undoubtedly a state, she was wearing old sweats and her breath probably wasn't too hot from the amount of liquor she had consumed that day. Gathering the blankets around her once again, but this time to shield herself from his eyes and not as a childish defence mechanism, she finally said, "why are you here, Cas?"

Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness again, but she could see from the amber light that he had been looking down but was now trying to make eye-contact with her, "I uh-… have a question for you."

She raised an eyebrow, "oh?"

He was quiet for a few more moments, which made Charlie tense. He was obviously trying to phrase his question, but her mind was racing with the possibilities of how horrible his request for her could be. Was this going to be something else that would put her life at risk? Was she to be bait again? Was he here alone because he wanted her to work against the Winchester boys? She couldn't do that. She loved those boys, like they were brothers – sometimes even more than that; and anyway how c-

"What is slash?"

"Excuse me?"

The two of them stared at eachother, Charlie's face animated with surprise and confusion, and Castiel's somewhat sultry.

"Slash Fiction. It is writing, correct? And you are a writer; so, what is it?" His words came slow, like he was battling himself to get them out, but his innocence on the subject made Charlie laugh despite herself. After the build-up in her head as to how bad it could have been, this really was very funny to her. She cupped her hand to her mouth to mute the giggle, but stopped suddenly as the start of her dream came rushing back to her, recalling Castiel talking with Dean and Sam after being allowed to use their laptop and discovering one of the fansites for her books. Seeing the boys laugh at him, and obviously leading him here to find out why. It also explained why he seemed more melancholy than usual.

Charlie stared at Cas for a few moments, pursing her lips and feeling quite happy about the fact that she had been granted this beautiful moment – she didn't want to waste it. Her usually being the one to feel awkward and uncomfortable, she was ready to have the opportunity to turn things around.

"Porn Cas, it's porn." She said bluntly.

The Angel looked taken aback, "I uh, but I don't unders-"

"Smut – but a special kind of smut," she said, lacing her voice with mystery and intrigue for dramatic effect, "Slash is smut written about two men – two male characters." She smiled slyly, tapping her hand lightly on her bed, indicating he should sit. And after a moment, some head-tilting and various frowns he did so. "Take for example, two of the characters from my books – say, Dean and Castiel."

His mouth pulled down at the corners, and he started to protest, but she continued, "this of course is actually a pretty popular 'ship'," she said, wriggling her fingers in the air as quotation marks, "I believe my fans refer to it as 'Destiel'." He looked like he was about to have a panic attack, with his head tilted so far to one side it might just roll off.

"So, fans would take these two characters, Dean and Castiel, and put them in a situation which would inevitably lead to their engaging in sex." He was looking a little ill at this point, but she continued on, taking far too much pleasure from it. "This situation could be something like – Castiel popping up in the Impala (which would lead to Impala-sex, which is also quite popular I hear); there's also Castiel coming to Dean's rescue, or vice versa; Castiel appearing to Dean in the middle of the night, or Dean calling Castiel. And a lot more-"

"Please…" Castiel said, his voice sounding like he had eaten something sour. His eyes pleaded with her to stop, and she resisted smiling to pout innocently, asking him, "have I said something wrong? I was just telling you about Slash, like you asked me to."

Charlie did feel a little bad then, it was a bit like telling a kid Santa wasn't real – judging by the look in his eye. Apparently he had been living in a world filled with puppies and rainbows, and now the seedy underbelly of the internet was crumbling the foundations of his blissfully unaware nature. She wondered if it was the idea of two men being together, or the idea of him and Dean being together which was making him look like he was about to pass out.

She patted his shoulder reassuringly, "I know – it's hard to stomach at first; wait until I tell you about Wincest," she teased him with a wry grin.

His eyes lit up with horror as he put that one together and he actually lifted his hands in protest, "no, no – I understand," he said gruffly, "I don't need to know any more." He hurriedly pulled himself into a standing position, "t-thank you for helping me, Prophet."

"Hey no-" and with a flutter of wings he was gone, "…problem."

She sighed, falling back on the bed, still curled in her blankets.

"I have a name…" she muttered to herself, a little glum that she was alone again. She did quite like Castiel, he was one of her favourites.