Hey guys! Yet another one!

Ok, this was also supposed to be a short drabble to thank MoeMarrow for her review, and it ended up getting longer and longer... didn't specify a theme for it so I just... went with it. I'd been watching Criminal Minds so this just sort of... came up and it wouldn't leave my mind! Let me know what you think!

By the way guys, thank you SO much to everyone who reviews! It seriously helps with the motivation a lot! I'm working on Mix & Match right now, but if you guys feel like reviewing, please log in if you can, so that I can thank you and maybe offer for a little drabble as my thanks for the support!

Btw, still looking for a beta reader!

Love you all!

There was a guy sitting in that dark, shady room, right on the floor too, looking terrified. His hands pulled behind his back, probably tied, thick tape plastered to his eyes, his mouth hung open slightly and his body leaned forward a little. He looked like an almost dead animal, agonizing on the floor, focusing on the slightest noise to try and find out what it was that was coming there to hurt him this time.

Dean was barely 23. He'd decided to become a cop when he finished high school, finding it as good a job as any other, and so far, it had been pretty much okay. He'd started getting some pretty interesting cases, but they usually kept him away from the bigger ones, probably because he was still so young and inexperienced and all that shit. Well, maybe they were right, because as he stood there, frozen on that doorstep, staring at that guy, he knew he wasn't and had definitely never been ready for this. It felt like something pulled out of another dimension, like he'd stepped into a really creepy novel and he didn't know, and now he just had to face it because there was no heading back, no closing the book and going back to whatever sane existence he'd led before.

"Hey... uh, I... I'm not going to hurt you, ok?" He whispered, he wasn't really aware that he was going to but somehow his body had detected the tension reaching crazy high levels in the room and that boy and man, he'd just reacted.
Dean had no clue who he was but he was there, bloody and obviously hurt all over -hell, there were gashes on his skin in places and the blood looked so dark he must have been there ages-, he was frightened too and even though on a regular day, the guy probably wouldn't have looked a single bit fragile, here and then, he looked about to break and then die and disappear. His clothes were a little torn here and there and he could see a bit of his chest, the guy couldn't hide it with his arms behind him like that, and there were red, maybe rather black markings all over it. Dean swallowed, realized they were cut into his skin.

Fucking hell. He knew who that guy was. Castiel Novak. Age 20. Had disappeared two weeks prior without a single piece of evidence about anything anywhere and right in the middle of an investigation about a fucking blood maniac serial killer. Dean hadn't even been part of it. He'd gotten a memo about the whole case in case he stumbled upon anything but it was way too big for him and tonight he'd just taken a call... Some neighbors, getting worried about shrieks coming from a supposedly empty apartment, he'd just taken it expecting some punks camping there or something and as he broke the door down and barged in that hellhole of an apartment, well, he did stumble upon something.

His body sure as hell wasn't functioning properly anymore, he was stuck in all his thinking and trying to make something out of this, try and have it make some sense but then he realized he was still standing there like a moron by the door he'd busted, and the guy had been saying something to him and he hadn't listened to a single word of it. He took a deep breath and the guy seemed to hear it and he immediately stopped talking, curling back on himself as well as he could in that position.

"Why aren't you saying anything?" He whispered, and his voice was broken and Dean's heart was beating in his throat, messy and irregular and so loud. "He sent you and you're going to hurt me. I know. Don't try to... don't try to lie then deceive me. You can't- I'm not... I can't be deceived anymore. I know now. I know there's no hope left and tell him to keep his fucking sick little games for someone else, tell him to stop fucking with my mind-"

His voice had been getting higher and higher but it cracked on that word and he started sobbing and Dean just finally snapped out of it.

"Fuck, no, sorry-" He stuttered, practically ran across the room -it felt like he was flying- and even though he could see him get tense as hell he didn't stop until he was crouching in front of the guy.
Oh god he hadn't been prepared for this.

"Oh, you- you're Castiel, right? Cas? Ok, I, uh, I'm a police officer.. I'm not lying man, now I'm going to take off that tape so you can see me, ok?" He said, trying to keep his voice cool and under control, trying to offer some sort of safe feeling to the poor thing but he knew he sounded just as scared as him.

The guy had stopped moving, like he was just on the verge of believing this, of getting some hope shoved back into himself but he didn't know yet if he should or not and Dean did not want to imagine what could have been done to him for him to get like... like that.

He reached out hesitantly, both of them flinching a bit when his fingers touched his temple then grabbed the tape to try and pull it off. "Shit," he hissed when he heard the sound it made when it peeled off the guy's skin, and he knew it must have hurt like hell, but he held his breath until the whole thing was off and they were both just... sitting there.

It was so silent. So silent now.

"Promise you're not lying."

The guy's lips were trembling and he hadn't opened his eyes. It all made Dean's head spin wildly and he swallowed then nodded even though he knew he couldn't see him.

"Yeah, I promise, man. Castiel." He said, then swallowed nervously again. "My... My name's Dean. I'm a police officer and I'm going to get you out of here and back home." He added, feeling like he needed to.

Slowly, so slowly, the guy- Castiel, Castiel opened his eyes.

Dean's mind was just blank, he knew somehow that this was going to be one of the major events of his whole life and he just looked into Castiel's eyes, seeing a misery there that he had never ever seen before.

Neither of them spoke as he moved in to reach behind his back and tore off the tape wrapped around his wrists. Castiel looked stunned, he stared down at his hands in disbelief, then slowly up to Dean's face. They were both still sitting in a fucking murderer's lair but somehow, time had stopped flowing and what had probably lasted no more than minutes felt like hours.

"You didn't lie." A hand moved up to Dean's shoulder, then a second one and without thinking, he wrapped an arm around the guy's back. "Oh god you didn't lie. This is over. This is over-"

Dean felt all sorts of shudders run through his body at that and he didn't really trust his voice so he just whispered "I got you," his hand landed in Castiel's hair and the guy fucking sobbed and Dean's heart broke and he pulled them both to their feet, intent on getting them out of there, as he had promised.

Encounters happened for a reason, his mom had always said that and he'd never doubted her.

She was right and he was glad. That shivering form in his arms told him so. As he tightened his hold around him, then gently helped him into his car, as he hopped in himself and made his call to central, as the guy wouldn't let him go and he ended up going to the hospital along with him, as years passed and he still didn't let go, Dean took it all in as life's fucked up way of giving him a goal and a purpose, of making sense and getting better, all in one.