Dean, Benny, and Castiel are marching through the underbrush. Dean is talking in a hushed tone about burgers, just to keep the mood light and, Castiel thinks, to keep it from being so quiet in the dark, cold night. "Dude, it's friggin' cold. Can we stop for a second?" the hunter whines, rubbing his hands over his covered forearms. Castiel pauses; he supposes it is rather cold—especially for his very human friend who has to keep his body heat at a constant ninety-seven degrees to maintain proper health. He reaches forwards, trying to touch Dean's forehead to feel his temperature, but Dean jerks back with a look of confusion.
"Sorry, brother, but we gotta keep moving," Benny urges, ducking below a thorn-covered vine that is stretching between two trees.
Catiel and Dean follow and Cas can tell Dean is not at the optimum temperature. "Benny. We can continue our trek in the daylight. Dean needs to warm up." Castiel says with frustration.
"Well, walking is a good way to keep the body warm, from what I remember about being a human." Benny replies with a laugh.
Castiel frowns, not amused by Benny's comment. "He needs sleep," Castiel states, his voice clipped.
"Jeez, Cas, quit babying me. I'm f-f-fine." Dean's statement is not supported by his shivering body and chattering teeth.
Benny spares a glance over his shoulder at Dean and Cas manages to manufacture his most intense glare at the vampire. Benny sighs, squeezing the bridge of his nose in between his thumb and forefinger. "Fine. We'll stop. But just 'till sunlight. That seam's a'closin' and we don't know where it'll pop up next." He whispers with exasperation.
"Thank you," Castiel quietly says, nodding once in approval.
Dean—despite his declarations earlier about being 'fine'—collapses to the ground, muttering, "Thank goodness." Castiel sits down next to his charge, so close that he is almost in the hunter's lap. Benny fixates them with an extremely weirded-out look and Dean swallows before trying to scoot away. "What the hell, Cas?!" he yelps.
"We have to raise your body temperature." Castiel states matter-of-factly. "Without movement, your internal temperature will continue to drop due to the weather here. So, I thought I would help you by sharing my own vessel's body heat while you sleep."
"Dude, I am not snuggling with you." Dean says, unable to meet Castiel's perplexed gaze as his teeth rattle together.
"Dean, I—" Castiel is cut off by the snap of a twig about four yards away.
The angel instinctively leaps to his feet, placing himself in between Dean and the sound. He's crouching down, ready to either run or flee depending on the situation. Dean clambers to his feet behind Castiel, straining his eyes to see through the darkness. Benny has his machete out and Dean pulls out his rusty blade. A rustle of leaves to their left causes them all to whip their heads in that direction.
"I have a bad feeling that we're surrounded." Benny murmurs, shifting so that his back was to Castiel's.
The three of them form a triangle; their shoulders brushing as they squint out into the blackness. One beat. Two. Then everything crashes around them and blades are being slung and claws are scratching skin and blood is dripping. Castiel is using up what little grace he has stored to keep the attackers off of Dean. In the light of his grace, the trio sees that they have been targeted by a pack of about fifteen Leviathans. They are snarling, angry, pissed off monsters dressed as business people. Dean and Benny manage to slice off the heads of three of them and Castiel uses his grace, killing two at a time. But it drains the angel and he droops after killing off five monsters.
"Cas! Look out!" Dean exclaims, swinging his blade to lob off the head of the monster before him.
Castiel reacts too late and is bashed in the head. Everything is blurry and he crumples to his knees before completely blacking out.
Moments later, Castiel awakens and he hears Dean and Benny fighting in the distance. Their grunts and snarls are getting farther away. He is being carried away by two sets of hands. He can barely hear Dean yelling his name before he is tossed onto the hard, rocky ground. He gets to his feet shakily, dropping back down into his fighting stance. Like a fox who is outnumbered by a pack of coyotes.
"Cas!" Dean's voice is far away. "Cas!"
"Dean!" he hollars before a swift punch is thrown to the angel's stomach.
Castiel catches his breath, taking a moment to survey his captors. The two leviathans that have captured him are a tall, slender woman and a muscular forty-year old man. At least, that's what their human forms look like. The woman is strangely catlike in her appearance. She smiles, her thin lips stretching out to be almost nonexistent. "Calling for your little human boyfriend, hmm?" she purrs tauntingly, creeping to Castiel's right. He adjusts his stance, keeping eyes on both monsters. "Well, keep screaming, angel. He won't be around much longer. The others should take care of him and that vampire quite easily."
Castiel sets his jaw.
"Cas!" Dean's voice is a little closer, but Castiel is wary to call out again. He doesn't want to lead the hunter to these monsters. "Cas! Where are—" something cuts off the hunter and Castiel can hear a struggle. His eyes are blown from fear and his gaze shoots to the dark abyss of the forest.
The sounds of the struggle end abruptly. Castiel waits a beat then shouts Dean's name as he straightens up, his eyes taking on the scared and faraway look they had developed while he was being institutionalized. No answer. The muscular man-leviathan laughs deep in his throat. "Your buddy's gone. Now, you're all ours." He says, his voice is a deep bass.
"No." Castiel's voice rumbles like an oncoming storm as his eyes flash.
The woman gets closer to Cas, caressing his face with the back of her hand. "He'll be a nice little appetizer. Maybe they kept him alive so that we can eat him while you watch." She whispers in the angel's ear, her voice like venom.
Castiel manifests his wings with a flash of lightning. He doesn't mean to. But the anger and pain and terror—the sheer terror—that floods his entire body causes them to generate. Usually, when he allows his wings to appear it's for a tactical reason (like proving that he is, indeed, an angel of the Lord or to fly away or to even use them in a fight). But this time he has almost no control over the appendages he usually keeps hidden. And the Leviathans smile. They smile with their stolen teeth and their rancid breath. Then, before Cas can obscure his wings again, the male beast has latched on, dragging him to the ground with a harsh tug of the feathers. Castiel wails, thrashing in pain. His wings were the most sensitive part of his form—his underbelly, if you will. Every feather is full of dozens of nerve endings that are even more sensitive than a human's fingertips. And the Leviathans are pulling his feathers out.
"Who knew that you had two weaknesses!" the woman laughs manically, twisting a bleeding feather between her thumb and index finger before letting it flutter to the ground.
Castiel tries to hide his wings, but he's still weak from using so much of his grace in the fight. And he is in far too much pain. He flips off his back and tries to crawl, his wings dragging through the mud and over the rocks. And then a foot is on his back; crunching down right between his shoulder blades. Right between where his wings connected. And Castiel screams. He wasn't aware that human lungs could manufacture a sound like that, but his do. The leviathans seem to enjoy that because they tug and pull and rip him apart.
Feathers and blood surround the angel and the monsters are about to go in for the kill when the bushes rustle and two figures emerge. One of them is roaring. The sound is terrifying in itself and Castiel feels the grips of the leviathans weaken. One of the leviathans is knocked back from Cas in a rugby tackle and the other—the woman, he thinks—has her head sliced off immediately. Castiel crawls a little farther, trying to lift his wings. They flit weakly before falling back to the ground. He moans in pain. The struggle to kill the larger leviathan lasts a couple seconds longer, then it gets quiet. Castiel forces himself to move. He's terrified of what monster could have taken the leviathans on. He doesn't make it far before he collapses, breathing heavy and labored. He painfully rolls onto his side, feeling the weight of his left wing draping over his body.
"Cas?! Cas!" Dean's voice. It's Dean. Castiel wants to weep with joy, but all that happens is a grimace spreading across his face as the hunter stumbles over some feathers.
"Dean!" Cas cries brokenly as the hunter finally notices the wings.
"Oh, Cas," Dean murmurs, lifting his blood-stained hands to his mouth. The slowly-rising sun shines light onto the gory scene before the hunter. He sees the wings that were once so frightening laying limply on the ground. The right one is stretched out and plucked bald in a couple small patches. The left is slightly retracted, but the tip looks broken and bent at a weird angle. Benny is silent as he surveys the wounded warrior.
"How… How bad is it?" Castiel struggles to keep his voice level.
Dean sees the fear in his friend's eyes and shakes his head. "Your wings are… They're not too bad, Cas." Dean lies, watching as blood drips from the bald spots. "Just need a couple bandages. They'll be fine."
Castiel purses his lips, knowing that Dean is lying.
Dean removes one of his over shirts and begins ripping it into strips. He cautiously wraps his angel's wings, pausing whenever Castiel would wince or yelp. "You'll be fine," Dean repeats the mantra a dozen times and Benny takes over bandaging Castiel's wings for the hunter when Dean's hands begin to shake. Dean stands, pushing his hands through his hair. He's scared that he's going to vomit.
"Dean?" Castiel's voice is small and it startles Dean. Their eyes meet and Castiel lifts a hand shakily. "Don't go?"
"No, no," Dean rushes to kneel beside Castiel. He grabs Cas's hand in both of this. "I'm not leaving you, Cas." He promises. "I swear I'm not leaving you."