A/N: This is my first Supernatural fic, but there will be more to follow, and I figured a Halloween themed one would be a good start. Like it says in the summary, Cas gets stabbed, and there's a lot of angel whump. This chapter's pretty short (sorry!), but the whole fic is already written and will be posted chapter by chapter til right around Halloween.
Dean had never been to a haunted house. So far, it wasn't his idea of a good time. He'd thought it might be fun when Sam had first brought the case to his attention, a bunch of mysterious murders in the same city spanning almost ten years, all linked together by the fact that the victims had visited the same haunted house the night before their death. The bodies hadn't been found anywhere near the attraction itself, which is why no one seemed to have connected the two. It had taken Sam a lot of digging.
And now, the three of them were standing in the middle of a poorly lit room, and Dean was silently vowing never to set foot in a haunted house again. Well, technically, he'd been to plenty of haunted houses and would go to plenty more, but the real kind with ghosts and shit, not the fake kind with college kids in monster makeup scaring middle class families of four and high schoolers on first dates. He'd thought it might be kind of funny, and Sam had thought it might be kind of fun, and Cas had thought it was a thing that the Winchesters were doing and therefore he was doing it too.
So far, it was neither fun nor funny. First, they had charged each of them twenty five dollars to even get into the place, and Dean thought this might be the most expensive stabbing he had ever done. And then, the house had actually had a really high production value. Which sounded good on paper, but in reality made everything much harder. First off, everyone kind of looked like a monster, which made it quite a bit more difficult to tell who the actual monsters were, especially since they didn't even know what they were looking for. And second off, it was scary.
The haunted house was in a big warehouse, which was broken into five sections, each with a different "theme." The theme of the first section was zombie, and there were several zombie-related scares and zombie-dressed actors. So far, the three had made it through about a third of the first room, and everything was already going downhill.
A hand tugged at the sleeve of Dean's jacket. "That's it," Cas whispered in his ear. "That's the monster."
"Which one?"
Cas pointed to a zombie in chains and rags dragging itself one-handed across the floor. It was moaning inhumanly, and Dean felt an involuntary shiver run up his spine. God, this was stupid, he knew essentially everything in the house was fake, why was he still on edge…?
"That's a person, Cas," he said, turning to the angel, who looked characteristically confused.
"Are you sure?" Cas asked, tensing slightly. "No person could sustain damage like that and survive…. You're much too fragile."
"It's makeup," Sam explained, for what Dean thought was at least the fifth time. "It's not real."
Cas frowned, his eyebrows creeping closer together, and Dean braced himself for the barrage of questions that was sure to follow. Nearby, there was a piercing shriek, and all three of them winced as a girl ran past them, dragging her date behind her. Cas turned to watch her pass, shaking his head slightly.
"I don't understand. People pay for this?"
"Pretty messed up, huh?" Dean said, glaring at an actor who was lurking slowly towards them. The guy looked at Dean's expression and turned around, going after the easier prey of a gaggle of high schoolers clustered together near the entrance.
"I dunno," Sam said. "I think it's kinda fun."
Dean was in mid eye roll when he felt the air shift behind him, and long years spent keeping himself alive (mostly) engaged his hand before he had a chance to think. The zombie (no, not a real zombie, an actor) stumbled as Dean's fist hit his cheek, his hand immediately going to his face.
"Dude!" the actor said indignantly. "I can get you thrown outta here, you know."
"Don't touch me," Dean growled, knowing that he should play nice, apologize, but his bloodstream was singing with adrenaline and his hands were itching for a weapon, and anybody around them could be the thing that they were looking for.
"Hey, we're sorry," Sam said, glaring at Dean and stepping forward. "He's jumpy...I'm really sorry. Please, don't tell the manager."
The guy shook his head, his makeup smeared a little where Dean had hit him. "If it happens again…." he warned, shooting another look at Dean.
"It won't," Sam said apologetically, glancing at Dean. Dean sighed.
"My bad," he said, forcing himself to smile. "Sorry."
The actor flounced off, and Dean raised an eyebrow at his brother.
"Yeah," he said. "Fun."
Sam herded Dean and Cas through the first room as quickly as possible, thankful that Dean had left his gun in the Impala. That was one mess he wasn't sure they could get out of, what with the outstanding warrants in who knows how many states. They'd never exactly got the hang of "low profile."
"Goddamnit!" Dean said suddenly. He was close to Sam's ear, but he still had to almost yell to be heard over the sound of horror movie music, groaning, and distant screams. "How are we gonna tell who the monster is? Everyone looks like a monster in here!"
"Is that...not what you expected?" Sam asked. He had never been in a haunted house before, but he seemed to have come in with a better general idea than the other two. He was a little jumpy, that was just biology, but he wasn't about to start punching workers. He knew all the monsters were fake. At least, aside from the monsters that were real.
"It's fucking spooky!" Dean said, then flinched an embarrassing amount when a zombie came up behind him and hissed in his ear.
"Dean, that's it, that's the monster!" Cas yelled, pointing at the zombie who had frightened Dean.
Sam wanted to sink down amongst the decaying plastic carcasses and filmy cotton spiderwebs and die. Every time Cas yelled that he thought one of the workers was the monster, more people looked over at them. And walking around with his almost forty-year old brother who still seemed terrified...well, that was just embarrassing.
"Cas, that's just a worker," Sam said patiently, wishing this damn place wasn't so loud, and he could hear himself think. "And Dean, if we don't find the monster the first time through, we can just go through again-"
"We might have to do this again?!"
Sam groaned. The trio moved past the barren desert-scape punctuated by squirming zombies, and were herded towards a thick metal door blocked by two "armed" guards. The guards said something to them - Sam couldn't make out what - and then they were pushed into a chain link elevator. Cold air was blown on them, and then a small spray of hot water. Sam flinched away from it. He thought a little had gotten in his mouth, and he couldn't imagine it was very clean.
They ended up in a mockup of an underground bunker that had apparently been ravaged by the zombie apocalypse. Sam frowned. This place didn't make a lot of sense - why were there guards if the safehouse had already been compromised anyways? Sam preferred more attention to detail in his haunted houses. But at least it seemed like there were less actors here, so they would have some time to think.
"See?" Sam said to Cas, who still looked quite on edge. "This is just like our bunker. Not that scary."
A zombie jumped up from behind an overturned sofa, startling Cas and sending him reeling into Sam. Dean also tensed at the noise, looking like he was ready to leap between Sam and the monster and start fighting. Sam put a quick hand on his shoulder, hoping that would be enough to remind him that none of this was real.
"We should see if we can sneak off the path somehow," Sam said. "You're right, I don't know how we'll find the monster without some sort of plan."
"Fine by me," Dean said, swiveling his head back and forth as he looked for workers. Cas also looked tense, fingers twitching as though he wanted to draw his angel blade. Sam sighed and scanned the room, spotting a small opening between two crates, each emblazoned with a biohazard symbol.
"There," Sam said, prodding his brother in the right direction. They crossed the room, trying to appear as unnoticeable as possible. Beside him, Cas frowned, staring at one of the workers across the room.
"Nope," Sam hissed, guessing Cas's intent. "Person." He grabbed the angel's arm and dragged him behind the crates.
"Okay," Dean said, looking instantly relieved to be out of the main area. "So what's the plan? Make ourselves seem like extra juicy entrees, attract the monster that way?"
"Yes, using ourselves as bait has always worked in our favor," Cas pointed out wryly, and Sam snickered. He didn't know when the angel had picked up the concept of sarcasm, but he'd taken to it alarmingly well.
"Well, we don't even know what we're looking for," Dean answered. "Could be anything. Ghost, ghoul, zombie, hell, even a witch."
"Don't worry. We'll come to you," said a new voice from behind them. Sam whipped around, and felt more than saw Dean and Cas mirroring him. Three "people" approached them, makeup obscuring their faces, making it impossible to tell what they were looking at. Sam reached inside his jacket, feeling for the hilt of the angel's blade he carried with him.
The speaker grinned, moving towards Sam. Sam drew back, sword held out in front of him, and prepared himself for the next battle.
Castiel hadn't really understood anything that was going on, up until now. Now, adrenaline was coursing through his veins, and there was a true enemy for him to fight, not just another human in stage makeup. Here, he was on familiar ground.
He flexed his fingers, letting his blade slide down into his palm, and closed his hand around it. Next to him, Sam and Dean were doing the same, each of them picking out an opponent. Cas chose the one on the left, moving towards her, rolling his shoulders slightly, settling into a stance.
The...girl, if that's what she was, approached him, knife appearing in her hand. Cas smiled slightly. She wasn't going to be anywhere near a match for him with a blade.
He closed the distance quickly, blocking her first strike with ease. He slashed at her stomach, and she twisted away, moving faster than he'd expected.
There was something nagging at him, some detail that he couldn't quite access, something he knew he should remember. Almost without thinking, he blocked her thrust to his stomach, twisted away from a blow aimed at his head, and parried a shoulder cut, trying to grasp the elusive thought.
He feinted towards her head, and her eyes widened, blue and fearful beneath the makeup. And in a sudden rush, it hit him. This was the dead girl, the one who'd just disappeared, the girl whose death had brought them here.
"They're ghouls," he shouted, hoping Sam and Dean could hear him, and drove the angel blade up through the girl's skull before the ghoul could react. Immediately, he retrieved his weapon and turned back towards the fight, making sure the Winchesters had their ghouls under control.
Cas barely had time to register what was happening as Sam flew by him, crashing into a wall to lie limply at its base. The ghoul Sam had been fighting pulled out the blade Sam had buried in its chest, chuckling. It stepped toward Sam, who seemed stunned.
Cas was already moving. He crossed the ground in a matter of seconds, not even pausing to shout Sam's name. He held the angel blade out in front of him. The angle wasn't right for him to stab the ghoul through the head in the first movement, but Cas managed to open a long cut down its chest that he hoped would slow him down. He barely even felt the bite of the blade in his own stomach, just the slight instantaneous weakening that was the first sign of any serious wound. Cas deftly switched the blade to his opposite hand, and then drove it through the ghoul's skull before it had time to move again. The ghoul's body instantly crumpled to the ground in front of Cas.
"Mine got away!" Dean yelled. "I-"
Then he turned back towards Cas, and froze. This was Cas's first real indication that something was wrong. With the sudden horror in Dean's glance, Cas felt the pain in his gut redouble. He looked down, and saw that the front of his shirt was sticky and dark with blood, a small neat hole in the fabric marking where the blade had actually gone in.
"Cas?" Dean asked worriedly.
"I killed two of them," Cas said, in answer to Dean's first statement. He put a ginger hand to the wound in his stomach, letting it glide over the surface of the injury.
"No, that wasn't what I meant," Dean said. "Did they...did the ghouls do that? With an angel blade?"
"Cas is hurt?" Sam was already pushing himself to his feet behind Cas, using the wall as support.
"I-" Cas was about to say I'm fine, but then all of a sudden a wave of dizziness washed over him and his legs went weak and shaky. He stumbled a half-step forward, hands stretching out involuntarily for something to catch himself on.
"Hey, sit down…." Dean murmured, grabbing onto his shoulder. Cas slid into a sitting position as his legs gave way beneath him, and Dean tried to guide him down, kneeling beside him. In a few more seconds, Sam was at his other side.
"Cas…," Sam said. "What did they do to you?"
Everything was getting a little fuzzy. He didn't know how he hadn't registered the pain at first, now it was steadily mounting, so intense it was hard to sit still. He made a small groaning noise, still cupping a hand protectively over his stomach. Silver light shone through his fingers, and he felt suddenly nauseous at the sight of his grace leaking steadily from the wound.
"It's okay," Dean said, and Cas registered the increased tempo of his words, the way he always sounded when he thought that things weren't okay. Cas had to agree with him - with his real meaning, that is. One ghoul had escaped, and they had no idea how many were left. And Cas had gone and gotten himself stabbed. There was a very real chance that things weren't going to be okay at all.
