Disclaimer: Just a playin with these characters.
A/N: Sorry for the long break, work just sucks the creative juices away but that premier lite the spark right away.
Chapter 2
Ghouls: foul-smelling, foul-looking, foul in every sense in the word. Slamming into a rotted-out log, dirt and wooden flakes raining down, Dean coughs back a sneeze. He barely has time to blink away the sting of debris in his eyes when a steel boot slams into his gut kicking him all the way through the ancient stump.
Rolling onto his back, Dean slashes out with his knife blindly. It does no good. The head ghoul slams down, pinning his arm to the ground. Coughing, Dean glares up at the ghoul while two smaller ones flank him.
They're tall, lean creatures with leather skin, eyes sunken in so deep that it looks like tiny black pools giving off the tiniest shine of quicksilver. Their ears are thin almost translucent, small little things but wide and flat enough to pick up on the tiniest of sounds like a heart beat. The nose is flat, the nostrils flaring when the older male takes a deep whiff, his chapped lips cracking and bleeding into a smile. "Winchester."
Dean gulps as his heart drops. Crap. Crap and double crap. He knew one of these days his luck was going to run out and he'd run into a creature he had killed back on Earth. Knew that he was surrounded by enemies and things he's only read about in books. It was like Hell in that sense, falling so deep into enemy territory. But there, he was a prisoner locked in the shackles of the Pit before he gave into enjoying the taste of blood and fear he could strike into his own victims. But here, there was no Alistair, no one to offer him a way out, a way to escape the horror.
It was just him and monsters in a kill or be killed situation that offered no reprieve.
And wouldn't it be great for Cas to show his cowardly hide just once.
The youngest of the three ghouls laughs, its toothless gums bathed in black, "Not so much the great Dean Winchester nowadays huh." The soul shook its body, its' skin cracking in pieces to reveal patches of a young man who still haunted Dean's mind with screams from the Cage.
Dean felt a name fall that he didn't dare say around Sam. "Adam."
The ghoul that pretended to be the youngest Winchester chuckles completing the transformation into the youngest Winchester, "I'm going to so have fun bashing your brains in, Dean."
Dean flickers his eyes to the other two, realizing that the oldest was the one his own father killed back in the day. Great, not only did it include his and Sam's kills but now his dad's as well. Fantastic.
Leering back, the ghoul family relishes in taking their final revenge. Dean waits, his body already tensing with adrenaline. It's becoming automatic; the adrenaline rush never seeming to ebb away. The moment the boot lifts off his arm, Dean's leg slashes out with a quick kick between the legs of the elder ghoul before driving upwards and burying his knife deep into the throat. The father goes howling backwards, crashing down onto his knees gurgling out his final breaths. Flinging himself up and to the side, Dean throws sand and stone into the fake Adam's eyes before delivering a punch to the female ghoul's face, wrapping an arm around her neck. Twisting around, he hears the snap of her neck, dropping the body of a soul.
Adam snarls lunging at him, fists flying. He doesn't have much time before the other two rejoin the act. Blocking the punches, Dean fights back with everything, muscles burning. He had just taken a mere five minute break, just a little nap before he got pounced. He's tired and just wants to close his eyes for one single moment. The ghoul rams a fist right into the shoulder he had dislocated snapping him back to present. The punch sends Dean tumbling into a bush, its curved stripped thorns scratching deep into his hands and face.
Snarling out something that sounds too animalistic, he flies upward ramming into the young ghoul throwing him straight into the jagged remains of the log. Keeping one arm pinned on the slim ghoul, using all his body weight to stay on top, Dean's free hand searches wildly before grabbing onto a rock. With déjà-vu washing over him, Dean slams the rock hard into fake Adam's head. He tries to fight back the emotions, the hurt of his father having another son, the jealously of living a normal life. With each smash, flashes of the first time flood him in time with each contact, of Sam tied to the table bleeding out, of finding Adam's mutilated corpse. Adam, with those blue eyes looking up at him in surprise and hope, of him screaming out as Michael swooped down to claim his vessel, of still being locked in the cage with two rampaging archangels.
A crack is born on the metal box buried deep in the hunter. A raw scream erupts out of Dean as he slams the rock one more time onto a barely recognizable face. Panting, he throws the dark red rock away, pushing himself weakly onto his feet. Turning, he fights back a wave of nausea forcing his legs to keep moving. Falling into a jog, Dean runs till the ground turns from a pine riddled blanket to soft moss. Shaking his head, Dean feels a cold-sweat wash over him, a black haze tugging at his vision.
Blinking down, he comes to a stop taking the bleeding scratches from the torn bush. An almost red rash is spreading from his wounds, almost whispering along his veins. Shaking his head, Dean finds himself muttering, "Poison…great." Weaving back, he swears he sees Sam running towards him but by the next blink, some large horned creatures knocks him hard into a pile of weak moss his head slamming into a hidden rock. Hooves trample over him and he swears he hears something snap. Coughing up blood, he screams out for the one being he despises and cares about before darkness falls over him.
It's a familiar electric buzz of being set back into place that jolts him into a hazy existence. His skin itches from the after effects of the poison, his mouth dry with the cracking of wanting something to drink, like the sharp burn of whiskey. Turning a stiff neck, he remembers vaguely of being side winded and trampled and thinks for a heart-stopping moment that he's dead. Wonders if he'd be stuck here for all eternity and become like all the other creatures here in this place, ponders what has become of Sam.
But he knows what being dead feels like and this pounding in his head is all too real. There's a rustle of cloth and he blinks back the white dots to make out the outline of someone he thought left him.
Cas crouches nearby, his coat is matted in blood and muck, his once white slippers almost pitch black. His back is turned to Dean slightly but the hunter can make out the wide blue eyes scanning the forest around them. His thin fingers are fidgeting over his ghoul tainted knife. The angel's edgy voice comes out in a whisper he barely hears. "I can't stay." There's guilt dragging the raven head down, a numb look falling over his pale features. It's a look that Dean recognizes, knows all too well when he stared at himself in the mirror after coming back from Hell.
"I have to go. It's too dangerous. I can't stay." It's the insane ramblings of a fallen angel and Dean feels his heart tighten.
Reaching out, blood crusted fingers ghost over worn out fabric. Whiteness drowns him and when it finally recedes, Cas is right in front of him, that old breach personal space so suffocating familiar. Mentally, Dean swears he must be dreaming because the angel finally looks like his old self again, that righteous quiet, stubborn determination hardened his face.
Those blue eyes are no longer wide but narrowed with conviction and power. It's a look he remembers when Chucks' house was rattling and the wrath of an arch-angel was bearing down. It's that look of a soldier.
"Be careful Dean." It's an order, a final command, a knife placed on his chest.
And like that he's gone with the barest of a breeze. Squeezing his eyes shut, Dean feels his fingers curl into the dirt, feeling the pebbles jam under his nails, the moist stickiness of the moss spilling out. Taking in deep breaths, he fights to keep his anger and hurt buried.
He's utterly alone. He knew it before but there was always this tiniest bit of hope. Now though, Dean feels that cold knowledge that if he calls, Cas won't come. Well screw this. He isn't some hopeless human; he's just still trying to get his bearings. Propping up on his elbows, Dean gaze falls on a bush, with those long curved thorns etched sticking out with deadly sharpness. Around him something cracks followed by with a heavy thump of a tree falling. A cold northern wind skitters across the ground, kicking up dead leaves.
Face hardening, Dean comes to a decision blinking back the dots and wiping his hand along blood matted hair. He tried running around for a quick escape followed by laying low and avoiding any conflict if necessary. And nothing has worked out. Tucking away the knife, Dean licks his lips before leaning forward. Crawling on his knees, he thinks screw waiting around or stumbling around in the big bad forest. If Cas wasn't going to come to him than he'd hunt him down. Drag him by his stupid trench coat and get them out of here. He wasn't going to lose Cas to that darkness he saw in those eyes, not when he just got him back. And he wasn't going to get eaten by some rapid monster. Cas and him were going to get out of here, find Sam and go take a damn vacation. Reaching the bush, he raises his shirt and rips a part of his shit off before reaching out to start plucking off the thorns.
