Somewhere along the way, Dean and Sam get separated. Dean strolls down the dark hallway, the Colt held firmly in his hand. He doesn't make a single move as he places one foot in front of the other, nimble as a cat. He thinks he hears a noise to his right and raises the gun in that direction.
There's nothing but his own shadow. His shoulders sag, but he tightens his grips on the gun.
Frigging demons, hiding like spineless, pathetic, worthless pieces of putrid scum!
Frigging Sam, can't stay two steps behind without getting lost, leaving him to find the demon scum by himself!
It's been a long time since he's had to hunt down a demon. Back during the Apocalypse, they were always too eager to approach him, with promises of a slow and painful death and a one-way trip back down to the Pit, permanently this time, where Alastair was waiting for him, his favorite pupil.
How long will you hold out the second time, dearie? He hears Alastair's voice, a seductive whisper hidden back inside his brain, wormed into his sulcus, forever trapped. Longer, you think? Want to know what I think?
Dean yells at the voice inside his head to shut the fuck up; his temples throb in sync with his racing heartbeat. He shouldn't be scared, because it's just a lowly demon and he's killed dozens of those and he's seen scarier stuff in his toilet after a night of booze and bad bar food; hell, he saw John Winchester angry beyond belief, pissed beyond any sense of recognition—not even the Devil himself was able to compare to the memories seared into Dean's brain of his father, drunk and pissed off at everything and everyone and he survived with only minimal damage to his sense of self-worth and enough daddy issues to sate the thirst of any parched therapist for life.
He is not scared.
But he still can't turn the voice off.
You won't be able to last forever. You'll say yes again, eventually. Everyone does. You'll be down in the Pit forever this time, dearie, with only me for company. Your angel won't be saving you this time. Poor little birdy couldn't even save himself in the end.
There's something behind him. Dean spins around, biting into his tongue to hold back a cry of unadulterated fury. He holds the gun at eye level, safety off and has his finger on the trigger, prepared to shoot without a single word and he presses down—
"Jesus, Dean!"
He aims the gun at the ceiling at the last second, too late to pull off the trigger. The narrow hallway fills with the sharp crack as the bullet hits the ceiling; dust falls from the sky, coating Dean's hair and jacket. It rolls down his face and only narrowly avoids getting his eyes.
"Sam?"
"What the fuck man? You don't just—you shouldn't—you know better than that!"
"Sam?"
Sam sighs and rubs his face with his hands. He walks towards Dean and rips the Colt out of Dean's hands. Dean doesn't offer any fight. "I'll take the gun. You can take the blade." He shoves the demon blade into Dean's hands clumsily. It's lighter than the gun and Dean has to readjust to the weight in his hand.
"Where did you go?"
"Where did I go? You were the one who went off on your own! Good God, I had my back turned for two seconds and you were gone! You gave me a heart attack, Dean! You can't just go off on your own like that."
Sam's pants fill the narrow hallway. More dust falls from the ceiling. Dean's tongue is thick in his mouth and when he swallows, he feels like it's going to roll down into his stomach.
"Come on," Sam says after several tense moments of silence. He pushes past Dean and takes the lead. "It has to be here somewhere."
Dean tails behind Sam, turning the blade over his hand. Handle, blade. Handle, blade. He lets the blade linger on the skin of his palm and presses in with his fingers curled. It pierces the skin, but Dean makes no noise as he feels his blood drip onto the cold, concrete ground in small whispers of pitter patter.
Oh, Dean-o, such a good boy. Little cut like that doesn't hurt a bit.
Shut up! It takes all of his self-control not to say it out loud. You're dead!
For a demon, that just puts me back in Hell, Dean-o. I can't go topside anymore, but I'm surely not gone. Not like your little birdy—
"Shut up!"
He runs into Sam's front—he'd turned around at Dean's outburst and he looks down on Dean with bitchface number ten.
"Dean, what's wrong?"
"Nothing," Dean spits. He goes to walk around Sam, but Sam grabs him harshly by his shoulder and holds him still. Dean tries to pull out of Sam's grip, but his little brother doesn't let go. "Let me go."
"Dean-"
"I said let me go!" He rips out of Sam's grip this time and staggers forward. "Let's just find this SOB and get out of here, okay?"
Sam doesn't retort back and they continue forward. Dean smells the sulfur in the air and grips tightly on the knife. He hears the demon before he sees it. It lunges at him from his right flank, tackling him to the ground. He hears Sam call his name.
The demon is on top of him, strangling him with one hand, pinning the blade welding hand down with the other. It's wearing a middle-aged man with graying hair and steel eyes. Dean thinks for a fleeting second that the poor bastard was probably a doctor or a fireman or something noble like that. He has the build for it: tall, muscular.
Dean can't get the knife through the bastard's throat and Sam won't risk shooting the thing with Dean still under him.
"Dean Winchester," steel eyes flicker to coal black and a leering smile spreads across the demon's face, something akin to the Joker's. "The Righteous Man," he purrs. "It's an honor to meet you."
Dean's head spins from the lack of oxygen. He kicks his legs wildly, blindly. His vision ebbs away slowly. The demon is laughing.
"Sammy," he chokes out, eyes searching for his brother. He begs Sam silently to just shoot, to not worry about him. The demon is what's important, not him. The demon needs to come before him.
He knows Sam won't shoot, though.
The demon loosens his grip around Dean's throat. Dean sucks in a gasp of air and starts to choke on it. He sputters and turns his head, still kicking.
He hits something soft and elicits a groan of surprise. Dean kicks again, harder and is able to push the demon off him. Now, he's on top of the demon and has the blade pressed against its throat.
Black eyes stare up at him, not in fear, but adoration. Its smile widens.
"Dean Winchester, bringer of the Apocalypse. To die by your hands, is an honor worthy of only the greatest of warriors."
"That's what this was all about, huh?" Dean snarls, pressing the blade deeper into the demon's skin. It hisses in pain, but the smile never leaves its face. Masochistic bastard. Dean's not sure why he hasn't killed the thing yet. If this were any other day, any other nameless, faceless demon, they would be dead, eyes rotted out and mouth agape on the floor.
This thing is still breathing, still talking and Dean doesn't know why.
"This was just all about me killing you? Making a statement to you people? Walking towards death doesn't make you a warrior, you freak. It doesn't make you brave or strong or smart, it makes you stupid. You're not a martyr."
"No, I'm not," the demon says. "That's you. And your little birdy, of course—"
Dean smashes the demon's head into the concrete and he rips the blade across the demon's neck. Blood shoots out like a hose, spraying Dean in the face.
The demon's not dead, though. It's still alive, choking on its own blood, shaking like in a seizure. Dean knows the only way to kill a demon is to skewer its heart and he has no intentions of doing that—if being killed by Dean Winchester was an honor in the demon world, he'd never kill another demon again. He'd do just this to them: cut them and let them bleed and bleed and bleed and never die.
"Never saw him myself," the demon manages out, as blood spills out past his lips, "but I've heard the stories. Pretty birdy, they said—"
Dean stabs the demon in the stomach. The demon lurches forwards, inhaling in agony and its head slams back down on the concrete hard, with a resonance that echoes in the narrow hallway.
The demon is gritting his teeth together, so hard Dean wonders how the molars are still in one piece.
"Wish I coulda been there that day—oh what I would've done for a taste of him!"
The blade is inserted in the demon's right eye. Dean digs it in deep as it will go and twists and twists. He hears Sam screaming at him, but he can't make out the words and he realizes he doesn't care. These are the same bastards who made him back in Hell and it's only fair that they get to share in the pain he inflicted on those thousands of poor, damned souls.
When he pulls the knife out, the eye comes with it.
There's a single shot and the demon's screams stops. Sam's breathing fills the empty space, gun outstretched and aimed at the demon's heart.
He drops the gun to the floor and scrambles over to Dean.
"Dean! Dean!"
Dean drops the knife to the floor. It lands with a soft clack and the eye falls off and rolls into the far corner of the room.
Sam pulls him to his chest and is muttering. Dean can't make out the words, but he lets himself fall into Sam's embrace, even though it's wrong. He's the big brother. It's his job to take care of Sam, not the other way around. Twenty six years ago, Dad told him to take care of Sammy, told him to protect Sammy at all costs and it was always his responsibility to make sure that Sammy had enough to eat and got enough sleep and whenever he had a nightmare, it was Dean's job to hold him and tell him it was going to be all right, even if Dean didn't believe it himself.
He's shaking in Sam's grip. Sam pulls him closer. He wants to bury himself in Sam, hide himself from the world. He wants to bundle into a cocoon and never leave. He wants to just lay down and die.
Sam cards his hands through Dean's blood soaked hair. Dean's entire body is saturated with the sticky, warm liquid. He remembers the days when Sam was addicted and would do anything for his next hit, even betray his brother and saunter around with a demon. He remembers the horrible, horrible days of detox, Sam's screams still echoing in his mind all these years later.
Sam holds him now, soaked in the substance that he once craved more than life, love and his brother's acceptance and his nose doesn't even twitch.
"It's all right, Dean," Sam whispers. "It'll be all right, you'll see."
Dean's ashamed for letting this happen, for letting Sam see him like this. He's too far past his breaking point to reel in, and now he has no choice but to let it all come out, even if it doesn't make sense, even if Sam has no idea what he's blabbing.
The demon wanted to be killed by Dean Winchester, but instead was done in by Sam. Dean wonders if demons consider that just as honorable a death.
Dean doesn't know how long they stay like that, but it's only after he's stopped crying and his breathing has resorted to gentle wheezing that Sam grips his shoulder—his left shoulder—and coaxes him to his feet. Sam collects the demon blade and the Colt and stuffs booth into his belt loop. He leads Dean out of the building, wordlessly and when they reach the Impala, he opens the door to the back seat and Dean crawls in without protest, laying face first into the worn leather.
Sam pulls something over him, something warm—the coat, he realizes with a belated though—and he grips it tight, pulling it over his head.
It's still bloodied and torn and frayed, but it's warm and dark underneath and that's all Dean needs right now.
The Impala vibrates with life as Sam turns on the ignition and begins the drive back to Bobby's house. There's no radio, no conversation. Just the roar of the engine and Dean's own thoughts fill the empty space.
Alastair's voice still worms its way into Dean's thoughts. Dean can hear the smirk in every word, see the taunting smile and the white glazed eyes.
Little birdies can survive without their wings, Dean-o. But what kind of life is that?
888888
"I do not understand," Cas says. "What is problematic with my current attire?"
"Dude," Dean says, clapping Cas firmly on the shoulder, "you look like you're ready to do my taxes, not fight for the sake of humanity. And besides, you can't seriously be comfortable in that all the time!"
Cas tilts his head and Dean has to smother the grin that plagues his face.
"C'mon, man, at least try them on." He stuffs the pile of clothes he bought into Cas's hands. Cas stares down at them dejectedly and them Dean groans and rolls his eyes because no way in Hell is he going to teach a freaking angel of the lord how to dress.
That issue is quickly resolved, however, when Cas begins to strip down in the middle of the hotel room.
"Good God," Dean shouts and quickly spins around. He covers his eyes with his hands for good measure. "Cas, there's this new thing: it's called modesty."
"I do not understand humanity's aversion to nudity. Adam and Eve stood naked in the presence of God and they were unashamed."
Dean fumbles his tongue trying to come up with a retort, but is unable. Screw tax account, maybe he should sign Cas up to be a lawyer.
"Is this acceptable, Dean?"
Dean turns around and is genuinely surprised at what he sees. Cas stands wearing the cargoes and black tee-shirt, though he kept the loafers instead of the sneakers—probably because he doesn't know how to tie the damn things, Dean thinks—and he looks more relaxed. Dean knows it's far from the truth. He can see how ragged Cas's eyes are, betraying anything he might say on the subject. But for the moment he doesn't look like Castiel, Angel of the Lord, Warrior of God and Protector of Free Will, but just Cas.
"Dean?"
"It looks good, Cas. It really does."
Cas smiles shyly and Dean clears his throat because this is moving into Chick-Flick territory and he's already had too many of those with Cas already. He has an image to uphold, for crying out loud.
"But, you know what? It's still missing something." He grabs the discarded coat off the bed and hands it to Cas. "Put this back on. It'll look good with the black."
Cas does and Dean realizes then just how much of a second skin the coat is. Cas just isn't Cas without it.
"There," Dean fixes the collar of the coat, turning it upright. "Better."
Cas stares down at his new outfit, tugs at the hemming of the black shirt. "These are clothes that you would wear, Dean."
"Well, duh. I want you to look good when you're kicking ass up in Heaven. Be lucky man, Sam wanted to shop for you at Aeropostale and douche you up. If that doesn't prove he's a soulless bastard, I don't know what does."
The shy smile melts off of Cas's face. "Dean. How are you?"
"Well, I'm just dandy, Cas."
"I promise, Dean, once the war in Heaven is finished, I will help you regain Sam's soul."
"Don't worry about it, Cas," Dean says hastily. "You've done more than enough already. Dude, you went to Hell again and raised him from the dead."
"But I was not able to raise his soul."
"Well, you were only going into the Cage where your crazy older brothers are having it out for eternity, I think I can forgive you for wanting to get your feathery ass outta there as fast as you could."
"I promise."
Dean sighs. "Yeah. I know you do, Cas. But Sam's okay right now. Yeah, he's an ass with no filter, but he's alive. You've got your own shit to worry with right now and I don't want to distract you from that. You gotta focus on staying alive, okay?"
Cas nodded slowly, eyes solemn. "I understand, Dean."
They look away from each other for a brief moment, an eternity.
"These pants are more comfortable than the other ones."
Dean snorts and looks back up at Cas. "Cas, you gotta promise you won't ever change."
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Is no one liking this? It's getting a decent amount of views and follows but no one's reviewed yet. It would really make my day if you would take a few minutes to tell me what you like and don't like. I have a few more pre-written chapters left, so there's time for me to still go back and edit if there's any grievous errors.
