"Did you know there are no bees in this place, Dean?"
The figure on the front step hardly reacted. Cas had come and gone, the Vampires not liking it one bit but there wasn't much they could do about it and since he never did anything to take Dean from them, they now hardly reacted to his presence.
"And yet there is honey." He held out a long piece of bark heaped with the golden viscous fluid. "Isn't that strange?"
The man looked up at what was being held out before him, then met the eyes of the angel. Dark circles painted the underneath of his eyes, almost like bruises. His features were pale and drawn and for once Castiel actually seemed to see the reality of Dean's situation.
"Dean, you are not well."
"No shit." He muttered, but the angel grabbed his shoulder and pulled him up. He was barely able to stand, Iver had fed on him less than three hours ago and normally he would be sleeping but he had come out the step to brood in the false sunlight instead.
So when he was suddenly vertical the world spun and he found himself clutching onto the broken angel. When he fell against him completely, he knew just how much his body had changed. Despite his divine powers, Cas had always been a slight man, not particularly sturdy in terms of his mortal shell. But now he seemed so strong, so steady as his arms held Dean up.
"They have taken too much." Cas commented. Dean said nothing, waiting, hoping that Cas had finally come to his senses and would take him away. "You have lost twenty-eight and three quarters pounds, Dean. That is not good."
"Then take me with you." He finally breathed out.
"Do you remember when we first arrived? I was concerned for you, and I wanted to keep you safe. But I left you. The next moment that my mind was in a clear place, I returned to find you. That was three days later. Dean, I cannot keep you safe, I cannot concentrate on the task for more than a few hours before some inane thought takes hold of me and I abandon you."
"But you see it now. You're here now."
"But in an hour, I will be back looking for bees. I cannot hold onto these moments of clarity Dean. That is why I cannot take care of you."
"So you'll leave me here?"
"I am sorry Dean."
But he felt a moment of disorientation and they were no longer on the step, they were in the main sitting room of the house, where Osric was studying some old manuscript. He looked up sharply, Castiel had never even spoken or interacted with the vampires.
"What are you doing?" Osric demanded.
"Here." Castiel held out his hand. When he opened it there was suddenly a sizable jar there.
"What is this?"
"My blood. It should tide you over for a while."
"The blood of an angel?"
"It's potency is diminished since I am cut off from Heaven here. Still, it should be a suitable replacement for Dean's blood for quite some time. He needs time to recover, you must see that."
"I do. But in order to keep him-"
"That is why I gave you that. Do we have a deal?"
"Yes."
"Good."
Cas vanished and in the sudden absence of his support Dean stumbled and was left alone with Osric. He wasn't exactly sure how the other would react to all of this but he watched him open the jug and take a sip. His eyes shut in satisfaction before lifting to Dean.
"Looks like you're off the hook for a while."
"Ed, hey Ed, I think I've got a lead."
A small man scratched at his beard from where he reviewed his latest footage.
"A lead on what, Harry?"
"You know, those souls Sam needed."
"You what? I thought we agreed not to help that psychopath."
"No, you said that. Maggie and I said we would. It wasn't them that went on the killing spree, Ed, it was Leviathan who shape-shifted into them."
Ed looked to his friend critically over the top of his glasses. "Yeah, cause that makes sense."
"It does okay, and now Dean is trapped in Purgatory with that angel. We have to get him back."
"They destroyed our best footage."
"I know, I know." Harry put a hand on Ed's shoulder. "But if you don't want to do this for them, then think about this way: last time we tangled with the Winchesters, we got the best footage we've ever had. So think about what we'll get if we try to open a gateway to Purgatory."
The film maker shot off his chair and looked his partner dead on. "I'll call Spruce."
Ice cold water ran down his neck as he drank deep, straight from the bucket at the well. Dean didn't care that it got all over him as he gulped it down, his body drenched in sweat from his half walk-half jog he's managed this morning. For a moment he actually forgot he was in Purgatory, it could actually have been Eden, paradise. The waft of lilac bushes that ringed in this side of the field mixed in with the fresh scent of fruit that hung plump and ready on the branches of the bordering trees. Even the water was fresh and pure.
It had been fifteen days since a feeding and though he was still thinner than he'd been in years, still got out of breath way too easily and still felt an annoying twinge of pain in his leg, he felt better than he had since arriving here.
"You're going to drown yourself," Aliyah commented.
He eased the bucket down and returned it to the well to face her. It was her turn to watch him. They hadn't needed to watch him when he could barely make it from his bed to the front step, but now that he was mobile they were clearly worried he'd make a break for it.
And of course they were right. But he wouldn't be stupid about it. He planned to find the salt or iron or whatever they were using to keep ghosts out and get rid of it and then he could make his break with Bobby's help.
"I miss it." Her words were wistful, he barely caught them.
"Miss what?"
"Being human. The simple pleasures. Like water being enough to quench your thirst."
He considered her words. He really didn't know anything about the people who kept him, other than that Osric was very old and had been sent over to Purgatory while America was still being founded, but the others he knew practically nothing about.
"So you still remember it?"
"Well it wasn't that long ago, about...six years."
For some reason this surprised him. "Really?"
She smiled ironically and nodded, sweeping her bouncing red curls behind one ear. "I was in university, I was going to be a nurse. My boyfriend proposed, we had it all mapped out: I was going to get married the summer after graduation, maybe start a family a few years later."
"How did it happen?"
"They killed him and turned me one night after the bars closed. Two months later I was killed by a hunter and woke up here. Living in Purgatory while all my friends were studying for exams...it was almost too much, but then, it's not like I could commit suicide here. I was the last to join the family. Osric found me trying to survive on my own in the Twilight Autumn."
"That's...awful." Dean was actually surprised to find himself sincere. She had been a vamp for a handful of weeks and ended up here, practically as out of place as him.
"I miss real life." She sighed. "I miss parties, facebook, even just watching bad t.v. And I was right in the middle of a book I'll never get to finish. It just...doesn't seem fair." She shook her head and leaned against the well with her back to Dean. "I can't believe I'm complaining about all of this to you."
"Why, because I'm human?"
"Because of what we're doing to you."
He watched her carefully. Was this all a test to see if he would say what he really wanted to? It didn't really seem like it and what difference would it make anyway?
"Then let me go."
"I can't." She said at once and he knew it wasn't a test.
"Why?"
"Because Osric gave me this," she waved a hand around their sanctuary, "and I can't betray him. And besides, now that I've been feeding again, I don't think I could give it up, sorry Dean. I am probably the closest one to understanding what it's like for you to be here, but I still can't let you go."
"Well, a guy's got to try."
"And a girl has to deny."
He cracked probably his first smile since waking here. "So, what was that book you were reading?"
But when he turned to face her he met instead a pale faced angel, a hand slick with crimson falling on his shoulders.
"Dean."
"Cas, what happned?"
"I came to warn you."
"What is it?"
"Starships..." Dean tried to catch him as he fell but in an instant he was supporting nothing but air, the bloody hand print on his shoulder the only proof Cas had even been there.
"What was that?" Aliyah stepped back, unable to handle the scent of even so little blood. "He's crazy, what did he mean about star ships?"
"Starships...oh no."
"What?"
"Jefferson Starships."
"The band?"
"No, the Hybrids Eve created to take over Earth. The monsters Cas and I killed and...their mother."
"You don't mean the Mother of All?"
"Did she return to Purgatory? Is that what happened when I killed her?"
"I don't know, Dean-"
There it was, that oh so perfectly timed, bone chilling scream.
"Khaira!" But Dean caught Aliyah's wrist, watching the house carefully. The scream had come from the far perimeter. A second later they could hear shouts. "Ivan."
"No wait." He warned. She stayed his grasp, even though she easily could have gotten away from him. "If it's what I think it is," he began explaining, "they have your strength and more. Wraith, Vamp, Shifter-"
"Aliyah!" The voice came from the house. They were only a hundred meters away, but Osric had no hope of closing that distance. What Dean had expected happened. The hybrids had used Khaira to draw the others out. Three of them jumped on the elder Vampire. Dean let go of Aliyah.
"What are you doing?" She looked at him but he was backing away. This was the best chance he'd get. "No, stop."
"Come with me." he didn't know what madness made him say it, that instant of connection should not erase weeks of her feeding on him, keeping him captive, but he couldn't analyze it now, he'd already said it.
"I can't leave them." She answered incredulously. "They're my family."
"Fine." He turned to run but her shriek stopped him and he heard her weight hit the ground. The sharp toothed, wild-eyed hybrid had lost most of it's human resemblance that it had held on Earth. It was still in the body of a man, but the eyes were those of an animal for certain.
And he ran. He was weaponless, powerless in this fight, and he was going to escape.
"DEAN!" He blocked out her sobbing cry, he had glimpsed her blood all over the ground, it had gotten her that fast, she really wasn't much of a monster.
"DEA—AHHH!"
His whole body froze, his feet turning to lead and he nearly toppled on the crest of the hill he'd been running up. He turned back and saw the devastation, saw Osric blood soaked, standing over an inert Larissa and trying to fend off two beasts. He saw Iver with a form draped over his arms, but he fell a moment later from another strike. August and Cane jumped to intervene only to be taken down themselves. And there, at the foot of the hill where they had talked about social media and getting drunk, a young girl screamed his name while the being on her plunged a spike into he back over and over again.
He was not powerless.
He was a human.
A hunter.
A Winchester.
He could not run. "I'm sorry, Sammy."
Dean broke for the shed. It was close, he hadn't been allowed in there and he was sure he knew why. When he opened the door his suspicion was confirmed. It was a hunter's paradise. Osric had defended these lands from monsters for centuries, of course he had a stockpile.
Jefferson Starships, a bitch to kill, but decapitation would slow them down any day. He chose a long, broad machete and shoved another, shorter blade through his belt. Then the door burst open and he was no longer the weak, drained creature he'd become in the last weeks.
He was a monster's worst fucking nightmare.
The head rolled down the hill and a moment later a body fell backwards out of the shed doors. Dean gave it no second thought as he tramped over it to get to the next.
It was muscle memory, it was instinct, and it was exhilarating. Maybe after so long int he company of vampires, he had truly learned the meaning of blood lust, and that was surely what radiated off of him as he faced each enemy with a gleam in his eyes, jaw set and half craving that sensation of the hot black blood spraying onto his face.
Aliyah stopped screaming when the form on top of her fell to one side. Her own body was torn open, it would take more than what Dean could give to heal that. She wasn't going to get up again soon so he just crouched down low and made himself heard over her ragged breath.
"Try not to move, there's no reason for them to attack you again if they think you're dead."
"..Dean."
"Just do what I say."
And he was moving. Osric and Larissa were the next closest and way too outnumbered. Osric was bleeding heavily from one shoulder and Larissa wasn't even moving. Dean started up a jog, and then a full run.
He met those cold eyes of his keeper, and said two words. "Get down."
The Starships had been so engrossed in their attack that they didn't see him coming until it was too late. He threw his whole weight into the strike, but even with that, getting two at once proved too much for his strength. He shore through the first like he had all the others, but his blade wedged only halfway into the neck of the second.
It lashed out in pain filled furry, its wraith spike driving through his wrist, succeeding in getting him to let go of the machete. He hollered out, but it was hardly done with him, its sharp fingers closed over his shoulders and he was on his back, the wind rushing out of his lungs and its rows of teeth coming up to his neck.
But instead of the pain, it gurgled in surprise and then its head rolled free of its body, landing next to Dean. He panted, holding his bleeding wrist, and watched Orsic drop to his knees. The Vampire wasn't going to get up again soon and, with the wound in his wrist, Dean didn't think he'd be able to swing hard enough to kill. More of the animals were coming for them, they could hear August grunting in pain, repeating the names of his sibling over and over. Larissa gave a wheezing breath before succumbing. Osric watched her go, falling further still to his hands.
And Dean knew what he had to do, even if everything in him screamed against it, but he drug himself up and wrapped his hand around Osric's wrist.
"...a small price to pay."
Those eyes met his, and for the very first time, Dean knew he was being seen as an equal. There was a short nod, and then the hands were around him, pulling him tight against his sweat and blood soaked shirt.
It was worse than the first time. Worse because Osric needed it so much more, because he dug deep and drank fast at the sound of his children screaming. That horrible pressure built in Dean's chest, like someone's hand was squeezing his heart. His left arm was limp, the wound taking all fight out of it but his right was digging into Osric's shoulder, a tenth of the strength of the vampire's hold on him.
And then he felt a thud, he back against cool earth and he saw from the corner of his eye, Osric crouched, back arched, teeth bared and machete in hand. He knew it was over, he knew they were saved.
That was, until he glimpsed the face of a dark haired girl in a snowy gown just before he passed out.
