Dean made it. A less stubborn jackass would have died but Dean made it. Each day he gained more strength and it didn't take long until he was back to what I'd to assume was his old self.
The first two weeks of our journey together was all about staying alive. Then we started to slaughter our way through Purgatory with one goal. Find the angel.
Before I'd met Dean I'd lived constantly looking over my shoulder to stay alive. Now we were the ones the others had to look out for. Dean had one question and he needed an answer.
"Where's the angel?"
We didn't want to draw the attention of the big guys to us, Leviathans were the ones Dean wasn't keen to meet, but we dealt well with the average monster roaming the endless forest.
After I'd saved his life without draining him, Dean trusted me enough to have his back and after a few weeks we'd found our rhythm in the fight and everything else. Not much to do in Purgatory than to run for your life or hunt down the other monsters and we were good at it.
Usually we didn't talk much. Too busy straining our ears for the soft rustle in the bushes or the dry cracking of a branch that would indicate another monster near by. Another thing that wanted to kill us and would answer Dean's question instead before he would kill it.
I've seen some ruthless creatures in my life and afterlife, I'd once been one myself, but the ruthlessness I saw in Dean, a human, kinda scared me sometimes. Purgatory brought out the darkest sides in us but Dean was extreme. Not unnecessarily brutal, he didn't draw it out or enjoyed the killing, no, he was cold and efficient. If he decided to ask his question he would get an answer. Always. Some even begged for him to kill them in the end. Made me think of Hell. Maybe Dean hadn't been exaggerating, maybe he really had been there. Had picked up a trick or two downstairs.
But sometimes, when we'd settled down for the night but weren't quite ready to sleep yet or when we walked for hours through mostly open terrain where we felt more or less safe, Dean started to talk.
Then he sometimes got this dreamy expression and talked about his brother who he called Sammy and who was Sam to me. Always light stories, funny things that made him smile or sometimes even laugh.
"Sure hope to meet the famous Sam Winchester one day." I said after one of his stories. Apparently only Sam could wear a purple shirt with a white dog on the chest and still get the attention of a pretty girl. And totally miss it.
"You will." Dean promised. "He can show you the wonder that's called internet." He added with a grin. I'd no idea what he was talking about so I just nodded. A lot of the things Dean mentioned I didn't recognize but that was okay, there lay half a century between us, of course there were things out there in the world I'd never heard of.
"He can show you the basics and I'll show you were to find the good stuff." He nodded to himself, pleased with his plan, then stopped dead. "Man, I hope they don't delete my account on bustyasianbeauties."
The last word was a rattled mash of words which didn't make any sense.
"It's porn." He explained when he noticed my puzzled expression. "If you're not into Asians, that's fine. Plenty of other stuff out there. I'll show you some shit you haven't thought of in your wildest dreams." He stopped again, turned around and pointed with his finger at me. "Just to make this clear. I'll show you where to find the good stuff, we're not watching it together."
"Whatever you say, chief." I hold my hands up in mock surrender. I wasn't exactly sure what he had in mind but I was pretty sure that I didn't want to mix Dean and porn. Just no. Even the way he talked about it made me cringe. Apparently "a gentleman doesn't kiss and tell" had become a thing of the past since I died, if you could consider Dean a gentleman, that is, because Dean now went on with his war stories of the horizontal kind.
"Stay away from waitresses from Tampa, I'm telling you man, they're evil and not in the good way." He shuddered at some memory and then changed the topic. "You know what I miss most beside the sex?"
Sammy, was the answer in my mind but I didn't say it. He would never admit how much he missed his brother but the way he sometimes talked about him nearly broke my undead heart.
"Food." Dean declared instead. "What would I give for just one big, juicy burger." He licked his lips and closed his eyes with a wishful sigh. "There was this diner, Connor's Diner, they had the best burgers in St. Luis, hell, best burgers in the state."
"We'll go there as soon as we get out of here." I promised. It was a good way to pass the time, dreaming about the things we'd do as soon as we had left this shit-hole behind. "It's on me, I'll buy you the biggest burger they have."
Now Dean looked really sad. "They closed a while back."
I sensed a whole story behind that little statement but the moment was over and Dean fell silent again but it was a comfortable silence.
After a few hours of light-hearted chatter it was only a matter of time until things went downhill. I should have known that but it still got me by surprise.
We'd heard about a large nest of vampires in the east and we tried to get around them through the south, no point in getting killed in a fight we couldn't win. Dean was ruthless but not stupid and neither am I, we knew which battles to pick. But sometimes the battle picks you.
We were on our way through a sparse forest when five or six vampires were coming for us. Guess we'd attracted the attention of the nest anyhow. Dean and I shared one quick glance and then took of running. Two against six, not the best constellation but not the worst me and Dean had faced either and we were still around. However, if we could split them up, lose the slower ones for just a few seconds it would redound to our advantage. Didn't work out the way we hoped for.
Ever been on a battue? The six behind us were the beaters and we were the pray. They drove us right were they wanted us, into the arms of the rest of their nest.
Dean came to a skittering halt and I nearly barreled into him. Out of the trees came more vampires. With the ones behind us they formed a wide circle around us. We had stumbled into their trap like dumb cattle.
"Son of a bitch." Dean muttered under his breath. "Not good."
Eyes fixed on the vampires surrounding us, we fell into fighting stances, back to back with our weapons loosely in our hands. This was about to get bloody.
One of the vampires spoke: "You're still pretty."
