Chapter 3: Steaming Lake

The first thing four year old Dean notice was the breaking sound of wood. He had heard it before, weeks ago as his father had taken him to one of his ´boys nights´ like his mom calls them. He wasn't old enough for it and certainly didn't get a drink but he was daddy´s helper as he maned the grill. They made steak, he and his colleagues from work. But the sound of the fire that was the noise he heard now, wood burning, breaking and crumbling down to a pail of ash.

Dean wakes up probably to his mother´s screams and his baby brothers crying. An orange and red light shined inside his room. The door was left open for him when he needs the toiled in the night but this was not the light from the hall, it was moving and Dean liked it until he remembers the scream and the crying, two signs that something was very wrong.

The boy gets out of his bed and enters the hall to find the nursery in flames. Bright and hot were the flames working on eating up every piece of the room. The flames were not like the ones at the grill or the any other fire he had seen before, the flames were wild and untamed. His mom was in this room and somehow caught behind a wall of flames. His brother was crying in his bed and as Dean watched this scene, his dad came upstairs, ran pass him to get his brother out.

"Bring your brother out, as fast as you can." Shouts his dad as he gives Dean Baby Sammy into his arms. Suddenly feeling the fear, the pain and the creeping death, Dean runs, he was afraid and didn't know what was happening. The fire was growing around him fast as he gets outside with Sammy safe in his arms. The baby was still crying, out of fear.

The house was completely covered in flames as his dad came out, hurt but without his mother and ran towards him. Without mom, because she was still inside the house, being eaten by the fire. Fear was pressing his heart and Sammy´s crying became the cry´s of pain.

And Dean sees how his hands leave burning hand prints on his brother´s body.

Dean shoots up in his bed; he can feel the heat rising inside of his body. Before he is able to take some air into his empty lungs from his silent scream, he jumps out of the bed, runs to the back door and opens it. He can feel the metal under his finger getting warm, barefoot and only in his nightgown he runs through the snow and into the lake. Steam rises around his overheated body. The cold of the lake does not reach him. The water starts to boil around him imminently and Dean walks deeper into the water until he reaches a rock. He knows this rock is there, no light is needed. Dean sits down and let the water take every bit of the heat and flames his body produces.

It takes a while for him to calm down, to get his breathing under control and to concentrate on his heartbeat. He needs to be calm to even try to push the fire back inside of him, where he had locked it away as good as it was possible for a driving force to be hidden away. He couldn't see far, the steam was too thick but that was okay, no one would be able to see his tears. Something Dean was very thankful for. He always start to cry after that dream, the look of his mother, caught by the flames, his father hurt as he run out of their home but worse the pained cries of his baby brother as his back gets burned by him.

Cas had felt the dark thoughts and the nightmare but he hadn't known what to do. He wasn't used to all of this and he had heard that humans, especially men, don't like to be reminds of flaws, weaknesses or similar things. It surprised the angel as he felt something very strange, somehow familiar but still foreign to him. It was a power he couldn't place.

The sudden movement of his host was even more surprising. The angel followed the human outside and finds the night filled with fog. At least that's what Cas thought first. Than he sees Dean in the lake producing boiling water that evaporates to steam and fills the nightly air. One thing was sure, the angle knows that humans normally don't produce heat or better flames like that and somehow the angle understand why this human choses to live far away from everyone else then the power Cas was feeling right know wasn't controlled in any form. This was a wild beast living inside this human waiting for a chance to break out.

The angel returns into the house and gets a towel for Dean, to dry himself when he had control over the fire again. He was waiting in the snow, barefooted and only wearing his pyjama, given to him by Dean. The angel doesn't feel the cold or the snow biting his toes. He would wait here until Dean was ready.

It had taken him hours to calm down enough to leave the lake. The morning will rise soon but Dean doesn't care about it. He had this dreams once or twice a week, often enough to no longer care about his disturbed nights. He didn't have to get up and do a normal nine to five. He had jobs to be done, necessary for survival jobs, but they could wait a few hours.

The water around him had calmed down too, no more ice was on the surface, the lake had a nice temperature for a swim, he hopes it will cool down enough again to not kill all the fish inside. In the winter time it was a bit critical, thinking about it, every season was bad for the lake to get heated up like this.

As Dean steps out of the lake he finds his visitor waiting for him. The melted snow, boiling water and the burned footprints on the ground were a dead giveaway for anyone around, but he suspected, Cas had seen far more. No use to denial it. What worries him was that the man was standing right there, waiting for him with a towel, never mind his state of clothing.

Dean was tired enough to just ignore it and takes the offered towel, he was thankful that Cas seem to sense that he doesn't want to talk about it. With the towel around his shoulder he takes the man inside and pushes him to the table. In the kitchen Dean starts a quick breakfast, he wasn't cold, a side effect of the whole thing that would take another hour to disappear. Enough time for food and a cold shower.

As the breakfast was ready he places it on the table and could see how his guest wants to argue about it, again. "Shut up and eat Cas." It might sound a bit harsh but the "Angel" did shut up and take the first bit with a small smile on his face. It was like this had become their thing just after one time, he also suspect that Cas only wanted to make him talk again, to break the silence. Dean still wasn't sure what he had to think about the whole angel or cult thing. But who cares. He just made a lake boil and ice melt. The guy was still here that means he is a hunter or someone who knows about things or he was a thing. A path Dean wouldn't follow jet. Cas didn't judge him and wasn't afraid of him, he also was very glad to have someone here, even when he couldn't talk about the dream or his curse. He wasn't alone.

Somewhere inside Dean was a voice telling him that he is a danger for the man in front of him and he should send him away as soon as possible. But Dean couldn't he hadn't known what he missed until the man had fallen from the sky. He hadn't notice his loneliness, sending the "angel" away would hurt. "Why aren't you asking questions or run away like any sane person." He had to ask at least.

Cas looked up and studies his eyes for a long time, just starring. "Why would I? You don't want to hurt me and I doubt you can with it." Cas was still watching him.

"Because of the angel thing?" Cas nods. "Can you prove to me that you are an angel, like wings or a harp or something like that? It would make me feel … I don't know, it would help, I think. I don't want to hurt you when I lose control." He didn't tell the angel how often that is. The part of sending him away stays unsaid.

"I don't have a harp and I can´t show you because using my powers would lead my brothers and sister the way to find me. I don't want them to find me, I´m sorry Dean. You have to believe." That was all Cas said before he returned to his half eaten breakfast.