Castiel adjusted the way the plaid sleeve bunched up on his arm and took a glance in the sink's mirror. He wasn't sure what he'd looked like before showering—he hadn't been able to bring himself to peek at the mirror beforehand. But Castiel supposed he was pretty good now. The facial fuzz was gone and Dean's clothes actually fit fairly well. His hair had been left a bit wet, but he thought it'd be rude to leave Dean waiting longer. He'd already intruded enough as it was.

He came out and threw his duffel onto the bed alongside his sleeping bag. When he turned to face the motel's table, though, there was no hint of Dean anywhere. It was strangely empty.

Castiel glanced around again. He hadn't heard anything- but maybe Dean left to go pick some sort of food up in the meantime. His body roared to life with the desire to throw down the sleeping bag or sit on the bed for a minute and just crash. It didn't specify how long he needed to sleep. Castiel was only able to recognize that, all things considered, he probably had some sleep to catch up on after unwillingly staying up most portions of the nights he'd endured so far. Simply unravelling the sleeping bag in the motel room would be far nicer than trying to shut his eyes in his employer's back storage room or some side alley. In fact, even the chair in front of him was calling his name.

However, his mind was pushed into being alert again at the detection of movement on the ground. Something about it made Castiel pause for a second and crouched down. The dark form looked to be only about an inch big, though it was probably slightly larger in reality. Right now it was curled in on itself, trying to sit up with a hand to its head.

And it was… strangely human.

"Dean?!"

The name flew from his mouth before Castiel had had any time to filter it properly, and it came out almost as a shout. The little figure—or rather, Dean—did a full body flinch and slammed both hands to his hand, taking up a defensive position on the floor.

Castiel was afraid to do anything else.

Instead, he could only watch in obvious shock as Dean uncurled himself and backed up a bit, which ended up being more like a crawl backwards than anything else. His eyes were still closed, and his figure still looked tightened, with muscles prepared to fight or flee. Castiel worried whether, on top of somehow being shrunk, Dean was disorientated, too. His suspicions were confirmed not two seconds later as Dean started to sway where he sat, and Castiel—although scared by the idea of touching him now—extended his hand to catch his fall.

Castiel held himself in this position. Crouched on one knee, training his eyes on a tiny figure whose weight he could support with startling ease. Being human added strange new complexities. His lost strength wasn't an issue in this situation, but his current lack of finesse and precision was. He didn't dare move now.

There were a few quiet moments. Then, like a feather brushing against his fingers, Dean seemed to stir. And freeze.

Castiel watched as Dean glanced up from his hand to his arm, and had gotten to craning his neck up towards Castiel when the Winchester must have gotten the need to shield his eyes. "Shit." Dean's voice barely cusped the edge of his hearing. "Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuck-"

Castiel didn't know what to do when Dean launched himself away from the supportive hand and dropped from his unsteady feet to begin pulling himself backwards by his hands and feet, glancing desperately at his surroundings and failing to look beyond the length of Castiel's forearm in the meantime.

He wanted to curse human stupidity and rash actions. Maybe if Dean had been able to glance a little higher, he would have recognized the person trying to help him out of whatever magical predicament the Winchester had managed now. Instead Dean was doing his best to take shelter under the table, away from Castiel.

The ex-angel reached his hand forward with the purpose of wrapping it behind Dean and impeding his escape for a minute. Castiel could have reached out to grab Dean, too—him being so amazingly small and all. The problem there was the fact that he didn't trust himself not to hurt Dean, who right now looked like he'd do everything within his power to struggle.

He also didn't want to scare Dean. That hope was in vain, though.

As soon as his hand came within a few inches of Dean, a faint scream rang out. "Cas!"

His hand darted back to his side despite himself. The panicked scream seemed to reverberate around them while they both paused—technically only about two feet distant from each other. It felt a lot farther to Castiel. If Dean knew it was him, why… Why would he be running?

Castiel glanced back and forth from Dean's miniscule figure to his own hand, trying to imagine how he might appear from Dean's perspective. But imagination wasn't exactly his forte, and his thoughts kept unravelling every time Dean moved even the slightest bit below him, causing his gaze to refocus. He was just so small. Of course, Castiel had known of some very weird things before coming to Earth a few years ago, and he would have liked to convince himself that it wasn't the size difference, but the problem itself, that had him frozen in a crouch, watching Dean with unabashed curiosity. After all, what was his end goal supposed to be? For the longest moment, he wasn't even sure if Dean would ever talk with him again. He couldn't hear it, but he did manage to see ragged breaths wracking the tiny form. Finally Dean's face tilted towards his and he looked Castiel up and down. It was a long time before anything else was said or done, but the one thing Castiel did know was how it felt to have your entire world flipped on its head, so if all he had to do was give Dean some time—well, at least he couldn't mess that up. When the little voice eventually piped up, he almost missed it. "... Cas?"

"Yeah." He smiled slowly and was careful to keep his voice low, remembering how much his shout had affected Dean last time. "Are you all right?"

Another minute went by, with Dean still struggling to recuperate himself. "Wh- what the fuck."

It sounded more like a statement than a question, but he glanced across the length of the tabletop anyways, looking for an appropriate answer. Nothing seemed to be disturbed. "I assume one of the hex bags was activated. But that would require the witch's attention…" He trailed off, noticing that Dean was still freaked out, in spite of however much he tried to hide it behind a steady voice. Castiel was, too, and he knew it—but he wanted to admit it to Dean as much as Dean wanted to admit it to him. Pushing down his human emotions was hard, but Castiel did it anyway. "You didn't get hurt, did you?"

Dean checked himself over for a second, but seemed self-conscious all the while. "No damage, per se. But I wouldn't call this 'good'." Castiel watched as Dean glimpsed around again, encircled by the legs of the table and chairs. He didn't know Dean to be one that let his circumstances dictate his reactions, but something about his posture made him appear smaller than he already was.

"You should get off the floor," Castiel said. He automatically shuffled closer.

Dean backed away in response, just slightly. "Woah woah woah, I—I'm not some action figure you can just grab, Cas. Jesus."

He frowned. "Then what would you have me do, Dean?"

Another spot of silence. It was hard to tell from the distance, but it looked like Dean had shrank back further. He wasn't sure how that was possible, seen as he was already so far under the table that Cas would risk hitting his head if he came any closer, but apparently he now seemed threatening. Or something. It hadn't occurred to him until now how desperate Dean seemed to be to stay away from him, even after regaining his senses and knowing it was only Castiel looming over him. He finally felt the glare sitting on his own face and he backed himself up a bit—hoping Dean's timidness might only be some residue side-effect of the spell.

"I don't want to make you uncomfortable," he huffed. "I just don't want to see… anything happen. Are you able to stand?"

Dean rose, swaying softly but staying perfectly upright.

Castiel tried running ideas through his head in the meantime. The only solution he came up with was a pet's carrying cage—which he scolded himself on immediately, but it had cropped up nonetheless—and extending his hand so that it acted as a platform. He didn't miss the way Dean took a small step back as he laid his hand down, palm up, on the floor beside him—but he didn't call it out. Dean looked up at him for a moment, all the more nervous with Castiel's hand being in closer proximity. At least, that's what Castiel assumed was causing his heightened skittishness.

"Uh… What are you doing?" Dean called up.

"You didn't want me to grab you, s—"

"Oh, no. No. None of this." He watched the miniscule figure wave his arms back and forth dramatically. "I'm fine. Really."

"Dean," he whined, finally feeling an edge of impatience developing from somewhere. It felt foreign, as if it was developing without his consent, but he didn't know how to stop it. "You can't just stay there indefinitely."

Dean got a bit more confident with the rate Castiel was trying to relent at. "Well, you know what? Watch me."

He wondered what Sam might have done right now. What the younger brother was doing right now. Castiel wasn't why Sam had been unable to come, but he did know that if anything happened to Dean while he was afflicted with… whatever spell this was, that he would be the one responsible. Not that he was doing anything out of the fear of what the younger brother might do. He just wanted to get Dean out of a bad spot and somewhere they could address the spell properly—but the only way he had ever seen Sam battle Dean's defensive stubbornness was by fighting fire with fire, and…

Ugh. Fuck it.

In one quick motion, his hand was encircling Dean, and he pressed a thumb lightly into his chest just as he tilted his hand and stood up, slowly, with Dean in tow.

There was movement against his fingers for a second-—but it died out once Castiel had actually begun standing. He kept Dean pinned under his thumb as he looked him over for a minute, held at chest height, where he was much easier to scrutinize at the closer distance. He was looking for injuries, of course, but it didn't take long before his eyes were pulled over to Dean's face, which was finally possible to read. But when he finally did, Castiel saw it had flushed over with red, and that Dean was gripping the digit that still held him in place, both as if he wanted it gone and as if it was his last measure of support against something greater.

He'd forgotten Dean's fear of heights.

Castiel had started forgetting certain things lately, which he attributed to the overarching challenge of being human. But most of the memories he'd attained as an angel were still fresh. So for him to have forgotten this….

Dean wriggled under his thumb, struggling to dig one of his feet in for purchase against the ridges of Castiel's fingers. He hurried to lay his hand flat on the table and remove the weight that compressed Dean against it. The weight hadn't been harsh—just enough to make sure he wouldn't fall off, or anything stupid like that. Now Castiel was left to wonder whether he'd actually managed to hurt Dean without knowing it. He pulled a chair in hurriedly, trying not to shift the hand that Dean still laid on and was attempting to roll off of. The Winchester plunked onto the table without a sound just as Castiel situated himself on the chair. He pulled his hand away.

Dean drew himself away, too. For a second, Dean might have been too shocked at what Castiel had done to be able to say anything, and then a slew of curses poured out from the miniaturized hunter standing in front of him. Castiel tried looking him in the eyes. But with all the seething rage Dean now had waiting in his gaze, Castiel felt forced to look away. His hand flexed almost of its own will. The phantom feeling of having something small but so intricately human and not at all bug-like in his hand was decidedly weird.

From below him, he heard Dean wrap up his typical reaction to stress and glanced down to see him with his hands pulling at his hair, revolving around to face the opposite direction from Castiel. The desk was still littered with hex bags. He wanted to burn them as soon as possible. And he might have, had he not been worried that more movement might freak Dean out more.

He waited as Dean turned around again, even slower this time, and simply took in the sight of Castiel. Finally his hands dropped from his head. He joined Castiel in sitting, albeit having to sit cross-legged on the table's cheap wood. Playing with his hands took most of his attention away from Castiel's sheer size while speaking. "You're really roped into this one."

Castiel was a little taken aback at the shift in conversation—though he was happy to go along with it. "I suppose so."

Dean pulled his head into his hands and muttered something that must have been self-deprecating, if Castiel had to bet on it from the Winchester's tone. Then his face resurfaced to mutter, "I'll just be along for the ride."

Castiel didn't catch himself leaning in until Dean glanced up and jolted in place. "Dean, you're never just 'along for the ride'," he insisted. "I'm the one who usually inconveniences you and Sam on hunts."

"Yeah, well. Guess the roles are reversed." He threw his hand towards Cas, motioning at the height disparity. "You hauling me around and all that."

Ah. So Dean was pouting, now. "I won't touch you now that you're on the table. How's that sound?" Castiel shot back, maybe a bit more pointedly than he meant for. He took it as a good sign when Dean didn't immediately flinch at the volume of his voice.

Dean leaned his head on his fist and refused to say anything else. In fact, he didn't even move when Castiel got up from the table five minutes later and dug through Dean's bag to find a lighter, deciding to get the hex bag burning over with in the kitchen sink before anything else went astray. And Dean kept to the same position when Castiel sat back down and resumed leaning over top of him slightly, many uncomfortable minutes later.

The motel was quiet and dark. The sun had gone down some time ago, and the blinds covering the windows blocked out whatever shreds they might have received from the streetlights nearby. There was only the kitchen light, suspended above him and creating a shadow under Castiel that just barely covered Dean, too. He brought up his own arm to rest his chin on, slowly, so that when his elbow touched the table Dean only saw the need to glance over once before focusing his attention all the way up to Castiel's gaze. It was half-lidded by this point. Castiel could feel the daunting mist of sleep sweeping over him, despite what was going on at the moment and how much he wanted to stay awake.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, at last able to say it while remaining genuine. "Do you know where I might start looking for a cure?" It practically went without saying that his researching skills on the Internet were next to none. But if Dean wouldn't be able to do it, Castiel vowed to do whatever it might take.

Dean seemed to recognize the determined air Castiel was stemming. It wasn't the type of thing that was easily written off. If there were few things Castiel had subconsciously taken away from his time spent around the brothers, their stubbornness would definitely have to be included—in some ways more than others, but it was there all the same. Dean's ghost of a smile went unseen by Cas, but his tone still softened by a fraction. "I'll show you where I like to start looking if you'll turn it on for me," he offered, motioning to the laptop that sat closed on the other end of the table.

Castiel gave a grateful smile back and reached over Dean, very carefully, to pull the computer closer.