"So do we want the Wendigo or the Vamp case?" called Sam from the motel table to Dean who was still snuggled cosily up in the nearby bed.
Not expecting an answer he was surprised to hear a loud groan and the tousled form of Dean to mumble something that sounded like "Vamp, chop heads off"
"Okay, that sounds good. I'll get Bobby to take the Wendigo case" Sam was faintly amused at Deans baby talk. It was nice to see him relax for once rather than being constantly on edge.
"Oh by the way, have you heard from Cas?"
Sam immediately regretted asking, Dean's face had turned stony and he was glaring at Sam.
"Come on dude, You're gonna have to confront your feelings for him at some point."
"I was drunk when I told you that, It didn't mean anything!" Dean was almost shouting and Sam was concerned that he would get violent. Dean hated himself for all the feelings he had for Cas, The affection and care he had for the angel felt wrong in his head but right in his heart and Dean had no idea what he was supposed to do about it.
"Ok, Ok, Calm down" attempting to defuse the situation Sam handed Dean a cup of coffee.
Grunting in appreciation of the peace offering Dean promised that he would give Cas a call once they were on the it would be Sam's fault if they interrupted Castiel's important angel business.
Castiel, as it happened, did not have important angel business, Instead he was sitting in a cafe somewhere in downtown Toronto discussing his relationship status.
"I told you Balthazar we are just good friends" Although Castiel sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than Balthazar.
"Pshaw, youre souls are practically fuck buddies" laughed Balthazar definitly not falling for it.
"Oh Shut Up" Castiel squirmed awkwardly in his seat, a peculiar human trait that he had picked up from his time on earth.
"You know he feels the same way Cas." teased Balthazar "Doesn't that just ruffle your feathers?"As much as Castiel regretted it he couldn't help occasionally peering into Dean's thoughts. For him it was no harder than smiting a demon and Dean was none the wiser.
But it hurt Cas more than he would admit to see Dean's inner turmoil. All he wanted was to comfort the man but he couldn't do that without revealing his snooping.
Aware he was blushing profusely, Cas attempted to redirect the conversation, Pointing at Balthazar's muddy looking coffee he made a disgusted face,One thing Cas had not picked up from the Winchesters was a love of coffee,"Why on earth would you drink something like that? It looks abysmal"
"How dare you! This is some of the best coffee I've ever drunk! Why don't you bring Dean here sometime? He likes coffee, you know."
Rolling his eyes in disgust Cas disappeared landing silently in the back of a certain car. He was quiet for a few seconds before clearing his throat. The car violently swerved and Dean cursed loudly.
"Hey Cas" attempting to keep his cool and prove his brother wrong Dean kept up a steady stream of nonchalant chatter that was mostly food oriented.
Once Sam was sick of the graphic burger descriptions he turned the conversation onto the case. "So far three bodies have turned up with the blood drained and of course the locals are completely clueless."
"So are we thinking a nest or just a rogue Vamp?" asked Dean
"Too early to tell but we can be sure that they're bloodthirsty"
"Not funny".
A few hours later Dean was drifting off in the driver's seat so he handed off the wheel to Sam and tried to find a comfy position to sleep in.
Without realising Cas caught himself gazing fondly over Deans slumbering form. Pondering the complexities of love.
Sam noticed and smiled to himself, he wanted his brother to be happy and while it wouldn't be easy he thought Cas could give him that.
They eventually pulled up to a Motel and found rooms. Once they were settled, Dean and Castiel headed off to talk to the local police.
"So, are we gonna go good cop bad cop?"joked Cas.
"Alright then," Deans reply was seemingly friendly but there was a glint of challenge in his eye.
"You go bad I'll go good" whoever gets the best results wins. With that he jumped out of the car and speed walked into the building leaving Castiel in his wake, definitely not staring at his butt.
After Cas had collected himself he entered his new persona and stalked in. Yanking open the door he found Dean fawning over the pretty receptionist. Even from a distance it was clear he was flirting and Cas couldn't help but be the tiniest bit envious. Walking up behind Dean he curtly tapped him on the shoulder, gave him a look and, enjoying the game far too much barked at the lady to find the commanding officer, looking slightly terrified she glanced at Dean for reassurance, Dean only looked slightly confused and motioned for her to let them in.
Once they had been ushered into a small office and had seated themselves on tiny chairs there was silence, neither of them wanted to break character and both were exceptionally stubborn.
After what felt like an age the door swung open nearly smooshing Dean into the wall. Once the sergeant was seated and they had shown their badges. Dean began sweet talking the mustachioed man into letting them see the case files, after a few minutes of getting nowhere Castiel authoritatively cleared his throat and began to talk,
"At the FBI we have been very disappointed by your lack of success on this triple homicide" his disapproving glare nearly shattered the glass vase on the desk.
"What? The FBI has been keeping tabs on our tiny town? Who'd've thought it."
Castiel, worrying for a minute that he had taken the wrong course of action readied himself for failure but steadied himself at the thought of Dean's face if he won, he wouldn't admit it but most of his self confidence and worth lay in Dean's perception of him. Sad isn't it that an angel millenia years old wanted the affection of a human barely 30.
Deciding to be even more blunt than before Cas raised his voice,
"We would be extremely indebted to you if you would provide us with the case files, otherwise we may have to take a more severe form of action,"
Cas had no idea if the FBI could even fire police officers but it seemed to do the trick because the man looked absolutely terrified and was now rummaging hurriedly in a nearby cupboard looking for the crime scene images.
Giving a little humph to add some pizazz, Cas glanced sideways at Dean to gauge his reaction, what Castiel certainly wasn't expecting was a frown and flash of something - was it anger?
Once they were outside and heading for the Impala Dean started shouting, "what was that? You nearly made the man wet himself! That wasn't good cop bad cop that was bad everything!"
The drive back to the motel was filled with a stony Castiel's head was spinning, he racked his brains to work out what he had done wrong, he had just been playing bad cop right?
Dean meanwhile was extremely confused. Up until he had met Cas he had never thought about his sexuality, even just thinking about it made him shudder. But the fact remained that when he had seen Cas ripping out the sergeant he had felt the same way as he did while a female stripper gave him a lap dance, and it scared him. The fear was unlike anything he had ever felt before, as someone who faced danger on a daily basis he was used to his life going horribly wrong, but if he let himself show Cas his true feelings; let's just say resurrection wouldn't be an option.
Letting themselves into the motel they found Sam still hard at work searching the internet for clues. He hardly glanced up when they entered and didn't seem to notice the strange energy between them.
Shrugging off his FBI garb Dean announced that he was going to find a burger joint and get takeaway for them all. Puckering up his mouth Sam groaned and begged for a salad.
Once The roar of the impala has faded Cas turned to Sam, blurting out the whole conversation and nearly becoming tearful in the process.
After a few minutes trying to work out what the hell Cas was saying Sam turned very pink and his shoulders shook for a few seconds before he collected himself and turned to Cas,
"So, what exactly were you doing before he got angry?"
"Um well, I think I scared the police officer a bit"
Knowing that this wouldn't be a problem for Dean he scrunched his nose and grinned at Cas to continue,
"But what were you doing Cas? Specifically tone and body language."
He was racking his brains but before he could answer there were running footsteps and Dean high-tailed it through the door, apparently burgerless.
"We've got incoming!" He shouted as another car pulled up outside.
Sure enough the door was shoved open to reveal a horde of ugly vampires, unusually the vampires didn't run straight in and kill them. Instead most of them held back while the two oldest sauntered in and made themselves comfortable on the beds.
Glaring at them Dean reached for his knife, but before he could do so one sprang up and grabbed Cas, forcing him onto the bed. Castiel was about to blast the vampire into oblivion but there was a flash of steel and suddenly there was an angel blade pointed directly at his neck
"Woah,Woah, need to get reckless" Dean's heart was beating a frenzy and his throat was thick with worry.
"Well if hunters would stop coming onto our patch then we wouldn't have to resort to such extreme measures." His soft tone threatened to seep into Deans veins.
"We wouldn't be here if you didn't keep killing innocents" Deans replied dryly.
Just then a huge hulking form barged past the vamps crowded in the doorway, It was at least 7 feet tall and wearing what could only be described as a potato sack, the ugly face looked like it could have come straight out of Buffy. The two sitting inside the motel who up until now had been very collected and calm looked panicked and leapt up. There was a hushed conversation between the three which seemed to end in the new vamp telling the others that the Winchesters must die immediately.
The ugly brute of a vamp was first to attack, lumbering forward at Dean who almost dodged out of the way but smashed into the bedside table, The other vampires tried to use numbers to beat Sam but the motel was too small to give them a clear advantage.
While Dean and the Vamp were wrestling, Sam was beheading monsters left and right, he finally managed to get behind the one holding Cas, caught it by surprise and freed Cas who headed over to assist grappled for a few minutes with Dean attempting to hack at the neck. After several attempts he finally got through and let the body topple over.
Proving that they had earned the status of 'Best Hunters in the country(who also killed Hitler once)' they dealt with the remainder of vampires the same way they always did - lots of blood and flying heads.
In the calm that followed the last decapitation Dean was only concerned with one thing;
"So who's still hungry?"
"Ugh Dean" miming retching Sam gave Dean a disgusted look and went to find his laptop which had been buried under vampire corpses.
"Fine, I'll wash my hands before we eat."
At that moment a small groan came from the corner where the massive vampire lay.
Cas had been forgotten about and appeared to be stuck under the large corpse. It took both Sam and Dean to heave the gigantic form off and Dean couldn't help but laugh at the sodden form of Cas which was covered head to foot in blood and ooze.
"You look like something out of a horror movie"
"I feel like something out of a horror movie" grumbled Cas
"Why don't you take first shower" advised Sam "Dean and I will clean up"
Castiel stayed in the shower for as long as possible. Knowing when he got out he would have to properly face Dean.
Wrapping a towel around his waist he pushed open the shower door and awkwardly stood there while Dean tried not to gape.
Although the room still had bodies in the corner and traces of blood on the walls, there were clean sheets on the bed Dean was sitting on. Castiel awkwardly shuffled over keenly aware of the lack of clothing.
Realising the problem Dean jumped up and offered some of his own clothes.
The clothes were too big on Cas' skinny frame but they smelled of Dean and that was more than enough for cas, he sidled onto the bed and sat down next to Dean,
After a good few minutes of them looking awkwardly at each other they both tried to start talking
"Cas"
"Dean"
"Oh sorry you go first"
"Ok" Dean's voice was deeper than usual,"Cas you're my friend, and I care about you which is why I'm telling you this" he laughed sourly.
"When I saw the vampire grab you I thought I might lose you forever, stupid right? And I don't want to risk losing you. I love Sammy, you know that and I would give my life for him like I would give my life for you but he's my brother and I don't think of you like a brother…"
He trailed off, apparently unaware of Castiel edging himself towards Dean. Dean's face was facing straight down into his lap as if he was praying. Cas could barely hear over the beat in his ears and he knew his face was going beat red, damn human blood vessels.
Unsure if it was the right move Cas tenderly put his hand on Dean's arm causing Dean to shudder involuntarily, Cas was about to move his hand when Dean tilted his his face up, they both stared into each others eyes for a minute understanding on both their faces, the vampires and blood forgotten.
Trying not to spook Dean he whispered "I like you different than a brother too" and the look on Dean's face was worth every feeling he had hidden away.
Seizing the moment Cas slid his hand up Deans arm onto his face. His fingers stroked Dean's cheek bone for a minute. Then he softly placed his lips onto Deans. Dean folded into the kiss and relished every second of it. The tender passion was enough to reduce Dean to a quivering mess on the floor but he held himself together and softly ruffled Cas' hair.
Outside Sam walked past the window, glanced in and wisely stayed away, smiling to himself.