Dean sat on the edge of his bed, 2:00 am glaring at him from the alarm clock on his night stand while he nursed a barely cold beer in the dark. It did little to make the shadowy, box-like edges of the room feel more natural and less constricting.
The trail to finding the strange source of the demons had been uncomfortably quiet, and Dean, Sam and Cas had found themselves talking about it less and less. And yet, it lurked beneath the surface, the underlying current of apprehension always present that someone had, and probably still was, using demons to find them.
Or to watch us, Dean had thought more than once, realizing that there was very little chance the demons hadn't located them already. They weren't exactly being covert. Still, they hadn't heard or seen anything in weeks, lulling them into a false sense of security. And for awhile, Dean thought that maybe they'd already left or been taken care of by someone else. . .
Not that Dean preferred to have another person do his dirty work. If nothing else, the apocalypse had proved he didn't let anything go. And this didn't feel resolved, anyway. Cruelly, his instincts had told him this wasn't over while failing to provide any new insight to what to do next. And so, slowly, Sam and Dean had both began to reluctantly relax into their old lives, talking about the case almost for appearances sake while the bunker's eco-system resumed its natural rhythms. With one exception; Dean couldn't bring himself to be around or talk to Cas. Every time he saw the angel, his stomach dropped a half step, freezing his mouth and filling his mind with the shame and embarrassment of their earlier conversation. He didn't want to/couldn't dissect it right now. And so, he'd avoided Cas, seeking solitude whenever he didn't have a legitimate reason to interact with the man.
Still, Cas had been starting to make it easy. Really easy. Because for the last few days, Cas would leave the bunker, unexpectedly, and without a word, only to return hours later providing a mumbled excuse to Sam about needing some air when he would ask where he went. And, after the first few weak excuses, Sam had stopped asking altogether. And Dean never asked at all.
Dean took another sip of his drink, blinking hard against the barely visible gray outlines of objects in his room, almost wishing he'd had the courage to ask the angel where he'd been going. Because then maybe he would have told Dean himself. He'd have preferred to find out from Cas.
He furrowed his eyebrows as he contemplated the fact that he hadn't been planning on sleeping in Cas's room again. He really hadn't. And he'd stayed away from the angel's bed since their. . . discussion. But another night with little sleep and a massive headache had started to derail his sense of self restraint. Besides, Cas wasn't home, and there was little chance he would be caught. At least that was his logic. But he couldn't explain what logic had led him to tug at the small book he'd found when he'd walked into his room earlier that night and had spied it, barely visible behind a box at the top of Cas's closet.
Still, he'd pried it free from between the box and wall, pulling out the volume and letting it fall open into his hands. And he could see the page Cas had last been looking at, his fingers tracing along the black brush strokes that formed an angels skeletal structure. In awe, he touched the ribs and vertebrae with the pad of his index finger wondering if Cas felt the force of his wings all the time, the weight bearing down on him. Soon, though, his attention was drawn away, his eyes skimming the fresh ink of Cas's handwriting where he'd scrawled notes in the margins.
Dean had squinted at one section, trying to make sense of it for a moment before discovering, disappointingly, that it must have been written in Enochian. And most of it had been. Except one sentence, spanning the margin of the book, written small enough that it could almost be missed:The demons are looking for me.
The sentence rolled around Dean's brain now that he had made his way back into his room, his body managing to find a few beers on the way in, on autopilot, but somehow not able to have the mental capacity to find the light switch. And his thoughts tried to find a spot to land, his mind having no idea how to process the red heat that pooled in his stomach when he thought of Cas out there somewhere, wandering around the streets with a target on his back. Again.
And he was furious. How long had Cas known the demons were here for him? Days? Weeks? Suddenly, he wondered if there hadn't been more to "James's Dream" than Cas had let on. Was he trying to protect them? And, it made Dean question Cas's conversation with him the other day. Was Cas really any better at discussing feelings than Dean? Maybe a little. . . his mind said, betraying him. Still, the timing was suspicious. People often tried to resolve things, check on the people they cared about before they did something drastic. Or stupid. Dean would know.
Oh god, Dean had thought, his mind coming to the simplest conclusion he could think of; he's been trying to lure the demons into coming out. . . using himself as bait.
Dean clenched his beer tighter into his fist, bringing the rim of the bottle up to his forehead while sucking in a deep, violent breath. And then, in one swift motion, he hurled the glass at the wall, shattering it, unable to see the explosion, but the sound reverberating in his ears anyway, his blood pumped with heat as he imagined the wet stain dripping from the wall onto the floor. He clenched at the edge of the bed, trying to still himself, before standing and pulling his coat and bag out of the closet.
He didn't even bother to try and explain himself when a confused, bedheaded Sam wandered into the hallway as he slammed his door. Or when he followed him out to the car with a worried "Dean?" falling from his mouth. And he almost didn't notice as Sam's pajama clad form got smaller and smaller as the roar of the impala took him away, accelerating faster and with more abandon than he'd ever remembered driving it before.