Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. Nothing monetary is being made for my having written this piece.

Next chapter. Enjoy.

He was walking down a flight of stairs. Down. Down. Down into a…a crypt. When he reached the very bottom and his shoes made a gentle tap-tap sound on stones, he looked up and there surrounded by nothing but torchlight stood Dean. He was wearing a dark suit, black shirt and black tie. He looked...handsome.

"Cas, you made it," he said, coming closer to him, standing before him.

He smiled and put a hand against Castiel's shoulder and pulled him towards his body. His lips barely touched his own before the loud crash from somewhere outside of his bedroom pulled him from his sleep and Castiel jumped up in his bed and sighed.

"Dean, what the hell? Seriously?"

Oh. The brothers were awake.

"What? I didn't see a box. It was dark."

"You have super, vampire vision," Sam sputtered. "You couldn't have missed it!"

"Fine. I didn't want to wake up Cas. Happy?"

Castiel got up out of his bed and opened his door to find the brothers fully dressed and apparently trying to go up the stairs with the least amount of noise possible which was ruined by Dean walking straight into a cardboard box that was sitting in the middle of the hallway.

Sam had a duffle bag clutched in his hand and looked between Castiel and his brother.

"Dean, I've gotta get moving if..."

"I know. Sammy; just go and we'll talk later."

Sam smacked his brother pleasantly on the shoulder and waved to Castiel before running up the stairs, grabbing a set of keys and shutting the door behind him.

"Where is he going?" Castiel asked.

"Got a case. It's only a one man job so Sam volunteered to check it out. All goes well, he should be home by the weekend."

"Seems an awfully long time to be leaving the nest."

In hindsight, he had no idea what made that word come to his mind. The word came easily to Castiel and he felt a shudder down his spine just thinking about it. This was a nest of their kind, truly.

Dean sighed and turned away from Castiel, asking, "You sleep okay?"

"I slept adequately. You?"

Dean shrugged his shoulders. "Not bad."

They fell into silence once again before Castiel decided to speak.

"I'm going to drink a little and..."

"Knock yourself out, man."

Castiel looked back at Dean as he walked away. Dean didn't look before going back into his own bedroom and shutting the door and locking it.

Dean didn't come back out until many hours later, nearly daybreak. Castiel met him at the refrigerator and crossed his arms, waiting for the man to say something. When it didn't appear that Dean was going to say a word, Castiel was the one to ask, "What is going on with you today?"

"Nothing," Dean said defensively and he grabbed a packet from inside and opened it to take a drink.

"Why were you hiding in your bedroom, Dean?"

"Was cleaning some weapons and didn't want to be disturbed," he said, taking a swig.

Castiel didn't know if Dean was telling the truth or not. He didn't have x-ray vision after all.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"You just did," Dean said with a smirk, trying to diffuse the situation that they'd fallen into.

Castiel had half a mind to rip his head off but instead he took a deep breath and relaxed himself. "Dean."

"What?"

"Would it…would it be possible for you to tell me a bit more about what it was like when you and Sam were both turned?"

Dean stopped in place and frowned. "Why do you want to know?"

Castiel shrugged and looked him level in the eyes.

"I don't think - I don't want to go into it right now. It's still too fresh in my head and it's not something I want to live through again so..."

Ever the peacemaker, Castiel nodded and said, "Its fine, Dean."

"It is?" Dean asked, surprised.

"Yes, Dean. You can tell me about it whenever you are ready. I merely asked because, I'm not sure. Maybe because I wanted to compare experiences."

"Well, I can tell you that you are definitely one of the unique ones. Sammy and me...damn, this is hard."

Dean rolled his eyes to the ceiling and forced himself to continue.

"Sammy and I were like your classic run of the mill vamps. At first, the bloodlust...damn it, it was so freaking strong. It was like hunting, only for the other team. We'd...we'd butcher anyone who got within fifteen feet of us and...and...Bobby found us after a couple of months. Got a tip off another hunter in the area."

Castiel nodded and to tried to be a subtle about it as possible. He knew that this was a very difficult conversation for Dean to be talking his way through. He was doing just fine so far.

"We ended up going after them. We killed the one hunter and then when we saw Bobby...we didn't even recognize him at first. It'd only been a few months and already we'd fallen so far to the dark. We attacked, he fought back. Man, I don't even know how it happened but somehow he got the upper hand on us and brought us back to his place after drugging us with some D.M.B."

"D.M.B?"

"Dead Man's Blood - Later. Um, where was I?"

"Bobby got you."

Dean nodded to himself. "Right. Anyway, Bobby has this panic room in his basement, just finished, and he stuck us in it and then, every day for, I don't know, a few months (our time was pretty skewed then so it might've been more or less), he starts bringing us packets of blood. Two square meals really. We didn't know where he got it and he didn't tell us. There were a few bad moments. I got him once on the arm; left a nasty, jagged scar."

"Bobby seems to have forgiven you though."

"He's a tough guy. He knew us when we were just kids and we're the only thing he has left that can be considered family."

"You should learn how to forgive yourself. It was not your fault."

"Technically it was. I was the idiot who fell for the girl and got turned first."

"It doesn't matter though, Dean. You decided that enough was enough. Bobby was your friend and you pulled on the strength of your own spirit and said 'No more.'"

Silence reigned for the moment but Dean slowly nodded to himself. He wiped a hand against his forehead and turned to walk away. Castiel wanted to stop him but didn't. It was difficult to relive the past, especially one so dark. Instead of returning to his bedroom, Dean took a seat on the couch in front of the television and turned on the game system that Charlie had left for them to use.

Dean turned to Castiel and asked, "You wanna play a little?"

Castiel nodded slowly and took a seat beside him.

Dean's phone began to ring when they were in the middle of an intense game of Mario Kart. He paused it, walking away from Cas without saying anything ("What the hell, Dean?") and went into his bedroom, shutting and locking the door behind him.

"Hey Sammy, stopping to rest?"

"Yeah. Twenty-two hour drives kill my back, y'know."

"Oh, I do."

"We're doing the right thing, right?"

Dean wasn't even so sure anymore. "We've gotta see what we can find out man. There's something about him that we're just not..."

"Seeing. Yeah, I hear you. Okay, I'm going to take a rest. Call you when I'm closer."

"'K Sammy. Stay safe."

"You too."

Dean closed his phone and, with his hand fisted around it, brought it to lean against his forehead before he left the room and went back to the waiting Castiel.

"What happened?"

"Nothing," Dean said, taking the game off pause and promptly launching a blue shell at Cas' Princess Peach.