Dean was a mess of emotions. He hated emotions. They made the job nearly impossible. He barely heard a word the witness told them, and could only hope that Sam had been paying more attention.
What the hell did Sam think he was doing making all those comments? And he had actually gotten Dean to participate in whatever shit he was trying to pull. There for a minute he'd thought that Sam had really been in the middle of some kind of sexual identity crisis. The whole time he had just been messing with Dean. Maybe he had made a couple of good points, but Dean was not ready to concede that yet.
What business did Sam have in Dean's love life anyway? And how the hell did he know about Dean's fears? It wasn't like he went around advertising them.
Sam didn't know anything, anyway. Dean wasn't really afraid of Castiel being a man. He was really trying to accept that part of himself, and he was doing a fairly decent job of it - if the recent additions to his porn collection were any indication. Dean was afraid of so much more than just his gender.
The part that really wormed it's way into his thought process wasn't that Sam seemed to know of his attraction to the angel. Whatever. Even Charlie seemed to know about that. At least Cas still seemed to be in the dark. That wasn't what Dean was really upset about.
Sam had said love. 'If he had fallen in love with a guy'. If his brother had insinuated that he knew that Dean was attracted to a dude, he'd be able to deal with that. Love was a different story. Love was much bigger and scarier than any amount of being attracted to the same sex.
When they left the last witness's house, Dean was aware that he had not absorbed any of the information that had been offered. He didn't even care. All of the accounts had been the same, and it was unlikely that he had missed anything important.
He slid into the driver's seat and stared resolutely out of the windshield at the road ahead. It would be some time before he gathered enough courage to speak to his brother again. Sam knew too much for Dean's own good, it seemed.
When they pulled back into the drive for the hotel they were greeted by an ambulance and a fire truck. That could not be good. Dean met his brother's eyes across the distance they had established for the ride home. They could finish that awkward silent treatment another time. They both jumped out of the car, slamming their doors and heading toward the hotel lobby at a quickened pace.
They knew that Charlie and Castiel were involved in whatever was scheduled for the day, being the only two left to do it. They shared a look of near panic as they spotted the paramedics through the glass doors that lead to the area the where groups were usually held.
They crashed through the doors at an alarming speed, if the startled looks of the other occupants were any indication. They spotted their friends off to the side, separated from the rest of the crowd. They both looked fine, and while the brother's could breathe a sigh of relief they still rushed to their side.
"Are you guys alright?" Dean asked, surreptitiously checking the angel for damage.
"What happened?" Sam asked them at the same time.
"There was another attack. We saw the whole thing." Charlie told them excitedly. Her face fell almost immediately. "Although, it was exactly the same as everyone has already said it was."
"Are you okay, though?" Dean asked again. The angel was looking at him oddly, and the hunter wanted to make sure that he hadn't been affected by the… well whatever the hell they were dealing with.
"Yes. I'm fine." Castiel told him.
"Yeah, I'm fine, too." Charlie told him, raising her eyebrows in a mocking way when he finally turned in her direction.
Dean realized then why the angel was looking at him the way he was. The hunter was standing right beside him, invading his personal space. He had one hand on Castiel's arm, while the other had settled on his back. As if the other man might be faint. Like one little spook could take out an angel. Jesus, he really needed to get ahold of himself. The smug smile on Sam's face when he turned his way did not help matters.
"Maybe you should go make sure your wife is alright. I think I can handle this." Sam lifted the hand off Castiel's back, giving Dean a little shove, and maneuvered himself into the space opened by the removal of his brother.
Dean turned his sheepish gaze to Charlie who looked more amused than upset. "Get your priorities straight, darling." She told him, the ghost of a smirk crossing her face.
It wasn't until after dinner that the group had a chance to talk about what happened. The paramedics had questions, the police had questions, and then the hotel had put out an early spread for dinner. They probably just hoped the other guests would not be scared off by whatever was dropping bodies in the hotel. It had been a real feast, and Dean had indulged in all the foods they rarely had a chance to dine on.
It was with a belly full of lobster and steak and the best damn pecan pie he'd ever had, that they returned to Sam and Castiel's room. He plopped himself into one of the table height chairs near the window. He honestly didn't think he'd even be able to make it up into one of the bar stools with his current bloat.
"They really know how to treat trauma victims around here."
Charlie laughed as she plopped down into the other chair. "You didn't even see anything! You got all the benefits, and none of the trauma!"
Dean rolled his eyes at the acting of his partner. "Were you traumatized?"
"Highly. I'll have you know Castiel and I will have to go through major counseling after watching What's-his-face get attacked." Charlie really dialed up the dramatic flair, clutching a hand to her chest in heartfelt upset.
"What's-his-face? Does he have a last name? That first name is a bit of a mouthful." Dean laid out the sarcasm thickly.
"Old What's-his-face Go-fuck-yourself. He was my best friend!" She kicked Dean under the table to make her point.
They both cracked up, and Dean even saw his brother chuckle a bit from his place at the bar. Dean was just glad to lose some of the tension he'd been holding since the talk in the car. His brother could probably do with a bit of stress relief as well.
"So tell us about what happened today. I mean, did you see anything you didn't tell the cops about?" Of course his brother was a buzz kill, and went straight back to the case instead.
Charlie seemed to give it a little thought before she answered. "It is definitely not a ghost, I can tell you that. I've never heard of a ghost like that before. Or a demon. It was just like a cloud of greyish smoke. It just swooped in and out of him really quickly and he dropped. Then it was just gone."
"In and out of him?" That sounded weird.
"Yeah, It looked like it went in through his nose, and maybe his mouth too. It didn't force his mouth open like possession. It just flowed in and out like he was breathing it. Super weird." Apparently, Charlie thought along the same lines.
"Did you get a read off of it, Cas?" Of course Sam was the one that thought to ask the only supernatural being in the room what he thought.
"I agree that it is not either of our earlier deductions. I would have been able to sense if it was. I believe we might be dealing with a god of some sort."
"Great. My favorite. What the hell would a god be doing hanging around a hotel putting people into comas?" Dean sighed. He fucking hated dealing with gods. They were always so full of themselves. And whatever this god was stealing from these people was probably something that they used to freely sacrifice. The god was pretty unlikely to give it back.
"That I do not know. The intentions that I sensed did not seem hostile." Well, it wouldn't seem hostile if the god was just taking what it felt it deserved.
"What happened before he got hit?"
"Nothing! Everything was perfectly normal. We were all just sitting around talking about the things we like about each other. Which was fairly awful, so thanks for abandoning us with that activity." Charlie glared at the brothers. "They kept looking at us like we were fucking nuts. Even after I told them that you guys had a family emergency and Cas just wanted to see what the group was about. They just kept looking at me like I was some kind of fiancé stealing harlot." Dean just rolled his eyes at her. It wasn't like they chose that day just to cause her heartache.
She continued her story. "Anyway, What's-his-face's wife had just told him she liked that he had a job that made it possible for them to buy nice things. He seemed upset that she said it, and he got up to leave, and Boom! That smoke came out of nowhere and just knocked him out."
"Wait. You said he was angry at his wife?" Sam asked her intently.
"I don't know. He seemed to be upset. Why?"
"That's not the first account I've heard where the victim was angry about something right before an attack." Sam shuffled through the case paperwork on the bar, sifting out the stack of witness accounts they had acquired.
"This one says her and her husband were in the middle of an argument, and he had just stepped out onto the balcony to get some air when he was attacked. And that guy we interviewed today said that other couple had been fighting the entire trip. Remember Dean?"
Dean did not even bother to answer him. That wasn't one of the stories he remembered, so it was probably that last witness they had talked to. The one that he hadn't heard to a single word the guy had said. He glared hard at his brother instead. Sam seemed to understand the look and moved on quickly.
"Uh yeah, well at least we are getting somewhere with a connection between victims. We should interview the other victims' spouses and make sure."
The hospital that the victims were being carted off to wasn't far, and Dean and his brother got there just before visiting hours ended. Luckily, they had the foresight to bring their FBI badges with them, and were still permitted in to interview the partners of the previous victims. They would only have to avoid the one couple that had been at the hotel at the same time they had. It didn't take long, and they actually got to move a couple of steps forward.
Finally they were making it somewhere on this stupid case. All of the victim's spouses had confirmed that they had been arguing right before the attacks. Some took a little more pressing before they admitted it, but they had all eventually confirmed it. They finally had a connection between the cases. Now they just had to figure out what that connection actually meant.
Although it was mostly the other witness' accounts that tied it all together, those in combination with what the spouses had admitted to painted a very strange picture. The victims were in the middle of arguments with their significant others at the time. Their spouses had all said or told them something particularly upsetting. They had tried to escape the situation by stepping out of the room, and that's when they were attacked. Unless there was a god of running away from your problems Dean didn't really have a guess on what kind of god they could be dealing with.
The day hadn't been a total bust. Even if Dean had to spend it with his little brother being annoying the whole time. Not that Sam had even said anything further about any of the stuff they had talked about in the car. He just raised his eyebrow a lot, and looked way too smug for Dean's liking. Seriously annoying. They had far more clues than when the day started, and at least they got to end the day on a high note.
Dean was being sneaky. He left the room very early the next morning to work out his dastardly plan. He knew Castiel had managed to bribe the girl at the front desk into getting a copy of his room key, and he had every intention of doing the same to get into his brother's room. Getting the key ended up being no problem at all, and as Dean was faced with the door to his brother's room, Charlie finally caught up to him.
He wasn't really able to tell her his reasoning for wanting to sneak in while the others were still sleeping, so he just allowed her to come with him. He shushed her to let her know that they were going to surprise the occupants. Charlie seemed confused, but more than willing to play along with Dean's schemes. He knew there was a reason he loved her.
They were as quiet as possible as they slipped into the room. Dean knew that even though his brother was probably sleeping soundly, any amount of noise was likely to wake him. They had grown up hunters, and it didn't take but one odd noise to wake either of them.
As they approached the bed, Dean's worst fears were confirmed. His angel was wrapped securely within his brother's arms. He'd known what he was likely to see, but was somehow still surprised. It probably had more to do with the fact that Castiel seemed to be actively participating in the embrace, instead of being unwillingly mauled as Dean had been picturing it.
Instead of the image of an angel actively trying to escape the overly large limbs of his brother, he witnessed a man curled into the warmth of his brother's chest. Instead of looking suffocated and in need of a rescue, Castiel looked content. This was what people called a 'worst case scenario'.
He didn't know what emotion was showing on his face at the sight, but it couldn't have been good. Charlie showed real concern before she forced her face into a more cheerful look and proceeded to take charge of the situation.
"There's cuddling in this room?" A grin spread across her face as the two men on the bed instantly snapped awake. "There's no cuddling in my room." She hopped onto the end of the bed and began bouncing her way toward the top to join them.