Dean couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something. Sam and Charlie had spent the entire week pressuring him into doing something about his feelings for Castiel. Here he was, ready to spew feelings, and his brother was glaring at him and cutting off all of his chances.
He crawled into the bed with a seriously passed out Charlie, and wondered what his brother was playing at now. Was it because they were supposed to be focused on the case? It wasn't like it was the first time they had to balance emotional issues and a case at the same time. They almost had this one in the bag, anyway.
So, what exactly was Sam's issue? His brother was well aware that Dean was one of those 'run in, guns blazing, and hope for the best' kind of guys. Did he really think Dean would treat this situation any differently?
Honestly, the dirty looks were completely uncalled for. Knowing his brother, he probably expected Dean to take the angel to a fancy restaurant and profess his love over fine wine and French food or something. Well, Dean was more of a burgers and beer kind of guy, and it wasn't like Cas hadn't been around long enough to know that.
As he settled onto his half of the bed, as comfortably as he could in the space that was still available, he tried to settle his mind as well. He would have time to talk to his brother about it tomorrow. Right now, he needed to try to get some sleep.
Waking up was pretty much the pure hell that he'd thought it would be. He was pretty used to running on minimum, but that didn't mean he had to like it. At least he wasn't in the terrible mood he'd been in the day before. He had to at least try to keep his attitude under control. He didn't need a repeat of yesterday's fiasco. Even if they knew now what the god was all about, Dean wasn't about to risk almost losing Castiel again. A little thing called paranoia would keep him in check today.
At least Charlie had gotten a good night's sleep. She was in a great mood, the little shit.
"Come on, Dean! I need my breakfast before we start the search for this stupid symbol again. Let's get this show on the road!" She threw a bunch of socks into her suitcase and headed to bathroom, as Dean tried to rub the sleep from his eyes.
"Easy for you to say, sleeping beauty. Some of us need a little time to get out of bed this morning." Dean groaned as he forced himself to sit up.
The red head rolled her eyes as she exited the bathroom carrying all of her accessories. She shoved them unceremoniously into a smaller bag she had laid out on her side of the bed.
"You probably shouldn't have stayed up all night fighting the forces of evil, or whatever you kids are calling it these days." She sent him a ridiculous grin with that remark.
"Well, cases do have a way of just working themselves out, with no effort at all on our part." He used all the sarcasm in his arsenal.
"Did you guys find it?" Although, she had already assumed they hadn't and seemed to be asking just to prove her point.
"Yep. And we already kicked that guys ass! Too bad you were sleeping and missed it."
"What?" she looked dismayed at the news. "Seriously?"
Dean just chuckled a bit at her. "Nah, we couldn't find it. Since you got the best sleep last night I'm going to let you and Sammy stalk the cleaning lady and see if you can find it in one of the other rooms. Cas and I can keep an eye on the guests."
The look on her face was unamused. "I'm being punished for sleeping now?" The tone of her voice said she wasn't actually surprised. "And why exactly are you being rewarded? If I remember correctly, you were a bit of a dick yesterday."
"Who says I'm being rewarded?"
"Oh, just spending the day alone with Cas. There's nothing there that might seem like a reward. Just watching Cas while he does his people watching thing…"
"That's not a reward! I'll have to spend the whole day trying to convince people that Cas isn't some kind of creepy weirdo."
"Don't try to sell me that bullshit. You can pretend that you're put out dealing with Cas freaking people out, but you and I both know that you would rather be hanging out with Cas than running around with me and Sam trying to find this stupid symbol."
"That is just not true!" Dean defended himself, finally getting out of bed and shuffling over to the coffee maker.
She huffed a laugh at his defensive behavior as she started shoving things into her bag at an alarming rate. She must have been a lot more interested in food than making sure her bag was packed neatly.
Charlie had already made coffee, thankfully, so Dean poured himself a cup and leaned onto the bar with the cup clutched in front of his face. He took a long sniff before bringing the cup to his mouth, reveling in the smell and taste of the best way to start the morning. The liquid warmed his insides, and the hunter threw a pleased smile at Charlie before he took another sip. At least she was trying to put him in a good mood this morning.
She watched him lean the cup back to take another sip before she spoke.
"How can you still be denying this when you were able to wake Cas from his coma with True Love's Kiss yesterday?"
It then became clear as to why she waited for him to take a sip first, as the coffee rushed out of his nose and he coughed and wheezed with the after effects. Nope, she wasn't trying to put him in a good mood. She was lulling him into a false sense of security so that she could strike when he was least expecting it.
Charlie was laughing so hard at his reaction that she seemed to be having a hard time keeping herself standing. She leaned forward with a hand on the bed while the other clutched her stomach.
"That could not have had better timing!" She managed between her giggles.
Dean was still trying to clean the coffee out of his lungs, but he could hear her laughter just fine. When he was finally settled, his glare in her direction was met by a cheery smile.
"True Love's Kiss? Really?" He dumped the rest of his coffee so he could get a fresh cup, untainted by the forced regurgitation he'd suffered.
"Well, what do you expect us to call it?" Even her voice was mocking in a way that Dean knew meant that name wasn't going away anytime soon.
He sighed instead of arguing with her. "You are truly evil."
She grinned at him as she shoved the rest of her clothes into her bag and zipped it. "If I was truly evil, I would have waited for you to change your clothes first."
Dean was late to breakfast, deciding not to hurry and taking a nice warm shower instead. It was nearing the end of the allotted time when he got there, so there wasn't much food left to choose from. He grabbed a big bagel that looked like it had a bunch of seeds and junk melted into the top and a serving of cream cheese before meeting up with his group at the table. It was a disappointing way to end the food fest he'd had while he was there, but he would survive. Probably.
He plopped into his chair, sending the group a grin and began trying to spread the cream cheese onto his bagel. Since it was one of the last cream cheese packets it had been buried in ice, so it was a little too solid to want to spread. It didn't help that his bagel wasn't even remotely warm. He sighed in disappointment as his bagel began to crumble under his actions.
"Dean, if you will allow me…" Castiel opened his hand for the offending bread, so Dean handed it over. The angel's hand reached out again and stole his cream cheese from its place on the table. Then the angel did something truly wonderful. Castiel took the plate that was sitting in front of him and handed it across to the hunter.
Dean was filled with the kind of happiness that only food could bring him as he looked down at the french toast and bacon on the plate he was handed. After the first forkful he was filled with the happiness only Castiel could bring him as the food was miraculously warm.
"Thanks, Cas." Dean said, throwing one of his charming smiles at the angel.
"Of course." Castiel smiled back at him.
Charlie cleared her throat at them, and Dean assumed they had been doing that staring thing they were famous for. He cleared his own throat and forced his attention back onto the food in front of him.
The conversation around the table flowed on without him, and he was only distracted when half a bagel was placed on the edge of the plate. The cream cheese was spread across it in a manner that said someone was more likely to take a picture of it than eat it. The other half was laid next to his plate seconds later and he chanced another smile at the angel that was his saving grace.
"You're the best." He told him with complete sincerity.
Somehow, Dean convinced the group that he and Castiel should be allowed to hang out in the lobby and watch the couples exiting, while Sam and Charlie searched the open rooms. Something about calling them and letting them know which rooms were empty, and splitting up so that there was only one person on each team that was lacking in sleep. Both Sam and Charlie looked at him as if they knew what he was really doing, but neither of them bothered to argue with him. Belatetedly, he realized those things were also true if they split into their preexisting couples. No one had corrected him, though, so Dean just went along with his own awesome plan.
He managed to convince Castiel that being in the lobby for the checkout process was important, so they made their way to the front of the hotel. They could hopefully just stow away on one of the couches and keep an eye on things from close enough to hear the room numbers at check out, but far enough out of the way that no one would pay them much attention. Of course Dean didn't have that kind of luck.
There was a couple that was already fighting when they got there. It was hard to tell if they were arguing about charges to their room that hadn't been made by them, or if they were arguing with each other over charges that they hadn't known about the other making. Either way they would have to interrupt before it got out of hand.
Before they even had a chance to work out a way to intervene, the fighting escalated. The guy was tall and beefy. He looked like he spent all of his free time lifting weights. The woman was a tiny little thing, cowering under the heat of the man's gaze. Dean did not like the look on the man's face as it turned red with anger and he puffed up a little more to make himself seem even bigger in relation to the woman's tiny frame.
Stepping between them may not have been the wisest idea, but Dean didn't really think he could stand by and watch if the guy actually decided to hit her or something. He may have just been trying to frighten her with his aggressive stance, but the hunter wasn't about to wait and find out if he really had violence on his mind.
So, he stepped between them, throwing up placating hands of surrender. He wasn't trying to fight the guy, but he was making it pretty clear that he wasn't going to let anything happen to the lady now behind him. The look on the man's face twisted in rage immediately.
"Mind your own business!" He snarled at Dean. It might have actually been kind of intimidating if the hunter hadn't faced things a lot scarier than a big, angry, but ultimately powerless guy. Sure, he probably had some muscle, and he had at least sixty pounds on Dean, but no supernatural strengths.
"Sorry, buddy." Dean was unmoved by the man's stature and it seemed to only rile him up more. "I think maybe you should take a little time to cool off."
"Get out of my way! My wife and I can work out our own issues!"
Dean just raised an eyebrow at him. "Maybe you should take a walk."
"Maybe you should go to hell!"
The hunter almost rolled his eyes at that one. Been there, done that. Probably had a dark spot on his soul to prove it.
The guy took an aggressive step toward him, and when Dean didn't back up, the guy shoved him. He placed both hands on the hunter and just used all of his strength to push away from himself.
Dean didn't want to run into the poor lady still behind him, so he tried to sidestep her as he was forced backwards. What he didn't notice were her bags on the floor by her feet, and instead of neatly dancing out of the way of the attack Dean instead tripped over the bags and fell hard into the table in the center of the room.
It was one of those round ones that had the sole purpose of standing right in the middle of the room and holding some kind of decor. It was not nearly sturdy enough to stay standing with a fully grown man being shoved into it, and they both went down.
All the flailing that Dean had accomplished in his efforts to keep himself standing had been in vain. He landed hard on the floor surrounded in what looked like a thousand different types of white flower. This particular table had been holding a vase, apparently.
The douchebag that pushed him was pointing and laughing at Dean's predicament, mocking his delicate sensibilities and of course the fact that the hunter was now covered in flowers did not escape his attention. At least he was too busy mocking Dean to notice that his wife was heading out of the resort without him.
The hunter glanced around, looking for the angel that was supposed to have his back. He found Castiel off to the side of the gathered crowd, holding the vase that had once stood where Dean was currently sprawled. The look on his face was all the hunter needed to see to know what had the angel so distracted. It was the vase. The stupid ass vase they had been scouring the entire hotel for. It was right here, in the center of the lobby. Hiding in plain sight, as they say.
Dean got Castiel's attention and nodded toward the door, hoping the angel would be able to escape with the artifact while everyone was still distracted by the ruckus caused by Dean body slamming the table in the center of the room. Castiel nodded in acknowledgement and swept out of the room before anyone even turned their eyes off the spectacle of a man on the floor, covered in flowers and a ridiculous amount of water.
Once he was scraped off the floor, and offered a discount on a bunch of charges that Dean wasn't planning to pay for anyway, he was released to return to his room and finish packing. He made his way to Sam and Castiel's room in the hopes that he would find his team there. He was not completely disappointed.
"Where's Cas?" He asked as he closed the door behind him, finding only his brother and Charlie behind door number one.
"He went to heaven." Sam's face was apologetic as he said it, and Dean guessed it was probably his brother's idea.
"And he went there because…?" Dean didn't even bother with decorum as he flopped onto the bed and sighed. It wasn't like the other two people in the room didn't already know that the idea of Castiel being in heaven meant that Dean would be crestfallen.
"He took the artifact. It seemed the only logical thing to do with it." Sam told him in his most placating tone.
"Because if anyone asks for air up there, it won't be any different. I get it." Dean couldn't even find the energy to fight with that perfect logic. That didn't mean he wasn't disappointed.
When Castiel went to heaven it was hard to tell how long it would take him to come back. The angels had a way of keeping him around for other things.
"He's going to meet us back at the bunker in a few days." Charlie added, sitting on the edge of the bed and patting his back in sympathy.
"He assured us he wouldn't be long. He was only going there to drop it off for safe keeping, and then he was coming straight back."
At least the tag teaming they were doing now was to try to make Dean feel better instead of the assault he'd been suffering for days.
"Yeah, he'll be back." Dean told them, mostly so they would quit trying to make him feel better. Sam must have picked up on the disheartened tone of his voice anyway.
"Well, he seemed like he really wanted to talk to you about something. I think he'll be back as soon as he can."
Dean lifted his head to look at his brother. He was suspicious of that statement and he knew that his face clearly showed it. "What did he want to talk to me about?"
The mischievous smile that crossed Sam's face said that this was the response he had been hoping for.
"Help me finish packing up his shit and we can head out. The faster we get back to the bunker, the faster you'll find out."