Augh, I'm so sorry about the long lapses in updating. I used to be so good about updating weekly (but that was with other stories...); I don't really have an excuse. Life's been busy, stressful, depressing, all that jazz, one of two bright spots being that I'm moving soon. But yeah. I could've made time for this, but I didn't, and I'm sorry. I'll try to be better about it.
That being said, thank you for the support and reads this fic has still gotten despite my fickle updating.
It's almost funny to think that this was meant to be a gift for a friend back in August. Whoops.
Growling, the creature slithered forward, blood trailing behind them. Chains rattled, and Dean couldn't tell whether they came from him, from his hands bound tightly, inches from a stone wall, or from the creature, from the strange protrusion that glinted menacingly in the dim light.
Another sharp rattle, followed by a tinkle of pleasure. A scoff stung Dean's mutilated throat, disguising, barely, his monstrous fear.
"Ready for another beating, Righteousss Man?" The thing chuckled, rising above Dean, poised to strike. "Or will you give in today?"
Dean shook his head weakly.
"Sssuit yourssself..."
Instead of a strike, warm, familiar hands grasped Dean's shoulders and lifted him. Dean blinked uncomfortably, blinding sunlight stinging his weak eyes.
"Cas?" His eyes slowly focused on the angel before him; he realized this was not the Castiel he knew. "Cas?" His voice was raspy, terrible, and his throat screamed at the simple act of verbalizing his angel's nickname.
Another chuckle, frightening for entirely different reasons. "You shouldn't have come here, Dean."
Here? Dean examined his surroundings, felt the harsh tree bark dig into his skin as the angel pressed his body into a tree, felt the sun, grimy and wrong, laugh at them from the grey sky, felt the cloying, monstrous air as it entered and exited his body. Purgatory?
Castiel's eyes glinted as he saw Dean recognize his surroundings. "You shouldn't have come here, Dean," he repeated.
You brought me here, the hunter wanted to say, but the words couldn't escape his mutilated throat.
Castiel grinned manically, his eyes filled with a strange, callous, psychotic joy. His mouth widened, stretching unnaturally over his face, sharp, inhuman teeth stretching outwardsâ
Dean shuddered awake, clawing the sheets. His throat ached, and he wondered whether he'd shouted in the middle of his sleep. Another shudder danced along his skin, though for an entirely different reason.
The hunter glanced at the bed beside his and sighed quietly in relief to see the angel burrowed in the covers, not sitting upright and asking questions he already knew the answer to. Of course, Cas could be faking sleep to avoid an awkward encounter, but Dean chose to ignore that.
Sam wasn't asleep. He wasn't looking at his older brother either, but Dean could feel Sam's thoughts as they analyzed whatever he'd done in his sleep.
Dean stared out the window, noting the sun's relatively high position in the sky. "Why didn't you wake me earlier?"
"You needed to sleep," Sam replied. "If you're going to hunt with me, you can't drive all the way over here, sleep a few hours, and expect to slay the nest."
Dean bit back a scoff, choosing to forfeit the argument before it grew nasty and poisoned their already sickly relationship. Instead, he slowly pulled himself away from the warm mattress, groaning as cold air nipped at his skin.
"Cas needs to get up soon," Dean commented as he grabbed the full coffee cup beside his brother's empty counterpart and sighed. He really wasn't feeling like ganking vamps; however, the sooner they eradicated the nest, the sooner they'd be back home.
There was a heavy sigh, then a pause. "I'll start packing the car; you wake Cas."
Sam lumbered out of the dingy hotel room, exasperation lingering, no doubt due to his brother's lack of proper sleep, in his posture as he carried the four bags inelegantly, an obvious attempt to allow Dean privacy with Cas. Why Sam thought that was so important, Dean didn't want to think about.
"Hey, Cas, we're going in ten minutes."
There was no indication whatsoever of the angel hearing his words; Cas didn't groan or stretch or move or even change his breathing pattern.
Dean tried again, calling out Castiel's name, but there was no response. He moved forward, examining the body burrowed childishly in the covers, wrapped snugly, as though hiding. The innocent sight suppressed whatever slight aggravation and exhaustion he previously felt in favor of a burst of fond warmth. As pitiful as it could be to see Castiel, the once-lethal angel that hadn't so much as batted and eyelash when Dean first stabbed him, now human, mortal, equal to the masses of humanity, the sight before Dean held its own strange grace. Something in him wanted to preserve the moment; something in him tied it to Sammy, and he remembered how often he'd rudely awaken his younger brother from a sleep like that just to see his reaction.
A twinge of satisfied anticipation flickered through Dean as he thought about all the ways he could force Cas awake. He hadn't gotten a good opportunity to rudely rip Sam out of sleep in a while, and he missed that; it was always one of his favorite "annoy Sammy" activities. Cas wouldn't mind the childish antics...once he was awake, later, of course.
The lights were already half on, the lamp beside the bed shining on the unperturbed sleeper, so messing with the lights wasn't going to work. He could dump water on Cas, but there wasn't a basket he could use. Dean eyed the tiny hotel trash can; however, he decided against using it. He didn't feel like emptying it; that would take too long, and he might miss his chance.
He could rip the covers off of Cas. That was always something that elicited exaggerated, entertaining reactions from Sam, and, even though it was a simple attack, Dean was a little eager to see how Castiel would react.
Grabbing a solid fistful of the comforter and sheets in each hand, Dean paused before tugging with all his might at the covers.
Castiel, who had been wrapped in the covers like a sad burrito, was surprisingly lacking in resistance for a solid thirty seconds, allowing Dean to pull away the blankets as if no one occupied the bed. After the half-minute of silence, a full-body shudder rippled through the angel, then he growled and pounced towards where he thought the sheets would be. Which was not where Dean was at all, and the angel realized this too late. Catching himself just barely from falling off of the bed completely, Castiel opened his eyes fully and glared at Dean, who clutched the blankets to his stomach and grinned at the frazzled, fully-alert man.
"Time to get up, Sleeping Beauty." Dean dropped the blankets to the ground, prepared for Castiel to crawl off of the bed and get ready for the hunt.
Instead, Castiel's eyes narrowed slightly, angrily, and a beat of silence passed before he suddenly pounced, scuttling towards the edge of the bed to get the blankets. Although his reflexes were significantly weaker than they used to be, Castiel reached the blankets before Dean could snatch them away, and he began dragging them on the bed.
"That was unnecessary, Dean," Castiel grumbled as he tried to recreate his previous sleeping position.
Dean stared at the half-wrapped former angel, blankets haphazard, lightly covering him, most of it still spilling over the edge of the bed, hair sticking up everywhere, startling blue eyes a combination of alert, exhausted, exasperated, and satisfied. It would be too easy to rip away the covers again, but he saw himself getting too close, allowing himself to mess with Cas in ways neither of them would react well to.
You came back because each time you got the opportunity, you thought of your family, and that brought you back. Maybe it's the same for Cas.
Dean cursed his brother under his breath and resisted the urge to continue his teasing, to allow it to progress into something he couldn't deal with then. There was a hunt to think about, a brother to watch closely; he couldn't think about Castiel right then. Hell, he shouldn't even be thinking of him like that at all. He shouldn't start off thinking of teasing him like he teased his younger brother, and end up thinking about using the blanket to tug Cas closer to him and close the distance between the two.
Dean cleared his throat. No. There was no room, no time, no point in thinking like that. He couldn't do that to himself, couldn't do something like that to Cas. He couldn't further corrupt him.
"We really do need to go, Cas," Dean said. "Sam's loading up right now."
Castiel looked up at Dean, the perfect picture of disappointment, and sighed. He climbed out of the haphazardly massed blankets and pulled himself away from the bed, grabbing his clothes and heading for the bathroom. "So he knows where they are?"
"Yes." Castiel paused outside of the door, hand clasping the handle. "He knows where they are," Dean continued, rambling pointlessly, eager to fill the strange silence. "There's a group of teenage vamps, and when you're done, we're going to go to their nest."
"Okay." The angel opened and closed the door behind himself quietly.
Dean leaned against the bed, arms folded across his chest, ready to relax while he waited for Castiel, but he grew restless quickly. It was uncomfortable for whatever reason, standing and waiting for the angel, so he inspected the room one last time for anything Sam might've forgotten. Honestly, them missing something was laughable, their years of travelling with items they couldn't afford to leave behind made them experts in packing and unpacking without mistake; however, it was something to do, something better than wait and allow his treacherous mind to wander.
The room was almost completely examined when the door opened, and Castiel shyly emerged from the bathroom. Dean tried not to snap into attention quickly, forcing himself to lazily glance at the angel before returning to the nightstand.
"Dean?"
Dean blinked, jerking away from the furniture he'd been staring emptily at for God knew how long. "C'mon, Cas; Sam should be waiting."
"Why were you looking at that?" Castiel asked as he fell into step beside Dean, who squinted as they exited the room and walked to the Impala, the sun shining brightly, like they weren't about to go slaughter a group of teenage vampires.
Dean ignored his question, brushing it off with a warning glance. "Sorry Sam," he said as they reached the car, his brother fiddling with something in the trunk, "Cas wouldn't wake up."
"I would've woken up if you'd just asked me to," he grumbled as he met the brothers' matching smirks. Muttering something unintelligible, the angel climbed into the backseat and slammed the door behind him.
"You two took a long time," Sam teased as he walked to the passenger's side. "I thought about coming back for you two, but I wasn't sure what I'd find."
"Shut up," Dean grumbled as he rolled his eyes.
The drive to the nest was uncomfortable, neither brother continuing their teasing, though Dean still felt the remnants of Sam's ribbing and his own thoughts, and Cas remained completely silent in the backseat. Sam was the only one to speak, and he was giving directions to the location. They didn't make much of a plan along the way, though when Dean found a good place to park, he exchanged attack plans with Sam.
There was a minor argument about how much Castiel should be involved. Sam wanted him alongside them, and while Dean wasn't arguing for Cas to hide behind them like some weak victim, he didn't want Cas kicking and stabbing right alongside them, not when he was exhausted, not when it was his first proper hunt as a full human.
Cas sat in the back, glaring at Dean for making him seem weak, then glaring at Sam for arguing. He didn't say a word.
"If we keep Cas behind us, you're just going to shelter him completely. You owe it to him to let him fight like a hunter."
"I'm not saying he shouldn't fight; I'm saying we shouldn't toss him out right alongside us when he's not entirely used to fighting with us like this."
"How's he going to learn if he is behind your back the whole time?"
"Sam, he'll still be fighting! Fucking hell, you act like he's not going to see a single vampire if he doesn't walk in as soon as we do."
"We'll kill them before he gets the chance."
"No we won'tâ"
Dean was interrupted by the sharp slamming sound of the car door, and a different silence entirely filled the car. The brothers turned around and stared at the empty back seat.
"Shit."