Chapter Text
Dean’s leg bounced under the table. He held his phone tightly in one hand, and drummed the table with the other.
Sam was sitting across from him, quietly reading a book and sipping on a smoothie. Slowly, his eyes slid up from the book, and over at Dean. He sighed, and lowered the book. ‘What?’ he asked.
Dean glanced at him, then looked around the room, avoiding the topic until he couldn’t hold it in anymore. ‘Have you heard from Cas?’ he blurted out.
Sam raised an eyebrow. ‘No. Why?’
Dean gave what was clearly supposed to be an unconcerned shrug. ‘Haven’t heard from him in a while, that’s all.’
Sam rolled his eyes. ‘You know what he’s like. We won’t hear from him for weeks if he’s on a hunt, you know that.’
Dean nodded, unconvinced. He and Cas hadn’t gone a single day without talking recently, even if it was only to send a ‘good morning’ or a ‘goodnight’, but now it had been a whole week since Cas had texted him. Worse, he hadn’t responded to any of Dean’s prayers. But he didn’t tell Sam that. He didn’t have any answers to the questions Sam was sure to ask
‘He’s probably just deep in it,’ Sam said, picking his book back up.
Dean nodded again, but continued his leg bouncing, biting his fingernails, watching the beads of condensation drip down his bottle of beer.
They sat in silence for a little while longer, until Dean’s anxious fidgeting began to annoy Sam.
‘Have you tried praying to him?’
Dean scoffed. ‘What am I, an idiot?’
Sam held his hands up defensively. ‘Calm down, man, he’s an angel, what could happen to him?’
‘Plenty,’ Dean snapped, getting up.
Of course there had been periods in the past where they hadn’t spoken, but he always knew the reason why. This was different, and there was a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something was off. Something was wrong. He made to grab his beer, but it slipped through his fingers and smashed on the floor.
Sam sighed again. ‘Look, if you’re worried, we can put some feelers out with Garth, and see if anyone knows anything, all right?’
‘Yeah, fine.’
‘And I’m pretty sure there’s some werewolf activity a couple states over. You wanna go check it out while we wait?’
‘Sure.’
A werewolf hunt. Simple. Easy. Distracting.
They were in the Impala by the end of the day, and Dean could feel the resentment radiating from Sam. They both knew full well that any other hunter could handle a werewolf, and Sam had been getting comfortable in the bunker, but Dean needed to move, and stop his mind from jumping to the worst case scenario. What could have happened to Cas? Could he have simply run out of credit and not known how to get more? But then, why wouldn’t he answer Dean’s prayers? Dean shook his head and turned up his music, ignoring Sam’s irritated tutting.
They didn’t hear from Garth that night, and Sam fell asleep almost the moment they entered the motel room.
Dean sat down on the end of his bed, listening to Sam snuffle in his sleep, and pulled out his phone. The blue glare dazzled him momentarily. No new messages. Not since Castiel’s ‘Goodnight’ over a week ago.
Hey man I’m getting worried now. Just let me know you’re ok.
Dean sent the message and waited, but there was no response. ‘Okay, one more try,’ he muttered, getting up and leaving the room. He sat on the hood of the Impala and stared up at the sky. Besides the one flickering orange light across the street, the night was clear, and Dean breathed deeply. ‘Cas, I hope you can hear me,’ he murmured. ‘I hope you’re not… Just tell me you’re okay. Please just tell me you’re okay.’ Dean waited with bated breath, waited to hear the quiet fluttering of wings, but it didn’t come. Dean scrubbed his face and pocketed his phone. ‘Just stay safe, okay? For me.’ He trudged back into the motel room and fell asleep, fully clothed.
The nightmares came, as they always did, thick and fast. Images from his past. Flashes from hell. Archangels splitting the air with their light, lying in that field after Sammy had jumped. Dean knew it all. He was used to his mind spitting these things at him in his sleep, but then the dreams changed and were filled with images of Castiel, then Dean was awoken by a clap of thunder. He sat up in a cold sweat, thick raindrops lashing against the window, flashes of lightning searing his eyes. ‘Sam,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Sam!’
Sam woke up with a snort, hair sticking out at odd angles, and sat up to stare at Dean blearily. ‘What?’
Dean nodded at the window. ‘That seem a little omen-y to you?’
‘No, why?’
‘It was totally clear out there a couple hours ago.’
‘So? Sometimes the weather is just weather, Dean,’ Sam grumbled.
‘You’re cranky when you get woken up, you know that?’
‘And you need to take a friggin’ chill pill, jeez,’ Sam said, throwing himself back down onto the bed and rolling himself up in the blanket, going back to sleep almost immediately.
Lightning flashed again.
‘That you, Cas?’ Dean whispered. ‘You trying to tell me something?’
The lightning and rain stopped abruptly, and the wind that was rattling the window blew itself out.
Dean sat stock still, but the light across the street still flickered, and everything appeared to go back to normal. ‘That was weird.’ He checked his phone again. No new messages. Just to be safe, Dean salted the window and door, and warily went back to sleep.
Dean was first up in the morning, brushing his teeth, checking his phone again, then waking Sam up with a pillow to the face. ‘Hurry up, I’m hungry, and we gotta get this done. Full moon’s tonight.’
Sam groaned and dragged himself out of the bed and to the bathroom, getting ready while Dean paced circles around the tiny room.
'I think we're gonna go fed with this one,' Sam said from the bathroom. 'There's a body at the morgue I want to take a look at.'
'Got it.' Dean went outside to pull their suits out of the trunk, but as he did so, a light caught his eye. 'Huh.' He reached inside and plucked out one of Cas’s feathers. He'd begun moving all of their non-essentials into the bunker, but he always kept one close by, like a lucky charm. They always did give off a dim glow, but it was now pulsing with light, almost dazzling Dean. He blinked and squinted at it, but even as he did so, the bright glow faded again.
'Dude, what are you doing?' Sam shouted from their room.
Dean hastily stuffed the feather into his pocket and grabbed their suits. He wanted to tell Sam of his uneasiness, but Sam didn't know he kept a feather. If Sam had even noticed it was there, he never said anything, and if he had said something, Dean would have denied keeping it on purpose.
This was their dance. Him, Cas, and Sam. No one said anything. They all ignored the so-called elephant in the room, that only came to the forefront when someone was dying, or when Dean and Cas stood just a fraction too close. Even now, when all of Dean's instincts screamed at him that something was wrong, and he wanted so badly to ask his brother for help, he couldn't think of the words. So he clamped his mouth shut, but kept his hand on the feather in his pocket.
Dean wasn't paying attention when they arrived at the coroner's office, staring out the window at the clear blue sky until Sam elbowed him. He focused his attention back onto the room, Sam and the coroner staring at him expectantly.
'Your badge, Agent Stark,' Sam prompted.
'What? Oh.' Dean flashed his badge. 'Sorry.'
'Head in the clouds there, agent?' the coroner asked.
'Yeah, something like that.' Dean looked out the window again. 'How about that storm last night? Is that, uh, normal?'
The coroner shrugged. 'Pretty much.'
'Hm.'
'Anyway, if you wouldn't mind showing us the body?' Sam said politely.
'Of course.'
The coroner left them with the body, but Dean wasn't particularly interested, and let Sam do the examination.
'Okay, that's weird,' Sam said.
'What is?' Dean said, leaning forward.
'We got all the classic werewolf stuff, heart gone, all that, but he's been drained too. All his blood's gone.'
'That is weird.'
Sam turned the body over, and found a blue handprint on his shoulder. 'Bingo.'
'So what, some kind of werewolf-djinn combo? Gross.'
'I dunno, Dean, I thought the ones that leave these handprints were the fear ones. You know, the ones that turn you into goo?'
'Just add it to the list of freaks, I guess.'
Sam frowned at him, but shook it off. 'Luckily there's an old factory just outside town, so we won't have to do too much digging to find it.'
'Yeah. Lucky.' Dean brushed the feather in his pocket again. It was warm.
They waited until nightfall before rolling up to the abandoned factory.
Hunting a djinn and/or werewolf. Should be fun
Dean sent the text and sighed. He was beginning to feel like a rejected ex, so he tucked his phone away in the glove box, ready for when he returned.
He and Sam crept inside, guns raised, senses heightened. They could hear arguing coming from somewhere above them, and slowly followed the sound.
'I swear, Kyle, I will kill you if you don't lock yourself in right now. If this goes wrong, I'm not bailing you out again,' a voice yelled.
'But I don't wanna,' someone else complained. 'The shackles hurt my arms.'
'Oh, cry me a river. You could have turned that guy!'
'I don't see you complaining about the nice dinner you got out of it,' the voice belonging to Kyle grumbled.
'You call that nice? A nice dinner would have been at that restaurant downtown.'
'Come on, Hayley, I made sure he was nice and scared for you.'
'Ugh, you never take me anywhere.'
Dean glanced at Sam, who looked just as disgusted as Dean felt. Dean jerked his head, indicating for Sam to circle around, so they could box in the djinn. The werewolf wouldn't be a problem unless he turned, but the djinn was still dangerous.
'You're such an ass,' Hayley shouted.
'Yeah, Kyle,' Dean said loudly, stepping out into the illuminated room. 'You are an ass.'
Both of them turned to look at him.
'Silver bullets,' he said, pointing his gun at Kyle, a weedy man with a scraggly beard.
Kyle didn't move, but Dean saw Hayley ready her stance. ‘Shackin’ up with a werewolf, huh?’ he said to her. ‘Little too hairy for me.’
‘Shut up,’ Hayley snapped. Her eyes turned blue, and her tattoos flowed down her arm towards her twitching fingers. ‘You kill him, I kill you.’
‘Well, to be honest, he doesn’t seem like that much of a loss.’
Hayley prepared to pounce, but before she could move more than an inch, there was a wet, scraping sound, and Hayley went limp.
‘Silver blade dipped in lamb’s blood,’ Sam said, removing the blade, and letting her drop to the floor.
Kyle just stared at them dumbly.
‘What, no last words?’ said Dean.
‘Please, let me go, I won’t hurt anyone-’
‘Can’t do that,’ said Sam. ‘You fed. Sorry, man.’
‘But-’
Dean pulled the trigger and shot him dead, looking curiously down at the body. ‘That was lamer than I thought it would be,’ he said, nudging Kyle with a toe to make sure he was dead.
Sam just shrugged. ‘Let’s just light ‘em up and go already.’
‘I thought the point of this was to distract me,’ Dean said, lighting a match and flicking it at Hayley’s body.
‘Yeah, then you woke me up in the middle of the night ‘cause you were scared of a thunderstorm,’ Sam complained, setting fire to Kyle’s body. ‘Now I just want to get back to the bunker and sleep in my bed, away from you.’
‘I wasn’t scared.’
‘Whatever you say. Let’s get out of here.’
Sam led the way, and by the time they were back at the car, the fire was really beginning to take hold.
Dean threw himself into his seat, and grabbed his phone from the glove box. No messages. Sam caught his eye, but he just tutted and turned his key in the ignition.
Dean didn’t sleep at all at the motel that night, gripping Cas’s feather tightly as he paced. Round and around the table, with his phone set in the middle, so Dean would see it the moment it lit up. Only it never did.
Sam could tell that Dean hadn’t slept, and insisted on driving them back to the bunker that day, and watched Dean snatch a beer from the fridge, almost dropping that one too.
‘Nothing from Garth yet,’ Sam said carefully.
Dean took a long swig of beer, but choked on it.
Sam snorted.
‘It’s not funny, Sam!’ Dean spluttered.
‘Look, I know you’re worried, but you need to calm down, you’re gonna hurt yourself.’
Dean couldn’t help it, everything was bubbling up inside him the longer he went without speaking to Cas. ‘Something’s not right, Sam,’ he said, the words barely making it past his tongue. ‘Cas is in trouble, I can feel it.’
‘I believe you,’ said Sam, ‘but do you have any idea what he was doing?’
Dean sighed and leant against the table. ‘He was hunting.’ Somehow he’d never got around to asking Cas what he was up to. They always had so much else to talk about. The weather. Some new food Cas had found. A bee Cas was watching.
‘Yeah, but what?’ Sam asked.
‘I don’t know.’ Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. Why had he never thought to ask? Because he assumed Cas would be all right.
Just then, Sam’s phone started buzzing. ‘It’s Garth,’ Sam said, before snatching it up. ‘Hey, did you find anything?’ Sam grabbed a pen and a notepad off the pile on the table, and scribbled down everything Garth was telling him. ‘Got it. Thanks, Garth.’
‘Well?’ Dean said impatiently.
‘Hunting a vamp nest just outside Cincinnati. Garth got an address. Looks like a motel not far from the nest.’
Dean nodded. It made a little more sense. Cas was always a little more careful around vampires. Something about the teeth always made Cas think of leviathans, so he was careful. But even still, it had been way too long.
‘Why would he get a motel? Angels don’t sleep.’
‘He thinks that’s how you hunt things,’ Dean said. ‘You get a motel room, do the pinning all your evidence on the wall thing. He likes to be thorough.’
‘Okay,’ Sam said slowly.
‘He’s a weird dude. Let’s go.’
‘I’m driving.’
Dean huffed impatiently, knowing that Sam would obey more traffic laws than Dean would like.
‘I know you can get us there faster,’ Sam said quickly, anticipating the argument, ‘but what if we need to fight? You need to rest, you haven’t slept.’
‘Fine, just don’t be a baby about the speed limit.’
Dean lay down in the backseat, jacket draped over him, and holding Cas’s feather, just out of Sam’s sight. I’m coming for you, he thought. Hold on, Cas, I’m coming.
Knowing that they were speeding onwards comforted Dean, and he slept all the way to Illinois, before switching with Sam and driving the rest of the way.
His heart leapt when they pulled up to the motel and Cas’s ugly car was sitting in the parking lot. Dean pulled up next to it and climbed out of the Impala, patting Cas’s car as he went.
‘Do we know which alias he’s using?’ Dean asked.
‘The Clarence one, I think,’ said Sam.
‘Ugh, I wish he’d pick something else. There are other angel names.’
‘You try telling him that.’
Dean walked up to the bored-looking man at the desk. ‘Seen this guy?’ he asked, pulling out a picture of Cas and showing it to him.
‘Not for a while,’ said the man. ‘He never checked out though, and he’s got like another week on the room, so…’
‘Which room?’
‘Who’s asking?’
‘Friends of his,’ Dean said forcefully.
The man looked as though he might deny Dean the information, but only for a moment before the look on Dean’s face convinced him otherwise. ‘Room twenty-six, just down the hall.’
‘Thanks.’ Dean tucked the photo back into his wallet and walked off towards Cas’s room.
‘So… you just have that?’ Sam said, nodding at Dean’s wallet.
‘Yeah, it’s his mug shot from that time he got arrested chasing a succubus, you wanna see?’
‘Uh, no thanks, I’m good.’
Dean shrugged. ‘Your loss.’ He stopped outside room twenty-six. It was just an ordinary door, but he was suddenly very afraid of what he would find behind it. He knocked first, just in case, and swallowed nervously when there was no answer. He shook out his hands, then finally pushed the door open.
It was exactly as he would expect to see a room occupied by Cas. The bed was untouched, the papers on the walls arranged immaculately, and a book on the table, open at a page about vampires, just to touch up on the lore. But none of that was what caught his attention. What turned froze Dean to the spot were the half-finished sigils all over the windows, the can of spray paint that had a bloody handprint on it, and the overwhelming smell of sulphur.
‘Demons,’ Dean muttered. ‘Demons must have him.’
Sam frowned. ‘But how would demons get the drop on Cas like this?’
‘I don’t know,’ Dean said, clenching his fists. ‘Let’s go find out.’