An Even Newer Testament (9/?)
Title: An Even Newer Testament (part 9)
Author: angel_kink
Pairing: Dean/Cas
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~2200
Spoiler: Vague Season 6
Warning: Profanity
Summary: Their new ally has gone missing and a ghoul is still on the loose.
A/N: This is part of the Faith Universe.
A/N2: The next chapter is pretty action packed and my life is busy, so it might take a few days to polish and post.
“Hey Pete, it’s Sam. Give us a call back as soon as possible so we can touch base.” He hung up his phone and looked over at Dean.
“Where the hell did he go?”
“I don’t know, but we did tell him to go back to work.”
“Yeah, but he should at least answer his damn phone. You don’t just go AWOL when there’s a monster in your neighborhood. Especially after someone has a vision of you getting mauled by said monster.”
Castiel leaned forward from his spot in the back seat. “I would know if he was dead.”
Dean looked at him out of the corner of his eye and shrugged. “Well, that’s something I guess.”
The three of them sat quietly for a moment, each of them going over possibilities and strategies in their heads.
“Look, I hate to say this, but maybe we should move on with the case,” Sam said as he shuffled through a small pile of notes.
Dean sighed, but nodded his head. “Yeah, if he’s in any sort of danger it’d likely be because of the damn ghoul. And if he’s just being a jerk, well, fuck him.”
“I hope he’s just a jerk.”
“Yeah,” Dean said as he turned the ignition on. “Me too.”
They drove through the neighborhood for another twenty minutes, meandering back and forth in the maze of suburban ranch homes. Every street looked alike and Dean felt like he was going to fall asleep at the wheel. Suddenly, Castiel put his hand on Dean’s shoulder and squeezed. “Dean, stop.”
“Why?” He quickly pulled the car over and looked over his shoulder at the angel. Castiel was staring off in the distance towards a beige house on the street corner. “What is it?”
“I’ll be back momentarily.” The angel was gone instantly.
“Dammit!” Dean shouted as he slammed his hands against the steering wheel. He looked off in the direction Cas had been staring and pointed at the house. “Was he staring at that?”
“I have no idea. Maybe?” Dean was out of the car with Sam hesitantly following him. “Dean, wait! He might have been called to Heaven for all we know.”
“No, this was something else. When he’s listening to Heaven he looks all, I don’t know, distracted. He was very much there just now.” He hadn’t realized he’d been paying that attention enough to Castiel’s body language to tell the difference, but he was pretty confident that his observation was correct.
As they approached the house Dean put his hand on his gun and went on high alert. He honestly had no idea what they were walking in to. It could be the ghoul or some other monster, or maybe even just a nice family about to have lunch. When they got to the front door they both paused and looked at each other. Sam knocked on the door and the both held their breath.
Castiel suddenly appeared behind them causing them both to jump. “What are you doing?”
“What are we doing? What are YOU doing?”
“I detected something around this house and wanted to investigate it further.”
“And you don’t think that’s something we’d want to know about?”
“I thought I’d work quicker on my own.”
Dean put his hand on Cas’ shoulder and looked him in the eyes. “You don’t ditch your teammates without at least telling them what the plan is, ok? And besides, you should know by now I’m a ‘hands on’ kind of guy.” A second later Dean realized the second sexier meaning of what he just said and smirked. Sam just rolled his eyes.
The double meaning was lost on Castiel, though he had a vague feeling Dean had attempted to make a joke. “I… you’re right. I’m sorry. I merely wished to be efficient.”
“Yeah, well, we're all here now at least.” He released the angel and turned back towards the door. The doorknob wouldn’t turn and Dean jiggled the handle in frustration.
Sam and Dean heard the sound of a deadbolt sliding out of the wall and watched as the doorknob turn on it's own. Suddenly Castiel was opening the door from the inside and stepping aside to let the brothers in. “This house is unoccupied. But the ghoul has been here. Recently.”
The living room had a few pieces of trash on the carpet, but was otherwise completely vacant. Castiel walked toward the far wall and touched his fingers to the peeling paint. “There is decay all over this house. It is possible that this place was used as a base of operations for the ghoul. Or that there was more than one here at a time.”
“You think we scared it off?” Dean said as he shined his flashlight around the room. There was a little bit of light pouring through the crack in the curtain, but it wasn't enough to make out the details.
“Possibly.”
“Shit.”
Sam walked across the living room and took a brief look in the kitchen. He shined his light across the counters before turning back to look at Dean and Cas. “How recently was it here?”
“Within an hour.”
“Ok, so that probably means it probably wasn’t scared off by us at the cemetery, right?” Sam said. “It’d probably have booked it immediately. Why wait around?”
Dean stood beside Castiel and continued sweeping his light over the room. “Yeah, you're probably right. I mean, if I was a monster I wouldn’t stick around with an archangel in town.” He met Cas’ eyes for a moment and Dean smirked. “If I was a smart monster, anyway.”
Sam stopped his scan of the room and looked at Castiel. “What is it that you can sense, anyway? Is it possible to follow a trail of it or anything?”
“Uh, no, not exactly,” the angel said as he tore his attention away from his lover. “Human skin sheds cells everywhere it goes. The ghoul does the same, only the substance it leaves behind resembled the decay of death. The longer it stays in one spot, the more it leaves behind. However, if the ghoul is on the move it’s nearly impossible for me to detect it.”
“Wow, you can see something a small as a cell?” Sam was geeking out again, but Dean was actually curious about this too so he let him continue.
“I can detect approximately four thousand times the level of detail than humans can.”
“Your vision sounds like an acid trip, dude,” Dean said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Nothing. Nevermind,” Dean said as he began a more thorough exploration of the house.
There was nothing left in any of the remaining rooms except for small bits of inconsequential trash. The three of them eventually left the abandoned property without any new information and headed straight back to their motel to prepare for another night of staking out the cemetery. If it appeared to have moved on they were willing to do the same, but they still hadn’t heard back from Pete. Skipping town without resolution to that thread just didn’t feel right.
As Dean packed his bag with his basic hunting supplies he laughed at how silly rock salt bullets were when tracking down a ghoul. Salt and iron had become his security blanket since they worked on so many things and he just didn’t feel comfortable walking around without it.
Castiel stood within inches of him as he worked. “Dean?”
“What,” he said flatly as he loaded his pistol.
“I think I should be with you tonight in the cemetery.”
“Won’t that scare it off for sure?”
“We may have already scared it off, Dean. And we have a missing person as well. I don’t want to take any more risks.”
“I’ve told you before. I can take care of my-“
“Dean,” Castiel said firmly, catching Dean’s eyes as he moved to put his gun away. “It’s not your safety that concerns me most right now. Though I must admit, I do fear for you often.”
“Aww, how touching,” he replied with a smirk.
Castiel reached up and rested his fingers against the hunter’s cheek. “This has moved beyond the desecration of graves. A human life may be at risk. I can’t just wait to be summoned by you when you judge it appropriate.”
Dean remembered the days when a single human life was a risk worth taking for the angel. He was grateful that those days were long behind them. Cas sensed what he was thinking and for a moment they were stuck staring at each other. After a few seconds reality came back to him and Dean continued preparing for the case. “Do we know for sure he’s missing because of the ghoul?” Castiel let the hunter's face go.
Sam chimed in as he prepared his backpack on the other side of the room. “No, but it seems likely. I agree with Cas on this one.”
“Wait, you two are teaming up against me now?” Both Cas and Sam said Dean’s name at the same time and proceeded to stare at him in their own unique way. He glanced back and forth between them before shaking his head in defeat. “Fine, Cas, come with us. But I want to remind you that you were the one that was worried about tipping him off in the first place.”
“And I’ve since changed my mind.”
Cas was just as stubborn as any Winchester ever was. No wonder he fit in so well with the family.
-
The three of them perched in the tree surveying the cemetery's surroundings for many hours without anything happening. Sam would occasionally scan the perimeter with his binoculars while Cas sat idly next to Dean staring off into the distance. The older hunter continued to grip his machete tightly, only half acknowledging that the weapon was kind of redundant with an angel in attack mode sitting next to him. But Dean felt most comfortable with his own weapon within reach. Besides, it gave him something to do with his hands during their long stake out. He would switch the machete back and forth, testing the weight of it and adjusting his grip every so often to familiarize himself with the tool. He didn’t use this one often and he liked to be prepared.
When he let one of his hands rest against the branch he was sitting on it only took a moment for the angel to reach out for it. They laced their fingers together and looked out across the darkened landscape. With a machete in one hand and an archangel in the other, Dean truly felt like the most well protected man on earth.
Ten minutes later Cas’ grip tightened and Dean strained to look at him in the dark. Castiel seemed to be focused intently on a spot just outside the cemetery’s gates. Unfortunately Dean could hardly make out anything that wasn’t directly illuminated by the lamps and he had to admit he needed some help. “Cas?”
“Someone is approaching,” he whispered.
Sam held up his binoculars and tried to see what Cas was seeing, but it was useless. “Ghoul?” Sam whispered.
“No.”
“Human?” Dean asked.
“Yes. I believe… I believe it is Pete.”
“What?” the brothers said at the same time.
“I will return.” Castiel disappeared in the blink of an eye and the hunters quickly climbed out of the tree to confront the potential threat. They assumed correctly that Cas had flown to Pete and when they arrived at the scene the two of them were already midway through a conversation.
“But she looks like her and sounds like her and even almost acts like her,” Pete was saying.
“But it is not her,” Castiel nearly shouted. “Your daughter is at peace. The ghoul is taking her form to manipulate you. I promise you that is not your daughter.”
“What’s happening here?” Dean said as he took his position next to Cas. Sam stood a few paces back with his hand hovering near his gun. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of the situation yet and his instinct in uncertain conditions was to reach for a weapon.
Castiel looked to Dean. “It appears the ghoul is attempting to fight back.”
“So it’s an idiot, basically.”
“Not as much as we would like to think.” Cas turned his attention back to Pete. “Tell him what you told me.”
“That thing, it told me to draw this symbol in my own blood on a flat surface,” he said as he unfolded a piece of paper he’d been holding. “It told me how to use it to get rid of him.” Pete gestured towards Castiel and held up the paper revealing the banishing sigil that they were unfortunately all too familiar with.
“I am grateful you did not use it,” Cas said with a nod. “I am truly sorry for the distress this has caused you.”
“So wait,” Dean interrupted. “It wanted Cas gone for what exactly?”
“I don’t know. It didn’t tell me much. It just wanted me to get rid of him. It was… so convincing… My Isabelle.”
“Pete,” Dean said as he placed a hand on his shoulder. “I am so sorry that piece of shit is wearing your daughter’s face. I will personally decapitate the bastard for that.”
“Not if I smite him first,” Cas said, his voice quivering with anger. When Cas got all high and smitey, Dean had to fight the urge to pull him into a passionate kiss immediately. Cas picked up on his feeling and smirked slightly, but his expression soon returned to the serious tone that meant the archangel was embarking on a war path. Dean hoped that meant they could have celebration sex once the case was finished. It had been way too long. But first thing is first… they had to actually finish the case.
“Where did you see it?” Dean asked.
Pete turned the paper over and hastily scribbled down an address.
Author: angel_kink
Pairing: Dean/Cas
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~2200
Spoiler: Vague Season 6
Warning: Profanity
Summary: Their new ally has gone missing and a ghoul is still on the loose.
A/N: This is part of the Faith Universe.
A/N2: The next chapter is pretty action packed and my life is busy, so it might take a few days to polish and post.
“Hey Pete, it’s Sam. Give us a call back as soon as possible so we can touch base.” He hung up his phone and looked over at Dean.
“Where the hell did he go?”
“I don’t know, but we did tell him to go back to work.”
“Yeah, but he should at least answer his damn phone. You don’t just go AWOL when there’s a monster in your neighborhood. Especially after someone has a vision of you getting mauled by said monster.”
Castiel leaned forward from his spot in the back seat. “I would know if he was dead.”
Dean looked at him out of the corner of his eye and shrugged. “Well, that’s something I guess.”
The three of them sat quietly for a moment, each of them going over possibilities and strategies in their heads.
“Look, I hate to say this, but maybe we should move on with the case,” Sam said as he shuffled through a small pile of notes.
Dean sighed, but nodded his head. “Yeah, if he’s in any sort of danger it’d likely be because of the damn ghoul. And if he’s just being a jerk, well, fuck him.”
“I hope he’s just a jerk.”
“Yeah,” Dean said as he turned the ignition on. “Me too.”
They drove through the neighborhood for another twenty minutes, meandering back and forth in the maze of suburban ranch homes. Every street looked alike and Dean felt like he was going to fall asleep at the wheel. Suddenly, Castiel put his hand on Dean’s shoulder and squeezed. “Dean, stop.”
“Why?” He quickly pulled the car over and looked over his shoulder at the angel. Castiel was staring off in the distance towards a beige house on the street corner. “What is it?”
“I’ll be back momentarily.” The angel was gone instantly.
“Dammit!” Dean shouted as he slammed his hands against the steering wheel. He looked off in the direction Cas had been staring and pointed at the house. “Was he staring at that?”
“I have no idea. Maybe?” Dean was out of the car with Sam hesitantly following him. “Dean, wait! He might have been called to Heaven for all we know.”
“No, this was something else. When he’s listening to Heaven he looks all, I don’t know, distracted. He was very much there just now.” He hadn’t realized he’d been paying that attention enough to Castiel’s body language to tell the difference, but he was pretty confident that his observation was correct.
As they approached the house Dean put his hand on his gun and went on high alert. He honestly had no idea what they were walking in to. It could be the ghoul or some other monster, or maybe even just a nice family about to have lunch. When they got to the front door they both paused and looked at each other. Sam knocked on the door and the both held their breath.
Castiel suddenly appeared behind them causing them both to jump. “What are you doing?”
“What are we doing? What are YOU doing?”
“I detected something around this house and wanted to investigate it further.”
“And you don’t think that’s something we’d want to know about?”
“I thought I’d work quicker on my own.”
Dean put his hand on Cas’ shoulder and looked him in the eyes. “You don’t ditch your teammates without at least telling them what the plan is, ok? And besides, you should know by now I’m a ‘hands on’ kind of guy.” A second later Dean realized the second sexier meaning of what he just said and smirked. Sam just rolled his eyes.
The double meaning was lost on Castiel, though he had a vague feeling Dean had attempted to make a joke. “I… you’re right. I’m sorry. I merely wished to be efficient.”
“Yeah, well, we're all here now at least.” He released the angel and turned back towards the door. The doorknob wouldn’t turn and Dean jiggled the handle in frustration.
Sam and Dean heard the sound of a deadbolt sliding out of the wall and watched as the doorknob turn on it's own. Suddenly Castiel was opening the door from the inside and stepping aside to let the brothers in. “This house is unoccupied. But the ghoul has been here. Recently.”
The living room had a few pieces of trash on the carpet, but was otherwise completely vacant. Castiel walked toward the far wall and touched his fingers to the peeling paint. “There is decay all over this house. It is possible that this place was used as a base of operations for the ghoul. Or that there was more than one here at a time.”
“You think we scared it off?” Dean said as he shined his flashlight around the room. There was a little bit of light pouring through the crack in the curtain, but it wasn't enough to make out the details.
“Possibly.”
“Shit.”
Sam walked across the living room and took a brief look in the kitchen. He shined his light across the counters before turning back to look at Dean and Cas. “How recently was it here?”
“Within an hour.”
“Ok, so that probably means it probably wasn’t scared off by us at the cemetery, right?” Sam said. “It’d probably have booked it immediately. Why wait around?”
Dean stood beside Castiel and continued sweeping his light over the room. “Yeah, you're probably right. I mean, if I was a monster I wouldn’t stick around with an archangel in town.” He met Cas’ eyes for a moment and Dean smirked. “If I was a smart monster, anyway.”
Sam stopped his scan of the room and looked at Castiel. “What is it that you can sense, anyway? Is it possible to follow a trail of it or anything?”
“Uh, no, not exactly,” the angel said as he tore his attention away from his lover. “Human skin sheds cells everywhere it goes. The ghoul does the same, only the substance it leaves behind resembled the decay of death. The longer it stays in one spot, the more it leaves behind. However, if the ghoul is on the move it’s nearly impossible for me to detect it.”
“Wow, you can see something a small as a cell?” Sam was geeking out again, but Dean was actually curious about this too so he let him continue.
“I can detect approximately four thousand times the level of detail than humans can.”
“Your vision sounds like an acid trip, dude,” Dean said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Nothing. Nevermind,” Dean said as he began a more thorough exploration of the house.
There was nothing left in any of the remaining rooms except for small bits of inconsequential trash. The three of them eventually left the abandoned property without any new information and headed straight back to their motel to prepare for another night of staking out the cemetery. If it appeared to have moved on they were willing to do the same, but they still hadn’t heard back from Pete. Skipping town without resolution to that thread just didn’t feel right.
As Dean packed his bag with his basic hunting supplies he laughed at how silly rock salt bullets were when tracking down a ghoul. Salt and iron had become his security blanket since they worked on so many things and he just didn’t feel comfortable walking around without it.
Castiel stood within inches of him as he worked. “Dean?”
“What,” he said flatly as he loaded his pistol.
“I think I should be with you tonight in the cemetery.”
“Won’t that scare it off for sure?”
“We may have already scared it off, Dean. And we have a missing person as well. I don’t want to take any more risks.”
“I’ve told you before. I can take care of my-“
“Dean,” Castiel said firmly, catching Dean’s eyes as he moved to put his gun away. “It’s not your safety that concerns me most right now. Though I must admit, I do fear for you often.”
“Aww, how touching,” he replied with a smirk.
Castiel reached up and rested his fingers against the hunter’s cheek. “This has moved beyond the desecration of graves. A human life may be at risk. I can’t just wait to be summoned by you when you judge it appropriate.”
Dean remembered the days when a single human life was a risk worth taking for the angel. He was grateful that those days were long behind them. Cas sensed what he was thinking and for a moment they were stuck staring at each other. After a few seconds reality came back to him and Dean continued preparing for the case. “Do we know for sure he’s missing because of the ghoul?” Castiel let the hunter's face go.
Sam chimed in as he prepared his backpack on the other side of the room. “No, but it seems likely. I agree with Cas on this one.”
“Wait, you two are teaming up against me now?” Both Cas and Sam said Dean’s name at the same time and proceeded to stare at him in their own unique way. He glanced back and forth between them before shaking his head in defeat. “Fine, Cas, come with us. But I want to remind you that you were the one that was worried about tipping him off in the first place.”
“And I’ve since changed my mind.”
Cas was just as stubborn as any Winchester ever was. No wonder he fit in so well with the family.
-
The three of them perched in the tree surveying the cemetery's surroundings for many hours without anything happening. Sam would occasionally scan the perimeter with his binoculars while Cas sat idly next to Dean staring off into the distance. The older hunter continued to grip his machete tightly, only half acknowledging that the weapon was kind of redundant with an angel in attack mode sitting next to him. But Dean felt most comfortable with his own weapon within reach. Besides, it gave him something to do with his hands during their long stake out. He would switch the machete back and forth, testing the weight of it and adjusting his grip every so often to familiarize himself with the tool. He didn’t use this one often and he liked to be prepared.
When he let one of his hands rest against the branch he was sitting on it only took a moment for the angel to reach out for it. They laced their fingers together and looked out across the darkened landscape. With a machete in one hand and an archangel in the other, Dean truly felt like the most well protected man on earth.
Ten minutes later Cas’ grip tightened and Dean strained to look at him in the dark. Castiel seemed to be focused intently on a spot just outside the cemetery’s gates. Unfortunately Dean could hardly make out anything that wasn’t directly illuminated by the lamps and he had to admit he needed some help. “Cas?”
“Someone is approaching,” he whispered.
Sam held up his binoculars and tried to see what Cas was seeing, but it was useless. “Ghoul?” Sam whispered.
“No.”
“Human?” Dean asked.
“Yes. I believe… I believe it is Pete.”
“What?” the brothers said at the same time.
“I will return.” Castiel disappeared in the blink of an eye and the hunters quickly climbed out of the tree to confront the potential threat. They assumed correctly that Cas had flown to Pete and when they arrived at the scene the two of them were already midway through a conversation.
“But she looks like her and sounds like her and even almost acts like her,” Pete was saying.
“But it is not her,” Castiel nearly shouted. “Your daughter is at peace. The ghoul is taking her form to manipulate you. I promise you that is not your daughter.”
“What’s happening here?” Dean said as he took his position next to Cas. Sam stood a few paces back with his hand hovering near his gun. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of the situation yet and his instinct in uncertain conditions was to reach for a weapon.
Castiel looked to Dean. “It appears the ghoul is attempting to fight back.”
“So it’s an idiot, basically.”
“Not as much as we would like to think.” Cas turned his attention back to Pete. “Tell him what you told me.”
“That thing, it told me to draw this symbol in my own blood on a flat surface,” he said as he unfolded a piece of paper he’d been holding. “It told me how to use it to get rid of him.” Pete gestured towards Castiel and held up the paper revealing the banishing sigil that they were unfortunately all too familiar with.
“I am grateful you did not use it,” Cas said with a nod. “I am truly sorry for the distress this has caused you.”
“So wait,” Dean interrupted. “It wanted Cas gone for what exactly?”
“I don’t know. It didn’t tell me much. It just wanted me to get rid of him. It was… so convincing… My Isabelle.”
“Pete,” Dean said as he placed a hand on his shoulder. “I am so sorry that piece of shit is wearing your daughter’s face. I will personally decapitate the bastard for that.”
“Not if I smite him first,” Cas said, his voice quivering with anger. When Cas got all high and smitey, Dean had to fight the urge to pull him into a passionate kiss immediately. Cas picked up on his feeling and smirked slightly, but his expression soon returned to the serious tone that meant the archangel was embarking on a war path. Dean hoped that meant they could have celebration sex once the case was finished. It had been way too long. But first thing is first… they had to actually finish the case.
“Where did you see it?” Dean asked.
Pete turned the paper over and hastily scribbled down an address.