Have a Little Faith (Part 11)
Title: Have A Little Faith
Author: angel_kink
Pairing: Dean/Cas
Rating: PG
Genre: Fluff, Case!fic, Dreams
Word Count: ~2000
Spoiler: Vague season 6
Warning: Profanity
Summary: Sam, Dean, and Cas follow clues to find the demons. Dean and Cas find time to snuggle somehow.
A/N: This particular story is probably only a couple more chapters, but the ‘verse will continue. This chapter is half plot, half fluff.
Have A Little Faith Masterpost
Their first stop was a motel that they'd be calling their home base for the duration of their stay. They weren’t sure how many days they’d be in the city, but they wanted to have a place within reach that they could get to without Castiel’s help. Besides, they didn’t want to haul their gear all over the city and were happy to have a place to stash their stuff. It just made sense to have a home base. The motel was also just around the corner from the first Sigil covered building they wanted to check out.
The four-story apartment building seemed suspicious at first, but a sweep of the halls turned up nothing on their EMF’s. They managed to question a few neighbors, but they had zero results. Castiel took them to a number of other places including a library, a church, and dammit, why was Alcatraz covered in Sigils? Everywhere turned up negative except Alcatraz, which had a few angry spirits moping about. They weren’t of concern to them at the moment so they moved on. The fact that those buildings were covered in Sigils was interesting, but there was nothing there useful and they couldn’t afford to waste time.
After the sun had set and the brothers began to wear down they decided to return to their motel room and resume their search in the morning. Sam and Dean crammed down some greasy diner food in their room while Castiel took small tastes to sample to affair. When they were finished eating they both passed out on their beds.
When Dean fell asleep he began to dream that he was driving his car down some nameless highway. It was a common snippet of dream that he had whenever his mind was shifting to a new thought. Only this time Castiel suddenly appeared beside him and bluntly stated, “you’re dreaming.”
“Oh. Ok.” Well, he needed the sleep, so he might as well just enjoy it. “Did you intend to pop into my head this time?”
“No.”
“I take it you still don’t know why that’s happening.”
“Afraid not.”
“Awesome,” Dean said sarcastically. It’s not like he didn’t enjoy their little dream thing, but he feared that even an Angel Handbook wouldn’t be able to explain their situation. This was something entirely new, but at least they could stumble through this thing together. “It’s not, like, against your will, right?”
“I intended to meditate, if that’s what you mean. I did not intend to end up here, however.”
“Well, good. I mean, I’m glad I’m not a distracting you. Or anything.”
“I could use some distraction, honestly.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do, and I assure you, I can leave this dream anytime I want to.”
Though Dean was aware that he was dreaming, the environment still shifted and molded itself beyond his control. The sky seemed to be stuck in a perpetual twilight and the scenery seemed to change in an illogical and unpredictable way. They were on a prairie, then by the coast, then in the middle of a metropolis. Then they were suddenly pulling up in front of Dean’s childhood home, only instead of being located in a town, it was standing alone in a giant grass field.
Dean put the car in park and looked out the window. “I dream about this place a lot.”
“I know,” Castiel said, keeping his attention focused on the hunter.
Dean was getting out of the car and Castiel diligently followed him. They entered the living room and Dean walked through the house towards the kitchen with a familiarity Cas didn't expect. It was the most vivid dream the angel had ever walked in on and he was amazed that Dean had such a detailed memory of a place he hadn’t been in almost 30 years.
What surprised Castiel even more was Dean’s unfiltered outpouring of emotion as he walked through the house. Maybe it was the fact that the human was in a dream state, thus naturally more open to his subconscious thoughts. Or maybe he was finally comfortable being an open book to the angel and was laying out all his baggage out on the table intentionally. Regardless of the reason, Castiel was grateful for it.
Dean walked into the kitchen and grabbed a box of Poptarts off the top of the fridge. “These were my favorite as a kid. Mom would put them way up here so I couldn’t reach them and eat the whole box at once.” He tossed the box to Cas. “You probably can’t taste it here. I don’t really know how this whole thing works for you.”
Cas couldn’t taste in dreams, but he appreciated the sentiment. Dean wanted to share a precious memory from his childhood with him and that was far more important than the food itself. When Dean continued making his way through the house Cas set the box down on the counter and followed him.
Dean went upstairs and stopped at the first door he came across. “This was my room,” he said, leaning against the doorframe and staring in. “It was the only time in my life where I had toys like a normal kid. After we left here the only ‘toys’ I had were either weapons or cheap shit from those quarter machines in restaurants.”
Cas was standing right next to him and couldn’t help but wrap his arm around the hunter. Even if their bodies weren’t physical here, it somehow felt real and that was good enough for the both of them. While he was happy to be shown things so near to Dean’s heart, he knew it had to be painful for the hunter to go over the memories and he wanted to provide comfort in anyway he could.
Dean walked to the next door with Castiel still clinging on to him. “This was Sam’s nursery. Sometimes when I dream about it, it’s… on fire. But not always.” They stood there looking in at the cradle together for what felt like hours. Of course, time moves differently in a dream and he had no idea how long they’d been there in reality. And that brought up another thing. “Hey, Cas, we’re still in my head right?”
Cas was confused at first, since this house seemed like a huge clue that he was dreaming, but humans had difficulty distinguishing dreams from reality, no matter how obvious it was. Even after being told that he was asleep, his mind was foggy enough for him to question it repeatedly. “Yes, you’re still asleep.”
“Where are you right now?”
“Laying next to you.” Dean could feel the angel’s arms around him in reality and the feeling made his head spin. He was undeniably asleep, but he could sense reality. “If you concentrate on those sensations long enough you’ll wake yourself up.”
Dean wasn’t ready for this dream to end yet. Not only was he still exhausted, but he actually kind of enjoyed having Cas in his head. And that’s something he never thought he’d be so excited about. But still, he could feel the angel’s hot breath on his neck and those warm arms wrapped securely around him. Then he noticed Castiel was embracing him in the dream too and for a brief moment he could feel both sensations at once. “Weird.”
Dean let go of reality and focused on his dreams. And for several hours they continued to drift through his subconscious together, with Dean’s knowledge of Cas’ presence faltering between totally aware and completely ignorant. Cas would remind him on occasion that he was dreaming, but the peek into Dean’s raw subconscious was an incredibly eye opening experience. If he hadn’t promised the hunter he’d inform him that he was dreaming, he might have just let it play out in front of him uninterrupted.
When Dean woke up in the morning he was fully aware of Castiel’s arms around him for real and for a moment he just stayed there enjoying the comfortable embrace. Sam’s alarm went off at 8:00am, however, and he realized they had an entire day of work ahead of them. When Sam sat up in bed and saw them lying together he made a small surprised noise, but ultimately shrugged his shoulders and continued with his morning routine. He rubbed his eyes and hauled himself to the shower, giving them a few minutes to snuggle before they had to drag their asses out of bed.
The first place they were taken to that morning was an abandoned warehouse, which had both the Winchesters groaning. “When are abandoned warehouses ever a good thing,” Dean asked when they realized what they’d been zapped to. They slipped in the front door and started poking around. It was definitely abandoned and they really couldn’t even tell what had been made there. This made searching for something unusual even more obnoxious as every piece of machinery that was left behind seemed 'unusual'.
Since this was one of the few places they searched that was completely empty of people, the brothers had their gun drawn from the moment they entered the building. When they stumbled across a room of filing cabinets Sam set to work digging through them. Dean rifled through a few stray pieces of paper and opened a cabinet that contained a rather impressive collection of cobwebs. This place seemed like another bust.
“Holy shit,” Sam said as he pulled a file out and handed it to Dean.
“L&P Relics? Like that office in Flagstaff?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck,” Dean said, opening it up and digging through the first few pages. It was mostly order forms and other business crap, but when they had more time to look at it they might find something useful. Dean handed it back to Sam who shoved it into his jacket.
Dean shut his eyes. “Cas, we’ve found something, but don’t go throwing cars around just yet.” When he opened them Sam was staring at him.
“That was kind of cute.”
“I was praying.”
“Exactly.”
Dean huffed and exited the room, gun in hand. They rounded a corner and came across an altar like the one they’d discovered back in Flagstaff. Only this one was five times larger and the candle in the center was freshly lit. Someone had been right where they were standing very recently. In the distance they heard a door slam and they both looked at each other.
“We need to get the fuck out of here,” Dean said as he turned around. Sam didn’t need to be told twice and followed close behind him. His heart was racing and his mind was in an endless loop of get the fuck out! He remembered how horribly their last encounter with the symbol wasn’t something he wanted to go through again. As soon as Dean shoved the door open he ran directly into Castiel’s arms. The panic on Castiel’s face was almost as bad as Dean’s and he instantly zapped them back to the motel room.
“Shit, we need a better plan,” Sam said, collapsing into the nearest chair. Dean remained in Cas’ arms, the only place he really felt safe anymore.
“I have an idea,” Cas said. “If I’m not back in one hour, head to Bobby’s.”
“What?” Cas’ lips suddenly cut off Dean’s protesting. It was a lingering kiss that Dean would have very much liked to escalate if circumstances were different. But the angel pulled back he disappeared instantly and Dean was grasping at an empty space in front of him.
“Dammit!” Dean said, punching the nearest wall.
“What the fuck? What is he doing?”
“Something stupid is my guess. We have to go.”