[SPN fic] How it Sparkles
Title: How it Sparkles
Rating: Teen, for swearing and some vaguely-discussed sexual content.
Warnings: Spoilers--this is set between 6.14 and 6.15.
Summary: Dean and Sam learn of the realness of a creature that they had assumed to be fictional. Dean is not pleased. Crack!fic.
Notes: I don't own SPN; the title is adapted from a song by America. Most of the mythology used here comes from various places, and obviously, I also don't own the hunted here.
“‘Gored to death at Paradise Falls?’ If I ever have a punk rock band, I’m totally calling it that.” Dean tossed the newspaper bearing the unfortunate headline back onto the motel’s rickety table; it wobbled and almost fell over from the impact. “So what do you think is doing it?”
“I dunno. They were all young, that’s one thing, and four out of five were guys. Not a lot of things you’d see in these parts are that distinguishing when it comes to prey; not Wendigos or shapeshifters. Pissed-off spirit of someone dumped in the falls, maybe? It’s unusual for there to be killings in the middle of the woods without the corpses being eaten, or at least drained of blood.” Sam shrugged and pulled his tie tighter. “We’ll have to pull up some records; see if anyone’s drowned or disappeared lately.”
“They weren’t drowned, they were stabbed. Staked. It almost seems cultish.” Dean worked on his suit jacket and pulled two IDs out of his pocket; tossed one to Sam. It felt good to be back in the world of identity theft and fake FBI agents.
“Why now, though? It’s not a solstice, not even a full or new moon.”
“You expect me to know? Hell, I never went to college.” Dean opened the door and was instantly greeted by a wave of warm air that caused sweat to instantly soak through his suit. Global warming, he thought, sucked. “Aren’t there all sorts of weird underground clubs there?”
Sam gave him the Look; the one that sent mother dogs rushing over to see what was wrong with their puppies. He hardly ever used it since getting back from Hell, and Dean felt pathetically happy to see it on his face.
“That’s not fair. I was working hard; I didn’t have time for fraternities.”
“You should have. I would have. Sure would’ve helped with research.” He slid into the driver’s seat of the Impala. “You want coffee before we head off to Paradise?”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Agents Bloom and Bouchard.” Dean flipped his badge out in a well-practiced move. "Here about the string of stabbings."
The legitimate police officer glanced down, yawned, and sipped his coffee. Dean was envious; the only place they’d passed had been the chain of crappy coffee and doughnuts that was slowly killing off all of the mom and pop places across America. “I didn’t realize that we were so high-profile.”
“Well, officer, that’s why we’re the feds and you aren’t.”
“Can you tell us about the first cases?” Sam asked quickly, giving Dean a glare and a jerk of his giant chin. Investigate the area, it said. Dean resisted the urge to stick out his tongue at him.
“Uh, well, there’s been three in the past few months. One or two more, going back a few more. We don’t know what’s happening.” He shrugged. “I mean, these pockets of teens just go up, and they don’t come down. Some of them, I mean. We’ve been patrolling the areas and we haven’t found anything.”
That, Dean figured, was because they clearly sucked at patrolling. Fresh beer cans littered the ground, glinting among the rainbow of candy wrappers. He could see the unmistakable flash of several torn condom packets too. Damn kids these days didn’t know how to pick up after themselves.
The falls, though, looked beautiful. A natural formation, they were made by a river that flowed over a rocky overhang and splashed into a pool below, before flowing out into a larger river that ran through most of the city. The water sparkled, crystalline beneath the early sun. It looked good enough to drink.
He skirted the edge carefully, glancing down. His view to the bottom was perfect; any body or even bones would be pretty obvious. Nothing was there.
“That’s where we’ve been finding the bodies, about a foot from where your partner is. Never in the water, though. I don’t think the blood ever touches it.” The officer rubbed his chin. “I just don’t know. We were thinking serial killer, but all of the victim statements were pretty…”
“There were survivors?” Sam asked, as Dean crouched down to get a better look at where the body had been. “Do you have their names and contact information?”
“Not with me. I can radio the station and let them know you’re coming; they could probably get the files for you.” What was that, in the thicket behind where it had been dumped? Hair? Ghosts didn’t leave hair. He reached out and pulled the clump off of the bush. It was white and wispy, like fine thread falling from his fingers.
"Thanks, Officer. I'm sure we'll be in touch. Dean? Are you ready?"
He stood quickly, digging a Ziploc bag out of his pocket and dropping the white hairs in. "I sure am. We heading to the station now?"
"Yeah. C'mon." They'd look at that later. It might be nothing, but he'd learned a long time ago that risking that was a really stupid idea.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Hair?" Sam pinched the bag in his fingers, holding it up to the bright sun. "And you think that whatever did it left it behind."
"Maybe. It's so clear, I barely noticed it when I was looking through the scene." They coasted away from the police station, heading off to visit seventeen-year-old Emma Pharriss. Back around December she'd been up near the falls with her boyfriend. She'd come back; he hadn't.
Sam put the bag down, frowning. "I don't know offhand what would leave that behind. It looks more like horse hair than anything. A well-groomed horse, at that. I suppose that the trails could be used for riding."
"Could be." There was something else about the scene, something that had been off, but he couldn't manage to put his finger on it. "What do the files say?"
"She was uninjured, but in shock. Said she couldn't remember anything; was never a suspect in the investigation." Sam flipped through the contents of the manilla folder. "There's not much. I'm pretty sure that they don't want teenagers fooling around up there, but she wasn't charged with anything."
"And she didn't say anything? No 'Mr. Ed killed my boyfriend?'"
"Nope. Hey, did you ever hear of anyone hunting a kelpie?" At Dean's glance he elaborated, "A water horse from Scottish mythology. They drown people. And eat them, I think. They're supposed to only haunt Scotland, but it wouldn't be the first misplaced monster we've had lately."
"You'd have to call Bobby. Dad never did, I can tell you that."
"I will, if we don't get anything new from Emma Pharriss." Sam tossed the folder onto the dashboard. "I wonder how you kill a kelpie."
"I wonder what kind of glue you can get from its hooves."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I... I already talked to the police." Emma Pharriss had dark eyes and a wan look about her, like she'd suddenly begun to waste away. She looked way younger than seventeen, Dean thought. Her surroundings probably didn't help; the living room was as kitschy as the kitchen, with cutesy little figurines dotting every surface on their lacy little doilies.
"We know," Sam said gently. "We're from the federal branch, though. I'm sure you're aware that there's been another murder."
"Yeah. I... I knew him." She looked troubled. "I don't know what to say."
"Just tell us what you saw that night," said Dean, shifting forwards on the rose-patterned love-seat. He gave her his best FBI smile. "We won't judge you, and what you say will remain completely confidential."
"I don't know. I think... well, we'd been drinking a bit, you know? Everyone does it, up at Paradise Falls. It was kind of late... the lighting, it was pretty bad..."
"We understand all that. It's okay." Sam nodded encouragingly. "Just tell us what you saw."
"I think..." Emma swallowed hard. "IthinkIsawaunicorn."
Dean looked at Sam, at the shaking teenager, and then back at Sam. "I'm sorry," he said. "My hearing's going. Years of listening to music too loud'll do that for you. What did you say?"
"It looked like a... a unicorn. It was pale, and it had cloven hooves --but they didn't leave any prints-- and its mane was long and white, and it had this... horn."
"...okay," said Sam slowly. "Tell us about the horn."
Once they had established that, indeed, they did not think she was going crazy, Emma began to describe it all with great zeal. "It looked kind of like a horse and a goat had a lovechild, you know? It had those hooves, like I said, and I thought it had a little beard coming down from its chin. It was the size of a regular horse, a Quarter Horse, maybe, but it was too skinny. Its tail was kind of like a lion's, with a really long tuft of hair at the end, but the mane was big and flowy and really pretty."
"White, you said?" Dean pressed.
"Yeah. Actually, it was more like silver. I swear, it was like starlight." She smiled for the first time they had been there. "It was really pretty."
Sam nodded, carefully composed. "And the horn?"
It disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. "Yeah. The horn." She swallowed. "It was big. Maybe a yard? Not very thick."
"And it was white too?"
"Only part of it. It started out white, but the middle black, I think, and the tip of it was red. Kinda like blood."
"All right. So, you and your boyfriend are doing... teen things, and then all of a sudden this unicorn appears." Sam waited for her nod before he asked, "What happens next?"
"We just froze. I mean, a unicorn, you know? I looked at Jeff, kind of wanting to know if he could see it too, and he had the same expression. And then..." all traces of awe had fallen from her face, and she just looked like one of a hundred other victims Dean had ever talked to. "It lowered its horn, and it was looking at him, and..."
Emma put her head into her hands, a choked sob coming from between her fingers.
"We understand." Dean stood up, jerking his chin to the door. "Thank you for your time, Emma."
"We're very sorry for you loss," added Sam.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Unicorns? Really?” This was well on its way to being the most screwed-up case Dean ever did take. “Do they make rainbows when they shi-”
“It isn’t that unbelievable.” Sam was looking at the white hairs again. “Remember awhile back; when we thought an angel was killing people? You didn’t believe in them then, but look where we are now.”
“You think we’re in a better place because of angels?” The motel wasn’t far from where Emma lived, and he was just pulling into a space as he asked that, the disbelief evident in his voice.
“I didn’t say that. But they are real, despite what you used to think. And we just ganked a dragon. Why not unicorns?” Sam shrugged. “It’s not the first weird thing this year.”
"We don't hunt things that are sparkly and pink. We just don't, Sam. Company policy." He carefully closed the door to his car, figuring he could just slam out his frustration on the motel's entrance.
"What was the water like?" Sam unlocked the room and beckoned for Dean to go ahead, effectively foiling his plan.
"What? You mean at the falls?" At Sam's nod he replied, "It was great. Looked drinkable."
"No trash?" pressed Sam, shutting the door.
"No. You think I'd call it drinkable if there was?"
"Our standards are pretty low on everything else. Look, Dean, one of the main unicorn legends is that it can purify water with its horn."
"I don't even want to know how you know that," Dean muttered, pulling the hairs out of his pocket and fingering them through the thin plastic of the bag. "Who's to say it isn't just a clean stream?"
It clicked the moment before Sam spoke. "Did you see all the beer bottles up there?"
"Yeah. And the half-eaten candy bars, the condoms, and everything else. But the river is perfectly crystal-clear. Because a unicorn dipped its horn into it. Makes perfect sense."
"We've got an eyewitness, physical evidence, the wounds fit... Dean, it's a perfect match. Why are you so opposed to it?"
"Because unicorns aren't real." He threw the hair down on the bed. "No. I draw the line at things that sparkle."
"They don't, not according to ancient lore." Sam the techno-geek was on his laptop by now. "The horn, in particular; Emma said it was red, black, and white, right?"
"That's what she said. The teenager who probably hasn't figured out how to hold her alcohol-"
"That's backed up, Dean. There's mixed accounts of its length, its sharpness, and its color, but one of them definitely does say it. One of the earliest, actually. I mean, we could interview another one of the survivors, if you really want, but there's centuries of lore already out there. You can't deny it."
He couldn’t, he really couldn’t. There was nothing to say that the Mother was unable to raise a unicorn, if it pleased her to do so. Or maybe it had just decided on its own that now would be a great time to reappear. Why the hell not?
“Fine.” He threw his hands up in the air. “How do we kill them?”
Sam tapped his keyboard and made a quick search. “A golden bridle usually does the trick - I took medieval literature, okay?” He glared at Dean’s disbelieving face. “That’s just to capture them, though. I think you need to cut off their horns to kill them.”
“Okay. Sounds good to me.” It wasn’t like they were lacking when it came to weapons that were sharp enough to cut a giant horn from a horse’s head. “But how do we find them? Is there a summoning we can do, or do we just throw a greasy burger wrapper into the stream and hope it’s pissed?”
“Legend has it that beautiful virgins were used to lure them out. Actually, it’s sort of like the reverse of the dragons - unicorns don’t harm virgins. That could be why it went for Emma Pharriss’ boyfriend and left her alone.”
“So we need a virgin. Great. I know I’m not… have you been laid since you got your soul back?”
Sam’s cheeks turned red. “Yes!”
Dean raised an eyebrow.
“It was that time when we were in Tennessee. And even if I hadn’t, it’d still count. We know I’ve had sex since I was brought back.”
“If you say so.” Dean sat up on the bed, his chin resting in his hands. “So who do we know who’s a virgin?”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Castiel! Cas! You got a minute?”
“This is the stupidest thing we’ve ever done,” said Sam. “Jimmy Novak has a kid, remember? That usually means he’s not a virgin, Dean.”
“I know. That’s why we’re not calling Jimmy Novak. We’re calling Castiel and his divine chastity.” He turned his face back to the sky - or at least to the motel ceiling and its coffee-colored stains from when it had rained just a little bit too hard - and resumed his rather unorthodox prayer. “We know you haven’t had sex yet, and-”
“I was unaware that my sexual life was of interest to you.”
Dean turned around and saw Castiel, who didn't look too pleased. He tilted his head. "Time is not something that I can afford to waste at the moment, Dean. Is my presence really necessary?"
"Unfortunately, our endless supply of virgins ran out last month, and we need you." Dean paused, then added, "You count, right?"
"By most standards, yes, my occupation of Jimmy Novak's body does signify that it is a place of purity, untouched by sexual intercourse of any kind. Why is that needed?" Cas tilted his head, frowning. "Do you require a sacrificial victim?"
"No!" He didn't even want to know why the hell Cas instantly assumed that. "We just want to use you as bait."
Actually, in retrospect, that actually didn't sound much better than feeding a virgin to a dragon. Trying to make it sound reasonable he explained, "There's a unicorn that's going around killing people, and Sam and I need to find it in order to stop it."
"A unicorn?" Castiel started, and focused intensely on Dean. “Are you certain?”
“We will be if you and your angelic DNA scanner can tell us where these came from.” He handed the Ziploc bag to Castiel, who quickly opened it and removed the hairs. He held the clump between two fingers and peered at it, as intense as one could be whilst peering.
“You’re correct. These are from a unicorn.” He placed the hairs back inside their container and handed it to Dean. “There are very few of these around. I had thought them to be extinct by now.”
“Cas, we’re not about to back down from hunting something that’s on the endangered species list.” Hell, they’d probably wiped out at least one species at some point. He should feel bad about that, probably.
The angel ignored him. “Tradition does dictate that a virgin lure a unicorn in. While there are other methods that you could likely use to find it, unicorns are creatures of old. They respond best to the usage of the ancient customs.”
“…So will you do it?” asked Dean.
“I will.” Castiel paused and then added, “In exchange, I request that I be allowed to remove something from the corpse.”
“The alicorn?” Sam asked.
Castiel answered before Dean could give Sam one of his signature you’re-a-nerd-speak-English looks. “No. I don’t require the horn, although it would likely do you two good to hold onto it, given its healing abilities. Beneath the horn is a ruby, commonly referred to as a carbuncle. It can be used in a variety of ways… I could make use of it.”
Dean glanced at Sam, who shrugged in response. "Sure. If you want it, I guess you can take it."
"Thank you." Castiel paused, and then added, "I have other obligations that will require my attention soon; I expect that you are prepared to do the hunt tonight? I can gather the supplies that you require if they are not already in your arsenal."
"I think we're good. Sam, we still got both machetes?"
"We should. Do you want me to bring them in to sharpen?"
Castiel was looking at them with an expression that was equal parts confusion, horror, and disgust. "You're planning to hunt a unicorn using machetes?"
"Well... yeah... I figured that we'd wait until it was fully enchanted by your pure flower, and then we'd go, cut its horn off. That would kill it, right?"
"It would, but you haven't the skills to execute such a thing," Castiel said bluntly, once again confirming Dean's belief that he simply wasn't good enough. "The unicorn would impale you both before one of you could attempt a swing."
"Thanks, Cas," he muttered. "What do you suggest?"
"We do it in the traditional method. The unicorn will come to me, attracted by my sexual purity. Once it has, I can trap it using a bridle of gold. You two can use spears from the era of the hunt to pierce its heart, and then you can remove its horn. My blade will do for that task; alicorn isn't easily broken."
Dean glanced at his brother again and raised his eyebrow. You take this one.
Sam sighed. "Uh, Cas? That's a good plan, but Dean and I, we don't exactly have golden bridles. Or spears that are from a foregone era, unless you mean, like, the nineties."
Castiel gave Sam his own patented Look, the "Why-do-I-bother-dealing-with-you-mud-monkeys" one. "I'll get them."
He disappeared.
Dean rolled his eyes. "Touché. What's been up his ass lately?"
"A civil war will do that to you." Sam closed his laptop and set it down on the floor. He leaned back, lying down on his bed. "I guess there's nothing we can do now but wait and hope that someone out there is still in the golden bridle business."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Castiel returned shortly after the sun had set, clutching two spears and a bright halter. His hair was disheveled, and there was something that looked suspiciously like blood on the collar of his trench coat.
Dean figured that it would probably be better not to mention it. Naturally, that didn't stop him. "What happened? You pick up the last golden bridle just as someone else did?"
Cas gave him a blank look. Dean sighed and touched the collar of his shirt, hoping he would get the point.
"Oh. I ran into some...trouble while I was retrieving these." He paused, and Dean beckoned for him to continue. "The museum guards didn't understand when I told them that I required usage of their weapons."
"Museum guards?" Sam stepped out of the motel's tiny bathroom. "They were able to get shots out at you?"
"The shots did nothing but graze me. I figured you wouldn't appreciate my smiting the guardians of the weapons, and I didn't want to distract you before a hunt." His brow creased as he frowned, and then added, "You're welcome."
"...thanks," said Dean, figuring that it was best to be polite with the angel, before getting to the more pressing issue. "Why were you holding up a museum?"
Castiel gave him the Look. "We needed weapons that were originally used when unicorns were hunted," he said testily. "Heaven doesn't store every insignificant object that you carve; I required artifacts that had been preserved in other ways. Your medieval weaponry was entirely meaningless to us; naturally, we didn’t waste our reserves on it."
"Oh." For the first time he examined the spears. Oh.
He'd hunted with spears, of course; there were relatively few weapons that couldn't be made crudely at home that he hadn't tried. It wasn't fun and it wasn't handy, but he could do it.
Whether or not he could do it using the sticks in Castiel's hands remained to be seen. At some point, they had probably been good weapons: the spearheads were long and flared at the end, and the shafts were long and would fit well in his grip. In all, he'd hunted things with equipment that was way worse than them.
Except for the fact that, like most weapons, they hadn't exactly been built with the intention of them being used a few centuries later.
“They look kind of… frail,” said Sam.
“They were crafted by the finest weapon-makers of their time. They’ve held up well.” Castiel thrust them into Dean’s hands; he tossed one to Sam. “I suggest that we leave now. From sunset to sunrise is the most common time for the unicorns to be active.”
“How do you know that? Are you familiar with their breeding habits too?” Dean squeezed the shaft of his weapon, and was almost certain that he felt it splinter. “You know what? Never mind. Get in the car.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The waterfall by flashlight wasn’t exactly a pleasant looking place. The water that gushed sounded more like a choking person gurgling desperately than like a natural feature of the land, and the rocks seemed sharp and menacing. Every piece of trash on the ground seemed to be glinting in the beam of light, looking like sharp, pointy things that could probably be used as weapons. As make-out places went, Dean thought, this one sucked.
Castiel didn’t seem fazed by it. He examined the place curiously, turning around several times before getting down on his knees and sweeping the trash away from the riverbank. The golden bridle hung from over his shoulder, winking a thousand times brighter than the litter. When he was satisfied, he primly sat down in his now-clean spot.
Dean glanced at Sam, who shrugged, looking just as confused as Dean felt. Looking back, it probably would have been smart to discuss a plan of action on the drive over. “Cas?”
Castiel looked up, an annoyed expression on his face. “You need to hide, both of you,” he said. “It won’t come with such impurity in plain sight, not unless one of you intends to defile me tonight.”
“Right." Dean decided not to address the second part of the comment. "Will we be in plain sight if we go hide…” he swept the beam of light around the forest. “…behind that clump of bushes?”
“That will be acceptable, so long as you keep silent. I don’t know how long it will take for it to come to me.”
“We’ll be waiting. Come on, Sam.” Dean tugged him over to the bushes. Together they squatted down, spears at their feet. “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” he muttered. “You were right. This is the stupid-”
“Shh,” Sam hissed. “I don’t want to miss this.”
“You want to see a unicorn?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know; it is pretty interesting to know that they’re real, too. But we will scare it away, and I don’t want that to happen, unless you want to stake out a cold, wet forest for another night.”
Dean grunted. He had a point.
Stakeouts in the Impala weren’t exactly fun. There was something about them that instantly made the Impala turn into a painfully tiny, airless space. Dean could drive across the country in his precious without getting so much as a cramp in his leg, but a twenty-minute stakeout? That kind of sucked.
But compared to stakeouts outside, the Impala was palace with posh couches to sit on. Waiting outside, the wet grass dampening his ass, was miserable. Especially given how Castiel was sitting ten feet away, looking as calm as he did when he sat on the edge of Dean's bed and told him how screwed they were.
They had been waiting for half an hour with no sign of anything: no rainbows suddenly sprouting out of the darkness, no sparkles floating through the air, no sounds of gentle hooves tapping upon the forest floor like golden bells being rung.
Dean sighed and shifted. Patience was key, he knew; his dad had always been pretty clear on that. But when you weren't even sure what you were unlocking, knowing that didn't really help. For all he knew, a unicorn was a coping mechanism invented by a person who'd seen something too brutal for her to deal with--
Behind him, Sam straightened and laid a hand on his arm. He nodded to the clearing up ahead where Castiel was sitting.
Dean glanced in that direction. His breath caught in his throat as he took in the majestic sight.
It was... enchanting.
It was shaped like a horse, more or less, but it seemed insulting to describe it as such. Even in the darkness he could see it clearly; see the way its silver hooves delicately stepped on the grass, as though it didn't want to crush a single blade. Its mane was long and white and billowed out around its neck like a puff of white spun sugar; its tail was lion-like and snowy.
A giant horn thrust out from its forehead. It was long and tri-colored, white, black and red. In the light of the full moon, the horn, just like its star-touched coat, practically sparkled. Hell, not even that: it did sparkle, picking up every ray that the moon reflected and subtly letting them shine off of its coat. It was bright and beautiful, dazzling in the nighttime.
It was glorious.
It trotted - if its graceful gait could really be called trotting - up to Castiel, who regarded it with an impassive sort of curiosity. Nickering once, it slowly dropped to the floor, legs folding daintily beneath it, and laid its head on Castiel’s lap. He stroked it, gently brushing aside its white forelock before slipping the golden bridle on. It barely reacted: if anything, it drooped even more as the gold glowed in bright contrast to its pure coat.
“Now,” Castiel said, still petting it. “Strike now.”
Oh. That was right; they were supposed to strike and kill it. Kill the beautiful creature that had its head resting so innocently in Castiel’s lap. All it did was defend the purity of innocent people, right? Was it really-
“DEAN!”
He jumped. Castiel wasn’t a yeller, and now Dean knew why. It really didn’t suit him at all.
The angel looked decidedly annoyed. Rather than gently stroking the mane of the unicorn, he now had a fistful of hair knotted in his fingers. “Resist its spell and do your job. How long the bridle’s spell will hold is unknown, and if I have to strike against it, I’ll likely destroy the key properties of the alicorn and of the carbuncle.”
“Right. Come on, Sam.” He shoved his brother, who looked as though he was in a trance. “Time to off Sparkles.”
Sam jumped at the contact. “Off it? But… yeah. Right.” He shook his head. “Dazed and confused much?”
“Tell me about it.” Dean grabbed the spear and stepped into the clearing. The unicorn, apparently hearing him, lifted his head from Castiel’s lap and looked at him with its fierce, powerful eyes. He’d been dragged into a staring contest with a mythological creature, and he’d be damned if he’d lose.
Sparkles broke first, snorting once and then laying its head back sleepily. He almost felt guilty. “Cas, this is like taking candy from a baby.”
“All unicorns’ horns start out with the same purity that currently extends from the base upwards,” Castiel said, not taking his eyes or his hands off of the drowsy unicorn. “The red at the top comes from the souls of those that it has killed. The black shows how corrupt the unicorn's soul itself has become. When unicorn horns lose all traces of the purity that they began with, they go on rampages. In the Middle Ages some were able to wipe out small villages.”
Well. That changed things slightly. He and Sam circled around it, figuring where best to strike. “How come there’s no record of that?”
“The Church considered such accounts heretical. Strike the heart.”
Dean poked the chest with his spear. “Right here?”
“Ye-”
“Shit!” Sparkles leapt up and reared, shaking its head as if to dislodge the golden bridle. Castiel quickly stumbled backwards into the stream. “I thought we had more time than this!”
“Don’t dwell on that!” Cas snapped. “Pierce the heart!”
Sam was holding his spear like a javelin, and Dean was suddenly wondering if maybe he should have taken track and field when he was in high school. “Dean, I haven’t had to hunt with one of these since we were kids-”
“Neither have I." Had they ever actually used them in the field? When John had taken them regular-hunting, he'd downed a deer one time, but that was when he was twelve or something, and it had just been a doe, not a fucking unicorn with sharp fucking hooves that were right above him--
He stepped back, slipped on the damp grass, fell on his ass, and thrust up blindly. God-fucking-dammit, was this really his life? Survive the apocalypse and get gored to death by a horse with a horn on its head? That sparkled?
The impact of his hit sent shudders through his arms, and he lost his grip on the shaft. He rolled backwards, just avoiding the golden hooves.
Above him, the unicorn screamed. He'd pierced its skin, could see a red stain spreading out from where his spear was dangling in its chest. He scrambled to his knees. "Come on, Sam! Finish it!"
"I know, Dean!" Sam had his spear aimed. "I just need - the right - place -" He thrust his spear a hand's breadth beneath where Dean's was still stuck.
"Suck it, Sparkles!" Dean pushed himself to his feet. "Is it-"
Castiel, soaking wet, was standing behind the unicorn. It had fallen to its knees, keening. Dean was pretty sure that any horse ought to be dead after having two Dark Ages spears thrust in its chest. "It's dying, Dean. You need to sever the horn to complete the act." He held out his Angel-knife. "This will do, I believe. If you wish to make use of the horn, you should be the one to take it," he added. "Tradition."
"Right." He grabbed the hilt -now this was a good weapon- and walked over to the unicorn. It looked up at him again, hate and pain in its dark eyes, and snorted defiantly.
He almost felt sorry for it. Unicorns didn't look evil; it was a lot easier to stab something with coarse hair and ten-inch claws than shoot an innocent-looking werewolf; a lot easier to stab a fugly dragon-man than sever the horn of a symbol of purity--
--and then he remembered the many people that it'd killed, who never had the chance to live just because they'd experienced a natural pleasure of life. And the people who'd have to live with that, for no reason other than they'd chosen to wait a little while.
Fucking unicorns.
The alicorn was heavier than he'd expected. It also wasn't hollow. A white powder rubbed onto his hands when he touched it. "So all of this is good for healing? Even the blood-stained parts?"
"It's not blood so much as it is a physical representation of the number of deaths caused by the unicorn, much as the darkness staining the horn refers to the filth clogging its soul." Castiel had reclaimed his dagger and was using it to cut something out of the unicorn's head. "Alicorn is a powerful material. You'll get the best part from the unsullied areas near the bottom, but all of it can be used to detect poison when added to a suspected drink, or to heal minor wounds when consumed with wine. Red wine." He stood up, unicorn blood staining his hands.
"Where'd that come from?" Dean asked, nodding to the red stone Castiel held. It sure as hell hadn't been there when he sliced off the horn.
"It was there. The unicorn just concealed it well. It was a defense mechanism; hunters would try twice as hard to make a kill if they noticed a unicorn to be bearing one." Castiel made a fist around the ruby. "It is an old one. Those are the best."
"Speaking of old things, I think we broke those spears." Sam nodded to the objects sticking out of the unicorn's chest. "Should we-?"
Castiel impatiently waved his hand, and the spears disintegrated into piled of ash. "There. The unicorn itself will disappear when daylight strikes it. Its corpse will become part of the Earth again."
"Returning to the Earth? So they're like the hippies of the monster world?"
Castiel frowned and tilted his head.
"Never mind. We should probably get going." He turned the horn point-down, holding it like a walking stick. "We'll be seeing you, Cas?"
"In all likelihood, yes." He nodded once before glancing up, ruby clenched in his fist. Without further ado, he disappeared.
"Typical," Dean muttered. "You ready, Sam?"
"I think so." He'd been standing by the riverbank, staring contemplatively into the stream. "You know Dean, we probably did just totally screw up the ecosystem." At Dean's raised eyebrow he elaborated, "The unicorn kept the water pure. Fish and algae and probably other stuff lived in the nice, clean river. Now it's going to be filled with booze and condoms and other crap. Everything'll be off-kilter."
"Huh." He hadn't even thought of that. "I guess it sucks to be a fish around here."
"Yeah." Sam shrugged and turned away. "I guess it does." He paused for a moment. "Hey, you think we could get coffee from anywhere this early?"
"Only one way to find out," said Dean, and they walked away from the unicorn corpse and into the budding day.
Note II: Edited later on May 7; divides apparently don't appear in my journal, and have since been replaced with extremely convenient dashes.
Rating: Teen, for swearing and some vaguely-discussed sexual content.
Warnings: Spoilers--this is set between 6.14 and 6.15.
Summary: Dean and Sam learn of the realness of a creature that they had assumed to be fictional. Dean is not pleased. Crack!fic.
Notes: I don't own SPN; the title is adapted from a song by America. Most of the mythology used here comes from various places, and obviously, I also don't own the hunted here.
“‘Gored to death at Paradise Falls?’ If I ever have a punk rock band, I’m totally calling it that.” Dean tossed the newspaper bearing the unfortunate headline back onto the motel’s rickety table; it wobbled and almost fell over from the impact. “So what do you think is doing it?”
“I dunno. They were all young, that’s one thing, and four out of five were guys. Not a lot of things you’d see in these parts are that distinguishing when it comes to prey; not Wendigos or shapeshifters. Pissed-off spirit of someone dumped in the falls, maybe? It’s unusual for there to be killings in the middle of the woods without the corpses being eaten, or at least drained of blood.” Sam shrugged and pulled his tie tighter. “We’ll have to pull up some records; see if anyone’s drowned or disappeared lately.”
“They weren’t drowned, they were stabbed. Staked. It almost seems cultish.” Dean worked on his suit jacket and pulled two IDs out of his pocket; tossed one to Sam. It felt good to be back in the world of identity theft and fake FBI agents.
“Why now, though? It’s not a solstice, not even a full or new moon.”
“You expect me to know? Hell, I never went to college.” Dean opened the door and was instantly greeted by a wave of warm air that caused sweat to instantly soak through his suit. Global warming, he thought, sucked. “Aren’t there all sorts of weird underground clubs there?”
Sam gave him the Look; the one that sent mother dogs rushing over to see what was wrong with their puppies. He hardly ever used it since getting back from Hell, and Dean felt pathetically happy to see it on his face.
“That’s not fair. I was working hard; I didn’t have time for fraternities.”
“You should have. I would have. Sure would’ve helped with research.” He slid into the driver’s seat of the Impala. “You want coffee before we head off to Paradise?”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Agents Bloom and Bouchard.” Dean flipped his badge out in a well-practiced move. "Here about the string of stabbings."
The legitimate police officer glanced down, yawned, and sipped his coffee. Dean was envious; the only place they’d passed had been the chain of crappy coffee and doughnuts that was slowly killing off all of the mom and pop places across America. “I didn’t realize that we were so high-profile.”
“Well, officer, that’s why we’re the feds and you aren’t.”
“Can you tell us about the first cases?” Sam asked quickly, giving Dean a glare and a jerk of his giant chin. Investigate the area, it said. Dean resisted the urge to stick out his tongue at him.
“Uh, well, there’s been three in the past few months. One or two more, going back a few more. We don’t know what’s happening.” He shrugged. “I mean, these pockets of teens just go up, and they don’t come down. Some of them, I mean. We’ve been patrolling the areas and we haven’t found anything.”
That, Dean figured, was because they clearly sucked at patrolling. Fresh beer cans littered the ground, glinting among the rainbow of candy wrappers. He could see the unmistakable flash of several torn condom packets too. Damn kids these days didn’t know how to pick up after themselves.
The falls, though, looked beautiful. A natural formation, they were made by a river that flowed over a rocky overhang and splashed into a pool below, before flowing out into a larger river that ran through most of the city. The water sparkled, crystalline beneath the early sun. It looked good enough to drink.
He skirted the edge carefully, glancing down. His view to the bottom was perfect; any body or even bones would be pretty obvious. Nothing was there.
“That’s where we’ve been finding the bodies, about a foot from where your partner is. Never in the water, though. I don’t think the blood ever touches it.” The officer rubbed his chin. “I just don’t know. We were thinking serial killer, but all of the victim statements were pretty…”
“There were survivors?” Sam asked, as Dean crouched down to get a better look at where the body had been. “Do you have their names and contact information?”
“Not with me. I can radio the station and let them know you’re coming; they could probably get the files for you.” What was that, in the thicket behind where it had been dumped? Hair? Ghosts didn’t leave hair. He reached out and pulled the clump off of the bush. It was white and wispy, like fine thread falling from his fingers.
"Thanks, Officer. I'm sure we'll be in touch. Dean? Are you ready?"
He stood quickly, digging a Ziploc bag out of his pocket and dropping the white hairs in. "I sure am. We heading to the station now?"
"Yeah. C'mon." They'd look at that later. It might be nothing, but he'd learned a long time ago that risking that was a really stupid idea.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Hair?" Sam pinched the bag in his fingers, holding it up to the bright sun. "And you think that whatever did it left it behind."
"Maybe. It's so clear, I barely noticed it when I was looking through the scene." They coasted away from the police station, heading off to visit seventeen-year-old Emma Pharriss. Back around December she'd been up near the falls with her boyfriend. She'd come back; he hadn't.
Sam put the bag down, frowning. "I don't know offhand what would leave that behind. It looks more like horse hair than anything. A well-groomed horse, at that. I suppose that the trails could be used for riding."
"Could be." There was something else about the scene, something that had been off, but he couldn't manage to put his finger on it. "What do the files say?"
"She was uninjured, but in shock. Said she couldn't remember anything; was never a suspect in the investigation." Sam flipped through the contents of the manilla folder. "There's not much. I'm pretty sure that they don't want teenagers fooling around up there, but she wasn't charged with anything."
"And she didn't say anything? No 'Mr. Ed killed my boyfriend?'"
"Nope. Hey, did you ever hear of anyone hunting a kelpie?" At Dean's glance he elaborated, "A water horse from Scottish mythology. They drown people. And eat them, I think. They're supposed to only haunt Scotland, but it wouldn't be the first misplaced monster we've had lately."
"You'd have to call Bobby. Dad never did, I can tell you that."
"I will, if we don't get anything new from Emma Pharriss." Sam tossed the folder onto the dashboard. "I wonder how you kill a kelpie."
"I wonder what kind of glue you can get from its hooves."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I... I already talked to the police." Emma Pharriss had dark eyes and a wan look about her, like she'd suddenly begun to waste away. She looked way younger than seventeen, Dean thought. Her surroundings probably didn't help; the living room was as kitschy as the kitchen, with cutesy little figurines dotting every surface on their lacy little doilies.
"We know," Sam said gently. "We're from the federal branch, though. I'm sure you're aware that there's been another murder."
"Yeah. I... I knew him." She looked troubled. "I don't know what to say."
"Just tell us what you saw that night," said Dean, shifting forwards on the rose-patterned love-seat. He gave her his best FBI smile. "We won't judge you, and what you say will remain completely confidential."
"I don't know. I think... well, we'd been drinking a bit, you know? Everyone does it, up at Paradise Falls. It was kind of late... the lighting, it was pretty bad..."
"We understand all that. It's okay." Sam nodded encouragingly. "Just tell us what you saw."
"I think..." Emma swallowed hard. "IthinkIsawaunicorn."
Dean looked at Sam, at the shaking teenager, and then back at Sam. "I'm sorry," he said. "My hearing's going. Years of listening to music too loud'll do that for you. What did you say?"
"It looked like a... a unicorn. It was pale, and it had cloven hooves --but they didn't leave any prints-- and its mane was long and white, and it had this... horn."
"...okay," said Sam slowly. "Tell us about the horn."
Once they had established that, indeed, they did not think she was going crazy, Emma began to describe it all with great zeal. "It looked kind of like a horse and a goat had a lovechild, you know? It had those hooves, like I said, and I thought it had a little beard coming down from its chin. It was the size of a regular horse, a Quarter Horse, maybe, but it was too skinny. Its tail was kind of like a lion's, with a really long tuft of hair at the end, but the mane was big and flowy and really pretty."
"White, you said?" Dean pressed.
"Yeah. Actually, it was more like silver. I swear, it was like starlight." She smiled for the first time they had been there. "It was really pretty."
Sam nodded, carefully composed. "And the horn?"
It disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. "Yeah. The horn." She swallowed. "It was big. Maybe a yard? Not very thick."
"And it was white too?"
"Only part of it. It started out white, but the middle black, I think, and the tip of it was red. Kinda like blood."
"All right. So, you and your boyfriend are doing... teen things, and then all of a sudden this unicorn appears." Sam waited for her nod before he asked, "What happens next?"
"We just froze. I mean, a unicorn, you know? I looked at Jeff, kind of wanting to know if he could see it too, and he had the same expression. And then..." all traces of awe had fallen from her face, and she just looked like one of a hundred other victims Dean had ever talked to. "It lowered its horn, and it was looking at him, and..."
Emma put her head into her hands, a choked sob coming from between her fingers.
"We understand." Dean stood up, jerking his chin to the door. "Thank you for your time, Emma."
"We're very sorry for you loss," added Sam.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Unicorns? Really?” This was well on its way to being the most screwed-up case Dean ever did take. “Do they make rainbows when they shi-”
“It isn’t that unbelievable.” Sam was looking at the white hairs again. “Remember awhile back; when we thought an angel was killing people? You didn’t believe in them then, but look where we are now.”
“You think we’re in a better place because of angels?” The motel wasn’t far from where Emma lived, and he was just pulling into a space as he asked that, the disbelief evident in his voice.
“I didn’t say that. But they are real, despite what you used to think. And we just ganked a dragon. Why not unicorns?” Sam shrugged. “It’s not the first weird thing this year.”
"We don't hunt things that are sparkly and pink. We just don't, Sam. Company policy." He carefully closed the door to his car, figuring he could just slam out his frustration on the motel's entrance.
"What was the water like?" Sam unlocked the room and beckoned for Dean to go ahead, effectively foiling his plan.
"What? You mean at the falls?" At Sam's nod he replied, "It was great. Looked drinkable."
"No trash?" pressed Sam, shutting the door.
"No. You think I'd call it drinkable if there was?"
"Our standards are pretty low on everything else. Look, Dean, one of the main unicorn legends is that it can purify water with its horn."
"I don't even want to know how you know that," Dean muttered, pulling the hairs out of his pocket and fingering them through the thin plastic of the bag. "Who's to say it isn't just a clean stream?"
It clicked the moment before Sam spoke. "Did you see all the beer bottles up there?"
"Yeah. And the half-eaten candy bars, the condoms, and everything else. But the river is perfectly crystal-clear. Because a unicorn dipped its horn into it. Makes perfect sense."
"We've got an eyewitness, physical evidence, the wounds fit... Dean, it's a perfect match. Why are you so opposed to it?"
"Because unicorns aren't real." He threw the hair down on the bed. "No. I draw the line at things that sparkle."
"They don't, not according to ancient lore." Sam the techno-geek was on his laptop by now. "The horn, in particular; Emma said it was red, black, and white, right?"
"That's what she said. The teenager who probably hasn't figured out how to hold her alcohol-"
"That's backed up, Dean. There's mixed accounts of its length, its sharpness, and its color, but one of them definitely does say it. One of the earliest, actually. I mean, we could interview another one of the survivors, if you really want, but there's centuries of lore already out there. You can't deny it."
He couldn’t, he really couldn’t. There was nothing to say that the Mother was unable to raise a unicorn, if it pleased her to do so. Or maybe it had just decided on its own that now would be a great time to reappear. Why the hell not?
“Fine.” He threw his hands up in the air. “How do we kill them?”
Sam tapped his keyboard and made a quick search. “A golden bridle usually does the trick - I took medieval literature, okay?” He glared at Dean’s disbelieving face. “That’s just to capture them, though. I think you need to cut off their horns to kill them.”
“Okay. Sounds good to me.” It wasn’t like they were lacking when it came to weapons that were sharp enough to cut a giant horn from a horse’s head. “But how do we find them? Is there a summoning we can do, or do we just throw a greasy burger wrapper into the stream and hope it’s pissed?”
“Legend has it that beautiful virgins were used to lure them out. Actually, it’s sort of like the reverse of the dragons - unicorns don’t harm virgins. That could be why it went for Emma Pharriss’ boyfriend and left her alone.”
“So we need a virgin. Great. I know I’m not… have you been laid since you got your soul back?”
Sam’s cheeks turned red. “Yes!”
Dean raised an eyebrow.
“It was that time when we were in Tennessee. And even if I hadn’t, it’d still count. We know I’ve had sex since I was brought back.”
“If you say so.” Dean sat up on the bed, his chin resting in his hands. “So who do we know who’s a virgin?”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Castiel! Cas! You got a minute?”
“This is the stupidest thing we’ve ever done,” said Sam. “Jimmy Novak has a kid, remember? That usually means he’s not a virgin, Dean.”
“I know. That’s why we’re not calling Jimmy Novak. We’re calling Castiel and his divine chastity.” He turned his face back to the sky - or at least to the motel ceiling and its coffee-colored stains from when it had rained just a little bit too hard - and resumed his rather unorthodox prayer. “We know you haven’t had sex yet, and-”
“I was unaware that my sexual life was of interest to you.”
Dean turned around and saw Castiel, who didn't look too pleased. He tilted his head. "Time is not something that I can afford to waste at the moment, Dean. Is my presence really necessary?"
"Unfortunately, our endless supply of virgins ran out last month, and we need you." Dean paused, then added, "You count, right?"
"By most standards, yes, my occupation of Jimmy Novak's body does signify that it is a place of purity, untouched by sexual intercourse of any kind. Why is that needed?" Cas tilted his head, frowning. "Do you require a sacrificial victim?"
"No!" He didn't even want to know why the hell Cas instantly assumed that. "We just want to use you as bait."
Actually, in retrospect, that actually didn't sound much better than feeding a virgin to a dragon. Trying to make it sound reasonable he explained, "There's a unicorn that's going around killing people, and Sam and I need to find it in order to stop it."
"A unicorn?" Castiel started, and focused intensely on Dean. “Are you certain?”
“We will be if you and your angelic DNA scanner can tell us where these came from.” He handed the Ziploc bag to Castiel, who quickly opened it and removed the hairs. He held the clump between two fingers and peered at it, as intense as one could be whilst peering.
“You’re correct. These are from a unicorn.” He placed the hairs back inside their container and handed it to Dean. “There are very few of these around. I had thought them to be extinct by now.”
“Cas, we’re not about to back down from hunting something that’s on the endangered species list.” Hell, they’d probably wiped out at least one species at some point. He should feel bad about that, probably.
The angel ignored him. “Tradition does dictate that a virgin lure a unicorn in. While there are other methods that you could likely use to find it, unicorns are creatures of old. They respond best to the usage of the ancient customs.”
“…So will you do it?” asked Dean.
“I will.” Castiel paused and then added, “In exchange, I request that I be allowed to remove something from the corpse.”
“The alicorn?” Sam asked.
Castiel answered before Dean could give Sam one of his signature you’re-a-nerd-speak-English looks. “No. I don’t require the horn, although it would likely do you two good to hold onto it, given its healing abilities. Beneath the horn is a ruby, commonly referred to as a carbuncle. It can be used in a variety of ways… I could make use of it.”
Dean glanced at Sam, who shrugged in response. "Sure. If you want it, I guess you can take it."
"Thank you." Castiel paused, and then added, "I have other obligations that will require my attention soon; I expect that you are prepared to do the hunt tonight? I can gather the supplies that you require if they are not already in your arsenal."
"I think we're good. Sam, we still got both machetes?"
"We should. Do you want me to bring them in to sharpen?"
Castiel was looking at them with an expression that was equal parts confusion, horror, and disgust. "You're planning to hunt a unicorn using machetes?"
"Well... yeah... I figured that we'd wait until it was fully enchanted by your pure flower, and then we'd go, cut its horn off. That would kill it, right?"
"It would, but you haven't the skills to execute such a thing," Castiel said bluntly, once again confirming Dean's belief that he simply wasn't good enough. "The unicorn would impale you both before one of you could attempt a swing."
"Thanks, Cas," he muttered. "What do you suggest?"
"We do it in the traditional method. The unicorn will come to me, attracted by my sexual purity. Once it has, I can trap it using a bridle of gold. You two can use spears from the era of the hunt to pierce its heart, and then you can remove its horn. My blade will do for that task; alicorn isn't easily broken."
Dean glanced at his brother again and raised his eyebrow. You take this one.
Sam sighed. "Uh, Cas? That's a good plan, but Dean and I, we don't exactly have golden bridles. Or spears that are from a foregone era, unless you mean, like, the nineties."
Castiel gave Sam his own patented Look, the "Why-do-I-bother-dealing-with-you-mud-monkeys" one. "I'll get them."
He disappeared.
Dean rolled his eyes. "Touché. What's been up his ass lately?"
"A civil war will do that to you." Sam closed his laptop and set it down on the floor. He leaned back, lying down on his bed. "I guess there's nothing we can do now but wait and hope that someone out there is still in the golden bridle business."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Castiel returned shortly after the sun had set, clutching two spears and a bright halter. His hair was disheveled, and there was something that looked suspiciously like blood on the collar of his trench coat.
Dean figured that it would probably be better not to mention it. Naturally, that didn't stop him. "What happened? You pick up the last golden bridle just as someone else did?"
Cas gave him a blank look. Dean sighed and touched the collar of his shirt, hoping he would get the point.
"Oh. I ran into some...trouble while I was retrieving these." He paused, and Dean beckoned for him to continue. "The museum guards didn't understand when I told them that I required usage of their weapons."
"Museum guards?" Sam stepped out of the motel's tiny bathroom. "They were able to get shots out at you?"
"The shots did nothing but graze me. I figured you wouldn't appreciate my smiting the guardians of the weapons, and I didn't want to distract you before a hunt." His brow creased as he frowned, and then added, "You're welcome."
"...thanks," said Dean, figuring that it was best to be polite with the angel, before getting to the more pressing issue. "Why were you holding up a museum?"
Castiel gave him the Look. "We needed weapons that were originally used when unicorns were hunted," he said testily. "Heaven doesn't store every insignificant object that you carve; I required artifacts that had been preserved in other ways. Your medieval weaponry was entirely meaningless to us; naturally, we didn’t waste our reserves on it."
"Oh." For the first time he examined the spears. Oh.
He'd hunted with spears, of course; there were relatively few weapons that couldn't be made crudely at home that he hadn't tried. It wasn't fun and it wasn't handy, but he could do it.
Whether or not he could do it using the sticks in Castiel's hands remained to be seen. At some point, they had probably been good weapons: the spearheads were long and flared at the end, and the shafts were long and would fit well in his grip. In all, he'd hunted things with equipment that was way worse than them.
Except for the fact that, like most weapons, they hadn't exactly been built with the intention of them being used a few centuries later.
“They look kind of… frail,” said Sam.
“They were crafted by the finest weapon-makers of their time. They’ve held up well.” Castiel thrust them into Dean’s hands; he tossed one to Sam. “I suggest that we leave now. From sunset to sunrise is the most common time for the unicorns to be active.”
“How do you know that? Are you familiar with their breeding habits too?” Dean squeezed the shaft of his weapon, and was almost certain that he felt it splinter. “You know what? Never mind. Get in the car.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The waterfall by flashlight wasn’t exactly a pleasant looking place. The water that gushed sounded more like a choking person gurgling desperately than like a natural feature of the land, and the rocks seemed sharp and menacing. Every piece of trash on the ground seemed to be glinting in the beam of light, looking like sharp, pointy things that could probably be used as weapons. As make-out places went, Dean thought, this one sucked.
Castiel didn’t seem fazed by it. He examined the place curiously, turning around several times before getting down on his knees and sweeping the trash away from the riverbank. The golden bridle hung from over his shoulder, winking a thousand times brighter than the litter. When he was satisfied, he primly sat down in his now-clean spot.
Dean glanced at Sam, who shrugged, looking just as confused as Dean felt. Looking back, it probably would have been smart to discuss a plan of action on the drive over. “Cas?”
Castiel looked up, an annoyed expression on his face. “You need to hide, both of you,” he said. “It won’t come with such impurity in plain sight, not unless one of you intends to defile me tonight.”
“Right." Dean decided not to address the second part of the comment. "Will we be in plain sight if we go hide…” he swept the beam of light around the forest. “…behind that clump of bushes?”
“That will be acceptable, so long as you keep silent. I don’t know how long it will take for it to come to me.”
“We’ll be waiting. Come on, Sam.” Dean tugged him over to the bushes. Together they squatted down, spears at their feet. “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” he muttered. “You were right. This is the stupid-”
“Shh,” Sam hissed. “I don’t want to miss this.”
“You want to see a unicorn?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know; it is pretty interesting to know that they’re real, too. But we will scare it away, and I don’t want that to happen, unless you want to stake out a cold, wet forest for another night.”
Dean grunted. He had a point.
Stakeouts in the Impala weren’t exactly fun. There was something about them that instantly made the Impala turn into a painfully tiny, airless space. Dean could drive across the country in his precious without getting so much as a cramp in his leg, but a twenty-minute stakeout? That kind of sucked.
But compared to stakeouts outside, the Impala was palace with posh couches to sit on. Waiting outside, the wet grass dampening his ass, was miserable. Especially given how Castiel was sitting ten feet away, looking as calm as he did when he sat on the edge of Dean's bed and told him how screwed they were.
They had been waiting for half an hour with no sign of anything: no rainbows suddenly sprouting out of the darkness, no sparkles floating through the air, no sounds of gentle hooves tapping upon the forest floor like golden bells being rung.
Dean sighed and shifted. Patience was key, he knew; his dad had always been pretty clear on that. But when you weren't even sure what you were unlocking, knowing that didn't really help. For all he knew, a unicorn was a coping mechanism invented by a person who'd seen something too brutal for her to deal with--
Behind him, Sam straightened and laid a hand on his arm. He nodded to the clearing up ahead where Castiel was sitting.
Dean glanced in that direction. His breath caught in his throat as he took in the majestic sight.
It was... enchanting.
It was shaped like a horse, more or less, but it seemed insulting to describe it as such. Even in the darkness he could see it clearly; see the way its silver hooves delicately stepped on the grass, as though it didn't want to crush a single blade. Its mane was long and white and billowed out around its neck like a puff of white spun sugar; its tail was lion-like and snowy.
A giant horn thrust out from its forehead. It was long and tri-colored, white, black and red. In the light of the full moon, the horn, just like its star-touched coat, practically sparkled. Hell, not even that: it did sparkle, picking up every ray that the moon reflected and subtly letting them shine off of its coat. It was bright and beautiful, dazzling in the nighttime.
It was glorious.
It trotted - if its graceful gait could really be called trotting - up to Castiel, who regarded it with an impassive sort of curiosity. Nickering once, it slowly dropped to the floor, legs folding daintily beneath it, and laid its head on Castiel’s lap. He stroked it, gently brushing aside its white forelock before slipping the golden bridle on. It barely reacted: if anything, it drooped even more as the gold glowed in bright contrast to its pure coat.
“Now,” Castiel said, still petting it. “Strike now.”
Oh. That was right; they were supposed to strike and kill it. Kill the beautiful creature that had its head resting so innocently in Castiel’s lap. All it did was defend the purity of innocent people, right? Was it really-
“DEAN!”
He jumped. Castiel wasn’t a yeller, and now Dean knew why. It really didn’t suit him at all.
The angel looked decidedly annoyed. Rather than gently stroking the mane of the unicorn, he now had a fistful of hair knotted in his fingers. “Resist its spell and do your job. How long the bridle’s spell will hold is unknown, and if I have to strike against it, I’ll likely destroy the key properties of the alicorn and of the carbuncle.”
“Right. Come on, Sam.” He shoved his brother, who looked as though he was in a trance. “Time to off Sparkles.”
Sam jumped at the contact. “Off it? But… yeah. Right.” He shook his head. “Dazed and confused much?”
“Tell me about it.” Dean grabbed the spear and stepped into the clearing. The unicorn, apparently hearing him, lifted his head from Castiel’s lap and looked at him with its fierce, powerful eyes. He’d been dragged into a staring contest with a mythological creature, and he’d be damned if he’d lose.
Sparkles broke first, snorting once and then laying its head back sleepily. He almost felt guilty. “Cas, this is like taking candy from a baby.”
“All unicorns’ horns start out with the same purity that currently extends from the base upwards,” Castiel said, not taking his eyes or his hands off of the drowsy unicorn. “The red at the top comes from the souls of those that it has killed. The black shows how corrupt the unicorn's soul itself has become. When unicorn horns lose all traces of the purity that they began with, they go on rampages. In the Middle Ages some were able to wipe out small villages.”
Well. That changed things slightly. He and Sam circled around it, figuring where best to strike. “How come there’s no record of that?”
“The Church considered such accounts heretical. Strike the heart.”
Dean poked the chest with his spear. “Right here?”
“Ye-”
“Shit!” Sparkles leapt up and reared, shaking its head as if to dislodge the golden bridle. Castiel quickly stumbled backwards into the stream. “I thought we had more time than this!”
“Don’t dwell on that!” Cas snapped. “Pierce the heart!”
Sam was holding his spear like a javelin, and Dean was suddenly wondering if maybe he should have taken track and field when he was in high school. “Dean, I haven’t had to hunt with one of these since we were kids-”
“Neither have I." Had they ever actually used them in the field? When John had taken them regular-hunting, he'd downed a deer one time, but that was when he was twelve or something, and it had just been a doe, not a fucking unicorn with sharp fucking hooves that were right above him--
He stepped back, slipped on the damp grass, fell on his ass, and thrust up blindly. God-fucking-dammit, was this really his life? Survive the apocalypse and get gored to death by a horse with a horn on its head? That sparkled?
The impact of his hit sent shudders through his arms, and he lost his grip on the shaft. He rolled backwards, just avoiding the golden hooves.
Above him, the unicorn screamed. He'd pierced its skin, could see a red stain spreading out from where his spear was dangling in its chest. He scrambled to his knees. "Come on, Sam! Finish it!"
"I know, Dean!" Sam had his spear aimed. "I just need - the right - place -" He thrust his spear a hand's breadth beneath where Dean's was still stuck.
"Suck it, Sparkles!" Dean pushed himself to his feet. "Is it-"
Castiel, soaking wet, was standing behind the unicorn. It had fallen to its knees, keening. Dean was pretty sure that any horse ought to be dead after having two Dark Ages spears thrust in its chest. "It's dying, Dean. You need to sever the horn to complete the act." He held out his Angel-knife. "This will do, I believe. If you wish to make use of the horn, you should be the one to take it," he added. "Tradition."
"Right." He grabbed the hilt -now this was a good weapon- and walked over to the unicorn. It looked up at him again, hate and pain in its dark eyes, and snorted defiantly.
He almost felt sorry for it. Unicorns didn't look evil; it was a lot easier to stab something with coarse hair and ten-inch claws than shoot an innocent-looking werewolf; a lot easier to stab a fugly dragon-man than sever the horn of a symbol of purity--
--and then he remembered the many people that it'd killed, who never had the chance to live just because they'd experienced a natural pleasure of life. And the people who'd have to live with that, for no reason other than they'd chosen to wait a little while.
Fucking unicorns.
The alicorn was heavier than he'd expected. It also wasn't hollow. A white powder rubbed onto his hands when he touched it. "So all of this is good for healing? Even the blood-stained parts?"
"It's not blood so much as it is a physical representation of the number of deaths caused by the unicorn, much as the darkness staining the horn refers to the filth clogging its soul." Castiel had reclaimed his dagger and was using it to cut something out of the unicorn's head. "Alicorn is a powerful material. You'll get the best part from the unsullied areas near the bottom, but all of it can be used to detect poison when added to a suspected drink, or to heal minor wounds when consumed with wine. Red wine." He stood up, unicorn blood staining his hands.
"Where'd that come from?" Dean asked, nodding to the red stone Castiel held. It sure as hell hadn't been there when he sliced off the horn.
"It was there. The unicorn just concealed it well. It was a defense mechanism; hunters would try twice as hard to make a kill if they noticed a unicorn to be bearing one." Castiel made a fist around the ruby. "It is an old one. Those are the best."
"Speaking of old things, I think we broke those spears." Sam nodded to the objects sticking out of the unicorn's chest. "Should we-?"
Castiel impatiently waved his hand, and the spears disintegrated into piled of ash. "There. The unicorn itself will disappear when daylight strikes it. Its corpse will become part of the Earth again."
"Returning to the Earth? So they're like the hippies of the monster world?"
Castiel frowned and tilted his head.
"Never mind. We should probably get going." He turned the horn point-down, holding it like a walking stick. "We'll be seeing you, Cas?"
"In all likelihood, yes." He nodded once before glancing up, ruby clenched in his fist. Without further ado, he disappeared.
"Typical," Dean muttered. "You ready, Sam?"
"I think so." He'd been standing by the riverbank, staring contemplatively into the stream. "You know Dean, we probably did just totally screw up the ecosystem." At Dean's raised eyebrow he elaborated, "The unicorn kept the water pure. Fish and algae and probably other stuff lived in the nice, clean river. Now it's going to be filled with booze and condoms and other crap. Everything'll be off-kilter."
"Huh." He hadn't even thought of that. "I guess it sucks to be a fish around here."
"Yeah." Sam shrugged and turned away. "I guess it does." He paused for a moment. "Hey, you think we could get coffee from anywhere this early?"
"Only one way to find out," said Dean, and they walked away from the unicorn corpse and into the budding day.
Note II: Edited later on May 7; divides apparently don't appear in my journal, and have since been replaced with extremely convenient dashes.