Kiss you When it's Dangerous - Part 2
Back to Part 1
Castiel flashes his badge, completely oblivious to the fact that it’s upside down. The state trooper waves him by anyway, used to seeing all manner of feds show up. Castiel tucks the badge back in his suit jacket and starts looking around the dismal cave. High powered lights are strung around the perimeter, casting a harsh, cold glow over the area. It’s been picked over by crime scene techs, other feds and state troopers. Most of the personal effects that had been there have likely been taken away for processing, but Castiel can see bizarrely empty spots like beacons shouting ‘evidence used to sit here!’, familiar to him after all these years.
He wanders around, not interacting with any of the techs still lingering. At this point, most of the real evidence is likely already collected and it’s the rookies’ jobs to sift through the dirt, take scrapings off the wall, and complete all minute and gruelingly meticulous tasks to finalize the case work while the big guns work on the human remains and artifacts already removed from the scene.
He’s not so much here to see any evidence, or try to find a needle in a haystack. He’s more here to get a sense of the scene. He tries to put away what he knows from previous case work and look at this while thinking what lived here, instead of who.
He finds it’s what he doesn’t see that pings his radar. No fridge, no bed, no toilet, no running water.
However, the place definitely looks lived in. If a human lived here, even one who was a cannibal, there’d be evidence of it. Humans are notoriously messy dwellers. They like their comforts - a chair, a desk, a bench, the aforementioned fridge - even if it was only to store other human’s remains.
But there’s none of that here. It’s more like a… den than a dwelling.
His cell phone rings and he automatically reaches for it, pulling it out of his pocket. He recognizes the number immediately. Being a federal agent, he’s not so stupid as to put the name of a known and wanted felon in any of his personal devices, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t already memorize the number.
"Hello, Dean."
"I’m flattered. You know my number," Dean drawls over the line.
Two state troopers are moving past him, having a conversation about the area and Castiel turns his body slightly to give them berth.
"Where are you?" Dean immediately asks.
"I’m at a crime scene. In a cave," Castiel replies and decides to put his cards on the table. He lowers his voice and turns away from the crowd. "It’s probably rather emptied out since you were here."
There’s a pause on the phone and Castiel swears he can hear Dean smile slowly. "Oh, yeah? What makes you say that?"
"I read the article in the paper. Fingerprints of two known felons were found here on some of the victim’s belongings, but so far, no forensic evidence linking them to the human remains has been found. Preliminary reports from the coroner are… inconclusive. He thinks the remains were contaminated by animals in the area feeding on them, corrupting any evidence that was likely left behind. But you already know that what lived here wasn’t human, don’t you?"
He can hear the slight rustle of clothing and imagines that Dean is shrugging on the other end of the line. "Not a lot to go on, Cas. Sounds pretty circumstantial to me."
"Mary-Louise Rawlings says next time you’re in town, you should stop by for casserole. And pie."
There’s a longer pause this time and then Dean sighs. "Damn, that woman’s pie is really good. Meringue a mile high. I didn’t even know such a thing as butterscotch pie was out there."
"She’s still very grateful for the… assistance you provided."
"She was a nice lady."
"Dean," Castiel says, his voice low, "what lived here?"
"You’re sure you wanna go all the way down that rabbit hole? It goes pretty deep. Gets pretty dark."
"I think that Uriel already forced me into it. Didn’t he?" Cas counters. "And I think that if I want to find out what he did to me and why he did it, the answer is down this rabbit hole."
"Fair enough. You know, the Native Americans have a myth about a creature that feeds on human flesh. They call it a wendigo. In a lot of their myths, it’s a spiritual creature that possesses a person, makes it crave human flesh, drives the host mad. Part of the myth is that it can never be satisfied, no matter how much it eats. It’s always hungry, can’t be stopped unless you kill it."
"Wendigo," Cas repeats, turning the unfamiliar word over in his mouth. "How does one kill it?"
"Shot to the head usually works on a lot of things. Then to be extra sure, you salt and burn the body. Usually keeps most things down."
"I see."
"Do you? ‘Cause they don’t exactly teach this in FBI 101."
Castiel wanders outside of the cave, ducking under the crime scene tape and heading back down the well-trampled path that leads to his car. "When I was… when Uriel… when you rescued me, I… saw the black smoke."
"Ah. You know, I wasn’t sure if you remembered that."
"That… smoke. It was… living inside those people, wasn’t it?"
"Demonic possession. Only two ways out of that. Death or exorcism. I favor exorcism, but sometimes… sometimes they get the jump on you." There’s a moment of silence on the phone, the only sounds Cas’ slightly labored breathing as he strides down the hill. "You wanna ask again if my brother and I are insane?"
"I think it would be easier if you were. But you’re not," Cas says, sure of the words.
"Unfortunately, no."
"I take it you didn’t call just to be social."
"Well, this conversation is going to go a lot easier than I expected if you’ve gone all Mulder on me."
"I don’t understand that reference."
He heard Dean’s slight chuckle, throaty and amused. "No? Little too close to home, I guess. Here’s the thing, Cas. Chances are good your old pal, Uriel, had a book, a grimoire it’s called. Spell book."
Castiel mouths the word ‘grimoire’ turning it over the strange syllables like he did ‘wendigo.’
"Could be a lot of the translations of the symbols you drew are in that book."
"All of Uriel’s personal possessions were seized by the FBI. Our office, his home, his car. I believe nearly everything of interest is in evidence."
"Yeah," Dean replied. "That’s kind of where you come in. See, Sam and I can’t exactly waltz back into town pulling the FBI cover. Kind of only works until our prints show up in the system and then, the jig is up."
"Stealing evidence is a crime," Castiel says, more to himself as he ponders it than to Dean.
"C’mon, all the cool kids are doing it," Dean cajoles, his tone light.
"I’ll see what I can do."
"That’s the law-breaking spirit."
"Have you found anything further on Uriel or his plans yet?"
"No," replies Dean and Castiel feels a keen sense of disappointment at the words. "But we’ve got our feelers out. Like I said, he’s a big fish and he’s going to pop up again, it’s just a question of time."
"And what will you and your brother do until then?"
"We keep doing what we’re doing. Hunting."
"Is that what you call it?"
He can hear the shrug that Dean’s body must be giving in Dean’s tone when he answers. "What else can we call it? We find big bads and put them down. It’s not like we have a penal system for them."
"Why do you do it?"
Dean lets out a wry huff. "What else am I gonna do, Cas? Get a haircut and a real job? Pretend I don’t know what’s out there?"
Castiel doesn’t have a reply to that. It makes all too much sense. "How should I contact you if I do find the book?"
"I’ll keep this phone. You can text. Or call. Whatever," Dean adds quickly.
It’s at this point that one of them should say something to end the call. Perhaps something clever or charming, witty or profound. But the silence stretches out on the phone between them, neither one jumping in with anything to add. The only sound is that of the woodland underneath Cas’ feet as he heads back to his car, his breathing only slightly labored. Dean’s breaths are nearly inaudible on the phone by comparison.
After another thirty seconds of silence goes by, Dean clears his throat.
"So, uh, yeah. That’s it."
Castiel doesn’t know what makes him reply, "Be careful, Dean."
Dean laughs and when Castiel shivers at the sound, he tells himself it’s from the cold of the encroaching night.
"Why, Cas, I didn’t know you cared."
The call ends abruptly and Castiel keeps the phone by his ear for a few seconds of total silence, not realizing at first that it’s over.
He finally pockets his phone and makes his way back to his car, already contemplating how he’ll access impounded evidence. As the victim of Uriel’s crime, his interest in the evidence won’t be extraordinary, but given how notorious Uriel’s betrayal has become in such a short amount of time, it will be difficult to remove anything he finds.
If he finds anything at all.
He spends a lot of time that night researching wendigos and then making a list of other supernatural creatures. He really doesn’t know how absurd is too absurd when you’re making a list of things you thought weren’t real. He has wendigos, vampires and werewolves on his list immediately and starts adding things as he comes across them. Skin-walkers, jikininki, poltergeists, ghosts, rakshasas, goblins, ghouls… He’s not sure where to stop. Before now, if he’d come across a list of this nature, he would have dismissed it entirely, but now…
Before he can over think it, he types out a quick text.
Is there anything that isn’t real?
He’s surprised when his phone buzzes only moments later and feels… something at the fact that Dean appears to have immediately grasped what he was referring to.
Sasquatch.
He types back. I’m disappointed in that. Surprisingly so.
He feels a flush of amusement when he sees the reply.
Kind of a bummer, no?
Despite his recent findings, he goes to bed feeling more content than he has in years.
***
As Dean hangs up, he can feel Sam’s eyes on him.
"What?"
Sam gives him a look and then shrugs. "Nothing."
"Don’t ‘nothing’ me."
Sam smirks. "You’re smiling."
"So?" Dean shoots back, feeling defensive.
Sam raises his hands in a gesture of surrender. "So, nothing. Nothing," he repeats but his smirk turns into a full out grin. "Is your Castiel gonna go looking for the grimoire?"
Dean resists the urge to protest that Castiel isn’t ‘his’ and nods. "Yeah, he said he’d check it out."
"You told him about the wendigo?"
"He was in the cave. Guess he’s been putting two and two together and coming up with ‘freaky-four.’ Dropped in on one of our old hunts. Doing some recon it sounds like."
Sam nods, hands clasped and hanging between his knees as he sits on the hotel bed. "He seem okay with it?"
Dean makes a face. "‘bout as okay as anyone can be finding out what’s out there, but yeah. I think he’s doing all right."
"Good, good," Sam replies, still grinning ridiculously at Dean.
"Seriously, what?"
Sam shakes his head. "I’ll go grab us dinner, you just, hang out. Think about… things."
Sam gets up and Dean’s eyes follow him, squinting in confusion. "What things? Stop being such a dramatic princess, Sammy."
The last part is shouted as Sam chuckles his way out the door of the hotel room.
***
No one really looks at Castiel twice when he signs himself into the evidence locker that’s holding all of Uriel’s items.
He guesses he should just consider himself lucky that Internal Affairs never believed for a moment that he had anything to do with what Uriel was involved in.
He feels weird going through Uriel’s things. Like some kind of strange voyeur. But he also feels a sense of entitlement too. He needs to go through Uriel’s things, he deserves to know why Uriel used him, for what purpose.
He also feels a underlying sense of sorrow. They weren’t close friends, but he had imagined the two of them as comrades in arms. Colleagues. Rifling through evidence boxes and items, he has to keep distancing himself, remind himself that Uriel is a criminal. Uriel betrayed him.
He tries not to remember their shared pride and victory over successfully closed cases or investigations going well. He thought they worked well together. He can’t help but wonder, was it all a lie?
And if it was, how was he blind to it for so long?
He checks over the evidence list again and sees what he’s looking for - journals, books and papers, in boxes 12 to 14, shelf 5. He pulls the boxes down and immediately spies a well-worn leather bound book.
It practically screams ‘grimoire’ and he’s a little taken aback at the simplicity of it all. But he supposes that maybe the universe owes him one.
He sits on the ground, cross-legged, ignoring the dust that is sure to cling to his suit and flips through it. He can see instantaneously that it’s what he wants; the symbols are there as well as notes in another language. Latin or perhaps something else, he’s not sure. The evidence tag on the book suggests this is one of their key pieces, and given the nature of Uriel’s crime, he’s not surprised. He carefully signs the book out and heads to the local copy shop.
He spends longer there than necessary, flipping through pages, trailing his finger over passages. He finds an entire section dedicated to the symbols that are forever carved into his chest and it takes him a moment to shake himself out of his reverie and copy the pages on the high-end, industrial copier. He doesn’t know why, but he separates those pages out from his growing stack and folds them, tucking them into the inside pocket of his jacket. He feels almost… protective of them. As though because the symbols are carved into his chest, they somehow belong to him.
As he fingers the cover of the book, he realizes it’s a little too thick, too soft on the inside. He picks at the slightly curled edge of the inside cover and pulls a little. It folds back and he can see even more pages tucked into the binding of the book. Glancing around, he grabs a pair of sharp scissors from the copy help-desk and slices the rest of the binding away.
The pages he pulls out are filmy thin, tissue paper, nearly translucent in places and the ink… He brings them up close to his face and squints. No, not ink.
Blood.
The brownish-red is stark against the thin, pale paper. He tries to copy them but finds the bleed-through of light makes the copies illegible. He hesitates and then folds them carefully up again, matching their previous creases and tucks them into his pocket along with his other papers.
He feels less like an FBI agent and more like a criminal. He had figured a copy of the book would be enough for Dean, and there really was no need to steal it if he could make a copy, but taking these pages is a federal offense. Although he wonders exactly how Uriel will be tried once caught. Although gruesome, what Uriel did to Castiel is only considered aggravated assault with intent to kill. Given the circumstances and with a good lawyer, he could easily plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
As for Dean’s assertion that Uriel was attempting to open a portal to the other side… well it’s not as though they can charge him with crimes of a supernatural nature.
Castiel is no fool. He can easily see how Dean and Sam do what they do, and why it needs to be done the way it is done. In secret and silence, under the radar of the police. No one would believe them and the justice system is hardly capable of handling such cases.
He resolves not to feel guilty for taking the pages from FBI custody and sealing the inner cover back up like he never opened it.
Although, he does feel guilty about tucking the other pages, the ones about the symbols carved into his chest, into his suit pocket and not including them in the copy he’s preparing for Dean and Sam.
He can’t explain it. They feel… personal to him. Private.
He texts Dean when he’s done, letting him know that he has procured him a copy of what he is confident is Uriel’s grimoire.
You made copy?
It was not necessary to steal it permanently. A copy should suffice. he replies back.
Boy scout comes Dean’s reply.
As a matter of fact, yes I was, he sends.
One of these days we’ll have to see about getting you to cut loose ;)
It occurs to him that Dean might be flirting with him a little bit. It makes his ears go warm and he looks around surreptitiously, as though someone will suspect what he’s up to. He can’t even remember the last time someone actively flirted with him.
Worse, he can’t remember the last time he flirted back. He’s suddenly nervous, wanting to say something confident and flirtatious in reply but having no idea what.
It’s a moot point anyway as another text comes in from Dean telling him to send the book to a Bobby Singer in South Dakota. Dean notes him as a ‘friend’ and Castiel feels his heart sink a bit. Dean probably has a lot of ‘friends’ in a lot of different places. He sends back a quick confirmation that he got the address and then, eyeing the copier, decides to make a full copy of the book for himself as well before heading to the post office.
Just because Dean has a ‘friend’ looking into it, doesn’t mean Castiel can’t research it as well.
***
It seems as though now he’s looking for strange and bizarre cases, they are everywhere.
He starts a small collection of files of interest in his file cabinet and quickly has to upgrade his storage when he fills it within a month.
A lot of things don’t make it all the way up to the FBI, so he finds himself trolling local police databases for more information. Missing persons, disturbed graves, reports of strange disturbances… in the absence of any new casework being assigned to him, he has time to investigate them all.
If he wasn’t so busy chasing ghosts, ghouls, vampires and werewolves, he might have gotten around to pestering his supervisor for some regular casework. As it is, he’s busy enough following up on leads he finds in the several newspapers he now subscribes to that he barely notices that he hasn’t been assigned anything new.
Dean sends some sporadic updates on Bobby’s progress, or lack thereof, on Uriel’s grimoire. Castiel carefully notes everything that Dean says down and has started his own research. He begins by brushing up on his Latin and starting on Enochian and Phoenician. He makes meticulous, almost fussy notes on his copy of the grimoire. He keeps the pages with the copies of the symbols on his chest taped up on the wall in his office at home and he stares at them every day, wondering if they will ever be decipherable to him.
He sends Dean questions about the things he comes across in the local papers and older FBI files. Sometimes Dean is quick to burst his supernatural bubble, stating the report Castiel is looking at sounds more like a human monster than a paranormal one, or the ravings of a mad man reported in the newspaper don’t sound like anything of interest. Other times Dean fires back a quick one word reply of his educated guess: ghoul, poltergeist, poltergeist, ghost, revenant, poltergeist.
Castiel is surprised at how many times ‘poltergeist’ or ‘ghost’ is the answer and he tells Dean that in one of his texts. Dean sends back:
Shrug. Nothin wrong with a salt and burn. Piece of cake. Can’t all be wraith.
He hurriedly starts researching ‘wraith’ after that comment and adds it to his growing list of creatures.
He plays a game with himself when Dean calls, trying to figure out where Dean is by any background noises or any details Dean divulges. He never tells Dean his guesses, not wanting Dean to even know he’s trying to figure it out.
When he hears loud traffic in the background, he pictures Dean sitting in his car, perhaps on some kind of stakeout. Sometimes he hears a television playing low in the background and he can picture Dean stretched out on a bed, legs crossed at the ankle, body loose and relaxed.
He thinks about Dean a lot that way. He shouldn’t, but he does.
Sometimes Dean calls to tell him more information about the grimoire and they end up on the phone for an hour; Castiel asking question after question. Are sirens real? How do you kill them? How would it feel to be under the influence of one? You were? When? What happened? Why do some people come back as ghosts and others as poltergeists? What if you can’t find the body to salt and burn?
Sometimes they talk about things other than the paranormal. Castiel once made the mistake of telling Dean about his brother’s new club and how Gabriel is always harassing him to go. Dean asks him why he doesn’t and Castiel admits that he doesn’t really have anything in common with the people who frequent Gabriel’s club. They’re flashy and everything in their lives seems disposable - money, phones, friends. They will attempt to speak with him and he will find them intrusive.
Dean says sometimes it’s nice to go someplace loud and just let everything else get drowned out.
Castiel wonders if that’s what Dean does, but he doesn’t ask.
Dean promises the next time he’s in town, he’ll take Cas out for a drink.
Without thinking, Castiel asks if that would be before or after he’s finished dodging his arrest warrants. As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he wants to snatch them back.
Then suddenly, Dean laughs.
"Are you gonna arrest me, Cas?" Dean asks, humor lacing his tone.
"No," Castiel answers honestly. "I told you the first night I met you I wouldn’t arrest you."
Dean laughs again only this time it’s lower, softer.
"So you did."
Another one of their long silences stretch out on the phone where neither of them say anything. Castiel has never minded silence and minds it even less when it’s with Dean.
"But you should go. To you brother’s club. Have a drink," Dean finally says, breaking the silence.
"Perhaps," Castiel replies.
"Tell you what, if you go to your brother’s club, I’ll head out right now and go have a drink somewhere and if someone comes up to talk to you and you don’t like the look of them, you can tell them you’re already having a drink with someone. Me."
"Ah yes, the invisible drinking partner. I’m sure that will go over fantastically."
He can hear Dean shrug. "It’ll most likely get them to leave you alone."
Castiel considers this and agrees. "All right. I will go for one drink."
"Better make it two, I’m not a cheap date."
Dean hangs up before Castiel can say anything in reply, although truth be told, he’s at a loss for words. He’s both confused and excited by Dean’s flirtations. He’s never quite sure how to react. He doesn’t know Dean well enough to know if this is just how Dean interacts with everyone or if he’s actually flirting with him, instead of just someone. Castiel has never been good at flirting. Gabriel has attempted many times to ‘school’ him in art but each time just left Castiel feeling confused and flustered and Gabriel bemoaned the fact that they were of the same genetic material.
He considers just staying in, going over case files or watching television but it feels dishonest. He changes quickly into a pair of dark jeans, casual shirt and jacket and heads out to Gabriel’s club, The Bank.
When he gets there, the line to get in stretches down the building and around the corner. He parks his car about two blocks away, stuffs his hands in his pockets and walks, head down toward the club. He has to pass by the bouncers and maitre’d to head toward the end of the line. As he’s going, he feels a tap on his shoulder.
"Cas!"
He turns around and finds himself facing Gabriel’s partner, Balthazar.
"I thought that was you, little devil, trying to sneak by."
"I was heading for the line."
Balthazar rolls his eyes and, making eye contact with the bouncers, points at Cas.
"This is Gabriel’s brother, Castiel. If you ever see him wandering about aimlessly, phone social services. He’s probably reported lost."
"Very funny," Castiel intones.
"What’s funny is you lining up like one of the heathens. Get inside, your brother fancies himself a bartender tonight." Balthazar hits him good-naturedly on the back and sends Castiel through the front double doors.
The music that could be heard outside is overwhelming inside. The heavy bass is matched by the strobe lights and Castiel blinks a few times trying to make his eyes adjust. He peers over the heads of the crowd, looking for his brother; when he finds him, he wishes he was surprised.
Gabriel is lying down on the bar while two very beautiful women pour liquor right from the bottle into his mouth. He takes several swallows and then hops to his feet on top of the bar - his body small but strong. Though Castiel can’t actually hear him over the music he can see Gabriel hooting and hollering and then he jumps down behind the bar. The two women jump up on the bar and start doing some kind of tandem dance and - wow, he tilts his head slightly at them and wonders if he should be arresting them for lewd public acts.
He’s pushed along by the throng of the crowd and finds himself a few steps from the bar just as Gabriel spots him.
"Baby bro!" Gabriel yells. Or at least, Castiel presumes he yelled it since he really only saw Gabriel’s lips move and didn’t actually hear anything about the bass of the music. As he reaches the bar, Gabriel leans over it and grabs him by the shoulders hard, pulling him in and leaving a sloppy, whiskey laden kiss on his cheek.
He remembers now why he usually avoids his brother’s clubs.
He wipes off his face with the back of his hand and, this close to Gabriel, can faintly hear his brother introduce him to two waitresses standing close to the bar. How they manage to hear anything at all confounds and amazes Castiel. They both nod - one a younger, attractive looking man who seems to look Cas up and down, and the other another stunning woman who appears to have no interest in him.
"You shoulda told me you were stopping by!" Gabriel shouts at him, leaning over the bar as he places a beer down in front of Cas.
"I didn’t know myself."
"Whoo! Look at you! Mr. Spontaneity!"
Castiel manages a weak grin and, as he raises the beer to his lips, gives a quick thought to Dean, wherever he may be.
***
Dean pockets his phone and stands up from where he was lounging on the bed. Sam looks up at him and smirks.
"Going for a drink?" Sam asks, with a twinkle in his eye.
"Nosy Nellie," Dean grouses as he slides his arms into his leather jacket.
"You’re in the same room as me, Dean, I’m hardly eavesdropping."
Dean rolls his eyes. "Whatever. Did you wanna come?"
Sam smiles. "No, no. You go on. Have your drink with ‘Cas’," he replies, making air quotes around the name.
Dean pockets his room key and heads out, leaving Sam chuckling to himself.
There’s a pub at the other end of the parking lot and Dean ambles down the pavement, the low amber light of the street lamps lighting his way. He shoves his hands into his pockets as he walks. It’s not a cold night, but it’s not warm either. Before he knows it, he’s stepping inside, hearing the sounds of an old jukebox blaring out 70s rock. A place like this would’ve been called a saloon in the old days - reliable, worn, full of locals and regulars getting together to toss one back. He jerks his head in greeting at the bartender and orders a beer, tossing down some bills to pay for it at the same time.
He settles into the bar stool, not looking around. He doesn’t need to really, he got all the details of the joint when he walked in and his peripheral vision has been honed from years of hunting. He rarely needs to turn his head around to get the lay of the land or keep apprised of what’s going on around him. It’s not really a surprise when a couple of people try to sit next to him and engage him in a conversation. A pretty girl at the start of his beer, a prettier boy near the end. Dean doesn’t even glance over at them, just nods once or twice, gives a couple of one word answers and keeps focused on his beer. They both give up after a few minutes.
He hasn’t really been interested in anyone for a while.
Not since….
Well, that’s a kettle of fish he doesn’t know if he wants to bust open. He knows damn well when it was that he stopped being interested in other people and started looking forward to late night phone calls from nerdy federal agents and discussions on werewolves, wendigoes and witches. He spins his beer bottle in his hands, picking at the edge of the label. It’s a dumb crush he’s got, he knows that. Fed like Castiel and hunter like Dean? It’s got ‘bad idea’ written all over it.
In big, capital letters. In bold. Underlined.
He swigs back the last of his beer and when the bartender catches his eye, Dean crooks his finger to order another one.
Bad idea though it may be, it doesn’t stop him from letting his mind drift once in a while. And if maybe once or twice he’s had some ‘personal’ time in the shower while thinking about blue eyes and messy dark hair, well, no harm no foul, right?
Right.
He puts down a few more bills to pay for his next beer, enjoying the first sharp swallow of his fresh beer on the heels of the warm-ish remainder of his first.
He wonders what Cas is drinking. If he’s holding his own beer in his long, slender fingers.
Dean bites the inside of his lip.
Really fucking bad idea.
***
After two beers, a glass of water, numerous pleadings from Gabriel and one very distinctive, unmistakable and hard pinch on his ass, Castiel is more than ready to call it a night.
Even with all his skills as an FBI agent, he has no idea who pinched him. The club is so crowded there were easily four people within pinching distance.
None of them held any interest for him, so he let it go.
It seems impossible but the club has gotten even more populated since he arrived. A quick glance at his watch shows him it’s just past eleven, which must be when all the party goers really get their game on. He manages to wade his way through the crush of people, nod at the bouncers and then he’s blissfully out of the muggy interior and in the fresh, crisp air of outside.
He takes the walk back to his car slow, enjoying the relative silence after the ear-drum pounding he received in the club. He can hear his ears ringing faintly and he bemoans the loss of his youth.
But that’s not just ringing he hears.
He pauses, not even wanting the sounds of his footsteps cluttering up his hearing and he strains.
There they are.
The sounds of a struggle.
He knows the sounds well. He’s been in enough fights with suspects in his time, assisted on enough busts to recognize them for what they are. They are the sounds of one person trying to force another person to do something they don’t want to do.
They’re coming from the gap in between the two buildings just in front of him.
He’s thankful that he feels completely ill-prepared for life in general without his gun, and hence never leaves home without it. He draws it from his underarm holster, equally glad he took Balthazar’s advice on an exorbitant tailor to custom fit a jacket that would conceal his weapon. He falls into the creep-step that is the hallmark of many a law professional. He presses his body up against the wall and peers around the corner.
He immediately sees a woman being dragged by the wrist deeper into the alley and it’s readily apparent, she doesn’t want to go.
"Federal agent, hands up," he declares easily, his low register always giving the words more power.
The man spares one glance over his shoulder and smirks at the sight of Castiel leveling his Berretta at him.
"I don’t think you can stop me with that little pea shooter," he drawls. He’s easily taller and broader than Castiel, but Castiel knows he has training on his side.
"Again, federal agent, put your hands up and let her go."
The tall brunette is struggling wildly against her captor, probably twisting her wrist viciously in the process. The man just hangs onto her as though she’s negligible.
In a split second, the man hisses and….
flashes his fangs…
At Castiel.
Castiel has a moment to think, wow, vampire, before the man pushes the woman against the brick wall of the alley and rushes at him.
Castiel doesn’t flinch and shoots him once in the shoulder and then again in the right knee-cap.
The man, no, vampire, stumbles and falls on his shattered knee, bracing himself with one hand. He looks up at Castiel and hisses; his mouth is a cavern of sharp calcium stalactites and stalagmites, pinioning forth in a gruesome display. He starts to push himself up.
And he’s pissed.
In his mind, he can hear Dean’s voice, low and even. It’s a shame you can’t stake them because decapitation really is a bitch to pull off.
Decapitation.
Castiel shoots him once in neck, the creature’s jugular letting loose an impressive spray of cardinal fluid.
The vampire staggers, back to his knee and then resumes the motion of pushing himself back up.
Castiel shoots him again in the neck, adding to the arterial spray that’s arcing out. The creature falls backward this time, skull hitting the pavement with a loud ‘thwack.’ Castiel steps closer, gun lowered and kicks at the vampires feet.
He doesn’t move, but upon further inspection, Castiel can see his eyelids blinking, mouth working. The teeth are retracting in and then pushing back out. In and out, in and out.
It’s a little sickening.
He hears a scurrying sound and turns just in time to see the brunette make a run for it away from them both.
She really is making good time given the height of her heels.
Keeping a few steps in between the possibly dying vampire and himself, he switches his gun to a single hand hold and pulls out his phone.
Dean answers on the first ring.
"Cas, are you calling to see how drunk I am, and how easy that might make me?" Dean’s voice is smooth and sinful.
"I need to know if shooting a vampire in the neck, possibly severing the spinal cord counts as decapitation."
"Where the fuck are you?" Dean’s tone immediately shifts from flirty to all business.
"In an alley outside my brother’s club and…" Castiel’s ears strain. "The gunshots are drawing the police." he looks down at the vampire whose teeth are still going in and out but at a slower rate. "I think it’s still alive."
"Jesus fuck!" Dean exclaims. "Are you sure it’s a vamp?"
Castiel directs the phone’s camera to the creature and gets a shot of it with its teeth out. He hits send and waits for the tell-tale ‘whoosh’ to tell him the picture’s been delivered.
"Fair enough," says Dean on the phone as he sees the shot.
"Is it enough that his spinal cord is likely severed?" Castiel repeats. The sirens are getting louder and he really doesn’t want to be caught with the body. He’s a federal officer and he shot to kill against a man that appears unarmed.
It won’t look good.
He’s supremely glad he took one of his personal firearms and not his standard issue, which would already have ballistics entered in the system.
"Dean," he prods.
"I don’t know, Cas. It’s never really come up."
"What do I do?"
"Fuckit, shoot it again in the neck, just to be sure. Sammy and I’ll - "
Dean’s voice is cut off by the sound of Castiel firing into the creature’s neck. Its teeth were stuck on descent and remain partially protruding.
The sirens are almost upon Castiel.
"I have to go," he says sharply, disconnecting the call, stuffing the phone in his pocket and the gun back in his holster. He exits out of the alley way and finds a small pack of club goers carousing loudly just half a block ahead of him. He jogs to catch up, making himself appear part of their merry revelry. He sees the police cars speed by, sees the cops look out the window and see a group of kids, drunk, but harmless.
He makes it back to his car and then his apartment, shrugging out of his jacket and quickly taking his gun to his kitchen. Not that it would turn up in any ballistics reports, but he’d prefer to have it cleaned just in case.
Castiel can likely never use it again, lest it be traced back to him. He leaves it dissembled and locks it in one of his small lock boxes. Then he carefully takes off everything he is wearing and sends it through two wash cycles on hot. It wouldn’t be enough if they were seized, but it’s definitely enough to pass a cursory inspection. He quickly showers and tosses on a pair of sleeping pants and a t-shirt. He stands in his hallway, hands on his hips, thinking.
He doesn’t think there was anything about tonight that would leave behind enough evidence for probable cause. There’s the woman, but she was frightened, under attack. He doubts she got a very good look at him and even if she did, she didn’t actually see him shoot the vampire.
Not that Castiel could use that as a defense.
He’s saddened and surprised by how easy it would be for him to get away with the shooting. Castiel knows he had just cause, knows there wasn’t anything else to be done, not after what he’s learned from Dean but if it hadn’t been a monster, if Castiel himself had been some crazed punk on the street… He sighs. It’s too easy to see why there are so many unsolved crimes.
Castiel sits down with a beer he grabbed from his fridge and if this isn’t an unusual day, a three beer day, he doesn’t know what is. He casually flips on his phone to check his messages.
He finds six missed calls from Dean and four texts. He calls him immediately, not waiting to listen to any of the messages nor read the texts.
"Jesus fucking Christ that better be you Cas!"
"Hello to you as well, Dean."
"Are you okay?"
"Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?" Castiel asks, eyebrows drawn together in confusion.
"Oh, I don’t know," says Dean sarcastically. "Maybe because you were in an alley with a goddamned vampire and you hung up on me!"
"I had to hang up on you. The police were coming and I needed to leave."
"Did you skip over something there? Vampire. You could have been hurt, you could have been bit."
"But I wasn’t."
"That is so not the fucking point!" Dean exclaims. "Jesus, you’re not… you’re a …"
"I’m a federal agent, Dean. I’m hardly a damsel in distress."
Dean lets out a sharp exhale. "You don’t know what’s out there."
"I know more than most. More than I did before," Castiel counters. "What would you have had me do, Dean? There was a young lady who was being taken against her will. It’s my job to uphold the law and protect the innocent. The fact that he turned out to be a vampire and I know what I do… well, it’s actually quite fortuitous."
"Fort-" Dean sputters. "What?"
"Fortuitous. Lucky. Advantageous. Serendip-"
"I know what it fucking means," snarls Dean into the phone. "He could have killed you."
"I was hardly unarmed. And as I said, I’m a federal agent and was already in the process of doing something when I realized what he was."
"It was still a risk," Dean grumbles, but Cas can tell from his tone that he’s been won over.
"My job entails many risks," Castiel answers quietly. "As does yours."
"Fine, fine. You’re a fucking hero and you saved the damsel and slew the monster."
"Did I? Slay the monster? Do you think it’s dead?"
There’s a pause on the phone while Dean considers. "I dunno, man. We’ve always -" he makes a sort of chopping sound, "-with the head. I’m not sure if severing the spinal cord is enough. How do you even know you hit it?"
"I’m an excellent marksman."
"Of course you are," Dean says dryly. "Well, if you didn’t kill it, some coroner is going to get the shit scared out of them tonight and if they’re lucking, Sucky McVampire will clear out before draining any of them."
Castiel sits up. "Do you think that’s what will happen?"
Dean lets out a mirthless laugh. "They don’t tend to wake up from being almost killed in a good mood, Cas."
Castiel starts looking around for clothing. "I’ve got to get to the morgue it was taken to," he says more to himself than Dean.
"Whoa, whoa. Didn’t we just discuss this? This is not your job."
"And I told you, protecting people is my job. I have to go, Dean."
"Goddammit!" Dean swears. "Just… Sammy and I can be back in town in a day or so. Just… if it’s not dead, you gotta take the head right off. I mean, like clear off. Inch between head and body."
"I understand what decapitated means. You don’t have to explain," Castiel replies, though his words hold no anger.
"And Jesus, don’t get caught," Dean continues. "I mean don’t get bitten either, but definitely don’t get caught."
"I will be careful, Dean."
"Yeah, yeah," Dean grouses. "Look, if either happens, you call me. Or Bobby. You got Bobby’s number?"
Castiel bristles slightly at the name of Dean’s ‘friend’ Bobby Singer. He still has no idea what the nature of their relationship is. Sam and Dean appear to stay at Bobby’s at times, and in a pinch, it always seems to be of him they speak.
"I will not need it."
"Just fucking remember it," Dean says and he rattles it off and Castiel goes through the motions of repeating it back.
"I have to go, Dean."
"Wait, just-" Dean says quickly, his words hanging into dead silence.
"I told you, I’ll be careful," Castiel repeats lowly.
"Don’t get dead, Cas."
"I won’t," he promises and then hangs up before Dean can stop him again.
In minutes he’s dressed and out the door. As a federal agent living in the city, he’s already got a good guess of the first hospital they would have taken the creature too. He’ll check there first, and if it’s not there, he’ll move down his list.
***
Dean tosses his phone down on the bed and yanks out his duffle, starting to stuff things inside. He’d only just gotten back from having his drink when his phone rang and it had been Cas. Dean’s mood had gone from ‘pleased’ to ‘petrified’ to ‘pissed’ and ramped up to ‘pack and go.’
He can feel Sam’s eyes on him.
"What?" he snaps.
From his perch on his bed, Sam looks down at the duffle and back up at Dean.
"We need to go back," says Dean as though it’s obvious. "He’s got at least one vamp in town. Could mean a whole nest."
"Did he say that?" asks Sam.
"No, he didn’t," Dean huffs. "He doesn’t know, Sammy. He’s… this could be trouble."
"And I’m not saying it isn’t," clarifies Sam. "I’m just… he is FBI."
"Why does everyone feel the need to remind me of that?"
"I’m just saying. If anyone can handle themselves, it’s Castiel."
"Just shut up and start packing. It’s a hunt. That’s what we do, isn’t it? We hunt?"
Sam nods. "Yep. Packing," he replies and Dean knows he’s being placated.
At this point, Dean doesn’t care if he’s being unreasonable or oversensitive or what-the-fuck-ever. He just wants to head back to town and see if Cas is okay.
Because where there’s one vampire, there are usually more.
And he and Cas are friends now. After a fashion.
Hunters help each other out.
Not that Cas is a hunter because he’s not. He’s a suit. Hell, he already got himself in a shitstorm mess with the whole Uriel thing.
And look how that turned out.
Not that you ever see that kind of shit coming, but still.
He stuffs the last of his clothes in the bag and goddamn, it’s time to do laundry, and heads to the bathroom to grab his shaving kit. He packs up Sam’s while he’s in there and tosses it to him on the way out.
"What? Now? Right now?" asks Sam.
"You got somewhere you gotta be tonight other than driving to a hunt?"
"Dean, it’s one in the morning. We can’t even check out."
Dean rolls his eyes. "‘Cause we’ll be in so much trouble if we don’t check out."
"Look, I get you’re worried about Cas, but let’s just… give it till morning."
"He’s staking out morgues tonight for a vamp!"
"And if he finds one tonight, he’s going to have to deal with it on his own. We’re still gonna be a day out."
"He needs back up."
"Again. Federal agent."
Dean purses his lips together, fingers digging into his shaving kit. "Fine. But we leave tomorrow."
"Absolutely."
"Early."
"I’m not the one that usually sleeps in," Sam replies quickly.
"Bitch."
"I’ll let that one go because you’re worried about your boyfriend."
"He’s not my boyfriend," Dean protests and Sam eyeballs him again.
"He’s your something all right."
***
Castiel has never minded the morgue. He knows a lot of people find them distressing or unnerving but he’s never been one of them.
Death is a part of life. Everyone lives, everyone dies. Although he does not speak of it much, he is a spiritual man. He believes in the idea of a soul, of an afterlife. The human body to him is nothing but a vessel and after the inhabitant departs, there is nothing to fear from the dead.
He supposes he has to amend that somewhat. There is generally nothing to fear from the dead. Although, in his current research, he hasn’t yet found anything where dead bodies are dangerous.
It’s usually the departing souls that cause problems - ghosts and poltergeists.
The dead are just the dead. Unless they were supernatural to begin with, in which case he still feels confident in his original thought that he doesn’t truly have anything to fear from the dead.
He also finds that presentation is nine-tenths of the battle when it comes to asserting his authority as a federal agent so although he dressed hastily, he made sure to put on one of his nondescript dark blue suits. People tend to let him pass if he looks like he’s on business.
It feels strange not wearing his trench-coat over top but he hasn’t gotten around to getting a replacement for the one he lost the night of Uriel’s betrayal.
The one Dean took.
He likes thinking of Dean having it. A secret, fanciful part of Castiel wonders if perhaps it will afford some kind of safety to Dean, like a talisman.
He puts his frivolous thoughts aside as he enters the main processing area of the morgue. He stops at the desk and when the attendant looks up, an almost bored expression on his face, Castiel flashes his badge quickly, not actually giving the young man to read his name printed on it. He’s pretty much hoping ‘guy in a suit’ is all the attendant will be able to recall if he is questioned.
"I’m here about a body."
The young man snorts. "Yeah. It’s the morgue, man."
Castiel frowns at him and the smirk on the young man’s face melts away and he coughs slightly. "I mean, uh, you know. It’s kind of what we do."
"He would have been brought in a few hours ago. Gunshot wound to the neck."
The young man looks unimpressed. "We got a lot of bodies tonight. I’m still processing the paperwork," he says sullenly, tilting his head toward the stack next to him.
Castiel leans over and starts shuffling through the files, ignoring the young man’s indignant huff. He finds the file he’s looking for. Multiple gunshot wounds to the body, specifically the neck. Room three, drawer twelve.
Without another word, Castiel strides down the hall confidently, entering the swinging doors with the number three on them. The give a token squeak when he pushes them open before making a quiet swishing sound as they close.
Other than himself, there are no living people in the room. There are three examination tables set up - instruments polished, clean and at the ready, but there are no current occupants on any of the tables. Castiel didn’t want to bring anything from his apartment, thinking it could perhaps be traced back to him and he figured he’d have a plethora of choices at the morgue. He looks around and spies a wicked looking scalpel. He quickly dons a pair of surgical gloves before he picks it up.
He easily finds drawer twelve and stares at it for a moment, wishing he could tell what will happen when he opens it. Not wanting to dwell on it any longer, he opens it, and gives a tug on the sliding table that holds the body. It comes out with its own set of squeaks, the inhabitant still sealed up in the black body bag.
The bag is just as still and motionless as he would expect for a corpse. Like ripping a bandaid off he tugs the zipper back firmly, scalpel at the ready.
In the stark light of the morgue, the creature is just a young man on a table; pale and grey. Bodies in real life are never as sanitized as they are on TV. The gaping wounds in the creatures neck are puffy and pink, covered in blood that’s dry, but looks tacky. His hair is in disarray and he looks like he needs a shave. He has the stench of ‘death’ on him.
But he is blissfully still.
For a moment, Castiel questions what he saw in the alley. He wonders if perhaps although he felt sober, he wasn’t. Maybe he was drunk. Or it was too dark. Castiel steps in closer and slides a gloved finger inside the mouth of the body.
The slightly yellowed fangs are still extended. Not just the two incisors he’s come to expect from popular fiction and culture, but a mouthful of sharp points. Just as he remembered.
He’s relieved to find them still there.
Looking over the body, it does appear to be well and truly dead. It’s rather anti-climactic after his conversation with Dean. Castiel was almost sure he was going to have to decapitate it.
He wonders if he still should. He glances around. It would make quite the mess and if it isn’t worth it…
Overkill seems like too funny of a word to use in this situation, but that’s what it would be.
He puts the scalpel down and takes out his phone.
Still dead. That’s good, y/n?
Dean’s response is immediate. He must have been waiting for word from him, Castiel thinks and feels his ears go slightly hot at the thought.
Good. If he wasn’t dead, he’d be up and pissed..
Castiel pockets his phone and is about to leave when it occurs to him that perhaps the body hasn’t been processed yet. It’s a busy city and the police are stretched thin. Decision made, he unzips the body bag the rest of the way and starts checking pockets.
He hits the proverbial jackpot in the back pocket. Wallet with ID. He quickly slides it next to his own, zips the body back up and locks the drawer closed.
He can hear his own earlier words to Dean echoing in his head.
Stealing evidence from a crime scene is a federal offense.
He’s sure his heart is beating loud enough for people to hear it as he leaves the morgue. His entire life, he’s done the right thing. He’s followed the rules, stuck to the well-worn path, listened to his superiors, dotted all his i’s and crossed all his t’s.
And now, he’s just taken evidence from a crime scene.
But it doesn't feel wrong, exactly. He knows he’s doing it for a good reason, for the greater good, in fact. He stole the perp’s wallet to find out who he was, so he can maybe find out more about him, if there are more like him.
So if he breaks the rules for the greater good, is it still considered wrong?
The question weighs heavily on him as he scans the address on the driver’s license of one Dwayne Parks, who now resides in one of the city’s morgues. Castiel recognizes the cross street of the address and figures if he wants to do any recon, he better do it before the police find another way to identify Parks and head over to his place themselves.
He may be new to the supernatural and paranormal, but this part of an investigation is familiar to him. Find a person of interest, and then find out everything you can about them. Where they live, where they work, who their friends are, who their enemies are, where they shop, what they do in the spare time. At least one of the above things will generally lead to some piece of information that will assist in the case. Sometimes you get several things all at once and very quickly and that’s that.
Sometimes getting that crucial piece of information is like getting blood from a stone. But either way, the routine is the same, the job is the same.
Castiel is very good at his job.
***
Parks’ apartment is an average bachelor pad.
Average looking sofa, average looking wardrobe, average bedroom, bed unmade, laundry on the floor.
The kitchen is cluttered with appliances that Castiel recognizes from late-night infomercials. It seems that if an appliance promised to make life easier, Dwayne Parks purchased it. Castiel opens the fridge and shuts it again quickly when the stench of moldy and rotten food overwhelms him.
So, it would appear that Parks may have been a vampire for a while. Or he just didn’t shop for groceries as often as he should.
But there’s nothing obviously wrong with the apartment. If Parks was a vampire and still living in his place, nothing appears to be excessively creepy or supernatural.
Castiel spies a stack of mail on the counter and picks it up. Recognizing the name of the local power company, he opens it.
It’s this month’s statement, but looking at the power consumption graph, Parks hasn’t been using much of anything for the last week of the month.
Perhaps he wasn’t living her after all.
Castiel sees something else in the mail pile. Fliers for Gabriel’s club, The Bank.
It’s several blocks away from Parks’ apartment, but close enough that he might have been interested and ended up going. The attack also happened in close proximity to the club.
It seems like Castiel has to pay his brother’s club another visit.
But not tonight, he notes as he checks his watch. It’s past four in the morning and his eyes are gritty from the late hour.
That night, he dreams of Parks. Dreams of finding him in the alley, about to bite into the young woman. Parks’ teeth are pearlescent and glow in the eerie way that dream objects refuse to conform to the natural laws of physics. When he orders Parks to stop, Parks smiles and Castiel can’t stop himself from moving forward, lowering his gun and saying ‘My, what sharp teeth you have.’
Dean is suddenly behind him, whispering in Castiel’s ear.
"That’s werewolves, Cas. Not vampires."
He turns to look at Dean, confused as to when Dean got there. They are suddenly no longer in the alley but back in the farmhouse where Dean and Sam first found him.
Where Dean rescued him.
Castiel sees a copy of himself stretched out like the sacrificial lamb he was on the alter, covered in blood only this time, he’s already dead. Dream Dean walks calmly over and starts untying him from where he’s bound and Castiel can only watch as Dean pulls his other body off the table and it slides to the ground in a heap.
In the way of dreams, Castiel’s eye is caught by something shiny on the ground next to his other, lifeless form. He bends over and picks it up. It’s a gold skeleton key, warm to the touch, heavy in his hands.
"Whatcha got there, Cas?" Dean asks.
"It’s a key," he says inanely.
He feels the warmth of Dean’s body blanketing his back as Dean steps up behind him, hooks his chin on Castiel’s shoulder. Dean’s arms snake easily around Castiel’s waist and the solidity of Dean is surprising. Castiel wants to lean into him, to turn around, but he remains stuck, focused on the key in his hands.
"What’s it open?"
Castiel turns the key over, examining it. "I don’t know."
"Gotta open something. All keys do."
Castiel flips it over, noting small carved letters down the body of the key. He squints at them, bringing the key up close to his eyes.
It’s his name, carved into the warm metal. Castiel’s name brandished across the key.
"You know," Dean says, his voice low in Cas’ ear, Dean’s breath warm and slightly damp against the skin. It sends a thrill down Castiel’s spine and he turns his head slightly, moving his ear closer to Dean’s lips. "The thing about keys is-"
He wakes with a start, the clock-radio screeching and he blinks at the numbers. It’s only six am, not even two hours since he returned home but he’d forgotten to turn off his alarm. His fingers stumble blearily against the contraption before silencing it and ensuring it won’t turn on again. He flops back down on his pillows, resolving to go in late to work. He’s still on limited duties anyway and doubts anyone will really notice.
The dream is still sharp and clear in his mind and he turns the images over: Parks, Dean, the altar, the key.
The details start to become fuzzy as he drifts back to sleep. Images that were clear and sharp minutes ago start to fade and become disjointed. As he falls asleep, though, he can still feel the warmth of Dean, pressed close behind him.
On to Part 3
Castiel flashes his badge, completely oblivious to the fact that it’s upside down. The state trooper waves him by anyway, used to seeing all manner of feds show up. Castiel tucks the badge back in his suit jacket and starts looking around the dismal cave. High powered lights are strung around the perimeter, casting a harsh, cold glow over the area. It’s been picked over by crime scene techs, other feds and state troopers. Most of the personal effects that had been there have likely been taken away for processing, but Castiel can see bizarrely empty spots like beacons shouting ‘evidence used to sit here!’, familiar to him after all these years.
He wanders around, not interacting with any of the techs still lingering. At this point, most of the real evidence is likely already collected and it’s the rookies’ jobs to sift through the dirt, take scrapings off the wall, and complete all minute and gruelingly meticulous tasks to finalize the case work while the big guns work on the human remains and artifacts already removed from the scene.
He’s not so much here to see any evidence, or try to find a needle in a haystack. He’s more here to get a sense of the scene. He tries to put away what he knows from previous case work and look at this while thinking what lived here, instead of who.
He finds it’s what he doesn’t see that pings his radar. No fridge, no bed, no toilet, no running water.
However, the place definitely looks lived in. If a human lived here, even one who was a cannibal, there’d be evidence of it. Humans are notoriously messy dwellers. They like their comforts - a chair, a desk, a bench, the aforementioned fridge - even if it was only to store other human’s remains.
But there’s none of that here. It’s more like a… den than a dwelling.
His cell phone rings and he automatically reaches for it, pulling it out of his pocket. He recognizes the number immediately. Being a federal agent, he’s not so stupid as to put the name of a known and wanted felon in any of his personal devices, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t already memorize the number.
"Hello, Dean."
"I’m flattered. You know my number," Dean drawls over the line.
Two state troopers are moving past him, having a conversation about the area and Castiel turns his body slightly to give them berth.
"Where are you?" Dean immediately asks.
"I’m at a crime scene. In a cave," Castiel replies and decides to put his cards on the table. He lowers his voice and turns away from the crowd. "It’s probably rather emptied out since you were here."
There’s a pause on the phone and Castiel swears he can hear Dean smile slowly. "Oh, yeah? What makes you say that?"
"I read the article in the paper. Fingerprints of two known felons were found here on some of the victim’s belongings, but so far, no forensic evidence linking them to the human remains has been found. Preliminary reports from the coroner are… inconclusive. He thinks the remains were contaminated by animals in the area feeding on them, corrupting any evidence that was likely left behind. But you already know that what lived here wasn’t human, don’t you?"
He can hear the slight rustle of clothing and imagines that Dean is shrugging on the other end of the line. "Not a lot to go on, Cas. Sounds pretty circumstantial to me."
"Mary-Louise Rawlings says next time you’re in town, you should stop by for casserole. And pie."
There’s a longer pause this time and then Dean sighs. "Damn, that woman’s pie is really good. Meringue a mile high. I didn’t even know such a thing as butterscotch pie was out there."
"She’s still very grateful for the… assistance you provided."
"She was a nice lady."
"Dean," Castiel says, his voice low, "what lived here?"
"You’re sure you wanna go all the way down that rabbit hole? It goes pretty deep. Gets pretty dark."
"I think that Uriel already forced me into it. Didn’t he?" Cas counters. "And I think that if I want to find out what he did to me and why he did it, the answer is down this rabbit hole."
"Fair enough. You know, the Native Americans have a myth about a creature that feeds on human flesh. They call it a wendigo. In a lot of their myths, it’s a spiritual creature that possesses a person, makes it crave human flesh, drives the host mad. Part of the myth is that it can never be satisfied, no matter how much it eats. It’s always hungry, can’t be stopped unless you kill it."
"Wendigo," Cas repeats, turning the unfamiliar word over in his mouth. "How does one kill it?"
"Shot to the head usually works on a lot of things. Then to be extra sure, you salt and burn the body. Usually keeps most things down."
"I see."
"Do you? ‘Cause they don’t exactly teach this in FBI 101."
Castiel wanders outside of the cave, ducking under the crime scene tape and heading back down the well-trampled path that leads to his car. "When I was… when Uriel… when you rescued me, I… saw the black smoke."
"Ah. You know, I wasn’t sure if you remembered that."
"That… smoke. It was… living inside those people, wasn’t it?"
"Demonic possession. Only two ways out of that. Death or exorcism. I favor exorcism, but sometimes… sometimes they get the jump on you." There’s a moment of silence on the phone, the only sounds Cas’ slightly labored breathing as he strides down the hill. "You wanna ask again if my brother and I are insane?"
"I think it would be easier if you were. But you’re not," Cas says, sure of the words.
"Unfortunately, no."
"I take it you didn’t call just to be social."
"Well, this conversation is going to go a lot easier than I expected if you’ve gone all Mulder on me."
"I don’t understand that reference."
He heard Dean’s slight chuckle, throaty and amused. "No? Little too close to home, I guess. Here’s the thing, Cas. Chances are good your old pal, Uriel, had a book, a grimoire it’s called. Spell book."
Castiel mouths the word ‘grimoire’ turning it over the strange syllables like he did ‘wendigo.’
"Could be a lot of the translations of the symbols you drew are in that book."
"All of Uriel’s personal possessions were seized by the FBI. Our office, his home, his car. I believe nearly everything of interest is in evidence."
"Yeah," Dean replied. "That’s kind of where you come in. See, Sam and I can’t exactly waltz back into town pulling the FBI cover. Kind of only works until our prints show up in the system and then, the jig is up."
"Stealing evidence is a crime," Castiel says, more to himself as he ponders it than to Dean.
"C’mon, all the cool kids are doing it," Dean cajoles, his tone light.
"I’ll see what I can do."
"That’s the law-breaking spirit."
"Have you found anything further on Uriel or his plans yet?"
"No," replies Dean and Castiel feels a keen sense of disappointment at the words. "But we’ve got our feelers out. Like I said, he’s a big fish and he’s going to pop up again, it’s just a question of time."
"And what will you and your brother do until then?"
"We keep doing what we’re doing. Hunting."
"Is that what you call it?"
He can hear the shrug that Dean’s body must be giving in Dean’s tone when he answers. "What else can we call it? We find big bads and put them down. It’s not like we have a penal system for them."
"Why do you do it?"
Dean lets out a wry huff. "What else am I gonna do, Cas? Get a haircut and a real job? Pretend I don’t know what’s out there?"
Castiel doesn’t have a reply to that. It makes all too much sense. "How should I contact you if I do find the book?"
"I’ll keep this phone. You can text. Or call. Whatever," Dean adds quickly.
It’s at this point that one of them should say something to end the call. Perhaps something clever or charming, witty or profound. But the silence stretches out on the phone between them, neither one jumping in with anything to add. The only sound is that of the woodland underneath Cas’ feet as he heads back to his car, his breathing only slightly labored. Dean’s breaths are nearly inaudible on the phone by comparison.
After another thirty seconds of silence goes by, Dean clears his throat.
"So, uh, yeah. That’s it."
Castiel doesn’t know what makes him reply, "Be careful, Dean."
Dean laughs and when Castiel shivers at the sound, he tells himself it’s from the cold of the encroaching night.
"Why, Cas, I didn’t know you cared."
The call ends abruptly and Castiel keeps the phone by his ear for a few seconds of total silence, not realizing at first that it’s over.
He finally pockets his phone and makes his way back to his car, already contemplating how he’ll access impounded evidence. As the victim of Uriel’s crime, his interest in the evidence won’t be extraordinary, but given how notorious Uriel’s betrayal has become in such a short amount of time, it will be difficult to remove anything he finds.
If he finds anything at all.
He spends a lot of time that night researching wendigos and then making a list of other supernatural creatures. He really doesn’t know how absurd is too absurd when you’re making a list of things you thought weren’t real. He has wendigos, vampires and werewolves on his list immediately and starts adding things as he comes across them. Skin-walkers, jikininki, poltergeists, ghosts, rakshasas, goblins, ghouls… He’s not sure where to stop. Before now, if he’d come across a list of this nature, he would have dismissed it entirely, but now…
Before he can over think it, he types out a quick text.
Is there anything that isn’t real?
He’s surprised when his phone buzzes only moments later and feels… something at the fact that Dean appears to have immediately grasped what he was referring to.
Sasquatch.
He types back. I’m disappointed in that. Surprisingly so.
He feels a flush of amusement when he sees the reply.
Kind of a bummer, no?
Despite his recent findings, he goes to bed feeling more content than he has in years.
***
As Dean hangs up, he can feel Sam’s eyes on him.
"What?"
Sam gives him a look and then shrugs. "Nothing."
"Don’t ‘nothing’ me."
Sam smirks. "You’re smiling."
"So?" Dean shoots back, feeling defensive.
Sam raises his hands in a gesture of surrender. "So, nothing. Nothing," he repeats but his smirk turns into a full out grin. "Is your Castiel gonna go looking for the grimoire?"
Dean resists the urge to protest that Castiel isn’t ‘his’ and nods. "Yeah, he said he’d check it out."
"You told him about the wendigo?"
"He was in the cave. Guess he’s been putting two and two together and coming up with ‘freaky-four.’ Dropped in on one of our old hunts. Doing some recon it sounds like."
Sam nods, hands clasped and hanging between his knees as he sits on the hotel bed. "He seem okay with it?"
Dean makes a face. "‘bout as okay as anyone can be finding out what’s out there, but yeah. I think he’s doing all right."
"Good, good," Sam replies, still grinning ridiculously at Dean.
"Seriously, what?"
Sam shakes his head. "I’ll go grab us dinner, you just, hang out. Think about… things."
Sam gets up and Dean’s eyes follow him, squinting in confusion. "What things? Stop being such a dramatic princess, Sammy."
The last part is shouted as Sam chuckles his way out the door of the hotel room.
***
No one really looks at Castiel twice when he signs himself into the evidence locker that’s holding all of Uriel’s items.
He guesses he should just consider himself lucky that Internal Affairs never believed for a moment that he had anything to do with what Uriel was involved in.
He feels weird going through Uriel’s things. Like some kind of strange voyeur. But he also feels a sense of entitlement too. He needs to go through Uriel’s things, he deserves to know why Uriel used him, for what purpose.
He also feels a underlying sense of sorrow. They weren’t close friends, but he had imagined the two of them as comrades in arms. Colleagues. Rifling through evidence boxes and items, he has to keep distancing himself, remind himself that Uriel is a criminal. Uriel betrayed him.
He tries not to remember their shared pride and victory over successfully closed cases or investigations going well. He thought they worked well together. He can’t help but wonder, was it all a lie?
And if it was, how was he blind to it for so long?
He checks over the evidence list again and sees what he’s looking for - journals, books and papers, in boxes 12 to 14, shelf 5. He pulls the boxes down and immediately spies a well-worn leather bound book.
It practically screams ‘grimoire’ and he’s a little taken aback at the simplicity of it all. But he supposes that maybe the universe owes him one.
He sits on the ground, cross-legged, ignoring the dust that is sure to cling to his suit and flips through it. He can see instantaneously that it’s what he wants; the symbols are there as well as notes in another language. Latin or perhaps something else, he’s not sure. The evidence tag on the book suggests this is one of their key pieces, and given the nature of Uriel’s crime, he’s not surprised. He carefully signs the book out and heads to the local copy shop.
He spends longer there than necessary, flipping through pages, trailing his finger over passages. He finds an entire section dedicated to the symbols that are forever carved into his chest and it takes him a moment to shake himself out of his reverie and copy the pages on the high-end, industrial copier. He doesn’t know why, but he separates those pages out from his growing stack and folds them, tucking them into the inside pocket of his jacket. He feels almost… protective of them. As though because the symbols are carved into his chest, they somehow belong to him.
As he fingers the cover of the book, he realizes it’s a little too thick, too soft on the inside. He picks at the slightly curled edge of the inside cover and pulls a little. It folds back and he can see even more pages tucked into the binding of the book. Glancing around, he grabs a pair of sharp scissors from the copy help-desk and slices the rest of the binding away.
The pages he pulls out are filmy thin, tissue paper, nearly translucent in places and the ink… He brings them up close to his face and squints. No, not ink.
Blood.
The brownish-red is stark against the thin, pale paper. He tries to copy them but finds the bleed-through of light makes the copies illegible. He hesitates and then folds them carefully up again, matching their previous creases and tucks them into his pocket along with his other papers.
He feels less like an FBI agent and more like a criminal. He had figured a copy of the book would be enough for Dean, and there really was no need to steal it if he could make a copy, but taking these pages is a federal offense. Although he wonders exactly how Uriel will be tried once caught. Although gruesome, what Uriel did to Castiel is only considered aggravated assault with intent to kill. Given the circumstances and with a good lawyer, he could easily plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
As for Dean’s assertion that Uriel was attempting to open a portal to the other side… well it’s not as though they can charge him with crimes of a supernatural nature.
Castiel is no fool. He can easily see how Dean and Sam do what they do, and why it needs to be done the way it is done. In secret and silence, under the radar of the police. No one would believe them and the justice system is hardly capable of handling such cases.
He resolves not to feel guilty for taking the pages from FBI custody and sealing the inner cover back up like he never opened it.
Although, he does feel guilty about tucking the other pages, the ones about the symbols carved into his chest, into his suit pocket and not including them in the copy he’s preparing for Dean and Sam.
He can’t explain it. They feel… personal to him. Private.
He texts Dean when he’s done, letting him know that he has procured him a copy of what he is confident is Uriel’s grimoire.
You made copy?
It was not necessary to steal it permanently. A copy should suffice. he replies back.
Boy scout comes Dean’s reply.
As a matter of fact, yes I was, he sends.
One of these days we’ll have to see about getting you to cut loose ;)
It occurs to him that Dean might be flirting with him a little bit. It makes his ears go warm and he looks around surreptitiously, as though someone will suspect what he’s up to. He can’t even remember the last time someone actively flirted with him.
Worse, he can’t remember the last time he flirted back. He’s suddenly nervous, wanting to say something confident and flirtatious in reply but having no idea what.
It’s a moot point anyway as another text comes in from Dean telling him to send the book to a Bobby Singer in South Dakota. Dean notes him as a ‘friend’ and Castiel feels his heart sink a bit. Dean probably has a lot of ‘friends’ in a lot of different places. He sends back a quick confirmation that he got the address and then, eyeing the copier, decides to make a full copy of the book for himself as well before heading to the post office.
Just because Dean has a ‘friend’ looking into it, doesn’t mean Castiel can’t research it as well.
***
It seems as though now he’s looking for strange and bizarre cases, they are everywhere.
He starts a small collection of files of interest in his file cabinet and quickly has to upgrade his storage when he fills it within a month.
A lot of things don’t make it all the way up to the FBI, so he finds himself trolling local police databases for more information. Missing persons, disturbed graves, reports of strange disturbances… in the absence of any new casework being assigned to him, he has time to investigate them all.
If he wasn’t so busy chasing ghosts, ghouls, vampires and werewolves, he might have gotten around to pestering his supervisor for some regular casework. As it is, he’s busy enough following up on leads he finds in the several newspapers he now subscribes to that he barely notices that he hasn’t been assigned anything new.
Dean sends some sporadic updates on Bobby’s progress, or lack thereof, on Uriel’s grimoire. Castiel carefully notes everything that Dean says down and has started his own research. He begins by brushing up on his Latin and starting on Enochian and Phoenician. He makes meticulous, almost fussy notes on his copy of the grimoire. He keeps the pages with the copies of the symbols on his chest taped up on the wall in his office at home and he stares at them every day, wondering if they will ever be decipherable to him.
He sends Dean questions about the things he comes across in the local papers and older FBI files. Sometimes Dean is quick to burst his supernatural bubble, stating the report Castiel is looking at sounds more like a human monster than a paranormal one, or the ravings of a mad man reported in the newspaper don’t sound like anything of interest. Other times Dean fires back a quick one word reply of his educated guess: ghoul, poltergeist, poltergeist, ghost, revenant, poltergeist.
Castiel is surprised at how many times ‘poltergeist’ or ‘ghost’ is the answer and he tells Dean that in one of his texts. Dean sends back:
Shrug. Nothin wrong with a salt and burn. Piece of cake. Can’t all be wraith.
He hurriedly starts researching ‘wraith’ after that comment and adds it to his growing list of creatures.
He plays a game with himself when Dean calls, trying to figure out where Dean is by any background noises or any details Dean divulges. He never tells Dean his guesses, not wanting Dean to even know he’s trying to figure it out.
When he hears loud traffic in the background, he pictures Dean sitting in his car, perhaps on some kind of stakeout. Sometimes he hears a television playing low in the background and he can picture Dean stretched out on a bed, legs crossed at the ankle, body loose and relaxed.
He thinks about Dean a lot that way. He shouldn’t, but he does.
Sometimes Dean calls to tell him more information about the grimoire and they end up on the phone for an hour; Castiel asking question after question. Are sirens real? How do you kill them? How would it feel to be under the influence of one? You were? When? What happened? Why do some people come back as ghosts and others as poltergeists? What if you can’t find the body to salt and burn?
Sometimes they talk about things other than the paranormal. Castiel once made the mistake of telling Dean about his brother’s new club and how Gabriel is always harassing him to go. Dean asks him why he doesn’t and Castiel admits that he doesn’t really have anything in common with the people who frequent Gabriel’s club. They’re flashy and everything in their lives seems disposable - money, phones, friends. They will attempt to speak with him and he will find them intrusive.
Dean says sometimes it’s nice to go someplace loud and just let everything else get drowned out.
Castiel wonders if that’s what Dean does, but he doesn’t ask.
Dean promises the next time he’s in town, he’ll take Cas out for a drink.
Without thinking, Castiel asks if that would be before or after he’s finished dodging his arrest warrants. As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he wants to snatch them back.
Then suddenly, Dean laughs.
"Are you gonna arrest me, Cas?" Dean asks, humor lacing his tone.
"No," Castiel answers honestly. "I told you the first night I met you I wouldn’t arrest you."
Dean laughs again only this time it’s lower, softer.
"So you did."
Another one of their long silences stretch out on the phone where neither of them say anything. Castiel has never minded silence and minds it even less when it’s with Dean.
"But you should go. To you brother’s club. Have a drink," Dean finally says, breaking the silence.
"Perhaps," Castiel replies.
"Tell you what, if you go to your brother’s club, I’ll head out right now and go have a drink somewhere and if someone comes up to talk to you and you don’t like the look of them, you can tell them you’re already having a drink with someone. Me."
"Ah yes, the invisible drinking partner. I’m sure that will go over fantastically."
He can hear Dean shrug. "It’ll most likely get them to leave you alone."
Castiel considers this and agrees. "All right. I will go for one drink."
"Better make it two, I’m not a cheap date."
Dean hangs up before Castiel can say anything in reply, although truth be told, he’s at a loss for words. He’s both confused and excited by Dean’s flirtations. He’s never quite sure how to react. He doesn’t know Dean well enough to know if this is just how Dean interacts with everyone or if he’s actually flirting with him, instead of just someone. Castiel has never been good at flirting. Gabriel has attempted many times to ‘school’ him in art but each time just left Castiel feeling confused and flustered and Gabriel bemoaned the fact that they were of the same genetic material.
He considers just staying in, going over case files or watching television but it feels dishonest. He changes quickly into a pair of dark jeans, casual shirt and jacket and heads out to Gabriel’s club, The Bank.
When he gets there, the line to get in stretches down the building and around the corner. He parks his car about two blocks away, stuffs his hands in his pockets and walks, head down toward the club. He has to pass by the bouncers and maitre’d to head toward the end of the line. As he’s going, he feels a tap on his shoulder.
"Cas!"
He turns around and finds himself facing Gabriel’s partner, Balthazar.
"I thought that was you, little devil, trying to sneak by."
"I was heading for the line."
Balthazar rolls his eyes and, making eye contact with the bouncers, points at Cas.
"This is Gabriel’s brother, Castiel. If you ever see him wandering about aimlessly, phone social services. He’s probably reported lost."
"Very funny," Castiel intones.
"What’s funny is you lining up like one of the heathens. Get inside, your brother fancies himself a bartender tonight." Balthazar hits him good-naturedly on the back and sends Castiel through the front double doors.
The music that could be heard outside is overwhelming inside. The heavy bass is matched by the strobe lights and Castiel blinks a few times trying to make his eyes adjust. He peers over the heads of the crowd, looking for his brother; when he finds him, he wishes he was surprised.
Gabriel is lying down on the bar while two very beautiful women pour liquor right from the bottle into his mouth. He takes several swallows and then hops to his feet on top of the bar - his body small but strong. Though Castiel can’t actually hear him over the music he can see Gabriel hooting and hollering and then he jumps down behind the bar. The two women jump up on the bar and start doing some kind of tandem dance and - wow, he tilts his head slightly at them and wonders if he should be arresting them for lewd public acts.
He’s pushed along by the throng of the crowd and finds himself a few steps from the bar just as Gabriel spots him.
"Baby bro!" Gabriel yells. Or at least, Castiel presumes he yelled it since he really only saw Gabriel’s lips move and didn’t actually hear anything about the bass of the music. As he reaches the bar, Gabriel leans over it and grabs him by the shoulders hard, pulling him in and leaving a sloppy, whiskey laden kiss on his cheek.
He remembers now why he usually avoids his brother’s clubs.
He wipes off his face with the back of his hand and, this close to Gabriel, can faintly hear his brother introduce him to two waitresses standing close to the bar. How they manage to hear anything at all confounds and amazes Castiel. They both nod - one a younger, attractive looking man who seems to look Cas up and down, and the other another stunning woman who appears to have no interest in him.
"You shoulda told me you were stopping by!" Gabriel shouts at him, leaning over the bar as he places a beer down in front of Cas.
"I didn’t know myself."
"Whoo! Look at you! Mr. Spontaneity!"
Castiel manages a weak grin and, as he raises the beer to his lips, gives a quick thought to Dean, wherever he may be.
***
Dean pockets his phone and stands up from where he was lounging on the bed. Sam looks up at him and smirks.
"Going for a drink?" Sam asks, with a twinkle in his eye.
"Nosy Nellie," Dean grouses as he slides his arms into his leather jacket.
"You’re in the same room as me, Dean, I’m hardly eavesdropping."
Dean rolls his eyes. "Whatever. Did you wanna come?"
Sam smiles. "No, no. You go on. Have your drink with ‘Cas’," he replies, making air quotes around the name.
Dean pockets his room key and heads out, leaving Sam chuckling to himself.
There’s a pub at the other end of the parking lot and Dean ambles down the pavement, the low amber light of the street lamps lighting his way. He shoves his hands into his pockets as he walks. It’s not a cold night, but it’s not warm either. Before he knows it, he’s stepping inside, hearing the sounds of an old jukebox blaring out 70s rock. A place like this would’ve been called a saloon in the old days - reliable, worn, full of locals and regulars getting together to toss one back. He jerks his head in greeting at the bartender and orders a beer, tossing down some bills to pay for it at the same time.
He settles into the bar stool, not looking around. He doesn’t need to really, he got all the details of the joint when he walked in and his peripheral vision has been honed from years of hunting. He rarely needs to turn his head around to get the lay of the land or keep apprised of what’s going on around him. It’s not really a surprise when a couple of people try to sit next to him and engage him in a conversation. A pretty girl at the start of his beer, a prettier boy near the end. Dean doesn’t even glance over at them, just nods once or twice, gives a couple of one word answers and keeps focused on his beer. They both give up after a few minutes.
He hasn’t really been interested in anyone for a while.
Not since….
Well, that’s a kettle of fish he doesn’t know if he wants to bust open. He knows damn well when it was that he stopped being interested in other people and started looking forward to late night phone calls from nerdy federal agents and discussions on werewolves, wendigoes and witches. He spins his beer bottle in his hands, picking at the edge of the label. It’s a dumb crush he’s got, he knows that. Fed like Castiel and hunter like Dean? It’s got ‘bad idea’ written all over it.
In big, capital letters. In bold. Underlined.
He swigs back the last of his beer and when the bartender catches his eye, Dean crooks his finger to order another one.
Bad idea though it may be, it doesn’t stop him from letting his mind drift once in a while. And if maybe once or twice he’s had some ‘personal’ time in the shower while thinking about blue eyes and messy dark hair, well, no harm no foul, right?
Right.
He puts down a few more bills to pay for his next beer, enjoying the first sharp swallow of his fresh beer on the heels of the warm-ish remainder of his first.
He wonders what Cas is drinking. If he’s holding his own beer in his long, slender fingers.
Dean bites the inside of his lip.
Really fucking bad idea.
***
After two beers, a glass of water, numerous pleadings from Gabriel and one very distinctive, unmistakable and hard pinch on his ass, Castiel is more than ready to call it a night.
Even with all his skills as an FBI agent, he has no idea who pinched him. The club is so crowded there were easily four people within pinching distance.
None of them held any interest for him, so he let it go.
It seems impossible but the club has gotten even more populated since he arrived. A quick glance at his watch shows him it’s just past eleven, which must be when all the party goers really get their game on. He manages to wade his way through the crush of people, nod at the bouncers and then he’s blissfully out of the muggy interior and in the fresh, crisp air of outside.
He takes the walk back to his car slow, enjoying the relative silence after the ear-drum pounding he received in the club. He can hear his ears ringing faintly and he bemoans the loss of his youth.
But that’s not just ringing he hears.
He pauses, not even wanting the sounds of his footsteps cluttering up his hearing and he strains.
There they are.
The sounds of a struggle.
He knows the sounds well. He’s been in enough fights with suspects in his time, assisted on enough busts to recognize them for what they are. They are the sounds of one person trying to force another person to do something they don’t want to do.
They’re coming from the gap in between the two buildings just in front of him.
He’s thankful that he feels completely ill-prepared for life in general without his gun, and hence never leaves home without it. He draws it from his underarm holster, equally glad he took Balthazar’s advice on an exorbitant tailor to custom fit a jacket that would conceal his weapon. He falls into the creep-step that is the hallmark of many a law professional. He presses his body up against the wall and peers around the corner.
He immediately sees a woman being dragged by the wrist deeper into the alley and it’s readily apparent, she doesn’t want to go.
"Federal agent, hands up," he declares easily, his low register always giving the words more power.
The man spares one glance over his shoulder and smirks at the sight of Castiel leveling his Berretta at him.
"I don’t think you can stop me with that little pea shooter," he drawls. He’s easily taller and broader than Castiel, but Castiel knows he has training on his side.
"Again, federal agent, put your hands up and let her go."
The tall brunette is struggling wildly against her captor, probably twisting her wrist viciously in the process. The man just hangs onto her as though she’s negligible.
In a split second, the man hisses and….
flashes his fangs…
At Castiel.
Castiel has a moment to think, wow, vampire, before the man pushes the woman against the brick wall of the alley and rushes at him.
Castiel doesn’t flinch and shoots him once in the shoulder and then again in the right knee-cap.
The man, no, vampire, stumbles and falls on his shattered knee, bracing himself with one hand. He looks up at Castiel and hisses; his mouth is a cavern of sharp calcium stalactites and stalagmites, pinioning forth in a gruesome display. He starts to push himself up.
And he’s pissed.
In his mind, he can hear Dean’s voice, low and even. It’s a shame you can’t stake them because decapitation really is a bitch to pull off.
Decapitation.
Castiel shoots him once in neck, the creature’s jugular letting loose an impressive spray of cardinal fluid.
The vampire staggers, back to his knee and then resumes the motion of pushing himself back up.
Castiel shoots him again in the neck, adding to the arterial spray that’s arcing out. The creature falls backward this time, skull hitting the pavement with a loud ‘thwack.’ Castiel steps closer, gun lowered and kicks at the vampires feet.
He doesn’t move, but upon further inspection, Castiel can see his eyelids blinking, mouth working. The teeth are retracting in and then pushing back out. In and out, in and out.
It’s a little sickening.
He hears a scurrying sound and turns just in time to see the brunette make a run for it away from them both.
She really is making good time given the height of her heels.
Keeping a few steps in between the possibly dying vampire and himself, he switches his gun to a single hand hold and pulls out his phone.
Dean answers on the first ring.
"Cas, are you calling to see how drunk I am, and how easy that might make me?" Dean’s voice is smooth and sinful.
"I need to know if shooting a vampire in the neck, possibly severing the spinal cord counts as decapitation."
"Where the fuck are you?" Dean’s tone immediately shifts from flirty to all business.
"In an alley outside my brother’s club and…" Castiel’s ears strain. "The gunshots are drawing the police." he looks down at the vampire whose teeth are still going in and out but at a slower rate. "I think it’s still alive."
"Jesus fuck!" Dean exclaims. "Are you sure it’s a vamp?"
Castiel directs the phone’s camera to the creature and gets a shot of it with its teeth out. He hits send and waits for the tell-tale ‘whoosh’ to tell him the picture’s been delivered.
"Fair enough," says Dean on the phone as he sees the shot.
"Is it enough that his spinal cord is likely severed?" Castiel repeats. The sirens are getting louder and he really doesn’t want to be caught with the body. He’s a federal officer and he shot to kill against a man that appears unarmed.
It won’t look good.
He’s supremely glad he took one of his personal firearms and not his standard issue, which would already have ballistics entered in the system.
"Dean," he prods.
"I don’t know, Cas. It’s never really come up."
"What do I do?"
"Fuckit, shoot it again in the neck, just to be sure. Sammy and I’ll - "
Dean’s voice is cut off by the sound of Castiel firing into the creature’s neck. Its teeth were stuck on descent and remain partially protruding.
The sirens are almost upon Castiel.
"I have to go," he says sharply, disconnecting the call, stuffing the phone in his pocket and the gun back in his holster. He exits out of the alley way and finds a small pack of club goers carousing loudly just half a block ahead of him. He jogs to catch up, making himself appear part of their merry revelry. He sees the police cars speed by, sees the cops look out the window and see a group of kids, drunk, but harmless.
He makes it back to his car and then his apartment, shrugging out of his jacket and quickly taking his gun to his kitchen. Not that it would turn up in any ballistics reports, but he’d prefer to have it cleaned just in case.
Castiel can likely never use it again, lest it be traced back to him. He leaves it dissembled and locks it in one of his small lock boxes. Then he carefully takes off everything he is wearing and sends it through two wash cycles on hot. It wouldn’t be enough if they were seized, but it’s definitely enough to pass a cursory inspection. He quickly showers and tosses on a pair of sleeping pants and a t-shirt. He stands in his hallway, hands on his hips, thinking.
He doesn’t think there was anything about tonight that would leave behind enough evidence for probable cause. There’s the woman, but she was frightened, under attack. He doubts she got a very good look at him and even if she did, she didn’t actually see him shoot the vampire.
Not that Castiel could use that as a defense.
He’s saddened and surprised by how easy it would be for him to get away with the shooting. Castiel knows he had just cause, knows there wasn’t anything else to be done, not after what he’s learned from Dean but if it hadn’t been a monster, if Castiel himself had been some crazed punk on the street… He sighs. It’s too easy to see why there are so many unsolved crimes.
Castiel sits down with a beer he grabbed from his fridge and if this isn’t an unusual day, a three beer day, he doesn’t know what is. He casually flips on his phone to check his messages.
He finds six missed calls from Dean and four texts. He calls him immediately, not waiting to listen to any of the messages nor read the texts.
"Jesus fucking Christ that better be you Cas!"
"Hello to you as well, Dean."
"Are you okay?"
"Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?" Castiel asks, eyebrows drawn together in confusion.
"Oh, I don’t know," says Dean sarcastically. "Maybe because you were in an alley with a goddamned vampire and you hung up on me!"
"I had to hang up on you. The police were coming and I needed to leave."
"Did you skip over something there? Vampire. You could have been hurt, you could have been bit."
"But I wasn’t."
"That is so not the fucking point!" Dean exclaims. "Jesus, you’re not… you’re a …"
"I’m a federal agent, Dean. I’m hardly a damsel in distress."
Dean lets out a sharp exhale. "You don’t know what’s out there."
"I know more than most. More than I did before," Castiel counters. "What would you have had me do, Dean? There was a young lady who was being taken against her will. It’s my job to uphold the law and protect the innocent. The fact that he turned out to be a vampire and I know what I do… well, it’s actually quite fortuitous."
"Fort-" Dean sputters. "What?"
"Fortuitous. Lucky. Advantageous. Serendip-"
"I know what it fucking means," snarls Dean into the phone. "He could have killed you."
"I was hardly unarmed. And as I said, I’m a federal agent and was already in the process of doing something when I realized what he was."
"It was still a risk," Dean grumbles, but Cas can tell from his tone that he’s been won over.
"My job entails many risks," Castiel answers quietly. "As does yours."
"Fine, fine. You’re a fucking hero and you saved the damsel and slew the monster."
"Did I? Slay the monster? Do you think it’s dead?"
There’s a pause on the phone while Dean considers. "I dunno, man. We’ve always -" he makes a sort of chopping sound, "-with the head. I’m not sure if severing the spinal cord is enough. How do you even know you hit it?"
"I’m an excellent marksman."
"Of course you are," Dean says dryly. "Well, if you didn’t kill it, some coroner is going to get the shit scared out of them tonight and if they’re lucking, Sucky McVampire will clear out before draining any of them."
Castiel sits up. "Do you think that’s what will happen?"
Dean lets out a mirthless laugh. "They don’t tend to wake up from being almost killed in a good mood, Cas."
Castiel starts looking around for clothing. "I’ve got to get to the morgue it was taken to," he says more to himself than Dean.
"Whoa, whoa. Didn’t we just discuss this? This is not your job."
"And I told you, protecting people is my job. I have to go, Dean."
"Goddammit!" Dean swears. "Just… Sammy and I can be back in town in a day or so. Just… if it’s not dead, you gotta take the head right off. I mean, like clear off. Inch between head and body."
"I understand what decapitated means. You don’t have to explain," Castiel replies, though his words hold no anger.
"And Jesus, don’t get caught," Dean continues. "I mean don’t get bitten either, but definitely don’t get caught."
"I will be careful, Dean."
"Yeah, yeah," Dean grouses. "Look, if either happens, you call me. Or Bobby. You got Bobby’s number?"
Castiel bristles slightly at the name of Dean’s ‘friend’ Bobby Singer. He still has no idea what the nature of their relationship is. Sam and Dean appear to stay at Bobby’s at times, and in a pinch, it always seems to be of him they speak.
"I will not need it."
"Just fucking remember it," Dean says and he rattles it off and Castiel goes through the motions of repeating it back.
"I have to go, Dean."
"Wait, just-" Dean says quickly, his words hanging into dead silence.
"I told you, I’ll be careful," Castiel repeats lowly.
"Don’t get dead, Cas."
"I won’t," he promises and then hangs up before Dean can stop him again.
In minutes he’s dressed and out the door. As a federal agent living in the city, he’s already got a good guess of the first hospital they would have taken the creature too. He’ll check there first, and if it’s not there, he’ll move down his list.
***
Dean tosses his phone down on the bed and yanks out his duffle, starting to stuff things inside. He’d only just gotten back from having his drink when his phone rang and it had been Cas. Dean’s mood had gone from ‘pleased’ to ‘petrified’ to ‘pissed’ and ramped up to ‘pack and go.’
He can feel Sam’s eyes on him.
"What?" he snaps.
From his perch on his bed, Sam looks down at the duffle and back up at Dean.
"We need to go back," says Dean as though it’s obvious. "He’s got at least one vamp in town. Could mean a whole nest."
"Did he say that?" asks Sam.
"No, he didn’t," Dean huffs. "He doesn’t know, Sammy. He’s… this could be trouble."
"And I’m not saying it isn’t," clarifies Sam. "I’m just… he is FBI."
"Why does everyone feel the need to remind me of that?"
"I’m just saying. If anyone can handle themselves, it’s Castiel."
"Just shut up and start packing. It’s a hunt. That’s what we do, isn’t it? We hunt?"
Sam nods. "Yep. Packing," he replies and Dean knows he’s being placated.
At this point, Dean doesn’t care if he’s being unreasonable or oversensitive or what-the-fuck-ever. He just wants to head back to town and see if Cas is okay.
Because where there’s one vampire, there are usually more.
And he and Cas are friends now. After a fashion.
Hunters help each other out.
Not that Cas is a hunter because he’s not. He’s a suit. Hell, he already got himself in a shitstorm mess with the whole Uriel thing.
And look how that turned out.
Not that you ever see that kind of shit coming, but still.
He stuffs the last of his clothes in the bag and goddamn, it’s time to do laundry, and heads to the bathroom to grab his shaving kit. He packs up Sam’s while he’s in there and tosses it to him on the way out.
"What? Now? Right now?" asks Sam.
"You got somewhere you gotta be tonight other than driving to a hunt?"
"Dean, it’s one in the morning. We can’t even check out."
Dean rolls his eyes. "‘Cause we’ll be in so much trouble if we don’t check out."
"Look, I get you’re worried about Cas, but let’s just… give it till morning."
"He’s staking out morgues tonight for a vamp!"
"And if he finds one tonight, he’s going to have to deal with it on his own. We’re still gonna be a day out."
"He needs back up."
"Again. Federal agent."
Dean purses his lips together, fingers digging into his shaving kit. "Fine. But we leave tomorrow."
"Absolutely."
"Early."
"I’m not the one that usually sleeps in," Sam replies quickly.
"Bitch."
"I’ll let that one go because you’re worried about your boyfriend."
"He’s not my boyfriend," Dean protests and Sam eyeballs him again.
"He’s your something all right."
***
Castiel has never minded the morgue. He knows a lot of people find them distressing or unnerving but he’s never been one of them.
Death is a part of life. Everyone lives, everyone dies. Although he does not speak of it much, he is a spiritual man. He believes in the idea of a soul, of an afterlife. The human body to him is nothing but a vessel and after the inhabitant departs, there is nothing to fear from the dead.
He supposes he has to amend that somewhat. There is generally nothing to fear from the dead. Although, in his current research, he hasn’t yet found anything where dead bodies are dangerous.
It’s usually the departing souls that cause problems - ghosts and poltergeists.
The dead are just the dead. Unless they were supernatural to begin with, in which case he still feels confident in his original thought that he doesn’t truly have anything to fear from the dead.
He also finds that presentation is nine-tenths of the battle when it comes to asserting his authority as a federal agent so although he dressed hastily, he made sure to put on one of his nondescript dark blue suits. People tend to let him pass if he looks like he’s on business.
It feels strange not wearing his trench-coat over top but he hasn’t gotten around to getting a replacement for the one he lost the night of Uriel’s betrayal.
The one Dean took.
He likes thinking of Dean having it. A secret, fanciful part of Castiel wonders if perhaps it will afford some kind of safety to Dean, like a talisman.
He puts his frivolous thoughts aside as he enters the main processing area of the morgue. He stops at the desk and when the attendant looks up, an almost bored expression on his face, Castiel flashes his badge quickly, not actually giving the young man to read his name printed on it. He’s pretty much hoping ‘guy in a suit’ is all the attendant will be able to recall if he is questioned.
"I’m here about a body."
The young man snorts. "Yeah. It’s the morgue, man."
Castiel frowns at him and the smirk on the young man’s face melts away and he coughs slightly. "I mean, uh, you know. It’s kind of what we do."
"He would have been brought in a few hours ago. Gunshot wound to the neck."
The young man looks unimpressed. "We got a lot of bodies tonight. I’m still processing the paperwork," he says sullenly, tilting his head toward the stack next to him.
Castiel leans over and starts shuffling through the files, ignoring the young man’s indignant huff. He finds the file he’s looking for. Multiple gunshot wounds to the body, specifically the neck. Room three, drawer twelve.
Without another word, Castiel strides down the hall confidently, entering the swinging doors with the number three on them. The give a token squeak when he pushes them open before making a quiet swishing sound as they close.
Other than himself, there are no living people in the room. There are three examination tables set up - instruments polished, clean and at the ready, but there are no current occupants on any of the tables. Castiel didn’t want to bring anything from his apartment, thinking it could perhaps be traced back to him and he figured he’d have a plethora of choices at the morgue. He looks around and spies a wicked looking scalpel. He quickly dons a pair of surgical gloves before he picks it up.
He easily finds drawer twelve and stares at it for a moment, wishing he could tell what will happen when he opens it. Not wanting to dwell on it any longer, he opens it, and gives a tug on the sliding table that holds the body. It comes out with its own set of squeaks, the inhabitant still sealed up in the black body bag.
The bag is just as still and motionless as he would expect for a corpse. Like ripping a bandaid off he tugs the zipper back firmly, scalpel at the ready.
In the stark light of the morgue, the creature is just a young man on a table; pale and grey. Bodies in real life are never as sanitized as they are on TV. The gaping wounds in the creatures neck are puffy and pink, covered in blood that’s dry, but looks tacky. His hair is in disarray and he looks like he needs a shave. He has the stench of ‘death’ on him.
But he is blissfully still.
For a moment, Castiel questions what he saw in the alley. He wonders if perhaps although he felt sober, he wasn’t. Maybe he was drunk. Or it was too dark. Castiel steps in closer and slides a gloved finger inside the mouth of the body.
The slightly yellowed fangs are still extended. Not just the two incisors he’s come to expect from popular fiction and culture, but a mouthful of sharp points. Just as he remembered.
He’s relieved to find them still there.
Looking over the body, it does appear to be well and truly dead. It’s rather anti-climactic after his conversation with Dean. Castiel was almost sure he was going to have to decapitate it.
He wonders if he still should. He glances around. It would make quite the mess and if it isn’t worth it…
Overkill seems like too funny of a word to use in this situation, but that’s what it would be.
He puts the scalpel down and takes out his phone.
Still dead. That’s good, y/n?
Dean’s response is immediate. He must have been waiting for word from him, Castiel thinks and feels his ears go slightly hot at the thought.
Good. If he wasn’t dead, he’d be up and pissed..
Castiel pockets his phone and is about to leave when it occurs to him that perhaps the body hasn’t been processed yet. It’s a busy city and the police are stretched thin. Decision made, he unzips the body bag the rest of the way and starts checking pockets.
He hits the proverbial jackpot in the back pocket. Wallet with ID. He quickly slides it next to his own, zips the body back up and locks the drawer closed.
He can hear his own earlier words to Dean echoing in his head.
Stealing evidence from a crime scene is a federal offense.
He’s sure his heart is beating loud enough for people to hear it as he leaves the morgue. His entire life, he’s done the right thing. He’s followed the rules, stuck to the well-worn path, listened to his superiors, dotted all his i’s and crossed all his t’s.
And now, he’s just taken evidence from a crime scene.
But it doesn't feel wrong, exactly. He knows he’s doing it for a good reason, for the greater good, in fact. He stole the perp’s wallet to find out who he was, so he can maybe find out more about him, if there are more like him.
So if he breaks the rules for the greater good, is it still considered wrong?
The question weighs heavily on him as he scans the address on the driver’s license of one Dwayne Parks, who now resides in one of the city’s morgues. Castiel recognizes the cross street of the address and figures if he wants to do any recon, he better do it before the police find another way to identify Parks and head over to his place themselves.
He may be new to the supernatural and paranormal, but this part of an investigation is familiar to him. Find a person of interest, and then find out everything you can about them. Where they live, where they work, who their friends are, who their enemies are, where they shop, what they do in the spare time. At least one of the above things will generally lead to some piece of information that will assist in the case. Sometimes you get several things all at once and very quickly and that’s that.
Sometimes getting that crucial piece of information is like getting blood from a stone. But either way, the routine is the same, the job is the same.
Castiel is very good at his job.
***
Parks’ apartment is an average bachelor pad.
Average looking sofa, average looking wardrobe, average bedroom, bed unmade, laundry on the floor.
The kitchen is cluttered with appliances that Castiel recognizes from late-night infomercials. It seems that if an appliance promised to make life easier, Dwayne Parks purchased it. Castiel opens the fridge and shuts it again quickly when the stench of moldy and rotten food overwhelms him.
So, it would appear that Parks may have been a vampire for a while. Or he just didn’t shop for groceries as often as he should.
But there’s nothing obviously wrong with the apartment. If Parks was a vampire and still living in his place, nothing appears to be excessively creepy or supernatural.
Castiel spies a stack of mail on the counter and picks it up. Recognizing the name of the local power company, he opens it.
It’s this month’s statement, but looking at the power consumption graph, Parks hasn’t been using much of anything for the last week of the month.
Perhaps he wasn’t living her after all.
Castiel sees something else in the mail pile. Fliers for Gabriel’s club, The Bank.
It’s several blocks away from Parks’ apartment, but close enough that he might have been interested and ended up going. The attack also happened in close proximity to the club.
It seems like Castiel has to pay his brother’s club another visit.
But not tonight, he notes as he checks his watch. It’s past four in the morning and his eyes are gritty from the late hour.
That night, he dreams of Parks. Dreams of finding him in the alley, about to bite into the young woman. Parks’ teeth are pearlescent and glow in the eerie way that dream objects refuse to conform to the natural laws of physics. When he orders Parks to stop, Parks smiles and Castiel can’t stop himself from moving forward, lowering his gun and saying ‘My, what sharp teeth you have.’
Dean is suddenly behind him, whispering in Castiel’s ear.
"That’s werewolves, Cas. Not vampires."
He turns to look at Dean, confused as to when Dean got there. They are suddenly no longer in the alley but back in the farmhouse where Dean and Sam first found him.
Where Dean rescued him.
Castiel sees a copy of himself stretched out like the sacrificial lamb he was on the alter, covered in blood only this time, he’s already dead. Dream Dean walks calmly over and starts untying him from where he’s bound and Castiel can only watch as Dean pulls his other body off the table and it slides to the ground in a heap.
In the way of dreams, Castiel’s eye is caught by something shiny on the ground next to his other, lifeless form. He bends over and picks it up. It’s a gold skeleton key, warm to the touch, heavy in his hands.
"Whatcha got there, Cas?" Dean asks.
"It’s a key," he says inanely.
He feels the warmth of Dean’s body blanketing his back as Dean steps up behind him, hooks his chin on Castiel’s shoulder. Dean’s arms snake easily around Castiel’s waist and the solidity of Dean is surprising. Castiel wants to lean into him, to turn around, but he remains stuck, focused on the key in his hands.
"What’s it open?"
Castiel turns the key over, examining it. "I don’t know."
"Gotta open something. All keys do."
Castiel flips it over, noting small carved letters down the body of the key. He squints at them, bringing the key up close to his eyes.
It’s his name, carved into the warm metal. Castiel’s name brandished across the key.
"You know," Dean says, his voice low in Cas’ ear, Dean’s breath warm and slightly damp against the skin. It sends a thrill down Castiel’s spine and he turns his head slightly, moving his ear closer to Dean’s lips. "The thing about keys is-"
He wakes with a start, the clock-radio screeching and he blinks at the numbers. It’s only six am, not even two hours since he returned home but he’d forgotten to turn off his alarm. His fingers stumble blearily against the contraption before silencing it and ensuring it won’t turn on again. He flops back down on his pillows, resolving to go in late to work. He’s still on limited duties anyway and doubts anyone will really notice.
The dream is still sharp and clear in his mind and he turns the images over: Parks, Dean, the altar, the key.
The details start to become fuzzy as he drifts back to sleep. Images that were clear and sharp minutes ago start to fade and become disjointed. As he falls asleep, though, he can still feel the warmth of Dean, pressed close behind him.
On to Part 3