As We Sleep Among the Dead 2/2
Master Post
Part I here
The cobalt sky over head reaches on forever. No clouds mar its endless surface. Dean is sitting on a park bench. It’s familiar, only this time the playground is empty.
Dean leans back against the bench laying his elbows over it and enjoying the sunshine before he realizes Castiel is not sitting on the bench next to him. Instead Cas appears in the distance walking slowly toward him.
His coat flaps around his legs in the wind showing the white front of his shirt. The wind sends Castiel’s tie fluttering over his right shoulder and the look on his friends face is that strong stern look that he always wore
When Cas seems him though his face lights up with one of those smiles that have started to just make Dean’s day. They wash away the fatigue and the feeling of stone that weighs on his shoulders.
The play equipment folds out of his way like flowers wilting in the heat. It makes Dean think of Charlton Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea.
Dean stands, and when Castiel is close enough he reaches out. One hand twisting around Castiel’s tie and pulling him closer. Their lips meeting and it’s soft and Castiel’s lips are warm. It makes Dean smile the way Cas hesitates before he presses forward and joins the kiss with his own movements.
When the kiss ends Dean leans back and looks Castiel in the eyes. They’re so bright, like cerulean pools and make him think of the ocean. Cas smiles his tongue peeking out to lick across his dry bottom lip.
Castiel is the one that leans back in for more, making Dean grin like the Cheshire cat. Only this time it’s different. It’s like dust and sand and when Dean dips his tongue into Castiel’s mouth he tastes ash.
Grittiness against his lips and Dean leans back. Watches as the wind whips at Castiel blowing away each particle until Dean is holding the tie of a skeleton. Its bones black like ash before they too crumble and are carried away on the wind.
He’s been on the road two days. Fifty hours of nothing but the beating sun and the distant moan of undead. It’s worse near the towns. Some of them turning and slowly ambling after him in their awkward way. He leaves them in the rearview at eighty miles an hour.
He’s out in the middle of nowhere. The road twists lazily across what seems an alien landscape of sparse trees and grass. There has been no sign of life for the last hundred miles. That’s when he sees them.
The old beat up car looks like it was on its last legs long before it conked out here. Hood flung open to mark that it had broken down.
There is a Woman sitting on the roof. Knees pulled up and chin resting on the arms flung haphazardly across them. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail as her eyes scan the horizon.
When she sees him she stands up arms up over her head as she tries to wave Dean down. A tall thin black man steps out from behind the car, the rifle in his hands pointed at the sky where it rests easy on his hip.
Dean passes them pulling over on to the side of the road about 10 feet in front of them. His hand is on his pistol before he is fully out of the car. But he leaves it tucked behind his back.
“Hey.” Dean calls out as he climbs out the car. “You guys need a hand?”
rough biker, his arms covered in tattoos, straightens from where he is leaning over the engine with another younger looking guy. Dean watches as he pulls a rag from the back pocket of his jeans and wipes the grease from his hands.
“Hey,” he says sticking his hand out in a casual manner. “Name’s Francis.”
There are four of them in all. Francis introduces them. The tall black guy that reminds Dean of a skinny Uriel is Louis. The young guy, Ellis makes Dean think of Sam. Even Francis reminds Dean a little of Bobby with the gruff way he speaks.
Francis flings his arm around the dark haired beauty once she has climbed down off the car and introduces her as Zoey. There is a flash of steel in his eyes for a second that tells Dean he considers her his.
It occurs to Dean that she could be the last female alive in this desolate place the world has become. Only it’s not what’s on his mind right now. All he can think about is Cas and Sammy. Finding them alive and safe, that’s all that matters.
While he helps them get back on the road, they tell him the things he doesn’t know. The things he missed in his coma. Tells him about how the Green Flu spread too fast for CEDA and the evacuations. How the infection spread through bites and caused mutations. By their descriptions, Dean didn’t think he wanted to meet a Smoker or a Tank.
They tell him how they are headed to the Florida Keys. That they heard there is no infection there. They even invite him to come with them after Ellis expounds on a story about how he and his buddy Keith had been there once.
It would be easy enough to go with them, Dean can’t though. He has to find Sam and Castiel. He doesn’t wax nostalgic but he tells them about his brother and his friend. They can’t help though, haven’t seen anyone the army base they had left.
So after sharing a meal and getting their car back on the road Dean gets back behind the wheel. He sighs, he is tired. It’s the kind of deep tired that seeps into your bones. Dean starts the engine and follows the asphalt letting another hundred miles pass under the wheels before he finally finds a place to hole up for the night.
When Castiel smiles at him this time, Dean is wary. Those lips look so inviting but after what happened last time he isn’t sure he can risk it. Castiel has different ideas.
He leans in and Dean feels the press of warm lips and a swipe of tongue before Castiel pulls away and looks at him with a look of such uncertainty.
“Did I do it wrong?” Cas voice is all gravel and honey and concern as he tilts his head to the side and stares at Dean with those azure eyes.
Dean smiles and smoothes a hand over the crease in the led zeppelin t-shirt. “I had a bad dream.”
“I think we both have had enough of them.” Castiel smiles. “I would like for this to be a good one.”
“I’d like that to Cas.” Dean says as he leans in and uses his lips to press Castiel further back against the leather of the Impala’s back seat.
Dean’s up before the sun, still exhausted and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Sleeping in his clothes and shoes is uncomfortable but he doesn’t want to be caught out. If something goes wrong. He doesn’t want to risk having to make another run for it, either bare foot or in his underwear.
He lays on his back watching as the growing light makes the shadows dance amongst the high beams of the ceiling and listens to the distant sounds of a cow bellowing to be milked. He muses at how fast everything went to shit and the angels just fucking left.
Dean scrubs a hand over his face trying to clear the last cobwebs of sleep from his brain when he hears it.
“fuck… come on…god please.” It’s mumbled like some one is desperate and trying to remain silent. The sound of their panicked breathing is so loud Dean wonders why they’re bothering to whisper.
He moves to the edge of the hayloft and looks down into the barn. There is a couple. A woman crying in a blood stained top and a guy trying to wrench the drivers door open on Dean’s car.
“Hey!” He calls out staying low where he is although his hand moves to his gun. The man turns and points a gun in his direction. Firing without even checking his target.
“Give me the keys!” he demands. The man’s hands are shaking and the woman clinging to him as she sobs.
“Dude. I don’t have them. It’s not my car.” Dean just rolls back further into the darkness of the hayloft. Getting up and moving around to a better vantage point.
There is a hay door and he looks through the gap in it out toward the road and can see about a dozen zombies making their way toward the barn.
“You might want to shut the barn door before you have visitors though.”
It’s too late though, the woman screams as one of the infected stumble in through the door. Dean watches as the guy just abandons her and runs for the small door at the other end of the barn.
He sits on his haunches by the edge of the hayloft looking down as the woman just stands still and screams. The guy struggles with the chain and padlock on the small side door and then stands back and shoots it off.
“Oh god! Help me. Please.” The woman shrieks.
Dean sighs and lowers the ladder. Even if these people where the biggest idiots he’d ever had the misfortune to meet. No one, deserved to be eaten alive by the undead.
By the time he has the large double doors closed and a chain looped around the handles to keep it locked there are five dead zombies on the ground. The woman is still screaming and Dean turns to tell her to shut the fuck up when he realizes what’s happened.
Her asshole boyfriend is dead in the smaller doorway, two of the dumb fucks chowing down as a third lunges at the woman. Dean fires his gun but not before its teeth are tearing out the woman’s throat.
Once he has the barn completely secure. The sound of moans and attempted forced entry reverberating around the high vaulted roof. Dean goes back to the woman.
Her hand Is clamped over the hole in her throat and bubbles of blood foam at her lips. She gasps for breath eyes wide and filled with fear as she looks up at Dean.
He swears under his breath trying to help stem the bleeding but it’s useless. All he can do is let her bleed on him while he watches the light fade from her eyes.
Dean sits back against the car biting on the back of his hand that’s still holding the gun. His brows furrow and his body is wracked by silent sobs.
He puts a bullet in her skull and packs his things back into the car quietly. Before he pulls the chain free from the door he sets fire to the hay in the loft. Dean rubs a hand over his eyes and then drives out alone into the beautiful brightness of the new day.
Castiel lays on his back on the crisp clean white sheets of the motel. Arms flung up and framing his head where they fall across the pillow. The led zeppelin t-shirt is shoved up into a crinkled line across the top of his chest exposing all the flesh of his torso to the room.
Dean’s propped up on one elbow, fingertips running over the smooth skin of Castiel’s chest. A slight frown crosses his features when it trails over the puckered and red scar where he had helped Castiel carve the banishing symbol into his chest with a Stanley knife.
Using the sigil had been Cas’ last act as an angel. He is human now. His blue eyes smiling as he watched Deans’ face. Dean smiles at him brushing his thumb over the small nub of his nipple and Cas’ eyes widen as his body arches slightly up into the touch.
Dean leans in and pressed a kiss to those incredible lips of his that looked dry and chapped but are always so sweet and soft against his own lips.
Dean feels a weight lift from around his chest once he sees the salvage yard in the distance. A relief that comes from finally being some where that’s practically home. Of course its not exactly going to be as easy as he had hoped to get in there.
The place is practically a fortress. Bobby must have spent the entire time since the outbreak fortifying the place. Junkers are piled up like barricades all along the fence line and there is an old bus parked across the main entrance. Getting in wasn’t going to be easy.
That plus the fact the place is completely surrounded. There are hundreds of those damned walkers milling around the place. Dean climbs onto the roof of his car and watches the house with his set of binoculars. There is no visible activity in the yard or around the house.
Dean spends two hour plotting it out. Finds the easiest vantage point to climb over the junkers. Also the best place for the least amount of the horde. Getting in is going to be a risk. But he has to know who is in there. Has to know if Sam and Cas made it.
He drives the car as close as he can running down a few of the undead on the way. He still has to run twenty feet from where the car stalls to the fence line. Dean’s carrying five loaded pistols and the sawn off. Dropping them rather than reloading when each empties.
He throws his duffle up and over the wall of wrecked cars shooting two more of the horde that are approaching him. There are about fifty of them and more are coming. He is down to his silver colt as he slams a new clip into it.
When he gets to the fence it takes him a second to find his footing. Even with the leap that has his feet hanging a good two feet from the ground. Dean is hanging from the jutting out side mirror of an old Buick.
He twists looking back the way he came and firing at five of the walkers that are just getting too damned close. Last thing he wants is one of the bastards close enough to take a chunk out of his leg. The problem is, Dean can’t get a purchase on the wreckage with his feet, and he needs to keep the gun in his hand.
Dean closes his eyes. He probably should have thought about this just a little more. He clicks the safety on and shoves the pistol in the front of his jeans. The moans of the zombies are so fucking close. If they breathed he would be able to feel it on his skin.
One last try. He kicks with his feet bouncing off the wreckage and reaches up trying to catch his hand somewhere it will stick. Right now he doesn’t care about the sharp metal of the wrecks scratching at his chest.
There is a groan of metal as the mirror starts to give way. “Son of a bitch.” It’s not that he gets closer to the ground but he only has one more swing before it breaks and he is going to fall on his ass in the middle of the undead hoard. Right about then is when the hand closes over his ankle.
Dean uses the thing to push off with. Feels its head clunk back as he slices open his palm across the top of the junker, scrambling for purchase. Dean groans through gritted teeth as he grips the sharp metal tighter and tries to heave himself up.
He looks down and there are three of them so close they are already gnashing their teeth around his ankles as he kicks and struggles. Dean lets go of the side mirror reaching out.
And a hand closes around his.
Sam is there hand closing around his as he fires round after round from his pistol into the walkers below. Cas is behind him, shotgun pressed to his shoulder as he clears the surrounding area.
One last kick clears Dean’s legs of the undead’s grip and Sam pulls him up.
Dean’s laying on his back on the top of the pile of cars with Cas and Sam standing on either side of him. Bobby is sitting in his wheelchair at the bottom a rifle in his hand.
“Took you long enough!” Dean huffed out as he tried to catch his breath.
Shutting the engine off Dean slides out of the car, gun in hand and looks around. There is no movement in the yard but there could be anything hiding amongst the wrecks. Once he’s sure it’s clear he walks up to the Impala running a hand along the fender.
“God its good to see you girl.”
He glances through the driver’s window, not that he is expecting anyone to be in her or anything. He can’t stop grinning as he steps up on to the porch. Bobby keeps a spare key inside an old coffee can hidden amongst some car parts and it doesn’t take Dean long to get the door open.
Bobby’s house seems empty. Until he gets to the kitchen and his heart stops. There is blood on the floor. A lot of blood and Bobby’s wheelchair is lying on its side.
Dean folds to his knees the world crashing down around him as he does. He has come all this way hoping to find his family and instead it looks like… Dean can’t even form the thought of what it looks like. Can’t let that dark hollow feeling inside him swallow what hope of finding them alive he has left.
He hears the low growl before he hears the creak of the floor board behind him.
Its’ crouched on its haunches. Bloody hoody pulled up over its head and casting shadow over its rotting features. Dean turns to face it but it’s too late the thing is already leaping through the air at him.
The reunion is good, washing away the fear and weight and loneliness of the last few weeks. Sam pulls him into a bear hug that has him pressed tight against his baby brothers broad chest. Cas just smiles and then it’s Bobby's turn to pull him into an embrace that says so much more than just glad to see you son.
They explain how the Military had evacuated the cities. Forced them out. When they tried to get back in they were told that the hospital had been over run and every body had been killed.
Then Sam had to go on patrol and Cas and Bobby are doing research in the house. Dean uses the time to escape outside and run his hand over his baby's fender and make sure that his mean little brother took good care of her when he drove her here.
That night after a decent cooked meal and an actual cold beer, Dean sleeps in a genuine bed for the first time since he left the hospital. He even takes off his jeans and boots, curling under the covers in just his t-shirt and boxers.
The bed dipping under the weight of some one else startles Dean awake. But before he can protest Castiel is snuggling into his side and his head is resting on Dean’s chest.
Dean looks down at him. Not really sure how he should react. Other than the dreams, he and Castiel hadn’t been intimate. He wasn’t sure if it was something that Castiel even thought about or wanted.
“I knew you were still alive.” Castiel’s voice is soft and gravely almost a purr and Dean licks his bottom lip as he looks down at the top of his head. Dean’s arm is almost curled around Castiel and he is about to stroke it through Cas hair. When Cas shifts and turns his head so his eyes gaze up at him.
“You are not permitted to leave me like that again.”
“I think you got that the wrong way around.” Dean grins, tucking his other arm lazily behind his head. “You’re the one that left me in the hospital remember.”
Dean can see the way that thought tears Cas up inside. Feels the flinch as Cas closes his eyes. And Dean suddenly wants to take it back.
“I…” Cas hesitates. His eyes remaining closed. Dean shifts a little trying to see more of Cas’ face. “I dreamed of you. When you were gone.”
Dean bites his own bottom lip. He isn’t sure how to take that. It’s not like he and Cas would have dreamt the same things. That would be weirder than their usual Winchester weirdness.
“Cas? Why are you telling me this?”
“It was… inappropriate and I wanted to apologize.” Cas lowers his head into Deans chest. Dean can even feel the warmth of his breath through his t-shirt.
“Cas.” Dean sighs and lets his head fall back to the pillow. It wasn’t like half the stuff he dreamed about over the last couple weeks had been inappropriate. “Its okay. Dreams don’t mean anything.”
“Oh.” Cas almost mumbles it into his chest. “Okay.”
Dean looks up at the ceiling watching the way the breeze in the curtains makes the moonbeams dance across its surface. Cas sounded so disappointed. Only Dean wasn’t really sure what to do about it.
He let his mind run through all the things that he had dreamt of. How he had looked forward to when Cas would join him in his dreams. How Cas being there had kept him sane. How much he had wanted what they had in the dreams to be real.
Only how was he going to make that transition. Dean wasn’t any where near enough like Bruce Wayne to plot this thing out. The pick up line of Want me to make your dreams come true popped into his head and Dean snorted at that.
Instead of trying it though he hooked his finger under Castiel’s chin lifting the guy’s head till he could see those blue eyes reflecting the moon light.
“Cas you gonna lie there all night or you wanna kiss me now?” Dean smiled.
Castiel trembled. Just for the briefest of moments his eyes going dark and then becoming clear as Cas leaned in and pressed his lips to his. Dean still had his fingers under Cas’ chin.
Part I here
The cobalt sky over head reaches on forever. No clouds mar its endless surface. Dean is sitting on a park bench. It’s familiar, only this time the playground is empty.
Dean leans back against the bench laying his elbows over it and enjoying the sunshine before he realizes Castiel is not sitting on the bench next to him. Instead Cas appears in the distance walking slowly toward him.
His coat flaps around his legs in the wind showing the white front of his shirt. The wind sends Castiel’s tie fluttering over his right shoulder and the look on his friends face is that strong stern look that he always wore
When Cas seems him though his face lights up with one of those smiles that have started to just make Dean’s day. They wash away the fatigue and the feeling of stone that weighs on his shoulders.
The play equipment folds out of his way like flowers wilting in the heat. It makes Dean think of Charlton Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea.
Dean stands, and when Castiel is close enough he reaches out. One hand twisting around Castiel’s tie and pulling him closer. Their lips meeting and it’s soft and Castiel’s lips are warm. It makes Dean smile the way Cas hesitates before he presses forward and joins the kiss with his own movements.
When the kiss ends Dean leans back and looks Castiel in the eyes. They’re so bright, like cerulean pools and make him think of the ocean. Cas smiles his tongue peeking out to lick across his dry bottom lip.
Castiel is the one that leans back in for more, making Dean grin like the Cheshire cat. Only this time it’s different. It’s like dust and sand and when Dean dips his tongue into Castiel’s mouth he tastes ash.
Grittiness against his lips and Dean leans back. Watches as the wind whips at Castiel blowing away each particle until Dean is holding the tie of a skeleton. Its bones black like ash before they too crumble and are carried away on the wind.
He’s been on the road two days. Fifty hours of nothing but the beating sun and the distant moan of undead. It’s worse near the towns. Some of them turning and slowly ambling after him in their awkward way. He leaves them in the rearview at eighty miles an hour.
He’s out in the middle of nowhere. The road twists lazily across what seems an alien landscape of sparse trees and grass. There has been no sign of life for the last hundred miles. That’s when he sees them.
The old beat up car looks like it was on its last legs long before it conked out here. Hood flung open to mark that it had broken down.
There is a Woman sitting on the roof. Knees pulled up and chin resting on the arms flung haphazardly across them. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail as her eyes scan the horizon.
When she sees him she stands up arms up over her head as she tries to wave Dean down. A tall thin black man steps out from behind the car, the rifle in his hands pointed at the sky where it rests easy on his hip.
Dean passes them pulling over on to the side of the road about 10 feet in front of them. His hand is on his pistol before he is fully out of the car. But he leaves it tucked behind his back.
“Hey.” Dean calls out as he climbs out the car. “You guys need a hand?”
rough biker, his arms covered in tattoos, straightens from where he is leaning over the engine with another younger looking guy. Dean watches as he pulls a rag from the back pocket of his jeans and wipes the grease from his hands.
“Hey,” he says sticking his hand out in a casual manner. “Name’s Francis.”
There are four of them in all. Francis introduces them. The tall black guy that reminds Dean of a skinny Uriel is Louis. The young guy, Ellis makes Dean think of Sam. Even Francis reminds Dean a little of Bobby with the gruff way he speaks.
Francis flings his arm around the dark haired beauty once she has climbed down off the car and introduces her as Zoey. There is a flash of steel in his eyes for a second that tells Dean he considers her his.
It occurs to Dean that she could be the last female alive in this desolate place the world has become. Only it’s not what’s on his mind right now. All he can think about is Cas and Sammy. Finding them alive and safe, that’s all that matters.
While he helps them get back on the road, they tell him the things he doesn’t know. The things he missed in his coma. Tells him about how the Green Flu spread too fast for CEDA and the evacuations. How the infection spread through bites and caused mutations. By their descriptions, Dean didn’t think he wanted to meet a Smoker or a Tank.
They tell him how they are headed to the Florida Keys. That they heard there is no infection there. They even invite him to come with them after Ellis expounds on a story about how he and his buddy Keith had been there once.
It would be easy enough to go with them, Dean can’t though. He has to find Sam and Castiel. He doesn’t wax nostalgic but he tells them about his brother and his friend. They can’t help though, haven’t seen anyone the army base they had left.
So after sharing a meal and getting their car back on the road Dean gets back behind the wheel. He sighs, he is tired. It’s the kind of deep tired that seeps into your bones. Dean starts the engine and follows the asphalt letting another hundred miles pass under the wheels before he finally finds a place to hole up for the night.
When Castiel smiles at him this time, Dean is wary. Those lips look so inviting but after what happened last time he isn’t sure he can risk it. Castiel has different ideas.
He leans in and Dean feels the press of warm lips and a swipe of tongue before Castiel pulls away and looks at him with a look of such uncertainty.
“Did I do it wrong?” Cas voice is all gravel and honey and concern as he tilts his head to the side and stares at Dean with those azure eyes.
Dean smiles and smoothes a hand over the crease in the led zeppelin t-shirt. “I had a bad dream.”
“I think we both have had enough of them.” Castiel smiles. “I would like for this to be a good one.”
“I’d like that to Cas.” Dean says as he leans in and uses his lips to press Castiel further back against the leather of the Impala’s back seat.
Dean’s up before the sun, still exhausted and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Sleeping in his clothes and shoes is uncomfortable but he doesn’t want to be caught out. If something goes wrong. He doesn’t want to risk having to make another run for it, either bare foot or in his underwear.
He lays on his back watching as the growing light makes the shadows dance amongst the high beams of the ceiling and listens to the distant sounds of a cow bellowing to be milked. He muses at how fast everything went to shit and the angels just fucking left.
Dean scrubs a hand over his face trying to clear the last cobwebs of sleep from his brain when he hears it.
“fuck… come on…god please.” It’s mumbled like some one is desperate and trying to remain silent. The sound of their panicked breathing is so loud Dean wonders why they’re bothering to whisper.
He moves to the edge of the hayloft and looks down into the barn. There is a couple. A woman crying in a blood stained top and a guy trying to wrench the drivers door open on Dean’s car.
“Hey!” He calls out staying low where he is although his hand moves to his gun. The man turns and points a gun in his direction. Firing without even checking his target.
“Give me the keys!” he demands. The man’s hands are shaking and the woman clinging to him as she sobs.
“Dude. I don’t have them. It’s not my car.” Dean just rolls back further into the darkness of the hayloft. Getting up and moving around to a better vantage point.
There is a hay door and he looks through the gap in it out toward the road and can see about a dozen zombies making their way toward the barn.
“You might want to shut the barn door before you have visitors though.”
It’s too late though, the woman screams as one of the infected stumble in through the door. Dean watches as the guy just abandons her and runs for the small door at the other end of the barn.
He sits on his haunches by the edge of the hayloft looking down as the woman just stands still and screams. The guy struggles with the chain and padlock on the small side door and then stands back and shoots it off.
“Oh god! Help me. Please.” The woman shrieks.
Dean sighs and lowers the ladder. Even if these people where the biggest idiots he’d ever had the misfortune to meet. No one, deserved to be eaten alive by the undead.
By the time he has the large double doors closed and a chain looped around the handles to keep it locked there are five dead zombies on the ground. The woman is still screaming and Dean turns to tell her to shut the fuck up when he realizes what’s happened.
Her asshole boyfriend is dead in the smaller doorway, two of the dumb fucks chowing down as a third lunges at the woman. Dean fires his gun but not before its teeth are tearing out the woman’s throat.
Once he has the barn completely secure. The sound of moans and attempted forced entry reverberating around the high vaulted roof. Dean goes back to the woman.
Her hand Is clamped over the hole in her throat and bubbles of blood foam at her lips. She gasps for breath eyes wide and filled with fear as she looks up at Dean.
He swears under his breath trying to help stem the bleeding but it’s useless. All he can do is let her bleed on him while he watches the light fade from her eyes.
Dean sits back against the car biting on the back of his hand that’s still holding the gun. His brows furrow and his body is wracked by silent sobs.
He puts a bullet in her skull and packs his things back into the car quietly. Before he pulls the chain free from the door he sets fire to the hay in the loft. Dean rubs a hand over his eyes and then drives out alone into the beautiful brightness of the new day.
Castiel lays on his back on the crisp clean white sheets of the motel. Arms flung up and framing his head where they fall across the pillow. The led zeppelin t-shirt is shoved up into a crinkled line across the top of his chest exposing all the flesh of his torso to the room.
Dean’s propped up on one elbow, fingertips running over the smooth skin of Castiel’s chest. A slight frown crosses his features when it trails over the puckered and red scar where he had helped Castiel carve the banishing symbol into his chest with a Stanley knife.
Using the sigil had been Cas’ last act as an angel. He is human now. His blue eyes smiling as he watched Deans’ face. Dean smiles at him brushing his thumb over the small nub of his nipple and Cas’ eyes widen as his body arches slightly up into the touch.
Dean leans in and pressed a kiss to those incredible lips of his that looked dry and chapped but are always so sweet and soft against his own lips.
Dean feels a weight lift from around his chest once he sees the salvage yard in the distance. A relief that comes from finally being some where that’s practically home. Of course its not exactly going to be as easy as he had hoped to get in there.
The place is practically a fortress. Bobby must have spent the entire time since the outbreak fortifying the place. Junkers are piled up like barricades all along the fence line and there is an old bus parked across the main entrance. Getting in wasn’t going to be easy.
That plus the fact the place is completely surrounded. There are hundreds of those damned walkers milling around the place. Dean climbs onto the roof of his car and watches the house with his set of binoculars. There is no visible activity in the yard or around the house.
Dean spends two hour plotting it out. Finds the easiest vantage point to climb over the junkers. Also the best place for the least amount of the horde. Getting in is going to be a risk. But he has to know who is in there. Has to know if Sam and Cas made it.
He drives the car as close as he can running down a few of the undead on the way. He still has to run twenty feet from where the car stalls to the fence line. Dean’s carrying five loaded pistols and the sawn off. Dropping them rather than reloading when each empties.
He throws his duffle up and over the wall of wrecked cars shooting two more of the horde that are approaching him. There are about fifty of them and more are coming. He is down to his silver colt as he slams a new clip into it.
When he gets to the fence it takes him a second to find his footing. Even with the leap that has his feet hanging a good two feet from the ground. Dean is hanging from the jutting out side mirror of an old Buick.
He twists looking back the way he came and firing at five of the walkers that are just getting too damned close. Last thing he wants is one of the bastards close enough to take a chunk out of his leg. The problem is, Dean can’t get a purchase on the wreckage with his feet, and he needs to keep the gun in his hand.
Dean closes his eyes. He probably should have thought about this just a little more. He clicks the safety on and shoves the pistol in the front of his jeans. The moans of the zombies are so fucking close. If they breathed he would be able to feel it on his skin.
One last try. He kicks with his feet bouncing off the wreckage and reaches up trying to catch his hand somewhere it will stick. Right now he doesn’t care about the sharp metal of the wrecks scratching at his chest.
There is a groan of metal as the mirror starts to give way. “Son of a bitch.” It’s not that he gets closer to the ground but he only has one more swing before it breaks and he is going to fall on his ass in the middle of the undead hoard. Right about then is when the hand closes over his ankle.
Dean uses the thing to push off with. Feels its head clunk back as he slices open his palm across the top of the junker, scrambling for purchase. Dean groans through gritted teeth as he grips the sharp metal tighter and tries to heave himself up.
He looks down and there are three of them so close they are already gnashing their teeth around his ankles as he kicks and struggles. Dean lets go of the side mirror reaching out.
And a hand closes around his.
Sam is there hand closing around his as he fires round after round from his pistol into the walkers below. Cas is behind him, shotgun pressed to his shoulder as he clears the surrounding area.
One last kick clears Dean’s legs of the undead’s grip and Sam pulls him up.
Dean’s laying on his back on the top of the pile of cars with Cas and Sam standing on either side of him. Bobby is sitting in his wheelchair at the bottom a rifle in his hand.
“Took you long enough!” Dean huffed out as he tried to catch his breath.
Shutting the engine off Dean slides out of the car, gun in hand and looks around. There is no movement in the yard but there could be anything hiding amongst the wrecks. Once he’s sure it’s clear he walks up to the Impala running a hand along the fender.
“God its good to see you girl.”
He glances through the driver’s window, not that he is expecting anyone to be in her or anything. He can’t stop grinning as he steps up on to the porch. Bobby keeps a spare key inside an old coffee can hidden amongst some car parts and it doesn’t take Dean long to get the door open.
Bobby’s house seems empty. Until he gets to the kitchen and his heart stops. There is blood on the floor. A lot of blood and Bobby’s wheelchair is lying on its side.
Dean folds to his knees the world crashing down around him as he does. He has come all this way hoping to find his family and instead it looks like… Dean can’t even form the thought of what it looks like. Can’t let that dark hollow feeling inside him swallow what hope of finding them alive he has left.
He hears the low growl before he hears the creak of the floor board behind him.
Its’ crouched on its haunches. Bloody hoody pulled up over its head and casting shadow over its rotting features. Dean turns to face it but it’s too late the thing is already leaping through the air at him.
The reunion is good, washing away the fear and weight and loneliness of the last few weeks. Sam pulls him into a bear hug that has him pressed tight against his baby brothers broad chest. Cas just smiles and then it’s Bobby's turn to pull him into an embrace that says so much more than just glad to see you son.
They explain how the Military had evacuated the cities. Forced them out. When they tried to get back in they were told that the hospital had been over run and every body had been killed.
Then Sam had to go on patrol and Cas and Bobby are doing research in the house. Dean uses the time to escape outside and run his hand over his baby's fender and make sure that his mean little brother took good care of her when he drove her here.
That night after a decent cooked meal and an actual cold beer, Dean sleeps in a genuine bed for the first time since he left the hospital. He even takes off his jeans and boots, curling under the covers in just his t-shirt and boxers.
The bed dipping under the weight of some one else startles Dean awake. But before he can protest Castiel is snuggling into his side and his head is resting on Dean’s chest.
Dean looks down at him. Not really sure how he should react. Other than the dreams, he and Castiel hadn’t been intimate. He wasn’t sure if it was something that Castiel even thought about or wanted.
“I knew you were still alive.” Castiel’s voice is soft and gravely almost a purr and Dean licks his bottom lip as he looks down at the top of his head. Dean’s arm is almost curled around Castiel and he is about to stroke it through Cas hair. When Cas shifts and turns his head so his eyes gaze up at him.
“You are not permitted to leave me like that again.”
“I think you got that the wrong way around.” Dean grins, tucking his other arm lazily behind his head. “You’re the one that left me in the hospital remember.”
Dean can see the way that thought tears Cas up inside. Feels the flinch as Cas closes his eyes. And Dean suddenly wants to take it back.
“I…” Cas hesitates. His eyes remaining closed. Dean shifts a little trying to see more of Cas’ face. “I dreamed of you. When you were gone.”
Dean bites his own bottom lip. He isn’t sure how to take that. It’s not like he and Cas would have dreamt the same things. That would be weirder than their usual Winchester weirdness.
“Cas? Why are you telling me this?”
“It was… inappropriate and I wanted to apologize.” Cas lowers his head into Deans chest. Dean can even feel the warmth of his breath through his t-shirt.
“Cas.” Dean sighs and lets his head fall back to the pillow. It wasn’t like half the stuff he dreamed about over the last couple weeks had been inappropriate. “Its okay. Dreams don’t mean anything.”
“Oh.” Cas almost mumbles it into his chest. “Okay.”
Dean looks up at the ceiling watching the way the breeze in the curtains makes the moonbeams dance across its surface. Cas sounded so disappointed. Only Dean wasn’t really sure what to do about it.
He let his mind run through all the things that he had dreamt of. How he had looked forward to when Cas would join him in his dreams. How Cas being there had kept him sane. How much he had wanted what they had in the dreams to be real.
Only how was he going to make that transition. Dean wasn’t any where near enough like Bruce Wayne to plot this thing out. The pick up line of Want me to make your dreams come true popped into his head and Dean snorted at that.
Instead of trying it though he hooked his finger under Castiel’s chin lifting the guy’s head till he could see those blue eyes reflecting the moon light.
“Cas you gonna lie there all night or you wanna kiss me now?” Dean smiled.
Castiel trembled. Just for the briefest of moments his eyes going dark and then becoming clear as Cas leaned in and pressed his lips to his. Dean still had his fingers under Cas’ chin.