Kiss you When it's Dangerous - Part 1

[zoemathemata]

The worst thing about exsanguination, Castiel thinks, was that it could take time.

A long time if one knew what one was doing.

The people who have trussed him up like a Thanksgiving turkey and splayed him out half-naked and bleeding on an altar are quite likely crazy, but on the exsanguination front, they know what they are doing.

He isn’t sure what is worse: the cutting sting of the razor blade as it traces out an ancient rune on his chest, the biting cold of the marble slab beneath him, or the twisting betrayal of his partner, Uriel.

He and Uriel had been working together in the FBI for years and while they didn’t go to baseball games or go fishing or hang out at one another’s houses, he thought they worked well together. He thought they shared a certain camaraderie.

He certainly never expected Uriel to chloroform him and carve him up like a fine piece of steak.

They’d been tracking this particular cult for months. Steeped in demon worship and Judeo-Christian mythology, they believed they were bringing about the apocalypse. Raising Lucifer from Hell.

Castiel never would have guessed in a thousand years that Uriel was a member of the cult. That he’d been a member since he was a young boy. That they needed a sacrifice, needed a betrayal to open the gates of hell.

And a whole lot of blood, apparently.

Castiel keeps his eyes focused straight upward, never once looking at Uriel as he spouts off on why he is doing this, on what he hopes to accomplish, on how he’s dreamed of this day since he was a boy.

Uriel even went so far as to say he was sorry Castiel hadn’t been responsive to any of the subtle attempts Uriel had tried to lure him into the cult. Uriel had been poking at Castiel’s belief system for months, trying to find a way in, and each time had been shut out.

Castiel supposes this was the end of his life. In this dark, deserted house, miles from anywhere. Hearing strangers chant around him, seeing candlelight flickering out of the corner of his eye as he stares at the intricately drawn runes and talismans on the ceiling. He’s been studying ritual lore for years and even in his death, he is trying to memorize the pattern, trying to make out each shape and line, trying to figure out what it all meant, what it all adds up to.

Trying to ignore the feeling of blood running down his sides and pooling beneath him on the cold marble slab.

He’d struggled against his bonds when he first woke up, when he first realized his position - laid out on a slab, wrists and ankles tied down, naked from the waist up. He’d struggled against Uriel as he leaned over him and started carving signs into his chest. Struggled more when Uriel took his blade and cut shallow but wide gashes in each of his wrists.

He tried to twist his hands free, hoping that maybe the blood would make his skin slippery enough to slide through the rough rope. He wasn’t sure what he thought he would do once he got free, surrounded by Uriel’s acolytes as he was. He just knew he had to try.

That seemed like a long time ago. As knowledgeable as he is, he recognizes each stage of hypovolemic shock as it comes. He can feel his heart, fast and light. He can feel the cold sheen of sweat on his upper lip, his forehead, his neck. Castiel is cold now, tired. Sluggish and slow. He blinks lazily at the ceiling, the dark lines painted seeming to swim and shift above him. Moving like bored snakes, curling and twisting. Uriel is saying something in a language he doesn’t recognize. All consonants and clicks, growls and grunts.

He doesn’t recognize the sound of a shotgun when it first rings out. It is followed by a strange burning and choking sound. He turns his head to one side and sees a tall, young man plunge a knife into one of the acolytes. Again comes the sound of burning and choking as the acolyte seems to flicker and burn from the inside before falling to the ground. Castiel blinks again at the sound of several more rounds of a gun.

Then screaming.

Then chanting.

Latin.

Over his years of working with the supernatural, the bizarre, the cultish and the strange, he’s acquired a strange conglomeration of skills, one of which was Latin.

He thinks he was hearing an exorcism.

He turns his head and sees several of the acolytes twitching, retching, shrieking. Several fall to their knees and then…

He blinks again, not sure what he sees as black smoke plumes from their mouths, swirling thick and dark above their heads, streaming to the windows and out into the night.

The bodies fall over.

It’s quiet.

Darkness starts creeping in around the edges of his vision and he can’t feel his legs anymore.

A face appears in front of him. A beautiful face. Another man, his features forming an expression of worry and focus. Castiel can make out the green of the man’s irises, the candlelight bathing his features in warm, soft light. All perfect proportions and pristine angles.

"Hey," says the young man. "You’re going to be okay."

The man leans over Castiel and unties first one wrist, then the other. He takes his eyes off Cas’ face for a moment, his face directed to the side. Cas traces the lines of his profile with his eyes, still just as lovely from the side as it had been from the front.

"Sammy, you calling an ambulance?"

Faintly, as thought it was coming from far away, down a tunnel, Castiel can hear the other man, Sammy, dialing a cell phone and speaking urgently in it.

The first man, the one with the startling green eyes, is wrapping a bandage around one of Castiel’s wrists, intently focused on his task. Castiel has to try the name four times before he manages any sound behind it.

"Uriel."

The young man looks up at him. "What?"

Castiel swallows dryly and whispers the name again. "Uriel." He has to know what happened to Uriel.

"Is that your name? Uriel?"

Castiel manages a small shake of his head, his lips moving, trying to form the words. The young man is working on the other wrist now but seems to be familiar with his task, able to lean his ear close to Cas’ lips to listen as his fingers worked.

"Partner. Betrayed me. Uriel," he manages.

"He the big dude who was spouting off when we showed?"

Cas nods slightly.

"Sorry, man. He got away. But we’ll be on the lookout for him."

He feels bandages being pressed against his chest and is surprised when it doesn’t hurt.

"What’s the ETA on that ambulance, Sam?" The man’s voice is terse. Tense.

"Ten minutes. Dean, we gotta leave before the cops get here."

Dean. The beautiful stranger has a name. Dean.

"Just a few more minutes," Dean says.

Castiel sighs slightly when blissful warmth drapes over him, envelopes him, surrounds him. A jacket. The man’s - no, Dean’s - jacket. It smells like gasoline and gun oil. The warm weight of it makes Castiel want to close his eyes and sleep.

"Hey, now. No sleeping."

Castiel feels a light tapping on his face, a pressure on his shoulder and he blinks open his eyes. His thoughts, getting slower and more sluggish, are just now processing the words of his two rescuers. He frowns slightly and tries to speak, again, his lips moving before any sound comes out.

"What?" Dean asks, turning his ear again to Castiel’s lips.

"I am the police. FBI," Castiel whispers.

Dean turns his head and grins at him. It’s stunning.

"Yeah? Well, in the interest of full disclosure I should probably tell you that I’m wanted in six states. Dean Winchester."

"Dean!" the other man, Sam, exclaims.

Dean ignores Sam, his eyes focused on Cas. "You gonna arrest me?"

Castiel blinks a few times, his world going fuzzy and grey until he manages to reply.

"No."

Dean smiles at him. "What’s your name?"

"Cas."

Dean’s eyebrows go up slightly. "Cas? What’s that short for something? Wait, don’t tell me. Casper?" Dean asks.

Cas manages a tiny shake of his head. In the distance, he can hear the faint sounds of sirens. Dean must hear it too because he turns his head slightly and his eyes narrow, like he’s judging the distance of the ambulance by its sound.

The dark edges of his vision close in further. He can’t see Sam out of the corner of his eye anymore, can’t make out any of the acolytes on the floor, can’t see anything but Dean. Dean, who is turning back to him and frowning slightly.

"Dean," Sam says, a warning tone coloring his voice.

Dean ignores him. "Castor?" Dean tries. "You don’t have a brother named Pollux, do you?" he teases lightly.

"Castiel."

Dean’s lips quirk slightly. "Castiel? What’s that from?"

He only means to blink, but his eyelids are heavy, so heavy and he can’t open them again.

"Dean, we gotta go, man."

"Cas? Cas? Open your eyes, the paramedics are almost here."

"Dean!"

Then everything goes dark and silent.

***

Castiel looks around his office and sighs at the mess.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Internal Affairs tore it apart. After all, he shared it with Uriel.

But did they have to be such slobs about it?

He sets his briefcase down by the door, takes off his new trench-coat and suit jacket and surveys the mess. There are papers strewn about, and a clean spot where Uriel’s computer used to be. His own computer is turned off but Castiel is sure that all the files have been thoroughly searched. He steps over to his desk and pulls on one of the drawers. His pristine filing system seems to be mostly intact, although the papers have obviously been shuffled through.

Castiel supposes he should just be grateful that Uriel didn’t manage to incriminate him as well in his betrayal.

He’d woken up in the hospital, unsure as to how he got there. He was informed by a dour faced doctor that a number of narcotics were found in his system and he was lucky he didn’t bleed out. The preliminary first aid he received at the crime scene saved his life.

That’s when a set of federal marshals Castiel didn’t know came in and demanded his statement. It seems they’d found the prints of Dean and Sam Winchester at the scene, wanted in six states for murder, robbery, desecration of church and city property and a possible kidnapping across state lines.

Castiel had given them his statement regarding meeting Uriel after hours, being taken by surprise and then waking up, bleeding out, strapped down to the altar.

After that, he claimed, he couldn't remember.

The marshal, Henricksen, watched him with careful, knowing eyes. Asked Castiel if he remembered two young men, Sam and Dean, arriving on the scene.

Castiel shook his head and said he did not.

Henricksen asked if Castiel recalled if Sam and Dean had been involved in the ritual, if they had participated.

Castiel said he couldn’t recall.

Henricksen had smiled, the grin not reaching his eyes and presented his card to Castiel. He asked if Castiel remembered anything, in the interest of supporting his fellow lawmen, could he please drop him a line?

Castiel replied he wasn’t likely to remember anything more. While his memory had always been excellent, the doctors had mentioned there had been a number of narcotics in his system and he doubted he’d recall anything of use.

Though if he did, Henricksen would be the first to know.

Castiel sits down at his computer and turns it on, he’s still not exactly sure why he didn’t tell the marshals about Dean and his brother Sam. Only that it seemed wrong to repay the kindness that had been shown to him by turning them in.

He’d been released from the hospital on Friday evening and spent the weekend reading Dean Winchester’s rather extensive file, as well as that of his brother Sam.

It was interesting reading to say the least.

He read about their broken upbringing, their mother dying in a fire six months after Sam was born. How their father dragged them from one end of the country to the other; John Winchester amassing quite the record himself.

On the surface, it was pretty straight-forward. Mother dead when the boys were still young, father that didn’t bother to raise them and had a criminal record of his own, passing on his legacy of lawlessness and criminality to his sons who were only too capable of picking up his felonious mantle and carrying it on. The perfect example of the legacy of crime.

Only… not.

Sam had almost gone the path of the straight and narrow. Earned a scholarship to Stanford and had done quite well in pre-law before dropping out and joining his brother on what was turning into a lifelong crime spree.

Although, for serial criminalists, they weren’t very exciting.

Small cities, even smaller towns, maybe a medium sized city or two. They didn’t seem to be after money, nor fame. They’d be off the radar for months at a time and then their prints would surface in some obscure missing persons case or bizarre murder.

Witnesses seemed surprised when asked about them. Claiming they thought the Winchesters had been cops, feds, US Marshals, priests for God’s sake. The witnesses or persons of interest were always so surprised to hear that the Winchesters were suspected of any wrongdoing. Several times witnesses had informed the authorities that there must be some mistake.

And there were a few cases were witnesses had been downright belligerent, refusing to speak to the cops and say anything against the Winchester boys.

Something was… off. Something was going on, only Castiel didn’t know what it was.

But he remembered a pair of bright green eyes, smiling at him, telling him he would be okay. A strange man taking time to bandage his wounds and staying with him until the ambulance was closer.

He’d be dead if not for Dean and Sam Winchester.

He also remembered Dean saying they’d ‘be on the lookout’ for Uriel, which, to Castiel, implied some kind of follow up.

He doesn’t know what it all means.

But he is determined to find out.

He logs into his email and starts going through the messages that piled up while he’d been in the hospital. Then he pulls up Dean Winchester’s file again and makes a list of subsequent files for requisitioning.

It takes the clerks about four hours to pull the paper and electronic copies of what he wants. Castiel’s glad he stopped for a quick lunch once he sees the mass of paper work and size of the data drive they’d prepared. He settles down and starts reading.

Once or twice he glances over at Uriel’s empty desk. Even though Castiel had been front and center for his spectacular betrayal, he finds himself slightly surprised every time he looks over and finds it empty.

Some other officers stop by to say they’re glad he’s back, their eyes nervously darting over to the empty desk as well. A few of the admin assistants pop by as well, one of them shyly presenting him with a casserole which he graciously accepts.

They stop by again when they call it a night.

He doesn’t stop working when it starts turning dark outside, except to turn on a few more lights.

He digs into the cold casserole when his stomach rumbles and continues to read the files associated with Dean or Sam Winchester. By the time he’s plowed through half of the glass dish and looks up at the clock, he’s surprised to see it’s almost midnight. He sighs and rubs his eyes. It has to be there. There has to be something. He absently scratches at his chest, through the layers of his dress shirt and undershirt. The healing tissue itches like crazy and he knows he shouldn’t scratch but it’s late and he’s tired.

When his cell phone starts ringing from his pocket, it takes him a couple seconds to recognize what it is, fumble it out and check the number to see if he recognizes it.

Unknown

"Castiel Novak."

"Isn’t it past bedtime for all good little FBI agents?"

Castiel pauses, hearing the words on the phone. The voice is not all together unfamiliar but he can’t quite place it at first.

He has a sudden flash of memory of where he last heard that voice.

"Hello, Dean."

"Wow, impressive memory you got there, Cas. You only heard me once and you were almost dying at the time too."

"Yes, it was a memorable experience to say the least." Castiel strains to hear the background noise coming over the phone. Faintly, he thinks he might be able to hear the distant sound of a car approaching and then zooming by. A highway kind of sound. He also hears the low murmur of a television on and that too is somewhat familiar and he’s surprised when he realizes it’s the local newscaster he’s hearing over the phone. Dean must be watching the local news. Which implies he’s somewhat still in the area.

"How did you get my number?" Cas asks.

"Your coat was at the scene. Had a bunch of your little cards in it."

"So you took one?"

"I took the coat. ‘S good coat. Never know when I’ll need to look like a feeb."

"Stealing evidence from a crime scene is a federal offense, Dean."

Dean laughs slightly, warm and low over the phone. "Well, they can put it on the list. So, you’re sprung from the hospital."

"Are you keeping tabs on me?"

"Isn’t there some kind of saying? You save a person’s life and you’re responsible for it?"

"Thank you for that."

"For what?" Dean’s voice rising slightly on the question and he sounds honestly confused.

"For saving my life. You did. The doctors tell me I would have died without your assistance."

There’s a short pause on the line and Castiel would think Dean had hung up if not for the continued drone of the newscaster in the background. "Well. You’re welcome. Uh, listen, you should probably know, we haven’t caught up with your old buddy yet."

"Uriel," Castiel says lowly. "Are you pursuing him?" This is certainly another piece to the mystery of Dean Winchester.

"Guy tries to open a portal to the other side and doesn’t succeed? He’ll probably try again so, yeah, we’re pursuing him."

Castiel frowns at Dean’s words. "Uriel said that too, the other side. What does it mean?"

There’s another pause from Dean and Castiel can almost hear the wheels of the man’s brain turning.

"What do you remember from that night?"

There’s no question to what night Dean is referring. He’s been thinking of it since he woke up in the hospital and Castiel is almost afraid he already knows what Uriel and Dean mean when they say the other side. Castiel thinks back to waking up, foggy and cold. He recalls the chanting, the symbols on the ceiling, Uriel’s grandstanding. He’d spouted off about portals and openings, calling forth creatures from the other side. He needed a key for his portal and ‘the betrayed man’ apparently fit the bill. Uriel carved into Castiel’s flesh with precision and intent and Castiel finds himself now tracing over the distinct lines of his scar through his shirt and the lingering bandages.

"Quite a lot, in fact. Uriel was… vocal about what he was doing."

"What did he say?" Dean asks immediately, his voice going razor sharp.

"He said he needed a key for his doorway and I would do. A good man betrayed would be a sufficient sacrifice. You must have seen the symbols he… carved into me."

"Yeah," says Dean quietly. "I saw them."

"He also had runes and symbols written on the ceiling."

"Yeah?" Dean asks and Castiel can hear him sitting up, hear the sounds of paper shuffling. "Fuck, I didn’t think to look up. You remember what they looked like? Were they like the ones on you?"

"I remember them quite well. I had nothing else to look at for some time and I studied them, trying to figure them out. They were to be the last thing I saw before I died."

"Well, fuck," Dean’s tone is regretful.

"Fortunately for me," Castiel continues, "that was not the case."

"You think you could draw a few? From memory?"

"Yes."

"Do it," Dean commands easily. "Anything you can remember. Then take a picture of it and send it to this number."

Castiel frowns. "What are you going to do, Dean?"

"Listen, this guy, Uriel, he’s a big fish and big fish don’t stop playing around in their ponds till they get what they want."

"Why does it matter? Is this some form of profiling?" Castiel asks, feeling consternated.

"We need to figure out what kind of a door he was going to open and what he was going to bring over."

"You say that like you think it’s real, Dean."

There’s another stretch of silence on the phone. "What else do you remember, Cas?"

Castiel closes his eyes and again focuses on the night in question. "I remember… screaming, from the cloaked figures. Hearing your shotgun and not understanding what it meant at first. Hearing you and Sam speaking in Latin."

"It’s not as dead as they say it is," Dean teases softly.

"It comes up quite often in my investigations. Various cults or groups think that words have some kind of power by speaking them in Latin."

"Sometimes they do."

"It sounded like an exorcism," Castiel continues. "What you and your brother were saying. It sounded like a Roman Catholic Exorcism."

He hears Dean take a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Yeah."

"Dean," Castiel says. "Exorcisms aren’t… well. I’ve seen many things during my time at the FBI. Things that have made me think about the world, about the religion I grew up with, about my own faith. But none of it… it was never… There’s never been anything truly supernatural about what I’ve seen. I wish there had been."

"Yeah, humans are the worst," Dean agrees and Castiel is marginally surprised. "But…"

"But what, Dean," Castiel prods at his silence.

"Send me those drawings, Cas," Dean says suddenly, deflecting the question. Castiel can hear the rustling of bed clothes as Dean moves on the other end of the phone. "Anything you remember. Send them to me."

Castiel has a sudden thought. "Dean, are you and your brother insane?"

Dean’s laugh is low and throaty over the phone, rumbling deep. Castiel has never been known for his tact and doesn’t often get the chance to question suspects because he’s known for asking touchy or uncomfortable questions as though they were routine and mundane.

"You know sometimes, I wish we were. Listen, try to keep yourself out of trouble. I may not be around to rescue you next time."

"You still haven’t told me what you intend to do."

"I told you. Your old pal Uriel is a big fish. I’m going fishing."

The line disconnects and Castiel frowns at it for a moment before disconnecting himself and putting it down.

Although he’s pretty sure it’s futile, he sends the number to the IT department to see if they can get any records pulled up on it. Glancing at the clock and wincing at the time, he stuffs a few of the Winchester’s case files into his attaché case and heads home.

He mulls over what he knows as he drives, a disturbing suspicion staring to tickle the back of his brain with improbability and doubt. Doubt that Dean and Sam Winchester are criminals, or at least, not the kind of criminals their records imply. He eats a quick dinner once he’s back in his small apartment and then sits down on the sofa, taking a moment to check the messages on his phone.

"Huh. You must be back at work. How are Los Federalis treating you? You working a desk job now? Pick up the phone and let me know you aren’t dead, bro. And dinner. My house. Sunday night. Don’t make me come get you or I’ll take you to the strippers again."

Castiel grimaces as he deletes the message from his brother Gabriel. He decides to send text instead of call. It’s late, but Gabriel is probably up but Castiel doesn’t feel like having a conversation at the moment. He sends a quick note letting Gabriel know he’s fine after his first day back and immediately, as though Gabriel were waiting on him, gets a reply back.

I’m at the bank. You should come.

Castiel frowns and texts back. What bank? Are you in trouble? Do you need to borrow money?

He gets some kind of cartoon character back, sticking his tongue out at him.

No. THE BANK. My new club. REMEMBER?

Castiel rolls his eyes and replies back that, yes, he (now) remembers Gabriel’s new club and asks how it’s doing.

Smokin.

I trust that is a good thing, Cas replies.

Srsly. Come out. U need the fun.

He assures Gabriel he’s fine and then ignores the next six texts that come in rapid-fire succession, each one trying to woo Castiel to the club with promises of wine, women and song. He sets his phone on silent and settles back. He pulls out the case files and starts to review them again.

The niggling doubt from before, about the world of Dean Winchester, starts to take shape.

It’s not a shape he’s at all comfortable with.

If he factors in the conversation he just had with Dean - if he starts to let his mind wander toward the improbable, the unlikely, the supernatural, he’s not sure he likes the picture at all.

Looking at the case files with a tentative paranormal slant, they actually start to make more sense. Disappearing people, bodies turning up in strange and unusual places - if at all - with even stranger and more absurd damage and markings. Puzzling criminology findings, bodies with abnormalities that cannot be explained, graves dug up and seemingly desecrated.

No, not desecrated. Salted and burned.

Eye witnesses accounts that were dismissed for being too far-fetched or simply crazy, evidence that was destroyed or went missing.

And at the center of it all - the Winchesters.

They appear to show up after the ‘unnatural’ events have already started.

Once they leave, no further events are reported.

Castiel sits back on his sofa and scratches absently at his scar tissue again. The scars on his wrists don’t itch nearly as badly as the ones on his chest although he’s sure it’s the ones on his wrist he’ll have the most problem with, out in plain view.

That is, if he ever wears short sleeves again. He already noticed the barista at the coffee shop checking them out surreptitiously. He feels a strange urge to point out that he knows they are going the wrong way, horizontally across his wrist instead of vertically, but that the goal wasn’t suicide but his death by exsanguination.

He’s not sure why it bothers him more that people would think he did it wrong than he did it at all.

It’s definitely a little tidbit he’s not sharing with the Bureau appointed shrink he has to meet with in order to get reinstated and stay on active duty.

Thinking of shrinks leads him to mental disorders which, oddly enough leads him back to Dean.

He hadn’t been joking when he asked Dean if he and his brother were insane. He’d been perfectly serious. He can still hear Dean’s low laugh in his ear at the question. He didn’t seem particularly concerned if Castiel thought him mad. He seemed rather amused by it.

Looking over the case file photos strewn out in front of him, Castiel can see exactly why Dean answered the way he did.

You know sometimes I wish we were.

Castiel pulls some blank paper out of his computer printer and grabs a pencil from his attaché case. He thinks back to the night of Uriel’s betrayal. Blinking quickly he glances around and finds the room too bright. Getting up, he shuts off all the lights except for the one in the bathroom and makes his way in the semi-darkness to the sofa. He starts to sit down on it and then thinks better of it and stretches out on the floor.

Pencil between his fingers and paper underneath, he lazily scribes light circles on paper as he lies on his back. He can’t actually see what he’s drawing but he finds this method generally works well for him. He stares up at the darkened ceiling and remembers the other one he found himself under. Castiel can almost imagine he can smell the incense, hear the chanting, feel the cold table under his back and legs.

Castiel starts to sketch.

He can tell some of his pencil strokes are jagged and don’t match up, but this is just his free form, no judgement allowed, and he continues on.

Castiel’s surprised when he turns to look at the glowing DVD clock to see that it’s one in the morning. He’s been lying there for nearly two hours. Muscles groaning and joints popping, he pushes himself up to the sofa, grabbing his sketches as he goes. He starts to absently flip through them. The symbols don’t make any sense to him, aren’t anything he’s seen before. Castiel starts re-sketching some on clean sheets of paper, clearing up smudged lines or places where his pencil completely drifted and a line that should be inside a symbol is sitting to the right of it.

When he’s done, Castiel has about five sheets of good drawings - clear, concise, and as detailed as he can make them. He spreads them out on his coffee table, edges touching, taking up most of the available surface. He takes his phone out of his attaché case and sets it down next to the drawings.

Castiel stares at both of them for a while.

Does he mean to send them to Dean Winchester? Dean Winchester - wanted in six states on felony charges. Dean Winchester - with his green eyes and impeccable timing who saved Castiel’s life. Dean Winchester who Castiel wishes he could dismiss as simply crazy and dangerous but who he suspects is all too sane and involved with things that before tonight Castiel would have said were impossible.

Castiel remembers all of that night. Remembers black smoke pouring out of people’s mouths as the Winchesters chanted a Latin exorcism. The smoke had swirled up, teeming and heaving, pushing out of windows and bodies dropped like stones. Some of the people that had been caught and arrested claimed no memory of what happened, others said they remembered but it was like ‘they weren’t in control’ of their bodies.

Two had committed suicide.

Castiel had dismissed their claims as the usual duck and dodge many captured criminals did. ‘Guilty by reason of insanity’ generally led to less secure psychiatric hospitals instead of maximum security.

Now, it seemed demonic possession was very much a possibility.

He picks his phone up and turns it over a few times in his long, deft fingers before finally sliding it on and snapping several pictures of the drawings. Each page gets its own picture, and then one of all of them together, arranged as he remembered it.

Castiel touches his shirt, feeling the slightly raised skin underneath and eschewing his modesty, takes his camera, goes to the bathroom and strips off his shirt.

The scar lines are pink against his pale skin. The doctors had carefully told him that grafts may be a possibility but that they needed to wait to see how the original wounds healed. The symbol stretches across his chest, down his sternum and reaches the top of his belly. He’s never thought too much about his body. He isn’t a gym rat, but he isn’t a couch potato either. His job requires him to be fast and capable and his body is a representation of that, rather than of endless bicep curls that served no real purpose, nor of too much time spent lounging about.

But now, seeing the angry lines crossing over his skin, Castiel wonders if he will ever be able to look at them without remembering what happened.

He raises the camera to the mirror and takes a quick picture, only checking to see that it’s in focus and complete before turning away and shrugging back into his shirt. He types quickly, checks that the auto correct hasn’t completely destroyed his message and then, before he can think too much on it, hits send.

He shuffles into his bedroom, suddenly feeling the weight of his first full day back at work hit him like a mack-truck. He tosses his phone on the nightstand and shucks his pants and shirt, rooting around until he finds his soft, academy t-shirt buried in the covers. It’s the only thing Castiel owns that doesn’t make his scar tissue itch or sting. He slides under the covers and makes a conscious effort to not stare at the ceiling.

He can’t stop thinking about the green of Dean Winchester’s eyes.

***

When his cell phone starts vibrating with a grating ‘bzzzz’ on the nightstand table, it takes Dean a few fumbles to slap it silent. Squinting at the screen he’s surprised when he sees it’s from Castiel Novak.

Mr. FBI himself.

Dean ignores the tingle in his stomach at the sight of Cas’ name on his phone and so what if he’s already got it programmed into his contacts. He couldn’t be bothered to memorize any more numbers than he already had (Bobby’s junkyard, Bobby’s fake FBI line, Bobby’s fake CIA line, Bobby’s fake I-don’t-care-who-you-are-I’m-in-some-serious-shit-here line, Sam’s cell, Sam’s emergency cell, and Pizza Hut) so Cas got entered in.

Totally as simple as that.

He squints against the bright light of his smartphone cutting into the darkness of the hotel room. He glances over at Sam’s bed but the contrast in light leaves him only seeing a vague Sam-shaped lump. He turns back to the phone and checks the message.

Here are the drawings you requested. I would be very interested to know what you ascertain. CN

Dean smirks to himself. Ascertain. Jesus, who uses that word in a text?

Castiel Novak, that’s who.

Amusement pushed aside, he starts looking at the images that Cas sketched and sent over. With Bobby’s help, they had been already sure they were dealing with Enochian, but the majority of the language is still just gobblydegook to Dean’s eyes. He thinks he might recognize a few of the basic symbols, having started to review the Enochian alphabet, but it’s mostly a jumbled mess. He flips through the pictures Cas sent, stopping on each one for a minute or so, already thinking about ways he and Sam can start researching it all tomorrow. Maybe send them to Bobby too. He’d bitch and moan that he ‘wasn’t at their beck and call and wasn’t google for Chrissakes’ but Dean knows he’s just as invested in this as they are.

It’s not every day that someone tries to open a portal to Purgatory.

That’s exactly what Uriel is trying to do, according to what they’ve already learned. Right now, though, they don’t have fuck all to go on.

They don’t know if Uriel’s working under a time frame or an underlying schedule and they sure as fuck don’t know why he’s doing it. But with the symbols from Cas and the rest of the details they got from the failed ceremony, they’re hoping they can figure out how.

Until then, it’s not like they don’t have all kinds of weird shit to look into. Dean thinks he sees the signs of a werewolf two states east, Bobby’s heard rumors of a vampire clan to the south, Sam thinks he’s got a line on a poltergeist even further south and they just read in one of the local papers today that a fourth hiker has gone missing one county over.

The skeletons of three other hikers had previously been found stripped of flesh, muscle and tissue. At this point, they aren’t sure if they’re looking at a psycho serial killer (which the newspapers are all over) or a wendigo. Just by virtue of it being closest, Dean thinks they’ll probably head over just to check it out. If it’s a wendigo, they’ll put it down.

If it’s a serial killer, they’ll leave that one to the feds. There are too many freaky things out there for the Winchesters to be stopping human crimes.

Although, maybe it would give him another reason to call Cas.

Dean always considers it a ‘win’ when they can foil the bad guy and save someone in the process. He feels like maybe he was predisposed to kind of like Cas since Cas represents both. They managed to stop Uriel from opening a doorway to monster-land and Cas is still alive, so thumbs up all around.

Before he called Cas tonight, he told himself that what he was feeling was just plain, misguided, pent-up lust. The guy had been dying when Dean found him, for crying out loud. But Dean couldn’t stop thinking about Cas’ steady gaze. The way his eyes had stayed focused on Dean the entire time. The way they hadn’t been full of fear or terror. They’d been somewhat calm, centered. Intense.

Even though he’d been laying there as the bulls-eye of sacrifice centered, Cas had been… composed, Dean guesses is the word.

He can kind of respect that.

Hearing Cas’ voice on the phone tonight had been somewhat of a shock. Dean had expected a higher pitched tone, maybe an upper-class accent of some kind to match the finely boned features and delicate wrists (so he had checked the guy’s wrists out, they had been bleeding at the time and Dean was bandaging them. It wasn’t a crime, for fuck’s sake.)

Instead, Cas had a deep, gravelly voice; full-toned and even-timbered.

Kind of sexy.

But, Dean is still all about the case. Completely. ‘Human sacrifice’ plus ‘ancient angelic language’ times ‘door to purgatory’ equals ‘bad, very bad’ no matter how you look at it.

But that didn’t mean that Dean couldn’t appreciate… things. Things with blue eyes and deep voices that went straight to Dean’s -

He shakes his head. Focusing on the drawings, that’s what he’s doing. He’s thinking about Enochian symbols and how many old, dusty, smelly books he’s going to have to look at before they can decipher these glyphs. That’s all.

He flips to the last picture.

Dean’s split-second, first thought of ‘holy shit, dude sent me a dirty picture!’ is quickly replaced when he immediately takes note of the angry red lines raked across Castiel’s pale (and rather nice) chest.

He and Sam have already done up a sketch of what they could remember, but he has to admit, this is much better than their haphazard and rushed drawing.

All of the symbol is visible - inflamed tissue burning hot pink against the white skin of Cas’ torso. Cas’ face isn’t really in the picture; just the bottom where his five o’clock shadow has darkened his jaw.

Dean kind of wishes that his face had been in the picture.

Not that matters. You know, to read the symbol. Whatever.

He stares at it a long time before finally sending it off to Sam and Bobby, even though, he sort of doesn’t want to. He fires off a quick ‘thanks’ to Cas before smirking to himself and starting a second message.

’Didn’t realize we were already @ ‘exchanging of naughty pics stage.’ Guess IOU.’

With any luck, maybe someday Cas Novak will cash that check.

He snorts to himself. Yeah, right. The only way he’s gonna hook up with a fed is if he’s in handcuffs.

Although that has possibilities as well.

Shaking his head again at his filthy, dirty mind, Dean tosses his phone back on the nightstand and shuffles down in bed to go back to sleep.

***

Castiel’s first reaction at seeing Dean’s text is to frown, eyebrows coming together sharply in consternation as he reads the words once, and then again.

His eyebrows draw apart rather quickly once he figures it out and he dismisses the quick bolt that travels down his spine. It’s completely ridiculous and improbable. He is a federal agent and Dean is a known and wanted felon who has numerous case files and a rap sheet long enough to make most feds raise a few eyebrows. Pushing the thought aside, he snaps back the bedclothes and gets up to start his day.

By the time he’s back at the office, he’s convinced himself to forget the insinuation of Dean Winchester’s text and focus on work.

Nearly as bad as Uriel’s betrayal and attempt to sacrifice Castiel is the mountain of paperwork it generates and the seemingly mandatory head-tilts and concerned looks he gets. He manages to plow through a good portion of the paperwork before lunch - including requisitioning a new badge and gun - both of his being ‘misplaced’ during the ritual.

After lunch it’s another follow up meeting with the government psychologist, only thankfully this time he isn’t still in hospital scrubs and feeling a little exposed - mentally and physically - but is instead in her plush downtown office overlooking the river. The psychologist finds him too distanced and withdrawn and encourages him to ‘open up and let loose’ about ‘what happened.’

He can’t help but hear the air quotes around a lot of what she says.

Castiel tries to vocalize that he doesn’t feel traumatized. He doesn’t feel insecure or frightened. It’s a dangerous world and dangerous things happen. In this case, they happened to him. It’s part of his job, he explains, being in danger, knowing you might die. The fact that it was his partner who placed him in that position was very surprising, but doesn't change the fact that it’s the same position he lives in every day.

She pauses and looks at him silently for a long time. He doesn’t move and stares back. She sighs and says that as long as he keeps coming in for weekly visits, she’ll clear him for field work.

He thanks her for her time - even though the federal government compensates her quite well for it - and leaves.

Back at the office his supervisor pops by to see him, with the requisite head tilt and concerned expression, and talks in circles about relationships and their tangled webs, clicking with people or not ever quite fitting and how you can never really know the true heart of someone.

It takes Castiel a couple of minutes to piece together that he’s is trying to offer him condolences and comfort in his own stilted, convoluted way. Castiel makes the appropriate listening sounds - (mm-hmm, yes, of course, very true). When the subject of another partner is brought up, Castiel skillfully manages to deflect and postpone at the same time.

He ends up dodging the assignation of a new partner and somehow has his supervisor nodding in agreement to Castiel letting the Bureau know when he would feel ready to accept a new partner.

After that, Castiel gets to work.

He’s still got all of Dean’s case files and he starts reading through them again, separating them into two piles: ‘worth a deeper look’ and ‘not enough information to pursue.’

By the end of the work day he has a solid five files that he thinks are worth him investigating. Three of them are several states away but there’s two that are within driving distance.

His former current cases, the ones he was working with Uriel, were all pulled and reassigned while he was in the hospital and Internal Affairs investigated what happened; at the moment, he doesn’t have any irons in the fire. Having worked in the Bureau for several years, he knows it’ll be a few days until his supervisor and peers think he’s back up to snuff after being injured. Castiel figures he has at least this week to pursue his own investigation of Dean Winchester’s world.

Part of him is hoping to find out what Uriel was up to and what his betrayal meant. But the other part of it is plain, unbridled curiosity and a drive for knowledge. Having had a peek into this strange new world, Castiel feels like he has to find out more.

He sends a quick email to his supervisor, giving him the barest details - case file number and a brief note that he’s following up on a possible connection to Uriel - before heading out to the small town of Pine Falls.

While he’s newly without a partner, he doesn’t find the drive lonely or quiet. He puts the radio on an all talk station, just to have something in the background, but he doesn’t really pay attention to what the voices are saying. It’s a small highway to Pine Falls - undivided, single lanes on each side. The road is long and flat enough that he could pass anyone going too slow, or someone wanting to blaze down the pavement could pass him. He’s mostly alone on the road except for a tanker truck in his rear view mirror that gets farther away as he drives.

The next morning, Castiel finds himself on the doorstep of one Mary-Louise Rawlings. Castiel had read the case file once over dinner last night and twice over breakfast. Mary-Louise had been questioned extensively by local police after her husband went on a seemingly unprovoked killing spree. As near as the local police could figure out, Mary-Louise’s husband, Ted, started off by killing the family dog and cat, disemboweling them. He then moved onto stray animals in the neighborhood and then the local zoo, drawing national media attention. The media coverage had reported an ‘unknown predator’ in the area and Animal Services was on high alert.

The Winchesters had arrived right after the giraffes were found eviscerated.

It had been quite a shock to everyone, including Mary-Louise, when her husband Ted, who had been acting a little distant and strange lately, was seen climbing out of the next-door neighbors second story window.

Upon police arriving to investigate the scene, Pat and Sally McMahon were found sans intestines. The police tied Ted to the stray animal killings and then the carnage at the zoo. The manhunt for Ted was on.

Details in the case file get… fuzzy after that with no real timeline or concrete chronology. Dean and Sam Winchester were in town. They were charged with impersonating Federal Agents, carrying concealed weapons, obstruction of justice, public nuisance, public indecency and several traffic violations.

Ted Rawlings was never heard from again.

The Winchesters managed to leave town.

When Mary-Louise had been questioned, she refused to speak about the Winchesters, telling local police they should ‘leave those poor boys alone.’

As she opens the door to his brusque knock, Castiel thinks her face is surprisingly bright and open for someone whose husband is presumed dead. She’s in her mid-forties, but life it seems has been fairly kind to her, leaving her relatively unwrinkled. Her hair is perfectly coiffed in dark curls around her face, framing her large brown eyes.

"Yes?" she asks.

"I’m Castiel Novak. I’m… a friend of Dean’s."

He doesn’t know why he said it. He fully intended to introduce himself as he always does; as a federal agent. But as he opened his mouth to say it, it wouldn’t come out.

Her face morphs and he has a hard time reading all the emotions. A brief flicker of fear, one of unease. Perhaps a curl of fondness and then one of distrust.

"Oh?"

"Yes. I mentioned to Dean, and Sam of course, that I was passing this way and they asked me to stop in and check up on you."

"Oh, well. I’m fine. I’m good." She shrugs. "You know, as expected." Her eyes are searching his, slightly wary.

"Of course." The trick in any successful examination is trying to make the other person think you already know what they don't want to tell you, without crossing any boundaries to immediately raise suspicion that you don’t know. "So you’ve been well?"

She nods a bit. "Sure. Mostly."

He nods in return. "And no further… trouble?" he asks, raising his eyebrows.

Her eyes go wide. "I thought, I mean, they said that Ted… that he… that…," she glances around as if she’s worried the neighbors might hear. She leans in closer and clutches the collar of her shirt. "That he couldn’t, you know, come back. He wasn’t one of those kind of things."

Castiel falters for a moment and seeing the fear on her face he shakes his head. "Oh, no. I mean, yes. Completely taken care of. Just an inquiry on part. My apologies."

She visibly relaxes and nods to herself, calming herself down. Something about his demeanor must have convinced her finally because she doesn’t appear nearly as wary. "Sorry, sorry. I’m sure in your… line of work that this is all de rigeur. But for me, finding out my husband was, you know," she glances around again and makes a strange clawing motion with her hand that he has no idea how to interpret. "It takes a little out of you, you know?"

He nods again, completely out of his depth. "I’m sure."

"But, no problems since, fingers crossed, so… I mean it probably infected him on that business trip to Des Moines, god only knows the places he went and the people he hung out with. He was always… well… my mother warned me but you know how it is."

She seems to tell him that ‘he knows’ a lot and he can’t help but find it totally ironic.

He manages a quick, reassuring smile and nods again.

"Without a body the insurance is a mess and I’ll be lucky to get a penny out of his pension but at least… well," she repeats. "It could have ended so much worse."

"You were lucky," he hedges.

"Oh my god, when I think about what he could have done…" she shakes her head. "I mean, if he had ended up being one of the ones that cocooned or molted-" she shudders. "The property damage alone would have been a nightmare."

"Truly," he intones.

"But," she says brightly. "Dodged a bullet." She gives a nervous kind of laugh. "Oh, poor choice of words, you know, with the silver bullet and all." She waves her hand. "Listen to me chatter. Would you like some tea?"

"Oh, thank you, no. I’ve… well, I think I’ve done here what I came to do, so I should, head out."

Again she nods. "Are you on a case? Hunting?"

He bobs his head slowly. "Yes. Yes, I am."

"It’s not in town, is it?"

"No," he shakes his head. "No, miles away. Miles."

She breathes a sigh of relief. "Good. Good. Well, it was nice of you to stop by and you tell Dean and Sam that if they’re in town they’re welcome here any time. I’ll make them a nice casserole and some of that pie Dean likes so much."

"I will definitely keep that in mind for when I see them next."

She seems to be thinking on something and then in a sudden movement she bolts forward and hugs him fiercely. "Oh, you young fellows out there. When I think of it… You boys stay safe."

"Er, thank you," he manages to croak out awkwardly. She pats his back twice and lets him go, going back inside and shutting the door in one fluid movement.

He stares at the door for a second before making his way woodenly back to his car. Once inside, he puts both hands on the wheel.

… if he had ended up being one of the ones that cocooned or molting…

… silver bullet…

… he wasn’t one of those kind of things…

He’d known what he was looking for when he started investigating. But it was one thing to have suspicions and it was entirely another to have those suspicions confirmed.

If he can even say that.

What did he really find out? What does he even know?

He turns the key in the ignition and starts driving. Lost in his thoughts, it’s several minutes before he realizes he’s going the wrong way to go back to his hotel. He makes quick work of checking out, reviewing the other case file that he wanted to look into further and then he’s on the road again.

***

Fucking wendigoes, thinks Dean. They look like starvation victims, all thin skin stretched taut over protruding bones, but they pack a solid punch when they want to.

He pushes himself off the ground where he landed when the wendigo tossed him like he was a paper doll. His hands scramble in the dirt of the cave for his gun, his mind frantically chanting gun, gun, gun, gun. The wendigo is upon him in seconds, clawing at his legs, pulling Dean toward him, his sharp claws tearing through the denim of Dean’s jeans and scoring the flesh below.

Dean hears the familiar crack of a shotgun and the wendigo’s claws release him and he hears it howl. Dean looks up and sees Sam taking his second shot.

Sam rarely needs more than one shot and never more than two.

The wendigo drops like a stone, brackish blood oozing from its wounds, seeping into the dirt floor of the cave.

Sam steps over and helps him to his feet and as Dean dusts off, he takes another look around the cave.

Skeletal remains, rotting flesh, personal items are all strewn about. He shakes his head.

"If we didn’t have to cart it all down the mountain to do it, I’d suggest burning it all. What a fucking mess," Dean curses.

Sam takes in their surroundings as well. "Yeah. I’ll give the state troopers a call after we burn the wendigo, point them in this direction. Maybe they can identify some of the remains, return some of the stuff to family."

"Yeah," Dean nods, toeing the corpse of the wendigo with his boot. It’s gonna be bad enough to haul this motherfucker down the mountain so they can burn him.

Just another day in the life.

***

Castiel has even more for his brain to chew on after he finishes speaking with Evan Pincolo.

Evan and his girlfriend Katie had been attacked by something. The police said a lone killer, likely not working with a full deck, probably some poor bastard that should have been locked up a long time ago in a mental institution.

Evan said vampire.

The police kind of thought Evan needed the special short bus with the jackets that did up in the back.

They’d been jumped coming home late from the theatre. Evan’s police statement said a man came out of ‘thin air’ and attacked Katie, biting her on the neck. Evan tried to fight him off but with the blood spraying and the screaming and the teeth (he mentioned the teeth several times), Evan admits he broke down and ran for his life.

Katie’s body was found by the cops an hour after Evan made it to the police station to report the attack. Her throat had been ripped out, a third of her blood volume missing and not found at the scene.

Dean and Sam Winchester had shown up there too, posing as federal agents (again), their fingerprints only coming up in the system after the body of one Steve Johnson had been found decapitated in his apartment.

The coroner had noted Steve had ‘significant dental deformities - possibly genetic’ but no further testing had been done.

Evan didn’t seem to know Dean and Sam, but did seem to remember there were two younger federal agents who’d asked him some very specific questions and didn’t give him the stink-eye when he said the v-word.

Evan didn’t know Steve Johnson, didn’t know how he was what he was. All Evan knew was that his girlfriend had been killed by a vampire and then some feds showed up, asked him some questions and two days later, they matched the DNA of one decapitated Steve Johnson to saliva found in Katie’s throat wounds.

Evan started going to church again after a ten year absence.

It all gives Castiel a lot to think about on his drive back home. On the one hand, he feels like the information he’s got, along with his previous suspicions, puts the case files in a whole new light.

A pretty obvious one at that. One where there appear to be all kinds of creatures that go bump in the night.

On the other hand, he has a hard time processing that information. How can there be such unnatural things in the world? Isn’t he long past the age where he thought paranormal monsters were real? He knows there are human monsters in the world; he’s spent enough of his life as an FBI Agent hunting them. Serial killers, murders, rapists, kidnappers…. He’s seen enough to make him believe that there is nothing as fearsome as man’s inhumanity to his fellow man.

But now… faced with the possibility… no, the knowledge, he supposes, that there are things out there living by a very different set of unnatural rules, and that there are men like Dean and Sam Winchester who seemingly hunt them down and dispatch them…

It makes his brain hurt.

It’s late evening when he makes it back to town and he stops off at the local market to pick up some things to toss together for dinner. He had enough of diner food and drive-thru on his impromptu journey that the idea of having carrots and peas with supper appeals to him.

He’s standing in line at the checkout when he sees the headline on the front page of the newspaper.

State Troopers Find Trove of Remains and Belongings

It’s the kind of headline that makes an FBI man reach out for the paper, wanting more detail. He scans the article as he waits.

State Troopers responded to an anonymous tip last night and found a ‘gruesome stash’ of body parts and personal items belonging to missing persons apparently stretching back several years.

‘It’s like a sick horde of trophies,’ a trooper who wished to remain unnamed said. ‘Legs, ribs, cell phones, books, wallets, backpacks… whoever this guy was, he was one sick puppy.’

County coroner sources indicate that at least four separate victims have been identified from the grisly find with one of them matching a missing persons report for a lost hiker filed two years ago. Further identification is expected to take several days.

Sheriff Mason indicated that at this time, the state had no current suspects but indicated they were ‘devoting significant manpower’ to the investigation. Mason also noted that the fingerprints of two individuals ‘known to authorities’ were found at the crime scene, but couldn’t comment if these individuals were considered dangerous to the public or not.

Continued, page A2, Gruesome Cave of Horrors

"Sir? Your turn?"

He looks up sharply and realizes that the line in front of him has cleared out and he’s standing in front of an empty till. He sets his small basket down.

"Just the paper, thanks."

The checkout girl shoots a dirty look at his discarded basket of groceries and rings through his paper. With a nod of thanks, he leaves.

It seems he has one more scene to visit.

***

Dean’s just getting out of the shower when Sam’s phone rings. He hears Sam answer it and then call through the bathroom door for him.

"Dean, it’s Bobby."

Dean fights his wet legs into jeans and shrugs into a shirt, still tugging it down over his body when he steps out into the motel room. Sam activates the speaker phone on his cell and sets it down for both of them to hear.

"Whatcha got, Bobby?" Dean asks.

"It’s more what I’m hoping you got. Or what you can get."

Dean looks at Sam quickly and frowns. "Uh, okay."

"Your fed buddy, Castiel?"

Sam smirks and looks at Dean pointedly and Dean rolls his eyes. "He’s not my… whatever. What about him?"

"Think he’s got access to any of his old partner, Uriel’s, belongings?"

Dean looks again at Sam and shrugs. "Don’t know. Why?"

"Well, those pictures you sent me, I sent them along to a buddy of mine and he seems to think he’s seen them before in a grimoire. Trouble is, he doesn’t have it anymore, but he figures they’re the kind of things that are probably written down in a lot of heavy mojo books. Door to purgatory would ring a lot of nut jobs’ bells and they like to write shit down and pass it on."

"So, what, you figure maybe Uriel had a book or grimoire or something with these symbols written down?" asks Sam.

"Could be," replied Bobby. "He had to get his info from somewhere and I’m hoping it’s a grimoire of sorts. The thing is, these symbols are kind of like graffiti in a way. Everyone’s got their own style - add a dash of Phoenician here, a flick of Mandarin there and presto chango, you just one-upped your symbol from ‘talk to dead guys’ glyph to a ‘bring the dead back to life’ marker."

"You want us to see if we can track it down?" says Dean.

"Well, you boys are kind of hot with the feds in that area right now, but if your boy Castiel is as helpful as he appears…"

"He’s not my…" Dean sighs. "I’ll ask him."

"Get back to me."

The cell phone clicks as Bobby hangs up.

Dean looks up to see Sam staring at him.

"What?"

Sam shrugs. "Methinks the man doth protest too much."

"Shut it, Shakespeare."

On to Part 2