17: [Action] Don't Fear the Reaper

[dashboardlite]

[ooc; This is just gonna be reserved for The Operator, Dean, and Castiel to write in. But if you enjoy disembowelment, feel free to read~]

There are a lot worse things that Dean Winchester could be doing with his time than hunting down something that he isn't completely, one-hundred percent knowledgeable about.

Vampires are easy.  Cut the head off.

Werewolves shot with a silver bullet.

Ghosts?  Salt and burn the remains.

But reapers...the last time Dean's seen a reaper, he was hanging in limbo, waiting to die in a hospital.  It wasn't so bad, then.  It had taken the form of a young woman named Tessa, startlingly pretty and unfailingly sympathetic to the mortality of humans.  Infinitely wise.  His first experience had been less pleasant.  Dean's first real brush with death was a little over a year ago: heart attack thanks to a fuck-up with a 10,000 Volt stun-gun trying to kill something on the job, and he landed an all-expenses-paid trip to the Great Beyond.  Prognosis wasn't good: Six weeks, at best.  But a local faith healer had cured him, at the price of someone else's life.  Someone controlled a reaper.

Someone was playing God.

In those last moments of consciousness when Faith Healer Roy Le Grange had laid hands upon him, Dean saw a tall, pale man in a dark suit.

The Operator obviously isn't going to play nice.  Dean can't reason with it, like he did with Tessa.  There's the chance that it could be controlled by someone, the way Le Grange's reaper was, but everyone in this godforsaken place is scared of the damn thing, so that's outta the cards.  Maybe it just went rogue.

"Aaaaand I don't even know how the Hell I'm s'posed to kill it," Dean mutters to himself, snapping his father's journal shut and tucking it into his duffel bag.  He's armed with a decent amount of weapons, ranging from salt-rounded shotguns to silver knives - because you can't take any chances with Death - and an angel.

Dean takes a deep breath, staring up at the forbidding woods with a tight frown on his face.

"You ready, Cas?"

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[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

Ever the effective, logical buzzkill, Castiel shuts down his 'last meal' suggestion and Dean snorts in response, "Thank you, Mr. Spock." The hunter rolls his eyes, crouching and resting his elbows on his knees as he waits in the silence. Idly, he fingers the amulet around his neck.

As time drags on, and he switches positions from crouching, to standing, to sitting, to standing again, Dean feels the nauseating sense of paranoia creep into the back of his mind like a sponge slowly soaking up water.

"...Cas?" Dean murmurs quietly, suddenly, twisting to look around behind him. It's past midday now, and shadows are growing longer. It's darker in the woods, and he can't shake his unease.

"I feel like something is watching us."

[seesyou.livejournal.com]

If you feel that, it is for a reason. Perhaps it was some perverse impulse that led the Operator to hunt his hunter only in his own good time, or perhaps there's no significance to it at all. Still, there he is, just on the edge of vision, still a ways off.

It might not even be him. It might not be anything at all. It's just a suggestion of darkness amongst the branches, a gleam of pale that could be faceless face or stripped birchwood.

[out-of-minutes.livejournal.com]

Cas has never understood the human expression about having a 'sixth sense.' As an angel, he has many more than six senses, and none of them are informing him that there is anything out in the woods. He almost tells Dean as much.

But... somehow, he has no idea how, he just has a feeling, an itch at the edge of his awareness, and casts his gaze yet again in a full arc around their small clearing. At first his eyes skip over it, but then track back: a spot of deeper darkness, almost indistinct against the gloom at the very limit of sight. He swallows, not sure if he should say anything to Dean yet.

He looks over to Dean, to see if his expression indicates he's seen anything, but Dean is looking in a different direction entirely. When Cas looks back out to the trees, the spot is gone, or perhaps was never there. He shakes himself, adjusting and settling back into his surveillance.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

Cas doesn't answer him.

Somehow, this bothers Dean more than it probably should.

After narrowing his eyes speculatively into the growing darkness, Dean clenches his jaw and starts to think that maybe this was a bad idea after all. It's getting late. The sun is far past its peak and, most of all - No one knows they're out here. He'd refused to tell any of the teenagers for safety's sake, and Dean's already lied to Mark about going into the woods in the first place.

They're alone.

Cut off.

Just where it wants us. He mentally groans, reaching slowly into his duffel bag and pulling out a flashlight. Dean's taken enough chances for one day, and getting caught off-guard isn't one of them, particularly at night. It ought to be another hour or so before the sun really starts setting, but until then he's going to stay prepared.

If only the back of Dean's neck would stop prickling like someone's walking back and forth over his damn grave. "I don't like this," He states quietly, but it sounds near-deafening; there is nothing else around. No birds, no crickets, no Rocky Raccoon clamoring through the underbrush. Just silence, and it makes the short hairs on his nape stand up.

"Not one friggin' bit."