17: [Action] Don't Fear the Reaper

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[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]

Dean stares up at Cas, eyebrows drawn up in question. It's almost a strain to keep eye contact with someone who looks like they could shoot fucking lasers at you at any given instant. So he was the problem? Alright, yeah, okay...so Dean hadn't exactly prepared himself for any of this. He hadn't given the excursion much thought. One can't blame him if they've been inside his head.

Cas was just there.

Cas ought to have heard the residual pain. Or rather, the constant pain. Dean's been carrying it around since he got to this godforsaken madhouse. Jesus, contact. Stability is something he craves, but Dean is used to being the one to fuck it up.

He stands quietly, almost introspective, and tugs Cas' trenchcoat on, belting it and not really noticing how tight it is in the shoulders. Suddenly Dean feels tired, bone weary. Dark circles and sleepy eyes, nothing left to rid the world of, no one left to touch, caught between these fuck-all woods and Cas and one last chance to keep them both safe when he screwed up the first time.

"...Everyone gets five lives here, Cas," Dean replied dully, rubbing his face. He can't bring himself to fight.

[out-of-minutes.livejournal.com]

"So you decided to waste one," Castiel snaps. It's not a question. "Surely you didn't need my help for that."

Admittedly, he is relieved to hear they get five lives here, however absurd the idea is. He just wishes Dean would be less rash. He's angry because (among other things), five lives aside, he almost lost Dean. And sure, this isn't the first time. But somehow it hasn't mattered this much before. Cas doesn't know what that means, and is a little afraid to examine it.

He senses Dean's crushed mood, and privately feels bad about it. He isn't in the habit of prying into Dean's mind though, so while he realizes Dean's pain isn't just physical, he doesn't realize how long it's been there.

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"Waste one?"

Dean mumbles, expression dark. He doesn't answer; he can tell that Castiel is pissed. He had his reasons, and testing his own limits as well as the mansion's was part of this whole deal. As well as blowing off steam, not that he got to do much of that, being strewn across the forest floor like some kind of macabre, grotesque confetti.

Dean huffs, rubbing the back of his neck. He connects physically. It's Dean who strikes out with a fist when he's angry, or lays a gentle hand on Sam's shoulder when he's worried for him, pats his brother's face, slaps him on the back of his head. For all his bravado and attempts at distance, Dean needs physical contact like he needs air. He has no problem initiating it, but tends to smack it away when someone reciprocates unless it comes from an Approved Source, meaning someone female, reasonably hot and adventurous.

The world is, lately, very limiting in its ability to provide that. Right now, he feels empty and couldn't give a damn where the next touch comes from. Dean rubs at the back of his neck when he's nervous or needs a moment to think or is otherwise out of his element.

"...Look, I'm sorry," He grits out, avoiding eye contact. "Whaddayou want, a written apology?"

Arguing with an angel is probably bad form. Dean scratches his left shoulder, nose wrinkling in thought. "I'll be more careful next time - Do more...more research, or somethin'."

[out-of-minutes.livejournal.com]

Cas sighs. "No," he says, "Your apology is sufficient." If you mean it.

He's weary, and wants to be away from here, back to the mansion for its familiarity if nothing else. He needs new clothing, and wants to wash himself of the gore still clinging to him, drying and crusty now. He begins walking, slowly in deference to Dean's state, in the direction he's vaguely aware it lies.

"If there is a next time at all," he continues sharply as he goes, knowing the likelihood is high with their track records, "we must be more prepared. You must teach me to shoot, and show me where the library is." He's only had very limited experience with the Internet, and doesn't know if it exists, here.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

Cas isn't the only one covered in gore. Licking his lips, Dean tastes dried blood and makes a face. He'd willingly kill someone for a shower right now, if only to ease the soreness in his limbs. Stepping carefully - because shit, he's barefoot - through the underbrush, Dean tags alongside Castiel rather than striding ahead with his usual "confidence".

There's bound to be a next time. There's always a next time. That's just friggin' rhetorical.

"I can do that," Dean replies quietly, thumbing at his Adam's apple with the distracted fascination that he can finally produce sounds again. There isn't much he can say to make Castiel less embittered - in fact, Dean is pretty damn sure that the 'endangering their lives' factor isn't even the part Cas is ticked about.

Dean wishes he knew what the Hell it was. He can read people, but he's not the psychic-wonderboy.

Wincing as brambles cut at his calves, he pushes on. Dean suddenly realizes that he's done more talking with Castiel in the past month than he has with Sam in the past half-year. "Hey," Dean nudges one of Cas' shoulders with his own. "...thanks."

[out-of-minutes.livejournal.com]

Cas leans into Dean's nudge, inexplicably liking the contact. Though he's forgiven him, he's still angry with Dean, and suspects that may last a while, even if he can't pinpoint or articulate the reason for it. He's angry with Dean for devaluing himself, for being rash and stupid, and angry at himself for failing to protect him. It's more than just those things though, and his feelings churn unfamiliarly within him. There's a long pause before he answers, and when he does, he looks sideways and up at Dean and smiles, small and rueful and brief, before letting his expression smooth out again. "You are welcome."

He stays close to Dean as they walk, steadying him a few times when he trips barefoot over brambles or tree roots. He wishes he could give him his shoes, but can tell at a glace they'd be too small. All the more reason to return to the mansion, he supposes.

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Thinking about it lucidly, Dean considers that the only time he's seen Castiel smile was when they were hitting the bottle of Jack over Christmas, and that...Wingy Thing*...happened. It's nice, Dean notes distantly, pricked out of his thoughts by a pinecone under the arch of his foot. He feels a strange sense of accomplishment, having wrangled something as trivial as a smile, out of Castiel. Particularly after the angel made him feel two feet tall with all the berating.

Dean is beginning to sense a pattern in fucking up the relationships he's taken for granted so far in the mansion. First it was Kurt, then Castiel...Dean hopes that the Medicine Seller isn't next, or he'll really be screwed when the shit hits the fan.

Once they break through the line of trees, and Dean can see the mansion, he heaves a sigh of relief and casts another skeptical glance over his shoulder. Better left to another day. The silence they've shared has been surprisingly comfortable, and when Dean opens his mouth to speak again, he actually finds himself checking what he's about to say, first. Even then, he feels...

...nervous?

"We should, uh...we should hang out more. Not with me gettin' gutted, either."

*The Wingy Thing (TM) is an event that they will never speak of again, considering that after his initial groggy, sleepy mumbling against Castiel's chest upon waking up, Dean had nearly had an aneurysm trying to flail off the angel, and subsequently cracked his head on the coffee table. Needless to say, he's still trying to forget what happened.

LATE TAG IS LATE HOLYSHIT

[out-of-minutes.livejournal.com]

It's a few more minutes before Castiel finally replies, the shape of the mansion growing larger ahead of them as they walk, their footfalls crunching in the quiet.

"I would... like that," he says softly.

Then they pass out from under the cover of the trees, and the weak winter sun falls warm on them after the chill of the forest.