Dean Winchester

Mailbox of Dean Winchester

Castiel's mouth drops open, desperate to make some sort of apology but they are gone before they can manage.

He turns back to Dean, nodding as tears spill over, mixing with both their blood. "I remember everything," he croaks. "I remember what they had me do. All of it. They are out of my head, Dean..." he trails off, throat tight as he fights the onslaught of grief and terror of what just happened.

"Good," says Dean, eyes drifting closed, and it will have to be enough that he can hear and feel Castiel, exhaustion heavy in every part of him, even his eyelids. "'Cause I'm not sure how many times I can pull off dying before my chips are good and cashed."

He smiles as he says it, tugging Castiel down with him in the dirt, where at least he won't have to reach so far to thumb those tears away. "Are you okay?"

For something as unstable as a bomb, the vial is comfortably warm against his chest, nestled beneath Dean's shirt from a cord knotted around his throat. It's glowing fit to rival the sun, too, even through several layers of cotton, and Dean ignores the curious glances of passersby.

Standing on the sidewalk, he's only got eyes for one thing, her shape familiar enough to squeeze around his heart, even under her tarp. Reaching, Dean pulls it off, revealing inch after inch of shiny black.

He's not ready to drive her. But for the first time, Dean feels like he might could look after her again. "Change her oil, at least," Dean murmurs to himself, fingers resting in the air over the hood of the Impala.

Dean's on his ass in the alley and dizzy with pain before he's willing to admit he's made a mistake.

It was just a short trip to the park. He's been making them daily since Castiel went back to work, short stints in the sunshine to get him out of the apartment. He'd even been thinking, as he walked, that he might be up to bringing Annie next time.

He'd thought nothing of using the alley. It's the shortest route home, and he's made it dozens of times. He's a well built man who looks like he can handle himself, and nothing's eveer been dumb enough to jump him here - no vampires, no demons...not even a wandering spirit.

Dean had wondered, when the first boot connected with his face, when it was he stopped seeing humans as a potential threat.

"Your phone, too," grunts the man standing over him, his and his buddy's meaty palms pawing at Dean's open wallet.

"Eat shit," Dean replies through the blood in his mouth, and is rewarded with another kick, this one to his chest. He coughs and goes back to clutching at his side. He could have taken them, he thinks, or at least lasted longer in the scuffle, if one of them hadn't landed a punch directly to his gunshot wound.

It's not bleeding. Dean will thank heaven for small mercies at a more opportune time, say, when he's not staring down two hundred pounds of doughfaced mugger.

"I'm gonna ask you again," says the man, waving Dean's wallet. "Your phone, too, or we keep working you over. Trust me, we got all day."

"No," says Dean, and it's taken an age to reach the knife in his boot, but he's finally got his fingers wrapped around the hilt. "I don't think you do."

Quicker than death, he shoves the knife through the man's shoe and straight to the flesh beyond, past skin and bone to the concrete beneath it. The man rears back with a howl, and as Dean expected, both his attackers are too freaked out by the sight of their own blood to linger. He listens to the sounds of their hurried retreat and curses silently to himself.

"That was my secondbest knife."

But he still has his phone. Fumbling it from his pocket, Dean draws a labored breath, but there's no putting this off. He's not getting up again under his own power.

So he sucks it up, and he texts Castiel.

i fucked up. in Annie's fav pissing alley by the park.

Dean wakes up feeling odd. Nothing hurts, and he isn't sick. There's nothing coming up beyond the usual hunts, no powerful demons or nests of vamps to take out. Cas is all but well, if still human, and Dean doesn't have work today. He just feels odd.

It takes him most of the morning to realize he feels kind of good.

He sits with the feeling for a while, not quite sure what to do with it. Back home, in what feels like someone else's life now, he thinks he might have taken a drive, not for a hunt, but just because. To a diner, maybe, or somewhere else with pie. Dean realizes with a start that he wants to drive right now, and to eat, and he doesn't want the passenger seat to be empty.

"Cas," he says, turning from where he's been seated for ages at the end of the bed. "Cas, wake up."

It'd taken him less than five minutes to lose Cas.

They'll have to work on that when Dean gets back. Cas is more vulnerable than ever, newly human and frankly, pretty fucking terrible at it. Given their lives to date, Dean has no reason to believe that every evil creature in Darrow won't be gunning for them both, and if Castiel is going to survive this place, he needs to shape up, and fast.

Doing a final weapons check outside the dilapidated building, Dean makes a mental note to start Castiel's training, and then he breathes out and steels himself.

There are, at minimum, twelve vampires inside. For a nest, it's huge, but it's also high noon, and Dean has it on good authority that a few of them haven't eaten in days. They'll be desperate, but stupid, too, and if it turns into a rough fight, well...these days, Dean will welcome that.

Squaring his shoulders, Dean lets himself in quietly through the rotted door. The first kill is swift and silent, as is the second, but the third...

Dean flies through the wall as easily as a hammer through wet cardboard, but he keeps a hand on his machete, up on his feet and ready for the fourth vampire when it comes for him. His expression doesn't change as he parts another head from its body, but the other vamps are up and closing in, snarling as they form a half circle around him.

Hesitating. Dean quirks a grin he almost feels and wipes his blade on the untorn leg of his jeans. "Did you need an invitation?" he asks, dragging the edge of the blade against his forearm. It's a narrow cut, but the blood weals up, rich and red, and the nest goes mad.

With the sounds pouring out the broken windows, anyone would be insane to come inside.

A day later, and Dean doesn't let himself hesitate. He takes out his phone and fires a quick text.

got something for you. meet up when you can.

Then he heads outside, head bent against the humid summer air and intent on finding the nearest bar. He's got a few hours before Cas wakes up from his midday nap, and he's sick of trying to drink with that too wide, heavy gaze on him.

It's a few days before he's allowed visitors.  A few days, but Dean is barely aware of them, drifting under a pile of blankets and the steady drip of drugs.  Castiel flies in a few times, always with Annie, and she makes Dean feel more like himself than any amount of healing ever could.  He must look absolutely wretched the first time the nurses catch her in his bed, because they only smile and let her stay.  One even volunteers to take her downstairs whenever she needs a walk, and Dean gives her the shadow of a smile he hasn't worn in years, smiling even wider when she blushes.

It's strange to think that after everything, half-dead in a hospital bed is the place Dean begins to feel alive again.

He's mostly asleep, Annie's head lifting with every rise of his chest, when Nurse Howard peeks in, letting him know he has his first 'official' visitor.

[ooc: open post, if you wanted to tag Dean recovering (Ashley >:E), here's the place!]

 There's so much blood.