Archive of Our Own

The call came three days after Dean had left. Sam sat in front of his propped smart phone again, scrolling through local news sites. Kevin was stationed in front of the tablet as per usual, alternatively chewing at the end of his pen and muttering to no one in particular. Castiel sat a little down the table from Kevin with a copy of Dante’s Inferno, which Castiel seemed to regard the same way Sam would regard a Japanese travel guide to America.

Sam was about to swipe at the smart phone’s screen again when the news story blinked out and the phone rattled hard enough for Sam to feel like he’d been stung. He yanked his hand away as a graphic popped up telling him he had an incoming call. Sam didn’t recognize the number.

“Cas?” he glanced over, his shoulders hunched at the noise the vibrating phone made. He stood and backed up a few paces.

Castiel glanced up then set the book aside and reached out to take the phone. Kevin barely spared it a glance.

“Hello?” Castiel asked, placing the phone to his ear. “No, this is Castiel.” Castiel fell silent for several seconds after that, and Sam could hear the rumble of a voice coming from the speaker. Castiel’s brows grew lower and lower. Sam found himself staring.

“I see,” Castiel finally said. His voice came out rock solid, but he was also human these days, so Sam could see something in his expression that set off alarm bells. “Yes,” Castiel said. “Yes, we can meet you—“ he paused, scribbled something on a scrap piece of paper laying on the table. “What? I understand. Thank you.”

Castiel pulled the phone away, hung up, then took a moment to blink at the tabletop.

“Cas?” Sam ventured. Castiel jerked his head slightly and looked at Sam.

“That was Rich McDowell.” Castiel said the words like he was reciting something. A long pause. “Dean is missing.”

***

Kevin was nervous. Sam could tell as much because the pulse surging beneath the skin of Kevin’s cupped hands came fast and sharp and thudded up Sam’s feet and legs. But Sam wasn’t focused on that; he was more focused on Castiel’s back as he bobbed around his room, gathering books and talismans and placing them in a duffel that sat on his bed like a boneless, gaping-mouthed creature.

“So Rich doesn’t think he’s dealing with a ghost after all?” Sam demanded. Kevin shifted yet again, and his hands bobbed, but for once Sam was too focused to make much note of it

“He assumed it was a ghost,” Castiel told him as he tossed a few shirts into the duffel like an after thought. “But apparently things aren’t adding up.”

“Like what?” Sam could hear his voice increasing in decibels, which didn’t mean much at his size.

“I’ve told you, he didn’t say,” Castiel turned enough to level an admonishing look at Sam. “He sounded shaken and sleep-deprived, and he was mostly asking for help.”

“But what happened to Dean?” Sam insisted.

“Rich has no idea,” Castiel slowed then, his voice finally breaking into something that echoed the fear-anger-frustration pumping through Sam. “They were scouting a local park when Dean disappeared. Rich has no idea where he went. Phone not answering.” Castiel bit at his lip—an innately human thing to do—then added, “There’s a good chance that he’s alive.”

Well of course Dean was still alive, Sam wanted to snap. He was always still alive. 

Sam ran a hand down his face and chanced a glance up at Kevin, who still looked mildly stricken. Perhaps he’d never seen Castiel this dangerously focused.

“Kevin?” Sam asked in a low voice, and Kevin ticked his head down to meet Sam’s eyes. “Can you do research detail?” Sam asked. “As soon as we get better information, we’re going to have to figure out what we’re dealing with and how to kill it. You can do that, right?”

“It’s kind of my specialty, isn’t it?” Kevin said. He tried to smile. It didn’t come out right.

“Good idea,” Castiel tossed a last few items in his bag then zipped it up. “Sam, you can help.”

Sam blinked. He made a breathy laugh.

“Seriously?” he asked. Castiel side-eyed him in the way of a person who was hoping to avoid a confrontation.

“I know you want to come, Sam, but in your state—“

“Cas—“

“You admitted yourself that you weren’t up to snuff to go with Dean a few days ago,” Castiel bulled forward.

Sam laughed again, and this one came out much harsher.

“It’s Dean,” Sam said. He shouldn’t have had to explain it, not to Castiel.

Castiel pressed his lips together, closed his eyes briefly.

“I know,” he said. He sounded genuine when he said it, at least. “But what do you think would happen if you went out there and got hurt? Or died? It’s a greater probability at your size, Sam, you know it is. What do you think we’d do after that?”

Kevin’s fingertips curled up slightly. Sam felt his shoulder slump and a great, vicious, roll of frustration at damned witches and their damned powder and his own damned carelessness.

Castiel gazed at him with an irritating amount of understanding in his eyes.

Sam gripped compulsively at the edge of Kevin’s hand and eventually looked away.

***

Fuck it though.

Like Sam had said, this was Dean.

It explained why Sam looked up to Kevin as soon as Castiel gave Sam one last look, then left the room to fetch his handgun.

Kevin didn’t even express surprise when Sam said, “Put me in the duffel.”

“You’re going to get hurt again,” Kevin said without any real heat. “There are knives and heavy books in there.”

“And shirts,” Sam reminded him. “I’ll be okay.”

“No you won’t.” Kevin sounded deeply resigned. He looked down at Sam with a tired look on his face, and Sam felt a spark of guilt at having put it there. “See,” Kevin continued. “It wouldn’t be that hard to, you know, restrain you.”

“I know that,” Sam agreed.

“But if it was my mom in danger.” Kevin shrugged. “I don’t like it. But I get it.”

Sam blinked.

“So,” he finally ventured. “You’re helping me?”

“I’m helping you,” Kevin sighed. “Against all my better judgment.”

Sam exhaled a little shakily and patted the palm of Kevin’s hand.

“Thanks,” he said. “I really—“

“No,” Kevin said as he started for the duffel. “No, don’t thank me. Do that when you get back in one piece.”

Sam wondered briefly if Kevin was aiming for guilting Sam into not going, but then Kevin reached the duffel and unzipped it. He lowered his hand to the opening he had made and Sam peered inside. The duffel was an old one of theirs, usually used for extra clothes and miscellanea. It smelled musty.

“Go on, Cas will come back soon,” Kevin said. Sam glanced back up.

“We’ll be counting on you for research,” he tried, like that might erase the tiredness etched into Kevin’s face.

“Go on,” Kevin repeated, and Sam obliged by slipping into the duffel. The mustiness swelled around him; the light that made its way through the rough fabric was tinged dark blue. He heard Kevin zip the duffel above him then retreat with quick footsteps. Sam looked around at the duffel’s contents and carefully maneuvered himself through the jumble of items until he found the edge of a soft cotton t-shirt. He dug into it until he felt properly surrounded by the fabric and hopefully spared from any concussions.

Castiel was heralded by a sudden earthquake, a rustle of fabric, and a swooping sensation as he lifted the duffel and swung it onto his shoulder. Sam made a small, stifled noise as the contents of the duffel shifted and threw him forward. He barely managed to keep his grip the shirt, and nevertheless earned himself a bruise when he was tossed against the corner of a hardbound book. He groaned and huddled deeper in the shirt.

Castiel carried the duffel down the hall, and Sam could see the light shift in tone when they emerged into the main room.

“Kevin?” Castiel asked. He sounded surprised.

“Sam is sulking under the cabinet,” Kevin said, his voice sounding mildly annoyed. “I can’t get him to come out.” Sam blinked and then had to count himself impressed.

Castiel sighed.

“I’ll be keeping in touch,” Castiel said, his voice resigned. “Don’t let Sam do anything reckless.”

A beat of silence.

“I’ll do my best.”

Another hitch as Castiel started walking again. Sam quelled the roll in his stomach at the whole situation, because maybe he really was an idiot. Maybe he was going to end up killed out of pure stubbornness.

Sam gritted his teeth as Castiel started down the steps, the duffel bobbing and reminding Sam of those carnival rides that one simply didn’t brave after having just eaten.

Then another few long strides, the sound of a car beeping, and Sam’s world rocking one last time when Castiel dumped the duffel in a seat. Sam had just peeled his eyes open when a rumble engulfed him and drove him to duck his head as far into the fabric as he could.

Nothing for it now.

***

Rich’s case was in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Castiel seemed determined to get there at least as quickly as Dean would have. At least, that was what Sam guessed based on how much the engine revved. It was a clunker, an old project of Dean’s that he’d eventually used to teach Castiel how to drive. Sam wasn’t entirely convinced that they’d bring the car back in one piece. Maybe Castiel didn’t care.

Castiel, unlike Dean, didn’t seem to want noise while he drove. Sam wished for a little radio at least. It would have given him something to think about besides the fact that they didn’t know what they were walking into and that Dean was missing.

After a few hours, Sam sensed the car slowing down then heard the click of the turn signal. Gas station break, then. Sam sighed and wriggled around again.

Five minutes later, the chug of gas reverberated through the car and Sam found that he immensely preferred it to the bone-jangling roar of the engine. He was going to be deaf by the end of all this.

Sam was not expecting the sudden zoooop of the duffel’s zipper, and his heart just about seized in his chest when light poured down from above. He froze as Castiel’s large hand descended into the duffel, knocking things around and sending Sam tumbling sideways.

Sam came to an abrupt halt against the spine of the notebook Castiel liked to use for his research. The wind knocked clear out of him, Sam could only stare up at the light pouring down on him in stunned silence. Maybe Castiel wasn’t paying too much attention to the contents of his duffel. Maybe—

“Sam?”

Never mind.

“Hey,” Sam gasped. He braced his hands against the book and tried moving. He decided that moving was a bad idea.

“Sam?” Castiel repeated. His face rushed forward, and Sam experienced a bought of irritation that faces could be so damn big.

“Hang on,” Sam panted.

“What—“ Castiel dropped whatever he’d been about to say and pulled away briefly, looking around him like he was afraid someone might be watching. Or perhaps he was giving a ‘what the hell is wrong with Winchesters?’ expression to the universe as a whole. Sam was willing to bet either way.

Sam took another sharp inhale and winced at the pain it produced.  He hoped he hadn’t broken anything.

“Did you really have to, Sam?” Castiel insisted, ducking his face into the duffel again. “Was it so hard to stay with Kevin?”

“Yes,” Sam replied honestly. Castiel should have known better, Sam wanted to tell him. Castiel shook his head, but stuck his hand into the duffel.

“How badly did you get hurt this time?” he asked mulishly.

“Just winded,” Sam promised, and gingerly crawled into Castiel’s palm. It hurt to move too abruptly.

“Liar,” Castiel told him, lifting his hand much more slowly than usual, letting it stop at chest level. He sighed and gazed down at Sam. “I’m not sure why I didn’t check the duffel immediately before leaving.”

“You’ll learn,” Sam assured him.

Castiel shook his head again. “There’s nothing for it now,” Castiel said. “You get your way. But be more careful, Sam, please. We can’t lose you any more than we can lose Dean or Kevin.”

“Okay,” Sam assured him.

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

Castiel slowly nodded and leaned over to grab at what turned out to be several of his shirts. He arranged him in a nest on his lap then lowered the hand holding Sam into it.

“Don’t object,” Castiel warned. “I need to keep an eye on you.”

“Not objecting,” Sam assured him. He still couldn’t get in a proper breath, so he couldn’t have argued even if he’d wanted to.

Castiel’s other hand turned the key and a few seconds later, the engine turned over with a small sputter. Sam resolved not to say anything about how the car rattled everything inside him. He didn’t need to give Castiel another reason to worry.

“Lie down,” Castiel ordered, still not moving his hand from underneath Sam. “Get your breath back.”

Sam considered things and then lay down so that Castiel’s four fingers gave him a slightly inclined surface to lie on while his legs sprawled into the shirt material. Sam glanced up at Castiel, but Castiel remained focused on the road. Sam doubted that Castiel was a talented enough driver to steer with one hand, but Sam’s chest still hurt so he decided to let it go.

***

They only drove for another two hours before they reached Council Bluffs. At Sam’s insistence, Castiel did eventually remove his hand from beneath Sam so he could drive properly. Even after that, he glanced down at Sam far too often.

He had to keep his eyes on the road once they hit Council Bluffs. Sam couldn’t see much of the scenery from Castiel’s lap, but he knew they were close when Castiel muttered something under his breath then grabbed a scrap of paper and his phone from the cup holder. He placed them in the nest of shirts with Sam. “Can you look up the address and navigate me?” he asked in a distinctly frazzled voice. “There are more intersections and cars here than I’m used to.”

Sam was tempted to point out that Council Bluffs was such a small city it could have been called a large town, and that it barely registered in terms of traffic. But then again, Castiel usually drove on country roads and highways, and Sam didn’t feel like making Castiel more anxious than he already was. Sam dutifully typed in the address to the phone’s map function.

“You’re on Gannet Drive?” Sam asked.

“I believe so.”

“Go right on Field Street then,” Sam said. He tilted his face up and found Castiel’s arms ramrod straight. “Relax, Cas,” he added. “You can handle this.”

“Cars are ridiculous inventions,” Castiel muttered back.

They did make it to the motel in the end. There had been that hair-raising moment when Castiel swerved, Sam nearly tumbled off of Castiel’s lap, and they heard an angry horn from somewhere nearby. But other than that.

The motel, once Sam finally saw it after Castiel placed him on the dashboard, looked like every other motel he and Dean had stayed in over the years. Dumpy, dirty, and questionably themed.

“This where Rich is?” Sam asked.

“It’s the address he gave me,” Castiel dug his notebook from his duffel bag. He made a triumphant sound, stuck the notebook under one arm, then placed his hand next to the dashboard for Sam.

When Rich McDowell opened the motel room door a few minutes later, Sam’s first thought was that the man had aged remarkably fast in a few years. He was a barrel-chested man with thin gray hair that had once been brown and a web of faint lines across his face that did not include as many laugh lines as it did worry lines. Sam had seen his dad going in this direction in the time before he died. Hunting did not do anything for longevity.

“Hello,” Castiel said in a voice that echoed the angelic stiffness from several years ago. “Are you Rich McDowell?”

“I am,” Rich said, his voice coming out with the edge of an old man’s quaver. It made Sam wince; Rich didn’t know to keep his voice pitched lower. “You must be Castiel.” Rich’s eyes dropped to Sam standing in Castiel’s hand and his eyebrows shot up. Sam straightened his back automatically. A long silence passed. “I was told you had some trouble with witches, son,” Rich finally said, peering at Sam. “But I hadn’t imagined this.”

“Shrinking powder,” Sam said in as nonchalant a voice as possible, as if getting squeezed to a fraction of his size was normal. “It could have been worse.”

“Got that right,” Rich muttered. He blinked hard—his eyes were a little rheumy—and shook his head. “Well,” he stepped back. “You’re not here to chat about witch troubles, I guess.”

The motel room had that disorganized look of a hunter mired in a case. The sheer number of papers tacked to the wall acted as clear indication that Rich had hit too many dead ends. It matched the antsy expression on Rich. Sam imagined that Rich wished he had the nerve to get in his car, drive out of town and not look in the rearview mirror. Maybe the only thing preventing him from doing as much was the fact that he had gotten the Winchester brothers involved, gotten one of them…something. Sam cut off that line of thought.

Castiel stood in the center of the motel room, and he and Sam peered around at chairs covered in books and tables littered with paper. Finally Castiel seated himself on the corner of the queen bed buried under more books and papers. He let the hand with Sam rest in his lap.

Rich remained standing, too twitchy, Sam suspected, for anything like sitting.

“I should start from the beginning I guess,” Rich said, mostly to himself. He wiped a hand across his face, but before he could speak, Castiel interrupted him.

“Could you keep your voice down a bit?” he asked, all professional courtesy. “Noises are much louder for Sam in his state. We prefer to let him keep his hearing.”

Sam cleared his throat and focused on something that wasn’t Rich or Castiel. The flush of gratitude rose inside him nonetheless.

“Fair enough,” Rich murmured this time. “So. When I first came here, I figured we were dealing with a child ghost. Still a good chance of it, in my opinion.”

Sam straightened.

“How bad is that?” Castiel asked.

“Child ghosts can get vicious,” Sam explained, tilting his head up toward Castiel. “They’re usually even more driven by pure emotion than adult ghosts.” He remembered the job he and Dean had worked with just a few weeks after Jess’ death, the ghost child that crawled its way into water pipes.

“You said this ghost has killed several people?” Castiel looked back up to Rich.

“The body count is up to eight in the last few months,” Rich said in a thin voice. “And that’s not including all the missing persons who, we think, were taken by this thing.”

“But you also told me you don’t think it’s actually a ghost,” Castiel added. “You said it might be something else.”

“Might be,” Rich threw up a hand. “Dean thought it was something else, but he didn’t have any suggestions. We were hitting the books trying to figure it out.”

“So how did he go missing?” Sam insisted. Castiel’s thumb brushed at him, but he ignored it.

Rich deflated slightly.

“Early this morning,” he said. “The attacks usually happen in this park to the south of town. Me and Dean were out there, just poking around to see what we could find.”

“And you found this ghost—whatever,” Sam guessed.

“We heard it,” Rich nodded. “A kid crying. Just wailing out there in the woods. We were trying to follow it when Dean—“ Rich shook his head, hand coming up to rub at his forehead. “We were about 20 or 30 yards apart, see. So I hear him shout my name, and then nothing. I head over there, and I can’t find any sign of him. No blood. And the crying had stopped.”

Sam could feel his teeth clenching and beneath him, Castiel radiated tension as well. Rich seemed to pick up on it because he kept talking, almost rambling.

“I spent hours looking for him,” he said. “I swear, I spent hours looking but at some point I knew I was in over my head—“

“We’ll just have to find him,” Sam spoke up. “Won’t be the first time this kind of thing has happened. We’ll find him.”

Rich looked both relieved and eternally wrung out.

***

Sam usually enjoyed the research part of hunts, but it turned out that papers were a pain in the ass when you had to go for a walk to read them.

“Are you still looking at that?” Castiel asked. Sam lifted his head up to where the poor lighting carved hollows of shadow into Castiel’s face. They sat at the table rereading Rich’s many newspaper clippings, police reports, and other papers. Rich sat on the bed doing the same. Searching for any clues they’d missed, any details that would tell them what they were dealing with.

“No, but go ahead. This one isn’t being useful.” Sam stepped off the newspaper clipping, relinquishing it to Castiel. He dragged another paper—what looked like a police report—into the open and started skimming. Missing person. Female. 57. Last seen by husband when they were walking in the park. Disappeared when he ran back to the car to fetch their water bottles.

Dean and Rich had been right to look into the woods; all the bodies had been found near the woods, all the disappeared people last seen in its vicinity. Sam could easily imagine that a child had been murdered out there, its body left to rot under a shallow grave. That would make its spirit vengeful enough to explain the body count.

“Here’s the problem though. There haven’t been any kids missing or murdered in the last several years,” Rich had pointed out when Sam had brought this up. “All the killings and disappearances? They only started three months ago. And don’t try to suggest that this ghost becomes active on a cycle; this city has never seen this many deaths in that park before.”

“Maybe the victim wasn’t a local child,” Sam suggested. “That can happen. Kidnapped from another city, brought here and killed.”

Rich had looked dubious, but agreed to see what he could find as far as missing children in nearby cities.

Now, Sam tried to approach the cases with a mind clear of biases. If it wasn’t a ghost, what else could have killed these people?

He finished the missing persons report without a sense of having learned anything, then sat down in the middle of the paper with a putter of his lips. He once again tallied the deaths, tallied the disappearances, tried to rearrange them in his mind. The bodies that had been recovered hadn’t shown much violence, just a few gashes and cuts. Victims were of all races and genders and ages. The bodies were all found close to the trails, so it wasn’t as if the victims had been off on their own in the middle of the woods, they had been killed close to other people—

Sam straightened suddenly, and the movement made Castiel lift his head.

“Cas,” Sam tilted his head up to him. “There are both dead and missing persons.”

 “Agreed,” Castiel said.

“Why not all one or the other?”

Castiel leaned back a little, ruffling at his hair in a way that he had clearly picked up from Dean. It made something aching spring up inside Sam without warning.

Castiel visibly hesitated before saying a tad too quickly, “Probably the missing peoples’ bodies haven’t been found yet.”

Castiel shut his mouth with a sharp inhale, like he’d broken some unwritten rule in acknowledging that “missing people” included Dean. That Dean might not be coming back home with them.

Sam remembered growing up how many times Dean had told him off for getting worried about dad when he was on a hunt, how even suggesting that dad might be dead earned him a sharp look and a brash, “Don’t be dumb, Sammy, it’s dad.”

‘But it’s Dean,’ Sam could have said now. He suspected it would have sounded childish.

“That’s a possibility,” Sam said instead. “But see, ghosts work in patterns. They kill all their victims using the same method or…or do it in the same locations. Their very nature is to be repetitious.”

“All right,” Castiel nodded.

Sam stood suddenly and started pacing. “But that’s not the case here. We have eight bodies and five disappearances. That means the ghost decided to kill eight people right on the trail and then for the other five, it instead decided to kidnap them from under the noses of their friends and family, drag them out in the middle of nowhere, and then kill them?” Sam rushed over to where Castiel’s hand rested on the table, grasping at his finger with both hands to make sure he was paying attention. “Cas, Dean was right. That’s not a ghost. A ghost isn’t that inconsistent.”

Castiel squinted down at him, then suddenly tapped at the article he’d been skimming.

“There were three bodies who had been missing for a few days beforehand,” he said. “This one; this article says that the body of Larry Gershwin had been found a week after he’d disappeared.”

“Ok?” It was Sam’s turn to look confused.

“If this is not a ghost, then we should assume it’s some kind of creature,” Castiel continued. “And a creature might store its victims for several days before killing them.”

“You’re right.” Sam’s eyes widened and he grinned despite the topic of conversation. “Cas, you’re right. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Sometimes it finds a victim and kills it immediately; sometimes it takes it somewhere for safekeeping. Like a Wendigo does.”

Sam and Castiel stared at one another for several bright seconds, until Sam suddenly deflated.

“So,” he dropped Castiel’s finger. “Which monster are we dealing with?”

“One that sounds like a kid,” Rich called out from the bed. Sam and Castiel looked over to find him set down his paper and approach their table. “A monster than can sound like a human child crying.”

Something in Sam’s subconscious stirred at that, but even as he chased after the thought, it slithered away from him. In a pique of frustration, he went over to the smart phone, woke it up, and opened the internet. He searched for “monster child crying.” He got a lot of sites about kids worried about monsters under their bed.

“That has to be a unique trait for a creature to have,” Castiel said encouragingly. “We’ll find it soon enough. I’ll call Kevin and seen if he can help.”

“Yeah.” Sam settled himself in front of the phone, ready for a long haul of sifting through websites. “Better get this started then.”

***

Dean had drunk the last of his water several hours ago, and already regretted it. The food had disappeared long before that; he’d stopped regretting it and just dealt with being hungry. His feet were on fire, his eyelids felt leaden, yet he couldn’t bring himself to stop walking. If he stopped walking he’d collapse, he’d sleep, and he might not wake back up. He couldn’t do that, not when Sam was in his state. Not when Castiel still needed to figure out how to be human and Kevin needed to be protected from all the bastards who would just love to have a prophet under their control.

So Dean kept walking.

The baby cry came from a long distance, and that made Dean walk faster

***

Kevin called them right as Sam was getting close to smacking the smart phone screen in irritation.

“Hello?” he heard Castiel say from the other side of the room, followed by, “Really? Wait, let me put you on speaker phone.”

Sam looked up at the rumblings of Castiel’s footsteps. Castiel pressed a button and set the phone on the table near Sam. Rich approached the table as well, a pile of askew papers in his hands.

“Go on, Kevin,” Castiel said.

“Demon vampire baby,” Kevin said.

A pause.

“What?” Sam finally ventured.

“That’s what I think you’re dealing with. It’s a demon vampire baby from the Philippines. It’s called a tiyanak and they sound uber creepy.”

“A tiyanak,” Rich echoed, nodding to himself. “I do believe I’ve heard of those.”

“See, what they do is take the form of a human baby or really small kid and start crying. Travelers pick them up and then they attack and drink their blood,” Kevin told them. They heard the sound of paper shuffling. “They’re also known for leading travelers astray, getting them so mixed up that they have no chance of finding their way out of the tiyanak’s forest.”

Sam shot his head up and caught Castiel’s eye.

“That makes sense,” Sam leaned toward the phone. “Some of the people just disappear. They must be still wandering the forest. I bet that’s where Dean is.”

“How can we fight it,” Castiel asked.

“Uh, nothing I’m seeing explains how to kill it exactly. But you can resist getting lost by turning your clothes inside out.”

“That’s a common tactic for other beasties that like to confuse folks,” Rich sounded downright hopeful now. He looked around at Castiel and Sam. “You boys think we can handle a demon baby?”

“I don’t see why not,” Castiel said.

“Before you go out there, let me read off a few things these manuscripts are saying about these guys,” Kevin spoke up. “You should know what you’re going to find.”

“Kevin, thanks so much for this,” Sam said earnestly.

“Does this cancel out me abetting Sam in crime?” Kevin asked. Sam glanced up at Castiel, who rolled his eyes slightly.

“It’s a start,” he said.

***

Several hours later, Sam stood on the car hood and rechecked his weapon while Castiel and Rich did the same a few paces away. There was no chance of a gun for Sam’s size, but he had repurposed a sewing needle Rich had donated so that he had a sword of sorts. It was probably laughable, but Sam figured that he’d rather have a needle than no defense at all.

Castiel kept glancing over at him with clear concern. He’d asked Sam to stay behind just as Sam knew he would. Sam politely but firmly said no, as Castiel probably knew he would.

“At least stay in my pocket?” Castiel had asked in a low voice as they drove to the forest. “You might fall off my shoulder, far too easily.”

“I’ll be useless in your pocket,” Sam had complained from his perch on the dashboard. “Listen, I’ve gotten good at riding shoulders.”

Castiel had looked thoroughly unconvinced, but he knew a losing battle when he saw it.

Now, Castiel crunched through the leaf litter to the car and held a hand out to Sam.

“Please just hold on tight,” he said, and Sam nodded as he stepped into Castiel’s palm. The lift to Castiel’s shoulder was slow and steady, and the space between Castiel’s neck and his jacket collar proved warm and secure. Castiel had no need to worry, and Sam told him as much. Castiel just sighed.

Sam let him be and studied the forest before them. It was part of a large state park that sprawled south of the city, with several winding foot trails and acres of land that saw little to no human presence. Sam supposed that a vampiric creature could live out here for a long time, picking off enough victims to satisfy itself. Problem was, this tiyanak had gotten greedy. That would be its downfall.

Fall had descended a few weeks ago, so the forest was a riot of colors. The parking lot—empty save for Castiel’s and Rich’s cars—was plastered with drifts of dry leaves. The forest itself looked open and slightly bare with exposed tree branches and dead underbrush. Sam didn’t find it to be a particularly dense or dangerous looking forest, certainly not the kind of place you’d get lost all too readily.

“All clothes inside out?” Rich asked, rounding his car.

“Down to the underwear,” Sam said dutifully, and Rich snorted. He looked more hopeful now that they had a sense of what they were up against. His voice had become firmer, his hands less fluttering.

With a nod to Castiel and Sam, Rich led the way into the woods, crunching his way through the leaves. Castiel followed with another sigh and created a huge cloud. Sam patted the side of Castiel’s neck.

In an effort to be useful, Sam arranged himself so that he could watch behind them. It would do no good for this tiyanak to creep up on them, and if it couldn’t see Sam, it might falsely think that the two men were not watching their backs.

They walked for nearly an hour. Castiel had a GPS in hand and occasionally called out their coordinates. Sam waited for their sense of direction to skew, for them all to suddenly have no idea where they were. But the minutes passed and Sam still knew that they’d come from the northwest, were heading southeast.

Castiel’s pulse kept a high pace next to Sam; he had never gone hunting without both Sam and Dean flanking him. Now, Dean was gone and Sam a few inches tall and a liability. Rich was experienced, but he wasn’t a friend. Not really. It sent a small flicker of pity through Sam.

Still, Castiel would often lift a hand and brush his fingertips against Sam to check that he was still there. Or ask in a quiet voice if Sam was comfortable, if he was warm enough, if he was secure. Sam always replied yes. Castiel radiated such heat that, if anything, Sam was a little over heated despite the sharp, late autumn air. Still, he wasn’t about to complain, and half an hour into the expedition, Sam ended up curled against Castiel’s neck, his arms crossed, Castiel’s jacket collar pulled up around him in a makeshift blanket. That plus the sway of Castiel walking was comfortable to the point that Sam would have worried about falling asleep if he wasn’t also worried about Dean and the tiyanak.

They had just stopped for a water break when in the distance they heard the sound of someone crying. Someone very young. An infant, perhaps. At the same time, Castiel’s GPS beeped several times, and when Sam peered down at the screen, he saw that its coordinates had started blinking nonsense. Yet Sam could look around and say with certainty that they had just passed the oak with a knot halfway up its trunk, that the sun starting to dip in the west signaled the direction back to the cars. The clothes trick had worked.

Sam saw Castiel and Rich exchange a glance before they quietly gathered their things again and started toward the crying sound. They moved quickly and quietly now, chasing the sound of the crying tiyanak for nearly five minutes. They never seemed to get closer.

Perhaps the tiyanak had guessed that these were hunters and not hapless civilians. Perhaps that was why it chose to forego impersonating a baby and took its other form when it dropped out of the trees above them.

“Other form?” Sam had asked Kevin several hours before. “Like what?”

“Well they really look like wrinkly little men,” Kevin explained. “So they might drop the baby act and instead show themselves as old men and then. Um, grow wings. Then they chase people.”

“Weird,” Sam had commented.

Only, when he was on the receiving end of a tiny, horrifyingly non-human-looking creature with leathery wings, Sam found the experience not as weird as it was terrifying. Castiel leapt backward and fired at the tiyanak twice. The tiyanak swerved and with several beats of its leathery wings rose into the canopy again. Rich lifted his gun and fired as well.

“It’s heading that way!” Rich shouted, running suddenly. “Keep it in sight!”

Castiel lurched forward and Sam hung onto his neck. He felt utterly useless, and he only wished—

At that moment, Castiel leapt over a rotting tree trunk. When he landed, he jostled Sam. Jostled him hard enough that Sam, who had been leaning forward to try and see the tiyanak, lost his grip on the coat collar and flew into the air.

For several crystal clear seconds, Sam watched himself hang in the air behind Castiel. He tried to shout but he doubted that he made any sound. Then the ground started rushing toward him, Sam ducked his head, and the world blanked out.

***

Sam was cold. He was dangerously, deeply cold. He had no idea why. The bunker usually kept a good temperature and Dean had finally fixed the heating a few weeks ago so there was no reason—

Something rustled and crunched. Sam winced with the sense that this was not the bunker. The rustling grew louder, and Sam’s instinct forced him to snap his eyes open. He witnessed a loud mosaic of color, mostly oranges and reds and browns. It took a moment to realize that he lay among hundreds of leaves.

A few paces away, a shiny black beetle scampered over these leaves, seemingly unconcerned with Sam. Sam watched it disappear underneath a red leaf and not emerge.

Sam blinked again and tried to recall—oh. Oh, right. The tiyanak. Castiel jumping. Sam falling off just like Castiel had been worried about. Shit.

Something on the back of Sam’s skull pounded away like…well, like it had given him a concussion, probably, which was exactly what Sam needed when he was 4.5 inches tall and in a forest. Sam groaned and tried to lift his head. The splash of pain made his lids flutter, but he gritted his teeth and pushed himself to a sit. He swayed, keeping his eyes fixed on a blade of grass that pushed through the dead leaves. Then he lifted one hand and gingerly felt at the back of his head. He found his hair stiff and brittle; when he pulled his hand away it came with flecks of black, dried blood. Sam explored the area again and, with some hisses, discovered a shallow wound. It didn’t feel life threatening, just inconvenient. So it was okay. He could work with this.

Sam next focused on standing up. After that would come walking. After that, Sam needed to find Dean and Castiel. He needed to go home and sleep. He then needed to get back to his normal height. There. That was a good plan. Sam decided to stick with it.

When Sam took in his surroundings properly, he needed a few seconds to orient himself. The rotting log next to him looked like a giant ruin, the tree trunks like sheer walls. The canopy sat impossibly far away, and just looking up there made Sam a little dizzy.

It was discouraging, because Sam was finally getting used to the bunker’s new dimensions when he had to be thrust outside and realize yet again just how small he was now. The outside world was, in retrospect, a terrifying and giant place to try and live in.

Still. No good thinking like that. Sam pushed it aside and focused on standing and starting to wade through the leaf litter. Judging by the light, it was edging on early evening and that meant he’d been knocked out for an hour or two. Castiel had yet to find him. Which could mean any number of things. Castiel was still looking for him. Castiel was lost. Or the tiyanak had gotten him.

***

Sam walked well into evening and beyond. He thought he knew what direction he was going, but from this size and perspective, and at night, he knew that in reality he was probably off the mark. And of course he realized that his pace was agonizingly slow; he just couldn’t stand the thought of sitting around and waiting for help that would never come or for something to attack him. Better to keep moving.

Sam spotted the large hill from several yards away, soon after the moon had risen with its waxing light. Well, no, just a large hill from Sam’s perspective. More likely an animal. Maybe a deer.

Sam ended up edging closer to it, squinting through his headache and the primal fear that pointed out, very forcefully, that he was tiny and this thing was massive. The thing shifted, groaned, and Sam nearly shouted.

He picked up his pace and started running toward the mass, now ignoring everything else. As he drew nearer he got hit with a scent of leather and aftershave.

“Dean!” Sam blurted, and the next second he came near enough to see the pale, unmistakable face. “Oh god,” he gasped. He finally came to a halt near to where Dean’s face was half buried in dried leaves. “Oh god, Dean? Dean! Can you hear me?” Sam all but smacked into Dean’s forehead, battering at it with small fists and prodding at his brother’s eyelids. Dean’s face twitched and he mumbled something again, but he didn’t open his eyes. Something cold coalesced in Sam’s stomach.

The forest echoed with wind sifting through dried leaves. No distant sound of traffic, no human voices. It was literally just Sam: small enough to be stepped on and concussed, and Dean: unconscious.

“Damnit, Dean,” Sam muttered, shoving at Dean’s massive face one more time. Not even a grunt.

Sam looked down the long length of Dean’s sprawling body and wondered what had possessed Dean to sleep out in the open. Dean would never have rested in such an exposed place, not when he knew something was killing people in these woods. He’d only have collapsed here if he’d passed out or—Sam wiped at his face suddenly. Oh.

“Okay,” he muttered to himself. “I can’t carry you out of here. I need…a cellphone.” Sam eyed the jacket Dean wore; an old brown thing that they’d found at a garage sale in Pittsburgh several years ago. Dean lay curled on his side, so one pocket slumped across his hip, the other lay buried beneath him. Sam had to really, really hope that Dean had his phone in the former pocket.

Sam found he could climb Dean’s jacket well enough, then run along his side to slip into the pocket. He felt like whooping with joy when he found something large and smooth in there. Sam wriggled around in the pocket, woke the phone up, then paused.

The time, displayed on the home screen flickered between digits like the GPS had been doing. When Sam looked for the signal, it showed no service. He tried to open the phone’s map function and was confronted with a screen that pixelated and flickered nonsensically.

Sam leaned back, squinting at the phone, then wondered if this meant that the tiyanak was still alive to mess up the phone. Whether that meant Rich and Castiel had failed. In a flurry, Sam tried calling Castiel, then Rich, then Kevin, then 911. All failed.

“Shit,” Sam said quietly, letting his forehead bump against the phone screen. He remained in that position for a long several seconds, his mind whirring with what he should do next. He hated this. If he were his own size, he’d be already carrying Dean out of here already.

Everything rocked suddenly, and Sam shot to a stand. His head pounded in protest, and Sam nearly sank right back down.

“Hgzm,” Dean rumbled, and Sam hauled himself out of the pocket. He’d made it halfway along Dean’s rolling torso when Dean released a low, garbled, “Sam.”

“Dean,” Sam responded almost automatically. He broke into a sprint along Dean’s side, made difficult by Dean moving, but Sam threw out his arms and kept his balance. He made it to Dean’s shoulder, scrambled to the ground, and waded through the leaves so that he was even with Dean’s face again.

Dean’s eyes were slits of green. He looked pale and thin-cheeked, his eyes were sunken and ringed with bruise-like marks, and his lips looked tinged blue and cracking. Dehydration, Sam guessed, along with the start of hypothermia.

Sam had no idea whether Dean was lucid, but patted at the bridge of Dean’s nose anyway.

“Dean,” he said in a loud voice. “Dean, you okay?”

Dean didn’t respond, just gazed blearily at Sam for another few seconds.

“Sam?” he repeated.

“Yeah, hey, hi,” Sam leaned closer, his head level with one of Dean’s eyes. “I’m right here, Dean, okay? Dean, you hear me?”

“Cold,” Dean murmured, and his eyes slipped shut again.

“Dean?” Sam leaned forward, all but shouting now. “Dean! C’mon, you need to stay awake.”

Too much to ask, of course. Dean was already out.

Sam released a thick plume of vapor and ducked his head.

A moment later, Sam straightened, squared his shoulders, and clambered back up Dean’s jacket. Dean had tucked his chin into the collar of his jacket and had his arms crossed over his chest in defense of the cold. It gave Sam a shielded spot to sit, right next to Dean’s sunken, cold cheek. When Sam leaned over, Dean’s breathing came out shallow and uneven.

“What did you have to go get tricked by a vampire demon baby for, huh?” Sam murmured, patting Dean’s cheek. “That’s probably as bad as me getting shrunk.”

After a moment of thought, Sam unsheathed his needle sword with a swell of wryness. He wouldn’t stand a chance against anything bigger than a rat, but he could damn well try.

The moon rose higher as Sam settled in to wait for…well, anything at all. He kept his needle out and occasionally rubbed at Dean’s face to try and get the blood flowing. He hoped he’d alleviate the frigidness on Dean’s face for the night. That and the sword was all he had to offer.

***

Hours came and went. Sam could feel the concussion pulling at him, his body begging for him to just sleep and let it mitigate the damage. Sam didn’t know how to convince it that he had a more important job right now.

He was all but frozen in place, his nose, feet, and hands practically blocks of ice. Every breath sent up a plume of vapor that took some of Sam’s heat with it. He wore clothes hand sewed by Castiel—made with care if not extreme skill. They fit Sam well enough but they really weren’t designed for freezing temperatures.

Beneath him, Dean felt no warmer; his breathing had gotten even shallower. Sam would have to go find help eventually.

Sam could not have pinpointed the moment that he must have drifted off. He just knew that one moment he was sitting staring into the forest, then a jumble of unclear moments later, he gasped when he hit the leaf litter, tumbling ass over teakettle. Sam rolled for what felt like minutes, even though it must have been seconds. When his momentum ran out and he finally came to a stop in a mass of damp leaves, he couldn’t do much more than gasp for air, his brain scrambling to decipher what had just happened.

Something large and nearby grunted, shifted in the leaf litter.

Sam jerked up, struggling to a sit and shoving through the fog of his mind. He squinted around him, and it took a moment to find Dean again. Dean and the crouched, small figure above him.

The moon gave enough light for Sam to make out skin wrinkled and brown as a dried fig, the massive eyes like those of an owl’s, the knobby, arthritic looking spine. Sam gaped for a few useless moments at the thing (“like little old men” Kevin had said) before he registered that it bent over his brother like it wanted to whisper something in his ear.

No, those sounds were not whispers. They were too wet and smacking and this was the tiyanak and it was drinking Dean’s blood and people didn’t survive these things, not like vampires, that thing was going to kill Dean.

Sam had hauled himself to a stand and started sprinting toward Dean and the tiyanak before he could acknowledge the fact that he was uselessly small and had lost his needle. The tiyanak lifted its head slightly at the rustle Sam made, and Sam saw something dark drip from its mouth.

“NO!” he roared, because that was the most cognizant thing he could voice at the moment. The tiyanak focused on him and cocked its head. Then with a low grunt, it lowered its head again. Dean didn’t even flinch. He almost glowed, he looked so pale.

Sam covered the last few feet with a wallop of his heart against his chest and a pain in his lungs that felt like a stab. Just before he reached Dean, he caught a glimpse of something bright winking at him. Sam veered enough to snatch up the needle, breathing some wordless thanks to whatever powers were listening.

He clambered up Dean’s jacket again, leapt to where the tiyanak still had its head bent over Dean’s neck, and, with the vague, panicked phrase eyes are weak points running through his mind, stabbed the needle up and into the tiyanak’s huge pupil.

The tiyanak screeched predictably and leapt away. Sam’s needle got jerked out of his hand and he felt a small swell of dread for when the tiyanak retaliated. He crouched over Dean, feeling the hot stickiness of his brother’s blood soaking into his shoes and creeping to the hem of his pants.

The tiyanak flailed and twisted a few paces away like an earthworm exposed by a gardener’s spade. Sam wondered whether the needle remained embedded in the tiyanak’s eye, because the screeches kept getting higher and thinner. The cries almost—but not quite—resembled a baby’s, and that made Sam shudder.

The tiyanak did not retaliate in the end, did not come to swipe at Sam and kill him with one blow. It fled, still crying and screeching. Sam remained frozen, quivering with the expectation that the tiyanak would come swooping back to finish him off and the simultaneous thought that he’d lucked out this time. Somehow, incredibly, he’d lucked out.

When the cries had started to become echoing and faint, Sam twitched his head down at the blood still pooling around him. Swearing quietly, Sam bent down and felt through the blood for the wound beneath. What he found made him nearly sob with relief. No huge, gaping chunks torn out. Just a moderately sized wound that resembled a bite mark; all ragged tissue and likely infected, but manageable. Sam could manage this.

Sam tore off his shirt and spread it over the wound. If he crouched over the wound and used his arms and legs, he found he could stem the flow. Enough, at least, to prevent his brother from bleeding out. It was the bare minimum but it was enough.

***

The wound started to crust over after an hour. The wound did not seem deep, merely messy and swift, like the tiyanak wanted to find any blood as fast as possible and hadn’t bothered with technique.

Sam gave himself a break then, largely because he could tell his body was slowing down dangerously and that he needed to find a way to warm up.

Sam thought of the warmth that no doubt still lingered in the center of Dean’s curled figure. Sam could go there just for a little while, just enough to keep him from freezing and to give him the energy to go find them help. Dean wouldn’t begrudge the small amount of body heat Sam needed.

The first birdsong echoed through the woods, startling Sam. He stood with a low, whining groan. He then carefully eased to the place beneath Dean’s coat collar and t-shirt, down to his collarbone where Dean’s hand made a small ledge on which Sam could perch. Sam buried himself under the fabric and against Dean’s skin, his breath hitching at the warmth he found there, so contrasting that it nearly burnt him, or so he imagined. Dean’s scent was everywhere, his breathing swelled in steady waves, and Sam wished like mad he could sleep right there. It would be the easiest thing in the world.

Sam rattled out a sigh and pressed his forehead against Dean’s skin, purposefully putting himself in an awkward crouch. He was here to warm up a few minutes, nothing more.

The voices drifted to him not five minutes later. Sam’s eyes snapped open—it was only then that he realized they’d been closed at all—and he lifted his head to listen. For several seconds he thought that Castiel had found them, but then he realized that the voice was a woman’s. It was also swiftly getting louder. Sam remained crouched, frozen in indecision when something large shuffled the leaves.

“Jesus Christ, Julian, he looks like death warmed over,” the woman shouted to someone.

“It’s probably just a hobo,” another voice, a man’s, called back.

“So? Hobos are people too,” the woman snapped. Sam released a tiny hurk when Dean jostled suddenly. “Sir?” the woman asked. “Sir, are you alright?”

“You’re going to make him angry,” the man told her.

“Keep running if you’re so bothered. I’m calling the police.”

The jostling stopped and Sam could hear the taps of fingers against a phone. He waited for the woman to suddenly proclaim that her phone was acting weird, they had no signal—

“Hello? Emergency Services?” Sam’s head shot up and his eyes widened. “Yeah, we’re in Liberty Park and there’s a man here a little off the trail. He’s unconscious or sleeping and in bad shape, I think he needs to get to a hospital.” A pause. “The Hackson Trail, the one on the north end of the park.”

Another flurry of crunching leaves, and the man’s voice boomed out, “You’re a bleeding heart, Charlene.”

Charlene ignored him.

“He’s still breathing, but it looks shallow. He definitely has hypothermia; his lips are purple. Something…yeah, he’s got some kind of wound. What? Yes, I can stay on the line.”

Julian, seemingly resigned to his fate, didn’t say anything more. Sam just remained as still as possible, simultaneously trying to figure out what he’d do to stay unnoticed and wondering if Charlene’s working phone meant that the tiyanak really had been killed. But where did that leave Castiel and Rich?

The emergency workers arrived nearly ten minutes later with the rumble of what sounded like a car; probably a park vehicle. Car doors slammed, several peoples’ voices rose, and Sam did the only thing he could think to do: he scrambled down Dean’s shirt, all the way to his jeans. Then, hoping that the jacket would shield him for long enough, Sam dove into one of Dean’s jean pockets.

The next few minutes passed in a blur. After someone jostled at Dean again, he was rolled onto his back. Sam clenched his eyes shut at the motion; a swell of nausea threatened him. Words like “severely dehydrated” and “low pulse” drifted through the air and made Sam’s stomach clench for entirely different reasons.

Finally, they lifted Dean onto what must have been a stretcher. Sam buried himself deeper into the pocket and willed himself to remain small and unnoticeable.

The trip to the hospital felt like an eternity. Sam had to be prepared for a hand to dive into his pocket and find him, and that left his heart racing too fast and too hard for too long. He was starting to have some trouble breathing in the damp, close space. He wondered if they’d change Dean into a hospital gown at some point; when that happened, he’d have to find a way to escape the jeans without being seen. His head still hurt like his skull wanted to split open, and that didn’t help anything.

When the ambulance finally rolled to a halt, Sam braced himself as they clattered Dean’s gurney out of the vehicle and down a ramp. Blinding white light and a rush of voices slammed into him, making Sam wince and duck his head against Dean’s leg. Down several hallways, then into a suddenly quieter space. Another jostle, and then a flurry of new voices.

“The guy found in the park?” a man asked.

“Yup. Pretty bad shape.”

Sam listened to what sounded like someone unzipping a jacket; that was his cue. Taking a deep breath, Sam scrambled for the opening to the pocket and peered out. He caught sight of the underside of a woman’s face, her arms as they eased Dean’s jacket off his shoulders. She looked preoccupied. Sam then spotted the edge of the hospital bed, close enough to reach in a bound of two.

Nothing for it. Sam darted from the pocket and hurled himself over the edge of the bed. It took all his reflexes to find the ledge that he suspected would be there and to hang on. He craned his neck to see the floor and dropped down to it in a fit of decision.

He survived, but his knees flared in protest when he hit the floor with a heavy oomph. Dazedly, he staggered further under the bed, to where its shadow would hopefully keep him hidden. No one had screamed or shouted, so he supposed he’d been unseen.

Sam huddled in on himself and listened with a cocked head as the nurses discussed Dean’s respirator and IV, throwing around names of drugs and medical terminology that Sam had to struggle to keep up with. Still, he gathered that Dean was stable, and that was enough to make Sam bury his face into his knees and release a breath that shook his body.

The nurses finally left, and in their absence Sam only heard the click-whoosh of the respirator and the dim bustle of the hallway. After waiting several minutes, Sam crept to the edge of the bed’s shadow.

As he suspected, Dean shared the room with three other people. A white curtain only partially hid Dean’s bed from view. Still, Sam decided he could risk climbing the bed at the moment.

Doing so took mostly adrenaline and that indomitable will that could otherwise have been called stubbornness. The bed, thank god, had wheels and cranks and other structures that gave Sam plenty of climbing options. When Sam hauled himself onto the mattress, right near Dean’s hand, his head felt light and cottony. He resisted the urge to touch at his head wound again and instead stumbled toward the hand as large as he was. He brushed at it, as if to be sure it was real, then followed Dean’s body up to his face.

He looked worlds better, Sam decided when he got close enough to scrutinize Dean. Some color had returned to his cheeks and lips, and his breathing sounded less rattling. Sam felt his mouth curl up into a grin despite himself, and he thoughtlessly patted Dean’s forehead. Dean slept on unawares.

The pillow and hospital sheets, even if they reeked of disinfectant, invited Sam to sink down and release a long breath. He leaned against Dean’s shoulder and kept his eyes on his face. He’d move to a better place in a minute. He just wanted to sit here and feel and see the proof that his brother was alive.

***

Sam must have dozed off, because one minute he was watching Dean’s chest rise and fall and the next minute the door clacked open. Sam’s heart leapt in his chest, and he scrambled beneath the sheets. He staggered as far as Dean’s hip, then paused. He pressed himself against Dean’s reassuring bulk and listened to the nurse make his rounds of the patients.

“Hey there Mr. Keys,” the nurse’s voice rolled around Sam. Dean Keys. One of Dean’s main aliases. They must have found his insurance card in Dean’s wallet. Well, one of his wallets.

“You’ve some friends it seems,” the nurse chattered on, readjusting Dean. “Maybe you’ll wake up for them, huh?”

Something in Sam’s chest lifted.

The nurse left, but Sam remained where he was, hoping against hope. And yes, not five minutes later the door opened again and the same nurse said, “Right in here Mr. Milton.” That was Castiel’s alias.

“Thank you,” Castiel rumbled back. Silence, save for shuffling and the slither of someone closing the curtain. A scrape of a chair. The clack of the door.

Sam darted out from under the sheets then and peered over Dean’s chest. There sat Castiel, dirty and haggard but whole and sound. He stared at Dean like he needed to soak in the sight of him. Sam understood, but he still had to blurt out, “Cas!” in a whisper shout.

Castiel’s eyes flicked to Sam, then widened almost comically. He shot to a stand and leaned over Dean to see Sam crouched next to his brother’s body, just hidden by the sheets.

“Sam,” Castiel breathed. Then he ducked his head and took in a deep, long breath. When he released it, he sounded ragged and wet.

“Cas?” Sam emerged from the sheets a bit more. Castiel lifted his head and his eyes were damp.

“I told you,” he rasped. “Sam Winchester, I told you.”

“I know,” Sam murmured. He tried to smile, and found that his own eyes were growing damp as well. He gestured. “But look. I found Dean.”

Castiel laughed, or maybe sobbed, then reached out and placed his hand beside Sam. Sam clambered into his palm readily, an unimaginable feeling of relief hitting him at the way Castiel’s fingers curled over him.

Castiel brought Sam up to his face as he seated himself again. He scrutinized Sam, and Sam let him.

“You were bleeding,” Castiel finally said. “And your shirt is missing.”

“I think I had—have—a concussion,” Sam admitted. “I needed the shirt to keep Dean from bleeding out.”

“What do you need now?” Castiel asked, his expression growing grimmer.

“Water would be nice. Food eventually. Then just rest.”

“Then wait here,” Castiel ordered. “I’ll be right back.” He lowered his hands, and Sam slipped back onto the pillow right by Dean’s head. Castiel brushed at Sam, at Dean, then left them in a hurry. Sam rested against Dean’s forehead, aware for the first time how tired and worn out he truly was. It felt as if the adrenaline had finally sloughed off with Castiel’s arrival, leaving Sam feeling like road kill.

Castiel returned with a bottle of water, a banana, and something resembling a poncho that turned out to be a piece of one of his t-shirts hastily cut into a wearable shape. Sam accepted the poncho and tugged it on as Castiel poured the water into the bottle cap. Sam drank from that in massive gulps. He then wolfed down a small chunk of banana despite Castiel’s warnings to actually chew.

After another drink of the water, Sam felt sated and distant, wanting nothing more than to curl up somewhere and fall asleep. He must have been broadcasting this desire, because Castiel touched at his shoulder and told him that he ought to lie down.

“Need to…watch for Dean,” Sam murmured, and Castiel’s face softened.

“I’ll watch him,” he promised. “I can watch both of you.” He held out a hand again, and even though Sam would have liked to remain next to Dean, he saw the logic of Castiel keeping him close by in case a nurse came in suddenly. Sam slowly stepped into Castiel’s palm. Castiel scooted his chair closer to Dean’s bed, then lowered Sam into a jacket bunched up in his lap.

Sam crawled into the nest of jacket with a long sigh, then curled up with his back against Castiel’s torso. He could feel the heat radiating from Castiel, the gentle sway of him breathing, the smell of books and the last faint traces of ozone. Sam sighed one last time when Castiel’s hand curled protectively around him, his thumb starting to run up and down Sam’s side in a slow glide. Any tension remaining in Sam’s body bled out at that. Castiel hung impossibly large around him, but for once it felt a comfort.

The last thing Sam registered seeing was Castiel’s other hand buried in Dean’s hair, and the gesture looked as protective as the hand shielding Sam.

After that, Sam slept.

***

Sam woke feeling gritty and flushed. He blinked when he realized that he lay in a cocoon of red fabric. Castiel’s voice rumbled around him, vibrating Sam. Someone a short ways away, a woman, replied.

Before Sam could properly register what they were saying, the curtains rustled again and the woman’s voice disappeared. The tent of fabric around Sam shifted, and then its top disappeared. Sam squinted at the fluorescent lights, and Castiel’s face above him.

“I’m sorry,” Castiel said. “Did we wake you?”

“Who was it?” Sam mumbled, still blinking hard.

“The doctor. She was checking on Dean.”

“He wake up yet?”

“Not really,” Castiel sighed. “But the doctor said that he’s stable, and that’s the important part.”

Sam propped himself up on his forearms, enough to see Dean. He looked much the same as he had before Sam fell asleep. Above him, Castiel suddenly stifled a yawn.

“Hey, are you okay?” Sam sat up properly and craned his neck. “Are you hurt? What happened with the tiyanak?”

“It’s dead,” Castiel leaned back in his seat and gazed glassy-eyed down at Sam. His voice even more graveled than usual, and Sam didn’t know how he’d missed the deep, blue-black bags under Castiel’s eyes. “Rich was the one who killed it in the end,” Castiel continued. “He was…” Castiel bit his lip briefly. “When I realized I had lost you, I parted from Rich to look for you despite his protests. Waste of time. You could have been buried under any pile of leaves, and it wasn’t as if I’d remember the exact path we ran.” Castiel sighed and rubbed at his eyes with his pointer finger and thumb. “I think I’m used to being human and then I try to do things that would have been easy as an angel.”

Sam’s eyebrows drew together.

“Cas—“

“In the end I just went back to the cars because my cell phone was not working and I didn’t…I had no idea what to do. And you and Dean were…” Castiel blinked, trailed off. He looked blank, sunk into that place where exhaustion overrides any other emotion.

Sam didn’t say anything this time, just touched at the giant hand resting near him. Castiel’s thumb and pointer finger closed gently around Sam’s hand. Sam let him; he trusted those hands these days.

“I was lucky that Rich thought to do the same. He had chased the tiyanak another several minutes after I left him, but it escaped him. He insisted that we learn how to properly kill it, said that it was the best way to help you.” Another pause. “I’m glad Rich was present.”

“He’s a pretty practical guy,” Sam offered.

“Yes.” Castiel’s eyes flicked to Dean, as if to compulsively check that he was still there. He returned his attention to Sam after a moment. “The short version is that we found our weapon, went back into the woods, and killed the tiyanak right before dawn. I planned to immediately start searching for you and Dean, but Rich told me we should listen to the police scanner first. He was right again. White male, brown jacket, found in park early this morning.” Castiel’s fingers tightened minutely around Sam’s hand. “I was going to check that Dean was sound before going to search for you.”

“Glad I could save you the trouble,” Sam murmured. Castiel’s answering smile was small and thin. He suddenly turned his head away to smother another yawn into his shoulder.

“Cas, you need to sleep,” Sam said gently. Castiel looked dubious. “I’ve had my turn,” Sam continued. “You take yours. I’m not asking you to go back to the motel, just try to close your eyes at least.”

“Dean—“

“Is stable and surrounded by nurses. I’ll stay awake just in case, okay?”

Castiel blinked at Sam, rubbed at his face briefly, then sighed.

“Where do you want to be?” he asked roughly.

“I’ll sit on Dean’s pillow,” Sam decided after a moment. “I can hide pretty well in case a nurse comes in.” Castiel still looked reluctant, like he hoped some shred of his angelic powers would let him deny the fact that he was about to pass out. Practicality won out in the end, and he let Sam climb into his palm one more time, transferring him to Dean’s pillow with the usual care.

Castiel then leaned back in the chair but took another five minutes to so much as close his eyes, grumbling at Sam’s admonishments. Sam watched Castiel like a discreet hawk. Fifteen minutes, twenty minutes. Castiel’s face slackened and his shoulders relaxed. When he started to snore—a low whistle—Sam leaned back with quiet relief.

The next few hours passed silently. The hospital room was a quiet one, and Dean’s roommates seemed to sleep or, in one woman’s case, talk quietly with her guest. Sam watched Dean and Castiel alternatively and contented himself with the knowledge that they’d all be going home after this.

***

Dean woke before Castiel did.

Sam was leaning against his brother’s temple, gazing into empty space and thinking about nothing at all—a blessing, to be honest—when a low groan vibrated through Sam’s body. Sam twisted around and scrambled to a stand at the sight of Dean blinking his eyes open, his face screwed up.

“Dean,” Sam breathed, and Dean twitched his face in Sam’s direction. He squinted hard at Sam for several seconds, then his gaze flicked up to Castiel, still slumped in his chair and dead to the world. He closed his eyes briefly and sighed hard.

“Did I die?” he asked in a low rumble.

“Nah, I don’t think so. We’re still good.”

Dean’s mouth tilted into a small, uncoordinated grin. A second later it disappeared. “H’ng on,” he lifted his head slightly, then swore and propped himself shakily on his elbows. Sam had to take a few stumbling steps backward on the pillow. “You’re still tiny. What the hell’re you doing—“ Dean’s eyes flicked to Castiel. “Why is he—does Rich know you’re here?”

“Rich is the one who called us,“ Sam said. “We came to help him with the job after you disappeared.”

“Seriously? You both could’ve been killed.” If Dean hadn’t looked like shit, Sam might have been able to take him seriously. Instead he tilted his head back and watched Dean continue in a wavering voice, “Whatever’s out there is not a ghost, there’s no way in hell this is a ghost, and you two chuckle heads decide to waltz out here—”

“It’s a vampire monster called a tiyanak and it’s dead.” Sam cut him off. “Also, we saved your ass. You’re welcome. Lie back down.”

Dean squinted down at Sam blearily.

“Dead?”

“Yes. We also saved you. Did I mention that?”

“I was handling it,” Dean said.

“Passed out in the forest and slowly freezing to death is handling it?”

“Shut up, Sam,” Dean growled. He shifted and winced.

“Lie back down.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” Dean snapped as he slowly lowered himself back onto the pillow. He stared up at the ceiling, his expression both mulish and wearied. He shifted his head so he could look at Sam. He didn’t say anything at first, and Sam watched his pupils flick between Sam and Castiel.

“You guys’re okay though?” Dean asked.

“Yeah, Dean,” he said. “We’re okay.”

“H’ng on, did Kevin come too?” Dean frowned. “Was this some family road trip?”

“Nah Kevin’s at the bunker,” Sam promised.

“Smart kid,” Dean’s eyes slipped shut, perhaps without him realizing it. “Knew I liked him for a reason.”

“Go back to sleep, Dean.”

“Respect your elders, Stuart Little.”

Five minutes later, he was snoring nearly as loudly as Castiel.

***

Visiting hours ended, as they always ended, and Sam understood the expression on Castiel’s face when the nurse told him he’d have to leave for the night.

“C’mon, Cas,” Dean mumbled, only recently woken back up and still groggy as well as medicated. “They’re gonna release me, like, tomorrow.”

“Can I have a moment?” Castiel asked the nurse, who gave him a sympathetic expression and said that he’d be back in five minutes and needed to find an empty bedside chair.

Once the curtain had twitched shut again, Castiel ducked toward Dean and, by default, Sam.

“Should Sam come to the motel with me?” Castiel asked in a bare whisper. Sam peered out from the blankets he’d been ducked under and scowled.

“Someone needs to keep an eye on this one,” he jerked his head toward his brother.

“Yeah, same,” Dean poked at Sam, who whapped his finger away.

Castiel looked between the Winchesters and shook his head slightly.

“Fine. Please both be in one piece when I come back,” he said. Then, in sharp, neat movements that left neither Sam nor Dean with any chance to defend themselves, he first dropped a light kiss first on Dean’s hairline then kissed two fingers—the fingers he used to use to heal and transport—and tapped Sam on the top of his head.

Sam blinked at the contact. Dean looked like someone had slapped him.

“That was real gay, Cas,” Dean finally said.

Castiel gathered his jacket and slung it over his shoulder. He looked suspiciously pleased with himself. “Don’t be homophobic, Dean, it doesn’t suit you,” he said. He left them with a swish of curtain.

Dean looked down at Sam. “That was gay, wasn’t it?” Like he needed to say something and that was the best he had.

“Don’t be homophobic,” Sam echoed. He started when his stomach suddenly clenched and gurgled at him.

“Yeah, same dude,” Dean sighed sympathetically. “I think they bring food soon. Hospital food, but it’ll be something.”

The food did in fact come not fifteen minutes later, served by their nurse after he had checked on Dean’s vitals and announced that the doctor wanted to keep Dean for the night, check on him in the morning, and let him go home after that. Sam was looking forward to it.

In the mean time, he perched on Dean’s tray and shared Dean’s tasteless chicken, biscuit, and little cups of jello. Dean made a few comments about how “it’s pretty cute when you eat bread crumbs” to which Sam responded with a one finger salute.

Dean seemed ready to pass out again after they ate, but still insisted that Sam give him the details about how they had figured out what was hunting people in the park, how they had gone after it, how they had killed it.

“It’s from the Philippines originally,” Sam explained, sitting cross-legged on Dean’s pillow and picking at minute threads. “It disguises itself as a baby to lure people to it and then attacks them. Sucks their blood, the usual.”

“Nice,” Dean said. His eyes were half lidded. Sam’s eyes flicked to the gauze still on Dean’s neck.

“And sometimes,” Sam continued. “It confuses travelers and gets them impossibly lost. Kind of like will-o-whisps only…more deadly. Kevin thinks it likes to watch the victims stumble around before it attacks them.”

“Yeah.” Dean frowned. “When I got lost, it was the weirdest feeling. One minute I was fine and the next, it was like everything was moving around me. I swear to god, I couldn’t have told you where I’d just come from if you’d paid me. I walked forever but nothing ever…lined up.” A pause. “That’s how this tiyanak thing gets its kicks, I guess. Watching idiots walk in literal circles and then collapse.”

“Hey, don’t start,” Sam told him sharply.

“Yeah, but if I’d been smarter I’d have not gotten nabbed and you and Cas wouldn’t have driven up here,” Dean frowned. “I’m not even sure why Cas let you come.”

“He didn’t,” Sam admitted, because he might as well get this over with. “I uh. I snuck into his duffel. He found me at a gas station.”

Dean scrunched his eyes suddenly, like something had hit him.

“Jesus Christ, Sam,” he hissed.

“I know,” Sam leaned back and sighed.

“You’re a fucking idiot.”

“I know.”

“No you don’t, you’re a fucking idiot,” Dean opened his eyes again. “You should have let Cas handle it.”

“Like I was going to do that,” Sam snorted.

“Hey, Cas can still kick anyone’s ass, even if he’s a little—“

“I know that Dean, I just.” Sam shrugged. “If you’d been in my position. Honestly, what would you have done?”

Dean stared hard at Sam. He exhaled.

“You’re still an idiot,” he rolled his head away slightly. Sam examined his feet for a moment.

“You want to hear about all the other dangerous things I did in the last 24 hours?” Sam finally asked.

“No, I don’t think I should have extra stress in my condition,” Dean said dryly. He side-eyed Sam. “How bad overall?”

Sam contemplated.

“Seven,” he said.

“Jesus—no. Ok. You’re still here and you’re not permanently damaged. Right? Can we claim that much?”

“I mean, brain cells don’t grow back after a head injury but beyond that—“

“Good god. Shut the fuck up, Sam.”

“Then go to sleep. You’re about to pass out.”

“You go to sleep first,” Dean snapped.

“Yeah,” Sam flopped down on the pillow and stuck his tongue out at Dean. “I will. ‘Night.”

Dean groaned in pure exasperation. Then, a minute later, he reached over and held his hand near to Sam.

“What?” Sam regarded it suspiciously.

“Just get on,” Dean muttered. Sam hesitated, but obliged. A moment later, Dean slid Sam gently onto his chest.

“What’s this?” Sam asked. He could feel Dean breathing beneath him; a steady rise and swell.

“This is where you’re sleeping tonight because I don’t trust you and you lost brain cells, apparently.” Dean dropped his head back down to the pillow.

“What if you roll over?”

“I’m hooked up to all this crap, I won’t.”

Sam already knew that, but it didn’t feel right not to give Dean some resistance to work with. That done, Sam settled himself down and brought the hospital blanket over his head in case a nurse popped in again, but not so much he couldn’t see the underside of Dean’s face.

Dean, it turned out, acted as a wonderfully warm and soft mattress. Sam could tell him this later. For now, dozing through the rise and fall of Dean’s breathing, feeling the hand Dean had surreptitiously arched over him, being immersed in the smell that meant home at some intrinsic level. That was enough.