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“How’s it comin’, Cas?” Dean asks from his position near the door, his shotgun dropping slightly from where he has it trained down the hallway. He’s starting to get tired of listening to the grating sound of metal on metal as Cas drills through the vault. If he had known it was gonna take this long, he would have brought some headphones or something. Now that he’s thinking about it, how badass would it be to have some Zep blasting in his ears right now? Extremely. The answer is extremely.
Cas, on the other hand, has a set of earplugs that apparently work well enough to block Dean’s question out. Either that or he’s being ignored. Dean wouldn’t be surprised. Cas had made it abundantly clear that he needs to focus on his work when he’s drilling. Something about being able to feel the vibrations. Dean offered to give Cas a drill to focus on and had a wrench thrown at him in response. If he stands just so, he can still feel the bruise on his thigh.
Still, he’s confident enough in Cas’ abilities to push his luck a little. Dean steps away from the door and meanders over to the vault. With the shotgun resting against his shoulder and his other hand in his pocket, Dean’s sure he looks incredibly suave as he comes to a stop, leaning against the wall next to the vault door. Cas does a double take when he notices Dean a few moments later. The screech of the drill comes to a stop and Dean can hear himself think again.
“What the hell are you doing, Dean? You’re supposed to be keeping watch.” Cas says as he pulls one of his ear plugs out. The extreme annoyance on Cas’ face makes the risk completely worth it. He’s absolutely adorable when he’s mad. Not that Dean would ever say that out loud. He likes his skull attached to his spine, thank you very much.
“I was just checking in. Seeing if you have an ETA maybe?” Dean replies. Cas’ eyes narrow just that much more and Dean mentally fist pumps.
“Look, you asked me to do this. I take care of the security and the vault and you take care of protection. See what the problem is here?” Cas asks, his eyes darting back to the empty doorway.
“Lighten up, it’s a small town, there’s no way we’re gonna run into trouble here.”
“There’s no reason to get cocky on our second attempt at this.”
“Sure, but the first went so well!”
“Because we were careful! You know what, we’re wasting time,” Cas says, replacing his ear plug. “You do your job, and I’ll do mine.”
The grinding starts back up and Dean chuckles as he takes his place back at the door. He gives the hallway a long scan before settles back to watch Cas. He looks good all in black.
About 10 noisy minutes later, there’s a *ka-thunk* from the vault door and Cas powers down the drill once more. He pauses for a second before turning back to Dean with a grin on his face. That’s when the lights go out.
“Umm, Cas. What did you do?” Dean asks, sightless in the complete black except for the shred of light from down the hall towards the windowed lobby.
“That wasn’t me. I swear, there’s no way,” Cas replies, his voice a little closer than expected. Dean crouches down and feels for his bag, pulling a flashlight out once he’s found it amongst the extra ammo. He switches it on and nearly falls back on his ass when he realizes that Cas is directly in front of him.
“Jesus, need to put a bell on you,” Dean mutters. There’s enough light to see the unimpressed look Cas is giving him. It’s no time for celebrations now though. He passes the flashlight to Cas and settles the shotgun back into his shoulder. “Think it’s the cops?”
“Probably. Let’s check.”
Before Dean can stop him, Cas walks out into the hall towards the lobby. Unwilling to part with the only light source, Dean follows close behind. Cas at least has good enough sense to not walk directly into the open once they reach the lobby. He stops at the corner and peeks around.
“Hmm. If the cops were here, you would think we would be seeing a lot more blue and red,” Cas says, turning back to face Dean. Dean steps forward and looks out past him. He’s right there are no cop cars with flashing lights outside. No cars at all in fact. It’s dead quiet.
“Just a power outage then?” Dean asks.
“If that were the case, the buildings across the street would be out too.”
Sure enough, past the teller stations and through the doors, all the streetlights and the buildings are still lit up.
“What the fuck..?”
Before Dean can even start suggesting they go back to the vault, the phone on the closest teller station begins to ring. The electronic tone is uncomfortably loud in the dark and silent bank.
“Don’t uh… don’t phones need electricity?” Dean asks, feeling completely unsettled.
“Older landlines, no. But that one? Yes,” Cas says, his face lightly illuminated by the green glow of the phone’s display. Dean takes a step toward the phone and his stomach drops.
“It says the call is from teller 3…”
“The call is coming from inside the house?” Cas offers sheepishly.
“Oh, so now we’re a horror movie cliché. Nice.” Dean is supremely freaked out and makes the executive decisions that it’s time to bail. He turns and grabs Cas’ arm to pull him away towards the back of the bank where they came in. The silence is deafening as the call stops ringing, but it doesn’t last long.
“You’ve reached Western Community Bank, our hours are eigh-“ The message cuts off and is replaced by harsh static. Dean’s hand tightens on Cas’ arm when the static suddenly stops and a raspy voice begins rising in volume. “Get out. Get out. Get out! GET OUT!”
“Alright we’re done here,” Dean says sharply, dropping Cas’ arm and bringing the shotgun back up. Cas looks thoroughly spooked and just nods, sticking closely to Dean’s side as they retreat back into the darkness, the phone still screaming behind them. “Keep that flashlight up for me, Cas.”
Dean swears he sees a shadow slink around the corner as Cas sweeps the beam of light up but he presses on.
“We need to go back to the vault, Dean,” Cas says, sounding reluctant even to speak.
“No way. We gotta go.”
“My stuff is still back there. Fingerprints everywhere. I’m not saying we should keep going for the vault, I’m trying to keep us out of jail,” Cas hisses.
“I’ll take jail over death by ghost.”
“Yeah, well I have the light,” Cas says as he breaks away from Dean and back toward the vault.
“Cas, Cas! Fuck!” Dean jogs back to catch up. “This is so stupid, you’re so stupid. Stupid plan. Stupid haunted bank.”
“I just need 30 seconds.”
“Uh huh. That’s 30 seconds too long.”
It’s not like Dean has much of a choice though. There’s no way he’s leaving Cas on his own. They approach the vault and pause in the doorway.
“What the fuck.”
“Cas, did the ghost break your drill?”
Nothing had moved from where it had been left, Cas’ duffle is on the floor next to his monitoring equipment and even the earplugs he’d abandoned when the lights went out, but Cas’ drill is blackened and smoking, still lodged in the vault door.
“That… was so expensive…” Cas breathed.
“That’s what you’re hung up on??? How expensive it is? Not the fact that the ghost broke your drill??? Christ, we gotta work on your priorities…Thirty seconds, Cas. Let’s go!”
“Fine…”
Dean grabs his bag just inside the door as he keeps an eye on Cas gathering up his equipment and tossing it all into his own duffle bag. He isn’t sure how useful a shotgun would be against a ghost but he sure is thankful he has it. He sure doesn’t intend to stick around long enough to use it though.
Twenty five seconds later they leave the vault, no sign that they were there besides a hole in the vault door. Cas looks more sulky than terrified and somehow Dean envies him. He decides that if they make it out of here, he’s gonna either punch or kiss the guy. He’s not sure which yet.
They step out into the hall and turn toward the back of the bank to leave. Written in red on the wall at the end of the hallway are the words ‘Get Out’.
“We’re going!!!” Dean shouts into the darkness. “I promise! We don’t wanna be here! We’re leaving!”
“Really, Dean..?”
“Yes! How are you not freaked out right now???”
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” Cas replies completely straight faced.
“Are you serious?” Dean asks, incredulous at the sheer mental fortitude it would take to not believe in a ghost in these circumstances. “That’s worse then! Because that means you have to think that there’s some psycho running around, cutting the power, making phone calls, and writing in… blood? I think that’s blood!”
“You have a shotgun.”
“Fucking hell. I’m so done with this. Come on!”
He’s suddenly glad that Cas made him memorize the blueprint for the building because it’s a small building but he could easily get turned around in the dark. He leads them out, taking a path that doesn’t lead them straight past the message at the end of the hall. As they move he mutters “We’re leaving, don’t mind us, getting out of your hair now, sorry to bother you,” just in case the ghost takes pity on polite hauntees.
“Come on, come on,” Dean whispers as they reach the back door. He flings it open, relieved that it wasn’t somehow magically locked now. “Let’s fucking go.”
Dean pulls his keys out and unlocks the car so he and Cas can throw their things in the back. They hop in the car and the second he turns the engine over, he sees the bank lights come back on in his rear view mirror. He swears as he drives away, he sees a figure in the doorway before the door swings shut.
“Okay maybe it was a ghost,” Cas says beside him.