What Makes a Hunter

Chapter 1

"Okay, I have a knife. Do you mind telling me what happened? In more than one word?" Dean asked. He walked over and perched on the bed beside the ex-angel, kicking his boots off unceremoniously and taking hold of the top of Cas's t-shirt to slit it open.

"I've been following a vampire for four days." Cas answered with some difficulty. "I tracked him down in Columbus but he was traveling alone and I thought that was strange. So I decided to follow him and see if he would lead me to his nest. He did." Cas winced as Dean ripped through the last part of his shirt and exposed the nasty gash in his side.

"And this?" Dean gestured to the wound with an eyebrow raised.

"There were more of them than I had previously accounted for. One of them stole my angel blade. Don't worry, I got it back." Cas pulled the silver blade out from under him.

"Great," Dean muttered sarcastically. "I'm so glad you didn't lose your blade. Thank god." He grabbed the bottle of whiskey off the bedside table, pulled the cork out with his teeth, spit it onto the rug, and took a swig.

"Okay, this is gonna hurt," he warned, positioning the bottle over Cas's open wound. Cas just nodded. Dean tipped some of the whiskey out, drawing a sharp gasp from the other man. "Sorry, buddy," he muttered.

"It's all right," Cas replied, "I've had worse."

"So where have you been this past week?" Dean asked, dabbing gently around the gash with a piece of gauze. He tried to make it sound conversational but he was actually pretty pissed. Cas, of course, didn't pick up on it.

"I just told you." he said, tilting his head to the left and narrowing his eyes in confusion, "I was hunting a vampire in Columbus––"

"No, yeah, I heard what you said," interrupted Dean. "I mean why didn't you pick up the phone at all?"

"Oh." Cas looked guilty. "I didn't think I needed to."

"Dude I called you like four times!" Dean snapped, threading his needle and tying off the end. He dipped the tip in the bottle of whiskey.

"I am sorry, Dean."

"Yeah, okay." Dean muttered. "Hang on a second, this'll be over soon." 

He pinched the sides of the wound together and began carefully stitching it up. Cas tensed but didn't make any noise. There were a few minutes of silence as Dean concentrated on the task at hand. Cas didn't say anything, just stared at the hunter's face while he worked, occasionally glancing down at his stomach to see how much progress had been made. When Dean finished he tied the string off, used the knife to snip off the excess and dropped the needle back into the first aid kit. Cas decided it was safe to speak again.

"I didn't realize my lack of communication would be distressing," he began, but Dean just shook his head.

"Forget about it, man. Doesn't matter."

It did matter, but Dean didn't have a good explaination as to why and he didn't feel like going down that particular road at two in the morning. Cas looked like he wanted to say more but Dean shot him a look that shut him up.

After administering some antibacterial ointment and taping a bandage in place over the wound, Dean shoved everything back into the first aid kit and got to his feet, careful not to jostle the bed too much. He looked down at Cas, who was staring at him with a furrowed brow. The hunter couldn't help but roll his eyes.

"I don't understand why you are angry." said Cas, looking more confused than ever.

"Dude I'm not angry. It's just...I don't know. It's like you keep forgetting you're human now and putting yourself in danger. And I can't be around to sew you up all the time and that kinda scares me, you know?" he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He'd never been very good with words. Luckily, Cas got it.

"Ah. I understand. It's like when you were angry with Sam for leaving his cellphone at the motel in February. Or that time when Kevin went into that mall by himself. Or when Charlie––"

"Okay, okay!" Dean interrupted. "Yeah. Yes. It's like that. But that's enough, alright?" Cas raised an eyebrow. Dean decided to ignore it.

"When was the last time you ate, anyways?" he asked, looking at the ex-angel's hollow cheeks.

"I often forget to," Cas admitted. "Nourishment is not something angels are required to think about."

"Well," said Dean, swinging open the door of the corner mini-fridge, "I have beer and pie." He grinned at Cas over the top of the door. "It's cherry."

"Pie sounds good." Cas agreed, smiling back ever so slightly.

"Awesome," said Dean, scooping the pie out of the fridge and closing the door with his foot. "Why don't you get yourself cleaned up while I try to find you some not-disgusting clothes?" He set the pie down on the foot of the bed and ambled into the bathroom, ran a motel washcloth under the sink for a minute, then squeezed it out and tossed it to Cas. The other man looked at it sideways as if he was trying to figure out all its deepest secrets.

"What do I do with it?" he asked, still studying it intently.

"Um...well I didn't think it was a good idea to try to get you into the shower so just like...I don't know. Wipe yourself down with it or something." Dean muttered, looking uncomfortable and turning to dig through his bag. "I'm not gonna show you how to do that." He shoved a few t-shirts aside and rummaged until he found one that looked like it might fit Cas.

"How are your pants?" he asked, glancing over his shoulder and noticing with relief that Cas had figured out how to use the washcloth.

"Excuse me?" Cas asked, pausing what he was doing and looking at Dean sideways again.

"Do. You. Need. To. Borrow. A. Pair. Of. Pants?" Dean demanded, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance. He knew he wasn't really being fair but honestly who was at their best at 2 in the morning?

"Oh." Cas looked down. "Yes. I think. Mine have blood on them."

The hunter rummaged around in his bag for another second, emerged with a pair of sweatpants and tossed them and the t-shirt to Cas.

"Here," he said gruffly, standing and holding his hand out for the now filthy washcloth. Cas handed it to him and Dean disappeared into the bathroom to wait for his friend to change. After a couple of minutes he poked his head out of the door to see Cas sitting (thankfully) fully-clothed on the bed. He returned to the mini fridge and pulled out two beers. He motioned to the pie at the end of the bed.

"I don't have any plates so we're just gonna have to eat it out of the tin," he admitted sheepishly. "Sorry."

"I am not bothered." said Cas, looking at him as intently as he had looked at the washcloth a few minutes earlier. Dean felt his skin get weirdly hot. He turned to his bag, scooped a couple of plastic forks out of the bottom and walked to the other side of the bed. He handed Cas a beer and a fork, plucked a pillow up off the ground, shook it out and propped it against the headboard. The clock read 2:27.

They sat next to each other on the bed in companionable silence, taking turns eating out of the pie tin and sipping their respective beers. Dean found himself relaxing into the quiet. With a lot of people silence was awkward or uncomfortable. Ever since he had been a child Dean had always felt the need to fill it. But it wasn't like that with Cas. The dude was pretty hard to figure out sometimes, but other times he was easier to be around than pretty much anyone else Dean had ever met. He only really felt this comfortable with two people in the whole world––his baby brother and the ex-angel currently by his side.

After a few minutes Dean glanced over to ask Cas a question and saw that at some point in the last few minutes he had drifted off. His (mostly full) beer tilted dangerously towards the floor and Dean lurched forward to catch it before his hand released it entirely. Dean rolled his eyes but his mouth twitched slightly at the corners. What a dweeb. He slipped the fork out of Cas's other hand, set both things on the bedside table and got up as carefully as possible so as not to wake the other man. Dean knew the importance of getting sleep after sustaining a wound as bad as the one Cas had gotten. There was no way he was gonna wake him up and kick him off the bed. Instead the walked around the foot of the bed to where the blanket was piled on the floor, shook it out, and spread it over Cas, who shifted slightly at the added warmth. Dean plopped himself into the rickety chair, put his feet up on the bed and leaned over to turn out the light. This would be fine for now. They would book another room in the morning.