Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dean blearily opened his eyes, hand immediately going to the gun under his pillow. Something had woken him up. The hotel room was dark, but with no obvious threats in sight, however that didn’t mean it was safe. There was a low murmuring in the corner.

Dean jumped out of bed, gun aimed directly at the undoubtedly dangerous monster here to murder him with his own intestines- oh. It was just Cas.

Cas sat at the small wooden table in the corner of the room, staring deeply into a laptop screen. Dean’s laptop screen. The light illuminated his pale face, absolutely hooked on whatever was on the screen… God, Dean just hopes it’s not porn again.

”Uhh.. Hey Cas, uhm. What the fuck are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night.”

Cas didn’t look up. “Hello Dean. I seem to have recently become entranced by these television shows. I believe the genre is called ‘true crime’, it is truly fascinating to see how humanity has harnessed their free will for such heinous actions.”

Now. See, here’s where Dean might have to explain this next bit. Some fun facts: It’s the middle of the night (2:36 AM to be exact, according to the clock on his bedside table). Dean has been working a case for the past few days, resulting in him getting even less sleep than he normally does. Dean has also been harboring what he would call an admiration for the angel. A casual and platonic infatuation. A professional interest. Definitely not a crush! Absolutely not, he just likes to look at Cas’ strong arms and thighs and… other things because he is simply admiring his physique. Mhm.

So maybe Dean’s brain to mouth filter has a couple more holes in it than it usually does. And maybe, just maybe, his tired brain decides this is a wonderful time to flirt. And maybe, just maybe, his brain comes up with the absolute worst way to flirt with someone.

”Uhh, well you know that, uh, I’ve been the lead suspect in dozens of murder cases.” And then he winked. Because of course he did. The only thing that could’ve made this worse was if he finger gunned, eugh. He shudders to even think of it.

”… Oh?” Cas said, expression completely blank. Now, Dean’s known Cas for a couple years and is usually pretty good at telling what he’s thinking. But, as he pointed out before, he’s sleep deprived and off his game. So Dean had no fucking clue what Cas was thinking in the slightest.

He tried to play it off cool and casual. “Uhm, yeah. Dozens and dozens of cases.” Shit! He didn’t mean to lean into it. Stop leaning into it Dean! “So, so many murders, commited by me, mhm.”

He is a supreme dumbass.

Cas had now looked up from his video, which he had not paused during their conversation. The look on his face was now… intrigued? Before Dean could investigate that more, he heard something that made him freeze.

”A sick man. A twisted murder. The tale of Aaron Hydeker.”

… Aaron Hydeker? Dean casually and really coolly walked around the table, not at all stumbling in the dark, to see a grainy picture of a man on his laptop. Oh shit.

”Wait. I killed this guy.”

”… Oh?” Cas sounded even more intrigued, but Dean shushed him. Screw his totally not crush, someone had made a documentary on a creature he’d killed?! And by the looks of it, it was truly a shitty quality documentary. The audio was grainy, the pictures were horrible quality, and the theorists voices were horribly grating and annoying. Despite that, this was definitely something Dean had killed. Back in 2006, not too long after dad went missing, he and Sam had investigated a case where kids had gotten infected with a weird disease. It had ended up being a shtriga that they ganked, who had been posing as a doctor. Dean knew the face of this man. Knew him well, as he’d been the one to nearly kill Sam in that hotel room when they were kids, all those years ago. He’d made sure to shoot that face a couple of times after he’d killed him. Some people (Sam) would argue that it was unnecessary as he’d already been dead, but some people were whiny little brats who didn’t understand the joys of achieving some catharsis.

“In the early 80’s, a disease seemed to spread through the suburbs of America’s small towns. First documented in Fort Douglas, children would fall asleep, and never wake up. They would enter into a coma, and over the course of a few months, their immune systems stopped working, white blood cell numbers plummeted, and they slowly underwent organ failure. Spreading from child to child, the disease seemed to ravage the town. Until one day, when the children all simultaneously died. Ten years later, it returns to a different town. Children fall ill, the sickness spreads. This time, the disease continued until there were no more children left to infect. The disease returned in 2006, hitting Fittsburg. Tragedy, it seemed. However, something different happened. The children woke up. But someone in the town… didn’t.

“In all 3 reported phenomena, a man went missing following the end of the infections. Specifically, a doctor working with the children. All three were described as having neat dark hair, brown eyes, and pale white skin. The names of the three men were Arnold Heidecker, Adam Hidikyr and Aaron Hydeker. Coincidence? We think not. In 2006, the latest case of the disease, Dr. Aaron Hydeker failed to show up to work the day following the children's awakenings. A missing persons report was filed by his workplace, as he had no documented family. Hydeker’s body was never found.”

… Oh shit.

Listen here: Dean had killed a lot of things over his lifetime. Like, a lot of things. And sure, he’d been incarcerated for some of them. But he forgot that sometimes when supernatural creatures posing as people mysteriously go missing, people get concerned. Because they think a person has gone missing. Dean just hoped that he wasn’t in the documentary or anything.

”Days before the disappearance took place, two mysterious men were reported to have rolled up to town.”

That could have been anyone!

”They claimed to be federal agents to some, but doctors to others.”

Mhm, totally literally anyone else.

”Not much is known about them, except that they drove a black 1967 Chevy Impala.”

Okay. So, Dean might’ve been mentioned in the documentary. He turned to Cas, prepared to deny everything, but was met with a peculiar look on his face. Intrigue, with a heated glint in his eye. Dean reacted totally normally to this, obviously.

”That’s me! I killed that guy, mhm.”

Cas repeated his earlier sentiment, “… Oh?”, sounding somehow even more intrigued.

Dean turned back to the video, unsure how to process whatever Cas was doing.

“Onto the theories - today, we have two main ones. Our first, Hydeker was shot and killed by some townsfolk. The towns that these incidents occured in were small, tight knit communities. This theory poses that someone put together the pieces and became outraged, linking Hydeker to the ‘disease’ that was actually just him distributing a poison of some sort to the children in small doses over the course of months. After this realization, some one or a group of people approached Hydeker, shooting him and hiding his corpse. Although the body was never found to confirm this, there were gunshots heard on the night of his disappearance. This theory is solid, but there is one flaw: why did the children all simultaneously wake up the next day?”

”Huh. Actually not a bad theory.” Dean was kind of impressed. That was a plausible explanation, the children miraculously waking up notwithstanding. This show might not actually be complete bullshit after all-

“The second theory is that Hydeker was a magical supernatural creature called a shtriga.”

Forget everything he had just said, what the fuck. Something must have shown on his face because Cas turned to him, eyebrow raised in that sexy questioning expression. Goddamn, Dean had it bad. Dean ignored him, turning back to the video.

”A shtriga is a vampiric witch, originating from Albanian mythology. Shtrigas feast on the blood of children in the night, and if the victims weren’t cured by the shtriga, they inevitably developed an unknown sickness and died. Though shtriga were commonly women, there are records in folklore of male shtrigas. This theory posits that Hydeker was a shtriga, sneaking into children’s bedrooms to drain their blood and infect them with this incurable illness. Then, these two strange men that rolled into town are believed to have killed him. There are multiple ways to kill a shtriga in mythology, such as with holy water, a blood soaked silver coin, or a cross made of pig bones placed in the entrance to a church on Easter Sunday. We pose that holy water, in combination with silver bullets as a nod to the coin method, were used to kill and disintegrate Hydeker, ending his evildoings once and for all. The two men left town soon after, unwilling to be caught up in the small panic that Hydeker’s disappearance caused to the townsfolk. This theory accounts for why the children woke up the next day, as their life force that had been drained out of them was returned through Hydeker’s death, making it more plausible than theory one.

”That’s all we have for you today, thanks for tuning into Fuzzbeed Unsolved, next week we’ll be discussing the mysterious cult-like following of faith healer, Roy le Grange, and his wife’s disappearance.”

Dean blinked as the screen went black, before turning to Cas. “That was somehow way too close, and way too far off what actually happened.”

”You killed a vampiric witch with holy water and silver?”

”No, we killed a vampiric bitch with a gun, and iron bullets. Two guns, actually. There was a lot of shooting.”

Cas was giving him a look that Dean’d seen a lot of women give him in the past: bedroom eyes.

“We had to save a bunch of kids, Sam almost got killed, I almost got killed, it was just a regular Tuesday. And apparently we got seen and noticed by some random conspiracy theorists, whatever. Baby’s a distinct and classy lady.” Dean smirked at Cas, hoping it seemed really casual and not at all panicked because why would Dean be panicking? Cas was just looking at him longingly, nothing weird there. He was not panicking, which is why he did the worst possible thing.

Dean finger gunned.

Cas stared at him for a second, facepalmed for a solid minute, grabbed the back of Dean’s neck, and pulled him in for a passionate kiss. And by passionate, he meant passionate. Tongue. Teeth. More tongue.

Eventually, Dean wrenched back, gasping for air. Cas just looked at him for a moment. Dean looked back. They looked at each other in silence, before Cas remarked, “You’re an idiot.”, pulling him back in for a kiss.

Apparently him being a dumbass did something for Cas. Huh.