Chapter Text
1. Find out you're about as straight as a paperclip.
"I can't believe we survived that," Dean croaks, wavering unsteadily on his feet. The enormity of what just happened hits him like a semi. He turns to Castiel, who is frowning down at the splashes of blood on his coat. Something big and warm fills up in the heart Famine told him he didn't have, and he envelops the angel in a tight hug of gratitude for saving their bacon.
It's funny how little decisions can change things in big ways. With his arms around Cas, and the angel's hands pressed against his back, Dean suddenly feels-- well maybe not happy, but good. Over metallic blood, he can detect the typical angelic ozone scent. There's also a faint whiff of soap, though Dean has no idea when (or why) he would have bathed. It's strange to have a rough-shaven cheek next to his ear, but it's nice. Really, really nice. It's less like hugging Sam, and more like hugging Lisa. Huh. By the time he releases his friend, he's wondering why he'd never done this before.
Castiel looks embarrassed. A soft smile that makes him seem far younger than his thousands of years pulls at his mouth. "I thought you might need some help," the angel says.
Dean thinks, in this moment, that he wants to kiss Castiel, too.
The thought terrifies him more than a room full of a hundred and fifty vampires.
That's how it starts.
Well, okay, that wasn't the real start. It actually starts with Daywalkers and evil virgins and the Winchesters making the stupid mistake of believing they have everything planned out. At least, that's what Dean thinks of as the beginning. Castiel would trace everything back to the creation of life, but he's wrong because, come on, do you really need to know about billions of years of evolution just to get down to a clumsy attempt at romance?
Yeah, thought not.
So (according to Dean) it really starts like this:
"Well, all I can find here is that it's called the Unholy Grail," Sam says, hunched over his laptop and scrolling through a demonic Wikipedia page. DemonWiki. At least it's to the point. Can't fault someone for being direct. "It's said to be blessed with the blood of a thousand evil virgins?" He sits back and squints at the ceiling. "That can't be right. Can you be an evil virgin?"
"Yeah," says Dean from where he's sitting cleaning his favorite handgun. "I'll bet you fifty bucks Lucifer never got laid."
Sam gets an uncomfortable look on his face and sort of squishes down into his seat. "Actually," he begins, but stops and coughs.
Dean glares at him, hand raised in the universal gesture of shut-the-fuck-up. "You know what, Sammy? I've just decided I don't wanna know."
"Anyway, the vampires want it because if they drink blood out of the grail it'll-- supposedly-- make them able to go out in sunlight without any problems." Sam sighs and turns to look at his brother. "Daywalkers."
And wouldn't that just be fantastic.
So they have to get the cup.
To do that, they'll have to face a horde of vampires holed up in an old school building outside of Savannah. Actually there's only twenty by Sam's count. But that's still a lot when it comes to non-sparkling blood-drinking needle-toothed sonsabitches. Soulless Sam and Vampire Dean might have been able to take down that many, but regular Sam and normal Dean need to rely on something else: a shower of dead man's blood triggered by a fire alarm. It was going to take some plumbing work, but fortunately they'd helped Bobby install a similar system in his house a few months previous. Everything's perfectly planned.
It doesn't work.
Okay, it does work, but it's entirely by accident.
The first part goes well. Sam poses as a mortician and manages to secure a ridiculous quantity of dead man's blood, and they break into the pipes nearby that supply the school with water.
"This whole plan makes me feel like John Constantine," Sam says. "Maybe we could just consecrate the water."
"Keanu Reeves is a douchebag," Dean hisses, wrenching the last bolt into place, "so we aren't going to." To be fair, Dean had actually liked the Constantine movie until he met Cas. Then he always had the creepy feeling that Keanu Reeves was playing his best friend. Also, he had become a fan of the comics. "We're being Tony Stark." Feeling generous, he adds, "And the Hulk." He flips the wrench up into his hand and winks at Sam before fishing his lighter and a piece of paper from the pocket of his jacket. "Ready?"
Sam cocks his shotgun and nods.
They choose the early afternoon to attack, as they figure most of the vampires would be asleep then. Of course the vampires have the whole building blocked off from sunlight, but Sam and Dean plan on knocking in a few of the boarded up windows. There's no knowing where the cup is and the only thing they can do is hope that their weapons will fill in the gap between what sunlight and dead man's blood can do. It's a dangerous plan, but this time they're prepared.
They don't kick the door in because while that would be badass, it's probably a good idea not to let the vampires know they're coming. They go in the back way because they think it's less likely that someone's guarding the back way. They're wrong of course, but it doesn't matter, because there's a smoke detector right over their heads, and a sprinkler over the heads of the two vampire guards.
So Dean feels just as awesome as it's possible to feel when he flicks open his lighter and sets the paper on fire. "Hey," he says with a cocky-ass grin, holding the smoking paper up under the sensor.
Both guards are hit full in the face with the blood. Somehow the Winchesters are geniuses and the amount of blood manages to paralyze both guards. Sam knocks in two of the window coverings, letting light flood through the hallway.
"To the right, then up the stairs," Sam says and Dean pulls his pistol from his waistband. They make their way up the stairs. It's likely that the vampires are keeping the cup in a larger room for some kind of ceremony, so they figure the gym will be the likeliest place to find it. Upstairs, then. At this point, having seen the success of the dead man's blood, they figure it's going to be easy. So when they finish the climb, they're surprised to see two sprinklers, no blood, and a pretty brunette vampire with a shotgun pointed straight at them.
This is when things start to go wrong.
Blood, unlike water, coagulates. Dead man's blood is great for painting across doors, but if harvested from a corpse recently, it develops clots far too quickly for use in a sprinkler system.
Also, it's not a terribly effective weapon against vampires with guns.
She fires once and both brothers duck quickly around a corner. This is when one of the sprinklers starts working. It hits nowhere near the vampire, but it does spray the hallway between the Winchesters and her. Unfortunately, this is also the only route to the gym.
Sam sheds his jacket and uses it as an impromptu head covering. Lifting his shotgun, he charges directly into the spray. He half slides down the tile hallway, slipping and almost falling at least twice while getting in a good shot that takes the vampire right in her chest. She shakes it off and fires back. The sound echoes down the hallway and Dean cringes, following close on his brother's heel and trying to avoid as much blood as possible. He gets off a couple of shots, but one only hits the vampire's left arm. It seems like an uphill battle for Sam to separate her head from shoulders until he trips her backwards into the sprinkler's reach. This time, Sam's able to easily hack through her neck.
They stop, breathing heavily, Sam coated from head to toe in blood. Dean doesn't even try to hide his grin. "Nice look on you, Carrie, let's go get--" Dean begins, but ends up with a mouth full of dead man's blood as the second sprinkler unclogs over their heads. It's patently unfair of Sam to start laughing now, but he does.
A second vampire that neither of them saw coming whips around the corner and catches Dean in the jaw with her crowbar-heavy punch.He hears a crack and hopes to god that his jaw can hold together long enough for him to complete the mission. Sam shoots her in the shoulder and Dean follows up with a shot to her leg. She stumbles back into the blood and seems to be out for the count. Dean goes in to cut off her head but Sam grabs his arm.
"Cup," he says, reaching up and wiping back some of his hair. Dean nods and spits, trying to get the taste of blood out of his mouth.
They slip down the hallway, guns out and ready in case of any more surprise attacks. Fortunately, the rest of the vampires seem to be sleeping or incapacitated by blood elsewhere. Sam flings open the doors to the gym, intent on grabbing the Unholy Grail and running out of there as fast as he can.
Yeah, so, someone can't count. There are about a hundred and fifty vampires in this room. Also, zero sprinklers.
"So, uh... bathroom this way?" Dean says weakly as all one hundred and fifty freaks of nature turn, baring sharp teeth and snarling.
They're going to die.
This is when it happens:
Sam is out front, a snarling wave of vamps running headlong at him. They can take out three, maybe four, but this is it. Dean tilts his gun at the leader, planning to go down fighting, but there's a sudden prickling at the hairs on his neck and he realizes there's another vampire right behind him. He turns, and it's like the movies. Slow motion, smooth edges and he could almost hear the epic build of music. He's died before, remembers dying, and he knows, as he turns, that he's going to die again. The only thing he can think is that he has to get this shot off.
So he does. The bullet goes through the vamp who was about to sink his teeth into Dean's shoulder.
But it goes through Castiel first.
The angel rips the vampire's head from his shoulders, his eyes still wide in disbelief. It's done in an instant and then Cas is on the other side of the room going from vamp to vamp, smiting and avenging like there's no tomorrow. It's wholesale slaughter angel style, and no one stands a chance against him. It's kind of like watching an action movie that you didn't know was gonna be that goddamn awesome.
It's funny, Dean thinks, as he shoots a pretty little child vampire, but Cas doesn't even bother dragging out his angel sword. It might have helped, but Cas seems to want to burn and tear. When he's in the middle of the room, he shouts, "CLOSE YOUR EYES!" and even through his eyelids, Dean can see the flare of Castiel's angelic form turning his vision red.
In less than a moment, it's over. Dean opens his eyes to see bodies and scorch marks all over the gym and no one moving but his brother who grabs the Unholy Grail from a makeshift altar.
Castiel picks his way over the fallen vampires to Dean's side, lifting the edges of his trench coat as if afraid to soil it on the bodies. This is, of course, stupid, as his trench coat is as invulnerable as the rest of him.
"I got it!" This, from Sam, who flops down on his back, holding the cup aloft. "I GOT IT!" He shouts again, louder this time, laughing hysterically. He's covered in blood and bruised from head to toe. The Unholy Grail itself looks clean. It's pretty unassuming for something that could destroy a huge chunk of the population.
This is when Dean hugs Cas-- actually really hugs him-- for the first time. This is when Castiel hugs Dean back. This is when everything starts.
Because this is when Dean realizes he's probably a little bit gay.