Into the Magic Night

Summary: Two times Castiel saved Sam and Dean from various sleep monsters, and one time they saved him. Three-part fic. Dreams, nightmares, hurt/comfort, and tickling.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Supernatural…darn.

Chapter One: Domovoi

Dean is enjoying the best slice of apple pie ever.

The crust is golden and baked to perfection, not soggy on the bottom but holding the perfect combination of moisture and flakiness. The apple slices are fresh and sweet, perfumed with cinnamon and nutmeg; they retain the smallest amount of crunch.

Dean is so engrossed in devouring the slice of pie that he almost forgets about the hands working their way through his hair in a delicious rotation, like a master masseuse.

"How old are you?" comes a soft purr in his ear.

"Twenty one," he says. Through a gigantic mouthful of pie, his response sounds like, "Enny wah."

The waitress titters behind him. Her hands are now working downwards, kneading his shoulders. He glances at her hands and notices her nails coated with chipped aquamarine polish.

"You're cute."

Dean would blush if he wasn't the only customer in the diner and if his cheeks weren't stuffed with heavenly dessert. Instead, he feels a modicum of pride and something else he can't quite place.

"So're you," he mumbles, although it's a lie. He's been so tired from driving to rendezvous with John and Sammy after his latest solo hunt that he can't even remember placing an order, not to mention the flirtatious woman running her hands across his body.

"I get off in two hours. You wanna come back and pick me up?"

Dean swallows back a surprised cough. Remnants of pastry catch in his throat and he coughs in earnest. She immediately thumps him on the back and presses a hand to his breastbone, as if that would help. The hunter's coughing abates, and he spins around on his stool at the counter, examining the waitress through bleary eyes.

She's a goddess. Blonde hair, pink lips, wide smile. Her aquamarine uniform with white lace matches the color on her nails.

"Uh…Y-yeah, sure!" Dean stutters. He isn't used to being on the other end of the pick-up routine, and it's shocked him. In a good way, he admits. But, still—he can't believe his luck.

In the back of his mind, he hears a little voice—an annoying, saintly voice saying: You need to get back to dad and Sammy and make sure they're not killing each other.

But the smile of the waitress and the memory of her hands through his hair is enough to stop his guilty conscience cold.

"Great!" She beams. Her name tag reads BETTIE.

"I—I'm Dean," he says, reaching out a hand to shake and instantly feeling like a dork.

Since when did you start acting like Sam?

She giggles, her voice full of bubbles. "I know that."

Dean gapes slightly. "You do?"

"You told me when you came in."

Another detail he conveniently forgot.

No problem. Just exit gracefully, go back to the motel, take a cold shower, and get ready for your date.

"Sorry—must've been driving too long," Dean says, guilty for the excuse, but it's true enough. He smiles dopily. "Getting tired."

"Well, then I'll just have to wake you up," Betty says with a wink and removes his empty plate. "Won't I?"

Dean leans in closer to her, his heart hammering in his chest, but she turns away at the last moment. He gets a strong whiff of…. mildew? Dean shakes his head. Must be from the linoleum crumbling away at his feet. For a place that makes world-class pies, it could sure use a remodel.

"See you in a few hours," Dean says and leaves a hefty tip.

Then he's in the Impala, and he's blasting tunes. All of his favorites come on the radio—AC/DC, Bon Jovi, Metallica, Bob Seger. It's Dean's greatest hits.

The summer night is comfortably warm, and he rolls the driver's window down, feeling the cool breeze run through his hair as he takes a shortcut to the motel via a rural highway.

He finds himself singing at the top of his lungs as the sun goes down because Dean Winchester is 21, and he's just eaten the best pie in his life, and he's about to go on a date with a hot waitress, and he's about to hit a guy with his car—

"Oh-SHIT!"

The hunter slams Baby's breaks—wincing at the hellish screeches they emit, and the figure directly in front of him gets an unwanted close-up.

The car stops inches from contact.

In the dusky twilight, Dean's heart slamming in his ribcage, he views the dark-haired man in a khaki trench coat, and the other man views him. The stranger's face is expressionless.

Dean pants heavily, eyes wide with disbelief.

"Jesus!" he gasps to himself. Then, to the man: "Are you okay? Did I hit you…?"

His voice dies away as the man remains motionless, not breaking eye contact with him. Dean focuses on the other man's eyes now—bright blue, almost glowing in the filtered light. They match the color of his tie.

Anger overtakes Dean suddenly. "What the HELL, man?! Are you NUTS?! I could have KILLED you! And you just popped outta NOWHERE!"

Emitting several expletives, Dean inadvertently slams his hand against the windshield, and his horn honks, making him jump with the sound. But the man in the trench coat remains stock still, as if observing him.

Dean's not taking any chances. He feels the kiss of cold metal underneath his jacket, and he will use the gun if necessary. Still cursing under his breath, he's about to leap out of the Chevy and forcibly remove this weirdo from in front of his beloved car when Blue-Tie opens up the passenger door and gets in.

"What the—" Dean is completely flabbergasted. "GET OUT OF MY CAR!"

"You might want to pull over," the man says in a gruff yet quiet voice. His hands are folded in his lap, and he's staring straight ahead.

Dean realizes this guy might not be playing with a full deck. Still, he's got a date, and the clock is ticking. So he tactfully lowers his voice and tries a different approach.

"Listen, buddy, I've got a gun. And this is my car. I'm asking you nicely to step out of my vehicle before I call the police."

Trench Coat slowly turns in his seat to face the hunter and says again in an even tone: "Dean, we need to talk."

Dean finds his jaw drop for the second time that day. I'm hallucinating. Yep—that's it. Just need to go home and take a cold shower. Get some coffee…

"How do you know my name? Who are you?" Dean feels for the weapon along his side, ready to grab it any second.

The dark-haired man seems to collect his thoughts and then looks toward the horizon and the sun's fading light.

"We don't have much time left. My name is Castiel, and I'm here to tell you you're in great danger."

Dean's bizarre-o-meter is flashing on red alert at this point.

"Listen, man—I'm not sure what kind of name Castiel is, but I know that if you won't get outta my car, I'm gonna have to take you to the nearest hospital." Or insane asylum, he thinks.

Dean pauses for a moment, willing for trench coat to smoothly slide out of his car and get going, but Blue-Eyes doesn't budge.

"All right," Dean says, and starts up the car again, driving along down the highway. He's got a priority in mind, after all: date night. And the clock is ticking. He squirms in his seat as a tightening around his abdomen makes him suddenly short of breath. The feeling passes quickly, and Dean thinks: Maybe that pie didn't set well.

He chances a glance at the stranger next to him, about to remind Blue Tie to buckle up, but the dark-haired man has already reached and secured the seatbelt around his waist, as if he's done it dozens of times before.

"So I'm in danger, huh?" Dean can't believe he's resorted to small talk, but the silence is making him uncomfortable.

A pause, then: "I know you don't believe me. All I can say is that I know almost everything about you. Or…I will know everything."

Dean snorts. "Yeah, that's not creepy at all."

"I know that your name is Dean Winchester and that you're a hunter."

Dean shoots back, "You could have gotten that info from anywhere."

"I know you lost your mother, Mary, when you were only four. There was a fire. I know you live with your father, John, and your brother, Sam. Sam wants to go to Stanford and attend law school. I know that you care more about your brother than anything else in the world, and that you would do anything for him."

Alone on the highway, Dean slows to a stop. His heart is beating faster, the compressions on his chest not helping to calm his breathing. He tries to hide his trembling hands by moving them from the wheel to fists he waves in the air.

"So I'm supposed to believe you're my guardian angel?"

Castiel looks out the passenger window, but Dean can spy the ghost of a smile on his face.

"You could say that, yes."

Dean presses down on the gas pedal, and Baby revs away.

Dean is pretty sure letting Blue-Eyes into his meticulously warded motel room isn't the brightest thing he's ever done, but it's definitely not the stupidest. By the time he's pulled the Impala up to the curb of the parking space, his chest feels tighter, and he's starting to wheeze like a rusty squeezebox.

Nerves? That's nearly impossible.

"So how come… you know…everything about me?" Dean pants as if he's just climbed Mt. Everest, and his vision spins slightly as he gets out of the car. Strangely enough, an arm braces his shoulder and guides him away from Baby. It takes Dean a second too late to realize it's the hitchhiker.

"There isn't time," the man says hastily but not unkindly. Behind them, the sun sets in deep hues of orange and fuchsia. Dean can barely see straight as his chest compresses painfully, and he gasps.

"Cas…" Dean croaks out, stumbling.

The man's arms never leave his shoulders. And, for a little dude, he's surprisingly strong. In fact, it almost seems to take him no effort at all to swipe the motel key from Dean's weak grasp, unlock the door, and haul his wheezing ass inside.

Castiel takes him to the single bed in the barely-used, flea-infested motel room and flicks open the blinds on the windows, eyeing the sunset like a tide coming in too quickly. Then he stocks back to Dean and kneels beside him.

"Dean—you thought you destroyed that Domovoi, but she's still alive, and she's going to kill you. In fact, she's killing you right now."

Dean almost laughs, but his ribs feel like they might crack with the unknown pressure, so he forgoes the chuckle fest. "What are you talking about?"

Castiel's eyes glow eerily in the dim light. His expression is grim. "Concentrate on my words, Dean. You're dreaming. This—all of this—is a dream. You're currently lying in a motel room exactly like this one, but the Domovoi is crushing the life out of you." He takes a breath. "You know they like to kill their prey slowly."

"This is…just crazy." Dean tries to protest, but another wave presses against his abdomen, and he can't hold back a whimper of pain this time. Darkness briefly washes over him, but a firm hand squeezing his shoulder draws him back.

"Cas…" he croaks. He's not sure if the man approves of this spontaneously discovered nickname, but it sounds right to Dean in his muddled mind. "This…hard for… me to believe…And I gotta…date…in an hour…"

"The monster was the woman in the diner, remember?" Castiel says softly, patiently, although his fingers are twitching on Dean's shoulder, revealing an underlying fear.

Dean feels as if he's sinking into the mattress.

The woman. The chipped nail polish, the blonde hair, the strong odor of mildew…

And everything clicks.

"Bettie Turnbull," he mumbles. "She drowned—"

"A year ago," Castiel finishes for him.

"I thought I'd burned her bones for good."

"A Domovoi is a kind of super ghost," says Castiel. "Once the being has its sights on a victim, its spirit stays alive and attaches to him. Bones or no bones."

The thought sends a shiver down Dean's spine, and he can't stop shaking.

"S-so…How do I kill it?"

Please let me be able to kill it.

Castiel pauses, and then a soft, barely-there smile breaks across his face. "You wake up!"

Dean's eyes roll, the pressure increasing again.

"And…how do we…do that?" Dean gasps. Whether this dude in front of him is an angel or not, he sure takes a long time to get to the freaking point.

The hunter groans and doesn't even notice that Castiel has moved farther back on the bed and is currently removing Dean's right boot.

"Elephants…" Dean wheezes.

Castiel doesn't look up from unlacing the shoe. "Hmm?"

"Elephants…on…my chest." Then Dean realizes what the other man is doing. "What are you…? HEY!"

Castiel removes his mangy, wool-knit, not-sure-the-last-time-it-was-washed sock and begins to give him a foot massage. Or something.

Dean's eyes go wide.

Things have definitely gotten weird.

Dean attempts to lunge forward only to cry out in pain.

"What the hell are you doing, man?!" Dean roars. He's aware that he's beginning to hyperventilate, but it seems to be a logical outcome when one's oxygen supply runs out.

Castiel continues massaging the foot with a focus found only in air traffic controllers and cake decorators.

"The only way to make you wake up is to get you to move your toes."

Dean whimpers. He can't really believe that this is the way his night has ended. Complete 180.

"That's…ridiculous!" he bursts out. "I can move my own damn feet!"

The angel releases Dean's foot only for it to remain on the bed, unmoving, a footsicle. Dean sticks his tongue out, but no matter how hard he tries to waggle a single toe—any toe—the foot stays still, as if the signal from his brain isn't reaching his lower half.

Dean realizes they might have a problem.

"Ah—I was afraid of this," Cas says quietly. "Achieving physical movement while in REM sleep is very difficult. It's not something most people can accomplish unless they're an expert on lucid dreaming."

"So what do we do?!" It's full-on panic mode now. No going back. Breathing comes in short bursts, and Dean's darkening vision begins sending him sparks of bright color. Like the Fourth of July, apple pie, and—

"DEAN!"

Someone is shaking his shoulders, and Dean's eyes flash open.

"I'm…here," he pants. "I think." Dean licks his lips. "Cas… you…gotta…help me."

The angel in a trench coat sinks back on the bed and pauses, his eyes searching far away, his mouth set in a firm line.

"I know of no other method," says Castiel at last, as if he's just skimmed through all the angelic encyclopedias and still can't find enough information to write a decent report. "What would make your feet move?"

Dean almost blurts out "a rib-crushing Domovoi," but can't breathe enough air to make terrible jokes.

Things that would make my feet move…

Square dancing. A pint of Jack Daniels. Waking up to "Heat of the Moment." Chasing after a ghoul. Being chased by a ghoul. Chasing Sammy for trying to drive Baby.

Sammy. Baby. Sammy.

Then it comes to him.

"Tickling."

His mouth snaps shut as soon as he says it because he can't believe he's just said it. But Castiel's blue eyes widen, and he leans forward, interested, so Dean can't take it back.

God help me.

"Explain," Cas says.

Dean considers what will happen if he doesn't explain. Death versus being tickled by another dude. A weird little dude in a trench coat who thinks he's an angel.

This night was supposed to be so different.

"People—umm—do it for fun. To each other. To make the other person laugh. Like on your ribs or kneecaps."

Castiel remains stone faced, and Dean knows he's not getting it. The older Winchester brother sighs and thinks: I can't believe I'm doing this.

Then he reaches forward and grabs one of Castiel's hands, tickling his palm.

Dean lies back, out of breath and waiting for a reaction, but the angel just stares at his own palm, a puzzled expression on his face.

"I don't understand."

Dean groans. "Not everyone is ticklish. But that's the movement. Sam…used to…tickle me on my feet…when we were little… He would do it…until I had tears streaming down my face."

The pressure on his chest increases even more until he feels that his ribs will crack, and Dean let's out a rasping moan. Castiel puts a hand on his shoulder, his eyes brimming with concern.

"Cas… Do it."

The angel wordlessly moves to the end of the bed and begins running his fingers along Dean's bare foot in a similar motion the Winchester had demonstrated before.

Dean can only focus on the crushing pain at first, but then he begins to feel the touch on the pad of his foot—a light, airy, soft stroke that seems to float over his limb, back and forth relentlessly.

Dean twitches, gasps…and begins to laugh.

And his toes wiggle.

In an instant, Castiel's form vanishes and is replaced by the figure of Bettie Turnbull. Blonde hair spills into his face, and aquamarine chipped nails scratch his neck. Her knees press into his chest, and the smell of damp and mildew rolls off her body in funky waves. Her flesh is grey and clammy to the touch as Dean reaches up to push her away.

That's when her head jerks up directly in front of his face, and he stares into the eyeless sockets of the Domovoi. Grey, wrinkled skin, rotting brown teeth, and a nose that is falling off causes him to scream, which is quickly drowned out by the piercing screech of the creature on his chest.

Still in shock, Dean feels paralyzed to react, but he doesn't have to. Within seconds, the monstrous Domovoi shrivels like a drying flower and evaporates into thin air, leaving behind nothing but the echo of her wail and a lingering smell of mold.

Dean lies still for a few minutes, catching his breath and checking for broken bones. When he's confident that he's not received permanent damage, he lunges for the hunting knife resting on the bedside table and clutches it like a teddy bear. But his instincts tell him not to worry. After a few more minutes, Dean relaxes. The night is quiet; the Domovoi is dead.

The older Winchester struggles to remember what happened immediately before wakening. He had been dreaming about a man in a trench coat, and, somehow, this man helped him wake up. But the stranger's face is already becoming hazy in his memory, the details of his dream fading like most dreams do in the hours and days that follow.

Dean rises stiffly from the bed, his muscles aching and back popping, to get a glass of water (or bottle of whiskey—whichever he finds first) and pauses. Something glimmering on the foot of his bed catches his eye. He holds the hunting knife in an even grip, fearing some remnant left from the Domovoi, but those worries vanish when he actually sees what it is.

It is a black feather, smooth and shiny and slightly larger than a raven's.

Curious, Dean picks it up and rubs it across his chin like he used to when he was a kid and didn't care about bird germs. Its touch is pillow-soft and playful, conjuring up memories of simpler times before the endless chase that became his life, before the hunting.

Dean Winchester puts the feather in his jacket pocket and walks to the bathroom to get a cup of water from the sink. He curses softly as soon as he steps onto the tiled floor and hops from foot to foot before dashing back to his bed and his duffel bag of clothes.

The tile floor had been cold, and Dean hadn't realized he was barefoot.

TBC

A/N: I'd gotten the idea for this fic a loooong time ago and recently thought of a way to tie it into a three-part story that all revolves around sleep monsters and Castiel-related hurt/comfort. This is going to be so. Much. Fun.

Next part: Cas saves a very young Sam from a particularly nasty sleep creature that lives in the forest.

Hope you enjoyed the first part! Let me know what you think!

~Ista ^_^