Hey, sorry to stop to add this strange little nugget of fiction. I AM planning to update other stories soon, despite my lies about it before. But this was based on a tumblr post in which someone suggested an AU where Dean and Cas are serial killers, who send little messages to each other through security cameras, and I thought hey, I could do that. So here you go. Enjoy.

It had started small.

They barely noticed each other at first, only the occasional mention of another uncaught killer out there, (hogging the spotlight, and of course neither was unprofessional enough to admit jealousy, but there was a noticeable increase in each one's killings after media coverage of the other started really growing), and the mentions were mostly ignored.

Until it became too much to resist.

Everyone knew the names, and the faces, though that didn't stop the murders. No one ever seemed to recognize them when they rolled into town. Each was always just another guy, traveling into town, normal and routine and boring—until the killing started and he left, then of course there were dozens of citizens willing to step up and say they'd "noticed something funny about him."

Dean Winchester was known as the Righteous Man. It took six separate incidents for the investigators to gather enough evidence to go searching for him. News outlets and talk radio shows exploded with the news that the serial killer was someone thought to have died twenty-eight years ago in a house fire in Kansas, a fire that claimed the lives of Dean's mother, father, and his infant brother Sam. There were hundreds of theories revolving around the fact that Dean's family had been killed in a suspected arson incident, and the man now killed only people who were rotten at heart: rapists, thieves, bullies of all types, including two children.

Castiel Novak's first four kills were originally attributed to Dean Winchester, simply because he was so good that no one even saw him. When the police finally realized that there was indeed a second serial killer roaming America, it took them another four murders to even catch a glimpse of the man in a security camera. Another month passed before facial recognition software managed to identify him as Castiel Novak, a man who had mysteriously disappeared from his suburban Illinois home in the middle of the night five years ago, and had not been seen since. By the time he was identified, his swift entrances and exits from crime scenes, the complete lack of any physical evidence he left behind, and of course the footage caught of him kneeling after each kill in a triple murder, hands in praying position and lips clearly forming the words "forgive me, Father," had earned him the nickname The Angel.

Dean started it; of course he did. He was the more forthright killer, the one who made the biggest show and the most noise. And of course he had noticed Castiel. He appreciated the other man's talent, could recognize another master at work, though of course he himself preferred a messier kill, reveling in the blood and the screams. And as he finished off a museum guard one cloudy day in November, he couldn't help but tease. He knew the camera was watching. He always aimed for high-security places, liked the thrill of winking at the camera and then seeing that image blasted back at him the next day by every tv and newspaper in sight. This time, he just added a little something else. He quickly slapped his hands together, praying position, mirroring his favorite new "nemesis," nodded down at the body of the guard, the looked very deliberately at the camera and winked once more.

The media, those mindless pigs, didn't see the connection. They went crazy for the latest kill, of course, putting on their fake expressions of horror and barely containing their excitement as they delivered yet more blood and gore to the millions of sheep who were too timid to admit their feelings of glee when they heard the "terrible news."

However, Castiel did see it.

The Angel had never before made any attempt to recognize his audience. He did his work silently and efficiently, refusing to be distracted. He killed those who had "sinned;" people who were abusing positions of power, and those who paraded falsehoods in front of hundreds. He didn't care for the attention, didn't take glory in his kills. But on the next one, just before the delivery in the campaign office of a minor (and corrupted) politician, he stopped to take the time to reciprocate what he'd seen Dean do. It was a simple thing, turning to the camera to smile before the kill, but it changed everything.

It almost became competitive. Neither the media nor the police ever realized what it was they were doing, and that made the game all the more fun. Dean's little winks and gestures became a method of communication to Castiel. Nice work, that last one. I like your style. Watch this. Castiel's were a strange mix of simple recognition and motherly suggestions. I see, though I prefer it like this. Next time, you should try something like this. Hello, I saw you waved to me.

Neither man was really sure what he wanted to do with the other. Dean sometimes laid awake at night, alternating between the desire to find the Angel and cut him into a thousand pieces, and the urge to share murder tips over lunch like two old college friends. Though Castiel rarely slept, when he did, he dreamed of Dean, sometimes of closing his hands around the Righteous Man's throat and watching the light fade from his eyes, and sometimes of lying next to him on a grassy hill at night, drinking beer and watching the stars.

It finally came to a head the next May. Their game had gone on long enough. And one clear night, at the house of the CEO who had sexually assaulted his female employees and then forced them to stay silent under threat of being fired and the wife who had publicly defended him and tried to pay to have the women killed, both the back door and the kitchen window swung silently open at the same time.

Two stealthy forms slunk through the house, bristling with more than just the anticipation of the kill, for somehow they seemed to know by gut feeling that this would be the night.

They met at the bedroom door, raising their weapons, but the second bright blue eyes met stormy green, all possible animosity was forgotten, and after a simple nod, they opened the door as one. Dean moved forward and shot the wife in the leg right in bed, the 'ping' of the silencer and her gasp waking the husband, who shot upright to find a knife at his throat and a rough hand yanking his head back. Dean moved forward to close his hand over the wife's mouth, muffling her scream of terror and pain. He put the gun to her temple and waited patiently as Castiel leaned forward to whisper to both of them, "my Father will forgive us, but he will not forgive you." And Dean shot as Castiel sliced, and blood splattered the both of them in unison.

Though neither really needed to, every once in a while they used fire, Dean for dramatic effect and Castiel to purge an entire place of the sins of its inhabitants. And tonight, Dean had brought only the gas, while Castiel had brought only the matches, testifying to the unspoken knowledge between them that this was the night they would meet. And on the expanse of perfectly manicured lawn behind the burning house, lips met lips for the first time, their passion blazing brighter than the flames licking up the structure behind them, for two halves had become whole, and both Heaven and Earth would fear what was to come, now that they had found each other.