Dean was sore.

That was the first thing his brain registered as it attempted to wade through the half-asleep/half-awake haze that clouded his head. He felt a sharp sting in several places on his body, and he remembered all the cuts and scratches. His bones, head, and muscles all throbbed with severe intensity, and it didn't help his aching back at all that he was sleeping on a hardwood floor.

He blinked hard and shook his head until he deemed himself properly awake. Memories came flooding back, flashes of blood, bare skin, screaming, eyes rolling back, his name being used as a pleasure saturated exclamation, all came at him at once, and he felt the need to lay his head back down to ease the blow.

Suddenly, all the pain just seemed like a price to pay for a great night.

He made himself roll over, wincing as sensitive bruises clashed with the hard ground, and locked eyes with Castiel who was lying beside him, eyes half open, drooping slightly with drowsiness. Dean ran a few fingers across his boyfriend's warm cheeks before leaning over and giving his face a sweetly sincere 'good morning' kiss. When he pulled back, they simply looked eachother in the eye for a long moment.

"How do you feel?" Dean asked.

"I'm in quite a bit of pain...but I'll be fine."

Dean eased himself closer to Cas, slowly, until he was inches from his face. He placed a hand on the angel's bare arm and rubbed it affectionately before leaning his mouth forward and placing a gentle kiss on his boyfriend's forehead, then nose, then, he leaned down further, and placed a warm, loving kiss on his mouth. He cupped his face and ran his thumb softly over a little cut on Cas' cheek. He felt a tug on his heart strings when he felt the angel wince ever so slightly beside him at the touch. The last thing on earth he wanted to do was harm his lover. But last night...totally went against that mind set. He felt another wave of guilt as he remembered.

When they pulled back, the angel's eyes fluttered sleepily. The sun was just coming up, and they had been rowdy late into the night. When Cas closed his eyes and opened his mouth in a big sleepy yawn, Dean caught himself with a little smile on his face, in awe of how adorable he found his boyfriend to be. He was the luckiest guy in the world.

"I think I'd like to go back to sleep now Dean," Cas said.

Dean ran his fingers through the angel's soft, dark hair and then gave him another kiss on the mouth. He just couldn't resist. If his lips weren't against Castiel's it just felt...wrong. It was an itch he had to repeatedly scratch.

"Yeah, I need some rest too," the hunter said.

Castiel rolled over on his side with his back to the hunter, and Dean layed his arm around the angel's waist, pulled him closer, and took Cas' hand in his. He buried his face in the angel's hair and breathed in deeply. He could never get enough of the angel's smell. It made his head spin, dizzy, and he closed his eyes to fall into a deep sleep, the intoxication of Cas' scent helping to knock him out in a matter of seconds.

o.O.o

Eight o' clock pm, the night before

Dean pulled the Impala into a rest stop near Ritzville Washington, about an hour outside Spokane. Anticipation laced through his words as he spoke quickly, enthusiastic. He wanted this thing dead, and he knew they were hot on its heels - he could feel it.

"So, cops said three pregnant women have been killed, right? One near here. Any reason why this thing is here, and not staying strictly in the Philippines like the lore said?"

"No idea whatsoever," Sam replied. "But I hardly think that matters. This thing is one of the creepiest things we've delt with, and we deal with a lot of creepy shit." He chuckled, though nervously.

Dean cracked open the driver side door and walked around to the side to pump gas. Sam followed, holding paperwork, research and lore on the Manananggal, the creature they were currently hunting down.

"I'm telling you Dean, you should've seen the bodies. No - " he retracted. "I think you'll be glad you didn't. Those woman all had slits in their uterus like a sharp blade cut through it, the fetus missing. The woman's hearts were gone too, and they were ripped up pretty badly all over."

Dean shuddered in disgust. That was pretty bad. And he had seen and heard of a lot.

"So how do we kill the bitch?" he asked, pulling out bills to pay for the gas.

"Well, legend has it that it leaves the lower half of its body in whatever place it deems safe when its upper half flies out at night to look for victims. It says if you rub salt or garlic on the lower half, it'll ruin it and the thing won't be able to reattatch itself. The upper part should burn up, come sunrise."

"And the last sighting?"

"Noon, yesterday, before the latest victim was taken that night. About forty-five minutes from here in Moses Lake." He folded up his paperwork and Dean could tell by the faraway look in his darting eyes that his mind was racing, making plans. Sure enough -

"We'll find a motel when we get there, and tomorrow morning we can interview the police about the victim and talk to some people about sightings."

Dean finished pumping gas and headed towards the station to pay.

"Let's head out then," he stated simply.

It ended up playing out a lot different then they expected.

A pretty blonde girl, eight months pregnant, owned the motel they ended up checking into. By 10:00, they were fighting the Manananggal off her in a vacant forest a few miles from the motel.

The thing was ghastly, with large black battered wings on either side of it, both the size of trucks. It had the face of a beautiful young woman, with big, piercing blue eyes and a slender nose and cheekbones. Black, blood soaked hair hung down to her waist, which was where her body ended. Nothing below the midsection save for dangling intestines and sinew strings, which continued to drip thick purple-ish blood as she flew.

She opened her mouth at the woman, who she had cornered by the thick trunk of an Oak tree. Out of her mouth slid a long, slim, black tongue, about seventeen inches long. Thick veins ran its length, and the tip was sharpened to such a dangerous point, that one could imagine it slicing through muscle and bone with no problem.

The tongue lashed out at the lady's stomach, managing to make a thick slice several inches across her abdomen before the creature was shoved off to the side.

Dean wrestled with the Manananggal on the ground, inches from her face and having to struggle to dart away from the vicious tongue that threatened to pierce straight through his skull. He had no choice but to ignore the fact that his knees were enveloped in gloppy monster insides, and stifled the retch that hugged the inside of his throat.

The thing's claws were each the equivalence of five of her tongues, the fingers topped off with a knife-like point. She pressed her nails deep into Dean's chest and raked downwards, trapping trails of his flesh under her razor claws as she went. He threw his head back and screamed, feeling like he was being ripped open. But he sobered up as soon as he saw the lethal mouth organ dart his way once again. He threw himself to the side, grabbed the biggest rock he could find, and slammed it against the monster's head. She fell back and it bought them a few seconds. Dean managed to help the pregnant lady up and told her to run before the creature regained its balance, hovered a few feet in the air once more, and darted for the woman, saliva and blood running down its face, no doubt eager to retrieve a yummy fetus to devour. It lunged forward as the blonde women dashed off, and Dean pounced on it, dragging it down from the air, hoping he could distract it long enough for the girl to get away. He could feel bruises developing already as his body smacked the ground and rolled with the thing underneath him. They landed a few feet away from eachother, the creature's wings even more tattered than before from being scraped on the forest floor. Wobbling slightly, the thing tried flapping its wings to pursue the woman again, but the holes had done enough damage to keep it from gaining flight. It layed on its belly, stretched its arms in front of itself, hooking its claws against dirt and roots on the ground, and pulled itself along, slowly easing what little of a body it had closer to Dean. He attempted to sit up, but his back had been banged up pretty bad, and his leg had been tweaked during the fall. He groaned in response to the pain and involutarily fell back against the ground, alarmed to feel his head hit something hard. He coughed as he began seeing everything in double, and was a little taken aback that he was capable of registering that it had been the rock he used on the creature that had smashed against his head.

Come on! Sam, Cas, you have to have found that thing's half by now!

His senses were being pulled from him, and he was on the brink of passing out. He blinked through dirt that had gathered in his eyes to see the thing getting closer towards him, and eventually come to rest right beside him. She released an ungodly high pitched shriek that sounded like her claws had been raked across a chalkboard, and it seemed to boom out across the entire town.

The Manananggal placed a claw on Dean's chest, running its fingers lightly over him, teasing, before finally placing the pressure on it to dig deeply into his fresh wounds. But before it could re-pierce the raw flesh, it pulled back its hand abruptly and glanced down at its waist in confusion that quickly turned to rage.

They must have done it, thought Dean. And I was totally about to give up hope...

But the creature itself wouldn't dust until sunrise, which was still about eight hours away. Oh well. They'd think of something.

The hunter pulled a gun out of his coat pocket and fired a bullet at the creature's head. This wouldn't kill it, by any means, but it staggered, yelped, and would take a few minutes to heal itself. By the time the wound had sealed over, Dean was back on his feet and popped another one right in its skull, then kicked it in the guts for good measure. The recovery time was ten minutes this time around, enough time for Sam and Cas to come running back, patting themselves on the back for hunting down the 'safe' place of the lower half and salting it until it crumbled to dust. The three dragged the creature a mile to an abandoned shack on the side of a vacant road and tied the thing up inside, binding its hands, ripping new holes in the wings where the wounds had closed over, and Cas used a blade to slice the thing's tongue off. That would never grow back.

As the three men walked away from the shack, which was now consumed in flames, they all wore smiles, even though they were doused from head to toe in blood and gore. Sam's face had several scratch marks on both cheeks, which were dripping blood and could very well need stitches. Cas had a split lip and a hole pierced through his shoulder where the thing's tongue managed to hit. Dean was limping, hunched over, every length of his skin black and blue. They were all smudged with dirt and grime and God knows what.

But they were smiling.

o.O.o

Dean was high as a kite when they reached the Impala.

He felt this way often after intense hunts. After all, when you do dirty work like hunting for a living, you eventually wade your way through all the negative muck until you find something good in it as a survival technique to save your insanity, and the good Dean had found in his job was his drug of choice - adrenaline.

A typical day on the job included many near death experiences and taking out creepy-as-hell monsters and ghosts, so it was only natural that as a result, Dean's veins would be boiling with a glorious head-whirling high at the end, fueled by the power he felt so capable of.

Currently, he was absolutely wasted on his drug.

His head spun as a million different images raced through his mind. Images of him, being the badass he was, kicking, punching, shooting at the creature that had just attacked him. He had almost died. Pain shot through every inch of his body where the thing had managed to wound him, but this just took him higher, as the cuts and bruises were simply a reminder of how much his body was capable of handling. Before he knew it, he welcomed the pain with open arms, and was walking straight upright, without a limp nor a wince. As throbs and stings stabbed into him, he almost felt sexually aroused, which weirded him out, but he pushed those thoughts aside.

He caught himself smiling as everything about the world suddenly seemed cooler. It was pitch black out with a chilly wind, and the fact that he wasn't cold or afraid of the dark just made him feel even more so like the king of the world. Out of the many thoughts he had whirring around in his head like a blender, he plucked, randomly, the lyrics to a Def Leopard song, and he allowed it to play out in his head for no reason while he mouthed the words and felt like hopping on the hood of his car and playing air guitar or drums.
Sam took notice of his brother's rythmic head bobbing and talking to himself.

"Um...you okay?" he asked.

"Never better, Sammy," he remarked, voice laced with legitimate giddy delight.

Without warning, he took hold of Cas' face and plunged deeply into a heavy kiss, running his hands roughly through the angel's hair, and licked his lip where it was split, tasting the coppery blood. Sam staggered with wide eyes, taken aback. He instinctively flung a hand over his eyes. Dean pulled back a minute or so later, and tossed something to Sam that jangled like coins. From the look on his brother's face, Dean could tell he was shocked, but he couldn't care less.

"You drive, okay Sammy?"

"N-no. Why?" Confusion blanketed his soft features, making him look like a lost puppy.

"Just do it, please?"

"But you never - " he abruptly stopped as Dean pressed his lips firmly against the angel's and staggered into the backseat of the car. He sat down in the middle seat and lifted Cas onto his lap where they continued to make out with adrenaline-fueled agression.

"No! Un-uh! I am not gonna drive while you two are hooking up in the back!" Sam barked.

Dean gave his brother the finger.

"Dean!" Sam reprimanded.

When Dean did nothing but continue on with Cas, Sam hesitantly climbed into the driver's seat. He turned the key and the Impala chugged to life.

"If you guys get too...touchy feely I'm pulling over and kicking you out," Sam barked into the back.

His reponse was hard, ragged breathing, and the continuous smacking sound of mouths entwined in a rapid, messy kiss.

Dean could hear his brother give a little gag, but it was currently the furthest thing from his mind. They pulled out onto the road, heading back to the motel, and Dean prayed that they would get there fast. He couldn't wait to completely ravish the angel the second they arrived. It was taking a lot of willpower to not go at it with him here and now, regardless of his brother's presence.

The hunter reached out with a hand and grasped Cas between the legs, stroking him through the pants he so desperately wanted removed ASAP. The angel rolled his eyes back and breathed hard.

"Dean! Oh, God..."

The car swerved slightly, and Dean heard a car horn honk in reponse, but it sounded far away.

"DUDE!" his brother's voice scolded. "Ease up on the touchy feely, PLEASE!"

When they pulled into the parking lot of the motel, Sam stayed in the driver's seat while Dean and Cas practically crawled from the backseat, not wanting to break the kiss for a second, both starving with lust and not feeding eachother enough.

Dean managed to tear away from the angel's lips with the intention of asking his brother what he was doing, but suddenly Cas' neck just looked so silky smooth and warm and he just couldn't keep his mouth off it. He grabbed Cas' face and devoured the neck, licking, sucking, biting, anything to ease the cravings, but it just made him hungrier and hungrier.

"I'll be back," called Sam. "I'll just be...somewhere, anywhere but here, for a long, long time. Call me when it's safe to come back."

And then he was gone.

The key was in the lock and they were staggering into the room in a matter of seconds. Their hands were all over eachother, trying to shed blood stained clothing quickly, needing satisfaction and needing it now. After their coats were removed, they literally ripped eachother's shirts off, already torn thanks to the Manananggal. The bed looked miles away, and Dean didn't think he could wait that long to touch his boyfriend the way he needed to before he exploded.

They collapsed in a clumsy, tangled heap on the floor by the door, the hunter straddling Cas, trying to un-button-and-zip jeans without disrupting their kiss. His high was stronger than ever, making his head spin, not tired in the slightest, transforming his pain into pleasure.

Their pants were quickly disposed of and tossed into a corner. They lay, continuing to make out for a few seconds, warm skin against skin. Their cuts and bruises clashed and rubbed up against eachother, the sweet stinging and burning only making the heat between Dean's legs swell greater, the intense pain and agony only making him feel stronger, hornier. Their blood ran together in thick trickles, mixing with precome and sweat, pooling on Cas' abs.

Cas could read Dean, realized that the throbs and aches were adding to his ecstasy, so he reached up and raked his hands across the bloody slashes the Manananggal had created across his chest. As nails hit raw, exposed nerves, Dean threw his head back and screamed the angel's name, leaking precome profusely. If they didn't engage in activity soon, Dean would finish due to foreplay alone. He could feel ringlets of pleasure curl in his abdomen as he leaned down to Cas' injured shoulder and lapped at the trauma site hungrily, unaware that this was strange, an animalistic side that his high had unlocked. The gash had only began to heal, skin closing over the exposed muscle and bone, but blood and torn tissue was still hanging and dripping from his shoulder, creating a wince-worthy sight. He groaned loudly when Dean's tongue traced over his laceration, and gave an anticipatory grunt when he saw the hunter's head bob down lower and lower. Dean kissed the inside of both of his thighs until he hit the knee, then licked upwards.

"Dean...please, please!" Cas begged, voice a hoarse whisper. He wrapped his legs around the hunter's neck and forced his head down as Dean took him in his mouth.

The angel threw back his head in a loud, pleasurable moan and arched his back. The feeling of warm wetness enveloped around his most sensitive spot was almost too much to bare. He ran his hands through his boyfriend's thick, light brown hair, encouraging him to keep going, that and not knowing what else to do with his hands.

He came in a matter of seconds, having been worked up to the extreme beforehand. He rode the waves of his orgasm with ease, and as soon as he came down from the intensity and he could see through the haze again, it became clear that Dean wasn't done with him. Dean crawled back up to Cas' mouth, devouring it eagerly, almost finishing himself remembering the sounds his boyfriend had made, seeing his face scrunch up, eyes squinting tightly as he came.

"Cas, this'll hurt, but I need to do this, okay?"

Cas just nodded. The pain was feeling good for both of them. It really didn't matter.

Dean spat in his palm and lubed himself up before entering the angel, moving in and out of him slowly at first, then faster, harsher.

Cas couldn't help but to continue to make noises, grunts and moans coming out of his mouth involuntarily. Dean swallowed them with kisses, but they escaped anyway, driving the hunter crazy with even more desire.

He reached in between them and gripped Cas' manhood, stroking him in time to the thrusts. White light blinded the angel, induced by the passion that was more than Cas could take. He leaned forward, buried his face in the hunter's neck, and bit. Not hard enough to break the skin, but enough to hurt like hell and make Dean thrust harder, with more power and force.

It wasn't long before they finished. Castiel came first, sticky white liquid pooling with the blood on his midsection, dripping down his side onto the floor. Dean took in everything, the sights and sounds of Cas and the whimpers escaping his lips, and he rocketed over the edge soon after, tingles gathering and exploding in his lower waist.

He rolled off of the angel, and they both lay on the floor, breathing hard and needing a moment, or two, or twenty, to allow the impact of what had just happened to sink in, to calm their shaking legs and spinning heads.

They faced eachother five minutes or so later, and just looked at eachother for awhile before overwhelming fatigue kicked in for both of them, the events of the night catching up. They were bruised, beaten, bloody and battered. They had shared a brutally intense lovemaking session, hurting eachother further in the process. The exercise and injuries they had endured were past the peak of what most people lived through in a life time. Their eyelids were unbearably heavy, and they closed them in sync with eachother. They didn't open them again until morning.

o.O.o

When Dean woke up the next morning, the pain was just pain again. He didn't register it as a reminder of how strong he was, because the adrenaline had worn off, and the pain had settled in his bones. Now it just felt like he had fallen from a thirty story building. And then been hit by an eighteen wheeler.

It occured to him what had happened the night before, and instantly the pain became a reminder of that, making Dean smile slightly. It was still a torturous, nausea inducing throb that gripped his entire being, but it was easier to endure when he thought of what had happened between him and his guardian angel.

Dean and Cas lay half awake for awhile, cuddled and kissed, before falling back asleep for a few hours.

Around eight o' clock Dean forced himself out of bed, or rather, off the floor, and crawled into the shower. He ended up just laying in the tub as the scalding liquid ran over him, red, blackish gunk swirling down the drain. Cas came in the bathroom to rinse his cuts, which were almost healed all the way, but ended up joining Dean in the bath. It wasn't erotic by any means, they just lay in eachother's arms while the water and steam enveloped them, both near the brink of an unconscious state.

It was a hangover times a thousand, but they needed to snap out of it. They had grown aware that anything can happen in the blink of an eye, a seemingly calm day can turn into the buisiest, most agonizing, complicated one of your life in a matter of seconds, so hunters must always be prepared. But it was hard to shake themselves into gear this morning.

Dean called Sam, letting him know it was safe to come over. He pulled up fifteen minutes later with three cups of steaming Starbucks lattes. Dean gulped one appriciatively, ignorning his scalding throat as the hot coffee washed down it. The caffine cleared the haze in his mind and gave him a percentage of the jolt he needed, but he was still consumed in aches. He climbed into the passenger side of the Impala, sunglasses on to keep the sun from adding to his headache. Sam got in to drive beside him. A small patch covered the cuts on his cheek.

"Bobby can stitch you up. We're meeting him at his house later. Just keep something pressed against that scratch wound," he said with affection. He found a piece of gauze in a first aid kit underneath the car seat and handed it to his big brother.

"Have fun last night?" He scoffed.

Dean grunted in pain as a response, wanting to say You have no idea, but didn't think he could get the words out, and figured it would give Sam a pretty bad mental image if he did.

A subtle fluttering sound was just barely heard, and Cas was abruptly in the back seat leaning up towards Dean from behind.

He took the gauze from Dean's hand and layed it softly against the older brother's chest. Blood seeped through, but a golden glow seeped in, and Dean could feel a loving warmth soothe his raw nerves. Then the wound became numb entirely.

"I can't heal it, but I can keep it from hurting too much before Bobby can help you," Cas said. Then he threw in - "I'm sorry."

He took Dean's hand and leaned down to kiss it softly with limitless love and devotion.

Dean's heart skittered faster. He turned back to the angel and gave him a quick kiss to thank him, before settling back into the passenger seat to prepare for the long drive.