Trigger warnings for references to underage prostitution, violence towards a child, and hints of PTSD.

When Dean comes to, he knows he's fucked.

For one thing, it's daylight. Which means that he lost...oh, at an optimistic estimate, no less than five hours. He's still wearing the clothes he was wearing last night, which means he didn't go back to the motel to change. And he's not in his motel room now, which means that Sammy's been alone all night.

He keeps his eyes half-lidded and doesn't move, because he's not where he's supposed to be, which means somebody's probably taken him. He's hoping to God that it's just one of the less savory characters he ended up in a...business transaction with last night, taking things a little too far.

He's just hoping to God that whatever it is, it's human.

So he looks around at his surroundings as best he can while still playing possum, and he's not encouraged by what he sees. He's on a padded pallet on the floor of what looks like a storage facility, maybe a small warehouse, with slate-gray walls and high, dirty windows streaming morning light blearily down at him. There's scattered pallets and boxes around the room, stacked by the walls or thrown around the bare cement floor. It's cold, too.

Well. His face and arms and hands are cold. His torso's not, and his legs aren't. Because he's got a blanket covering him—soft and heavy, laid carefully on top of him, sides even tucked under him. The whole thing screams tender.

He tries to suppress a shiver. That's some weird shit right there, edging into psycho territory.

He shifts, attempting to make it look like he's just stretching and rolling over in his sleep, and checks for the knife he keeps on an ankle sheath. It's there, thank God, because it's looking like he's been straight-up regular kidnapped and he can deal with a human kidnapper as long as he's armed. He slides it out of its sheath into his hand before he opens his eyes the whole way.

Bright blue eyes meet his with an unearthly calm, and he yells out as he kicks the blanket off of him and scrambles to his feet.

The guy is sitting in a chair and doesn't move when Dean bolts away from him, just watches, looking weary and the faintest bit amused. It's in the way his mouth just barely pulls to the side, a slight upward tilt to his eyebrows, and it scares the shit out of Dean in a way that few things can anymore. He keeps the knife outstretched as he demands "Who the fuck are you?" but the guy doesn't seem worried about it, and that doesn't make Dean feel any better.

The guy stands up, and he's got a couple of inches on Dean, but it's nothing Dean can't compensate for. He looks like he's in his mid thirties, with a mess of dark hair above those intense eyes and a slouchy, oversized trench coat hanging over a black suit like it's his big brother's. Everything about him is just like one degree off, like he's not comfortable in his clothes or his skin or anything. He takes a step closer and Dean takes a step back. He doesn't try it again. "I'll explain everything," the guy promises, "but I need you to keep your voice down."

"Why?" Dean retorts. "Afraid the cops are gonna show, and you here with the dude you kidnapped?"

"Kidnapped?" Dean nods tightly. That earns him a birdlike head-tilt, which is seriously strange, and has Dean swallowing hard past a lump of what is definitely not fear suddenly lodged in his throat. "Do you not recall what happened last night?" the guy asks, voice low and concerned.

"I recall enough," Dean lies, because all he remembers is leaving Sammy doing his homework after dinner and going out into the bitter cold in clothes far too thin for the elements. He remembers hoping he'd get lucky and some dude would pick him up and he'd have enough money to buy Sammy dinner again the next day. He remembers standing on his usual corner, he remembers one dude (older guy, schlubby, but not horrible by Dean's admittedly low standards), and then he's waking up after apparently having this freaky dude kidnap him and wrap him up in a blanket and watch him sleep.

The guy comes closer again and Dean backs up until his back hits the wall, and then he waves the knife threateningly, which doesn't faze the guy at all. "Back off," Dean growls.

"The memory loss could simply be due to the stress," the guy murmurs, like Dean hadn't said anything, "or it could be head trauma."

Head trauma?

And then the pain rushes in.

Adrenaline must've been keeping it at bay, but like Wile E. Coyote realizing he'd walked off the cliff, once Dean knows he's been hurt it's like his body remembers it. He staggers sideways, his head throbbing, his ribs aching, and his fingers fumble to keep the knife in a helpful position. The room spins around him and his free hand flails to the side, trying to find purchase.

Strong hands grip his biceps and his kidnapper guides him gently down to the floor. Once he's there, Dean stares up at those weird blue eyes and he knows he sounds like a fucking victim but his head hurts too much to fight, and he knows that he won't win, not with the way those hands held him up like a rag doll and the way that he's having a harder and harder time thinking straight, so he goes limp and mumbles something that's halfway a plea, halfway a prayer, and all a last-ditch effort.

"Just don't hurt me, okay? I'll do what you want, you can do what you want to me, just don't hurt me any more, okay? It's okay, I'll be quiet. Shh, I'll be quiet, I'll be good."

And he knows he's babbling but he can't help himself until a warm hand comes to rest on his cheek, and then he's just staring with wide eyes, his breath coming in shallow, pained bursts, and all he can hope is that the guy's not into anything too weird and that if he's gonna kill Dean he does it quick.

All he can do is stare into blue eyes almost as wide as his own, boring into him with endless depths of what looks like concern and anxiety and maybe even grief but that could be the head trauma talking and Dean's not gonna get his hopes up.

Then both of the guy's hands are on his face until one slowly shifts into his hair, fingers threading through sweat-slicked locks that are getting longer than Dean likes, and the other drops down to his abused ribs, and Dean closes his eyes because whatever's gonna happen next, if he has to watch, he figures the guy will tell him.

It's then that his head clears, his ribs shift in a bolt of white-hot agony and return to their rightful places, and after a single scream of torment it's like somebody opened a drain and all of the pain goes flooding out of Dean. It leaves him breathless and senseless enough that he hears the clatter of the knife against the cement like it's happening in another room, or in a dream.

"It will take your body a moment to adjust to the healing. Don't move too quickly," the man warns him, as if Dean had any plans of moving at all, possibly ever. He palms at his ribs experimentally, but where there was a dull but vicious ache before there's nothing now, just healthy ribs all where they're supposed to be, and the throbbing in the base of his skull is gone, and holy shit he remembers.

He remembers the wind biting at him as he composed himself after the schlubby guy, adjusting his button-down (four buttons undone at the top) and shoving his pockets back inside his too-tight jeans, now a little bit tighter for the forty bucks he has stashed in his back pocket.

He remembers a guy approaching him, tall and powerfully built, wearing a nice suit and radiating confidence and authority. Not his usual clientele but he showed Dean a hundred dollar bill and Dean was not asking any questions.

He remembers the weird way the guy looked at him, the thrill of fear that went through him as the thought passed through his mind that this is how a predator looks at trapped prey but deciding that wild Animal Planet musings weren't gonna feed Sammy or pay the rent.

He remembers wet pavement on his knees and his icy cold fingers fumbling with a belt.

He remembers a heavy hand in his hair, and he remembers trying to look up and being unable to.

He remembers that hand curling in his hair and forcing his head up to look at the man's face once before he was thrown aside, landing hard on the cement, thrown farther and more forcefully than should have been possible.

He remembers thinking oh shit, what is Dad here hunting? and not being able to remember because he was distracted by the blood in his eyes.

He remembers two kicks to his ribs and one that sent his head smashing against the wall.

He remembers a hand fisting in his shirt and through pain-fogged eyes seeing his assailant about to say something.

He remembers a burst of air and pressure so intense it threw him out of the man's grip and against the wall, sliding down slowly as whatever was holding him fought against gravity.

He remembers a light so bright he cried out and shielded his eyes with an arm, still pressed against the wall of the alley.

He remembers opening his eyes to the sight of two men, one his client and the other—

oh god the other one the guy in front of him now

—he remembers them facing off, both with wicked-looking silver blades in their hands and—

—he remembers the yellow light of the street lamps casting shadows of what he thought at the time looked like wings on the filthy alley walls and—

—he remembers leave the boy, Raphael, he is not part of this—

—he remembers Castiel, you have no right to rewrite the rules simply because you're the one who broke the game—

—and he remembers the light growing again, growing from inside his kidnapper, shining through his eyes and his skin and the blade and he remembers

If you touch Dean Winchester again, I will see you dead at my feet, no matter the cost.

He remembers the light swallowing him whole.

And then darkness until he woke up tucked into bed in this warehouse.

He presses himself harder against the wall, knowing that if he goes for his knife again his kidnapper (Castiel, his brain insists) will reach it before he does, and he doesn't want to give him a reason to escalate the situation. So he just watches him, waiting for him to make the first move.

If Castiel's playing a game, though, he's not good at it, because he quickly breaks the silence as he says, "You remember." It's not a question.

"Yeah," Dean whispers. "What are you?"

Castiel huffs out a quiet laugh, his blue eyes too knowing and too familiar. "You won't believe me," he says with certainty.

"I'm pretty gullible," Dean replies, but his voice is softer than he'd like it to be. "Try me."

Castiel's eyes run over his body, and Dean shivers again, but there's nothing hungry about that look, not the way he's used to seeing older guys look at him. It's tender, maybe, weirdly, like the tucking him in. But mostly it's clinical, like he's looking for an injury he might have missed. When he's done his head dips, like he can't look Dean in the eye, but then he lifts it and studies Dean's face for a moment. "It's better if you don't know," he says, and there's a decision in his voice that Dean feels it's futile to fight. "Suffice it to say that my name is Castiel, and that I'm here to protect you."

"From the guy in the alley," Dean says.

"From him," Castiel agrees, "and his allies, and others like him. You are in danger, and the way you are making yourself...vulnerable...isn't helping."

Dean flushes at his words, anger and shame mixing together to form something that makes his stomach burn and his eyes drop to the floor. "Sorry that paying rent interfered with your plans for me," he mutters sullenly, his eyes snapping back up when he hears another soft huff of laughter.

"No, Dean," Castiel says, and Dean thinks I didn't tell him my name before he remembers Castiel's booming, overwhelming voice announcing to the world that

If you touch Dean Winchester again

then you're asking for a world of hurt.

Which Dean doesn't like, by the way, that doesn't sit right with him, because he's supposed to be doing the protecting, not being the protected one, and—

"Oh my god, Sammy." He looks up with panicked eyes, but Castiel's already shaking his head.

"Your brother is safe," he says. "He is warded within your motel room. I provided him with food and money for the rent—with a note I forged in your name. I regret the deceit, but he would not have accepted such charity from a stranger."

The word rent reminds Dean of what they were talking about before he brought up Sammy, and he flushes again. He startles when he feels Castiel's hand under his chin, tilting it up so that their eyes meet. "I understand," the...whatever he is says quietly. "I do not fault you. I only wish I could change things for you. I would give much to see you better off, Dean. Safe, happy, well." A thumb passes over Dean's cheekbone in a gesture that he instinctively calls a caress before admonishing himself for being a girl. "It is what I fight for, after all."

Dean is stock-still under Castiel's touch, controlling his breathing carefully, not wanting to startle his kidnapper/rescuer/whatever, not wanting to make a wrong move because even if there's food and rent money at the motel, Sammy still needs him, and it's no good if he up and gets himself killed here. Castiel seems to feel the change, maybe notices the wariness in Dean's eyes, and he takes his hand away. "I'm alarming you," he notes, and he sounds a little disappointed, but in himself—like there I go again. "Personal space. And chick-flick moments. Forgive me; I forgot myself."

And hearing his own words from the lips of this strangest of strangers freezes something in Dean's gut, and their eyes lock together, Castiel's suddenly less confident and Dean's wide and panicked. "Who are you," Dean whispers.

"Dean," Castiel begins, reaching out for him again, but Dean stumbles back and away from his captor. He grabs the knife from the ground, holding it in front of him as he presses his back against the wall. His hands are shaking. If he has to stab Castiel, he's not going to hit true.

God, he's so fucked.

But Castiel isn't making any moves toward him, keeping his hands visible. He gives Dean his space, and he reaches out an empty hand. "Dean," he says, gently. "Give me the knife."

"Like hell," Dean laughs, and it sounds a little more hysterical than he'd like. "How do you know me?"

Castiel sighs and presses his fingers against his temples in a gesture that seems suddenly and strangely human, his lips pressed tight together. "It's difficult to explain," he says, "but if you'll listen to me—"

"You can fuck right off," Dean snarls, waving the knife a little for effect. Castiel's eyes narrow, and Dean shudders, the hairs on his arms rising as he smells something that makes him think of ozone.

"Dean. Stop being difficult," Castiel commands, his words startlingly out of whack with his tone of voice, belly-deep and rolling like thunder, and Dean can't do anything but gape for a minute at the power behind that voice. When Castiel leans forward he stabs out of habit, but he almost doesn't want to.

It doesn't stop the knife from going in, much more accurately than Dean could have hoped.

They both stop and stare at the knife, sticking out from where it hit home directly in the middle of Castiel's heart. "Oh god," Dean murmurs. "Oh god. Oh god."

"Dean." Dean looks up, startled at the even, unconcerned voice, and his eyes widen further when he sees the small, wry smile on Castiel's face. "I'd prefer if you didn't take His name in vain."

And with that, Castiel wraps his hand around the hilt of the knife and pulls it free.

No blood.

Not even a wince.

And Dean sits back, lets his head rest against the wall, because he knows when he's beat. The knife was his only weapon, and if that didn't do anything, his fists sure as hell won't.

"Christo," he whispers, just to see.

But Castiel just smiles, and it's not as scary as Dean thought it would be, looking at the smiling face of the thing that was going to kill him.

In fact, as Castiel reaches for him and Dean shuts his eyes against whatever's coming, he thinks that it was kind of a nice smile.

And then it's dark again.

Author's note: This is going to update pretty slowly until I'm done with "Semper Familia", but I wanted to post it now because I have two wildly different tracks it could take. Feedback is especially appreciated as I try to figure out whether to take path A or path B. Let me know what you think about it!