The Year of Redemption

Chapter 50: I'm Yours

Dean pushed Cas off of him and bolted to his feet, smiling. He bent down and tapped Castiel's shoulder. "Tag, you're it!"

The angel sat up and threw a questioning look at Dean. "I'm what?"

"It! You're it!" Dean repeated.

"Who is an it?"

"It's a game, Cas. Tag?" Dean probed, not getting any sort of response from the angel. "In your humanly un-countable years of life, you've never even seen anyone play tag?" the hunter asked, dumbfounded.

Cas shook his head, and Dean drew out a long, exaggerated sigh. "Damn, you're thick. Ok, well it's easy. Basically, you tag someone..." Dean leaned down to tap Cas on the shoulder again. "And they become it. Then they have to tag you back."

The angel immediately reached up to touch Dean, but the hunter jumped back, and Cas missed. Dean grinned teasingly, and Castiel rose to his feet, reaching out towards the hunter again.

Dean moved backwards just in time, and Cas started to walk towards him. The hunter spun around and began running across the clearing, back into the woods. Cas caught up to him, and Dean suddenly turned, swerving between the trees. The hunter zigzagged through the forest randomly until he no longer sensed Cas following him.

Dean glanced backwards. Nothing but darkness trailed behind him. The hunter continued sprinting through the trees, scanning the forest all around for any sign of the angel.

Dean turned his gaze forwards again, and Cas suddenly appeared in front of him. The hunter didn't see the angel in time to slow down, and he ran headlong into Castiel.

The angel grabbed Dean's rapidly moving body and used his forward momentum to spin them around, lifting the hunter up off his feet for a few seconds. When they finally came to a halt, teetering and almost falling over, Dean gasped, "Jesus, Cas, what the Hell was that?"

The angel tapped his nose. "Tag. You're it," he remarked triumphantly.

Dean glowered playfully at him. "That's cheating, angel!" he pouted. "No... poofing!" Dean stumbled a bit, still dizzy from all the spinning.

Cas caught him, then bent down and scooped the hunter up in his arms. He smiled deviously down at Dean, then took off through the woods, weaving his way through the trees, seeming to pick up speed rather than lose it as he ran farther, not necessarily going in any one particular direction.

"Cas!" Dean yelled, laughing as the branches overhead whooshed by, revealing bright stars in between them every now and then. Castiel grinned from ear to ear above Dean's face. "Cas, watch where you're going, damn it!" Dean scolded, still smiling despite himself.

The angel finally slowed down, thoroughly winded. He knelt to the ground with Dean still in his arms. The hunter was also out of breath from laughing. "You're insane," Dean commented. Cas lowered the hunter to the ground, and they both just knelt there catching their breath.

"Dean?" Cas asked after a few minutes. The hunter looked up at him. "Do you know where we are?"

Dean raised his head and glanced around. "Caaaaaaasssssss...!" he accused in a childish, whiny voice.

"What?" the angel replied innocently, not knowing what he'd done.

"You got us lost, genius!" Dean admonished, punching Castiel's shoulder.

"Oh," Cas replied, looking around again. He had no idea which way they had come from or which way they had to go to find the Impala again. He looked back at Dean. The hunter's cheeks were red, partially from laughing, but also from the intense chill of the night. It was nearly winter, and the Minnesota air was bitterly cold in the dark, already getting down to freezing point once the sun set.