Lightkeeper /Destiel//Sabriel//Michifer

Running With Wolves

~~

Cas paced restlessly back and forth, his arms folded tightly across his chest.  Every so often, as he turned on his heel, he'd reach a hand up and drag it down across his face, as if trying to scrub it clean of an expression.

Close by, leant forward on a fixed plastic chair, Elsa flinched as Cas' shoes made another loud squeak against the polished floor: the only sound to break the silence.

Gabriel seemed to have taken all the sound with him. 

The rushing doctors, the whirring wheels of the stretcher, the clatter of opening doors: it was all gone.  It was silly, really, because the hospital wasn't empty - they never are - and yet all the people seemed to have disappeared. 

And why search for them?

To do that would mean to break the trance the duo had fallen in to.  It would mean actually taking action.  And for what?  What need did they have of other people?

"I hate this," Cas stated.  His voice sounded empty, as if all the emotion had been drained from it.

It had barely even been ten minutes since Gabriel had been rushed away and taken down one of the endless white corridors that seemed to make up the interior of the hospital.  It didn't matter how many signs there were, how many different wards or how many display boards were plastered across the walls; it all looked just the same.

"You could get lost in here," Elsa said, to no one in particular.

A little further down the corridor, someone laughed.

~~

Dean heard the gunshot go off and threw himself further into that water.  With determined strokes, he continued forcing the river behind him, his muscles, already strained, now all the more tense as he half-expected to hear another shot. 

Or to feel one.

Instead, he felt a flood of relief as his hand hit the wet soil of the bank. Sheltering from the majority of the current, Dean managed to stay afloat as his hands searched for something to grip onto.

"I take it back," Dean panted, spitting water back into the river. "This place is awful.  I hate—" the stone he'd been holding onto fell away, bringing him back down and into the water that rose up around his face.

Without warning, Dean felt a strong hand clasped tightly around his wrist, wrenching him free, with some difficulty, from the water's clutches.

"Maybe," a familiar voice heaved, "If you spent less time talking to yourself you'd get more done."  There was a shaky laugh.  "Idjit."

Dean, completely sodden and lying face-down in the grass, managed a smile.  "Bobby?"

The older man looked down at him from underneath a tattered baseball cap.  "What?"

"You're awesome."  It was the last thing the Winchester managed before erupting into an exhausted coughing fit, spluttering out the remainder of the water from his lungs.

~~

Cas and Elsa both turned towards the sound, their ears following the echos that bounced playfully over the white washed walls.

A tall figure stood at the end of the corridor, his dark clothing making his image sharp and unmissable. Even from a distance, his face, hidden slightly by the brow of a fitted black cap, was obviously set in a smile.