spn_springfling | The Feast Day of Santa Muerte by thursdaysisters for <user site

Title: The Feast Day of Santa Muerte
Pairing Dean/Cas
Rating: pg-13 for salty language, violence, and drug use
Any warnings: none

Fuckin' vampire parties. There's only one holiday in Purgatory, though by monster standards it's origin was a recent event, and Dean listened to a gaggle of Fright Night rejects snort cocaine off the backs of a human centipede while bickering over the Great Hunt of 1471 as if it had happened only six weeks ago.

Dean reached behind him, or as far as the ropes would allow. "Cas, you awake?"

"I was never asleep."

"They keep pointing to a map, but none of them speak English," Dean hissed, "Can you understand them?"

A sprawling atlas lay between the vampires, forests dissolving into mountains with a cartoonish castle perched atop a walled city whose name everyone had forgotten. Benny jabbed a finger at a proposed route, rattling off in pidgeon French with the occasional glance in Dean's direction. Castiel listened. "Benny is attempting to secure our release."

Dean tensed, not liking the word 'attempt'. "That's good. That's great even."

"We have fallen upon this particular nest at an auspicious time."

"Is auspicious a five-dollar word for getting us out before they start passing me around like a bag of chips?"

"Every year, a vampire is enlisted to reenact the Hunt for Santa Muerte."

Dean racked his memory. "Never heard of him."

"He was never caught."

"Aw dude, is that all it takes to get a holiday named after you? I oughta get my own month."

"Ottomans, the Spanish Inquisition, even demons sent men after him, but he outmaneuvered all of them by continually staying on the move and seducing local peasants who would otherwise have turned him in."

"I've had weeks like that."

The vampires circled eagerly around Benny, raising his arms to slip armor over his head, and Dean tried picturing Benny on horseback evading a demon army. "But he died eventually, right? Guy like that's gotta have enemies on both sides."

Cas tilted his head. "He had his own...detractors once he arrived in Purgatory, so he built a fortified city until he was able to escape back to Earth, and his castle has been a refuge for Santa Muerte revelers ever since. The one piece of neutral territory in Purgatory, for both monsters and hunters," said Cas, as Benny broke away from the discussion and walked toward them, "Assuming you live long enough to get inside."

Benny leaned in close, now fully suited in battle armor with a bow and quiver of arrows. "I'm really sorry about this..."

Dean did not meet his eyes. Survival in Purgatory up until now had been only been possible because nothing ever came after them in great numbers, and Dean did not like to think of Benny's odds in an organized attack against his own kind. "You don't have anything to be sorry for man."

A vampire who must have died at an Anne Rice book-signing rolled up a green velvet sleeve and opened his vein into a goblet. "Since this is their first time," he announced to the room at large, "Benny shall have a ten-minute headstart."

Benny pressed Dean's hand. "Once the hunt starts you'll have reprieve from all other monsters for the next three days," Benny continued in a rushed whisper, "But beyond that you're on your own."

Dean watched him leave and sneered up at Green Sleeves, who snapped his opera cape over his shoulder before addressing Dean. "Ah, I haven't had an American in ages. The new ones all taste like cheeseburgers cooked in a dirty sock."

"So I get to play Van Helsing on ya'll's little Easter egg hunt?"

"No Mister Winchester," said Green Sleeves, seizing Dean's jaw with thumb and forefinger, the goblet of tainted blood tipping into his open mouth, "You get to play the vampire."

(*)

THREE DAYS LATER

Castiel stepped inside the barn, not looking at the girl asleep in the corner. "Ready to move?"

Dean stared at his boots. The low-level static of angel frequencies combined with the high pitch of Castiel's blood made Dean vibrate like a tuning fork, and the trail of hook-ups he'd left behind him was a thin distraction. Cas, Benny, the vampires stalking them, even the trees were an endless source of noise to Dean's now heightened senses. No wonder Dracula had been an ass-magnet. At least with sex, you were only tuned into one radio station at a time.

Dean swiped his face. "Yeah let's go."

They walked in silence for a while, the castle framed against a sunset that turned their shadows blood-red. Castiel spoke first. "What will that girl tell them?"

"That we went north. Followed the river to avoid a lot of climbing."

"She is young. She will break easily under torture."

"Eh, those clowns don't seem the torture type. Less Vlad the Impaler and more sugar-cube-and-absinthe, know what I'm sayin'? Besides, misinformation throws them off the scent."

"It would seem you've fostered a great deal of misinformation."

"Come on man," said Dean, punching him on the shoulder, "This thing we're doing is like, I dunno, Robin Hood, only the cheaper, uglier pocket edition. Like you said earlier, you wanna outrun the authorities, you gotta keep the peasants happy."

"So that they'll lie for you?"

Dean caught the unspoken question, and some of his swagger evaporated. "So that they'll remain loyal."

They walked very close, their hands not quite brushing. "You are handling vampirism surprisingly well Dean."

"It's not my first gig."

"Is that the other reason for all those women?"

"Hey, whatever keeps you human."

"So what is your plan once we reach the castle?"
"If you wouldn't mind grabbing ol' Green Sleeves, I know a really neat trick where you kill a dude and mix his blood with lawn clippings and then puke until you stop wanting to dress like Robert Smith."

"Who is Robert Smith?"

"See? You're already off to a good start."

(*)

Moonlight poured through the castle doors, arrows whistling past as Castiel dragged Dean kicking and screaming over the stone floor. A bloody burlap sack hung from Castiel's belt, about the only part of him not filled with arrows. Toeing the door shut, Castiel crossed the room and found a spare set of manacles and chained Dean to the wall and told him to shush and then bitch-slapped him when he didn't.

Cas regarded the wary castle denizens. "Where is your kitchen?"

The denizens looked at Dean. "Are you going to cook him?"

Castiel yanked three arrows from his belly, let them clatter to the ground. "No."

"Are you going to cook us?"

"No."

"Then why do you need a kitchen?"

"My friend has invented a terrible new beverage. It may restore one's humanity, but at the cost of a man's probity, integrity, and spiritual capital. He has named it," he said, pulling Green Sleeves' severed head from the burlap sack, "The Cure."

An hour later, Dean had scratched the castle wall clean but was unable to break the chains. Castiel stood exactly ten feet away, his hands cupped together for lack of a goblet. The drink glittered within.

"Drink."

Dean lunged, iron links bending like toffee behind him. His teeth stopped just short of Castiel's face.

"Look Dean, you have to take it or you'll die," said Cas, locking on Dean's blood-crazed eyes, "Aren't you thirsty?"

The edge in his voice cut through the red mist of Dean's hunger. Wasn't that what he'd been telling himself the last three days? Take this girl, take that one, chain-smoke them to keep him from sampling the hard stuff?

Dean breathed hot through parted lips, lapping up the drink, stubbled mouth sucking the remnants from Castiel's fingers. If the angel had any reservations about this display, he did not show it, and wiped his hands on Dean's shirt. He did not stick around for what happened next.

By the following morning, the vampires had considered the Hunt a resounding failure, Dean's howls clearing not just the castle but every monster in a mile radius who was nursing a post-Feast Day hangover.

Dean leered up at Castiel. "You came back."

"Yes Dean."

"After you chained me to a fucking wall."

"Yes Dean."

"Did you know if the cure would work?"

"No."

"So what was your exit strategy if it didn't, just leave me here for all eternity?"

Castiel had no answer for this. Dean spit. "So much for loyalty."

Castiel bunched his fists into Dean's shirt, flattening him against the wall. "You arrogant son of a bitch, don't you know you've never done anything to deserve my loyalty?" he said, his voice dangerously low, "That everything I did was freely given?"

"Please don't be mad at me," Dean whispered, eyes glittering and suddenly very young, "I couldn't find you and...I thought you'd left me again."

Castiel swallowed hard. In his absence, the angel had learned the layout of the castle grounds, where the enemy might enter, where a hasty retreat might be hazardous. Where a bed might be found. Night was falling fast and soon the city would be dark. They would be alone.

"What do you want Dean?"

"Just...stay," said Dean, a greater, unspoken hunger in the back of his eyes, "Keep me human."