Chapter Text
When the battered boy stumbled into camp, no one knew what to do with him.
Dean felt his eyebrows knit further together as Chuck continued wring his dirty hands over the wizened oak table, cracking each knuckle, a nervous habit he had picked up around the start of the Apocalypse, and had only grown worse as time ticked on.
“I can hear you thinking from over here. Tell me what you’re thinking, or get out,” Dean grumbled, startling his advisor.
“I, uh, well, I just don’t know. Sure there have been rescue missions, but never has someone actually managed to walk into camp uninfected. This has just never happened before,” Chuck rambled on, his hands flying ecstatically.
“Well, the apocalypse never happened before either, and you’re one of the idiots I've entrusted to actually advise me through the unprecedented,” Dean bit out, his tolerance for the former prophet severely diminished by the lack of alcohol in his system.
“Well, uh, we could wait for the others to come back,” Chuck managed to stutter out, before Dean lost his patience, and dismissed him with a single gesture.
Chuck got up, and scurried away, silently shutting the wood cabin door behind him. Dean sighed, rubbing his calloused hands over his face, noting in the back of his mind that he needed a shave. His eyes darted over to the window that allowed a partially-obscured view of the cabin, the ‘hot box’, which housed the newest mystery to pop out of Croat-Ville.
After the founding of their little haven two years ago, not once, not even on the fruitless rescue missions they launched during the first month of the last wave of infection, had Dean ever found someone untouched by the Croatoan virus outside of the safe camp walls. All the men they lost in that first month, just trying to rescue their loved ones back. They all soon learned to forget the ones they left behind.
One word, ‘Croatoan’, heralded what was now commonly thought to be the end of days. Croats, fast, strong, and bloodthirsty zombies now shambled across the Earth, picking off humans with ease.
Humanity was fighting a losing battle, because every lost man became another Croat. The infestation took about a year, and according to Chuck, as of yesterday there were Croats on every fucking continent, save Antarctica.
The idea that a kid, who must be, what, twelve? Thirteen? Dean had no idea how old the boy was, and the idea that any kid could survive out of these walls, alone, was sheer lunacy. Which accounts for the slight overreaction at his arrival.
Dean felt a twinge of regret-- the poor kid must be fucking terrified. Standard protocol stated that all unexpected visitors are greeted by half the available guns at camp, but this is the only time a ‘guest’ had actually still been human. It didn’t help that the kid seemed to be covered in literal shit, and smelled like death itself. Thank god the kid cried out when he did-- Croats didn’t speak any English, and his terror saved his life. They stuffed the kid in the lockdown cabin that normally stored returning scouts for twelve hours to make sure they were still clean.
It had been over 24 hours, and the boy’s only outside contact had been a bottle of water, toilet paper roll, and some smoked meat being frantically launched through the cabin window.
Dean sighed again, and pushed himself up, pacing, his heavy boots causing the boards to creak with every step. Chuck would have him fretting over this until the boy went crazy in isolation. If he wasn’t crazy already. Who knows what kind of psychological damage had he suffered? Unfortunately, his other two advisors, Sam and Charlie, were out looking for a bigger food source, far out of Croat-Ville. They weren’t due back for another three days. Dean couldn’t wait that long. He needed answers.
Dean paced over to the window, and picked up his binoculars, to take one last look over at the hot box. The kid showed no sign of croating out over the past day, just exhaustion, and probably more than his fair share of trauma.
That settled it for him. Dean strode carefully out of the cabin, his boots splashing the mud puddle at the base of the flimsy stairs, and made his way across the worn out dirt path that separated the hot box from the rest of the camp. He nodded to the two men on guard, stationed in case the kid Croated out and tried to make a break for it.
One hand on the pistol in his belt, Dean set about undoing the many latches on the cabin, and then raised up his shoulder, ready to burst in, before reconsidering. He sharply knocked on the door, and heard the boy start towards the noise. The door slowly opened, and Dean wasn't fully prepared for the ice blue eyes boring into him. He was taller than he remembered, or maybe he was just standing up straight instead of cowering beneath their guns. Same difference.
“Hi,” Dean grunted, and was almost startled when the boy stuck out his hand, before Dean realized he was supposed to shake it.
“Castiel,” The boy's voice was surprisingly rough, no doubt from lack of water in the midst of puberty.
“Dean Winchester,” He said, grasping the kid’s hand, shaking seriously.
“Are you going to kill me?” Castiel asked, jutting his chin out, his eyes more weary than scared.
Dean sighed. Even if this kid’s body was left untouched by the Croats, his poor mind was done for.
“Now that we know you’re human? No way kid,” Dean said slowly, and saw the tension melt away from the kid in front of him, his chin dropping, shoulders slumping.
“We aren’t the monsters here,” Dean spoke gravely, his tone instantly bringing the boy back to attention.
“Now how about you tell me how you made it out here?” Dean sat down in the one stool occupying the corner of the dank cabin.
“I need your help,” Cas said seriously.
Castiel retreated to the ancient mattress, and he began rambling, the nonlinear babble that floods from one who has been unable to speak for a long, long time.
Dean managed to catch that Castiel had traveled with his family, a big one, Luke, Gabriel, Anna, Michael, and finally Claire. All gone, except Claire, his older sister.
By the time the kid finished, his story, tears had begun to well in his eyes.
“Please, I know it- it’s probably too late, and dangerous, and an unnecessary risk, but please,” Cas looked up at Dean, the floodgates opened as tears streamed from his pale blue eyes,
“She’s all I have left.”
Dean had hardened himself long ago, maybe even before Croat-Ville, but Castiel’s plea could have melted stone.
“C’mon Cas,” Dean said as he strode out of the hot box, the kid stumbling out after him.
Dean signaled for the two men, Adam and Garth, to follow him to the center of camp. There was no need for a signal, the whole camp was out and on edge ever since Castiel had shown up. Every man and woman was poised for action, and so Dean hardly needed to shout for everyone to gather around him.
“I need ten able guns, we’re going on a rescue,” Dean called.
He saw, more than heard, the ripple of confusion through the assembled, but he ignored it, and hoped he got enough volunteers for the mission. He just focused on Castiel, his face brimming with a potent mixture of hope and fear.
Dean hadn’t prayed, well, ever. But watching Cas’s face, as the fate of his sister rested on his shoulders, made Dean want to pray to every deity that they find her. And goddamnit, maybe Dean finds himself, against all reason, hoping, that she’s still human. God help him. God save them all.
They left in the early morning, hoping for as much daylight as possible on the wintery morning.
"Why?"
Dean looked to his left, the light from the four other cars in the makeshift caravan serving as the only light source to illuminate the sullen boy next to him. Power plants began to shut down a couple months after the outbreak, plunging city by city into darkness, until the entire country, the entire world, was blackened.
"Why what?" Dean grunted, keeping his eyes on the dirt road that led behind the city walls, on the lookout for any unwelcome guests.
Dean heard Cas swallow, audibly, before continuing,"I must say I am eternally grateful for your service, but, this is, is, a fool's errand. Why are you helping me?"
Cas flinched as Dean's laugh echoed through the truck, the only sound save for the soft crunch of rubber on dirt.
"What kid talks like that?" Dean mused aloud.
"How old are you anyway,?" Dean spared Castiel a glance, his grin widening at how the boy looked downright affronted.
"Fifteen," Castiel said, with all the self assurance that accompanied the age.
"Fifteen," Dean repeated, "So you were only twelve when the world went to shit,"
"Yes."
"And you've been fighting tooth and nail since, your family forming a tight band,"
"Yes."
"And one by one, this godforsaken life has taken your family, the only tether you have in this godforsaken world."
Dean glanced to the right once more, and suddenly noticed the tears making clean streaks down Castiel's dirty face.
Dean locked his eyes upon the road once more
He continued, albeit in a much softer voice, "And now, the last of your family, is hiding-where did you say?"
"In the old radio station, the 'KROQ' building," Castiel managed to warble out, his eyes glued to the 50 foot high fences that were approaching quickly.
Fat load of good those fences did, shoddily built in the peak of infection. It seemed like every city in America had a partial chain link fence, 25, 50, even one hundred feet high. It only took one person, one bite, to send an entire city into the red within a few days. Soon, instead of marking safe zones, the fences attempted to pen in the infected zone, trapping the uninfected inside, sealing their fate. Consolidating losses, is what the president called it, when there still was a president.
"Claire, you said her name was, is all you have left. So we're going to get her back."
Dean pulled over, signaling the caravan to follow suit, before turning to face Castiel head on.
“Ever fire a gun before?” Dean asked, and felt his stomach turn as the teen nodded solemnly. He tried to find solace in the fact that at least the kid wouldn’t be too much of a liability.
Dean hopped out of the cab quickly, grabbing the two large semis out of the back, priming both, before climbing back in. He handed Cas the smaller of the two, before carefully laying his own out of the way. He knew his team behind him followed the same procedure.
Dean started the flatbed again, heading straight for the hole in the fence, the light of the dawn touching their destination as if it were some sort of profound symbol, though Dean had learned to ignore these long ago.