Chapter Text
Waiting had definitely never been one of Deans virtues. He preferred to grab the bull by the horns and solve whatever challenge faced him. Not that he was downright foolhardy or anything but... Okay, who was he kidding? Himself? Of course he was somewhat reckless and sheer luck had been his only savior at times. Some might even call him stupid, but Dean saw a clear and thick divider between stupidity and foolhardiness, and he knew where he belonged. Had he been stupid, he would have kicked the bucket a long time ago. In fact, he knew when a case really required patience, and right now was a good example of such a situation. Sam had volunteered to deal with some crap at the other end of the small town and the task of setting up a trap and caging the freaking beast had become a job for himself and Castiel. And that was why they at the moment found themselves behind a large oak tree waiting for the 'thing' to show its face. Yeah, Dean knew that their current situation required patience, and lots of it, but for some reason his patience muse had completely abandoned him today, and he could feel how rapidly he was becoming more and more restless.
Dean looked at Castiel, standing behind the tree trunk next to him, and sighed loudly. He didn't know why he did it; a childish hope of angel entertainment perhaps? But Castiel remained stoic, and Dean could feel his patience slowly dissolving after waiting for what he believed was more than an hour. It felt like it. He frowned at the thought and decided that if they had waited for an hour already, maybe it was the wrong approach to solve this case? Maybe patience wasn't the key to solving it this time. Maybe…
“You sure you made the trail visible enough, Cas?” Dean said, before he had time to question his trail of thought any further. “I mean; we've waited an hour already, and it shouldn't take that long for the douchebag-son-of-a-bitch to sniff out your trail!”
Castiel turned his head to look at Dean with a fairly neutral expression:
“33 minutes and 57 seconds, Dean” Castiel corrected him. “And yes, it will be able to sense it and it will eventually go in our trap. Patience.”
Dean made an exasperated sound and ran a hand down his face. Man, he was bored. Deep down he knew Cas was right but he also knew the thing wasn't so dangerous that he couldn't run a little bit of risk - and he had angel backup after all. He leaned his back against the tree trunk tipping his head upwards, looking at the huge tree crowns so many meters away. Castiel was standing to his left, kindly avoiding personal space and wearing his usual mask of patience. Or boredom? Dean didn't know.
“Cas?”
“Dean.” Cas replied with forbearance likely sensing what was coming.
“Maybe I could lure it out? Get some action into this game...I could....” He stepped away from the tree, gesturing wildly with his hands. “You know! Be the bait!”
Cas looked at him with another unprejudiced expression. Dean continued:
“I mean, I think neither of us would want to wait here one hour more, it's already boring, so it wouldn't hurt if I put myself out there…” He trailed of, noticing how Cas’ neutral expression had changed into a stern look.
“Dean,” he said with a pause, “I know this is boring and that you are a man of action but try to be sensible. We all agreed on this plan as it is the safest approach.”
Dean made an audible sigh and opened his mouth to argue further but Castiel snapped his head to the side, clearly sensing or hearing something. Dean paused. Castiel looked alert but did not say or indicate anything to Dean and he was not really sure what to do.
“Cas? He probed. Wha-”
Before he could get any further with his questions Castiel was in his space, only inches apart clasping a hand over Dean's mouth. His stare made Dean silent. They stood like this for a bit, while Castiel and his usual head tilt listened for more sounds. Dean could feel the heat coming from Castiel's hand still firmly clasped over his mouth, and their bodies so close they almost touched. It made him uneasy and he felt his neck heat up. He didn’t know why he reacted that way, but when he tried to speak, Castiel just turned his head, and gave him 'that' stare. He fell silent once again. One minute passed and Castiel finally removed his hand from Dean's mouth. Dean breathed out in silent relief and pulled away as Castiel pointed to the tree trunk. Dean resumed his initial position behind the tree and Castiel came to stand beside him. And so they resumed their game of waiting while Dean simultaneously cooled down and rebuilt his frustrations.