Day 53: Breakfast

[thatdamnedninja]

With sigh that toed the ambiguous no-mans-land between soft and explosive, Yuffie collected a plateful of waffles with all the toppings. She was sure that, if nothing else, it'd making a pretty satisfying splat if-when?-she launched it at somebody's face, and that was all that counted

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[theroadsofar]

What was that supposed to mean, Sam wasn't human?

It was those goddamn black eyes. Maybe it was a gut instinct kinda thing, but Dean couldn't kid himself, plain and simple: they creeped him the hell out. Reminded him an awful lot of that time when that bitch Meg had possessed the kid, except this wasn't the same and maybe that was a whole lot harder to take. He'd seen the anti-possession tattoo himself, nevermind the way his brother had walked over all those salt lines without any problems and he wasn't rocking those yellow-eyes, so...

So basically Dean was at a loss. He'd seen the way Sam looked at that - that thing they'd run into.

That wasn’t just regular surprise.

Now he got there was plenty of things out there that would love to pull that mind-game crap on them, turn them on each other. For all he knew, it could be another case of that, the same old. Shit, he would've felt better if that’d been it. Dean chewed the inside of his cheek as Hello Nurse led him toward the cafeteria, trying to figure out what’d happened last night, from Tricksters with an angel hard-on to those black eyes on his brother (okay, not really his brother, but that wasn’t just something coming outta nowhere, considering). Where did you even start?

Dean needed some time to actually process it. He wasn’t even sure yet how pissed he was at Sam or if this was more something he should be real scared about. Maybe he could pull double duty on both. Those powers, that whole battle royal with him and those other psychics. That was over, right? Dean had told himself it was over, they could always book it if it meant Sam didn’t get shanked for real this time. It wasn’t worth running after Jake and the Demon if Sam got himself killed over it. But it wasn’t like he could pretend something hadn’t been different, either, since Sam popped back up on his feet like that. At first it’d been little stuff. Like Sam going left when Dean expected him to go right. Fighting a little differently than before. Being a little too good. Lots of little stuff.

Maybe he hadn’t been just imagining it.

Dean found himself starting to glare at the tray of food he’d brought with him to the table, white-knuckling it. Glancing around, he didn’t see any sign of his brother. What was he supposed to say? This place, man. He was really starting to miss the job outside. It was rough, okay, and sometimes it did get old getting an old-school ass-kicking from a spirit. Could've done without the broken nose. The gig's benefits sucked balls at times but at least he knew what was where. Stuff made sense, evil was out there, they hunted it, they moved on. Sam was Sam and that was it. Just him, his car and the job. Easy. None of this second-guessing.

Dean picked at his breakfast, trying to keep an eye out for his brother, a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth.

[For his angelic stalker boyfriend stalker]

[poorexample]

Still not accustomed to the act of waking up, Castiel tried to blink his eyes open slowly, that sensation of them sticking closed being enough that he pulled an arm up to rub at them. However, that only caused the pain in his shoulder from that gunshot wound to spike up, waking him up completely.

Carefully, he sat up in bed, glancing down at his body. Or rather, Jimmy's body. That had been drilled back into his head last night, and the oddity of that whole situation hadn't completely left him.

He quickly stood up and took note of his shadow, which was back in its rightful place. More than that, he felt no second presence beneath his skin, making him fairly certain that what had happened last night hadn't been real, even if the words spoken may have been true. Some of them, at the least. Though for the most part, he didn't want to think on it too long.

Castiel took only a moment to note that his roommate was still asleep before the intercom came on. He listened to the announcement with a detached interest and noted how the voice of their captor seemed distracted. Something was clearly going on, but once again, it wasn't revealed. He was starting to remember how his superiors in Heaven had kept him on a need-to-know basis and felt his shoulders sink.

Speaking of which, he hadn't really been given enough of a chance to inspect that chapel thoroughly, but he knew the way and he'd made a few important observations. He'd also met an interesting man, though whether he warranted another conversation remained to be seen.

After taking some stock of his wounds (his arm was bandaged, and the tie was gone -- back in its rightful place, or in the room somewhere?), the door opened and a nurse stepped in. Once again, he was forced to relent to her and move toward the cafeteria, though the last thing he wanted was food.

"Come on now, Michael! Here, I'll make a plate for you."

The next thing he knew, he was holding a tray with a waffle, its only topping some strawberries (his nurse said something about natural sugars and he quickly tuned it out). Once it was firmly in his grip the nurse chose to leave him be, and Castiel was left to find a place to sit. He preferred to do such a thing on his own terms -- though then his gaze landed on Dean Winchester.

Normally he would have moved over to the man without a second's thought. That was what he'd done two days ago, but now he hesitated. Things wouldn't be the same, and he knew that. He had so much that he needed to explain, and yet so little of it would be believed. He clenched his jaw (while being hyper-aware that every movement he made was with a body that belonged to a dead man), but finally forced his trepidation away and moved over.

Taking a seat across from Dean (there was a distance now, and he could sense it), he eyed him while ignoring the plate of food he'd been given. "Were you out last night? There was an incident." He was speaking to this Dean as if it was the one from his time, and he knew that he couldn't do that and expect the right response. And yet for some reason, Castiel still wanted to try.

[theroadsofar]

Okay, y'know what? He was going to straight-up murder Sam in his sleep.

Dean couldn't believe what he was seeing when he'd turned around (again) to try to find his brother. Sam just sauntered in like nothing was different, taking his sweet time, and while that was bad enough, what happened next made Dean stiffen in his seat, staring. That was crap. Instead of heading right over to his table to talk over last night like Sam was supposed to, the kid was instead making a beeline for Ruby and yeah, he got she was hot and had that whole badass hunter chick thing going on, but really? Dean was all for Sam getting laid. God knew he didn't get some nearly as much as he should, far as Dean was concerned. But there was a time and place and Dean was about two seconds from picking up his tray, marching right over and parking himself there, Ruby or not.

So yeah. All he needed to do was murder Sam in his sleep and maybe he'd feel better. Maybe.

Actually, on second thought, whatever. Dean gripped his tray, about to crash Sam's party when Castiel suddenly sat down across from him. Guy just came outta nowhere, just like that. He did that thing. That thing where he'd launch into a conversation like they were already having it? Yep, that thing.

"Yeah," Dean said guardedly, sinking his weight back down. As much as he wanted to march over to Sam, the kid wasn't actually in danger. If anything, Castiel was a bigger immediate issue and shaking Sam down for answers would have to wait. "Real funny way of putting it."

So it wasn't just their group. Dean supposed he shouldn't be surprised; it wasn't the first time something freaky hit the Institute all at once, whether it was hauntings or that whole teleporting around business. That right there had him stymied - it wasn't easy to hit this many people at once and have it be individually tailored, no matter what some Z-movie said. Call it personal experience. Dean plucked one of the strawberries off his own stack of waffles, more for something to do than anything else, taking a big bite out of it as he stared across the table at the "angel". The guy still had that perpetual five o'clock shadow, the ones you were never entirely sure if it was cultivated or just accidental. Licking his lips, Dean tossed the left over leaf back onto his plate, going for the last strawberry he had.

"So what'd you see?" Like hell he was going to go into the details about Sam's thing, but even if he wasn't sure what to make of this guy, he still needed to know what was up with the other patients.

He kept his tone casual, could-be-mistaken-for-friendly, but he kept an eye on Castiel. No way to size him for weapons when he was sitting like that, sure. Harder to see any outlines with the clown suits they had everyone running around here with. He figured from his first impression of the new guy was he didn't seem like the type to go around attacking you without announcing it. If anything, he seemed kind of...weirdly helpful or at least trying to shoot for that, crazy or not. Dean didn't think he'd jump him any time soon. Couldn't be hurt to be paranoid, though. Good, healthy paranoia.

Dean continued to eat his breakfast, keeping his guard up around Castiel and trying to resist the urge to turn around and keep tabs on what Sam was up to.

[poorexample]

While Castiel had noticed the way that Dean had been about to move somewhere else, it looked like he'd decided to sit back down. He didn't know if the human had been trying to get away from him or if he'd been considering relocating for some other reason, but it hardly seemed to matter. Either way, he wasn't going to let himself think too hard on it. What mattered now was that Dean was even speaking to him, and not with the intense amount of suspicion that Sam had given him two days ago.

It wasn't anything close to what he was accustomed to, but for now it was what he had to work with. He unfortunately needed Dean's help with this place, which meant trying to force interaction among all the distrust and confusion. More than that, these shifts didn't give him the adequate time that he needed to explain everything. Castiel was past the point where he wanted to slowly feed the Winchesters information; getting it all out would have at least lightened his load.

At Dean's comment about the humor of the situation, Castiel blinked for a moment and then eyed the man curiously. "I didn't realize there was anything amusing about my phrasing," he admitted. There was still so little that he understood, but being perplexed by Dean was at least a familiar feeling, one that he could take a strange comfort in.

It seemed that it wasn't only himself and the Doctor that had been affected, though. Castiel had already suspected that, mainly because those announcements over the loudspeakers had been addressed to everyone, but it was still good to have it confirmed. Part of him had wondered if it was simply something that unfurled in the chapel. While holy ground was generally safe, there were also times when it could attract the most evil of creatures.

Dean was quick to be the first one to ask the more detailed question, which Castiel didn't fail to notice. Nor did the way that the man was looking at him go over his head. He recognized that look in Dean's eyes, like he was sizing him up and making sure that he wasn't a threat. At this point, Castiel might as well have been a demon, and that thought stung. "It was a doppelganger of some sort," he replied eventually. "I would have guessed shapeshifter, but that seems unlikely considering the scale. Still, it possessed knowledge it shouldn't have, which does seem to fit a shapeshifter. However, as they are their own beings rather than adaptations of shadows, it must be something else."

He just didn't know what. His knowledge of supernatural creatures was decent, but maybe not quite as good as the Winchesters'. As an angel he'd carried out specific tasks that didn't cover hunting the more run-of-the-mill monsters. And while what he'd seen last night was anything but run-of-the-mill, its behavior didn't fit the pattern of any being he knew of. Which meant he needed to turn to Dean.

[theroadsofar]

Dean just stared at him when the point flew completely over the dude's head. Was Castiel being a smartass to him or was he being serious? Normally Dean would've shot for smartass. But Castiel gave a whole new meaning to the definition of poker face; he honestly couldn't tell if he was just being a dick or what.

His eyes narrowed slightly even as his mouth quirked up in a grin.

“I guess the whole ‘you’re an angel thing’ means you’re probably buddies with ET and Bigfoot,” he remarked, a little surprised at how easily Castiel just threw out shifters and dopplegangers like it was no biggie. Most folks simply didn’t know that stuff. By now he’d figured out it was different, that there was a surprisingly big number of people who had a cool head on their shoulders, previous knowledge of this kinda thing (or, hell, even both). Still set him back, though. He’d got so used to having to work around civilians that working with ‘em this closely took some adjusting. Probably shouldn’t be bitching about it - did make things easier if he didn’t have to run through the Casper’s real and a little bitch routine.

The question was how did Castiel know about all this stuff? That was kind of the million dollar question, come to think of it. There were way too many people here to be hunters and some of them he plain couldn’t see wading into a fight willing to do whatever it took to get the job done. But neither was this some common thing linking them together. There were still some average civilians here, so that broke the pattern. Dean pushed at his waffle with his fork, stirring it around the generous lake of syrup he’d dumped on it. He still didn’t know what to make of Castiel, that whole angel…thing or whatever aside. First impressions that he wasn’t likely to take a swing at him out of the blue didn’t exactly answer all the other stuff. For starters, he wasn’t freaking out. Not over Landels. Not even over what happened last night, which was putting him one up already on Dean ‘cause he was still on the fence about that. Freaking out mentally seemed like a half-decent idea. Sam with those black eyes? Plenty good reason to get a little freaked.

Made him wonder what Castiel had run into, if he was just shrugging it off.

[poorexample]

It was hard to know why exactly Dean was grinning at him like that, but it was definitely preferable to the man yelling in his face. Castiel had seen Dean Winchester when he was angry, and had even been on the receiving end of that rage. That time in the holding room before the last seal had been broken was what stood out the most in his mind. If only he could have somehow transferred that conversation right into the man's brain to make him aware of what they'd been through together, this whole situation could have been fixed. But it wasn't that simple, not anymore...

He knew that Bigfoot was a myth spread around by humans, one that might very well be true if it wasn't simply a case of them mistaking some other manner of supernatural creature for their own creation, but the term ET was less known to him. He frowned at Dean for a moment and then slowly shook his head. "If what you're trying to ask is if I'm familiar with monsters, then yes, that would be true. However, I'm by no means friends with them."

Unless Sam counted, but that clearly wouldn't be the right thing to say right now.

Either way, he didn't see how that point was particularly pertinent at the moment. He wanted to determine what it was that they had faced last night, and he was used to being able to brainstorm with Dean. And so he tried to push the point again. "Did you have any theories about what assaulted us, then? Some type of shadow creature, it seems, but what? And how is it that it almost seemed like the man on the intercom was able to summon them? It leads me to believe that it was all an illusion, but I can't be certain of that."

If this could feel like a normal conversation between them for even a short while, that would be ideal. And then he could go on to mention the chapel and perhaps start to slowly earn Dean's trust all over again. It was beyond frustrating that he had to start from the beginning like this, especially when he was so ill-equipped, but Castiel was determined.

[theroadsofar]

Dean sipped his juice - c’mon, he felt like a first grader, ‘cause juice, really? - and eyed Castiel over the rim of his cup. Real joker, this one. He could see him being the life of the party. Okay. So, assuming Castiel knew stuff he shouldn’t and he wasn’t exactly ninja enough about not sticking out to be a hunter - well, it didn’t clear up exactly what he was except not subtle enough to work a case, but Dean was starting to suspect that wasn’t really the real issue here. Not in Landels. Old rules out the window, all that jazz.

“Considerin we weren’t chowed down on, I figure illusions probably a good theory,” Dean said slowly. He hated to admit it, but Castiel was asking all the right questions, even if his approach was crap. Dean tried to picture him trying to talk down a new widow for details on how, again, exactly her husband disappeared and just couldn’t do it. Sam used to ride on his case for not exactly being all sharing and caring like a friggen Carebear. At least he didn’t run around insisting he was an angel. “But it’s not supposed to be able to be one size fits all. I got theories but none of what’s happened here fits in nice and neat.”

Dean shrugged. At this point he wasn’t expecting it to. It would’ve been surprising if it had. What he was more concerned with was Sam getting his ass into gear, maybe bothering to explain what last night had been. Dean was spooked, plain and simple. Trying to figure this place out, why they got the short end of the stick - he could do that. In fact, he’d prefer to focus on that and not, y’know, his expiration date ticking away in the background or the niggling feeling Sam was lying to him about something. Having some freak out there try to pull out all the personal stuff only to shove it in your face? Talk about a good way to piss someone off.

Unless you were Castiel, apparently.

He didn’t look spooked or even a little uneasy. Slightly curious, maybe, but there was a difference between keeping a cool head and…whatever the hell Castiel had going on. Dean found himself frowning slightly all over again at the dude across from him. It was almost enough to distract him from wanting to turn around and glare daggers at Sam.

Dean’s eyes traveled down from Castiel’s face to his plate of food. “You’re not hungry?” he suddenly asked. Most of the folks around them were digging in. Castiel didn’t seem like the paranoid type of guy to think the stuff was poisoned.

Come to think of it, he didn’t seem to have a paranoid bone in his body if he was running up to people running his mouth off about angels and dopplegangers.

[poorexample]

So they had come to the same conclusion, then. It was good to see that they could still think along the same lines when it came to the supernatural, at the very least, and Castiel was glad that they were on a topic of conversation that they could both navigate despite their discrepancies in time and Dean's distrust of him. He didn't know if he was showing himself to be useful yet, but he would simply have to keep it up. Dean could be hard to read when it came to certain things while he wore his heart on his sleeve in other situations.

"There are only a few things I can think of that can construct an illusion with that sort of power," he commented, not bothering to give the list in more detail. Dean already knew about demigods and demons, of course, and mentioning angels right now would probably just cause this conversation to crash down around him. It was probably best if he referred to the angels as little as possible, but that was going to prove more and more difficult as time went by.

He would deal with that issue later, however. For now he wanted to get the rest of his information out to Dean, and he was about to bring up the chapel when the man suddenly asked him a question. He glanced down at the plate of food that a nurse had given him and then shook his head. "Not at the moment, no. This vessel seems to prefer red meat, so I tend to eat that when it's served." He'd tried a few other things when he'd felt that uncomfortable twisting in his abdomen, but he wasn't suffering too badly from that at the moment.

It was easy enough to ignore, especially with the soreness in his arm distracting him.

Not thinking that his eating habits needed to be discussed any more than that, Castiel moved on. "Are you aware that there's a chapel here? I went to inspect it last night, though the shadows deterred me from investigating as much as I would have liked. There's a statue there that can supposedly transfer wounds from body to body, but what I found more noteworthy was that it didn't seem to have symbols from any particular religion." Whether they were doing that to hide something or to make certain that the chapel was open to all people was hard to say, but it could also be a mix of both. Either way, he wanted to see if Dean had anything to say about it.

[theroadsofar]

“Wait, wait. Just hold the phone,” Dean was determined to steer this right back to what he thought was the most important thing here. He didn’t think Castiel was some kind of demon, even if the whole possible possession thing fit the bill. For one, he was way too helpful and upfront to be a demon. “What do you mean, vessel?”

Sizing up the guy, he was tempted to hit him with a Christo, make doubly sure. But demons weren’t the only things out there that could possess someone (certain spirits could, although the ones he’d seen weren’t this good) and seeing as how Castiel was in the caring and sharing mood still, he might as well try to see what he ran past him first. Dean suspected he might stick to that angel story. He couldn’t remember if angels could pull that demonic possession crap too. Never really bothered to get all up into the lore like Sam. It wasn’t really his style, the whole learning just for shits ‘n giggles kind of thing. Finding out how to hunt it and kill it was about as far as he felt he needed to go. Getting all scholarly and armchair academic wasn’t going to do him much good on the jobs, way he saw it.

As for the rest of Castiel’s information. Well, he’d heard some stuff about the chapel being shady business during the nights, but he hadn’t gone looking to test it out on himself. Transferring a nasty injury from one patient to another didn’t seem like it was something to shoot for, especially if they were looking at something real bad. He wanted to say there wasn’t any logic to this place and okay, yeah, the patterns were all screwed to hell. Vampires without that second row of fangs, spirits not behaving like they usually did. A lot of rules out the window there.

[poorexample]

The fact that Dean had more or less ignored the more important aspects of what he'd just said was enough to bother Castiel, but the only outward sign of that was a slight narrowing of his eyes. The conversation had been going so well, but he should have known that that couldn't last for long. It was only natural that he'd eventually say something that the Dean of three years ago wouldn't be able to follow.

"Yes, this is a vessel," he said as he glanced down at the skin he was in and then grabbed for the collar of his shirt, pulling at it for a moment before releasing it. "Angels are unable to walk the Earth without inhabiting one, as our true forms are powerful enough to bore out the eyes of any human that looks upon us or deafen any human who hears us." He could have explained how he'd tried to talk to Dean and how it had failed, but he imagined that that would simply go over the man's head at this point.

"Unlike demons, however, our vessels must give permission before we can possess them." The whole situation with Jimmy left a bad taste in his mouth after what Castiel had had to listen to the night before, but it wasn't as if he could leave this body now even if he'd wanted to. "We're unable to forcibly inhabit anyone." That very fact was going to give Dean a world of grief in his future, but now wasn't the time to get into that.

[theroadsofar]

So if he was telling the truth, then he really was possessing someone.

"That so? So who're you holed up in then?" If this was his typical demon, he would’ve felt a lot more prepared. Okay, maybe not prepared but at least he wouldn’t known generally how it was supposed to act. Demons were douchebags. End of story. They weren’t this helpful and he kept getting this weird thrown feeling. Should he try to exorcise him? Would that even work?

Dean realized he was starting to give Castiel a bordline helpless look, like he wasn’t quite sure what to do with him. He would’ve felt like it made a lot more sense if Castiel was ranting about how he’d beat him over the head with his spinal cord or something. Not being matter of fact about possessing someone and then getting all specific that it was totally voluntary. Dean wasn’t even sure that meant anything. “Voluntary” could be pretty gray area there. You could encourage a lot of people to get friendly and helpful if you knew how to push their buttons, so “voluntary” to Dean didn’t exactly say much.

Actually, it probably would’ve helped if he knew more about the lore on angels. Sam could’ve told him if this was jiving with any of it. Dean was still on the part where angels were fluffy munchkins in diapers or Angels in the Outfield. Point is, they weren’t supposed to be real. And the whole possessing people thing, if it was true, wasn’t exactly making them much better than demons in Dean’s opinion.

[poorexample]

While it was clear that Dean was confused or at least didn't know what to do with the information that had been given to him, Castiel decided that the best course of action would be to keep answering his questions. The more that Dean learned, the more likely he might be to believe what was being said. Granted, Castiel didn't know how far he'd be able to get without proof. If Dean had been present the night before, with that shadow that had acted as if it was Jimmy, maybe there would have been a chance. But as things were...

"A man by the name of Jimmy Novak," he said after a pause. It wasn't at the top of the list of things he wished to talk about now, but that wasn't his choice to make. He needed to be straightforward if he was going to have any hope of gaining Dean's trust. "He was no one particularly special, but he was still my assigned vessel. He happened to be devout, so after a few months of speaking with him he accepted my proposal."

He could have gone into the details of how he'd ended up ruining the man's life, but that clearly wasn't going to earn him any points with the human. His shadow had said as much -- and while Dean had been able to accept what had happened when he'd witnessed it himself, it wasn't quite the same when only hearing it secondhand.

So he left off at that, shifting only slightly in his seat as he tried his best not to think about this body he was in and what it meant.

[theroadsofar]

Dean's eyes narrowed. "No one special?" He repeated slowly. "So he's still in there? Why can't you just run around on your own? If you're some angel, you shouldn't be a dick and using folks as your personal condom."

He tried to see if there was any sign of this Jimmy in there, but it was probably like a demon - usually the poor bastard was trapped in there and they weren't coming out unless the demon (or angel, apparently) decided to let them. The "assigned" thing was new, though. Dean pushed his plate of food to the side, figuring he wasn't going to bother eating much when he was trying to figure out how much of this was true or not. Sam would have a better idea probably. Still, he had a feeling that even so, Castiel probably wouldn't fit into his idea of what an angel was supposed to look and act like. It did make Dean wonder what he'd look like without a Jimmy Novak to walk around in, especially since the demons they'd run into were rocking that black smoke thing.

The problem was that Dean didn't know what the precedent was for dealing with an honest to God angel. As far as he knew, the thing hadn't killed anyone. He wasn't sure how to deal with the flat admission he was possessing some random dude off the street, especially when he was so matter-of-fact about it. Could you even gank an angel? Did that mean God was real? Try as he might, Dean still couldn't get behind the whole God deal.

Yeah, he was gonna have to talk to Sam about this, no matter how pissed he was at the kid.

[poorexample]

The fact that Dean was somehow managing to bring up all of the things that Castiel had already been forced to hear the night before from that shadow -- it was both uncanny and completely expected. Dean was the one who had put him in place time and time again, who had taught him what being human really was. It was no surprise that he was now judging him for what was only normal for an angel.

Still, there were certain facts that had to be explained. He knew this was going to go into further uncertain territory, giving Dean even less of a reason to trust him, and yet he might as well set the record straight. "Jimmy's consciousness is no longer in this vessel," he admitted. He wasn't going to give the details, seeing how Dean would probably not even be able to follow his words with the total lack of divine knowledge that he had now.

"However, this vessel must be used. My true form is too powerful for humans to hear or look upon." There was also the fact that he couldn't have exited this cage of flesh even if he'd wanted to, but that was probably clear by now. While he was sure that he and Gabriel, as angels, had the most severe limits placed upon them, he'd heard tell of other's powers being decreased as well.