Fate Comes on Dark Wings, Part 4
It was gratifying to ruin the day of the monster who had hurt Sam. Dean had felt a stab of vicious satisfaction as the creature slumped back in his bed and stared at the wall. And stared. And stared. No tears, no yelling--just stared, mouth slightly open. The hand on the railing slowly curled into a fist, crumpling the metal almost absently. After a moment, he started trembling.
It was pretty freaky. Dean had seen a lot of crazy stuff in his line of work, but there was something unnerving about the guy. The monsters he had killed usually acted pretty human right up until they ripped people's throats out. This guy? Not so much. Oh, he got the basics of humanity down enough to fool Dean into thinking he was just another fuck-up at first. But right now he was uncanny, seemed barely conscious of his own body. Even monsters didn't act like that.
After ten minutes of silence, Dean left for Sam's. Overall, it had been an unsatisfying encounter. He had only decided to pay the monster a visit after Sam had explained what had happened in the crypt. It didn't take a genius to connect the man he had seen with the man with the scalpel. And, well, Dean had wanted to know where the guy had learned all that stuff about Dad. Pretty stupid, in retrospect. Lots of monsters were mindreaders; this guys just dug deeper than most. He still didn't know what the guy was, but he'd figure it out eventually.
When he opened the door to his brother's room, Sam looked up from a book. "Oh. Hey, Dean." He frowned. "Did something happen?"
"The guy from the crypt, they're keeping him in this hospital," Dean explained. "I paid him a visit to--" He broke off at the frustrated scowl on Sam's face.
"Dean, I--I can't hear you."
Fuck. Dean kept forgetting the deafness. Or, more exactly, he just didn't want to accept it. He dug into his jacket for his notepad and wrote out a summary of his conversation with the monster.
It took several pages. Sam paged through them, a frown wrinkling his forehead. "This makes no sense. He's a super-strong psychic with a banshee scream? I've never heard of anything remotely like that."
Tell me about it, Dean scribbled.
"I don't think he's pulling all of this stuff out of your mind, though. The stuff about Dad, sure, but he was talking about demons burning down Philadelphia before I told him who I was." Sam leaned forward. "I think he knows something."
He read your mind, dumbass
Anyway no one burned down Philly it would've been on the TV.
"No. This guy didn't freak out till he looked me in the face, and when he did it was like he'd seen some monster from his past. Like--well, like the way we'd look at Yellow-eyes. I don't think he would have spent all that time asking for a doctor if he'd read my mind and known who I was."
Oh Lord. How could his brother be so smart and still be so stupid? Mindreader, Sammy! The simplest answer is usually the right one.
"There's more here and you know it, Dean! Look--" Sam flipped through Dean's explanation until he found the page he was looking for. "Here, you said he called Yellow-eyes 'Azazel.' That's big. Dad spent more than twenty years trying to find Yellow-eyes and he never found out the demon's name. This guy--" He flipped through more pages. "--Castiel--he drops the name like it's nothing. We should look up Azazel, Castiel too while we're at it. Hell, maybe you could..." Sam hesitated for a moment, then continued, "...You could talk to him again, see what he thinks is gonna happen."
NO
"Oh, come on! It can't hurt!"
NO
"Just in case, Dean! We gotta be prepared for whatever Yellow-eyes has got planned for us. We have to follow up on every lead! And he likes you, right?"
NO
NO
NO
We're leaving the hospital tomorrow and if I see that guy again I'm gonna kill him PERIOD
Sam glowered at him, clearly on the verge of one of his patented bitchfests. "It wouldn't kill you just to talk to him. It's not like he's gonna come after you with a scalpel."
Tired of rewriting NO again and again, Dean shook his head this time, throwing a few negative gestures for good measure.
Sam sank back onto his pillows, scowling. "God, Dean, sometimes you just..." He threw up his hands in frustration, picked up the book, and buried his face in it. Normally this would be the cue for Dean to leave--Sam's snits usually lasted several hours unless he got his way--but after that monster tried to slit his brother's throat, Dean didn't feel comfortable leaving him alone for an extended period of time. So he sat back, turned on the TV, and ignored the evil looks Sam sent him over his book until the nurses came to chase him out.
Things went pretty smoothly the next day. Sure, the doctors squawked on about remaining concussive symptoms, but eventually they admitted that Sam was well enough to go home. That was more than enough for Dean, who wanted to get Sam as far away from the monster as possible. Sam continued to sulk, right up until he nearly fell over onto his face from walking.
U want me to get a wheelchair?
"No!" Sam massaged his eyes. "Why aren't my legs working right?"
Maybe the angel induced concussion?
Sam glared at him.
Aside from that little incident, everything else continued to go fine. The day remained clear and the highway mostly empty as they drove to Bobby's place. Sam spent most of the time dozing. Secretly, Dean suspected that the concussion was still causing his brother problems, but it was nothing a little rest could fix. The deafness was the issue. Sammy would never hear again, the doctors had said. So much for hunting, then. A hunter without all of his senses was a dead hunter.
On the brighter side of things, at least he could play his music as loud as he liked without any whining from the shotgun.
Sam bitched when they passed the turn off for Philadelphia--he wanted to see if there was anything suspicious going on--but Dean planned to head straight to Bobby's. He wasn't taking any chances; the next time the monster tried to kill Sammy, he'd know how to gank the thing. They stopped at a motel somewhere outside of Akron. "There's a burger place up the way," Dean began as his brother roused from sleep, remembered, and shut his mouth with a scowl before reaching for the notepad. Christ, this would take some getting used to. U want something to eat?
"You get yourself something, I'm really not hungry," Sam said, swinging the car door open and stumbling towards their room, his bag dangling from his shoulder. "My head is killing me. Just wanna lie down."
U need a painkiller?
"I've already taken several, Dean," Sam said in his obnoxious I'm-a-big-boy-look-how-independent-I-am voice. Dean shrugged and headed back out to the Impala, buckled himself in, reached to turn the car on--and sighed, hand dropping to the emergency break. No more talking in the car; no more banter; no more Sam, hunting. He'd probably go back to law school and marry some pretty girl who spoke sign language and go live a boring life in Boringsville, California. And yeah, maybe that was a good thing. That was what Sam wanted, right? Right.
No more Sam, hunting.
Dean stuck the key in the ignition.
"Excuse me," came a voice right by his ear.
Dean leaped about a foot in the air--or would have, if he hadn't been sitting down. "I--you--how--What are you doing in my car?!"
Castiel tilted his head, looking for all the world like a teacher dealing with a particularly dull student. "Riding with you, of course. I got in while you were in the hospital."
Dean went for his gun.
When he finished firing, Castiel frowned at him, headshots vanishing within seconds. "You'll destroy your hearing if you keep doing that."
That was the final fucking straw. Dean climbed out of the car, swung the back door open, and dragged the monster (still in a hospital gown, for crying out loud) outside to slam him against the side of the car. "What the hell is wrong with you? You try to kill my brother, you feed me some bullshit story about Yellow-eyes, and now you, you spend the whole day sitting in the back of my car waiting, what, for Sam to leave? What do you want from me?!"
The other man visibly wilted under the barrage. "I wanted to come with you. Please."
Dean backed up, shaking his head. "You've got to be kidding me." If he could get to the trunk--but no way he could get it open in time. If he could just keep Castiel focused on himself, maybe the nutjob wouldn't remember to go after Sam. Dean pointed away from the car. "Get out of here. Now. I don't ever want to see you again."
"No. No, please." Castiel had a distinctly desperate look in his eye. "I--Look, I made a mistake, I thought this was home--but it's not. And I can't go home, can't ever see him--You're the closest thing I've got, you're the only thing that resembles home, please, I've got nowhere else to go. I'm begging you." The guy was trembling again. He wrapped his arms around himself, looking miserable. "I'll be useful, I swear. I was made to fight the things you hunt, okay? And--and my upkeep's real low, I don't need to eat or sleep, a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, that's all I need, I swear. I won't hurt Sam. That was a mistake, coming into his room like that, I thought he was--but he isn't. I'll help you find Azazel, I mean Yellow-eyes, help you find a way to kill him, just please, please. Let me stay."
Any other time, Dean would have taken this guy for a victim. But he remembered: Sam crumpled on the hospital bed, looking dead. Dean shook his head. "Whoever you're looking for, it's not me."
Castiel's eyes fluttered to the ground. "I can fix Sam's ears," he said quietly.
That got Dean's attention.
"Bullshit."
"No, really. You saw how fast I fixed those bullet wounds. I'm too weak to do anything fancy, but I can handle the little things. It wouldn't take much effort to fix Sam--your brother's ears." There was just the slightest hesitation over the word brother.
He was lying. He had to be lying. The doctors said that the damage was permanent. Only, this guy had all these other crazy abilities. Why couldn't he magically fix people up? If there was the slightest chance... Dean held up his hand. "Okay. Okay, look, I'm gonna head inside and talk to Sam, and you--you stay right there. Don't even think about moving. If I see you going off someplace I'm--I'll kill you. Seriously. Okay?" Castiel nodded silently. Dean headed around the car and into the room, looking over his shoulder every so often to make sure this lunatic didn't go anywhere.
For all his nonsense about talking to the crazy guy with delusions of angelhood, Sam was (understandably) less-than-excited about letting said crazy guy near him. "I've never heard of any magic that heals people. Well, at least not any without major consequences. It's probably some sort of trick."
Don't you want your hearing back?
"Yeah, but I'm not gonna sell my soul for it!"
He's not a demon I threw holy water on him nothing happened.
"Holy water didn't work on Yellow-eyes!"
Something like Yelloweyes wouldn't let us live
Also he didn't try anything in the car why would he do something now?
"Look, just get out the rock salt, just in case."
When they went outside Castiel was standing right where Dean left him, leaning against the Impala. Dean opened the trunk and pulled out a shotgun, expecting the monster to jump him at any moment, but Castiel did not stir until Sam approached him. The two stared at each other like facing down a rabid wolf, and then Castiel pressed two fingers to Sam's foreheads. There was a small flash of light, and then both staggered back. Sam actually rubbed his ears, a startled expression on his face. Castiel supported himself on the side of the car, then slowly slid to the ground. Dean--Dean just stared. "You alright, Sammy?"
"I'm fine." Sam seemed astounded at the concept. "Even the headache is gone."
Dean looked down at Castiel just in time to see the man spit out a mouthful of blood. "You--uh--need a hand?"
"I can't stand," Castiel stated, deadpan.
Dean took one arm, Sam the other, and together they dragged Castiel into the room to deposit him on one of the beds. He passed out immediately. Goddammit, Dean just knew he'd be sleeping on the floor tonight. "So--you still out for dinner?"
"Uh--no, I think I could get something down," Sam said. Translation: Hearing or not, I still don't want to be alone with this guy when he wakes up.
They'd barely moved towards the door when Castiel stirred. "Wait." He pushed himself upright on shaking arms. "Does this mean I can stay?"
Dean fiddled with his shirt. "Look. Me'n'Sam, we're really more of a two-person operation." Castiel opened his mouth, about to protest, but Dean held up a hand to silence him. "But--it sounds like you've got some pretty big problems and, you know, maybe we can help." Castiel closed his mouth, an uncertain expression settling across his face. "Why don't you tell us the whole story, we'll see what we can do."
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