Fic: Hellblazer - Chapter 3 [SPN/Constantine]
TITLE: “Hellblazer” - Chapter 3
AUTHOR: nanoochka
RATING: R for violence, gore, swearing, and UST
PAIRINGS: Dean/Castiel
SPOILERS: None, unless you mean Constantine, in which case… all of it.
WARNINGS: Constantine-AU, pre-slash, violence, blasphemous themes, multiple character deaths (sometimes repeatedly!), borderline crack given the nature of the work.
WORD COUNT: This part 4,646; overall WIP, but prolly more than 30k, since the screenplay is almost 25.
SUMMARY: Castiel Constantine, an irreverent supernatural detective, has literally been to Hell and back. When Constantine teams up with skeptical police detective Dean Winchester to solve the mystery of the death of Sam, Dean’s brother, their investigation takes them through the world of demons and angels that exists just beneath the landscape of contemporary Los Angeles. Caught in a catastrophic series of otherworldly events, the two become inextricably involved and seek to find their own peace at whatever cost.
DISCLAIMER: Because I’m basically doing twice the stealing here, extra disclaimer is required. The characters from Supernatural or Constantine: Hellblazer do not belong to me, and the dialogue/story taken from Constantine is the property of Jamie Delano and Garth Ennis (comic), and Kevin Brodbin and Frank A. Cappello (screenplay). No infringement intended.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I have a confession to make: in spite of my (usually) good taste, Constantine is one of my favourite movies. It is, for the most part, horribly clichéd and terribly acted (no one’s looking at you, Rachel and Tilda), but I’ve seen it a bazillion times and still manage to squeal with glee through most of it. I suppose that’s owing mostly to the strength of the comics upon which the movie was based, but the film manages to pack quite the punch, too, especially in the latter half. Anyway, my point is that I love it to bits, and had a conniption fit upon my last viewing when I realized HOW FREAKING PERFECTLY the movie could overlap with the SPN-verse. It’s kind of scary. The Castiel/Constantine jokes have been flying fast and furious in the fandom on account of that damn trenchcoat, but no one, as far as I know, has actually attempted an AU/crossover. This is basically my way of saying, “See? See? TOLD YOU!” But for what it's worth, while I've tried to follow the screenplay as close as possible (as opposed to the movie), I do on occasion follow some scenes from the film where they differ wildly (moreso towards the end).
Hellblazer - Chapter 3 by nanoochka
Bobby “The Beeman” Singer is standing on the other side of the threshhold when Castiel opens the door, leaning casually against the doorframe with a cocked eyebrow that suggests to Castiel that he’s been working on this expression in preparation for their meeting.
“’Provisions depleted’?” Bobby says in greeting, and holds up the note written in Castiel’s atrociously messy scrawl. With a shrug, Castiel turns to let Bobby limp into his apartment, the older man carrying a large, custom bowling bag over one shoulder.
Whenever Castiel is forced to explain Bobby’s function in his life-and that’s not often, because most people take one look at the grizzled South Dakotan and don’t bother asking-he describes the older man as a redneck, occult version of Bond’s “Q”. Castiel’s been in the game a while, but nowhere near as long as Bobby; the Beeman’s been a fixture for as long as he can remember, a smart, reliable source for anything from intel to advice to the most effective gadgets at getting rid of the scum that goes bump in the night. In his mesh-backed trucker hats and scruffy beard, he doesn’t look like much, but he’s one of the few people out there that Castiel trusts, and would even go so far as to call a friend.
Maybe that’s why he puts up with Bobby’s shit, he thinks, as Bobby grumbles, “I gave you three months’ worth, boy. You were gone only one.”
“What can I say, Bobby?” Castiel replies sardonically. “India was a real drain.” The two of them shake hands, and Castiel smiles in the most charming way he knows how. Which, judging from Bobby’s softening expression, is pretty damned charming.
The old hunter takes a look around Castiel’s apartment and, though it’s not like he hasn’t seen the place before-he owns the bowling alley situated beneath it-gives a grudging laugh. “I see you still haven’t done much with the place,” he observes.
“I’ve never felt the need to start nesting,” answers Castiel.
His apartment runs the entire length of the bowling alley, lined with windows the whole way; with not much more than a kitchen at one end and a bedroom at the other, the two rooms seem about a mile away from each other. The only ‘decoration’ is the line five-gallon Sparkletts bottles that follows the apartment’s entire perimeter, each one adorned with a small, hand-marked cross: holy water. As they pass by one, Castiel takes a moment to adjust it, even though it isn’t out of place.
“So what do you need?” Bobby asks, slamming the bowling bag down on Castiel’s kitchen table.
“Everything you got,” Castiel says simply. He thinks back to the previous day, the goat-rodeo of an exorcism he got dragged into by the balls, the demon that almost broke through. “Everything.”
Bobby recognizes his expression, and returns one of his own, the kind that says he knows well enough to trust Castiel’s instinct, and knows well enough to be concerned by anything that gives the unflappable Constantine reason for pause. “You smell something, Cas?” he asks.
With the lift of one shoulder, Castiel nods as Bobby starts pulling things out of his bag, first a frayed rag, then a multitude of glass containers of all shapes and sizes. “Maybe. Incubus in this girl I just exorcised seemed a bit more spirited than usual.”
“Well,” says Bobby, “I got your stone fragments from the Road to Damascus, dust from the Dead Sea Scrolls… Oh, you’ll love this.” Out comes a little matchbox emblazoned with a graphic of a smiling bug. “Screech beetle from Mount Sinai,” he explains. Bobby shakes the matchbox, and the beetle flutters inside, its wings creating an eerie, high-pitched whirl. It’s noisy, but Castiel shrugs: So? Bobby looks offended for a second. “Yeah, to you it’s like nothing, but to the Fallen-like fingernails on a chalkboard.”
All Castiel says is, “What is it with you and bugs?”
Flipping Castiel off, Bobby pulls out a set of sculptured brass knuckles. It takes Castiel a moment to realize that they’re solid gold, engraved with a multitude of religious markings. When he tries them on, they’re a perfect fit.
“Gold was blessed by the Bishop Anicott during the Crusades,” Bobby tells him, catching Castiel’s look of near-affection for the accouterment.
Next, Castiel spots a foot-long tube made of copper buried near the bottom of the bag, and he pulls it out with a flourish. On one end is something that looks a bit like a bicycle handle, and this Castiel grips as he turns it over and inspects it from side to side.
“Watch it there.”
Eyebrow raised as if to say, What, this fucking thing?, Castiel experiments with squeezing the handle and gives a laugh of surprise when a ten-foot flame belches out from one end.
“Dragon’s breath,” says Bobby, tone very much I-told-you-so.
“I thought you couldn’t get it anymore,” Castiel answers, voice impressed, and though Bobby shrugs modestly, he quickly snatches the frayed rag away when Castiel sets the Dragon’s Breath down too close to it on the table.
“Woah, don’t want to get a flame near this,” he says urgently. Castiel gives him a look, and Bobby adds, “What? It’s a piece of the shroud Moses wore to the mountain, you idjit.” Castiel just continues to look at him, expecting to realize any second that Bobby’s fucking with him, but the older man just scowls and shakes his head in the negative.
“Huh. Got any callinicus?” Castiel asks instead.
This question seems to intrigue Bobby, who doesn’t even have to clarify what it’s for. “How spirited was this incubus, exactly?”
Attempting to hide his unease with a cough, Castiel fingered a deep groove in the wooden top of the kitchen table. “It was trying to come right out through the girl,” he clarifies, and off Bobby’s look adds, “I know how it sounds.”
Still sceptical, Bobby narrows his eyes and scoffs, though his standing wariness of anything that puts Castiel on edge colours his words somewhat. “We’re finger puppets to them, Cas, elaborate costumes,” he says slowly. “They can work us, but they don’t come through us. They can’t-you know that.”
“Check the scrolls anyway,” Castiel suggests.
Bobby sighs. “Sure, Cas. Anything else?”
He starts to zipper up the bag before Castiel stops him, coughing once and trying to muffle a few more from deep in his chest. “Wouldn’t happen to have anything for-”
Wordlessly, Bobby withdraws a bottle of Vick’s 44 from the pocket of his jacket, and sets it down on the table between them. He finishes zippering the bag. “On the house, son,” he says.
Chuck’s taxi pulls up in front of the 20 Lanes at 9:30 sharp as per their earlier arrangements, made directly following Castiel’s meeting with the Beeman. Although Chuck is always on the money, punctuality-wise, since the one incident where he was late and Castiel almost an arm, Constantine has been parked out on the curb for some time now, watching the empty neighbourhood remain empty and chain-smoking his way through a very complicated thought process Chuck will never know the half of.
He honks the horn for good measure anyway, swallowing a satisfied smile when Castiel gives a jerk of surprise and looks up. Levelling Chuck with a stare of pure ire, Castiel tosses the cigarette and lights another, coughing around it a couple times. He’s been doing a lot more of that lately, Chuck notices, but he doesn’t mention it as Castiel slides into the car silently.
Instead he says, “Simple question: How much longer do I have to be your slave?” He was planning a night of some serious reality TV when Castiel called and barked out the order for Chuck to be at the apartment before ten, which was an awfully pissy way of saying, “9:30”.
Castiel smirks. “You’re not my slave, Chuck,” he clarifies. “You’re my very appreciated assistant. Like Tonto and Robin and that skinny fellow with the fat friend.”
“How much longer?” Chuck thinks his tone is something like biting, and sure enough Castiel doesn’t like it.
“Well, I don’t know,” he shoots back, glancing sidelong at Chuck with that expression that makes Chuck want to claw the smugness right off his face. For some reason, Castiel begins digging through his pockets, though since he’s already got a cigarette clamped between his teeth, Chuck can’t figure out what for. There’s in the middle of a serious conversation, here; the least the guy can do is pay attention. “What’s the going rate for saving a taxi driver hanging from his fingernails, about to be swallowed into the jaws of Hell?”
So much for that. Chuck sighs. “Where are we going?” he grates out.
Giving him a knowing look, Castiel goes back to emptying his pockets. “I need to make an appearance at Uriel’s,” he says. Chuck sighs again, and starts to pull away from the curb without another word before Castiel stops him with a hand on his elbow. The touch alone makes the cabbie slam on the brakes, because he and Castiel don’t touch, ever. “Chuck.” Turning, Chuck almost doesn’t catch the object Castiel throws at him. “A little something from Delphi,” is the only explanation he gets.
The item in his hands turns out to be a dashboard air freshener shaped like a cow. Puzzled, Chuck tips it, and it emits a weak and garbled sound: Moooooo.
Castiel seems to find it rather amusing.
“Gee, thanks,” Chuck says.
They arrive at Club Uriel by ten, a rare place in downtown Los Angeles so exclusive that there isn’t even a line out front, just a pair of bouncers waiting for the next person they can roll for kicks. Admittedly, Chuck has never seen the inside of it, but like anyone with half a brain who's involved in the occult, he knows that it's one of the few places in the city that the things who can't list "human" on their CV go to congregate. The owner, Uriel also happens to be one of the most terrifying individuals in existence. Chuck doesn't know what he is, exactly, and Castiel only gave him a look when he asked, but he's pretty sure that Uriel has a lot more in common with his clientèle than he lets on.
Parking the cab, Chuck follows Castiel to the entrance, which is through a nondescript industrial door and down a fight of stairs. He tries not to look out of place, which only makes him more twitchy and awkward. What he needs is a trenchcoat.
Wordlessly, the bouncer selects a picture card from a deck; on the front are two flying dolphins, but the trick is to figure out what’s on the back of it if you want to get in.
Castiel never misses. “Two frogs on a bench,” he says.
When the bouncer flashes another card, Chuck repeats the same, but to his dismay the picture on the card is of a bear in a dress.
“What?” he screeches, when the bouncer literally holds an arm out in front to prevent him from following Castiel down the stairs. “But I’m with him! Right, Cas? Castiel?”
With an impassive look, Castiel glances back at him from halfway down the second flight of stairs, and in that moment Chuck knows that the only place he’s going right now is back to the cab. Glaring, Chuck stares after him as he disappears from view.
Someday.
Club Uriel is best described as a clash of everything, everywhere, and every time; although there’s something decidedly retro about the place, a touch of the speakeasy about it, it’s hard to settle on the influence of any particular culture or time when half the clientele isn’t even from the same millennium, continent or dimension. The only thing that seems to agree with everyone is the music and the lighting, both of which are dark and oppressive, obscuring most of what goes on here.
Surprisingly, Castiel fits right in, even in the tax-accountant getup. Groups of businessmen flood this place on most evenings, normal guys hoping for a taste of some of the twisted fantasies played out in the shadows, but beneath the flickering club lights there are people dressed in everything from BDSM wear to ballgowns. A lot of them recognize Castiel as he weaves through the crowd, affectionately or not, and a young black man by the name of Nico slides up to him, grinning impishly as he presses a kiss to Castiel’s cheek and slips his hands inside his suit jacket. Castiel likes this kid and tolerates the invasion of space, even if Nico’s a little more grabby than he cares for.
“Nico,” he says, offering a half-smile.
“This neighbourhood’s going to Hell,” Nico responds gamely, by way of hello. His breath is warm on Castiel’s face and smells of rum, but not unpleasantly so; lips find the corner of his mouth.
At first Castiel thinks that Nico is just nuzzling at his cheek to be friendly, but upon closer inspection he realizes that the kid is actually nodding towards a handful of sharply-dressed men in one corner, showing off for a few ladies by turning water into wine. Feeling Castiel’s gaze, one of them turns and meets his eyes across the club. Castiel recognizes him immediately: Crowley, a half-breed with an ostentatious British accent and a preference for slicked-back hair and three-thousand dollar suits. What Castiel doesn’t know is that it was Crowley who watched him from the top of the stairs at the apartment building yesterday, but the demon just smiles fetchingly, nods, and goes back to his group, a silver coin flipping over and between his fingers in an offhand way. Unease bristles the hairs at the back of Castiel’s neck in response, but he just thanks Nico for the heads-up with a coy kiss to his jaw, and moves on.
A long flight of stairs and a series of hallways and doors later, Castiel stops in front of the entrance to Uriel’s office, protected behind two large, very old doors. Up here, the music is muted, and the other club patrons know better than to come close. The doors are so ancient that the wood has been completely petrified, gnarled with hundreds of dark whorls and folds.
Slipping his fingers in between the grooves, Castiel closes his eyes and says, “Numgaum leadatur a morsu,” and the doors give a groan so deep and so pained that they could be alive. They remain closed. “Bastard changed the code again,” mutters Castiel, and resorts to banging on the doors like a thug. “Uriel!” he shouts, pissed. “Come on, do I have to huff and puff, here?!”
The doors unlatch without difficulty.
Inside Uriel’s office is more of the same décor, but the first thing that Castiel notices is the giant orrery, a scientific sculpture meant to display the solar system in relative motion. He’s seen a few of these in his time, but this one is still the most beautiful, the most meticulously-crafted of them all. Rather than the expected sun, eight planets and one hunk of space junk formerly known as Pluto, the spheres are actually a collection of ancient relics engraved with names and symbols ranging from the material to the astral to the iconic. At the centre is a globe symbolizing the Creator: this orrery represents the forces of the Universe. It’s one of Castiel’s favourite things to look at. And it’s not moving.
From deeper within the office, Castiel hears Uriel intoning, “Et separatur a plasmate tuo, Ut num quam laedatur amorsu antiqui serpentes…” as the doors close behind him.
“Deciding which colour to paint this place again?” he quips, stepping further into the jungle Uriel likes to call an office.
Part African witch-doctor, part savvy businessman, Uriel is a full six-and-a-half feet of solid contradictions, and definitely not the kind of man you’d want to find yourself in a fight with. Some people get a rush out of bungee jumping or throwing themselves out of planes, but Castiel satisfies his thrillseeking side by messing with Uriel.
“You’re back early,” Uriel says, unamused.
Castiel smiles at him sweetly. “I got tired of spending your money.”
“But I’m sure you spent enough,” Uriel answers, and for a second Castiel could swear he sees a flash of a smile in his face.
“I do have a certain standard of living,” he reminds him.
If it was ever there, the friendliness disappears from Uriel’s demeanour like a single lightbulb going out in a dark room. “Tell me you found it.”
“I found the vault,” says Castiel slowly.
“That’s not what I asked.”
Castiel circles Uriel’s desk and traces his fingers along the ornately carved wood. He stops somewhere in front of the middle and taps his fingers. “Can I help it if Buddhist monks don’t take bribes?” he asks.
On his feet in a second, Uriel strides towards him with nearly three-hundred pounds of buzzing, humming fury. He’s about a second away from removing Castiel’s head from his neck, when the smaller man calmly pulls a small ebony and gold relic from his pocket. Uriel stops dead.
“Gotcha.”
Reluctantly, a grin cracks Uriel’s stern features. Somehow it doesn’t make him any less terrifying. He takes the relic in his thick fingers, which is no more than a gaunt figure bracing itself against a cosmic wind. The expression on Uriel’s face is somewhere between affectionate and reverent.
“Second-century depiction of a sephiroth in the fourth realm…” he says gently.
“Right,” agrees Castiel, bored. He stretches out a palm expectantly. “So we good here?”
Not surprisingly, Uriel ignores him, and instead slides the relic onto one of the many rods jutting from the Universal orrery. He seems to select one at random, but Castiel knows far better than that.
“It should centre the iconic plane,” he tells Castiel, voice entirely reasonable, but Castiel isn’t convinced.
“That damn thing’s never going to balance,” he huffs, unimpressed.
To Castiel’s chagrin, Uriel releases the relic and the complex machine actually starts to move, turning around the globe at the centre. It is surprisingly quiet, the various rods, spheres and objects gliding along in near silence, rather than the cranking, squeaky grind its various gears might suggest. For a moment Castiel is somewhat intrigued, prepared to eat his words, but the newest relic collides with another and the orrery promptly jams to a halt.
Uriel visibly deflates, before glancing at Castiel with suspicion in his face. “Must I remind you of what selling fake relics will do to your health?” he growls.
Castiel’s hands fly up defensively. “It’s authentic, Uriel, you just have the wrong piece. Jesus…” A mini stare-down ensues, and Castiel’s rigid poker face is only broken off by a cough he tries to catch at the bottom of his throat. Uriel rolls his eyes and ends the staring contest with a disgusted sigh. Castiel splutters. “What? I didn’t blink-that was a cough. You never cough?”
The derisive expression on Uriel’s face doesn’t change as he reaches into his tuxedo jacket and hands over a thick stack of hundreds. Castiel accepts the money and starts flipping through the bills, but he isn’t counting them. “Better not be any Washingtons in here this time,” he warns.
Uriel ignores him. “Why did you cut your trip short?”
Actually stopping to think about it, Castiel halts his fingers. “I don’t know,” he admits. “Just a feeling-” A new presence at the doors interrupts him, and with his neck flaring with heat he spins to see a familiar figure standing there with a confident, chilling smile on his face. “Crowley,” he grunts, trying to hide his surprise. He didn’t hear him come in, and apparently neither did Uriel.
“We’re not still whining about Manhattan, are we?” Crowley asks cheerfully, his clipped British accent sliding over the words like whiskey and smoke. When Castiel’s attempt to disguise his anger fails utterly, Crowley barks out a laugh of true pleasure. “That expression alone has made my entire night.”
There is so much history between them that Castiel doesn’t even know where to start, but he takes a step towards Crowley and tries to use his extra height to the full advantage when the half-breed flashes a malevolent grin. “I’ll make your night,” he threatens, voice at its darkest and most gravelly. “I’ll deport your sorry ass right where you stand-”
“Castiel.”
Uriel’s voice stops him cold.
“You know,” Castiel grates out, jabbing a finger in Uriel’s direction but never breaking eye contact with Crowley, “it’s bad enough that you let these half-breeds in at all, but this piece of shit-”
“Perks of becoming a primary investor,” Crowley informs him cheerfully, interrupting the tirade they’ve all heard before.
“What?!”
Now, Castiel does look over at Uriel, eyes wide and offended in a way that betrays the full extent of their friendship, however much they spend the majority of their time together giving each other shit. Castiel might have history with Crowley, but with Uriel, he thought he had trust. He’s about to open his mouth to start in on him again, but Uriel’s expression says it all pretty clearly: Not here, not now.
He’s about to consider backing off, when Crowley goes and ruins the moment. “Things change,” he points out. “Balances shift. Get used to it, Cas.”
“Not while I’m still breathing-” he begins, outraged anew, but a raised eyebrow from Crowley stops him short as a cough, more powerful than he’s felt before, erupts from Castiel’s throat. He’s totally unable to speak around it, and his hands go to his knees with the force of it.
Crowley cups a hand around his ear and leans in, expression gleeful. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that…”
Still hacking, Castiel tries to catch his breath, and can’t. The coughs continue to bubble out, tearing his throat raw until he can hear a faint gurgling in his chest that shouldn’t be there, a sound and a wrongness that scares him a bit. He tries to hide it, and for a moment his frightened eyes meet Uriel’s concerned gaze, and he pushes out of the office in a stumbling, half-run. He somehow finds the exit and slams his body against it, coughing too violently to control his arms as he flails into the alleyway behind the club and drops to his knees. The bottle of Vicks 44 that Bobby gave him is in his jacket, and although he manages to wrestle it free of the pocket, the plastic wrapping and child protector cap prove too much for his shaking fingers to handle.
A shadow falls across him, the person’s face obscured by the darkness, but as soon as the voice cautiously says, “Hey, Castiel,” Constantine recognizes Zachariah.
He’s surprised to see the man waiting there for him, but is too busy choking and trying to bust the bottle of cough syrup to bother asking why he’s there. Electing not to watch the younger man struggle any longer, Zachariah crouches down and grabs the bottle, twisting off the cap with one flick. He helps Castiel upright enough for him to guzzle half the syrup in one go.
“I’m real sorry about yesterday, real sorry,” he says while Castiel drinks. “Please don’t hate me for dragging you into that. Please don’t…”
When he’s finally able to breathe, Castiel wheezes, “I don’t hate you.”
“That’s good to hear,” Zachariah breathes with relief evident in his voice. He easily pulls Castiel to his feet and brushes off his coat. “Real good.”
Trying to regain his composure, Castiel resorts to annoyance to hide how seriously freaked out he still is by the coughing episode. The worst of it is, he can’t even say for sure that Crowley was the one responsible. “Could you at least have waited for me to call before you showed up?”
Zachariah’s face looks puzzled even in the dimness of the alleyway. “You didn’t call?” he asks.
“Not yet,” answers Castiel. He shakes his head in amazement and forces out one last, latent cough. “Jesus, Zachariah, you freak me out sometimes,” he says.
“You want me to go away and come back?”
“No, I don’t want you to go away and come back,” Castiel sighs, now genuinely exasperated. “I need your help, Zach.”
“You do?” asks Zachariah, sounding somewhere between wary and flattered. He smiles, almost shyly. “From me? What kind of-”
Stopping mid-sentence off Castiel’s look, his face falls and Zachariah takes a step backwards. Every inch of his body has gone taut with suspicion. In an instant, he seems to know exactly what Castiel is after, and his chubby hand lifts to the amulet around his neck, a small gold, horned head of a man bound on a leather strap. He clutches at it possessively.
“Hey, listen…”
“Come on, you know that exorcism wasn’t right,” Castiel interrupts. His face has an expression of bald intimidation, but he seems to be trying to back up his bullying with truth. “I’ve got an assignment for you.”
“What kind of assignment?” Zachariah asks hesitantly.
“The kind you’ll have to be sober for,” deadpans Castiel.
“Oh God,” Zachariah wails, his hand gripping tighter around the amulet. “You want me to surf the ether.” He goes pale and stutters for a moment, either from nervousness or because he’s searching for an excuse, or both. “I… I don’t have the sight anymore,” he tries.
The dark line of Castiel’s eyebrow arches again, a smile playing at his lips. “Don’t have it, or don’t want to use it?” he questions wryly. At Zachariah’s vacillation, he gentles his tone. “Just… look around,” he suggests. “A few days. You spot anything unusual, anything-You let me know. Okay?” With one arm going behind Zachariah’s shoulders like a good buddy, Castiel smiles his placating smile and reaches behind the older priest’s neck. “It’ll be like old times,” he assures him, and lifts the amulet off Zachariah’s head. “You don’t need its protection.” It disappears into his pocket, obviously unnerving the other man, and Castiel adds, again, “Just for a few days.”
“Okay, okay,” Zachariah relents, though his tone has a firm undercurrent of disbelief. Like old times, right. “For you, Castiel,” he says grudgingly, and hands the flask over after one last sip. Castiel downs the rest.
Later that night, Castiel wakes himself up with another cough like the one before, so violent that it actually wrenches him upright on the bed, chest heaving. His shirt is soaked with so much sweat that he’s left a damp spot on the sheets.
Although he pulls himself from the bed and stumbles through his dark apartment to the bathroom, Castiel can’t find it in him to appear concerned until he scrabbles with the lightswitch and fumbles a towel against his mouth. Bent nearly double as he hacks from somewhere deep in his lungs, Castiel coughs and coughs, head pounding with the force and strain of it. When he lifts the towel away from his face, the threadbare cotton is drenched through with blood, so dark and mottled in places that it looks almost black. He spits the rest out into the sink and rests his head up against the mirror, breathing hard.
It’s a rare thing that leaves Castiel feeling worried, an emotion so foreign to him that he sometimes doesn’t even know how to recognize it, but the last time he saw this much blood in his hands, he was holding a knife with a half-breed demon stuck on the other end. This, though-this is new. His chest aches and burns so powerfully that he feels dizzy.
He catches the reflection of his own eyes in the mirror, stares hard. The only thing he can think is startling in its clarity: he looks afraid.
Chapter Four
AUTHOR: nanoochka
RATING: R for violence, gore, swearing, and UST
PAIRINGS: Dean/Castiel
SPOILERS: None, unless you mean Constantine, in which case… all of it.
WARNINGS: Constantine-AU, pre-slash, violence, blasphemous themes, multiple character deaths (sometimes repeatedly!), borderline crack given the nature of the work.
WORD COUNT: This part 4,646; overall WIP, but prolly more than 30k, since the screenplay is almost 25.
SUMMARY: Castiel Constantine, an irreverent supernatural detective, has literally been to Hell and back. When Constantine teams up with skeptical police detective Dean Winchester to solve the mystery of the death of Sam, Dean’s brother, their investigation takes them through the world of demons and angels that exists just beneath the landscape of contemporary Los Angeles. Caught in a catastrophic series of otherworldly events, the two become inextricably involved and seek to find their own peace at whatever cost.
DISCLAIMER: Because I’m basically doing twice the stealing here, extra disclaimer is required. The characters from Supernatural or Constantine: Hellblazer do not belong to me, and the dialogue/story taken from Constantine is the property of Jamie Delano and Garth Ennis (comic), and Kevin Brodbin and Frank A. Cappello (screenplay). No infringement intended.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I have a confession to make: in spite of my (usually) good taste, Constantine is one of my favourite movies. It is, for the most part, horribly clichéd and terribly acted (no one’s looking at you, Rachel and Tilda), but I’ve seen it a bazillion times and still manage to squeal with glee through most of it. I suppose that’s owing mostly to the strength of the comics upon which the movie was based, but the film manages to pack quite the punch, too, especially in the latter half. Anyway, my point is that I love it to bits, and had a conniption fit upon my last viewing when I realized HOW FREAKING PERFECTLY the movie could overlap with the SPN-verse. It’s kind of scary. The Castiel/Constantine jokes have been flying fast and furious in the fandom on account of that damn trenchcoat, but no one, as far as I know, has actually attempted an AU/crossover. This is basically my way of saying, “See? See? TOLD YOU!” But for what it's worth, while I've tried to follow the screenplay as close as possible (as opposed to the movie), I do on occasion follow some scenes from the film where they differ wildly (moreso towards the end).
Hellblazer - Chapter 3 by nanoochka
Bobby “The Beeman” Singer is standing on the other side of the threshhold when Castiel opens the door, leaning casually against the doorframe with a cocked eyebrow that suggests to Castiel that he’s been working on this expression in preparation for their meeting.
“’Provisions depleted’?” Bobby says in greeting, and holds up the note written in Castiel’s atrociously messy scrawl. With a shrug, Castiel turns to let Bobby limp into his apartment, the older man carrying a large, custom bowling bag over one shoulder.
Whenever Castiel is forced to explain Bobby’s function in his life-and that’s not often, because most people take one look at the grizzled South Dakotan and don’t bother asking-he describes the older man as a redneck, occult version of Bond’s “Q”. Castiel’s been in the game a while, but nowhere near as long as Bobby; the Beeman’s been a fixture for as long as he can remember, a smart, reliable source for anything from intel to advice to the most effective gadgets at getting rid of the scum that goes bump in the night. In his mesh-backed trucker hats and scruffy beard, he doesn’t look like much, but he’s one of the few people out there that Castiel trusts, and would even go so far as to call a friend.
Maybe that’s why he puts up with Bobby’s shit, he thinks, as Bobby grumbles, “I gave you three months’ worth, boy. You were gone only one.”
“What can I say, Bobby?” Castiel replies sardonically. “India was a real drain.” The two of them shake hands, and Castiel smiles in the most charming way he knows how. Which, judging from Bobby’s softening expression, is pretty damned charming.
The old hunter takes a look around Castiel’s apartment and, though it’s not like he hasn’t seen the place before-he owns the bowling alley situated beneath it-gives a grudging laugh. “I see you still haven’t done much with the place,” he observes.
“I’ve never felt the need to start nesting,” answers Castiel.
His apartment runs the entire length of the bowling alley, lined with windows the whole way; with not much more than a kitchen at one end and a bedroom at the other, the two rooms seem about a mile away from each other. The only ‘decoration’ is the line five-gallon Sparkletts bottles that follows the apartment’s entire perimeter, each one adorned with a small, hand-marked cross: holy water. As they pass by one, Castiel takes a moment to adjust it, even though it isn’t out of place.
“So what do you need?” Bobby asks, slamming the bowling bag down on Castiel’s kitchen table.
“Everything you got,” Castiel says simply. He thinks back to the previous day, the goat-rodeo of an exorcism he got dragged into by the balls, the demon that almost broke through. “Everything.”
Bobby recognizes his expression, and returns one of his own, the kind that says he knows well enough to trust Castiel’s instinct, and knows well enough to be concerned by anything that gives the unflappable Constantine reason for pause. “You smell something, Cas?” he asks.
With the lift of one shoulder, Castiel nods as Bobby starts pulling things out of his bag, first a frayed rag, then a multitude of glass containers of all shapes and sizes. “Maybe. Incubus in this girl I just exorcised seemed a bit more spirited than usual.”
“Well,” says Bobby, “I got your stone fragments from the Road to Damascus, dust from the Dead Sea Scrolls… Oh, you’ll love this.” Out comes a little matchbox emblazoned with a graphic of a smiling bug. “Screech beetle from Mount Sinai,” he explains. Bobby shakes the matchbox, and the beetle flutters inside, its wings creating an eerie, high-pitched whirl. It’s noisy, but Castiel shrugs: So? Bobby looks offended for a second. “Yeah, to you it’s like nothing, but to the Fallen-like fingernails on a chalkboard.”
All Castiel says is, “What is it with you and bugs?”
Flipping Castiel off, Bobby pulls out a set of sculptured brass knuckles. It takes Castiel a moment to realize that they’re solid gold, engraved with a multitude of religious markings. When he tries them on, they’re a perfect fit.
“Gold was blessed by the Bishop Anicott during the Crusades,” Bobby tells him, catching Castiel’s look of near-affection for the accouterment.
Next, Castiel spots a foot-long tube made of copper buried near the bottom of the bag, and he pulls it out with a flourish. On one end is something that looks a bit like a bicycle handle, and this Castiel grips as he turns it over and inspects it from side to side.
“Watch it there.”
Eyebrow raised as if to say, What, this fucking thing?, Castiel experiments with squeezing the handle and gives a laugh of surprise when a ten-foot flame belches out from one end.
“Dragon’s breath,” says Bobby, tone very much I-told-you-so.
“I thought you couldn’t get it anymore,” Castiel answers, voice impressed, and though Bobby shrugs modestly, he quickly snatches the frayed rag away when Castiel sets the Dragon’s Breath down too close to it on the table.
“Woah, don’t want to get a flame near this,” he says urgently. Castiel gives him a look, and Bobby adds, “What? It’s a piece of the shroud Moses wore to the mountain, you idjit.” Castiel just continues to look at him, expecting to realize any second that Bobby’s fucking with him, but the older man just scowls and shakes his head in the negative.
“Huh. Got any callinicus?” Castiel asks instead.
This question seems to intrigue Bobby, who doesn’t even have to clarify what it’s for. “How spirited was this incubus, exactly?”
Attempting to hide his unease with a cough, Castiel fingered a deep groove in the wooden top of the kitchen table. “It was trying to come right out through the girl,” he clarifies, and off Bobby’s look adds, “I know how it sounds.”
Still sceptical, Bobby narrows his eyes and scoffs, though his standing wariness of anything that puts Castiel on edge colours his words somewhat. “We’re finger puppets to them, Cas, elaborate costumes,” he says slowly. “They can work us, but they don’t come through us. They can’t-you know that.”
“Check the scrolls anyway,” Castiel suggests.
Bobby sighs. “Sure, Cas. Anything else?”
He starts to zipper up the bag before Castiel stops him, coughing once and trying to muffle a few more from deep in his chest. “Wouldn’t happen to have anything for-”
Wordlessly, Bobby withdraws a bottle of Vick’s 44 from the pocket of his jacket, and sets it down on the table between them. He finishes zippering the bag. “On the house, son,” he says.
Chuck’s taxi pulls up in front of the 20 Lanes at 9:30 sharp as per their earlier arrangements, made directly following Castiel’s meeting with the Beeman. Although Chuck is always on the money, punctuality-wise, since the one incident where he was late and Castiel almost an arm, Constantine has been parked out on the curb for some time now, watching the empty neighbourhood remain empty and chain-smoking his way through a very complicated thought process Chuck will never know the half of.
He honks the horn for good measure anyway, swallowing a satisfied smile when Castiel gives a jerk of surprise and looks up. Levelling Chuck with a stare of pure ire, Castiel tosses the cigarette and lights another, coughing around it a couple times. He’s been doing a lot more of that lately, Chuck notices, but he doesn’t mention it as Castiel slides into the car silently.
Instead he says, “Simple question: How much longer do I have to be your slave?” He was planning a night of some serious reality TV when Castiel called and barked out the order for Chuck to be at the apartment before ten, which was an awfully pissy way of saying, “9:30”.
Castiel smirks. “You’re not my slave, Chuck,” he clarifies. “You’re my very appreciated assistant. Like Tonto and Robin and that skinny fellow with the fat friend.”
“How much longer?” Chuck thinks his tone is something like biting, and sure enough Castiel doesn’t like it.
“Well, I don’t know,” he shoots back, glancing sidelong at Chuck with that expression that makes Chuck want to claw the smugness right off his face. For some reason, Castiel begins digging through his pockets, though since he’s already got a cigarette clamped between his teeth, Chuck can’t figure out what for. There’s in the middle of a serious conversation, here; the least the guy can do is pay attention. “What’s the going rate for saving a taxi driver hanging from his fingernails, about to be swallowed into the jaws of Hell?”
So much for that. Chuck sighs. “Where are we going?” he grates out.
Giving him a knowing look, Castiel goes back to emptying his pockets. “I need to make an appearance at Uriel’s,” he says. Chuck sighs again, and starts to pull away from the curb without another word before Castiel stops him with a hand on his elbow. The touch alone makes the cabbie slam on the brakes, because he and Castiel don’t touch, ever. “Chuck.” Turning, Chuck almost doesn’t catch the object Castiel throws at him. “A little something from Delphi,” is the only explanation he gets.
The item in his hands turns out to be a dashboard air freshener shaped like a cow. Puzzled, Chuck tips it, and it emits a weak and garbled sound: Moooooo.
Castiel seems to find it rather amusing.
“Gee, thanks,” Chuck says.
They arrive at Club Uriel by ten, a rare place in downtown Los Angeles so exclusive that there isn’t even a line out front, just a pair of bouncers waiting for the next person they can roll for kicks. Admittedly, Chuck has never seen the inside of it, but like anyone with half a brain who's involved in the occult, he knows that it's one of the few places in the city that the things who can't list "human" on their CV go to congregate. The owner, Uriel also happens to be one of the most terrifying individuals in existence. Chuck doesn't know what he is, exactly, and Castiel only gave him a look when he asked, but he's pretty sure that Uriel has a lot more in common with his clientèle than he lets on.
Parking the cab, Chuck follows Castiel to the entrance, which is through a nondescript industrial door and down a fight of stairs. He tries not to look out of place, which only makes him more twitchy and awkward. What he needs is a trenchcoat.
Wordlessly, the bouncer selects a picture card from a deck; on the front are two flying dolphins, but the trick is to figure out what’s on the back of it if you want to get in.
Castiel never misses. “Two frogs on a bench,” he says.
When the bouncer flashes another card, Chuck repeats the same, but to his dismay the picture on the card is of a bear in a dress.
“What?” he screeches, when the bouncer literally holds an arm out in front to prevent him from following Castiel down the stairs. “But I’m with him! Right, Cas? Castiel?”
With an impassive look, Castiel glances back at him from halfway down the second flight of stairs, and in that moment Chuck knows that the only place he’s going right now is back to the cab. Glaring, Chuck stares after him as he disappears from view.
Someday.
Club Uriel is best described as a clash of everything, everywhere, and every time; although there’s something decidedly retro about the place, a touch of the speakeasy about it, it’s hard to settle on the influence of any particular culture or time when half the clientele isn’t even from the same millennium, continent or dimension. The only thing that seems to agree with everyone is the music and the lighting, both of which are dark and oppressive, obscuring most of what goes on here.
Surprisingly, Castiel fits right in, even in the tax-accountant getup. Groups of businessmen flood this place on most evenings, normal guys hoping for a taste of some of the twisted fantasies played out in the shadows, but beneath the flickering club lights there are people dressed in everything from BDSM wear to ballgowns. A lot of them recognize Castiel as he weaves through the crowd, affectionately or not, and a young black man by the name of Nico slides up to him, grinning impishly as he presses a kiss to Castiel’s cheek and slips his hands inside his suit jacket. Castiel likes this kid and tolerates the invasion of space, even if Nico’s a little more grabby than he cares for.
“Nico,” he says, offering a half-smile.
“This neighbourhood’s going to Hell,” Nico responds gamely, by way of hello. His breath is warm on Castiel’s face and smells of rum, but not unpleasantly so; lips find the corner of his mouth.
At first Castiel thinks that Nico is just nuzzling at his cheek to be friendly, but upon closer inspection he realizes that the kid is actually nodding towards a handful of sharply-dressed men in one corner, showing off for a few ladies by turning water into wine. Feeling Castiel’s gaze, one of them turns and meets his eyes across the club. Castiel recognizes him immediately: Crowley, a half-breed with an ostentatious British accent and a preference for slicked-back hair and three-thousand dollar suits. What Castiel doesn’t know is that it was Crowley who watched him from the top of the stairs at the apartment building yesterday, but the demon just smiles fetchingly, nods, and goes back to his group, a silver coin flipping over and between his fingers in an offhand way. Unease bristles the hairs at the back of Castiel’s neck in response, but he just thanks Nico for the heads-up with a coy kiss to his jaw, and moves on.
A long flight of stairs and a series of hallways and doors later, Castiel stops in front of the entrance to Uriel’s office, protected behind two large, very old doors. Up here, the music is muted, and the other club patrons know better than to come close. The doors are so ancient that the wood has been completely petrified, gnarled with hundreds of dark whorls and folds.
Slipping his fingers in between the grooves, Castiel closes his eyes and says, “Numgaum leadatur a morsu,” and the doors give a groan so deep and so pained that they could be alive. They remain closed. “Bastard changed the code again,” mutters Castiel, and resorts to banging on the doors like a thug. “Uriel!” he shouts, pissed. “Come on, do I have to huff and puff, here?!”
The doors unlatch without difficulty.
Inside Uriel’s office is more of the same décor, but the first thing that Castiel notices is the giant orrery, a scientific sculpture meant to display the solar system in relative motion. He’s seen a few of these in his time, but this one is still the most beautiful, the most meticulously-crafted of them all. Rather than the expected sun, eight planets and one hunk of space junk formerly known as Pluto, the spheres are actually a collection of ancient relics engraved with names and symbols ranging from the material to the astral to the iconic. At the centre is a globe symbolizing the Creator: this orrery represents the forces of the Universe. It’s one of Castiel’s favourite things to look at. And it’s not moving.
From deeper within the office, Castiel hears Uriel intoning, “Et separatur a plasmate tuo, Ut num quam laedatur amorsu antiqui serpentes…” as the doors close behind him.
“Deciding which colour to paint this place again?” he quips, stepping further into the jungle Uriel likes to call an office.
Part African witch-doctor, part savvy businessman, Uriel is a full six-and-a-half feet of solid contradictions, and definitely not the kind of man you’d want to find yourself in a fight with. Some people get a rush out of bungee jumping or throwing themselves out of planes, but Castiel satisfies his thrillseeking side by messing with Uriel.
“You’re back early,” Uriel says, unamused.
Castiel smiles at him sweetly. “I got tired of spending your money.”
“But I’m sure you spent enough,” Uriel answers, and for a second Castiel could swear he sees a flash of a smile in his face.
“I do have a certain standard of living,” he reminds him.
If it was ever there, the friendliness disappears from Uriel’s demeanour like a single lightbulb going out in a dark room. “Tell me you found it.”
“I found the vault,” says Castiel slowly.
“That’s not what I asked.”
Castiel circles Uriel’s desk and traces his fingers along the ornately carved wood. He stops somewhere in front of the middle and taps his fingers. “Can I help it if Buddhist monks don’t take bribes?” he asks.
On his feet in a second, Uriel strides towards him with nearly three-hundred pounds of buzzing, humming fury. He’s about a second away from removing Castiel’s head from his neck, when the smaller man calmly pulls a small ebony and gold relic from his pocket. Uriel stops dead.
“Gotcha.”
Reluctantly, a grin cracks Uriel’s stern features. Somehow it doesn’t make him any less terrifying. He takes the relic in his thick fingers, which is no more than a gaunt figure bracing itself against a cosmic wind. The expression on Uriel’s face is somewhere between affectionate and reverent.
“Second-century depiction of a sephiroth in the fourth realm…” he says gently.
“Right,” agrees Castiel, bored. He stretches out a palm expectantly. “So we good here?”
Not surprisingly, Uriel ignores him, and instead slides the relic onto one of the many rods jutting from the Universal orrery. He seems to select one at random, but Castiel knows far better than that.
“It should centre the iconic plane,” he tells Castiel, voice entirely reasonable, but Castiel isn’t convinced.
“That damn thing’s never going to balance,” he huffs, unimpressed.
To Castiel’s chagrin, Uriel releases the relic and the complex machine actually starts to move, turning around the globe at the centre. It is surprisingly quiet, the various rods, spheres and objects gliding along in near silence, rather than the cranking, squeaky grind its various gears might suggest. For a moment Castiel is somewhat intrigued, prepared to eat his words, but the newest relic collides with another and the orrery promptly jams to a halt.
Uriel visibly deflates, before glancing at Castiel with suspicion in his face. “Must I remind you of what selling fake relics will do to your health?” he growls.
Castiel’s hands fly up defensively. “It’s authentic, Uriel, you just have the wrong piece. Jesus…” A mini stare-down ensues, and Castiel’s rigid poker face is only broken off by a cough he tries to catch at the bottom of his throat. Uriel rolls his eyes and ends the staring contest with a disgusted sigh. Castiel splutters. “What? I didn’t blink-that was a cough. You never cough?”
The derisive expression on Uriel’s face doesn’t change as he reaches into his tuxedo jacket and hands over a thick stack of hundreds. Castiel accepts the money and starts flipping through the bills, but he isn’t counting them. “Better not be any Washingtons in here this time,” he warns.
Uriel ignores him. “Why did you cut your trip short?”
Actually stopping to think about it, Castiel halts his fingers. “I don’t know,” he admits. “Just a feeling-” A new presence at the doors interrupts him, and with his neck flaring with heat he spins to see a familiar figure standing there with a confident, chilling smile on his face. “Crowley,” he grunts, trying to hide his surprise. He didn’t hear him come in, and apparently neither did Uriel.
“We’re not still whining about Manhattan, are we?” Crowley asks cheerfully, his clipped British accent sliding over the words like whiskey and smoke. When Castiel’s attempt to disguise his anger fails utterly, Crowley barks out a laugh of true pleasure. “That expression alone has made my entire night.”
There is so much history between them that Castiel doesn’t even know where to start, but he takes a step towards Crowley and tries to use his extra height to the full advantage when the half-breed flashes a malevolent grin. “I’ll make your night,” he threatens, voice at its darkest and most gravelly. “I’ll deport your sorry ass right where you stand-”
“Castiel.”
Uriel’s voice stops him cold.
“You know,” Castiel grates out, jabbing a finger in Uriel’s direction but never breaking eye contact with Crowley, “it’s bad enough that you let these half-breeds in at all, but this piece of shit-”
“Perks of becoming a primary investor,” Crowley informs him cheerfully, interrupting the tirade they’ve all heard before.
“What?!”
Now, Castiel does look over at Uriel, eyes wide and offended in a way that betrays the full extent of their friendship, however much they spend the majority of their time together giving each other shit. Castiel might have history with Crowley, but with Uriel, he thought he had trust. He’s about to open his mouth to start in on him again, but Uriel’s expression says it all pretty clearly: Not here, not now.
He’s about to consider backing off, when Crowley goes and ruins the moment. “Things change,” he points out. “Balances shift. Get used to it, Cas.”
“Not while I’m still breathing-” he begins, outraged anew, but a raised eyebrow from Crowley stops him short as a cough, more powerful than he’s felt before, erupts from Castiel’s throat. He’s totally unable to speak around it, and his hands go to his knees with the force of it.
Crowley cups a hand around his ear and leans in, expression gleeful. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that…”
Still hacking, Castiel tries to catch his breath, and can’t. The coughs continue to bubble out, tearing his throat raw until he can hear a faint gurgling in his chest that shouldn’t be there, a sound and a wrongness that scares him a bit. He tries to hide it, and for a moment his frightened eyes meet Uriel’s concerned gaze, and he pushes out of the office in a stumbling, half-run. He somehow finds the exit and slams his body against it, coughing too violently to control his arms as he flails into the alleyway behind the club and drops to his knees. The bottle of Vicks 44 that Bobby gave him is in his jacket, and although he manages to wrestle it free of the pocket, the plastic wrapping and child protector cap prove too much for his shaking fingers to handle.
A shadow falls across him, the person’s face obscured by the darkness, but as soon as the voice cautiously says, “Hey, Castiel,” Constantine recognizes Zachariah.
He’s surprised to see the man waiting there for him, but is too busy choking and trying to bust the bottle of cough syrup to bother asking why he’s there. Electing not to watch the younger man struggle any longer, Zachariah crouches down and grabs the bottle, twisting off the cap with one flick. He helps Castiel upright enough for him to guzzle half the syrup in one go.
“I’m real sorry about yesterday, real sorry,” he says while Castiel drinks. “Please don’t hate me for dragging you into that. Please don’t…”
When he’s finally able to breathe, Castiel wheezes, “I don’t hate you.”
“That’s good to hear,” Zachariah breathes with relief evident in his voice. He easily pulls Castiel to his feet and brushes off his coat. “Real good.”
Trying to regain his composure, Castiel resorts to annoyance to hide how seriously freaked out he still is by the coughing episode. The worst of it is, he can’t even say for sure that Crowley was the one responsible. “Could you at least have waited for me to call before you showed up?”
Zachariah’s face looks puzzled even in the dimness of the alleyway. “You didn’t call?” he asks.
“Not yet,” answers Castiel. He shakes his head in amazement and forces out one last, latent cough. “Jesus, Zachariah, you freak me out sometimes,” he says.
“You want me to go away and come back?”
“No, I don’t want you to go away and come back,” Castiel sighs, now genuinely exasperated. “I need your help, Zach.”
“You do?” asks Zachariah, sounding somewhere between wary and flattered. He smiles, almost shyly. “From me? What kind of-”
Stopping mid-sentence off Castiel’s look, his face falls and Zachariah takes a step backwards. Every inch of his body has gone taut with suspicion. In an instant, he seems to know exactly what Castiel is after, and his chubby hand lifts to the amulet around his neck, a small gold, horned head of a man bound on a leather strap. He clutches at it possessively.
“Hey, listen…”
“Come on, you know that exorcism wasn’t right,” Castiel interrupts. His face has an expression of bald intimidation, but he seems to be trying to back up his bullying with truth. “I’ve got an assignment for you.”
“What kind of assignment?” Zachariah asks hesitantly.
“The kind you’ll have to be sober for,” deadpans Castiel.
“Oh God,” Zachariah wails, his hand gripping tighter around the amulet. “You want me to surf the ether.” He goes pale and stutters for a moment, either from nervousness or because he’s searching for an excuse, or both. “I… I don’t have the sight anymore,” he tries.
The dark line of Castiel’s eyebrow arches again, a smile playing at his lips. “Don’t have it, or don’t want to use it?” he questions wryly. At Zachariah’s vacillation, he gentles his tone. “Just… look around,” he suggests. “A few days. You spot anything unusual, anything-You let me know. Okay?” With one arm going behind Zachariah’s shoulders like a good buddy, Castiel smiles his placating smile and reaches behind the older priest’s neck. “It’ll be like old times,” he assures him, and lifts the amulet off Zachariah’s head. “You don’t need its protection.” It disappears into his pocket, obviously unnerving the other man, and Castiel adds, again, “Just for a few days.”
“Okay, okay,” Zachariah relents, though his tone has a firm undercurrent of disbelief. Like old times, right. “For you, Castiel,” he says grudgingly, and hands the flask over after one last sip. Castiel downs the rest.
Later that night, Castiel wakes himself up with another cough like the one before, so violent that it actually wrenches him upright on the bed, chest heaving. His shirt is soaked with so much sweat that he’s left a damp spot on the sheets.
Although he pulls himself from the bed and stumbles through his dark apartment to the bathroom, Castiel can’t find it in him to appear concerned until he scrabbles with the lightswitch and fumbles a towel against his mouth. Bent nearly double as he hacks from somewhere deep in his lungs, Castiel coughs and coughs, head pounding with the force and strain of it. When he lifts the towel away from his face, the threadbare cotton is drenched through with blood, so dark and mottled in places that it looks almost black. He spits the rest out into the sink and rests his head up against the mirror, breathing hard.
It’s a rare thing that leaves Castiel feeling worried, an emotion so foreign to him that he sometimes doesn’t even know how to recognize it, but the last time he saw this much blood in his hands, he was holding a knife with a half-breed demon stuck on the other end. This, though-this is new. His chest aches and burns so powerfully that he feels dizzy.
He catches the reflection of his own eyes in the mirror, stares hard. The only thing he can think is startling in its clarity: he looks afraid.
Chapter Four