Fic: Hellblazer - Chapter 6 [SPN/Constantine]
TITLE: “Hellblazer” - Chapter 6
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 3,810; 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 6 by nanoochka
As with most other things, Castiel drinks alone.
Inside his apartment, safe from doctors, angels, demons, and cops with unnervingly green eyes, he sips at a tumbler of scotch and allows himself to get good and pissed at the unfairness of his life-the unfairness of his death.
Aside from the drinking and the smoking, Castiel doesn’t have many indulgences; least of all self-pity. He’s never had a use for it and has always been too much of a man of action to sit around wallowing when he could be out getting shit done. For a guy Gabriel accuses of being selfishly-motivated, Castiel doesn’t spend a whole lot of time doing things for himself, not since he was a teenager. Sure, money is frequently a factor, but unless he’s working for Uriel or someone else who can afford to pay big, that’s not why Castiel does it. As it turns out, exorcisms don’t pay well, karmically or financially.
He downs the rest of the scotch, but before he can move to pour himself another glass, a large spider scampers across his kitchen table. They’ve never really bothered him one way or another, but tonight Castiel’s in just the wrong kind of mood to tolerate another of God’s precious creatures in his space; he flips the empty tumbler over it, trapping the spider underneath. Taking a long drag on his cigarette, he lifts the rim of the glass and blows the smoke inside. For a moment the spider runs around frantically in the poison air, bumping the edge of the glass, but it quickly gives up and goes still. Dying.
“Welcome to my life,” Castiel tells it, tonelessly.
A knock at the door interrupts the moment, and after that it can’t be said whether Castiel might have eventually gotten bored and released the spider into the night. Annoyed, he gets up from the table and saunters over to the door, releasing the security chain before he opens it. Dean is on the other side. So much for being safe.
Even though he was the one to seek Castiel out, Dean’s expression seems surprised to see him. “Mr. Constantine?” he asks. When Castiel doesn’t respond except to arch an eyebrow, he adds, “My name is Dean Win-”
“I know,” Castiel says, hoping to save him the spiel.
“I saw you at-”
“I remember.”
“And-”
“Yeah.” At Dean’s furrowed brow, Castiel just shrugs; what can he say? The guy made an impression.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions,” Dean says instead, dispensing with any further attempts at introducing himself properly.
The thought of inviting Dean into his apartment is tempting, but Castiel frowns and answers with the truth. “I’m not really in the talking mood right now,” he informs Dean.
He starts to close the door, but Dean’s hand-and dangling from the end of it, his LAPD badge-stops him from shutting it all the way. “How ‘bout you just listen? Please?”
An official visit, then. “Always a catch,” mutters Castiel, but opens the door again. The gratitude in Dean’s eyes seems genuine, and he smiles faintly in thanks, but Castiel just scowls and walks back into his apartment, expecting the detective to follow without prompting.
Although Castiel pulls out the other chair at the table in an invitation for Dean to sit, he doesn’t offer the other man a drink, figuring that Dean probably wouldn’t accept it if he’s on the job. He quickly sees that the cop is agitated, pacing around Castiel’s kitchen like a restless animal. That isn’t a good sign, Castiel thinks, but helps himself to more scotch anyway, straight from the bottle.
“My brother was murdered last week,” begins Dean, and Castiel notes that his voice drops in timbre when he says it.
“Sorry to hear that,” Castiel replies honestly, if offhand-sounding.
“His name was Sam. Sam Winchester?” Dean searches Castiel’s face for a reaction, but there isn’t one. What did he expect? Even if he knows what Castiel does for a living-which is doubtful-it’s not like he keeps tabs on each person who checks out of existence in this city. “You don’t remember him?” Dean asks uselessly.
Out of respect, Castiel tries to hide both his snort and his eye roll. “Never met him.”
“You sure?”
Now Castiel does roll his eyes. Cops: tenacious as ever. “He look like anything like you?” Castiel asks him, lifting his eyebrows and smiling faintly. Dean’s expression goes puzzled, but he shrugs ambiguously. “I would have remembered, if he did.” There’s a long pause as their eyes meet, and Castiel starts to feel vaguely stupid when Dean doesn’t respond; he looks away first, knowing now more than ever that this guy is going to be trouble for him.
“He was a patient at Ravenscar,” Dean explains eventually. “Last Tuesday, he just decided to step off the roof.”
“I thought you said he was murdered,” Castiel answers, confused.
“Yeah, well. Sam would never take his own life,” Dean says, and the emotion in his voice rattles Castiel something fierce. He knows grief when he sees it, can hear it in the way Dean’s voice goes broken and rough each time he says his brother’s name, but the last thing Castiel can deal with right now is someone else’s death. He’s got his own to worry about.
Predictably, his voice goes flippant and cold, something he’s excruciatingly good at. “Yeah, what kind of mental patient kills himself? That's just crazy.”
The flash of anger in Dean’s eyes is unmistakable, and Castiel wonders how he isn’t dead already, what with his tendency to poke at people’s open wounds, especially those who could potentially kill him. From the way Dean’s hands clench intinctively at his sides, Castiel can tell he’s thinking about it. He’s got more than a few tricks up his sleeve, true, but Dean’s a bit bigger, and happens to have a loaded weapon closer to hand than Castiel does at this moment in time.
“Look,” Dean bites out, obviously warring with himself to control his temper, “I know I’m not making much sense-Hell, I’m not really sure what I’m even doing here. I just feel-the circles you travel in-the occult, demonology, exorcisms…”
Castiel stares at the spider trapped under that glass, and Dean’s eyes follow. With more balls than he would have attributed to the detective initially, Dean leans in close over the table, insinuating himself into Castiel’s personal space in order to force eye contact. Out of surprise, Castiel bites; it’s been a while since anyone tried to compete with him for the upper hand in a conversation, except maybe that fucker, Crowley.
“I believe someone got to him, Mr. Constantine,” Dean tells him slowly. “Brainwashed him into stepping off that roof. Some kind of legion or cult, I don’t know. Sam would never kill himself unless someone was fucking with his head somehow.”
Leaning back in his chair to put some space between them, Castiel tilts his head consideringly. “Sounds like a theory,” he says. “Good luck.”
For a moment, Dean’s quiet, unsure. Then he says, “I thought with your background and experience, you could at least point me in the right direction.”
Castiel leans back a little further. “Yeah, okay. Sure.” He grabs the bottle of scotch with one hand and with the other, points-at the front door.
This seems to amuse Dean as much as Castiel’s mental patient comment. There’s that flash of anger again, but he keeps it at bay and refuses to give up. Castiel finds himself starting to admire the man’s determination, which isn’t easy to do when he’s on the receiving end; but that’s why he tries to avoid the pretty faces, as a rule. They just fuck with his sensibilities.
“My brother always talked about a world better than this,” says Dean. “‘Heaven’ as some call it. He wasn’t afraid of dying because he knew it was waiting for him. He was a devout Catholic. What everyone fails to grasp is that if he had really taken his own life-”
Castiel knows this story, all right. He’s had it memorized since he was fifteen years old. “-he would have committed a mortal sin,” he finishes for Dean. “His soul would have gone straight to Hell, where it would never feel love or compassion or anything but pain as the Master himself rips him apart over and over, for the rest of eternity.” He pauses for a beat, and looks up to find Dean staring at him with such open, unmistakable hatred that Castiel almost flinches back from it; almost. Instead he adds, “Is that about right?”
The words hit so hard that Dean, for a moment, is speechless. Castiel sees the hurt and the rage in his eyes, and immediately wants to take the whole comment back, but it’s too late. Dean is on him before Castiel has even registered that he’s moved round to the other side of the table, hands fisted in Castiel’s shirtfront and slamming him back against the wood. The glass with the spider beneath it rocks hard against the edge but doesn’t fall; the bottle of scotch on the other hand, does, crashing to the floor with a weak clank, followed by the sound of his Ardbeg glugging out all over the floor. Castiel grits his teeth and gives a weak shove back, because-damn it. He’d planned on enjoying the rest of that while he was still able. Even the feel of Dean pressed against him from shoulder to hip has a hard time making up for it.
For a moment, Castiel thinks that Dean is going to punch him, and maybe he deserves that much for being such a cantankerous dick, who knows. But Dean just breathes into his face for a moment instead, going heavy and wounded when he sees that Castiel isn’t going to fight him back. He withdraws with a ragged intake of breath, just far enough to let Castiel know that he isn’t going to beat the shit out of him before he whispers, “Goddamn you. You’re not the only one afraid of Hell.”
Just like that, Dean’s hands, his weight, are gone. He leaves the apartment in silence, but not before grabbing the tumbler from over the spider and smashing it against the nearest wall with a well-placed throw. The spider breaks for freedom. Still too busy trying not to let Dean’s comment get to him, Castiel barely notices; he swears to himself once, vehmently, and runs his hands through his hair in exasperation. Now he feels like an asshole. It might be true, but Castiel hates nothing more than being made to feel guilty about it. People should learn to stay the fuck away from others' coping mechanisms.
He picks the bottle of scotch off the floor and sets it on the table, sucking the alcohol from his fingers contemplatively, but when he glances at the window he notices that there’s something not quite right about the passing shadows. As he stares, they continue to intensify, and at the first beat of wings Castiel says, “Oh shit.”
Without pausing to grab his jacket, he’s out the door and running into the street after Dean.
Predictably, the neighbourhood is quiet, especially at this hour, and Dean’s car is one of the few parked along the street. He walks along the sidewalk towards it without the slightest awareness of the shadows following him, and only pauses when he hears footsteps thudding up from behind.
Castiel says, “Detective!” and Dean turns.
For a moment they just look at each other, Dean still terribly angry but trying not to be unnerved by the look of worry in Castiel’s eyes. He’s thinking that maybe there’s an apology coming his way, but what comes out of Castiel’s mouth instead is, “How open is your mind?”
Dean scoffs at him in disgust and keeps walking. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Castiel looking around in alarm, and at that moment Dean realizes he should have known better than to solicit help from someone who’s obviously off his rocker.
Unknowingly proving his point, Castiel keeps asking him questions, shit that Dean’s never before heard come from a person’s mouth, except for the guys on street corners with signs proclaiming the end of the world. “Do you believe in Heaven and Hell?” he asks, out of breath. “How about what comes out of each?”
Dean rolls his eyes and keeps walking. One of his hands goes into his pocket to dig for his keys, and the other tests the weight of the gun at his hip. He doesn’t think he’ll need it, but he’s pissed enough to be comforted by the knowledge that it’s there if Constantine doesn’t back the fuck off.
“Hey!” A hand attaches itself to Dean’s elbow and spins him around.
“What the fuck do you want, man?” Dean demands, face dark.
“I asked you a question,” Castiel points out, and his eyes are bright and intense, with an edge of anxiety Dean can’t remember seeing back at the apartment.
“Yeah, and I ignored it.”
“You came for my help,” Castiel reminds him. “Answer the question.”
Again, Dean rolls his eyes, but decides to play along. “You mean like angels?”
“And demons.”
For almost a full thirty seconds, Dean just stares at him, incredulous; then he snorts and keeps walking. He pulls the key to his Impala from his jacket just to have something to focus on other than Castiel’s face. The fucker keeps up with him.
"What if I told you that God and the Devil made a wager," he continues, "a kind of standing bet for the souls of all mankind?"
"I'd tell you to stay on your meds," Dean quips, walking a little faster. He's more or less decided to lose this guy, attractive or not; no matter what Dean thinks he saw, Constantine isn't going to help him with his case, not at this rate.
“See, you don’t have the mindset for this kind of work,” Castiel tells him, as they walk together down the lonely street. "But humour me." He ticks off his fingers like he's counting the items on a shopping list. "No direct contact with humans. That would be the rule. Just influence. See who would win."
"Okay, I'm humouring you," Dean prompts, hoping the conversation will be done by the time they get to his car. "Why?"
"Who knows?" Castiel shoots back. "Maybe just for the fun of it. No telling."
“Oh, so it's fun.” Dean stops walking long enough to face off against Constantine, and the weird, eager-but-not-quite-hopeful look in his eyes. “Listen, man, I see terrible things every day. A mother drowns her baby; a ten-year-old shoots his father. And you think the Devil is responsible? No way. That’s just the evil that people do.”
Behind them, a streetlight blinks out, and then another, but neither of them are looking back, so they don’t see it. Like a row of dominoes, the lights fizzle and flicker out one by one, slowly advancing to where Dean and Castiel stand in the street.
“You’re right,” Castiel agrees with him, nodding, and he grips Dean’s bicep like there’s something really important he needs to emphasize. They're really close, Dean realizes, and he wants it to make him uncomfortable, but it doesn't; Castiel's energy is strangely contagious, and his intensity gives Dean a feeling a bit like light-headedness. “We’re capable of terrible things, but we usually justify it with motives like money and power and jealousy.” Another light sputters out. “Then sometimes, something comes along and gives us just the right nudge, and we do truly evil things just for the kick of it.”
“This has been real educational, but I don’t believe in the Devil,” Dean says firmly.
Castiel snorts, and looks up at Dean from under his eyelashes in a way that would be incredibly sexy, if Dean didn’t think he was a complete fucking nutjob. “You should,” says Castiel with an odd smile. “He believes in you.”
Directly above their heads, the streetlight flares and produces a sizzle of sparks before it blacks out. Both men look up, and immediately turn to see that there are no lights behind them. Dean looks to Castiel, but finds the other man staring at a lamp in front of the Holy Cross Cemetery down the street, one of the few remaining sources of light in the rapidly darkening neighbourhood. Even Dean can tell that it’s flaring brighter than is normal.
"Power outage?" he wonders aloud.
“Not likely,” Castiel mutters. "We should go..." When another streetlamp blinks out a second later, he grabs Dean’s hand and adds, “Fast.”
The weight of Castiel’s hand around his both confuses and unnerves Dean, but the feeling quickly turns to tension as a raspy, guttural wind begins to race towards them. It’s loud-too loud, he thinks, but Castiel jerks him into action and begins to forcibly drag him down the street, racing them from one light to the next, all of them fizzling out the moment they pass. Dean realizes that Castiel is aiming for the brightly-lit statue of the Good Shepherd in front of the cemetery, but instead of stopping in front of it, Castiel pulls him through the front gate and into an alley of overhanging trees. "Romantic," Dean wants to quip, but he can't find the voice in his throat, or the humour in this situation, for that matter.
Something ripples through the branches and glances right across Dean’s cheek, and he pulls up short to swat at it, catching a branch across the face as he does so. The cemetery floodlights all gutter out as one, leaving the area in pitch-darkness, turning the headstones and statues of saints into dark monoliths. Pulling him on ahead, Castiel stops between what looks like an open area between the trees and a mausoleum, all Dean can make out in the dim moonlight. He can feel the scratch on his cheek trickling blood, but the sounds advancing on them from the blackness distracts him. The closest thing he can think of to describe it is that it sounds like leather rubbing, growing increasingly loud, increasingly more like they’re surrounded.
“What the fuck is that?” he says, hand going to his gun once more.
To his surprise, Castiel sounds just as puzzled. “Wings…?”
Dean glares at him. “Wings?”
“And maybe talons.” Castiel hurriedly rummages through the pockets of his trousers, and eventually fishes out a piece of cloth and a lighter. He flicks open the Zippo and Dean sees his face illuminated and anxious.
That look alone is enough to get Dean unholstering his gun and flicking off the safety. “Are you fucking kidding me? Of what?”
Castiel’s eyes dark over to his gun. “Something that’s not supposed to be here. That isn't going to help.”
Saying no more, Castiel quickly wraps the cloth tight around his hand, and Dean spins around as the sounds get closer, movement flickering in the shadows beyond Castiel’s lighter. Their circle of light seems to get smaller and smaller as the noises approach.
“Close your eyes,” Castiel instructs, bringing the flame close to the cloth around his fist. They’re now engulfed by pitch black; the flame hardly cuts through it.
“Why?”
Ever one for impeccably-timed ire, it seems, Castiel snorts. “Suit yourself.”
Castiel touches the lighter to the cloth and sweeps out his arm in one powerful motion as the fabric catches the flame. It ignites with a brilliant, retina-searing flash, blinding Dean, but not quite enough to prevent him from seeing the circle of winged demons-a roiling broth of reptilian death-that surrounds them, wings beating and, yes, talons extended, ready to pounce. They are the most horrible things he's ever seen, more terrifying than his most excruciating nightmare or most vivid childhood imaginings. If he'd known about these things as a kid, he would have told the monster under the bed to suck his dick. Dean, never one to pussy out in even the most stressful of circumstances, wants to cover his eyes and never open them again. He doesn't, however, and he sees the red flame blaze out from the cloth like an inferno. The demons shriek as they are instantly vaporized. Castiel, expression a determined mask that is quite possibly the sexiest thing Dean can think of right now, waves it about as the last of them are incinerated. It all happens so fast that Dean barely registers when Castiel tucks his burning hand into his pocket, let alone what just happened. The lights of the cemetery return like the whole thing was nothing more than a random power outage, but he can smell the overwhelming smell of something rotten in the air, something... sulfurous? It's so powerful that he gags.
Castiel notices, and pats him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, happens to everyone their first time. It's the sulfur."
Fucked.
He’s left staring dumbly as Castiel steps forward and leans down to a rubbery stain left from one of the burnt demon carcasses, shaking his head in disbelief. Dean thinks he hears Castiel say, “’I accidentally crossed over’? I don’t think so, Uriel.”
Shaking himself out of it, Dean can’t bring himself to re-holster his gun as he approaches Castiel from behind, growing more incredulous when he find’s the other man’s gaze completely calm. “What the hell was that?” he shouts. “I saw wings-and teeth-they were flying. What the fuck were those things?!”
“Well, they weren’t angels,” Castiel deadpans before turning to scan the area, obviously thinking something through. Thoughtfully he says, “Seplavites, actually-scavengers for the damned.” Dean must have made a face, because he adds, “Demons?”
“Excuse me?” Dean takes a step back, but doesn’t stray too far when he realizes he has no idea what might still be out there. “You can’t be serious… This is impossible.”
“Yeah, right,” answers Castiel. He regards Dean with his head tilted to one side as he says, “And I don’t think they were after me.”
He says it in a way that Dean can only describe as ‘interested’. He’s been getting that vibe from Castiel since they first met, but for some reason he gets the feeling that this is the first time Castiel’s been able to put his finger on why that might be. Dean doesn’t like it.
“You really believe that Sam wouldn’t commit suicide?” he asks.
Dean is thrown by the question. “My brother?” he answers instinctively. Castiel raises an eyebrow, and Dean shakes his head. “Never in a million years.”
Castiel starts walking away. “Then let’s be sure.” Dean is compelled to go after him.
“How?”
Looking back at him, Castiel actually grins. “Simple. We see if he’s in Hell.”
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 3,810; 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 6 by nanoochka
As with most other things, Castiel drinks alone.
Inside his apartment, safe from doctors, angels, demons, and cops with unnervingly green eyes, he sips at a tumbler of scotch and allows himself to get good and pissed at the unfairness of his life-the unfairness of his death.
Aside from the drinking and the smoking, Castiel doesn’t have many indulgences; least of all self-pity. He’s never had a use for it and has always been too much of a man of action to sit around wallowing when he could be out getting shit done. For a guy Gabriel accuses of being selfishly-motivated, Castiel doesn’t spend a whole lot of time doing things for himself, not since he was a teenager. Sure, money is frequently a factor, but unless he’s working for Uriel or someone else who can afford to pay big, that’s not why Castiel does it. As it turns out, exorcisms don’t pay well, karmically or financially.
He downs the rest of the scotch, but before he can move to pour himself another glass, a large spider scampers across his kitchen table. They’ve never really bothered him one way or another, but tonight Castiel’s in just the wrong kind of mood to tolerate another of God’s precious creatures in his space; he flips the empty tumbler over it, trapping the spider underneath. Taking a long drag on his cigarette, he lifts the rim of the glass and blows the smoke inside. For a moment the spider runs around frantically in the poison air, bumping the edge of the glass, but it quickly gives up and goes still. Dying.
“Welcome to my life,” Castiel tells it, tonelessly.
A knock at the door interrupts the moment, and after that it can’t be said whether Castiel might have eventually gotten bored and released the spider into the night. Annoyed, he gets up from the table and saunters over to the door, releasing the security chain before he opens it. Dean is on the other side. So much for being safe.
Even though he was the one to seek Castiel out, Dean’s expression seems surprised to see him. “Mr. Constantine?” he asks. When Castiel doesn’t respond except to arch an eyebrow, he adds, “My name is Dean Win-”
“I know,” Castiel says, hoping to save him the spiel.
“I saw you at-”
“I remember.”
“And-”
“Yeah.” At Dean’s furrowed brow, Castiel just shrugs; what can he say? The guy made an impression.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions,” Dean says instead, dispensing with any further attempts at introducing himself properly.
The thought of inviting Dean into his apartment is tempting, but Castiel frowns and answers with the truth. “I’m not really in the talking mood right now,” he informs Dean.
He starts to close the door, but Dean’s hand-and dangling from the end of it, his LAPD badge-stops him from shutting it all the way. “How ‘bout you just listen? Please?”
An official visit, then. “Always a catch,” mutters Castiel, but opens the door again. The gratitude in Dean’s eyes seems genuine, and he smiles faintly in thanks, but Castiel just scowls and walks back into his apartment, expecting the detective to follow without prompting.
Although Castiel pulls out the other chair at the table in an invitation for Dean to sit, he doesn’t offer the other man a drink, figuring that Dean probably wouldn’t accept it if he’s on the job. He quickly sees that the cop is agitated, pacing around Castiel’s kitchen like a restless animal. That isn’t a good sign, Castiel thinks, but helps himself to more scotch anyway, straight from the bottle.
“My brother was murdered last week,” begins Dean, and Castiel notes that his voice drops in timbre when he says it.
“Sorry to hear that,” Castiel replies honestly, if offhand-sounding.
“His name was Sam. Sam Winchester?” Dean searches Castiel’s face for a reaction, but there isn’t one. What did he expect? Even if he knows what Castiel does for a living-which is doubtful-it’s not like he keeps tabs on each person who checks out of existence in this city. “You don’t remember him?” Dean asks uselessly.
Out of respect, Castiel tries to hide both his snort and his eye roll. “Never met him.”
“You sure?”
Now Castiel does roll his eyes. Cops: tenacious as ever. “He look like anything like you?” Castiel asks him, lifting his eyebrows and smiling faintly. Dean’s expression goes puzzled, but he shrugs ambiguously. “I would have remembered, if he did.” There’s a long pause as their eyes meet, and Castiel starts to feel vaguely stupid when Dean doesn’t respond; he looks away first, knowing now more than ever that this guy is going to be trouble for him.
“He was a patient at Ravenscar,” Dean explains eventually. “Last Tuesday, he just decided to step off the roof.”
“I thought you said he was murdered,” Castiel answers, confused.
“Yeah, well. Sam would never take his own life,” Dean says, and the emotion in his voice rattles Castiel something fierce. He knows grief when he sees it, can hear it in the way Dean’s voice goes broken and rough each time he says his brother’s name, but the last thing Castiel can deal with right now is someone else’s death. He’s got his own to worry about.
Predictably, his voice goes flippant and cold, something he’s excruciatingly good at. “Yeah, what kind of mental patient kills himself? That's just crazy.”
The flash of anger in Dean’s eyes is unmistakable, and Castiel wonders how he isn’t dead already, what with his tendency to poke at people’s open wounds, especially those who could potentially kill him. From the way Dean’s hands clench intinctively at his sides, Castiel can tell he’s thinking about it. He’s got more than a few tricks up his sleeve, true, but Dean’s a bit bigger, and happens to have a loaded weapon closer to hand than Castiel does at this moment in time.
“Look,” Dean bites out, obviously warring with himself to control his temper, “I know I’m not making much sense-Hell, I’m not really sure what I’m even doing here. I just feel-the circles you travel in-the occult, demonology, exorcisms…”
Castiel stares at the spider trapped under that glass, and Dean’s eyes follow. With more balls than he would have attributed to the detective initially, Dean leans in close over the table, insinuating himself into Castiel’s personal space in order to force eye contact. Out of surprise, Castiel bites; it’s been a while since anyone tried to compete with him for the upper hand in a conversation, except maybe that fucker, Crowley.
“I believe someone got to him, Mr. Constantine,” Dean tells him slowly. “Brainwashed him into stepping off that roof. Some kind of legion or cult, I don’t know. Sam would never kill himself unless someone was fucking with his head somehow.”
Leaning back in his chair to put some space between them, Castiel tilts his head consideringly. “Sounds like a theory,” he says. “Good luck.”
For a moment, Dean’s quiet, unsure. Then he says, “I thought with your background and experience, you could at least point me in the right direction.”
Castiel leans back a little further. “Yeah, okay. Sure.” He grabs the bottle of scotch with one hand and with the other, points-at the front door.
This seems to amuse Dean as much as Castiel’s mental patient comment. There’s that flash of anger again, but he keeps it at bay and refuses to give up. Castiel finds himself starting to admire the man’s determination, which isn’t easy to do when he’s on the receiving end; but that’s why he tries to avoid the pretty faces, as a rule. They just fuck with his sensibilities.
“My brother always talked about a world better than this,” says Dean. “‘Heaven’ as some call it. He wasn’t afraid of dying because he knew it was waiting for him. He was a devout Catholic. What everyone fails to grasp is that if he had really taken his own life-”
Castiel knows this story, all right. He’s had it memorized since he was fifteen years old. “-he would have committed a mortal sin,” he finishes for Dean. “His soul would have gone straight to Hell, where it would never feel love or compassion or anything but pain as the Master himself rips him apart over and over, for the rest of eternity.” He pauses for a beat, and looks up to find Dean staring at him with such open, unmistakable hatred that Castiel almost flinches back from it; almost. Instead he adds, “Is that about right?”
The words hit so hard that Dean, for a moment, is speechless. Castiel sees the hurt and the rage in his eyes, and immediately wants to take the whole comment back, but it’s too late. Dean is on him before Castiel has even registered that he’s moved round to the other side of the table, hands fisted in Castiel’s shirtfront and slamming him back against the wood. The glass with the spider beneath it rocks hard against the edge but doesn’t fall; the bottle of scotch on the other hand, does, crashing to the floor with a weak clank, followed by the sound of his Ardbeg glugging out all over the floor. Castiel grits his teeth and gives a weak shove back, because-damn it. He’d planned on enjoying the rest of that while he was still able. Even the feel of Dean pressed against him from shoulder to hip has a hard time making up for it.
For a moment, Castiel thinks that Dean is going to punch him, and maybe he deserves that much for being such a cantankerous dick, who knows. But Dean just breathes into his face for a moment instead, going heavy and wounded when he sees that Castiel isn’t going to fight him back. He withdraws with a ragged intake of breath, just far enough to let Castiel know that he isn’t going to beat the shit out of him before he whispers, “Goddamn you. You’re not the only one afraid of Hell.”
Just like that, Dean’s hands, his weight, are gone. He leaves the apartment in silence, but not before grabbing the tumbler from over the spider and smashing it against the nearest wall with a well-placed throw. The spider breaks for freedom. Still too busy trying not to let Dean’s comment get to him, Castiel barely notices; he swears to himself once, vehmently, and runs his hands through his hair in exasperation. Now he feels like an asshole. It might be true, but Castiel hates nothing more than being made to feel guilty about it. People should learn to stay the fuck away from others' coping mechanisms.
He picks the bottle of scotch off the floor and sets it on the table, sucking the alcohol from his fingers contemplatively, but when he glances at the window he notices that there’s something not quite right about the passing shadows. As he stares, they continue to intensify, and at the first beat of wings Castiel says, “Oh shit.”
Without pausing to grab his jacket, he’s out the door and running into the street after Dean.
Predictably, the neighbourhood is quiet, especially at this hour, and Dean’s car is one of the few parked along the street. He walks along the sidewalk towards it without the slightest awareness of the shadows following him, and only pauses when he hears footsteps thudding up from behind.
Castiel says, “Detective!” and Dean turns.
For a moment they just look at each other, Dean still terribly angry but trying not to be unnerved by the look of worry in Castiel’s eyes. He’s thinking that maybe there’s an apology coming his way, but what comes out of Castiel’s mouth instead is, “How open is your mind?”
Dean scoffs at him in disgust and keeps walking. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Castiel looking around in alarm, and at that moment Dean realizes he should have known better than to solicit help from someone who’s obviously off his rocker.
Unknowingly proving his point, Castiel keeps asking him questions, shit that Dean’s never before heard come from a person’s mouth, except for the guys on street corners with signs proclaiming the end of the world. “Do you believe in Heaven and Hell?” he asks, out of breath. “How about what comes out of each?”
Dean rolls his eyes and keeps walking. One of his hands goes into his pocket to dig for his keys, and the other tests the weight of the gun at his hip. He doesn’t think he’ll need it, but he’s pissed enough to be comforted by the knowledge that it’s there if Constantine doesn’t back the fuck off.
“Hey!” A hand attaches itself to Dean’s elbow and spins him around.
“What the fuck do you want, man?” Dean demands, face dark.
“I asked you a question,” Castiel points out, and his eyes are bright and intense, with an edge of anxiety Dean can’t remember seeing back at the apartment.
“Yeah, and I ignored it.”
“You came for my help,” Castiel reminds him. “Answer the question.”
Again, Dean rolls his eyes, but decides to play along. “You mean like angels?”
“And demons.”
For almost a full thirty seconds, Dean just stares at him, incredulous; then he snorts and keeps walking. He pulls the key to his Impala from his jacket just to have something to focus on other than Castiel’s face. The fucker keeps up with him.
"What if I told you that God and the Devil made a wager," he continues, "a kind of standing bet for the souls of all mankind?"
"I'd tell you to stay on your meds," Dean quips, walking a little faster. He's more or less decided to lose this guy, attractive or not; no matter what Dean thinks he saw, Constantine isn't going to help him with his case, not at this rate.
“See, you don’t have the mindset for this kind of work,” Castiel tells him, as they walk together down the lonely street. "But humour me." He ticks off his fingers like he's counting the items on a shopping list. "No direct contact with humans. That would be the rule. Just influence. See who would win."
"Okay, I'm humouring you," Dean prompts, hoping the conversation will be done by the time they get to his car. "Why?"
"Who knows?" Castiel shoots back. "Maybe just for the fun of it. No telling."
“Oh, so it's fun.” Dean stops walking long enough to face off against Constantine, and the weird, eager-but-not-quite-hopeful look in his eyes. “Listen, man, I see terrible things every day. A mother drowns her baby; a ten-year-old shoots his father. And you think the Devil is responsible? No way. That’s just the evil that people do.”
Behind them, a streetlight blinks out, and then another, but neither of them are looking back, so they don’t see it. Like a row of dominoes, the lights fizzle and flicker out one by one, slowly advancing to where Dean and Castiel stand in the street.
“You’re right,” Castiel agrees with him, nodding, and he grips Dean’s bicep like there’s something really important he needs to emphasize. They're really close, Dean realizes, and he wants it to make him uncomfortable, but it doesn't; Castiel's energy is strangely contagious, and his intensity gives Dean a feeling a bit like light-headedness. “We’re capable of terrible things, but we usually justify it with motives like money and power and jealousy.” Another light sputters out. “Then sometimes, something comes along and gives us just the right nudge, and we do truly evil things just for the kick of it.”
“This has been real educational, but I don’t believe in the Devil,” Dean says firmly.
Castiel snorts, and looks up at Dean from under his eyelashes in a way that would be incredibly sexy, if Dean didn’t think he was a complete fucking nutjob. “You should,” says Castiel with an odd smile. “He believes in you.”
Directly above their heads, the streetlight flares and produces a sizzle of sparks before it blacks out. Both men look up, and immediately turn to see that there are no lights behind them. Dean looks to Castiel, but finds the other man staring at a lamp in front of the Holy Cross Cemetery down the street, one of the few remaining sources of light in the rapidly darkening neighbourhood. Even Dean can tell that it’s flaring brighter than is normal.
"Power outage?" he wonders aloud.
“Not likely,” Castiel mutters. "We should go..." When another streetlamp blinks out a second later, he grabs Dean’s hand and adds, “Fast.”
The weight of Castiel’s hand around his both confuses and unnerves Dean, but the feeling quickly turns to tension as a raspy, guttural wind begins to race towards them. It’s loud-too loud, he thinks, but Castiel jerks him into action and begins to forcibly drag him down the street, racing them from one light to the next, all of them fizzling out the moment they pass. Dean realizes that Castiel is aiming for the brightly-lit statue of the Good Shepherd in front of the cemetery, but instead of stopping in front of it, Castiel pulls him through the front gate and into an alley of overhanging trees. "Romantic," Dean wants to quip, but he can't find the voice in his throat, or the humour in this situation, for that matter.
Something ripples through the branches and glances right across Dean’s cheek, and he pulls up short to swat at it, catching a branch across the face as he does so. The cemetery floodlights all gutter out as one, leaving the area in pitch-darkness, turning the headstones and statues of saints into dark monoliths. Pulling him on ahead, Castiel stops between what looks like an open area between the trees and a mausoleum, all Dean can make out in the dim moonlight. He can feel the scratch on his cheek trickling blood, but the sounds advancing on them from the blackness distracts him. The closest thing he can think of to describe it is that it sounds like leather rubbing, growing increasingly loud, increasingly more like they’re surrounded.
“What the fuck is that?” he says, hand going to his gun once more.
To his surprise, Castiel sounds just as puzzled. “Wings…?”
Dean glares at him. “Wings?”
“And maybe talons.” Castiel hurriedly rummages through the pockets of his trousers, and eventually fishes out a piece of cloth and a lighter. He flicks open the Zippo and Dean sees his face illuminated and anxious.
That look alone is enough to get Dean unholstering his gun and flicking off the safety. “Are you fucking kidding me? Of what?”
Castiel’s eyes dark over to his gun. “Something that’s not supposed to be here. That isn't going to help.”
Saying no more, Castiel quickly wraps the cloth tight around his hand, and Dean spins around as the sounds get closer, movement flickering in the shadows beyond Castiel’s lighter. Their circle of light seems to get smaller and smaller as the noises approach.
“Close your eyes,” Castiel instructs, bringing the flame close to the cloth around his fist. They’re now engulfed by pitch black; the flame hardly cuts through it.
“Why?”
Ever one for impeccably-timed ire, it seems, Castiel snorts. “Suit yourself.”
Castiel touches the lighter to the cloth and sweeps out his arm in one powerful motion as the fabric catches the flame. It ignites with a brilliant, retina-searing flash, blinding Dean, but not quite enough to prevent him from seeing the circle of winged demons-a roiling broth of reptilian death-that surrounds them, wings beating and, yes, talons extended, ready to pounce. They are the most horrible things he's ever seen, more terrifying than his most excruciating nightmare or most vivid childhood imaginings. If he'd known about these things as a kid, he would have told the monster under the bed to suck his dick. Dean, never one to pussy out in even the most stressful of circumstances, wants to cover his eyes and never open them again. He doesn't, however, and he sees the red flame blaze out from the cloth like an inferno. The demons shriek as they are instantly vaporized. Castiel, expression a determined mask that is quite possibly the sexiest thing Dean can think of right now, waves it about as the last of them are incinerated. It all happens so fast that Dean barely registers when Castiel tucks his burning hand into his pocket, let alone what just happened. The lights of the cemetery return like the whole thing was nothing more than a random power outage, but he can smell the overwhelming smell of something rotten in the air, something... sulfurous? It's so powerful that he gags.
Castiel notices, and pats him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, happens to everyone their first time. It's the sulfur."
Fucked.
He’s left staring dumbly as Castiel steps forward and leans down to a rubbery stain left from one of the burnt demon carcasses, shaking his head in disbelief. Dean thinks he hears Castiel say, “’I accidentally crossed over’? I don’t think so, Uriel.”
Shaking himself out of it, Dean can’t bring himself to re-holster his gun as he approaches Castiel from behind, growing more incredulous when he find’s the other man’s gaze completely calm. “What the hell was that?” he shouts. “I saw wings-and teeth-they were flying. What the fuck were those things?!”
“Well, they weren’t angels,” Castiel deadpans before turning to scan the area, obviously thinking something through. Thoughtfully he says, “Seplavites, actually-scavengers for the damned.” Dean must have made a face, because he adds, “Demons?”
“Excuse me?” Dean takes a step back, but doesn’t stray too far when he realizes he has no idea what might still be out there. “You can’t be serious… This is impossible.”
“Yeah, right,” answers Castiel. He regards Dean with his head tilted to one side as he says, “And I don’t think they were after me.”
He says it in a way that Dean can only describe as ‘interested’. He’s been getting that vibe from Castiel since they first met, but for some reason he gets the feeling that this is the first time Castiel’s been able to put his finger on why that might be. Dean doesn’t like it.
“You really believe that Sam wouldn’t commit suicide?” he asks.
Dean is thrown by the question. “My brother?” he answers instinctively. Castiel raises an eyebrow, and Dean shakes his head. “Never in a million years.”
Castiel starts walking away. “Then let’s be sure.” Dean is compelled to go after him.
“How?”
Looking back at him, Castiel actually grins. “Simple. We see if he’s in Hell.”