(no subject)
Title: Untitled X-Files Fusion [2/ ?]
Author: nirvana_falling
Rating: PG-13 for this part
Genre and/or Pairing: Dean/Cas seriously where else would I go with this.
Spoilers: Eh, general for both series, but nothing really explicit.
Word Count: 5313
Summary: "I'd KILL for a good X-Files crossover. Come on, Castiel in the basement, Dean sent to disprove his theories? Sam, lost? That shit would be bananas," Said rageprufrock. My formspring-creepin' ass saw this and went YES I LOVE ALL OF THESE THINGS. And, uh, this was born. Also, title suggestions, please
GUYS I SUCK I'M SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG
“Cas,” Deans says as he bursts into the basement office, “we can’t take that sketchy abduction case in New Mexico. I know you wanted to visit Roswell and get a little alien toy, but that’ll have to wait. I’m sure you have vacation days stored up.”
The noise Cas makes in the back of his throat qualifies for petulant in Dean’s universe, but he still doesn’t look up as he asks why.
“Something came up, upstairs. They, ah, need me to help out with a case.”
“They need you to help out.”
“Have a little faith, Cas,” Dean laughs. “They may have kicked me out, but I did some pretty damn good work while I was there.”
“Really,” Cas says, dry.
“Look, I’m sorry. I really am, but this is something I have to do.”
“Dean,” Cas sighs, and, yeah, he does always have this five o’clock shadow and ridiculous, dark bags under his eyes and Dean feels bad for giving him trouble, sometimes, but not this time. “I don’t mind, really. I would prefer if you explained,” he leans on that word, “since I can’t go off to New Mexico, or anywhere else, without some sort of backup.”
“Right, yeah, of course.” Dean was sort of hoping Castiel would just make the same long-suffering expression he always makes when Dean does something he thinks is particularly stupid, because his time in Violent Crimes is probably his second-least favorite topic of conversation, ever. “I guess I should point out first that they didn’t want to ask for my help on this case, but, uh, it was insisted upon.”
“Skinner?”
“I wish. No, it was the perp, actually.” Cas looks up at that, giving Dean the full intensity of his stare.
“You heard about the robbery yesterday, right?”
“If I recall, it was unnecessarily violent.”
“That’s kinda the guy’s m. o.”
“The one that got away?” Cas asks. Dean twists his face in amusement and displeasure, but shakes his head.
“Not at all. I was head of the operation that put him behind bars, actually. As far as the records show, he died in jail.”
“But he robbed a jewelry store last night.”
“Apparently,” Dean snorts. “It may be a copycat, but if it is, then it’s the best damn copycat I’ve ever seen.”
“Security cameras show anything?”
“Wow, Cas, you do remember how to work a real case,” Dean jokes, tempted to ruffle Castiel’s hair, but then Cas gives him a look and he reevaluates that idea pretty quickly. Sobered, though, he continues, “Yeah, the camera’s got the guy, but not very well. From what we can tell, though, it’s not a copycat.”
“Really?”
“Looks like my old friend,” Dean grimaces, “come back from beyond the grave. That’s why I figured I’d bring you in. This is right up your alley.”
“Right up my alley?” Castiel asks, with some sort of expression playing around his lips. A smirk, Dean thinks, given how unenthusiastic Cas looks about the whole endeavor.
“Well, rising from the dead isn’t exactly natural. I figured you’d have something about it in the x-files.”
“Dean,” Cas grinds out, in that long-suffering tone that really does make Dean resolve to learn more about the x-files, or at least cut down on his ribbing, or buy Cas a cup of coffee, or something, “rising from the dead is far from a common supernatural occurrence.”
“Even if we’re talking zombies?”
“Did the man on the tape look like a zombie?”
“No,” Dean sighs. “He was moving like a normal human.”
“Then unless we have another reason to suspect it, I’m saying no zombies here.”
“One day,” Dean tells him, “one day we’re going to get to fight zombies.”
“I’m sure,” Cas agrees, “and then you’ll see how absolutely awful it is.”
“Whoa, wait. Cas, you’ve fought zombies?”
“Not personally,” he admits, “but I’ve spoken with people who have.”
Dean snorts, but lets it go. “So, no hope from the mystical filing cabinets, then?”
“I’m afraid not. Things like that don’t wind up in the x-files too often.”
“Like what?”
“Genuine miracles,” Cas says. He’s turned back to his computer, but Dean thinks he sees a flush on Cas’s cheeks.
“So you really believe in that stuff, then.”
“In what stuff?” This is the side of Castiel that Dean is most comfortable with: prickly and precise and sort of exasperated with Dean in a general way.
“Miracles, will of God manifest, etcetera, etcetera, the guys upstairs said you did, but I thought they were exaggerating.”
“What’s so strange about believing in God?” Yeah, Cas has a definitive flush high on his cheeks and he’s definitely not actually doing anything on his computer. His hands are still and rigid on the desk.
“Nothing, really,” Dean starts, and almost leaves it at that, but he’s having a fucking horrible day and since Dean is sort of an emotional retard, or at least Anna had told him he was as she was ending their three-week sort of relationship thing, and, okay, maybe she had a point, but Dean’s never given it too much thought, he keeps going, “but, really, Cas? Resurrection and all that? It’s a nice fable and all, I mean, I went to church as a kid, but, come on.”
“I take it you’re not a religious man,” Cas says, and Dean’s not so stupid that he doesn’t get that Cas would rather drop the subject of his personal beliefs. Fine, Dean will give him that; he had been raised with the ‘no sex, no politics, no religion’ rule of conversation, anyway.
“No,” he agrees, “not anymore.” At the tilt of Cas’s head he answers with, “It was the job. You know I used to be up in Violent Crimes. Guess my faith wasn’t strong enough to make it through what you see in there.”
“I can only imagine,” Cas murmurs.
“Don’t worry about it.” Dean shrugs and moves towards the door.”I’ve already been down here too long; there’s something Skinner said I’d want to see in forensics. You’re, uh, you’re free to come if you want.”
“I think I will,” Cas says.
Skinner, as always, is right. There is something in forensics Dean is very, very interested in: a handwriting analysis. “Burnett left a note,” he explains to Cas as the agent supposed to explain the results to them hunts through a stack of papers on her desk for something, “which mentions me.”
“And that’s why they called you in?”
“Yeah,” Dean says, and everything else gets cut off as the agent resurfaces with an apologetic smile.
“Here we go,” she says. “Now, this is really interesting. We were able to compare the note received last night with one he left five years ago.” She gestures for Dean to come next to her. “See here, the deeper indentation on the ‘W’ or your name, since he’s applying more pressure, and here,” she gestures to something else and Dean does tune out a little. This stuff is important, but Dean has never really had the head for cold, hard analysis of anything, really. He prefers action.
“The gist of this is, well, I’ll show you.” She shoves the two notes underneath Dean’s nose. “Look, they’re exactly the same. Exactly, every word they share is written in exactly the same way.”
“Then it’s Burnett, no question?”
“Well,” she purses her lips and Dean’s heart sinks. “Here’s the thing. It’s been five years, so Burnett would be in his forties, and jail ages you more than normal life. His handwriting would have changed just a little to reflect that, but it hasn’t.”
“A copycat,” Dena mutters, the bridge of his nose pinched between forefinger and thumb.
“Maybe, but the similarities are so striking that it’s highly improbable to think that someone caught every little detail of Burnett’s writing.”
“So,” Dean draws the word out, thinking over the long vowel, “either we have the greatest copycat I’ve ever heard of, or Burnett hasn’t aged in five years.”
“Roughly,” the agent admits, sweeping hair behind her ear and adjusting her glasses. She’s so clearly new at all of this and so eager and nervous that Dean manages to reel in his exasperation and sarcasm. He’ll save it for Skinner, who probably saw the handwriting results as soon as they came out and has been waiting to dump the entire problem in Dean’s lap.
In the hallways, Cas presses in close and says to Dean, low, “I have a couple theories, when he have time.”
“Sure, Cas,” Dean agrees, but he mentally shrugs the whole thing off as they walk in to Skinner’s office, and the secretary waves them through.
Skinner is behind his desk, reading some report, and an older man is smoking quietly in the corner. He’s been there before when Dean and Castiel gave their reports. Dean doesn’t know his name, has never heard him speak, and has never seen him do anything but smoke. The man makes Dean nervous under his skin, deep in his bones.
“You’ve already seen the handwriting analysis,” Dean tells Skinner, before the AD can even get a “hello” out.
“Yes. What do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Dean admits, teeth gritted. “I haven’t been able to talk to anyone else working on the case yet.”
Skinner raises his eyebrows. “You were singled out by name, Winchester, so I hope you get an opinion soon, or it’ll be your ass, and mine, on the line.”
Dean nods and bounces on the balls of his feet, thinking of a response that doesn’t make he seem like an idiot or a complete pussy when Cas decides that they do, in fact, have time now.
“It’s Burnett,” Cas declares, and Dean instinctively takes a step away from him, just in case crazy is stupid. This isn’t Cas’s normal brand of crazy, but a new and dangerous breed that involves making important assumptions about cases that have nothing to do with him and everything to do with Dean.
“Oh, really,” Skinner prompts, and the cigarette man is leaning forward now, smoke curling through the room. Dean keeps him in the corner of his eye, and shifts back towards Castiel.
“Burnett was far from a petty criminal, but he never received a huge amount of press, correct?” Cas asks, completely cool like he always is and Dean fights to keep his facial expression under control. If he can play it off like this was intentional, well, no point in jinxing the whole affair.
“Yes,” Skinner says.
“So it’s unreasonable that a copycat would emerge, five years later, let alone one with a perfect working knowledge of Burnett’s handwriting and the agent who worked the original case.”
Skinner only nods, eyebrows raised in surprise. The smoking man settles back a little and Dean relaxes. “Whose idea was it to lock you down there?” Skinner asks, finally, and while Dean can tell it’s meant to be complimentary he can practically see Cas’s mental hackles go up. Outwardly, of course, all Cas does is tighten his mouth a little.
“My own.” It’s practically a growl.
“We’ll head down to the main offices, then,” Dean jumps in, “and find the guys who’ve been working on this.” He actually grabs Cas by the elbow and steers him out of the office, not bothering to see Skinner’s reaction.
Out in the hallway Dean stops and jerks Cas to the side of the corridor.
“What the hell was that?” He makes an effort to keep his voice down, really, but the pair of agents walking by still turn their heads. Whatever, Dean thinks, everyone already knows Castiel’s a lunatic and he hasn’t exactly done anything to convince anyone of his own stability recently, either.
“I was only trying to help.”
“Cas, it’s not Burnett. How could it be, with what we know? Besides, he’s dead. This is ridiculous. Skinner’s going to have my ass, and yours, too.”
“It is Burnett,” Cas tells him, in the same calm, even way he said it in Skinner’s office, “and the man in the corner knows it.”
“The bastard with the cigarette?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Dean breathes out. “I can tell you’re gearing up for some epic, Area-51 level shit here, so let’s go find the agents in charge first, and you can drop this one on me in the basement.”
“Fine.”
The agents in charge, a couple of relative greenhorns, are more than thrilled to wash their hands of the whole situation. Dean takes their files, mostly stuff he’s already seen, minus a report from the cashier, who had miraculously survived the robbery, albeit with a couple of new holes, and trudges back downstairs with Cas.
He pulls up a chair and organizes the folders before he lets Cas start.
“Dean,” he says, “I know this may sound strange,” and Dean cuts him off right there.
“You think it might sound strange? Jesus, Cas! Is it even worth hearing?”
Cas glares, but keeps on talking. “I chose to come down here for a reason, not solely because I was being punished, though I was. I voiced opinions that did not endear me to my superiors, and they thought it best to put me where I would not be found, or, rather, where I would not be listened to.”
Dean leans forward. Cas has never talked about himself in any other tense than the present; Dean still doesn’t even know his last name. This, right here? This is gold, prime information.
“What the hell did you say to your AD, then?” Dean prompts.
“The truth,” Cas says, and for a moment Dean thinks that’s all he will say, and he’s ready to jump up and shake Castiel until an explanation comes out, when Cas continues.
“I rarely worked out in the field, unless it was strictly necessary. I did analysis, mostly, research, non-medical forensics, that sort of thing. Cults were always a specialty of mine, though.” At that, Cas’s mouth twists up. “An old partner of mine was on a strange case, what appeared to be a series of ritual murders. I got asked to assist.” Cas pauses and some light goes out in his eyes. He looks down and Dean nearly reaches out to ask him to continue.
“The how is largely irrelevant,” Cas says, after a beat, “as is the why.”
Dean sighs and sits back.
“Burnett is possessed,” Cas tells him.
“Possessed?” It’s not quite the craziest thing Dean has ever heard from Castiel, but that doesn’t make it not crazy. “Like, Exorcist shit?”
“Yes,” Cas says, and Dean’s heart sinks, “and no.”
“Is it physically possible for you to give a straight answer?”
Cas ignores the question, but does explain. “He is possessed by a demon, but he is not likely to act in any way like Regan.”
Christ Almighty, no one warned Dean that working for the FBI could be like this. Cas looks so sure of himself that Dean almost wants to believe that some demon is walking Burnett around D.C. for kicks or something, but he also can’t imagine that theory holding much weight back in Skinner’s office.
“I’ll believe it when I see some proof, Cas, you know me. Now come on, I want to interview that cashier before it gets too later.” He leaves without checking to see if Cas is following, but of course he is.
The cashier is a pretty young woman with fake nails almost as long as Dean’s little finger. “You’d think she could have fought Burnett off with those,” he jokes to Cas.
“I doubt those nails have the strength to break human skin, especially not at that length.”
“Yeah, thanks for that, professor,” Dean gripes.
Cas doesn’t have a response to that, so Dean approaches her. “Back at work already?” he asks, flashing a smile and piling on the Southern charm beaten into him by a childhood in Kansas.
“Police said they didn’t need me anymore,” she mutters, “and I need the cash.”
“Still,” Dean presses, “I bet that shook you up.”
“Well, yeah,” she says, “I mean, we get thugs round here all the time. It’s not a nice part of town, you know, and we have pretty expensive merchandise in here. Still, there hasn’t been a break-in since before I started working here, last one was probably six years ago.”
“So, Loretta,” Dean smiles at her again, gives her name without looking down at her nametag, since he noted it before they started talking, “it wasn’t one of your regular thugs yesterday?”
“Oh no, not at all.” Loretta smiles at him now, and she’s a pretty girl, with thick caramel colored hair and bright brown eyes, almost Dean’s type but he’s on the job and Cas is hanging over the proceedings, like the specter of the responsibility Dean has every time he flashes his badge. “This guy, he really knew his stuff. It was like something off TV, the way,” here her voice gets very slow, in the way Dean has heard a million witnesses speak of things they only saw but did not truly experience, “he shot those people. It was very fast, and he only shot each of them once.”
“After he shot the customers,” Dean begins.
“And the manager,” Loretta interrupts, “poor Mr. Goldfarb. He normally isn’t out on the floor like that, but the one time he decides to leaves his office, well,” she shakes her head, “it’s such a shame.”
“It is,” Dean agrees, and touches her arm. “What happened after?”
“After that,” Loretta pauses, and Dean knows she’s going to take her sweet time telling this story, since it’s probably the greatest one she’ll ever have to tell, “that’s when he came up to me, and he made me give him the keys to the cases and everything in the cash register. He filled up his bag, God he looked like a TV villain with that bag, all he need was the moustache, and he came back up to me, and oh I thought I was just going to die of fright. Anyway, he pulls this note out of his pocket and tells me to give it to the police when they got here.” She shakes her head and shrugs. “It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, you know.”
“Strangest thing I’ve heard in a long time,” Dean agrees. He fishes in his pocket for the picture of Burnet he brought, and carefully unfolds it across the counter. “Do you recognize this man?”
“That’s him, all right,” Loretta agrees, “I’d know that face anywhere.”
“Well, thanks for your time, Loretta. You’ve been a great help.”
“Aw, thanks” she giggles. Dean thinks about getting her number and nearly asks, but then Cas clears his throat from the doorway, and Loretta shoves at his shoulder, saying, “Sounds like you better get back to work, yeah?”
“Suppose so,” Dean sighs and heads to the door, and then turns. “Here, let me give you my number, in case you think of anything else.” Before she can reply, Dean walks away.
“She IDed Burnett, didn’t she?” Cas asks as soon as they’re outside.
“She did,” Dean admits. “Says he was the strangest thing she ever saw. He asked her to give the note to the police, you know.”
“Really,” Cas says, dry. “She didn’t say he did anything else odd?”
“Not that she told me. I did tell her to call if she thought of anything else. Sometimes it take people some time, after all.”
“Yes, it does,” Cas murmurs.
“So,” Dean says, clearing his throat, “did you find anything in the store?”
“I did,” Cas tells him, and his whole face brightens. He holds up a bag with some fine powder in it, a pale yellow.
“Hell’s that?”
“Sulfur, though we’ll have to give it to the lab to get it verified.”
“Sulfur? In a jewelry store?”
“Demons often leave behind a residue of sulfur.”
“Actual fire and brimstone?” Dean laughs.
“No fire,” Cas tells him, “just brimstone.”
Dean goes to Skinner’s office while Cas waits for lab results. Skinner’s alone, mercifully, though Dean inhales deeply to check for smoke before he speaks. Skinner sits with his hands folded, clearly impatient.
“The cashier gave a positive ID on Burnett,” Dean says.
“Burnett’s dead,” Skinner tells him.
“That’s not what was being said in this office just this morning.”
“As far as the FBI is concerned,” Skinner says, voice tight, “Burnett died four months ago, in a federal prison.”
“She said it was him, no doubt about it, and she wasn’t lying. What reason would she have to lie about that?”
“You tell me,” Skinner snaps. He sounds as on edge as Dean feels.
“The picture I showed her was from five years ago.”
“Burnett wouldn’t look anything like that now, Winchester.”
“That’s not what that handwriting analysis says.”
“I’m not denying that not all of the facts seem to make sense, but you’d be better off trying to figure out what this guy’s next target is going to be rather than trying to bring a dead man back to life.”
Dean leaves without another word.
He blusters into Cas’s office two days later, furious. “Burnett hit another place last night,” he spits as he throws a folder down on Cas’s otherwise immaculate desk.
“What do you want from me? An apology?” Cas asks, and that takes the wind out of Dean’s sails pretty effectively.
“He left another note. Here,” Dean pulls it out of the file and angles it towards Castiel. Cas reads it, and looks up at Dean, his eyes wide.
“Do you think he’s telling the truth?”
“No reason he wouldn’t be,” Dean says.
“What are you going to do?”
“Try and beat him at his own game, I guess.”
“You’re just going to waltz into a major public venue, during an event, with an entire team and try to catch a violent criminal?”
“Well, Jesus, Cas, when you put it like that,” Dean mutters. “I was thinking of going in alone. Burnett’s made it pretty clear that it’s me he wants to see. I don’t need to risk anyone else’s life on this thing.”
“Just your own,” Cas snaps back. “That’s an absolutely ridiculous idea, and we both know it. You’re going to need backup, even if Burnett doesn’t get the best of you.”
“You really think he’s going to get me, huh?” Deans jokes, but underneath he wonders, maybe, if Cas knows something.
“Demons have an unnatural strength, Dean,” Cas tells him. “They can push human bodies beyond their natural capabilities, and they cannot be stopped in the ways a human can. They must be exorcized.”
“Tell me how to exorcize a demon, then, Cas, but I’m going alone.”
“Why?” Cas demands. Dean’s never heard him this angry before. Actually, he’s never heard him this animated ever, period. It would almost be touching, if it weren’t so annoying.
“Burnett and I have a history,” Dean says with a sigh, “and I’d rather see him alone.”
Cas only stares at him, and Dean knows he’s not going to get out of the room without explaining himself. Burnett had been one of Dean’s first big cases in Violent Crimes, back when he was in his twenties and thought he was pretty much invincible. He still thinks he’s invincible, but he’s older now, and with age come scars and failure, and those are things a lot like wisdom.
“I got Burnett behind bars, but I fucked the case up, big time.” Cas doesn’t say anything to that, so Dean continues. “He got a hostage and I froze. I didn’t know whether to shoot or not, I’d come up to him from the side and I had him in my sights, but the woman was too close to him and I froze for just a second.” Confessions sits thick in his throat, but Cas only leans towards him, and he wonders if maybe he should just get down on his knees, since this is the first and the last time he’s ever going to tell this story.
“I fucked up, and he shot her. You don’t survive a shot to the head at point-blank range. He got one of the other agents, too, but he pulled through.”
Cas makes a soft sound that is almost like ‘oh,’ and far too close to pitying for Dean’s comfort so he backs away and looks at the floor. “It was years ago, Cas, but neither of us has forgotten it, and he’ll be itching for a chance to put me in that position again. If I’m alone,” Dean trails off.
“He’ll only be able to shoot you, not another agent. It’s stupid.”
Dean will take being stupid over being pitiable any day. He rolls his eyes. “What do you suggest then, in your infinite wisdom?”
“At least take me along with you. I can perform the exorcism if you distract Burnett.”
“He won’t be expecting that?”
Cas pauses, and worries at his lip. “I don’t think so. The notes were all addressed only to you. And while I doubt Burnett was possessed without anyone on the prison staff knowing, they don’t seem to think anyone would have told you. Still, a small team may not be out of place.”
Dean takes Cas’s advice in the end, like he does every time Cas points out when he’s being stupid, because he usually is. He and Cas and a team of four undercover agents creep through the concert hall. It’s a huge place, gilded and bright and full of nooks and crannies Burnett could hide himself away in. Dean doesn’t even know what Burnett’s plan is exactly: a shooting, or a bomb, or maybe he’s going to steal a few of the chandeliers. They look like they’re worth more than Dean makes in a year, and he’s not quite a pauper.
They split up; Dean makes sure he’s alone. On the second floor he thinks he sees someone move, but they’re too fast for him to get a good look. Everyone checks in with nothing, and Dean swears to himself. If Burnett is here, something’s wrong, he shouldn’t be able to hide this well, and if he’s not here Dean’s screwed anyway, since he’s undoubtedly hitting some other place at this very moment.
It feels like hours before his emergency walkie-talkie crackles and he hears Cas’s voice, soft, go “Fuck.” He’s never heard Cas swear before, and that, if nothing else, tells him that he should get his ass in gear.
Burnett has squirreled himself away in some storage room, and because Dean’s life is shitty like that, he’s the first to get there, except, obviously, for Cas, who’s gagged and tied to a chair in the corner. Burnett himself stands in the middle of the room, limbs akimbo, totally unarmed. He’s even smiling, and Dean feels bad for only giving lip service to Loretta’s story of his strangeness. This isn’t, by a long stretch, the man he dealt with five years ago.
“Dean,” the thing in Burnett’s skin says, “it’s been so long.”
“You’re not Burnett,” Dean says, “you can’t be.”
“Can’t I? You’re looking right at me, after all.”
“Burnett’s dead, first off, and no way in hell he’d wait in the middle of a room, unarmed, for me to come find him.”
“Even with a hostage, big boy? You never were very good with those, I remember.”
Dean level his gun at Burnett’s head for that. “Burnett at least had the sense to use the hostage as the shield. Not,” he cock his gun, “that I’m suggesting you move.”
“Go ahead,” Burnett spreads his arms wide, “shoot me.” He advances a little towards Dean, and that’s all the reason Dean needs to take very careful aim.
“Come on, Dean, shoot me.”
In the corner Cas makes increasingly frantic, if muffled noises, but Dean figures that has a much to do with the fact that he’s bound and gagged as it does with anything else.
Burnett’s getting a little too close for comfort.
Dean shoots him, square in the chest, a perfect shot through the heart.
In the brief silence following the crack of the gun, Cas manages to shout, “You idiot!” and Burnett pins Dean against the wall, which is rather an impressive move for a man who should be dead twice-over.
“My turn,” Burnett whispers, and then he slams Dean back into the wall again. Dean’s pretty sure he’s going to lose consciousness if Burnett so much as looks at him cross-eyed at this point, but he just breathes deeply through his nose and asks, “What do you want?”
“Well, Burnett in here would like to kill you himself,” the thing tells Dean, and he can see it there, the evil in it that Loretta had mentioned, a thick darkness that consumes it eyes, “but we can’t do that yet.”
Dean hears, over the pounding of blood in his ears, oh, Burnett must have decided to start choking him a bit, too, Cas chanting. It sounds like nothing Dean recognizes, Latin, probably. The thing holding him screams and wheels around, but out of its mouth a black, thick smoke is pouring.
While Dean struggles on the floor, the thing advances towards Cas and for a hew horrible seconds Dean believes it’s going to get to him, but then he hears Cas say “Amen” and Burnett’s body falls to the floor. It takes a few more breaths for him to be able to haul himself up and go untie Cas’s legs.
They don’t talk about it until after Dean has called the rest of the team down and they’ve moved Burnett’s body, and Dean and Cas are driving back to the Bureau in the aftermath. Dean, at the wheel, asks without turning, “What the hell was that back there, Cas?”
“I told you,” Cas says, but he sounds tired, not smug. There’s a bruise purpling along the side of his face. “Burnett was possessed. I performed an exorcism. That black smoke you saw? That was the demon leaving his body.”
“Demons, huh,” Dean murmurs to himself. “So did the Catholics have it right, then? God and the Devil and mess of fallen angels just waiting to snap up our souls?”
“I don’t know, Dean,” Cas says, “I don’t know.”
A few days later the official FBI statement is given on the matter. Burnett isn’t Burnett anymore, he’s a copycat who happened to bear an extraordinary resemblance to Burnett himself. Dean shot him in self-defense, and the strange, sulfurous powder found in the storage room the day after Dean shot Burnett is never mentioned.
Dean’s eating his lunch down in the basement when, for a change, Cas barges into the room.
“Have you seen it, then? He asks, out of breath.
“Seen what?” Dean hopes it doesn’t have to do with vampires or mutants or anything that’s going to get between him and his sandwich.
“The statement about Burnett?”
“That? Yeah,” Dean says around a mouthful.
“How can you just take it like that? You saw, you know the truth, that it was Burnett in there.”
“Sometimes you don’t need to tell people the truth, Cas. What good would it do?”
Cas gives him something like a sneer, and Dean puts his food down. “Look, Cas, if the government just went out and told people demons were real and roaming the earth looking to possess them, it’d be total chaos. Religion would be blown to pieces. And the possessed, what would happen to them? You think society would look kindly on someone who got ridden by a demon?”
Cas opens his mouth like he’s going to argue, but then apparently thinks better of it, and sinks down into his chair.
“The truth,” he says, after a long pause. “No matter how unpleasant, people have a right to the truth,.”
Author: nirvana_falling
Rating: PG-13 for this part
Genre and/or Pairing: Dean/Cas seriously where else would I go with this.
Spoilers: Eh, general for both series, but nothing really explicit.
Word Count: 5313
Summary: "I'd KILL for a good X-Files crossover. Come on, Castiel in the basement, Dean sent to disprove his theories? Sam, lost? That shit would be bananas," Said rageprufrock. My formspring-creepin' ass saw this and went YES I LOVE ALL OF THESE THINGS. And, uh, this was born. Also, title suggestions, please
GUYS I SUCK I'M SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG
“Cas,” Deans says as he bursts into the basement office, “we can’t take that sketchy abduction case in New Mexico. I know you wanted to visit Roswell and get a little alien toy, but that’ll have to wait. I’m sure you have vacation days stored up.”
The noise Cas makes in the back of his throat qualifies for petulant in Dean’s universe, but he still doesn’t look up as he asks why.
“Something came up, upstairs. They, ah, need me to help out with a case.”
“They need you to help out.”
“Have a little faith, Cas,” Dean laughs. “They may have kicked me out, but I did some pretty damn good work while I was there.”
“Really,” Cas says, dry.
“Look, I’m sorry. I really am, but this is something I have to do.”
“Dean,” Cas sighs, and, yeah, he does always have this five o’clock shadow and ridiculous, dark bags under his eyes and Dean feels bad for giving him trouble, sometimes, but not this time. “I don’t mind, really. I would prefer if you explained,” he leans on that word, “since I can’t go off to New Mexico, or anywhere else, without some sort of backup.”
“Right, yeah, of course.” Dean was sort of hoping Castiel would just make the same long-suffering expression he always makes when Dean does something he thinks is particularly stupid, because his time in Violent Crimes is probably his second-least favorite topic of conversation, ever. “I guess I should point out first that they didn’t want to ask for my help on this case, but, uh, it was insisted upon.”
“Skinner?”
“I wish. No, it was the perp, actually.” Cas looks up at that, giving Dean the full intensity of his stare.
“You heard about the robbery yesterday, right?”
“If I recall, it was unnecessarily violent.”
“That’s kinda the guy’s m. o.”
“The one that got away?” Cas asks. Dean twists his face in amusement and displeasure, but shakes his head.
“Not at all. I was head of the operation that put him behind bars, actually. As far as the records show, he died in jail.”
“But he robbed a jewelry store last night.”
“Apparently,” Dean snorts. “It may be a copycat, but if it is, then it’s the best damn copycat I’ve ever seen.”
“Security cameras show anything?”
“Wow, Cas, you do remember how to work a real case,” Dean jokes, tempted to ruffle Castiel’s hair, but then Cas gives him a look and he reevaluates that idea pretty quickly. Sobered, though, he continues, “Yeah, the camera’s got the guy, but not very well. From what we can tell, though, it’s not a copycat.”
“Really?”
“Looks like my old friend,” Dean grimaces, “come back from beyond the grave. That’s why I figured I’d bring you in. This is right up your alley.”
“Right up my alley?” Castiel asks, with some sort of expression playing around his lips. A smirk, Dean thinks, given how unenthusiastic Cas looks about the whole endeavor.
“Well, rising from the dead isn’t exactly natural. I figured you’d have something about it in the x-files.”
“Dean,” Cas grinds out, in that long-suffering tone that really does make Dean resolve to learn more about the x-files, or at least cut down on his ribbing, or buy Cas a cup of coffee, or something, “rising from the dead is far from a common supernatural occurrence.”
“Even if we’re talking zombies?”
“Did the man on the tape look like a zombie?”
“No,” Dean sighs. “He was moving like a normal human.”
“Then unless we have another reason to suspect it, I’m saying no zombies here.”
“One day,” Dean tells him, “one day we’re going to get to fight zombies.”
“I’m sure,” Cas agrees, “and then you’ll see how absolutely awful it is.”
“Whoa, wait. Cas, you’ve fought zombies?”
“Not personally,” he admits, “but I’ve spoken with people who have.”
Dean snorts, but lets it go. “So, no hope from the mystical filing cabinets, then?”
“I’m afraid not. Things like that don’t wind up in the x-files too often.”
“Like what?”
“Genuine miracles,” Cas says. He’s turned back to his computer, but Dean thinks he sees a flush on Cas’s cheeks.
“So you really believe in that stuff, then.”
“In what stuff?” This is the side of Castiel that Dean is most comfortable with: prickly and precise and sort of exasperated with Dean in a general way.
“Miracles, will of God manifest, etcetera, etcetera, the guys upstairs said you did, but I thought they were exaggerating.”
“What’s so strange about believing in God?” Yeah, Cas has a definitive flush high on his cheeks and he’s definitely not actually doing anything on his computer. His hands are still and rigid on the desk.
“Nothing, really,” Dean starts, and almost leaves it at that, but he’s having a fucking horrible day and since Dean is sort of an emotional retard, or at least Anna had told him he was as she was ending their three-week sort of relationship thing, and, okay, maybe she had a point, but Dean’s never given it too much thought, he keeps going, “but, really, Cas? Resurrection and all that? It’s a nice fable and all, I mean, I went to church as a kid, but, come on.”
“I take it you’re not a religious man,” Cas says, and Dean’s not so stupid that he doesn’t get that Cas would rather drop the subject of his personal beliefs. Fine, Dean will give him that; he had been raised with the ‘no sex, no politics, no religion’ rule of conversation, anyway.
“No,” he agrees, “not anymore.” At the tilt of Cas’s head he answers with, “It was the job. You know I used to be up in Violent Crimes. Guess my faith wasn’t strong enough to make it through what you see in there.”
“I can only imagine,” Cas murmurs.
“Don’t worry about it.” Dean shrugs and moves towards the door.”I’ve already been down here too long; there’s something Skinner said I’d want to see in forensics. You’re, uh, you’re free to come if you want.”
“I think I will,” Cas says.
Skinner, as always, is right. There is something in forensics Dean is very, very interested in: a handwriting analysis. “Burnett left a note,” he explains to Cas as the agent supposed to explain the results to them hunts through a stack of papers on her desk for something, “which mentions me.”
“And that’s why they called you in?”
“Yeah,” Dean says, and everything else gets cut off as the agent resurfaces with an apologetic smile.
“Here we go,” she says. “Now, this is really interesting. We were able to compare the note received last night with one he left five years ago.” She gestures for Dean to come next to her. “See here, the deeper indentation on the ‘W’ or your name, since he’s applying more pressure, and here,” she gestures to something else and Dean does tune out a little. This stuff is important, but Dean has never really had the head for cold, hard analysis of anything, really. He prefers action.
“The gist of this is, well, I’ll show you.” She shoves the two notes underneath Dean’s nose. “Look, they’re exactly the same. Exactly, every word they share is written in exactly the same way.”
“Then it’s Burnett, no question?”
“Well,” she purses her lips and Dean’s heart sinks. “Here’s the thing. It’s been five years, so Burnett would be in his forties, and jail ages you more than normal life. His handwriting would have changed just a little to reflect that, but it hasn’t.”
“A copycat,” Dena mutters, the bridge of his nose pinched between forefinger and thumb.
“Maybe, but the similarities are so striking that it’s highly improbable to think that someone caught every little detail of Burnett’s writing.”
“So,” Dean draws the word out, thinking over the long vowel, “either we have the greatest copycat I’ve ever heard of, or Burnett hasn’t aged in five years.”
“Roughly,” the agent admits, sweeping hair behind her ear and adjusting her glasses. She’s so clearly new at all of this and so eager and nervous that Dean manages to reel in his exasperation and sarcasm. He’ll save it for Skinner, who probably saw the handwriting results as soon as they came out and has been waiting to dump the entire problem in Dean’s lap.
In the hallways, Cas presses in close and says to Dean, low, “I have a couple theories, when he have time.”
“Sure, Cas,” Dean agrees, but he mentally shrugs the whole thing off as they walk in to Skinner’s office, and the secretary waves them through.
Skinner is behind his desk, reading some report, and an older man is smoking quietly in the corner. He’s been there before when Dean and Castiel gave their reports. Dean doesn’t know his name, has never heard him speak, and has never seen him do anything but smoke. The man makes Dean nervous under his skin, deep in his bones.
“You’ve already seen the handwriting analysis,” Dean tells Skinner, before the AD can even get a “hello” out.
“Yes. What do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Dean admits, teeth gritted. “I haven’t been able to talk to anyone else working on the case yet.”
Skinner raises his eyebrows. “You were singled out by name, Winchester, so I hope you get an opinion soon, or it’ll be your ass, and mine, on the line.”
Dean nods and bounces on the balls of his feet, thinking of a response that doesn’t make he seem like an idiot or a complete pussy when Cas decides that they do, in fact, have time now.
“It’s Burnett,” Cas declares, and Dean instinctively takes a step away from him, just in case crazy is stupid. This isn’t Cas’s normal brand of crazy, but a new and dangerous breed that involves making important assumptions about cases that have nothing to do with him and everything to do with Dean.
“Oh, really,” Skinner prompts, and the cigarette man is leaning forward now, smoke curling through the room. Dean keeps him in the corner of his eye, and shifts back towards Castiel.
“Burnett was far from a petty criminal, but he never received a huge amount of press, correct?” Cas asks, completely cool like he always is and Dean fights to keep his facial expression under control. If he can play it off like this was intentional, well, no point in jinxing the whole affair.
“Yes,” Skinner says.
“So it’s unreasonable that a copycat would emerge, five years later, let alone one with a perfect working knowledge of Burnett’s handwriting and the agent who worked the original case.”
Skinner only nods, eyebrows raised in surprise. The smoking man settles back a little and Dean relaxes. “Whose idea was it to lock you down there?” Skinner asks, finally, and while Dean can tell it’s meant to be complimentary he can practically see Cas’s mental hackles go up. Outwardly, of course, all Cas does is tighten his mouth a little.
“My own.” It’s practically a growl.
“We’ll head down to the main offices, then,” Dean jumps in, “and find the guys who’ve been working on this.” He actually grabs Cas by the elbow and steers him out of the office, not bothering to see Skinner’s reaction.
Out in the hallway Dean stops and jerks Cas to the side of the corridor.
“What the hell was that?” He makes an effort to keep his voice down, really, but the pair of agents walking by still turn their heads. Whatever, Dean thinks, everyone already knows Castiel’s a lunatic and he hasn’t exactly done anything to convince anyone of his own stability recently, either.
“I was only trying to help.”
“Cas, it’s not Burnett. How could it be, with what we know? Besides, he’s dead. This is ridiculous. Skinner’s going to have my ass, and yours, too.”
“It is Burnett,” Cas tells him, in the same calm, even way he said it in Skinner’s office, “and the man in the corner knows it.”
“The bastard with the cigarette?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Dean breathes out. “I can tell you’re gearing up for some epic, Area-51 level shit here, so let’s go find the agents in charge first, and you can drop this one on me in the basement.”
“Fine.”
The agents in charge, a couple of relative greenhorns, are more than thrilled to wash their hands of the whole situation. Dean takes their files, mostly stuff he’s already seen, minus a report from the cashier, who had miraculously survived the robbery, albeit with a couple of new holes, and trudges back downstairs with Cas.
He pulls up a chair and organizes the folders before he lets Cas start.
“Dean,” he says, “I know this may sound strange,” and Dean cuts him off right there.
“You think it might sound strange? Jesus, Cas! Is it even worth hearing?”
Cas glares, but keeps on talking. “I chose to come down here for a reason, not solely because I was being punished, though I was. I voiced opinions that did not endear me to my superiors, and they thought it best to put me where I would not be found, or, rather, where I would not be listened to.”
Dean leans forward. Cas has never talked about himself in any other tense than the present; Dean still doesn’t even know his last name. This, right here? This is gold, prime information.
“What the hell did you say to your AD, then?” Dean prompts.
“The truth,” Cas says, and for a moment Dean thinks that’s all he will say, and he’s ready to jump up and shake Castiel until an explanation comes out, when Cas continues.
“I rarely worked out in the field, unless it was strictly necessary. I did analysis, mostly, research, non-medical forensics, that sort of thing. Cults were always a specialty of mine, though.” At that, Cas’s mouth twists up. “An old partner of mine was on a strange case, what appeared to be a series of ritual murders. I got asked to assist.” Cas pauses and some light goes out in his eyes. He looks down and Dean nearly reaches out to ask him to continue.
“The how is largely irrelevant,” Cas says, after a beat, “as is the why.”
Dean sighs and sits back.
“Burnett is possessed,” Cas tells him.
“Possessed?” It’s not quite the craziest thing Dean has ever heard from Castiel, but that doesn’t make it not crazy. “Like, Exorcist shit?”
“Yes,” Cas says, and Dean’s heart sinks, “and no.”
“Is it physically possible for you to give a straight answer?”
Cas ignores the question, but does explain. “He is possessed by a demon, but he is not likely to act in any way like Regan.”
Christ Almighty, no one warned Dean that working for the FBI could be like this. Cas looks so sure of himself that Dean almost wants to believe that some demon is walking Burnett around D.C. for kicks or something, but he also can’t imagine that theory holding much weight back in Skinner’s office.
“I’ll believe it when I see some proof, Cas, you know me. Now come on, I want to interview that cashier before it gets too later.” He leaves without checking to see if Cas is following, but of course he is.
The cashier is a pretty young woman with fake nails almost as long as Dean’s little finger. “You’d think she could have fought Burnett off with those,” he jokes to Cas.
“I doubt those nails have the strength to break human skin, especially not at that length.”
“Yeah, thanks for that, professor,” Dean gripes.
Cas doesn’t have a response to that, so Dean approaches her. “Back at work already?” he asks, flashing a smile and piling on the Southern charm beaten into him by a childhood in Kansas.
“Police said they didn’t need me anymore,” she mutters, “and I need the cash.”
“Still,” Dean presses, “I bet that shook you up.”
“Well, yeah,” she says, “I mean, we get thugs round here all the time. It’s not a nice part of town, you know, and we have pretty expensive merchandise in here. Still, there hasn’t been a break-in since before I started working here, last one was probably six years ago.”
“So, Loretta,” Dean smiles at her again, gives her name without looking down at her nametag, since he noted it before they started talking, “it wasn’t one of your regular thugs yesterday?”
“Oh no, not at all.” Loretta smiles at him now, and she’s a pretty girl, with thick caramel colored hair and bright brown eyes, almost Dean’s type but he’s on the job and Cas is hanging over the proceedings, like the specter of the responsibility Dean has every time he flashes his badge. “This guy, he really knew his stuff. It was like something off TV, the way,” here her voice gets very slow, in the way Dean has heard a million witnesses speak of things they only saw but did not truly experience, “he shot those people. It was very fast, and he only shot each of them once.”
“After he shot the customers,” Dean begins.
“And the manager,” Loretta interrupts, “poor Mr. Goldfarb. He normally isn’t out on the floor like that, but the one time he decides to leaves his office, well,” she shakes her head, “it’s such a shame.”
“It is,” Dean agrees, and touches her arm. “What happened after?”
“After that,” Loretta pauses, and Dean knows she’s going to take her sweet time telling this story, since it’s probably the greatest one she’ll ever have to tell, “that’s when he came up to me, and he made me give him the keys to the cases and everything in the cash register. He filled up his bag, God he looked like a TV villain with that bag, all he need was the moustache, and he came back up to me, and oh I thought I was just going to die of fright. Anyway, he pulls this note out of his pocket and tells me to give it to the police when they got here.” She shakes her head and shrugs. “It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, you know.”
“Strangest thing I’ve heard in a long time,” Dean agrees. He fishes in his pocket for the picture of Burnet he brought, and carefully unfolds it across the counter. “Do you recognize this man?”
“That’s him, all right,” Loretta agrees, “I’d know that face anywhere.”
“Well, thanks for your time, Loretta. You’ve been a great help.”
“Aw, thanks” she giggles. Dean thinks about getting her number and nearly asks, but then Cas clears his throat from the doorway, and Loretta shoves at his shoulder, saying, “Sounds like you better get back to work, yeah?”
“Suppose so,” Dean sighs and heads to the door, and then turns. “Here, let me give you my number, in case you think of anything else.” Before she can reply, Dean walks away.
“She IDed Burnett, didn’t she?” Cas asks as soon as they’re outside.
“She did,” Dean admits. “Says he was the strangest thing she ever saw. He asked her to give the note to the police, you know.”
“Really,” Cas says, dry. “She didn’t say he did anything else odd?”
“Not that she told me. I did tell her to call if she thought of anything else. Sometimes it take people some time, after all.”
“Yes, it does,” Cas murmurs.
“So,” Dean says, clearing his throat, “did you find anything in the store?”
“I did,” Cas tells him, and his whole face brightens. He holds up a bag with some fine powder in it, a pale yellow.
“Hell’s that?”
“Sulfur, though we’ll have to give it to the lab to get it verified.”
“Sulfur? In a jewelry store?”
“Demons often leave behind a residue of sulfur.”
“Actual fire and brimstone?” Dean laughs.
“No fire,” Cas tells him, “just brimstone.”
Dean goes to Skinner’s office while Cas waits for lab results. Skinner’s alone, mercifully, though Dean inhales deeply to check for smoke before he speaks. Skinner sits with his hands folded, clearly impatient.
“The cashier gave a positive ID on Burnett,” Dean says.
“Burnett’s dead,” Skinner tells him.
“That’s not what was being said in this office just this morning.”
“As far as the FBI is concerned,” Skinner says, voice tight, “Burnett died four months ago, in a federal prison.”
“She said it was him, no doubt about it, and she wasn’t lying. What reason would she have to lie about that?”
“You tell me,” Skinner snaps. He sounds as on edge as Dean feels.
“The picture I showed her was from five years ago.”
“Burnett wouldn’t look anything like that now, Winchester.”
“That’s not what that handwriting analysis says.”
“I’m not denying that not all of the facts seem to make sense, but you’d be better off trying to figure out what this guy’s next target is going to be rather than trying to bring a dead man back to life.”
Dean leaves without another word.
He blusters into Cas’s office two days later, furious. “Burnett hit another place last night,” he spits as he throws a folder down on Cas’s otherwise immaculate desk.
“What do you want from me? An apology?” Cas asks, and that takes the wind out of Dean’s sails pretty effectively.
“He left another note. Here,” Dean pulls it out of the file and angles it towards Castiel. Cas reads it, and looks up at Dean, his eyes wide.
“Do you think he’s telling the truth?”
“No reason he wouldn’t be,” Dean says.
“What are you going to do?”
“Try and beat him at his own game, I guess.”
“You’re just going to waltz into a major public venue, during an event, with an entire team and try to catch a violent criminal?”
“Well, Jesus, Cas, when you put it like that,” Dean mutters. “I was thinking of going in alone. Burnett’s made it pretty clear that it’s me he wants to see. I don’t need to risk anyone else’s life on this thing.”
“Just your own,” Cas snaps back. “That’s an absolutely ridiculous idea, and we both know it. You’re going to need backup, even if Burnett doesn’t get the best of you.”
“You really think he’s going to get me, huh?” Deans jokes, but underneath he wonders, maybe, if Cas knows something.
“Demons have an unnatural strength, Dean,” Cas tells him. “They can push human bodies beyond their natural capabilities, and they cannot be stopped in the ways a human can. They must be exorcized.”
“Tell me how to exorcize a demon, then, Cas, but I’m going alone.”
“Why?” Cas demands. Dean’s never heard him this angry before. Actually, he’s never heard him this animated ever, period. It would almost be touching, if it weren’t so annoying.
“Burnett and I have a history,” Dean says with a sigh, “and I’d rather see him alone.”
Cas only stares at him, and Dean knows he’s not going to get out of the room without explaining himself. Burnett had been one of Dean’s first big cases in Violent Crimes, back when he was in his twenties and thought he was pretty much invincible. He still thinks he’s invincible, but he’s older now, and with age come scars and failure, and those are things a lot like wisdom.
“I got Burnett behind bars, but I fucked the case up, big time.” Cas doesn’t say anything to that, so Dean continues. “He got a hostage and I froze. I didn’t know whether to shoot or not, I’d come up to him from the side and I had him in my sights, but the woman was too close to him and I froze for just a second.” Confessions sits thick in his throat, but Cas only leans towards him, and he wonders if maybe he should just get down on his knees, since this is the first and the last time he’s ever going to tell this story.
“I fucked up, and he shot her. You don’t survive a shot to the head at point-blank range. He got one of the other agents, too, but he pulled through.”
Cas makes a soft sound that is almost like ‘oh,’ and far too close to pitying for Dean’s comfort so he backs away and looks at the floor. “It was years ago, Cas, but neither of us has forgotten it, and he’ll be itching for a chance to put me in that position again. If I’m alone,” Dean trails off.
“He’ll only be able to shoot you, not another agent. It’s stupid.”
Dean will take being stupid over being pitiable any day. He rolls his eyes. “What do you suggest then, in your infinite wisdom?”
“At least take me along with you. I can perform the exorcism if you distract Burnett.”
“He won’t be expecting that?”
Cas pauses, and worries at his lip. “I don’t think so. The notes were all addressed only to you. And while I doubt Burnett was possessed without anyone on the prison staff knowing, they don’t seem to think anyone would have told you. Still, a small team may not be out of place.”
Dean takes Cas’s advice in the end, like he does every time Cas points out when he’s being stupid, because he usually is. He and Cas and a team of four undercover agents creep through the concert hall. It’s a huge place, gilded and bright and full of nooks and crannies Burnett could hide himself away in. Dean doesn’t even know what Burnett’s plan is exactly: a shooting, or a bomb, or maybe he’s going to steal a few of the chandeliers. They look like they’re worth more than Dean makes in a year, and he’s not quite a pauper.
They split up; Dean makes sure he’s alone. On the second floor he thinks he sees someone move, but they’re too fast for him to get a good look. Everyone checks in with nothing, and Dean swears to himself. If Burnett is here, something’s wrong, he shouldn’t be able to hide this well, and if he’s not here Dean’s screwed anyway, since he’s undoubtedly hitting some other place at this very moment.
It feels like hours before his emergency walkie-talkie crackles and he hears Cas’s voice, soft, go “Fuck.” He’s never heard Cas swear before, and that, if nothing else, tells him that he should get his ass in gear.
Burnett has squirreled himself away in some storage room, and because Dean’s life is shitty like that, he’s the first to get there, except, obviously, for Cas, who’s gagged and tied to a chair in the corner. Burnett himself stands in the middle of the room, limbs akimbo, totally unarmed. He’s even smiling, and Dean feels bad for only giving lip service to Loretta’s story of his strangeness. This isn’t, by a long stretch, the man he dealt with five years ago.
“Dean,” the thing in Burnett’s skin says, “it’s been so long.”
“You’re not Burnett,” Dean says, “you can’t be.”
“Can’t I? You’re looking right at me, after all.”
“Burnett’s dead, first off, and no way in hell he’d wait in the middle of a room, unarmed, for me to come find him.”
“Even with a hostage, big boy? You never were very good with those, I remember.”
Dean level his gun at Burnett’s head for that. “Burnett at least had the sense to use the hostage as the shield. Not,” he cock his gun, “that I’m suggesting you move.”
“Go ahead,” Burnett spreads his arms wide, “shoot me.” He advances a little towards Dean, and that’s all the reason Dean needs to take very careful aim.
“Come on, Dean, shoot me.”
In the corner Cas makes increasingly frantic, if muffled noises, but Dean figures that has a much to do with the fact that he’s bound and gagged as it does with anything else.
Burnett’s getting a little too close for comfort.
Dean shoots him, square in the chest, a perfect shot through the heart.
In the brief silence following the crack of the gun, Cas manages to shout, “You idiot!” and Burnett pins Dean against the wall, which is rather an impressive move for a man who should be dead twice-over.
“My turn,” Burnett whispers, and then he slams Dean back into the wall again. Dean’s pretty sure he’s going to lose consciousness if Burnett so much as looks at him cross-eyed at this point, but he just breathes deeply through his nose and asks, “What do you want?”
“Well, Burnett in here would like to kill you himself,” the thing tells Dean, and he can see it there, the evil in it that Loretta had mentioned, a thick darkness that consumes it eyes, “but we can’t do that yet.”
Dean hears, over the pounding of blood in his ears, oh, Burnett must have decided to start choking him a bit, too, Cas chanting. It sounds like nothing Dean recognizes, Latin, probably. The thing holding him screams and wheels around, but out of its mouth a black, thick smoke is pouring.
While Dean struggles on the floor, the thing advances towards Cas and for a hew horrible seconds Dean believes it’s going to get to him, but then he hears Cas say “Amen” and Burnett’s body falls to the floor. It takes a few more breaths for him to be able to haul himself up and go untie Cas’s legs.
They don’t talk about it until after Dean has called the rest of the team down and they’ve moved Burnett’s body, and Dean and Cas are driving back to the Bureau in the aftermath. Dean, at the wheel, asks without turning, “What the hell was that back there, Cas?”
“I told you,” Cas says, but he sounds tired, not smug. There’s a bruise purpling along the side of his face. “Burnett was possessed. I performed an exorcism. That black smoke you saw? That was the demon leaving his body.”
“Demons, huh,” Dean murmurs to himself. “So did the Catholics have it right, then? God and the Devil and mess of fallen angels just waiting to snap up our souls?”
“I don’t know, Dean,” Cas says, “I don’t know.”
A few days later the official FBI statement is given on the matter. Burnett isn’t Burnett anymore, he’s a copycat who happened to bear an extraordinary resemblance to Burnett himself. Dean shot him in self-defense, and the strange, sulfurous powder found in the storage room the day after Dean shot Burnett is never mentioned.
Dean’s eating his lunch down in the basement when, for a change, Cas barges into the room.
“Have you seen it, then? He asks, out of breath.
“Seen what?” Dean hopes it doesn’t have to do with vampires or mutants or anything that’s going to get between him and his sandwich.
“The statement about Burnett?”
“That? Yeah,” Dean says around a mouthful.
“How can you just take it like that? You saw, you know the truth, that it was Burnett in there.”
“Sometimes you don’t need to tell people the truth, Cas. What good would it do?”
Cas gives him something like a sneer, and Dean puts his food down. “Look, Cas, if the government just went out and told people demons were real and roaming the earth looking to possess them, it’d be total chaos. Religion would be blown to pieces. And the possessed, what would happen to them? You think society would look kindly on someone who got ridden by a demon?”
Cas opens his mouth like he’s going to argue, but then apparently thinks better of it, and sinks down into his chair.
“The truth,” he says, after a long pause. “No matter how unpleasant, people have a right to the truth,.”