The Devil You Know : Chapter 5
See part 1 for disclaimers.
Chapter 5
Seated on a shifting pile of roof slates in a ruined church in the middle of nowhere, Dean tries to figure out just where on the battered body sprawled across his legs he can safely place his hands. He needs to take inventory of the injuries, but Castiel is hanging onto his shirt like it’s the only thing anchoring him; he’s curled over and bloody, and Dean can’t see where to even start.
He moves his hand to Castiel’s upper arm, between the sigils carved above, on the joint of his shoulder, and below, around his elbow. As soon as his palm makes contact, Castiel’s eyes fly open, blank with stunning hurt, and his mouth moves soundlessly. Dean snatches his hand back.
“Sorry, sorry. Are the cuts that bad?”
It takes him almost a full minute to answer, in a voice worn away to a hoarse rasp. “Not the sigils, no. Something is… torn.” He stifles a shudder, and Dean realizes he’s holding himself still by sheer will. Chuck’s words tear through his mind again.
“Your wings? Zachariah tore apart your wings?”
He starts to shake his head, turns it into the beginning of a nod, and stops, confused. “That, too. But the arm stopped working before that.”
“Okay. I need to check. I need to see what all is wrong, so I can start fixing it, okay?”
“It has gone too deep.”
“Not yet it hasn’t,” Dean insists. A swell of panic threatens to swamp him, and he shoves it down and eases his hand around the back of Castiel’s shoulder. His fingertips brush a knot of muscle and bone and the angel’s muscles instantly snap taut.
“Okay, okay, believe it or not, this is easy-it’s only dislocated. I can pop it back and it’ll feel better right away.” He glances worriedly at the cramped, debris-strewn space behind Castiel. “Where’re your wings?”
Castiel closes his eyes. For a moment, nothing happens. Then the bowl on the altar starts to rattle, and, faintly, a silhouette traces down his back. It’s twisted, and there are ragged gaps in its length. It flickers so hard it’s barely visible, but Dean nods.
“Okay, I see it. The other one’s still folded?”
The silhouette stutters out. Castiel sags heavily against Dean as he nods. “Ifrin only got to the one. Zachariah started on this one.”
Dean stiffens. “You’ve been hurt that long and didn’t say anything?”
“We were… busy, Dean.”
His voice is fading out, so Dean pushes down the surge of irrational anger. He shifts his hand around, intending to brace Castiel so the angel can sit up, and his palm skids on something slick. When he pulls his hand back, it comes up covered in that thin, nearly black blood and Dean realizes with a jolt that he’s got a much more serious problem than a dislocated shoulder to deal with.
“Where’s this blood coming from?”
Castiel only looks disoriented, and yeah, he’s covered in blood that’s leaking out of a dozen places, so no wonder he doesn’t know which exactly Dean’s talking about. Dean rolls him higher on his side and leans so he can peer over Castiel’s back and holy shit, there’s a deep, oozing wound on the back of his shoulder, really deep. Dean’s seen enough knife wounds in his day to recognize a bad one when he sees it.
And Chuck had said ‘sword’ and Cas had been against the wall, and…
Dean rolls him the other way despite the harsh noise Castiel makes as his back lands full on Dean’s legs. He tries to curl back up, but Dean pushes him flat.
There’s a corresponding hole high on his chest by his collarbone.
Dean’s vision goes dark around the edges and he hauls Castiel up, forgetting to be careful, and Castiel makes another of those harsh noises. Dean stares, transfixed by the deep gash.
“Cas, shit, this is… this is bad. It… it goes all the way through!”
“Zachariah wanted me to stay put while he searched for you.”
“Fix it! Angel healing, do it, the hell with anyone seeing you! Just zap it healed and I’ll kill anything that comes after you!”
Castiel’s expression softens at Dean’s words, despite his own distress. “I cannot. It is not working.”
Dean fumbles for the hand gripping his shirt so tightly. “Is it the binding symbol? We can break it more! Sam, c’mere, take my lighter, we need to start a fire…”
“No. The demon blood is stopping it. The binding just forced me to obey Zachariah.” He’s already starting to sway, and when he tugs his blistered hand back towards Dean’s shirt, Dean lets him grab on again.
“How do we get it out of you?”
“I don’t know.” Before he turns his face aside, the look in his dazed eyes is so lost it hurts to see it. “Angels have never… to my knowledge… dealt with demons before.”
“That’s how Zachariah came up with this shit?” Dean gets a brief, anguished nod in reply. He whips his head around. “Sam?”
“I don’t know either.” Sam’s on the far side of the tumbled roof debris, looking freaked out and guilty. “Ruby didn’t say how to cure it, just how it worked. And, um, Dean?” He sidles closer, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “There’s something weird about this blood.”
“Weird how?”
“The way it smells-it’s off. It smells, well… disgusting.”
Dean stares up at his brother in disbelief. “And normally demon blood smells good?”
Sam presses his lips together and looks away. “It smells strong, old and strong, okay? This just stinks like rot.”
“Zachariah took the blood of an infant born as Lucifer rose,” Castiel manages. “The child was possessed and killed, with that sword over there,” and he tips his head toward the back wall where he had been lying. “Gave the sigils strength, I believe.”
“Go look, Sam,” Dean orders, and hitches Castiel back up again. The hole through his shoulder is bleeding only in sluggish trickles down his chest and back; it won’t be blood loss that kills him, but the poison in the blood eating slowly through him. “The only thing I know to do is try and purify each of these symbols,” Dean tells him quietly. “I can try holy water first, and if that doesn’t work, we may have to go to fire.” Castiel nods wearily.
“Dean, look.” Sam gingerly lifts a short sword from the rubble, gleaming gold in the muted sunlight spilling through the burned roof. The blade is stained dark red. “This is amazing,” he whispers. “Is it an angel’s sword?”
“Lucifer’s,” Castiel rasps. “Uriel retrieved it for him, but Zachariah claimed it.” He cuts a worried glance to Dean as Sam raises the sword and draws it through the air, his expression awed as he follows it with his eyes.
“Give it here, Sam,” Dean says flatly, ignoring his brother’s sudden scowl. “Go to the car and get whatever first aid we have left. Bring the salt, too, clean shirts, any water that’s left.” He waits, staring impassively, until Sam complies, dropping the sword beside his brother before striding out of the church with his face twisted in annoyance.
“How is Sam doing?”
Dean turns back to Castiel; there’s a worried crease between his brows as he watches Sam’s retreat. “He’s up and down. Withdrawal seems to come in waves. Better question is, how are you doing?” Beneath the bruises, his face looks drawn, and he feels heavy, too heavy really, where he’s leaning on Dean.
“I am slipping,” Castiel answers simply, and Dean’s stomach takes a nosedive.
“You’re not. Don’t even think that, you are not.”
Castiel rolls his head back, his eyes seeking the patches of sky between the missing roof slates. “If I do…”
“No. I am not gonna listen to this.”
“Dean, I would want…”
“NO. I said no, dammit! You are not…” Dean’s eyes fall closed. He gets his hand beneath Castiel’s left shoulder, practically the only unbroken place on his body that he can reach, and hitches him up again. “I am not gonna let you ‘slip’, you understand me?”
Castiel inclines his head; it’s getting too heavy to tip back anyway. “I understand.”
Sam comes back and tosses a plastic bag so it thumps down beside Dean. “You want the salt in a circle?” he asks shortly.
Dean doesn’t have time for his pissy mood. “Yeah.”
“There’s not much left.”
“Do what you can.” One-handed, he digs a shirt out of the bag and bunches it up. “Cas, I’m going to lay you down for a sec so I can mark the wall, okay?”
When Dean reaches for the blood pooling down his stomach, he lets loose of Dean’s shirt and grabs his wrist instead.
“No. It is too tainted to work.”
“Sam, how much water do we have?”
Sam looks up from the saltline he’s dribbling around the corner they’re occupying. “There’s, like, half a bottle I didn’t finish.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Dean curses under his breath. “I’m gonna need that.” He catches Castiel’s eye. “Will my blood work?”
It takes him a moment to dredge up the energy to answer. “It will, if you know the correct marking.”
Dean fishes out his phone, thumbs through photos, and turns the screen toward him. “Got a portable reference right here.” And Castiel’s lips twitch with a faint, proud smile before his eyes slide closed.
“Here, Sam.” Dean rolls to his feet and tosses him his rosary. “Do the water.” And he draws the knife and slashes it quickly across his forearm, juggling his cell with blood-slicked fingers while he paints the protective symbol on the singed wall behind them.
“Okay.” Dean swipes the knife clean on his t-shirt, and then twists the hem around his arm for a moment; he’s already got Cas’ blood all down his front, so what’s a little more? “This is as safe as I can get us for the moment. I’ll put your arm right, and then we’ll see if holy water has any effect on these sigils, okay?” He bends and touches the least bruised spot on Castiel’s cheek to get his attention. “Cas?”
“Heard you,” he murmurs, without opening his eyes.
“Just checking. Sam? You’ll need to hold him.”
Sam looks helplessly at the bloodied figure. “Where?”
It’s a good question. Dean scrapes a clear space in the debris with his boots. “Cas, I’m going to roll you up on your side. Kneel down here, Sam-don’t step behind him! One hand here, below the sigil on his hip, other one here, on his side.” He lowers his voice. “Don’t let him loose; he’s probably never felt an arm socket go back in before.”
“Great. He better not slug me like you did that time.”
“I’m a lot more careful than you were.”
Sam rubs his face on his sleeve, flexes his hands, and places them where Dean indicated, bearing down in anticipation of the wrench of pain the angel was about to feel. Castiel’s eyes blink open, and his left hand curls up from under him and catches Dean’s sleeve.
“I need my hands for this,” Dean says quietly. “Hang onto Sam for a few minutes.” And he transfers the hand to Sam’s shirt tail.
Dean doesn’t give any of them time to think about it-he just braces Castiel’s shoulder, takes hold of his arm, and brings it up and back and around.
The joint catches with a sharp little jolt Dean feels as a vibration down the muscles of Castiel’s arm; and then the bones scrape over each other and snap into place with a not-so-little jolt. Castiel wrenches upward, a short burst of angel voice blistering their ears. The sound cuts off suddenly when he goes limp.
“That got it,” Dean mutters, shaking his head to clear the ringing in his ears. He twists his head around and swipes his damp forehead against his sleeve. Carefully he flexes Castiel’s arm back and forth until he’s satisfied there’s no grinding left in the joint.
“So now what?” Sam asks. He yanked his hands away the second he didn’t need to hold Castiel down anymore and scooted himself back so he’s pressed against the charred beams. “Dean, do you have any idea what you’re doing?”
Dean sits back on his heels, watching the symbols well up with sticky black blood that just plain looks evil. “What do you think? But common sense is tellin’ me to clean out the poison. Holy water’s all I know that can counter this kind of power. I mean, something that’s taking out an angel?”
Sam plucks the bottle of water out of the space between two beams where he’d stashed it. “It’s going to hurt him, you know that, right?”
“If it works, it’s going to stop him dying.”
He takes the bottle from Sam and sends out a wordless plea, not that it will do one damn bit of good. The sigil on Castiel’s right shoulder, the one he just put back in its socket for him, is closest; and so he starts there, tilting the bottle and carefully letting a thin stream of blessed water pour out over - into - the carved lines.
The holy water trickles down, washing a trail through all the dark streaks patterning his skin. For a second, nothing happens-laid bare without the coating of blood, the glyph is an ugly swirl of lines, representing ugly intent.
Then a wisp of smoke rises from the point where two lines intersect. Another coils up along the trail of water. The whole symbol sheets over with a rush of smoke, invisible fire pouring down Castiel’s arm and side, every place water touched blood. The shock of it jolts him back awake, his eyes going wide, and Dean nearly has the bottle knocked out of his hand when Castiel wrenches away from the bitter burn of it.
“Hold still! Hold still, Cas!” Dean catches him one-handed as he rolls, yanks him back and jams him down grimly. “Sam, dammit, gimme a hand!”
It takes both of them to keep him from pulling away; his eyes have gone unfocused with that frantic blankness again and it’s not until the last drops of holy water have sizzled off that he blinks and shivers and recognition returns.
“Sorry,” Dean says, “sorry, Cas, but I have to.” He glares at Sam, “Don’t let go!” and shifts his stance, gets his knee up on one hip, free hand flattened just above that godawful hole in his chest, tilts the bottle, pours.
He only arches up for a second, sinks back down with shudders racing up and down his body, and rides it out without a sound. The smoke fades and Dean breathes hard and swallows harder and bends close to look. “I think it’s working. Cas, I think maybe... The lines don’t look as deep now.” He skates one finger over the symbol. “They’re definitely more shallow. If I…” He breaks off, gives the bottle a little shake. Only a half-inch of water sloshes in the bottom. “If I can get more water, a shit-load of water, we might beat this.”
Castiel is breathing too hard to answer. Dean eases his knee off his hip and looks helplessly around the church. “There isn’t any water in this place, is there?”
Sam shakes his head. “I didn’t see a creek outside, either, or even any rainwater in the ditch.”
Dean brushes his thumb across the symbol again and winces as the motion startles another shudder from the angel. He’s still bleeding from the other sigils, and that hole through his shoulder is scaring the crap out of Dean.
“We need to do like we did back at that motel,” Sam says. “Fill a tub and dunk him in. We might have to do it a few times, but the volume of water a bathtub holds will have more of an effect than a few splashes at a time.”
Dean’s stomach clenches at the thought of that much holy water hitting all those incised lines, not to mention the shoulder wound, all at once. “The shock could kill him.”
“Dean, look at him-we screw around much longer, the delay will kill him.”
“I know.” Dean draws a shaky breath. “I know, and I said I wouldn’t let him…” He stops. “I won’t. So yeah, we have to do it.”
“Dean.”
Castiel is looking at him through barely-open eyes. The bruising on his face - at least Dean hopes it’s the bruising - is making them look sunken and dark. He tries to moisten his lips and flinches at even that slight movement. Dean slides a hand beneath his chin and dribbles the remaining water into his mouth without thinking; but Castiel swallows without any sign of stinging smoke.
The poison isn’t all the way through him, not yet. It can’t be, if he can still drink holy water.
“You hear what we’re going to do?” He gets a short nod in return. “It’s going to be rough, Cas.”
“Necessary.” He frowns, struggling to keep his eyes open. “Sam is right. I am slipping.”
“What did I tell you about that? Now gimme your arm-lifting you is going to hurt, but we need to get you out to the car.”
Castiel twitches his head in the smallest shake. “Wing needs to fold first.”
And Dean’s stomach folds into a knot of churning nausea. “Aww, hell, Cas!”
“You must. I cannot.”
“It’s gonna… Cas, it’s so broken-it’ll hurt like Hell, and I mean that literally.”
“I can stand it.”
“You shouldn’t…” He breaks off, turns his head away from the calm trust overlaying the hurt in the angel’s gaze. He looks down at the seemingly empty space at Castiel’s back, remembering from that earlier flickering glimpse how twisted and broken the wing had looked.
The ifrin may have started the damage this time, but Castiel’s own brother had finished it.
He swallows hard and turns back. “Okay, but here’s the deal. I’ll get it folded up out of the way, but once you’ve got your angel mojo back, you heal it, angel brethren finding you be damned.” He waves his hand at the blade gleaming amidst the charred rubble. “I’ve got this pig-sticker now, I’ll cut down any prick that comes for you, got it?”
“If I can, yes,” Castiel agrees quietly.
“Okay then, as long as that’s clear.” Dean rubs his sweaty hands on his jeans and draws in a deep breath. “I’m not going to just smash it down into your back, either; I’ll set the bones straight first, so it doesn’t heal all crooked. It might take a little longer, but I bet it won’t hurt as much when I get done fixing it.”
Sam frowns at him. “Dean, what do you know about fixing angel wings?”
“It’s just bones, right? I can set bones.” He summons up a cocky grin from someplace. “I’m damn good at it, trust me.”
“I do, Dean.”
And that calm statement nearly does him in. What he’s about to do is akin to torture, never mind that it’s meant to repair, not maim-it’s still going to be agonizing.
And Cas trusts him.
Dean has to stare up at the shadowed ceiling from a long moment before he can get his voice working again. “Make it visible, Cas, and keep it so I can see it,” he says, low, and to Sam, “Keep him still, and I mean still. I do not want to fuck this up.”
Sam no longer looks nervous, he looks downright scared, and when the wing fades into view, he winces, but he does shift all his weight forward to bear down on the angel.
Dean places his hands on the top arch of the wing; the bone that rises from Castiel’s back is badly askew, and he can feel the breaks in it grate when he runs two fingers lightly along it. He runs his fingers up the bone again, pressing at the cracked spots one by one to line up the rough ends.
And then he pulls, with a quick, sharp yank; Castiel jumps, hard, and Sam looks startled and gets a better grip on him and bears down even harder.
It doesn’t look quite as twisted now; Dean can barely feel the breaks when he runs his fingers over them yet again. He slides his hand lower, finds the next thin, snapped bone, grasps it and tugs it straight. A shudder rocks Castiel, but beyond that he doesn’t move. Dean moves his hand to the next break; the feathers here should be heavy and dense, but there are only a few left, and the skin connecting them is split into deep, bloodless fissures.
“I had to set my dad’s whole hand once,” Dean says, just to hear his own voice, just to keep the nausea at bay. “We were workin’ a job in upstate New York, way upstate, near Pulaski. Second year you were at school, Sam.” He moves his hands to the next broken bone, yanks it straight, feels Castiel’s awful, involuntary shudder. “Right off of Lake Ontario. Nice couple who bought this old Gothic Victorian to fix up, they thought all the weird shit happening was from the damn wind that blew all the time. Things started to escalate; Dad figured it was a poltergeist. A kid had died at the house years before, fell out of his treehouse when he was about thirteen. Seemed like a pretty straightforward case.”
Dean smoothes a few bent feathers, stomach clenching at the rough, lifeless feel of them. One ragged end of bone is poking clear through the skin beneath them, and when he eases it back in and then tugs it straight, Castiel makes a small noise in the back of his throat. Dean raises his voice determinedly.
“Warded the corners of the house, even did a salt an’ burn on the kid’s bones for good measure.” Broken bone under his fingers, a quick yank, on to the next. Castiel shudders, and his hand grips the hem of Sam’s shirt so tightly that the blistered skin splits, leaking fluid over the binding symbol. “Went back to walk through the house, make sure it was clean, and something throws Dad clear down the front hall. Slammed his hand in this huge mahogany pocket door and wouldn’t let him loose.”
Dean pulls another bone straight, tries to straighten a few more ragged feathers. Sam’s still holding Castiel, but Dean catches him blinking rapidly. He bites his lip, and he might just be uneasy about forcing an angel immobile on the floor, but when he gives his head a sharp little shake, Dean’s stomach drops.
“Turns out it wasn’t the kid at all, but his father’s spirit. While we were searching for his grave, we heard stories that he knocked the kid around, had maybe even killed him, not that anybody had given a damn back then, fifty years ago. Anyway, after we salted and burned the old bastard, Dad made me set his hand. We were between insurance cards.”
Dean pulls a last thin bone straight and studies the wing worriedly. He thinks he’s gotten them all-the wing looks straighter, anyway, and the joints aren’t nearly as crooked. Slowly he runs his hand down the length of the wing, trying not to disturb the sparse feathers any more than they already are.
He’s going to kill that self-righteous dick.
“Lot of little bones in a hand, y’know. Dad made sure I did a real good job. I think I did okay on this, Cas.”
He doesn’t get an answer.
Dean shifts position, easing in so his knees are pressed right up to the back of Castiel’s waist. The blood from the wound in his back is leaking down under his wing, staining the dark feathers even darker, and Dean finds he can’t stand seeing it. He reaches over and snags a handful of gauze from the bag, wiping at the blood as best he can. More blood seeps out as soon as he finishes, so he folds one of the spare shirts and presses that against the deep gash.
“Hang on just a little longer, Cas. I think I can get it folded now.”
Sam licks his lips and darts his eyes around the wrecked church. “Dean, wait-do you hear chanting?”
He so does not need this right now. “No, and neither do you. Stay with me, Sam. Don’t go losing it until his wing’s folded.”
Sam gives his head a sharp shake. “It’s really quiet, but I can hear it. I think I need to get out of here.”
“Give me one damn minute to fold his wing so Cas fits in the car,” Dean grits out.
“He fit before.” Sam shakes his head again, a little rattle like he’s trying to dislodge something from his ear.
“I don’t think the ifrin dragged it out as far as the archangel or Zachariah did. Focus, Sam. Help me out here.”
Sam’s face has gone pale in the dim light, but he sucks in a quick breath and nods.
Dean puts one hand at the base of Castiel’s wing and the other on the first joint that needs to bend. He presses up and back-bones grate, and he shifts his palm higher, trying to brace the breaks. The silhouette flickers so hard the remaining feathers lose definition, blending into a solid charcoal shadow.
“Cas. Wing.”
He makes a very faint noise and the silhouette fades back in. Dean presses again and the joint clicks and starts to close.
“Dean, you don’t hear that?”
“I hear bones grating. Just breathe through it, Sam,” Dean snarls.
The joint folds shut. Dean doesn’t dare move his left hand-it’s keeping the shattered bone that rises from Castiel’s back from twisting apart again. He slides his right hand all the way down to the next joint and slips his fingers into the crook. “Hang on, Cas.”
A thin sheen of sweat has broken out on his face, and what Dean can see of his skin beneath the darkening bruises is grey. Dean starts to draw the next joint up and back and Castiel’s mouth moves once, soundlessly. Dean can feel the strain in the tendons beneath his left hand, and the ominous creak of bone.
And when he brings the joint closed with another of those gut-wrenching snaps, Castiel’s hand drops away from Sam’s shirt and flops limply to the floor.
The silhouette winks out completely.
“Cas! Cas!” Dean doesn’t dare jiggle him to wake him up and he doesn’t dare move his hands. He’s holding something - he can still feel the rough scrape of damaged feathers beneath his hands - he just can’t see them. “Sam, wake him up!”
“Um, hey.” Sam eases the death grip he’s got on the angel and gives him a tentative shake. “Castiel-wake up.”
“Cas!” Dean barks, but he knows it’s no use-he can feel how limp the angel’s body has gone. “Sam, I need him awake so I can see what I’m doing.”
“Can’t you just…?” Sam makes a two-handed pushing gesture against the air.
“No, because I don’t want to cripple him!” Dean closes his eyes and breathes hard for a moment. “Pin him down with one hand and dig your other thumb into the hole in his chest,” he says, low and intense.
“Dean-what? No!” Sam tips over onto his ass in shock.
It makes him sick, but he needs Cas awake. “Pin him down and dig your thumb into the hole in his chest and wake him the fuck up,” Dean snarls.
Either it’s the tone of his voice or the fire in his eye, but Sam’s helpless to refuse the gruesome command. He jams his weight onto the angel’s upper body and sets his thumb against the edge of the leaking sword wound and twists it down and in.
And Castiel nearly levitates off the floor despite Sam’s efforts, and he scours their ears with his voice while Dean struggles grimly not to lose his grip on the shifting bones.
“Sorry, Cas, sorry, oh god, I’m so sorry,” Dean’s mumbling as Castiel slumps back onto the filthy floor, panting. “Cas, I’m sorry, but I need you to show your wing. Just another minute, tops.”
He rolls his head so he can look back over his shoulder at Dean, understanding overlaying the haze of pain in his eyes. “Do not blame…” He breaks off to gasp a few short breaths. “Necessary, I know.”
He rolls his head back down and the silhouette fades back in, not as clearly as before but enough for Dean to finish bending the joint closed.
It clicks again, the sound sharp in the quiet church. Dean stretches his arm full length to gather in the ragged wingtips, left hand still bracing the shattered bone at the top where Zachariah had so cruelly twisted. And Castiel’s whole wing furls and sinks down out of sight, leaving them both shaking and panting.
“I’m sorry,” Dean says, and, eyes closed, Castiel shakes his head, and then, “It’ll be easier to heal if it’s not all mangled, right?” and he jerks a quick nod, but it doesn’t make Dean feel any better.
Sam’s shoved himself back against the beams again, looking sick and a little horror-struck, but at least he’s not talking about freakin’ chanting anymore. He’ll just have to deal with the lengths Dean’s willing to go to for them.
Dean paws through the bag, flings a shirt at Sam. “Tear that into strips,” he says shortly, while he folds a second t-shirt to press over the deep gash below Castiel’s collarbone. There isn’t much gauze left, but he tapes pieces over the carved symbols until he runs out.
“Gotta sit up, Cas,” and Dean’s not even trying to avoid touching the sigils now, he just grabs wherever he can get a grip and pulls the angel up. Chips of ancient plaster, slate, and charred bits of wood are ground all down Castiel’s side where he’d been lying, and Dean takes a second to scrape away the worst of it.
“Tuck your arm up,” he says quietly, but he has to bend his right elbow for him so his arm rests tight on his chest when Castiel only blinks uncomprehendingly at him. Dean snaps his fingers at Sam for the strips of torn shirt. “I’m going to tie it up so your shoulder doesn’t move around, okay? It’ll hold the bandages in place, too.”
After a brief delay, he nods. He’s having trouble staying upright, so Dean motions for Sam to prop him up while he binds Castiel’s arm in place. Sam’s not looking too good himself-he’s still pale, and he keeps clenching his jaw and then swallowing convulsively. “Sam, you okay?” he asks as he knots the ends securely.
“Yeah… no… not quite. Feel… weird.”
“Can you keep it together ‘til we get out of here?”
Sam looks at him helplessly. “No.”
Dean makes a grab for him as he topples, already shaking; he misses. Sam collapses on the floor and clamps his hands over his ears. He yells, writhing back and forth in the debris. Castiel gets his free hand up, clamps it on a fallen beam, and drags himself back out of the way so Dean can reach his brother.
Dean spreads his palm over Sam’s forehead and steadies his head. The shaking goes on and on, and Dean’s starting to get seriously afraid when finally Sam’s legs slow their frantic churning. His muscles unlock, so Dean rolls him up onto his side and squeezes his shoulder while he recovers. Finally Sam coughs. He pulls out of Dean’s grasp, sitting up and then bending forward until his head nearly touches his knees. “I need to get out of here,” he croaks.
“Okay.” Dean lets himself tip over onto his ass. He throws a quick glance over at the angel, propped dazedly against the wall, and then back to Sam, slumped over like he’s not going anywhere without a lot of effort. Dean drags his knees up, folds his arms over them, and lowers his head. “Lemme know when you can move under your own steam,” he says tiredly.
It takes a minute, but Sam finally straightens. Dean heaves himself to his feet, gives Sam a hand up; when he’s standing, he brushes off Dean’s hands and starts for the door. “I can manage. Get him,” Sam says, with a vague wave back toward the angel.
Dean hooks his crowbar through his belt. “Come on, Cas.” He gets him under the arms and pulls him up, the muscles he bruised when he hit the pews protesting loudly. He ducks beneath Castiel’s left arm. “Go slow, so you don’t trip on the crap on the floor.”
“Sword,” Castiel rasps, and Dean snags it as they shuffle past.
He has to half-lift, half-drag him over the ends of the fallen beams and his back twinges sharply again. He’s so damn heavy, and he almost tears free of Dean’s hold as they stumble over the obstacle. Dean catches him and reels him back, and Castiel’s hand knots in Dean’s shirt again.
They crunch across splintered pews, and Dean winces-he’d forgotten that Castiel lost his shoes.
“It is fine,” the angel breathes, as if he knows what Dean’s thinking-and that would be good, because that means he’s still got some of his angel powers, right?
He hasn’t slipped too far if he can still hear Dean’s thoughts.
They scuff through the vestibule, torn pages drifting aside with quiet rustles as they pass. Dean half-turns and bumps the double doors with his hip and Castiel jerks his head back, screwing his eyes closed against the streams of afternoon light.
“Too bright,” he groans softly.
It isn’t particularly bright, which sends worry gnawing through Dean’s stomach. Hazy clouds cover the sky, and the sun’s dipped low enough that the newly-leafed-out trees screen its light. When Dean pauses and looks at him, there’s an eerie rim of brightness seeping at the scrunched-tight corners of Castiel’s eyes.
Dean jabs the sword into the floorboards and lays his hand gently across the angel’s eyes. His heart nearly stops when his fingers glow red, like when he and Sam were kids and played with Dad’s flashlight, shining it under their chins or through their hands.
“Cas, stop. Get back here. Remember what I said?”
“No slipping.”
“Damn right. You’re not leaving us to fight this alone.” Dean waits while the angel makes a visible effort to draw himself back. The glow illuminating Dean’s fingers fades out and he draws a shaky breath and drops his hand. “That’s better. Just a little longer. Just hang on until we can get these symbols washed out.”
“Yes, Dean.”
Sam’s at the bottom of the front steps, looking hollowed out from withdrawal and dusty with plaster and ash from rolling around on the floor. He’s swishing his crowbar through the tall grass, tearing off feathery clumps with soft ripping sounds, but when Dean starts down the steps with Castiel draped against him, he drops the crowbar and reaches up to seize a beltloop, keeping the angel from pitching head-first down the church steps.
Castiel doesn’t climb into the car so much as collapse into it. Dean tries to help him get situated, stuffing one shirt beneath his head, draping another over his bare upper body. It doesn’t seem to help; he just sinks down against the seat and goes slack, not even doing that settling-in motion Dean’s gotten used to seeing when he’s preparing to rest.
They need to book out of there, but Dean can’t tear himself away from the open car door just yet. “Cas?”
His eyes slit open, and Dean’s terrified he’s going to see that spill of light again, but they’re just a flat, glassy blue. “Stop blaming yourself, Dean. I made a choice,” he whispers hoarsely through dry, swollen lips.
Dean shakes his head. “Not to be poisoned. What… what’s it doing to you?”
“Burning through.”
And that kicks his ass into gear, gets him up out of his crouch and into the driver’s seat, crowbar tangling at his hip before he can yank it loose, sword clattering onto the floor like a cheap boardwalk prize. Damn wires won’t twist properly in fingertips gone thick and sweaty, it’s only the third try that gets the freakin’ engine to catch.
He drives. Sam looks tired, and mouths thing at him, annoying shit, ‘Dean, calm down, Dean, ease up, Dean, it’ll be okay, Dean Dean Dean’, shut up Sam okay, just shut up let me drive.
He doesn’t know where he’s going, lets instinct take over. In town is too crowded, so he doesn’t take that turnoff. The interstate is too well-traveled, so when he sees a sign for the old, two-lane highway the interstate superseded, he spins the wheel at that corner.
Somehow he’s not surprised when he rounds the first curve and a motel is waiting off the side of the road. It’s shabby, but not decrepit; there’s a long yellow ribbon around the trunk of the buckeye tree next to the office and a POW/MIA flag on the pole out front, near the bus stop shelter.
It’s not like he’s going to be too picky.
There are only two cars in the lot, but he notices a man squatting on the stoop in front of one door, olive drab coat pulled tight around his throat, smoke trailing from the cigarette in his fingers. Another door opens a crack when he rocks to a stop, engine loud and obnoxious. The blue light of a TV flickers off a pale, scruffy face peering out at them.
The sign says Walter’s and ‘Daily, Weekly, Monthly rates’; the ‘No’ in front of ‘Vacancy’ is covered by a little flap of white-painted wood. There are guests, but not many, and Dean’s not trying further, not with Cas looking like this he’s not.
Dean reaches for the door handle and Sam snatches at his elbow. “Dean! Your shirt!”
Oh. Yeah. He looks… like a serial killer on a spree or something. Cas’ blood is all down his front and his own blood has soaked through the sleeve of his button-down and there are smudged, bloody handprints along the hem.
Sam cranes over the seat and passes him the last clean t-shirt. “Wipe your hands, too.”
Dean spits, rubs his hands on the ruined shirts until they look okay except for the dark creases of his knuckles but maybe no one will look too close. He squirms out of his shirts and pulls on the clean one. Stretches up and peers in the mirror.
“On your neck.” Sam takes the bloodied t-shirt from him, spits on a corner, scrubs smudges off his neck. “Okay. It’s on your jeans where he was lying, though.”
“I’ll stay behind the counter.”
A bell jangles when Dean pulls open the door. Inside it’s warm and cozy, more like a living room than a motel office. The counter’s low, and Dean steps up to it quickly to hide the dark stains down his jeans.
There’s a mountain of a woman ensconced in a wide chair, and when Dean comes in, she raises a remote and mutes the sound on the TV on the wall. She’s got her own little domain set up in the space behind the L-shaped counter-microwave and coffee pot on a cart to her left, a radio, a computer on the counter, and Dean can hear the quiet crackle and squawk of a police scanner from the shelves to the right.
She heaves her chair sideways so it rolls up to the counter, the light from the small table lamps gleaming on blonde hair fading to silver. “Help you?”
“Need a room. Uh, double.”
“For the night or the week, hon?”
“Umm…” Dean’s mind blanks; he hasn’t gotten beyond just getting to a motel so he can stop Cas from ‘slipping’ any further. “Not sure, actually.”
“Well, then, I’ll put you down for one, you need to stay longer you stop by and I’ll ring another night through, how’s that? Not like I’ve got crowds beating down my door, huh?”
Her blue eyes are tired, but kind. Dean finds himself nodding wordlessly, and he takes the registration card she slides across the counter with one soft, rounded hand.
He looks around the office while she runs his credit card and enters his info in the computer with fast, quiet clicks. The basket on the counter is full of pamphlets, not for local attractions, but for 12-step meetings, VA programs, and the local Social Security office. There’s a framed photo beside it. It’s facing so that it’s the first thing visible when the woman glances up from her chair. When Dean shifts sideways to look at it, he gets a little jolt of recognition, because it looks like an old photo Dad used to have, years ago, in with some old papers about his service and discharge. Dad’s was his Corps photo, taken in his dress uniform; this one’s Army, the boy pictured a little older than Dad, lighter hair, a narrower face, but with the same serious determined eyes.
Dean feels the weight of the woman’s gaze on him, and looks up to see her watching him, his credit slip in her hand. “That’s my Walter,” she says, and her eyes get even more tired as she adds, “June the fourth, 1972.”
“I’m sorry,” Dean says, and means it, and she nods and pokes the slip across the counter for him to sign.
And as he scrawls a fake name across the bottom, something prompts him to catch her eye again. He thinks maybe he can confide in her. Sort of. “Umm, ma’am?”
“Onnie,” she tells him.
“Onnie… My brother and I are checking in with a buddy.” This part is a little tricky, because obviously the strict truth isn’t possible. “He’s… he’s a soldier.” Well, that part is true, pretty much, and Dean doesn’t miss how Onnie’s eyes go soft with sympathy. “He just got back, and he’s… he’s kinda messed up. He’s not dangerous,” Dean says quickly. “He just might… yell a little.”
Onnie looks from Dean’s short, spiky hair to the cord just visible beneath the collar of his t-shirt to the fresh gash on his forearm. Her expression sags from weary to sad. “Oh, hon, that’s too bad.”
“He won’t cause any trouble. He might get a little loud, is all. He won’t mean to, but…”
“Don’t you worry about it. The long-term guys here are all vets. I’ll put you down at the end, okay? And I understand what you’re asking-I don’t involve the cops if I can avoid it.”
“Thanks, Onnie.”
She nods and slides a key over to him. “You need anything, you call. I’m here all night, I don’t sleep too good.”
His heart is already starting to speed up when he hustles back out to the car. They’ll be lucky if she doesn’t end up calling the cops-between Sam’s fits and what he’s about to do to Castiel, there may be too much noise for Onnie to ignore.
Dean reaches into the backseat, tilting Castiel’s chin up. He startles, hard, jerking free of Dean’s fingers with a flash of panic in his glazed eyes. He’s breathing, though, and not leaking light out of his eyes. “Easy, Cas. Almost there.”
Recognition wipes over the panic and he nods.
And Dean slides into the driver’s seat to move the car and its passengers down to the room where he’s going to commit what amounts to torture, of an angel.
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On to Chapter 6