The Devil You Know : Chapter 7
See part 1 for disclaimers.
Chapter 7
Pounding on the door wakes them far too early.
Dean hears it first as a part of his dreams, fists battering against wet red walls, underlaid with shrill faint screaming that sets his boots to scraping restlessly against the floor. It’s not quite enough to drag him fully awake; he’s bone-tired, and he’s had nightmares that have been far worse. The noise pauses; he’s just sinking back under when it picks up again, more insistently.
This time it jerks him awake, the sticky threads of nightmare snapping as his bootheels thud on the floor. He’s out of the chair before his eyes are fully open, and he swings toward the door - still closed - then back to Sam - snuffling out from under two pillows and a blanket - and finally to Castiel - in an unmoving curve on the second bed with a pillow jammed behind his back.
“Whassat?” Sam mumbles, pillows falling away from his head as he sits up. “Someone knocking?”
“Ignore it.” Dean circles around to Castiel’s bed. He can’t believe he fell asleep for so long-Dad would have kicked his ass for leaving a room without protections unguarded like that. Daylight is leaking around the edges of the drapes in sharp slices of brightness. “Cas?”
He’s not shivering anymore. He’s breathing, and when Dean bends and pulls the blanket back, there’s no blood on the bandages on his shoulder. Slowly his eyes peel open, and he looks at Dean uncomprehendingly.
“Hey. You doing okay?” Dean asks, and Castiel’s forehead crinkles in a slight frown.
The knocking starts up again. “You think we should answer that?” Sam asks.
“No,” Dean says without turning around. “Probably just trying to tell us we missed check-out.”
“It’s only 8:20.”
“Then maybe it’s an invitation to the breakfast buffet! Leave it, they’ll go away.” He’s got more important things to worry about. He catches Castiel’s flat stare and holds it. “Cas? You in there?”
It takes another minute, a minute where Sam nervously watches the door and Dean’s stomach tightens while he watches the angel, before the blankness fades away and Castiel nods.
“There you are.” Dean releases a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding. “How’re you doing? You feel okay?”
He nods again, which isn’t really much of an answer, but before Dean can press it, the pounding starts again. “Jesu-jeez. Go away already!” he snaps, almost under his breath.
As if in response, a voice calls through the door. “Open up, boys. I know you’re in there.”
It sounds like the manager, what was her name-Onnie. Dean rises and crosses the room swiftly while Sam flings back his blanket and reaches for his pants. Dean tucks the knife behind his back, glances at Sam and gets a nod in return, and unlocks the door. He eases it as far as the flimsy chain double-locking it will allow.
Onnie’s on the doorstep, a sweater flung over her shoulders, breathing a little heavily in the morning light. “Open up. You boys may have trouble.”
Shit. Dean hesitates, then closes the door, unlatches the chain, and pulls it back open, just enough to stick his head out. “What seems to be the problem?”
Onnie shoves the door, just missing Dean’s face, and heaves herself up the step to fill the doorway. “It came over the police scanner a little while ago-there was a break-in at Calhoun’s Pharmacy overnight.”
“That’s too bad.” Dean resists the urge to glance around at the dresser; he can’t remember what might still be scattered across its top. “But why’s that our trouble?”
“Hon, I heard that clunker of yours go out and come back in the middle of the night.” She gives him a shrewd look. “Long as you don’t cause problems in my place, it’s none of my business. But anything involving drugs, the cops have a tendency to show up here first when they’re asking questions. Some of my guys’ve been hassled in the past. I’m just giving you a head’s up.”
“We appreciate it,” Sam says, and Dean swings around, frowning, as his brother adds, “We’ll clear out right now, okay?”
“That’s probably for the best,” Onnie agrees. “For you and your…” Her voice trails away.
Dean glances back at her, realizing too late that when he’d turned, she was able to see past him to the second bed. He follows Onnie’s gaze to where Castiel is struggling to sit up. His hair’s standing straight up above his battered face and he’s reaching for the headboard with his bandaged hand. He misses, his hand skimming past the thin cheap wood, and the blanket falls away behind him when he folds in half. Onnie’s shocked hiss cuts across the quiet room.
“Sweet Lord, what happened to him?”
Dean abandons his post at the door to wheel quickly back around the foot of the bed. He catches Castiel with a steadying hand and unobtrusively folds the blanket over the sigil scars on his stomach. “Soldier, remember?”
“Yes, but…” Quiet horror is rounding Onnie’s eyes; slowly she drags her gaze up to meet Dean’s. “That does not look like war injuries. Was he… captured?”
Dean nods. “He was.”
Onnie shifts, trying to see around Dean’s subtly blocking body, unable to tear her gaze from the still-visible lines scarring Castiel’s skin. “What is that, some kind of Taliban thing? Why isn’t this boy in a hospital?”
“He checked himself out.” Castiel half-rises, making another grab for the headboard, and Dean presses him back down. “Cas, sit tight for a minute. He’ll be okay,” he says to the woman. “We’re watching out for him.”
Onnie frowns. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”
Dean hopes so, too. Castiel is barely awake, eyes sliding in and out of focus, and yet the second Dean eases his hold, he hitches himself to the edge of the bed and sets his feet on the floor, pushing to stand up. “Where are you going so fast?” Dean asks, as Castiel rocks forward to stand.
His gaze skitters around the room, finally settling on the clothing draped over the chair backs. “Leaving… but pants first… then walking around,” he slurs, pushing the words out with an effort.
Dean’s silent for a split second before barking out a startled laugh. “Yeah, I did make that rule, didn’t I?”
“It’s a good rule,” Sam says firmly, and drops a pile of folded denim on the end of the bed. “He’ll have to wear your spare pair-everything else is still wet.”
Onnie keeps watch in the doorway, half-turned toward the road outside, as Sam circles the room and sweeps scattered belongings into plastic bags. She doesn’t ask why the clothing he gathers up is wet, or why, after Dean threads Castiel’s feet through the jeans and hoists them up, he doesn’t seem to have any other clothes.
“Up you go.” Dean pulls the angel upright. “Can you walk? We better bug out. Sam?”
“Coming.” His brother exits the bathroom, sending a shame-faced glance at Onnie. “Sorry about the mess.”
“Charge the repairs to my card,” Dean says absently. “Cas? You okay?”
His eyes are out of focus again, and he’s swaying very slightly in place, making no effort to move his feet. A little leap of fear jolts through Dean. “Cas?”
He blinks, and is suddenly present again. “Dean.”
“Yeah.” The way he’s flipping in and out is starting to freak Dean out. “Try and stay with me. You can sleep in the car. You are falling asleep, right?”
Castiel’s brow crinkles in confusion, and when he tilts his head, it throws him off balance enough that Dean has to reel him back before he crumples down to the edge of the bed. “Nope, nope, stand up. Gimme your arm, Cas. Arm. Around my waist and hang on. We’re walking to the door, okay?”
“Take the blanket,” Onnie interrupts. “For pity’s sake, you need to keep that boy warm. Where are his shoes?”
“Long story.” Dean bends sideways to snag the blanket from the bed, still holding Castiel by the elbow, and drapes the worn cotton around the angel’s shoulders. “Thanks, Onnie.”
“It’s just a blanket.” She watches while Dean gets his arm tight around Castiel, urges him into motion. The slight weight of the blanket is still enough to knock his balance out again, and he jams to a confused halt after he stumbles into the end of the other bed. “The guy in Three is in decent shape, knows how to keep his mouth shut. You want I should get him?”
“Thanks, but we’re good.” Dean’s got them arranged now, arm-shoulders, arm-waist, handful of beltloop, and is steering the angel steadily towards the door. “Nice and easy, one foot in front of the other. You’re doing fine for a guy who flies everywhere.”
Onnie sidles out of the way, lurching down off the step with a grunt and throwing another worried look down the road toward town. Castiel jams to a halt again, twisting away from the morning light streaming through the door.
“C’mon, Cas. Close your eyes if it’s too bright. We gotta keep moving.”
“It is.” He closes his eyes, ducks his head away from the thin sunlight. “I don’t understand-it should not be.”
“You’re just wiped out still. Little more rest and you’ll be fine. Here’s the car-climb in.”
Castiel slits open his eyes just enough to navigate the door, the tilted-forward seatback. Once he’s jolted into the corner of the seat, hard, Dean’s hand shooting out to keep the back of his shoulder from slamming the edge of the door, he squints up with distress plain on his face. “I don’t understand. I cannot reach it.”
“Reach what?” Dean crouches down, yanks the blanket free from its tangle around Castiel’s legs and the seat. “Your healing mojo?”
“The healing, my Grace, any of it. Dean…” And the distress is wiped over with raw fear. “I cannot feel my wings.”
Jesus. Dean’s stomach flips, and he has to lean away in a pretense of tucking the blanket around the angel to hide the instinctive flash of fear on his own face.
It’s wrong. Too wrong to think about, too wrong to see, fear like that on the face of an angel.
“It’s probably just temporary,” Dean says roughly, impatiently, because shit, of course it has to be temporary, why get all knotted up over a short-term inconvenience, right? “All that demon blood probably shocked your system so hard it needs time to reboot.”
“Dean.” Sam dumps the bags into the footwell and throws himself into the front. “We should go.”
“Yeah, yeah.” His hand hovers, finally comes down in an awkward pat on Castiel’s shoulder that he means to be reassuring. “Look, don’t freak out yet, okay? Try to rest-you’ll be fine.”
Castiel studies him searchingly for a second. And then he nods, and his expression blanks out again. He tips his head back, drawing the blanket up and settling it and his arm across his eyes.
Shit. Dean swallows hard and backs out of the car. The manager’s pulling the motel room door closed, and Dean pauses, catches her eye. “Onnie? Thanks.”
She waves him off with one soft hand. “Get out of here. Just take care of yourselves.”
Once they’re on the road, Sam bends down and rummages through the bag at his feet until he comes up with a couple of powerbars. He offers one to Dean but gets a headshake in return. “Where’re we going?” Sam asks around a mouthful of granola, and holy shit, Sam’s eating something. Voluntarily.
See? Miracles, Dean tells himself. He bends to check the road behind them in the mirror, flicks a glance at the back seat and then ahead again, and bears down on the accelerator. “Out of town. Supply run. New wheels.”
“Bobby’s?”
“I’m thinking no. That sonuvabitch Zach has to know we’d head there if we could. Long as you’re doing better, I think we better stay away.” They’re coming up on the on-ramp to the interstate, and Dean bends again to scan up and down the highway for patrol cars. “In fact, I think we need to get off the grid completely.”
-----
At a high school two exits down the interstate, Dean hot-wires an Equinox out of the teacher’s parking lot and drives it back to the side street where he’d left Sam and Castiel. They’re waiting with the Chevelle, Sam leaning on the front fender and fooling with his phone, Castiel sitting sideways in Sam’s usual spot in the front, bare feet on the curb, blanket still wrapped tight around his hunched shoulders.
Dean pulls up behind them and shoots a sharp glance at Sam as he climbs out of the SUV. “Zachariah probably knows your number from when I called from the green room.”
“I know; I’m copying what I want saved so I can ditch this.” He gives the new car an incredulous look. “You boosted an SUV?”
Dean shrugs. “If I can’t rustle up some cash, we’re gonna be sleeping in it. This is big enough to stretch out in.” He crouches by the angel. “Hey.”
Any hope that Castiel might be feeling better is dashed when he drags his head up. Dean winces at the blankness settled deeply into his face.
“We’re gonna switch cars, okay?”
It takes a second or two to process before he nods. When he pushes to his feet, he sways for a second before taking a few halting steps toward the SUV. He stops and frowns. “Water. I will need water.”
“Water? Oh, for the protection thingy. Sam, do we have water?”
“In one of the bags.” Sam’s voice is muffled as he ducks into the old Chevelle, wiping prints. “It’s just tap water from the motel.”
“That’s fine.” Dean digs out the bottle and brings it back to Castiel. “How much do you need?”
“Just to coat the roof.” Castiel shrugs so the blanket slides down his back, pooling onto the ground behind him. He lifts his left arm toward the top of the car, stops, rises on tiptoe and stops again. “I cannot reach.”
“Hold on.” Dean opens the back door. “Like this.” He steps up into the car, one hand gripping the edge of the roof, and pours out a puddle of water before stepping back down. “I’ll give you a hand up.”
With Dean bracing him, Castiel steps up, stretches across the roof. He murmurs soft words, and Dean feels the shift of his muscles as he swirls the water around on the metal.
And then he goes extremely still.
Dean raises his head, a frown already forming, his questioning ‘What’s wrong?’ cut off when Castiel says the words again, sweeps his arm in another circle.
And freezes again.
He’s poised on the SUV’s running board, arm frozen in the act of reaching over the roof, his hip braced against Dean’s shoulder. He’s so tense Dean can feel tremors running down his body, and then he shudders and steps back abruptly, jolting down onto the ground.
And when he turns and faces Dean, his expression is bleak. “It doesn’t work.”
Dean’s eyes widen in alarm. “The symbol?”
Castiel shakes his head. “My… touch, I suppose. To purify the water so the words will bless it.” He meets Dean’s gaze, and there’s a bitter lostness, in his eyes, in the twist of his mouth. “I am no longer holy, it seems.”
“Bullshit! You’re an angel!” Dean blurts.
“Perhaps not. The healing is not working, I still cannot feel my wings, I no longer hear Jimmy’s voice.” Castiel’s gaze slides away, and he tips back against the car, looking exhausted. “The demon blood did not kill me, but it left me damaged.”
“Temporarily,” Dean insists. “It’s only been a few hours! That was some strong shit, you can’t expect to get over it right away.” He takes Castiel’s arm, tugs him to the door. “Get in. I’ll do the symbol. You rest, give it a chance to wear off.” Sam’s beside them now, his hands full of plastic bags, and Dean throws a slightly crazed look at his brother. “Right, Sam?”
“Um, sure. I mean, yeah, sure, it’ll wear off.” Sam shrugs with an uncomfortable roll of his shoulders. “It has to, right?”
“Thanks, Sam, you sound real reassuring,” Dean says flatly. He strips rustling plastic handles out of Sam’s grasp and pitches the bags behind the driver’s seat. “Get in, Cas. You’re going to be fine. Look at Sam-he had a rough few days, but no more withdrawal. He got through it and you will, too. Here-wrap up and lean back.”
Quietly, Castiel climbs into the back seat, settling down with a listless side-to-side motion and pulling the blanket around himself.
An hour down the highway, Dean has to pull over to let Sam throw up powerbars onto the side of the road.
-----
At a Wal-Mart at the edge of town, before they hit the highway, Dean nearly maxes out the lone credit card in his wallet. At the gas station next door, he snaps it into pieces that he tosses away after making a final purchase. The SUV’s tank was nearly full, but he topped it off, and then filled his two newly-purchased gas cans before stowing them in the back.
“Sit up, Cas-got you coffee.” Dean hands a cardboard cup through the door. “Well, coffee-flavored milk, but you gotta start somewhere. Okay, see this? It’s a cup holder. It’s for…”
“Holding the cup when I am not?” Castiel says dryly, and Dean manages a grin at his tone.
“Exactly. Keeps it from spilling. Now, this you’re just gonna have to hold until you’ve eaten it. It’s a sweet roll-girl at the counter said the glaze is honey, okay? How’s your shoulder?”
“Painful.”
Dean winces. “How bad on the ten-scale?”
“I do not understand.”
“A scale of one to ten, one being that punch I threw in the Green Room, ten being a needle full of holy water boiling you from the inside out.”
Castiel lowers his handful of pastry to his lap and regards Dean with that calm steadiness that seems to pierce clear through him. “You must stop blaming yourself for that. It is pointless.”
He sighs, looks away. “How bad?”
For a minute it looks like Castiel’s going to just as stubbornly avoid answering. Finally, while he studiously juggles coffee cup and pastry, he responds without looking up from his lap. “Seven.”
“Shit. Sam…?”
“I did lift some Percocet from the pharmacy. But are you sure a drugged angel is a good idea?”
“I think it’s a bad idea. But I don’t know what else to do.”
“You don’t need to do anything,” Castiel breaks in firmly. “It is endurable. I don’t wish to be drugged.”
Dean watches him blink through a long swallow of milky coffee and then set the cup aside so he can peel at the layers of glazed roll, as if breakfast is the only thing on his mind. He clearly considers the discussion closed. Dean grimaces. “Okay. But if it gets worse, you tell me.”
He dials his cell while he pulls back out onto the road. “Bobby? Hey. Yeah, we’re okay. Cas too. No, really. We need to lay low for a while, though. Any chance you could bring the car to that place where we tangled with the banshee that time? That’d be great. Yeah, just leave her and go, we better not meet up. I’ll call you later, once I get new phones. Okay, thanks. I owe you one.”
Dean snaps his phone closed and tosses it into Sam’s lap. “Take it apart for me, will you?” He shakes his head. “Damn, I’m gonna miss those pictures of you being a dumbass.” The huffy snort he gets in response is totally worth it.
Sam’s better - Cas will be soon - Dean’ll have his Baby and his gear back soon.
They’ll go dark and work out a plan and it’ll be awesome.
He’s damn convincing when he wants to be.
And it’s not long after that, just another sixty minutes down the interstate, when Sam needs him to pull over so he can throw up.
When he finally drags himself back into the seat, his hands tremble so hard he ends up jamming them tight beneath his armpits, and he can’t, or won’t, look at his brother.
Dean sneaks a glance at the mirror. Castiel is leaning against the back door, and he’s not looking at Dean either. The blankness has vanished, and so has the stubbornness. Instead, he looks wrecked, utterly devastated by the proof of just how strong demon blood really is.
-----
In some nameless town, Dean pulls in at a roadside tavern, neon-lit, lot crowded despite the late hour. Lightning is flickering somewhere below the dark horizon, but the streetlamps shine steadily and it smells like rain; it’s just a spring storm, not restless demons.
“You stay in the car,” Dean says, a thread of authority underscoring the quiet command, and Castiel presses his lips together and looks away, but he nods and sinks back, tugging idly at his sleeves. When they’d stopped for a midday break, he’d winced his way into the shirt Dean passed him, and at some point during the long afternoon, he’d worked out the intricacies of lacing up the boots Dean had bought him.
Dean still doesn’t want a guy looking as shell-shocked as Cas inside the bar.
“We’ll be out as soon as we make some cash.”
Dean doesn’t particularly want Sam in the bar, either; he’s pale, and shaky, and he looks like an easy mark; but he’s insisting that’s the perfect cover-he looks wasted already, why not put it to good use. Dean should say no, dammit. There’s no way Sam can kick ass if things go south, but they need the cash.
So here’s Sam slinging an arm around Dean’s shoulders with a loud, sloppy laugh as they push through the doorway, and there’s Sam noisily clipping a chair with one hip on his way to a table. He waves for beer, and comments loudly on Dean’s frown, and once the bottles are delivered he lurches back to his feet and weaves off to watch the pool game in a back alcove swirling with smoke.
It’s sobering to see how adept at deception Sam is. Dean watches with hooded eyes, pulling slowly at his beer, while Sam insinuates himself with the regulars, easily letting them gather that he’s a college boy with more money than sense, being escorted home for the summer by his pain-in-the-ass big brother.
A fifty on the edge of the table gets him into the next game, which he loses dismally and cheerfully. Another fifty - their last, but the others don’t need to know that - loses him the next game as well, and Dean comes over, playing guardian, tries to pry him away.
Sam shakes him off, straight-arms Dean with what might be a little too authentic force, and the regulars laugh and close ranks around their buzzed new best friend, drawing him back for another game.
And that’s when Sam starts winning.
He pretty much steamrolls them. Dean would’ve finessed it a little, won a couple to have some cash to throw around, lost a couple more to keep them going, keep them off-balance and impatient to regain the upper hand. But Sam just wants it done and over with, and the regulars get surly way too soon.
Dean elbows his way in between cues and scuffling boots, scoops up bills, and shoves Sam at the door. They don’t exactly get chased out to the parking lot, but curses follow them until the door slaps shut on their heels.
It doesn’t matter, because Dean’s got a decent roll of cash clenched in one fist.
Sam’s buzzing with adrenaline and beer on a wrung-empty stomach. He bumps Dean aside to leap for the driver’s side, swinging around once he flings open the door for the expected argument.
It doesn’t come. Dean waves him on, pulls open the passenger door. “Wake me when you’re ready to switch or if you start crashing again. I’m gonna catch a few hours sleep.”
-----
The SUV bumps slowly down the overgrown lane, branches flicking its sides. The sun’s slanting in just above the treeline on the western side of the small Wisconsin lake, and Dean doesn’t have to check to know that Castiel has slid low in the back seat, blanket-draped arm pressed over his eyes.
Photosensitivity, Sam had called it, when they’d stopped for lunch and Cas wouldn’t get out of the car, just shook his head and flinched away when Dean had tried to pull at the blanket. He’d just wanted to know if it was getting worse, because hell, an angel who can’t tolerate light? That’s just all kinds of wrong.
Screw Zachariah and his filthy soul-splitting spells. He’s going to kill him.
The right front wheel dips into a particularly deep pothole, and Sam’s head clonking solidly against the window breaks Dean’s train of thought. His brother jolts awake, arms flailing. “Ow! Damn it, Dean!”
Dean slides a sideways glance at him. “Would you rather have hiked in?”
“Hiked? Where are we?” Sam shoves his seat forward, cursing as the SUV hits another pothole and his elbow cracks on the door. "Ow.”
“North shore of Lake Fucking Banshee. It coming back to you now?”
“Oh.” The lane opens out onto a clearing. A distressingly familiar one-room shack in the center tilts toward the reed-choked shoreline. “Yeah. That water was cold.”
“It’s probably not much warmer now, so try not to trip over your own feet and fall in again.” Dean’s jibe is half-hearted, his attention already on the lean-to tacked onto the back of the cabin.
There she is. Dean’s out of the stolen car and at the lean-to before the SUV even finishes coasting to a stop. He trails his palm across the Impala’s trunk and up the side, and his world rights itself a degree on its axis. “Hey, Baby.”
The lean-to’s so narrow he can barely get the door open wide enough to squeeze in. He settles in the seat with relief so sharp he has to close his eyes for a moment before he can bend forward, fingers skating beneath the floor mat for the keys.
When he backs out, Sam’s watching, leaning on the SUV with his arms folded and wearing an expression somewhere between exasperation and amusement. “You feel better now?”
“Much.” Dean shifts side-to-side just to hear the familiar creak of leather. He runs his hands around the wheel, fingers bumping along the fingergrips, and he doesn’t even feel like cuffing Sam upside the head for his epic eye-rolling.
Castiel drags his arm off his eyes when Dean opens the back door, his head rolling lethargically to meet the other’s eyes. “Your car?” he asks in a ragged voice.
Dean nods. “My car. With a trunk full of weapons, salt, protections. We’ll be just that much safer with her, believe me.” He taps the side of Castiel’s knee. “Swing your legs out.”
He can’t. Dean pretends not to notice; he just makes himself busy leaning in, draping Castiel’s arm around his neck, hitching him forward on the seat. One-handed, he reaches down and knocks Castiel’s knees so his feet flop out of the car, and then Dean heaves them both backwards.
Castiel’s legs go out from under him the second his weight shifts from car seat to boots. Dean has to scramble to keep him from crumpling completely, pushing up with his shoulder beneath Castiel’s arm. Once he’s braced on the car, Dean shakes his head, panting a little.
“Dude, c’mon. Little help here.”
“Sorry. I cannot reach-it’s too far away.”
“What’s too far? The ground? You’re standing on it,” Dean says, a thread of uneasiness uncurling in his stomach.
“The distance.” Castiel tips his head back to look up at Dean, and his head keeps right on tipping until it comes to rest with a light thunk on the car. His eyes slide out of focus and his throat hitches as he tries to swallow. “How do you manage, so far removed?”
“Okay, Cas? What are you talking about?” Uneasy has shot straight past worried to freaked out. Dean dips his head, trying to catch and hold the gaze that’s sliding hazily all over the place. Castiel grimaces and twists aside, eyes squeezing shut. “Cas?”
“In between. When you step over the chasm…”
“Jesus.” Dean seizes his arms, gives the angel a sharp shake. “Stop. Whatever you’re doing, stop. You’re not making any sense and…” And you’re scaring the crap outta me, he doesn’t add. “Are you even awake?”
His eyelids drag open and Dean huffs out a relieved breath, because Hello, the lights are on again and somebody’s home. “Dean?”
“Yup. You wanna stay grounded here, Cas? We’re switching cars again.”
“Oh. All right,” he says, completely agreeable, and Dean has to bite back a bubble of hysterical laughter.
Yeah, he really doesn’t like how Cas is flipping in and out like this.
Somehow they make it over to the Impala; Dean sits Castiel down sideways in the back seat, makes sure he’s propped against the doorframe, and pulls his shirt up his back and off his shoulder. Sam comes around to hover behind Dean and stretches one foot out to nudge at his boot.
“I thought you were in a hurry.”
“I was until he went all incoherent on me. Bring me the med kit from the trunk.”
Dean peels up adhesive tape and bandages, afraid of what he’s going to find. Seeping black blood, infection, hell, maybe freaky angel light streaming from the sword wound.
But it’s just a raw, penetrating gash. Serious, and pretty damned agonizing to judge by the way Cas’ face goes pale and his split, swollen lips thin out when Dean’s fingers brush the injury.
But nothing particularly otherworldly.
Dean lays his palm flat against the cut, startling an involuntary flinch from the angel. “Sorry. Checking for heat. For infection.” And Castiel jerks a nod, cut short by a sharp intake of breath as Dean presses on the exit wound. “Feels okay. How bad’s the pain?”
Castiel’s eyes flick to the side for a split second and then back again. “Improving.”
“Bullshit.” Flatly, Dean holds his gaze, refusing to let him look away.
There’s a long pause before he relents. “Eight,” the angel mutters.
“Getting worse, then. You ready for a Percocet?”
“No. Too dangerous.”
“Okay.” To be honest, after that gibberish earlier, Dean doesn’t really want a drugged-up Cas, especially if he starts babbling about chasms again. He digs through the med kit for antiseptic and fresh gauze. “I’m sorry I can’t do more.”
The angel’s tense expression softens. “Dean. You kept me from dying. What you’ve done is miraculous.”
“What I did was…”
“Hey.” From behind him, Sam gives Dean’s boot a sharp kick. “Knock it off with the guilt tripping. Patch him up and let’s get on the road before the killer mosquitoes come out.”
It sounds so ordinary, so normal-Sam-bitching, that Dean actually relaxes a little. He’s got his hands full with an injured angel and a demon-detoxing brother, not to mention vengeful angels and a looming apocalypse, and all he wants right now is to drive his own car to a decent room for the night.
But Sam’s still his brother, and Cas isn’t dead, and he’ll worry about the rest later.
-----
He’s not even sure what state they ended up in. All Dean knows is that right around the time his eyes were getting too blurred and scratchy to tell the difference between oncoming headlights and reflections on the road signs, Sam started squirming and scratching at his arms and mumbling about his skin crawling. They hadn’t even been on the road all that long, but when Dean turned back to the road after the fifth worried glance over at Sam, they were coming up to an exit with a sign for a motor court.
It’s a row of tidy, attached cabins, set off the highway on an auxiliary road behind a broad swath of trees, and the spot-lit sign is painted with a large silhouetted bird touching down in a tree, and the words “The Owl’s Nest”.
Owls, doves, whatever.
If that’s not a sign Dean should stop here for the night, he doesn’t know what is.
-----
Sometimes a room that seemed decent in the dark, at the tail end of a punishing drive, turns out to be anything but in the harsh light of morning. Shadows hide built-up grime in crevices, and exhaustion blurs stains into patterns on bedspreads and carpet, only for the squalor to be revealed upon awakening. Dean’s lost count of how many times he lay searching for pictures in the water stains on a ceiling or symbolic meaning in the cracks down a wall, while he worked his way to full wakefulness or waited for Sam to settle down and fall asleep. Hell, they used to make a game of it, back when they were little. Back when they were three in a room.
And here they are, three again, and who would have guessed that would come to pass? Dean rolls his neck on the pillow bunched against the arm of the small couch, dropping his hand over the side to brush the sawed-off resting on the floor within easy reach. He’s got a knife beneath the pillow and another gun on the end table where his feet are dangling over the other arm of the couch, salt lines at the windows and door, and a bandage on his arm where he sliced it back open for a blood symbol for the door.
It feels like he’s prepared for a siege, and maybe that’s what he’s doing-barricading them behind wards while he waits out the demon blood’s next trick.
The running is wearing them all down, too; they need a few days rest, a few days in sanctuary.
At least this room is as clean in daylight as darkness made it appear. “Sanctuary” isn’t all that attractive as a refuge if it’s steeped in filth and vermin.
Dean raises his head just enough to look over at the two beds and their occupants. Castiel, as far as he can tell, hasn’t moved in the slightest since Dean dragged him inside and he crashed onto the mattress. For a guy who claims not to need rest, he sure sleeps hard.
Sam, on the other hand, clearly spent a restless night. His pillow’s on the floor. The blankets are twisted around his legs like he’d been running in his sleep. His head’s bent back at an uncomfortable angle as if he’d fallen asleep in the midst of tossing and turning-which, from the hours of thrashing that kept jerking Dean awake all night, he probably had.
Long, red scratches mark Sam’s outflung arms, but at least he finally stopped scratching. If he starts up with the ‘My skin is crawling’ crap again, Dean’s going to duct tape oven mitts onto his hands.
Slowly, wincing at the angry pull of his back, Dean swings his feet to the floor and folds forward, stretching tight muscles. While he’s bent down, he palms the shotgun, tucking it comfortably in the crook of his elbow. His duffel bag is beneath the end table, and it’s a relief to be able to pull out his own clothes, to shift aside his own Glock for his own shaving kit beneath it.
Showered, shaved, dressed in clothes worn to familiar softness, Dean stands at the table and tucks weapons into his pockets and belt. Behind him, Sam groans in his sleep, kicks at the sheets. Even as Dean turns, he jackknifes upright with a huge gasp, his eyes bugging wide.
“Sam?”
His brother knuckles his chest, breathing hard. “Nightmare. M’okay. Time is it?”
“Early. There’s a market down the road; gonna walk down and pick up some food. Go back to sleep.”
“Yeah.” Sam shoves his fingers through his hair. “Sure, I’ll just roll over and go back to sleep. No problem.”
Dean ignores his cutting tone and slides a blade into his boot, tugging his jeans down over it. “That’s my boy. You feel like anything in particular for breakfast?”
“Quit bugging me about eating, Dean!” Sam throws himself flat, just missing cracking his skull on the headboard.
“I was just asking. I’ll leave you the shotgun, okay?”
A couple of kids scramble out the office door and past him when Dean crosses the parking lot, heading for the small playground in the field flanking the motel. The door thumps open a second time, and the woman who checked Dean in the night before comes out, dragging a cart loaded with used linens down over the threshold. “Casey, you watch your sister!”
“I will!” the older of the two yells without slowing, intent on racing her younger sister to the swings. Their mother tucks light brown curls beneath her bandanna and tugs the linen cart into motion again, offering Dean a tired smile as she wheels it past him.
It’s an easy walk to the market. The sun’s already warm on Dean’s shoulders, and he kicks at the gravel, keeping a few pebbles rolling ahead of him until they skitter off into the ditch. It’s quiet, the highway noise muffled by the line of trees between it and the side road. It would be almost peaceful if he didn’t have those two back in the motel to worry about.
A bell over the door jangles when Dean pushes it open. Two people - manager and cashier - look up in tandem, and then go back to the radio they’ve propped against the window. Static is crackling loudly, nearly obscuring a newscaster’s voice, and the younger man shakes his head.
“This is as clear as I can get it without an antenna.”
“Well, I don’t have an antenna.”
“Then it’s not gonna come in any clearer.”
“Are you sure? Let me try.”
Dean leaves them to their hushed bickering and cruises the aisles, scooping up basics to cobble together a few meals-bread, cereal, milk, cans of soup. Sammy’ll eat pasta usually, and turkey sandwiches, and there’s still coffee left from the first shopping trip, all the way back in Amish country, even though that seems like a decade ago.
He dumps his purchases on the lone checkout counter and the cashier turns reluctantly from the hissing radio. The older guy takes the opportunity to fiddle with the radio, tilting it back and forth on the window ledge in an attempt to reach a clearer signal.
“Something going on?” Dean asks.
“You haven’t heard?” The kid pauses in ringing up the prices. “There was an earthquake epi-centered in the Ohio River. Bridges and shit collapsed, there’s flooding all over-it’s a real mess.”
“An earthquake? That far east?” Dean’s stomach takes a nosedive.
The cashier nods. “I mean, yeah, it’s not unheard of-just nothing like the West Coast. But this was a big one, they’re saying…”
“Seven on the Richter scale, maybe eight!” the manager puts in.
“Yeah, seven or eight, with no warning tremors at all before it broke loose. Right at rush hour, too. It’s kinda freaky.” He shoves Dean’s groceries into a bag, his attention already back on the radio.
“It’s probably aliens,” the manager says absently. “Those lights in the sky last week were a sign. Natural disasters are how they soften us up for the coming invasion.” The newscaster’s voice dissolves in a burst of static, and he frowns and twirls the tuning knob.
“Ohh-kay then.” Dean can’t tell if the guy’s joking or not, but really? Aliens are probably more believable to the average citizen than freakin’ Lucifer walking the earth. He holds out his hand for his change, impatient to be out of there already.
The kids are still playing outside when he gets back to the motel, slightly out of breath from hurrying. Dean bites back the sudden urge to order them to go inside with their mom. They've abandoned the swings for the edge of the parking lot; the younger girl is hopping through a complex grid chalked onto the pavement, while the older one sits cross-legged nearby, a sketchpad in her lap. The littler one jumps from space to space, plastic sandals slapping sharply each time she lands. Her sister glances up from her pad and pencil from time to time and then back down again, a frown of concentration on her face.
Sam's already got the TV on, and it's showing scenes of surging water choked with debris, bridges dangling in a mess of twisted cables and girders, heaps of rubble that used to be riverside towns. He startles when Dean comes in, and his face is drained pale. "You should see this," he says in a hollow voice. "I think it's starting."
Dean lets the grocery bag slide from his arms and drops onto the edge of the bed beside his brother. They watch the front of an apartment building sheer off in a rumbling avalanche and a helicopter lowering a rescue net to someone clinging to a tree surrounded by deep brown water. "Damn it."
Sam nods. "There was something about the worst Red Tide ever recorded appearing overnight all down the Eastern Seaboard too, but the earthquake's kind of overshadowed that."
"Red Tide? Isn't that algae?"
"Poisonous algae, but yeah. People are having serious respiratory problems, and there are some pretty massive fish kills washing in."
"But algae?" Dean repeats, his voice high with disbelief.
There's a rustle of blankets behind them. "Waters running red is one of the signs of the Apocalypse," Castiel says, in a voice gone soft and rough.
"Peachy." Dean swings around. "The ground's shaking apart, the ocean's turned blood-red; guess we should expect fire from the sky next, huh?"
"Possibly." Castiel has gotten the blankets untangled and is pushing to his feet, one hand shooting out to catch himself on the wall. There's a pinched, grey look to his face, and his hair's doing that standing-on-end thing that makes Dean think he needs to introduce the guy to a comb one of these days. "Meteors have long been interpreted as harbingers of doom."
"Aren't you the cheerful one." Dean comes around and grabs the angel's elbow, because he's shaking, even with his hand braced above the headboard. "Where are you going?"
"I... am not sure." He casts a vaguely troubled look around the room. "I think I should be..."
Dean frowns when his voice trails off. "Should be what? Going somewhere? We're stopping here for a few days, Cas. You can relax."
He shakes his head. "Should be... doing something. I thought I heard something..."
"Yeah?" Dean steers him out from between the beds and across the room to the dinette table, because Sam's craning forward and glaring at the TV in a not-so-subtle hint that he's trying to listen. "What'd it sound like?"
"Echoes." Castiel looks up suddenly as Dean guides him into one of the chairs beside the table, his eyes too bright and boring into Dean's. "The wrong kind."
Goddammit. Dean leans forward, laying his palm on the other's forehead. "You're not running a fever. What's with the crazy talk?"
Castiel wrenches from beneath Dean's hand. "The door," he insists, fingers cinching Dean's wrist and giving it an impatient jiggle. "When it splits asunder and then is caused to close. That sound."
"Okay." Dean's at a loss, but whatever the hell Cas is talking about seems vitally important to him. "Can you still hear it? No? Well then, tell me when you hear it again, okay? and I'll try and track it down." He gently extracts his wrist from the angel's crushing grip and lays his arm on the table. "Maybe you're dehydrated. I'll get you a drink. Not coffee-I’m thinkin' you better stick with water for now."
Castiel sinks back, mouth tight, and looks away. Dean starts toward the cupboard, but hesitates and veers off to the door instead, swinging it wide.
Nothing looks out of place. Sun's still shining in a blue, blue sky, traffic's still humming in the distance. A squirrel shoots across the parking lot and up a tree. The kids are still settled on the edge of the pavement, the littler one singing softly, "O-lo-lay, O-lo-lay-la" as she hop-skips across her chalked lines, messy brown curls, so like Sam's at her age, bouncing in the sunlight. The older sister's face is hidden behind lighter brown hair, her pencil racing across the paper.
Dean turns away, extracts a cereal box from the bag propped on the doorframe, and wings it at Sam. "Think fast, bitch."
"Hey!"
"What? You love Apple Jacks. In fact, you love..."
"Don't start with 'jack' jokes in front of an angel, jerk."
Dean snorts, reaching for the bag. Sharp movement catches the corner of his eye; he glances up in time to see the older girl leap up and lunge suddenly at her little sister. Frowning, he steps back into the doorway just as she gives the smaller girl a violent, two-handed shove that sends her staggering back toward the motel.
The hell? Where'd that come from?
A clatter behind him yanks Dean's attention off the kids. Castiel has leapt to his feet, sending his chair crashing against the stove. One hand is clenched on his forehead. He slams full into the table as if he doesn't even see it, then drops his hand to sweep it out of his path.
"It caught her."
Something skims through the open door past Dean's legs, spinning through the salt line, pages fluttering. As the sketchpad disappears beneath the nearer bed, Dean's rocked by an impact like a wrecking ball on his back. Sharp fingers rake his neck, and he stumbles into the couch.
For a second he thinks it's one of those trackers, an ifrin. Thin, wiry legs wrap around his hips, and he reaches back and gets a handful not of slick, oily skin but thin cotton blouse. Sam's yelling and the kid, the older sister, is clawing his neck and giggling in a disturbingly deep voice. He twists his fist and yanks.
Cloth tears, but the kid's still adhered. Her hair stings the side of his face as she darts bared teeth at him.
Sam gets her around the stomach and rips her free; her teeth clack together a scant millimeter from Dean's ear. As Sam slings her around, she twists loose of his grasp, landing in a tense crouch on the sofa cushions.
Dean's not all that surprised to see her eyes are a solid, glossy black.
Fuck. A kid. It possessed a little kid, no more than ten years old.
"The knife, where's the knife? Dean, dammit, where'd you put the knife?"
He's not stabbing a ten-year-old kid, a kid brave enough to knock her little sister out of the line of fire, he's not.
He shoves Sam behind him, steps toward the kid with hands outspread. She shrieks out a laugh at him, glittering black eyes sweeping past him and around the room to settle on...
Fuck.
The kid bounces once on the cushions and springs. She rockets into Castiel, feet smacking his thighs, hands locking onto his shoulders. The impact knocks him back into the edge of the table.
"Oh, look what I got, little broken bird, mine to play with, all mine,” she - it, it’s a thing talking - sing-songs with harsh glee. The demon rolls the kid’s shoulder and there’s a wet ripping sound and Dean’s heart is trying to crawl up his throat because he’s not going to get there in time.
Castiel makes a shocked, pained noise. Then he sweeps his arms up, and out, and the kid’s body falls away and drops to the floor.
The angel stoops swiftly, clapping the heel of his hand to her forehead. For a second her face freezes in a mask of fear, and he bears down, pinning her head to the floor.
Her face clears. She surges up against his hand, a smirk too vicious for such a young face plastered across her features when the brilliant Grace light never appears. Her own hand shoots out. Her fingers punch through Castiel’s thin shirt and twist with casual strength. His eyes go wide and he falls backward out of his crouch, landing hard on the floor. She follows, fingers sunk past the knuckles in the center of a starburst of blood while he claws at her slender wrist.
“Broken, aren’t you all broken up!” she laughs, and he’s borne back, and down, pinioned by the twisting, gouging fingers.
Dean gets hold of her then, tearing at the slight body. She whips around and a surge of power throws him off her. Crimson drops fly from her fingertips as she flings out her hand and slams him to the floor.
Sam’s sidling in to flank her, but she simply twirls and pushes him back. She cocks her head when the current hits him. “What are you? Not like him, broken upstairs thing. But not like him, either,” and she flicks her bloodied hand at his brother. Her dark eyes grow bright with avid curiosity and her head darts forward, snake-like, while she studies Sam.
“What do you think I am? How am I different?” he asks desperately, and she takes a step toward him.
Castiel seizes on the demon’s momentary distraction, rising behind her in a silent rush. He wraps both arms around her, squeezing tight despite the damage to his shoulder. She jerks in surprise; her back arches, throwing both of them backwards.
And Castiel goes with her, lets momentum carry them back so they crash onto the tabletop. She twists as soon as they land, arm drawing back and aiming straight at the hole torn through him.
He slides out beneath her before she can strike, rolling right off the edge of the table. He lands on the balls of his feet, hand touching down for balance, but continues down helplessly until he ends up sprawled flat. From where he’s lying, he can see the devil’s trap drawn on the underside of the table.
“Cas? Shit, Cas, are you okay? You’re not, are you?”
Dean’s beside him, hauling him back, hands beneath his arms and dragging him out of range of the dinette. It’s rattling, the whole thing starting to vibrate under the scorching anger of the demon trapped atop it.
“Cas, for fuck’s sake…”
“Get rid of the demon,” he rasps, pushing hard at Dean’s hands. “Get it out of her, she’s so young, it will break her mind.”
Sam’s already on his feet, Latin already spilling from his mouth. It doesn’t beg, or scream, or bargain-it just glares up at him with simmering rage, a feral snarl twisting the child’s face.
“Casey? Casey!”
The shriek comes from the open door. The girls’ mother is framed there, eyes wide with terror. She pries her younger daughter’s hands off her waist and charges forward. “Get away from my daughter!”
Castiel heaves at Dean, and he finds himself propelled up, across the room, catching the woman just before she body slams Sam. Another agonized shriek tears from her throat as Dean drags her back. Her hands sweep down, just missing her daughter.
“We’re not hurting her, I swear! We’re trying to help!”
She’s got a mean left hook. Strong, sharp elbow, too, and a heavy stomp that rakes his calf even though she’s only wearing sneakers. Dean hops back and nearly trips over the littler kid.
“Get away from her or I swear to God I’ll kill you!”
“She’s in trouble! We’re trying to help her!”
“Mom?”
The smaller girl’s wavering voice somehow cuts through the shouting, and she tugs at the back of her mother’s sweatshirt. “Mom, what’s wrong with Casey’s eyes?”
The woman stills in Dean’s grasp. Sam’s still reeling off Latin in a low, passionate recitation, and the thing on the table is making the child tremble with rage, jaw clenched, eyes huge and shining and very, very black.
“Oh my god, what did you do to her?” the woman whispers.
“I swear, we didn’t do it. We’re trying to un-do it,” Dean insists. Cautiously he eases his hold on her, and she twists roughly, reaching to gather in the younger girl.
“Penny, come here. Get behind me. Did you drug her? I can’t believe I let you into my place, you fucking freak.”
Sam flinches, but continues the rite without pause. The demon’s stoicism is starting to crack; the girl’s body writhes, and a low growl rumbles past her lips.
“It’s not drugs, it’s a demon.”
She stares at Dean in disbelief. “You’re a lunatic. That is my little girl-I will find a way to kill you if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Lady, I’m telling the truth. I know it sounds beyond insane, but listen to the words-that’s holy Latin my brother’s speaking. Look - really look - at what it’s doing to the thing inside her.”
The woman wavers, torn between fleeing with the child clinging to her legs, and staying to try and rescue the one on the table. At the back of the motel room, Castiel shoves himself to his feet, a flood of red all down the front of him to his waist. He sways for a second, nearly crashing over, until he catches the edge of the counter. The woman’s eyes go wide and she takes an involuntary step back.
“Look at her hand,” Dean says urgently. “You think your little girl could rip into my friend’s chest bare-handed on her own? I know how crazy it sounds, but there is an old, powerful thing inside her, and we’re trying to get it out.”
“It’s drugs,” the woman whispers, but she sounds as if she’s trying to convince herself now. She shakes her head helplessly. “Drugs, that blew out her eyes, made her crazy strong…”
“He is telling the truth,” Castiel says, wobbling out from the support of the counter. “It caught her, but Sam will expel it…” He breaks off and reels back against the cabinets, elbow buckling when his arm goes down to catch himself.
“Cas, stay there!” Dean barks. He starts toward the angel, then glances back at the girls’ mother. She’s frozen in place, but Sam’s nearly done, and Dean doesn’t want her breaking his concentration. Castiel slides down to the floor, waving Dean off when he makes another abortive motion toward him.
Black smoke bursts out of the girl’s mouth, roiling up to the ceiling and flattening against the dingy tiles. Her mother screams, and Dean just barely stops her charging to the table again, holding her while Sam raises his voice for the last few words and the windows rattle in their frames.
“It’s gone, it’s gone. She’s okay now. Stop yelling, it’s gone.”
Sam scoops up Casey and plops her into her mother’s arms; she’s limp, and heavy enough that the woman sinks to the floor, rocking and keening, “Oh my god, Casey, oh my god,” over and over.
Dean leaves her for the moment and kneels by Castiel’s side, pushing at the hand he has clamped over the ragged wound. Red is leaking between his fingers, soaking the bandage still wrapped over the binding symbol and running down to drip off his elbow. “Jesus, Jesus, Cas!”
“Dean…”
“Shut up, blasphemy, I know, I just don’t give a rat’s ass. Jesus, Cas!”
His hands scramble frantically, pulling at the shreds of Castiel’s shirt, tearing aside cotton and gauze to get at the deep puncture. The demon had dug deep with the girl’s fingers, following the blade’s path to tear apart skin and muscle and veins all over again.
“Did it hit anything vital, can you tell? Did it get down to a lung? Breathe, okay, lemme see you breathe.”
He does, deliberately taking a long, deep breath, and letting it out slowly. “It’s fine. Just hand me…” Castiel opens and closes his hand, gesturing for the tangle of wet, red shirt just out of his reach. “I’ll hold it. You go to them.”
“In a sec.” Dean bunches cotton over the torn flesh, pressing tight.
“No, now. Get them safe, protected. You must have something against further possession.”
His voice is stern, missing the undercurrent of angelic force Dean’s heard at times, but uncompromising nonetheless. Dean wipes a shaking hand down his face, unwittingly painting it with a broad streak of red. “Amulets, in the trunk.”
“Go. Get them.”
Dean goes. Sam’s crouched by the woman and her two girls, a tangle of arms and legs and desperate rocking. He’s keeping his hands away from them, but he’s talking, a low, steady stream of concern mixed with facts, repeated patiently until the woman’s capable of hearing him.
The mom’s quieted down when Dean returns, one kid burrowed into either side of her. She wipes her eyes with her wrist when he nudges Sam aside and crouches in front of her.
“Was that real? I’m not dreaming this?”
“’Fraid not.” Dean extends his hand, the amulets displayed on the flat of his palm so she can see them. “But there are ways to stop it happening again. This is one.” He drapes a cord around her neck, and then passes her the other two, motioning that she should place them on the girls. “Don’t take them off, ever. Not in the shower, not in school, not in bed.” He brings out the journal, flips pages to the back. “Do you have a copier or a scanner?”
"Wh-what? Yes. In the office. A copier. Why?"
"I'm going to leave you a copy of this, and a phone number, for a friend of ours. His name's Bobby; you call him, say Dean gave you the number, and tell him you need a tattoo artist in the area. He'll give you someone who'll do the job right."
Dean pulls down the collar of his shirt. "It's a protection symbol-- it really, honestly works. You get this inked on each of you, as soon as possible."
"Even the girls?"
"Especially the girls," Dean says firmly. He drags his collar lower, shifts on his heels so Casey can look at the tattoo, see it clearly. "It'll hurt some to get it, but it'll keep evil sons-of-bitches from stealing your body again, okay?"
"Dean!" Sam offers a mild protest at his language, but Dean ignores him, and Casey nods, one finger stealing out to skim the symbol.
"I hate how it felt. I don't care if the picture hurts," she says fiercely.
"It'll sting, and feel like a bad scrape on your skin, but I already know you're brave." Dean catches her eye. "I saw how you saved your little sister. You did good."
Her mother hugs her convulsively, and Casey manages a tremulous smile.
Dean stands, knees popping. "Sam, take them and put traps on their doors and windows, show 'em how to do it themselves. I'll be along in a minute."
He's drawn inexorably to the back of the room, to the angel slumped there. Castiel’s hand has slid limply down to his lap, and the torn shirt has followed, allowing bloodstains to soak into his jeans. He rolls his head up slowly. "Hello, Dean."
Dean stretches up and snags the dishtowel next to the sink. “You’re hard on clothes, you know that?”
“S-sorry. Hazard… of the job.”
“Did you just make a joke? Shit, Cas, what’re you coming to?” His hands are busy, desperately so, doubling the towel, pressing it over the seeping wound, and Castiel arches up in shock, then sinks down and gasps out a short breath, too weak to be a snort.
“Bad… influence.” He sighs then, letting his head roll down to his shoulder. “Tired, Dean.”
“Tough. You need to stay awake. Hold this. Hold it, dammit, while I get another towel.”
Dean wheels around and almost clips Casey. She’s come up behind him, silently, and she’s staring at Castiel with profound seriousness.
“Go with Sam and your mom, okay?”
“I think I did that.” She stares at the bloodied figure slumped before her. “I’m sorry. I think I did.”
“No, you didn’t. The thing that tried to steal you did it. A demon. Not you.” Dean starts to put his hand to her shoulder, but it’s sticky with blood. He lets it fall.
Casey’s looking intently at Castiel. “It was real mad. My stomach still hurts. It was mad, because of the way he shines.”
“The way he-what?”
“Shines.” Reluctantly, the girl tears her gaze away and looks up at Dean. “I can’t see it now, but before, when it was looking too, he shined. Silvery. Like…” She stops, gaze drawn back to Castiel. “Just… shined.”
“Casey, come now,” her mother implores from the door, and she shivers, and with one last look retreats from the room, allowing herself to be drawn into the protective curve of her mother’s arm.
Dean goes into the bathroom and comes out with a handful of towels, thin and a little threadbare, but blessedly clean. He shifts Castiel’s hand, flattened obediently over the dishtowel where Dean said to ‘hold’, and packs rough cotton into the torn place. Castiel’s drifting, hand sliding down, off his lap, head slipping sideways again, and Dean pauses to flick a finger against his cheek.
“Hey. Look here. Open your eyes, flyboy.”
Castiel manages to get his eyelids to half-mast. “Not… any longer.”
Dean smiles grimly. “Don’t be stupid. Outta the mouths of babes, right? She could see you shining-that’s got to be some kind of angel thing. So you’re grounded for the moment, so what. You haven’t stopped being what you are.” He twists the largest towel under Castiel’s arm and up over his shoulder, tucking the ends tight. “Now suck it up and get on your feet and out to the car. We need to get away from that poor girl before more of those evil sons-of-bitches show up, and you’re too damn heavy to carry.”
Dean’s blunt words knock the hazy lethargy right out of him. Castiel drags his feet close and pushes up, reaching back over his head to haul himself up on the edge of the counter, and then he’s standing. He orients on the door and starts toward it.
And he refrains from commenting on the fact that Dean’s got one arm around his back and the other crossed over the front of his waist, taking most of his weight, and that he’s right with him, every step of the way.
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On to Chapter 8