!!!-CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS-!!! SPN & Other Character Prompting Post //April 1st - April 15th
This is a post for ANY AND ALL FICTIONAL CHARACTERS, this includes pairings such as Sam/Dean, Dean/Cas, Anna/Jo, Bobby/Ellen, Clay/Tom, Priestly/Alec etc, etc. All prompts with pairings of people under the age of 18 should be posted to the underage section.
A few reminders:
1. Use your subject lines! Please start with either REQUEST or FILLED also ( Read more... )
A few reminders:
1. Use your subject lines! Please start with either REQUEST or FILLED also ( Read more... )
Garth knows that he's a far cry from being the strongest or most capable hunter. Before Bobby, it was his cousin Brandon who had to suffer through Garth's escapades.
Garth likes to remember his cousin as he was alive; as his most trusted partner who humored Garth's clumsiness because, as he always bragged to their parents, Garth is good at connecting the dots that others miss. It's just that his thought process is much like casting out a net, where he usually draws up random crap along with the occasional prize fish. This mental detritus then distracts Garth until someone -- his parents, Brandon, Bobby, basically anyone -- throws that particular thread of thought out and sets Garth back on track.
Without Brandon, Bobby, or even the Winchesters now, there's no one to point out to Garth that rigging an entire hospital system's PA speakers to play an exorcism at two in the morning is a very, very unsubtle plan. In retrospect, Garth thinks that he should have gone his usual route and interviewed the hospital staff. If he had, he probably would have noticed during his rounds how Nurse Masters smelt a bit like sulfur and always avoided the religious patients in the ward, who randomly took up screaming the Lord's prayer.
For future reference, Garth notes that the psych ward is the worst place to get lost in. All the halls look the same, and the bars on the windows are just plain creepy. He's just passing down what he hopes is a different hall, when he hears the soft click of one of the doors to a patient room opening. Garth quickly shuffles back, peering around the corner to see a nurse step out of the room, whispering into her cellphone.
"Comatose Clarence is still the same," she reports. "Just like I told you yesterday. And the day before, ad infinitum. He just lies there. It's getting tedious, watching him drool."
She rolls her eyes at whatever's being said on the other line. "Yeah, yeah, don't get your panties in a bunch. We're lucky he's put himself in a trance; I don't anyone here could survive his caroling."
There's a sharp string of words that follow her statement, and the nurse scowls. "Considering what I'm doing for you, I'm hurt. I shudder just saying these words in the same sentence, but Crowley's on my ass and Clarence is down for the count. Way down."
She snaps her cellphone shut, annoyed, and Garth is at the perfect position to see her eyes flicker black.
Garth hasn't survived this long not to have certain reactions ingrained in him. Fanged creature running towards you? Crazy-ass ghost rushing you with its collection of very heavy glass figurines? Ghoul deciding to jump your bones before gnawing your skin off of them? Chop first, shoot first, stab first; anything, and ask questions later.
And for a demon? If you don't have a devil's trap handy, you spray that mother with holy water until it leaves.
Garth always knew that carrying around a utility belt stocked with flasks of holy water would pay off. He watches the demon shoot out of the nurse's body, bending down to check her pulse.
Cold. Damn.
He then moves to grab her cellphone, opening up the call history. The number looks vaguely familiar, and Garth only has to wait a few seconds before a gruff voice bites out: "What's wrong? He okay? Dammit, Meg!"
"I'm not Meg," Garth starts, before realizing that he's just heard that voice a week and a half ago. "Dean?"
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"Nothing! It's me, Garth!"
There's a heavy pause, then a long exhale. "Jesus. Uh, Garth, not that it's not great to hear from you so soon, but where's Meg?"
"Meg? The nurse?" Garth glances quickly down at the body. "I'm really sorry, Dean, but she's dead. Possessed, but I guess the demon already got her before I garthed it."
"Garthed-wait, you ganked the demon?" For some reason, Dean sounds pissed.
"Uh, duh? Hunter 101, man."
"Meg was the demon," Dean growls. "We had her there looking after Cas. Castiel." Garth would have been impressed by how Dean's tone can shift from worried to enraged to strangled nonchalance in two minutes, if he wasn't so angry.
"Dude, you asked a demon to look after something? You can't trust demons. Ever!"
"You think I don't know that?" Dean snaps back. "It's not like I've got any other options!"
Garth tries pushing for answers as to who Cas really is and why Dean can't take care of the guy himself. Dean clams up, though, and just says that he and Sam are busy tracking something.
"Look," Dean orders, "just put Meg's body out back and let her come back in."
Garth gapes. "No way. I'll take care of Castiel 'til you get here. I hope you've got better sense than teaming up with a demon, Dean, but if you do see Meg, tell her I'm going to kill her if I see her again."
Dean starts to say something, but Garth ends the call. His hand shakes, either from pushing the end button too hard, or because he finally understands why no other hunter is that keen to work with the Winchesters.
They may be the strongest and most capable, but they make some really shitty choices.
---
After moving Meg's body to the morgue, Garth settles into the chair next to Castiel's bed, looking over the guy's health chart. Castiel Doe has apparently been in a coma since his admittance, with no other evident injuries.
Garth spends the rest of the night thinking up a plausible story.
Thankfully, it doesn't take much to explain the new situation to the doctor. Garth thinks that the guy's a lot like Dr. Spivey in how mindlessly accepting he is. Garth just stands up straight, waves edited copies of his dad's certificates in medicine and psychiatry, and explains that he's here for Castiel as a request from former colleague Nurse Masters.
"She's chilling right now," he grins, pleased by his own joke.
"Poor dear," the doctor tuts. "Worked too hard, I suppose."
---
Garth used to visit his parents' workplaces when he was a kid. He loved seeing his dad use the sock puppets that Garth had glued the googly eyes onto, and he'd listened to his mom give the same speech to families of comatose patients over and over: it is possible for your loved one to hear what you say.
It's these memories that he has when he sits back down next to Castiel. The IV tubing that was missing last night is reattached to Castiel, and Garth thinks that death by lack of IV tubing is the lamest way that he's seen a demon try to kill someone.
"Hey, Castiel," he starts. "I don't know what exactly you can hear from me, but I hope you're listening as hard as you can." He pauses, trying to figure out what to say.
"I gotta admit, I don't know who you are. But Dean sounded pretty worried about you last night, and I'm fond of the guy, so..."
Garth shifts in his chair, slouching down to get more comfortable. He's seen a lot of coma patients before, but Castiel's got this weird presence that makes everything less weird. Garth huffs at his thoughts. "Man, it's been years since I've had a good chat. I'm just gonna start talking now, and I hope for your sake you wake up when you get sick of it."
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I'm really curious about this. It's kind of an outsider POV, for all that Garth is a known character in the world and knows about the Stuff, because he's probably not privy to THIS story in the same way that the audience is. I don't know how many hunters knew the Winchesters were running around with an angel, and how many knew that angel went critical, but I'm guessing it wasn't *common* knowledge.
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*fist-pump*
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Castiel is drowning in guilt. Lucifer sits on his left, conjuring on Castiel's right the many of his brethren that he has wronged, one-by-one. As he speaks with the other, Lucifer leans forward to look past Castiel, and Castiel feels the burning shame as the other two speak of his sins as if he was not there. Lucifer purrs with amusement as he listens to Uriel's disdainful recounts of Castiel's obvious fawning for the Righteous Man, and brushes away the tears of the seraphim even younger than Castiel, who served Raphael and died by his sword.
All the while, Lucifer's hell flames ring the bed, licking at Castiel's vessel. Each pass of the flame alternates between sharp pain and debilitating pleasure, and Castiel is kept in a dizzying state of frustration, with a sense of not enough. Of what, he isn't sure.
Every once in a while, Lucifer stops the fire and the judgement, and just sits there, talking to Castiel.
"Come on, brother," he wheedles. "Talk to me. No one's coming back for you, not with me around. I think we should be friends." He grins toothily.
Despair is an emotion as cloying and deep as Castiel remembers from the year that Lucifer walked the Earth. As long as Lucifer is in his mind, Sam and Dean will leave him here for everyone's collective safety. And Lucifer will always be in his mind, because the alternative must never come to pass. Lucifer knows this, and Castiel realized it as soon as he saw the devil sitting in bed, right where Sam should have been.
Castiel berates himself for not considering this possibility. For believing that his conviction was stronger than Lucifer's creativity in times of desperation. Castiel thinks that this seed of Lucifer's grace has been within Sam's physical body since the man said yes, small enough to escape his detection but enough.
Lucifer is real, and Castiel must keep him here.
---
One day, Lucifer is holding a handstand on the chair next to Castiel while he describes his favorite corners of Hell.
"Ice as far as the mortal eye can see," Lucifer reminisces with a dreamy sigh. "Of course, they can't see much, because it's so bright that you go blind after three seconds. There's also the Hellhound play-crater, where we send the animal breed purists. I love watching their eyes in that moment when a hellbeast mounts them and --
--slaps me with her bra, and that buckle bit hurts, let me tell you, especially when it hooks into your nostril and she just yanks, man. Major ouch."
"Did she also have father who ran away from his job at the post office?" Castiel can't help but think of Dean's laugh, and his lips quirk.
"Castiel!"
"Castiel!"
Castiel hears twin cries, and he turns to look at Lucifer. He sees, instead, Lucifer glaring at a thin, tired-looking man who is now occupying his chair.
"You're awake!" The man grins, surprised but genuinely pleased. "I was kinda hoping you wouldn't hear about the Bra Beating of '98, but that's my luck I guess."
"Who are you?" Castiel asks.
"I'm Garth," the man replies. "I'm looking after you for now, but I should probably tell Dean that you woke up!" He puts his cellphone to his ear, and Castiel hears the distorted ringing until a gruff, familiar, and safe voice says: "Hello?"
"Hey, Dean, it's Garth! Listen, I got great news for you, Castiel's--"
Garth stops, eyes widening, before they move down to see the pen sticking out of his neck.
"Oops," Lucifer drawls.
Garth makes aborted choking noises, the cellphone slipping out of his hand and clattering to the ground. Castiel can hear Dean's increasingly loud calls for Garth and Castiel, and he can feel his grace trembling out of fear and frustration. It's difficult to suppress, but Castiel manages to block out Garth's dying gurgles and Lucifer's giggles, forcing himself back into his trance before his grace erupts.
Within the trance, Castiel finds Lucifer sitting next to him again.
"Hello, Balthazar," the archangel greets. "I haven't seen you in such a long time."
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Pain shoots down his back, and Garth is pretty sure that he blacks out for a few seconds, because when his vision clears, Castiel is lying, lax, on the bed. He can hear tinny yells coming from his cellphone, though, and he slowly staggers towards it.
"He's okay, Dean," Garth hisses, as he touches the bump on the back of his head. "False alarm, sorry. Where'd you find this guy, though? He just threw me across the room."
Garth is glad that he's sitting down, as Dean explains to him the situation with angel powers, angel hallucinations, douchebag angels, and the one exception. After he hangs up, Garth gapes at Castiel for a long time. An angel. Now, he really wants to talk to Castiel.
"All right, Mr. Fizzles." Garth reaches for his bag, sharing a determined look with his trusty companion. "We've got work to do."
---
Castiel has doubts that Garth is truly dead. His voice fades in and out during Lucifer's monologues, and even when Rachel is spitting out her disgust for following such a treacherous and sinful leader. Lucifer can feel his control slipping, and he tries speaking louder, the flames around Castiel roaring. Garth's voice is still there, though, his litany like a babbling brook, pooling around the fire.
Then, a third voice, high-pitched voice joins Castiel's Headspace of Our Perpetural Neediness.
"Mr. Fizzles loves angel wings! Mr. Fizzles bets that angel wings are made out of babies' tears and unicorn wishes! Do you angels sleep in a cocoon of your wings? Are they rainbow colored wings? They should probably be pastel colors, instead, because those are Easter colors! And Easter's an angel's favorite holiday, 'cause that's when Jesus came back as a zombieeeee."
Castiel feels nauseous. It takes him a few seconds to identify the foreign look on Lucifer's face. It reminds Castiel of the look that Sam used to get when he'd eaten a bean burrito with 'the works.'
"Easter colors are probably pastel colors because those were Jesus' favorite colors! Jesus probably had big ol' pastel angel wings, and that's how he rolled the stone away. Mr. Fizzles wants pastel angel wings for Christmas!"
"I am going to be sick," Lucifer mutters, and blinks out of Castiel's vision.
Instead, Castiel finds himself a scant three inches apart from a dirty sock, fraying at the seams, with big eyes and a very red, slightly obscene, pair of lips.
"Hello?"
"Castiel!" The sock turns to face the speaker, and Castiel follows it to see Garth beaming at him. "It's great to see you with us, man! We've been worried ever since you freaked out on us a couple of days ago! Oh, and this is Mr. Fizzles!"
Castiel blinks as the sock bobs its head - and body, he supposes - in greeting. "Hi, Castiel!"
Castiel has absolutely no clue how to respond. "A couple of days?" he asks, fixing on the one phrase he does understand.
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"That's only because Mr. Fizzles and I practically live in each other's pants," Garth leans over to whisper in Castiel's ear. He pulls back, then, clapping Castiel on the shoulder. "Seriously, though, it's good to see you awake, man. We didn't know how long it would take to get through to you."
Up close, Castiel can see the dark smudges underneath Garth's eyes, and the way that his hands tremble, much like Sam and Dean's would after imbibing copious amounts of caffeine.
"Thank you," Castiel breathes, reaching up to clasp Garth's hand and Mr. Fizzles. "I do not deserve your efforts, but thank you. I am relieved that Lucifer does not appreciate Mr. Fizzles as I do."
Castiel can tell that he's said something very, very wrong. Garth's eyes widen, inhaling sharply in surprise. Dean had been vague with describing the hallucinations. "Lucifer?" His voice comes out strangled.
Lucifer suddenly blinks back into existence, smile curled ferociously. "Oh, yes. You should be very afraid," he purrs.
Garth notices when Castiel tenses, gaze flitting to the empty space on Garth's right before dropping down to the sheets. His eyes are glazing over, and Garth steels himself, because he's not letting this happen again, dammit.
Mr. Fizzles turns to face Lucifer, and Garth takes a quick breath, before Mr. Fizzles is slamming Lucifer with a long string of questions about devil's wings, if they're that ugly yellow-green color that nobody likes, and if they taste like mashmallow Peeps, which are the worst Easter candies ever.
Castiel watches Lucifer's expression turn belligerent but bewildered, flinching as Lucifer grabs Mr. Fizzles and sets him on fire. As he burns, Mr. Fizzles continues cooing over having edible wings that regrow with each bite. His voice stays steady, and he and Garth never disappear from view.
Lucifer fumes, Mr. Fizzles talks, and Castiel laughs.
---
Garth, Mr. Fizzles, and Castiel settle into a game that Garth dubs 'Satan's Sufferin' Succotash.' Castiel doesn't understand that reference, but Lucifer does, as evidenced by his sulking and turning Garth into a yellow bird, that he promptly stomps on. Amidst the bird's screams, though, Castiel hears Garth describing to him all of his favorite Looney Tunes shows, and Mr. Fizzles stating that those episodes all sucked.
Castiel is thankful for once that nothing Dean told him about human popular culture ever stuck. In contrast, Lucifer detests human invention, but his time in Hell, amongst the ever-influx of demons, has kept him up-to-date with everything. Garth quickly notices that Castiel has no opinion of music, movies, entertainment, technology, or food in the past few centuries. Lucifer, however, does have certain stances. That's how Castiel ends up mediating a debate between Lucifer and Garth about the best Star Wars film.
Mr. Fizzles plays devil's advocate, and says that his favorite was Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Lucifer snarls that that doesn't fucking count, and then stabs Mr. Fizzles with a red lightsaber, repeatedly.
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When Garth discovers that Castiel hasn't heard rap before, he and Mr. Fizzles decide to sing Castiel through the rap songs of the '90s. Lucifer stays noticeably absent for the next two days. He reappears while Garth is giving Castiel examples of why today's rap sucks; he's singing about something called a shawty being smacked on the floor 'til she (he?) gets sore.
Castiel tenses when he sees Lucifer, and the devil raises an eyebrow as he settles himself at the foot of Castiel's bed.
"What? I like this song."
---
"Hey, Castiel," Garth grins, "Mr. Fizzles needs another back-up singer. I'm gonna teach you the fine art of the 'shoo-bee-doo-whop.'"
"I will cut out your tongue and feed it back to you," Lucifer threatens.
Castiel smiles slyly at Garth. "I would very much like to learn how to 'shoo-bee-doo-whop.'"
---
Garth finally crashes about four weeks in. He's been sleeping late and waking up early, in part because he's having the most fun in years, but also because he's terrified of losing everything that he and Castiel have been working towards. While it's true that Castiel hasn't slipped back into his trance since the first scare, Garth has noticed that Castiel isn't improving though.
The angel's eyes still lose their focus periodically, and his shoulders twitching and face twisting during long amounts of silence. Garth is proud, though, that Castiel can suffer through the hours that the hunter leaves to sleep. Castiel tells him that he either speaks with Lucifer in those hours, or listens to the grievances of his family. The guilt is ever-present, and ever-heavy, and Castiel confides that he doesn't believe that he can feel any more guilt than he already does.
Garth thinks that this is incredibly unhealthy, as is talking to his hallucination, but Castiel refuses to actually talk through these problems with him.
"This is my burden," Castiel states, reverting back to the aloof defense that he has whenever Garth approaches the subject.
Garth wants to shake Castiel and yell at him for being so stubborn. He wants to convince Castiel that guilt is a useless emotion, that he's so much better off channeling it into a motivating force. Penance isn't redemption. The problem is, Garth doesn't know how you even start telling an angel this.
He's going to have to figure out how very soon, though, because one day Castiel completely shuts down again.
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There are no clocks in the patient rooms, but Castiel is older than the human concept of time. In the brief months that he was Emmanuel, Castiel remembers being in bed, staring out of the window each night and waiting for sunrise, and implicitly knowing the exact minute and second corresponding on the clock. Daphne had teased him, joking that he had probably been a boy scout. He had laughed with her, despite not knowing what a boy scout was.
Castiel is surprised - and that in itself is surprising - that emotions comes so readily to him now. Despite having his powers as Emmanuel, Castiel remembers living and feeling as a human. He marvels at the ease to which he had adapted to his life, despite his amnesia. It is an enormous contrast to his experiences while falling, and as a human during the year that Lucifer walked the Earth. Castiel realizes that perhaps he had begrudged the circumstances around which he became human rather than the physicality of being human.
Even now, Castiel can feel Emmanuel's contentment within him. His recently-recovered memories have poured around his experiences as Emmanuel, rather than wiping them away. His guilt has buried that peace deep within him, however, and Castiel feels frustration. Those memories of Emmanuel were meant to taunt him of a peace he does not deserve, he is sure.
Lucifer likes to prod at these memories when they are alone. He says the same terrible things, but that does not lessen the pain. Even worse, each morning, Lucifer sits with Castiel on the bed, facing the door.
"I wonder if he will come today," Lucifer smiles, as innocent as a newborn shark can be when it smells its first scent of blood. "Perhaps he is tired of us, Castiel."
Castiel responds, each day: "He has promised to return. Mr. Fizzles will not let him leave without saying goodbye properly." Castiel's stint as Emmanuel had also taught him the polite way of leaving someone. He regrets not having been able to show Daphne or Dean this.
On this particular day, however, Castiel just feels exhausted. Desperation, guilt, and defeat roil inside him, and cannot discern why he feels this way. Lucifer just stares at him from across the room, expression as closed as Castiel has ever seen it.
Castiel waits for the sunrise, and feels empty. What will he accomplish today? What comes from building nothing onto nothing? He turns away from the window, eyes slipping closed. He is tired.
---
Garth is frantic. He's been yelling at Castiel for the past few hours, and the angel hasn't even twitched an eyelid. There's no reaction when Mr. Fizzles cajoles Castiel, either. With this sort of regression, Garth knows that the same methods won't work.
You idiot, he thinks, harshly. He repeats it aloud, and feels vindictively pleased. He's got things to say, things that Castiel should hear and others that Garth has never found another opportunity to say. Garth slips Mr. Fizzles under Castiel's pillow and scoots his chair closer. He reaches out to clasp the angel's hands, and prays that Castiel will come back, preferably less guilt-ridden. Garth is hoping for a similar catharsis for himself.
"I used to hunt with my cousin," Garth starts. "My parents used to get the odd patient in therapy who claimed to've seen some monster or supernatural thing, but they never believed it. My aunt totally did, though. She had tons of hunters as patients, and Brandon and I would sit in the waiting room as kids, listening to them talk about the best way to dig a grave quickly and whether or not you needed more salt for larger ghosts, like some weird salt-to-ectoplasm ratio."
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"I know you can hear him," Lucifer comments mildly to Castiel, as Garth continues to speak. "Usually, you'd be threatening my masculinity with your laughter and climbing your way back up to him right about now."
Castiel shrugs, staring up at the ceiling. "There is no point in doing so."
Still, Castiel and Lucifer listen as Garth tells Castiel of a case in Michigan eight years ago. A real freak of a shapeshifter was preying on twins; it would kill one and hang around the other for a couple of days, pretending just for the fun of it. While cornering of the pairs of suspects at gunpoint, Garth had noticed how of the twins had glanced quickly at her sister, before starting to cry at the sight of the gun as well. He'd taken the shot.
At the local high school, Brandon hadn't been so lucky.
"Turns out there were two shifters," Garth explains. "I killed both of them, but not before one got Brandon.
I was pissed as hell for ages, but I told myself it wasn't my fault. Unexpected things happen. But telling yourself that is hard enough when it's just you. When Brandon's ghost showed up, I didn't know what to think anymore. He wouldn't leave me alone; he'd just follow me around everywhere, telling me it was my fault he was dead. The guy started filling in my crosswords with really hateful stuff, that's how far past crazytown he'd gone.
But I still believed him," Garth sighs. "And I started hating myself, and working riskier cases. I didn't think he'd noticed, until I was bleeding out in an old house where a skinwalker had set up camp. I'd even made peace with death, you know?
Then, and I don't even know how he'd known where I was, but I woke up the next day in a hospital. The nurses said that they'd gotten a call from my cellphone. Then I got back to the motel, and it was kind of obvious that Brandon had saved my ass. The entire motel and my car was on fire. Basically, anything that could have tied Brandon to me was gone."
Garth tightens his grip on Castiel's hands slightly. "God, even as a vengeful spirit he was bad-ass," he laughs. "I'm not saying we should all go out on kamikaze trips, but there's a reason why I still hunt alone. The blame never goes away; you just have to figure out what to do with what you have left.
I mean, Castiel, you can't just stay here forever. No one's judging you but you, and that's why you can't move on. If you really feel that guilty, go out and help people, and see if that makes you feel any better. Even if doesn't, at least you're helping them."
Garth isn't quite sure if this lack of a reaction is good or bad. On the plus side, he hasn't been punched out by an angel. On the down side, Castiel's still dead to the world.
"Castiel?"
---
"Look," Lucifer scowls, "the guy's just gone and bared his life's story to you. Just go stare at him before he keeps going on."
Castiel raises an eyebrow. "You would let me go that easily?"
"I'll still be here, brother," Lucifer says, trying for menacing. It doesn't seem to have the intended effect, however. Castiel just stares at him, searchingly, before nodding and slowly surfacing from his trance.
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"Don't scare me like that," he mutters. "You catch any of what I said?"
"Yes," Castiel responds, reaching back for the hand that Garth has withdrawn. "I do not know how useful I can be with Lucifer still inside. But I will try," he amends, squeezing Garth's hands solemnly. "I have much to atone for."
Garth smiles widely at Castiel. "That's a good first step!" He looks down at his hands and Castiel's, then back at Castiel's quizzical expression. Garth sighs, inwardly. "This is usually when we hug, Castiel."
"Oh," Castiel says, surprised. "Are we having a moment?"
Garth chokes. "What?"
"Lucifer says that we're having a moment. A Lifetime moment that makes him want to blind himself, if it were possible for his wounds to not heal."
Garth laughs, and practically tackles Castiel into a hug. "Man, I'd hug him too for saying that."
Castiel's arms circle around him, patting Garth's back awkwardly. It is his first true hug with a friend, and Castiel likes how comfortable it is. His memories as Emmanuel become clearer.
It's then that Garth gets his genius idea. "Speaking of Lifetime moments, I was thinking we should read Twilight. I'll be Edward, and Mr. Fizzles can be Bella."
Castiel cocks his head slightly, as if listening to something that Garth can't hear.
"What's up?"
"Lucifer is screaming."
"Score."
---
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Oh, good god. Garth's is a cruel genius :D. Fantastic series of updates here! Loving all the backstory on Garth.
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