Contrapasso Part 1
Title: Contrapasso
Full warnings, summary and notes at Part 0.
0. | 1. | 2. | 3. | 4. | 5. | 6. | 7. | 8. | 9.
.Contrapasso.
1.
Walking into town was like stepping into one of those tacky fake-historical amusement parks that normal people with mortgages and families and grandparents went mad for.
The houses were too neat and tidy, large and set back off the street in orderly rows, no broken windows or busted sidings or trash on the front lawns. Every single one of them was painted in washed out yellows and blues, trying for cosy and welcoming, but to Dean it all just somehow ended up coming across as creepy and disturbing. The sidewalks were pristine, and Dean had yet to see a single crack or pothole in the roads they'd walked beside. Gardens were without a single weed or a flower out of place.
Dean could believe Cas's insistence that the town didn't exist.
They stopped at a diner somewhere close to the fake-old town hall, complete with arched fake-gothic windows and pointed, spiral turrets. It was busy, filled with what Dean guessed was the lunch crowd, but the diner customers barely spared the three of them a second glance as they walked in the door, even though Cas's right side was heavy with blood and his coat ripped. Dean's back probably didn't look much better. No matter how weird it was to be ignored, looking like they did and especially in a small town like this, Dean and Sam took the opportunity and steered Cas toward the back, piling into the bathroom.
"Take off the coat, Cas," Dean ordered as soon as he'd shut and locked the door. He grabbed a handful of paper towels, passing them under the faucet before handing them to Sam. Shucking off his own jacket made his back burn and sting, but the wound didn't feel too deep.
Cas hadn't moved and instead was looking down at himself somewhere between irritated and curious. "I should be able to heal," he said. The 'should' in that sentence was just about the last thing Dean wanted to hear, and made his stomach turn uncomfortably.
"What the hell does that mean?" Dean demanded.
Behind him, Sam pried the material of Dean's shirt away from his clawed back and Dean hissed at the sensation of skin being pulled away along with the cotton. Dumping the shirt on the tile floor, that looked as clean and disinfected as the rest of the town, Sam pressed the towels down hard against the wound and Dean instinctively tried to flinch away. It hurt like a bitch, and Dean was almost glad he couldn't see it. He leaned against the sink, taking deep breaths, and didn't look at himself in the mirror.
Sam gripped hold of his shoulder, saying, "Keep still, Dean," and pressing down even harder like his asshole little brother was trying to prove some kind of point. "Cas, are you still bleeding?" Sam asked, looking at their clueless little angel in the mirror. Cas was hovering behind them, inspecting the bloodstains on his sleeve like they were some weird foreign object.
Dean thought he really should've felt more pissed that Cas replied to Sam, when he hadn't answered Dean at all.
"No, I think," Cas said, his hands pressing a hand to his shoulder. "They are healing slowly."
"You're all super-powerful though these days, right?" Dean had seen exactly how souped-up Cas had become back at the old cemetery in Lawrence; bringing back the dead like it was the easiest thing in the world. In comparison, a little healing shouldn't have taken more than a thought.
"I'm-" Castiel began, then paused and looked up at the brothers. "It's this place," he told them, frowning. "This doesn't make sense."
"This whole thing doesn't make any sense, Cas," Dean replied dryly. "You tell us to meet you, you don't tell me why, we get mauled by crazy, rabid wolf-creatures from hell that won't follow us into this creepy-ass town and now you're not healing? The fuck is going on here?"
Dean was angry at how tight-lipped Cas was being, because he'd spent too much time being kept in the dark by dick angels in the past, not knowing what the hell was going on, and he thought they were over this secretive shit. Then again, Dean'd thought Cas had been around humanity long enough to learn to keep in touch with the people you'd fought with for two years. And freaking died for.
"That's not helping, Dean," Sam chided. He pulled back the towels and Dean felt cool air against his open wounds. "Hold this here," he ordered, pulling Dean's hand up to awkwardly hold the towels in place over his shoulder. Sam turned, reaching for Cas. It was a small bathroom, not really big enough for three people, but somehow Sam managed to strip off Cas's trench coat before the angel even had a chance to protest.
"Does it hurt?" Sam asked, helping Cas take off the suit jacket. The arms were so torn up it looked like it'd fit in perfectly at a Halloween party.
"It… does," Castiel replied, sounding unsure.
Sam made a worried face, pushing up the sleeves of Cas's red-stained shirt and Jesus, no wonder it fucking hurt.
The cuts on Cas's arms were bone deep, ugly, jagged infected-looking lines that made Sam draw in a breath and curse, "Holy shit, Cas."
Dean guessed it was only the fact that the slashes had stopped bleeding that Sam didn't lose his shit and go into full-on responsible-adult-we-have-to-get-you-to-a-hospital-this-second mode.
"They're healing," Cas repeated, but even he looked kind of queasy at the sight of his arms.
Sam leaned in closer, gently holding Cas's wrist and angling his arm towards him, which Dean thought was pretty damn brave. "Crap," he said. "Yeah. I can see that."
"May I put my coat back on now?" Cas asked, and he sounded so plaintive that Dean couldn't help but huff a laugh. Cas looked at him, annoyed. Like he had anything to be pissed about.
"If you're sure you'll heal," Sam replied dubiously. He kind of looked like he was trying to hide a smile too.
"I am."
Sam helped Cas back into his trench coat, in all its ripped up glory.
Cas said, "I apologise for getting you involved in this."
"You called us. Hard to see how you didn't mean for us to get involved," Dean pointed out.
"I only meant for you to help me across the barrier. You don't have to stay here."
"Like hell," Dean argued. "Don't see how we're going to get past those monsters at the gate without getting mauled to death all over again."
"They're of no concern to anyone leaving the town," Cas said dismissively. "They're guardians. I have said this."
Whether Cas had said it before or not, it still made absolutely no sense to Dean. In all the time Cas had been absent, Dean certainly hadn't missed his unhelpful, vague explanations.
Pulling away from Cas to look him in the face, Sam said, "They're guarding this town? To keep people out? Why?"
Cas shook his head. "I don't know." He sighed heavily, suddenly looking tired. Dean wondered what Cas had been doing for the past few months. If he'd had to fight. If he had anyone watching his back. His coat, still ripped, frayed, stained red in places, and hanging heavily from his shoulders just made him look worse.
Leaning back against the bathroom wall, Cas explained, "Four angels disappeared from Heaven. I tracked them to this place to find that only mortals can cross the border. I just needed you to breach the barrier for me so that I could force my way through. You don't need to stay."
At the thought of angels running around still gunning for Lucifer, that they might be back to dealing with that shit all over again, Dean felt his anger rise. "The fuck, Cas? Haven't we finished with this crap?"
"I'm doing my best," Cas shot back darkly. "I am one angel with, at best, dubious authority. I am not all-powerful."
It was maybe kind of shitty to bitch at Cas, the only angel who'd stood on the side of humanity, who'd stood with Dean and Sam to the end, but there was no one else and after Lucifer and Sam and Michael and Adam had fallen into the pit Cas had just left Dean alone without so much as a half-hearted goodbye.
"What do I know, Cas? I haven't seen you in months and when you finally show up you want something from us. What a fucking surprise."
Sam pulled a face and turned to the door. "I'm gonna go see if they've got a first aid kit," and was out the bathroom like a shot, closing the door firmly behind him.
Cas watched Sam leave, and didn't look back at Dean when he said, "I did not believe you wanted to have anything more to do with angels."
"I don't. Didn't."
The thing was, Dean hadn't ever really lumped Cas into the category of "dick angel", no matter how much of an annoying bastard he'd been at times.
"Cas, you just left without a trace, and, I don't know, we'd been through so much shit I thought you'd at least bother to check in now and again. See if I was alive. Tell me that Sam was out of hell."
Dean didn't even know why this bothered him so much, that Cas had stayed away. Why Dean hadn't been glad to see the back of all the angels. Except, apparently, he hadn't. He just didn't know what to make of Cas's return.
Even more annoying, as much as Cas might say Dean and Sam didn't have to stay, the sneaky bastard had to know there was no way they'd leave now. There was no way they'd leave Cas alone and shredded to pieces in some freak-show town.
Then Cas said, "I did not stop watching either one of you."
Cas, Dean decided, always knew how to take the creepy stalker act to whole new levels.
And Dean knew he was soft on the damn angel, because he was weirdly relieved to hear that Cas hadn't just gone back to Heaven and forgotten about them after all.
***
The diner was small, the customers and the furniture all closely packed together, and Sam watched with interest as their waitress navigated her way from their corner table through a maze of tight spaces and pushed out chairs to the kitchens.
Sam asked, "What about the people?"
Cas replied, frowning into his coffee, "They are real."
Dean could believe that too.
On every corner, on pretty much every notice board and street lamp someone had posted missing persons posters. Women, men, kids, dogs, cats; Dean had begun to think that half the population of the town was missing. It'd been impossible to miss on their walk into town.
There was a weird atmosphere too, like everyone knew that something was wrong, and knew what it was, but no one was willing to say anything. Or maybe they just didn't know how to even begin explaining it. People whispered on street corners, and in the diner, every conversation Dean picked up on was about another friend, or sister, or mother vanished into thin air. No one knew what the hell to do about it.
Dean, Sam and Cas sat in a corner of a diner in a small town, messed up with torn clothes and half-cleaned off blood and no one made anything of it.
"If they're real, how'd they end up here?" Sam asked, keeping his voice low. "If this town isn't real?"
"I don't know," Cas replied. "When I came here, I didn't know what to expect. I couldn't see what was within the borders of this town."
"Okay," Dean said, "But what do you mean this town doesn't exist? Looks pretty solid to me."
"Three weeks ago you would not have found it on a map. It was forest. There was no road," Cas explained. He looked up and around the room, his eyes following the movements of the people milling about the diner like he was trying to work out how they could possibly exist. "I've been following the four angels for several days, since they absconded from Heaven. Their trail led me here."
"You think they had something to do with making this place, then?" Sam had on his thoughtful face. Dean doubted any amount of trying to work things out logically was going to help where angels were concerned.
"I'm not sure." Cas looked back towards Sam. "This could only have been made by something much more powerful than the four of them."
While it concerned Dean that there were still angels out there on Earth doing who the fuck knew what, it bothered Dean even more that Cas was doing this alone, without any of his so-called brothers. And if this was something that even four angels didn't have enough mojo for, then Cas was really fucked.
"And you were going to take it on, whatever it is, on your own?"
Even to Dean that was a pretty fucking stupid thing to do. Even if he had done it himself. But then, Dean had never claimed to be any kind of role model.
Cas shifted uncomfortably. "I have little choice," he said.
"What about your brothers?" Dean demanded. "Aren't you head honcho? Order down a squadron of attack-angels or something."
Sam threw Dean an ugly face, and Dean would have told him to shut up if Cas hadn't tensed up at the mention of his brothers.
"I do not have enough... trust in them yet," he replied. "To allow them to come to Earth."
Which made a whole lot of sense, knowing how little angels gave a shit about humanity. Or pretty much anything other than their own shiny hides.
"You've got them all grounded?" Dean scoffed.
Cas shook his head. "I don't have that kind of power. I ordered it. Most of them are obeying, but I can't allow dissent."
"Or you'll lose authority." Sam was nodding sagely, like he had any idea what it took to rule the heavenly host.
"It is something of an irony," Cas said, one corner of his lips turning upwards in what Dean guessed was amusement.
It kind of was too, because Cas had gotten to where he was by disobedience and for him to then turn around and demand absolute obedience was massively hypocritical. Dean knew exactly what he'd think of that if he were an angel. But what did he know? Angels had some weird ideas, and definitely seemed a whole lot happier when someone was ordering them around. Cas certainly didn't seem too pleased to be in charge.
The waitress returned to check on them just as a drunk-looking guy crashed his way through the door into the diner. He was a mess, his clothes torn and stained and he definitely hadn't shaved in at least a week. Dean watched as he tripped over his own feet and steadied himself against the wall. Dean'd seen his fair share of drunks, but there was something different about this guy. His shoulders were hunched and his eyes haunted and tired like most of the wanderers Dean had ever seen, but this guy's pants and jacket looked like they'd once been a fairly good suit. He wore a shirt that looked like expensive material, that under all the stains and creases had maybe once been white. He didn't look hungry.
Beside Dean, the waitress swore under her breath.
"Phil. Jesus." An old, stout guy hurried out from the kitchen, headed straight towards the new arrival. "I told you to get help."
"I don't need help," the drunk, Phil, Dean guessed, said. His voice was rough and angry. He stumbled further into the diner, falling sideways into a table, knocking over a glass and sending knives and forks crashing to the floor. The customers at the table leaned away, scrabbling to clean up the mess and save their meals.
From the way the old guy ordered the waitresses to help with the clean up, and to get back to work, Dean guessed he owned the place. He approached the drunk with his hands held out in front of him.
"Come on, Phil," he said. "These good people are trying to eat."
Phil straightened and glared at the other man wrathfully. "Fuck you, Greg," he spat. "I've told you a thousand times we're not eating anything." He spread his arms wide. "All this isn't real. It's all just fucking crap. False. We're all going to hell, and we all know it."
Dean looked at Sam, then at Cas, who was watching the scene intently. For a drunk, this Phil guy was suspiciously well informed. He didn't sound like he was slurring either, which made Dean wonder if the guy really was a drunk at all. He was the dirtiest, most not-perfect thing Dean had seen in the town. The only non-creepy, too-normal person they'd come across. Except for themselves.
Cas's eyes were following every movement the guy made intently, his eyes narrowed like he was straining to focus on something more. He was certainly seeing something they weren't.
"You've just had a rough time," the diner-guy tried. "I know your wife and kids are missing, and I'm sorry, but it's the same for all of us here."
With his large arms, the old man gestured widely towards the diners.
A tense silence fell over the room, like it was some kind of taboo to talk about the disappearances in public like that. Phil just laughed. "Missing?" He shook his head. "They're not missing." Even if he wasn't a drunk, something was definitely up because Phil swayed dangerously, unsteady on his feet even though he wasn't moving anywhere and looking like he was going to fall over any second.
Suddenly, moving almost faster than Dean could believe, Phil pulled a knife from his jacket pocket and Dean's assessment went from drunk to crazy in an instant. He kept still though, too far away in the corner to do anything immediately but remained alert, looking for an opportunity but not wanting to spook the guy into doing anything stupid. Dean laid his hands on the table, but was very aware of the knife in his pocket and the handgun in his belt. Beside him, Sam was doing the same. Cas sat as serenely as ever, watching, as though nothing had changed.
There was panic in the diner then, some of the customers screaming and tipping over their chairs and running to the back of the room. Phil was still in front of the door, and Dean was glad that no one made an attempt to get past him. Standing frozen beside them, their waitress dropped her notepad and half-ran, half-fell along the line of booths towards the kitchen.
"You can all run, little rats," Phil the crazy guy hissed. "It's not me you should be scared of. You all deserve to be here."
He thrust the knife at the old guy who still had his hands up, placating.
"Phil," old-guy said nervously. "We've known each other for years."
"No." Phil shook his head fiercely, taking an unsteady step closer. "I don't know you." He stood up straighter, looking around the diner. "I don't know any of you."
Then, his eyes came to their corner of the diner, and Dean could see that Phil was looking right at Cas. The crazy-guy's eyes opened wide, his mouth dropping open and his face going suddenly pale. And then he went fucking insane.
"You!" he screamed, lifting his arm in a sharp, violent movement and pointing the knife at Cas. "You don't even belong here! You're like them." Cas tensed, but didn't move, and Dean's hand went to his knife. Phil charged forward, knocking people and tables out the way, slashing anything in his path with the knife, coming straight for Cas.
There was confusion as customers and waitresses tried to get out of the lunatic's way. Cas stood up with a concerned expression on his face but made no move to defend himself, and even if Dean had seen Cas take knives to the chest without so much as blinking before, he'd also recently seen Cas ripped to shreds by a thing that wasn't far off a hell-hound as far as Dean was concerned. Dean should know. The angel wasn't even healed yet from that, his coat still looking tatty and stained in places and his movements slow and careful. Dean wasn't about to let Cas take a hit just because he could, especially from a crazy dude who was calling Cas a liar and a murderer and a whole lot of other things Dean would've liked to punch the guy for.
As soon as he was within reach, Dean launched himself from the booth, wrapping his arms around the attacker's legs and bringing him to the floor. The action pulled at the wounds on Dean's back, and he had to grit his teeth and hope Sam's neat bandaging hadn't been torn away, but it was ridiculously easy to take the guy down. He hadn't even seen it coming, too caught up in whatever madness he had going on. Sam was beside Dean in a second, pulling Phil's arm around his back and taking the knife from his grip. The guy was freaky strong and kept bucking and thrashing, but together Sam and Dean kept him still.
"I'll call the police," Dean heard someone say, and yeah, that would be a really great idea.
Phil the crazy-guy was still spilling vitriol at Cas, crying, "Why'd you bring us here, you bastard? Why'd you do this? You lied to us, you fucker. You fucking lied."
Cas approached slowly, and even though Dean warned, "Back off, Cas," he knelt down on one knee in front of Phil's prone form, held under Sam and Dean's grip. He met Phil's eyes, holding his gaze until he fell silent. Then Cas said, "I believe you've mistaken me for someone else."
Dean should've seen it coming, and stopped Cas, but he was concentrating on holding his shoulder still so it didn't sting too bad, and pressing Phil down onto the diner's linoleum floor. But then, in one fluid movement, Cas raised two fingers to the man's forehead. Instantly, all the fight went out of his attacker, his body gone slack in unconsciousness.
Dean had the very strong feeling the entire diner was watching them, and there was going to be one hell of a lot of explaining to do.
<< 0. | 2. >>
Full warnings, summary and notes at Part 0.
0. | 1. | 2. | 3. | 4. | 5. | 6. | 7. | 8. | 9.
.Contrapasso.
1.
Walking into town was like stepping into one of those tacky fake-historical amusement parks that normal people with mortgages and families and grandparents went mad for.
The houses were too neat and tidy, large and set back off the street in orderly rows, no broken windows or busted sidings or trash on the front lawns. Every single one of them was painted in washed out yellows and blues, trying for cosy and welcoming, but to Dean it all just somehow ended up coming across as creepy and disturbing. The sidewalks were pristine, and Dean had yet to see a single crack or pothole in the roads they'd walked beside. Gardens were without a single weed or a flower out of place.
Dean could believe Cas's insistence that the town didn't exist.
They stopped at a diner somewhere close to the fake-old town hall, complete with arched fake-gothic windows and pointed, spiral turrets. It was busy, filled with what Dean guessed was the lunch crowd, but the diner customers barely spared the three of them a second glance as they walked in the door, even though Cas's right side was heavy with blood and his coat ripped. Dean's back probably didn't look much better. No matter how weird it was to be ignored, looking like they did and especially in a small town like this, Dean and Sam took the opportunity and steered Cas toward the back, piling into the bathroom.
"Take off the coat, Cas," Dean ordered as soon as he'd shut and locked the door. He grabbed a handful of paper towels, passing them under the faucet before handing them to Sam. Shucking off his own jacket made his back burn and sting, but the wound didn't feel too deep.
Cas hadn't moved and instead was looking down at himself somewhere between irritated and curious. "I should be able to heal," he said. The 'should' in that sentence was just about the last thing Dean wanted to hear, and made his stomach turn uncomfortably.
"What the hell does that mean?" Dean demanded.
Behind him, Sam pried the material of Dean's shirt away from his clawed back and Dean hissed at the sensation of skin being pulled away along with the cotton. Dumping the shirt on the tile floor, that looked as clean and disinfected as the rest of the town, Sam pressed the towels down hard against the wound and Dean instinctively tried to flinch away. It hurt like a bitch, and Dean was almost glad he couldn't see it. He leaned against the sink, taking deep breaths, and didn't look at himself in the mirror.
Sam gripped hold of his shoulder, saying, "Keep still, Dean," and pressing down even harder like his asshole little brother was trying to prove some kind of point. "Cas, are you still bleeding?" Sam asked, looking at their clueless little angel in the mirror. Cas was hovering behind them, inspecting the bloodstains on his sleeve like they were some weird foreign object.
Dean thought he really should've felt more pissed that Cas replied to Sam, when he hadn't answered Dean at all.
"No, I think," Cas said, his hands pressing a hand to his shoulder. "They are healing slowly."
"You're all super-powerful though these days, right?" Dean had seen exactly how souped-up Cas had become back at the old cemetery in Lawrence; bringing back the dead like it was the easiest thing in the world. In comparison, a little healing shouldn't have taken more than a thought.
"I'm-" Castiel began, then paused and looked up at the brothers. "It's this place," he told them, frowning. "This doesn't make sense."
"This whole thing doesn't make any sense, Cas," Dean replied dryly. "You tell us to meet you, you don't tell me why, we get mauled by crazy, rabid wolf-creatures from hell that won't follow us into this creepy-ass town and now you're not healing? The fuck is going on here?"
Dean was angry at how tight-lipped Cas was being, because he'd spent too much time being kept in the dark by dick angels in the past, not knowing what the hell was going on, and he thought they were over this secretive shit. Then again, Dean'd thought Cas had been around humanity long enough to learn to keep in touch with the people you'd fought with for two years. And freaking died for.
"That's not helping, Dean," Sam chided. He pulled back the towels and Dean felt cool air against his open wounds. "Hold this here," he ordered, pulling Dean's hand up to awkwardly hold the towels in place over his shoulder. Sam turned, reaching for Cas. It was a small bathroom, not really big enough for three people, but somehow Sam managed to strip off Cas's trench coat before the angel even had a chance to protest.
"Does it hurt?" Sam asked, helping Cas take off the suit jacket. The arms were so torn up it looked like it'd fit in perfectly at a Halloween party.
"It… does," Castiel replied, sounding unsure.
Sam made a worried face, pushing up the sleeves of Cas's red-stained shirt and Jesus, no wonder it fucking hurt.
The cuts on Cas's arms were bone deep, ugly, jagged infected-looking lines that made Sam draw in a breath and curse, "Holy shit, Cas."
Dean guessed it was only the fact that the slashes had stopped bleeding that Sam didn't lose his shit and go into full-on responsible-adult-we-have-to-get-you-to-a-hospital-this-second mode.
"They're healing," Cas repeated, but even he looked kind of queasy at the sight of his arms.
Sam leaned in closer, gently holding Cas's wrist and angling his arm towards him, which Dean thought was pretty damn brave. "Crap," he said. "Yeah. I can see that."
"May I put my coat back on now?" Cas asked, and he sounded so plaintive that Dean couldn't help but huff a laugh. Cas looked at him, annoyed. Like he had anything to be pissed about.
"If you're sure you'll heal," Sam replied dubiously. He kind of looked like he was trying to hide a smile too.
"I am."
Sam helped Cas back into his trench coat, in all its ripped up glory.
Cas said, "I apologise for getting you involved in this."
"You called us. Hard to see how you didn't mean for us to get involved," Dean pointed out.
"I only meant for you to help me across the barrier. You don't have to stay here."
"Like hell," Dean argued. "Don't see how we're going to get past those monsters at the gate without getting mauled to death all over again."
"They're of no concern to anyone leaving the town," Cas said dismissively. "They're guardians. I have said this."
Whether Cas had said it before or not, it still made absolutely no sense to Dean. In all the time Cas had been absent, Dean certainly hadn't missed his unhelpful, vague explanations.
Pulling away from Cas to look him in the face, Sam said, "They're guarding this town? To keep people out? Why?"
Cas shook his head. "I don't know." He sighed heavily, suddenly looking tired. Dean wondered what Cas had been doing for the past few months. If he'd had to fight. If he had anyone watching his back. His coat, still ripped, frayed, stained red in places, and hanging heavily from his shoulders just made him look worse.
Leaning back against the bathroom wall, Cas explained, "Four angels disappeared from Heaven. I tracked them to this place to find that only mortals can cross the border. I just needed you to breach the barrier for me so that I could force my way through. You don't need to stay."
At the thought of angels running around still gunning for Lucifer, that they might be back to dealing with that shit all over again, Dean felt his anger rise. "The fuck, Cas? Haven't we finished with this crap?"
"I'm doing my best," Cas shot back darkly. "I am one angel with, at best, dubious authority. I am not all-powerful."
It was maybe kind of shitty to bitch at Cas, the only angel who'd stood on the side of humanity, who'd stood with Dean and Sam to the end, but there was no one else and after Lucifer and Sam and Michael and Adam had fallen into the pit Cas had just left Dean alone without so much as a half-hearted goodbye.
"What do I know, Cas? I haven't seen you in months and when you finally show up you want something from us. What a fucking surprise."
Sam pulled a face and turned to the door. "I'm gonna go see if they've got a first aid kit," and was out the bathroom like a shot, closing the door firmly behind him.
Cas watched Sam leave, and didn't look back at Dean when he said, "I did not believe you wanted to have anything more to do with angels."
"I don't. Didn't."
The thing was, Dean hadn't ever really lumped Cas into the category of "dick angel", no matter how much of an annoying bastard he'd been at times.
"Cas, you just left without a trace, and, I don't know, we'd been through so much shit I thought you'd at least bother to check in now and again. See if I was alive. Tell me that Sam was out of hell."
Dean didn't even know why this bothered him so much, that Cas had stayed away. Why Dean hadn't been glad to see the back of all the angels. Except, apparently, he hadn't. He just didn't know what to make of Cas's return.
Even more annoying, as much as Cas might say Dean and Sam didn't have to stay, the sneaky bastard had to know there was no way they'd leave now. There was no way they'd leave Cas alone and shredded to pieces in some freak-show town.
Then Cas said, "I did not stop watching either one of you."
Cas, Dean decided, always knew how to take the creepy stalker act to whole new levels.
And Dean knew he was soft on the damn angel, because he was weirdly relieved to hear that Cas hadn't just gone back to Heaven and forgotten about them after all.
***
The diner was small, the customers and the furniture all closely packed together, and Sam watched with interest as their waitress navigated her way from their corner table through a maze of tight spaces and pushed out chairs to the kitchens.
Sam asked, "What about the people?"
Cas replied, frowning into his coffee, "They are real."
Dean could believe that too.
On every corner, on pretty much every notice board and street lamp someone had posted missing persons posters. Women, men, kids, dogs, cats; Dean had begun to think that half the population of the town was missing. It'd been impossible to miss on their walk into town.
There was a weird atmosphere too, like everyone knew that something was wrong, and knew what it was, but no one was willing to say anything. Or maybe they just didn't know how to even begin explaining it. People whispered on street corners, and in the diner, every conversation Dean picked up on was about another friend, or sister, or mother vanished into thin air. No one knew what the hell to do about it.
Dean, Sam and Cas sat in a corner of a diner in a small town, messed up with torn clothes and half-cleaned off blood and no one made anything of it.
"If they're real, how'd they end up here?" Sam asked, keeping his voice low. "If this town isn't real?"
"I don't know," Cas replied. "When I came here, I didn't know what to expect. I couldn't see what was within the borders of this town."
"Okay," Dean said, "But what do you mean this town doesn't exist? Looks pretty solid to me."
"Three weeks ago you would not have found it on a map. It was forest. There was no road," Cas explained. He looked up and around the room, his eyes following the movements of the people milling about the diner like he was trying to work out how they could possibly exist. "I've been following the four angels for several days, since they absconded from Heaven. Their trail led me here."
"You think they had something to do with making this place, then?" Sam had on his thoughtful face. Dean doubted any amount of trying to work things out logically was going to help where angels were concerned.
"I'm not sure." Cas looked back towards Sam. "This could only have been made by something much more powerful than the four of them."
While it concerned Dean that there were still angels out there on Earth doing who the fuck knew what, it bothered Dean even more that Cas was doing this alone, without any of his so-called brothers. And if this was something that even four angels didn't have enough mojo for, then Cas was really fucked.
"And you were going to take it on, whatever it is, on your own?"
Even to Dean that was a pretty fucking stupid thing to do. Even if he had done it himself. But then, Dean had never claimed to be any kind of role model.
Cas shifted uncomfortably. "I have little choice," he said.
"What about your brothers?" Dean demanded. "Aren't you head honcho? Order down a squadron of attack-angels or something."
Sam threw Dean an ugly face, and Dean would have told him to shut up if Cas hadn't tensed up at the mention of his brothers.
"I do not have enough... trust in them yet," he replied. "To allow them to come to Earth."
Which made a whole lot of sense, knowing how little angels gave a shit about humanity. Or pretty much anything other than their own shiny hides.
"You've got them all grounded?" Dean scoffed.
Cas shook his head. "I don't have that kind of power. I ordered it. Most of them are obeying, but I can't allow dissent."
"Or you'll lose authority." Sam was nodding sagely, like he had any idea what it took to rule the heavenly host.
"It is something of an irony," Cas said, one corner of his lips turning upwards in what Dean guessed was amusement.
It kind of was too, because Cas had gotten to where he was by disobedience and for him to then turn around and demand absolute obedience was massively hypocritical. Dean knew exactly what he'd think of that if he were an angel. But what did he know? Angels had some weird ideas, and definitely seemed a whole lot happier when someone was ordering them around. Cas certainly didn't seem too pleased to be in charge.
The waitress returned to check on them just as a drunk-looking guy crashed his way through the door into the diner. He was a mess, his clothes torn and stained and he definitely hadn't shaved in at least a week. Dean watched as he tripped over his own feet and steadied himself against the wall. Dean'd seen his fair share of drunks, but there was something different about this guy. His shoulders were hunched and his eyes haunted and tired like most of the wanderers Dean had ever seen, but this guy's pants and jacket looked like they'd once been a fairly good suit. He wore a shirt that looked like expensive material, that under all the stains and creases had maybe once been white. He didn't look hungry.
Beside Dean, the waitress swore under her breath.
"Phil. Jesus." An old, stout guy hurried out from the kitchen, headed straight towards the new arrival. "I told you to get help."
"I don't need help," the drunk, Phil, Dean guessed, said. His voice was rough and angry. He stumbled further into the diner, falling sideways into a table, knocking over a glass and sending knives and forks crashing to the floor. The customers at the table leaned away, scrabbling to clean up the mess and save their meals.
From the way the old guy ordered the waitresses to help with the clean up, and to get back to work, Dean guessed he owned the place. He approached the drunk with his hands held out in front of him.
"Come on, Phil," he said. "These good people are trying to eat."
Phil straightened and glared at the other man wrathfully. "Fuck you, Greg," he spat. "I've told you a thousand times we're not eating anything." He spread his arms wide. "All this isn't real. It's all just fucking crap. False. We're all going to hell, and we all know it."
Dean looked at Sam, then at Cas, who was watching the scene intently. For a drunk, this Phil guy was suspiciously well informed. He didn't sound like he was slurring either, which made Dean wonder if the guy really was a drunk at all. He was the dirtiest, most not-perfect thing Dean had seen in the town. The only non-creepy, too-normal person they'd come across. Except for themselves.
Cas's eyes were following every movement the guy made intently, his eyes narrowed like he was straining to focus on something more. He was certainly seeing something they weren't.
"You've just had a rough time," the diner-guy tried. "I know your wife and kids are missing, and I'm sorry, but it's the same for all of us here."
With his large arms, the old man gestured widely towards the diners.
A tense silence fell over the room, like it was some kind of taboo to talk about the disappearances in public like that. Phil just laughed. "Missing?" He shook his head. "They're not missing." Even if he wasn't a drunk, something was definitely up because Phil swayed dangerously, unsteady on his feet even though he wasn't moving anywhere and looking like he was going to fall over any second.
Suddenly, moving almost faster than Dean could believe, Phil pulled a knife from his jacket pocket and Dean's assessment went from drunk to crazy in an instant. He kept still though, too far away in the corner to do anything immediately but remained alert, looking for an opportunity but not wanting to spook the guy into doing anything stupid. Dean laid his hands on the table, but was very aware of the knife in his pocket and the handgun in his belt. Beside him, Sam was doing the same. Cas sat as serenely as ever, watching, as though nothing had changed.
There was panic in the diner then, some of the customers screaming and tipping over their chairs and running to the back of the room. Phil was still in front of the door, and Dean was glad that no one made an attempt to get past him. Standing frozen beside them, their waitress dropped her notepad and half-ran, half-fell along the line of booths towards the kitchen.
"You can all run, little rats," Phil the crazy guy hissed. "It's not me you should be scared of. You all deserve to be here."
He thrust the knife at the old guy who still had his hands up, placating.
"Phil," old-guy said nervously. "We've known each other for years."
"No." Phil shook his head fiercely, taking an unsteady step closer. "I don't know you." He stood up straighter, looking around the diner. "I don't know any of you."
Then, his eyes came to their corner of the diner, and Dean could see that Phil was looking right at Cas. The crazy-guy's eyes opened wide, his mouth dropping open and his face going suddenly pale. And then he went fucking insane.
"You!" he screamed, lifting his arm in a sharp, violent movement and pointing the knife at Cas. "You don't even belong here! You're like them." Cas tensed, but didn't move, and Dean's hand went to his knife. Phil charged forward, knocking people and tables out the way, slashing anything in his path with the knife, coming straight for Cas.
There was confusion as customers and waitresses tried to get out of the lunatic's way. Cas stood up with a concerned expression on his face but made no move to defend himself, and even if Dean had seen Cas take knives to the chest without so much as blinking before, he'd also recently seen Cas ripped to shreds by a thing that wasn't far off a hell-hound as far as Dean was concerned. Dean should know. The angel wasn't even healed yet from that, his coat still looking tatty and stained in places and his movements slow and careful. Dean wasn't about to let Cas take a hit just because he could, especially from a crazy dude who was calling Cas a liar and a murderer and a whole lot of other things Dean would've liked to punch the guy for.
As soon as he was within reach, Dean launched himself from the booth, wrapping his arms around the attacker's legs and bringing him to the floor. The action pulled at the wounds on Dean's back, and he had to grit his teeth and hope Sam's neat bandaging hadn't been torn away, but it was ridiculously easy to take the guy down. He hadn't even seen it coming, too caught up in whatever madness he had going on. Sam was beside Dean in a second, pulling Phil's arm around his back and taking the knife from his grip. The guy was freaky strong and kept bucking and thrashing, but together Sam and Dean kept him still.
"I'll call the police," Dean heard someone say, and yeah, that would be a really great idea.
Phil the crazy-guy was still spilling vitriol at Cas, crying, "Why'd you bring us here, you bastard? Why'd you do this? You lied to us, you fucker. You fucking lied."
Cas approached slowly, and even though Dean warned, "Back off, Cas," he knelt down on one knee in front of Phil's prone form, held under Sam and Dean's grip. He met Phil's eyes, holding his gaze until he fell silent. Then Cas said, "I believe you've mistaken me for someone else."
Dean should've seen it coming, and stopped Cas, but he was concentrating on holding his shoulder still so it didn't sting too bad, and pressing Phil down onto the diner's linoleum floor. But then, in one fluid movement, Cas raised two fingers to the man's forehead. Instantly, all the fight went out of his attacker, his body gone slack in unconsciousness.
Dean had the very strong feeling the entire diner was watching them, and there was going to be one hell of a lot of explaining to do.
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