Hi all!
This story is a collaboration between myself and the lovely MooseFeels (find her on Ao3 under that name!). It is a Hellblazer!AU, but mostly in the shape of the story and the feel of the world; you don't need any knowledge of the Hellblazer universe or series to understand what will take place here. We're modeling this story on that gritty, grimy, 90's British Invasion comic feel, and less so on the actual story of Hellblazer, although there will be elements present if you are familiar with that story that you might appreciate.
Thanks for reading, and we both hope that you enjoy the story!
It's quiet in the ward.
It's always quiet in the ward—usually, really.
Wake up at nine, breakfast is nine-thirty. Then there's the rotating schedule: group or solo or crafts or outside. Lunch. Afternoon meds. Group or solo or crafts or outside. Evening meds. Back to rooms. The schedules make it quiet, the schedules keep it quiet. They need the schedules in the ward. Sam needs the schedules. Most of it, at least.
Sometimes, Sam misses the lack of structure. Sometimes, when Sam misses school and cars and food he's cooked and his brother and Jess, smart, kind, beautiful Jess, he'll think of how loud it was outside of the hospital and he won't miss it so much anymore.
Structure makes things quiet.
He's been here a long time. Long enough that he has a few privileges. He's always had his own room, but now he also has a record player and some books and as many notebooks and pens as he can ask for. Old law textbooks, a few journalistic pieces on birth defects in frogs or the industrial food system. No fiction.
Sam doesn't like fiction and he sure didn't like the little Gideon Bible that he found in nightstand four years ago after checking himself in.
Other people in the hospital, they came and went.
Four years.
They also don't make him socialize much. They make him see the therapist, they make him go to group. They don't make him talk, though, and they don't make him tell the story any more.
The therapists have learned to just read the file. They don't ask anymore, after the fourth left to live in Hawaii, to teach middle school art.
They stopped sending the interns in, the residents, the ones who would walk into the room with earnest eyes and a deeply, if briefly held belief that they would fix Sam.
Fixing is no longer on the table. Sam is maintained. Sam...maintains.
It's four am when Sam wakes up.
The smallest pill takes care of the dreams. The orange pill takes care of the insomnia. The blue pill takes care of the voices. Not one of them works fast enough.
I'm coming, it says.
Sam takes a deep breath. He feels it follow his nerves, from his sinuses down his spine to the tiny branching paths at his hands and feet.
The sound of his deep inhalation rings loud in his ears like the inward rush of a tide.
Sam doesn't talk any more.
He talked during the bad time, but not anymore.
Sam exhales, and he feels the breath leave a warm blaze as it flows outward.
The blinds are drawn in the room where they have him. The paper, folding kind of blinds that leave the glass completely invisible. And they took the mirror out of the bathroom near him, too. He shows up in the reflections, actively. Sam barely remembers what he looks like anymore, between the lack of mirrors and the fact that they few times he used them since it happened it wasn't him he was looking at in there.
I am coming, Sam Winchester.
Sam grits his teeth tightly and draws his hands against his ribs to feel the steady inward, outward flex of his torso.
I am coming,the voice roars.
Sam shouts in his empty room.
Can't happen again.
The alarm clock is too goddamn loud.
It's a necessary evil, really, otherwise he sleeps through it and stays asleep for thirty six hour periods, or until the nicotine shake gets so severe that he falls out of bed and wakes himself up. Something about the pill he's on, some endless, instant REM cycle or something. That's what the doctor says it is— the general practitioner and the shrink both. The priest, though, in the church on Bainbridge, and the psychic downtown where all the tourists go both know better. Both have confirmed Castiel's suspicion, with that soft, pitying look.
God, Castiel hates the customer-service ends of the job and the people who work it.
Still, Castiel can't remember the last time he didn't wake up fucking gasping.
He reaches over the clock and grabs a pack of smokes and a lighter and one-two-three clicks the flame up and inhales deeply to light the damn thing and he burns through his first cigarette of the day, last of the carton, before he's even put on a shirt.
His chest aches as he sits up in bed. His teeth ache too, but that's a different problem, that's the whiskey that's also worming through his blood as a headache and a fierce nausea.
He coughs heavily and phlegm comes up hard and terrible and fucking pungent. A smell he can taste. A cancer he can taste.
Castiel hates it.
Castiel hates everything, honestly, but mornings make the list pretty far up.
The phone rings.
Fucking of course, he thinks.
Castiel spits onto his floor and staggers across his one room apartment to the phone. He picks it up.
"Cas— Cas— Cas," Kevin stammers on the end of the line. "Problems. Bad— bad problems. Lighting up all over nei-neighbrohood. P-precinct. Gabe told me to call you. Bad. Very bad."
Castiel sighs. In spite of himself.
"How bad," he sighs.
"Black eyes," Kevin answers.
"Fuck," Castiel barks into the phone and hangs up.
He shrugs easily into his suit, runs his hands through his hair, and heads out.
Today is going to fucking suck.
Dean sits on the bend in front of the precinct desk and rolls his neck and shoulders. He inhales long a deep and feels his black leather belt settle lower on his hips, his blue starched shirt stretching over his pecs, his eyes dancing under their lids.
He wonders what Sam is doing.
He doesn't let him see him. He doesn't let him call. He doesn't write letters back and he's not allowed to have a computer. They tell him roughly what his schedule looks like but they don't tell him anything specific. Is he happy? Is he well? How does he feel?
Dean misses his brother like he misses a limb.
He rubs the crucifix in his pocket. It's attached to ten decades of beads but it's the silver, suffering Christ on the cross that he worries under his thumb, feeling the tiny raised chest, the round knob of the bowed and aching head.
He murmurs a Hail Mary under his breath.
"Winchester," the sergeant behind the desk barks, "your feet broken?"
Dean opens his eyes and looks at Harvelle, behind the desk and smiles reflexively. "Weird night," he answers. "Sam had a bad night."
As the only living relative, Dean's the one they call when there's an Incident. Capital Eye Incident.
Harvelle nods.
Ellen's an old friend. A family friend, and god knows Dean wouldn't have a spot on the force without her. Bunch of guys on the force know about Sam now, anyway. It's not really something Dean can hide. He doesn't have a girlfriend or a boyfriend, he doesn't have pets. His salary doesn't go to some big house in the nice suburbs or a coke habit or gambling or...or anything. Not nice clothes or a garage band or something. It's not like he hides it, anyway. It's not really something he can hide.
Sam and Dean.
Dean stands up and cracks his neck.
Charlie comes through the doors, her own starched blue shirt pulling over her chest, her red ponytail flowing out of the other side of her black hat.
"Alright, princess," she says, grinning, "Let's hit the streets."
Dean drives. Charlie takes shotgun. And they patrol.
There's a coin of Saint Michael that Dean superglued to the dash a few years ago. Charlie's not religious, but as she put it, "We could use all the help we could get, eh Winchester?" Dean wouldn't call what he is religious, at any rate.
Dean turns on their radio. Charlie hands him a cup of coffee.
"How's Gilda?" Dean asks after a sip.
Charlie flips through a notebook from yesterday, wiggles a knob on the radar gun, and replies, "She's good. The kindergarteners are driving her crazy— I keep telling her they'd pay her better at St. George's to teach high school but she loves the munchkins."
Dean shakes his head in response. "She's a weird lady," he says.
Charlie points the radar gun toward the street. "Can't be helped," she grunts, shrugging. "Hey, I heard about Sam. Everything okay?"
"He had a bad slip," he answers. "They're upping the dosage on one of his drugs and encouraging him to socialize more with the other people."
"Still no word?" she asks. The radar gun beeps.
"No contact," Dean says.
They don't say anything else for a few hours. Sit in the car and catch speeders, write tickets. They're there until about two that afternoon when a radio call comes in. Dean drives, Charlie takes receiver.
"Dispatch, this is 85," Charlie murmurs into the receiver.
And they drive downtown.
It's not that this job is ever a good one.
It's not. It drains him and it empties him and it's never good.
But there are days when it's bearable. Days when the souls he saves get chalked up on the board, weighed against the souls he couldn't, and the balance feels acceptable.
But those days usually do not start with the words black eyes coming from Kevin's mouth.
His hangover hasn't gotten the memo that it's not a good time, so the pulse in his forehead is pounding out a rhythm like a demented fucking high school band percussion section from Hell and that metaphor got away from him somewhere along the way, so he rolls the window down and hopes that some cool air might help.
It doesn't, really. But it doesn't hurt, either, so he leaves it down.
Kevin tried calling back. Twice. It's possible that swearing and hanging up the phone didn't do anything for the kid's already-jangled nerves, but what does he expect when he drops a bomb like that?
But he didn't pick up because he knew it would be more stammering and more high-strung anxious Cas Cas Cas and if he's got black eyes in his immediate future then he doesn't have time for Kevin's twitchiness. He's sure he'll get a call from Gabriel about that in the next couple of days. He's in recovery, Cas, come on, don't be a dick.
There are seven rapidly consecutive beeps signalling text messages.
He doesn't touch the phone until he gets into the parking lot. No one's ever called him risk-averse, but he would be pissed if he survived everything that got thrown at him just to get killed on the road because he was fucking texting.
Also, he hates the damn thing, though he considers it another necessary evil.
He picks up the phone once he's parked and unlocks it, thumbing the texting icon reluctantly. A big, urgent, red numeral fifteen sits atop the green box, like it's something that he ought to find important.
Hell, somebody needs to get in touch with him that bad, they can fucking summon him.
Kevin's texting style is as staccato as his spoken voice, and Castiel can hear the breathlessness in it. It's like something has been wrapped around the kid ever since the possession, and it's never let up on him. Like something is sitting on his chest, and Castiel hasn't been able to push it off, hard as he shoves.
Cas pick up
Okay you're probably driving
Don't pick up
I'm gonna link you the reports that gabe sent me ok
Just click on the addresses and your phone browser wll open the pages
There's three reports so far don't know if SPD is on the scene but it's possible
Just don't get arrested ok cas you're the only one who knows how to fix the a/c
Castiel is torn between irritation that Kevin thinks he doesn't know how to open a link on a fucking smart phone—he hates them, but he's not stupid—and reluctant amusement at Kevin's pitiful attempt at playing it cool with his last message.
There are not many people that Castiel tolerates in this world or any other. Kevin Tran is the extremely rare exception.
He doesn't say it much, but he figures it's understood. Wouldn't want the kid getting a big head or anything.
He parks the car, sending up a quick gratitude to anyone listening that there was a spot open in his zone, and he begins the trek to Gabriel's office.
Necessary evils.
The worst thing about Gabriel's office is the sun lamp.
Not usually. Usually, the worst thing about Gabriel's office is 's actually saying something, though, given that the walls are a particular shade of aqua and there's one of those pictures of a baby inside of a flower with a headband on or something. Gabriel inherited it from the last occupant and he hasn't taken it down. Castiel suspects it's just to fuck with him. There's also the complete lack of any parking in the area and the yoga studio down the street and the bubble tea place with the chairs hogging the sidewalk—
But usually he's not woken up in the morning by a panicked Kevin and a call to action before he can even have his fucking coffee, so today, the sun lamp is the worst thing.
So he turns it off.
"Not like I need it, when your sunny disposition is in the building," Gabriel chirps as he darts into the room, dropping a file heavily on the table. The office's receptionist isn't in yet, just the two of them here.
Castiel grunts an acknowledgment to Gabriel as he makes his way to the best part of Gabriel's office, which is the always-full pot of coffee.
"And no, I don't have any clients for the next half-hour. It's always so respectful, how you ask if I'm busy," he adds.
Gabriel could have a whole conversation with himself, if he wanted to. Hell, he could have a whole conversation with someone else without opening his mouth if the fancy struck him.
"Kevin told me you called. I came. You owe me more than coffee for that." Castiel grabs a mug that says social workers do it in groups in garish green text.
"So sorry to bother you with, you know, your holy calling or whatever," he replies, rolling his eyes.
Gabriel reaches around and takes another mug, this time a white one that says social worker by day, bigfoot hunter by night with a cartoon sasquatch lumbering across it. Castiel hands him the carafe when he's done with it.
One, two, three drags of the hot, bitter coffee, and then Castiel is minimally prepared to talk to his brother.
"Kevin mentioned black eyes," he murmurs around the taste of it. It's rare that he drinks coffee that hasn't been burnt by the percolator.
Gabriel sighs, running his hand over his face, and takes his coffee over to his desk. Castiel goes to the door and shuts it before taking a seat in the other chair in the cramped room.
He bites his lips for a moment before saying, "There's been some buzz from a couple of clients. A few reports, some that got passed on to the cops. Kevin should have those. But then Susan came in talking about it."
Castiel narrows his eyes. Susan is a name he's familiar with—one of Gabriel's younger clients, early thirties, and when she came in Gabriel was really torn between whether he should call Castiel with her rantings or whether he should call in a psychiatric consult. He was getting mixed feelings from her. He got her into therapy but kept listening, and eventually she was substantiated enough that he just started believing her. Turns out sometimes people are both schizophrenic and sensitive.
Gabriel hadn't gotten into social work hoping to be Castiel's informant, but somehow, people who said crazy shit were sometimes saying it because they'd seen crazy shit.
"She said that she'd seen a guy she knew from the shelter talking to himself when she was down by the stadiums. Not his usual scene, she said, so she went up to see if he was all right. When she got there he was talking into a bowl and she said it smelled like blood. She started backing up, getting out of his way, but she managed to get a glimpse of his eyes. Pitch-black, whites and all."
"Get a glimpse, like—"
"Like he looked at her, yeah."
"And it let her go?"
Gabriel takes a long sip of coffee.
"She said she found a beat cop around and stuck with him until she could get a bus back up to her housing. She said she wasn't sure if he followed her or not."
"If you can get her admitted, it'd probably be safer," Castiel says, downing the rest of his coffee quickly and putting the mug back next to the coffee pot. "Any pretense."
"Wouldn't take much pretense, she meets all the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia."
"Because she's schizophrenic, Gabriel."
"Hey, who'm I to judge?" Gabriel asks acerbically. "I can validate half the shit she says, who knows about the other half? Who the fuck knows if anybody's schizophrenic anymore? The DSM doesn't ask whether or not you actually saw a demon."
Castiel has already turned to walk out the door. But he pauses.
They're not close, him and Gabriel. Haven't been in a long time. He knows how long Gabe tried to deny his gift, and he can feel the resentment that Gabriel holds against him for dragging him back into this shitshow like a physical thing. But Gabriel is still his brother. And he can still spare some guilt for what's happened to him, alongside all the guilt he so liberally spreads around to everyone else he hasn't managed to save.
"Gabriel."
Gabriel waves a hand at him, and it's so transparent in its attempt at dismissiveness but it comes across as genuinely weary.
"Go be a big damn hero or whatever," he says. "I have paperwork to do because I'm a grown-up."
Castiel is no good at pushing Feelings Talk.
So he goes.
Charlie doesn't eat vegan, but Gilda does, and Gilda, god bless her heart, packs a lunch for both Dean and Charlie every day. It's damn kind of her, especially given that they're making ends meet on cop and teacher's joint salary and that vegan shit ain't cheap. Charlie eats all of it (girl has a metabolism like a goddamn trash compactor) and Dean usually eats about half and then they'll grab something in the area to split afterwards. Usually with beef or cheese or both.
Today, she's packed a spinach salad with bean sprouts and her marinated tofu and sunflower seeds and a home-made mustard dressing. It's alright, but as soon as they're both done, she turns to him and says, "Pierogi or that place with the sopressata? I'll treat."
Dean snorts around a mouthful of gatorade. "Come on," he says. "Don't you feel like you're cheating or something?"
Charlie looks at him like he just farted egregiously. "No," she says. "Gilda grew up in that place in California— last time she had beef she had fucking braces and it was an animal she had raised since she was in pullups— no, Gilda doesn't ask questions she doesn't want the answers to, okay?"
Dean can't help but laugh. Gilda and Charlie are good people.
"No, okay, for this, we're doing pierogi, and you're paying," she says, turning the ignition and steering the car back out into the fray of traffic. The thing navigates like a boat— other people on the department have cars that are gas efficient little hondas and shit but he and Charlie have wound up with one of those boxy machines from the mid-seventies somehow, with giant headlights and a tape deck instead of a CD player or an mp3 hookup. It's damn comfy, but it's a bitch in traffic, and it's three thirty right now, with the school buses out and about, too. Dean doesn't mind too much, though. He likes cars. Grew up in cars.
It's quiet between them for a while before Charlie says, "So there's this woman at Gilda's yoga class—"
"Aw, Christ, Charlie, come on," he says. "Not you, too. I mean, coming from Ellen and Anna it doesn't surprise me but you too? I'm betrayed. Hurt."
"I tried telling her, dude, but Gilda worries about you, man. I mean, I worry about you, too, but Gilda thinks you need someone who can...I mean, everyone knows you want kids—"
"Stop," Dean interrupts.
"There's nothing wrong with wanting to procreate and have a million little yous running around but you're going to need to—"
"Stop," Dean repeats.
"Or maybe you want to adopt or something, I don't know—"
"Charlie, please," he says.
"Look okay, you're my friend. I'm fucking emotionally invested in you, sue me," she adds. "And Gilda's invested by extension and we just...we want you to be happy."
There's silence between them for a moment, before Dean says, "I know. I get it. Just...please. Alright?"
"We're here," she says.
The pierogi place is little bitty— a hole in the wall run by a family that's been in the space for something like thirty years without painting the walls or getting new chairs or new televisions. It smells like boiling water and steam and cabbage inside of the space. There's an orthodox cross set into the tile behind the counter, an image of Saint Nicholas of Brooklyn on the counter. The father and mother who originally ran the place are sequestered upstairs, but their kids run the place, their speech floating between English and Polish rapidly. Tiny old women come in, their hair wrapped up in scarves. Beflanneled hipsters come in. Cops and firemen come in. It's a good spot.
"Dean, Charlie," Chuck says from behind the counter, wiping his hands on his apron. "The usual? Two dozen and a couple of coffees?"
"Chuck, you beautiful bastard," Charlie replies, "did you know we were coming?"
Chuck smiles. It's a good look on him.
Dean actually met Chuck in a support group. Schizophrenia runs in his family, but just the regular kind. Not the kind that's not schizophrenia and instead something...uglier. He took his brother's death hard, he stopped taking his meds and started drinking again. But he's doing better now. Still a twitchy kinda guy, though. Nervous.
"Call it a feeling," he says. He calls to the back, presumably to the teenaged cousin here from Lublin to work. Sweet kid, weird name— Inias. "They'll be out in a jiff. How's the beat looking?"
Dean shrugs. Charlie repeats the motion.
They don't use the q word.
Chuck nods. He doesn't use it either. He's known the two of them long enough to know the superstitions. And most people think Dean is just superstitious. Chalk it up to a weird childhood and a couple of bad run-ins with luck or the inexplicable or something. No one thinks it's real like Dean knows it is. But Chuck's a good guy.
He hands them a white paper sack a minute or so later, as well as two tall coffees. "How much you need again?" Dean asks.
Chuck shakes his head. "For you? No charge," he answers.
"Aw, Chuck, c'mon. Becky'll have a stroke if she finds out," Dean says, pulling out his wallet.
"Then she won't find out," Chuck says. "I know you don't eat right. Your money's no good here. Get back to the good work."
Charlie grins. "Chuck, you're an angel," she says, and they ease out of the door and back onto the street.
They sit on the hood of the car, setting up the food and coffee. They've got one ear on the scanner and one ear on the street, but mostly they're enjoying the fact that there hasn't been a crisis yet or anything.
Seattle.
Four o'clock and all is well.
Of course, as soon as Dean has the thought he realizes that it's all going to go to shit.