A season four fic! Because seasons four and five are my favourite eras for fan fics. This is initially intended to take place sometime between I Know What You Did Last Summer and Heaven and Hell. This story will be three chapters, should update about once a week. It's actually already done, but I reserve the right to tweak. Enjoy.
Chapter 1
It's getting on toward twilight, and the grainy white walls of the half star motel they're staying at are tinted a rose pink in the light of the dying sun. Since they'd just ganked a particularly vicious rawhead an hour ago, they decided to celebrate with dinner, and their fast food run has been a major success. Dean's got a bacon cheeseburger as thick as his fist and beer battered onion rings, while Sam has a grilled chicken and spinach salad with cranberries and Parmesan, and Dean is seriously impressed – if a little disturbed – that the same restaurant carries both. He can smell the grease soaking into his paper bag and practically daydreams about it reaching his mouth. He pulls the Impala into an empty parking space, down at the end near where their room is, and snatches the bag from Sam in the passenger seat as he kills the ignition.
"Someday, we are gonna wean you off rabbit food," Dean days to his brother as they get out of the car and make their way into the slightly dim hall that leads down to their room.
"Yeah, and someday you're gonna have a heart attack," Sam shoots back, shoving his own bag under his arm.
They reach the door to their room and Sam pulls out his key, unlocking it. The door swings open, and the sight that greets them has them both dropping their bags and pulling out the guns they keep stashed in their waistbands.
The small table they were planning to eat on has been upended, and the duffel bag of spare weapons has slid off and is on the floor beneath it, holding it up at an awkward angle. The floor lamp over in the corner has been knocked to the ground, its shade crunched in on one side where it looks like it's been stepped on. A decorative vase filled with fake silver-sprayed flowers has fallen on the carpet and somehow smashed. Stretched out between the beds and the television is the body of a man, maybe in his fifties, with graying hair that's receding from his forehead. He's wearing a yellow polo shirt and khakis, and his mouth is open and his eyes have been burned out of his skull to leave two gaping, fleshy holes, singed and still faintly steaming, smelling of charred meat.
A few feet away, Castiel is sitting on Dean's bed, hunched over in the dimness, and he doesn't look up as Dean cautiously flicks on the light in the room.
"Cas?" Dean says, lowering his gun and shoving it back into his waistband. The angel doesn't respond, and Dean walks over to him while Sam moves to check the body, like Dean, lowering his gun, but not putting it away. Dean sits down on Sam's bed, opposite Castiel, and leans slightly toward him, frowning as there is no reaction to his approach.
"Cas?"
Dean reaches out and puts a hand on the angel's arm, shaking it gently.
"Cas?" he says again.
"Dean," Castiel finally answers, soft and low, and he sounds as though speaking costs him a great effort.
"Cas, what happened?" Dean asks. "You okay?"
"I... I came to..." Castiel trails off, sounding out of breath, and he doesn't bother to finish the sentence. Instead, he waits a moment and then starts a new one.
"There was... a demon. Lying... in wait for you." He pauses for several seconds, and Dean's almost decided to say something to check that he's still with him when Castiel speaks again.
"It was... powerful. I'm..."
This time, Castiel stops and doesn't speak again for a full minute. Dean glances over at Sam, who has left the dead body behind and is peering cautiously out of the curtains that hang over their window. Sam notices him looking, along with the question in his eyes, and shrugs.
"Dead demon, I guess," he says in a tone that indicates that he has no more idea what's going on than Dean does. "I'm not seeing anyone outside. If it was that tough, it probably blew in alone. Figured it could handle us." Sam runs his hand over the windowsill and it comes away yellow with powder. "Sulfur," he says, though it was already a foregone conclusion. Dean nods and turns back to Castiel, who still hasn't said anything more, but has slumped further forward in the last minute.
"Cas, hey," Dean says, shaking him again. When Castiel does nothing, he shakes harder. "Cas!" he says loudly. "You awake? Look at me, huh?"
Castiel shifts slightly at the entreaty, and slowly raises his head, lifting it with effort to face Dean. His eyes are wrong. They look hazy and out of focus, and there's a thin but steady stream of dark red blood trickling out of his nose. It drips down to stain the front of his shirt and coat, but Castiel doesn't appear to notice.
"Cas, you're bleeding," Dean informs him, wondering how well he can see right now, how much he needs the borrowed eyes he's wearing. Castiel lifts a hand to swat clumsily at the blood on his face, then gives up and waves the now bloodied hand dismissively.
"It's the vessel," Castiel says slowly. "Sometimes he leaks."
Dean's not sure if he should laugh or be appalled at the statement, which seems to place blame on the poor guy Castiel's possessing for bleeding. He's not even sure how to respond to such an assessment.
"Well... it's not good," he manages lamely. Sam has come over to stand beside the bed and is looking down at the bleeding angel with concern.
"Here."
Sam leans forward to snatch a Kleenex from the box on the end table between the beds and hands it to Dean. Castiel blinks, and his eyes clear. He stiffens suddenly, shrinking back.
"I should go," he says, his voice raspy. He stands abruptly and takes a halting step forward, then another.
"Cas," Dean says as the angel brushes past Sam, shying away from the hand his brother holds out to offer him help. Dean stares after him, left holding the Kleenex and feeling dismayed and oddly redundant. Castiel makes it to the door and fumbles with the knob, causing Dean to wonder just how many occasions Castiel has even ever had to actually open a door. The fact that he's bothering now must mean that he can't zap out, which must mean that he's messed up pretty good, and suddenly there's an uncomfortable knot in Dean's stomach as he realizes that he's not really okay with the prospect of Cas wandering the streets confused and bloody all his own.
What if the demon wasn't alone? Surely Cas can't handle another fight right now, even against a regular demon. Hell, he probably couldn't handle it if an ordinary human tried to mug him or something. Dean stands as Castiel ceases his struggle with the doorknob and instead slumps against the door, his knees wobbling. The angel's name is on Dean's lips again, but it's not what comes out when Castiel's legs give way and he starts sliding down the door.
"Sam!" Dean yells, because his brother is closer and Sam jumps forward and catches the angel around the middle as he takes a nosedive toward the floor. To Dean's surprise, Cas cries out as if in pain and struggles against Sam's grip, cowering back toward the unopened door. Dean rushes to help, because even as pathetic and half-dead looking as Castiel is right now, he's still putting up enough of a fight that Sam can barely hold him. But it's only for a couple of seconds. By the time Dean's arms encircle him too, the fight has gone out of the angel, his shoulders dropping and his limp limbs starting to tangle. His head ends up lolling against Dean's shoulder, which isn't gay at all.
"What'd you do?" Dean asks Sam, as by unspoken agreement they haul Cas back to the bed he'd been sitting on before he decided to go all 50s B-movie heroine.
"Nothing," Sam says, and they are gentle as they lay him down, but still Castiel whimpers like an injured dog, and his eyelids flicker as they struggle to open, two thin slits of blue winking on and off as he fights.
"Cas hey, calm down," Sam says soothingly, and kneads a comforting hand against Castiel's shoulder. Castiel gasps and jerks violently away, nearly spilling off the edge of the bed, but Dean catches him and gingerly pushes him back to the center. He lets go again quickly and holds his hands up and away, fingers splayed and empty.
"Okay, let's try not touching him," he tells Sam, who likewise steps back, pulling his hands away. "Just give him a minute," Dean suggests, but Castiel is still restless, his hands twitching and his eyes coming half open as he turns toward Dean, trying to rise but then falling back. His lidded gaze is blank and unfocused as before, and Dean doesn't think he can see out of those eyes. Dean begins to suspect that regardless of whatever Castiel is like when he's not body snatching, he inhabits the vessel fully, and whatever's happening to his angel self is reflected in the body he's wearing. His angel self can't see, and that makes Dean feel unaccountably ill.
"Cas?" he says tentatively, hoping the eyes will sharpen.
They don't. Castiel makes a sound like a drowning man, and then says something in a tongue Dean can't understand. The words come out muttered and breathy, the syllables short and sharp and putting Dean in mind of the Greek that Bobby occasionally reads aloud, except it's nothing like Greek, really. He looks at Sam.
"Is that Latin?" he asks uncertainly, although it didn't sound like Latin, either.
"No," Sam answers, his brow furrowed with thought.
"What is it, then?"
"No idea."
Sam shrugs.
"Cas," Dean says again, a little loudly this time, hoping the angel can still understand what he's saying. "We're not gonna touch you, okay? Just relax."
Whether due to Dean's words, or simply because he doesn't have the energy anymore, Castiel gradually quiets, and the blue half moons disappear as his eyes slide shut. He is still.
"What the hell happened to him?" Dean wonders aloud.
"Hell," Sam says succinctly, and the quip would be funny if it weren't quite so true, and if Dean didn't have a backlog of memories related to the subject that he doesn't want boiling back up.
"Yeah," Dean agrees, and they leave it at that. Dean gestures to the dead demon on the floor. "I guess we'd better get Dr. Doom out of here while it's still dark."
Sam nods.
"I'll get a couple of bags," he begins, but he's interrupted by a knock at the door. The two of them freeze at the sound. And then Dean has his gun out and is pressed up against the wall on the side of the door with the knob, while Sam is ready with his own gun and has stepped between the two beds, between the comatose angel and the closed door.
"Yeah?" Dean says.
A bored voice answers his through the thin wood.
"Management," it sighs. "There was a complaint about freaky noises. We take that sort of thing seriously here."
The dry, disinterested monotone indicates anything but, but even in a cheap joint like this, nobody's going to ignore a body on the floor, especially not a body with its eyes burnt out of its skull. Dean curses under his breath, amazed that the management here even stirred itself to investigate such a complaint, but then so far this evening's just been full of surprises. And in the current ratio of bad surprises versus good surprises, bad is winning.
"One sec," Dean says casually, waving frantically at Sam to hide the body while he snatches up Ruby's knife from the duffel bag still trapped under the table. Maybe management hasn't stirred itself to investigate a complaint, or maybe there wasn't a complaint at all. ...Or maybe it has and there was and they need to not get arrested because both an angel and a demon dropped in earlier to say hi. Dean rights the table one-handed while Sam drags the body out of sight behind his bed in record time. Finally Dean reaches over and pulls the door open just wide enough to not be suspicious, the knife clenched behind his back in his other hand.
The guy standing outside the door is shrimpy and thin, with lank blank hair and a badly trimmed goatee that fails to hide the tobacco stains on his lips. He looks so completely detached from his "investigation" that Dean thinks the guy is stoned, which should hopefully make getting rid of him a lot easier. Dean begins to think he's not facing a demon simply because most demons would go for a body that's buffer, better looking, and a lot classier. Still, it might be slim pickings around here, for class anyway.
"What noises?" Dean asks, sounding completely oblivious.
"Another guest says she heard some banging around and a scream. And some like, electrical frying noises," the manager says, his voice completely flat. "She's thinking somebody killed himself with a toaster in the bathtub."
"Uh huh," Dean says. "Well, have you considered that she's probably tripping acid, because we weren't even here ten minutes ago and we don't own a toaster."
The guy tilts his head a little to the side, in a sort of strange satire of the way Castiel does when he's confused. His mouth half opens, and then after a second of staring vaguely at Dean, he says,
"Yeah, okay, that's a possibility."
He nods and Dean nods along with him, hoping that's the end of it.
"Is this like, a drug drop off though?" the guy asks, gesturing to the floor of the hall, and Dean has no idea what he's talking about until he pokes his head out to see and realizes that they left their food outside the room and completely forgot about it.
"No, that's dinner," Dean says, and he swears the guy looks disappointed. Dean bends carefully to retrieve the bags with his free hand, while still keeping the knife out of sight. He straightens up and decides that okay, now this is the end of it, when he hears a groan from behind him.
He turns to see that Castiel is twitching again where he lies on the bed, almost as if he's having a seizure. Sam kneels down beside the bed and leans over him, talking to him, Dean thinks, but so quietly he can't make anything out from where he stands at the door. Whatever Sam says, it doesn't work. Castiel turns away from him, half-crawling, half-rolling, and tips over the edge of the bed, a solid thump audible as he slams into the floor.
"Hey. Is he like, on something?" the manager asks in his same stoned monotone. "'Cuz, we've got a policy."
"Uh, that's my cousin. He's, uh, got PTSD." Dean says the very first thing that pops into his head and immediately closes the door in the manager's face. It's not like the guy's going to do anything about it – he's so high he can't be thinking clearly, especially not if he's looking for more drugs on the guests and hoping he can share. Dean takes a split second to turn the lock and then half-sprints across the room to where Castiel has fallen and where Sam has come around the side of the bed and is hovering over him, uncertain.
Castiel is curled sideways on the stained 80s carpet, breathing hard, with his eyebrows drawn together and the corners of his mouth turned down sharply, like he's going to be sick. Dean really hopes he won't be, because cleaning up angel vomit has never been on his list of important life achievements, and if there's corn involved, he's going to flatly refuse to participate. What the heck do angels eat, anyway? Dean has never seen food in any form pass Castiel's lips. But Cas doesn't throw up, and Sam is standing there looking at Dean helplessly, since they've never had to care for a sick angel before, or whatever's the matter with him, and apparently they're doing everything wrong. Dean wonders if this is why Cas wanted to leave – because he knew they'd suck at this.
"I didn't even touch him," Sam says, confused and a little defensive, in response to Dean's questioning look. Dean shrugs and puts his hands up to indicate that he knows Sam didn't, and that he's just as clueless as to why Cas is reacting so badly to any help they try to give him. He crouches down by the huddled form, trying to keep back enough to give the angel some space, but even so Castiel is curling up into a tighter ball, shrinking back against the bed, and Dean figures he'd crawl under it if the mattress wasn't sagging so low in the bed frame that there wasn't room. At least it looks like his nose has stopped bleeding, but with all his moving around, the long line of half-dry blood has smeared everywhere, smudging his jaw and throat and staining his clothes down to his knees. He looks like a murder victim.
"Cas," Dean says, trying to be gentle and not let the fact that he's starting to get really frustrated with all of this make it into his tone. The brown paper bags that hold their dinners are still in his hands, and the food is probably getting cold. But Dean sighs and sets them aside as the angel of the Lord shivers and speaks again with those weird, sharp words that don't sound anything like Greek.
"Dammit," Dean swears softly, and he's on the point of standing back up again and just letting Cas rot on the floor, because he just doesn't know what else to do, when Castiel coughs and finally whispers something in English.
"Please,"
is all he says.
"Please? Please what? Cas, what do you need?" Dean asks. Castiel says nothing, just coughs again, but then his eyes flutter back open, and though they're hazy at first, slowly they sharpen and Cas seems to relax slightly as he catches sight of Dean's face.
"Dean," he says, his voice dry and papery. He raises his head with effort and glances vaguely about, looking confused and disoriented. Dean wonders if he knows how he ended up on the floor, if he remembers anything since his failed attempt to get the door open. He starts somewhat upon seeing Sam, who is admittedly practically looming over him, even casting a shadow as his Sasquatch head blocks the room light. Castiel pushes a hand against the floor and manages to force himself up onto an elbow, pressing back against the bed like he's waiting on a firing squad. His eyes go hazy again for a split second, but then he blinks and they're back again, cold and dark and serious.
"Hey, you back on Earth now?" Dean asks him, and then berates both himself and the angel's literal-mindedness at the choice of words when Castiel stares back at him, thoroughly puzzled. "No, I mean, are you back with us?" he tries to rephrase. "You gonna stay awake?"
"Yes," Castiel says firmly, and there's a note of forced conviction in the word, as if Castiel is trying to convince not only them but himself of his stability. "I'm... I'm fine." His speech is rough and still halting, as if speaking alone requires a massive effort.
Dean snorts at the words, colored with exhaustion and following up bleeding and collapse and speaking in weird tongues.
"Yeah, sure," he says sarcastically, but Cas misses the sarcasm as usual and nods gravely at him.
"I'll... go now," Castiel says slowly, reaching up to grasp the side of the bed for support, clearly intent upon standing up. Dean is not going to haul his ass across the room again after he falls over, and what the hell is his hurry to be out of here when he's only just come back to being conscious?
"Whoa whoa, how about you just stay there a minute?" Dean says, irritation and exasperation bleeding into his tone. He still doesn't touch Cas, not wanting to deal with another freak out, but he holds out his hands for emphasis, as if he can stop the angel merely with the command emanating from them. Strangely, Castiel pauses in his attempt to rise, looking up and eying him with uncertainty and something akin to suspicion.
"Why... do you stop... me?" he asks, and as Dean watches, a fresh trickle of blood starts out of his nose and wanders down the marred surface of his front.
"Oh I don't know, because you're a mess?" Dean says, and again Cas looks at him uncomprehendingly, clearly not getting why Dean would insult his tidiness and cite it as reason to not let him leave. "You can't just wander off, Cas, you're..." Hurt isn't perhaps the right word, as other than the nosebleed the angel shows no sign of physical damage. Sick, tired? "You're all screwed up from that demon. You better call one of your angel buddies to come pick you up."
Castiel appears to relax again at Dean's suggestion, though he shakes his head.
"I can't."
Dean rolls his eyes.
"Well then you can't just leave," he says. "What if you run into trouble? For God's sake, a stiff wind could knock you over!"
"I am not concerned... with the wind," Castiel says seriously, once again looking confused at Dean's suggestion. "I'll... I'll be..."
He is drooping forward, peeling off the side of bed, his head tipping onto his shoulder and then sliding off of it to hang down limply as his whole body starts to crumple. At least he's already more or less on the floor, but he sways on his elbow and he looks about to faceplant into the carpet so Dean quickly reaches out and shoves his hands into Castiel's shoulders, pressing him back against the bed again to keep him upright. He acted on instinct and he grits his teeth as he expects Cas to go nuts again, but this time, the reaction is much more subdued. Castiel's breath hitches, and he groans faintly as his eyes try to keep their focus on Dean, his forehead crinkling again in pain or confusion, Dean can't tell.
"Yeah, you don't even need the wind," Dean mutters, and Castiel's eyes narrow in a faint glare at the words.
"I should..." he gets out, but then trails off again into silence, his expression pained and his eyes leaving Dean's face to wander toward some invisible spot on the floor. He's realizing just how pathetic he is right now, Dean thinks, admitting to himself that no, he can't walk out of here when he can barely keep it together on the floor. He's going to have to stay, and deal with the two humans for longer than five minutes without giving them orders or friggin' vanishing whenever he wants. Dean's tempted to rag him about it, but he looks so messed up it feels like it'd be cruel, and besides, Cas probably wouldn't even get what he was saying.
"You wanna get up off the floor?" Dean asks him, as he slumps further against Dean's hands.
"It... doesn't matter," Castiel says, with as much aloofness as he can manage while sitting on the ancient carpet of a crappy motel room, the only thing keeping him upright a pair of human hands pinning him to the side of a bed that saw better days about ten years ago. The stubborn attempt at bravado pisses Dean off, and he seriously considers just letting go, letting the angel crumple to the floor and leaving him there. If he wants to be all high and holy, I'm better than you sad monkeys, then fine, he really doesn't need their help, he can just spend some time slumming it in whatever dirt is hiding in the shag. Dean really almost just lets him.
But Cas is breathing hard and half-awake and looks miserable, and Dean supposes he did kill a demon for them, which, if the damn thing screwed him up this badly, probably would have been a bitch to fight, if they would have even been able to fight it. And of course, eventually Cas is going to recover from this and go back to ordering them around and generally being annoying, and he might be more of a dick about it if he remembers being left on the floor like an old newspaper. Besides, the fact that the demon is already dead means that Sam won't be tempted to use his psychic freak powers, and for that, Dean is truly grateful. So Dean musters his maturity and self-control, which have taken a beating over the years but are still extant, and contents himself with an exasperated sigh over the angel's obstinate pretense.
"Okay then, bed it is," he says, a little tightly, but without being caustic about it. He jerks his head at Sam, who's still standing a few feet back, watching with his brow knit and a thin frown on his face. "Give me a hand, will you?" he asks.
He feels Castiel tense under his grip, and the angel turns and grabs hold of the side of the bed, trying to pull himself up.
"Not... necessary," he pants. "I can..."
But he can't, and it's obvious. Whatever strength he managed to muster earlier to try to walk out is spent, and he can't seem to coordinate his limbs properly to make their various efforts useful. He falters, grappling with the edge of the bed covers, and slumps back down, sprawling sideways against the mattress.
"Sam," Dean says, and Sam walks slowly over to them, that thoughtful frown still turning his lips. He reaches out and catches Castiel under the right arm, so Dean grabs him on the left, and together they haul him up and push him on the bed into a sitting position, like he was when they came in. Like before, he hunches over, curling into himself almost defensively, as a human would if they were caught in the rain, trying to block out the droplets. Sam lets go of him then and steps back, but Dean hesitates, his hand on Castiel's arm with the pretense of steadying him, but really he's taking a second to make sure he's not imagining it, that he can feel beneath his hand that the angel is trembling.
Is he cold? Scared?
Do angels get cold? Hell, do they get scared? He's never seen Castiel afraid before... although that isn't strictly true. Not afraid per se, but he remembers the look in Castiel's eyes when he first introduced them to Uriel, the sort of wariness settled in them as Uriel stalked about, spouting off and treating them as if they were nothing to him, mere insects that he happened to find mildly amusing for the moment. Cas had seemed vaguely nervous of his cohort, the supposed specialist, although Dean has never seen Uriel do anything special. There's nothing special about being an ass.
"Cas?" Dean says questioningly, and Castiel groans, a pained sound, while his body droops and his forehead nearly touches his knees.
"Please," he says again, soft and distressed and so low Dean barely hears it.
"Cas? What does that mean?" he asks, prodding the arm he's holding with his thumb for good measure. They're not going to get anywhere if Cas won't freaking explain himself. But predictably, the angel goes silent. And Dean has had it with the cryptic murmuring and the ping pong reactions, and he grabs Castiel by both shoulders and jerks him upright, whatever's wrong with him be damned.
"Hey! Hey, talk to me!" he half-shouts, and shakes him, angry and confused and if he admits it to himself, concerned. Castiel's head snaps back at the shaking, his eyelids fluttering between open and shut, and the trickle of blood that's still coming out of his nose widens into a small river.
"Dammit," Dean swears, and glances around for the Kleenex Sam gave him. It's crumpled on the floor where he dropped it when the manager knocked, so he snatches a new one from the box and presses it up under Castiel's nose. Castiel jerks slightly, his eyes opening wide and confused, and Dean guesses that Cas probably doesn't even understand what he's doing, not having ever needed to stop a nosebleed before.
"I'm helping you," Dean says bluntly. "Just hold still and breath through your mouth."
Does he even actually need to breath? Dean doesn't know, but Castiel opens his mouth at the command, though not wide like a human would to suck in a breath, just a thin sliver, like he wants to say something but is having trouble deciding what. Dean wishes he would say something all right, tell them why the hell he's so hot and cold over everything they do, why he keeps trying to leave in spite of the shape he's in. And if they're doing something wrong, why won't he just tell them what it is? At least he seems okay for the moment – his trembles have died down and his eyes are still normal, if bewildered. Then again, confused by humans is practically Castiel's default setting.
"Okay," Dean says as he puts pressure on the bleeding, "Let's just take a second here, stay calm, and you explain what it is that keeps tripping you out."
Castiel's eyebrows draw together at the last bit, but despite the wording, Dean's pretty sure he understands what Dean wants. And he looks... pained by it. Like he doesn't want to explain, which isn't much of a surprise given he hasn't already, but newsflash, he's essentially trapped here and if he wants their help, he's going to have to level with them.
"So, Cas...?" Dean prompts him, an expectant lilt to his tone, and Castiel grimaces... and then abruptly tenses up again, his muscles going taut where Dean's left hand still has a grip on one of his arms.
"Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about, Cas," Dean says, a little harshly, but he's too irritated to care. "The hell's the matter with you? You act like you're afraid or something."
If anything, Castiel's body grows more tense at the words, but his face immediately ditches the confusion and locks down into his usual impassive glare.
"I do not... fear you," he says, halting but sharply, and there's almost an insulted anger in his tone, though otherwise it's as flat and controlled as ever.
Dean rolls his eyes and pulls back the Kleenex a moment to check on the bleeding. It's more sluggish now, but still going, so he balls the tissue up a bit more and pushes it back.
"Then what, huh?" he asks. "What's the problem?"
"Me."
Dean startles slightly at the quiet statement, jerking his head to see Sam is now standing right beside him, having apparently moved in silently, and Dean was so intent on Castiel he hadn't noticed. Then the meaning of what Sam has just said hits him, and the blood freezes in his veins.
"You?" he says, in an incredulous tone, exaggerated to the point of calling Sam a moron for suggesting it. "What do you mean you?" There's a pit in his stomach that tells him his ridicule of the idea is a lost cause, that there's a reason behind Sam's conclusion, but it doesn't matter – he doesn't want to understand.
"I mean me," Sam says, and his eyes are dark and confident as he looks down at Castiel from where he stands a bare two feet away, close enough to reach out and touch the angel if he so chooses. "He's afraid of me." Sam leans forward and down a little, not quite putting his face in Castiel's, but suggesting the idea of it. "You're afraid of me, isn't that right, Cas?"
The words are deadly, tinted with mocking and an insolent smirk, layered over anger and hurt and accusation.
Castiel is rigid under Dean's fingers, a terrified coiled spring but with no punch to come out of it if push comes to shove. His face remains impassive, as much as it can, but a faint haunted look comes into his eyes, reminiscent, Dean thinks, of what he saw as Castiel watched Uriel, watched all that arrogant power and disregard for humanity parading around the room.
Cas is scared.
Of Dean's little brother.
"Come on!" Dean tries to brush it off, make light of it, how ludicrous it sounds, an angel afraid of a human, afraid of Sam? "Why would you think...?"
"Look at him, Dean," Sam says. "He's all freaked, now that I'm standing here. A minute ago, he was fine. He's okay if it's just you around him, but if I get close..."
Sam suddenly reaches out a hand toward the angel's face – and Castiel flinches as if he expects a blow. Sam snorts, chuckles with mirthless laughter as he pulls his hand back, shaking his head slowly from side to side as he stares at the angel sitting on the bed, bloody and stiff and now, clearly shaken.
"The hell..." Dean mutters. He rallies briefly, somewhere in his panicked brain thinking that if he can just make fun of the situation to death, it'll go away. "That's stupid. What are we gonna do, anyway? I don't even how to hurt an angel."
Sam shrugs. It's flippant, uncaring – pissed off.
"Maybe you couldn't hurt him," he says casually. "But I bet I could."
"What, with that psychic mojo crap?" Dean snaps. "That only works on demons."
"Well I haven't tried it on anything else."
Sam's voice has dropped to a low, dangerous note, and there's a quiet chill in the room that ices over the pit in Dean's stomach. He's shell-shocked by the suggestion, the almost-threat of what Sam can do with the part of him that's a freak, and the idea that he might actually be willing to do it. Dean feels like he needs to say something, but he doesn't know what to say.
"Well," Sam says, and there's a sharp stab of spite in the word, "I'll just leave you two alone, shall I? Seeing as I'm causing such an issue here."
He's all pretend concern above boiling rage, and Dean's heart flutters in a fear of its own as Sam turns and stalks determinedly for the door. It's not that he's stepping out – it's where he might be going that has Dean worried, whom he might be planning on meeting with. He shouldn't even be thinking about that crap.
"Sam, wait!" Dean calls as his brother reaches the door, but Sam ignores him and opens it. "Sam! Sammy!" The door slams shut behind Sam, and Dean's insides have turned to a sour, restless water. His eyes snap back to Castiel's face, which has hardly moved a muscle but now fails utterly at hiding his apprehension. The sight only angers Dean more.
His fingers tighten roughly around Castiel's arm, and he feels himself put more pressure on the Kleenex than it needs, tilting Cas' head back a fraction.
"Is he right?" Dean demands. "Is that true?"
Castiel's eyes turn sorrowful, but the haunted look is still there, the nervous dismay tainting his expression.
"Dean..." he says slowly, too slowly for Dean's taste. Dean hurls away the Kleenex and grabs Cas by the front of his coat, ignoring the blood streaking it and staining his hands. Castiel makes a sound of pain in the back of his throat as he's jerked forward, but Dean is past caring.
"Dammit, Cas!" he spits out. "What the hell is wrong with you? You think we're the bad guys here? You think Sam is...!"
He doesn't finish the sentence, just glares daggers at the angel, breathing hard. Castiel does something he doesn't do often – he looks away.
"It's true, isn't it, you son of a bitch," Dean says, furious. Now it all makes sense, the back and forth freak outs, why he wouldn't tell them what was wrong. Of course he wouldn't want to admit such a weakness, admit that the boy with the demon blood could actually do anything to him. If he really thinks Sam might try to hurt him... pain and rage twist into Dean in a sharp, hot knife. How dare Cas feel that way about his little brother? How dare the universe conspire in ways that would make an angel be afraid of Sammy?
Sweet little Sammy, Dean's whole reason for existing, his messy-haired little brother whom he's protected over and over, gave his life for, went to Hell for. It's just not fair for Sam to... for Sam to be who is he is right now, for angels to condemn him for it. He's not supposed to be involved in any of this crap, he's not supposed to mind-banishing demons and spending half his evenings with one. Yes, Sam is screwing up six ways from Sunday right now, but he's still Sam, and Dean is supposed to protect Sam. Watch out for Sammy, protect Sammy, it's his one directive in everything he's ever done...
"You stay the hell away from my brother," he hisses at Castiel, tightening his grip on the coat's lapels and pulling the angel's face closer to his. Castiel, who had relaxed minutely upon Sam's leaving the room, stiffens again in the face of his aggression, his eyes turning back to Dean and now looking at him as if he is a threat. It's a fair cop, Dean supposes, the way he's acting, and it should probably make him feel guilty, which it does a little, but mostly it just makes him angrier. "You can't even treat him like he's a human, not a demon?"
Castiel tilts his head back slightly, leaning away from Dean as much he can.
"I tried... to hide..." he croaks.
"Well you're a lousy actor!" Dean snarls.
"I tried... to leave..."
"Well you sucked at that, too!"
"Dean..."
"Screw you, Cas!"
He shouts it in Castiel's face, his hands balled into fists in the bloody trench coat, half-shaking him in his fury.
"Let go... of me," Castiel orders him, and despite the fact that the angel's weak as a kitten right now and barely capable of stringing words together, the tone has all the authority and command in it that he's ever lobbed Dean's way. Oh, he thinks he's still giving the orders here? Fine.
Dean lets go of him with a flourish, and watches with a sort of perverse satisfaction as Castiel sways slightly, and then tips to the side, unable to keep himself upright without Dean's support. He collapses against the bedspread, eyes shutting briefly in pain or resignation, but when they open again and look back up at Dean, they're so filled with wariness and distress that the anger inside Dean cracks and guilt and sympathy come oozing out.
"Dammit, Cas," he huffs, running a hand through his hair and shaking his head. "You have to go and..."
Cas is trying to curl up again, withdrawing from Dean in his last option of defense, but his legs are still spilling off the edge of the bed, hanging there and twisting his body as he struggles to draw up his knees. Dean sighs.
"Here."
He reaches for the angel's legs, and the wedge of guilt drives deeper when Castiel tenses and flinches away from his touch, but he grabs him by the ankles anyway and carefully deposits the rest of him on the bed.
"You son of a bitch," he says again, without heat this time.
Cas looks back up at him, and now his expression is completely confused. He's not used to humans, is he, how often they change gears. He probably doesn't understand how Dean can practically spit in his face one minute and be gentle with him the next. Or why Dean is still cursing at him, even while he's helping him out. Well buckle up, you bastard, Dean thinks. It's only going to get bumpier from here. This whole situation sucks, but maybe there's something here he needs to know if he's going to keep a hold of Sam, so Dean swallows down his anger and blame and tries to learn what he can.
"You've never acted weird around Sam before," Dean says. "What gives? You feel something off of him, is he changing? Getting worse?"
"He doesn't... feel different," Castiel murmurs. The angel is untensing, ever so slightly, now that Dean is talking and not yelling, but despite the change of pace, it's clear he still feels threatened.
"Then why the freak outs today?" Dean asks. Castiel looks as if the question makes him sick. He huddles into himself, his eyes going anywhere but Dean.
"Your brother is... very powerful," he says at last. It comes out as a hoarse whisper. "And right now... I am not." The last words are very soft, a painful, fearful admission, as if Cas is still worried that Dean might do something to him. Like what?
Get angry with him. Side with Sam, defend his brother like he's already done.
Let Sam kill an angel if he thinks it'll keep his brother safe.
The idea is tough and bitter going down, but deep inside Dean has to admit that if that's what Cas thinks, then he might not be too far off the mark. Sam's half off the reservation and Dean still doesn't trust him, but he loves his little brother, loves him so much he made a deal with a demon, and he barely knows the angel curled up miserably on his bedspread. Despite his alienness and general dickery, Dean has come to like Cas. Trust him a little, not wish him dead. But if it came down to it, Cas vs. Sam, hell anybody vs. Sam...
Dean swallows hard and leans down to put a hand on Castiel's shoulder. Castiel cringes somewhat at the contact, so Dean sighs and pats the shoulder gently, trying to be reassuring.
"Look, I'm not... You're okay, Cas, you got that? You're safe here."
Castiel doesn't look entirely convinced. Dean supposes he deserves that. He takes a deep breath and asks his next question. It's probably not one Cas wants to hear, but he has to know the extent of what his brother is capable of.
"You think Sam could kill you?"
Cas tenses again at the question, and he's probably suspicious about why Dean asked it.
"I just need to know, Cas," he says quietly. "How far his mojo goes. Can my little brother kill angels?"
Castiel shakes his head, still looking away.
"I don't know," he whispers. "I don't want... to find out."
Dean doesn't want to find out, either. Especially not with Cas, little feathered nerd that he is. Dean feels badly now about screaming at him, jerking him around while he's in such a sorry state. What was that he was thinking earlier, about treating Cas square so he wouldn't be more of a dick to them when he gets better? Yeah, he's probably done himself a lot of favors in that department. He gives the angel's shoulder a gentle shake.
"You stay here," he says. "And rest up. You're safe, okay?"
Cas still looks at him warily, but he doesn't shrink away. Dean squeezes his shoulder like he would if it were Sam with a fever, then leaves him and walks into the bathroom to wash the dried blood off his hands. Fortunately he doesn't have any noticeable blood on his clothes from dragging Cas around – he hadn't thought to check when he'd opened the door for the manager, although the guy'd been so stoned he probably wouldn't have noticed. He'd better deal with the dead body himself, he thinks as he grabs the towel and dries off. Who knows where Sam is right now, or when he'll be coming back? If he comes back, Dean thinks quietly to himself, and then immediately locks the idea away as deep as he can. Of course Sam will come back – Dean's his brother.