Author's Notes: Well, this is awkward. I haven't written fanfic in going on three years now, but here I stand. My original fic' is faring poorly, so I jumped on my favorite band-Impala to kick the words back into my brain. I hope you folks enjoy.
CONTAINS: Dean/Cas (you know you love it), probably some sexin', possibly mentions of rape, probably not actual rape (although with me, who the hell knows), blatant fangirling, and be warned: one of the main characters is an OC. Please don't murder me.
OTHER NOTES: This takes place after the events of season 6, episode 9: Clap Your Hands If You Believe. That means a lot of soulless!Sammy, a lot of angsty!Dean, and a lot of lost-puppy!Cas (my second-favorite Cas, right after beating-the-shit-out-of-Dean!Cas). It's inevitable that this is going to turn into an AU, probably before I post it, but only insofar as the literal events of the show are concerned.
SUMMARY: When Noelle LeBlanc takes a bite of the Forbidden Fruit, thereby making her a valuable weapon and target for angels and demons alike, the brothers Winchester find themselves with another passenger. Cas takes a temporary break from Heaven to help keep her safe and develop her newfound powers. But Noelle has trouble trusting Sam, no one wants to answer her questions, the eyesex between Dean and Cas is making her want to knock their heads together, she's sick of shitty diner food, and just who is this Crowley guy, anyway…?
Take the fruit from the tree,
Break the skin with your teeth
Is it bitter or sweet?
All depends on your timing
-Bright Eyes, "Cleanse Song"
"An apple?"
Castiel's more human tendencies had faded nearly out of recognition after his return to Heaven and the miserable duties all of it entailed – the betrayal by his brothers and sisters, the weakening and ever-depleting numbers of angels who followed him, the numerous attempts on his immortal soul – and yet he still found himself slightly annoyed at Dean's tone. It suggested to him that he, Dean, felt that Castiel had no idea what he was talking about. The emotion, annoyance, it was welcome, though Castiel wouldn't admit it to Dean (that was another thing; his pride had returned, a thing he had never even come close to understanding before his own fall). It felt… correct. Here he was, here was Dean, Dean said something with that sarcastic edge to his voice, and Castiel was annoyed. It was right. That was how it should be.
"Yes," said Castiel. "An apple. From the Tree of Knowledge. I assume you're familiar with it?"
"I read the Cliffs Notes," said Dean… whatever that meant.
"So, how'd it get to Red Hook, Cas?" asked Sam, who wasn't correct at all. This was not the Sam Winchester for whom Castiel had stood up to Anna, had literally died. Crowley had that part of Sam Winchester locked away in the Cage, along with Lucifer, Michael, and the extremely unfortunate Adam Milligan.
Castiel glanced at the floor. "I assume it was one of my brothers, rather like Balthazar and the Staff of Moses."
"Awesome. So, what's this apple do, Cas?" asked Dean. "They're not exactly an untradeable substance anymore. You can get 'em anywhere."
"Not this one, as I said, it comes directly from the Tree of Knowledge," repeated Castiel impatiently. "The fruit of that tree contains information that would throw off any semblance of balance I've managed to create in Heaven. Angels would kill to know the things any mortal who bites into the fruit would come to know. It would be dangerous for the one who the apple's come to, and it would be dangerous for all of us."
"Wait, wait," interrupted Sam. "The angels haven't read the Tree of Knowledge textbook?"
"It's Forbidden Fruit for a reason," growled Castiel. "God sent Michael down to destroy the tree after Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden—"
"Good old Mikey," said Dean.
"—but," continued Castiel, raising his voice, "one apple survived. And now it's come to this girl in… Red Hook."
The brothers Winchester and their guardian angel looked at the newspaper clipping on the coffee table in their motel room. The girl in the black-and-white picture looked no more than fifteen or sixteen. She was wrapped in the arms of a man of perhaps twenty-two, her small hands on his arm where it lay across her neck, both of them beaming into the camera. Were it not for the stubble on his face and the dimples in hers, their smiles would have been identical. According to the article, they were Noelle and Christian LeBlanc, brother and sister, orphans and heirs to LeBlanc Orchards in Red Hook, New York ("That's upstate Red Hook, not Red Hook, Brooklyn," specified Dean with some disappointment as he read the article). LeBlanc and his sister had been driving their delivery truck to a farmer's market one state over when they were held up at gunpoint and forced out of the truck, which the attackers then searched. Miss LeBlanc, who was in fact eighteen, despite her youthful countenance, had shakily recounted how they scattered the apples across the road, searching every last bushel, and after failing to locate whatever it was they had been looking for, shot her brother in the leg. Afterwards, the article continued, two women had appeared, shaken a circle of salt around the two siblings, and fought off the attackers with, Miss LeBlanc swore, an old Latin book. The article cited Miss LeBlanc's considerable distress and subsequent hallucinations before going on to describe the "pitch-black eyes" of the attackers and how they "screamed and vomited smoke" upon the completion of the Latin phrases. The two women had stayed with the LeBlanc siblings, binding the brother's leg with a tourniquet, until the paramedics came and then vanished before the ambulance left. Mr. LeBlanc, unfortunately, had died on the way to the hospital, and Miss LeBlanc was being held in a private psychiatric facility for observations.
"Another nuthouse," groaned Dean.
"The last one wasn't that bad."
"Easy for you to say, they shot you full of happy juice, didn't they?"
"Dude, sometimes the way you phrase things—"
"Shut up, Sam."
Castiel wanted to travel by his usual method of distorting space, but Dean insisted they drive. "Suck it up," were his exact words, "you're not beaming me anywhere, Scotty."
"It's only three hours away," added Sam as he reached out to open the passenger seat door of the Impala, but Dean gave a short whistle through his teeth and jerked his thumb towards the back. "Oh, come on, Dean."
"Nuh-uh, soulless Sam sits in the back and nerdy angel sits in the front. New car rules. Cas, you coming?"
"Oh. Of course." Castiel sat beside Dean as he started the engine. He didn't care for the brothers' respective states of mind – or for the fact that he had the next three hours spend driving in a car to look forward to. Sam's malady was curable, of course: retrieve his soul from Crowley, and he would be Sam Winchester again, albeit Sam Winchester with severe regrets, because the Sam Castiel knew would be horrified at the deeds of the current Sam. Dean, however… was tricky. As he always had been. Always in danger of falling into one of his periods of black despair, Dean missed his brother, that much was plain to see. And bad things seemed to happen every time one of the Winchester brothers was unhappy.
"I have some other rules too. About this case."
"Fire away, Jiminy," said Sam, his tone sounding bored. Castiel had given up trying to figure out what new ironic-sounding nickname one brother called the other at any given time actually meant, but he did wonder if the monotony suggested by Sam's voice was present simply because of the lack of his soul, or something worse. The simple fact that something worse existed was enough to make Castiel wish that he were not the one with the weight of the world on his shoulders, that one of his brothers or sisters had been saddled with this wretched responsibility and he could return to the humble position he had enjoyed before his superiors put him and the rest of the garrison on the case of removing one Dean Winchester from the Pit.
"Don't sleep with her."
"Who, Eve?"
"Noelle," corrected Castiel.
"Yes. Her."
"Why not?"
"Do I really have to tell you why not?"
"Obviously, she's extremely unstable after the loss of her brother, if she's been placed under observation," said Castiel, frowning in Sam's direction. "You would be taking advantage of her."
"You see? If Cas of all people can figure out why it's wrong, you should at least be able to logic your way to the right answer."
"All right, all right," conceded Sam defensively. "I won't sleep with her. Problem solved."
"Yeah, it better be," grumbled Dean.
Noelle tried to put things into perspective. When her parents had died when she was fourteen and Christian eighteen, she had kept herself from drowning in tears by thinking, At least I have my brother. At least I didn't lose Christian, too. But now, without him, there was no at least. There was not even at least I'm still alive. Because when her parents died, she knew she would rather remain alive with Christian and love their mom and dad from the world of the living, but without him… there was no reason not to follow.
But that didn't merit being placed in a psychiatric ward. Noelle had tried to reason with her therapist – of course I'm not okay, I was held up in the middle of the night by guys with guns and I watched my brother die, but I don't need to be here, I suppose I must have been hallucinating that night but I'm fine now, I know people's eyes don't turn black, I know people don't vomit smoke, but those two women were there, that I know beyond a doubt, the paramedics saw them too, I don't know if they actually read Latin to those men, I might have hallucinated that too, can I please please please go now? But Dr. Taylor was insistent that she stay at least a few more days, to which Noelle reluctantly agreed, if for no other reason than the simple fact that putting up a fight might get her stuck here longer.
"You better not tell them about me," Ridley had said as she took a walk through the little courtyard the previous day. She had ignored him as any sane girl would ignore a talking snake, but he slithered after her. "You're not buying into their crap, are you, Noli?"
"Don't call me that," she muttered out the corner of her mouth.
"Oh, good, you are acknowledging me after all. Listen, dear, ignoring me won't make me go away. I'm as real as those men you saw that night."
"Go away. Leave me alone. If I have to have a nervous breakdown, can't I hallucinate something less annoying?"
"You are funny," said Ridley with what could have been a smile… if he weren't a snake. A snake, a fucking snake. A fucking snake. Noelle had obviously lost her mind. Maybe she should just stay here in the hospital. "Not like some of those other humans. You can stop convincing yourself that I'll get lost if you keep giving me the cold shoulder, sweetie. If you need reassurance, I'll bite you and you can get treated for poison and then we can have our chat." The words would have been a lot more intimidating if he were longer than her forearm and thicker than her two fingers, but a lot less intimidating if he weren't a talking snake.
"I'm not exactly doubting the fact that you're a snake, here, I'm doubting the fact that I'm having a conversation with you," she snapped – quietly, so no one would hear and decide to medicate her. She took a drag of the cigarette one of the nurses had had to light for her, not being allowed a lighter herself.
"You are. And even if you're not, I'm here, aren't I? Might as well hear what I have to say."
"God, I am so insane," she almost whispered.
"Not half as insane as I wish," said Ridley. "It would be a lot easier to deal with you. How about this, okay? I'll do you a favor."
"Oh?" Noelle crossed her arms over her chest, the misshapen gray sweatshirt pulling at her skin.
"Mm. You don't have to trust me just yet. In about, I don't know, forty-five seconds, two men are going to come into the waiting room and ask for you. They're going to say they're FBI agents, but they're not. One of them is freakishly tall, he'll be going by the name Richards, and the other one has a husky-sounding voice and he'll call himself Jagger. They're actually specialists in criminal insanity, and they're investigating whether or not you had a hand in your brother's death."
"They… I… Christian… what?" demanded Noelle. "How could that possibly—"
"Noelle?" called the nurse who had lit her cigarette from the steps of the day room. "Hon, there are some men here to see you."
Noelle's blood ran cold. "I…"
"It won't take long, sweetheart."
Her legs shook slightly as she followed the nurse inside to the waiting room. A hand in Christian's death? How could Ridley – if he was real, if, if, she could absolutely not allow herself to lose sight of the fact that he might not be real – know that? But then, he had known they were coming, hadn't he? And she would have had no way of knowing that, so there was less of a chance than she'd thought that he was a hallucination. Which meant the black-eyed hijackers and their screaming smoky projectile vomit and the women shouting in Latin could have been real as well. A hand in Christian's death…
"Noelle," said Dr. Taylor, who was standing beside the two occupied chairs, "This is Agent Richards and Agent Jagger, they have a couple of questions for you."
A fresh wave of ice broke over her neck. And just as Ridley had said, the man calling himself Richards towered over the one called Jagger even as they sat.
"Of course," she said, her voice much higher-pitched than usual. "Thanks, Dr. Taylor."
He placed his hand on her shoulder before leaving her alone with them.
"So," said Agent Jagger – and Ridley was right about that too, his voice was deep and husky – "Noelle. We're so sorry about your loss."
"Thank you, Agent Jagger," she said softly. Specialists in criminal insanity, Ridley had said. She was questioning her sanity at this point, but surely they would be able to tell the difference between trauma and psychosis.
"We just wanted to ask you some questions about the circumstances," Jagger continued. "Can you describe the attackers for us?"
She cleared her throat softly, nervously. "Well, they were… there were four of them. One… I only remember one clearly, the one who… shot… Christian. He was wearing… jeans and work boots, and a… a North Face coat, I think… he had blonde hair."
"Did you notice anything strange about them, any unusual, uh, physical characteristics? Around the facial area, the eyes, maybe?"
Noelle's head shot up and she met Agent Jagger's eyes. He seemed nice enough. Maybe Ridley was lying. Or maybe she really was going crazy. "Uh… how… do you mean?"
"We know their eyes were black, Noelle," interrupted Agent Richards shortly, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. His stare made Noelle lean back in her seat; his own eyes looked dead. "We know they puked smoke after those two women read the Latin rites. We read the damn article. Why don't you describe that to us in a little more detail?"
"Richards," said his partner warningly.
"What – difference does it make?" she cried. "I was freaking out that night. I had a – momentary deterioration of coherency or whatever it's called – I was imagining things—"
"Where's the apple, Noelle?" said Richards.
"Richards," repeated his partner a little more firmly, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Would you cut her some slack?"
"They're scattered all over the turnpike!" snapped Noelle. "We don't even know what they were looking for."
"What my partner means," said Agent Jagger, "is… did they seem interested in the apples? Did they maybe examine them before they tossed them out of the truck?"
"Y… yeah," said Noelle, frowning. "How did you know that? It wasn't in the paper."
"We think something extremely valuable was hidden in one of them," explained Jagger.
"In my… apples?" Noelle asked blankly, pretending not to notice the suggestive twitch of Agent Richards' eyebrows. Pervert. Jagger looked like he was about to slug him.
"Yes."
"What?"
"I can't tell you – breach of security and everything. So, did they look like they'd found anything?"
"No… no." Noelle shook her head. "They were… they…"
—The blonde in the workboots turned to Christian, who had shoved Noelle behind him the instant they'd been pulled from the cab of the truck. "Where is it, Christian?" he asked.
"I don't know wh—"
Bang!
Christian screamed, a long, ragged howl like an animal, collapsing to the pavement in front of her. Noelle didn't scream, though she wanted to, but there were more important things to do, help Christian, Christian had been shot, she could panic later, later, later, but not now. Christian had been shot. Dear god. The blood pooled around his knee and the scream didn't stop. With clumsy fingers, she started to undo his belt so she could cinch it around his leg to staunch the blood, but the other one, the one who was shorter than the blonde, hauled her up by her upper arm, away from Christian, and it was then that she screamed:
"Let me help him, you're going to kill him!"—
"No," she finished. "They didn't seem like they'd found anything."
"Obviously," said Agent Richards.
"You'll have to excuse my partner, he's suffering from terminal douche-itis," said Jagger casually. "Well, thanks for your help, Noelle."
"No… no problem," she replied, weak with relief – and confusion. Specialists in criminal insanity, huh? Figment of her imagination or not, Ridley was a lying sack of shit.
"Hang on, Dean," said Richards.
"Ugh, Sam—"
"Noelle, is there any possibility the particular apple we're looking for could still be at your orchard?"
"How should I know?" she asked, feeling her voice tighten with annoyance. "I didn't even know there was anything hidden in any of them. Who would have hidden something in one of our apples?"
"We're working on that. Your brother, though."
"What about my brother?"
"Is there any way he knew?"
"No, neither of us." Noelle crossed her legs at the knee and Richards' expression hardened even further. In a way, he was almost worse – almost – than the men who had attacked their truck and killed Christian. At least they were evil, reveling in evil, bursting with evil, but this Agent Richards was like a shell of a human whose every faculty except sarcasm and being a hard-ass had been removed. It was scary.
"I don't believe you."
"Okay, Richards, we're leaving," said Jagger, or had Richards called him Dean? He stood up and pulled his partner up with him, but the latter just took a step towards Noelle, who used her feet to push the chair back a few inches.
"You're hiding something from us."
"No, I'm not," she said, her pulse quickening. "I'll tell Dr. Taylor you're harassing me, Agent Richards."
"Oh, going to tattle on me?"
"Sam, I swear to god—" seethed Jagger.
"You know something," he said, quieter this time, leaning towards her.
"I do not." Noelle stood up and looked at Agent Jagger. "May I go, Agent?"
"Of course, Noelle," he said. "Thanks for your time."
Noelle spun on her heel and stormed out of the waiting room, but the two men were still within earshot when the soft whump of one striking the other's arm sounded and Jagger's voice raged in a whisper, "What the hell was that? What happened to letting me be your freakin' conscience?"
