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Another fluorescent bulb was on the blink in the overhead panel, creating a dismal, sputtering strobe effect all along the east wing corridor. Meg wondered as she passed beneath it if it was her demonic presence that caused them to keep burning out, or an overall lack of funding for things like decent bulbs. This place wasn't exactly Cedar Sinai.
But then she wasn't exactly a nurse.
She stopped at the door to Room 613 and glanced down at the chart in her hands. The patient in 613 had been officially diagnosed with catatonic schizophrenia, following a battery of invasive tests to rule out any physiological causes of his non-responsive stupor and, later, the arrival of the distraught wife telling tales of how she'd found him wandering naked and confused along a riverbank. What the east wing's new psychiatric intern excitedly recognized as a classic fugue state. That clinched the diagnosis. Two weeks later, however, after the violent outburst that sent five people to the emergency room with everything from concussions to fractured arms to broken ribs, the words "bipolar," "psychotic" and "suicidal" had been scribbled in the margins of his chart.
He was treated with a plethora of benzodiazepines in ever-increasing dosages. No drug had any effect on his condition whatsoever. Apart, Meg couldn't help noticing, from the thorazine that knocked him out cold the day of his "manic episode" and undoubtedly saved countless lives… Meg couldn't care less about the human lives spared, but she was blown away by the sheer force of will that must have required. The angel won her respect that day.
Nurse Masters, as the badge pinned to her white coat read, inserted a thin card into a slot in the door. A green light blinked on and she pushed it open. Only she and Dr. Kadinsky had key cards, and access, to this room. It was her first recommendation as the specialist assigned to this case (specializing, as it happened, in catatonia). No one else—no other doctors, no other nursing staff, not even cleaners—was allowed access at any time. She'd banned visitors as well, citing the patient's violent extremes as too great a risk, but Kadinsky had overruled that one, insisting that brief visits from family and friends could be critical to his recovery. Nurse Masters couldn't exactly tell him that the patient had no friends or family. Apart from her, of course.
And that wife.
"Good morning, sunshine," she cooed to the motionless form on the bed. She tugged at the window blind and it spun dutifully up, revealing the carefully etched Enochian symbol on the glass beneath. She gave it an appreciative gaze. "I should've been an artist."
Kadinsky had grumbled over her appeal to keep the patient's bizarre markings emblazoned across the walls, but she argued they provided him a crucial sense of security, of protection (suppressing the urge to add that it was the good doctor's ass, not to mention the entire hospital and population of the Midwest, being protected). Besides, she reminded him, this was after all her area of expertise. The doctor grudgingly agreed, under the condition that the eccentric artwork be re-drawn in something less "distasteful" than the patient's blood.
And so one night Meg had painstakingly and methodically, almost lovingly, re-created every symbol in earthy shades of amber, beige and teal. No harm in bringing a little aesthetic chic to the miserable room, she'd thought.
She crossed over to the angel's bedside and pressed a button on the side-rail. With a rattle and a labored groan, the bed raised him into a sitting position. She peered down at his face, at the empty blue eyes and waxy pallor of his skin, and marveled at how even in a vegetative state this vessel was undeniably beautiful. She traced an index finger lightly, slowly, along his jawline and down the curve of his neck.
"So what do you say, hotwings? Want me to fluff your pillow?"
He stared ahead emptily. As he always did.
"So pretty, and yet…" She sighed. "So dull as dishwater."
She sank into a chair and tossed the chart on the bedside table, next to the ridiculous spray of daffodils that wife had brought in. Glass was no longer allowed in 613, so Meg had stuffed them unceremoniously into a plastic water jug.
"You know, when I signed up for this gig, I thought it was going to be a helluva lot more interesting than this." She cast her eyes moodily on Castiel. "I thought I'd at least get to strap you to the bed. I was looking forward to watching you squirm against leather restraints." She shrugged innocently. "Nothing like a little bondage to brighten a girl's day. Break up the monotony."
She flicked at the wrist restraint that hung from the side-rail, a stock fixture to all the beds in this corridor. "Guess I could still do it…" She glanced at the closed door. Kadinsky wasn't on for another four hours. It wasn't like anyone would be coming in.
She reached over the rail and coiled her fingers around Castiel's wrist, noticing the warmth of his skin, the faint beat of his pulse, and raised his arm a few inches over the mattress. Then let go. His arm didn't move. It remained hanging in the air, as stiff and lifeless as a mannequin's.
"Even I find that creepy," Meg grimaced. She shoved his arm back down to the mattress.
She sighed, restless, annoyed now, and already bored. And then she had a thought.
She stood up, brushing the folds from her white coat. "I think it's time we test you for response to external stimuli. And in my professional opinion," she said, lowering her patient's bed-rail, "we haven't tried every stimulus yet." She sat down on the bed, facing him, making sure she filled his sightline. She smiled at him, then slid the coat from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. "Let's see if you deliver, pizza man."
She began slowly unbuttoning her blouse, her eyes fixed on his. And from this angle, it almost looked like he was looking back. She doubted he was, but she didn't mind pretending. In fact, she was just a little surprised by how much she didn't mind…
She let the blouse fall open, then moved her fingers to the clasp between her breasts. She snapped it open, and in one swift motion slipped blouse and bra from her shoulders and onto the floor.
He stared at her emptily.
She took his hand then, the hand that had hung frozen in the air, and lifted it gently to her bare chest. She coaxed its fingers around the swell of her left breast, feeling her own tingly response to his touch. Then she let go. His hand didn't move.
"Oh Cas," she purred with a Cheshire-cat grin, "if the boys could see you now."
After a moment, becoming aware of feeling weirdly self-conscious, she shifted a few inches to one side. The vacant eyes stared at the wall now, and the hand cupped empty space.
Meg huffed. "You are just determined to take all the fun out of this for me, aren't you."
"That's what I keep telling him," said Lucifer.
From the darkness that enveloped him, Castiel could see his brother looming through the cell window. He was sitting on the bed beside him, and across from the half-naked demon oblivious to his presence. Castiel's body lay sandwiched between them, and both were watching him. It had an unnerving effect on the angel.
His perspective through the window had changed since that first day. People looked directly at him now, directly through the window, without knowing it. They couldn't see him in here, of course. Only his brother could do that. But he was able to look directly back at them. The view was static now, unless someone on the outside physically moved him. He saw what he was positioned to see. And people filtered in and out of his vision like performers on a television screen. It was an unsettling feeling, looking into eyes that gazed back without seeing him, responding to words spoken to him that no one but his brother ever heard.
He could still feel their touch though—less and less every day, a steadily diminishing sensation, but he was still aware of physical contact. And that was unsettling as well. Watching contact through the window, remote and separate from him, but feeling it in his own skin—the occasional sting of needles, the pressure of arms repositioning his body, a hand holding his—all the while utterly alone in this empty cell. Like phantom sensations.
He'd been very much aware of the demon's breast beneath his hand, the warmth of her skin, the tightening of her nipple under his palm. While Lucifer laughed with delight at his helplessness.
"Don't worry, little brother," he soothed, tilting his head toward Meg, who looked frustrated as she pushed the angel's arm back down to the mattress. "Show's not over yet."
"I'm not interested," said Castiel in a strained, weary voice.
"Oh come on, Cassie! You can't tell me you're not at least tempted." Lucifer's leer raked her over lustily. "I'll bet she could teach you a few things…" And now he redirected the leer at Castiel. "I'll bet I could teach you both a few things."
"You're not real," the angel murmured, uncertain anymore of how true that was. Reality, as he viewed it from his prison cell window, had become increasingly elusive, and exhaustingly indefinable.
As if hearing his doubts, Lucifer asked, "Are you sure?"
And Castiel watched as he leaned toward the demon on the bed, pursed his lips, and blew softly into her ear. Meg's head lolled back, her breath hitched, and her eyes fluttered closed. A small gasp escaped her lips. Castiel could almost feel her heartbeat skipping. When she opened her eyes, her face flushed and glowing, she gazed at the angel and smiled. And then she reached for the sheet tucked around his chest.
"What did you…?" Castiel was confused, struggling to understand what had just happened, how a figment of his madness could have any effect on the outside world. He'd had his doubts, but he'd never seen any evidence…
"Don't say I never gave you anything," said Lucifer in a deep, humming tone, his focus riveted on the angel.
Meg had pulled the sheet away from Castiel. He could see it gathered below his waist. "Shall we see if anyone's home?" she asked him. And as she held him with her smile, she slipped her hand through the buttonless fly of his pajama pants, and then began…touching him…
Castiel felt strangely transfixed for a moment. Curious. Then uncomfortable. Then horrified.
"Make her stop," he mumbled.
"How can I possibly do that?" asked Lucifer, wide-eyed. "I'm not real." Then he grinned at him. They were both grinning at him.
The first phantom feeling the angel was aware of was a light, feathery, spiraling sensation, as if Meg's fingers were drawing delicate circles on his skin. The circles triggered a new feeling, a warmth that tingled through his lower body. The feelings themselves weren't unpleasant.
Castiel felt sick. "Please make her stop."
His brother was watching him with smoldering fascination. "Enjoy the ride while it lasts, Cassie." With a smirk he added, "I'm guessing it won't last long," then snorted with laughter.
The circles were quickening, the warmth intensifying, and the spread of sensation rising through him was becoming an insistent, aching pressure.
"Please," was all Castiel could manage. "Please."
"Please what?" whispered Lucifer.
"Please stop. Please make her stop."
"You want her to stop, little brother?" he asked softly.
"Yes. Please. Yes." His heart was pounding, it was getting difficult to breathe, and the intoxicating waves of new, unwanted sensation were getting harder to ward off.
"Then make her stop," intoned Lucifer. "Grab her hand and make her stop."
Castiel heard a whimper escape his own throat, and the frailty of its sound disgusted him.
"But you'll have to come out first," said Lucifer.
His feelings of helplessness, of exhaustion, of defeat against his own madness crumbled in this moment beneath the sense of violation at the hands of his tormentors—a lowly demon and a figment of his imagination. He was an angel of God. A soldier. This was a humiliation for which he could never forgive himself.
"Come on out and play, Castiel."
He despised himself for being so weak.
"Oh, forget it!" cried Meg suddenly.
The demon had abruptly withdrawn her hand. She was staring down in frustration and defeat, frowning. Lucifer looked at her, then followed her line of sight, and frowned as well. He clicked his tongue. "Oh Cassie. That's just embarrassing. You're not even trying."
Meg glanced up at the angel, tilted her slightly as if trying to get a better view of him. She looked a little sad. "There's really no one home, is there."
"Maybe you needed to knock a little harder," offered Lucifer.
"I'm sorry, angelcake," she sighed, reaching for her clothes on the floor, "but there's only so much rejection a demon can take."
"Aah! You see what you've done?" Lucifer fired a despairing look at his brother. He shook his head. "You make me sad. You really do."
"Besides," continued Meg, buttoning her blouse, "I've officially reached my boredom threshold. If your boyfriend expects me to babysit you when you're this boring, he's going to have to start paying me for my services. And I don't come cheap."
She slammed the door on her way out.
Castiel wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. He felt curiously uncomfortable now, his lower regions aching with a dull throb. The sensation was no longer pleasant. But it was over. That was all that mattered.
"And that, little brother," said Lucifer, moving close to the window, "is as easy as it's going to get. Next time I won't be so…" searching for the perfect word, searching through Castiel's mind, "… pleasant."
And with a sweep of his hand, as if pulling down a shade, the window went dark.
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