Chapter Playlist: Give me Novocain
The door was locked, and neither of the brothers had thought of grabbing a key. Dean silently cursed Castiel for his paranoia, no one was getting in that room with all the demon proofing he'd put up. They waited a few minutes figuring Cas was showering or had fallen asleep while they were gone. When there was still no answer Dean banged on the door and Sam tried to peek in through the windows but found the curtains drawn tight. After another five minutes had passed Dean started to worry and grabbed his lock picking kit from the car. When the door opened, a first Dean was relieved, Castiel was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall and his head tilted to the side. He looked like he was sleeping and it wasn't till Dean was closer that he saw the gun that rested in his lap.
"What the hell?" Castiel's weak grip tightened slightly around the black metal and his eyes slid half way open.
"You're home early."
"What's with the gun Cas?" Dean and Sam both kept their distance not sure what was going on. Castiel gave them both a weary look before his eyes closed again and his shoulders relaxed.
"It's okay Dean." He let out a heavy sigh. "It's all going to be okay now."
"Castiel what's going on?" Sam stepped closer but stopped when he saw Castiel place his finger against the trigger.
"Cas, give me the gun." Dean asked slowly and roughly shoved his brother back
"Why did you loose yours?" Castiel lips pulled into a lazy smile but the joke was lost on the other men. After a few moments of silence Castiel cracked one eye open and placed the gun on the floor, sliding it across the room over to the brothers. Dean took a few hesitant steps towards Castiel still not entirely certain what was happening and Sam bent down to pick his gun up. Something glinted in the corner of his eye when he grabbed the gun and he looked under the table at the tiny bit of plastic that had been discarded.
"Dean." Sam looked up at his brother then back down to the empty orange bottle in his hand. Big blue letters spelt out 'Vicodin' across the top and below it the name 'Joseph Opani' the fake name they'd written on a stolen prescription pad to get Castiel the pain medication when he still had the gash in his side.
"Cas what did you do?"
"It hurt at first." He rubbed his thumb weakly over his stomach remembering when he'd nearly thrown up the pills. "But it's okay now. Everything's okay now."
Dean dropped to his knees and grabbed Castiel's face between his hands, trying to get the unusually calm man to look at him. Castiel's skin was cold and clammy, now that Dean was close he could see the wide black of his pupils and the yellow tinge in the whites of his eyes. Dean had tossed the pills in the trash after Rachmiel had healed Castiel and he realized, suddenly feeling sick, that Castiel must have dug them out when no one was looking. Castiel had planned this, he'd been planning it for days just waiting for a time when they'd leave him alone. "Why? Why the hell would you do this?"
"You have to understand," Castiel said his lips slow moving and his words slurred "I'd wait for you, everyday with Nikki, I'd wait for you to come find me."
"What are you talking about, who's Nikki?" Dean shook him, harder then he should have and shot a desperate look at Sam who was on his cell telling the paramedics to get their asses over there quickly.
"I wouldn't have any hope in the pit; no angels, no hunters, I can just give up there." Dean let go off Castiel and his head flopped to the side, Sam walked over to his brother and looked down at Cas wondering if there was anything they could do till the ambulance arrived. "It'll be okay Sam."
"I swear to God Cas, if you say it's going to be okay one more time I'll-" Dean stopped himself when he heard the sirens outside rushing towards the motel. Sam went outside to lead the paramedics inside while Dean stayed by Cas suddenly feeling useless. Then the slow movement of Castiel's chest stopped and for one terrifying second Dean thought the paramedics had come too late. Dean dropped to the floor and there was a loud crack when he hit Castiel so hard it snapped him awake. He took a shaky breath and his eyes fluttered open but then closed shut again when he groaned feeling the tiniest pain in his cheek through the haze of vicodin. "Come on man, you gotta stay awake."
Castiel's lips barely moved, like he wanted to say something but no longer had the energy to do so. Dean didn't notice the two men in black uniforms come in and didn't resist when they pushed him back to get to Cas. Sam pulled Dean to his feet and moved him back to give the paramedics some space. They lifted him up onto a gurney, checking for a pulse and listening to his shallow breathing. "What's his name?"
"Joseph." Sam answered handing the empty bottle to one of the paramedics as the other pushed Cas and the gurney outside. "Is he going to okay?"
"We're taking him to St. Ivy's Hospital, you can follow behind us." He ignored Sam's question and headed out the door following his partner into the back of the ambulance. It wasn't till Dean was in the car and Sam was speeding down the road behind the ambulance, that Dean snapped out his daze. It suddenly hit him that the if Sam and him hadn't found Castiel when they did that they would have come back to a dead body, that there was still a chance that Castiel wouldn't even make it to the hospital.
"I wanted him to come with us." Dean growled feeling a hot rage rise up from his chest. "You told him to stay. It was your idea to leave him alone."
"Dean he's going to be fine."
"Fine? He just swallowed a whole bottle of pills and you think he's going to be fine?" Sam didn't answer him, he knew it would be pointless, knew every time Dean played the blame game it always ended with him blaming himself anyways. He focused on the road, the red and blue light on the ambulance and the blare of the siren while Dean gritted his teeth and focused on not punching his hand through the car window.
By the time the car was parked and they were in the waiting room, Castiel had already been taken through the doors and the nurses wouldn't let them follow. Sam was sure Dean was going to knock one of the interns out when he told him that he was causing a scene but he just swore and moved away from the ER doors. Sitting in an old worn out chair Sam watched as Dean paced back and forth, his hands shoved in his jacket, he put the other patients on edge and one of them mumbled something about psych patients.
"I should have seen this coming."
"There's nothing you could have done."
"Bull, he was too damn happy, when has Castiel ever been happy? It should have been obvious."
"Dean…" Sam looked at the other people in the waiting room and considered the implications of talking about Castiel in front of all these people. "You know we can't do this right?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Castiel is sick, Dean. We're like the poster children of shoving our problems down and ignoring them, but Castiel can't do that, he doesn't know how. There's no way we can help him if we don't even know how to fix ourselves."
"What are you saying?" Dean stopped passing but still lingered near the ER doors.
"We need to convince Rachmiel to take him, she-"
"Are you insane?" Dean snapped.
"Look Dean, we can protect Cas from demons easy and we can leave him in a hospital and maybe they can protect him from himself. Rachmiel's the only one that can do both."
"So you just want to toss him away like he's garbage?"
"It's not like that." Sam stood up, walking over to Dean and dropped his voice down to a whisper so no one else could hear. "I tried to kill him Dean, I stabbed him right in the back."
"Sam what-"
"Let me finish. I had no idea that Cas had turned dark side, for all I knew he was telling you and Bobby that he was going to fix my walls and return all the souls. All the shit going on in my head after the walls came down, I couldn't hear anything, I could barely even see anything, but I saw Cas and…I was so angry and I wasn't thinking so I just grabbed the knife and stabbed him."
"I don't understand…"
"I'm telling you this because…" Sam swallowed and bit down hard on his lips, knowing what he wanted to say, not quite sure how to say it, even less sure if Dean would listen to him. "Look Dean, Cas screwed up but I did to, maybe both of us even. I did…bad things when I didn't have a soul and I didn't want to remember any of it. I blamed Cas, not just for the memories of hell but for all the memories and maybe part of me still blames him. But that doesn't mean I'm saying all this because I'm angry at Castiel, I'm saying this because I know we can't give Cas the help he needs."
Dean stood stiff as a board still on edge, waiting for a doctor to come out and tell them how Castiel was doing. He could tell this was hard on Sam though, that he would have rather not have this conversation in a room full of strangers where they could hear all about his dirty little secrets.
"Is there a Mr. Opani here?" A doctor asked pushing the ER's swinging door open and looked around the room. Sam and Dean didn't answer at first forgetting the alias they'd given the nurses and still uneasy from their conversation.
"Uh, Opani, ya that's us." Sam said and nudged Dean over to the doctor.
"Hello I'm Dr. Matthews, your…" The doctor paused lifting a few sheets of paper on his clipboard up and reading the patient's information "brother, Joseph, is in stable condition. We've given him Narcan which counteracted the effects of the overdose. Physically speaking, you found him just in time and he should recover quickly but it's obvious that this wasn't an accidental overdose. Standard procedure is to keep him a few days for a psych-eval."
"He's not crazy."
"Of course no one's saying that but for his own safety-"
"Dr. Matthews, why don't you and I talk about this alone. Can my brother go in and see him?" Sam placed his hand on Dean's shoulder seeing his firsts clench up in anger.
"He's resting but you can go in and talk to him, just try not to wake him."
Castiel had waited till Dean had fallen asleep before emptying the trash can on the floor to find the discarded pill bottle. Nikki's words were still fresh in his mind and they replayed over and over again as he pretended to watch the television with Dean till he went to bed. The bottle hadn't left his sight since then, tucked away in his coat pocket or hidden away in his bag if it got to hot. When Dean sensed danger his hand always wondered over to his gun and it was the same with Cas, he'd grip the bottle tigh in his hand when ever he'd felt nervous.
But he was never left alone and he knew if he simply went into the bathroom to take them, Dean or Sam would just kick down the door and stop him. Then he finally got a chance when Bobby called. When Cas gave Dean his bible he couldn't look him in the eye, his heart pounded knowing it be the last time he'd ever seen the Winchesters or anyone else for that matter.
"Goodbye Dean."
Honestly he'd almost chickened out, a few minutes after he'd swallowed the last of the pills his stomach twisted and pulled like it was on fire. He'd nearly torn his bag open trying to find the phone Dean left him so he could call someone but found Sam's gun lying on his bed instead. Like some kind of sign from God, offering a small promise of relief, he had the gun cocked and his shaky hand lifted up to his temple till he was hit with a wave of nausea. He'd rush to the bathroom, though a part of him knew the futility of trying to keep the carpet clean if he was going to splatter it with brain matter later. He'd spent a good ten minutes bent over the toilet, one hand still gripped the gun and the other one gripped the white porcelain. He heaved and coughed till his eyes watered with the effort but nothing could force itself out, at that point though it didn't matter, even if his stomach managed to purge itself he could already feel the vicodin pumping through his veins.
His stomach finally gave up trying to push the pills out and Castiel grabbed hold of the sink and tried to pull himself up but his legs collapsed under him and he fell with a heavy thud. On shaky arms and weak knees Castiel managed to crawl out of the bathroom and deposit himself next to the door, he leaned against the wall and waited for everything to fade to black.
He didn't remember anything after that.
Castiel woke up to a white washed ceiling and would have screamed in frustration if his whole body didn't feel like soft mush. He looked around the empty room full of only needles and beeping machines. He panicked when he didn't see Dean or Sam, no even a doctor, he was totally alone and convinced any second Nikka was going o walk through that door.
"He's right in here, Mr. Opani." Castiel shut his eyes when the door opened and feigned sleep. The soft tap of shoes made it's way over to the bed, a doctor might have noticed how the beep of the heart monitor sped up the closer he got but whoever stood beside him remained stone silent.
"Damn it Cas." He heard Dean spit out. He relaxed knowing it wasn't a demon but didn't let Dean know he was awake. Castiel was tired and frankly worried Dean might just strangle him to death if he knew he was okay.
So instead Dean looked down at Castiel's seemingly unconscious form. He'd already poured his heart out to Cas once before and hell lot of good it did, so Dean wasn't about to do it again. But Castiel looked so small as he laid there, skin paper white and a smudge of black charcoal clung to the side of his mouth. He didn't understand what could have happened, for the last few days everything had been going great Sam and Cas weren't at each other's throats and nobody was high or dying. Dean wanted to yell at Castiel about how stupid he was and that Dean would have helped him if he'd only asked. He felt so useless standing next to Cas motionless body but at least he'd made a decision. God, heaven and everyone else had abandoned Cas, Dean wasn't about to this time
"Screw what Sam thinks, you're staying." Dean turned just in time to miss Castiel open his eyes and was gone before he could say anything.
"Aw, so you can smile. I was beginning to wonder." It was becoming like some eternal punishment that whenever Castiel was ever given a glimmer of hope it had to be instantly yanked away from him. Nikki leaned against the extra gurney across the room clad in a cheesy nurse outfit that came straight out of a cheap porno. She must have spent several days scrubbing her vessels skin clean because now it glowed a soft pink under enough makeup to cover the scars and track marks he'd seen the last time. "Hm I know, I clean up nice, no need to drool though Angel Boy."
"You can't be here."
"Sure I can. I was fairly clear when we last talked, wasn't I? I mean I gave you an out and you didn't take it, and you had a gun too, why didn't you use it? Let me guess too much blood right? Bet Sammy wouldn't have liked picking your splattered brain out of his gun."
"The Winchester's aren't going to abandon me." Castiel snapped though his voice was still weak and hoarse. Nikki let loose a shrill laugh and pushed herself off the gurney, practically skipped over to Castiel's bed and when she saw the stern look on his face her laughter was cut short.
"Oh, you're serious." She sat down by his feet and Castiel was still too stiff to push her away. "Wow, honey, that's so adorably pathetic, I almost feel sorry you."
"You can't trick me Nikki, I heard Dean-"
"Say you were staying," She pointed two fingers down to the floor and shot Castiel a look of mock sympathy "here, as in the hospital. Sam wants you to leave with them, he needs to keep that other angel happy. But Dean, Dean has enough shit to worry about without all your tears and nightmares and suicide attempts."
"I only tried that because you threatened me."
"And you failed. Unfortunate, for you, I get a toy out of it." She reached over and grabbed a handful of Castiel's hair and yanked hard. "Let's go home."
wow so this was supposed to be only like 2 or 3 pages long and for some reason it ended up being much longer. Anyways I've been waiting for the next chapter for ever and super excited to write it and even more excited to write the one after :) which leads me to a question for you guys, I was thinking of uping the rating to M and making the next chapter kind a graphic (though not to graphic don't worry) but I'm not sure if you guys want that? This story is getting like 6 times more traffic then my other stories but I wasn't sure if that was because of the rating or the subject matter. So if you're super opposed to me making this a M story just let me know with a review or PM and I shall keep it T :).
Tomorrow is episode 17!