I'm back! Or rather the story's back, and Pestilence is back. And after last night's episode, Castiel is back too! I was so happy, I sat down and wrote like a madwoman. As always I begin by thanking the reviewers who have fed my muse. She is one happy camper! Therefore, enjoy!
Disclaimer: Ok, so Kripke thought of it first and gets all bragging rights. I just borrow his toys. If I promise to put them away when I'm done, maybe I'll get a cookie.
REVELATIONS
In all his years of hunting, Sam has learned one valuable lesson: There is no such thing as coincidence. He frowns as he turns the little hand-printed card over in his hand:
Ginger, Marjoram, and Tulsi Leaf Tea. Relieves headaches. Lowers fever.
They'd spent almost an hour trying to get Castiel to swallow the meds they'd swiped from the hospital to bring down the fever. They'd both tried. They'd tried coaxing, and pleading, even force feeding, which had ended with Cas nearly choking, and Dean looking guilty as hell, as he'd laid the angel back down and gone back to trying to pacify his fitful mumbling with the cold compress. Then they'd found the tea. Well more accurately, Dean had given up on the pills, after the umpteenth time of trying to get Castiel to cooperate, and sent Sam out to grab the rest of their stuff from the car.
As he'd stuffed Cas' clothes under one arm, and hoisted the remaining duffel over his opposite shoulder, he'd been startled by a small voice beside him.
"You dropped these."
A little girl with neatly braided cornrows and a yellow sundress was standing beside him holding Cas' tie and a small cloth pouch. A furtive glance up both directions of the street revealed no one else around, and Sam took the offered items, a little warily. Were parents really letting kinds wander around town alone in the middle of an epidemic? After Emmanuel, this little girl was the second kid to approach him without any sign of a parent in sight.
"Thanks," he smiled, what he hoped looked like a genuine smile, considering he was standing beside a car parked only half on the driveway of a house he and Dean had broken into, under the impression it was abandoned. "Are you all alone out here?"
The little girl had shrugged, "You're out here."
"Umm...yeah but..." Sam took a knee to be on eyelevel with the kid, "What about your mom and dad?"
"I know my way around this neighbourhood," She informed him, picking up a scooter that lay in the grass beside her, "And anyway, you dropped your tea," she added calmly, "You shouldn't lose it. Tea's good for you, especially if you're sick."
He'd looked down at the small pouch and recognized the logo from Alexandra's herbal remedies company. When he'd looked up again, the girl was gone.
His stomach does a small flip again, corresponding to the uneasy feeling he'd felt at the time. People who vanish into thin air are generally not to be trusted. But there she was, a little girl seemingly appearing out of nowhere, putting exactly what they needed into his hands, and then vanishing.
He knows that with the lingering withdrawal in his system, he'd have been able to smell any demonic blood on her.( He definitely doesn't plan on saying anything to Dean about that ability, though.) The rich, addictive smell has invaded his senses every time they've faced a demon since Famine, and every time he can just about taste the bittersweet tang of power on his tongue. But he resists. The low, screaming pit in his stomach howls, but he refuses to hear, even pretends everything's fine. He doesn't need his brother watching him like a hawk. He has this under control.
So, she wasn't a demon. She could have just been a kid... But Sam doesn't believe in coincidences.
He closes his eyes for a second, resting them. They feel gritty and irritated from the hours he's spent sitting here pouring again and again over the lore, and over Dr Shu's blog. It's incredible she's had the time to update, as frequently as she does, and it's been a pretty accurate window as to what's been going on at Monroe General. They should be there right now, hunting the horseman, but there's no way they can leave Cas alone in this state. They seriously need to regroup and figure this thing out. Although, at present, Dean's too absorbed in trying to hold together the angelic contingent of Team Free Will to be of much help in the research department.
Sam glances up. Castiel is lying on his side, still drifting in and out of consciousness, Dean carefully applying an ice pack to the worst of the bruising along the angel's back, where he got way too friendly with the windshield of that SUV. Castiel groans at the sensation, and lets out a quiet huff, trying to shift away, but Dean holds him still with one hand.
"Easy..." his brother murmurs, wincing sympathetically at the ugly bruising.
It's a mottled mess of painful looking black and blue, but it's also the kind of injury that Castiel normally heals without a second thought, the kind of blow the angel just shrugs off under normal circumstances. But right now, circumstances are anything but.
"How's the fever?" Sam asks, taking a minute to get out of the chair and stretch his legs.
Dean doesn't look up, engrossed in his task, "Better since that funky tea; still high though."
"It's too bad we don't have more."
Dean nods and sets aside the ice pack, "Yeah," he runs a carefully practiced hand over Castiel's back, feeling for breaks or fractures missed in his first hasty assessment, "And you said some kid handed it to you?"
"It fell out of Cas' jacket."
The angel flinches as Dean runs his fingers over a particularly bad spot.
"Sorry, Cas" he mutters, then pauses and looks up at his brother, "Some not-a-demon kid right?"
"She wasn't a demon," Sam confirms.
"How'd you know?"
"I splashed her with holy water," he lies.
Dean arches an eyebrow, "Subtle, Sammy."
"There was something...off about her,"he says, ignoring his brother.
" 'Off' like Children of the Corn 'off'?" Dean asks, arranging the pillows to cushion the worst of Castiel's injuries.
"No," Sam walks over to the grimy window and glances out, but the yard below, and the street are empty, "More like..."
He isn't sure. It was just a weird fleeting sense when he looked at her, something instinctual. But his fingers curl reflexively around Dean's amulet now nestled in his own pocket.
"Like Touched by an Angel?" Dean persists, unconsciously gripping tighter with the protective hand resting on Castiel's shoulder.
Sam shrugs, and turns away from the window, "I don't know; maybe. But they don't usually seem to recruit kids right?"
"Shit."
Dean gets up and grabs his bowie knife from the nightstand.
"What're you doing?"
"Shit, Sammy." Dean shakes his head. "We warded against demons, but we didn't even think of the dicks with wings dropping by."
Sam jumps up and grabs his brother's wrist before he can make the customary cut in his forearm, "Because we're assuming the sigils Cas carved in our ribs are still jamming angel radar. Besides, you hit a banishing sigil in here you'll blow Cas to Oz as well."
"Damnit," Dean mutters sheathing the knife.
Their escape route for an unexpected angel appearance has always revolved around Castiel either fighting the other angels off or shazamming them out of harm's way. Neither is looking like anything approaching an option at the moment.
"Anyway," Sam reasons, "If she was an angel why didn't she try to come in here, and why would she give me something to help Cas?"
"I don't know."
Dean returns grimly to the chair pulled up beside the bed.
.
Around noon, Sam loses the argument about who needs more sleep, and he finds a futon and drags it into the master bedroom. It's lucky that the house's occupants seem to have left in a rush without their furniture, maybe escaping before the quarantine was in full swing. Either that or they died recently. The second version isn't as pleasant. Although, Sam thinks, it'd kind of be just their luck if the house's occupants were dead, and they were dealing with angry spirits, and a horseman, and demons, and angels. He thinks maybe his sense of humour is getting darker, before he nods off.
He dreams he is in the hospital again. He's sitting in a chair in the waiting room, and suddenly the glass doors across the hall open and he sees a blood drive going on. The donors, men women, old young, dozens of them, are all demons. He can feel himself salivating.
Sam wakes up in a cold sweat, a rich metallic tang lingering in his mouth. It's times like these he almost misses the psychic dreams. At least they had a point to them beyond being traumatic.
He rolls over and snags the coffee cup from the floor beside him and washes his mouth out. The contents have gone cold, but at least stale, cold coffee is still better than the phantom coppery flavour.
"You alright?"
Dean is watching him, from where he sits, now perched on the edge of the bed beside Castiel. One of his hands hovers lightly over the angel's brow; the other is pressing a cool cloth against the pulse point in Cas' neck.
"Sam?"
"Yeah, m'fine," he waves his brother off. "How's Cas?" he asks, redirecting Dean's focus.
Dean sighs and shakes his head, and dips the cloth back into the bowl of water on the night stand, "His temperature's back up around 105, and it's been getting worse."
He takes one of Castiel's wrists and presses the cloth to one of the pulse points there. The angel's brow furrows, and his lips move.
"Yeah, buddy... I know," Dean mutters tiredly, removing the cloth to wet it again.
"What's he saying?"
Dean folds the facecloth and lays it across Castiel's forehead, "I don't know, Sam. I don't speak Angel," he snaps.
Sam raises an eyebrow, but keep his mouth shut. His brother, not being the sharing and caring type, tends to get irritable instead, when he's worried. Sam crosses the room and snags his duffel. Somewhere in the bottom of his bag is a collection of John Dee's writing on Enochian, with his own notes penned in the margins. It's likely that Castiel is just rambling deliriously, but while Dean goes to get more water, he settles himself in the chair beside the bed. He's careful not to touch Castiel or alert him of his presence, not much liking the idea of him thinking he's Lucifer again, and freaking out.
The angel's complexion is bloodlessly pale, save for twin high points of colour in his cheeks. His lips look swollen beyond what they were before, even with the cut there from being decked earlier by a demon. That, added to the weak, breathy quality of his voice, makes it nearly impossible to discern what the angel is saying. But he does manage to pick out a couple of words.
"...ial-pirg..."
Burning.
"...napea..." Castiel whispers.
Sam has to look that one up.
Two-edged...something...
"...iad..."
He doesn't know what that one means, but the way Castiel chokes it out pleadingly makes him wince.
"Hey, Cas...It's OK..."
It's really anything but OK though, and that becomes abundantly clear when in reaction to Sam's hand resting consolingly on his shoulder, Castiel jerks awake and fixes him with glassy fever-bright eyes. They go wide and terror-filled, and Sam feels his stomach bottom out.
The next thing he knows, he's flying across the room, slamming into the far wall. It knocks the wind out of him, and holy shit, was that Cas who just chucked him like an oversized Frisbee?
"Sam!"
The room is filling with blinding white light. It's searing, even as he squeezes his eyes closed, and rolls over quickly to bury his head under his arms. All he can think of is Pamela, screaming as her eyes explode out of her skull. Oh shit. Oh Shit.
And then suddenly, it's gone. He cautiously uncovers his eyes and sees Dean with both arms wrapped around Castiel's shaking frame. The angel has his head tipped down, so that his forehead rests on Dean's collarbone. One of Dean's hands clasps the nape of Castiel's neck. The other is pressed firmly over Cas', which grips tightly to Dean's left bicep, fingers fitted exactly into that eerie scarred handprint.
"It's OK...it's OK...I've got you...It's OK..." Dean repeats over and over.
Sam feels a brief flash of irony, at the image. Castiel must have held his brother with his hand in that same place as he gripped him tight and raised his soul from hell, put it back into his body, put Dean's body back together, so he could struggle back up into the world from the grave...
Gradually, Castiel stops shaking, and slumps exhaustedly against Dean. Figuring he must have passed out, Sam gets cautiously to his feet. But Dean reaches for the glass of water beside him and as he props the angel up to drink, Sam freezes. Castiel manages a few sips before turning his head away weakly, seemingly unaware of Sam's presence for the moment. It's probably best if it stays that way.
"Dean." Castiel is still gripping Dean's arm like it's the only solid thing anchoring him. It may very well be.
"Yeah," Dean smiles wryly with relief, "That's me."
His brother manages to get the angel to swallow a couple of Percocets, keeping up a steady stream of quiet reassurances.
"...Dean...it burns..."the angel declares weakly.
Dean swallows hard, and Sam is reminded of the time they were hunting that wendigo up in Alaska when he was twelve, and he broke his leg. Dad had gone for help, leaving Dean to talk him through the excruciating pain, while they waited. His brother had used the same calm voice he was now using to pacify the feverish angel.
"It's just the fever, Cas. You're sick right now, but you're gonna be OK. That's it...drink a little more water. It'll help... Don't worry man, the Percocet's gonna kick in soon..."
But Dean's eyes flicker to Sam's face, and he can read the fear in his older brother's eyes, that he's doing his best not to let bleed into his voice.
"Dean..." Castiel's knuckles go white, he grips him so tightly, "It's too much...there's too much...I can't...I can't hold it..."he rasps. "It burns..."
"Shh...hey, OK, I know..." Dean carefully, removes Cas' hand from his arm, "C'mere, Sam," he orders.
He keeps his voice low and gentle, like he's trying not to startle some kind of dangerous wild animal. Considering the fact that Cas is less than lucid, and was until recently on the verge of detonating an angel-light atom bomb, that's not far off the mark. Sam approaches cautiously, at any minute expecting to be flung into a wall again. Either that or nuked.
Cas' eyes flicker about the room hazily, until they land on him.
"...Sam."
There's actually a hint of recognition in those over-bright blue eyes, and Sam feels himself release the breath he didn't realize he was holding.
"OK," Dean mutters, "take his legs. Lift on three."
Sam does as he's told, though only catches onto Dean's intent, as he leads the way into the hall towards the bathroom. Against his hands, Cas' skin is impossibly hot, and Sam almost expects to see first degree burns on his hands after, but for now, he grips the angel tightly, until Dean inclines his head towards the bath tub, and they lower Castiel, much more carefully than the first time they plunked him in here, trying to get the fever down as quick as possible with the tepid spray from the shower.
Some corner of Cas' mind must register what's about to happen, and he struggles weakly, "Nhh...wait..."
"Easy," Sam reassures him, watching as Dean shoves in the stopper and twists on the tap.
The tub slowly starts to fill with lukewarm water, and Sam carefully adjusts the angel's position, mindful of the bruising on his back, so that Castiel is leaning back supported by the side of the tub. Cas' hands grip his forearms, but the grip is weak, nothing like the white knuckled grip he had been clinging to Dean with. Still, for a second Sam wonders if Cas is trying to brand him with his handprint too, as the angel's incredibly overheated skin, burns hot and dry against his bare arms. But Castiel releases him after a second shivering, his eyes sliding closed.
"M'sorry..." the angel mumbles, barely audibly. "Sorry..."
Dean retrieves a clean facecloth and nudges Sam out of the way, to take up a position next to Cas, sitting on the tiled floor. This day is just going to get longer.
No longer of much use, to the operation of cooling down their spontaneously combusting angel, Sam's been put back on research. He pours himself a cup of instant coffee from the supply they found in the kitchen downstairs, and settles back in front of Doctor Shu's blog. Every so often the sound of Dean's voice floats down the hall, or the sound of water draining out of the tub, or filling it again, as Dean tries to keep the water temperature regulated. He's fairly certain he's heard his brother humming Metallica a few times, though he's not sure which of the two of them that's meant to calm down. He's about a week back in the blog archives at this point.
April 18th
Rumors of the impending quarantine have staff and patients alike in a panic. Every day out of my office window, I can see families packing up their minivans full of bottled water and canned goods and piling their families in to try to outrun the outbreak...
...
April 20th
The quarantine is in full swing. We lost two nurses to the virus today, after six days of fighting. The funerals were small. All of their family in town were already dead...
...
April 22nd
Agents from Homeland Security arrived today. I remain sceptical about any possible terrorist connection to this virus, but of course, the authorities are always keen to jump to that particular conclusion...
...
When he abandons his laptop at last, closing it down, and works the kinks out of his back, he reaches for his coffee mug, but grabs the mug that previously held the medicinal tea. He gazes down at it thoughtfully. It still has a faint, earthy aroma, and his mind goes back to the little girl, replaying their conversation in his head. She'd said it was good if you were "sick"...Had she known Castiel was sick?...but everyone in Monroe is sick...Maybe she saw them carrying the angel inside...but they hadn't spotted her when they'd pulled up to the house...He scrubs a hand over his face. His brain is on overdrive, the short, nightmare plagued nap from this afternoon, not having been of any real help.
Suddenly there is a loud crash, followed by the very distinct sound of a gunshot from down the hall.
"Dean?!"
He jumps up and grabs Ruby's knife.
In the hallway, a tall red-haired man stands with his back to Sam, looking down at his chest. Dean is standing facing him, on the verge of unloading another round into the intruder. The linen closet behind Dean is demolished, and Sam's guessing that's probably from having a Dean-shaped missile launched into it. What is with supernatural entities and using them as hackey sacks?
"Well now, that was dreadfully rude," the man scolds. He looks over his shoulder at Sam, his brown eyes so light as if to be almost eerily golden, "But I suppose one should expect such a reception from the Winchesters. The vessels of Michael and Lucifer, and," predatorily cold eyes flicker to Castiel, lying shivering and vulnerable in the bath tub, "and the rebel angel Castiel. Well, little brother, there's something different about you...that I just can't put my finger on..."
Sam sees Dean's trigger finger itching, and gives him a furtive signal to hold his fire. So one of Cas' dick brothers did show up after all. He has just the thing.
"Dean!" Sam calls out, "The stuff in the bedroom!"
He turns as if to rush in there, but before he can, the angel has reappeared inside the room, next to the table strewn with their research. Sam whips the lighter out of his pocket, and tosses it onto the ring of holy oil, lying in wait. The flames shoot up, and the angel is penned in before he realizes the deception. That angel-trapping oil is really coming in handy these days.
"Dude," Dean glances briefly into the bathroom, before coming to stand beside Sam in the doorway, "Seriously? They sent an angel who falls for crap like that? What are you like from the 'special' garrison?"
"My name is Hadriel. And it's nice to see that The Vessel has a sense of humor," the now-trapped celestial muses, "Michael will like that."
"Michael's not comin' anywhere near this sweet piece of ass," Dean informs him, then pulls Sam aside. "Give me a hand with Cas. He's conked out again. Last thing I need is the guy drowning in the bathtub after all this."
They bring Castiel back to the master bedroom, because despite how infuriating it is watching Hadriel tracking their every movement with his cat-like golden gaze, the only other room has kids bunk beds in it, not an ideal place for Castiel to recuperate. The angel's skin is still far too hot to the touch, but he seems at least a little less fitful. The painkillers have him knocked out, and Sam feels grateful for small mercies. At least Cas doesn't have to be aware of his dick brother watching him like a mildly interesting National Geographic special.
"Fascinating," Hadriel contemplates, "It's burning up both his angelic essence and his vessel. Now there's a rare sight."
Sam sees a muscle in Dean's jaw jump, but he keeps his back purposefully to Hadriel, trying to make Cas as comfortable as possible, while simultaneously trying not to unload the rest of his clip into his douchebag of a brother. Apparently, this leaves Sam for interrogation duties. Hadriel's vessel is a tall well built, military type with short cropped hair and tattoos covering his forearms, and disappearing under the sleeves of his t-shirt. One of the soldiers from the barricade maybe?
"How did you find us?" Sam asks.
Hadriel 's mouth twitches in an almost-smile "Until I arrived," the angel informs him, "I didn't realize I would find you here."
"So what," Dean folds his arms, planting himself pointedly between Castiel's unconscious form and Hadriel, "You were in town for the world famous apple pie and you decided to stop by?"
Hadriel does Cas' head tilt, which just looks so strange and utterly wrong on the tall, tank of a man, "I sensed a large powerful entity in this town. I came to investigate."
"You mean the horseman."
Hadriel fixes Sam with what could possibly be a smirk. (Facial expressions, it would seem, are not an angelic forte.)
"No. This power was not something tainted by Lucifer."
"What kind of power was it?" Sam feels his stomach do a quick flip flop.
Hadriel looks from him to Dean, likely trying to figure out how much to reveal, "Divine power."
"Like God?"
Dean gives him a look that could strip paint.
Hadriel actually laughs at that. It sounds strange, like he's stretching his vessel's vocal chords too much to produce the sound, "Oh that's right. Castiel has been looking for our mislaid parent. It's too bad he got your hopes set so high. God," he scoffs, "will not be returning. No, the power I felt, it turns out, is little Castiel."
All three of them look at Cas, who at the moment is lying covered in old blankets, shivering pitifully, the wet ends of his hair dripping onto the pillow.
Hadriel turns back to them blankly expectant.
"Cas?" Dean asks incredulously.
"Yes." Hadriel sighs, and spells the rest out with the air of someone explaining the most simplistic concept to a group of first-graders. "No doubt you've noticed that Castiel is burning up like dry kindling."
"Because the horseman infected him."
Hadriel turns to Sam and favours him with a distasteful look, "Yes of course, I've noticed that. But what you primitive muck scraping primates fail to realize, is that somehow along the way, he also acquired a large amount of grace disproportionate to the amount he could ever hope to control. And of course, an angel separated from The Host, can only last so long before their grace either fizzles out, or burns completely out of control and consumes them. The latter process being escalated in Castiel's case by this power he's somehow obtained. Very interesting. A misguided attempt at a spell on someone's part?"
"We ask the questions chuckles," Dean picks up the canister of holy oil and Hadriel's eyes track it warily, as Dean handles it casually, threatening, "So if Cas is a ticking time-bomb, how do we defuse him?"
"I don't know."
"Bull."
Hadriel is still eyeing the canister warily, "I don't know."
"If Castiel is containing this huge amount of power, and there's going to be some kind of fallout, do you really wanna be trapped in the same room when that goes down?" Sam points out.
"I told you," Hadriel crosses his arms, "I don't know how to stop that from happening. Don't you think if I knew how to strip Castiel of that power I'd be eager to do so?"
"So what do we do?" Sam turns to his brother, realizing there isn't much point in trying to keep their voices low, since they're not about to leave Cas alone in the room with Hadriel.
"We keep looking for Pestilence, and we keep an eye on Carrot Top here in the mean time. He gets free, he'll be narcing on us to Michael."
The next hour is awkward. Dean keeps vigil over Castiel, while flipping through a large volume borrowed from Bobby, Sam looks through army reports fruitlessly, and Hadriel stands silently in a circle of fire that is somehow not burning a hole in the carpet. It reminds Sam of Moses and the burning bush. The bush burned but was not consumed. Except none of them have the beard to play Moses, and they're not trying to bring the Seven plagues on, they're just trying to stop one. Frustrated with the lack of useful information in the military records, he goes back to Dr. Shu's blog. Maybe there's something he missed...some detail that could give them an idea of where Pestilence is in the hospital now. The horseman's slippery, but if they have the element of surprise...
April 24th
We lost a brilliant oncologist today. The staff is extremely demoralized at the death of Doctor Bilson...
...
April 26th
Rumours are spreading about more shootings going on at the army blockade. People in town are becoming incredibly desperate. It's extremely heartbreaking.
...
Today
Humanity. Such messy, imperfect complicated creatures...
It looks like the good doc is getting philosophical on him. He takes a sip of coffee, eyes going briefly to Hadriel, who seems to be locked in an epic staring contest with Dean. Sam continues reading:
Perhaps I should be merciful and take the remainder of this town into my embrace and end their suffering. There are other towns, other water supplies, other hospitals to walk into, walk right by the hand sanitizers and the polite reminders to cover your mouth when coughing, and just create a beautiful, deadly, complex virus.
Sam freezes. He goes back. Reads it again.
"Holy shit."
'What?" Dean doesn't take his eyes off of Hadriel.
"I think I just found Pestilence."
Oh wow! You read it :D Um and if you're the type that leaves/has left reviews, well then that just makes you just that extra bit shiner doesn't it?
~Amazon