Title: A Lingering Fringe
Author: pink_bagels (website: http://pink_.com)
Chapter: eleven
Rating: R (for swearing, sexual talk, crack!fic-ishness)
Characters: girl!Dean/Castiel/Jimmy, Bobby, girl!Sam/omc that looks like Hugh Dillon (w00t!), genderswap, Trickster, Alberta, Meg, angel molestation, TMI embittered health care professionals, etc.
Spoilers: end of season four--If this ever freakishly became canon (checks mirror--Nope, still not Kripke. Not even if he had a sex change), it would hover somewhere in the middle of an AU season five.
Summary: The boys who were boys are girls who can still be boys. You can't deny an advantage when you see one. Just ask Jimmy's opinion on the matter. What happened in Vegas wants to hunt you down and kill you. Too bad you gave that freaky chick Sam Winchester your cell number.
Note: Feedback is love! Even if you're telling me you hate it!
a lingering fringe--chapter eleven
"You hit a girl!"
Dean Winchester has seen a lot of things in both his and her life, many of which could be explained away with a couple of sentences and a grunting nod. This current experience, however, was definitely not something she could just tuck away inside that little mental drawer that said 'Don't Look' in her consciousness, the one that had a few decades or so of hell sitting in it, along with an old copy of a Marie Osmond LP and a stub of black eyeliner. Castiel and Jimmy were both dangerously close to finding their way into that drawer, though Dean figured the housing between the two was too crowded as it was.
Watching a singular person with two distinctive, strong personalities having a heated discussion amongst themselves was not an easy process for the average human mind to sensibly render. In Dean's case, her mental imagery had somehow shifted the two people living within the vessel into mirror images that moved and spoke independent of each other. Jimmy slouched at the foot of the bed, his leg dangling over the edge, his bare toes poking at the cold floor. Castiel, at the head of the bed, with all blankets tucked tight around him lest Dean's curious hands got the best of her again, reluctantly acknowledged his counterpart's outburst.
"I did not hit a girl. I hit Dean Winchester," Castiel clarified. "I assure you, Jimmy, I was wholly justified."
Jimmy's fury was evident, his lip curled in disgust as he glared at Castiel's blank confession. He crawled closer to Castiel, until his nose was nearly touching the angel's, his posture so staunchly threatening Dean was sure Jimmy was going to try to get in a good smackdown of his own. Which wasn't really a good idea since he'd be beating the crap out of himself and angels had a heck of a right hook. Good thing they were already in a hospital, Jimmy was aiming to have him and Castiel spend a month together in traction. "I have never hit a woman in my entire life, and there is no way I'm going to let some angel who thinks he's 'justified' use *my* body to do it. Apologize to Dean!"
Castiel was scandalized. "I will not! I cannot possibly offer forgiveness for that unwelcome assault!"
"Give me a break, all I did was touch your wings." Dean forced her hand beneath Castiel's back and pulled out the resisting, feathered limb in question. The stroke of her palm as she straightened it had an unexpected effect on Jimmy, who sighed and closed his eyes, enjoying Dean's hands on that wing in a way that was outright indecent. "Oh, baby, that is different. But real nice. Really nice."
There was a choked whimper out of Castiel, who was obviously having a very difficult time figuring out if he wanted to continue this highly erotic trip across the universe courtesy of Magic Fingers Dean or snap said Dean's neck like a twig. Dean let the feather drop, so to speak, the wing quickly tucked back underneath Castiel with a guilty furtiveness that spoke of adolescent sneak peeks at his Dad's girlie mags. Which, considering how embarrassed and protective Cas was of his wings suggested that they had a lot more significance than looking cool on cathedral ceilings and aiding in quick escapes when the going got emotionally uncomfortable.
"Are you telling me you can actually *see* them?" Castiel asked Dean. A thin sheen of sweat covered the angel's brow. He wasn't just pissed. He was mortified.
Dean wasn't sure exactly how to proceed but figured, wrongly or rightly, honesty couldn't hurt. "They're a grayish-blue, with singed tips," she said. She searched her mind for an appropriate bird to compare them to. "Kind of like a pigeon's."
The room was thick with Castiel's uncomfortable silence. A brewing storm of embarrassed shame crept into every shadow of the room, where it crawled into a tiny ball and began to weep. Castiel remained stone in the face of this revealing, but Jimmy, with his long held delusions of what saints and devils and angels were supposed to be, was crushed to his core, his hand clawing at his heart as if it would be better to just give it up and stop beating.
"A *pigeon*? Are you kidding me?" He shook his head. He couldn't believe it. These kinds of cruel facts couldn't possibly be true. His tortured soul begged for Castiel to refute it, but being an angel, Castiel was unable to lie, even if in moments such as this he desperately wanted to. "The armies of Heaven fly into the storm of Damnation like those fat, winged rats?" Jimmy's disillusionment sank deep, his shoulders slumped as he pondered all the information he'd compiled over his lifetime concerning angels. "I could understand a sparrow wing, there's plenty of Biblical reference to them. Or even a crow, I mean, they are very intelligent, crafty birds, they're way up there on the avian food chain. Cool black crow wings, kicking demon butt, I can easily see that." Jimmy let out a defeated sigh. "But, come on, a fucking *pigeon*?"
"Why are you looking at me like it's my fault?" Dean asked Jimmy. She gestured to the evidence. "Are you telling me you can't see them?"
"No, I can't," Jimmy said, the admission surprising him. He was coolly assessing of Castiel's keen embarrassment, a mental cataloguing working between them with wordless ease. It was like Jimmy was going through some very uncomfortable top secret files if Castiel's thin lipped panic meant anything. "Oh, I get it," Jimmy said, cheerfully informed. "This is all about sex." He shook a mischievous finger at Castiel, who remained immobile stone in the face of Jimmy's good natured teasing. "Dirty, nasty, horny angel sex." He turned to Dean. "Their wings are like erogenous zones, so of course you can't normally see them, except for their shadows. It's a modesty thing."
Dean mulled this over, a certain known point of history between herself and Castiel wedging itself into a very uncomfortable spot. From the way Castiel refused to look at her, he damn well knew it. "So, if seeing an angel's wings means they're outright naked and ready to get the groove on, why is it we humans have so many paintings of angels al flagrante with the feathers?"
Castiel's stone facade was ruffled. His hand nervously adjusted the oxygen tubes at his nose, and then tightened the sheet around him as though fearful Dean was going to wrench it off and have another go at his oh-so-soft scapulars. "It's an adjustment for us when we visit this realm. There are, at times...Complications. I admit, it was extremely embarrassing to see how St. John Of Antioch's depiction of us became as popular in Western culture as it did. That revelation was quite by accident, an unfortunate encounter involving Uriel and a woman of nobility who resided with Emperor Theodosius I."
"Which begs for the explanation of why that little room your former boss Zach held me prisoner in was a wall to wall baroque winged angel orgy." Dean rested her chin on Castiel's shoulder, his personal space seriously compromised now by two people demanding immediate answers. "Not one inch of that room didn't have some form of museum piece angel porn. What gives?"
"You said it yourself," Castiel replied, surprised at Dean's ignorance. "In creating a comfortable spot in heaven for you, I simply took those things which you enjoy most. Which happens to be hamburgers and pornography." Castiel frowned. "I admit, I had to do a bit of creative interpretation for the latter."
"You were looking real careful at some of those works of art," Dean remembered. "Jacob Wresting With The Angel in particular."
"I have grown to appreciate the aesthetics of the genre," Castiel haughtily replied.
His admission did not go unpunished. Jimmy's mouth opened wide in understanding horror. Nearly toppling Dean out of her chair, he pushed her aside as he grabbed Castiel, and thus himself, by the throat. "Appreciating the aesthetics. That's what I said to my dad! That's how I justified taking my mom's Vogue magazines!"
"Your thoughts and actions have always been transparent," Castiel coolly replied.
"You filthy liar, you didn't choose me because I was 'a worthy man', you chose me because I used the same masturbation material!"
"I have never lied. You know as well as I that I am unable to."
"You said you chose me because I was 'special'!"
"There were seven pages detailing humans in varying degrees of undress sporting angel wings. You had a great deal of procreational interest in this, as I recall. I felt this meant we had an understanding."
Castiel tried to wrench Jimmy's hands off his throat, Dean doing her best to help him, ready to break his fingers if she had to. "Stop fighting!"
"It was just a release of pent up sexual frustration! It's biology, not belief!"
"I felt there was a kinship."
"Kinship, my ass! I gave up my family, my kid, my *life*, all because of a few dirty fantasies over a Guess Jeans ad? Oh my God, you make me sick!"
One of Castiel's hands broke free. "You are to respect me, Jimmy," he warned. "I do not appreciate your judgemental tone. I need not remind you I am a warrior angel of the Lord."
"No you're not, you're a fucking pigeon shitting all over my goddamned porch!"
Castiel held out two index fingers on his freed right hand. "I will not warn you again!"
"For God's sake, put that down!" Dean leapt onto the bed, straddling Castiel as she held down his wrists, imprisoning him against the hard mattress. "You're going to smite yourself, you idiot!"
The fact that he struggled at all spoke volumes to Dean of how physically weak Castiel still was. A tiny white spark shot across the angel's left eye, a hint of the mysterious latent sickness lurking within. The threat of another seizure worried Dean, especially considering how close both Cas and Jimmy had come to dying back in the Impala. She kept her hands tight on his wrists, her knees digging hard enough into his hips to make her thigh muscles ache. "You need to shut the hell up, get your emotionless planet Vulcan voodoo back on and ease up on the adrenaline. Because if you don't, I'm going to knee your balls so hard you're going to pass out or wish you were dead. Either one works for me."
Castiel's laboured breathing echoed in the near empty room, a bead of sweat sliding off his brow, to tickle the circumference of his ear as it continued its salty journey down the length of his throat. "Good God, you are one sexy bitch," Jimmy gasped.
Dean relaxed her grip on his wrists and crawled off of him, but not before pressing her knee painfully into his groin for good measure. "I guess you're feeling fine. I can't say the same for your tenant. Where's Cas gone?"
Jimmy pointed at the back of his head. "Hiding in a dusty corner, sulking." He turned his head and loosened the tight blankets Castiel had so stubbornly mummified himself in. "Can you still see them?" he asked.
A hint of blue-grey feathers peeked out from behind Jimmy's waist. "No," Dean lied. Sure, her cheek still smarted from where Cas had slapped her, but then she had performed an act on him which, in his mind, was the equivalent of angel-rape.
A flicker of understanding briefly passed over Jimmy's features. A quick 'thank-you' from a very embarrassed celestial being before he ran back to that dark, unhappy corner in Jimmy's head.
Dean sank into the plastic chair next to the bed, her hands clasped on the cold, steel bedrails. "You shouldn't be angry with him," Dean said. Jimmy bristled at her words. "He didn't have a choice, not the way you think. If it wasn't you, it would have been some other sucker. He had his orders, and not performing them wasn't an option. He didn't even have the *concept* of what an option is until he made you his vessel. All he knew is that you'd either say yes or no, without any real understanding of what it was he was asking of you, or why. In his mind, you were never going to say no. It was all a predestined game plan, with no variable." She adjusted the corner of his pillow, bringing it into better alignment underneath Jimmy's neck. Her knuckles brushed against his throat, his skin feverish to the touch. "He's just as much a victim of this as you are, so stop being pissed at him, okay?"
Jimmy closed his eyes, exhaustion from his internal fight having done a number on his system. "I lost my family," he said, his voice weak, a near whisper in the empty, chilled room.
Shadows from snowfall filtered in from the window against the far wall, large flecks descending in grey hues within the bright square of light reflected on the floor. The snow was burying the Earth, Dean thought. It was smothering all the hurt inflicted on it, hiding it and preserving it beneath a thick layer of permafrost.
"So did I," Dean reminded him.
Jimmy's body stirred, a warm palm placed on Dean's chilled knuckles, her hands still clutching the steel bedrails. The gentle pressure made her stomach tense, the sweetness of the gesture playing havoc with her emotions. Hormones, she thought, trying to dismiss it. Man. Those lies just kept on coming.
"I'm sorry I hit you," Castiel said.
"It's nothing," Dean replied.
Castiel raised his hand, his fingers tracing the red marks he'd inflicted on her cheek, a healing warmth erasing the injury. The tenderness of this was unexpected, the message remaining in Castiel's warm palm on her throat, his thumb brushing the line of her jaw with longing memory. By turning his back on blind obedience, Castiel had lost his family as well. Dean leaned into the seemingly innocent caress, burying her face in the pine scented sweat of Castiel's hand, her lips softly nipping the thick pad of his thumb. Hurt and arousal had so often been intertwined in the past. The sinking lust dipping low within her belly was a familiar ache. Her hands tightened on the bed rails, her mouth sighing open as she allowed Castiel's thumb admittance against her tongue, the taste of his flesh salty-sweet.
The door slammed open. "Well, hello there, patient!" Dr. Nigel Nash exclaimed, turning on the overhead light and bathing them in its blinding glow, sterilizing all acts of passion. "Great news--You're not dead! Don't know how or why, shucks darn, but this seems to be the case. Oh, hey, were you two little lovebirds planning on having intercourse before I walked in, because if you were I'll just tell my son he can go on his crazy testosterone fuelled witch-hunt against Sam Winchester's brother after you're done. How long do you think you'll be, twenty, thirty minutes? You do realize the average sexual encounter only lasts for ten, with maximum enjoyment capped at fifteen minutes. Of course, if you consider foreplay as actual sexual contact, you can have your boogie night last through the following morning and possibly until early afternoon, depending on whether or not your manly man is willing to the do the breakfast dishes or that load of laundry that's been sitting in the corner for the past week because the chicks dig that, they really do. Ask any of them, they will say there is a direct correlation between orgasms and a man willing to wash his own underwear." He gave them both a dazzling, goofy smile. "You must be this Deanna my son Paul keeps talking about, in between his infamous 'Where is my beloved Sam, oh woe upon my misguided dick' monologues. It's very nice to meet the young woman who is the reason my son had to get a tetanus shot the minute he got into town. Not to mention the test for necrotizing fasciitis, which I suspected at first because of the large, black, pus-filled cavity that spanned out from the original injury, but thankfully Paul still has his leg, his broken heart, and his goddamn bank account that right now he has no access to, hallelujah." He cheerfully tapped his freshly sharpened pencil on the steel bedrail, a perfect tone in 'C' resonating through the now cramped room. "Just as an FYI, lead can kill people. Especially lead stabbed in the thigh due to some unknown Vegas girlfriend's slutty sister having a psychotic episode. I'm sorry, did I say 'slutty'? I meant to say WHORE."
Dr. Nash's vicious diatribe was cut short by the sudden appearance of his son in the doorway. Paul Nash, out of breath as though he'd been running, the thick padding of his province issued police bomber jacket doing little to keep out the Alberta cold. He confronted Dean, and the combined Jimmy and Castiel's open mouthed shock with a highly understated nod of his head. Dean couldn't understand it. He was so cool and calm. Like he'd been expecting them.
"Mom just called," he said to his father. "Monica stopped by all in a panic, saying she can't get into her bank account when she tried to pay her Hydro. Then Mona comes in, going on about how she got a nasty message on her voicemail saying she defaulted on her Visa bill."
"Your sisters can't get to their cash?" Dr. Nash paled. "Oh for God's sake, Frank the bank manager...He froze the wrong account!" He swore and checked his watch. "I should have known better than to have called him on a Friday night. He'll be boozing it up with a tall order of 200% proof Jamaican rum until daybreak. He was supposed to make sure you couldn't get to yours--Dammit, now I'm going to have those creepy harpy sisters of yours ganging up on me to fix it right away."
"Dad, why the hell are you freezing my bank account?"
Dr. Nash waved his hand emphatically at a still stunned Dean and Castiel. "Bad girlfriend. In town. Her sister's pimp had a seizure."
"He's not her pimp, he's her cousin," Paul Nash said, earning a gagging noise from his father, no doubt the spectre of incest now added to the Sam Winchester clan's mystique. "Dad, how many times do I have to tell you, I had to use that mortgage money for an emergency research trip to Istanbul. I told Monica and Mona all about it, they promised me they'd make sure my bills were in order but, as usual, my sisters pulled a fast one."
Dr. Nigel Nash was unrepentant. "Your sisters may be difficult at times, but they are the best neurosurgeons this side of the planet and you don't need to be wasting their time by making them clean up your life messes."
"They created that mess in the first place."
"You didn't have to go to Constantinople."
"Istanbul, Dad."
"I'm calling your mother. If that Sam Winchester shows up on her doorstep, she is not to feed her any of the leftover pot roast, hospitable politeness be damned! She'll get a cup of tea, the No-Name crap, not the good stuff from the tin, and it'll be weak and without sugar! And you can forget about biscuits! Bad girlfriend! No biscuits!"
Paul wordlessly watched his father storm off, the white lab coat he wore flapping behind him in tandem with his fury. Apparently long used to this accusatory form of abuse, Paul silently unzipped his black jacket, and took a deep, satisfying breath of calming air. "Ignore my father. He's a good doctor, he's just...Socially challenged," he said, apologetic. Then, his eyes shyly downcast, his voice a near whisper, both highly incongruent with the tough guy image his strong physique and military stance presented. "Is Sam with you?"
"She's around," Dean guardedly said.
Paul hesitated, his gaze fixed on the floor, the thick rubber of his boots teasing a small pile of slush that hadn't quite melted at this feet. "The nurse said a tall young man checked your cousin in. I take it that Simon, your brother, is also here." Paul bit down on words he clearly didn't want to say, a guttural growl that was uneasily swallowed.
"Has he hurt her?" he asked.
Dean wasn't sure just where Sam had gone with this particular story, and it disturbed her to know how deeply her sister held so much guilt and shame she'd felt compelled to give her currently fictional male self such a negative personality. "We managed to give him the slip back in Washington," Dean said, choosing her words with care. "But Simon's a real slippery bastard. He could show up at any time."
She stood in front of Paul, her hands hidden in the back pockets of her jeans. She nervously rocked back and forth, her feet scraping the heels of her too large sneakers. If Sam was still male, at least Dean had given Paul a good explanation if they ran into each other.
Castiel shifted in the bed. There was a soft rustling, like shifting feathers. Dean glanced over her shoulder to see Castiel had fallen asleep, in thanks no doubt to the vast collection of pharmaceuticals that had been pumped into him when he'd been first admitted, his heart stopping twice. His breath was uneven, stopping for long intervals, then slightly hyperventilating, then stopping. An alien rhythm.
The large, grey-blue hued nakedness of his wing that held so much personal mortification was now subconsciously draped around the angel's midriff. Paul was completely ignorant of the phenomenon, his attention on Castiel fleeting. A wave of relief hit Dean, only to be followed by more disturbing questions. Why was it she could see them? What did it mean?
Paul took out his notepad and a thin black pen. His script was carefully controlled as he wrote on it, the words and numbers formed in perfect, neat clarity. He tore the paper off and handed the note to Dean, who took it with grave reluctance.
"My address," Paul said, his voice so full of hurt you could have put his heart in traction. "Tell Sam I need to see her."
Dean carefully folded the small piece of paper and tucked it into the back pocket of her jeans. "I will," she promised.
"I won't let Simon get to her," Paul assured her.
Dean gave Paul a small, hopeful smile at this. Not knowing the full extent of Sam's alter ego 'Simon's history was proving to be a real problem. Next time she talked to Sam, Dean was hell bent on filling up a notebook.
Paul nodded at Dean, his expression significantly more tortured than Dean had anticipated. "I care about your sister very much," Paul said.
Unwilling, the memory of that cell phone recording came roaring back. Paul Nash, the keeper of the kinky keys. 'You sure do care, you poor schmuck,' Dean thought. 'Hell if I wasn't stuck between two forces of opposing good, I'd be making sure you cared about me, too.'
Paul turned off the light in their room, the softness of the spotlights outside of the window sending it back into sultry near darkness. Paul's face was hidden in shadow, the crisp lines of his jaw chewing on his concern. He didn't like the taste of it, Dean could tell. He kept working that jaw, silent and standing in the dark like he had something important to say and wouldn't. It was damn creepy is what it was. Dean shivered and moved closer to Castiel. Instinctively, she touched Castiel's shoulder for solidarity, her arm brushing against the soft feathers, the silken down distracting her fear. Castiel gently moaned in his sleep, a secretive kiss sighed upon the air, a name hovering within it. Dean...
Paul Nash raised his head into the shaft of light from the window, his eyes brought into blue, icebound relief. "I'm going to fucking kill him on sight. I won't let Simon live. Not after what that bastard did to my Sam." He glared at Dean, as though she were somehow responsible. "I won't let her be hurt. Not like that. Never again."
He left, a gap in the doorway where the massive depth of his presence had been. It had been a long time since anyone human had left Dean quaking in her boots. Dammit, she had to get a hold of Sam and tell her to get the girlsuit on quick.
Paul Nash was not a human who took his grudges lightly.