CW: Graphic depictions of violence – gore. Suicidal ideation explored through intrusive thoughts.
A/N: Take a shot every time a SPN fan fic references CCR :')
Thank you for your continuing patience with my haphazard updates. (Take a shot every time I say this exact sentence as well!) I am hoping to be more consistent in the next few months as the summer holidays free up some of my time – but as usual, I can't promise anything! I so appreciate your reviews and your follows, and the fact you have read this far. Thank you a thousand times !
"
Hope you got your things together
Hope you are quite prepared to die
Looks like we're in for nasty weather
One eye is taken for an eye
Well, don't go around tonight
Well, it's bound to take your life
There's a bad moon on the rise
"
Dawn feels the tips of Castiel's fingers snap back from her arm as they land in the kitchen. His posture, too, that had eased during their conversation, goes rigid to attention. His eyes fly from hers, directly ahead, entirely emotionless.
They have materialised in front of the fridge, and they are not alone. There are two angels lounging on the couch to her left, one slouching by the television. On her right, around her dining table, there are another three angels and one very smug, very scary one leaning over her kitchen bench. He is a middle-aged man, balding, with saggy under eyes, adorned in a crisp suit with a grey tie. His henchman wear the same, with plain black in place of grey.
The atmosphere appears relaxed on the surface but coupled with Castiel's sudden change in demeanour and the menacing smile plastered on Grey Tie, Dawn can tell that it is a farce. The lounging angels have eyes trained on all parts of the room, poised to act. They each have one hand cradled towards their sleeve, readying the silver blade she had seen Uriel produce out of thing air.
Her stomach feels the familiar twist of icy anxiety as she sees that everything in the house is just slightly out of place. That it has been ransacked and put back together meticulously, but still not quite right. She supposes intentionally.
"It's so nice to finally meet you, Wrath," Grey Tie speaks. His voice is loud, grating, overly confident. "I've heard so much about you."
She swallows, forgetting her dry throat. "Good things, I hope." She chokes.
The smile twists into a sneer as easily as a reflex. "Oh no, not quite."
An angel seated at the table, a middle-aged man with ginger hair, chuckles. His smile is free.
Dawn senses that she is dealing with a very different kind of angel than she is used to. These suits seem to have a sense of humour and are unafraid of flaunting it. It is something she thought she had missed in the others she dealt with, but now realises how horrifying it is coming from this species, how threatening. It is sardonic, not for pleasure, a corruption of the human equivalent. She resists the temptation to look at Castiel's constipated, furrowed brow, or to think about Inias' awkward, instructional voice with fondness. It would not combat the fear working its way into her central nervous system.
She clenches her fist as Grey Tie rolls his wrist back on itself to produce a glass of water out of thin air. His smirk twitches, and he walks towards her.
"But how rude of me, I haven't introduced myself." He offers her the glass.
She reaches for it, ignoring how her hand trembles.
"I'm Zachariah." The sneer extends to a threatening smile as she accepts the offer.
Without breaking eye contact, she downs the glass in a gulp.
Stepping away from Castiel, placing the cup on the kitchen bench, she forces a smile of her own.
"I'm Dawn," she counters.
Zachariah grunts with amusement. "Sure you are."
Despite her underlying fear, the urge to defy the self-satisfaction polluting the room strengthens her backbone.
"What do we owe the pleasure of your company?" She snaps more than asks.
His smile grows wider, his eyes narrow. They flit between her and Castiel's impassive face, settling on him.
"What an interesting use of the word, 'we'."
Castiel is a statue. Dawn swallows, afraid that she has said something wrong.
"Do you have anything to say to that, Castiel?" Zachariah leers.
"I don't understand the question." His familiar gravelly voice imbues Dawn with a suggestion of comfort.
Zachariah rolls his eyes. "You can lose the soldier act, it irks me."
He remains exactly as he was.
Zachariah sighs before continuing.
"How do you feel about Wrath's use of the word 'we' when addressing us?"
"Nothing." He barely blinks.
"Nothing?"
"Yes."
Zachariah's smile stretches to shark territory as he strolls towards Castiel. "I find that hard to believe."
Dawn feels like she has been shunted from the angel's attention. She cannot decide if this is a good thing or not.
She steps a little away from the two as Zachariah stops in front of her trenchcoated guardian. To his credit, Castiel does not break his eye contact with the window above the sink.
"Tell me, in your role as a guardian, are you naturally inclined to special treatment, or is it simply a coincidence that it's been forced on you by the most wilful dregs of humanity?"
Castiel frowns a little, breaking his marble countenance. "Special treatment?"
"Yes, Castiel, like the disproportionate amount of time you spend with the human subjects, and your undue assistance with their Earthly matters."
"My role as a guardian requires me to-"
"-follow your orders." Zachariah finishes for him. "Like the good little soldier you are."
He sets his mouth in a hard line.
"And yet, you directly defy them." Zachariah continues.
A wrinkle in Castiel's brow twitches, but he does not speak.
"The first mistake was taking the Winchester's side, listening to that buffoon instead of your own brothers," his calm delivery begins to sputter out of control, his patience evaporating. "You've been warned about testing your loyalties. Your insolence rubs off on these playthings of yours. They think they can do whatever they want, sleep with each other if it pleases them, and then you go ahead and let them escape our containment."
Dawn's eyes widen, and she opens her mouth before she can stop herself. "No-"
Zachariah's eyes flick to her, utterly livid. She snaps her jaw shut.
"Don't you dare interrupt me, you good-for-nothing—" His anger overwhelms him, swallowing his words in a croak. "You are gum on my shoe – a nuisance of a harlot."
His beady eyes bore into her, and she finds the hint of defiance she felt before fire up in response.
"Maybe so, but he didn't-" Before she can finish her sentence, Zachariah has clicked his fingers.
A flood of liquid fills her mouth, the hot rush forcing her to cough. Blood spills out in a wave, down her chin and colouring her hoodie.
"Hold your tongue or I'll hold it for you," he smiles. "And I squeeze."
She retches, doubled over. The blood splashes on the white kitchen tiles, the sound like a shower turning on.
Castiel's fists are clenched, but he does not move. His rigid eyeline barely falters.
Zachariah nods to his ginger-haired henchman at the table. He stands in response, stalking to Castiel's side.
"I happen to think your friend Uriel had the right idea with this one," Zachariah leers at his unblinking, immoveable counterpart. "You're getting too protective of your little pets, and it's time you learnt your lesson."
The henchman grins wider, grabbing Castiel's arm. The trench coat crumples under his grip, the two disappearing.
Dawn's vision is bleary, dropping to her hands and knees. The red blood dripping in thick strings from her mouth contrasts with the white tiles on the floor and gives her something concrete to focus on. Her arms shake, the cool from the ground warming rapidly under her clammy palms.
She cannot feel the inside of her mouth. It is empty, minus the weight of her tongue, panic shattering her chest. She grinds her teeth to remind herself they are intact, but the disturbing fact of seeing blood coming from her own mouth but not being able to taste it overwhelms the little comfort this brings.
"Oh, quit your grovelling," Zachariah frowns down at her in place of the now absent Castiel.
Dawn swivels her head away from the blurred floor to his vague outline – a grey blob with human proportions.
I'm like a cockroach to him, she thinks, the only lucid thought she catches in her screaming mind.
The blob in her vision snaps his fingers. As suddenly as the weight was taken from her mouth, it returns. She forgets how to use it for a moment and chokes. She tastes nothing unusual, and the warm, sticky saliva-blood-tongue-muscle concoction that had coated her chin disappears. The floor is clean.
Her panic remains.
"Here's what's going to happen, Wrath." Zachariah steps towards her. "You've got a brand spanking new security scheme to acquaint yourself with."
Her eyes dart feverishly from his shoes to her hands to his legs and back again, afraid to look him in the eye. Any courage she had was liquified along with her tongue but has not returned with it.
She can barely understand him as he continues, her brain sending and receiving too much information at once in meltdown.
"There will be double the amount of surveillance – an angel posted on each exit of this building. You will no longer be permitted to go for walks, but you are allowed to use the training facility outside – can't have you going flabby on us, can we?"
He chuckles to himself, advancing towards where she is still crouched on all fours, shaking.
"You are permitted to spend up to an hour daily outside, but not to go beyond the boundary of the birch tree. You will have your food delivered to you as necessary, but only as far as we see fit. No more special requests."
His legs stop in front of her face.
He squats, resting his hands on his knees, his murky grey-green eyes in his sun-spotted face filling her vision.
"Is that clear?" He smiles.
Dawn can barely muster a whimper in response, her mind catching up to the information she has been supplied.
"I said," Zachariah grabs the front of her hoodie in his fist, shaking her a little. "Is that clear?"
The menacing grit that cuts his tone flips her stomach up and over, frying sunny side up.
She manages a nod.
"Good."
He stands, her hoodie still bunched in his hand, dragging her upright. Dizziness peppers her sight as her body contends with balancing on two legs.
"You know, you're lucky we're keeping you alive." The calm grit remains in his tone. "If it were up to me, I'd throw you back in the Pit."
She gulps, suddenly grateful for a tongue.
"Why don't you?" Her voice is a quite rasp.
"Frankly," there is a furious glint in his eye. "We've lost too many Seals to risk you getting out and into their hands. The next best thing is to deprive you."
He tilts his head forward, centimetres from her face.
"It's the least you deserve, confounded monster you are. I'd rather you suffer, that this new chance at life be for nothing, than to save a few Seals."
Her throat feels constricted, difficult to speak.
"But?" She scrapes.
Zachariah's face hardens. He lets her go, her feet finding the ground.
"It's not up to me. Unfortunately."
Her arms, limp by her sides before, cross over her chest by reflex. She steps back.
"Who is it up to?" In a whisper.
Jarring, he laughs loud and empty. "Don't you learn? You are told what you need to know. You don't get to ask questions."
The other angels in the room snicker in return. Zachariah waves a hand, and they disappear.
"Don't make me come back here, Wrath, or it will be the last thing you regret."
His warning bores into her in a last instance of eye contact before he dematerialises.
At some point, Dawn recognises that Castiel is gone, that he was taken while she was panicking on the floor.
Guilt interlocks itself with her fear and anxiety.
She stands in the same spot, her arms tightly bound across her chest. Her vision is unfocused.
From the outside, she seems in a trance.
White noise buzzes in her skull where a tumble weed follows a steep downward trajectory, spewing echoes of panicked words and voices, breathless.
Oh God,
it's my fault,
they thought he let me go, they thought he was responsible,
it's my fault,
why did I leave, why didn't I say something,
this is all my fault,
he's going to die,
this is my fault,
oh God, what was going on in my head, fucking hell,
oh Jesus, what if they kill him,
oh God, what will happen to Dean, what will happen to me, what have I done, why did I do that,
this is my fault,
I don't deserve this, I deserve to die, Zachariah is right,
why me,
why me,
I want to fall asleep and never wake up. I want to be rid of this existence. I don't deserve the energy. I don't deserve anyone's time. I am so tired. I am so tired of this. I wish I was dead.
Oh God I'm so selfish.
Why didn't I think about-
You stupid bitch, listen to yourself.
The tumble weed starts to slow down, but the urgency of the echoes is sustained.
Oh my God, this is all my fault, he's going to die, and it's
all my fault
all my fault.
If I had said something else, if I didn't say anything, would he be okay? Would he still be here?
You're giving him exactly what he wants, you know?
Everyone is gone.
Everyone is gone.
Everyone is gone.
I have no one. No one.
No one.
No one. I am alone.
Alone.
Alone.
He knows you well. It's disgusting how easy it is to get to you. Weak-willed, sorry, good-for-nothing piece of shit.
The white noise changes frequency, dimming slowly.
I was just starting to trust him again. I was letting him in. He was letting me in.
Oh God,
this is all my fault, oh God.
Unfair. So unfair.
But no – I deserve this. But he doesn't deserve this. Dean doesn't deserve this.
You need to snap out of this.
This thought is sobering. The weed stops tumbling. Her vision loses its fuzzy edging, and she concentrates on her breathing.
Dawn grips the kitchen island, its cool marble emanating through her. She can see outside – the kitchen window in front of her. It is dark still, but there is movement.
The angels are rearranging themselves in her backyard.
The realisation makes her sick. She runs to the sink, retching.
Remnants of her meagre dinner burn her throat as they are rejected from her stomach. Half digested crackers sit congealed, comingling with bile.
She runs the tap before she retches again. Her eyes sting. The yellowish-beige runs towards the plug hole like loose mud in a river. Her stomach gurgles along with the pipes, muscles convulsing over and over.
She is grateful, at least, that there is no smell of vomit with the tap going. Grateful, also, that her hair is tied back.
With her head bent over the bowl, she can smell the sweat stuck to her scalp in salt. She can see the dirt under her fingernails in the kitchen light. She remembers the tingle of Castiel's thumb brushing the cut off her cheek.
It is too much.
An involuntary sob mixes with her retching.
It hurts.
Now, not only is her stomach cramping but her chest is shuddering. Her throat burns and constricts, her nose running, her eyes tearing, from the acid, from the pain.
Dawn surrenders to the uncontrollable throttling of her body. The retching slows to hiccups, but the sobbing does not let up.
There is a melancholic ecstasy in allowing herself to become inconsolable on her own terms. Choosing to cry and be overwhelmed with grief rather than panic short circuiting the decision, freezing her processing power.
She knows the angels outside would not care if they happened to see her like this. Snot and spit strings flicking from her orifices, face red, eyes squeezed shut. Wet, guttural noise lurching from her.
Maybe there was one that would. At one time.
But he's gone now.