Author's note:
Writing Cas (or should it be Cass?) is a little difficult for me because he seems to say what's on his mind, not hiding or filtering himself the way most people do.
I want it to feel authentic, ya know?
In any case, her goes chapter two of what is turning out to be probably a ten-plus chapter story.
Your opinion is always welcome.
Enjoy.
Chapter Two: Does This Trenchcoat Make me Look Fat?
"I woke up in that hospital bed alone with no memories, which sucked. My head felt like twenty pounds of lead at the bottom of the ocean. I asked for water and when she came back… my nurse was no longer my nurse." Sam's eyes encouraged Krystal to go on from his seated position at the edge of her psychiatric hospital bed.
Her pause was long and she chewed her bottom lip into a painful-looking twist. "Her eyes were purple."
Sam worked the statement over in his jaw. "Not black?" He asked.
"No. And she told me some weird shit, half in English and half in…. something else." Krystal's voice shook as the inhuman speech ricocheted inside her cranium, echoing darkness.
"It's okay," Sam patted her gently on the knee. "You said you had no memories?"
"None," She shoot her head, "but then my first name scratched its way to the surface. And my last name," She laughed gently then. Her arms uncrossed and she lifted the loose powder blue pant leg up to reveal an intricate tattoo design that ran up her entire calf. The scene was from Night of the Living Dead, complete with the quote 'They're coming to get you Barbara,' and a portrait of the director himself. "I must have a thing for zombie films."
Sam admired the artistry. He had seen that film while at Stanford. It was a week before Halloween and for the price of one canned good donation to the homeless you could get into the screening. "He died recently," Sam mused.
Krystal suddenly yelped out, looking behind Sam. He stood and turned in a motion silhouetted by muscle memory, gun out and ready to shoot. "You are hard to find when you deactivate your phone, Sam." The trench coat-clad man stated in a tone not unlike an android. Gun down, Sam sighed. Before he could say anything, Cas sidestepped him to look at Krystal. She was now crouched on the bed, almost hyperventilating and obviously in pain.
"He's a friend." Sam said, concern knitting his brow, an arm held out to her.
The lock on the only door turned and a male scrubs-clad employee entered. Cas was lightening across the room. Two fingers, forehead, out cold. This time, Krystal's yelp came out like a soft scream. She scurried off the bed quickly but didn't make it far before the ground pulled her like a magnet down, down, down.
"Cas!" Sam yelled out, rushing to her. His large hands delicately turned Krystal over and brushed her fire hair out of the way. Her skintone had begun to resemble the patient uniform powder blue as the bloodstain spread its borders farther down her torso. Sam pulled the shirt down over her collarbone as far as it would go to see the wound and failing stitches.
Cas' palm on her forehead produced a bright light that hurt his eyes. Some color noticeably entered her cheeks, breathing evened out, and the bleeding stopped. The wound, however, did not close.
"I was afraid of this," Cas stated grimly. Another hospital staff member entered the room with more men in tow, shouting as they sidestepped their fallen coworker. A commotion was coming.
Cas grabbed Sam's forearm and the three were in a motel room, no doubt thanks to Cas and his angel mojo. The hunter had checked into this room earlier that morning with an errant thought that the refrigerator needed a serious looking-at given the loud whooshing it produced every few minutes. Sam lifted Krystal from the floor to the bed as gently as he could. Turning to his friend he asked, "Cas, what's going on?"
Without missing a beat, he answered straight. "Me and other angels have been tracking weapons from the fall. What did this," he gestured to Krystal, "I think is the Cratory dagger. A weapon forged from demon and dragon semen." Cas' blue eyes seemed to gain an inch or two of depth. "I am unable to heal what it directly destroyed."
Sam gulped. "What was something like that even doing in Heaven, Cas?"
"To keep it quarantined." the angel stated simply. "Sam, we have to get this blade back before more people get hurt." The hunter nodded.
"She mentioned a purple-eyed demon, know anything about that?"
"No." Cas said. His beige trench coat always was a size too big for his frame, but in that moment Sam thought it was more like two. Whatever Cas had been up to, tracking down these weapons, up to this moment, had his spirit down in the dumps. Sam guessed the angel's inability to heal Krystal only added to the creeping sense of impotency at ever being one of the good guys again.
To break the moment, Sam walked over to Krystal on the bed. She looked peaceful, hair and hands splayed on the pillow and overtop the comforter. He knew she was dying.
"If we can find the blade, will you be able to heal her?" He asked, arms crossed and jaw tight.
Cas shook his head. "No. The cratory dagger was created by high-level demons to taunt angels by denying them the ability to save lives."
"Well, then we're just going to have to find another way. The question is," Sam said, "why would someone use it on her?"
A silence once again had befallen the men, but Cas broke it, with some delicacy. "Sam, you should call your brother. We could use his help."
"No, we don't." It came out much sharper than Sam intended. Cas' eyes conveyed that he wanted to say more but refrained. "Look, we're taking a break for a reason. Dean needs to cool off. I all but forced him to, ya know? I'm not pulling him back into this. Not yet, anyway."
"And how does Dean feel about that?" Sam's eyebrows knitted back in a mixture of pain and regret.
