Author's notes: I'm sorry this took so long to post, I've been having a hard time in the real world lately but I hope to have the next chapter up pretty quickly as it's a good one.
Warnings: Dean!torture. Unbeta'd
--00--Chapter Four—00—
Yellow Fever
After the roadhouse had burnt down, Ash had pretty much left his life as a hunter completely behind him.
He set up his own half hearted business but survived mostly though a number of online bank frauds, happy to live drunk out his skull and alone in a rat infested apartment, blanking out the memories of demons and ghosts and the people that burnt to death in the bar that had been his home.
Dean couldn't really blame him, if things were different; if he had any skills besides hunting he might have opted for the white picket fence existence a long time ago, but it didn't mean that he wasn't sick with jealously as Ash told him that he was going by the name Miles now and didn't want anything to do with demons, or angels or whatever the hell it was that the Winchesters had gotten themselves involved with now.
Dean wondered if Ash blamed him for what had happened to the roadhouse.
"Listen I know this is a lot to ask, but please just this one favour then I won't call you again. Ever,"
"Look Dude..." Ash sighed into the phone. "I don't want demons showing up on my doorstep tomorrow, it's a Sunday."
"They won't, I just need you to find out about this kid. It might be pretty hard though."
There was a pause and then Ash scoffed, "If the kid is real then there is nothing I can't find out about him. Do you have a name for me?"
"Harry Potter,"
"Easy. Give me a day,"
--00—
Except Ash didn't get back to him in a day, in fact Dean didn't hear anything at all from the computer genius for nearly a week and by that point they were up to their elbows, quite literally, in the corpses of men who kept dying apparently from nothing.
"This is a weird one, what causes a man to go from jittery to terrified, to dead in forty eight hours?" Sam asked with a frown, slumping into his dollar suit and pulling at the tie from its stifling position around his neck.
Dean shrugged, "Something scared them to death?"
"Alright, what can do that?"
"What can't? Ghosts, vampires, Chubabca? It could be a hundred things."
Sam gave a familiar sigh and glanced at Dean with eyes full of exasperation which meant he thought Dean was being purposefully obtuse. He was usually correct as well. "Alright, so we make a list and start crossing things off."
Dean shrugged and then paused suddenly, his stomach tight with sudden feeling that he didn't quite understand. "Hang on, hang on."
Sam stopped dead and glanced down, eyebrows knotted in the middle of his forehead with confused worry. "What?"
Dean glanced down the road where the impala had been parked and at the gang of teenage boys that were lazing around in front of his baby, his stomach twisting uncomfortably. He opened his mouth slowly and almost managed to put words to the tight feeling in his gut when his phone buzzed into life. He scrambled for the mobile, aware of Sam's confused expression and sent a twisted little smile at his brother before hooking the phone open and pressing it against his ear, gesturing for Sam to continue on.
Sam hesitated, his face still oddly turned up in confusion before his eyes rolled and he strolled away down the street towards the impala and it was only as the teenagers scattered that Dean realised he had been apprehensive, almost scared of a group of spotty kids, half his age and a quarter his size.
"Dean it's Ash."
Dean mumbled back a vague, distracted response.
"Dude, you okay?"
"Oh yeah, sorry, working." Dean fumbled a little awkwardly and pressed the mobile up closer against his head, "Alright, what have you got for me?"
"Harry James Potter; born 31st July, 1980 in Godric's Hollow, Wales. Both parents died less than a year later in suspicious circumstances at same home, their death was never investigated or resolved as far as I can see, it seems like someone erased it from any records and rather successfully. Your boy went to live with his aunt and her family. Petunia and Vernon Dursley and their young son Dudley."
Dean snorted "Dudley, what kind of name is Dudley?"
Ash gave a little sound of amusement as well but it sounded slightly off, tainted. "They were perfectly normal, nothing supernatural here what so ever." There was a pause, "I found some hospital records and a couple of reports from worried teachers but nothing was ever concluded."
"Huh, what?" Dean interrupted and there was another heavy pause that made Dean feel like he shouldn't have to ask and should have just known what Ash was talking about except he didn't.
"There was never a proper investigation, so I can't give you much. But a seven year doesn't usually end up in hospital suffering from dehydration and starvation twice in one summer." Ash gave a small sound of disgust before continuing, "There are a couple more hospital records; broken wrist, fractured collarbone, concussion. Anyway this continues until Harry is eleven, then it's like he disappears off the map. Never seen anything like this before, there is always a trail but here... zip. At least not until he appeared in the good old U.S nearly four years later," Ash paused and chuckled humourlessly, "You know he used to hang out at the roadhouse? A mad ass hunter that should have been dead from all the crazy shit people said he'd pulled. Then he disappears again three years ago and no one's seen or heard from him since. Last person to see him was some random religious nut from Ohio that the police found in Harry's apartment, claiming an angel had brought him there."
Dean sighed, "That's it?"
Ash huffed indignantly down the phone and there was a sound of rustling papers, "There isn't really much to tell and the stuff that might be interesting just doesn't exist. The man is damn good at disappearing and by that I mean literally disappearing. How does a fourteen year old kid get from England to central U.S without taking any form of transport?"
"Alien abduction," Dean stated dully into the phone and Ash hummed almost consideringly.
"There is one thing though," Ash said slowly and then hesitated, "Your dad was the first person to see him in America. I think they stayed in touch. They seemed pretty close, though it's hard to say; hard to get hold of anyone who would be able to say, you know?"
Dean's breath exhaled in one short sharp hiss of betrayal, Bobby had never mentioned his Dad knowing Harry as an adult. "Yeah I understand. Thanks Ash, if you hear anymore, let me know."
"Will do, Dude,"
And that was it, the conversation of Harry's entire life hadn't lasted more than five minutes and Dean wasn't much wiser; Harry's life was full of holes and spaces and dates that didn't add up or make much sense. But the kid was human at least and apparently had known his dad, though Dean couldn't say if that was good or bad thing.
Dean sighed and slumped off down the road to meet up with Sam, ready to get back to figuring out how a man could just drop dead of nothing.
--00—
It was ghost sickness and Dean had it.
Of course Dean had it, apparently only dicks and jerks got it and thinking back on some of the things he had done, Dean was fairly certain they warranted him for that title. But still... not fair.
Sighed he flopped back into the impala and cranked the volume up, hoping it would drown out the increasingly rapid beat of his heart.
"Okay" Sam said, his eyes wide and worried looking as he stood, hunching nervously over Dean, "Some cultures believe that certain spirits can infect the living with a disease, which is why they stopped displaying bodies in houses and started taking them off to funeral homes."
Dean huffed and sat up, tense with anticipation, "Alright but get to the good stuff."
"Symptoms are you get anxious..."
Dean gave a mockingly breathless "yeah," which was sadly not that mocking and just a little bit more real than he would like to admit.
"Then you get scared, then really scared and then you're heart gives out and you die." Sam rattled off and gave an apologetic shrug at Dean's horrified expression.
"But we haven't even seen a ghost in weeks." he argued, aware that his forehead was starting to crinkle up in worry and his heart was thumping against his ribs so hard it was almost painful.
"Well, I doubt you caught it from a ghost. Look, once a spirit infects that first person, Ghost sickness can spread like any sickness through a cough, a handshake, whatever. It's like the flu. Now, Frank O'Brien was the first to die, which means he was probably the first infected. Patient zero."
"Our own outbreak monkey." Dean sighed and then he snapped his head around to stare at Sam, his voice breaking anxiously "So what I've got 48 hours before I go insane and my heart stops?"
"Errr" Sam's mouth twisted up into one of those bent, wonky smiles that meant things weren't funny at all. "More like 24."
"Great... just great"
--00—
Castiel didn't even warn him of his approching presence with the sound of flapping wings this time, so there was no warning as Dean glanced over his shoulder to stare into large, heaven lit green eyes that loomed in his vision almost menacingly.
"Dean."
Dean was fairly certain it was him that released the answering scream. "Jesus Christ," he hissed and had to bend over and press his hands against his chest. "Now is really not the time to be surprising me."
"I apologise" Castiel said softly and if Dean didn't know any better he would have been sure the angel sounded almost amused.
"What do you want." He demanded and sank down back on the motel's lumpy sofa.
Harry's face tilted a little and Castiel's blank apathetic expression wavered into one of mild concern that was so subtle that Dean wasn't sure if it was the angel's or Harry's emotion. Either way he wasn't too fond of the idea of anyone pitying him and huffed a little in irritation, crossing his arms across his chest in a way that should have been intimidating but felt more defensive than anything and probably looked it too judging by the slight frown marring Harry's pale face.
"Do not worry,"
"Don't worry," Dean echoed hollowly and then his voice was crackling out of control with barely suppressed emotion, "I don't know if you missed the memo, but I'm pretty sure the whole point of ghost sickness is to worry."
Harry's green eyes were luminous with something Dean didn't quite understand and for a moment he thought the man was going to say something significent, his lips curled in a second of quivering, hesitant movement before he was snapping back to Castiel's blank, emotionally devoid facade.
"The cat will not hurt you."
Dean was still blinking in utter confusion when Castiel disappeared and it wasn't until later when he was running down the road away from a kitten in a locker that he understood what the angel had been trying to tell him.
He was starting to think maybe angels did have a sense of humour. A warped, evil sense of humour.
--00—
It was Sam who figured it out, of course, but by that point Dean was pretty much off his face; high on a mixture of fear and straight whiskey and he couldn't do much more than follow Sam as they went to the police station to find more about Frank and then to prison to talk to Luther's brother.
Frank, after his wife had gone missing, had decided that it was the fumbling, giant's Luther's fault and had wrapped a chain around the man's neck, hooked it to his truck and hauled the poor bastard up and down the road until he'd been more than dead. Even amidst a haze of smoke black fear, Dean felt himself wincing in sympathy for the man. Luther hadn't hurt anyone; the only thing the man had been guilty of was looking too big, too scary for the narrow minded masses.
"The woodchips you've been throwing up, the marks on your arms" Sam gestured with a pinched expression at Dean's torn up forearm, "You're experiencing Luther's death in slow motion."
Dean wobbled drunkenly on his feet and almost managed a grimace of dark humour, "Well not slow enough. Let's burn some bones and get me healthy."
"Dean it won't be that easy" Sam's voice was all hesitant whispers but it didn't stop Dean's heart from palpitating in, gut churning, nauseating fear. "Luther was road hauled. His body was ripped to pieces. He was probably scattered all over that road. There's no way we're gonna find all the remains."
"You're kidding me?" Dean's forehead wrinkled up again and Sam stared at him wide eyed with worry and pity, his hands reached out slowly as if he thought Dean was about to faint or something
"Look we'll find some other way."
Dean huffed and then suddenly stopped just next to the impala and gestured angrily at Sam, "You know what screw this. What are we doing?!"
"Whoa. What? Dean?" Sam was doing that hand thing again, edging closely and raising his hands, palms open wide in a gesture Dean didn't quite understand beneath the growing haze of fear. "We're hunting a ghost"
"A ghost, exactly! Who does that?" Dean stumbled a little, either alcohol or fear making his legs bend in unusual and muscle-less ways.
"Us." Sam answered blandly.
"Us? Right. And that Sam, that is exactly why our lives suck. I mean, come on, we hunt monsters! What the hell?!" Dean arms made a gesture that was similar to a windmill, but he pretended not to notice which was surprisingly easy, fear apparently made him good at being oblivious, "I mean, normal people, they see a monster, and they run. But not us, no, no, no, we -- we search out things that want to kill us. Yeah? Huh? Or eat us! You know who does that? Crazy people! We...are insane!"
Sam opened his mouth to speak but Dean waved to interrupt him and would have paced if he could have made his jelly legs move, instead he just stumbled a little and settled for shouting and waving his arms wildly for emphasis.
"And then there's the bad diner food and then the skeevy motel rooms and then that truck-stop waitress with the bizarre rash. I mean, who wants this life, Sam? Huh? Seriously? Do you actually like being stuck in a car with me eight hours a day, every single day? I don't think so! I mean, I drive too fast and I listen to the same five albums over and over and over again, and I sing along. I'm annoying, I know that. And you --you're gassy! You eat half a burrito, and you get toxic! I mean, you know what?" He tossed Sam the keys and stuck out a finger towards the point he thought was about level with his brother's chest, though it was only a guess because he couldn't see too well anymore. "You can forget it!"
Dean didn't listen for Sam's reply as he wobbled off down the street.
--00—
Dean only vaguely heard Sam explain to him his plan to save him.
He didn't hear Bobby's arrival at all.
The hallucinations had started and it was pretty much all down hill from there.
--00--
The hallucination progressed quickly.
Sam had explained then to him but it didn't really prepare Dean for the reality of it, it was the last leg of the ghost sickness rollercoaster he supposed and in a way he was almost relieved, or he would have been if he didn't know that what waited for him after death was a hell of a lot worse than anything the ghost sickness could come up with.
The hallucinations started off with clocks wavering and pictures moving but then it was Sam and Ruby. Sam with his freaky mojo powers and his eyes that swam like bright demon yellow light bulbs, full of evil and telling Dean how much he hated him and how he couldn't wait for him to go back to hell and leave him alone. Dean almost broke just from that.
He had lucid moments but they were disappearing in between the periods of intense, mind numbing fear and Dean found himself curled up, his muscles spasming with tension as he watched the clock tick away his remaining time, his fear leaving no hope that Sam and Bobby would be able to save him.
Waiting to die the second time was a hell of lot worse than the first, he thought bitterly.
"Hello Dean"
Dean clutched the motel bible against his face, clinging onto it and pressing his cheek into the leather even as a sound of panicked fear escaped through his lips. If there was one hallucination he hadn't wanted it was this.
Lilith's blonde child meat suit grinned almost innocently up at him and threw herself against him, wrapping tiny, seemingly fragile limbs around him in a mockery of love. "Oh I missed you so much" she mumbled into his back and then uncoiled herself to perch on the bed next to him, her dress too bright and too innocent for the dark expression that painted over her face in a movement too quick to register. "It's time to go back now"
Dean shuddered away from her, "You're not real" his voice wavered and his teeth rattled in skull. He was barely able to hear her reply over the sudden rush of blood that flooded his head.
"What's the matter Dean, don't you remember all the fun you had down there? You do remember. Four months is like forty years in hell. Like doggy years. And you remember every second" Lilith's voice was as high as a child but her words were full of knives and promises and she wavered in a blur of ballerina pink tulle and the bleached white of demon eyes , her face full of the promise of death.
His heart was suddenly laced with a thousand needles of pain and Dean could only grasp at chest as he stumbled to the floor, his muscles spasming and his knees buckling.
The room disappeared for a moment in a spinning whirl of colour that was threaded with the black of unconsciousness and Dean felt himself sprawl gracelessly in a painful lump onto the floor, his heart thumping and shuddering in warning.
"Dean"
Lilith's face was peering down at him, her bleached eyes washed green for a moment before flashing back to the stark high-demon white he remembered. "Dean, this isn't real" she said with the same, threatening, hollow tone and sank down next to him, her skirts unfurling in a puff of smoky-lace around her.
"Not real" Dean mouthed back and shuddered as she reached out towards him, her hands calloused and oddly large as they held him face.
"Dean it's me, she's not here. Look at me properly."
The edges of Lilith's face seemed to suddenly become liquid and her hair was drenched in a sharp sweeping cloak of shadow. The transformation continued until Dean was able to make out Harry's familiar sharp cheekbones and his dark curls that bobbed over the wide, melted emerald of his eyes.
Dean had never been so grateful to see the colour green in his life.
"Cas?" he gasped and Harry's lips curled up slightly, in a surprisingly soft expression that made the boy's face seem full of hazy golden light. His eyelashes fanned out in a dark curl of feathers that brushed across his cheeks as he stared down at Dean with eyes were full of stars and sunlight and angelic protection.
"I'm watching over you," Castiel murmured gently and Dean was surprised to feel Harry's hand running with almost hesitant tenderness through the short spikes of his hair. "No harm shall come to you while we are here."
"I'm dying." Dean croaked and shuddered as Harry reposition him, lifting him until his head was rested on the soft material of Harry's threadbare jeans. His heart pounded a little at his sudden confession as if by voicing his worries it made it more real and Dean found Harry's face wavering a little, the bright, sun lit green of his eyes fading.
"You will not die." Castiel responded with familiar heavenly conviction and pressed his hand on the handprint scar that was curled up across Dean's shoulder. A spark of electricity ran through Harry's hand and made the tender scar dance with feeling. "I have dragged you out of hell once, we will not let you go again,"
Dean couldn't remember anything that had ever made him feel as safe as the shock that passed through his angel scar and grasped awkwardly at Harry's shirt, hating himself for what he was about to ask. "Please, please don't leave me alone."
"We will not leave you alone."
Dean shuddered in Harry's hands, feeling his muscles give a painful spasm once again and when he tried to speak his voice was a painful dry whisper, "We?"
"Me and Castiel."
--00—
Bobby and Sam had raced back to the motel after exorcising Luther's ghost.
It had been so close and they had needed to make sure Dean was okay. He had been hallucinating something awful when they had left, unable to see them and fighting against something, begging and clawing at hands that weren't really there to fight.
It made Sam physically sick to his usually strong brother so weak. Dean was in a way indestructible to him and lately, watching his older brother with his nightmares and his almost obsessive drinking had been a constant tearing down of all those illusions he had built up. In a way Sam didn't want to face them, preferring to ignore it all.
But this was too close and it was with his heart pressed in a lump of unmoving rock against his ribs that he fumbled his way into the motel room, Bobby's hand; a comforting warmth on his shoulder.
"Dean?"
"He is asleep."
Castiel was sat stiffly in the middle of the floor, a sprawled and unconscious Dean half curled across his lap, his brother's hands fisted almost desperately into the thin material of Harry's shirt. Harry's bright, back lit eyes glanced up and stared at them unblinkingly and Sam felt more than heard Bobby's hiss of breath and probably answered with one of his own, though he was sure they were caused by different things.
"What..." Sam trailed off and frowned at what was quite possibly one of the oddest sights he'd ever seen. "Is he okay?"
There was a moment of hesitation, Sam could see it in the slight twitch that the muscles of Harry's neck made but when the angel spoke it was with heaven's apathetic certainty. "He will be well when he wakes up."
Castiel was like a stiff doll as tried to escape from Dean's sleepily possessive grip but his thin hands were oddly gently as he unfurled Dean's tense fingers.
"Why are you here?" Sam asked quietly, his brow furrowed in nervous hesitation, Ruby's words about Harry still echoing around his ears.
"I promised we would not leave him alone" Castiel answered simply and disappeared in a hollow flutter of wings.
Sam didn't mention anything to Dean when he woke up though, from the way Dean's hand twitched to reach out to something as he swam back to consciousness, he didn't think he needed to.
But he had to wonder when Castiel had gotten so human.
A lot of people mentioned that Ash was dead. Well it was never specifically stated that Ash was dead, only implied and I've heard he shall be returning to the supernatural world so I'm really just ahead of Canon. If not, I don't care, I love Ash almost as much as Bobby.
Yellow Fever is one of my favourite supernatural episodes, if you haven't seen it go and watch it, it's hilliarous. That scream is pure win; you know the one I'm talking about.
Next chapter:- It's the great pumpkin Sam Winchester - John finally returns.
Reviews are always wanted and will be loved and looked after.