Voices
He can hear her.
Somewhere beneath and between his own screams and Lucifer's annoying taunting and endless crackle of fire, he hears her. He's not even sure who she is, at this point, but he knows she's with him more often than not, and that when she's speaking he feels the closest thing to peace he's found in this nightmare. It's her voice that keeps him tethered...keeps him from falling too far into despair and desperation and into the chaos of his head.
This is important, he thinks, but he can never seem to break away from himself long enough to focus on it and and tell her. He wonders, sometimes, why she stays when he's so obviously lost. He knows that he's inside himself—in his own head—but that doesn't seem to make the pain any less real. When Lucifer cuts him, he bleeds; when fire dances on his skin, it blisters and peels—charcoal black—away from his bones until he is nothing more than a screaming mass of remains. He knows it's not real but he still can't break away. He still can't shake the devil on his shoulder—in his blood.
But her voice soothes. Keeps him from drifting completely into insanity. Somewhere, deep down, he thinks he should find this odd. But he doesn't.
"My word, does she ever stop talking?" Lucifer is picking his teeth with a bloody knife and raises a brow expectantly. "Makes me want to rip her tongue out."
Castiel edges away with his hands pressed to the fresh wounds on his stomach. He ignores his brother and instead cocks his head, hoping to catch her voice again. He does, but it's scattered words that make very little sense. Something about fruity summer drinks...
She's reading one of those supermarket magazines, he realizes and almost smiles. He catches himself, but it's too late. Lucifer has sensed his shift and will punish him for it.
His skin is ribbons and he begins screaming just as she starts reading about great party appetizers.
Meg lets out her breath, her voice gone tired. She shifts in her seat, her dark eyes watching the man in the bed. He hasn't moved in over three hours. His head is turned on his pillow, his gaze wide open and fixed. He's looking directly at her, but she knows he doesn't see her. She wonders what he does see...
She's been to Hell. She's tasted the blood and the fear and the horrors of it. More times than she cares to count, and as much as she wishes this fate on her enemies, she can't seem to find it in her to want this for him.
He's the only thing that can protect her from Crowley, long term, she tells herself. It's a lie. She knows it, but she wills it down. There's no sense in it and it's completely suicidal for her to let her guard down around an Angel of all things.
He would smite her, she reminds herself. Without so much as a blink, if Dean asked him to. She would be a fool to ever, ever, forget that. And although she was many things, fool wasn't on that list and she's not eager to add it.
If she was smart, she'd lean over his bed and slip the Angel blade she still carries between his ribs. Instead, she finds herself leaning over him to smooth his hair and adjust his pillow. "Snap out of it," she says with a small huff. "You're making us both pathetic."
Behind her the door opens and Meg can smell the menthol cigarettes that Donnie the orderly always smokes on his break. "Hey," he greets with a delicate throat clearing. He's small and balding and has a skin condition. She makes him nervous, she knows, and she's perfectly okay with that.
She turns with an arched brow and an impatient toe tap. "Yes?"
"There's two detectives here to see you." He glances over her shoulder. "About him."
Meg nods. About damn time the boys showed up. "Sure. Send them in."
"We weren't asking permission, Ma'am," another voice came from the hall.
Not the Winchesters.
Shit.