Title: Under the Influence of Djinn
Chapter: Nine
Summary: AU: The Djinn siblings created a terrible detailed nightmare for Dean out of revenge, nearly killing him, Lisa, and Ben. With Sam alive, Castiel missing, and Campbell cousins in tow, he tries to pull himself back together.
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Supernatural was created by Eric Kripke. No disrespect in intended with this work of fan fiction.
He was behaving strangely. Jo hadn't really known Castiel before and even she knew this was strange for him.
"Please tell me you can use a knife and fork," she said, having visions in her head of having to teach him the most basic stuff. Hopefully Dean had already covered a lot of that ground. She'd hate to have to go over such stuff as hygiene and using a bathroom. It'd be humiliating for him and uncomfortable for her.
He was scrutinizing the knife and fork, holding them carefully in his hands. "Of course I can. Jimmy's muscle memory ensures that I am proficient at using both these utensils." He proved how proficient he was by trying to spear the meat twice before hitting it. A dull flush colored his cheekbones. "It appears that I'm slightly out of practice."
"Maybe you should let me cut it for you?"
"I can do it."
She watched him perform that task, his tongue caught between his teeth, and a look of extreme concentration in his eyes. "Sure. We'll finish here, then get you some clothes."
"Fine."
Jo dunked a chicken strip in honey mustard and ate it while considering what she'd learned about him thus far. Maybe she should just ask what his level of experience with human things was. It'd be easier than making a stab in the dark about what he did or didn't know. "Do you know basic things about living as a human? Showering, brushing your teeth, those sort of basics?"
His attention raised long enough for her to see the uncomfortable gleam in his eyes. "Dean went over showering and other, what he called private, matters. He included a lecture on 'alone time' in his talks on necessary skills."
"Alone time?"
Castiel glanced around the restaurant and leaned across the table slightly, voice lowering. "Self gratification, Jo."
A slight heat flared up on her cheeks. "Oh. That sort of alone time. Okay then." She looked down at her plate and picked up another chicken strip.
"There are other kinds of alone time?" There was a touch of panic in his voice.
Looking back up, she found him watching her with wide eyes and nodded. "Sure. You can spend time alone without doing that."
"Dean never said there were variations in the meaning."
"Depends on the person. Dean may well have had only the one meaning for that phrase."
"But when you have alone time -"
"Castiel, this isn't really the sort of conversation you have in a public place."
"Oh. I apologize. We'll discuss the meanings of 'alone time' later."
She could practically see him mentally putting that into a column of appropriate conversational topics. "Yeah…."
He returned to his food, eating slowly. He wasn't even halfway done by the time she'd finished her own plate of food. Every so often he'd sit without moving, a hand pressed to his stomach or fingers rubbing between his eyes, a pained grimace on his face.
"Stomach troubles? Head troubles?" She sipped her coffee, making mental additions to her shopping list. It looked like they needed Tums or some other antacid, both tablet and liquid forms, and maybe acetaminophen in addition to the ibuprofen she'd already bought.
"I'm fine."
"Uh-huh." He totally wasn't fine. Jo turned her attention to the restaurant, checking out the people in there with them. Two men in suits a few tables down were watching them, staring rather rudely. Jo scowled at them. They looked at each other, then down at their table. She gestured at them. "Friends of yours? They've been watching us since we got here."
Castiel glanced their way and grimaced again. "Jo, I confess that I lied to you. I feel sick to my stomach. I might vomit."
Not a good thing to do in a restaurant. She reached for the wallet in her bag. "Think you can make it back to the room?"
"I believe so."
"Go on, I'll be right behind you after I pay."
The two men followed them out of the restaurant and if Jo hadn't been sure they were angels on watch before, she was now. They had that emotionless air about them that Dean had mentioned that day at Bobby's house. Plus, the whole following thing.
Once the door of their room was closed, shutting the two out, she felt better.
Castiel made a beeline for the bathroom and she waited for the telltale sound of puking. It didn't happen, though it sounded like he wanted it to from the moans and groans.
"Don't fight it, it makes it worse. Just let it come up. You'll feel better." That was what Ellen had always told her.
"I dislike vomiting."
"Right there with you. Sometimes you've gotta."
Slowly, she parted the curtain and peered outside. "Our two stalkers are right outside staring at our room."
"Huh?"
"The two men from the restaurant. The ones that were staring at us. They followed us here and are staring at our room."
"Raphael's goons. Maybe."
Her lips curled in sympathy as he made a sobbing noise. "Don't fight it, Cas."
"I'm not. Nothing comes up."
Releasing the curtain, she went to the bathroom door and peered in. He sat back against the wall, groaning again, his eyes closing. "I don't know what's wrong. The light hurts my eyes, Jo, and every noise makes my head feel like it's going to explode."
"Aww, hell." It was the mention of noise and light that suddenly clued her in to what the problem probably was. "Come on, let's get you up and on the bed." She crouched to help him up, keeping her voice nearly a whisper. "You lie down, put one of the sleep masks on, and just lay there until I get back. I'll try not to be long."
"What's wrong with me? Am I dying now?"
The question was so earnest, that she cupped his cheek gently. "No, sweetheart. You have a migraine headache, probably from how long it's been since your body had any food, but it could be other things. We can figure out any triggers for them later." As she helped him up, she continued, "Welcome to a fun part of being human. My mom got migraines sometimes, but hers weren't this bad. A strong cup of coffee usually did the trick for her. Somehow, I suspect you need more than that. I'll be back soon, okay?"
She returned as fast as she could, opened the bottle of migraine pills, and shook out two. He'd taken her advice and was lying down with one eye mask on. Jo got a glass of water and sat on the bedside. "Castiel? Here. Take these. You should feel better after awhile."
He sat up, removed the mask, and took them. When he'd finished the water, he handed her the glass. "Thank you. I wouldn't have known what this was or what to do."
A long sigh left her. "I know. This is what I'm apparently here for, right?"
"I…." He nodded. "Yes, I suppose so."
Jo picked up the book she'd been reading earlier. "I'll stay for awhile, then I'm going to finish our shopping. Let me know if you need anything."
Looking back, she wondered if his temper tantrum had been from the migraine beginning to form or something else. The next days or weeks were definitely going to be interesting.
"We need a plan of action." Dean reached for another beer and opened it. "We can't stay here all the time." Bobby would kill them if they did, especially with three other people hanging around.
"What do you want to do, Dean?" Sam swirled the dregs of his beer in his bottle.
There was temptation to tell him they were taking a vacation and, while that would be nice, their vacations were never real vacations. There was always something that popped up wherever they were. Besides, taking off for fun in the sun somewhere wouldn't get him over his trust issues with the cousins.
He considered all possible actions at present and couldn't see any way around it. They'd have to go out hunting as one big group. With his own reluctance to hunt, it'd be a detriment to Sam if it was just the two of them, so perhaps it would work as a group. He could watch the Campbells, try to get it into his head that they were different in reality, and they, in turn, could watch him. "Have Mark see what's out and about, try to catch something interesting."
"You sure? That'd mean trusting them to have your back."
"If they really do have my back, I might decide to trust them."
Maybe the best thing to do would be to try to get back to work. He needed something to take his mind off of everything and killing something evil should help with that. Briefly, he wondered if they could trap Crowley and Meg in a devil's trap and let them have it out. It'd take care of two birds with one stone, but he couldn't figure out the best way to do that. A basic hunt would have to do and a basic hunt meant going out with Gwen, Christian, and Mark.
Trust was definitely going to be a problem, especially if they were going to be hunting as a group. He simply didn't trust the cousins. Dean would admit that he was leaning towards trusting Gwen, was reserving judgment for Mark for when he actually did anything except research cases, but Christian was the one who still got his hackles rising.
He thought about the man. Pieces of the story Christian had given didn't sit right in Dean's gut. He considered the years it took to become a doctor and build a career and then the man's background. Dean had a hunch the hunting community hadn't let Christian go, not when a good doctor was a smart person to know. There were too few doctors available to hunters.
As he returned to the house, Dean decided to have a chat with Christian about what he did and didn't know about the current trend in hunting: namely the lynch mob Sam claimed was coming for them. If that part went well, he'd delve into the matter of the story.
Mark wasn't in any of the lower rooms that Dean saw. Perfect time to talk to Christian. He approached him, not bothering to beat around the bush. "What do you know about a lynch mob of hunters out to kill me and Sam?"
Christian looked up from Bobby's book with a distracted frown. "Excuse me?"
"Lynch mob, Christian?"
His glance slid to the windows. "Where?"
Dean suppressed a sigh, waiting while Christian marked his place in the book. "Sam's been through our contact lists. Most are either dead, not picking up, or want us dead. I know your contact lists have been depleted, too. Now, out of the three of you, I think you're the one who'd know something."
Christian shifted in his chair. "Me?" He set the book aside.
"Mm-hmm. See, Mark is too wrapped up in his pain to care about much of anything. He works to escape, but he's not one to talk to anyone but you, Gwen, and Sam. He defers to you and Gwen on people to contact and keeps to himself. As for Gwen, she's got her shiny search in her mind. She's focused on that. She's hinted that you three are sort of outside regular channels, sort of like Sam and I were when we first started looking for our dad."
He shrugged, lacing his fingers together across his stomach. "Sure. None of that's a secret. We don't have a lot of contacts these days. Having been out of the life -"
"Don't. Don't you lie to me. Not like you lied to them. You were never out of the life, Christian." That hunch paid off.
His head tilted back as if Dean had struck him. "Dean. You don't know what you're saying." Christian sat forward in the chair, looking towards the stairs, then the direction of the outer doors.
"I think I do. This, it makes sense. You're a doctor. A kid's doc, but still a doc. I'm betting a lot of people you grew up knowing in the community knew it too. No way they're letting a good doctor go. Any doctor for that matter. They came to you and it only looked like you'd left. I'm also betting it wasn't anything random or related to the apocalypse that killed your pregnant wife, was it? You just let Sam draw that conclusion."
"Dean, let me -"
"You moved around from city to city, practice to practice, barely long enough to have any sort of career." As he put his theory forward, he could see that he was right. It was all over Christian's face. "You didn't leave that last place fast enough. Something caught up with you and it just coincided with the apocalypse. They paid the price."
"I took an oath. Regular person or hunter, kid or adult, I took an oath to save lives. I couldn't turn away anyone and, for the record, my wife didn't want me to. She supported that decision and when that thing came for us she went out fighting with everything she had in her." Licking his lips, he shook his head. "What is it you're asking here? What's your overall question? Is it about a lynch mob or something else? Do you want to know if I want you dead? If I did, you'd be dead. A man's got to sleep. I don't play around. I do my job, but I gotta say, I don't kill hunters unless they've gone off the deep end and are, I don't know, killing innocent people."
"Good to know."
"Even then, killing them is a last resort. It's not how I work and I don't know what your beef is with me since I never met you before Sam brought us to you."
"Maybe I just don't like you."
"Maybe, but that begs the question of why, due to us never having met. Not to mention you haven't exactly wanted to chat much."
"Personality conflict."
"Sure. That might be true." Christian nodded. "How did the Djinn portray me, Dean?"
He looked away, then back. "That what you think?"
"It is. Not hard to figure out. Some of the things you've said. Way you act, like you know us without knowing us and are wrong every time. See? You're not the only one who can put things together. So? What kind of man was I?"
"Complete dick. Confrontational. Judgmental. Angry. Possessed." Dean crossed his arms.
Christian rolled up his shirtsleeve, exposing his tattoo. "Knocks that part out. I got this before I went into medical school. No way I wanted a demon getting in me when I was going to have patients to look out for." Tapping a foot on the floor, he continued, "I won't deny sometimes being all those things you mentioned except possessed. Can you deny it yourself? Or are you the one special snowflake on this earth who never gets angry, judgmental, confrontational and completely dick-like? The truth now, Dean."
"Oh, I admit I can be that way."
"Then maybe you and I've got more in common than you think."
"Doubtful. How about we discuss that mob?"
"You want to talk the community? I can tell you it's not as big as it was. There's always new hunters and ones not even aware there's a network in addition to the old hats and sure, a lot of people know your names, though I believe plenty more don't and don't care. You and Sam may have done some things that led to certain global consequences, but factoring everything in, from the newbies to the out of network guys and so on, I'd say there's only a small group of hunters that'd just as soon see you in a dirt bath."
Dean considered that. Was Christian right? Was Sam's perspective of the situation skewed to one side and he was upset over nothing?
"Has Mr. Singer said anything to you about it?"
"No." He hadn't asked about it either. Sam had only just mentioned it.
"He seems to be fairly plugged in to the community, a lot more than me. If he hasn't said anything -"
"I trust Sam's judgment."
"So do I, but he had that nasty run-in with Walt and Roy something or other. It'll likely color his view for awhile. Look, maybe you should have Mr. Singer make some discreet queries. See what he can dig up. I can make a few calls too, if you like."
"Up to you." If Bobby didn't find anything, maybe it was nothing. Still, he didn't want to discount Sam's findings. The mob Sam thought was already formed may be merely beginning to form.
"Up to me," he repeated. "No, Dean, it's up to you. Do you want me to make calls?"
"Fine. Do it."
"As for my circumstances," Christian's voice lowered further, "You're right. Gwen believed I'd gotten out and hell, she needed to think someone else had made some kind of life, too. She needed to believe we had that in common." One shoulder shrugged. "Gwennie always was my favorite cousin. She acts strong now, but man…. She was a mess when I met up with her. Hysterical, angry, lashing out at everything and everyone. I did and said what was necessary to get her on her feet and moving."
"Oh, you're a saint."
"Nowhere near and you know it. The moving around part, though…. About me? Well, that's wrong. We pretty much stayed in one place, like Mr. Singer here. I did well enough and not too well in my studies, had to keep from getting anything other than average attention in my field. I did have a good life there." He picked the book back up. "My wife was a hunter. We'd known each other for years, played together when we were kids. She knew the risks and I…. I have no regrets about our life, though I miss her every day." He opened the book and looked down at it. "And maybe, possibly, I needed Gwen as much as she needed me. Let me know when you're ready to hunt something."
He'd told Gwen he'd talk to Christian and Mark and, with one talk down, Dean found he didn't really want to try talking to Mark yet. He needed time to process what he'd learned about Christian.