Title: Under the Influence of Djinn
Chapter: Seventeen
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.
Thus far, this reunion with Castiel hadn't been what Sam had expected. Sure, he'd expected Castiel to suddenly appear, but not to knock on the motel room door, have Jo Harvelle with him, and claim to be human.
Jo.
Man.
The words she'd said, a reference back to when he'd been possessed by Meg, had never been so true, for he hadn't thought they'd ever see her again. At least not on earth. She really was about the last person they'd expected to see. For a woman who'd been dead, she looked good. Whatever the archangel's true intentions in the end, Raphael had at least made sure Jo was whole. Except for the memory thing and he could relate on that.
He took Castiel through the connecting door to both introduce him to the cousins and give Jo and Dean some privacy. The two had things that needed to be said between them. Whether or not they'd say them was on them. They couldn't claim that Sam hadn't given them the chance.
Mark was watching tv, Christian reading, and Gwen playing solitaire at the table. Gwen noticed them first.
"Well, hello. If it isn't the random hottie from the parking lot. Sam, are you bringing me presents?" She gathered the cards and began to shuffle the deck.
"Not exactly. Guys, this is Castiel."
The cards in Gwen's hands sprayed all over the table and floor, her grin fading. "The angel? Tell me you don't mean the angel."
Christian's laugh was like a cackle. "You would try to pick up an angel in the parking lot."
Mark muted the tv. "Hey, I'm Mark." He lifted a hand in a wave. He was back wearing that brace he found uncomfortable and Sam knew he was in fairly constant pain. His back simply wasn't healing, especially since he wouldn't follow Christian's directions. He sort of reminded Sam of Dean on that topic.
"Mark. Nice to meet you." Castiel nodded in his direction.
"I didn't know," Gwen protested. "How was I supposed to know that the hot guy a couple cars down was -"
"Was is the operative word," Castiel interjected as he stepped towards the table. Sam would swear there was a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "I haven't been an angel in approximately three months, give or take a week. The days have blurred together somewhat. I'm rather human these days, with human ways." Leaning over, he lifted Gwen's right hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you again, Gwen." He kissed the back of her hand and Sam heard her let out a tiny, pleased sigh.
Sam raised his brows, suddenly recognizing the tone of voice Castiel was using as a version of Dean's flirtatious sultry voice. He choked back a laugh.
"Likewise." Gwen leaned towards Castiel, her other hand sliding the deck of cards off to one side. "Nice to have a name for the face."
"You may call me 'Cas'."
"Cas."
"Gwen."
Right when Gwen's grin started to go really goofy, to the extent that it would get her teased a lot later by everyone, Christian snorted, tossed his book aside, and swung his legs over the bedside. "I'm Christian. Christian Campbell. We're all three Campbell."
Castiel released Gwen's hand, his attention shifting fast to Christian, then Sam. "Campbell. Your mother's family? Am I correct?"
"Yes," Sam confirmed. "They're cousins. Meg somehow missed them when she tried to wipe out all of mom's contact list."
"Distant and I doubt she even knew about us. You're mom that is." Mark turned the sound back on, but lowered it. "Our branches weren't exactly big on keeping in touch with the rest."
"Gwen and Dean went through the genealogy." Christian squinted at Castiel, a glimmer of interest in his eyes. "How do you know you're not an angel?"
"Why do you wish to know the specifics?" Castiel slipped his hands into his pockets.
It was odd to see Castiel in something besides the suit and coat, but he did look at ease in the clothes, like he'd gotten used to wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.
Mark shifted position, waving the remote in a vague way at Christian. "He's a doctor."
As if that was all the explanation needed.
It was for Castiel. He stood up even straighter, quite a feat since his posture was stiffly correct already. "Oh. I will, of course, consent to a physical examination should it be necessary."
Christian half laughed and pointed at him while glancing at Sam. "He for real?"
"He is."
He patted the bedside. "Come on over here, man. Let's have us a chat about your newly human condition and the bodily aspects of that change."
"There are more than simple bodily changes involved."
"Do tell. I mean that. Tell in detail."
Sam would have joined him with Christian had not Gwen grasped his shirt and tugged him to the table.
"Info," she demanded.
"Not much to tell." He dislodged her grip on his shirt and sat. "He showed up about, I don't know, about half an hour to forty minutes ago and had Jo with him."
"Jo. Who is Jo? He had two women with him in the parking lot. I assumed at the time he was having a threesome, but that's obviously the wrong conclusion, him having been an angel and all."
"Jo Harvelle. She and her mom were with us in Carthage." He'd told them about Carthage, but not much in the way of real details, just that two friends had died and they'd learned the Colt didn't work on Lucifer.
"Carthage was where…." She picked the deck of cards back up and started shuffling them again. "They died, right? They're the friends you mentioned. But she's back and the second woman wasn't old enough to be her mother."
"Ellen isn't here. It's just Jo. Raphael raised her to baby sit Castiel."
"Who is the other woman then?"
"That would be Daphne, Castiel's girlfriend." Castiel with a girlfriend. That was kind of a trippy thought. Sam wouldn't believe it except Jo had confirmed it and Cas had certainly seemed at ease with Daphne for those few moments she'd been in the room.
"Hmm. Girlfriend, huh? Well if he has a girlfriend, then why was he flirting with me?"
Good question. Why had Castiel flirted with Gwen? "I don't know. Maybe Jo could answer that question unless you want to ask him straight up. He'll answer. At least I think he will. Not like he can zap out of here and avoid it." A thing that had driven Dean nuts. Castiel would disappear whenever he didn't want to answer a question. Sam wondered how that was going to work now. Would Castiel try to walk away when he didn't want to answer something Dean wanted to know? Good luck. Dean would follow him. Sam almost couldn't wait to watch it play out the next time. Knowing both of them it'd be soon.
"I think I'll be talking to Jo later." She began to lay out the cards in a line for another game of solitaire.
Within half an hour, Castiel glanced down at his watch. Funny to see him actually using it. He stood. "I'm missing Psych. I haven't seen the end of the episode that's on at the moment. I need to watch it." Before Sam could stop him, he opened the door between the rooms and joined Dean and Jo.
Once the episode was over, Dean got up and reached for his jacket. He and Jo still needed to chat. "Come on, Jo. Let's get coffee." Castiel stood as well and Dean shook his head. "Not you. You stay here with Sam. Jo and I need to have a private discussion."
"Very well." Annoyance and hurt swam together in Castiel's eyes.
"You and me, we'll talk later. I'll want more details about that fight with Raphael."
The hurt eased. "What else can I tell about it? She kicked my ass here and back again, then continued for months."
Castiel's casual use of the phrase 'kicked my ass' surprised him. He even said it like he'd said it before. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Castiel was supposed to still be an angel and this situation felt very wrong to Dean. "I have questions." He planned to grill him fully on any details, such as if Crowley was involved.
"Understandable. I'll answer them to the best of my ability." At least he was still mostly talking like he usually did.
It took awhile to find a suitable restaurant for their chat and, finally seated in a back booth, with both pie and coffee, Dean said, "What happened after you woke up, Jo?" He probably shouldn't have another piece of pie, but damn it, it had been a stressful evening. He deserved another piece.
In the back of his mind, he wondered if he would have gone to Jo and Ellen instead of Lisa had the two been alive then, and if Sam would have told him to go to them and not her. They would have welcomed him with open arms and taken a break from hunting to mourn with Sam. They would have understood everything.
But they hadn't been alive and Lisa's house had been the only non-hunting refuge left for him in the world. It had been the only place he could even begin to try to heal.
Jo was here now, though.
He wanted to stare at Jo and study her for hours, making sure she was real and this wasn't a Djinn retaliation somehow.
She cut a piece of cherry pie with her fork, then mashed it into the drips of vanilla ice cream. "Woke up in a decent motel room, one nicer than we all usually get. Castiel was there on the bed and it was like he was comatose except he occasionally rolled over and snored. He slept and slept. I didn't think he was going to wake up, to be honest. I was afraid I'd be stuck there not knowing what was going on." She took a tiny taste of the bite she'd cut. "A few days later he woke up and insulted me a few times. He'd really wanted mom with him, but got me instead. Parting shot from Raphael, I guess. Anyway, we started muddling through the whole human thing."
"Is he?" Dean tried his own pie. It was better than the piece Gwen and Christian had brought back earlier.
She snorted. "Hell if I know. When we escaped, I made sure he was out of range of that sigil just in case he was still even faintly angelic. He insisted he wasn't, but we just don't know. We're still figuring things out."
"What have you figured out?" He reached for his coffee. It, too, was good.
"He has some pretty good gut instincts, too good sometimes to be just instincts. Like coming here. He insisted up and down we had to be here, argued over and over, and manipulated me into going along with it."
"How'd he do that?"
"Started guilt tripping me by saying that if they went and died it'd be on my conscience."
"Effective tactic."
"Uh-huh. You'd think he'd studied that under my mother. He was right, too. We had to be here because you're here and we've been looking for you." She started mashing the rest of the pie into the melting ice cream. "When he gets hurt, he heals faster than he should, yet not angelic fast. I don't think he's human or angel. A blend of the two maybe? Who knows? It's weird, because it's like he's been growing up double time, going through these stages of emotional growth. I can see him maturing more every day. Childish outbursts led to more rational reactions led to the recent hormonal explosion. Hence the girlfriend issue. Frankly, I don't want to deal with that any more than I have already. He asks so many freakin' questions."
"He shouldn't have had to. I told him a lot."
"Yeah, well, he wanted a woman's perspective on sex and relationships." The pie completely mashed in with the ice cream, she reached for her spoon. "He's matured fast in three months, developed a weird sense of humor, and honestly, I think he's using you as his idea of how a human male should be."
"Me?" He pointed at himself, though her idea did make sense considering the former influence he'd had on Castiel.
"Yup, you're his role model." She smiled and picked up her coffee cup. "Has to be you. He's been using cheesy lines, flirting with pretty much every woman he sees, trying to become a cheeseburger connoisseur, and drinks the same brand of beer you like."
"You know what brand of beer I like?"
"Oh, yeah. Mom taught me to notice details like that."
She knew what beer he liked. That she'd noticed and memorized it pleased him. "Huh. And I don't even know your favorite beer. I know you like sweet frou-frou drinks and can do shots almost as well as Ellen."
"Could do shots. Haven't done many since waking up and I don't have a real preference in beer right now. I've been picking up whatever is on sale wherever we are."
They worked on their pie in silence a moment. It was good to be sitting and chatting with her. Dean felt himself relaxing more and more as the minutes passed. One thing nagged at him from what she'd said, however.
"What do you mean, he's using me as a role model? Why not use Jimmy, his vessel?"
"Maybe because Jimmy isn't there and hasn't been since he was raised back at that cemetery. Could be Jimmy's memories left with him. He never told me if they did or not."
"What do you mean he isn't there? He's supposed to be. It's an angel-vessel rule. They need consent while the demons, the supposed bad guys, don't. Good cop, bad cop. Relatively."
"I mean what I said. He told me when he came back with all that extra power that Jimmy wasn't there with him."
What did that mean, because Castiel had definitely been an angel then. "I'll ask Cas about it." Did Castiel know what had happened to Jimmy Novak? Had God sent Jimmy on to heaven? If so, then how had Cas still been an angel? It was a rule that the soul had to be there.
Dean began to wonder if Raphael taking Castiel's powers was really the reason for what was happening to him now or if it was some natural progression that had begun with Jimmy being released. Had he been turning into something else entirely since that resurrection in the cemetery? If so, then what exactly was he turning into? Maybe Jo's assessment wasn't that far off the mark.
She poured some fresh coffee from the carafe into both their cups. "Why don't you tell me what's been going on with you since Carthage? Cas filled me in about the end of the apocalypse, but he only gave me his perspective about what happened. I'd like to hear it from you - and anything about the past year that you feel like sharing."
As he spoke, Jo finished the pie and put her plate at the edge of the table. She was a good listener, knowing when to ask for clarification and when to let a topic go. Dean remembered that she'd always had a knack for reading him and he ended up telling her far more than he'd planned.
"Lisa sounds nice. There aren't many who'd take in one of us like that, especially the state you say you were in."
He nodded. "She was nice. Is. She did her best to keep me together and help me heal, but you know me. I can't do anything easy. I'm still amazed she didn't kick my ass out."
"I'm glad you had somewhere to go that was away from the life. Losing Sam like that…. But he's here and he's alive. Geez. We all are." She shook her head. "We should change our names to 'Lazarus'." One hand reached over, plucking the menu from behind the jelly caddy.
"I just wish he'd had his memory when he woke up and whoever pulled him up had brought him to me." If it was God, then why had he kept them apart? "I spent a year trying to figure out how to get him out and he was out the whole time."
"Maybe there was a reason and you just don't know it yet," she suggested, flipping open the menu.
"Sucky thing to do whatever the reason."
"Sure was." Her tongue slipped out, slowly wetting her lips as she studied the menu. "I haven't had chili cheese fries in forever."
"Have some. What reason could there possibly be to keep us apart?"
"Not sure. You know, my mother banned me from getting chili cheese fries? I get heartburn from the chili, always have, but man, I love them."
"You can't eat chili, Jo?"
She grinned. "Bet that's something you never would have guessed about me. Nope. Can't eat it. Heartburn city. It's funny, because I can eat the ingredients separately, yet put them together and it's pure misery." She laid the menu on the table and tapped her finger on the picture. He noticed her nails were painted a pale pink. "I still want them."
Dean shrugged a brow at her. "Ellen's not here, is she?"
"Nope."
"You're over eighteen. Hell, you're over twenty-one. You're definitely an adult. Can you live with the heartburn?"
"If we can stop at CVS or Walgreen's and get me something for it I can."
"Then let's get us some chili cheese fries."
They shared a plate of them, continuing their conversation and falling into their old teasing relationship as if no time had passed at all.
He ate the last fry, washed it down with the last of his coffee, and asked, "so, what are your plans?"
"Don't know. Get Castiel fully on his feet?"
"No, not Cas. I mean you, Jo. What are your plans?"
Fear and uncertainty swam in her eyes and he'd never seen Jo look so lost. It tugged at his heart to see that same expression in her eyes that he'd seen on his face every morning during that year without Sam.
She shrugged. "Honestly, Dean…. I have no idea." Her voice reflected that expression.
Oh crap, he thought. If Jo was in that state, the hunting world was really in the crapper, for she'd never wavered in her conviction that hunting was necessary and her calling in life. Here she was alive again, so why was she wavering? And what could he do to change that?
Talking with Dean had been a sort of catharsis, Jo realized upon returning to the motel. She felt drained and more tired than she should, yet lighter emotionally to have shared everything with him.
Meeting the cousins had been interesting and she looked forward to getting to know them later, after a good night of sleep. She covered a yawn with one hand. Was it too soon to bow out and go to bed?
Gwen approached and leaned against the dresser next to Jo. "He's cute." She jerked her chin up in Castiel's direction.
"Who, Cas?" Jo stared at her.
"Uh-huh. He's yummy. A blue-eyed treat that I so want to snap up. Mama needs a diversion." She lifted a large cup and took a sip. They'd stopped at a gas station nearby and brought back a blue raspberry slushie for her. Dean said she was addicted to them.
"He's got a thing with Daphne, Gwen." Yummy wasn't a word Jo would use to describe Castiel, but she'd sort of agree with cute, only in the adorable spectrum of the word and not the sexually attractive end.
"That won't last much longer." She waved the cup.
"How do you figure?"
"One, he was flirting with me twice earlier and two," she about purred the next words, "I like a challenge."
She hated to break it to her, but Castiel wasn't going to be a challenge, especially since Jo didn't think Gwen had any sort of vow for purity until marriage going on. "Ahh, well he won't be a challen -"
"Don't destroy the fantasy, okay? Thanks." She drew out the last word in a way that left no doubt in Jo's mind that Gwen was related to Dean. Her expression even looked like his right now, though the tint of blue on her lips from the slushie slightly ruined it.
With a laugh, Jo pushed off from the dresser. She liked Gwen. "I'll leave you to plot. Had a long day, so I'm going back to my room for a shower and some sleep."
"See you in the morning for breakfast and job breakdown."
"Wait, what? Breakdown?" What did she mean by that?
"Yeah, breakdown. You are working this with us, right? Sorry, I just assumed you were. Sam told me you were a hunter. He said you and your mom were a good team."
"Oh. We were, but…." She shrugged. "I don't know yet. We'll see."
"Cool. See you at breakfast either way. I think we could use another pair of hands on this one."
Did she want to work this with them? Castiel could do it since Dean and Sam and their cousins were here to back him up and teach him the right way to do things. However, Cas was right about her tendency to worry about him. She'd worry if she wasn't right there with them watching over him. "I'll think about it."
Jo made her excuses and headed back to the room. She took a shower and was in bed reviewing the information Castiel had found on the case when Daphne and Castiel returned to the room. Daphne immediately went into the bathroom to change clothes.
Castiel sat on the bed beside Jo. "You're looking at the information. Does that mean…?"
"Ask me in the morning."
"Okay." He nodded and half turned to face her. He watched her before asking, "do you like them, Jo?"
"Who, the cousins? Sure. Christian's a little abrupt, but Mark and Gwen are okay."
"Gwen…." Frowning, he looked down at the floor.
"You know it's okay to be attracted to other people aside from Daphne, right?"
"I do. Still…." He looked like he was trying to figure out what to say and finally shrugged. "Never mind. Good night."
She slept hard and woke late, not remembering if, or what, she'd dreamed.