Blackout
Darkness moves its silky tongue through the blackout, tasting and testing each corner and crevasse. It reaches out and licks down alley walls, lets out slow, steady breaths over the tarred asphalt. This is its world, sweet and beautiful. Now that the sour tasting lights of the city had been stripped away with a unnatural burst of acid light, the darkness stretches, whets its pallet and devours the street with endless hunger.
Castiel's chest stutters, desperate breaths rise and fall in pulses that are barely stronger than a heartbeat. Limbs trap him where he slumps, heavy as stone with their bleak refusal to move. The air stings his throat, stings his lungs, stings his nose. Dizzying, sickening nausea is hurled in heavy forceful waves. A pulse beats against his brain.
He stares at the dim and blurry outline of his feet and remembers he doesn't have shoes.
The alley is blackness, and croons itself soft and famished against his fractured skin. Small sobs punctuate the dark from a woman who has already drowned in its depth.
Weary, heavy, hurt, Castiel rolls his head sideways along the jutting bricks behind him. He pushes his gaze through the thick night to where the little sobs resound. Crumbling bone and blood writhe under his flesh; his skull aches a fierce fire. But he finds the woman softly glowing, some remnant in his eyes pick up the imprint of her soul. Though even as he looks half his vision flares; one eye jolts, begins to bleed sickly tears. He shuts it quickly, tries to ignore the bruised flesh pinching together; waits until the world is eaten up again and his breathing steadies beyond its shallow gasps.
He needs to help the woman. Its a thought as strong as Sam and Dean. A thought that gives him dull hopeless power. The bottomless stomach of the darkness cannot swallow him up, no matter how hard it gnaws and chews. He needs to help her.
The woman is sobbing and trembling, brushing hair from her eyes and making panicked gasps. Castiel stares across and decides she looks like he feels. He tries to stand. Something inside him reels, static swarms, he lurches and with a gasp blacks out. The next instant he is back, dragged from unconsciousness by fear alone.
He needs to help the woman. Dull senses pitch and fall as pulls himself up and weaves his unsteady limp towards her. He doesn't extend a hand, they're raw and throbbing, but clutches the wall carefully lest he drop again.
He means to say hello but only manages, '-lo.'
'Oh!' She jumps the same instant he winces. Castiel grits his teeth and a fights against the roaring fire along his throat.
'Are you okay?' he gasps out.
She looks up, and looks down, and quirks a terrified smile and frowns, tries to sort her hair again, brushes tears from her face. She is flurried and fast, like a hummingbird afraid to fly. Castiel does nothing, because he can't think of anything to do, but his stillness seems to calm her.
'Yeah- yeah I- I didn't see them. Jesus. Should've been more careful, I- thank you. The other one ran off. They- she had a knife. Shit. Jesus I- I think- I need to call somebody. My husband, I- he'll come get me.'
Its more words than Castiel is used to dealing with, and her expressions are so fast he feels ill from watching them. Half of everything still lays forgotten, he'd grown used to blindly knowing what to do, orders punching an irremovable brand in his brain. But she wasn't ordering anything, and he still didn't know what to do, so he asks hesitantly again:
'You're okay?'
She looks at him harder now, eyes clearer, trying to read him. He knows he can't be read, especially not in the darkness. For the first time he wonders where all the blackness came from. Something creaks in the back of his mind; you blew out the lights dipshit it says in Deans voice, because he remembers Deans tembre far better than his own broken melody. The woman is talking again, he tries to focus.
' - call my husband, I-that would be best. You-will you… stay with me until he comes?'
And Castiel says, 'yes.'
She nods, flurries some more, grips at a small bag, swallows, and finally uses the wall to pull herself unsteadily to her feet. Castiel can sympathise, but he doesn't reach out to help. His hands are a mess once more, sunburned skin ripped from his knuckles and old gashes seeping tainted blood that will never wash away.
'God, ' she's trying to sound strong. 'L-lets get to where there's some light.'
They set off down the alley, back to a more busy night-time world. She keeps glancing back at him; he dully realises her mistrust, wonders if he can explain his duty to protect, realises he's not sure thats his duty anymore. They step into a street and into the sanctity of light. The buzzing lamps swarm away the hungry shadows from their prey, and the woman lifts her face to the glow like it will raise her holy. Castiel wavers, unconsciousness digs bony fingers into his back.
'Jesus!'
The womans voice is suddenly barbed, her face sallow in horror, eyes pinching and mouth open. Castiel flinches; she stares him down like he is a tainted thing and the throbbing impulse in his brain screams bloody.
'Your face!'
He blinks, half cowered, all incomprehension. And now the woman is surveying him, eyes ticking over with harsh severity.
'I didn't- that can't have been from just now,' her eyes flick, 'your hands too,' they flick again, 'what the-' now she is all doubt. 'How hard did he hit you?' she finally breathes.
Castiel opens his mouth. 'I-,' thick pain cuts him off. More noise begs to be made, an answer to her question, you will answer all questions.
But the womans face crumples and she shakes her head. Castiel understands words of guilt written across it; for a moment he wonders why until he realises she's looking soft sympathy at his ruined throat. A ghost of the demons rabid hands clenching and grasping echoes in his head.
'He messed you up good,' she says in a strange attempt at joviality. 'You should go to a hospital,' she pauses, looks over his filthy coat, bare feet, 'guess they wont help the homeless much.'
Castiel accepts the label, swallows the impulse to speak and watches with faint numbness as the woman fumbles in her bag. She flashes him a tight smile and clamps a cell to her ear with shaking hands. Instinctively she turns her back on him, speaks trembling calm to the voice on the other end.
When did his life lose all surety? Here is a human who is terrified beyond everything and still knows what she needs to do. And what is he? A mess of broken impulses and fractured selfs. Nothing but mutilations, bone and dust. No. Stop it. No, he knows what he's doing. Help the woman. Find Dean and Sam. His name is Castiel and he is…
He is...
...he is half collapsed against another friendly wall.
He swallows then wishes he hadn't. With the womans words still reverberating around his skull, he carefully raises a hand and brushes tender fingers to his face. There's blood round his mouth, from his nose he thinks. His cheek is a throbbing pulse, pain building on pain, bruised flesh festering over already bruised flesh. He very carefully doesn't touch near his eye.
On this street, the lights are still blazing. The woman and he stand in a hazy yellow pool of their own, and before Castiel even realises what he's doing, he slowly extends a hand and concentrates on the buzzing lamp. His brain begins to beat electric as he pushes outside of himself again. The bulb does nothing.
And nothing.
More nothing.
Nothing again.
And then a flicker.
'He's on his way.'
Pulling himself sharply back, Castiel redirects his focus and nods. Its a welcome distraction, his head is throbbing rhythmically. A pulse traverses his body, beating a tattoo against his creaking ribs. The woman looks at him askance, then seems to reach a decision that involves sitting on the sidewalk. After a moment of unsure hovering, Castiel sits as well, taking careful consideration to not be to close. He thinks she seems thankful for that.
'Do… do you need money or…?' she keeps glancing at his feet. 'I mean, you've got somewhere you can go, right?' Her voice is laden with something Castiel realises is reluctant responsibility. She feels she owes him.
'Yes,' he lies carefully. 'Thank you,' he adds.
She gives a distracted shrug, 'sure,' though Castiel can tell there is relief buried under her words.
When the car finally arrives and the concerned man jumps out, Castiel finds he's to exhausted to move. Woman embraces man and she instantly crumbles from the inside out. She is ushered inside the car, but not before she cranes around and manages a genuine 'thank you'. The door is shut, she is safe. The man coldly eyes Castiel over and mumbles an echoed thanks, fulfilling his social obligations. Then they are gone.
His back begins to throb again.
A rumble and a stutter and an engine softly sighing to sleep. Dean leans back and rubs a knuckle over his eyes as his brothers voice fills the car. Sam speaks short and clipped - only importance, they're on the job after all. They are professional.
'So recent activity is mysterious cattle deaths, one or two missing persons, and apparently a meteor struck nearby a couple of days ago.'
'What exactly are we dealing with?'
'Garth didn't say,' Sam waits for Dean to look at him, expectant for his annoyance. 'So I'm guessing its not tablet related,' he says. 'Just demons.'
'Just demons,' Dean barks out a laugh. 'Just demons. Demons doing demon things.'
They sit for a while and contemplate themselves. It says far to much about their lives that just demons doing demon things is boring and mundane. There is no bigger picture to present itself. Nothing big and grand and important to do. The tablet is like waiting for a storm, nothing to be done but stay ready for when it hits. Their life is once again about the hunt and nothing but. Except, of course, when its time to speak prayers to the dark.
Sam disappears from the car and strides into the halogen studded night. Dean watches him stop and talk to nearby people, flashing a smile and then a badge, bundling them up with secure confidence. He doesn't get out of the car, just sits in silence. Sits and feels empty and watches until Sam returns.
'Apparently there's just been a violent blackout a few streets away. Lights exploding, sparks and glass, sounds pretty demonic.'
'I guess its something,' Dean sighs. Sam pulls back from the door as he moves to climb out. 'Fucking demons.'
As he straightens and angrily ignores his protesting knees, Sam holds his hand out in offering. When he looks down he sees a phone gripped tightly. Its new and black and would have been expensive if it had been paid for.
'To replace your other one,' Sam says and his all to open face flashes something between guilt and amusement. Dean's old phone is at the bottom of a pond. A pond filled with dog shit. Dog shit and a dead werewolf.
'Gee thanks Sammy,' he quips. The phone blinks to life. 'Same number?'
'It'll take a few days to transfer across.'
Dean opens his mouth to release another semi-sarcastic line, but relents to just a eye roll and a head-shake as he pockets the phone. Sam is still smiling and Dean feels himself warming up. Their world is in suspension, clinging hard and desperate until the moment it drops. And drop it will. But for now… for now they have demons. For now they have a hunt, and its almost just enough to let them forget about the future.
Sam and Dean walk together, foot-falls marching their eternal rhythm, and disappear into the night.
Sorry for the delay with this one - I've been house moving.
Thanks so much for reviews and feedback, there's exciting things looming!