Chapter 16 Sufferin' Succotash
Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Twilight surrounded him like soft gauze, painting the landscape in shades of lavender, of mauve and grey and blue. Beyond the rock he was sitting on, the land sloped very gently down to a curving river, the banks lined with trees, shadows spreading out from them as the light died in the western sky.
There'd been no cool colours in Hell, he remembered uneasily. Nothing soothing to the eye or the mind. His nerves – his body – had not been present on that other plane, but his mind had held them, held the memory of them, of muscle and tendon, of bone and skin and flesh. He hadn't been able to escape from any of it.
Nothing he'd tried to bury had stayed down. Not in Purgatory, not up here. There wasn't enough alcohol in the world to shut it out either, he knew, the longing for the amnesia he'd once found in the bottle had gone. It didn't numb him anymore, instead it left him defenceless against the memories that came seeping out when he closed his eyes.
Look at you. Gone and got your family killed. All alone in the world.
You're not strong enough.
That's one deep, dark nothing you got there, Dean. You're not hungry, because inside, you're already ... dead.
I never loved you. You were my burden. I was shackled to you. Look what it got me.
Everybody leaves you, Dean. You noticed? Mommy. Daddy. Even Sam. You ever ask yourself why? Maybe it's not them. Maybe, it's you.
You can't kill the Devil, and you're losing faith, in yourself, your brother.
Don't you think that your brother dragged you back into that catastrophic mess because he'd rather damn you with him than be alone?
I just ... you know, I feel like I did a lot of stuff I should have felt bad for, and then I paid a lot of dues and came out the other side, you know?
Dean looked at the first star, bright against the dim horizon. Paid a lot of dues. Sam had, he'd gone into the cage holding tight to the devil to save the world. What'd he done? Hadn't he paid enough? Hadn't he tried hard enough? When was it was going to be enough for him to feel like the past was the past and he didn't have to keep paying, every day, every minute, every second?
In the back of his mind, he knew the answer. Sam had only ever acted out of arrogance, or ignorance. Nothing he'd done had been coldly, deliberately, evil. Sam'd been dumb, young and dumb. But that was all.
In Hell's depths, he'd been more than that. Had known what he was doing. Had felt something he couldn't get rid of, couldn't undo, couldn't atone for. He could spend the rest of his life saving people and God might well send him to Heaven when he died, but he would never feel that he deserved that. Would never feel clean again.
He got up slowly, and walked back in the darkness, his feet finding the way as he stared at the lights of the sprawling single-storey ahead of him.
"There you are," Sam said, opening the front door as Dean pulled off his boots and left them on the porch. "What've you been doing?"
"Nothing," Dean said, walking past him. "Just, uh, thinking about what else we need."
"Dinner's ready." Sam closed the door and followed him down the hall. "And Colin brought the rest of the stuff we need."
"Good."
He walked into the kitchen, assailed by a mix of appetising scents, and went to the sink to wash his hands. On the long table, deep dishes of lasagne, a basket of fresh bread and several bowls of vegetables, roasted and grilled, had been spread out.
"Sit down, if you're leaving tomorrow, then you'll need something substantial to go on with," Hannah said, looking at him pointedly. In her early forties, she looked more like her mother, dark-haired, olive-skinned, voluptuous and warm and welcoming, than her Irish father. At one time, he'd had a huge crush on her, he remembered, with a feeling that was almost amusement.
At one end of the table, Colin looked up as Dean took a seat at the table. "Got everything on the list, you're all stocked up again."
Dean nodded. "Thanks. You heard from anyone else in the last few months?"
Hannah frowned as she finished ladling the food onto their plates and sat down beside her husband. "Just rumours, really. Demon activity all over the place. A sudden decrease in the shifter population –"
Colin nodded. "And an increase in the vampires around," he added, looking from Dean to Sam. "You know what's going on?"
The brothers exchanged a discreet glance.
"Not really," Sam said, helping himself to bread.
Dean shook his head. "You knew some of the Alphas were killed, year before last?"
"Yeah, heard that the demons were doing that?" Colin said, fork paused in mid-air. "Was that right?"
"Yeah," Dean tucked his food into his cheek as he looked at the older man. "But that's mostly finished with at the moment. The populations shouldn't change much anymore."
"You boys always know far too much of what's happening, and tell us far too little." Hannah looked at him narrowly.
"Not this time," Dean said quietly. "We …" He looked at Sam for a moment. "We're in the dark about pretty much everything."
It was reasonably close to the truth, he thought. What Crowley would do next, what Kevin would discover on the tablet, those were unknowns. And so far as the monsters were concerned, they had no idea of what would happen with the populations.
The last day and two nights had been peaceful. The small motel the couple ran, an adjunct to their real business, was only half-full and they'd spent the time catching up on news, cleaning their weapons, looking over what they had in the trunk and replacing everything that had needed replacing or restocking. Cas had muttered something about visiting an old friend an hour after they'd arrived, and had vanished. He wasn't sure if the angel would return or not. He'd been relieved that he'd gone. Relieved to have some time to think about everything, even if he hadn't made much progress on getting it clear. He wasn't sure how the angel was finding them, since so far as he knew his ribs were still angel-etched with the Enochian symbols, but he hadn't had a problem before so perhaps he had some method.
He took a piece of bread from the basket and mopped up the last of the rich sauce from his plate with it. Tomorrow they'd head north again. Check that the Trans had made it safely to Garth and his safe-house. Start trying to figure out how to get the second half of the tablet out of Crowley's hands and back to Kevin.
Farmington, Missouri
Dean pulled into the gas station and pulled up beside the pump. He tossed Sam the keys and walked over to the store.
Sam pulled out the pump nozzle and opened the gas tank cap, his head snapping around as he heard a rustle of wings, and saw Castiel standing beside the front of the car.
"Where've you been?"
"Looking at the world," the angel answered, leaning against the quarter panel. The trill of his phone stopped Sam from asking anything else. He pulled the phone from his pocket.
"Yeah?" Sam leaned against the trunk as he watched the numbers clicking over in the glass display on the pump. "Oh, hey."
Inside the store, Dean walked down the short aisles, looking at the food. Their brief layover had included home-cooked everything. His taste buds refused to consider the junk food in front of him as a reasonable substitute. He went to the fridge and pulled out two bottles of beer. It was nine o'clock in the morning, but that had become kind of meaningless as well. He headed back to the counter.
"Right, yeah," Sam said, the cell tucked against his ear. "No, just, uh – just call us whenever you find something." He looked up as Dean crossed the driveway to the pumps. "Yeah. Yeah, course. Right. No, I – I, uh ...," he said, looking at his brother as Dean opened the beers and passed one to him. "Yeah, hey, you know what? Uh, Dean's here. He really wants to talk to you."
He passed the phone to Dean, ignoring his brother's expression and shrugging.
"Mrs Tran, yeah, hi, uh ..." Dean hung up and tossed the cell back to Sam. "Tunnel. What's going on in Tran-land?"
Sam straightened up, swallowing a mouthful of beer. "Well, uh, Garth finally got them to his houseboat, but Kevin's having a lot of trouble reading their half of the tablet. So far, bits and pieces. Nothing about boarding up Hell."
"Garth has a safe-houseboat?" Dean's brows rose.
"Dude, I don't even ask questions anymore." Sam smiled wryly as he crouched by the trunk, unhooking the nozzle and replacing it on the pump.
Dean walked up to the angel. "What's the word, Cas?"
Castiel glanced up and back at the newspaper he was reading. "It's a shortened version of my name."
"Yes, it is," Dean agreed mildly. Conversations like this didn't make anything any easier. "I meant what's the word on the Word? Any, uh, tablet chatter on angel radio?"
"Oh," the angel looked away. "I couldn't say. I turned that off."
From the rear of the car, Sam looked at him, his brow furrowing up. "You can do that?"
"Yes, it's a simple matter of blocking out certain subsonic frequencies," the angel said shortly, folding the paper and turning to him. "I could draw you a diagram if you want."
Dean looked down and sighed. "No, that's – we're good." He nodded to himself, wondering how hard it was going to be to answers from the angel with half his marbles seemingly loose.
"Why'd you flip the switch?"
Castiel straightened. "Because it's a direct link to Heaven," he said quietly. "And I don't want anything to do with that place – not anymore."
"So … what now?" Dean asked. An angel who didn't want anything to do with Heaven. It was no crazier than anything else he'd heard or seen, of course. Just … what did an angel do if he wasn't tied to Heaven? He wasn't sure of Cas' saleable skills. "Move to Vermont? Open up a B&B?"
"No," Cas said. "I still want – I still need to help people." He looked at Dean. "I want to help you," he added, glancing past Dean to Sam. "Both of you. I want to do what you do."
Sam's face screwed up disbelievingly. "Really?"
"Yes." He looked back at Dean. "I could be your third wheel."
"You know that's not a good thing, right?"
"Of course it is," the angel said bracingly. "A third wheel adds extra grip, greater stability. I even found a case." He lifted the paper he was holding. "Oklahoma City – a man's heart jumped ten feet out of his chest."
He looked at them quizzically. "It sounds like our kind of thing, right?"
"He might have a point," Sam said, walking up behind Dean.
"Excellent," Cas said, turning and walking away. "I'll see you there."
Dean shook his head. "Wait, Cas. Cas!"
The angel stopped.
"If you want to play cowboys and bloodsuckers, that's fine," Dean said as Castiel turned back to him. "But you're gonna stick with us, okay? None of this zapping around crap. Capiche?"
"Yeah, I capiche." Castiel looked away.
"All right, then." Dean walked around the car to the driver's side.
"Can I, uh, at least ride in the front seat?" The angel walked to the side of the car, looking at the passenger seat.
Sam lengthened his stride to reach the passenger door and open it as his brother opened the driver's door.
"No." The word was delivered in stereo from both sides of the car. Castiel watched them get in and walked slowly to the rear door.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
The morgue was a crowded room in the coroner's office, drawn blinds and spot-lighting shadowing much of it. Dean stood with Castiel on one side of the metal table, Sam on the other side, listening to the detective who was handling the case. Between them, the body of Gary Freleng lay, a cloth covering him to the neck.
"Coroner said his heart was ejected from his body," Detective Grosvenor looked at Sam. "Got some air, too. Found it in a sandbox."
"Any idea what happened, Detective?" Sam asked her, leaning on the side of the table.
The woman shrugged disinterestedly. "A lot of people are thinking drugs, Agent Nash – an assload of drugs."
"There are no narcotics in that man's system," Cas muttered softly to Dean. "His molecules are all wrong."
Sam saw the detective glance over at the angel, and raised his voice. "Tox screens should rule that in or out."
The detective nodded dryly. "When they get back."
"Never seen an eightball do that," she added, looking down at the body. She pulled back the cloth and Sam's eyes narrowed as he took in the heart-shaped hole in the middle of the man's chest, where his heart should have been. He leaned close. The ribs hadn't been bent back, they were just gone. Likewise, the arteries and veins hadn't been torn, the edges were neatly sliced through.
"And who called this in?" Sam looked up the detective.
"Friend of his. Name of Olivia Kopple. She saw the whole thing," she said, rolling her eyes as she pulled the cloth back up the chest. Her cell phone rang and she pulled it out of her pocket, looking at the caller.
"Oh. Ah, crap. I have – I have to take this. Here's everything we got," she said, handing Sam a slim file. "Knock yourself out."
Sam took the file and opened it. "Thanks."
"Listen, you see anything weird, anything out of the box, you give us a call," Dean said, pulling a card from his pocket and handing it to the detective as she passed him. She looked down at the card.
"Whatever you say," she said, lifting her phone. "Detective Grosvenor. Right. On my way."
Castiel moved around the table slowly. "I can't sense any EMF or sulphur. Mr. Freleng's arterial health is, uh, excellent."
He leaned over the body and sniffed delicately. "Mm. He did recently suffer from a ... mild, uh ... what is that? ... bladder infection."
Dean looked around uncomfortably. "Cas, stop smelling the dead guy."
The angel frowned at him. "Why? Now I know everything about this man. So we can –"
Sam looked down at the file in his hands. "Do you know he was having an affair?"
"What?"
Dean's mouth tucked in. "Strike one, Sherlock."
"According to Olivia, they would meet at the park every Thursday at twelve-forty-five, walk to the Moonlight diner, where she always ordered a Caesar salad, dressing on the side. They would chat about everything, and she'd be back on the road by one-thirty.
"You don't think she's telling the truth?" Castiel asked, watching a grimace flicker over Dean's face as he listened to his brother.
Dean looked at him. "Too much detail. Bad liars always add too much detail."
Sam nodded. "And he would know." He ignored the look Dean gave him and continued. "Plus, we drove past the Moonlight diner on the way into town. It's attached to the Moonlight motel."
"Okay, well, let's say that, uh, Gary here's on the prowl, but he's playing it safe because ..."
He lifted the man's left hand out from under the cloth. The overhead light gleamed on the gold wedding band on Gary's ring finger. "... dude's married."
He dropped the hand, looking at the angel. "Doesn't want anyone to see his ride parked out in front of a by-the-hour fleabag."
Sam nodded. "So he stashes his car at the park across the street, meets Olivia there."
Castiel's gaze shifted back and forth from Dean to Sam as they added their thoughts, building a scenario.
"His wife probably found out about it, and it broke her heart," Dean said, looking down at the table.
"So she breaks his," Sam said softly. He looked at his brother. "Sounds witchy."
"Yes, it does," Dean looked at Freleng. "Guy was living a lie, and it came back to bite him in the ticker."
He walked behind the angel. "But nice job on the bladder infection."
Sam looked after him, his mouth lifting on one side. Castiel turned to look at him.
"I … uh … you seemed to understand this … process … very quickly," he said uncomfortably.
"Been doing this a long time, Cas." Sam closed the file and followed Dean out. "That's all."
South Jackson Street, Oklahoma City
Dean pulled up and gestured to the two cars in the driveway. "Cas, any hex bags in those?"
Castiel got out of the car and looked at them. "No."
"Alright, Sam, you take the wife, and we'll look over the house?"
"Yep."
They walked up the path to the front door and Sam knocked, pulling out his badge. Dean elbowed Castiel as he pulled out his. Cas looked at him then at the badge, and reached into his jacket pocket for the hastily made up badge Dean had given him that morning.
The door opened and a woman stood there, long, dark brown hair brushed back from her forehead, slim in a figure-hugging black dress, hose and heels. Debra Freleng looked at them politely. "Can I help you?"
"Ma'am, Special Agent Nash, FBI. These are my colleagues, Special Agent Stills and Agent Crosby. We'd like to ask you some questions about the death of your husband, a, uh, Mr Gary Freleng?" Sam said, his expression compassionate, his voice soft.
Behind him, Dean repressed a smile. That was the old Sam, oozing all the gentle and irresistible charm of a helpless puppy.
Debra looked at them. "I – I don't understand."
"There are some suspicious circumstances surrounding your husband's death, Mrs Freleng, that we –" Castiel said, leaning past Dean.
"Suspicious?" She looked at him. "He died of a heart attack."
"May we come in, ma'am?" Sam shot a warning look at Cas and turned back to her with a smile. "It won't take long, we just have some questions."
"Uh, yes, of course," she said, stepping back and opening the door wide. Sam walked into the wide hallway and Dean pushed Castiel forward ungently, closing the door behind him as Mrs Freleng walked past them and into the dining room.
"Have a seat, Mrs Freleng," Sam said, glancing back at Dean.
"Bathroom," Dean muttered to Cas. The angel looked at him blankly. Dean sighed.
"Uh, ma'am, could I use your restroom?" he said, looking at her. She nodded.
"Down the hall, third door on the right."
Castiel watched him leave the room. "Uh, may I also use your facilities?"
She looked at him, one brow lifting very slightly. "There's a bathroom upstairs. Second door on the left."
He walked out and Sam breathed a small sigh of relief. "While I can't divulge the exact nature of the evidence we've found, we're concerned that your husband's death may not have been as straightforward as it seemed, Mrs Freleng."
"What?"
"Could Mr Freleng have been keeping secrets from you? Perhaps involved in something you had no knowledge of?"
Dean heard Castiel's feet thumping up the stairs and his brother's voice murmuring from the dining room. He checked the rooms along the hallway, looking under the furniture and in every cupboard and drawer, feeling along the walls for any sign of a false panel. The house wasn't old, and the Frelengs didn't have a lot of clutter. He turned back down the hall as Castiel came down the stairs.
"Anything?"
The angel shook his head. "The house is clean."
They both stopped and turned at the soft knock on the front door as they returned to the dining room. Mrs Freleng rose from her chair, and walked past them as the front door opened.
"Deb?"
A tall, slender blonde woman came down the hall, holding a casserole dish, her eyes reddened but her face carefully made up. She stopped as she saw them, her gaze cutting to Debra involuntarily, her face screwing up as a fresh wave of grief overtook her.
"Olivia," Debra said, walking quickly to her, arms extended. They hugged, the younger woman's shoulders shaking, the lid of the casserole dish rattling.
Dean blinked, and looked at Sam. "As in … mistress … Olivia?"
Castiel looked at the two women. "This is awkward."
Debra pulled back slightly, wiping the tears from Olivia's cheeks lightly with her thumb. She slipped her arm around her, and looked at Sam. "I'm sorry. W-what did you think Gary was keeping a secret?"
Dean looked at the floor uncomfortably. Sam glanced at the opposite wall. Castiel looked at her directly.
"That he was fornicating with her," he said bluntly, glancing at Olivia.
Sam's head snapped around to look at the angel and Dean mirrored the look a half-second later.
Debra looked at Olivia then back at the angel. "I know."
"You know?" Sam asked.
"Gary and I – we ..." She looked at Olivia briefly. "Had an arrangement. He was seeing Olivia, and I was spending some time with our neighbour, P.J," she finished, her tone slightly apologetic, a little defiant.
Olivia looked at the dumbstruck faces of the three men. "I'll, uh – I'll put this in the kitchen."
"I'll help." Debra followed her out.
Dean and Sam exchanged a glance. "Nothing to suggest anything in here."
"So, she's not a witch," Castiel said softly, brows drawn together in thought.
"No." Sam ran his hand through his hair.
"Then what killed her husband?" Cas looked at Dean questioningly.
"Excellent question," Dean said, looking at the doorway the two women had disappeared through. "And why was he killed?"
West California Avenue, Oklahoma City
The building was twelve stories, no protuberances, no ledges, no nothing, just a straight drop to the street below. Sam looked down at the area directly under him, marked off with yellow crime scene tape, the car the vic had landed on still a crushed heap in the centre.
He turned away from the edge and walked back to Detective Grosvenor and his brother. "Looks like suicide."
"It was," the detective agreed immediately. "Guy left a note. He invested everything in Roman Industries and lost it all when they crashed and burned last year."
Dean looked at her. "So why call us?"
Detective Grosvenor looked away, mouth twisting into a small, wry smile. "Because I have two witnesses who swear that Madoff floated in mid-air for a good ten seconds, then he looked down, and splat," she said slowly, and looked back at him. "Not sure I buy that, you understand, but the way they're talking, it sounds like something straight out of a –"
Dean's eyes narrowed as he visualised it. "Cartoon."
"You said you wanted weird," she said with a shrug, turning away as a crime technician called out to her.
Dean nodded. "Thanks."
He looked at Sam. "She's right, you know. I mean, the whole heart jumping out of the guy's chest, the– the delayed fall – that's straight-up Bugs Bunny."
Castiel looked at him, frowning. "So we're looking for some sort of insect-rabbit hybrid?"
"No, we're not, Cas," Sam said patiently. "Bugs is a cartoon character, like, uh – like Woody Woodpecker or Daffy Duck."
Dean looked at the angel's uncomprehending expression. "They're little animated movies. You know, uh, the coyote chases the roadrunner, and then, uh, the anvil gets dropped on his head."
Castiel watched the memory of the film bring a hint of laughter to Dean's face. "Is it supposed to be funny?"
"No," Dean said, his expression becoming stony as he looked at him. "It's hilarious."
Sam sighed, looking back at the edge of the building. "Also … impossible."
Dean stared at the pages in front of him, feeling a low-grade throbbing at the base of his skull. Not one thing. Not one. He closed his eyes, hearing the soft click of the laptop's keys on the other side of the table, and beyond that, the quiet drone of the television as the angel attempted to catch up on the rules and requirements of 'toons. His dreams would be backed by the Loony Tunes soundtrack tonight, he could feel it.
"Stay tuned, kids! We'll be right back!"
Castiel turned the television off, laughing softly. "I understand."
He looked at Dean. "The bird represents God. And coyote is man, endlessly chasing the divine, yet never able to catch him. It's ... it's hilarious."
The brothers exchanged a look, Dean rolling his eyes, Sam's mouth quirking as he looked down at the screen in front of him. Every day with the angel was like a cartoon, Dean thought tiredly. He looked down at the book on the table, leaning back.
"I got no idea what we're hunting," he said, rubbing the corner of his eye absently as he looked at the pages. "Maybe it's a tulpa. Maybe it's some – some crazy god who watched too much Robot Chicken. I–I mean, is there a link between 'Heartbreak Hotel' and 'Free Fallin''?"
Sam stared at the screen. "Not that I can find."
"All right, well, I'm gonna call it," he said, closing the journal and leaving it on the book underneath. He looked over at the angel. "Cas, you gonna book a room or what?"
"No, I'll stay here," Cas said, looking through Dean's small leather bathroom bag, toothpaste and brush in one hand as he rummaged with the other.
Dean registered what the angel was doing vaguely, too tired to care. He wanted to sleep. He could ignore his brother, but the angel being around was like having a permanent, annoying house guest. "Oh, okay. Yeah. We'll have a slumber party, braid Sam's hair. Where are you gonna sleep?"
"I don't sleep," Castiel looked at him.
"Okay, well, I need my four hours, so ..." He left the sentence hanging, hoping he wasn't going to have to actually kick the angel out.
"I'll watch over you."
God.
No.
No, no, no. "That's not gonna happen."
Cas stood up, his fingers pressed lightly against his temple, his face drawn in concentration. "Something's coming across the police band."
Sam's brows shot up. "You can hear that?"
"It's all waves," Cas said distractedly. "A bank has been robbed. It sounds loony."
Dean looked at him narrowly. "Define 'loony'."
"The police sound … very confused," Castiel looked over at him. "It seems to be another cartoon-related death."
"Great." Dean got to his feet, feeling the last unknown number of hours without rest drop onto him. "Fine. Saddle up."
Downtown Business District, Oklahoma City
The bank lobby was quiet, dignified, polished dark wood and neutral wall shades and subdued lighting. It gave the impression of solidity, Dean thought absently, looking around. A safe place to leave your money and valuables. He glanced back at the floor. Well … except for that.
"That's loony, all right," Sam said quietly, staring down at the enormous anvil that sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by bright red gore.
Detective Grosvenor came in through the double doors at the end of the lobby. "Agents. I was just about to give you a call," she said, looking down at the anvil. "Got to ask – do you boys chase the crazy, or does the crazy chase you?"
"Depends on the day," Sam muttered, following her gaze.
Dean snorted. "Who's the pancake?"
"Security guard," Grosvenor said. "He called in reporting a robbery, but by the time we got here –"
Sam cut her off. "A robbery?"
She nodded. "Looks like Calvin Q was trying to jimmy open a safe-deposit box when the guard found him." She gestured to the wall behind the counter. A perfectly round, flat black circle was painted on it, lit as a technician took photographs of it from several angles. "And, well ... you know how that story ends."
Castiel frowned at her. "Calvin Q?"
Grosvenor smiled wryly. "As in Calvin Q Calculus."
"Another cartoon character," Dean muttered to the angel. "He invented the portable hole." He waved his hand vaguely at the circle.
"One of the beat cops brought it up on the first robbery, and well, that's we call the burglar," Grosvenor added. "Started working the area about six months ago."
She looked at Dean. "This guy, he not a pro – at least, not in the conventional sense. But there're no fingerprints, never any sign of forced entry – just a pair of those every time, like he's signing his work." She shook her head and looked at the anvil again. "He's never done anything like this before, though."
"You mind if I take a look at your files on those other break-ins?" Sam asked the detective.
She shook her head. "Not a problem. I'm headed to the station now if you want a ride."
"That'd be great," he said, looking at Dean. His brother nodded.
Sam followed the detective out of the lobby and Dean looked at the anvil carefully. On the side, the words '1 ton' had been stamped into the casting.
"Cas. Can you lift this?"
The angel walked behind the anvil and eased it back, lifting one edge off the floor, and then the entire solid hunk of cast iron back and away. Beneath it, the guard's flattened clothing lifted up, adhering to the base of the anvil with the blood and flesh, and a large X was visible in the relatively clean area where the guard had been standing.
Dean looked down at it with a one-sided grin. "'X' marks the spot." He looked up at the unmarked ceiling. "Well, whoever's doing this is playing by cartoon rules."
"Animation doesn't have rules," Castiel said, looking up as well.
"Sure it does," Dean contradicted him sharply, memories of a million cartoons, watched in a thousand motel rooms, filling his mind's eye. Falling was never fatal, only painful and shape-altering. Anything could come to life – and usually did. Dynamite, bombs and of course, anvils, were marked clearly. "In Toontown, a – a pretty girl can make your heart leap out of your chest, anvils fall from the sky, and," he continued, gesturing at the flat black circles painted on the walls. "- if you draw a door or a black hole on the wall, you can stroll right through it."
He walked to the circle painted on the wall next to the bank's vault, Cas following him.
"So this is how the thief got in," the angel said, looking down at the circle.
"And out," Dean nodded, looking at the one on the other side of the lobby. "And cracked the vault."
Castiel put his hand on the circle, then knocked at it. "Then why isn't it working now?"
Dean looked around. "I got no clue."
The angel looked at him. "Sam is right. This is impossible. It defies the laws of this world."
"All cartoons defy the laws of physics; they're exaggerations, straight imagination. They have their own rules, but not … the same ones as real life has." Dean smiled humourlessly at him. And they were confined to the mind of the cartoonist, he thought slowly, and then to the two-dimensional world of television. So how the hell could someone be doing this?
"C'mon," he said to Cas. "I need to look some stuff up."
Sam hadn't returned to the room when they got back, and Dean pulled off his jacket and loosened his tie, opening the laptop and waiting for it to load. Looking at the fridge regretfully, he turned to the counter instead, spooning coffee into the filter and filling the jug. It was almost morning and it didn't look like he was going to get any sleep tonight anyway.
The laptop beeped softly and he leaned on the edge of the table, typing in a search command and hitting Enter, glancing sideways at the angel who was sitting on his bed, looking through his father's journal. For a second, he felt a strong urge to grab the book out of Cas' hands, a feeling of possessive anger, mixed up with shame and guilt. Then it was gone. If the angel really wanted to be a hunter, he thought wearily, he might as well learn about it from the best.
The pot bubbled in the kitchen and he straightened up, going to get a cup from the cupboard and pouring out the strong, black liquid. It was the only thing that was going to keep him going.
He returned to the table and sat down, reading through the listings the search had returned as he sipped the hot coffee.
"Your father ... he had beautiful handwriting," Cas said quietly from the bed a few moments later. Dean looked at him, seeing him no longer reading, just turning the pages.
"How you doing, Cas?" he asked. The angel looked … adrift, he thought.
"I'm fine," Castiel replied, glancing at him and back to the book in his hands.
Cas'd spent way too much time with him and Sam, he thought ruefully. "Well, I just – I – I know that when ... I got puked out of Purgatory, it took me a few weeks to ... find some kind of … perspective."
"I'm fine." The angel repeated, an faint edge to the words this time, his gaze on the pages he was turning.
"Don't get me wrong. I'm – I'm happy you're back. I'm – I'm freaking thrilled," Dean said, a little more carefully. "It's just this whole mysterious-resurrection thing – it always has one mother of a downside."
Castiel looked at him, closing the journal with a slight snap. "So, what do you want me to do?"
"Maybe take a trip upstairs?"
"To Heaven?" Cas frowned.
Dean shrugged. "Yeah, poke around, see if the God squad can't tell us how you got out."
"No." Castiel looked down at the journal.
Dean exhaled, looking down. He got that Cas didn't want to go back. He didn't know why, exactly, but he got it. It didn't change the fact that they needed the intel. They needed to know what was coming before it took a large and bloody chunk out of them.
"Look, man, I–I hate those flying-ass monkeys just as much as you do, but –"
"Dean! I said no!" Cas ground out, not looking at him, not looking at anything.
Dean heard the undertone. It'd been fear, lacing the angel's voice. He looked at Cas, and saw it in the jump of the muscle at the point of the angel's jaw, in the pulse that was beating too fast at the side of the angel's neck as he turned away. Dean turned back to the laptop and shut the lid, getting up and walking to the other bed. Sitting down opposite the angel, he met Cas' eyes steadily.
"Talk."
Castiel put the journal down beside him. "Dean, I ..."
Dean watched him draw in a breath, shifting on the side of the other bed to face him. "When I – when I had the Leviathan – inside – all the souls from Purgatory –" he hesitated, unsure of how to explain what had happened to him, to explain how it had happened. "When we call on the souls of Heaven, to-to power us, that power, it's just borrowed. It fills us with love and light and it leaves no stain," he said slowly. "But it's never more than we can stand, never more than we can handle." He looked at his friend, unsure if Dean would understand.
Dean nodded, seeing it in his mind's eye, remembering the times he'd seen the angel aglow with that power.
"The souls from – there were too many, and they weren't love, they weren't light, they were everything – stained and bludgeoned and distorted – and I …"
He looked down at his hands, clasped together on his lap. "It wasn't their fault, but it was too much for me. I had … already … felt hubris, Dean. In choosing you, in choosing to help you and your brother, I had already opened myself to that sin." He looked at the man, then away. "I don't know if it was the Leviathan influencing me. I can't be sure of that. But I moved over the Earth and I-I killed, wantonly, believing that I was cleansing the Earth of evil, of evil-doers. And I caused suffering and pain."
Dean remained silent, remembering the news reports, the eye witness accounts.
"But in Heaven, Dean," Castiel said, his eyes wide as an expression of despair filled his face. "I devastated Heaven."
In memory, he saw again the open plains, blackened and burned and filled with broken angels, once-snowy wings rent and smashed and turned to ash, beings that had been filled with light and music and knowledge, dead and gone, smote with the unclean power of fifty million souls from the land of monsters.
"I executed thousands of my own kind," he said, looking up at Dean. "And I-I-I can't go back."
"'Cause if you do, the angels will kill you," Dean said softly.
Castiel's face smoothed out, expression vanishing. "Because if I see what Heaven's become – what I –" He looked away, drawing in a deep breath. "What I made of it ... I'm afraid I might kill myself."
Dean stared at him. If Lucifer burns this mother down, and I coulda done something about it, guess what? That's on me. He'd made the choice back then, to give up, because he'd known that if he hadn't, if the devil had gotten Sam and no one was there to stop him, he wouldn't've been able to live with himself afterwards. And what Cas had done, even if he could convince him that it hadn't been him, strictly speaking, had been worse, in its own way. You couldn't outrun that responsibility by saying you were high, saying it wasn't all you. Your body, your actions, your choices. That's where the buck stopped.
The door behind him opened and he heard his brother's clumping steps.
"Hey. Got something," Sam said as he walked in.
Cas looked at Dean for a moment longer, then past him. "Good."
He stood up and walked over to the table. "Excellent. What?"
Dean got up slowly and followed him, shunting his thoughts aside as he looked at Sam, at the expanding file his brother had placed on the table.
"This Calvin Q, the black-hole guy – before he tried the bank, he robbed a house, across from the park where Gary blew a gasket," Sam said without preamble.
"So, uh, what –?" Dean looked at him. "You think the house heist and Gary's corpse are connected?"
"According to the file, they happened at pretty much the exact same time," Sam said, opening the file and pulling out a map. "Here. Check this out. Okay." He spread the map over the table, tapping the circled marks where a grouping of 'x's' had been printed. "Here's the house, and Gary died across the street here. And that building from this morning – right there. The guy hit that, too."
"Let me guess – where, uh, what's his name took a swan dive," Dean said, raising a brow at his brother. Sam nodded. "All right. I'll bite. What about the others?"
"Well, those are the places that stuff got stolen. But nobody got dead. Take away the graffiti, and these all look like just normal smash-and-grabs," Sam said, pulling out another file. "But I made a few phone calls and talked to some people who were nearby – neighbours, store owners – and they reported a whole lot of crazy." His mouth twisted up wryly as he looked at his brother.
"Like?"
"Like a jogger bumping his head and sprouting a four-inch lump," Sam recounted, his forehead wrinkling up. "And a kid walking into a wall and hearing birdies." He shrugged and looked at Cas. "Basically, for fifty yards around each robbery, people were living in a cartoon. But it didn't last long – I mean no more than five, ten minutes at each place."
"About the length of time it would take a thief to get in and out," Castiel said.
"Exactly," Sam agreed. "Whatever power this Calvin Q is using, it's – it's not targeted. I mean, it's – it's kind of like a field effect, you know? Picture him in a – in a bubble of weird, and anything that touches it gets … daffy."
Dean looked at him sceptically. "So this Animaniac can step through walls, can toss an anvil?"
"Yeah," Sam said, brow creasing up as he looked at him. "But he's warping reality to do it. So if someone happens to be nearby meeting the girl of his dreams ..."
"His heart makes a break for it," Dean finished. "Okay, so smashing the, uh – the rent-a-cop – that – that was on purpose, but the rest of them – what? Is that just collateral weird?"
"Yeah. Maybe. That's what it looks like," Sam said.
"So we're looking for a thief." Castiel looked at him. Sam nodded.
"And the deposit box he was after," he added, looking back down at the files. He pulled out another file and opened it. "Now, the house, the office – every place he's hit belonged to someone living at the Sunset Fields retirement home."
Dean looked at the file, then up at his brother. "You think our guy's there."
"It's walking and talking like a duck," Sam said dryly. "Worth a shot."
"Do we have any theories – at all – on how this is going down?" Dean looked at him curiously.
"Nope," Sam said. "It's not witchcraft. And it doesn't seem likely that a demon's involved – kind of low-key for them – and I can't think of anything else that has that kind of juice."
"No. All right. Well, let's gear up. It's wabbit season," Dean said, feeling a slight relief that at least it was a lead.
Sam smiled as he packed the files away. Castiel glanced at him.
"I don't think you pronounced that correctly," he murmured confidentially to Dean.
Ah, and back to normal, Dean thought. How'd the angel missed Fudd in his cartoon research?