Down in a hole and I don't know if I can be saved
See my heart I decorate it like a grave
Well you don't understand who they
Thought I was supposed to be
Look at me now I'm a man
Who won't let himself be
- "Down in a Hole," Alice in Chains
At 10:41 in the morning on Friday, June 20th, Doctor Castiel Novak pronounces John Winchester deceased. He never regained consciousness after the accident. He felt no pain.
Pain is for the living.
xXx
It's suppertime by the time Dean leaves the hospital, a box of his father's personal items in his arms and his copies of all of the paperwork. He doesn't remember filling most of it out; in fact, tomorrow he will be fairly certain that someone else did most of it, and had him sign his name. The doctor who had stuck by his side most of the day, he doesn't doubt it.
Tomorrow he will pick up Sam from the airport at the crack of dawn. Tomorrow, he will have funeral arrangements to make. Tonight. . . tonight, he just wants to get back to Ellen's and drown himself in Jack, though the idea of it makes him loathe himself a bit more, hypocritical after what had taken his father's life.
He doesn't think to be concerned about his own safety. Stupid of him. He's in Lawrence. He should have known better. It's not dark yet, not in summer, but it hadn't been dark when he was young, either. Slipping between cars, the fist to his kidneys catches him by surprise, and his grip on the cardboard box in his arms slips. The next blow he catches with a block of his forearm, and he's not surprised to see Nate Hardey, throat purple and red, snarling in his face.
They're coming out from between cars, trying to pen him in. Adrenaline has kicked in: their slurs are ignored in favor of getting his back to the side of a blue sedan to keep them on one side of him, and then it's fists and elbows, too close of quarters for kicks. Grappling like this, he's pretty sure he can maim most of them, but there's little chance he's clearing this place without getting penned. The vice grip around his forearm spins him, crashing him face-first into the metal of the car, and slamming his head back he gets the satisfaction of a sickening crunch and a howl, but his arm wrenches higher on his back and the grip doesn't loosen, a body pinning against him shoulder to groin, the hard line of an erection riding the jean-covered cleft of his ass and a voice against his ear, blood dripping onto his neck and shoulder from the assailant's nose. "Feisty little bitch. Keep squirming, you know how much I like it. . . "
No one sees him coming.
No one would expect him to.
The farthest of the lackeys, Roy Etheridge, gets a worn black dress shoe to the instep, crumpling his right knee and off-balancing him. A hand knots in his hair and slams his head down into the knee rising up to meet his face, and he's down. Silent and wrathful, Doctor Novak joins the fight, flowing between cars. As his assailants turn to identify the noise, Dean wraps his leg around his captor's, uses his free arm to latch him tightly into place against Dean's back, and he drives backwards with all of his weight, toppling them both to the pavement.
He can feel the trapped arm behind him dislocate. . . but he can also feel the sudden freedom, letting him scramble to his feet as the head injury he dealt takes out another man. Two down. Three to go. And moments later Doctor Novak evens out the fight. Two fingers jam out at the bruised underside of Nate Hardey's throat, making him gurgle with blood or bile, and a fist catches him in the gut, doubling him over. Two on two. Fair fight. The toppled box of his father's stuff trips up the asshole nearest Dean, and he takes advantage of it. Left arm useless at his side, he uppercuts with his right, and it's not his best move ever, but it does the trick.
The last guy doesn't seem particularly excited to stick around and see how he fairs two-against-one. Turning on his heel, he bolts, and Dean reaches out to catch the doctor's sleeve, keeping him from going after him.
His partner in crime turns to look at him questioningly, clearly still riding the adrenaline of the fight, blue eyes electric, nostrils flared, jaw bunched. Dean shakes his head, holding him back with a simple touch he could easily shake off if he tried. "No good chasing him. No good calling the police either. Far as the people around here are concerned, I'm lucky I'm not on a breeding farm or something." Dean laughs, once, sharp and bitter, and he may 'accidentally' trip over Hardey on his way to turn the box upright, gathering his father's things one-handed. "Trust me. Last time, I was 'asking for it' by being me, and by smelling like me, and by being in public."
It's more than he's said on the subject since he was a kid. He doesn't get the chance to brush it off entirely. Split-knuckled hands reach past him as the doctor stoops in front of him, sweeping his father's dog tags up and dropping them into the box atop a battered leather journal, picking the small container up himself. "Show me where your car is. I can't stay here either, then." The doctor's low voice is solemn, and he shoots one last angry look at the bloodied attackers they've left in their wake. "I don't think they will report this. But if we drew attention it would be. . ."
Bad for a guy who apparently has already been assigned to hospital Siberia for something. Dean gets it. He just doesn't get why he's helping. "Back row by the hedges. The Impala."
Nodding, the doctor rises to his feet and leads the way. Dean can tell when he sees the car, because his steady gait is thrown off, and he hesitates before letting out a quiet curse. The vandalism, the bigoted words cut into the metal. "I hate this fucking town."
The curse sounds wrong from him, like he's testing it out, like he doesn't allow himself profanity often and is surprised by it himself. It'd be funny if Dean wasn't physically in pain and emotionally numb after the day's drama. Turning, the doctor seems to see something in Dean's face that he doesn't, and frowns in concern. "You're in shock. Acute stress reaction, which. . . given the circumstances . . ."
"I'm fine." Dean mutters, fumbling the car keys and unlocking the trunk for the box, trying to do it quickly before anyone rouses or people come to see the source of the noise.
"No, you're in shock." There's a faintly irritated undertone to his words, as if Dean's doubting his abilities as a doctor. "Please let me drive. Are we returning to the bar?"
And drag this shit to Ellen if these guys did call someone, or come looking for a rematch? Dean shakes his head slightly. "I may as well go 'home' so the cops know where to find me. I'll be fine. Thank you, y'know, for the asskicking assist, but I'm. . ."
"Injured, in shock, and being stubborn." The doctor gently pries the keys out of Dean's hand, closes the trunk, and shepherds him around to the passenger door, pushing him in. "Sit down. We need to leave quickly. Is there anyone at home for you?"
Dean snorts, and lets himself melt back into the leather seat, head tilted to the liner of his beloved car. "You saw all the family I got in this town, and I'm not putting Ellen in my crap, and Jo wouldn't stay out of it if I showed up this way 'round her."
Baby purrs, as the doctor takes them out of the parking lot, and apparently aimlessly away from the hospital at the fastest safe speed. "Turn left, and you can head towards the interstate, take you across the river to . . ."
"I'm bringing you home with me."
Well, that was pretty damned forward. Dean tenses, and the doctor beside him seems to sense it, see it, huffing impatiently. "If you attempt to throw yourself out of the door of a moving car, I am going to be less inclined to treat road-burn than I am the dislocated shoulder, bruises, and whatever you did to your back and ribs throwing that man. I did not join that fight to help you so I could take advantage of you myself."
"So you're just taking me back to your place to 'play doctor' then. Yeah, strangely not reassured." Dean mutters, and then raises his voice to a normal level. "Starting to feel like one of those idiots in the show my brother used to watch when we were growing up, guy with the stupid scarf and hair, calling you 'Doctor' all the time. Doctor who?"
The man beside him blinks, slowing carefully to a stop at a red light and shooting him a completely blank look. ". . . Novak. We have spent the majority of the day together, Dean, with your father's. . ."
Yeah. Clearly missing that reference. Rolling his eyes, Dean snorts. "Yeah, thanks, my head didn't go soft with one little tussle." The corner of the man's eye twitches visibly, his jaw bunching, and he makes an angry disgruntled noise at the idea that Dean had enough familiarity with fights to call that nothing. ". . . I was asking if you even have a frikkin' first name, or if I'm supposed to keep calling you doctor now that you're outta the lab coat and scrubs and into. . ."
Turning just his head, without raising it from the back of the seat, he takes in the rumpled suit, tan trench coat, backwards tie. . . "What are you, a doctor and an accountant, or is the whole fashion-forward successful doctor thing a myth?"
"Castiel."
"Gasundheit." Dean quips dryly, eyes closing.
"No, that's my name. Castiel Novak. And you're Dean Winchester."
"Yep. That's me." Somehow he can hear this guy frown, figures if he didn't have to have his eyes on the road, he'd be staring at Dean again trying to figure him out. "I'm tired. It's been a really, really shitty day. I want to get drunk, or go back and kill those guys, and tact and manners means filters I just don't give a shit about right now and I have no idea what the hell you want from me. You'd be better off dropping me at home and I'll. . . "
"We've arrived." Shifting into park in a covered, numbered space outside of a modest apartment complex, Castiel hands Dean back his keys before turning to face him in the seat, frowning. "I can set your arm out here, but I would prefer to do so inside where we can ice it as well. I just ask that you trust me." Pausing, Castiel rests a hand against Dean' bruised cheek, testing the clammy and battered skin beneath, and Dean wonders why he hadn't noticed how good he smelled before, as he turns his head towards the touch, nose brushing against the inside of Castiel's wrist. Castiel's breath seems to catch, his body freezing in-place, and when he speaks again he's quiet, voice a reassuring rumble deep in his chest. "I will never hurt you. Come with me. Please. I would like to get you inside, and settled. I am going to steal a tarp from the pool house and cover the car for the time being, until you are ready to leave again or you can get the paint repaired."
"You just abducted me, or whatever. Are you ashamed of me already?" Dean snarks tiredly, eyes still closed, nose nuzzled into the other man's skin seeking warmth, and the doctor's hand drops away slowly.
"I do not think that anything will be reported. But if it is, I assume hiding the car would delay authorities and allow you time to recuperate." Dean's eyes snap open at that, surprised, and beside him the doctor shrugs awkwardly before opening the driver's side door and stepping out.
Holy fuck, he's serious. And throwing himself further under a bus for Dean, if shit hits the fan. Or covering up Dean's location, if he's a scary psycho kidnapper, but it seems like a lot of trouble to go through for that, and he already spent most of the morning getting over treating the guy like crap.
Blinking, Dean opens his own door carefully and steps out onto the pavement, watching as the doctor strides towards the maintenance shed beside a too-blue pool beneath fine mesh covering to keep it clear of ash, and pops the latch as if he has every right to do so, gathering up a blue tarp and then striding right back over, oversized and out-of-season tan coat snapping in the wind off of the river. Dean helps smooth the weighted edges down over his baby one-handedly, and it's tacit agreement even if he's still stuck on the last few thoughts he coherently had.
Maybe this Castiel guy isn't entirely wrong about the shock.
Dean follows him quietly, shepherded into a second story apartment that, even before he steps out of the foyer, Dean knows this guy went ahead and got pre-furnished for him. It's got everything an apartment could need: flat screen television, couch, matching chair, matching table, matching dining table, with about as much personality as the hospital waiting room. Dean takes it as another potential indicator of crazy psycho abductor, but finds himself shepherded to the couch anyway as the doctor shucks his coat and shoes at the door and strides past him towards the adjoined kitchen. "I am going to get ice, and I am going to get my first-aid kit. If you are comfortable removing your shirt, I should take a look at the bruising on your back and ribs, and it will help me to set your arm."
"You seem to have a thing for narrating everything." Dean curls into himself on the couch, eyes closing, but by the time he does the doctor is back before him, tugging the coffee table closer to the couch and sitting on it, a bag of ice and glass of juice in one hand, and a medical kit about the size of one of Dean's toolboxes next to him. "Drink the juice. It will help with the shock, and raise and stabilize your blood pressure." He's already pulling a blanket over from the chair, throwing it over Dean, frowning at his shirt like it's personally offended him by not coming off. He doesn't argue it, though. "Sit up for a moment, please. Finish that glass, and then attempt to relax. It will make it easier for me to relocate the joint in your shoulder."
Gentle hands smooth over his arm, fingers walking along the curve of his neck to check for additional injuries and down to his shoulder to see the angle of the dislocation. Dean's not sure if it's meant to feel like foreplay, if his brain's doing the fight-to-fuck jump (wouldn't be the first time), or if it's just shock or reaffirmation of life after a death, or some other crap he doesn't pretend to care about in his apparently lengthening list of psychological issues. It shouldn't feel good. Dean knows it shouldn't, because he's bitten people heads off for trying to touch him after shit like today, but it's comforting this time, and he doesn't know why.
The audible pop of his shoulder moving back into joint is less pleasant. Dean spews profanities and slaps Castiel's hand back, holding the ice to his shoulder himself, reluctant to test the range of movement now. Castiel frowns, but once again doesn't argue it, and shifts to sit farther back on the table, quietly opening his kit and cleaning his own knuckles, waiting for permission to approach Dean again.
"You didn't have to do that, you know. Don't have to do this. . ." Dean frowns, looking away rather than face the blue eyes he knows are staring at him now. ". . . I mean, you could get into a lot of shit for getting into a fight at the hospital, and we don't know how badly hurt those guys are, and I'm not worth. . ."
"You didn't deserve that. No one deserves. . ." Castiel stops cold, blinking at Dean, and frowns as he cants his head questioningly to the side. "You don't think you deserve to be saved." Dean shrugs uncomfortably under Castiel's stare, and at least he recognizes the sigh of disappointment for what it is.
"You are welcome to the bathroom, and if you'd like you can have my bed tonight. I would like you to stay here. I don't. . . I would like to know that you are safe, and that you are not alone after what happened today." After his dad, not just after the fight. Dean looks back at Cas with a furrowed brow, curious.
"Were you going to stalk me on my way out of the hospital or something?"
"I was going to walk to the bus stop, and was weighing asking if you were staying again at the bar, because I was considering returning there tonight. I was not stalking you, but I. . ." Huh. Castiel blushes. Badass street-fighting doctor who'd taken the bill for all of his binge drinking yesterday without having spoken a word to him, and he's blushing.
"Two nights in a row, huh? Turning into an alcoholic on me, doc? Or were you just planning to actually come up to me at the bar this time?" Rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably, Castiel rises to his feet and packs his medical kit back up, tucking it beside the couch for the off-chance opportunity to finish fixing up Dean to his satisfaction, and generally busying himself with looking elsewhere. "You flirting with me, doc? Because last time a guy went this outta his way for me. . ."
He lets the suggestive comment tail off, but Castiel turns slightly, raising an eyebrow at him questioningly. As if he doubted that people went tothis level of ridiculous lengths to help him on a regular basis, and okay. Fair point. ". . . He was closely related to me, and I gave him shit the entire time for it and still do every time I see him." Dean concedes, and Castiel quietly snorts his amusement at the admission.
"I am going to change clothes, and we are going to order dinner. If you have a preference, I have take-out menus in the drawer of that table." Dean has his car keys, and Castiel isn't locking him in. He knows where the car was, and he recognizes that he's being given the opportunity to bail. He also gets the distinct feeling that while Castiel isn't denying that he's attracted to Dean, he's not planning to make a move. Which Dean's remaining brain cells after today's emotional roller-coaster admit he's secretly thankful for. He's pretty fucked up in the head right now.
Castiel closes the bedroom door behind him, quietly, and Dean pulls his cell phone out of his pocket, raising it to his ear as he opens the drawer of the table beside him.
"Dean, are you okay?"
Jo answers on the first ring, and he pulls the blanket tighter around him as he drops take-out menus onto the table in front of him. "Jo, you really gotta ask that?"
The background noises fade, Jo disappearing from behind the bar and into the kitchen, he's sure. "No. Sorry, that was a stupid question. I'm so sorry, Dean, about your dad. . ." He doesn't answer, closing his eyes to keep them dry, and she seems to get the hint. "Are you coming back tonight, or going back to John's place? We don't mind, we can . . ."
"The asshole from last night jumped me on my way out of the hospital, with his friends." Jo's teeth snap shut mid-word, and he can hear the swing the door open again, the quick swell of noise, and he's damn sure she just waved Ellen over to her.
"Where are you? Did they. . .? Do you need me to go down to the station, or. . .?"
"I'm okay. I'm like eighty percent sure they're all still breathing, too. I had. . . help. I guess." Running his hand over his hair, Dean tugs the blanket around himself and gives up on the menus for the moment, pushing himself to his feet. He can hear the shower starting up, off of the bedroom, and he figures that means he has a couple of minutes to find out if this guy's got a sex torture dungeon attached to his pantry or something. "If anyone comes sniffing around about me, can you drop me a line? I'm going to lay low for tonight, and I'll be around tomorrow once Sam gets in."
"Dean Winchester, you tell me where you are this minute. I am not going to have you hiding in some damn ditch or something because. . ."
Ellen has now apparently crowded close enough to Jo that they can both hear the phone. "I'm fine, Ellen. The doctor from today. . ." He does not want to think about today. ". . . He uh. . . kinda helped break up the fight, and now he's letting me crash with him. I'll text Jo the address, so you don't spend all night worrying and know where to send search parties or whatever tomorrow if you don't hear from me, and I'll call you once I've got Sam tomorrow morning."
He doesn't let himself linger on the phone long. He's actively perusing the apartment's few personal effects, and has had his attention caught at the built-in bookcase of the apartment, where books crowd the shelves, stacked on top of rows when they won't fit otherwise. In a silver frame, three damn-near identical men, differentiated by attire, by posture, and apparently by vocation, stand on the front porch of an old brownstone looking at least ten years younger than the man in the shower right now. On the right, arm slung around a woman with honey-blonde hair and a baby in her arms, a man who is the spitting image of Castiel is frozen in a laugh with his head tipped back towards the sky. On the left side, another brother is tilted to share a slight, faintly awkward looking grin at whatever joke had set them off, looking past a woman with soft brown curls and big green eyes who has her arm possessively around him. He can pick out which one's Castiel easily, though. . . head tilted down, his own hair sticking up every which way, a hand at the back of his neck awkwardly. A neck that is encircled with a priest's clerical collar and starched shirt, beneath the camouflaged U.S. Army BDUs with NOVAK embroidered across the pocket.
He's still holding the photo in his hand when Castiel opens the bedroom door, takes in Dean handling his personal effects, and pads barefoot back to the couch to compulsively stack the jumbled menu without commenting, his head tucked down and hair flattened to his head by the shower, t-shirt sticking to damp skin. "Emmanuel and Jimmy. My brothers." He finally offers to Dean, who is now scouring the shelves without putting the photo down, entirely unabashed at being caught.
"Yeah, I figured that part out, strangely." Dean mutters."Identical triplets, huh? I'd say that I bet you were the life of the party, but. . ."
"Priest." Cas agrees, wry and bitter, before he even has the chance to make the joke. "Chinese, Italian or American food?"
"And soldier. And apparently doctor."
"I clearly couldn't decide on a stereotype and stick to it. I think the deli. They make burgers, and will deliver if we order over $25. We'll have to have dessert to meet that." Castiel is nervous, upset even, and Dean turns to face him, taking in the tight creases lining his face and the way his eyes aren't moving from the menu.
"Cas. . ." The use of a nickname drags Castiel's head up, blue eyes widening slightly, and even Dean's surprised how quickly he fell into that. To be fair, Castiel's a mouthful and he called the guy 'Doctor' all day. "I'm sorry to snoop. Just sitting still and wondering and dwelling is. . ." He shrugs.
"I understand." Letting his breath out, Castiel's rigid posture relaxes, and he rises from the couch after a moment and joins Dean at the bookshelf, trading the menu for the picture. "Pro Deo Et Patria. For God and Country, the motto of the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps. I was an ordained Catholic priest and military chaplain."
"Was." There's a question there, and Castiel acknowledges it with a quiet grunt as he puts the photo back on the shelf carefully. There's a puzzle piece there, too, that Dean recognizes. Someone in that photo isn't in the picture any more. He's treating the framed photograph with reverence the way Dean treats the picture of Mary Winchester he's kept with him since he was four.
"I had a crisis of faith while deployed. In God and in country, as it were. Chaplains are required to be noncombatants, by international accord and military protocol. We're never technically prisoners of war, according to the Geneva Convention. When we are taken, we are kept to minister to the prisoners. So we are fed, and we are cared for, and we are technically free to go . . . all while men and women we trained beside, lived beside, ministered to and counseled are treated. . ." Swallowing thickly, Castiel turns away from the photo and walks back to the couch, settling down with his elbows across his knees, one hand rising to his temple. "I acted outside of accordance with those conventions and was discharged from the military, and I asked to be dispensed from the clergy. I'd spent the last four years at the side of Army doctors, trying to offer God to dying and brutally treated soldiers. When I came out of it, I wanted to try and help them with more than prayers. And here I am, after five years in a seminary education during college, four years in the military, four years in medical school, and two years in residency."
That's a lot of school, probably even from the perspective of someone who wasn't a drop-out with a GED. And a lot of raw intelligence for a guy whose job now is apparently babysitting the comatose and treating bedsores.
Dean pushes away from the bookshelf and joins Cas on the couch, and damned if he doesn't feel guilty for bringing this up now. He wants to pry more, to find out what it is about that picture of Cas and his brothers that's got the guy so wound up, but instead he rests the menu on Cas's knee, waiting until he looks up and meets Dean's eyes again, guarded and braced for. . . something. How much shit has this guy gotten for his ownbackground?
"I'll have a burger, if you're ordering. And whatever kind of pie they've got made."
The look of sheer gratitude makes it worth dropping it for now.
"If it's okay with you, I'm gonna steal your shower. I don't want to smell like. . ." Cas nods in sympathy and understanding, and he grimaces like he can smell those guys on Dean too. "Top drawer has pajamas. You're welcome to anything you need in the bathroom. When you're out, I'm going to finish patching you up, if that's alright with you."
xXx
Castiel has his borrowed shirt off, his ribs half bandaged to protect what he suspects is a fractured rib from the punches, and is wearing a persistent blush that Dean's pretty damn sure he wouldn't have in a hospital setting given his professional demeanor, before he figures out two more things he could learn from that one picture.
One: given the guy's maybe thirty-five or thirty-six max, the addition there means that he was on his way to Catholic priesthood right after high school, and unless he was getting some pretty young, or out chasing tail while slogging through medical school, he's spent a damn long time celibate or inexperienced as hell. He's pink to his ears from having a hand against Dean's back, at just being around an omega who's starting to realize he finds the guy inexplicably attractive. An omega who now smells like him; his clothes, his soap, his shower. This guy could probably diagram the human body, inside and out, and despite that he was looking like his cheeks were trying to combust just by touching the bare skin of Dean's freckled shoulder, and doing a medical task that would seem menial to him. Dean's about ready to bet his Impala on Cas being a frikkin' thirty-something year old virgin, hard as it is for him to believe.
Two: Identical triplets with his looks, his intelligence, and one of whom would apparently stop and risk a career he had fought through hell to get to, and possibly even assault charges depending on how those guys spun it, and the contempt Cas had on his face when Dean mentioned breeding farms. . . Cas is quite likely a crèche baby: carefully selected genetics, fertility drugs or egg-splicing, pick any willing or unwilling omega, enjoy a wet hole to fuck a knot into or jerk off in a jar if you're squeamish, and nine months in a captive human incubator later you get your perfect little princes or princesses who the 'fertility companies' will even raise for you until they're just the right age to show off. And as long as you can prove or fabricate proof that the omegas are all paid when they're done and drug them until they look happy for a government walk-through, it's all legal. Just doing their part to ensure the survival of the human race and obeying their biological imperatives.
Cas is a product of a high-end breeding farm. And clearly not exactly happy with that fact.
And finally, the third conclusion: maybe Dean isn't the only person in the room working through issues.