—Day 100—
“Cas?”
Jerked awake by the unexpected noise, Castiel blinks uncertainly into the gloom of the living room, surrounded by the too-familiar silence of an empty cabin in a tiny camp at the end of the world. For some reason (for no reason), he expected—
(the sound of someone else breathing a room away; the shrill squeal of springs of the mattress as he rolls over in bed; the low, muffled sounds of distress from a nightmare or fever; the unhappy groan that punctuates the moment he awakens to a new morning)
Closing his eyes again, he fights down panic, the sound of his own too-rapid breathing filling his ears: a monotonous day stretches before him, the endless drag of time broken into discrete units and filled with anything, everything he can find to do, sex and drugs, chemical euphoria and the long, slow crash before it begins all over again. His existence stretches to the beginning of time, but since he Fell, he learned the meaning of forever; it’s mortality, the march of linear time where seconds last years and days eons and never seems to end.
It’s another morning, much like the one before and will be exactly like the next; there’s no reason to get up and he can’t remember why he thought there was.
(there’s no sound of someone who is very cranky in the morning and requires coffee before interaction can commence; there’s no one who requires a rigorously researched breakfast that covers the four food groups and is low in unnecessary carbohydrates; there’s no reason to verify that the contents of the pantry are adequate or if something is lacking before preparing lunch; there’s no day to look forward to, filled with work and people and an endless list of things to do; there’s no reason to shower, get dressed; there’s no reason to get up)
“Cas? Are you—crap!” Something drops heavily to the floor, and Castiel sits up to see Alicia scowling at the fabric shade covering the doorway. “Sorry,” she says, letting go of the cord. “I was trying to lower it slowly, be subtle. That didn’t work.”
Glancing out the window, he takes in the drizzling rain outside and then Alicia, braided hair damp as she takes off her jacket and looks around before shrugging and shoving it between the shade and the doorway to drop it on the porch and sitting down on the floor to remove her muddy boots. He appreciates the thought; cleaning drying mud from the floor is breathtakingly tedious, but if he doesn’t do it immediately, it will spread.
Looking around, Castiel takes in the cabin carefully. The room is clean and organized according to maximum comfort and efficient use of space (though the rug, he reflects unhappily, is becoming dingy since he can’t take it outside to clean it; perhaps he should have asked James to acquire a vacuum yesterday?), there are no empty bottles, full ashtrays, unwashed plates, piles of laundry, or a lingering scent of anything but wet and rain and perhaps the lemon-based cleaning product he acquired from Chuck because he and Dean were both becoming nauseated from the smell of bleach and ammonia (though not together; he did learn that much, thankfully before turning the bathroom into an impromptu gas chamber).
He’s very sober, relatively clean, and on the coffee table is today’s schedule, which includes a discussion with Chuck about the use of spreadsheets but not (he thinks), a dawn meeting with Alicia.
Setting her boots outside as well, Alicia turns to face him with a bright grin, obscenely awake and almost crackling with energy. “Good morning, Cas.”
She’s a morning person, he remembers belatedly. They’re like this; it’s not personal.
“Good morning.” Dean’s having his first breakfast in Ichabod and this is the first full day of his trial period as—he shies away from the word warily—what Dean said. “How are you?”
“Terrorized the watch with Matt—he’s in charge of them today, fine, but reinforcement never hurt anyone, am I right?” Her grins fades, replaced by concern. “You okay? You looked…weird there for a minute.”
“I didn’t sleep well,” he answers, not entirely untruthfully. Dean’s strict schedule was uncannily effective in regulating his sleep patterns, but last night he found it difficult to fall asleep and woke intermittently throughout the night. Maybe that explains it. “Have you ever woken up and—forgot several months of your life for several very long moments?”
“Once I dreamed I baked a cake,” she says thoughtfully. “Looked for it for thirty minutes after I woke up, too. I was so pissed…it was chocolate, too.”
Drawing up his knees, he looks at her curiously. “Does that happen often?”
“Not often, but it’s weird when it does,” she answers, leaning her elbows on the armchair on the other side of the coffee table. “You ever have those weird dreams that last, like, years? Then you wake up and you’re hours feeling like you should be seventy or married to a sea plumber?”
“What’s a sea plumber?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” she sighs. “But we had a lot of tadpoles and one’s name was Scott. Anything like that ever happen to you?”
It’s a complicated question; REM sleep is a requirement to maintain the health of the human brain, his body is human, so he must dream. “I never remember what I dream. This morning was—strange.”
“Huh.” She cocks her head. “First time Dean’s been gone for the night, am I right? Since you two….you know.” He nods uncertainly, not sure of the relevance. “You get used to them being around. When they’re not, it can be—” She makes an incomprehensible gesture. “Weird. Like something’s missing.”
That makes sense. “Oh.”
“It’s a thing,” she assures him, straightening. “What you need is coffee, and a lot of it. Can’t go wrong with caffeine and sugar, I always say.”
“Yes,” he agrees. “I can—”
“I’ll make it,” she says brightly, already on her way to the kitchen, and belated, he notices a bag hanging over one flannel-covered arm. Flipping on the light, she looks around in approval before spotting the pantry. “So—here we go. You want me to make breakfast while you shower?”
“Yes, thank you—” He stops short, glancing at the open notebook. “Alicia, why are you here?”
“Check your stitches, so just toss the bandage when you get out, it needs air anyway,” she calls from the kitchen, and he hears her make a satisfied sound as she opens the pantry door. “Take your time,” she adds, studying the contents speculatively. “I got an idea.”
When he returns, Alicia is turning off the burner beneath the frying pan with a triumphant expression. “Get some coffee and sit down,” she says over her shoulder as she takes a drink from her own cup. “I’ll be one more second.”
Obediently, he does so, looking in approval at the neatly set table, though the position of the fork on the right side is a variation he wasn’t aware of. As he sits down, Alicia places a plate in the middle of the table, stacked with several slices of toasted bread and adds a smaller bowl of fruit before crouching to roll up his sleeve and give the stitches a fast, professional once-over.
“Any vivisection-like pain?” He shakes his head and she nods in approval, straightening. “Good. I’ll bandage it after we eat. This is French toast, Chitaqua-style,” she adds, stabbing a fork into the top two slices before dropping them on his plate, sprinkling them with sugar and adding a spoonful of fruit. “Only legit use of powdered eggs in history. I used creamer for the milk and added the syrup from the fruit to the egg for flavor since we don’t have vanilla”
Castiel blinks down at his plate before carefully cutting off a corner with his fork and taking a bite. To his surprise, the flavor isn’t offensive, and the texture of the bread is different from whatever she did to it.
“Add sugar as needed,” she advises him, adding several spoons to hers and a layer of fruit before taking an enormous bite. “Sugar—”
“—makes everything better,” he finishes for her, adding another spoonful and taking a larger bite this time. This is very good; the fruit combines very well with the bread. “I wonder if Dean would like this.”
“He does. A lot.” When he looks up, startled, Alicia grins at him unselfconsciously. “I’ll give you the recipe. So what’s on the agenda for today?”
Castiel regards her thoughtfully. “Alicia—”
“Thinking thoughts before two cups of coffee never did anything for anyone,” Alicia tells him sympathetically, finishing off her first two pieces and getting two more. “Can’t trust ‘em. Eat, Cas, my feelings are in the process of getting very hurt by the lack of fake enthusiasm.”
“This is very good,” he answers defensively, taking another bite to prove it. “Did Dean tell you to—”
“No, of course not,” she interrupts before folding half a piece of toast onto her fork and stuffing the entirety into her mouth. Unblinking, Castiel watches her engage in several seconds of enthusiastic chewing (no sign of choking to death) before successfully swallowing (how did she do that?). “Give me something to do.”
He pauses, fork halfway to his mouth.
“Bored,” she says, finishing the second half of the toast; it’s impossible to look away. “And kind of hiding, fine.”
“Hiding?”
“Matt’s on Watch-terrorizing duty today,” she explains. “You know who isn’t?”
He finishes the bite and waits; that’s what’s known as a rhetorical question.
“Everyone, but also, Andy. And you know who’s not on patrol right now due to flooding or something?”
He shakes his head and cuts off another (larger) piece of toast.
“Kat,” she pronounces despairingly. “Amber and Brenda are on watch today—that’s why I’m not on duty, they’re my roommates, conflict of interest, or don’t want to be shivved in the ass while I sleep, you know?” He nods as he swallows. “Right. So Andy and Kat need somewhere to hang out—their roommates are all home, fuck the rain—look, Andy’s team, okay?” He nods again, cutting off another piece of toast with the side of his fork. “When I said, sure, here’s fine for you two crazy kids, I didn’t know in a few short weeks, we’d be All Rain, All the Time….”
“Hang out?” he asks as she pauses to get another piece of toast (and breathe, he thinks).
“Fuck on Brenda’s bed,” she answers prosaically, dividing the toast and consuming half in a single, mournful bite.
“Brenda’s bed?”
“What she doesn’t know—and Andy launders carefully after—won’t hurt anyone,” she assures him, folding the second half. “But see, that’s not the problem. The problem is, they won’t until I leave. Imagine it, Cas: three people in the living room making awkward conversation while two of them stare at each other like….”
He shares her shudder as they both finish the last of the toast.
“Andy usually shows up first—hang out, he says,” she adds after swallowing, looking at him pitifully over both their empty plates. “Talk about his feelings, he means. All his feelings, and….you can’t make me go back there, and it’s here or the infirmary, and that’s just depressing.”
He almost asks why, then remembers: all the patrols are grounded until the rain ends, and other than those in Ichabod with Dean, everyone is in the camp. And very few, he knows from experience, have Kat and Andy’s inexplicable inhibitions regarding the presence of others in the same cabin. Or the same room, for that matter.
“I’ll be handing out condoms all day,” she mutters glumly in confirmation of why even the infirmary is dangerous territory, glaring at her plate before looking at him appealingly. “Weren’t those nice stitches? Not even gonna scar, can tell you that right now, I do excellent work.”
“You do,” he agrees, picking up their plates and taking them to the sink. “Did you happen to go by the mess—”
“That’s where I got the powdered eggs this morning for the French toast bribery,” she confirms, bringing him the empty fruit bowl and the silverware before leaning against the counter. “Why?”
“Did you see James by any chance?” he asks, turning on the water. It’s at least an hour before patrol goes off duty and morning reports here, but he suspects James got very little sleep last night.
“Yeah, he and his team were there.” She tilts her head. “Oh, I forgot; this is his first day on local, right?”
“Yes.”
“Up at hour before duty?” Alicia shudders delicately. “He’ll learn the five minute rule just like the rest of us.” At his querying look, she elaborates. “One minute to resign yourself to morning, one to dress, one for coffee, teeth-brushing, and hating everything, one to eat anything that isn’t actually decomposing, and a leisurely minute to get from your cabin to here. Fifteen seconds at a sprint, if you have to open a can, and me, I can eat and run. Multitask, only way to travel, I always say.”
He regards her blankly as he turns off the water. “You like mornings.”
“I like mornings,” she agrees. “I deeply resent having to do anything during them, as is my way. Dishtowel?”
“What?”
“Where’s the dishtowel?” she asks, already circling around him and ducking to open the door under the sink and peer inside. “Never mind, found it.”
“You’re—”
“Being useful because Andy’s even more a morning person than I am, and his feelings are twenty-four seven,” she says, dishtowel in hand. “Feelings, Cas. All the feelings. Her hair gets, like, six of them. Long walks on the beach, puppies, and green tea—things she likes,” she adds at his mystified expression. “Green bell peppers, not red, and her smile just….” Alicia shuts her eyes tightly and extends a hand, snapping her fingers impatiently. “Dishes, Cas. Give me dishes.”
“I’m sorry,” he says sincerely, turning off the water and reaching for a plate. “I thought perhaps humans only did that on television.”
“Lifetime Channel?” She nods wisely. “That shit fucks you up. Like one minute you’re fine, and two hours later, you’re crying over the phone because you forgot you don’t have a long lost sister to reunite with and heal the twenty-year breach in the family in time for Christmas.”
“I saw that movie.” There’d been some kind of tragic misunderstanding during their adolescence that could have been easily avoided if Phyllis had simply opened her sister’s bedroom door to discover she was watching Showtime’s late-night line-up and not fucking Phyllis’s crush, Billy, a star football player who did nothing but smile with far, far too many teeth.
“Everyone saw that movie,” Alicia tells him as he hands her the first plate. “They’re all that movie, no matter which one you actually see. You worried about James?”
He hesitates, remembering when James showed up last night with half the items on the initial list and a stoic expression, apologizing that he didn’t find them all while his team hovered supportively nearby (or at least, those that weren’t Cynthia, who simply glared at Castiel. He made a note to tell her Kyle’s efforts are far superior and encourage her to ask for his assistance if she has any desire for improvement).
This told Castiel two very important things: one, James seems to have gained his team’s confidence (again, those not Cynthia) and is extraordinarily competent; and two, perhaps he should have been more clear before James left that the time limit and list of items were a convenience, not a test, and no, he didn’t think anyone would be able to acquire one hundred items in less than twelve hours.
Despite Castiel’s efforts at validation—acquiring only fifty items in less than twelve hours on his first mission with his new team being an impressive achievement—James and his teammates (exception: Cynthia, who radiated hostility at all and sundry) seemed less than reassured when they left.
“How did he seem this morning?”
“Nervous,” she answers promptly, rocking her hand. “Staring at breakfast like it might kill him, but since Penn’s cooking….”
Yes, he suspected as much. “His team?”
Alicia makes a face as she takes the frying pan. “Zack and Nate were—worse, honestly. No worries, though: Mira stopped by for breakfast and is talking them down. Just nerves: he’ll be fine.”
“Good,” he replies, aware of her deliberate exclusion and content to simply wait. As the silence stretches over three plates and one fork, he considers possible topics of conversation in the meantime. “So the weather—”
“Rainy, wet, may need an Ark, yeah,” she interrupts, snatching the bowl from his hand and drying it industriously. “You know, I just realized; you can’t run patrol and take notes. Sure, your memory, but you really wanna transcribe all that when I’m right here with very willing and eager hands that know what a pencil is and how best to use it?”
He shakes his head on cue.
“That’s what I thought,” she says in satisfaction. “You know, James survived Kyle; kid’s got nerves of steel or something.”
He nods, handing her the last plate before draining the sink. “More coffee?”
“Yeah, thanks.” Putting it away, she drapes the damp cloth over the faucet before turning to lean back against the counter. “He did a good job yesterday, right?”
“Yes,” he answers as he carefully pours two cups. “I must not have been as encouraging as I’d hoped.”
Taking the cup, she raises both eyebrows in acknowledgement, frowning at nothing.
“Perhaps my people skills need work,” he adds casually as he adds cream and sugar to his cup. “As you’ll be observing….”
“You know, that’s a good idea,” she says thoughtfully, taking a sip from her own cup and frowning before making her way to the table and reaching for the sugar. “And after, I can confirm that your people skills? Definitely aren’t the problem.” She grins at him over her cup before taking a drink. “I’m trying to be subtle. How’m I doing?”
“Very good.” He takes a drink of coffee. “I’m looking forward to hearing your observations.”