The Game of God: Day 154 - part 4
A coup.
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— Day 154, continued —
The narrow room manages, against all odds, to combine all the worst parts of a prison cell and a hospital room. Bare white walls, the small window nailed over with wooden planks (probably due to the lack of glass, true), it’s furnished with nothing but a cot, several pieces of alarmingly noisy medical equipment, and a stack of books in the corner. Which is all it can actually hold; Castiel’s aware of a sense of sympathetic claustrophobia just looking inside from the observation room. Despite the cold, he wants to open a window, and it’s only with an effort he ignores the fact that this room, devoted to observation of those in quarantine, doesn’t have one other than the one looking into Haruhi’s room and the one in the door.
Haruhi, dressed in too-large, pale green scrubs, is sitting cross-legged on the cot, currently engaged in what appears to be a staring match with the boarded window, an open spiral on the bed in front of her where she writes her requests for those in the observation room to read.
“How is she?” he asks Vera, currently reading the latest updates to Haruhi’s chart at the nearby table. Beneath it is Carol’s, since surgery was delayed for one of the many emergencies that seem to be part of life in Ichabod now.
“Nothing’s triggered her so far, but—”
“That’s not,” he interrupts, “what I was referring to.”
Behind him, he hears the scrape of a chair and then footsteps before Vera comes up beside him. “Cas—”
“For over two days, she’s been locked in a small room with a blocked window, without human contact other than escort to and from the bathroom and medical tests four times each day,” he says flatly. “While believing she’s under suspicion for the attack on me in the mess as well as aware she may have been exposed to something that is dangerous enough to limit contact to a minimum, including basic verbal communication. She doesn’t know what is wrong with her, and no one can tell her because they don’t know either, or even if anything is.”
Vera’s shoulder presses against his upper arm in silent understanding as Haruhi picks up the spiral, black ponytail sweeping over her shoulder. Pen in hand, she starts to write something then hesitates, closing her eyes briefly before dropping both spiral and pen back to the thin mattress. For a moment, the carefully-constructed calm shatters, revealing the maelstrom of emotion before she lowers her head.
“It sucks,” Vera tells him quietly. “But it’s as much to protect her as everyone else.”
He knows that; it doesn’t help.
He doesn’t turn at the sound of the door opening, unable to look away from Haruhi, the despairing slump. “Hey, Cas,” Alicia says, followed by another set of footsteps that he confirms in peripheral vision is Teresa. “Glad you could make it.”
“No change,” Vera tells her. “We passed the forty-eight hour mark, Alicia. Whatever the trigger is—”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m here.” Alicia hops up on the table, legs swinging cheerfully as she sets down several folders, a stapled mass of papers, and a library book: Hoaxes, Myths, and Manias: Why We Need Critical Thinking by Robert E. Bartholomew, that’s—odd. Now that he’s thinking about it, he thinks that he saw it in their room yesterday. Picking up the papers, Alicia waves it. “So Joe started a thing for Dean about what everyone is saying about coming here—”
“I thought we were releasing Haruhi,” Castiel interrupts.
“We are, but you three are in the only room in this town I’m absolutely sure no one can listen in,” Alicia answers. “Except Alison, but she’s okay. At least I think so.”
“What does that mean?” Teresa asks, automatically turning the lock on the door, and Castiel reminds himself if all else fails, he can actually punch a hole in the wall if he feels like the room would benefit from a view outside. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t want to make people nervous,” Alicia answers. “At least, more than they are. Nervous people become anxious and irritable, anxiety leads to paranoia, and paranoia under the right conditions lead to shoot-outs in the mess, YMCA, and library.”
“If you have information on what is occurring, Dean should be here,” Castiel starts and then rewinds. “You said Alison was fine.”
“I think. And by implication, Dean isn’t, yeah,” Alicia agrees, nodding. “Him, I’m definitely sure. You, it’s fifty-fifty, but if I’m right about what happened in the mess—well, you and Teresa are kind of my anchor people here anyway, so needs must as surely someone says, though I never met anyone who did.”
“I use it,” he answers, and then wonders on the relevance. “Alicia—”
“Probably where I heard it, then.” Alicia waves the report again. “Okay, so Joe’s report for Dean—it was at the front desk, I just borrowed it—and having read it—”
“When?”
“On the walk here,” she says with a shrug, and he sees Vera and Teresa stare at the mass of pages before giving Alicia an incredulous look. “Matt and Jody carried the boxes for me. Anyway, I think I know what Dean was thinking and he was right. Here we go.” She flips the pages and starts to read. “People trying to take their guns, their neighbor who is trying to kill them, pack of wild dogs and/or coyotes and/or wolves—canines are popular sources of terror—hurricane—yes, in Kansas, just roll with it—their ex-spouse, allergy season, snakes, spiders, demons, vampires, Communism, earthquakes, immigrants—”
“Immigrants,” Teresa says incredulously. “In the infected zone?”
“I’m not saying they’re aware of irony,” Alicia agrees sympathetically. “Also—ohh, interesting: buried alive, lost in endless space, being pushed and falling into a crevice, things with lots of creepy holes, falling forever—okay, I think that clarifies things, you see what I mean?”
“Things you fear,” Teresa says, nodding as she gets a chair, pulling it to observe Alicia and Haruhi both. “That part I got, but they think—”
“Yes, but also no. Think about it; these aren’t even the same kinds of fear,” Alicia interrupts. “Or even the same psychology, except a vague category known as ‘Things Which People Fear.’ Paranoia, phobias, what I’m pretty sure are very specific triggers for PTSD, conspiracy theory, plots from horror movies that kept you up a week—fine, a month—and then, actual normal, for value of normal, reasonable concerns and anxieties all mixed up, it’s a grab bag, no rhyme or reason. Interesting, right? Like something—say, a coercive—just flipped literally the first, easiest, or closest switch it came across whether it made sense or not and used that.” Alicia looks up. “Grabbed the first thing it could and said ‘This is chasing you. Run’.”
“That’s what the coercive did to get them moving,” Teresa says, startled, and grabbing one of the chairs, takes the offered report, reading down the page. “Okay, that would actually work.”
“Mostly work,” Alicia corrects her. “At least—”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Vera argues. “How can falling into a crevice chase you?”
“It’s always chasing you,” Castiel says, staring blindly into that tiny room. “Just sometimes, you can almost forget, and sometimes… sometimes, you need to sit on a porch or roof or in a field until you can breathe again.”
Vera blinks, looking between Castiel and Alicia uncertainly.
“You don’t have a phobia, do you?” Alicia asks and Vera shakes her head. “Impossible to explain unless you have one, then you don’t need the explanation: you know. One cockroach, how could it hurt me? I don’t care: kill it with fire. This is a panic button: thinking shuts down and reptile brain wins every time.”
Teresa nods grimly. “A grab bag.”
“Only explanation is either whoever did this didn’t understand what fear was, understood way too well, or just did, like, ‘fear’ and the coercive took that literally,” Alicia says. “No proof, but I’m going with the third, because one, as yet, this has shown no sign of being done by anyone even reasonably competent, just super determined, and two, it explains something else—our arbitrary number of people who go homicidally crazy. Cas, I was wrong—you weren’t the catalyst, we still don’t know that, but we do have this: the crazy is this thing abruptly—for actual catalyst reasons—slamming down on that panic button.”
“Phobias,” Teresa says, lowering the report. “PTSD. Trauma. That would explain it.”
“Cas said it, it’s always chasing you, but most of us, we can talk ourselves down, and they are, pretty goddamn well so far. Then catalyst: they snap. I hate to say it, but our Homicide Five probably couldn’t stop, especially since they had no idea this was artificially induced and from the inside, that wouldn’t matter anyway. Panic button, and worse—if I’m right—this thing is trying to make it as real as possible, at least to them, because to get these people moving, they had to believe it. We’re talking very real flashbacks, hallucinations, all the fun ways the brain fucks with us when we don’t have something actually forcing it to happen.
“Psychosis,” Castiel says, and Alicia nods.
“And in any given room, just math, you’re gonna have a few people with those buttons, especially in the infected zone,” Alicia continues. “If we assume everyone coming in has a coercive on them, suddenly it’s not that it’s happened, but why it’s not happening more.”
Teresa frowns. “It can’t be that simple.”
“Actually, it’s so simple it manages to make it all the way to complex and back again,” Alicia answers, and Castiel notes her legs are no longer kicking. “Couldn’t find Waller, but the library’s a mess, so had to settle for Bartholomew and his thing for shrinking genitalia—Chapter 9—and the Encyclopedia Britannica. What can you tell me about the Dancing Plague?” She opens the book and points. “That was Chapter 10.”
Here’s where Dean might just admit his situational awareness might need more work; it takes him a whole five seconds before he realizes everyone’s way too still, and sees the flash of a muzzle just in time to pull his gun without thinking if he should actually do that.
Son of a bitch: Cas is gonna kill him for missing this.
The ground floor of Volunteer Services is basically one giant room and two smaller ones in the back, which Tony said was because in a former life it was a super trendy gallery, which Dean was unaware was a thing in small towns in Kansas but okay. There’s still some weird echoes of it, too; the remaining scraps of paint are all superwhite, which may not mean anything but he didn’t think colors came in a white that’s almost painful to look at.
Despite the size, they’re probably well over the semi-existent firemen’s recommended number of people; picking between overturned chairs and bags, he’s putting the total number as above two hundred and that doesn’t include the second floor, where Dolores set up one of her EMT’s to do quick triage of those not needing immediate assistance and volunteers work at organizing housing and giving out clothes and shoes and snacks to those waiting.
The volunteer desk is set just in front of the stairs two-thirds of the way into the room, and Dean makes a mental note to talk to Naresh or Manuel about coming in here and working out how to makes sure the volunteers have at least one clear line of evacuation other than the stairs, since setup right now means they’re under siege with no way out.
“Don’t shoot,” he hears himself say like a civilian in a shitty blockbuster (the one that always dies). On the other hand, it works.
Raising his arms, he focuses on the five armed people in the center of the room; probably new arrivals, two of them with faces still burned red from the cold and wearing heavy winter coats despite the warmth of the room but no gloves or hats. Brown-haired guy with plaid coat, farthest from him, so pale that the red of his cheeks looks painted, carrying a Bushmaster carbine, great; tall guy with grey coat, dark skin nearly grey with exhaustion, Remington maybe-semi (he hopes); huge guy with beard (thanks) is the one with the shotgun and what looks like a Browning with post-purchase auto upgrade; the only woman, red hair in a messy bun, has a fucking Beretta that someone removed the ‘semi’ from auto if he’s right (he is); Jesus Christ, they’re about five seconds from a mass murder by accident, every goddamn one of them with a finger on the trigger that’s about as steady as a leaf in gale-force winds.
Surrounding them are fuck knows how many terrified people on sleeping bags and between overturned chairs, and in the back of his mind, Dean notes how still they are, even for people with guns trained on them. And in the middle of the room, one still figure may be all the motivation they need to stay where they are.
“Everyone stay calm,” he says, more from the need to say something than any actual belief that will do shit. These people aren’t just still; they’re frozen, eyes wide and blank, like a rabbit in headlights, nowhere to go; other than the harsh sound of panting from those holding the room hostage, it’s utterly silent. Haruhi and Rosario: both reported freezing, cause unknown; the mess, Cas said no one moved; Mira, same thing. “My name is Dean Winchester. I’m here to help.”
It’s not just some people affected by whatever this is; it might be everyone coming into Ichabod. Which levels this up considerably, and that’s not including how Haruhi and Rosario got it.
“Put down your gun!” the bearded guy shouts, and Dean so doesn’t like the way he can’t keep that barrel still. Sure, that raises the chances of missing him but no matter where he shoots there’s gonna be guaranteed casualties. The other three don’t even have to aim right now; they will hit a lot of someone’s if they close their eyes before pulling the trigger.
“Got it,” he says, keeping the man’s gaze locked on him as he slowly lowers himself into a crouch and even more slowly lowers his gun hand toward the ground. “So how about you point that somewhere else? Where there aren’t people?”
The man’s expression doesn’t change, focused on Dean like there’s no one else in the room (good) and as he feels the floor click against the gun, he sees the utter terror beneath the anger: flight, fight, or freeze, there’s something going on in this room that’s making this happen. And it’s not getting any calmer, either; if anything, it’s getting worse, and from the way all their fingers tremble on the triggers, it’s taking everything in them not to shoot up the place.
“Look,” he says calmly, keeping the guy with him, “you don’t want to do this. Just—”
“They followed me here!” the guy spits out, face flushing even more, and Dean wonders if this ends with the guy stroking out in front of him or something. Nice thought, but he just doesn’t think that will help much with the other three. “She was one of them! I had to—” He falters, face twisting. “I had to stop her.”
Dean doesn’t look at the body on the floor. “Right. So she’s dead; it’s over. So put down your gun—”
“It’s not over,” the woman whispers, and wet brown eyes look at him pleadingly. “I’m so tired, but they’re still coming. I can see them.”
He nods, watching her carefully. “What’s chasing you?”
“No one else believed me,” she answers despairingly. “Why would you?”
We’re going to be the most credulous people in the world. “Try me.”
She swallows hard, eyes flickering restlessly before she blurts out. “I’ll fall if I stop. I saw—I’ll fall.”
Assume all of them are speaking God’s own truth. “You,” he says to Remington, and immediately raises his hands higher at the jerk of the barrel. “What’s after you?”
Remington doesn’t look all that willing to share, but after a moment he says, voice tight, “I don’t know. All I know—when it finds me, it’ll bury me in a box forever.” The long finger on the trigger starts to tremble again, and Dean keeps their eyes locked. “Can’t get out, keep screaming…”
“Got it,” he says soothingly. “Okay, now—”
“It was her!” Beard interrupts, and Remington and Beretta both nod frantically. “She’s calling them, telling them where we are!”
Dean takes this as permission to actually get a look at the body. He can’t see much, and for that matter, there’s not much left of the back of her head. Half her face, streaked with blood, is turned toward him, half covered by short brown hair, the one eye left staring sightlessly, but even so, she looks familiar, like…like he’s seen her before.
“Too many people,” Bushmaster says with terrifying paranoid certainty, like he’s trying to reassure her, and to his horror, she nods and so do Remington and Beard with his shotgun still trained on Dean’s head. “It could be any of them. Or all of them.”
“Less people outside,” Dean points out as he pries his finger from the trigger. Crazy-logic in progress is not an improvement and he’s not counting on them missing the very obvious solution to this entire ‘too many people’ problem. Also, crazy-logic or not, that doesn’t mean he’s not right about the people. Crowds and three rooms and people and math: what did Cas tell them about space again? “Door’s right behind me. Road’s nice and—deserted. Fresh air, it’s good for you.” He meets Beretta’s eyes. “Don’t even have to put down your gun. Just walk outside.”
Beretta looks at him in betrayal. “You think we’re crazy.”
“I don’t care,” he snaps when Bushmaster’s trigger finger starts looking way too itchy, “Too many in here, I get it. So how about this: let me get some of them out of here.” He focuses on Bushmaster. “I can fix this; let me try.”
Getting slowly to his feet, he sweeps the room with another look, wondering belatedly how he’s supposed to get a bunch of semi-catatonic people moving: he’ll figure it out. Aware of their eyes—and at least one gun—following his every movement, he goes to the closest people and crouches enough to look directly in their eyes, wondering if they’re even tracking. Only one way to find out.
“You understand me?” he says quietly, watching their faces and thinking—okay, that’s kind of a nod. “I need you to stand up and go outside.”
Nothing: yeah, he didn’t think so, and what he wouldn’t do for Cas’s freakish ability to drag up leftover ‘angel of the Lord’ and throw it at people like a goddamn brick of ‘get this shit done.’
“Stand up,” he tries in his best ‘get this shit done’ voice and reaches for the closest person’s arm and drags them to their feet—oh God, please don’t shoot—and notes standing on their own is still in their skillsets. He can work with this. “Go out the door,” he says, turning them in the right direction and giving them a push.
Barely breathing, he watches them slowly cross the room to the door and push it open before vanishing outside, and okay, now he’s got a plan. Pretending there aren’t four very crazy people with guns watching every move he makes (and liable to fuck up his plan with a rain of gunfire), he goes for the next person.
“Stand up,” he says as he helps them to his feet, trying a smile because it can’t hurt before turning them toward the door and giving them a push. “Go out the door. It’ll be fine”
Teresa stares at Alicia for a moment. “You don’t think—”
“That’s why I decided to ask you,” Alicia says apologetically. “I mean, I’m right, but I need to know the circumstances that surround me being right. You’re familiar with it, right? I can get the Encyclopedias from downstairs. Matt carried them over for me with the boxes.”
Vera sighs noisily. “Anyone want to catch us up?”
“Middle ages mystery,” Alicia supplies. “The Dancing Plague of 1518.”
“Required reading for a witch,” Teresa says wryly. “It’s a very rhythmic example of a badly-cast coercive gone viral; started with one woman crazy dancing in the street and within a month, there were four hundred dancers and a lot of dead bodies from those who danced themselves to death.”
Vera swallows. “That can happen?”
“Usually anyone ambitious enough to set up a dancing coercion would know how to do it well. Best guess, worst possible combination in history: someone vengeful, ambitious, knows just enough to be dangerous, and stupid as fuck.” She leans back, looking at them thoughtfully. “Not a compulsion: this is a geas, no real discipline per se, that’s why we can’t trigger it in any of them. That makes sense for amateurs. It’s the simplest thing you can do and lowest level on the chain; it doesn’t take power, just a small amount of talent and a very, very strong will.”
“Be more specific,” Vera says, reaching for her notes automatically as well as a pen. “How does it work?”
“In a sense,” Teresa says, looking at Castiel ruefully, “it’s a party trick: do this—or feel this, action plus ‘this’—or something unspecified but terrible will happen, your brain decides. Nothing happens if you don’t do it,” she adds reassuringly. “In fact, if this is a geas, it’s easy to break; don’t do the thing, you don’t die, your brain basically throws it out, it’s done.” Her expression darkens. “That part’s a built-in; it should still work no matter what else they fucked up.”
Looking between them, Teresa thinks carefully and Castiel notices Alicia’s got a pen and is taking notes on the back of Joe’s report.
“The Dancing Plague was a geas placed on a woman who pissed someone off,” she starts. “Best guess: it was supposed to be embarrassing—woman crazy dancing in the street—but considering the time period, they may have also thought it’d be funny to have her burned for being possessed or something, no way to tell. Then it started to spread; that part wasn’t expected, that much we’re sure of from the original design.” She looks between them. “Here’s the thing with any coercive, from a geas up to mind control; they all have a very specific pattern, like grammar in a sentence. There is the subject/object—that’s the person—the action—what they’re supposed to do—any hilarious details they want to add, and for compulsions, the discipline and any details there, the end point or when it should stop—until whatever—and the surprise requirement of prepositional phrases, on and to. Illustrative example, do not try this at home: on Sarah is set a geas to dance in the street until her feet hurt to Sarah alone.”
“So the geas has to be placed on Sarah and also set to Sarah,” Alicia says, looking at Teresa intently. “So it makes her do the action—that’s the on—and you also need the to, because it’s supposed to be just her getting the geas?”
Teresa nods. “Got it.”
“Magic has grammar.” Alicia enthusiastically writes that down before looking attentively at Teresa. “Weird yet logical grammar. I love grammar.”
“Fairly strict grammar at that, lots of points of failure, but the most common is leaving off that second prepositional phrase. You leave it out, and your geas in theory can then go ‘to’ anyone. It’ll probably just sit there doing nothing, since that anyone isn’t the ‘on’: Sarah. Unless there are five Sarahs, or subject/object is something really helpful, like ‘on this woman who offended me,’ or ‘on this person who steals sheep’.”
“I can already see where this is going,” Vera says glumly.
“Then you’re smarter than about half the people who try these,” Teresa tells her. “Miswritten geas, a population of greater than one, and it starts to spread, inert in most, but activating in everyone who qualifies as ‘subject’.” Teresa scowls. “Grammar: actually kind of useful. It’s the equivalent of learning basic sentence structure in elementary school, for God’s sake.”
Vera visibly braces herself. “How often does that happen?
“Generally, when you’re pissed at Lucy the miller’s daughter for stealing your man, that’s a fairly good indicator if your town has no other Lucys or none of them banged your man down by the river. Which leads us to point two, the great fixer of all magic problems and the reason for them: when you’re using magic of any kind, it both wants to do what you tell it to and doesn’t want to do what you tell it not to. To the goddamn letter.”
Alicia nods in understanding. “Don’t tell me: the space is vast between those two things.”
“Verily,” Teresa agrees. “That’s where most of the failures come in; if the geas can’t work out what you want or what you don’t, it fails. Even when it works, at this level, it’s fairly rare to go dramatically off-course, especially when the population in your area is under a hundred. Then we get the perfect storm: the Dancing Plague.” She makes a face. “Good size town, not so bright caster, and ‘on this person who has offended me is placed this geas that they dance until they no longer can’ and just thinks sticking it on that one person will be enough: not even a sex or gender delimiter, for fuck’s sake. Not to mention how many ways the geas can interpret ‘until they no longer can.’ Cue our original victim dancing in the streets, other people showing up looking upset, and someone—poor fucker—feeling bad for our dancer, our caster is offended, the geas activates, and dancing for two. Our caster accidentally thinks how she always hated the poor fucker’s rock throwing kids and slatternly or rakish spouse—they show up, physical contact or even proximity depending on the strength of the geas lets it pass, it activates in them, and family’s dancing their lives away.”
“And how does it go viral?” Alicia asks.
“Without the ‘to’? It will go viral,” Teresa answers. “That’s a given; it’s going to happen. The question is how much, and that depends on how shitty they designated the subject. And that’s when things get interesting. So for the purposes of this conversation, the person or persons who receive the geas from origin are Zero; everyone who gets it directly from a Zero are Ones and so on, and then this goes a few possible ways, none great. You ever play telephone when you were a kid?”
Alicia and Vera both wince. “You about ten or twenty other kids sit in a circle,” Vera explains at Castiel’s frown. “The first one whispers a sentence or something to the one beside them, then they tell the person beside them, all around the circle. By the time it gets back to the first, it’s usually nothing like the original.”
“Pretty much exactly like that,” Teresa says. “The farther it gets away from the original person or people it was cast on, the more generic any part of the geas is, the weirder it can get, and no, it’s not predictable. Six degrees is threshold, however; by the time we get to Sixes, it doesn’t matter what it started as, it could be anything.”
Vera leans back in her chair, looking stunned. “Okay, million dollar question: why doesn’t this happen more often?”
“In a sense,” Teresa says slowly, “they do: they just usually fail. The minimums of subject and action have to be there, and the geas must understand those two or it won’t work or stick, and that can be as easy as saying ‘person who stole sheep’ and as it turns out, they didn’t steal any sheep, you just thought they did. The last thing you need is will, and a lot of it; overriding someone’s free will like this isn’t easy and to spread, you have to have invested a lot of will in the geas in the first place or it burns out. Most of the time, even journeypersons to the craft wouldn’t have the kind of will—even pissed off—to make the geas strong enough not to burn out fast, especially if they messed it up. Add in telephone, and by the second degree, the instructions usually make no sense; don’t do the thing, it’s over.” She looks at Castiel and takes a breath. “In the very rare times one of these goes wrong, either on purpose or deliberate, and works—let’s say that’s not the kind of thing that doesn’t show up like fireworks to another witch.”
“Like you,” Alicia supplies, voice neutral.
“Like me,” Teresa agrees. “Bruja blancas of my tradition follow natural law, the same thing that rules human interaction with the supernatural; we enforce it. You fuck with a coercive and violate free will without full and knowing consent of all parties, you better have a better reason than ‘fun.’ I catch someone doing it, it’s my call what happens next: out of seven I’ve caught, in my capacity as a bruja blanca, one was let go because young and stupid but no malice, and I apprenticed him to a local witch, who I promise was gonna teach him the error of his ways herself.”
“And the others?”
“Three had to take back all they’d given tenfold or ten years, whichever comes first,” she answers. “Two I executed outright; that kind of ability used for pure malice and profit isn’t just dangerous, it’s a disaster waiting to happen and there’s no first offense when it comes to that. And one…” She licks her lips. “I made a bad call. I blocked her—or so I thought—and sent her home to await judgment. Nepotism, can’t escape it; she was one of our apprentices.”
Alicia and Vera nod as Teresa takes a moment to collect herself before continuing.
“She was one of ours, and—it’s funny, this is part our training, dealing with one of our own going bad, it’s part of our promise to the earth, but it’d been generations since it happened. I did the bindings before I left, I had her blocked, but either I wasn’t careful enough—which is very possible—or she was stronger than we thought. While I was on a job, she called something that she couldn’t control—which was the point, though it wouldn’t have been better if she could—and let it loose on the border. It was too fast to even contain, much less stop, and it just got stronger and stronger—and of course, for the first time in memory, someone not one of us noticed what was going on at the border and cared enough to investigate and try to help.” She gives them a rueful look. “They were good, too; figured out just enough to be dangerous to themselves but not enough to do anything, and wouldn’t stop trying. And smart enough to know it and work out something was missing, doubly dangerous. It was either call me back—and hope the death count didn’t get worse and that’s assuming I’d be in time to do anything—or roll the dice and see if the guy who knew just a little too much could deal with knowing it all. And be willing to give that up when he was done. That’s two dice with a hundred sides each, and genuine surprise, we got snake eyes.”
Alicia tilts her head, looking at Teresa intently. “Hard to give up that much power?”
“Not just power,” Teresa corrects her. “Power’s useless without knowledge; where to get it and more importantly, how to use it. They couldn’t bind him with a deal—human to human, that’s what lawyers are for—but he didn’t even hesitate. When it was over, he walked back into the circle and let them take it away, didn’t even care as long as he was sure it was over.” After a moment, she shakes herself. “Back to subject: assuming this is a geas—and everything points to that—all we need to find out is origin.”
“Vector,” Alicia says wisely, and both Teresa and Vera straighten, looking at her suspiciously. “I needed to be sure, and Cas, I love those candles, by the way. Those helped a lot.”
“They did?”
“They did. Emotional infusions in amorphous substances,” she says, smiling at their stunned faces as she removes several sets of surgical gloves from her pocket and hands them each a pair before putting her own on and picking up the folder. “Would that work with toner?”
Dean entertains himself by doing math; at the rate he’s going (average: a minute and a half per person, roughly under three hundred, he thinks) it’s going to take him upwards of seven hours to clear the room, and he has no idea how many people are upstairs or if there are any. Five hours, whatever: he gives this another thirty minutes before his crazies lose whatever hold they have on their homicidal tendencies. On the other hand, every person he gets out of this goddamn room is one less casualty in the ever-present potential for mass murder.
Dean tries to remember Mira’s report on how this went down, marking down the similarities with the mess and the YMCA and adding in the patrol line. No casualties at the patrol line (if that’s what was going on there): patrol stopped it too soon; no casualties in the mess: Cas walked out; eight at the library: Mira interfered but it kept going until eight were dead; thirty eight died at the YMCA: no interference, presumably stopped when all those acting homicidal were dead, he should have double checked that.
“Stand up,” he tells an elderly couple and feels like such a dick but saving lives, helping people isn’t always polite, fine. Bracing a hand under the man’s arm, he helps him to his feet first and then the woman, but the fine tremors in her hands don’t reassure him they can make it outside. “Come on,” he says, looping a protective arm around her shoulders and getting hold of the guy’s elbow. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Walking them to the door, he pushes it open, and just stops himself from shouting; all his sheep are gathered in an uncertain mass of now standing terror just outside the door and spilling onto the road like they stopped moving the first moment they could once they got out the door.
Where the hell is everyone, anyway? He tries to calculate how long it’ll be until the next bus if these are the newest arrivals, but he can’t even be sure of the relay time; every twenty minutes, they’re overdue like hell, every thirty, every hour? Did one run out of gas? That would happen to him: glittery wall and bus out of gas.
Turning back, he looks around the room and row upon row of blank, terrified eyes—still way too full even though he’s pretty sure it’s been at least a month since this started—and skates over the too-still body to see a face he recognizes among the masses of people still waiting.
Crossing the room (Beard really, really needs a drink or a heart attack already: he’ll take either one, just get his goddamn finger off the trigger), he crouches, and yeah, Cas’s candle-dealer and—fuck their lives—Lourdes’ sister. Volunteers now, too, not just Ichabod’s patrol. Goddammit.
“Wendy?” For an endless moment, he thinks she’s too frozen to even realize he’s there before he sees a flicker of recognition, her head jerking in a slight nod. “Dean Winchester,” he murmurs, squeezing her shoulder. “My partner bought all your candles. Whole place smells of herbs, fruit, and happy thoughts or something.”
She stares at him for a long moment before she nods again, lips moving soundlessly but the shape is definitely “Cas.”
“Yeah, that’s him.” She’s been to their new headquarters and hopefully, someone will be there who recognizes her. “You—you can tell something’s weird about this, right?”
Wendy’s shaking increases, breathing speeding up so fast that Dean starts to wonder if they’re in ‘pass out’ territory or holy shit, a heart attack. Then she grabs his wrist, and he doesn’t think he’s ever seen anyone work so hard to say a word. “Yes.” Then, staring into his eyes, “Everyone.”
Yeah, that’s what he was afraid of, now confirmed by witch. “I’m gonna need your help. You think you’re up for it?”
That look is apparently universal: of fucking course I will. Okay, then.
Glancing down, he sees a clipboard on the floor beside her and tries not to slump in relief; she was volunteering here, shitty luck for her, but good for him and now he doesn’t have to depend on verbal. Shifting slightly to hopefully hide what he’s doing, he picks it up, pen dangling from a string. Sign-up sheet, half full, a housing list, and a couple of the maps she must have collected from the new arrivals in back. Setting it on his knees, he flips the page and starts writing (and does not thank God for the fact he practiced writing with his left enough to be legible; that was Cas and fine motor control whatever): where he is, what’s happening (confirmed by Wendy, he notes), how many people (he thinks) are in here, four crazies armed, and what he’s trying to do. Across the top, he writes CHITAQUA SECOND STREET NOW because this is gonna be all about random chance on who gets this.
“What are you doing?” Bushmaster asks in an unsettlingly nervous voice and Dean can actually feel that shaky goddamn barrel pointed right at him and Wendy.
“Just making sure she’s okay,” Dean answers easily, adding a note about what to do with Wendy (get her a goddamn blanket, something to drink, Dolores or Vera, and her family in any order) before pulling the sheet free and meeting her eyes, wondering how to help her do it. Please God she takes this in the spirit he’s doing it: keep it simple. Pulling up a mental image of the street, he maps the fastest and then easiest course for her.
“Let’s try this. After you go out the door, keep walking straight into the alley—almost straight, just angle it—” Oh God, try again. “Go to Second Street and give that to the first person you see. If you don’t see anyone, keep going east to Chitaqua’s headquarters. You’ve been there before for candle delivery, it’ll be fine.” He’s not sure, but he takes the faint movement as agreement; if they’re lucky, a bus will show up or people will be wandering around the street and see her and make this easy, but he just doesn’t think they’ve got that kind of luck when it’s this cold. “Go outside, go to the alley, go to Second, turn left, go to our Headquarters. Go inside and give that to whoever’s closest to the door. They’ll take care of you, promise. You’ll be safe there.” Wendy doesn’t react. “Please,” he whispers, leaning closer and trying not to shake her; it’s not like it’ll help and he’s not that much of a dick. “I need help here, we gotta get these people safe, and you can make this happen. Okay?”
After a long moment, she manages to nod, and he tucks the paper inside her jacket before carefully helping her to her feet and walking her to the door himself, murmuring his instructions again just in case. “Also,” he says at the end, “when you see me again, don’t punch me for sounding like an idiot.”
Or for sounding like an idiot right now. Risking taking her on the porch, he puts the alley in her direct line of sight.
“Thank you. Now go,” he whispers, and gives her a gentle push, watching her slow—but definite—progress off the porch and into the empty street. Then taking a deep breath, he turns around and that goddamn body comes into view again, short brown hair feathering over blue—brown eyes, eye, whatever. Why does she seem familiar? “All right,” he says as he focuses on the next person, wondering if he’ll ever stop smiling; a plastic rictus seems frozen to his face now. “Who’s next”
Alicia waits until everyone is wearing gloves before taking out a very familiar piece of paper, much folded and creased, and spreads it out on the table.
“The maps?” Vera says in shock.
“The toner with which they copied the maps,” Alicia says as Teresa gets up to examine it warily. “At least, best guess: Teresa, you tell me, can you infuse an emotional geas into powdery toner and use that to copy a geas to a lot of maps?”
Teresa shuts her mouth, staring at Alicia for a long moment. “How—”
“Cas’s candles,” Alicia says, looking pleased with herself. “I read Wendy’s notes: really cool, and Cas totally zens on them. So did I in his and Dean’s room, really nice. Minty.” She looks at Cas. “Kept Dean calm, too, though he wouldn’t admit it. Residue sticks, too; probably why despite Chitaqua HQ probably being all infected people—except new arrivals, but they will be soon—well, Kat anyway, if the noise from our room is anything to go by—where was I?”
“Chitaqua infected?” he prompts.
“Building with a lot of well-armed people all in stages of distress,” she says, looking up at him. “Most of whom fetched maps or helped the volunteers get maps, or helped hang them on the wall. Poor impulse control, shitty decision-making, and temperamental, not to mention PTSD is almost a requirement for admission to Chitaqua: we are all about repressing our fears so we can kill them.”
Teresa examines—from a safe distance—the map. “Fear.”
“Anxiety, nervousness, paranoia, makes you cranky and prone to stupidity,” Alicia confirms. “That’s why I said not competent, our creators; that geas was designed to make people run—with the timeline they were on, there was no time to fuck around. From what you said, though, our action here wasn’t ‘run’ for no one is hysterically running in place but ‘be super afraid so you will run’—very different thing grammatically, am I right?—so it hit the first button it saw and that could be anything. For us—can’t prove this—our reaction isn’t to run from it, but—”
“Try and destroy it.” He thinks of Sean and wonders if they’re lucky his particular manifestation involved a hammer and wall and not Nate’s head.
“And almost invisible if you think about it,” Alicia offers. “Ichabod, barrier, people: of course everyone’s gonna be cranky, paranoid, and weird, and of course we think everyone incoming is crazy—they were walking in the snow. Until they actually became homicidally crazy, that we noticed.”
Castiel studies the very poor copy, much smudged and smeared from many fingers. Toner: it was on Dean’s fingers and Amanda’s after they touched ones they retrieved from the cars and has doubtless been through many hands at the Volunteer Center. And the teams that retrieved them as well. And every person outside the thirty mile limit who came to Ichabod, because they each received individual copies.
“That was almost inspired,” he says to Alicia. “Terrible execution, but the method of distribution was very well done.”
“I know,” she says with a sigh. “It almost hurts: such a terrible plan and done so badly, but did they nail the part that would fuck everything up the most? They did. Think about it: we actually told everyone to collect these maps from everyone coming in.”
“Vera, did you ever retrieve any maps?” he asks, then glances at Teresa. “Did you?”
“No,” Vera answers as Teresa shakes her head. “Infirmary duty. Though if this passes by contact or proximity, that may not mean much. I’d be—what, a One or a Two?”
“Teresa,” he asks, “how many degrees do you think it’s gone now?”
“That would be the question,” Teresa says, eyes narrowing on the map. “Vector with toner, subject could be ‘everyone who touches this’ which could be literal—touch the map or the toner or simply get the affected toner on you—Christ, I hate this already.”
“So how would it get to the Ones?”
“Possibly telephone in action at first degree,” Teresa says with a wince. “Though—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—we may have gotten lucky and this was meant to spread.” She looks at them. “Honestly, if it’s already telephoning at Ones—no. Hope this was deliberate.”
“Just in case they ran out of maps,” Alicia offers, and Teresa nods. “Or double down because not everyone will touch it, but if the person who touched it resisted, they’d have peer pressure to go from everyone they passed it to, probably their families. Like an afterschool special about the evils of peer pressure in action. Didn’t see this as a consequence, I must admit. Then again,” she adds, “neither did those producers.”
Teresa nods thoughtfully. “Using that, everyone who touched the maps themselves—or possibly got toner on them—is going to be a Zero. That would be a lot of the adults coming in but not all—so those are our Zeros and Ones, the Ones picking it up from the Zeros either through physical touch or very close proximity and hours in a car would do it. Patrol teams who went to get maps from the cars, all Zeros; volunteers on the first couple of days, Zeros and Ones. Everyone else getting it now is going to be a One or Two and we really need to tell Volunteer Services not to touch any more maps.”
“Next order of business,” Alicia says. “Also, I have them all from our Headquarters in two sealed boxes downstairs. Matt and Jody wore gloves, promise.”
“If we’re lucky—which I doubt—there won’t be that many Threes,” Teresa continues, frowning. “However, we have no idea right now how many people may have broken it themselves once or even twice without knowing it and—”
“—get it again,” Alicia interrupts, leg no longer kicking. “From anyone. Of course they can.”
Teresa nods grimly. “These maps were all copied using the same toner, in which the geas was infused, which means I’m going to need Wendy for the examination and to get the details. Depending on how they structured the geas when infusing the toner, it could be individual—each person who touches the map gets their own individual geas; each individual map is a geas, and everyone who touches that map is part of that one geas; or this is one giant geas on everyone who touched any of the maps.”
“Tell me which is worst,” Vera says in resignation. “That’ll be the one we have.”
“I knew you were smart,” Teresa tells her with a sigh. “This many people, all of them are shitty options and would only apply to the Zeros anyway—Ones and up will all have their very own individual copy. The only advantage to the last one is our game of telephone would potentially be slightly less garbled and removing it from one Zero will remove it from all Zeros and we’d only have to deal with Ones and up. However, gonna be honest, I doubt that. While Claudia’s not talking on exact number here, there’s no way someone didn’t ignore this just on sheer contrariness after touching the map, and that would have broken it on everyone before it could get to the Ones.”
“Eliminate best case scenario immediately,” Alicia agrees. “It’s never going to be best case scenario. Cas taught us that.”
“You’re a credit to your training,” Teresa takes a deep breath, eyeing the map. “You got a hazmat bag for that?”
“I do, Dolores had some for hazardous medical things and shared.” Pulling it from a pocket, she shakes it out and slides the map inside before sealing it shut. “Now—”
“Okay, one thing doesn’t fit,” Vera interrupts, frowning at her notes. “We got the why people—some people are becoming super crazy—but what about the freeze? Haruhi, Rosario, everyone in those rooms—if they’re not getting their panic button hit, what’s happening to them? It’s happening at the same time: crazy people plus frozen people. What’s the difference?”
“It’s not just crazy people,” Alicia says slowly, frowning at nothing. “Reaction to phobia—run away or freeze, not necessarily attack, but these people all attack. We can maybe assume these specific people are wired to fight instead of flight or freeze—which would be weird but not impossible—but then there’s Haruhi. She’s patrol; we’re trained to react to adrenaline with fight, no flight, and so is Ichabod’s patrol. So what happens if the geas didn’t latch onto your panic button but you’re around when the catalyst for that happens?”
“Nothing happens,” Teresa says. “Just fear and freeze, nothing concrete to attack.”
Alicia nods. “So assuming we’re right—we are, by the way, at least I am and you’re all with me—all we need to find out is what the catalyst is.”
“Well, one other thing,” Vera says. “How many people should know about this?”
Castiel hears himself say, “As soon as Teresa identifies what it is and what it does, everyone.”
They’re all the same; lights out, still breathing, but no one’s—
“Shut up,” he tells himself, for these days, the first sign of insanity isn’t hearing voices but believing them and if he has to talk to convince himself of that, where he comes from that’s called common fucking sense.
“What did you say?” Beard asks, going from a baritone to a very alarming tenor in four words; it’s everything Dean can do not to flinch, keep the same easy pace as he stops his path from the door to turn around. If sanity can be gained by exposure, he wouldn’t have picked himself for the ‘sane’ part of that, but he’s kind of all he’s got.
“Stubbed my toe,” he hears himself say before he has time to panic on what answer to use. That one’s actually pretty good. He wonders if his mouth will be frozen in this shape forever; it sure as fuck feels that way.
Retrieving a couple of shaky teenagers—one can’t even keep to her feet, and without thinking, he picks her up and grasps the coat of the other girl in passing—he starts to the door, mentally mapping Wendy’s walk (not far) and then her state when she walked out of here (not good) and figures right now, that’s one fuck of an epic journey and if she needs to take her time, fine; getting there at all is better than collapsing or freezing in place again. If she hasn’t already, and he really needs to stop thinking about that.
Coming back in after depositing her on the porch with her friend, he’s confronted by an endless sea of eyes; he can’t remember how many he’s taken out so far and counting the ones outside is way beyond him right now, but it’s like none at all have left; he can’t even see the spaces where they were. He’s never going to get everyone out of here before those four lose it; the real wonder here is that they’ve lasted this long, and there’s a dead man—a woman—brown hair, blue—no brown eyes, eye—to prove it.
And Bushmaster is starting to look really fucking twitchy: fuck no. “Going great,” he tells them, and it’s possible the corners of his mouth are about to split, no one can smile this much without the word ‘Glasgow’ being applicable. “All right, who’s next.”
Teresa freezes in the act of reluctantly taking the bag from Alicia, but it’s Vera that says, “You’re kidding, right?”
Alicia, interestingly, doesn’t argue, simply looks at him with wide blue eyes.
“Cas, think about this,” Vera says urgently. “You want to tell everyone they’re under a magical geas that made them come here and is making them paranoid and crazy?”
“It’s the truth,” he points out.
“And make them more paranoid and crazy,” Vera argues. “Which I don’t know if you noticed, leads to mass murder in the library and YMCA.”
“We don’t know what specifically triggered the attacks,” he answers, though logic states a geas that causes that exact set of emotional reactions will not be improved by adding natural human reaction to knowing that’s what’s happening to them. “I have reasons.”
“I, for one,” Teresa says, crossing her arms as Alicia finally gives up holding out the bag and sets it sadly on the table beside her, “would like to know them.” He also notes Alicia’s foot is twitching slightly, as if in wish of more swinging.
To his own surprise, he thinks he can tell her “For one, knowledge in this case is power: knowing that their reactions are artificially induced will—just using probability—cause at least a few of them to break the geas. You said all they need is to not do it for the geas to break; all they have to do is reject the artificial feelings the geas produces.”
Vera shakes her head. “It’s not that easy when it comes to feelings, Cas, come on.”
“I know,” he answers. “I probably couldn’t do it—if I have it—but that doesn’t mean someone can’t and they deserve the opportunity to try.”
Teresa doesn’t look convinced. “Next?”
“The attacks,” he answers. “We can safely assume it’s related to the geas—paranoia, fear, leading to violence—but that knowledge could check their actions. As you and Dean have both told me, Vera, we can’t help how we feel, but we can what we do about it.”
“God, me and Dean agree on something,” Vera says in mock-horror. “I’m never going to live this down.”
“I never thought about it before,” Alicia pipes up, and her foot is now sketching a very small swing, “but you and Dean these days are a lot alike.”
This time, Vera’s horror is somewhat genuine.
“Which is probably why I never thought it,” she continues thoughtfully. “That fits, too. Cas, reason three.”
Seeing Vera’s and Teresa’s skeptical expressions, he honestly doubts it’s going to make any difference.
“They’re people,” he says slowly, fixing his gaze on Haruhi on that bed and somehow, that makes it easier. “I won’t argue the necessity of concealment when it’s necessary, and I’m perfectly aware all have their own judgment on what that line must be. None of these people are in the infected zone of their own free will, they are—or have been—almost unprotected before the barrier arrived, and it certainly wasn’t created for their benefit. Before they came here, I don’t know who they answered to or how their leadership was structured; right now, they’re in a town where the elected leader, Alison, is someone they’ve probably never met—though from what I understand, she’s making an effort to change that—and their safety and security rests on her decisions, which everyone in this room helps her uphold. Food, water, shelter, protection: they had to—they were forced to give up their own autonomy or choice of protection to come here with nothing but the clothes on their backs and place themselves in the power of strangers and they don’t even know why!”
Vera and Teresa look slightly uncomfortable; Alicia simply looks at him.
“There is much we can’t tell them, some of it we don’t yet know, some of it they cannot know, and much they have no reason whatsoever to care about,” he continues, watching Haruhi slump against the wall. “We don’t even know if we can protect their lives, but we can at least tell them what brought them here, what danger they’re in, and why it happened. They deserve to know that much.”
“I agree,” Alicia says unexpectedly. “Me, I get the risk, but—some secrets have to be kept, I get that, too. There’s no rule, am I right: we’re making them up anyway. This one, we don’t have to keep and we shouldn’t; they’ve been fucked over, and they deserve to know it’s not their fault.”
“You think Alison and Dean will agree?” Vera asks neutrally, gaze flickering between him and Teresa.
Teresa’s expression doesn’t change for a long moment. “If they don’t,” she answers, “then how do you three feel being the crazy people screaming from a corner? I call East Third. You’re right, Cas; everyone has the right to know about this.” Standing up, she takes the bag with a shudder. “Let me examine this first and get a couple of other practitioners in to help.”
“Wendy’s an expert with infusions,” he says. “I would like to personally recommend her work to anyone who needs to relax and likes citrus.”
“She’s first on my list,” Teresa assures him. “Alicia, go release Haruhi and bring her in here, would you? She’ll be our useless test for how the world will respond to the truth.”
Alicia grins, bouncing off the table. “Give me just a sec.”
“I’ll go with you,” he says before Alicia reaches the door, surprising himself, though no one else seems surprised, which is odd. Looking at her through the glass, he adds more quietly, “She’s had a very difficult few days.”
They’re all the same; lights out, still breathing, but no one’s moving. Like that’ll protect them if they’re just still enough, no one’ll notice them…
“Shut. Up,” he grits out through a smile that will never stop and gets absolutely no reaction from anyone around him; so maybe that wasn’t out loud? “Get up,” he tells a mother, two mobile kids, and a baby in a carseat (he takes the carseat, she’s barely able to stay upright) walking them to the door and outside before going back for the next, unable to remember what number he’s on (fifty, five thousand, forever); it doesn’t look like anyone is coming by Third or if they are, they sure as fuck aren’t paying attention to what’s going on around Volunteer Services.
It occurs to him his frozen sheep outdoors may actually be a problem in getting attention; unless they say something (unlikely), people may assume they’re just waiting for something from Volunteer Services. He’d like to think people would maybe wonder why they resemble statues, but at this moment, his faith in humanity is pretty damn low.
Checking the street (no sign of Wendy, might be good or bad; a few people too far away to even risk a shout but he tries a failed wave: thanks, fuckers), he lets the door shut and starts toward the volunteers near the midpoint. Halfway there, his boot lands in something that makes a sucking, sticky sound when he lifts his foot; looking down, he blinks at the small pool of half-dried blood and follows it to the dead body, freezing in place, seeing short, dark hair and a slit of lifeless blue.
—where were you, why weren’t you here, why did you let them do this—
Blood-matted brown hair registers, a (very) (familiar) face, and Dean’s hand clenches in the edge of his coat from its creep toward his hip; it happens like this every time, he’s always too late, he always finds him already dead…
“Stop.” Cas is at headquarters; he’s fine.
“It’s not working,” Bushmaster says flatly, cutting through the room, and Dean hears a lot of questionable shit behind each word. This is bullshit; he doesn’t have time for this. “You said—”
“I’m not done yet,” he interrupts, stumbling over his own gun and seeing it hit the east wall in his peripheral vision. “Just keep calm—”
“It’s not working!”
“It will!” Dean snaps, starting toward them until the barrel’s flat against his chest. Meeting the glazed brown eyes, he says deliberately, “Now shut up and let me get this done. Got it?”
Looking startled, Bushmaster takes an aborted step back before stopping himself and jerking a nod. He gives the other three a long look, satisfied their trigger fingers aren’t too itchy, and goes to the desk with the volunteers, looking down at glazed blue eyes and smiles; this time, it feels natural.
“Get up,” he says roughly, and watches them hesitantly stumble to their feet; surely they can do better than that. “And get out of here.”
Just outside the isolation room door, Castiel realizes he’s staring at the door and Alicia is starting to look concerned.
“Everything okay?” Alicia asks, hand on the knob, and taking a deep breath, he nods.
To his lack of surprise, when she unlocks it, she steps aside with a bright smile, and he realizes he’s supposed to go in first. “That’s not kind.”
“Trust me,” Alicia says with a grin, “she’ll like it in about five seconds.”
Taking another deep breath, Castiel opens the door and Haruhi looks up tiredly before straightening.
“You’re free to go,” he says abruptly. “It’s a geas, you won’t die of it—we think—and while we don’t know how to remove it, we will. If you feel paranoid, anxious, irritable,” he starts, then looks around the room, which could very well have been designed to elicit just that, no geas required, “take deep breaths and count to ten. I have some candles that might help as well.”
She nods slowly, uncoiling herself from the bed and sliding to the edge of the mattress, and he has the feeling he’s not being very reassuring.
“Excellent job securing the kitchen,” he tells her, wondering if that might help. “Less so without yourself within it as well.”
She gets to her feet, staring at him. “Didn’t do too great with the part after that.”
“That was the geas, not you.”
She tries to smile: it’s terrible. “I don’t believe that.”
“We’ll work on that,” he says. “Get dressed and we can talk on the way to our new headquarters. Your team has a room on the second floor.”
Haruhi blinks at him. “New headquarters?”
“Second Street, used to be storage, I think. It’s very nice.”
“The evil building?” Haruhi says in surprise. “You’re in the evil building everyone hates?”
“I rather like it,” he says thoughtfully. “You’ll have to tell me what you think. We’ll be in the isolation room next door when you’re ready, and please don’t forget to arm yourself appropriately; Alicia will return your weapons. I’ll check before we leave.”
Cowards, all of them: this time, he’ll take care of this shit himself, one bullet at a time. Might be an imaginary voice, sure, but it’s speaking God’s own truth.
Everyone, Wendy said; she was looking right at him. Everyone here, right, he got that, she didn’t need to tell him that, it was obvious. So why did she. Everyone. Why did she…
Shaking himself, Dean blinks at the people standing helplessly in front of him—goddamn sheep can do better than this bullshit—before jerking his chin toward the door, watching his sheep scurry toward it—or drift, whatever, they really need to get their asses in gear or he might have to think of creative ways to get them going—vaguely aware something’s wrong: everyone. He’s missing something—or stress, and hey, he’s pretty fucking stressed, thanks for asking.
How long has it been? Feels like fucking forever.
“Get up,” he tells a mother and her kid, smiling down at them until they crawl to their feet, staring at him with wide, glazed eyes. “Get out. Now.”
He doesn’t bother watching to see if they obey—they will—and focuses on the next person when he catches a glimpse of a pool of electric red surrounding a dark head from the corner of his eye. No.
“What are you doing?” a harsh voice says from behind him, not important.
The sound of gunfire shatters the night (room), and he breaks into a dead run—
“Don’t move!” someone (who?) screams.
—but he already knows he was too late again. People all around him, faceless bodies with mocking smiles, but he doesn’t care, maybe, maybe—
He slips in the drying blood, frantically rolling over the body, Cas is at headquarters, she said everyone and she was looking at him.
—where were you, why weren’t you here, why did you let them do this—
“No.” Hands splattered in blood, he turns the face toward him and sees Cas staring up at him, remaining blue eye already glazed over in silent accusation. Head, heart, stomach: like they just kept shooting even when he was dying, even after he was dead. Like it was fun for them Maybe it is: they’re like that. This is what they are.
“What are you—”
Jerking around, he sees Bushmaster and company all looking at him, fresh blood—Cas’s blood—all over them.
Pushing himself to his feet, he takes in their expressions: no guilt, but fear, that part they got right. “Why’d you kill him this time?”
Remington blinks at him, like maybe he forgot how words work, which isn’t a surprise; it forgot you don’t kill people just because they’re different. Never too late to learn, though. “What?”
“Don’t know?” He starts to grin and a flex of his fingers feels a knife fall into his hand, like it’s always been there and he just forgot. “Wait—you knew not what you did, right? I’ve heard it before.”
He drops to the floor as Bushmaster loses its very questionable control of its trigger finger again: you’d think they’d learn, but they never do. Still grinning, he looks to see the bullet buried in the opposite wall before looking up at Bushmaster’s shocked face.
“Yeah, no.” He holds Bushmaster’s eyes, making a fist and listening to the sound of bone being crushed to dust, nothing left but a sack of pulped meat hanging from its wrist. Catching the gun before it hits the floor and goes off by accident—he’s got some on-purpose plans here—he sends it toward the wall and takes a moment to enjoy the sound of Bushmaster screaming, face nearly purple. “Be right back,” he assures Cas, stripping the bullets from all the guns just in case and throwing them with the rest. “Gotta do this first, then we’ll get started, how’s that sound? Wait for me.”
They’re almost at headquarters when Castiel stops short.
“…not really.” Haruhi stops a few steps away and turns around. “Cas, you okay?”
“Dean,” he answers, but it’s not just that; the memory of acid pain tingles along his nerves and crawls over his skin, and it’s only with an effort he doesn’t wince. “Alicia, I need to—”
The flood after that doubles him over; for a minute, there’s nothing but pain, and then, almost as if speaking in his ear, he hears Dean say, Control it.
Castiel, former angel of the Lord who once wielded Grace from Heaven, brings the power born in Hell to brutal heel with a thought, and with it comes a view of a room of terrified, unmoving people, four very crazy people, and something very, very wrong. Where is impossible to work out, and he has the distinct feeling lingering here will not end well for him or Dean (much less anyone in that room). At least until he can get to him physically.
“Cas,” Alicia says worriedly. “Are you—”
Where was Dean going today? “Fine.”
“I’d argue,” she says in a completely different voice, “but we got another problem. Straight ahead—she doesn’t look too good.”
Following her gaze, Castiel focuses on the woman approaching headquarters; her movements are stiff, unnatural, as if she’s fighting for each individual step.
“Wendy.”
Pushing by Alicia and Haruhi, he runs toward her and sees her stumble just in time to be there to catch her before she falls. From the bloody scrapes on her palm and both knuckles as well as the tears in the knees of her jeans, it wouldn’t be the first time. The brown eyes that stare into his are glazed with utter terror, but he can see her lips move, shaping three words: “One. More. Step.”
“Alicia,” he says, pitching his voice in case they’re too far away, “get me two teams now.” Tipping her head up, he smiles, pressing a thumb against her pulse and feeling the rapid beat of her heart. “Wendy?”
Recognition is almost immediate. “Cas.”
“You’re safe now,” he says firmly, and watches her relax slightly. “Where were you?”
She takes a deep breath, and he sees the enormous effort it takes for her to speak. “Dean. Volunteers.” Slowly, she forces up a shaking hand, and he sees the grip she has on the paper before she says clearly, “Everyone.“
He meets her eyes and nods. “I understand. Thank you.” Looking relieved, she starts to collapse, and Castiel retrieves the paper, scanning it quickly just as Haruhi joins him.
“Cas?”
“Take this.” Pocketing Dean’s notes, he checks Wendy thoroughly for any physical distress and suspects it’s simply exhaustion; in her state, that walk must have felt like leagues. Gently, he picks Wendy up, turning toward the door of Headquarters that’s already opening to reveal Mel pulling on her jacket. “Haruhi,” he says on their way to the door, “I’m placing Wendy in your charge; see she has anything she needs. Send someone for Teresa and to Dolores, but you must stay with Wendy and reassure her. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she says immediately, holding out her arms. “I’ll take her. I’m ridiculously strong, trust me.”
“I do,” he says, and isn’t at all surprised Haruhi takes her (though not easily), shifting her weight and nodding thanks at Mel who holds the door open for her.
“Volunteer Services,” he says, relieved to see Amanda join the two teams (minus Andy, of course). Taking out the paper, he hands it to Mel. “There’s a situation in progress on the ground floor. Did you have time to memorize the layout of Volunteer Service during your visit with Joseph?” Mel nods, passing the paper to Amanda. “Good. I’ll explain what we shall do on the way.”
Ignoring the other three, he focuses on Bushmaster, cutting off its scream (and airway) with a gurgling sound. Bushmaster grabs for its throat, mouth gaping for air it can’t get.
Beard licks its lips. “Dean—”
“Wrong name.” Maybe he should get one, though. He cocks his head at things four. “Kneel.”
They all begin to shake, fine tremors growing in intensity with every moment that passes, and Dean’s gotta give it to them, they try, but then again, they all do, and it ends the same every goddamn time. He doesn’t want to wait, though—tick-tock, he’s on the clock here—and shattering their kneecaps sends them to the floor immediately. Better, and the screaming’s just icing; the silent room thing was getting old.
“I missed this, you know that?” A glance at Bushmaster warns him it’s about to pass out: can’t have that. “Breathe,” he says, spreading his fingers carelessly and watching as Bushmaster gasps a few wet breaths, blood dribbling down its chin from a bit lip before half-closing his fist and splintering its ribs, slowly pulling them up through its chest in jagged splinters, matching the lacerations to the ones on Cas exactly. “Lungs are fine,” he tells it over the hovering fragments of bloody bone. “There’s an art to it; harder on earth, sure, but nothing’s impossible. Just takes some imagination. Innovation. A good work ethic.” He grins, remembering. “Just wait until I’m done with Cas; he’s gonna have so much fun with you.”
“Please—” one of the things whimpers, and Dean crushes its trachea and the other one’s too, just in case. Screaming yes, choking on your own blood works, too, but talking, no: you’d think they’d know better. Think they’d know better than to go after Cas, too, but what can you do? They aren’t worth much except in entertainment value.
Skin a couple alive, and look at that, he has just the right knife for it. Looking down, he grins fondly at it, screaming blade honed sharp and dull both, enough to do the job and make it hurt. Made it himself once upon a time, fit to his hand and no other, shaped to any purpose he chooses for it; did they really think he wouldn’t make his own? Did they think he couldn’t?
He grins down at Beard’s terrified face and vanishes the clothes; they’ll only get in the way. “I’m gonna make Cas a whole new skin out of you. And I think,” he says, straddling his bare chest and setting the tip of his knife just below one staring eye and starts to slide it in, “he’s gonna need this, too. Glad you got two: I need the practice. Haven’t done it since—”
“Dean,” a voice says, and he wonders who the hell that is and more importantly, why they’re talking.
“Did I say you could talk?” he says, but for reasons goddamn annoying he can’t quite shut them up; it keeps slipping by them. Looking up, he pauses and sees very familiar blue eyes. “You’re dead.”
“Cas,” someone else says. “Do you think—”
Cas raises a hand, cutting off the words. “Hold your positions and do not fire.” Holding his eyes, Cas starts toward him, dropping into a crouch a foot and a half away. “Dean?”
“You’re gonna have to wait,” he hears himself say, turning his attention back to the guy under him. “I’m a little busy right—”
Empty sockets stare up at him from the mutilated face of a kid almost but not quite grown up, who wanted to be a hunter. Like Dean. Like him. Haven’t done this since… since…
Dean jerks away, tumbling to the floor, and looks down at his empty hand, bewildered; he can still feel it. “I’ve done it before.” He takes in Cas—alive—and turns around to see the woman’s body that’s definitely not Cas. “I thought—Cas, I saw you. They killed you!”
Cas’s eyes flicker to the body, but before he can say anything, Dean realizes something else: the idiot doesn’t have his goddamn gun out. He’s just crouching there and—oh God. “Cas,” he says urgently. “Get a gun on me. Now.”
“No worries,” another voice says, and this time, he recognizes it as Amanda’s. Looking up, he sees her coming down the stairs, sidearm in hand and trained right on his head. In his peripheral vision, he sees Mel and her team have come in the backdoor and spread out to protect the people against the north and west walls while Alicia’s team takes what’s left of those on the south and west sides as well as the remaining volunteers. “Had you the second I had line of sight.”
Cas frowns. “Amanda—”
“Shut up,” Dean snaps, eyes drawn back to Grant, but—it’s not Grant. It—the guy—he just almost was Grant. Grant, Mark II: the Volunteer Services Edition. At this rate, he’s gonna get a reputation in Ichabod. “Get a second gun on me, then disarm me,” he says, raising his shaking hands and lacing his fingers together behind his head, hoping to God that’s enough. “Now! That’s an order!”
“I’ll—” Cas starts.
“Not you.” Yeah, he’s that kind of dick: he’ll happily trade someone else’s life here and now to make sure Cas is safe from him. “Please, Cas.”
“I got it,” he hears Alicia say, and breathes a little easier when Matt’s gun comes out with a look on his face that says breathing wrong while Alicia’s near him will end with a Dean-shaped splatter. Even so, he doesn’t let himself move until Alicia checks him fast and thorough, and unlike Mark, she knows to get his boot knife.
“Mel, secure the building and send someone for Vera,” Cas says, eyes on Dean as Alicia does a second check—smart girl—and takes his belt with her as well. “Dean, the people outside: your note was unclear and seemed to be missing some letters. Or perhaps words.”
Dean licks his lips. “Too many people.” Christ, what was he thinking: those three rooms, crowds, what? “Alicia said that everything stopped in the mess after you left. Mira said the same thing at the library—no one left, but dead probably counts, right? YMCA, reports say same thing as the library. Even in the crowds—they stopped when patrol dragged people away.”
Cas nods. “Keep going.”
He’s either talking down the crazy guy or—just maybe—sincere. He’ll take it. “Only thing in common—less people.” Wow, that sounds stupid, but might as well go for broke. “First night, you—you were talking about how much space people need and math, and I started thinking about—”
“Personal space?”
“Yes! Why not the big rooms at the YMCA and library? Or the kitchen at the mess?” Dean asks urgently. “No one felt crushed. The YMCA—it was a small room, not any of the big ones, same as the library, same as the mess, same as the middle of a goddamn crowd: a lot of people in a small space. Or maybe feels like a small space.”
“Personal space.” Cas’s gaze moves over Dean’s shoulder. “Alicia, I think we found—”
“—our catalyst,” she finishes for him. “Dean, you’re a goddamn genius.” she adds, patting his head—she seriously just patted his head. “Gonna need square footage, divide by numbers, but then it’s all math.” She gives his wrists a friendly pat. “Hands down. Promise, I can stab you straight through the spine and into the heart if you do anything.”
Something’s wrong with both of them: she meant that to be reassuring and he does, in fact, feel reassured.
“Cas, Dean?” Mel asks from behind him. “Room’s ours and no one’s responding to us. Want us to start moving people out, see if this works?”
“Please do,” Cas says. “And get a full count, including those outside, and add one for Wendy of Noak.”
Dean lets his arms drop, closing his eyes. “She’s okay?”
“She’s fine,” Amanda says and when Dean looks up, he sees her start toward—son of a bitch. He watches in horror as Jody kneels beside Bushmaster’s still body as Amanda approaches Remington and Beretta.
“I killed them,” he says, wondering vaguely why he can’t make his hands stop shaking or why his voice sounds weird. “I—I—”
He doesn’t see Cas move—cheater—but Cas is beside him, one startlingly hot hand on his forehead. “You’re in shock,” Cas tells him, peering into his eyes. “Someone find a blanket, please.”
Without thinking, Dean reaches for Cas and hears the click of more than two safeties.
“I’m declaring Dean temporarily incapacitated due to mental coercion,” Cas says calmly, pulling off his coat and wrapping it around Dean. “This is a coup, and as conqueror of Chitaqua, my orders are to stand the fuck down.”
Cas doesn’t need exclamation points; everyone has their safeties on almost simultaneously and their guns down before Dean can protest (and from their expressions, before they even realized what they were doing). He has got to learn how Cas does that.
“Amanda, Jody, please finish checking those people,” Cas continues, tucking the coat around Dean more securely and peering into his eyes. “Dean—”
“It was me.” Grabbing for Cas’s flannel—this time without a safety soundtrack—he makes himself say it again. “I killed them. I can still feel it in my hand! What’s happening to me?”
Cas looks at him incredulously just as Amanda says, “Dean? It looks like they just passed out.”
He looks at Amanda. “What?”
The final count in the room is two hundred and ninety (including Wendy, Dean, and the unknown victim), which even without a geas in play would be far too many in one room for Castiel’s taste.
Naresh’s teams arrive quickly enough to take over care of the civilians, but Naresh requests that Chitaqua’s teams remain on site while they remove people in case of any unforeseen complications. Ten more people are removed before the number is below threshold and it breaks. They’re still inside with Cas when they all feel the snap, like a rubber band stretched too far, and Naresh doesn’t pretend to listen to Dean’s protestations he should be in custody and looks relieved when Castiel explains there’s been a coup.
“We know where you are,” Naresh tells Dean soothingly and Castiel pretends not to notice Dean’s eyes fix on the suspects’ weapons. “Run along now.”
While Alicia and Mel assist Naresh and his teams, Castiel casually checks the guns from the four suspects, strangely unsurprised to find the clips empty. Getting up, he pretends to watch the people being led outside as he scans the walls carefully and finds a single bullet hole at the corner. Turning, he takes in the former positions of the four suspects, places Dean between the woman’s body and them, and finds the angle for the headshot there is no possible way Dean could have avoided under any other circumstances. As Dean wouldn’t have mentioned it if they’d simply missed.
Dean said: I can still feel it in my hand!
“Cas?” Alicia says, and he turns to see her frowning at him. “Everything okay?”
“Fine,” he answers, turning toward the door. “Continue your work with Naresh. I’ll be at Headquarters with Dean if needed.”
Dean just avoids shoving the second glass of electrolyte enhanced super healthy flat whatever that is that tastes like ass back at Vera and glares at Cas. “You’re telling me it was all a dream?”
“No, we’re lying,” Vera snaps. “Now drink that while we form our exit strategy from town after you committed quadruple murder.”
He does, because he feels like shit, one, and two, he’s still trying to decide what to say if they ever get around to asking him for details on how he killed—sorry, dreamed he killed them. Because he has details. So fucking many details.
“Not a dream,” Cas corrects him, lounging in a nearby chair in the makeshift infirmary that has mysteriously joined the (kind of nice) mess in Chitaqua’s totally not new headquarters in Ichabod, though at this point, he gets the feeling he’s gonna lose this battle. “Finish your hideous electrolyte substance, Dean.”
Glaring at him from the twin bed that appeared here along with all the first aid kits from the jeep and some vaguely familiar equipment, Dean almost throws it at him, but Vera’s right there.
“Wendy okay?” He should have asked that first but ass-tasting electrolyte solution was a little distracting. That and Vera doing something a lot like hovering over him worriedly; the realization she was doing it, and he was letting her, was really awkward for both of them.
“She’s fine,” Vera answers, glaring at him until he takes another drink. “Snapped out the same time as the rest. Teresa checked her out, and her sister came to pick her up so she can get some rest.”
Oh God, Lourdes. He is never getting off her shitlist now.
“She’s the only witch that’s been involved in one of these,” Cas says. “She was able to confirm a coercive was responsible for the artificially-induced emotional response and narrowed it to a geas as well between bouts of uncontrolled terror. She also offered this: even knowing what was happening to her didn’t help her break it, so the creator or creators had a very strong will and—considering the motivation they had—that’s not a surprise.”
“And Teresa thinks you may have broken it by…” Cas was alive, everyone was alive, and also, that guy under him wasn’t Grant. Jesus Christ, Grant. “Not being dead. Cool.”
“Technically speaking,” Cas says, because at all costs we must be technical or something, “I acted as a catalyst for you to break it; you thought I was dead, and seeing me alive was enough of a shock to shatter the geas’ hold on you. Only for a second, but that’s all it needed; you don’t do the thing—or feel the thing, I suppose, we’re still not entirely sure of the instructions—and it broke.”
“Wendy say anything else? Infusion expert, right?” Seriously, they’re buying all her candles forever. “Think she can do anything about it?”
“Teresa told her about the probability of it being infused into the toner, which from what I understand she took very, very personally, though whether at its existence or it being accomplished so badly is up for debate.” Cas shakes his head: every so often, it occurs to Dean that Cas is, actually, a practitioner himself and he’s never met a good one who didn’t take the shitty efforts of amateurs well. “I told Teresa she could have all the maps in our possession. With that many, there should be enough of the toner present in one place for Wendy to pull the entire structure of the geas without too much trouble. Alison is already having Admin searched, but it took at least two toner cartridges to do this, and they probably had the sense to take any that was left over. However, I suspect Alison will order everything copied since the infiltrators arrived burned, just to be sure.”
“Good call.”
“Personal space, actually really important after all,” he says, grinning at Cas. “Who knew?”
Cas smiles at him. “I didn’t realize it could quite literally drive people insane this quickly, but I do feel vindicated in my concerns, yes.”
“God,” Vera mutters, but when Dean glances over, she’s hiding a grin. “Can you two be gross somewhere else?”
“Shouldn’t I be in Volunteer Services still, sir?” he asks Cas with relish. “So I can be questioned, sir?” Cas’s eyes narrow, and Dean drops his voice, watching Cas’s face. “What are you gonna do with your helpless former leader after conquering his domain, anyway?”
Cas shuts his mouth: yeah, that’s what he thought.
“And now we’re getting creepy,” Vera remarks. “Roleplay is for home or interested audiences and I am neither.”
“Cas couped me,” Dean reminds her. “This is the real deal. I get imprisoned, right? In a nice room? No responsibilities, no one allowed to visit unless they need my help. Maybe consult me once in a while in a sticky situation you need my advice on or something, and I make you give me something for it? I always wanted that job.” Vera gives him a blank look. “Saw it on TV once, looked cool.”
“Dean,” Cas says patiently, “you’re in our headquarters—”
“We’re not keeping the building,” because yeah, that’s what’s important here, the building and a fight there’s no way he’s gonna win. “Unless you say we should. Sir.”
“—and under the supervision of your entire militia—”
“Yours, sir,” Dean interrupts happily. “Coup, remember? Sir?”
“Don’t look at me,” Vera tells them, taking off her gloves. “My coup, I had the sense to put someone not me in power.” Cas gives her a glare that she ignores. “Dean, you’re fine. Medically speaking, anyway.”
“I withdraw my coup,” Cas says before Dean gets a chance to explain how he really isn’t. “And reinstate Dean to his former position without prejudice and with utter relief. Vera, do you need to return to the infirmary?”
“Yeah.” She drops the gloves in the trash, looking grim. “We had an emergency so had to delay Carol, but she’s still stable, so we’re starting an hour after dusk before anything else comes up. I’ll probably crash in there after surgery’s done. Dolores set up a room for me and Lewis.”
Dean nods. “How long?”
“Eight hours, give or take,” she says. “Probably in two parts, and I need to be on hand in case any emergencies come up. Anyone needs me—”
“We’ll wait,” he says firmly. “I’ll send Amanda to check up and give us word on how it went and bring you dinner, okay? Eat it, I’ll ask her when she gets back.”
Vera smiles. “Thanks. Dean—unofficially—do me a favor and stick to headquarters the rest of today, just for my blood pressure? Everyone who’s been in one of these who wasn’t shot seems okay, but if this is telephone, who the hell knows. Just in case.”
“He’ll be here until dawn under my observation,” Cas says, and with a faint smirk, she nods, grabbing her coat on the way to the door. When the door’s closed, his expression turns serious. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine, and by the way, give an order that anyone sees me outside my room without you, shoot.”
“No,” Cas answers with a sigh. “I won’t.” Dean’s getting ready to suggest they get out of here when Cas asks, “What did you mean? When you said you could still feel it in your hand?”
Dean clenches his right hand against the mattress and knows Cas sees it. “Part of the entire, uh, dream—hallucination sequence thing. That part lasted a little longer, I guess.”
“What did you feel in your hand?”
Just a hallucination, he reminds himself: like avoiding a headshot, like crushing that guy’s hand, like ripping apart that guy’s chest, like choking them all to death, like not having a name, it didn’t happen. It doesn’t mean anything. Just like it doesn’t mean anything that since that first night in Ichabod, he hasn’t dreamed about Cas dying by camp or mob. He can’t even remember dreaming the last few nights, come to think.
“My knife, I think.” And he really fucking wishes it’d go away already. “You ready to get out of here?”
“Of course.” Standing up, he waits for Dean to slide off the twin bed. “If the pattern of the others is any indication, you’re going to be tired and somewhat morose—”
“Cas,” he says, then realizes they’re like a hall away from the goddamn mess. “Fine, our room.” So he can pass the mess, go through the lobby, and up the stairs in front of everyone.
“Excellent idea,” Cas says, and leads Dean out of the room and in the opposite direction. “Back stairs.”
He forgot about those. “Cool.”
Following Cas to the room is so automatic that he doesn’t realize Cas has stopped at their doorway until he runs into him. “What the hell?”
“Our room,” Cas says in a voice that—for no reason—makes Dean think of how angels deal with ‘sharing’ (single combat to the death and public sex), “is empty.”
Peering over his shoulder—Cas is the mountain that won’t fucking let him in the room— Dean scowls. “This is bullshit, who…” Wait, that’s why that equipment in their ‘temporary because they aren’t keeping this building’ infirmary was familiar. “Okay, that was fast.”
Cas’s expression takes on a distinct ‘smiting’ quality. “When I find the perpetrators,” he says calmly, “there will be consequences.”
“Yeah, no, I—” God, it feels like forever ago. Grabbing Cas’s arm, Dean tugs uselessly. “I moved us. Or exercised my power for personal gain and got other people to do it for me. Come on.”
Cas gives him an incredulous look. “Why—”
“Just come on.” Cas finally condescends to fake normal and lets Dean lead him back to the stairs and up to the third floor, ignoring the Office of Marble and What the Fuck and going until he finds the door to what he thinks was a conference room that shares its bathroom, and going inside, sees all their stuff—minus medical equipment, now in their goddamn infirmary, got it—and nods. “Here we go.”
Cas looks around curiously and Dean lets him, checking it again himself to make sure he picked the right room. Bigger than their obviously not a partner’s former office, its windows right now are of the wooden plank and duct tape variety (sealed, thank God) but will be pretty sweet when they find some glass or something someday (if they were keeping the building). Under what have to be the most hideous non-matching paisley curtain-things he’s ever seen stapled directly to the wall: his recruits either are colorblind or have a sick, sick sense of humor.
He starts to direct Cas to the longest—and most hideous—set of curtains when he hears himself say, “Why didn’t you tell me about Grant?”
Fuck his life, he said that out loud.
Cas stops just short of their neatly stacked bags, looking at Dean. “How much do you remember?”
“Most of it,” he says, though he’s not sure that’s true. It’s all images that he’s kind of fighting slotting into any kind of order; those glimpses are enough, thanks. “You didn’t answer my question. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t remember.”
“That’s not a reason—”
“It’s a very good reason,” he interrupts, seating himself at the foot of the neatly made bed, and a part of Dean’s mind can’t help but think about the fact that his recruits actually made the bed after moving everything up here. “It was my decision, and if it was the wrong one, I take full responsibility for it.”
“Who else…” Of course. “Amanda.” He tries and fails to remember any difference in her behavior around him—the New Year’s, Christmas Eve, that fight with Mark… huh. Remembering her watching him from the fence, he thinks now he might get why she was pushing him so hard. “She agreed?”
Cas’s expression doesn’t change, not helpful.
“Cas, come on, what do you think I’m gonna do, go beat her up? She’d have me down before I even threw a punch!”
“It was my decision,” Cas says firmly, then adds, after a moment of thought, “but I did consult her as another hunter, like you, who would have shared more of your experiences. She agreed after observing your behavior that we shouldn’t interfere at this time.”
Weirdly enough, it’s not Amanda’s agreement that makes him feel better, but that Cas actually asked someone. And in this case, not just because she was a witness, but as a hunter.
“If I was wrong—”
“Dude, no idea,” he admits; it’s true. He read the reports, he heard about the daycare, and if that didn’t trigger the memories—if it didn’t even make him curious… “Was it because you thought I couldn’t handle it?”
“I think you can handle anything you have to,” Cas answers. “This wasn’t one of those things, and I saw no reason to make you.”
If Dean had any idea of being angry, it vanishes then and there; that, and the way Cas is bracing himself for this to go south fast. He thinks about what he’d do in that situation, and right or wrong, he wouldn’t do anything different (though he probably wouldn’t have the sense to consult someone else, either). “Okay.”
“Dean, you don’t have to—”
“It’s okay,” he interrupts, and to his surprise, it is. Crossing to the bed, he grins down at Cas. “So what do you think of the room?”
Cas tips his head back, studying him intently, and Dean waits. “It’s very much a room.”
“It is that,” Dean agrees, shoving his hands in his pockets, and waits; this is a much better subject and a hell of a lot more fun.
“Walls—an attached bathroom that if we wish to use—for any of its intended purposes—we’ll need to bar and perhaps brick the other door,” Cas continues. “And… very well, why are we here?”
Dean fixes his eyes on the (Christ, more hideous by the second) set of curtains and waits for Cas to follow his gaze and after a moment, stand up. Fighting back a grin, he watches as Cas finds the opening, revealing the almost-entirely-tape sliding glass doors and is for no reason at all struck with the certainty this was a stupid idea.
Then Cas slides the door open and stills, revealing it’s already full night, and vanishes outside. Taking a quick breath—Christ, get over yourself—Dean follows him out onto the wide stone balcony—divided from Office of Marble and What the Fuck’s with a dividing wall (why? Don’t even want to know)—
lingering by the doors as Cas looks around Second Street. Creepy-ass building is three floors plus an attic with ridiculously high ceilings; this is the highest point on the street and no obstruction to his view east or west at all.
“Not much of a view,” he starts, and then loses words as Cas balances a hand on the stone and fuck his life jumps up on it. Running to the balustrade, Dean tries to work out what to do here. “What the hell are you doing?”
Straightening, Cas looks around, and while Dean can’t forget terror, his expression…
“It’s an excellent view,” Cas says softly, pacing a few heart-stopping feet and looking around before straight down, oh God stop that. “And I can see people.”
Dean risks a look over and firmly tells himself he misses his demon wings and not being able to fly: wow, that shit just never fucking helps. “Are they waving?”
“Yes,” Cas says, waving back down before turning to look down at Dean. “I don’t suppose you might change your mind—”
“We’re keeping the building,” Dean states helplessly. “Awesome building, no lie, and this room? Ours. How about you come down now?”
Cas drops back to the balcony like a goddamn cat and Dean can breathe again, but not for long, because Cas is right there.
“I forgot this morning,” Cas murmurs, cupping his face, and then Cas is kissing him and fuck breathing. There’s just the warmth of Cas’s lips, the wet slide of his tongue, and no lie, Dean could kiss Cas forever. Even the cold hand going under his shirts and spreading out against his back isn’t a problem.
When Cas eases back, forehead resting against Dean’s, Dean thinks of all the things he should be doing, even if he’s whatevering in isolation or something and then says, “What did you say—you forgot something this morning?”
“To kiss you,” Cas answers, a smile in his voice. “I decided I never want to leave our bed without the taste of you on my tongue.”
Right, okay. Sure. “So when are you and Teresa supposed to do the thing with the wards tonight?”
“Not now,” Cas says vaguely, already leaning in again, and Dean is laughing into the next kiss.