The Game of God: Day 157 - part 8
The Hindbrain.
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Warnings at the end.
— Day 157, continued —
Castiel doesn’t have a clear goal—away from the room was his chosen destination, direction unimportant—but the sound of a raised voice makes him pause on the second floor. Following it, he hesitates in front of the presumed door, then knocks politely. It’s only a moment before it opens to reveal Melanie, flushed and tense, short brown hair falling out of its clips. To his surprise, the only other occupant of the room is Sarah, seated cross-legged on a sleeping bag against the wall. She looks tired, and there’s a tightness around her eyes and mouth that tells him it’s not entirely physical. Yes, he knows that feeling very well.
“Hey,” Melanie says in surprise. “Everything okay?”
“I was about to ask you the same question,” he answers, regretting the impulse; both of them are experienced at being human and certainly don’t need his help to arbitrate a private dispute. (For that matter, he didn’t know that was actually possible with Sarah.) “I don’t mean to intrude. I just…”
“He probably could hear you in the hall,” Sarah says neutrally.
“It’d be nice if people in the room could do that,” Melanie says over her shoulder, and Castiel regrets heartily that he’s become a person who is concerned about random voices in hallways. When did that happen? Why? “You have a minute, Cas? I could use a third party opinion.”
Technically speaking, he does some minutes, yes. “I suppose—”
“Come in,” she says, stepping back invitingly. “You, stay,” she adds when Sarah starts to rise, and Sarah immediately sits back down as Melanie shuts the door.
“I should get back—” Sarah starts.
“To Kat?” he asks, and Sarah nods shortly; now he understands his function, and it’s an excellent one. “Are Drew and Phil with her?” She nods again. “Then you have no reason to return at this moment.”
“Thanks, Cas,” Melanie says cheerfully. “Have a seat.” At her gesture, he takes the far side of the sleeping bag facing Sarah, and Melanie lowers herself down beside him.
“Melanie,” Sarah starts, “I don’t think this subject benefits from—”
“As long as there’s a chance you may benefit from it, I’ll talk until I lose my voice,” Melanie interrupts caustically. “You’ve been with her every second you’re not on duty or forced leave. This has got to stop.”
“Obviously my supervision is lacking,” Sarah answers. “Last night—”
“You’re allowed to be tired!” Melanie says in exasperation. “And to sleep. And eat. And not spend every goddamn second playing nursemaid for Kat! For fuck’s sake…”
“Sarah, it is not your responsibility to be Kat’s full-time guardian,” Castiel says. “You’re her team leader, not her mother or her keeper.”
“I’m her friend,” Sarah answers quietly. She and Melanie and Kat have been roommates almost since they arrived at Chitaqua, but he didn’t realize how close Sarah and Melanie were. For that matter, until he saw Sarah with Kat after Andy died, he wasn’t sure she was close to anyone, or had any desire to be. “I should have anticipated—”
“You’re her friend,” Melanie agrees, voice hard. “But she sure as hell doesn’t remember she’s supposed to be yours. If you’re not going to listen to Drew—”
“He talked to you?” Sarah interrupts evenly.
“Yeah, he did,” Melanie retorts. “He’s worried about you, and so am I. Kat doesn’t want a friend; she wants a punching bag. She knows Drew and Phil will tell her to fuck herself if she gets out of line; why do you think she wants you there all the time?”
“Sarah, is her behavior when Drew or Phil are present different from when she’s alone with you?” Castiel asks, regretting he didn’t question Sarah more closely on Kat’s behavior before now. “Did those who stayed with her yesterday report she was abusive?” Sarah remains silent. “Melanie?”
“No, they didn’t,” she answers evenly. “And she was sweet as fucking pie to fucking Carol. Sarah, come on, she was over the line before she fucked with Alicia! You don’t shit on your friends just because they’ll stand there and let you!”
“Drew was correct to speak to your friends, Sarah; you would do the same for Melanie if you felt any member of her team was taking advantage of her.”
“You did do that, when David and I first got together,” Melanie says, mouth softening. “Remember? By the way, David loved your version of the ‘bury you where no one will find your body if you fuck this up’ speech.”
Castiel just manages not to react, and Sarah’s gaze snaps to him for a moment before returning to Melanie. “I didn’t say—”
“You can make well-wishes sound like a death threat, don’t even pretend,” Melanie continues affectionately. “My best friend had my back; you think I didn’t appreciate knowing that? Still do.” Her smile vanishes. “You’d put them through a wall if someone was doing this shit to me, and you know it.”
Sarah doesn’t answer, which he assumes means that’s true.
“David took the kids to the Volunteer Center for the afternoon,” Melanie continues, relaxing. “Lyz has been wanting to get back to play with the kids at the YMCA—er, assist in organizing their daily structure or something. David and Danny pretend they’re not into it, but whatever. So how about we—”
“So you both have some free time?” Castiel asks casually, and both look at him. “A mission, I should say. If you’re interested.”
“I like where this is going,” Melanie says encouragingly. “Dangerous?”
“Of course.”
“I’m in,” she agrees, turning sideways in obvious anticipation, and if he’s not mistaken, Sarah seems to brighten.
“Dean wants to do something stupid,” he explains and is pleased to see understanding nods. “He called it a plan.”
“Read: suicidal,” Sarah agrees.
“Supposedly, Alicia did the actual planning, such as it is.” Sarah and Melanie look marginally comforted, and he truly hates to take that away from them. “Her part is to confront Erica alone for distraction purposes, while Dean does the same with Crowley to get Erica and her minions to leave.”
Both look at him, waiting for the part that would make this make sense. Then Melanie says tentatively, “That—that’s not… not the whole plan, right?”
“They think it is,” he tells Melanie’s face. “Worse, they believe it will work.”
“Christ,” she breathes. “He infected our tactician? Cas, no, we just found out what she could do!”
He lets out a relieved breath; so he’s not the only one that noticed that. “The problem is—”
“Where to imprison them until sense comes or the world ends?” Melanie asks sincerely. “What about seeing if Ana can blow the lock on that other room in the basement? It’s a dungeon, guaranteed, I got money riding on this.”
“Tempting, but no: if anyone can get Crowley to help us—or at least, spite Erica—it’s Dean. And Alicia can distract Erica enough to give him time to do it. So with those two elements in place, I need an actual plan, one where both of them survive with all limbs and souls in place and that also works. If that’s even possible.”
Sarah gets up, moves her sleeping bag closer, and sits down again. “I wonder,” she says thoughtfully, “how many Croats are still out there?”
Melanie nods. “That’s a good start.”
“So, me and Sarah are the drivers,” Melanie tells the table, composed of Dean, Joseph, Amanda, Sarah, Alicia, him, and herself, of course. Perched on the chair by Sarah and opposite Alicia, Amanda, and Joe, she leans forward, indicating the map of Ichabod proper, the wall, and the hastily added ward line on the table between them. “We’re going to make it look like a patrol of the wall.”
“We haven’t been doing that before,” Amanda argues. “So why now? Keep in mind, this is Erica; she knows us.”
“She’ll assume the partial truth; that we’re looking for her and pretending it’s just to exterminate the remaining Croats,” Sarah answers. “Until this morning, we didn’t know she was still here; it’s been just enough time for Dean to have called everyone together, met with his lieutenants and discussed options, and made a working plan. A patrol looking for her near the walls would be exactly what she expects.”
“Predictable,” Amanda says, glancing at Dean at the head of the table for his reaction, Castiel assumes. “Not a bad thing in this case: it’d reassure her she’s a mastermind of unparalleled cunning and everything. What about the car graveyard north of the wall, though? We’re going to have to circle around past the ward line to get through parts of it.”
“Croats cleared part of it themselves straight to the northwest postern door when they were chasing you,” Melanie says. “The rest—from what Gretch said when she scouted for Cas looking for Croats, there’s some spots we’ll need to circle around past the ward line, but it clears up again east of the North Gate, at least enough for a couple of jeeps.”
“Good so far,” Dean says. “What else?”
“We’ll send two jeeps—Mel and I in the first with you, Amanda, and Joe, and Mel’s team in the second. Two jeeps would be reasonable for a patrol like this; one to stay to deal with a threat and one to retreat back to the walls to get help quickly. Go out the South Gate,” Sarah explains, finger touching that point on the map, “and go clockwise, west to east.” Her finger traces an uneven wave around the walls before coming to a stop at the eastern border of the ward line. “Just past the East Gate, we get an unexpected flat tire.”
From the other side of Melanie, Castiel smiles in satisfaction; they’d accomplished a great deal during the ten minutes in their room, two minute walk to the Situation Room, and fourteen minute wait for Dean and the others to arrive.
“We let Joe, Amanda, and Dean out while we fix the tire,” Melanie says, picking up from Sarah. “Then we go back in the nearest gate, that being the East Gate—who wants to patrol with a flat tire?—and David finishes up the circuit at the South Gate and another team starts the route. Me and Sarah wait there until you’re done, and if anything goes wrong, we can get to you in under two minutes.”
“We should start soon, however,” Sarah says. “This has to look genuine, so there should be at least two circuits by other teams before we go out and continue circuits until you are behind the walls again. Cas, when would be the best time for Dean to make the attempt?”
“Preferably well after full dark,” he answers. “It’s not as if demons are more dangerous after dusk, and I’d prefer the cover of darkness. The perimeter of Ichabod is roughly twenty-one miles, so each circuit should take roughly forty-five minutes to an hour and fifteen minutes to complete, depending on who’s driving. As the first team will also be mapping the route for us, it’ll take them longer.”
“How many circuits?” Amanda asks, peering down at the map.
“Ideally, four before Dean goes out, and as Sarah says, as many as needed until he returns,” he answers. “That will also assure that there’s one mobile team already outside the walls should anything go wrong.”
“Start with Ana’s team,” Amanda says promptly. “They’re off duty, and after dealing with Micah, they deserve the treat. Haruhi’s team can man the second jeep.”
“Haruhi and Rosario are on assignment,” he answers. “Send Kara and her team.” He mentally opens Chitaqua’s shift schedule. “Sean’s team will perform the second circuit, and Damiel and Lee should be off their shift on the wall by then and can take the third and fourth. Alonzo’s can go with Sean, Britney’s with Damiel, and Travis and his team with Lee. They’ve all fought demons, but I doubt Erica’s minions will take the risk of doing anything but watch. We’ll repeat those as needed until Dean returns.”
“If we’re lucky, they’ll try, though” Melanie says hopefully, and Sarah nods agreement, which is as good as someone else saying ‘I wish to bury my knife in their writhing body and drink their still hot blood while laughing as they die.’ “I would pay literal money—if I had any—to get a bullet in Stan.”
“Or Luke,” Amanda murmurs, a ripple of something dangerous in her voice.
“Right,” Joseph starts. “This sounds great—”
“It does,” Castiel agrees. “When Melanie and Sarah return inside the walls, they’ll radio to tell us, and Alicia then goes out the West Gate—trying to appear surreptitious instead of actually being so—and her team will follow, doing a better job of being subtle.”
“Where to?” Amanda asks.
“Past the ward line,” Alicia answers, and Castiel wonders uneasily if anyone else notices how quiet she’s been. “The first Crossroad is Zero; if she doesn’t show by the time I get there, I’ll do a summoning.”
Amanda frowns. “You could get anyone, though.”
“Erica’s both the closest and the most motivated to appear,” Castiel says. “Erica manifesting first for Alicia considerably lowers the risk that when Dean performs a summoning at the Crossroad, she—or her companions—will appear.”
“And we’re that sure Crowley will show?”
“Pretty sure,” Dean says, but something in his voice silences further questions. “Okay, sounds good—”
“Except for the part where these circuits are going to get attention,” Amanda interrupts. “So there’s good odds that when we’re dropped off, someone is going to see us.”
“I thought of that,” Castiel says. “To avoid that, I’m going to see if I can make all of you invisible.”
Into the stunned silence, Amanda asks, “What?”
Castiel patiently waits out the exclamations of surprise and demands for explanation; he’d be happy to do the former, but the latter is making that impossible. From the corner of his eye, he sees Dean hiding a grin and tries not to think anything of it.
“If you would like to know more—” Cas inserts into a brief lull and gets six pairs of eyes fixed on him for his trouble. “Thank you. If I may?”
“I hate you,” Amanda says without heat, resting her elbows on the table and fixing him with a glare. “Okay, spill. Invisible?”
“Yes. Or rather, practically invisible,” he corrects himself. “True invisibility is time consuming, complicated, requires a great deal of power, and is sometimes fatal to the corporeal form, and by that I mean, dissolves it from reality. If I were an angel, of course, this wouldn’t be a problem, but resurrection is more difficult these days—”
“Christ, you’re enjoying this,” Melanie says in admiration.
“So, we’ll work with what we have. To wit: a set of sigils that influence the sensory perception of those in corporeal form. They’ve been tested on both humans and demons, and with both they worked flawlessly. However—”
“I want those yesterday,” Amanda interrupts, sounding awed. “Where’d you find them?”
Human curiosity: always so inconvenient. “Well—”
“He made them up,” Dean says lazily, mouth quirking, and Castiel feels himself flush beneath Dean’s gaze.
Amanda looks between him and Dean, unblinking. “You made invisibility?”
“Technically,” he tries, “you’re not invisible—”
“You can’t see someone, that’s invisible,” Melanie interrupts. “Holy shit, Cas, you realize what we can do with this? Someone, make a list: first on it, everything.”
“I suppose, yes,” he agrees warily. “However, as I was saying—”
“You suppose?” Joseph bursts out, and Dean starts to laugh helplessly. Dragging out a notebook, Joseph flips pages and unearths a pen from his jacket. “Okay, tell me what they do, what they don’t, everything you know: start now.”
“We’re still in the experimental stage,” Dean says before Castiel can think of how to respond. “Number of people affected doesn’t seem to matter, definitely covers up to two senses without much problem—”
“Not just sight?” Amanda interrupts as Joe writes frantically. “How many senses?”
“Simultaneously?” Castiel asks, and Amanda’s mouth drops open. “We’ve tested up to two, but it potentially affects all five.”
“Wait a minute,” Amanda says suspiciously. “Tested. Tested where?”
Dean sighs. “Weird, I can’t remember. Fever, you know?”
“You didn’t,” Joseph says in alarm. “You didn’t—fuck my life, you did.”
“In Chitaqua,” Amanda moans, covering her face. “You wandered around Chitaqua invisible?”
Dean doesn’t seem inclined to answer, smiling at them winningly.
“We confirmed it can simultaneously affect both the visual and auditory spectrum,” Castiel says, deciding perhaps it’s time to return to the original subject; it can’t be healthy for Joseph to be that color for very long. “It was tested on members of the camp,” he pauses to let Amanda moan in horror, “as well as Jeffrey.”
Amanda and Dean both come to attention without seeming to do more than look at him. “Jeffrey,” she says softly. “First date at the shooting range, yeah.”
“We haven’t tested anything beyond sight and sound,” Castiel continues, suddenly remembering Dean’s question about how it might feel to be touched by someone using the sigils. “And for the most part, taste and smell are irrelevant, though we may now heartily regret the water restriction.”
Amanda sits back with a thoughtful look. “I’m hearing a ‘but’.”
“It was a ‘however,’ and yes, there is one. I designed them for Dean, and while they should work for anyone who wears them, that hasn’t been tested.”
“If me and Joe put them on now—”
“It won’t work.” Joseph pauses, pen at the ready. “At least, not on anyone in this room at this moment. There are restrictions, the most important is that this alters perception of reality, not reality itself. If someone knows for certain you’re there, the sigils have no effect.” Looking at the ring of confused faces, he tries to think how to explain. “It’s—”
“A lie,” Alicia says. “It’s like you walk up to someone looking at a tree and tell them it’s not there: they’re not going to buy it. You want this to work, you gotta tell them the tree’s not there before they look at it, am I right?” He makes himself nod as he would to anyone who was correct in their assumptions. “What’s the command in the sigils? What are they telling us?”
“’Nothing there’,” he answers evenly.
“Dissonance,” she says with a flicker of satisfaction. “Okay, I got this. The sigils have to get in first. You look at someone, the sigils say ‘nothing there’ at the same time. Your eyes disagree—can’t blame ‘em, they’re right, after all—and it’s super annoying, so the brain has to make a judgment call. The brain doesn’t want to deal with the arguing, says ‘fuck it’ and pretends it’s not happening, so ‘nothing there’ wins by default, am I right?”
He nods again; of course she’d understand.
“So you don’t even notice anything happened,” Alicia says, addressing the entire table. “On a guess, two senses would be as much as you’d want to risk; higher than that, the brain gets curious why three senses are making it miserable and investigate, therefore discovering the sigils are lying and it stops working”
“Yes,” Castiel says, repressing the unexpected urge to smile. “Exactly.”
“So how do we test it?” Amanda asks.
“Put them on you and Joe,” Alicia says, a hint of amusement in her voice, “and go stare at Jeremy and Joelle at the front desk.”
An ecstatic smile spreads across Amanda’s face. “This is gonna be great.”
“Cas, you have a permanent marker?” Melanie asks as she gets to her feet and tugs Sarah up behind her. As Castiel goes to retrieve it from his supplies, she tells Amanda, “Strip down. We gotta work out where to put it.”
When he returns, Amanda has already discarded her flannel and thermals, and after a murmured consultation with Melanie, her tank top as well, revealing the smooth black lines of her sports bra. As she sits backward on her chair, Castiel observes the lines of scars, old and new, on her back and waist, ridges vanishing beneath the waist of her heavy cargo pants, searching automatically for any new problem areas since the last time he checked her. Scar tissue can thicken over time and cause various issues if left unchecked. Scar reconstruction as performed by a plastic surgeon is impossible, but there are other ways to deal with anything that might impede use of their body.
“Legs?” Sarah asks dubiously.
“Not for something like this.” Crouching, she examines Amanda’s back. “She needs to be able to get to it fast in case she needs to de-activate or reactivate it on the fly. Or someone else doing it for her if she’s injured: last thing we need is a ritual striptease during or after a fight.”
“Actually…” Amanda starts, twisting around to grin at Melanie’s warning glare. “Fine, just saying, I’m not opposed. For justice.”
Rolling her eyes, Melanie rests her hand just below the sports bra on Amanda’s back. “Arms in position, run through all five for me,” she says, and Amanda stretches her arms above her head, then at forty-five degrees, then straight out on either side, then down at her sides. Melanie frowns, spreading out her fingers, feeling the shift of muscle carefully. “Okay, swing up to midpoint in front of you, then up above your head, and then down. Then repeat from the top.”
Melanie skims up and then down on the second repetition, stopping short of the small of Amanda’s back, then back up just above her natural waist. “Here,” she says, looking at Sarah, who frowns and nods reluctantly. “How much room do they need?”
“Six sigils, so about six inches,” Dean says. “I can get it down to three.”
“Good enough. If this were a tattoo or a brand, I’d say your ass,” Melanie says to Amanda, “but sitting might rub even permanent marker off.”
“You just want to see my ass again,” Amanda mocks over her shoulder.
“It’s a nice ass,” Melanie retorts. “I had fun with it. Sarah?”
“Friction might be a problem,” she says slowly, tilting her head. “But all those layers should protect it if she’s grabbed. Cas, do you need to touch the skin to activate or deactivate it or is pressure in the area enough?”
“It requires direct skin contact,” he answers, but he finds himself thinking about the possibility of activation that could be done through clothing, or even discarding touch altogether. “Even one layer of clothing is adequate as a barrier.”
“And anyone can break if they touch or erase it, not just the person who drew it, or is it restricted?”
Dean bites his lip. “Anyone, yeah. With rubbing alcohol, believe it or not.”
“Good,” Melanie says. “Amanda, touch here, all five fingers, palm, wrist, then flip to back of your hand, back of your wrist, left, then right: go.” Amanda reaches back obediently, skimming Melanie’s hand as directed first with her left, then her right. “Perfect.”
“So I feel stupid,” Dean murmurs ruefully in his ear, and Castiel almost jumps; he didn’t realize Dean was that close. “Me, I just did it on my arm and called it a day. Where anyone—no names—could rub some alcohol on it anytime they wanted.”
Dean’s faint, reminiscing smile stops the caustic question on his presumed regret before it reaches his lips.
“Cas?” Amanda says hopefully as Joseph, who apparently gave up trying to decide if he’s allowed to look, comes over to join Sarah. Alicia, however, seems content to stay in her chair, and he sees Dean glance over at her before turning back to Amanda. “I’m ready.”
“Give me that,” Dean says, taking the marker and going to join them. “Hold still.”
“Look at that,” she says, crossing her arms over the back of the chair and resting her chin on them disconsolately. “Now you remember testing.”
“Might remember something,” Dean tells her as he takes Melanie’s place and drops into an easy crouch. “Might not; wanna find out?”
Amanda twists around to look horrified in Dean’s direction before settling again, holding still as Melanie frames the ideal area for Dean. Uncapping the marker, Dean sketches the six sigils with the easy expertise of someone who drew them on himself many times, and who thought—at least for a little while—that Castiel wished him to become a still-living ghost.
Sitting back on his heels, Dean checks it again, then glances at Castiel, and he suddenly remembers lounging on the couch in his cabin, an empty line of shots on the floor and a joint in his hand, with Dean standing before him. He watched Dean strip off his shirts before taking Castiel’s joint and replacing it with a marker; his protest ended when Dean knelt before him, and he drew the six sigils for the first time on the bare expanse of his arm.
Dean smiles at him, small and private, as if he knows what Castiel’s thinking. “Cas? How are they?”
“Perfect,” he says softly. Dean ducks his head, cheeks faintly pink, and he’s almost overcome with the impulse to taste growing heat beneath his skin.
Distantly, he hears Melanie say, “Uh, are they—”
“Yeah, they are,” Amanda answers in resignation. “They do that now. Just roll with it; at least no one’s getting hit with sweatshirts.” Dean snorts as he gets up. “So just touch it to activate?”
“To activate it, touch it and say, Par bolape umd gono,” Castiel answers. “To end it, finis.”
“First part’s Enochian,” Joseph says, sounding intrigued. “Why Latin at the end, though?”
“Enochian has no concept of ‘ending’ as such. Nothing ever ends, so we don’t need it.”
Joseph looks pained. “Something tells me if I question that, I’m going to get a headache.”
“I’m getting one trying to imagine the conversation,” he admits. “If it helps, angels are infinite, immortal, and exist out of time; ‘end’ is… generally interpreted as ‘not now’—for value of ‘now’ when time doesn’t have any particular meaning—or ‘interruption’.” Joseph rubs his forehead. “Brief interruption. Like a hiccup.”
“It doesn’t help,” Joseph says, starting to tug off his sweater. “So this is me, not thinking about it. Same place as Amanda’s?”
“I think so, but let me check,” Melanie says, waiting until he’s removed sweater, thermal, and tank top and sitting before checking the broad expanse of his back. Resting her hand between his shoulder blades, she frowns, eyes distant. “Okay, same as Amanda: start now.” As Joe repeats Amanda’s movements, Melanie runs her hand down his back and then back up, pausing just above where she’d stopped on Amanda. “Here. Sarah?”
“That will work,” she answers, nodding at Dean, who carefully sketches the six sigils where Melanie indicates.
When he’s done, Castiel comes up beside him, nodding at his glance.
“All done,” Dean says, slapping Joe’s shoulder as he stands up. “Get dressed and have fun in the lobby. It’s fun, trust me.” Amanda checks herself tugging her tank top over her head to give Dean a horrified look. “Mel, pick up Ana’s and Sean’s teams on the way back; we’ll brief them now and get them out there.”
“Got it,” she says, waiting impatiently for Amanda and Joseph to finish dressing with an anticipatory look. “Let’s check this out.”
After they all return (“That was weird,” Amanda says, looking happy and unnerved. “I even got behind Jeremy and said ‘boo!’. Nothing.”), Ana’s and Sean’s teams are both briefed, and Joseph goes to update Alison while Amanda returns to the interrogation room to relieve Kamal from Micah-sitting duty. So far, any effort to elicit information has been a failure.
(“It’s possible he doesn’t know anything,” Joseph told them with a shrug. “Erica isn’t stupid; she wouldn’t tell him any more than she needed to.”
“He’s too smug,” Amanda says. “He knows something.”
“Smug,” Joseph stated, “is his default setting. Before you wonder if I’m being naïve, I’m saying, Micah knows that what he doesn’t know, he can’t tell.”)
With Dean done with them, Castiel takes Sean’s team aside to explain their future duties with Alison. As he suspected, Sean’s team—having been Alison’s escort multiple times—is exactly as sympathetic as he hoped.
“Yeah, no shooting her,” Sean says blankly. “She actually thought we would?”
“I assumed it was a human thing,” Castiel explains. “So some of you are sane and don’t believe you should be shot for no particular reason?”
“More sane,” Tara corrects him with a sigh, hand coming up to smooth over her hair, an old habit, he suspects. Unlike most at Chitaqua, she keeps her tightly curled black hair cut very short, a frame for her sharp features and dark brown skin. “I’m guessing knocking her out would be a bad idea?”
“She requires consciousness to maintain control,” he answers regretfully. “You have your orders; if you have questions while on duty, come and ask me; there are literally no stupid questions when dealing with a powerful, somewhat cranky psychic with a taste for self-sacrifice.”
“When do we start?” Sean asks.
“Two hours before dawn.” He looks them over critically and reviews their schedule over the last three days. “After you return from your circuit of the city, eat and then go to bed. All of you will need to be at your most alert tomorrow; Alison, depressingly, is only one of the many ways we could die.”
“Pool’s got us at sixty-nine to survive until the barrier’s up,” Lena offers. “So, not bad.”
“Put me down for survival, if you would,” Castiel says, and Lena brightens, removing a small notepad from her jacket and flipping it open. “Make sure and be at the South Gate in thirty minutes, however; Ana’s time to drive the perimeter is naturally going to be the longest, and I’d like yours to be ten to fifteen minutes shorter for variation.”
“She leaving us any Croats?” Kim asks hopefully, twisting the end of her brown ponytail. “One or two?”
“We’ll hope for the best. Is there anything else?” They all shake their heads. “You’re dismissed.”
Castiel watches Sean and his team depart, noting in satisfaction their ease with each other has increased dramatically. Dean’s discipline requiring them to be in constant proximity to each other seems to have had a beneficial effect on their unity instead of the reverse. He watches approvingly as Tara comes up beside Sean, obviously to discuss the mission, and suspects that—provided Dean decides to let him retain this team—Tara will be his official second, something Sean has neglected to see to until now.
Joining Dean, he hears Ana say, “—wait outside for Natalie and Evelyn; they’ll bring the jeeps”
“Dismissed,” Dean says, nodding before turning his attention to Sarah and Melanie. “All right, we good?”
“I’ll go brief my team so they’ll know where I’ll be,” Sarah says, not looking at Melanie. “Talk to Kat a little. It might help her to know that we’re going after the person who caused Andy’s death.”
Melanie and Dean both hide their skeptical expressions remarkably well. “Mel?”
“I’m going to get my kids from the YMCA,” she says, turning to Sarah. “I’ll walk you up; I need to grab something from my room.”
When they’re gone, Alicia reluctantly gets to her feet and looks at Dean. “Should I get my team now, or—”
“No,” Dean tells her. “I’ll tell ‘em when they get back, no worries.”
“Is there a reason you can’t tell them yourself when they return?” Castiel asks, keeping his voice carefully even.
She can’t seem to meet his eyes. “Dolores asked for help in the infirmary. Since it’s still a few hours until we start and they’re pretty overwhelmed, I thought I’d go and see what I can do.”
“You don’t have to,” Dean says quietly, and Castiel just stops himself from reminding her that duty takes priority over leisure. “I told Dolores I’d talk to you, but that’s it.”
“I want to,” she says, but even he can hear the lie. “They need the help.”
Dean sighs. “Dolores said to tell you not to worry, and also, Karl wants to hug you.” Her mouth twitches. “Any problems, come back, okay?”
“Thanks,” she says, nodding. “When should I—”
“I’ll come and get you when it’s time,” Castiel interrupts. “You’re dismissed.”
Alicia nods shortly to them both, going out the door without another word. As soon as the door is closed, Dean looks at him, and belatedly, Castiel realizes they’re alone. Again.
“I need to get something from my—our room,” he says abruptly; at least it has the advantage of being true. He doesn’t wait to see if Dean argues the point, and Castiel keeps his mind carefully blank as he goes out into the lobby, nodding politely at Jeremy’s smile and Joelle’s wave and takes the stairs two at a time.
Too quickly: when he reaches the landing, he sees Alicia half-way down the left hall on her way to the back stairs, He starts to turn down the right one when a sense of motion makes him pause, and Kyle abruptly emerges from one of the rooms directly into Alicia’s path.
“Alicia,” he says urgently, jumping back when Alicia almost runs into him. “I need to talk to—”
“Not the time,” she says thickly, dodging around him.
As she passes Kyle, his urgent expression turns into a frown, and he reaches out, grabbing her arm. “Alicia, would you just listen to me? You owe me that much!”
She stills. “Let go of me.”
“Not until you—”
Alicia pivots, ducking under Kyle’s arm and twisting it up behind him before turning him and shoving him face first against the wall while her left hand drops, fisting briefly just short of the hilt of her knife. Instead, she braces that arm across his shoulders and kicks his legs apart, throwing his balance off. Kyle’s not usually this careless; even if Alicia’s better, he thinks it says a great deal that Kyle’s reflexive response isn’t to respond to her as an adversary and threat until it’s far too late.
“You touch me again,” Alicia says, “you lose that hand. Do we understand each other?”
Belatedly, Kyle attempts to use his greater strength, and this time, Alicia pulls her knife, the flat of the white blade touching his carotid; she doesn’t have to do more than turn her wrist for the razor-edge to open it to the shoulder, and he’d bleed out before they could even begin to stop the bleeding.
Kyle, not being entirely stupid, stills. “Do we,” she asks again, “understand each other?”
“Yes,” he grinds out. Alicia holds him for another moment, then steps back. Warily, Kyle turns around, eyes dropping from her face to her hand and swallowing as she flips the knife. “Got it.”
“Good,” she says with a meaningless smile, and sheathing her knife, she starts back down the hall. There’s an actual concern he may try to follow her, and Castiel only debates for a moment before deciding that there’s no reason to risk lethal bloodshed at this moment, tempting though it may be.
“Kyle,” he says before he can decide suicide is the greater part of valor.
“Cas.” He lets out a breath. “You saw that?” Castiel nods the obvious answer, and Kyle sighs. “Look, she was just—upset, I don’t know, she gets like this. I’m not filing a complaint or anything—”
“You’re not joking, are you?” By Kyle’s baffled frown, that would be no. “I’d take your hand just on the off-chance you might use it to touch her—or anyone else—if you give me an excuse, any excuse whatsoever. That’s what humans do to children, correct? Take things away from them when they misuse them?”
Kyle looks shocked. “What—”
“You are already under restriction for stalking and harassment,” he continues, wondering if—by some impossible chance—this wasn’t clear. “I’m both willing and eager to add assault.”
“I wasn’t assaulting her!” he protests. “I just wanted to talk to her!”
“She isn’t required to listen.”
“Look, it’s about her going after Erica,” Kyle says urgently. “Cas, no matter what Dean says, you can’t let her do it!”
Castiel watches the color drain from his face as he realizes what he just said. “We should talk,” he says, gesturing toward Kyle’s room. “You can start with telling me how you know anything about it.”
After twenty minutes, Dean acknowledges that Cas probably isn’t coming back until it’s time for him to leave for the patrol, or—possibly—until he’s already gone. Welcome back Cas’s disappearing act; didn’t miss that shit at all.
Unbidden, the memory of Cas’s face when he told him about Alicia flashes across his mind; it was there and gone—Cas learned how to hide what he feels in the same school Dean did—but it was everything Dean was afraid of. Chest tight, he fights the urge to reach up and rub it; even now, if he could have thought of a way around telling Cas, he knows he would have done it. It was his fuck-up, yeah, but one he’d do again without hesitation if it meant sparing Cas that.
His fuck up, though, and that means he doesn’t even have the right to comfort him; get him coffee and tuck him into bed (since they don’t have a couch here, at least in their room), get some cards or dice or a chessboard or something (he’ll even let Cas bring his laptop to bed in this one never to be repeated special occasion) and let Cas have his head. Surrealist conversation, he can do that; meandering historical anecdotes with startling (if not always entirely clear) relevance to their lives, he can do that, too; raid Cas’s stash, roll him a couple of joints, get some tortillas, and make a night of it, he’s in.
Dean stretches his right hand warily, searching for that feeling of something there, and is rewarded with a dull throb that warns him he’s fucking up Cas’s work last night. Collapsing back into the couch, he just stops himself from rubbing it against his knee; at this rate, he’s going to need to learn how to patch his jeans.
There’s a sudden knock on the door, Kamal’s head peeking in. “You have a minute?”
“Yeah,” he says in resignation. “What’s up?
“Micah wants to talk to you.”
Following Kamal down the stairs, Dean gets caught up on events.
“He kept asking for Alicia,” Kamal explains as they reach the bottom and make a right, passing the door leading to the (empty) swimming pool and gym. “Every ten minutes, almost like clockwork.”
“He wants to fuck with her,” Dean answers. “And therefore fuck with us.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Kamal agrees as they reach the end of the hall and make a right. Mark and Gary are standing on either side of their brand new interrogation room, looking bored enough to start a war just to get some variety. He’s got to admit, it’s not exactly inspiring as halls go; maybe he should suggest they bring a book. “But I’m not sure about that anymore. At least, that’s not the only reason.”
“Dean,” Gary says when he sees them, straightening abruptly to something that looks painful while Mark bites back a grin.
“Guys,” Dean says solemnly. “So, what’s up?”
“Nothing much,” Gary says, somehow—impossibly—straightening even more, and Mark gives Dean a look that asks if he really wants such an easy target. “Just—you know.”
Dean nods, carefully not smiling as he follows Kamal to the TV room (ridiculously large repurposed coat closet?). A glance at the screen shows Amanda looking unimpressed and Micah, annoyed, but—and he could be wrong—also a lot less smug.
“He’s asking for me?”
Kamal nods reluctantly. “He’s been asking for Alicia since we brought him down, said he wouldn’t answer anything until he talked to her. We figured we’d wait him out, but—Dean, he’s definitely worried about something. If he’s willing to talk to you, might as well try.”
Right. “Turn off the cameras.” Kamal looks dubious. “Not gonna beat him up, come on—”
“Uh,” Kamal starts.
“Or get beat up by him, Jesus,” Dean adds when he doubles down on the dubious. “I’ll yell for help, okay?”
“You better,” Kamal says darkly, flipping them off, and the screen goes to noise. “I’ll be right outside the door, and you’re armed, right?”
“Cas checked me this morning,” Dean says viciously, enjoying Kamal’s pained look. “Personally.”
“Fuck you,” he says with a sigh. “Let’s get this over with.”
Dean enters the interrogation room, nodding at Amanda as he sits down. “You wanted to see me?”
“Alone,” Micah says flatly.
Dean exchanges a look with Amanda, and she tilts her head. “I could use some coffee.”
Translation: I’ll be right outside and God help you if you get injured before I can kill him.
“Grab me some,” he says as she gets up, turning her back on Micah and going out the door. Which—this being Amanda—is as good as saying Micah’s as dangerous as a puppy. Then again, compared to Amanda, everyone is as dangerous as a puppy.
“So, you wanted me?” Dean asks, slumping back in his chair, suddenly, viscerally aware that the man across from him used to beat Alicia. There’s a faint, unmistakable tension running through him, and the sulky mouth is too tight, lips nearly white. He’s definitely worried about something, but on a guess, not that he’s been outed as what he really is; Dean’s hunted monsters all his life, and it’s not like some of them didn’t look human, too.
“Erica wants my wife.”
“Alicia,” Dean corrects him. “You called me down here to tell me three year old news? Really?”
“My deal with Erica,” Micah says. “You guessed I made one; I did. Straight trade—I give her Alicia, she releases me from the contract.”
Dean stares at him, at a loss for words; it’s not like he didn’t think just that, but the way Micah says it… Like she’s a pair of boots, a used coat: like she’s something and not someone.
“It was a mistake,” Micah continues hurriedly. “I—I was angry, I hadn’t seen her in years—for fuck’s sake, she tried to murder me in our cabin!”
“I haven’t been to law school,” Dean says evenly, not entirely truthfully (and wasn’t that a shitty fucking job), “but I don’t think it’s murder when it involves self-defense.”
Micah surprises him; he tries on ‘regret’ and almost manages to pull it off. “I made mistakes during our marriage, I don’t deny it—”
“Spousal abuse isn’t a mistake; it’s a fucked-up lifestyle choice,” Dean interrupts, pushing back his chair. “Look, I got some important trying not to die shit to do, so—”
“Wait!” Dean pauses. “Erica was obsessed with my wife—”
“Alicia,” he interrupts quietly. “Her name is Alicia.”
Micah’s jaw tightens. “Erica was obsessed with her, almost from the beginning. She tried to take her from me any way she could… look, you can’t let Alicia outside the walls while Erica’s here. She’ll do anything—and I do mean anything—when she realizes that I’m not giving her Alicia.”
“You’d know,” Dean says pleasantly. “She used you to get Alicia last time, didn’t she?”
Micah looks like he wants to argue, but the guy has some sense, after all; he keeps his mouth shut.
“So before I go—you have any idea what she’s going to do if you don’t deliver? Besides come after you at the next opportunity, of course.” Micah’s expression doesn’t change. “By the way, what are you going to do when this is over?”
“I still have years on my contract,” Micah answers. “Erica can’t—”
“Erica’s the least of your problems,” he interrupts. “The one thing she can’t do is kill you herself, not without voiding the contract.”
Micah frowns. “Then what—”
“I can, though.”
Micah rolls his eyes. “Yeah, got it, I’m scared—”
“This isn’t a threat,” Dean says, strolling around the table. “It’s a preview of coming events. When this is over, you don’t have years; you have exactly as much time as it takes to get you outside Ichabod’s walls. Then I’m coming after you.”
Micah snorts. “You’re not going to kill me, Dean. Chitaqua’s rep is bad enough; you really want to add murder to the charges?”
“How is anyone going to find out?” Dean leans back against the edge of the table, itching right hand braced on the smooth surface between them. “Not like I’m going tell anyone, and who’s going to care anyway? Carol’s dying, your buddies are MIA, and Alicia probably wants you dead more than I do.”
Micah expression flickers. “Then why not give me to Erica now?”
“How long was Alicia trapped in that cabin with you beating her to get her to say yes?”
“I don’t remem—”
Dean closes his left hand around Micah’s neck and slams him face down onto the table. Getting a handful of hair, he jerks Micah’s head up and rests the flat of his knife against his neck.
“Make one sound and I’ll cut your throat here and now,” he says pleasantly, and Micah chokes back the burgeoning scream. “Cameras are off; you attacked me and I had to defend myself. If anyone asks, I mean, and honestly? No one will. Now, answer me: how long?”
“Erica made me—”
Dean slams his head into the table with a sound like a watermelon splitting; he likes it enough to do it again. When he pulls Micah’s head up, blood, tears, and snot are smeared across his face from his broken nose. “How long?”
Micah spits out blood. “You can’t just—”
“Wrong answer.” Shoving Micah back onto the table, Dean punches through his back, shattering the spine and splintering his ribs before closing his hand around the warm, wet meat of his still-beating heart. “No screaming,” Dean murmurs against his ear, and watches in satisfaction as Micah’s lips seal shut, eyes bulging. “Last chance, sweetheart: how long?”
Micah cheeks puff helplessly, screams trapped behind sealed lips. Horror-filled eyes stare at him until his lips part on a wet gasp. “Twelve. Twelve days.”
“Twelve days,” Dean says. “That’s how long it’s gonna take you to die. And that’s when it really starts; you owe me for Cas, and paying that just might take forever.” He leans closer. “You hear that?” Whimpering, Micah nods against the wood. “You know what it is? Say it.”
“Screaming,” he whispers, eyes squeezed shut. “Please, Dean—”
“You’re going to hear that until I come for you,” Dean says, pulling his hand out and flipping his knife before cutting Micah’s throat in a fountain of glistening red. The room is filled with the muffled, wet sounds of Micah choking airlessly on his own blood, long after anyone else would have the mercy of death. “Then all you’re gonna hear are your own.”
Stepping back, he tosses Micah back in his chair. Micah reaches behind him, frantically touching the expanse of unmarked wool, then the bare skin of his throat, still whole, looking down in horrified confusion at the rumpled, bloodless sweater and jeans.
“What…” He fixes his eyes on Dean, glassy with terror. “Who are you?”
“See you soon,” he says with a grin, adding just before he snaps his fingers, “Promise.”
When Dean opens the door, he’s not entirely surprised to see Amanda and Kamal practically plastered to the frame while Mark and Gary try and look casual about hovering right behind them.
“Done,” he says blandly. “Still alive. In case you were wondering.”
Amanda rolls her eyes before frowning; following her gaze, Dean realizes he’s rubbing his right hand against his upper thigh. “Arm bothering you?”
He starts to deny it, then gives up. “Just cramps,” he answers, feeling a shock of pain when he tries to flex it. “Used it too much the last few days, I guess.”
“What is that?” Micah says abruptly from behind him, sounding—weird.
Dean turns around, startled by the change in his appearance; sitting rigidly straight in his chair, Micah’s face is bleached to a sickly grey, and even from here, he can see he’s shaking, hands clasped on the table and flexing endlessly. “What?”
Micah lifts his head, eyes weirdly glassy. “That—you can’t hear it?”
“Hear what?” she asks impatiently.
“It’s like—”
Screaming.
“—I don’t know,” Micah whispers, eyes darting to Dean again and fixing for a moment before he looks away, hand going to his throat and smoothing over the skin like he’s looking for something. “I want to see Alicia.”
Dean feels the hilt in his hand; he can’t stop.
“Right,” Amanda says with a sigh, reaching to shut the door. “So, you get anything?”
“His soul for Alicia,” Dean says distractedly. “See if you can get anything else, I gotta—gotta do something.”
When he gets to the empty Situation Room, he goes straight to the bathroom and makes for the taps, relieved to discover they work in here, at least. Turning on the hot water, he shoves his right hand under the icy spray, eyes closed until he’s breathing steam but somehow, it never gets any warmer.
When he opens his eyes, he sees a familiar, green-eyed stranger holding a knife under the steaming tap. Written on the blade are words formed from his own agonized screams: this is my name.
“What the hell—”
Jerking his hand from under the tap, he frantically tries to turn off the faucet with his left hand and hisses at the sprinkle of burning heat from the water. When he looks again, the mirror’s steamed over entirely; he can’t see a thing.
When he leaves the bathroom, he almost runs into Cas, apparently waiting for him just outside the door.
“Hey,” he says, hoping he doesn’t sound too surprised (nothing he can do about the relief; that seems to come through loud and clear). “Uh, you—” He takes in Cas’s expression. “What happened?”
“Kyle was listening at the door during your conversation with Alicia. At least until Jeremy arrived; then he hid in the office of wrong next door.”
It’s only when he’s jerked to a stop that he realizes that he’s halfway to the door; he’s hit his limit on assholes for the day. “Cas—”
“He thinks that Micah made a deal with Erica to get her Alicia,” he says, leading Dean to the couch and not gently pushing him down on it before taking a chair between him and the door. “Dean?”
“He was right,” he answers flatly. “Micah gets Alicia for her, and she breaks his contract.”
Cas raises an eyebrow. “So his warning to her was indeed genuine: seller’s remorse, I assume. I wouldn’t have thought he was capable of it.”
Dean thinks about the inflection in Micah’s voice when he said my wife. “He said he did it before he saw her again, the night after he and Carol got here.”
“Probably with the help of the idiots two. Stephen and Barney,” Cas clarifies when Dean gives up trying to remember their names. “We keep forgetting them, but then again, it’s not like they’re easy to remember.”
“What about them? They’re still bravely hiding somewhere north of Fifth.”
“I dislike having this many variables without a single constant,” Cas explains, which he translates to ‘no fucking clue what’s going on and this is bullshit.’ Yeah, Dean’s with him there.
“What I’m not getting is why Erica agreed to this trade in the first place.” Cas raises his eyebrows. “I mean, I get it; she’s a demon and Alicia’s the soul that got away because Erica had something like feelings about her. But a soul in the hand’s worth—you know.”
“She wanted to take her,” Cas says. “It was ‘feelings’ only so far as that the reason that she didn’t was because she didn’t want to pull the trigger when Alicia said no. This is Erica, after all; I doubt that inhibition would have lasted much past my death, and I have no doubt she would have used Alicia’s guilt as well.”
“So what’s changed since then, you mean?”
“Several things, not least of which is that Erica is now a Crossroad demon, and as a group, they don’t think there’s anything that can’t be bought. But even as a human, Erica wasn’t one to take unnecessary risks, hence the ‘bullet to the head’ method of persuasion. Considering her master plan was overwhelming us with a ridiculous number of Croats just to get a Hellhound inside Ichabod, that seems to continue to be true.”
“That wasn’t a good plan.”
“The only good plans are those that work,” Cas retorts. “If it had—and I remind you, it very nearly did—it would have been brilliant. Especially for Erica.”
You send Erica when you want to win and don’t care how. How much she knows about what’s happened in Ichabod is up in the air, but demons can smell when someone’s desperate, and she knows Alicia. “We can’t send Alicia out there.”
Cas raises his eyebrows. “Why not?”
“Why not?” Dean exclaims guiltily. “Because—look, it’s a shitty idea.
“It is, but it’s also all we have. Without Alicia’s participation, this plan—as we must refer to it, for lack of a more accurate term—is officially non-existent.”
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Dean asks (the stupidest question in the world). “Erica shows up, makes fun of us, and leaves. She won’t kill me, Cas; you heard her.”
“I’m not worried about her killing you,” Cas answers. “I’m worried she’ll kidnap, mutilate, and torture you until you wish you were dead but without any risk of actually causing your death. Dean, you only have to be alive to keep the status quo, and breathing and a heartbeat are all that’s required.”
Chilled, he’s reminded suddenly it’s not just his own memories that Cas has; he’s got all the shit Crowley shoved in there, too. He probably knows—as well as Dean does (if not better, not like angels were above that kind of thing)—how much a human body can go through and survive.
“If we’re fortunate, she’ll eventually ask for a trade so we can get you back,” Cas says quietly. “If we’re not—”
“No one,” Dean interrupts, “is gonna fucking deal for me.”
“—we’ll have to summon her and beg for the privilege of making a deal on any and every term she desires.” Cas’s eyes meet his. “That is the only way this story will end.”
Dean wets his lips and distantly recognizes Cas is maybe the only person who can make ‘saving you from hell on earth’ sound like the threat it is. “Got it.”
“Good,” Cas says with a smile that reminds Dean of a much crazier pre-confronting Lucifer Cas in all the wrong ways: insouciant, indeed. “Alicia’s participation is mandatory; if you don’t want her to go, then we don’t have a plan or even the substances from which plans can be made.”
“And you’re okay with that?” It’s on the tip of his tongue to ask Cas if Alicia’s soul’s a fair exchange for that night at his cabin, but for once, sheer horror catches up in time to cram the words back down his throat. It’s not Cas he should be asking that question; it’s himself. “If Erica tries to make a deal with Alicia—”
“Alicia won’t take it.”
Christ. “Everyone’s got a price.” And it’s not like Alicia doesn’t have a lot of reasons to be tempted, especially now.
“Everyone has a price,” Cas agrees. “But not everyone can be bought. Whether they want to be or not.”
He just stops himself from flinching. “You really believe that?”
Cas raises an eyebrow. “Yes.”
“I don’t regret it,” Dean says abruptly, not sure why he needs to say that. “Making a deal for Sam.”
“If you could, you wouldn’t be you.” He’s still circling that statement warily when Cas adds, “That’s irrelevant, in any case. Alicia can’t be bought.”
“Does she know that?”
Cas shrugs. “If she tries to make a deal, she will, very quickly. I suspect Erica won’t take that well, so it would be best to bring Crowley to agreement very quickly, if possible.”
Dean’s suddenly reminded of learning all about the Road Coloring Theorem when Cas was explaining how it related to the most recent reorganization of their pantry, except the (horrifying) part where he understood after Cas assembled a model of the goddamn thing with toothpicks. This—he’s not sure what to do with it.
“Look, it’s not that I don’t believe you here—” he starts.
“In other words, you don’t.”
“—but come on, there’s still a risk!”
“There’s always a risk,” Cas says dryly. “In this case, however, Alicia would have to lose her mind, and insanity invalidates any attempt at contract. It’s understandable after what Alicia told you that you’re sympathetic—”
“She didn’t tell me just to get my sympathy,” Dean interrupts and immediately regrets it; Cas’s expression goes blank, probably at the reminder that Dean spent two days protecting one of the people who tried to murder him before hearing all the messy details, and by the way, another one of them’s in the interrogation room, both very much alive and not exactly paying for their crimes. He’s really raising the standard for bad boyfriend and partner, but hey, at least he’s not beating the shit out of Cas every day and making him think he deserves it. So, better than Micah. Maybe.
“Dean, if you’ll stop being defensive—”
“I’m not being defensive!” Dean snaps defensively. “I’m saying, I don’t think she’s fucking with me—us—as a get-out-of-attempted-murder card!”
And that, kids, is how you double down when it comes to stupid. They’re about five seconds from Cas finding something perfectly legitimate to do and walking away, and worse, he gets how easy he’s getting off. Cas of even four months ago would have walked out without bothering to make even a minimum effort to make Dean feel less shitty about it.
“I said I’d believe her,” Dean says abruptly, fixing his gaze on the wall behind Cas’s shoulder. “I told her if she told me what really happened, whatever she said, I’d believe her.” Not liking who you are—hating it—isn’t easy to fake, and impossible with someone who hasn’t seen it, much less lived it.
“I understand.” Risking a glance, he sees Cas relax. “There is something missing, though the exact number is something of a question. What I’m not sure of is why.”
“How many… what?”
“Hours,” he replies absently. “At least seven, but possibly as many as twelve, as the CDC hadn’t arrived yet. Assuming the hospital was aware of the protocol for suspected Croatoan—the alarm makes me suspect they were, to get the key employees out and safe before formal quarantine was established—the FBI, the National Guard, and the CDC would have been informed within an hour of confirmation, which is usually within two hours of formal quarantine. How on earth she got past the National Guard—possibly twice—is a mystery, but if she knew the hospital—”
“Wait,” Dean interrupts. “Go back: seven to twelve hours? At the hospital?” Cas nods. “Where are you getting that?”
“According to Alicia, the first child was born at eight thirty-eight that morning and the last just after three. It was roughly an hour later when Alicia heard the alarm; that’s consistent with the manifestation of the first child.”
“So she heard it, went to the nursery—”
“In a deserted hospital, after procuring drugs from one of the open, abandoned cabinets and carrying cyanide and a sledgehammer?” Cas asks. “That wasn’t impulse, that was a plan, and a good one; it worked. Dean, she said she’d never seen a case of Croat before, and even if she lied about everything else, I’d believe that without question. That was the first time that alarm had been used, her supervisor had just told her about it. Why would she go to the nursery to kill children infected with something she didn’t believe existed?”
Dean shuts his mouth. “The bodies of those women…”
“They’d been dead several hours from her description of coagulation,” he answers. “Unless there were National Guard units in the hospital already when the alarm went off—and why would there be?—it was at least three to five hours at minimum after the alarm that the National Guard arrived; doubtless the hospital delayed as long as they could to assure the chosen medical employees escaped. The only thing that surprises me is that someone had the sense to chain the nursery door shut—though apparently the nurse within wasn’t one of the chosen—to minimize the possibility the mothers would get to their children and spread it further.”
“If the police were called first…” Dean doesn’t have the highest opinion of the police anywhere, but even he can’t quite imagine them able to kill those women in cold blood. And if protocol required calling the National Guard, it’s a good bet this wasn’t supposed to be handled—or even known about—by the locals and risk panic. “When she went in there, all the kids had manifested; eight hours from the last, seven from the time of the alarm…” Seven to twelve hours, Jesus. “I missed it.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Cas says, which is true; the thing is, the other Dean would have. He would have caught it the moment Alicia said she went to the nursery, and those women would have confirmed it. But he would have known before that anyway: it was just basic math.
The knock on the door is almost immediately followed by Joe’s face. “Sean’s team just left. Lee and Damiel are back early; I sent them to get something from the mess and pick the recruits going with them. You want me to send them in here when they’re done or…”
“Yeah,” he answers. “Mel’s team back?”
Joe nods confirmation.
“And Sarah and her team?”
Joe gets a really familiar look: right. “With Kat.”
“I want everyone here in fifteen minutes, including the recruits,” he says, not looking at Cas. “You and Amanda, too. We’re going out with them and wait our turn at the South Gate.”
“Got it,” Joe says, closing the door, and Dean has just enough time to acknowledge—
“When did you decide that?” Cas asks neutrally.
—maybe he could have told Joe to wait a minute and talk this over with Cas first.
“Just now,” he admits. “Something…” It’s not just about those missing hours; it’s the reminder he doesn’t know anything yet, he’s just faking it really well. Sure, he’s not sure what hanging out at the South Gate for a few hours will do, but it’s not like being at Headquarters is better. “You were right; it may be shitty, but this is the only plan we have other than waiting around doing nothing. If I’m at the South Gate—if something happens…” Yeah, he has no idea what he’s doing.
“You don’t want to be here doing nothing while your soldiers are out there,” Cas says with a flicker of amusement.
Dean’s soldiers: he hasn’t earned them yet, not really, and this week’s proved it. “Yeah,” he agrees. “That’d be it.”
The briefing doesn’t take long—it’s not like this is complicated or anything—and Dean dismisses them with Cas reminding them to suit up for a presumed hostile encounter instead of a standard patrol. So there’s a difference: another thing he didn’t know.
When they’re gone, Cas goes to the door and waits, staring at Dean until he realizes, hey, that includes him, too. “Hostile encounter?”
“More weapons,” Cas explains, following him up to their room, where the arsenals come out, spread out on the floor for Cas to peruse with the concentration of someone deciding the fate of mankind. Which, he remembers, is actually one of Cas’s angelic skillsets.
Making his selections and setting them on the bed, Cas repacks the cases and turns to look him over with the kind of critical professionalism that shouldn’t make him flush and hate pants.
Then Cas loops the shoulder holster over his arm and says, “Please don’t move,” and Christ, he forgot this part and is so very fucked.
Skimming off the flannel, Cas tosses it on the bed without looking, tilting his head before saying, “Please lift your arms.”
(Dean’s accepted that his life with Cas is going to be the equivalent of living with all the universities in history not only teaching him shit that he never cared about or even knew existed, but that no one knew existed. Not only that, somehow, all of it will not only be relevant to his life, he’ll really like knowing it.
The hindbrain contains primal instincts that date back before you were even sentient and it responds not at all to arguments that we live in more enlightened times and there’s no need to visually mark you as mine to all that might behold you.
See, he doesn’t even need to know what the fuck a hindbrain is (the hind of the brain?) to get this. His hindbrain (isn’t a hind a deer or something?) gives no shits about setting, timing, or even content, much less ‘enlightened times’ (whatever that means); when Cas uses that voice, its response is a blanket answer of ‘yes, please’.)
Case in point: Dean lifts his arms with the same alacrity as if Cas said, “Remove your pants so I can suck you off” or “Bare your chest so I may remove your heart with my bare hands.”
(Answer: ‘yes, please.’ Because hind-fucking-brain.)
The worst part—best part?—is that Cas isn’t being anything but professional, but his hindbrain (that’s gotta be fake) can’t tell the difference. Sliding the shoulder holster up Dean’s right arm, he moves behind him to settle it against his upper back before repeating with the left. Crossing in front of him, Cas adjusts the buckle of the holster under his left arm for a quick draw with his right, then the magazine holders that fit under his right. Going back to the bed, Cas selects a gun and two magazines, and it looks like foreplay’s gonna be getting pretty goddamn dangerous in the near future. If he ever gets anywhere near that with Cas again (and losing that right now seems worse than Ichabod, the Apocalypse, and Lucifer reigning on earth. His priorities are fucked).
When that part’s done, Dean doesn’t bother relaxing; Cas checks his belt (he did it this morning but fuck if Dean’s reminding him now), adding a twelve-inch hunting knife to rest against Dean’s outer thigh, then the thigh holster is in Cas’s hands and breathing is for those poor losers not here right now. Kneeling (oh God), Cas slides it around his leg, hand resting on Dean’s inner thigh as he sets it into position before buckling it into place. Getting up, he returns to the bed for the gun and settles it in its holster before checking Dean’s boot knife and finally easing to his feet.
When Cas appears abruptly holding the flannel, Dean stares at it with no clear idea what you do with those. Tear it into strips, it’s strong enough to—
Put it on, he realizes, and hates everything. Ever.
Stepping back as he buttons it up again, Cas looks him over again, and Dean’s just got faking his breathing down when he says, “I want to go with you,” and drops on the foot of bed with enough of a bounce to clear Dean’s head (a little). “I understand your reasons and they’re logical, but—”
“They’re really not,” he admits, drifting toward the bed because logic isn’t his strong point right now and never has been, come to think.
Cas ignores him. “It’s prudent that one of us be available here—”
“Yeah, I’m known for that,” Dean agrees, self-preservation kicking in enough to stop him about six inches from Cas’s knees.
“—but…” Cas looks up at him in belated confusion. “What?”
“I don’t want you anywhere near Crowley,” he says without thinking, and oh, that’s a mistake.
Cas’s confusion goes straight to shock, and there we go, that look: on a guess, the last people to see that were in Sodom or Egypt and he knows how well that went for them. “You think I can’t handle Crowley?”
“I know you can handle Crowley,” Dean starts with the confidence of someone trying to talk their way out of being shoved off a cliff. “That’s not the problem.”
“Then why…” For a moment, relief washes through him that he won’t have to say it, Cas understands, but no, this is his life. Confusion to angelic wrath to confusion to… oh God. “Are you perhaps under the impression that I welcomed Crowley’s attempt at seduction and will succumb upon seeing him again?”
“No!” he states with the desperation of someone being held off the side of a cliff: if he looks down right now, all he’ll see is empty air and the couch in the Situation Room that he’ll be sleeping on for the rest of his life because Cas will never let him back in Chitaqua, much less their cabin. “It’s not you, it’s him.”
Cas’s expression doesn’t change. “What,” he asks in the same voice Jeffrey heard telling him all about his skinned-alive-hanging-from-Chitaqua’s-walls future, “does that mean?”
“It means,” Dean answers hopelessly, “that it’s not logical! What aren’t you getting about this? I know you can handle Crowley, Erica, all her buddies, probably half of Hell without even trying! It. Doesn’t. Matter. I don’t want you out there; I want you here. Maybe just stay in here?” he asks, looking around the room. “Salt line, lock the door, maybe move the bed… just until I get back, I mean.”
Cas’s eyebrows rise just enough for him to realize that Cas did get that last part wasn’t so much a joke as a plan made in futile hope. Waiting, he goes through all the arguments Cas will make—and the ones he doesn’t need to, unspoken but crystal-clear—and eventually realizes he’s been waiting and Cas is—not arguing.
“Cas?” he asks warily, and if he maybe cuts six inches to three, well, he did, what else is there to say? “Look, I know you’re pissed about—” Christ. “About a lot of things. I fucked up a lot, and you’re totally justified here. I just…” He struggles desperately for something—anything—and what comes out is, “Hindbrain.”
“Oh.” Cas tips his head back to look at him, unimpressed. “Well, then, all is explained.”
Those three inches vanish when Dean straddles his lap, feeling Cas’s hands settle on his hips automatically, blue eyes startled as he knots a hand in Cas’s hair and kisses the curve of his lower lip as the faint stiffness drains away. The soft mouth opens beneath his, and Dean shoves everything else away, greedy: mine, that’s the hindbrain thing, the part that tells logic to take a walk and good sense to fuck itself.
Education, never wasted: now he knows what it is that makes him memorize all of Cas’s expressions and watch his hair fall into his eyes when he’s working on something too intently to pay attention and the thousand ways Cas laughs and the exact rhythm of his breathing when he sleeps. Why he resented Alison—and maybe sometimes still does—because she could see into Cas’s mind, could do something he couldn't even admit he wanted to. At least, back then.
Jealousy, no fucking shit, what clued him in? Jealous of Theodore, who Cas remembers fondly for sex and alcohol, of Alison, who can see his mind, and of Crowley, who touched him and shoved some part of himself inside him and Dean can’t afford to think about that, not now, not a few hours before he plans to use the guy, or he’ll kill him on sight. And of Dean: the other Dean, the smarter, stronger version, no scarred arm or recent fever and wasn’t too stupid to even know what he was missing, the wound his death left in Cas that may be healing but he’ll always carry the scar. That Cas said he’d choose him only helps when he doesn’t think about the fact he’s also the only one here.
Hindbrains are dicks, and so is he. Jealousy: what wouldn’t you do when driven by that? Knowing you’ll never be quite as good no matter what you do, when you wonder late at night if becoming them would be enough, when you wonder if you even could, or maybe—maybe if you just might want to. It’s only a few steps from there to try.
He pulls back when he has to breathe, light-headed and dizzy, panting against Cas’s lips. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, stroking his fingers down the thick stubble, prickly against his left, not even a sense of pressure against the first two fingers of his right. “You deserve someone better—”
“Shut up.” A strong hand clamps down on the back of his neck, and anything else Dean was going to say—whatever that was—vanishes into the welcome heat of Cas’s mouth. It feels like an argument and like a benediction, and if it feels like the forgiveness he shouldn’t be given so cheaply, he’ll take it anyway.
“You’re ridiculous,” Cas breathes, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth, to the dent just above his chin. “It’s not an epic tragedy; I don’t even like reading them, so why would I want to live one? I don’t agree with your reasons for concealment, but…” There’s a momentary hesitation. “We’ll talk about it when we get home. Perhaps with hamburgers and milkshakes.”
Way too cheaply: no one deserves forgiveness if they didn’t pay for it in full measure and tenfold, and he’s got a lot of paying to do. “I’m going to make it up to you,” he promises, thumb sliding over one high cheekbone. “Everything, Cas.”
Cas rolls his eyes, leaning up to kiss him, and then the next thing he knows, he’s sprawled on the floor and Cas is grinning so hard it’s like staring into the sun.
“Did you—” Dean pushes himself up to try and glare, but he’s grinning, too. “You asshole.”
Getting up, Cas extends his hand, unrepentant. “You’re going to be late, and I’m not sorry at all,” he says in satisfaction, pulling Dean to his feet and turning toward the rifle leaning against the foot of the bed before Dean’s grip on his hand pulls him up short. “Dean?”
Lacing their fingers together, Dean gets the rifle himself and reluctantly abandons the hopeless plan of convincing Cas to make their room into an ad hoc fortress as he leads him to the door.
“Walk me down,” he invites, tightening his grip. Not that Cas seems to be fighting to get away, but never hurts to be prepared. “You can check everyone before we go and scare them.”
“I do like doing that,” Cas agrees obediently, shutting the door behind them. “But mostly, it will be to see you off safely.”
“Want anything?” Dean asks as they start toward the back stairs. “Crowley’s head on a platter, maybe? I can do that.” All he needs is a platter; maybe the mess has one?
“Just you,” Cas says, and Dean fumbles the door like an idiot. “And a trade agreement with Wendy supplying Chitaqua with candles. A very generous one: I would like a lot of candles, and she may have to recruit more apprentices to assist her.”
Dean pulls the door closed in the stairwell before shoving Cas against it to taste that smile. “Anything you want.”
Warnings: spousal abuse, infanticide, medical horror.