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— Day 150, continued —
Now this,” Dean says happily from his seat on top of the picnic table, “is a party.”
Amanda, seated correctly on the bench beside Vera, cranes her neck to look at him, then at Castiel. “He’s been very excited about this since Alison conveyed her invitation,” he explains.
“What is wrong with you people?” Dean asks without heat, taking a drink and slapping Castiel on the knee, hand lingering for a few moments longer than strictly necessary. “You, my friend, need to loosen up.”
As the music starts again from the battered stereo that someone had hooked to what appears to be a growing colony of mismatched speakers, Dean gives him a speculative look.
“What?”
“Wanna dance?”
“No.” For many reasons, not least of which is just looking at the constantly shifting crowd is causing possibly literal vertigo. Surveying the people currently leaping about to something nothing like a beat, the only question is when the first injury will occur, not if. Watching Mira steering James and Nate away from disaster as they twitch discordantly is stressful enough. “Absolutely not.”
“Coward,” Dean murmurs in his ear before bouncing up, reaching for a startled Amanda and pulling her to her feet. “Come on.”
Amanda gives Castiel a comically alarmed look.
“Keep your hands above the waist,” he tells her, causing a burst of laughter from the people on the tables surrounding them. Dean half-turns to grin at him before getting lost in the crowd, and Castiel shakes his head, finishing his cup and after a moment of thought, taking Dean’s.
“How much has he had to drink anyway?” Vera mutters, settling down beside him as Sean and Zack tentatively join Dean and Amanda.
“Not very much,” he answers. “He wishes to model appropriate behavior for our social activities. I think.”
Vera snorts, finishing her cup with a grimace. “That won’t last past getting some decent liquor. Which this isn’t.”
He looks at the less than inspiring contents of his own cup before taking a polite drink, as it’s important to show community spirit and validate the efforts of people trying new things and not pour it upon the ground and demand to know what was used to create something that is not by any stretch of the imagination ale.
Turning his attention to the street dance in progress, he searches for Dean and Amanda in the growing crowd, the hard beat of the current musical selection pounding through the ground strongly enough for him to feel it vibrating the wood of the table. The constant movement makes it hard to keep Dean in view even when he finds him, vanishing behind laughing groups and between other couples dancing with something that might be rhythm (though usually isn’t). Faintly, he sees Amanda looking surprised that Dean is a very good dancer—or perhaps, he reflects, at the pauses to bang his head to the beat—and fights down the urge to laugh.
The entire length of what had been Third Street has been appropriated for the celebration, the western end designated as the official entrance area, where new arrivals drop off their passengers before making their way around Ichabod to the adhoc parking just southeast of the northern fields.
It’s odd; he walked the streets of Babylon at the height of her power, observed the rise of Damascus and Carthage, Athens and Memphis and Alexandria and Rome, Constantinople before its conquest and Istanbul after, Fes and Tokyo and Berbera and New York and Nairobi, Mumbai and Seoul and Jakarta and São Paulo and Baghdad; they were, are, will be again (would have been; no will be) centers of culture and knowledge and power, straddling the world entire. Yet he finds one single half-mile of asphalt populated with celebrants of the New Year almost overwhelming; they settle nowhere, constantly engaged in perpetual journeys from one side of the street to the other individually or worse, in groups, for no reason he can fathom and are apparently incapable of doing so at any volume lower than ‘loud.’
Not that it isn’t interesting, it is; observing their migration patterns from a safe distance, he only wonders why he didn’t ever notice before. Yes, he was often on missions that required swift action, but on the other hand, he could also travel in time and rewind reality when needed if he missed something interesting; it’s not as if it were difficult.
“Cas?”
Glancing at Vera, he shakes himself; it seems he must be content with infinite knowledge rather than experience, which are absolutely nothing alike. “Yes?”
“Come on,” she says, sliding off the bench and jerking her head toward one of the many providers of alcohol (as well as food) that now fill most of the easternmost block of Third (and probably Dean’s primary motivation for choosing these seats). “Refill time.”
Following her isn’t easy when there are so many people carrying food and snacks to impede easy navigation, and she finally sighs, ducking under his arm, one hand on his hip for steering purposes.
“Don’t tell Dean,” she says with a grin, the smells of cooking meat drifting toward them from what feels like every direction but seems to concentrate in two of the buildings on the northern side of the street and the alley behind them. Fortunately, when invitations are extended and accepted between the communities, it’s traditional to provide supplies, which Amanda referred to as the most awesome version of a potluck she’s ever seen. Glancing up at him, Vera’s grin widens, probably at his distraction. “Not a lot of parties since you Fell?”
“Other than my own?” he asks, unable to stop looking around, following one laughing group as more visualize at the end of the street, new arrivals hailed with shouts and wolf-whistles, and he’s not actually sure the amount of space in this street should be enough to hold all of them. His reference points include two dinner parties in Ichabod and Insert Winter Celebration at Chitaqua, which give him very little to work in terms of experience. “Is this typical of a human celebration?”
She makes a see-saw gesture with one hand. “I grew up in a small town, so street dances on the Fourth and New Year were pretty common. Not to mention the annual chili cook-off. Oh, and every year Dad would take us to see Gramma and attend the annual Rattlesnake Show and Rodeo in Taylor.” She sighs, looking nostalgic. “I always wanted to compete in the bagging competition.”
“Bagging…?”
“Rattlesnakes,” she answers. “Just you, a bag, and every rattler you could want. Winner gets the most bagged.”
Where to even start. “Historically, handling serpents has always been an honored caste in human cultures, but I can honestly state that historically, no culture that I can remember created a competitive sporting event devoted to putting venomous examples of such in bags. A creative form of execution, an obscure test of manhood, proof of divine favor, demonstration of magical influence over the animal kingdom, deeply unsettling sexual fetish, projectile weapon in marine warfare—”
Vera stops short. “What? Snakes as projectile weapons? How?”
“They placed snakes in pots and catapulted them to the opposing ship,” he explains. “Effectively an early form of chemical warfare as well, but autonomous and rather unhappy about being confined to a pot.”
“I didn’t even know my nightmares were missing something,” she muses. “That’d be it.”
“Much different than putting them into bags as a competitive sport,” he agrees, but the sarcasm seems to escape her as she shakes herself before pulling him into motion as they maneuver through the crowd.
Looking around again, he notes the stationary groups gathering between stalls or on blankets on the sidewalks where vendors have yet to colonize, but inexplicably also congregating in the middle of the street for no reason other than seemingly to assure the slowest possible progress for anyone trying to get to or from the vendors. How they can hear anything considering the sheer number of conversations being conducted, some very loudly, is a mystery.
“So all of this is normal human behavior when in large groups?”
“Oh yeah,” Vera says, coming to a stop at the end of what he eventually realizes is an actual line of people for cups of a beverage contained in alarmingly anonymous brown earthenware containers displayed on several folding tables as well as underneath it. Seeing where his gaze is fixed, Vera snickers. “Cas, you and Joe both learned to make alcohol when we settled in Chitaqua. You think you’re the only ones who figured out how to make do without commercial options?”
“No,” he answers, watching a cup being filled with a cloudy grey liquid and handed to a person who inexplicably decides it should be drunk immediately. “However, I would like to know what they were making do with and why it’s that color.”
“No one’s died yet,” she says encouragingly. “So, we were talking about parties?”
“Before I Fell, my experience with human gatherings tended to be in bars and truck stops, which by nature were very specific in activity and reason for attendance.”
“What about at Alpha or the other camps?” she asks, scanning the area around them. “First hunter boot camp full of traumatized people: that’s what humans call party time.”
He bites back the automatic answer that he had more important things to do than attend gatherings. His Grace was trickling away with every passing hour, and what he’d be left with afterward was a question with no known answer. It’s both true and still not the answer to the question she’s actually asking.
Before he can find a non-committal response, however, Vera abruptly pulls him to the right, past several waiting groups chatting with those manning another makeshift bar and toward the doorway of one of the buildings, where he sees Haruhi urgently gesturing to them before disappearing into the darkened interior.
“Vera,” he says in confusion as she eagerly mounts the concrete sidewalk, “why are we—”
“Shh,” she hisses, giving him a glare before pulling him inside and closing the door. The brief darkness is almost immediately broken by a small lamp creating a circle of warm yellow. “Thanks,” Vera is saying, taking the lamp. “You two already know each other, right?”
“Yes,” he agrees as Haruhi crouches to retrieve a canvas bag from the floor, the sound of tinkling from within clearly audible. “What are you—”
“Shh,” Haruhi says, glaring up at him before taking the lamp back and handing the bag to Vera. Flipping it open, Vera smiles at the contents before closing the flap almost reverently and hefting it over one shoulder. “Six bottles,” she confirms, crossing her arms. “Per my deal with Amanda. You want more, I’m willing to negotiate.”
Smoothing her hand protectively over the bag, Vera cocks her head. “What’d she trade?”
“One case of Joe Beer and a quarter bottle of something that put me on my ass so fast I’m still seeing vapor trails,” Haruhi admits, thin black eyebrows drawing together in thought. “I’m pretty sure she told me what it was called, but could have been talking to my shoes by that point. After class,” she adds belated, giving Castiel a wary look. “Of course.”
“He got us high during class,” Vera says dryly. “Necessary combat skills.”
Castiel ignores Haruhi’s hopeful ‘So what week do we do that again?’; he recognizes that particular reaction. “Eldritch Horror.”
“That,” Haruhi agrees, then blinks slowly. “You made that unholy nightmare and named it in honor of the Lovecraftian mythos. Of course you did. I thought that conversation was a hallucination.”
“It probably was,” he answers. “Dean actually named it.” Watching her face, he decides this is very likely the beginnings of a negotiation and now understands why Dean insisted that they bring a portion of his limited supply. “You didn’t enjoy it?”
“Didn’t say that,” Haruhi answers casually. “You got any more available for trade?”
He glances toward four bottles near the wall, one of which is a rare bottle of once commercially available and extremely expensive vodka. “It’s possible.” he considers Haruhi’s carefully neutral expression. “What do you have in whiskey?”
She smiles up at him. “Let’s find out.”
The negotiations don’t take long, and Vera volunteers to go to the jeep to obtain four of the bottles hidden beneath the false bottom of the jeep concealed by their weapons when Castiel demonstrated to her satisfaction that he understood the principles of bargaining (it does help to know one is doing it).
On their return with four bags, one of which Vera acquired from one of the other vendors with the promise of its safe return, Dean has not only returned to the table but is watching the dancers with a vague expression of displeasure while Amanda and Mark look tense. Dean’s the first to see them, lowering his cup and studying them intently, green eyes unreadable.
“Hey!” Amanda says brightly, taking the opportunity to slide off the table with almost excessive eagerness, glancing at their bags before she and Vera exchange an indecipherable look that makes Vera bite her lip and look up at Castiel with something between amusement and worry before handing her bag to Amanda and taking one of Castiel’s. “We were wondering where you disappeared to.”
Dean finishes his cup and sets it on the table beside him before smiling at them, showing a surprising number of teeth. “So what have you two been up to?”
“Engaged in a very successful negotiation,” Castiel answers in satisfaction, crossing to the table as Amanda, having finally investigated the bag Vera gave her, lets out a low whistle. Climbing up on the table, he proffers his remaining bag. “At least, I assume it was. Vera seemed to think so.”
“Really.” Dean’s eyes flicker to Vera before looking down at the bag, and the unreadable expression melts into curiosity. Glancing at Castiel briefly, he flips back the canvas flap and stills, green eyes widening. “What—”
“Five whiskey, two premium and impossible to get anywhere vodka, three tequila, two of that moonshine that the guys from Bentley are dealing,” Vera starts, setting her bag on the end of the table and opening it. “Uh, three rum, five bottles of black currant wine that woman from Mount Hope makes, one strawberry, and—” she pauses, cocking her head at the three ceramic jugs and shrugging. “No idea, but Cas talked to the guy and did a taste test and said they were okay.”
“It is,” he confirms as Dean reverently lifts out one of the six bottles of whiskey he’d acquired. “However, I wish I hadn’t asked what he used to make it.”
“Haruhi said it’s better not to know,” Vera agrees sympathetically, sliding onto the bench at Castiel’s feet and efficiently sorting through their acquisitions. “Two bottles of Eldritch Horror in official trade to Ichabod, two under the table to her personally, two more in six months, and an agreement that should we decide to offer it as a trade item, Ichabod gets first option on our supply along with first option on Joe Beer. Cas explained that the process takes a while and the ingredients are hard to get, but he agreed that a limited number could be offered biannually.”
Dean tears his gaze from the black label to Castiel, green eyes speculative. As Amanda distracts Vera’s attention, he leans closer. “So you never told anyone how you made it?”
“Of course not,” he murmurs, taking the bottle from Dean and waiting as he hastily retrieves his cup before continuing. “Experimentation was interesting, but once I’d achieved the desired result, replication was both tedious and extremely boring. Everyone assumed that the limited supply was due to the difficulty and length of time it required, and I felt no particular desire to correct them.”
“Fallen angels these days.” Shaking his head, he takes a drink, eyes closing in blissful appreciation, before cocking his head. “Why don’t you want to dance with me?”
That—isn’t the question he expected. “Why do you?”
Dean shrugs, taking another drink. “Good example.”
“Of what?”
“Human experience,” Dean says firmly. “Have you ever danced at a street dance? Or anywhere?”
“Pontus, for the entertainment of the court.” Dean fumbles his cup. “My vessel was sent as part of a gift to the King from a local satrap in thanks for his assistance in deposing the former ruler,” he explains, eyeing the dancers uncertainly. “It was nothing like this; we wore a great deal less and weren’t allowed to reveal our faces, though our stomachs were perfectly acceptable. I’m still unclear on why.”
Dean cocks his head. “You danced for the King of Pontus?”
“It wasn’t lascivious,” he answers defensively. “She was highly trained from childhood in her profession.”
“Weirdly enough, not my first thought,” Dean answers. “Why were you there?”
“I needed access to the harem and she was amenable to assisting me,” he replies. “And we were speaking of your desire to dance.”
“Because I do.” Dean gazes at the dancers, brows knitting together thoughtfully, as if trying to view it as Castiel does, which he realizes is exactly what Dean’s doing. “People, right? Too many of ‘em?”
That would be it, yes. At this time, the generally low concentration of people in the street makes it easy to avoid undesired attention and undue proximity, but that will be impossible among the dancers if his observation of them so far is any indication. “I enjoy watching.”
“What if it was just us out there?” Dean asks. “Someone yells ‘demon on the dancefloor,’ clear it out, what do you think?”
“Perhaps we might wish to avoid mass panic? At least this early the day,” he adds, inspired; yes, it’s improbable Dean would resort to that, but then again, this is Dean. “The panicked fleeing might leave the food currently cooking unattended and it will burn.”
“Point.” Dean takes another drink, scowling. “I’ll think of something.”
Until this moment, Castiel really didn’t have any desire to dance, and yet…. “Tell me what you come up with?”
Dean grins at him. “Oh, I will.”
Mark and Leah are charged with the responsibility of caring for Chitaqua’s private liquor supply, nodding obediently at Dean’s order to protect it with their own lives if necessary. Looking pleased with the flagrant abuse of power, Dean’s head snaps around as the smell of cooking meat strengthens, frowning at Amanda’s reminder that it will be at least an hour before the time designated for dinner.
“It’s a party,” Dean says, scowling over the rim of his cup before soothing himself with a long drink. “What kind of party has a scheduled dinner time? Get it out there, first come first serve. Survival of the fittest.”
“Kids eat first,” Vera offers, straddling the bench with one arm casually draped over Amanda’s lap. “Gonna fight them for dibs on the barbecue, fajitas, and samosas?”
Dean ignores her, taking another drink, long fingers having drifted to tapping an impatient rhythm on Castiel’s knee. It’s not exactly a new development—Dean is tactilely inclined and always has been—but since they arrived in Ichabod today, it’s happened several times, and sometimes, Dean briefly forgets to tap at all. “Just saying.”
“Two of the towns brought their meat still on the hoof or squacking,” Mark says, leaning forward from his seat on Dean’s other side. “They still got people working on—”
“Jesus,” Dean breathes, covering his face. “Let’s not get into the details of how a cow becomes a hamburger, okay?”
“You’re a hunter,” Vera says incredulously. “You have no problem describing exactly how to dismember a corpse for an easy salt and burn—”
“Not even the same thing.”
“—while you’re kneeling in the blood doing it,” she finishes triumphantly, taking a drink as Amanda pats her shoulder, expression rigid though her cheeks are beginning to flush with the effort not to laugh. “But where your food comes from, that’s where you draw the line?”
“I don’t eat them,” Dean answers defensively, and Amanda makes a sound like a squeezed kitten while Mark stares determinedly at the people dancing, the number having nearly doubled within the last half hour. “Fuck you and shut up. That’s an order.”
Vera grins maliciously as she opens her mouth to answer, but Castiel leaps boldly into the brief silence. From recent experience, he’s learned Dean and Vera can keep this up for some time and while entertaining when focused on each other, there’s no guarantee they won’t turn on others (him). “Did Jeremy check in with you?”
“He’s in the teen building until his shift in HQ with Natalie,” Vera says reassuringly. Natalie’s attendance was a surprise and not an unpleasant one; while not opposed to social situations, she’s very shy, and far prefers bullet making as both a vocation and hobby (and is very, very good at it). Turning a wry eye on Dean, she adds, “I warned her not to give him too hard a time if she had to go get him herself. Joelle’s really got his attention.”
“Warn her those kids started weekly training now that Manuel’s got the help?” he asks. “Just saying, I heard one of ‘em racked the fuck out of Hans last week.”
Castiel tilts his head curiously. “You met Joelle?”
“I did. Seventeen, very polite, tops Jeremy by about half a head, so it’s definitely love,” she says, grinning. “She’s from the Ivory Coast and speaks Baoulé, French, and English. I had no idea that worked on guys, too.” Her mouth quirks. “Her mama’s one of the chaperones. Don’t need to know Baoulé to translate what Maimouna was saying to Joelle and Jeremy about dark corners, though she did make it to the chaperone’s break room before she started laughing at least.”
So no standing by the wall like a loser, then. “The other adolescents accepted him as part of their peer group?” Vera’s books had warned about the psychological effects of rejection by social groups and it was worrying.
“They like him,” Vera says reassuringly, exchanging an inexplicably amused look with Dean. “You should stop by later, say hi. Bet he’d love to introduce her.”
“That,” Dean says, nodding enthusiastically, “is a good idea. We’ll do that.”
It’s a terrible idea—many people, confined space, Jeremy trying to make a good impression and his friends panicking on Castiel’s advent won’t help—but before he can articulate just how much, Joseph abruptly emerges into view, Kamal just behind him. In the harsh glare of the large outdoor lights that have been placed at regular intervals down the street and supplemented by a mismatched variety of lamps and strings of Christmas lights, both are flushed, coats unbuttoned, with a hint of drying sweat on their faces despite the early evening’s just below freezing temperature.
“Whoa.” Dean fills two of the cups and hands one to Joseph as he drops wearily on the bench at Dean’s feet, passing the other to Kamal. “What the hell, fighting demons or toddlers?”
“Same thing,” Amanda says sympathetically as Kamal hip checks Joseph over and sits down. “Hey, anyone seen Alison and Teresa?”
“Circulating and chatting up the masses. They’ll be by after dinner,” Joseph answers breathlessly, draining his cup in a single swallow. “Needed that,” he says in relief. “My back….”
“You were breakdancing, weren’t you?” Vera says mockingly, and Dean and Amanda burst into laughter, getting the attention of everyone around them. Or, he realizes, as Dean wipes his eyes and goes back to pouring, that attention is constant, and he’s simply noticing it now. “Fuck, Joe, they’re, like, seventeen. You’re forty. And a chaperone, for God’s sake. Christ, Jeremy’s never gonna forgive us for embarrassing him in front of all his new friends.”
“And fuck you very much,” Joseph answers, twisting around for a glare as well as a refill. “I took out a nest of goddamn vampires with nothing but a Bowie knife and a strong sense of righteousness; those kids got nothing.”
“Oh, gotta hear this one,” Dean says, patting Castiel’s leg to get his attention, and he belatedly takes the offered drink, resigning himself to listening to this with a background rhythm as Dean begins to tap absently against his knee.
As Joseph starts an unlikely story of being alone in the wilderness of downtown Topeka at the very cusp of dusk, Castiel notes the attention of the tables closest to them as well as people drifting closer, some with a selection of mismatched chairs in tow while others simply settle on the asphalt or intact portions of the nearby sidewalks. Erratic bursts of laughter punctuate the description of an improbably attractive vampire (one of ten, all female of course), their leader (of unusually lavish proportions) propositioning him at the onset, and ending with a melodramatic battle punctuated by lightning and a minor earthquake.
As Joseph finishes, the round of applause and laughter almost drowns out Vera’s exclaimed, “Oh you are so fucking lying—!” Dean’s head drops against his shoulder, shaking to control his own laughter before straightening and taking a bracing drink.
“Hey,” Amanda says with a sudden grin, “you remember when we were in training and Kamal—?”
“What? No!” Kamal says in alarm. “You promised—”
“All’s fair in love and drunk confessions.”
“You’re not drunk,” Kamal says accusingly.
“Prove it.” She takes a bracing drink, she raises her voice effortlessly to accommodate the growing number of listeners. “So. Exercise our fifth week of training, and—okay, you gotta understand, Cas was, like, one more person almost stabbing themselves from killing us himself to make it quick, since no way we were surviving an actual fight.”
“You weren’t that bad,” he disagrees on cue (Amanda’s stare is very effective, as is Dean’s unnaturally sharp elbow). “I mean you, specifically. And Mark,” he remembers when Mark looks up at him with raised eyebrows. “For the rest of you—yes, that was very true. I would have made it quick and painless. It was like a nightmare, and I had to be sober for all of it.”
Vera twists around from her lean against Amanda’s legs to glare up at him, but it’s not as if it’s untrue.
“We call it ‘The Day of the Siren’,” Amanda continues, grinning down at Vera before looking at Castiel expectantly. “Remember, Kamal volunteered, because you said his singing the night before had been exemplary—”
“Fuck my life,” Kamal groans, slumping against Joseph’s shaking shoulder. “Just, no.”
“And impressively explicit as well as obscene,” Castiel says, rolling the cup between his hands, aware Dean’s tapping has paused again, thumb sketching absent circles on the inside of his knee. “I had no idea Nepalese folk music could be mistaken for a set of very detailed instructions on what to do, where, and for how long. I never asked: was that an offer or simply supposed to be informative?”
Dean shakes his head as Kamal groans again. “You forgot he could understand you.”
“Oh yeah,” Kamal tells Joseph’s jacket, voice muffled. “Translated it for everyone, too. Thanks, Cas.”
“It was nothing.” Dean snickers, squeezing his knee and distracting Castiel’s attention long enough that Amanda is well into the story of Kamal’s terrible impression of a siren running bravely away from the other recruits while singing at the top of his lungs. Focusing again, Castiel’s aware of the eager attention of those around them—the number of whom seem to be growing exponentially—and glances at Amanda, who is never oblivious to being surrounded, and wonders suddenly why she chose that particular story, and why Kamal’s objections hadn’t been entirely convincing. “….the next time,” she finishes, “Cas was the siren, but he won’t sing unless he’s drunk, so we all hummed the refrain from Kamal’s guide to oral sex.”
“I hate you,” Kamal says helplessly to the bursts of laughter, and grinning, Dean reaches down and pats him on the arm as Kamal retaliates with a story about Amanda’s run-in with a disgruntled dryad and the very green consequences thereof.
From the corner of his eye, he sees Alicia and her team materialize in the shadows of one of the buildings to their left. None look particularly festive despite the fact this should be well after the end of their shift, and much more ominously, they are still fully and visibly armed.
Amanda follows his gaze, eyes widening, then looks at him, waiting for his nod before sliding smoothly off the table with a smile and murmured comment to Vera, who immediately begins another story, this time about Joseph and his tragic first encounter with bladed weapons. A few moments of quiet conversation, and Amanda turns around, expression telling him that this is something that needs to be handled and now.
Mark and Leah look at him, eyebrows raised, and he gives them a slight nod before turning his attention to Dean. “I’ll be back in a moment.” Unsurprisingly, Dean flickers a glance at Alicia’s team in retreat as he takes a drink; yes, he assumed Dean saw them as well. “It shouldn’t take long, but I may need something stronger when I get back.”
Dean smiles pleasantly. “I can do that. Make it fast or I’ll come and get you—barbecue will be done soon and dude, not to be missed.”
“Hey kids,” Amanda says brightly as she opens the door to the partially-repaired three story building that is serving as Chitaqua’s headquarters tonight. “How’s it going?”
James and Mira blink at her for a moment, James fumbling his cards face-up on the table, though it probably doesn’t matter; from the pile of items on Mira’s side of the table, whatever game they’re playing, he’s definitely going to lose. “Good?”
“Are you sure?” Amanda asks seriously, mouth twitching at James’s worried expression while Mira closes her eyes, possibly in amazement at the sheer depth of earnestness that James possesses, like a well from which the water is endless. “We need HQ—go hit up Dean for vodka before we run out; he’s by the dancing people. Mira, try to get him to dance; he’s not bad.”
Belatedly, he realizes they’re looking at him for confirmation and nods. James immediately gathers the cards while Mira carefully puts her winnings away and retrieves their coats before vanishing out the door with laudable speed. As soon as they’re gone, Alicia and her team come inside, Mark and Leah just behind them, and Amanda shuts and locks the door before joining Castiel.
Castiel leans back against the former poker table; he might as well be comfortable for this. “Report.” A thump from overhead makes them all pause, but when it’s not repeated, he focuses on Alicia again. “As I was saying.”
“Kyle didn’t show to relieve my team,” Alicia answers, nervously folding her hands behind her back. “I sent Matt, but Kyle—”
“—said if Alicia wanted him, she could get him herself,” Matt bursts out, pushing shaggy brown hair from his eyes, and immediately winces at Alicia’s glare. “Sorry.”
It was such a pleasant evening until now, he reflects morosely. “What about his team?”
“Not their fault.” Alicia shifts her weight uncomfortably, frowning up at the ceiling at the sound of another thump, before sighing, waving at Matt. “Go ahead.”
“He got in with some stoners from Andale earlier and won’t leave,” Matt says acidly. “That’s why his team’s sticking with him. He’s been a dick pretty much all day and they’re worried what he’ll do if someone’s not watching.”
“Why would he….” Noting Alicia’s averted eyes and faint flush, he just manages not to close his eyes in sheer disbelief. “Who’s currently on patrol?”
“Manuel called up one of his teams to help,” Alicia answers depressingly, because obviously, this is an excellent way to make a good impression. She tips her head toward the door before another thump jerks all their attention to the ceiling again. “Uh—do you want us to take another shift?”
“No, go upstairs and disarm until your next duty shift. Also, find out what that is.” As they make their way to the stairs, he turns to Mark and Leah. “Get Kyle and his team here in the next ten minutes, and provided they’re still breathing, I won’t be particular on how you do it.”
“Got it,” Leah says, turning toward the door before hesitating. “Uh, if Dean asks….”
“Don’t let him see you so he can’t,” Castiel answers carefully and is rewarded by sighs of audible relief. “Also, find Sidney and bring him with you. I think he’s with Tony and the engineers; apparently Tony and Sidney’s mother share an alma mater and this is very exciting for reasons.” Mark nods, exchanging a surprised look with Leah on their way to the door. As it closes behind them, he stares at Amanda’s averted face. “Tell me it’s not what I think it is.”
“How high you were when the Kat-Kyle Deathmatch went down last year?” He winces; there weren’t enough drugs in the world to block out that particularly hellish week, when he learned more about human relationships than he ever wanted to know. Hopping up on the other side of the table, she braces her hands against the unfinished surface, ignoring the thump above them. “Like that, but Alicia’s not shy about using her lungs to the best of her abilities. Last night through early this morning, from what I heard, but no visible wounds on he who ran bravely away.”
“How is Alicia?”
Amanda stiffens. “She’s a pro, Cas. Not her fault Kyle’s got issues—”
“Of course not,” he interrupts impatiently. “I simply wanted to assure she wasn’t upset unduly. Why didn’t someone—”
“Tell you Kyle and Alicia broke up?” Amanda finishes incredulously. “Maybe because it’s none of your goddamn business?”
“Yes, of course: the personal certainly has no effect on the professional, how foolish of me.” Amanda blinks at him, startled, but before she can argue, he shakes his head, wondering if he should have let Dean handle this after all, even if it partially negates Castiel’s entire purpose. “I have no desire to intrude on anyone’s personal life, of course, but a warning would have been appreciated considering Kyle’s general reaction to romantic disappointment.”
“We have personal lives?” she asks wryly, blowing out a breath. “I only found out a few hours ago from Mira, who heard the entire nightmare go down next door. I didn’t think about how that would play out here.”
“I wouldn’t have, either.” Kyle’s behavior isn’t unknown to either of them, but that he’d feel the need to perform his tragic heartbreak here, of all places… “Now we both know.”
“You didn’t notice anything this morning?” she asks. “Not like Alicia hides her feelings. Ever.”
He tries to remember this morning other than in terms of sexual frustration when Joseph’s maliciously rapid return of the jump drive interrupted a very satisfactory make-out session on the couch with an extremely enthusiastic Dean. It seems that Dean can easily be reconciled to early mornings provided sufficient motivation, and Castiel can easily be distracted by Dean breathing in his general vicinity.
“No.” Forcing himself to think past Dean—it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to even want to—he thinks about the gathering this morning of those coming to Ichabod. He was vaguely aware Alicia didn’t seem enthusiastic, but he had other things (Dean) on his mind.
Kyle being punished (with what he suspects was a genuinely terrifying night in Alicia’s cabin as well as the loss of Alicia’s company, with permanent prejudice) is reasonable for whatever he did to upset her, true, but he can’t quite reconcile the fact that he’s being punished as well. He has to be the one to discipline Kyle for—of all things—being late for duty and refusing his orders to report for duty (and therefore technically avoiding ‘being high while actively on duty,’ true, but that’s no comfort at all).
“You’re remembering yourself in his position, aren’t you?”
Startled, he looks at Amanda. “Now I am, though granted, I abstained before and during missions,” he admits, frowning at another thump followed by Andy’s voice sounding—he’s not sure what that is. “Which isn’t in any way a standard that should be difficult to meet. And yet, here we are.”
“Risa told us stories about the team leaders’ meetings,” she says conversationally; of course she did. He’d only be surprised if she didn’t perform them for Vera and Amanda’s amusement (and wishes he could have watched). “Forty-two synonyms for ‘wrong’ in descending order by number of syllables? She said she wasn’t sure whether Dean was gonna kill you or himself.”
He sighs. “It was less than that; Dean dismissed the meeting before I finished those with three syllables in English.” And now he’s supposed to pass judgment on Kyle for doing far less than he ever has and not be struck dead by the sheer hypocrisy of it. For not only shall you pay for your sins, he thinks resentfully, but other people’s as well, and it’s not as if Alicia’s in any way reticent about sharing her expectations with her partners both thoroughly and at length to avoid any potential for misunderstanding. If stupidity isn’t a sin, it should be.
The pensive silence (thumpless, at least) stretches to the point that he’s almost relieved at the sound of Alicia and her team coming back down the stairs. Disarming is a relative term, of course; Manuel and Teresa’s only restriction was the one that also held for Ichabod’s teams, that no firearms or overly long bladed weapons be visible to upset civilians (so rifles and machetes were to be avoided).
Turning, he notes in approval that the only weapon visible is a knife (perfectly acceptable, since more than one person he saw on the streets today carried that much by habit), all of them having tucked their handguns into a shoulder holster that will be easily hidden by their coats. Despite recent events, a surprising number accepted this year’s invitation, which Alison put down to being as much for the party (and food) as open curiosity regarding the people that helped Ichabod kill a thousand Croats in a single hour.
(“And ten demons,” Alison told him gleefully, almost bouncing in place at the kitchen table. “All with giant teeth and eight feet tall. Maybe breathing fire.”)
Seeing them (or, he thinks uncomfortably, probably just him) watching, Alicia hesitates as she reaches the foot of the stairs, and he quickly looks back at the front door. From the corner of his eye, he sees Matt murmur something that makes her smile reluctantly before they cross back to him and Amanda. Andy, on the other hand, seems to be trying to hide behind Jody and looks suspiciously flushed; this being Andy, he thinks he can guess the origin of the thumping.
“Who was it?” he asks curiously.
Matt bites his lip. “Gary and Laura are having their extended reunion on the third floor now. Andy took care of it.”
Castiel thankfully has no idea what on earth they’re doing that could be making that much noise and rigidly controls the images that try to helpfully display themselves; why does the mind do that?
“Your sacrifice is appreciated,” he tells Andy’s haunted expression before focusing on Alicia. “Check in every hour with whoever is on duty here for any potential changes to the duty roster. Until your next shift, enjoy yourselves. There’s barbecue, fajitas, and samosas, or so I’ve been told.” He nods at Amanda before hopping up on the table; he might as well be comfortable for this. “Please get the door.”
Looking inordinately cheerful, Amanda crosses the room and opens the door, nodding to Mark before stepping back and Mark shoves Kyle inside. Kyle’s surprise is obvious as his planned swaggering entrance is preempted by a most ungraceful stumble at the sight of Alicia. Before he can recover, Amanda efficiently strips him of his weapons, because Dean apparently took the incident with Sidney as some sort of lesson, and they should discuss this very soon.
Kyle doesn’t seem to notice, however; his eyes never leave Alicia, following her progress with unnerving attention until she’s escaped out the door. Finished, Amanda nods at Mark, waiting just beyond the threshold with Kyle’s team and Sidney, and waits for them before closing and locking the door behind them. Joining Castiel, she leans against the edge of the table, crosses her arms, and looks at the assembled group sternly. So at least she’s having fun, which makes one of them.
Standing alone in the middle of the room, Kyle visibly proceeds through several types of denial before almost reaching realization and making what looks like a deliberate effort to pretend he has no idea what’s happening or why. “What’s going on?”
Amanda was correct; he remembers quite well being in Kyle’s position, with Dean looking at him with an expression that at the time he hadn’t wanted to understand. The monologue that followed was tedious, but later—much later—what lingered was the frustration and disappointment so strong that the anger had almost been an afterthought. If that was supposed to be a lesson to be carried to the future—to this moment—he can’t imagine what he’s supposed to do with it or how to apply it.
He thinks: what would Dean do—I know this one; I’m disappointed, you’re useless, why do you do this, what’s wrong with you, why are you like this? What it lacked in originality it made up for in sincerity. It wouldn’t still hurt to remember it if he hadn’t known that Dean meant every word he said.
He doesn’t like Kyle, and while Kyle doesn’t hate him, it’s only because they don’t know each other well enough for the depth of feeling that would require. He trained Kyle, which means a surprising amount, but he trained Luke and the other team leaders as well, and he’d killed Luke without hesitation. Luke, however, was part of a group bent on assassination, while Kyle simply made a mistake under personal emotional duress and didn’t choose his place or time very well (read: actively chose the worst possible time currently available).
To Dean, that might not have mattered; to this Dean, however, that distinction matters very much, and to his own surprise, it does to him as well.
“Kyle, you are removed from Chitaqua’s patrol, effective immediately,” he says, thinking of how the Dean Winchester he once served under would have handled this, how this Dean would, and finally, how he thinks he may want to. If he’s wrong, it will be a useful learning experience, at least. “Christina,” he says as he turns toward Kyle’s former team, biting back his own amusement at her sudden jump and Henry and Rob’s unconcealed apprehension, “the team is provisionally yours, as you’ve shown both competence and leadership skills, according to Kyle’s admittedly short evaluations of his team members. After two weeks spent on local patrol, and with Dean’s approval, it will be made permanent provided your performance is satisfactory.”
She nods, looking startled, but he focuses on Sidney, who has—to quite literally everyone’s surprise—improved immensely. Sheila’s reports have been glowing, and while Sheila is generally a positive person who sees the good in all creatures (not brownies, of course), there was a short period of time when finding Sidney’s body in a not necessarily empty oil barrel was a real possibility. He’s also become a superlative shot with their entire arsenal, but with Jane tutoring him, he’d expect no less.
“Sidney, do you feel that you’re ready to rejoin patrol?” he asks, genuinely curious. That everyone in Chitaqua can fight doesn’t mean all of them necessarily have a natural inclination for it, or for the monotony of regular patrol, and under Dean, the camp’s hierarchy doesn’t give those on patrol a higher status than those who aren’t. “Your progress with Jane and several other members of Chitaqua on the training field has been exemplary, and the team leaders who had you as a substitute for their regular members have spoken well of your performance. This is an open offer; if you don’t wish to do so now, more teams will be created as our numbers increases, and experienced members will be needed then as well.”
To his credit, Sidney considers it, possibly remembering a certain bridge and his failure then, and whether he wants to risk failure again this soon. “Yes,” he says finally, looking surprised (at the offer, at himself, at how on earth this could possibly be happening at a party in Ichabod; yes, he knows the feeling). “I am.”
“I’m appointing you to Christina’s team tonight with the same restrictions: provided your performance is satisfactory after two weeks on local, the assignment is permanent. Christina, your duties begin tonight; please report to Manuel after you leave here. Afterward, check the schedule regularly for your duty shifts while in Ichabod in case there are further changes.” Christina and Sidney nod in unison. “You’re dismissed.”
“You can’t do that,” Kyle says belligerently, and in his peripheral vision, he sees Sidney wince, pained, as Christina and her team hurry out. “I want to talk to Dean.”
“You can’t seriously think this would go better if he was here,” Castiel tells him blankly. Kyle’s expression tells him that somewhere in the sane part of his mind, he actually knows that. “What did you think was going to happen? Dean’s rules for those attending the celebration were extremely specific and almost mind-numbingly thorough. We need this agreement with the communities, and any deviation that could damage our relationship with them—I don’t actually know what he’ll do, and it’s better for all of us that we don’t find out. Especially you. Though I have to live with him, so my concern here is also personal.”
“Like you never fucked off,” Kyle mutters, and he has to give him points for courage, or at least obtuseness in the face of disaster. “What’s the difference?”
“I’ve also participated in the wholesale destruction of entire countries, several major extinction events, and multiple acts of genocide both global and species-specific, including yours,” he retorts and has the satisfaction of watching Kyle jerk in horror, though the sound Amanda makes seems suspiciously similar to a giggle. “What does that have to do with anything? I’ll still look upon anyone engaging in serial murder on earth with great disapproval and act according to the tenets of justice and yet—somehow—reconcile the dissonance with very little effort. You joined Chitaqua of your own free will and remain by your own choice; it’s not as if this is the first time anyone has mentioned the rights and responsibilities of continued membership. If it is, then the question must be asked: do you want to leave?”
Kyle stares at him; it’s not a rhetorical question. “What? No! I—”
“Then like everyone else in Chitaqua, when you disobey your orders, you will be subject to discipline consummate with your offense.” He leans back and crosses his arms, keeping his expression impassive no matter what utterly inappropriate (and thankfully nearly inaudible for human ears) noises Amanda makes. “Your decision of course; I’ll wait.”
Not surprisingly, it doesn’t take very long.
“So what’s my assignment now?” Kyle asks dejectedly, swallowing hard before adding, “Shit duty with Cyn?”
The look on his face suggests wild dogs ripping him apart would be preferable, which is understandable. Cynthia’s begun to consider everyone, even former friends and team members, enemies to be vanquished by the strength of her tongue and blandly inedible meals. The most recent incident—an argument with Brenda two days ago—unfortunately (for Cynthia) occurred when Dean was in the mess getting more sugar and led to a private discussion of some length between Dean and Cynthia in the new walk-in refrigerator.
Though the exact nature of the conversation is something of a question (the doors were depressingly thick, though Brenda did try), it resulted in Dean restricting Cynthia to her cabin when not on duty in waste maintenance under Dane’s watchful (and unforgiving) eye with a surprisingly large supply of shovels for her personal use and no discernible improvement in her general mood.
(As an example of the complexity of human social structures in an isolated group, it was both unsettling in scope and rapid in progress. Cynthia’s restriction (very unsurprisingly) led to a request from Jane to move in with Kim (granted), causing Kat and Andy’s cohabitation dreams to be put on hold for cabin availability (very unhappy, loudly), which in itself would have been bad enough, but no. Sidney (along with Brian) were offended on their romantic partners’ behalf (nearly as loudly), Alicia and Amber were offended on their roommate’s (Brenda) behalf (very loudly indeed), and it continued from there like a virus composed of ill-will and spread by word of mouth that as of this morning infected almost everyone in the camp.
All due, he reflects incredulously, to an argument between two people over chicken (with or without peas) in the mess.)
He could have wanted Kyle dead and still not hated him that much.
“You violated the standard set for our behavior in Ichabod, and it seems fair to station you here in recompense. I’m assigning you to Amanda to help with her students and Kamal to help Ichabod’s residents with the duties that losing twenty of their number have made difficult to fulfill in town. Amanda and Kamal’s evaluation of your performance will be a deciding factor in whether you return to the patrol teams at all, much less as a team leader. Considering you were unexpectedly good at it, I’d prefer you assure they’re satisfied. With the new recruits, we will need experienced patrol members as well as leaders, and you are both.”
Looking surprised (and very relieved), Kyle nods.
“Dean will doubtless wish to speak to you tomorrow himself, so report to me no later than ten tomorrow morning so he has time for coffee and to think of what he’d like to tell you.” Kyle’s face drains of color, as if he belatedly realizes just how much worse this could have been (and for that matter, will be tomorrow morning). “I’ll inform Robert to check with you before he returns to Chitaqua to pack whatever you need for your residency here and have it brought to you.”
“Yes, sir,” Kyle answers, unprompted, and looks vaguely horrified by the honorific. “Is there anything else?”
“Yes, there is. Mark, Leah,” Castiel says, “please tell Dean I’ll be along shortly. You may go.”
He waits until the door is shut before looking at Kyle again, taking in the perfectly normal pupils and utter lack of swaying. “Please tell me you didn’t do this to get Alicia’s attention.”
Kyle stills, eyes widening; yes, that’s what he thought.
“I’d far prefer to think you exercised terrible judgment than deliberately ignored your duties tonight. The first is stupid but understandable; emotional distress can make people do foolish things, and combining that with alcohol and drugs can lead to poor decision making. The second, however, would display not only a very questionable taste for manipulation, but a deliberate choice to prioritize your personal life over your duty to the detriment of both.”
Unsurprisingly, Kyle doesn’t answer.
“I won’t ask for details of what occurred last night or if anything occurred at all; that’s a personal matter. However, if something did, and if you received a request from anyone that they be left alone, you should respect that request. Unfortunately, I lack confidence in your understanding of appropriate behavior.”
Unfortunately, Kyle’s expression confirms that lack of confidence is justified.
“The personal lives of Chitaqua’s members don’t interest me—other than for the entertainment value, of course—until and unless they intersect with their duties or established acceptable rules of behavior,” he continues. “That Jane didn’t file a formal complaint regarding your behavior after your separation doesn’t mean it was generally acceptable. Chitaqua is small, there aren’t that many places to go, and Jane didn’t care; at this time, two of those things are most definitely not true. Ichabod is much larger, and there are many places for you to go.”
“Cas—” Kyle starts, jaw set in misguided determination.
“Dean’s rules regarding our behavior in Ichabod include the inadvisability of any of our members engaging in an altercation with each other, especially an altercation caused by one member reacting impulsively to being followed by another member despite her very clear request, if such a request was made,” he says, watching Kyle’s face for some indication he’s paying attention or if he’s being too subtle. “All participants will be disciplined, of course, but yours will be a second offense tonight. I don’t know what discipline is required for a second offense—since first I’ll have to make it up—but it will definitely include permanent exclusion from both regular patrol and watch as well as utter misery for the offending party for as long as it amuses me to watch their suffering. Please keep that in mind this evening.” He nods toward the door. “Enjoy the party and I’ll see you at ten at Alison’s. You’re dismissed.”
There’s a fraught moment where it looks as if Kyle might argue, but he nods shortly, stalking (much more soberly, at least) toward the door and not quite slamming it shut behind him.
“So,” Amanda starts in the too-brief silence.
“Unofficially, tell Alicia we don’t have any other people fit to be team leaders to replace her, so please make a formal complaint instead of beating Kyle to death if she sees him, yes,” he agrees, closing his eyes. “As soon as possible, as I don’t know how much of that Kyle actually understood and I have to be non-partisan and objective in meting discipline because justice is supposed to be blind, whatever that means.”
“He understood,” she says reassuringly. “In this case, ego’s gonna win; he won’t fuck up his only shot at getting back on patrol.”
He glances at her curiously. “As current commander of our members stationed in Ichabod—”
“We need a better name.”
“Think of one, then.” He frowns at the closed door. “It’s very strange to be the one to mete out discipline to others rather than endure it.”
“You mean from Dean?”
“And the Host,” he says, raising his eyebrows at her expression. “Rebellion wasn’t my first or last offense, just the most dramatic. So how did I do tonight?”
“Seven, eight out of ten.” She raises a hand in a see-saw gesture. “The speech was great, lots of food for guilt, which he’s pretty susceptible to, believe it or not. You do good disappointment but hope for future improvement.” She slants him an amused look. “Really familiar, now that I think about it. Not that my ass got called on the carpet like yours did to listen to Dean’s version.”
“In the Host, disobedience was punished with either re-education or immediate execution, generally the latter.” Amanda’s eyes widen. “They were amateurs compared to Dean, who would indulge in excessively long and extremely uncomfortable lectures that required a larger than usual amount of alcohol to dull. Not that it worked,” either the dulling or the lectures, true, “but I remember which parts would considerably raise the risk of alcohol poisoning.”
“Dean didn’t bother with a speech with most of us,” she says casually, glancing at her boots. “We fuck up, he skipped the sermon and went straight to the sacrifice.” Shrugging, she eases up on the table beside him. “He’s not like Luke or the other team leaders. Kyle, I mean. He’s a dick, but not that kind of a dick.” At his surprise, she makes a face. “I learned fast what to look for, believe me.”
He supposes she did at that.
“When Risa took over Luke’s team, she came to me and assured me that if I became aware of anything untoward before she did, she’d be insulted if I didn’t solicit her assistance to remove all of the team leaders this time, and promised to return the favor. I wasn’t even high at the time, and it’s still the most surreal conversation I can ever remember having. She loathed me, but wouldn’t leave until I had agreed.”
“She didn’t loathe you,” Amanda protests, laughter in her voice. “She just hated your drug use, rampant alcoholism, promiscuity, hostility toward anyone in your line of sight, and your groupies waking everyone up during that death metal phase you went through.”
“And my behavior toward Dean.”
“Didn’t help, at least on the days she didn’t want to strangle him herself,” Amanda agrees. “I moved in with her a couple of months after I got here, and she was the one that talked Vera into living with us.” Legs swinging, she glances at the ceiling idly. “You got points for helping Vera out, you know. She didn’t expect that, and it’s pretty much why she went to talk to you when Dean asked her to take Luke’s team.”
Castiel glares at her profile. “I don’t even need to ask who told her there was something to tell me.”
Amanda rolls her eyes. “Like I was saying, good call with Kyle. He’s good at his job—surprised all of us, trust me—and he’s not completely stupid. He gets this is a reprieve because we don’t have the numbers to afford to lose him; what he doesn’t get is he’s gonna pay out the ass for the privilege of being almost indispensable. Which is my job now.” She smiles brightly, not without malice, then slides off the table. “Ready to get back before Dean comes after us? If we’re lucky, dinner might be ready soon and distract him from asking for details.”
He nods, following her to the door. As she opens it, he considers that conversation with Vera again. “Did I ever mention the first time I ever attempted to train a hunter?”
“No,” she answers, throwing him a curious look as she shoves her hands into her pockets. “Before Chitaqua, you mean?”
“Amieyl’s first weapon was a shepherd’s crook.”
“Whoa. So we’re talking a while back.” As they fall into step on their way down the street, she says, “Actually, thinking about it, that could do a lot of damage in the right hands.”
“It could,” he agrees. “If I’d been human the first time we met, it would have hurt a great deal.”
Amanda lets out a startled peal of laughter, blue eyes dancing as she deliberately slows her pace, hopeful. “What happened after that?”
“It got better,” he tells her, slowing his as well as he measures the distance to their table. “Eventually.”