Fic: Dionysus
And now, for my Renegade Angels fic reveal, I wrote: Dionysus
I was a pinch hitter, and this was written for my recipient, bold_seer.
Word Count: 10,300
Prompt: On the road: Dean, Cas & Sam; Post 4x22 - whatever happened to Castiel?; and the connection between Dean and Castiel as perceived by Sam.
Thanks to Tracy for beta action.
Sam’s pretty sure it’s a bad idea as soon as the words leave Dean’s mouth. Once Dean starts getting into it, though, and the plans start to gain traction and grow, .
Dionysus
Sam’s pretty sure it’s a bad idea as soon as the words leave Dean’s mouth. Once Dean starts getting into it, though, and the plans start to gain traction and grow, Sam becomes absolutely fucking certain it’s a terrible idea.
“Come on, Sam. You turn into some kind of prude while I was gone?” Dean says as he bounces on the edge of the discolored motel bed.
“I’m not a prude. I just think we have bigger things to put our time and energy into such as the world ending.” Sam tosses a balled up dirty shirt into his duffle bag. “Or has Lucifer rising up to kill us all already slipped your mind?”
Dean stops bouncing, and the smile slips off his face. “I think about that son of a bitch every goddamn minute of every goddamn day, Sam,” Dean says. “And where the hell has that gotten us? A month of wracking our brains, busting our asses, and squat to show for it because nothing’s fucking happening! For all we know, Lucifer’s taking a wine tour of Europe or hiding in a cave somewhere.”
“And maybe he’s up to something and we should be looking harder,” Sam argues as the frustration starts to bubble up inside. “I don’t think he broke out of Hell to learn how to underwater basket weave, Dean. I’m pretty sure he broke out to bring about the end of days.”
“We’ve been reading 24/7 and chasing nonsense leads for weeks, Sammy.” Dean shakes his head. “I need to blow off some steam. I need to drink. I need to have some goddamned fun before the world ends.”
“Now it’s about you, Dean?” Sam says. “I thought this was about Castiel?”
“Yeah, well, him too,” Dean says unconvincingly. “Look, leave the angel shit to me, okay? I’ll handle it.”
Sam sighs. Castiel. Sam supposes he should have been happy when Castiel turned up alive and intact two days ago, but mostly he’d just been surprised. And really unsettled by the fact that Castiel no longer seemed to be magically teleporting places but was instead walking through doors and stuff like a human.
There had been a knock. “I didn’t order pizza,” Sam had said.
“Maybe it’s a hooker,” Dean had said hopefully. “Remember that time-”
“Just open the door, Dean.”
When Dean had opened the door and found Castiel outside, miserable and bedraggled like a cat in a torrential downpour, it had been a decidedly awkward moment while Sam and Dean gaped and Castiel continued to get rained on. “Dean,” Castiel had said uncertainly.
“Cas, you’re not dead. And not in angel jail,” Dean had said. For a second, it seemed as though he was going to grab for one of his rare spine-cracking hugs, but when Castiel just stood there blankly, Dean crossed his arms over his chest instead. “It’s-I’m glad you’re not dead.”
“As am I,” Castiel had said.
Sam had cleared his throat. “Castiel, why did you knock?”
Castiel had regarded Sam with a rather mournful expression before returning to staring at the ground. “Something wrong with your angel mojo?” Dean had asked as he ushered Castiel in, trenchcoat dripping wet.
“I have been greatly weakened,” Castiel had said at last.
“Were you demoted?” Dean had demanded.
“I can still be of assistance,” Castiel had said. “I will guard your life until you confront Lucifer.” And just like that, the Winchester party of two became Winchester party of two plus one celestial bodyguard. Sam had pulled Dean aside, tried to reason with him (what if Castiel was a spy, or just another way for the angels to manipulate them?) but Dean would hear nothing of it.
“If it weren’t for him,” Dean had said, “I would still be stuck in that freaky-ass green room. He’s on our side, Sam. And we need all the help we can get.”
And that had been that, as far as Dean was concerned. Sam, on the other hand, wasn’t convinced this wasn’t just an elaborate trap or a way for the angels to keep tabs on Dean (now that Sam had played out his part by raising Lucifer, he didn’t kid himself by thinking the angels gave a crap about what happened to him anymore).
After all, Ruby had done lots of things in the name of Sam over the years-too many things to count. She’d even made Sam believe she’d cared, and maybe she really had (Sam didn’t like to think about that, though, because it made him feel pathetic that it mattered to him at all). But all that got washed away by the tide in the end: Ruby was a demon first, a person or anything else second. Angels might be playing ball--theoretically--for the other side, but it wasn’t like they weren’t playing by the same rules.
The worst part of it all though, is that once upon a time, Sam had really believed. He hadn’t ever been a holy rolling churchgoer, sure, but he’d read the bible and occasionally asked God for stuff. It’d started out with a mix of stupid things and less stupid things when he was young (get an A on the exam, bring Mom back) and morphed over the years into things that mostly involved Dean: don’t let Dean get himself killed; free Dean from that idiotic contract he’d made; bring Dean back. When Dean had come back from Hell and been saved by an angel of all things, Sam had thought, finally, someone heard me. Angels are real, God does give a shit, everything’s going to be okay. Imagine his shock when it turned out Uriel was a jerk and a traitor to boot, Zachariah masterminded Dean getting sent to Hell in the first place, and Dean’s savior angel didn’t even seem to like Sam (and everyone likes Sam, a slightly immature part of him mutters). And now that Dean’s on the outs with Heaven, God sees fit to grant Dean a walking, talking guardian angel. How ironic, all of it. How hilarious. Their lives are one giant cosmic joke.
All of this adds up to Sam avoiding spending time alone with Castiel. He has difficulty making direct eye contact with Castiel, much less engaging in conversation. It doesn’t help that Castiel treats him with that same implacable neutrality he’s always had; Sam can never be sure whether the faint whiff of disapproval in Castiel’s eyes is really there, or is just being projected there by Sam’s overwhelming self loathing. Maybe he should split the difference and assume it’s a mixture of both.
Luckily, Sam doesn’t have to interact with Castiel one-on-one terribly often. Dean’s usually around and Sam’s certain he’s not imagining the fact that Castiel seems to be in a better mood whenever they’re together (as far as Castiel moods go, it’s impassive with a side of doom and gloom versus impassive with a side of almost content). Also, Castiel spends a surprising amount of time out and about town doing whatever it is rogue angels (or spies) do, so it mostly works out okay.
As far as Dean goes, Sam had expected him, of all people, to react poorly to the prospect-never mind the reality-of having a bodyguard slash babysitter. To Sam’s surprise, Dean’s mood had actually improved over the past couple of days since Castiel’s reemergence, lightening to the point where he was making jokes and proposing various initiation rites for the new guy. “Hazing, Sammy,” Dean said more than once, “what’s the most hilarious way to haze an angel?” Ultimately, Dean had settled on something that would probably horrify Castiel even more than a few pranks.
“Does Castiel know what you’re planning?” Sam asks as he fishes his laptop out of his bag.
“Of course he doesn’t know,” Dean says. “Are you crazy? I told him we’re going to volunteer at a homeless shelter.”
Sam sighs and glances at the clock. “Seriously, Dean? Volunteering at a homeless shelter at eight at night?”
“It was either that or feeding the hungry,” Dean says. “And seeing as we have no food to feed anybody, I figured this might be an easier sell.”
Sam shakes his head as he sets his laptop on the table. “I don’t think he’s going to be happy once he figures out what’s going on.”
“He needs to have some fun before the world ends,” Dean says. “You’re not coming?”
“I’m gonna check the news for some leads,” Sam says as he opens Firefox. “Don’t come crying to me if he smites you for this.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Don’t wait up, grandma.”
* * * * *
Sam wakes up to the sound of the motel door opening. His hand instinctively goes to clutch at the knife hidden underneath his pillow, and he does his best to keep his breathing evenly paced as he scans the darkness underneath his eyelashes.
There’s some heavy breathing and shuffling sounds, and then Dean’s unmistakably drunk mumbling that’s probably supposed to pass for a whisper, “Be quiet! Sam’s sleeping.”
Sam relaxes and lets go of the knife. Another person shuffles in the door after Dean, but Sam can’t make out who it is. Sam squints in the dark, trying to determine if it’s time for him to get up and lock himself in the bathroom for an hour with a book. After a minute, the second person mumbles something and the confusion is somewhat resolved: it sounds like Castiel, but not a Castiel Sam’s ever heard before. “Dean, I feel very-very strange.” Castiel’s words are slurred and Sam blinks in the darkness-is Castiel drunk? “I don’t seem to be walking correctly.”
“You can crash on my bed,” Dean says as he moves back the sheets on his bed. “Over here. Don’t wake Sammy.”
“Is there enough room?” Castiel inquires as he makes his way slowly to the other side of the room.
“Don’t care,” Dean says, and Sam can hear him climbing into bed. There are more rustling noises as Castiel somehow ends up on the bed as well. “Sleep it off, Cas.”
Sam sighs and rolls over onto his side facing away from Dean’s bed. He closes his eyes and thinks: Dean always comes up with the worst ideas.
* * * * *
“I found a new lead,” Sam says cheerily the next morning. They’re sitting in a weird King Midas themed diner (which is novel, even for Sam, who’s been in over a thousand different diners in almost every state) in a sparkly gold plastic booth.
“Not so loud,” Dean winces as he sips his coffee.
Sam shrugs and glances down at his menu, which somehow has gold glitter laminated into the pages. In addition, all the food is named stuff like, ‘Gold Rush salad’, ‘Fool’s Gold turkey club’ and ‘Gilded toast and jam’. “It seems pretty minor-some bizarre deaths in a shopping mall in New Jersey. But it’s better than nothing.”
Castiel is slumped in the booth next to Dean, looking positively green. “What sort of bizarre deaths?”
“The manager of a videogame store stripped naked, jumped into the fountain in the middle of the mall, and then dropped dead of a heart attack. Then, an employee of a different store bludgeoned a customer to death with a hammer,” Sam says. “A day later, a customer strangled a fast food server with a plastic bag.”
“Maybe the stress of retail got to them,” Dean says as he puts his fingertips to his temples. “Besides, shouldn’t the mall be closed now anyway?”
“Mall management tried to shut it down but all the employees protested, saying they need the jobs in this economy,” Sam says. “The mayor of the town personally ordered that the mall be reopened.”
“Nothing like a rash of homicides to make me want to go shopping,” Dean says dryly. “I don’t know about the naked videogame guy though. That’s just gross.”
“Like I said, it’s not much, but it’s something,” Sam says.
Dean shrugs. “What do you think, Cas? Does death by water fountain sound like the work of Lucifer and impending doom to you?”
Castiel shakes his head. “I do not know. I have never personally witnessed an apocalypse myself, though I was told that every single one is different.”
“Helpful,” Dean says.
“Great,” Sam concludes brightly. “New Jersey it is then.”
The waitress comes by and Sam orders the Heart of Gold bacon, egg, and cheese while Dean gets the All That Glitters steak and eggs. Castiel decides to stick with the Panning for Gold water.
“So how was the strip club?” Sam asks casually while they wait for their food. “I hear Monday night’s when they bring out the A-Team.”
“I barely remember,” Dean groans. “We hit a couple of bars first and by the time we got to the club, I could barely see.”
“It was most unsavory,” Castiel says primly.
“The bars, the clubs, or Dean getting obliterated?” Sam asks.
“All three,” Castiel says. “Also, Dean paid a woman to gyrate on top of me.”
“A lap dance,” Dean says. “Most guys would be psyched for a free lap dance.”
“I do not see the appeal of having a stranger rolling on top of you for money.”
“I told you,” Sam says, and Dean gives him the finger.
“That part of the night wasn’t so great, I’ll give you that,” Dean says. “But once Castiel started drinking-then things took a hell of a left turn.”
Sam isn’t certain, but Castiel looks dangerously close to blushing. “A turn?”
“Go on, tell him, Cas,” Dean says with obvious amusement.
Castiel stares at a point in the distance. “The alcohol had a stronger effect than I anticipated.”
“Sam, you should have seen it,” Dean bursts, unable to restrain himself any longer. “Castiel shook it. Shook it good.”
“Shook it as in busting a move?” Sam says. It’s hard to reconcile the expressionless-albeit somewhat hungover-angel of the Lord sitting across the ugly yellow formica table with the image of Castiel letting go and dancing for the world to see. “Was there music, or just the music in your heart?”
“Oh there was music,” Dean says. “Stripper music.”
Castiel’s expression is stony. “I remained fully clothed.”
Before Sam can say anything more on the topic, the waitress arrives with their food served on-unsurprisingly-white plates with faded gold trim around the edges.
“See?” Dean says as he cuts into his steak. “Being human’s not so bad. There are perks. Like naked ladies. Or expressing your love of the human species, the world, and God through the joy of dance, as you did.”
“Did you really say that?” Sam asks. It’s probably blasphemous to taunt an angel (or former angel, or whatever), but he can’t resist.
“He did. He so did,” Dean chuckles. After a second, though, he elbows Castiel gently. “Other perks: steak. This is steak. Want to try?” Dean cuts off a bit and holds the fork out to Castiel. Castiel regards the meat with skepticism and Sam expects Castiel to decline, but instead Castiel accepts the fork and eats the bite. He chews thoughtfully before swallowing. “Well?” Dean asks expectantly.
Castiel shrugs, seemingly indifferent to the pleasures of cooked beef, and passes the fork back to Dean. “That is steak.”
Dean shakes his head and then resumes eating. “That’s how I know you’re not human,” he says. “You don’t love steak.”
* * * * *
They make it to New Jersey in good time, with Castiel slouching in the backseat looking alternately distracted and bored. Dean’s hangover seems to have faded enough for him to put the music on loud, drowning out the possibility for further conversation.
They pull into the parking lot of the ‘Wine and Plenty Motel’, which features a couple of cracked white plaster statues of what are probably supposed to be Greek gods by the door. The classical motif continues into the lobby with painted grape and ivy vines crawling up the walls, all meeting in the middle of the ceiling at a lamp shaped like a bowl filled to the bursting with grapes.
Sam steps up to the faux marble counter and pulls out his wallet, “We’ll definitely be staying for two nights, but we might be in town for longer. Two beds, one room.”
The man behind the counter-big belly, ruddy cheeks-hands the key to room 23 to Sam, and then glances over significantly at Dean and Castiel. “I hear it’s more fun with three.”
Castiel is oblivious, Dean gives the man a horrified look, and Sam hurries them away to their room. The inside is decorated with the same taste as the lobby: there are painted columns in all four corners of the room, the ceiling is colored to emulate a temple ceiling, and the lamps are shaped like pudgy cupids.
Sam drops his duffle bag on the bed closest to the door. “Castiel,” he says (and it’s somehow still bizarre to address him directly by name). “You don’t need a bed, right? I mean, I know last night you kinda-”
“That was an aberration,” Castiel says quickly. “It will not happen again.”
“Right,” Sam says awkwardly. “Good.”
Dean picks up one of the lamps and points to it. “I always figured you guys would be more like this,” Dean says to Castiel, who crosses his arms over his chest and doesn’t dignify the remark with a response.
Instead, Castiel says, “We should visit the site of the strange happenings.”
“Waterfront Mall,” Sam supplies, eager to move on to a new topic. “Should be pretty upscale. Overlooks the water, and has kind of a nautical theme according to the website.”
“Awesome,” Dean says. “You get a wonderful view of the water as you’re being bludgeoned or strangled to death.”
“What do you suspect is the cause?” Castiel asks.
“No way to know until we visit the scene,” Sam says. “But based on the fact that it seems like normal people doing abnormal things, I’d guess your run of the mill possession, maybe demonic or ghostly. If it’s ghosts, there’ll probably be ectoplasm around. We also have a gadget for that.”
“Gotta love gadgets,” Dean says. “Cas, you got demon spidey sense or anything? Maybe get some weird tingles when evil is afoot?”
“I have always been able to sense the presence of evil and the perversions of God’s will. But now that I have-” Castiel stops. “I am uncertain as to my current capabilities.”
“Too bad,” Dean says. “A mystical bloodhound would be pretty handy to have around.”
For a second, Sam thinks that Castiel seems almost hurt by Dean’s comment, but then he blinks and Castiel’s back to his expressionless self.
* * * * *
The mall is indeed nautically themed, with blue and white stripes and abstract sculptures of boats everywhere. The theme is tastefully executed, with expensive stone flooring and warm lighting overhead. The mall itself is cross shaped, with a large circular fountain surrounded by blue scaffolding at the center of the cross.
Currently gathered around that fountain is a crowd of people, all murmuring in low, shocked voices and angling for a better view. Between the scaffolding and all the people, it’s impossible to make out what’s going on. Sam’s willing to bet it isn’t anything good.
“Mall cops everywhere,” Dean observes. “Doesn’t seem like the real cops have come yet, which should make our jobs easier. Cas, follow our lead.”
They make their way to the front of the crowd and Sam can finally make out what’s caused all the commotion: a well-dressed man dangling from the scaffolding above the fountain, suspended in midair by an intricate linking of wire clothes hangers. A hanger is wrapped around his neck as well, clearly the cause of death.
“Stay back, folks!” an officious mall cop yells into the crowd. He holds a hand up to the center of Sam’s chest. “Stay back. We’ve got a dead body here.”
“I can see that,” Sam says, taking out his FBI badge. “FBI. Agent Wayne. This is my associate, Agent Robin, and a consultant to the FBI, John Angel.”
The mall cop squints at the ID and then at Sam. “FBI? You guys investigate malls now?”
“You think the United States government wouldn’t be interested in a string of strange deaths?” Dean takes an aggressive step forward and the mall cop backs up. “Are you saying the government doesn’t care about its citizens enough to investigate a mall? A mall which happens to be a prime target for terrorist attacks?”
The mall cop breaks into a visible sweat. “Oh, no, that’s not what I was-I didn’t mean. I-”
“What’s your name, Officer?” Dean interrupts, taking out a pen and paper.
“J-Joe Hazelton,” the guard stutters.
“Officer Hazelton,” Sam cuts in before Dean can torture the poor man any further. “Can you tell us what happened here?”
“Oh yeah, um,” Joe glances back at the body, which is swaying from the scaffolding. “I found him about ten minutes ago. Nearly jumped out of my skin, too.” He coughs and clears his throat at Dean’s disapproving stare. “I mean, I called it in immediately. Obviously, no one’s come yet. Er, besides you guys.”
“Was he like this when you found him?” Sam asks.
“Oh yeah,” Joe says. “I was doing my rounds and decided to take a break-I mean, inspect the scaffolding-when I found him hanging like this. I’m no coroner, but I’m pretty sure he was dead when I got here.”
Castiel walks over to the edge of the fountain and peers up at the body. “This man died over a half hour ago.”
“Whoa,” Joe turns to Castiel excitedly. “Are you one of those forensics guys? Because I watch CSI like, every week, and think it is so cool that you can-” Dean raises an eyebrow and Joe stops.
“Do you have any idea who this might be?” Sam asks. “Customer, mall employee?”
“Oh, that’s Dan Vance,” Joe says. “Real nice guy, worked over at Threads from Thebes for 20 years. Quiet. Kind of kept to himself. Shame, though.”
“Did Mr. Vance seem depressed at all to you?” Sam asks. The scaffolding creaks under the weight of the body, and some of the hangers begin to sway more insistently. “Was he under a lot of stress recently?”
“No more stress than the rest of us in this economy,” Joe shrugs. “Never seemed depressed to me, but like I said, he kept to himself mostly.”
“He have any enemies?” Dean asks. “Anyone who might want to see him out of the way?”
“Enemies? Oh no,” Joe says. “No way, not Dan. Too quiet to make enemies, you know?”
“We heard there’ve been other deaths here recently,” Sam says. “You know anything about them?”
“Oh man, yeah,” Joe says. “I knew all the people who worked here who were involved. Um, Mary Silvers bashed that guy’s skull in over at Fixer Upper. Didn’t see that one coming-she seemed like such a nice girl. Pete Moss over at Wild for Chicken got strangled by the customer-to tell the truth, he was kind of a prick sometimes, but he didn’t deserve that. And Todd Foundry managed Flights of Fantasy before he had that heart attack.”
Sam scribbles down all the names as Dean asks, “And all these people-any of them have enemies?”
“Mary and Todd? Nah. Pete probably did, but I heard the customer who strangled him was from out of town-never even met Pete before.” Joe shrugs. “What does it matter? Everyone knows who did what and everyone responsible is going to prison. What more is there to know?”
“Just doing our job,” Sam says and glances over at Castiel, who is bent over by the fountain, running his fingers underneath the ledge. He straightens up and holds out his hand to Sam and Dean, covered in what is definitely ectoplasm. “You wouldn’t happen to know what everyone was doing before the attacks?”
“Dunno. But maybe if you ask around where they worked, someone will know,” Joe adds helpfully.
“Thanks, Officer Hazelton,” Sam says. “If you could keep this conversation confidential, we’d appreciate it. We’d prefer to keep quiet information about possible security points we’re investigating.”
Joe’s eyes go wide. “Absolutely! They’ll have to pry the information from my cold, dead lips first.”
“You have done your country a service today, citizen,” Dean says and Sam barely avoids rolling his eyes.
As they turn to go, the scaffolding gives one last, ominous creak before collapsing, causing the body and the wood boards above it to fall down into the fountain. Castiel, who is closest to the fountain, ducks and narrowly avoids getting hit by the cascading debris. However, the resultant wave of displaced water spills over the side of the fountain, soaking Castiel from the shoulders down.
“Whoa,” Dean says as Castiel stares down at his dripping wet clothes. “Guess you’re going to need a new outfit, huh?”
* * * * *
After stopping back at the motel for Castiel to quick change into some of Dean’s clothes (“Dude, that shirt looks way better on me,” Dean says), they begin to interview all the employees at Threads from Thebes, Wild for Chicken, Flights of Fantasy, and Fixer Upper. On one hand, the process goes fairly quickly because they can divide the work up by three instead of two. On the other hand, they come up with no useful information whatsoever.
“I got nothing,” Dean says at the end of the day when they meet up at the food court. “Zip. Zero. Nada.”
“I too, have nothing useful to report,” Castiel says as he sips from a giant plastic cup with the picture of a cartoon rooster on it.
“What is that?” Dean asks. “And how did you get it? You have a secret stash of cash we don’t know about?”
“It is a Free Range Wildberry Slushie,” Castiel says. “It was given to me by one of the employees over at Wild for Chicken.”
Dean shakes his head. “I knew I should have picked Wild for Chicken instead of Flights of Fantasy. All I got were a bunch of mouth-breathing nerds and a lecture on why the new Star Trek movie is a desecration of one of the best science fiction franchises of all time.”
“Why did you pick that store, then?” Sam asks.
“I thought it was a porno shop,” Dean says defensively. “With a name like Flights of Fantasy people are bound to get confused.”
Sam sighs. “I didn’t come up with anything helpful either. Turns out Mary was one of the nicest, sweetest girls ever and everyone was shocked when she picked up that hammer.”
“Now that we know it’s a ghost, maybe we can just look up all the people that died here and go from there,” Dean suggests.
“I don’t know, Dean,” Sam says doubtfully. “I’m not sure how many people have died at this mall over the years, but it could be a lot. Plus, for all we know it’s that first heart attack guy who came back to terrorize all the people he didn’t like at the mall.”
“There’s no pattern to the victims,” Dean says. “Is the ghost picking at random? What’s his MO?”
“Who cares?” Castiel says unexpectedly. Dean and Sam turn to look at Castiel, startled. “I am tired, Dean’s clothing does not fit properly, and I do not wish to speak to any more strangers today. We should go back to the motel.”
“Uh,” Sam says. “Don’t you want to figure out what’s going on here?”
“What are we going to learn by sitting in an empty mall?” Castiel says. “All the customers have fled. Most of the stores are closed. Everyone we have spoken to today knows nothing. What do we gain by staying here?”
“Cas has a point,” Dean says. “The mall’s gonna shut down in a few hours and it’s a ghost town-hah!--already. We’re probably better off heading back.”
“Okay,” Sam says. “You guys win. We’ll go back. Maybe we can try the mall again tomorrow. Hopefully, no one will die in the meantime.” As they all get up to go, Sam says quietly to Dean, “What’s up with him?”
Dean shrugs. “Beats me. I kind of like it though.”
* * * * *
Once they get back to the motel room, Castiel almost immediately wanders out somewhere. Dean flops onto the bed and flips on the TV while Sam loads up his laptop and begins to search. An hour later and Sam’s written down the names of all the people who have died at the mall site in the last hundred years along with addresses for family. It’s a decent sized list.
“Whoa,” Dean says as he scans the forty-odd names. “Who knew malls could be so dangerous to your continued health and well-being?”
“Lots of drowning and construction accidents,” Sam says. “Especially when the mall was first being built. Used to be a dock there, apparently.”
“Drowning. There are things that hurt worse, but drowning’s pretty bad.” Dean smiles a little grimly at Sam’s confused look. “Just take my word for it.”
Sam glances away. There’s that bubble of guilt rising up again; and here he’d naively thought he could go a whole day without it. “If we don’t stop Lucifer, what do you think’s going to happen? Do you think it’s going to be Hell on earth too?”
“Probably,” Dean says, rooting through his bag for a minute before emerging triumphant with two Twinkies. “Cas told me if Lucifer rises, Hell rises with him.”
“Do you trust him, Dean?” Sam says. “Honestly? After all the shit the angels have pulled on us?”
Dean unwraps a Twinkie and takes a careful bite. “As much as I trust anybody right now, Sam, which is not a whole lot. Well, maybe Bobby. Bobby hasn’t let me down yet.”
The words sting, but Sam knows he deserves worse. “I know, Dean, it’s just. I know what it’s like to feel like someone’s there for you, that they care about you and you owe them for that.” Sam closes his eyes and feels the bitter memory of Ruby rise up like bile in his throat. “It can blind you to things when you care about someone.”
“What are you trying to say, Sam?” Dean says, swallowing his last bite of Twinkie. “Spit it out.”
“Where is Castiel right now? Do you know? He was in such a hurry to get out of that mall and as soon as we get back here he takes off with no clue as to where he’s going?” Sam says.
“Yeah, well, at least he’s not sneaking around and lying about it,” Dean says.
“I deserve that, I know,” Sam says. “But Castiel--do we even know which side he’s playing for these days?”
“You trying to say Cas has joined Team Lucifer?” Dean huffs out a laugh. “Listen, I know this Ruby stuff is tearing you up but Cas is not Ruby and-”
“It’s not about Ruby!” Sam almost yells and Dean jumps a little in surprise. “I mean,” Sam forces his tone back to a reasonable level, “all I mean is that do we really know what happens to an angel after they disobey orders? Do they get demoted in the angel hierarchy, do they fall and become human, or do they fall and become something worse?”
“I don’t know, Sam!” Dean says angrily. “What do you want me to say? It’s not like Cas and I have long heart to hearts while we get braid each other’s hair.”
“It’s the fact that he’s hiding things that worries me, Dean,” Sam gets up and starts pacing. “Castiel was gone for a month after Lucifer rose and he hasn’t said a thing about what he spent that time doing.”
“You don’t think Cas is what he says he is?” Dean says. The anger seems to be fading as Dean toys with the remaining unopened Twinkie in his lap. “You think he’s playing me for a chump?”
“Lucifer was first among angels once upon a time, wasn’t he?” Sam says. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t work with Castiel anymore, I’m saying maybe you should ask him about what’s going on. Figure out where he stands.”
“Why don’t you ask him yourself if you’re so goddamn curious?” Dean says, irritably tossing the Twinkie at Sam’s head. “He has a cell now.”
Sam catches the Twinkie after it bounces off his forehead. “I would, but I’m pretty sure he never was and still isn’t my biggest fan, Dean. The only reason he puts up with me is because he’s your guardian angel or whatever.”
“First of all, Cas is not my guardian angel because guardian angels and people guarded by them are lame and wussy,” Dean says. “Second of all, weren’t you just going on and on about Cas going to the dark side?”
Sam sighs. “Dark side or light side, you’re the only person he has a connection with, Dean. Even if I got him bombed out of his head I’m still pretty sure he wouldn’t open up to me about his secret angel pain.”
“Secret angel pain?” Dean repeats. “What, like God didn’t tell Cas he loved him enough growing up?” Dean sighs when Sam gives him a look. “Fine, yes, Jesus. I’ll talk to him, okay. Happy now?”
* * * * *
Sam wakes up to the sound of people arguing outside his door, something which happens all too often at the seedy motels he and Dean tend to frequent. He’s about to roll over and shove his pillow down over his ears when he realizes that the voices belong to Dean and Castiel.
“-I know that right now you think you meant what you said,” Dean says, and his words are only slightly muffled by the door. “But I have a lot more experience than you when it comes to doing and saying dumb shit when you’re drunk-”
“Dean,” Castiel says, and he does sound drunk, but nowhere near as intoxicated as the other night. “I am not that drunk.”
“You must be,” Dean says. “Because you’re saying all kinds of shit that doesn’t make sense.”
“Dean-”
“Forget it, Cas,” Dean says and he sounds angry. “Let’s sleep this off and we’ll deal with it in the morning.”
There a pause and Castiel says, “I can stay in the car if you-”
“No, forget the car,” Dean interrupts. “The car sucks. I mean, for sleeping in. The car itself is awesome. Uh.” Dean seems to lose this train of thought. “The point is, we have a room and we’re going to use it.”
The key turns in the lock, and Sam hastily shuts his eyes and lets out a loud snore when Dean steps inside.
“Come on, Cas,” Dean whispers wearily. “This will all blow over in the morning.”
* * * * *
Sam wakes up early-around 9AM-while Dean and Castiel are still out for the count. Dean’s fully dressed, lying on his side on top of the covers, facing the center of the bed. Castiel’s lying in the mirror image of Dean’s body, also fully dressed in Dean’s clothes from yesterday’s incident. They’re sharing a pillow, faces so close they’re practically kissing.
Sam shakes his head. He doesn’t want to touch that thought with a ten foot pole.
He takes the car keys from the table and hops into the Impala. He’d noticed a Wild for Chicken down the road from the motel earlier, and he stops there to pick up breakfast for himself and Dean. By the time he gets back to the room, Dean’s awake and Castiel is gone.
“Thanks,” Dean says when Sam wordlessly hands him the coffee. “Wild for Chicken, huh? Guess they’re everywhere in Jersey.”
“Guess so,” Sam says. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Dean flashes Sam a weak smile. “No hangover today, seems like.”
“Where’s Castiel?” Sam asks.
“Took a walk,” is Dean’s short reply.
“He okay?”
“Everything’s fine, Sam, so stop asking,” Dean says testily. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us, which means we should probably get down to business.”
Sam’s about to ask what crawled up Dean’s ass and died when the door opens and Castiel walks in. Nothing is said, but the tension rockets up from merely ‘uncomfortable’ to ‘totally unbearable’. Sam glances back and forth between Dean and Castiel, who are studiously refusing to look in each other’s direction. “Ooookay,” Sam says. “Let’s get to work then.”
“Yes.” Castiel says. He doesn’t sound hungover, but he doesn’t seem happy either.
“Sam came up with a list of 45 names yesterday,” Dean says. “We might be able to get through 10 or 15 today, but at this rate it’ll take a few days.”
“A few days?” Castiel says as Sam passes him the list. “The ghost will surely strike again within that time.”
“Yeah, well,” Dean says unhappily. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll be one of the first 10.”
“We should divide up the names,” Castiel says as he examines the list. “If we all do a third, we should be able to finish within one or two days.”
“Great idea, except for one problem,” Dean says. “We have one car and three of us. And you got your wings clipped, so you can’t make with the blinky blinky, right?”
“The public transportation in this town is surprisingly excellent,” Castiel replies coolly. “There is something known as a bus pass which allows you unlimited passage for a day.”
Dean frowns. “How do you know what a bus pass is?”
Castiel lifts his chin in the air. “The bus operators have been most obliging in instructing me on how the bus system works.”
“Why would you need to-” Dean starts but Sam cuts him off, more concerned at the moment about what Castiel’s suggesting than what he does in his free time.
“Wait, you want us to take the bus?”
“Us?” Dean says, raising an eyebrow at Sam. “There is no ‘us’ here. My wheels, my ride. In this equation there’s you, and then there’s Cas.”
“The bus is acceptable to me,” Castiel says and he meets Sam’s eyes with something in them that’s suspiciously close to a challenge. “Unless your sensibilities are too refined for a bus?”
Sam sputters for a minute, trying to find a way out. But with Dean staring at him with that expression that says, “Stop being such a prissy little girl,” and Castiel openly challenging him, there is none. “I can take the bus,” Sam says, eventually. “I-I love the bus.”
“Excellent,” Castiel says, and damn if the bastard doesn’t seem smug.
“Great,” Dean says. “Then it’s settled. We split up and call if we find anything.”
“Awesome,” Sam says with forced enthusiasm. “Yay, bus.”
* * * * *
The day passes relatively quickly, and relatively uneventfully. Dean, Sam, and Castiel split up with lists of about 15 names each. Dean and Castiel leave almost immediately, while Sam opts to start looking up phone numbers and calling for information in order to make the fewest bus trips possible.
Half the names on Sam’s lists have no surviving family, which makes them a no-go on the investigative front; all he can do is hope none of them are the mall ghost. A third of the names were cremated, and one guy was actually interred in a mausoleum that ended up burning to the ground in a freak brushfire. That leaves two possible leads on Sam’s list: Annabelle Lee and Dennis Semele. With great reluctance, Sam buys himself a pass and boards one of the crowded buses.
After an unproductive half hour interviewing Annabelle Lee’s great great granddaughter, only to find out at the end of it that Annabelle’s bones were actually shipped to China to be buried with her family, Sam hops another bus and heads over to Dennis Semele’s mother’s house.
Denise Semele is a sweet old lady with bluish grey hair, dark glasses, and a large and very friendly seeing-eye dog. “Now who did you say you were again?” She asks when she comes to the door.
“Sam Mulder,” he says, feeling briefly guilty about lying to a little old blind lady. “We spoke on the phone earlier? I’m a reporter doing a story on the Weehawking High School class of ’85?”
“Oh of course, of course,” Denise says, opening the door to let Sam in. “Please come in. Please have a seat.”
Sam sits down on the slightly lumpy old couch in the middle of her living room and waits for her to sit. “I’m sorry for your loss, Ms. Semele.”
She smiles sadly. “Yes, Dennis was a wonderful boy. Such potential.”
“I read something about the Waterfront Mall,” Sam says. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?”
“It’s been such a long time since anyone’s asked about my Dennis,” Denise says wistfully. “It was a freak accident over in the basement of the Waterfront Mall. Boiler defect-it exploded and the shrapnel blew holes in the plumbing while he was down there. Drowned, the police said. A terrible way to die. I can only hope he was knocked unconscious before it happened.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Semele,” Sam says. “But why was Dennis down there in the first place? Was he working at the mall?”
“Oh no,” Denise says. “Dennis was a plumber. It wasn’t his true calling, not by a long shot. But when I got sick his senior year of high school, he--well, he gave up all his aspirations for college to stay and take care of me.” She puts a trembling hand to her glasses. “He took care of me too well, I’m afraid. A parent should never have to outlive their child.”
“He sounds like he was a good man,” Sam says gently. “You must miss him.”
“Every day of every year that goes by,” Denise says.
“Is there a gravesite I might visit?” Sam asks. “I would like to pay my respects.”
“I would have liked a gravesite, but it was his wish that he be cremated. ‘I don’t want you crying over me everyday, Mom’ was what he said to me.” She smiles sadly. “How could have he have known?”
“I see,” Sam says, heart sinking a little. “So there’s nowhere I could go to remember him, or pay my respects?”
“Well,” she hesitates. “I know this is going to sound a little strange, but-but I suppose you could go down to the mall basement, where he died. That’s what I did, about a year after it happened. One of the mall security guards smuggled me in, and I got to stand there, where my little boy last stood.” She scratches her golden retriever behind the ears absently. “I know it sounds macabre, but-”
“Not at all,” Sam says. “You wouldn’t happen to have left a small memorial to him there, would you? A lock of hair, some old clothing?”
“Why, how did you know?” Denise seems startled. “I pinned a yearbook photo of him with a pouch that held an old baby tooth of his to a pipe near the boiler room. It’s hidden, of course.”
“Thank you, Ms. Semele,” Sam says as he pulls out his cell phone to call Dean. “That’s all I needed to know.”
* * * * *
“Denny Smelly, huh?” Dean says as they make their way through the dark and labyrinthine basement of the mall. It’s humid and empty but, Sam supposes, relatively clean as far as haunted basements go. “Man, that kid must have had the crap kicked out of him on the playground.”
“Dennis Semele,” Sam corrects, and then, “yeah, probably.”
“So what’s his damage?” Dean asks. “Daddy issues? Uncontrollable anger? Seething resentment?”
“No, his father died when he was a kid and his mom raised him on her own,” Sam says. “And from what I could tell, he was definitely gunning for the Son of the Year award-gave up college and all his ambitions to stay home and take care of her when she got sick. Became a plumber to pay off the mortgage on her house.”
Dean sighs as he scans the nearest pipe with his flashlight. “You couldn’t have asked her which pipe she stuck his baby tooth to? There are a billion pipes down here.”
“She’s a blind old woman, Dean,” Sam says. “I felt bad enough lying to her about writing a story about her dead son. What was I supposed to do-interrogate her about which room in the basement she visited 13 years ago?”
“Yeah, well,” Dean says. “Just saying, this could be easier.”
“Speaking of helpful information to have,” Sam says. “Where’s Castiel?”
“He said he’d meet us down here,” Dean says, carefully examining a red pipe in front of him. “He said he was in the middle of an ice cream sundae.”
“Dean,” Sam stops. “Are you serious? Or is this one of your not hilarious jokes?”
“Serious as a heart attack, Sam.”
“Since when does Castiel eat?” Sam asks.
“Since people started giving him all this free food, apparently.” Dean shrugs. “Does it matter?”
“I don’t know, Dean,” Sam says. “Seems kind of non-angelic to me.”
“Whatever, Sam,” Dean gives up on the pipe and starts walking again. “Can we talk about this later? We’re down in a creepyass basement with a ghost and no guns, so I’m feeling a little exposed here. Tell me why we couldn’t bring the guns again?”
“Because firing projectiles in rooms containing massive amounts of high pressure water piping is a fantastic way to end up ghosts ourselves?” Sam says.
“Stupid pipes,” Dean mutters and scans the room. “Are we even near the boiler room? I have no freaking clue where we are.”
Sam studies the not very awesome blurry map he’d gotten from the maintenance guy. “According to the map, we should be close. Maybe one or two rooms more?”
“You think maybe we’ll get lucky and-aw, crap,” Dean stops and points over Sam’s right shoulder. “Speak of the Dennis.”
Sam immediately whirls around, tire iron at the ready, and sure enough, a ghost stands about fifty feet away at the other end of the room. Sam recognizes the ghost from the pictures at Denise Semele’s house: slim figure, and a handsome, androgynous face with wavy brown hair to his shoulders. “More guests?” Dennis says, with a voice that’s soothing and yet vaguely electric at the same time.
“Sure,” Dean says as he brings up his tire iron and advances slowly. “Not much of a party, but hey, I’m here to bring the fun.”
“Everyone has fun at my parties,” Dennis says, flickering in that creepy way that ghosts do. “It’s because I set them free. I help them achieve their heart’s desire.”
“Like killing innocent people?” Sam says. “Was that their heart’s desire?”
Dennis chuckles, “You’ve never wanted to reach across the counter and strangle a fast food employee?” He turns to Dean. “Or bludgeon an impossible customer to death?”
“I can’t say I haven’t thought about it,” Dean concedes. “But that’s a whole different state away from doing it.”
“I liberate people from the restraints that hold them back from what they really want,” Dennis says. “I allow them to act without fear, shame, or doubt. Without the chains of obligations.”
“Is that why you’re still here?” Sam asks, not without compassion. “Because in life you couldn’t be free? Couldn’t leave your mother behind?”
A shadow crosses Dennis’s face and for a second he seems confused. “My mother. I remember her, and yet I-” Dennis flickers again and Sam senses the presence of something darker, corrupting and powerful. Then Dennis’s eyes refocus with new determination, new menace. “The past is irrelevant. All that matters now is what I can do now and in the future.”
“Hang around a mall basement?” Dean says mockingly. “Oh yeah, real scary. You know that if enough weird crap keeps happening in the mall, they’ll eventually have to shut it down. No more people means no more party fun times for you.”
“I may be limited for now, but I’ve been promised much more than this,” Dennis says. “Much more.”
“Promised?” Sam says, feeling his mouth go dry. “By who?”
Dennis smiles. “Who do you think?”
“You’re full of crap,” Dean says, and he’s almost within attack range of Dennis now. “Why would the Devil make deals with some nobody ghost like you?”
“You think you can stop me, but you can’t,” Dennis says, ignoring the taunts. Dennis holds out his hand catch a droplet of water leaking from a nearby pipe. “Soon I’ll be everywhere.”
Dean swings the tire iron and Dennis disappears with a last chuckle. “Damnit,” Dean says. “That’s exactly what we need: Lucifer making deals too.”
“He’s in the water,” Sam says, swinging his flashlight around to check for Dennis reappearing. “That’s how he possesses his victims. They must have used the water fountains or something.”
“Note to self: never drink the water,” Dean says. “And why Dennis? Some low level nothing ghost is suddenly worth granting special powers?”
“Maybe Lucifer saw the potential. A ghost that causes people to lose all their inhibitions with one sip of water?” Sam says. “Seems like a great way to sow some seeds of chaos on a large scale. Especially if it can spread through the oceans, or the rain…” Sam falls silent, contemplating the full extent of the possibilities.
“If we could bottle Dennis water minus the murderous tendencies, we could make a killing. It’d be bigger than booze,” Dean says. “I’ve got a slogan and everything: D-Water, it’ll set you free!”
“Catchy,” Sam remarks. “But we should start moving before Dennis gives an encore performance.”
Sam and Dean start moving towards the boiler room again and when they reach the next room, Dean says, “Could really use a third set of eyes right about now."
“I am here, Dean,” Castiel says from behind them, and both Dean and Sam turn around. It’s Castiel, but he’s wearing a new outfit-not his usual trenchcoat uniform, and not Dean’s borrowed clothes from before. This outfit is comprised of a bright blue silk button down shirt (with way too many buttons unbuttoned at the top in Sam’s opinion) and a pair of disturbingly tight black leather pants. Everything clings in a decidedly non-angelic way.
“Cas?” Dean chokes out. “What are you wearing?”
“You were right, Dean,” Castiel says, and his blue eyes nearly glow in the dark. “That shirt did look better on you. That’s why I thought I’d get something new, something that looked better on me.”
“I see that,” Dean says and then shakes himself. “Uh, now that you’re here, we can focus on burning that stupid tooth and then get the hell out of here, pronto.”
“Oh, Dean,” Castiel says, and the way the word ‘Dean’ rolls off his tongue is lascivious, sexual in a way Sam never knew Castiel was capable of. “What’s the rush?”
Castiel’s almost reached Dean by now and Sam doesn’t know whether he should continue walking towards the boiler room or pause to let Dean and Castiel catch up with him. Sam’s also not entirely sure what’s going on with Castiel, but he’s pretty sure he doesn’t like it. “Castiel, are you okay?”
“Never better,” Castiel says, not taking his eyes off Dean’s for a second. Dean, for his part, has an expression vaguely reminiscent of a deer in the headlights. “I’ve been thinking about what we talked about last night, Dean, and I’ve come to some conclusions.”
“Uh,” Dean says intelligently.
“You were right not to believe me.” Castiel walks right up into Dean’s personal space, trapping him up against the pipes behind him. “But I came to show you I meant it.” Castiel grabs Dean’s face in his hand and plants a kiss squarely on his lips. Sam’s jaw drops and Dean lets out a shocked “Mmmph!” under Castiel’s lips. After a few seconds, Castiel draws back. “Now do you believe me?”
“Wow, I did not see that one coming,” a voice says behind Castiel and Dean, and of course it’s Dennis, showing up at the worst possible time. He claps, once, twice. “That is some good drama, people. Well played. Bravo.”
“What the hell did you do to Cas?” Dean seems to recover his faculties at the sight of the ghost and shoves Castiel behind him. “What the hell is going on?”
“I gave him the key to unlocking his heart’s desire,” Dennis says. “Took a little longer than usual to get him to loosen up-I’ve never dealt with an angel possessing a human before. Too many cooks in the kitchen, I guess.”
“Aw, Jimmy,” Dean says, and Sam notices he’s shaking a little. “Three is definitely not more fun when they’re running around in your head.”
“You know, I was a little nervous at first,” Dennis says conversationally. “I thought, what if all an angel truly desires is something really lame? Something like, seeing the face of God, or to learning to play the harp, or wearing white after Labor Day.” Dennis shakes his head and grins, all teeth, at Castiel. “But not you, my favorite winged stud muffin. You want something a hell of a lot more fun than that.”
“I will cast you out,” Castiel says, and then starts mumbling something low in Latin.
Dennis flickers and then waves a lazy hand in Castiel’s direction. “Now now, none of that.” Castiel flies 20 feet into the wall as if yanked by a string, and crumples to the ground.
“You son of a-” Dean charges at Dennis with his tire iron, who chortles merrily before disappearing and appearing off to the side. Dean yells, “Run, Sam! I’ll take care of Dennis!”
Sam barely nods before taking off at full speed to the next room. He scans the area, notes the door leading into the boiler room and then another door near it labeled ‘Utility Closet’. He sprints to the Utility Closet, wrenches it open, and searches with his flashlight for pipes that would be low enough for Denise Semele to reach behind. After a few seconds he locates a big black pipe running horizontally across the far wall, and shoves his fingers behind it until he feels the edge of something attached to the back.
Sam pulls out the yellowed photograph of Dennis Semele and a tiny pouch with a tooth in it. He takes out a lighter, holding the flame to the bottom of both the photo and the pouch. They both glow a bright hot purple before turning to ash.
* * * * *
“Well that was fun,” Sam says, once they’re all back at the motel. Sam leans against the wall while Dean sits in a chair, cleaning a shallow cut on his arm. Castiel’s lying on Dean’s bed, still unconscious. “Although the wacky angel hijinks were new.”
“Yeah. Yeah they were,” Dean says as he applies some Neosporin to his arm and winces. “It’s a good thing we got to Dennis when we did--that was definitely some juiced up ghost mojo he was working on. Lucifer ain’t kidding around if ghosts can affect angels now.”
“What I don’t get is why everybody who worked at the mall didn’t go crazy,” Sam says. “Castiel didn’t drink the water--he only absorbed it through the skin. And if skin contact’s all you need, shouldn’t everyone who washed their hands at the mall have been affected?”
“Means either no one washes their hands at the mall--including our food servers-in which case, that’s disgusting and I should go vomit now,” Dean says, “or washing your hands isn’t enough. Cas was soaked in the D-Water from head to toe, so maybe that’s the difference?”
“Guess it must be,” Sam says. “Is he going to be okay?” Sam gestures at Castiel, who seems oddly vulnerable like this, lying on his back with hands at his sides.
“Yeah, he’ll be fine.” Dean glances over at Castiel's prone body. “We should have just gotten a third bed for this room, though. This guy keeps passing out everywhere.”
“You want to tell me what happened back there?” Sam asks quietly.
“Not really,” Dean says. He puts a bandage over his cut.
“Okay, then, you want to tell me what happened last night?”
“Last night?” Dean repeats. “What happened last night?”
“Don’t play dumb, Dean,” Sam says. “I heard you two fighting on the other side of the door last night. You’re not exactly king of the library voice when you’re drunk.”
Dean stiffens. “We went boozing, everything was fine, and then Castiel said some things. But he was drunk and, as it turns out, under the influence of D-Water too.” Dean forces a laugh. “I’m telling you, I would buy that stuff in a heartbeat.”
“The ghost said-”
“Yeah, I know what the ghost said.” Dean stares down at the ground. “But I don’t think he knew what he was talking about.”
“Yeah?” Sam says. “What was he talking about?”
Dean stands, gathers up the trash on the table and tosses it out in the garbage. “Cas wasn’t demoted, he was full on shunned. Now he’s being hunted by the angels. That’s why he disappeared for a month.” Dean walks to the side of the bed and stares down at Castiel with an unreadable expression. “He said he tried to stay away because he didn’t want me to get mixed up in his crap.”
“He was trying to protect you,” Sam says. It could be lies-Dennis never said that his influence forced people to speak the truth, only that he helped them get what they wanted-but for whatever reason, Sam believes it’s the truth.
Dean smiles, faintly. “Yeah. Angels and their stupid ideas.”
“So why’d he come back?” Sam asks. “If it was safer away, why’s he now following us around?”
“I don’t-” Dean stops and fakes a cough, not very convincingly. “Look, can you blame the guy? You know how hard it is being alone on the road.”
Sam narrows his eyes at Dean but decides to drop it when no further explanation seems to be forthcoming. “Was that it?” Sam says, because there are still some outstanding unanswered questions, prime among them being the big wet one Castiel planted on Dean. “Was there more?”
Dean reaches down and straightens out Castiel’s collar, smoothes down the shoulders of his shirt. The tenderness of the action shocks Sam, and he wonders if this is something that’s been going on this whole time, something he would have noticed before if he hadn’t been so caught up in Ruby and Lucifer and everything else. “He told me he was in love.”
Dean doesn’t look up and Sam doesn’t expect him to. “Wow,” Sam says, and he doesn’t know if he can believe it. Castiel, in love? In love with Dean? Ruby had never said anything like that, and maybe Castiel never would have either if he hadn’t been under the influence of D-water, but. As twistedly close as Ruby and Sam had gotten towards the end, love had never been on the plate. It hadn’t even been on the menu. “That’s. This is. This is some heavy duty stuff.”
“No kidding,” Dean says. He steps away from the bed and Sam can read the conflict in his body language, the desire to reach out and pull away at the same time. “I thought he was full of it, but, uh. Guess not.”
“Are you okay?” Sam says because he doesn’t know what else to say. Is this something Dean is not okay with, or is it something he might actively want? Sam doesn’t know whether to offer congratulations or condolences.
“Beats the hell out of me,” Dean says, sounding tired. “It’s a lot to wrap my head around, you know? I’m still dealing with the part where angels have feelings at all.”
“Dean,” Sam says uncomfortably. He’s not sure whether he believes Castiel’s whole spiel, whether he trusts Castiel not to throw them all to the wolves or the angels. But Sam does remember how hard Dean tried-with admittedly limited success-to get along with Ruby, on and off over the years. And he thinks, maybe, he might owe it to Dean to try to understand in return, regardless of what he decides. “You know you’ll always be, uh. I mean, you know I don’t care if-”
“What are you, an after school special?” Dean interrupts. But he seems to un-tense, a little. “Don’t ruin this by acting like a 12-year-old girl, Sam.”
Sam puts his hands in the air. “Okay, after school special officially concluded.”
Dean finally looks up and smiles at Sam, a real one, and Sam feels a part of him he didn’t even realize was clenched unclench. At that moment though, Castiel shifts on the bed and his eyelids flutter. Dean’s by his side in a heartbeat, and Sam picks his jacket up off the bed. “I think I’m going to head to the library for a little bit, catch a movie, maybe get something to eat,” Sam says. “You know, check out the sights of south central New Jersey. I probably won’t be back till midnight, at the earliest.”
Dean nods, but Sam can tell he’s barely listening. Castiel’s coming to and Dean’s bent down and got a hand on his shoulder, murmuring something Sam can’t quite make out.
Sam slips away quietly to Impala. He puts the key in the ignition but doesn’t turn it. As all the new information swirls around like a whirlpool in his mind (Dean! Castiel! In love, and on the run! Lucifer’s making deals! D-Water!), one thought surfaces over and over again.
He misses Ruby.
Fin.
I was a pinch hitter, and this was written for my recipient, bold_seer.
Word Count: 10,300
Prompt: On the road: Dean, Cas & Sam; Post 4x22 - whatever happened to Castiel?; and the connection between Dean and Castiel as perceived by Sam.
Thanks to Tracy for beta action.
Sam’s pretty sure it’s a bad idea as soon as the words leave Dean’s mouth. Once Dean starts getting into it, though, and the plans start to gain traction and grow, .
Dionysus
Sam’s pretty sure it’s a bad idea as soon as the words leave Dean’s mouth. Once Dean starts getting into it, though, and the plans start to gain traction and grow, Sam becomes absolutely fucking certain it’s a terrible idea.
“Come on, Sam. You turn into some kind of prude while I was gone?” Dean says as he bounces on the edge of the discolored motel bed.
“I’m not a prude. I just think we have bigger things to put our time and energy into such as the world ending.” Sam tosses a balled up dirty shirt into his duffle bag. “Or has Lucifer rising up to kill us all already slipped your mind?”
Dean stops bouncing, and the smile slips off his face. “I think about that son of a bitch every goddamn minute of every goddamn day, Sam,” Dean says. “And where the hell has that gotten us? A month of wracking our brains, busting our asses, and squat to show for it because nothing’s fucking happening! For all we know, Lucifer’s taking a wine tour of Europe or hiding in a cave somewhere.”
“And maybe he’s up to something and we should be looking harder,” Sam argues as the frustration starts to bubble up inside. “I don’t think he broke out of Hell to learn how to underwater basket weave, Dean. I’m pretty sure he broke out to bring about the end of days.”
“We’ve been reading 24/7 and chasing nonsense leads for weeks, Sammy.” Dean shakes his head. “I need to blow off some steam. I need to drink. I need to have some goddamned fun before the world ends.”
“Now it’s about you, Dean?” Sam says. “I thought this was about Castiel?”
“Yeah, well, him too,” Dean says unconvincingly. “Look, leave the angel shit to me, okay? I’ll handle it.”
Sam sighs. Castiel. Sam supposes he should have been happy when Castiel turned up alive and intact two days ago, but mostly he’d just been surprised. And really unsettled by the fact that Castiel no longer seemed to be magically teleporting places but was instead walking through doors and stuff like a human.
There had been a knock. “I didn’t order pizza,” Sam had said.
“Maybe it’s a hooker,” Dean had said hopefully. “Remember that time-”
“Just open the door, Dean.”
When Dean had opened the door and found Castiel outside, miserable and bedraggled like a cat in a torrential downpour, it had been a decidedly awkward moment while Sam and Dean gaped and Castiel continued to get rained on. “Dean,” Castiel had said uncertainly.
“Cas, you’re not dead. And not in angel jail,” Dean had said. For a second, it seemed as though he was going to grab for one of his rare spine-cracking hugs, but when Castiel just stood there blankly, Dean crossed his arms over his chest instead. “It’s-I’m glad you’re not dead.”
“As am I,” Castiel had said.
Sam had cleared his throat. “Castiel, why did you knock?”
Castiel had regarded Sam with a rather mournful expression before returning to staring at the ground. “Something wrong with your angel mojo?” Dean had asked as he ushered Castiel in, trenchcoat dripping wet.
“I have been greatly weakened,” Castiel had said at last.
“Were you demoted?” Dean had demanded.
“I can still be of assistance,” Castiel had said. “I will guard your life until you confront Lucifer.” And just like that, the Winchester party of two became Winchester party of two plus one celestial bodyguard. Sam had pulled Dean aside, tried to reason with him (what if Castiel was a spy, or just another way for the angels to manipulate them?) but Dean would hear nothing of it.
“If it weren’t for him,” Dean had said, “I would still be stuck in that freaky-ass green room. He’s on our side, Sam. And we need all the help we can get.”
And that had been that, as far as Dean was concerned. Sam, on the other hand, wasn’t convinced this wasn’t just an elaborate trap or a way for the angels to keep tabs on Dean (now that Sam had played out his part by raising Lucifer, he didn’t kid himself by thinking the angels gave a crap about what happened to him anymore).
After all, Ruby had done lots of things in the name of Sam over the years-too many things to count. She’d even made Sam believe she’d cared, and maybe she really had (Sam didn’t like to think about that, though, because it made him feel pathetic that it mattered to him at all). But all that got washed away by the tide in the end: Ruby was a demon first, a person or anything else second. Angels might be playing ball--theoretically--for the other side, but it wasn’t like they weren’t playing by the same rules.
The worst part of it all though, is that once upon a time, Sam had really believed. He hadn’t ever been a holy rolling churchgoer, sure, but he’d read the bible and occasionally asked God for stuff. It’d started out with a mix of stupid things and less stupid things when he was young (get an A on the exam, bring Mom back) and morphed over the years into things that mostly involved Dean: don’t let Dean get himself killed; free Dean from that idiotic contract he’d made; bring Dean back. When Dean had come back from Hell and been saved by an angel of all things, Sam had thought, finally, someone heard me. Angels are real, God does give a shit, everything’s going to be okay. Imagine his shock when it turned out Uriel was a jerk and a traitor to boot, Zachariah masterminded Dean getting sent to Hell in the first place, and Dean’s savior angel didn’t even seem to like Sam (and everyone likes Sam, a slightly immature part of him mutters). And now that Dean’s on the outs with Heaven, God sees fit to grant Dean a walking, talking guardian angel. How ironic, all of it. How hilarious. Their lives are one giant cosmic joke.
All of this adds up to Sam avoiding spending time alone with Castiel. He has difficulty making direct eye contact with Castiel, much less engaging in conversation. It doesn’t help that Castiel treats him with that same implacable neutrality he’s always had; Sam can never be sure whether the faint whiff of disapproval in Castiel’s eyes is really there, or is just being projected there by Sam’s overwhelming self loathing. Maybe he should split the difference and assume it’s a mixture of both.
Luckily, Sam doesn’t have to interact with Castiel one-on-one terribly often. Dean’s usually around and Sam’s certain he’s not imagining the fact that Castiel seems to be in a better mood whenever they’re together (as far as Castiel moods go, it’s impassive with a side of doom and gloom versus impassive with a side of almost content). Also, Castiel spends a surprising amount of time out and about town doing whatever it is rogue angels (or spies) do, so it mostly works out okay.
As far as Dean goes, Sam had expected him, of all people, to react poorly to the prospect-never mind the reality-of having a bodyguard slash babysitter. To Sam’s surprise, Dean’s mood had actually improved over the past couple of days since Castiel’s reemergence, lightening to the point where he was making jokes and proposing various initiation rites for the new guy. “Hazing, Sammy,” Dean said more than once, “what’s the most hilarious way to haze an angel?” Ultimately, Dean had settled on something that would probably horrify Castiel even more than a few pranks.
“Does Castiel know what you’re planning?” Sam asks as he fishes his laptop out of his bag.
“Of course he doesn’t know,” Dean says. “Are you crazy? I told him we’re going to volunteer at a homeless shelter.”
Sam sighs and glances at the clock. “Seriously, Dean? Volunteering at a homeless shelter at eight at night?”
“It was either that or feeding the hungry,” Dean says. “And seeing as we have no food to feed anybody, I figured this might be an easier sell.”
Sam shakes his head as he sets his laptop on the table. “I don’t think he’s going to be happy once he figures out what’s going on.”
“He needs to have some fun before the world ends,” Dean says. “You’re not coming?”
“I’m gonna check the news for some leads,” Sam says as he opens Firefox. “Don’t come crying to me if he smites you for this.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Don’t wait up, grandma.”
* * * * *
Sam wakes up to the sound of the motel door opening. His hand instinctively goes to clutch at the knife hidden underneath his pillow, and he does his best to keep his breathing evenly paced as he scans the darkness underneath his eyelashes.
There’s some heavy breathing and shuffling sounds, and then Dean’s unmistakably drunk mumbling that’s probably supposed to pass for a whisper, “Be quiet! Sam’s sleeping.”
Sam relaxes and lets go of the knife. Another person shuffles in the door after Dean, but Sam can’t make out who it is. Sam squints in the dark, trying to determine if it’s time for him to get up and lock himself in the bathroom for an hour with a book. After a minute, the second person mumbles something and the confusion is somewhat resolved: it sounds like Castiel, but not a Castiel Sam’s ever heard before. “Dean, I feel very-very strange.” Castiel’s words are slurred and Sam blinks in the darkness-is Castiel drunk? “I don’t seem to be walking correctly.”
“You can crash on my bed,” Dean says as he moves back the sheets on his bed. “Over here. Don’t wake Sammy.”
“Is there enough room?” Castiel inquires as he makes his way slowly to the other side of the room.
“Don’t care,” Dean says, and Sam can hear him climbing into bed. There are more rustling noises as Castiel somehow ends up on the bed as well. “Sleep it off, Cas.”
Sam sighs and rolls over onto his side facing away from Dean’s bed. He closes his eyes and thinks: Dean always comes up with the worst ideas.
* * * * *
“I found a new lead,” Sam says cheerily the next morning. They’re sitting in a weird King Midas themed diner (which is novel, even for Sam, who’s been in over a thousand different diners in almost every state) in a sparkly gold plastic booth.
“Not so loud,” Dean winces as he sips his coffee.
Sam shrugs and glances down at his menu, which somehow has gold glitter laminated into the pages. In addition, all the food is named stuff like, ‘Gold Rush salad’, ‘Fool’s Gold turkey club’ and ‘Gilded toast and jam’. “It seems pretty minor-some bizarre deaths in a shopping mall in New Jersey. But it’s better than nothing.”
Castiel is slumped in the booth next to Dean, looking positively green. “What sort of bizarre deaths?”
“The manager of a videogame store stripped naked, jumped into the fountain in the middle of the mall, and then dropped dead of a heart attack. Then, an employee of a different store bludgeoned a customer to death with a hammer,” Sam says. “A day later, a customer strangled a fast food server with a plastic bag.”
“Maybe the stress of retail got to them,” Dean says as he puts his fingertips to his temples. “Besides, shouldn’t the mall be closed now anyway?”
“Mall management tried to shut it down but all the employees protested, saying they need the jobs in this economy,” Sam says. “The mayor of the town personally ordered that the mall be reopened.”
“Nothing like a rash of homicides to make me want to go shopping,” Dean says dryly. “I don’t know about the naked videogame guy though. That’s just gross.”
“Like I said, it’s not much, but it’s something,” Sam says.
Dean shrugs. “What do you think, Cas? Does death by water fountain sound like the work of Lucifer and impending doom to you?”
Castiel shakes his head. “I do not know. I have never personally witnessed an apocalypse myself, though I was told that every single one is different.”
“Helpful,” Dean says.
“Great,” Sam concludes brightly. “New Jersey it is then.”
The waitress comes by and Sam orders the Heart of Gold bacon, egg, and cheese while Dean gets the All That Glitters steak and eggs. Castiel decides to stick with the Panning for Gold water.
“So how was the strip club?” Sam asks casually while they wait for their food. “I hear Monday night’s when they bring out the A-Team.”
“I barely remember,” Dean groans. “We hit a couple of bars first and by the time we got to the club, I could barely see.”
“It was most unsavory,” Castiel says primly.
“The bars, the clubs, or Dean getting obliterated?” Sam asks.
“All three,” Castiel says. “Also, Dean paid a woman to gyrate on top of me.”
“A lap dance,” Dean says. “Most guys would be psyched for a free lap dance.”
“I do not see the appeal of having a stranger rolling on top of you for money.”
“I told you,” Sam says, and Dean gives him the finger.
“That part of the night wasn’t so great, I’ll give you that,” Dean says. “But once Castiel started drinking-then things took a hell of a left turn.”
Sam isn’t certain, but Castiel looks dangerously close to blushing. “A turn?”
“Go on, tell him, Cas,” Dean says with obvious amusement.
Castiel stares at a point in the distance. “The alcohol had a stronger effect than I anticipated.”
“Sam, you should have seen it,” Dean bursts, unable to restrain himself any longer. “Castiel shook it. Shook it good.”
“Shook it as in busting a move?” Sam says. It’s hard to reconcile the expressionless-albeit somewhat hungover-angel of the Lord sitting across the ugly yellow formica table with the image of Castiel letting go and dancing for the world to see. “Was there music, or just the music in your heart?”
“Oh there was music,” Dean says. “Stripper music.”
Castiel’s expression is stony. “I remained fully clothed.”
Before Sam can say anything more on the topic, the waitress arrives with their food served on-unsurprisingly-white plates with faded gold trim around the edges.
“See?” Dean says as he cuts into his steak. “Being human’s not so bad. There are perks. Like naked ladies. Or expressing your love of the human species, the world, and God through the joy of dance, as you did.”
“Did you really say that?” Sam asks. It’s probably blasphemous to taunt an angel (or former angel, or whatever), but he can’t resist.
“He did. He so did,” Dean chuckles. After a second, though, he elbows Castiel gently. “Other perks: steak. This is steak. Want to try?” Dean cuts off a bit and holds the fork out to Castiel. Castiel regards the meat with skepticism and Sam expects Castiel to decline, but instead Castiel accepts the fork and eats the bite. He chews thoughtfully before swallowing. “Well?” Dean asks expectantly.
Castiel shrugs, seemingly indifferent to the pleasures of cooked beef, and passes the fork back to Dean. “That is steak.”
Dean shakes his head and then resumes eating. “That’s how I know you’re not human,” he says. “You don’t love steak.”
* * * * *
They make it to New Jersey in good time, with Castiel slouching in the backseat looking alternately distracted and bored. Dean’s hangover seems to have faded enough for him to put the music on loud, drowning out the possibility for further conversation.
They pull into the parking lot of the ‘Wine and Plenty Motel’, which features a couple of cracked white plaster statues of what are probably supposed to be Greek gods by the door. The classical motif continues into the lobby with painted grape and ivy vines crawling up the walls, all meeting in the middle of the ceiling at a lamp shaped like a bowl filled to the bursting with grapes.
Sam steps up to the faux marble counter and pulls out his wallet, “We’ll definitely be staying for two nights, but we might be in town for longer. Two beds, one room.”
The man behind the counter-big belly, ruddy cheeks-hands the key to room 23 to Sam, and then glances over significantly at Dean and Castiel. “I hear it’s more fun with three.”
Castiel is oblivious, Dean gives the man a horrified look, and Sam hurries them away to their room. The inside is decorated with the same taste as the lobby: there are painted columns in all four corners of the room, the ceiling is colored to emulate a temple ceiling, and the lamps are shaped like pudgy cupids.
Sam drops his duffle bag on the bed closest to the door. “Castiel,” he says (and it’s somehow still bizarre to address him directly by name). “You don’t need a bed, right? I mean, I know last night you kinda-”
“That was an aberration,” Castiel says quickly. “It will not happen again.”
“Right,” Sam says awkwardly. “Good.”
Dean picks up one of the lamps and points to it. “I always figured you guys would be more like this,” Dean says to Castiel, who crosses his arms over his chest and doesn’t dignify the remark with a response.
Instead, Castiel says, “We should visit the site of the strange happenings.”
“Waterfront Mall,” Sam supplies, eager to move on to a new topic. “Should be pretty upscale. Overlooks the water, and has kind of a nautical theme according to the website.”
“Awesome,” Dean says. “You get a wonderful view of the water as you’re being bludgeoned or strangled to death.”
“What do you suspect is the cause?” Castiel asks.
“No way to know until we visit the scene,” Sam says. “But based on the fact that it seems like normal people doing abnormal things, I’d guess your run of the mill possession, maybe demonic or ghostly. If it’s ghosts, there’ll probably be ectoplasm around. We also have a gadget for that.”
“Gotta love gadgets,” Dean says. “Cas, you got demon spidey sense or anything? Maybe get some weird tingles when evil is afoot?”
“I have always been able to sense the presence of evil and the perversions of God’s will. But now that I have-” Castiel stops. “I am uncertain as to my current capabilities.”
“Too bad,” Dean says. “A mystical bloodhound would be pretty handy to have around.”
For a second, Sam thinks that Castiel seems almost hurt by Dean’s comment, but then he blinks and Castiel’s back to his expressionless self.
* * * * *
The mall is indeed nautically themed, with blue and white stripes and abstract sculptures of boats everywhere. The theme is tastefully executed, with expensive stone flooring and warm lighting overhead. The mall itself is cross shaped, with a large circular fountain surrounded by blue scaffolding at the center of the cross.
Currently gathered around that fountain is a crowd of people, all murmuring in low, shocked voices and angling for a better view. Between the scaffolding and all the people, it’s impossible to make out what’s going on. Sam’s willing to bet it isn’t anything good.
“Mall cops everywhere,” Dean observes. “Doesn’t seem like the real cops have come yet, which should make our jobs easier. Cas, follow our lead.”
They make their way to the front of the crowd and Sam can finally make out what’s caused all the commotion: a well-dressed man dangling from the scaffolding above the fountain, suspended in midair by an intricate linking of wire clothes hangers. A hanger is wrapped around his neck as well, clearly the cause of death.
“Stay back, folks!” an officious mall cop yells into the crowd. He holds a hand up to the center of Sam’s chest. “Stay back. We’ve got a dead body here.”
“I can see that,” Sam says, taking out his FBI badge. “FBI. Agent Wayne. This is my associate, Agent Robin, and a consultant to the FBI, John Angel.”
The mall cop squints at the ID and then at Sam. “FBI? You guys investigate malls now?”
“You think the United States government wouldn’t be interested in a string of strange deaths?” Dean takes an aggressive step forward and the mall cop backs up. “Are you saying the government doesn’t care about its citizens enough to investigate a mall? A mall which happens to be a prime target for terrorist attacks?”
The mall cop breaks into a visible sweat. “Oh, no, that’s not what I was-I didn’t mean. I-”
“What’s your name, Officer?” Dean interrupts, taking out a pen and paper.
“J-Joe Hazelton,” the guard stutters.
“Officer Hazelton,” Sam cuts in before Dean can torture the poor man any further. “Can you tell us what happened here?”
“Oh yeah, um,” Joe glances back at the body, which is swaying from the scaffolding. “I found him about ten minutes ago. Nearly jumped out of my skin, too.” He coughs and clears his throat at Dean’s disapproving stare. “I mean, I called it in immediately. Obviously, no one’s come yet. Er, besides you guys.”
“Was he like this when you found him?” Sam asks.
“Oh yeah,” Joe says. “I was doing my rounds and decided to take a break-I mean, inspect the scaffolding-when I found him hanging like this. I’m no coroner, but I’m pretty sure he was dead when I got here.”
Castiel walks over to the edge of the fountain and peers up at the body. “This man died over a half hour ago.”
“Whoa,” Joe turns to Castiel excitedly. “Are you one of those forensics guys? Because I watch CSI like, every week, and think it is so cool that you can-” Dean raises an eyebrow and Joe stops.
“Do you have any idea who this might be?” Sam asks. “Customer, mall employee?”
“Oh, that’s Dan Vance,” Joe says. “Real nice guy, worked over at Threads from Thebes for 20 years. Quiet. Kind of kept to himself. Shame, though.”
“Did Mr. Vance seem depressed at all to you?” Sam asks. The scaffolding creaks under the weight of the body, and some of the hangers begin to sway more insistently. “Was he under a lot of stress recently?”
“No more stress than the rest of us in this economy,” Joe shrugs. “Never seemed depressed to me, but like I said, he kept to himself mostly.”
“He have any enemies?” Dean asks. “Anyone who might want to see him out of the way?”
“Enemies? Oh no,” Joe says. “No way, not Dan. Too quiet to make enemies, you know?”
“We heard there’ve been other deaths here recently,” Sam says. “You know anything about them?”
“Oh man, yeah,” Joe says. “I knew all the people who worked here who were involved. Um, Mary Silvers bashed that guy’s skull in over at Fixer Upper. Didn’t see that one coming-she seemed like such a nice girl. Pete Moss over at Wild for Chicken got strangled by the customer-to tell the truth, he was kind of a prick sometimes, but he didn’t deserve that. And Todd Foundry managed Flights of Fantasy before he had that heart attack.”
Sam scribbles down all the names as Dean asks, “And all these people-any of them have enemies?”
“Mary and Todd? Nah. Pete probably did, but I heard the customer who strangled him was from out of town-never even met Pete before.” Joe shrugs. “What does it matter? Everyone knows who did what and everyone responsible is going to prison. What more is there to know?”
“Just doing our job,” Sam says and glances over at Castiel, who is bent over by the fountain, running his fingers underneath the ledge. He straightens up and holds out his hand to Sam and Dean, covered in what is definitely ectoplasm. “You wouldn’t happen to know what everyone was doing before the attacks?”
“Dunno. But maybe if you ask around where they worked, someone will know,” Joe adds helpfully.
“Thanks, Officer Hazelton,” Sam says. “If you could keep this conversation confidential, we’d appreciate it. We’d prefer to keep quiet information about possible security points we’re investigating.”
Joe’s eyes go wide. “Absolutely! They’ll have to pry the information from my cold, dead lips first.”
“You have done your country a service today, citizen,” Dean says and Sam barely avoids rolling his eyes.
As they turn to go, the scaffolding gives one last, ominous creak before collapsing, causing the body and the wood boards above it to fall down into the fountain. Castiel, who is closest to the fountain, ducks and narrowly avoids getting hit by the cascading debris. However, the resultant wave of displaced water spills over the side of the fountain, soaking Castiel from the shoulders down.
“Whoa,” Dean says as Castiel stares down at his dripping wet clothes. “Guess you’re going to need a new outfit, huh?”
* * * * *
After stopping back at the motel for Castiel to quick change into some of Dean’s clothes (“Dude, that shirt looks way better on me,” Dean says), they begin to interview all the employees at Threads from Thebes, Wild for Chicken, Flights of Fantasy, and Fixer Upper. On one hand, the process goes fairly quickly because they can divide the work up by three instead of two. On the other hand, they come up with no useful information whatsoever.
“I got nothing,” Dean says at the end of the day when they meet up at the food court. “Zip. Zero. Nada.”
“I too, have nothing useful to report,” Castiel says as he sips from a giant plastic cup with the picture of a cartoon rooster on it.
“What is that?” Dean asks. “And how did you get it? You have a secret stash of cash we don’t know about?”
“It is a Free Range Wildberry Slushie,” Castiel says. “It was given to me by one of the employees over at Wild for Chicken.”
Dean shakes his head. “I knew I should have picked Wild for Chicken instead of Flights of Fantasy. All I got were a bunch of mouth-breathing nerds and a lecture on why the new Star Trek movie is a desecration of one of the best science fiction franchises of all time.”
“Why did you pick that store, then?” Sam asks.
“I thought it was a porno shop,” Dean says defensively. “With a name like Flights of Fantasy people are bound to get confused.”
Sam sighs. “I didn’t come up with anything helpful either. Turns out Mary was one of the nicest, sweetest girls ever and everyone was shocked when she picked up that hammer.”
“Now that we know it’s a ghost, maybe we can just look up all the people that died here and go from there,” Dean suggests.
“I don’t know, Dean,” Sam says doubtfully. “I’m not sure how many people have died at this mall over the years, but it could be a lot. Plus, for all we know it’s that first heart attack guy who came back to terrorize all the people he didn’t like at the mall.”
“There’s no pattern to the victims,” Dean says. “Is the ghost picking at random? What’s his MO?”
“Who cares?” Castiel says unexpectedly. Dean and Sam turn to look at Castiel, startled. “I am tired, Dean’s clothing does not fit properly, and I do not wish to speak to any more strangers today. We should go back to the motel.”
“Uh,” Sam says. “Don’t you want to figure out what’s going on here?”
“What are we going to learn by sitting in an empty mall?” Castiel says. “All the customers have fled. Most of the stores are closed. Everyone we have spoken to today knows nothing. What do we gain by staying here?”
“Cas has a point,” Dean says. “The mall’s gonna shut down in a few hours and it’s a ghost town-hah!--already. We’re probably better off heading back.”
“Okay,” Sam says. “You guys win. We’ll go back. Maybe we can try the mall again tomorrow. Hopefully, no one will die in the meantime.” As they all get up to go, Sam says quietly to Dean, “What’s up with him?”
Dean shrugs. “Beats me. I kind of like it though.”
* * * * *
Once they get back to the motel room, Castiel almost immediately wanders out somewhere. Dean flops onto the bed and flips on the TV while Sam loads up his laptop and begins to search. An hour later and Sam’s written down the names of all the people who have died at the mall site in the last hundred years along with addresses for family. It’s a decent sized list.
“Whoa,” Dean says as he scans the forty-odd names. “Who knew malls could be so dangerous to your continued health and well-being?”
“Lots of drowning and construction accidents,” Sam says. “Especially when the mall was first being built. Used to be a dock there, apparently.”
“Drowning. There are things that hurt worse, but drowning’s pretty bad.” Dean smiles a little grimly at Sam’s confused look. “Just take my word for it.”
Sam glances away. There’s that bubble of guilt rising up again; and here he’d naively thought he could go a whole day without it. “If we don’t stop Lucifer, what do you think’s going to happen? Do you think it’s going to be Hell on earth too?”
“Probably,” Dean says, rooting through his bag for a minute before emerging triumphant with two Twinkies. “Cas told me if Lucifer rises, Hell rises with him.”
“Do you trust him, Dean?” Sam says. “Honestly? After all the shit the angels have pulled on us?”
Dean unwraps a Twinkie and takes a careful bite. “As much as I trust anybody right now, Sam, which is not a whole lot. Well, maybe Bobby. Bobby hasn’t let me down yet.”
The words sting, but Sam knows he deserves worse. “I know, Dean, it’s just. I know what it’s like to feel like someone’s there for you, that they care about you and you owe them for that.” Sam closes his eyes and feels the bitter memory of Ruby rise up like bile in his throat. “It can blind you to things when you care about someone.”
“What are you trying to say, Sam?” Dean says, swallowing his last bite of Twinkie. “Spit it out.”
“Where is Castiel right now? Do you know? He was in such a hurry to get out of that mall and as soon as we get back here he takes off with no clue as to where he’s going?” Sam says.
“Yeah, well, at least he’s not sneaking around and lying about it,” Dean says.
“I deserve that, I know,” Sam says. “But Castiel--do we even know which side he’s playing for these days?”
“You trying to say Cas has joined Team Lucifer?” Dean huffs out a laugh. “Listen, I know this Ruby stuff is tearing you up but Cas is not Ruby and-”
“It’s not about Ruby!” Sam almost yells and Dean jumps a little in surprise. “I mean,” Sam forces his tone back to a reasonable level, “all I mean is that do we really know what happens to an angel after they disobey orders? Do they get demoted in the angel hierarchy, do they fall and become human, or do they fall and become something worse?”
“I don’t know, Sam!” Dean says angrily. “What do you want me to say? It’s not like Cas and I have long heart to hearts while we get braid each other’s hair.”
“It’s the fact that he’s hiding things that worries me, Dean,” Sam gets up and starts pacing. “Castiel was gone for a month after Lucifer rose and he hasn’t said a thing about what he spent that time doing.”
“You don’t think Cas is what he says he is?” Dean says. The anger seems to be fading as Dean toys with the remaining unopened Twinkie in his lap. “You think he’s playing me for a chump?”
“Lucifer was first among angels once upon a time, wasn’t he?” Sam says. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t work with Castiel anymore, I’m saying maybe you should ask him about what’s going on. Figure out where he stands.”
“Why don’t you ask him yourself if you’re so goddamn curious?” Dean says, irritably tossing the Twinkie at Sam’s head. “He has a cell now.”
Sam catches the Twinkie after it bounces off his forehead. “I would, but I’m pretty sure he never was and still isn’t my biggest fan, Dean. The only reason he puts up with me is because he’s your guardian angel or whatever.”
“First of all, Cas is not my guardian angel because guardian angels and people guarded by them are lame and wussy,” Dean says. “Second of all, weren’t you just going on and on about Cas going to the dark side?”
Sam sighs. “Dark side or light side, you’re the only person he has a connection with, Dean. Even if I got him bombed out of his head I’m still pretty sure he wouldn’t open up to me about his secret angel pain.”
“Secret angel pain?” Dean repeats. “What, like God didn’t tell Cas he loved him enough growing up?” Dean sighs when Sam gives him a look. “Fine, yes, Jesus. I’ll talk to him, okay. Happy now?”
* * * * *
Sam wakes up to the sound of people arguing outside his door, something which happens all too often at the seedy motels he and Dean tend to frequent. He’s about to roll over and shove his pillow down over his ears when he realizes that the voices belong to Dean and Castiel.
“-I know that right now you think you meant what you said,” Dean says, and his words are only slightly muffled by the door. “But I have a lot more experience than you when it comes to doing and saying dumb shit when you’re drunk-”
“Dean,” Castiel says, and he does sound drunk, but nowhere near as intoxicated as the other night. “I am not that drunk.”
“You must be,” Dean says. “Because you’re saying all kinds of shit that doesn’t make sense.”
“Dean-”
“Forget it, Cas,” Dean says and he sounds angry. “Let’s sleep this off and we’ll deal with it in the morning.”
There a pause and Castiel says, “I can stay in the car if you-”
“No, forget the car,” Dean interrupts. “The car sucks. I mean, for sleeping in. The car itself is awesome. Uh.” Dean seems to lose this train of thought. “The point is, we have a room and we’re going to use it.”
The key turns in the lock, and Sam hastily shuts his eyes and lets out a loud snore when Dean steps inside.
“Come on, Cas,” Dean whispers wearily. “This will all blow over in the morning.”
* * * * *
Sam wakes up early-around 9AM-while Dean and Castiel are still out for the count. Dean’s fully dressed, lying on his side on top of the covers, facing the center of the bed. Castiel’s lying in the mirror image of Dean’s body, also fully dressed in Dean’s clothes from yesterday’s incident. They’re sharing a pillow, faces so close they’re practically kissing.
Sam shakes his head. He doesn’t want to touch that thought with a ten foot pole.
He takes the car keys from the table and hops into the Impala. He’d noticed a Wild for Chicken down the road from the motel earlier, and he stops there to pick up breakfast for himself and Dean. By the time he gets back to the room, Dean’s awake and Castiel is gone.
“Thanks,” Dean says when Sam wordlessly hands him the coffee. “Wild for Chicken, huh? Guess they’re everywhere in Jersey.”
“Guess so,” Sam says. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Dean flashes Sam a weak smile. “No hangover today, seems like.”
“Where’s Castiel?” Sam asks.
“Took a walk,” is Dean’s short reply.
“He okay?”
“Everything’s fine, Sam, so stop asking,” Dean says testily. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us, which means we should probably get down to business.”
Sam’s about to ask what crawled up Dean’s ass and died when the door opens and Castiel walks in. Nothing is said, but the tension rockets up from merely ‘uncomfortable’ to ‘totally unbearable’. Sam glances back and forth between Dean and Castiel, who are studiously refusing to look in each other’s direction. “Ooookay,” Sam says. “Let’s get to work then.”
“Yes.” Castiel says. He doesn’t sound hungover, but he doesn’t seem happy either.
“Sam came up with a list of 45 names yesterday,” Dean says. “We might be able to get through 10 or 15 today, but at this rate it’ll take a few days.”
“A few days?” Castiel says as Sam passes him the list. “The ghost will surely strike again within that time.”
“Yeah, well,” Dean says unhappily. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll be one of the first 10.”
“We should divide up the names,” Castiel says as he examines the list. “If we all do a third, we should be able to finish within one or two days.”
“Great idea, except for one problem,” Dean says. “We have one car and three of us. And you got your wings clipped, so you can’t make with the blinky blinky, right?”
“The public transportation in this town is surprisingly excellent,” Castiel replies coolly. “There is something known as a bus pass which allows you unlimited passage for a day.”
Dean frowns. “How do you know what a bus pass is?”
Castiel lifts his chin in the air. “The bus operators have been most obliging in instructing me on how the bus system works.”
“Why would you need to-” Dean starts but Sam cuts him off, more concerned at the moment about what Castiel’s suggesting than what he does in his free time.
“Wait, you want us to take the bus?”
“Us?” Dean says, raising an eyebrow at Sam. “There is no ‘us’ here. My wheels, my ride. In this equation there’s you, and then there’s Cas.”
“The bus is acceptable to me,” Castiel says and he meets Sam’s eyes with something in them that’s suspiciously close to a challenge. “Unless your sensibilities are too refined for a bus?”
Sam sputters for a minute, trying to find a way out. But with Dean staring at him with that expression that says, “Stop being such a prissy little girl,” and Castiel openly challenging him, there is none. “I can take the bus,” Sam says, eventually. “I-I love the bus.”
“Excellent,” Castiel says, and damn if the bastard doesn’t seem smug.
“Great,” Dean says. “Then it’s settled. We split up and call if we find anything.”
“Awesome,” Sam says with forced enthusiasm. “Yay, bus.”
* * * * *
The day passes relatively quickly, and relatively uneventfully. Dean, Sam, and Castiel split up with lists of about 15 names each. Dean and Castiel leave almost immediately, while Sam opts to start looking up phone numbers and calling for information in order to make the fewest bus trips possible.
Half the names on Sam’s lists have no surviving family, which makes them a no-go on the investigative front; all he can do is hope none of them are the mall ghost. A third of the names were cremated, and one guy was actually interred in a mausoleum that ended up burning to the ground in a freak brushfire. That leaves two possible leads on Sam’s list: Annabelle Lee and Dennis Semele. With great reluctance, Sam buys himself a pass and boards one of the crowded buses.
After an unproductive half hour interviewing Annabelle Lee’s great great granddaughter, only to find out at the end of it that Annabelle’s bones were actually shipped to China to be buried with her family, Sam hops another bus and heads over to Dennis Semele’s mother’s house.
Denise Semele is a sweet old lady with bluish grey hair, dark glasses, and a large and very friendly seeing-eye dog. “Now who did you say you were again?” She asks when she comes to the door.
“Sam Mulder,” he says, feeling briefly guilty about lying to a little old blind lady. “We spoke on the phone earlier? I’m a reporter doing a story on the Weehawking High School class of ’85?”
“Oh of course, of course,” Denise says, opening the door to let Sam in. “Please come in. Please have a seat.”
Sam sits down on the slightly lumpy old couch in the middle of her living room and waits for her to sit. “I’m sorry for your loss, Ms. Semele.”
She smiles sadly. “Yes, Dennis was a wonderful boy. Such potential.”
“I read something about the Waterfront Mall,” Sam says. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?”
“It’s been such a long time since anyone’s asked about my Dennis,” Denise says wistfully. “It was a freak accident over in the basement of the Waterfront Mall. Boiler defect-it exploded and the shrapnel blew holes in the plumbing while he was down there. Drowned, the police said. A terrible way to die. I can only hope he was knocked unconscious before it happened.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Semele,” Sam says. “But why was Dennis down there in the first place? Was he working at the mall?”
“Oh no,” Denise says. “Dennis was a plumber. It wasn’t his true calling, not by a long shot. But when I got sick his senior year of high school, he--well, he gave up all his aspirations for college to stay and take care of me.” She puts a trembling hand to her glasses. “He took care of me too well, I’m afraid. A parent should never have to outlive their child.”
“He sounds like he was a good man,” Sam says gently. “You must miss him.”
“Every day of every year that goes by,” Denise says.
“Is there a gravesite I might visit?” Sam asks. “I would like to pay my respects.”
“I would have liked a gravesite, but it was his wish that he be cremated. ‘I don’t want you crying over me everyday, Mom’ was what he said to me.” She smiles sadly. “How could have he have known?”
“I see,” Sam says, heart sinking a little. “So there’s nowhere I could go to remember him, or pay my respects?”
“Well,” she hesitates. “I know this is going to sound a little strange, but-but I suppose you could go down to the mall basement, where he died. That’s what I did, about a year after it happened. One of the mall security guards smuggled me in, and I got to stand there, where my little boy last stood.” She scratches her golden retriever behind the ears absently. “I know it sounds macabre, but-”
“Not at all,” Sam says. “You wouldn’t happen to have left a small memorial to him there, would you? A lock of hair, some old clothing?”
“Why, how did you know?” Denise seems startled. “I pinned a yearbook photo of him with a pouch that held an old baby tooth of his to a pipe near the boiler room. It’s hidden, of course.”
“Thank you, Ms. Semele,” Sam says as he pulls out his cell phone to call Dean. “That’s all I needed to know.”
* * * * *
“Denny Smelly, huh?” Dean says as they make their way through the dark and labyrinthine basement of the mall. It’s humid and empty but, Sam supposes, relatively clean as far as haunted basements go. “Man, that kid must have had the crap kicked out of him on the playground.”
“Dennis Semele,” Sam corrects, and then, “yeah, probably.”
“So what’s his damage?” Dean asks. “Daddy issues? Uncontrollable anger? Seething resentment?”
“No, his father died when he was a kid and his mom raised him on her own,” Sam says. “And from what I could tell, he was definitely gunning for the Son of the Year award-gave up college and all his ambitions to stay home and take care of her when she got sick. Became a plumber to pay off the mortgage on her house.”
Dean sighs as he scans the nearest pipe with his flashlight. “You couldn’t have asked her which pipe she stuck his baby tooth to? There are a billion pipes down here.”
“She’s a blind old woman, Dean,” Sam says. “I felt bad enough lying to her about writing a story about her dead son. What was I supposed to do-interrogate her about which room in the basement she visited 13 years ago?”
“Yeah, well,” Dean says. “Just saying, this could be easier.”
“Speaking of helpful information to have,” Sam says. “Where’s Castiel?”
“He said he’d meet us down here,” Dean says, carefully examining a red pipe in front of him. “He said he was in the middle of an ice cream sundae.”
“Dean,” Sam stops. “Are you serious? Or is this one of your not hilarious jokes?”
“Serious as a heart attack, Sam.”
“Since when does Castiel eat?” Sam asks.
“Since people started giving him all this free food, apparently.” Dean shrugs. “Does it matter?”
“I don’t know, Dean,” Sam says. “Seems kind of non-angelic to me.”
“Whatever, Sam,” Dean gives up on the pipe and starts walking again. “Can we talk about this later? We’re down in a creepyass basement with a ghost and no guns, so I’m feeling a little exposed here. Tell me why we couldn’t bring the guns again?”
“Because firing projectiles in rooms containing massive amounts of high pressure water piping is a fantastic way to end up ghosts ourselves?” Sam says.
“Stupid pipes,” Dean mutters and scans the room. “Are we even near the boiler room? I have no freaking clue where we are.”
Sam studies the not very awesome blurry map he’d gotten from the maintenance guy. “According to the map, we should be close. Maybe one or two rooms more?”
“You think maybe we’ll get lucky and-aw, crap,” Dean stops and points over Sam’s right shoulder. “Speak of the Dennis.”
Sam immediately whirls around, tire iron at the ready, and sure enough, a ghost stands about fifty feet away at the other end of the room. Sam recognizes the ghost from the pictures at Denise Semele’s house: slim figure, and a handsome, androgynous face with wavy brown hair to his shoulders. “More guests?” Dennis says, with a voice that’s soothing and yet vaguely electric at the same time.
“Sure,” Dean says as he brings up his tire iron and advances slowly. “Not much of a party, but hey, I’m here to bring the fun.”
“Everyone has fun at my parties,” Dennis says, flickering in that creepy way that ghosts do. “It’s because I set them free. I help them achieve their heart’s desire.”
“Like killing innocent people?” Sam says. “Was that their heart’s desire?”
Dennis chuckles, “You’ve never wanted to reach across the counter and strangle a fast food employee?” He turns to Dean. “Or bludgeon an impossible customer to death?”
“I can’t say I haven’t thought about it,” Dean concedes. “But that’s a whole different state away from doing it.”
“I liberate people from the restraints that hold them back from what they really want,” Dennis says. “I allow them to act without fear, shame, or doubt. Without the chains of obligations.”
“Is that why you’re still here?” Sam asks, not without compassion. “Because in life you couldn’t be free? Couldn’t leave your mother behind?”
A shadow crosses Dennis’s face and for a second he seems confused. “My mother. I remember her, and yet I-” Dennis flickers again and Sam senses the presence of something darker, corrupting and powerful. Then Dennis’s eyes refocus with new determination, new menace. “The past is irrelevant. All that matters now is what I can do now and in the future.”
“Hang around a mall basement?” Dean says mockingly. “Oh yeah, real scary. You know that if enough weird crap keeps happening in the mall, they’ll eventually have to shut it down. No more people means no more party fun times for you.”
“I may be limited for now, but I’ve been promised much more than this,” Dennis says. “Much more.”
“Promised?” Sam says, feeling his mouth go dry. “By who?”
Dennis smiles. “Who do you think?”
“You’re full of crap,” Dean says, and he’s almost within attack range of Dennis now. “Why would the Devil make deals with some nobody ghost like you?”
“You think you can stop me, but you can’t,” Dennis says, ignoring the taunts. Dennis holds out his hand catch a droplet of water leaking from a nearby pipe. “Soon I’ll be everywhere.”
Dean swings the tire iron and Dennis disappears with a last chuckle. “Damnit,” Dean says. “That’s exactly what we need: Lucifer making deals too.”
“He’s in the water,” Sam says, swinging his flashlight around to check for Dennis reappearing. “That’s how he possesses his victims. They must have used the water fountains or something.”
“Note to self: never drink the water,” Dean says. “And why Dennis? Some low level nothing ghost is suddenly worth granting special powers?”
“Maybe Lucifer saw the potential. A ghost that causes people to lose all their inhibitions with one sip of water?” Sam says. “Seems like a great way to sow some seeds of chaos on a large scale. Especially if it can spread through the oceans, or the rain…” Sam falls silent, contemplating the full extent of the possibilities.
“If we could bottle Dennis water minus the murderous tendencies, we could make a killing. It’d be bigger than booze,” Dean says. “I’ve got a slogan and everything: D-Water, it’ll set you free!”
“Catchy,” Sam remarks. “But we should start moving before Dennis gives an encore performance.”
Sam and Dean start moving towards the boiler room again and when they reach the next room, Dean says, “Could really use a third set of eyes right about now."
“I am here, Dean,” Castiel says from behind them, and both Dean and Sam turn around. It’s Castiel, but he’s wearing a new outfit-not his usual trenchcoat uniform, and not Dean’s borrowed clothes from before. This outfit is comprised of a bright blue silk button down shirt (with way too many buttons unbuttoned at the top in Sam’s opinion) and a pair of disturbingly tight black leather pants. Everything clings in a decidedly non-angelic way.
“Cas?” Dean chokes out. “What are you wearing?”
“You were right, Dean,” Castiel says, and his blue eyes nearly glow in the dark. “That shirt did look better on you. That’s why I thought I’d get something new, something that looked better on me.”
“I see that,” Dean says and then shakes himself. “Uh, now that you’re here, we can focus on burning that stupid tooth and then get the hell out of here, pronto.”
“Oh, Dean,” Castiel says, and the way the word ‘Dean’ rolls off his tongue is lascivious, sexual in a way Sam never knew Castiel was capable of. “What’s the rush?”
Castiel’s almost reached Dean by now and Sam doesn’t know whether he should continue walking towards the boiler room or pause to let Dean and Castiel catch up with him. Sam’s also not entirely sure what’s going on with Castiel, but he’s pretty sure he doesn’t like it. “Castiel, are you okay?”
“Never better,” Castiel says, not taking his eyes off Dean’s for a second. Dean, for his part, has an expression vaguely reminiscent of a deer in the headlights. “I’ve been thinking about what we talked about last night, Dean, and I’ve come to some conclusions.”
“Uh,” Dean says intelligently.
“You were right not to believe me.” Castiel walks right up into Dean’s personal space, trapping him up against the pipes behind him. “But I came to show you I meant it.” Castiel grabs Dean’s face in his hand and plants a kiss squarely on his lips. Sam’s jaw drops and Dean lets out a shocked “Mmmph!” under Castiel’s lips. After a few seconds, Castiel draws back. “Now do you believe me?”
“Wow, I did not see that one coming,” a voice says behind Castiel and Dean, and of course it’s Dennis, showing up at the worst possible time. He claps, once, twice. “That is some good drama, people. Well played. Bravo.”
“What the hell did you do to Cas?” Dean seems to recover his faculties at the sight of the ghost and shoves Castiel behind him. “What the hell is going on?”
“I gave him the key to unlocking his heart’s desire,” Dennis says. “Took a little longer than usual to get him to loosen up-I’ve never dealt with an angel possessing a human before. Too many cooks in the kitchen, I guess.”
“Aw, Jimmy,” Dean says, and Sam notices he’s shaking a little. “Three is definitely not more fun when they’re running around in your head.”
“You know, I was a little nervous at first,” Dennis says conversationally. “I thought, what if all an angel truly desires is something really lame? Something like, seeing the face of God, or to learning to play the harp, or wearing white after Labor Day.” Dennis shakes his head and grins, all teeth, at Castiel. “But not you, my favorite winged stud muffin. You want something a hell of a lot more fun than that.”
“I will cast you out,” Castiel says, and then starts mumbling something low in Latin.
Dennis flickers and then waves a lazy hand in Castiel’s direction. “Now now, none of that.” Castiel flies 20 feet into the wall as if yanked by a string, and crumples to the ground.
“You son of a-” Dean charges at Dennis with his tire iron, who chortles merrily before disappearing and appearing off to the side. Dean yells, “Run, Sam! I’ll take care of Dennis!”
Sam barely nods before taking off at full speed to the next room. He scans the area, notes the door leading into the boiler room and then another door near it labeled ‘Utility Closet’. He sprints to the Utility Closet, wrenches it open, and searches with his flashlight for pipes that would be low enough for Denise Semele to reach behind. After a few seconds he locates a big black pipe running horizontally across the far wall, and shoves his fingers behind it until he feels the edge of something attached to the back.
Sam pulls out the yellowed photograph of Dennis Semele and a tiny pouch with a tooth in it. He takes out a lighter, holding the flame to the bottom of both the photo and the pouch. They both glow a bright hot purple before turning to ash.
* * * * *
“Well that was fun,” Sam says, once they’re all back at the motel. Sam leans against the wall while Dean sits in a chair, cleaning a shallow cut on his arm. Castiel’s lying on Dean’s bed, still unconscious. “Although the wacky angel hijinks were new.”
“Yeah. Yeah they were,” Dean says as he applies some Neosporin to his arm and winces. “It’s a good thing we got to Dennis when we did--that was definitely some juiced up ghost mojo he was working on. Lucifer ain’t kidding around if ghosts can affect angels now.”
“What I don’t get is why everybody who worked at the mall didn’t go crazy,” Sam says. “Castiel didn’t drink the water--he only absorbed it through the skin. And if skin contact’s all you need, shouldn’t everyone who washed their hands at the mall have been affected?”
“Means either no one washes their hands at the mall--including our food servers-in which case, that’s disgusting and I should go vomit now,” Dean says, “or washing your hands isn’t enough. Cas was soaked in the D-Water from head to toe, so maybe that’s the difference?”
“Guess it must be,” Sam says. “Is he going to be okay?” Sam gestures at Castiel, who seems oddly vulnerable like this, lying on his back with hands at his sides.
“Yeah, he’ll be fine.” Dean glances over at Castiel's prone body. “We should have just gotten a third bed for this room, though. This guy keeps passing out everywhere.”
“You want to tell me what happened back there?” Sam asks quietly.
“Not really,” Dean says. He puts a bandage over his cut.
“Okay, then, you want to tell me what happened last night?”
“Last night?” Dean repeats. “What happened last night?”
“Don’t play dumb, Dean,” Sam says. “I heard you two fighting on the other side of the door last night. You’re not exactly king of the library voice when you’re drunk.”
Dean stiffens. “We went boozing, everything was fine, and then Castiel said some things. But he was drunk and, as it turns out, under the influence of D-Water too.” Dean forces a laugh. “I’m telling you, I would buy that stuff in a heartbeat.”
“The ghost said-”
“Yeah, I know what the ghost said.” Dean stares down at the ground. “But I don’t think he knew what he was talking about.”
“Yeah?” Sam says. “What was he talking about?”
Dean stands, gathers up the trash on the table and tosses it out in the garbage. “Cas wasn’t demoted, he was full on shunned. Now he’s being hunted by the angels. That’s why he disappeared for a month.” Dean walks to the side of the bed and stares down at Castiel with an unreadable expression. “He said he tried to stay away because he didn’t want me to get mixed up in his crap.”
“He was trying to protect you,” Sam says. It could be lies-Dennis never said that his influence forced people to speak the truth, only that he helped them get what they wanted-but for whatever reason, Sam believes it’s the truth.
Dean smiles, faintly. “Yeah. Angels and their stupid ideas.”
“So why’d he come back?” Sam asks. “If it was safer away, why’s he now following us around?”
“I don’t-” Dean stops and fakes a cough, not very convincingly. “Look, can you blame the guy? You know how hard it is being alone on the road.”
Sam narrows his eyes at Dean but decides to drop it when no further explanation seems to be forthcoming. “Was that it?” Sam says, because there are still some outstanding unanswered questions, prime among them being the big wet one Castiel planted on Dean. “Was there more?”
Dean reaches down and straightens out Castiel’s collar, smoothes down the shoulders of his shirt. The tenderness of the action shocks Sam, and he wonders if this is something that’s been going on this whole time, something he would have noticed before if he hadn’t been so caught up in Ruby and Lucifer and everything else. “He told me he was in love.”
Dean doesn’t look up and Sam doesn’t expect him to. “Wow,” Sam says, and he doesn’t know if he can believe it. Castiel, in love? In love with Dean? Ruby had never said anything like that, and maybe Castiel never would have either if he hadn’t been under the influence of D-water, but. As twistedly close as Ruby and Sam had gotten towards the end, love had never been on the plate. It hadn’t even been on the menu. “That’s. This is. This is some heavy duty stuff.”
“No kidding,” Dean says. He steps away from the bed and Sam can read the conflict in his body language, the desire to reach out and pull away at the same time. “I thought he was full of it, but, uh. Guess not.”
“Are you okay?” Sam says because he doesn’t know what else to say. Is this something Dean is not okay with, or is it something he might actively want? Sam doesn’t know whether to offer congratulations or condolences.
“Beats the hell out of me,” Dean says, sounding tired. “It’s a lot to wrap my head around, you know? I’m still dealing with the part where angels have feelings at all.”
“Dean,” Sam says uncomfortably. He’s not sure whether he believes Castiel’s whole spiel, whether he trusts Castiel not to throw them all to the wolves or the angels. But Sam does remember how hard Dean tried-with admittedly limited success-to get along with Ruby, on and off over the years. And he thinks, maybe, he might owe it to Dean to try to understand in return, regardless of what he decides. “You know you’ll always be, uh. I mean, you know I don’t care if-”
“What are you, an after school special?” Dean interrupts. But he seems to un-tense, a little. “Don’t ruin this by acting like a 12-year-old girl, Sam.”
Sam puts his hands in the air. “Okay, after school special officially concluded.”
Dean finally looks up and smiles at Sam, a real one, and Sam feels a part of him he didn’t even realize was clenched unclench. At that moment though, Castiel shifts on the bed and his eyelids flutter. Dean’s by his side in a heartbeat, and Sam picks his jacket up off the bed. “I think I’m going to head to the library for a little bit, catch a movie, maybe get something to eat,” Sam says. “You know, check out the sights of south central New Jersey. I probably won’t be back till midnight, at the earliest.”
Dean nods, but Sam can tell he’s barely listening. Castiel’s coming to and Dean’s bent down and got a hand on his shoulder, murmuring something Sam can’t quite make out.
Sam slips away quietly to Impala. He puts the key in the ignition but doesn’t turn it. As all the new information swirls around like a whirlpool in his mind (Dean! Castiel! In love, and on the run! Lucifer’s making deals! D-Water!), one thought surfaces over and over again.
He misses Ruby.
Fin.