FIC: Pulling Out The Nails, Chapter 3: Negotiations [4/20]
Back to 2. Seneca State Forest, West Virginia, 2009, or go to the Masterpost.
The truth was, they had all the information they could really ask for. It was just bad news, all of it.
He left the demon research to Sam and poured over Henriksen's report one more time, trying to read between the lines, see from every angle, but it was just as bleak as the last dozen times he'd read it, and just as bleak as the last dozen reports he'd read before that. While the Resistance had dwindled over the last three years, the magicians had only gained in power. They were inclined toward Empire-building and gaining ground fast; every colony the British gave up was more territory for America to gluttonously consume. One for another, Dean thought wearily. The magician-controlled Parliament had barely fallen thirty years ago, and a new government infested with sorcerers was already well-rooted-on this side of the Atlantic this time.
Weeds, John had always muttered, and on this issue, Dean heartily agreed with him.
"Hah!" Sam announced, punctuating the silence. Dean's chin jerked up. "Oh, it's, ah-I think I've got a name. Castiel. It's in this endnote."
"God," Dean muttered, scrubbing a hand over his burning eyes. It was nearing daybreak, and he hadn't slept. "They all have such weird fucking names."
"Castiel of Babylon," Sam read, "a fourteenth-level djinni, has been most frequently summoned by American magicians in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Since the 1980s, when he spent two years in the service of Jimmy Novak, he has been known to take on the guise of the late magician. Explains that flasher coat," he commented. Dean snickered. "Novak was well-known and criticized for his controversial stance on spirit-magician relations. His devout interest in Ptolemy's Aprocrypha earned him enormous scorn from his peers. That sounds..."
"Interesting," Dean agreed, standing. It had been a long time since he'd touched the Apocrypha; it was required reading among magicians, but even so, no one took it seriously. "I'm gonna have another crack at him."
Sam looked up at him blearily. "We've got nothing to offer him, Dean."
"Yeah, well. Maybe he's feeling more subversive after a few hours in that net."
The truth was, Dean doubted it, but he couldn't stand to look one more time at the report, the one that hinted in no uncertain terms that they were all doomed, and that if this spirit failed, more would come. Dean and his Resistance were as good as dead, and he and his brother were only the beginning. For fuck's sake-there was a child among them, and the magicians would kill her, too.
He found Castiel in the same position he'd been left in: cross-legged, utterly still, watching the door. His eyes met Dean's immediately. On the seventh plane, his masked faces stirred, lethargic but watchful. The ping of recognition went off again, raising hair on the back of Dean's neck.
"Found anything?" the spirit asked politely.
"Castiel of Babylon," Dean said, his voice half a groan as he seated himself a few feet in front of the cage. "Sam found a footnote. Wasn't particularly enlightening."
"You know my true name. We're now on more equal footing."
"You can still eat me," Dean pointed out.
The corner of Castiel's mouth crooked up in the tiniest of smiles-not an absent curl, but an expression that warmed his blue eyes. "I can," he allowed. "Not from here, however."
They sat quietly for a few moments. Dean studied Castiel's true form, which was watching him and his every twitch with mild interest. On the seventh plane, Castiel was just a bundled manifestation of visions: enormous, shadowy wings, folded up and rustling occasionally in discomfort; masked faces, emerging from the feline body of the spirit, which conveyed no real emotion at all, but just stared at Dean impassively through the eyes of a black panther, a beady-eyed bluebird, and a structure made all of bone, a face that Dean didn't at all recognize as animal, mineral, or vegetable; legs that ended in paws and sharp claws, which were gently at work scraping the platform inside the cage. On the first plane-the human plane-Dean could see little curls of wood rising up from the makeshift scratching post.
Dean, to his consternation, felt like he was being scanned for signs of superior intelligence. The gaze of the masks-and those blue eyes-was direct and unblinking. The wings were all that moved involuntarily, it seemed, rustling occasionally as the spirit shifted, probably out of discomfort.
He remembered those wings, but he had to swim back through the fog of memory and disjointed childhood to place them. He'd last seen them lofted through smoke and flames.
"Ever do a job in Lawrence?" he asked, his tone too casual for the heart that stuttered suddenly in his throat.
Every one of Castiel's faces flinched, as though the memory pained him. He tipped his head down, an acknowledgment, and the masks went on watching Dean.
"Dad always wondered what magician bothered to send a demon to save our asses," Dean fished. "Never could track the guy down."
"He died," Castiel said shortly. "Later that night."
The spirit didn't seem inclined to say more on the subject; if Dean didn't know better, he would say it regretted the death of its former master.
"Well," Dean said awkwardly. "Thanks. I guess."
Castiel's eyes narrowed. "Do not feel indebted to me," he snapped; he'd gone from still to feral in a matter of seconds. He bristled with violent energy. "My master was your guardian angel. I was following orders."
Dean raised his eyebrows, doing his best to ignore the display. "That's good. I hate being indebted to demons."
The silence that followed was arctic compared to the quiet they'd sat in before. Well, Dean thought bracingly. Good talk. He got to his feet, made a mental note to get a chair for their next exchange, and turned to go.
"Dean."
The spirit's voice was tired now. When Dean looked back, its essence seemed weighed down, forlorn and defeated.
"You were right," it said, blue eyes unblinking as it regarded him. "Your brother's plan is impossible to execute. You will find no allies among spirits."
"I know," Dean muttered. He let the door slam pointedly behind him.
*
The sharp pain in his essence had subsided to a dull, constant ache when Dean next visited. Castiel had lost track of time, though he thought he remembered the sun rising and setting a few times since Dean's last appearance. He didn't have enough power left to maintain the form of a man; shortly after Dean's last departure, he'd transformed down to a small black housecat and curled up as far from the silver as possible. The constant throb of pain allowed him to drift unthinking as time passed, focusing only on the steady thud of his essence protesting its confinement.
This job was a death sentence, he thought bitterly as a creak in the floorboards roused him from his stupor. Azazel must finally be done with me.
"Not looking so hot," Dean's voice remarked casually, a good six feet above him. Castiel didn't make the effort to stir. "Don't think you've got two weeks left in you, Cas."
A chair scraped the floorboards. Dean settled into it with a heavy sigh. Castiel, very pointedly, curled tighter into his temporary fur.
"I could help you out, you know," he continued. His voice was so smug that Castiel felt compelled to hit him. Or maybe set his feet on fire. All the djinni could do from within his prison, however, was try to block him out by nuzzling his ears deeper into his fur. He could dream. Dean would look fantastic with a black eye. His indifference toward the man was definitely wearing thin as his imprisonment went on.
"I doubt Azazel classified the kind of information we actually need," Dean continued.
Castiel thought again of the manila folder on Dean's desk. No, the Resistance obviously had an informant for that kind of thing. An informant whose job it was to inform them of how poorly things were going, judging by Dean's myriad of depressed facial expressions. Castiel thought of reminding Dean of this, but chose to stay silent.
"We're more interested in spirits themselves," Dean went on, unfazed by Castiel's continuing quiet. "We've both got the short end of the stick here, Cas. Just tryin' to even the playing field."
His voice was nothing like it had been that night. It was a peculiar thing to remember, but Castiel had precious little that he was proud of doing when it came to humanity. Dean and his family were a bright spot against his blood-bathed career. Plucking the toddler from the flames along with his infant brother and his reluctant father-it was a memory colored by what came after, but still worth remembering. Dean's eyes had been wide as they stared at his wings. Are you an angel? he had asked in tones of awe, reaching for one of Castiel's masked faces as they made their escape from Lilith and the burning house.
Another demon, John had croaked, stinking of loss, sent by another damn magician, don't touch it, Dean-
"Castiel," Dean said, and the djinni roused himself from the memory. Had he been the gambling kind, he would have bet that Dean had lost any hint of that childlike wonder not long after his mother burned.
Resigned, Castiel lifted his head. Dean smiled encouragingly; the vague flicker of concern that had touched his features fled as soon as it arrived.
"Just tell me," Dean coaxed, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. "Let me help you out, man."
There was something uncomfortably predatory in Dean's eyes, nothing left of the boy Castiel had carried from the flames twenty-six years ago. Nothing left, even, of the exhausted man from a few days before. Someone else had taken his place. It nauseated Castiel, deep down in his essence, as though he'd swallowed inorganic matter.
"Have you decided on an interrogation technique?" Castiel asked, dropping his head back to his paws. He could see Dean's shoelaces, close to the net that held Castiel prisoner, and that was all, really, that he wanted to see of the man.
"It doesn't have to come to that," Dean said. Castiel could hear a placating smile, poisoning the smoke-stained voice.
"You remind me of someone," Castiel commented.
A pause. "Someone?" he ventured finally. "Or something?"
"Something, I think," Castiel said idly. This probably wasn't wise, but the nostalgic fool in him wanted to crack open Dean's current façade and make the man look at it very, very closely. "He was human, but it was only a distinction of matter. A sadistic, mercurial man. Very proficient at getting what he wanted."
Dean's minute, flowing movements-the slow adjustment of his hands, the fluid roaming of his gaze-suddenly ceased. From the floor, Castiel saw the leg of his jeans twitch, as though the muscles beneath had suddenly stiffened.
"A magician," Castiel continued, perfectly neutral.
"That so." The honeyed persuasion had gone from Dean's voice; his tone was cold and clipped, lacking inflection.
"You don't know him, by any chance? I think his surname was Alastair. He had a brutal reputation. The kind of magician your Resistance would happily murder. I would, too, given half a chance."
Dean didn't answer.
"I hope he isn't still operating," Castiel went on. "The way he treated spirits was bad enough, but his apprentices-"
"You have a death wish," Dean said roughly, "if you thinking talking about that fucker is a good idea."
"I have had a death wish for a long time," Castiel snorted, turning his head into his paws, where he could no longer see Dean's feet. "By all means, go ahead."
Ten seconds later, the door slammed.
Alone with his dwindling livelihood, Castiel drifted.
*
It wasn't the first time Dean and Jo had had a shouting match, and it wouldn't be the last.
"When has this ever worked for you, Dean?" she demanded as he paced the floorboards of her cabin, burning with excess energy, the memory of Alastair curling beneath his skin.
"That's not the point," he snapped back. "I am not the point. I hate his methods, but they work. The point is to get him to talk-"
"At what cost? Your sanity?" Her fingers clenched into her desk; she looked on the verge of throwing something, or maybe throwing herself across the room to hit him.
"I'm fine," he snarled. "I have to explore every option-"
"Even the ones that violate everything we stand for? Even those? Did you come looking for forgiveness?" A hint of incredulity threaded into her rising voice. "I don't have it. Fucking hell, Dean, I hate them, too, but that doesn't justify-"
"I didn't do anything," he muttered, running a hand over his jaw. "He knows Alastair. He saw through the tactic right away. It was...ineffective."
When he looked up, she was shaking her head, eyes wide with anger and fear. "Some days I don't know you anymore, Dean," she whispered. "This is what John would have done."
The name fell with paralyzing force on Dean, who sat down hard just as Charlie blew in the front door.
"The whole camp can hear you," she said frankly, untucking her handgun from the back of her jeans. She left it on the table just inside the door and went to Jo's side. Since Castiel's arrival, they had all been on their guard, even though silver bullets would only slow down a higher-level spirit, not stop it entirely. Dean took no comfort in that thought.
"We're all on edge," Jo said diplomatically, pressing a kiss to Charlie's temple. "They'll understand."
Her fury had already tempered; Charlie's arm around her waist seemed to deflate her entirely. In the absence of her anger, she looked tired again. Dean envied her. There was no outlet for his rage, nothing that would reduce the tension boiling inside him now. It was almost worse than following through. Almost.
"Try acting like a human being, Dean," Charlie advised. "By all indications, that's what he seems to respond to. And you could both cool off," she added, turning her attention back to Jo, who grimaced at Dean.
"Later," she said, pointing at the door.
"I'm going," he muttered.
The camp was quiet when he stepped outside. The kitchen had closed by now; he ran no risk of running into questions there. He couldn't say the same about his cabin. If Sam wasn't lying in wait, there was still the presence of the demon to contend with, barely a dozen feet from any given location.
He was halfway there before he made a beeline for the trees instead, leaving the questionable safety of their permanent campsite. He picked out a rifle from the trunk of one of their Jeeps on the way out. The night chill was good for his head-good for the rapid pace of his heart and the elevated blood pressure. Eating wouldn't help; walking it off would.
Jo was right. He had been stupid to try it. At best, following through with Alastair's methods of...information-gathering...left him numb; at worst, it provoked panic attacks and made him completely ineffective. He was already running on progressively less sleep, and the nightmares were old hat, but the daytime anxiety was more risky than sleep deprivation.
Especially now.
The leaves crunched underfoot. His pace slowed as the racing heartbeat in his ears subsided, until finally, he found a likely-looking tree and sat, breathing evenly. He leaned his head back against the bark and closed his eyes, listening. The game in this area had gotten progressively scarce, a bad sign if he'd ever seen one, but if he was lucky he would put the rifle on his shoulder to good use instead of riddling the trees with target practice.
"I heard the shouting match."
Then again, he could be followed to death, too.
"Go talk to Jo," Dean grunted, not opening his eyes, even when Bobby sat down a foot away.
"Jo's taken care of." Even if he wasn't looking, Dean could see Bobby's gesture. Biting his tongue, he offered his wrist. Fingers closed on his pulse point, nails biting into his skin, a little harder than necessary. "If you don't cut the crap, though, you won't live to see thirty-one."
Dean chuckled. "You've got enough crap of your own, old man. Little hypocritical."
"Comparing our baggage doesn't get you anywhere, son." Satisfied, Bobby dropped his wrist. "What are you going to do about this demon of yours?"
"He isn't mine."
"Far as I can tell, he's in your cabin and your custody. Seems to me that's not the point. What're you going to do about him?" Dean heard the rustle of Bobby getting comfortable: stretching his legs out on the forest floor, folding his arms across his chest, arranging his shoulders against the trunk of the tree, just out of Dean's eyeline.
They never did seem to look at one another when they had important conversations anymore.
"What do you think I should do about him?" Dean grunted, counting the leaves above him. "Seems you have an opinion."
"You know what I would do." He heard Bobby's shoulders scrape against the tree as he shrugged. "I'm not in charge. For that exact reason, in fact."
"Sometimes I think you've got it right." Dean started to chuckle and stopped, just as quickly; he was out of the energy to put a brave face on this. "But you know they're not the problem. Not the real problem."
"Right."
The silence was short-lived. "He's the one," Dean said finally. "He's the one who pulled us out of that fire. Says his magician is the one who ordered it. He seems...different...than others I've met. Less hostile."
"Seems to me he's out of the energy to be hostile," Bobby commented. "Time's tickin', right? Could be a ploy."
"You don't think they can be...loyal." The word seemed wrong on Dean's lips, which was probably his answer right there, come to think of it. "To a person. Or a cause."
"I've got an awful bias, Dean, and it's a lot fresher than yours. Could be they can. I don't know that I would take the chance, but the choice is out of my hands. I think I'm grateful for that." Bobby snorted. "Some days I don't know."
"It's a shitty job," Dean complained, resettling the rifle on his lap. "Trust me, you really don't want it. Charlie told me to act like a human being." He snorted. "Whether or not the damn thing cares, I don't know if that's the best route. Seems like he's been as abused by our kind as we are."
"Magicians ain't our kind." Bobby's voice had gone flat. That was how he did grief: the cold neutrality that sent crawlers up Dean's spine.
"They're not your kind," Dean corrected.
Bobby nudged his shoulder. "They ain't yours, either. What you can do isn't the same as how they do it."
"Sounds like a justification to me," Dean muttered. "A bad one, too. You know what I've done for information. I'm no better than they are."
"You use the weapons you've got when your back's against the wall. I don't think you've ever hurt anyone who didn't deserve it, Dean." Bobby sounded more emphatic, now, as though concerned that Dean truly didn't believe him.
Maybe he didn't. Maybe that was none of Bobby's business.
"Maybe," he relented, and that was that.
Bobby heaved himself to his feet and held a hand out to Dean. "Well, moping out here in the cold isn't going to change anything. Might as well get warm. Make a plan."
Dean took the offered hand. When he was on his feet, Bobby clapped him on the shoulder. "I knew John," he said firmly. "I liked John. But you don't hold a candle to his brand of cruel. I would know. You think he ever had an ethical crisis out in the woods?"
Dean huffed out a tired laugh and followed Bobby back to camp. He didn't think it made much of a difference, but it was a nice sentiment, and that was better than nothing.
Forward to 4. Tenterhooks.
The truth was, they had all the information they could really ask for. It was just bad news, all of it.
He left the demon research to Sam and poured over Henriksen's report one more time, trying to read between the lines, see from every angle, but it was just as bleak as the last dozen times he'd read it, and just as bleak as the last dozen reports he'd read before that. While the Resistance had dwindled over the last three years, the magicians had only gained in power. They were inclined toward Empire-building and gaining ground fast; every colony the British gave up was more territory for America to gluttonously consume. One for another, Dean thought wearily. The magician-controlled Parliament had barely fallen thirty years ago, and a new government infested with sorcerers was already well-rooted-on this side of the Atlantic this time.
Weeds, John had always muttered, and on this issue, Dean heartily agreed with him.
"Hah!" Sam announced, punctuating the silence. Dean's chin jerked up. "Oh, it's, ah-I think I've got a name. Castiel. It's in this endnote."
"God," Dean muttered, scrubbing a hand over his burning eyes. It was nearing daybreak, and he hadn't slept. "They all have such weird fucking names."
"Castiel of Babylon," Sam read, "a fourteenth-level djinni, has been most frequently summoned by American magicians in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Since the 1980s, when he spent two years in the service of Jimmy Novak, he has been known to take on the guise of the late magician. Explains that flasher coat," he commented. Dean snickered. "Novak was well-known and criticized for his controversial stance on spirit-magician relations. His devout interest in Ptolemy's Aprocrypha earned him enormous scorn from his peers. That sounds..."
"Interesting," Dean agreed, standing. It had been a long time since he'd touched the Apocrypha; it was required reading among magicians, but even so, no one took it seriously. "I'm gonna have another crack at him."
Sam looked up at him blearily. "We've got nothing to offer him, Dean."
"Yeah, well. Maybe he's feeling more subversive after a few hours in that net."
The truth was, Dean doubted it, but he couldn't stand to look one more time at the report, the one that hinted in no uncertain terms that they were all doomed, and that if this spirit failed, more would come. Dean and his Resistance were as good as dead, and he and his brother were only the beginning. For fuck's sake-there was a child among them, and the magicians would kill her, too.
He found Castiel in the same position he'd been left in: cross-legged, utterly still, watching the door. His eyes met Dean's immediately. On the seventh plane, his masked faces stirred, lethargic but watchful. The ping of recognition went off again, raising hair on the back of Dean's neck.
"Found anything?" the spirit asked politely.
"Castiel of Babylon," Dean said, his voice half a groan as he seated himself a few feet in front of the cage. "Sam found a footnote. Wasn't particularly enlightening."
"You know my true name. We're now on more equal footing."
"You can still eat me," Dean pointed out.
The corner of Castiel's mouth crooked up in the tiniest of smiles-not an absent curl, but an expression that warmed his blue eyes. "I can," he allowed. "Not from here, however."
They sat quietly for a few moments. Dean studied Castiel's true form, which was watching him and his every twitch with mild interest. On the seventh plane, Castiel was just a bundled manifestation of visions: enormous, shadowy wings, folded up and rustling occasionally in discomfort; masked faces, emerging from the feline body of the spirit, which conveyed no real emotion at all, but just stared at Dean impassively through the eyes of a black panther, a beady-eyed bluebird, and a structure made all of bone, a face that Dean didn't at all recognize as animal, mineral, or vegetable; legs that ended in paws and sharp claws, which were gently at work scraping the platform inside the cage. On the first plane-the human plane-Dean could see little curls of wood rising up from the makeshift scratching post.
Dean, to his consternation, felt like he was being scanned for signs of superior intelligence. The gaze of the masks-and those blue eyes-was direct and unblinking. The wings were all that moved involuntarily, it seemed, rustling occasionally as the spirit shifted, probably out of discomfort.
He remembered those wings, but he had to swim back through the fog of memory and disjointed childhood to place them. He'd last seen them lofted through smoke and flames.
"Ever do a job in Lawrence?" he asked, his tone too casual for the heart that stuttered suddenly in his throat.
Every one of Castiel's faces flinched, as though the memory pained him. He tipped his head down, an acknowledgment, and the masks went on watching Dean.
"Dad always wondered what magician bothered to send a demon to save our asses," Dean fished. "Never could track the guy down."
"He died," Castiel said shortly. "Later that night."
The spirit didn't seem inclined to say more on the subject; if Dean didn't know better, he would say it regretted the death of its former master.
"Well," Dean said awkwardly. "Thanks. I guess."
Castiel's eyes narrowed. "Do not feel indebted to me," he snapped; he'd gone from still to feral in a matter of seconds. He bristled with violent energy. "My master was your guardian angel. I was following orders."
Dean raised his eyebrows, doing his best to ignore the display. "That's good. I hate being indebted to demons."
The silence that followed was arctic compared to the quiet they'd sat in before. Well, Dean thought bracingly. Good talk. He got to his feet, made a mental note to get a chair for their next exchange, and turned to go.
"Dean."
The spirit's voice was tired now. When Dean looked back, its essence seemed weighed down, forlorn and defeated.
"You were right," it said, blue eyes unblinking as it regarded him. "Your brother's plan is impossible to execute. You will find no allies among spirits."
"I know," Dean muttered. He let the door slam pointedly behind him.
*
The sharp pain in his essence had subsided to a dull, constant ache when Dean next visited. Castiel had lost track of time, though he thought he remembered the sun rising and setting a few times since Dean's last appearance. He didn't have enough power left to maintain the form of a man; shortly after Dean's last departure, he'd transformed down to a small black housecat and curled up as far from the silver as possible. The constant throb of pain allowed him to drift unthinking as time passed, focusing only on the steady thud of his essence protesting its confinement.
This job was a death sentence, he thought bitterly as a creak in the floorboards roused him from his stupor. Azazel must finally be done with me.
"Not looking so hot," Dean's voice remarked casually, a good six feet above him. Castiel didn't make the effort to stir. "Don't think you've got two weeks left in you, Cas."
A chair scraped the floorboards. Dean settled into it with a heavy sigh. Castiel, very pointedly, curled tighter into his temporary fur.
"I could help you out, you know," he continued. His voice was so smug that Castiel felt compelled to hit him. Or maybe set his feet on fire. All the djinni could do from within his prison, however, was try to block him out by nuzzling his ears deeper into his fur. He could dream. Dean would look fantastic with a black eye. His indifference toward the man was definitely wearing thin as his imprisonment went on.
"I doubt Azazel classified the kind of information we actually need," Dean continued.
Castiel thought again of the manila folder on Dean's desk. No, the Resistance obviously had an informant for that kind of thing. An informant whose job it was to inform them of how poorly things were going, judging by Dean's myriad of depressed facial expressions. Castiel thought of reminding Dean of this, but chose to stay silent.
"We're more interested in spirits themselves," Dean went on, unfazed by Castiel's continuing quiet. "We've both got the short end of the stick here, Cas. Just tryin' to even the playing field."
His voice was nothing like it had been that night. It was a peculiar thing to remember, but Castiel had precious little that he was proud of doing when it came to humanity. Dean and his family were a bright spot against his blood-bathed career. Plucking the toddler from the flames along with his infant brother and his reluctant father-it was a memory colored by what came after, but still worth remembering. Dean's eyes had been wide as they stared at his wings. Are you an angel? he had asked in tones of awe, reaching for one of Castiel's masked faces as they made their escape from Lilith and the burning house.
Another demon, John had croaked, stinking of loss, sent by another damn magician, don't touch it, Dean-
"Castiel," Dean said, and the djinni roused himself from the memory. Had he been the gambling kind, he would have bet that Dean had lost any hint of that childlike wonder not long after his mother burned.
Resigned, Castiel lifted his head. Dean smiled encouragingly; the vague flicker of concern that had touched his features fled as soon as it arrived.
"Just tell me," Dean coaxed, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. "Let me help you out, man."
There was something uncomfortably predatory in Dean's eyes, nothing left of the boy Castiel had carried from the flames twenty-six years ago. Nothing left, even, of the exhausted man from a few days before. Someone else had taken his place. It nauseated Castiel, deep down in his essence, as though he'd swallowed inorganic matter.
"Have you decided on an interrogation technique?" Castiel asked, dropping his head back to his paws. He could see Dean's shoelaces, close to the net that held Castiel prisoner, and that was all, really, that he wanted to see of the man.
"It doesn't have to come to that," Dean said. Castiel could hear a placating smile, poisoning the smoke-stained voice.
"You remind me of someone," Castiel commented.
A pause. "Someone?" he ventured finally. "Or something?"
"Something, I think," Castiel said idly. This probably wasn't wise, but the nostalgic fool in him wanted to crack open Dean's current façade and make the man look at it very, very closely. "He was human, but it was only a distinction of matter. A sadistic, mercurial man. Very proficient at getting what he wanted."
Dean's minute, flowing movements-the slow adjustment of his hands, the fluid roaming of his gaze-suddenly ceased. From the floor, Castiel saw the leg of his jeans twitch, as though the muscles beneath had suddenly stiffened.
"A magician," Castiel continued, perfectly neutral.
"That so." The honeyed persuasion had gone from Dean's voice; his tone was cold and clipped, lacking inflection.
"You don't know him, by any chance? I think his surname was Alastair. He had a brutal reputation. The kind of magician your Resistance would happily murder. I would, too, given half a chance."
Dean didn't answer.
"I hope he isn't still operating," Castiel went on. "The way he treated spirits was bad enough, but his apprentices-"
"You have a death wish," Dean said roughly, "if you thinking talking about that fucker is a good idea."
"I have had a death wish for a long time," Castiel snorted, turning his head into his paws, where he could no longer see Dean's feet. "By all means, go ahead."
Ten seconds later, the door slammed.
Alone with his dwindling livelihood, Castiel drifted.
*
It wasn't the first time Dean and Jo had had a shouting match, and it wouldn't be the last.
"When has this ever worked for you, Dean?" she demanded as he paced the floorboards of her cabin, burning with excess energy, the memory of Alastair curling beneath his skin.
"That's not the point," he snapped back. "I am not the point. I hate his methods, but they work. The point is to get him to talk-"
"At what cost? Your sanity?" Her fingers clenched into her desk; she looked on the verge of throwing something, or maybe throwing herself across the room to hit him.
"I'm fine," he snarled. "I have to explore every option-"
"Even the ones that violate everything we stand for? Even those? Did you come looking for forgiveness?" A hint of incredulity threaded into her rising voice. "I don't have it. Fucking hell, Dean, I hate them, too, but that doesn't justify-"
"I didn't do anything," he muttered, running a hand over his jaw. "He knows Alastair. He saw through the tactic right away. It was...ineffective."
When he looked up, she was shaking her head, eyes wide with anger and fear. "Some days I don't know you anymore, Dean," she whispered. "This is what John would have done."
The name fell with paralyzing force on Dean, who sat down hard just as Charlie blew in the front door.
"The whole camp can hear you," she said frankly, untucking her handgun from the back of her jeans. She left it on the table just inside the door and went to Jo's side. Since Castiel's arrival, they had all been on their guard, even though silver bullets would only slow down a higher-level spirit, not stop it entirely. Dean took no comfort in that thought.
"We're all on edge," Jo said diplomatically, pressing a kiss to Charlie's temple. "They'll understand."
Her fury had already tempered; Charlie's arm around her waist seemed to deflate her entirely. In the absence of her anger, she looked tired again. Dean envied her. There was no outlet for his rage, nothing that would reduce the tension boiling inside him now. It was almost worse than following through. Almost.
"Try acting like a human being, Dean," Charlie advised. "By all indications, that's what he seems to respond to. And you could both cool off," she added, turning her attention back to Jo, who grimaced at Dean.
"Later," she said, pointing at the door.
"I'm going," he muttered.
The camp was quiet when he stepped outside. The kitchen had closed by now; he ran no risk of running into questions there. He couldn't say the same about his cabin. If Sam wasn't lying in wait, there was still the presence of the demon to contend with, barely a dozen feet from any given location.
He was halfway there before he made a beeline for the trees instead, leaving the questionable safety of their permanent campsite. He picked out a rifle from the trunk of one of their Jeeps on the way out. The night chill was good for his head-good for the rapid pace of his heart and the elevated blood pressure. Eating wouldn't help; walking it off would.
Jo was right. He had been stupid to try it. At best, following through with Alastair's methods of...information-gathering...left him numb; at worst, it provoked panic attacks and made him completely ineffective. He was already running on progressively less sleep, and the nightmares were old hat, but the daytime anxiety was more risky than sleep deprivation.
Especially now.
The leaves crunched underfoot. His pace slowed as the racing heartbeat in his ears subsided, until finally, he found a likely-looking tree and sat, breathing evenly. He leaned his head back against the bark and closed his eyes, listening. The game in this area had gotten progressively scarce, a bad sign if he'd ever seen one, but if he was lucky he would put the rifle on his shoulder to good use instead of riddling the trees with target practice.
"I heard the shouting match."
Then again, he could be followed to death, too.
"Go talk to Jo," Dean grunted, not opening his eyes, even when Bobby sat down a foot away.
"Jo's taken care of." Even if he wasn't looking, Dean could see Bobby's gesture. Biting his tongue, he offered his wrist. Fingers closed on his pulse point, nails biting into his skin, a little harder than necessary. "If you don't cut the crap, though, you won't live to see thirty-one."
Dean chuckled. "You've got enough crap of your own, old man. Little hypocritical."
"Comparing our baggage doesn't get you anywhere, son." Satisfied, Bobby dropped his wrist. "What are you going to do about this demon of yours?"
"He isn't mine."
"Far as I can tell, he's in your cabin and your custody. Seems to me that's not the point. What're you going to do about him?" Dean heard the rustle of Bobby getting comfortable: stretching his legs out on the forest floor, folding his arms across his chest, arranging his shoulders against the trunk of the tree, just out of Dean's eyeline.
They never did seem to look at one another when they had important conversations anymore.
"What do you think I should do about him?" Dean grunted, counting the leaves above him. "Seems you have an opinion."
"You know what I would do." He heard Bobby's shoulders scrape against the tree as he shrugged. "I'm not in charge. For that exact reason, in fact."
"Sometimes I think you've got it right." Dean started to chuckle and stopped, just as quickly; he was out of the energy to put a brave face on this. "But you know they're not the problem. Not the real problem."
"Right."
The silence was short-lived. "He's the one," Dean said finally. "He's the one who pulled us out of that fire. Says his magician is the one who ordered it. He seems...different...than others I've met. Less hostile."
"Seems to me he's out of the energy to be hostile," Bobby commented. "Time's tickin', right? Could be a ploy."
"You don't think they can be...loyal." The word seemed wrong on Dean's lips, which was probably his answer right there, come to think of it. "To a person. Or a cause."
"I've got an awful bias, Dean, and it's a lot fresher than yours. Could be they can. I don't know that I would take the chance, but the choice is out of my hands. I think I'm grateful for that." Bobby snorted. "Some days I don't know."
"It's a shitty job," Dean complained, resettling the rifle on his lap. "Trust me, you really don't want it. Charlie told me to act like a human being." He snorted. "Whether or not the damn thing cares, I don't know if that's the best route. Seems like he's been as abused by our kind as we are."
"Magicians ain't our kind." Bobby's voice had gone flat. That was how he did grief: the cold neutrality that sent crawlers up Dean's spine.
"They're not your kind," Dean corrected.
Bobby nudged his shoulder. "They ain't yours, either. What you can do isn't the same as how they do it."
"Sounds like a justification to me," Dean muttered. "A bad one, too. You know what I've done for information. I'm no better than they are."
"You use the weapons you've got when your back's against the wall. I don't think you've ever hurt anyone who didn't deserve it, Dean." Bobby sounded more emphatic, now, as though concerned that Dean truly didn't believe him.
Maybe he didn't. Maybe that was none of Bobby's business.
"Maybe," he relented, and that was that.
Bobby heaved himself to his feet and held a hand out to Dean. "Well, moping out here in the cold isn't going to change anything. Might as well get warm. Make a plan."
Dean took the offered hand. When he was on his feet, Bobby clapped him on the shoulder. "I knew John," he said firmly. "I liked John. But you don't hold a candle to his brand of cruel. I would know. You think he ever had an ethical crisis out in the woods?"
Dean huffed out a tired laugh and followed Bobby back to camp. He didn't think it made much of a difference, but it was a nice sentiment, and that was better than nothing.
Forward to 4. Tenterhooks.