SPN: Star of the Morning (6/8)

[what_we_dream]

Title: Star of the Morning (6/8)
Series: Supernatural
Pairing: None
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Post The Rapture, AU

Summary: Castiel, removed from his host, is forced to make a temporarily substitution. Dean is so not onboard with this plan.

Oh shit, is Dean’s first thought, striding quickly to the other side of the vending machine area to glance out down the dark sidewalk. There’s no sign of Jimmy there, either.

Sam steps back in front of the Pepsi machine from the parking lot, neon lights painting his face bizarre shades of red and blue. “I don’t see him. This is bad, Dean. What were you guys talking about?”

“Family stuff. He was pissed, but he knows better than to bolt. I think,” Dean adds, remembering the last time, waking up to an empty bed and a guilty Sam, which was fun except for the demon bloodhounds on the man’s trail.

“So someone grabbed him? The demons?” Sam runs a hand through his hair, looking around again.

“Could be, or the banshee? Shit, I don’t know. Like one’s better than the other.” Demons mean torture and a slow death, the banshee a much more immediate one, and Dean really doesn’t know which to hope for.

This is their life. Stuck between one big rock and a hard place, with choices about 1,000 times more crappy than the usual kind.

Stop chattering, orders Castiel from out of nowhere, sounding terse.

“What?”

Sam turns to him. “What?”

“Not you –” What?

Just stand still and be quiet.

Dean starts to think of a reply to that, and then tries not to instead. Sam’s giving him the raised eyebrows of inquisition, but he ignores them. In the back of his mind Castiel is rustling quietly, a soft feathery feeling. It tickles, just a little, and Dean catches himself flinching. Sam, misinterpreting, takes a step closer.

“Dean?”

Dean waves him off. Cas?

There’s a slight shift, which Dean takes as a hand held up for more time, and then the angel relaxes. There, he says, he’s there.

Uh? asks Dean, with no idea where “there” is.

To your left, approximately 100 yards away.

Dean glances to his left: it’s the stucco wall of the motel. He hurries around it on the sidewalk, skirts the building beside the road. Sam follows behind, and when Dean glances back he has his gun in his hands. Not a bad idea.

On the other side of the motel is a bank of poplars, the tall trees standing spread fairly wide on sandy soil. The light’s bad, and if Jimmy’s in the sparse wood he can’t see him.

In there? He asks, glancing up ahead.

Yes, says Castiel, more calmly now.

Alone?

I see only what you see, answers the angel.

So how do you know he’s in there? I can’t see squat.

He’s mine. There is a difference.

Oookay. This is not the time to debate angelic possession – or angelic possessiveness, even if it’s suddenly gotten extremelybizarre. So where is he?

Five yards back from the tree line, roughly in front of you. He is standing behind a large poplar.

Dean starts forwards, and realises that if he can see them at all, there’s no way Jimmy can tell who they are in the dark. “Jimmy? It’s just us.” A few seconds pass slowly, his heart keeping time in his chest, and then there’s a rustling as Jimmy makes his way down out of the trees.

“How’d you know he was there?” hisses Sam from behind him. Dean waves a postponing hand.

“Who’re you hiding from?” he asks as the man comes closer, walking cautiously as if expecting to be jumped from the shadows.

“I don’t know. I was getting a drink from the machine and this old lady came up out of nowhere. She couldn’t’ve been more than 4’10”. But when she turned to look at me… I don’t know, something in the way she was looking at me, or something, scared the hell out of me. I took off.”

“You ran from a little old lady?” Dean’s run from some pretty weird shit, but old people?

“Anyone could be a demon,” retorts Jimmy defensively. His face isn’t clear in the darkness, but he shifts his weight uncertainly with a rustle of fabric. “But… it wasn’t how she looked. She just felt … wrong. I knew she was dangerous.”

“Before, when the demons attacked your family,” Sam breaks in, coming up to stand next to Dean, “was it like that?”

A glimmer of movement; Jimmy shaking his head. “No. I didn’t feel anything at all then. If they hadn’t had the black eyes, I wouldn’t’ve known.”

“Could be the banshee…” muses Sam. “Some do have the ability to alternate between three forms, and one’s an old woman. Did you recognise her from today? Seen her before?”

“No. I don’t remember seeing any real old ladies. And not her, anyway.”

Cas? Asks Dean, glancing around. If anyone was – or, for that matter, is – here, he can’t tell.

It is possible that the extended time spent as my vessel has affected him. Allowed him to sense things he wouldn’t normally be able to. And banshees do have a strong presence for us.

If it was the banshee, and he noticed it, could it have noticed him?

It’s possible. But from what he says, he was the one to notice and flee, not her.

Good point. “You noticed something weird about her. Did she notice anything weird about you?”

“Not that I saw. But I took off pretty quick.”

“Right.” Dean looks to Sam. He thinks he sees a flash of his brother’s eyes, but it’s hard to tell. There’s nothing more to do out here. “Let’s get back inside. We’ll stay here for now, and head out early tomorrow.” No point laying any more plans out in the open where anyone might be listening. He waits for Jimmy to catch up to them, and turns back towards the faint light of the motel rooms shining through dusty curtains.

They end up back in the shared room again, Sam at his table again, Dean and Jimmy on their respective beds. Sam leans back in his chair until the back’s up against the wall, stretches his legs out under the cheap table. “I was scanning through the literature earlier,” he says, glancing at Jimmy before focusing on Dean. “I wasn’t at it for too long, but I didn’t find anything new. Still no way to lure it out.”

Dean doesn’t answer; his thoughts have wound back to the earlier dust-up in the room. He’s never had to get along with anyone other than Sam – and Dad, of course – for more than an hour or two at the longest, and it’s occurring to him now that he’s not really too sure how to go about maintaining any sort of normal relationship. It never mattered before if he ended up storming out on everyone he met; he’d never have to see them again.

You ever notice that Dad had a falling out with pretty much everyone? Sam’s words, years old now, come back out of nowhere and play themselves on repeat. Dean loved Dad more than anyone except Sam, but he sure as hell never wanted to be the man. Never wanted to be like him.

He wonders now, whether he already is.

“Do they change their targets?” asks Jimmy, startling Dean out of his thoughts. Sam, too, from the look on his face. “Do they stick with one person, or do they just take whoever’s around?”

Sam blinks, considering. “Uh… I’m not sure. Anyone targeted by a banshee ends up dead, unless it’s a hunter and then the banshee doesn’t have the chance to try again. Before they go rogue, they usually stick with one victim, one family, until they’ve drained all the grief they can. That could translate to one target at a time. But it’s not a certainty. Why?” The light of recognition flashes in Sam’s eyes, and he answers his own question just as Dean does in his thoughts. “Because it’s after you.”

“We don’t know the old lady was a banshee. Maybe you just spooked. You were worked up, and you know the demons’re after you and the banshee’s around. Maybe you were just jumping at shadows,” says Dean.

Jimmy shrugs. “That could be, but … she felt wrong,” he repeats, shaking his head.

Ask him, says Castiel suddenly, so close he seems to be whispering right in Dean’s ear, whether she felt like snow.

What?

Did she feel like snow? repeats Castiel, impatiently.

What the hell does snow feel like? says Dean, rolling his eyes. But he asks anyway. “Cas wants to know whether she ‘felt like snow?’” he asks, making the quotation marks clear with his voice.

Jimmy’s eyebrows crease as he considers. “No,” he says, at last. “More like… mist, I guess. Cold, but…” he struggles for a word, jaw clenched, then loses it. “No, I don’t know.”

So, not a banshee?

No, it was a test. Banshees often do feel like mist. Like cold and grief and loss. Perhaps it is a remnant of their ancestor’s pain. I don’t know. There’s a hint of … not pain, exactly, but something like loneliness in the angel’s tone. Dean doesn’t know how to deal with that, and so steers away from it.

“Great,” he says aloud, and then at Sam’s look elaborates, “Cas says they feel like mist. Which means you probably saw her. Which means she might be after you. What is up with this bitch, seriously? First Stanford, now you. How is she picking us off?”

“But Jimmy’s not a hunter,” points out Sam, and Dean gives him a duh look. “Right,” says Sam, agreeing. “No one would mistake him for one, especially not something which has probably been hunted before, and must be expecting more hunters after killing Stanford. It probably picked Jimmy as a regular victim.”

“Well, that’s good to know. It’s not trying to kill him because he’s after it, just because it wants to eat him. I’m so relieved.”

Sam gives him a look. Jimmy just seems worried. Dean sighs. “Really. This is helpful how?”

“She must have seen him sometime today and picked him as her target, Dean. All we have to do is –”

“Backtrack and confront every single person he met today? Besides, what if it was just a random coincidence?”

Sam shrugs. “I didn’t say it was a good plan.”

“I still like my idea,” grumbles Dean.

Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well, we’re still not knocking over a bank.” He stands, stretching his back. “I’ll see if I can turn up any more. If not… we’ll have to backtrack.”

“Sounds fun.” Dean stands to lock the door behind his brother.

“Uh,” says Jimmy, from the far bed, and they turn to look at him. “She’s probably still around, right? Waiting for me to go out alone? Why don’t we just set a trap? We’ve got the bait,” he adds, flatly.

“Were you listening to the part about how they’re extremely dangerous? You don’t want her after you. We’ll find out who she is, and take care of her. You don’t want to be involved,” says Dean, gruffly.

“And if you can’t? You said yourself it’ll probably be impossible to find her by chasing down people I met today. What if she gives up on me and goes after someone else in the meantime?”

Castiel shuffles heavily, and Dean remembers his earlier injunction to look after his vessel. Dean feels his hackles raising; like he needs an angel to tell him what’s right.

“Until we’ve exhausted our other options, we’re not using bait. Not with a banshee. You wanna know how many people hunters have gotten killed – including themselves – trying to bait out a banshee? Too fucking many. No way. We’re gonna find her, before she finds us.” No more deaths on his hands. Not if he can help it.

Jimmy backs down, and Dean turns. Raises an eyebrow at Sam’s expression: What? Sam shakes his head.

“See you tomorrow,” he says, stepping out side of the door.

“Yeah.” Dean watches him walk down to his room, waits for him to shut the door before he shuts his own and locks it. Turns back to the quiet room, to Jimmy standing to head to the bathroom. “Hey, uh, about before…”

“Don’t worry about it.” Jimmy shrugs, and keeps going.

Probably, there’s something else he should say. Probably, there’s a better way to deal with things. Probably, there’s a way to build relationships that doesn’t involve a lot of silence on his part and forgiveness on the other. He doesn’t know it, and even if he did, he’s not sure he’d be up for it. He wanted to be a normal person, once. He knows now that he’ll never be. The worst part is, he’s not sure he still even wants it.

It’s not a sin to be different, murmurs Castiel, and Dean is pretty sure what the angel means by sin is not what he means.

Maybe, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to be a heartless hard-nosed bastard.

You aren’t heartless, Dean. You have more compassion than most humans I’ve known.

And how many is that? Two? Three?

Enough, answers Castiel softly, and there’s a feeling of weight there, of a number bigger than Dean could imagine.

He wonders, for the first time, how many humans Castiel has known. How many generations he’s seen born, grow, die. How many civilizations. How short human lives must seem to him, and how similar.

Seen in that light, Uriel’s stance is not so incomprehensible. It’s deplorable, disgusting, unforgivable, but… he suddenly finds himself wondering, with as many lives as Castiel has watched over, how he can still feel any compassion at all for their tiny lives.

You never give yourself enough credit, whispers the angel.

Cas, says Dean, voice gritty, and then stops. Because there’s no way to put what he’s feeling into words, and even if he could he wouldn’t, and it doesn’t matter because since he’s already in his head, Cas already knows.

I’ve never before met a human who pitied angels, says Cas, soft with something like mild wonder.

Yeah, well. Don’t get used to it. Dean flops down onto his bed and closes his eyes.

-------------------------------------------

He dreams of light and warmth and contentment. Of belonging. He doesn’t mention it when he wakes.

Jimmy’s still asleep, the first time the man hasn’t been awake before him, which is probably a sign his back is well on the way to being patched up. Dean takes the opportunity to shower and change, while rolling their options around in his head like bowling balls. None of them are really acceptable. The low-risk plans have little likelihood of success, while the high-risk ones have little chance of all of them surviving finding the thing.

Of course, the one plan which probably would work and involve little risk on their part, would be to simply wait out Jimmy’s back and then set Castiel on the thing. The problem with that, as Jimmy pointed out before, is the number of victims it might rack up while they’re sitting around on their asses. And that’s completely unacceptable.

Cas? he asks, pulling his shirt on and staring at himself in the still-steamy bathroom mirror. Could we speed up the work on Jimmy’s back?

Castiel unfolds slightly, as if to show he’s listening. It’s several seconds before he answers, though. Yes, he replies at last, in a considering tone. There is still some room to push the limits. However, the more strength I expend, the more you will lose. To heal him faster will weaken you. Is it worth the trade-off? Castiel’s tone is neutral and if he has a preference Dean can’t decipher it; it’s clear he’s leaving the choice to the hunter.

If we pushed it to the limit, could we do it in one go?

No. The answer is immediate and absolute. It would require at least two sessions, perhaps three.

So we’d be ahead by a day.

A day in which you would be bedridden, and she might come for Jimmy, points out the angel, possibly revealing his choice. Dean can’t say he blames him. He pushes back from the sink, hissing between his teeth, and pads into the motel room. Jimmy’s sitting on the bed now, dressed in his new clothes. Dean’s not sure whether it’s stranger to see him in completely unfamiliar clothes, or clothes which while familiar still aren’t at all right. At the sight of Dean he turns, exposing his back.

“Hold up,” says Dean, and walks over to the table to snag his phone. Dials Sam, and waits for him to pick up.

“Yeah?”

“You awake?” Dean drops down onto the end of his bed, glancing at the door.

“Uh, yeah.” Smart-ass.

“Come on over,” Dean replies, and cuts the line. Waits a minute before getting up to unlock the door. Sam walks in a few seconds later, hair wet and face somewhat clawed from a quick shave.

“What is it?” Sam takes up his now-usual chair, glances from Dean to Jimmy.

“You find anything last night?” Dean knows the answer before he hears it; if Sam had, he’d have been over already.

“No, nothing new. No one’s ever really wanted to summon death omens, you know?” Sam shakes his hair out of his face.

“Makes sense.” He pauses, then continues in a gruffer tone. “Cas says we could probably speed up the work on Jimmy’s back. Maybe be finished by tonight or tomorrow morning.”

“Great,” says Sam. Jimmy doesn’t move, but Dean has the impression he has tensed up.

“Yeah. Problem is, it’d probably lay me out for a couple of days. So the question is, is it worth losing a day, or maybe 24 hours?”

There are a few beats of silence, Sam’s expression darkening, Jimmy straightening gradually like a flower twisting towards the sun.

“Once he’s back,” says Sam, twisting to stare into Dean’s eyes as if looking for the angel there, “will he be able to find it and deal with it?”

Cas?

But the angel’s already answering. My orders expressly forbid meddling in human affairs where a seal is not involved, says Castiel flatly, blowing all their assumptions, all Dean’s assumptions, right out of the water. It actually shocks Dean into silence; a hot, bitter silence that begins to crack like over-heated glass as his anger wells up.

“Dean?” Sam’s watching his face with concern. He pays him no mind.

Fuck, Castiel, he hisses finally, chest tight and jaw aching with the pressure of his teeth gritting together, I can’t take anymore of this. Make up your goddamn mind. All this blowing hot one minute, cold the next; I’m fed up.

In the back of his thoughts he knows he’s not being fair, knows Castiel has his reasons, knows the angel’s probably even less pleased with himself than Dean. But right now, Dean’s simply had enough of having his chain yanked. Of being pulled closer half the time, and then pushed away carelessly the rest.

In his corner, Castiel feels stiff and stony, is holding himself still with such tension that Dean can feel it, feel him shivering against the back of his mind.

Either you’re a friend, or you’re not. You can’t just turn it on when it’s convenient to you.

I don’t have it in me to be a “friend,” replies Castiel stiffly. And even if I did, that’s not –

Not what? Not according to your orders? You’re an angel, Castiel, one of the strongest things on this planet, and you can’t make your own decisions?

There’s a pause, and then Castiel stretches, gently, carefully. And, appearing out of nowhere, Dean can suddenly feel the power there, enough power to crush him to dust with just a flick of the tip of a wing. Enough power to level a city, to turn back time, to reach down into Hell and raise souls. More power than he could literally imagine.

To you, says Castiel, in a voice like an arctic wind, an angel is power and light and righteousness. There’s a breath of wind, and that sense of power drains away into nothingness, leaving just Castiel’s usual heavy presence folding itself gracefully back together. To us, an angel is defined by one thing, and one thing alone: his obedience. The thing you hunt now, monsters like Lucifer, the horror you endured for forty years, they are a result of those in our ranks who could not obey. When you ask me to disobey, Dean, you ask me to become an abomination, and an abomination with the power of an angel is a terrible thing. It is our obedience alone which keeps us from evil. An evil which you alone in this wide world can begin to comprehend.

Dean rocks backwards as if punched in the gut, stunned. There’s a nearly physical pain, and he’s not sure whether it’s something he’s channelling from Castiel or a simpler form of empathy. His automatic reaction is to hit back, to strike out to cover his shock. But he can’t think of a response to that, can’t think of one single thing. Castiel’s words drive down like steel girders on his shoulders, and whether the angel intended it or not, the one thing on his mind is his time spent tearing souls apart. Turning people into demons with his own two hands.

He can still hear the screaming. God, he’ll never be able to block it out, or the smell of burning flesh –

“Dean?”

Sam’s voice breaks into his thoughts, shatters the memories like a mirror and they drop away, still cutting as they go. Sam’s standing in front of him, hands resting heavy on his shoulders – the girders? – staring at him with a mixture of fear and hostility. Classic over-protective Sammy. He’ll be wanting to give hugs, soon. “Dean, you okay? You look – you’re not looking so hot.”

Dean clears his throat – it doesn’t taste of brimstone, definitely, not one bit – with a sound like gravel churning underfoot.

“Yeah. Yeah, fine. Just having a little chat.”

“About what, baby eating? Seriously, you look –”

“I can imagine,” cuts in Dean roughly. And then, “I just – I need to talk to Cas for a minute.”

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” says Sam quietly, the kind of quiet meant to keep people from overhearing. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Dean, but your personalities don’t exactly mesh. And the last thing you need is to get in a fight with him inside your head.”

“Thanks for the newsflash,” returns Dean sourly.

“Look, it might just be better to keep your head down until this thing is over, okay?”

“Not my style.”

“Just because you’ve been a stubborn idiot in the past doesn’t mean you have to continue the trend,” says Sam, exasperated now.

“Why change a winning strategy?” growls Dean. He flops back on the bed, legs hanging over the edge. “Don’t get your panties in a twist,” he adds to Sam’s noise of annoyance, and drapes an arm over his eyes.

Sam thinks you’re gonna boil my brains out, he says, as though the angel hasn’t been listening the entire time.

It’s not an entirely unfounded fear.

I was kind of hoping for something more reassuring. This is all he can do, all he knows. Screw up, then joke around and hope somehow things will fix themselves. And figure that, if they don’t, they weren’t worth it anyway.

The angel sighs, a soft sound like wind whispering through grass. I cannot be the ally you want me to be, Dean. I’m not a wild animal to be tamed, nor am I an opponent to be won over. As long as our interests lie together, I will fight along side you. But I won’t do your job for you, and I won’t come at your call.

I’m not asking for your goddamn loyalty, bursts out Dean, barely waiting for the angel to finish. Hell, if it’s so unfathomable to you, I won’t even ask for your friendship. All I want’s your help. A fair trade. I’m helping you get your vessel back – if it comes down to it, you help us with the banshee. Or are you going to tell me angels don’t make bargains?

The angel is silent for a minute, unmoving. And then, What, he asks softly, wryly, in a tone completely different from his earlier ones, do you think prayers are?

Dean blinks beneath his sleeve, and then sputters. I’m not praying to you!

No, answers the angel in the same wry voice, you are bargaining with me. Alright. It’s a fair request, and your other conditions were minimal enough to allow it. But, he adds, voice deepening towards thunder, I can’t do anything to aid you while here. Until I return to my vessel, you can’t count on any help from me.

Until you return to Jimmy, corrects Dean sharply.

There is a pause, and he wonders if he’s pushed too hard. Doesn’t care if he has, because this is important, dammit. Then, with a light rustle:

Until I return to Jimmy, concedes the angel.

Damn straight, thinks Dean, and opens his eyes.

“The deal is,” he says, sitting up and taking in Sam watching him with concern, Jimmy with a sort of dark curiosity, “Cas’ll help us if we need it, when we get him back. Like I said, if we push it, it could be tonight.

Sam shifts, crosses his arms. Jimmy doesn’t move, but Dean thinks his eyes harden, slightly.

“And if not?” asks Sam.

“Maybe tomorrow evening, more likely the day after.”

“If the lady Jimmy saw last night was the banshee, it’s hunting again. If it doesn’t go for him, it might go after someone else. If it does, it’ll probably be tonight. We’re not sure, even if you push it, that you can have Jimmy’s back fixed by then.” Sam’s tapping his fingers on his elbow in an irritating tattoo.

“If we don’t, can we find it today?” asks Dean, mostly rhetorically.

“Do your entire lives revolve around damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenarios,” asks Jimmy, somewhere between horrified and bemused.

Dean glances at Sam, then back at him again.

“Pretty much,” they answer together.

Dean looks back to his brother, then shrugs. “We’ll do things the way we’ve always done them. It’s gotten us this far.”

Sam shrugs, nods.

As if here is somewhere they wanted to be.