A Canticle for Dr. Sexy (Chapter 1 of 6)
Nov. 17th, 2012 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tikificTitle: A Canticle for Dr. Sexy (Chapter 1 of 6)
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: tikific
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Dean/Castiel, Sam, Benny, Chuck, Bobby, Missouri, Pamela, Lenore, Michael, Gabriel, Lucifer, Balthazar, Garth
Warnings: Cursing. Suicidal ideation.
Word Count: ~50,000
Summary: The Croatoan virus has brought down civilization as we know it. Dean Winchester, leader of a motley set of survivors, is searching for volume 25 the Video Safari limited edition box set of Dr. Sexy MD when he stumbles into Cas, an amnesiac grubbing for a can of beans at an abandoned Piggly Wiggly. Together with his brother, Sam, who may be a prophet of the Lord, and some friends they meet along the way, they embark on a cross-country road trip to find a cure for the virus and save humanity. But the journey takes our heroes straight into the middle of an angelic feud.
Notes: The compound is based on the Greenbrier, a real resort. This one owes a debt to Zombieland, Vertigo comics and Spirited Away.
Some years ago….
The rambling old house stood dark and quiet. The sole resident padded downstairs in stocking-clad feet and sat down, cross-legged, beside a large coffee table. It was a glass-topped table with a large square tray in the bottom. There were keepsakes spread around the tray, visible through the glass: photographs, certificates, awards.
She pressed down and untwisted the cap of the prescription bottle she was holding, spilling the contents on the smooth surface of the table before her. She carefully counted out each red capsule, filing them all into neat lines, and then went through and recounted them again. Apparently satisfied, she gathered them up and inserted them back into the bottle.
The telephone rang. It rang, and rang again until finally the answering machine clicked on and the greeting ran through. She placed the lid on the bottle and carried it back upstairs.
“Sylvia?” came the voice on the answering machine. “Sylvia! It’s Mac. If you’re there, pick up.”
Somewhere on the second floor, a door shut with a click.
The present day….
It all started because of Cas’s hungry belly.
He had spent a good twenty minutes inside the abandoned Piggly Wiggly, carefully picking through the pile of battered, rusty cans and had finally managed to extract a single sealed, undented, unexpired container of Bush's Maple Cured Bacon Baked Beans.
And that's when he made his mistake. He knew the rules by now, one of which, hard and fast, was “grab it and run.” But his stomach was aching from a long stretch of missed meals. The neighborhood surrounding his good cache had gotten infested, and he had been forced to abandon it. Lesson learned: distribute your stores more evenly. But it may have turned out to be a fatal lesson if he didn't get something to eat. And soon.
He cocked his head, senses attuned, sniffing the air. It would be good to have something in his stomach, he reasoned, so he wouldn't grow faint again. Casting yet another glance up and down, he sat down right in the middle of the smooth linoleum floor, pulled out his trusty pocket knife and started to work on the can, slowly prying up the lid. He was drooling before he even dipped his hand in. They tasted awful, just awful, but he had never eaten so fast in his life, quickly getting down to where he risked cutting his tongue for a few final licks of the can, and then sucking on his fingers until all the taste had gone.
Cas sighed and set down the empty can, rubbing his stomach.
And then emitted a small burp.
He froze, slapping his hand over his mouth, casting sharp eyes around the ruined grocery store.
His heart stopped.
One of them. No, maybe two.
His hand went to his waist, fingers clasping the crowbar slung in his belt.
Wait for it.
The hit came from the side. Whoever it was, he was big. And quick as hell. Cas was slammed to the floor. The guy was on top of him, and about to clobber him with some kind of club, but Cas got up his crowbar just in time to block it. And they lay there like that for a moment, struggling.
“Benny!” came a yell.
His antagonist froze. “Dean?” he asked, not moving, sharp blue eyes circling around towards the other man. Cas couldn't see the other man well, as he was pinned down under the big guy.
“Dude, he's human,” said Dean, kicking the empty can. Cas heard it rolling. “Look. Croats don't sit around snarfing beans.”
“Boy!” Benny snarled, eyes now trained at Cas. “Speak the fuck up, are you human?”
“I am not a Croat,” Cas told him definitively.
“Well why the hell didn't you say somethin'?” Benny groused, standing up and wrenching Cas to his feet with a yank of one big paw.
“Perhaps because you tackled me,” grumbled Cas, dusting off, flicking his eyes from one to the other. The big guy, Benny, was built like a linebacker. He had an unfriendly expression and a pretty lush southern accent. There was also something else a little off about him. The other guy, Dean, looked like he'd just stepped out of an army recruiting commercial, young and handsome as hell, though with a hard look to his eyes. He spoke with a light drawl. Cas considered fleeing, but both of them were armed, and he didn't want to risk showing his back to them. Besides, they were both bigger than he.
“You’re a mouthy little fuck, Baby Blue,” grinned Benny, giving Cas a clap on the back that may or may not have been intended as friendly. It nearly sent him reeling into the shelves.
“Look, this place has already been ransacked,” said Dean, wiping a hand across a dusty shelf and regarding the grit on his fingers. “We got what we came out for. Let's head back.”
“Wait,” said Cas, eyes widening, gripping his crowbar.
“Why so damn jumpy?” asked Benny. As if in answer, there was a soft rustle from the front of the store, like a curtain billowing in the wind.
Dean and Benny formed up, side by side. The move looked practiced. “Stay behind us,” Dean whispered back to Cas. For two large men, Cas thought, they moved silent as ghosts. He also noticed they left their rifles hanging on the slings. The one called Dean had some kind of fancy hand axe, and the big guy was gripping a Louisville slugger. That was good: Croats were attracted to noise, so gunshots would often make your situation worse. They exchanged hand signals. It looked like they meant to move towards the back of the store. He stayed close, as it looked like the best strategy for now.
“They’re here,” Cas said quietly. Benny tensed, but Dean glanced back at Cas, puzzled look on his face.
And then she screamed, a gargling kind of scream, as her throat had been cut some time back, and lunged for Dean. He swung the axe, and finished beheading her. Benny swung left and then right, smoothly bashing Croat heads. Cas was impressed: a switch hitter. They efficiently dropped the small pack, maybe half a dozen Croats, and then paused for breath.
“Is that it?” Dean whispered.
Benny paused, nodding. “Think so.”
“No,” said Cas.
Both of them turned to glare back at Cas, but he simply pointed back the way they had been heading. Dean swiveled around.
“Shit,” said Dean, now viewing the approaching herd. “OK, plan B, run!”
Cas was already on his way, breaking for the front door. The old automatic doors had been long jammed with shopping baskets and debris, so he smashed a window with his crowbar and hopped through. Yeah, it was noisy, but they were already pretty much up shit creek. The others made it through more slowly, Dean now up behind him, grabbing him by the shoulder.
“Vehicle?” Cas asked, praying these idiots had driven here and he wouldn’t have to run for his life again on a nearly empty stomach. Dean pointed. They’d evidently parked around in back of the supermarket, which was probably smart, but now it meant they had to fight their way across an obstacle course of beached shopping baskets and abandoned cars to make whatever the hell crap transportation these dudes had brought along.
He felt his shoulder gripped hard as Dean shoved Cas in back of him so he and Benny could take point again. Dean seemed to be in his element swinging the axe, and Benny was almost as good with the bat, brawny arms tensing as he swung. That is, until a Croat jumped too close to a light fixture, and Benny’s bat cracked on the pole, shattering in two.
“Benny!” called Dean as the Croat ducked and lunged.
Benny growled, literally growled, unhinging a set of pointed teeth, and summarily ripped the Croat’s neck to pieces. As Cas watched, utterly fascinated, Benny grinned a bloody grin, jamming the rest of the splintered bat into the Croat’s face as it went down.
“Benny!” called Dean again. But this wasn’t a warning, it was a cry for help. Through intent or happenstance, a Croat had launched a shopping basket down the low incline towards him while Dean was distracted. Dean had tried to duck, but his ankle caught on a wheel. It knocked him over, and the axe went skidding out of his hand. Benny grabbed for his gun, but had to stop to punch out a Croat who had strayed too close.
Cas leapt over the overturned shopping cart and stooped over, Dean’s axe finding his hand. It was too heavy and too long, but he gripped it two-handed and neatly beheaded the Croat hovering over Dean. He spun around, correcting his grip, and another head went flying. He ducked, still concentrating on finding the balance of the axe, and struck again, and again, considering the sweet spot on the blade, the delicate design of the human cervical vertebrae, air resistance, tracking tension on his shoulder muscles. He sliced open a belly, and, as the Croat doubled over, dislodged the head in a neat 1-2 sweep.
“Dude!”
Cas jerked up at the sound of Dean's voice. Dean and Benny were staring at him. Cas paused, breathing hard.
A twisted pile of dead Croats lay at his feet. Maybe ten. Maybe more.
“Holy mother of fuck,” said Benny, wiping Croat blood on the back of his sleeve, and still clutching his splintered bat over one shoulder.
“Run,” ordered Dean, and everybody obeyed this time, Cas trailing. He skidded to a halt in the back parking lot. This wasn’t what he was expecting: not a jeep nor an SUV, but an old battleship of a Chevy muscle car outfitted with a cop grille guard and some high beams on the front.
“What the hell-?” he asked.
“Benny! Get the kid!” shouted Dean as he jumped into the driver's seat.
Benny grabbed Cas by the belt and collar and tossed him in the back seat like a sack of potatoes and then the car was squealing off, bashing right over a couple of slower Croats, and then out on the highway.
They drove for a moment in silence, the only sound rough adrenaline-fueled breathing. “I didn’t catch your name,” said Dean, who glanced into the rearview mirror.
“That’s because I didn’t give it,” grumbled Cas.
“We could still toss your ass out on the roadside, Baby Blue,” grumbled Benny.
“Benny!”
“Ain’t in a good mood, Dean. I just cracked my lucky goddam bat!” he said, holding up the splintered, gore-coverd bat ill-naturedly.
“We’ll get you another bat.”
“But this one was autographed by Kirby Puckett!”
Dean shook his head and glanced in the mirror again. “I just wanted to say thanks,” he told Cas. “Whoever the hell you are.”
“Cas,” he replied, slumping back in the seat. “Name’s Cas.” He looked at the big pile of bundles beside him in the back seat. He pulled an item out of the bag. “Are these DVDs?” he asked, tilting his head to examine them.
“Hey, be careful with those!” scolded Dean.
“What is … Dr. Sexy, M.D.?” asked Cas, reading the label. There were a lot of impossibly pretty people in the cover photograph.
Benny snorted. “Had to raid three Video Safari stores for that.”
“Just put it back,” Dean told Cas. “Put them back.”
Cas tossed them back into the sack. “You guys got anything to eat?” he asked, rubbing his still raging stomach.
“The scrounging lifestyle not paying off for y'all?” asked Benny.
Dean reached down and grabbed something off the floor, tossing it back at Cas. Cas nearly fainted when he unwrapped it: it was a sandwich. A genuine peanut butter and jelly sandwich, with grape jam.
“You giving him your lunch?” asked Benny.
“Saved my life. I think that’s worth a PB and J,” said Dean. “Hey, don’t eat so fast, you’ll give yourself a stomach ache,” he scolded in the mirror as the sandwich disappeared into Cas’s gullet.
Cas said something indistinct, as his mouth was now glued halfway shut with glorious salty, tangy peanut butter.
“He ain’t gettin’ my lunch,” declared Benny.
“Who would want your lunch,” laughed Dean, tossing Cas back a plastic water bottle. Cas took a long swig, and then leaned forward, curious, as he wasn’t sure entirely what kind of lunch a vampire packed.
Benny pulled open a plastic container. “Pig’s blood soup! Mm mm! Just like Mamma used to make,” he said, holding it under Dean’s nose.
“Gross!” said Dean. “I bet even garbage gut back there wouldn’t eat that,” he told Benny.
“Bet he would,” grinned the vampire. He had retracted the fangs, but his smile was still chilling.
Cas held out eager hands. Food was food, he decided. Benny handed him the container and a spoon, and Cas slurped down a mouthful, although, once in his mouth, the slimy liquid wasn’t the easiest thing to swallow.
“Told ya!” said Benny.
“Well, look at him. He probably hasn’t eaten in a week,” reasoned Dean.
“Nor showered in a month,” grumbled Benny, wrinkling his nose and grabbing back the soup and spoon. Cas picked up the water bottle and took a very long drink. “Course, now that we fed it, it’s bound to follow us home,” Benny added.
“Where are we going?” asked Cas, who suddenly realized he had no idea.
“We’re taking you back to the camp,” Dean announced, as if it had already been decided.
“Uh, I don’t know…” said Cas.
“Say the word, and we’ll kick you to the curb, hotshot,” promised Benny.
“Peanut butter,” purred Dean. “Vats of it. We roll in it every night.”
Cas blinked. And then sat back, and promptly fell asleep against the packages.
The van backed up at the sound of the Impala's horn, and they were ushered through the inner fence, into the compound. Yawning, Cas swiveled to look through the back window as the van slotted right back into the space for the gate, while several armed men and women paced nervously.
He turned back and peered through the windshield. “Is this … a hotel?”
“It was a hotel,” said Dean. “Check it out. They built this during the cold war, so if we got nuked, all the dudes in Congress and all the special people could shack up here.”
Dean parked the car, and they all got out. Cas gaped up at the white marble columns and felt something he had rarely before felt in his life: underdressed.
“Dean! You're back,” said a worried looking little bearded man.
“You noticed, Chuck,” sighed Dean. Benny, big as he was, had somehow managed to disappear without a sound.
“We have several issues that have come up in your absence,” said Chuck, tapping a ball point pen on his clip board. “The Evangelicals are unhappy with being housed so close to a werewolf pack. Our Wiccans say they're out of myrrh and toilet paper. There was also-”
“Chuck, can ya give me a second,” said Dean. “We got a new person I wanna get squared away,” he told him, clamping Cas on the shoulder.
“Oh,” said Chuck, who couldn't have looked less impressed. “New scrounger?”
“New soldier,” said Dean. “Oh, hey! Sammy! You feeling OK?”
“I'm fine Dean,” said the tall man, smiling lopsidedly. Cas thought he looked pale, as if he had been ill. “Those dreams just take a little bit out of me. That's all.” He turned to Cas, sizing him up. “You pick up a stray again?”
“New recruit!” said Dean. “This is Cas.”
“Hey, Cas,” smiled Sam, sticking out a hand. “I'm-”
“Sam Winchester,” said Cas quietly, shaking Sam's hand.
“Well, yeah,” said Sam, who looked quizzically at Dean.
Dean frowned, but let it go. “Look, Sammy, sounds like I got a stack of bullshit waiting for me,” he explained, hooking a thumb at Chuck, who was beginning to fume.
“I didn't vote for you, jerk,” said Sam.
“Yeah, fuck you, bitch. Could you get Cas settled in while I hash out a couple things?”
“Hey, sure,” smiled Sam, brushing hair out of his face.
“If you have time, take him by the kitsune and his crew,” Dean told him. “I got a hunch they could use them.”
“I don't trust foxes,” grumbled Chuck, who was now waiting nervously beside Dean.
“But you trust wolves,” laughed Dean. “Yeah, great thinking.” And then they were off, Chuck nattering at ninety miles a minute, like a small bearded whirlwind.
“Looks like I need to take you by the welcome wagon ladies,” Sam told Cas. “But it's nice out, we could walk the long way around if you wanna see the grounds.” Without waiting for a reply, he strode off, putting a hand up and rubbing his forehead. Cas was still in shock. When Dean had mentioned camp, he had pictured tents and sleeping bags, not some kind of high class resort bounded by concrete and razor wire.
You could tell, even from the outside, that it was no longer being used as a hotel: much of the ornamental garden had been torn up and was being used for cultivation. Cas recognized corn and soybeans, so it looked like they were intending to say a while.
“Does your brother often go on foraging expeditions with … a vampire?” asked Cas.
“A lot of our residents are supes. You know, supernaturals: vampires, werewolves and the like. Turns out they’re immune to the Croatoan virus, so we’re all in the same boat.”
“Oh.”
“But if you’re asking about Dean specifically, I usually go out with him,” said Sam. “I just felt like shit this morning.”
“Are you ill, Sam?” asked Cas, who had more than a little trouble keeping up with Sam's long strides.
“Oh, this is gonna sound weird, and I probably wouldn't have believed me, if I'd been you. But I get these dreams sometimes. And they, sort of, come true?” He phrased it like a question, as if he himself couldn’t quite believe it.
“You have prophetic visions,” said Cas.
“Yeah, something like that. Only then I get the worst fucking migraine the next day. But I wouldn't call me a prophet or anything,” he added, rubbing his chin. “I think I'd need to grow a beard, for one.”
“Daniel was clean-shaven, as was Isaiah, before he began to believe his own publicity.”
Sam stopped for a moment and regarded Cas. “Hey! How the heck would you know something like that?”
Cas blinked in confusion. “Uh. I must have read it somewhere....”
“You sounded like you knew them!” laughed Sam, although he also winced at the sound of his own voice. “I mean, you can't be that old, right?”
“I'm not certain about my age. I have … some gaps in my memory, unfortunately.”
“Aw, hey, I'm sorry,” said Sam. “That's not uncommon here, you know. What we've all been through it. PTSD and all. We could have one of the psychics take a look at you, if you want? They know stuff, you know. They’re psychic!”
Cas rather determinedly shook his head. “No. That's fine. These grounds are, uh, rather extensive?” The pathway Sam had taken now threaded between tennis courts and an Olympic-sized pool. There were also numerous outbuildings, and something that looked like a golf course off in the distance.
“Hey, yeah. Did Dean tell you the story? Congress evidently built this place in secret during the cold war so when the nuclear holocaust went down, they could all still have spa treatments.” They had come up the grand marble front steps of the main building. Sam pushed open the heavy sliding glass front door for Cas, who reluctantly entered. He walked a few steps and then stopped, turning around to take in the huge chandeliers that hung in the great yawing entryway.
“We don't actually light 'em up,” Sam explained. “Drain on energy. But this place has generators, and stockpiles of water and stuff. The tricky thing right now is fuel, that's part of the reason why Dean and Benny were out foraging. Though if the corn comes up we could have biofuel....”
“Is Dean a leader here?” asked Cas.
Sam laughed. “You're asking why the hell he's out on a road trip? Probably so he won't strangle Chuck. We love the hell out of Chuck, but damn.... Oh, hey, Lenore!” Sam hailed.
“Is this one new?” asked a sweet-faced young woman, raising an eyebrow and giving Cas the once over. He forced himself not to squirm behind Sam.
“Yeah, this is Cas. Could you give him the treatment, find him some quarters?”
“The, uh, treatment?” asked Cas. He found he wasn't as much afraid of Croats as he was this girl. And now there were a couple other women hanging around as well.
“We’ll take care of him,” said Lenore, stepping forward and gripping Cas by the shoulders. Cas cringed.
“I'll see you later,” said Sam.
“Sam?” asked Cas as Sam turned to go.
“Yeah?” asked Sam.
“Uh, your dream? If you don’t mind my asking, what did you see?”
Sam rolled his eyes and looked annoyed. “That’s the worst part! I can’t remember.”
“It’s all a blank?” asked Cas.
“Happens sometimes,” said Sam. “I might go see Pamela later – she’s one of our psychics – but it’s probably just gone. Anyway, I’ll catch up with you later.”
It had taken Dean longer than usual to extricate himself from Chuck and Chuck’s administrative bullshit this evening. Here they were, while the world went up in flames, living the life in a sweet luxury compound, and all any of them could do was bitch, bitch, bitch.
At some point during the discussion, Dean had a vague inkling that he would like to check in on the new guy. But the inkling somehow got loose in his mind, invading like a weed, and now what he had was an absolute certainty that talking to Cas was the single overarching goal of his evening. Funny, he didn’t even have a good picture in his mind of what the guy looked like, just the impression of a huge pair of sky blue eyes, swaddled up in many layers of dirt and grimy clothing. But when the kid had jumped in to slay those Croats, he’d moved like nothing Dean had ever seen before. It sounded crazy. Dean knew a lot of supernatural beings. He had fought side by side with them since this Croatoan thing had gone down. But Cas moved like someone – or something – not of this world.
Dean finally spotted Cas more or less where Lenore told him he’d be, standing alone on one of the many terraces out in the back of the main building. Dean was pleased to see there had been a person in there somewhere under all the many layers of caked dirt. They'd even given him new clothes, including an overcoat that had frankly seen better days.
Cas was hunched over, trying to light up a cigarette in the wind. He glanced over at Dean and nodded, blowing out smoke with a seeming gratitude.
“Nice coat,” said Dean.
Cas glared at him, and tapped ashes off his cigarette, coat blowing in the wind like a pair of khaki wings. “Your welcome wagon girls burned my clothes, Dean.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” said Dean, going to lean against the wall beside him. “Camp politics. We got a lice problem.”
“You know, I don’t recall telling anybody I intended to remain here,” Cas told him.
“You’re not a hostage, you know. You wanna go back out and grub for a can of beans, there’s the door,” said Dean.
Cas radiated annoyance, but didn’t say anything, sending a nervous hand through his hair. It looked like Lenore and her crew might have cut it: unruly black tufts stuck out everywhere.
Dean gestured for the cigarette. Cas squinted uncertainly at it, and then handed it to Dean, who grinned and blew smoke rings.
“Fancy,” said Cas, reaching for the smoke back.
“Hey, I went to college,” said Dean. He smiled at Cas. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Where did you pick up the nicotine addiction? You look pretty hungry for it.”
Cas looked pained. “I don't remember.”
“You get clobbered in the head or something?” asked Dean, pointing to his own noggin. “That’s what happened to my brother. He fell. As a kid. That’s when he started having his dreams.”
Cas took a long drag, waited, and then exhaled, looking far off. “I honestly don't remember much. Sorry.”
“No need to apologize.” Mysterious past, Dean thought. Intriguing. He waved for the cigarette again. Might as well be companionable. “What do you remember?”
“I awoke, and the world was in great tribulation: hellfire, mingled with blood. And I beheld a pale horse, and death followed upon him.”
Dean stopped in mid-puff. He didn't reply. There really wasn't much replying to that. “Uh. You from a religious family?” he asked as he handed back the cigarette.
“I really don't know.”
“So how did you survive?”
Cas shook his head, and finally looked at Dean. “I think I was with a group. For a time. But the leader had gone. And then they started fighting amongst themselves.” He looked down, a great sadness in his wide-set eyes. “I didn't wish to choose sides, so I left.”
“How long you been on your own?”
“I don’t know. Months?” He peered at Dean as if searching for the answer.
“That's a long time to survive in this world.”
“I'm not much of a people person.”
Dean grinned.
“So, what about you?” Cas asked.
“What about me,” said Dean, reaching over for the cigarette again. He leaned back against the wall. “So, understand this. These bozos picked me as their fearless leader when we were like six people. And a dog. And it was cool. I don’t mind telling people what to do. People are idiots. But it just sort of … escalated.”
“You are unhappy, Dean?” asked Cas.
“Sometimes,” admitted Dean, who wasn’t at all sure why he was making his confession to a newbie. Dean was not exactly the trusting sort. “Seriously, I sometimes think about throwing a couple of shotguns and packs in the back of the Impala, grabbing Sammy, and just, you know, driving off.”
Cas nodded and stared at him, seeming to take in everything. Dean shifted uncomfortably. “So, one thing I wanted to know,” said Dean. “About today? When the Croats came, you picked up on it, even before Benny. And Benny? He has a sixth sense about this stuff. How did you know they were coming, anyway?”
“The smell. Carrion.”
“You could smell 'em from that far away?”
Cas didn’t reply, but his expression seemed to say, “Sure, can’t you?”
“Did Sam introduce you to the kitsune yet?” asked Dean.
“He mentioned it. Lenore insisted that I required a haircut first. Who is Kitsune?”
“It's not his name, actually. Well, you gotta know, he’s some kind of Japanese god or demon or spirit or something,” said Dean. “But he’s handy with a sword. You seem to have a knack for hand to hand fighting.”
Cas nodded, once again neither agreeing nor disagreeing. He held up the remains of the cigarette. “Last one,” he noted.
“Can’t take your last smoke,” said Dean, but Cas pressed it on him.
“We’ll share,” Cas muttered. Dean frowned but took a grateful drag, and then Cas’s lips were on his lips, one cool hand on the back of his neck, and it was all coarse smoke and a raw electric charge.
Cas stepped back and exhaled smoke. Dean felt an ache in his lungs, and the intensity of Cas’s gaze. He coughed.
“Unfiltered,” said Cas, lips tracing a smile. “A little harsh.”
Dean tossed away the butt and ground it out with a heel. “Yeah,” he said. It came out choked. Cas nodded, and appeared to be about to leave. “Uh, your quarters,” rasped Dean. “Did Lenore and those guys set you up with a room?”
“They mentioned a couple of possibilities,” said Cas. He tilted his head. “Where are you?”
“East wing. I’m in the east wing. Ask anybody,” Dean told him, feeling a little foolish.
Cas nodded. And then he was gone, coat flapping in the wind.
Dean leaned back against the building again. “I’m an idiot,” he told himself.
Cas tread warily across the compound, cigarette smoke and trench coat billowing in his wake.
Wasn't there an expression, out of the frying pan, into the fire?
It had been strange, these past few days, having enough food to eat. And it was very strange indeed having a bed. Two beds, actually. The room Lenore and the “welcome wagon” had assigned him had two beds.
Lenore was a vampire. They were all vampires. And, as Sam had told him, vampires were immune. Well, they were immune to the virus, but not the madness created by all the infected humans.
She had told him there were plenty of rooms available given that he didn't mind the sun. A lot of the … residents here tended to shy away from sunshine. The vampires evidently had a nest in the basement, tucked in where there was only artificial light.
The sun wasn't what Cas minded.
Not that he'd actually slept much in either of his beds. The very first night he had in fact gone to sleep out on the room's little balcony, crowbar clutched in his hand. They had given him a suite – an entire suite – despite his protestations. Besides the beds, it had a desk and a small, refrigerator, so he'd pushed the desk and fridge up against the front door to blockade it and then slid open the glass door that opened to the balcony and spread one of the blankets down on the floor there and then also grabbed a pillow (because why not) and slept there, out in the open, down under the stars and up above what used to be a pool before they'd drained it and filled it in with sod and used it to grow tomatoes.
Dean had seemed annoyed the next morning when first of all Cas hadn't heard Dean knocking (he wasn’t exactly sure how that had even been possible, as Cas never really slept) and then had to scramble to dislodge the furniture blockade before Dean could enter the suite. Sam, who was there too, had just flashed one of those big charming grins and said it was all cool, but Dean barked at him impatiently. Cas got the sense that Dean had been trying to duck out early to evade some of his leadership responsibilities. He had given Cas two tasks then: they weren't really orders, but it was heavily implied that he must fulfill them if he was to remain in good standing with the group.
The first task had turned out to be pleasurable. He was to receive training from the old kitsune, the camp's sword master. It had seemed weird and archaic, but it made sense for this world: blades were a silent weapon (and as everyone learned very quickly, nothing attracted Croats more than noise). In addition, swords did not require frequent foraging trips for scarce ammunition.
Cas had taken to it like a fish slipping into the water.
Oddly, he had an instinct for making stabbing motions, not slicing, so they were working on correcting this. The kitsune had entrusted him with a fine katana, with strict instructions to keep it oiled. The promise was easily kept, and running a soft cloth over the graceful sword had easily become a calming routine. He wore it on his back, in a scabbard, although he quite admired the kitsune's lovely obi.
Dean had given him one more assignment, and that was the one that ended up shunted aside and put off and ignored. There were so many things he didn't remember, and so many things he should have known, like why the fuck a kid scrounging for beans in an abandoned Piggly Wiggly could heft a masterwork sword like it was and had always been part of his arm.
Deep in thought, he arrived at the correct building. It was located near an empty pool, so Cas surmised it had been a spa at one point. He stamped out his cigarette and entered. The door was open, and there were two women sitting there around a long conference table, looking like they were passing the time. The older one had something in her hands: a colorful ball of yarn spilled out and onto the table and she was holding something that looked like large metal chopsticks. Knitting needles? Yes, she was knitting. She turned dark, knowing eyes to him as he entered. The other one, who was doing nothing at all, kicking back, turned to him as well. She was wearing a pair of very dark sunglasses, so it was impossible to read her expression, but her head tilted at a jaunty angle.
“Come on in, sugar! We won't bite!” said the one with the yarn.
“Sure we will,” snapped the other, “if you look tasty.” She got to her feet and apprised Cas. “Huh. You're the new guy. No wonder the fearless leader got his panties in a twist. I would kill for lips like that.”
Cas unconsciously licked his lips and took a cautious step forward.
“I'm Missouri, hon,” said the older woman, who was arranging yarn so she too could stand up. “And the rude one is Pammy.”
“Pamela,” she corrected, not apparently taking her eyes from Cas.
Cas stood frozen. “Dean asked that I come here.”
“You're Cas?” asked Missouri.
“Yes.”
“Just ... Cas?” asked Pamela. Cas could imagine, behind the Ray Bans, her eyes squeezing into a suspicious frown.
“Just Cas.”
Pamela or Pammy threw a glance at Missouri, and Cas could see from her profile that Pamela was wearing a patch over one eye.
“You want a reading?” asked Missouri.
“Dean asked that I come here,” Cas repeated.
“And you'll do anything when Freckles crinkles his nose, huh?” asked Pamela, resting a hip on the table.
“Why do you think Dean sent you here?” asked Missouri, and Cas thought he saw a shrewdness behind the smile.
“I have some gaps. In my memory.”
“And you want us to fill them in?” Missouri asked.
“Not particularly. No.”
The women now quite frankly looked at each other.
“And why is that, sweetcheeks?” asked Pamela. “You don't wanna know what you were up to?”
“I doubt you would want to know.”
The look again, and then Missouri said, “You know, doll, maybe you're right. Maybe you should just turn around and take that sweet ass back to Dean. You tell him we were having an off day.”
“What? Missy, you're out of your fucking mind,” said Pamela. She came up off the table and grabbed Cas by the arm.
“Pammy?” warned Missouri, and then a real look of fear crossed her face.
“I can't turn down a challenge,” grinned Pamela, tugging Cas forward. “Come on. Leave the tin out here. You'll come back to my place and we'll get acquainted.”
Cas reluctantly removed his scabbard and left the katana sitting on the table in the entryway. And then Pamela led him off to a smaller, curtained off area. There was a massage table pushed off against one wall.
Pamela pulled two chairs so they were facing each other, and then they sat down, Cas uncomfortably close, as she scooted up so their knees were touching. “Not gonna molest ya now, hon. We’ll save that for later. Now just relax.” Pamela held out her hands.
“I would be more comfortable if you had let me keep my blade,” said Cas.
“Relax, Cas,” Pamela repeated, grabbing his hands, which had begun to sweat. “Now, you just sit there, and clear your mind.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Well, I thought maybe we'd get your name, for starters. You need another name, unless you think you're Madonna,” she smirked.
“You seek my true name?” asked Cas, his voice taking up a great darkness.
“Uh,” said Pamela. She looked around, and realized she had dropped Cas’s hands. “Damn, your hands are too fucking sweaty. Like holding a greased pig. Come on, gimme!” Cas held out his hands and, after a moment's hesitation, Pamela took them again, and resumed acting her cocky self.
Cas watched Pamela warily for a moment, and then closed his own eyes. After a long moment, he could actually feel her probing at the edges of his mind, wandering around his defenses, looking for a way in. It was a funny feeling, like he'd been administered a mild psychoactive drug.
“You're resisting. Stop.”
His mind had started to unwind, thoughts and memories stirring softly. Boxes, long sealed, were being prodded. A sea unsettled.
Pamela had found something. The attention switched to one small area, something neglected and old. Off on an old path, seldom trodden now. There was something dark here.
Something very dark. Pamela had found the darkness, and now unwound it, searching, probing. It rolled and spun in her hands, like a dark skein of yarn unfolding. Dark upon dark, until she could no longer see, no longer sense. Darkness was all around her. Dark and cold. She opened her mouth to scream, but there was no breath here, no nothing here, a deep dark.
“PAMELA!”
Cas opened his eyes. He hadn't noticed Pamela dropping his hands. Nor had he felt her collapsing. She was lying on the floor, sunglasses askew, body in spasms. Missouri was there, on her knees, hovering over her.
Pamela blinked her one good eye and suddenly clung to Missouri. “It was all dark. I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe,” she whispered.
“Girl, I think you had enough excitement for one week,” Missouri told her, patting her hand. She turned towards Cas, giving him an apprising look. “Why don't you get on back home? You can tell Dean we're a little … overwhelmed this week.”
Cas silently stood and nodded. Pamela was staring at him, wide-eyed. A single tear dripped down her cheek. It was bloody.
Sam was walking through a very familiar wasteland.
Great, another migraine, he thought. Well, at least he'd had a couple weeks respite this time.
“Hey, Max,” he told the dog. He actually had no idea if Max was really its name. Sam hadn’t had a dog, growing up, so this was probably remembered from a movie or TV show or something.
He grabbed the drool-covered stick and gave it a good toss, and the mutt went giddily romping out after it, disappearing into some scrub.
Thunder sounded off in the distance, and the sky darkened. It was always on the verge of a rainstorm here, but, as far as he could remember, it never actually rained. Maybe whoever was sending this stuff to Sam wanted it to seem gloomy and portentous? “It was a dark and stormy night….” He grinned. Or rather, dream!Sam grinned.
The dog came back. A person was walking with it now: a slight figure in a trench coat, trailing a cloud of cigarette smoke.
“Cas?” asked Sam. “Is that you?”
“Yes.”
“Why am I dreaming you? We just met. And, no offense, you’re not the kind of person I usually dream about.”
“You are correct in that I’m not an attractive female, Sam. However, you said you were having trouble remembering your dreams,” Cas told him, taking a drag on a cigarette. “I thought I could help.”
“You wander around in people’s dreams?” asked Sam.
“It’s just something I can do.”
“Dean is right: there is something seriously weird about you.”
“Has your brother talked about me?” Cas sounded hopeful. It made Sam smile.
“Yeah, actually,” said Sam. “You made quite an impression.” He glared at the cigarette. “OK. First off, this is a no smoking dream!”
Cas raised an eyebrow, but tossed down the cigarette and ground it out with his toe. “Have it your way,” he said. “Where are we headed?”
“Well, the usual scenario is I walk around playing with the dog and they come to me.”
Cas was looking around, scanning the horizon. “There’s a light off over there. Suppose we head that way?”
“I guess so. You don’t think it’ll throw off the mystical mojo?” asked Sam.
“I’m afraid I have no idea what a ‘mojo’ is, Sam.”
“What planet are you from, anyway?” asked Sam. He shrugged, and he and Cas followed a galumphing Max towards the light. “Oh, what the hell?” he asked, as they approached what looked like a building now on the horizon. It was a café.
“I wonder what this portends?” mused Cas.
“I dunno, but I think I need a beer. C’mon, dude,” said Sam, entering the gate. “Inside or outside?”
“I usually prefer outside, so I can smoke,” said Cas. “But this is a no smoking dream….”
“You can have one,” declared Sam, sitting down at a little table just outside the window. Max ran around the table once, and then curled up at Sam's feet. “Oh, here we go! Now this is more like it.”
A waitress had appeared from somewhere. She was dressed all in black, like they do at some trendy restaurants. She had black hair and dark eyes, which added nicely to the effect.
She also had an intriguing tattoo under one eye.
“Hey, nice ink,” said Sam.
“We’re still waiting,” she told him, handing him a menu. “My father is growing impatient.”
“Oh, well, I’m sorry,” Sam apologized. “Why don’t you send him on out?”
“That’s not how it works. He doesn’t come to you. You go to him.” She sounded rather determined about this.
“Well, uh, OK,” said Sam. “So, where is that?”
“Do you really have the best pizza in Manhattan?” inquired Cas, pointing to where this statement was printed on the menu.
“And the worst,” she told him. “We currently have the only pizza in Manhattan.”
“Well, then I guess I need to try the pizza,” said Sam.
“You can’t,” she told him.
“What? Is this like the cheese shop with no cheese?” laughed Sam.
“Of course not,” said the waitress. “I mean, other than the bouzouki players of course,” she added, pointing to the two musicians dressed in colorful Greek folk costumes that Sam somehow hadn’t noticed before. They danced in step and played a rhythmic folk tune.
“Then, uh, why no pizza?” Sam persisted. “And don’t tell me the cat ate it.”
“First, like I told you, you gotta go to him, he won’t go to you. Second…” she said, pointing up to the sky. There was an ominous funnel cloud now on the horizon.
“Shit!” said Sam, eyeing the approaching twister. “You guys got a root cellar or something?” But when he looked back, the waitress was gone. And, more worryingly to Sam, so was Max the dog. He turned. Cas was still there. “Cas, what do we do?”
But then Cas came at him and Sam felt himself being tackled, and they both went down, he and Cas, huddled in the shadow of the café’s front wall. Sam had the breath knocked out of him: for a little guy, Cas was heavy as hell.
“Keep still,” came a harsh whisper in his ear. And then Sam cringed as the pressure in his ears suddenly increased. The wind roared, and he felt Cas’s trench coat flutter up like wings. He heard the bouzouki music grow softer and softer, and turned his head to see the musicians both sucked up in the funnel, but both still calmly playing.
And Cas, huddling over him was … no longer Cas. He was something very dark. A shadow, a black hole, something not light could penetrate.
And then … silence.
Sam shot up in bed, bathed in a cold sweat.
“I don’t like it,” said Dean.
“Well, it’s not about liking or not liking, it just kind of … is,” said Sam, keeping pace with his brother as Dean stalked downstairs and turned into the corridor.
“This guy shows up outta nowhere, scares the fucking shit out of our best psychic, and now he’s suddenly copiloting your dream?”
“I thought you said you and Benny pretty much kidnapped the guy?”
“Yeah, but think! Maybe he wanted to be kidnapped, Sammy!”
“So he also magically brought on the gang of Croats?”
“I don’t know any more. That’s why we’re gonna go have a talk.” They had just arrived downstairs at a rather bland looking meeting room. It looked more or less like every other conference room in the building. “We wanna talk, Ash,” Dean told the guy sitting at the desk with his feet up, reading a paperback book.
“You sure, dude? He’s not in a great mood,” Ash, the mullet-coiffed attendant, told them. He didn’t budge.
“Is he ever in a good mood?” asked Dean.
“Point taken,” drawled Ash. He swung his legs down and ambled over to one wall. He hit a concealed switch, and most of the wall swung out to reveal a huge vault. “After you, gentlemen,” he smiled.
“Are you sure you need me?” Sam asked Dean. “My head still hurts.”
“I’m sure, crybaby. Anyway, I never remember the incantation for the inner door. Come on.”
They both went inside, and then the heavy outer door swung shut, and they two were alone. Sam huffed air, and noticed he could see his breath. “Jesus, he must be in a terrible mood.”
“Just get on with it,” said Dean. Sam held out his hand and muttered in Latin at the smaller inner door. It creaked, and then slowly opened.
“What do you idjits want now?” came a voice from inside.
“We need to talk to a vengeful spirit,” said Dean.
“You come to the right place,” said Bobby. He was a little shaky and indistinct, a bit like a TV picture when it’s tuned between channels.
Dean carefully entered the inner vault, being careful not to step on any of the confining sigils painted around the entrance. Someone had let Bobby’s spirit escape before. It was not a pleasant memory.
“Sammy had one of his dreams,” said Dean, pointing up at his apologetic looking younger brother.
“Oh, what is it this time, kid? Fire, flood, rain of tarantulas?”
“Pizza,” said Sam.
“Well, that don’t sound too apocalyptic. Unless you get it with anchovies.”
“Seriously, Bobby,” said Sam, who sat down on the bare floor. They had brought in chairs, once. Bad idea. And then they’d tried cushions. Another bad idea.
“He’d been having trouble remembering,” Dean prompted.
“Yeah,” said Sam, rubbing his eyes. “So, last night, I’m in the same place I always go when I have these dreams, and Cas shows up.”
“What the hell’s a Cas?”
Dean leaned back against the far wall and had a sudden urge for a cigarette. “Benny and I picked up a kid when we were out scrounging the other day. We were surrounded, and he grabbed my axe and wasted a dozen Croats all by himself.”
“What the hell kind of name is Cas? Is he a girl or a boy?”
“A boy,” said Dean.
“First name, last name, or nickname?”
“What the heck does that even matter, Bobby?”
“Because names are important, boy. Names are one of the most important things. Especially if he’s some kinda malevolent critter.”
“I don’t think he’s malevolent,” said Dean.
“You don’t?” asked Sam, peering up at Dean.
“What do you know about that could hop a ride on a dream, Bobby?” asked Dean, ignoring Sam.
Bobby’s spirit glared at Dean. “Let’s have the rest of the dream, first, Sam.”
“Like I said, we sat down at a café and tried to order pizza. But the waitress told us-“
“There was a waitress?”
“Yeah! Some goth girl waitress. She had a weird little tatt under an eye.” Sam traced his finger under his own eye.
“Can you show me?” asked Bobby. “Just draw it on the floor. Nobody will give me a damn pencil.”
“Around you, pencils get shoved in eyes,” Dean warned him.
“I didn’t mean nothing.”
“You scratched Pamela’s cornea, Bobby.”
“Pamela gets too damn nosy sometimes,” Bobby grumbled, flickering dangerously.
“Here, Bobby,” said Sam, reaching over and tracing a symbol on the floor. “It was just like a curlicue.”
Bobby’s spirit hunkered down next to Sam. “Damn my knees,” he said. He squinted down, as if Sam had actually written something on the floor, ghostly fingers tracing over the patch of floor Sam had used. “That’s the Eye of Horus.”
“So, what does that mean, does Horus want his eye back?” asked Dean.
Bobby straightened up. “Means the gal’s a reaper.”
“Uh, as in grim, Bobby?” asked Sam.
“That’s the one. What did she want, Sam?”
“She kept saying he – her father – wouldn’t come to us, we had to go to him.”
“Well, boys, sounds like you best saddle up. You got an appointment.”
Sam and Dean looked at each other, Sam nervous, Dean determined. “Yeah? With who?” asked Dean.
He had chosen the blade partially for the graceful beauty of the maker’s mark. It seemed to fit gloriously in his hand, as if he had been bidden to it.
The kitsune spirit, who went by Toshiro, seemed old beyond belief, but Cas realized this was just the manifestation of its human form. Ancient spirits can attain a human form, though why they would want to do that, no one knows.
As Toshiro watched, Cas went through the forms, patiently executing each one, striking out with the sharp yakiba side. It all seemed so familiar, the heft in his hands, the arc of the flashing blade. Like a dance he had been taught, and then forgotten.
He was wrested from his reverie by the door banging open. He halted to look at Dean, who was glaring at him. Dean Winchester, human weather system. At first, Dean had been fairly indifferent to Cas, but then he had warmed up after Cas dispatched a few Croats. But the affection (if that is what it was) had morphed into anger after the encounter with Pamela, and then a sort of stony betrayal after Cas had guided Sam though his dream. Usually, this would have mattered, but for some reason, Dean’s opinion of Cas mattered very, very much to him.
And so Cas had come down to dwell for a time in the tranquility of the kitsune’s dojo.
“Pack your bags. We’re leaving,” barked Dean.
“Where are we going?” asked Cas.
“We’re going out for pizza.” Which prompted even the kitsune to raise a bushy eyebrow.
“Where?”
“Manhattan.”
Cas blinked. “And you want me to come along?” he asked, tilting his head to better read Dean’s mood.
Dean paused at the doorway and turned around with seeming impatience. “That would be why I told you to come along.”
Cas carefully replaced his sword in the scabbard, and then, with a polite bow to Toshiro and a whispered, “Sensei,” headed toward the door, where Dean was making a show of silently fuming.
“I was under the impression that you did not trust me,” said Cas, falling in step with Dean.
“I don’t. I don’t even know what the fuck you are. But you got Sam through his dream, and I know you can off Croats. So, get your ass in gear.”
Cas pulled a somewhat crushed pack of cigarettes from a coat pocket.
“Where the hell do you still find those things?”
“Good at scounging,” said Cas. “I don’t have anything to pack. Your vampires burned almost everything I had.”
“Yeah, our vampires are pyros,” said Dean. A small smile crossed his face, and the agitation seemed to abruptly ratchet down, like a summer storm blowing away. “You shouldn’t smoke,” he told Cas as he ignited the cigarette.
“Why not?”
“You’ll stunt your growth.”
Cas glared at him.
They had both stopped walking. The corridor was dim and deserted. Cas leaned back against the wall and, jutting his chin defiantly, smoked his cigarette. Dean placed one hand flat on the wall over Cas’s shoulder and leaned in, and they locked eyes for a long moment. “The vamps put your room way over in the west wing,” said Dean.
“I asked them to.”
“Why?”
“You said you were in the east wing.”
Dean traced his hand along Cas’s jawline, and then pressed in for a kiss, keeping the rest of his body a tantalizing inch or so away. Cas, one hand still holding the cigarette, reached his other hand around Dean’s waist, trying to pull him in closer as the kiss deepened. Dean pulled back, and Cas opened his eyes.
Dean grabbed away the cigarette, and was already sauntering down the hallway. “Be ready at dawn,” he said, sticking the cigarette in his mouth. He left a trail of triumphant smoke in his wake.
xxxxxxx
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: tikific
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Dean/Castiel, Sam, Benny, Chuck, Bobby, Missouri, Pamela, Lenore, Michael, Gabriel, Lucifer, Balthazar, Garth
Warnings: Cursing. Suicidal ideation.
Word Count: ~50,000
Summary: The Croatoan virus has brought down civilization as we know it. Dean Winchester, leader of a motley set of survivors, is searching for volume 25 the Video Safari limited edition box set of Dr. Sexy MD when he stumbles into Cas, an amnesiac grubbing for a can of beans at an abandoned Piggly Wiggly. Together with his brother, Sam, who may be a prophet of the Lord, and some friends they meet along the way, they embark on a cross-country road trip to find a cure for the virus and save humanity. But the journey takes our heroes straight into the middle of an angelic feud.
Notes: The compound is based on the Greenbrier, a real resort. This one owes a debt to Zombieland, Vertigo comics and Spirited Away.
Some years ago….
The rambling old house stood dark and quiet. The sole resident padded downstairs in stocking-clad feet and sat down, cross-legged, beside a large coffee table. It was a glass-topped table with a large square tray in the bottom. There were keepsakes spread around the tray, visible through the glass: photographs, certificates, awards.
She pressed down and untwisted the cap of the prescription bottle she was holding, spilling the contents on the smooth surface of the table before her. She carefully counted out each red capsule, filing them all into neat lines, and then went through and recounted them again. Apparently satisfied, she gathered them up and inserted them back into the bottle.
The telephone rang. It rang, and rang again until finally the answering machine clicked on and the greeting ran through. She placed the lid on the bottle and carried it back upstairs.
“Sylvia?” came the voice on the answering machine. “Sylvia! It’s Mac. If you’re there, pick up.”
Somewhere on the second floor, a door shut with a click.
The present day….
It all started because of Cas’s hungry belly.
He had spent a good twenty minutes inside the abandoned Piggly Wiggly, carefully picking through the pile of battered, rusty cans and had finally managed to extract a single sealed, undented, unexpired container of Bush's Maple Cured Bacon Baked Beans.
And that's when he made his mistake. He knew the rules by now, one of which, hard and fast, was “grab it and run.” But his stomach was aching from a long stretch of missed meals. The neighborhood surrounding his good cache had gotten infested, and he had been forced to abandon it. Lesson learned: distribute your stores more evenly. But it may have turned out to be a fatal lesson if he didn't get something to eat. And soon.
He cocked his head, senses attuned, sniffing the air. It would be good to have something in his stomach, he reasoned, so he wouldn't grow faint again. Casting yet another glance up and down, he sat down right in the middle of the smooth linoleum floor, pulled out his trusty pocket knife and started to work on the can, slowly prying up the lid. He was drooling before he even dipped his hand in. They tasted awful, just awful, but he had never eaten so fast in his life, quickly getting down to where he risked cutting his tongue for a few final licks of the can, and then sucking on his fingers until all the taste had gone.
Cas sighed and set down the empty can, rubbing his stomach.
And then emitted a small burp.
He froze, slapping his hand over his mouth, casting sharp eyes around the ruined grocery store.
His heart stopped.
One of them. No, maybe two.
His hand went to his waist, fingers clasping the crowbar slung in his belt.
Wait for it.
The hit came from the side. Whoever it was, he was big. And quick as hell. Cas was slammed to the floor. The guy was on top of him, and about to clobber him with some kind of club, but Cas got up his crowbar just in time to block it. And they lay there like that for a moment, struggling.
“Benny!” came a yell.
His antagonist froze. “Dean?” he asked, not moving, sharp blue eyes circling around towards the other man. Cas couldn't see the other man well, as he was pinned down under the big guy.
“Dude, he's human,” said Dean, kicking the empty can. Cas heard it rolling. “Look. Croats don't sit around snarfing beans.”
“Boy!” Benny snarled, eyes now trained at Cas. “Speak the fuck up, are you human?”
“I am not a Croat,” Cas told him definitively.
“Well why the hell didn't you say somethin'?” Benny groused, standing up and wrenching Cas to his feet with a yank of one big paw.
“Perhaps because you tackled me,” grumbled Cas, dusting off, flicking his eyes from one to the other. The big guy, Benny, was built like a linebacker. He had an unfriendly expression and a pretty lush southern accent. There was also something else a little off about him. The other guy, Dean, looked like he'd just stepped out of an army recruiting commercial, young and handsome as hell, though with a hard look to his eyes. He spoke with a light drawl. Cas considered fleeing, but both of them were armed, and he didn't want to risk showing his back to them. Besides, they were both bigger than he.
“You’re a mouthy little fuck, Baby Blue,” grinned Benny, giving Cas a clap on the back that may or may not have been intended as friendly. It nearly sent him reeling into the shelves.
“Look, this place has already been ransacked,” said Dean, wiping a hand across a dusty shelf and regarding the grit on his fingers. “We got what we came out for. Let's head back.”
“Wait,” said Cas, eyes widening, gripping his crowbar.
“Why so damn jumpy?” asked Benny. As if in answer, there was a soft rustle from the front of the store, like a curtain billowing in the wind.
Dean and Benny formed up, side by side. The move looked practiced. “Stay behind us,” Dean whispered back to Cas. For two large men, Cas thought, they moved silent as ghosts. He also noticed they left their rifles hanging on the slings. The one called Dean had some kind of fancy hand axe, and the big guy was gripping a Louisville slugger. That was good: Croats were attracted to noise, so gunshots would often make your situation worse. They exchanged hand signals. It looked like they meant to move towards the back of the store. He stayed close, as it looked like the best strategy for now.
“They’re here,” Cas said quietly. Benny tensed, but Dean glanced back at Cas, puzzled look on his face.
And then she screamed, a gargling kind of scream, as her throat had been cut some time back, and lunged for Dean. He swung the axe, and finished beheading her. Benny swung left and then right, smoothly bashing Croat heads. Cas was impressed: a switch hitter. They efficiently dropped the small pack, maybe half a dozen Croats, and then paused for breath.
“Is that it?” Dean whispered.
Benny paused, nodding. “Think so.”
“No,” said Cas.
Both of them turned to glare back at Cas, but he simply pointed back the way they had been heading. Dean swiveled around.
“Shit,” said Dean, now viewing the approaching herd. “OK, plan B, run!”
Cas was already on his way, breaking for the front door. The old automatic doors had been long jammed with shopping baskets and debris, so he smashed a window with his crowbar and hopped through. Yeah, it was noisy, but they were already pretty much up shit creek. The others made it through more slowly, Dean now up behind him, grabbing him by the shoulder.
“Vehicle?” Cas asked, praying these idiots had driven here and he wouldn’t have to run for his life again on a nearly empty stomach. Dean pointed. They’d evidently parked around in back of the supermarket, which was probably smart, but now it meant they had to fight their way across an obstacle course of beached shopping baskets and abandoned cars to make whatever the hell crap transportation these dudes had brought along.
He felt his shoulder gripped hard as Dean shoved Cas in back of him so he and Benny could take point again. Dean seemed to be in his element swinging the axe, and Benny was almost as good with the bat, brawny arms tensing as he swung. That is, until a Croat jumped too close to a light fixture, and Benny’s bat cracked on the pole, shattering in two.
“Benny!” called Dean as the Croat ducked and lunged.
Benny growled, literally growled, unhinging a set of pointed teeth, and summarily ripped the Croat’s neck to pieces. As Cas watched, utterly fascinated, Benny grinned a bloody grin, jamming the rest of the splintered bat into the Croat’s face as it went down.
“Benny!” called Dean again. But this wasn’t a warning, it was a cry for help. Through intent or happenstance, a Croat had launched a shopping basket down the low incline towards him while Dean was distracted. Dean had tried to duck, but his ankle caught on a wheel. It knocked him over, and the axe went skidding out of his hand. Benny grabbed for his gun, but had to stop to punch out a Croat who had strayed too close.
Cas leapt over the overturned shopping cart and stooped over, Dean’s axe finding his hand. It was too heavy and too long, but he gripped it two-handed and neatly beheaded the Croat hovering over Dean. He spun around, correcting his grip, and another head went flying. He ducked, still concentrating on finding the balance of the axe, and struck again, and again, considering the sweet spot on the blade, the delicate design of the human cervical vertebrae, air resistance, tracking tension on his shoulder muscles. He sliced open a belly, and, as the Croat doubled over, dislodged the head in a neat 1-2 sweep.
“Dude!”
Cas jerked up at the sound of Dean's voice. Dean and Benny were staring at him. Cas paused, breathing hard.
A twisted pile of dead Croats lay at his feet. Maybe ten. Maybe more.
“Holy mother of fuck,” said Benny, wiping Croat blood on the back of his sleeve, and still clutching his splintered bat over one shoulder.
“Run,” ordered Dean, and everybody obeyed this time, Cas trailing. He skidded to a halt in the back parking lot. This wasn’t what he was expecting: not a jeep nor an SUV, but an old battleship of a Chevy muscle car outfitted with a cop grille guard and some high beams on the front.
“What the hell-?” he asked.
“Benny! Get the kid!” shouted Dean as he jumped into the driver's seat.
Benny grabbed Cas by the belt and collar and tossed him in the back seat like a sack of potatoes and then the car was squealing off, bashing right over a couple of slower Croats, and then out on the highway.
They drove for a moment in silence, the only sound rough adrenaline-fueled breathing. “I didn’t catch your name,” said Dean, who glanced into the rearview mirror.
“That’s because I didn’t give it,” grumbled Cas.
“We could still toss your ass out on the roadside, Baby Blue,” grumbled Benny.
“Benny!”
“Ain’t in a good mood, Dean. I just cracked my lucky goddam bat!” he said, holding up the splintered, gore-coverd bat ill-naturedly.
“We’ll get you another bat.”
“But this one was autographed by Kirby Puckett!”
Dean shook his head and glanced in the mirror again. “I just wanted to say thanks,” he told Cas. “Whoever the hell you are.”
“Cas,” he replied, slumping back in the seat. “Name’s Cas.” He looked at the big pile of bundles beside him in the back seat. He pulled an item out of the bag. “Are these DVDs?” he asked, tilting his head to examine them.
“Hey, be careful with those!” scolded Dean.
“What is … Dr. Sexy, M.D.?” asked Cas, reading the label. There were a lot of impossibly pretty people in the cover photograph.
Benny snorted. “Had to raid three Video Safari stores for that.”
“Just put it back,” Dean told Cas. “Put them back.”
Cas tossed them back into the sack. “You guys got anything to eat?” he asked, rubbing his still raging stomach.
“The scrounging lifestyle not paying off for y'all?” asked Benny.
Dean reached down and grabbed something off the floor, tossing it back at Cas. Cas nearly fainted when he unwrapped it: it was a sandwich. A genuine peanut butter and jelly sandwich, with grape jam.
“You giving him your lunch?” asked Benny.
“Saved my life. I think that’s worth a PB and J,” said Dean. “Hey, don’t eat so fast, you’ll give yourself a stomach ache,” he scolded in the mirror as the sandwich disappeared into Cas’s gullet.
Cas said something indistinct, as his mouth was now glued halfway shut with glorious salty, tangy peanut butter.
“He ain’t gettin’ my lunch,” declared Benny.
“Who would want your lunch,” laughed Dean, tossing Cas back a plastic water bottle. Cas took a long swig, and then leaned forward, curious, as he wasn’t sure entirely what kind of lunch a vampire packed.
Benny pulled open a plastic container. “Pig’s blood soup! Mm mm! Just like Mamma used to make,” he said, holding it under Dean’s nose.
“Gross!” said Dean. “I bet even garbage gut back there wouldn’t eat that,” he told Benny.
“Bet he would,” grinned the vampire. He had retracted the fangs, but his smile was still chilling.
Cas held out eager hands. Food was food, he decided. Benny handed him the container and a spoon, and Cas slurped down a mouthful, although, once in his mouth, the slimy liquid wasn’t the easiest thing to swallow.
“Told ya!” said Benny.
“Well, look at him. He probably hasn’t eaten in a week,” reasoned Dean.
“Nor showered in a month,” grumbled Benny, wrinkling his nose and grabbing back the soup and spoon. Cas picked up the water bottle and took a very long drink. “Course, now that we fed it, it’s bound to follow us home,” Benny added.
“Where are we going?” asked Cas, who suddenly realized he had no idea.
“We’re taking you back to the camp,” Dean announced, as if it had already been decided.
“Uh, I don’t know…” said Cas.
“Say the word, and we’ll kick you to the curb, hotshot,” promised Benny.
“Peanut butter,” purred Dean. “Vats of it. We roll in it every night.”
Cas blinked. And then sat back, and promptly fell asleep against the packages.
The van backed up at the sound of the Impala's horn, and they were ushered through the inner fence, into the compound. Yawning, Cas swiveled to look through the back window as the van slotted right back into the space for the gate, while several armed men and women paced nervously.
He turned back and peered through the windshield. “Is this … a hotel?”
“It was a hotel,” said Dean. “Check it out. They built this during the cold war, so if we got nuked, all the dudes in Congress and all the special people could shack up here.”
Dean parked the car, and they all got out. Cas gaped up at the white marble columns and felt something he had rarely before felt in his life: underdressed.
“Dean! You're back,” said a worried looking little bearded man.
“You noticed, Chuck,” sighed Dean. Benny, big as he was, had somehow managed to disappear without a sound.
“We have several issues that have come up in your absence,” said Chuck, tapping a ball point pen on his clip board. “The Evangelicals are unhappy with being housed so close to a werewolf pack. Our Wiccans say they're out of myrrh and toilet paper. There was also-”
“Chuck, can ya give me a second,” said Dean. “We got a new person I wanna get squared away,” he told him, clamping Cas on the shoulder.
“Oh,” said Chuck, who couldn't have looked less impressed. “New scrounger?”
“New soldier,” said Dean. “Oh, hey! Sammy! You feeling OK?”
“I'm fine Dean,” said the tall man, smiling lopsidedly. Cas thought he looked pale, as if he had been ill. “Those dreams just take a little bit out of me. That's all.” He turned to Cas, sizing him up. “You pick up a stray again?”
“New recruit!” said Dean. “This is Cas.”
“Hey, Cas,” smiled Sam, sticking out a hand. “I'm-”
“Sam Winchester,” said Cas quietly, shaking Sam's hand.
“Well, yeah,” said Sam, who looked quizzically at Dean.
Dean frowned, but let it go. “Look, Sammy, sounds like I got a stack of bullshit waiting for me,” he explained, hooking a thumb at Chuck, who was beginning to fume.
“I didn't vote for you, jerk,” said Sam.
“Yeah, fuck you, bitch. Could you get Cas settled in while I hash out a couple things?”
“Hey, sure,” smiled Sam, brushing hair out of his face.
“If you have time, take him by the kitsune and his crew,” Dean told him. “I got a hunch they could use them.”
“I don't trust foxes,” grumbled Chuck, who was now waiting nervously beside Dean.
“But you trust wolves,” laughed Dean. “Yeah, great thinking.” And then they were off, Chuck nattering at ninety miles a minute, like a small bearded whirlwind.
“Looks like I need to take you by the welcome wagon ladies,” Sam told Cas. “But it's nice out, we could walk the long way around if you wanna see the grounds.” Without waiting for a reply, he strode off, putting a hand up and rubbing his forehead. Cas was still in shock. When Dean had mentioned camp, he had pictured tents and sleeping bags, not some kind of high class resort bounded by concrete and razor wire.
You could tell, even from the outside, that it was no longer being used as a hotel: much of the ornamental garden had been torn up and was being used for cultivation. Cas recognized corn and soybeans, so it looked like they were intending to say a while.
“Does your brother often go on foraging expeditions with … a vampire?” asked Cas.
“A lot of our residents are supes. You know, supernaturals: vampires, werewolves and the like. Turns out they’re immune to the Croatoan virus, so we’re all in the same boat.”
“Oh.”
“But if you’re asking about Dean specifically, I usually go out with him,” said Sam. “I just felt like shit this morning.”
“Are you ill, Sam?” asked Cas, who had more than a little trouble keeping up with Sam's long strides.
“Oh, this is gonna sound weird, and I probably wouldn't have believed me, if I'd been you. But I get these dreams sometimes. And they, sort of, come true?” He phrased it like a question, as if he himself couldn’t quite believe it.
“You have prophetic visions,” said Cas.
“Yeah, something like that. Only then I get the worst fucking migraine the next day. But I wouldn't call me a prophet or anything,” he added, rubbing his chin. “I think I'd need to grow a beard, for one.”
“Daniel was clean-shaven, as was Isaiah, before he began to believe his own publicity.”
Sam stopped for a moment and regarded Cas. “Hey! How the heck would you know something like that?”
Cas blinked in confusion. “Uh. I must have read it somewhere....”
“You sounded like you knew them!” laughed Sam, although he also winced at the sound of his own voice. “I mean, you can't be that old, right?”
“I'm not certain about my age. I have … some gaps in my memory, unfortunately.”
“Aw, hey, I'm sorry,” said Sam. “That's not uncommon here, you know. What we've all been through it. PTSD and all. We could have one of the psychics take a look at you, if you want? They know stuff, you know. They’re psychic!”
Cas rather determinedly shook his head. “No. That's fine. These grounds are, uh, rather extensive?” The pathway Sam had taken now threaded between tennis courts and an Olympic-sized pool. There were also numerous outbuildings, and something that looked like a golf course off in the distance.
“Hey, yeah. Did Dean tell you the story? Congress evidently built this place in secret during the cold war so when the nuclear holocaust went down, they could all still have spa treatments.” They had come up the grand marble front steps of the main building. Sam pushed open the heavy sliding glass front door for Cas, who reluctantly entered. He walked a few steps and then stopped, turning around to take in the huge chandeliers that hung in the great yawing entryway.
“We don't actually light 'em up,” Sam explained. “Drain on energy. But this place has generators, and stockpiles of water and stuff. The tricky thing right now is fuel, that's part of the reason why Dean and Benny were out foraging. Though if the corn comes up we could have biofuel....”
“Is Dean a leader here?” asked Cas.
Sam laughed. “You're asking why the hell he's out on a road trip? Probably so he won't strangle Chuck. We love the hell out of Chuck, but damn.... Oh, hey, Lenore!” Sam hailed.
“Is this one new?” asked a sweet-faced young woman, raising an eyebrow and giving Cas the once over. He forced himself not to squirm behind Sam.
“Yeah, this is Cas. Could you give him the treatment, find him some quarters?”
“The, uh, treatment?” asked Cas. He found he wasn't as much afraid of Croats as he was this girl. And now there were a couple other women hanging around as well.
“We’ll take care of him,” said Lenore, stepping forward and gripping Cas by the shoulders. Cas cringed.
“I'll see you later,” said Sam.
“Sam?” asked Cas as Sam turned to go.
“Yeah?” asked Sam.
“Uh, your dream? If you don’t mind my asking, what did you see?”
Sam rolled his eyes and looked annoyed. “That’s the worst part! I can’t remember.”
“It’s all a blank?” asked Cas.
“Happens sometimes,” said Sam. “I might go see Pamela later – she’s one of our psychics – but it’s probably just gone. Anyway, I’ll catch up with you later.”
It had taken Dean longer than usual to extricate himself from Chuck and Chuck’s administrative bullshit this evening. Here they were, while the world went up in flames, living the life in a sweet luxury compound, and all any of them could do was bitch, bitch, bitch.
At some point during the discussion, Dean had a vague inkling that he would like to check in on the new guy. But the inkling somehow got loose in his mind, invading like a weed, and now what he had was an absolute certainty that talking to Cas was the single overarching goal of his evening. Funny, he didn’t even have a good picture in his mind of what the guy looked like, just the impression of a huge pair of sky blue eyes, swaddled up in many layers of dirt and grimy clothing. But when the kid had jumped in to slay those Croats, he’d moved like nothing Dean had ever seen before. It sounded crazy. Dean knew a lot of supernatural beings. He had fought side by side with them since this Croatoan thing had gone down. But Cas moved like someone – or something – not of this world.
Dean finally spotted Cas more or less where Lenore told him he’d be, standing alone on one of the many terraces out in the back of the main building. Dean was pleased to see there had been a person in there somewhere under all the many layers of caked dirt. They'd even given him new clothes, including an overcoat that had frankly seen better days.
Cas was hunched over, trying to light up a cigarette in the wind. He glanced over at Dean and nodded, blowing out smoke with a seeming gratitude.
“Nice coat,” said Dean.
Cas glared at him, and tapped ashes off his cigarette, coat blowing in the wind like a pair of khaki wings. “Your welcome wagon girls burned my clothes, Dean.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” said Dean, going to lean against the wall beside him. “Camp politics. We got a lice problem.”
“You know, I don’t recall telling anybody I intended to remain here,” Cas told him.
“You’re not a hostage, you know. You wanna go back out and grub for a can of beans, there’s the door,” said Dean.
Cas radiated annoyance, but didn’t say anything, sending a nervous hand through his hair. It looked like Lenore and her crew might have cut it: unruly black tufts stuck out everywhere.
Dean gestured for the cigarette. Cas squinted uncertainly at it, and then handed it to Dean, who grinned and blew smoke rings.
“Fancy,” said Cas, reaching for the smoke back.
“Hey, I went to college,” said Dean. He smiled at Cas. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Where did you pick up the nicotine addiction? You look pretty hungry for it.”
Cas looked pained. “I don't remember.”
“You get clobbered in the head or something?” asked Dean, pointing to his own noggin. “That’s what happened to my brother. He fell. As a kid. That’s when he started having his dreams.”
Cas took a long drag, waited, and then exhaled, looking far off. “I honestly don't remember much. Sorry.”
“No need to apologize.” Mysterious past, Dean thought. Intriguing. He waved for the cigarette again. Might as well be companionable. “What do you remember?”
“I awoke, and the world was in great tribulation: hellfire, mingled with blood. And I beheld a pale horse, and death followed upon him.”
Dean stopped in mid-puff. He didn't reply. There really wasn't much replying to that. “Uh. You from a religious family?” he asked as he handed back the cigarette.
“I really don't know.”
“So how did you survive?”
Cas shook his head, and finally looked at Dean. “I think I was with a group. For a time. But the leader had gone. And then they started fighting amongst themselves.” He looked down, a great sadness in his wide-set eyes. “I didn't wish to choose sides, so I left.”
“How long you been on your own?”
“I don’t know. Months?” He peered at Dean as if searching for the answer.
“That's a long time to survive in this world.”
“I'm not much of a people person.”
Dean grinned.
“So, what about you?” Cas asked.
“What about me,” said Dean, reaching over for the cigarette again. He leaned back against the wall. “So, understand this. These bozos picked me as their fearless leader when we were like six people. And a dog. And it was cool. I don’t mind telling people what to do. People are idiots. But it just sort of … escalated.”
“You are unhappy, Dean?” asked Cas.
“Sometimes,” admitted Dean, who wasn’t at all sure why he was making his confession to a newbie. Dean was not exactly the trusting sort. “Seriously, I sometimes think about throwing a couple of shotguns and packs in the back of the Impala, grabbing Sammy, and just, you know, driving off.”
Cas nodded and stared at him, seeming to take in everything. Dean shifted uncomfortably. “So, one thing I wanted to know,” said Dean. “About today? When the Croats came, you picked up on it, even before Benny. And Benny? He has a sixth sense about this stuff. How did you know they were coming, anyway?”
“The smell. Carrion.”
“You could smell 'em from that far away?”
Cas didn’t reply, but his expression seemed to say, “Sure, can’t you?”
“Did Sam introduce you to the kitsune yet?” asked Dean.
“He mentioned it. Lenore insisted that I required a haircut first. Who is Kitsune?”
“It's not his name, actually. Well, you gotta know, he’s some kind of Japanese god or demon or spirit or something,” said Dean. “But he’s handy with a sword. You seem to have a knack for hand to hand fighting.”
Cas nodded, once again neither agreeing nor disagreeing. He held up the remains of the cigarette. “Last one,” he noted.
“Can’t take your last smoke,” said Dean, but Cas pressed it on him.
“We’ll share,” Cas muttered. Dean frowned but took a grateful drag, and then Cas’s lips were on his lips, one cool hand on the back of his neck, and it was all coarse smoke and a raw electric charge.
Cas stepped back and exhaled smoke. Dean felt an ache in his lungs, and the intensity of Cas’s gaze. He coughed.
“Unfiltered,” said Cas, lips tracing a smile. “A little harsh.”
Dean tossed away the butt and ground it out with a heel. “Yeah,” he said. It came out choked. Cas nodded, and appeared to be about to leave. “Uh, your quarters,” rasped Dean. “Did Lenore and those guys set you up with a room?”
“They mentioned a couple of possibilities,” said Cas. He tilted his head. “Where are you?”
“East wing. I’m in the east wing. Ask anybody,” Dean told him, feeling a little foolish.
Cas nodded. And then he was gone, coat flapping in the wind.
Dean leaned back against the building again. “I’m an idiot,” he told himself.
Cas tread warily across the compound, cigarette smoke and trench coat billowing in his wake.
Wasn't there an expression, out of the frying pan, into the fire?
It had been strange, these past few days, having enough food to eat. And it was very strange indeed having a bed. Two beds, actually. The room Lenore and the “welcome wagon” had assigned him had two beds.
Lenore was a vampire. They were all vampires. And, as Sam had told him, vampires were immune. Well, they were immune to the virus, but not the madness created by all the infected humans.
She had told him there were plenty of rooms available given that he didn't mind the sun. A lot of the … residents here tended to shy away from sunshine. The vampires evidently had a nest in the basement, tucked in where there was only artificial light.
The sun wasn't what Cas minded.
Not that he'd actually slept much in either of his beds. The very first night he had in fact gone to sleep out on the room's little balcony, crowbar clutched in his hand. They had given him a suite – an entire suite – despite his protestations. Besides the beds, it had a desk and a small, refrigerator, so he'd pushed the desk and fridge up against the front door to blockade it and then slid open the glass door that opened to the balcony and spread one of the blankets down on the floor there and then also grabbed a pillow (because why not) and slept there, out in the open, down under the stars and up above what used to be a pool before they'd drained it and filled it in with sod and used it to grow tomatoes.
Dean had seemed annoyed the next morning when first of all Cas hadn't heard Dean knocking (he wasn’t exactly sure how that had even been possible, as Cas never really slept) and then had to scramble to dislodge the furniture blockade before Dean could enter the suite. Sam, who was there too, had just flashed one of those big charming grins and said it was all cool, but Dean barked at him impatiently. Cas got the sense that Dean had been trying to duck out early to evade some of his leadership responsibilities. He had given Cas two tasks then: they weren't really orders, but it was heavily implied that he must fulfill them if he was to remain in good standing with the group.
The first task had turned out to be pleasurable. He was to receive training from the old kitsune, the camp's sword master. It had seemed weird and archaic, but it made sense for this world: blades were a silent weapon (and as everyone learned very quickly, nothing attracted Croats more than noise). In addition, swords did not require frequent foraging trips for scarce ammunition.
Cas had taken to it like a fish slipping into the water.
Oddly, he had an instinct for making stabbing motions, not slicing, so they were working on correcting this. The kitsune had entrusted him with a fine katana, with strict instructions to keep it oiled. The promise was easily kept, and running a soft cloth over the graceful sword had easily become a calming routine. He wore it on his back, in a scabbard, although he quite admired the kitsune's lovely obi.
Dean had given him one more assignment, and that was the one that ended up shunted aside and put off and ignored. There were so many things he didn't remember, and so many things he should have known, like why the fuck a kid scrounging for beans in an abandoned Piggly Wiggly could heft a masterwork sword like it was and had always been part of his arm.
Deep in thought, he arrived at the correct building. It was located near an empty pool, so Cas surmised it had been a spa at one point. He stamped out his cigarette and entered. The door was open, and there were two women sitting there around a long conference table, looking like they were passing the time. The older one had something in her hands: a colorful ball of yarn spilled out and onto the table and she was holding something that looked like large metal chopsticks. Knitting needles? Yes, she was knitting. She turned dark, knowing eyes to him as he entered. The other one, who was doing nothing at all, kicking back, turned to him as well. She was wearing a pair of very dark sunglasses, so it was impossible to read her expression, but her head tilted at a jaunty angle.
“Come on in, sugar! We won't bite!” said the one with the yarn.
“Sure we will,” snapped the other, “if you look tasty.” She got to her feet and apprised Cas. “Huh. You're the new guy. No wonder the fearless leader got his panties in a twist. I would kill for lips like that.”
Cas unconsciously licked his lips and took a cautious step forward.
“I'm Missouri, hon,” said the older woman, who was arranging yarn so she too could stand up. “And the rude one is Pammy.”
“Pamela,” she corrected, not apparently taking her eyes from Cas.
Cas stood frozen. “Dean asked that I come here.”
“You're Cas?” asked Missouri.
“Yes.”
“Just ... Cas?” asked Pamela. Cas could imagine, behind the Ray Bans, her eyes squeezing into a suspicious frown.
“Just Cas.”
Pamela or Pammy threw a glance at Missouri, and Cas could see from her profile that Pamela was wearing a patch over one eye.
“You want a reading?” asked Missouri.
“Dean asked that I come here,” Cas repeated.
“And you'll do anything when Freckles crinkles his nose, huh?” asked Pamela, resting a hip on the table.
“Why do you think Dean sent you here?” asked Missouri, and Cas thought he saw a shrewdness behind the smile.
“I have some gaps. In my memory.”
“And you want us to fill them in?” Missouri asked.
“Not particularly. No.”
The women now quite frankly looked at each other.
“And why is that, sweetcheeks?” asked Pamela. “You don't wanna know what you were up to?”
“I doubt you would want to know.”
The look again, and then Missouri said, “You know, doll, maybe you're right. Maybe you should just turn around and take that sweet ass back to Dean. You tell him we were having an off day.”
“What? Missy, you're out of your fucking mind,” said Pamela. She came up off the table and grabbed Cas by the arm.
“Pammy?” warned Missouri, and then a real look of fear crossed her face.
“I can't turn down a challenge,” grinned Pamela, tugging Cas forward. “Come on. Leave the tin out here. You'll come back to my place and we'll get acquainted.”
Cas reluctantly removed his scabbard and left the katana sitting on the table in the entryway. And then Pamela led him off to a smaller, curtained off area. There was a massage table pushed off against one wall.
Pamela pulled two chairs so they were facing each other, and then they sat down, Cas uncomfortably close, as she scooted up so their knees were touching. “Not gonna molest ya now, hon. We’ll save that for later. Now just relax.” Pamela held out her hands.
“I would be more comfortable if you had let me keep my blade,” said Cas.
“Relax, Cas,” Pamela repeated, grabbing his hands, which had begun to sweat. “Now, you just sit there, and clear your mind.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Well, I thought maybe we'd get your name, for starters. You need another name, unless you think you're Madonna,” she smirked.
“You seek my true name?” asked Cas, his voice taking up a great darkness.
“Uh,” said Pamela. She looked around, and realized she had dropped Cas’s hands. “Damn, your hands are too fucking sweaty. Like holding a greased pig. Come on, gimme!” Cas held out his hands and, after a moment's hesitation, Pamela took them again, and resumed acting her cocky self.
Cas watched Pamela warily for a moment, and then closed his own eyes. After a long moment, he could actually feel her probing at the edges of his mind, wandering around his defenses, looking for a way in. It was a funny feeling, like he'd been administered a mild psychoactive drug.
“You're resisting. Stop.”
His mind had started to unwind, thoughts and memories stirring softly. Boxes, long sealed, were being prodded. A sea unsettled.
Pamela had found something. The attention switched to one small area, something neglected and old. Off on an old path, seldom trodden now. There was something dark here.
Something very dark. Pamela had found the darkness, and now unwound it, searching, probing. It rolled and spun in her hands, like a dark skein of yarn unfolding. Dark upon dark, until she could no longer see, no longer sense. Darkness was all around her. Dark and cold. She opened her mouth to scream, but there was no breath here, no nothing here, a deep dark.
“PAMELA!”
Cas opened his eyes. He hadn't noticed Pamela dropping his hands. Nor had he felt her collapsing. She was lying on the floor, sunglasses askew, body in spasms. Missouri was there, on her knees, hovering over her.
Pamela blinked her one good eye and suddenly clung to Missouri. “It was all dark. I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe,” she whispered.
“Girl, I think you had enough excitement for one week,” Missouri told her, patting her hand. She turned towards Cas, giving him an apprising look. “Why don't you get on back home? You can tell Dean we're a little … overwhelmed this week.”
Cas silently stood and nodded. Pamela was staring at him, wide-eyed. A single tear dripped down her cheek. It was bloody.
Sam was walking through a very familiar wasteland.
Great, another migraine, he thought. Well, at least he'd had a couple weeks respite this time.
“Hey, Max,” he told the dog. He actually had no idea if Max was really its name. Sam hadn’t had a dog, growing up, so this was probably remembered from a movie or TV show or something.
He grabbed the drool-covered stick and gave it a good toss, and the mutt went giddily romping out after it, disappearing into some scrub.
Thunder sounded off in the distance, and the sky darkened. It was always on the verge of a rainstorm here, but, as far as he could remember, it never actually rained. Maybe whoever was sending this stuff to Sam wanted it to seem gloomy and portentous? “It was a dark and stormy night….” He grinned. Or rather, dream!Sam grinned.
The dog came back. A person was walking with it now: a slight figure in a trench coat, trailing a cloud of cigarette smoke.
“Cas?” asked Sam. “Is that you?”
“Yes.”
“Why am I dreaming you? We just met. And, no offense, you’re not the kind of person I usually dream about.”
“You are correct in that I’m not an attractive female, Sam. However, you said you were having trouble remembering your dreams,” Cas told him, taking a drag on a cigarette. “I thought I could help.”
“You wander around in people’s dreams?” asked Sam.
“It’s just something I can do.”
“Dean is right: there is something seriously weird about you.”
“Has your brother talked about me?” Cas sounded hopeful. It made Sam smile.
“Yeah, actually,” said Sam. “You made quite an impression.” He glared at the cigarette. “OK. First off, this is a no smoking dream!”
Cas raised an eyebrow, but tossed down the cigarette and ground it out with his toe. “Have it your way,” he said. “Where are we headed?”
“Well, the usual scenario is I walk around playing with the dog and they come to me.”
Cas was looking around, scanning the horizon. “There’s a light off over there. Suppose we head that way?”
“I guess so. You don’t think it’ll throw off the mystical mojo?” asked Sam.
“I’m afraid I have no idea what a ‘mojo’ is, Sam.”
“What planet are you from, anyway?” asked Sam. He shrugged, and he and Cas followed a galumphing Max towards the light. “Oh, what the hell?” he asked, as they approached what looked like a building now on the horizon. It was a café.
“I wonder what this portends?” mused Cas.
“I dunno, but I think I need a beer. C’mon, dude,” said Sam, entering the gate. “Inside or outside?”
“I usually prefer outside, so I can smoke,” said Cas. “But this is a no smoking dream….”
“You can have one,” declared Sam, sitting down at a little table just outside the window. Max ran around the table once, and then curled up at Sam's feet. “Oh, here we go! Now this is more like it.”
A waitress had appeared from somewhere. She was dressed all in black, like they do at some trendy restaurants. She had black hair and dark eyes, which added nicely to the effect.
She also had an intriguing tattoo under one eye.
“Hey, nice ink,” said Sam.
“We’re still waiting,” she told him, handing him a menu. “My father is growing impatient.”
“Oh, well, I’m sorry,” Sam apologized. “Why don’t you send him on out?”
“That’s not how it works. He doesn’t come to you. You go to him.” She sounded rather determined about this.
“Well, uh, OK,” said Sam. “So, where is that?”
“Do you really have the best pizza in Manhattan?” inquired Cas, pointing to where this statement was printed on the menu.
“And the worst,” she told him. “We currently have the only pizza in Manhattan.”
“Well, then I guess I need to try the pizza,” said Sam.
“You can’t,” she told him.
“What? Is this like the cheese shop with no cheese?” laughed Sam.
“Of course not,” said the waitress. “I mean, other than the bouzouki players of course,” she added, pointing to the two musicians dressed in colorful Greek folk costumes that Sam somehow hadn’t noticed before. They danced in step and played a rhythmic folk tune.
“Then, uh, why no pizza?” Sam persisted. “And don’t tell me the cat ate it.”
“First, like I told you, you gotta go to him, he won’t go to you. Second…” she said, pointing up to the sky. There was an ominous funnel cloud now on the horizon.
“Shit!” said Sam, eyeing the approaching twister. “You guys got a root cellar or something?” But when he looked back, the waitress was gone. And, more worryingly to Sam, so was Max the dog. He turned. Cas was still there. “Cas, what do we do?”
But then Cas came at him and Sam felt himself being tackled, and they both went down, he and Cas, huddled in the shadow of the café’s front wall. Sam had the breath knocked out of him: for a little guy, Cas was heavy as hell.
“Keep still,” came a harsh whisper in his ear. And then Sam cringed as the pressure in his ears suddenly increased. The wind roared, and he felt Cas’s trench coat flutter up like wings. He heard the bouzouki music grow softer and softer, and turned his head to see the musicians both sucked up in the funnel, but both still calmly playing.
And Cas, huddling over him was … no longer Cas. He was something very dark. A shadow, a black hole, something not light could penetrate.
And then … silence.
Sam shot up in bed, bathed in a cold sweat.
“I don’t like it,” said Dean.
“Well, it’s not about liking or not liking, it just kind of … is,” said Sam, keeping pace with his brother as Dean stalked downstairs and turned into the corridor.
“This guy shows up outta nowhere, scares the fucking shit out of our best psychic, and now he’s suddenly copiloting your dream?”
“I thought you said you and Benny pretty much kidnapped the guy?”
“Yeah, but think! Maybe he wanted to be kidnapped, Sammy!”
“So he also magically brought on the gang of Croats?”
“I don’t know any more. That’s why we’re gonna go have a talk.” They had just arrived downstairs at a rather bland looking meeting room. It looked more or less like every other conference room in the building. “We wanna talk, Ash,” Dean told the guy sitting at the desk with his feet up, reading a paperback book.
“You sure, dude? He’s not in a great mood,” Ash, the mullet-coiffed attendant, told them. He didn’t budge.
“Is he ever in a good mood?” asked Dean.
“Point taken,” drawled Ash. He swung his legs down and ambled over to one wall. He hit a concealed switch, and most of the wall swung out to reveal a huge vault. “After you, gentlemen,” he smiled.
“Are you sure you need me?” Sam asked Dean. “My head still hurts.”
“I’m sure, crybaby. Anyway, I never remember the incantation for the inner door. Come on.”
They both went inside, and then the heavy outer door swung shut, and they two were alone. Sam huffed air, and noticed he could see his breath. “Jesus, he must be in a terrible mood.”
“Just get on with it,” said Dean. Sam held out his hand and muttered in Latin at the smaller inner door. It creaked, and then slowly opened.
“What do you idjits want now?” came a voice from inside.
“We need to talk to a vengeful spirit,” said Dean.
“You come to the right place,” said Bobby. He was a little shaky and indistinct, a bit like a TV picture when it’s tuned between channels.
Dean carefully entered the inner vault, being careful not to step on any of the confining sigils painted around the entrance. Someone had let Bobby’s spirit escape before. It was not a pleasant memory.
“Sammy had one of his dreams,” said Dean, pointing up at his apologetic looking younger brother.
“Oh, what is it this time, kid? Fire, flood, rain of tarantulas?”
“Pizza,” said Sam.
“Well, that don’t sound too apocalyptic. Unless you get it with anchovies.”
“Seriously, Bobby,” said Sam, who sat down on the bare floor. They had brought in chairs, once. Bad idea. And then they’d tried cushions. Another bad idea.
“He’d been having trouble remembering,” Dean prompted.
“Yeah,” said Sam, rubbing his eyes. “So, last night, I’m in the same place I always go when I have these dreams, and Cas shows up.”
“What the hell’s a Cas?”
Dean leaned back against the far wall and had a sudden urge for a cigarette. “Benny and I picked up a kid when we were out scrounging the other day. We were surrounded, and he grabbed my axe and wasted a dozen Croats all by himself.”
“What the hell kind of name is Cas? Is he a girl or a boy?”
“A boy,” said Dean.
“First name, last name, or nickname?”
“What the heck does that even matter, Bobby?”
“Because names are important, boy. Names are one of the most important things. Especially if he’s some kinda malevolent critter.”
“I don’t think he’s malevolent,” said Dean.
“You don’t?” asked Sam, peering up at Dean.
“What do you know about that could hop a ride on a dream, Bobby?” asked Dean, ignoring Sam.
Bobby’s spirit glared at Dean. “Let’s have the rest of the dream, first, Sam.”
“Like I said, we sat down at a café and tried to order pizza. But the waitress told us-“
“There was a waitress?”
“Yeah! Some goth girl waitress. She had a weird little tatt under an eye.” Sam traced his finger under his own eye.
“Can you show me?” asked Bobby. “Just draw it on the floor. Nobody will give me a damn pencil.”
“Around you, pencils get shoved in eyes,” Dean warned him.
“I didn’t mean nothing.”
“You scratched Pamela’s cornea, Bobby.”
“Pamela gets too damn nosy sometimes,” Bobby grumbled, flickering dangerously.
“Here, Bobby,” said Sam, reaching over and tracing a symbol on the floor. “It was just like a curlicue.”
Bobby’s spirit hunkered down next to Sam. “Damn my knees,” he said. He squinted down, as if Sam had actually written something on the floor, ghostly fingers tracing over the patch of floor Sam had used. “That’s the Eye of Horus.”
“So, what does that mean, does Horus want his eye back?” asked Dean.
Bobby straightened up. “Means the gal’s a reaper.”
“Uh, as in grim, Bobby?” asked Sam.
“That’s the one. What did she want, Sam?”
“She kept saying he – her father – wouldn’t come to us, we had to go to him.”
“Well, boys, sounds like you best saddle up. You got an appointment.”
Sam and Dean looked at each other, Sam nervous, Dean determined. “Yeah? With who?” asked Dean.
He had chosen the blade partially for the graceful beauty of the maker’s mark. It seemed to fit gloriously in his hand, as if he had been bidden to it.
The kitsune spirit, who went by Toshiro, seemed old beyond belief, but Cas realized this was just the manifestation of its human form. Ancient spirits can attain a human form, though why they would want to do that, no one knows.
As Toshiro watched, Cas went through the forms, patiently executing each one, striking out with the sharp yakiba side. It all seemed so familiar, the heft in his hands, the arc of the flashing blade. Like a dance he had been taught, and then forgotten.
He was wrested from his reverie by the door banging open. He halted to look at Dean, who was glaring at him. Dean Winchester, human weather system. At first, Dean had been fairly indifferent to Cas, but then he had warmed up after Cas dispatched a few Croats. But the affection (if that is what it was) had morphed into anger after the encounter with Pamela, and then a sort of stony betrayal after Cas had guided Sam though his dream. Usually, this would have mattered, but for some reason, Dean’s opinion of Cas mattered very, very much to him.
And so Cas had come down to dwell for a time in the tranquility of the kitsune’s dojo.
“Pack your bags. We’re leaving,” barked Dean.
“Where are we going?” asked Cas.
“We’re going out for pizza.” Which prompted even the kitsune to raise a bushy eyebrow.
“Where?”
“Manhattan.”
Cas blinked. “And you want me to come along?” he asked, tilting his head to better read Dean’s mood.
Dean paused at the doorway and turned around with seeming impatience. “That would be why I told you to come along.”
Cas carefully replaced his sword in the scabbard, and then, with a polite bow to Toshiro and a whispered, “Sensei,” headed toward the door, where Dean was making a show of silently fuming.
“I was under the impression that you did not trust me,” said Cas, falling in step with Dean.
“I don’t. I don’t even know what the fuck you are. But you got Sam through his dream, and I know you can off Croats. So, get your ass in gear.”
Cas pulled a somewhat crushed pack of cigarettes from a coat pocket.
“Where the hell do you still find those things?”
“Good at scounging,” said Cas. “I don’t have anything to pack. Your vampires burned almost everything I had.”
“Yeah, our vampires are pyros,” said Dean. A small smile crossed his face, and the agitation seemed to abruptly ratchet down, like a summer storm blowing away. “You shouldn’t smoke,” he told Cas as he ignited the cigarette.
“Why not?”
“You’ll stunt your growth.”
Cas glared at him.
They had both stopped walking. The corridor was dim and deserted. Cas leaned back against the wall and, jutting his chin defiantly, smoked his cigarette. Dean placed one hand flat on the wall over Cas’s shoulder and leaned in, and they locked eyes for a long moment. “The vamps put your room way over in the west wing,” said Dean.
“I asked them to.”
“Why?”
“You said you were in the east wing.”
Dean traced his hand along Cas’s jawline, and then pressed in for a kiss, keeping the rest of his body a tantalizing inch or so away. Cas, one hand still holding the cigarette, reached his other hand around Dean’s waist, trying to pull him in closer as the kiss deepened. Dean pulled back, and Cas opened his eyes.
Dean grabbed away the cigarette, and was already sauntering down the hallway. “Be ready at dawn,” he said, sticking the cigarette in his mouth. He left a trail of triumphant smoke in his wake.
xxxxxxx
