tales of an unreal city

The Enchanted Booklog

trinityofone — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 03:47:23 GMT

Thanks to everyone who commented previously: I did acquire a copy of The Queen of Attolia, and I do plan to read it!

81. Bloodroot, Amy Greene — Recently, as I was scrolling back up through my list of 2010 books, I came across this title, and it took me several long seconds to produce any recollection of what it was. Good sign, eh?—for both the book and my failing brain. Anyway, I have since managed to dredge up the memory that this is a book about several generations living in the hills of Appalachia, and the generally poor life decisions they make. Yes, one of those. I vaguely recall some pretty, sun-dappled imagery—although I might be lifting that wholesale from the cover image, like when you convince yourself you remember something that happened when you were two that you’ve really only ever seen in a photograph. But in general: several generations, poor life decisions. If you like that sort of thing, you will probably like this, but clearly it’s not a trope that does a whole lot for me.

82. The Good Son, Michael Gruber — I read this thriller because Laura Miller recommended it on her Twitter; it was entertaining, and even makes some overtures toward deeper political meaning, but reading it, I was never able to forget that I was, in fact, reading a silly thriller. It’s an airport book that failed to let me forget that it’s an airport book. So much Action! and so many Twists!—I kept wanting to reach for the popcorn, or keep my eye out for Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman, in case they should choose to wander on. Not that there’s anything wrong with that—I like a good thriller—but I was never able to lose myself in this book, and that’s less good.

Interesting to compare this with another violently yellow book, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. The latter certainly has its silly thriller moments, but unlike The Good Son, its world utterly convinced me, its politics seemed less pasted on, and it completely swept me away. This may be a character thing: Gruber’s people are all very, very clever and very, very cold. And maybe that’s why I was never able to shake that cold, anonymous airport feeling.

83. Tokyo Fiancée, Amélie Nothomb — I liked this a lot more than the last Nothomb book I read: it didn’t make me squirm-in-my-seat uncomfortable, for one thing. Fear and Trembling is all about humiliation and degradation and having to work a shitty job for a living; Tokyo Fiancée is about travel and wonder and love—the dark sides of all the above, too, but still, it’s no contest, is it? Nothomb would roll her eyes at me (for a number of reasons), but this book just increased my desire to go to Japan.

84. Expiration Date, Duane Swierczynski — Hey, dummy! You weren’t impressed by the last book you read by this guy, so why the heck would you try another of his titles? What were you thinking?

But...but this one’s got time travel! The blurbs all said it was kind of like Life on Mars! I love Life on Mars!

Since when do blurbs ever tell the truth?

Yeah, okay, that one turned out to be totally bogus. But...time travel?

There really aren’t any interesting time travel ideas in this book. It’s boring and pointlessly violent, just like Swierczynski’s last book. And he ends it with another bullshit attempt at a twist ending, more idiotic than even the equally hard to spell Shyamalan’s usual crap. It’s the literary equivalent of a B-movie that would close with a card that says, “The End...Or Is It?!”

Admittedly that kind of made me want to stab myself.

So are you going to learn your lesson finally? Please?

Yeah, if I could, I’d go back in time...and not read this book!

I am so, so ashamed that we are actually the same person.

85. Tongues of Serpents, Naomi Novik — Yay Temeraire!

I’ve definitely reached the point with this series where I enjoy it so much and love all the characters that I have a hard time being analytical about it. Yeah, there’s a bit too much wandering the desert in this one, but... Temeraire! Laurence! EVERYONE.

Next book, please!

86. The Possessed, Elif Batuman — “Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them,” as the mostly-accurate subtitle explains. The parts it was accurate to were by far my favorites: heeee, academics. The sections about Uzbekistan, however, mostly just taught me that I don’t want to go to Uzbekistan, and the final chapter on the original The Possessed (by Dostoevsky, a book also known as Demons) made me think that Batuman’s editor might have told her she needed another chapter, so Batuman stuck one of her old papers in. So: fun, if uneven.

Side note: Roz Chast should do more book covers; it always makes me want to read whatever they grace.

87. The Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim — The very definition of charming—or should I say enchanting? Four women escape rainy England for the sun-soaked Mediterranean, where they (re)discover love. My mom and I watched the film based on this novel a few times when we were living in Vermont, which was perhaps a rather sigh-inducing endeavor; forget the Mediterranean, I think we would have been thrilled to escape to rainy England. Actually, I live in sun-soaked Los Angeles now, and I’d still be thrilled to escape to rainy England. Which makes me wonder where people who live on the Mediterranean long to escape to. Antarctica? The moon?

...I’ve lost my train of thought. I really do need a vacation.

88. Elliot Allagash, Simon Rich — Rich’s books of humorous sketches—especially Free-Range Chickens—totally cracked me up. However this, his debut novel, disappointed me. The plot sounded promising: Seymour, an unpopular nonentity at his New York private school, is befriended/falls into the clutches of rich, deeply fucked up con artist Elliot Allagash. Sounds sort of like The Great Gatsby if Gatsby were evil, or The Catcher in the Rye if Holden had the emotional energy to scheme. (Note: I said sort of.) I usually love that type of thing. But this book is just...airless. It’s predictable and not that funny—certainly nowhere near as amusing as anything in Free-Range Chickens. Rich propels the narrative along pretty well, and the book is a fast read, but when I finished I realized that he had never made me care about the eponymous character at all. I think that’s a problem: if Elliot managed to charm Seymour enough to suck him in, he should be able to do the same for the reader. Otherwise Seymour is just a chump, and Elliot Allagash isn’t worth having a novel named after him.

89. Waiter Rant, Steve Dublanica — Right book, right time. Dublanica struggles with a service job, rude customers, and the desire to accomplish something creatively. Gosh, why does that sound familiar? Sometimes reading something close to your current experience makes you feel better about it, and sometimes it makes you feel worse, but for whatever reason, this turned out to definitely be a case of better. It was a nice alternative to constantly refreshing notalwaysright.com, anyway.

90. Bill’s New Frock, Anne Fine — Quite good children’s novel about a young boy who wakes up one morning to discover everyone thinks he is (and has always been) a girl. Cue lessons about how society is pretty rubbish to girls! As is often the case with these things, I wish it had gone further with its ideas (actually, I wish I could read the same story but with characters who are teenagers...or perhaps I should simply write it?), but it’s nevertheless nicely thoughtful, especially considering its target age group and date of publication (1989).

A quick Google revealed that it was made into a TV movie which, despite its acid trip of an opener—and generally cracktastic wardrobe choices—is likewise quite good. Damn, though—“He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”? There’s a ’90s elementary school reminder that I didn’t need!

Total Reviews: 90/229

A Reliable Booklog

trinityofone — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 02:28:43 GMT

Happy New Year, all! It's 2011 now, but of course I am still drowning in business from 2010. Can I catch up by the end of January? Place your bets now!

71. Funny Boy, Shyam Selvadurai — Queer coming-of-age story, sensitively written but unfortunately rather like every other queer coming-of-age story I have read (which may be an above-average amount). The other point of interest here is the setting: Sri Lanka, and Sri Lanka at an especially tumultuous point in that country’s history. The glimpses into what was going on from a political and historical perspective were often of more interest to me, but unfortunately part of the point was that the protagonist was too young fully comprehend it all. This was a perfectly decent book, but I found it fairly flat, and it never rose above decent for me.

72. Less Than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis — Another empty novel about emptiness, oh joy! I read this because friends were always like, “You’ve never read Bret Easton Ellis? Whaaaaat?” But now I have and we never have to talk about it again. Yay.

73. A Reliable Wife, Robert Goolrick — This is one of the worst books I’ve ever read. Not just one of the worst this month or this year—one of the worst ever, full stop. This degree of badness is made worse by the fact that the book is a huge bestseller, both at my store and nationally. Of course.

A Reliable Wife performs an unholy act of matrimony between two things that, in my opinion, should never so much as cross paths, let alone wed: a plot of soap opera-level ridiculousness and pure, pretentious literary self-seriousness. I can take the two separately, under the right circumstances, but together, they are insufferable. Catherine Land, a hooker with (supposedly) a heart of ice, responds to sad-sack widower Ralph Truitt’s newspaper advertisement for “a reliable wife,” intending to win Truitt’s trust and then murder him for his money. But they fall in love! But there are complications! Such drama! But all portrayed in a simultaneously florid, yet austere manner—this is a literary novel, doncha know.

Goolrick writes early 20th century Wisconsin as if every single inhabitant of that state was contractually obligated to die tragically young or go tragically mad—which would rather surprise my maternal grandmother’s family, as they were living there at the time. (Five siblings. All survived to adulthood, despite a real life encounter with quicksand, which is rather more interesting than anything that happens in this novel.) He also seems to have taken a page out of Frank “Whores! Whores! Whores!” Miller’s playbook, as that’s what every female character in this book is, either literally or by implication. And then there’s Goolrick’s actual prose. Dear lord, such deathless prose!

He looked ravaged. He looked pure. He shone like a saint. He stood in a red paisley silk dressing gown, the front barely closed. He obviously wore nothing underneath, and he obviously didn't care. (page 138)

It’s like this all the way through. Goolrick has found his own reliable bride in repetition, and feels the need to show her off constantly.

He was safety. He was security. He was more passionate and kind than she had imagined he would be and she felt, somehow, that she was losing her footing, losing her way in the dark room under his hot hands. She must not forget. She fought against forgetfulness. She fought the desire to take his hand and kiss the palm, to skim his flesh with her tongue. (page 110)

And that’s not even touching upon Goolrick’s love affair with choruses: little repeated phrases that I’m sure are meant to seem profound, but in Goolrick’s clumsy hands, merely have an effect comparable to rapping one’s head against a hard object until one is concussed. Such things happened. THUNK. Such things happened. THUNK. Such things happened. THUNK...and blissful unconsciousness!

Dude. I have read Kurt Vonnegut, and you, sir, are no Kurt Vonnegut. You’re not even Chuck Palahniuk. Give it up.

I know it’s pointless to get mad at a book, but this type of book makes me freakin’ furious. I don’t know whether Goolrick was sincere or cynical in his artistic ambitions, but the success of a piece of poorly-written, sexist, manipulative crap like this is gutting. It’s depressing to me as a writer, and discouraging to me as a bookseller and reader: as someone who would like to try to remain open-minded and sensitive to other people’s tastes. Sorry, though. If you come into my store and tell me that you liked this book, my opinion of you and your reading habits drops immediately. Which makes my job easier in a way—I know I can fob almost anything off on you, and it will be better than this—but it’s sad, because I certainly won’t be working to find you something wonderful, tailored to your particular tastes. This is not a proud thing for me to admit, but the fact of the matter is, it’s hard to put in the effort to produce for someone the most perfect piece of haute cuisine when they’ve told me they love McDonald’s.

We all have our McDonald’s moments, and that’s fine; but Michelin is never going to give McDonald’s a star, and that’s what bestseller status does to a book like this. I read it because everyone was reading it, and now it’s forced me to confront the fact that most people are idiots with bad taste. Thanks for making me into a snob, book.

So you can make up your own minds, I’ll leave you with one last taste—the cold, crinkly, leftover fries, pushed to the side of my plate. Here is Our Heroine, experiencing with such subtlety her Grand Revelation:

Then Catherine watched the angel rise into the dark night sky, his arms empty. Alice lay unredeemed, as inert as an abandoned doll. Catherine knew it was too late; there was an abandonment of hope. Her sister couldn't be saved.

And she knew she couldn't kill Ralph Truitt. She knew she couldn't bring harm to one living soul. Not anymore. (page 179)

Such things happened, apparently!

74. Prime Baby, Gene Luen Yang — Cute little graphic novel about complicated sibling relationships, and about aliens. (Obviously.) A light snack in comparison to the rich feast of the author’s American Born Chinese, but it’s a good way to whet the appetite until the next meal comes along.

75. Liar, Justine Larbalestier — This came to me as a gift, highly recommended; due to that, and to the cover controversy that surrounded the book, I very much wanted to like it. I can’t honestly—a bit of a loaded word in the context of this novel—say that I did. I admired a lot of the things I felt Larbalestier was trying to accomplish: genre-bending; featuring a protagonist of color in a YA novel; discussing the nature of truth; casually depicting bisexuality; simply doing something different. But as a novel, this book fell short for me.

In the acknowledgments, Labalestier writes, “This book was written using Scrivener, a brilliant and indispensable piece of writing software...which allowed me to write Liar as if it were a jigsaw puzzle.” That pretty much sums up my main issue with the book: it was not only written like a puzzle, it reads like one—like a game, like something you are meant to figure out. It’s all form and mere scraps of content, from which the reader is meant to assemble the true shape of the narrative, and—perhaps more significantly—of the protagonist’s character. Which is all very clever, but not, to me, particularly enjoyable—or particularly weighty, either.

I wish my reaction could have been different, but this is how I felt, no lie.

76. How Did You Get This Number, Sloane Crosley — The theme of these reviews, you may have gathered by now, is “Trin doesn’t learn.” This is a prime example. I read Crosley’s previous essay collection, I Was Told There’d Be Cake, and found it very meh. Here is 2008!Trin on the subject:

“Crosley is a perfectly decent writer, but her experiences are just so everyday that reading this collection, I found myself puzzled as to why I was encountering it in book form as opposed to on someone’s LJ or something. So she had a bad boss! She went to camp! She has a funny name! She had an unpleasant moving experience one time! So what? If Crosley were able to draw some particular insight from these experiences, that would be one thing, but she doesn’t. Nor is she uniquely, fall-off-the-couch funny—just sort of quietly amusing.”

So, you know: nothing scarring there, but also nothing to suggest I should pick up Crosley’s next book.

However, it got sent to me in the mail. For free. And it had a picture of a funny bear on the cover! Apparently that is enough to get me to read something. Somehow I doubt any of you are surprised.

So read it I did. And if possible, I felt even more meh than I did the first time around. Crosley just isn’t very funny, and her essays also aren’t terribly focused. Half the time I’m not even sure what they’re supposed to be about—which, were I in tears from laughter every other sentence, wouldn’t matter, but as previous mentioned, I’m not. This is a collection of essays that is neither funny nor deep. It’s just...there.

And yet, I have to accept some culpability this time. As everyone (excepting George W. Bush) knows, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

So here I am: slightly shamed, and down about two hours of my time. The bear picture is funny, though. We used it in our display of bear covers, as kindly Vanna’d by my coworker Geo:

There’s something to be proud of, at least!

77. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin — Fantasy novel, notable for its protagonist being an awesome woman of color, but even more so for its fantastic world-building. This is no Ye Olde Medieval Kingdom, Tolkientown—it is a real, vibrant, original universe. It’s definitely a place that I would like to explore further.

78. Hapworth 16, 1924 — Salinger’s famously un(re)published Glass family novella. (An excellent account of this great publishing disaster, recounted by the publisher, can be found here.) It has a tendency to suddenly reappear on, then disappear from, the internet; I myself got a copy in the most delightful black-market fashion. Having struck up a conversation with a customer about Salinger, who had recently died and who I was rather publicly mourning with a (pleasantly profitable) front counter display, we rolled around to the subject of this story, and the customer’s voice dropped, his manner turning clandestine. He admitted that he had a copy, typed out for him by some kind soul from the original New Yorker publication; would I like to read it? Would I! It was, less than a week later, slipped to me under plain manilla covers, and I took it home feeling like some of the original readers of Lady Chatterley’s Lover or of, you know. Porn.

Anyway, that was all quite fun. But what of the story itself?

Seriously. I need help with this. I love the Glass family stories so much (as this bit of gushing illustrates), but making this tale fit with the rest of the canon makes my head hurt. My anonymous benefactor felt similarly, when we met up again (beneath a picturesque bridge, or in a shadowy parking garage, perhaps) to discuss the work. The story takes the form of a letter home from camp by a seven-year-old Seymour Glass; the letter however comes to us introduced by Seymour’s brother Buddy, and like much of what we know of Seymour, one must wonder how much of it is authentic and how much shaped by Buddy’s hand. In this particular case, one is inclined to believe that the whole thing is fabricated, as the letter seems impossibly—and even creepily—precocious for someone of Seymour’s purported age. But if that is the case, what is Buddy trying to convey, what ghost is he trying to exorcise by portraying his brother and his family in this way? Without a doubt, Hapworth 16, 1924 is by far the most mysterious and bizarre of the often mysterious and bizarre Glass family tales, and it casts an odd light on the rest of the canon.

“Data! Data! Data!” she cried. “I can’t make bricks without clay.” Which I suppose is my way of saying: it’s been almost a year already! Where’s this vast store of Salinger’s unpublished work that was supposed to appear following his death? Stop tormenting me from beyond the grave, J.D. It’s just petty.

79. Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime, Mizuki Nomura — “Because it’s there.” Inspiring words when used by George Mallory describing his reasons for attempting to climb Mount Everest; less so when used to explain why I read this book. Basically: I’d finished the other book I had with me; I was facing a long bus ride home from work; and we’d just cleaned out all the ARCs except for this one, which had arrived that very day. And hey, it was a Japanese fantasy; there could be far worse book/reader matches.

And better ones. This was about as silly as you’d imagine. I liked the idea of the book demon—an ordinary-seeming high school girl who actually subsists off books—and the bits of literary meta were fun. But the actual plot, which involved a mystery and past generations of students and suicide and other weirdness, was pretty dull; I have forgotten most of it. Still, it got me through that bus ride. Mallory had less luck with Everest, as I recall.

80. The Literary Conference, Cesar Aira — The Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster of literary fiction; reading it is rather “like having your brain smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick.” I need to go lie down now.

Total Reviews: 80/229

That was a tough batch to get through! Wish me luck, you guys!

Booklog Will Save Your Life

trinityofone — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 01:41:29 GMT

I swear someone is standing outside my window with a hose, because there is no way it can or should be raining this much in Los Angeles.

61. Our Hero, Tom De Haven — I loved Tom De Haven's reimagining of the Superman mythos, the utterly enchanting It's Superman! It seems he can pull off a great nonfiction look at Supes, too, with Our Hero, a fantastic exploration of the character’s real-life origin story, his ups and downs, and his lasting cultural impact. De Haven comes across like the wise fanboy on a hill—he's got both the perspective and the enthusiasm. Even if you're not a big fan of the Man of Steel—and I'm not—this book is a joy to read: a thoughtful investigation into why stories and characters are so important, into how an alien from Krypton can help us think about what makes us human.

62. Alone With You, Marisa Silver — Another forgettable short story collection! I remember that one tale had some arty types living in a loft, and someone had cancer in one of them, and there was also maybe a camel. Other than that, there were the typical unresolved endings and a lot of spoiled, unpleasant people being spoiled and unpleasant. Nine times out of ten, I should just stop with the modern short story collections, huh? But that one time...that elusive one time...! Dammit. We all already know that I never learn.

63. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Stieg Larsson — Looking at the task of writing up this, the third book in Larsson’s tragically cut-short series, I feel obligated to sum up not just the book itself—which I found an exciting and overall solid conclusion to a storyline which was not meant to be here concluded—but what this series has meant to me as a whole. Larsson’s books have, of course, become insanely popular—The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was my store’s No. 1 bestseller two years running—and part of me always balks at being an advocate for something that is already a blockbuster. So instead here are just a few words on why these books have been important to me, from which you can extrapolate whatever larger societal meaning as you so choose.

It’s Lisbeth, obviously. Blomkvist is a totally likable character—if you like clever, determined manwhores, which I apparently do—but these books are really all about Lisbeth. And I love her. I know people have said that they find her to be a man’s fantasy of what a badass woman should be, and this may be partly the case, but if so, Larsson’s fantasy-projection synchs up nicely with my own. Moreover, for all her larger-than-life qualities, I find Lisbeth remarkably realistic—by which I mean, she felt emotionally realistic to me. For all her leather and chains, and her brilliant and calculating plans, Larsson never writes Lisbeth as a robot. She is emotionally vulnerable—as the close of book one so brilliantly and subtly demonstrates. But throughout all three books Lisbeth reacts, and in general carries herself, the way the male heroes in other series do. She, like all those male heroes, is an outsider, is outwardly tough, is someone who has been through an unspeakable trauma but survived. She’s like all those male heroes: but she is a woman, and so for once, she’s mine.

I was recently talking to my father about male and female roles in fiction, and about how much happier I was when I realized that I didn’t have to like Princess Leia best. This was a big moment for me, that I really remember: I was maybe ten or eleven, and I finally realized that I could identify with Han Solo if I wanted to. After that I liked Star Wars a lot more, because my character got all the best lines and the cool ship. In fairness, Princess Leia was given more to do than a lot of female characters, but was I really supposed to think it was so great that she got to choke Jabba with her chain after being humiliated for ages in that metal bikini? I wanted more than that, and I still do.

So for years I liked the male characters best, because male characters actually got to do things and I wanted to do things (and preferably say witty stuff in the process). Men were awesome—and doubly so, in that I could project my fantasy self onto them and enjoy a sexual attraction to them as well, which is a little masturbatory and confusing, but also clearly the reason I so like slash fiction. Ahem. The point here, though, is that since men were who I saw and read about being awesome, they’re who I started writing about being awesome, too. If you read my short stories from high school through college (please don’t), you’ll see that a dude is the main character in almost all of them. I saw guys getting all the cool shit to do, so I gave them all the cool shit to do. What a neat little circle!

It’s only recently that I had another oh! moment like I did when I was ten. Too many factors conspired for me to pick out one cause, but maybe it was simply a case of the camel’s back finally buckling under some insignificant straw: where were the women? I wanted to read and write about women! How had things gotten to the point where I wasn’t even in my own stories?

If I, and other women like me, don’t write women awesome things to do, chances are no one will. So examples of women getting to take active roles—being smart and competent and maybe even kicking ass—have become even more precious to me. And I’m not talking about the standard female sidekick in the leather bustier. Real characters—the main characters, even. Which, arguably, Lisbeth is. Larsson, in my view, never writes her as “the woman”—he writes her as a person. As the hero.

People have argued that these books’ violence toward women make them unfeminist. I don’t agree: in my view, what Larsson is doing is clearly showing both that violence of this type exists—and will continue to exist if we choose to ignore it—and that it is survivable. These are books where women rescue the men, and perhaps more importantly, where they rescue themselves. The women are the heroes. And so, yeah, in this case, I am happy to advocate for something that is already insanely popular. If characters like Lisbeth—if women in central, heroic roles—can seep into the collective subconscious the way Han Solo and hundreds of years of male heroes sunk into mine, then maybe the next girl (or boy) growing up won’t have to have some big revelation about how she can write women in her stories. She’ll already know.

64. The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Ed. by John Joseph Adams — Not at all what it says on the tin. I often very much enjoy Holmes pastiches that pit him and Watson against the supernatural or uncanny, but despite the purported goal of the collection, only about half of these stories fit into that category. (The other half, Adams says in the introduction, were basically included as a giant red herring, to which I say: boo.) But, supernaturally-fueled or not, nearly all of these were just really, really dull and forgettable; I had to force myself to the end—something that should never happen with my beloved Holmes! Upon review, the only two stories that I really liked were Neil Gaiman’s “A Study in Emerald,” which I have only read a billion times previously, as it has been collected everywhere; and Naomi Novik’s “Commonplaces,” which is absolutely fantastic—beautifully characterized and written—but in which the supposedly improbable element is the assertion that Holmes and Watson were lovers. Pish!

I would like to see “Commonplaces” collected in other books, because then this one would truly be completely unnecessary.

65. Hotel Iris, Yoko Ogawa — One of the things I liked about Ogawa’s short story collection The Diving Pool is how dark and twisted it is; with Hotel Iris, Ogawa raises the dark ‘n’ twisted stakes to such a degree that midway through I started whimpering and backing away and went to go hug a puppy. As in her other books, Ogawa’s use of language and her simple, elegant powers of description are gorgeously employed, but holy crap, dude: is this ever an unpleasant book! I really don’t recommend that people unfamiliar with Ogawa start here; build up a tolerance and then see if you are strong and brave enough. I am not.

66. The Thief, Megan Whalen Turner — Young adult fantasy/historical fiction/adventure thingy; the start of a series, and I’ve been told by multiple people that it improves as it goes along. I feel like I want reassurance that it gets much, much better, because while this wasn’t bad—there are some nice set pieces and good plot twists and whatnot—it was also completely uninteresting to me. I couldn’t connect with the characters at all; I’m not really sure why, I just know that it didn’t happen. I ask with genuine curiosity: is there any reason for me to continue?

67. & 200. Blackout & All Clear, Connie Willis — It is impossible to separate my thoughts on the first volume of this duology from the second—possibly because they never should have been separated in the first place. This is a single novel that got way, way out of control, and if Willis (or really, Willis’ editor, who’s supposed to be the responsible one in this case) had had any sense, this monstrosity of a manuscript would have been carefully pared down to one tighter, and much better, book. Where is Max Perkins when you need him?

So I’m not going to discuss the structural problems with these books in much greater detail: said problems are immense, and if you’re going to tackle this story, you have to accept going in that the first volume is entirely setup, and over-long setup at that. Blackout should have probably been the first hundred pages, maybe, of the overall work. All Clear, which contains—finally!—the resolution, is better, but even it took a good 300 pages to start getting anywhere. Willis has a definite style, but it can start to seem like a crutch, especially when there’s not much else going on. It got to the point where I began groaning every time I read “But she didn’t” or “But he didn’t”—just like I grit my teeth through all of Tolkien’s “And lo!” and “And behold!”s in Return of the King.

The characters’ worries and reasoning about whether or not they were screwing up the timeline were frustrating as well. There were far too many instances of them deciding that they had corrupted it—oh wait, no they hadn’t! (See, I swear, it wouldn’t have even been that hard to cut this.) And the actual solution...how was this a surprise? To ANY of them? Am I somehow wrong in thinking that “the time traveler’s actions are and always were part of the timeline” is one of the major theories of how time travel would work? They use it on Doctor Who and Supernatural all the time. Willis’ Oxford books take place in the future, and I’d think that, even if this is a future where time travel has proved possible and this particular theory of time travel has supposedly been disproved, the characters would at least be aware of it. They’ve got a good century of pop culture behind them to make use of, after all! But instead, they’re totally shocked by the possibility, like people in modern zombie films who are totally taken aback by the revelation that a bite means you’re a ticking zombie time bomb. This just makes the characters seem really alarmingly thick.

So far, I’m making it sound like these books totally aren’t worth reading at all, but this isn’t entirely true. They fail on a number of levels, but Willis succeeds on a number of others, too—just to confuse you, I guess. Her depiction of the Blitz is fantastic and brilliantly vivid: as a story of ordinary people pulling together in impossible circumstances, these books are powerful and believable. The characters, once you work through their multiple aliases (very confusing over two books) and get over the fact that they all seem to process information in a startlingly similar way (“But he didn’t”)—they are characters to root for. Both Colin and Sir Godfrey are divine romantic heroes, and Willis, as usual, knows how to tug on your heartstrings, to write sacrifices so they feel painful and fully-realized. Once I got over the 300-page hump, I zipped through the second half of All Clear in an afternoon because I needed to know what happened to everyone. There is something here, to be sure—a spark of a good novel—which in a way makes it even more of a shame that it’s buried under so much excess stuff. Oh, Max, Max: we need to invent time travel for you.

68. Trickster, Ed. by Matt Dembicki — Graphic collection of a variety of Native American trickster myths, using the words of authentic sources and a variety of artists. Clever, sly, fucked up, surprising, expected, and ever-so-human: this is a genre of storytelling that never ceases to delight and entrance me.

69. Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins — The middle volume in the series, and the one that probably stands out the least to me, although it’s a neat and essential bridge. I like how the reader’s dawning awareness of the rebellious forces are paired with Katniss’ own revelations. The second trip to the arena, which I worried would feel like a retread, is instead extremely well-done: Collins is amazingly adept at writing creepy booby traps; one hopes the Saw people never try to tap that talent. The cliffhanger is, however, immensely frustrating in an almost classically hilarious way: I actually did the “Man, there aren’t a lot of pages left here; how is she going to wrap this...wait a minute!” thing.

70. Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life, Steve Almond — A love song to the power of rock and roll. I loved that Almond looks at music as a writer: a frustrated writer who, like me, longs to write something, anything that can convey as much emotion as a three-minute song. I also enjoyed Almond’s soundtrack for the book, most especially for the discovery of Gil Scott-Heron’s version of “Me and the Devil.” Is Scott-Heron’s three-minute, thirty-four-second song more powerful than Almond’s whole book? Possibly, but that just proves Almond’s point.

Total Reviews: 70/210

Booklog of a Wimpy Kid

trinityofone — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 21:52:34 GMT

Faced with the choice between writing some booklog and doing dishes, I chose booklog.

51. An Angel For Emily, Jude Deveraux — This is the book that I (not-so-)famously threw at the wall, as described here. Though, in fairness, that was really a matter of proximity more than especial malice. Don’t get me wrong: this book is bad. But it’s sort of forgettably bad—to the point where I have, for the most part, forgotten it. All that’s left is a vague memory of badness, lingering on the (otherwise spotless!) walls of my mind like soap scum.

I think it was mostly typical bad romance novel badness: ooky gender roles, dull and at times incomprehensible plot, characters who are too dumb to live. I read it because it’s about an angel and a human who fall in lurv, and at the time I was still rocking that narrative kink like whoa, but this book utterly failed to satisfy it. Emily is dumb as a chipped brick and Michael is really, really boring for an angel; to top off this dull cake with some disinterested frosting, their happy ending consists of him turning human but without either of them remembering that he was ever anything else. Oh, and Emily also has a ridiculously over-the-top evil politician fiancé to get in the happy couple’s way at strategically relevant points. And there are ghosts, or something. I swear, even full-length and (apparently) fully-realized, this book made no more sense than this summary.

So I think I’ll just proceed to forget its contents the rest of the way—Deveraux does appear to consider that a happy ending, after all. From now on, it will simply be known as The Book I Threw at a Wall.

52. The Devil and Sherlock Holmes, David Grann — Terrific collection of investigative essays on topics ranging from murdered Sherlockian scholars to giant squid. I loved Grann’s full-length nonfiction book, The Lost City of Z, and as he did in that work, Grann once again proves his skills at plumbing the depths of obsession with these fascinating short pieces. If you’re obsessed with obsession (as I am), you will easily become enthralled by this book.

53. The Talisman Ring, Georgette Heyer — Enjoyable Heyer romp, containing neither as much crossdressing fun as The Masqueraders, nor as much dull ickiness as These Old Shades. As seems to frequently be the case in Heyer novels, there are two couples, and one is significantly more interesting than the other; as is also often the case, there is a naive young woman who is supposed to seem charming but isn’t, and one or more men whom we are meant to believe are straight, but instead seem really, really gay. One comes away with a rather odd view of the eighteenth century, reading these books.

I think Heyer would be a fun author to find on the shelves of a picturesque lakeside cabin rental, when you have nothing expected of you besides lying out in the sun, swimming, and eating fresh berry pies. Sadly, since my life looks nothing like that, it will probably be a while before I reach for another one of her books.

54. Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Jeff Kinney — Really? All you young ~~whippersnappers~~ kids are obsessing over this? I do not get it. This slight little story, told half in prose and half in cartoons, seems to my elderly eyes to be a) not funny, and b) an exercise in unpleasantness. Greg, the wimpy kid of the title, is consistently nasty to his brothers, best friend, parents, and classmates; the rest of the narrative involves said brothers, best friend, parents, and classmates being nasty to Greg. What a wonderful view of the world!

I suppose it’s possible it’s a realistic one, but I guess in all honesty I have never been much of a fan of realism in children’s literature. My favorite books when I was young all involved plucky youths having magical or scientific adventures (C.S. Lewis, E. Nesbit, Edward Eager, Madeline L’Engle, William Sleator), or having to face unusual challenges (The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle stands out for me, along with anything by Laura Ingalls Wilder), or, you know, actually doing stuff (Harriet the Spy, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Noel Streatfeild’s Shoes books; hell, even freakin’ Nancy Drew). Greg goes to school and is nasty to people; then he comes home and is nasty to people. And fine: maybe that is like life. But what’s the point of fiction—especially children’s fiction—if we can’t aspire to something better?

55. Written Lives, Javier Marías — Whenever I explain this book to someone, I always start with the story of the time Malcolm Lowry punched a horse. Apparently, Lowry—best known as the author of Under the Volcano—got so upset about something, he hauled off and slugged a horse in the face. (The horse crumpled to its knees but was otherwise all right; Lowry burst into tears.) Lowry didn't have the best luck with animals in general, it seems: there's also an anecdote in here about how he once broke the neck of a bunny he was attempting to caress; distraught, he carried the little bunny corpse around with him for days, until the odor became rather pungent.

If you like odd, darkly amusing biographical sketches about a variety of famous authors, then you, too, will get so excited over this book that you'll want to go out and punch a horse. Marías is witty and subtly cutting, though also not unsympathetic; as he says in his introduction, there are really only two authors in this book he failed to find affection for: Yukio Mishima and James Joyce. (For the scoop on Mishima, see the insanity that is Patriotism; as for Joyce...James, far be it for me to say that anyone's kink is not okay, but dude. Ew.)

This book will make you want to read the works of all these authors, as well as everything Marías has ever written. But which first? Augh, all these angsty writers were right: life is hard.

56. Hex Hall, Rachel Hawkins — I can tell you precisely when this book won me over: page 8. Our heroine, teen witch Sophie, has just discovered her classmate, Felicia, crying in the bathroom at the prom, so she—kind of for the heck of it—decides to cast a love spell and make Kevin, the boy of Felicia's dreams, fall in love with her. Only the spell gets out of control and Kevin falls crazy in love with her, to the point where Felicia feels the need to blast pepper spray at his face. And there we are, at the top of page 8, with Felicia fleeing from the blinded Kevin. “It's okay, baby!” he shouted after her. “I don't need eyes to see you! I see you with the eyes of my heart, Felicia! My HEART!”

Ahahahahahaha oh thank god. Finally a YA fantasy/romance/what-have-you with a sense of humor! This book isn't high art by any means, but it's spooky and amusing and entertaining and fun. That is what I read books like this for. Hawkins has that magic ingredient that so many of her fellow authors lack; because of this I will, for once, be waiting eagerly for the sequel.

57. I Know I Am, But What Are You?, Samantha Bee — Samantha Bee has never been my favorite Daily Show correspondent, or even probably in my top five. I picked this up because ~~it was free~~ I like The Daily Show as a whole enough to be interested in almost anything its people put out; I expected it to be vaguely amusing at best. To my surprise and delight, Bee’s book is actually really funny, a deeply amusing comedic memoir about growing up strange and Canadian (a combination I most enjoy). I literally LOL’d at several points—not something that is common for me, as I have perfected a fairly stable Reading In Public face. Also, the parts about Bee and her fellow Daily Show correspondent Jason Jones are really cute; I think I kind of ship them now. Which is convenient, because they are married.

This is definitely a humor section standout, and if you were hesitating for any reason—like the fact that there are a billion similar-looking books by minor comedic figures, and any of them can put on a bee costume for their book cover, but that doesn’t mean said book will be funny—hesitate no more. Bee costumes are only the beginning.

58. The Hole We’re In, Gabrielle Zevin — A look at the financial crisis through the eyes of one family. This was a faster, punchier, and much less literary take on material similar to that covered by Adam Haslett’s Union Atlantic; frankly, I prefer Zevin’s version. Her characters occasionally stray close to caricature—the dad is particularly over-the-top—but the emotion Zevin evokes through them is real. I was also impressed by the way Zevin tied the financial crisis into other issues affecting this country, such as military policy and women’s reproductive rights. This sounds like heavy stuff (and it is), but The Hole We’re In is so fast-paced, and so character-driven, that you’ll gulp it down—and then have plenty of time to let Zevin’s ideas linger, to digest. This book deserves more attention than it appears to be getting.

59. Tokyo Vice, Jake Adelstein — Compelling look at Japanese culture, the Japanese underworld, and Japanese journalistic practices through the eyes of an American reporter who worked for a major publication in Tokyo until his work brought him under fire from the yakuza. The yakuza thing seems like the major hook, but it wasn’t for me: Adelstein’s day to day work at the paper, his struggles as a foreigner in a place not terribly open to foreigners, and his insights into Japanese culture and tradition—which he seems to truly seek understanding of and respect—were what really drew me to this book. Adelstein isn’t what I’d call brutally honest—there are clearly things he withholds—but he’s not self-aggrandizing, either. (Read his review of his own book for a general sense of the tone.) This is both a solid, interesting true crime book, and a solid, interesting book about Japan.

60. Voyage Along the Horizon, Javier Marías — One of Marías’ earlier, and from the examples of his work I’ve read so far, more disjointed novels. And yet: still this is sort of irrepressibly charming. I think, like the voyage of the title, Marías’ work tends to be more about the journey and less about the destination.

Total Reviews: 60/201

Déjà Booklog

trinityofone — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 01:47:47 GMT

Home sick with a disgusting cold! At least I managed something semi-productive?

41. Hellblazer: All His Engines, Mike Carey — Huh. I saw this on the shelf at my friend John’s, flipped through it there, borrowed it, and read the whole thing, and I am still not sure if I have read it before or not. This may be attributable to my failing brain, but I’m sure it’s also due in part to the fact that All His Engines is a fairly standard John Constantine outing: there are creepy icky demony things, and John (Constantine, not my friend) snarks at them and gets in over his head but ultimately outwits everyone and is awesome. I like all of that, and Carey pulls off that formula here with aplomb. Still: this is obviously not a standout tale, as I’m still not 100% on whether I’ve read it before. (I think the answer must be yes, or at least yes in part, or else I’m simply experiencing some weirdly specific déjà vu.)

Since this review seems to be turning into an extended episode of someone tapping a microphone and saying, “Hello? Is this thing on?” I will now use this space to complain: why hasn’t any of Paul Jenkins’ run on this title been collected as trades? I loved that run. Am I the only one?

42. A Short History of Women, Kate Walbert — "Hey, guess what, Trin—being a lady is HARD!"

"Gee, book—I had NO IDEA. Thanks for telling me!"

If there's more to this book than that, I can't say I really got it. This is a novel about five generations of women and their general dissatisfaction with their lives—a better title might have been A Short History of Wealthy White Women and Their Ennui. Walbert's prose is occasionally stirring, but for the most part I found her style—short chapters that skip from character to character, bouncing from era to era—frustratingly elliptical. Maybe this is just not my feminism? In my feminism it absolutely needs to be acknowledged that things have sucked for women (of ALL races and classes) in the past, and they still often suck now, but instead of wallowing how 'bout try to be awesome? And maybe fight people with swords.

43. Fat Vampire, Adam Rex — Ugh. I have not been looking forward to writing this review. My feelings about this book are deeply conflicted. Let me try to break it down.

1. I don’t like this book as much as Rex’s previous novel, The True Meaning of Smekday, which is clever and funny and just...very near perfect. That’s hard to follow, and it was perhaps smart of Rex to try something completely different. However...

2. Goddamn, is this book dark. It’s still funny, because Rex is a funny writer, but for a book that could easily be mistaken for a satirical young adult vampire romp, this baby is pretty fucking bleak. I (think I) get where Rex was trying to go with the narrative, what he was trying to say about redemption coming too late, but it didn’t sit comfortably with me. My sort of gah! reaction inspires me to sort of warily admire the book, not actually like it.

3. The meta Rex employs is also sort of a double-edged sword. I like meta, generally, but it can turn on you very easily, and despite how they ultimately connected, the Sandman references seemed sort of weird in this context, and I honestly think that Fat Vampire would have been a stronger book if Rex had found a way to make those same points on his own, without relying on metatextuality. The best meta is like sprinkles on a sundae; it’s not the scoop of double fudge without which the whole thing falls down.

Okay, now I seem to be talking myself into liking this book less and less, and also I want ice cream. Um. Perhaps, to awkwardly switch metaphors, this book is best regarded as an experiment that didn’t entirely work. The process was interesting, and you can appreciate its contribution to science, but you really hope the slightly charred guy in the lab coat can do better next time. Maybe next time he’ll land that Nobel Prize.

44. Déjà Dead, Kathy Reichs — The TV show Bones is probably the best and worst thing to ever happen to this series. The best because it’s no doubt brought a whole slew of new, eager readers to these books—including ones like me, who are really only sporadic watchers of the show. And the worst because all those new readers will inevitably be hauling all their show-based expectations with them. At which point they will discover that this book is—to me, sadly—nothing like the show.

The main character both on TV and in print is called Temperance Brennan, and in both mediums she is a forensic anthropologist. That’s pretty much where the similarities end. TV Temperance is brilliant and socially oblivious—in short, she’s wonderfully weird. Apparently, her personality is based more on Reichs’ own than on anything in the novels (thanks, Wikipedia!), which makes me wish Reichs had stuck much more closely to writing what she knew, because book Temperance—or Tempe, as she prefers to be called—is far less entertaining. She’s just so...normal. Aside from her somewhat eccentric choice of career, she’s a fairly average woman with fairly average concerns (prior to getting caught up in the book’s serial killer plot, anyway) and tediously average thought processes, on which Reichs spends way too much time. (I’m not sure I as a reader ever need to hear about every stray song lyric that gets stuck in a character’s head.)

I have to say, I really prefer my main characters to be oddballs. This may be my predilection for socially awkward geniuses at play, but I really do think it’s especially important in a genre that can all-too-easily become formulaic: you know there’s going to be a bad guy, and in the end, you know he’s going to get caught. A good mystery is really all about the journey, so the person you are accompanying on that trip needs to be unusual in some way. Bones the TV show is full of weirdos and goofs, and is packed to the brim with surreal moments and humor and—at times, an overabundance of—wacky shenanigans. I was in the mood for something like that: a puzzle, some jokes, a dash of sexual tension to add a little spice. Instead I got a depressingly straightforward police procedural, anchored by a lot of stiff, mostly colorless characters and a protagonist who, in being rendered more “relatable,” becomes much less interesting than her TV counterpart.

45. Why Translation Matters, Edith Grossman — Interesting account/defense of the art of translation. At times I both sympathized with and was annoyed by how defensive Grossman occasionally became: it’s true that most people, from highly esteemed literary critics down to myself, don’t give translation enough thought, tending to ignore it when it’s done well and mention it only to criticize. (If you go back through my reviews of translated books, I’m sure you will indeed find that where I’ve mentioned the translation/translator at all, it’s to bitch about how clunky it is.) Do translators deserve more credit for what they do? Absolutely. Is translating a book the same as writing one, so that, for example, my copy of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle should read “A Novel by Haruki Murakami and Jay Rubin”? Every instinct of mine—half readerly, half writerly—screams no no NO.

And yet, as Grossman illustrates in this book—and as the aforementioned Rubin discusses in his quasi-bio, Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words—the best translators, the ones whose work is not clunky, are the ones who are not literalists, who do the most shaping and rewriting. Now, I would argue that this is still not the same as writing a novel, but it’s a skill that I would agree is in need of more recognition. (It’s also one involving a degree of license that can be easily abused—I still remember with horror a French translation of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere that I bought in Paris and struggled through back when my French was not so poor; the idiot translator had moved huge chunks of text around and added entirely new scenes. Sacrilege!) So yes, I would say that we should celebrate good translators, and put their names on the covers of books, and mention them in more than a cursory way in reviews, whenever possible. It’s either that or learn lots and lots of other languages.

...I wish I could do the latter, honestly, because when I start to think too much about how I’ve never really read Murakami or Marías or Tolstoy—not as they were really written, not truly—I start to feel panicky, like an existential crisis might be coming on. Um. When those instant language-learning chips become available, sign me right up.

46. Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin — Beautiful and heartbreaking—one of those classics that, upon reading for the first time, you can’t believe you haven’t read already. Baldwin combines many elements that I love in this subtle, restrained story: it’s all repressed gay ex-pats—sort of like a Henry James novel, if Henry James had actually been able to write about what he was actually writing about. This book probably deserves a more reverent write-up than that, but I have my own Jamesish moments, and true reverence makes me white-lightning uncomfortable.

Anyway, enough about me: you should read this.

47. Life After Life, Paul Jepson & Tony Parker — A play about people serving life sentences for murder in England, assembled from interviews with actual prisoners; in form in reminded me somewhat of The Laramie Project. Like Laramie, this play is effective and disturbing because it forces you to view people you might otherwise find repugnant as people: you sympathize and feel repulsed by them in turn, often within moments of each other.

48. Ramayana: Divine Loophole, Sanjay Patel — Fun and deeply vibrant illustrated adaptation of the Hindu epic. I will save analysis of the source text for folks better educated than I, and simply say that Patel’s art is immensely enjoyable, and that as the X-Men will also support, blue people are hot when James Cameron isn’t making them part of something politically and racially skeevy.

49. The Forty Rules of Love, Elif Shafak — This book took me by complete surprise. I picked it up simply because Shafak was coming to read at my store; after the first few pages, which contain some painfully clunky prose, I was not particularly encouraged. However, I continued to give the book a chance, and for once it paid off. There are two parallel stories in this book: that of the relationship between the poet Rumi and the mystic Shams of Tabriz, and a contemporary narrative about a Jewish housewife in a failing marriage who falls in love, through letters, with a modern Sufi. Both, to my shock, ended up moving me considerably.

I don’t generally think of myself a spiritual person, but I was genuinely touched by the lives and beliefs of the characters in this book. Shams, as Shafak presents him, is an irresistible character, both impish and wise, and his relationship with Rumi rang my EPIC FRIENDSHIP bell like crazy. So while the writing in this book, on a nuts-and-bolts level, didn’t always work for me, the characters, general atmosphere, and message definitely did. It’s inspired me to read some of Rumi’s poetry, which is quite beautiful; I’d like to learn more about Sufism as well. Book recommendations, anybody?

50. Bill Bryson’s African Diary, Bill Bryson — More like Bill Bryson’s African Pamphlet. Fun for what it is, and very Brysony, but oh-so-very thin. However, all proceeds from sales of this book go to a good cause, so I’d recommend either thinking of the book as a gift-with-donation, or getting it from the library.

Total Books: 50/197

Achtung Booklog

trinityofone — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 01:12:11 GMT

I am revoltingly behind. Let's say no more about it.

31. Resenting the Hero, Moira J. Moore — Fantasy romance that tries to do the “we hate each other! By which we mean we secretly LOVE each other!” thing—but without much spark. I like how queer-friendly Moore's world is, but other than that there's not much that's terribly original about it. I wasn't interested in the plot, the setting, or the characters. However well-intentioned a work may be—and I think this one is full of good intentions—if you can't make me care, well. I'm going to read something else.

32. Boom!, Mark Haddon — Snazzy kids' sci-fi by the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. This was actually written before the book that made Haddon famous, but it's been reworked and repackaged—rather snazzily there, too. I liked how Haddon played off the typical kids' fear of no one—all those foolish adults!—believing them. I also really liked the realistically imperfect sibling relationship he portrays. I don't think this book has a ton of crossover appeal, but fans of the Hitchhiker's Guide will enjoy reading it with their kids—and I'll enjoy recommending it to them, too.

33. Al Capone Does My Shirts, Gennifer Choldenko — Kids’ historical fiction with a rather genius premise: 12-year-old baseball fanatic Moose has to move to the island of Alcatraz with his family because his father has gotten a job there as a prison guard. I loved the descriptions of the setting and this time in the island’s history, in which it played host to families as well as some of the country’s most dangerous criminals. (If you’re lucky enough to have visited the facility, as I was, this will seem even more unbelievable, although it’s true.) Moose’s relationship with his autistic sister, Natalie (who due to the time period is additionally burdened by not being able to be given a proper diagnosis) seemed to me accurate and moving. The shenanigans with the warden’s daughter were, however, of less interest to me, and I was frankly unnerved by how quickly the possible sexual molestation plot was dropped (even if it was borne entirely out of Moose’s fears). All in all, this is something I’m glad I read so I can recommend it to kids more than a book I personally relished.

34. The Innocence of Father Brown, G.K. Chesterton — Chesterton is perhaps best known for his Father Brown stories, so I was deeply disappointed to find that they represent him at his preachy, intolerant worst. If I’d started here, instead of with the wonderfully weird and delightfully dark The Man Who Was Thursday and The Napoleon of Notting Hill, I would have had no desire to pick up anything by Chesterton again. All of these stories seem to revolve around the irritatingly smug Father Brown proving that some type of non-Christian is wrong wrong WRONG about everything, the poor, deluded, and occasionally murderous souls.

Aside from being pious, preachy, and at times outright racist, these tales also just aren’t very good from the detective story standpoint, either. The Sherlock Holmes stories continue to be fascinating because Holmes is, because his relationship with Watson is, because the way he interacts with the world is. Father Brown’s character has less color than his name, and although Chesterton makes the occasional attempt at providing him with a sidekick, he’s never truly given anyone to confide in or bounce off of, as Holmes has in Watson. Father Brown is lost without his Boswell. And he can stay there, as far as I’m concerned.

35. Eternal, Cynthia Leitich Smith — Cynthia Leitich Smith read all that hoopla about angels being the new vampires and wings supplanting fangs as the primacy source of teen wangst, and she was like, “Whatever, bitches, I GOT BOTH.” She’s also got a sense of humor, which really, really helps a lot. Eternal features a guardian angel named Zachary, the highlight of whose ~~life~~ existence is “shower time” with his charge Miranda naked under the spray—at least until, whoopsidaisy, he lets Miranda get turned into a vamp. Pervy angels, legitimately murderous vampires: this book is just dark and twisted enough for me to enjoy it. Not love it—the ending gets mawkish and preachy in a way I could really do without—but I was amused. That’s really all I’m asking for with these things, anyway.

...Okay, all right, truthfully, it’s not. I really do want an epic supernatural love story, one that’s funny and dark and sexy and badass and that lacks the ooky gender stereotypes that are so prevalent in most teen fiction (though not this book, mostly, thank whatever). I want one of these silly books with their designed-by-Hot-Topic covers to make me feel like a good episode of Buffy could back in the day, like the world is something beautiful and tragic and still, somehow, worth fighting for—especially in a sleek leather jacket and kicky boots. That’s what I want, what I’m asking for every time I pick one of these things up.

But I have learned to take amusement.

36. The Piano Teacher, Janice Y.K. Lee — Historical fiction, covering the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II. Those aspects of the story were fascinating to me—I've read tons of WWII stories, but never one that covered this region. Lee's descriptions of life during the occupation are vivid and harrowing; she does a fantastic job realistically portraying the many ways people come together and fall apart under such horrific circumstances.

Unfortunately, as seems to be de rigueur for this sort of book these days, there's also a more modern component, and a *~*mystery*~* to be uncovered. This portion of the book, and even more notably the way the two relate, is much weaker. It doesn't help that, after everything, the BIG SECRET is revealed in such a hum-drum way. It's sort of as if the end of The Empire Strikes Back had gone like this:

Lando Calrissian invites Chewbacca and C-3PO to tea.
Lando: So, I heard that Vader is Luke's father.
C-3PO: I say!
Lando: Hey, just thought you should know.
Chewie: Rowarrrk!

But yes! The occupation scenes are seriously great, even if they don't have any Wookies in them. This is Lee's first novel, and it's got a lot to recommend it for a debut. I'll definitely be checking out her next one.

37. Achtung Baby, Stephen Catanzarite — I almost gave this two stars because I like the album so much, but ultimately I'm giving it one because I like the album so very much, and it deserves better. Catanzarite’s feeble analysis is sexist and proselytizing in the precise way that U2 is (99 percent of the time) not. I suspect we are not actually listening to the same album. Example one: Catanzarite fails to see (or possibly, desperately ignores) the intense homoeroticism of “Until the End of the World,” casting it as a conversation between a man and a woman instead of Jesus and Judas. COME ON. This is a song that, when they perform it, Bono and the Edge practically make out.

This is one of the tamer versions:

That is two men miming fucking with a guitar in the middle.

Whatever. Catanzarite can keep his version of this album; mine’s a lot more fun.

38. Union Atlantic, Adam Haslett — This book’s kind of a hard sell. “A novel about the financial crisis! Oh joy!” On top of the subject matter, it’s one of those books about a lot of unpleasant people being unpleasant to each other, so although it was deftly done, it’s definitely a book that I appreciated more than one that I enjoyed. Worth reading, by only if you’re in a very serious “Oh, ain’t modern society awful” mood.

39. Angel Time, Anne Rice — New to the list of things Misha Collins has made me do: read an Anne Rice book. I really never thought I would do that again. Even at the height of my Buffy-induced vamp craze, I didn't care for Rice; I dragged myself yawning through Interview With the Vampire. Of course, Rice'd probably just tell me that means I was interrogating the text from the wrong perspective. I do have to thank you for that one, Anne: that meme never gets old.

But then Anne Rice found God, and I found Supernatural's Castiel, and suddenly both of us were worshiping things that are at least vaguely angel-shaped. As much as I mocked Rice's new book for its ridiculous title (“Is it Thursday? Oh goody”—brandishes book—“it be angel tiem nao”), I also sort of wanted to read it. The angel in Angel Time, the internet informed me, is described as having dark hair and bright blue eyes—just like Castiel! The human he saves from ~~perdition~~ himself is a self-hating blond assassin—close enough to Dean for government work and/or idle fantasies. Hello, hilarious assassin AU in convenient “I can read it on the bus” book form!

The novel itself is actually not hilarious at all—it may be, in fact, one of the most self-serious books I've ever read. And yet...it's also not bad. Most of the narrative involves not-Cas sending not-Dean to save a medieval Jewish family from being falsely accused of murder. I didn't care about this part, particularly, especially not in contrast to the interesting glimmers of not-Cas and not-Dean's burgeoning relationship: not-Cas watched him grow up, watched all the tragedy in his life unfold, felt what he felt! It's kind of fabulously over the top, and I know that if I slashed it, Anne Rice would bring the whole internet down upon my head. I will not be posting this review on Amazon.com.

Seriously, though: I'm very aware that I am interrogating this text from the wrong perspective. I am not getting what Anne Rice likely wants me to get out of it at all. I'm okay with that, though. Hopefully, given time and the better angels of her nature, Anne herself will come around.

40. Spooky Little Girl, Laurie Notaro — Oh, this is bad. Familiar, old-fashioned, college creative writing course bad. The plot makes no sense, the characterization is thin or muddled, and the prose ranges from workmanlike to borderline incompetent. For example, here is one page (p. 239) of dialogue attributions:

Isis explained
Nola gave in
Nola said sharply
Isis investigated (this one’s totally my favorite!)
Isis continued
Nola confirmed
the psychic requested
Nola replied
Isis queried

“I think someone needed a more thorough editor,” Trin said. But anyway, the plot! Our heroine is Lucy Fisher—supposedly a free spirit, although when we meet her she’s living in a dull split level, engaged to a dull man, and working as a dental hygienist. (What a wild woman!) The book opens with Lucy coming back from a Hawaiian vacation on which she’s spent her entire inheritance and had a mostly miserable time to discover that her fiancé has kicked her out of the house with no explanation. The next morning, she is fired from her job for stealing and for failing a drug test. Then when she goes to stay with her sister to get away from it all, she is immediately hit by a bus and dies.

I don’t think I am out of line in suggesting that this is, perhaps, a little much? Especially considering that the plot of the book does not involve the gods being angry at Lucy and taking their vengeance upon her.

No, instead she has to go to ghost school, where many chapters are required for Lucy and her fellow students to learn a bunch of skills that Patrick Swayze figured out over the course of a fun montage. Lucy picks up all the stereotypical haunting tricks, and is even given the option of getting kitted out in whatever ghost gear might suit her fancy (woman in white? old-timey hooker? the choice is yours!). However, she is also instructed that she’s not supposed to frighten whoever she’s sent to haunt, she’s supposed to help them. If she scares them too much, she could get sucked into the white light, which is actually a portal to eternal torment. Then why is she being taught how to scare people, one might ask? Beats me!

Wait, no it doesn’t: it’s because without this sequence, the book would have no middle. We’d have to rush right on to the final third, wherein Lucy mildly torments and is mildly tormented by her personality-free ex-fiancé’s cartoonishly awful new girlfriend, who is also the woman who got Lucy fired (...right). Then the book ends and Lucy finally gets to move on to The State, which sounds just like Earth only you’re dead and get to eat as much brownie batter as you want. (This is the same State, by the way, that was frequently claimed to be “indescribable” to anyone who asked.) Was Lucy supposed to learn anything from this? Isn’t she supposed to be some sort of higher being now? I’m sorry, but I can’t trust any “higher being” whose idea of paradise involves raw brownie batter. Cookie dough maybe, but I’ve dipped many the wooden spoon and trust me, raw brownie batter is not worth dying for.

Sorry, this is probably a much more scathing review than this book truly deserves: it’s bad, but it’s not offensive—or at least no more offensive than any other bad published book. However, I read it as a favor to a friend, and he’s going to ask me about it, and I am going to have to equivocate so much. Best get the brutal honesty out of my system now, then, before I have to start practicing all the phrases I used in my actual college creative writing class, where we weren’t allowed to say anything mean.

Ahem.

“Gosh, Notaro sure was trying for something interesting with this!”

Total Reviews: 40/197 omg dear lord fuck fuck fuckity sweet jesus christ

Er. I mean, that’s totally doable, right?

Announcement

trinityofone — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 06:03:34 GMT

Okay, that is all.*

*Aside from miscellaneous noises of glee, fatigue, joy, exhaustion, and excessive pie and wine consumption.

Free Shane and Josh — The Finished Film

trinityofone — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 23:18:39 GMT

My dad's film to increase awareness about the American hikers detained in Iran, FREE SHANE AND JOSH, debuted today on The Huffington Post. This film would not have been possible without the amazing work all of you wonderful fannish people did at the transcribing stage. Thank you again, so much!

Everyone can help once again by watching the film and signing the petition. And please, please spread the word! The idea at this stage is to get lots and lots of signatures and create international pressure, which will hopefully lead to Shane and Josh being set free. They have currently been in detainment for 462 days.

ETA: Commenting on the HuffPo piece is good, too. Apparently it's already being trolled by people calling the hikers spies and other horrible (FALSE!) stuff. :\

A small side note for L.A. folks: my dad and Laura, Josh's mom, are going to be on the Fox 10 o'clock news tonight. The piece may be picked up nationally, I'm not sure of those details yet; but if you can, check it out! (This is the only time ever that I will encourage people to watch Fox News.)

Thank you again to everyone for all their hard work on this project so far. I hope you enjoy the film, and please do everything you can to get the word out about this. Beyond simple issues of right and wrong, working on this project has really helped me to see what amazing people Shane and Josh (and Sarah!) are, and I desperately want to do everything I can to help them have a happy ending. Thanks for your support.

WATCH THE FILM
SIGN THE PETITION

Hikers doc - update and thank you!

trinityofone — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 19:44:12 GMT

Thank you so much to everyone who helped transcribe the interviews with Sarah Shourd for the documentary to help free Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer. All the work is completed, and it's 100% thanks to fandom being awesome. Thank you so much!

When the documentary is finished (the rough cut is being completed this weekend), I will be sure to post it or a link to it here so everyone can see!

Finally, if you were one of the amazing people who helped out and you DIDN'T get an email from me about crediting, please let me know. I think I got everybody but even the power of spreadsheets fails occasionally. :)

DCBB Fic: Bird of Paradise (Masterpost)

trinityofone — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:39:23 GMT

Title: Bird of Paradise
Author: trinityofone
Artist: aesc
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: R
Word Count: ~34,000
Spoilers: Vague allusions to both works, but no real spoilers
Warnings: Violence, canon character deaths
Summary: When Sam Campbell is chosen as a tribute for the Games—an annual fight to the death between twenty-four of New Eden's unlucky children—his older brother Dean volunteers to take his place. Dean fully expects to die so that Sam can live, but once he enters the arena, Dean discovers that what's at stake in the Games is far more complicated than simple life and death, and nothing and no one is what they seem. (An AU based on Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games.)

Part I / Part II / Part III / Part IV

Art Post + Soundtrack

PDF Download

Notes: I am indebted, first and foremost, to Suzanne Collins, whose wonderful young adult series inspired this story. fishandcustard listened very patiently while I ironed out early ideas for this adaptation, and bribed me with macarons; bauble worked clean-up shift and helped fix many of the story's lingering problems. siriaeve knows she is always my first and best soundingboard. And the amazing aesc—artist, writer, and jumpin' Jupiter, road buddy extraordinaire—inspired me with her beautiful work and was invaluable in shaping the final product. Thank you all so much!

DCBB Fic: Bird of Paradise (Part IV)

trinityofone — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 04:31:32 GMT

Dean’s sleep was fitful, his dreams horrific: he held Jo in his arms and watched as she exploded into nothing, leaving his body an empty circle, leaving him empty. He saw his mother nailed to the windmill, blood staining her white dress red; he saw Sam ripped from his arms and torn to shreds by an enemy Dean couldn’t see, let alone fight. He woke up and found Jimmy gone, found himself alone, abandoned—everyone he knew or loved dead, let down.

“Dean. Dean.” He heard Jimmy’s voice, and he followed it out of the dark. The other boy’s arms were wrapped around him: “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Why?” Dean asked. It seemed stupid for Jimmy to be apologizing: he was still here, Dean wasn’t alone.

“Because…” Jimmy said. “Because it’s fucked.”

“Yeah,” said Dean, taking a rough breath. “But we knew that already.”

Jimmy shook his head. “Not nearly so well.”

“Well,” said Dean, squeezing his hand, “at least now…” And suddenly he was grinning, wide and manic. “Now we’ve got nothing left to lose.”

He pulled himself onto his knees. His shoulder protested the motion, but Dean figured he’d live—long enough, anyway. “Hang on, I gotta piss,” he said. He slithered out from between the bushes. “Start thinking of a plan,” he called back.

“A plan for what?”

“A plan to kick those assholes’ asses!” Dean declared with relish.

He missed Jimmy’s response, too busy scrambling over to a nearby tree. He was surprised to have anything to release, but release he did, resting his head against the rough bark. He pressed his forehead into the grooves, and tried for a moment not to think at all.

His mind and his gaze were wandering when the latter came up harshly against a sprawled pair of legs. Dean straightened up, hand moving to the knife at his belt even before he’d finished tucking himself away. Keeping as much tree-cover as he could between himself the possible trap, he crept closer.

A body lay propped up against one of the trees. A girl, her long dark hair tumbling past her shoulders. It was Pamela, Dean realized. He’d forgotten all about Pamela: that she existed, that she might still be alive. Dean remembered Jo saying, “I hope she’s all right,” and felt twin stabs of guilt.

Then Dean took another step closer, and felt a totally different feeling blast through him.

Pamela’s eyes were missing. Now that he was more directly in front of her, he could see a pair of dark pits at the center of her face. They seemed to stare at Dean, more provocatively than Pamela’s warm brown eyes ever could. He could hide nothing from those empty holes, rimmed with dried blood. They knew him.

Dean was already shaky, backing away; when the body suddenly moved, head turning on the neck, his heart nearly stopped.

“Who’s there?” Pamela croaked. “I can hear you breathing! I can hear you!”

She was still alive. Dean didn’t have anything in him, but he wanted to throw up. How was it that she was still alive?

“Kill me, then!” Pamela went on; her voice had an edge to it even as it shook. “Go on—if you’re brave enough!”

It was a bold speech, but it seemed to take a lot out of her: Dean watched her slump back against the tree trunk, like a puppet with cut strings. He took a rough breath, bracing himself, then stepped forward.

“Pamela,” Dean whispered. “It’s me!” he added when she tensed. “Dean. From District 12?”

Her head rolled to face him, and Dean suppressed a shiver. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he promised.

Pamela snorted. “Like it matters.”

“What happened?” Dean couldn’t help but ask. “Was it…was it Alastair and his guys?”

Pamela shook her head. “I don’t know what it was. I was doing fine, hiding, staying one step ahead of everybody—” Her lips twitched a little, and Dean remembered that she was a psychic—special, just not special enough. “Then these—” She coughed, harsh and sudden, and Dean saw red on her lips. “—These things, they…they came down. They were so bright. And when they spoke… I think they were speaking, because there was another voice, a human voice—” She coughed again. “It hurt so bad. I— I can still feel it.”

Dean didn’t know what to make of any of this. It sounded sort of like one of Zachariah’s traps, but stranger than any of the ones they’d encountered so far. Not that that mattered, now; there was nothing he could do for Pamela.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She took a shaky breath; it was clearly hard for her, and Dean was amazed to think she had held on this long. “Never really thought I’d be the one,” she said softly. “Even if I made it to the end, I couldn’t see myself taking care of that final person.” Her shoulders shook. “But what about you, Dean? You think maybe you can do it?”

The black holes of her eyes stared up at him. Dean struggled to find something to say, to push the air out of his lungs. But in the end it didn’t matter. By the time Jimmy came to find him, Pamela was already gone.

Dean felt Jimmy’s presence at his back, felt the stiff shape of his shock. Without turning, he reached back and threaded their fingers together. They moved off through the woods in silence.

They were being quiet: not talking, not planning like they probably should. It was a sign of how tired and shaken Dean was that he did not pick up on the danger before it was too late, but he didn’t. Jimmy did, however, at the last second pushing in front of Dean so that it was his body that Ava yanked off its feet, his leg that her spiked chain wrapped around and tore.

Jimmy went down, Ava on top of him. Dean barely thought before he joined them, flinging himself on Ava’s back, wrenching her off Jimmy by her swollen and infected hand. She turned to snarl at him and Dean drove his knife in; he felt it bumping and scraping, pushing up under her ribs. Blood bubbled past her lips. As she looked at him, something in her expression seemed to shift, but before Dean could make any sense of what he was seeing, she was dead.

Dean pushed her away, dropping to his knees at Jimmy’s side.

Jimmy’s breathing was shallow, his eyes rolling back in his head. “Jimmy! Come on, man!” Dean slid bloody fingers to the other boy’s wrist, felt the pounding pulse. He looked down at Jimmy’s wounded leg, which still had the chain wound around it like a snake. Through the torn uniform pants, it looked like a pulpy mess.

“You’re going to be okay,” Dean promised, swallowing thickly.

“It hurts,” Jimmy said. He sounded surprised. “It hurts.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Dean bit his lip and tried not to cry. How did this keep happening? Why did people keep throwing themselves at death to try to save him? He wasn’t worth it. He just wasn’t worth it.

“Just hold tight, okay?” Dean whispered. He glanced around the forest nervously; he’d never actually seen Alastair leave the town square, but he couldn’t help imagining that the other tribute could be anywhere. “I’m gonna…I gotta try to unwrap this, okay?”

Jimmy nodded, swallowing, panting hard. Carefully, Dean started working his fingers under the chain, peeling it back. The barbs were wickedly sharp, and they stuck to Jimmy’s skin like thorns. Dean pulled and unwound, pulled and unwound, wincing as he listened to Jimmy’s sharp breaths, the pained little moans that he unwillingly gave up.

When they were finally free of the chain, Dean flung it away. The wounded leg continued to ooze into the dirt. Dean though for a moment, then ripped off his shirt. He’d be freezing if he had to wait out another night, but Dean seriously doubted that’d ever be an issue.

The shirt was damp with sweat and with blood, and Alastair had put some tears in it already. Helpful guy, Dean thought, ripping the fabric into strips. He bound Jimmy’s leg to the best of his ability, which was unfortunately not much of an endorsement. But when he slowly and painfully inched Jimmy to his feet, Jimmy could stand on it, sort of. Leaning on Dean, he could kind of walk.

“Dean,” Jimmy whispered, close. “You can leave me here. I will be fine, I promise you.”

“I’m sick of that kind of promise,” Dean said. He tightened his grip on Jimmy’s back. “We’re seeing this through to the end together, remember?”

“I remember.”

“Good.”

Slowly, incredibly slowly, they crept on toward the small circle of buildings where they knew Alastair waited. Dean had no idea what they would do when they got there.

Sneaking to the top of the ridge and peering down, Dean still didn’t know. The square, which just a few days ago had consisted of pure brown dirt—and a massive pile of weaponry—now looked like something out of a nightmare. Blood had soaked into the earth, dyeing it dark. The weapons pile had been scattered, and amongst these instruments of destruction lay their varied victims, the corpses bloated and rotting, the smell so bad the Dean could catch it even from a distance, even beneath his and Jimmy’s ingrown filth. The smoking remains of a bonfire sat next to where the cache had once proudly risen, the charred shapes rising out of it not really something that Dean wanted to examine too closely. Nor did he want to get close to the boy who was perched atop his own pile of weaponry, refuse, and assorted body parts. But Dean would have to, because he had to figure out a way to kill him.

“Any ideas?” Dean whispered.

Jimmy’s eyes were closed. When Dean spoke, his eyelashes fluttered, then blinked open, flashing wide blue irises. “Smite him,” Jimmy suggested.

“Smite him?” said Dean. In other circumstances, he would have laughed.

“He deserves to be smote.” Then Jimmy did laugh. “‘Smote,’” he quoted.

Dean would be furious if he wasn’t so sick with worry. Jimmy was clearly loopy from the pain; and clearly, he’d be useless in a fight. Dean would have to take Alastair down himself. Which would be kind of tricky, considering Alastair had a big pile of weapons, and all Dean had was this—

“Nice knife,” a syrupy voice chirped. “Mind if I take it?”

The question was kind of moot: the little blond pigtailed girl who Dean had been next to in the starting circle had already somehow lifted it out of Dean’s belt, was smiling up at him with a grin that matched the knife blade. Dean felt his stomach drop: he’d forgotten about her. He’d messed up his count. He’d messed up completely.

“I’m glad you’re here,” the girl said, lightly teasing the knife up Jimmy’s sagging side. “I ran out of things to play with and I’ve been so bored.”

Casual as you please, she herded them down the incline.

Alastair perked up as they approached, his long body unfolding. He stretched out his arms toward them in a welcoming gesture, then began to sing.

“In Eden’s fair city, where girls are so pretty,
That’s where I first met sweet Molly Malone.
She wheeled her wheelbarrow
Through streets that are narrow
Crying cockles and mussels
Alive, alive-o!

“You do bring me the most delicious things, sweet Molly,” Alastair crooned, sidling up to Dean and Jimmy with something long and sharp.

The girl preened, bobbing her knees in a mockery of a curtsey.

As she rose, Jimmy spun, grabbing her arm and jamming the knife in her hand into her own chest.

It happened so quickly that Dean barely saw it. He did hear Alastair howl, and saw him lash out at Jimmy, swiping him aside with the point of his spear. Jimmy crumpled like a pile of rags, and Dean saw Alastair swooping down to finish him off. Easy decision: Dean threw himself onto Alastair’s back, worked his arm around the other tribute’s throat. The move would have been more impressive if it hadn’t caused them both to overbalance; Dean’s back hit the ground and Alastair fell on top of him, jarring loose Dean’s grip. They scuffled in the dirt, and for a few seconds, it almost looked like a friendly fight between boys—just a bit of wrestling, like Dean and his friend Victor used to do. But then Alastair slammed his elbow back viciously into Dean’s eye, and the memory slid away.

Alastair had him pinned now. Dean could only sort of see him, a blurry dark shape above him, pulling back a fist. The blows landed and Dean felt pain until he could barely feel it anymore. He dug his fingers into the dirt and tried to crawl away.

Alastair let him. He let Dean drag himself, bloody and near sightless, across the ground. Occasionally he’d launch a kick at Dean’s ribs, or stomp down on Dean’s fingers. He was humming to himself, something tuneless and crazed.

Dean touched the side of a building, the worn wood splintering beneath his torn fingers. He rolled onto his back, pushing himself along with his heels until Alastair kicked his knee in.

Sam, Dean thought. Don’t look. I was wrong about telling you to always do what the Capitol says. They can’t make you look. They can’t make this the last you see of me.

Groaning, Dean rolled back over onto his stomach, as if this way he could hide his face from Sam and the world. His fingers scrambled over the scuffed earth, across a ghostly pattern of boot prints. Dean blinked sluggish lashes, realizing he’d been here before.

Alastair seized the back of Dean’s neck, hauling him up like a kitten he was fixing to drown. “Smile,” he instructed through red-stained teeth. “Give those folks back home a grin.”

“Let me see yours first,” Dean spat, and slashed his buried axe blade across Alastair’s throat.

The wound gaped wide; Dean felt the blood sting his cheeks. Then Alastair fell, and Dean fell with him. The impact took the last of the air from his lungs; Dean knew he would not be getting up again.

So much for Paradise, Dean thought. It had never seemed real to him, anyway. He lay there, crumpled at the site of his first and last kills, and wondered vaguely what the Capitol would do without a victor. Joke’s on you, he thought, smug for a second, although maybe… Maybe, he realized, Jimmy could still make it. Dean liked that thought significantly better. Jimmy had Jo’s pin, and he could take it with him, reunite it with the rest of the birds in Paradise…

He was drifting somewhere warm with that warm thought when someone shook him hard by the arm and all the pain came rushing back. Trembling, Dean blinked up with his one good eye: Jimmy was standing over him, an expression of poorly-concealed torment stretched tight across his features.

“Hey,” Dean slurred, “you made it. Tha’s good.”

“Dean…”

He said Dean’s name like he was asking a question, some sort of big question that Dean didn’t really get. Though maybe he could guess.

“It’s okay,” Dean said. “I’m glad it’s you. Pamela’s right, I couldn’t… But you can do it, you can help me. C’mere.”

He dipped his head, a small motion that ached more than Dean thought was possible. But it didn’t matter; it would all be over soon. He watched as the blurry Jimmy-shape knelt down beside him. Jimmy really looked like he might be okay. Dean was glad.

Slowly, carefully, he groped for Jimmy’s hand, then pressed the bloody axe blade into it. “There,” he murmured. “Go ahead. I’m ready.”

His vision was flickering in and out, but Dean saw Jimmy bow his head. He looked like he was praying, which was funny, because Jimmy was the only person Dean had ever met who didn’t at least make a show of prayer.

“Do it,” Dean whispered, tasting the blood bitter in his mouth. He slipped two of his fingers past the slick blade and curled them around Jimmy’s, squeezing tightly before forcing himself to let go. “Jimmy, please—”

Finally, he saw what looked like a flash of acceptance in the other boy’s eyes. Jimmy leaned forward, reached out, and Dean braced himself. He’d trusted Jimmy throughout the Games, and he trusted him now, at the end of it. He closed his one good eye and offered himself up to his ally’s last embrace.

When the cool fingers brushed against his forehead, Dean thought of his mother.

Then all at once he was bent over at the waist, fighting sickness. The pain was especially intense because it was the only discomfort Dean felt. Then it passed, and he straightened up, body tense. His body—he could feel it, all of it; he wasn’t injured. Both of his eyes were open, staring out at an expanse of swaying grass: a beautiful green field, clean and bright, completely foreign to him. The air smelled fresh and sweet, like they had somehow arrived at a place where no one had ever died.

Jimmy was standing in front of him: he, too, entirely without injury. Dean gaped at him. “What—?” he began, before realizing he couldn’t even figure out how to proceed with the rest of the question.

“Dean,” Jimmy said, and something in his tone terrified Dean. “I am so very sorry.”

A breeze wafted over them, soft and warm. “I don’t understand,” Dean said. And then, stupidly, “Is this Paradise?”

“No,” said Jimmy, his eyes dropping, hooded. “There is no such thing. At least, not as you’ve been told. The promise of Paradise is but one of many lies associated with the Games.”

Dean’s heart was pounding, the sick feeling back again, but different now. “What are you talking about?”

“They’re rigged,” Jimmy said. “The Games are designed to keep humanity in line, but even the promise of a human victor is a falsehood. No human has ever won the Games.”

Dean took this in, too shocked to speak. He stared at Jimmy, and his fellow tribute seemed to crumple under the weight of that simple look.

“It’s considered a great honor among us,” Jimmy said, “to be given the task of participating in the Games. But it was not an honor I sought”—this statement spoken with vehemence, as if it would make all the difference to Dean, as if Dean had any clue what was going on, what he was being told. “For me it was a punishment, disguised as an honor—one last chance to prove my loyalty. Your assessment of Zachariah was entirely correct: he possesses a singularly twisted sense of humor.”

“Zachariah,” Dean said. His mind was skittering all over the place, not entirely over the shock of having been near death mere moments before, of being here now, listening to this. He flashed back to Zachariah’s appearance at the banquet, looking at him in his crisp black suit and knowing… Dean looked at Jimmy now, still wearing his regulation outfit from the Games. Jimmy. He knew Jimmy. He trusted Jimmy. And yet—

“What are you?” Dean demanded, voice cracking.

Jimmy raised his head. He still looked the same: messy dark hair, bright blue eyes, long, strong fingers that Dean had held, that Dean had put his faith, put his life and his death in. But it was all a lie.

“I’m an angel,” Jimmy said, and Dean nearly wept.

“My name is Castiel,” the thing continued. “Dean, I’m so sorry.”

Dean hit him. He’d had a lot of practice at fighting recently, and it was a good punch, firm and fast to the angel’s jaw. Dean was pretty sure that there were stone walls more forgiving. The angel simply stared at him while he clutched his hand to his chest, biting his lip to keep from crying out and giving it the satisfaction.

“So it really was just a game to you,” Dean said finally, in a low, even voice. “I know what kind of power you guys have. You could have stepped in and stopped it any time. You could have,” he stumbled slightly, “you could have saved Jo, but you didn’t. This whole time, you were just playing with us.”

“I wasn’t.” The thing was trying to find Dean’s eyes, to hold his gaze, but Dean kept his head down, refused to allow it. “I don’t know how to make you believe me, but it’s true: from the moment I was set down in the arena, my powers were limited. Zachariah saw to it personally, I believe—I did not cooperate as he would have liked, so he punished me. After I healed you from Alastair’s attack, he cut off that ability and several more. I was only restored when…”

Dean caught the slight shifting of the angel’s body. “When it was time to kill me, you mean,” Dean spat. “So why didn’t you? You didn’t even need to take the blade yourself, if you were too chickenshit; you could have just left me there to die!”

“Because you were right,” the angel said, and his voice still sounded exactly like the one that whispered in Dean’s ear, that kept him going. “It’s fucked. And I can’t stand by and watch anymore. I prayed, Dean, that last night: I prayed to my Father to intercede, to stop what His first sons were doing in His name. But only my brothers responded. They set down in that arena and they laughed.”

Was it trying to win Dean’s sympathy? Dean stared at it, stony-faced, and he thought he was doing pretty well until it stepped closer, reached out a hand. Dean flinched back.

“Don’t touch me. You don’t get to touch me. Those aren’t even your hands.”

Its eyes conveyed almost infinite sadness—but a sort of excitement, too, and that was what Dean couldn’t trust. “I wasn’t given a choice. But we have one now. We can run away—I can help you hide, Dean; we can disappear. We don’t have to be part of their games ever again.”

Dean felt his lip curl. He was shaking, hysterics wracking his body. “Imagining that for even one instant I would ever go anywhere with you, let me ask you this. While we’re hiding out forever in a cave somewhere, just what do you think Zachariah and the others will be doing to keep busy? You just poofed us out of the arena in front of all of New Eden! Do you really think they’re going to let us get away with that? And assuming that you’re not totally delusional and they can’t find us, who do you think they’ll go after instead?” Dean’s panic finally boiled over; his arms flailed out, entirely without his control. “Who do you think they’re probably rounding up right now? My brother! My brother, Castiel, who I did all of this for in the first place! I was supposed to die, not him, and now thanks to you, I’ve gotten him killed!”

The regret on the angel’s face seemed genuine, but then, the emotions it displayed in the arena had seemed real, too. Dean couldn’t believe he had almost— He turned away from the angel in disgust. His mind was filled with images of Sam: Sam being dragged from their house by Capitol guards, Sam being spirited away by Zachariah, Sam being dumped into the arena…

He was pacing, agonizing over these imaginings, when a hand touched his shoulder. Dean felt too worn out to shrug it away. “I’m sorry,” the angel said again. “I know it’s probably too late. All I’m trying to do is find a way to make it right.”

“Well, try harder!”

To Dean’s surprise, it nodded. “I can feel my brothers approaching. I’ll hold them here for you, Dean.” Its hand moved up the slope of Dean’s shoulder, touched his neck briefly, then fell away. “Find your brother. Find your brother and run.”

Dean opened his mouth to demand, Run where? but the angel cut him off. “The true nature of the Games is not the only thing about which you’ve been misled. There is more to the world than New Eden.”

This piece of information hit him like an earthquake; so much so that it took Dean a moment to realize that the sudden shaking of the ground was not entirely within his own mind. “They’re coming,” Castiel announced, over the sudden din. “I’ll hold them off, I’ll hold them all off…”

His mouth stayed open after these words were out; he looked like he wanted to say more. But he remained silent as he reached out, fingertips to Dean’s forehead, and that was the last image Dean had of him—sad and solemn and resigned.

Then—

He landed on hard-packed dirt, stumbling. The low, rough buildings were achingly familiar to Dean: after everything, he was back in his own District, a place he had thought he was never going to see again. The buildings in front of him all had their shutters drawn tight; it was night, and a heavy curfew was clearly in place. But, Dean realized happily, he knew just where he was: all he had to do was turn around, and there would be Ellen’s bakery…

The pile of rubble was still smoldering; the haphazard assemblage of brick and beams looked hot to the touch. Nevertheless Dean surged forward, ready and willing to dig, to throw himself on the smoking remains until he found someone or they buried him. Only the sudden sweeping flash of one of the District guard’s lights killed this impulse. Breathing hard, Dean faded back into the shadows between two buildings. Sam. Sam had to still be alive—he had to. If Dean let himself get caught doing something stupid, he would never find him.

Doing his best to keep his panic in check, Dean slunk through the streets until he reached Bobby’s workshop. The shop itself was tightly shut, but Dean crept around back and stealthily as he could, climbed the staircase to Bobby’s living quarters. He listened at the door, but couldn’t make out a sound. It’s a trap, it’s a trap, it’s a trap, part of his brain insisted—but if he waited out here forever, he’d never find out anything, and he’d certainly never find Sam. Crouching low, bracing himself to flee or attack, he rapped his knuckles on the door in the pattern his mother had taught him, that Dean had never given much thought to until now.

After a few tense seconds—that seemed to stretch on for hours—Dean heard the bolt draw back, and a familiar face peered around the edge of the door. Rufus did not look pleased to see him. His stare was icy as he stepped back just far enough for Dean to inch inside. “Come see,” was all he said, reaching behind Dean to rebolt the door.

Heart like a ball of lead, Dean followed the pale glow of a candle throwing its shadows against the dull wood. The candle was set by Bobby’s bedside. He was lying, hastily propped, sweat beading across his brow. Dean swallowed hard: he looked bad off, like Dean’s mom had near the end, but he opened his eyes and fixed Dean with a stare when he approached. “Boy, you don’t do things by half, do you?”

Dean opened his mouth. Eventually, he managed to make the word “Sam” come out.

Bobby swallowed hard. “Took him. We tried to stop ’em, me and Ellen…” When he trailed off after saying Ellen’s name, Dean knew exactly what that meant.

Bobby coughed, and Dean saw him forcing himself to go on. “How’d you do it? You and that skinny Capitol tribute. They’re saying he killed you and then they whisked him off to Paradise, but anybody with half a brain knows that’s not what they saw.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Dean said. “I couldn’t manage anything. Couldn’t protect Jo or Sam. Couldn’t even manage to die—”

Bobby beckoned him closer, and Dean didn’t hesitate to obey. He earned a slap upside the head for his trouble. Dean took it without flinching, and ignored Rufus’ snort.

Dean did flinch, though, when Bobby’s hand moved shakily back to Dean’s forehead, brushing back Dean’s hair and then resting his palm there, like he was a priest offering Dean benediction. “You’re a fool, and your mama was a fool. But you’re some of the best dang fools I’ve had the occasionally dubious pleasure of knowing.”

Dean wasn’t really sure what to say to that. The smell of copper was stinging his nostrils; with a start he realized what the dark spreading stains on Bobby’s sheets were.

“You know what you gotta do now, don’t you boy?” Bobby rasped.

Dean shook his head; the simple motion felt like fighting through quicksand, he was so close to paralyzed with fear and shame.

“You need to finish what you started.”

The confusion of the arena hadn’t left him; Dean felt baffled. “What did I start?”

“More than you know.” The look Bobby shot him almost seemed like it might have a smile hidden in it somewhere. Then he turned to Rufus.

“You think one of your contacts can help get him out of here?”

Dean cut Rufus off before he could respond. “I’m not going anywhere without Sam.”

The two older men exchanged a look. “Your brother’s gone,” Rufus said finally, harshly.

“No.” Dean shook his head again, and this time it was easier—he felt almost calm. “They’re only using him to get to me. They want me to try to find him.”

“So you’re going to play right into their hands?” Rufus was scowling again.

“It doesn’t matter.” Dean raised his chin. He was as tall as Rufus now; he had been for a while, even if he never really noticed it. “I’m going to find my brother, and I’m going to tell that bastard Zachariah that I’m sick of playing his games. That we all are.”

Rufus turned away, clearly disappointed. But Bobby was definitely managing something like a shaky grin. He gave Dean’s arm a sharp squeeze, then let go.

“I only wish I could see the little weasel’s face.”

Dean sucked in a sharp breath. “I’ll tell you all about it,” he lied.

Armed with a fresh shirt and Rufus’ begrudgingly-shared info that the Guard had dragged Sam off in the direction of the shuttle docks, Dean slipped back down the stairs and out onto the street. The patrolling Guards seemed closer than they had before—Dean could hear two of them, their boot treads and a few whispers; they sounded like they were right around the corner. Fortunately, Dean had spent his whole life sneaking around the District’s side streets and back alleys; it took only a few careful turns before the sounds receded and the District began again to seem as quiet and deserted as the abandoned village in the arena.

The arena — Jo — Jimmy — Dean forced himself to stop; he couldn’t let his brain go there. Sam, Sam—he had to stay focused on Sam. Sam he could still save. He wouldn’t betray his brother the way others had betrayed him.

He had nearly reached the docks when he heard noises again, approaching footsteps. Quickly, he ducked around the side of a building, slipped down a short flight of stairs, and broke on soft, silent feet for a nearby alleyway. He was almost at its entrance when a beam of light swept across his body. Dean froze, pressing himself to the wall, praying—to whom?—that the light would continue on, would not lap back. But it did. Dean’s heart in his throat, he turned and stared into the brightness, at the dark outline of a man in a neatly pressed Guard uniform.

For a moment, the guard didn’t move. Dean began thinking frantically of ways he might be able to overpower him, despite the sophisticated Capitol weapons the Guard carried. He was about to just go for it, fling himself at the other man, when the guard spoke.

“Nothing over here,” he called to his partner, looking straight at Dean. Dean was still too blinded to see much, but he recognized the voice.

“Let’s try to the East,” Victor continued. And he may have smiled at Dean. But then the beam of light swept away, and Dean’s old friend vanished with it.

Shaking but determined, Dean crept the rest of the way to the docks.

The administrative building was silent and empty, its hallways dark. Moving on instinct, Dean made his way to the holding rooms where he and Jo had been kept prior to their departure for the Capitol. No helpful shafts of light crept out from any of the doors. The first few rooms he checked were empty, but opening the thin wooden door of one yielded the eerie image of a dark, hunched shape at its far corner. Holding his breath, Dean slipped inside.

“Sam,” he whispered.

When all the lights came on and Zachariah appeared behind the chair from which Sam was shaking and straining to rise, Dean couldn’t say that he was really surprised. He may have even rolled his eyes a little.

“So nice of you to join us,” Zachariah boomed, projecting like he was performing to a packed theater instead of a nearly empty room. “I always do appreciate prompt replies to my invitations.”

Dean decided to ignore him. “Sammy, are you okay?”

Sam’s eyes were wide as saucers; he was clearly trying his hardest not to wince away from Zachariah’s hand on his shoulder. He managed a nod, though, and a fervently whispered recitation of Dean’s name.

Dean saw the hand on Sam’s shoulder slowly start to squeeze. “And isn’t this a heartwarming family reunion?” Zachariah said. “I can’t say I expected it—I didn’t really expect our Dean here to last the first day, but this honestly does present us with a unique opportunity. Sam and Dean Winchester—aww, heck. Let’s bring the whole gang back together.”

Dean’s eyes were already on Sam’s, so he saw the revelation pass across his brother’s features even as it registered with him. Zachariah took in the panic on their faces and laughed. Dean stared helplessly back, feeling as frozen as if his blood had turned to ice.

“You really think we didn’t know?” Zachariah crowed. He shook his head, unbelieving. “It amused us to no end, watching your mother dash around, risking her life and the lives of others just to change some insignificant records. You know, if she’d wanted to get herself labeled a whore so badly, there were easier ways to do it.”

“Shut up,” Dean snapped. “You don’t know anything about our mother.”

Zachariah shook his head and tisked. “I know everything about you, Dean. And in another lifetime, a different universe, I might have even cared. But you’re pointless here, Dean. Just like your brother. Two useless expulsions of sperm, good enough for living and believing and dying. And not much else.”

The angel dropped Sam’s shoulder and stepped closer, staring down at Dean with a pitying expression on his face. “Your mother destroyed her life for nothing, Dean. We don’t give a rodent’s bottom about you or your brother. You’re redundant.”

Dean forced himself to breathe. “Well, then let us go. If we’re so meaningless to you. What threat could we be?”

“Oh,” said Zachariah, “none. None at all! But you frustrate me, Dean. You waste my time. You and my errant sibling.” At this the angel’s lip curled in disgust. Then he waggled his finger. “The two of you accomplished nothing, you understand, with that little stunt. But it’s irritating to have to go in and correct a superbly simple system that has run perfectly year after year. My Games, you see, are an art form—designed to evoke the ideal combination of fear and rapt belief. Now that message is confused. I’m not fond of confusion, Dean. And I’m afraid I just can’t let something like that slide.”

The look of false regret on Zachariah’s face made Dean want to risk the pain and try to punch it off anyway, but before he could, the angel stepped back. He glanced up toward the ceiling, then shot Dean a sideways grin. “Just what would Daddy say?” he teased.

Even as Dean’s stomach churned with impotent anger, the room around him began to shake. Bright light seared Dean’s eyes. He winced, but pushed himself forward anyway, taking advantage of Zachariah’s moment of rapturous distraction to rush to Sam’s side. He pulled Sam up and his brother leaned against him, shakily, as they braced for whatever was coming.

Then the light dispersed, and Dean found himself face to face with his father.

“Dad?” The word slipped out before Dean could stop it, before his more rational, cynical brain could process everything that he was seeing. Like the fact that his father was holding a bloody, bruised Jimmy—no, Castiel, Dean remembered—in one hand like a little girl might carry a doll with which she had become bored. As Dean stared, his father let Castiel go, and he dropped like a stone to the pristine carpet laid out across the floor.

Then Dean’s father spoke—but he did not address Dean. His gaze slid past Dean and Sam as if they weren’t even there.

“I’m not pleased with how this has been handled, Zachariah.”

To Dean’s shock, Zachariah bowed his head, repentant. “Your servant apologizes for his error.”

“I have very little interest in apologies,” said the thing with John Winchester’s mouth, with John Winchester’s face. “They do not alter anything.”

“Oh, I agree!” simpered Zachariah. “Which is why I’m going to take care of this right now—”

“No.” A foot—a foot wearing boots Dean recognized, that he could remember his father tugging on that last morning—inched lazily forward, nudging Castiel in the ribs. Dean saw him wince, try not to cry out, and he remembered Jimmy whispering, It hurts—shocked, like it was the first pain he had ever felt.

“You allowed this one’s open rebellion to continue far too long; he will have to be dealt with publicly.”

Zachariah nodded again; this time some of his pleasure even looked genuine. “Yes, Michael.” The Gamemaster shrugged his shoulder in the direction of Dean and Sam. “What about these two?”

Dean felt his father’s familiar brown eyes slide over him, impassive. “Obliterate them.”

Dean felt Sam’s hand clutch his shirt, his nose press against Dean’s side. Dean stroked his hair and held him, because there was nothing else for him to do.

Then something in the archangel’s expression changed, his held tilting to the side as he regarded his vessel’s sons. “No,” said Michael, and for one stupid second Dean felt hope. “Keep one. In case I ever need a spare.”

Zachariah moved toward them, grinning. Dean wracked his mind for anything, for some sort of plan, for something to say to make sure the angel chose to save Sam and not him. But before he could manage a word, a rough croak forced its way up from the floor.

“This is not what our Father would have wanted,” Castiel said. “I may not be able to stop you, but He—”

“He left us in charge of a vile, disgusting heap, full of corrupt creatures like you,” Michael said dully. “And we remade the world.”

He knelt down at Castiel’s side, reaching out with a hand whose soft touch made Castiel swallow a scream and recoil. “It saddens me that it has to be this way,” Michael murmured, as Castiel’s body spasmed and jerked beneath his hands. “But you know as well as I do, Castiel, that we can’t allow anyone to threaten what we’ve built here. Heaven on Earth...”

“You call this Heaven?” The words tore out of Dean—but that was good, that was fine: anything that made him more obvious, more obnoxious than Sam. “A bunch of starving slaves, living in fear? That’s Heaven? That’s Paradise?”

Michael didn’t pause, didn’t for one second lift his fingers from where they were touching Castiel, pressing into him, bloodlessly penetrating skin and meat and bone. Dean heard Castiel finally break and cry out, and he had to fight the urge to go to him, to protect Castiel from his enemy the way he had protected Jimmy in the arena.

Not that he would be any use against Michael. Dean’s father’s face looked almost serene at the sound of Castiel’s tense screams. “No one said it was your Paradise,” Michael told Dean, calmly. “You animals had your turn.”

“Nobody liked what you did with the place,” said Zachariah, looking as full as himself as a tick about to burst. Dean tried to tell himself that he wasn’t afraid of him, glaring straight at his fat, smug face, but then the angel moved faster than Dean could process, snatching Sam by the arm, tugging him away from the relative protection of Dean’s body.

“Time to throw the small fish back,” Zachariah said, and Dean twitched, confusion mixing with terror. “I’m sorry, is my metaphor unclear? I’m going to kill your brother, Dean.”

Some sort of noise erupted out of him, blending with Castiel’s strained cries.

“You’re not seriously surprised?” said Zachariah with a scoff. “You’re a irritating pustule of a person, Dean, but you have a famous face, and it occurs to me that’s something we might be able to use to our advantage. What do you think, Boss: why don’t you shed Daddy’s skin and hop inside big brother here? It’s been a while since we’ve done a proper victory tour. It would be nice for all the Districts to hear first-hand the touching story of how the power of prayer gave devout Dean Campbell from little District 12 the fortitude to do what was necessary in the arena...”

Dean’s eyes kept flicking between Zachariah and Sam as he tried to think of some way to lunge for his brother. “They’ll never believe that. You already told them that Castiel won.”

Zachariah laughed. “You fool. They’ll believe whatever we tell them.” He nodded at Michael, who had finally let a limp and wrecked Castiel go and was now rising slowly to his feet. “Whatever you’ll tell them, Dean.”

“No,” Dean said, forcing himself to stand his ground, to not back away. “I know how this works. I have to say yes.”

Michael stepped over Castiel’s crumpled body and smiled at Dean—an almost fond, paternal smile. “You’ll say yes,” he said calmly. “They all say yes.”

“Oh, Mikey—so presumptuous,” interjected a new voice. “You could at least take him to dinner first.”

Dean had no time to react. One second he was staring down Michael; the next he felt a woman’s warm arms wrap around his body. Then a tug—

“Since you can’t play nicely with your toys, we’re going to borrow them,” he heard someone say, and then the room melted and twisted and he was somewhere else.

“Sam!” was the first thing he gasped when he came back to himself. But Sam was there, he was here with Dean, and the alarmingly beautiful woman who stepped out from between them fixed them with a look of vaguely tolerant pity.

“Do not think yourselves so large that I could not easily transport you both.”

“Dean,” Sam breathed. “What’s going on?”

A short, spritely looking man appeared in front of them, supporting a slumping Castiel with one arm thrown casually over his shoulder. “You’ve just been rescued, kid,” the stranger said. “A brilliantly executed deus ex machina, if I do say so myself.”

The woman’s smile looked somehow dangerous. “And you never fail to.”

The man pouted. “Kali, don’t be a tease. Congratulate me.”

She glared.

The man amended, “Us.”

She slunk forward, flashing teeth that reminded Dean of polished knives. The man stepped far-too-eagerly into her arms, letting Castiel slump to the ground in the process. Or he would have, had Dean not moved without thought and caught him.

He still felt the same in Dean’s arms, wiry and solid, if at the moment feverishly hot. As Dean shifted his grip on Castiel’s shoulders, his eyes flickered open. Something softened on his face when he saw Dean.

“Do you forgive me?”

Dean thought of Jo, of Ellen, of Bobby’s blood staining his blankets; he thought of Sam, still alive, and Castiel himself, crumpled and writhing on the floor.

“Yeah,” he said, “I guess.”

Castiel made a sound that was something like a snort. “You better’ve.”

“Excuse me?” Sam’s voice sounded surprisingly assertive. “Where are we?”

This was a good question, Dean thought, taking in this strange building’s rich sandstone walls for the first time. They were standing in a courtyard scattered with vibrant green trees the likes of which Dean had never seen, the sun warm and bright above their heads. The air smelled spicy and alive, nothing like the cloud of wet decay that hovered over New Eden.

Then Sam asked an even better one. “And who are you?”

The woman looked at him with dark, glittering eyes. “My name is Kali, child. You should hear it and be afraid.”

Dean didn’t like the sound of that. But the man standing next to her laughed. “She means that in a nice way. Mostly.” He grinned, and for the first time Dean saw that there was something unnerving in his smile, too. “You can call me Loki.” Then he looked at Castiel and added, almost hesitant, “Or Gabriel.”

Castiel’s expression remained blank. Loki-or-Gabriel sighed. “You don’t remember me, brother?”

Castiel tried to straighten his shoulders and stand tall—an effect somewhat ruined by the fact that if Dean were to let go of him, he would probably fall over. “I am no brother to pagans.” The other man twitched. “That is what you are, is it not? False gods?”

“Charming,” said Kali. Beside her, Loki let out a long breath. “Yeah. Well. You can keep singing that lovely little tune that Zach and Mike taught you, or you can listen to what we have to say.”

Castiel’s expression remained sharp, even as he trembled in Dean’s arms. “Why should we?”

“Uh, besides the fact that we rescued you, angelcakes?” Castiel bristled. “Because we’re at war, and thanks to you two and your Emmy-winning Games performance, we’re offering all three of you the unique opportunity to come over to the proper side.”

Dean said, “Huh?”

“Oh, sorry,” said Loki, unapologetic. “Alternate universe humor.”

Dean found this explanation unhelpful.

“Wait,” said Sam. “You said you were at war. You mean...you’re at war against New Eden?”

Pieces of information clicked together in Dean’s mind—all the soldiers in District 2, the manufacturing that occurred in Dean’s own District 12. He’d never even questioned it, what all of that could be for. All his life he’d been led to believe that there was nothing outside of New Eden. So what could New Eden possibly need an army, need weapons for?

He was such an idiot. They were all such blind, passive idiots.

“Most of the world and its religions were surprisingly unenamoured at the thought of bowing down before the Christian god and his angels,” said Kali.

“My father did not do this,” said Castiel, quietly.

“No, but he let it happen.” Loki’s twinkling eyes looked suddenly sharp.

Sam seemed oblivious to this exchange, chattering excitedly. “So there’s more to the world? More gods?”

“More than you’ve ever dreamed, kid.” Between the sharpness and another burst of merriment, Dean thought he detected a flash of tiredness. “Want to meet them?”

Loki and Kali exchanged a look as Loki steered Sam toward a wide wooden door. Dean wanted to rush after them—so recently reunited with Sam, Dean didn’t want for a moment to let him out of his sight. And yet he knew with a sick certainty that he was at the mercy of his rescuers as much as he’d been helpless before Zachariah and Michael.

“I still don’t understand what you want with us,” Dean told Kali, once the wooden door had clicked closed. “Me and Sam, I mean. Castiel’s got some pretty sweet angel powers.”

Kali regarded them coolly. “Perhaps,” she said, and Dean tried not to flinch when he felt Castiel stiffen. “Nevertheless, it is you and Castiel we want.”

“Why?” said Castiel.

“Because you openly defied the angels of New Eden. No matter what lies their leaders may now spread, hundreds of thousands of people saw you both prove that your Capitol is not impervious, that it is not omnipotent. You have shaken people’s belief in the angels’ power.” She raised an eyebrow. “And that weakens them, more than you know.”

“So you rescued us so you can use us,” Dean accused.

“Yes,” said Kali, calmly. “Of course.”

“I have not thrown off one yoke just to assume another,” Castiel said tightly. Pressed up against him, Dean could feel the extent to which he was struggling, just to keep himself together.

Kali smiled. Then before Dean could react, she had darted forward and seized Castiel by the chin. Her fingertips burned bright red, and even Dean, who was not directly touching her, could feel the heat.

Then just as swiftly, she let Castiel go. His eyes were wide and clear, his body clean of blood or bruising. Dean knew this was his cue to step back and let him go, but he didn’t.

“I think you’ll find this one much more comfortable, little cousin,” Kali said. Then in a blaze of light, she was gone.

Dean and Castiel were left alone in the center of the courtyard, beneath the bright blue sky—just the two of them, supporting each other in silence.

Epilogue

Alastair loomed over Dean, tapping a bloody hammer against his hand. He had Sam snagged by the hair and was dragging him over the rough ground, singing as he pulled Sam away from Dean and toward the windmill, and Dean couldn’t move, couldn’t scream, couldn’t raise his broken body to—

—meet the warm hands on his shoulders, shaking him awake. Dean started and gasped, then tucked his head with a sigh into Castiel’s shoulder. Castiel rubbed his back, and when he felt strong again, sane again, Dean nodded his head. Castiel eased his grip, and they separated slightly, just slightly—inching down the pillows until they were lying together again, side by side.

“Sorry I woke you,” Dean said.

“It’s all right. I was awake anyway.” He winced a little, and Dean could see his wiry legs twisting beneath the blankets.

Under normal circumstances, Dean would never, ever laugh at Cas’ pain, but— “Growing pains? Again?”

“Shut up,” Castiel panted, “it’s...surprisingly uncomfortable.”

“I’d’ve thought you’d be happy,” Dean said, rubbing Castiel’s side, half-teasing, half-soothing. “You just might catch me yet.” They—or at least their bodies—were twenty or so now, but Castiel had only recently started aging—and therefore growing. Dean figured that he’d continue to love Castiel no matter what, but he was sick of Ala glaring at him like she thought he was a pervert and of Zeus shooting him little approving winks.

“I must admit, my feelings on the subject are somewhat mixed,” Castiel said tightly, and Dean felt his stomach twist. Dean had lost many of the people he loved, had abandoned his home and had irrevocably altered everything he knew to be true. But he wasn’t in the process of switching species as well as sides, and he hadn’t betrayed his family to fight for something he wasn’t entirely sure he believed in. That Cas had done all that—done much of it for Dean—was often more than he could rationally process.

Much easier just to promise, “I can make you feel better,” sliding down the bed and taking one of Castiel’s slim, strong ankles between his hands. He kneaded gently, then with more vigor when Castiel let out an achy little moan. Dean was just pushing up toward more exciting territory when Sam burst into the room.

Dean realized that they’d grown up in a one-room house, in an environment where no one would attempt even an unsensual massage on someone to whom they were not married. But Sam was sixteen now, and he had his little girlfriend and the encouragement of a half-dozen fertility goddesses, and he really ought to know better. “For fuck sake, Sammy, knock!”

Sam flushed scarlet and turned with awkwardly slumped shoulders back toward the door. “Sorry! Loki just wanted me to ask you if you wanted to do a flyby with Isis and Mercury.”

Dean shot Castiel an apologetic look from between his legs. “Can’t someone else do it? Kali’s got me and Cas making ‘appearances’ for the rest of the week.” Just the thought made Dean want to sink back into the bed, onto Cas, and never move again.

It was weird, watching Sam’s head bob from the back. “I’ll ask him. Sorry again. Bye.”

Dean saw him poised to race off again. “Sam, wait,” he said, surprising himself—and no doubt annoying Cas.

Sam paused, then turned half around, curiously. His body had become stretched and lanky these past few years, the victim of growing pains that far exceeded Castiel’s. But his face, though young—younger than Dean had been when he’d spoken for Sam—looked ancient in its unflinching seriousness.

“You’re not Mercury or Isis,” Dean said finally. “Maybe slow down for a few minutes today, do something for yourself? Priya was asking after you again the other day...”

Sam shook his head, emitting the tiniest little sigh. “This is important, Dean,” he said. “I don’t have time to—” For a moment there was something harsh and judgmental in Sam’s gaze as he looked at Dean and Cas and their unmade bed. Then he turned and raced off again, the door slamming shut behind him.

Dean sagged against Castiel as if he’d been the one hammered into his frame. The sound of Sam’s retreating footsteps were still audible, echoing down the long, cool corridors of the fortress. It was quiet where they were, on a lower, central level, safely ensconced, but Dean never lost his awareness of everything going on around them, the buzz of men and gods making plans, making war.

When the sound finally faded, Dean let out a breath and mumbled a sorry against Cas’ warm thigh. Castiel’s fingers massaged Dean’s scalp for a moment. Then, “Come here,” Castiel instructed, and Dean crawled unsexily back up the bed, curling weary at Cas’ side.

“It won’t always be like this,” Castiel whispered.

“I know,” Dean lied. “It’s just...I thought we’d have made more progress by now. I thought this would be the year we’d finally be able to get back into 12, see if—”

He cut himself off. Instead of looking up when Castiel murmured, “We will get there,” Dean kept his head down and ran his fingers over the silver circle surrounding the wings of the bird of paradise, which Castiel now wore on a chain around his neck. As usual, the metal felt warm from its contact with Cas’ skin. Jo and Ellen had warmed it once, Dean thought, but now they, like so much of what they’d lost and left behind, were long cold.

“Do you really believe that?” Dean asked.

“This world we live in was built on belief,” said Castiel. “Gods and nations exist because enough people believe in them. As did I, once.”

Now the people Dean and Castiel dropped down on like bombs and spoke to all across New Eden believed that they were simply two human tributes who had defied the rules of the Games and risen up in the face of the angels’ immeasurable power. Even if Michael and Zachariah hadn’t had the ability to cut off the source of Castiel’s abilities, Dean knew he and Cas both suspected that the more people Castiel convinced he was human, the more it became true.

“Given the chance to believe more than simply what I am told,” Castiel continued, “I would choose to believe in this.”

He wrapped his fingers around Dean’s, folding their hands over the jagged metal wings. Dean could feel the sharp points where the wingtips eclipsed the circle, where they broke free.

“Someday,” Castiel whispered, and Dean echoed him, the rhythm of liturgical repetition springing easily from his lips.

“Someday.”

Part III / Masterpost / Art Post + Soundtrack

DCBB Fic: Bird of Paradise (Part III)

trinityofone — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 04:25:23 GMT

Jo led him to a cluster of thorny bushes; when she pushed them aside with her elbow, Dean saw a small dip in the hillside, big enough for two people to hunker down. Jo kept holding the branches out of the way, nodding at him, so eventually Dean dropped down, then held his hand out to her when she was ready to follow. She declined to take it, shooting him a smirk.

A second later, however, she was nevertheless curling up at his side, her head on his chest. She plucked at the torn fabric of his shirt. “What happened?” she asked.

Dean told her an abbreviated version, skipping over his certainty that he’d been stabbed, and finding himself unconsciously repeating Jimmy’s words: “It’s just a scratch.”

“Good,” said Jo, releasing a soft sigh. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stay and help.”

Dean echoed Jo now: “What happened?”

“That girl Ava,” Jo said, with something close to a snarl. “She almost managed to sneak up on us. And when I finally heard her and turned to fire, the bow jammed. She had this piece of wire, and she tried to wrap it around my neck…” The skin there looked red and raw, Dean saw now, stomach churning as he squinted in the dark. “Madison,” Jo took a deep breath, “she was pretty useless. Finally I managed to get one of my arrows out…I stabbed Ava in the hand with it. She let go and ran off.” Her right hand flew out and smacked the ground. “I don’t know why I can’t close the deal!”

“You closed that guy Tom’s deal pretty good,” Dean pointed out.

“Yeah?” Jo said, a grin briefly illuminating her features. Then her face fell. “Oh, man. Dean, this is so sick. I keep telling myself that we’re better than the rest of them, but we’re not. Not when in my head I’m keeping score.”

Dean had a running tally of how many more people he had to burn through (nine, and then he himself made an even ten). “That’s how the Games work…” he said, and he knew right away that it sounded weak.

Jo clearly knew, too. “Maybe Madison was right,” she said. “They’re not actually making us kill anyone. We’re making the choice ourselves, every time.”

“If you hadn’t killed Tom, he would have killed me,” Dean said.

“Well, okay,” Jo said with something that was maybe a laugh. “I suppose he deserved it. But Dean,” she continued, her voice serious again, “Madison sure didn’t deserve whatever it was that happened to her. That…that was sick. That’s,” her voice dropped to a whisper, “that’s someone up there, Zachariah or whoever, messing with us. I think he’s interfering a lot, actually. I was taking good care of that bow. You remember how carefully I looked it over last night?”

Dean nodded.

“Well, after Ava took off, I checked out the firing mechanism again, and the wood all around it had rotted through. Since last night! It’s like the Gamemaster saw I had a weapon I knew how to use and was good with, so he decided to take it away.”

Dean bristled. “I really hate that guy.”

“Let’s show him,” Jo said, laying her head back down with a tired sigh. “Let’s win…”

Neither of them said anything about how at the end, there could be no “us.”

Dean awoke to a rustling sound and the shadow of a figure standing over him. He scrambled for the machete he’d stupidly placed too far away from himself, afraid he’d roll over on it in his sleep. But in all the time it took him to put his hand on it, the figure above him didn’t move, and Dean’s brain finally finished processing what it was seeing. It was Jimmy standing there, and what he was holding in his hand wasn’t a weapon but a canteen of some kind.

“I’ve come to apologize,” he said. “I did not mean to act…callous. Would you like some water?”

“Where did you get that?” Dean asked.

Jimmy shifted, his movements made especially awkward by the effort he was having to put into holding the bushes apart. “The one called Gordon had it.”

“So you robbed a corpse.”

“Dean.” Jo made an aborted effort to straighten the knots out of her hair before giving up. “Just take the water.”

Dean wasn’t sure if he was actually feeling suspicious or just petulant. “You drink some first,” he told Jimmy.

“It’s not poisoned,” Jimmy said, sounding annoyed. But he opened the canteen and raised it awkwardly to his mouth. Dean watched a stray drop slide over his lips and down his chin. “It doesn’t taste very good,” Jimmy cautioned, making a face as he lowered the canteen.

Jo snatched it out of his hand anyway. She gulped at the water, then visibly forced herself to slow and stop, passing the canteen to Dean. Dean tried to take it slow himself: he was so thirsty that the water actually made him feel a little sick. He took a steadying breath and pushed the canteen back at Jimmy.

Jimmy held it, and his hands themselves, like he didn’t quite know what to do with them. “I know you must both be anxious to find food,” he said after a minute. “If you’re amenable, I think we should try again to get inside the buildings surrounding the square.”

Dean stared up at him. “You think we should, huh?”

Jimmy squinted at him. “That’s what I said.”

Dean only realized he was still glaring back when Jo pushed away from him and stood. She grinned at Dean as she scrambled up the rise and through the bushes to stand beside Jimmy. “That Ava girl looked way too well fed,” she said. “I want a piece of that pie.”

Dean’s stomach moaned its protest.

Jimmy’s nose scrunched up. “What’s pie?”

“Okay, the allure of District 1 is officially shot,” Dean said, crawling out from between the bushes. He explained, with the help of Jo’s interjections, about the incredible treat Ellen horded supplies to make for them once a year.

“One year there wasn’t any fruit,” Jo said, “so she made one out of nuts! And it was still amazing!”

Jimmy looked skeptical regarding the insane tastiness of Ellen’s nut pie, but then this whole conversation seemed to baffle him a little. Or maybe he was just dizzy: Dean was definitely feeling less and less clear-headed as the Game progressed. If there was food hidden somewhere in the square, they were definitely at a disadvantage compared to the tributes who had claimed that territory. They needed to come up with a plan that surpassed Jimmy’s crazy stunt from yesterday.

It took them a while to work their way back down to the small cluster of buildings. Dean didn’t come up with anything brilliant on the way. He clutched his machete with his sweaty hand and tried not to run face-first into any of the trees. Jo’s walk had become a little lilting, Dean noticed, her teeth’s decisive grip on her bottom lip beginning to look a little desperate. Only Jimmy appeared unaffected, although he had a bug bite on his wrist that he seemed determined to scratch at until it bled.

After some brief discussion, they decided to try sneaking around to the far end of the square. They could hear voices from the opposite side: the tall skinny tribute with the slingshot singing to himself, totally ostentatious and unafraid. “I thought one of us had managed to kill him,” Dean whispered to Jimmy, disappointed.

“I’m sorry,” Jimmy whispered back. “Next time I’ll delay carrying you to safety and dispose of him properly.”

“You do that,” said Dean.

He caught Jo rolling her eyes. “You two are ridiculous.”

Whatever feelings of cheer they might have been cultivating died when they peered around the corner of the building they were crouched behind and saw what the tributes were doing at the other end. The tall one—“Alastair,” Jo whispered—was dragging something across the ground while Jake and Ava looked on, the former frowning, the latter glassy-eyed. It looked like a sack, Dean thought at first, shivering as Alastair’s creaky voice drifted toward them.

“My boss man said you better get to work before I have to let you go
But he just walks around and pays no mind to the sweat dripping off my nose…”

Alastair broke off, grunting as he heaved the sack up. Only it wasn’t a sack: it was a body, the head lolling listlessly on the neck.

“Oh, but after ten long years of him dogging me out there’s one thing I learned well,” Alastair sang, shoving the semi-upright body against one of the windmill’s four supports and propping it there with the weight of his shoulder. “I’d rather…” He drew the word out dramatically, plucking an object from his pocket and spinning it in his hand. “Be a hammer. Sing it with me! Than a nail.”

Dean realized what Alastair was about to do a moment before he did it. He grabbed Jo by the wrist and tugged her back, away from the corner and what leaning around it allowed them to see. “Dean!” Jo protested, but she didn’t try to squirm away from him. They stood with their backs against the wood, listening to the thumps of the hammer hitting home.

A moment later the thumps were joined by weak, wretched screams. The body—the person—was still alive. Dean’s heart was pounding. His instinct was to help, but he knew that in these circumstances such a desire was futile, beyond foolish. All Alastair was doing, after all, was killing someone who Dean or Jo or Jimmy would otherwise have to kill.

There was another thump: both softer and nearer this time. Jimmy’s back hit the wall next to Dean. He had scratched the bug bite to the bleeding point, Dean saw, glancing over, but he didn’t seem to notice the thin rivulet of blood trailing down his wrist.

“That guy is messed up,” Dean said—because it was something to say, because it was better to listen to his own inane pronouncements than have to hear what was happening across the square.

Dean watched as Jimmy’s wide, blue eyes traveled across Dean’s face. “I had thought,” he started, then swallowed. “I had been under the impression that it would all be like this.”

“You mean from watching previous Games?” Jimmy just stared at him, but Dean was getting kind of used to that. “Yeah, there’s often a sadist or two, but mostly—”

“Get away from him!”

Dean broke off, hearing the girl’s shout. Slowly, with Jimmy at his side and Jo right behind him, he crept back to the corner and peered around. Tamara was standing at the top of the rise, not far from where Jo and Madison had waited yesterday. Dean could see Alastair turn away from his bloody work at the windmill’s base and locate where she stood. He waved at her.

“Let him go!” Tamara shouted.

“As you wish,” said Alastair, stepping away from the body—Isaac, Dean realized, it must be Isaac—with a dramatic flourish. “Look, ma, no hands!” Alastair hooted as Tamara’s husband continued to hang there, arms spread wide like a scarecrow’s. Dean was too far away to see where the nails had gone in, but he could see the pool of blood spreading across the dirt.

Tamara screamed. It was not a scream of horror: it was a wail of despair unlike anything Dean had ever heard. She came racing down the hillside, flinging the spear she held in her right hand. Dean saw Alastair hurl himself with rather less poise to the ground; then Tamara was barreling into Ava and Jake, whipping some sort of spiked chain out in front of her. Dean wanted to see her take them all down, wanted to see her win: but Alastair was already up again, his hammer in his hand, and Dean knew—

“Come on!” said Jo, tugging at Dean’s sleeve. “Now’s our chance! We have to go!”

Without looking again toward the other side of the square, Dean followed her around the corner and through the building’s front door. Jimmy closed it softly behind them but Dean nevertheless lurched away from the noise, still hearing the echo of that scream in his head.

It took him several seconds to appreciate the fact that they had made it: they were inside. Dean sucked in a breath and immediately coughed: the room was full of dust, dust covering the floorboards and floating through the air; it was crusted on the pair of small windows so that the glass looked almost black. Dean glanced around at Jimmy and Jo, who were also squinting in the dim light. There was hardly the array of bounty Dean had been hoping for.

“Maybe we picked the wrong building,” said Jo; she clearly felt the same way.

“Let’s try these barrels,” said Dean, walking over to a trio of them in the corner. They were also covered in dust. Dean reached out.

“Careful!” said Jimmy, catching Dean by the wrist.

“It’s a barrel,” Dean said. “A barrel’s not going to bite me.”

“I don’t trust Zachariah,” was all Jimmy said. Dean could hardly disagree with that, so he let Jimmy inspect the sinister barrel without touching it, before finally decreeing—based on some criteria entirely above and beyond Dean—that it was safe to open. Together, they pried the lid off.

“Oh,” said Dean, as the round lid tumbled to the side. Then before he could stop himself, his foot shot out and kicked the side of the barrel. It hurt. He stalked away, limping a bit, then came back to see Jo running her hands through the barrel’s contents: it was filled almost to the brim with silver ball bearings.

“He’s the sadist!” Dean snapped. He clenched his fist around the handle of the machete. “If I could get my hands on him—”

“That would have very little effect,” Jimmy said, at the same time Jo hissed, “Watch it!

“Let’s check the other barrels,” she said in a more level voice. She nodded at Jimmy, who helped her get the lid off the second one.

Dean was facing the other way, scowling to himself, when Jo cried, “Crackers!” He was at her side in a second.

Peering into the barrel, he saw that it was lined with layer after layer of pale white crackers, almost communion-wafer thin. Still, after consuming nothing but tree bark and the spit in his own mouth for two days, they looked almost as lusciously edible as one of Ellen’s pies. Forgetting himself for a moment, Dean grabbed a handful before allowing Jo to take a turn. She was right behind him, however, biting into a papery cracker and going back for more. Eating, like drinking, made Dean’s stomach protest and cramp, but he kept shoving the crackers in his mouth anyway. Even their taste hardly made him pause.

“They’re awful…salty,” Jo acknowledged, even as she shoved another handful into her mouth. “You gonna have some, Jimmy?”

He shook his head. Jo looked at Dean and shrugged. Dean barely noticed the exchange: he was too busy eating.

Eventually he came up for air. “What’s in the third barrel?” he asked. He really wanted the answer to be “a liquid of some sort.”

Jimmy barred Dean’s path with his body. “Don’t open that one.”

Crumbs spilled down Dean’s front as he started to demand, “Why not?” But the intensity of Jimmy’s expression made him stop. He nodded.

Jo, still trailing cracker crumbs, had walked a few feet away from the barrels and was inspecting a metal ring set into the floor. “Guys,” she said, “look at this.”

Dean squinted at it. “That looks like the one…”

“…That leads down to Mom’s ‘private storage area’?” Dean and Jo exchanged a grin: so she did know about Ellen’s still. He actually wasn’t surprised. “That’s what I thought, too.”

“Do you think it’s safe?” Dean asked Jimmy.

Jimmy tilted his head without moving the rest of his body. He was so awkward for someone who could move as fluidly as Dean had seen him do. Dean still didn’t get him at all. But he did trust him, at least when it came to things like this.

“Yes,” Jimmy said, and that was all Dean needed to hear. He nodded at Jo and she gripped the ring tight and jerked it back.

A small square of floorboard bent back, sending more dust billowing up into the air. Dean coughed, waving his hand in front of his face as he knelt beside Jo and peered into the blackness. From what Dean could see, there was no room beneath them: just a narrow passage leading off to the right. “What do you think’s down there?” he asked.

“Let’s find out,” said Jo. Before Dean could stop her, she had lowered her legs over the hole and dropped down.

“Jo!” Dean hissed, snatching at the air where her arm had been.

“Don’t worry, Dean,” Jimmy said, lowering himself into a sitting position beside Dean. Then a second later he, too, had disappeared into the darkness.

A moment after that, a flickery light appeared below him. Dean looked down: Jimmy and Jo were staring up at him, Jo with an expression of bemused wonder on her features, Jimmy his usual straight-faced self. A blood-red sigil hung fresh and dripping on the dirt wall.

“If I fall on either of you,” Dean said, throwing his legs over the edge, “I’m not gonna be sorry.”

He didn’t fall on either of them. Jimmy’s hand came up to meet him, steady on the small of his back. “Thanks,” Dean mumbled. “Neat trick. You’re like a human light switch.”

Jimmy looked to Jo for help and did not receive any.

They started down the passageway, Jo in the lead. Even when they left the sigil behind, their small patch of light stuck with them, clinging as if through static.

It was eerily silent down there, under the earth. When Dean experimentally stopped trying to walk with his usual care, he still couldn’t hear his footsteps, the soft dirt cushioning the sound. There was nothing in his ears but his own breathing, the steady racing of his heart.

It was almost a relief when Jo stumbled and let out a gasp. Less of one when he saw what she had tripped over: the body of a girl lay crumpled in their path, her eyes wide open and staring. She was very definitely dead, for hours if not a day or more, the blood caked around her torn middle dried and almost black. Her pretty golden-brown hair was stuck to it, and Dean felt his stomach turn a little as he recognized her: the sly, smirking girl from 8 who had stolen the Prophet’s notecards. Part of Dean had been hoping that she’d do better than this, but he was glad he hadn’t had to face her himself.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” Jo whispered, standing straight again, recovered. Dean shook his head; Jimmy regarded them without blinking. “We’re far from the only ones to discover this place. We may not be alone down here.”

Dean had of course already prepared himself for this possibility, but Jo was right: it was quite another thing to have it confirmed. Dean tossed aside any notion of future “experiments”—they had to keep silent, had to keep safe. He turned and was staring back down the passage the way they’d come, trying to decide if there was anything they needed to do to disguise their—really quite faint—footprints when he noticed something else: a line of semi-sporadic red dots, marking their route like breadcrumbs. “Jimmy,” he said, the name coming out harsher than he meant. “You gonna do something about that?”

Confused, Jimmy followed Dean’s gaze to his own left wrist, where the bloody bug bite had been widened into a larger wound—probably by Jimmy’s own hand, Dean realized with a turn of his stomach, in order to paint the sigil. Whatever: Jimmy could have as much fun with his masochistic tendencies as he wanted—up to the point that it put the rest of them in danger.

“Yikes,” said Jo, noticing it too. “You’re bleeding all over the place.”

Jimmy’s brow had creased and he was staring at his bloody wrist with an expression on his face of profound annoyance. “It should have stopped by now.”

“Yeah, well, it hasn’t,” Dean said, pushing closer to the other boy and steering him away from the dead girl’s body. He took Jimmy’s arm in his hand, surprised at the slimness of his bones, almost birdlike in their fragility. So tiny and slight, and yet Dean had seen Jimmy take out those two tributes like it was nothing. And here he couldn’t even stop himself from bleeding to death.

“You ever thought of, I don’t know, bandaging it?”

Jimmy just looked at him. Dean handed his machete to Jo with a sigh, then choose one of the weakest points on his own torn shirt and tore off a strip. They didn’t have enough water to waste it on trying to clean the cut, but Dean figured he’d be impressed if they lived long enough to worry about infection. Instead he focused on wrapping the wound as best he could. Jimmy watched him the entire time, expression solemn and curious, his breathing slight. “There,” Dean said when he was finished.

For a moment, Jimmy continued to inspect the bandaged wrist, but Jo simply slapped the machete back into Dean’s hand and continued along the corridor. Dean followed her, and just barely heard Jimmy’s quiet, “Thank you.”

Not long after, Jo stopped short again—though this time, with a great deal more dignity. “Look,” she said, pointing to a shaft above their heads. The corridor continued, dark and winding, ahead, but this column of space above them was definitely new. Or not new, exactly: more like reminiscent of where they had first entered the tunnels.

“You think there’s another trap door up there?” Dean asked. “Maybe we’re under another one of the buildings?”

Jo nodded. “Boost me up and let’s see.”

Dean shook his head. “There’s no way you’re going up there first.”

“Oh, not this again.” Jo rolled her eyes. “I can take care of myself, Dean. Certainly better than I can boost you up there.”

“I will go first,” Jimmy said, pushing between them before the argument could go any further. For a few seconds, both Dean and Jo’s glares swiveled to him, but they slipped and faded into something almost like amusement when Jimmy’s initial attempts to brace himself and slither up the shaft unaided were so spectacularly unsuccessful. Dean turned to Jo and found himself grinning, the expression on her face just like he remembered from the time Bobby had fallen into the river, or when one of the District elders had taken it into her head that Jo’s work at the bakery (not to mention her secret work hunting) wasn’t enough and she needed to contribute to the community by joining the sewing circle. Jo’s clever skewering of a rat with one of her knitting needles had swiftly brought an end to that charade, and roasting and eating the resulting meat with her, hearing the story, was maybe the hardest Dean had ever laughed—was still one of his happiest memories.

Dean knew he didn’t have much time for memory-making left, but he was still happy to have this one: Jimmy stumbling backward in a huff, panting out, “It’s possible I require some assistance.”

“Maybe just a little,” said Jo, all twinkly wide-eyed innocence. Dean patted Jimmy encouragingly on the back, and together Dean and Jo raised him up, Dean flushing lightly from the strain, his hand on the underside of Jimmy’s thigh.

After a little bit of teetering, Jimmy’s reaching hands connected with something. Dean saw him push; then there was a thump and a square of dim light appeared above their heads. Jimmy’s wiry body squirmed away from them as he gripped the edge of the opening and pulled himself over. After a few seconds, his flailing feet were replaced with his calm, pale face. “All is clear,” he said.

Dean and Jo exchanged another amused look before Dean knelt down again to boost Jo up. She grabbed onto Jimmy’s wrists easily, and with only a moment’s awkwardness, he helped her scramble up. Watching the two of them work together, it suddenly struck Dean how horrible it would be to have ventured into these tunnels on your own and be faced with the possibility of not being able to get back up. Unless there was another way out somewhere? Well, either way: he was glad he didn’t have to worry about it.

He hadn’t worried about letting Jimmy alone with Jo, either. Dean supposed he really did trust him.

He wasn’t wrong to: Jimmy was already reaching back through the opening, stretching his hand out toward Dean. Dean grinned at him and grabbed for his non-bandaged wrist. Their bodies had just connected when Dean heard Jo shout, “Dean!”

He dropped Jimmy’s hand and turned just in time, so that Meg’s brass-knuckled fist connected with his shoulder instead of his face. He stumbled back against the side of the shaft, his whole arm going numb. Somehow he kept his grip on the machete; thank goodness he hadn’t passed it up to Jimmy and Jo yet. He switched it to his left hand, where he managed to hold it mostly steady.

Meg looked at it and laughed. “Well look at you! I have to say, I’m surprised you lasted this long. Still,” she smirked, “what a treat for me.”

Dean swung out with the machete. She ducked the blow, and Dean felt the blade sink into the wall, sending an arc of dirt pouring down like rain. Meg backed out into the corridor, which was fine with Dean: the farther away from the opening he got her, the less likely it was that Jo’d try to do something stupid, like land on Meg’s head.

The comparative width of the passageway gave Dean more room to maneuver, too. He slashed at Meg again, driving her toward the far wall. The second he got her pinned, he’d have her.

For a moment he thought he did: her back hit the dirt and Dean raised his weapon—all he had to do was bring it down. But she was grinning up at him, a skinny sixteen-year-old girl, and he would finish her. He only hesitated a second.

In that second, she put her lips together and whistled.

Something leapt on him, knocking him to the ground. He could smell foul, rotting breath, and then something sliced, razor-sharp, into the flesh of his shoulder. Dean screamed, unable to stop himself. Meg was standing over him, laughing. “Guess what I did back home? Who knew training our hunting dogs could come so in handy.”

Breathing through gritted teeth, Dean slashed wildly at nothing. He heard something that did sound almost like a dog yelp, and the weight on him momentarily decreased. But then there was more growling, and Meg shouting, “Sic him!” and all Dean could hope was that Jo and Jimmy were being smart: that they had taken this opportunity and run.

If Dean could just know that Jo was safe, then he could die happy.

But happiness was apparently not in the cards. As Dean scrambled backward, he heard twin thumps, then saw Jo barreling out into the corridor. She lunged at Meg with her knife. “Back off, bitch!”

For a second, even Meg looked a little stunned at the casual use of forbidden language. She twisted away from Jo’s knife too late, then crumpled when the blade sank into her thigh.

The crazy invisible dogs, unfortunately, were not so affected. Dean, aching and bleeding and pulled into a protective crouch, could still feel them moving all around him. “Jimmy,” he tried to hiss, but Jimmy was too busy painting on the wall in his own blood again, and he didn’t notice. Dean grit his teeth and pulled himself up the rest of the way, staggered over to Jo. She had Meg pinned and was twisting the knife blade in her thigh, finally eliciting, with what seemed like no small amount of pleasure, a choked sob. “You leave us alone,” Jo was murmuring. “Just leave us alone! Leave us alone!”

Dean grabbed at her shoulder. “Leave her,” he said, “come on, it’s not—”

Safe, he was going to say, or maybe worth it: but before he could say anything something in the tone of the growls shifted, and then Jimmy was being thrown away from his unfinished sigil like a ragdoll, tumbling to the ground. Dean turned, wanting to face whatever was coming, even if he couldn’t see it, but Jo pushed him out of the way, reared up with her knife flashing. And then she too was crashing down, crying out with an invisible weight on top of her, invisible claws tearing her shirt to shreds.

It was easier if Dean pretended it was just her shirt. Easier to flail out with his blade, feel it connect with a still somehow solid nothing, and then in a panic seize Jo’s arm, grab her without looking. Jimmy was on his knees, retching into the dirt, blood matting the hair at the back of his skull. Dean didn’t care: the guy was conscious, so Dean yelled at him to help. Together, they lifted Jo into their arms and half-ran, half-stumbled back down the passageway, Meg’s laughter and eerie half-there barks echoing behind them.

When they reached the shaft they had original descended down, they didn’t speak. They lay Jo gently against the wall; then Dean knelt down and boosted Jimmy up toward the opening. Picking Jo up again was the worst part: she was so light in his arms, and even though he could see her biting her lip, she moaned in pain as Dean went through the awkward process of passing her up to Jimmy. Then he himself leapt up, and with barely any assistance from Jimmy, pulled himself with lungs aching and shoulder screaming through the hole. Dean could still hear barking as Jimmy slammed the trap door back down.

Jimmy was mumbling reassurances—to them, to himself—as Dean struggled to scoot the barrel of ball bearings on top of the door. “It’s all right, it will be fine, I can fix her,” he was saying, blood running down the side of his nose and over his confident chin. Dean scrambled over to where Jimmy was hovering over Jo, who was leaning up against the wall beside the barrels, clutching at her wounded belly, tears streaming silent down her face. She was all reassurances too: “It’s okay, Dean. Really. It’ll be all right.”

Compared to them, Dean was inarticulate. “Jo,” was all he was able to choke out: a sob, perhaps his first truly sincere prayer. He joined Jimmy on his knees beside her.

“I can fix it,” Jimmy was still insisting, but his hands on Jo’s stomach were doing nothing to help—were clearly just making her wince in pain from the contact. Gently, Dean pushed Jimmy out of the way. Jo’s hand slid eagerly into his. “I’m so sorry,” Dean whispered.

“What for?” she asked, like she truly didn’t understand.

Dean took a shaky breath. “I was supposed to protect you, I—”

“You idiot,” she murmured, her voice a choked whisper. “We’re supposed to protect each other.”

Suddenly from below them they heard a thump. The floor shook, the barrel atop the trap door wobbling. “How is she doing that?” Dean asked.

“Maybe she’s enlisted some more of her little friends,” said Jo, through several heaved breaths.

“Well, she’s not getting in. Jimmy, help me move these other barrels.”

Jimmy blinked at him, for a second looking like he was having trouble processing this simple request. Dean wondered if he was concussed. But then Jimmy shook himself. “Leave that one alone,” he cautioned, pointing to the barrel he’d told them not to open before. He helped Dean roll the barrel of crackers over.

“It would make more sense for her to exit the tunnels through one of the other buildings and block us in from the front,” Jimmy said matter-of-factly, swiping his bloody bangs off his face.

“Yeah, well, let’s hope she doesn’t think of that,” Dean said, before almost being knocked off his feet when the floor lurched again.

“You can’t just wait here,” Jo said.

“Yes, we can,” Dean snapped. “Or I can. Jimmy,” he turned back to the other boy, “if you want to go, we understand.”

Jimmy looked at him, and something in that steady, blue-eyed gaze made Dean shiver; he couldn’t shake the feeling that Jimmy was somehow seeing more than Dean wanted him to.

“I’m not going to leave just yet,” Jimmy said finally.

Dean nodded, accepting this. He turned back to Jo, his primary concern. She was shaking now, shivers wracking her entire body. Her long beautiful hair (Dean could remember her sitting on her mother’s lap, whining and squirming while Ellen braided it) sticking lankly to her dirty forehead. Dean squeezed the inside of his cheek between his teeth: he would not cry.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked. He wished there was more in the cabin for him to get: blankets, water, bandages thread disinfectant help. But she just nodded and said, “Some crackers would be nice.”

He got her the crackers, trying not to panic when he felt how the trap door was trembling beneath him. His shoulder felt like it was on fire, but he couldn’t pay attention to that, either. Doing his best to keep the crackers blood- and mud-free, he gathered them up and limped back over to Jo.

Jimmy was back to kneeling at her side, his head bent low. As Dean lowered himself back down, he saw Jo squeeze Jimmy’s hand tightly, then let go. Dean felt a stab of utterly irrational jealousy—he couldn’t even begin to think it through. Instead he curled himself at Jo’s side and took her other hand, listening to the floorboards rattle and trying to stay placid. For Jo, and for Sam, Ellen, Bobby—everyone at home who was probably watching this; who seconds or minutes or hours from now would be watching them die. There was one last thing he could give them, and that would be to meet death with a brave face.

“Dean,” Jo whispered. “Can you do something for me?”

“Anything,” Dean said—which was of course a lie: he hadn’t been able to keep her safe.

“Give your brother a hug for me,” Jo said, and before Dean could laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of this wish, someone was seizing him by the arms, tugging him away. Dean shouted and flailed, trying to heave Jimmy off him and cling to Jo at the same time. His shoulder screamed in pain and Jimmy held him like a vice, moving efficiently, pausing only to upend the barrel of ball bearings with one decisive kick.

“No!” Dean bellowed. “Jo, don’t—” but Jo was already crawling toward the third barrel, the one Jimmy had told them not to touch.

“It’s okay, Dean, it’s okay,” she said, over and over, leaking red all over the floor, and Dean lost her in that jumble of sounds and images: the trap door flying open, Jo’s determined expression as she reached for the deadly barrel. And Jimmy’s cursed hands, tight under Dean’s armpits, dragging him out into the square, ignoring Dean’s kicks and scratches like he couldn’t feel them at all.

Part of Dean almost hoped that Jimmy was dragging them both right into Alastair and the other tributes’ laps—that they could just finish it. But he could see a bonfire burning at the other end of the square, the other tributes dark shapes around it, Alastair singing as he roasted…something Dean didn’t even want to think about. He wanted to be back in the building with Jo, he wanted to go together with Jo—or better yet, in her place. He wanted to do as he’d promised. It was the only way he’d be able to live with himself.

He drove his elbow up, sharply, into Jimmy’s face. It was his first direct hit, and it startled Jimmy just enough to make his grip loosen. Dean jerked away and stumbled back toward the building, screaming Jo’s name. Five feet from the door, the building seemed to bulge, its outline trembling for a moment like the horizon on a hot day. Then it exploded outward, knocking Dean back with waves of energy and heat. When Dean looked again it was simply gone: no rubble or flames to mark its place. Just gone.

Jimmy’s firm steady hands seized his uninjured shoulder again, lifted him up out of the dirt. “We have to go,” he said, and it was true: the other tributes may have been distracted before, but this they would have surely noticed, they were probably abandoning their vile party and coming this way even now. Dean knew this was something he should care about.

“Go, then,” he said, and Jimmy’s hand squeezed him tight—the wounded shoulder, this time. Dean hissed in pain, rolling to glare at Jimmy. Jimmy glared back: “We both made promises, Dean,” he said. “Do not make me carry you.”

Dean didn’t really believe that Jimmy could, but he found himself getting to his feet anyway. He could hear Alastair and the others shouting from across the square, and so when Jimmy ran, Dean ran with him. His heart was still beating; his legs still worked. For some strange reason, Dean was still alive.

They reached the hollow where they—where Dean and Jo—had rested the night before just as the horn sounded for the evening prayer. Jimmy ignored it, searching out the gap in the thorn bushes, but Dean dropped straight to his knees.

“We don’t have time for that,” Jimmy hissed.

Dean contemplated ignoring him entirely, but in the end he chose to hiss back: “One of these is for her. Let ’em catch us if they want. We have the time.”

Dean had his eyes closed, but he still heard the branches snap back, then a pause, and finally the sound of another body sinking awkwardly down beside him. When Jimmy’s voice joined with his, it was a little unsteady, a little out-of-sync, though through each repetition it grew in force and strength:

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,
 our life, our sweetness and our hope.
 To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve;
 to thee do we send up our sighs, 
mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.

Five, Dean thought. Five recitations. Isaac, Tamara, the solider boy from District 2 who fell at Tamara’s hands before Alastair took her out. Jo. And Meg—Meg made five. “She got her,” Dean told Jimmy, as Jimmy guided him through the thorn bushes and down into the hollow. “She got her good.”

“Shh,” Jimmy whispered. “We must be quiet now.”

He was right, Dean supposed: he could hear someone moving in the woods, Alastair or one of the others, most likely looking for them, hunting them down. How many left now? It was hard to think, but Dean was pretty sure there were only six, including him and Jimmy. Six people between Jo and Paradise…

Except it no longer mattered how many people died, at Dean’s hands or otherwise. Nothing he did would ever get her there, now. She was dead.

Dean pushed his face into the rough leaves and tried to hold it together. His shoulders were shaking: he could feel Jimmy’s hands on them, bandaging the wounded one the way Dean had shown him. He hadn’t even realized Jimmy was doing that. He barely felt connected to his body at all.

“You’re shivering,” Jimmy whispered. “Are you cold?”

He was probably going into shock. His teeth were certainly chattering now: Dean was surprised that Alastair and Zachariah and everyone else who was lurking in the forest couldn’t hear. He felt Jimmy’s hands move down his shoulders, drawing him close. Dean wanted to pull away—he wanted to fling himself out of their hiding place and into whoever was hunting for them: take one of the bastards down with him, like Jo had. But he felt too weak to do anything. So he just lay there and let Jimmy continue with his semi-competent ministrations.

“I thought I knew how to fix this,” Jimmy said softly. “But I don’t.”

“There’s no fixing it,” Dean said. “It’s…it’s fucked, okay? We’re going to die here, and next year twenty-four more kids are gonna die—not to mention everyone back home, dying in accidents or from hunger or being taken to the Capitol… And then twenty-four more—the victor, too, yeah, I’m gonna count him. Twenty-four every year, for no reason. Next year…next year maybe Sam…”

“Sam is your brother?” Jimmy asked.

Dean nodded. Then, because he couldn’t think of anything to say, no words to encompass what Sam meant to him, he reached with shaking hands down the collar of his tattered shirt and pulled out the amulet. “He gave me this. My little brother. I was the only family he had left…”

Dean could feel Jimmy’s hand resting on his chest, Jimmy’s fingers moving over the tiny piece of metal. Then, “I almost forgot,” Jimmy said—he sounded unduly surprised, shocked that with everything that was happening, something could dare to slip his mind. “Jo entrusted this to me, but I believe she would want you to have it.”

He uncurled his fingers, and Dean saw Ellen’s bird of Paradise pin nestled in his palm. Dean reached down and touched the cool metal, growing warm from Jimmy’s touch. Dean felt his stomach lurch; he squeezed his eyes shut tight.

“You don’t have a token, do you? Nothing anyone gave you?”

“No,” Jimmy admitted.

“Then you should keep it,” Dean said, swallowing, opening his eyes again, staring at Jimmy’s face in the dark. He took the pin from Jimmy’s hand and fixed it, as carefully as he could, to Jimmy’s shirt: just above his heart. Where Jo had worn it.

Jimmy’s hand came up and met his, folding over the metal and the cloth and Dean’s suddenly sweaty fingers. “Thank you,” Jimmy said, surprised—not just at an act of kindness in the arena, but like someone who had never been given anything before, not ever.

Perhaps because it was easier than dealing with his own pain, Dean felt his heart ache for him: Jimmy from District 1, who’d had no reason to ally himself with them, but had, but was here still. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go in the Games, Dean knew: you shouldn’t be able to trust anyone except your own District-mate, and maybe not even them. And yet, and yet—

Jimmy’s hand caught Dean’s a fraction of an inch away from his face. “You should rest,” he whispered, and they were so close, Dean could practically taste Jimmy’s breath in his mouth. “We both need to rest.”

Dean felt a shudder rumble through his body, different from the aches and pains that had plagued it before. But he nodded, and with a sigh slid back to a more appropriate distance. As he sank into sleep, he imagined Sam seeing what had just (almost) transpired. It no longer bothered him nearly as much as it once might.

Part II / Masterpost / Part IV

DCBB Fic: Bird of Paradise (Part II)

trinityofone — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 04:15:01 GMT

They still hadn't encountered anyone else—or any source of food or water—when the sun began to sink. A horn, similar to the one that had signaled the start of the Games, sounded mournfully through the trees, and Dean and Jo dropped to their knees, shivering at the sudden cool breeze that whipped about their shoulders. Dean kept count as they were led through the Salve Regina, sharing a look with Jo as the number rose above four repetitions, beyond five, six, seven. Eight in total. Eight dead tributes, on this, the first day of the Games. Dean knew he should be relieved: that was eight fewer people he'd have to deal with, eight fewer deaths between Jo and Paradise. But at the same time...those were eight children, kids he'd shared a meal with (don't think about food) just the night before. He'd never even learned the red-haired tribute's name.

Jo moved her crossbow out of the way enough to squeeze Dean's hand as they rose to their feet again, Dean feeling light-headed, his body protesting its aches and pains like an old man’s.

The temperature was dropping rapidly, as fast or faster than the sky was darkening. Dean and Jo resumed their search for shelter with a new seriousness. Dean thought he still had a pretty good idea of the direction the town lay, but the rest of the forest seemed without any sort of marker, the trees of an oddly false, uniform size and shape. Dean wondered if Zachariah really had built the whole place himself: created the buildings and the trees, the artful spread of leaves, even the familiar-seeming moon, looming low and round above their heads.

It was so big as to be almost hypnotic, and Dean was still staring at it when Jo clutched his arm and said, “Look!”

He followed her gaze through the incomplete darkness until he saw a patch of deeper black: the opening of a cave, he realized, hewn into the rising ground, nearly hidden behind an outcropping of rock. Dean nodded, even as he said: “Careful.” They crept closer to the opening. “There could be anything in there. Another one of those spirits...”

“Not a spirit.”

To Dean's embarrassment, he jumped. Jo did, too, although she still snapped her crossbow up right quick, pointing the loaded arrow at the figure emerging from the cave's mouth, becoming visible in the pale moonlight. “It was a wendigo. I killed it.”

“Well, aren't you the expert,” Dean said, remembering the equally nonchalant way in which Jimmy had dispatched the spirit.

Jo took a more threatening approach. “I could kill you right now.”

Jimmy stared at the sharp point of her arrow with no apparent distress. “Doubtful.”

Dean wouldn't have entirely blamed Jo for pulling the trigger right then just to prove Jimmy wrong. But, “He saved my life,” Dean felt obligated to point out. Not to mention that fact that the guy was from the Capitol, which had apparently granted him some sort of insider knowledge that Dean and Jo could use to their advantage. “Maybe we can all...declare a truce? Work together for a while?”

Jo clearly wanted to spend some time glaring at him, but could only afford a quick withering glance as she kept her crossbow trained on Jimmy. “Absolutely not,” she said, at the same time Jimmy said, “I do not see the point.”

Dean thought he could—probably—trust Jo not to do anything hasty, so it was Jimmy’s objection he tackled first. “Look,” he told the other boy, “if you wanted me dead, you could have let that spirit take me out. But you didn’t, so now I want to try to return the favor. We don’t have to be best friends, but we can watch each other’s backs. Three are harder to beat than two. Two are definitely harder to take down than one.” He let that last idea hang there, a not-so-subtle threat that looked gentle in the face of Jo’s loaded bow.

Jimmy seemed uninterested in either. “I have no interest in killing either of you. I will if I have to, but at the moment I don’t see why that should become necessary.”

“So you’ll accept our help? A truce?” Dean pressed.

“Dean!” Jo hissed.

Dean ignored her; Jimmy did, too.

“I don’t need your help. But you can stay here if that’s what you’re really asking.”

He turned around and walked back into the cave, as if oblivious to the tip of Jo’s arrow trembling at his back.

The moment Jimmy was gone, Jo seized Dean’s arm. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “We can’t trust him!”

“I think we can, for now,” Dean said honestly. It went without saying that if it came down to the three of them, all bets were off. “I think he’s on the level.”

But Jo shook her head. “We don’t know him. And even if we did, he’s our competitor, Dean—our enemy!”

“Lots of people form truces in the Games,” Dean said.

“And lots of people stab each other in the back!” Jo straightened her shoulders, took a breath. “Do you remember those two kids we met at the banquet, the ones from District 3?”

Dean’s mind, unwilling, flashed to their faces: the girl broad-cheeked and wide-eyed; the boy with an easy smile, stuffed with food. “Andy and April?”

“Ava,” Jo said, in a low voice. “Andy and Ava. They were from the same district, they were friends, and when I was breaking toward the woods this morning, I saw Ava run up to where Andy was waiting and drive a sword through his chest.”

Jo let that sink in for a moment, staring up at Dean with her mouth a thin, dead line.

“We can’t trust anybody, Dean,” she told him.

Dean swallowed. “You can trust me.”

Jo blinked rapidly, once, twice. “I know,” she said, even more of a whisper. “That’s different.”

Dean touched her shoulder. “Then trust me on this. I think an alliance is a good idea. Eight tributes died today. Tomorrow, we’re going to need all the help we can get.”

Jo bit, then released her bottom lip. “We can’t sleep if he—”

“I’ll take the first watch,” he promised. “You can sleep with your crossbow in your hand...”

“Oh, I was gonna do that anyway.”

He wanted to hug her like he did Sam: pull her close to his chest and squeeze her tight. But she was not a child, and she was heavily armed. So he just nodded and preceded her into the cave.

It was strange in there. It should have been totally dark, as Jimmy had—wisely—not tried to make a fire, and the sky beyond the opening was becoming increasingly inky. But an odd luminescence, invisible from outside, permeated the space. Dean could make out Jimmy’s shadowy features where he sat with his legs crossed near the far wall. “Oh,” he said. “You’re still here.”

Dean stared at him for a second, then tucked his knife into his boot, spat in his palm, and strode decisively forward. “Truce,” he said formally.

Jimmy stared at Dean’s outstretched hand like it was a gift he didn’t particularly want. Maybe this custom wasn’t common to the Capitol.

“Dean!” Jo said excitedly, distracting him so that he was looking away when Jimmy’s hand slid damply into his own, squeezing. When he looked back down, Jimmy had already dropped away.

“Dean,” Jo repeated, and Dean walked over to where she was standing by the other wall. Her hands were pressed against the cool stone, and when Dean leaned closer, he saw what had her so entranced: there was a thin trickle of water, beading faintly over the surface of the rock. Dean nodded at her, and she suckled at it for a moment before taking a gasping breath and backing up to let Dean get a sip.

The water was almost painfully cool on his parched tongue, running over his cracked lips. He knew its taste was mineral, bitter, but he didn’t care: he sucked eagerly at the stone. Eventually, he forced himself to take a step back, turning to Jimmy, who was sitting at the opposite end of the chamber. “You want some?”

“No,” Jimmy said, not looking up.

Dean and Jo exchanged a look. By some mutual, silent agreement, they lowered themselves to the ground, Dean sitting with his back to the wall across from the one Jimmy still sat by. Jo knelt next to him, crossbow in her lap.

“So,” Dean said after a moment, “District 1, huh?”

In the dim, unnatural light, Dean could just make out Jimmy blinking at him. “You can rest, if you like,” he said eventually. “I’ll keep watch.”

Dean’s eyes flickered to Jo again. Deliberately, so she could see, he drew his knife back out of his boot and laid it on his knee. He kept the cudgel in his other hand. He nodded at Jo, subtly, all while flashing Jimmy a broad smile.

Jimmy seemed unimpressed. He didn’t react when Jo leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes, or when Dean remained upright and watchful. The ground was cold and Dean felt twitchy and nervous, the slightest noise from outside making his head twist toward the entrance of the cave. Jimmy, however, remained stiff and still, the line of his back perfectly straight. He stared directly ahead, his face a mask.

Dean began to feel more and more uneasy about this truce thing.

He glanced beside him, saw that Jo’s eyes were still shut, that her breathing had evened out. When he turned back toward Jimmy, the other boy hadn’t moved an inch, of course. “Hey,” he hissed. “How did you know about that stuff? The spirit, and the, the wind-thing?”

One of the closest things Dean had seen to an emotion passed across Jimmy’s face. Brittle, “I have some knowledge,” he said.

“Yeah, I saw,” Dean shot back. “From where?”

Jimmy stared at him. Even across the dim cave, his eyes looked impossibly old in his soft, young face. “My father taught me,” he said at length.

Dean nodded. “What’s your dad do?”

“I don’t know,” Jimmy said, after another lengthy pause. “I haven’t seen him for some time.”

“Oh,” said Dean. “I didn’t know that—” Representatives of the Capitol came and took people from other districts away with them; Dean hadn’t thought that people from the Capitol could be stolen away, too. “I’m sorry. They—”

Dean wasn’t supposed to talk about this. He’d cautioned Sam time after time. The official story was that Sam and Dean Campbell didn’t know who their father was—for all they knew, they might not even share the same one. Their mother was listed in the Capitol’s records as a Magdalene, and nothing Sam or Dean said could ever suggest otherwise.

In District 12, it didn’t matter much: there were too many others in on the lie. But here, in the Games, anything Dean said could get picked up by the feed. It wouldn’t make any difference for him, but Sam— Even with Dean here in Sam’s place, his brother was still in danger.

“I don’t know where my father is, either,” Dean said carefully.

Dean didn’t get to find out if Jimmy was simply once again going to be slow in his reply, or if he truly didn’t have anything to say to that, because a piercing scream ripped through the relative quiet and safety of the cave. Dean was on his feet even before Jo had finished jolting awake. “…going on?” she mumbled, but Dean just said, “Shh,” and crept past her to the mouth of the cave, peering out but hanging back enough to keep to the shadows.

The woods looked eerie in moonlight, all pale white light giving way to deep, dark shadow. It was breezy enough for the leaves to be blowing a little, skittering along the ground. And there were other sounds, horrible sounds: pounding footsteps, a hissing snarl, and a girl’s voice, crying out for help between panting breaths.

Dean thought of the blonde girl with the mocking smile. He could not, would not make the same mistake twice. And yet…

The shadowy figure of a girl tumbled into view at the bottom of the rise. She was stumbling as a she ran, clutching at her right shoulder. Dean was pretty sure it was not the girl from before, and that this girl’s distress was genuine. And then he became positive, as some…thing, an animal of some kind, maybe, slunk into view behind her. The noise it was making turned Dean’s blood to ice. Then, as he watched, it lunged, catching the girl by the ankle as she started up the hill, dragging her back down.

Dean turned around and snatched the crossbow out of Jo’s startled hands without another thought. “Wait here,” he was whispering, and then felt himself abruptly seized by the shoulder.

“You can’t save her,” Jimmy said, his old eyes suddenly fresh and huge and blue. “She is beyond saving.”

Dean shoved him off. “We’ll see.”

He had no strategy, only speed and surprise on his side. He raced down the hill, bow primed and finger on the trigger; when the creature raised its snarling head, he fired. The thing yelped and tumbled back; Dean skidded forward another step and grabbed the girl by the hand, tugging her up. “Can you still walk?” he asked.

He barely waited for her nod before charging up the hill again, the girl a heavy, but hardly dead, weight at his side. His shoulders were tense in anticipation of that thing recovering and flinging itself at Dean’s back, its sharp claws digging in…but the moment never came. Dean cast a glance back over his shoulder when they reached the cave’s mouth, and the creature was nowhere to be seen.

“Where did it go?” Dean asked Jo, who was helping the grateful girl lower herself down with her back against the cave wall.

“I think it ran off,” Jo said. “Give me my crossbow back.”

Dean handed it off without a word, ignoring the way Jo checked the mechanism over, like she was convinced that in firing one arrow, Dean had found a way to mess it up. He ignored Jimmy’s steely-eyed glare, too, and left Jo to fetch her quiver and reload while he knelt at the new girl’s side. “Hey,” he asked her, “you okay?”

She was still shaking, her breath coming in gasps, but she didn’t seem too badly hurt. There was a large tear in her shirt at the shoulder and the cloth was bloody. Dean waited until she had given him another nod before peeling back the fabric. There was definitely a wound there, a bite mark maybe, but… “This doesn’t look too bad,” he told her. “See, it’s stopped bleeding already.”

She stared up at him with large dark eyes. She was a pretty girl, maybe a year or so older than Sam, but tall for her age: she would have towered over him. “You saved my life,” she said. She sounded surprised.

Dean felt a defense for this horrible action of his rise to his lips, then in a moment of sharp awareness, shoved it down. “Yeah, I did.”

“I don’t think you quite understand the purpose of this Game,” said Jimmy from behind him, an edge to his tone that Dean couldn’t quite read.

“Actually, I do. I just think the purpose is stupid.” So much for keeping his mouth closed for Sam’s sake. But Dean was hungry and exhausted, and he was having a hard time keeping himself reined in. “And for a while, I thought you did, too. I heard what you said to the Gamemaster.”

Jimmy’s voice was flat. “I was wrong.”

Dean stared him down. “I guess I was, too.”

He turned back to the girl on the ground, practically daring Jimmy to do something.

“How are you doing? There’s some water over here if you want some.” He nodded at Jo, who helped the girl up and led her over to the trickle running down the cave wall.

“I’m Jo, by the way,” said Jo, pointedly.

“Oh yeah. Dean,” said Dean.

“I’m Madison,” said the girl. There was a pause, during which she gulped greedily at the tiny ribbon of water, and Jimmy failed to introduce himself at all.

Dean jerked a thumb over his shoulder at him. “The charmer’s Jimmy.”

“It’s all right.” Madison shakily sat back down. “I remember you guys from the interviews. I think I learned everyone’s names…”

“Why would you want to do that?” Dean snapped before he could stop himself.

Madison pulled some of her long dark hair—now knotted and dirty—away from her face. “Well, I had thought— This is going to sound stupid.”

“Don’t worry, Dean’s set a low bar,” Jo said, smiling at him. Jimmy continued to stare at them all, creepily.

“Well,” Madison said again, and although it was dark, Dean could still see her flush. “I had this idea that when the Games started, we could, like, all just sit down in a big circle and hold hands, and refuse to kill each other—any of us at all. And even though they might let us starve, or they might— We wouldn’t all be dying for nothing. It would really say something.”

There was something so open and innocent about her expression as she laid all this out. Dean knew it was ridiculous, but he couldn’t help smiling at her. “Man, my brother would like you.” He hoped she realized what a compliment this was.

But Jimmy was staring coolly down his nose. “Such a plan would never work.”

“I know.” Madison let out a breath. “I tried talking to people at the banquet, but they just laughed at me. Well, except this one girl, Meg? She told me she thought it was a great idea and when the signal went I should find her and we could hold hands and she’d help me gather everyone else together.” Dean could tell from the dark, angry edge that had entered Madison’s voice that this story wasn’t going to end well. “But then later I heard her talking to the other tribute from her district about what an easy mark I was. Watch out for her,” she added, seriously.

“Which one’s she?” asked Dean.

“Um. District 5?” said Madison. “Blonde, short hair—”

“Oh,” said Jo sharply. “Her.”

“Yeah,” said Dean, repressing a shudder at the memory of the way Meg’s false scream had turned into a sharp-toothed grin. “We kinda ran into her already. Don’t worry, though—her buddy’s toast. Jo got him with an arrow right to the throat.”

Madison seemed significantly less impressed by this accomplishment than Dean was. She pulled her long legs up to her chest. “I still don’t see how I could hurt anybody.”

Jimmy let out a snort. Dean wheeled on him. “What is your problem?”

“Minor, compared to yours.” Jimmy sat down again, tucking his legs under his body with an odd deliberateness.

Beside Dean, Jo yawned. “Sorry,” she said, but it was too late: both Dean and Madison had caught it, and their own yawns followed.

“You can sleep,” Jimmy said, not looking over at them. “I gave my word.”

“Yeah, well, what about you?” Dean asked. “Somebody still needs to keep watch, no matter how well we may trust each other.” He mostly managed to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, he thought.

“I’ll keep watch, as I said.” Jimmy regarded him coolly. “I do not require much sleep.”

“Fine,” said Dean. He sat down again, because he knew it would encourage Jo to—she was definitely going to need more than the twenty minutes she had gotten. There was no way he was going to fall asleep and leave Jimmy to his own devices, though. The guy might have saved Dean’s life, but there was something seriously off about him.

It was hard to keep awake, however—especially after Jo and Madison nodded off, their bodies warm on either side of Dean. Dean kept his eyes open, but he felt like he was losing a battle against his own eyelids. Occasionally, especially when his head started to nod, he thought he caught Jimmy watching him from across the cave. At one point he forced his eyes open and found the other boy crouched right in front of him. Dean struggled to react in time as Jimmy reached forward with two pale, ghostly fingers and touched Dean’s—

Dean woke slowly, the morning sunlight creeping past his eyelids. Madison and Jo were still asleep on either side of him, Jo emitting her little sigh-like snores. Dean’s chest clenched as he looked across the cave, but Jimmy was sitting with his legs folded underneath his body, perfectly still; if his eyes hadn’t been wide open, Dean would have almost thought he was at prayer.

So it had been a dream, then. It must have been. Dean had fallen asleep like an idiot, and here they all were, still alive, Jimmy eying Dean from across the cave with something that was almost a smile on his face.

“I trust you are well-rested, then.”

Dean opened his mouth to respond, but his stomach interrupted, growling loudly. Jo, whose head had slipped down low on Dean’s shoulder, snuffled and woke. “Oh,” she said. “For a second I thought I smelled my mom baking bread…”

“Don’t talk about bread,” Dean said.

“Bread?” Madison sat up, rubbing her eyes. “There’s bread?”

“Sorry, no bread.” Dean stood, clutching his side where it was still sore from yesterday’s beating. “I’m gonna go…” He inclined his head toward the mouth of the cave. “Be right back.”

Keeping a careful eye on the forest, Dean relieved himself quickly against the base of a tree, then went back inside. Jo was checking Madison’s wound; “No sign of infection,” she told them both, standing as Dean entered. “Is there a good…?” she asked him more quietly.

“There’s some bushes to the left…”

Jo nodded and walked past him, smoothing her hands down the sides of her pants as she went.

Dean was lapping water from the cold rock when Jo came barreling back into the cave. “I’m sorry, I’m—” She let out a wordless growl of anger and frustration. “Someone saw me. We have to get out of here.”

“Someone saw you?” Dean felt offended on her behalf more than angry: certain times were private times.

“Who?” Madison asked.

“Uh… The tall guy from District 2? Soldier boy. I think he was working as a scout or something—he saw me and then just slipped right back into the woods.”

“Oh. You mean Jake,” Madison said. She was frowning. “I still can’t believe he joined with them. I liked him.”

“Them?” Dean snapped. “Who’s them?”

“The kids from District 6,” Madison explained. “They claimed the big pile of weapons and convinced a couple of the toughest-seeming tributes to join with them. I hid under the windmill for a while,” she said, clearly picking up on Jo’s skeptical look. “Then they started doing these, like, sweeps of the town, and I got scared and ran before they found me.”

“Okay,” said Dean. “So they’re probably going to be sending people after us.”

Dean saw Jo’s fist clench; she looked furious with herself.

“Hey,” Dean said, “it’s no big deal. We were going to have to leave eventually because we don’t have any food here. We can always come back later,” he told them—especially Jimmy, who did not look happy at the prospect of leaving the cave he probably thought of as his. “If they’re trying to hold the cache, they’ll have to focus their manpower there, so they’ll probably give up on this place if they don’t find us here.”

Jo’s mouth was a firm line, but she nodded, swinging her quiver back over her shoulder. Madison scooted closer to them, clearly grateful for the company. Jimmy, however, continued to stand apart. “I’m not going,” he said.

“Don’t be stupid,” Dean said—part of him wondering if he should even bother. Jimmy was a jerk: what was it to Dean if he got himself killed for no reason? “You don’t even know how many of them there’s going to be.”

“I can take care of myself,” Jimmy said, skinny arms straight at his sides.

“You don’t even have a weapon!” Dean protested.

“And we’re not leaving any of ours,” Jo added.

“Nevertheless,” said Jimmy, stepping away from the entrance, “I would prefer to remain here.”

The last word was hardly out of Jimmy’s mouth when the ground beneath their feet began to shake, an echoing rumble charging down the hillside and seemingly directly into their ears. “What’s that?” Madison asked, but Jo didn’t even bother to answer: she simply grabbed the other girl by the arm and yanked her out of the cave. Dean started to follow before he realized that Jimmy was still hanging back, staring up at the quivering ceiling as dark grey dust and chunks of rock rained down on him. The expression on his face was quietly furious, like someone he knew personally had let him down.

“You—” Dean ground out, then darted back and seized Jimmy by the arm, dragging him forward to the cave’s entrance. Jimmy’s slim shoulder felt surprisingly solid under Dean’s hand, as unmovable as the rock itself had appeared to be. But that solidity was apparently a lie, as was Jimmy’s immobility: after a moment’s hesitation, he followed where Dean pulled, tumbling outside and down the hill to stand with Madison and Jo as their place of refuge crumbled to pieces right in front of them.

“Well, so much for that,” Jo said, as a large boulder fell with some finality in front of where the cave’s entrance had been.

“Zachariah is not known for his subtlety,” Jimmy said, glaring at the fallen rocks like he thought that if he stared hard enough, he might find some way to move them with his mind.

“Yeah, the spirits and the unpronounceable monsters were kind of a clue,” Dean said. “I guess somebody wants us to go back toward the town.”

“What should we do?” Madison asked.

“We should go toward the town,” Jimmy said.

“What,” said Jo, “give in to him?”

Jimmy shook his head, minutely. “That is not what I said.”

“Well, we gotta get out of here, anyway,” Dean said. Twice now he’d heard something that sounded like a bird’s call. But there were no birds in this forest. “Come on,” he said, guiding Madison with a gentle hand on her shoulder, exchanging significant looks with Jo. Her crossbow was hefted and ready, her finger on the trigger. He glanced at the contents of her quiver, counted: four arrows left.

They didn’t end up having to use any on the trek back to the town, fortunately: despite Dean’s sense of unease, no one emerged from between the trees, weapons at the ready, bloodsport in their eyes. In fact, the whole place seemed eerily silent.

“How many people do you think are left?” Madison whispered at one point.

“I dunno,” Dean whispered back. “It was sixteen at last prayer.”

Madison nodded. Then, “So where is everyone?” she said.

Dean could only shrug.

When the outlines of the decrepit brown buildings began appearing through the trees, they paused. “So what’s the plan?” Dean asked.

He was really only asking Jo, and she was the one who answered. “Scope out the situation? See if we can figure out where the food is?”

“Yeah,” said Dean, “if there’s any food.”

“I’m sure there’s food,” said Jimmy—the first thing he’d said in a while. “The Game would be over too quickly if there weren’t.”

“Excellent,” said Dean. “An optimist.”

“He has probably hidden it inside the buildings.”

“Okay, no problem,” Dean said. “We’ll just sneak in the back way.”

This proved more difficult than he had supposed. Dean had been too busy warding off axe blows before, but what had vaguely registered then became all too apparent now: all the buildings opened solely out onto the main square, their back and side walls nothing but bare, warped boards.

“Maybe we can pry some of them loose?” Dean suggested from where they were still clustered up in the trees, looking down.

“Yeah, because that won’t be loud at all,” Jo said.

Dean let out a frustrated breath. “How many are still guarding the cache?”

Keeping low to the ground, Jo crept back over to see. “Two at the center of the square,” she reported. “The, uh, guy from District 10 and the one from, um. Nine, I think?”

“Walt and Duane,” Madison whispered.

“There might be a third, too,” Jo said. “I thought I saw someone lurking over by the windmill, but I couldn’t be sure.”

“And more could come back at any minute,” Dean reminded them. “All right. I’ve got a plan.”

They all looked at him expectantly. Even Jimmy: his eyes sliding over to Dean’s with a look of frustrated reluctance.

Dean nodded to himself. “You guys should wait here,” he said decisively. “I’m going to try to sneak into the building at the end of the square.”

“No way!” Jo hissed back. “I’m coming with you.”

With effort, Dean managed to bite back on several more vehement denials and said, “I think it’d be better if you waited here.”

“Well, we’re not going to let you go by yourself!”

“Why not? It makes a lot more sense than all four of us blundering around down there. One person’s way less likely to be caught than four.”

“Fine,” Jo said. “Then I’ll go.”

“What?”

“For the record,” said Madison, “I’m perfectly okay with staying here.”

Dean ignored her. “I’m the oldest,” he told Jo. “I should go.”

“I have the best weapon,” countered Jo. “I should go.”

“It’s a great distance weapon, yeah,” Dean said, “but I think it’d be pretty awkward for sneaking around. Which is why you should cover me from up here while I—”

“Um, guys,” Madison said.

“Okay, you can take the crossbow then,” Jo proposed.

“Guys,” Madison hissed, giving Dean’s sleeve a sharp tug. He glanced up, following the direction of her pointing finger to where Jimmy was strolling purposefully and ostentatiously down the hillside.

“Oh—” Dean started. “Cover me,” he snapped at Jo, then took off as quietly as he could after Jimmy.

Dean caught up to him at the bottom of the incline, just as he was about to take a stroll between two of the buildings and out into the square. Dean grabbed Jimmy by the elbow and swung him around so that his shoulders bounced off the farther building’s back wall with a small sneeze of sawdust. “Just what do you think you’re doing?” Dean hissed. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“I appreciate your regard for my safety,” Jimmy said, staring up at Dean with those flat blue eyes, “but I do not share the same concerns.”

Dean shoved at Jimmy’s shoulders again. “Well, you’re gonna get us all killed. Maybe you ought to start showing some concern about that, huh?”

For a second, Jimmy’s eyes rolled skyward; it didn’t quite look like a prayer, not this time. Then his gaze slid, cool and steady, back to Dean. “I am trying to help you—help all of us—acquire some food. That is something you desire, correct?”

Dean shifted backward, suddenly hyperaware of the shape of Jimmy’s wiry body beneath his. “Yeah,” he said, voice rough. “So what’s your stupid plan—besides wandering out into the open and getting killed?”

Jimmy’s eyes raked over him. “Will you trust me?”

Dean shifted in place. “Yeah, I guess.” He had so far, anyway—for whatever reason.

“All right,” said Jimmy. “And I am trusting you to wait until the right moment to move.”

Then, faster than Dean could react, he slipped by Dean and strode purposefully around the corner of the building and out into the center of the square.

“Hello,” Jimmy called out, and Dean watched with his heart in his throat as the shorter, sandy-haired boy—Duane, Madison had said—turned around, sword raised and mouth slightly agape. “Are you paying attention to me?”

“You better start paying attention to this,” Duane said, advancing with the sword. “Don’t move.”

“I see. You’re waiting for your friend to sneak up on me with that mace?” asked Jimmy, matter-of-factly, without turning his head toward where the tribute Dean was pretty sure was called Walt was advancing on tip-toe.

Dean’s own body was tense as a taut wire, pressed up onto the balls of his feet, prepared to run—in which direction, he had no idea. This was the worst plan ever. Dean tried to remind himself that he didn’t really like Jimmy all that much—but his stomach continued to feel hollowed out from something other than hunger.

“We’ve waited enough,” Duane said. Both he and Walt lunged. Dean forced himself forward, breaking for the nearest building’s front door. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jimmy turn neatly on his heel and twist Walt’s mace out of his hand with an easy grace that made Dean’s fumblings with the red-haired tribute’s axe look dangerously clumsy. Jimmy moved like he was dancing: knocking first one boy, then the other, swiftly into the dirt. Dean couldn’t help pausing by the building’s entrance for a moment, gaping at the disinterested way Jimmy wiped Duane’s own blood off his sword.

I have no interest in killing either of you, Dean remembered Jimmy saying. I will if I have to, but at the moment I don’t see why that should become necessary. At the time it had seemed like such a laughably empty threat.

No one was laughing now. Certainly not Walt: he barely moved or made a sound as Jimmy placed his boot on the fallen tribute’s gurgling throat and pressed. Jimmy’s face bore no emotion as he looked up; then his eyes met Dean’s across the square and a frown appeared. Dean could actually read this expression: Why are you still here?

Dean had turned, flushing, back toward the door, when he heard a startled cry from behind him. He turned around again in time to see Jimmy crumple to the ground. Dean stared in shock: the square was empty, so what could have possibly…

The remains of the weapons cache began to slide, blades and clubs tumbling over each other as something pushed its way out from within. The tall, skinny tribute from District 6 emerged from within the pile, chuckling to himself. He held a spent slingshot in his hand.

“So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand of David,” said the tribute, in a sing-song voice. Then he bent fluidly at the waist and retrieved the sword Jimmy had dropped. “But looky what I’ve got.”

Jimmy sat up as the other tribute advanced: Dean could see the blood streaming down his forehead and across his face. He had to be half-blind, Dean thought, watching Jimmy’s hand fumble for Walt’s mace as the other tribute crept closer, taking his time.  

“Therefore David ran, and stood upon the Philistine,” he shouted, voice echoing like the priests’ did, every Sunday morning, looming over Jimmy down in the dirt, “and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head therewith.”

Jimmy was going to die, Dean realized, he was going to watch Jimmy die—but Dean’s feet had already figured it out: he was racing forward across the square, flinging himself at the tribute with the sword, smashing his cudgel into the other boy’s head. They tumbled backward onto the hard earth, and Dean heard the tribute grunt beneath him, heard Jimmy call his name, heard the rapid beating of his own heart and the fiery sharp intake of breath his lungs sucked down as something pierced his side: barely more than a little prick at first, and then an explosive fountain of pain, pain that swallowed the whole world, white fading into black.

The next thing he knew, he was back in the woods, lying in the leaves and staring up at Jimmy’s frowning face. His hands flew with shocky panic to his chest, but the flesh felt solid: his shirt was torn, and beneath the ripped fabric he could see a thin red line below his ribs. “Don’t worry,” Jimmy said, “it was just a scratch.”

“What happened?” Dean said, pushing himself up and looking around in confusion.

“We both made some very foolish choices,” said Jimmy, voice tight.

“Yeah, but—” He stabbed me, Dean wanted to argue. I was stabbed. He remembered it: and yet the marks on his body told a different story. He made himself redirect his attention elsewhere. “Let me see your head.”

Jimmy squinted down at him. “It was just a—”

“—A scratch, yeah. Lucky us.” Dean frowned. “You got a lot of people praying for you back home or something?”

Jimmy let out a short breath. “I highly doubt it.”

Dean tried standing up: he was surprised to find that he felt pretty okay, certainly better than he had since Tom started kicking him in the ribs the day before. Except… “Where’s Jo? And Madison?”

“They were not where we left them,” Jimmy reported. “I suspect they are hiding somewhere. We need to find them before nightfall.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed, “I definitely don’t want them wandering around on their own in the dark.”

Jimmy didn’t reply, and while Dean certainly hadn’t found him to be chatty, he was surprised by the sudden silence. “What?” Dean said.

“I’m pondering which way we should go,” Jimmy answered eventually.

Dean was pondering that, too. “Okay,” he said after a minute. “We’d talked about going back to the cave later. I bet that’s where she’s headed.”

Jimmy nodded. “I suppose that sounds logical.”

To Dean’s surprise, he found himself stifling a snort. “What?” it was now Jimmy’s turn to ask.

“‘I suppose that sounds logical’—you’re a funny guy, Jim. Anybody ever tell you that you’re a funny guy?”

“No,” said Jimmy, definitively. And then, his mouth twisting down, “And my name isn’t Jim.”

“Sorry,” Dean said, though he wasn’t sorry at all—he was, in fact, ready to start calling Jimmy “Jimbo.” But looking at the puzzled expression on the other boy’s face, Dean’s mind suddenly fast-forwarded, saw the look Jimmy would surely give him at the end. If one or both of them wasn’t dead by then, there would have to be a moment, a final moment when one of them turned on the other: when Jimmy struck Dean down like he had Walt and Duane, or when Dean took his knife and stabbed Jimmy in the back. Because it wasn’t going to be either of them, winning this thing. Neither of them was getting out of this place alive.

“Come on,” Dean said, turning sharply, his empty stomach rolling. He started cutting a path back toward the cave, not bothering to see whether Jimmy was following or not.

They’d been walking for about twenty minutes without speaking when Dean heard something: nothing much, a tiny rustle, but it was enough to make the hunter’s instincts his mother had trained into him stand up and take notice. Dean moved slowly down to a crouch, hand gripping the handle of the knife he still had tucked in his boot. “Jim—” he started, and got no further, mocking replaced by alarm as he heard another rustle in the branches right above his head. Dean dropped and rolled to the side, but Jimmy—solid, steady Jimmy—remained still, and thus it was Jimmy who ended up with a machete pointed at his throat.

He seemed pretty calm about it. Much calmer than Dean, who kept low, his knife thrust forward, closing their trio of bodies into a loose triangle. “Don’t move,” Dean told the tribute with the machete.

“Uh-uh,” the kid said. Dean recognized him from the interviews: he was the guy who had told the sob story about his sister, swearing vengeance. “I think it’s pretty clear that I’m the one in charge here.”

Dean shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “I dunno. I think if you had the balls to kill anybody, you’d have done it already.”

The other tribute chuckled. “You hear that, buddy?” He took a step toward Jimmy. “Your friend seems pretty comfortable, betting with your life.”

Jimmy’s eyes met Dean’s, blue and glassy. “He’s not my friend.”

Dean’s stance didn’t waver. It didn’t.

The other tribute laughed. “Isn’t this nice? Gotta love that about the Games: they’re a great place to see people’s true colors come out. Now,” he told Dean, “give me everything you’ve collected, starting with that knife.”

“Right,” Dean said with a snort. “And then I’m sure you’ll just let us go on our merry little ways. What’s the matter? That’s a pretty big blade you’ve got there—do you not know how to use it?”

Machete guy tried inching forward again: Dean mirrored him. “You know what I think, Jimmy?” Dean said. “I think he’s too afraid to actually fight us. Wave it around all you want,” Dean told the other tribute, “but unless you’re prepared to actually shove it in—”

Dean had him: he was sure of it. Any second now, the guy was going to give up on Jimmy and lunge at Dean, and then Dean would be able to take him. Probably. But he never got to find out, because just then a voice Dean recognized shouted, “Gordon! Dean! What are you doing?”

To his surprise, they both turned on Madison and hissed, “Shh!”

That reduced the tension somewhat, although Dean certainly didn’t lower his weapon. “Gordon” didn’t, either, returning his focus to Dean as he snapped, “Stay out of this, Madison! I told you that once we entered the arena, you were on your own, and I meant it!”

“But I’m not alone. These are my friends!” Madison said.

Dean was relieved to hear that somebody thought so. He was even more relieved to see Jo appear at the top of the rise behind Madison, figure outlined against the rising moon: she looked fine, although her crossbow was gone. There was a story there, Dean thought, his stomach tensing again—and probably not a good one.

“We have an alliance,” Madison continued. “You can join with us, if you want.” Which, uh, no, Dean was thinking, but he’d start smiling and nodding if it meant Gordon stopped waving that machete around.

“We can still do my idea,” Madison said. “Once everyone else is gone, our group: we can go sit in the middle of the square and hold hands and refuse to finish the Game. They can’t make us kill anyone.”

“You’re—” crazy, Dean was sure Gordon was about to say, but then the horn sounded and he obediently sank to his knees with the rest of them. Except Jimmy, Dean realized halfway through the Salve Regina the first blast signified. Jimmy was still on his feet, his head raised blasphemously high, his lips not even pretending to mouth the words. He was staring at Madison, watching her like he really did think she was crazy—even dangerous.

Dean decided to ignore him—Jimmy who wasn’t his friend. He went back to counting Salves; they were on their third when suddenly the ordered lines of prayer were interrupted by an inhuman snarl. Dean looked up in time to see Madison leaping on Gordon—only she didn’t look like Madison anymore. She looked hunched and feral: just like the thing Dean had shot with one of Jo’s arrows the night before. She had pinned Gordon to the ground and Dean could hear him screaming, see his blood gushing out onto the leaves. Madison had ripped his throat open with her teeth.

Dean was still staring in shock when Jimmy strode forward and clinched his elbow tight around Madison’s neck. Dean saw her rear up, saw her hands seize on Jimmy’s arm, digging in with impossibly long nails. And he saw the moment when Jimmy’s control slipped, when Madison, her elongated teeth bared in a snarl, managed to twist her body sharply enough to throw Jimmy off. He skidded backward across the ground, a look of surprise on his normally placid face.

Dean darted forward without thought, aiming toward where Gordon lay on the ground, still gurgling. But Jo beat him there. She picked up the machete, met Dean’s gaze, and tossed it to him so that Dean didn’t even have to think when he reached out: it thunked into his hand, hilt first. He spun around, saw Madison lunging at Jimmy, and he struck.

The feel of the blade going in was horrible, worse than the sink of the knife into the red-haired tribute’s chest. Dean would have pulled back, but on some instinctive level he knew that an aborted motion would be worse. The blade was sharp, the slice true. Madison’s body crumpled to the ground, and Dean looked away, telling himself that she had already been gone.

He walked over to where Jimmy sat propped on his elbows, extending the machete instead of his hand. “You knew this would happen,” he said.

“I told you she was beyond saving.” Dean thought for a moment that there might be something, a waver of sympathy, of sorrow, in Jimmy’s voice. But he told himself he was probably only hearing what he wanted to hear.

“Man, there is something broken in you,” Dean said. He backed away, still holding the machete tight. “Come on, Jo,” he said, pulling up next to her, feeling a wash of relief just being at her side. “Let’s find somewhere to hole up for the night.”

Jo didn’t argue with him. She looked a little like she might be in shock, but she took the knife Dean handed her, adjusted it in her grip with ease. “I think I know a spot,” she whispered to him. Dean nodded, followed her.

He looked back over his shoulder once as they cut between the trees. Jimmy was on his knees now, as he had not been for the Salve Regina. His wide blue eyes tracked after them, watching, but he made no attempt to follow.

Part I / Masterpost / Part III

DCBB Fic: Bird of Paradise (Part I)

trinityofone — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 03:47:36 GMT

A soft rain had just begun to fall when they called Sam's name. Sam stiffened, his narrow back going rigid; then he lurched forward a step. A step and only a step: Dean grabbed his shoulder and held him, forced him back. The crowd had already parted, leaving a path clear between the two Campbells and the platform. Ignoring the clutch of Sam's hands on his jacket, Dean lifted his head and looked down the open aisle. “I volunteer. I volunteer as tribute,” he said.

Later, Dean would know that Sam begged him not to go, that Ellen squeezed his hand, that Bobby patted him on the shoulder. Their actual words, though—their gestures, the expressions on their faces—they blurred into Dean's dizzying walk up to the platform, the mayor and the representative from the Capitol shaking his hand. The world only snapped into focus again when he heard the second name called. Staring wide-eyed at Jo as she pried herself away from Ellen's arms and walked shakily up the human corridor: that was when Dean knew that he wouldn't be coming home again.

In the seconds after taking Sam's place in the reaping, Dean may have half-considered the notion that he might defeat the twenty-three other tributes and win himself and his brother a place in Paradise. But now Jo was climbing up the platform steps, two years younger than Dean and with no one to stand for her. “We are honored to present the tributes from District 12!” the representative from the Capitol announced, and Dean felt her hand grip his, urge it aloft. On the other side of her, he caught a glimpse of Jo, trying anxiously to snag his attention. He nodded at her, as reassuring as he could be. I'll get you through this, he thought. His volunteering had a double purpose now. It kept Sam safe here at home, and earned him passage into the arena beside Jo. He'd make certain she won the Games, or he'd die trying.

No matter what, he would die by trying.

When the hosannahs were finished and the Capitol's soldiers hustled him and Jo away from the crowd and into custody, Dean didn't once look back.

They let him see Sam one last time before the shuttle left. He came alone, an apology on his lips. “Bobby tried to get a dispensation but they said family only. So, um. He told me to give you this.”

Dean was not entirely surprised when Sam leaned forward and cuffed him lightly on the back of the head. “Yup,” Dean said, forgetting for a moment not to laugh, “that sounds like him.”

“He's proud of you,” Sam said in a whisper.

Dean swallowed, hard. “You'll make me proud, too, won't you?”

The question didn't need to be answered. Dean was already so proud of his brother it made him feel kind of sick. Beneath his floppy fall of hair, Sam's eyes were shining—he was clearly fighting hard against himself, refusing to cry. Dean reached forward and ruffled his hair, then gave in and pulled him close. Dean knew Sam was growing up, but he still felt so small in Dean's arms. At thirteen, he wasn't even at the youngest age eligible for reaping, but he was still Dean's little brother. He would always be Dean's little brother, even if everything that had happened today meant Sam had to grow up without him.

“You tell Ellen I'll look after Jo, all right?” Dean said, forcing himself to pull back; he knew their time was almost up.

Sam nodded. But then his lip quavered and he said, “It's not fair! You and Jo both! It's not fair for the Capitol to—”

“Hey,” Dean cut him off sharply, shooting an anxious glance around the “green room” where he'd been left to wait. “What kind of talk is that?”

Sam mumbled something that sounded like, “True talk.” Dean overrode him: “You're the man of the house now”—both caution and praise.

“The only of the house, you mean.” Sam took a shuddering breath.

“It's up to you to keep Bobby in line,” Dean said pointedly, forcing a grin. “Don't let him boss you around. You tell him I put you in charge, all right?”

Sam rolled his eyes as dramatically as only a thirteen-year-old can. “Right.”

“Okay.” Dean took a step back, starting the painful process of putting the necessary distance between them. Sam caught his wrist.

“Wait,” he said. “I have something for you.” He curled his fingers under his collar and pulled out a tightly knotted cord.

“No, Sammy, that's yours.” Dean stared at the little gold charm that swung between them. Dean knew it by sight, by touch: the sharp little weight that dug into his collarbone whenever he hugged Sam close. He first saw it almost nine years ago, when Sam had been “helping” Bobby make it in his workshop as a present for Dad. But they'd come from the Capitol to collect Dad before Sam could finish his gift, and after a time Sam had slowly graduated from carrying it everywhere in his fist to wearing it around his neck. It was practically a part of him.

“You're allowed to take a token into the arena,” Sam said. “This can be your token.” He pushed it at Dean's hand. “I want you to have it. Please.”

Like Dean would refuse Sam anything. “Okay. If you're sure,” he said.

Sam nodded, then watched carefully until Dean lowered the necklace over his head and let the charm fall with a soft thud against his chest.

The door opened behind Sam and Dean knew it was time. There was so much more he wanted to say, but he just managed a “Thank you” and a final nod, urging Sam to go with the guards without having to be physically removed. Sam kept his head held high and made it all the way to the door before he broke. Dean heard Sam shout, “Dean!” before the door slammed closed on his brother, and his old life, forever.

Dean had thought himself resigned, but as the shuttle lifted off, he felt a slippery worm of panic uncoil in his gut. “Hey,” Jo said from next to him. “Are you all right?”

He glanced over at her—her eyes were rimmed red and her cheeks looked blotchy from crying, but she seemed more composed, now, than he felt. She also looked suddenly, shockingly young. Yesterday, he'd been happy to duck Ellen's glares and flirt harmlessly with her—his almost-cousin who was becoming a woman, who was growing up. But today she looked like a child: still round-faced, apple-cheeked, her sweeping blonde hair not long out of pigtails. Had the reaping turned him into an old man? Intellectually, Dean knew that he himself was not much older than her, but all at once it felt like a lot. At seventeen, he'd be one of—if not the—oldest tribute in the Games. If Sam had been reaped not this year but next, Dean wouldn't have been allowed to stand for him at all.

Well. Good timing then.

“I'm fine,” Dean said, clutching the edge of the seat and taking a deep breath. “I just don't like flying.”

Jo didn't challenge him—at least not on that. Her eyes were clearly drawn to the gold charm pressed against his chest. “Sam gave that to you?” she asked.

Dean nodded.

“Mom gave me her pin,” Jo said, fiddling with the small silver object nestled against her collar. Dean had seen the pin before: a tiny disc depicting a bird with large, extravagant wings spread in flight. “Do you think...” Jo bit her lip, then started over. “Do you think they really have birds like this in Paradise?”

Dean stopped himself before he could say, They sure don't have them in New Eden. “I don't know,” he said instead, taking another measured breath. Then he turned and looked at her with a promise in his eyes: “But I bet you'll find out.”

The house—the mansion, Dean supposed, although until now he was only familiar with the word through Bobby's books—that the tributes were all brought to was architecturally very similar to the room where he'd had to say goodbye to Sam. The walls were impossibly white and edged with gold; the furniture was more of that same spindly stuff that made Dean nervous, like he might break a chair just by sitting his butt down in it. He and Jo were led up to a pair of chambers with a shared “sitting room” between them; each room was by itself bigger than Dean's whole house. He left Jo bouncing from her big, regal bed to the long, low sofa and shut the door to his own room. The other tributes were likely close by. Dean was not anxious to meet them.

To his relief, dinner that night was brought to their rooms. And what a dinner! There were fresh vegetables and fruits Dean had never seen before, and single pieces of meat bigger than what he was likely to eat in a month. It wasn't squirrel or chicken or rabbit, either, but something decadently fatty and rich. Dimly, Dean became aware that he and Jo were both emitting moans and groans, smacking their lips like animals. The staff made no comment, however. The pair of them stood against the wall by the door, staring off into the middle distance. Almost as if they couldn't see anything at all.

It might have killed Dean's appetite, but with food like this in front of him, nothing could.

When they woke him the next morning, he felt heavy and sluggish, but he still couldn't say he regretted it—nor did it stop him from attacking breakfast with similar gusto. Fresh berries! Sausages! Some sort of sweet syrup to pour over the porridge and pancakes—and hell, the sausages and berries, too. “Oh,” said Jo at one point, her mouth impossibly full. “I wish that Mom—”

She stopped; for a moment they both stopped. When he wasn't chewing, it was dangerously quiet in Dean's head.

They didn't speak for the rest of the meal.

After breakfast, Dean and Jo were separated, each taken to be made ready for the introductions and interviews that afternoon. Dean knew that he'd be seeing Jo again in a couple of hours—that she was the safest, at least for right now, that she had ever been in her life. It still made him nervous, and he was distracted and twitchy the entire time he was being poked and prodded and made-up and dressed. Dean knew he should feel humiliated—he was not some little girl's cornhusk doll—but could barely bother. He enjoyed the hairdresser’s unsatisfied frown: “You're not really giving us much to work with.” They would have had a lot of fun with Sam, Dean thought, smirking a little. Tough.

When whoever was in charge decided that Dean looked sufficiently ridiculous, he was reunited with Jo and the two of them found themselves herded into a little open-air chariot. Dean started: apparently, it had been someone's bright idea to shove Jo into a tight red dress that was much too mature for her. He blushed and glanced away. Theirs was the last carriage in line, so he only had the backs of the two tributes from District 11 to look at. It was a boy and a girl, of course, both of whom looked about fifteen or sixteen. The boy had his arm around the girl's shoulder: as Dean watched he leaned in and whispered something in her ear, and her face turned up toward his in a smile. Dean was glad when the carriages started up and gave him some new scenery to look at.

Like the food, the architecture of District 1 was a feast. The buildings were tall and vast and shining. They clung nobly to the sides of the hills and spilled like a gleaming marble waterfall down to the center of the Capitol, up whose main avenue the parade of tributes was being led. It was a lot to take in: on several occasions he heard Jo gasp, and he himself may have sucked in some heavy breaths. They could see people lining up on either side of the road to watch them pass: stoic faces watching from windows, orderly queues of citizens taking their turns to come to the front of the crowd and look out. No one pushed or jostled one another. They passed through the city in polite silence.

“Do you think your dad...?” Jo whispered at one point.

Dean said, “Shh.”

The chariots came to a stop in a broad arc before the Citadel. Attendants and various Capitol representatives of higher standing—Dean recognized the woman who had performed District 12's reaping—led the tributes onto a vast, elevated stage. There were twelve seats arranged in a curve on each side, and an additional two in the middle. Dean had watched the Games every year of his life—it was mandatory—so at least he had a passing familiarity with this part. Yet despite the danger of being eligible for reaping, every year for the past five...in his heart of hearts, had he ever really expected that it would be him, up here?

As usual, the tributes were arranged by district, so once again he and Jo were on the far end. Dean could see her stretching her neck, trying to get a look at their competitors. Dean had no desire to look at all. If at all possible, he'd prefer to be rendered entirely deaf for the duration of these interviews.

The crowd rose and issued a set of perfectly-timed hosannas, and in an eyeblink the Prophet appeared at the center of the stage. The Prophet had always been a puzzle to Dean: unlike everything else in the Capitol, of the Capitol, he wasn't polished, wasn't perfect. Some of the older people in Dean's district complained that the interview segment of the Games had been better under the auspices of the last Prophet, but Dean had to agree with his mom. “I like how human he is,” she had said once—one of the few comments he could remember her making about the Games. Mandatory or not, Dean's mother had always seemed to find a way of watching less of the festivities than most.

For the most part, Dean was glad she wasn't going to have to watch him take part in them now.

The Prophet waved to the crowd. Up close, Dean could see what, back home, he had gotten glimpses of on the screens: the motion was slightly awkward, the smile on the Prophet's face sort of weirdly forced. He did everything that was required of him, though: welcomed them all to the annual Games, gave a brief speech about sacrifice and the covenant the Games represented, then ambled back to one of the two center seats. The first tribute, a slim, dark-haired boy from District 1, crossed the stage and sat beside him. The interviews began in earnest, but Dean did the best he could to tune them out.

He caught bits and pieces, however: inevitably, inescapably. The girl from District 2 who spent her entire interview close to tears. The scarily intense guy from District 7 who revealed that his sister had been a tribute in the Games two years before, and that he planned to win to avenge her. The girl from District 8 who flirted with the Prophet shamelessly and had Dean rolling his eyes—until she was stopped on the way back to her seat and it became apparent that she had somehow lifted the Prophet's notecards. And the couple from District 11, the ones Dean had seen in the carriage in front of him and Jo. They really were a couple: “We just got married,” the girl, Tamara, announced, smiling radiantly, flashing the small silver band of her token, her wedding ring. “Despite everything,” said her husband, Isaac, “we feel like we've been blessed by cherubs.”

It was a hard act to follow. Dean didn't really care about what he knew he was supposed to be courting with these interviews: people's prayers, a little extra help and power and luck in the arena. He felt numb, dead inside, and he didn't care what the people of the Capitol, what all of New Eden, might think of him. But he couldn't go to center stage scowling. Sam was watching. Sam would see.

He straightened his shoulders, held his head high, forced a grin. “I'm here for my brother,” he confirmed, when the Prophet pointed out that he was the only tribute this year who had not himself been reaped, but was standing for someone else. “And I'm here for Jo,” he added, finding it hard not to be honest under the weight of the Prophet's stare—though up close his twitching was even more visible, and he smelled like the still Ellen thought he didn't know she kept in the basement.

It dawned on Dean, sudden and fast, that his face was everywhere just now, across all of New Eden: everyone he'd ever known and everyone he could ever possibly hope to meet was watching him right this minute, perhaps hearing evidence of the noticeable lump in his throat. He forced his grin wider. “And for those little meat sandwich things they served at dinner—have you ever tried one of those? Man. I can see why we don't have those out in District 12. They're like sin in the making.”

The crowd had already been maintaining a respectful silence, outside of appropriately-timed hosannas, but now Dean would swear you could hear a pin drop. The girl from District 8 leaned forward and winked at him.

“Of course,” Dean heard himself say—surprised at himself, but also sort of pleased; after all, what did he have to lose? “We don't have much of anything in District 12...”

Dean grinned and grinned as the Prophet coughed and quickly changed the subject.

The interview did not continue for much longer after that. Jo raised an eyebrow at him as they passed each other on the way to and from their seats; she also brushed her fingers, gently, across the skin of his wrist.

Jo's interview was much more traditional than Dean's, but Dean could not have been prouder of her, or more honored to be in her company. She came off as strong, but not cocky; mature, but still girlish. She made fun of the dress they had stuck her in: “I hope they give me something else to wear in the arena. Or at least put all the boys in these, too.” Dean watched her, smiling bravely in that skimpy red thing, and thought that if that was the worst surprise planned for them, they should all consider themselves lucky.

After Jo returned to her seat, the Prophet thanked them all, gave a short closing speech, and then vanished. Dean stared at the Prophet's face in the moment before he was spirited away. He wondered if he already knew: which of them would be the first to fall; how many of the children on this stage would die by the end of the first day.

It was almost all Dean could think about as they were whisked back to the mansion and conveyed, all twenty-four of them, to a large room with a long table at its center. The table was overflowing with food. Most of the tributes didn't hesitate, but descended on the bounty like a plague of locusts. Dean couldn't stop seeing everyone around him as a room full of walking corpses, but even he didn't hesitate for long.

Dean heaped a plate with food, including those meat sandwiches he'd liked so much, and retreated to a corner. He was sitting there, stuffing his face, when Jo tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey,” she said. “Let's mingle.”

“Mingle?”

She nodded. “We should get to know everybody.”

Dean wiped sauce off his face and stared at her. “Why would we want to do that?” he hissed.

The careful smile she'd been wearing dropped off Jo's face. “Know thy enemy, Dean.”

Dean swallowed. He kept telling himself that in the arena, he was going to protect Jo, that his one job would be to look out for Jo. But here she was, already looking out for both of them while he hid in the corner. He felt ashamed.

He took a deep breath and bobbed his head. “Yeah, okay.”

Jo took the plate out of his hand and left it on the seat he'd been using, then took Dean by the elbow and guided him across the room to where a pretty, smokey-eyed girl was waiting. “Pamela,” Jo said, “this is Dean. Who I was telling you about.”

The look Pamela gave him was frankly terrifying coming from a fourteen-year-old. “You weren't exaggerating.”

Dean shot Jo a startled look. Jo rolled her eyes, seemingly content to ignore them both. “Pamela's from District 1,” she said, elbowing him gently.

He'd been paying more attention during the interviews than he'd thought: “Right, you're the psychic,” he said. Then before he could stop himself: “Does that mean...”

Pamela rolled her eyes just like Jo did—like teenage girls everywhere did, it seemed. “That I know who's gonna win? Of course not. If I were Prophet material I wouldn't be here, would I?” Her breath hitched a little between the last two words, but that was all: he had to give her credit.

“Tough break,” he said. He knew as well as—or maybe better than—anyone how difficult it was to get one of the dispensations that removed your name from the reaping. Only those with truly irreplaceable Talents, or who carried very special bloodlines, could earn them. In seventeen years, Dean had only met one person who had.

He didn't want to think about that, though. Better to try to follow Jo's lead: he smiled at Pamela. “Met anyone else particularly interesting?”

She pursed her lips and looked around the room. “Well, Tamara and Isaac are both really nice, but you don't have to be psychic to know that's not gonna end well.”

“What do you mean?” Dean said—though the last thing he needed was to have it spelled out for him.

Pamela stated the obvious for him anyway. “At best, one of them's gonna have to sacrifice him or herself for the other. Still,” she mused, “maybe they were smart, getting married. At least that means that before they die, they'll get to—” And here her worldly bravado abruptly failed her. “You know,” she finished, sounding much more her age. “Do it.”

“Uh...” said Dean.

“What about the boy from your district?” Jo asked, cuddling close to Pamela as if the two of them had known each other all their lives and were best friends. “He's kind of cute.”

“Oh, Jimmy?” said Pamela, distractedly. “Yeah, I guess. I don't really know him.” She glanced back and forth between Jo and Dean. “District 1's a lot bigger than District 12, I guess.”

Jo nodded, accepted this, moved on. “What about that guy?” She pointed to a scruffy kid who was methodically working his way through a plate of food and seemingly half paying attention to the small, dark-haired girl standing next to him.

Pamela shrugged. “Want to go talk to him?”

“Sure!” Jo winked at Dean. Pausing to snag another sandwich from the table, Dean trailed after them.

The other two tributes had just introduced themselves as Andy and Ava, District 3, when a voice cut silkily through the noise. “Pardon the interruption, kids.”

Dean turned. Everyone in the room, he knew without looking, turned. An unremarkable-looking man in a formal black suit stood in the center of the room, at the head of the long table. There was not a single individual thing that under normal circumstances would have made Dean give him a second glance, but all the little details added up to something he couldn't ignore. From his place between Pamela and Jo, Dean tensed. He knew what this man was.

The man in the suit was glancing around at them, a parody of a smile on his face. His eyes raked over the picked-over display of food on the table. “So nice to see you've all had a good graze,” he said, cheerily. “Now, however, it's time to get down to business! As I'm sure some of you are slowly realizing, I'm the single most important person any of you have ever met in your precious young lives.” His voice danced playfully on the edge of sarcasm. “I am your Gamemaster,” the man said. “But we're all friends here, right? So why don't you just go ahead and call me Zachariah.”

Dean thought for sure that nobody was going to say anything; he certainly didn't plan to. But into the silence, a voice broke, practically purring: “Hi, there, Zach.” Dean glanced over: it was a girl with choppy blonde hair and a smirk—District 5, he thought. Know thy enemy. Jo was right: now they both knew to watch out for that one.

“Charming,” Zachariah said, his grin not faltering. He straightened up, rubbed his hands together briskly. “Now, I don't want to take up too much of your time,” he continued. “I'm sure you'll find that the friendships you make in this room will last...well. The rest of your lives. But just a few quick little reminders. Tomorrow morning you'll all be transported to a new, specially chosen arena. I designed it myself, just for you! And as I'm sure you'll discover once you get there, there are a lot of surprises in store. So make sure not to step out of your individual protective circles until you hear the signal that Gameplay has officially begun, or you won't get to enjoy them all! Also, remember that all of you are a team—don't be afraid to work together! Unfortunately, though, folks, only one of you can make it to Paradise. But I believe in all of you, I truly do. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this turns out.”

Zachariah glanced around the room, carefully taking the time, it seemed, to look each and every one of them in the eye. He smiled, folded his hands behind his back. “So that's simple enough, huh? Any questions?”

Dean didn't expect anyone to say anything this time, either. At most, maybe the creepy blonde girl would make another lewd remark. So he was doubly surprised when it was a quiet, but resonant male voice that broke the silence. “You enjoy this, don't you?”

Zachariah's expression darkened momentarily. Dean followed his narrowed gaze to the other side of the room. The boy from District 1 stood by himself, looking solemn but unafraid. He met the intensity of the Gamemaster's stare with ease.

“Jimmy, is it?” Zachariah said, scratching at his temple. “From our very own Capitol, I believe. Hmm. Well, to answer your question, Jimmy, I do enjoy doing my duty. But even if I didn't, I would do it anyway. It's hardly my place to question things. Don't you think?”

They stared at each other for another moment. Dean found he was strangely disappointed when Jimmy eventually glanced down, looked away.

“All right!” said Zachariah, perky again. “I leave you all to wish each other night-night and get yourselves tucked in. Sweet dreams, everyone!”

He slipped away. Silent servants swept in after him, coaxing or prodding everyone back up to their rooms. It felt very close now, all of a sudden. Almost upon them: like a great, foul-mouthed beast breathing down their necks. From the expressions on the other tributes' faces, they'd all begun to hear vast, invisible clocks tick-tick-ticking down.

Beside Dean, Jo looked rattled; she was having a hard time hiding it. The door to their rooms closed softly behind them, and in the silence she turned to him, her eyes wide, a quiver to her lip. “This could be our last night alive,” she said. “Dean...”

Images collided in Dean's brain: Isaac and Tamara, leaning on each other; Pamela whispering, Do it; Lisa and Cassie, back home, how easy it had been to exchange little looks, small touches, when they all knew it didn't, couldn't mean anything. Then: his mom and dad, on some distant, faintly remembered morning, kissing in front of the little stove, curling their fingers together. And Jo, a little girl, running beside him through the woods, watching as he checked his traps, getting holes in her clothes that Ellen yelled at him for.

He loved her. Sam, Bobby, Ellen, Jo: these were the people that he loved, that he would die to protect. His family.

She had taken his hand, curled her slim fingers around his wrist. She looked him in the eye. “Dean,” she whispered. “Please.”

He shook his head, drew back a little if not all the way. “Jo, I can't. You're like a sister to me, I—”

Her eyes went suddenly wide. She let go of him, her hand leaping to her mouth. “Wait, you thought— No! No no no no no, Dean! Dean.” She took his hand again, twined her fingers through his as he stood there, staring. “I just don't want to be alone.”

“Oh,” he said. Then he shook his shoulders, straightened them. “I was just saying, you know—only if you don't snore.”

“I don't snore,” she told him, mock offended.

“That's not what I hear...”

He followed her into her room, watched her sprawl across the big white bed and then crawled up awkwardly beside her. The bed was so large that they could lie side by side on the pair of fluffy white pillows and not even come close to touching. But that was hardly the point of this. After a moment's adjustment, Dean gave her the nod and Jo inched closer, nestling her head against his collar bone. Dean had held Sam just this way, he thought: after their father was taken, the night their mother died.

“Don't do anything stupid tomorrow,” Jo whispered, her breathing slowing against his neck. “Promise me.”

“I promise,” Dean said. He didn't think for a second that there was anything stupid about saving her, about dying so that she and Sam could live. He was at peace about it.

Peaceful enough that he slept through the night, him and Jo: curled together so tightly it seemed like nothing could tear them apart.

The morning came too quickly; of course it did. Dean and Jo were woken, given plain work pants and drab t-shirts, and told to put them on. “I'm glad they didn't take your suggestion about the dresses,” Dean called over his shoulder as he was escorted, with only the mildest of reactions, back to his own room. He put on the clothes quickly, because there was nothing else for him to do.

He expected they'd be taken down to the carriages next, driven to another shuttle and from there to the arena. But instead Dean finished dressing only to turn around and find Zachariah standing there. The Gamemaster grinned. “Dean Campbell, District 12,” he announced, like this information might be new to Dean. “Let the Games begin!”

Then before Dean could speak a single word, the Gamemaster reached forward and tapped him lightly on the forehead.

Suddenly Dean was somewhere else.

He lurched slightly in place before catching himself: the blood-red sigils that circled his feet gave him no room for such carelessness. Doing his best to calm his breathing, Dean straightened up and looked around him. Unlike last year, when the Games had taken place in a densely-wooded forest, or the year before, when they had been conducted on a small island, this arena appeared to be a town. A long-abandoned town: the wooden buildings that surrounded him looked rundown to the point of decomposition. Window frames were lined with spikes of shattered glass; the buildings' walls were patchy, their boards splintered and warped. An old windmill loomed over the far end of the square, its arms creaking and turning, even though the air felt stagnant and still, without a hint of a breeze.

The square itself was mapped out with a ring of twenty-four circles identical to the one on which Dean was standing, and when Dean glanced back down, he saw that other stunned, wide-eyed tributes had appeared inside them. A few yards away, closest to Dean on his left, the tall male tribute from District 2 stood with shoulders stiff, like he was waiting at attention. Two was a district of soldiers, Dean remembered. He would veer away from his left when the signal came, he decided; although no tribute had yet appeared in the circle to his right, so for all he knew he could be running toward something worse.

Forget the other tributes: he'd run straight to Jo once the Games began. He could see her now, directly across the ring from him, her chest heaving but her head held high. They made eye contact and Dean felt a small bubble of relief rise effervescent in his chest. They could do this. He could: he could run straight to her and—

The air in the center of the ring shimmered, mutated, took shape. Suddenly, where there had once been a patch of empty, dusty ground, there was a massive pile of weapons. Dean could see knives of varying lengths, swords, spears, a bow and a quiver of arrows; deadly instruments whose names he didn't know, or that he'd only ever seen referenced in Bobby's books. He knew without looking that the eyes of every tribute in the ring were on them, too: assessing them with anticipation or with fear. Across the circle, he could see Jo biting her lip. He wanted to scream at her: It's not worth it; it's going to be a bloodbath for anyone who goes to the center of the circle. Run and hide; I'll get us some protection and find you... But the circles of sigils on which they all stood, he knew from previous years, were noise-sealed. All Dean could do was shake his head, hope Jo saw him and understood.

What was taking so long? Dean clenched his fists at his sides. All the tributes were here now, but the signal hadn't come. Was the Gamemaster trying to see if any of them would die merely from anticipation? Dean told himself he was fine, he was calm and in control, but his heart was racing in his chest. Let's just get this over with!

A sudden movement at his side drew his eyes. The soldier from District 2 had his mouth open, was screaming something wordlessly. Dean followed his gaze across the ring just in time to see the girl in the spot next to Jo raise her face to the sky before deliberately stepping beyond the circle of sigils and onto the open ground.

Her feet never even touched down. A crackle sounded across the silent square and the girl erupted into flames. One second she was a column of screaming fire; the next she was ash.

Lily. That had been her name. Dean remembered her from the interviews, teary-eyed and shaky-voiced through every one of the Prophet's questions. Just yesterday, Dean had watched her stumble back across the stage to her seat next to the soldier boy, who was now standing next to Dean with shock cracking briefly across his otherwise stony features. And now she was dead.

The signal sounded, a horn blowing long and low out of nowhere and everywhere. It didn't come as the relief it might have a few minutes ago. The sigils dissolved at Dean's feet, and he tensed, shook himself. He had to get his head in the game. He had to move.

He took off toward the center of the ring, the cache of weapons. Fortunately, most of the other tributes seemed shaken, as well—not as fast off the block as they might have been. Dean tore forward, trying to keep an eye on the people closing in on each side: soldier-boy and a tiny pigtailed blonde, whom Dean remembered only as the youngest tribute in the games. Her small legs were pumping furiously, determinedly; Dean tried to imagine reaching the weapons first and turning one on her, but even as a fantasy, he couldn't see it through.

There were twenty-three of them now. Twenty-one tributes between Jo and Paradise.

Dean ducked low as he reached the cache, snatching up the bow and arrows with one hand, fumbling with the hilt of a knife with the other. Weapons in hand, he rose from his crouch and attempted to spot Jo. Before he could see anything, though, someone crashed into him from the side. Dean caught a glimpse of the male tribute from District 4's wild, red eyes before he flailed out with his elbow, catching the kid in the throat. Only then did Dean notice the axe blade embedded in the ground right next to his head.

Shuddering, Dean pulled himself back to a crouch. It was chaos all around him: tributes attempting to snatch weapons and then flee; others attacking here and now, snatching up a spear and driving it immediately into the ribs of the person beside them. Dean looked around for Jo, but he couldn't see her anywhere. Maybe she had understood him: had run for safety, and was now waiting for Dean to find her. The red-eyed, red-haired kid was still gurgling at Dean's feet, his fingers groping along the ground for the handle of the axe. Dean clutched his knife in his sweaty hand. Either way, he had to get out of here. He'd be no good to Jo dead.

Not yet, anyway.

He kicked the axe away and took off toward the nearest building. He was afraid to go inside—that was a good way to get cornered—but it didn't seem much safer out in this free-for-all. Pausing to peek around the corners, he snuck to the back of the structure, then leaned against the rough wooden wall and tried to regroup.

He'd only been there a few seconds when he heard the scuff of someone's boot on the sandy ground. He looked up, tensing, and once again, just barely avoided the flash of an axe blade coming toward his face. The blade skidded across the wall, sending splinters flying into the air. Dean dropped his bow, stumbling back. The red-haired kid recovered from his strike and lurched toward Dean again: his eyes were runny with tears, his nose streaming snot, but he seemed determined to finish Dean off. He swung again, wild. “Hey,” Dean panted, holding up one palm while keeping the other gripped tightly around his knife. “You don't have to do this. We don't have to—”

“Yes, we do,” the other tribute spat, half-hiss, half-whine. “We don't have a choice!”

Before Dean could think of a suitable response, the kid swung his axe again. This time Dean stepped toward the blow; moving almost without thought, he grabbed the short handle and shoved. He followed his fellow tribute as the red-haired kid's back connected with the wall; he followed with his knife-hand, too: stabbing upward and letting out a gasp when he felt pressure on the blade, felt it sink in, sharp edge parting the soft skin and stringy muscle it came in contact with. Briefly, Dean's mind flashed to killing rabbits, the occasional deer; he twisted the knife, jerked it free. His grip on the axe became easier to maintain.

The red-haired kid—he was probably fourteen or fifteen, Jo's age—coughed, his lips suddenly as red as his hair, as his increasingly vacant eyes. Even without Dean pressing him there, he seemed glued to the wall now, leaning against it. He gurgled, slowly sinking down.

Dean wanted to turn away. But he had to look. He had to be sure: and besides, he figured he owed it to, to...

The other tribute was staring back at Dean, his gaze unwavering even as it narrowed. He didn't say, Told you—or anything at all. He didn't have to.

Dean wiped clean his bloodied blade and tried to think. His mind wouldn't focus, however. He kept picturing Sam, watching the Games back home, Bobby and Ellen and likely many others around him. Had they seen, had Sam seen? Not yet, Dean decided: the feed was probably still focused on the chaos at the weapons cache. But that night, when they did the daily recap: they would definitely show Dean's fight with the red-haired tribute then. And Sam would see.

Dean swallowed heavily. There was nothing he could do; he had to tell himself that Sam would know Dean was only doing this, fighting and killing—and soon, dying—so that Sam himself didn't have to. Under these circumstances, Sam would have to forgive him. Wouldn't he?

The dead kid in front of Dean had been right: none of them had a choice.

But there was still something Dean could do, and that was find Jo. But first he had to get out of here: he was far too close to the center of town, and the other tributes fighting over the cache would have to leave soon, if they hadn't already. Dean tucked his bow and quiver over his shoulder, adjusted his grip on the knife. He was conflicted about what to do with the axe: all three weapons together seemed cumbersome. And yet, he didn't want to leave it for someone else to use against him. After a few seconds' thought, he put his boot down on the axe's handle just below the head, then jerked the wooden handle up until it snapped under his weight. The blade was still sharp, of course, but it would be much harder to use like this. As an added precaution, Dean kicked some dirt over it.

The town where the Gamemaster had dropped them wasn't much more than a small cluster of buildings lining the square and the weapons cache. In front of him lay a small wooded rise. Dean thought about the days, the weeks, the years that he and Jo had spent navigating terrain just like that, feigning play and hunting food for their families on the sly. That's where she would head, he knew with sudden certainty. He tightened his grip on his weapons and headed into the trees, trying to pretend he couldn't feel bloodshot eyes beating into his back.

Dean was sure-footed in the woods, soft on his feet. He'd always been attuned to the sounds of the forest, able to detect the presence of animals while keeping his own presence hidden from them. He should be in his element here, but he felt twitchy and paranoid, overreacting to the slightest noise. If he wasn't careful, he'd give himself away.

He couldn't shake the feeling that someone was already watching him, though. Creeping quietly over the carpet of fallen leaves, he passed from narrow trunk to narrow trunk, ducking under branches and casting nervous glances over his shoulder. The air still felt stagnant and hot, but Dean would swear he felt a brief breeze like someone's cold breath on the back of his neck. He couldn't stop himself from touching a hand to the flushed skin: of course there was nothing there.

He focused his gaze forward again and now someone was.

It was a girl. Dean didn't recognize her as one of his fellow tributes, all of whose faces he was far too well acquainted with. In fact, there was something decidedly off about her, above and beyond her presence here. Instead of a shirt and pants, she was wearing a long grey dress. Her skin, too, had a greyish tinge to it. And her eyes...

They fixed on him, suddenly, an intense, penetrating stare. Then the girl—her whole body flickered, and then she was gone.

Dean stared at the spot where she had been for several seconds, too stunned to move. Then something cold as ice seized him by the back of the neck and lifted him up. Dean kicked out with his feet, flailed out with his knife, but none of it seemed to have any effect. He was shaken like a ragdoll, then hurled across the forest, his head escaping a sharp introduction to a tree trunk by only a fraction of an inch.

He lay in the moldering leaves, panting. The air in front of him seemed to jump and skip, and then the girl was leaning over him, her face twisted into a horrific sneering mask. Dean realized with growing horror that he'd dropped his knife at some point in the process of being tossed like a bale of hay; worse, he seemed to have landed on his bow when he fell, snapping it in half. Desperately, he scrambled to pull an arrow from his quiver, brandishing it in front of him like the world’s saddest spear.

The girl advanced, completely unafraid. Her outline flickered and blurred around the edges, but Dean knew by now that those reaching fingers were all too solid.

Then, with an impossible, inhuman shriek, they evaporated, the girl vanishing as if she'd been torn right out of the air. Dean let out a shocky breath and stared through the place she'd been. The male tribute from District 1 was standing in front of a tree a few yards away from him, pulling red-stained fingers away from the bark, which had a still-wet pattern of sigils drawn upon it. Dean's tongue stuttered in his mouth. “What— How did you—”

“That was a spirit. I don't like them.”

He looked both irritated and calm, or perhaps somehow resigned to his irritation. Dean remembered him—Jimmy, a name that didn't fit all—facing down Zachariah in the banquet hall. He was skinny as a rail and looked completely unimposing, but Dean knew without a doubt that he was one to watch out for.

But now he just spat “A what?” and struggled to his feet.

“A spirit,” Jimmy said, turning his back like he didn't care that Dean had a knife (somewhere). “A soul trapped between this world and the next. One of Zachariah's little 'surprises.'”

“How can—” Dean started, feeling overwhelmed by all the questions he wanted to ask—foremost among them needing to be, Are you going to try to kill me anytime soon? But then he heard a scream, a much more human scream. “Jo,” he breathed, dropping down on his knees again, scrambling among the fallen leaves for his fallen knife. The second his hand closed around the hilt, he was up and running.

Jimmy didn't follow, and Dean didn't much care.

He tore through the forest, as careless as he had recently been careful. Part of his brain tried to remind him that he didn't know what he was running into: he didn't even really know that it was Jo who was in trouble. But at some point in between stabbing someone in the chest and being attacked by a spirit, he'd let a tense animal panic work its way under his skin. Careful, rational thought had gone out the window.

It was a sloppy, irrational creature that followed a feminine scream into a clearing only to find the tribute who'd flirted with Zachariah standing by herself, crying bloody murder at nothing. She stopped as soon as she saw him, the scream cutting off and turning itself into a lazy yawn. She grinned at him, a mean, crinkle-nosed smile that made Dean's blood turn to ice. “Well, look at you. Seems we caught ourselves a hero, Tom.”

Dean's shoulder exploded. He fell to the ground, a cry of pain erupting from his throat. He rolled onto his back and tried to scoot away. The other tribute from District 5 loomed over him, thwacking a cudgel of some kind against his palm. Then he was striking out again, aiming at Dean's head. Dean attempted the same move he had made with the axe, darting up to meet the weapon, but his body wasn't moving right and he took another blow to the chest, tumbling back. He tried to get right back up again, but his lungs refused to take in enough air.

The girl was circling him, tisking to herself. “This is sort of sad,” she said. “I mean, you almost made it too easy. I'm not sure if I'm going to find this very satisfying.”

“I'm satisfied,” Tom said. He jabbed his boot into Dean's stomach.

For a second Dean was outside himself. He could see the way this would look, how it would look to Sam, back home, watching it, having to watch as his older brother lay curled on the ground, getting kicked to death. He imagined Sam watching, having this be the last image of Dean he'd see.

Something in him shorted out. Maybe it almost helped that he hurt so bad, because the pain of the cudgel against his already beaten shoulder barely registered when he lunged into it. He didn't try to grab it this time, but concentrated on throwing himself past it, past Tom entirely. He focused on the girl, reaching for her, howling. Somehow he managed to hook his arm around her throat, jerking her down to the ground with him. She clawed at him and bit, but he held on tightly, squeezing his bicep against her jugular. She was hurting him but he was already hurt. There was nothing to be gained by letting go.

He had an advantage of size and of weight: she was tiny and skinny, sixteen years old with a figure like a ten-year-old boy. His eyes on Tom, Dean dragged her backward and squeezed, squeezed and dragged her back. “I'll kill her,” he said. “Drop the weapon or I'll kill her.”

Seconds passed. They felt like hours. The girl made a choked noise; the pressure of her nails digging into Dean's arms was lessening every moment. Dean could feel Tom looking at him, then looking at her. He shrugged.

“Whatever. Saves me from having to do it later.”

For a second Dean's grip slipped. The girl let out a gasp: whether it was merely the result of air rushing back into her lungs or an expression of betrayal, Dean would never know. She took advantage of Dean's moment of distraction and elbowed him sharply in his already bruised ribs.

Dean let her go. Tom started forward. Then a whirr, followed by a wet thunk: suddenly blood was spraying down on Dean and the girl both. Tom dropped the cudgel, his fingers fumbling at the arrow sticking out of his throat. Then Tom dropped too.

The girl darted toward the weapon. “Stop.” She stopped: the voice was commanding, the loaded crossbow Jo held in front of her as she stepped into the clearing even more so. “Put your hands on top of your head and back away,” Jo said.

For a second, the girl hesitated. Jo adjusted her aim, stared her down. The girl cast one last look toward the ground—at Tom or the weapon, Dean couldn't be sure—before backing up, glaring like she was convinced she might any second develop the ability to hurl Jo back against a tree with the power of her mind.

“Stay there,” Jo told her. She kept the crossbow up but started toward Dean. Dean didn't see it happen, but there must have been a second when she took her eyes off the other girl. Dean pulled himself into a crouch in time to see her taking off through the trees at a run.

Jo had her crossbow aimed at the girl's back, but she never pulled the trigger.

“Sorry,” she said when she finally tore her eyes away, offering a hand down to him.

Dean took it, mostly to feel the truth of the fact that she was real, she was safe, she was here. “You're apologizing to me?” he said. He cast a glance toward Tom's body, crumpled at the center of the clearing with Jo's arrow protruding from its neck.

But Jo just shook her head, staring off into the forest in the direction the girl had run. “I should have followed through. We can't afford to be weak.”

Another bolt of pain twisted its way through Dean's body as he tried to orient himself again. He did feel weak, and stupid, Jo a cool pillar of competence in comparison. Dean bit his lip and bent over to retrieve his dropped knife—again—sucking back a gasp when he felt his ribs grind. “Nice grab on the crossbow there.”

“Thanks.” The smile Jo shot him was somewhat perverse; the last time he'd seen her make that face, he'd likely been complimenting a new scrap of ribbon she'd woven through her hair. “Is that knife all you've got?”

She was clearly trying to keep the judgment out of her voice, but Dean still didn't volunteer the information about the broken longbow, the abandoned axe. “Got this now, too,” he said, bending down again with another suppressed sigh of pain and snagging Tom's cudgel. He glanced up through the trees: the light, shifting through the branches, suggested that it was afternoon now, pushing toward early evening. “We should probably find somewhere to hole up for the night.”

Jo nodded. “I think the woods are probably safer than the town.”

“I don't know about that...”

Dean told her about the spirit while they took the precaution of putting some distance between themselves and the clearing. “That's messed up,” Jo concluded. “And I still think it seems like cheating: it's bad enough that we have to fight each other, but now we've got to look out for these spirits too?” Neither of them were naïve enough to believe that there would only be one.

“Least it's not like a couple years ago, when there were those...things in the water. Sam had nightmares for weeks.” Dean wasn't going to admit it, but he had, too.

Jo shifted her grip on her bow. “Yeah, speaking of water...”

Dean frowned. He'd been trying not to think about it, how hungry and thirsty he already was. Suddenly the huge meals they'd been served at the Capitol seemed twisted and cruel: a way to make everyone's used-to-deprivation bellies start to anticipate fullness, only to plunge them into a situation when the want would be worse than ever. “I haven't seen any animals in these woods,” Dean said, and he could tell from Jo's face that he was only confirming her observations and fears. “No evidence of water, either.”

“There's got to be something somewhere,” Jo said, although they both knew that wasn't true: there'd been a year, when they were much younger, when the arena had been a seemingly endless maze made of plain white walls with nothing in it, save the tributes. At least as many had died of starvation or thirst as had found ways to kill each other with their bare hands.

Eventually, Dean cut a couple of pieces of bark from the trees and they chewed on them as they walked, sucking out what little nutrition they could, but mostly out of a desire to fool their mouths and hopefully their stomachs. Dean did his best to stay alert, but to his surprise, hours passed without them encountering anybody else. Maybe all the other tributes had achieved what they hadn't been able to: found sustenance, found shelter, gone to ground.

“I hope Pamela's okay,” Jo said abruptly. At Dean's look of confusion, she shrugged. “I didn't see what happened to her after the signal went. And I guess...I really did like her.”

Jo hunched in on herself, suddenly a world away from the girl who had confidently proclaimed, We can't afford to be weak. “It's stupid, I know.”

“It's not stupid,” Dean said. “I liked her, too.”

He had. He really hoped someone else would kill her, so that he wouldn't have to.

Masterpost / Part II

Please help — looking for volunteers for a project to help the American hikers imprisoned in Iran

trinityofone — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 22:37:45 GMT

Serious business time: My father, who often does work for Amnesty International, is working on a film to help the American hikers who've been imprisoned in Iran for over a year. Unfortunately, his regular transcribers have suddenly become unavailable, and the deadline for which he needs to finish the film for it to make a maximum impact has moved up. He asked me if I had any friends (meaning RL friends) who would be willing to help with the transcription work. I told him I'd find a way to take care of it, because I knew I had an even better resource at my disposal: fandom has always been wonderful at donating its time and energy to charitable causes, and this is a case where your help would definitely be appreciated.

Here's my dad's description of the project:

Thanks very much for reaching out to your friends on behalf of the short pro-bono film I'm producing for the families of Josh Fattal, Shane Bauer, and Sarah Shourd. As you know, Shane and Josh have been unjustly imprisoned in Iran for 440 days. Sarah was released on September 14, after over a year in solitary confinement. We want to correct the misconceptions that still cling to what happened, vividly profile who they are - and make a powerful, comprehensive, internationally focused case for Josh and Shane's immediate release. We filmed Sarah's approximately 2 hour interview (plus a short exchange with her mother, and some B-Roll) on Sunday. I need to write the script ASAP, but first need transcriptions of the interviews. Balancing any tedium in the process is the importance of the effort, and Sarah's powerful story and personal character.

Fortunately, the film is divided into many short segments of about 5-10 minutes. This means each volunteer would only have to do a small portion of the work, which I'm working on a spreadsheet system to dole out. My dad has also made a template so that even if you've never done transcription work before, you should have no problem picking it up.

This is a very real way in which you could help this worthy cause. If you would like to volunteer, please comment on this post or email me at trinityofone AT gmail DOT com (ETA: And please include your email! Thanks!). (Please feel free to ask any questions through these same venues.) If you volunteer, I will send you a link, username, and password so you can download the assigned film file(s). (They're in .mov format—I'm not sure everything that plays on, but they work on Quicktime and VLC.) This is time sensitive, so if there's any way you could donate a bit of time and effort in the next couple days, it would be so appreciated! And please feel free to spread the word!

Thank you so much!

Aesc and Trin's Excellent Adventure

trinityofone — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 01:44:05 GMT

Hi, I'm alive! In fact, aesc and I are currently in the process of conquering New England. She just posted a collection of (much, much prettier) pictures, but of course I need to share my own unique take on the experience. So here are an obscene amount of photographs of wild animals, nature being grotesquely pretty, and yes, a mummy.

Our first stop in Boston was the New England Aquarium. These salmon are judging me for having eaten so many of their brethren.

George Washington thinks he's better than you.

Squirrel.

Spooky abandoned building in Boston vs. spooky abandoned fort in New Hampshire.

Weird.

aesc and...a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent?

This is what happens when you take your fashion cues from Michael Jackson, because I nearly moonwalked off this cliff.

This fish is just sleeping, right?

God wants you to make weird piles of stones.

We were in Portland when this guy ran up to me, shouted, "You really do exist!" and insisted I take a picture with him.

We visited the town where I grew up, which has a big waterfall at its center.

Such a pretty river...

...But don't swim in it.

"To Trin, it was always the tomato bisque."

This trestle bridge was a shortcut home from school. It always scared me to cross it. My knees would lock and I'd feel like I was about to tumble into the water.

I thought I'd triumph over this fear by crossing it now, as "an adult." But nope! Still as terrifying as ever!

This Ten Commandments sign used to greet me every morning on the way to school. Downer.

Too bad about the nightcrawlers, too.

[HIGH SCHOOL NOT PICTURED.]

What's with this Wicker Man shit? These were across the street from the cemetery and were much, much creepier.

"Are they now not together for a blissful eternity?" Why are you asking us? We didn't know them very well or anything.

Bummer.

Double bummer.

The town I grew up in gave a mummy a "proper Christian burial" because we're classy like that.

God is angry because you lined your stones up instead of making weird piles out of them.

Oh, fuck you, Nature. Seriously. Just stop.

Show off.

And then Nature's all like, "Whatever dude. You're gonna die, and I'm going to erode your gravestones till they just look like rocks, then eat your precious little cemetery with my ridiculously pretty trees. I win again, chumps!"

Okay, Nature. You win...for now.

Actually, nature's totally cheating by giving me awful allergies. But I will defeat them! For there are more adventures to be had tomorrow. Wish us luck!

Big Bang Fic: Immigrant Song (Dean/Castiel • Masterpost)

trinityofone — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 15:05:28 GMT

Title: Immigrant Song
Author: trinityofone
Artist: alchemise
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Goes AU after 5x21
Length: ~47,000 words
Warnings: Brief Dean/OFC, Cas/OFC, and Sam/OFC (not the same OFC); Anna/OMC (I know that's a deal-breaker for a lot of people...); Chuck/Becky; and Gabriel flirting with everyone. Temporary genderfuck. Crossdressing. Rimming. Lesbian nuns. Reckless driving. Lots of fun stuff!
Summary: A hypothetical season six in which Dean, Sam, and a newly-fallen Castiel encounter vengeful gods, secret societies, a box of dangerous magical artifacts, and something they're all going to pretend wasn't actually faeries. Meanwhile, Dean suffers a sexuality crisis, and Castiel has a secret that could change everything.

Episode 6x01:
The Rest of Their Lives
Episode 6x02:
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Episode 6x03:
White Lightning
Episode 6x04:
Take a Walk on the Wild Side
Episode 6x05:
What the Thunder Said
Episode 6x06:
The Man Who Was Thursday

Art Post
Notes & Acknowledgments

Big Bang Fic: Immigrant Song (Notes & Acknowledgments)

trinityofone — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 01:56:20 GMT

1. I am ridiculously grateful to aesc, bauble, radiobroadcast, siriaeve, and wychwood for all kinds of help and encouragement. I'd say, "Without them, this story would suck," but actually, it goes further than that: without them, this story wouldn't exist at all. I'm also grateful to alchemise for her beautiful artwork, including the above-and-beyond episode banners. Please show her some appreciation here.

2. I couldn't figure out a way to work Bobby or Crowley into this story. Bobby, as is mentioned, is on vacation. For those who desire it, it can be taken as written that Bobby and Crowley are on vacation together.

3. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. A novel by Milan Kundera. Which I haven't actually read! Classy.

4. “The whole point of the amnesia plot is for them not to realize they’re related so they get together and then even when they do find out they’re related they’re in love so they decide they don’t care and I read an awesome fic like that once.” Becky has good taste: she's talking about astolat's Under Hill, which is still my favorite Wincest story. I reread it after I completed this fic and realized I'd subconsciously stolen the cell-phones-as-means-of-identification thing directly from it. Uh. Becky would approve of “life” imitating art?

5. Latin by aesc! As usual, all dead languages are made 100 times sexier by passing through the lips of Misha Collins.

6. “White Lightning.” For what it's worth, this is a reference to Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady. “He glared at her a moment through the dusk, and the next instant she felt his arms about her and his lips on her own lips. His kiss was like white lightning, a flash that spread, and spread again, and stayed; and it was extraordinarily as if, while she took it, she felt each thing in his hard manhood that had least pleased her, each aggressive fact of his face, his figure, his presence, justified of its intense identity and made one with this act of possession. She had heard of those wrecked and under water following a train of images before they sink. But when darkness returned she was free.” There are two things to take away from this: 1) 19th Century literature is hot; and 2) Wasn't I nice to have Dean reject his white lightning kiss in the middle of the story and not at the end?

7. “Walk on the Wild Side,” Lou Reed. Shaved her legs and then he was a she—I don't really need to explain this, do I?

8. “Either you want to kill me or you’re beginning to like me!” So Sam's Luke, Dean's Han, and Gabriel's apparently making a stab for Princess Leia.

9. “What the Thunder Said”—From “The Waste Land” by T.S. Eliot. “Who is the third who walks always beside you? / When I count, there are only you and I together / But when I look ahead up the white road / There is always another one walking beside you / Gliding wrapped in a brown mantle, hooded.”

10. The Man Who Was Thursday. Seriously awesome novel by G.K. Chesterton. I really have read this one. I'm still trying to think of a non-creepy/stalkery way to slip it to Misha.

11. I love you really, Stargate.

12. Oh, and of course: title by Led Zeppelin.

Episode 6x06 / Masterpost / Art Post

Big Bang Fic: Immigrant Song (Episode 6x06)

trinityofone — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 01:34:50 GMT

He stepped outside the motel, closed the door softly behind him. He carried nothing of his own with him, just the one thing he needed. He did not look back.

“Brother,” Castiel said—softly, as if to himself. “I'm ready.”

The place was no place. Through his dim human eyes, Castiel saw it as little more than a large, dark space, vaguely ring-shaped, an altar at its center. Gabriel stood beside him, safe only in his familiarity. Other figures drifted in the dark, most remaining blurry and indistinct, sparking outlines of power, not fully comprehensible to mortal eyes. They were gods, and he was just a mortal, just a man. But not for long.

Gabriel touched his shoulder, whispered in his ear. “Suit up, brother. Show them that you mean it.”

Castiel didn't nod. He looked straight ahead. He took the weight of Megingjord, like a band around his waist. He opened the leather bag Gabriel had presented to him and slid his hands into the pair of iron gauntlets. His clenched fists felt cold.

Gabriel's smile flashed white in the dark. He stepped forward; he looked small, standing there, addressing this shadowy amphitheater of gods. But the voice that poured out of him was rich, so unlike the vessel-tempered whine that Castiel had almost grown used to. The language in which he spoke sent shivers through Castiel's body.

Gabriel asked the gods for their acceptance. He had told Castiel that he had every reason to expect that Castiel would receive it. Castiel knew that nothing was so certain, and that if he was denied, he would most definitely die.

A human life, cut short. It would be nothing to them.

What was it to Castiel—forty more years, thirty; a week, a day, or a minute? It would have been an eyeblink, a wingbeat to him once. Now there was so little time. It was not death that frightened him, but the thought of a life lived to no purpose. Could he really wake up every day—wake, after wasting so much time on sleep—not knowing what he ought to work to accomplish by day's end? Was that what it was, to live for himself? Could he really be that selfish?

Castiel had tried. He had pretended. He had taught himself to want until the skill mastered him. The secret, though, the secret that none of them told you—all those natural-born humans, brimming with free will—was that getting what you wanted was worse twice over than being denied. A desire fulfilled brought with it nothing but fear. What one had could all-too-easily be lost. Could be taken away. Could ebb and disintegrate and fade, just as he had been, these past few months, until there was almost nothing left of him. The face in the mirror was not him and he would never see himself again. What remained was less even than a shadow of himself. A shell. When it came to such things, even Dean Winchester could only fool himself for so long.

Castiel was through pretending. He could not surrender to fate, but he could give himself to this, lay down his life before a roomful of capricious gods.

They did not strike him down.

He stood taller. He breathed. “Go get 'em, tiger,” Gabriel whispered. And, “I'm proud of you.” Castiel walked past him without a word. It was time, and he was ready. At last he would be done with doubt.

“Stop.”

The voice rang out, clear and crisp. “I do not believe all of us have been given our say in this matter,” the woman—goddess; don't be fooled, don't be foolish—said.

“Kali.” Gabriel smiled tightly, his face a mask. “You know of course I do nothing without your blessing.”

“Except sneak around behind my back, plotting the apotheosis of your former brothers,” she said dryly. “One might think I hadn't expressed an interest in these matters.”

Castiel knew what Dean and Sam had told him about Gabriel's history with Kali; he expected the situation to soon become volatile. What he hadn't expected was for Kali to calmly step forward, revealing the pair of figures behind her.

“I brought some additional interested parties.”

Castiel had to look away. He was, at the moment, still only human; he couldn't bear the betrayal he knew he would see in Dean's eyes.

“Oh joy, it's lame and lamer,” he heard Gabriel grouse. “Kali, don't you know better than to invite band geeks to the cool parties?”

“I pay my debts,” Kali said coolly.

Gabriel let out an expansive, melodramatic sigh. “All right, let's just get this part over with.” Out of the corner of his eye, Castiel saw Gabriel shift to address the assembled—and no doubt unwise to make impatient—deities. “Sorry folks. You may remember the Winchesters—they almost destroyed the world. Now they're here to inject a little mangst into the proceedings.”

Try as he might to maintain control, Castiel couldn't just let, let blasphemy like that slide. “Gabriel,” he warned, turning to face his brother. His gaze stumbled and caught where it least wanted to go.

Looking Dean in the face almost undid him. Even after Castiel glanced down, away, Dean's voice was more than enough. “I thought you said that you weren't a hammer, Cas.” The tremble was so slight—he'd been hurt like this before; he had practice. “Isn't that what you told me?”

Castiel took a deep breath and forced himself to look up again. Of all the creatures in the room, the Winchesters were the only ones that looked truly solid. They were so familiar to him now, these brothers he'd been traveling with, this man he'd pulled out of Hell, never knowing— God, if he'd known. If he'd known.

Castiel wouldn't do anything differently. But just the same, there was only one thing for him to do now.

“I've given this matter much thought,” Castiel said carefully. “This is the best path open to me. I need—”

“Power?” demanded Sam, incredulous. Castiel was surprised to see that he looked almost as hurt as Dean did. “Strength? Cas, man, I've been there: you know what I've done to help myself stop feeling so helpless and weak. But power like that ends up controlling you. It isn't worth it, Cas; you've got to know it isn't worth it.”

Castiel waited patiently for Sam to finish. Then, “Purpose, I was going to say.” He uttered the words with not wholly manufactured disdain. “There is a role that needs to be filled, and I am able and willing to fill it. This will be a good thing. For all of us. You'll see.”

“Well put,” Gabriel said, clapping Castiel roughly on the back. “See?” he said, his attention focused particularly on Kali. “This is a well thought out decision. Cas here isn't getting drunk and having Deano's name tattooed on his ass; he's prudently donning a mantel I think we can all agree was tailor-made for him. The Angel of Thursday—I could not make this stuff up. It's positively poetic.”

“Yes, tell us what you know of poetry, Gabriel,” Kali said. She moved through the inky blackness in such a way that even it seemed to shy away from her. “Remind me again of the words of devotion you spoke at my feet when I put your body back together from a bit of blood, and kissed bloody life back into that liar's mouth.”

“Wait, that was you?” Sam asked Kali, brazen in his surprise.

Castiel was too busy casting his eye on Gabriel anew. His brother shifted, hands raised and expression placating, as if the opinions of Sam and Dean—and perhaps Castiel himself—actually mattered to him. Strange.

“Now, now,” Gabriel said. “It was only a small piece of misdirection. It doesn't make much difference in the end, does it?”

“What about Anna?” Sam demanded.

“Heh. Okay. That was a slightly bigger piece of misdirection.” Gabriel shrugged. “But you gotta admit, it's much less suspicious if Daddy resurrects all the angels that have been helpful to you. And I always liked fiery little Anael's style...”

“Does she know?” Castiel asked, voice low. He thought of her as he'd seen her last: happy and oblivious, her continued existence in the capricious hands of the goddess of destruction.

“Well, she doesn't know anything anymore, does she?” Gabriel snapped. Once again, the depth of his emotion—his bitterness—surprised Castiel. “But we're off-topic,” he said, drawing himself up with a sudden seriousness that didn't suit him. “Castiel, you were going to get your well-deserved upgrade and finally say goodbye to all this whiny emo human crap. Let's move it along, chop chop, smash smash.”

Castiel hesitated. He had not changed his mind: he still knew that this was something he had to do. But he had not wanted it to be this way. He had wanted to return to Dean and Sam with it already finished, “a done deal.” They would have seen, then–understood. Dean would not be looking at him this way.

But he was, and Castiel simply couldn't turn away from him, end things as they were without a word of explanation. So, “Dean,” he said. “I wish— I want you to understand. It will be better this way. I will be of much greater use to you, not beholden—”

“Shut up.” Dean's chest heaved, his teeth ground so tight he was virtually spitting his words. “I don't want to hear another word of these bullshit excuses. Because it is bullshit, Cas, and you know it. This isn't about being useful or beholden or worrying about what color your fucking parachute is. This is about being afraid. It's about regular-old, head under the covers, piss yourself human fear, and I get that Cas, I really do. But I never thought you of all people would pussy-out this badly. You think you're too good to stay down here with us in the muck? You think you can put yourself above all our daily human worries? Well, go ahead and climb back up on your pedestal, then. But don't think I'll keep waiting for you all the way down here.”

Castiel felt his chest pull tight around his heart; he felt lightheaded. “Dean,” he said—begged, he realized. “I don't want to leave you. I'm doing this because I don't ever want to leave you...”

“You will, though.” Meeting Kali's gaze was like staring into the depths of space, like reliving the moment in which he'd learned that his father had abandoned them, truly. “You think you can wear that belt and those gloves, that you can wield that weapon, and not be changed by it? You think that you can be a god, little angel, and still look upon humans in the same way?” She shook her head, walked unchallenged between Sam and Dean, pausing to stroke a smooth, long finger down a quaking Dean's cheek. “This one...he will mean nothing to you. Your life will be among the clouds.”

She stepped toward him, pulling the darkness with her. “Have you already forgotten?”

Castiel would never forget. He'd been made to be an angel; he would never be anything else so easily, or so well. Whether he recreated himself now as a human or a pagan god, it would always be a life lived in translation, his natural instincts filtered through a new set of expectations. He could try to retain what he could—or he could assimilate entirely, as Anna had. But the past would always be with him, a spirit so persistent it could survive an ocean of salt and the hottest of flames.

“This will be different,” he said, which was undeniably true. “I know what I want, now.” He glanced briefly at Dean, before he could stop himself.

“Yes,” Kali said. “You know what you want, now. You are a human, and you desire your human lover and protection from human woes. You will find these are not the concerns of the gods.”

“You're saying that gods do not know lust and anger and desire and fear?” Castiel asked, raising an eyebrow. He had to stop himself from tacking on a Dean-like, Please.

“Of course not.” Kali's mouth formed a smile; it was terrifying. “We count Loki among our number, after all.”

“Hey,” interjected Gabriel. “I resemble that remark.”

Castiel ignored him. “Then your objection is to me, personally,” he challenged her.

“I object to anyone joining our ranks out of fear or uncertainty or loneliness,” she said, and to his surprise, she slipped as he had, eyes flicking past him, briefly, to Gabriel. “I do not desire an eternity beside someone who is filled with shame at what he's become, who can barely conceal his self-loathing and regret.”

“Hey,” Gabriel said again, his tone completely different now.

Kali whirled on him, sudden and sharp. “Silence,” she commanded.

Castiel could hear the sound his jaw made when it clicked shut.

When she returned her attention to Castiel, it was to lean close, her body pressed cool against him, her blood-red lips mere centimeters from his ear. Even if he had not been trying to keep himself above such thoughts, Castiel would have been too terrified to have any sort of reaction.

“You have been tricked,” she whispered, “manipulated by your so-called brother. Though it is possible that he is tricking himself, too—it wouldn't be the first time. He is miserable and alone, you see, and so he has arranged for you to join him, so that you both can be miserable together.”

“He is yours,” Castiel said, stepping back. “Bought with blood. Perhaps you are the source of his misery, cousin.”

“Well,” she said, lifting her dark head. “At least I have more than absolved myself of yours.”

She retreated to the edge of the circle. “Carry on, then,” she told the room—told Gabriel, with a sweep of her arm that was clearly sarcastic in its deference.

Gabriel tisked, wearily. “You just can't keep anything on schedule, these days. All right, Castiel,” he added, rubbing his hands together before gesturing toward the altar. “Take two.”

Castiel took a step forward.

“Cas, wait,” Sam said. Dean said nothing. “Cas!”

He could feel Dean watching him, though. Dean wasn't going to be kind to them both. He was going to watch Cas do it.

Two feet from the altar, Castiel stopped.

The universe began to shake.

It felt like that, anyway: the whole of creation, this place that was no place, pulling loose, falling apart at the seams. “What's going on?” he heard Sam ask. Gabriel said, “Oh, crap.”

Kali did not need to pitch her voice any higher to be heard over the sudden din. “There are those among us who object to the proceedings here for reasons grander than mine.”

Sam could barely stay on his feet, but still he questioned. “What reasons?”

“They are purists. They believe a god should die with his or her original avatar. To them what is being attempted here is anathema.” Kali delivered this information calmly, as flames raced up her sides. “They will attempt to destroy us now.” She grinned a little. “It's not the first time.”

“Kali, get them out of here!” Gabriel gestured angrily at Sam and Dean, both of whom had fallen to their knees due to the onslaught. Castiel himself was only upright at all because he had the altar to hold on to.

“I promised them a chance to speak their piece, not round-trip air fare. My debts are paid.” She was a speaking column of flame. “I have things to kill.”

“Dammit.” Gabriel snapped his fingers, but nothing appeared to happen. “They've blocked the exits!”

Kali laughed. “Run and hide, then, Loki. It's what you're good at.”

Castiel's ears were beginning to bleed, his eyes starting to lose focus from the unnatural contrast of light and dark. But he could still see the slightly apologetic shrug Gabriel threw him as he mouthed, Join us or die, bro. He cast one last sorry look toward the Winchesters, then was gone.

Castiel was watching the brothers, too—gripping the altar as he stared, barely holding on. They had crawled to each other, were attempting to confer, but Castiel knew that for the most part they were just huddled together, giving each other what little protection they could. If Castiel managed to crawl back to them, they would welcome him, he knew. And then they could all die together.

Despite the shaking, Castiel felt suddenly still. “Dean!” he shouted, and in the din his voice was lost even to himself. “Dean!”

For whatever reason, Dean looked up. Their eyes met across the dark space that was no space, and there was nothing like permission in Dean's gaze. Still, Castiel smiled.

He picked up the hammer.

It tore through him like thunder. It blasted through him like lightning. His body crackled and reshaped, his soul reformed. The power curled electric through his blood, and when he stood again, he was truly unafraid. He held Mjöllnir, and no one could stand against him.

The shapes of his brothers and sisters around him were much clearer now. Kali's limbs danced in a graceful, deadly whirl as she grappled with Amaterasu. Quetzalcoatl held Horus back with the divine wind. Zeus was lightning and he himself was thunder as they forced a defiant Mars to his knees.

It was easy to lose himself in the battle. The fight was glorious. His hammer flew true to its targets (that's no bust, he thought, without having any recollection what such a thing could mean) then returned with a satisfying thwap to his hand. He was a god, and gods cowered before him. The part of their vast battlefield that he had decided should remain safe and untouched remained safe and untouched. The ground shook where he stepped.

It came to a draw, as most such battles did. But for them it was a victory, too: their attackers forced to retreat, to attempt to annihilate them another day. They had failed to prevent what they could not condone. Thor walked the earth once more.

He paused now, a clean godly sweat slicking his brow. Zeus gave his back a crackling lightning-slap before departing. Kali stared at him with jet-black eyes. “Brother,” was all she said.

“See, I told you that would be a good look on you,” Loki said, slinking back from wherever he'd crept off to. “You never really seemed at home in that scrawny little...”

A look made him stop. He sank back, revealing the figures on the floor behind him. The two humans weren't huddled so much as tucked into an—admittedly useless—fighting crouch. He tilted his head, stared at them. They looked so small.

The one on the left was staring at him, open-mouthed, but the other one dropped his gaze, disinterested. “Get us out of here, Gabriel,” he said. “You got what you wanted. We're done.”

The words moved through him, a rumbling reverb. “Wait,” he said.

He did not recognize his own voice.

He took a deep breath, stood tall, mightier than a mountain.

The hammer slipped in his hand. He let it drop, let it fall. It did not return to him.

“I abdicate,” Castiel said.

“What?” Gabriel was incredulous. “You can't do that! Can he do that?”

“He's a god,” Kali said, coolly. “He can do whatever he wants.”

Castiel breathed again, true breaths, that filled his lungs with air. “I am not a god. I'm just a man. I want to go home.”

He looked at Dean as he spoke. Dean gazed back at him, and there was forgiveness there, acceptance. Castiel nearly wept.

“Castiel,” Gabriel said. One step away from pleading. “I thought—”

“Think on yourself, brother,” Castiel said, not unkindly. “You can reshape the world with a click of your fingers. But perhaps you should start looking for change closer to home.”

He stepped away from the center of the circle, closer to the Winchesters. They were on their feet now, shaky; they made space for him. Sam clapped him on the back where Zeus' electric fingers had rested mere moments before.

Gabriel didn't move. Kali stepped up to them in his place. Dean watched her with suspicion. “I thought you said no round-trip tickets.”

She smiled. “I can change my mind. The destruction of old ideas is one of my specialties.”

She looked at them one last time, and then they were gone.

They opened their eyes again, breathless, in the parking lot of the motel in Berkeley. Castiel blinked at the sudden blast of sunlight. It looked like it was late morning—he suspected on the same day. So much had happened and hardly any time had passed at all.

Wasn't that the way of things, when you were human?

For a few long moments, none of them spoke. Castiel knew that the burden rested on him. “Dean,” he started—but there was too much, far too much. “Sam,” he tried again. “I'm so sorry—”

Sam was shaking his head. “Forget it, man. You screwed up. We all do it.” His brow crinkled. “Hopefully we're trying to do it less.” His sudden smile was not entirely reassuring. “I'm just glad it wasn't me this time.”

He wasn't looking fully at Castiel, but glancing between him and Dean, an odd expression on his face. All at once he yawned—a melodramatic flourish that Gabriel would have appreciated. “I've got my own room. I'm gonna go lie down.”

When he left, Castiel and Dean were alone.

Dean looked at him. “Not in the parking lot,” was all he said.

Castiel followed him obediently back to their room. The sight of the bed, the mussed sheets that Castiel had so callously freed himself of, made him feel sick with guilt. They had to stop abandoning their beds like this: Castiel wanted to be able to look at the places they had lain together and not feel ashamed.

He might never get that chance, now. He turned to Dean: it was all on him, what he wanted, what he would allow. Castiel had brought him around somehow, before, and then he had squandered it. If he'd lost him forever, Castiel would never forgive himself. But he would accept it.

As he had before the circle of gods, Castiel offered himself and waited to discover whether he would live or die.

“You look ridiculous,” Dean said.

Castiel's eyes widened. Dean reached out, his mouth set, and lifted one of Castiel's iron-gloved hands. “What, are you off to go fight crime with the Avengers?” He slipped the gauntlet off, weighed it in his hand. “You look like you could go around demanding satisfaction with these.”

Castiel swallowed. “Do you desire it?” he asked. “Satisfaction?” He would give it in a heartbeat: he would let Dean pummel him if it earned him his forgiveness. He himself had done as much—or worse.

Dean drummed the iron gauntlet against his open palm for a moment, considering. “I don't think so, Cas,” he said finally. “There's another kind of satisfaction I want.”

Castiel stumbled and flushed when Dean sank to his knees. His back hit the door and Dean gripped his hips, steadying him. Dean's hot fingers wormed underneath the constricting band of his heavy metal belt. “This glam look is just not you, Cas,” Dean told him.

“I know, I know.” He sighed in relief as Megingjord tumbled to the floor.

Dean stared up at him. “I'm going to make you promise me something, Cas.” Slowly he popped the top button of Castiel's jeans. “And we're going to seal that promise. Make it all official-like.”

Castiel could only nod.

“I'm giving myself to you.” For Dean's sake, it was easy enough for Castiel to pretend that Dean's hands weren't shaking when he jerked down Castiel's zipper, freed his aching cock. “I want your promise,” he said, and Castiel shuddered when Dean's hand closed around him, as he started to stroke. “Promise me that you'll never leave me like that again.”

“I promise,” Castiel stuttered. “Dean, I swear...”

“Never,” Dean demanded. He licked his lips.

“Never ever.” He reached out with his still-gloved hand and caressed Dean's cheek. “I'm yours.”

Not entirely to Castiel's surprise, Dean shied into the cold metal and not away. “That's all I wanted to hear,” he said. His thumb gave the crown of Castiel's cock an experimental little sweep.

Castiel gasped. “Seal it with a kiss?” he asked, coaxing Dean's head forward.

“Mmph,” Dean said, and fed himself Castiel's dick.

Castiel struggled to keep his hips from bucking. His head thumped back against the door. Dean hadn't swallowed him down very far, but the suction of his mouth was amazing, hot and tight. Castiel held the back of Dean's head, tried to simply cradle it. He stared down at himself, at the place where he disappeared into Dean, and his whole body shook. He slid one metal thumb down Dean's hollowed cheek and touched the corner of his shiny, stretched lips. “Dean,” he pledged, promised. “Dean—”

They were sloppy about it, inexperienced. Castiel tried to pull back, but didn't quite manage: he came partially on his own hand and partially all over Dean's neck and chin. Castiel was still reeling, frozen in shock, but Dean just laughed. He tugged Castiel down onto the floor with him, where Castiel's knees were more than willing to let him go. “Take this off,” Dean said, tugging at the soiled glove. It skittered and bounced across the floor. “Clean me up.”

Castiel eagerly attended to the task of kissing the come off Dean's lips, of licking clean the rough skin of his chin and the smooth hollows of his throat. Dean let Castiel bear him back, kiss down over his collarbone and nip along his shoulder, the raised flesh of his scar. Dean bucked and shuddered and Castiel couldn't wait to take him in his mouth, to taste him. But he took his time. He licked and sucked and explored. He kissed the head of his dick, dropped his head and nosed his balls, inhaling. “You smell delicious,” he whispered.

“You're so weird,” Dean said, affectionately. “Suck my dick already.”

But Castiel had another destination. He forced Dean's thighs wider. Flattened his tongue, swept it along Dean's perineum, circled his shy little hole. Dean made a startled sound and spasmed beneath Castiel's touch. Castiel took his steadying hand off Dean's hip and curled it around the sweet arch of his cock. He wanted to feel Dean tremble like that again. He wanted to break Dean apart and put him together again, perfectly this time. So there weren't any cracks.

Except this one. Castiel liked this one. He was looking forward to exploring it in detail. But now, after only a few licks, a couple forceful probes of his tongue, Dean was shuddering and coming undone. Castiel felt Dean's cock jerk in his hand, heard him keen, so he gave the inside of Dean's thigh one last kiss before worming up to lay beside him, to hold him if Dean would let him.

Dean did: curling toward Castiel's embrace, groaning. “We just had sex on the floor,” he said, sounding half triumphant, half admonishing. “I'm too old to have sex on the floor.”

“I liked it,” Castiel said. He had. Very much.

“Yeah, well, our backs won't like us later.”

Castiel rubbed at Dean's, kneading the muscles, gentle but greedy. “I'll look after yours if you look after mine.”

Dean met his gaze. Castiel knew he was many times wounded, had plenty of reasons to shy away. But he was still here, and even if Castiel didn't get to keep him forever, he knew he'd hang on as long as he could, and do his best to make every moment count.

“That's a promise,” he said seriously.

Dean didn't nod or smile, but neither did he look away.

Dean tossed the last of the bags into the trunk and slammed it shut. Castiel was watching him from the passenger side, waiting for Sam to get back from the soda machine so they could do rock-paper-scissors. Dean pulled his keys out of his pocket, tossed them in the air, caught them. He gave Castiel a considering look.

Then he said, “Catch.”

Castiel figured it would be really bad if he dropped the keys at this particular moment. So he did not drop them.

Instead he shook them out on his palm, stared at them, then up at Dean in wonder. “Are you sure?”

“Fuck no,” said Dean. “Even if you don't crash her, I'm probably going to vomit all over from nerves and ruin her upholstery.” He opened the passenger-side door and let himself in.

Castiel felt like he was walking on air as he went around to the other side and settled into the driver's seat.

In the rearview mirror (which Dean reminded him to adjust), Castiel could see Sam crossing the parking lot, talking on his cell phone and crunching his coke can a little too tight. He was still talking as he slid into the back. “All right, I understand that you think I could do better but it's not really any of your—” He cut himself off with a sigh, then thrust the phone at Dean. “Becky wants to talk to you, Cas.”

Dean turned around and looked at him. “Hi, you might remember me: I'm your brother, Dean.” Sam nearly dropped the phone. “Try the other side.”

Somehow Sam got the phone into Castiel's hands. “Did Hell just freeze over?”

Dean laughed, then abruptly grew serious. “No driving and talking!”

“We're still in park,” Castiel pointed out. He lifted the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

The high-pitched shriek nearly deafened him. “Omigodddd, I love you! I just wanted to tell you, you guys are the best! Supernatural is totally the best fandom ever! Slash is canon! EAT IT, STARGATE.”

Castiel held the phone away from his ear, wincing. Emotions, the needs of a human body, physical desire: Castiel had not been created equipped to deal with any of these things, but he thought that he was adjusting to them rather well. This, on the other hand: this he had absolutely no conception of how to deal with.

“Okay, I know I got the pairing wrong but whatever I don't even care,” Becky was babbling. “I'm so happy. Omigod, I'm so happy for you! Even for Dean! You guys are totally a cute couple, I can't even lie.”

“...Thank you?” Castiel tried.

“I'm going to start a comm for you two! And maybe host a ficathon! I need a name, though; what do you think, any suggestions?”

“Um. I'll leave that to you,” he said, squirming a little. He glanced at Sam and Dean, neither of whom looked sympathetic, but like they were having rather a bit too much fun at his expense.

“'Clutched by an Angel'?” Becky posited. “No, that's not quite right...”

“I have to go now,” Castiel said decisively. He clicked the phone shut before he heard anything else that might cast an unfortunate shadow over his brief, precious human life.

Almost as soon as he handed the phone back to Sam, it rang again. Sam glanced at the display, then shoved it guiltily back in his pocket. “Becky again?” Dean asked.

Sam shook his head. He was blushing. “No,” he admitted. “Lauren.”

Dean and Castiel craned their necks, staring at him for several long moments. Then Dean started cracking up.

“Oh-ho-ho! Sammy broke himself off a piece of crunchy granola.”

Castiel had no idea what this was supposed to mean, but it amused him to see Sam sputter and blush.

“It just happened, all right? You and Cas had left, Anna and Dev were off having we-sort-of-almost-died sex, and Lauren...needed consoling.” The look he gave them was beseeching. “She's really got a lot of great qualities... She knows a lot about plants. She's got a lovely singing voice—” He broke off with a hopeless shrug. “Her nickname was Stretch for a reason, okay?”

Castiel released the lip he was biting. “'Better you than me, dude,'” he said. Dean roared with laughter.

“Thanks, guys. Really. Thanks for the support.” Sam looked extremely...Castiel believed the word was “pissy.”

There were tears in Dean's eyes, he was laughing so hard. “If you want support, Sam, we're happy to give it. Anything you want to talk about—and we have to talk about these things, you know—” Dean broke off with a gasp, clutching at his knees. “I'm glad you're gonna be driving, Cas, 'cause I don't think I could.”

Sam pouted. “I hate you both.”

Castiel grinned at him in the rearview mirror, then carefully started the car, released the parking brake, swung them out of the lot. Occupied with thinking of ways to make fun of Sam forever, Dean only seemed to remember that Castiel was driving once they were out on the highway.

“Not so fast!” he said.

“I'm going fifty-five,” Castiel told him calmly. He wanted to “crank it,” but he also didn't want to give Dean a heart attack. He reached over to put a reassuring hand on Dean's thigh.

“OH MY GOD BOTH HANDS ON THE WHEEL!”

Castiel shrank back. That decibel level would have made Becky proud.

In the backseat, Sam let out a sigh. “You know,” he said, “maybe I'm going to want to get my own car.”

Dean snorted. “And what masterpiece of engineering would you pick, huh? A Ford Probe?” He chuckled at the word probe.

“Perhaps,” Castiel said, joining in with a grin, “you would choose an Edsel.”

Glancing to the side, he saw Dean raise an eyebrow at him. “Wow, Cas—you're kickin' it old school. Where'd you hear about that?”

“I've told you,” Castiel said. “Wikipedia.”

Sam laughed. “God help us if you discover the edit function, Cas.”

Castiel perked up. “There's an edit function?”

“Nice going,” Dean told Sam. “Cas, let me save you some trouble: you can't edit the ancient history pages and then cite 'personal observation' as your source.”

“But those pages are so often wrong,” Castiel groused. He sped up a little as the highway dipped, the landscape broadening into a wide vista as they glided down the hill. “I do not like to think of so many people being misinformed.”

Sam shook his head. “Saving people, editing Wikipedia...this is really not how I would have imagined our lives would go.”

Castiel caught Dean's gaze and he held it. “No,” Dean said. “But it's not half-bad, though.

“Eyes on the road, Cas,” Dean added a moment later.

Castiel smiled, kept his hands on the wheel, and drove.

Episode 6x05 / Masterpost / Notes & Acknowledgments

Big Bang Fic: Immigrant Song (Episode 6x05)

trinityofone — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 01:26:44 GMT

The first thing Dean did when they got back to the motel Gabriel had snatched them from was grab his duffle off a chair and lock himself in the bathroom. He changed into his own clothes with his back to the mirror. The shoes and the soiled dress he tossed in the trash. He couldn’t say for sure what he did with the panties.

When he came back out into the main room, Sam was studying Dean’s phone, which was still plugged into the wall where Dean had left it two days ago. Sam picked it up and chucked it at him. “You’ve got a bunch of messages.”

Dean tossed the duffle back toward the chair and keyed up his voicemail. The first message, much to his surprise, was from Anna. She sounded weirdly chipper: “Hi, Dean. Just checking in. Call me when you get a chance, okay?” Dean looked at Sam, puzzled, but Sam just shot a puzzled look right back. Right, because Sam couldn’t hear the voice message just because Dean could hear it. Man, he really needed to get some sleep.

The next message was from Chuck. Dean almost deleted it without listening to it, then wished he had: “Hey, guys. Sorry to bother you again. This is probably nothing, but Becky was going over the gospel and she noticed something…weird. I dunno, I thought maybe we should talk about it. Oh, and don’t worry, Dean, I’m being really tasteful with the sex stuff—“

Delete. Delete delete delete. If only he could delete it from his brain, everything that had happened, the memory of it on his—

“Hey. Anna again. Sorry to keep calling, but I think we might have a situation here. A your-line-of-work type of situation. I could really use your help. Call me when you get a chance, okay? Thanks.”

“Shit,” Dean said, snapping the phone closed. “Anna’s in trouble.”

“She phoned you as well?”

Dean turned around. Castiel was leaning in the doorway leading to his room. He had changed his clothes and bandaged the cut on his head, but not very well. Dean had to fight the urge to go over to him, to fix it.

“Cas, you're going to want to make that tighter,” Sam said, gesturing to his own scalp.

“Thank you, Sam,” Castiel said. Dean silently thought the same thing.

“In her message, did Anna seem...odd to you?” Castiel asked, adjusting his bandages.

“She seemed worried, yeah. And kind of...” He couldn't figure out the right way to phrase it. Worried but upbeat? Carefree but concerned? The more he thought about it, the more he figured he was probably imagining stuff.

“Why don't you just call her back?” Sam said. His expression said, Duh.

“Why don't you call her back, smartass?” Dean said.

Sam looked baffled by where this conversation had gone. “Fine.” He pulled out his own phone. “She's gonna be all weird with me, though. I think it's the whole having gone back in time and tried to kill me thanks to heavenly PTSD thing...”

From the look on Sam's face, however, Anna was not weird with him—at least not weird in the usual way. “Yeah, either way, it'll be great to see you, too,” he said, looking increasingly perplexed by the time he was wrapping up the call. “We'll be there as soon as we can. Bye.

“Yeah...” Sam said, hanging up. “It's like...is she on drugs?”

Dean shrugged. “Fallen angels, man.” He couldn't look at Cas. He wished he'd kept his damn mouth shut.

Dean swallowed and tried again. “So is there really a case?”

Sam nodded. “She says people are disappearing from the school botanical garden.”

“Botanical garden?”

“Yeah.” Sam echoed his shrug.

“And she couldn't take care of that herself? She had a lot more juice left than—than you, right, Cas?”

He made himself look over. Castiel was leaning up against the TV cabinet, where just a couple days ago Gabriel had sat. “That was my understanding.”

“Maybe she just needs our, uh. Detective skills?” Sam suggested.

“All right, awesome,” Dean said, snagging the duffle by its handle again. “Let's pack up the Mystery Machine and hit the road.”

This piece of instruction was met with a long silence. “Has that become a thing?” Sam asked finally. “Because I kind of hate that that's become a thing.”

“Fucking Gabriel,” Dean muttered.

Northern California always made Dean uncomfortable. Berkeley was too close to Palo Alto, and being anywhere in the area made him want to keep an extra-close eye on Sam. Of course, keeping an eye on Sam gave him an excuse to ignore Castiel, so maybe these things worked out.

Anna had texted them the address of “our new apartment.” “Our?” Sam had said.

“Dude, I don't even know. Maybe she and Gabriel made up, then shacked up, and now they're plotting together to fuck with us.”

“Ew.” In the rear view mirror, which Dean had been checking frequently throughout this last stage of the drive, Sam wrinkled his nose. “Wouldn't that be, like...angelic incest?”

“No,” Castiel piped up. “We are not related in the same way humans are—or perhaps only in the way all humans are to each other. Nevertheless, I must second Sam's assessment. Ew.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Dean said, drumming his hands on the wheel. “Sometimes I disgust myself.”

Dean was glad when they finally found parking, because then Castiel had to stop staring at him.

Anna's apartment was toward the top of a hill. The streets surrounding it were curvy and narrow; as tightly as he managed to hug the curb, Dean felt nervous leaving his baby out on the street. Reluctantly, he followed Sam and Castiel up the walk, glancing over his shoulder while Sam rang the bell.

A few seconds later, Anna was bouncing down the stairs. Dean took one look at her face and thought, Fuck. She was grinning, an expression the likes of which Dean had never seen on her face, not even mid-orgasm. “Hey!” she said, opening the door. “Thanks for coming!” Then she grabbed Cas and swept him into a hug. Dean was torn between amusement and pain at watching him be touched: he looked unreasonably taken aback, like this was a rare human courtesy no one had ever bothered to bestow on him.

No one had, Dean realized. Dean certainly hadn't.

“It's so good to see you,” Anna told them. Or told Cas, specifically. “Come on up.”

Exchanging confused, worried looks, the three of them followed Anna up the stairs.

She lived on the third floor, in an apartment Dean realized was not terribly large, but which looked luxurious to him all the same. It had a big corner window and furnishings that didn't match, but in a comfortable, cozy-looking way. There weren't pictures of boats or dull, inoffensive landscapes on any of the walls.

A man came out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on his slacks. Anna took him by the hand. “This is my boyfriend, Dev. Dev, this is my big brother Cas, and his friends Sam and Dean.”

They were silent. They stared. Dev was starting to look like their awkwardness must be a reflection of something about him; his grip on Anna's hand increased. Fortunately, Sam recovered quickly. “Sorry, we just drove for like two days straight. It's really nice to meet you.” He reached out a hand, clarifying, “Sam.”

“It's nice to meet you, too,” Dev said. He had a bit of an accent, on the cool side of the cool/douchey accent scale. “I've heard a great deal about you.”

“All of it good, I hope,” Dean said, shooting Anna a look.

“You guys can relax,” Anna told them. “I've been completely honest with Dev. He knows everything, so anything you want to say to me, you can say in front of him.”

Sam's eyes widened. “You told him?” he said, pointlessly lowering his voice to a whisper. Since he clearly hadn't fit enough incredulity into that statement, he went on. “He knows?”

Dev nodded. “I know. And I should thank you. You saved Anna's life.”

“Uh,” said Dean.

“Yeah,” said Sam. “I don't know if we can really take credit for that.”

“Don't be modest,” Anna said, flashing them again with that odd, open grin. “Why don't you guys sit down, and we'll fill you in on what's been happening.”

“I'll get the cheese,” Dev said, vanishing back into the kitchen.

“We got this really good cheese at the Berkeley Bowl,” Anna told them as they shuffled awkwardly over to the couch.

This conversation was making Dean feel like how Cas must feel most of the time. “They sell cheese at a bowling alley?”

Anna laughed. Like the smile, it was fucking bizarre. Freakin' Pod Person bizarre. “It's a grocery store.”

“Oh.”

“Oh yeah,” Sam said. “I went there one year when I came up for the Big Game. Nice produce.”

Anna grinned. “Did we win that year? I bet we won.”

Sam actually pouted. “Whatever. Bears suck.”

“Cardinals suck.”

“Bears totally suck!”

Dean turned to his brother. “Is this becoming a thing? Because I hate this becoming a thing.”

Anna ignored him. “Dev, did I tell you that Sam went to Stanford?” she called toward the kitchen. “Tell him the Cardinals suck!”

Castiel leaned close to Dean's ear and whispered. “I looked this up after the incident in the Crossbones' lair. Stanford athletic teams are called the Cardinals; Berkeley athletic teams are known as the Golden Bears. They have a long-standing rivalry. Every year in November, their football teams face each other for what is known as the Big—”

Dean forced back a shiver. “Okay, Cas, I got it,” he snapped. When Dev came back with the cheese platter, Dean seized the opportunity to lean away from Cas and start making a stack of crackers.

“Cardinals suck,” Dev told Sam perfunctorily.

“This is good cheese,” said Dean with his mouth full.

“I'm curious to hear what has you so concerned,” Castiel said. He looked very businesslike and serious, even taking care to align his cheese squares with the edges of his crackers.

“There have been some disappearances at the botanical gardens.” Anna brushed her long hair off of her shoulder. “Well, maybe. A car was found parked near there with no trace of the occupants, a couple of people have been seen going in and then not coming out again. Nothing's been concretely linked to the gardens, which is why the police aren't officially investigating the area and it hasn't been shut down. But my friend Lauren works there—that's how I know about this. She told me that there's a certain area of the gardens that no one likes to work in anymore. Dev and I went up there to check it out and...yeah. I can't even—”

“Bad vibes,” Dev said seriously.

“What did you sense?” Castiel asked, leaning toward her.

She shifted a little, recrossed her legs. “Uh, like Dev said. Just...a badness? A creepiness?”

“A 'badness,'” Cas repeated. Dean imagined he was feeling the way Dean might if Sam told him their current creature feature was “an evil thingy from some legend or something.”

“Okay!” Dean said, slapping his knees and standing up. “I guess we'll just go check it out.” On second thought, he swooped down again and grabbed a couple more cheese wedges.

“Oh, good! Let me just call Lauren.” Anna fished her cell phone out of her pocket, grinning at Castiel. “She's really looking forward to meeting you, Cas. I've told her a lot about you.”

Castiel looked at Dean and Sam, begging for salvation with his eyes. Dean smirked and roughly swallowed down a cracker. Sam could only shrug.

Dev rose and gave them a courteous nod. “I'm going to change into boots. Please excuse me.”

“Wait, he's coming?” Sam asked once Dev had retreated down the hall.

“Yeah,” Anna said, plucking a coat off a hook by the door. “Why shouldn't he?”

“Because it's not a field trip?” Dean said.

“Why should I be able to come if Dev can't?”

“I don't even know where to start with that,” Sam said—kindly, Dean suspected, voicing the opinions of all three of them.

Castiel stepped forward. “Anna,” he said. “Has something else happened? I must admit I'm, I'm concerned for you—”

“You're sweet,” Anna said, reaching up and touching Cas' cheek in a manner that made his eyes go wide. “I'm fine, Cas. I'm really good, actually. Happy.”

From the look on Castiel's face, he was warring between accepting this and questioning it further. He had to be, as Dean was, automatically suspicious of declarations of happiness. Especially in this case: where had it come from? Anna had been tortured; terrorized as both a human and as an angel; killed. What happened to make that suddenly become okay? What was the secret?

Dean doubted it was as simple as a comfy couch and a boyfriend you were honest with and some really good cheese.

He was relieved when Anna and Dev elected to take their own car—a silver Prius, of course. The idea of Anna and her new boyfriend snuggling up on the very seat where she'd pushed Dean down and climbed on top of him, of the pair of them gazing out the windows that she and Dean had once steamed up—that was just not classy. Also, cramming five people into the Impala wasn't granting her the respect she deserved.

Of course, following convoy-style behind Anna and Dev also gave Dean and Sam and Cas the chance to talk about them. “There's 'badness' here all right,” Dean said. “But it isn't in the freakin' botanical gardens. Also, since when is Anna such a yuppie?”

“What makes her a 'yuppie,' Dean?” Sam seemed to object on sheer principle to his pejorative use of this term.

Dean counted off on his fingers the best he could while keeping his hands on the wheel and his eyes on this city's stupid windy roads. “Um, her car? Her apartment? Her cheese plate?”

“You ate most of that,” Sam pointed out. “And her apartment's just an apartment. A regular graduate-student apartment. I bet you she found half of that furniture dumped on the side of the road and made Dev drag it up there for her. Or, well, I guess in her case she's strong enough to drag it up there on her own...”

“Her grace is greatly reduced,” Castiel said quietly.

“Yeah, well, Gabriel said—”

Castiel shook his head, cutting Sam off. “Something's happened...” he repeated.

It was in this ominous mood that they arrived at the botanical gardens. At first glance, it didn't have much to offer in terms of appropriate atmosphere. Even though it was winter, there was plenty in bloom. The road was lined with clusters of leathery-looking green shrubs, their leaves twisted into intricate spiral patterns. Palms and spiky desert plants rustled in the soft breeze. In the distance Dean could see a greenhouse, its glass walls protecting bright purple orchids and other plants Dean had no notion of the names of.

Anna and Dev were waiting beside their yuppie car. A third person had already joined them—the infamous Lauren, no doubt. She was pretty enough, Dean supposed, in a lanky, crunchy-granola sort of way. When Cas got out of the car, Anna knocked her shoulder against Lauren's and pointed indiscreetly. Lauren smiled wide.

“Guys, this is Lauren. Lauren: Dean, Sam, and this is my brother.”

Lauren extended a hand, still grinning. “Lucas, right?”

Castiel frowned. “Cas,” he said. The awkward way he said his own “name” only added to the moment's increasing confusion.

“He goes by Cas,” Anna explained, shooting Castiel a weird look. In return, Castiel flat-out stared back.

“In high school my nickname was 'Stretch,'” Lauren confided. “Guess why.”

Castiel apparently did not care to hazard a guess.

“Maybe you should show us the area where people have been disappearing,” Sam suggested.

Lauren nodded. “It's totally spooky. Like ancient Indian burial ground spooky. The other type of Indian,” she told Dev, who made a polite noise before becoming newly fascinated with his fancy yuppie phone. “I saw this guy wander in there, and even though I was watching really intently, waiting for him to come out—because it was time to close?—he never did.”

“Did you go look for him?” Sam asked.

She nodded again. “Nothing there. Just me and the trees.” She shivered, dramatically. “I switched off the evening shift after that.”

Sam smiled politely. “Is there any way, maybe, that he could have looped around behind you and left while you were looking for him?”

Head shake. “No, 'cause my coworker Charlie stayed behind at the office and I asked him and he says he didn't see anything. It was totally deserted. Trust me.”

“You'll see,” Anna promised them. She'd always been good at portents of doom, and apparently when called upon, she still was. “When we go in there, you'll see.”

“Okay,” said Dean, gesturing toward the gate. “Let's go and see then.”

“Hang on,” said Lauren, fiddling with the pocket of her cargo capris. “Do you guys want any bug spray? I always put on bug spray before I head into the wooded sections 'cause I get bit a lot. I must taste extra sweet,” she told Cas.

They passed on the bug spray.

Lauren led them through the main gate and down a path lined with small white stones and stout and hardy desert plants. “I was reading online about the garden's various collections,” Sam said—of course he was. “Which area is the one that's been at the center of the, uh. 'Badness'?”

“The North American collection,” Lauren said.

Dean snorted. Much of their party turned to look at him. “Well, we just can't ever seem to go anywhere that doesn't look like freakin' Canada, can we?”

The portion of the garden Lauren brought them to did look like a pristine section of the pacific northwest. Some place colder and wilder than where they really were, a place full of tall, skinny trees and rich undergrowth, dark earth. That the canopy was a bit skimpy this time of year didn't detract from the feeling that they'd suddenly fallen ass over heels into the middle of the woods. Dean almost couldn't believe that they were only a couple hundred yards from the road. It was starting to seem not so entirely implausible that people had disappeared out here.

The seven of them took a moment to glance around. It was still light out but it looked a great deal darker in here than it had out on the road, or in the miniature desert they'd crossed. As they stood there, the wind picked up, a gentle gust, but chilling. The hairs on Dean's wrists stood up.

“Birds,” Anna whispered. “There should be birds. Shouldn't there?”

Dean lowered his gaze and realized they had all been standing with their heads tilted up, exposing the columns of their throats. Except Cas. He was looking at Anna, watching, it seemed, every breath, every movement of her chest, her empty hands lying loose and uncurled at her sides.

“Let me show you the weirdest thing,” Lauren said, and turned and headed up the slight rise. Anna swiveled to follow her, but Castiel said, “Wait. Anna,” and she paused. “May I talk to you for a moment?” Privately, he was clearly trying to say.

She took the hint. “I'll walk with you.” She patted Dev on the arm, inclined her head a little: motioned for him to go on ahead.

Dean gave Sam a similar look, a keep an eye on the civilians look. Sam sighed. “You'd be doing Dev a big favor,” Dean muttered. Sam shook his head but trudged off in their direction.

Dean, meanwhile, ignored whatever look Castiel was sending his way suggesting that Dean should join the others, and after a few seconds, Castiel seemed to accept Dean's presence with a sigh of his own. Anna fell into step beside them and they started walking, slowly, keeping an eye on the four figures in front of them.

After a moment, Castiel spoke. “Why did you tell Lauren my name was Lucas?”

Anna laughed—Dean found it even more eerie in this setting. “I know you don't use it, but I didn't realize it was information being carefully guarded by the NSA.”

The look on Castiel's face betrayed him. Anna stopped, touched him gently on the arm. “Cas, what—”

“What did you do?” Castiel asked. There was an edge to his voice, a rawness that Dean didn't like. “What did you do?”

“Whoa, Cas, let's not jump to conclusions.” He stepped in front of them both: it was his turn to be the calm, reasonable one for once. “Anna, don't take this the wrong way, but...have you been reading any porno mags lately?”

“What? No. Dean.” The face she pulled really did make her and Cas look related.

“Hey, you'd be surprised how often that ends up being the cause of these things.”

“What things?”

She looked genuinely confused. That was the worst of it: how genuine she was—in her confusion, in her happiness, in her blissful ignorance. Dean wondered if this was how he and Sam and Cas would have ended up if Chuck and Becky hadn't come to the rescue. Probably not. They probably would have killed each other.

“What's your earliest memory of me?” Castiel asked her, his voice barely louder than the breeze, a soft ripple through the trees.

Anna gave him an odd look, befitting such an odd question. “I don't know. You're my brother, Cas. What—”

“Just answer the question.”

Something in his voice made her comply. “You were always there, I guess,” she said, sucking in a breath. “But maybe...I don't know how old I was. Maybe two or three? There was a tornado and I remember you picking me up and carrying me down to the basement. I don't know where Mom and Dad were. Maybe at the church.” She bit her lips, her gaze going momentarily distant. When she looked up at Castiel again, her eyes were shining. “But you took me down to the basement and we sat in the corner, behind all of Mom's canning, and you told me stories while the lights flickered and the house shook. I felt so safe with you.”

She was smiling at him, the affection obvious in her eyes. She believed it. Goddammit, she believed every word.

“I'm glad,” Castiel said roughly, forcing himself, voice so low he sounded almost like he used to. Dean wanted to— He shook his head and stared at the forest floor and didn't do anything.

“Are you sure you're okay?” Anna asked. “I mean, now I'm kind of concerned. Not as freaked out as I would be if I actually thought about what you're out there doing every day...” She grinned at him. “My big dork of a brother off fighting evil—I still can't quite believe it.”

“No,” said Castiel. “Neither can I.”

“You guys!” Lauren's voice was piercing.

“Really?” Dean had to ask. It came out harsher than he meant. “Him and her. Really.”

Anna shrugged. “She's very...persistent. I told her I'd try, okay? And Cas, it's not like you're doing any better on your own...”

Dean half-expected Castiel to inform Anna that as a matter of fact, he'd had sex just the other day—ask Dean for first-hand confirmation! Fortunately—or not—he seemed to still be struggling with what they'd just learned. Whatever that was.

“Please tell Lauren that we'll be right there,” Castiel said.

“Okay.” Anna hesitated. Then she stepped forward, arms out. To Dean's surprise, Castiel lurched into the embrace. He squeezed her tight, and Dean had to turn away from the look on his face. It betrayed lies within lies: every moment of the relationship they had never had, Cas and his little sister whom he'd comforted during a tornado; the millennia in which they'd known each other honestly but never touched like this, all of it erased.

It wasn't like how it would have been if Playboy had permanently fried their brains; it was as if Dean and Sam Winchester had stayed Dean Smith and Sam Wesson forever, had never woken up. They might have been able to build a relationship with each other, a good one. But on some level it would always be a lie.

Dean watched Anna move gracefully back up the hill, lifting a hand to wave to Dev and Lauren. “You're right,” he said quietly. “This has angel stink all over it.”

“She did it to herself.” The words snapped, bone-like.

“Maybe Gabriel—”

Castiel's nose crinkled. “I'm afraid we can't blame everything on my erstwhile brother. In truth, I doubt he would have wanted this. No.” He looked down, dug his boot into the dirt. “She used the last of her grace and did this. Annihilated herself.”

Dean tried not to think about whether he'd do the same thing if he could. He'd resisted the djinn, it was true. But that was before Sam died, before Lilith, before Hell, before Ruby, before Lucifer. Things were better now, sure. But he couldn't claim that those things, those memories, hadn't changed him, shaped him, made him what he was. For better and for worse.

“Man, I can't even imagine what she thinks happened over the past two years.”

“We'll have to ask her sometime,” Castiel said, tone blacker than black.

Dean's taste for gallows humor was rare and refined. He gave a soft snort of amusement and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Come on,” he said. “Lauren's probably waiting for you.”

The dirt slid beneath their boots as they walked up the hill. “I'm not interested in Lauren,” Castiel informed him.

A casual, “What do I care?” came easily to Dean. There was significantly more space between him and Castiel by the time the reached the rest of the group.

The other five were standing in a circle of tree stumps at the center of a flat clearing, which faced a series of logs and stones set into the upper crest of the hill. The arrangement did not look remotely natural. “Lauren says they hire this space out for events,” Sam explained.

Lauren was bent over with her ass in the air. She glanced over her shoulder at them, grinning. “We get a lot of weddings.”

Dean looked around at the shivering trees and the mulch of fallen leaves beneath their feet. “Yeah, I'll be sure to book early.”

“Dean. Cas.” Sam beckoned them over with a jerk of his head. “Look at this.”

They approached, Castiel jumping a little as Lauren chose to straighten up just as he walked by, sliding against him. “Ooops. Sorry.”

“I'm sure the fault was mine,” Castiel said. Dean rolled his eyes: like being gentlemanly was helping.

He glanced down where Sam was pointing. “Is somebody having a tea party?”

A leaf had been spread out on one of the stumps. A couple of flowers—probably stolen from some other part of the garden—had been arranged on top of it, much too neatly and deliberately for them to even consider the idea that it had been an accident. Dean peered closer: the centers of several of the blossoms were heavy with liquid, half white, half amber. Milk and honey?

“It looks like an offering,” Sam said. “I've read about faerie offerings—they were described just like this.”

“There's no such thing as faeries,” Castiel said.

Dean laughed. “Dude, you just killed Tinkerbell.”

Castiel looked like he had no idea why Lauren was suddenly clapping her hands.

“Wait, how do you know what stuff's real and what stuff isn't real?” Dev asked. “Is there, like, a database?”

Sam's eyes lit up. “Wow, that's a really good idea! Instead of hunters just working off their own research and observation we could assemble it all into a carefully indexed resource, put the whole thing online...”

“Yeah, have fun trying to put that together,” Dean said. The sad thing was, he knew Sam really would.

“But how do you know there aren't faeries?” Lauren protested. “This isn't the first offering I've seen here! They keep appearing and then disappearing. What's doing that?”

“Animals? Other people?” Dean shrugged. “But trust me: if Cas says there aren't any faeries, there aren't.”

“How much bigger is this place?” Sam asked.

Lauren pointed. “It goes up the hill a ways; then there's a fence and it becomes private property. Then over that way there's the Mediterranean collection and the New World Desert over where we came in.”

“So...not very big.”

She shook her head.

Dean, Sam, and Cas all exchanged shrugs or the equivalent. “Okay,” Sam said. “I think we're going to have to do some more research.” Generously, he offered Lauren a smile. “Thanks for the tour.”

“It was my pleasure,” she told Cas.

Dean rolled his eyes.

They started back down the slope. They hadn't gone very far when suddenly Dev skidded to a halt. “Wait,” he said. “We're missing someone.”

Dean looked back over his shoulder, then turned and surveyed the group. He counted six people including himself. “Shit.”

The others were looking around too, their expressions growing increasingly frantic. “We are missing someone.” Anna touched her hand to her throat. “We have to go back!”

“I think I see someone over there!” Sam said, pointing in the other direction. He started off.

“Wait,” Dean said.

“Oh my god, someone's missing?” Lauren backed up against the trunk of a tree and sank to the ground.

“Wait,” Dean said.

“They can't have gone far,” said Castiel. “We'll find them.”

“Wait—” Dean didn't know which direction to turn, who to follow. He tried to take a step forward and a step back at approximately the same time; the loose earth slid beneath him. He grabbed a tree trunk for balance. A drop of water landed on his cheek, and for a second he thought he'd shaken it loose from the high branches. But the tree was barren of leaves and too thick to be moved. It began to rain in earnest.

“Sam,” Dean called. “Cas!” They'd all left him, vanishing in opposite directions. Dean took a deep breath and tried to think. He took a step up the hill and immediately slid back.

Someone was sobbing, somewhere. Dean tried to move toward the sound. Then all of a sudden it stopped, as if whoever had been crying had sucked in a deep breath and never let it back out again. The rain, once a slow patter, had increased in volume, was coming down in sheets. Dean peered through it: he thought he could just barely see a hunched, hazy figure, dressed in brown. Thank goodness. “Hey!” he called. “We've been looking for you!”

Thunder crashed. Dean stumbled, moving upward. The figure was in front of him, moving slowly also, but deliberately, with ease. It appeared to be dragging something. “Hey!” Dean called again. “Wait up!”

He almost walked straight into Cas. The other man caught him by the shoulders. “Dean,” he said, sounding vaguely surprised. “I can't find them. I don't know what to do.”

Dean turned him around, tugged him along. “They're up there. Come on!”

They stumbled together, gripping at each other's shoulders, holding each other up. The hill seemed much larger and steeper than it had before. It was slow-going, but no matter how much they slipped and slid, they never lost sight of the figure in front of them. It was always there.

“Where are the others?” Dean tried to ask at one point. “Have you seen Sam?”

“I don't know.”

“What about Anna? What about Dev? Hell, where's Lauren?”

“I don't know,” Castiel said. “I don't know.”

Dean caught himself as he started to fall, wet leaves rubbing against his palm, sliding against his wrist and down the sleeve of his coat. “How do seven people get lost in a space this small?”

Castiel started to shake his head. Then he said, “Seven people.”

“What?” Dean didn't see any lightning, but thunder rumbled across the sky. The trees swayed like they were caught in that tornado Cas had never rescued Anna from.

“Seven people?”

“Cas—”

“Stop,” Castiel said suddenly. “Don't move.”

He was holding Dean, his arm a bar across Dean's chest. Wide-eyed, he stared forward, and Dean followed his gaze. Ahead of them, the hunched figure in brown stopped, too. It seemed to flicker, waver in place, though that might have been the rain, disturbing his vision like static on a TV set. Then it dropped what it was carrying with a thump, heavy like the thunder.

Seven. Seven people. Oh, fuck.

Even soaking wet, Dean was quick to draw and level a gun. Castiel was only a step behind him with his knife. The figure in brown seemed to swirl, to pulse. Dean thought, Fuck this, and fired straight at its heart.

The figure exploded.

Exploded and came at them in a wave, a tsunami of tiny bodies. They swarmed like locusts, beating against Dean and Castiel's eyes and ears, bathing them both in a constant hiss of curses. Dean would have cried out when he saw Cas crumple, but he was afraid one of them would fly down his mouth.

He stumbled forward. No: he didn't stumble. He was prodded forward, pulled, pushed. The tiny wings beat against his face, razor sharp. Through the blood and the rain he saw Cas, struggling, being dragged, having his head brutally knocked against the outer ring of stumps.

Something was happening to the earth at the center of the ring.

At first he thought he was imagining it: god knew what aspects of what he was seeing were real or unreal. But he could hear it, too, a churning squelch, like batter—or cement—swirled in a mixer. The earth was moving, spinning, spiraling down. And they were hauling Cas into the vortex.

Castiel was fighting, fighting hard. He'd grabbed hold of one of the stumps and was clinging to it, trying to hold it bodily to his chest. Some of the weight of bodies lifted off of Dean and applied themselves to Cas, clearly attempting to make up the difference. It was enough that Dean was able to stumble backward a step—only to fall over the body sprawled there. Lauren, Dean realized. She was lying face up in the falling rain. Dean couldn't tell if she was breathing.

He clung to her—anything, anything for ballast.

“Cas!” he screamed.

“Dean!”

It came out choked. Dean didn't even think. He pulled himself forward, the swarm a black haze in front of his eyes. Castiel had been dragged more into the circle than not. The faeries—fuck! fuck!—weren't even needing to do most of the work now: the earth had closed over Cas' feet, over his ankles, his calves; it was pulling him down like quicksand. “Cas, hold on!” Dean said. He begged, he pled.

“Dean...” Did he sound choked now, or despairing? Dean could barely see him. He reached out, fumbled for his hand, came away with nothing but a handful of wet leaves. He tried to scoot forward again, but he'd latched onto Lauren too well: his bootlace was caught on one of the many straps dangling uselessly from her cargo capris. The faeries buzzed around him. They were pulling less fiercely now, even when he backed away from the pit to try to free himself. They seemed to know that with Castiel in peril, he wouldn't need coaxing: Dean would follow him into the abyss without any prodding at all.

He groped in the rain, running a hand up Lauren's leg in the least sexy way ever. He found where he was snagged and pulled. He found something else.

Faeries weren't supposed to exist. Dean had no idea how to kill something that even angels said weren't real, but he figured that some things were damn near close to universal. Gripping Lauren's can of bug spray in one hand and his lighter in the other, Dean rolled over onto his back and let loose.

It was a good fucking lighter. Even in the rain, the flame caught, hit the spray, burned sputtery and stinky but fierce. And the faeries shot up like gasoline.

Dean muscled forward into the swarm, watching the tiny bodies ignite and burn and crumble. It was like he was burning the rain away, too: suddenly it was a drizzle, then a mist. But by then Dean didn't care anymore. He threw himself toward the ring of stumps, reaching out, calling Cas' name. Searching, searching.

He wasn't there. The dirt was still swirling, spinning slowly to a stop, but it was just earth, just twigs and leaves and pebbles. No sign of a man. No tuft of hair, no reaching fingers. Nothing.

Dean dove in anyway. He thrust his arms into the rapidly solidifying ground. They went in deeper than was normal, but not, it seemed, nearly deep enough to contain a person—Cas, Cas, his Cas. He couldn't be gone. He couldn't. Dean dug deeper, scrambled, threw himself away from the safety of the line of stumps. Mud ran in rivulets down his face. He choked on it.

He didn't realize, at first, that he'd found something to hold on to. In truth he'd almost given up. But he touched something solid, felt a shiver race up his spine. He closed his eyes and he pulled.

Cas looked awful, emerging from the mud. Filthy, and beneath the filth, deathly pale. A far-removed part of Dean's brain wondered if he'd looked like this, when he'd crawled free of his grave; if Castiel had watched, idly, from above. Now Dean knelt on the ground beside him, both of them dirty beyond belief, and hugged Cas' body to his, wiped the mud from his nostrils and mouth. He leaned down, no hesitation, ready to perform mouth-to-mouth, but before their lips could touch, Cas sputtered, coughed. His eyes opened, impossibly blue against so much blackness.

“Cas.” Dean choked back a sob of relief, then stopped bothering. “How—”

“I held my breath,” Castiel said.

Dean was still hovering over him, ready to give him the kiss of life that had turned out not to be necessary.

Dean kissed him anyway.

He tasted like all the crap they'd just been drowning in, earthy and base, but there was a fresh rainwater taste to him too, a purity and an innocence. Despite the cold and the damp, Dean felt a warmth spread through him. He leaned forward and encouraged Castiel's muddy hand to skate along Dean's muddy neck, and their mouths to slide together, catch, glide apart. They wallowed shamelessly in each other.

“Dean! Dean!”

Only Sam's frantic cry was enough to break them apart. “Over here, Sammy!” Dean yelled back, turning his neck a little but refusing to break all contact. He helped Cas sit up but otherwise didn't, as Cas clearly expected him to, back away. Dean didn't care. He didn't care. What did he care? It seemed suddenly so stupid that he had ever cared in the first place.

To let Castiel know just how much he cared/didn't, Dean kissed him again, long and sweet and full of promise, just as Sam crested the top of the ridge.

“Uh...” said Sam. And that was the extent of his commentary.

He went to check on Lauren. Dean felt vaguely ashamed for having forgotten, but better when, under Sam's big, comforting hands, she was coaxed up to breathe shockily and then sob into Sam's shoulder. Sam took this like a professional. Dean ran a hand through Cas' hair and kissed him some more.

Even with Sam looming over her, Lauren must have caught sight of this. She broke away from Sam with a sudden push. “Dammit, Anna!”

Anna skidded down the other side of the hill. She had leaves in her hair. A lot of leaves. “What?” she asked. Then she caught sight of the way Dean and Castiel were entwined. “Oh.”

“Are you okay?” Sam asked her. “Where's Dev?”

“He's right back there,” she pointed. “He lost his phone.”

“No, it's okay!” Dev called. He appeared at the top of the rise and slowly skidded down to meet them, holding his cell triumphantly above his head. “I found it!”

“Wow,” said Dean. “Close call.”

Cas put his head down on Dean's shoulder and almost-sort-of laughed.

Dean made an executive decision.

“All right, we're leaving.” Together, he and Cas pulled themselves shakily to their feet.

“Wait,” said Sam, “hang on...”

“No, I mean we're leaving. Anna, you can entertain Sam for a while, right?”

“Well, yeah...”

“And there are motels around here.”

“Down on University...”

“Huh. I guess I do have a secret desire to go to University after all.”

Sam was staring at him like he'd grown an extra head. “But...what happened?”

“Faeries,” Dean said. He became suddenly, potently aware of several obvious jokes. He was glad Sam was the sensitive, PC brother and therefore unlikely to make them.

“I thought Cas said faeries weren't real!”

“I was wrong,” Castiel said.

Forget angelic infallibility: Dean had never missed Cas' instant angel transport powers so badly. He wanted nothing more than to be somewhere else, immediately, but instead he had to persuade Sam and the others to let them leave, convince Cas that for once he didn't care if mud got all over the Impala, drive all the way back to the center of town, find the strip of motels Anna had been talking about, and bribe the desk clerk into renting them a room despite the fact that they looked like they'd recently lost a round of mud wrestling against Swamp Thing. By the time he helped Castiel limp inside, Dean was afraid he was fighting a losing battle with exhaustion. But then he caught sight of Cas, ridiculous looking with dried mud caked into his hair and an expression on his face that seemed to be saying, Really? This is my life?

Dean had asked himself this question with some frequency over the years. For once he was satisfied with the answer. He wanted Cas to be, too.

“C'mere,” he said, and when Cas just stared at him, Dean broke all his own rules about personal space. “Let's get you out of these clothes.” He didn't even bother to make a double entendre out of it: he thought his message was very plain.

Cas let him peel off that stupid denim jacket, let him run his hands along his collar and begin unbuttoning his formerly-green cotton shirt. As long as he stayed businesslike, Cas did not object, but when Dean leaned in to taste again the sweet freshness of Castiel's mouth, his hand moved up, gripping Dean by the shoulder, stopping him. “You don't have to,” Castiel said. “Just because—”

“I want to.” Just saying it, admitting it, gave Dean a little thrill.

Castiel seemed to accept this, but Dean wanted far more than acceptance out of him. The muddied shirt hanging loose now, Dean used it to tug Cas toward the bathroom. The light came on harsh and stuttery, but the shower was big enough for two, and that was all Dean cared about. He gripped Cas by the hips, slid his hands over the dips and curves of his stomach, found the button of his fly. He told the part of himself that couldn't believe he was doing this to shut the fuck up.

Cas was starting to get with the program, shrugging his shirt the rest of the way off and pushing himself greedily into Dean's hands. Dean gave his jeans a tug, then, fighting a sudden wave of panic, left Cas to take care of the rest while he jerked off his own shirt. Cas caught the back of his neck and kissed him when the fabric cleared his head, and this, Dean decided, he could do forever. He let Castiel, sure-fingered and without shame, pull off Dean's own mud-caked jeans. Dean's cock was feeling none of his mind's occasional flashes of doubt or ambiguity; Dean had to resist the urge to mount Cas right there in the middle of the bathroom, to wrap his legs around him and cling like a monkey halfway up a tree.

Somehow one of them got the water turned on; they stumbled back over the lip of the tub and pulled the curtain mostly closed. Dean had planned to take care of Castiel, to gently wash the mud from his body, clean his hair and his lips and his ears and his eyelids. Instead they seemed unable to pull apart long enough to manage anything that coordinated. Cas slip-slided against him, soapy and wet and insistently there. There was water running into Dean's eyes and over their joined mouths; blinded, there was nothing for Dean to do but feel. He felt the fine muscles of Castiel's shoulders, the curve of his back, the more generous curve of his ass. He felt Castiel's cock, hard and heavy against Dean's thigh. And Dean didn't shy away. He wanted more, infinitely more—wanted to deepen, intensify the press of the two of them against each other. The water roared and each of Castiel's panting breaths sounded loud in Dean's ear. Dean felt his own breath hitch as he came, his release rolling through him like thunder.

They did wash each other properly after that, standing on shaky legs, kissing each other soft and suddenly hesitant, as if reassuring one another that they were each still there. Dean dried Castiel's head with one of the motel's scratchy towels and twined his fingers in the soft, damp curls. “Getting long,” he said.

Castiel seemed confused by this statement of the obvious.

“You're settling in nicely,” Dean told him, grinning so much his mouth ached. “Come on,” he coaxed when Castiel didn't immediately respond. It had worked out so very well the last time.

He sat Cas down on the bed, towel draped loosely around his hips. Dean's fatigue was definitely catching up with him, but he still wanted... It made him twitch to even think of saying it, a C-word worse than any curse. He wanted to lie in bed with his arms around Cas and fall asleep listening to Cas' heart beating human through the layers of their skin. All right? That was what he wanted. And he kind of wanted them to both put on some boxers first because naked cuddling was perhaps still just a bit too much.

He'd dumped both his and Cas' duffles by the door. He took care of his own needs quickly, then unzipped Castiel's bag and started rooting around inside. Castiel's priorities became immediately clear: the entire top layer of the bag was books. “Jesus, Cas, you're carrying a whole library around in here.” Dean dug deeper, his hand bouncing off something hard and metallic and still not a frickin' pair of underwear. It was some sort of big heavy belt, straight out of the Mr. T collection. “You're such a dork,” Dean said with fondness.

“Dean,” Cas sighed. “That's my bag...”

Dean's fingers had finally snagged on a scrap of stripy blue fabric; he stood up and spun around and presented them to Cas with pride. Castiel's expression was pure befuddlement, but he put the boxers on and let Dean tug him up the bed and under the covers. Dean settled with far too much eagerness into the crook of Castiel's shoulder. “Tell anyone about this and die,” he whispered into Cas' collarbone.

“I was planning on updating my Facebook status immediately,” Castiel huffed.

Dean pulled back a little, glanced up. “You're on Facebook?”

“No. I was being facetious.”

“Oh, well, that's all right then,” Dean said, settling back down with a yawn.

He was still a little self-conscious: conscious, that is, of every aspect of their bodies, of the two of them together, the hard places where part of him still expected softness, the rough places where he was accustomed to smooth. And yet he wanted this so much it scared him. At times Castiel still seemed to him to be vast and strange and unknowable, and Dean wanted to lose himself in that mystery. Learn what he could. Hunt down and capture the truth of this creature, this man, just like he'd been taught. Keep him for himself.

Castiel never ceased to surprise him: he did so now, saying suddenly, “I'm sorry.”

Dean blinked sleepily, eyelashes fluttering against Castiel's throat. “What for?”

“For being mistaken. In the garden. I should have known.”

Dean let out a puff of breath. “Forget it. It was kind of fun, getting to rescue you for once.” He tugged Cas' face down to his, kissed his hard mouth and his stubbled jaw. “My little damsel in distress.”

He drifted a little, happy and warm.

“You know,” he mumbled, after a while. “Maybe Anna wasn't entirely wrong. It could be nice to forget about the past, not have to worry about the future. Who cares about the bigger picture, what it all means? It might be nice to just be boring, average people for a change.”

He couldn't remember what Castiel answered, whatever he may or may not have said drowned out by the silence of sleep.

When Dean woke the next morning, Castiel was gone.

Episode 6x04 / Masterpost / Episode 6x06

Big Bang Fic: Immigrant Song (Episode 6x04)

trinityofone — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 01:22:23 GMT

Sam had apparently started something, because the next town they stopped at, Castiel got his own room.

“It’s beginning to feel...claustrophobic,” was all Castiel said. The second he was gone, Sam turned and gave his brother a look.

“What?”

“Is something going on with you two?”

Dean snorted. “What could possibly be going on between us? With us.”

Sam stared at his brother, who was ignoring this verbal slip, digging around in his duffle for a clean shirt. “I mean are you having a fight,” Sam said.

“No,” Dean said, then almost immediately, “Yes! He gets on my nerves, all right? Doesn’t he get on your nerves?”

“Not really,” Sam said. “I like Cas.” It no longer even surprised him how true this statement was: he did like Cas. He was glad Cas was hunting with them. So far it seemed to him that three was not, in fact, a crowd: that it was much more comfortable, much less needy and codependent and tense, than two had proven to be.

So of course the other two were going to develop their own weird tense thing and screw it up. Sam wondered if this was how Dean had felt, when Sam and Dad had started fighting and never been able to stop.

Just the thought of “liking” Cas was apparently enough to make Dean scowl. “Well, whatever. If he needs more space to himself, that’s fine by me.”

“O-kay,” Sam said. Forget it, he’d deal with this in the morning.

When he woke up, Dean was still snoring like a freight train, face down into the pillow, under the covers for once. Sam decided not to wake him. He took a nice, long, hot shower, then tapped on the connecting door. Castiel opened it, a book dangling from his free hand. His eyes went immediately to the occupied bed. “He’s still asleep?”

“I thought I’d let him rest.” Sam shrugged.

“By all means, indulge him,” Castiel said, his sarcasm like one of those knives that could cut through a candle and still leave it standing. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

O-kay, Sam thought again, stepping away from the door. He was going to have to make them...hug it out or something. He didn’t even know.

“Dean,” he said, deciding to deal with the easiest, most obvious problem. He gave his brother’s leg a smack. “Time to get up.”

The snoring cut off with a snort. A second later, the top of Dean’s head retreated the rest of the way under the covers and Sam could see the outline of his limbs spread out in a stretch.

A second after that, the blankets flew up and hit Sam in the face, and a blonde woman was standing in the middle of the room screaming.

“Ahhh, what the fuck!”

The woman was clutching her breasts through her too-large t-shirt. Her chest heaved as she worked her way through a panic. Then she looked up, her eyes green and horrified. “Sammy,” she said, “what the hell?”

“Dean?”

“Fuck,” Dean-with-boobs said, clutching at the place his cock seemingly wasn’t. “Fuck fuck fuck!”

“Um...” said Sam, trying very, very hard not to stare, and feeling very, very thankful that he’d somehow dodged the bullet this time. “I’ll get Cas.”

“No!” Dean snapped. “Don’t get Cas! We can solve this on our own! We can figure this out right now! It’s, uh, obviously—”

“Cas!” Sam yelled, and pounded his fist on the connecting wall.

Castiel opened the door looking cross. “I said let me know, not the whole—” He stopped. He looked at Dean. Really looked at Dean, in a way Sam had not let himself. Some incredibly deeply buried part of Sam wanted smack Castiel on the arm and say, Hey! Stop ogling my sister!

If Dean ever found out that he had thought that, Dean would kill him.

After a moment, Castiel pulled himself together. “Hello, Dean,” he said, drawing his shoulders straight. “You look different.”

“Don’t get any ideas,” Dean said. He attempted to cross his arms over his chest, encountered his breasts, gave up, and rested them defiantly on his hips. This made him look remarkably like Mary Martin playing Peter Pan. (Sam was never going to tell Dean he’d thought this, either.)

“What kind of ideas?” Castiel asked.

“Ideas,” said Dean, significantly.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Guys.” Sam coughed. “Do we maybe want to—”

“It was Gabriel,” Dean said.

“How do you—”

“I just do. It has his stink all over it. Let’s summon the bastard, all right?”

“No need, I’m already here.” He was perched on the TV cabinet, gnawing on a Toblerone and grinning at them. He laid a hand flat on his chest. “I’m honored that you’d recognize my work’s distinctive touch.”

“You mean its stupidity and tastelessness? Yeah we recognize it, all right.” Dean’s fists were clenched, his jaw set. Even with softer features, the effect of the expression hadn’t changed much. “You change me back, you son of a bitch.”

“Me-ow!” Gabriel laughed when Dean hurled himself at him, only to come up against some kind of magical forcefield.

“Gabriel. Enough,” Castiel said. “This is not amusing.”

“Oh, it looks pretty damn funny to me, bro,” Gabriel said. “Relax, though. I’ll change you back,” he told Dean. “I just need a little favor, first.”

“Fuck. You.”

“Happily, but that’s not the favor I need.” He jumped off the cabinet and slunk over to the table. In doing so, his eyes fell on Sam, who’d been discreetly attempting to free a vial of holy oil from his duffle.

“Oh, very subtle,” Gabriel said. Sam glared at him, frustrated. Gabriel simply waved a hand. “Well, go ahead—continue if you want. I’ve been curious to see if it’ll still tickle.”

“You...” Sam started.

“There are no more angels on earth,” Gabriel said. “For real, this time.” For a moment his expression was almost serious. Then a grin cracked through. “But that’s not what I came here to talk about.” He plopped down in one of the chairs. “What do you think, boys and girl? You up for a heist?”

“A heist,” Dean said dully.

“Yeah, a heist. I need you guys to steal something for me. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

Something that was half smile, half scream spread across Dean’s face. “Kicking your ass sounds fun. Having a penis sounds fun. Playing Gabriel’s Eleven, you little turd, does not sound fun!”

Gabriel looked at him. “I don’t know,” he said after a moment. “I think it’s going to be pretty fun.”

Dean started to throw himself forward again, but Castiel grabbed him by the arm. Dean whipped around, his rage redirected. He jerked his arm out of Castiel’s grasp. It was weird, Sam thought, to see Dean look up to yell in Castiel’s face. “Don’t you fucking touch me.”

Castiel backed off, his eyes hooded and dark.

This was way too much shit to pack into one tiny motel room. One thing at a time, Sam thought. “So you want us to steal something?” he asked. “And then you’ll change him back?”

“You got it.”

“So the sex change is leverage for you? You couldn’t just ask?”

“Well, I could,” Gabriel admitted. “You guys do owe me big time. But no: Dean’s fabulous new look has a higher purpose. Other than, I mean, just being really, really funny.”

“I’m a girl and I bet I’m still taller than you,” Dean said.

“Oh, a hit! A palpable hit!” Gabriel said, miming hurt. “No, but seriously. You’re just too precious for words. Pretty as a man and a lovely lady to boot. All I had to do was give a certain chromosome a little flick—didn’t have to do a bit of redesign. Although...” His fingers snapped, loud and sharp, and suddenly Dean’s hair was falling in soft blond waves to just above his shoulders. He looked really, disturbingly like Mom.

“There, much better,” Gabriel said. “The other way you looked a bit too much like Mary Martin.”

Great. And now Sam had to hate himself for having shared this thought.

Dean flicked the hair out of the way in impatient disgust. “Great, you want to do my nails, too? Give me a makeover? Don’t even pretend that you’re doing this for any reason except to indulge your sick fantasies.”

“Oh, but I am,” Gabriel said. “And it’s just the kind of reason you righteous fellows like. A very bad bad man has got his hands on a very powerful artifact. And you,” he spun a finger toward Dean, “are going to get it back.”

“Me,” Dean said.

“You bet, sport! I’m even going to make it easy for you. Look,” he gestured again, somewhat lewdly, fingers drawing in the air a caricature of Dean’s new shape. “I’ve already given you the ideal in.”

They stared at him, uncomprehending. “Our bad boy has a weakness for hookers,” Gabriel revealed with a grin. “I figured Deano would relate.”

“You have got to be kidding me!” Dean bellowed.

Castiel stepped forward. “You’re a poor liar, Gabriel. If you so desperately needed a woman, you could just as easily become one yourself.”

“That’s true,” Gabriel said. “Would that make you feel better, Dean? If I joined you?” A click resounded in Sam’s ear and he found himself sitting next to a short, curvaceous woman with some of the largest breasts he'd ever seen. “We can be sisters!” she squealed, stepping toward Dean with her arms held out.

Dean punched her in the face.

Gabriel(le) sat back down in his/her chair with a thump. “Great,” she/he said. “Now I’m going to have to tell everyone I ran into a doorknob.”

“I still don’t understand why you need our help to steal something,” Castiel said, unamused.

The air shimmered and Gabriel was a man—or at least man-shaped—again. “Because our guy isn’t stupid, and the artifact is heavily-warded. Trickster or angel, I could never get within a hundred yards of that place. But if Deanna here poses as a lady of negotiable affections...”

“That’s seriously the best plan you could come up with?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know, it’s certainly the most fun.”

“But why Dean?”

Gabriel turned to him, and before Sam could shy away, he found himself chucked lightly under the chin. “Aww, Sammy. You jealous?”

“Jealous?”

“Don’t worry, I brought plenty of fun treats for you, too.” A duffle appeared. “You and Cas and going to play handlers to Dean’s little Sydney Bristow. Sam, am I right to think that you’d be best left in charge of these toys?”

Sam looked in the bag. He wanted to play with the toys.

But still: he wasn’t going to sell Dean out for some cool hardware. “I still don’t see why we should help you.”

“Uh, because it’s the right thing to do? Because I asked so very nicely? Because if you don’t, Dean’s going to have to start shopping for tampons?”

“Sure, I’ll buy tampons. I’ll buy tampons and shove them so far up your—”

“Dean.”

Dean stopped and turned to Castiel, turned slowly like he was dreading what he might see. “What?”

“Let’s just do what he says.”

“Why?”

“Some people,” Castiel said, “there’s just no point in arguing with.”

Dean looked away.

“They’re set in their ways. There’s no use trying to change them. It’s better to just...go along.”

“Aww, touching speech, bro.” Gabriel laid a hand over his heart. “Though I’d have focused more on the part where I’m awesome.” He leapt to his feet. “All right then. Let’s blow this shithole and relocate to my stylish home base.”

Snap.

When Sam opened his eyes again, he was standing in the world’s douchiest bachelor pad, Dean was still a girl, and Castiel was bent over at the waist. “Did you like that?” Gabriel asked, bending over next to him. “I added it just for you. That’s what angel transport feels like to humans the first few times.”

Castiel forced himself up. “You’re a dick,” he said.

Gabriel patted him on the back. “Takes one to know one, brother.”

He took a step back and surveyed the three of them and the room like he was a ringmaster at the circus. “Now,” he said, “I'm going to let Sam get started figuring out all that fancy equipment. But first,” he cocked his finger at Dean, “we need to get you into something a little more comfortable.”

“Absolutely not,” Dean said before Gabriel could click thumb against forefinger. “I'll buy my own clothes. You can play Fashion Plates with somebody else.” He thrust his hand out. “Gimme some money.”

“Oh, you’re in the spirit already! I’ll just leave it on the nightstand, shall I?”

Dean was shaking with rage. It was the sort of display of anger that, on any other woman, Sam knew his brother would call “cute,” but he doubted Dean was finding anything adorable about it now. “You wanna finance this little heist? Then hand over the money, Danny.”

Gabriel chucked a credit card at him. Dean’s reflexes were as good as ever: he caught it, spun it around. “‘Peter Coyote'? Hilarious.” He started for the door.

“Keep it classy, now!” Gabriel called after him. “We’re thinking Julia Roberts after the Rodeo Drive makeover, mmkay?”

“You wouldn’t know classy if it threw a glass of champagne in your face,” Sam muttered.

Gabriel glanced over his shoulder. “That’s true,” he admitted.

Sam looked over the equipment while they waited for Dean to return. Castiel mostly stuck to the corners of the room, inspecting Gabriel’s possessions with his eyes, his hands clasped behind his back. Sam kept trying to shoot him significant looks, get him to come over so they could exchange a few words without their host overhearing. But Castiel refused to cooperate.

Sam had expected Dean to come back with one crumpled plastic bag containing ten dollars worth of hookerwear from Goodwill. Instead he’d apparently bought out the local Nordstrom. Gabriel clapped his hands. “Well, it looks like you enjoyed that. I bet I’m secretly doing you a favor, Dean, letting you explore your feminine side...”

“Shut up,” said Dean, storming past him to the bathroom.

“Feel free to take a bubble bath while you’re in there!” Gabriel called.

“Whatever you’re trying to prove, it isn’t helping,” Castiel said, looking and speaking up for the first time in a while.

The look Gabriel cast his way was wide-eyed and innocent. “Do you need help with something, baby brother? Just say the word.”

The door slammed back against the wall as Dean emerged from the bathroom, looking...much better supported. Dean caught Sam’s gaze before he could look away. “They were hurting, all right?” He was wearing clothes that fit now, too, jeans and a plain, but clearly woman’s-sized, tee. Sam bet he’d had fun driving up Gabriel’s credit card bill—although sadly, he had to know there was no chance in hell that the Trickster actually paid it.

“All right, so what’s the plan?” Dean was business-like, determined, his voice a husky alto. “We’re moving tonight, right? Tell me the plan is to move tonight.”

“I dunno, we might want to scout out the joint a bit more, take our time with surveillance. Wouldn’t want all those snazzy outfits you bought to go to waste.”

Dean just stared at him.

Gabriel waved a hand and sighed. “Yes, all right, we’ll go tonight. I’ve already worked it out so that when our pal Mr. Sturluson needs to de-stress and calls his favorite escort agency this evening, he’ll connect to the new receptionist right here.” These last two words were said in a purring, feminine voice that frankly gave Sam the wiggins.

“I still don’t get why between the four of us, we can’t just bust in, beat the shit out of this guy, and steal whatever it is you want.” Dean looked like he would really, really relish the opportunity to beat the shit out of someone.

“Because, sunshine, he’s more paranoid than Richard Nixon after a particularly strong toke, and he hauls four bodyguards around with him everywhere—guys that make Sammy here look dainty. His little love nest is the only place they let him be. Not to mention the fact that, as I mentioned, the whole place is warded up the ying-yang. I’m certainly not getting anywhere near it, and I’m not even sure Cas, as diminished as he is, would be able to get through.”

“So because you’re a supernatural chickenshit, you’re sending me in alone. Nice.”

“Yeah, wait,” Sam said. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this. This guy’s going to be...expecting stuff from Dean, and we’re just going to be leaving her alone with him?”

Sam clamped down on his tongue a second after the words were out, but they didn’t stop Dean from shooting him a look of betrayal the likes of which Sam hadn’t seen since Ruby, and which he never wanted to see again. “Are you saying you don’t think I can handle myself? Against some ridiculous Lex Luthor-style chump?” He pushed away from the table, flicking a hand unconsciously through his hair. “Never mind. I love this plan. Let’s fucking do it.”

“Don’t worry, Sammy,” Gabriel said, ignoring Dean’s outburst. “We’ll be monitoring Big Sis’ progress on your cool new spy cam. And in case Deanna can’t subdue mean old Sturluson on her own, I got a needle of knockout juice that we can slip into your stylish little hooker purse.”

He produced an incredibly tacky red patent leather number.

“No, thanks,” Dean said with a sneer. “Doesn’t match my outfit.”

“And what am I to do?” Castiel asked. Sam was trying to ignore the nervous little looks he kept shooting at Dean.

“Oh, you?” Gabriel gave his temple an exaggerated scratch. “I guess I forgot all about you. What are you good for lately, I can’t quite remember.”

“Hey,” Dean said sharply, with a vehemence that seemed to surprise even him.

“I guess we can fit you with a radio and you can keep watch from the street. Run in and save our little damsel if things get too hairy. If the wards don’t fry you, that is.”

“Whatever good will you’ve stored up with us, I just hope you know it’s officially gone,” Sam told Gabriel.

He shrugged. “And what’s good will worth, really? Last I checked it got me killed.” He gave Sam a swift, condescending pat on the back. “Play with your toys, kid.”

The one good thing to come out of this, Sam supposed, was the knowledge that he’d definitely had the wrong career aspirations when he’d been at Stanford. Forget becoming a lawyer: he should have been working toward becoming a hacker/spy. He was so going to try to steal all this stuff from Gabriel when they were done.

They weren’t done yet, though. Far from it. Around ten o’clock, as promised, Mr. Sturluson called requesting some “company.” Gabriel, doing his creepy sex kitten purr, had regretfully informed Sturluson that his favorite girl was unfortunately unavailable, but that they had a brand new young lady he might like to try. “Very new,” Gabriel tittered. “One might say pristine.” Mr. Sturluson was happy to be persuaded of the advantages of this alternate arrangement.

“That’s your cue, sweetcheeks,” Gabriel told Dean as soon as he hung up. Dean scowled, leaning slouchily in the white lacy dress he’d picked out. Somehow the look worked perfectly with Gabriel’s story, but to Sam it made Dean look far too much like a sacrificial lamb.

“Dean,” Sam said, getting up from behind the computer. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, she does,” Gabriel sing-songed.

“It’s fine, Sam. I can handle some mook.” He straightened, grabbed Gabriel’s little purse of the table and thrust it toward him. “Make this look less ridiculous, will you?”

When Gabriel handed it back, it had a pale blue flowered pattern. “You can tell him you crocheted it yourself!”

Sam approached tentatively. “Dean, let me just check your mic and camera.” Gabriel had fitted them with tiniest radios Sam had ever seen, and a contact lens camera that under other circumstances would have made Sam piss himself in glee.

Now, however, Dean took a step back when he tried to approach. “Go check your computer screen,” Dean said. Reluctantly, Sam retreated back to the table. A black and white close-up of Dean’s middle finger greeted him. Sam glanced up again: Dean was holding his hand in front of his face. “There, can you see that? Then I think it’s working.”

He turned and headed for the door and almost smacked straight into Cas. On the screen, Sam got a unique view of Castiel’s bobbing Adam’s apple. “What are you doing?” Dean snapped.

“I’m supposed to come with you.”

“Yeah, well, stay back,” Sam could see Dean’s gaze slide away, “you’ll blow the whole thing.”

It was weird essentially watching through Dean’s eyes as he walked down the street to Sturluson’s condo, a little hesitant but surprisingly graceful in his high heels. Gabriel had apparently chosen their home base not just for its degenerate luxury but for its proximity to Sturluson’s home; Dean didn’t have to go very far. Through his brother’s eyes, Sam took in the building: it was a modern structure of glass and concrete and steel, almost fortress-like, with windows only toward the top. It was surrounded by a thick green hedge and an imposing metal gate. Sam saw Dean pause, then stride determinedly toward the entrance. Then, weirder still, a feminine hand that, in spite of the past day, Sam could not connect with his brother, reached out and firmly pressed the doorbell.

It didn’t make a noise, but less than a minute later, a huge man in a dark suit appeared at the gate. Gabriel was right about one thing: even for a bodyguard, this guy was mammoth, easily three times Dean’s current size. “Yes?” he said, in a voice deep enough to make both Dean and Castiel, at their most male and fully powered, jealous.

“Miss Edda sent me,” Dean said, as Gabriel had instructed. He sounded a little nervous, but just like the white dress, Sam supposed that worked for the story Gabriel and Dean (inadvertently) had constructed.

“One moment.” The guard touched his ear and mumbled something Sam couldn’t make out. Then he nodded and unlocked the gate. “You can go up,” he said.

Dean was escorted through a thick metal door to a shiny elevator. Sam could see his eyes flicking around, probably looking for traces of warding, but none were visible. The truly powerful stuff often wasn’t, unfortunately. The guard pushed a button, then stepped back, probably behind Dean. The elevator doors slid open, silently.

Dean started to step in, but something stopped him, held him back. Sam tensed. “I’m sorry,” the guard said, “you’ll have to leave that here.”

Dean looked down at the crocheted bag, which the guard had snagged by its strap, then back up at his face. “But it has things I need in it. Condoms,” he whispered.

The guard shook his head. “You’ll find everything you need upstairs.”

Dean surrendered the bag.

“I don’t like this,” Sam said, looking over his shoulder to search for Gabriel. “I don’t like this at all.”

Gabriel emerged from the kitchen, holding a large metal bowl and robustly chewing. “He’ll be fine, he was practically made for this.” He smirked and held out the bowl. “Kettle corn?”

Sam wanted to glare at him while plotting his death, but he needed to keep his eyes on the screen. He could see Dean look up as the elevator doors opened, and he watched as Dean carefully took note of the two massive guards standing to either side. There was a third waiting down the hall. Dean made the same decision Sam would have and started toward him. “I hope he remembers to smile,” Gabriel offered, unhelpfully.

The guard by the door gave Dean a once-over that Sam really didn’t like. Dean just stood there and apparently took it, waiting patiently when the guard finally turned away and knocked softly on the door. After a moment, it opened, revealing a tall blond man almost as big as his guards. “Welcome,” he said, like he was greeting a visiting diplomat. “Please come in.”

Sam wished he could see Dean’s face, wished he could ask him if he was okay. Instead he could only watch as Dean glanced back, at the door closing behind him.

The man had a pair of champagne flutes waiting; he passed one to Dean as soon as he was in the door. Don’t drink that, Sam thought, but he saw it rise to Dean’s lips anyway. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Mr. Sturluson was saying. “Won’t you tell me your name?”

“Oh, fuck,” Sam said aloud. Somehow, for some reason, they had failed to cover this. Sure, Dean made up names all the time, and Gabriel had been calling him Deanna all afternoon, but as the pause grew longer Sam cursed them all for idiots for not ironing out the little details in advance. Just say Deanna, Sam thought. Just say anything!

“My name’s...Chastity,” Dean said finally. He must have smiled, sold it with a look, because Sturluson laughed. Sam thought it was laying it on a little thick.

But, “Delightful,” Sturluson said. “And you can call me Mr. Sturluson.”

“Yeah, if I’m nasty,” Dean muttered.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.” Dean took another gulp of the questionable champagne.

“Please get comfortable.” Sturluson gestured unsubtly toward the bed.

Dean walked over, his point of view dipping down as he sat. Sam watched him glance down at his own legs, then adjust them from his typical wide-kneed stance to a demure cross. It was weird seeing how smooth they were: Sam had missed whether Gabriel had magically depilated them or Dean had had to shave.

His skirt adjusted, Dean looked up again; Sam could tell that he was casing out the room. His gaze lingered on several heavy objects (the better to bash Sturluson’s head in) and on various paintings and tapestries, the wall behind one of which should contain the safe Gabriel had promised them would be there. Apparently he wasn’t subtle enough: “You don’t look very relaxed,” Sturluson said, appearing large and looming in Dean’s line of sight. “Perhaps you’d like a massage?”

It made Sam squirm, having to listen to his brother titter. “Isn’t that my job?”

Sturluson’s smile made Sam shiver. “Allow me.”

As much as Sam hated looking at Sturluson, it was worse when he moved behind Dean, when Sam could only see the tiny glimpses of his hands as they closed on Dean’s shoulders, far too close to Dean’s neck. Sam watched the wave of blonde hair that reminded him so much of his mother get pushed to the side. Then a prolonged moment of blankness: not just a blink, but Dean closing his eyes. “There,” he heard Sturluson say in the dark. “Isn’t that better? Don’t you feel more...relaxed?”

“Mmm,” Dean managed. His eyes were open again, wide and searching. Then suddenly the image jerked: had he jumped? A second later, Sam unfortunately got his answer: the image swooped down and took in the sight of Sturluson’s mammoth hand squeezing Dean’s right breast.

Beside Sam, Gabriel made a contemplative noise. Sam clenched his fists and seethed. “You are one sick fuck.”

On screen, Sam watched Dean’s view shift as he forcibly swiveled around. “I want a turn,” he purred, and it was worse than listening to Gabriel: Sam could only imagine the seductive look that went with the words. “You have...such big strong shoulders. They must hold a lot of tension...a man in your position...”

“See?” Gabriel said, tapping his nose. “Watching all that porn comes in handy.”

Sam had to admit he was relieved when it was Dean kneeling behind Sturluson, staring down at his exposed neck. Those dainty hands Sam still couldn’t reconcile with his brother reached out and squeezed the thick meat of Sturluson’s shoulders. Sturluson let out a little grunt. “Oh, you like it rough, don’t you, big boy?” Dean said, which Sam thought was sort of breaking character, but whatever. He held his breath, knowing that any second now, Dean would take Sturluson out.

Only that wasn’t what happened. Dean moved in for the choke hold, just as Sam suspected, but Sturluson was fast, and strong. Stronger and bigger than Dean, so much bigger than Dean was right now, and before Sam could manage more than a gasp, the image in front of him had tilted, twisted, and Dean was staring up at the ceiling, Sturluson a huge dark shape above him. “You little bitch,” he heard the man hiss, and a horrible, soft sound that he realized was Dean gurgling as he slapped at the massive hand pinning his throat. “Who sent you?”

Sam was grabbing Gabriel by the collar as Dean gulped for air. “Do something! Fuck, do something!”

“Fuck you,” Dean ground out, and then his gaze snapped to the side, once, twice, before it abruptly went dark. Sam stared at the screen in horror: Sturluson must have slapped Dean so hard the contact flew out of his eye.

The audio was still live though. Sam could hear the continuing slaps, and the grunting. He wondered why the guards didn’t come running in, then realized with a sick sinking sensation that it was possible they were expecting sounds like this, that Sturluson really did like it rough. For his women.

He was already gathering up guns, weapons, anything he could lay his hands on. “Goddammit, Gabriel. I don’t care if those sigils roast you on the spot, you are coming with me and you’re going to—”

The male yell almost didn’t register as different at first: Dean was a man, Dean was in danger, so a man crying out in pain was in no way reassuring. But then Sam’s sluggish brain caught up, and what they were hearing took on a different tenor. Male grunts had suddenly never been so reassuring. Nor had a voice that, even distorted through this higher register, Sam could recognize as Dean’s saying, brokenly, “Cas?”

“I’m sorry I took so long,” Sam heard Cas say. For a second he could only sink back against the wall, only a lifetime of practice preventing him from sobbing in relief. “Oh, thank god.”

“Thank God’s absence, you mean,” Gabriel said. “I guess little Cas is fallen enough to make it through the wards without getting fried.”

Sam gave him a look that, had Sam still possessed the slightest trace of TK, would have made Gabriel’s head explode. “We’re still going to help them. I have no idea how Cas got in, but it may not be so easy to get out again.”

Dean obviously had a similar concern. He dismissed Cas' anxious, “Are you okay?”, with a rasped, “I'm fine. It's not like I've never got hit before.” He coughed again before demanding, “How’d you get in?”

“I came from above,” Castiel said. There was a thump: a body being kicked or rolled over.

To Sam’s surprise, he heard Dean emit something like a laugh. “Like an angel,” he said.

“Not really.” He heard something tear. “An angel would have been immolated by the wards. I simply took a page from your Sherlock Holmes and studied the structure until I observed a weakness. Namely, it is slightly too close to a neighboring building on the east side.”

It reassured Sam to hear Dean chuckle as he and Gabriel approached the condo. “You’re an action nerd. Well done.”

“I think this is the safe,” Castiel said a moment later. “Did they take your lock picks?”

“Yeah, but no worries. I just realized there’s an extra advantage to wearing a bra.”

“See, told you he was born for this,” Gabriel whispered.

Sam wouldn’t even look at him. “Shut the fuck up.”

Because they were talking, he almost missed Dean’s sudden stutter as he said, “Uh. Don’t look.”

The guard was still down by the front gate. Fuck. Sam looked around, tried to figure out what Cas had meant by the building on the east side. Then he spotted it: the condo to the left had a fire escape on its far end. From its roof, it might just barely be possible to make it to the roof of Sturluson’s garage. But wouldn’t there be motion detectors? Whatever, Sam had to try. Casting a glance back toward the gate, he crept forward.

“This is as far as I go,” Gabriel said from behind him.

Sam muttered, “Like I give a fuck.”

He was halfway up the fire escape when he heard Dean hiss, “I told you not to look!”

“I thought you needed help.”

“Well, I don’t. The wire’s stuck, that’s all.”

“You’re approaching it from a difficult angle. Perhaps if I...”

“If you touch me, Cas, I swear to god—”

Sam heard Cas sigh. “I have no designs on you in this body, Dean.”

The was a long moment of silence in which Sam feared that the mic had failed too. Then Dean growled, “You can take your designs to Project Runway, Cas. I don't want to hear about them.”

“I don't understand—”

“Well, read fewer books and watch more TV. It seems like it'd be your kind of show.”

“No,” Cas insisted. “I don't understand your reaction. Dean, I know you wanted—”

“I want you to be quiet and let me use my underwire the way Frederick of Hollywood intended!”

Sam did not want to be hearing this. He seriously did not want to be hearing this, especially now. He wanted to scream at Dean 1) to shut the fuck up and get out of there, and 2) that he and Cas were still miked, christ.

Instead he had to make a death-defying leap from this high, sloping roof to that flat, low roof very far out and very far down from him. But if Cas had done it...

“You’re a hypocrite,” Sam heard Castiel say as he landed hard, knocking the wind out of his chest. “You told that girl that it didn’t matter who she loved.”

“Yeah, well maybe I just don’t love you,” Dean hissed. “Now shut up and let me do this before those guards break in and kill us.”

Cas' tone turned dull. “I took care of the guards.”

Wrong, Sam wanted to tell him. He certainly hadn’t taken care of the pair who were leveling guns on him right now. Sam attempted a shaky smile and teetered on the edge of the garage roof. “Er,” he said. “You know, it’s funny—I think I’m sort of lost?”

He saw their fingers tighten and threw himself flat. But the explosion of shots never came. Slowly, Sam peeled open his eyes and glanced down. Gabriel was standing in the middle of the lawn, beside a pair of befuddled looking chickens. “How—”

“Don’t thank me, thank Romeo upstairs. Before he raced off to rescue his Juliet, he was smart enough to kill some of the key wards. Guess the angel-vision’s still working after all.”

Sam’s brain had been forced to absorb too much bizarre information in too short a time. “You—” he started. “You turned them into chickens?”

Gabriel shrugged. “I had poultry on the mind. Don’t judge.”

Sam shook his head, rolled his eyes. Abandoning the notion of jumping up to the ledge Castiel had probably used, he made the awkward leap to the front lawn. He missed and hit the soft driveway gravel, skidding a little. He ignored Gabriel’s outstretched hand and straightened up. “Let’s just get this done,” he said, heading toward the open front door.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Gabriel called after him. “Either you want to kill me or you’re beginning to like me! That’s how it works!”

“No more talking,” Sam said, stabbing the elevator call button. “This is now officially a quiet-time heist.”

Dean and Castiel had unfortunately not gotten this memo. For a while, there had been nothing but their breathing and the quiet scratches of Dean’s homemade lock picks. Then there was a louder click and Dean said, “Ah!” and Cas said, “Wait.”

Sam heard Dean suck in a breath. “Cas, don’t,” he said, his tone suddenly soft. “I can’t—”

“No, no. I only meant, be careful. The inside of the safe is protected with additional wards.”

“Oh, right. Gotcha.” Sam squirmed in the elevator next to Gabriel throughout the course of this lengthy pause. “You can let go of my hand, then.”

“I have. You’re still—”

“Right. Whatever.”

Another pause. Then Castiel's voice—

“I can wait, you know. However long—”

“Yeah, well don't hold your breath.”

Gabriel chuckled as the elevator doors opened and they got out, stepping over the body of a guard lying slumped in the hall. “This is better than Dr. Sexy. I only wish I’d brought my kettle corn.”

“Quiet time,” Sam reminded him, inspecting the knife that protruded precisely from the guard’s jugular. Cas’ dart skills were clearly coming in handy.

The final guard, by Gabriel’s original count, lay in front of the door Sam remembered from the video feed. He had a gun in his hand and a bullet in his brain. “Now, see, if we’d just stuck to my original plan, none of these poor, innocent people would have had to die.”

“Your original plan almost ended with my brother getting strangled!”

Gabriel shrugged. “Just sayin’.”

“I thought I told you to stop saying anything,” Sam snapped. He jiggled the door handle.

“Crap,” he heard Dean say.

“No, Dean, it’s us!” Sam jiggled harder. Abruptly the pressure decreased and the door jerked open. Castiel stood in front of them, frowning, bleeding from a wound just below his temple.

“Cas—” Sam started.

“It’s just a graze,” Castiel said dully. He glanced past Sam to Gabriel. The look he gave him was simply murderous.

He stepped back and let Sam come into the room. Sam was braced for the worst, but he still almost choked when he saw his brother. The side of Dean’s face was already turning a mottled shade of green, bruises the shape of fingertips ringed his neck, dried blood caked his nostrils and his upper lips. “Dean,” Sam said, unable to keep the horror out of his voice.

Dean looked away. “I’m fine.”

Sam took a step closer and tried again. “Dean—”

“Do I look any worse than Jo did after that thing in Philly? It’s not any different, okay? Now come over here and help Cas work out how to break these wards. I wanna get out of here.”

Sam turned back to shoot Gabriel another look of hatred, and was surprised to see the faintest trace of surprise on his face. Gabriel came the rest of the way into the room, studying the body sprawled out on the floor. Sturluson had been shot in the shoulder and then bludgeoned repeatedly about the face. As Sam watched, Gabriel gave him an almost casual kick. When he looked up, his face was cheerfully blank again.

“Deanna, come ’ere. Lemme clean up that pretty face of yours.”

Dean fixed him with a look of pure contempt. “Don’t fucking bother.”

Together, Sam and Cas were able to figure out how to destroy the wards without dousing them all in all-consuming flames. Sam reached into the safe and pulled out a large leather bag. Whatever was in there was hard and irregularly shaped, though slightly rounded—

“I’ll take that,” Gabriel said, slipping in and snagging the bag from Sam, preternaturally fast.

“We don’t even get to find out what it is?”

“It’s a pair of mittens,” Gabriel said, grinning at them, winking at Cas. Sam knew it gave him way too much pleasure to watch their jaws collectively drop. “I like to keep my fingers toasty.”

Dean unfroze first. “You...” He took a deep breath, restrained himself. “Change me back,” he said in a low, deadly voice. “Change me back right now.”

Gabriel let out a long sigh. “Fine. If that’s what you really, truly want.”

Snap.

Sam blinked and Dean was Dean again, was his brother again. Well, so much as his brother would ever be caught dead in a white lacy dress and a pair of strappy heels.

Dean patted himself down in relief, though scowled at the garment. “You couldn’t have changed my fucking clothes?”

“I thought you didn’t want me playing Fashion Plates,” Gabriel said with an oh-so-innocent shrug. “Anyway, I wouldn’t worry, you still totally have the legs for that dress.” Another snap and he was gone.

“We are never talking about today again,” Dean said, turning and fixing them both with a serious business stare. “I mean it. Never fucking happened.”

Total denial was harder to achieve, however, when they realized Gabriel had stranded them in a strange town with just the clothes on their backs—a particularly unpleasant situation for Dean, who kept clomping around and adjusting himself indiscreetly. They tried to find their way back to Gabriel’s bachelor pad, but it had disappeared. Sam did his best not to laugh when Dean stomped his heeled foot. “Sonofa—”

Wordlessly, Castiel offered him his coat. “Yeah, thanks,” Dean spat. “That really hides the fact that I’m wearing a fucking skirt.”

“Sturluson had a big-ass garage,” Sam recalled—he and it had unfortunately become intimately acquainted. “We might as well jack his car.”

The car was a fucking Hummer. Not a commercial Hummer: a military Hummer. “Who the hell was this guy?” Sam asked, as Dean got down to the business of hot-wiring it. Sam tried to ignore the fact that he was flashing them a little. The image of his brother wearing pink satin panties was one he needed to flush immediately from his brain.

“An asshole,” Dean said. He jerked at a handful of wires.

It took him longer than usual to get the car up and running, but it was worth it once Dean finally dropped into the driver’s seat and revved her up. He let out a whoop as they rocketed out onto the street. Sam tisked. “You’re gonna break the Impala’s heart.”

“Don’t worry, my baby understands. I may stray, but I’ll always come back to her and she knows it.”

“That’s adorable.” They lurched around a corner and Sam gripped the seat. “You sure you should be driving in those heels?”

“I can drive in anything, bitch.”

They had to stop a few miles outside of town in order to figure out where the fuck they were. Sam volunteered Castiel to go into the gas station to get information and a map. Castiel seemed thrilled.

As soon as they were alone, Sam turned to Dean. His brother was leaning over him, fiddling with the glove compartment’s latch. “Dean,” Sam said.

“What? I want to see if there’s anything good in there.”

“No, Dean—”

Dean cut him off with a sharp look. “What part of ‘never happened’ did you not understand?”

Sam bit his lip, then let it go. “All of it?”

Dean huffed.

“We can’t just not talk about things, Dean! I mean, how many times have we ignored stuff only to have it come back and bite us in the ass? We need to be honest with each other, man. We need to be honest with ourselves.”

Dean opened his mouth, a clear protest ready on his lips. Then suddenly he went still, his eyes widening, his shoulders falling slowly slack. He reached up a hand and with a painful lethargy, plucked the mic out of his ear.

“You heard everything,” Dean said.

Then he said, “It’s not what you—”

“Dean.” Sam wanted to touch him, but he was afraid. Dean looked so gun-shy, sitting in the driver’s seat of a military-grade vehicle, wearing a bloody white dress. “It’s okay. It’s okay—”

“Shut up.” Sam could barely hear him. “What do you know? Just shut up.”

“You’re my brother, okay? And I love you no matter—”

“Oh for fuck sake!” The volume was back on, and then some. Dean was loud and in his face. “You think I give a shit about this touchy-feely crap? Don’t tell me what’s okay and what isn’t okay. I know, all right? I know.”

Sam wanted to scream. He wanted to shake Dean, wanted to curse out all his macho crap, their dad, every stupid hunter lounging at the bar in every stupid hick town they’d ever driven through. Instead he sucked in a breath, clenched his fist against his thigh.

“You’re wrong,” Sam said.

They didn’t say another word until Castiel came back with directions.

Episode 6x03 / Masterpost / Episode 6x05

Big Bang Fic: Immigrant Song (Episode 6x03)

trinityofone — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 01:15:19 GMT

Dean spun the laptop around with a flourish. “I’ve got three words for you,” he said, grinning. “Lesbian. Nun. Orgy.”

For a moment, Sam looked like he might cry. Then he pulled himself together. “Dean, we’ve talked about this. Porn,” he said, stretching out his right hand far from his body, then mirroring it with his left. “Reality. Do I have to get out the flashcards again?”

Dean gleefully pointed at the screen. “Lesbian nun orgy! Read it and weep!”

“Oh, no doubt I will,” Sam said. He bent his head.

His eyebrow rose back up a moment later. “'News of improper conduct at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow has leaked due to one of its former sisters, who has revealed that on the fifth of October, the entire convent was, she claims, “possessed by a powerful force” that caused all of its members to commit “a series of sinful and unseemly acts” that “defy description.”' Huh.”

“Lesbian nun orgy,” Dean confirmed, the words tripping merrily off his tongue. Then he half-turned, deliberately, glancing over at the bed. “Oh, I’m sorry, Cas. Am I making you uncomfortable?”

Castiel looked up from where he was taking his turn inspecting and cleaning their arsenal, his long, slim fingers moving over each gun and knife with brisk, sure-wristed efficiency. “No. There is nothing about lesbians or nuns to cause me discomfort.” His gaze met Dean’s, blue and guileless. “Or about orgies, for that matter.”

The hair on the back of Dean’s neck prickled; he looked quickly away. “Go on,” he told Sam. “Read the rest.”

“I did. It said that several members of the order, along with an electrician who happened to be there doing repairs, were hospitalized for ‘exhaustion’ and ‘other ailments’ following the incident.”

“Heh. Lucky electrician. I bet he fixed their wiring, huh?”

Sam regarded him. “You wish desperately that it had been a plumber, don’t you?”

“I do,” said Dean with a sigh. “I really do.”

“Do you really think this warrants investigation?” asked Castiel from the bed.

“Well, it’s not like there’s been a lot happening lately,” Sam said. He paused. “Why did I just say that like it’s a bad thing?”

“I think this is our best bet.” Dean let his laptop click closed in satisfaction. “Unless it makes you uncomfortable, Cas,” he said again. He was a gentleman like that.

“Not at all,” Castiel said. Dean could feel Cas’ eyes burning into the back of his skull. “In fact, I’m looking forward to it. I suspect the nuns will be quite fond of me.”

The Mother Superior was immediately taken with Cas. She had tired circles under her eyes and a slightly rumpled wimple, but Castiel simply looking at her was enough to make her attempt a shaky smile as she offered them a seat. Castiel smiled back, a warm, human smile that Dean would’ve sworn he’d been practicing in front of the mirror. He had to be trying it out somewhere, and it certainly wasn’t anywhere Dean got to see.

Dean himself wasn’t smiling. From what he’d seen as they’d been led back to the Mother Superior’s office, the nuns at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow were hardly the nubile, sylph-like creatures of his imaginings. He glanced up at the Mother Superior’s pasty skin and not sufficiently covered chicken neck and, remembering some of the scenarios he’d envisioned, felt a little sick. Yep, he was definitely going to let Castiel do the talking.

He let Castiel explain to Sam what they found out, too—not that there was much to it. The nuns were, perhaps unsurprisingly, tight-lipped and embarrassed. “But we discovered that the sister who gave the interview is not the only one who has left the order,” Cas told Sam. Then without adjusting the phone or doing anything to indicate that he was now talking to Dean, he said, “He wants to know if we can go talk to her as he is still waiting for Sister Mary Eunice to return. The former Sister Mary Eunice—no, you’re quite right. I don’t think that should be any trouble. I told Sam that would be fine. We’ll meet you back at the motel. He’s going to meet us back at the motel when he’s done.”

Dean squeezed his eyes shut in hopes of warding off the incipient headache. “Yeah, I got that. I think.”

They drove to the apartment where the other nun—one Sister Mary Agnes; nuns weren’t very creative, apparently—was supposedly staying. “Hey, Cas,” Dean said as they circled the block, looking for a parking space. “What’s black and white and red all over?”

Castiel considered that for several seconds. Then, “A newspaper,” he said.

Dean shook his head and started to grin, then stopped. “No— I mean, yeah, that’s one— Oh, forget it.”

They finally found a spot and walked back the few blocks to the apartment. It was in a depressing, red-brick building that was crumbling and fading to grey. The elevator was broken, so they slogged up six flights of stairs, avoiding spills of dubious origins on the landings. Dean didn’t have to look around him so much as inhale to know that this was nowhere anyone would go if they weren’t running from something, if they weren’t trying to hide.

When they reached the apartment, Dean gave Castiel a look that suggested he thought Cas should take the lead. Castiel was getting better at interpreting these things: he blinked at Dean for several seconds before raising a hand and knocking briskly on the door.

They heard a thump from inside, but no footsteps. No one answered.

Castiel knocked again. This time they both leaned close and listened: Dean could hear a few creaks, what sounded like someone creeping forward and approaching the door. Dean tapped Cas on the shoulder, then pointed at the peephole. Castiel watched him as he proceeded to take out his CDC badge and hold it up; after a few seconds, Cas followed suit.

“Right side up,” Dean whispered. “Ten points.”

To Dean’s great delight, Cas rolled his eyes.

It was time to concentrate, though. “Ma’am,” he said, loud but level. “We’re sorry to bother you, but we’d really appreciate it if you could open up.”

Several seconds passed. “Ma’am...” Dean started again, but quickly cut himself off when he heard a shaky voice answer, “I don’t have anything to say. I just want to be left alone.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s a matter of public health and safety, ma’am.”

“You’ll be doing your duty,” Cas added in a soft voice.

Apparently, that did the trick. There was the sound of a chain being adjusted, and then the door opened a crack. Dean could see wide, red-rimmed brown eyes, a fringe of pale blonde hair, a pinched and drawn and too-thin face. This woman was much more like what Dean had imagined for Happy Lesbian Nun Fun Times Play Hour—except she looked sick and shaky and twenty pounds underweight.

“May we come in?” Dean asked.

The woman shook her head, no.

Dean gave Castiel the nod.

“Ma’am,” he tried, his awkwardness with lying beneficial in some ways, making every word he spoke seem careful and considered. “We understand that you were involved in the recent...incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow.”

Dean could see the woman’s knuckles whiten where she was clenching the door. “That wasn’t my fault. I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“No one is suggesting you did,” Dean pointed out reasonably. “But if you have information regarding what happened at the convent, you have a legal obligation to tell us.”

“More important than that,” Castiel said, fixing the woman with an intense blue stare the likes of which mob bosses and corrupt politicians were liable to crack under, “you have a moral obligation.”

The woman took several shuddering breaths. Her gaze flickered back and forth between them, coming to rest on Castiel with something akin to pleading in her eyes. Castiel nodded at her, gently.

For an instant her lips parted. Then she twitched, shut down; within seconds she was shaking her head, shutting the door. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t know anything. Please just leave me alone. I just want to be left alone.”

Dean thought about wedging his foot in the door, but it was already slamming shut.

Castiel turned to Dean. “She knows something,” he said seriously.

Dean rolled his eyes and started for the stairs. “Thanks, Watson.”

Dean could tell Cas’ brow was creasing without having to turn and look. “Why am I now Watson?”

Dean stepped over something dark and squishy looking wrapped in a plastic bag. “Because you just said something dumb and obvious.”

“Doctor Watson is not dumb,” protested Castiel. “Have you actually read the book you gave me?”

“Dude, it was a joke. You take things way too seriously. You’re going to have to learn that people don’t mean half the shit they say.”

“Then maybe they should talk less.” Castiel seemed proud of this conclusion.

Dean wanted to laugh, but... “You know, you’re probably right. But Cas...” He held the door open and let Castiel step in front of him out into the hazy twilight. “You gotta remember that it’s the stuff we really shouldn’t be doing that’s often the most fun.”

It was, perhaps, in the spirit of this that they decided to leave a message for Sam to meet them at a local bar instead of back at the motel. “We should discuss how to get more information out of Sister Mary Agnes,” Castiel said, sitting down with their beers.

“You’re right, we should,” Dean said.

They didn’t.

Instead they took their beers and went and played a game of pool. It was nice, for a change, to play just for the heck of it, not trying to hustle anybody, just concentrating on the force and the angles. Castiel was getting good: he’d risen from his final fall with a still slightly unnatural, easy sense of mortal grace, which over time was becoming more languid, the way he moved his body increasingly clever and seductive and human. The best part was, he still had no idea. Dean watched him curl his long fingers around the cue, stretch out his slimly muscled arms, bend over the table. He watched the two girls by the jukebox watch Cas, watch them both, and he felt an eagerness push through him, an excitement he hadn’t felt in months—in years.

“This is really good beer,” Castiel said, licking a stray drop from the mouth of the bottle.

After that, things got a little hazy.

No, that’s not true. The important bits, the crucial bits, those Dean remembered, could recall to his mind’s eye with perfect clarity: high-def, full-color, 3D. The two girls converging on him and Cas like opposite ends of a magnet. Cas’ usual, hard-to-pique interest coming suddenly online, the way his lips parted and his eyes grew hooded, gazing down at the one girl’s curves, his breath hitching in his chest— Dean knew right then that this was going to be the night, the moment, finally. He knew right then that he wanted to be there to see it.

They all went back to the motel together. Dean couldn’t even have imagined what would have happened if Sam had been there; his only thought was that they were all going to go back to the motel together. There was never any discussion of getting a second room. The blonde who had curled a hand possessively around Dean’s wrist took her top off almost the moment they were in the door. The brunette Cas was with, Dean was pleased to see, was slower, more teasing, more seductive. She grabbed him by the collar and tugged him down to her, sucking on the curve of his lip, twining her arms around his neck, kissing him, kissing him, kissing him.

Dean groaned and lay back on the bed, letting the blonde girl tug at his zipper, pull down his dress pants, take him in her hot little mouth.

On the other bed, Cas and his girl were still making out; Dean could hear him issuing the occasional sigh or groan, low in his throat. Dean watched as he gently stroked her neck, coaxed her supine, kissed her chin and her throat, the hollow of her collarbone, the soft swell of her breast. Dean’s body shook from the blonde girl’s ministrations. He cupped her chin, enticed her up; he wanted to make this last.

Together, Cas and his girl were taking her top off; Dean decided it was time to take his own shirt off, too. The blonde liked this: she nipped at his nipples, scratched her nails down her chest. The brunette made a lewd noise when Castiel sucked the bud of one of her nipples into his mouth. Cas’ hips were stuttering, he was clearly eager, so eager, to be inside her, take her, fill her, claim her.

Breathe, Dean wanted to remind him. Breathe.

The blonde was bouncing on his thighs; Dean ran a hand up under her skirt, flicking her lazily, finding the spot and rubbing her with the base of his thumb. He watched Cas lick into the brunette’s belly button, slide the tight black pants and the shimmery pink panties she was wearing down. He had to be aching, encased in those jeans. “Condom?” Dean said, and the blonde swooped down and retrieved one from her purse, grinning. “Cas,” Dean said, voice hoarse. He chucked the little foil packet at him. Cas didn’t catch it; it landed on the bed. But for a second their eyes met.

Cas couldn’t quite get the condom on; his hands were shaking. The brunette seemed more than happy to help him. The blonde had, somewhat grumpily, retrieved a second one for herself and Dean; she sheathed him, businesslike, mounted him roughly. Dean felt himself plunged into heat. Cas was sliding into his girl with a determined virgin’s awkwardness; she gripped his biceps, held him steady, smiled when he threw his head back and moaned. “Go on, go ahead,” Dean heard her say. “Give it to me.”

He gave it to her. In between the rise and fall of the blonde girl’s bouncing tits he could see the sloping curve of Cas’ back, the scissor-swish of his hips, in and out, in and out. Dean felt the squeeze of the blonde girl’s knees; he gripped her thighs. He felt hot and growing hotter, like a smoldering volcano. Cas’ hair curled damply along his forehead. His eyes were closed, his mouth taut. Dean said, “Cas,” low and pained and begging, and Castiel’s eyes snapped open, fixed themselves on Dean as Dean came, watched wide and aware as Dean broke apart, collapsed entirely with his slack lips still holding the shape of the word.

The girls left at some point after that. A little while later, Sam returned.

Luckily, he was in a loud, stompy mood. “Dean, what the hell kind of bar was that you—holy crap!”

He’d had just enough warning to tug a blanket up over his lower body. “It’s not what it looks like,” Dean said hastily.

Castiel had no such compunction. Out of the corner of his eye—where Dean was not looking, where Dean was definitely not looking—he could sort of kind of glimpse Castiel sprawled out on the other bed. “We had sex,” he announced proudly.

Sam grew saucer-eyed. “With women!” Dean practically bellowed. “There were two women here! They just left!”

“You know what, it’s cool, I’m just going to get another room.” Sam was shaking his head, backing toward the door. “I’ve more than exceeded my exhibitionist quotient for...”

He trailed off and turned back around. “Did you pick up the women at the bar? Is that where you were before you came here?”

“Yeah.” Dean was struggling to pull his jeans on under the covers. “Cas, when I look over there in a minute, you sure as hell better be clothed.”

“If you insist.”

“We both insist, Cas,” Sam said, bitchfacing like crazy. “Society kind of insists.”

Dean saw just a sliver of Castiel’s bare shoulders raised in a shrug.

Sam deliberately angled his body away from Castiel’s end of the room. “And before you were at the bar, you were interviewing the other sister—Mary Agnes?”

Dean nodded. “Yeah. Couldn’t get anything out of her, though.”

“Uh, I think you got something out of her, all right,” Sam said with a grim smile. “Half the people at that bar were all over each other when I got there. I’ve never seen so much PDA in my life. It was like Famine had swept through town, only with, you know.” He scratched at his temple. “Less cannibalism.”

Dean let his arms fall to his sides. “Wait, so you’re saying you think there’s some sort of lust dust in the air? And we got infected?” He breathed out a long sigh of relief.

Castiel, meanwhile, let out a brief, uproarious burst of laughter. Both Winchesters shot him a look. “‘Lust dust,’” he explained.

“Wow, you’re in a good mood,” Sam said.

“I had sex.”

“Oh, right.” Sam shifted, looking half-embarrassed and half-genuinely pleased. “Congrats, man.” He stepped forward, offering up his fist. Castiel examined Sam’s proffered knuckles for a moment before giving them an awkward tap with his own.

“That was by far the nerdiest fist bump I’ve ever seen,” Dean declared.

“Whoever that Mary Agnes woman comes in contact with seems to end up getting hot and heavy not long after,” Sam continued. “I did some research while I was waiting for Mary Eunice—who for the record didn’t have anything to tell me other than that I could call her Jennifer and that she wasn’t, um. Remotely interested in celibacy anymore.” Sam was blushing. Sam was blushing a lot. Dean would have loved to call him on it, but he didn’t want to focus on inappropriate sexual liaisons right now. “It seems little Mary Agnes has only been at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow for about four months. Before that, her name was Rosie Dunn, and she lived in a little town in West Virginia that has since reported what has got to be a record number of marriages and pregnancies.”

“So you’re thinking, what? Some kind of succubus?” Dean was so ready to gank a succubus.

“It she were a succubus, she’d be leaving a trail of bodies in her wake,” Castiel said with a shake of his head. He stretched languidly.

Sam nodded. “Yeah, that puzzled me, too. There’s also this.” Sam set his computer bag down, pulled out his laptop, opened it up and spun it around for them to see.

Dean blinked at the image on the screen. “I don’t get it.”

“That’s a gay pride flag,” Sam explained. “That was recently erected over the town hall. In West Virginia.”

Dean sat back with his shoulders hunched. “So it’s a liberal-minded succubus. So what?”

“It’s not a succubus.” Sam rolled his eyes. “I was thinking...Cas, do you think it could be a cupid—I mean, a cherub, gone rogue? Are there female cherubs?”

Castiel’s body drew itself straighter, stiffer. “Cherubs, like all angels, are sexless.”

Hearing him say this, sitting there all rumpled and recently debauched, made Dean positively itch to make a lewd comment. Once again he held his tongue.

“However, this is immaterial, as there are no cherubs or any other order of angel left on earth. As you well know.”

Two points of red actually blossomed on Sam’s cheeks. “Right. Sorry. Of course. I wasn’t thinking.”

“I think we need to pay Ms. Dunn another visit,” Castiel said, plucking his jacket up off the floor where it had been hastily discarded.

“Are you kidding me? After what she did to us last time? We’ll need Hazmat gear first.”

“I don’t feel like I’ve been adversely affected by the encounter,” Castiel said, snapping his shoulders into the jacket.

“Well, I’m glad you got off,” Dean said, not blushing, not blushing, “but she’s putting the whammy on people and forcing them to have sex!”

“Actually...” Sam said, scratching at the back of his head this time. He seriously needed to get a haircut. “I’m not sure that’s true. The other thing that, uh, Jennifer told me was that the tabloids that picked up her story greatly exaggerated what she said. Not everyone at the convent joined in, and of those that did, they weren’t all of them...um. Going at it together. Some of the sisters paired off, and there was another group that was basically just lining up to make use of the electrician...”

Sam was definitely blushing enough for ten or twelve people, anyway. “What, so you’re pro orgy now?” Dean snapped.

“No, no. I mean, at least not in these—people were still hospitalized. It was definitely out of control. But I’m not sure it was as violent or nonconsensual as we were originally led to believe.”

“All right, fine!” Dean said, getting up and stalking over to the other side of the room, pointlessly. “We’ll go check up on Little Miss Love Goddess.” He became aware that Castiel was staring at him. He crossed his arms, tried not to squirm. “What?”

“I think you may have stumbled upon the truth,” Castiel said, regarding him thoughtfully. “The behavior we’ve been witnessing could easily be the work of any one of numerous love or fertility deities.”

“A pagan goddess who joins a convent? Why?” Sam asked.

“Well, we’ll have to ask her,” Castiel said, oh-so-reasonably. Dean wanted to kick something.

All he got to kick was Rosie Dunn’s door in. She’d been utterly silent when they’d knocked, but now she screamed, hurdling her tiny frame behind a threadbare armchair. “Go away! Please just go away!”

Sam launched right into his best reassuring voice. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

“I can’t help it. I can’t stop it!” She was hysterical, her body curled up tight, her hair hanging stringy over her face. “I need to be left alone!”

“Lady, stop with the act.”

“I don’t think this is an act, Dean.”

Yeah, well, he didn’t really think so anymore either, but it never hurt to try. “You are the one who turned that convent into an episode of Nuns Gone Wild. Why?”

“I didn’t mean to! I swear I didn’t! I don’t want— These things just happen around me. I try to be good, I want to be good... That’s why I gave myself to Christ. I don’t want to be a sinner!”

Dean looked to Castiel, helplessly. Castiel knelt down on the floor.

“I don’t see a sinner here,” he told Rosie Dunn.

Castiel’s mouth was firm, his eyes kind. Suddenly he was the Castiel who had come to Dean in that barn: so full of righteous conviction. So sure and puzzled by lack of surety. You don’t think you deserve to be saved.

Rosie choked back another sob. “You don’t know, you don’t know... You can sin with the mind as easily as with the body!”

“And by whose standard do you judge yourself a sinner?”

She was weeping openly. “By God’s!”

And just like that he was gone, the old Castiel replaced by the new. Dean watched him war with himself for a minute. “God doesn’t judge you, I promise,” he said finally, and Dean suspected that only he and Sam would hear the weary resignation in Castiel’s tone. “And I think you judge yourself too harshly.”

The girl shook, hugged herself. “I have...desires. Abominable desires. I’ve never acted on them—never!—and I’ve prayed and prayed to be cleansed of them. For years I prayed! But then suddenly, all around me...” She looked up, abruptly, staring at the three of them in fear. “It’s probably happened to you, too. Or it will happen. I’ve made you into sinners just by letting you near!”

“This started four or five months ago?” Sam asked. “Back in May?”

She nodded. “I don’t... I just want to be good.”

Dean watched as Castiel reached forward and brushed the hair out of her face, squeezed her shoulder, gently. “I think you need to start being good to yourself,” he told her. She gave him a disbelieving, wide-eyed stared. “Think about it. We are going to come up with a plan. We’re going to help you.”

She nodded, just a bit, before Castiel got up and crossed the room, motioning for Dean and Sam to come after him.

“I was wrong,” was the first thing Castiel said, his voice low. “She is not a goddess; I don’t sense that power in her.”

“Well, what is she then?” Dean asked. “Besides a little...y’know.”

“Dean.” Sam turned away from him and focused on Castiel. “She said this started back in May. Do you think the timing could be significant? That it might have something to do with us? With when we defeated the devil.”

Castiel licked his lips. “More to do with what happened shortly thereafter.” They stared at him, made him say it. “My brothers and sisters abandoned this plane. They created a power vacuum.”

Sam looked swiftly back and forth between the girl and Castiel. He looked slightly embarrassed. “I’m still not quite following you, Cas.”

“Non-Judeo/Christian deities are in ascendancy. This was why even a long-slumbering godhead such as Zeus was so easily summoned and bound. There is a great deal of power waiting to be divided and seized.”

“But if she’s not a goddess—” Sam started.

Castiel shook his head. “Merely a descendant of one, I believe.”

“A descendant?”

“There are quite a large number of divine beings who rule over love or fertility who would fit the bill.” Castiel gave them both a significant look. “Do not presume that my— that the Christian God was the only one with favorite sons, special children...”

“So you’re saying that she’s some love goddess’ kid?” Dean looked over at the huddled figure in the corner. “And what—this is her stab at taking over the family business?”

Castiel shook his head. “No, I think her regret and confusion are genuine. She has no understanding of her powers, and worse, they are spiraling out of control due to her denial of her own desires.”

“So ‘repress and deny’ doesn’t work when you’re a fertility goddess?” Sam quirked an eyebrow.

“Not without apparently disastrous results.”

Dean let his fist fall against his leg with a sigh. “Remember when we used to just gank shit? I miss that.”

“It was certainly simpler,” Sam admitted.

“So what do we have to do now?” Dean asked Castiel. “Convince her to go get laid?”

Even Castiel grew a little wide-eyed at that. “I suppose so. Or at least not to feel so ashamed by what she desires.”

“Right, sure.” Dean drummed his fingers on his thigh. “No problem.”

None of them moved.

“C’mon!” Dean hissed after a minute. “What are you guys waiting for? Sam, you’re Mr. Touchy Feely, and Cas, you’re the great absolver of sins...go for it!”

Sam shrugged his shoulders. “Well, she already likes you,” he told Cas.

Castiel lifted his chin, fixing them both with a look of disdain. “Fine. I owe her thanks, anyway.”

“Why—” Sam got there. “Oh, right. Yeah, I guess.”

“Yeah,” said Dean, giving Castiel a rough pat on the back. “Go over there and say, ‘Thanks for getting me laid’ and just go from there. Foolproof.”

Dean caught the quick glare Castiel shot him as he crossed the room, though by the time he was back in front of Rosie, his expression had changed. He knelt across from her again. “Rosie,” he said. “We think we’ve figured out what’s causing these...disturbances. And it’s in your power to stop them.”

She looked up, full of shaky hope. “It is?”

Castiel nodded. “You need to stop denying yourself what you want. It’s not your fault, but everything you’re holding back, you’re sending it out into the world tenfold. You have to let it go.”

Rosie stared at him, dismayed. “You want me to give in? To sin?”

“Love is never a sin,” Castiel said, glancing up at Dean.

He must have sensed that Dean was about to interrupt. “We’re assuming what you’re repressing is plain old sexual desire,” Dean said. “If you’re repressing the desire to chop people up and keep them in your freezer for special occasions, that’s still bad.”

“Dean.”

“I’m just saying!” Rosie was staring at him: slack-jawed, appalled. “Sex is good, though. Really. And you’re a pretty girl. You should go have fun.”

“You are not helping,” Sam hissed. But Dean was more interested in Rosie, shaking her head at him.

“I’m not, though,” she said. “I’m a bad girl. Dirty and broken.”

“That is not true,” Castiel said.

“How do you know?” Rosie demanded. “You don’t know me!”

“I know dirty and broken, though,” Dean cut in. He swallowed and stepped closer. “And that is not you, okay? Trust me. Trust me, I know.”

“Dean...” Castiel said, looking up at him, the familiar regret in his eyes.

Dean shook his head, pushed him away without lifting a finger. “We’ve got the virgins leading the virgins here,” he said, crouching down. “Let me handle this.”

“I am not a virgin,” Castiel hissed, pulling himself awkwardly to his feet.

Dean snorted. “It’s been like two hours, Cas. Don’t get cocky.”

When he looked back at Rosie, she was holding her face in her hands. “So I soiled him, too,” she whispered.

“Nah, you did him a favor. Sure, it didn’t go down quite the way I’d— It was a little untraditional, but it was about time. I mean, no wonder he’s been so cranky.”

She didn’t respond at all to his grin. Dean stared at her. She was a pretty girl—he hadn’t been lying—but she looked like it had been years since she’d fed herself on anything other than self-hatred. She was letting it eat her up from the inside.

“What’s his name, then?” Dean asked quietly. “Some guy you like back in Lustville, West Virginia. Is he married, is that it?”

She shook her head.

“You can tell me. I promise, whatever it is, I’ve done worse. So much worse.”

One brown eye rolled to meet his, through that curtain of dirty hair. “Isabel,” she finally muttered. And when Dean continued to look blank, simply, “Her name.”

Oh. Oh. Well, he was an idiot. Not as big of one as she was, though. “That’s it?” he said. “That’s the big secret? You’re in love with a girl?”

“Not in love,” she muttered. “Can’t be love. Just sinful thoughts—”

“That’s not sinful, that’s hot,” Dean said, helpfully. Well, at least now she was glaring at him, and not directing that hate internally. “Seriously, did some idiot Bible-thumper pound that bullshit into you? You want me to thump ’em back?”

“What good would that do?”

She obviously meant it as some sort of moral question, but Dean took it at face value. “Well, it’d make me feel better, that’s for sure.”

She laughed, and Dean felt triumphant until he realized that the laughter had already dissolved into tears. “Hey, hey...” He stared at her helplessly, afraid to touch her, uncertain, suddenly, that everything he was doing wasn’t making things worse. “Rosie, sweetheart... What can I do to make you believe me about this?”

He glanced up at Sam and Castiel, watching him and Rosie with identical concerned expressions on their faces. Cas, he thought suddenly, wildly. Maybe if he showed her—

“I don’t think this is a problem that can be solved right away, Dean,” Sam said. “I mean...” He shifted uncomfortably. “We all know it’s not so easy to stop believing something you’ve always believed in. Or to forgive yourself—”

“Okay, okay,” Dean said, blushing without knowing why. “But we can’t just leave her like this...”

“Rosie, have you ever thought about seeing someone? A psychiatrist, I mean,” Sam explained.

She shook her head, almost automatic. Then slowly she looked up. “Do you think that would really help? Would stop me from—”

“From creating a roving Bacchanalia? Yeah. From being who you are? No. I know it doesn’t mean anything for me to say this, but you shouldn’t feel ashamed of yourself.”

Dean nodded. “Sam’s right, you should speak to somebody...not us. The three of us are pretty piss-poor therapists.”

“Is there someone you can stay with?” Sam asked. “A friend we can call?”

She shook her head. “I’ll be fine. I like being alone. Really.”

Dean hesitated. He didn’t feel good about this. Not at all. When you killed something, it was dead, it would stay down. He didn’t trust this not to pop back up like Glenn Close the second they were out the door.

“You’ll go see someone? You promise?” She nodded. “Lying is a sin,” Dean reminded her.

“So’s suicide,” she said, smiling wanly. “Believe me, I know.”

Out on the landing, Dean caught himself hugging his arms around his chest just the way Rosie had been. He made himself let go.

“I don’t like this,” he said. “I don’t like this at all.”

“I’m not sure what else we can do,” Sam said. He didn’t look very happy, either.

“People have to make their own choices,” Castiel said. “That’s what free will is.”

“Yeah, but—”

“At the very least I do not think she’ll allow herself to become so out of control again. Not now that she’s truly aware of her power.”

“Wait, whoa—so are we infected again?” Dean shot Castiel a nervous glance.

“The effects seem to be intense but temporary, so it’s possible that Sam, who has so far been unaffected, would be most vulnerable were she still exuding power. Do you feel like having sex, Sam?” Castiel asked, seriously.

Sam stuttered and blushed. “Well, yeah—but that doesn’t mean I’m going to.”

“Oh, so everything’s normal then,” Dean said with a grin. “Never mind.”

But it wasn’t normal. When they got back to the motel room, they were still confronted with the sight of two sets of messy, come-stained sheets. “I’m calling for the maid,” Sam said, wrinkling his nose. “Better yet, I’m calling to book a second room.”

Minutes later, Dean watched, appalled, as Sam picked up his stuff and headed next door. “Honestly, I could use a break anyway,” he said.

Dean was glad when the maid came with her judging eyes, forcing him and Castiel outside. At Castiel’s suggestion, they walked around the back of the motel to check out the landscape.

It was a gravel pit. “Nice gravel pit,” Dean confirmed. “We done now?”

“Dean.” Castiel was looking at him—looking looking at him, one of those deep, penetrating gazes that seemed to go all the way into him.

“What?” Dean asked warily.

“You said my name.”

Dean went cold.

“You said my name,” Cas repeated, pushing closer. Dean only realized he’d been retreating when his back hit the wall. Cas was huge in front of him. “Dean.”

He said it the way Dean had said it, said Cas, breathless and demanding and needy. He whispered it right up against Dean’s mouth, and to make it disappear Dean took it and swallowed it whole, sucked it out from between Castiel’s lips. He felt Cas clutch at him, and he knew this, it was familiar, it was pushing and tugging and getting right up in each other’s space, same as every time they fought, a natural extension of everything that had come before.

Perfectly natural. Racing through him, sizzling through his long-cold veins like a blast of white lightning.

He gave Castiel a rough shove, pushed him away. He saw Cas open his eyes, saw his look of pained surprise.

“Goddammit,” he said, “she put the whammy on us again.”

The look he gave Castiel dared him to try to challenge him. Unfortunately, either Castiel was still oblivious to such subtleties, or he didn’t remotely care. “Dean,” he said, in a completely different tone now, “you know she did not.”

“Well, this certainly isn’t my doing. Because this isn’t me, Cas, do you got that? This isn’t me.”

Castiel’s expression had gone still and angel-like. “You told that girl—”

“I told that girl what she needed to hear,” Dean snapped. “All right? But her life isn’t mine and she isn’t me. This—” He gestured between them, a casual flick of his finger. “—Isn’t me.” Meeting Castiel's gaze, he let out a long, heavy breath. “It’s nothing.”

He didn’t move when Castiel turned away, when he walked around the side of the building and disappeared. He stood there, listening to the gravel their feet had disturbed as it rolled down the hill and into the pit.

Episode 6x02 / Masterpost / Episode 6x04

Big Bang Fic: Immigrant Song (Episode 6x02)

trinityofone — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:58:20 GMT

Sam looked at the mess arrayed around them. “We should call Bobby.”

“Aww, come on, Sam,” Dean said. “The guy’s taking his first vacation in...I think ever. We really gonna interrupt him because we can’t build a couple of hex boxes and get rid of a few magical artifacts?”

“And a hockey jersey,” said Castiel, ever-precise.

Dean snatched it out of his hand. “I’m keeping that.” Sam shot his brother a look. “What? Next time we need money we can...sell it on eBay.”

Sam sighed. “Let’s forget about internet auction opportunities and focus on cataloguing and cleaning up this stuff before we accidentally curse ourselves.”

Dean flopped down onto one of the beds, nearly crushing what Sam was pretty sure was a priceless Bedouin charm. “Those Crossbozos had them for way longer than we’re going to.”

“Yes,” said Sam, “and seven of them are dead and one’s in jail.”

Dean waved a dismissive hand and grinned at him. “Details.”

Sam decided it would be better to ignore him. “Cas, do you want to help me out with these?”

Castiel put down the bronzed rodent skull he’d been examining and joined Sam in front of the open chest. Carefully, Sam reached in and pulled out the next object: a thin, flat stone disc with symbols carved into it. “Is that...Cuneiform?”

Castiel shook his head. “It’s a fake.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Castiel folded his arms.

Sam didn’t want to give him a hard time, but... “How do you know?”

“I know a genuine Sumerian artifact when I see one.” An edge had crept into his voice, recognizable despite its gradually rising pitch. “I thought you desired efficiency.”

“I do, but—”

Castiel reached back into the chest. When he straightened up and Sam saw what he was holding, he nearly bit through his tongue.

“Yeah, I don’t think we have to worry about those...”

Castiel flipped through the worn skin mags. “Busty Asian Beauties is your preferred title, is it not, Dean?” he asked, holding up one.

Suddenly Dean was paying attention. “Oh, hey, thanks,” he said, winking at Castiel as Cas passed it over.

“Seriously?” said Sam.

Castiel returned his attention to the other three magazines, squinting at them for a moment before offering two of them to Sam. “No, dude, really. Just throw them out.”

Castiel chucked a pair of magazines into the bin, then rolled up the third and stuck it in his back pocket. “Seriously?” Sam said again.

“I wish to read the articles,” Castiel declared, deadpan.

Over on the bed, Dean chuckled. He already had his sticky fingers all over the no doubt sticky magazine. “Dean, stop for a minute and think about where that’s been.”

“You’re a killjoy, Sammy.” He opened up the magazine to the center spread and displayed it proudly to Sam. “Do you think Keiko here likes killjoys?”

Sam rolled his eyes and turned away. Castiel was bent over the chest again. Sam leaned closer; “What’s that?” he asked.

Castiel started, a small, barely noticeable jerk. But then he shrugged and shook his head. He put the object he was holding—a wide metal band or belt of some sort—off to the side.

“Nothing of value.”

“I don’t—” Sam started. His phone blared loudly, interrupting him.

“Chuck?” he said, surprised. He turned away, for whatever reason seeking the minimal privacy one could hope for in a too-small motel room.

“Hey, Sam.” Chuck sounded nervous, which wasn’t exactly new. “Is, uh, is now an okay time?”

“Uh, you tell me,” Sam said, trying for a chuckle.

“Hm, prophet humor. Never gets old.” He heard Chuck take a breath. “I was just wondering...if you guys aren’t too busy, could you stop by soon? We could use some help.”

“Is something wrong? Are you okay?”

“No, no, we’re fine. We’re okay. We just...you know what, never mind. It’s not a big deal, I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

Sam glanced over at Dean, who had the porn mag draped over his knee, but was looking at Sam curiously. He made a ‘What is it?’ face. Sam shrugged. “Chuck,” he said, doing his best to sound sincere, “you know if you need it we’re happy to help. Just tell me—”

Sam heard what sounded like a muffled crash from the other end of the phone. “Shit. I gotta go,” said Chuck, distraction twining itself around the worry in his voice. “If you have a chance, just...” There was a thump, and then the dial tone.

Sam pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at it in dismay.

“What’s up with him?” Dean asked.

“I honestly have no idea. I think he needs our help, but he seemed embarrassed about it.”

An evil look came into Dean’s eye. “Bet you five bucks Becky’s demanding a threesome.”

“Dude, gross!”

“We should probably stop and check on them,” Castiel said, rising from where he was kneeling on the floor.

“Really?” Sam said, though of course he knew they had to: in their line of work it was better safe than dead. “Yeah, no, I know.”

“They’re on the way to Dad’s lockup, aren’t they?” Dean said, swinging onto his feet. “That’s where we’re going to dump this stuff anyway.”

“We can’t just dump it. Dean, I know we just—” He waved his hands in the air, trying to encompass everything involved in stopping the apocalypse and defeating the devil and finally getting out from under the giant weight that's been on our shoulders our whole lives. “But we can’t use that as an excuse to get sloppy, now, after everything! We still have to take this stuff seriously.”

“Sure,” said Dean. “Which is why we’re seriously going to go and seriously make sure our buddy Chuck is okay. Right, Cas?”

“I’m always serious,” Castiel said, staring placidly at them both. Sam realized that that expression had come to make him kind of nervous.

Not as nervous as Becky barreling toward him down Chuck’s front walk did, though. They’d driven for nearly six hours straight, Sam had a crick in his neck, and even without those aggravating factors, Sam found Becky’s lascivious enthusiasm pretty tough to take. “Sam!” she said, stopping just short of throwing her arms around him, Sam was sure. “You came! I’m so glad to see you! Your hair looks amazing!”

Sam added Get haircut to his mental to-do list below Check on Chuck and Dispose of potentially deadly magical artifacts.

“Uh. Thanks.” Sam did his best to maneuver himself so there were a couple of Cas- and Dean-shaped buffers between him and his biggest fan. “So, uh, what’s up?”

Chuck had come out to greet them, too, though at a much more sedate pace. He was ducking his head, his hands in his pockets, but he looked good, Sam thought. Less strung-out. And he wasn’t wearing Arthur Dent’s bathrobe, which was a definite plus.

“Hey, guys.” There was a mutual exchange of nods—even Castiel attempted one. Chuck seemed to spend an extra long moment staring at him: he’d never seen the ex-angel out of his trench coat and tie, Sam supposed—not in person, anyway. The change had to be more shocking, he figured, if you hadn’t seen it happen gradually, hadn’t gotten used to it. “Why don’t you come in?”

They followed Chuck up the steps to his house, Sam all-too-aware of Becky bounding behind him like an overeager puppy. “Do you want something to drink?” Chuck asked once they were inside.

“I made lemonade!” Becky added.

“I like lemonade,” said Castiel. Everyone except Dean turned to him as if surprised to hear him express such a definitive opinion. Castiel’s expression twitched toward annoyance. Sam watched as Dean reached out and casually touched Cas on the arm.

“Me, too,” Dean said.

Becky was still looking hopefully toward Sam, but she seemed to get the message and skipped off into the kitchen. “So, what’s up?” Sam tried again. “I heard a lot of thumping on the phone. Is everything—”

Chuck blushed. “Oh, uh. Becky’s been doing some redecorating.” He gestured around the living room, which, now that he really looked, Sam had to give Becky credit for: the place had much less of a flop house vibe to it now. Sam felt he could probably sit down on the couch without spending twenty minutes inspecting it for suspicious stains. “But that’s not why...” Chuck continued. “I feel kind of bad. I’m not sure I should have—”

“Chuck.”

Chuck nodded and collected himself. “Okay, so you know my visions are coming through again, loud and angel interference-free?”

Sam had not known this. He exchanged a look with Dean and Castiel. “No,” he said. “Why would— Where are you getting the visions from? The angels have all left. It’s done. We’re done.”

Chuck shrugged and gratefully took the glass of lemonade Becky handed him. “Well, sort of. I mean,” he amended when the half-angry, half-panicked look Sam surely sent him hit home, “that part, the whole demons-angels-apocalypse storyline, that’s done for sure. That arc’s finished. But you’re not. I’m supposed to be writing the Winchester Gospels, right, Cas?” Castiel sipped his lemonade and nodded. “Well, you guys are still alive. Congratulations on that, by the way?”

“I always knew you could do it,” Becky said, attempting to push a big glass of lemonade at him. The beverage distribution had not been quite even, Sam noted. The glass Sam was now holding was tall and had a neat slice of lemon stuck on the rim. Dean’s didn’t even have ice in it.

“Or I thought you’d die beautiful, tragic deaths,” Becky continued, a faraway look entering her eyes.

“Uh, Becks?” Chuck made a little slashing motion by his throat.

Becky coughed. “Oh, right. Good job living to tell the tale!”

“Well, actually—apparently, we’re still letting Chuck tell it,” Dean said. He did not sound terribly enthused.

“Yeah, Chuck, I’m not really seeing the problem here,” Sam said. “If you’re trying to get our permission to publish again, we already told you we don’t care, okay? As long as you stop with the,” Sam shifted uncomfortably, “creepy sex scenes.”

Becky pouted.

“No, I know, thanks. It’s not that.” The ice clinked in Chuck’s glass as he gulped noisily. “It’s just...this new arc.”

Becky picked a loose stack of manuscript pages up off the desk. “Chuck’s been letting me beta!” she said proudly, shoving the papers at Sam. Juggling the glass of lemonade, he took them and glanced down. He made a face when he saw that the scene on top depicted the Trickster’s latest little prank. The purple-penned notes in the margins looked way too cheerful. Omg! WARN for MPREG! was one. A short description of Sam lifting up his shirt had also been underlined. I think you need more detail here, Becky had written.

“Great,” Sam said. “I still don’t see what the problem is, Chuck.”

“Well, you know, I’ve been writing what’s happening,” he nodded at the stack of pages in Sam’s hand. “And don’t get me wrong—it’s still good stuff. Like, Zeus, you know, that was pretty cool.”

“Greek mythology is hot right now,” Becky said with a knowing nod.

“But it’s just, in the past... In the first bunch of books, you know, everything was tied together by your search for your father. And then there were Sam’s escalating powers and the hunt for the yellow-eyed demon, and trying to stop Dean from going to Hell, and then whoa, angels!” Chuck paused to grin at Castiel, who did not grin back. “Do you know what I mean?”

“Really no,” said Dean. He coughed, then spat a seed back into his lemonade.

Chuck flapped a hand awkwardly. “I just feel like...I mean, you guys are still driving around, hunting things...and Cas is there, too, so that’s an interesting new dynamic. But still—I’m writing it, and even so I guess I’m not very sure—”

“Spit it out, Chuck.”

Chuck glanced up at the ceiling, then back at all of them. “I just...I can’t figure out what the story’s about anymore. And, uh. I was sort of hoping you could tell me.”

There was a long, profound silence. Then Dean took a step forward.

“You called us here to ask us to tell you what our lives are about?”

“I, uh, er,” said Chuck, articulately.

“Since when are you a fucking existentialist? If you have to write it, just write it! Let us worry about what it fucking means!”

“Hey!” Becky said, stepping in front of Chuck and readying herself to take the full brunt of Dean’s wrath and/or spittle. “He’s just trying to do right by you as characters! It’s very considerate! If I were a character, I’d love it if the author cared enough to really try to understand the full story and use the appropriate symbolism and stuff. And I’d let him write the sex scenes.”

“Yeah, I bet you would,” said Dean snidely.

“Yes,” Becky replied with exaggerated slowness. “That’s what I just said.”

Sam took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. “All right, enough. Chuck, you were right: we can’t help you and you shouldn’t have called.”

Chuck sighed and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “Right, well. I probably should have seen this coming.”

No one said anything.

“Prophet hum—you know what, never mind. Sorry I bothered you. Have fun with your hex boxes and stuff.”

Dean set his pulpy glass down on the coffee table. “Awesome. Glad we stopped by.”

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Castiel told Becky, returning his glass to her. “You make delicious lemonade.”

She preened.

Sam laughed and thumped Cas on the shoulder as they stepped out onto the porch. Castiel gave him a questioning look.

“Nothing. Just—better you than me, dude.”

“Well, that was a bust,” Dean said, shaking his head at Chuck’s closed door as he unlocked the car. “I almost wish we’d stuck to cataloguing magical objects.”

“We still have to do that, Dean,” Sam said, ignoring Castiel’s attempt to initiate rock-paper-scissors and claiming shotgun for himself. “We should just...get it over with. That motel we stayed in last time we were here wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“The one where you almost boned Lilith? Are you kidding me?”

“I didn’t almost bone Lilith!”

“I remember that motel,” Castiel interjected quietly. “I wouldn’t mind...staying there again.”

Sam was going to argue that Castiel hadn’t stayed there last time, but decided it wasn’t worth the bother. “Fine,” he said. “Dean?”

“Yeah, fine, whatever.”

Of course when they got to the motel and the clerk informed them—after they’d paid, of course—that they didn’t have any cots or rollaways, Dean got to spend the next twenty minutes looking smug because he’d been anti-“Red” Motel. “You get to share with Cas,” he said.

“Right, I’ll start safeguarding my virtue now.” Sam rolled his eyes at Dean, then took a moment to smile at Castiel so Cas would know he was kidding.

“I’m not worried for you; it’s Cas I’m feeling sorry for. Make sure he doesn’t try to get Mexican for dinner,” Dean advised Castiel.

“Already noted,” Castiel said solemnly.

Sam sighed. “Please, please, can we just get through this now?”

Castiel opened up Dean’s laptop, which he’d sort of, silently and without discussion, taken co-possession of. “I made a spreadsheet,” he said.

“Okay, forget my virtue.” Sam grinned. “I think I love you.”

After a while, Dean went out to get dinner (not Mexican), and they were pretty much finished by the time he got back. “Okay,” Sam said, checking their list against the sorted piles. There were a couple of items that he and Castiel had determined could be potentially dangerous, a few more that could possibly be useful or otherwise of import, and a bunch of stuff that was essentially crap. Sam checked it over again, just to be sure. He couldn’t quite shake the feeling that they were missing something, or that something was missing and—

“Food’s getting cold, dude.”

“Yeah, okay.” Sam shut the laptop and snagged a seat at the table. His eyes hurt, he was annoyed at Chuck, and he still had a crick in his neck. It was probably nothing.

“So Cas has finished warding the tricky stuff and tomorrow we’ll drive it all up to the lockup and be done with it,” Dean confirmed, catching himself up. Sam and Castiel nodded; Castiel stole some of Dean’s fries. “Excellent, we have a plan.”

“Maybe I should call Chuck,” Sam suggested. “Tell him we know exactly where the story’s going.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dean said after a moment. They finished the rest of the meal in virtual silence.

When they were done cleaning up—which mostly involved stuffing containers into the trash—Dean kicked off his boots and sprawled out on his bed. “Mmm, so much room!” He rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. “Have fun braiding each other’s hair and gossiping about boys, you two.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Just don’t come crying to me when you end up an old maid.”

“Hey, speaking of maids.” Dean had retrieved Busty Asian Beauties from somewhere. “What do you think of that?”

Castiel, Sam told himself, had yet to learn better. “I didn’t think it could get dusty there,” he said, peering closer.

“Ask Sam. On him it probably is.”

“I’m taking a shower,” he announced, overly loud. He took a long one. When he came back out, some Jim Carrey movie was on TV with the sound down and Dean was asleep. He had failed, as was often the case, to get all the way under the covers and was lying curled on his side, snuffling into his pillow. Sam chucked a blanket over his legs.

Castiel was sitting on the other bed, apparently actually reading Playboy for the articles. Still, though... “No porn when we’re sharing a bed,” he pronounced, and held his hand out for the magazine.

Castiel relinquished it with the air of a sullen child. Which was pretty funny, Sam thought, considering the fact that Cas was several thousand years old and Sam, though it often seemed otherwise, was still only twenty-seven.

Sam let out a sigh that swiftly became a yawn. “Kill the TV, would you?” he said, still yawning a little around the edges of the words.

Castiel shot him a puzzled look. “Kill it?”

Sam blinked at him. “Turn it off.”

“Oh.” Cas looked away before Sam could tell if he was blushing. “Right.”

Jim Carrey vanished with a click. Sam yawned again and slid under the covers, doing his best to give Castiel plenty of room. He still had an odd relationship with sleep, Sam knew: passing out some nights like a little kid, greeting the dawn like an insomniac others. “Goodnight,” Sam told him, and tried to ignore the part of his own brain that would stay active for hours, pick pick picking away at whatever was bothering him, whatever niggling doubt that wouldn’t quite fade.

He’d had enough sleepless nights to last several lifetimes. All he needed to do now, Sam told himself, was close his eyes and forget his troubles. Yes.

Sam let his eyes flicker shut and he slept.

He opened his eyes. A plain white ceiling stared back at him, white fan blades spinning slowly. He was lying half on his side, scrunched up uncomfortably. He stretched out his legs, gazing somewhat dreamily at the body unfurling itself beneath the covers. Huh. So that was him.

His brain ran up against a sudden sharp wall as he realized he had no idea who him was.

The sleepy calm drained out of him like blood from a slashed throat. He sat up jerkily, jerking further when he realized that he was not alone in the bed. Someone with short, dark, spiky hair was burrowed under the covers. He thought for a moment, wondering what to do, before reaching out and tentatively shaking the person by the shoulder. “Hey,” he said, afraid to raise his voice above a whisper.

The other person bolted awake as if he’d screamed. The two of them exchanged a startled look, but the other man seemed oddly uninterested in him, given the circumstances. He was breathing heavily, already in a panic, and it was pretty clear that if any answers were going to be forthcoming, this would not be the source.

“This...this isn’t right,” the guy said. “What am I doing here?” He started patting himself down, the expression on his face one of greater confusion and horror than even this bizarre a situation seemed to warrant. “This isn’t right!” he repeated. “This isn’t me!”

“Hey, hey, calm down.” It seemed he was going to have to be the reasonable one. Maybe that was who he was: the reasonable one. He could live with that. “It’s okay. I don’t know what’s going on either, but we’re, you know, mostly clothed, so it can’t be that bad...”

His attempt at a chuckle was interrupted by a muffled sound from across the room: they weren’t alone. There was a third person there with them, sitting up in the other bed and giving them a befuddled look. “Who the hell are you? What the fuck is going on?”

“I shouldn’t be here,” panicky guy said. “I...” He visibly forced himself to calm down, raising his chin, taking deep breaths.

“Buddy, are you okay?” swearing guy asked. “You look a little ill. Maybe you should sit down.”

Panicky flat-out gawked at this suggestion. “Sit down?” he asked, as if confused by the very concept.

The swearer looked to him, the reasonable one, as if seeking some sort of explanation for this behavior, but all he could do was shrug. “Does anyone know who they are or where we are?”

Both of the others shook their heads. “Shit, amnesia? Are we in some shitty soap or what?”

Huh. “You remember soap operas,” he said. The foul-mouthed guy nodded, although Panicky just looked blank. “Me too. Okay, so that’s something. We’re not total clean slates.”

“Great, so I remember plots to Dr. Sexy episodes, but not who I am? Doesn’t seem like much of a tradeoff.”

He shrugged. He knew, in the same way he knew that Dr. Sexy, MD was a ridiculously awful show that no self-respecting person should admit to watching, that amnesia often resulted from a trauma. Though what could happen to traumatize three separate people so that they woke up without any memory of who they were in a fairly skeezy motel room was beyond him. Unless it was some kind of...yeah, no, ew. He did not want to pollute his fresh shiny new mind with that.

“We need to figure this out,” he said.

“Yeah, duh.” Of the other two, the foul-mouthed guy definitely appeared to be the most proactive. He’d climbed off the bed and was already rooting around amongst the stuff scattered across the room. There was a lot of stuff. He started poking around his own bed and almost immediately slipped on a copy of Playboy. Ugh. He decided—reasonably, he thought—to discount that as evidence for now.

“Hey, I found some ID!” foul-mouthed guy announced triumphantly. He dumped the leather coat he’d pulled it from on the bed and peered at it. “Okay, this picture isn’t of either of you. Is this me?” He peered into the darkened TV screen. “Hey, yeah, this is me.” He seemed inordinately pleased: so he was good-looking, so what. “My name is...John Bonham?”

“John Bonham?”

“Yeah, what do you think the odds are that I have the same name as the drummer for Led Zeppelin?”

“Uh...”

“This is fucking weird, man.”

“Maybe it’s a test.” Panicky guy looked up. The idea of a test actually seemed to relax him.

“A test?” maybe-John-Bonham said. “What, you mean like some sort of Saw kind of thing?” He gave the room a nervous once-over.

“I don’t understand that reference.”

There was a pair of jeans folded neatly on a chair; he held them up to his legs and they looked like they might fit. Even better, there was a wallet in the pocket. He flipped it open and felt elated and then swiftly dismayed when he saw the ID inside. “‘Bruce Campbell,’” he said, holding it up.

“Shit,” almost-certainly-not-John-Bonham pronounced. “What are we, con men?”

“Well, if we are, we’re probably not very good ones.” Not-John was clearly waiting for him to elaborate. “We’re three grown men sharing one crappy motel room.”

Not-John glanced back and forth between him and Panicky and let out a chuckle. “Hey, I’m not judging.”

‘Bruce’ sighed. “You’re not helping, either.”

“I have a phone,” Panicky announced, holding it up. He sounded almost triumphant. Bruce felt kind of bad for him; he was obviously handling this less well than they were.

“That’s good. What about ID? Do you have any ID? We need something to call you.”

“The IDs are obviously fake, I thought,” Panicky said.

“Yeah, but—”

Panicky pressed a button on the phone. The jeans Bruce was holding started to buzz.

“I just phoned ‘Sam,’” Panicky said. “I would therefore surmise that you are he.”

Sam—that was definitely better than Bruce—looked at the screen of his own phone. “One missed call from ‘Cas.’”

“Cas?” their still nameless companion inquired. “What kind of name is that?”

“Apparently mine,” Cas said. He’d acquired, summoned from somewhere, a sort of quiet, steady cool. Sam was glad they’d figured out his name, because the moniker he’d been using in his head certainly didn’t fit anymore.

“And you are...” He tried another button. The nightstand started blasting some tinny-sounding Led Zeppelin. “Dean,” Cas pronounced.

“I’m sensing a theme here,” the newly-christened Dean said. “Maybe we’re not con men—maybe we’re traveling dead musician and C-list movie star impersonators.”

“Do I—” Sam glanced down at himself. “Do I look like Bruce Campbell?”

“No,” Dean said, consideringly. “But Bruce Campbell played Elvis in a movie once.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Dead musicians—”

“I don’t know what either of you are talking about and I don’t care. You’re wasting time.”

Despite clearly being the shortest person in the room, Cas was somehow staring down his nose at them. “You know, I think I liked you better when you were flipping your shit,” Dean said.

“That’s unfortunate. I don’t remember feeling any fondness for you at all.”

Sam flinched a little, but not as much as Dean did. The other man took a step back, but then his eyes went hard. “I hope you weren’t looking for love,” he told Sam, twitching his head in Cas’ direction but not looking at him again. “Seems he’s more of a wham, bam, thank you, sir kind of guy.”

“I don’t understand the point of this constant sexual innuendo,” Cas said.

“Yeah,” Dean laughed without humor, “I bet you don’t.”

Hell, this was like an episode of Dr. Sexy. “Guys,” Sam said—because he was still the reasonable one, dammit. “This isn’t helping. We’re all in this together, okay? We need to figure it out.”

They turned twin glares at him; it was kind of like looking into the headlights of an oncoming semi. “Sure. Any ideas, Brainiac?”

“Maybe there are more clues?” Sam suggested, gesturing around at the mess: piles of clothes, a stack of books—and was that a treasure chest? “Or someone else we can call?”

“Yeah, but how do we know who to trust? Anyone might have done this to us!”

“Done this...?” Sam was about to protest—sudden amnesia wasn’t something you could have done to you. But that was only what people believed, he realized. Not what he knew.

“Guys,” Sam asked, tentatively. “Weird question, but...what do you think about, you know. Supernatural stuff.”

“‘Supernatural stuff’?” Dean quoted back at him.

Sam shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, like...ghosts and ghouls and demons and things. Do they exist?”

“Of course,” Cas replied, at the same time Dean said, “Unfortunately.”

“And that doesn’t...seem odd to you?” Sam pressed.

“No,” Cas said definitively.

“No,” said Dean, less sure. “But I could see how...huh.”

“There aren’t any demons on Dr. Sexy,” Sam stressed.

Dean’s brow creased. “No.” Then he brightened: “There’s a ghost, though!”

Sam grimaced. “Okay, bad example...”

“Are you just trying to say that our lives our weird?” Dean asked. “Because three guys, one motel room, no memories—I think we already covered that.”

“No,” Sam said, “no, I—” But it had already slipped away from him. Whatever point he’d been trying to make, whatever path he’d been attempting to follow.

While they argued, Cas had begun picking his way slowly around the room. He held up a cardboard box that had at one time—whoa—held 9mm rounds, and pulled out a carved stone figure on a piece of rough rope. “This is a Bedouin protection charm,” he said.

“Wow, well clearly it works great.”

Cas easily ignored Dean. “If you were implying that there must be some greater implication to the fact that we’re surrounded by so many artifacts of mystical significance, then I believe you are correct, Sam.”

Sam found himself preening a bit at this—he even shot a smirk at Dean.

Dean scowled. “Yeah, thanks, Sherlock—what a brilliant deduction. We wake up with amnesia, surrounded by magical objects. I wonder if one of them did it to us.”

Cas blinked, the protection charm spinning between his fingers. “Sherlock...Sherlock Holmes?”

“No, Sherlock Johnson.”

“I’ve heard of him,” Cas said, nodding to himself. “Holmes, I mean.”

Dean turned back to Sam. “Is he for real?”

Sam decided to ignore him too. “Okay, so if Cas is right, then we need to sort through all of this stuff very carefully, and then maybe we can figure out what did this to us?”

“Yeah, unless sorting through it is what did it to us in the first place,” Dean pointed out. “We need more information. I mean, right now, we don’t even know if this is really a motel. What if it’s...some sort of creepy, Matrix-like holding cell where we’re being kept prisoner?”

Cas nodded. “I’ll check outside,” he said.

Several seconds passed. “Uh...” Sam said finally: Cas was still looking very decisive, and still very much not moving. “What are you doing?”

It seemed to suddenly strike Cas that he was in the exact same spot as he had been a moment before. He looked between himself and the door; he swallowed. “I...” he started. “I thought...” And for a second, Panicky was back: a flash of wide blue eyes and fear, real fear, utterly unlike the confusion and annoyance and dull worry Sam himself was experiencing. This was nothing for him, Sam realized. And wasn’t that, perhaps, a bit odd, too?

“Allow me,” said Dean, striding past him. He reached the door, straightened his shoulders, and giving them both one last, significant look, turned the knob.

“Ow! Fuck!”

Sam blinked. Okay, of all the things Sam had been expecting, none of them had been that Dean would open the door smack into some scruffy guy’s face.

“Omigod, Chuck, are you okay?” Sam hadn’t been expecting the anxious blonde woman, either. He was suddenly aware that he wasn’t wearing proper pants. He swiftly tugged on the jeans he was still holding dumbly, glad that she was focused on tending to the scruffy guy’s injured nose.

“I’m fine, I’ll be fine,” the guy assured her. “Just so long as nobody makes any jokes about how I should have seen that coming.”

“Huh?” said Dean.

This was apparently enough to make the blonde girl turn on him. She thwapped him on the arm. “Nice, Dean. Typical!”

Dean turned to Sam and Cas, jaw slack and eyes pleading, it seemed, for them to assert that hitting strangers in the face was in no way typical behavior for him.

Except... “Wait, you know us?” Sam asked. He tried not to let the excitement get the best of him. “They know us!”

The woman let go of the scruffy guy—Chuck’s—arm a foot away from the chair she was leading him to. She walked toward Sam with her hands clasped tightly to her breast. “I’d know you anywhere, Sam!”

Sam took a not-entirely-voluntary step back. “Oh. Well. That’s nice.”

Dean was clearly feeling less personable. He pressed into the blonde girl’s personal space. “Do you know what’s going on? Did you do this to us?”

Sam was impressed with the fact that she didn’t back down, simply sparing Dean a look of disdain before returning her attention to Sam. “Of course not,” she said. “We only want to help.” Then her confidence cracked; she turned to Chuck. “We are allowed to help, right?” she asked in the world’s worst stage whisper.

“I don’t know, Becky.” He sounded weary, or possibly hungover. “I didn’t exactly get a manual.”

“Must we discuss everything so tiresomely?” Cas said on the tail end of a sigh. “Please tell us who we are and what you know.”

Chuck squirmed. “See, I really don’t know if I should? I mean, from a symbolic standpoint, I think you’re supposed to be on a journey of self-discovery? And if I just tell you then it—”

“Just tell us!” Sam, Dean, and Cas demanded, pretty much in unison. “For fuck’s sake,” Dean added.

“Okay, okay,” Chuck said, shrinking back. “Um. Well. You see— Twenty-seven years ago— No, wait, I mean—”

Dean took a semi-threatening step forward.

“Sorry, sorry!” Chuck held up his hands. “I haven’t had a pitch meeting in a while, I’m totally out of practice—”

“You’re hunters!” Becky declared confidently. “You travel the country in a ’67 Chevy Impala, saving people, hunting things—it’s the family business. You fight vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness to an awesome classic rock soundtrack, emerging triumphant due to your incredibly close personal bond—the only people you can rely on are each other. Sam and Dean, I mean,” she clarified, waving a finger between the two of them, throwing a shrug at Cas.

“Part of that was a line from Buffy,” Dean said, clearly not buying it.

Chuck nodded and tried to catch Dean’s eye. “That was a good show. I liked it when she wore the, the little strappy tops?” Dean started to nod, then seemed to remember that he knew more about Buffy’s cleavage than his own life, and this made him cranky. “No, but seriously it’s true,” Chuck added hastily. “Even the Buffy stuff, actually. Um. But anyway, see, you two are brothers and—”

“Noooo,” Becky hissed, the Worst Stage Whisper Ever making another appearance. “Don’t tell them. The whole point of the amnesia plot is for them not to realize they’re related so they get together and then even when they do find out they’re related they’re in love so they decide they don’t care and I read an awesome fic like that once. Don’t ruin it.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam said, suddenly overwhelmed by too many feelings at once. “What? What?”

“He’s my brother?” Dean asked, jerking his thumb at Sam. “Well, I guess we know who got the looks in the family.”

Sam wrinkled his nose at him. The word “Jerk” slid easily off his tongue.

Dean seemed to take great joy in replying, “Bitch.”

“Wow,” Chuck said, nonsensically: “Sometimes it just writes itself.”

“Wait, so who’s he, then?” Dean asked, nodding at Cas, who was watching the scene unfold with a look on his face of infinite patience infinitely strained. “Is he my brother’s snotty gay lover or something?”

Chuck appeared to choke on the air in his mouth. “Sam’s? You think he’s Sam’s—? Wow. That’s, um. Dramatic irony.”

“Huh?” said Dean, for possibly the forth or fifth time.

“Guess we know who got the brains in the family,” Sam muttered to himself.

“I want to know how this happened and how you knew about it,” Cas interrupted—and hey, gay lover or not (not, Sam thought; definitely not—not that there was anything wrong with that...), Sam had to give him credit for cutting to the chase.

“Chuck,” Becky announced proudly, “is a Prophet of the Lord.”

“Oh,” Cas said, for some reason hearing this strange pronouncement and looking instantly more at ease. “You’re Chuck Shirley.”

Sam turned to him in shock. “You remember him?”

Cas shook his head. “No, I simply know the names of the prophets,” he said, like one might say, I know how to count to ten or I know which letter comes after C. He leveled on Sam a look of deep concern. “You’re not familiar with them?”

“Oh, right, that’s an angel thing, isn’t it?” Becky said, nodding happily.

“Angel thing?” Dean said.

“Oh yeah.” Chuck scratched at his temple. “Probably should have mentioned that. Castiel’s an angel.”

Sam happened to be watching Cas as Chuck offered up this little revelation. The expression that washed over Cas’ face was one of such profound relief, Sam could practically feel waves of it rippling across the room.

Then Chuck said, “Well, former angel, anyway.”

Cas looked like he’d been punched. The color drained from his face and the expectant, almost arrogant set to his shoulders bled away until he slumped. It made him look much smaller: almost fragile, delicate.

“Whoa, whoa, see—this is why I didn’t want to tell you anything!” Chuck said.

“No,” Cas said in a dull voice. “I’m glad I know.”

“Wow,” said Becky. “You’re taking this pretty hard. I thought you’d like being human. You know, since angels are such dicks and all.”

“Helpful,” Sam told her. Since no one else seemed to be doing anything, he hesitantly approached Cas. “Hey, man,” he said, reaching out and then wussing out and retracting a comforting hand. “I kind of, you know, have amnesia and am therefore probably missing some of the subtleties here, but I’m sure it’s not as bad as it seems. Right?” He shot Becky and Chuck a look. “Right?”

“Oh, yeah!” Becky said, finally catching on. “In fact, it was, like, totally heroic, the way you fell. You were even naked for part of it! And you said you did it, all of it, for—for the Winchesters. That’s you guys,” she clarified. “And you totally wouldn’t give up on Sam, even though you called him an abomination. Because he’s your friend.” She bounced suddenly and clapped her hands. “Oh my god, I’m totally going to ship you guys now!”

Sam, for some horrifying reason he didn’t want to contemplate, knew what that meant. He made a face.

“Well, I’m glad we’ve established that you two are besties,” Dean said. Sam glanced over: he was standing in the corner, his arms folded tense across his chest. “Whatever happened to solving this little problem of ours efficiently? Huh? Castiel?”

Cas’ shoulders stiffened. “By all means,” he said. “I would be eager to hear your suggestions.”

Dean met Cas’ withering gaze and held it. And held it. And held it. Sam started seriously waiting for one of them to shout, Ha! You blinked!

Instead, “I think we should ask our buddy Chuck,” Dean said, still staring. “You’re a prophet, right?” Dean glanced Chuck’s way while continuing to focus the majority of his attention on Cas. “You knew that this had happened. So you must know why it happened, too.”

“Well...” Chuck stared at his knees guiltily.

“You knew?” Sam demanded, wheeling on him. “What the hell was the point of this then? Why didn’t you just say so?”

“Well, it’s not very dramatic, is it?” Chuck ventured, ducking his head.

“You have got to be kidding me—”

“I know how to fix it!” Becky announced, leaping between Sam and Chuck. “All that’s needed to break the spell,” she said, looking back and forth between Sam and Cas eagerly, “is true love’s first kiss—”

“It’s the porn mag,” Chuck said loudly, before burying his face in his hands. He mumbled into them. “Look on page 47. One of the dead Crossbones doodled some stuff from that grimoire of theirs on the model’s tits. And...other parts.” He gave Becky a quick guilty glance out of the corner of his eye.

“The porn mag,” Sam repeated.

“Yeah.” He followed Dean and Cas’ line of sight to the copy of Busty Asian Beauties on the nightstand. “No, not that one,” he said, waving his hand. “The other one. Playboy.”

Blushing, Sam went around to the side of the bed he’s woken up on and retrieved the magazine. Becky let out a little gasp. “Sorry,” Sam said for some reason. “I’m, uh, guessing this is not our classiest day ever.”

Becky seemed to think about it for a moment. “Actually, you’ve had worse.” Her eyes went wide and wistful. “But I still love you, Sam,” she said breathily.

“Aww, man, really?” Chuck looked bummed.

To Sam’s surprise, she responded to this by lowering herself onto Chuck’s lap and circling her arms around his neck. “It’s totally different, baby. My love for Sam is tragic and pure. My love for you is raw and physical.”

“Is there any way I can I give myself amnesia so that I forget this?” Dean asked the room.

Cas took the magazine from Sam and flipped to page 47. “It’s a simple Merovingian Latin incantation,” he said, rolling his eyes in disgust. “It should be easy enough to break. Do either of you have a lighter?”

Dean retrieved his leather jacket from the bed and felt up the pockets until he produced a heavy-looking metal lighter. Both he and Cas started when he passed it over, as if they’d been shocked in the few seconds their fingers brushed; odd, Sam thought, and gave the carpet a frown.

“Ready?” Cas asked them. They nodded.

“Vos luo igne flammaque.” Cas held the lighter to the corner of the page, the flames licking over the slick paper. “Et memorias vestras reddo in vos.”

The magazine erupted in a sudden shower of purple and gold sparks. Sam wobbled on his feet, fighting dizziness. The carpet seemed a lot closer than it had a minute ago. That really was odd...

He blacked out. He could feel the reverberation of the thump when he woke up, and cool hands on his neck and cheek. “Sam. Sam!” Becky was saying desperately. Sam groaned and slowly sat up.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Go love Chuck physically, okay?”

“Okay!” she said brightly, leaving him to scoot back so he could lean against the side of the bed and simply...breathe.

He remembered.

He remembered everything. And ignorance wasn’t actually bliss, he thought. Mostly it was freakin’ annoying. But it was also, or at least it had been for just a little while, so much simpler.

Speaking of unusual simplicity, Dean and Cas were being awfully quiet, he realized with a start. He rolled his neck toward them—shit, they were still out. Dean had clearly—instinctively?—tried to catch Castiel as he fell, and they were slumped on the floor with Cas’ body half on top of Dean’s. Chuck stood above them, staring down at them with his brow creased. “Uh, guys?”

They came awake within seconds of each other: Dean first, Castiel following. Sam saw Dean suck in a breath, either from the force of his memories or thanks to the position he found himself in. Castiel’s eyes widened before his face stiffened into its usual mask. He rolled off of Dean, then pulled himself carefully to his feet.

Sam watched as Castiel slowly reached out a hand to help Dean up and as, even more slowly, Dean took it.

“I told you we should have catalogued everything more carefully and taken it all to the lockup right away,” Sam said as soon as his brother was back on his feet.

“Yeah, well—” Dean looked a little tongue-tied.

“If we’re making recriminations,” Castiel said, tone desert-dry, “I should point out that I was a mere three pages away from the bespelled page last night when you told me I was not allowed to peruse the magazine in bed and took it away from me. If you’d let me finish, I would have found the incantation and recognized it for what it was, and this entire incident could have been avoided.”

Dean let out a little dirty old man chuckle. “See, Sam?” he said, raising a hand to pat Castiel on the shoulder. “Score one for porn.”

At the last second he jerked his elbow, pulled back and turned away. Castiel didn’t appear to notice.

Chuck coughed nervously. “Well. I’m glad we could help. Help and totally destroy the narrative arc, but uh, still, I guess, help.”

“This was totally epic,” Becky agreed. In a move she surely thought was subtle, she took out her phone and snapped a picture.

Sam stared at her. “Did you...did you just take a picture of my bed?”

“Your bed!” She fixed Sam and Castiel with a moony grin each in turn. “It’s the first place you slept together!” She was positively trembling with glee. “Epic!”

Castiel took Becky gently by the arm—possibly too gently, Sam thought. “I am not engaged in sexual relations with Sam,” he said in his best I-will-now-provide-exposition-for-the-slow-humans voice. “I do not wish for you to be misinformed.”

“I’m not misinformed,” Becky said, patting him on the hand. “I just know more about UST than you do. And there is so much UST in this room right now, oh my god.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Castiel said, letting go of her. After a moment he added, “I think I’m okay with that.”

“Hey, Chuck,” Dean said loudly. “Don’t you have that thing?”

“Thing?”

“That very important thing that involves you quickly going somewhere other than here before I lose it?”

“Oh,” said Chuck, backing toward the door. “That thing.”

Sam waved goodbye. “Good luck with the writing, Chuck,” he said in a voice he thought probably wasn’t too transparently sarcastic.

“Bye, Sam! Bye, Cas!” Becky waved back. “I’m looking forward to you both becoming a lot less repressed!”

All three of them stared at the door long after it had closed, as if expecting it to make some sort of move.

“And would you believe it,” Dean said after a moment, “all that, and it’s only 11 a.m.”

“Too early to start drinking then,” Castiel said morosely.

“Not necessarily...”

Castiel ended up electing himself to fetch the alcohol necessary for a “let’s drink to forget our amnesia” bender. Sam looked around the disaster area of a motel room and then, wordlessly, began to clean up.

Dean didn’t seem to have anything to say either as he stooped to help. Sam watched him out of the corner of his eye: his back was held stiffly, his mouth set in a firm line. Sam couldn’t help it. “You okay?” he asked.

“Peachy.”

Sam decided to back off. He picked up an overturned box of charms. The Sumerian one—the one Castiel had said was fake—was lying on top. “Hey, what do you think we should do with this? Do you think we should just throw it away?”

Dean snorted. “Oh, now you want my opinion?”

“Um, yeah.”

“There’s a first.”

Sam set the charm back down. “Where is this coming from?”

Dean looked up at him, stared at him for a long moment, then shook his head and turned away. “Forget it. Never mind.”

“Dean...” Sam swallowed. He felt like he was up a tree, surrounded by a whole bunch of wobbly limbs to go out on. “You...you know Becky’s crazy, right?”

Dean laughed. “Don’t worry, Sammy. The secret of your big gay love for Cas is safe with me.”

Sam sighed. “Right,” he said, turning around to finish cleaning up their mess. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Episode 6x01 / Masterpost / Episode 6x03

Big Bang Fic: Immigrant Song (Episode 6x01)

trinityofone — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:42:29 GMT

Dean was busy picking out curtains when Castiel returned. “Hi, honey, I’m...home?”

The words emerged sounding choked. “Cas, what’s wrong?” Dean asked, face creasing in concern.

“I’m not...sure.” Castiel lowered himself shakily into a chair at the table where Dean had spread the samples. His eyes were busy, darting all around the room. “Doesn’t something feel...odd to you?”

Dean smiled and decided to humor him. He glanced around at the bright, cheery yellow walls, cocked his head at the low hum of the refrigerator and the quiet chirp of crickets outside the screen door. “Nope, looks like our kitchen to me. What’s the matter? Rough day at work?”

He reached out across the table to touch Castiel’s hand, but Cas drew back, frowning. “No, I. I’m not sure.” He looked up at Dean again, the lines of worry on his face smoothing away. “I suppose it’s nothing.”

“Good,” said Dean, and their smiles mirrored and magnified one another. Dean got to his feet. “Let me know what you think of those,” he said, inclining his head toward the samples. “I’ll get dinner started.” He pulled his apron off its hook and tied the strings around his waist. “Sammy, any requests?” he shouted.

Sam came lumbering into the kitchen, holding his heavily pregnant stomach. “Yeah, do we have any pickles?”

Dean opened his mouth to respond, but before he could get a word out, a red-tipped streak flew past him and exploded in the corner behind the fridge. Dean was busy throwing himself in front of Sam, but he still saw the two figures as they emerged: a tall, red-headed woman jerking a short, dark-haired guy by the ear. “Ow! Okay, okay,” said the strange guy who was for some reason in the middle of their kitchen. “I’ll put it back, all right? Let go!”

The woman let go. Dean, Sam, and Cas watched, slack-jawed, as the man straightened up with a sigh. “I swear, I’m the only one in this family with the slightest sense of humor.” Then with a final roll of his eyes, he snapped his fingers.

The motel room’s nicotine-stained walls assaulted Dean like a slap. Behind him he heard Sam gasp, and Dean turned enough to catch sight of his brother scrambling to lift his shirt and perform a relieved examination of his abs. Okay, Dean wasn’t sure whether to be amused or offended over that one. But then he turned farther and saw Castiel’s frown, and felt all traces of amusement wash out of him.

“Gabriel. That was uncalled for.” Castiel had a way of making a simple admonition sound like a dire threat, which Dean had come to appreciate.

“You’re a dick,” said Anna, much more succinctly. She folded her arms and stood glaring at her brother. “Am I really going to have to spend every second until my powers fade away following you around and making sure you behave?”

“Yeah, and how’s the great waning going for you so far?” Gabriel asked, pulling a Twix out of his pocket and biting off one end with a crunch. (Dean would bet good money that the former archangel was the one who came up with that damn “Two for me, none for you” campaign.) “Enjoying the descent into humanity?”

Anna met his gaze without a twitch. “As far as I’m concerned, it can’t happen soon enough. I only wish I were as far along as Castiel.”

Castiel made a face that suggested he wished he wasn’t as far along as Castiel.

Gabriel shook his head and made condescending tisking noises. “When are you going to learn that the pagans are where it’s at?” He cocked an eyebrow at Castiel, confidentially. “There are a lot of openings right now. I could put in a good word for you, bro.”

Castiel regarded him coolly. “No, thank you,” he said, shoulders stiff.

“All right.” Gabriel looked regretful, like Castiel had just missed out on an exciting investment opportunity for which Gabriel had offered to get him in on the ground floor. “Well, have fun bouncing around in the Mystery Machine with these two. Try not to end up some werewolf’s chew toy.”

“Screw you,” Dean managed to interject. “We were grateful for the eleventh-hour sacrifice and all, but it doesn't give you the right to screw around with us just because Pops made another stellar executive decision and brought you back.”

Gabriel grinned like a shark and tried to wrap a fraternal arm around Anna's shoulder. She out-maneuvered him neatly. “Us Winchester-helping angels need to stick together,” he said, undeterred. “After all, you wouldn’t be enjoying this glamorous post-averted-apocalypse lifestyle,” he gave their surroundings a long, sad look and a slow, sorry shake of his head, “if it weren’t for little old me.”

Dean glanced up at the ceiling. “Yeah, hi, God. It's me, Dean. You can take him back now, thanks a bundle.”

“You wound me,” said Gabriel with an impressive lack of sincerity. His hands dropped to his hips. “Okay, well I guess I’ve worn out my welcome. See you, Shaggy,” he gave Dean a nod. Then he winked at Sam. “Velma.”

He vanished. Sam stared at the place the former archangel had been, his jaw set tight.

“Dude, he just called you a lesbian.”

Sam looked like he wished he could figure out a discreet way to pat down his abs again. “Someday I am going to make that little shit really feel the fact that I have a foot on him.”

Anna let out a sigh. “You’d think as the only three angels left on Earth, we’d be able to get along.”

The crickets were gone along with the screen door and the curtain samples, but for a second Dean felt like he could hear them in the strained silence of the room. “Right,” he said, “because it's not like any of us have ever tried to kill any of the others or anything.”

“I said I was sorry.” Anna actually looked hurt: her arms folded, the turn of her mouth petulant. It was the most human Dean had seen her since they'd first met, and it shocked him into something like a forgiving nod.

“Okay,” he said a second later, shaking himself. “So this little family reunion’s been fun. Let’s do it again sometime never, all right?”

Anna held up her hands. “I just came by to give Gabe a slap on the wrist. I’ve got a life to get back to, you know.”

Dean still wasn’t sure if he thought Anna was incredibly brave or completely crazy to be attempting to resume her old life as if she hadn’t started hearing voices, been locked in a loony bin, discovered her parents were murdered by demons, discovered she was an angel, and died a couple of times. Sure, he knew a thing or two about crawling out of your own grave, picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and going about your business—but not when you had ordinary friends and family members to face. Not when you were planning to pretend like any of this was normal.

Sam surprised Dean by throwing her a magnanimous half-smile. “Give us a call if you need anything.”

Her mouth twitched, not quite a grin. “I’ve got your number. Yours too, Cas,” she added with a sudden gentleness; and then she was gone.

Dean, Sam, and Castiel looked around at each other, the three points of a loose triangle in a suddenly oddly empty room. Sam ran a hand through his hair. “What were we doing again?”

Dean let out a snort. “I have no idea.”

“Okay, that’s good,” Dean said, glancing again between the rolling black pavement and Castiel’s curled, sharp-knuckled hands. “You’re getting really smooth. Now why don’t we try pulling into that spot?”

“We’ve done that,” Castiel said. His voice cracked halfway through the sentence, suddenly losing pitch; Dean had learned better than to laugh and make jokes about Castiel going through puberty in reverse. It made Cas’ eyes go cold and dead, and it didn’t actually do anything to make Dean feel less nervous.

“We’re practicing,” Dean said, keeping his focus. “That’s what practicing is: doing the same thing over and over until you’re good at it.”

“I can’t wait to be an expert at driving a car in slow circles around a parking lot.”

Jeeze. It looked like Cas might be able to win sarcasm back from Gabriel yet.

“My car, my rules,” Dean said stubbornly. Great, and now he sounded like Dad.

Castiel gave him a very deliberate look before swinging the Impala a bit too sharply into the slot and yanking on the parking brake. “Whoa!” Dean said. “Uncool! You got a problem, take it out on me, not on her!”

He felt like he ought to have more to add to that, but Cas had let out a shuddering breath, was already nodding his head. “Sorry,” he said, and swallowed hard: “My apologies.”

Dean shifted uncomfortably in the passenger seat, trying to study Cas without making it obvious that that was what he was doing. Then he remembered that Uncomfortable Stares were pretty much a cornerstone of his and Castiel’s relationship. So he stared openly at Cas’ bent head, at his hands as the opened and closed around the Impala’s steering wheel.

“Hey,” Dean said. “Are you—”

Dean totally didn’t jump when Sam tapped on the passenger-side window. “I think I found us something,” Sam announced, grinning widely.

“Finally,” said Cas, unbuckling his seatbelt and letting it snap back with too much force. He slid quickly out of the car.

“Yeah, great,” Dean told the empty vehicle. He followed them back inside the motel room.

Sam had several tabs of obituaries open on his laptop. Dean clicked through, glancing at and then glancing away from a series of photos of handsome, serious-faced young men. “A bunch of dead college students,” he summarized, stepping aside to give Castiel a chance to look.

“They were struck by lightning?” Castiel said after a moment, raising an eyebrow.

“Two of them, yeah.” Sam’s eyes had that shiny, glazed look that suggested he was deep in geeky research heaven. “The third was gored by a bull.”

Cas was clearly hooked. Dean took a seat on the bed and watched the two of them hunker down at the table. “They all attended the same university and were all straight-A students,” Castiel said, examining Sam’s notes. “Seniors. Two were members of the same fraternal organization, and two of the obituaries also mention activity in student government.”

“Are you making a Venn Diagram?” Dean asked, interrupting whatever Sam’s enthusiastic nod was about to convey. They turned and stared at him.

Dean shrugged. “You had me at ‘gored by a bull,’” he said. “Let’s hit the road already.”

Cas perked up a bit. “Can I drive?”

Dean laughed and laughed and laughed. “No.”

He didn’t miss the conciliatory pat Sam gave Cas’ shoulder. “Nice try.”

They loaded the car quickly, a well-oiled machine. Closing the trunk, it made Dean pause to think how easily, in a way, they had integrated Cas into their routine: the extra duffle bag packed with Dean’s cast-offs and thrift store finds; Sam and Cas standing by the passenger-side door and throwing rock-paper-scissors in place of calling shotgun. Years of going up against Dean had messed with Sam’s strategy: “Paper covers rock,” Cas said with a smirk.

Sam sighed and clambered into the back. “Dean, sometimes you should let other people have a turn.”

“It’s my car,” Dean said automatically, the last half of the sentence drowned out by Sam and Cas chiming in with “your car.”

“We know,” Sam said. “We’re not trying to take it away from you.”

“I might want my own car,” Cas said, like he was still practicing wanting things. Doing the same thing over and over until you get good at it, Dean thought.

“Oh yeah? And what kind of car would you want?” Dean smiled as he listened to the sound of the Impala opening up as she hit the highway; as far as he was concerned, there was really no answer besides this one.

Cas appeared to be giving the question some thought. “Well?” Dean prompted.

“A plane,” said Castiel, definitively.

“A plane?”

“Yes,” said Cas, looking satisfied with himself. “A jet.”

Sam started cracking up.

“A jet? What are you, Wonder Woman?”

Saying this immediately planted the image of Castiel dressed as Wonder Woman in Dean’s mind. Said mind stuttered and died halfway up hypothetical Wonder Woman-Cas’ bare thighs; Dean fumbled quickly for the radio dial.

“You asked me what I wanted,” said Castiel, over the sudden blast of Metallica. “I want something that goes really fast and can fly.”

Sam stopped laughing. “Uh, noted,” said Dean.

An awkward silence should be impossible when music was playing, Dean thought.

“I bet Sam wants a pony,” he said loudly.

Dean didn’t have to look in the mirror to see that Sam was rolling his eyes. “Yes, Dean. I want a pony.”

“A pretty pretty pony with pink fur.” Dean, though warming to his theme, realized this was wrong. “Hair. And you can braid its...” He gestured. “Mane-thing.”

“Why not just make it a unicorn?” Sam said with a sigh.

“Heh, yeah, and Cas can tame it for you. Because he’s, you know...”

“Exceedingly brave?” suggested Castiel, calmly. He leveled Dean with a look. “Unicorns are quite deadly, you know,” he continued. “They eviscerate their victims with their horns and then consume the person’s genitals while they still breathe. Fortunately, they are nearly extinct.”

Dean did glance in the mirror this time; Sam looked like he was about to be sick.

“Their manes are very shiny, though,” Cas said, picking at a hole above the knee of his jeans.

It took Dean another twenty miles to realize that Cas was fucking with them.

The college campus was all stern grey stone—very impressive-looking, Dean supposed, although like the angels’ glitzy interior design, it mostly just looked douchey to him. Sam, however, got out of the car with a sigh ready on his lips. He was already looking toward the library lustily. “Go for it,” Dean said, giving his brother a light push on the shoulder—which because Sam was a freakin’ giant, didn’t do very much. “Cas and I will go check out the frat—what was it called again?”

“Delta Kappa Epsilon.”

“Delta Crappy Epsilon. Got it.”

Sam waved him off, leaving Dean to turn to Cas. He inspected Castiel’s outfit: ragged jeans, pale green shirt, denim jacket. As usual, he looked sort of rumpled and messy, a couple of elbow patches away from the quintessential absent-minded professor. “I hope this frat pledges dorks,” Dean said, fixing Cas’ upturned collar.

Cas’ blatant nerdiness ended up not being the problem. “Aren’t you a little...old?” the first couple of guys Dean tried to pull his “we’re visiting brothers from Ohio” thing on asked.

“We’re mature students,” Dean snapped.

“I would not call you mature,” Castiel said, and for a moment Dean was worried that all his hours of lessons in careful application of the truth had been for naught. But then he caught Cas’ smirk, and the frat boys caught it too, and somehow they got the info they needed by playing it off like Cas was the cool one and Dean was the tiresome dork who wouldn’t stop rambling on with obnoxious, unnecessary questions. In other words, Sam.

“I hope your fears are assuaged,” Cas said as they walked back across the quad, Cas kicking up clouds of fallen leaves when he strayed carelessly, childishly from the path.

Dean shoved his hands in his pockets. “Shut up.”

Sam was waiting for them outside the library. “So apparently there are all these rumors about a campus secret society—” he started.

“We know.” Dean leaned back against the railing. “The Crossbones. Very spooky. Our frat boys were both members.”

“So was the Vice President of Student Affairs. Think the organization’s collectively pissed something powerful off?”

“Or the thing with the bull’s part of the worst hazing ritual ever.” Dean glanced around at the oppressive grey buildings, the students bustling between them laden with books, their scarves catching like nooses around their necks. “College is weird.”

Sam’s chuckle conveyed something that wasn’t quite humor. “You never wish you could have gone? Never?”

“It’s not too late for you to go back,” Dean pointed out instead of answering, voice level but slightly sharp.

“You could be a mature student,” Castiel said, shooting Dean a look.

“Yeah, no.” Sam looked over his shoulder, then back at them—or at least at their feet. “I think that ship has sailed.”

“Anna’s gone back,” Dean pressed without really knowing why.

“Anna is...Anna,” Sam said. “I just want to—” He shrugged his shoulders and Dean looked away; he had already decided to let it drop. “Did you find out the names of anyone else who might be a, a Crossbone?” Sam asked. “We need to find out where they meet, what they’re up to.”

“Yeah, we lucked into an angry frat boy who hadn’t been ‘tapped.’” Dean chuckled at the word tapped.

“Mature student,” Cas mumbled under his breath.

Dean kicked at his shin. “He seemed perfectly happy to sell out his brothers.”

He handed Sam the list of names he’d scribbled down once they’d left the frat. Sam squinted at it. “Okay, it shouldn’t be too hard to track them down. They weren’t home earlier?”

“Nope,” Dean said, “but there’s this bar we were told—”

“Can we perhaps continue this conversation indoors?” Castiel said with sudden force. They turned to him; Dean watched as his expression turned sheepish. “I’m cold,” he admitted.

“We should have bought you a better coat,” Dean said, plucking at the sleeve of Cas’ jacket.

“I like this coat.”

“It’s not doing its job, is it?” He looked Cas over again. “We should get you a leather jacket.”

Castiel’s expression was less than enthused.

“This is a cool coat,” Dean said, indicating his own. “You don’t want a coat like this?”

“I don’t want a coat exactly like yours, no,” Castiel said firmly.

“Okay.” Sam cut between them. “Cas is right, it’s cold. Let’s play dress-up later.”

“Like after you’re done grooming your unicorn, maybe?” Dean said, cutting back in front of him again and striding toward the car.

“I’m not the one treating Cas like he’s a life-sized Ken doll.”

Rather than punch Sam in the face, Dean took a deep breath and posed the theory that the reason Ken had no genitals was that they had been torn off and consumed by a ravaging unicorn. They drove to a motel called the Sea Breeze (they were nowhere near the sea) and checked in.

When Dean got back from the Coke machine, Cas was googling the proud achievements of the Mattel corporation. “You could just ask, you know.” He handed Cas his soda.

Castiel glanced at the can as he pushed back the chair. “I wanted a Dr. Pepper.”

Once it seemed late enough, they went to the bar where the Crossbones supposedly hung out. It was not at all what Dean expected. The flatscreen TVs mounted on the walls were all playing FoxNews, and that was the most sinister thing about the place. Dean squinted at the list of microbrews and made Sam order for him.

He found Cas flinging darts with frightening accuracy at a board whose cork looked like it had never before taken such a beating. “Still got it?” Dean asked.

“It?” Cas scored another bullseye.

“Yeah, ‘it.’ You know...” Dean didn’t even know. Dean had no idea what he was talking about. He took a swig of his beer. “Come on, stop fooling around,” he said instead. “We need to find one of these idiots and talk to them.”

“They’re over in the corner,” Cas said without looking. “But they won’t talk to us.”

“How do you know?”

Cas gave his last dart an almost absentminded flick and turned to Dean. “Their organization is based around secrecy. It’s like a religion to them. If its rites and rituals become known, they lose their power, so its members must guard its secrets above all else. We won’t be able to uncover them merely by asking, no matter how cleverly.”

“All right, Tyler Durden. What do you propose?”

“We should wait until they leave and follow them.”

As Dean considered this, Sam approached, shaking his head. “That’s them in the corner, I think,” he said, giving his shoulders a subtle roll. “But I couldn’t get anything out of them. It was like talking to a brick wall. A smarmy, rude brick wall.”

Dean shrugged. “Cas says the first rule of a douchey secret society is that you can’t talk about your douchey secret society. Probably something he learned in angel school, right, Cas?”

“Something like that.” He finished pulling his darts out of the board and weighed them in his hand.

“I think we should wait and follow them,” Dean suggested. He ignored Cas’ snort.

Sam nodded. He set his beer down on the table and stepped up to Castiel. “Hey Cas, you up for a game?”

“It depends. Do you enjoy losing?”

Sam laughed. “Has Dean been teaching you to trash talk?”

“No, he came by that one naturally.” Dean took a long pull of his beer and settled down to watch the Crossbones plot world domination or whatever stupid thing they were doing over peanuts and light beer.

He kept one eye on them and one eye on Sam and Cas and their game of darts. They both had excellent aim, so what it was going to come down to was which one of them would screw up first. Dean just never expected it would be Castiel.

Castiel clearly didn’t expect it either. He stood frowning at the board, at the double-eight he had just barely missed, hitting a double-sixteen instead.

“Uh, that’s a bust,” Sam said gently. “That means you miss a turn.”

“I understand the rules,” Castiel said. He sat down and didn’t pay much attention as Sam took his turn and won the game.

“Well, you win some, you lose some,” Dean said, because he was apparently clinically incapable of shutting the fuck up.

“So it seems,” said Castiel. He started peeling the label off his bottle of beer.

Dean was relieved when the Crossbones, in a weirdly synchronized, almost Borg-like fashion, slid out of their corner booth and headed toward the door. Dean said, “Sam,” under his breath, and got up to follow them.

He could feel Sam and Cas at his back as he stepped out onto the sidewalk. It had gotten colder—bitterly cold for September, which, Dean supposed, meant he was going to have to stop blaming weird weather on the devil. Lucifer was locked away and still the wind was whipping through the fallen leaves. Dean glanced over his shoulder and saw Cas forcing his hands into the pocket of the hoodie he’d put on under his denim jacket.

When he looked back up the road, it was to find that one of the Crossbones had paused under the light of a streetlamp and was staring back at them. Dean thought he saw the boy’s mouth twitch up; then he turned, and melted back into the shadows.

“Shit,” Dean hissed. “Were we just made?”

Even in the darkness, he could see Cas narrowing his eyes. “They’re protected by something. But they’re hunted, too.”

“You know, you don’t have to be cryptic anymore,” Dean snapped. “We’re all on the same side.”

He could see Cas scowling at him, too. “Exactly what about what I said was unclear?”

“Guys,” Sam sighed.

“What?”

“You suck,” said Sam succinctly. He gestured up ahead to the entirely empty road.

“Whatever. I’m starting not to care if these guys get struck by lightning anyway.”

The next morning there were cops and emergency vehicles all over campus. Sam went to play the innocent, but highly curious, bystander. “Young male college student,” he reported when he got back. “Senior. Star hockey player. Found this morning in the middle of the quad, dead from having his liver clawed out.”

“Clawed out?” said Dean.

“Or pecked out. Apparently there were feathers. Like he was attacked by a large bird.”

“When did this become an Alfred Hitchcock movie?”

“What kind of bird?” Castiel asked.

“What does it matter what kind of bird?” Dean asked, stupidly. He knew that details like that always mattered.

“I don’t know, the guy said something big and dark.” Sam shrugged. “Now all I can think is ‘a murder of crows.’”

“I doubt it was a crow,” Cas said with some authority.

“Oh, so you’re an ornithologist now?” Dean asked. Sam raised an eyebrow at him in surprise. “What?”

“I suspect it was an eagle,” said Castiel. “Belonging to Zeus.”

Sam and Dean were both silent for a moment. “Well, that’s an impressively Mulder-like leap of logic,” Dean said finally. “What’s Zeus doing harvesting livers? Is he palling around with Hannibal Lecter all of a sudden?”

“To answer the portion of that question that I understood,” Castiel said tightly, “I would guess that he’s taking revenge.”

“Oh, a vengeful god. That sounds fun.”

“What does Zeus need revenge for?” Sam asked. “And, uh, actually—what’s Zeus doing in New England?”

“It would be easier if I showed you,” Castiel said, turning without waiting for a response and walking purposefully across the quad.

Dean blinked after him for a moment. “You can take the angel out of the angel, but you can’t take the cryptic out of the...” Sam was giving him a pitying look. “You know what I mean!”

They caught up with Cas near where they’d lost the Crossbones the night before. He was standing on the edge of the sidewalk, squinting up at the row of grey stone buildings, and as Dean and Sam approached, he took a sudden step back, off the curb and toward the center of the road.

“Hey!” Dean cried out in alarm, darting forward without thought. He grabbed Cas tightly by the arm and yanked him out of the street. Castiel’s eyes widened momentarily: he seemed surprised to find himself being so easily moved. Then they narrowed into a glare, and he jerked without much difficulty out of Dean’s grasp. The expression on his face made it too easy for Dean to imagine him saying, Unhand me, sir! or something like that.

But all he said was, “Let go,” low and angry.

Dean wanted to shake him. “You can’t just wander out into the middle of the street, Cas! You’re not invulnerable anymore, and you’re not four, either, Jesus!”

“I know what I’m doing,” Castiel said in that same low, deadly voice.

“Playing live-action Frogger?”

Unsurprisingly, Castiel ignored this. “I know where the Crossbones’ lair is.”

“And now it’s a pirate movie,” Sam seemingly couldn’t help stepping in to interject. He did so sheepishly, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets. Dean at least had the courage of his smartassery. “Sorry. Where?”

“Through there.” Castiel pointed at the long, flat stretch of slate-grey wall in front of them. Dean consulted his mental map: the building was, if he remembered correctly, a gymnasium, barely in use since a newer facility had been built on the other side of campus. It did not have any doors facing the street.

“Huh?”

“That wall is three feet longer than the dimensions given in the blueprints.”

“You looked at the blueprints?” Sam sounded impressed.

Castiel directed his answer to Dean, though. “I am capable of looking up more on the internet than Barbara Millicent Roberts’ origins.”

Dean needed a moment. “Wait, you're googlestalking some chick now?”

Sam laughed. “Barbie. He means Barbie. That's her full name.”

Dean let out a breath. “Okay, one,” he pointed a finger at Sam, “we are so having a long, and for you, deeply humiliating conversation later about why you know that. And two—” His hand dropped and he turned back to Castiel, who was watching him from very close. “Cas, I still don’t see how the fact that somebody maybe wrote a number down wrong proves anything.”

“How do we get in?” Sam asked, ignoring him. The two of them seemed to be doing that a lot, Dean was noticing. “There’s gotta be an external entrance, because that would explain how they vanished last night.”

“They left traces,” Castiel said with certainty. “Look.”

He pointed at the muddy ground near the building’s base. There were a couple of indentations that maybe-kinda-sorta resembled footprints. Sam nearly started bouncing in excitement. “You’re right! It must be right here. See, now that I know where to look, I can totally see a difference in the coloration of the stone—do you see this crack?”

A bunch of ass jokes shuffled sloppily through Dean’s mind, but all he said was, “This is ridiculous.”

Comment: ignored. “I am fortunate to have spent some time in the great pyramids of Egypt,” Castiel told Sam. He put his hand over one of the knob-like architectural flourishes that ran at eye-height around the building. It looked to Dean disturbingly like he was cupping a giant stone boob.

“I thought Zeus was Greek,” Dean said—surprised, almost, at his own snappishness.

Castiel glanced around at him, expression too cold and blank for Dean to get a proper read on it. “He is. But the Egyptians are famous for their secret passages.”

He certainly hadn’t lost his sense of drama, Dean thought, the big wing-flashing bastard. The corners of his mouth twitching up into a grin, Castiel pushed the stone breast aside, revealing a metal hook secreted below it. Sam barked a laugh as Castiel cast one last look over his shoulder, then gave the hook a sharp twist and threw his shoulder against the stone. A large portion of the wall bowed inward easily.

“It’s more likely to be empty now that it’s daytime,” Castiel said, and beckoned for Sam and Dean to precede him into the passage.

“You know, cocky is not the best look for you,” Dean told him, ducking his head and following his brother inside. Dean had already plucked his lighter out of his pocket.

Even with Cas repositioning the door behind them and plunging the passage into near-darkness, Dean found the ambiance immediately spoiled: someone had used day-glo green spray-paint to scrawl CRIMSON SUCK on the wall. He jerked his thumb at it. “Is that some sort of vamp tag?” If vampires were involved in this along with the vengeful Greek gods and the rampaging bulls and the frat douches, Dean was seriously going to consider retirement.

Sam snorted. “It means the Harvard Crimson.” He took out his dorky little pocket flashlight and shone it down the corridor, which seemed to slope gently downward. “And they do suck. But not as much as the Golden Bears suck.”

Dean exchanged a look with Castiel. For once Dean was just as baffled as he was.

They continued down the corridor, Sam in the lead. It turned out to be much shorter than Dean would have guessed: not quite a hundred paces, and then an opening on their left. Dean ducked his head again, and then they were standing in a small round chamber that couldn’t seem to decide if it was the site of sinister ancient rites or a stoner crash pad. The basic architecture was all very Hammer Horror (despite the fact that Dean was pretty sure that that was the women’s swim team he could hear practicing above his head), with a half dozen stone columns and sconces on the walls crusted over with melted wax. One of the white tapers had been replaced by a rainbow-colored thing that was straight out of a headshop, though, and Dean could totally see a pizza box sticking out from behind the altar.

The altar... “Shit,” Sam said, looking at it. It was painted with sigils in what Dean could all-too-easily recognize as dried blood. At the center lay a piece of wood, delicately, beautifully carved. Even in the dim light, from several feet away, Dean could tell that it was very, very old. It was shaped like a lightning bolt.

“Is that...did they use that to summon Zeus?” Sam asked.

“Yes,” said Castiel. “It is made of oak.” He reached out and before Dean could somewhat hypocritically stop him, touched it, running his fingers over the grooves. “He is weak. They were able to bind him to it.”

Cas looked up then, eyes glinting in the flash of Sam and Dean’s small lights. For a second, Dean forgot that Castiel was all but human now.

“But not entirely.”

Sam bent closer but kept his hands to himself. “Not entirely?”

“He has retained power over his servants.” Cas gave a subtle, thoughtful nod. “The lightning, the eagle, the bull. He is taking his vengeance as he can. Like I said.” This last comment was directed at Dean, pointedly.

“Okay, pissed-off Greek god on a rampage,” Dean said with a conciliatory shrug. “So, we gank him, right?” The thought bummed Dean out a little; Zeus had always seemed kind of cool, turning into a swan and still managing to bang some chick. “And then what—give these Poindexters a slap on the wrist? What are they doing summoning a god, anyway? Where’d they even get this stuff?”

“It helps to have connections.”

Dean spun: the jackass who’d paused under the streetlamp last night was standing in the far corner, on the opposite side of the room from where they’d come in. Dean could just see the opening of a second passageway.

“That one comes up in the girls’ locker room,” the guy said, smirking. “You should have checked your perimeter, Shaggy.”

“Great, this guy has the same sense of humor as Gabriel.” Dean rolled his eyes.

“I don’t find this funny at all, actually.” He stepped forward, but Dean already had a hand on his gun, and this guy had no idea what he was getting himself in to. “Unlike the three of you, I care about my future.”

“A future as a scorch mark or a smear of eagle shit? Oh yeah, sign me right—” Up, Dean was going to say, but then he heard an electronic crackle-hiss and Cas let out a choked scream. Dean whirled and caught his own taser blast in the stomach. It was not the worst pain he’d ever experienced, not by a long shot. But it did the job.

Some douchebag in a sweater vest bent over him and gave him another blast for good measure. “Don’t tase me, bro! Don’t tase me!” the guy said mockingly as Dean bit his tongue and said nothing of the kind, panting and twisting on the floor. He felt someone grip him under the arms and drag him.

He faded in and out for a while.

Then he was upright, his back up against a curved stone pillar. Dean jerked, and that’s how he discovered he was handcuffed—to Sam on his right side and Cas on his left. The cuffs attaching him to Cas were lined with pink fur.

Dean craned his neck and looked around. The candles were all lit now, including the rainbow-colored one, sputtering brightly. Cas was still out, slumped against the pillar and a little against Dean’s shoulder. Dean couldn’t see his other hand but it looked like Cas was chained to Sam as well. “Sam,” Dean hissed, kicking out at his brother’s calf.

“Yeah,” Sam whispered back. Dean could feel him squirming around; he was clearly working at the cuffs.

“This is fucking embarrassing,” Dean said. “We did not just defeat Lucifer in order to get taken out by the fucking Debate Team!”

“Cas isn’t the only one who got cocky,” Sam said with a sigh. “We came down here without any sort of plan, without taking any precautions...”

“Well, it wouldn’t have happened if Cas here,” he jerked against the fur-lined cuff, which did not oblige him by easily snapping, “hadn’t decided to give us the exposition Sherlock Holmes-style.”

Cas let out a quiet groan. “Who’s Sherlock Holmes?”

“A pompous ass, just like you,” Dean said, checking what he could see of Cas’ body for injury.

“I think you mean ‘Dead, just like you.’” The primo douchebag stepped into Dean’s line of sight. He was now wearing a long black robe. Dean took one look at him and burst out laughing.

“Let me guess: Hot Topic?”

Douche No. 1 gave his head a condescending shake. Three of his douchey friends gathered close, also now be-robed; Dean thought they looked like a Queen album. “Throw around as much mockery as you like. That’s always the last refuge of people who have nothing to contribute to society.”

“And what does this little circle jerk contribute? Besides giving your poor girlfriends some time off from your fun little games?” He waved a fur-rimmed wrist in the air. “Although maybe I’m being too generous, assuming there’s a woman involved.”

“And what do you know about women?”

Dean opened his mouth to start making a long and graphic list, but was interrupted by His Doucheyness, who was clearly in love with the sound of his own voice. “Do you know the one thing that attracts them above all others?”

“Your kicky wardrobe choices?” Dean suggested, though he was mostly drowned out by the Crossbone’s answer to his own question: “Power. Power, which is what people like us were born with, and people like you will never even touch.”

Dean sagged back against the column with a sigh. “Okay, you can smite them now, Cas.”

“I would very much like to.”

To Dean’s surprise, Sam spoke up next. “Don’t even bother. I knew plenty of guys like this at Stanford, guys who thought they were better than everyone else, who made fun of the scholarship kids when they only got in because their dads bought the school a new building. They think they’re going to rule the world, but in the end they’ll choke on the silver spoons they’ve got jammed down their throats.”

This little speech earned Sam a round of slow-clapping—and more time to work the cuffs, Dean knew. Dean was trying himself, though it was tough to be subtle with their hands in plain view. Also the fur was kind of throwing him off.

“Be careful, or you’ll choke on your own self-righteousness,” the lead douche said, pressing close to Sam and smearing some sort of orange powder over his forehead. “Thanks, by the way, for volunteering to go first.”

“Oh, goody, are we being sacrificed?” Dean grinned up into the douchebag’s sneer. “It’s been a while since someone’s tried to sacrifice me. You ever been sacrificed, Cas?”

“No.” Castiel was straining, uselessly and way too hard, against the cuffs. His eyes looked dark and murderous.

“Relax,” Dean told him, “it’s fun. Tell him, Poindexter. You’ve had a grand old time watching your friends get murdered, right?”

“Success requires sacrifice,” the guy said, his grin suddenly tight. “Certain risks must be taken. But I’m sure that soon the Overseer will consider our debts to him paid in full.”

Sam let out an angry breath. “You’ve had everything handed to you. Everything. You have your whole damn lives ahead of you and you’re throwing it away for this?”

“What do you know, greaser?” one of the backup douchebags interjected. “I’m going to be a senator. Do you know how much tail senators get?”

“Yeah, you been practicing your wide stance?” Dean started, but he was interrupted by the lead douche’s bellow of “Shut up! Get into position.”

“Sorry, Tom,” one of the others mumbled. They shuffled around in their robes. “Sam?” Dean took the opportunity to hiss.

“Dean,” Sam hissed back, his message clear.

Dean huffed and strained a little bit, uselessly. The Crossbones began to chant. “What about you, Cas?” Dean asked. “You just sitting this one out?”

Castiel had let his head drop back against the stone pillar; his eyes were closed. “Shh,” he whispered. His shoulders went slack, and Dean could feel Cas’ clenched fists relax, his fingers uncurling slow and gentle against Dean’s. Dean shivered and bit down on what he was going to say. The whole room appeared to be waiting. Even with the lead douchebag’s voice rising to a crescendo, the chamber felt like an empty space waiting to be filled, and in that little bubble of vacancy, Dean found he felt strangely calm. Maybe after battling Lucifer and archangels, everything else became anticlimax, but that wasn’t... He stopped twisting in the cuffs and simply sat back and watched.

He watched the carved wooden lightning bolt take on a bright, unearthly glow. He watched Tom the douchebag’s grin as the glow lit up his features, throwing them into a maniacal pattern of shadow and light. And he watched as white lightning began to leap from the wooden bolt as if from a charged coil, crackling across the room in a pattern far too precise to be remotely accidental.

Dean felt a tug and heard, dimly, Sam whispering, “Cas!” Then Sam’s hands were on their linked wrists. “Cas, help me out,” Sam said, but Cas didn’t move his newly freed hand. He stared at the crackling light, the strands resolving themselves into something approximately man-shaped.

Dean realized he was staring too, ignoring Sam’s pleas of “Guys!” as he worked at the cuff linking him to Dean. The lightning coalesced and Dean knew that he should be, if not frightened, then at least concerned. Instead he felt only a vague, patient curiosity.

He listened as Tom threw back his hood and proclaimed, “Behold, Overseer, the sacrifices we have brought you in appreciation for your service.” He faced down the lightning god eagerly, without fear or regret. Dean would admire his balls if he didn’t know first hand what that kind of empty, graceless courage was worth.

Then the old god turned the shining pits of its eyes on them. The three of them, linked hand to hand: Sam crouching, Cas with his eyes closed, Dean between them with his back up against the pillar. The air crackled; Dean was silent. He’d looked into the face of evil and this wasn’t it. This was a force of nature—an old, angry storm on the verge of blowing itself out.

For a long moment none of them moved; this bizarre tableau held. Dean was not at all surprised that Tom was the first to flinch. “Er,” he said, twitching a little under the looks his befuddled followers were giving him. “Your sacrifices, Overseer! Take them!”

In the second pause that followed, Dean just barely caught sight of Castiel, gently and without fanfare, opening his eyes. He said a few words in a language Dean didn’t understand—it was all Greek to him, and for once Dean figured that to be literal.

There was a final pause, and then everything exploded.

Birds, great black and white and brown bodies, shot down the passages on either side of the room. They swept past Sam and Dean and Cas without harming them, although Sam did fall over, yelping at least partially in surprise. The sound of flapping wings filled the room, louder than seemed possible, louder than the lightning-crackle and the college boys’ screams.

“Fuck,” Dean said. “A bull better not coming charging out of the women’s locker room next.”

“What do we do?” From beside him, he could just barely make out Sam’s shout. “Should we do something?”

“We will,” promised Castiel. The wings beat and the storm howled.

Then all at once, it grew silent. Three robed bodies lay slumped on the stone floor, in a liberal splatter of blood and feathers. The sight filled Dean with a sort of sick resignation. Good things do happen, Cas had told him once—and maybe he wasn’t entirely wrong. But this sort of thing happened, too.

The fourth robed figure was huddled in on himself, whimpering. Lightning crackled above his head. In his hand, the douchebag known as Tom still clutched the wooden bolt. Whenever the electric lightning tried to touch it, the shafts skittered and faded away.

Castiel spoke suddenly, clearly, with authority. “Only you can end this. Come here.”

Dean saw Tom lift his head. His face was streaked with tears but there was still something nasty and defiant in his eyes. “Why?”

“I assume you want to live,” Castiel said. “It’s not my place to judge you worthy of more life, but I can make it possible. Bring me the lightning bolt.”

“It’s mine. The power is mine. I deserve it!”

“You stole it,” Castiel said. “You took it, and you used it, all without considering the consequences of your actions, or who could get hurt. Now your friends are dead and you will, I have no doubt, do what I say to save your own skin.”

“Fuck you,” Tom said, even as he crawled forward and let the lightning bolt drop and roll forward to land at Castiel’s feet.

Castiel picked it up with his free hand, which was still dangling handcuff chain. He held it palm-out, as if on a platter, and whispered foreign-tongued words into the finely carved grain.

For a second Dean was impressed. Then the lightning-shape surged forward, pressing bright and deadly up against where they lay. “Shit. Cas!” Dean started, and attempted to scramble to his feet. But Castiel remained beside him a dead weight, staring unconcerned into the crackling glow. The almost-a-face pushed close to his. Dean’s heart was pounding as he heard it whisper something to Castiel, each word a sibilant hiss-snap.

“Thank you, cousin,” Castiel replied calmly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

The shining streak of light seemed to bob, almost like a nod, before it raced, expanding, toward the ceiling, where it disappeared with a final electric crack.

Dean figured he ought to have a bunch of smartass things to say into the silence that followed, but he couldn’t think of any.

Sam, on the other hand, was all business. “Come on, you guys, get up,” he said, and finally Castiel got, haltingly, to his feet. Sam gave a tug and the three of them walked, in an awkward chain-gang shuffle, over to where Tom the douche still knelt.

“Give me the keys,” Sam said.

Tom glared at him and said nothing.

Sam grabbed him roughly by the arm and jerked him to his feet. “Hold him,” Sam said, and Dean did so gladly while Sam roughly pushed aside the robe and patted him down until he found a set of keys.

The cuffs attaching Dean to Sam were quickly unlocked and used to shackle Tom to the altar. The metal ring encircling Cas’ free wrist was easily dispatched as well. But when Sam tried to use the key to open the fur-lined cuffs, it became immediately apparent that it didn’t fit.

“Where’s the other key?”

No response. Dean took over. “Hey, asshole. Where’s the other goddamn key?”

Tom had clearly made the move from bombast to sullen silence. He sneered at Dean but said nothing.

Only Dean’s moral fortitude and the furry cuff still attaching him to Cas held Dean back from roughing Tom up until he squealed. “Hey, hey,” Sam said. “It doesn’t matter, we’ve got plenty of lockpicks back at the motel.”

“Douche,” Dean spat. Then for a change he turned and glared at Cas some, who was committing the offense of standing remarkably still while Dean strained against the cuffs that held them together. “You’re just cool with this?” he snapped.

“It is not of import,” Castiel said. “We need to collect the other artifacts these young men stole and leave.”

“What other artifacts?”

Castiel still slipped easily into lecturing angel mode. “Associations such as these are known for pilfering rare objects thought to have occult value.” He slid a slow, disdainful look in Tom’s direction. “The best that could be said of this chapter is that their eye for legitimacy was better than I believe is usual.”

Dean was pretty sure that all this fake fur rubbing against his wrist was going to give him some sort of rash. “Since when are you an expert on secret societies? I mean, where’d you learn all this Skull & Bones stuff—is that standard for angel school?”

Castiel shook his head. “No. Wikipedia.”

“Hey, and it’s accurate for once,” Sam said. He had moved behind the altar and kicked the pizza box out of the way. “Look at this.”

Lacking much of a choice, Dean and Castiel walked over together. Together, they bent and peered at the wooden chest Sam had discovered. “Ignore the hockey jersey,” he instructed.

“Hey, Gretzky, nice,” Dean said, plucking it out of the way. An impressive array of old, dusty, odd, and clearly powerful objects lay beneath.

“I would avoid touching things indiscriminately,” Castiel said. Dean held up his hands in a gesture of affronted innocence, but it was Sam Castiel was looking at.

Sam carefully put the book he’d been flicking through back down. “I’m betting that’s where they got their summoning and binding ritual from.” He shook his head, glancing around at the devastated room, the bodies crumpled on the floor. “What a waste.”

“How heavy is that, can you take it?” Sam closed the chest and hefted it, then nodded. “Okay, good. We better scram. I’m betting the flock of angry seagulls drew some attention.”

“They were eagles,” Castiel said. He gave Dean a look that suggested he was concerned for Dean’s mental health.

“What are we going to do about him?” Sam asked, nodding toward Tom, still cuffed and scowling at the base of the altar.

“I say we leave him here, then tip off the cops and let him explain this mess.”

That provoked a reaction, at least. Tom sat up, straining. “Leave me here? You can’t just leave me here! Do you have any idea who my father is?”

Dean laughed without humor. “Buddy, let’s not play ‘my dad can beat up your dad.’ I’m pretty sure Cas here has you beat.”

Tom stared at him blankly.

“Oh, and by the way,” Dean added, pausing at the foot of the passage, Cas at his side. “Sherlock Holmes isn’t dead, he’s a fictional character.” He shook his head sadly. “Just what are they teaching kids in school these days?”

“Well, that was the weirdest walk of shame ever,” Dean said, once the three of them—Sam huffing under the weight of an old-timey treasure chest and Dean and Cas shackled together with furry handcuffs—slunk back inside the motel.

“This whole case has been...yeah.” For once, Sam seemed at a loss for words.

“Can we save the post-game analysis for later? I like Cas and all, but I think he and I might be getting a little too attached.” He jiggled their enjoined hands.

Castiel looked down at the cuffs as if he were noticing them for the first time. He frowned. “I’m surprised he was so considerate.”

“Considerate?” Sam asked, glancing up from the bag he was ruffling through.

“These restraints were clearly designed for greater comfort...” Castiel’s expression changed as he took in the looks Dean and Sam exchanged before they both lost it entirely.

“I’m glad my ignorance continues to be hilarious,” Castiel said tightly, once they both had calmed down.

“I’m sorry, man. I’m sorry.” Sam, needles in hand, made quick work of the cuffs. “Cas, it isn’t personal.”

“We just think you’re...adorable,” Dean teased, and immediately lost it again.

He kept laughing a little too long, feeling like he had missed his cue to stop: the moment where Cas would have once been able to flap indignantly away. Instead he stood there, rubbing his wrists and staring balefully, taking it and— Dean felt his stomach twist.

“Give me a minute, I’ll be right back,” Dean said, feeling suddenly decisive as he plucked his keys from his pocket.

“Dean, we gotta get out of here,” Sam said. “They might find that Tom guy before we’re ready and he might be able to set somebody on us. Plus we’ve got a chest full of powerful artifacts...”

“I know, I know,” Dean said. “I just need ten minutes, okay?”

It took him closer to twenty, but that meant Sam and Cas were all packed up and ready to go by the time he got back. They quickly loaded the car, Castiel carefully sliding the chest of artifacts into the backseat and then getting in beside it. Sam snagged shotgun.

Dean started his baby up but paused before backing out. He pulled his purchase out of his jacket and chucked it into the backseat.

“What’s this?” Castiel asked, fumbling to catch the chunky, rectangular object.

“It’s a book, Cas.” Dean reached up to adjust his mirror. “You may have heard of them.”

“The Complete Sherlock Holmes,” Castiel read, his tone surprisingly halting for someone who spoke a bagillion different languages.

“Just Volume One,” Dean said. “We’ll see how you like it. What?” he snapped, this last directed at Sam.

“Nothing!” said Sam. But he was smirking when he turned to look out the passenger-side window.

When Dean turned away from his brother to put his eyes back on the road, he caught a glimpse of Castiel in the rearview mirror. “Thank you, Dean.”

Dean shrugged. “If you’re going to be the cocky, socially-awkward know-it-all of the group, you ought to know about your ancestors or whatever.” He paused with his hand halfway to the radio. “Uh. Just ignore all the stuff about cocaine, okay?”

“If you think that’s best,” Castiel said with something like a smile.

Dean nodded and returned his attention to the road. “I think it’ll work for now.”

Masterpost / Episode 6x02

Fic: Strike Me Down and I'll Become More Powerful Than You Can Possibly Imagine (Dean/Castiel)

trinityofone — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:39:29 GMT

Title: Strike Me Down and I'll Become More Powerful Than You Can Possibly Imagine
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers/Warnings: Through 5x22. Also, a bit of a Good Omens crossover crept in. What can I say, Aziraphale is sneaky!
Length: ~11,000 words
Notes/Prompt: Written for an_ardent_rain in castielfest. The request was for something inspired by Rush's “Time Stand Still.” I listened to that darn thing 56 times during the writing of this story. Thanks, now I like a Rush song. *g* I also threw some wing stuff and some BAMF!Cas in there, because those are always good. Many thanks to aesc, radiobroadcast, siriaeve, and sycophantastic for all their help and encouragement!
Summary: Dean shoves his hands in his pockets and glares at Cas. “What's this 'business' that's so important it required you yanking me up here for seven minutes in Heaven?”

“We're going to try to rescue your brother,” Castiel says calmly. “It will almost certainly take longer than seven minutes.”

Strike Me Down and I'll Become More Powerful Than You Can Possibly Imagine

“Hello, brother.”

Raphael's eyes slide open like beetles' wings, parting with an efficient click. He's standing still in the center of the circle, body loose with the exception of his vessel's hands, clenched into fists. “Castiel,” he acknowledges, dully.

If Raphael sees the change in him, that he does not choose to acknowledge. It doesn't matter. Castiel takes a step forward and kneels down at the edge of the slow-burning fire circle. Calmly, he lowers his fingers into the flames and presses the tips, softly, against the cracked floorboards beneath.

The fire snuffs itself out, as quickly as if the air had been sucked from the room.

Castiel straightens up. “I apologize for the lengthy wait,” he says. “It's time to go home now.”

The look Raphael gives him is not one of respect. Perhaps it is fear. He'll take fear.

“Yes, brother.”

Castiel stretches his newly restored wings, the array bigger and brighter than ever.

—Good, he says.

The Garden looks precisely as he remembers Eden, back at the very beginning. Joshua stands at its center, not tending anything, because nothing needs tending. Everything is lush and fragrant and perfect.

Castiel has finally come home.

—Welcome back, Castiel. Joshua's body ripples and Castiel, too long among humans, interprets the motion as a smile. —Perhaps you will stay and rest a while.

Castiel looks around at the soft grass, the towering trees. He remembers what it is like to feel tired, not just in spirit but in body: a bone-deep weariness, the motion of the road sweeping by beneath him, the seductive warmth of soft leather. —No, thank you, he says. He looks out onto Heaven. —I find I have much to do.

Bobby is frowning at the chess board and trying to ignore the smirk on the face of the man—the demon—across from him. He takes a sip of his scotch, which goes down so smooth it makes him wish he'd bothered to put on a clean shirt. Not that he'd had any warning that Crowley was going to pop in with his gleaming expensive bottle and a challenge in his eyes. No, apparently it's just something the demon does.

Bobby's trying to make this bother him more than it actually does.

“Do you require more time?” Crowley asks. “Because I could always go water my plants, perhaps move some stocks and some stockbrokers around, come back later.”

“How many centuries you been around?” Bobby asks with a scowl. “Think in all that time you could've learned some patience.” Disgruntled, he scooches his remaining white bishop forward.

Crowley's eyes light up. He's uncoiling from his slouch, surely about to deal a blow to Bobby's king and his pride, when a breeze whips through the room, sending papers swirling off Bobby's desk. The smell of ozone fills the air and then Castiel is striding toward them like he's just stepped off an invisible escalator. “Bloody...” Crowley says, starting back in his chair, staring at the angel. “Did they ever drop the full upgrade package on you...”

Castiel seems to ignore this, advancing. “Heaven wishes to reward you for your service,” he says, in that flat, robotic way of his. And then...

The next few seconds pass very quickly. Crowley attempts to scramble back: “It was nothing, really,” he says, and the genuine fear in his eyes prompts Bobby to rise, say, “Hey, now, just a minute—” But neither of them is quick enough, or Castiel is simply too fast. His fingers brush Crowley's forehead and Bobby hears the demon let out one heart-stopping shriek before he explodes in a pulse of light.

Bobby clutches the desk, reeling. He stares at Castiel, who looks back at him with an expression of utter calm on his face.

Maybe it's that that makes Bobby boil over. “What the hell did you have to do that for?” he sputters. “He wasn't— And he's still got a contract out on my soul, dammit!”

“That contract is now void,” Castiel says. Then without another word, he vanishes.

Bobby slumps down again, staring at the pieces on the board: the still-standing black king and the half-empty glass of expensive scotch. His own glass is in reach, but for some reason he can't bring himself to drink it.

Joshua is trimming back a snaking vine and looking, with only minor interest, at the figure lying near him in the Garden's soft grass when Castiel appears between them. Joshua's mild, inoffensive movements translate for Castiel as, for some reason, an eyebrow raise. He ignores this, turning his attention instead to the third angel curled at his feet.

—How do you feel? Castiel asks him.

—You're a bastard, the angel says, then shudders visibly at the sound of his own voice. Castiel watches as he rights himself, slowly.

—That was completely uncalled for! the angel protests, looking Castiel in the eyes. —I didn't—I never asked for this.

—Forgiveness can be a gift, Castiel says.

The look he is being given is decidedly unangelic, which Castiel, somewhat worryingly, finds almost refreshing. —You had no right.

—Perhaps not, Castiel says. —But I do have work for you, Caphriel.

Caphriel takes a deep, unnecessary, and somewhat physically improbable breath. He turns his heads and stares wonderingly around the Garden. Castiel wonders what he sees.

Eventually Caphriel turns and looks back at him, his folded wings flexing nervously on his back. —You could've at least let me finish my scotch. Wanker.

Castiel remembers the rich burn and glide of scotch, the way it spread warmth like reaching branches deep in the center of his belly. He remembers the loamy fullness of beer and champagne's bubbles and vodka's icy slickness. He remembers being made dizzy by it, and Sam's big, steadying hand on his shoulder; and Dean's arms around him, holding him up and guiding him to safety.

At the end of many weeks' work, he “mojos” up a bottle of Irish whiskey for himself and Caphriel. Together they drink the whole thing to the bottom, even though it's clear that neither of them can taste or feel anything at all.

Castiel wanders through the Garden until he finds Joshua, who's plucking weeds that have sprouted around the base of a worn wooden bench. —Brother, Castiel says, —I seek your advice.

Joshua rises. He is smaller than most angels, more contained. It is not something Castiel has really noticed before now.

—What can I do for you?

—Our sister... Castiel begins, then stops. —Anael. She had a friend who helped her build a human body, so that she would not be required to take a vessel.

—And what need have you of that, brother?

For some reason this question makes Castiel shiver, though it's perfectly true: Jimmy Novak has been gone since Castiel's first resurrection, and even now he can slip in and out of his human body at will, like a man sliding on or shrugging off a coat.

—We all have need of it, Castiel says. —Now that there is once again order among the host, I think it's time we enact some more significant changes.

Joshua's gaze should be comforting; he is the most peaceable of all Castiel's brothers. And his strength is certainly no match for Castiel's now; no one's is.

Still Castiel feels an awe when Joshua nods at him. —I believe I can point you in the right direction.

Crowley—he still thinks of himself as Crowley; it's been too long and he can barely remember who Caphriel was anymore, but he'll answer to the name if it makes it easier for everyone to look him in the eye (and he in theirs)—Crowley is busy grooming his wings with a fastidiousness he had to, until recently, apply merely to carefully delinting and fixing the lines of a number of crisp black suits; he doesn't bother to glance up when he senses Castiel return. He knows that Castiel's choice of him as lieutenant was motivated largely by some badly buried dramatic, symbolic urge—the Archangel Castiel (or however he could be classified) proving to all and sundry that this was a new era. An era of change and forgiveness, or some such bollocks. Whatever. Crowley's just here to— To—

All right, it's possible Crowley hasn't figured out quite what his angle is on this little bit of unasked for redemption yet.

So for the moment, he simply lets his wings slash out in an electric crackle-snap—nearly hitting Castiel, he knows, right in a face—and drawls, —Back so soon?

—I believe I found someone who can help us with the issue we were discussing, Castiel says. —Aziraphale here is one of our longest-standing operatives on Earth...

Castiel keeps droning on, but Crowley doesn't hear him. The layered array of his wings goes rigid, and he tries to think, frantically, if there's any way he could just simply never, ever turn around. Which, he realizes belatedly, is without a doubt a moronic thought worthy of the brothers Winchester: it's not like Aziraphale's going to recognize him like this, is he? Pillock.

—...render the taking of vessels obsolete, Castiel concludes. —Caphriel?

—Oh, yes, lovely, Crowley says, lowering his wings and turning slowly around; thinking, “Lovely”? and something like buggerbuggerbugger.

Aziraphale is standing beside Castiel, awkward without his human body and yet somehow still recognizably Aziraphale. Crowley has time to think, Shit, before Aziraphale breaks off in the midst of his jumbled explanation of —Far from an expert, you must realize and —Just seemed such a waste to take them away from their families, the poor dears and —Not trying to make waves, but it honestly seemed so much more practical— Aziraphale's eyes all go comically wide. Then he says, —Crowley?

Crowley wants to blush a deep scarlet, flee, and/or bash Castiel and Aziraphale's heads together, which, as options go, are none of them possible, dignified, nor particularly helpful at this present time. Instead he simply hunches up under Aziraphale's shocked stare and Castiel's mild —You know each other?

Aziraphale answers this question with a slight, rapid gesture that sends Crowley crashing back into a pillar. —You let me think you were dead! You let me think you'd been dragged back downstairs and, and— Here Aziraphale's imagination apparently fails him.

—I was dragged back downstairs, Crowley hisses. (He is sadly a less accomplished hisser than he once was.) —Do you think the past twenty years have been easy for me? I slithered back out of the Pit and stopped another apocalypse, I'll have you know!

Castiel makes a noise suspiciously like a cough.

—Well, I helped, Crowley amends.

—And as you can see, Castiel reminds them both, —your contribution was appreciated.

Crowley shakes out his wings, embarrassed. Never got embarrassed as a demon, did he? Fucking Castiel.

—Crowley, I— Aziraphale starts toward him, then stops. —Caphriel. I don't know what to say.

—You can get my bloody name right, for a start, Crowley grumbles.

In these forms, their faces aren't really equipped for it, but Crowley would swear he catches Aziraphale smile. —Of course. Crowley.

Aziraphale glances quickly at Castiel, who is watching them both from some distance away. Then he looks back, an achingly familiar kindness on this unfamiliar countenance.

—I think I will enjoy working with you again. It simply hasn't been the same without you.

Crowley can't think of a clever, cool way to dispel the sincerity of this remark, so he decides to let it slide for once.

Quite some time later, he realizes that Castiel has left without a word of goodbye.

Castiel sits on the single bench at the center of the Garden. He watches the wind—which he knows to be an imaginary wind, as much a product of his own mind as everything else about this place—rustle through the leafy green trees. Some of the leaves are changing colors at the edges, Castiel notices: turning red, orange, brown. As he watches, one breaks free and drifts slowly to the ground.

—Can I help you with anything else, brother? Joshua asks, appearing like a ghost at Castiel's side.

Castiel thinks for a moment.

—Thank you, he says. —But no.

The hammer is heavy in Dean's hand, a steady, solid weight. If he concentrates, he can narrow his thoughts to nothing more than this object in his hand, and the nails in front of him. Position, connect. Position—

“Dean!”

“Fu—freak!” he corrects, clutching at his throbbing thumb. He scrambles down from the ladder and turns to see Lisa standing by the back door, her hands covering her mouth. “Oh, God,” she says. “I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking.”

“It's okay,” Dean says, through a wince, adding, rather flippantly: “I've had worse.”

Lisa still looks guilty. “You don't have to do that, you know,” she says for possibly the fourth or fifth time. “We don't really use that shed anyway...”

“Well, maybe now you can start,” Dean says. Hopefully he manages to keep the desperation out of his voice: if he can't fix the shed, he'll have to start inventing problems with Lisa's actual roof, just to give himself something to do. “What's up?” he asks, hastily.

There's something slightly odd about Lisa's expression, he sees when he gets closer—a minute arch to her eyebrow, something. “Your...friend is here.”

“My friend?” Dean asks, just as incredulous. “Bobby?” Lisa looks blank; she doesn't know who Bobby is—Dean's never even mentioned his name. “Uh...older guy? Beardy?”

Lisa shakes her head. “No, just sort of stubbled. Dark hair, rumpled, wearing a trenchcoat—”

Dean's already pushing past her. It takes him less than fifteen seconds to cross from the back of Lisa's house to the front, and in that time he goes from excited to angry to relieved to furious again. He has no idea what he's going to say or what tone he's going to take. He just throws open the door and says—

Nothing. He's got nothing. Cas is standing on the doorstep, and he looks the same as ever (well, almost—the dark despairing circles are gone from under his eyes). “Hello, Dean,” he says, and Dean can't decide whether he wants to hug him or slam the door in his face. So he doesn't do either.

“Would you like to go get a drink?” Castiel asks the statue Dean has become—very precisely, like he's practiced it.

Dean swallows around his thick, dry tongue. “A drink?” he manages, finally.

“Yes,” Castiel says, “I believe the mutual acquisition of beverages to be customary among friends. Also, I miss the taste of alcohol.”

“You miss the taste of alcohol,” Dean repeats, feeling a nasty ache, like heartburn, start to sizzle in his chest.

“Also the texture. And the effects.”

Dean grips the doorframe harder. “Maybe you should've called ahead. I'm kind of busy here right now; Lisa needs me—”

“No, I don't,” Lisa says hurriedly.

Dean whips around, startled to find her behind him. He stares at her, slack-jawed. “You should go have a drink with your friend,” she reiterates, soft but firm.

Dean feels pinned between them, two strong forces of will—and him in the middle, out of strength entirely. A few moments later, it does not come as a complete surprise that he find himself wearing his jacket, standing beside Castiel on the front stoop.

“All right,” he says, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. “Zap us to some bar or whatever.”

“I would like to ride in your car,” Castiel says.

Dean's not sure how he feels about having someone in the passenger seat again. He's taken Ben out a couple times, but it hadn't been as fun for either of them as Dean had hoped it'd be. He's trying; he's trying so damn hard. But nothing— Nothing's the same.

Bar. Pretty bartender. Wink. Tip. Drinks. Booth. Circles of condensation, traced on the wood.

Castiel's smacking his lips and sighing contentedly across from him. Dean glances up, sees Cas' tongue chasing drops of moisture off his lips. “Thought you were all super-angel now,” Dean says.

“Yes.” Pride is apparently not Cas' most easy-to-steer-clear-of sin.

“You never used to drink,” Dean points out. He feels wary, jittery in a way he can't quite explain. It's just Cas. Cas who's just popping in for a drink, before he vanishes from Dean's life again.

The look Castiel gives him—cool stare, minutely raised eyebrow—suggests that Cas is disappointed, once again, in Dean's intellect. “My powers have been restored and in fact enhanced, but I am not what I once was. It's not as if the last two years didn't happen.”

Dean grumbles, “Tell me about it.”

“I doubt you would enjoy such a recitation.”

Dean rolls his eyes; Cas thinks he is hilarious, but he is not.

He takes a swig of his beer. “Well, don't expect me to buy up this place's entire store of liquor or whatever it'd take to actually get you drunk at this point.”

“That won't be necessary,” Castiel assures him, leaning forward a little, rolling his beer bottle between his long fingers. “I have a fr—a brother, who showed me how I might temporarily dampen my grace, allow myself to experience alcohol as a human would.”

“Do you have to experience the hangover too?”

“No.” Castiel flashes his equivalent of a grin: a slight lip quirk.

Dean shakes his head: as if he's disappointed, as if he cares. “Sorry, Cas. That's cheating.” He polishes off his own drink. “Why do you want to feel human, anyway? You sure as hell didn't seem to like it when you were...well, when you were.”

Cas pauses with his lips parted; glances down at his hands. Hell if Dean hasn't learned to read far too much from such an infinitesimal display of emotion. If— If Sam were here, he'd put a hand lightly on top of Castiel's; say, It's okay, man. You can talk to me about it. But it's just Dean here now, so he leans against the hard wooden back of the booth and stares Cas down until the super-angel admits defeat, changes the subject.

“I have implemented many changes in Heaven,” Castiel announces, like he's just been selected as executive vice president of Paradise PR.

“Oh yeah? Fluffed the clouds, restrung all the harps?”

“The taking of vessels is now prohibited among the host,” Castiel continues proudly. “Instead, my brothers and I are devising a method by which angels can create their own bodies when they choose to walk the Earth.”

Castiel—back straight, head held high like an eager straight-A student—looks like he's waiting for Dean to pat him on the back, tell him Attaboy!, give him a big old high-five. The beer churns in Dean's stomach.

“Well, a fat lot of good that does me and Sam,” Dean says—so low that for a second it seems like Castiel hasn't heard him. Then the plaster of pride spread across Cas' face starts to crack. His little lip quirk—what passes on him as a warm smile—falls and fades. His hands slide away from his beer bottle and under the table, back to his sides.

“Dean,” he says after a moment, “I'm sorry there wasn't more I could do—”

“No, you know what, can it.” Dean finds himself on his feet, tugging crumpled bills out of his pocket and dropping them on the table, forgetting he's already paid. Whatever. “I'm sick of everyone being sorry. You're sorry, Lisa's sorry, and I bet your Dad is really fucking cut-up.” Dean knows he's being an ass, being unfair, but he just can't care anymore. It takes too much energy to fake it. “Well, screw all of you. You can cry me a fucking river,” he says, hating the quaver in his voice. “But it won't get me Sam back.”

He's staring at Cas, looming over him. For a second he sees a flash of— of something in the angel's eyes: a determined look that, if Dean weren't already so worked up, would fucking scare him. But before Dean can dwell on that any longer, before he can even finish making his dramatic exit, Castiel vanishes. Between one angry word and the next, he's gone.

Dean slinks out of the bar, his anger burned down to a dull shame. He wonders how many months it'll be this time, before he sees hide or hair of Cas again.

“Dean.”

Dean wakes with a sharp, sucked-in breath. Castiel is looming over him, his face mere inches from Dean's. Dean starts, shoulders grinding uncomfortably against the seams of Lisa's couch. Cas is so close, Dean's almost afraid to breathe.

“Jesus, what are you—” Dean blinks back troubled sleep and tries to regroup. It's only been a few hours since Cas left him at the bar, and now he's back, that intense look in his too-near eyes, power radiating off his skin where it's brushing against Dean's. Dean feels it like a buzz in his bones, like he's standing dangerously close to a live wire. He hasn't felt anything remotely like this near Cas in years—not since that first night in the barn, maybe. He wonders if Cas was keeping it tamped down earlier—and why he's stopped bothering now.

“Dean,” he says again, and now he's clambering up onto the couch, straddling Dean, and oh fuck, it's this dream again. “I want to show you something.”

Dean lets out a long breath, tells himself to relax, go with it. “Yeah?” he says, sliding a hand up Cas' arm to curl around his bicep. Castiel eyes him curiously. “What do you want to show me?”

Cas hesitates for half a second, like he's making a critical decision of some sort. Then he says, “Try not to close your eyes.”

Dean wets his lips. “Wouldn't dream of it.”

Castiel nods, then lifts his hand, middle and forefinger extended, almost like he's making a shaky attempt to flash Dean a peace sign. Dean starts to chuckle—Cas can be so clueless!—when he realizes the fingers are much too close, their points are right in front of his eyes, they're against his eyeballs and pushing in—

Dean screams, but Cas' other hand is there, palm solid against his mouth. He bucks up against the angel's body, but Castiel's knees have him pinned tight. He kicks and whimpers, writhing against the intrusion, and it's all so instinctive—fight fight FIGHT—that it takes him a while to realize that he's not in any pain. Not really: it's discomfort more than anything else, a fullness where there should be none, and an odd thrumming burn, a fire spreading out from his eye sockets and across his entire skull.

Then he feels a strange sucking sensation, like something trying to slide out of him despite resistance. Castiel's fingers are drawing back, retracting; and then they are gone, and Dean's staring at the familiar cracked ceiling of Lisa's living room. It looks grey and indistinct in the dim light, somewhere in the small hours of the morning. Dean blinks, swallows; for a second he thinks this was all just a dream.

Then he lowers his gaze and sees Castiel sitting at his feet.

It's like a sudden case of double vision: too many blows to the head finally catching up with him. Cas' familiar figure—tousled hair, baggy trenchcoat, stupid tie—is over- (or under-?) laid with that of a bright, complicated creature that Dean can't fully comprehend. It looks like something out of a Picasso painting: overlapping itself at odd angles, sensible only if you're a resident of the fifth dimension. Its wings—too many for Dean to get a fix on—are tumbling all over each other, looking more like Quetzalcoatl than any Christian interpretation of an angel. But its heads, all of them, are tilted curiously to the side, and even if Dean didn't also have the flesh and blood cheatsheet of Jimmy Novak's body, he'd still know it's Cas.

“What did you do to me?” he asks, pulling himself up and back into a sitting position.

“I made the adjustments necessary for you to be able to see angelic bodies without suffering damage. I hope it wasn't too uncomfortable.”

“You stuck your fingers in my eyes!”

Castiel's human body blinks at him. The wings shift, forming a sort of halo above his persistent bedhead. Dean wonders idly if this is where that idea comes from.

“It was necessary,” Castiel tells him. “The alternative would be killing you.”

“What?”

“I'm going to take you to Heaven,” Cas says. And before Dean can protest, he's reaching forward, wings ghosting across Dean's body as a pair of cool fingers brush his forehead like a kiss.

The next thing Dean knows, he's standing in the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. He lurches a little in place, recovers, cranes his neck upward. The metal and glass dome arches high above his head, vibrant green foliage stretching toward it. All except one tree, Dean notices for the first time, which seems almost to be pushing through the glass, its reaching branches endless and unstoppable.

Dean swallows and lowers his gaze. He's in Heaven, Paradise, and yet he can't feel comfortable here. He feels watched, judged: like an intruder at some fancy party where he doesn't remotely belong.

—That's because it is not yet your time.

Dean whips around. Even with the shimmery, half-there angelfied Cas he glimpsed in Lisa's living room to prepare him, Dean doesn't feel fully equipped to deal with the real thing. In spite of what Cas did to his eyes, it's still almost too blinding to look at, too twisted and strange to comprehend. Dean can't shake the feeling that he's looking at something he was never meant to see.

—I'm surprised to see you again so soon, Dean Winchester.

That isn't Cas. It hits Dean like a blow, and the last degree of safety he feels evaporates. The leaves on the trees rustle, victim to a sudden wind.

He retreats a few feet, his heel connecting with the back of a concrete step. The helpless panic he felt last time he was here is back: he's entirely powerless here, completely out of his depth. Heaven is not as obviously frightening as Hell, but it's still alien—possibly even enemy—territory.

—Dean.

He turns around again, feeling like a confused audience member at a tennis match. Another angel is standing at the top of the steps, slowly descending toward him. This time he really does recognize Cas: feels the recognition deep in his gut. Several sets of eyes blink at him, but there are no mouths to smile.

—You have nothing to be frightened of. Heaven remains under my command.

—Which is why I would of course not question your decision to bring a human here, says—or thinks or projects the other angel: either way, if this is how they really speak, Dean thinks, no wonder Cas made his ears bleed. The other angel regards him. —A living human, at that.

—Dean has important business here, Joshua, Castiel says, sounding oddly apologetic for the big boss-man he claims to be.

“Wait, Joshua?” Dean says, looking the other angel over again. There's no trace of the sad-eyed man who bore the bad news last time he was here. There's also nothing he can see to distinguish one angel from another—except that when he looks at Castiel, he just knows.

It is at roughly this moment that Dean remembers that he came on to Cas not too long ago.

Fortunately, it seems Castiel was too oblivious to notice. All business: —Would you be kind enough to summon Caphriel for me? he asks Joshua.

Joshua makes a motion that may be something like a nod. Dean shoves his hands in his pockets and glares at Cas. “What's this 'business' that's so important it required you to go all Minority Report on my eyes before yanking me up here for seven minutes in Heaven?”

—We're going to try to rescue your brother, Castiel says calmly. —It will almost certainly take longer than seven minutes.

For a moment Dean can't move. Then his fists are clenching and he's lurching forward, his chest squeezed tight like a vise. “You didn't think to try this sooner? Goddammit, Cas, he's been down there for months!”

—Until now, I have been unable to arrive at a plan that would not carry too great a risk of freeing Lucifer as well. Sam wouldn't want that, Castiel says, and it's true: Dean's breaking his promise right now, just being here probably, ready to agree to whatever crazy stunt Cas is about to propose. Fuck, Dean thinks.

It was a stupid promise anyway.

“What do we need to do?” Dean asks, but before Cas can answer, there's an odd shift in the air and then there are two more angels standing in the Garden.

Castiel turns toward one of them. —I did not summon you, Aziraphale.

The angel's wings flap in agitation. —I'm sorry, I don't mean to intrude; it's just we were in the middle of a conversation, and you know how it is: one can become distracted so easily, when summoned, and entirely lose one's train of thought...

Dean's brain is probably pulped at this point, but he would swear this angel sounds British.

—Never mind, Castiel says. —You may in fact be of some assistance.

—I'd be happy to help, Aziraphale says, looking much less flustered all of a sudden. Dean is pretty sure Cas just got played.

Or maybe Castiel's playing some larger game, outside any of their imaginations. —Aziraphale, Caphriel, he says, —will you accompany me to the base of the tree?

There's no need for anyone to ask him to clarify which tree he means: the one at the center of the Garden is so impossibly vast, it does seem definitive. At Castiel's instruction, he and the other two angels encircle it. —First you make me an angel, now I'm a tree-hugger, the one Dean's pretty sure is called Caphriel says, fairly nonsensically. —You'll probably make me a ruddy vegan next.

“Yeah,” Dean interjects, “I'm glad you guys are getting back to nature and all, but how exactly does this help Sam?”

—Dean. Several of Castiel's heads swivel to him. It should be more unnerving than it is, Dean realizes, to see his...his friend transformed into this creature. Though really—fuck. Really, it was this creature that somehow transformed itself into his friend.

“Yeah?” he croaks.

—Remember how you asked me what you needed to do?

Much steadier, “Yeah,” he says.

—Be quiet.

Caphriel makes a sound Dean takes a moment to realize is a laugh; he stops when Aziraphale hushes him.

To Dean's surprise, it's Joshua who interrupts next. —Castiel, he says softly. —Are you sure this is what you wish to do?

It's to Dean that Castiel turns, that he looks when he says, —Yes.

Dean feels his heart start to thud in his chest. Whatever this plan is, it's going to be big.

There's a nervous energy flowing through the Garden. Branches sway, leaves rustle. The tree Castiel and the other two angels stand around is huge and groaning. —When I count to three, Castiel tells them, —I want you to pull.

For a moment, they are silent. Then Aziraphale says, —Oh my.

Caphriel makes that weird laughing sound again, though this time it sounds rougher, more of a bitter, scotch-worn chuckle. —You crazy bastard. Well, it was nice having wings while it lasted.

—This is a request, Castiel clarifies. —Not an order.

—Yeah, I heard you the first time, Caphriel says.

—Oh dear, says Aziraphale, his eyes all sliding shut. But he tightens his grip on the bark.

Dean's heart is racing. “Wait, Cas,” he says. “What kind of plan is this? Is this a me kind of plan? Because—”

—Three, Castiel finishes, too quickly for Dean to have even processed the one or the two. The next thing he knows, the angels are straining, their wings beating with a sound like a cloud of locusts. The massive tree seems to sway, moaning like a ship caught in a hurricane, leaves and fragments of bark raining down on their heads. Dean stares, slack-jawed, frozen, and it takes Joshua wrapping him in a strong curtain of not-quite-feathers and pulling him away for Dean to realize he's about to get crushed. Dying in Heaven: wouldn't that just be extra special.

The great tree sways, the earth at its base crumbling to dust, shooting up into the air as it's disturbed. The angels seem to be tiring, however, and still the tree stands: even as Caphriel, then Aziraphale let out epic gasps and crumple to each side in piles of quivering wings. Soon Castiel stands alone, gripping the tree and heaving like he means to bring it down upon himself. Watching, Dean realizes that he's crying: that he's letting out great choking sobs. Somehow, this is one of the worst things he's ever witnessed. He doesn't understand how this is going to get him back Sam, and he almost doesn't care. He just wants it to stop.

“Don't,” he whispers, but it's too late. The tree shudders one last time, and then it's crashing down, tumbling endlessly toward the earth. Everything seems to Dean to be moving in slow motion: the ground shifts, the tree falls, Dean tries to rush forward, Joshua holds him back. And Castiel falls, disappearing beneath the tangle of branches and leaves. Silence descends on the Garden. The tree falls and they are all there to hear it, but when it lands it doesn't make the slightest sound.

“Cas!” Dean feels the grip on his arm lessen; he races forward. The roots of the great tree are splayed high in the air, tangled like a massive black spiderweb. Cautiously, unreasonably afraid, Dean picks his way through them, calling out Castiel's name. “Cas! Goddammit, you stupid angel—”

—Dean.

Dean nearly trips over himself. Castiel is there, climbing out slowly from between the trees roots. He looks all right: some of his wings seem to be hanging at odd angles, maybe, but then, it's sort of hard to tell.

“You're crazy,” Dean tells him, stepping closer, wanting to reach out, but not really seeing anywhere on Castiel's strange body that'd be reasonable to touch. He has no understanding of angel anatomy; it'd be really awkward if he ended up groping Castiel by mistake.

More than he already has, that is.

Castiel straightens to his full height, which in this form is quite a bit taller than Dean. —I know what I'm doing, he says austerely.

As if in divine reminder that pride is a sin, Cas' stride breaks the second the words are out. There's a moment, half a second, in which he crumples in on himself. Dean blinks, not sure he's really seeing what he thinks he's seeing: a flash of dark hair, clenched human hands. “Are you okay?” he asks.

“I'm fine.” A second later, Castiel's straightened up again. —Go check on Caphriel and Aziraphale.

Dean doesn't particularly want to do this, but he starts clambering around the massive tree roots to find the other angels. When he finally spots them, he stops short. “Am I interrupting?”

Caphriel removes his heads from Aziraphale's maybe-a-lap, and Aziraphale stops whatever weird thing he was doing to Caphriel's wings. —Not at all, Aziraphale says.

Somehow, Caphriel manages to leer at him. —You're welcome to join in.

—Really, my dear, Aziraphale says, sounding about a tenth as appalled as Dean feels. He stumbles swiftly back through the tree roots.

Castiel's standing at Joshua's side, talking or transmitting or whatever too softly for Dean to hear. Castiel looks up as Dean emerges, and once more he seems to flicker. But then he's striding forward again, full of impossible energy and power.

“They're fine,” Dean tells him. Then amends: “Aziraphale, anyway. Caphriel...where did you find that guy?”

—You'd be surprised, Castiel says.

—Not by much, says Caphriel, emerging, along with Aziraphale, behind Dean.

—Good, says Castiel. —Because we are far from finished.

“I don't get it,” Dean says. “What are you doing? How is drastic landscape redesign going to help Sam?”

—The tree is a conduit, Castiel explains. —A physical channel for Heaven's power.

“Like...a lightning rod?” Dean hazards.

—That comparison is not entirely without merit, Castiel says—which, for Cas, is actually pretty close to a compliment. —And like a lightning rod, he continues, —it can be climbed.

“But you just knocked it down.”

—I told you, we're far from—

Castiel stops suddenly, buckling. Dean definitely isn't imagining it: for an instant, he sees in the angel Castiel's place an image of Cas in human form, of Jimmy Novak bent at the waist, his chest heaving. Then he's gone and Castiel's mass of swirling wings and multitude of faces are back. “—From finished,” he says. —Caphriel, I will need your help to aim it.

—At the Inner Pit? Caphriel asks.

—Yes.

Caphriel shakes his heads. —You have no idea how badly I want a drink.

Dean watches as Castiel and Caphriel reposition themselves at the tree's upturned base. He can feel Joshua watching silently, too. For his part, Aziraphale swishes his wings and says, —Do be careful, which is not nearly so intimidating.

Slowly, Castiel and Caphriel begin putting pressure on the tree trunk, holding onto the upper roots like a rudder and pressing firmly down. The top of the tree—if there is a top—is too far away for Dean to see, but gradually he realizes that the whole thing is slowly dipping down, penetrating the earth, sliding through the soil like a pendulum. “Son of a bitch,” Dean mutters, figuring it out. Somehow—the metaphysics of the situation are still far beyond Dean's understanding—they're reversing the tree so that it runs not through Heaven, but out of Heaven and down...to Hell.

—Dean, come here.

Dean walks over to the roots of the overturned tree, the only part of it still visible above the soil. They're clinging to the earth now, like this is natural, like the tree had always meant to grow this way. It makes Dean nervous, to come too close. It can be climbed, Castiel had said. Which means anything could come up.

—No, Dean, Castiel promises. —Only those who truly seek our Father's forgiveness will be able to make the climb. To anyone else, the bark will burn.

—But I can touch it, no trouble, says Caphriel, for some reason sounding surprised.

—Yes. Castiel's tone is mild.

—Oh, says Caphriel, after another moment. —Bugger.

But Dean finds he's shaking his head. “I don't know, Cas. I mean, I appreciate everything you're doing and you—” He swallows hard. “You gotta know I want Sam back more than anything. But this— Maybe he was right. Making me promise. Because this seems like too much of a risk. Something nasty's gonna get through. It always does.”

—Perhaps, says Castiel. —But there's another precaution we can take. Give me your hand.

It's possible Dean doesn't hesitate nearly long enough before giving it over. Castiel touches him, gently, and then Dean sees the skin of his wrist part like a mouth. It doesn't hurt, not nearly as much as it should, but for some reason he feels a sting when his blood hits the roots of the tree, when it starts rolling down. “What good's this going to do?” Dean asks through a choked breath.

—You're the Righteous Man, Castiel says, like he still thinks that means anything. —And Sam is your brother. Your shared blood will call to him, help him find the way out.

“Okay,” says Dean, relaxing in Castiel's grip. He'd let Cas drain him dry if that's what it took to save Sam.

But Castiel lets the blood flow for less than a minute before he touches Dean's skin again and the wound closes up. A red line is running down one of the largest roots, a steady stream, like a piece of string. “Now what?” Dean asks.

—Now we wait, says Cas.

There's a wooden bench not far from the inverted forest of tree roots; Dean leads Cas or Cas leads Dean over to it and they sit down. Dean feels kind of light-headed: maybe he gave more blood then he thought. Beside him, Cas' wings are fluttering shakily, moving as if guided by a series of great heaving accordion breaths. Cas' eyes flicker shut in waves that spread from face to face.

“What's happening to you?” Dean asks.

—It's nothing, Castiel says. And then: —I have less time left than I thought.

“Less time?” snaps Dean, staring up at Castiel's faces. “What do you mean? Less time for what?”

Castiel shakes his heads. —It's not, he says, and then shudders, and Dean has the solid weight of a human arm under his hand. “Of import.”

Cas' teeth are gritted. His hair hangs sweaty and lank over his forehead. “Bullshit!” says Dean, tugging him around so that they're facing each other. But then he shifts again, and Dean has a hand buried in a mass of wings that feel like a combination of electric sparks and cobwebs. “Dammit, Cas, tell me what's going on!”

—The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long.

Joshua stands beside them, a pillar of angelic serenity. “You've got to be fucking kidding me,” Dean snaps. “You're giving me bastardized Metallica lyrics?”

Joshua says nothing.

Dean finds himself, swaying, on his feet. “He's given everything for you! You tossed him out, kicked him around, and he still came back up here and did everything he could to try to clean up your stupid messes! And this is what he gets?”

“Dean.” Castiel looks up at him. “It's” —all right. I've been “expecting—”

—Castiel!

Caphriel's shout carries easily over from where he and Aziraphale are still guarding the tree. They're both intently regarding the earth between the roots, which is rolling and shifting like something is pushing up against it from below. Dean casts one last look back at Cas, who says —Go or “Go”: Dean's mind is too much of a blur to tell the difference. He races over and throws himself on his knees in the dirt, scrambling to clear space around the pale white fingers that are poking through. “Sam,” he chokes out. “Sammy...”

His hands close around a slim, bony wrist. Dean should know then, but his mind refuses to accept it until Adam is sprawling in a heap at his feet, gasping for breath. “Thank you.” Adam's muddied cheeks are streaked with tears. “Thank you.” Dean steps away. He lets Aziraphale help Adam up and clean the dirt from his face, lets Adam have a moment to look around and take in where he is. But that's all Dean can give him.

Once Dean's waited as long as can reasonably be expected, he barks, “Where's Sam? Did you leave him there? Is he coming right behind you?” That would be just like Sam: making sure Adam got to safety first.

But Adam shakes his head. “Sam's gone.”

Dean knows it's not nice to threaten your newly-rescued-from-Hell brother, but he can't help getting in Adam's face a little. “What do you mean he's gone?”

Adam shrinks in on himself, but not a lot: it's that damn Winchester blood. “I'm not sure he was ever even really there at all. All I remember is Michael and Lucifer...they mostly left me alone, but I still—” He swallows roughly, looks around himself again. “I'm still dead, aren't I? Or I mean...I'm dead again?”

Castiel comes over, moving slowly, but looking fully angelfied again. He's pulled himself together well, but from the nervous little looks Aziraphale and Caphriel are giving him, Dean can tell that they, too, can see the way Castiel's wavering at the edges.

—Yes, Castiel tells Adam. —But I can return you to life, if that's what you wish.

“Cas—” The censure slips out: Dean doesn't want Castiel reanimating a mosquito at this point.

Fortunately, Adam's got his own issues with this plan. “I was told I'd get to see my mom.”

Dean shakes his head at him. “Zachariah sold you on some major league bullshit, kid. It's strictly solitary confinement up here.”

—That's no longer true.

For a moment, Castiel sounds stronger than ever: defiant. His wings twirl with pride.

—Human souls may now move between the realms of Paradise, as they so choose, Castiel says. —So of course I can take you to your mother, he tells Adam, —if that is your desire.

Adam casts Dean a brief, apologetic look before he nods. Castiel steps forward again, but Dean catches him...somewhere. “Uh-uh, buddy, you're not going anywhere.”

Castiel looks like he wants to protest, but Aziraphale steps smoothly in: —I'll accompany him.

He smiles at Dean's youngest brother.

—I knew a nice young lad named Adam once...

They vanish. Castiel does not pull free from Dean's grasp, nor does Dean let go of him. “What did he mean?” Dean demands, dreading the answer. “How can Sam be gone?”

—Your brother is not in Heaven, nor is he in Hell, says Joshua, who has the annoying ability to make you forget he's there until he steps in with these little nuggets.

“So where is he? Limbo? He can't just be—” No longer in existence. Dean's afraid to even think it. But that can happen, in extreme circumstances, and plunging into Hell with Satan riding you all the way down is definitely something that even the supernatural X-Games don't see every day.

—Limbo is a myth, says Castiel. —No, Dean, I'm sorry I didn't think of this sooner: Sam must be on Earth.

“What? So we just did all that for nothing?”

—I would hardly call it for 'nothing,' says Aziraphale, reappearing in the Garden. —We've given damned souls a means of escape once they've atoned.

The look he gives Dean is both mild and kind and much, much more intimidating than Dean would have given him credit for.

—Something you can appreciate, I'm sure.

—Oh, wonderful, says Caphriel, —undo all my hard work.

Huh? Dean can't deal with all of this right now. He just can't: “How can Sam be on Earth? He would've found me! He wouldn't just not let me know that he's okay!”

Castiel just looks at him. And oh, fuck: even on messed-up angelic faces, Dean can read the truth. There are all kinds of reasons that Sam might not come to Dean: out of some sort of idiotic mistaken nobility or to protect Dean or any number of other bullshit reasons and Dean's gonna have to throttle Sam as soon as he finds him. Because he's gonna find him.

“Cas, this has been fun and all, but I gotta get back down there right now—”

Dean feels Castiel's weird, whispery wings slip from his fingers, and then he realizes what an asshole he is, because Cas is on his knees in the grass, flickering in and out like bad satellite reception, and he's in no state to take Dean anywhere. Dean fights the urge to drop down to his knees beside him, to try to squeeze him tight and hold him until he's safe in one form or the other, like in that fairytale he once read while he was doing research. But he knows he doesn't have the strength to hold Castiel anywhere he doesn't want to be.

“What's happening to him?” Dean whispers, glancing at Joshua. “Cut the cryptic bullshit. Just tell me.”

—His time has come to an end, Joshua says. —He prayed for a chance to right the wrongs he witnessed. His prayers were answered. Now he is done.

“Right. Of course.” Dean clenches his fist, tries to remind himself that punching an angel's about as helpful as tossing a Hellhound a handful of Kibbles 'n' Bits. “Nice retirement plan you've got up here.”

He lowers himself down next to Cas despite telling himself he wouldn't. Castiel still seems aware, his eyes—alternately two and so many more—focusing even as his bodies tremble and shake. “Cas,” Dean says, because fuck. Fuck. What's he supposed to say? God, it's so much worse like this, when it's slow; sudden's horrible, but he's used to sudden horror. It's the long, drawn-out things that kill him: kissing Jo one last time, having to turn his back and say goodbye...

“You're better than all of them,” Dean whispers, reaching out, grabbing at something that is sometimes a hand.

And then: then Castiel does something Dean knows immediately will haunt him for the rest of his life. He looks up at Joshua and somehow manages to say, “Has” —it been “enough?”

Joshua looks down on him. Suddenly, even in the shifting layers of his angelic form, Dean can see a sadness to him. He reaches out, caresses the top of Castiel's head. —Yes, my son.

Castiel's hand loosens in Dean's grip.

—Are you ready?

Castiel nods.

“No!” yells Dean, struggling to get up, throw himself at Joshua, something. But he feels wings close around him like smothering moths, and he knew Aziraphale's tea-and-crumpets gentility was too good to be true, because he's ripping Dean away from Castiel and Castiel is falling back onto the soft grass, his wings dissolving in the wind that whips itself through the Garden, tearing at the leaves and the flowers and the dark strands of Castiel's hair as his face turns with sightless eyes up toward the sky.

—Hush, Aziraphale tells him, and then despite Dean's protests and his sobs, he's torn out of Eden and thrown back to the real world.

Bobby's working on teaching himself Russian out of sheer boredom when his living room erupts in sound and movement. A man—make that an angel—he's never seen before appears holding Dean, who's scratching and hissing and generally making more fuss than a wet cat. Bobby fumbles for the angel-killing blade Dean passed on to him, figuring stabbing's stabbing no matter what you're up against, then nearly drops it entirely when he sees a much more familiar face appear at the angel's side. “Crowley?”

“Oh, excellent, this won't be at all awkward,” Crowley says. He has, Bobby is shocked to note, an unconscious Castiel cradled in his arms. His gaze whips over to the other angel. “Aziraphale, put us all out of our misery and knock out the Histrionic Man until he's ready to deal with this rationally.”

“That seems rather extreme,” the one called Aziraphale says, at the same time Dean spits, “I'll deal with you rationally, you two-faced son of a—” Dean slumps suddenly in Aziraphale's arms. The angel regards his pair of extended fingers with some embarrassment and offers Bobby an apologetic shrug.

Okay, that's about as much as Bobby can stand. “Just what in tarnation is going on?” he bellows, coming around the desk and forcing himself into Crowley's personal space. “I thought you were dead!”

“He has a bad habit of doing that,” Aziraphale says. He appears to be having some trouble arranging Dean's unconscious body on Bobby's couch so that it won't slip off.

Crowley carries Castiel over to the couch and lays him beside Dean with surprising gentleness. Bobby's still not sure he's not going to need to start banishing and exorcising folks any second now, but something about the care Crowley's taking makes him pause. Also the fact that Aziraphale seems about as threatening as a tea cozy.

“Just a slight misunderstanding,” Crowley says, straightening up. If Bobby didn't know better—did not have, in fact, quite a lot of personal evidence to confirm that Crowley lacks all sense of shame—he'd think the demon were embarrassed, too. “Well, several, actually.”

Bobby folds his arms. “I'm feeling surprisingly patient. Why don't you start from the beginning.”

When Dean wakes, he tries for a moment to pretend that it's Lisa's couch cushions his face is pressed against. But he would—and in fact, does—know Bobby's house with his eyes closed, and as much as he'd like to tell himself otherwise, he knows that the last...however long was not a dream.

Cas is gone.

It doesn't feel any better now that it has all the times before: when Cas had been missing, when Dean had known he was dead, when he'd seen him die. There's a yawning ache in Dean's chest, but he pushes it down, wipes the disgusting salt trails off his cheeks, forces himself to breathe and sit up and face the day. Good things have come out of all of this. He helped rescue Adam—and in the years to come, who knows how many others—from Hell. And Sam: Sam is here, on Earth. Dean can find him. He will find him, whether he wants to be found or not.

It just hurts even more than he thought it would, realizing he's going to have to find him alone.

No, not entirely alone, Dean forces himself to remember. Bobby will help him. “Bobby,” Dean calls, swinging his way onto sore legs.

“Over here, you idjit,” Bobby calls back, sounding much closer than Dean assumed. He looks around the corner, and there's Bobby, sitting at the kitchen table with what looks like an absent-minded professor who got abandoned in South Dakota by Mary Poppins and—

“You!” Dean growls, going for the knife that, since he started living with Lisa, hasn't been in his boot. Dean recovers, tries again, addressing Bobby this time. “What the hell is he doing here?”

“Oh, Dean,” Crowley clucks. “Not the brightest crayon in the box, are we?”

“You're the crayon I'm about to snap in half,” Dean says. He returns his attention to Bobby. “I thought you said... I thought you said Cas made sure the deal was done with.”

“He did,” says Bobby.

“Yes.” Crowley smirks. “Pushy pushy. I was getting around to it.”

Weapon or not, Dean's had enough. “Don't you talk about him. Just don't. I will exorcise you where you stand.”

“Oh,” the demon purrs, “I would love to see you try.”

“Crowley,” says the professor, in an accent so plummy it makes Crowley seem like he's from Wisconsin. “Don't be childish.”

“Yeah,” says Bobby, finally stepping in, “you're in my house. Try to be less of a dick.”

Crowley lets out a dramatic sigh. “Fine. Dean, you can't exorcise me because I'm no longer a demon. I'm a—” He seems to choke on the word.

“Angel,” prompts the professor.

“Right. That.” He gives Dean his best attempt at an angelic smile.

“Yeah, and I'm the pope,” says Dean.

“Hello?” says Crowley, with a sarcastic wave. “Remember me? Caphriel? We recently frolicked around the Garden together? Didn't Castiel improve your eyesight?” He reaches out and tries to tap at Dean's skull like it's a finicky microphone. “Is this thing on?”

“I don't—” believe you, Dean is going to say, but then something in him focuses, concentrates. He remembers Cas kneeling at his feet, both of him—one on top of the other, superimposed. Simple as a slide he can shutter up or down.

Dean blinks, and suddenly there are two angels sitting at Bobby's kitchen table. Weirder still, Dean recognizes them. Objectively, he couldn't tell you what differentiates one from the other, but that one is clearly Aziraphale, and that little annoying fuck is Caphriel. Crowley. Whatever.

“You know,” Dean says, taking a deep breath, “I didn't think it was possible to hate you more. But now, knowing what—knowing who you really are—I do. I really do.”

Bobby's eyes narrow. “Now you're the one being a dick, son.”

Dean chuckles, but he's not amused. “Sure. Just like I'm sure they told you what they let happen to Cas, what they did to him—”

Bobby's palm connects sharply with the back of Dean's head. “Cas is outside, you idjit.”

Dean stills.

“Why don't you go join him?”

“Yes,” says Crowley, sweet as venom, “let the grown-ups talk.”

Dean stumbles toward the door, unable to even croak out a reply. As the screen door slams behind him, he hears Aziraphale say, “Please tell me you have some wine.”

“Nope,” says Crowley, distantly. “I've switched to the hard stuff. Bobby, pour him a glass.”

“Once a tempter, always a tempter, huh?”

“Shut it, the pair of you.”

Then their voices fade into the darkness and the whisper of crickets.

The field in which Castiel stands is full of light. Tiny glowing points that bounce and sway. Castiel watches them, breathing in the still night air. Summer is fading into fall, the air growing colder. Castiel rolls up his shirtsleeves, feels the faint breeze tease across the fine hairs on his arms. He lifts his head to the sky, his eyes on the moon as it rises.

When he senses Dean behind him, it's not because he's become aware of the warm brush of his soul. It's something else, some instinct Castiel hasn't yet learned how to quantify. But it's enough to make him smile to himself, flushing warm despite the chill. “Hello, Dean,” he says—and he turns, and he sees him.

Then he sees Dean's fist, rushing toward his face.

He knows what he is now, but the adjustment's not as simple as that. The pain still takes him by surprise, knocks him off his feet more than the actual blow. So it doesn't get easier, he thinks, tumbling back into the grass, just because you've experienced it before.

“Shit! Cas.” Dean crouches down beside him. The expression on his face is confused, so many different emotions at once.

Castiel feels more focused. “You hit me,” he says.

“I didn't think it would hurt! Well, not you. Maybe my hand.”

“Why did you hit me if you thought it would hurt your hand?”

Dean touches Castiel's jaw, and Castiel lets him, flinching only a little when Dean wipes the blood away. “Because periodically, Cas, you make me want to throttle you.”

“Oh.” They get up, Castiel leaning on Dean just a bit. “The feeling is mutual.”

“I remember,” Dean says. Then, on an exhale, “Your heart's racing like crazy.”

“Is it?” Castiel inspects his chest through his shirt. “I assume it will stop eventually. Racing, I mean—not beating entirely. Though eventually—”

“Stop it.” Dean is staring at him, his features twisted into an expression that looks painful. “How can you— Earlier today you were the most powerful angel in creation.”

“Yes,” says Castiel.

“And now you're perfectly okay with being stuck back down here in the muck with the rest of us mortals?”

Castiel can't answer that question; not in a manner that would leave either of them satisfied. Instead he says, “Power corrupts, Dean. And absolute power...”

“...Corrupts absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Do you really think you would have gone all Evil Overlord on us? 'Cause I can't say I can see you rocking the shaved head and feline sidekick look.”

“I wasn't aware that that was a requirement,” Castiel says, and then ruins his joke by smiling. He can feel it, an involuntary tug at the corners of his mouth. Where did that come from?

Dean's giving him a strange look. Castiel wants to reassure him: that this is the best possible outcome. That this is a gift. All of life is. Castiel's held it now, the power of creation—and its dark twin, destruction: had them both in his grasp. He thinks he finally understands.

He's at a loss to convey any of this, though: clumsy human tongue, inadequate human language that relies on words. So instead it burbles out of him as laughter, an utterly shocking sound. He laughs, staring up at the sky—not looking at Dean, whose expression is becoming increasingly horrified.

But eventually he has to look. He looks at Dean, and then he takes him by the shoulders, just like he's seen the people do on Dr. Sexy when they need to tell each other something important.

He says, “It's going to be different this time.”

Dean's gaze feels hot, just like his skin beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. “How do you know? Is it because you have faith?”

Castiel shakes his head, although he does. But he wants Dean to understand. “Because we're going to make it different. We're going to find your brother, and vanquish whatever shadow may be hanging over him. Then we can address any lingering demonic threat, which thanks to your corrected sight should be a fairly simple—”

“Cas.”

“Hm?” He pauses, blinks up at Dean, who seems to have forgotten his own edict about personal space.

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, Cas.” Dean's chest is pressed up against his now, Dean's hands sliding along Castiel's shoulder blades. He can practically taste Dean's breath in his mouth when he inhales.

“I don't know what that means.”

“It means...”

Their lips find each other, soft and easy, inevitable. Castiel feels a rush of exhilarated surprise, which wars with the contradictory chant of of course of course of course echoing through his brain. Because, obviously. He sucks on Dean's bottom lip and Dean grabs at the short hank of hair at the back of Castiel's neck, and Dean is warm and close in Castiel's arms, his taste on Castiel's tongue, his heartbeat beneath Castiel's hand. Castiel's been both human and conscious for about forty minutes now, and he thinks he may have already found his most favorite thing ever, what he wants to keep doing for the rest of his life.

“All right,” he tells Dean, some time later. “I'll take your suggestion under advisement.”

Together, they head back toward the house, making plans.

NOTES:

1. Ever since I read afrai's brutal, brilliant The Sacred and the Profane, I can't think of another angelic name for Crowley than Caphriel. Similarly, the idea that Anna's friend who helped her create a body was Aziraphale originally came from pandarus. What can I say? Personal canon!

2. “The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long.” —Lao Tzu
“The brightest flame burns quickest.” —Metallica, “Mama Said”

3. Title from Star Wars, slightly paraphrased.