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ohsamTitle: The Apotheosis of Wile E. Coyote
Author: nwhepcat
Fandom: Supernatural, gen;
Rating R
Spoilers: Set shortly after S3 "Mystery Spot," but spoilery for S4 "Heaven and Hell"
Summary: Even with the clock ticking toward death and hell, Dean insists on taking on a routine job. It's anything but routine when he finds something he's not meant to discover, and things get a great deal more complicated, while Sam tries very hard not to break.
Disclaimer: So not mine, and it is a sadness.
Warnings: Language, h/c, psychosis, extreme Sam angst
Previous parts are here.
Sam:
Scrambling for his phone, Sam hits Bobby's speed-dial number. "Fuck! The Impala, Bobby. Quick!"
"I'm on it."
Sam rushes out of the room and thunders down the stairs to the ground floor, bolting across the lobby to the parking garage entrance. By the time he makes it to the ramp where the Impala's parked, Bobby is there, holding up a hand that brings him skidding to a halt.
"He's not here, son. What the hell happened?"
For a moment Sam looks around wildly, as if Dean might've appeared in some other car.
"Sam. What happened?"
"I thought we were making progress. I talked about Dean, how he could probably help, if whatever's in there now would just step back and let him take over for a while. Seemed to me like he was giving it some thought, and then something startled him, and bam, he was gone."
Bobby scowls. "What is this, some afterschool special? When did it get all rainbows and puppies and let's make friends with the goddamn thing that's possessing your brother?"
"That's not what --" But Bobby's not wrong. There's been a shift in his attitude toward this thing -- Sam can't bear seeing something so lost and confused when it's wearing Dean's face. "We can't exactly kill it, either. Not until it's out of him."
"Whatever we do, we've gotta find him first."
Rubbing at his forehead, Sam mutters, "He could be anywhere."
"Let's go to our first choice last time Dean bolted."
"The tree."
***
Dean:
When the lid comes off again, it's no less disorienting than the first time. All he knows is he's squeezed into his little corner of nowhere, and then he's standing in another kitchen.
This one he recognizes instantly. There's clutter everywhere, books and machine parts and bottles. "Bobby?" he calls. "Hey, Bobby?"
No answer.
"What the hell is this, the Great American Kitchens tour?" Before he can be stuffed back into his box, he heads across the room to Bobby's crazy bank of phones and punches Sam's number into one of them. "Sammy," he blurts when Sam answers.
"Dean! Where are you?"
"I'm in Bobby's kitchen, though I've got no idea how long. Two minutes ago I was in the house in Lawrence." Was it two minutes ago, or has it been hours or days? "What the hell is going on? And where the fuck are my clothes?"
"We're working on that. It seems like --" Sammy cuts himself off, and Dean gets a definite sense of information being withheld for his own so-called good.
"Seems like what?" Dean says darkly.
"Like, uh, there's something riding along with you. Do you have any idea what it is?"
"You think I'm possessed? Is that what you're saying?"
"Something like that. But we can't tell what it is. Listen, just stay put, and we'll get there as soon --"
Just like that, Dean's yanked back into his box, no longer in control of his own body.
***
Sam:
Sam flips his phone shut. "He's at your place. Well, he was. I lost him. I think he got yanked somewhere else."
Glowering, Bobby says, "So now what?"
"Well, we think about where he's been. The car, your place, and the house in Lawrence."
"Lawrence?"
"Yeah. He said he'd been there just before he popped up in your place. So far it's been Dean who seems to be determining where he goes. Places he knows, where he's felt safe. So maybe we can anticipate the next place he'll land."
"Well, that would be swell, Sam, if we could teleport our own asses around. If he doesn't stay anywhere more'n five seconds at a go, even that wouldn't do us much good."
Sam's head hurts like hell, and he rubs at his face, only to jostle the twin rolls of gauze in his nose. "Fuck, ow. Well, how many places can there be? He might come back to the Impala. If we drive out to the tree, we've got two chances of finding him."
"Out of seventeen billion."
"It's a start, Bobby."
Pushing up his cap, Bobby scratches his head. "Yeah, I know. It's as good a plan as any, I guess."
And a better plan than none, which is what they've got otherwise.
***
Dean:
He's beginning to feel like a fucking jack-in-the-box. He pops up again in another kitchen, this one completely unfamiliar. Except for the smell of spaghetti sauce bubbling on the stovetop, which clicks in to some distant memory he can't quite identify.
And damn. He's hungry.
Although there's no one in the room watching over the stove, there's an open laptop at one end of the table, surrounded by notes and a couple of books. Sammy? But this is no place he recognizes, and this particular, spicy scent of cooking is not one he associates with Sam. Keenly aware of the cold air on his bare ass, Dean approaches the table to study the notes.
The handwriting is familiar too, and it instantly falls into place. Cassie. Hastily Dean reaches around behind him to pull the edges of the hospital gown together. "This is just not cool," he mutters.
The light tread of feet on wooden stairs give him just enough warning to put up his free hand in a non-threatening gesture before a basement door bursts open and she's there, laundry basket tumbling out of her hands and spilling clean clothes onto the floor. She sucks in a breath, a ragged gasp or prelude to a scream, he's not sure.
"Cassie, Cassie, don't be afraid, it's not what it looks like." What the hell does it look like? Somebody tell me.
"Dean? What the hell --?"
"I don't know, I don't know. Something weird is going on. Even, um, weird for a Winchester."
"Are you okay?"
"I don't know." He's a damn broken record. He glances down at the faded print of the hospital gown. "Apparently I've been in the hospital." Is he still there, lying in a bed with a trauma team working on him, playing hide and seek with a reaper? Why can she see him?
Carefully she approaches him, holding out a hand. "Are you wearing a bracelet?"
Not on his free arm. Dean clutches tighter at the back of the gown with the other hand.
"Oh let go," Cassie says, exasperation and warmth mingling in her voice. "It's not like I've never seen your ass before."
Reluctantly he releases his hold on the fabric over the small of his back. He slowly brings his arm around, and Cassie reaches for it, drawing it closer.
At the warm, solid touch of her hand, he lets out a gust of breath. "I guess -- I guess I'm alive."
***
Cassie gives him a bemused look. "Of course you're alive. How did you get here?"
He rubs his hand through his hair, regretting it immediately and wiping his palm on his hospital gown. "Sweetheart, I don't even know where here is, much less how I got here. This isn't your mom's place."
"No." Frowning, she steps in closer and touches his face. "You look like hell, Dean. What's going on? Why were you in the hospital?"
"I have no idea."
"Sit down, before you fall down. I'll make something hot to drink."
Sidestepping the chair Cassie steers him toward, he says, "No, really. I'm just shy of bare-ass naked here, and I, uh, no."
"Hang on a minute." She leaves him and heads for the pile of folded laundry that's fallen onto the floor and fishes out a pair of boxers. "Here. Still warm from the dryer."
"Whoa! Am I thirty seconds from getting shot to death by a jealous lover?"
Thrusting them at his chest, she says, "I sleep in them, remember? I can't believe you forgot after all the shit you gave me about that."
As she turns toward the kitchen counter, he steps into the boxers and pulls them up over his hips. "I'm lucky I remember my name right now, Cassie." At the sound of water hitting the bottom of a kettle, he groans. "Not that tea."
"Hush." As she passes him on the way to the stove, she puts a hand to his shoulder and pushes him into the chair.
"You're bossy," he says. "I remember that."
She lights the flame under the metal, gives the spaghetti sauce a stir, then pulls up a chair close to him and sits. "I'm worried about you. Where's your brother?"
"I have no idea," he says again.
Frowning, she rubs his arm. "You're back to the way things were? When I first met you, I mean."
"No. We were on our way somewhere together. Checking out a job. That's the last I remember. I should call him."
"Sit." Rising and retrieving her cell phone, she hands it over to him.
"Bossy," he mutters.
As he punches in Sam's number, Cassie fingers the hospital bracelet, pulling it around his wrist to read what's printed there. She pulls the laptop toward her and types in a couple of names on the Google page.
'Dean!" Sam shouts into his phone. "Where are you?"
"I'm at Cassie's."
"In Missouri?"
"No. I don't know where this is."
"Philadelphia," Cassie says.
"Philly," Dean relays. "Man, I could go for a cheesesteak, if I can get more than five minutes here."
"Actually, can you get here? Bobby and I are at the tree."
This is making his head ache. "Tree? What tree?"
"Where all this started." A fair amount of worry and exasperation are evident in Sam's voice. "Never mind. Hone in on the Impala. You did it once before."
"I don't even know what it is I'm doing. I'm just here one second, somewhere else the next. It's getting old, Sam. Where the hell are you?"
"Just south of Cincinnati. You don't remember?" He switches tacks. "Look. Just stay there. Meditate or something. Put Cassie on and I'll get directions, then we'll come to you. Will that work?"
"Sure, yeah, I guess." He hands the phone over to Cassie just as the kettle starts to shriek. Cringing, he rises to shut off the flame, but just as he does, a white-coated man appears out of nowhere behind Cassie.
He glowers at Dean.
"Oh, shit." And then he's stuffed back into his box.
***
Sam:
"Dean?" Cassie's voice crackles over the suddenly staticky phone line. "Dean?"
Cursing inwardly, Sam flicks a look toward Bobby in the shotgun seat. "Cassie, what's going on?" He hopes asking the question will somehow make the answer come out differently.
"He's gone. I was looking right at him, Sam, and he --" Sam hears the screech of a chair on bare floor, and Cassie's urgent voice. "Dean? Dean, are you here?"
"Cassie," Sam says. "He's not there. Tell me exactly what happened. How long was he there?"
"Just a few minutes, as far as I know. I came upstairs from doing the laundry, and he was standing there in my kitchen, wearing a hospital gown and wristband and nothing else."
"But he was Dean. He knew who he was." Of course he knew who he was -- the first thing he said was he wanted a cheesesteak.
"He couldn't remember everything," Cassie tells him. "He didn't know what he was doing in the hospital, and didn't know where he'd been right before that. So do you want to tell me why it doesn't surprise you that he vanished into thin air?"
"He's been doing that. We haven't figured out why." The theory on possession, he decides, is something he'll keep to himself for the moment. "Tell me the rest. What happened just before he disappeared? Was he startled? Did you touch him?"
"I touched him a couple of times. That wasn't it." There's a brief pause. "He looked somewhere behind me, like he saw something there."
"Shit."
"That's what he said. Do you mind explaining what the hell is going on?"
"Something's after him. We don't know what or why, but it looks human. Just ... be careful, all right? I don't know if he'll be back, but if he comes back and there's anyone following, stay away from it. I've gotta go."
"Sam, you can't just --"
He bypasses the interstate ramp he'd been looking for and finds a place to loop back around toward the Kentucky countryside. "I'm sorry, Cassie." He flips the phone shut and glances over at Bobby. "I guess we're back to the tree."
***
Dean:
Pop goes the weasel. Dean bursts forth from his box and finds himself back at Bobby's. "Sonofabitch," he mutters. His stomach growls at the sudden transition between the rich smell of sauce simmering on Cassie's stove to the pervasive smell of yesterday's fried onions, gun oil, and musty old books.
When this is over --
Shit, he doesn't even know what this is. Some after-effect of the Trickster's time loop and the parade of undignified deaths? Something connected with a job? He can't remember the job they were heading toward -- what it was, where it was.
Think, dammit. There's the biggest arcane library in the western United States out there in the next room. There's bound to be an answer there, if he only knew the question.
He heads for the living room, with its leaning towers of books landscaped with bottles. Making for the phone, he stops cold when he sees a figure backlit against the afternoon light filtering in through dust-covered windows.
"I'm growing weary of this chase," the figure says. "You cannot outrun me."
Dean shifts his feet, backs up a few feet so he's just past the devil's trap on Bobby's ceiling. "Yeah, I guess you're right." He resists the urge to glance above him. Bobby had repaired the damn thing, hasn't he? Of course he had -- he's a damn careful man. "Why don't you come and get me, you sonofabitch."
***
The man advances on him, and Dean backs up, leading him on. Once he leaves the dusty glare of the window, Dean can see that he's wearing a doctor's white coat.
"What, you're after me for the outfit? Or is there a problem with my insurance?"
The guy has a glower Bobby only wishes he could produce. "You have something that is not rightfully yours. I have been sent to take it back."
"Seriously? It is the hospital gown you're after?" This is too bizarre. Dean considers a new theory: This is an elaborate salami-fueled dream. He usually stays away from that shit for exactly this reason, but --
Glowerpuss stops below the devil's trap, his expression changing to one of intense curiosity. "Tell me, was this rebellion worth the consequences? Is this realm truly more satisfying than your home?"
Whoa, abrupt topic shift. "The only one who's got consequences is you, asshole. You're trapped." Dean flicks a glance upward, satisfying himself that Bobby did in fact repair the sigils.
His prisoner looks upward, regarding Bobby's handiwork. "These sigils have no effect on me." Stepping forward, he effortlessly breaks out of the confines of the circle.
"Cristo!"
The scowl comes back, but it's more perplexed than threatening. "There's no call for insult."
Goddammit, Dean's miscalculated his backpedaling, stumbling into one of the thigh-high stacks of books lining the wall. Knees folding, he sits heavily on the pile, setting off an avalanche that he rides until he's sprawled on the floor. There are no weapons at hand, unless he wants to chuck a book at this invader. An unbelievably undignified cherry on this royal banana split of indignity that is his life. Finally it all clicks. "It's you, you fuck." Dean cannot believe it took him this long. "Go prank someone else, you sadistic little bitch."
The man seizes Dean by the arm and lifts him to his feet with about as much effort as a a toddler snatching up his favorite teddy bear. Shoving Dean against the wall, he growls, "I do not indulge in pranks."
Dean gets that, instantly recognizing his mistake. If this were the Trickster, he'd be the smirking, gloating, insufferable bastard he always is. This, on the other hand, is one humorless fuck. "Who the hell are you?"
"I am Castiel. I have been sent to put a stop to this disobedience."
"Disobedience? I don't have the slightest damn idea what you're talking about."
"Why do you insist on these pretenses? What can you gain, beyond a few earthly moments of delay?"
"Humor me, pal. What the hell are you?"
Castiel heaves a weary sigh. "If you must persist in this foolishness -- I am your brother."
What?
"I am an angel of the Lord."
***
Sam:
"So who's this Cassie?" Bobby asks.
They've made it out of the Cincinnati sprawl and into countryside. Sam keeps the Impala pushing past the speed limit. "She's a girl Dean saw for a while, back while I was at Stanford. We helped her out a couple of years ago, when something killed her dad. He was in love with her, that was pretty clear."
"Slightly different from the pattern up until now," Bobby says. "She's not in the place he associates with her. So sometimes it's places, but sometimes it's people that maybe feel like home to him. That give us any clues where he could turn up next?"
Sam lets out a breath. "I sure as hell don't know." Pierced by a feeling of overwhelming sadness, he counters it with a vicious curse.
"What?"
"It's just -- what kind of fucking life is this, Bobby? I'm trying to think of places where he would have felt safe and maybe even loved, and this is what it comes down to? The last place we were a family, the house of another hunter, the only woman he ever told who he was -- which didn't go well, she pitched him out -- and a goddamn car? That's fucking tragic."
"I know, son," Bobby says softly.
"And this is it, Bobby. This is pretty much the whole of his life, unless I can come up with something to get him out of his deal. It makes me so fucking angry." Sam hopes Bobby doesn't ask why the hell he's blinking back tears, then.
"I know," Bobby repeats, grim and weary and sad.
Sam suddenly remembers walking in Bobby's dreams. A couple of weeks ago, a hundred Tuesdays and a living death ago. Of course he knows.
"What the hell took you so long?" Dean says from the back seat.
"Fuck!" Sam shouts, fishtailing over the two-lane until he regains control over the Impala. His heart jackhammers in his chest. "Dean! What d'you mean, what took us so long?"
"Not you," Dean says. "Oh hey, Bobby. Sorry about the mess. Crank the heat, will you? Damn."
Casting a quick look over his shoulder, Sam determines Dean's all right, but still wearing next to nothing.
"Dude, what's with the nose tampons?"
Sam emits a shaky laugh that he hopes Dean doesn't recognize as being uncomfortably close to a sob. "Your passenger knocked me on my ass."
"You really think I'm possessed? Get back to the motel, willya? I want to get out of this damn hospital gown and burn it."
"It sure looked that way. Whatever it is knocked me on my ass with its brain."
"Huh," Dean says. "Whatever it is must be a badass mofo. That thing has an angel on its tail, and he looks pretty pissed off."
"Angel?" Bobby blurts.
"That's what he said. And the devil's trap sure didn't work on him."
"Tell me what he looked like," Sam says.
"The doctor who's not one of the four-out-of-five who agree," Dean responds.
Sam scowls. "That's him. He said he's an angel?"
"'An angel of the Lord,' to be specific."
"That's a new one."
"Well, hey," Dean says. "You got your wish. They exist after all."
***
Dean:
The door's barely shut behind Bobby before Dean peels out of the damn hospital gown and pulling clothes out of his duffel. While Sam hurries to start a pot of coffee, he hastily pulls on jeans, three shirts and two pairs of socks before tearing off a bedspread and wrapping up in the blanket below.
He leaves on Cassie's boxers.
"All right," he says as Sam gets the coffee brewing. "Tell me what the hell happened. I know there was a tree and a hospital, and then there's me bouncing my bare ass all over the countryside."
"You remember hearing about the meteor tree?"
"Meteor tree?"
"Yeah, some waitress told you about it. It's at the scene of a meteor strike, and six month after the meteor hit, there was a full-grown oak."
Smirking, Dean says, "That doesn't sound at all supernatural."
Sam nods. "That's why we decided to check it out. We were standing right under it when you collapsed. I was looking at the EMF meter, so I didn't see exactly what happened, but there was a flash and you went down. You were just out for a while, then you had a seizure."
Seizure? Dean does not like the sound of that. "You know, it's damn hard to take you seriously when you've got those things shoved up your nose."
As he'd expected, the classic Sam Winchester bitchface is funnier still with the Dual Nose Tampon Effect. "Yeah, well, we've seen demonic massacres that were less bloody than this nosebleed. But if it provides some entertainment for you, hey, it's all worthwhile."
That did not ring sincere. "Alright, alright. So I'm flopping around on the ground. Then what?"
"Got you to the hospital, and they started doing tests. You were in a coma for maybe 36 hours before that doctor came in. The one who says he's an angel, I'm betting."
The coffeemaker makes a sound like a seventy-year-old coughing up his first lung of the day. Bobby pours a cup into a chipped mug next to the machine and brings it to Dean.
"Thanks, Bobby." Taking a sip, he makes a face, then plunges on. "So what, I was touched by an angel and magically woke up?"
"Something like that. Except maybe a little less Roma Downeyish, and more with the screaming about how he was there to kill you."
"He said that?"
"No, that was you. Specifically, you said your father had sent him to kill you."
"I sure as hell don't remember that."
"I don't think you were awake yet."
"You mean your possession theory." Dean puts a little extra disdain in his voice, because this is not a topic he's happy exploring.
Bobby finally enters the discussion. "Tell us about when you woke up."
"It was kind of zero-to-sixty in .001 seconds. All of a sudden I was standing in the kitchen of the house in Lawrence."
"Well, you'd been walking and talking --" Bobby shakes his head -- "teleporting and talking -- for a while before that."
Despite the blanket and layers of clothes and coffee mug in his hands, Dean shivers. "So if I'm possessed, by what?" He was flinging the Cristos without any repercussions, so apparently not a demon.
Bobby grunts. "Well, I'm beginning to have a theory about that."
***
Swallowing another mouthful of coffee that manages to be both weak and bitter, Dean steels himself, looking up at Bobby. "Tell me straight, doc. Will I ever play piano again?"
"Whatever this is, it's got an angel on its ass. It says 'our father' sent him, and it called out for its brothers. It quoted the Bible -- the Book of Revelation, to be exact. According to the doc, it talked about being blind and unable to speak, and its memories seem blasted all to hell. It's powerful, though; it sent Sam flying across the room when he tried using a Ouija board to find out more about it."
"Not to mention teleporting my bare ass wherever it wants."
"Well, that's just the thing," Sam says. "You had a helluva lot to do with where it's appeared. Even before you woke up -- which I think it let you do -- you disappeared and we found you in the Impala."
"Why would it let me come up for air?"
"I asked it to," Sam says simply. It's such a ludicrous concept that Dean can't suppress a laugh.
"You mean all this time we've been making with the Latin and the holy water, when all we needed to do was say, 'Oh, excuse me, would you mind vacating the premises?'"
"This thing isn't a demon," Sam reminds him. "It's scared. I sat down with it and said it could trust you, that you feel safe in the Impala, and that's why it had teleported there. I said it should trust your instincts., that you could help."
"Help?" Dean blurts. "That's not exactly what we do, Sammy."
"Sometimes it is, Dean." Sam lets out a breath. "But to tell you the truth, I would have said anything to get it to loosen its hold."
Dean scrubs a hand through his hair, then grimaces. "I need a fucking shower, but it would be my luck I'd be popping up buck naked and with suds in my eyes all over the damn countryside." He looks up at Bobby. "Okay, digression over. You were in the process of telling me what you think this thing is." He already thinks he knows, and the thought makes his stomach clench.
Uncharacteristically fidgety, Bobby fusses with his cap, then his belt buckle, then he seems to realize what he's doing and folds his arms over his chest. "I can't help thinking this thing might be an angel."
Dean greets this with another laugh. "Well, Clarence has a piss-poor sense of direction, if he was aiming for my shoulder and got stuck in my head instead. No wonder he let me pick the destinations." Eying Bobby for a moment, he finally blurts, "You're serious? What would an angel want with me?"
"Probably the same thing I frequently do," Bobby growls. "Maybe it wants to put a boot to your ass."
"I wonder if this whole thing was accidental," Sam says. "Say somehow it's dormant in this tree, and you made it wake up and inhabit you."
"That's just nuts. Why me?"
"That's a good question. The tree's been there for twenty years, something like that. You can't be the first person to touch it or whatever you did. Maybe it was something you carried, or something you said. Could be something in your history, something you hunted once that left some kind of mark on you. I don't know. I'm not sure Clarence knows, if we could even talk to him again."
"It, Sam. This is a thing. Just because I threw a name out there, it's not suddenly our housepet." He wants it out, now.
"Maybe we should try," Sam says.
"Try talking to it?" Dean demands. "Oh, hell no. You're getting way too friendly with this thing, when you don't even know for sure what it is. You want to go all Dances with Angels without thinking about the fact that I'm the goddamn dance floor. Fuck that."
"Maybe it could help us. Help you."
"C'mon, Sammy. Asking powerful supernatural beings for favors is how I landed in the shit in the first place. We are not going there."
"Speaking of going," Bobby says, "what about heading back out to where all this got started."
"The meteor tree," Sam says.
***
Dean's next words surge out on a spike of fear. "Look, why don't we find out for sure what's happening before we go crashing around trying to fix it?"
"That's the idea," Sam snaps, "if you would just stop being so damn resistant."
"Maybe if you'd been the guy who recently died a hundred entertainingly undignified deaths -- ask him for the story, Bobby, it's a fucking laugh riot -- you'd be a little wary too."
Sam glowers. "Maybe if you'd been the one left with the aftermath of all that -- not to mention seizure-coma-crazy Dean -- you'd stop dragging your feet and try to do something."
"Hold the fucking phone, Sammy." Dean's suddenly on his feet, clutching the coffee mug, blankets puddled around his feet. "Are you getting ready to tell me how much suffering you've endured? Swear to god, I will punch your face in."
"Goddammit, boys!" Bobby hollers. "Knock it the hell off."
Despite the hand Bobby's planted on his chest, Sam draws a breath, purple-faced. Looks like Dean's about to be on the receiving end of the saliva shower of rage.
Instead, he finds himself jammed back in the box.
***
Then he's back in Cassie's kitchen, pieces of the mug falling to his feet in little pellets, like safety glass.
Cassie, who's gazing into her own mug, a hand to her forehead, looks up at the sound. "Dean!"
"You're okay? That thing that's chasing me, it didn't hurt you?"
She's already on her feet, moving toward him. "I didn't even see it." Her sneakers crunching over the ceramic pieces on the floor, she throws her arms around him.
Dean closes his eyes, indulging in the illusion that she can hold him down, keep him with her.
"What the hell is going on?" she asks, muffled against his chest.
"Sam thinks I'm possessed. Bobby thinks it's an angel."
Pulling back, she stares at him, speechless for a moment. "What?"
"I know. Crazy as a shithouse rat, the both of them. But I've got this guy after me, who says he's an angel. I don't know, Cassie. I think I'm putting you in danger just by being here. If Michael-Landon-with-an-attitude shows up again, or if I revert to whatever it is that's jerking me around from place to place -- Is there someplace safe you can go?"
"You can knock that crap off right now," Cassie says. "I'm not going anywhere. But why -- don't you stand a lot better chance fighting it off with Sam and Bobby?"
"You'd think," he says sourly.
"Sit down," she says. "I'm going to feed you. It's already made."
"Bossy," he says happily, following orders.
Pulling some plates from the cabinet, she asks, "What did you mean, 'you'd think'? It sounds like you don't trust them."
Shows that she still knows him, he thinks, that this kind of question she poses while not looking directly at him.
"It's Sam I'm worried about. He wants to talk to this thing that's hijacked my body. I just got it back -- with the occasional half-naked trip to all points of the compass. He thinks -- hell, Cassie, I don't know what he thinks or if he thinks. I'm seriously worried he's coming unhinged."
Cassie aims a sharp glance his way. "Unhinged?"
"He's been through the wringer the last six months or so." Six months, a week, it's all the same in Dean's weird world. "We both have, but you know me, I'm Wile E. Coyote, I'll accordion back up and pop my eyeballs back in. But Sammy -- he's had some major issues with what's happened, and what's coming. I'm afraid he's gonna snap." It's hard to tell what surprises him most, the fact that he's voiced this at last, or the relief that roars through him now that he has.
She turns, a tangle of spaghetti dangling from the claw of a kitchen tool. "'What's coming,'" she repeats, her frown an unspoken question.
Abruptly he remembers the how and why of the mistake he made with her the first time they were together, and damned if he's not going to make it again. What has he got to lose this time? "Cass," he says, and he's surprised to hear his voice crack. He clears his throat. "Cass, I'm dying."
Author: nwhepcat
Fandom: Supernatural, gen;
Rating R
Spoilers: Set shortly after S3 "Mystery Spot," but spoilery for S4 "Heaven and Hell"
Summary: Even with the clock ticking toward death and hell, Dean insists on taking on a routine job. It's anything but routine when he finds something he's not meant to discover, and things get a great deal more complicated, while Sam tries very hard not to break.
Disclaimer: So not mine, and it is a sadness.
Warnings: Language, h/c, psychosis, extreme Sam angst
Previous parts are here.
Sam:
Scrambling for his phone, Sam hits Bobby's speed-dial number. "Fuck! The Impala, Bobby. Quick!"
"I'm on it."
Sam rushes out of the room and thunders down the stairs to the ground floor, bolting across the lobby to the parking garage entrance. By the time he makes it to the ramp where the Impala's parked, Bobby is there, holding up a hand that brings him skidding to a halt.
"He's not here, son. What the hell happened?"
For a moment Sam looks around wildly, as if Dean might've appeared in some other car.
"Sam. What happened?"
"I thought we were making progress. I talked about Dean, how he could probably help, if whatever's in there now would just step back and let him take over for a while. Seemed to me like he was giving it some thought, and then something startled him, and bam, he was gone."
Bobby scowls. "What is this, some afterschool special? When did it get all rainbows and puppies and let's make friends with the goddamn thing that's possessing your brother?"
"That's not what --" But Bobby's not wrong. There's been a shift in his attitude toward this thing -- Sam can't bear seeing something so lost and confused when it's wearing Dean's face. "We can't exactly kill it, either. Not until it's out of him."
"Whatever we do, we've gotta find him first."
Rubbing at his forehead, Sam mutters, "He could be anywhere."
"Let's go to our first choice last time Dean bolted."
"The tree."
***
Dean:
When the lid comes off again, it's no less disorienting than the first time. All he knows is he's squeezed into his little corner of nowhere, and then he's standing in another kitchen.
This one he recognizes instantly. There's clutter everywhere, books and machine parts and bottles. "Bobby?" he calls. "Hey, Bobby?"
No answer.
"What the hell is this, the Great American Kitchens tour?" Before he can be stuffed back into his box, he heads across the room to Bobby's crazy bank of phones and punches Sam's number into one of them. "Sammy," he blurts when Sam answers.
"Dean! Where are you?"
"I'm in Bobby's kitchen, though I've got no idea how long. Two minutes ago I was in the house in Lawrence." Was it two minutes ago, or has it been hours or days? "What the hell is going on? And where the fuck are my clothes?"
"We're working on that. It seems like --" Sammy cuts himself off, and Dean gets a definite sense of information being withheld for his own so-called good.
"Seems like what?" Dean says darkly.
"Like, uh, there's something riding along with you. Do you have any idea what it is?"
"You think I'm possessed? Is that what you're saying?"
"Something like that. But we can't tell what it is. Listen, just stay put, and we'll get there as soon --"
Just like that, Dean's yanked back into his box, no longer in control of his own body.
***
Sam:
Sam flips his phone shut. "He's at your place. Well, he was. I lost him. I think he got yanked somewhere else."
Glowering, Bobby says, "So now what?"
"Well, we think about where he's been. The car, your place, and the house in Lawrence."
"Lawrence?"
"Yeah. He said he'd been there just before he popped up in your place. So far it's been Dean who seems to be determining where he goes. Places he knows, where he's felt safe. So maybe we can anticipate the next place he'll land."
"Well, that would be swell, Sam, if we could teleport our own asses around. If he doesn't stay anywhere more'n five seconds at a go, even that wouldn't do us much good."
Sam's head hurts like hell, and he rubs at his face, only to jostle the twin rolls of gauze in his nose. "Fuck, ow. Well, how many places can there be? He might come back to the Impala. If we drive out to the tree, we've got two chances of finding him."
"Out of seventeen billion."
"It's a start, Bobby."
Pushing up his cap, Bobby scratches his head. "Yeah, I know. It's as good a plan as any, I guess."
And a better plan than none, which is what they've got otherwise.
***
Dean:
He's beginning to feel like a fucking jack-in-the-box. He pops up again in another kitchen, this one completely unfamiliar. Except for the smell of spaghetti sauce bubbling on the stovetop, which clicks in to some distant memory he can't quite identify.
And damn. He's hungry.
Although there's no one in the room watching over the stove, there's an open laptop at one end of the table, surrounded by notes and a couple of books. Sammy? But this is no place he recognizes, and this particular, spicy scent of cooking is not one he associates with Sam. Keenly aware of the cold air on his bare ass, Dean approaches the table to study the notes.
The handwriting is familiar too, and it instantly falls into place. Cassie. Hastily Dean reaches around behind him to pull the edges of the hospital gown together. "This is just not cool," he mutters.
The light tread of feet on wooden stairs give him just enough warning to put up his free hand in a non-threatening gesture before a basement door bursts open and she's there, laundry basket tumbling out of her hands and spilling clean clothes onto the floor. She sucks in a breath, a ragged gasp or prelude to a scream, he's not sure.
"Cassie, Cassie, don't be afraid, it's not what it looks like." What the hell does it look like? Somebody tell me.
"Dean? What the hell --?"
"I don't know, I don't know. Something weird is going on. Even, um, weird for a Winchester."
"Are you okay?"
"I don't know." He's a damn broken record. He glances down at the faded print of the hospital gown. "Apparently I've been in the hospital." Is he still there, lying in a bed with a trauma team working on him, playing hide and seek with a reaper? Why can she see him?
Carefully she approaches him, holding out a hand. "Are you wearing a bracelet?"
Not on his free arm. Dean clutches tighter at the back of the gown with the other hand.
"Oh let go," Cassie says, exasperation and warmth mingling in her voice. "It's not like I've never seen your ass before."
Reluctantly he releases his hold on the fabric over the small of his back. He slowly brings his arm around, and Cassie reaches for it, drawing it closer.
At the warm, solid touch of her hand, he lets out a gust of breath. "I guess -- I guess I'm alive."
***
Cassie gives him a bemused look. "Of course you're alive. How did you get here?"
He rubs his hand through his hair, regretting it immediately and wiping his palm on his hospital gown. "Sweetheart, I don't even know where here is, much less how I got here. This isn't your mom's place."
"No." Frowning, she steps in closer and touches his face. "You look like hell, Dean. What's going on? Why were you in the hospital?"
"I have no idea."
"Sit down, before you fall down. I'll make something hot to drink."
Sidestepping the chair Cassie steers him toward, he says, "No, really. I'm just shy of bare-ass naked here, and I, uh, no."
"Hang on a minute." She leaves him and heads for the pile of folded laundry that's fallen onto the floor and fishes out a pair of boxers. "Here. Still warm from the dryer."
"Whoa! Am I thirty seconds from getting shot to death by a jealous lover?"
Thrusting them at his chest, she says, "I sleep in them, remember? I can't believe you forgot after all the shit you gave me about that."
As she turns toward the kitchen counter, he steps into the boxers and pulls them up over his hips. "I'm lucky I remember my name right now, Cassie." At the sound of water hitting the bottom of a kettle, he groans. "Not that tea."
"Hush." As she passes him on the way to the stove, she puts a hand to his shoulder and pushes him into the chair.
"You're bossy," he says. "I remember that."
She lights the flame under the metal, gives the spaghetti sauce a stir, then pulls up a chair close to him and sits. "I'm worried about you. Where's your brother?"
"I have no idea," he says again.
Frowning, she rubs his arm. "You're back to the way things were? When I first met you, I mean."
"No. We were on our way somewhere together. Checking out a job. That's the last I remember. I should call him."
"Sit." Rising and retrieving her cell phone, she hands it over to him.
"Bossy," he mutters.
As he punches in Sam's number, Cassie fingers the hospital bracelet, pulling it around his wrist to read what's printed there. She pulls the laptop toward her and types in a couple of names on the Google page.
'Dean!" Sam shouts into his phone. "Where are you?"
"I'm at Cassie's."
"In Missouri?"
"No. I don't know where this is."
"Philadelphia," Cassie says.
"Philly," Dean relays. "Man, I could go for a cheesesteak, if I can get more than five minutes here."
"Actually, can you get here? Bobby and I are at the tree."
This is making his head ache. "Tree? What tree?"
"Where all this started." A fair amount of worry and exasperation are evident in Sam's voice. "Never mind. Hone in on the Impala. You did it once before."
"I don't even know what it is I'm doing. I'm just here one second, somewhere else the next. It's getting old, Sam. Where the hell are you?"
"Just south of Cincinnati. You don't remember?" He switches tacks. "Look. Just stay there. Meditate or something. Put Cassie on and I'll get directions, then we'll come to you. Will that work?"
"Sure, yeah, I guess." He hands the phone over to Cassie just as the kettle starts to shriek. Cringing, he rises to shut off the flame, but just as he does, a white-coated man appears out of nowhere behind Cassie.
He glowers at Dean.
"Oh, shit." And then he's stuffed back into his box.
***
Sam:
"Dean?" Cassie's voice crackles over the suddenly staticky phone line. "Dean?"
Cursing inwardly, Sam flicks a look toward Bobby in the shotgun seat. "Cassie, what's going on?" He hopes asking the question will somehow make the answer come out differently.
"He's gone. I was looking right at him, Sam, and he --" Sam hears the screech of a chair on bare floor, and Cassie's urgent voice. "Dean? Dean, are you here?"
"Cassie," Sam says. "He's not there. Tell me exactly what happened. How long was he there?"
"Just a few minutes, as far as I know. I came upstairs from doing the laundry, and he was standing there in my kitchen, wearing a hospital gown and wristband and nothing else."
"But he was Dean. He knew who he was." Of course he knew who he was -- the first thing he said was he wanted a cheesesteak.
"He couldn't remember everything," Cassie tells him. "He didn't know what he was doing in the hospital, and didn't know where he'd been right before that. So do you want to tell me why it doesn't surprise you that he vanished into thin air?"
"He's been doing that. We haven't figured out why." The theory on possession, he decides, is something he'll keep to himself for the moment. "Tell me the rest. What happened just before he disappeared? Was he startled? Did you touch him?"
"I touched him a couple of times. That wasn't it." There's a brief pause. "He looked somewhere behind me, like he saw something there."
"Shit."
"That's what he said. Do you mind explaining what the hell is going on?"
"Something's after him. We don't know what or why, but it looks human. Just ... be careful, all right? I don't know if he'll be back, but if he comes back and there's anyone following, stay away from it. I've gotta go."
"Sam, you can't just --"
He bypasses the interstate ramp he'd been looking for and finds a place to loop back around toward the Kentucky countryside. "I'm sorry, Cassie." He flips the phone shut and glances over at Bobby. "I guess we're back to the tree."
***
Dean:
Pop goes the weasel. Dean bursts forth from his box and finds himself back at Bobby's. "Sonofabitch," he mutters. His stomach growls at the sudden transition between the rich smell of sauce simmering on Cassie's stove to the pervasive smell of yesterday's fried onions, gun oil, and musty old books.
When this is over --
Shit, he doesn't even know what this is. Some after-effect of the Trickster's time loop and the parade of undignified deaths? Something connected with a job? He can't remember the job they were heading toward -- what it was, where it was.
Think, dammit. There's the biggest arcane library in the western United States out there in the next room. There's bound to be an answer there, if he only knew the question.
He heads for the living room, with its leaning towers of books landscaped with bottles. Making for the phone, he stops cold when he sees a figure backlit against the afternoon light filtering in through dust-covered windows.
"I'm growing weary of this chase," the figure says. "You cannot outrun me."
Dean shifts his feet, backs up a few feet so he's just past the devil's trap on Bobby's ceiling. "Yeah, I guess you're right." He resists the urge to glance above him. Bobby had repaired the damn thing, hasn't he? Of course he had -- he's a damn careful man. "Why don't you come and get me, you sonofabitch."
***
The man advances on him, and Dean backs up, leading him on. Once he leaves the dusty glare of the window, Dean can see that he's wearing a doctor's white coat.
"What, you're after me for the outfit? Or is there a problem with my insurance?"
The guy has a glower Bobby only wishes he could produce. "You have something that is not rightfully yours. I have been sent to take it back."
"Seriously? It is the hospital gown you're after?" This is too bizarre. Dean considers a new theory: This is an elaborate salami-fueled dream. He usually stays away from that shit for exactly this reason, but --
Glowerpuss stops below the devil's trap, his expression changing to one of intense curiosity. "Tell me, was this rebellion worth the consequences? Is this realm truly more satisfying than your home?"
Whoa, abrupt topic shift. "The only one who's got consequences is you, asshole. You're trapped." Dean flicks a glance upward, satisfying himself that Bobby did in fact repair the sigils.
His prisoner looks upward, regarding Bobby's handiwork. "These sigils have no effect on me." Stepping forward, he effortlessly breaks out of the confines of the circle.
"Cristo!"
The scowl comes back, but it's more perplexed than threatening. "There's no call for insult."
Goddammit, Dean's miscalculated his backpedaling, stumbling into one of the thigh-high stacks of books lining the wall. Knees folding, he sits heavily on the pile, setting off an avalanche that he rides until he's sprawled on the floor. There are no weapons at hand, unless he wants to chuck a book at this invader. An unbelievably undignified cherry on this royal banana split of indignity that is his life. Finally it all clicks. "It's you, you fuck." Dean cannot believe it took him this long. "Go prank someone else, you sadistic little bitch."
The man seizes Dean by the arm and lifts him to his feet with about as much effort as a a toddler snatching up his favorite teddy bear. Shoving Dean against the wall, he growls, "I do not indulge in pranks."
Dean gets that, instantly recognizing his mistake. If this were the Trickster, he'd be the smirking, gloating, insufferable bastard he always is. This, on the other hand, is one humorless fuck. "Who the hell are you?"
"I am Castiel. I have been sent to put a stop to this disobedience."
"Disobedience? I don't have the slightest damn idea what you're talking about."
"Why do you insist on these pretenses? What can you gain, beyond a few earthly moments of delay?"
"Humor me, pal. What the hell are you?"
Castiel heaves a weary sigh. "If you must persist in this foolishness -- I am your brother."
What?
"I am an angel of the Lord."
***
Sam:
"So who's this Cassie?" Bobby asks.
They've made it out of the Cincinnati sprawl and into countryside. Sam keeps the Impala pushing past the speed limit. "She's a girl Dean saw for a while, back while I was at Stanford. We helped her out a couple of years ago, when something killed her dad. He was in love with her, that was pretty clear."
"Slightly different from the pattern up until now," Bobby says. "She's not in the place he associates with her. So sometimes it's places, but sometimes it's people that maybe feel like home to him. That give us any clues where he could turn up next?"
Sam lets out a breath. "I sure as hell don't know." Pierced by a feeling of overwhelming sadness, he counters it with a vicious curse.
"What?"
"It's just -- what kind of fucking life is this, Bobby? I'm trying to think of places where he would have felt safe and maybe even loved, and this is what it comes down to? The last place we were a family, the house of another hunter, the only woman he ever told who he was -- which didn't go well, she pitched him out -- and a goddamn car? That's fucking tragic."
"I know, son," Bobby says softly.
"And this is it, Bobby. This is pretty much the whole of his life, unless I can come up with something to get him out of his deal. It makes me so fucking angry." Sam hopes Bobby doesn't ask why the hell he's blinking back tears, then.
"I know," Bobby repeats, grim and weary and sad.
Sam suddenly remembers walking in Bobby's dreams. A couple of weeks ago, a hundred Tuesdays and a living death ago. Of course he knows.
"What the hell took you so long?" Dean says from the back seat.
"Fuck!" Sam shouts, fishtailing over the two-lane until he regains control over the Impala. His heart jackhammers in his chest. "Dean! What d'you mean, what took us so long?"
"Not you," Dean says. "Oh hey, Bobby. Sorry about the mess. Crank the heat, will you? Damn."
Casting a quick look over his shoulder, Sam determines Dean's all right, but still wearing next to nothing.
"Dude, what's with the nose tampons?"
Sam emits a shaky laugh that he hopes Dean doesn't recognize as being uncomfortably close to a sob. "Your passenger knocked me on my ass."
"You really think I'm possessed? Get back to the motel, willya? I want to get out of this damn hospital gown and burn it."
"It sure looked that way. Whatever it is knocked me on my ass with its brain."
"Huh," Dean says. "Whatever it is must be a badass mofo. That thing has an angel on its tail, and he looks pretty pissed off."
"Angel?" Bobby blurts.
"That's what he said. And the devil's trap sure didn't work on him."
"Tell me what he looked like," Sam says.
"The doctor who's not one of the four-out-of-five who agree," Dean responds.
Sam scowls. "That's him. He said he's an angel?"
"'An angel of the Lord,' to be specific."
"That's a new one."
"Well, hey," Dean says. "You got your wish. They exist after all."
***
Dean:
The door's barely shut behind Bobby before Dean peels out of the damn hospital gown and pulling clothes out of his duffel. While Sam hurries to start a pot of coffee, he hastily pulls on jeans, three shirts and two pairs of socks before tearing off a bedspread and wrapping up in the blanket below.
He leaves on Cassie's boxers.
"All right," he says as Sam gets the coffee brewing. "Tell me what the hell happened. I know there was a tree and a hospital, and then there's me bouncing my bare ass all over the countryside."
"You remember hearing about the meteor tree?"
"Meteor tree?"
"Yeah, some waitress told you about it. It's at the scene of a meteor strike, and six month after the meteor hit, there was a full-grown oak."
Smirking, Dean says, "That doesn't sound at all supernatural."
Sam nods. "That's why we decided to check it out. We were standing right under it when you collapsed. I was looking at the EMF meter, so I didn't see exactly what happened, but there was a flash and you went down. You were just out for a while, then you had a seizure."
Seizure? Dean does not like the sound of that. "You know, it's damn hard to take you seriously when you've got those things shoved up your nose."
As he'd expected, the classic Sam Winchester bitchface is funnier still with the Dual Nose Tampon Effect. "Yeah, well, we've seen demonic massacres that were less bloody than this nosebleed. But if it provides some entertainment for you, hey, it's all worthwhile."
That did not ring sincere. "Alright, alright. So I'm flopping around on the ground. Then what?"
"Got you to the hospital, and they started doing tests. You were in a coma for maybe 36 hours before that doctor came in. The one who says he's an angel, I'm betting."
The coffeemaker makes a sound like a seventy-year-old coughing up his first lung of the day. Bobby pours a cup into a chipped mug next to the machine and brings it to Dean.
"Thanks, Bobby." Taking a sip, he makes a face, then plunges on. "So what, I was touched by an angel and magically woke up?"
"Something like that. Except maybe a little less Roma Downeyish, and more with the screaming about how he was there to kill you."
"He said that?"
"No, that was you. Specifically, you said your father had sent him to kill you."
"I sure as hell don't remember that."
"I don't think you were awake yet."
"You mean your possession theory." Dean puts a little extra disdain in his voice, because this is not a topic he's happy exploring.
Bobby finally enters the discussion. "Tell us about when you woke up."
"It was kind of zero-to-sixty in .001 seconds. All of a sudden I was standing in the kitchen of the house in Lawrence."
"Well, you'd been walking and talking --" Bobby shakes his head -- "teleporting and talking -- for a while before that."
Despite the blanket and layers of clothes and coffee mug in his hands, Dean shivers. "So if I'm possessed, by what?" He was flinging the Cristos without any repercussions, so apparently not a demon.
Bobby grunts. "Well, I'm beginning to have a theory about that."
***
Swallowing another mouthful of coffee that manages to be both weak and bitter, Dean steels himself, looking up at Bobby. "Tell me straight, doc. Will I ever play piano again?"
"Whatever this is, it's got an angel on its ass. It says 'our father' sent him, and it called out for its brothers. It quoted the Bible -- the Book of Revelation, to be exact. According to the doc, it talked about being blind and unable to speak, and its memories seem blasted all to hell. It's powerful, though; it sent Sam flying across the room when he tried using a Ouija board to find out more about it."
"Not to mention teleporting my bare ass wherever it wants."
"Well, that's just the thing," Sam says. "You had a helluva lot to do with where it's appeared. Even before you woke up -- which I think it let you do -- you disappeared and we found you in the Impala."
"Why would it let me come up for air?"
"I asked it to," Sam says simply. It's such a ludicrous concept that Dean can't suppress a laugh.
"You mean all this time we've been making with the Latin and the holy water, when all we needed to do was say, 'Oh, excuse me, would you mind vacating the premises?'"
"This thing isn't a demon," Sam reminds him. "It's scared. I sat down with it and said it could trust you, that you feel safe in the Impala, and that's why it had teleported there. I said it should trust your instincts., that you could help."
"Help?" Dean blurts. "That's not exactly what we do, Sammy."
"Sometimes it is, Dean." Sam lets out a breath. "But to tell you the truth, I would have said anything to get it to loosen its hold."
Dean scrubs a hand through his hair, then grimaces. "I need a fucking shower, but it would be my luck I'd be popping up buck naked and with suds in my eyes all over the damn countryside." He looks up at Bobby. "Okay, digression over. You were in the process of telling me what you think this thing is." He already thinks he knows, and the thought makes his stomach clench.
Uncharacteristically fidgety, Bobby fusses with his cap, then his belt buckle, then he seems to realize what he's doing and folds his arms over his chest. "I can't help thinking this thing might be an angel."
Dean greets this with another laugh. "Well, Clarence has a piss-poor sense of direction, if he was aiming for my shoulder and got stuck in my head instead. No wonder he let me pick the destinations." Eying Bobby for a moment, he finally blurts, "You're serious? What would an angel want with me?"
"Probably the same thing I frequently do," Bobby growls. "Maybe it wants to put a boot to your ass."
"I wonder if this whole thing was accidental," Sam says. "Say somehow it's dormant in this tree, and you made it wake up and inhabit you."
"That's just nuts. Why me?"
"That's a good question. The tree's been there for twenty years, something like that. You can't be the first person to touch it or whatever you did. Maybe it was something you carried, or something you said. Could be something in your history, something you hunted once that left some kind of mark on you. I don't know. I'm not sure Clarence knows, if we could even talk to him again."
"It, Sam. This is a thing. Just because I threw a name out there, it's not suddenly our housepet." He wants it out, now.
"Maybe we should try," Sam says.
"Try talking to it?" Dean demands. "Oh, hell no. You're getting way too friendly with this thing, when you don't even know for sure what it is. You want to go all Dances with Angels without thinking about the fact that I'm the goddamn dance floor. Fuck that."
"Maybe it could help us. Help you."
"C'mon, Sammy. Asking powerful supernatural beings for favors is how I landed in the shit in the first place. We are not going there."
"Speaking of going," Bobby says, "what about heading back out to where all this got started."
"The meteor tree," Sam says.
***
Dean's next words surge out on a spike of fear. "Look, why don't we find out for sure what's happening before we go crashing around trying to fix it?"
"That's the idea," Sam snaps, "if you would just stop being so damn resistant."
"Maybe if you'd been the guy who recently died a hundred entertainingly undignified deaths -- ask him for the story, Bobby, it's a fucking laugh riot -- you'd be a little wary too."
Sam glowers. "Maybe if you'd been the one left with the aftermath of all that -- not to mention seizure-coma-crazy Dean -- you'd stop dragging your feet and try to do something."
"Hold the fucking phone, Sammy." Dean's suddenly on his feet, clutching the coffee mug, blankets puddled around his feet. "Are you getting ready to tell me how much suffering you've endured? Swear to god, I will punch your face in."
"Goddammit, boys!" Bobby hollers. "Knock it the hell off."
Despite the hand Bobby's planted on his chest, Sam draws a breath, purple-faced. Looks like Dean's about to be on the receiving end of the saliva shower of rage.
Instead, he finds himself jammed back in the box.
***
Then he's back in Cassie's kitchen, pieces of the mug falling to his feet in little pellets, like safety glass.
Cassie, who's gazing into her own mug, a hand to her forehead, looks up at the sound. "Dean!"
"You're okay? That thing that's chasing me, it didn't hurt you?"
She's already on her feet, moving toward him. "I didn't even see it." Her sneakers crunching over the ceramic pieces on the floor, she throws her arms around him.
Dean closes his eyes, indulging in the illusion that she can hold him down, keep him with her.
"What the hell is going on?" she asks, muffled against his chest.
"Sam thinks I'm possessed. Bobby thinks it's an angel."
Pulling back, she stares at him, speechless for a moment. "What?"
"I know. Crazy as a shithouse rat, the both of them. But I've got this guy after me, who says he's an angel. I don't know, Cassie. I think I'm putting you in danger just by being here. If Michael-Landon-with-an-attitude shows up again, or if I revert to whatever it is that's jerking me around from place to place -- Is there someplace safe you can go?"
"You can knock that crap off right now," Cassie says. "I'm not going anywhere. But why -- don't you stand a lot better chance fighting it off with Sam and Bobby?"
"You'd think," he says sourly.
"Sit down," she says. "I'm going to feed you. It's already made."
"Bossy," he says happily, following orders.
Pulling some plates from the cabinet, she asks, "What did you mean, 'you'd think'? It sounds like you don't trust them."
Shows that she still knows him, he thinks, that this kind of question she poses while not looking directly at him.
"It's Sam I'm worried about. He wants to talk to this thing that's hijacked my body. I just got it back -- with the occasional half-naked trip to all points of the compass. He thinks -- hell, Cassie, I don't know what he thinks or if he thinks. I'm seriously worried he's coming unhinged."
Cassie aims a sharp glance his way. "Unhinged?"
"He's been through the wringer the last six months or so." Six months, a week, it's all the same in Dean's weird world. "We both have, but you know me, I'm Wile E. Coyote, I'll accordion back up and pop my eyeballs back in. But Sammy -- he's had some major issues with what's happened, and what's coming. I'm afraid he's gonna snap." It's hard to tell what surprises him most, the fact that he's voiced this at last, or the relief that roars through him now that he has.
She turns, a tangle of spaghetti dangling from the claw of a kitchen tool. "'What's coming,'" she repeats, her frown an unspoken question.
Abruptly he remembers the how and why of the mistake he made with her the first time they were together, and damned if he's not going to make it again. What has he got to lose this time? "Cass," he says, and he's surprised to hear his voice crack. He clears his throat. "Cass, I'm dying."
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