Apparently this is Marshall’s busy season – Dean wonders if people have come in from the entire state to admire the lovely fields of icy mud, or what? – because Sam isn’t able to get adjoining rooms. They sit in the double room, Sam at the table, Jimmy on one of the beds, Dean leaning back against the particle-board dresser.
“So,” says Sam, staring at an open window on his laptop showing a faded picture of a young woman in a long cloak with an expression of composed grief. “Angels – like Anna, for example – go rogue. They have kids. The kids have kids. And somewhere down the line, the kids become banshees. Like reverse evolution?”
“Pretty much,” says Dean sourly. Castiel really doesn’t want to talk about it, and getting information out of him’s like trying to pry open an oyster with a liquorice stick.
“I guess it’s not actually a bad thing. I mean, banshees don’t breed, so they’re the end of the line, genetically-speaking.”
“Thank you Mr. Optimism. Wanna go have a tea-party with them?” This whole thing’s giving Dean a headache, he can’t help it if he’s not up to his standard on the snipe-o’meter. Sam glares silently. “I think you’ll agree that a bigger question is: angels have sex?”
Castiel ruffles heavily, in something that feels close to antagonism. “Cas?” says Dean, sharply.
Clearly it is not impossible, answers the angel in clipped tones. It is one thing for a fallen angel, such as Anna as she was, shorn of his or her identity, effectively no longer an angel, to participate in such acts. But for an angel who chooses to disobey without falling, who remains at least in part an angel, it is an abomination, a defilation. Obscene, disgusting. Even the disobedient, the fallen, who are to be reviled and shunned and destroyed, do not usually fall so far. Imagine bedding a chimpanzee. An orang-utan, in its own filth. There’s more emotion there than Dean’s ever heard from the angel. It also sounds eerily like he’s repeating rote-phrases that have been pounded into him. They pour out one after the other mechanically, in perfect order and pace, as if the angel hasn’t had to put any thought into his words.
“Okay…” he says, the words mud monkey echoing in his mind.
Do not put Uriel’s words in my mouth, says Castiel sharply, with such intensity that Dean winces.
“Dean?” says Sam in the background.
This isn’t an opinion. It’s a fact. Castiel snaps the words out, sharp as a whip-crack, and it’s hard to tell with the way the angel’s roiling around his head like a thunder storm, but it seems to Dean there’s almost a hint of distaste there. Distaste, not of the topic, but of himself.
An angel who disobeys and keeps a human vessel may have the ability to procreate, but there is still a world of difference between that angel and humans. It is unthinkable; incomprehensible. And the fruit of such a union is doubly damned. An atrocity which should not exist. Castiel ends with a harsh clatter, and Dean can feel the conflict now, feel the angel fighting with himself. And, it seems to Dean, losing.
“Dean?” says Sam again, standing to take a step closer to his brother. Dean blinks and tries to draw his thoughts together.
“Apparently human fraternization is worse than bestiality upstairs.”
Castiel shrugs, a soft movement, and calms slightly. Nevertheless, it has happened. Rarely, but often enough to result in a brood of these creatures.
“I’m surprised you didn’t just smite the lot of them,” says Dean, getting tangled up with the two conversations at once thing again.
Disobeyers who last long enough to propagate are, by necessity, survivors. Beside which, we have kept out of humanity’s affairs for these past two millennia. To never see the light of Heaven or hear the voices of their brethren again is considered a terrible punishment. Not equal to the sin, but sufficient at least in the short term. Castiel has calmed further, and his tone is low and gritty now.
Dean wonders, briefly, how long “short term” is for angels, if two millennia doesn’t cut it. But he’s already got his next thought lined up. Oh yeah, banning them from the staff Christmas party must smart.
You have never known a home, nor a true family. It’s not surprising you can’t contemplate the agony of that separation, returns Castiel in a harsh tone which suggests he’s contemplated it. Has contemplated it without pulling any punches.
Dean bridles at the family dig, but even he can recognise this as an issue the angel’s taken a personal stake in, as one he shouldn’t pick at.
“Uh,” says Sam questioningly.
Dean closes his eyes, pinches at the bridge of his nose. “Where were we?”
“Smiting fallen angels,” prompts Sam.
“Seems like if they evaded the search parties long enough, the angels left ‘em alone. Apparently being kicked out of Heaven sucks enough.”
Sam gives him a nice paraphrasing look. Dean shrugs.
“Not to be a killjoy, but does any of this actually help you guys?” Jimmy’s been a silent observer of the conversation thus far, and although it seems to Dean he’s uncomfortable, Dean’s not sure why.
“Sure,” says Dean, brightly. “We can kill ‘em just like the angels. Oh, wait, we can’t, because we never figured out who was doing it.”
In the back of his mind, Castiel is absolutely silent.
“Well,” Sam sits back down, twirling a pen between his fingers, “I guess we could just parade Dean around town and see who takes off.” Dean glares. “Okay, really, no. But it’s good to know anyway. Every little bit of information might help, someday.”
“Assuming we avoid the Apocalypse,” puts in Jimmy.
Dean looks at Sam; they both shrug. “Yeah,” they say, together.
----------------------------------------------
The problem with Jimmy is that they can’t take him with them in case the banshee gets him, but they can’t leave him behind in case the demons get him. And travelling around in a pack like a group of girls afraid to go to the bathroom alone is damn clumsy in a situation where they have absolutely no leads and have to cover a lot of ground. Not to mention they have no false IDs for him.
Can’t you just mind-wipe people to not see him, or something? asks Dean.
Not without mind-wiping you too, replies Castiel dryly. Dean wonders if this is the angel loosening up; he just can’t tell anymore. Cas seems to see-saw from righteous dick to kind of almost sympathetic at the drop of a hat these days, and Dean’s not sure whether he really is just that mercurial when you spend time with him for more than five minutes at a stretch, or whether it’s a result of his forcing himself to toe the line that’s been laid down to him. Dean strongly suspects the latter, and that’s one of the main reasons he cuts the angel any slack.
They end up taking the bathroom pack approach. Jimmy stays in the car with a shotgun in his lap under his torn coat (which separates them far enough from the teenage girl scenario that Dean doesn’t feel the need to worry about it).
He and Sam discover pretty damn quick that the morgue guys weren’t exaggerating when they said no common links. Apart from the fact that only two of the men were acquainted at the most minor level, they have no common ties. No connections with their jobs, clubs, shopping spots, other activities, or even hobbies. No commonality in age, relationships, homes, clothes or features. Apart from Bill Stanford, they might have been any four random Joes chosen off Main Street.
“So,” says Dean as they get back in the car, Jimmy sitting with morose attention in the back, “we have no clues, no leads, no ideas, no pipe dreams, and if it weren’t for Bill turning up on the butcher’s bill –” and Castiel’s unsubstantiated confidence in it being a banshee, which he doesn’t mention – “I’d be ready to write this off as some freak heart thing. Thoughts?” he asks, lightly.
“Apart from Bill, who was almost certainly killed as a hunter and a threat rather than a regular victim, the dead men did have one thing in common,” says Sam, unfolding his crisp map. He’s drawn all over it in marker. Four colours for the four resident victims. Each colour has two circles – home and work – and a wide box connecting the two – possible routes between them. There’s a few blocks of convergence between all four, where the colours mix into an ugly mud brown. Sam taps the square. Dean stares at him.
“You’re kidding, right? It’s practically downtown, everyone in this town must go through there!”
“Yeah, well, that’s all we’ve got.”
“So, what, you wanna walk the neighbourhood alone and hope it picks you?”
“Not really.” Sam folds up the map and tucks it away in the glove box.
Dean sighs. “We’re gonna have to troll the neighbourhood together, aren’t we?”
“Yeah.”
-------------------------------------------------
It’s only when they’re on their way to downtown that the problems with “trolling the town” with a three man team comprising a civilian, an unwilling half-angel and an unwilling half-demon – Dean regrets leaving Hollywood again, he could make millions with this stuff – become apparent. Neither Dean or Jimmy can search, and Sam can’t cover much ground on his own.
“Admit it, we’re seriously up the creek,” says Dean, looking to his brother who shrugs, face locked in a grimace.
“I don’t know. I guess I could go poking around after all,” he says reluctantly, staring out the windows at the grey street.
Now that it’s looking more and more like an option – like the only option – it’s looking less and less appealing. Banshees are something you sneak up on, not something you let sneak up on you – once they’ve got the upper hand, you’re done.
“Yeah, well, let’s hold off on premeditated suicide for the time being.” Dean pulls out onto a main road, one that according to Sam’s art project will take them through the Rectangle of Doom.
It’s a good name for what turns out to be a really boring part of town mostly made up of the usual little stores you get wherever a lot of people converge – newspaper stands, convenience stores, delis and coffee shops. Some retail, mostly no-name outfits with mannequins displaying bland run-of-the-mill products. Really, just the mundane centre of a settlement on the awkward line between town and city.
They cruise through the dull streets at a loss, and unsurprisingly see absolutely nothing suspicious, while the sun dips lower and lower on the horizon behind the squat buildings. If they had had any enthusiasm to begin with, it has melted away by the second loop of the downtown area, Dean scowling, Sam staring out his window stiff-shouldered.
“Since we’re going to be around for a couple of days,” says Jimmy dryly from the back seat, “could we drop off my clothes at a dry cleaner’s?”
Dean glances back in the mirror, eyes dropping to take in his, Dean’s, clothes, and raises an eyebrow.
“My old clothes,” elaborates Jimmy, thumbing towards the trunk.
Dean swallows his initial reply, that the only place it would pay to drop them off would be in a garbage can. He, at least, has the Impala to give him some sort of stability, insignificant and pathetic as that is. The only things Jimmy retains of his old life are the clothes he walked out the door in. Dean shrugs.
“Sure, if you see one.”
At least it gives them something tangible to look for.
Dusk falls without them turning up any more clues to the banshee, no significant glances between Dean, Angel at Large, and the unknown Abomination. They do, on the other hand, turn up a dry cleaner’s and Jimmy goes in with a few bills and his bundle of clothes while the brothers wait in the car and watch the street lights come on. In the cold air, the heat rises white and misty from the Impala’s hood.
“This isn’t going to work,” says Dean, hands resting lightly on the wheel. Sam’s staring out vaguely into the street, watching the thin crowd of passers-by. “We need another plan. A plan that doesn’t involve live bait, preferably.”
“I can look through what sources we have again, but I doubt there will be much. Banshee’s are alive so there’s no way to summon them, and there’s nothing they’re drawn to, except grief and fear. If it hadn’t turned bad, we might have had a chance tracking it through the hospitals and graveyards.” Sam keeps his eyes on the sidewalk, for all that’s worth.
Dean gives him a look. “Dude, if it hadn’t turned bad, we wouldn’t be trying to track it.”
Sam shrugs, morose but unruffled. “Yeah, well, the only other option is to try to lure it out with a huge blaze of fear, and the only way I can think of to do that is resorting to large-scale terrorism.”
Dean nods, considering. Sam turns to stare at him.
“Dean, we are not resorting to terrorism!”
“It’s not like we’d actually hurt anyone,” protests Dean. “Just… hold up a bank, or something.”
“Yeah, because that worked out so well last time.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, we’re kind of low on options here.”
At this point the dry cleaner’s door opening catches the yellow glow of the streetlights and reflects it into the front seat of the Impala, and they quiet down.
“No way, Dean,” hisses Sam, watching Jimmy cross the pavement, arms empty this time.
“We’re low on options, don’t throw it out.”
“I’m sure as hell throwing it out!”
Jimmy opens the back door, and Sam’s forced to finish his refusal through his teeth, glaring at Dean who glares back and then pastes on an overly enthusiastic face as he turns to greet Jimmy.
“Hey! How’d it go?”
Jimmy gives him a slightly wary look. “Uh, fine. They’ll be ready the day after tomorrow. If we’re still around then, the lady said there’s a tailor down the street.”
Dean blinks at the concept of a tailor, but lets it drop.
“Well,” he says, with brittle brightness, “time for dinner!”
----------------------------------------------
Dinner is the usual family restaurant fare. Sam sulkily orders a soup and salad; Jimmy works his way up to a toasted sandwich. Dean rolls his eyes at the wusses he’s surrounded by and goes with the ribs.
“You’re gonna have a heart attack by 40.” Sam, official killjoy.
“Yeah, you just wish you had my metabolism.”
“Nothing on this planet would want your metabolism if it meant eating like you.”
Jimmy eats his sandwich staring at the plate in front of him, eyes dull as dusty tin.
----------------------------------------------------
The motels in a pretty quiet part of town, and tall trees line the street on either side of it, giving it a secluded feel. With Jimmy’s back to be looked after, it’s just easiest for him to bunk with Dean. Sam takes his bag and heads to his room 3 doors down – Dean, mired determinedly in the pre-90s when it comes to music, doesn’t comment – to do some research.
Dean – or rather Castiel – sees to Jimmy’s back, and it’s routine enough now that neither of them needs to say anything. Jimmy lies back on his stomach on his bed when they’re finished, stares at the pillow tucked under a lurid cover of pink and purple squares merging together to make a pattern more hideous than the sum of its parts.
Dean sorts through the contents of his pockets, balling up the receipts to be burned later – years of training prevents him from leaving a trail behind without his even thinking about it – and tosses the usual collection of lint, string, paper clips and mysterious pebble-like objects that always build up unobtrusively over time in any pocket.
He’s just contemplating the contents of his wallet when out of nowhere Jimmy’s voice breaks the silence.
“Can you ask him something?” says Jimmy, with a quiet gruffness and absolutely no preamble, causing Dean to start and glance over at the man in surprise.
“Uh,” says Dean, but Cas stirs in the back of his mind, creeping slightly closer before he has time to address the angel. “He’s listening.”
Jimmy sits up in a prolonged rustle of cloth, facing the wall. Dean’s shirt is bunched up just high enough at the hem that a sliver of white is visible. “Are they alright? My family?” The line of his spine is straight as a post, shoulders tense. His voice is sharp and constrained.
Dean’s got answers of his own to that, but Castiel ruffles against the deep walls of his mind in an almost uncomfortable sensation probably intended to shut him up.
Tell him, rumbles the angel in an easier tone than Dean’s heard him use in a long time, that they were safe when I took residence here. My brothers and sisters will watch them in my absence.
“Yeah,” repeats Dean. “They were before this whole mess, and he says he’s got the other angels looking out for them. That’s a hell of a lot more than most people can say,” he adds in an aside.
Jimmy doesn’t exactly relax, but the sharp lines of his shoulders smooth out somewhat.
“You know, you could have found that out yourself with a phone call.” Dean ignores Castiel’s heavy shifting; the angel, while he may be hinting at leaving well enough alone, hasn’t come out to say it, and Dean’s not in the habit of taking hints anyway.
“Yes,” agrees Jimmy stiffly, without looking around.
“Look,” begins Dean, and gets no further because Jimmy swivels around to face him. His eyes are flashing in the poor fluorescent lighting, and for an instant Dean forgets that he’s not an angel, that he right now is much weaker than Dean himself. Very nearly recoils.
“Do you want to know what’s worse than losing a parent? Losing one by stops and starts for years. Having a father who never calls, never writes. A father you’re not even sure is alive, except when he shows up a year, two years, five years after the last time he did and knows nothing about you. A father who’s there not when his family needs him, only when he needs them. A father who lingers around like a goddamn cancer, not a real parent at all but still keeping you from ever really settling down, finding closure. You can never have another father figure because he might come back tomorrow except he won’t. And by the time he finally dies, he’s already screwed your childhood to hell and back. I’d rather my family lose my in one clean break than put them through that; only a truly selfish bastard would do that to them.”
Jimmy’s up and across the room before Dean’s really taken in his words.
“I’m going to get something to drink,” he says, and slams out of the room, leaving Dean staring at the wrinkled covers on the bed opposite.
We have none of us had easily knowable fathers, whispers Castiel. He, rather than losing faith as you did, found it. You will look after him.
“You can still praise his faith, when this is what it’s brought him?” Dean stands, ignoring the harder issue of the angel’s unusual interest in his host for the easier kill and tucks a pistol into the waistband of his pants.
Faith is the greatest of all virtues, no matter the price.
“You and I are never going to see eye to eye on that. Look what it’s done to him. Hell, look what it’s done to you, Cas!”
There’s a prick of emotion that stabs straight to Dean’s heart, and then the angel shifts abruptly, so heavily that Dean actually loses his balance and has to catch himself against a wall.
Do not presume to know me. The angel’s harsh voice echoes through Dean’s ears, louder than thunder, louder than a train over a bridge, louder than he’s ever known it, and Dean rocks and presses his hands to his temples. He’s still grimacing through the aftershocks when the door opens, doesn’t even hear it.
“Dean, Jimmy just – Dean? Hey, Dean! What’s wrong? Dean?!”
He feels Sam’s hands on his arms, tries to take a step forward and misjudges his balance completely. Sam catches him and guides him to the bed, sets him down on the edge. He cracks open his eyes and squints up at Sam, squatting in front of him. “Dean? What’s wrong? Is it Cas?”
“Damn straight it’s Cas,” he hisses. And then, rubbing at his temples, “Fuck…”
It’s a few more seconds before the final echoes die away and he can recognise that Castiel has retreated into a tighter huddle than he’s ever taken, has covered up his light as if to relieve the eyes of a migraine-sufferer. When he speaks it’s in a smooth, cool voice that nevertheless thrums uncomfortably against Dean’s still-sensitive ears. However, all traces of the earlier storm are gone.
I apologize for my outburst. If you wish me to go, I will.
“I just wish you’d learn to turn down the goddamn volume.” Dean presses his fingers firmly against the bridge of his nose, ache lessening somewhat.
I will try. There’s almost no emotion in Castiel’s voice; it’s clear he has retreated into the coldest, most distant form he knows.
“Dean?” Sam’s watching him with his I’m concerned but not worried, definitely, not worried at all face.
“Just a little dust-up. We’re all good. I think.”
Castiel is silent, and Dean doesn’t feel any guilt from the angel, but he also doesn’t feel any of the previous anger. Or, more tellingly, the stab of pain he picked up for just an instant before Cas tried to bring the house down.
Dean’s really starting to hate Castiel’s brethren. He’s also starting to know that the angel’s nowhere as firmly grounded as he’d like them to believe. He tries to wipe the thought from his mind as soon as he realises it, but it’s probably too late. Nevertheless, when Castiel speaks next he makes no mention of it.
Dean, Jimmy, prompts the angel quietly, and Dean looks up, hand dropping away. Sam catches his intention, and stands to turn toward the door. “Right, Dean, I just saw Jimmy heading out towards the corner, looking like hell. What happened?”
Dean’s on his feet now too, though, balance finally kicking in. “I’ll tell you later. C’mon, we’d better go grab him. He said he was going to get a drink,” he adds, remembering.
They hurry out into the biting night, cold wind clawing in under jackets too thin for this weather, and make for the end of the row of rooms and the covered vending machine area where the artificial neon lights have lit the darkness in cheery tones of red and blue.
The covered vending machine area which is completely empty.