inonebasket | (no subject)

Judging by the blood pouring down his face and the way his hands shake, probably not. Cas spits out a gob and coughs; his nose is obviously broken.

The waitress is quite suddenly in front of Dean and grabs his wounded arm in a crushing grip, wrenching Castiel away from him and throwing the ex-angel to the floor. She stomps a foot onto Cas's chest and pushes Dean back into the booth. "Sit down, tiger. We're going to have a talk."

Edited 2011-11-23 05:30 (UTC)

Dean grits his teeth in pain and falls into the booth more than he's pushed into it. There's nothing he'd like more than to decapitate this bitch--and him without his machete.

"Don't you touch him!" If he weren't cradling his arm, he would be up and beating the shit out of her. Dean flicks his eyes down to Cas--oh man, he doesn't look good--and back up to the waitress. "I swear, lady, you do anything else to him and I will tear you a new one."

Between the blood oozing down the back of his throat and the unusually strong foot pressing into his solar plexus, Cas is having some trouble breathing. He glances around, looking for something, anything he can use, but their silverware is on the table and the only thing he has nearby is a napkin and their bill. Castiel coughs and spits out more blood, gritting his teeth and screwing his eyes shut as he claws futilely at the waitress's ankle. Not now. Not when Dean needs him, he can't be useless now-!

The waitress seems unaffected by their panic, however, and just raises a brow at Dean as if to ask 'really?' "Shut your pretty mouth and I won't put my foot through his ribcage. I said I wanted to talk to you, and talking is what we're going to do. Understand?"

"Little late for talking now, bitch. You wanted to do that, you shouldn't have spent the last couple months jonesing for our blood!"

Just hang on, Cas. Dean is going to find a way out of this.

Cas would probably be able to hang on a lot easier if Dean would stop antagonizing the monster standing on his chest. As it is, the waitress Leviathan clearly has had enough of Dean's lip and presses the toes of her high heel against Cas's chest; there's an audible snap and Castiel chokes, eyes flying open as she begins to break his ribs one by one.

"I. Said. Quiet."

"Cas--" Dean cuts himself off. Dammit. Dammit, he's got nothing and the waitress is going to kill Cas.

Once Dean interrupts himself she stops; four ribs total that leave Cas shuddering and pale with shock on the floor, and the waitress lifts her toes to rest her foot back on Castiel's stomach. "You really don't learn any way but the hard way, do you Deany? Always letting other people get hurt for the sake of your bravado. Not very nice."

Leaning forward and resting her hand on the table, she fixes him with a coy smile. "Now. Word gets around. Seems like you and good ol' Castiel have been traveling around beheading my pals and experimenting on kill-tactics. Good for you." Her hand snaps out to wrap in Dean's hair and she yanks his head forward. "Stop it. I'm going to let you live for now so you can spread the word to all your other hunter pals, but I'm going to be keeping some insurance." Her eyes dart down to the side, in Castiel's direction, before returning to Dean's. "You don't stop trying and not only will I flay him alive and make you watch, but we'll stop taking things easy and go into overdrive and eat every man, woman and child we come across. Capice?"

God, he hates creepy bitches like this. Between demons and Leviathans, he's hard pressed to say which he hates more. He grunts when she yanks him forward, glaring at her like--well, like he'd like to kill her. Which he'd like to do.

"You touch him again and I will kill every single freaking one of you, if it's the last thing I do." Which is...kind of agreeing to her terms? But he's a little busy trying to remember where the nearest hospital is to notice that little detail.

The waitress giggles, and it's a disgustingly childish sound. "But I'm touching him right n-"

The sentence remains unfinished as a glass jar of clear liquid flies across the room and smashes against the back of her head. She starts in surprise, pushing Dean away and whirling around when suddenly, her hair and scalp begin to hiss and spit and slough off of her skull.

She screams, kicking Castiel in her desperate effort to scramble away, clawing at her head and coming away with clumps of black-bloody hair and tissue and bone, oozing and sputtering.

Cas curls up in on himself reflexively before straightening out with a jerk; his body can't seem to find a movement that doesn't hurt and it leaves him still and white, hyperventilating on the tile as he tries not to take deep breaths, alternating between watching the waitress sizzle and nearly passing out.

Sam is circling the counter as the waitress scrambles away from Dean and Castiel, a yellow mop bucket hefted over his head. He dumps it onto the Leviathan and she screams again, gurgling as she folds onto the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, melting into a puddle of hair, black blood and cloth.

Sam watches to make sure she's completely dead before turning to Dean and Cas, long strides bringing him to them in a matter of milliseconds. "Dean."

Dean launches himself out of the booth the second the waitress starts screaming. He's by Castiel's side in a heartbeat, muttering completely useless but hopefully encouraging words to him. See? Everything's fine. Sort of.

"Sam." It's an acknowledgement and a plea. "Come on, Cas. We'll get you up and to a hospital. You'll be fine." How he'll manage to do any lifting with a bum arm is beside the point.

"Wait-" Sam is on his knees on Cas's other side as the former angel's eyelashes flutter, fighting for consciousness, and rests a hand on his brother's arm to stop him. He "We shouldn't move him, not without a- a stretcher, something to keep him still. Might puncture a lung. Call an ambulance."

"I don't--" He still hasn't gotten a replacement phone. He keeps meaning to, but then there was Cas to deal with and then they were operating below the radar and dammit--wait. Wait, Cas has a cellphone. He starts digging through Cas' pockets in search of it. "Sorry about this, Cas. It's for a good cause, I swear. We'll get you an ambulance, get you patched up, get you well. It's gonna be okay. I promise, you're gonna be fine."

Honestly, he's reassuring himself more than he's reassuring Cas, because he cannot survive that loss a second time.

Watching Dean panic like this hurts something deep down inside of Sam and he can't watch his big brother lose it. He shucks his jacket and rolls it up, lifting Cas's head and slipping the makeshift pillow underneath to help the blood slide down his throat instead of pool in the back of it. Castiel's eyes roll to rest on Sam before slipping up beneath his eyelids. He's not doing well.

Something across the room glints star-bright and makes Sam wince, as if someone had just flashed their high-beams in the rearview mirror. "What the hell is that?" he asks quietly, almost to himself, and he stands and crosses the room toward the puddle of Leviathan still steaming.

Picking up a fork from the ground, Sam moves aside a fold of the goo-drenched apron and flinches back when the thing flashes bright again. "Dean-"

"Little busy here, Sam!" Dean's found the phone. He puts it up on the table, pulling off his own jacket to drape it over Cas in an attempt to keep him warm. "Unless you just found the freaking holy grail, I don't wanna hear it!"

"I think I did. Dean, come look." Sam reaches for the- he still can't see it, the light is too bright to focus on the object, but that alone is clue enough. When he reaches into the light and snaps back with a hiss, he examines his fingertips.

Red. Like a sunburn, on his fingers. "Dean, I think it's Grace."

"What?" That gets his attention and Dean stops short of hitting the call button. With a glance down at Cas--oh god, he's not looking good--Dean scrambles to his feet and over to Sam, squinting down at the light.

"What the hell was it doing inside that thing?" No. That doesn't matter and anyway, Dean can guess. He heads back to Cas. "Neither of us can pick that up--help me get him over to it!"

If it's Grace, then Dean was right and Cas is going to be fine. If it's not...Dean's just not going to think about that.

Sam glances over at Cas- if they're wrong and they move him, they could kill him. "Hold on." He hooks the fork in the dress and prays that his amazingly simple idea works. He drags the dress along the floor.

The light comes with it. Score one for the genius moose!

When Sam has the dress and Grace only a couple feet away from Castiel, the former angel suddenly inhales and turns his head, eyes clouded over with pain and shock. The light strobes and bends, twisting into a fine smoke which drifts toward Castiel who, taking another deep breath, inhales it into his body.

His eyes flash bright white light and his back arches up off the ground before he collapses with a thump, head lolling to the side, still as a corpse.

Hey. Why didn't Dean think of that?

On his knees by Cas' side, Dean flings an arm over his face instinctively when the light flares bright, peeking back out after a second.

"Cas?" He's way too still. But it looked like Grace and it flared like Grace so why isn't he healed already? "Cas!"

Because it was a tiny little pea-sized speck of Grace ok, that's why. Give the poor thing a minute.

A few seconds is all it takes; there's a snapping sound like legos clicking into place and all of a sudden Castiel's nose doesn't look so broken anymore. There's still blood all over his face, down his shirt, but he's sitting up with a bewildered look on his face, a hand pressing against his chest as if he doesn't quite know what happened.

It worked.

The damn things had Grace inside of them. Suddenly everything he and Bobby had been agonizing over for months suddenly make sense; their resilience, their strength, their ability to withstand almost every monster-killing substance known to hunters everywhere. Who knew why cleaning solutions worked, but the waitress didn't look like she was going to be pulling herself together again, and Cas was healed.

...Cas. Sam had gotten the heads up from Bobby, but actually seeing him is waking up a lot of emotions Sam isn't ready to deal with so he stands and clears his throat. "I'm. I'll get my stuff. Move it into the Impala." He already knows it's okay, and ducks hurriedly out to collect his duffel from his stolen vehicle. It was about time he changed cars to avoid the law anyway, even if the Impala isn't the best choice with which to do that.

Dean will deal with Sam later. Right now all of his attention is on Cas. Cas, who is miraculously not dying anymore.

"Dammit, Cas." That's all he can manage to get out and his voice still cracks at the end. He was actually terrified there. Still kind of is. He scrubs a hand over his face roughly, completely ignoring the way his cheeks feel sticky. "Don't you ever do that to me again."

Castiel curls his fingers into fists, then opens them. He glances over at Dean and, without a word, reaches over to brush his fingertips across Dean's forehead-

But nothing happens. Cas glares down at his palm as if it had betrayed him. "Damn." He'd been hoping there was enough juice left to heal Dean.

Dean tries to laugh. It's more like a wheeze.

"Careful. Cutting pretty close to blasphemy there."

"They have my Grace, Dean." Castiel's tone is both hopeful and outraged. Those things- But no, he had sworn he felt the end, but what is the death of an angel if not the scattering of Grace? What was the wording of that human law? Something about matter never being destroyed, just changing atomic structure. A crude way of putting it, but...