inonebasket | (no subject)

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...

"Yeah, and believe me, I've never been so glad to almost get my eyes burned out." Ah, screw it. He reaches out and yanks Castiel into a tight hug, the kind usually reserved for family. "I mean it, Cas. Don't ever do that to me again."

If Cas hadn't been wanting to do the exact same he'd probably be startled. As it is he only freezes for a fraction of a second before his shoulders lower and he wraps his arms hesitantly around Dean in return. His near brush with death even emboldens him somewhat, enough to let him edge a hand up to the back of Dean's neck, fingers brushing the fringes of his hair. "My apologies."

Dean tolerates that for a solid ten seconds before he sits back on his haunches, looking away. "Yeah. Well. Looks like Sam and Bobby figured out how to kill those sons of bitches, so what say we start getting you your mojo back?"

Castiel shakes and picks himself up off the ground. "...I need to talk to Sam. Alone."

Surprisingly, Dean actually has to fight the urge to take hold of Cas and drag him back down. "Right. Yeah--yeah, you two uh...you have a lot to catch up on. I'll just wait. In here."

With the introduction of his Grace back into the equation, Castiel already feels braver. Feels like he can succeed, really begin to actually redeem himself, and with every Leviathan they kill, Castiel will become more capable of protecting Sam and Dean.

It's doable. Hell, it's downright possible.

Castiel heads outside and stays there for nearly fifteen minutes with Sam. When he returns, he opens the door just widely enough to poke his head inside. "Dean. We're ready to go."

It was only a little Grace. Don't get cocky, Cas.

Dean paces the diner while he waits, breaking into the countertop cooler for a piece of pie. Hell, he takes the whole thing. Maybe Sam and Cas will want some, too. He tries not to look too relieved when Cas sticks his head back in the door.

He follows Cas out to the car without a word and tries not the think about how they'll manage motel rooms from here on out. Sharing space with Cas when it's just the two of them is one thing, sharing space when Sammy's around is something entirely different, and Dean's pretty sure motels don't usually have rooms with three beds in them.

And no, Sam, he is not going back to the safehouse. Not yet.

Dean's withdrawn enough to just drive quietly, letting conversation and questions flow over him like water. He drives aimlessly for the most part, stopping at some point for everyone to eat and take care of other business and eventually finding a motel when he's too tired to keep going (because he doesn't trust Sam with his baby and Cas drives like his grandmother) where he gets a room with two beds without even thinking about it.

For the majority of the car ride, Castiel is quiet in the backseat with his old trenchcoat in his hands, examining the stains of blood and Leviathan ooze around its collar. He barely remembers the reservoir, but now that he thinks back he doesn't actually remember his moment of death. He doesn't remember his wings burning bright and hot on his back. He'd just...assumed.

When Dean rents a room with two beds it doesn't even faze him. Without blinking, Castiel requests extra bedding and accepts the blankets from over the counter. He'll make a pallet for himself on the floor.