Big Bang Fic: Immigrant Song (Episode 6x03)

[trinityofone]

Dean spun the laptop around with a flourish. “I’ve got three words for you,” he said, grinning. “Lesbian. Nun. Orgy.”

For a moment, Sam looked like he might cry. Then he pulled himself together. “Dean, we’ve talked about this. Porn,” he said, stretching out his right hand far from his body, then mirroring it with his left. “Reality. Do I have to get out the flashcards again?”

Dean gleefully pointed at the screen. “Lesbian nun orgy! Read it and weep!”

“Oh, no doubt I will,” Sam said. He bent his head.

His eyebrow rose back up a moment later. “'News of improper conduct at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow has leaked due to one of its former sisters, who has revealed that on the fifth of October, the entire convent was, she claims, “possessed by a powerful force” that caused all of its members to commit “a series of sinful and unseemly acts” that “defy description.”' Huh.”

“Lesbian nun orgy,” Dean confirmed, the words tripping merrily off his tongue. Then he half-turned, deliberately, glancing over at the bed. “Oh, I’m sorry, Cas. Am I making you uncomfortable?”

Castiel looked up from where he was taking his turn inspecting and cleaning their arsenal, his long, slim fingers moving over each gun and knife with brisk, sure-wristed efficiency. “No. There is nothing about lesbians or nuns to cause me discomfort.” His gaze met Dean’s, blue and guileless. “Or about orgies, for that matter.”

The hair on the back of Dean’s neck prickled; he looked quickly away. “Go on,” he told Sam. “Read the rest.”

“I did. It said that several members of the order, along with an electrician who happened to be there doing repairs, were hospitalized for ‘exhaustion’ and ‘other ailments’ following the incident.”

“Heh. Lucky electrician. I bet he fixed their wiring, huh?”

Sam regarded him. “You wish desperately that it had been a plumber, don’t you?”

“I do,” said Dean with a sigh. “I really do.”

“Do you really think this warrants investigation?” asked Castiel from the bed.

“Well, it’s not like there’s been a lot happening lately,” Sam said. He paused. “Why did I just say that like it’s a bad thing?”

“I think this is our best bet.” Dean let his laptop click closed in satisfaction. “Unless it makes you uncomfortable, Cas,” he said again. He was a gentleman like that.

“Not at all,” Castiel said. Dean could feel Cas’ eyes burning into the back of his skull. “In fact, I’m looking forward to it. I suspect the nuns will be quite fond of me.”

---

The Mother Superior was immediately taken with Cas. She had tired circles under her eyes and a slightly rumpled wimple, but Castiel simply looking at her was enough to make her attempt a shaky smile as she offered them a seat. Castiel smiled back, a warm, human smile that Dean would’ve sworn he’d been practicing in front of the mirror. He had to be trying it out somewhere, and it certainly wasn’t anywhere Dean got to see.

Dean himself wasn’t smiling. From what he’d seen as they’d been led back to the Mother Superior’s office, the nuns at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow were hardly the nubile, sylph-like creatures of his imaginings. He glanced up at the Mother Superior’s pasty skin and not sufficiently covered chicken neck and, remembering some of the scenarios he’d envisioned, felt a little sick. Yep, he was definitely going to let Castiel do the talking.

He let Castiel explain to Sam what they found out, too—not that there was much to it. The nuns were, perhaps unsurprisingly, tight-lipped and embarrassed. “But we discovered that the sister who gave the interview is not the only one who has left the order,” Cas told Sam. Then without adjusting the phone or doing anything to indicate that he was now talking to Dean, he said, “He wants to know if we can go talk to her as he is still waiting for Sister Mary Eunice to return. The former Sister Mary Eunice—no, you’re quite right. I don’t think that should be any trouble. I told Sam that would be fine. We’ll meet you back at the motel. He’s going to meet us back at the motel when he’s done.”

Dean squeezed his eyes shut in hopes of warding off the incipient headache. “Yeah, I got that. I think.”

They drove to the apartment where the other nun—one Sister Mary Agnes; nuns weren’t very creative, apparently—was supposedly staying. “Hey, Cas,” Dean said as they circled the block, looking for a parking space. “What’s black and white and red all over?”

Castiel considered that for several seconds. Then, “A newspaper,” he said.

Dean shook his head and started to grin, then stopped. “No— I mean, yeah, that’s one— Oh, forget it.”

They finally found a spot and walked back the few blocks to the apartment. It was in a depressing, red-brick building that was crumbling and fading to grey. The elevator was broken, so they slogged up six flights of stairs, avoiding spills of dubious origins on the landings. Dean didn’t have to look around him so much as inhale to know that this was nowhere anyone would go if they weren’t running from something, if they weren’t trying to hide.

When they reached the apartment, Dean gave Castiel a look that suggested he thought Cas should take the lead. Castiel was getting better at interpreting these things: he blinked at Dean for several seconds before raising a hand and knocking briskly on the door.

They heard a thump from inside, but no footsteps. No one answered.

Castiel knocked again. This time they both leaned close and listened: Dean could hear a few creaks, what sounded like someone creeping forward and approaching the door. Dean tapped Cas on the shoulder, then pointed at the peephole. Castiel watched him as he proceeded to take out his CDC badge and hold it up; after a few seconds, Cas followed suit.

“Right side up,” Dean whispered. “Ten points.”

To Dean’s great delight, Cas rolled his eyes.

It was time to concentrate, though. “Ma’am,” he said, loud but level. “We’re sorry to bother you, but we’d really appreciate it if you could open up.”

Several seconds passed. “Ma’am...” Dean started again, but quickly cut himself off when he heard a shaky voice answer, “I don’t have anything to say. I just want to be left alone.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s a matter of public health and safety, ma’am.”

“You’ll be doing your duty,” Cas added in a soft voice.

Apparently, that did the trick. There was the sound of a chain being adjusted, and then the door opened a crack. Dean could see wide, red-rimmed brown eyes, a fringe of pale blonde hair, a pinched and drawn and too-thin face. This woman was much more like what Dean had imagined for Happy Lesbian Nun Fun Times Play Hour—except she looked sick and shaky and twenty pounds underweight.

“May we come in?” Dean asked.

The woman shook her head, no.

Dean gave Castiel the nod.

“Ma’am,” he tried, his awkwardness with lying beneficial in some ways, making every word he spoke seem careful and considered. “We understand that you were involved in the recent...incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow.”

Dean could see the woman’s knuckles whiten where she was clenching the door. “That wasn’t my fault. I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“No one is suggesting you did,” Dean pointed out reasonably. “But if you have information regarding what happened at the convent, you have a legal obligation to tell us.”

“More important than that,” Castiel said, fixing the woman with an intense blue stare the likes of which mob bosses and corrupt politicians were liable to crack under, “you have a moral obligation.”

The woman took several shuddering breaths. Her gaze flickered back and forth between them, coming to rest on Castiel with something akin to pleading in her eyes. Castiel nodded at her, gently.

For an instant her lips parted. Then she twitched, shut down; within seconds she was shaking her head, shutting the door. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t know anything. Please just leave me alone. I just want to be left alone.”

Dean thought about wedging his foot in the door, but it was already slamming shut.

Castiel turned to Dean. “She knows something,” he said seriously.

Dean rolled his eyes and started for the stairs. “Thanks, Watson.”

Dean could tell Cas’ brow was creasing without having to turn and look. “Why am I now Watson?”

Dean stepped over something dark and squishy looking wrapped in a plastic bag. “Because you just said something dumb and obvious.”

“Doctor Watson is not dumb,” protested Castiel. “Have you actually read the book you gave me?”

“Dude, it was a joke. You take things way too seriously. You’re going to have to learn that people don’t mean half the shit they say.”

“Then maybe they should talk less.” Castiel seemed proud of this conclusion.

Dean wanted to laugh, but... “You know, you’re probably right. But Cas...” He held the door open and let Castiel step in front of him out into the hazy twilight. “You gotta remember that it’s the stuff we really shouldn’t be doing that’s often the most fun.”

It was, perhaps, in the spirit of this that they decided to leave a message for Sam to meet them at a local bar instead of back at the motel. “We should discuss how to get more information out of Sister Mary Agnes,” Castiel said, sitting down with their beers.

“You’re right, we should,” Dean said.

They didn’t.

Instead they took their beers and went and played a game of pool. It was nice, for a change, to play just for the heck of it, not trying to hustle anybody, just concentrating on the force and the angles. Castiel was getting good: he’d risen from his final fall with a still slightly unnatural, easy sense of mortal grace, which over time was becoming more languid, the way he moved his body increasingly clever and seductive and human. The best part was, he still had no idea. Dean watched him curl his long fingers around the cue, stretch out his slimly muscled arms, bend over the table. He watched the two girls by the jukebox watch Cas, watch them both, and he felt an eagerness push through him, an excitement he hadn’t felt in months—in years.

“This is really good beer,” Castiel said, licking a stray drop from the mouth of the bottle.

After that, things got a little hazy.

---

No, that’s not true. The important bits, the crucial bits, those Dean remembered, could recall to his mind’s eye with perfect clarity: high-def, full-color, 3D. The two girls converging on him and Cas like opposite ends of a magnet. Cas’ usual, hard-to-pique interest coming suddenly online, the way his lips parted and his eyes grew hooded, gazing down at the one girl’s curves, his breath hitching in his chest— Dean knew right then that this was going to be the night, the moment, finally. He knew right then that he wanted to be there to see it.

They all went back to the motel together. Dean couldn’t even have imagined what would have happened if Sam had been there; his only thought was that they were all going to go back to the motel together. There was never any discussion of getting a second room. The blonde who had curled a hand possessively around Dean’s wrist took her top off almost the moment they were in the door. The brunette Cas was with, Dean was pleased to see, was slower, more teasing, more seductive. She grabbed him by the collar and tugged him down to her, sucking on the curve of his lip, twining her arms around his neck, kissing him, kissing him, kissing him.

Dean groaned and lay back on the bed, letting the blonde girl tug at his zipper, pull down his dress pants, take him in her hot little mouth.

On the other bed, Cas and his girl were still making out; Dean could hear him issuing the occasional sigh or groan, low in his throat. Dean watched as he gently stroked her neck, coaxed her supine, kissed her chin and her throat, the hollow of her collarbone, the soft swell of her breast. Dean’s body shook from the blonde girl’s ministrations. He cupped her chin, enticed her up; he wanted to make this last.

Together, Cas and his girl were taking her top off; Dean decided it was time to take his own shirt off, too. The blonde liked this: she nipped at his nipples, scratched her nails down her chest. The brunette made a lewd noise when Castiel sucked the bud of one of her nipples into his mouth. Cas’ hips were stuttering, he was clearly eager, so eager, to be inside her, take her, fill her, claim her.

Breathe, Dean wanted to remind him. Breathe.

The blonde was bouncing on his thighs; Dean ran a hand up under her skirt, flicking her lazily, finding the spot and rubbing her with the base of his thumb. He watched Cas lick into the brunette’s belly button, slide the tight black pants and the shimmery pink panties she was wearing down. He had to be aching, encased in those jeans. “Condom?” Dean said, and the blonde swooped down and retrieved one from her purse, grinning. “Cas,” Dean said, voice hoarse. He chucked the little foil packet at him. Cas didn’t catch it; it landed on the bed. But for a second their eyes met.

Cas couldn’t quite get the condom on; his hands were shaking. The brunette seemed more than happy to help him. The blonde had, somewhat grumpily, retrieved a second one for herself and Dean; she sheathed him, businesslike, mounted him roughly. Dean felt himself plunged into heat. Cas was sliding into his girl with a determined virgin’s awkwardness; she gripped his biceps, held him steady, smiled when he threw his head back and moaned. “Go on, go ahead,” Dean heard her say. “Give it to me.”

He gave it to her. In between the rise and fall of the blonde girl’s bouncing tits he could see the sloping curve of Cas’ back, the scissor-swish of his hips, in and out, in and out. Dean felt the squeeze of the blonde girl’s knees; he gripped her thighs. He felt hot and growing hotter, like a smoldering volcano. Cas’ hair curled damply along his forehead. His eyes were closed, his mouth taut. Dean said, “Cas,” low and pained and begging, and Castiel’s eyes snapped open, fixed themselves on Dean as Dean came, watched wide and aware as Dean broke apart, collapsed entirely with his slack lips still holding the shape of the word.

The girls left at some point after that. A little while later, Sam returned.

Luckily, he was in a loud, stompy mood. “Dean, what the hell kind of bar was that you—holy crap!”

He’d had just enough warning to tug a blanket up over his lower body. “It’s not what it looks like,” Dean said hastily.

Castiel had no such compunction. Out of the corner of his eye—where Dean was not looking, where Dean was definitely not looking—he could sort of kind of glimpse Castiel sprawled out on the other bed. “We had sex,” he announced proudly.

Sam grew saucer-eyed. “With women!” Dean practically bellowed. “There were two women here! They just left!”

“You know what, it’s cool, I’m just going to get another room.” Sam was shaking his head, backing toward the door. “I’ve more than exceeded my exhibitionist quotient for...”

He trailed off and turned back around. “Did you pick up the women at the bar? Is that where you were before you came here?”

“Yeah.” Dean was struggling to pull his jeans on under the covers. “Cas, when I look over there in a minute, you sure as hell better be clothed.”

“If you insist.”

“We both insist, Cas,” Sam said, bitchfacing like crazy. “Society kind of insists.”

Dean saw just a sliver of Castiel’s bare shoulders raised in a shrug.

Sam deliberately angled his body away from Castiel’s end of the room. “And before you were at the bar, you were interviewing the other sister—Mary Agnes?”

Dean nodded. “Yeah. Couldn’t get anything out of her, though.”

“Uh, I think you got something out of her, all right,” Sam said with a grim smile. “Half the people at that bar were all over each other when I got there. I’ve never seen so much PDA in my life. It was like Famine had swept through town, only with, you know.” He scratched at his temple. “Less cannibalism.”

Dean let his arms fall to his sides. “Wait, so you’re saying you think there’s some sort of lust dust in the air? And we got infected?” He breathed out a long sigh of relief.

Castiel, meanwhile, let out a brief, uproarious burst of laughter. Both Winchesters shot him a look. “‘Lust dust,’” he explained.

“Wow, you’re in a good mood,” Sam said.

“I had sex.”

“Oh, right.” Sam shifted, looking half-embarrassed and half-genuinely pleased. “Congrats, man.” He stepped forward, offering up his fist. Castiel examined Sam’s proffered knuckles for a moment before giving them an awkward tap with his own.

“That was by far the nerdiest fist bump I’ve ever seen,” Dean declared.

“Whoever that Mary Agnes woman comes in contact with seems to end up getting hot and heavy not long after,” Sam continued. “I did some research while I was waiting for Mary Eunice—who for the record didn’t have anything to tell me other than that I could call her Jennifer and that she wasn’t, um. Remotely interested in celibacy anymore.” Sam was blushing. Sam was blushing a lot. Dean would have loved to call him on it, but he didn’t want to focus on inappropriate sexual liaisons right now. “It seems little Mary Agnes has only been at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow for about four months. Before that, her name was Rosie Dunn, and she lived in a little town in West Virginia that has since reported what has got to be a record number of marriages and pregnancies.”

“So you’re thinking, what? Some kind of succubus?” Dean was so ready to gank a succubus.

“It she were a succubus, she’d be leaving a trail of bodies in her wake,” Castiel said with a shake of his head. He stretched languidly.

Sam nodded. “Yeah, that puzzled me, too. There’s also this.” Sam set his computer bag down, pulled out his laptop, opened it up and spun it around for them to see.

Dean blinked at the image on the screen. “I don’t get it.”

“That’s a gay pride flag,” Sam explained. “That was recently erected over the town hall. In West Virginia.”

Dean sat back with his shoulders hunched. “So it’s a liberal-minded succubus. So what?”

“It’s not a succubus.” Sam rolled his eyes. “I was thinking...Cas, do you think it could be a cupid—I mean, a cherub, gone rogue? Are there female cherubs?”

Castiel’s body drew itself straighter, stiffer. “Cherubs, like all angels, are sexless.”

Hearing him say this, sitting there all rumpled and recently debauched, made Dean positively itch to make a lewd comment. Once again he held his tongue.

“However, this is immaterial, as there are no cherubs or any other order of angel left on earth. As you well know.”

Two points of red actually blossomed on Sam’s cheeks. “Right. Sorry. Of course. I wasn’t thinking.”

“I think we need to pay Ms. Dunn another visit,” Castiel said, plucking his jacket up off the floor where it had been hastily discarded.

“Are you kidding me? After what she did to us last time? We’ll need Hazmat gear first.”

“I don’t feel like I’ve been adversely affected by the encounter,” Castiel said, snapping his shoulders into the jacket.

“Well, I’m glad you got off,” Dean said, not blushing, not blushing, “but she’s putting the whammy on people and forcing them to have sex!”

“Actually...” Sam said, scratching at the back of his head this time. He seriously needed to get a haircut. “I’m not sure that’s true. The other thing that, uh, Jennifer told me was that the tabloids that picked up her story greatly exaggerated what she said. Not everyone at the convent joined in, and of those that did, they weren’t all of them...um. Going at it together. Some of the sisters paired off, and there was another group that was basically just lining up to make use of the electrician...”

Sam was definitely blushing enough for ten or twelve people, anyway. “What, so you’re pro orgy now?” Dean snapped.

“No, no. I mean, at least not in these—people were still hospitalized. It was definitely out of control. But I’m not sure it was as violent or nonconsensual as we were originally led to believe.”

“All right, fine!” Dean said, getting up and stalking over to the other side of the room, pointlessly. “We’ll go check up on Little Miss Love Goddess.” He became aware that Castiel was staring at him. He crossed his arms, tried not to squirm. “What?”

“I think you may have stumbled upon the truth,” Castiel said, regarding him thoughtfully. “The behavior we’ve been witnessing could easily be the work of any one of numerous love or fertility deities.”

“A pagan goddess who joins a convent? Why?” Sam asked.

“Well, we’ll have to ask her,” Castiel said, oh-so-reasonably. Dean wanted to kick something.

All he got to kick was Rosie Dunn’s door in. She’d been utterly silent when they’d knocked, but now she screamed, hurdling her tiny frame behind a threadbare armchair. “Go away! Please just go away!”

Sam launched right into his best reassuring voice. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

“I can’t help it. I can’t stop it!” She was hysterical, her body curled up tight, her hair hanging stringy over her face. “I need to be left alone!”

“Lady, stop with the act.”

“I don’t think this is an act, Dean.”

Yeah, well, he didn’t really think so anymore either, but it never hurt to try. “You are the one who turned that convent into an episode of Nuns Gone Wild. Why?”

“I didn’t mean to! I swear I didn’t! I don’t want— These things just happen around me. I try to be good, I want to be good... That’s why I gave myself to Christ. I don’t want to be a sinner!”

Dean looked to Castiel, helplessly. Castiel knelt down on the floor.

“I don’t see a sinner here,” he told Rosie Dunn.

Castiel’s mouth was firm, his eyes kind. Suddenly he was the Castiel who had come to Dean in that barn: so full of righteous conviction. So sure and puzzled by lack of surety. You don’t think you deserve to be saved.

Rosie choked back another sob. “You don’t know, you don’t know... You can sin with the mind as easily as with the body!”

“And by whose standard do you judge yourself a sinner?”

She was weeping openly. “By God’s!”

And just like that he was gone, the old Castiel replaced by the new. Dean watched him war with himself for a minute. “God doesn’t judge you, I promise,” he said finally, and Dean suspected that only he and Sam would hear the weary resignation in Castiel’s tone. “And I think you judge yourself too harshly.”

The girl shook, hugged herself. “I have...desires. Abominable desires. I’ve never acted on them—never!—and I’ve prayed and prayed to be cleansed of them. For years I prayed! But then suddenly, all around me...” She looked up, abruptly, staring at the three of them in fear. “It’s probably happened to you, too. Or it will happen. I’ve made you into sinners just by letting you near!”

“This started four or five months ago?” Sam asked. “Back in May?”

She nodded. “I don’t... I just want to be good.”

Dean watched as Castiel reached forward and brushed the hair out of her face, squeezed her shoulder, gently. “I think you need to start being good to yourself,” he told her. She gave him a disbelieving, wide-eyed stared. “Think about it. We are going to come up with a plan. We’re going to help you.”

She nodded, just a bit, before Castiel got up and crossed the room, motioning for Dean and Sam to come after him.

“I was wrong,” was the first thing Castiel said, his voice low. “She is not a goddess; I don’t sense that power in her.”

“Well, what is she then?” Dean asked. “Besides a little...y’know.”

“Dean.” Sam turned away from him and focused on Castiel. “She said this started back in May. Do you think the timing could be significant? That it might have something to do with us? With when we defeated the devil.”

Castiel licked his lips. “More to do with what happened shortly thereafter.” They stared at him, made him say it. “My brothers and sisters abandoned this plane. They created a power vacuum.”

Sam looked swiftly back and forth between the girl and Castiel. He looked slightly embarrassed. “I’m still not quite following you, Cas.”

“Non-Judeo/Christian deities are in ascendancy. This was why even a long-slumbering godhead such as Zeus was so easily summoned and bound. There is a great deal of power waiting to be divided and seized.”

“But if she’s not a goddess—” Sam started.

Castiel shook his head. “Merely a descendant of one, I believe.”

“A descendant?”

“There are quite a large number of divine beings who rule over love or fertility who would fit the bill.” Castiel gave them both a significant look. “Do not presume that my— that the Christian God was the only one with favorite sons, special children...”

“So you’re saying that she’s some love goddess’ kid?” Dean looked over at the huddled figure in the corner. “And what—this is her stab at taking over the family business?”

Castiel shook his head. “No, I think her regret and confusion are genuine. She has no understanding of her powers, and worse, they are spiraling out of control due to her denial of her own desires.”

“So ‘repress and deny’ doesn’t work when you’re a fertility goddess?” Sam quirked an eyebrow.

“Not without apparently disastrous results.”

Dean let his fist fall against his leg with a sigh. “Remember when we used to just gank shit? I miss that.”

“It was certainly simpler,” Sam admitted.

“So what do we have to do now?” Dean asked Castiel. “Convince her to go get laid?”

Even Castiel grew a little wide-eyed at that. “I suppose so. Or at least not to feel so ashamed by what she desires.”

“Right, sure.” Dean drummed his fingers on his thigh. “No problem.”

None of them moved.

“C’mon!” Dean hissed after a minute. “What are you guys waiting for? Sam, you’re Mr. Touchy Feely, and Cas, you’re the great absolver of sins...go for it!”

Sam shrugged his shoulders. “Well, she already likes you,” he told Cas.

Castiel lifted his chin, fixing them both with a look of disdain. “Fine. I owe her thanks, anyway.”

“Why—” Sam got there. “Oh, right. Yeah, I guess.”

“Yeah,” said Dean, giving Castiel a rough pat on the back. “Go over there and say, ‘Thanks for getting me laid’ and just go from there. Foolproof.”

Dean caught the quick glare Castiel shot him as he crossed the room, though by the time he was back in front of Rosie, his expression had changed. He knelt across from her again. “Rosie,” he said. “We think we’ve figured out what’s causing these...disturbances. And it’s in your power to stop them.”

She looked up, full of shaky hope. “It is?”

Castiel nodded. “You need to stop denying yourself what you want. It’s not your fault, but everything you’re holding back, you’re sending it out into the world tenfold. You have to let it go.”

Rosie stared at him, dismayed. “You want me to give in? To sin?”

“Love is never a sin,” Castiel said, glancing up at Dean.

He must have sensed that Dean was about to interrupt. “We’re assuming what you’re repressing is plain old sexual desire,” Dean said. “If you’re repressing the desire to chop people up and keep them in your freezer for special occasions, that’s still bad.”

“Dean.”

“I’m just saying!” Rosie was staring at him: slack-jawed, appalled. “Sex is good, though. Really. And you’re a pretty girl. You should go have fun.”

“You are not helping,” Sam hissed. But Dean was more interested in Rosie, shaking her head at him.

“I’m not, though,” she said. “I’m a bad girl. Dirty and broken.”

“That is not true,” Castiel said.

“How do you know?” Rosie demanded. “You don’t know me!”

“I know dirty and broken, though,” Dean cut in. He swallowed and stepped closer. “And that is not you, okay? Trust me. Trust me, I know.”

“Dean...” Castiel said, looking up at him, the familiar regret in his eyes.

Dean shook his head, pushed him away without lifting a finger. “We’ve got the virgins leading the virgins here,” he said, crouching down. “Let me handle this.”

“I am not a virgin,” Castiel hissed, pulling himself awkwardly to his feet.

Dean snorted. “It’s been like two hours, Cas. Don’t get cocky.”

When he looked back at Rosie, she was holding her face in her hands. “So I soiled him, too,” she whispered.

“Nah, you did him a favor. Sure, it didn’t go down quite the way I’d— It was a little untraditional, but it was about time. I mean, no wonder he’s been so cranky.”

She didn’t respond at all to his grin. Dean stared at her. She was a pretty girl—he hadn’t been lying—but she looked like it had been years since she’d fed herself on anything other than self-hatred. She was letting it eat her up from the inside.

“What’s his name, then?” Dean asked quietly. “Some guy you like back in Lustville, West Virginia. Is he married, is that it?”

She shook her head.

“You can tell me. I promise, whatever it is, I’ve done worse. So much worse.”

One brown eye rolled to meet his, through that curtain of dirty hair. “Isabel,” she finally muttered. And when Dean continued to look blank, simply, “Her name.”

Oh. Oh. Well, he was an idiot. Not as big of one as she was, though. “That’s it?” he said. “That’s the big secret? You’re in love with a girl?”

“Not in love,” she muttered. “Can’t be love. Just sinful thoughts—”

“That’s not sinful, that’s hot,” Dean said, helpfully. Well, at least now she was glaring at him, and not directing that hate internally. “Seriously, did some idiot Bible-thumper pound that bullshit into you? You want me to thump ’em back?”

“What good would that do?”

She obviously meant it as some sort of moral question, but Dean took it at face value. “Well, it’d make me feel better, that’s for sure.”

She laughed, and Dean felt triumphant until he realized that the laughter had already dissolved into tears. “Hey, hey...” He stared at her helplessly, afraid to touch her, uncertain, suddenly, that everything he was doing wasn’t making things worse. “Rosie, sweetheart... What can I do to make you believe me about this?”

He glanced up at Sam and Castiel, watching him and Rosie with identical concerned expressions on their faces. Cas, he thought suddenly, wildly. Maybe if he showed her—

“I don’t think this is a problem that can be solved right away, Dean,” Sam said. “I mean...” He shifted uncomfortably. “We all know it’s not so easy to stop believing something you’ve always believed in. Or to forgive yourself—”

“Okay, okay,” Dean said, blushing without knowing why. “But we can’t just leave her like this...”

“Rosie, have you ever thought about seeing someone? A psychiatrist, I mean,” Sam explained.

She shook her head, almost automatic. Then slowly she looked up. “Do you think that would really help? Would stop me from—”

“From creating a roving Bacchanalia? Yeah. From being who you are? No. I know it doesn’t mean anything for me to say this, but you shouldn’t feel ashamed of yourself.”

Dean nodded. “Sam’s right, you should speak to somebody...not us. The three of us are pretty piss-poor therapists.”

“Is there someone you can stay with?” Sam asked. “A friend we can call?”

She shook her head. “I’ll be fine. I like being alone. Really.”

Dean hesitated. He didn’t feel good about this. Not at all. When you killed something, it was dead, it would stay down. He didn’t trust this not to pop back up like Glenn Close the second they were out the door.

“You’ll go see someone? You promise?” She nodded. “Lying is a sin,” Dean reminded her.

“So’s suicide,” she said, smiling wanly. “Believe me, I know.”

Out on the landing, Dean caught himself hugging his arms around his chest just the way Rosie had been. He made himself let go.

“I don’t like this,” he said. “I don’t like this at all.”

“I’m not sure what else we can do,” Sam said. He didn’t look very happy, either.

“People have to make their own choices,” Castiel said. “That’s what free will is.”

“Yeah, but—”

“At the very least I do not think she’ll allow herself to become so out of control again. Not now that she’s truly aware of her power.”

“Wait, whoa—so are we infected again?” Dean shot Castiel a nervous glance.

“The effects seem to be intense but temporary, so it’s possible that Sam, who has so far been unaffected, would be most vulnerable were she still exuding power. Do you feel like having sex, Sam?” Castiel asked, seriously.

Sam stuttered and blushed. “Well, yeah—but that doesn’t mean I’m going to.”

“Oh, so everything’s normal then,” Dean said with a grin. “Never mind.”

But it wasn’t normal. When they got back to the motel room, they were still confronted with the sight of two sets of messy, come-stained sheets. “I’m calling for the maid,” Sam said, wrinkling his nose. “Better yet, I’m calling to book a second room.”

Minutes later, Dean watched, appalled, as Sam picked up his stuff and headed next door. “Honestly, I could use a break anyway,” he said.

Dean was glad when the maid came with her judging eyes, forcing him and Castiel outside. At Castiel’s suggestion, they walked around the back of the motel to check out the landscape.

It was a gravel pit. “Nice gravel pit,” Dean confirmed. “We done now?”

“Dean.” Castiel was looking at him—looking looking at him, one of those deep, penetrating gazes that seemed to go all the way into him.

“What?” Dean asked warily.

“You said my name.”

Dean went cold.

“You said my name,” Cas repeated, pushing closer. Dean only realized he’d been retreating when his back hit the wall. Cas was huge in front of him. “Dean.”

He said it the way Dean had said it, said Cas, breathless and demanding and needy. He whispered it right up against Dean’s mouth, and to make it disappear Dean took it and swallowed it whole, sucked it out from between Castiel’s lips. He felt Cas clutch at him, and he knew this, it was familiar, it was pushing and tugging and getting right up in each other’s space, same as every time they fought, a natural extension of everything that had come before.

Perfectly natural. Racing through him, sizzling through his long-cold veins like a blast of white lightning.

He gave Castiel a rough shove, pushed him away. He saw Cas open his eyes, saw his look of pained surprise.

“Goddammit,” he said, “she put the whammy on us again.”

The look he gave Castiel dared him to try to challenge him. Unfortunately, either Castiel was still oblivious to such subtleties, or he didn’t remotely care. “Dean,” he said, in a completely different tone now, “you know she did not.”

“Well, this certainly isn’t my doing. Because this isn’t me, Cas, do you got that? This isn’t me.”

Castiel’s expression had gone still and angel-like. “You told that girl—”

“I told that girl what she needed to hear,” Dean snapped. “All right? But her life isn’t mine and she isn’t me. This—” He gestured between them, a casual flick of his finger. “—Isn’t me.” Meeting Castiel's gaze, he let out a long, heavy breath. “It’s nothing.”

He didn’t move when Castiel turned away, when he walked around the side of the building and disappeared. He stood there, listening to the gravel their feet had disturbed as it rolled down the hill and into the pit.

---

Episode 6x02 / Masterpost / Episode 6x04

Comments

[e313.livejournal.com]

oh, come on Dean! get a grip on reality already! Denial is BAD for u, u know that!