Warnings: All sorts of triggers such as non-con and child abuse (both implied rather than shown, however) and, well, anything associated with a life on the street. Also spoilery trigger: This story deals with the subject of being HIV-positive.
~ ~ ~
Six hours and fifty-two minutes after he said to his brother, “Cas hasn’t been in touch for a while. Y’think he’s okay?” Dean’s cellphone rang and they discovered that no, he wasn’t.
“Hey! Long time no hear, buddy,” Dean announced cheerfully as he opened the phone, shooting Sam a grin that told him whose name had popped up on the caller ID. “I was beginning to think you’d skipped the apocalypse and flown on down to Rio for some carnival action.”
Sam looked away as Dean listened to the reply, bending over to tie his shoelaces with his mind still fogged from their late night and early start. He only realized that something was wrong when Dean suddenly growled in a deep, angry voice, “What the hell are you doing with his phone, you son of a bitch?”
Startled, he glanced up to see his brother scowling so hard it made him look terrifying. Dean’s tanned face actually drained of color as he watched, his knuckles whitening around the edges of the phone held to his ear, and when his eyes fell on Sam they were dark with shock.
Who is it? Sam mouthed at him, and Dean blinked a few times before holding the phone out before him and hitting the speaker.
“…really thought I owed you a call,” Zachariah was saying. “After all, you’re practically family now, aren’t you? You must have been worried about him. That poor lost lamb, out there in the big wide world with nobody to look out for him.”
“What have you done to Cas?” Dean demanded, while Sam connected the dots in his head. If Zachariah had Castiel’s cellphone, that meant he’d captured him somehow. And the angels wanted Castiel dead. Maybe he was dead already? Crap.
But Zachariah had a surprise up his sleeve. “I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he smarmed, the arrogance in his voice making the hair on Sam’s neck prickle upwards. “What would be the point? Apparently someone important wants our little disobedient soldier alive, and so I held back on the smiting. That’s not to say I didn’t punish him, though. After all, nobody disobeys Heaven without there being consequences.”
Dean’s expression was thunderous. “If you’ve hurt him, you piece of shit, I’ll find a way to tear your throat out.”
Zachariah laughed. “Oh, please. If I had a penny for every time a Winchester made an empty threat, I’d have more pennies than Scrooge McDuck by now. No, Dean, I didn’t hurt him. I merely gave him a choice.”
“What kind of choice?” Sam asked, getting to his feet.
“Is that Sam? Such concern. I thought your brother was the one with the angel obsession.”
“What did you do to him?” Dean gritted out, staring at the display on the phone as though he could simply will Zachariah into the room with them.
“He had to fall,” came the glib reply, and Dean drew in a sharp breath. “Rules are rules and we couldn’t let him stay one of us. But I decided to make it a little more interesting. I told him we could take his grace and he could fall to Earth and be reborn as a human child, the way it usually works. Totally pointless, of course, because he wouldn’t live long enough to take his first steps; Lucifer will see to that. Or…” Zachariah paused, drawing out the tension, and Sam could almost hear Dean’s teeth grinding. “...I told him he could become human as he was, in that vessel, and fit right into a ready-made life. Kind of like when you two boys took your little vacation in The Office. He seemed to like the idea. I assume it was because he thought he could fight it and regain his memories, but I can assure you he won’t be doing a Jason Bourne any time soon. I worked long and hard on making his new life a perfect fit. He has no idea who he is any more.”
Dean shot Sam a wide-eyed look which he returned in spades. There was a brief silence as they contemplated the idea: Castiel flung down to Earth as a human to live a life he had no idea wasn’t his own. It seemed insane, but they’d experienced one of Zachariah’s little mind games themselves and knew how real it could be.
“Where is he?” Sam asked eventually, hating that Zachariah held all the cards here.
The angel sighed. “How about we play a little game, boys? This hide-and-seek nonsense between us is getting old and I don’t have much to entertain me at the moment – well, not until Lucifer starts really kicking some ass. I could use a distraction. So, if you find Castiel and manage to convince him that he’s really a fallen warrior for God, I’ll give him back his grace and all’s well that ends well. If you don’t, he dies. For good. I’ll make sure he stays dead – I can do that, when he’s human. Whaddya say?”
“Are you insane?” Dean snapped without a second’s pause. “You’re forgetting something, dickface. We don’t trust you. You’re watching Cas, aren’t you? The minute we find him you’ll turn up and pull that ‘Say yes to Michael’ shit again!”
Zachariah snickered. “Why Dean, how terribly cynical of you! How could you think such a thing? Also… you’re an idiot. I’m talking to you on a cellphone, moron. I might not be able to find you but I can track this signal right to your motel room – you’re in Spokane at the Sleep-Eazy Inn. And yet I’m staying away. How’s that for trust?”
Sam blinked, a chill running down his back at the revelation. Then he had a knife in his hand and was rolling up his sleeve, ready to draw blood and paint the angel-banishing sigil in the wall if Zachariah showed his face. Dean glanced his approval towards him before turning back to the phone.
“Okay, so you’re not here. But that doesn’t mean we want to play your sick games.”
“I think you’ll find that your precious Castiel is the one who’s been playing sick games, buckaroo. And they’ll be getting sicker unless you get on out there and find him. Don’t you owe him? Didn’t he turn his back on me and the rest of his family to make you happy? You can’t just abandon him because you don’t like the way I work. That would be sad. He’d cry.”
Dean met Sam’s gaze, his eyes wide with a silent appeal. Sam shrugged awkwardly. What else could they do except go along with this? Zachariah was right – they owed Castiel. He didn’t deserve to die just because they didn’t feel like playing. And from what Sam knew about the way the angels worked, whatever life Castiel had been placed into probably wasn’t pleasant. He tried to imagine him living some kind of lowly human existence – digging ditches or unblocking sewer pipes; possibly even locked in jail, because who knew what Zachariah had dreamt up for him? But it was difficult. Castiel was an angel. He was otherworldly and weird, not quite human at all, and picturing him living a mortal life was almost impossible.
“I can give you a few clues to send you on your way,” Zachariah said smugly as they stared at each other.
“You’re one twisted bastard, you know that?” grunted Dean, putting the cellphone on the table and reaching for a pen and some paper. “How the hell can a guy like you have Heaven as his zip code? You must bring the whole neighborhood down.”
“Oh, I mow my lawn and pay my taxes, just like everyone else. Now then – where is that friend of yours, huh? Riddle me this, Bat-Dean: he’s somewhere obvious.”
Sam folded his arms. “Yeah, cause that’s really helpful.”
“Use your brain, college boy.” Zachariah sniffed dispassionately. “Clue the second: he has a new name, and it’s one you should recognize. The police certainly do.”
“You wanna vague that up some more?” Dean snarled, dropping his pen. “What, have you named him after Al Capone or something?”
“That’s all you’re getting, boys. Now go hunt yourselves a fallen angel before he discovers that being human ends in a painful, miserable death. Oh, and I’ll be in touch.”
“You can’t just–” But Dean didn’t finish because Zachariah was gone.
“Fuck,” he said instead.
~ ~ ~
The first part of the clue turned out to be easy. The second? Not so much.
They drove into Los Angeles the next day, staring at the rain-drenched skyline morosely as they headed up the freeway through more traffic than they’d seen in an entire year. Thunder boomed as they turned off into downtown, the wind making the palm trees sway and bend. It was almost beautiful, but they didn’t feel like appreciating the view.
“The City of Angels,” Sam said absently as they parked in a car lot a few blocks down from their destination. “I’ll say one thing for Zachariah – he picked a good hiding place. We’re hardly going to bump into Cas in a Starbucks in a city this huge.”
Dean turned off the engine and watched blankly as the wipers stopped sweeping rain from the windshield. He hadn’t said much that day, just driven with his teeth clenched and a grim expression on his face. Sam knew he was worried but had no idea how to help him deal with it. They hadn’t spoken to Castiel in four weeks and had no idea when during that time Zachariah had captured him; he could have been living his new life for anything from a few days to a month. Until they knew what that new life was, they were helpless.
“We’ll find him,” Sam said after a pause, in the absence of anything else to say.
Dean nodded, his eyes steely. “Yeah, we will. And we’re gonna convince him he’s been brainwashed and get his grace back and then I’m gonna strangle Zachariah with his own tie.”
“Okay. Well, as long as you have a plan, that’s cool,” Sam told him breezily, swinging open the door and stepping out into the rain.
When they entered the police station they found it in total chaos: cops running everywhichway, phones ringing, people shouting. Dean sauntered up to the desk clerk, flashed his FBI badge alongside Sam and asked with great authority, “What’s goin’ on? Looks like a hurricane’s hit the precinct.”
The skinny black guy behind the counter just blinked at him for a few seconds before saying slowly, “It’s always like this.”
Sam cleared his throat, ignoring the way Dean’s face crumpled. “We’re here from Boston to track down a perp – your Lieutenant should’ve received the paperwork this morning by Fed-Ex. We need access to your files.”
“Which files?” asked the clerk, scratching his beard.
“Any file pertaining to a white male in his mid-thirties,” Dean said briskly. “With blue eyes.”
The clerk looked at him blankly, then looked at Sam. “You do know we’re in LA, right?” he asked meaningfully.
Sam frowned. “Uh, yeah. We noticed. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“We arrest a lot of people in LA,” the clerk said, his lips quirking a grin. “You sure you can’t narrow it down any more? What’s the guy’s name?”
Dean sighed. “If we knew that, we wouldn’t be here.”
“Right,” said the clerk, looking them up and down. “You got a number I can call to verify your story? Trying to find a package in this mess–” he indicated the piles of papers strewn across the counter and beyond “–would take me all goddamn week.”
Sam handed him his FBI card, then tried to ignore the bedlam around them as the clerk called Bobby and was told, in no uncertain terms, to get his finger out and help his agents or he’d be slapped with a fourteen-oh-two-seven for hindering an FBI investigation and didn’t he know he had better things to do than talk to some rookie flatfoot on the West Coast when there were real crimes being committed on the East?
“In that room,” said the clerk as he hung up the receiver with a wince, handing them a set of keys.
“Thanks,” said Dean. “And hey, you got any coffee?”
~ ~ ~
At least the department’s records were on computer, which was a big relief, but there was no way to cross-reference the files properly. Sam figured out a way to do it using birthdays – they requested the whole of the seventies, just to be sure – but narrowing down their search using hair or eye color was impossible.
“Where’s William Petersen when you need him?” Dean grunted, scowling at the tiny computer screen. “I thought all this stuff was supposed to be on brand-spanking-new technology, not PCs so old you can hear the hamsters running around on the wheels inside them.”
“Cutbacks,” Sam sniffed, wiping a smear of grease from the screen before him. Then he sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Dude, there are over ten thousand names here. This is going to take forever. And we don’t even know who we’re looking for!”
“Zachariah said he’d have a name we’d recognize, right?” Dean tapped his fingers on the desk. “Try putting in some of our aliases.”
No luck.
“Jimmy Novak.”
Nothing.
“How about some of the hunters we know?”
No hits.
“People we’ve saved?”
They tried over and over again, but with no success. Either there was no result or a name was on the list but the picture that popped up wasn’t Castiel. After an hour, Sam suggested that Dean started skimming through the As and he’d start with the Zs, and they’d work their way backwards to meet in the middle, searching for any name that looked familiar.
“We’re going to be here all day,” Dean griped.
“Only if his surname begins with an M,” Sam reassured him. “Come on, we’re wasting time.”
It was tiring work. Sam’s eyes started to ache after half an hour, and after two he had a headache. He scanned the list of names as closely as he could but it was difficult to concentrate; a few feet away, Dean kept sighing and mumbling under his breath, signalling that he was having the same problem. And there were so many names: Sam clicked on a few of them from time to time, just to give his eyes something new to look at, and discovered criminals from across the social spectrum, from drug dealers to thieves to tax evaders.
But none of them were Castiel, and as darkness fell outside the rain-splashed window Sam realized this was going to be more difficult than they’d hoped.
“I’ve just started the Cs,” Dean said miserably after what seemed like forever. “Tell me you’re moving faster than I am.”
“I’m halfway through W,” Sam told him, stifling a yawn. “I think we’re gonna have to come back tomorrow, man.”
“Normally I’d suggest we work through the night, but my eyes feel like they’re bleeding.” Dean sniffed. “Whoever thought white letters on a black background was a good design choice needs shooting.”
Sam opened his mouth to reply but his eye caught on something. He blinked and looked again, moving the mouse up the screen to highlight it. “Hey, Dean? You’re on my list.”
Dean let out a wry laugh. “Hmph. I’m famous. I like to think I’m on everybody’s list.”
Sam shot him a look as his finger clicked the link. “When were you ever arrested in California?”
Dean opened his mouth. He closed it again. “Oh,” he said. “I wasn’t.”
They both turned to the screen, waiting tensely for the page of information to load. When it did, Sam felt his stomach flip backwards.
“Holy shit,” muttered Dean, leaning in close to the screen. “Is that… Jesus, look at him!”
The mugshot was black and white and grainy, the date beneath it reading 11/2/05. Castiel was scowling at the camera, looking pissed-off and angry and not a little bruised. There was blood on his cheek and an ugly scar intersecting his right eyebrow. His hair was dangling in his eyes and he looked dishevelled and rough, like he hadn’t had a bath or a good sleep in a while. He seemed younger, too. A lot younger. The picture had been taken just over four years ago, yes, but that didn’t account for it. He looked as though he was in his twenties, and that didn’t fit with the Castiel they knew at all.
“He’s got my name and my birthday,” Dean breathed out, jabbing a finger at the screen. “And look, it says he was born in Kansas. That twisted sonofabitch gave him my life!”
Sam stared at the date the photo had been taken and shook his head. “That’s the night Jessica died,” he observed, pointing. “I’ll say one thing for Zachariah – he’s got a sick sense of humor.”
Dean grunted. “Scroll down. I want to see why he was arrested.”
Sam felt dread settle in his stomach, but he moved the mouse. He read the first few lines and held his breath, shocked. Beside him, Dean hissed and stiffened in alarm.
Petty theft, read the first charge.
Breaking and entering, read the second.
Prostitution, read the third.
And then there were more, spanning most of the last fifteen years: theft, passing fake checks, soliciting money for sex… there was even a jail term, one year in prison for handling stolen goods and prostitution. Sam blinked at it, stunned beyond belief, before he remembered with a rush of relief that none of this was real. This was all fake: a trail of tears invented by Zachariah, nothing more.
But Castiel didn’t know that. Castiel thought he’d lived it.
“That bastard,” Dean whispered. “I can’t believe he did this to him.”
Sam tore his eyes away from the list of offences and looked at the dates beside them, trying to ignore the implications of the word ‘prostitution’. Castiel – no, Dean Winchester – had started offending when he was only eighteen. According to these records, he was now the same age as Dean. That explained why he looked so young in the photograph: somehow, Zachariah had changed his appearance. He’d actually made him younger, knocking a few years off him to fit him into this doppelganger life. Sam knew the angels were powerful, but physically altering Castiel’s vessel to make everything slot into place… that was the sign of a true artist. In the very worst way.
“It’s not real,” he said, as much to convince himself as his brother. “Cas hasn’t gone through any of this. It’s all fake.”
Dean ran a hand through his hair and cleared his throat. Sam wanted to look up at him, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the Castiel on the screen looking so belligerent and battered. Was that really him?
“Sammy, we gotta find him tonight,” Dean said quietly, sounding tired. “All of this might be part of Zachariah’s little game, but Cas is out there now. He could’ve been out there for weeks, we don’t know. He could be selling himself and having sex and he has no idea that he’s not human. He’s living this, man. Right the hell now. We gotta find him.”
Sam nodded, struck by the pain in his brother’s voice. He hated the thought of Castiel out there too, but Dean seemed to be taking it harder. Sighing, he scrolled further down the page, past a bunch of boring code numbers and witness reports, before stopping as his eyes settled on something that made his heart skip a beat.
“Oh no,” he said.
Dean leant over his shoulder to read. There were two reports at the bottom of Castiel’s file which weren’t charges against him – in contrast, they were him trying to bring charges against other people, both of them men and both of the cases from the mid-nineties. Neither of his complaints had managed to get as far as a court.
In both of them he was accusing the men of raping him.
“We need to find him now,” Dean said, after a long pause. “Come on.”
~ ~ ~
The arrest reports were a few years old but all of them had one thing in common: the alternate Dean Winchester had been picked up on Santa Monica Boulevard, just east of La Brea Avenue in Hollywood. It was a stretch notorious for hustlers and prostitutes of both sexes and it had been for years. As the brothers drove as slowly as they dared along the street, scanning either side of them for a face they knew on the sidewalk, Dean muttered dangerously, “This really isn’t what I expected Hollywood to be.”
Sam shook his head with a sigh. “I don’t think it’s what these guys expected it to be, either.”
Most of the men they could see who looked as though they were waiting to be picked up weren’t even men; they were boys. Some of them looked barely legal. The rest seemed to be in their early twenties, scanning passers-by with eyes that looked older, all of them thin and wasted-looking. Nobody was smiling, not that Sam had assumed they would. Dotted among their number were women and the occasional transvestite or transgender hustler; this place had everything. One thing it didn’t have, however, was any law enforcement. They drove a couple of miles, moving into a better area away from the sleaze, and they didn’t spot a single police car on the way.
Dean turned them round again and they searched once more, to no avail. After an hour he found a miraculous parking spot and pulled up, opening the door and stepping out into the damp night. The rain had made the neon signs from the skeezy bars spill into blurry patterns on the ground, and as Sam followed his brother into the night he could smell ozone and gasoline in the air. He shuddered. This place didn’t feel right. It was wanton and sick. He hated it.
“I think we should split up,” Dean instructed, pocketing his keys. “You take that side of the street and I’ll take this.”
“Dean, what the hell are we going to say to him when we find him? ‘You’re an angel in disguise, please believe us’ isn’t really going to cut it.”
Dean shrugged. “Cross that bridge when we come to it. Hell, maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe he’ll recognize us.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Sam returned, in a voice that made it plain he didn’t believe that for a second. “Dude, you do remember how it felt when Zachariah whammied us, don’t you? We didn’t even know we were brothers.”
“Castiel might be different.” Dean scanned the street through narrowed eyes, then turned back to him. “Hell, I don’t know, Sammy. I’m making this up as I go along here. What do you expect me to say?”
They went their separate ways and walked. And walked. And walked. In a way it was like searching through that enormous list of names again. Sam squinted into alleyways and frowned at people walking by, scanning, scanning, scanning, but with no luck. Castiel wasn’t there. They’d printed out the mugshot of him and Sam tried showing it to the people he passed, but nobody seemed willing to cooperate, even when he offered them money. Because it was a mugshot, they thought he was a cop or a PI. They wouldn’t speak to him. They turned their backs. It was frustrating beyond belief and Sam could only hope Dean was having better luck on the other side of the street.
He searched for two hours before he pulled out his cell and called his brother, who answered with a hopeful, “You got him?”
“No. Look, this is crazy. It’s three am and I’m beat. He’s not here, Dean. I vote we get some shut-eye and come back tomorrow. It’s been such a long day we could have walked by him ten times without noticing because we’re so tired.”
Dean hesitated for a moment, clearly weighing up their options, before sighing. “Yeah, I get you. See you back at the car.”
It took an hour to reach the Impala and by then it had started to rain again, a light, cloying drizzle that chilled Sam to the bone. Dean was already sitting behind the wheel when he slid gratefully into his seat, rubbing his damp hands and shuddering. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Dean looked half-angry and half-exhausted. Sam was disappointed too, but yet again his brother was taking this harder than he was. Castiel was his friend, of course. He’d dealt with Dean a damn sight longer than Sam had known him, and Sam knew they had a connection. Dean had to be feeling this pretty bad. After seeing some of the low-lifes out on the streets – not to mention some of the even lower-lifes driving up and cruising them – it was hard to imagine Castiel being in anything other than pain right now.
“We’ll find him tomorrow,” Sam said as cheerfully as he could, slamming the door. “This is just the first night, man.”
“Yeah, I know.” Dean turned to stare across the street at three guys standing by a vandalized phone booth. Two of them were Asian, young and giggly, slapping each other on the arms and grinning hugely at any car that passed by, using their youth and enthusiasm to sell their wares. The third, a skinny blond in a denim jacket, had his back to the Impala and was tying his laces with his foot resting on a hydrant. Sam stared at them and tried to imagine what their lives could be like, spending nights standing in the rain trying to earn enough money to eat or buy drugs or simply live.
“And we thought our lives were bad,” he murmured, shaking his head.
Dean was frowning. He leaned forward, his expression a picture of concentration, and Sam stared at him in confusion before following his gaze once more. The three guys hadn’t moved. “What are you looking at?” he asked.
“Sam, I think that’s him.” Dean’s voice sounded strained. Sam gazed at the men before realizing that it obviously couldn’t be the Asians, so it had to be the blond guy, but he looked nothing like Castiel. His hair was shoulder-length and his body language as he straightened and switched feet, tying the laces on his second shoe, was way too languid and supple to be the angel they knew. Castiel was stiff and straight-backed, dark and reserved. He wasn’t some loose-limbed kid on a street corner wearing sneakers and jeans. He… wasn’t…
“It’s him,” Dean said firmly, leaning back in his seat. “Trust me.”
Sam looked again, just in time to see the man turn round. His eyes danced across the road and fell on the Impala. He met Sam’s gaze and tilted his head, just a little, signalling that he knew he was being watched. And yes, it was Castiel. Sam couldn’t understand how Dean had known without even seeing his face, but there was no denying it. He looked completely different – younger, wilder, human – but it was him.
As he stared, Castiel started to cross the road. Before his feet had even left the kerb, Dean panicked. “Holy shit, Sammy, he thinks we’re picking him up!”
Sam looked from Castiel to his brother and thought fast. “Good. We can get him into the car that way. Take back to the motel and explain everything in private.”
Dean’s eyes were wide and his voice squeaked. “Sam, he thinks we want to sleep with him!”
“That’s what hustlers tend to think, yes.”
“But that’s Cas!”
“Dean, get a grip! Calm down!”
“I can’t pretend that I want to–”
“Hey,” said Castiel, leaning in as Sam wound the window down. Dean slammed his mouth shut and stared at him in horror, leaving Sam to do the talking. One day, Sam knew, he’d be able to tease his brother about this, but things were still way too serious at the moment.
“Hey,” he said to the new arrival, trying to keep his voice as measured as possible. “You free for an hour or two?”
“Depends on what you want,” said Castiel, and there was something incongruous about hearing that gravel-deep voice coming from a man who looked so unlike the suit-wearing, serious angel they knew. Castiel brushed a strand of bleached hair behind an ear and stared up and down the street, clearly on the lookout for cops, before peering into the car again. His gaze settled on Sam for a moment, sizing him up. He frowned a little, then looked across at Dean. There was no recognition in his eyes. Nothing. He didn’t know them at all. Even though they’d been expecting it, it was a horrible feeling.
“What are you offering?” Sam asked, shrugging off his disappointment. Then it hit him that he was essentially bargaining with an angel for sex and he had to dig his fingers into his palm to keep thinking straight.
Castiel coughed into his hand, sniffed and shrugged. “Oral is eighty bucks. Anything else is negotiable. Your call.”
Dean let out a soft whimper which, thankfully, Castiel didn’t hear. As shocked as he was by the casual way his friend had responded, Sam tried to look contemplative. “Sounds pretty reasonable,” he said, amazed at the calmness in his voice. “Wanna get in?”
“Let me see the money first. I don’t take cards and I don’t like waiting around while people go to the ATM.” He smiled thinly, but there was precious little warmth in it. “Sorry, but I’ve been stung before.”
“Sure,” Sam replied, pulling out his wallet. He showed Castiel the cash and put it away again, marvelling at the fact his hands weren’t shaking. It seemed to be enough to sway his companion. With a final glance up and down the street, Castiel opened the rear door and slid into the back seat, looking around him with mild curiosity.
“Nice wheels,” he observed.
Somehow, the fact that Castiel was talking about his baby was enough to snap Dean out of his terror. “Thanks,” he squeaked, then cleared his throat and added in a deeper tone, “She belonged to my dad.”
Castiel nodded. “Good for you. All I got from my dad were bruises.” In the uncomfortable silence that followed, he looked around once more before coughing again and asking, “Where are we heading? Are we doing it in here?”
Dean’s eyes seemed to glaze over for a second, so Sam leapt in. “The Buccaneer Motel. Know it?”
“I may have been there once or twice, yeah,” Castiel said with a touch of sarcasm. “Which room?”
Sam reached for his key card to check. “Twenty-two.”
“The A/C rattles and the shower leaks, but there are worse rooms. Seven’s the worst. The cockroaches in there could stomp on Tokyo.”
Sam blinked at him, processing. Of course Castiel would know every room in that motel; they’d picked it because it was so close to the Boulevard, and its very proximity made it the perfect place for any hustler to take a john. The place charged by the hour for a reason. He glanced across at Dean, who was staring at Castiel in the mirror with a stricken expression. Realizing that Castiel was staring back at him suspiciously, Sam nudged his arm. “Hey, you gonna start the engine any time soon or are we staying here all night?”
Dean blinked out of his stupor. “Right,” he snapped, and came back to life. He eased them gently onto the street with hands that gripped the wheel so tightly Sam thought it was going to shatter.
“So,” said Castiel in a slightly bored voice, “First time, huh?”
“Oh yeah,” Dean replied, clearly trying to pull himself together. “That obvious?”
“Don’t worry, I’m used to it. You’ll be fine.”
Castiel’s gaze fell to his hands and he didn’t say anything else. Sam stared out at the road ahead, wondering how the hell their lives had come to this, wincing every time Dean took his eyes from the traffic ahead to glance in the mirror. They were going to crash at this rate.
“Chill,” he whispered fiercely, trying not to let his voice drift to the back seat.
Dean glared at him. He sat silently for a few minutes and then asked matter-of-factly, “So, what’s your name?”
Castiel looked up. “Dean.”
Dean’s expression morphed into one of carefully rehearsed mock surprise. “Hey, that’s my name! What’re the odds?”
Castiel shrugged and looked away. He pursed his lips as he stared out of the window.
“This is my brother, Sam,” Dean ventured, nodding in Sam’s direction.
That caught Castiel’s attention. He studied them both with a faint smile on his lips. “You’re brothers? Seriously? Is cruising together your thing? That’s kind of kinky.”
Dean sputtered. Sam, on the other hand, laughed. “This is the first time, and don’t worry, we’re not kinky,” he reassured him. “We just kind of travel together, is all.”
Castiel nodded, narrowing his eyes at him, before he frowned. “You said your name was Sam?”
“Yes.”
“My brother’s called Sam as well.”
It shouldn’t have been a shock, but it was. Sam had to swallow hard before he could reply; beside him, Dean kept his eyes fixed firmly on the road, his jaw tensed.
“Small world,” Sam said off-handedly, like it was no big deal. “What does your brother do?”
“Fuck knows,” Castiel returned. “Haven’t seen him since I was eighteen.”
“I’m sorry,” Dean said with more emotion than Sam liked to hear in his voice. “That’s gotta be tough.”
Castiel shrugged. “Things are tough all over.”
An awkward silence fell. Castiel stared out of the window, idly playing with the leather cord wrapped around his wrist. Dean drove stiff-backed, his face grim, and Sam contemplated just how easy it was going to be to convince the streetwise, self-assured man in the back of their car that he was actually an angel sent from Heaven and hadn’t really spent most of his life selling himself for sex. Even stopping the apocalypse had to be easier than this.
They pulled up outside the motel, which was surprisingly busy considering that dawn was only half an hour away. Music blared from one of the rooms and a group of teenagers were clustered around the vending machine by the office, chugging back beer and shouting at each other.
“I don’t like the look of them,” Dean said tightly, grimacing. “If they touch my car there’ll be hell to pay.”
Castiel peered out of the window and chuckled. “Don’t worry. They know not to mess with any of the cars that use this lot. They’ve learnt the hard way.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dean’s eyebrows raised as he turned to look at him.
“It means that this place is for guys like us, and we don’t like having our customers harassed,” Castiel said, opening the door. “There are rules. And guys bigger than me who like to enforce them.”
Dean looked mildly impressed. “Frontier justice, huh?”
But Castiel didn’t respond, climbing out of the car without a word. Dean followed him as Sam walked around the vehicle to grab their bags from the trunk. When he looked up, Castiel was staring at him with an unreadable expression on his face.
“What is it?” Sam asked, puzzled.
Castiel dropped his eyes and shrugged. He watched as Dean opened the door to their room and vanished inside, then shot Sam another look, this one a little wide-eyed. Sam had no idea what he was thinking, so he smiled with as much reassurance as he could muster and nodded towards the door. “After you.”
Castiel seemed to pull himself together and turned to go. Baffled, Sam followed him into the room and closed the door behind them; at the sound of the lock clicking into place, Castiel’s shoulders stiffened, but he didn’t say a word.
“I’m gonna have to turn off the A/C,” Dean said nervously, stepping over to the window. “This thing’s rattling like a steam train, just like you said.” He flicked a switch and the room would have fallen silent if it hadn’t been for the music pumping away a few doors down. It smelt of old cigarettes and something Sam didn’t even want to try to classify in there, and he shivered. He turned to gaze at Castiel and it took him a few seconds to realize that he and Dean were both just standing and staring at him expectantly, clearly waiting for some sort of signal.
Awkward.
Castiel looked them up and down, shook his head and took off his damp denim jacket, revealing a blue t-shirt with a picture of a seagull on it that had seen better days. Or even decades. “Who’s up first, then?” he said briskly, avoiding looking in their eyes.
Dean cleared his throat. “Okay, look. This is, uh, kinda weird.”
Castiel coughed quietly and nodded. “You can turn the lights off if it makes you feel more comfortable.”
“No! No. Crap, this is weird.” Dean rubbed a hand down his face and sighed. “Look, we didn’t bring you here to do… that. We just want to talk.”
Castiel’s head snapped up and he stared at him intently. In the harsh light of the room he looked tired and pale, despite his suntan. He was way smaller than Sam had ever imagined he would be, the scar they’d seen in his mugshot intersecting his right eyebrow and obvious despite the fact it was partly hidden by his hair; Sam wondered if he’d grown it just to keep it covered up. There were dark circles under his eyes but his gaze was fierce and calculating. This was a man who clearly lived by his wits and determination, but it was hard for him. He looked sharp and wrung-out, a completely different person to the one they knew. This was Castiel if Castiel had been born human and lived a horrible life with all of humanity’s weaknesses. For a moment Sam despaired – there was nothing here that he knew at all, so why should Castiel know them in return?
“You want to talk,” the stranger standing in front of them said flatly.
“Yes. That’s it. No funny business, honest. We just want to talk to you.”
Castiel flicked his eyes from Dean to Sam, his face a picture of suspicion. “What about?”
Dean shot Sam a helpless look. Taking his cue, Sam said faintly, “Uh… this is gonna sound pretty crazy, okay? But, uh, we kind of know you.”
Eyes narrowing, Castiel said plainly, “Have we fucked before?”
“God, no,” Dean almost shouted, looking completely freaked. “No, no. One hundred per cent no. Nothing like that, seriously. You’re a friend.”
“I don’t know you,” Castiel observed, and his voice was deepening with every word.
“It’s a long story,” Sam butted in. “Please, could you just at least listen?”
“I don’t earn money listening,” Castiel growled, picking up his jacket and pulling it on. “Look, it’s been a long, crappy night and I’m cold and I’m wet and I really can’t deal with your shit right now. I thought you brought me here to blow you. I haven’t got time for this, guys. Either you let me leave or you fuck me; either way, I don’t want to hear any dumbass story.”
Sam caught his breath, startled by his belligerence. Dean, however, appeared to have a brainwave. “We’ll pay you three hundred bucks if you stay,” he announced, pulling his wallet out of his pocket and slapping the cash on the table between them. “Here, look, we’re good for it. All you have to do is sit down and listen to us. No strings. You don’t have to do anything else, just listen.”
Castiel stared at the money, clearly confused, before a slow smile spread across his face. “Oh, I get it. This is an intervention, isn’t it? You work for one of those church groups who want to rehabilitate guys like me. You’re gonna preach me the gospel and tell me the error of my ways.”
“Not really,” Dean said uncertainly. “But what do you care? You’ll have earned three hundred dollars without having to see anybody naked. How often can you do that?”
Castiel shrugged, clearly wavering.
“Please,” Dean said.
With a final glance between their faces, Castiel’s body relaxed and he pulled out a chair from under the stained Formica table. “Okay,” he allowed, drumming his fingers on the top. “But if you want me to stay around, you’ve gotta feed me as well.”
~ ~ ~
Sam ran out for some burgers and coffee. When he returned, shaking raindrops out of his hair and cursing under his breath, Dean and Castiel – or even Dean and Dean, if you wanted to look at it that way – were sitting facing each other at the table. Castiel was staring at the fake FBI badge Dean had made for him a few months beforehand, peering at the tiny photograph of himself with a curious expression.
“He’s not me,” he declared, shaking his head as Sam placed the food on the table. “That guy’s older and he doesn’t have a scar. And he looks like he’s got a stick up his ass.”
Dean smirked, folding his arms. “One day I’m gonna remind you that you said that.”
Castiel tossed the badge back on the table and started unwrapping a burger. “So you have a photo of some dude who looks like me and you think I’m him. I’m sorry I’m not your friend, really, but you’re clutching at straws here.”
“It’s definitely you,” Sam interjected, sitting down on the edge of a nearby bed. “I know this is gonna sound crazy, but your name is actually Castiel.”
Castiel snorted and took a mouthful of burger. “What kind of a dumbass name is that? Sounds like an Elf from The Lord of the Rings.”
“You’re not really Dean Winchester,” Dean told him, clearly deciding to bite the bullet. “My name is Dean Winchester. Your name is Castiel. You’re an angel, Cas… uh, Dean.”
Castiel stopped chewing. He looked up at Dean from under his hair and his eyes widened. “Oh my god. You’re crazier than I thought.” Then he frowned and said in a puzzled voice, “And how the hell did you find out my surname?”
“We’ve got the same name. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You’re living my life.”
“Uh-huh.” Castiel let out a breath and shook his head. “You took too much acid in college, man.”
Dean sighed in frustration and rubbed at his cheek. He reached out for his coffee but Castiel got there first, pulling the cardboard cup away from him and sliding his own cup over to Dean instead. “What’s wrong with yours?” Dean asked.
Castiel put down his burger and peeled the lid off the cup. “You think I’m gonna trust any drink you give me? I’ve been roofied before by guys who played nice and seemed trustworthy. I’m not a fucking idiot. I want that money and I’m not waking up tomorrow with no shoes.”
Sam blinked in surprise. “Why would we want your shoes?” He looked down at them. They were tattered and filthy, barely even in one piece.
Castiel shot him an amused glance. “You’re a little old to be college boys, but I can’t be too careful. It’s a hazing ritual at one of the campuses round here – pick up a rent boy, knock him out, steal his shoes. They hang them in their dorm rooms or something, I dunno. Never looked into it. But I’m sick of losing shoes.” His expression darkened and he looked away. “I’m sick of the other stuff they do, too. Some of those guys just can’t keep their hands to themselves.”
“That sucks,” Dean said after a pause, looking appalled. “Can’t you go to the cops or something?”
Castiel laughed out loud at that, and it was a horrible sound. “Yeah? You think the cops give a fuck about guys like me? I’ve tried. They don’t give a damn. They think you sell yourself so you deserve what you get. Even the cops that do treat you like a human being are so overworked they haven’t got time for you. And I’m just one of thousands, sunshine.”
Sam thought back to the police file they’d read. Castiel had reported two rapes back in the nineties but no charges had ever been brought. He wondered how many times it had happened since then, and how often Castiel had had to move on and get on with his life because there was no point in reporting it. It made him feel nauseous. Life was tough on the streets – people were violent and cruel. Castiel had obviously discovered this for himself.
Because Zachariah wanted him to. It’s not real. Get a grip, Sam.
Dean was obviously thinking the same thing. “This isn’t your life, you know,” he said firmly, leaning forward. He tried to fix Castiel with his gaze but failed; Castiel simply looked down at his burger.
“I wish it wasn’t,” Castiel said bitterly, with a shudder.
“We’re not yanking your chain here, man. You’re an angel.”
Unexpectedly, Castiel giggled. His face crinkled up and he covered his mouth with one hand as he coughed, then he giggled again. His fingernails were dirty. “I can absolutely assure you that I’m no angel,” he chuckled, wiping crumbs off his lip. “I’m about as far from an angel as it’s possible to be.”
“That’s because someone’s made you that way,” Sam said urgently, but the look Castiel gave him reeked of oh, please.
Dean went for it. He told Castiel the full story: how there were monsters and demons and angels in the world, how he and his brother had spent their lives hunting them. He talked about Lilith and Lucifer and the apocalypse. Whenever he faltered Sam picked up the thread and carried on, explaining how Castiel had disobeyed and turned his back on Heaven and been punished for it. Dean’s voice turned bitter and scathing as he talked about Zachariah. Meanwhile, Castiel finished his burger and drank his coffee, staring at them through wide eyes, clearly disbelieving every damn word. But he didn’t get up to go. He was inside and warm; he had food and money on the way. He was humoring them. He was listening because he’d said he would, but nothing was sparking for him. There was no recognition on his face. He thought it was all a merry little tale – he had no idea how wrong he was.
“I know you don’t believe us,” Dean was saying, as Castiel finished his drink and put the cup back on the table. “But please, can’t you just think about it? Look at me, man – don’t I look the tiniest bit familiar?”
Castiel snorted. “You, no. Him–” he jabbed a finger at Sam, “Yes.”
“Really?” Sam asked, amazed.
“You remember him but not me?” Dean’s voice sounded so hurt it was almost comical.
Castiel shrugged, wiping grease off his fingers. “Not in the sense that I’ve met him before, no. But I’ve met his type. Jocks who rely on their muscles to get them what they want.” He gave Sam an appraising glance. “Look at you. Seven feet tall and as wide as a house. I bet nobody ever says no to you, do they? You or your fists.”
Sam suddenly remembered how Castiel had looked at him when they’d climbed out of the car, with that odd expression on his face. Up until then, he hadn’t really seen how large Sam was – it was hard to tell when he was sitting down. He’d been intimidated. How many times had he tangled with guys who’d used their strength against him?
“I’m not like that,” he explained reasonably, keeping his voice calm. “I mean, I can hold my own in a fight, yeah. I have to. You heard what we do, how we live. But I’m not a bully.”
Castiel nodded. “If you say so,” he said, sounding utterly unconvinced. “But there’s one thing I do know for sure: I. Am. Not. An. Angel.”
“What about dreams?” Dean asked suddenly, snapping his fingers. “Come on. You can’t tell me you’ve never dreamt about your real life.”
“I dreamt I hooked up with Jared Leto once,” Castiel said airily. “I’d like to think that was my real life.”
“You had these massive wings,” Dean continued, as Sam looked at him sideways. He’d never seen them himself. “You could fly and everything. Don’t you ever dream that you’re flying?”
Castiel’s expression blanked. He fell silent for a few moments, then said in a quiet voice, “Lots of people dream about flying.”
Dean made a triumphant sound. “See? I knew it! Come on, Cas, just think about it and you’ll know it’s true.”
“My name is Dean,” Castiel said angrily, rising to his feet. “And Dean’s had enough of your crap. I stayed, I listened and that’s it, I’m out of here.” He scooped up the money from the table and put it in his jacket pocket. “You guys are insane, you know that? I have no idea where you’re going with all of this shit but you can just go there without me.”
He took two steps towards the door. Knowing they had no other choice, Sam stood up and blocked his way. Castiel stared up at him and his face fell. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”
“We can’t let you go,” Sam said gently, placing a hand on his shoulder. Castiel shucked it off and tried to go round him, but Sam blocked him again. As they moved Dean stood and walked over to the door, checking it was locked, leaning back against it.
“I knew it!” Castiel growled, his face twisting in anger. “I knew it the minute you got out of the car! Guys like you are trouble!”
“We’re trying to help you!”
“I don’t need your help! Let me go!” Castiel tried to push past him again. Sam gripped him by the shoulders and went to push him back as gently as he could, but Castiel surprised him. A fist impacted on Sam’s stomach and he bent double, more out of shock than any real pain, but it was enough of a distraction for his prisoner to get past him. As he gulped in a few breaths with his hands on his knees there was the sound of a scuffle over by the door; when he lifted his head, he saw Dean grappling with Castiel with a look of sheer determination on his face. He grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back and Castiel suddenly screamed for help, his voice more than loud enough to carry through the thin walls and into the world outside.
“Stop… struggling…” Dean grunted, trying to keep him still without hurting him. “For god’s sake, Cas, this is for your own good!”
“My name isn’t Cas, you maniac,” yelled Castiel, and he screamed again. “Somebody help me! Help! Someone get in here and help me!”
Sam straightened and thought quickly, realizing that Dean wouldn’t be able to hold him for long. He darted over to their kit bag, unzipped it and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. They had no choice: they had to stop Castiel leaving and vanishing again. Zachariah had said he was going to die if he didn’t remember who he was, so they had to do everything in their power to remind him. This was life or death, even if Castiel couldn’t see it.
There was an oof of pain and Sam looked up, startled, to see Dean fall to his knees, clutching his groin. Somehow Castiel had managed to kick or possibly punch him, but Sam didn’t have time to analyze his actions. Castiel shoved Dean to one side and reached for the door, still yelling for help, and Sam moved as quickly as he could to stop him.
The handcuff snapped around Castiel’s right wrist with a click. He barely had time to look down at it before Sam had lifted him bodily off the floor and thrown him onto the nearest bed, face down. After some desperate bucking and thrashing Sam managed to pull the cuffed hand out from under Castiel’s body and snapped the other cuff around the wooden frame of the bed, locking him in place. He stood back, panting, as Castiel fought furiously with the metal and wood for a full minute before a coughing fit claimed him and he curled up into a ball, clutching at his chest, flushed and sweating.
“Holy crap,” Dean breathed, coming to stand by Sam’s side. He had a hand pressed against his groin and he looked totally pissed.
“You okay?”
Dean huffed. “Never better. I was overdue for some nut-crunching anyway. It’s been at least six months since someone kneed me in the jewels.”
Castiel regained his breath and looked up at them both, yanking on his cuffs as hard as he could. For a moment Sam thought the wood wouldn’t hold, but despite the cheapness of the motel room, the bed was well-made and seemed sturdy enough to take his weight.
“Let me go,” Castiel said, wheezing a little. “You don’t want to do this. Really. Please, let me go.”
“We’re not going to hurt you,” Dean assured him, before adding somewhat ruefully, “even though you’re quite happy to hurt objects that are precious to me.”
“Help!” screamed Castiel again, as though Dean hadn’t spoken. “Somebody help me!”
Sam was just thinking that perhaps they should gag him when the music that had been blaring out of the room a few doors down suddenly increased in volume, drowning out his cries. Sam shot a glance at his brother, then back down at Castiel. “I don’t think anybody’s coming,” he said flatly. “I guess they hear people yelling all the time around here.”
Castiel coughed again and dropped his head. His fist clenched in the cuffs and for a moment, just a moment, his body sagged completely, like he was giving up. He raised his free hand to his eyes and rubbed them, then slapped his palm down on his knee and gazed up at them fiercely. “What do you want me to do?” he growled. “Come on, out with it. I’ll do whatever you want. I don’t care. It can’t be worse than anything I’ve done before. Just don’t hurt me, okay? Please. You don’t have to pay me but please, don’t hurt me.”
Dean sat on the edge of the mattress with a sigh. “How many times do we have to say this, man? We’re not going to hurt you. We just want you to realize who you are.”
“Okay, so I’m an angel. I believe you. Now what? Are you going to let me go? I’ll fly away. I’ve got wings under my jacket. If you let me go I’ll show them to you.”
“It doesn’t work like that…” But Dean didn’t finish because Castiel tried to punch him, kicking and flailing with his legs and free fist, the bedsprings creaking and twanging with the sudden movement. Dean moved away quickly, startled, and then Castiel folded over in another coughing fit that suddenly had Sam worried. Now he thought about it, he’d been coughing since they’d picked him up, hadn’t he?
“That sounds nasty,” he observed, once Castiel got his breath back. “That could be pneumonia, man. We’ve got some antibiotics around here somewhere if you want us to help you.”
“Yeah, ’cause all I need now is for you guys to shoot me full of drugs,” Castiel snapped bitterly. “I’ve already told you that you can do anything. You don’t have to dope me up. I won’t fight you – I’ll do anything you want. Just let me go afterwards. Come on, please!”
“This isn’t about sex,” Dean said awkwardly. “Seriously, get your mind out of the gutter.”
“Then what the hell do you want from me?” Castiel yelled. And then his eyes fell on something and he froze. His mouth opened into a tiny ‘o’ and he went completely white, his breath catching in his throat. Puzzled, Sam followed his gaze… and saw their kit bag lying on the next bed. The bag that was open because Sam had reached inside it for the handcuffs. The bag full of guns and machetes and knives. The bag that, to the eyes of someone who wasn’t a hunter, must have looked like the kind of bag a serial killer would carry with them to torture and carve up their victims.
“Crap,” Dean hissed, zipping it up hurriedly, but the damage had been done. Castiel backed up the mattress until he was huddled in the corner where the bed met the wall. He drew his knees in under his chin and stared at the Winchesters in horror, clearly putting two and two together and making these guys are going to kill me.
“We use that stuff to hunt,” Sam said hastily.
“Honestly, it’s not what you think,” Dean added.
“We’re not going to hurt you, we swear,” Sam continued, holding his hands out in a gesture of peace.
Castiel didn’t say a word, but the terrified look on his face was enough to tell them they still had a lot of work to do.
~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~