Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The car is beautiful. Strong, sweeping lines; shining gleam along the black body and silver bumper; a low, steady rumble as rubber meets road. Old, obviously, but so well maintained it wouldn't look out of place at a car show. The bench seat in the front is a novelty nowadays, like something out of Grease, but it's elegance and character is undeniable.

An old green cooler sits in the foot well behind the passenger seat, and an open duffle bag behind the driver. The vinyl upholstery in the back seat has obviously been replaced on the passenger side, and the floor mats are new. Someone loves this car, and to Riley, it's the nicest one she's ever ridden in.

It's a shame she's probably going to die in it.

Admittedly, hunting witches is no rookie's game. Are you still a rookie after three years? A few hours ago Riley would have said of course not, but you live and you learn. Or you die and you learn.

The tip had come through, she'd done some perfunctory background checking, and figured a nice, simple witch killing spell was enough to — well, kill the witch.

This one in particular had obviously taken up some sort of issue with the local government, since she'd been hexing public servants left and right, so blatant that officials had assumed some sort of politically motivated biological attack. By the time Riley had managed to track her down, the body count was at six.

All signs pointed to a property out the back of town, down a long, winding road hidden between evergreen and scrub. The cottage itself was a squat wooden cabin, a thirty minute or so drive from town. Empty jars and rusted tools were scattered along the window sills and porch, and potted plants had been left to wind their way up into the eaves. Scraggly bushes pressed up against the building, pushing their way into the open sash windows. The painted exterior had lost it's original hue to sun and mould, and it was peeling off in big, brittle flakes. Glass bottles hung from the oak out the front, pinging off high, clear rings in the breeze.

Happily, the general disrepair meant the place was easy to break into. Interrupting her mid-spell was not exactly the plan.

Fucking witches.

It's no wonder hunters generally can't stand them. Riley's not so old school as to believe they're all the same — she's met some friendly witches who have helped her out with a spell here and there — but this one was straight out of the Brothers Grimm. She was thin and hunched over, her skin old and gnarled like bark.

Before she knew it, Riley was strapped to the filthy dining room table as the witch redirected her partly completed spell at her new prisoner, sprinkling disgusting odds and ends into a battered wooden bowl.

The cloying stench of the place was enough to make her guts roil, but the overwhelming, oppressive energy and colour that filled the room and slipped beneath her skin was the worst part.

She'd never been able to explain it, this extra sense — a wash of colour; a swell of emotion, and a texture so visceral she still sometimes feels like she can reach out and touch it.

Everyone has their own wash, as Riley calls it, although with age she learned aura is probably the more apt term. Most people she passes have merely a soft hue and a slight sense hanging about their bodies like a clinging mist, but every now and then there's a particularly bright wash, like a high-beam on a dark highway. Brilliant, awesome, and then past her, never to be seen again.

Riley guesses she's some kind of psychic. It took hours of late night googling and talking to psychics from the classifieds for someone to admit that okay, yes, there's more out there, and then further hours of researching and what would probably, legally, amount to stalking, to find the entire subculture of hunters and monsters and witches and everything in between.

Hunting felt like the logical next step, and the connections she'd made during her investigations made it easy to trade lectures and library hours for swinging a machete.

Which is how she ended up on the ass-end of this particular hunt.

The witch's wash was revolting. Yellowy green and viscous, like slimy lettuce left in the bottom of the sink, and absolutely dripping in madness and mania. If Riley's arms hadn't been pinned by her side, she'd have felt compelled to wipe at her skin in an effort to remove the greasy, oily feeling she knew wasn't really there. It was almost more distracting than the thin, brown smoke rising from the witch's bowl, indicating the spell was ready.

The effect of the spell had been instant — a crashing wave of severe drunkenness; sudden, fierce nausea, with no time to adjust to or prepare for. If she wasn't already horizontal, she would have been within seconds, and probably with a split open skull, too.

Her muscles seized painfully and she convulsed, heaving up the entire contents of her stomach before she was soaked in sweat, shivering like the time she had the flu so bad she spent a night in hospital.

By some small mercy, her head hadn't been strapped down so she was able to turn before retching. Vomit coated the side of her face and got in her hair and the room spun as if she was at some stupid house party. The sickly tinge to the air only compounded the effect, blurring her vision and draining any semblance of strength from her limbs.

It could have been two or twenty minutes before there was a sudden bash of a door and the crashing of broken glass, but Riley was only distantly aware of the racket since the pounding in her ears was drowning nearly everything out.

Through eyes blurred with tears, Riley saw the witch dart out of the room. She struggled feebly against her binds, but the spell had drained every last bit of her strength.

The chaos and noise around her was secondary to the pounding, throbbing pressure inside her skull and the dry heaving interspersed with broken sobs. She squeezed her eyes shut to the dizzying spin of the room, and —

There'd been the crack of a gun, and suddenly the dirty, disgusting wash had disbursed from the air.

A beat of silence, only broken by another miserable groan from what had to have been her own throat.

Chancing a glance around the room, Riley saw the witch's wash was gone, replaced with something new — bright and warm, but almost overwhelming.

There'd been cool hands on her face, cupping her cheek (the clean one, thankfully) and brushing hair back from her slick forehead.

"You're okay, you're okay, you're gonna be fine." The man's hands were huge. Muddy as her vision was, through lidded eyes Riley had caught a glimpse of long hair and sharp features. A deep, rusted red flared behind him, rippled with concern and stress.

Someone else had fumbled with the straps at her wrists, freeing them before moving to the ones at her ankles. His voice was more gruff, juxtaposed with the glow of golden haze Riley could see around the edge of. "You got what you need here? Or do we need to haul ass?"

"We gotta go. It's in way too deep and it's serious spellwork, I need dragon scales, fucking mothman wings—"

"Fuck. Okay, you got her?"

Before she knew it, she was being hoisted by strong arms and carried into the light of the Kansas late afternoon sun. It didn't hold a candle to the panicked wash of the man carrying her.

With the squeak of a car door, Riley was laid in the back seat and her face wiped down with what she assumed was a handkerchief, which would have been embarrassing if she'd had the wherewithal to experience such an emotion.

Now, here, the thrum of the car reverberates up the seat into her body, and the cabin is filled to the brim with churning warm hues, undercut with the itchy twinge of stress. The driver's shoulder cut a tense line, and the passenger with the rusty wash twists to look back at her.

Wind from the rolled down window cools the sweat on her forehead, and her teeth chatter uncontrollably.

"Hey," he says gently when he catches her eyes. "You're gonna be alright. We can fix it, just hang in there, okay?"

There's nothing in his tone to suggest he's unsure of his own conviction, but his wash trembles anxiously.

Another wave of nausea floods her body and she must convulse, or perform some other dramatic display, because the man's face cracks with worry. He looks to the driver and Riley feels the car speed up with a growl before finally, blessedly, passing out.

Consciousness returns slowly. It fades in and out, getting closer each time like the waves of an incoming tide until Riley feels categorically awake.

Not that being awake feels any better than being unconscious. In fact it feels terrible. She wiggles her fingers and toes, which all seem to be in working order.

Taking stock of the starchy sheets and clothes that aren't her own, hospital seems the logical conclusion until she realises there's no beep of a heart monitor, there's not a whiff of antiseptic, and the room isn't lit with industrial florescents.

All the furniture is old; mid-century, heavy wooden stuff. There's a dresser against the far wall and a desk, which is clear except for the library lamp emitting a soft, green-tinged light. Everything is tidy, if a bit bare. It feels like an old person's bedroom.

There also aren't any windows. Which is… weird. Her body clock seems entirely offline, and her limbs feel heavy and slow as if she's woken up from a too-long hour nap at five pm.

Long, deep breaths. Not time to panic yet.

Memories seep back in through her skull: the witch; the spell and the nausea; the men who came out of absolutely nowhere, carried her away. A shock of panic jerks through her and she jolts upright, which is evidently a terrible idea.

The room spins, and the nausea returns with such a vengeance that her vision darkens at the edges. Riley lurches over the side of the bed and dry heaves until she's drooling on the floor and the pressure in her head is nearly unbearable.

Too occupied with puking her guts up, the sound of the door opening and tonal shift in the air hardly register until a surprised voice says, "you're awake."

Riley pulls herself back upright and tension seizes every muscle. She's not been a hunter for long, but one of the first things you learn is that trust should be dispensed sparingly.

The man before her must be the driver from earlier, since she doesn't recognise his face. What she does recognise, though, is the wash now filling the room.

It's dazzling; a lilting sway of buttery yellow that ebbs gently outwards from his body. Interestingly, there's a kind of glaze, a shimmery sheen that rides the swells and dances like sunlight on water. Riley's never seen a wash do that before.

She's staring, too rapt to consider responding.

The man shuffles awkwardly. "How are you feeling?"

Riley blinks. "I feel, um." She turns her focus to the man rather than the glow around him. He's older, maybe early forties, with hair that looks to be in the middle of growing out, and stubble lining his jaw. His wide shoulders and tall frame are at odds with his delicate features, but Riley finds that just makes him even more interesting to look at. "Fine, I guess."

"Really?"

"Well, no. I feel like shit."

The man huffs a laugh and his wash flutters with amusement. "Yeah, I figured. You've been out cold for near twelve hours."

Fuck. She needs her phone, she needs to tell Nora she's alright, where she is.

This is the part where self-preservation is supposed to kick in, and Riley's supposed to leap up and prepare to physically defend herself of push her way out. But there's a calming, reassuring quality to the air in here now, and she finds herself falling headfirst into trusting the stranger before her. It helps that he's downright beautiful.

"What happened?" she asks blearily.

The man moves towards her and sits tentatively on the edge of the bed. "You got whammied, kid. What the hell were you doing in there by yourself? That witch was the real deal, proper arcane shit. You're lucky Sammy's got his training wheels off, 'cos that spell was apparently high-level stuff."

"You're a hunter?" It seems obvious now that she's asked.

"Oh, yeah. Name's Dean."

"Riley. And there were two of you."

Dean raises an amused eyebrow. "Yeah, my brother Sam. We were on the same case as you, I guess."

The names tickle some fuzzy memory, but she can't grasp it. "And you got her?"

"Yup. All taken care of."

That's a relief, at least. No more dead civil servants.

Dean's wash sways with ease. There's no deception or agitation, nothing to suggest he's got anything but good will towards her. Still, she's not completely stupid.

"Where am I? Where's my phone?"

Seemingly expecting such question, Dean pulls her phone out of his back pocket and holds it up with a smirk before tossing it in her lap. She doesn't even try to catch it, just lets it fall in the sheets before picking it up.

Twenty-eight texts and twelve missed calls. All from Nora. Shit.

She shoots off a quick message.

Riley: hey im ok im so sorry. ill call you in a min x

"As for your first question, you're still in Kansas. Can't really give you an exact location, but you're safe. This place is warded to shit."

"Can't give me an exact location? What is this, Area 51? Bohemian Grove? A secret underground bunker?"

Dean blinks. "Uh, yeah actually. The last one, I mean. Not the alien prison or weird sex cult."

Somehow that doesn't even phase her, and she just sighs, pushing her sweat-damp bangs from her forehead. Probably has something to do with the fact she feels dizzy enough to pass out, which is kind of insane seeing as how she's already in a bed.

Her phone buzzes in her hand.

Nora: RILEY WTF WHAT HAPPEND???? WHERE TF ARE YOU?????????? GIRL I TODL YOU NOT TO FUCKINH GO THERE BY URSELF IM GONNA KILL YOU FR

Hmm. Riley decides to give Nora a minute before calling. If she gets yelled at over the phone right now her brain might leak out of her ears. Dean's still sitting on the edge of the bed, watching her with interest. It would be unnerving if his wash weren't so comforting.

"How did you get the witch? I dropped the— the vial. With the spell." The memory of the gunshot swims forward. "Wait, you shot her? With what?"

Dean smirks again, but it's more shy than smug. "Hollow point, filled with the same stuff you had in that vial. Sam calls them witch killing bullets, but I think they need something snappier. I dunno, I gotta workshop it."

"Witch killing bullets. Huh."

"You can take an ammo box of 'em when you're ready to go, if you want."

There must be some part of her brain still working. "I can go?"

"Well, yeah, of course," Dean frowns. "You're not in trouble. Free to leave whenever, although I don't know if you'll get far since the spell's still all up in your system. We need to clear it up."

"I feel better than I did in the car, won't it just… get better?"

"Sam says it's too deep, whatever the hell that means."

Riley sits up against the headboard, rubbing her eye with the heel of her hand when her head throbs insistently. Too deep sounds bad. "That sounds bad. Is it bad? Those other people died."

Dean's wash flares with determination, but also worry. "It's… look it's not great, okay? But you're not gonna die. You're not gonna get taken out by some backwater witch that doesn't even vote."

She feels wretched, but there's a comforting quality to the glowing halo of light around Dean, like a soothing blanket spun from gold. It doesn't stop the rising queasiness, but it's relaxing. Riley groans.

"I'll go get Sam. He's across whatever hex you got going on, so he's actually helpful." Dean pushes himself up, hand on his thighs, and offers a small smile before heading out, taking his warm flare with him.

Nora picks up halfway through the first ring.

"Oh my Jesus Christ Riley what the fuck! You went on that hunt by yourself, didn't you?!"

Riley winces. She loves Nora so much but she needs to lower the volume before this headache graduates into a migraine. "I'm okay, I'm fine, seriously. Just… not feeling well."

"Why? What happened? Are you hurt? Where are you? How long have you—"

"Nora. You can calm down, I'm okay, I promise. You were right, I shouldn't have gone by myself, but I ended up getting some help. These two other hunters showed up, and it's all taken care of."

There's a pause on the other end of the line. "…I feel like you're excluding some crucial details there, babe."

She never could lie to Nora, not since they were kids. "I got… spelled. Hexed, or whatever."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"It means I'm, um. A bit sick. Not feeling great, that's all."

"Are you lying?"

Vicious guilt lances through her. Nora isn't a hunter, she doesn't know the ins and outs of witches and their various flavours of bullshit. She does, however, know the ins and outs Riley's various flavours of bullshit, but she can't have Nora thinking she's about to drop dead far away and alone. Which isn't going to happen, anyway. So why worry her with it? That would be much worse.

She almost believes herself.

"I'm not lying. I feel drunk, dude, just dizzy and a bit puke-y. It's gross."

Nora makes a little anxious groaning noise, like she's deciding whether or not to believe her. Evidently, she decides to err on the side of trust, which of course makes Riley feel a million times worse. "Okay," she says quietly. "I hate this."

Riley's heart breaks. "I know, honey. I'm sorry."

The pet name falls from her lips and it's nearly an accident. They've had this conversation more times than she can count — Nora begs her to quit hunting, Riley explains why she can't, Nora gets frustrated but invariably drops it, Riley feels like shit for putting her through the stress and anxiety of the whole thing.

That's how it goes when you're wrapped around the little finger of your best friend who you sometimes kiss and maybe love more than you're supposed to. She just honestly doesn't want to have the argument right now.

"Can you come back? I haven't seen you in so long."

"I will, as soon as I'm feeling better I'll be there. We'll make sushi and sticky date pudding and get drunk. And you'll skip all your classes and hang out with me."

Nora laughs, and it's so beautiful. She wishes she could see her azure wash buzz with it. "If you make me fail another exam I'll cut the straps off all your bras. You'll only have strapless bras, and you'll have a uni-boob forever."

Riley smiles fondly and sighs, the pain in her head spiking and sending her vision dark around the edges. So much for trying to avoid a migraine. "Hey, don't knock the uni-boob. They have personality."

"You're ridiculous. Promise you're safe?"

A gag tries to escape her throat and she can't say for certain it's one hundred percent spell-related. "I promise."

Sam's wash is different from before — it's brighter, like a perfectly sweet tangerine, or an intense sunset. And instead of the agitated stress from before, it slowly pulses with focus as he leans over from his chair next to the bed, hands hovering above Riley's body, his face creased in concentration.

Dean hovers in the doorway, shoulder leaning against the jamb as he radiates a gentle yellow, glossy shimmer dancing lightly.

It's been quiet for a few minutes as Sam does whatever he's doing. Riley's still feeling awful and is afforded no reprieve, the nausea coming and going in waves. Even as she closes her eyes, vertigo consumes her and the room spins as if she's had one too many shots. Instead, she's forced to keep her eyes open, which is a bit awkward since she can't tell if she should be looking at Sam's face, or his hands, or straight up at the ceiling.

Sam's focus fills the room to near bursting, almost to the point of being oppressive. It's not bad, but it does have just a thread of tension that Riley is trying to block out.

It's times like these where Riley wishes she wasn't the only one who can see what she does. She's asked around here and there, to no avail. The (good) witches she's come across shrug, and the few psychics give her the same wishy-washy bullshit she's heard a million times. She had even once sought out a seer who claimed to specialise in 'aura readings'. Once it was clear the seer was indeed legit, Riley had tried to describe what she'd been seeing her whole life, but the man just seemed confused.

"Auras aren't manifest," he'd said, bemused, "and they're not— what did you say? Textured? They're just a hint, a suggestion of intent. Like if an emotion was a La Croix."

That hadn't been comforting. Even the dullest of washes were glaring — her boring high school tutor was always surrounded with a flat, pale watercolour blue, but even that was captivating when Riley got an equation right and the tutor's wash would ripple serenely like silk sails in the wind.

It took her a long time to learn that no one could relate, and no one knew what she was talking about when she babbled about colours and feelings. Her parents and teachers called her perceptive, which Riley supposes is technically true.

It took her longer still to learn not to call people out on discrepancies between what they were saying out loud and what their wash was screaming in her face. Most people will occasionally hide some degree of guilt or deception, which is perfectly normal, but Riley knows from experience that those darker tinges are almost never foundational to a person's self, and that shades of malignancy never last.

Which is why she is waiting, with no small degree of nervousness, for the dark swirl in Sam's wash to dissolve away.

The difference between Sam's wash during her rescue and now is startling. The deep, stressed sunburn has given way to the brightness before her, but there was just one blemish — a mere pinprick of dark, nestled in the humming thrum.

It was there when he entered the room, reassuring smile and glass of water in hand, but isolated and small, with seemingly no effect on the rest of his wash. Just a tiny tarnish amongst a brilliant hue. She mustn't have noticed it back at the witch's house, too occupied with dying.

Sam had pulled up the chair, sat, and settled in to perform whatever reading or examination was currently happening, and as his wash began to oscillate with power that little spot had stretched, been pulled into other parts, as if buoying some of the energy already there.

It's like a drop of ink has been slipped into the apricot flux, smearing a thin stream of black through the most vivid centre.

It's undeniably unsettling.

Sam's face screws tighter and he huffed in frustration, finally lowering his arms. "It's affixed."

Riley watches the murk in Sam's wash recede back to nearly nothing, until it's bouncing around like a rubber duck in rough seas. The saturated tangerine orange softens to a sunset glow. "Meaning..?"

"I can't get it all out. It's bound itself too tightly," Sam says, and turns to Dean. "I'll call Rowena."

"Cas is on the way home, he might be able to tell us something about something. I'm gonna head out for some grub, you're both eating some read meat tonight so help me." With that Dean pushes away from the jamb and strolls down the hall Riley has yet to see. She supposes Cas is another hunter.

Sam's wash simmers with annoyance, and maybe a little disappointment. He's staring at the space above Riley's body, one knee bouncing.

He's clearly lost in thought, so it's a little awkward. Too worried that trying to sit up will cause the stewing nausea to spike, Riley lays there and fidgets.

"So…" she starts. "You're a witch?"

That breaks him out of his trance, and he smiles at her stiffly like he's embarrassed. "I suppose so. Still in training, I guess, but don't worry. Rowena's probably the most powerful witch in the world right now, she'll be able to remove the hex."

That's a little intimidating. While Riley's certainly glad that she's probably not going to die any time soon, a leap of old hope lodges in her throat. If anyone can give her insight on her ability, it must be this witch. "And you're… friends? She's nice?"

A wave of affection flows through Sam's wash, and his face softens. "Yeah, she is. She was giving us some trouble a few years ago but she's come around now."

Going around telegraphing the fact that you have psychic powers is not considered a wise thing to do, especially in hunting circles. There are a few hunters out there that know about Riley's ability, ones she trusts enough to tell, but for the most part things are easier when they think she's just a normal, non-supernatural twenty-something.

Sam and Dean seem trustworthy. They rescued her, they're trying to heal her, and there's not a smudge of malice in either of their washes. If they say this witch is powerful, she can't pass up the opportunity to seek her help.

"Do you think she would help me with something else, too?"

"What, like a spell?"

"No, like an… ability."

Interest and a tinge of wariness creeps into the orange glow in the room. "Go on."

Riley battles the nausea that's steadily rising in her gut. "I can see, um, auras. Or at least that's what I think they are, but some seer told me that auras are different, and I suppose I just want to know what is it. Or if it can be useful, or turned off. Because sometimes it can be… a lot."

Sam's face is pensive and his wash is flickering with curiosity. "That's fascinating. What do they look like?"

"They're like, a colour, and a bit of emotion, and sometimes I can like, feel them. I don't know." The nausea starts to bubble up again and she feels the blood drain from her face.

Sam doesn't seem to notice she's gone white as a sheet. His sunset orange is deepening into tangerine again and jittering with excitement. "You can feel emotion? Like, an actual physical feeling? That doesn't sound like an aura, that doesn't sound like anything I've heard of. Rowena's gonna love this. When you're feeling better we could do some tests, I can already think of some sources that might—"

"Sam."

"—help with narrowing down what it is, there's been heaps of research on psychics. You wouldn't believe how many sub-types there are—"

"Sam."

"Oh. Yeah?"

"Can I get a bucket?"

Sam's confused for half a second before he scrambles for the little trashcan under the desk.

One round of dry retching into a (thankfully) lined bin later, Dean returns with foil wrapped burgers and fries smothered in cheese and sauce. It's enough to get Riley to venture out of the room, but not before she asks where her clothes are and who exactly changed her into the oversized, pinstriped nightgown à la Scrooge she woke up in. Flustered, Sam told her her clothes were covered in sticky grease and god knows what from the witch's table, and that he had very respectfully changed her before pulling the bed sheets up. There's nothing but embarrassment and awkwardness in his wash, no depravity or lewdness, so she lets it slide.

They eat at an old table in what appears to be some kind of library-slash-museum. Any other day, she would have spent hours picking through the books and relics displayed about the room. Dean does take the opportunity to show her the 'war room', which has a table with a world map and desks with more buttons and levers than anything she's seen on Star Trek.

Unfortunately, Riley is too queasy to keep her dinner down, and after more vomiting, she falls into a broken, restless sleep.

The first thing she notices when she wakes is the noise.

The moment she's conscious, it's deafening — the frequency penetrates her skin, her flesh, her bones; the ringing incessant and inescapable. Blood rushes from limbs and into her head, which pounds and throbs and she's vomiting over the side of the bed, retching but there's nothing left to expel.

The second thing she notices, as she's wiping her mouth and waiting for the wave of nausea to pass, is that the air is shuddering, vibrating like a washing machine on spin cycle. It presses in against her, as if she's a thousand feet underwater.

Something is wrong, something must be wrong because this is all new. Riley's never seen or felt anything like this.

She shoves the sheets down and forces herself to her feet, pitching and stumbling as if drunk, vision swimming. The door frame rushes to meet her and she can instantly tell her shoulder will bruise from how heavily she falls into it.

"Sam!" she yells over the noise that probably isn't even there. "Dean!"

Riley wracks her brain for any clue as to what could possibly be causing this racket, this force. Terror leeches into her as she realises that whatever it is must be here, in the bunker, with her. She has no idea where her clothes or weapons are and she's weak from the spell. She's in no state to defend herself.

No one responds to her calls and no one comes down the hall.

Riley stumbles into the library, the piercing ringing in the air like an ice pick behind the eye.

Sam is sitting at the table bent over some thick tome, headphones over his ears, his wash steady and solid. It's not until she's right in front of him, gripping the chair across from him, that he notices her. He pulls the headphones off his ears and looks up at her, brows drawn in confusion which quickly turns to worry as he takes in her state.

"Whoa, whoa, what's going on?" Sam's up and around the table, holding her arm to steady her. She can hear him speak just fine despite the noise, as if he's on a different wavelength. His wash sways, singed with rusty concern around the edges, but it's barely noticeable behind the violent shaking.

The fact that he can't hear or feel or see it, that no one ever can, makes her want to scream.

Instead, she looks up at him, pleading, risking another bout of nausea. "It's— there's noise, and the air is moving— something's coming, it has to be." She can feel sweat beading on her brow.

Sam's on alert, looking around the room. "Nothing can get in here, it's warded," he assures her gently. "You're safe, Riley, I promise. What can you hear?"

But that doesn't make any sense, because it's getting louder, and the air is starting to shimmer with a fine, gossamer lustre, and she claps her hands over her ears because her eardrums feel like they're about to explode, and the whining is only getting louder and louder—

Sam's calling her name, his wash reflecting the fear on his face, but she can't hear anything over the screaming wail and the tangible strain in the air. Riley whirls, desperate to find the source of the sound. She leaps down the couple steps to the room with the table map, and the noise is louder, penetrating. Movement catches the corner of her eye.

Up on the mezzanine, the heavy door that presumably leads to the outside world is opening, and Dean walks through holding a few grocery bags. Momentary comfort washes through Riley at the sight of his wash, golden and buzzing with contentment, but that relief dies in her throat when a second man wearing a trench coat steps over the threshold.

The roaring around her coalesces into an unbearable cacophony pressing in from all sides and Riley doubles over, the pressure behind her eyes threatening to split her skull. Distantly, she's aware of Sam at her side, hands on her shoulders as she collapses.

Riley risks one last glace upwards. Dean's racing down the staircase, and the other man (how can that be a man?) peers down at her, hands on the mezzanine railing.

His wash is… incomprehensible. It's the absence of wash, of anything at all. The shimmer in the air, she realises, is him, and the closer to his body, the more dense and compacted the shimmer becomes until it's just a blinding white light, a blank void filled with absolutely everything and nothing, light made into matter, blistering and thunderous. It's as if the sun is forty feet from her face.

The — man — frowns at her in confusion.

The air sings, and cracks open, and Riley screams.

Chapter Text

When she was small, around the time she learned not everyone could see the colours, Riley met a monster.

He was innocuous enough, standing in front of her and her mother in line for checkout at a gas station, picking up a magazine to flip through it idly as they waited.

Public places used to overwhelm her, back then. Colours, emotions, senses pressing in on all sides, so noisy that she could barely discern what was being said out loud and what was merely in her head.

Her mother's wash was always nice — vibrant green, swaying and rippling like tall grass in the wind. Riley could always find comfort beside her, letting her wash roll over her. Basking in the familiar sensation was comforting, and helped her to ignore the racket around her.

But on this occasion, the man's wash penetrated that calm, and Riley remembers hiding behind her mother and tugging on the hem of her shirt, peeking around at him.

The man must have felt her eyes on him, because he had glanced down at her.

Riley recalls feral, snarling stabs of aggression directed at her; a dark, blood-red seething and vying towards her. Her mother's wash was not affected, as washes never interact directly with each other, but the dread and fear permeating the air had Riley cowering, wide eyes locked with the man.

He held her gaze, considering her, before smiling, teeth straight and white. Normal. Riley's mother had chuckled and placed a gentle hand on the back of her head.

"I'm sorry about the staring," she had said warmly to the man. "She's a little shy."

The man's smile widened, and looked up at her mother, his wash clawing towards her. "No worries," he'd said, all friendly and gracious, but Riley knew better. "I love kids."

The line moved forward, and the man put back the trashy magazine before moving up to the counter to pay for his cigarettes.

For the next thirteen years, until she was nearly twenty, Riley could count the number of people she came across with similar washes on one hand. Since discovering the supernatural, and hunting, she now recognised them as monsters — vampires, werewolves, ghouls. Sometimes it feels like cheating, being able to tell who's human and what's not, but it's made her job easier. Protecting people is the whole point, after all.

So far, she's had just one encounter with a demon.

One was enough.

It's wash gave her nightmares for weeks. It was screeching in pain, lashing out with desperate fury and despair, oily black, even as the demon laughed and threatened her all throughout the exorcism.

She is told by older, wiser hunters that demons were far more commonplace years ago. Thank god times have changed.

All this has fostered a healthy and functioning (in her own opinion) early detection system for trouble. An inhuman wash has her on instant high alert.

Which is why she needs to get out of here as soon as fucking possible.

There's a bookshelf hard against her back, shelves digging into her spine, but it's nothing compared to the pain in her head. Her hands are still clapped over her ears, and what must be blood is slicking her palms. She's weeping. Her throat is raw. The overwhelming ringing and brilliancy in the air around her is suffocating, and she can't tell if it's been going for minutes or hours.

Someone's got a rough grip on her knee, and it would be grounding if it didn't feel like her brain was about to leak out of her ears. It must be Sam's. She can sense his panicked fretting, but it's smothered beneath the light bleeding through her eyelids.

A savage dry heave rips through her, like her body is desperate to physically eject the fear and pain and terror. She'll crawl if she has to, she just needs to make it to the stairs and—

Abruptly, blessedly, the ringing stops.

Silence hangs in the air like a heavy fog.

Her lungs rattle with breath, so loud now that the noise is gone. Her head feels empty and cold. Cautiously, Riley pulls her hands from her ears and peers down at the red smears marring her palms. She cracks an eye open; the shimmer is gone too.

Sam is kneeling at her side, face screwed up with worry. "I think it worked!" he calls over his shoulder without taking his eyes off her. "Hey, hey, you okay?"

His voice is muffled while her hearing takes time to readjust. She scans the room, disoriented, terrified that the man — no, monster — is still lurking about.

"What happened?" she rasps. "Where is it?"

Sam frowns. "Where's what?"

How could he have missed it?

"The— the thing!" Her voice comes out hoarse, making her cough. "With Dean, it came in with him!"

"What, you mean Cas?"

Horror leeches into her, the breath snatched from her lungs as she looks incredulously at Sam. "That's Cas? Do you even know what that thing is?"

Sam looks back over his shoulder before standing, offering a hand and pulling her effortlessly to her feet. Vertigo lurches through her and she groans, doubling over and bracing herself with her hands on her knees.

Riley steadies herself against the bookshelf, her breath ragged and stuttering. Everything looks normal but there's still something putting her off, setting her on edge, but she can't quite put her finger on it.

Sam's saying something but she's not listening. She shuts her eyes and listens, trusting her senses to pick the odd thing out, the sensation that's not supposed to be there. The piercing scream is gone, but there is something…

Once she's caught on, there's no un-hearing it. It’s like that rumbling, blanketing roll of thunder, tumbling across the sky with a barely there restraint and you can tell, you can tell, that it’s the precursor to a violent, skull-splitting crack that only comes with the kind of lightning that blazes the entire sky.

The power that thrums through the air is terrifying in its singularity.

Sam's still talking. He must notice the dread on her face because he reaches for her shoulder. His touch startles her, and she snaps her head towards him, eyes filled with fear.

Dirty, singed rust edges further into his wash, swirling worriedly. Riley realises he's waiting for her to answer. She feels groggy, still sick. "What?"

The crease between his eyebrows somehow deepens. "I said Cas is our friend, he lives here. You're safe around him."

Safe. That makes no fucking sense. Nothing that powerful, that staggeringly oppressive, can be anything other than life-threatening, and she needs to get out now.

She shakes her head, backing away from Sam. "No, no, you— you don't understand, that thing is dangerous, I have to—"

But as she turns, Dean rushes through from the library, stopping short when he sees her. "It worked?" he asks Sam, slightly out of breath before turning to Riley. "You alright?"

She's about to ask what the fuck worked? when the monster in the trench coat appears behind him, same confused expression on his face, squinted eyes and sharp, clean angles. He has a necklace on he didn't have before, a leather cord with a glinting silver pendant. There's a faint, glittering sheen to him, but beyond that—nothing. No blinding white void, no skull-splitting scream.

Riley stares, bewildered. Besides her own reflection, she's never seen anything humanoid without some sort of colour. It's incredibly disconcerting.

The staring competition between her and the monster, Cas, stretches on until Dean shuffles in frustration and steps between them, waving a hand at Riley.

"Hey," he barks roughly, snapping her attention back to him. "Tell me what's going on here. You just wigged out and started screaming. You know Cas or something?" His wash is deepening into an ochre, jittering nervously. The shine is still there, surging and fluid, and it strikes Riley that it's similar to the sheen surrounding Cas.

Her tone comes out more pointed than what is probably necessary, suspicion rising in her chest. "Know him? I don't even know what it is! It's obviously not human, but it apparently lives here, so you tell me."

Cas seems unperturbed, his confusion edging into fascination. Riley hears him speak for the first time, and his deep, gravelly voice is no surprise considering the quiet thunder hanging about.

"I'm an angel of the lord."

Dean sighs heavily and tips his head back in exasperation. "C'mon Cas, we usually try to ease people into the whole angel thing."

Stunned into silence, Riley's mind rapidly cycles through everything she's ever heard about angels. They're nearly extinct, and like demons, were far more numerous and active up until a few years ago. They're powerful, and not the prayerful, forgiving type. All the advice she's ever received has been one resounding STAY AWAY, do NOT attempt to hunt.

She once met a hunter who swears up and down he watched an angel eviscerate a demon with the snap of their fingers — blood, bone, organs, viscera, all vaporised into a fine red spray that painted the inside of a hospital break room in a split second. It was apparently effective at least in killing the demon, evidenced by the hissing, burnt patch of carpet where it was standing. The host, of course, was given seemingly nil consideration.

Angels are terrifying, absolute. Riley had hoped never to encounter one. And these two have one living with them. They can't even see the magnitude of it.

Riley's shocked to see Dean's wash flare in defence of the angel, it's vitriol directed at her. It stings more than any words, and her guts roil with it.

He puffs his chest out. "Yeah, okay, he's an angel. Whatever. He's not like the rest of those dickbags, and if you got a problem with him, I got a problem with you."

"Dean," Sam hisses. "She's just scared! She's probably never even met an angel, imagine what she's heard about them."

"They tried to kill the world," she chokes, fear clawing up her throat. "Lucifer—"

"Cas threw a fucking molotov cocktail at Lucifer!" Dean interrupts, wash spiking in tawny stabs. "He's on our side, he's always been on our side! This is bullshit, Sammy."

His agitation is clear in the darkening of the blond glimmer, shades of a deeper, tarnished brass seeping in, the churning anger making her wince. It's too much on top of the nausea jolting though her, and she presses herself back against the bookshelf.

Sam stands, putting himself between her and Dean. "Seriously, chill out. She doesn't know him. Remember when you first met Cas? I think she's doing alright."

Dean purses his lips, clenches his hands into fists. Riley thinks he's about to go off again when the angel lays a hand on his shoulder, like a silent comfort.

She stares at Dean's wash. The angry edge is still there, but it's tampered down into something more mellow, brightening from tarnished brass into a deep gold.

The angel's hand slides down Dean's arm as he lets go. Dean flexes his fingers and takes a deep breath.

"Alright," he says, gentler than expected. "Alright, kid. I get it, but he's alright. He's family." He looks back over his shoulder, and the angel gives him a small smile, there then gone. "Guess he is kinda scary, if you don't know him."

Okay, so the angel isn't an immediate threat. It's… tricking them. Or something. The familiarity and trust radiating from Dean's wash is putting her out of wack, which doesn't help considering her head already feels like it's full of murderous hornets.

"O-kay," she says slowly, head spinning. "It's fine. An angel, that's fine." Her mouth fills with saliva and she hunches over, breathing heavily. "C-can I just go lay down? I feel like—"

She dry-retches violently, limbs shaking. Sam helps her back down the hall and she trembles, trying to stifle the instinct to run, to fight, to do something in response to the terrible power she's sharing a roof with.

Before she knows it, she's back in her room. She plops down onto the bed, elbows on her knees and head hanging. Sam stands back, engulfed in churning, earthy umber.

"Sorry about Dean," he says, one hand pushing his hair back roughly. "He's not a bad guy, he's just… protective. Of Cas, specifically."

Riley laughs mirthlessly. "As if that thing needs protecting. It could kill us all with a thought."

"You really should stop calling him an it."

She meets Sam's eye with a tilt of her head. He crosses his arms and holds her gaze in challenge. His own wash has a shade of defensiveness amongst the anxiety coiling there.

The fact that the both of them are jumping to the angel's defence is unsettling, to say the least. If not for the earnest openness of both their washes, Riley would start to worry they're up to something more sinister.

Consorting with angels is nearly unheard of in hunter's circles. Stories paint them as inhuman, cold, and unable or unwilling to work with others. And there's the whole apocalypse thing.

There has been some insane stories and rumours flying around these last few years. Riley once met a woman who claimed to be from an alternate version of Earth where angels had nearly wiped out humanity, and that's just about as crazy as it gets. Worryingly, there wasn't a hint of deceit or uncertainty in her coral pink wash, only fear and dread, but she did have some tips on how to defend against the heavenly dickbags. Jury's out on if they actually work, but this might be the opportunity to try one of them out.

In her five or so years of hunting, Riley's only ever heard of one case of human-angel cooperation that went even half right, and even that's not entirely—

"Oh, shit," she groans. Fucking of course.

Sam straightens up. "What is it?"

It seems so stupidly obvious now. "You and Dean, you're those guys, the brothers. The Washingtons? Wait, no, the Wilsons? Something like that."

Amusement flows out from Sam, dissipating some of the stress. "Winchester."

"The Winchesters! Yeah, shit, you guys saved the world, didn't you? I've heard about it. I thought you guys were like, younger."

Sam raises his eyebrows and huffs a laugh. "Younger? If you're talking about the first time, that was nearly fifteen years ago."

The first time. That checks out.

The Winchesters are legends. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who's met them. They're supposed to be the best hunters on the continent, and there's no shortage of rumours about them.

They started the apocalypse; Sam slept with a demon; Dean killed Death; they have a pet angel; Dean died and came back; they kidnapped the president; Sam has demon powers; they're friends with the King of Hell; they killed God and the new one is kind of their kid.

The alleged list goes on and on. If just one of them is true, Riley's not as safe as she thought. Perhaps it's best to change to subject.

The rolling thunder carries through the air and bounces around behind her eyes. "The angel. You're really sure about him?"

"Absolutely," he assures. "He would never hurt you, he's like a brother to me."

The drone filling the room begs to differ. Riley twists her lips, but says nothing.

"Boys!" a voice trills from the mezzanine.

They (they being Sam and Riley) are in the library. In what Riley is learning is typical behaviour, Sam is sitting at the table bent over a book that looks three times his age.

She's slouched down in one of the armchairs she's pulled out from between the bookshelves, flipping through a book about the pitfalls of using the Bible as an authority of anything angel-related. The chair only made a little scratch in the floorboards, but Sam was weirdly adamant that Dean not find out.

It's been a relatively peaceful twenty-four hours since Cas came home. Dean still kind of has the shits with her, but once she grit her teeth, pushed the insistent droning out of her head, and struck up a conversation with Cas, Dean had warmed up a bit.

She asked about the necklace he's still wearing. It turns out to be a prototype amulet designed to dampen an angels' power, buried deep in the artefact archives this place apparently has. Only by sheer luck did Sam catalogue it recently, and thought it might do something to reduce the incapacitating sound and sight of Cas' wash.

Dean and Cas still appear to be keeping their distance, though, squirrelled away somewhere in the labyrinth of halls and rooms. The fact that Dean's off her makes her feel awkward and awful, but she tries not to let it get to her. He's just a guy.

While she's no longer tempted to claw her eyes out or stick a knitting needle in her ears, the steady, looming rumble feels like a constant threat. Feeling like her guts are about to jump up and out of her throat twenty-four-seven is the cherry on top.

After three days of constant nausea, Riley is fucking thrilled at the sound of Rowena's arrival.

Sam jumps at the sound of her voice and his wash flips from the cool easy sway of concentration to a bright, excited buzzing, drenched in affection.

Riley heaves herself up with a grunt. Her limbs are shaky and she's still rather unsteady on her feet, so she hangs back, leaning against the table.

Rowena turns out to be an utter visual delight. Her stunning scarlet hair is glossy and striking against the black coat wrapped around her, matching black tote slung over her shoulder. Her eyes sparkle with mischief from behind dramatic, perfectly applied silvery eye shadow, lips red and shiny.

But of course her physical beauty, while undeniable, is secondary to the breathtaking sweep of deep, royal purple blossoming and curling upwards from her body, like an ethereal, shifting tree of life. Riley can't help staring as it twirls and coils skyward, pulsing slowly with a soft glow.

Rowena breezes lightly down the stairs into the war room, wide, white smile and delicate fingers tracing down the bassinet.

Sam meets her at the bottom and wraps her up in a tight hug, huge arms around her waist, face buried in her bouncy curls. When he straightens up, Rowena takes his face in her hands and pulls him in, kissing him warmly.

Riley blinks in surprise.

"Mmm," Rowena hums with a close-lipped, secretive smile, deep violet tendrils curling around her. "It's been too long, Samuel. What mischief have you been up to? Picking up strays?"

Sam laughs, stepping back. "Don't tease. Riley, this is Rowena. Rowena, Riley."

Sam didn't say anything to suggest any sort of romantic relationship between himself and Rowena, but now that they're in the same room, his wash is bright and excited and beautiful. Her accent is surprising; lilting, playful Scottish.

Rowena turns to her, brows coming together in concern at the sight of her. She hands her bag off to Sam and strides over, vibrant lilac swirling and arcing in the air, feeding into invisible channels and pulsing with power.

"Of course, the cursed girl." Rowena takes Riley's hands in hers and gives her a soft, worried look, like a mother who's toddler fell in some mud. "You poor wee thing. Samuel tells me you're affixed with some sort of… drunken state?"

"Well, it sounds kind of dumb when you put it like that."

Rowena's face is serious, pensive, but her wash flashes and twists higher still into the air like branches of an ancient oak.

"Tell me what's the matter, dear."

Conscious that the urge to vomit is always just around the corner, Riley takes a deep breath. "I'm sick all the time. I'm so sweaty it's disgusting, and I'm so nauseous I can't keep any food down, which means I'm also starving. I'm exhausted and dizzy but I sleep for like fifteen hours a day. It's like being wasted with none of the inhibition which is like, the only good bit."

Rowena hums, nodding. "Oh, she got you good with this one! I daresay it's a disgorging curse, and nasty. Very tightly bound by the sounds of it. Not usually done in self defence, but Samuel mentioned the hag was taken care of nicely regardless."

Sam sets Rowena's tote down on the map table. "But you can get rid of it?"

"That best not be a note of doubt in your tone there, darling." Mirth dances in Rowena's wash as she tosses a look back at Sam before returning her attention to Riley. "Aye, I can unwind this one for you. But it'll take some time."

Despite Sam's reassurances, sweet relief still rushes through her at those words. "Thank you," she breathes, leaning back heavily against the table.

"Of course, dearie. Come now, let's get you rested. I'll gather some things and then we can get started!"

A witch's wash usually has something interesting to it — a colour, a feeling, a shape. Sam's wash had that sliver of darkness, or corruption, that was smeared into the rest of his crisp sunset orange and gave his energy a push. The witch who cursed her had such a slimy, sickening wash it's no wonder her MO was making people puke to death. Rowena, though…

It's as if her wash is reaching into the universe, tapping into a secret, hidden network of roots and drawing that power into herself, bending it to her will. It reaches far, far out, larger than any wash Riley's ever seen, a light show of lavender coursing with deep, rich purples. It's like watching fireworks.

Rowena clears her throat and Riley snaps back to reality. "What are you staring into space for, hmm?" she chides with a raised eyebrow.

Riley's back in the armchair which has been set up at the head of the library table, Rowena standing before her with various ingredients and spellware spread out on the tabletop. Sam's sitting to her left, and Dean and Cas are towards the other end, both nursing fancy probably-crystal glasses of whiskey.

Everyone is staring at her, and the noise of Cas' wash is, as ever, pervasive.

She glances at Sam, who nods in encouragement. Dean's wash flickers with confusion at the exchange, the golden shimmer magnificent and distracting. Cas' gaze is unflinching.

"Uhh… It's, um. I think I can see your, uh, magic?"

"Well yes, dear." Rowena lifts her hands with a smile, a spark of purple lightning dancing between her fingertips. "We all can."

Sam's wash flares brighter with thrill and impatience, sweet tangerine flurrying around him. He jerks his head towards Rowena, eyes wide.

Dean doesn't miss it. "Whoa, hang on," he calls sharply, leaning forward in his chair. "What—"

"Not that," Riley interrupts before she loses her nerve. "I can see it all the time. Up in the air, all—" she waves her hand around and above Rowena's head, "—flowing and curling. Purple."

Rowena stops and peers down at her, shock flashing through the tendrils of her wash, bright lilac. There's a beat where no one says anything, and everyone stares at her.

Rowena speaks slowly, measured. "You see… colour?"

"Um. Yes?"

"And it moves? How?"

Riley's heart is beating harder, her breath coming faster. "Depends. Sometimes they're soft, like ripples. Sometimes they're harsher. Like flashing, or— monsters are different. They're usually more… violent."

Riley doesn't need to look at Rowena's wash to tell she's intrigued, her eyes shining with anticipation. "Tell me, dear. Can you sense feelings with the colours?"

The specificity of her question sends Riley's heart soaring. "Yes," she breathes.

"Oh, goodness." Rowena steps back, clasping her hands together under her chin and smiling widely. "That's something special."

Hope that Riley hasn't felt in an age rises in her chest, nearly overpowering the nausea. "You know what it is?"

"You don't?"

"I—" she stammers. Is this some obvious thing she's had the bad luck of never coming across? That would be embarrassing. She shakes her head.

"It's souls, child. You're seeing souls."

No one says anything for a few long seconds. Shock and intrigue are rolling through the room, colours pulsing and flashing. It's distracting.

Cas is the one to break the silence. "That explains why you reacted the way you did to my presence. It's mostly likely you were perceiving my true visage."

Everyone at the table seems to think that's a big deal.

The strained, full silence carries on until Dean plucks up his glass, throws back the last mouthful, and slams it on the tabletop. His wash is lashing out like a solar flare, coiling and twisting in annoyance and… jealousy?

There's nothing on Dean's face to give away his roiling emotions, but Cas looks over at him and rests a hand on his forearm. Dean's wash responds, calming itself. He takes a long breath through his nose.

Dean shakes himself out of it, and chuckles. "Jesus, kid. No wonder you freaked out. Last person who got a peek at Cas without his meatsuit on had her eyeballs melted out of her skull."

Well.

Riley turns to Sam in horror, nausea taking hold again, hoping that he'll wave a hand and laugh. Instead, he presses his lips together and gives a grim, awkward nod. She feels the breath go out of her.

"Fucking hell, guys. A heads up would have been nice."

"It wasn't intentional," Cas says, somewhat defensively, before turning to Dean. "I told her not to look."

Rowena reaches for the bowl on the table. "Angels are a tad… destructive, yes, but you wouldn't know from our lovely friend here. He's domesticated."

"Domesticated, my ass," Dean grumbles.

Rowena ignores Dean's comment and turns to Riley, smiling. "Riley, dear, hold this."

The spell bowl is heavy, like cast iron. Riley was too distracted by Rowena's magic pulsing through her wash to take note of the ingredients, but the grey-green mixture looks lumpy and not remotely palatable. Sickness rises further in her chest and she catches a whiff of something like aniseed, and something like offal.

"I have to drink this?"

Rowena makes a face. "Oh, goodness no. You can't ingest crocotta cerebellum, you'll go mad! What are they teaching in school these days?"

"Not this."

With a disapproving shake of her head, Rowena dips her fingers into the bowl and dabs the mixture onto Riley's brow and throat. It's cold, and tingles her skin like spearmint. Rowena steps back, raising her hands.

Rowena's fingers tense, and her eyes shine with power as her wash probes further out into the room, the deep purple streaks coiling with power, flowing faster and more violently down into her petite body, like water through a fire hose. The purple glow around her body intensifies, burning brighter until Riley's squinting against it.

"Radicem morbi solve et ure!"

Rowena's wash shoves, and Riley yelps as the power and magic is directed in a thick torrent right towards her.

There's no pain or physical pressure, but the tight, sickly feeling in her guts gives one final wrench, then falls away like a loosened knot.

The bowl is pulled from her hands and Sam is at her side.

"Was that it? Did it work?"

"It worked," Riley croaks.

"Of course it worked!" Rowena pouts. "I would have thought you had more faith in me, Samuel."

"Don't you start."

Riley pushes herself up from the chair, and finds that standing is not accompanied by any wave of nausea or drunkenness. The relief is overwhelming.

Hands on the table, Riley looks Dean right in the eye. "I want another one of those burgers. And I won't puke it up this time."

Surprise is quickly replaced by an almost childlike excitement, and Dean's wash is as bright as the smile on his face. "That's what I'm fuckin' talking about."

"I can't believe souls are real. That's nuts."

"I mean, ghosts are real. Souls aren't that huge of a leap."

"I guess. But souls sound so… spiritual? Mystical? Almost religious."

"Oh, dude, that reminds me. You are never going to guess what I met."

"Unless it's aliens or the literal Bigfoot, I probably won't."

"It's an angel."

Nora sputters in disbelief. "A fucking angel? Like, with wings?"

"It doesn't have wings or a harp or anything," Riley says, smiling at the thought of Nora's shocked expression. "It just looks like a normal guy."

"Well how do you know if it's an angel?"

"It's wash... fuck, you should have seen it. Heard it. It was so loud I couldn't function. It nearly blinded me."

"That sounds… scary. Is it helping the witch heal you or something?"

Right. Riley's never mentioned angels before, so of course Nora would think they're like they are in the Bible. The Second Testament stuff, too, all glorious and heavenly and righteous. She's never considered they might be dangerous, or downright lethal.

"Uh, no. The guys who live here, it's kind of their friend, I guess? Sam said it was like his brother."

"An angel for a brother. That's so cool, I bet he just does miracles and stuff all the time. If they haven't already, they should buy a lottery ticket."

Riley chuckles. "I don't know if it works like that, but I'll pass on your advice."

"As if they haven't already thought of it."

"I dunno, they treat him normal. He's just a dude, kinda. Apparently he can't fly, though."

"I didn't even think of flying! Some angel."

It always surprises Riley how easily Nora accepted the supernatural as a fact of life. "He's plenty angel, don't worry about that. I don't wanna be around him any longer than I have to."

"So when are you leaving?"

The moment Rowena confirmed that the curse was unbound and that she was not, in fact, going to die, all Riley could think about was calling Nora and telling her she'd be there as soon as she could. Apparently the actual sickness spell has to be healed separately to the unbinding, so she can't leave quite yet.

Sam says that bouts of nausea and dizziness will keep happening until the spell is out of her system, which shouldn't take more than a few days. He can reportedly handle that work himself, so Rowena is heading off in the morning to deal with 'bureaucratic nonsense', whatever that means.

"Uhh, not yet. I've still got like, major bubblegut. I haven't puked today yet but I've been damn close after—"

"Okay, okay! I don't want to hear about your half digested lunch! Talk to me about something cool and not disgusting, like seeing souls. That's groovy."

Riley laughs. "I mean it doesn't really change anything, does it? It's still useful, I guess. I can still tell human from non-humans. I can still tell how someone's feeling or when they're lying. I'm glad I know what it is, but there's not really any practical difference."

"What!" Nora chides. "Doesn't really change anything?! Of course it does! You're just talking about the emotional part, what someone's feeling. What about the colours? And the movement? Don't you think that tells you more about a person, who they actually are, now that you know it's their actual soul?"

She thinks. Rowena's wash, vast and mighty. Dean's wash, brilliant and flawless.

Sam's wash, with that spot of something.

"I guess so. Maybe it's too much information to have about someone."

"What does mine look like?"

Riley rolls her eyes. "Babe, I've told you a hundred times."

"I know, I know, but it's different now! C'mon, I remember it's like, blue or something?"

Blue, or something. She takes a steadying breath.

"Yeah, it's blue. But it's like, a big blue. Like the sky when there's no clouds. And that sounds lame and stereotypical, I know, but— look, once I was in this town in Arizona for a salt n' burn. It was a million miles from anything, and I drove through desert for hours to get there.

"On the way out I remember thinking the sky was so— so huge, so wide, I had to stop the car and get out and just look at it. Middle of the day, side of the road. I laid flat on my back in the red dirt and just stared. I was there so long I got sunburnt.

"I remember looking straight up, and I could barely see land. The blue was so clear and pure and open, it was like I was floating in it. I was so calm. It felt safe."

Nora is silent on the other end of the line.

Riley swallows. "That's how I feel when I'm with you, close enough to touch. Like I'm floating in blue. And when you're laughing or snoring you get wisps darker colour, like… I don't know, streams of water. Sometimes I get distracted while you're talking, which is probably why you think my hearing's shot. But I can't help it. It's beautiful."

The silence is nerve wracking. They're not supposed to be so upfront with… feelings. Drunken making out and sleeping in the same bed is one thing, but admitting there are feelings attached to that has always been a step too far. Sometime Riley's swears she's not the only one, but…

But the doubt is there, scratching insistently. Peeling back layers scrap by scrap, like a wet label on a beer bottle that only rips to shreds, revealing the edges of insecurity beneath.

She's just having fun, you're just a friend, she'll get a boyfriend and it will all be over. It's that kind of thing that's stopped her from laying it all out of the table. Because what if Nora laughs awkwardly and pulls back? What if their relationship is different forever?

Suddenly terrified that the oversharing has done just that, Riley heaves an exaggerated sigh. "But anyway, it's pretty hard to describe. I guess souls aren't meant for human perception."

"If the only way I can get an idea of what souls look like is via your verbal descriptions, you'll just have to really, really improve your vocabulary."

"I'll buy a thesaurus."

"Knock knock!"

The lights are off and Riley's laying on top of the bed sheets, arm thrown over her eyes. Sam wasn't kidding when he said the nausea would come and go. The bucket that has been her companion during her stay has definitely seen better days.

So the unbinding spell is apparently separate to the spell that actually gets rid of the hex, which means the feeling like shit came back, hence the pouting and the bucket.

She's confident the roiling in her gut is at least partially attributable to the anxiety following the call with Nora.

Rowena doesn't wait for an answer before opening the door and breezing through, heels clacking on the concrete floor. "Goodness me, you'd think I didn't save your life this morning! I didn't take you for the moping kind."

"I'm not moping," Riley lies.

The lights flick on and she groans, even though her eyes are still covered. It's the principle of the thing.

"Come on, dear. Up we hop."

A gentle hand rests on her shoulder and guides her to sit up, swinging her legs over the edge of the mattress. Riley's vision is a little blurry for a few seconds, Rowena's fiery hair bleeding into the lavender haze like a dusky sunset. Her smile is warm, matching her wash. "Not feeling well?"

"It'll pass in a minute," she grimaces, exhausted. At least, that's what she's been telling herself for the past hour.

"I'm sure."

The hand on her shoulder glows dully and waves of deeper purple roll down through the branches of Rowena's wash, flowing from her palm and into Riley's flesh.

There's no direct sensation, but the dizziness clears. It's true what they say — you never quite appreciate not being sick until you're sick. The absence of the queasiness is like a physical weight being lifted from her shoulders.

"Thanks," Riley sighs, offering a weak smile.

Rowena clasps her hands and a pulse of power emanates through her wash. "Don't be silly, it's no trouble. Samuel will be able to help you clear the rest of the curse and you'll be out of here in no time. I'm sure you've places to be, people to see." There's a knowing glint in her eye.

Rowena may not be able to see Riley's embarrassment in her soul, but the hot blush on her cheeks probably gives it away.

Riley decides to change the subject, not particularly keen to get into her tragic possibly unrequited love life. "Can I ask you a question? About your magic, and your, uh, colours?"

"Oh, please do!"

Riley twists her mouth, trying to find the best way to approach her actual question. "When you do magic, it kind of flows into you through… channels. Like roots, or pipes or something. But Sam's wash doesn't do that."

"Wash?"

"Oh, I—" Riley stammers. "That's what I call it. Since I was little."

Rowena gives her a smile and holds her head high, almost like she's proud. "And you were such a wee thing when you saw them? Gosh, pure talent, that. Go on."

"Well, if you're both using magic, why does it look so different?"

Rowena smooths the front of her dress and sits down beside her. Her wash is the calmest Riley's seen since they met, gentle lavender light streaming lazily into her.

"There are three types of witches, dear. I know you're a hunter, so do stop me if you've heard this all before."

Riley shakes her head meekly.

"There are the Borrowers, who have power bestowed upon them by an entity, usually demonic. Most witches you hunt, certainly the nasty specimen who cursed you, fall under this category."

"Witches who sell their souls?"

"Most do pay that price. I myself," Rowena lifts her chin, pride swelling around her, "am what most refer to as a Natural. Naturals are born with the ability to harness the power of the universe, and bend it to our will. It's the most rare, most powerful kind of witch."

The expansive branches of Rowena's wash make sense — they're literally reaching, searching for the power she uses to fuel her witchcraft. "And the third kind?"

"The Students; the most common variant of witch. Theoretically, anyone with enough training and dedication can perform witchcraft. I myself have been teaching Samuel for some time."

It's as good a segue as any. "And Sam's magic is different because he can't… use the universe power?"

"That's right. Most students have none of their own magic whatsoever, simply the power imbued into the spells and ingredients they use. Samuel of course is an academic marvel, although I like to think he has an excellent teacher."

Riley nods, and Rowena senses her hesitation.

"You're wondering about the little spot, aren't you?"

Riley chews her bottom lip, more than a little surprised Rowena knows about it. It feels a little rude to talk about someone's… soul… behind their back, but the purple dancing about the room is swaying easy and light. "It's not… bad, is it? The rest of it's so clean, not a scratch of anything nasty. He's a good guy."

"Oh yes, one of the best. I might be a tad biased, but you can ask near anyone and they'll tell you the same. It's nothing to worry about, dear, just the remnant of a narrowly averted destiny."

She thinks about the dark smear weaving it's way through Sam's wash, a thread of filament pushing and buoying the power there. Seemingly innocuous, but alarming in its otherness.

"So, him using it to fuel his magic isn't gonna like, taint it?"

"It doesn't work like that, child. Don't fret, it's just an extra bit of help to power his spells."

It's a relief, but Riley still feels a sense of unease within herself. The sickness is there, but so is the whining drone in the air rattling her bones.

"What about the angel?"

That pesky defensiveness is back, flashing sharply in a bright violet stab. It's starting to get kind of annoying.

"You get used to the racket."

Chapter Text

Rowena is off the next morning, leaving behind strict instructions for a spell schedule, which is simple enough. Four casts for the first day, then three for the next day, and so on until she needs just one, after which point she should be all cleared out.

The idea is that she should get a longer reprieve from the nausea in between after each cast. Sam affirms he can handle anything else that might come up, and Rowena's wash flares with satisfaction.

Sam kisses her long and deep with his huge hands bracketing her face before she breezes up the stairs with a wink and a flourish. Longing stings at the core of him, harsh and heady.

Riley looks at the ceiling picking dirt from underneath her nails in an effort not to intrude, even though she's standing right there.

God, it's always so awkward when people are couple-y around her. Even though she always tries not to pay too close attention to their washes, her cheeks still flare with embarrassment at the desire and love flashing around. She always feels a bit guilty being privy to such private emotions. It feels too… personal.

As soon as the heavy door closes behind Rowena, Sam's wash curdles with yearning. He taps his fingers gently against the banister and sighs.

There's a beat where Riley doesn't know if she should say something just to fill the silence. So far Sam's been the easiest person in this place to talk to, but they're yet to cross the threshold of politeness into friendship. Whatever tenuous relationship they'd been fostering in between her bouts of puking into any receptacle that was close by (including but not limited to bowls, buckets, and on one very unfortunate occasion, her own cupped hands) had become somewhat stifled following the whole soul-seeing thing.

Frankly, Sam's acting weird. He's jumpy and nervous and twitchy, and if she happens to surprise him in the kitchen or library or wherever, there's a twist of shame in his wash for a second before he manages to stamp it out.

Riley figures it's got to do with the spot of black in his wash — soul — and his 'narrowly averted destiny', whatever that means. Another Winchester mystery. There are surely a hundred theories and rumours about what it could mean. She's not about to get deep and meaningful with him about it or embroil herself in Winchester drama.

She only wishes she could reassure him without sticking her nose where it doesn't belong.

"So," Riley says instead, maybe a little too loudly for the silence. "She's hot."

Sam gives her a somewhat startled look, but smiles. "Yeah, she is," he laughs, wash flushing with pride.

"How come she doesn't live here with you guys? Is she like, whatever the witch version is of a travelling salesman?"

Tension and a not insignificant amount of guilt bubbles in Sam's wash as he lets out a breath and pushes his hair back with one hand. "She, uh… no, she can't stay up here that long. She works downstairs."

Riley gives him a few seconds to elaborate, which he doesn't utilise. "Downstairs meaning..?"

Sam stays very purposefully causal when he says, "Downstairs downstairs. Hell."

It's so unexpected Riley doesn't even have the chance to edit her reaction. "What?" she blanches. "Rowena's dead??"

"Sorta. Kinda. It's a long story."

"Well, I mean, I don't have anywhere to be."

Sam purses his lips, considering. Then, "You still too sick for a drink?"

Since she's not at this exact second about to heave lunch up onto the floor, Riley gives a weak laugh. "I think I can handle it. You got white claws?"

"I think Dean drank them all."

"Figures. Well, lead the way to your geezer older-than-my-car whiskey collection."

The first day, it takes less than three hours for the nausea to return, and she pukes into a fake pot plant. Sam laughs, but Dean grouses until Cas cleans it up with a wave of his hand.

The idea of an angel using God's power to clean up her vomit is kind of hilarious, which she voices to Sam, who agrees. He tells her about various petty and trivial things Cas has used his 'grace' for previously, which admittedly goes a long way to humanise him in Riley's mind. Examples include unblocking a toilet, improving the wifi in the bunker, and cleaning Dean's car.

It sounds like downright abuse of heavenly power, but Riley figures there are worse things he could be doing with it.

There's a lot of down time between the spell casting, and she finds herself just… hanging out.

There's a library full of books on the supernatural that Sam says she has free reign of while she recovers, but frankly reading academic journals is a college pastime she'd rather not relive. Besides, she has a feeling that all the really good stuff is locked away somewhere else. Yesterday Cas was reading Hormone Imbalances and Mating Cycles of Water Nymphs and Other Amphibious Humanoids, which, to put it mildly, sounds fucking mind numbing.

She does ask Sam about whatever catalogue Cas' pendant came from, and he laughs and assures her it's way too dangerous to go poking around in.

"Trust me. Dean had to learn the hard way. It still took him a few times, though."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. Don't ask him about the Chinese finger trap. Or the ballet shoes."

She does ask.

"Fuckin' Sam," Dean grumbles, elbow deep in the kitchen sink, scratching crud off a plate with his thumb nail. "No goddamn respect for my goddamn privacy. He's always been like that, y'know?"

"So did you wear the shoes? Sorry, slippers?" she asks as Dean passes her the sudsy plate, which she dries and stacks in the overhead cupboard.

"No. Because I'm a professional."

"But you wanted to."

Dean sighs dramatically. "I wanted to wear the damn shoes because the fuckin' curse makes you want to wear 'em. Which is why you ain't getting anywhere near them, or any of the other shit down there."

Riley shrugs. "I just wanna browse."

"They're locked up for a reason, kid, bein' smart don't mean you're immune to curses. Didn't think I needed to tell you that."

Riley rolls her eyes and takes the baking dish from Dean, drops of soapy water running down her wrist. "It's not like I'd touch anything, I'm not stupid."

"Everyone says that, and then everyone gets cursed with some sort of can't-sleep-until-you-rip-off-all-your-fingernails bullshit."

"Is that what happened with the Chinese finger trap?"

The glass Dean was washing slips out of his hands into the sink with a ploop. He side eyes Riley, shoulders stiff, and hesitates before fishing the glass out of the water. "Sam tell you to say that?"

"Actually, he told me not to ask."

"I'm gonna kick the shit outta him. Fuckin' hell. Pass me the pot, will ya? Nearly forgot about it."

She brings the pot over from the stove, passata and flecks of onion dried it's surface. Dean grimaces as she hands it over, and gets to work with the scratchy side of the sponge.

Riley throws the hand towel over her shoulder and leans her hip against the bench. She tips her head back, letting out a long, bordering-on-petulant sigh. Another headache is just starting to kick in, right beneath her inner brow, which means it's only a matter of time before the nausea starts to rile up in her guts and she'll be in need of a horizontal surface until it's time for the next casting.

"How come we can't just get Cas to do the cleaning up?"

"He's busy. Besides, he's got better shit to use his mojo on."

"Like cleaning your car?"

"… You are not allowed to talk to Sam anymore. He's trying to ruin my reputation."

"I'd say your reputation is already kinda wack. You know people think you boned the King of Hell?"

The silence is deafening, but Dean's wash screams with embarrassment.

"You—"

"It was a one time thing. Once. For like, a coupla weeks."

"How did—"

"A coupla months, maybe. But it doesn't even count!"

"That doesn't—"

"Guy can't be held responsible for who he bones when he's not even human."

"That— what?"

The bunker's item archive cut off as a potential source of entertainment, Riley resorts to snooping.

She examines the consoles and all the buttons in the war room, tests out all the old appliances in the kitchen, runs her finger along the edge of a clearly decorative sword and ends up with a bisected fingerprint.

It's late, so late most of the bunker's lights are off save for the reading lamps at the library table. It's only been five nights since she was hexed; five nights since her ill-advised and impulsive attempt at witch-hunting; five nights since she felt her body convulse, spitting and chomping at the bit to empty itself and drag her into the foggy, thick sickness and beyond.

Five nights since Sam and Dean threw her in the back seat of their car and raced her to their secret underground magic home to save her.

It feels like a lot longer than five nights.

On her first day, the place felt too big, too empty. Like an airplane hangar or an abandoned gymnasium. Dead silence, thin air, and a very pronounced feeling there should be something more filling the space. There should be bustle, and footsteps, and discussion.

The place is clearly meant to house more than the two guys and resident angel who make a home here. From the very limited literature she has read, this place was some sort of live-in research centre for the supernatural.The kitchen is all industrial stainless steel, a huge triple oven, and a cold room rather than a fridge. The bathroom is communal in the high school sense — stalls for showers, toilets. Soap dispensers.

The Winchesters do a good job at filling the space. Feet up on the library table, books and laptops left out, out of place knick-knacks on the shelves next to historical artifacts.

Dean's got a line of little green army men standing to attention, stuck to the top of one of the consoles in the war room. They're battered, and a little jarring compared to the pre-war style of the rest of the room, but it's an undeniable Dean-ism.

Spine browsing in the library reveals most of the books are tagged with little rectangles of plastic, neon tabs, clean and new. There's something endearing about seeing them sticking up out of the yellowed pages of a late 16th century book about Peruvian folklore, Sam's scratchy, handwritten reference evident on the tab.

There's not much of Cas around. From her understanding, angels don't sleep, so he doesn't have a room. But he also isn't always in the common areas, so there must be somewhere he holes up. Not that she's going to go looking for him.

Even though he's somewhat elusive, Riley always knows Cas is hanging around. The low hum of his grace has burrowed its way under her skin and settled into her marrow. It's like a comforting white noise that follows her everywhere and rumbles in her ears. Without it, the big, open, old space would feel unsettling.

It's strange how quickly she's acclimatised to it.

Tonight, Cas is nowhere to be seen. Due to a mistimed nap, Riley finds herself extremely awake and looking for a way to pass the early hours without making it anyone else's problem.

She remembers her snooping had turned up some old black and white photo albums, full of dudes in suits and white coats.

They're easy to locate in the library, spines sticking out further than the rest of the books down on the bottom shelf. She takes a few volumes and parks herself at the library table with a steaming tea, curling her socked feet up underneath herself.

The photo albums have a few of Sam's tabs sticking out the top. The pages are still a little dusty, as whoever places the tabs didn't spend a lot of time going through them. She pick up the first one, in no particular order.

'Experimental and Investigative Crytopzoological Findings — Photographic Accompaniment to Vol. 8'

There must be some gnarly stuff in here. The spine cracks as she opens the album, the binding glue brittle with age. Each page displays two or three black and white photos with handwritten captions.

In one, there's a photo of a tall, sturdy man wearing thick-rimmed glasses and an apron over a suit standing stiffly beside a figure strapped to a metal chair. The image is smeared with movement from the old lens. Thin, delicate script reads Superintendent Chalmers, 1 May 1954. Rawhead Experiment 8A4.2 — a reference to a book that's undoubtedly sitting on one of the countless shelves in this place, collecting dust.

The figure strapped to the chair is dark, shadow values seemingly too deep compared to the man to his right. There's a haze to the image, like smoke or fog, and a big, weird machine sitting on the table in the background, wires snaking down towards the floor and into the hand of the bespectacled man.

Riley's never hunted a rawhead, and to be honest she wouldn't know how to handle one if it smacked her in the back of the head. Maybe it would be worth taking a look at some of the other books around here…

She flicks through more pages.

A close up of a vampire's face, mouth open in death, her lips cut away to reveal shark-like layered teeth, bloody and bent.

A shifter, layers and layers of skin slick with blood peeled and pinned back individually, revealing visceral, dark muscle and white fat.

A… something, strapped to a table in a dark room, missing each leg just above the knee as well as one arm to the elbow. The creature's image is smeared, like a painting wiped across before it had a chance to dry, as it struggles against its binds. The thing's eye shine in the flash of the bulb, fury and animalistic rage etched into its features.

Page after page reveals sterile, academically framed images of experiments carried out by the men and women who once worked here, wherever here is.

Riley knows the twisted soul of a monster. She knows the inhuman enmity and sadism, the tangible hate and animosity, the overwhelming hunger and desperation — she can't imagine being in the room when any of these photos were taken.

There's nothing past 1958 in any of the albums.

It's so late it's early. Riley makes it through three albums before she admits to herself that it probably wasn't the best idea to stare at photos of medical experiments right before bed, and her best option at this point would be riding the night through, which means caffeine. Her body clock is telling her that if the bunker had windows, soft, pale light would probably be seeping through the blinds.

There's a certain comforting factor to the thought that someone, at some point, has done the academic research and due diligence so that she's got the information required to hunt these things.

Riley yawns as she pads into the kitchen with her used mug, the one she's commandeered as her own. She likes it because it's got a cat wearing a ribbon around it's neck painted on the side.

Her phone tells her it's 4:12am, a little earlier than she assumed, which is why she's definitely not expecting Cas to be standing at the kitchen bench dressed in sweatpants and a crewneck, watching the toaster with serene patience.

There's a slight hesitation in her step once she spots him. Even though the sounds of his grace has become a constant companion, his lack of wash is still unnerving. "Hey, Cas."

It's strange to see him in normal people clothes, rather than the trench coat and business man suit.

He looks up at her with his typical smile. "Good morning, Riley. You're up late."

See, it's stuff like that that keeps putting her off. She reaches the sink to give her mug a quick rinse. "How do you know I'm not up early?"

"I've been monitoring your soul, and noticed you didn't sleep."

Yeah. That. "Monitoring my soul?"

"To gauge the progress of the healing spells. They're working, in case you couldn't tell."

If Cas had a wash, she'd be able to see if there was any deception in his words, but as it stands, all she gets is that barely-there shimmer. His expression is calm, relaxed. That'll have to be enough.

"Um, yeah. I'm feeling better for longer, and when it comes back it's not as bad."

"Wonderful," Cas says earnestly. The toaster pops.

Riley taps her fingers against her crossed arms as she watches him smear the toast in the peanut butter and strawberry jam that was already waiting on the bench. It took her a second to figure out why it was such a weird sight.

"Thought angels don't eat food."

"We don't, but Dean has trouble sleeping. I thought this would distract him."

"That's nice."

They lapse into a slightly uncomfortable silence while Cas puts away the spreads and Riley pulls out the instant coffee.

Before she loses her nerve, she says, "Cas, can I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"You know a lot about souls, right?"

"No more than any other angel of my rank."

Riley gently places the kettle on the stove and flicks on the burner. "Right, but way more than me, or even probably Rowena?"

"Rowena is extremely knowledgeable when it comes to souls, however she cannot perceive them as I can."

Cas' face is so impassive. It's infuriating to only see what he wants her to see, and she feels embarrassingly out of practice without a wash to help her decipher facial expressions. The veil of shimmer never changes.

"Can you see what I can see? The colours, and the feeling?"

"I can, yes."

Riley pauses, not quite sure how to phrase it. "Dean's has this… sheen. Right?"

A flicker of surprise passes over Cas' face, and Riley counts it as a win. "It does. Do you know what it is?"

So it is something. She shakes her head. "I've never seen it before."

Cas looks down at his hands and picks at a cuticle, startlingly human. "I may have… had a hand in that."

Riley dumps some instant coffee into her mug, glancing up at Cas, waiting for him to continue.

"When I repaired Dean's body and rebound it with his soul, following Heaven's siege on Hell, I… inadvertently infused a very small portion of my grace with it."

Riley stares dully as the words sink in. There's a lot to unpack there.

Cas looks at her, his face neutral. What she wouldn't give catch a glimpse of his wash. Would it reveal pride? Shame? Challenge?

"You put your grace… into Dean's soul?"

Cas doesn't bat an eye. "Yes."

Riley blinks. Opens her mouth, closes it.

The kettle starts to whine, snapping her out of frozen bafflement. She kills the burner and pours steaming water into her mug. "Does, uh… does he know that?"

Cas' face doesn't change, but there's a slight hesitation. "He does. But he perhaps isn't aware of how… evident it is."

"Is it, like, a secret?"

"Not at all."

"I guess he'd know he's got grace in him. Must feel weird."

"It's not as involved as that. It's simply a… marking."

"Sounds kinda possessive when you put it like that."

For some reason, that makes Cas huff a laugh. "Oh, certainly. That's the first feeling I ever had, other than duty. Followed closely by awe. Basking in his soul felt like safety. Serenity."

Riley thinks of Nora, and wide, open skies.

"I know what you mean," she says softly.

His sincerity, like almost everything else Cas has said or done since they met, is at complete odds with what she was told angels are meant to be like. Riley thinks of all the hunters, harried and haggard, who warned her what precise, unfeeling killing machines these creatures are.

And here's Cas, in the kitchen past four in the morning making toast for his friend because he can't sleep.

The coffee is hot but Riley can't think of anything else to say, so she burns her tongue a little taking a tiny sip.

Cas takes a deep breath, another strangely human quirk, and picks up his plate of toast. "I better get this to Dean. I recommend you get some sleep, Riley. It'll help with your recovery."

"Yeah. Thanks, Cas."

Cas leaves her to her shitty instant coffee and her shitty rueful feelings.

Because she's a coward, she doesn't call Nora. Instead, anxiety squirms beneath her ribs like a swarm of writhing eels.

Eventually she works up the courage to talk to Dean properly, like she should have in the first place.

Dean's in his room fucking around with what looks like an old tape reel, beer sweating on a coaster on the desk near his elbow. His wash bathes the room in it's heady yellow glow, tinged with the fine edge of concentration, jittering slightly.

His room is clean; bed made, everything in it's place. There's a poster of a cowboy on the side of the wardrobe. Okay.

It doesn't seem like he's noticed her hovering at the door, so she raps her knuckles gently on the door frame and he looks back at her. The edge to his wash smooths out.

"Riley, hey."

"Hi."

"… you alright? Not gonna puke on my floor?"

He always assumes she wants something. Maybe he is still pissed at her.

"No, sorry, I was just gonna ask. Um. About Cas."

Dean takes a swig of his beer and twists in his seat to face her. "Yeah?"

She steps inside the doorway and leans back against it. "Yeah, I just — I guess I kinda can't believe you guys can't hear it. His grace."

Dean's quiet for a moment, just looking at her and taking another swig. He looks wary, or annoyed, but his wash ebbs and flows easily around him.

Eventually, he sighs. "Tell you the truth, kid, I'm just jealous. Wish I could see it, or hear it properly."

Riley's eyebrows shoot up. "What? You want your eyes burnt out and ears fucked?"

Dean's eyes are soft and distant. "He nearly did, once. Accidentally. Tried to talk to me without a vessel and nearly exploded my head."

He smiles to himself, like he's reliving a fond memory. Maybe he is.

"But some people can hear them, their true voice, and not pop like a melon left out in the sun. Rare at shit, but they're out there."

Riley fiddles with the hem of her shirt. "Maybe you could try it with another angel, if Cas is too intense."

Something golden and fearsome rips through Dean's wash with a flash. "I don't give two shits about other angels. Bunch of fuckers."

The swell eases back down as quickly as it came, but it still leaves Riley confused.

Dean sighs, takes a pull from the beer. "Cas is… I wanna hear what he has to say, y'know? I feel like I'm missin' out."

There's been times where Riley's talked about her extra sense to Nora, and she said she felt like there was this whole other dimension to human interaction she just couldn't reach. Riley was never sure if she meant missing out on the insight, or missing out on how Riley sees the world.

"If it makes you feel any better," she says slowly, "I can't tell what he's saying. Or even feeling. It's just— noise. I guess you know."

"Nowadays, there's not much he's thinking that he doesn't say out loud anyway. Son of a bitch is too honest." He clears his throat and places the beer bottle back on the coaster. "Can you see him, too?"

His question makes sense, what with all the talk of eyes being burnt out of skulls. "Not anymore. I saw… something when you guys first got back. But it's hard to describe. Almost like light, except light is something, but this was just. Nothing. But full. I don't know, that doesn't make any sense."

"Yeah, I didn't think it would. But hey, you're the only person who's seen Cas without his meat suit on who still has retinas. I had to ask."

"That's a bit disconcerting."

Dean laughs. "Yeah, I guess it is. Sorry, I always forget he's not actually a big, harmless doof. Was probably pretty scary, seeing him for real."

Riley shuffles uncomfortably. "I've been meaning to say sorry about that. For the other day. Freaking out."

Dean just smiles. "It's fine, kid. No sweat. I get protective, is all."

And that's putting it mildly, if his flaring, pulsing wash is anything to go by.

Like a brother, Sam had said. Huh.

Cas sticks around. Not that she could forget, with the persistent thunder rolling across the high ceilings at all hours of the day.

She tries not to watch, because that's decidedly creepy, but Dean's wash is just so… pretty. He'd probably hate that if she said so.

Cas seems to have a pretty severe staring problem himself, so maybe Dean's used to it.

They seem to gravitate towards one another, like they're morally opposed to being apart. Dean's obvious devotion to Cas make his earlier defensiveness and hostility understandable. There's no mistaking the curling ease and camaraderie his wash exhibits when Cas it around.

It all makes a lot more sense following Sam's third administration of the healing spell on day two of the make-sure-Riley-doesn't-die effort.

Feeling (temporarily) revitalised, she ventures down the hall towards the kitchen, hoping there's some cereal left somewhere. There's lovely sugary stuff in one of the high cupboards that no one else seems to be eating, and like hell is she's going to let it go stale.

Before she reaches the doorway, though, she hears a soft voice from inside, tone hushed and private. She stops, peeking around the doorway.

Cas is leaning back against the kitchen bench, trench coat and jacket off, white sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up his forearms. Dean stands before him, tucked in close, situated right between his thighs. Cas' hands are on Dean's hips, and Dean's fiddling with Cas' tie.

Ohhh.

The deep rumble of Cas' voice has the same timbre as the thunder of his grace. "Just because I can reduce your cholesterol doesn't mean you have free reign to consume as much bacon as your body can physically contain."

"What? That's exactly what it means. Isn't that the whole reason Jack recharged your batteries?"

"You'd have to ask him, but my assumption would be no."

Dean's wash is saturated in affection and amusement, a roaring flame of lustrous gold bending and keening towards Cas' body like a magnetic field. The shimmering sheen is everywhere, enveloping the both of them.

"You're so mean to me. I can't believe you'd let me starve."

"I would never let harm befall you."

"God, I love it when you talk dirty."

Cas laughs lowly, the crows feet by his eyes deep and his gaze adoring. Dean's hands slide up the sides of Cas' neck, thumbs gently directing his chin into a soft kiss, smiling against his lips.

Dean's wash flares impossibly brighter, a rush of love blazing hotly, and Riley takes that as her cue to quietly leave.

The sound of Cas' grace in the air is, as ever, inescapable. For the first time since Cas donned the necklace, Riley hears that whining pitch, barely there beneath the thunder.

Things around here make a bit more sense now, at least.

Riley can't exactly pinpoint when the drone of Cas' grace changes from threatening to comforting.

Maybe it's when the rumble of his voice merges with the rumble of his grace while he's answering one of her lore questions. Or maybe it's when she realises that both Sam and Dean's washes are soothed when Cas is near. Or maybe it's during the night, when it seamlessly takes the place of her white noise app and lulls her to sleep.

And it helps that Cas turns out to be… nice. If not for the obvious, Riley would be forgiven for thinking he's just a weird, dorky, human guy. The only off-putting thing is his lack of wash, and that's really only her problem.

Since catching Dean and Cas in the kitchen, Riley's kind of annoyed at herself that she didn't pick up on the nature of their relationship earlier. She's never been the best at parsing platonic affection from romantic affection.

Now all the little whispers and casual touches make sense. Dean always situates himself closest to Cas, somehow without coming off as clingy. The habit doesn't seem to be borne of shame or unease; it's more like just being close is enough.

Riley's under no illusion that Cas is harmless. And he's certainly not human. But he's also definitely not an it.

Leaving the bunker feels like stepping out of a dream. Time starts back up again with a dull clunk and all the things that Riley hadn't thought about — that she hadn't had the bandwidth for — tug at the edges of her mind. She's realises she's missed a scheduled car service. Damn.

Taking a spontaneous week-long hiatus from life, even as an unattached drifter, has been somewhat disruptive, and there's a thread of anxiety at the prospect of diving back into the obligations and considerations of the real world.

She didn't exactly bring an overnighter, so Dean's insisted she take some of the things she's been borrowing. She's back in the clothes she arrived in, but Dean grabs a used Walmart plastic bag and shoves it full of the all the 'dead guy' clothes she's been borrowing for the past week. Thrift shops are overrun and overpriced these days, so she's not about to turn down a couple vintage sweaters.

He also throws in a case of witch-killing bullets. "Trademark still pending," he says with a wink before walking her out to the war room.

Cas stands stiffly near the table, fingertips resting lightly on the lit-up map, shimmering thunder rolling off him in waves.

Cas is still scary as hell. Riley will never forget the mind splitting, earth shattering power that consumed every cell in her body with fire and pain, and that was just because he was nearby.

Hunters are right to be scared of angels; if the mood took him, Cas could turn her into nothing but a smear of organic matter, making a splattered mess along the bottom hem of his trench coat. From what she's heard, there are angels out there that wouldn't think twice about ending her fragile human life if she were to accidentally become a mild inconvenience.

But Cas is just… good. He's patient, and doting, and kind. The Winchesters' fierce protection of him is still kind of hilarious, in that he is easily the least vulnerable living thing she's ever seen, but she gets it.

Cas takes a step towards her and sticks his hand out. "Take care, Riley. I'm glad we met."

Of course he'd want to shake her hand. Who taught him that? She gives him a lopsided smile before taking his hand in a firm grip.

"Me too, Cas," she says, only a little surprised to find she means it. "Sorry for freaking out on you at first. You're kinda scary."

"Would you tell Dean? He won't believe me when I tell him."

Riley laughs. "I dunno, I think he gets it. Do me a favour, though, and wait a few minutes after I'm gone before taking that thing off." She gestures to the silver pendant hanging around his neck.

Cas ducks his head, eyes bright with mirth. "Of course."

Sam's closer to the staircase, and when he says goodbye, it's with a full-body hug. His wash envelopes her, sappy and warm.

"Thank you," she mumbles into his chest. "I'd be dead without you."

"Just look out for yourself, okay?" He squeezes her shoulders as he pulls back. "I'm hoping you won't have to deal with any more curses, but just in case…" He picks up a book from the staircase and hand it to her.

Since any book around here could be a 1980 edition or an 1890 edition, Riley takes it carefully. The cover reads, 'Index of Intermediary Curses and Hexes: Casting, Curing, and Rehabilitation'.

She raises an eyebrow at Sam, who holds his hands up, laughing. "Hey, research is just part of hunting! This'll help you out if you find yourself sick again, or to help someone else."

"I know, I know. Thanks, Sam." She smiles, tucking the book into the Walmart bag.

"And we're here if you need help. Backup."

The black spot is a blip in his wash, and Riley honestly can't imagine his wash without it.

Sam's affection is so intense it nearly makes Riley cringe, but it's different from the colours she sees when Rowena's around. While Dean's wash effortlessly exudes safety and comfort, Sam does so completely intentionally. He tries so hard to be good.

She is seen off with a sandwich wrapped in wax paper, piled high with deli meat, cheese, and picked chillies. Both Sam and Dean punch their numbers into her mobile contacts.

Her car is still back at the witch's cabin, so Dean's got to drive her there. Riley's actually kind of thrilled to take a ride in the beautiful car that she was too busy dying in to appreciate the first time around.

The road flies beneath them. The car has a cassette player and an FM radio; not even an aux input. It's just as beautiful as she remembers it, minus the crazed panic and puke in her hair.

Dean throws in a cassette with the words SAMMY MIX in the tape deck, and soon Pink Floyd fills the air, floating along with Dean's golden halo in the afternoon rays.

Dean taps the steering wheel along to the music as they coast by green fields, vivid and inviting in the sunlight. Riley leans against the window, craning her neck to look up at the sky, wide and blue.

She pulls out her phone, checking her chat with Nora.

Riley: hey, im on the way back to my car. still cool if i come stay for a few days?

That was only about half an hour ago, but the lack of response makes anxiety surge up in her belly.

It's her own fault for not calling Nora sooner. She should know by now, the longer she leaves it after getting in her own head, the worse and worse she feels, and it always ends up being nothing.

Just in her head. Like probably the rest of it.

So whatever, she'll spend a few days hanging out in her dorm, drinking wine, going out for food or shopping, and she'll leave empty and angry at herself. As per fucking usual.

She doesn't even realise her leg is bouncing until Dean shifts in his seat, glancing over at her. "You alright, kid?"

It takes Riley a second to figure out what he even means. "Oh," she says after a second, fingers digging into her knee. "Sorry, I just. I'm seeing a friend after this."

"Oh yeah? Must be a pretty good friend to be buzzing outta ya skin like that."

He's making a joke, but the feeling in her stomach makes it too hard to match his tone. "Yeah, she is."

Fuck, she's just spent a week being actually sick, and now she's getting all squirmy over a girl.

The road sweeps beneath them with a steady, calming rumble that reminds her of Cas' grace. The radio is only on low, like the day is too perfect to puncture with loud music.

"She a hunter?"

"Oh, god no. She's in college. I only get the chance to swing by once a month or so, she hates hunting."

Dean hums in understanding, nodding slowly. "Yep. Been there. With someone not in the life, I mean. But you're a good kid, I'm sure she likes you enough to keep you out of trouble. Well. Most of the time."

Riley's heart twists in her chest, nasty and cold. "We're not, um. Actually together. It's kinda…"

Dean gives her a moment, but she doesn't elaborate.

"This chick know you like her?"

And that's the fucking kicker, isn't it?

"Maybe. Probably. I think so."

He hums again, and Riley watches the side of his face. There's not a trace of discomfort anywhere in his wash, which is nice. Instead there's just sympathy. And… understanding.

The trees become denser and Riley recognises the little road down to the witch's house, evergreens crowding in thicker as they go. Before long, her dinged-up blue car comes into view, parked off to the side.

Dean rolls the car up behind her pickup and pulls the handbrake, letting the engine idle. He squeezes the steering wheel with both hands and stretches out his arms, elbows stretched, before relaxing and turning to her.

"Take it from me, kid. It's not worth waiting around to see if it'll happen on it's own. Grab the bull by the horns, or the nuts, or wherever. It's better than dying not knowing."

His conviction tells her he probably knows what he's talking about.

Sudden fear flashes through her, because it's easier said than done, isn't it?

Nora, I wish we could be together all the time.

Nora, I really like it when we make out, and sleep in late, and share clothes.

Nora, I miss you every second I'm not with you, so bad my lungs hurts.

If this was an excellent movie, she's confess her feelings, and Nora would cry and say she feels exactly the same, and they'd hit the road together wild and free. But Riley's not so sure she's willing to risk what she's already got to maybe have it all, or maybe lose it.

So she shoots Dean a weak smile, and lugs the Walmart bag onto her lap. "Right. I'll… I'll talk to her."

"Atta girl."

She pulls herself out of the car and fishes her keys out of her jacket. Before closing the door, she leans down and meet Dean's eyes.

"Listen, thank you. For everything."

His smile is as bright as the aurora around him, shimmering and twisting and shining. "See ya round, kid. Keep in touch, and stay out of trouble."

Executing a perfect three point turn, Dean Winchester drives away down the dirt road, taking his beacon of a wash with him.

If it weren't for the crinkled plastic bag full of brown woollen clothes, Riley would think she'd hallucinated the last week.

Her car door squeaks loudly when she opens it, and sliding into the drivers seat feels more like being dumped ass-first into a beanbag. Her bones are tired.

The engine starts on the second try, thank fuck, and the Greenday CD picks up exactly where it left off. Christ.

She just needs a second. Just a second, before she throws the car in gear and starts the twenty hour drive to Penn State. She's almost convinced herself she doesn't need a nap when her phone buzzes in her pocket.

Nora : YAYAYAY see you soon!!!! cant wait <3 <3 but dont you DARE drive all night. get a motel you madwoman

Nora : seriously tho. drive safe. love you x

Her phone's on like 19%, and there's a crack in the top right corner of the screen, but it's like a lifeline.

Riley fumbles for the charger cable hooked into the console, plugs in her grubby phone, wrenches the gear stick into first, and starts the journey home.

Dean's probably right. She can't die without knowing, especially when she came so close to doing just that.

As the pickup flies down the highway, the air is clean, the road is smooth, and the skies are blue, blue, blue.