Livelyhood / Book Four / The Life Series / Supernatural

Good God, Y'All!

Dad was still in the hospital, sitting in a wheelchair next to the windows in a hospital robe and a ball cap.

I sat in a chair nearby.

Sam was watching from the doorway.

Dean walked in with a manila envelope in hand. "It's been, like, three days now?" Sam sighed. "We got to cheer him up. Maybe I'll give him a back rub."

"Dean," Sam told him.

"Well, what, then?" Dean asked.

"Look..." Sam trailed off. "We might have to wrap our heads around the idea that Bobby might not just bounce back this time." He looked at the X-Ray envelope in Dean's hands. "What's in the envelope?"

"Went to radiology," Dean explained, opening the envelope, pulling out the contents. "Got some glamour shots." He handed Sam the contents the envelope, a chest X-ray with strange writing on the ribs. "Let's just say the doctors are baffled."

Sam looked over the writing in Enochian. "Holy crap."

"Yeah, well, Cas carved you one, too," Dean told him.

Sam's phone rang. He answered. "Hello? Castiel?"

"Speak of the devil," I told them.

"Ah, St. Martin's Hospital," Sam answered. "Why? What are you--? Cas?"

Sam hung up.

A woman in scrubs and a man in a white lab coat walked past with a piece of equipment on a cart.

A woman's voice was on the PA. "Dr. Cohen to the ER, stat. Dr. Cohen to the ER, stat."

Castiel walked past the nurse, doctor and another passerby, standing next to Sam and Dean at the door.

"Cell phone, Cas?" Dean asked skeptically. "Really? Since when do angels need to reach out and touch someone?"

"You're hidden from angels now," Castiel told them. "All angels. I won't be able to simply--"

"Enough foreplay," Dad told him. We looked at Dad. "Get over here and lay your damn hands on." No one moved. Dad looked at Castiel over his shoulder. "Get healing. Now."

"I can't," Castiel told us.

Dad turned his chair to face us, looking at Castiel. "Say again?"

Castiel walked closer to Dad. "I'm cut off from Heaven and much of Heaven's power. Certain things I can do. Certain things I can't."

"You're telling me you lost your mojo just in time to get me stuck in this trap the rest of my life?" Dad asked.

"I'm sorry," Castiel told him.

"Shove it up your ass," Dad told him.

Dad turned back to the window.

I stood, sighing, standing next to Dean. "At least he's talking now."

"I heard that," Dad told me.

Castiel walked toward Sam, Dean and me. "I don't have much time. We need to talk."

"Okay," Dean told him.

"Your plan to kill Lucifer," Castiel told him.

"Yeah?" Dean asked. "You want to help?"

"No," Castiel answered. "It's foolish. It can't be done."

"Oh, thanks for the support, Cas," Dean told him sarcastically.