Didn't Run Far Enough

Chapter 26

CastieI is in the middle of cleaning the blood off Jack's arm when the doorbell rings. He groans and puts the towel down. Doesn't he have enough on his plate without adding a new visitor to the list?

He gets up to check who it is anyway. If it's Dean — something he wouldn't have considered until Jack showed up, but now it feels like a reasonable fear — and he doesn't think anyone is home, he'll probably pick the lock and come in anyway. That would be pretty difficult to explain to Charlie.

He opens the door just a crack to see who it is, and to his surprise, he's greeted by another cop — one who looks just as surprised to see him.

"Hey, Randy," CastieI says warily. "What's up?" That is, of course, just his polite way of asking what the fuck, Disher?

"Oh, hi," Randy says awkwardly. "This your place?"

"That it is," CastieI replies.

"Huh." Randy shrugs that off. "I'm sure this is going to sound really weird, but I'm actually doing a wellness check? Someone thought they saw someone covered in blood come here — stupid, I know. I guess they got the wrong apartment, huh?"

That leaves CastieI with two options. Randy is clearly ready to overlook this, so Castiel could pass it off as a case of mistaken identity that he seems so willing to believe. There's always a chance he'll try to follow up, though, either with his neighbors or with whoever got the (other) cops involved. Alternatively, he could admit that it's true and that someone did see Jack, but put a spin on it that gets him off the hook. He'd be implicating himself in this, but hopefully in a way that puts an end to it. He'd like to think it's less likely he'd get caught in a lie doing the latter, but it's going take a much bigger lie than "It wasn't me.

He only hesitates for a moment, so briefly that he's sure no one notices, before he spits out the first story he can think of. "You've got the right place, but I think you wasted a visit. He's actually a... good friend of mine... who got in a bike accident." It's no secret around the station that Castiel likes guys, so Randy doubtlessly assumes he means a fuckbuddy, which is exactly what he was hoping for. "I'd let you talk to him, but he's passed out on my bed right now."

"Ah, okay," Randy says. "Glad that was just a misunderstanding. Is he doing okay? It didn't sound good."

"You know, he's more upset about his bike than anything," CastieI says. "I'm sure he'll be up and at 'em tomorrow. He's a tough dude."

"Glad to hear it," Randy says. "I'll let you get back to whatever you were doing. Sorry about this.".

"No problem," CastieI assures him. "See you later, Randy."

"You too."

CastieI closes the door, locks it, and turns around to see Charlie gaping at him, her jaw practically on the ground. He hadn't really thought about how Charlie would react to that. In hindsight, maybe a quick "Wasn't me" would have been better.

"Was that Randy Disher?" Charlie asks.

"Does it matter?" CastieI replies dismissively, heading back to Jack's side.

"Yes, it matters!" they say loudly, and Castiel grimaces. Hopefully Randy didn't hear that. "You just lied to the fucking cops!"

"I prefer to think I just misled a coworker," CastieI says, as if that will make this any better.

"And you didn't even flinch!" she adds. "Hell, I would have believed you if I wasn't standing ten feet away from the kid!"

Castiel shrugs. "So I'm a good liar. What about it?"